Not a little stumble. A full send. Went down hard enough that my phone left my hand, cleared two steps, and kept going. I watched it bounce away like even it didn't want to be associated with me. Hand torn up. Leg torn up. And the first clear thought in my head, before any of the pain registered, was not "am I hurt." It was "how many people just saw that." The answer was a lot. The beach was packed. And the stretch right in front of me happened to be a row of very attractive women in bikinis, because of course it was. That's just how the math works when you're bleeding and trying to locate your phone. I'm not gonna lie to you. The version of me from a few years ago grabs the phone, does the fake "I'm fine, totally meant to do that" wave, and speed-limps straight to the car. Workout canceled. We don't talk about this again. But I'm standing there doing the math on the slink-away, and it just hit me that walking off bleeding would somehow be more embarrassing than what already happened. Like the fall was an accident. Quitting would've been a decision. So I got up. Wiped the blood on my shorts. And finished the run. In front of everybody. Looking exactly as graceful as you'd imagine. Anyway. We've all got a moment like this. Fell flat, whole world watching. What's yours? Tell me I'm not the only one. P.S. Phone lived. My dignity did not. Pics below after I got home and swabbed the wounds with iodine, you're welcome.

🎉 We Hit 500 Members! 🎉 A huge thank-you to every shop owner and gm in the Technician Find Skool Community. This group keeps growing because of you — your questions, wins, hiring tips, shop stories, and support for other owners. We built this community to help auto repair shop owners find better techs, make smarter hiring moves, and grow stronger teams. Now we’re 500 members strong. That’s a big deal. 🙌 Here’s to more wins, more hires, and more shops getting the help they need. Thank you for being here! — The Technician Find Team

Not many folks talk about this part of owning a shop. Not your coach. Not your parts rep. Not the guy in your 20 Group who's always bragging about his car count. The part where you're doing the revenue. The bays are full. The schedule is packed. Customers are happy. And you still feel like something is wrong. You're tired in a way that a weekend off doesn't fix. You snap at your service advisor over something stupid. You skip your kid's game because there's "too much going on." You sit in the parking lot for ten minutes before walking in because you need to work up the energy to care. The business is running. But it's running you. I want to tell you about a guy named Eddie Lawrence. Eddie is a shop owner. He owns a successful diesel repair shop in Colorado Springs, CO. He was successful by every metric that matters on paper. Revenue was up. Team was solid. Growth was happening. On September 2nd, 2015, at 3:30 in the morning, Eddie was dead on his bathroom floor. His wife Holly found him without a pulse. The EMTs came. They rushed him to the hospital. He spent two days recovering from an internal bleed he didn't even know he had — because he'd been running so hard, for so long, that he'd stopped listening to his own body. Seat belts on. Pedal to the metal. Slam the brakes. Airbags deployed. That was Eddie's operating system. And it almost killed him. He survived. And the first thing he did when he got home was ask himself a question that most business owners never stop long enough to ask: Which parts of my life are out of calibration? Not "how do I grow revenue." Not "how do I hire another tech." Which parts of my life are out of calibration — and what is it costing me? That question led Eddie to build something I think every shop owner in this community should know about. It's called Life Calibration. If anything I just described sounds familiar — even a little — take the self-diagnostic test right now. It's free. It takes 5 minutes. No sales call. No one's going to blow up your phone.

I can't tell you how many times I'm on a call with a shop owner and they say: "I'm drowning. I think I need to hire another tech." And 10 minutes later we realize: Another tech won't fix it. It'll magnify it. Here's what usually happens on those calls. Owner says: "We're booked out two weeks. Cars stacked up. I need another tech." I ask: "How often do your techs wait on approvals? Parts? Dispatch?" Long pause. "Honestly… a lot." "Cool. Then the problem isn't production. It's feeding production." Here's the hard truth nobody wants to hear: When cars are backed up, it's usually NOT because you need more production. It's because: → Work isn't approved fast enough → Parts aren't sourced fast enough → Jobs aren't dispatched fast enough → Tech questions don't get answered fast enough → Cars and keys aren't moved fast enough The real constraint is front-of-house throughput. Hiring a tech first often makes the problem worse—because you're adding horsepower to a system that can't feed it. Let me twist the knife a little more: Every minute a tech waits is a minute you paid for nothing. When techs stand around, owners blame techs… but the shop is usually choking them. Hiring another tech doesn't fix starvation. It just adds another mouth to feed. Your techs aren't the bottleneck. Your front counter is. THE 30-MINUTE BOTTLENECK AUDIT Stop guessing. Measure it for one day. Here's how: Step 1: For one full day, track every time a tech is stopped for a non-wrench reason: Waiting on parts Waiting on approvals Waiting on dispatch/next car Waiting on answers Keys/vehicle movement Step 2: Put a clipboard at the counter. Every time it happens: hash mark. Step 3: At close, answer: What stopped tech momentum most often? What one role or process change removes that stoppage? Step 4: Implement ONE change for 7 days, then re-tally. This isn't theory. This is data. Data kills drama. COPY THIS SCORECARD TECH STOPPAGE SCORECARD (1 day) Waiting on parts: ___

I have to get something off my chest. Back in 2017, I was invited into a small conference room in Burbank, CA to speak to a group of shop owners about digital marketing. After the presentation, this generous group of shop owners invited me into their 20 group, showed me how this industry really works, and trusted me enough to hire my small company for digital marketing. A few months later after working directly with a half dozen shops from that group, I realized that marketing wasn't their real problem. They were drowning trying to find and keep technicians. So we tried things. Hundreds of things. Some worked. Most failed. But over years of testing, the Technician Find process got better and better. Here's what I know now: The process works. It's worked hundreds of times for hundreds of shops. But I still lose sleep when a shop we work with doesn't make a hire. I take it personally. It bothers me in a way that probably isn't healthy. And after thinking long and hard about whether to post this, I realized—what's this community even for if we're not being honest about what's working and what isn't? SO HERE'S WHAT REALLY PISSES ME OFF 👉Shops that hire us, then appoint a busy or disengaged manager to coordinate hiring. Someone who has a dozen priorities higher on their list than hiring. 👉Shops that hire a consultant, then don't return phone calls, emails or take our advice. 👉Shops that don't follow up on applications within 24 hours. 👉Shops that don't leave multiple messages when a candidate no-shows—then give up. 👉Shops that never ask for referrals from every single person they interview. SOME SHOPS ASK IF I OFFER GUARANTEES I tell them I'd love to. The problem? I don't know if they can hold up their end of the bargain. Here's the truth no one wants to say out loud: Hiring is a partnership, not a vending machine. We've worked with shops that roll up their sleeves and consistently hire within 2-3 weeks. It's like clockwork and it's beautiful to watch. We've also worked with shops that sit back, fold their arms, and wait for a unicorn to walk through the door.