Welcome back to Teaching the Unteachables, where we dive into teaching and learning methodologies
for professionals like you.
This episode brought to you by the Khmors Company, a different kind of chemistry company.
Learn more about Khmors at Khmors.com.
Alright thank you all for joining us once again.
We're hanging out with the great Don Gillis from Khmors.
Don, how are you my friend?
Really good.
Really good, Cliff.
So we're going to spend a little bit of time today in teaching the unteachables and diving
into the skills of speaking to our audience.
And man, Don, this is a fun topic and we're going to have a good time on this one.
I love it.
It's near and dear and as I know it is with you, your heart.
It just really, it's what drives us all for the passion that we do in the field and the
training and stuff like that.
So I'm excited about this.
Alright, where are we going to start?
Well I tell you what, I wanted to talk about a little bit what I thought I would share
today with you is I've seen you teach, you've seen me teach and stuff like that.
One of the things that caught my eye on this topic was, you know, for the new, for the
people that are just getting into training, because I probably like you, get a lot of
people coming up to me, people that we all know that are thinking about making that jump
into a bigger training position.
How'd you get started in those kinds of things?
And I have found whether what's worked for me is to be a very, very good listener.
When I go into a classroom, I don't know why, but somehow I was blessed.
Don't ask me why of being a person that tries not to come off like the smartest person in
the room.
I just, I cringe sometimes when I've seen people really kind of get defiant and this
is the way it is and not really open to the ideas because there's so much to learn.
I think it's important to, for me anyways, in my experience, is to encourage people to
share their knowledge in the classroom.
Don't control the vibe.
When I teach right, wrong, or indifferent, I try to have a conversation more than I do
talk at bullet points.
I'm not a scripted person.
I'm not good at that.
And as I mentioned to you earlier today, there's a lot of times I leave or I'm on the plane
or I'm laying in bed that night going, Oh, I forgot to mention that.
But I brought up some other things that you kind of go where the conversation takes you,
if you will, and you see what you get a feel of what the interest is.
But more, most importantly, what I was really driving at is making them feel comfortable.
I often use the phrase, look, I don't, I don't know any of you.
I don't know if Joe's refrigeration on this side of the room is, doesn't like, you know,
Tim's heating and air over here.
I don't know that.
I don't know who's the competitors and who likes and dislikes.
What I do know is this is, this is a place to learn.
And I always use the analogy like a sports analogy, basically, or any analogy where you
practice through the week and play on the weekends.
This is where we make mistakes.
We blow the whistle, do it over again, if you will, because in the heat of the battle,
when you're in front of the homeowner or the business owner, that's not the time to be
getting on the phone and asking the questions.
Put your guard down, you know, swallow your pride, you know, check that at the, at the
door, if you will, and come here to learn from one another.
Today we are one team.
And I, a lot of times I start out my training like that.
If I remember to say it, as I said, I'm not scripted.
Man, that's a great, great way to start the class.
I hadn't really thought about that, but now that you mentioned that, you know, one of
my favorite presenters is Greg Millsap.
So I used to work with Johnstone Supply.
He's just, he's an entertaining fella.
Just I think most important at, at the heart of him, he's a football coach.
So I always, I always refer to him as coach Millsaps and he starts his classes like that.
So it makes sense because now that you mentioned that I can remember sitting in your classes,
you're doing Copeland teardown classes and having that same atmosphere and enjoying that
atmosphere and that makes sense because you were setting it up, you know, like it was
a coaching opportunity where you're bringing everyone in for the huddle and then making
it real.
Yeah, that makes so much sense.
Yeah.
Public speaking or public teaching, educator, whatever you're in front of a crowd is one
of the toughest things to do.
And, and you don't realize it that you, when you first begin, especially as the crowds
get larger, you have a little anxiety.
It's if you don't have a little anxiety, you're not a lot, you're not, you're not,
that's right.
Something's wrong with yourself.
Yes, exactly.
But on the other hand, what I've learned is human nature is all those people in entering
that room, whether it's 25 or 125 people, a lot of times, all the time, they don't know
each other either.
So they're anxious.
You can see that at Esco, they're wondering where to sit.
Do they want to ask a question?
They don't want to make a fool of theirself.
So there's anxiety in the classroom.
So the last thing they want to see is you fail.
So the idea for me is what I've learned from others and watching other people speak is
to try to bring that anxiety down by saying, Hey, this is kind of a safe place.
You know what I mean?
This is a practice field.
Right up front.
Look, if you've got that, what you feel is a stupid question, I guarantee you there's
15 other people in the room who want to ask the same question.
They're scared to.
Exactly.
You know, right?
So as we're introducing the class, we're starting it out, making it feel like it's more of a
team effort, not just a, I'm here to speak, you're here to listen.
Let's bring everyone in together and bring up some other perspectives, bring up, you
know, everyone's viewpoint and experiences makes for a quite the unique learning atmosphere.
Absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I, and I had the opportunity to work with Ty Brandeman for a while and he does a good
job of that too.
We were, it was enjoyable to see him.
And the first time I saw him out in Vegas, I was really impressed.
But, and I don't know, I don't know if I can say it just comes naturally, but sometimes
the best players don't make the best coaches and vice versa.
You know what I mean?
Exactly.
Sometimes I, you know, I don't want to come off like I was the greatest technician, the
smartest guy in the field, you know, of everybody or whatever.
But for some reason I have had some success teaching and I think it's because people can
see I'm sincere and I'm passionate about what I'm doing and I'm always willing to learn.
And I think that once you set that standard in the classroom, like, Hey, nobody's better
than anyone else.
And let's share our experiences here and you know, right, wrong or indifferent.
I appreciate nothing more than someone's brutal honesty when I'm saying what not to do and
someone starts smiling in the front row and raises their hand and I go, what's so funny?
I'm thinking they're laughing at me.
They're going, I just did that.
I can relate.
I love it.
You know, and it's because then you just brought everybody's shoulder down.
They're all going, you know, I'm here with my people.
Yeah, exactly.
Another thing I like to do that I've seen a lot of success with a lot of people is,
is I really like to, uh, along with while you're teaching, it's always nice to have
some type of product piece component, something like that to get away from the, if you're
doing a whiteboard or a PowerPoint, whatever, to pass those parts and pieces around.
We're a touchy-heely industry.
And if you're not tearing down a compressor that day, you know, that's a, that's great.
If you can do that, but not all classes are built around that somewhere too, four or six
hours or whatever, but at least pass some parts and pieces around so they can touch
it because I have found parts and pieces for like, you know, disc disc, uh, for the disc
compressors like that, the little pockets, if you put it up on a screen, it almost looks
like it's five inches in diameter when actually it's about the size of your thumb.
You know what I mean?
So it makes it really blows people minds because not everybody again, like when I was at Copeland
have the luxury of tearing a compressor down every day.
Like we do, you, you take for granted that you're seeing this.
And once you pass those things around, you know, or anything like that, I've got it.
I've got a, I've one of those adapters right now.
Yesterday I was passing around for the left-hand threads.
It's going to go on the tank.
You'd be surprised how many people are like, Oh, okay.
It's just an adapter.
It's just a flared fitting changing it from left to right.
But it's the first time they saw it.
You know what I mean?
And now they can go have that conversation at the shop tomorrow at the coffee machine
and go, that was at that class yesterday.
They're going to make these adapters for these eight, two old tanks, you know?
So just those kinds of things, just, just to just whatever you can do to help educate
them a little bit better.
I think that's, that's what brings me joy.
When I, when I leave that day, if I think that someone got something out of it and,
and they can utilize something tomorrow when the boots are hit the ground or they can go
back to their service manager or the owner, whoever sent them that training said, man,
it was really, really good.
Then I've done my job.
I mean, I would do what I'm doing, like you would to Cliff for free.
For free.
I really would.
I need my money.
Don't tell our boss that.
That's right.
We still have to put food on the table, but man, some days it is hard to believe that
we actually get paid to give back to the industry.
That's been so good to us.
Oh, it's, it's so awesome.
I get to run with people like you and, and all the other great instructors.
We really have a good life and meeting all these other contractors and, and responding
to their emails too.
I mean, I've responded to probably four emails this week alone, just on a, an article I wrote
for, for the, uh, for HVAC school about oil trapping.
I mean, they're, that story was wrote two months ago and they're still coming in and
I just enjoy that, you know, um, the dis teaching, teaching those things and learning those things
and showing them what not to do.
But yet when you tell them what not to do, here's another thing that I try to pride myself
on or I, I pride myself on.
I work hard not to do is again, I, I don't like standing up behind a podium and acting
like you're doing it all wrong and I'm right.
Here's why, you know what I mean?
I don't want to be that how great thou are person, you know what I mean?
So it's really, it's, it's, you really got to, you know, bring it to, to make yourself
human.
I try to actually use myself as an example, you know, of something I did wrong, you know
what I mean?
Like, you know, how many, you know, yesterday I asked him and I did it last week too.
How many people have ever released refrigerant, whether it was accidentally or not, you know,
and I always get a kick out of when you only about four people raise your hand.
Nobody wants to admit it.
Oh my Lord, but you know what?
Once you start laughing, oh, come on.
Yeah.
Everybody starts chuckling and you know, they, they know, you know, they know now last week
I did the same thing in Dallas and almost everybody in the room to raise their hand.
So it depends where you're at, you know, and again, that could be, are you comfortable
with the people in the room?
You know, kind of thing.
Nice.
You know, you mentioned about having something hands on.
One of the tactics I like to use in the class, I have a bunch of small cutaways, filter dryers,
contactors, relay, small pieces.
I always try to put one piece on every table and that way you have something to just fidget
with while during the conversation, especially with filter dryers, always make sure they
have a heat pump filter dryer cut in half.
So I've got two pieces with check valves so you can see inside.
But then when we take a break, I move them around so that when they come back, there's
something different on the table.
So there's different pieces in the room, but there's always something happening.
So even if they walk away and they've learned something that they didn't know off topic,
like maybe they were sitting there studying this filter dryer and see check valves in
between and then went, oh wow, I guess I never really looked at that.
So it kind of just goes hand in hand.
It just connects some of the visuals with just a little bit of memory retention.
I love that.
I may steal that.
That is really good.
It's all these little things to interact with the actual audience because it's a big change
when we go from the field into the classroom.
You mentioned earlier, you know, when we go into the classroom, you know, we may have
been the best person in the field and we come into the classroom and go, man, I'm going
to be a good teacher because I was really good at doing what I do.
Now I'm just going to show people what I did.
And then all of a sudden it has a completely different feel.
We have to learn these new skills.
We learn to communicate to a group of 15 or a group of 50 or a group of 150.
And it's not like that one-on-one conversation we used to have when we're out in the field.
It's a whole different playing field, whole different playing field.
And I'm not directing this anyone.
I just am sharing what I've learned along the way, going back to that.
Sometimes the best players don't make the best coaches in sports.
I've seen it many a times.
Sometimes the greatest coaches end up being, some of them don't have to do play football
or something like that, which is always odd to me, but they're motivators.
You know what I mean?
And that goes for what we do too.
I like you run around with a lot of smart people in our industry, but some, you know,
it doesn't necessarily mean because they're the smartest people, you know, that I know
make the best instructors.
It's just a blend of who you are and how comfortable you make people feel in that room.
You know what I mean?
And some people have to work at it and some people don't.
I know when I first started with Emerson, my biggest task was overcoming the anxiety
of being in front of even 25 people, let alone 125, you know.
So I still have them today and I tell people this, I shared it at HVAC excellence over
dinner with someone that was thinking about getting into training.
And I said, you know what I did?
I said, I bought four or five, I still have them CDs and I would listen to them in my
car and it was about overcoming stage fright.
I even bought a book that said, you know, uh, instructions or educators for dummies
or something like that, or public speaking for dummies.
I think it was.
Okay.
Yeah, but I did that over and over again to help myself.
But, um, but also once you get more comfortable with the topic that you're talking about,
obviously the more comfortable you are with that, you could do it blindfolded in your
sleep.
You just start rolling with it and then you see so many questions or hear so many questions
and respond to so many questions and get stumped on questions that you then have to go back
and research and find the answer for.
So along the way you're educating yourself also, and then giving that back to the next
class, uh, basically paying it forward.
Like, Hey, I just learned this last week and be brutally honest about it.
Oh, you know, make yourself human, make yourself human.
Hey, I did not know that.
Yeah.
If you don't know it, don't try to come up with something honest about it.
Yeah.
I, I think people accept you a lot better.
I know they do, at least in my case, they do when you make yourself more human.
It's like, I did not know that.
Well, I was talking about the safety disc the other day on, uh, the old referred to
the, the existing refrigerant tanks, how they're a disc and how they go off at a 130 degrees
or higher in your truck.
And I mentioned, I was in Southern Alabama that, um, that's never happened to me, you
know, but that's what it's there for.
And then, you know, two guys in the room raised their hand.
I said that one guy said it happens to him.
Had it happened to him twice in his lifetime or does the same way.
It's not hot enough to actually open the rupture.
Yeah.
Wow.
And so, and I've, I've never had, I've never seen that before, but, uh, different worlds.
So, you know, you, you learn along the way in the different States, but, uh, yeah.
So yeah, the other thing I wanted to share too, that I have learned kind of self taught
myself to do, and everyone's probably doing this, that it's been teaching for 30 years
or 20 years or, or that's much wiser than I am is that, is I like to, when I first started
teaching, breaks are important.
You know, I mean, I think sometimes we get into this where, you know, we need to go two
hours or four hours.
I'll tell you what, I like little one and a half hour breaks to break it up.
I also like once you're done with a section or two, especially if it's an eight hour training
or something really long and lengthy, or even if it's a four hour training, I like putting
in, even if it's only five questions, just little quizzes, it could be cahoots too up
on the screen.
I love using codes.
I'm a big man and I, I love goods.
It gets, because if you've got a quiet class in the morning, I guarantee if you whip up
goods and say, Hey, we're going to see what we learned today.
And they think it's going to be a written test.
They're going, Oh no, you start plugging in and guys names are popping up there like
fuzzy raccoon and stuff.
Right.
It makes it.
And then they're learning and they're learning too.
You know, and that's really, really cool.
And, but yeah, I love that kind of stuff.
Awesome.
Don Gillis, we thank you so much for joining us today and look forward to having you back
on plenty more episodes.
Thank you so much, Cliff.
I deeply appreciate it.
Looking forward to the next time.