Chris from WhoaBros

it out either all right welcome back to another episode of battle the road podcast i'm your host ty linker uh today's podcast is brought to you by slickman weld apparel nate montez a good friend of mine has a slickman 820 is a 716 716 plus the 820 plus the welding sleeves i've been using mine for a week a little bit over a week now love it super soft flexible got plenty of arm space it's not tied around your neck holds the adjustment very well um the 820s man i've been wearing them for i don't even know how long he's had them out since day number one he's had them out they've just gotten better and better and better i don't wear the 716s because i burn them up but the 820s hold up great also brought to you today by wobros.us american steel and sex appeal got the got the og frs the wines now uh i'll let the man talk about that here in a minute got the steel toes put them in my leather high top steel toes not a safety man in the world said a single word to me they don't like them really in the low hey dudes but the high top leather hey dudes they had a single word said to me and i've been on two jobs with a guy easy peasy also brought to you by tnm welding supply to big spring texas house miss mary great people to do business with house welded for years still welds occasionally uh seems to be a very busy man with his uh store so you don't get as much time all right with that being said the one and only chris from wobros thanks for having me on ty this is fucking sweet little a little i already cussed from my normal uh yeah you already said it goes that's okay a little bit different from my normal uh cycle of welders and helpers and an operator i can't really get operators i don't know what the deal is with that you would think that i would be able to get an operator but i guess they're not chatty people maybe not hard to do but so chris you're 23 you're from uh what state iowa i live in central iowa i'm from southern iowa like right near the missouri missouri border i spent some time in des moines well outside boone iowa yep yeah i've got friends that live up that way we just go to ames pretty regularly yeah that's where that's uh ames was actually the last job that i was on it was a vet diagnostic lab before i got to ames i was a vet diagnostic lab before i got to ames i was a vet diagnostic lab before i quit man that shit was fucking crazy yeah um so before we talk about woe bros and we talk about anything let's get back we'll we'll go to the very beginning of the story here um so you was in the military marine yep that's after high school god in high school i was just i was such an idiot i was i was a real shitter in high school and you know it was probably the best thing i ever could have done for myself it was the people that i met were awesome that helped me grow up and that's the thing about being in the military is like you have to grow up like if you suck then they will let you know you suck and that's like a big thing with after getting out it's kind of like hard to adjust wherever like if people were being idiots you couldn't really do what you could do to them in the military not that i was doing anything fucking crazy but yeah i've done uh what they call the split off program i wasn't a marine i was an army so i went between my junior and senior year oh what yeah my basic training really i didn't i did not know that yeah it was kind of court ordered uh but if you're 17 your parents can sign for it so my dad wanted for me to go uh i went to fort jackson south carolina come back done my senior year went to ait messed up my shoulder and some training really they dropped me down to reserves for two years and i was not out species that's crazy i didn't huh they call it that's super cool yeah what was your mls it's been 15 years ago uh something to do it was like welding mechanic in pretty much just fooling around with shock like i didn't really get i can't i have to find my paperwork because it's been i don't talk about it much because i don't feel like uh like i've done anything like i went to basic training oh man i didn't i didn't do anything i was just just a tank mechanic i didn't go see anything it wasn't even nothing cool it was heavy equipment yeah i think uh one of my friends was something similar he was a wheeled vehicle mechanic which the marine equivalent is like motor t and they just work on big ass trucks and humvees and stuff working on tanks is way cooler i like we never the when i messed up my shoulder which my shoulder was already messed up for high school athletics riding bulls doing all that stupid shit and so i just pulled on a torque wrench and it just like come out of socket and they carried me and they uh got some maps whatever it's called they carried me there doing some tests and they're like oh you you got some serious tears and damage in your shoulder and it was like that and i was back to alabama and then in the back they're out there damn but so i don't yeah that sucks you don't feel like i've done much of importance you know it was uh this would have been 2007 man yeah no i did not uh i didn't deploy i didn't do anything crazy like that that's what uh tanks on foreign soil is considered an act of war so putting tanks other places is not good for america and now the marines have disbanded tanks actually so there's not any tanks to put anywhere from the marines the army still has tanks though our military is pretty weak right now but that's a story for a different day i don't really agree with all the stuff that goes on there not the marines so easily the way so you gotta so woe rose wasn't your first adventure as being a business owner it was definitely one of the first i had a few you know i knew i didn't i've always loved business i love talking about the shit and i knew that i didn't want to work for somebody else forever so i kind of started a few different businesses at the same time woe bros being one of them i had another idea for a business called dewey dodgers and it was just these single-use breathalyzers you break these seals on them and blow in it and these crystals on the inside change color depending on what your blood alcohol content is and being in the military everybody gets duis drinking and driving a lot of people drink and drink and drive and i think it's something that people can collectively agree is not really a super good thing to do uh so instead of taking the stance of like drinking and driving is bad don't do it like your mom telling you shit i thought dewey dodgers would be a cool idea because it's like dude that would sell dodging dodging the dui yeah in the old patch of the pop-on you would sell so much of those people just walk around they're walking rodeo they're in midland just uh breaking and blowing yeah dude it's cool because like you know i've been in the military for a long time i've been in the military like if you're super fucked up the crystals turn like dark red damn so i mean yeah you can is this a failed adventure is it something that may come about or it's something that may come about the biggest thing is you know i'm i'm the face of woe bros i love doing woe bros it's so much fun and uh whenever the dewey dodgers is doing pretty well i got them in a few stores and then woe bros is doing also pretty good and it was more like i had to decide which business i'd have more fun running because that's what like you know as it's not really a job job like i get to decide when i work i make videos i then i have a blast doing it so figured i'd do what's fun first and if the opportunity presents itself i can restart that if i want for sure i'd love to in a perfect world i'd get somebody else to do it be the face of it but you know whenever you hire somebody nobody's going to give as much of a shit as you do so getting somebody to like speak as enthusiastically about it and like get people excited about buying something like that i think it's hard it's easier said than done for sure you ain't trying to just slip them in the tiktok shop and just um you know not like i thought about it i've thought about it it's and i've thought about maybe doing something with woe bros with them but it's not woe bros and i don't want to just like give myself a leg up like that like if it becomes successful i want it to be successful on its own i think it's a lot of people that uh start businesses you know and then they uh they get to a certain plateau and then they're you know not saying true and get bored with woe bros but they get kind of bored because the challenge is not really there anymore so they sell yeah to another one yeah and i think people just get i don't think people think big enough is so is such a big thing like i don't think people set goals that are high enough um and that's something that's set in business somebody will be doing like a few million dollars in sales and they're like well i don't know where else i can go like i'm doing this much in sales and it's like man there's 330 million people in america you're telling me you can't find one more person to buy your shit no way and that's what like you know a lot of people you know a lot of people are like i don't know where else i can go like i'm doing this much in when i was going to quit my job like woe bros was when i was going to quit my job like woe bros was a like few months along before i was quitting my a like few months along before i was quitting my a like few months along before i was quitting my job with a steel toad shoes and yeah i had the idea for the shirts and i was like yeah i'm gonna quit my job and sell steel-toed hey dudes and fucking make cool fr shirts and everyone was just everyone at work just dogging on me like it's such a dumb idea like nobody's gonna buy your shit and you know i never really let it get me down it's more uh yeah there's 330 million people in america i feel like i'm a really normal guy and if i make something i like there's probably other normal cool dudes that will also like it is my whole philosophy with shit i just put out what i think's cool and then hopefully other people think so too what uh what is your sales like is there like a ballpark number of how many shirts you've sold man probably i like putting people on the spot though so no yeah no this is uh this is cool i'd probably say you're a good guy i'd probably say you're a good guy i'd probably say you're a good guy four or five thousand shirts what about uh steel toes how many still oh dude god steel toes probably ten thousand yeah a guy come up to me every day and he was like uh he's an inspector out there he's wearing the same kind of uh the hey dude boots hey dude said i got the boots or whatever yeah dude i've got a pair of those those things are sweet i got my steel toes in them my world really still toes it's always i you know like uh like i want out on the road a bit but one of the big things like when nate when me and nate talked about it slick man being part of out on the road was like it was just like a help like a stepping stone just like you know when when i reached out to you it's just like a stepping like something to help brand the podcast outside of just style anchor you know because i don't have the time well i'm trying to make the time but yeah no for sure i mean you make time for the things that you want yeah and i my dad said a couple of months ago right before some other things kind of come about was uh you know you're not gonna weld forever but he said as many people that listen to your podcast he's like you you just need to monetize your own way of doing it and i was like well i just like to get through shit which i'm i'm good you know like i don't want the money because i'm a popliner but i just i was gonna try to nurture it now and try to do better and not try to let it like a second job because that's what that's what got me five months ago when i released the code of war uh podcast was how many people was in my dms just like when's the next one coming when's that and it just i don't know like i just wanted to be then you go to a job and you're not considered like i heard uh you're the one that does the podcast you're the podcasting welder podcasting popliner whatever they said and it just i don't know it drove me the wrong way i'm a welder first yeah no i i totally understand what you mean it's just uh yeah whatever people say god like woe bros hasn't really gotten like a lot of hate or like that i've seen there's definitely like shit here and there but you know if it's a few shitty people making comments and that's all that i have to take to make an impact on shit then so be it well like austin dupree c he lives in like loves the chaos and the controversy that's what's made his page blow up you know and it's not like i can i can take the little negative comments it's been said but like back in the beginning you know there was comments about oh you're just doing this to quit your job you're just doing this to blah blah blah and i was like i'm just doing it to save stories is what i was mostly trying to do because we're a dying breed you know like like like having bernardo on or having uh like gerald w on here before too long like gerald w is an old man he was kind of gerald is a dog but he had but he had some health problems he's not gonna be around forever and i know he has all yeah no for sure like i wanted an interview with him to have his like i wanted some stories from south africa like i want yeah dude no that's balled up little ball you know yeah that is stuff i bet he has so many cool stories i've never talked to him or anything and i wish him nothing but the best and yeah i bet he has some killer stories i've been around some old men out here and the papa and stuff and they're all just the way they present yourself all the time and gerald w he's i mean he presents himself like money and he made i mean he's made a great career out of it yeah no you know i think like like even like we were talking about earlier like it's a small thing it's like he shows up he's always like clean like fresh pressed like i have a lot of respect for stuff like that i think he's that's awesome um lots of changes but what made you decide on uh on fr shirts and so it's like what made you decide that i'm gonna do the still toes for hey dudes what well so the still toe for hey dudes man i don't ideas just i'll be like i'll just be like dozing off to sleep and i'll just get an idea and i'm like oh my god i've got to write this down right now or i'm gonna forget about it and the steel toe inserts for the shoes that i was that's exactly what was happening i was dozing off into sleep and then got the idea and i was telling i got up put a piece of tape on my wall painter's tape because i just got done painting the house and wrote steel toe kit on it and i went to sleep and woke up the next day and called one of my friends and was telling him about it and he was just like i don't know like hey dude found out that i was selling the steel toad hey dude's like already made uh so that kind of freaked me out and you know i saw the steel toes as kind of a trend and they still do pretty well even though i don't really advertise for them or anything it's a lot of word of mouth still uh but i just knew it couldn't last and i knew i could make more money doing other stuff and every time i went to go buy fr shirts i was like man these all suck and they're expensive as like all the cool ones the area one that i found one time it was like 100 bucks and it wasn't anything to write home about and it's always like people always ask themselves like oh when's somebody gonna do this when's somebody gonna do that and that's what i asked myself and then i was like you know why don't i do this i think it'd be cool i've got a whole collection of old 90s wrangler shirts and brush poppers and so i just got those uh drew some inspiration from that came up with uh the first design the ogfr and i came out with that and then like two weeks before the first drop of that i got shot in the lake yeah i was gonna get that shot but i know i know it's on your tick tock too they're getting shot but you want to kind of just summarize the story for the people that may be caught on tick tock that's gonna hear this yeah so it was july 2nd i was getting ready to go to the rodeo the leon rodeo is like one of the better rodeos in iowa and uh me and my friend my friend was sitting on my couch and i was sitting in the chair and he had his pistol up against his wrist and the day before we were talking about what we what we would do if we were held at like point blank range and he said that you can push the barrel back in on itself and it'll stop the gun from going off and uh i don't know if you just didn't push the barrel in on itself enough but it went off and went through his wrist and went into my leg and i was like oh my god i don't know what i'm gonna do i don't know what i'm gonna do i'm gonna take the bullet out of my leg and he got up and he was like holy chris like you've got to take me to the hospital and i got up and like i didn't feel anything and i just looked down and there was a hole in my jeans and i was like no way i took off my pants my sock was bloody and i was like i think you shot me too and uh yeah and you know like we were uh there's a video on my instagram if whoever's listening this goes to the stories uh like right after it happened i took this video we were both like super cool calm and collected like honestly we're probably like two of the better people that could have gotten shot like we weren't really freaking out or anything like we walked out to the ambulance and everything together and i didn't realize that i'd had a broken leg yet but you know it's just like shock sets in so quick the adrenaline pumping stuff so are y'all still good friends oh yeah no right after it happened he was a wind turbine mechanic and he uh so you know not having ability to move his hand he couldn't really climb up turbines so he went on like a leave of absence with them and he was gone for so long that he ended up quitting and uh he lived with me like up until a few months ago i locked the guns up or no never this is america yeah yeah that's what like some people uh ask that like if i'm scared around guns now or anything no it's like you know what are the odds i get shot twice it already happened once and you know i really i struck my lightning twice in his life so who a guy that i know from calabama he's been struggling twice yeah what are the odds that happens to me yeah you was doing for a while you were shooting the hey dudes yeah those those were some of my first big videos which they were cool ideas and man the steel toes held up way way better than i thought they would i did not think that they would stop the nine like honestly i didn't know what to expect but But, yeah, no, they'll stop at 9. I think they've stopped at 45 ACP. Anything bigger or faster than that, they don't really stand up to. But it's the curvature of it, I think, you know. Like, they build – all military vehicles are built on an angle for the same reason, you know. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I don't think – like, tanks and stuff, yeah, they're built that way. And, like, LAVs, you know, those fucking anti-tank rounds that they've got, those things are scary. Or even other tank rounds. Man, I'd hate to be on the receiving end of some of those. There's this one. It's called the Heat FS round, I think. And what it is is it's like a straw. And it sticks in – it sticks in the side of a tank. And then there's molten copper on the backside of it. And that molten copper goes through that straw and just spatters everybody on the inside. That sounds tough. That would suck. Yeah, I'd – fuck that. Put tar in there. Yeah, man. Either – whatever's hot as shit in there, I do not want to be a part of. You know what's funny is that you said, like, what you sent me in the text for your bio, you pretty much said it word for word all over. Super prepared. Yeah. Yeah, I've been preparing for this. So when you started posting on TikTok, like, your initial bit, like, how long was it before you had a, quote-unquote, viral video? Did you get this? Oh, man, no. It was almost instantly, honestly. It was – the first videos I was posting, it was – I didn't have my face in it. I didn't talk in it. It's when those, like, robot voices from TikTok were still pretty big. Yeah. And I would just be, like, day one of dropping something on my steel toe. Hey, dude, until it hurts. And I'd drop it, and that would be the video, like, six seconds. And I made a video that – and it was, like, this happened in a week. And one of those videos got, like, 3,000 views. I went to work the next day, and I was, like, oh, my fucking God, like, I'm famous. Like, 3,000 views. And a guy that I was working with was, like, whoa, that's actually, like, kind of legit. And then I'd posted, like, a website and everything for people to buy them. And one of the videos, like, just started blowing up. And it was actually, like, two videos at the same time. And one of the videos, it was getting, like – it got up to, like, 103,000 views. And I was, like, holy shit, like, I'm famous. Like, I was just refreshing, watching it go up. But one of the videos that I'd posted, like, a few days prior was exploding into, like, millions of views. And I didn't realize it. So I was just getting all these sales. And I thought it was off this one video. But, yeah, it was, like, one of my first videos that have gone viral. And I've gotten probably about 20 videos that have gotten over a million views. Yeah. This year of posting almost every day. Can't go to it right now. But I don't have one that's at a million. But I do have one that's at 900-some-odd thousand. Where I'm talking about Jansen's truck. And I don't know what – I've done the same thing. I've done two back-to-back videos. One of going through his motor truck, like a little rig chair, talking shit about just whatever. And then I've done one with my truck, talking the same shit. And, like, the one in my truck was RIP Betsy, by the way. But my truck was at, like – I think it's at, like, 60-something thousand views. And his truck's at 800-900 thousand and 60-something thousand likes or some shit. I don't know. I just can't get – I wish that I could get into it. Like, the latest video I posted, it's probably got, like, 46,000 or 47,000 views on it. I just can't – I can't do and do and do and do. Like Austin said, like, you've got to post, post, post, post, post. Yeah, definitely. Posting consistently is a big thing. And that's – when I was first posting, you know, I didn't put, like, a lot of thought into my videos. So I could get one out pretty fast. But now, like, my videos have structure. Like, I try to have a beginning, middle, end and try to, like, make shit that people want to watch. Because, you know, like, this is my job now. So I want to give people good content. And it is, like – like you were saying, you posted almost, like, the same video back-to-back. And one did 60. One did almost a million. That's just, like, the name of the game. It's like a slot machine, dude. Maybe I should have waited two weeks. I don't know. Yeah, I don't think – I don't think that has, like, as much to do with it. It's just – yeah, some shit hits and some shit doesn't. That's, like, that video – Go ahead. That video I posted today, it's about this little welder that I got. It's from the 1950s. It's called a little marble. And what you do is you plug it in. And then you fill it up with water. And then you weld with it. And it's the craziest little welder that I've ever seen. And I'm hoping that video does well. But so far, it's not doing near as good as the other similar videos I made, which is – it's kind of disheartening sometimes. But there's not a lot you can do besides lick your wounds and keep posting shit. The – you know, the ones with the potatoes and all that stuff, I'm like – Yeah. Who even thinks – Like, okay, I'm going to synchronize all these to do a little welding with. I'm like – I don't know. I'm watching this. I'm a welder. And it's interesting to me. But I'm like, I never even thought of this. Like – Yeah. Like, putting potatoes in series, that's actually, like – That's something I think I'm pretty good at is relating – like, taking shit that I've learned in the past and plugging it into what I do now. And the only reason I know about, like, batteries running in series and shit is because tanks have, like, six fucking – Yeah. – long batteries in them that all run in series. So, like, shit like that or – I don't know. I try to think outside of the box a lot because, you know, like, with welding content, I feel like it is, like, a lot of just teaching. And there's way better people that can teach than I can. Like, Nate, dude, is as slick as they come. I would hate to fucking teach somebody to weld as dogshit as I am when there are people that – Like, Nate. – that make good content about it. So, I try to differentiate myself quite a bit. His little flashes that he's doing, I like them. I think it's great. Yeah. No, dude, I think it's awesome. I think stuff like that will do well. It's just a matter of posting consistently. And there's a lot of little things that I do in my videos that I'm sure not a lot of people realize to, like, capture – – people's attentions. Like, on a lot of my videos, when you swipe to them, there's a quick little zoom-in effect. And that is a pattern disruption, so it makes people more interested in the video. It's, like, really little shit like that that – I don't know if it works, but I think it makes my videos cooler. What's your average – Okay, on a minute- or two-minute-long video, what's your average? View count? View time. Like, how long – Oh. Oh, not a lot. That's something that's super disheartening to me, too. It's probably, like, 30 seconds. But then they – you know, like – but then the video's been viewed for 200 hours, you know? Yeah, that's something. Like, I've gotten videos with, like, tens of thousands of hours of watch time. And I will go and, like, do the math and break it down. And I'm like, holy shit, people have been watching this for, like, 60 days? Yeah. Yeah, that's crazy. It's – it's super weird. It's weird how many people have, like, seen my face. Like, my – people have probably, like – you know how they say that people in your dreams are people that you've seen in real life? I feel like with the amount of people that have seen my videos and shit, I've probably showed up in a few people's dreams. They wake up, and they're like, what the fuck? Yeah. That would be a – that might be a good little video you could make. Yeah, man, I'm always looking for ideas. I just – Party streams. Yeah, I – You know the 90s, like, little twirling arms commercials? You know, like, the little tall balloon guy that's always – Yeah, yep. I had a dream about that, like, four months ago. One of them dudes. I don't know what I was doing, just chilling. And it's there, and there's nothing else around. I'm like, I don't know. Yeah, those dreams mean something. Doing this little thing, you know? Maybe it was an omen for me tolling my pickup. I don't know. But – Yeah, maybe he was like, watch the fuck out, dude. I don't know. That's – I put 230,000 miles on old Betsy from Florida to Canada on the Pacific coast. I've been all the way up to Canada and central – the central part above Minnesota. And then – That's almost how far the moon is. The moon's 240,000 miles away from Earth. Yeah. Yeah. That's where everybody's at. I didn't know that. Yeah. Well, I probably maybe learned it back in school, but it's not something that I retained information on. Yeah, dude. I just – I remember so much random shit. And that's, like, that's what I think, like, helps me a lot with stuff is just being able to remember that. Like, not like that specifically, but other shit that I can plug into videos now. So you said you have a laundromat. Let's talk about that. Is that still a thing that you do? Yeah. Yep. I'm actually – so I bought it May 5th of last year, and, you know – it's done super well so far i'm in the process of in the next couple weeks i'm slated to get a new water main ran into this building and start building out a new laundromat because the space that i'm in right now just isn't big enough and they're putting a whole development where my laundromat is now and if i can stay in that development in another building and have a new laundromat and add new equipment and more dryers and make more money add a wash and fold service which i think a wash and fold service i think that's something a lot of pipeliners take advantage of for sure dry cleaning wash and fold i think the whole yeah the whole takes advantage of that of that yeah man i wish iowa had more pipeliners going through it or at least where i'm at but but you know uniforms and solar is that kind of y'all's area yeah they're oh man the wind farms are everywhere out here those fucking turbines are such an eyesore oh they're good for the environment bud man i don't know dude those things i i've kind of heard that they're shams it's just a it's a huge sham okay so you tell me okay you got an engine in this thing right you know what it takes to run an engine oil and diesel or oil and propane or natural gas because i have an engine yeah not self-propelled it's not the wind that runs them it's a it's a it's a it's a generator which it's some it's some sort of diesel or propane or natural gas engine i got some buddies that do it but they don't really uh i'm not gonna talk a lot about it because i don't support the big green deal or whatever it is i'm oil and gas but uh i know that it has an engine in it because it has oil also run down how are you going to grease the damn thing if you don't have an engine in it i don't know how to do it i don't know how to do it don't have the oil batch you know they people talk about getting rid of the fossil fuels but everything that you touch has petroleum in it there ain't nothing throughout yeah no for sure you know maybe if you're wearing a cotton shirt but it has to be a plain cotton shirt with no tag no anything but it also took petroleum to make that shirt yeah no oil is everywhere you know i'm gonna i'm a natural gas guy i don't even pull with fuel uh you know like once in a blue moon i was up in colorado last year and there was a petroleum line that we don't see mama kicks on but i don't even fool i am strictly i strictly world on natural gas 90 yeah i think we should look more into atomic energy i think i don't know if you've ever heard know anything about that but it's literally just big fucking rocks that make water hot and it creates electricity well uh do they use welders to do it with yeah no i mean new welding it will not go away i think i just saw some stat that was like 50 of all manufactured goods have some sort of welding oh for sure it's got to be a great statistic on how much weld is involved in everything but but you also have robotics so it has to stay yeah that's a big thing is robots can come and tag like just do a little spot well here and there and yeah but i don't know i've kind of thought about the welders because i went to fab or the uh the robot welders i went to fab tech last year and they have robot welders everywhere there but yeah i don't really know too much about them you're not going to get one out into the old passion west texas and it survived outside there's too much dirt in there you know it's i feel like there's always going to be a need for a guy in a truck to do some welding but you know like with the crawlers and stuff that they use on big main lines anymore just about that yeah nate was telling me about those that's kind of the way the big pipelines are done in the shacks and stuff yeah it's still a process that has to involve a guy that understands welding or enough of it to get by to turn knobs and stuff but it's not the same yeah no for sure that's what i heard would happen with like if something happened and all welders disappeared and there were only robot welders that's what i heard would happen is like those welders would turn in and they would turn in and they would turn in and they would turn in and they did welding robot mechanics basically that's it but but it's not i don't think you never happened because they're still gonna have to be a guy yeah i know i mean dude and even if it did happen it's not gonna happen in our lifetime thank you thank thank goodness for that but um i think that one of the biggest things as far as like to wrap the the tiktok stuff up in in the podcast or whatever not not our conversation but just like um to why i want to do it too you know i i said i think i made like a little bit over a two welder checks last year with the podcast and it's i don't know i'm i'm pretty well driven it took me it took me a long time to get to the point where i'm at in my field i don't think i could let it go and just do the podcast i would love to just fly around the country and interview welders or uh you know super i don't know i would like to do that but i don't think that it's i need about uh i need to get my accounts back up to about 30 000 listeners or 30 000 spotify there was a time i was hitting 15 to 28 000 people searching for out on the road a month on spotify that's not apple that's not audible that's not anything else besides just spotify yeah dude that's insane i think just posting consistently like there's so many people that i'd love to sit down and share their stories i think you could do something really good with it and that's the thing about the trades it's like you know you make such good money but at the cost of destroying your body for however many years like it's just like and that's what like you know i love the trades i think this shit's dope i think that i have more to offer to the welding community than my shitty welds that's why i think the shirts are awesome um yeah i just lost my train of thought we're gonna have to we're gonna have to cut this out yeah no you're fine the uh the shirts i'll say that you know like um there's a there's an inspector i'm working with and uh he's an old 798 welder great dude i won't say his name but he's just a jam up guy well me and him was talking you know all these plants or facilities anymore you know you got to wear out bars if you're around lava lines lines you're wearing frs right well he's complaining because you know where i'm at in the desert it's 100 i think he's at 105 106 today well that's probably 125 130 well um the other day he's complaining about it and we're at like 98 degrees it's probably 105 on the pad or whatever well i let him try on the woe grow shirt and he's like man this is way thinner you know so hopefully like like me and nate was talking about it's kind of hard to convert the old guys over that you know that wear the tillman gloves and yeah you know it's kind of hard to get them to swap with what they've done for so many years but i have given like nate there was a time before he started dealing with a lot of schools and stuff he would just give me all his second gloves you know like they might have a missed ditch or they didn't say slickman all the way just some yeah the quality wasn't there which it didn't matter to me because i'm gonna burn them up anyway they're welding yeah no exactly so he would he would give them to me and then somebody would ask me for a pair of gloves and i'm like here this little stitch or whatever but wear them and i i kid you not that the next week or the next couple days they already told me they ordered their own so that's awesome yeah no like nate has done his shit with the gloves that is all i am so freaking happy that slickman is doing well and he was i might have been talking to nate and telling him but it's just ridiculous how many people that i see wearing woe bros or slickman apparel on job sites it's just i can snap pictures every day of somebody wearing either woe bros or slickman or go dude it's crazy it's surreal it's like uh like you know i don't like where i live there's not it's not welding central by any means i don't like step outside and see people wearing woe bros but when i went to western welding academy it was like the first time that i just saw a shitload of people wearing it and it was so weird it was awesome yeah and people just coming up to me non-stop like oh you're chris from woe bros and i was like holy shit like i've never been somewhere where i've been so recognized i didn't know who anybody was and even like a few times around town recently i've started getting recognized and like i went and bought bought some plywood the other day and the dude that was loading me up was just like yeah you look familiar and i was like oh yeah like and he was like oh yeah dude i was just watching your banana welder video and i was like yeah man this is this is where i live like i don't i don't know what to say when people it's so it's awesome like if anybody sees me in public i want them to say what's up but i just like i get just as starstruck yeah it's weird or like i was leaving the post office the other day and this kid just like stopped in the middle of the road like had cars and was like oh my god i'm so sorry i'm so sorry behind him and he was like you're chris from woe bros and i was like oh yeah dude good to meet you like these people are gonna start honking pretty soon yeah which nate i guess the the nate or the nate nate's area that he lives in you know a lot of people yeah you know him because he was a welder for so long you know but i think that if he like when i was in florida if he'd have seen how many the second job i went to down there if he'd have seen how many people was wearing slickman's he'd have been like holy shit you know because it's like dude i love your slippers you know and i and i've always been big on the wrangler just the wrangler work shirt what i love to weld him but i mean i wear my logo shirts probably more than any other shirt now and because oh yeah they're not heavy like an fr and i wish yeah now and videos so i could be like oh yeah you know but i'm just not yeah no i mean it's not anything crazy i just wanted to make something cool and that's like you know i'm not super concerned about the old guys that they have been wearing like martin brothers forever wrangler not like super concerned about that because i know people are creatures of habit they get stuck in their ways i really like want to appeal to like younger people because you know like i am pretty young so i think i've got yeah i think i've got like and i think that it helps me out a lot in figuring shit out honestly yeah uh so you're not like joe biden no not you can complete the sentence i'm gonna stop not at all right at that point and this is another thing that i need to sort out too i'll cut this out of here but uh back after it there but the uh the older generation yeah we're back to recording on the uh ipad here but the uh that's another thing like working in series i got my iphone hooked up to the mic and i'm like oh my god i'm gonna be like oh my god i'm gonna be like oh my god i'm gonna be like oh my god i'm gonna be like oh my god i'm gonna be like oh my god i'm gonna be like oh my god one mic slid down on the computer to make sure i get you real well and then i also have my phone run to the ipad so i've got three different audio or three different chances to catch what i'm trying to catch here uh so it doesn't yeah so i can get off the brace the uh my phone didn't get it good on the app but i had my laptop sitting there recording the audio too so i caught it anyways uh that's good in this you know uh it's better to have more than one thing recording charge everything up have everything recorded so if you do miss something on one you got it on another one because i can import i can import from my computer to my ipad or vice versa you know no for sure yeah that's like when we went to fabtech and all of that audio messed up oh it sucked so much what uh it was a cool experience woe bros wasn't near as big as what it is now so hopefully i have a better time this year but just driving all the way out to chicago to waste two days not getting any audio they sucked and yeah that video i did a little like voiceover video about everything that i saw there and it just it got like 2 000 views yeah have you um i don't know that t-bird them do i know you went to western welder but like uh i'm gonna have t-bird on next week which is the owner of and the instructor at arkansas elite down in uh okay arkansas yeah i think i'd yeah no i think i'd heard of them i haven't i'd never been down there yeah um i was gonna take a tour back in december of his of his school down there but the timeline didn't work out he was moving a lot of things took place and that that's another thing that's kind of killed i know i beat this dead horse but like it's i've gotten better about it about planning out a week a week in front of myself and sticking to it like i didn't get to do office and ross on monday because you know i told him or i got my truck wrecked but um me and him already set up for this next one by the time this comes out it won't matter but by the next monday we're we're set up again to record the same time everything i've gotten better about planning it and then setting down that time not nothing else matters i'm doing i'm gonna set aside two hours i don't have to do it i'm gonna set aside two hours i don't have to do it to record a podcast this time i've gotten better fail to plan plan to fail because i've recorded seven the seven p's proper prior planning prevents piss poor performance yeah i like that i like that a lot yeah i do that was something one of my friends told me when i was in the marines and i use that shit all the time one conversation and then in a week and a half i recorded a podcast this makes time yeah so you did man you could i'm sure there's a shitload of other people out there that would like to be on here i think uh yeah i think just nose to the grindstone banging out as many episodes as you can whenever you have free time and just get ahead of everything i think that's the best way you can do it because that's in a perfect world i would have like five videos planned ahead but i just wake up every day and i'm like i've got to post something so i'm like scrambling and i have like a few good ideas like in the back of my mind and i'm like i'm gonna post something and i'm gonna post something that i want to that i'm saving uh so i'll usually just scramble to come up with something else because on tiktok i feel like views like everything is cyclical like views are kind of down right now so i want to save those really good ideas for when views are on the backup and i think views across the welding community are pretty down right now yeah and then you got a like when you're releasing a new shirt or a new product you know you want to use your best ideas for that time to kind of yeah exactly that's like this little marvel welder i've had this idea or i've had this welder for probably like a month but i've been waiting for these paisley shirts to come yeah so i can make a video so i can make that video wearing them you and uh but i don't know if we can talk about this but it may not matter because this is recorded now for six weeks down the road um nate said that y'all kind of been visiting on shirts you know to get a slickman world shirt yeah no like uh how we did the collab with the gloves you know what nate does good is gloves and that's what instead of coming out with my own i didn't want to step on his toes or anything me and nate are really good friends and so i figured you know we can both win at this and it would help me out and it would help him out so we just decided to collab on the gloves and came up with the aloha 76s which sold super well and now we are in the works on a slickman fr shirt and it's i'm pretty excited for it man whenever i got this sample and i was looking at the shirt and i was like man this is fucking why am i giving this to him yeah he's gonna run me out of business with my own shirts yeah but it's good it's good that like okay i'm not gonna step on nobody's toes here but in the past couple of months here there's been some gloves that's come out there some shirts that's come out and stuff i'm like wow oh man like when you come out when y'all come out with the gloves joint collaboration why can't we do that across the board on a lot of things kind of like somebody else started a podcast could have been a conversation about it uh just a little one like hey man uh you know this is what we're thinking about doing one of them didn't have to do it i can see the other one doing it but it's kind of cringe but like you you got to have so i understand that you need to have your name across all platforms you're not going to go tomorrow and start a podcast you know uh nate's talked about doing a podcast which it would be more of a more of him talking about lessons of well more of a vlog than it would be a actual podcast but i understand why we can't just have a conversation but and i also understand this is american we can do whatever we want to do anyways yeah no i know what you mean and it is like almost a respect thing and that's like uh uh bw parts adams works there he just i've been talking to him quite a bit recently because he wants to send me some parts to fix up this sa200 that i bought which is awesome yeah so cool dude such a cool opportunity such a cool guy and he sent me a few mock-ups for wobro's hats that he made and i was oh they're so sweet man if we can get something worked out with them they're gonna be some of the sweetest hats out there i think but uh yeah he called me today and he was like yeah like i don't want you to think that i'm trying to like shove this down your throat like uh i don't like i don't want to step on your toes like if you want me to lay off like that's fine and i was like no dude like whatever cool ideas i can get like i'll take whatever and uh yeah no he's awesome dude but yeah just like him bringing it up that he didn't want to like fuck me anyways it was cool of him to do just for editing podcasts right like eat dinner or eat breakfast do my normal little tours you know wash the laundry and stuff and then just sit around and edit podcasts all of a sudden but this sunday we just kind of got thrown into it because we worked sunday you know all day yeah well then i was like okay i'll work on it as soon as i get home monday i'm gonna listen to it one more time people were like i didn't want i don't want to turn out a terrible product like i want to turn it into a terrible product i don't want to turn it into a terrible product so the audio to be good and all that stuff um if it's not i want to have i want to not put it out there and go back and rerecord with that person yeah that's that's what i do like i've got ideas for some designs right now that i'm just waiting waiting for them to be perfect like these this dragon wagon design i wish i would have done more with it where it's not just on the hats or on the stickers because it is a super cool design it's just uh i think i could have done more with it had i waited and that's like this next design that i'm rolling out hopefully by the time this podcast comes out it's a good enough welding company and uh yeah the the slogan is we don't drug test and then i have a phone number there and i thought that was funny and the phone number's like 903-392 like 9353 or something uh and yeah yeah that's uh that's why i did i have a bunch of from texas and uh that's where i sell everything is that texas so i thought it would work out better if i put a texas number on there and i actually got the phone number in the last four of that phone number it spells out weld so i kind of thought that was funny uh but i want to set up a voicemail for this uh phone number to where people can call it and it's like yeah thanks for calling good enough well welding company do to do um here's like 10 off your order or something that's what i in a perfect world that's what i would set up but right now i'm really kind of coming up with a voicemail because it has to be it has to be something that's shareable it has to be something that somebody's like yeah fucking you get you need to call this phone number because this shit's hilarious like i want it to be something like that but i just cannot come up with something right now have you ever kind of looked out you know there's people in the world but that's all they do is come up with uh like the little songs on the pianos and stuff that you know yeah jingles or whatever they call it yeah it's just i it's your baby i want it to i want it to be me yeah i want it to be something that i come up with like i just like i don't want to sound cocky or anything but i feel like i am pretty good at coming up with ideas and like original content for sure uh and people like it and i would hate for somebody to come up with something and it's not woe bros-esque enough like that shit moves on like as it gets bigger like inevitably i am hopefully going to have to hire people to do stuff like that but until i'm making like 10 million dollars a year like it's going to be me coming up with the shit the uh another thing about the podcast when i talk about it being like a second job or whatever nate gave me a phone number to a guy and i'm hoping that as this progressive like i would invite him into this room that we're in right now and he would be the producer and he will handle this video part of it like clips boom the tiktok whatever but that releases to youtube and all that stuff and then i just have to worry about the audio stuff that's easy to manage you know you know one click it's to 15 different places yeah no i think uh there's definitely somebody out there that can do shit like that uh i don't know if you've ever looked at fiber and stuff like you can find people like you can find somebody to do anything on fiber and just pay them to do whatever yeah because if it costs me 200 bucks but the quality is all there then i'm gonna make my money back and i mean i get paid every 90 days from these people so it i'm eventually gonna get my money back you know but that yeah and as shit grows they uh i think i'm at like i looked earlier hunters hunters uh podcast is already at like 1100 listens and that's that's on track to pass jewels pretty quick i think uh the break in a way was bad but it also was good so and then the fire that got lit up under me was also uh a good thing i guess you know competition's always good yeah no dude i actually just today uh i came out with those paisley shirts like yesterday and uh just today i saw the same exact pattern so what had happened is uh there was a bunch of botched fabric from my manufacturer it was just all fucked up and i was like i'm not using that that is bad like i do not like this shit and uh so yeah i ended up doing something else to get the paisley shirts and we got them in and just today i was sitting there editing the video for today and i got on instagram for a second and i saw my fucking same pattern with that botched fabric some other fr shirt company ripped it off like to a t it oh man i fucking i was shitting myself i texted nate i called him and i was like dude this what is going on like how did this happen and i decided not to bring any light to it uh you know like there's some quote that i like it's like uh anger does more harm than the shit that you're angry at like being pissed off about something and going after somebody and like just fucking with them is going to do way more damage than them coming out with the shirts so i'm not gonna say anything right now maybe i'll change my mind tomorrow but yeah yeah i fucking shit myself i ain't seen it yet but i i almost can imagine who you're talking about but i'd like to say no names there's been a lot of that uh that stuff going on i don't understand can't be why can't one person do one thing and i understand that it's american we can all do what we want to do but like there's certain things that well i yeah i know and i understand it too and it's not like i was the first person to come out with the paisley shirt like paisley shirts have forever but i did get this special paisley design made up and to have somebody put that exact shit on their shirt and sell it it was not cool yeah and there's been a couple other times people have taken like little like other fr shirt brands have taken little shots at me that i'm always glad i'm glad that i never do anything about it after i cool off like every time i've super pissed off and done something crazy uh i usually look back at myself like what was i thinking yeah for sure they uh when i first it was like it might have been the video about my shirt because i don't i don't i didn't carry oxygen saline bottles on her and i said because i'm not cutting shit and somebody wrote that you can't fab so i turned around and made this whole video of doing all this fabrication and i was like but can't and i took his little clip and his little comment put it in the video yeah i thought i was so high and mighty about it i was like did i really have to do that because obviously this guy has nothing going for it that's the thing yeah people people just like to get a rise out of people and i think like i think like now that i am like in the public eye and shit a lot more like i try to think about the person that i'd want to look up to and i try to act in that way so let's talk about this a little bit to kind of start bringing everything together at the beginning of the of your journey with woe rose uh the uh breath losers and stuff would use if you had one piece of advice to give a young kid entrepreneur top kid trying to get going what would that be oh fuck man i don't know man i always have something to say with a question like this too god there's just so much shit to learn uh read honestly like that's the best thing that you can do for yourself is read reading sucks everybody hates it i hate it too i still struggle to read but the amount of knowledge that you can get from somebody else through a book is unmatched and uh that's like reading is something that's pushed in the marines a lot and a lot of people wouldn't think that but i don't know if you know mad dog mattis's general mad dog dude but dog he's so cool um but he will uh somebody else will raise your children is that that guy no that was uh i think that was some army officer but uh that was that was still cool um but mad dog mattis has this quote and it goes if you haven't read hundreds of books you're functionally illiterate and you will be incompetent because your personal experiences alone aren't broad enough to sustain you any commander who claims he is too busy to read is going to fill body bags with his troops as he learns the hard way and that's probably the toughest quote about reading there is yeah for sure but that's just learning having humility and being able to learn is one of the most important things and also like people get so down on themselves when they fuck shit up like man that's a part of all of it like they're like i've had a few issues like with shirt runs that come out and like all you can do is the right thing like if i send somebody shirt and it's fucked up i'll send them another shirt yeah it's not worth me losing a customer and like bad shit getting out about woe bros over a shirt and honestly like when shit fucks up and people give me an opportunity to fix it it i feel like it's a good way to uh build like a lifetime customer yeah well that's the only way to be anyway there are about it anyways i was on a job and this this guy came up to me this kid came up to me he was like hey man my blood ripped right here you know nate what can you do about it and i said give me just a couple of minutes and so i called nate he don't know he's busy or whatever he calls me back later that day i was like hey man this kid's blood come apart in his hand or whatever and i said how do you want to go about it or whatever he said i got you and so i give him the address to where i was at he sent that kid like i don't know two packs of stickers and like four sets of gloves or three sets of gloves or something like that you know yeah no that's awesome you can't you're or you know like you said you got your girlfriend helping you and you're doing it just like nate has his wife and him you know maybe a couple other people can stop in your help but it takes a lot of time to unpackage every single pair of gloves and look and look at every little detail you know especially when y'all are getting the type of water as y'all are getting it's not a yeah it is a lot to keep up with you're human it's man-made things are going to be at fault you know yeah no and that's like 99 of the time people are pretty there are like those onesies and twosies or people sometimes with customer support like i do the customer support and everything like if you send a message on wobro's website like it goes straight to my phone and i'm racing to my phone to answer whatever question happens but sometimes it'll be like like it was like 10 o'clock one night and uh this guy messaged me and i was already asleep and he was like are you getting a restock of this shirt and like two minutes later like he didn't get a reply and he was just like oh so no too bad i was about to spend a thousand dollars and i was like god dude like man like if you're gonna act like that i don't really know if that's the kind of customer that i'd want well i mean he's probably a welder impatient or some kid that thinks he's a welder yeah yeah and that's what i think amazon's like ruined a lot of shit like people people see online stores they don't see who's behind it and they just think it's some big mega corporation when yeah it is like just me the uh so the middle part over here what advice would you give when when kind of not the cards are stacked against you but you quit your job you're focused on on this you know your little your baby here what's the middle of your what got you pushed through the little heart the middle to take the jump let's say like into doing wobro's and quitting your job to take the jump uh they dude going to quit my job was one of the scariest things that i've done it was like you know i went from like making pretty good money like going from the military making 20 grand a year to making like 70 000 like in iowa i was pretty low cost of living stay so it was awesome like and everybody was like why are you leaving that good paying job to start a business and you know i think a lot of it has to do with uh you can always get another job man there's so many jobs out there and everyone was like oh this is such a big risk and i'm like you know i don't have kids i'd live in a duplex and rent out the other side so like i don't have a mortgage or anything i've got other ways to make money like i feel like this is the least risky time for me to do anything for sure and uh it was just a matter of doing it and that's something that i struggled with for a long time like i was reading all these books i was getting all this knowledge and i'd have these ideas but i would never act on them and you just have to jump in and do it is that you just have to show up every day for sure that's all it is i just post it every day i still try to post every day i try to make my content as good as i can and as i get more people on wobros hopefully that'll continue to get better but yeah literally just nutting up and doing it it sucks and it's not easy for anybody but it's it is what it is you just have to make that initial jump and now i'm like man why was i not doing it and i'm like why was i even working there for as long as i was the uh the i think a lot of people like even even when i before i become a pipeline world and stuff i think that you know you have a you have a cozy little situation to go to something that's new and i mean the pipeline as a whole is is a lot like uh doing what you do here it's i mean it's a gamble every time you leave your house or leave where you're at you go to a different job or whatever it's a gamble it costs you money to go do it you know you may may or not pass your welding test or you know for some guys they don't pass drug tests but yeah it's it's always again anything in life worth doing is going to be a gamble you know like i'm not going to say that i'd quit pipelining tomorrow to go pursue just doing podcasts but i know that i that it's a point in my life now to set up appointments or set up dates to record podcasts like like like the memorial day when everybody like when i wanted to be cooking out and drink a beer with everybody i drove about 550 miles in a round trip to record with some guys holy shit yeah and that's like yeah something else is like i was talking about earlier setting higher goals people just every goal that i've written down that i've been like man this is like i've come up with like one goal and i'm like ah i think it'd be so cool to get 10 000 followers and then buy that shit by 10 go after 100 000 followers and you know if you go after 100 000 as fast as you can do everything you can to get there like you're going to be a lot further along than if you just went after those initial 10 000 in that same time period people people tell me that's not a good way to think and like you should set goals that you can attain i don't think so one bit i think setting high goals is something everybody should do and every goal that i've set when i'm writing it down i'm like this is unreal like this will never happen and it's happened every time i remember when i first started welding i was like uh man if i could just get if i could just save ten thousand dollars you know yeah i think i said eight thousand dollars if i just had eight thousand dollars set at my bank account dude i'd be loaded i'd be i'd be jumping through yeah and then i had a buddy one time tell me he was like he was like man i'm trying to save a hundred thousand dollars this year and i was like what what people do that you can save that he was like yeah man and he showed me his bank account i was like holy shit i was like i'm thinking about this all wrong but it didn't really one time crap but like i didn't i didn't really get to where i could really save money till i got my divorce and it got it wasn't like uh i don't feel like we was spending a lot of money i just feel like two people spend a lot of money in the world yeah i mean you think you think and that's what like if you sit down and budget and like go over how much money you spend like it there's some shit in there that you're like holy shit i've been spending this much on eating out like eating out it's a big thing for me and i still eat out all the time but now like i've come to a point where like for the money that i make like it's eating out sometimes it's more worth it for me like just as a time thing like throughout the day just being able to go and grab something and that's what the average person spends 31 hours a week grocery shopping and cooking so being able to save that time is worth a lot to me and i that's something that i'm really big on you know like people it's always and that's how it was with me growing up too like i grew up farming it's always like work hard work hard work hard and honestly i don't think working hard is enough anymore i think you have to figure out ways to work more efficiently and i think that helps out way more than people think like figuring out ways to save yourself time and also putting extra time that you have towards more valuable skills like learning more valuable shit like all that shit just compounds the uh another point that i would you want to drop a couple of these books that you're always talking about the best book i think there is to read about business a product-based business if anybody is going to sell shit is uh ready fire aim it's by michael masterson it is my bible for this stuff i like i said reading sucks it's hard to get into reading um but what i did a lot that helped me out was uh i'd buy the audiobook too i would buy the audiobook dude and just read along in the book like i would just force myself i'd tell myself like okay you're only going to read one sentence and you know that's 90 of it is just picking it up and doing it and if i can get into one sentence then i can get into two then i can get into a few pages and anything is better than nothing and that's what i was doing when i was at work for a long time so i was just listening to audiobooks and i pick up shit here and there like throw it in my phone and shit that i think would help me out and yeah ready fire aim for product-based business and then if there's a book that i think everybody should read uh that's like self-help it's called atomic habits it's by james clear and it's basically the people say people will uh everybody has habits you know you have habits that you don't think about like when you sit down on the couch you instinctively will like go grab a bag of potato chips or something and that's just something that you don't even think about uh so it breaks down in your habits into like these small incremental shits and it's an awesome book everybody should read it i did a really bad job of explaining it but i swear it's a good book um i was talking to nate all right well you know i was when i went to see nate uh last monday or whatever i was telling him i was like yeah chris is always talking about them books but all i need him to do is sit down and read the book and voice record himself and then send it to me i can listen to it while i'm driving that's oh man you don't you don't want my voice reading books to you i'll put it on the turtle box while i'm at work and everybody can listen to it yeah dude people that's that's one thing that i'll get comments for is my voice like i've gotten comments people are like i just want to slap that surfer boy accent right out of his mouth and i'm like man why are you so like it's not that big of a deal and i like i've never i've never been told the before people started commenting it but i mean it is what it is that's the way i talk i would i'm surprised about how many people want to listen to my voice for two and a half hours dude no that's like whenever you first start hearing the sound of your own voices sucks so much but i've gotten used to it what gets me is when i say um you know we welcome that bad on the road podcast like 22 times now yeah it gets me all the time that's that first podcast i did i i listened to that and it was just um uh all the time so i've been trying to do less of that here i say the same thing every podcast opening up every one of them the same exact way and i actually ai generated this new thing and i've been practicing it you know uh a new way of going about my first little bit you know you just type in all these words like how you want to go about doing it then it highlights words that you're supposed to enunciate a little bit i know yeah yeah and that's the thing um i mean i don't think it's as big of a deal with podcasting i don't think it's as big of a deal with podcasting i don't think it's as big of a deal with podcasting i don't think it's as big of a deal with podcasting because you know people get into podcasts anticipating sitting for like an hour and a half or two hours just listening to it um but with videos like tiktoks especially like you have to you have to give as much value per second as you can and that's like that's why i do the little zoom in in the beginning or i have like a bunch of other little tip like little tricks that i do that i think kind of help me out like uh you know people get on like scroll on a woe bros video and it's always like i'm not gonna do it again i'm gonna do it again i'm gonna do it again the colby t helm song uh so i kind of like try to make that a part of my brand and colby t helms he actually followed me back which is super cool and i love bluegrass music so the fact that it works so well uh on my videos it's just it's worked out awesome and that's how i feel like like just going through the shit like besides getting shot i feel like i didn't really have very much adversity uh going into stuff like shit huh little thuggy there getting shot yeah no it was it was sweet though um but yeah like other than that like i feel like i didn't really have a lot of adversity like shit like shit has and i've been very lucky shit has worked out very well for me sure so far i'm sure you're just you're on the uptake it's all gonna work out i've been trying yeah the uh the blast half i used to always be a glass half full my glass half glass half full and then some adversity happened my life and i was just on the brink i was like man blank this blank that everything sucks straight i mean i've always been a dickhead but even more of a dickhead than what i should have been and then i don't know two months ago three months ago i was like man this is not worth it not worth it yeah i just have to start letting this stuff go slowly started cycling through it i didn't go see a psychiatrist i slowed down on my drinking just started trying to cycle through things and i got the push on the i guess the kick in the butt on the podcast thing and i was like okay this is what we're gonna do and if in five years i don't ever touch another stinger and i only do podcasting all over the country maybe canada i got a lot of listeners in freaking new zealand for some reason apparently they got some top line dude south africa i mean i know there's a whole batch there they like to listen to it there probably don't understand half the stuff that comes out of our hip mouths but um brazil's another hot spot in mexico that's crazy that's sweet i mean canada's probably i think canada is like 32 percent which there's a yeah i find that canada you know yeah i sent quite a few shirts to canada and i've sent quite a few stuff to uh australia too they get the cocaine rodeo stuff but there's i don't understand what the and then uh there's one other country i'm like two percent what are they got going and i should look it up and see like yeah they got an oil field over there but like there's some countries that are just blows my mind like what are you people even doing with y'all's time maybe y'all maybe y'all are just extremely bored and you're listening to it but i hope they continue to search the search for the podcast you know that's what uh yeah no i mean it's like that's what uh like some farmers will say around here is there like i don't care if you eat your steak with ketchup just keep eating beef and i think that's a good way to like as long as there's people out there that are willing to take the shit in then i don't get paid from you listening to the podcast from a person listening to the podcast i don't get paid from that i get paid from what they call impressions you search the name of the podcast you go to the home page you're on spotify that's what gets people paid i don't have real like a like a song you have royalties off of a podcast don't work that way our own spotify doesn't work that way it's yeah that you make for people a month and it has to stay between like 10 20 something thousand somewhere in that ball part gets you paid so yeah another two thousand this month i already haven't knocked out because i'm like ninety eight hundred and some change so just you know a couple hundred people go search it and i did gain like four or five hundred followers on tiktok so maybe they're searching the podcast too yeah no i think if you uploaded some out on the road podcast clips tiktok i think they'd do pretty good just yeah five will stands out in the podcast whatever sounds good and i would just roll with it we uh before we started recording we was talking about it you know the uh the video part of it has been a real struggle for me i've got like this one's so far if it uploads anyway i'll be in the money i'll have my first video podcast great audio from what i can tell on the ipad there it's been great i've been watching on the iphone every once in a bit i can you know as long as you're still seeing the squigglies it's been pretty good have you ever thought about doing podcasts live or would that be uh could that go wrong really fast gerald w i thought about this the other day austin ross is a very well-spoken guy right yeah for sure he's an old 798 hand i don't know all the details on that but uh him or gerald dub i don't feel like i would feel bad i don't feel i feel like i could do that live yeah i think so i if there were two people those would probably be it you know but like i'm not gonna go get joe blow over here off the right of way and be like hey man tell me your story on my podcast let me record it no no sir no not live i'll record it where i can edit it but i wouldn't i would never do it live yeah that's fair like my buddies uh back when i first started doing this um one of the first steps i'm not gonna say that episode but one of the first episodes they was doing some things and i had this microphone and i was so proud of this microphone i could hook to my ipad and i could record set it on the table and i could record and i told them that that mfr will pitch up pick up every little noise because i've already been tested like i would get to the front of my camper which is 40 foot and make a noise and i could hear it on that microphone so i was like man this thing's got to be enclosed quiet i told them told them that it mattered you can hear it all throughout the podcast if you listen you can hear it what they're doing i'm not gonna say what they're doing but you can hear what they're doing in the podcast and i was like but that's back when i didn't care you know what i did like two days later i said didn't edit that's awesome to the world but yeah oh go ahead i mean i think i like i think people like that i think people like the raw shit and that's what i tried to do with woe bros like the cocaine rodeo stuff like i tried to do stuff that'll make people talk and i think the cocaine rodeo shit is awesome or the saloon and whorehouse yeah i think people like that raw shit that comes out now it was great but i just there's certain things i'm a you You know, like, I would like to think I'm professional. I have a job that requires me but i am also not all of us but i will say that seven out of ten welders more than likely are white trash someplace in their family tree yeah fair you know if you're that that goes to the caucasian side of things you know but it's part of it you know it's it's but then i talked to somebody like gerald dove and i called him gerald dove probably shouldn't mr brewster mr gerald but i i talked to him and he's so professional and so well spoken stuff i'm like god i want him on the podcast can't wait to have him on the podcast but when he said son i do i love what you're doing and i enjoy it but can't be doing all that foul language i was like see and it's like getting spanked by your daddy you know man yeah i've got a lot of respect for that i think that's all they will stand on what he believes in that is so cool and that's yeah i think that'll be cool i'm looking forward to hearing i think gerald w brister is like i told him i said i'm gonna record with the person and tell them uh how they i'm not gonna say here the only thing i've ever said about when it comes to my podcast and i don't want people getting on here bashing companies i've done it but that's my own right you don't have you don't they don't have to agree but when i've been going on top of way i've said some things about some companies i don't want to bash gas companies you know that pay our bills but pretty much everything else is on the table i don't care if you drink i don't care if you smoke i don't care whatever you want to do that's your own image not my image i'm just giving you i just want to record your story so it's you know maybe it is considered to be my image too and i don't really don't care you know not especially now it's a video you know that i'm not sitting here i've been smoking my faith have me a drink you know there's been some times where i got a little too drunk during the podcast and so i cut back on the on some of it because the uh there was a time there were some slurred words and stuff in there i left it but i didn't want to you know i know that's i feel like that's how i talk just in general is just run shit together and that's like in my videos and stuff like i always try to talk fast like i always try to talk fast and i always try to talk fast and i always like want to keep people's attention and i think that's a i don't know if it's the best way to go about it but it's what i do uh so to kind of wrap everything up i know you're you're busy and i'm not really that busy but to wrap things up uh if you're going to give some solid advice as far as like uh once you hit a well i guess okay can't really ask you that question either uh this point you're in your career i know i know the reading books and stuff's important but like what's one thing that's not uh i'm most times so good at asking really good questions like it's not a highlighted thing but you feel like it's important you know like uh like yeah it's important but yeah but something god something not as important that is still really important i'm coming up with something yeah i like the stone i like this i try to find one question in every podcast to where they're just like they have to think on it for a minute well yeah like i don't want to give like some answer and that's like that's all that i feel like i'm coming up with like i feel like just they don't you don't allow somebody to give a generic answer yeah no i know i want to say like if i can just do the right thing or fucking yeah yeah i think it's important to know what like what your time's worth and not spend it doing dumb shit like i know like and i'm really bad about it too like getting on tiktok just scrolling for hours it's so easy to do but just knowing like man if could you tell me the last 10 tiktok videos that you swiped through probably not i can't and i'm sure most people listening to it can or instagram or whatever and just putting time towards better things and that's like i know like i used to drink all the time i used to drink like a freaking fish especially in the military but since i've gotten out i just don't want to make time for it i can't afford to be hung over in the morning i like always like to try to be on my a game like if anything happens i like to be there and i like to not be fucked up like for sure especially now that i am in like the public eye and i own a business in a small town like if i got pulled over freaking had some nose beers in my pocket i'd get hemmed up all across town yeah for sure so just shit like that and yeah doing the right thing i'm a super big believer in karma i don't know if you ever watched my name is earl yeah yeah i've seen a few episodes oh dude that is my favorite show of all time that's like something that somebody from my world would enjoy that show my name is earl yeah dude it's an awesome show i think growing up watching that like with my dad and stuff i think that was something good that happened to and allocating time towards shit that you want i think it's something big so for uh little while what I would do is it's called time block planning and I would just plan out my day the day before and and break it down into like 30 minute increments on everything that I want to do that day and try to get it done now what I've kind of adopted is I just make a list of everything that I need to do and then I wake up and bust that shit out as fast as I can and that's what a lot of it is is people are like oh how like how much money are you making how much are you doing this and I honestly I try not to pay that much attention to it because I just hope that if I put my nose to the grindstone bang the shit out that people will like it and the money will come afterwards like I'm just putting so much money back into Wobros right now to get new designs coming out and these shirts are so expensive just to produce so I've got a lot of money tied up right now which I'm thankful for uh and I live so far below my means and I think that's something important too is just uh not spending money on dumb shit like I feel like there's so many people that go out and get like a hundred thousand dollar truck god and then there's people that are like oh I want to get something that's reliable man I feel like some of those new trucks new cars they aren't as reliable as anything else like I want to go buy this 12 valve cummins you don't talk about yeah the uh you know one thing I've learned like even with Weldon is if you invest an investment in yourself it's always the way to go oh yeah dude investing in yourself is the most important thing you can do and that's like yeah even reading books like people are like books are expensive and I'm like like thirty dollars for this book there's hundreds of millions of dollars worth of knowledge in here and I think a lot of people just don't they don't see the value in it which I understand or people are like oh I just watch YouTube videos about business and I feel like that's a lot like uh it's like drinking a v8 versus eating your vegetables like your brain is a muscle and you can exercise that shit by reading for sure and I feel like you know I feel like anybody would look at me and be like this is not a dude that even knows how to read but and I don't that's why I feel like I can get the audio books and read along for sure they can get through that way faster than I can so what but finish up there oh I just like you know I see I want to be successful I want money and everybody that is successful and has money they read all the time so who am I to fuck myself out of reading sure what what can we expect from Wobros for the rest of 2024 2024 I'd like to get 10 design 10 fr shirt designs like in stock at all times I think I put eight different t-shirt designs on whenever I came out with this earlier this year and then I want to start getting into some other products honestly I think it'd be cool to get into some arm pads I think and I think it I have some cool ideas to put some twists on them to make them badass or I think it'd be cool to get into some welding hoods and that's uh something that I'm kind of working on on the back burner right now is coming up with some pancake hoods we kind of talked about that but I think it'd be cool to talk about that for the day yeah I think that would be sweet it's just a few other ideas that I'd like oh man dude I've got this one idea I think this shit would take I think I can make 100 million dollars on it I just I don't know how I want to go about it yet and I think I want to have the fr shirts very established before I do so that might be something in 2025 but yeah I've got the fr shirts very established before I do so that might be something in 2025 but yeah I think I'm this comes out the website will be up koozie stickers t-shirts probably won't do hats yeah I'll probably just keep the 2t hat we'll worry about it that's not even about making money because anything that's made on the t-shirts going right back into that shit again it's not even I'll never see a dime of it my buddy Drake and Lubbock's handling all that stuff a website everything is all him so it's just it's just a cycle of it I mean I guess eventually I'm may not have to have it that way but for now it's just you go there you order it they'll print it ship it well it'll go to some place gets shipped to you I won't ever see it and I like it that way yeah no that'll be badass coming out with t-shirts was awesome getting the freaking podcast branded this year I have over 100,000 listeners I would like to be at 400,000 I don't know if there's that many people man dude shoot for a million I don't know if there's that many people interested in it oh man we were just 330 million people in the US 8 billion people in the world and you think that shit's going to cap out at 400,000 fuck no that's what I'm talking about set higher goals you'll surprise yourself I promise I'd like to get to 10 or 12 I would like to have I'm not going to support Apple on this and they can take me off there if they want to but I would like to stay in that 30,000 a month Spotify impressions and there was a time I was doing it I just got to get back to that point shoot for 300,000 300,000 that'd be dope too man so you know there's podcasts that do it oh yeah Joe Rogan there's no telling I've never looked at his thing and it may not I don't know if it's even public knowledge yeah I'm sure he has way more than that there's no telling you know and people like looking into other people's lives and seeing what they do and as like you know I think moving forward in the future I think like being in the blue collar space right now I think it's awesome I think more and more people are not going to college not going that route more people are getting into the trades and making good money I think like and like the blue collar revolution and shit that Western Welding Academy is doing like I think blue collar and the trades in the next 10 15 years are going to explode I just the only thing that I can say about Western Welding that I don't like is the $27,000 price tag to go to school there yeah and you can come help me for a year and make you know anywhere from well I don't know you probably average about 82 if we worked all year it would be from 65 to 100 somewhere in that ball game and you'd learn how to weld at the end of the year it'd be a solid rover yeah no and I think like there's something to be there's there's kids that come from their mom and dad's house that have no business coming to a right away for sure and then there's there's kids that come from their mom and dad's house where their dad's worked their ass off every day that need to just come out here and do this job get with a get with a welder and maybe the first welder you you work for is not not the right person for you it takes some it takes some mission to get the right fit you know yeah no that's something man I've been lucky showing up to jobs most of the time people liked me but there's this one guy his name was Doug absolutely hated me and I had no idea why and he was such a dickhead to me all the time like anytime I'd ask a question he just like so we were up in this pipe rack and we had to run this pipe through like in between these two other pipes like they're like stacked up on top of each other and yeah I can't remember there was like an eight inch gap and it was six inch pipe and it was going to be like four inches of insulation or something either way it wasn't going to be able to go through that shit and I was like yeah Doug like I don't think this is going to work and I was just crawling around up in this rack and he was like get the fuck down like you don't listen to a goddamn thing I say and I was just like what the fuck and so I jumped down and then he got up there and I was just running around fucking grabbing his shit and he was like he was just up there pissed off and he was like hey it makes for a long day down there doesn't it and I was like man fuck you and like at that point is when like Wobros was like starting to get traction so I was like man I should just fucking drag this shit right now like this motherfucker and but I didn't and I kind of wish I did just to like make a point but you know as much as Doug did not like me and I didn't really care for him that much I would still try to like have conversations with him like try to be civil and you know like I asked him I was like if there's a piece of advice he could give me what would it be and he was just like don't get married and I was like ding ding ding there it is he fucking hates his wife so he takes it out on me yeah for sure probably an alcoholic too yeah no he was not a cool dude and but you know you run into people like that at water under the bridge for sure a lot of people get disheartened quick in the trades but I don't have to do that much old man early you know it's pretty easy too honestly I do think it is pretty easy too because there's just so much to learn and you know you're there on the job trying to learn this shit and you have no idea what's going on no I can definitely like yeah it can definitely get disheartening when you're first getting into the shit the I guess all your social media now is woe bros yeah woe bros dot u s woe bros dot u s and of course I'm going to drop one more slinkman slinkman dot com slinkman weld apparel dot com I gotta get better at knowing all my stuff but I appreciate you coming on give me two hours well it's over two hours of your time because we didn't start recording it's yeah no I appreciate you having me on Ty this is badass I don't know like I said I don't know I got six to release I'm going to try to get maxing out tomorrow probably wait till Friday but it's going to be it's edited one more listing it's out there to the world it's supposed to be on Mondays I'm trying to get a routine of releasing every Monday but you know my fucking truck's out there busting the shit so yeah that sucks yeah it's it's rough seeing what you worked so hard and now it's but hopefully we're going to get the cab fixed then Betsy will be back on the road making them checks but we'll see it all works out in the end if it hasn't worked out it's not the end we'll see you next time you can you know go to Spotify listen to the podcast they'll write me a check and I can pay for my little truck hell yeah she was already paid for it but it sucks but alright well I appreciate it Chris and we'll be chit chatting yeah thank you Ty talk to you later stop this is it done recording? oh we're still recording over here that's okay oh I think I can stop it now