Formal Education versus Trade School Feat: Graesyn and Ethan

Dustin Steffey: 0:00

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Jaden Norvell: 0:53

This is the best stop for entrepreneurship in self development talk hosted by the doctor himself Dr. Dustin Steffey co hosted by entrepreneur and sports talk host Jayden rush, Norville This is What's up chop nation. It's your co host Jaden Norvell along with a doctor himself. Dr. Dustin Steffey chop nation good to be back. We're joined today by Ethan and Graesyn these guys do painting they do low rioters like remote cars, they do custom finishing. They told me to tell you guys, they're sexy, and they're packing heat as well. So we're joined by the boys. Today we're going to talk about the differences between going to college and working a trade. That I think is a really interesting topic. I'll let the doctor, take it from here. Dr. Dustin Steffey What's up, bro.

Dustin Steffey: 2:08

So great. And thank you. Um, yeah. So I think Today's an important topic. I think right now, most people that go through the formal education system, they're told to go through high school and then go to college to be able to find that dream ideal job. And unfortunately, I don't think it works for everyone. So I think that this is a good topic to dive into, to really get perspective on both sides of the coin. So diving into the formal education track, that's something that I went through. So back when I was in high school, I was told pretty heavily to finish high school. And then once you finish high school, you go to college, you find something that you're passionate about. So you can one day land that dream job. While in reality, it does work in many scenarios, it doesn't work for everyone. And I feel like it's our job to provide people with options. And so with that being said, I kind of wanted to give the floor over to Grayson real quick to start with respect to kind of his journey, like in high school and why he decided to go through trade instead of instead of formal education. So Gray, the floor is yours.

Graesyn Birkel: 3:28

So for me, I decided to get into a different line of work, because I knew quite a few people that have gone to college, and have acquired quite a bit of debt from doing so. And they're working a nine to five, where they're not they're being being able to pay their bills, but they're never going to pay off their debt really. So that's the main reason I didn't want to go to college just because I was scared to get into that kind of a situation.

Dustin Steffey: 3:54

So as of right now, how many years have you been out of college or out of high school?

Graesyn Birkel: 3:59

Just about four years now. Okay, and

Dustin Steffey: 4:03

as you're heading down this path? Are you starting to kind of see something a little bit different for you like, is there is there anything, any, like wise words that you can give to someone that maybe doesn't want to go to college and wants to kind of start a trade?

Graesyn Birkel: 4:19

Really, the biggest deal is just saving money and putting it away. And if you don't want to go to college, go find any kind of construction company that is hiring, and you'll make a lot of money doing that. And typically, you have a pretty good shot at making more doing that as if you go to college, you've worked your way up through through that.

Dustin Steffey: 4:41

What's your end game? What are what are some of your goals like right now? I mean, you've been out for a little bit, you have some things that you kind of want to accomplish what is your end result game,

Graesyn Birkel: 4:54

ideally to be retired by 30 But we'll see I have to get some other stuff going for that to actually happen.

Dustin Steffey: 5:02

What are some things you're interested in, in passionate about?

Unknown: 5:07

The stock market cryptocurrency is a little bit then just starting and other forms of businesses.

Dustin Steffey: 5:14

What about you Ethan? So we we delve a little bit integration. So how about you your trade? I hear that you're actually just about to get accepted into a school for repairing elevators kind of following in your father's footsteps a little bit with that trade?

Ethan Boatman: 5:30

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I've been in, you know, doing basic body work and, you know, stuff like that for four years, three and a half years now. Just basic body repair, paintwork, collision repair, stuff like that. As of lately, I've been trying to get into local eight elevator union, trying to get my foot in the door at that really good trade, really good benefits. You know, they teach on the job training, I'll be an apprentice for four years type thing. So that kind of takes care of my college situation. But, uh, yeah, I mean, my advice for everybody young. When you're really young, you know, investing is key, take risks, when you're young got the rest of your life to, you know, make that money back up, you lose, you know, a couple grand, it seems like a lot now. But, you know, later in the end game that's really going to count. So if you ended up hitting on something big, boom, there you go, you're set. Got a you know, maybe a little cushion for yourself, but if not, you have 4050 years to make that backup and you're gonna make it back. No problem.

Dustin Steffey: 6:30

What made you decide to pursue the paint and bodywork which I think is interested in, I think there's a high demand for and you can make some good money, and then switch it up to go into school and actually repairing elevators and all of that fun stuff.

Ethan Boatman: 6:47

Well actually, believe it or not, me and Gracie got thrown into the hole paint and body trade back right after high school. Our first really big project was actually an airplane that had to do our boss owed a little bit of debt off to somebody. So we ended up doing something like that, make ends meet. And then he realized that we're kind of naturals at it did really good. got rave reviews. And that's pretty much it. I mean, that's how we get our foot in the door with the whole painting collision work and started to kind of work our way down and then even farther up from there, we just went to Florida not too long ago and learned a lot of custom paint flake and low rider stuff. So that's how we got I got our foot in the door, the whole low rider deal. But as of lately, I know a lot of people that a lot, but I'm from California originally. And a lot of people that are you know, electricians, plumbers, etc. But uh, only and, you know, select few are elevator mechanics that would, you know, make a lot of money. It's a real different trade. So, that'd be some cool, you know, another challenge down the road,

Dustin Steffey: 7:53

you just got done painting some doing some work on your bike, how that turned out for you, because you, you just bought a brand new Harley, and then you're sitting there and painting on it. I'm sure that kind of is nerve racking for you because it's your own.

Ethan Boatman: 8:09

Oh, for sure. I mean, you get a brand new bike, as you know, $20,000 And for me, that's a lot of money right now being really young. And you could easily mess that up, you know, lay it down, and you're in a whole lot of trouble that way. But yeah, I just ended up paying a few little items on that which you know, turned out to be a lot of money and you know, those are big ticket items for you know, aftermarket type deals. So hopefully, you know get my foot in the door with the whole low rider Harley gang and see what happens you

Dustin Steffey: 8:35

might you might be able to open up a custom chopper shop eventually.

Ethan Boatman: 8:39

And hopefully yeah, pretty, pretty good have a business you know, pretty ambitious, right? It's pretty cool. Pretty nice. It's a lot lower of a scale smaller of a scale and goes a lot quicker. So pumping out bikes like no tomorrow.

Dustin Steffey: 8:53

So great, Ethan question 10 year plan. So 10 years from now, where do you see yourself scary, go ahead and start it off.

Graesyn Birkel: 9:02

Ideally, 10 years from now I see myself probably living in Cabo catching Marlin every day, but that's probably not how it's actually going to work out. I'm gonna be working my job, hopefully making pretty should be making pretty good money by that if all my other investments and ideas that I have worked out, I should be retired and living somewhere tropical and doing what I like doing every day. Even same

Dustin Steffey: 9:31

question to you.

Ethan Boatman: 9:33

I'd love to be retired. That'd be the coolest thing ever. But you know, be financially stable, showing everybody you know, kind of, you know, preach in my goals as of now. But in all reality, you know, I'll probably hopefully be certain family by then. I'll be you know, pretty good goal of a nice wife kids cool house, and hopefully not be on a lot of debt. Like, you know, 80% of Americans today. You know, the average American is in debt, you know, six to eight $1,000 on credit cards only. That's pretty incredible. So, hopefully be a little ahead of the game in that sense, you know, have you know a little bit of a background in that and I'm gonna see where it goes from there.

Jaden Norvell: 10:14

What's the worst paid job ever did? Now you just knew it was bad. And you were just like, You know what? It is what it is? Okay.

Ethan Boatman: 10:23

Yeah, a little more specific with that question like worse after we finished the paint job like the finish quality? Yeah, worse project we started with, like, you know, how bad Oh, look

Jaden Norvell: 10:32

before so no, no, I'm gonna change it, I'm gonna change it. What's the worst experience with a customer that you had to deal with that made it the worst paint job?

Graesyn Birkel: 10:42

Okay, so we had a horse trailer that we were painting for guy, it was white. And we sprayed the whole thing, what we sandblast, sanded it, taped it off and sprayed the whole trailer in one day. And then after that, we had to go back through with pinstriping brushes and Stripe the whole trailer you want to get like custom designs he wanted. And he probably came back three or four times, saying that he didn't like the designs we did. And it looked like shit and this and that. Even though every time it was exactly what he wanted. He just didn't, in his head didn't envision like what it would look like. Like he would draw it out on paper and think it looked good and tell us what to do. And we would do it. And then he come in and be like, Oh, this isn't what I wanted. And we're like, show him the paper and be like, Well, according to this would show like all the lines and stuff he drew out and talk to him about it. And then we'd have to like add more stripes and more color because just wasn't enough color for him.

Dustin Steffey: 11:42

Alright, so to piggyback off that question. So a job that you guys did where you didn't think it was gonna make it and it was bad.

Ethan Boatman: 11:53

Yeah, are a real big side project. You know, our biggest side projects wherever gotten into really was was it a 59 international a 100 a 100 a 120 Pick up. It was like a salmon pink color. Timber, timber tan, you know, it was a trippy color. Anyways, we had started off with it and what was early January? And he said, Yeah, you know, guys, take your time. I don't need to back in a minute. I'll say all right, cool. So you know, did every weekend, you know, put like probably 10 hours in every weekend. Not really, you know, putting too much effort. I want to get burned down on it too quick. And then by the time you know, March, April, start come around summer start coming around. He's all Hey, guys. I need that thing. My June 1. Finish done. I'm taking it to Montana for family reunion, right? Oh, man. All right. This was this is about a month. This is about a month.

Graesyn Birkel: 12:49

And then at that time, we decided to pull the format's out and whole interior because we had to paint the whole inside of the truck. Yeah, I pulled the format's out and realize that we had to weld a whole entire we had to build a new floor for it. Well, then, because you can't just go online and buy a new floor for a truck like that, because they don't sell parts. It was all rusted out, and there was holes everywhere. But we so we pulled that out, cut it out, put new pieces in and welded it up.

Ethan Boatman: 13:19

Yeah, I mean, it was just the amount of labor that went is that I think, last three weeks, we're working on that to try to get it done. We put 128 hours in every week. So we go to a job for eight hours. And then at six o'clock, we get off our normal day job, but eight to five, get up at five, have dinner, stay at work till six, from six about midnight, one to two in the morning, we get off and sleep in our pickups at our job, and then wake up again for our day job. So we can you know, pay the bills. We did that for three weeks. It was just an unbelievable amount of labor, and thrilled with all that stuff. But we ended up getting it done just in time the day before he wanted it. We had to paint schedule. We just painted it refinished it. And actually, we were super late. I had to go on a family vacation the two days before we painted a four in the morning. Yeah, we finished a four in the morning on, let's say a Tuesday and he needed on Thursday to take it. So I had finished it. Uh, actually, I guess it'd be a Wednesday then. Wednesday morning super early. I went left I went to Idaho for for a vacation and Grayson ended up having to stay for all Wednesday and Thursday. He's the one that helped load him up but he had to actually put everything back together you know the hood and adjust the doors and you know, all that fun stuff. He actually had to paint the grill because it was an off white color. So we had to get that done before he even got there and it was just just a cluster ended up working out great. In the end. That was the most stressful out of pocket job. walltime it was just ridiculous the amount of labor and effort for a $5,000 job. We ended up paying four or five 600 hours into it

Graesyn Birkel: 14:59

and we really under quoted him that job on that truck was probably a 2020 or $25,000 job that was

Ethan Boatman: 15:06

Yeah. And we were you know, being ignorant, naive and you know, we're yelling so anyway to get our

Graesyn Birkel: 15:10

here's our here's our principal and vice principal in high school so we gave them a pretty good deal on it just because we knew him. And we knew we wanted it done. So we did it for a pretty good deal just trying to get our get our feet wet on that

Ethan Boatman: 15:24

get our name out there and ended up working out really well. We actually got a few jobs from him. He ended up going to a truck shows with it all the time. And so I really got our foot in the door with that whole deal.

Jaden Norvell: 15:37

So we're just seeing you guys found new work. They're on a job. What's the weirdest thing that's happened to you? And have you ever like had any supernatural encounters while you're on the job?

Graesyn Birkel: 15:50

weirder thing? How about instead of weirdness, we do Craziest thing, because I think I have something that's that pretty well, yeah. So on that same truck, we caught it on fire not once, but two times. After it was painted both times we got so the first time we're working, we're working on the inside. And we have it pretty much done all put back together. And we go to start it to move it outside of the floor. Oh, well, then the whole interior is painted exteriors painted, we started up and has an electrical fire underneath the dash and catches the whole interior on fire. So so we had to repaint the whole inside of the truck. But midway through as I was fine, I was in the truck with water bottles trying to put it out and put and getting it outside. And Ethan opens the other door. It sprays me with the fire extinguisher

Ethan Boatman: 16:47

before that little little recap yet you know one of those office water distributors, you know, like the five gallon deals that's upside down and, you know, dispenses water, how put over there, talk it off, grabbed it, like bear hug did squeezing as hard as I can trying to shoot water out of it

Graesyn Birkel: 17:02

while I'm over there with just like three regular sized water bottles trying to shoot them underneath the dash trying to put the fire out and it

Ethan Boatman: 17:09

was just not not working out. We ended up having to get around our dry chemical fire extinguisher which is a fucking mess. And shoot it everywhere. pushed it outside out of the shop. So you didn't run the shop down. We're sitting outside with it. We're just like fuck, and then we ended up leaving outside when the fuck home because fuck

Graesyn Birkel: 17:25

that. And then a couple weeks after that he came back in for he brought it back in just to get some touch ups done for Yeah, cuz we had to get it done in time for him to go to his family reunion because it was his grandpa's truck. So he wanted to show the family and we didn't have time to spray the frame. We didn't have like we didn't have time to paint the frame and just little minor stuff on it. So he brought it back in. We got it in the shop and then he left and a couple days later wouldn't start up. So we took we went to go start it up, we're cranking it cranking it. The air filter catches on fire. And the whole engine bay is just up in flames. I'd use the fire extinguisher again on it. And

Ethan Boatman: 18:06

I'm grabbing the air filter air handler grab air filter through it as far as we could. Oh shit.

Dustin Steffey: 18:14

So you guys have had some fun experiences. Let's let's make this a little more fun. Like jokes and all Yeah, what is in the time that YouTube spent together? Which is lots and lots and lots of hours. What do you guys do for like, you guys are out in the middle of nowhere. And I know you guys were out at like Black Rock Desert where Burning Man is and all that you guys have probably done some crazy stuff. So what are some crazy things you guys have done like after hours? Well

Ethan Boatman: 18:49

a few of the times like we're up there doing the airplane right by Black Rock Desert. And it's behind. The whole airplane situation is behind Empire mining. So it's kind of like a ghost town now. It's like a town of how many houses would you say 60 by 60 7080 houses ready, you know for people to move in, you know, refurbish ready to go people to work out the mind and they ended up selling the USG mine to Empire mining company that you know created Empire mind and they ended up cutting half the workers there and so half it's like a desolate ghost town. And we ended up working there and doing the during the plane there in the back of empire mining where there's a hangar and a it's like a gravel run runway run strip was after we finished that we actually got to Mike Christopher, you know the guy that did the whole one of the plane done and everything like that cool guy and we ended up he told us about a few local spots down there in the Black Rock Desert to go find some table as he would say, and we ended up Got a few hot springs down there and we won't this one time. It was like probably three, four in the afternoon. Still sunny in the summer so it doesn't get dark about eight. We didn't tell anybody we're going out there, which is a bad idea number one. Second of all, we had no service so we couldn't call anybody. We have Krewson out there about 8090 miles on the Black Rock Desert. It's just like talcum powder that we're in his pickup crews about at 90 miles an hour. We went through a creek bed. And then the crazy stuff I'll tell you more when we you know, came around it but we ended up finding the schoolhouse hotsprings the way there wasn't too bad wasn't to sketch. The way back was ridiculous. Started getting dark. We started getting scared, start to get a little you know, lead footed. On the way back we actually ended up having to go up in through a creek bed. We were in a creek bed it was about four foot wide, five foot wide. And the top the creek bed was over the top of the cab at the pickup there sagebrush on both sides so we wouldn't have been able to get seen from anywhere.

Graesyn Birkel: 21:01

And we probably drove down that creek bed. There was really only probably four inches wider than the truck. Yeah, for probably five miles because we thought it'd be a good idea to go that way instead of taking the the road that went there because our way only took 30 minutes in the road there to two and a half hours. Right. So we went through that creek bed hit a bunch of ups and downs on that almost got stuck a couple times. And we high centered bottom now and then barely made it back out of there. That's pretty scary.

Jaden Norvell: 21:37

That's crazy. You guys didn't answer my question. You guys see me ghosts. I want to know you guys ever seen any ghosts? Any Oh,

Graesyn Birkel: 21:43

no, no, no ghosts. But in the house, we're staying in up there. The hot water would come on, and we'd get in the shower. And then it would just turn off completely and it'd be like super cold. And then back on and then back off. And there's like all kinds of cold spots and the houses and other spots were super hot. It was like

Ethan Boatman: 22:03

a 70s single wide trailer shag carpet. It was thought anyways, I actually forgot about one of our encounters. We ended up going to one of the bars up there. walking all the way back was probably you know a few blocks away. And we had a few encounters with the locals. There a couple crackheads walking up to us and asked him for stuff and we ended up having six packs. And we ended up having to toss a few their way and pretty violent manner to you know, get them out of there. We ended up getting followed back to our little establishment or single wide. Them banging on the doors. We're trying to take a shower trying to go to bed. It's like 90 degrees. It's like nine o'clock. just ridiculously hot. And now they're trying to open windows and all kinds of crazy shit.

Jaden Norvell: 22:48

That's crazy. out of out of Saxon.

Ethan Boatman: 22:51

Yeah. Oh, yeah, we are pretty violent with our Coronas.

Jaden Norvell: 22:57

Awesome, guys.

Dustin Steffey: 22:58

So to kind of bring this full circle a little bit, guys, if there's someone that wants to throw project your guys's way, or they have some ideas, or they just want to chat with you, Youtube, gents, how do they get ahold of y'all?

Graesyn Birkel: 23:13

So for me, you can go to my Instagram, it's precision underscore bodywork. And you can see most of the projects are no not most of them. There's only I think I only have four on there. But the ones that we completed and you can send me a DM on there, just to get a hold of me if you have anything that you want done. And that's a good way to get get in contact with me.

Ethan Boatman: 23:38

Yeah, and I got actually got a page on Instagram. That's 3d underscore paintworks. I have half a dozen projects on there just I haven't really been keeping up with it lately, has been super busy. But hit me up on there on my personal account, Ethan underscore boatman on Instagram and Facebook.

Graesyn Birkel: 23:53

And then my personal account, his grace and Burkle one.

Dustin Steffey: 23:57

So yeah, if any of you all that, listen, have any bodywork paint work that you want done, preferably one that doesn't catch on fire, please send it over to Grayson and Ethan. They can get it done and get it done in a really good manner.

Jaden Norvell: 24:12

That's it for now, boys. Thank you for joining us. Fun talk.

Dustin Steffey: 24:17

Excellent. Thank you to both Grayson and Ethan. I think they provided some key insights. I want to first take the moment to say that Jaden and I aren't against formal education and going to college. However, we wanted to outline that there's more than one way that you can make money and that you can learn to do something you're passionate about. And I think Grayson and Ethan are both a testament to that. They aren't going to formal college, but each of them are involved in a trade that they like doing and they've had some fun in doing it. And it showed in the interview. So I just wanted to outline that and I wanted to give our entrepreneurs, our listeners, our fans, shop nation, a little different perspective. that there's more than one way to arrive at making money. So at this point in time we wanted to thank you for joining us and if you haven't done so already, please go ahead and hit the subscribe and like button and shoot us some comments over let us know how we're doing. We enjoy five star reviews and we thoroughly enjoy communicating with all of our listeners. With that being said we will see you next week for another episode of chopping with fire. Hello chop nation this Dustin Steffey here Have you ever been picky with who you trust to touch your hair or even beard? Yes, gentlemen, I'm talking to you hair and beard. If so, now I don't have to worry about it because it taboos barber lounge taboo has been in business for 15 plus years in the Reno area providing custom high quality haircuts, shape ups and beard trims. Please support taboo by booking an appointment at taboo barber lounge.com taboo is located at 233 South Sierra Street. Again please book an appointment with taboo@www.ta BU B Ei, R B E R L O U N g e.com. Alright gentlemen, now that you know where to go, let's get that hair and beard looking good and book an appointment with taboo