The Industrial-Athlete Mindset: Training Your Body for a Lifetime in the Trades

Scott Politakis | Tulsa Welding School | Polecast Media

Dr. Kevin Rindal | Vimocity

How do you climb higher in the trades without your body breaking down along the way?

"Know when you're young, you're tough. As you go along with your career, you start taking that extra time to get yourself set up to save your body a little more."

Scott Politakis has spent over 20 years as an electric lineman and now prepares the next generation of line workers, teaching them the physical and the mental sides of human performance.

"Don't be the guy that tries to muscle everything. Ask for some help. Learn how to do it a little different. So, it's actually just what they call working smarter."

This is the WorkReady podcast.

At the end of the day, it's not just about getting through another shift. It's about having enough left in the tank for your family and building a career that lasts. That's why we created the WorkReady Podcast. That's the kind of life you're working towards. Subscribe and walk this journey with us. Every episode is one more step towards retiring strong, not broken.

Today's conversations with someone who spent more than two decades in the electrical line trade and now focuses on preparing the next generation of line workers. Scott is also the host of the pollcast where he shares the stories and culture of life in the trades. So Scott, thank you so much for joining the WorkReady podcast today. 

Oh, thanks for having me, Kevin. 

I don't think there's anyone else out there who's actually in climbing gear with hooks on a strapped to a pole and running a podcast at the top of a pole. What inspired that idea? So, one of the things I do is teach students how to climb poles. And I was like, well, what if we just did it on a pole? And so, it was just we just took that and ran with it really. I mean, it was just that quick of an idea. And then they say, you know, we're hand digging holes. We're setting poles over here and putting cross arms on them and then and a lot of people just they want to come to the show. They want to be on the pole, you know. So, some of the other podcasts, those guys have never been on pole before. They never had climbing tools on. So, a lot of them just want to come get on the pole. So, it it's pretty neat. Uh makes us a little different than everybody else, you know. 

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And, it's super engaging. 

Doc, tell us a little bit more about how you got in the trade. You spent over 20 years working on the front lines.

Yep. So, my father and my grandfather were both electricians. So my father was actually a coal miner and electricians. You know, you had to have it be a journeyman lineman and a journeyman electrician because in the coal mines they had their own substations. They had their own primary feeds in there and everything. So when I was a kid, you know, dad was just like on call. So, it's a couple times I got to go in the truck with him, you know, in the middle of the night out there to restore the power to the coal mines and stuff. And so, that got me early interested, very interested electricity. It was neat to me, all the things I would watch him do. And, and so, finally, I was able to save up enough money to go to a 15week climbing school back in 2001. And then, I was hired week 12 in Texas and never looked back. 

Wow. What what were some of your early learnings when you started doing the work yourself? And as you've now transitioned into working with students, what are some of those takeaways that you bring to to those people who are also early in their career?

Quite a bit. I actually tell people I was not the greatest apprentice, right? I did a lot of things wrong. So most of my teaching techniques is not to do what Scott did, right? don't do those things. When I started off right off the bat, I had a foreman that was old school lineman, very strict, very one oneon-one. And then I had a lead lineman who was Hispanic guy who was extremely intelligent. And then my journeyman line was a complete nut. So I had all three of them when I started. So I got the best of all three of them. And so, those three guys, I worked with them my whole apprenticeship until I become a journeyman lineman. Having teaching from three different people kind of molded me into being a great lineman. The guy that was nut was outstanding, but he was a little bit dangerous, you know. So, and then the guy that was super intelligent would takes he would teach me more beyond just why we're putting this wire on the pole, you know. And then the foreman there of course was just making sure we did everything right and everything was safe. So the safety and the intelligence and just the hard work, you know, all three of them. So I I I got to credit those three guys for actually getting me started. Like what are some examples of things that you look back and you're like, man, I can't I can't believe that I was doing that at early on in my career. Yeah. So it started with, you know, showing up on work on time, right? learn quicker, you know, they don't want to have to tell you it three or four times. They want to tell you once you need to get it and run with it and do it. I always tell students that your first day at work, if they're showing you something the first day, that's your job. You need to learn it that day and go in and do that the next day. You know, and it could be just like icing up the trucks. That's one of the main things you're going to do when you're starting off. You know, every truck has a water keg on it. So, it's your job to get out there first thing in the morning, get all those water kegs off the trucks, get ice on, get water on, get them put back on the truck, you know. Day one, they're going to teach you that. Day two, you better be doing it, you know. So, just being accountable, adaptable, several different things, you know, that I just didn't realize when I started the trade that how important the little things were, you know. So I try to teach students what to be prepared for on day one so you don't get yelled at. 

That's a good starting place, you know, with Vimocity and and then this podcast, we're really focused on human performance and career longevity. I mean, that's that's really what our thesis is. How do you give people the tools so that over the course of their career, they're investing in their body, investing in, you know, safe practices so that they can maximize that career? What are some things that you look back on now and even just like body position when you're performing job tasks? 

I mean, that's something that I will oftentimes teach somebody just a different way to approach it. Not from a technical standpoint, but just from a body position standpoint, and they're like, "Man, I wish I would have learned that 20 years ago because it would have reduced a lot of stress on my shoulders." Can you think of some examples of how your technique maybe improved over the course of your career as you learn different things? 

Yeah. So actually that's a big big big thing. Position is everything. You know, having your body in the right position to do the job, especially when you're sitting on a set of metal spikes 40 foot up in air, you know, being high enough to reach things, right? instead of just reaching over your head and straining your body or leaning out and straining your back. There's so many the position to get your body in to do the work is very important. It's almost key, you know, otherwise you're going to be struggling and hurting. So, yeah, taking the time, the extra time to get yourself set up where you can do the work without straining your body. That's that's something that you know when you're young you're tough you know that ain't that bad you know you get out there and you just stretch out the back hurts a little bit you just keep going whether it's stopping and taking that extra time to to take a step up or or transfer over something you know where you can get a little higher where that doesn't hurt. So yeah, you know, when you're younger, you don't really pay much attention to all that. And then when you get older, you start Yeah. as you go along with your career, you start taking that extra time to get yourself set up to to save your body a little more, you know? 

Yeah. Are there certain things that you see new students doing when you're teaching climbing, for instance, or teaching working with a hot stick or overhead? Like are there consistent things that you tend to help the students correct their form on?

 A lot of times it's you know you still they still have a little fear in them. You know nobody's made to put metal spikes on and climb up a pole and you know they don't want to get up there a little higher. You know what I mean? They just got comfortable right here where they're at now. You want me to go five more feet really? You know and so get in the push to them. get them in to to once they finally take those extra steps up, they immediately sees how easy it how much easier it is or how the task becomes doable, you know. So, seeing is believing a lot when you're training, right? You just got to get them to do it and then once they do it, usually they come down. Yeah, Scott, you were right. That was a lot easier, you know. 

Yeah. I just recently interviewed someone who also works at a line school and and they said that that fear of heights is is something that's for real for a lot of people. And so one of the things that they've taught is actually breathing techniques stuff that's used by elite special forces to help calm calm down the nervous system, be able to to work through those those you know moments that you feel a little bit uncomfortable. But what are what are some of the other things that you teach students when they're first climbing? Not only breathing techniques, but just breathe it. You know, a lot of times when people get in a strain, they'll hold their breath. You know what I mean? And so they're climbing that pole and they're holding their breath because they're straining to get up the pole and they're not breathing and they get up there and they're all lightheaded, right? Dizzy and constantly just breathe, take a breath, you know, in and out. You know, I compare a lot of things to the gym.

You know, if you're working out, you got to breathe when you work out. You can't hold your breath when you're trying to pitch press or anything like that. You know, you you need to breathe. Breathing is important. Making them do it repetition over and over and over and over and again, teaching them to trust the system, you know, from day one. You got to trust the system. I'm going to get you there if you'll listen. It's a lot like the karate kid, right? the first few weeks I'm having them do things and then and then five weeks into it you know send a floor as a block or whatever you know and then leaning to the left now you have to actually lean left to get out there and it all starts clicking to him. Oh that's why he was that's why he made us do that 50 times you know so repetition is one of the main things making making them believe making them trust the system. You'll see it to me. We start at five foot and then we go to 15 foot and then we go to the top pole.15 foot is usually the worst one because you know everybody's at 5 foot they kind of get comfortable at 5T but that first time up to 15 and now you're looking down and you're 15t off the ground you know you're on these spikes and you're afraid you're going to fall. you know, even though they have a fall restraint device on and I'll have them take their feet out of the pole and set in that fall restraint device as soon as we get to 15 to prove them, hey, you're not going to fall down the pole. But the hardest thing to me that I've seen is you can't get it out of here. You know what I mean? They know they have a fall restraint device on. We have another device we can hook them up and have two fall restraint devices on them. But still, some of them, they just can't get it out of their head. you know that I'm gonna fall to the ground and die and there's just no way. It's and I think a lot of it is because your devices are not like your hand, right? My brain controls my hand, right? So, a lot of a lot of students would much rather be are more comfortable climbing a steel tower because they can put their hand on it, right? Yeah. You know, so the follow device is not controlled by your body. So, it's it's hard for some of them, I think, to ever trust that device. So, teaching them to trust the device is one of the hardest things to do. 

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When you started out like you didn't have fall restraint devices and so I mean that's a whole different level. How did you get through that fear when you were first learning? 

A good instructor teach me just exactly how I taught the students. Trust the system. Keep climbing. Climb. Climb. If you'll climb, you'll eventually stop being nervous. But you have to keep climbing. you have to keep climbing. And he told me, he said, you know, he could tell I was nervous, you know, we were all nervous back then, you know, every kid is nervous when they start. And, he was just like, you don't have to climb when I tell you to climb. Just climb, you know. And so that's just what I started doing. Like anytime I climb, I just climb up the pole and climb down, climb up, pole, climb down, climb up, pole, climb down. even if he weren't making us do drills. I was over there climbing until finally, you know, one day I'm one of the fastest climbers all of a sudden. You know, the fear went away. Usually we have 20 students that start, right? So, they're all on the same boat. So, we kind of talk about that a lot. You know, hey, everybody look around. Everybody does not know how to climb this pole. Everybody's a little nervous. Everybody's you know, don't know is uneasy about their equipment. So, making them work together, you know what I mean? 

Starting that early, making them work together, trust each other as peers, and help each other as peers. I think that helps more than, me as an instructor just yelling at them, right? I don't always yell at them, but, you know, they just start talking to each other on the pole, you know, and and and learning who that person is, you know. That's important in training to me, too. when you go to work, you're going to be on a line crew with five guys that you will see more than your family. So, it's important to get to know those people, you know, they're going to be your brothers pretty much. And so talking and then when they get up there and they're on the pole at 15 ft, now they're talking or we're throwing the football around or we're doing different things to keep their mind off of being up there. Yeah. And you and I talked about this as well. you have an athletic background when you were younger, but I would say that a more popular way of thinking about linemen and frontline workers today is is in this industrial athlete mindset and thinking about, you know, performance versus just doing the job and how you have that career longevity by taking care of your your body. What are some things that you encourage students from your personal experience of why it's important to invest in your body especially? When I first got the trade, I thought I was lean and tough, you know, but line work is a lot of upper body strength, you know, because if your feet are in the pole or even if your feet are in a bucket, you're not able to use your legs much, you know what I mean? So it's more about using upper body strength and being smarter with the way you grab hold of something or the you know using leverage more than using muscle things like that. So, try to teach them that because I I was tried to use a lot of muscle, you know, and try to muscle a lot of things and yeah, there was days I went home hurting like crazy, you know, cuz I, you know, uh-oh, I felt that. Probably shouldn't have done that, right? You know, when it's too late now. So yeah, just not being afraid to ask for help, you know. knowing that, hey, I'm not the toughest guy here, you know. asking for a little help to help pick something up or or asking somebody else, you know, pride. Pride's a big thing in Lyman. So, learning to swallow pride is one of the hardest things for me was to to learn how to swallow my pride. And actually, I I I can't do this. I need some help. Someone, can you show me? You know, I'm having trouble. I'm struggling figuring this out. So, that's when you start learning, right? Then that guy is smarter than you. He's like, "Well, you dumb dumb. Don't pick it up like this." You know, lean it up. Just as as as simple as cutting wire, right? If you're cutting a big piece of wire and you got these cutters in your hand and you're just oh, straight and try to cut, right? And they show you put the cutter on the ground and use both hands to push the cutter and cut the wire, too. Oh, you're a genius. Why did I think of that? Right now, I'm not killing my body straight. You know, just different things like that. you start learning in the trades. It's actually just what they call working smarter. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz I would imagine that, you know, sometimes being strong could be a detriment because you you just try to muscle through it rather than using the mechanical advantage and like what you just talked about. And I'm curious too, like were there things that you recognized like, oh, hand strength is actually a big a big thing that I need to develop or lower body strength to to climb up the poles or core strength when I'm leaning out and have to reach. What are what are some of those learnings that you had? Yeah. So hand strength is one big one, right? These I think I got a pair right here. These little clads, right? So, you got to cut that wire. So, you got to squeeze it with that hand. So, you know, wire has resistance to it. The bigger the wire, the stronger it is, the harder it is to cut with these. So, when I first started, man, and putting a little piece of wire in there and trying to squeeze it, it was like so hard. And then, you know, 15 years of my career, it was nothing. You snap it in two. working stronger, developing your hands, doing exercises, you know, um stretching, but actually in about 15 years when I would shake a older man's hand, he would be like, "Don't squeeze so hard you hurt, man." You know, you just you just didn't know you had that much hand strength, you know, or things like that. But developing your muscles, I will say that the job does help develop muscles, but once you start realizing, my shoulder hurts. Why does my shoulder hurt? Right? Usually it's because you use it every day, but you don't stretch it or you don't exercise it and you don't build it. So, you think that what you're doing every day is building that muscle, but it's not really. It's deteriorating that muscle, you know. So, learning to do different exercises that will help build the muscle, recover it, right? Yeah. So, different things like that, you know. Yeah. Cuz I think there's easily that temptation because I mean, you're moving all day long. I mean, I would say that most linemen probably get 20,000 steps a day just just through daily activity. And it it could be easy to think, man, I'm I'm getting more than enough activity. But what I'm hearing you say is that sometimes you actually have to probably do some supplemental strength training or activity to build up different muscles, the muscles that maybe you aren't using all day long so that you have a more resilient frame. What are some things that you've done to continue to build strength even, you know, throughout your squats? Squats are great, you know, to help build that leg muscle. Leg presses are something that I did a lot when I was younger. I would just go in there and wear the leg press machine out. working your triceps is something that most people don't do, but you don't realize how much you use your tricep when you're doing line work cuz you're always getting in a hard position. And to be able to work your hand backwards and do something, having that muscle on this side of the arm is is a gain. It's like kind of you said we're we are kind of like a professional athlete. You don't want to be a big muscled up dude to do line work. Your muscles get in the way. You know what I mean? You just want to be good and tone and strong. You don't really necessarily want to be all buffed and and you know the guys that are huge in there, they don't have as much reach going up, right? Because they got those muscles that stop them. So, being a big huge muscle guy is is not really, what I've seen that is great, you know. It's more just, work strong. You know, we talked about that the other day, being being work strong. work strong and gym strong are two different things to me. you know, you can might could bench press 400 lb, but, you know, you get them in a spot where they've not had to use that kind of muscle, they're not much stronger than you. you know, even though they look like they're 10 times stronger than you, you know? So, you know, that goes back to what I was talking about earlier, right? Don't don't be the guy that tries to muscle everything, you know? Ask for some help. Learn how to do it a little different, you know? So, I'm going to add my two cents to what you just talked about because I think you're spot on. So, most of the the work that people do involves biceps. and so that's like your your forearm muscles, it's what we call your flexor muscles. So it's the lifting, it's the bending your elbows, it's carrying muscles, but those muscles on the opposite side of the arm, the extensors. So that is the tricep. You talked also about doing leg presses. Most of us use our quads on the front side of our thighs all day long, but we ignore the backside, the hamstrings and the glutes. And so what you're saying there is again just from a sports medicine standpoint spot on that you want to balance out and continue to strength that opposite side of the muscle because you want the balance between the biceps and the triceps to be to be even. And so that that's where I think supplemental training is really important from an injury perspective because your muscle muscular system is more balanced. The other thing that you talked about too is just making sure again that you're not just musling through things and it's good to be strong but you also want mobility. And so there's this balance between being able to move well and have range of motion but then also have the muscular strength. And what I've always found is that, you know, sometimes if people are too muscle bound and they lose their mobility and they're not balancing their ability to move well, then you start to put your body in a bad position because you you can't quite move the way that you need to and then that puts more stress on the system. So, Scott, everything that you're saying is 100% like what we would do from an athletic standpoint and I just wanted to to add on to that because I I think you're you're spot on with that. Yeah. So balance that that is something that is the first thing I teach them how to climb a pole. You have to balance on one leg to be able to climb. You have to be able to shift all your weight to one side to get the other leg out of the pole to take the step. Right? So we spent a whole day just learning how to balance from one foot to the other. And you would be amazed of people that cannot do that. You know what I mean? They just they fall over. You know they don't good at shifting their weight. you know, and I try to tell them it's just like walking a set of stairs. You have to pick that foot up to go to the step, right? So, you're already shifting that weight. You just don't realize it. And now, because you're in a pole, it's like you're a little nervous and you you don't want to lean that way and shift your weight because you're afraid if I lean and miss, I'm going to fall. Right. So, yeah, balance is definitely something. And one of the other things you just said is, you know, I when you hurt yourself, right? I I got this is hurting a little bit. Okay, that's when we're really bad to hurt something else, right? Because we're trying not to use this and we're using more of this and we're getting in a bad work position. Right. Absolutely. Now my back's hurting. Right. Because I'm trying to compensate for this, you know. Yeah. Have you had any injuries over the course of your career? Sure. I've had a shoulder surgery, back infusions. Yeah. So, yeah. Um the shoulder was something from the early years, you know, and probably the back too, you know. People don't realize that when you're young to me, you can bounce back pretty quick, you know. I used to say all the time I had Thor skin, right? I could get a cut and two days later I wouldn't even have a scar, that baby be healed up, you know. And nowadays when you're older, when you you know, if you if you cut your skin, it takes quite a bit. It's four or five days before it heals, you know. And I got some nasty scars on me that, you know, from from cutting myself and stuff, but it over the course of time, I think by not taking care of myself early, I'm paying for it nowadays. Sure. What have you found from like a recovery standpoint like the the importance of recovery at the end of the day or just making sure that you're setting your body up so that it can do its job of healing after a strenuous day. So that might be rest, it might be nutrition, hydration like hydration is definitely hydration is definitely one. Yeah. What is your perspective on that? Drinking water is extremely important. Extremely important. spently. Uh we work in Texas. Yeah. So it gets 110 115 degrees some days and if you are not drinking water, you're going to have heat stroke. You are going to have muscle cramps. I mean you're going to have a bad day if you're not hydrating. And it doesn't mean okay, it's hot. I want to start hydrating. You got to hydrate way before it's time to hydrate. You know what I mean? You have to hydrate when you get home. You have to make sure you drink water. And you know, I've seen things like on Facebook and everything where people say, you know, I can pound 12 beers, but I can't drink 12 bottles of water, you know, and it's like, you know, so, you know, there's things you can add to water if you just, some people just do not like the taste of water, you know. So, I always say put the, you know, get the flavor for the water. Get something like that. So whatever's going to whatever you like that'll make you drink the water, you know, without putting sugar in it, you know, things like that. So hydration is definitely a good way. Without water, your muscles are going to struggle. They're going to struggle. The rest, sleep, getting eight hours of sleep. A lot of the younger generation, they love video games, right? So when they they still love those video games when they start a career. So they want to come home and still play video games with their friends till midnight. and then get up at 5:00 a.m. and go work a job. That's not a good idea. That's not a good idea. Okay. Especially in what we do, it's dangerous. You know, you need that rest. Um and eating. Absolutely. You know, I tell students all the time when we're out there and they're learning how to climb. I'm like, "Don't go to McDonald's. Don't be going over getting you a big fat greasy cheeseburger. You're probably going to puke it up." All right. sandwiches, salads, light things when it's hot, you know, just even when it's cold, you know, if you're working hard, you need to eat nutritional things, not not McDonald's, you know, and I'm going to actually ask you questions on each of those subjects because you hit on some really important things. So, number one, hydration. So, one of the things that we know is that you're if you're 2% dehydrated, so for a 200lb person, it's about 64 ounces of water that you're short. Uh which honestly we we could sweat 30 ounces in an hour if we're working outside in 110°ree heat like you talked about. But that dehydration is going to impact brain function. It's going to actually make you more vulnerable to soft tissue injuries because the tissue is is less resilient. It's kind of like a sponge that's you know dehydrated. It's it's becomes more brittle. But practically speaking, you know, the best recommendation is like 7 to8 ounces every 20 minutes when you're when you're working. But how do people actually fit hydration breaks into the day in the middle of of working? Because, you know, you may be up in a bucket for an hour and a half doing a job and it's like, "Oh, I'll I'll just drink when I get down there." But by then, you know, you're probably dehydrated. your brain's not functioning at the same level. What are some things that strategies that you've found or maybe you promote to people to maintain that hydration over the course of the day so it's, you know, it's not 2 hours in between drinking something. A couple different things I do. One of the things is, breaks, right? Let's take a break. Let's get some water, right? Make them, you know, make sure they're drinking that water. When we worked in the bucket all the time, we would just always have water in cups and everything. Before bottle water was actually big you know, so we always had a cup or a container and we keep that lineman if he was working there when I was apprentice. You make sure you need some water, you need some water that something you ask every 20 30 minutes to them. You know, a lot of times they're like, "Yeah, they'll come down, get some water to go back to work." camel backs. I let the students wear camel backs while they're there, you know, that way they always got the water right there if they need to hydrate, you know. Um, it gets strenuous, you know, and some, like you said, some need to hydrate more than others. You have a 200 lb, like you said. I didn't realize the numbers of actually ounces that you could lose in an hour. That's interesting to know. But, but I do realize, you know, if you're a bigger person, you you need to hydrate more than the 120 lb kid. You know, he could probably go half the day without drinking water. you know, he's not even wet under his arms yet, you know. So, and the big guy's over there soaking wet from head to toe, you know. So, not sweating is a big thing, you know. Um that's happened to me a few times. I never went down with a heat stroke, but I've seen a lot of guys do it. But, a couple of times I realized my body not sweating, you know, and that's a quick telltale time sign you're not you're not hydrating enough, you know. Um and and by that time it's too late, right? You should already been hydrated. Go down and swallow down about 64 ounces or whatever you said and and make it through the day. But definitely when you get home at night, you need to continue to hydrate. You know, I know I always tell people if you do anything, the first thing you should do getting out of bed in the morning is drink like a 16 glass of water because you lose almost 2 lbs of fluids over the course of the night. And so if you can just get that hydration first thing in the morning, it just sets you up for for success because by the time you're thirsty, you're already, you know, well into dehydration. And so that f first of water is is a great habit to to start. Yeah. Yeah. And with sleep, you talked about staying up late and, you know, the importance of getting um, you know, hopefully 7 to eight hours is is the ideal situation, but working storms, I mean, those are tough. What What are some things that you learned along the way in terms of like just trying to maximize any opportunity that you had to get rest when you were working storms when it when you're on a storm? Like like you said, I mean, sometimes you're lucky if you could get six hours a night. Usually after 16 hours they cut you off, right? So nobody works over 16 straight. But by the time they shut you down, then they got to bring you in the stationary, they're going to feed you a meal, right? And most of the time you're bust in and out from a motel, right? So I remember being young. I was an apprentice and and this was this sometimes you get payback for running your mouth when you're apprentice, right? But I I learned you know we were about that we were getting by the time we get back to motel you know 6 hours later we're out of bed and then but they would bus us 2 hours in 2 hours out so I was like I can get some sleep on the bus you know I get a little rest on the bus so about the third day I come on the bus you know and I'm an apprentice lman all these journeymen are on the bus and I got my pillow from the motel all right and this journeyman goes oh my god what kind of freaking lamin are we making nowadays He brings a pillow on the bus. I just looked at him and said, "Smarter ones." Yeah. Oh, that's a great story. And you know, I'm sure over the course of your career, you worked in some pretty remote locations and you talked about nutrition and and packing a sandwich instead of a greasy hamburger. What are some of the things that you you know, when a gas station might be your only option when you're out there? What have been some things that you've done to prepare your your travel bag or your lunch sack with with good food so that you know if you are in a a food desert so to speak you have good nutrition available. I used to love the dehydr dehydrated bananas. You know those will keep those will keep for quite a while. You know you always keep some of them in your lunch bag. Fruit you know I learned that from even the older lineman. You know man you got to eat fruit. You got to eat fruit. Watermelon is the best thing you could eat in the summertime. You know, it actually does give you some hydration. And um yeah, so fruits, really not so much vegetable. Convenience stores, man, I'm telling you, some of the convenience stores are pretty good nowadays. You know, they actually have little protein snacks you can get or you know, cheeses and different things. Um so so yeah, you just got to know what to look for and where to go, what aisle to go to. And the QT is one of the best out here, you know, the quick trip. You go in there, they have this big round thing, which is ice, and they got fruit cups and they got all this stuff, you know. So we would always try to look for a convenience store that we knew would have something other than just potato chips and, you know, candy bar. You know, it's definitely improved a lot. like even hard-boiled eggs or beef jerky or Yeah. like that. There's there's a lot available now. Yeah, there is. There is. So, yeah. So, when we were younger, we just packed a lunch most all the time, you know.

Well, you talked about brotherhood in just being in the trades. What are some things especially for young linemen that you teach them about looking after each other? Yeah. So safety starts day one and safety I tell them that safety starts the first day of school and safety will never end the rest of your career you know a brotherhood is a livelihood right IBW stands for international brotherhood of electrical line workers okay so that's that's that's proud to us being your brother's keeper is extremely important we we we start teaching that you know I get pretty ugly with them about brother's keepers sometimes you know just like not showing up on time, right? You got everybody there sitting with waiting on you to go do the job. All right. Well, that's not really being the brother's keeper, right? If you're not even going to show up on time for work, how can I trust you to watch my back if you're not even going to show up for work? Right? So, it starts with things like that. Being accountable, being a holding yourself accountable. watch it. Not just stand around and pull your phone out and be looking at Tik Tok. You don't do that. You need to be watching what they're doing. You know, especially when you're you're a groundman. Your job is to get whatever that lineman needs. You're his helper. If you are not paying attention to what he's doing, you're not helping him. You're not being his brother. you know, as you get up through your apprenticeship and then as a journeyman to another journeyman, watching each other's back, you know, just while we're up there in the air, your primary, hey man, you might want to stick a a line of hose on that. You're getting pretty close to it. You know, he can't see his back, I can't see my back, but we can see each other's back. You know what I mean? So, if we're standing there in a bucket side by side, I can see what's behind him. He can see what's behind me, right? Hey, man, you get a little close over there. You talk to each other. You communicate. you're your your your brother's keeper. Same way from the ground, the foreman or if he's just a a qualified observer, you know, knowing what what can get them in trouble. and and and speaking up, speaking up. Hey, whoa, look around there, man. You get a little close. I don't know. May not be that close to you, but it looks pretty close from the ground, you know. just that's the main thing, you know. Hopefully somebody sees the mistake before it happens and is able to stop it by by being so watching out for each other and speak it up. You know, I think a lot of that goes away because of this device and what's going on at home with the younger generation. I've talked about this on my podcast. Not taking care of yourself, right? not not going out to the bar and drinking, right? Or smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. different things like that. And then coming to work. Well, you're not 100%. There's no way you're 100% if you're hung over, right? Or or even just had a fight with your wife or your girlfriend, right? You know, you're not going to be 100%. So, you need to communicate with your brothers at that point and like, "Hey, man. Me and wife had a huge fight last night, man. I'm I'm just not all there right now, you know, and then they're going to take care of you till you get there, you know, then check on you. Hey, man, you doing all right? You good? You good?" "Yeah, good." Usually takes an hour or two, you know. I talk about that switch to my students. You have to learn how to make a switch. I'm a lineman right now. And then when I get off work and I go home, now I'm a husband and a father. got to know how to make that switch. Training somebody to make that switch is hard to do until they actually get out there. They're doing it, you know, they're doing it. And you got to start realizing I got to start take care better care of my self. You know, I got to get some rest. I got to, you know, Monday, Tuesday, but by Wednesday, dude, you're you worthless as a borehol to us. You know what I mean? You got you got to take care of yourself, man. get home, get some rest, quit going to the bar, quit doing stupid stuff, you know, things like that, you know, and so I think a lot of the younger generation doesn't take care of theirelves like they should. I love what you just said because that open communication and the honesty and being able to like point stuff out to people and say, "Hey, are you doing okay? Like, do we need to talk about something?" Like that's that's absolutely key to, you know, creating a safe environment. How do younger people in their career do that on a crew where you know they don't quite feel comfortable yet? They don't know if they can speak up. Like how do you break through that and what is the responsibility you know as of foremans to maybe create an environment where people feel like they can speak up? Well, first thing when you start out in the field you must you must take care of yourself. You must be 100% alert every day when you start out. Okay? This is going to make or break your career your first 6 months out there, right? So, if you decide that you don't want to get to work on time or you don't want to take care of yourself or you want to go out and drink or you want to stay up playing video midnight and you keep doing these habits, you're going to lose all respect from them. Okay? So, it's your job to gain their respect. They already know what they're doing. Okay? So, they're going to teach you a trait, all right? Something that that nobody else can do. Once you're a journeyman in linement, it would take somebody four years of doing what you're going to do to replace you. Okay? So, you need to respect those guys for what they know because they know what you need to know. So, you got to respect them right off the bat. And I think if if you respect them, they're going to come around. All right? They're going to start. Nobody wants anybody to get killed, right? Even if it's her second day. Nobody hates somebody bad enough to wish that they're dead. You know what I mean? That just doesn't happen. Not in a brother's keeper kind of world. It may happen in other fields. I don't know. But I don't think any blue collar is kind of like that. We don't gain anything. You know what I mean? Nobody gains something by somebody not being there. We lose things if somebody's not there. Everybody has a job, right? So, if you're the groundman, you know, and you're not there that day, then somebody has to do your job, which which upsets the whole crew, you know what I mean? And now the whole crew, we're one man short. We're not able to be successful at getting the jobs done in a timely matter because we're down a man. So, by showing up every day and and respecting those guys, it comes quickly. It comes quickly if you'll do that. You know what I mean? And they they want to teach you. Okay. I don't know many journeyman lineman that doesn't want an apprentice to be to know what he knows. I want everybody to know, especially as a foreman, I want everybody to know what's going on and what could happen and what could go wrong. I want every, even the guy that's been there said two days. It's important because we all need to be watching out, right? the foreman. It's no time to foreman. You get you get a lot of phone calls from the higherups, you know, especially in power outage situations. So, we're stay if all you bosses are listening, quit calling your lineman when they're trying to get the lights on. It used to be such an aggravation. You know, you're down there, you got a guy working in primary. What's taking so long? What's taking so long? You know, and the and the public is just as bad, right? Blowing up Facebook. And then you got all these people that watch Facebook. They don't know what's going on out there. They're trying to get in contact with somebody. Hey, what's going on? What's the powerage? How long do y'all think it's going to take? And all this is going on. While we're trying, we're rushing our lives to get the lights on. You know, needs to be a little more trustworthy crews on that. Hey, we're going to let you know as soon as we can, you know. Um, so going back to starting out, you have to know that you're going in a dangerous position and you need to respect your crew. And to get respect, you have to give respect. And then usually after two or three months, then they know how many kids you got, you know, they know about you. They know what you did. They know, you know, cuz you have a lot of time on the crew. You're with these guys forever. So, we're sitting around taking a break. It's like, "Hey, do you play football in high school?" You know, or what do you like? Do you hunt, fish? You know, so we're having these conversations. Um, so, you know, and just try not to be overbearing, right? Like, I'm a I'm the baddest guy here. Don't do that. Don't do that. You know, don't be trying to intimidate them. They're going to smack you around and knock you down quickly, you know. And it's not about being violent, okay? But you're going to drop. You may have to climb 20 poles that day because you ran your math. You know what I mean? Punishment is different. It's not about punching you in the face anymore. They have their ways to punish you. Sometimes you're the problem. Are you fit for work? Are you fit for the job? Look in the mirror every morning. Right? Am I half shaving? Why am I half shaving? Did I take time to shave? Cuz I didn't have enough rest to get up in enough time to shave before I went to work. You know what I mean? So, it's just things like that. making sure that they're holding theirel accountable. Research shows that one of the most important steps in preventing serious

injuries and fatalities, which is always, you know, the biggest risk. It's it's a high high-risisk industry with, you know, high energy and all kinds of things that could go wrong. But a prejob brief that's done well is like absolutely a critical step in that. What are some things that you would recommend for crews to take those prejob briefs serious so that it's not just pencil whipping and checking the box and they really maximize that to ensure that the job is thought through completely. They've communicated well and so that everyone knows what their their role is in that job. actually set on a a safety committee where we we did a study on job briefings, right? Well, the first thing we found when we started going to other areas, you know, you just go out there, you say, "Hey, man, where's your job briefing?" They pull it out, all the boxes are checked and it's ran off. It's just copies. So, job briefings with check boxes, I am totally against. Don't like them. Need to be writing things in. Okay. You need to be writing our hazards. We need to be talking about how we're going to eliminate those hazards. If we can eliminate those hazards, and if we can eliminate those hazards, what are we going to do to work those hazards safely? You know, without well, you you don't have a risk without a hazard, right? So, identifying your hazards and your risk is very important. And when you're new on the crew, I tell them this, when you're new on the crew, you're not going to understand everything they're talking about that job briefly, right? When that journeyman lineman and a foreman is having a conversation, that's something you haven't learned yet. You It's just going in one ear and out the other. All right? But that doesn't mean you can tone out, okay? Because they're going to be off that the minute and they're going to be back something on that you do understand. They're going to let you know the hazards. Okay? Now, did you just sign your name or do you really understand the hazards? Are you just signing your name because everybody else signed it? You know, I do a lot of preaching on job briefings. I think job briefings are extremely important. Getting everybody on the same page. Stopping halfway through the work when something goes different. All right. It's happened to me in the air. Every journey lineman, this happens. It's, you know, I tell an example, me and another journeyman Milan work together every day, right? We were changing up cross arms, six crossarms in a row, right? Easy. Me and him, we don't even hardly have to say anything to each other. You know what I mean? He knows what he's doing. I know what I'm doing. We put the arm on. We get the arm changed out. Go on the next one. Go on the next one. When we get to the seventh one, everything goes wrong. Right. Everything goes wrong. it it's not going to work like the first six we did. So at that time he and I have to actually start communicating, right? So you got to come down out of the air. You got to talk to the guys on the ground too. The form, right? If we all a sudden start doing something different than what the plan was, then everybody on the ground is panicking because they don't know what's going on. That's not what we're doing. What why are you doing it that way? Right? So it's important to come down and talk to the whole crew again. Hey, this not going to work this way. We're going to have to do this. We're going to have to do that. you know, and have another small briefing, right? Instead of just going there and changing the plan without letting everybody know what we're going to do. That's a bad idea. It's a very bad idea. If something goes wrong, you immediately need to stop and have that discussion with your crew. And I would imagine too, like even the environment can change. I mean, you could have wind kick up in the afternoon. You could have, you know, storm roll through and that's going to change how you approach your work safely. Have you experienced situations like that where, you know, from the when you did the pre-job brief in the morning to halfway through the job, it's like it's a totally different environment than you would originally planned for. Yeah. Yeah. Weather's one of them, right? But being versatile, you know, adaptable. I teach that a lot. You have to be extremely adaptable to do lab work. Okay? We could be set up when you work for an IOU or a co-op or something, you still have a job to keep the lights on for your customers or your members. So, if we're up there changing out a pole, all right, and we're working primary voltage and a mile down the road somebody hits a pole and knocks a power up, we immediately have to get this situation we're in in a safe situation where we can leave this and go and get the lights on. All right, so that's adaptability. Being able to adapt quickly to things because that's what happens. the power goes out, it turns, lightning starts rolling in, a storm starts rolling in, you're going to have to pack everything up. More than likely, that lightning is going to cause some power outages. You know, we need we need to get everything get out of the air. We can't be in the air when lightning's around. So, yeah, things change just like that. Things change very quickly. So, learning to adapt quickly is a is a big huge thing you need to learn how to do. Scott, youTransitioning from Lineman to Educator

spent, you know, over 20 years on the front lines doing the work and then you transitioned to into education and teaching others. What What caused you to decide to to make that shift? I wanted to get back to the trade, you know what I mean? The trade took care of me. It was a great life. I had all the 20 years, still got all my fingers and toes, you know, never been burnt. Um, so during it the time what usually happened was I actually I don't know maybe 2010 2012 I moved up to a little town called Nona, Texas and I became a foreman and so once I become the foreman your entire everything changes completely. Your daytoday job is completely different than it was when you worked out that bucket. Now you're you're reliable for everybody, right? Making sure that everybody is doing what they're supposed to do, making sure everybody's working safe, making sure everybody's got their PPE on, making sure everybody knows what's going on with the task at hand. We're working together. If I a lot of times you'll have another lineman from another area come up and help, right? He's never worked with this lineman. All right? So, getting them on the same page right off the bat is extremely important, you know? So, because it was a small town apprentices. Okay, I would train an apprentice for a year or so, two years, get him to where he would actually could take on call, right? And he could work in the bucket beside me. He would quit. He would go back home, right? This happens all the time. It still happens all the days out there. So, I was constantly training apprentices, constantly training apprentices. And so, I think I just got really good at training, you know, and by training people made me better, you know what I mean? Journeyman line and everything have to look that it's same way right there with the students. They're going to do what I do. You know what I mean? So, if they see me do it that way, then it's okay to do it that way, right? So if you're a journeyman lineman and you take a shortcut in front of an apprentice, he automatically thinks it's going to be okay to do that because he's seen you do that, right? So try to get awareness out there. That's the whole thing about the bass, right? Trying to get the awareness out there to people that don't take the shortcuts because you've seen somebody else. If you know it's wrong, don't do it, right? You've been taught better. Somebody has told you not to do that. And if it's not, then we need better training. we need better training. So that's one of the reasons I went in training just to try to get the awareness out there. And like I said, I wasn't the greatest apprentice. I made a lot of mistakes. So by making those mistakes and then actually turning turning my career around and becoming a great journeyman lineman and a foreman, then I have I've been on both sides, right? I've been over there where they've been yelling at you because you're not doing things right. And then I've been on the side of the guy that's yelling because you're not doing things right. So, you know, I it's kind of like I grew up doing line work, right? I think a lot of students are in the 15 weeks they're with me, they're growing up. Watching them from day one, right? When they're all nervous and then 15 weeks later through the course, they've made 20 friends. They're becoming brothers is what I'm that's what I get to watch in 15 weeks is them actually learn how to start working with somebody else not do it yourself have to rely on somebody else to help you get the job done becoming a team member become a brothers so I get to I get to watch all that you know that's that's pretty cool we started out this conversation talking about the Polecast and would love to hear just a little bit more about you know what got you motivated to to start that and what are some of the things that you're looking forward to doing in 2026 to through this platform?

Um so probably more education on the on the podcast, you know, more teaching so trying to get out the word out to guys that are just starting out and guys that are out there that are apprentices and some of the journeyman linemen. you know, we need to realize we're working a dangerous job, okay? And being prepared for that every day. I think that that's one of the things I want to help get out there with a pollcast. It's so awesome. I I'm really proud of you. It takes a lot of effort to to get something like that off the ground, but your perspective is is so valuable just from all your hands-on experience and then working with people at all different levels in their their journey from a career perspective. Scott, is there anything you want to leave our guests with before we wrap stuff up? 

No, but I think we got everything. The, uh, you know, just stay safe out there, guys. You know, take care of your body, right? I hope you listen to this and you understand, you're a sports medicine doctor, right? Yeah. You know, this guy knows what he's talking about. All right. You don't got to listen to this dumb lineman. This guy's telling you, just what I'm saying. take care of your body.

You dropped some good points there. I so appreciate it. I mean, everything that you're saying is spot on.

So, Scott, thanks for the example that you've set, not just through your skill, but through your leadership, your humility, and your commitment to the brotherhood. And I can definitely tell you that the trade is better because of people like you who choose to give back, to invest in new students who are coming up. And so, we're we're just really grateful for this honest conversation. And I'm going to just wrap it up here.

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