Why Humans Still Matter in a Tech-Driven World

Today, we dive into the importance of the human touch in tech support with Andrew Bolton, the CEO and co-founder of Tech Rescue. He shares his mission to provide constant, human-powered technical assistance, especially for those who often feel left behind by technology. Andrew's journey began when he realized that while we can get a burger delivered at 3 AM, finding immediate tech support is a challenge. He emphasizes that, despite the rise of AI, nothing can replace genuine human conversation and connection. Join us as we explore how Tech Rescue is redefining customer service and why it matters more than ever in our fast-paced digital world. Andrew Bolton, CEO and co-founder of Tech Rescue, offers a refreshing perspective on the tech support industry during his appearance on the Unstoppable Success podcast. Drawing from personal experiences, he discusses the challenges faced by individuals, particularly seniors, when navigating technology. Bolton reveals how a simple moment of his father struggling with email led him to create a service that values human interaction over automated responses, arguing that true support comes from real conversations. Central to the discussion is the idea that while technology is meant to simplify our lives, it often leaves many feeling isolated and frustrated. Bolton points out that despite the advancements in AI and tech solutions, people still crave the comfort of human connection, especially when dealing with tech problems. He explains that Tech Rescue was designed to fill this void, providing immediate, empathetic assistance to those in need, regardless of the hour. The company’s mission is to not just resolve issues but to relieve the anxiety that often accompanies technology use. Bolton further critiques the broader corporate culture that increasingly relies on automated systems, noting that this trend has contributed to a decline in customer satisfaction. He argues that businesses must remember the importance of personal interactions, as they foster trust and understanding. By the end of the episode, listeners are left with a strong message: in a rapidly evolving tech landscape, the human touch is irreplaceable, and businesses must prioritize connection to ensure lasting success.

Takeaways:

• Communication is essential for success, and it's what people crave most in tech support.
• Andrew Bolton's journey began with helping his dad navigate tech, highlighting the need for human connection.
• AI tools are great, but they can't replace the value of a genuine human conversation.
• Businesses today often prioritize profit over personal interaction, leading to poor customer experiences.
• Younger generations face challenges in communication and conflict resolution that can affect their careers.
• The importance of knowing your 'w

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Transcript

Recording Started

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Welcome to the Unstoppable Success Podcast, where we spotlight visionary leaders who have mastered the art of growth, purpose, and powerful connections. I'm your host, Jacqueline Strauminger, connector, high performance coach, and creator of the Leap to Your Success Framework in Two Steps TS. Each week we dive into bold insights, real conversations, and powerful strategies to fuel your growth, deepen your relationships, and ignite transformational momentum. And why? Because you were meant to be unstoppable. Now let's leap into the podcast. Whoops. Okay. Hi, I'm Jacqueline Stromager, and I am the host of Unstoppable Success. So welcome to another amazing episode. And you know, on this podcast, we hear from great leaders and people that are professionals, entrepreneurs, and we get to hear all their great tips and their wisdom so that you can have unstoppable success. And I get to talk today to Andrew Bolton, who is the CEO and co-founder of Tech Rescue. It is a human-powered tech support company built for seniors, small businesses, families, and anyone trying tired of playing, paying, playing tech support at home. He's a Harbor-trained financial strategist of Wall Street Roots. And he brings, Andrew brings a sharp economic insight in street smart storytelling to every conversation. So I and let me tell you, we have had some amazing pre-show conversation. So let me just get right to it. So Andrew, welcome to Unstoppable Success. Thank you. So right before we hit record, we were talking about, you know, with your business, you are building a um call center in um South America. Yeah. And we talked about um the human touch. So I'd love for you to expand on what you're doing with your business and how you're helping bring back that human touch.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Well, it all started with dad trying to forward an email and he didn't know how to do it. And my father's been around since um punch cards in computer systems. For anybody who doesn't know what that is, we have one at our home. It's a frame punch card. It looks like exactly what you do on a Scantron. If anybody from high school knows your Scantron, A, B, C, D, E, all right, those correlated to numbers, and those numbers correlated to a code. And it went down the line, and you would have stacks of thousands of these, and they would be numbered. And that was computing back in the 1950s, was computing. Rooms the size of stadiums were these machines. And now this that you have in your hand, 70 years later, is more powerful than the computers that sent Neil Armstrong to the moon.

SPEAKER_03 3:03

I was just gonna say, you know, in the in the movie Hidden Figures, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Exactly. That machine is exactly what computers started as. So we started playing around with it, and people really kind of took to it. And I went, okay, maybe there's something here. And then when we started looking at all the requests that we got coming in online, there was one common theme: communication. Whether it's um a grandparent that's trying to get in touch with their grandkid on PlayStation and play MLB or Fortnite or instant messaging or trying to figure out how to make a you know uh a call on WhatsApp, a face call, all the themes kept circling around the fact that we just want to communicate with one another. That's all it is. And AI, and I know we're gonna talk about it, and I know everybody's talking about it, but AI has been the number one thing that has proven this theory correct. We love convenience. We as a people love convenience. Who doesn't want to have things as fast as lightning? But there's a problem. It doesn't really talk to you. Yes, I know, chat GDP, you can have you know wonderful weird conversations with your remote uh robot boyfriend or girlfriend, but I'll be honest with you, there's no replacing good conversation, witty banner, and an inside joke. I'm sorry. Right. It's just not gonna happen. I've seen it now for three years. And as technology advances, our business increases. People don't want to talk to robots. I don't know how I have to explain this any other way.

SPEAKER_04 5:34

You know, I I love that you're saying this because I, you know, I because like all I'm thinking about, well, there's a few different things. Number one is me. You know, I'm I'm I'm pushing the button. I'm like, can zero zero zero representative, representative. No, I don't want to speak to the AI bot. I want a human because I don't, I don't do I actually want to give you my credit card number on a bot that I don't know where it's gonna go. I just I don't trust it. Number one, right? And I want a human. I want to talk to a human, I want people. Everybody wants people. We all hate the representative. We all we all want representative.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

So there's two things. Number one, companies have done away with human interaction for legal reasons. You can't sue a company that you can't get in touch of. That's true. How are you gonna sue me for negligence if you can't talk to me? How? You can't sue me. I haven't talked to you, I haven't broken our contract. You and if you call us, there may or may not be a record of the call, so you haven't really filed a complaint, so we're not legally held liable to anything. It's a brilliant plan. It's brilliant.

SPEAKER_04 6:51

That is brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

And number two, um, and probably the more important aspect of it is what Jamie Diamond has recently put out this this month, and Palantir, and um we have now gotten to the point that it's nothing but garbage. So I'll explain. If we look at ChatGDP, Deep Think, um, Artista, Canver, all of these AI bots and tools. The AI is plugged into the internet. The internet, the world. Okay, so when we think about the old jokes, right? Your parents, you being uh being a little bit older than me, would be yelling at me, like, what are you watching on TV or what are you watching on the internet? It's garbage, right? All the garbage, all the PhD materials, all the engineering blueprints, all the recipes of the world, everything and everything and everything and everything and everything is in one gigantic pot. That's true. It's probably not going to be the most cleanest, most proven type of result that you get. The for example, um last month Jamie Diamond on the bonds market was using AI to do a report. The beginning of the report, as you mentioned, was going fairly well. Towards the middle, it was all garbage. The problem with these AIs is that they run on a two by two matrix, means that they live within this little box, right? This little balanced box that the AI can answer a yes or no question to. Yes or no. And it's a tree that branches down, right? So every little question branches itself down. The problem with that is where it's pulling its information from. Where are you pulling your sources from? Because, as you know, people create stories about characters online, fan fiction, um, conspiracy theories, all these things are out there, and that's all being absorbed, and it's all being brought forth to the particular question that you may have asked.

SPEAKER_04 9:24

But you know, everything on the internet is true. Just kidding.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Oh no, no, it is true. Like, it depends, is it alternative facts or not?

SPEAKER_02 9:32

Right. Right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

And but in a weird way, that statement alone, that statement alone is probably one of the most dangerous statements we have ever made in our society. Right. I don't know if you're familiar with the book uh Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan. So Carl Sagan is this uh scientist who in 97 wrote a book called Candle in the Dark. The discrimination, the the discrediting and the devaluing of science. For generations, there has always been one thing true science. NASA, we whether we were right, whether we were left, whether we were conservative, whether we were liberal, NASA made a science, NASA made a discovery. This was science, this was proven. The entire internet, the entire international science community said, yes, that theory holds true. That's fact. Regardless of politics, the earth turns at 13,000 miles an hour. That's fact. We can measure it from a satellite. When we start creating these words of alternative facts, well, that's all no, no, no, no, no, that's not that's not true. Water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, that hasn't changed, right? But when we've gone ahead and said that's alternative facts, we've opened up Pandora's box to this idea that AI now could be the be-all and end all, and we've forgotten one important thing. We're the ones running the show, right?

SPEAKER_04 11:14

We're human, we've forgotten the human connection, and it's so I love what you're doing, you know, in helping people, you know, bringing technology 24-7 to people. Because it is true. Like I have a home office, right? And I'm a pretty smart human being, but every once in a while I'm like, why is that not connecting? Why is that not working? I you know, and and it's true, like you don't have um and things change so fast. It's not my business. I'm not in the business of technology.

The Importance of Human Connection in Technology

SPEAKER_01 11:52

So I love what you're bringing to people what most of the things that we're doing is relieving a lot of the anxiety that comes out of it. So um, for our business, we don't have a typical call center. We have people that we specifically look for that can handle what we call hot calls. If you call tech rescue, you're not in a good mood. You're not there to chitch at. You're angry, you're upset, you're frustrated, you're confused, you're busy, you've got things to do. I don't have time for this, but I gotta get this done. So we call them hot calls. So right off the bat, right when the phone picks up, it's a hot call. It's amazing what can happen when a human talks to another human and says, Jacqueline, hi, this is Andrew from Tech Rescue. How can I help you today? I wish I could just send heart monitors and blood monitors to our customers just to see what level of drop of blood pressure just having a human does on the phone. That's an experiment I would love to do.

SPEAKER_04 13:03

You know, you could have them do video calls and then just see their faces just calm. Because it's because it's true. You know, and I actually, I will tell you, it's it's it's so funny that you say it's well, it's so truthful what you're saying, because it's like when you get somebody on the phone, by the time, you know, if you're calling somebody and you want to speak to a customer service representative for a problem you are having. And I and I do this all the time. Like, if I let's just say, for example, I'll call American Express and I'm having an issue with something that's on my card or like whatever it is, and I'm pissed because I can't get to the person, a person. It's taking me forever. I gotta answer, gotta do all the security shit and all that crap. I'm like, okay, finally get to a person, and I've already hit, you know, representative and zero a thousand times, and I will literally say, I am so sorry that you are getting that you're on the other end of this call. I apologize if I'm going to be snippy. I am so frustrated with your system. What is a way that I could just bypass it? We don't have one.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

One of the other issues with that, as we found, is the CRM systems, the customer management systems that are used by the banks and used by everybody, is that information isn't transferred over to the agent because I guarantee you, when you get somebody on the phone, you now need to give your name, your telephone number, your email address, the card number, all the information. And then you say to yourself, Well, what the hell was I doing for 25 minutes just now?

SPEAKER_04 14:35

Right. Why do I have to revalidate myself?

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Like I clearly, like, I'm in the system. Clearly, you have me. I just want a representative. You're telling me that your multi-billion dollar company, your multi-billion billion, billion dollar company, doesn't have the ability for that agent to look at the computer and say, oh, Jacqueline's calling. No, we got to start this process all over again. Right. Which, once again, proves my theory in terms of what we consider optimization or optimizing our companies, has done nothing more than just peel back layers of personnel in our companies to streamline or optimize. And we have gotten no better service, no better streamlined capabilities. Like this is one of the things that I would love for one of the media is to really grill a CEO and go, great, for 25 years, you've optimized your company. You've laid off 13% of your operational force, 2% of your logistics force, 3% of your sales force, and maybe 4% of, you know, whatever. What's your customer rating so far? What's your turn? What's your turnover rate? Has it gone up? Has it gone down? I'm glad that you're making profits. I'm glad that your bonuses are going through the roof. And this in 2026 is why tech rescue is going faster than even I can handle. Because what it is proving is people are just sick and tired of just being handed this high school tray plate of nothing and then being told to be happy about it.

SPEAKER_04 16:25

So I have a question. So I mean, communication is so important, and and and you know, for me, like, you know, one of the things about having that unstoppable success is being able to communicate, right? Being able to actually answer the phone, being able to actually have a conversation. So you know, I'm I'm kind of curious, like, you know, you're in Bogota.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 16:52

You also have you know, offices in somewhere in the United States, Colorado. So I'm curious, what do you see that and if there is a difference in the level of ability to communicate with the again, not to call it your staff or or the people that you interview, because I'm sure the people that you bring on are perfect, but what do you see as a difference in like US versus like let's say Bogota in terms of communication skills?

SPEAKER_01 17:23

Well, Americans are a little bit more, are definitely a lot more streamlined, a lot more straightforward. Um we here in South America, there are two different lives that get lived between the two of our countries. Americans are excess are obsessed with goal orientation. We have to go to the next thing. Um and in South America, there's this there's an attitude of basically, if you have it, great. If not, do you need it? And if not, do you really need it? And when you get somebody on the phone, they're much calmer, they talk a lot more, they they want to chit-chat a lot more. Um, and emergencies aren't like our emergencies that we have, right? So if you think about an American emergency, you might be trying to finish up a project, you might be trying to be finishing up a report, you just lost it. Your system crashed, it refreshed, and all of a sudden all of your work is gone. It didn't autosave. Any one of your listeners is probably having a small little panic attack right now because they're thinking about that exact moment.

unknown 18:35

Right.

SPEAKER_03 18:36

Or you're the college student, right? Oh, I got a pay-per-do in 12 hours. Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

I was gonna say more like in three.

SPEAKER_03 18:45

Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

I was like 12. Somebody's actually prepared.

SPEAKER_03 18:52

I was being generous.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

I was gonna say, I think you're being a little bit too generous for this generation. And that's another, and unfortunately, that's we can we can put a pin in that, or I could jump right on that one. Well, let's talk about the thing, and then we can talk about well that it's correlates it to that as well. But Americans are a lot more task-oriented, focused. There's a timeline, there's it's a very New York attitude, it's very transmissional. California is the closest thing that I could possibly say is of South America. If it's there, it's there. If it's not, it's not, and it's not really that big of a deal. So there's a need, but the type of need is a lot different than what we would have in the States. And getting back to that comment, that's one of the things that I'm extremely nervous about in terms of our future as a country is the type of the type of young people that are coming up. I have a major, major problem in hiring. I don't have a talent pool that can handle the type of work that I do. Here's a question for you. Do you have any younger nieces and nephews?

SPEAKER_04 20:15

So when you say younger, what age?

SPEAKER_01 20:19

Late 20s?

SPEAKER_04 20:21

Well, yes, I do, but here's the I have an 18-year-old and I have a 20-year-old.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Okay. For the 20-year-old. What would you say their temperament is to conflict?

SPEAKER_04 20:36

Good question. Um, I think she I probably would avoid it.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

You can't really avoid somebody on the phone. You're getting paid to you're getting paid to help them.

SPEAKER_04 20:47

Right. Um, I well, I I'd say I would actually kind of rephrase it. I think my kids are a little bit different. Conflict within two people, if they, you know, like if they're if you and I have a, you know, if discussing, my kids know how to talk on the phone. My kids know how to walk up to people at the grocery store and have conversations. That's because of me. Because I'm trying to kids, right? Like I I my kids are different in the sense that like my son would prefer to talk on the phone to his girlfriend than text. My kids prefer to talk. You know, my my one of the things that people have said to me, and I and I is that when my child, one of my kids, will have a conversation with you, they're gonna do something that most people don't. They're gonna look at you in the face, they're gonna shake your hand, and they're going to make eye contact.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

Oh, they're not gonna look at their phone in between sentences? My point exactly.

The Art of Conversation in a Digital Age

SPEAKER_04 21:56

Right. And it and it is. And I and I think and I I That's what I was asking about the commu about communication. Because I feel like we have gotten away from teaching people to have conversations so that you know your your talent pool and I can totally understand that because so many younger generations, people coming, whether they've gone to school or not gone to school, they have lost the art of conversation because they do everything in 140 characters or or however many characters you can type, or they can voice text, but they're not actually having the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

This problem goes back before 2020, but I on a personal note, my doctorate that I want to do is on a social economical level. Where I think we we as adults, the governing body of the United States, we messed up as adults by allowing these kids post-COVID to go off into the world. During COVID, I was stuck in Boston with my uh ex-wife and uh family friends, had children who were going to school and they were logging in to class, but I know for a fact that one of them, because he would text me, because he he got into old video games, and I handed and I gave him my old Nintendo 64, my old Sega, my old Sega Genesis. Yeah, he's a retro kid. He you know, he loves the retro stuff.

SPEAKER_02 23:48

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

He was texting me, you know, complaining that there's no code for Sonic the Hedgehog. You get three tries, you don't beat the game in three tries. You gotta go back to the beginning. I said, Yeah, that's how it always worked.

SPEAKER_02 24:02

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

And if you were an arcade, you would need to put another quarter in.

SPEAKER_02 24:07

Right, exactly. Cost you more money, you gotta get good at it.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Yeah, we just that alone, just that statement alone, we did away with challenging in video games. Anyone that knows this game will know exactly what I'm talking about. Sega Genesis Lion King, the giraffe challenge. You had to jump from giraffe, giraffe, giraffe, and if you fail, that was the game, and you gotta start all the way back from the beginning. I cannot tell you how many times my mother had grounded me for losing my patience, using words I was not supposed to even know at the time. And my mother said, You're too emotional to be handling video games. That was an insult to a nine-year-old. You're too emotional for this video game, my mother said to me.

SPEAKER_04 24:53

Wow. But it's but it's interesting that you say that because it's so true. Like we have not, and I I don't know what made that shift, why we decided it was good to stop challenging, and you know, it's giving everybody the trophy. You know, God forbid you actually have to work hard for something.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

All right, do you want me to stir you want me to stir the controversy pot?

SPEAKER_04 25:22

Oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 25:24

I love it.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Middle child and baby child syndrome. Baby boomers on average, the baby boomers, the children of World War II veterans, on average, had a four to five child family.

SPEAKER_04 25:42

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Okay. My mother was the youngest of three. Two other, two older brothers, Marines, my grandfather was a Marine. So my mother always trying to find her spot in the family because she's not a son, she's a daughter, and she's the youngest. So there's that navigating of the field, learning to be tough with brothers, learning to be a princess with grandpa, there's that whole dynamic. So I was raised a little bit tougher, but the kids that I grew up with, because many of those children were the middle child or the baby of the big family, they may have not gotten the accolades that their older siblings would have gotten. So, with that, they did the trophy thing, and that became a thing. That became our staple. Fast forward in 2020, we had the lockdown, nobody went to work, nobody really went to school, and then in 2021, we're like, okay, this all still makes sense, so we'll continue to do it. So, meanwhile, for a year and a half, no kid was really ever learning, no kid was ever really engaging with one another on a playground or in school or in the cafeteria. And then 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, those kids are going off to college. And college professors, if you've listened to the Harvard Review, you've listened to Yale, MIT, Stanford is screaming at the top of its lungs, Princeton is screaming at the top of its lungs. These kids don't know how to read, write, do math. Interpersonal skills don't exist, conflict resolution skills don't exist. The moment that these kids are put into a challenge, they collapse or they fight back, or next thing you know, they're going on on a uh on social media saying that the whole world is unfair against them. This attitude perpetuates and it continues. And I'm sorry, I know I'm just a C I'm just a business owner, and I only have the pool in which I can pull from to hire people, but if for the past five to six years, nobody's to blame for anything that anybody does, and I'm just me, or I'm it's whatever. No, it's not whatever. And this is the problem that I've written on on LinkedIn on some of my articles, is that one of my biggest fears, and I know this is a little off topic, but it relates to the communication aspect of it. If nobody has ever learned to deal with conflict resolution, if nobody has ever dealt with a bad boss or a bad employee, a fellow employee, you're now affecting my work. You're not working, you're not doing the job that I hired you to do. And by the way, for all the young listeners out there, business owners don't care about your feelings. We're paying you to do a job, not to be there, not to look cool, not to take selfies, not to take pictures. You're there to you're hired to do a job. I'm gonna I know this is off topic. I just want to take 20 seconds to an audience just to dump some cold water on it. Go for it. If I pay you$20 an hour, that's costing me$200 a day. I'm out of pocket,$200. By that definition, you have to produce, you, the individual that gets that paycheck, in order for you to be worth that next week's paycheck, I have to see a return in my business that correlates to you putting out more work than you're paid for. That's how capitalism works. I'm sorry, communism failed, fascism failed. The only thing that still exists today is capitalism. And if you want to put rails on capitalism, that's fine. But guess what? The math still has to math. You have to produce more in the time that I give you than you're worth. And if you're not doing that, what do you think I'm gonna do? Bye-bye, and I'm gonna go get somebody that's cheaper, faster, and better.

unknown 30:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Ta-da! Capitalism 101, what a concept.

SPEAKER_04 30:43

But what you're saying though, I mean, it's so true, first of all. And I'm gonna bring this back to like success, and I think this is where I feel that if you want to have success in your business, you have to understand something very important, and that is data, number one. You data does not lie. So whether it's whether you're talking about as an entrepreneur, what are you doing on a day-to-day basis in your business? The data doesn't lie, but you need to look at the whole picture, right? And as you just you know said, sort of said before, it's you know, asking the companies today, how do you how do you rate on customer service? Now, I want to, I'm curious about your take on this because I find it to be absolutely horrific. I guess I shouldn't give my opinion in at the beginning, but you know, right now we are so many people don't do customer service right. And when I say that, meaning let's just take um the car company. I go to buy a car today. And before I leave, even if I lease the car, before I leave, the salesman's saying, please make sure you give me a five-star review because my commission is based on that. What the frick? Like, right, like I understand like maybe a bonus, I get that, but your full paycheck? Or you know, I mean they're they're doing this now in hospitals. Oh. Or it could be a guilt tactic. It could be right. Well, I mean, it's but then you get these repeated customers right. Like, so I'm curious, like, what's your take on like how can we do a better job at actually doing doing what we're supposed to be doing and taking care of you?

The Importance of Understanding Your Business's 'Why'

SPEAKER_01 32:46

Yeah. Well, first and foremost, what is your company? So we can so we can do this in terms of the uh talking about the success of an uh, you know, the overall arch of success, right? The very first thing I say to entrepreneurs, you know, I've been on a uh uh I've asked, gotten this question on a couple podcasts is number one, why are you in business? I didn't ask what you do, I asked why. Because that why is the most crucial thing ever in the world. That why is gonna be the reason why you get up, you work three different jobs to make your dream come true. If you don't have a why, then you might as well just stop right here and now because you ain't gonna make it. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna, I don't, I don't mean to be mean, I don't mean to be rude. I'm just gonna say this right now. If you don't have a why, I will personally come for you if you're in my space because I'll smell it. I'll smell it on your company. So true. Number two, now that you have a reason why, what is it that you stand for? What is the thing that no matter what happens, for example, Costco, CEO of Costco said our hot dogs are not becoming over a dollar. That ain't happening.

SPEAKER_04 33:55

Right, and their margins will never go over 15%.

SPEAKER_01 34:00

That's a why. That's a why, and that's a what. That's a company that says this is what we do, we're not deviating from it, and this is what we offer. That's a great company, whether you shop there or not. That's a great company. That's a building block. It's awesome, right? With that attitude, it trickles down. It trickles down. So now we get into the success part. You have to, as the business owner, you have to lead from the front. You have to be the person that is the example in which all things are. And if you're not, you better find the person that is and make them the superstar because that's where you're gonna be successful. Listen, Pizza Hut and Domino's, what's the difference between the two cardboard boxes? Absolutely nothing. McDonald's and Burger King, what's the difference? Yes, besides all the other aspects of it.

SPEAKER_04 35:01

Because one, I can sing their jingle. No, I'm just kidding. Just kidding.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

But when you're dealing with the consumer, your consumer is the most sophisticated than it's ever been. It has the most options it has ever had. Why am I gonna go to you? What about you? Is anything different? Mercedes, Volvo, BMW, Audi, Mercedes. All right, what's the difference? They're all European cars, they're all more expensive than they should be. All of them have been made right now to break within a year or two. The BMW M7 and 7 series is now notoriously a joke in the mechanic community because every single thing about that car is meant to break. The Germans have figured out how to make the perfect two-year, that's it, boom, it's done. Because we've designed it that way. Why? Because that's what we care about. That whole issue of you're gonna lease everything, you're not gonna own anything, and you're gonna love it. Guess what? That trickles down. So you have to ask yourself in success, what is it that you stand for? What is it that you're doing, and why are you doing it? For us, we care about people because my mother, my grandmother, my family, me getting on the phone, I'm not gonna name the name, but it's an insurance company with a with a lizard. And to wait 45 minutes just to have somebody read retell my entire information all over again. I went, no, I'm not doing this.

SPEAKER_04 36:31

You know, you know, and I just think it's I think it's so important that we do, you know, and I'm so glad that you're saying this. I feel like I talk about this on a blue in the face. You do need to know why you're getting up every single morning. And I feel like there's a lot of companies that are out there that have forgotten their why. They've gotten so big that they forget why they started.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

And I'm gonna tell you this right now, they're never gonna go back because why should they? If I'm the internet and you know who I am, right? I why would I care about you? I've got more government contracts worldwide that can feed me over three years in advance. What one person, by the way, try to get them on the phone or try to communicate with that particular company in any way, shape, or form, because we have. It took us four days, and we're a corporation getting in touch with another corporation. Four days, four days? I have to wait four days with my tech team going back and forth to finally get something, and this is the biggest company in the world with trillions with a T trillions? Are you kidding me? And you wonder why I'm successful, and you're wondering why I'm successful. I gotta wait four days to get a response from the biggest company in the entire planet that hires more engineers than anybody else in the world, and I gotta do four days? Are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_04 38:07

And that's insane.

SPEAKER_01 38:09

But guess what? They don't care, and why should they? What's your ter to to to download to to to to get one terabyte from them in make believe? Because it's all make-believe, really. Really, what this is is it's fulgase. It's it's it's fulgase. It's it's it's it's it's it's the cloud, right? And they say, Oh, we have limits. What do you mean you have limits? You have limits on imagination? What do you what you what are you talking about? You have limits. This it's make-believe. You made it up, make it up again, right?

SPEAKER_04 38:43

Right, make it up again, right?

SPEAKER_01 38:45

But it's$19.$19 a month for one terabyte of storage. Now, you want to get in touch with them? Good luck. I'll take your money, but I don't have to answer your phone call. Why do I have to answer your phone call? Who are you? You're one person in wherever. I don't right.

SPEAKER_04 39:04

Why do I need to take your call? I mean, there's so many companies that are like that.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

I mean, I can make it past the point. So there I think there's a threshold. I think at a billion dollars a year annually, that threshold of I don't care about anybody is finally quantifiable, right?

SPEAKER_04 39:22

That's an interesting way to put it. Right. You know, it's interesting though, when when I when you do you actually ask a question like this. Actually, do you think, for lack of a better word, there's going to be a breaking point or people will start saying, Uncle, no more. I'm gonna, I'm gonna find the company, I'm gonna find more companies like you, your company. I'm gonna find more companies, you know, like you know, tech rescue, where I know that I can actually get a phone, a person on the phone, where I know that, you know, or I might switch my social media platform to X, Y, or Z when I know I could actually, if I'm gonna advertise, I could actually talk to a person on the phone. Is there an uncle point? Is it like where do we when do we say uncle?

SPEAKER_01 40:14

This is the part that I don't think you're gonna like.

SPEAKER_04 40:17

Go for it.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

To be honest with you, I don't think that day will ever come because number one, the baby boomer generation, my mother's the youngest, and she is now my mother's now 69. My father is 78. That generation will be exiting within the next 15 years, which will leave us, the exes and millennials, as the top-tier population of the planet. And we are gonna be the last of the generations that remember what customer service was. Every baby born from 2000 has had a cell phone in their hands since childbirth. The babies of 2020 and 2025 have been born into artificial intelligence, they don't know anything different. Every generation moving forward is gonna know less and less and less and less and less and less. And the way that we're programming, if all and this is where where you've made the mention of being successful in your business, is also being able to take many steps back and looking at the big picture, right? Let's say you're a mechanic, a mechanic in Boise, Idaho, let's say. Well, if animatronic tractors are gonna become the thing, you're no longer to be gonna be dealing with driving tractors capabilities. You're not gonna be dealing with the same drivetrain, you're gonna be dealing with a whole new ballgame. You're gonna have to start getting good at computer systems. Cat, caterpillar, and maybe deer in the next 15 years are gonna have computerized machinery that being a mechanic is no longer a mechanic. You're now an engineer.

SPEAKER_04 42:12

Right, you're a computer engineer because you've got to figure out how to fix the computer system that's running something.

unknown 42:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01 42:19

But guess what? That generation of kids is gonna be learning that from the get-go. That's the world that they're gonna be taught. That's the world that they're gonna be designing because that's what they're told to be doing. If we want to change the world and make it somewhat rational, as I would say, we have to do it, we have to do a full stop and walk it back. I know this is a little political and I know this is a little controversial, but I had this discussion last night at dinner, and I asked, how do you think it's gonna get better? When has anything that we have done as a society, as a society, right? When have we ever learned our lesson and went, no, no, no, no, no, no. We've been there, done that, we're not gonna do that again.

SPEAKER_04 43:08

I cannot say when.

SPEAKER_01 43:10

Okay, then. So, right there, right there, it for your audience, right here. This is what I say, we have to take a step back and taking your taking your personal personality and your opinions and what you believe and what you feel, and I hate that word. I don't I F-E-E-L should be erased from everybody's dictionary. Right. You now, you and I both agree. We have never learned our lesson as a society. We've never turned back and went, nope, we we've learned that lesson, we're not gonna do it again. We just go keep doing it. So there's a book I'm currently reading. Um, actually, I have it right here. I I apologize.

SPEAKER_03 43:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:51

Decision Decision Making in a Changing World. This was my father's This was my father's back in 1971. This book is circumvented. Nineteen seventy one. It's also the introduction to management systems. Basically the things that we have now. Right? Everything that we have now. This was being introduced in nineteen seventy.

SPEAKER_04 44:40

Oh no, I have I have unlimited time on my Zoom.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

So but getting back to the book, um, this is talk this book in 1971 was talking about how the world was dealing with raw data, right? In real time, people were able to put in information into a global system that companies had, and then managers and assisted managers and directors could pull data and get real data. And a lot of them, a lot of executives in this book wrote that they had issues with that because they've done everything by feeling. Young, you know, executives in the 60s and 50s learned how to do things by feeling. They knew the markets because they knew the suppliers, they knew the customers, they had a sense of what it was. Well, a sense went out the door when we had real data.

SPEAKER_03 45:30

Wow, interesting.

SPEAKER_01 45:31

No, your gut feeling is great, but uh you know, this set of data says that that product is going to sell a lot more than that product. We went in decision making off of data, not feeling. So here we are, circuit 2026, and we have AI. We have all these companies coming up with AI this, AI that, shop that this, you know. Right. We haven't learned our lessons. Right.

SPEAKER_04 46:01

It's so it's so interesting because you know, I I feel like this is so, you know, it's a it's a topic I could talk about forever and a day because at the at the end, people matter, and we forget about that, you know. Again, it goes back to the human connection. If you're running a company, you need to have people, you need to know who you are, and you need to know the your values, and when you align with values and you can communicate properly, you know, you become a rising tide that's gonna list lift all the boats, like everybody's on the same page. But when you just become a robot, it doesn't work the same way. No, it never will, right?

SPEAKER_01 46:48

And it never will never will, it never will. Listen, AI, chat GDP, Deep Think, all of these tools are very, very powerful tools. They're tools, that's all they are.

SPEAKER_04 47:05

They're tools, yes. They are tools.

SPEAKER_01 47:10

Just like a hammer or a chainsaw, they have a specific purpose, they have a specific job, and they're great at what they do. But it still takes you to do it. Right.

SPEAKER_04 47:22

There's still a human involved. You know, I s I I could talk to you for hours and about this. So let me ask you a question. What makes you so unstoppable? What keeps you going?

SPEAKER_01 47:37

Oh do you want a political, do you want a corporate political answer or do you want a gritty answer?

SPEAKER_04 47:42

I want the every answer you want to you want to give me. I just want the the the one that comes from your heart.

SPEAKER_01 47:49

Oh I'll give you I'll give you a true honest answer. Um It's gonna stir the pot, but uh I'm not worried about this young generation coming up for our business. I'm not. And I say this as a loving older cousin, maybe. You don't got that fight in you. You 20-year-olds, you don't have it in you. You're soft, you're weak, you cry to your mommy because the teacher was mean to you. You you have to emotionally post a picture of your food, of what you're doing, of where you're going, of I'm with Jimmy, I'm with Sarah, look at us. You need to see me for me to feel validated that the whole world saw what I'm doing because I need everybody to see me, to let everybody know what I'm doing. No, you don't have what it takes to come up against people like me. I eat, breathe, sleep this, I work 24 hours a day. The phone call goes off at three in the morning. I'm getting up out of bed to take that call. I got a problem in California where my marketing team is. I'm flying out to California. I'm not, well, let's schedule it on no, no. If there's a problem, I'm on the I'm on a plane. What makes me successful is that Generation X, young the millennial generation of our parents, that we were thrown outside on Saturday morning. You had pancakes, and I don't want to see you till dinner.

SPEAKER_03 49:29

Right.

The Generational Skill Gap

SPEAKER_01 49:30

That was my mother. She threw me out of the house at Saturday morning and said, Don't come back until the street lights on. That's how we grew up. We made it up as we went along. We solved our problems amongst ourselves. If we got in trouble, we didn't go running to mom, we hid it from mom. So true. Everything about your younger generation is the opposite of mine, and it's proving itself. You can't read, you can't write. I've seen the resumes that you've sent me, they're garbage.

SPEAKER_03 50:08

So true.

SPEAKER_01 50:09

Well, well, what about? Yeah, we're talking about a select few. I'm in math, I do standard deviation, and I'm talking about the bell curve. The bell curve? You better pray, you 20-year-olds, you better pray that Elon Musk's gives you universal income. Because as far as I'm concerned, I don't know what job you're qualified for. And I'm not trying to be the bad guy, I'm really not. But heart to heart, cousin to cousin. What are you good at? No, for real. In all honesty, what are you kids good at? What are you good at? We built tree forts with shit we found around people's yards. We were building ramps, ramps to launch our bikes as fast as humanly possible off of barrels and crates. We bragged that we broke an arm and got stitches and how many stitches we had. It was a badge of honor. You kids are afraid of the dark. And you're and and this idea of well, I'm sorry, we haven't gone anywhere, and we're your bosses. And this is the thing that I don't understand. And to answer the question about success, I'm successful because you could tell me no, I'm still gonna show up, I'm still gonna keep coming. That word no means nothing to me because my goal, my objective is far more important than whatever opinion you have. All right, you said no. All right, I've got 400 million people in the United States to get in touch with. There are 95 million seniors over the age of 65, 95 million of them. One person doesn't like my business? Okay, cool. I've got a pool the size of the East Coast just in one demographic. And that's not including small businesses, which registered, only registered, are 114 million. How many moms and how many dads have side weekend hustles where they're mechanics or they're washers or they're cleaners or they're something? They're businesses, they make money, they're doing whatever, but they're not registered. There's a lot more of those than 114 million.

SPEAKER_04 52:39

Right. There's a ton of those. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:42

And not to not to be too mean, but you wet bag of noodles are gonna be the thing that blocks me from that, really? Really? You think well, I'm just gonna tweet a nasty, I'm gonna have a nasty tweet, and I'm oh oh, my feelings are so hurt. Cool. You can tweet, and I'll ask you another question. What's your job? What are you doing? Where do you go to work? And this and and and and that is on of itself the issue to any parent of a kid that's 20, 25, 26. What are they good at? What what do they do?

SPEAKER_04 53:27

Right. Well, they have to, yeah. And you know what? They have to find a talent, they have to find something that they're that that's gonna make them go. And that's you know, and they have to learn.

SPEAKER_01 53:40

You know the number one the number one job that we've seen come in to our applications, influencer.

SPEAKER_03 53:50

Oh dear god.

SPEAKER_01 53:52

I'm not kidding. I am not kidding. The majority of young under 30 applicants for our jobs. The number one, the number one job that they all have in common, influencer. They listed on their resume as influencer. Take that off your resume. Take it off your resume. If you are not making a hundred thousand dollars as an influencer where you can prove it, take it off your resume. Right. I don't want to talk to you. I'm not even I'm not even looking at your resume. I see that word on your resume. I don't care where you went to school, I don't care who your daddy is. I see that word on your resume, you're done.

SPEAKER_04 54:40

I would never even a million years ever thought that that was something that was on people's resumes that they would that they they would put influencer.

SPEAKER_01 54:51

It is the self-importance of this generation is unfathomable.

SPEAKER_04 54:59

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 55:02

And you ask them, what have you accomplished? What are you most proud of? No one can give me a real good answer. I would accept, oh, I backpacked through Nepal. Okay, that's a life experience. Oh, me and my friends, you know, we we we've promoted a few bottles, we've promoted a few drinks, we've we've done um I've done a few modeling gigs here and there. Okay, cool. How is that gonna help on a customer service call?

SPEAKER_04 55:38

So interesting. It's so fascinating to me to hear because I'm not hiring people, and it's interesting because one of the biggest things that I I work with people in a lot of different capacities, but you know, just had a conversation with somebody the other day about somebody who isn't a dead end job. Like they don't, they're not happy with it. I'm like, well, let's look at your values and see what really gets you excited and kind of work backwards. But I again, you know, influencer would never be something that I would say, hey, why don't you go be an influencer?

SPEAKER_01 56:11

Well, here's a here's a here's a homework assignment for you for you to you know go for anybody really. If you've got kids 18 and 20, ask them what their older friends are doing. Like what what's their LinkedIn profile look like? What's their what's their professional look look like? Because kids, I hate to say it, eventually, not everybody's gonna be sponsored by Nestle. Not everybody's gonna be sponsored by Evion Water. Oh, and my favorite, my favorite right now is the the travel abroad um uh travel advisor, right? You can you this work of like you're gonna travel abroad and you're gonna be the travel advisor abroad and you can work remotely. So everybody's doing, so everybody's now a travel advisor, everybody's drop shipping, everybody's doing this. Okay. Does nobody see what I see?

SPEAKER_04 57:10

I uh you and I see it. Andrew, I could talk to you for hours about this, and we've been talking for an hour, but I want to keep, you know, I want people to know how they can connect with you because I think actually what you were doing for tech rescue is so important. And hearing about what you were doing, um, it's it is changing the way that small businesses and we humans actually can get connected with people for something that's so important. So, what's the best way people to connect with you?

SPEAKER_01 57:42

You can go to www.techrescue.io or call us 24 hours a day at 855-250-8586 and stay tuned because if you're out of the country and traveling, I'm gonna give you that next international number when we set it up.

SPEAKER_04 57:58

Oh, I love it. All right, listeners, do me a favor. This is unstoppable success. Do me a favor, share this episode with your friends, relatives, business associates, because this is such an important conversation that they need to hear. And then you have to do me one other favor if you haven't already subscribed. Go over to our school community where we were sharing tips and tricks and lots of great things for you to learn over on school at Unstoppable Success. Thank you, Andrew, for being an amazing guest, and thank you, listeners.

SPEAKER_00 58:28

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_04 58:29

Such a pleasure. I'm gonna hit stop. Thank you so much for joining me on the Unstoppable Success Podcast, where we don't just talk about growth, we leap toward it. If something today lit a fire within you, sparked a new idea, or gave you the extra push forward, please don't keep it to yourself. Share this episode and podcast with a friend, colleague, or fellow high achiever. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review. And most importantly, connect with me, Jacqueline Schuminger, at leaptoyoursuccess.com. For coaching, community, and your next bold move. Keep leading with intention, keep building your network with purpose, and most of all, keep leaping. Because you are meant to be unstoppable.