Monday Manufacturing Motivation – with Shawn Tierney

Curt Anderson 0:02
Bowser Damon, happy Monday, dude, how are you, man?

Damon Pistulka 0:06
I’m doing well. Kurt ready for today?

Curt Anderson 0:08
Hey, good weekend or what?

Damon Pistulka 0:10
It was a good weekend.

Curt Anderson 0:11
It was a great it was a blessed weekend. Yeah. About a special special day today we have an incredible, wonderful guest. I’m really a great day we’re talking, you know, like you and I love to talk about heroes. It’s Martin Luther King. And just what a great day to celebrate our country and just an incredible hero. How he changed the 20th century. And you know, the I Have a Dream speech in Europe. We might hit that a little bit later in our conversation. I’m going to get an intro going for our amazing, incredible guests. And just what a special day What a special guest, Sean Tierney, Sean, happy Monday, man, how are you today?

Shawn Tierney 0:49
Hey, thank you so much Happy Monday to you as well. Really appreciate you having me on

Curt Anderson 0:55
our privilege, dude, this is, you know, you and I’ve been crossing paths. And finally, you’re on the show here today. And boy, you have a ton going on. So I want to talk about a couple of different things here. You are the King of automation in my little tiny, humble opinion. You’ve got a lot of moving parts going on with your business. And we’re gonna dig into that and on top of it, dude, you are a content machine. So I’d like to you know, we speak to manufacturers here on our program. It’s manufacturing Monday motivation on Martin Luther King Day. So what a great day to be motivated here with our buddy, Sean. Sean, my first question for you today. Okay, we’re talking about heroes. You’re young boy growing up? Who was your hero? Who hero is a little boy growing up?

Shawn Tierney 1:41
That, you know, that’s a great question. Um, you know, it’s funny, because, you know, as a Christian, I have, you know, like, like Martin Luther King, Jr. You know, he was he was a minister. Right? So I have one hero, he’s, he’s my king. And, you know, it’s, it’s the the one answer is always comes back to that, you know, but of course, my dad was my hero. There was a little boy, your dad in mom. Mom was so smart that she was so even though she was a stay at home mom when we were little, you know, she was so smart. Even though she never went to college. She was so smart. And, you know, I remember my mom and dad would jump on all the new tech stuff that comes out. You know, back in the day in the 70s and 80s. When the new tech came out, my mom and dad both good. Both got a personal computer when they first came out and I got my own personal computer too. And they were interested in programming. You know, my dad’s, even though he’s a mechanic, he, he, he was a jack of all trades. He built his own two story garage, you know, and I get the I get to do all those things with them. You know? So yeah, so I mean, those are kind of my heroes. You know, I mean, you know, you know, mom and dad, especially a cost the the King of Kings but then Mom and Dad do.

Curt Anderson 2:59
Well do what it man Damon? And is this just fired today or what man so it’s just right. So we’re talking faith. You know, your hero and faith. You were talking Martin Luther King, Jr. We’re talking about Martin Luther King being on Martin Luther King Day, Mom and Dad and Sean What are mom and dad’s names just to give a little shout out. Oh, Stephen and Karen, Stephen and Karen. So hey, God bless Stephen and Karen for just this inspiration. Yeah, it’s about like that original computer is it? Is it over your shoulder? It’s not behind you. Is it? I’m just kidding. Right. So just kidding. So it’s great that mom and dad were like on the forefront cutting edge by you know, first computer, your non pitcher and you know, all of us are from you know, back in the day 70s 80s were probably playing our pong or whatever it was called an Atari and whatever. The latest video game right, Damon? Yep. So what

Damon Pistulka 3:49
was your first computer shot?

Shawn Tierney 3:51
Well, the first computer I used at school was an apple two. I think a lot of people are familiar with that. My friend we had I think we had one of everything at the house. My parent, my first computer was a Commodore VIC 24 pricing, pricing wise. And I had some friends at school who had them and really loved them in a class mom had the ti 99. For a I believe it was my brother had the the I think it was the ZX ad and you know, it goes on and on.

Curt Anderson 4:20
Oh, that’s great. That’s awesome. So, Shawn, let’s go here. So guys, happy Monday, happy Martin Luther King Day. We’re here with our buddy Sean. Sean, I just chopped your LinkedIn. In the chat box there guys. We encourage you. We invite you We implore you connect with Sean. Sean. We’ve got a couple folks here we’ve got our dear friend Diane is in the house. He’s saying hello. Hey, happy Monday. Happy Martin Luther King Day to you my friend. Thanks for joining us. Guys. If you’re here, drop us a note. Let us know that you’re here. Connect with our buddy Sean Sean. So let’s dive right in. So you’re kind of like leading up to my next question is like we almost had this prepared, but you know, your talents, your skills, your superpowers are all around tech. And we’re gonna dig into Like you know your your business you have multiple moving parts automation blog, you have the automation school and we’re gonna get into details. But what led you to bring in your superpowers your talents into the world of technology, automation in particular. But you know, when you’re a young man like just coming out of high school college, what led you down this past?

Shawn Tierney 5:19
Well, you know, I spent a lot of time in my youth, my misspent youth, before I had a car programming, so from my preteen years, to the point where a car and doing those type of things was more important, just program program program. So when it came time to go to college, I said, you know, I want to do electronics, because I spent so much time programming, I figured I wanted to do some hands on build stuff, like my father did build stuff, build electronic circuits. And so great, great course that I went through, at doing the Institute of Technology, really enjoyed it lots of hands on, and that school was a little expensive for us being lower middle class, but But you know, really learned it. And so then, you know, I had a couple jobs, and I stumbled into the automation industrial automation, because they were looking for somebody who knew pa PCs and PLCs. And I told my wife at the time, I says, I don’t know what that L is, but I know PCs inside and out, right? And so I that’s how I stumbled into this job, work in tech support and did it for 25 years, visited 1000s of factories, met some of the most intelligent, smartest people in the industry, so blessed to have worked with so many great people, both at the vendors, and at the distributors, in the customers just some really smart, both engineers, electricians and technicians. And after 25 years, I get tired of driving. I had a big territory, the people I’ve worked with, for phenomenal, but I was just spending most of my time in the car, you know, spending, you know, six, eight hours a day driving to all these different places to get maybe four to six hours worth of work done. So that’s why I said, Hey, everybody’s telling me they need information that they don’t get to see the salespeople don’t, they don’t get to see the typical people enough. And that’s when I started insights on automation, two parts, the automation blog, the automation show, the automation podcasts, kind of sharing tidbits about automation news and all that. And then on the other side, the automation school where I teach actual online training courses, that tip to help take those people to the next level. Maybe you’re an electrician, you’re a technician, you’re an engineer, and you want to learn PLCs HMI SCADA, we do that at the automation school.

Curt Anderson 7:34
That’s perfect, Shawn. So let’s go here. So, so what we’re hearing a lot of windshield time, but during that time, you know, like the famous saying, Boy, if you pursue your passion, you never work a day in your life, what it sounds like, in the early parts of those 25 years, just you’re really pursuing your passion, helping people understand electronic circuit boards, that whole thing is, is that like, you just felt like this is my calling, like, I’m right where I’m supposed to be. Is that, is that how that went for you?

Shawn Tierney 8:00
Well, it’s you know, I’ve always been a technology enthusiast you know, I’ve always been in, you know, video games, computers, technology, I still remember my, my older brother got his first digital watch, right? I still remember when we got our first VCR first Walkman. First, my first account on CompuServe, I always have been a technology guy, like I still build my own computers, right? I, I taught my kids how to build their own computers, I’ve taught my grandkids how to build their own computers. You know, I’m just a technology guy. You know, I love watching Linus tech tips. And so I love that job. Because I would get the get to take the knowledge I learned at the factory a couple, three, four times, four weeks a year. Yeah. And then I would go out to the field and pass it on to these great people who are changing the world literally changing the world by by making production lines or keeping the utility going or, you know, all the things that they were doing. And now I get to be the conduit of the new information and bring it out to them. And it was fun. But again, after a while you hear the same things over and over again. We need more information, we need to see people more we need affordable training. And so the windshield time, gave me so much time to think about that. I said hey, you know, I’m that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to take a leap of faith, I’m gonna go out and actually create a company that interviews vendors tries to get new information, puts tidbits and takes my own knowledge and shares it with them on the automation blog, but also give them structured courses they can go through at the automation school.

Curt Anderson 9:26
That’s awesome. So let’s go hey, we’ve got our friend Janney great State of Michigan Chani Good morning. I don’t know what time it is. I just I always lose time when I’m having fun, Damon, so good morning. Good afternoon. Happy Martin Luther King Day to everybody. So Danny, thanks for joining us. Good. Sean. I love what you just said in earlier you mentioned you know, your man deepened faith and you talked about taking that leap of faith. So I’m gonna guys I dropped the website in there, the automation blog. So check out Shawn’s website. It is a powerhouse of content. Yeah, you know, you’re working for 25 years. Say there’s somebody out there that you know, they’re working relentlessly and They’re going at it and they’re like, you know, boy, I’d love to be an entrepreneur someday. Take us through I think, would you say 2013? Ish, you know, give or take? What? What was that? Like, you know, family spouse, you know that, that that big decision of taking Oh, man, I’m gonna I don’t have that steady paycheck anymore. I’m gonna I’m starting my entrepreneurial journey. share with folks. What was that like for

Shawn Tierney 10:21
you? Well, I pretty much made every every mistake. Somebody go. So they’ll do what I did. But um, no, I think I think we got to, we got to get rid of the eight to five mythos. Right, we got to destroy that, right? Yeah, you got to, and I’m not saying be a slave. Because so much we’re working all year and half of everything we get taken away from us. That’s wrong, right? So we got to break that down, we gotta get the consciousness of the public, especially in this country, we’re going to break that down, it is wrong, to only get half of what you are. But putting that aside, you know, life isn’t eight to five life is when it happens, right? So so I think, if we can, if we can put our brains around that say, look, let’s just work as hard as we can every day to do as much as we can every day. And, you know, if we get it done in six hours, or nine hours or 12 hours, you know, as long as we feel like we’re moving the ball forward, we’re making progress. Doesn’t really matter how long the football game is, if you’re if you’re following your plan, and you win the game. Now, you know, there are a lot of penalties on the other team, like, run the ball. The point is, you’re there, you’re there, you’re on the field to win the game, right? And you you have a plan, you want to follow it the best you can. And so I would tell people and say, Forget about, you know, clocking in and clocking out, have fun. Think about what you want to accomplish. And also never forget you need time for yourself. You need time for your family to Yeah, I think it’s very hard for people to remember to take time for themselves. Like I can now force myself to take a lunch break. I used to not do that. But if because you need to recharge your batteries. That’s my opinion. Right?

Curt Anderson 12:05
That’s fantastic. So let’s dig into I pulled I’m gonna pull it up again, you started with the automation blog. Is that correct? Was that kind of the first piece that you went after with the content?

Shawn Tierney 12:15
Well, it’s always it’s always been a to two streams here. So the automation blog insights and automation started in 2013. At the same time, I was filming my course for a Kickstarter I launched. So I launched a Kickstarter at the same time for the first POC, quest POC basics, and then they both kept going at the same time. So So you know, one is all about, you know, it’s like a magazine for what’s new in automation. And the other is a training site for automation. So they both have been, you know, side by side. That’s insights on automation as a company and then we have the two websites.

Curt Anderson 12:53
So a techie guy, who again, like you know, grew up on the Walkman daemon and pitcher new and I do an aerobics class with our Walkman in hand. Right. You know, you get the visual, right? Acts with the colors wrapped around it. Yeah, now, Walkmans, so shine your you know, your heavy duty tech guy, right from the early stages, 2013 comes around, dude, you’re just you’re a fierce, you’re a content machine. Was that intentional? Was it gradual? Like how, you know, you have a massive following are talking about it before we went live, you have a great LinkedIn following. You’re just killing it on YouTube, again, like for folks that want to get to where you are, or think about where you were at 2013 14? Were you intentional with this content are just shared? You know, can you go back 10 years ago, like, what was your mindset? How did you get here?

Shawn Tierney 13:42
Yeah, because I think, you know, I and a lot of tech people, especially programmers, we have this, this knack to want to do things very orderly, almost like in a Liberian type of or encyclopedic type of order. And so yeah, all my content at the beginning was very, you know, it was basics to advanced and was really set up like that. And now I have embraced insanity, not chaos. I’ve embraced chaos. Yeah. Now, you know, we can be talking, you know, random stuff from day to day today. But in any case, I think, you know, one of the important things to do is you got to, again, let’s talk about demystifying. Right. So we all know the story of a kid who says I don’t need to do good in school, because I’m going to be a pro player

Curt Anderson 14:31
or something. Right. And

Shawn Tierney 14:32
that’s great, because some of those kids will, but the vast majority of the kids who think they’re going to be a pro ballplayer or a pro gamer, or a pro live streamer, right, the vast majority are not going to do that. Right? And so the the thought process is if I just stream every day, my video game or by just practice every day at my, my sport, you know, that’s good, and you should do that but you also have to have something else backed up because Less than 1%, you know, far, far less than point 1% make it right. And so the thought processes, a lot of people spend their time doing those. Like a lot of people blogging will never make a dime. A lot of people, most people write books make less than $5,000 Total on their book. Now I’m not talking about like, per hour, I’m talking about total revenue from their book that may have taken them hundreds and hundreds of hours less than $5,000.

Curt Anderson 15:26
Right? They’re lucky they only spent $5,000 to do it.

Shawn Tierney 15:29
No, no, yeah. Probably more like $1,000. Yeah. No, really, it’s, it’s, so you gotta go into with that kind of understanding that you don’t quit. Like in 2013, I didn’t quit my job. You know, I started us all, as you know, I’m not going to watch TV every night. I’m not going to play video games every night. You know, I’m not going to sit around and just, you know, read the paper every night, I’m going to do this. And so if you start seeing success, you can tweak it, try to start seeing more success. But yeah, unless you’re independently wealthy, or retired, or have a retirement, like, there’s a lot, you know, if you’re in the military for 20 years, you can use your retirement in some places, if you’re in public service for 20 years, you’re George, unless you’re one of those people. A lot of times you need to start your passion work on the side. You know, while you’re still at work, because you need to have success there. And again, unless you’re your spouse or significant other has a killer job. That’s the way and that’s how I started it. Yeah,

Curt Anderson 16:27
yep. So okay, so using our famous phrase of the of the day, so you started a side hustle, side hustle, graduated into your full time hustle is that?

Shawn Tierney 16:37
Yeah, it did it did I, when I when I left in 2015, you know, I was just, you know, I made the decision, because I knew it was time to hit the hit 25 years, and I needed to move on. You know, I wasn’t, you know, I wouldn’t say the business was self sustaining at that point. Yeah. But I was very fortunate to have a wife who did have a stable, stable job. And, you know, it’s one of those things where I need to go to the next level, I was gonna take some short term pain, financially, for long term success, and, and just say, thank the good Lord above, because it’s just a, it’s all about for me, it’s all about helping people. It’s all about, you know, educating or helping them out of a jam. You know, if they find an heiress, like, so many times, I would search for errors. I’d run into a nobody had put anything online about him. Yeah. And it’s like, you know, we gotta we gotta all work together. We got to all move this ball forward, right? Yeah.

Curt Anderson 17:26
Yeah, I absolutely love it. Hey, couple more shout outs here. So Whitney says so true. I worked through lunch. And so she says brilliant advice. Absolutely. Love it. And hey, our dear friend Christie, John’s Christie, happy Monday, happy Martin Luther King Day to you, my friend. Thank you for joining us. So Sean, so you’re talking about school? And what absolute love Damon you and I talk about? How do you out teach the competition? How do you out teach a competition, we work in coach with a lot of manufacturers, you know, trying to figure out this whole digital transformation. You know, they were going to trade shows, they had sales reps on the road, this little COVID thing came around and kind of disrupted their world. So how do they better educate? You know, how do they better become sales folks, from an online perspective, what I admire and respect what you do, Shawn, is like, I feel you’d like the fierce educator, man. So again, I’m going to pull up your website here, we’ve got the automation school. Talk about like your passion, your energy. So when folks go to that website, just give us the background of it and how like you’re just out there fiercely educating folks on better. Certification, automation, electronics, the whole gamut just talking about your passion there. Yeah,

Shawn Tierney 18:35
so I’m not trying to outdo anybody else. There are a lot of great educators out there, right? For the people who watch my videos, who say, you know, I really clicked with Sean, that’s where the courses are, right. And they’re affordable, lifetime access, lifetime support, you know, having been, you know, I tried many things in developing this business, one of them was being on Udemy, or Udemy. And I realized this just like books, most people buy an online course and never take it. And of the of the remaining 5% that do take it 90% of those people never get past it for a couple of lessons. So because of that, because my experience, having been in this industry since 1991, the people who do need the information, they need to come back time and time again, because automation doesn’t break every day, just like when you’re working on your car, right? Like I still have to, like I have a read of the read the codes and my car. Like I haven’t used it in three years. I’m like, Oh, I don’t remember what buttons to press to get it to work, right. So we do lifetime access, lifetime support. Because, you know, this is what I’ve done my entire life. If somebody makes an investment in our course, we want to come back in three years and be able to say, Hey, I’m having this problem with Iris links, and I really don’t know what to do. And I watched the Lesson and I’m confused and that’s why I’m here people. You know, people always afraid that the students will abuse it. They don’t. They don’t You know, Pete, the vast majority of people on this planet are really good people, and they care, and they are decent, and they will not abuse you. And if you have point 1% that do this ways to handle that, you know, you can give them their money back, say, you know, maybe my course was a few, but yeah, so just, you know, I’m there for people to click with me if they think that they can learn from me, you know, I have 1000s and 1000s of hours on YouTube and articles on the blog, and, hey, I’m gonna be there for you, you know, I had that 25 years in the field helping people it learned so much from them, that I feel like there’s, there’s a segment of the population I can help

Curt Anderson 20:34
in 10 years in, you know, with with 10s of 1000s of followers, you know, the big thing is, you know, the word Daymond that we always love preaching is trust, right? So it certainly takes time, Shawn, any what any advice that you have, again, for folks out there, you know, see manufacturers and so, you know, when we’re talking about like our teaching the the competition, so they can manufacture, you know, could be a circuit board manufacturer, or it could be CNC shop, could be 3d printer, whatever they are, you know, and the goal is like, how can they resonate? How can they earn somebody else’s business? How can they build that trust, you’ve done an amazing job of earning folks trust, what advice you have for manufacturers out there. Now I’m going to kind of follow your footsteps of building that trust.

Shawn Tierney 21:18
So in my opinion, most of the successful manufacturers and those on the rising, those rising, are authentic and honest. Okay. So we I think, those of us who are brass tacks, guys, who are, you know, programming the equipment, specking the equipment, picking it out, programming it wiring it, we can sense BS, a mile away,

Curt Anderson 21:45
okay? A good judge of character, right?

Shawn Tierney 21:47
You will see UCI start glossing over when you’re starting to let go. It’s like, we want authentic. We want honesty, we want truth. And as technical people that is so easy for us. We’re very humbled because we’ve, how many times have we’ve written a line of code that didn’t work? Or like, No, you can’t use that variable there. And yeah. So but honestly, trust and nobody knows everything. Like, nobody knows it all. Like, I learned new stuff every week from my students when they try stuff. And it doesn’t work, you know, so you just got to be humble. You got to be honest, you got to be authentic. And for manufacturers, right. I see a lot of manufacturers make the mistake of puffing themself up bigger than they are. And I think a lot people see right through that. And when you lose a customer, you lose them. Typically, you’ll lose them forever. Yeah, so better than be honest, and be yourself and be truthful, then try to claim something you’re not and then lose a customer forever. There are. I think we all have the stories of like, there are vendors, I won’t use their stores I won’t go to because they lost my trust. Right. Right.

Curt Anderson 22:55
Yeah, it takes ages to earn it and to gain it and it takes seconds to lose it. Right. Exactly. It’s very quick, Shawn, you’re now for 2023 I want to hit this point for a couple of reasons. Number one, you know, it’s we’re still kind of fresh in a new year. Hopefully, resolutions haven’t gone away yet. And so like, you know, for anybody out there, they you know, still carrying your audacious goals for 2023. Get out of your comfort zone. You know, Damon, we were talking about being uncomfortably what was uncomfortably courageous. courageously uncomfortable. Remember that one? courageously uncomfortable. Sean, you i Dude, I just love what you’re doing love the work? Yeah, you got courageously uncomfortable. You wanted to put out something daily? Can you just share a little bit of like, the mindset and like, oh, the strategy of what you’re doing behind that?

Shawn Tierney 23:42
Yeah, no, and that’s a great point. And I totally agree with that. You have to push yourself if you’re going to grow, right, if you want to grow, you’re going to push yourself doesn’t you know, whether you want to run a 5k or you want to benchpress however many pounds or you want to eat healthier, you kind of gotta get a little uncomfortable with yourself, you got to kind of shake yourself out. And it’s good. But you know, where the best shakin ourselves out of that comfort zone because usually that comfort zone is the downward slope zone, right? It’s like a comfortable ride into, you know, into bad places, right? So, you know, take, for instance, somebody who stops walking, they’re getting older, they’re like, you know, I don’t you know, if you don’t push yourself to get out there. And conversely, take the people who said, Hey, I just retired. I’m 65 I would like to run a marathon and these old folks they stopped walking every day and then they stopped running. So those are our options. So for me, I found that when I took the podcast a couple years ago to weekly that it was really hard but it was very uncomfortable. But really just I got to meet so many more people that was so awesome. Yeah, that for this year for my goal for this year was to do a daily show now. I know there’s going to be trips to trade shows where I won’t be able to do it or vacations where my wife drags me out of the office and says, Hey, we can have some fun, where I won’t be able to do it. But I started, I guess the beginning of the year, January 2, I guess, I started a Daily Show, where I’m going through a few 100 websites looking for news and industrial automation, and then putting together both a video and an article about it. And just share and try to share between nine and 12 articles or podcasts or manuals, just, you know, so it’s a one stop, you know, somebody’s driving into work, they can just put it on. And they can say, Okay, what’s new today, and I try not to steal anybody’s thunder. I mean, some people, they spent hours and hours and hours writing these articles. So I always try to leave, you know, I try to give them the gist, but not try to steal their thunder, you know, and, but it’s, it helps me immensely doing that research every day. And learning what’s new, helps me get my pulse on. I mean, the only way you could do it would be to go to trade show everyday, right? So it helps me keep my pulse on what’s happening in the industry. And hopefully, I can take some of the searching out and going through these couple 100 websites every day for the viewers and listeners and readers because I also do a blog on it. And kind of, you know, you know, put together what I think is the best of what’s new industrial automation everyday. So huge, huge stretch goal for me this year. And I’m, I’m really so far it’s going good.

Curt Anderson 26:25
Well, hey, how about everybody? Let’s give a little round of applause right there usually save it till the end, Shawn we’re coming. We’re given like, you know, rate snack, I don’t know where middle where we are in the show. But dude, that is just such an and, and, you know, Damon, you know, go giver, right? Like, we talked about being that go giver, and I just John just epitomize that with just this insane amount of content he puts out, just, you know, putting in the reps day after day after day, and shine you filled, you know, man, kudos to you, the entrepreneurial success story, you know, 10s of 1000s of followers, and just look at the lives are changing, you know, and I’m going off script a little bit here. You return with Damon tonight before we went, went live? On your turn, when you have students that come through your training? What happens to their income?

Shawn Tierney 27:11
Oh, yeah, I mean, typically double or triple. I mean, it’s, it’s,

Curt Anderson 27:16
I’m sorry to interrupt you, I’m little I’m not a young man anymore. I can’t hear that. Well, what did you say,

Shawn Tierney 27:21
double or triple? I mean, if you want to get if you are interested in programming and automation, and you’re working as a technician, just wiring things up, you can double or triple your income easily. And that’s because you’re much more valuable, because most people won’t stretch to do that. Yes, people will say I’m an electrician, and you know, voltage, current power. I got my client screwdriver. That’s what I do. And that’s great for people. But if you want more, if you’re like, hey, you know, I’ve wired up, you know, 1000 things, and I want to learn more, I want what’s in that black box. What does that How do they make those graphics on a touchscreen work? Right? That’s when they that’s when they come to the school. And that’s it. That’s what it’s all about. I mean, really, it’s all about, you know, in, you know, I don’t know how much time I left 2030 years, maybe, I mean that I’m going to be dust. So if I can help some people make their lives better. That’s what it’s all about.

Curt Anderson 28:15
And you see, Shawn, that somebody could actually go out into the trade world and make like a really killer living? Is that what you’re implying here?

Shawn Tierney 28:23
But yes, yes, yes. Not only

Curt Anderson 28:28
that, they could also become an entrepreneur, and become a huge success. So I just man, I just love this.

Damon Pistulka 28:36
The other thing about this, the the world of automation is so absolutely incredible to me, because of the variety. I mean, because I used to work in manufacturing. And I actually started my career designing and then helping to coordinate projects on automation, right? And you see how that automation works, and then you see how it works at a factory level. And then you get, you get a little more experienced. And you see, well how does it work like in an ethanol processing facility, or oil refinery or a or a just a food processing facility or a wastewater treatment facility? I mean, that is incredible. Where automation is in from a standpoint of we were talking about before to the oil fields, oilfield services and just think about all the stuff that has to move around water and it just it’s it’s so much that’s happening in that industry that these people can have incredibly interesting careers right next to their where they live now. Or anywhere in the world.

Shawn Tierney 29:42
Yeah, no. Amen. You know, I think of it’s like kinda like the early PC days, right? Yeah. Remember used to get the computer shop. It was like this thick. It was the size of a phonebook. And there were just hundreds of customers making companies making computers and sound cards and that’s what we are with industrial automation is just, there’s so many great companies out there, and I’m, I’m just scratching the surface. I mean, you get your big names, but, you know, in, in really computers and you know mobile devices, that’s kind of really shrunken quite a bit. And, and it’s not as exciting as it used to be me, there’s two people make video cards. There’s two major chipset manufacturers, there’s two major cell phone manufacturers, it’s kind of really shrunk in the excitements kind of like either your X or Y, you know, but industrial automation is still like those early days in computers, where you just have just so many companies doing great stuff, exciting stuff.

Curt Anderson 30:35
innovative creative NHS, yeah. Right.

Damon Pistulka 30:39
And they don’t have to be the the GMs or the exons of the world. It’s, it’s, you know, Dave’s making whatever down the street, and they need automation to do this part in their in their process, or, you know, it doesn’t there’s so many different places where automation plays in, it plays a big part in it. And as we look at the workforce and the labor force going forward, automation and robotics and all the things that we need just to keep up with not having enough people to do it, as we go forward is going to be an even bigger role. Yeah,

Curt Anderson 31:15
let’s not sit on that man. We’re going off script again, Sean’s so not that we had anything, Damon, we had nothing planned anyway. Well, we talked with a lot of MEPs manufacturing extension. Matter of fact, our friend Christy’s here today, we have a couple folks who tack who support the MEP network. And so Damon, we, we encounter a lot of small manufacturers in the food sector. And boy, when you have like a 235 person manufacturer, and they pick up their first piece of automation, I’m just looking for that hot sauce manufacturer out your way, Damon, and he’s looking at some new pieces of automation, and he feels he feels this could completely change a total game changer. You know, we have a granola company that we’ve worked with five, you know, three to five employees, they’ve gotten new automation totally changes the whole trajectory. Shawn, so you know, when you hear automation, a lot of people like oh, no, it’s going to replace jobs. It’s just creating opportunity is I mean, isn’t that do? Where do you where do you feel there’s that just a myth on automation? Or like, what do you feel there?

Shawn Tierney 32:15
Yeah, you know, I know you remember when they first hooked up the ox to that wheel, right? All the people used to grain the stuff by hand, they were like, oh, man, our jobs go on? No, they were like, get that off Soviets just sitting in the field doing nothing. Let it do the dumb work. So we can go do something more like actually bake a cake. You know, so. So automation. That goes way, way back, right? We’re going back to,

Curt Anderson 32:41
like to the Luddites and they were like, you know, they’re writing over like losing their jobs and machinery. But all it did is it just created new jobs and new I always for the history of time, it’s always the you know, you mentioned Martin Luther King, Jr. or Martin Luther King to open up the program. When he came up with the printing press. How many right how many people were like, oh, there goes my job, right? In liquid a created an entire revolution. It was it that was the social media of the 1500s. It completely changed the world.

Shawn Tierney 33:09
Right? Well, and I liked, there’s always going to be a struggle there. Right, there’s always you have your early adopters, you later, there’s always gonna be a struggle between how much automation is too much. And I think it’s very natural. And that’s what we need in an open marketplace with with with a free press, and with free speech that is extremely healthy. And we decide where do we want to be, right. But if I like one place I’d like to take is the company beach that makes baby food, they built a brand new facility and I was able to visit them many times and consult on them and teach them different things. In the old plant was this big red brick building is really nasty looking. The new one is just gorgeous, beautiful. And on the side of the there’s a mirror when you walk in, at least it used to be when you walk in and it was a black and white picture of just these ladies with hair nets, or carving up potatoes or cabinets or whatnot, what you know by hand. And it seemed like the table of these workers went on forever right? Now, that was a good job. Especially these were just, you know, in many cases, probably just homemakers they really didn’t have anything else to do the kids were in school, they can make some money and make good product. Today, my grandkids, right? Their teenage preteen age, they’ve always had a touchscreen in their hand. Right? Right. They’re not going to be satisfied with cutting carrots all day. Right? There’s, they live in a different world. They live in a world where it’s like, why why would I do that? Why would you go bet Why would you? It’s like, why would you give put yourself through pain purposely, you know, just like, you know, you don’t go to the river every time you want to drink water. We have buckets for that, right? I mean, as we move forward in time, we learn new skills we learn better ways of doing things is this There’s no reason that kids today want to go backwards to the 1950s and do things that way. Oh, you have to watch TV, you can only watch a show the exact hour it’s on during the week. And if you miss it, you can never see it again. Yeah, that’s it. That’s it. It’s over. It’s like you can’t you miss episode. I remember I was on the phone with a power plant during the final episode of Seinfeld. And I missed the whole final episode of the next everybody in office talking about what did you think about? I have no idea I was on the five at five who active, you know, getting into PLC five. And, you know, so. So that’s the way it was back then.

Curt Anderson 35:37
unfathomable for our kids. And as you mentioned, grandkids, so why

Shawn Tierney 35:41
would we want to go back to that explanation? less efficient? Why would you want to do things less efficient,

Curt Anderson 35:47
perfect, perfect analogy. So you want to be mindful of your time, my friend, I know you are super busy. And I want to be mindful of everybody else here as we start winding down. Where can people find you any? You’ve got your daily show going on for 2023? Man, what an inspiration that is anything else that we’ve got your automation school, the automation blog, anything else that you have coming up on the horizon that we would love to share with everybody?

Shawn Tierney 36:12
Yeah, so I would just say, Look, if you want to get in touch with me, if you want to connect with me, LinkedIn, you know, you can find me up there. I do have a created a new page for insights on automation. So if you want to catch the daily show I posted in there, because the automation blog.com is where you’ll find 1000s of our articles and videos. We also have a YouTube channel with a lot of followers. But you know, primarily if you’re a manufacturer and you want to just stay abreast, check out the insights and automation page company page on LinkedIn, or just visit the automation blog.com.

Curt Anderson 36:47
Perfect. Shawn, last question for you, my friend our way, man, what a great episode. First off, thank you, thank you for sharing your passion, your expertise, your experience, man, this has just been a delight. We’ve been talking about motivation. We’ve talked about Martin Luther King, Martin Luther King, Jr. We’ve been talking about our, you know, deepen faith and just our excitement with our careers, and your passion for helping folks with automation. And just the way the lives that you’ve changed, coming through your courses, and you know, what they’ve done for their career, the confidence, the income, so and so forth. 2023, your big, audacious goal doing your daily show? What or who inspires you, I asked you who your hero was 2023? Who are what is your inspiration for 2023?

Shawn Tierney 37:34
Well, I think I think all of us I mean, I think 2023 is going to be 2023 is going to be a phenomenal year. There will be some ups and downs this year. There are ups and downs every year. But I can tell you, the the human spirit, right, the human spirit rising to the occasion, saying we’re not going to let anything keep us down. We’re not going to let the next issue or or kerfuffle, keep us down, we believe we believe in making the future brighter. And so I think you’re gonna see America and Australia and England. And we have we have a lot of English speaking, countries that follow us. I think that people are going to stand up and say we’re gonna make 2023 a great year. So I’m just trying to be a part of it. Because I know what that’s what you guys are doing to you guys are going to have a great year. You’re gonna have some great shows this year. And so I’m just trying to keep up with the Joneses. Joneses and ride that wave of excellence in 2023. It’s going to be an awesome year.

Curt Anderson 38:35
To track the mic, Shawn, just drop the mic and Haven our friend Diane says the magic of spirit making the future brighter. What a great way. Yeah, no doubt. And so I guys, what we’ll do is we’re going to wind down please connect with Shawn on LinkedIn. Do yourself a favor just man of integrity just doing great work. But if you have any companies, manufacturers, any folks that you’re working with that needs help in this area. Shawn is your go to guy we have all the you know, check the chat box, come back and catch a replay. Stop by Sean’s website. Check out the automation school, the automation blog. See Shawn on LinkedIn. Sean, thank you, my friend. We appreciate you. God bless you, brother. Guys go out. And just like Sean said, man, just be someone’s inspiration and just keep crushing it, Damon. Man what another great episode, huh? Yeah, we just we did.

Damon Pistulka 39:33
We’re so blessed to be able to talk to people like you, Sean, just thanks so much.

Shawn Tierney 39:37
Oh, I was blessed to have been on your show. Thank you both. And thank the audience too, because you guys are awesome. And we appreciate you taking time out of your day to be with us.

Curt Anderson 39:46
Yep. Thank you guys. And hey, this Friday, man we’re back on on manufacturing ecommerce success. We have raised a guy know from the MEP Manufacturing Center in partnership and l Illinois. Christie, Chris he was back So we’ve got iMac in the house raise again, who’s going to be here on Friday? We’ve got a great guest coming up for the rest of the month. So guys have a great amazing week Sean, hang out with us one second and have a wonderful, amazing Martin Luther King Day and boy just really embrace what today is the history of today with today’s about go back and listen to that speech and just me I’m getting chills us even thinking about it, and just how great our country is how far we’ve come and how much further as Sean just said, How much further we’re gonna go So, guys have a great day. See ya. See ya