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Successful Life Podcast
The Successful Life Podcast, hosted by Corey Berrier, is a globally recognized show that ranks in the top 2% of podcasts worldwide. It offers expert insights tailored for contractors, focusing on business strategies, sales skills development, and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in the industry.
Successful Life Podcast
From Addiction to HVAC Success: Jason Julian's Journey of Resilience and Recovery
What if the darkest moments of your life could become the foundation for your greatest transformation? Meet Jason Julian, our inspiring guest on the Successful Life Podcast, as he recounts his remarkable journey from the depths of addiction to a thriving career in the HVAC industry. Born into a family rich in building trade expertise, Jason once felt out of place, seeking solace in drugs and alcohol. Through his candid storytelling, Jason reveals the pivotal moments that steered him towards recovery, including a life-altering car accident and a profound spiritual awakening, culminating in over 12 years of sobriety.
Jason’s recovery story is one of perseverance and humility. He shares how hitting rock bottom became a blessing in disguise, pushing him towards a path of service and growth. Jason’s experiences in the 12-step program taught him the power of taking humble steps, from making coffee at meetings to embracing roles in his career that foster emotional maturity. Through his journey, he learned to prioritize solutions over sales, demonstrating that success in life and business hinges on genuine service to others. This episode uncovers how these lessons in humility have shaped Jason's approach to business, focusing on customer needs and satisfaction above all else.
Throughout our conversation, we explore the profound impact of community and support in overcoming addiction and finding purpose. Jason highlights the importance of taking life one step at a time, the value of authentic connections, and the empowering process of recovery. By sharing personal anecdotes and insights, Jason offers hope and guidance to those facing similar struggles or seeking a more fulfilling life. Join us for an enlightening episode that underscores the power of resilience, the joy of providing solutions, and the liberation found in choosing personal responsibility over victimhood.
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Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I'm your host, Corey Barrier, and I'm here with my friend, Jason Julian. What's up, brother? What's happening? Good to see you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you too, man.
Speaker 1:So Jason has been a very dear friend of mine for several years now I don't know how long and has helped me through several times, helped me through issues that I've had in recovery, or even actually you coached me on when I was going to give a talk, to give my story. You really walked me through the way to do that and I'm really grateful for you.
Speaker 2:It's mutual man.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that. So, jason, for those that may or may not know, you just give us a bit better background on yourself and the business and all that good stuff.
Speaker 2:All right. So since we're talking about recovery, I did not get into HVAC until after I was already in recovery.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I didn't know that. A little background on myself. I grew up in a family business. My father owned a cabinet shop and we did high-end custom cabinetry all over the United States, even outside the United States, so quality was such a big key of our lives of doing things the right way. So I grew up in a family with high expectations and my family has always been involved in the building trades of some sort. My uncle and cousin are home builders. My father was a home builder until he broke out and started doing cabinetry. I have another uncle and cousin who were plumbers. So being in the trades has always been a part of my DNA.
Speaker 2:And at a time in my life after a serious bout with drugs and alcohol in my life, after a serious bout with drugs and alcohol, I was given the opportunity to work for a guy in heating and air and I was actually disabled at the time.
Speaker 2:I'd had a really bad car accident and was disabled for many years and the year I got sober I'd been in jail a few times and the year I got sober I'd been in jail a few times and the third time that I got out of there I really started making recovery a part of my life and six months after my last time of using, I got a part, had changed my people, places and things. I did not have the same associates around me, so I was ready for something new and I was soaking it all up. By the time I got out of jail, I didn't have a job, I didn't have a phone and I didn't have a car. I didn't have a job, I didn't have a phone and I didn't have a car. And six months into being sober, I got an opportunity to work with a guy doing heating and air and he started teaching me all about it. Up until that point, go ahead.
Speaker 1:You're going to ask a question Well, so I was just going to ask. So you've been, you've been sober a little over 12 years at this point, right.
Speaker 2:Now, yeah, just celebrated 12 years, december 7th, pearl Harbor day.
Speaker 1:It's amazing. So I want you to, I want you to take us back to what led you up to that getting sober point. We all have a bottom, so to speak, and my bottom was I had three DUIs. I had 2005,. I got caught trafficking cocaine. Well, 2009, I had the blow thing in my car and I blew into it after I'd been drinking, and it immediately reports to the DMV and you have to explain yourself. And, quite frankly, jason, I'm really shocked that I walked out of there with a driver's license. The lady said if you ever come back in here again, you will never drive again. And so that was my. I had a choice to make you will never drive again, and so that was my. I had a choice to make I could either go down this shitty road that I'd been going down or I could make a change, and and so that was my bottom, if you will. So where, when was that for you? What happened?
Speaker 2:Well it's, it's chopped up, there's. It's a big, long story. I don't know if we have time for all of it, but I'll try to keep the key details there. So I started drugs at a very young age. Like I mentioned earlier, my family very high achievers, very quality-minded, a lot of expectations, and at a young age I didn't fit the mold. I didn't feel comfortable, even in my own family. I'm not into sports. All my older brothers have three older brothers. They were all into sports. They were really good at sports. I was not.
Speaker 2:I never felt really comfortable growing up as one of Jehovah's Witnesses. We were different than most of the kids we went to school with. So there was this all a feeling, probably as far back as I can remember, that I'm different, I'm not accepted, I'm not there. Because I didn't get involved in some of the things that most kids that I was growing up with did no birthday parties, no Christmas gifts and all that kind of stuff, and so, even though my parents did a good job of explaining to us why we didn't participate in those things, I always felt left out, different, not good enough, and so when I found drugs and alcohol at an early age man I was. This was great. I didn't have all these expectations on me from my dad and from associates and friends. I was free. So I felt a sense of belonging because there I was, my family's doing this and my dad expects this.
Speaker 2:When I got loaded, man I was. It was all it was. I felt comfortable in my own skin and that was a lifesaver for a long time because I was. I've always been a happy person and enjoyed where I'm at. But inside, the real Jason inside was always feeling left out, not good enough, that kind of stuff. Well, man, you give me some kind of substance. It doesn't really matter what. It is Something that changes how I'm feeling. Man, I was all over it.
Speaker 2:So I was instantly attracted to that euphoria I got when I put substances in my body, so started drugs early, early age. My dad took my brothers and I out of school early so we stopped going to public school and we started working full time. Ever since I was in kindergarten we would walk to my dad's shop after school to clean up and work. So we've always been involved in working. But the last year I was in public school was seventh grade. I got pulled out of school and started working 40 hours a week and doing a correspondence school, and so, anyway, let's get back to what you're talking about. Drugs were always mostly a part of my life and I had successfully used, without getting caught or in trouble, for many years.
Speaker 1:And what kind of drugs are we talking about?
Speaker 2:Well, I had tried. Alcohol was the first. Alcohol was readily available in my home, so sneaking a little bit of alcohol was easy and it was always available. But I think I was probably 12 years old the first time I smoked weed and I found a kid at school who I knew. He hung out with my older brother and his older brother and that's how I knew I had a brother that used drugs and so I always looked up to him and wanted to be like him. So I gravitated towards that type of environment. So I started with smoking weed and there was other things available. Like I said, my older brother and his friends did drugs. So sneak into his room and oh what's this little white powder I got introduced to.
Speaker 2:Cocaine and methamphetamine was around the little town that I was at. I stayed away from all the pills and things like that. I didn't do any kind of opiates for a long time but I tried everything else. Lsd was around. I gravitated towards the group that was having fun and doing this stuff. So I had tried almost every drug that I could, except for heroin and opiate by the time I was 15.
Speaker 1:Being in such a tight-knit family with your dad and he just didn't know.
Speaker 2:So my dad grew up in the 60s in Southern California and he and my uncle lived in Hawaii and they told stories. I had one uncle who was still a pothead and had lots of stories, so we knew about drugs. The type of music we listened to lent itself towards that lifestyle so I was always interested in it. Like I said, when I found alcohol I was probably eight or nine the first time I stole some alcohol and got really sick drunk from that and it was terrible and horrible but I wanted more that. And it was terrible and horrible but I wanted more.
Speaker 2:Early on, Like, I was always interested in that, I wanted to do better. I came from this family of high achievers so when I got into the drug world I wanted to be the best at what I was doing. So I was willing to try anything that was there. I'll take as much as I can get. I'll take as much as I can get.
Speaker 2:And that kind of fed into the ego. When I started hanging out with peers my age I was already experienced, I knew where to get it that kind of fed, this improper desire that I had inside to do more, to do better, and I always wanted to take it to another level. Because you were the man. Well, and I was the youngest of four brothers, so I was always last in line when it came to them. And so since I started my drug exploration before a lot of the people my age, I was the experienced one.
Speaker 2:I was the one that they made fun of for a lot of years because I was this weird druggie. And then when they got older and wanted to start experimenting, they came to me because they knew I knew about it and so that kind of gave me a false sense of superiority or whatever. I was the man in a couple of the circles I ran in and all that did was feed my ego, you know, and it fueled my desire to do more. And back to what we were saying is I used drugs from early on and it didn't really have a detrimental effect as far as getting in trouble with the police. My family, like my dad, worked a lot, so we were always working and out. So when he was gone I would act out and there were ways around it. I just didn't get caught. I was slick enough to find my opportunities and I used them really well.
Speaker 1:I would so. When's the first when? When did it? When was the first crash? When did it first cause you?
Speaker 2:problems. It's funny you say crash, because I was involved in a really bad car accident in 2010. By this time, I was married and had two children, and one part of the story that I didn't tell you is when I, when my wife, got pregnant with our first child, which was 2004,. Because she got pregnant, I decided I wanted to change and do something different. So I knew I had good parents and a good family, and so when I was bringing a child into this world, I had a little bit of a desire to stop using into this world. I had a little bit of a desire to stop using, and so, about six months after we found out she was pregnant, I stopped using all illegal drugs and I stopped smoking cigarettes, but I didn't stop drinking. And see, that's the part of my story that I didn't realize, because I wouldn't have thought of myself as an alcoholic. Right, I was a drug user. I liked it all, sure. So I had a mentor at the time that really spent some time with me and restarted a Bible study, and I wanted to get my life more in line with what my creator wanted, based on my study of the scriptures, and so I was able to in about six months of a progressive Bible study, use what I was learning to help me to stop using the illegal drugs. And in my mind because I'm not sticking needles in my arm anymore and I'm not taking acid on the weekends it was okay for me to drink because it was legal, and so I didn't realize the things that were going on in my body and in my mind when I take a substance in. I was feeling good about myself hey, I'm not doing these drugs, I'm going to do something good for my family. So I stopped doing that and I stopped hanging out with all the people that were doing that.
Speaker 2:But slowly, over that four years I had a four year period where I didn't do illegal drugs and I didn't smoke. Cigarettes progressively got worse and I didn't even see it or notice it. But I'm thinking to myself God's okay with me because I'm not doing the hard stuff. It's okay for me to drink a little bit more. And as I look back on it I can see how it progressed. And then, at four years of not using those, the alcohol got worse and I put myself in situations around people that were using and it just took a very little bit to start me back into the drugs.
Speaker 2:Four years clean from those and somebody hands me a couple of hydrocodone at work one day because I hurt my back. I wasn't even thinking that I was doing drugs because I wasn't taking this to get high. But someone said, hey, I've got a couple of hydros in there because I twerked my back and I was in pain and I'm like OK, cool, no problem. Like I said, I wasn't thinking that I was taking drugs because it wasn't to get high. But I felt good after that and then it became easier that when it was presented to me again I was like yeah, sure, I'll take a few more. And I had never been into pain pills or opiates at all.
Speaker 2:Started with a couple of hydros, less than a year later I was shooting up meth and Oxycontin every week. So I was four years away from the drugs. The alcohol was flowing like crazy and that was getting worse to using a couple of hydros and then in less than a 12 month period I was consistently using meth again, shooting it up and mixing it with opiates. And that just started a whole thing. Because she got pregnant with our first child, I decided to stop. We ended up having another child and soon after that is when I started the drugs again with those hydrocodones, and it took off and I was worse off then than I was when I had stopped, because I just could not stop putting stuff in. Yeah, so that was a big deal, but I had made it up into that point without having any serious legal troubles or getting caught or anything like that. It took another few years before the results started happening.
Speaker 2:The year I got sober 2012,. I had gone to jail a couple of times, but let me reverse that. 2012 is when I got sober. 2010 is when I had a car accident. So that was the real big first crash and big result is I was messed up.
Speaker 2:I woke up in the hospital a couple of months after we had this car wreck. I had a trach helping me breathe. I had messed up every internal organ but my heart. I broke my back in three places. I woke up in a hospital tied down because, they said before I regained consciousness, I was ripping all the cords out of me and all the stuff helping me stay alive, and I spent 18 out of 24 months in the university hospital in Arkansas 18 months, 18 months.
Speaker 2:I was unconscious for two months and I wake up and I at this time because, because my drug use had progressed, I had lost contact with my family. They didn't want anything to do with me. So my dad, brothers, mom, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews I hadn't had contact with them for a couple of years. And when I wake up in the hospital, I hadn't had contact with them for a couple of years. And when I wake up in the hospital, they're all standing around me thinking I was about to die. They didn't know what was going on. Broken back, I lost a third of my liver, a third of my colon, a kidney, my gallbladder, my pancreas was detached. I was in bad shape. So that was the first big consequence of my using. That had happened, and how did you crash the car?
Speaker 1:I know you were intoxicated, but what happened?
Speaker 2:So I didn't actually crash the car. An associate of mine was driving my car. I was passed out in the passenger seat and apparently he thought it was a good idea for us to leave the house we were at and we were headed from Little Rock, arkansas, to Oklahoma for some reason. I don't know if we were going to get drugs or a party or something, but we jumped in the car. He put me in the car and started driving and got about 40 miles down the road and flipped the car. They said the car flipped end over end for over 300 feet. The police report's pretty crazy and I had stayed in the car.
Speaker 2:He got ejected from the car and he spent about two weeks in the hospital. I spent 18 out of 24 months in the hospital. My seatbelt caused a lot of internal damage to my abdomen and, like I said, I can't really remember. Two weeks before that accident I was on a heroin binge that lasted for a couple of weeks and ended up with me in the hospital. Heroin binge that lasted for a couple of weeks and ended up with me in the hospital.
Speaker 1:So just curious, what was the bill from 18 months in the hospital?
Speaker 2:Millions of dollars. They wrote it off. They didn't think I was going to make it out of the hospital. So it was millions and millions of dollars and they wrote it off. At the time I was in the hospital. Through the physical recovery and all the stuff going on, my stepmother and father helped me to apply for disability and I was put on disability and they and I'd been working from an early age on so I'd been paying in for many years. So I had, after about a year of trying, I finally was able to get on disability and they, like I said, they wrote off a bunch of bills.
Speaker 2:I was in UAMS, which is the state hospital in Arkansas. It's a university teaching hospital and best care ever. They were great. But at that time they didn't even think I was going to stay in recovery. I remember my dad telling me years after I got sober that the nurses and doctors were telling him hey, this kid isn't going to make it, he does not want to stay sober. I had so much physical pain that they I left the hospital. On pain medicine. They gave me a prescription for fentanyl. So I'm in there for heroin and whiskey car wreck and I leave with a legal prescription now for fentanyl, which I'd already been misusing for quite some time, and so, being a drug addict, my body doesn't know if it's prescribed or not. I'm going to misuse it. So the only safe thing for me is complete abstinence. I can't handle prescription pain medicine or anything like that, because my body will take over my mind or my mind will take over my body. One or the other one is going to win, and because I'm a drug addict, I'm going to misuse it.
Speaker 2:So you know that about myself now or you were.
Speaker 1:You were still married, your wife still married, still there the kids. So she sat for 18 months with you in the hospital.
Speaker 2:Yeah, back and forth. I would come home for a week and go back in for a month. I would come home for two or three days and then go back in. So I was back and forth for that 18 months or that two years and it was a total of 18 months actually in the hospital, many surgeries. So that's not even where the story gets. Really weird is that happened in 2010. 2012 is when I got sober. So they had sent me from the hospital on fentanyl and all this stuff me from the hospital on fentanyl and all this stuff.
Speaker 2:That year, 2012, I had gone to jail three times. So I was in it for drugs and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not every time were there drugs, but drugs were always involved and I was high every time. I went to jail. The first couple of times, she bailed me out after a few days and I just resumed my life of using and lying and cheating and stealing and all the things that go along with my lifestyle. And the third time that I went to jail, which was December 7th, was the last time I used. She left me in there. So I stayed in there for several months and it took about two weeks of being in jail that I finally was ready to ask for help, ask a higher power, ask God for help to stop what I was doing.
Speaker 2:I had been involved in recovery for those two years. So I was going to recovery meetings but I wasn't staying sober because I had a legal prescription for drugs. Because I had a legal prescription for drugs and so I could never get the substances out of my body long enough to actually rely on God's strength to help me stay sober. And so I went through all the withdrawals in jail, violent seizures and like just it was terrible. I was in bad shape for the first two weeks after going to jail because I had nothing in my system and I had to go through it. I was pretty messed up. But because I'd been going to recovery meetings for quite some time for about a year or two and a half years I was finally ready. I started using the experience, strength and hope that other people said in meetings. And the funny thing is the jail that I went to was on the backside of the jail. About a hundred feet away was the recovery house. So I was in jail wishing I was at the recovery meetings with everybody in there because I'm so close. Yet I'm in a block wall man. I'm so close to where the recovery was, I just couldn't get there and I was finally. My circumstances finally made me willing to try something new, and that something new was praying about it and then working in harmony with my prayers, like I really wanted to live at that time. So that started my journey into real recovery, because up until that point I'd never worked any steps. I didn't admit that. I was powerless over any, any of it.
Speaker 2:And six months later I got a job, part-time, with a guy doing heating and air. So at that time I was ready. I had no friends, like I said no phone, no car, no job, nothing. I was still disabled, so disability was helping pay my bills. So I focused on recovery and I focused on HVAC. So having something to do in recovery was very instrumental because I'm used to always running and gunning and scheming and trying these different things that now I had something. I had my recovery meetings and I had heating and air and I was so ready to start something new so I dove right in.
Speaker 2:This guy was a one man show with a helper. His helper didn't show up. So that's how I got the job and I could only work so many hours per week. So I worked part time for the first year and a half of doing HVAC. I worked 10, 11 hours a week and when I wasn't working with him I was reading books.
Speaker 2:I grabbed his refrigeration books and started reading and I didn't understand any of it.
Speaker 2:I didn't know anything about electrical, I didn't know anything about the refrigeration cycle, but I was slowly on the job, training, learning how to change parts. So I was a parts changer for a long time, not understanding why I'm changing these parts. I would just go, we would diagnose that it's broken. I would get the part, wire for wire, change it out, but I didn't really understand. So, as I'm reading these books and it's not making sense, but I'm doing it every day, slowly and surely some of it started to click and I developed a passion and a love for it. Because when you're a heating and air guy and you go to somebody's house, they have a problem, you're there to fix it and get them back up and running and there's a good feeling when it comes to doing something like that. I'm now the hero of this family who has no air and it's a hundred degrees outside and everybody's sweating the dog's panting and nobody's happy. And I come and do my thing and now they're all happy again and they give me money.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So I fell in love with it and I really, like I said, I'd gotten rid of all my old friends and associates. The first couple of years of being sober, I still didn't have contact with my family. They didn't believe that I had changed.
Speaker 1:Sure Well, a lot of proof there, right yeah?
Speaker 2:So, no, no real contact with my family, my dad and brothers and mom and all the family that are close knit. I wasn't a part of that. The only only people I had in my life were my wife and my two daughters, and my recovery, friends and recovery and fellowship and connection was so huge because now I had people that didn't have expectations of me. They loved me even though I had done things that were terrible and horrible, and they kept teaching me that, hey, that's something you did. That's not necessarily who you are. Who are you, jason? What are you going to do about it? This happens. You can do this or you can not do this or not do this. What are you going to do?
Speaker 2:My sponsor was really big on not giving me advice and telling me what to do. He would lay out options and say, hey, I can't do this for you. Out options and say, hey, I can't do this for you. This is what you're dealing with. You could do this or this and it might bring about this or this. What are you going to do? And any choice I made, he was going to love me anyway, but he didn't enable me. He didn't act like he was superior to me by telling me what to do. He wasn't there to fix me. He was there to share his experience. Hey, when I was in this situation, this is what I did, whether it was good or bad. These were the results. What do you want your results to be? What are you going to work for? What are you going to do? You either can or you can't. You either will or you won't.
Speaker 2:And he helped me to see that. It was my idea to choose the next right thing or not. There was always an option and at that point, I didn't feel or know that I had options. When I got upset or I felt bad about myself, I used drugs to feel better. If you pissed me off, I would use drugs at you to deal with the feelings, because I didn't know how to have a relationship with people. I didn't know that I could set boundaries, I didn't know that I could say no to you. I just reacted.
Speaker 2:And he taught me how to respond to situations by thinking about it and, first off, not taking substances in. That was the biggest key is I had to stop starting. Once I take something in, whether it's alcohol or any other drug, my body develops that phenomenon of craving and I can't stop once I start and I didn't know that, but I see it now. I look at every time that I used something, even though I didn't really want to like I knew I wanted to change, but if I took it in it was all over. I could not stop until I was either stopped, ran out or in jail. And that's where I found myself, man. I was there and I was actually ready to try what other people had done to see if it would work for me. That's where the experience, strength and hope of recovery comes in is if I had people in my circle that are willing to share what happened to them. Now I have an opportunity to either use what they did or not.
Speaker 2:As my sponsors say, you can either do this or not. You can either come to meetings or you don't. You can ask God for help or you don't. What do you want to do, jason? And he's like I can't do it for you.
Speaker 2:I mean, there were many times that he would spend hours with me. I would be sharing my life and story and stuff with him and he wouldn't say, oh, you should do this or you. He would just listen and say you know what man I felt similar. This is what I did. Or hey, you know what? I don't have any experience with what you're dealing with, but I know somebody in recovery that does. Let me call them and see if it's okay to give them your number, or give you their number. Maybe they can help you with their experience, maybe not. It was always a maybe or not.
Speaker 2:And it taught me that if I really want something bad enough, I'm going to put in the work to get it. And the other thing is there is a power outside of myself that can give me strength when I need it, if I choose to ask for it and then work in harmony with that prayer. I can't just have the prayer of oh my God, I'm feeling terrible. I never want to do this again. It's more like, hey, I need help, I'm willing to do it If my sponsor says hey, it might be good to volunteer some of your time and go clean the toilets at the recovery house.
Speaker 2:That was my opportunity to serve the other people. I don't want to clean that nasty toilet from a recovery house, right. But I learned that if I did that, I was staying out of myself, I was giving myself something to do and it was benefiting others, and that was the key that my sponsor helped me to see is if I could benefit others. Now I'm useful. Now I'm not a piece of shit. Right Now I'm not so far gone that I can't be of service to somebody else, and that's where the recovery helped me the most was learning how to be involved in service, serve my fellow man, be there for somebody else.
Speaker 1:So when did you? When did? And I can understand everything that you're talking about. You're 100% correct. So when did you start to see? For me, it was really hard to see the promises when I first came in, so when did you start? Recovery of the 12-step program that we're referring to, there's promises that come after certain periods of time.
Speaker 2:Sometimes those promises come quickly, sometimes they come slowly, but they do come as long as you work for them as long as you work for them, right, yeah, so that was a very instrumental part of working with my sponsors going through those promises that the book talks about, selfishness will disappear. The right thought will come intuitively after working the steps. So part of my steps were recognizing where what I was powerless over, which is damn near everything except for my own choices, that's right. And when I start doing these things man, it did my fear of financial insecurity left. I have a job. I can work for what, what pays my bills and what feeds my family.
Speaker 2:I stopped looking for how it benefits just me. How is this going to benefit other people? It was a total. The recovery book that I refer to calls it a psychic change. It's a psychological adjustment from the way I used to perceive things to a way of how can I be of service, how can I do something that's going to benefit others, not just me, because I've benefited me for most of my life. It was all about how is Jason going to benefit from this? I would tell you whatever I thought you wanted to hear, so I could get whatever you had in the pocket.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:In my old life lifestyle I would lie, cheat, steal to get what I wanted and it was all about me. I would make up excuses on why I was late, why I couldn't go pick up my daughter, and my wife would have to do it. Um, I'd make up excuses why we didn't get as many grocery because I had spent the majority of the money on heroin. I would lie to people to get money so I could buy groceries and pay the bills. My grandparents lived out in California and I conned my grandfather out of sending me money so I could pay the house payment because I was loaded all the time.
Speaker 2:Getting into recovery I learned that, hey, I can show up and make coffee. That's not a whole lot, but you know what, when somebody's coming into their meeting or their first time and they're having a tough time, a warm cup of coffee and somebody's there to listen to what's going on is so valuable. I could do that. I can show up early and make coffee and sweep the floor, make sure the bathroom had toilet paper in. There I learned a new way of thinking respond, not react. And I can't say. Your question was how long did it take for some of those promises? Probably a couple of years before I even realized them.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe the first one was getting that part-time job right Because statistically looking at your situation drug addict, you've been in the hospital for 18 months, you're disabled Chances of getting a job's not great.
Speaker 2:No, it was definitely a blessing, and I guess I didn't realize those at first because everything was happening. It was new to me because up until that point, drugs had always been a part of my daily life, and so I learned how to have a relationship with another person. I learned how to be honest. Hey, you know what, corey, I know you need help on this, but you know what? I just don't have time. I don't have to tell you, yeah, man, I'm going to help you and then not show up because I didn't have time. I was a yes man. I would tell you whatever you wanted to hear, so that you would like me, or that I would feel good about myself. Now I can say you know what, man, I really don't have time. I wish I could help you, corey, but I've got this and this going on, so I'm not going to be able to and know that it was okay.
Speaker 2:People in recovery were okay with you being honest with them. I wasn't used to that. I was in the drug world of. I'm going to tell you what you want to hear, and I was in the drug world of. I'm going to tell you what you want to hear, and I was around people that lied about everything, and so that became a way of life. Recovery taught me it's okay to say no and it's okay to get out of my comfort zone and do something, even if I didn't really want to, if I knew it would benefit other people. Man, there was satisfaction in that and joy in that, and so I just I learned to actually be an emotional grownup being in recovery.
Speaker 1:Well, the other thing, too, that you mentioned is going to make coffee or sweeping the floors or cleaning the toilets. That's also that's. I think that's a huge part of this, because naturally, we are very prideful people, very ego driven. And who the fuck are you to tell me I should go clean a toilet? That's the first thought, but by doing that, it slowly humbles you right. And I'll tell you another thing. I thought about taking that part-time job.
Speaker 1:My experience when getting sober both times has been I have to take a job that I'm either either I think I'm overqualified for or maybe I'm overqualified for. But I have to take a job that is going to put me in my place and humble me before I can ever get to the place that I think I need to be. And those are the stepping stones to getting to the life that you really want. But you got to take that first step. I remember in 2009, I took a job at Five Guys, completely beneath me, like, like. It was the worst thing I could possibly think of is I had to flip burgers at five guys. I didn't do it long. I did it long enough to get to the next step, which was like an italian restaurant, but, like when I got to the italian restaurant, it was like I felt like I was at the damn Taj Mahal, right. I felt like I had just completely elevated my status but I had to do it and you know what?
Speaker 2:It's pretty interesting that you say that, because one of the first jobs I had while still while on disability, before I got the job at the HVAC company, was I worked at Taco Bell. Yeah, and I definitely felt like that was beneath me. I grew up in a family business. That was a trade. I knew how to do something that was seemingly higher value and it really did humble me because and I will never regret that experience I met some people. It's still the boss I had at Taco Bell. She was so good at her job and she did it well.
Speaker 2:Even the people I worked with, I mean, it humbled me enough. I was embarrassed that if anybody walked in and saw me, because here's this guy that's always had this job. He was traveled and I worked doing high-end custom cabinetry. And here I am, I'm working at Taco Bell. But I was so humbled to work there and I benefited more from there than any of the higher seeming jobs that I've had, because, man, there were some really good people there. Man, there were some really good people there. They followed a process to get things done and they did it well.
Speaker 2:Dealing with the public is not nice, man, I'm telling you. Sometimes you can do everything that you think's right and somebody's going to gripe and moan and complain about it. And working in food service at a fast food place definitely humbled me and I'm grateful for that experience. So it's it's cool to hear that you had a similar experience working at five guys. Man, it was a job, it was work. It was something that I ended up then. Now I'm proud that I was to be a part of it, especially with the team that I was with yeah, yeah, it's interesting because I see there's a guy that I used to sponsor.
Speaker 1:He went away and got some help. He relapsed again and grew up in a very well-to-do family they're still well-to-do right and I see he's probably not going to take that job at Five Guys. He's probably not going to take a job at Taco Bell because he believes he needs to be at this certain level. And I can see because I've been there and I can see because I've been there and the it's he's never going to be able to get to the job that he thinks he should get to until he takes a job below what he believes he should be doing. And it's just. I don't know how to explain it. It is part of the process and you either surrender to it and take the shitty job or you keep on the treadmill of wishing you could find a job, which really is just going to lead you right back, most likely to another relapse over and over.
Speaker 2:It reminds me of one of the vacation movies where Cousin Eddie was out of work. He said so you're still out of work. He's like, yeah, I'm holding out for a management position, Exactly.
Speaker 2:Exactly humility is not fun while it it is, while we're being humbled in a situation, but what it builds on the other end is so much greater than what we've got. What I went through yeah, I can't speak for anyone else. I can speak for myself. Being humbled and going through a situation that I felt was beneath me helped me learn that nothing is beneath me. I own a heating and air company here in Heber Springs, arkansas, and you know what? I clean bathrooms here, I sweep up, I clean up trash. If I show up on a job and my guys are working really hard, I will be the cleanup man. I will go pick up the trash, I will sweep, I will carry it to the dumpster. I will get dirty and not to. Oh, look at me, look what I'm doing. It's more of this needs to be done. Somebody else is doing something else. Man, I'm not too good to do this part of it, and that's a huge part of my life now is. I'm not too good for anything. I am very grateful to be alive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a hundred percent, dude. And look, that also shows your team members that, oh, he's not, he's not the boss that just says, hey, you need to go do this. It builds a culture of you know the employee that sees you do that. They can't not do it because you've done it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's one of those things that my dad taught us growing up. My dad, I had to go. I was telling you, when I was in kindergarten, we walked to my dad's shop after school and we would clean bathrooms, we would take out the trash. That started early on, and the cool thing about my dad is he was the owner of his company, but I saw him doing some of the so-called menial tasks of cleaning something out, the stuff that nobody really wanted to do. That's not the fun stuff or the glamorous stuff, and that did help us respect what he asked us to do, and so I incorporate that here at our shop. There's nothing that's too good for any one of us to do. I don't care. Titles and positions don't mean what some people think they mean. That just means you're in a higher level of service.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I am here to serve the people here, not the other way around. They're not here to serve my needs, like you said, hey, you go do this. It's more like, hey, help me, let's get this done. Let's do this together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know Well and I think, Jason, that I think that explains or is a good illustration of why your business does what it does and why it's been successful is, if not a, it's not a sale. You show up to the customer's house, just like you showed up today, and the goal was to solve the problem and get paid, but not get paid for solving the problem. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and you know what that's. One of the things that I love about this is because I'm not salesy and I'm not, and I have learned that in this trade, in any trade you have, a person has to be a salesman of some sort salesperson to get the job done, because that's what keeps it going. But when you go in and you show somebody, I'm here to solve your problem, and one of the things that I love about my approach when I'm dealing with a customer is you tell me what you want, corey, what's your main focus in on this next project? What do you want to get out of it? Okay, so I take your feedback. You tell me you want this, this, you really have to have this.
Speaker 2:Okay, so let me present some options for you. You said I want this, this option has this, this other option has this, and then something else that you said you would like. This other one has even more. What do you want to do? What's your priority? This one costs this much. This one costs this much. This one costs this. I can do all of them for you. You're going to have to make the choice and choose which one you want. This level gets this. The cool thing is, all the options I presented to you are going to work and I'm going to back them up because we're going to do this to make this happen and we're going to guarantee and warranty this. What do you want to do? And most of the time, people can feel comfortable at any choice, and I want to make you comfortable. I don you want to do, and most of the time, people can feel comfortable at any choice, and I want to make you comfortable.
Speaker 2:I don't want to push a brand, like with HVAC. I don't care what brand the company or the customer chooses, because they're going to get the same level of installation and service, no matter which brand they pick. I don't make the stuff. Even my supplier, my territory manager, doesn't make it. He works for that company, so of course he wants me to sell this particular brand. I really don't care.
Speaker 2:I give the customer the option and say this is going to do this, will do this and this will do this. Any of the choices will work. And you know what I even tell customers even if you choose to go with another company, please make sure that they're giving you this. This is what you asked for Now, the price that another company may give you may be better than what you're seeing from me or not, but if it is, make sure that you're getting this. This is something you have to do and this project, this is a non-negotiable. This has to be done, no matter which brand you pick, no matter which company you pick. If they're going to come in at a lower price or you feel comfortable with them, and they're not going to do this, I want you to know on the front end you're not getting what you need.
Speaker 1:Well, also, though, jason, the product is the product. Really, what they're paying for is to make sure that product gets installed correctly. Yeah, and if you're paying somebody that's got a cheaper price, you can't guarantee his installation. You can guarantee your installation Absolutely, and so that's the key.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter which one they choose If it's installed wrong, you're going to have problems, and that's the key. And it's about educating our customers, no matter what trade we're in, it's educating them. If you choose to do this, this is what you can expect. If you choose to not do do this is what you can expect. If you choose to not do this, this is what you can expect. Right Brands don't solve the problems. Sometimes price doesn't solve the problems. It's actually doing what needs to be done to solve those problems and I don't want to feel on the hook for those. So in my business, one of the biggest keys that I let customers know is this is what calculation on the house, or if one was ever done. I don't know if they built the duct system to handle that size. So when I go in and offer a customer, we're going to do a heat load. If you agree to have us work for you, I'm going to come back in and double check after we shake hands and make the agreement that what I'm presenting to you is going to actually work. If it doesn't, we can adjust from there, because there's been several customers lately that we have gone into and we have put considerably smaller air conditioners in their home than what they currently had. Because the load calc came out to this the duct system could only handle X amount of airflow. I have one lady that just recently we dropped her total heating and cooling load by two tons from what she currently had. Okay, she had six tons of heating and cooling for this house and after we did the load calculation we came in and it was it was. It came down to four tons.
Speaker 2:I met her two weeks after the install at a local store here. Uh, just last week she said my house has never been this comfortable. There are no hot and cold spots. And she said I don't get a big blast of heat and then it get cold and then kick on. She's like the thing constantly runs, but I'm comfortable. And so we took an uncomfortable situation that she had. She needed two systems replaced.
Speaker 2:We did it for her coming in small and it was hard for her to grasp when I told her that the capacity that we're putting in is less than what she had. I showed her that she liked the data from showing her why I choose to put this in. I just told her if she wasn't comfortable with this, maybe she could find another contractor that would be willing to go like for like and she goes, but I wasn't comfortable before I'm like well then, that's, you've got to make that decision, because that's what most of the contractors around our area are like well. Well, that must be right. It's been working for years. Well, she told me herself it wasn't working for years.
Speaker 1:It was working, but she wasn't comfortable it was also overworking if it was two times over.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and it was. It was a waste of electricity and energy sources. She was uncomfortable. So presenting options that meet all of those are what make me the happiest. When I can come in and show somebody hey, this has been wrong for as long as it's been in, but we can make it right and this is what we're going to do. Yeah, it's going to cost this much to get there, but we can do this for you. And then, when the results come, oh man, it's a good feeling that a year or two after doing this, somebody calls you up and says hey, I just want to let you know everything's working like you told me. I'm saving money now.
Speaker 2:I spent a lot more money choosing you on the front end, but it's made itself back in these last couple of years because my electricity bill is down here and my comforts up here. I didn't know I could be this. I was scared to spend $20,000, $30,000 on this when another guy gave me a bid for 15 or 10. And you told me it was going to be this. And she's like it is. This is amazing and that gives me some great satisfaction is I don't want to just?
Speaker 2:I don't want to just be a salesman and sell somebody a product. I want to fix their problem. I want to solve it and give them a solution, and I get more joy out of that than the excitement of the sale. There isn't excitement when somebody buys something from you. There's endorphins that kick in and there's things that go on, but it's the year or two or three or five years later that somebody comes back and says man, thank you so much. We would have been so unhappy if we had chosen something else, because this is doing what you said it would do. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And in the end that other unit if you would have switched it like flight is going to 100% cost them more because the energy savings. If you break all that down to the customer and explain how much, with the tax credits, the energy savings, at the end of it they're spending $5,000 or $6,000 on that unit, opposed to that $15,000 plus another $15,000 in energy. Right, it is hard for people to understand, but when you break it down and you take the time to explain how it works, it's a no brainer.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, and that's why I like being a part of a lot of the industry groups that are learning and educating technicians and business owners on how to provide this to the customer, because it's a win for everyone. It's a win for the customer, it's a win for the company because they're selling better projects that increase their revenue but also give the customer longevity, and it's good for the industry. There's a lot of improvements that can be made in this industry, and being a part of those on the front end helps me feel good at night. Hey, I'm giving the options and whether someone chooses us or not, I'll still shake their hand, see them at Walmart later and be happy and go to bed tonight feeling okay because I gave them honesty and I gave them options. It's their choice.
Speaker 2:Recovery has taught me I'm not responsible for their feelings or their decision and it's out of my control. So if I offer and allow them to either accept or decline, the responsibility lies on them. My responsibility is giving them the right factual information and then being able to deliver on the promises I told them. That is my responsibility and that's up to me. But the choice of what somebody wants to do, man, I can't carry that around. I have so many other things in my life that weigh me down. I don't need the responsibility of their decisions.
Speaker 1:Well, and how much easier is it, jason, to walk into a house with that mindset opposed to I got to make a sale. It's a totally different experience.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, Absolutely. That's one of my favorite things is when I get an opportunity to sit down with customers, especially with both customers, both decision makers in the house or more. Sometimes there's more. Sometimes there's families that they all combine and own a property and they've got to make this decision. If I can sit down and talk with everybody involved in that decision-making process and listen to their concerns, listen to their desires and wants and then show them solutions, everybody feels good about it because they either make the decision to do this or not, but they've gotten all those answers taken out and that alleviates me of the responsibility. I don't want the responsibility to make their decision, but I do want to be able to offer several solutions and know that no matter which one they pick, I can deliver on my end. That's key for me in my business and that's when I try to help train others. I'm not great at it. I don't have the processes lined out the best way yet, but I'm working on it. Yeah, Progress, not perfection.
Speaker 1:Progress, not perfection. That's right, and one of the key things that you have said is not having expectations for anybody, and sometimes it's hard to do, because we do especially put expectations on human beings, and if you do that, you're going to be let down at some point.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. And it's almost counterintuitive to keep those expectations down, especially when you're involved with a lot of people that have a lot of expectations and you see the misery in their lives and their unhappiness because they have these and they don't see how simple it is to discard those expectations, to make the serenity level rise, yep, and do all we can for the day that's. The other thing is I'm only given so much time in any one day to do what I can. What am I going to do with it? My sponsor was like hey, you've got this, what are you going to do with it? You going to save it and keep it all for yourself? Are you going to give a little to others or are you going to do nothing? Just look at it. You have that choice today. Jason is what he would say. Choose wisely. The benefits or the complications are going to come based on your own choices, but you have the ability to make those choices. What are you going to do?
Speaker 1:That's right, yeah, and it's up to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and it's being a recovery is a two edged sword. I feel good, but it it it is. It can be very frustrating dealing with a group of people who don't see the need to take their own responsibility and their own accountability for those actions and realize that their happiness is directly proportional to what they're willing to give. Not the other person, it's not somebody else's fault. I will share something my sponsor was very gracious enough to teach me and he would say, because I would sit there and spend time with him and gripe and loan and bitch about all these terrible things that people did. And he goes Jason, people don't do things to you, people just do things. How you respond to it is going to affect the way you feel about the situation. Don't be a victim. Don't think that this person is doing this to me. This person is just doing it. They're imperfect, just like you. They're going to make decisions based off emotions and feelings instead of facts sometimes. Let them do it. Don't take it personally. It's not personal. They're just people doing things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that has helped save me from a lot of grief and worry about what they choose to do or not do. Right, but that's not the norm, and so it can be frustrating. It can can be frustrating to deal with that, but recovery points me back to myself. Okay, if people are doing this, what am I going to do with it? If I have control over it, then I need to take action. If I have no control, I need to let it go, because all it's going to do is waste my time and energy. If I'm focused on something I can't control.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:Recovery has been such a beautiful thing in my life. It helped me to remain joyous, not necessarily happy. I think joy and happy can get used interchangeably, but they don't mean the same thing. I can be joyful even though I'm going through a tough time. It doesn't mean I'm happy about it. But I can be joyful knowing that what I'm experiencing and what I'm enduring is going to lead to something in the future, and so I can keep my joy even though I'm unhappy. It's beautiful mindset, yeah.
Speaker 1:No, I agree, I totally agree with you there. It's really fascinating, even when you know that you're going through whatever it is, whether it's you know any situation that's hard. The recovery gives us the ability to know there is a light at the end of that tunnel and the next step is going to be something good. If you just sometimes it's one minute at a time, sometimes it's one hour at a time, sometimes it's every day is one day at a time, but going through things and walking through them, there's always something better on the other side, and I think that people I believe that people in recovery have that, and I don't know that other people have the ability to see it like that.
Speaker 2:I experienced that too and all I can do is follow what others who have been through it before me, share my experience with it, my strength and hope that it can be. But ultimately it's up to that other person or persons to choose and, just like my family went through a lot of stuff when I was in recovery and they were just so worried about what was going on. It was out of their control. I had to make it my own. So I have to do that with other people and realize that they have choices to make, good or bad, it's going to benefit them or not, and be okay with it because it's out of my control, yeah.
Speaker 2:So still hard to grasp sometimes oh yeah, and it's hard when you have a big group of people. Owning a business is as its own challenges and problems and it really can affect the day, if I allow it to to sink in there. Yeah, but it's your choice, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, it's your choice, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's your choice. Well, Jason, I've learned a lot today, A lot of stuff I wasn't totally even aware of, but I know that we're getting towards the end here and I just got to tell you how grateful I am that we got to spend this time together today and got to hear this journey that you've been on, Some things I didn't know and then some things I did. But if somebody wanted to reach out to you maybe somebody hears this and maybe they are struggling, whether it be in business or whether it be in recovery where would be a good place for them to reach out to you?
Speaker 2:Probably Okay. Okay, messenger, I have a lot of people that see some of the stuff. That's where I've gotten a lot of contacts over the years, whether it's in recovery. That's where you and I met. Yeah Was seeing each other in different areas and finding out that we had similar things in common and then we acted upon those. People can email me. If somebody wants to, you can email Jason at JulianHeatAndAircom all spelled out, but, man, I appreciate our friendship.
Speaker 2:Corey, it's been amazing the last couple of years working through situations with each other. I won't ever forget pulling into my house and talking with you before you had something important going on and you were asking what I had experienced with that and being able to sit there and share with another person. Not tell them what to do, but like, hey, this is what somebody suggested I did and this is what I did about it and this is how it worked out. Being able to share those kinds of experiences is such a blessing, because I'm not here to tell you what to do, but I can also rejoice in the benefits of what you did do by you sharing it back with me. So it's a, it's an interchange of encouragement and it's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it really is Very grateful for you, my friend. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Right on dude.
