Breakroom Tea Party – Patrick Eilers

[00:00] Thank you, everyone who has tuned in today's episode of Look, I Just Work Here, the podcast specifically for people who have survived customer service or just essentially dealing with people in general. And today's guest, I'm actually super excited to have on our platform. He is someone that I always dreamed would have stories to come and tell me and tell us. He was a therapist for 10 years. And after doing so much good work with people in the mental health industry, he's decided to actually open up his own kind of business that essentially helps build other

[00:37] practices with their culture development and just continues to bring all the good in the world that this generation needs. So let me have the honor of introducing Patrick Eilers. Patrick, super happy to have you here. Yeah, thanks, Sierra. I'm really excited about today, just to give you a chance to talk or give me an opportunity to talk and share some different stories from different periods of my life. And yeah, so like Sierra said, my name is Patrick Eilers. I'm a master's level professionals counselor, basically, I guess I'd say it that way. I still

[01:14] work as a contractor in the field. So I do that. I also own my own business. It's called Bloomworks Concepts and Coaching. And the whole idea behind that is basically that we're a consulting business for mental health practices. So in all the different places I've worked at, pretty much everyone until until more recently, most of the places I've worked at have had pretty not the greatest healthy cultures. And so my passion is to try to help owners who are therapists as well, the other dual role to be able to be the best owners, they can be not necessarily just the best therapist they can, there's a lot of focus on how to be a great therapist, but

[01:47] there's not a ton of focus on how to be a great owner, and it's a separate skill set. So that's kind of what our business does. We try to do that. We also have an extension online coffee store that we do that all those proceeds or some of those proceeds with that that go toward our mental health resources. So we have a lot of different things we do, and we're trying to continue to always expand and find ways to impact the world in a more positive way. Absolutely. And honestly, with you mentioning that, specifically in the mental health industry, that someone can be a fantastic therapist, a fantastic counselor,

[02:20] but then the owner side might kind of miss a few benchmarks. So what initially made you decide to open up Bloom's Work? Yeah, so Bloomer's probably really all the way back to my very first year working in my career anyway, sorry, excuse me, was that going into the field, certainly I had moved from basically where I grew up into a little bit, a couple of hour away city from where I grew up. And so I kind of moved to a completely new environment. And when I started, I mean, obviously as a therapist, you kind of think you're pretty

[02:54] well prepared, but you're really not as prepared as you like to think you are. So I didn't really have the greatest supervision experience. I mean, I think they did, they gave me what they could give me at the time, but I worked for a relatively large practice, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 to 40 clinicians. And that includes also with case management, stuff like that. So it was a little bit of kind of like a community mental health setting. We were an independent practice, but we kind of worked with everybody. And so they kind of part of the, you know, I didn't know a lot about it was basically, you know, when you start, you know, you're starting basically from zero.

[03:25] So anytime you start your move in this field, unless you move within like a five to 10 mile radius of where you're moving from, you really always have to restart yourself as a therapist. So at that point, I didn't have any income, I was just taking whoever they gave me the head available to take. And so I worked with everybody pretty much from five years old up to at that point, it was about 67 years old. And I worked with couples, I worked with as many people as I could take really that to just build the caseload. So when you do that, you kind of get thrown in the fire. I mean, you don't have a lot of people to really relate to.

[03:56] And so you're, you're kind of in a position of like, it's really unique the first six months, because if you don't have a lot of supervision support, and that side of it, you're pretty lost. And so you're trying to find yourself, you're trying to find out what you're going to do that you make the right career choice, I'm six months in, I can't stay in this place, like, all different kinds of things are going on. So I've endured a lot of those different kind of things in that way. So the first couple of years is really about overcoming that and kind of sort of establishing you know, how I work and those kinds of things. And I think really, I look back at the temporary

[04:21] finally now, because it gave me a lot of foundation for what I do now, in the sense that because of that experience, and then when I did eventually become supervision trained, it gave me the ability to see, okay, this is where I would do this differently. This is why I think ownership is important. And I really kind of had that carried on throughout every opportunity that I worked with different practices, whether it was specialization, or whether it was generalization, I had a lot of those similar experiences. So, so part of my business model, or the idea was really about, okay, like, how do we help owners be better owners, because if we can height, we can strengthen the field overall,

[04:54] but making therapists be able to feel like they want to come to work, besides just the the fact that the nature of the job is already hard. Anyway, let's see if we can help people be able to come in and be able to, you know, enjoy their work at, you know, with their colleagues and be able to feel supported and those kind of things. I think that overall strengthens the field in general. So we have a high turnover rate here in Michigan, somewhere between I think it's like around 40% or so those last stats I saw. So, you know, usually you hold on to a clinician about somewhere between a year and a half, and then they usually move on. And again, those are all report built relationships. So if you

[05:26] bring a therapist on, and you give them a year and a half worth of a caseload by the time that that time happens, you know, you're not going to have somebody that can just come in and replace and keep all those clients that you lose those clients as the as the clinic. So, so a lot of different repercussions to having to having better ownership. So it's kind of where a lot of that started for me was kind of in that first year or two experience that I had, and really kind of, you know, throughout my career in the last 10 years, just different places I've worked at, and the place that been at and things like that. So,

[05:56] I'm really glad to ask that question, because you brought up making sure that the therapists themselves are comfortable and happy coming into the job. And I know working really with any business, if you don't like the culture, if you don't like your boss or your co-workers, you know, that's the fastest way to lose some of your top performers. And checking out your website, I did see, you know, like the top five questions you want to ask. And one of those said, if you ask your clinician, or if your clinician had another opportunity, how confident are you about them staying? And I honestly think that's a question a lot of owners

[06:32] and managers and supervisors should ask almost every day, right, of like how they're treating their people and how they're treating the business itself. And it's really good insight to see that people who are, you know, educated and trained to handle a normal person's trauma, that you're able to kind of handle your own and that you have your own kind of support system within that. And it's, again, I'm just so glad that you decided to come on. It's really bringing in a whole lot of different therapists and what they also have to deal with and what they have to manage on top of,

[07:05] you know, their clients and whatnot. So, just kind of having that lead us into some of the stories that you might have heard from whether or not it was, you know, when you were helping someone or if it was before your clinician, I know you mentioned that you worked in the retail for a little bit. You've worked on a college campus. You've worked with car dealerships. You, I feel like you've seen just about every industry that's out there. And I'm even more surprised that, you know, you led to be a therapist after seeing the madness that you saw in retail. So, kind of run me through just a few of those positions that you've held in some of those

[07:40] responsibilities. Yeah. So, when I started, you know, early in my career, obviously before my career, it's kind of in the, just in the working field, I guess we'll call it that. You know, I had a buddy of mine who I went to, well, he was kind of more of a, I guess they call him at that time, he was more of a kind of an acquaintance, but he became more of a buddy of mine who had went to University of Michigan. And so, we lived kind of halfway between Ann Arbor and Lansing. And so, I was looking for a job at the time, and this is probably, they say probably in the high school, early college years. So, I went to an independent university

[08:14] from U of M, but he went to U of M. And so, he actually worked in the housing area. And so, they actually got me a job over there to start with. So, that's one of my first major jobs I had. And so, what our job was really to do is, in the summertime, we would go around to all the main dorms in the campus and basically clean carpets. That's essentially what we did. So, you know, it was an interesting opportunity because I never lived in Ann Arbor, never lived out there. I mean, I lived in different places, but certainly having a chance to go there every day and experience the campus, even though there's not a lot of students there, was really

[08:45] cool just to have an eye-opening opportunity. And not really hard work, but work that certainly, you know, maintains, you know, consistency. You know, you're expected to finish a dorm in X amount of time. You have to do that. You know, you've got three or four guys in a crew. And so, it was just fun to be with those guys. And I built some really good relationships with them, even though I didn't have a lot in common necessarily with them. I feel like we got to kind of bond pretty well over that. And just doing fun things. We got to take, you know, when you're taking carpets, cleaning equipment across town and stuff like that and golf carts,

[09:14] it's kind of a side-by-side. It's kind of a fun thing. So, we got to do some stuff like that. I got to get some interesting foods. That was a lot of fun. We got to do that pretty early on. So, we did that for three summers. That was during my undergrad experience. And so, when I said I went to an independent school at the Spring Arbor University from undergrad, which is a much smaller school than U of M. And then, when I was in grad school, I had an opportunity to work at Meijer. So, those of you who are from the Midwest kind of know about Meijer. Meijer is like a grocery store, basically, essentially the idea. And that job kind of came about. I'm not exactly sure how I managed. I think I was working,

[09:48] I'd worked previously for the car dealership. I mentioned that. I worked for two different ones. I worked for BMW and worked for Ford. And I was a porter there. And so, basically, what a porter does essentially is the person that goes around and fills the cars up with gas, you know, picks people up, washes cars, stuff like that. That is a very intense job that will keep you on your toes. It's a really busy job. BMW is a little bit different because it was a smaller dealer. So, they only had two of us and we're kind of expected to do a lot of work, probably more than what two guys could do. You know, you got the detail and you got to do a lot.

[10:18] So, you got to see a lot of stuff. You got to see different people interacting with, you know, high-end type of things. You know, people a lot of the time would rent or buy BMWs. And they just wouldn't take care of them. Basically, they would just wait until their lease was up and then whatever was in the car is what you got. So, you got just kind of like when you worked at U of M, you get some free stuff occasionally of just random, you know, CDs and stuff like that, you know, you got. And a lot of students would buy stuff and then they wouldn't take it with them. So, you get, you know, a towel or a fan here or there or whatever. But

[10:47] all the people that worked at the dorms always tried to get those kind of things ahead of time. So, it was kind of a fight for what was going to get it first, kind of first come, first serve when they were done at the end of the year. So, dealerships didn't really honestly work out too well for me. I like cars, but I don't have enough of a desire to do that on a regular. It was just really draining. When I started grad school, it was really hard to make the schedule work. It was, you know, you work, you know, pretty much like a seven to four, seven to five kind of job and you got to go right to school. And, you know, we, the school is about a half an hour away. And

[11:16] if you didn't get a chance to leave right on time, you were not going to class that day. So, it kind of was one of those things where I started realizing I probably need to take another day in our shift to that. So, I took this job in my area. It was basically a job where we unloaded the trucks, the semi-trucks would come in, you unload the trucks for the day, and then you, you know, you'd have a, that would be your shift, basically, is unload the general merchandise truck and then unload the, the grocery truck. And so, you know, again, real bonding opportunity. I still, when I saw friends with one of the guys that we worked

[11:45] together and we still talk about stories that came out of that, out of my area. I guess the one that really stands out to me that I was thinking about when I, when I initially saw your, your show name was that we had a boss that would tell us about, so they used to have those big cardboard displays. And they used to have like that old school cardboard baler where you threw the cardboard in there and then the cardboard would get crushed up. And that particular one we had, you had to like wrap it and bundle it like an actual bundle. So, they would compress into a box, basically. This is a big box and it's bigger than us,

[12:16] you know, it's like, you know, it's probably, I don't know, 15 by six, maybe something like that. So, it's a good, it's a good size hunk of cardboard. And you used to put these like metal wires through the machine and then tie it off. And it was just a real, it's not a very ingenious design, but that way. So, so what happened is, is everybody hated to fix it. Nobody wanted to deal with it because it was one of those things where it just took too much time and nobody knew how to do it. So, there's like three of us who knew how to do it. And they always tell us like, you know, well, don't overfill the

[12:48] cardboard. And this is cardboard from all over the store. So, people would bring this cardboard from, you know, the, all these different areas in the store and they bring it there. Some people would just, wouldn't even throw the cardboard in there. They just leave it in front of the machine. It's like, that doesn't help us guys. Thanks a lot. So, there was a few, for sure, a few frustration moments I can guarantee that came out of that. But anyway, the biggest story was that, you know, during the school at the back to school sale, they had at the end of the year, they had a giant school bus of cardboard and the bus

[13:14] comes wheeling it around and they know that this is, this is not going to go in there. So, we're thinking, okay, so we're coming back from lunch and they have this giant cardboard thing. And we both, me and my, me and my coworker, we walk up to them and be like, you know, so what are you planning on doing with that bus there? Okay, as long as it's going to go in the, in the baler. It doesn't seem like that's going to fit there. It's supposed to be you guys. It's going to be, you're going to be your problem. Okay. Awesome. Okay. So, that's going to be our problem. Thanks. So, just like things like that, we had some people that would come in the back room a lot of time

[13:45] and try to get stuff. And I said, if people couldn't get help, they want, you know, like, this is before COVID. So, there was, you know, they already had low, I'm sure that it's worse now because of the fact there was less people working there, but people would just, you know, customers would come in the back room and be yelling back there about, you know, can we, can somebody come help me get this off a shelf or something like that? So, you know, lots of things like that. If there was, during the winter time, if, if the car people didn't, didn't want to show up because there was too much snow, they'd send us out there,

[14:11] you know, we're not equipped to go out there. We're wearing tennis shoes and, you know, like, khakis and stuff. And they sent us out and it's like, you know, you know, feet of snow outside and we're trying to push carts in the snow. So, stuff like that, you know, it's just, it was a lot of things where it was like at the very bottom list of all the jobs. So, you know, we're one up above the cart people and probably all below everybody else. So, it was kind of one of those things where if they didn't want somebody to do something, they'd call us to do it. So, so just a kind of a humbling experience, but a lot of those jobs where

[14:41] we had a lot of fun doing it together. A lot of the guys I've worked with where I had good, some really good relationships with. So, I learned a lot there. And then I had an opportunity after when I started my career, I was, you know, kind of back in a therapist spot. So, I kind of got away from my era, which is kind of nice thing. And then as I started my career, there was a period of time where I came, I had changed my license. So, originally, I was a psychologist. I switched my license to a professional counselor. And during that period, I had to go back to school. So, I was doing a little bit of schooling. And I taught as an

[15:10] adjunct professor at any university in Ann Arbor here called Concordia, which is not there anymore. And also for the Michigan, for Jackson College, which is a community college in the prison. So, I taught at the Jackson prison for a while. Again, same kind of thing that you didn't see a lot of stuff there, but most of those folks were very eager to learn. And so, I made a lot of fun to kind of go in and teach and talk about psychology and things like that, though they may have also been trying to get more information for various reasons, but nevertheless. So, we used to do that. And that was always a lot of fun, enjoyed that. And

[15:42] during that same period of time, I actually worked as a job evaluator. And so, what we do is we go around with different people, mostly in Ann Arbor, because that's where we were located. But we go around and go to these different places, specifically, usually retail spaces. We work with a client that maybe either hadn't worked yet or was looking for like a job placement, like what would be a good job for them, or they wanted to get back into the job field, and they needed to kind of show and demonstrate that they had the skills to do that. So, we'd go and stand and watch people for like three hours working. And of course,

[16:10] that was always interesting because, you know, you have to go like Jimmy John's or something and sit there a whole shift and do appeal, wonder why there's a random person standing in the corner, you know, watching, like, well, they want to try to be creepy. It's not intentional. So, stuff like that. So, it was always fun. Those kind of jobs were, you know, I look back at them, you know, they kind of work, you know, fundamental, obviously at the time they were, they really sucked and they weren't fun. And I envy people, like, I can understand, you know, people's frustration and that same idea of being in that space. So, you know, definitely retail and that kind of thing is a, that's not an

[16:40] easy job to be in. But I think it builds a lot of good character and you learn a lot, you know, certainly how much you can handle. And every time you think you can handle, you can't handle any more, the next day comes and you find out you can handle more than you thought you could. So, it's a growth experience. But yeah, there are a lot of times where I want to just walk out of that place. Really, I'm certainly Meijer for sure. There definitely were times where I just, I can just, and I knew people who just, they just walked off the jobs. They just, they didn't come back. The worst thing was is the fact that Meijer would hire him back.

[17:07] That was the part that was like, it was really hard to get fired there. I mean, like, you, you actually have to do some, like, probably property damage or not to be required back there. It's really, the bar is really low. Oh my God. Get hired back again, at least at that point. So, so yeah, you can walk off and they'll, they'll bring you back in like six months. It's not usually an issue, but so yeah. So those are some, some stories I had, I thought of when I was here, travel story. Those are some of the ones I could think of as far as these in those, those settings. Yeah, no, definitely. I took, jot down little notes that I have follow-up

[17:42] questions on. So, kind of going back to your first one, working as a carpet cleaner with college dorms. What would you say are like the top three craziest things, I guess, that you ran into when you were cleaning these dorms? Well, most of the time they'd already gone through and taken everything out of there. So, it wasn't like you necessarily were going to run into something that you wouldn't expect it to have seen. Probably the biggest issue with that job, as far as like things that you'd see that were kind of nasty, was just the fact that if we forgot for some reason to empty the water and the machine, that's not, that's not a machine you want to

[18:15] mess with the next morning. Because it's, it's probably one of the nastiest smells we're going to have is bad, dirty, carpet water sitting in a machine overnight. And that happened a few different times. But we could add those kind of things are probably some more of the biggest issue with that job. I would say as far as like kind of like gross stuff that happened or like abnormal stuff you wouldn't expect would be that some of those dorms are not air conditioned, especially the older ones. So, you know, summer where it's, you know, 90 or, you know, Michigan, we get we usually usually get most of the summer can be somewhere between 85 and 90. And if you

[18:45] get humidity, that's usually pretty awful. So there'd be times where I did get heat stroke ones from that job, which was not fun. But outside of that, that's the only time I can ever remember that job being one of those jobs where it's like, you know, you're just not really prepared for it. It's a pretty slow paced job, you don't have to delay, there's nothing like your deadlines are not super, super strict stringent. So when the last summer I worked there, they kind of made me stay in one area. They took me kind of off carpet crew, they kind of gave me like a floor to clean for bathrooms, like with carpet, like they have campers come in like,

[19:17] you know, middle school, high school kids. Somebody tried to throw a Jimmy John's sub in the toilet and some brownies and stuff down the hall. So those are about the only nasty things that really happened at that job. But, you know, outside of that, those were probably the really things that stand out to me. Otherwise, it was a pretty chill job you didn't have to do. There wasn't too much of an expectation of as far as like, hey, you had to, you know, you're gonna run anything you were weren't expecting. Yeah, you weren't like cleaning out drawers or usually not. Okay, well, that's good. Yeah. What's in the great while you might you might have a room that wasn't clean,

[19:50] but it was mostly because somebody was probably like an RA or somebody was like, live in solos, like live in there or whatever. And we didn't usually have that often, like they'd let us know if somebody was going to be on whatever floor or whatever. So yeah, we didn't run into much of that kind of stuff. That's the people. It's the people that go before us that would have that responsibility. So then I guess you found more of your trinkets working for BMW and Ford, because you mentioned a couple of like fans or towels or, you know, kind of previous. Usually for you about what would happen is when they when the first group of people would

[20:22] go through and clean the dorms, they would have like a day where they tell everybody, hey, this Friday is coming up, we're going to have like all the stuff out. You guys can go ahead and just take what you want kind of thing. You know, nobody claimed it at this point so you can kind of take it. The problem with that is the fact that we were like the last ones to get there. So typically what happened is whatever was left over was not usually worth taking or would be, you know, some of it was. But typically it was a situation where we were usually, you know, we'd come in at the end of our shift. And by the time that that already happened,

[20:49] everybody else had all day long to pick through all the stuff that they wanted. So we didn't get it. I did get a fan and some stuff in trash can some stuff like that that I can think of that I ended up getting from there just because it was already there. And pretty much brand new stuff from the dealer was more like, yeah, there was a couple CDs. Like I think that's the big thing I can think of as far as a dealer that I remember getting a lot of stuff in like what CDs did you get? I think it was a country. I think it's a country song or kind of like a country mix or something. That's the only thing that's what stands out. I can't remember.

[21:21] No, it was like somebody bought like a mixed one that they're, you know, it's like one of those like, you know, top 20 country hits or something something like that. And so stuff like that. There might have been something else I got from there, but I can't remember that stands out because a lot of times the cars were already cars that were customer cars. So we didn't, it wasn't like we're getting, sometimes you get a used car, you, you, you clean or whatever before they put it in the lot. But most of the time it was people's cars. They already were coming in there. So you, obviously you weren't taking anything from,

[21:47] from customer cars. So, so yeah, so those are, yeah. And then just like an edge job, like driving people and doing some of those kinds of things. That was always interesting. You get to be a lot of people, you know, who, you know, they want you to, cause this is like, you kind of like their own Uber, basically. I was about to say you got five stars for not saying anything to these people. Oh no, I think we probably learned a lot. I just probably just was, you know, it was one of those nod and I learned how to be able to be quiet. Let's just find out anyway, later on. So it's, you know, you just kind of take in and you listen. That's

[22:18] what, that's what people need. So. Okay. Is that, is that when you realize like, Hey, I might actually be a good therapist now that I can sit and listen to people. Well, at that point I was already halfway in. So I figured, I mean, this is just all practice, you know, I was kind of way I looked at it. I was like, that was my, it was, I was already in grad school at that point. So I'd already done the four or four and a half years to get into that point. So I was always like, well, I'm already on this track. So there'd be people would talk to you about that and stuff like that. Usually. So those are some things that

[22:47] went that job. And then Myers, you said something that I feel every retail person can relate to is when your boss goes, Hey, I need you to do this. It's your problem now. And you're just like, Oh, okay, cool. And like, I guess this is added to my resume of problem solving. Yeah. I don't know. We necessarily problem solved. I think in that case it was, we just knew we were going to be in for whatever was going to happen. Because the, if they put too much cardboard in that Baylor, it would just, it would just get stuck. Like, then somebody had to go in there and pull it all out. Well, they don't want you obviously in the Baylor, but we had some client, we had somebody climb in the Baylor before.

[23:23] Because they, somebody else, they used to have like a vendor that would come in and the one vendor woman came back and it was like, I think I threw my, my, my tablet in there. I'm not sure why they put tablet in there, but they thought they threw a tablet in the Baylor. And of course you can shut it off. But at the same time, like you, if you shut it off, you have to open it up and you know, everything can't be in it. And the person that we knew climbed in it was off. And then all the higher up people are coming around the corner and they're in the Baylor. So that, I'm sure that didn't end well for him, but it was one of those things where, you know, they didn't want, you know, they didn't want people

[23:56] doing that kind of stuff, which I get. I mean, that's, you know, it's the safety issue, but, you know, those, the Baylor always was a contentious point because it was always like, it was technically supposed to be everybody's kind of responsibility, but it was nobody's responsibility except to us. So that was kind of where, as well as things where if you knew how to do it or knew how to fix it or whatever, like you were the one that ended up having that responsibility, even if it wasn't one that you wanted. And it has this loud, like, buzzer that sounds like it's like, you know, like a, it just goes, like, that's, that's basically the

[24:24] buzzer and you can hear it throughout the whole, like the whole store. So like, it's not, it's not like an obvious, like it's not a subtle thing. I should say when people, when it's, when it's full, like if it's full, everybody knows it's full and a lot of people, what they would do is they throw cardboard and then they pretend they didn't hear it. So they just walk off. Yeah. They just walk off and it's like, okay, well, obviously you're the one that did it. Like, I think you're the last person, right? You're going to be the one that's going to fit. No, that's not how it's going to be. Yeah. The Baylor was always one of those things where

[24:51] that was like the number one centering part of the job, more than anything else. There obviously was stuff on trucks, like, like semi trucks, when they load them typically, back in the day, they try to load them as much as they could within like a certain, they put a lot of the same kind of stuff together. So if you get a skid of stuff, it's usually like, you know, laundry detergent or whatever, you know, all together. But there are always those random trucks for somebody to put one skid of something. And then they put like on the actual truck floor, they put like a whole bunch of cat food or cat litter or whatever. And then that would break or fall. And then they make a huge mess.

[25:23] And we actually had one day where molasses broke, but it was in the front of the truck. Last broke, and it literally like cascade to the back of the truck. And we couldn't even like get that was one of those days, like it was should have usually trucks would take somewhere between like four to six hours in total, because the whole ship's about eight hours. So you have a give or take a couple hours. Did you get stuff done? That I think that day where there are 10 hours for that with the molasses. It was one of the lowest in the world. It was one of those days like you in that there were just so many things that happened that day

[25:54] that were just not good. I mean, everybody's emotions were not a good place. And then at the end of the day, it was like, we just need to leave. And me and my co-worker trying to walk out and some guys asking us to get salt down from the like way up on the because they had salt like you know, the water softening salt, they used to have it like up in the back. And the guys like trying to bribe us. Well, I'll give you five bucks tip or something like, dude, we can't take tips. We've been here since nine in the morning. We just want to go. So that day, there was a lot of stuff that they kind of encapsulates everything that

[26:23] had ever happened to that store in one day, which was, I don't know how that was possible, but it did happen that one day. So it was the day with the molasses truck. So I'm not sure how they managed to but it like the whole thing. It was basically like I said, it must have been two or three cases that molasses fell down and broke and it was all through the truck. So we had to like, kind of do hand labels have to do like a like a line basically to get the stuff individually off the floor out, sort of out of the truck and into like an electronic conveyor belt because they had a conveyor belt that could move around.

[26:51] That's what made it a little easier to get unloaded. But in that particular day, we couldn't get the conveyor belt in the truck because there was so much molasses. It was like right around the holiday. It was like probably thinking like things between Thanksgiving and Christmas, which is always really good. Oh man, who would have thought that molasses would just turn an entire shift around the slowest disaster ever. Well, it mixes with stuff too. Like I said, it'll mix with like cat litter and detergent and stuff like that. So it's yeah, I mean, you're doing, you talked about where's the messes at this college. It wasn't,

[27:26] it was the U of M. I heard that hardly any of those kind of messes, but you had it in the back of the semi-trucks at Meijer. So Oh my gosh. So anyone who works either in grocery store or maybe like Walmart or something, just be prepared for anything that could mix up and turn your entire shift into something that you tell years later. Yeah. That's those are stories that probably won't happen anymore simply because they've changed the practice. So like my buddy still works there. And so he, uh, so he said that they change, they make it now so that they just everything comes skidded and then you just pull the skid off and then you just have to empty the skin. They started doing that

[27:59] toward the very end of when I was working there. So it's been more than 10 years, but, um, it was stuff like that, you know, like they, they, they change up how they do it. But the old, back in the day when they used to do like that, where they'd have just, it would just be, sometimes it just would be on the floor of the truck. And that's where, you know, if it wasn't wrapped very good or whatever the case is, or they, they turned a certain way, the truck turned a certain way, but just probably would just kind of cascade. So, uh, got hit, but you know, you get hit with a few boxes doing that job too. Stuff will just fall out

[28:27] of nowhere. Usually it's not something that's super heavy. They put like, you know, toilet paper and tissue and stuff at the top, but still, you still get hit with it on taking stuff off the ground. So there's a cascade of stuff falling. So yeah, just what I'm loading trucks to the top job. That's not a job I would want to do for a long period. What a good time. That's, that sounds like you, you had a, you had a couple of, um, where are they called? Like coworkers that went through the trenches with you, right? Everyone needs that coworker that can relate to your suffering. So yeah, you've had a lot of experience with retail and

[29:02] you've had a lot of experience meeting a lot of people. Do you have any, um, like maybe one or two stories that either you've experienced or that you've heard that just made you stop and go, Oh my gosh, what, or just question reality in general? So yeah, I mean, in my time at the time of the therapy, sure. I mean, there's been certainly a lot of those, those kinds of stories you're like, yeah, there's just people's resilience and people being able to overcome certain things. Um, yeah, I didn't, I didn't mention one of the, one of the periods of my, my career as a therapist, I had worked four years for a

[29:35] specific basically a recover sex addiction recovery is what I was doing. So we did that for about four years. And so that job and getting involved with those, that population of folks can be really, I mean, stuff that you just, you'd think, okay, there's no, didn't think this was something that was common, but it is. And then, and then on top of that, how people, you know, especially trauma specifically, like how trauma affects people and how much there's so much more of that than what necessarily, what even I, you know, what I thought of. And again, that's not necessarily just from a therapist perspective, that's just being a human, but, um, that, that kind of thing. Certainly there were some, uh,

[30:07] I don't have any specific stories where I can go. Yeah, absolutely. This is what it is, but certainly some of the stuff you hear there. And I think in general, like, you know, when I worked at the beginning of my career, certainly, you know, as a therapist, I mean, just stuff, I got to say in the kind of the culture of different places and things you work and you see, and yeah, you think that at least, and this is one of the thing that, you know, we see, we see this a lot even now, like on LinkedIn, there's this, this therapist war that goes on, like there's so many people who are therapists who can't stand our therapist, which doesn't make

[30:33] any sense to me because it's like, we're all doing work. We're more doing the same thing together than we're doing less of the same thing together. So you think that would bring bonding to people, but a lot of times it doesn't. People, one of the things is that you're in school, they really teach you to kind of find your way. And so, which is in some ways is fine, but in other ways, it creates this great divide. And so there's a huge, I'm part of a therapist support group, and I have some great support with those folks, and we're all kind of aligned in how we see therapy. But there are a lot of people out there who see therapy their own complete way, and it doesn't go with everybody else's. And they don't,

[31:06] they don't drive all that well with people who are other therapists. So you kind of think, you know, as a wow factory, you think, okay, well, how come, how come that's that way? Well, if people are taught how to do it their way and their way only, and you kind of stick with that, then you're not too open to seeing other, other perspectives. But what I've learned, and, you know, as I've shared some of these other stories, and, you know, in the different periods of place I have worked, like, you have to be resilient, and you have to be able to be flexible to those things, because there's always going to be things that are going to come up that you just never,

[31:35] you can't predict, you can't predict that you're going to open a truck up and find it full of molasses on the bottom of the, you know, you're just not going to, that's not something anyone ever dreams that they're going to be sitting there doing that. But it's one of those things where like, okay, so now what do I do? And this is, I was probably far less mature, you know, now the look at it, and I knew what the outcome now is. So I probably wouldn't think anything of it. But at the time, I was pretty upset about that, pretty not happy. But you got, you know, there's a lot of things in life that happen that teaches for different reasons for all kinds of things. And

[32:06] what do we can, you know, I, one thing that I talked a lot about when I have the other podcast is like, you know, how do we turn our wounds into wisdom? Or how do we, you know, how do we basically allow our things that have happened to us to help us mature and to grow and find meaning in those things. And so whether that's bad stories in retail, all the way up to, you know, what you do in your career, or even what you do in your everyday life, you know, those things are things that we have to embrace as human beings. And so can we accept and be able to help grow from those so that eventually we can also help them to pour back in our people.

[32:36] Ultimately, I think that's what is our purpose in life is to also then give back to others. And so that's something that we're all, we're all working toward in a different way. We all do in different ways. And so I think that's something I've learned just in the process of my life and my stories and the things I've experienced. And I would say those are some pretty big, I don't know if those are wow factors, but they are part of what we have to navigate every day. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing that you're part of the support group for sex edition. I feel like there are some people who might be struggling with that,

[33:07] that are either embarrassed or ashamed, or just kind of scared to, you know, admit that they have it, right? Absolutely. So I'm glad that you you did open up that door. And guys, to our listeners, if you do want to reach out more to Patrick about his experience, or maybe there's something that you have questions, all the resources to his website, to his LinkedIn, everything like that will be in the caption. But kind of leaning more into, I guess your experience with helping people kind of overcome these things within them. What's some advice that you would give to the next generation going into the work industry,

[33:44] some things that you've personally seen some things that you've heard from maybe a cup of your of your clients that they probably need to hear that they're not going to get taught either in school or really just in general? Well, I definitely think it depends on what you're doing. If we're talking about specifically as a therapist, I think one of the things you you as an earlier as a person who's investigating that as a career field. I think the two things and this is some stuff that I was told too, and I wish I would have taken it more seriously when I was younger is that, number one, know very well your vision

[34:20] of the people that you want to work with. If you have a population of people you want to work with, you know, don't be doing don't do what I did and say, hey, I want to work with everybody or the generic person, right? Like they're like as much as that is a is a nice thought. It doesn't necessarily work that way. So you have to be very that's why I'm doing some of the stuff with the business. I feel like at least that's kind of closest closest to what my skill set probably is. But I've also learned in working with all the different people I have and I have a much greater skill set than I ever thought I did. So one of the things is that

[34:51] sometimes as a therapist, you're never going to be taught how to be a great therapist. You have to, A, learn part of it through experience, but B, also sort of understand that who you are as a person is part of the part of the process. You know, what you bring to the table is opportunity. And so I think that, you know, for me anyway, that I always look at therapy now is basically like when the doors close, it's an opportunity, whether it be from, you know, if it's something you struggle with 10 minutes ago, 10 years ago, life 10 ago, you know, that's that's what we're here to do. We're here to focus and be able to

[35:20] create a space for you to be able to understand that or make sense of it. You know, make sense of it in that day, but it's one conversation that's going to move us closer to being able to have that. So I think, you know, not putting yourself in a lot of pressure of, hey, like you got to have it all figured out. Be open to the idea that there's going to be other ways you're going to learn it. But at the same time, understand that some of your greatest skill set is the person that you are. And so because of that, that's the person you bring to the table in a much deeper way than necessarily that no school can teach you that. No school can teach

[35:51] you how to be able to be you in that way. And so I think that's something that is a huge piece of being able to understand that as far as being a therapist, as far as working in any other spaces, I would say a little bit of the same thing, I guess, but the reality of it is that there's never going to be a place that's going to go the way you want to. And in the same degree with therapy, therapy never goes the way you hope, but you think you're planning to, I think as a client or as a clinician, you don't really, you don't know where it's going to go. It's going to, it's a roadmap that only the person who's, you know, taking the opportunity again,

[36:20] can understand that. But to the idea of general idea of working is that, you know, work can be a wonderful thing, but we have a lot of negative attitudes about it. And I think in general, we tend to all and including myself, I think we look at work a lot of times as something we don't really want to do. And that's part of the reason why whenever people struggle to find what they really like to do, because they'll look at the things that they like to do as being outside of work. Well, work can be a wonderful thing, but it has to be in the context of, you know, why is it important for you specifically? And not because all your external circumstances

[36:51] are going to work out the way you want them to, but are they going to be something that's going to help? You know, can you, how do you apply those things that you do have to learn? And certainly the idea, you know, back to my story again, right? Like, you know, molasses being in the truck is not necessarily a great thing that I can, I can, what can I take away from that? Well, I could take away the fact that I was able to have that as something that me and this team of people were able to overcome that problem. It sucked in the time it happened. It sucked when it was afterwards. It creates this goofy story we can talk about now, but ultimately we learned, we gained, you know, closeness and

[37:24] connection and overcame that problem together. Now, granted, maybe it didn't mean anything to them. And maybe ultimately doesn't mean a whole lot to me now, but in that moment, you know, it obviously had significance. So I think in that way, there's these little snapshots we have in our life. And so those snapshots that we do have, those do continue to help us understand our full picture. And so I think, you know, you might have bad experience, it doesn't mean that your bad experience doesn't help you come to understand your full picture. Yeah, that's very, very beautifully said. And kind of like a follow up question with that is,

[37:58] what kind of advice would you give to someone who has been on the line of going into therapy or, you know, going to talk about, you know, some troubles that they've been going through that might feel either embarrassed or ashamed, or they think they don't need it, or that, you know, you mentioned that they can figure it out on their own. What's kind of encouraging things from a therapist? Can you tell these listeners about just embracing it? Yeah, I think we're tending to move toward a place where people are talking about therapy, but they're not really talking about therapy probably the way

[38:31] that they should. And again, I don't think that's necessarily blaming anyone. I just think we're not putting the right context. You know, therapy, for a lot of people, there's certainly this aspect of what weight are you carrying and how much of that weight do you want to carry on your own? I do think there's a lot of people who may understand therapy as an opportunity to just share all these things and kind of just dump things out. And that's an okay way of looking at it. I think for the most part, that is somewhat of what happens. But like I said earlier, you know, there's, we can't change the things

[39:07] that have happened to us or things that we've done, but we can find meaning in the things that we're going to do with that. And I think ultimately that therapy, if you don't feel like you want to step into it, I can understand that. And I think that that's an understandable fear to have, whether or fear of thought or whatever, whatever, however you feel about it. But I would say that, you know, you can either carry the backpack by yourself, or you can stop and let somebody along with you help you pull what's out of the backpack, make sense of what you need to continue to move forward with them and leave the rocks that you don't need to behind. And so

[39:38] it's kind of like, you know, you're on a hike, you know, you're going up the mountain and eventually you're going to get to the high point. But at some point, when you're going back down the mountain, you're going to go into a low point. And not every not every trail is easily marked in life. And so sometimes good to have that guide that helps you once you understand what you're bringing with you, which path do we need to go down and what path do you want to go down those kind of things. And so it is more of a journey. But I but I said earlier, I think about it as opportunity and that it's not about necessarily diagnosing people or

[40:07] doing I mean, there's an aspect of that certainly in the medical terminology that you're doing that way. But you're also in the same place providing opportunity for people to find their map to their to their path. And so it is about self development is a self growth. I've seen a lot of comparisons to it to the gym. And I think that there is some comparisons in that way somewhat. But I'd also say that the gym helps you develop a discipline, I think, certainly a greater discipline in that sense, physically. And I get a mindset because where brains are flexible and have an ability to be able to adjust and adapt. But therapy is about

[40:44] taking the discipline and then say, Okay, how do I apply this in the ways that things I can't see, which are the things that are internal or things that are around me that I that maybe I'm navigating that I don't necessarily know how to feel. So I don't necessarily know it's always just about I said diagnosing or saying, Hey, look, get on meds or those kind of things. I know there's there's definitely a push of fuel feel like that happens. But I also feel like the other thing is understand that you're working with a therapist in that relationship. And that relationship is part of that healing process. And if you don't like the person that you work with,

[41:13] or that you've got assigned to or the founder, whatever, find help them help you find somebody who's going to be a good fit for you. And one of the first thing I tell people when they when they come in is about the intake session, you I mean, I might not be the best fit for you. And that's totally okay. Let me know that if I'm not the best fit for you. How can I help you find the person who's gonna be a good fit for you? Because I want to see that person grow. And I see that person being a better place than to have me just, you know, say, Hey, let's work together. I'll just keep trying to figure out how to make it work. There are certain people

[41:41] that don't work well with me. There are certain people that I don't work well with. But I have to be open to the idea of what's best for them, not what's best for me. And I think that's something that you'll find people who find therapists who are like that, they may not be super common, but they are around. And so it's the idea of trying to find the person that you know, you feel comfortable, because if you don't feel comfortable, the relationship will not be maximized. And you'll never be able to, you know, get the most out of it that you could, even though there's a percentage of that that does come back to the

[42:07] client as the person, like how much you're willing to open up about that really is up to you to get to where you want to go. And so part of that trailing trail analogy, you know, you might want to go up to the next part of the next peak in the mountain, and that's fine. And that's maybe what's where you're healthy, and you're gonna be good there. But you know, when you're ready to go down the next part of the journey, or you're gonna have somebody that's gonna help guide you, or you're gonna take the same principles that you learn from therapy, so you can guide yourself in the next part of your journey. So hopefully that

[42:33] gave some different analogies and things to think about. Yeah, no, that was I'm a huge visual person. So it helped with the mountains in the backpack and the hike. And I'm sure there are a couple listeners that are the same way they have to have that kind of visuals. So you could do a whole and half episode of all the different things I could call it visualizations. I use a ton of fun. I learned a whole bunch of work on sex addiction. So there should be like a little segment where we just kind of talk about like, just a visualization and opening up a bigger conversation that, you know, just because

[43:05] whether it's personal, or whether you're dealing with it at work, or even just in general, if you're not feeling okay, what's the next step to do? How do you reach out? How do you find the right therapist? And I think that's something that we might do in the work. So we'll put a pin in that. Patrick, thank you for bringing that out. Yeah, I'm just in awe. I feel like we could have this kind of conversation all day. But I'm sure our listeners do have other things that they've got to get to. So are there any parting words that you want to give them before you head out and essentially continue making the world a better place?

[43:41] I close a lot of my, by almost all, if not every one of my podcast interviews with the idea that there's a, oh, there's a song. It's a song by a group called Switchfoot. And one of the songs that they have is called Always. And one of the lines in Always is every breath is a second chance. And so I always think about that from a perspective of wherever you're at, wherever you're listening this right now, wherever you're at in your life, your next breath is your next opportunity. And it goes back to what I said earlier, that's ultimately what therapy is. And that's ultimately what life is. It's an opportunity to step into the next thing that you can help you go grow up,

[44:17] make the world a different place or whatever it is that your mission is. And so I think that's a big part of recognizing that and understanding what those opportunities are. And so something to think about in that way, no matter what that looks like, every breath is an opportunity. So those of you who have not listened to Switchfoot since probably 2005, look up that song. Switchfoot's a fantastic band. Same level of respect with, oh my gosh, was it Lighthouse? Is that the right band?

[44:49] Well, my association with Switchfoot is the Bachelor like for Y&K. Well, the Switchfoot always is on the, so the last album that came out in 2009, it's called The Hello Hurricane. So that's a bit of an old song, but I still like some of their stuff, even if it's quite different now, I think, than they used to be. But that's a good, they got a lot of good albums, but Lighthouse is another one. It's kind of in that same vein. Same generation of music. I'm glad you brought up that song because, fun fact, I actually have the title of a shinedown song, Dysfunctional You,

[45:26] that essentially talks about how we're going to live in a world that will judge you for the smallest little things. No one is going to understand you better than you do. So go out there, be your dysfunctional you, and embrace who you actually are, because there might actually be other people who are on the same boat as you. Yeah, learn to advocate your story. Because I think ultimately, the one that knows your experience better than other people, then that's that. So how can you,

[46:01] whatever you can share in that sense where people can take away from, I think, is just a big part. All the way back to, like we said, all these different jobs were part of, I think that's a big part of it. Whatever we can give to those situations, I think, is all part of not like growth for us, but also potential opportunity of growth for other people. Oh, man, Patrick. I feel like we just need to have our own little conversation outside of the podcast to just talk. But we'll go ahead and close up this episode again. Thank you so much for reaching out to me and being a guest on this podcast.

[46:34] It's really good insight from your point of view, again, as a therapist who's also worked as retail to kind of just give our listeners a different side of things. Of course, you are listeners. I will put the bloomworkcc.com website in the caption, along with Patrick's socials. Please feel free to reach out to him with any questions that you might have. And outside of that, thank you all for tuning in. Patrick, thank you for joining. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. It was a great conversation. I really enjoyed it. Thank you. Have a great one. You too.