From Side Hustles to Success: Chad Stewart & Quick Grips

What does it take to go from selling snow cones, to working in the tire industry, to launching your own golf club gripping company?

In this episode of Shaping Success Treasure Valley, Wes Tankersley sits down with Chad Stewart, founder of Quik Grips, to talk about entrepreneurship, taking risks, building a brand, and creating a business that serves golfers across the country.

We discuss:
🏌️ The story behind Quik Grips
🚗 Chad’s journey through the tire industry
🍧 Early entrepreneurial experiences selling snow cones
📈 Lessons learned from starting and growing multiple businesses
💡 What it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur today
⛳ Why golfers are loving Quik Grips

Whether you’re a business owner, aspiring entrepreneur, golfer, or someone looking for inspiration, this conversation is packed with valuable insights and real-world experience.

Follow Chad and Quik Grips:
📱 @quikgrips.co

Follow Shaping Success:
📱 @wes.tankersley

🎙️ Listen to Shaping Success on your favorite podcast platform.

👇 Tell us in the comments:
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned from starting a business?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

And now, here's your host of Shaping Success, Wes Tankersley. What's going on here? There we go. What is up everyone? Welcome to Shaping Success. I'm your host, Wes Tankersley. This is a Shaping Success Treasure Valley edition with my friend Chad Stewart, who Chad is he wasn't a student of mine, but I coached him. He was on the JV team when I was a coach at Middleton High School. He was never took my class because he probably didn't want to run as much as I made everyone else run. So that's true. That's how it went. But uh thanks for hanging out with us. This is live. You guys can comment, but we probably won't really see the comments. Uh make sure you share this wherever you can. If you want to support the show, you can go to patreon.com slash West Tankersley. As little as three dollars a month, you can help us out. Chad, good to see you, man. We we kind of got together in here, and it's we're both really big Giants fans. And one of the things that is kind of funny is I remember, you know, like I didn't have a whole lot of jerseys, but you're the jersey guy, right? Like back in the day you had this hookup with this guy that you would you would email and he would just send you jerseys, and I've got probably three of them sitting in that closet right there.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

I still I st I still do that a little bit too. A little entrepreneurial in the in the beginning, early stages there.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Yeah, and that's kind of what is interesting about you that I've always thought was the fact that um that was one of the things that you were doing, but it was funny. I got to know your family a little bit through baseball because we did hitting at your house. You have this whole room off your house that was big enough that we could go in and hit. I I there was rumor that there was a pool underneath there that was covered up, which I think there was.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Yeah, there there's a pool. The um the previous owners of the house actually built an in like an in-ground uh indoor pool in the house, and uh uh there were some issues with the heating of it. It was actually heated by propane, which was kind of interesting, but there were some cracks and it was pretty expensive to fix it. And we were kind of getting to the age where we kind of were quitting to swim like like when we were kids, and so uh we built a deck over system on it and we spent a week or two doing it. My dad spent countless hours like sanding it down and stuff, but we have a polished wood floor in there and we host events in there, weddings and uh like receptions and parties and young life, and then in high school too, before we had an indoor hitting facility that we could hit at, we actually hit at the at our house, which was kind of fun.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Yeah, it was pretty interesting because it's like just this huge room, and we I when we got in there the first time I'm like, oh my gosh, how are we gonna get all this stuff in here? And it all fit in there, and we all were I don't know, there was probably 20 kids in there at a time swinging, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Yeah, the room felt a lot smaller when you had 20 guys with bats in there. Yeah. But we we made it work and it was actually great. We would get a ton of hacks in every like we did it every day for about an hour during the off season. Yeah and we'd go into the backyard and we'd hit phone balls and stuff like that too. So I I loved having the opportunity to kind of work on the off-season and kind of get everybody together. It was it was kind of fun.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Well, we talked a little bit about like the Jersey stuff, which was kind of where I kind of saw what was going on with your family dynamic. I kind of learned a few things that you know, over the time that like your parents had owned like a tire store at one point. And then when I was teaching or when I was coaching you, they had just purchased Moxie Java, which was we were talking about on One Drink Wednesday the other day when you hopped in there, but it was one of the first places when I the first time I ever had coffee from a store in Ontario, Oregon, where I grew up, was at Moxie Java in Ontario. I don't think it's there anymore.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

No, I don't think we have a location there anymore. But uh yeah, I mean I mean, if we're going way back growing up, I grew up in Wyoming and my dad had a big old tires, and I mean I think he kind of shaped uh like kind of a work ethic into me in that because I would go roll tires and stock inventory and um clean and do things like that. I mean, I'd go in on weekends and in the summer he'd let me come in and I had like a timesheet and I'd fill out the timesheet and uh he'd kind of give me tasks and take me to lunch and stuff. But that's kind of where I started to get that entrepreneurial mind because my dad, I mean, he's a natural salesman and he's like he's self-taught on everything too. I mean he didn't go get a four-year degree and so he I mean he reads and he learns and so I I kind of like just looked up to him like that and uh kind of started shaping me on how hard I need to work and work for the things I want and work for the things I love. And I just I kind of saw him like just communicating and working with people and connecting with people, and I mean that's the biggest thing in the entrepreneurial world, and so just growing up as a big O tires um was just something amazing to kind of learn off of. And then when we moved to Idaho, uh push is just a little bit of almost got a swallow. Oh, okay, no, you're good. And then uh so after when we actually moved to Idaho and I think it was 2013, uh we he ended up bu purchasing car washes because he kind of wanted to uh be in our lives a little bit more as far as like because we're all getting into sporting events more and concerts and stuff like that. And he wanted to be able to drop us off for school and pick us up for practice and take us to practice and stuff like that. And so they got uh a couple car washes, one in Caldwell and one in Nampa. And they did a snow cone shack. I don't know if you remember that.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

I do remember that because you had it, was it at Ridley's? Did you have it parked in Ridley's and you did that in the summer too, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Yeah, so it it started. Um, well, the car wash thing was one thing, and so I mean, even there I'd help out, we'd go clean bays and chip ice in the wintertime and collect quarters, clean vacuum. It was one of those ones where you'd drive in and you'd get the hoses off the wall and well the one in Caldwell was had three bays, self-serve, and then it had an automatic in there as well.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

And uh then the one in Nampa that we had was self-serve as well, four bays and an automatic. And so we'd go the one in Caldwell wasn't the one off the boulevard, was it? It was the Centennial Car Wash, which was yeah, with that weird turn right there.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

A girl that I went to high school with, her and her husband owned that. They bought it, they must have bought it from you. Is it is his name Chad also?

SPEAKER_00 5:56

I think his name I could. Uh no, uh I forgot his name, but Jake Ryneerson. Yeah, me yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, I think I think that's right. But um but so we'd worked there too and clean vacuums and stuff like that. And then we had the shaved eye shack as well, which started off um when there was that size kitchen trailer or the mobile setup. It was across the street from the Jackson's. Oh, yeah, right. Um we had the tropical snow there, and we did that first season there, and then we moved it to the Ridleys and had a couple seasons there. And I mean, that was great for me and my brothers as well because it gave us a job in the summer, right? And we kind of got to manage and teach people because we had more than just us as employees as well. And it it we would sell and we'd hang out and we'd manage and maintain and clean, and uh, we were working with money and numbers and stuff like that. And so you were able to go play baseball and I was able to play Legion baseball, which gosh, I miss Legion baseball. Um, but yeah, I got to work in the morning, go play Legion baseball in the in the evenings, and and yeah, but the car wash thing is kind of what led into the Moxie Java thing, at least from my perspective a little bit. But that Centennial Car Wash has a a spot that there used to be a barbecue place that was ran out of it. I think it was called Jay's Barbecue or something like that. And my mom just had this dream of uh like having a Moxie Java or having a coffee shop in there, and she loved Moxie Java and her favorite drink was the enchantment, which is like a it's like a it's like a peppermint white chocolate mocha or something like that. And so when they inquired to maybe potential like open a franchise and maybe that booth of the of the car wash, uh that's when they were kind of presented the idea of maybe taking over the like as a whole for the Moxie Java. Right. And so, and once they got their foot in the door with that, we were able to kind of go that direction. And now, I mean, they've just built something pretty amazing over there, and it's it's gone in so many different directions, it's not just Moxie Java anymore.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

So it was funny. We looked it up on so it's not just Moxie Java anymore, there's more than that, right? Yeah, so we'll talk about that because I think I saw something yesterday. I was like, what the heck is this?

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Oh yeah, you probably saw it on uh on Laqueur. I'm like, what is this? No, it's another branch, and we can get into that as well.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Yeah, so we were looking at Jay and I. I started talking about it because you had popped on. I was like, Oh yeah, his parents own this coffee shop, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said the same thing to him that I just told you. Like, it was the first place I ever got an ice coffee, you know. Right. My friend took me down there. He was a senior, I was a freshman, I didn't couldn't drive, he could drive. We just cruise in there, he bought me like an Italian soda or something. It was the first time that I had ever had anything like that, and it was Moxie Java, and it's not there anymore because the company that I work for now is right across the street from it, and it's not. But Moxie was one of those ones that was like kind of the beginning, I feel like in the Treasure Valley. They didn't have any Starbucks, they didn't have any like you know, Dutch came after a while, which is kind of a big thing, and BlackRock and all these ones that are coming around. But um it was cool when your dad bought it because I remember I was still teaching when your dad mom bought it. I was teaching at the high school, and like one of the days was Teachers Appreciation Day, and your dad's down there mixing coffee for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

He still he still does stuff like that all the time, too. But he roasts too, right? Like he roasted it. He does everything, he's the jack of all traits over there. And I mean, we have we have guys that work in the warehouse, and uh we have a roaster and a warehouse manager and stuff like that too. But I mean, everyone kind of does everything over there as well, and they're they're all just so great.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

So yeah. So um, before we get to what you're doing now, because there's like a lot of stuff that we were talking about and a bazillion things in between as well. Right, we'll we'll get back and forth, we'll kind of bounce around because I mean it's like you said, it's a catch-up thing, you know. It's yeah, this is great. We haven't seen each other for like six years. We've been kind of posting back and forth on social media, right? You know, I kind of like to get jealous when I see where you're watching the Giants play wherever, which it's kind of annoying, even though they suck right now. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

But don't get me started on that right now.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

Oh my gosh, man. I tell you what. Um, but so you worked at Moxie a little bit and then you went to college, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Yeah, so you know, I did a lot of different things with Moxie. So, I mean, after we did this the car washes and tropical snow and stuff like that, uh, I started working at Moxie a little bit and I started kind of in the warehouse stuff. I would pull orders and um deliver to all the local franchises around and uh I mean I'd help bag and seal and label and just kind of the ins and outs that you kind of really don't think about. Right. And then um, I mean, where I really started working at Moxie, especially in like the barista side, was during COVID because I I mean I was a senior when COVID happened, so uh what happened in March, and so my baseball season got cut off, and then it was like, well, what do we do now? And so I mean, I already kind of had my mind wrapped around like where I wanted to go to college, and so I was like, well, I I think I should just start making money and save and like see if I can just work as much as I can. And at that point, I was able to work at in the coffee shops a little bit and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

I think I remember you delivering me a jersey at my house as a star that year.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

Definitely, you know, I you know, and I actually I'm I actually just got back into running the delivery route again, so it's like a Monday-Tuesday thing, pull orders Monday, deliver on Tuesday, and I now do the same thing on delivery day. If somebody wants grips or something, I actually will swing by their house and I'll open the door and there'll be a bunch of coffee right there, and I'll be able to knock their grips out real quick in their driveway and just kind of continue on. So I still I still do drop offs for my business uh during during my delivery routes.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

So that's freaking cool because like it's uh you've been doing the grips for a while. Um we'll talk a little bit about that. But like quick grips is something that you I'm trying to think. I actually that was probably the last time I saw you is when you put the grips on my clubs, um, which I still have on there. Heck yeah. I haven't played enough yet, though. So to wear them out.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

We'll have to get we'll we'll have to get you out there.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

Yeah, I gotta play some more. I mean, it's been kind of busy with the life and things like that, but right um, yeah. So you you were working, so you went to Grand Canyon University, right, in Arizona? Yep, yep. And you were working for the gentleman who owned Quick Grips or was a franchisee, or how did that go?

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Yeah, so um so I mean there's a whole lot of uh there's a there's a whole lot behind everything, but I actually I went to GCU and uh when I went down to GCU I knew I needed to get a job and I wanted to work and be able to my kind my kind of my goal was to uh to kind of like pay for school as I was at school. Yeah. And I mean I still have student loans and stuff like that as well. But um GCU offered a good program where I could kind of pay as I was there, and I kind of saw it as an opportunity that I can kind of like make my student loans a little bit less. And so I was like, all right, well, if I can get a job and I can budget that I can I can give GCU this amount of money every month and and I can work this many days, then um then that'd be great. And so I was looking for part-time jobs three or four days a week, and my my goal was to work at a golf course because in my mind I was like, I want to play more golf, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:40

It's not like there's any golf courses in Amazon.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

And you know, Arizona, there's terrible golf in Arizona, there's no golf courses there. Right. And so I did a lot of searching and I actually I I interviewed at like the Arizona Country Club, and I actually got the job at the Arizona Country Club, and then they ended up doing a different budget thing and said, actually, we're gonna go a different way. And then I got a job at a golf resort called the Wigwam, which is a huge golf resort in uh Goodyear Lichfield Park area.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

That's where like isn't the wigwam where uh is Cleveland's team?

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Yeah, so well, so the wigwam, it's it's north of the freeway. And so in that area, within like 10 miles of the wigwam, you have Camelback Ranch, which is where the the Dodgers excuse me, sorry. For the Dodgers, yeah, I can't say that in here. It's where that the team from LA that's not the Angels play, and um and the White Sox, they share Camelback Ranch, and then south of that, that's where you're gonna have Cleveland and Cincinnati. Yeah, and so which was honestly great as well because at that golf resort that I worked at, a lot of those players came. Oh my god. And so, I mean, as much as a Dodger hater I am, it sucked because a lot of the Dodgers golfed at my golf course, and so I mean I was I was grabbing bags for Max Muncie and cleaning Dustin Mays clubs, and Kirst would come in, and you know, and so I saw the Dodgers pretty obviously. But no, I worked at this golf resort called the Wigwam, and it had three 18-hole courses. Oh wow, and it was a huge resort. They mean I mean they had they were pushing thousand, fifteen hundred. No, they're pushing I think it was close to 1,500 golfers a day. They had two or three hundred carts, like, and so I kind of just got a job in the cart barn and I was pulling carts, cleaning clubs, I was range duty and all that. And I mean, I'd wake up at 3 30 in the morning and I'd pull 150 carts before 6 a.m. T times. And so, but it was great, good tips, uh, good people, good community. I mean, the golf community down there is just amazing. So, but um worked at that golf resort for a few years, and uh at the golf resort, I started seeing a company that did kind of like an on-site uh gripping service, and it I mean, immediately when I saw it, it kind of spiked my interest. I'm like, oh yeah, uh club services on-site, I mean that makes sense. And so uh I made a connection and I started learning from uh that company that that uh did the on-site gripping down in down in Arizona. And uh yeah, I was really grateful for the opportunity they gave me. I I convinced them to maybe let me bring some ups up to Idaho and kind of like teach me how to do it and stuff like that. And uh I ended up just like seeing a whole vision and seeing a future where I could probably I kind of saw it as like a part-time thing, like um that I Which is what it started out, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Like you were up here for the summer, yep.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

The first time, and you did it for the summer, and then you it came up for the summer, I did it for the summer, I learned and I I kind of just kind of got thrown into it and uh it was learned a lot, and it was a great experience because I kind of learned sales a little bit and I learned managing and uh and calendars and connections, and I was going in and communicating with all the people and the way you do it though, like is so fast.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

I I have I I think I still have a grip station in my in my garage, but I use it as you know, you put the solvent on there, you put the tape on there, you slide it on there. And like I was just amazed, you're like, Oh yeah, a minute of grip or whatever. It's less than a minute of grip, literally. It takes you more time to put the tape on there than it does to put the grip on.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

Yeah, the longest part is actually taking the the old grip off. Right. And so I actually I was at uh Falcon Crest at Valor Club two weeks ago, and a lady wanted to tie me and I did a whole 14-piece set in six and a half minutes. Oh dude, that's insane. Yeah, it was it was but I mean the grips came off like butter.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

But so, anyways, I I uh I kind of learned, I like learned the trade a little bit. Uh, started learning more about uh ordering and grips and stuff like that as well. And um, and then I moved back to GCU and later in the springtime I was able to get a little bit more of an opportunity with one of uh one of the company's like partners in Arizona and was able to grip some clubs there. But at that time too, I was uh I was really leaning towards being a firefighter. And so um uh during that spring, I was like kind of mixing around, like what do I want to do with my life? And I was like You're talking a lot to Hogan. Yeah, so yeah, I was like, what am I gonna do with my life? And so um I was like kind of curious in being a first responder, and I was like, that sounds great. Like I would love to be a part of the community, I'd love to help people, I'd love to stay in shape and stuff like that. And so I went on a on a ride along in Modesto, California, because one of my family friends is was a captain in Modesto. Yeah, and uh so I w I drove up to Modesto during my spring break and did a ride-along, and honestly, I just fell in love with it. I was like, this is great. Like um, help the community, the like the the com like the brotherhood and the stations are so cool, and like it's something that I never imagined myself doing.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

And uh so I started pursuing fire pretty hard, and I graduated college and immediately jumped into a uh uh a fast, what's what do they call it? Like they push you through an EMT school, like a a quick one. Yeah, I'm trying to think of what it is. Accelerated class. Accelerated class, yeah. And so I did the the Idaho Medical Academy uh course, and it's like I think it's like a six-week course, and you're supposed to take like the EMT course is usually like a semester. So I jammed a whole semester into a six to eight week course, it was ten hours a day, every day, past the class, everything like that, and then I mean I just keep pursuing fire, and it's so competitive that I just I mean, I'd get going, I'd get far, and then I'd and then I'd just have to start over again. And I mean, it's it's so much more competitive than you ever think. And I mean, I'm not saying I gave up on it, but um I just kind of started falling in love with different things.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Well, it's interesting because I can guarantee you the thought process that you would have had. I mean well, maybe I'm wrong, but you can correct me. But this is how I felt, okay. So I started out in '99, I graduated. I went to college at University of Idaho, and I flunked out. I wasn't I didn't flunk out, but I was gonna flunk out. Like I had a 1.79 GPA, okay. So I went to go work for Le Schwab part-time while I was while I was in college and then ended up uh going there full-time and working for them for 11 years. Now Le Schwa was kind of like this weird thing, and I think this is where my passion for like entrepreneurship came from because it's weird, but when you work for someone, you work for someone. And so that to me is kind of like when I became a teacher, you know, I quit working at Lechoab because I screwed up my knee, went back to school, did really good in college instead of being an idiot like I was when I was 19, and then you know, got my master's degree while I was teaching, and I quit the day that I got the paper in my hand for my master's degree because I was tired of it because I was working for someone again. And I wanted to work for myself, and so I I still work for someone and I but I'm a salesperson now, so I kind of work for myself, and that's the the cool thing about like being being a salesman is that they do give you the appointments and they schedule you for them, but it's up to you to make the money. Yeah, totally you have to do it, and whether you own the company or you are selling, it's like when you're a hundred percent commission, which is basically what you are now, yeah, it's all on you.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Yeah, I mean you you don't sell, you drown, right? Yeah, exactly. And so, yeah, no, and backing up a little bit, so I I saw this opportunity with fire, and I mean, if a fire schedule is usually what 48 on, right, or it's 72 on, 48 off, or whatever. That's two days on, one day off, or three days on, two days off, or two days on, three days, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Yeah, so you could do that and do this.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Yeah, and so I decided right before I graduated that I wanted to start my own grip company. I had a vision and I wanted to build a brand and I wanted to have and I and the company I worked for was great. They taught me, they and they supported me and everything like that, but I just had a completely different vision. I wanted to do on-site gripping, mobile gripping, I wanted to do uh online presence where I could sell, and I I just wanted a whole different brand and I wanted to do extensions and cut downs and start to do club fitting and kind of milk my way into like a pro shop basically. Right. And and I'm still leaning towards that direction, but I needed to start somewhere and start building a brand. And so in my mind, I was like, all right, I'm gonna I'm gonna start quick grips, I'm gonna build my logo, build my brand, I'm gonna build my connections, I'm gonna, I'm gonna push for quick grips, but then I'm gonna pursue fire at the same time. Yeah. And so I was pursuing fire pretty hard and I was working quick grips full time and I was in and I was also in the EMT class too. So um, I mean, I hired like a coup a couple college kids to run quick grips for me while I was in class and I'd like cash, you know, and so um I was in class at EMT school and they were running the grips in, and then I'd get off and I'd close it and and stuff like that. And so my idea was to do quick grips and fire. That was gonna be my part-time gig, and that was exactly what I really wanted to do. And then uh after that summer, I I still, I mean, was pursuing fire interviewing and applying places, and I still was just not getting anywhere. And it was starting to get to the point where everywhere or just Idaho? Everywhere. I mean, I was all over Idaho, every station in Idaho. I was applying in Colorado, uh, southern Wyoming, Cheyenne area. Uh I was looking in Utah, I was looking in Oregon, I was looking in Washington.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

It's crazy though, like what you know, I I mentioned Trent Hogan 'cause I know that he's a firefighter. How what what do you have to do to get someone to hire you? I mean, that's insane. You feel like you could

SPEAKER_00 22:01

There's a whole big process behind it, and it's all about connections. And Trent did the right thing, and Trent did amazing at it. And Trent is the perfect guy to do fire. Oh yeah. He was a rock. Oh my gosh, he's amazing. So um basically you do the EMT school. I mean, and everyone can go through a different process as well. But that CWI program for Fire, you get your Fire One, which is the course for it, is amazing, and they feed really well. And they they really like having that on your resume is great, but you technically don't have to have a Fire One certificate to get hired with Fire. And so basically, and the what I was trying to avoid, what I really wanted to do is I didn't want to take my Fire One twice. And you go to CWI and you get the course and you get your Fire One and then you start applying. And it's a whole series of events where you apply and then you do an a phone interview and then you do an in-person interview and then you do a test and then you do like it's just a series. Yeah, you do a board interview and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

The hardest part is getting the first one and then impressing someone enough to get the second one.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

It's it just gets it's yeah, and it's so hard, but having that fire one on that fire one certificate under your belt is it's is great, and having that CWI experience is great as well. And so um he went that way and he he did the fire one course twice, which props to him, it's boot camp for fire. And he did and there's I think there's 16-week uh like trainings, and he did it twice because he did it at CWI and then he did it with CUNA Fire. Okay, and so um I was I mean, I should have looked at myself and I should have said, all right, if I really, really want to do fire, I should stop everything that I'm doing right now and go to CWI and do the course. If fire is my passion, I need to do that. That was the way to do it. And instead, I was like, well, I want to do quick grips and I want to um I want to do fire too, so I'm gonna apply and I'm gonna start doing that and test for my EMT and and stuff like that. And I and I had like the farthest I got was a phone interview, and I applied dozens of places, and um, I mean, it's just it's so competitive. I mean, I I mean I applied at Boise Fire and there's eight positions a couple years ago, and they had hundreds of applications or applicants, and you have lateral firefighters that transfer from the California stations over or something like that as well. And so um, yeah, I mean, I once the season started ending for the summer and quick grips was starting to point into the wintertime, I was like, well, people are gonna stop golfing here soon. And I I didn't have a great plan for the winter time for quick grips. Yeah, and so I was starting to look for maybe like just like a part-time job to like uh to like a filler job. Yeah. So I graduated in April. Um, and then I was like, I did the summer, did the school, did quick grips through the summer, and it was great. And then I was like, all right, well, I need a filler job as I keep applying for fire. Right. And so I got a job at a moving company for a little bit, and I was working, I was just doing moves, like residential commercial, all that stuff. And then my neighbor, um he needed he needed somebody to come work for his company, and it was a commercial interiors company, so they did offices, desks, and conference rooms and everything, everything office you could ever dream of, which if you don't know, there's a crazy market there. Like I've never thought of it. And so I got hired on at Workspace, which is that commercial interiors company. It's a small uh company here in Idaho. It's small, but we do large-scale jobs, like huge. Small as in like employees. There's like five or six employees, but we do massive jobs. And uh, so I got hired at workspace, and I was just an installer, so I'd go and uh a lot of the jobs were all over the United United States, and so we'd travel to Kansas City or we'd go to this is where the this is where some of the travel starts coming in a little bit. I mean, the the the around the United States travel for sure, the international travel I kind of did on my own, but um and so I got this job as an installer and we were starting to travel around a little bit and we'd start building offices, and then um I kind of started working my way up and I started getting pretty good with the company and starting like learning the ropes a little bit, and I was starting to get pretty confident in the company, and I was like, Well, this is great, and I saw a great like trajectory or trajectory with it, so I was like, all right, well, I'm gonna work up in this company and like I could see myself in a future here, and so um started working up. I became a lead installer, and so I was running a crew, and that was great, and I was running crews all around the United States, and then um I got promoted to a project management position, which I mean within a year or so or a year and a half of working there, like that was great for me, and that was my first time having like a salary job, and it was consistent, and um, I was also I was also single at the time, so I was like on the road and I was like grinding the hours and getting the per diem and and stuff like that. And so I was a project manager, I was running these huge scale, hundred office, two like hundred cubes, multiple, like just multi-million dollar projects all around the United States.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

And so I was traveling because as a group of five people out of Idaho are doing this all over the country. That's insane.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

It's so crazy. I mean, and I mean, I could just name off just cities and cities and cities that we've that we that we did these giant, like you go to the skyscrapers, like we did a job in Seattle, skyscraper, you look at skyscraper, you don't think like who did all the furniture in there? And how do you get it in there? And how do you like get your tools in there and stuff like that? And so my job as a project manager was especially with all these roads, was freight, which we we did a my last job that I managed was a job in Houston, and we had like 13 full 52-foot semis that came to Houston. And um, and I mean, you have to, and we had I think we had about 25 different vendors.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

At this point, were you just like pointing, hey, go put that there, or were you actually having to no dude, I was I was nose to the grindstone too.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

I mean, I like I always joked because like my job as a project manager was definitely like an office job, like like computer book flights, book uh freight days, uh check orders and stuff like that. But I was boots on the ground at every job. I mean, because it's such a small company, so like I might have booked everything on the computer, but then I was also unloading trucks, which I loved to do. Like that manual labor, like I really liked doing it.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

It keeps you from getting bored.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

Yeah, no, it was it that's what I loved about that job too, something different every single time. New city, new product, new colors, new like, and it was just it's a new challenge every time. I mean, and it was stuff I had to kind of learn myself or just learn. And the owner of the company was so great at like mentoring me as well, but it was just so many things I had to learn that I never would ever think of. Like we did a job in downtown Denver, and I'm I'm like, where are we gonna park a semi in downtown Denver? I'm like, well, I have to get parking boots and I have to get certificate of insurances for the buildings and the road, and I have to make sure I'm during after hours, and so we're doing a whole skyscraper in Denver, and it's January, and it's snowing, and we're unloading a semi at two o'clock in the morning because we can't be in there during business hours. Right. And so, and then you I mean, we build all the furniture and then there's damaged furniture. Right. And so then you're like, oh well, we have to punch that stuff, and then we have to fly back and fix it once you could do it. And so, I mean, there's just a bazillion things. I was hiring and uh I was I was just kind of doing everything with the company, and it was a really, really good learning experience, and I was really grateful for it.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

But you quit that what not too long ago.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

Yeah, I so my last job for that company was in March, and that was that Houston project that we did. And I mean, it took I mean, it just took like a ton of prayer and a ton of like uh talks with my fiance and talks with my family about kind of like what I wanted to do with my life and stuff, and you know, as much as as thankful as I was for working at that company and the relationships I built and um how I was supported and kind of like the comfortability of having like that steady income and stuff like that, I I still just really wanted to pursue quick grips and I wanted to really dive into it full time and get and see what I can do with it. And you know, being on the road wasn't like great for me, like physically or mentally, or with my relationship with my fiance.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

You can really have a relationship when you're on the road. Like I actually before I this job that I'm working at now, like two months ago, I was quitting and I was gonna end up going on the road, and then they convinced me to stay. And so that can be a tough thing. Like that's and that was the number one thing that we were talking about. My wife and I, you know, I got two young kids, and it's like I'm gonna be on the road all the time, you're gonna be here. How what kind of life is my family gonna have, you know?

SPEAKER_00 30:25

Yeah, exactly. And that's that's kind of how I was like looking at it too. As this my relationship with my fiance is the most important thing to me. And so I'm just thinking, like, I need I would like to be here for the foundation of it. Like, we get married in October, and if I'm on the road multiple times a week or multiple weeks out of the month, like I'm missing out on things. Like, I'm missing birthdays and parties and events and engagement photos and wedding planning and uh time with her and time with my family and time with her family. Like it was just on the road so much, and you know, when you're on the road too, like it's it's it's not I mean, it can be healthy like if you choose for it, but when you're on the fly so much and you're eating unhealthy and you're not sleeping in your bed, and um, I mean You obviously didn't have time to go work out either because you were busy in the middle of the year. And I mean that job was a workout. I mean, when you're right, when you're unloading a full semi in Birmingham, Alabama in July, you sweat about 20 pounds off and you ring your shirt out of it.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

It's weird though, right? Because like you look at like a guy who does construction and he's working out every single day, like framers and things like that. It's a different kind of workout though. Yeah, like it's not like you're out there building a six-pack, you're building those muscles that you use to lift that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

Yeah, exactly. And I mean, that that job uh with workspace, that it is construction inside. So that was another thing I was really thankful for too, is because I learned kind of like the trait of construction as well, like uh building and woodcraft and uh just all sorts of different construction type things because inside all these things that we had to lie to you about when I was teaching that just drove me insane.

SPEAKER_01 31:55

It was like, hey, listen, you need to go to college, you need to get a degree. Yeah, like I'm not saying that degrees were not helpful, but like when you're telling people they have to go to college to be successful, it's not necessary, it's helpful, but like I look at these construction jobs and like this is where all these people are. Hey, we're in college, we can't build this anymore. So now we don't have people to build houses, we don't have people to do the plumbing, we don't have electrical, yeah, we don't have all these things, and they're gonna be very prominent because we had this 20 or 30 years where they said everyone has to go to college.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

When they really didn't.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

Yeah, I mean, and my take on that's a little interesting as well because like if you asked me, like, what'd you learn in high school and what did you learn in college, I would tell you the most important class I took in high school was consumer math because and that sounds super silly because they called they labeled that as like the dumb math, you know? Right. But in that in that consumer math class, we each had a job, we each had an income. It was fake money, it was like monopoly, but you paid bills, you paid taxes, you paid rent, you bought a car, you paid your car payment, you paid insurance. And like uh Orloski was the one that taught that class, and he did such a great job because we'd all choose a job and we'd all have a salary, and then you'd come into class on Tuesday and be like, Chad, you got an erect this weekend. What are you gonna do about that? But it was it was real life. No, like it was totally life stuff.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

We had something else called, I think it was called personal finance when I was in high school. It was a similar thing. Like we learned how to write checks, we learned how to the same kind of thing. It's like, hey, you gotta do it.

SPEAKER_00 33:14

We were writing checks and everything. Yeah, it was it was life, and it was exactly that was the most important class I think I took in in high school. And I mean, people can dog me all day for that and say that they took all these crazy science classes, and and that's probably perfect for them because they're in that field, but that was perfect for me. Yeah, and so I think the best thing I learned in high school was the consumer math and then the schedule, like just waking up at the same time every day, yeah, doing something all day, which is like going to going to a job, and then uh like just working out too and being part of a team, like with baseball or I played football and and being a part of the team, like that was the most important thing about high school. Now in college, the most important thing was you're living on your own now. Like, what are you eating that day? What time are you choosing to wake up? What time are you choosing to go to bed? And sometimes you pay the price on that. I mean, there's multiple I mean, I worked at that golf course. I had to be there at 3:30, 4 in the morning to pull carts, but I wanted to hang out with my buddies till 1 a.m., you know? So how fun is that?

SPEAKER_01 34:07

No sleep.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

And so I mean, you learn those things. You learn like you learn like what you should diet and what you should eat, and like how to build relationships and connections and stuff. And so there's a couple things I learned in colleges that how to live by myself, and then one, everything in life is negotiable. One of my professors told me that, and that stuck with me. And two, connections are the biggest thing, and so that's they are and and a work ethic, get completing something. It's not about what you learn, it's about getting it completed, you know. Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:34

Yeah, and it's the worst thing because the connection thing is a very important thing. And then also, like you were talking about, it's funny, you you I I made a joke that you didn't take my PE class because I made them run too much. But my goal as a teacher, like they always what's your philosophy, you know. Like, this is one of the things that they tell you when you become a teacher, like at college at BSU, they're like, What's gonna be your philosophy in education? And for me, I wanted to be a PE teacher, but what I didn't like was the fact that there was kids, and there's there's both classes, right? So I taught lifetime and then I taught the I called it fitness, is what it was. But there are kids who are gonna do these lifetime things. There's kids like you and me who are gonna go throw a football, go throw a baseball, go play some basketball, we're gonna go do that. But then there's those kids who don't want to do that, or don't care about that, who are not athletic, but need to exercise and need to know how to do it. And that was kind of my thought process, almost like that consumer math, where that's something that is gonna be in your brain. This is something that you're gonna do in life. And it's funny because I have this waterwise pump sat here. I had my one of my students from Marsing. Um, he was in seventh grade when um when I taught him, because I was a middle school teacher over at Marsing. He owns this company and he sat right where you were about three weeks ago. I think I watched it, yeah. And he was talking to me about how my class, because it was very similar in middle school than it was at the high school, and he was like, That taught me so much because it was able to like over there, there's a lot of kids who are a part of this church that their some of their parents will let them play sports and some of them won't because they have they believe in like faith healing. And so if you get hurt, you're not going to the doctor, so you could get you could get injured, and they would just you know, praying, compound fracture. And they do, and it it depends. Like there's very he was telling me there's various uh degrees of this, right? Some of them are like, nope, you're not going to, and some of them are like, Well, it's dire, we're gonna take you. But but they just pray a lot and they feel that they'll be healed in the way that they will, and whatever's supposed to happen is supposed to happen. So his dad told him, Hey, you can either play sports or you can go hunt and fish. You can choose, but you're gonna pick one, and he chose hunting. But he was able to come into my PE class and learn stuff and exercise and all that stuff, and he just sat here and he told me, He goes, you know, I learned how to work out, I learned how to do these things that no one ever taught me. I learned because structure, like you're talking about with baseball and things like that, that was something that was so important to me. Right. And in my class, it was so structured in a way that I couldn't the mistakes happen, right? But I I was like, hey, listen, you this is what you do. You get here, you line up on that wall, you're an alphabetical order, I'm gonna take roll, then we're gonna do this. Every single day we did the same thing to start off. You know, you're running for two minutes, then you're gonna do this, then you're gonna do like we had priorities of what you're gonna do.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

Structure and routine, it's just an organization. I mean, that's so important. And like with that class, that's that's exactly what you need to teach. And I mean, even for people that may not be athletic or coordinated, like just learning to just go outside. Like you guys would walk the track, yeah. And like you don't need to be coordinated or athletic to walk.

SPEAKER_01 37:40

Something that you do, like right now, today, like on Tuesday, I decide I'm gonna do this 75 hard thing, right? I don't know if you heard of it or not, but like I'm gonna do it, right? And so for the last five days I've been doing it, but I'm sitting there, it's it's two workouts a day, one has to be outside. Well, I I don't have a gym, I don't have a gym membership. Right. What am I gonna do? Well, I'm walking for 45 minutes and I have a road bike, and I rode that. Well, I rode it until yesterday when a blue tire. I think I saw yeah, I saw that. Oh man, I was so pissed about it. Uh, but I I realized that I had that bike for 12 years and I haven't changed the tires on it, so probably do. Um but you can do these things, you don't have to have a gym membership, you don't have to have you just there's a sidewalk everywhere. Go find go find a place to walk. You just have to make that choice to do it.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

Yeah, and it's so I mean, not even like just like the walking thing. I I like I love going outside on walks, and I have a weighted vest. I try to do like the walks with the weighted vest too. And but I mean, the walk is not even the most important part to me as well. It's getting outside and kind of like putting my mind to work for a little bit, putting on a podcast, talking with someone, calling a buddy, calling an old friend, calling my grandpa, something like that. It's it's more about just being outside and just like me and my fiance like to walk together so we can talk wedding and talk our life and stuff like that. But when I walk by myself, it's like it's like 45 minutes to an hour and a half of just like me, myself, uh something I want to learn or something I need to think about, or like I'm so invested in this terrible Giants team right now. But I like I I just love listening to like the Giants podcast and like learning and just like I don't know if I'm just knowing all that stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_01 39:15

I think that it's a uh people like entrepreneur people that I listen to and kind of read their books and things like that, they're never not thinking of the next step. Right. They're never not trying to learn. And that's I drive around my car half the time, and then I'm inside with a customer, and I'm back in my car again. I'm always got something going. If I'm not on the phone with work, I'm listening to a podcast, I'm listening to an audiobook, I'm trying to just expand that knowledge. And I think that that's the biggest thing. It's like you you get these ideas and you're not afraid to try them, you're not afraid to fail, you're not afraid to just keep moving forward because if you didn't get it right the first time, you're gonna find a way to get it right the second time or the third time. And baseball, you know, you were talking about the Giants, and I coached your baseball team, but baseball was something to me that was just so important because I thought about how failure was the biggest part of that. And Tony Brulott, who I coached at Capital with the first year that I coached baseball, he was like, This is a game of failure. And it and I didn't really think of it that way when I played in high school, but I started thinking about it as a coach, and it's like you have to be resilient. You know, you can go out there. I remember you when you were playing, it was like I think you played third base, and then you ended up playing catcher, but you were willing to do whatever it took to be on the field. It didn't matter what it was, you were gonna find a way to be on the field. You may have not been good at this, but you were gonna do this or whatever, you're gonna figure it out, right? Right. And my problem was like, I'm a first baseman, I'm gonna hit bombs, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that, and I never could do it. I was a terrible baseball player, but I love the game. And it was like great with a fungo. Yeah, well, that's the thing though, like I had to learn I had to learn those things, right? Right. So it just it's a tough thing. It's like you have to you have to figure out that just because you go up there and you strike out, and that's in baseball or in life, doesn't mean that you're done. Yeah, and that's why I think that like talking about the Giants, watching them play and being so terrible and knowing that this is what they're going through. Right, it's like they gotta win one. They gotta get that chance, you know. Eldres is gonna bomb one, you know. These but he's gotta get the opportunity. I mean, it's what do you do?

SPEAKER_00 41:27

Yeah, you're gonna I mean you're gonna you're gonna fail. And in baseball too, like like Luis Arayas right now is hitting a 326 or a 329 right now. That means he fails 70% of the time. That means he goes up to the plate and he's second in batting average right now. He's chasing a batting title right now. And we who who does that?

SPEAKER_01 41:46

Like I was I was sitting there listening to, you know, we talk about I got some Will Clark baseball cards here, and we were talking about him before, and like he's talking about these people. He was a three, he was a 300 plus hitter in his career. How many of these guys do that anymore?

SPEAKER_00 41:58

Yeah, you'd I mean they the whole game has changed too. I mean, with with them changing more to like a power home run hitting thing, it you rarely see a guy like Luis Sarais out there that's gonna go and and hit 300 and poke balls around the yard all day. But I mean, he's still failing 70% of the time. And he's the second best right now to do it. And you know what I also saw today too when I was just looking at stats is the guy that's in first, um, auto, he's he what's his name? His name's auto, he plays for Miami. He has like 29 to 36 strikeouts. Luis Rice has nine. Yeah. Like that guy, like he but it's a failure to ground out and it's a failure to pop out and stuff like that. But I mean, that's how I look at it with life too. Like, I know I'm gonna fail, but I like how am I going to how am I gonna respond to the failure? You know, like this Monday, you know, we had grips out at Falcon Crest and that big storm rolled in, right? Yeah, failure happened. The tent. Even with multiple sandbags, yeah. I mean, we have 50 pound sandbags, and it's it my tent has handled winds like crazy. 50 pound sandbags and a human being did not hold that tent down. That's a failure. That's a step back, right? So horrible. Yeah, I'm gonna go. I'm making it just imagine. Right. And then it rains, so it soaks the grips, and you have all these inventory and stuff. And so, like, you're gonna fail. What are you gonna do about it? You're gonna have a golf course that you've been partnered with with years, and they're gonna say, you know what? No, we're gonna we're going to uh go a different direction just because we we we want to do grips ourselves. And so how like how am I going to find a way to maybe still be partnered with that golf course? And so, I mean, that's like you said, like your mind runs all the time. Now that I am full time with quick grips for the last eight weeks, my mind is consistently growing and rolling and thinking of new ideas, and my fiance's probably getting tired of it because I just keep bouncing ideas off of her, and it's it's always she'll get tired of it, but she'll like it she'll understand.

SPEAKER_01 43:44

My wife's the same way, dude. I've been married for 26 years, and she's she has stayed at the same job since she graduated college. She's been at St. Al's she she started as a CNA, but like once she got her LPN. And they hired her at St. Al's, and then she got her RN, and then she got her her bachelor's. She's been there for like 18 years. And she looks at me every time I change jobs. You know how many jobs I've had? Let's see, Schwab, uh teaching this blind company, another blind company, my own blind company. Like I've had all these jobs. She's like, You're just never satisfied. And I'm like, Yeah, that's the point.

SPEAKER_00 44:23

You keep growing. You're not quitting. You're just you're moving on and getting different experiences and growing and thinking of new things and building. I mean, that's that's part of it.

SPEAKER_01 44:31

I mean that's a but that's the thing though, that that's that mindset. Like, there's sometimes there's two different ones, right? Right. Like, and when I when you were talking about being a firefighter, like I was thinking as you were saying it that that I was like, I guarantee you that he was thinking, I'm gonna work those three days and I'm gonna do this the other days, yeah. Because I could. But like a normal per like not everyone is that way, not everyone's wired that way. What they're thinking is, hey, I'm gonna be a firefighter, I'm gonna work three days a week, the other four days I'm just gonna go do what I want, and then I'm gonna have a good retirement, I'm gonna have you know all these things that when I quit doing what I'm doing, I'm done. Right. But I have money and I'm secure. And that's I think security is one of those things that you don't get. Like I'm sure there's days where you're like, Man, I only got I only changed changed one set of grips here. It's like and then there's days where you do a hundred and you're like, oh man, that made up for that day.

SPEAKER_00 45:22

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's and that's just the beauty of sales too, right? You'll have you'll have great days, you'll have terrible days, you'll have rainy days. I mean, I mean, you know, you know, like after New Year's where everyone goes to the gym, the same effect happens after the masters. So best days to grip is right after the masters because everyone wants to get back into golf, and everyone is everyone's a pro golfer, and so I mean, and it what's gonna be interesting is how I'm going to uh plan for this winter because um I mean I have a bazillion ideas right now, and I have simulators rocking, I have like connections with all the simulators in the most of simulators in the valley, and I have connections in Mesquite and Northern California and Phoenix, and so um and I'm starting to do like my online sales as well, which I just released my website about a week or two ago, and I actually had my first sale yesterday, which was kind of crazy because I haven't been like marketing my website yet or like promoting it, because I'm trying to make more of like Instagram videos that people can click on and buy grips and stuff. But my first order was from Minnesota yesterday, which is super random because I don't know how he saw me, but I was just like at lunch with my fiance and I look at my phone and I was like, I just I just got an order. I couldn't believe it. I was like, what?

SPEAKER_01 46:32

And these are just like basically shipping grips to them, like yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:36

So like with my website, what part of my my vision when I was starting to grow or when I when I started Quick Grips was I wanted people to be able to order online. If you didn't live in Idaho, you could order the grips online and you can install them yourself. I'll probably put grip kits on there and stuff like that. Or um if you're in the valley and you want your grips done, you can order the grips and choose the installation and then set up an appointment with me, and I'll show up to your house or meet you at the golf course, or you can come to like a like a like a location. Like right now, I have my trailer, it's parked in NAP at my family's warehouse, and you can meet at like a mutual location and get them done. But then you could order the grips, choose the day, book the installation, and then do it all on the website. Because I mean, as I was starting, as I started the last couple years, it was all Instagram. People would message me and call me and email me, and they'd be like, Hey, what are you doing on Thursday? And so I'm starting to get into like a rhythm where I can start getting more people booking online and kind of have a little bit better of a system doing that. And so with my website dropping, I'm gonna I'm hoping that maybe if I can start having more of an online presence, I can start doing more online sales throughout the winter too.

SPEAKER_01 47:40

You gotta start doing gift cards for Christmas, right?

SPEAKER_00 47:43

Right, Father's Day coming up, yep. And so that's that's a lot of the stuff I'm starting to iron out right now. I mean, uh matching point of sales and on like on-site sales and then website sales and gift cards and and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 47:55

And so if you don't know your grip is the most important part of your damn club.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

Yeah, it is, and you know, John Daly says it, Dee Chambeau says it. Don't get fitted for clubs, get fitted for grips. Right. And you know, I mean, I've been in the grip business for this is my fifth season. I've been gripping clubs for four years. This is my fifth season, and changing your grips transforms your clubs. I mean, you could I've I've gripped clubs from the 70s, from the 80s, and I mean they're old clubs, but as soon as you put a grip on them, like they're they're new again. I mean, a lot of these are steel, like they get beat up and scratch and stuff. But if you take care of your clubs, like there's no reason you should really be getting new clubs. I mean, new technology, obviously, with a driver and stuff like that. There's gonna be new stuff out there, but gotta get those PXGs. Yeah, get the the PXGs. Yeah. Um, but I mean the grips are just like they're game changer. I mean, there's no reason that you shouldn't like you you you don't come with stock shoes, you customize shoes to you, how you feel, how you walk, like what fits you best.

SPEAKER_01 48:52

But I mean, with with grips, I mean I'm I'm I'm telling you, like, I'm a firm believer in that because one of the things that people don't understand is like when you have a big hand and you use a standard grip, you can't yeah, you overgrip it.

SPEAKER_00 49:05

Yeah, you overgrip control hook and slide. Yeah, you and I mean getting bigger grips is more like it's it's becoming a more known thing now because of the John Daly and well it used to be hey, you got bigger grips, it was because you're old and you can't hang on to the club. Yeah, I mean, well now people say, Well, I have sm I have small hands, why do I need big grips? I'm like, well, I mean, it can it could be a preference, but if you have arthritis or you've had a hand surgery or uh you grip the club too hard. I mean, my I always was taught when I was a kid that when you grip the club, you want to grip it like a tube toothpaste, like you don't want to squeeze it all the toothpaste out of it. And so, but a bigger grip, it fits in your hand a lot better, right? And it's more comfortable, and and and so like custom fitting the grip, you may have sweaty hands, you might have dry hands, you might be in a humid climate or a dry climate, like grips, you might want it more of a tacky feel, a scratchy feel. I mean, there's a bazillion different varies of of grips out there that are all custom to what you like and what you feel. Right. And that's why kind of what Quick Grips does is kind of special because uh I set up on driving ranges, or like if you know what you want, then you can order it with me and and stuff. But the the driving range experience is so great because people can come to me and test grips out. And the traditional way of of gripping clubs is gonna be that's right.

SPEAKER_01 50:17

I didn't even think about that.

SPEAKER_00 50:18

Yeah, the the traditional way of gripping clubs is gonna be with your solvent and your double stick tape and stuff like that. And it's it's messy, and you have to wait 24 hours for it to dry. Some some say 48, but then you drop them off and you choose what grip you want. You drop them off, and then they get the grips done, and then you have to wait for them to dry. And then once you get out on the golf course, it might it might be a new set of grips, it might be your first time trying them, and you're like, well, I don't like these grips. Well, if you want to change your grips out now, you gotta cut them off because they're on there now. I mean, you there's a way to get grips off that were on with solvent and tape, and but it's a whole bunch of mineral spirits and solvent and a little scrape. And I mean, I can get them off pretty easily now, but the way that I install grips makes it so you can custom feel what you like. And so usually that means you're gonna have to sacrifice at least one of your clubs, but I have demo clubs, yeah, and so usually like I have I have just like an like a plain tailor-made seven iron, an M an M5, and I'll say, pick a grip out, and they'll grab a grip and they'll say this one. I'll be like, All right, I'm gonna put on this club, go hit a couple. And they're like, Really? And I'm like, yeah, and they're like, well, do you have to cut that grip off? And I'm like, no, I'll pull this grip off, I'll put this grip on, go swing it, come back, we'll try a different one. Seriously. I'm like, yeah, you can try every single grip I have here if you want. I'll be here all day. Oh, you can put a put a grip on there. Yeah, yeah, you can't do that. So no, it's great because people will come and and they don't know like what they want.

SPEAKER_02 51:38

Right.

SPEAKER_00 51:38

And it's hard when they go into like a PGA superstore to get grips because they can go there and they can feel the grips and say, Oh, I like that feel and I like that, but you really don't know how it feels until you swing it. And so before they make the investment to get grips, because it's it's I mean it it can be affordable, but like like you're gonna spend like if you're gonna do your whole set, it's gonna be one or two hundred bucks.

SPEAKER_01 51:58

Like that's I haven't even looked at grips since the last time I bought them, but they were like 14 bucks a piece at the time.

SPEAKER_00 52:02

Yep, yep, yep. And so like it and it's an investment, right? And so, um, but before you like commit to that, why wouldn't you feel comfortable and try it, you know? And so I've had people like bring me a couple of their clubs and they're like, I'm gonna buy grips from you. I just don't know which one yet. So let's throw this grip on this club, this grip on this club, this grip on this club, and and I'll do it and they'll go hit them and then they'll decide from that. And I mean that just it makes me feel good too because they're committing to something they know that they're gonna like instead of saying, I want, I think I want that grip and do my whole set, and then like a week later, they're like, actually I don't like that grip. And then they're stuck with it. Which with me, like I've had people get a get grips and then they go play around with them or two rounds with them, and then they're like, you know what, I just I just couldn't get used to it, and I ended up not liking it as much. And usually I find a way to like support the customer and be like, Yeah, you know what? Well, we can switch them out and I won't charge you full price for them. I can do kind of a trade-in thing or something like depending on the on how how long.

SPEAKER_01 53:00

Yeah, they come back three years later and you're like, Yeah, if they come back a couple years later, then that changes.

SPEAKER_00 53:04

But like a a week or two here, and if they're not used to it, why would why would I force them to like keep those, right? Yeah, it's it's all a preference thing too. And so no, the grips are a game changer, and peep I'm I'm just so happy that I can help people's golf game and stuff like that. It's something so simple, but it's so important. And so, and I mean I've tried every grip too, and I'm consistently changing my grips out.

SPEAKER_01 53:26

So how often do you get to play?

SPEAKER_00 53:28

You know, so um, like I said, I got in the golf industry when I was in college six years ago to play more golf, played less golf. Yeah, yeah. I played the wigwam, I played the wigwam four times. I worked there for three years, four times I played it, and then in between the wigwam, which was also something I left out, I worked at Spur Wing. Oh, yeah. And so in between in the summer of 20 and 21, I worked at Spur Wing and I wanted to work at Spur Wing because I had the golf experience at Wigwam and I wanted to keep doing that. I love the industry, and I wanted to play golf, didn't even play Spur Wing. You know, yeah, you could play the employees could play it Monday afternoons, and I guess who worked on Monday afternoons? Me. So I never played it. But I played three holes there one time. Right. Yeah, but um no, so I I was really not playing. And so I mean I played a few times in college, played I mean, in the summertime, I played more in high school because I had that youth on course thing, which was great, five bucks. I can go play like most of the courses, and so I played a lot in high school, and then um I've never heard of that.

SPEAKER_01 54:29

I need to get that I I try to get I need to get my daughter into golf.

SPEAKER_00 54:32

Yeah, the youth on course thing is great because I mean it's it's like a past that kids can have, and um until the day they turn 19, if the courses that are partnered with youth on course can they can play for five bucks. And so like Riverbirch used to offer it, and I'd go to Riverbirch and I mean I'd walk it and be five bucks, or you can get a cart and and your dad and you can go and you'd spend fifty or sixty bucks, but you guys both get to play. So I mean I can get you hooked up with that if you want to get it for your daughter. Yeah, talk about it. Um I was just not playing, which I was in the golf industry and I was on the golf course every day. I was hitting balls because I'm on the range, so when when the range is dead and there's balls out there, I hit balls all the time. Just wasn't playing, and then um it was really funny because I hadn't played in like a year, and then my old my old boss wanted to take me to Bandon Dunes. Oh, yeah, and so um we went to Bandon Dunes and I hadn't played in like a year, and you should like train to go to Bandon Dunes, right?

SPEAKER_01 55:31

Like it is not like it's probably one of the toughest courses in the Northwest.

SPEAKER_00 55:34

Yeah, and it's not like you don't ride, you have to walk. Yeah, and it's so like hard to get into Bandon Dunes that you need a book in advance, and then like you play as much as you can during the days you're there. So we played twice a day for like two or three days. I was not prepared for that, and I was walking, and so I actually ended up playing it pretty fine considering I never really played that much other than hitting the range. But since Bandon Dunes, I played a few times, and then when I when I quit my job to dive into quick grips full-time, I told myself that I needed to start playing more because it'll help me as a salesman, it'll help me as a golfer, it'll help me in the golf community, and it's so good for you, like walking. I mean, I I I got a walking cart, and I'm getting my fiance into it too, so we can kind of do something together as well, and got her a walking cart. But you walk six to ten miles. When you if you're me, you walk 15 miles because you walk launch a ball 500 yards into the other fairway. No, but um, I've actually been playing at least once a week for the last six weeks since so and then there's been times I've been playing two or three times a week. So are you living here in Middleton or do you Yeah? So um I actually so when I got back from college, I actually moved to Boise. Okay, and I lived off Warm Springs for a little bit, and then I lived off Broadway for a little bit, and then um me and my best friend uh lived off Broadway, and he got a better opportunity in Cheyenne. He's a financial advisor, and that was right around the time that I was proposing too, and so uh I kind of saw it as like a message from God that it was time to like maybe start saving and and stuff like that. And so he moved back to Cheyenne, and luckily my parents opened up a little apartment Airbnb style thing upstairs at our house that I could kind of live in for as I save up to move in with my fiance in October, and so um I'm I'm living in Middleton right now, but we're we're shopping for where we're gonna start our life.

SPEAKER_01 57:19

Purple Sage, when I was in college, had the cheapest like pass ever. And I probably play played Purple Sage every day for the whole summer one year because it was like I swear it was like it's not that anymore, but it was like three hundred bucks for a student pass. Wow. For a for a seasoned student pass, and I was like, oh wow, yeah. And it's a nice little course.

SPEAKER_00 57:41

Yeah, it's usually great. Yeah, it's super great. You know, and I'm really thankful because because I'm in the golf industry, like because I'm out there working and doing grips and stuff, uh, sometimes the pros like will let me play, and so like if I want to walk on or something, they're like, Yeah, that's great. Like you you help us out, you provide a good service for our golf course, like go ahead and play. And so um that a lot of the times the courses can let me on sometimes, which is super nice. But I also got um I got a pass, not like a full pass, but they have like a punch pass at Timberstone and it's like 250 bucks, and you get 10 rounds and 10 by one get ones, and so I've been using that. And then me and my fiance's uh dad, we've been trying to play Monday mornings, and so we go over and play at Fairview, which is yeah, I'm scared to play there. Well, if you play Mon if you play Monday mornings, it's sixteen bucks to walk nine, and so yeah, my my schedule's weird now because I'm not working Monday through Friday. I'm I'm technically working Sunday to Sunday, so yeah, but on Mondays and Tuesdays I work for my family doing I do I pull orders on Mondays and grip clubs in the evenings and then deliver the orders on Tuesdays and then Wednesday through Sundays quick grips, and so um, but I tr I try to make time on Mondays or Wednesdays, Wednesday evenings to play golf, and so I'm starting to play more, which is which has been really good.

SPEAKER_01 58:55

Well, awesome, man. I mean, I think it's really cool to see what you're doing. Like, I mean, I it's funny, I have people in here, like I had my friend Kyle Miller in here the other day, and I hadn't seen him since I since he did a tattoo for me, like my daughter's twelve. It was for my daughter, right? Right. And uh I feel like I know people, you know. It's kind of weird how you just you w because of social media, you're able to kind of follow along what's going on. Right. And it's just cool, and we've caught up a couple times. I mean, you put grips on my clubs, and um it's cool, man. I mean, I'm just I'm excited to see where it goes.

SPEAKER_00 59:30

Yeah, thank you. I'm I'm really excited too. I mean, I I have a pretty good feeling about it, and I've put a lot of work into it, so um I'm happy to see how it grows and which direction it goes in. And and who knows, maybe at this time next year I'm doing something completely different. Maybe my mind wanders somewhere else, right?

SPEAKER_01 59:45

But you could still have quick grips and be in doing something else too. That's the thing, but I I just think that people don't think that way. They think that it's uh this is all I can do and it's a one and done thing, and it's not. It's that always trying to, like I said, you know, reading those books, talking to people. Like I think that's the biggest thing is a lot of people think that they invented stuff. I listen to my 12-year-old try to tell me that um I I'm emo, or I'm this, or I'm that, or whatever. I'm like, you don't even know what these words are, and you think you invented it. And if you know I'm Gen X, and if if what I did was so bad, then why are you trying to copy everything that my generation did? Right. You know, like it repeats itself, and our generation tried to copy what my parents did in the 70s, you know. Like it's it's one of those things, and we're just taking it, whatever it is, and just making it better or making it fit our needs. Yeah, that's what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:32

Or molding it to what we want to vision it. Yep. 100%. No. Yep, I agree with that.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:37

Well, one more question we'll talk about here. What do you think is gonna happen with the Giants? What do you think is gonna be that?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:43

Oh, well, you know, I I like to look on the hopeful side, you know. I I keep telling myself, they're gonna get hot, you know, they're 13 games below 500 now, 12 games behind 500. And today is Saturday, the 30th of May, which is still only a third way into the season, so they could get hot. I mean, the Nationals in 2019, they they started off like 19 and 36 or something like that, and they went and won the thing. So we have the pieces. I mean, the sad thing is is we're gonna get to the all-star break, we're gonna get to the trade deadline, and we're gonna look at our pieces and our record and say, all right, what are we gonna do with this? But if we can get hot, and I know the guys in the dugout could do that, I don't know. I mean, the NOS is so tough with the Padres and the Diamondbacks, and then we can't beat the Diamondbacks worth of crap right now. We could beat, we could, we could push the Dodgers around for some reason. We can't beat the Diamondbacks. I know, isn't that crazy? Yeah, and and the Padres are hot too, but I mean, on paper, like I don't understand how we're that bad. I mean, our bullpen's not that great. I mean, we have Webb and Robbie Ray, and you know I didn't even finish the game last night.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

Did they win last night? No, they lost.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:48

They're actually they're up they're up six to three in the ninth inning. They can't they don't have a closer. Yeah. They don't have anyone as a defining closer yet. And so I mean, you look at you look at the roster and you say, all right, Willie Adamas, great, right? Hasn't been as great this year, but he's getting hot. Devers, Devers' been fine. I mean, he started off cold, but he's getting hot. Yeah. Chapman, I don't know what's happening with Chapman. He's and he was my favorite third baseman with the A's. I mean, I grew up going to A's games, and so I I loved Chapman. And he won the Willie Mack Award last year, and he's been playing, he played great the last couple of years. Something's not right. Something's not right. And so, and then Kay Schmidt, I had no idea that he was gonna be what he's doing right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:26

Dude, the thing is is I'm sitting there complaining that Schmidt's playing and Eldridge is not, you know, like that was kind of the thing. It's like, hey, they brought him up. Why is he sitting the bench? And I'm sitting there going, God, and then every day Keishey Schmidt just does something. He's like, oh, I love him. Why is he not playing everyone?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:40

Well, so what they need to do is they need to put right at this point, they need to get Eldridge at bats, right? And so, um, and they've done a good job with that in the last week or so, which they weren't when he got pulled up. He was playing like every three or four days, but right now he's playing pretty consistently. But I I mean, Casey can play anywhere. I mean, he's hit he's hit a home run in five different positions this year.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:00

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:01

And so I'd say keep Casey in the left field. You can't move Luis Horace, he needs to play second base. He could win a gold glove as a second baseman this year, I think. Uh, keep Luis Horace at second. Willie's got to play short. And I mean, be if Willie wasn't tied to that huge contract right now, I'd probably start altering Casey Schmidt in at short a little bit because Willie's had a couple errors, and I know he's gonna figure it out, and he will figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:22

Like that, that's kind of the thing. Like, I'm like, dude, put Schmidt at third and give K give Chapman a couple days' rest. Let him get a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:28

Yeah, let him figure it out a little bit. And so I don't know, it's like the pieces are there, but what it's just not they're just not producing, you know? Yeah. And I mean the the Patrick Bailey thing was crazy to me because I was such a Patrick Bailey fan. Oh, really? I was a huge Patrick Bailey fan. So when they traded, when they traded Patty Barrels out, I was I get it, but at the same time, I just was so I loved him. So yeah, but what do you think now?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:49

Because like I was sitting there thinking about him like, man, they need to he doesn't hit. He, you know, like he can hit, but he's not hitting.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:56

Dude, if they played the Dodgers 162 times a year, Patrick Bailey would win a he would win the batting title, the home run record. I mean, he's always on fire against LA. But I mean, it was just I don't know. I mean, I think I think Susak's gonna be good. Yeah, Susak will be good. Jesus Rodriguez, I think he's young, but I think he'll figure it out too. But I like Susak a lot. I think he's got a great arm. He's big, he's 6'2, he's bigger than you think. He's like 6'4. Yeah, he's huge. And um, I mean, he was hitting, I mean, the pitchers are trying to figure him out a little bit, but he he was hitting the ball pretty hot for a while.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:27

When I saw his height, I was like, that guy's a catcher.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:29

Yeah, that dude's huge. I mean, I saw I saw a little dribble ground ball right in front of him last night, and he threw the guy out at first. And when he was whipping around to throw it, I was like, that dude's gumby out there. That dude's huge.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:40

Just like freaking Brandon, yeah, Brandon Belt.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:42

Yeah, he's big. I think we we need to figure something out in the bullpen, but it's weird because like four weeks ago they were ranking the bullpins, and the Giants were like six or seven in the in the bullpins, and I was like, what? Yeah, and I mean they gotta get a closer and they gotta get weird closers. Next year when they get Randy Rodriguez back, it'll probably be a little bit better.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:01

But who's gonna get fired first? Is it gonna be Vitello? No. Is it gonna be Buster? Or is it gonna be Manasseh? No. Buster someone's gonna. They're not firing Buster. Yeah, think about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:12

Yeah, I mean, Vitello, definitely not. I mean, you can't You could though.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:17

You can't you can't, but you could. Like, I mean, you remember Gabe Kappler with the Phillies.

unknown 1:05:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:23

Gone. It's like I I could see it happen, but I just I don't know. Like, I I you can't the problem is is how are how are you going to there's two different schools, like, and we talked about this before you walked in here, but I'm sitting there thinking about Will Clark and these guys in this like if you listen to Deuces Wild with Eric and Will, like you know Will is pissed. Like he's like, these guys are out there doing these little dances, they're doing their little thrust thing. It's like, are you serious? Play be a professional. You're not winning. If you if you were like number one in the league, I could see you kind of like maybe celebrating, but not that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:00

I mean they just I don't know. I I mean if it if that's what it takes to like kind of get momentum, then yes, but they're doing it and they're not getting momentum. Nothing's happening. So but I mean if you think about it, Farhan Farhan came in and took over baseball operations in what 2019 or something, 2018, and they sucked for those years. And then they went on that crazy run in 2021 where they won a hundred games or a hundred and six hundred whatever games. And and then after that they sucked. And so and they're 500 every year. They hired Bob they had Gabe Kappler, they had Melvin, they're 500, and they kept Farhan around for a while. So why aren't they like they're not gonna firebus your posey because this is his year two, yeah, and he's the face of San Francisco for the last 20 years, and so they're gonna give him a shot to kind of build something, I think. But like I don't know how they're gonna build something when they have older guys with long contracts. I mean, you got you got Devers with a seven-year multi-hundred million dollar contract, you got Willie with a seven year, you got Chapman with a seven year, you got I mean, the only guy that is that's actually making a difference is on a one year right now, and they're gonna trade him if if they don't start winning. Because Casey Schmidt could play second base. And if you could trade Luisa Rice right now, you can get a closer probably, or you can, you know. And so, but they're not gonna they're not gonna fire Buster, and they're gonna with Tony Vitello. I mean, that's gonna be Buster's product. So this is Tony's first year, he's still learning major league baseball. I mean, this is it's it's an experiment, but I think I I trust Buster, he sees something, right? Right, and I mean that that's the most competitive guy you've ever seen in your entire life. I mean, that that guy, I think he knows what he's talking about.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:33

So Vitello He just needs to fire Tony and go sit down there himself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:37

No, I saw someone say, fire Tony, hire Will. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:41

Dude, the thing is is Will, like as much as I love Will and he thinks the same way I do about a lot of that stuff, I think he'd probably like you have that coach that everyone goes home crying. The first couple weeks they go home crying because he's gonna freaking lay it down the wall.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:55

Yeah, he's he yeah, it's it's it's awesome. But Vitello, he'll I think we'll see Vitello for at least two or three years if if they're still gonna be 500 or less, but I I could see I could see them getting a spark and getting some young guys in there and figuring it out in the long run. There the thing is that San Francisco is they're never gonna rebuild. I mean, they refuse to rebuild even after all those World Series in 2010, 12, and 14, and they just refuse to rebuild. So they're just gonna they're just gonna keep trying to build off what they have and stuff like that, and they're never gonna have a hard reset. And some teams need to do that, but that's just not San Francisco baseball. So they're gonna they'll figure it out, but it's it just sucks watching them, and especially because like I they they play 162 games. I watch I probably watch 130 of them. Yeah, and so when they're losing, like they are right now, like it's just like oh because it's like dumb losing too. Like they play good. They like last night, they hit they had 13 hits last night and six runs. Like, how do you how do you hit the ball so much and score so many runs and lose? Yeah, it's pitching. They gotta get it, they gotta get a better bullpen. They gotta get weird in the bullpen.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:00

I watch about three or four. Yeah, that's what Affelt said when he was on the bottom. They gotta get weird. We had Wilson and like you had Brian Wilson and weird. You gotta get weird in the dugout, and you gotta get guys that are a little more gritty and you gotta get weird, but you gotta get yeah, in the dugout, not out on the center, not out in center field.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:22

You know, and yeah, for real. And you know, I liked that red series a couple weeks ago where like Eric Miller was pointing and they were kind of getting after with the Reds, and I thought that might have been a turning point right there. I was like, all right, this team's getting a little fired up, but yeah, I mean we'll see. I still love watching baseball. It's it's the most it's the best sport out there, dude. It's so fun, it's so it's it's so relaxing. And I mean, you go to the game and it's just such a social event, you know. You go to the game, like I love going to Oracle Park, or I mean I've been to 17 ballparks, and I've been to probably more ballparks alone than with somebody because when I was on the road with work a lot, I would catch ball games and I'd go and I'd bring my iPod and listen to the radio broadcast and stuff like that. And but you'd sit and you talk with baseball fans, and it's just so social and it's yeah, it's amazing. And you can go with your family and there's nothing like that environment. You might not be a baseball fan, but you can go with your family and hang out and drink beers and eat hot dogs and stuff like that. And so it's it's amazing. I love it. I love having it on in the background. I love being invested. I love stats, I love statistics, and so it's it's they better they better turn it around.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:28

Well, I saved the baseball for the end of the interview because now that we've lost everyone, you know, because no one no one loves baseball as much as we do. Right. Um it's yeah, I'm excited to see how it goes. But uh let's wrap this up here. It was it was good having you here. I ex I'm excited to get this done. We've been talking about it for a while now. Um tell everyone where they can find you, what's the best way to get in touch with you if you want some grips or anything like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:52

So if you weren't clear exactly what I do, I do mobile and on-site regripping. Uh, I'll do it at your driveway. I'm partnered with most of the golf courses in the valley. I've I've done just about every golf course except for maybe one or two of them. But you can see my website, www.quickgrips.com, on the calendar side. You'll see all of my events that we're gonna be at. We're booked out right now until September 12th. Every weekend until September 12th, we're booked out uh as far as like events and stuff like that. But we're available for appointments basically every day, uh, all in the afternoons and stuff like that. Uh, we're available on site, mobile. We do one minute of grip. You can use them right away. Um, you can do custom grip fittings. We have access to basically any grip you can think of, um, any color, size, feel, anything like that. You can see most of my line of grips that I keep in stock on my website, and I'm adding more every day. So um, yeah, find me at my website, www.quickgrips.com, or you can follow me on Instagram at quickgrips.co and quick is qi-k grips.com, not q i q u I c K.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:54

We'll try and get that in the notes. I know I'm pretty bad about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:57

It's okay. Or if you're if you're driving around and you see a giant white cargo trailer with the giant words quick grips on the side of it, and maybe a black Jeep Wrangler toe in it, give it a little honk and say hello.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:07

Yeah, get those grips.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:09

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:09

All right, man. Chad, thanks for hanging out. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Awesome having you. Hey guys, everyone, thank you for hanging out. Again, like I said, follow this wherever you can. Uh, give Chad a follow over at Quick Grips. Um if you're a golfer, go get your grips. I've had them done by Chad before, and like I said, I haven't played enough. They're probably gonna rot before I gotta get them replaced. But uh go get it done, and until next time, I challenge you to find the shape of your success. Now the hard part