PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

Ian Robertson 

Welcome back to Inspector Toolbelt Talk everyone. So today I’m here solo, and I am going to do a little soapbox speech. As you listen to this podcast, you know that I tend to do this sometimes. But I want to talk a little bit about an experience that I had about 10 years ago. So to start this off, I’d like to quote a famous person, Andrew Wilkinson, Andrew Wilkinson is famous, he’s started a lot of different companies, very wealthy, very what people consider successful. And he said, “You don’t have to make yourself miserable to be successful”. And that’s an interesting quote, and kind of goes with my story, because I think a lot of people who listen to this podcast are a lot like me.  So I’m type A personality, or whatever you want to call it, I don’t know, I love to work, I just love getting my hands dirty. And whether it’s working on a computer with a client, working in business, or building a table, I just love to work. It’s on the verge of not being a personality trait, but more of a disease. But I think a lot of us who listen in, a lot of us who are in the inspection industry are a lot like that, especially if we’re running our own business, we kind of have to have that little bit of edge to be able to run a business at all to be a home inspector in the in this market.  But about 10 years ago, I had just started the beginnings of starting my second inspection company, starting my other company, Full View Home Inspector Marketing, and we were starting to toy around with the idea of Inspector Toolbelt, our home inspection software that we have now. And you know, I was on vacation, I’m not much of a vacationer, or my whole team here, they make fun of me because I just I just don’t vacation well, it’s just not my thing. As I mentioned before, I like to work and sitting and doing nothing or looking at other people doing things or whatever it happens to be just doesn’t appeal to me. But my family loves it. And you know, I still need a chance to relax.  But I was sitting at dinner one night on vacation with my family. And you know, it’s a crowded restaurant, and there’s all these people and there’s a table right next to us. And the guy kind of looked over at me as he was eating his appetizer. And I think he could see it’s not like I was being short with my family or anything. But I think he could see that I was distant, maybe checking my phone a lot. My daughter was young. And I think he was just kind of picking up on something. As my wife got up to bring my daughter out to take her to the bathroom or something like that the man leaned over to me and said, I recognize you. I’m like, nah, I’m not from here, man. He’s like, no, no, no, you were me a few years ago. He goes, take your vacation, spend time with your family. This won’t last.  I’m like, Okay, thank you. And he kind of almost got a little intrusive, but it made a lasting impression on me. And I wish I could ever find this guy again. He leaned over almost onto my table and said, years ago, I was a workaholic, I love to work. It’s what I do. I’ve made a great living for my family. He’s like Then one day, he had some sort of heart condition. And they had to like take some I still don’t remember what it is because it wasn’t the point of what I was trying to remember. But his face was messed up because they had to take something out of his face and do something with his heart. And he was laying in bed for months not able to work. And he said it was at that point, it wasn’t the heart condition or like, oh, you know, I have a heart attack. And now I have to rethink my life. He was it was that point that I had to stop working and face life. And he said it was time away from my family. It was time away from my wife. It was time spent working to live and not actually living. He said it wasn’t. So it wasn’t a heart attack, or whatever he had with the condition that he had wasn’t the stress level, so to speak, it was not being able to work and having to face life like that.  Have you ever had something like that? Have you ever had a time in life where you couldn’t work, and you had to face life? And I thought to myself, maybe that’s why I don’t like to vacation. I don’t know, just stop and have to think about existence. And you know, a lot of people can, can do that and be perfectly fine with it. Whatever the case may be, he just leaned over and said Take the time. And he just sat there and ate a salad. He had a salad at that point. I don’t know why I remember that part. So clearly. But my wife and daughter came back and we had a great rest of our vacation. But I remember thinking about that when I came back. I’m still a workaholic. I still love to work. But ever since that day about 10 years ago, he pops into my head every once in a while. So I may get up early and start to work and have all of these different projects and all these things going on. And I still love to work. But every once in a while. I stop and I say am I doing too much? Because you say well there’s nothing wrong with loving the work. It’s better than being lazy. Yeah, but what if you like to bungee jump? Okay, cool. But now you spend all your time bungee jumping, time away from your family. Are we missing our families growing up? Are we missing time with our loved ones? Are we missing living? So I’m not saying that we need to stop and not work, or be drastic about changes. But could we make some minor adjustments?  So for instance, at the time, I was probably doing myself, three inspections a day, and I was still at the time working some weekends, could we stop for a moment and say, Okay, could I not work two nights a week? And those nights belong to my kids? Could we say, I’m not going to work weekends anymore? Now a lot of us are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on. That’s when my best work happens. Alright, cool. work weekends, can you take Friday off, or about Thursday, and that belongs to your family. Because remember, we don’t want to sacrifice. A lot of times I say I sacrifice for my family. Well, we also don’t want to sacrifice what isn’t ours. And what isn’t ours is what belongs to our family. We belong to them. They deserve time with us. They deserve our attention. And when we’re with them, are we really 100% with them, I’m going to be honest with you. This is the pot calling the kettle black. I’m the biggest culprit of this. My mind is always off in a million directions.  Think about this too, burnout is real. We actually did a podcast not long ago, actually, maybe long ago now a year and a half ago about how to beat inspector burnout. It’s real. But that doesn’t mean that we have to totally change everything that we do. A Banksy, here’s another here’s another cool, Banksy said, if you get tired, learn to rest, not quit. So we don’t need to get to the point of burnout. Take a moment. And I’m doing this podcast because I talk to inspectors all the time. For some reason guys will tell me maybe what they’re not telling their competition in their market or, you know, on Facebook forums or whatever. But guys are telling me all the time, I’m tired. Oh, man, I did seven days last week, three inspections. And my wife’s upset me because I’m not home or, you know, and it’s not only our immediate family, our extended family needs us. And at the same time, we need to rest.  So this little soapbox speech is about balance, it’s a short one, but hopefully, it’ll just get you thinking a little bit. You don’t need to dump all your work and change who you are. Again, I’m a workaholic. And I love every second of working. But my family may not like that. It also may not be good for my health. And it also may affect our future. So step back and say ask ourselves, Hey, can I cut back just a little bit or find some ways to be able to squeeze in some family time, a little extra family time and some time for ourselves for self care. But this is your daily dose of motivation, Inspector Toolbelt Talk. Thanks everybody for listening in. And we’ll see you on the next episode.

Beon DeNood 

On behalf of myself, Ian, and the entire ITB team. Thank you for listening to this episode. Don’t forget to hit that Subscribe button so you can catch our future episodes as well. And if you have any feedback, please send us an email at [email protected]. Also, don’t forget to check out our brand new app for home inspectors, scheduling and report writing all in one easy to use app. Check it out now at Inspectortoolbelt.com.

Ian Robertson 

The views and opinions of this podcast and its guests do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Inspector Toolbelt and its associates.