Behind the Toolbelt

161 Episodes

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Betting On Yourself Starts With Raising Your Hand

2026-09-2340:03

Send us Fan Mail “Bet on yourself” sounds bold, but most people hear it and think it only counts if you quit your job and start a company. We don’t buy that. Ty Cobb Backer breaks down what it looks like in real life for team members, technicians, salespeople, foremen, and managers: raising your hand for responsibility, volunteering to lead, speaking up when it would be easier to stay quiet, and building skills before anyone gives you permission. That’s where career growth in the trades actua...

The Courage To Be Bored

2026-09-1636:01

Send us Fan Mail Your calendar is packed, your phone is buzzing, and somehow you still feel scattered. We’re asking a blunt question that hits leaders and high performers right in the chest: when did we become so afraid to be bored? Because if you can’t stand 15 quiet minutes without reaching for a screen, that’s not just a habit, it’s a signal. We talk about the reflex to fill every gap with podcasts, music, email, and doom scrolling, and what that constant stimulation does to focus, presen...

How A Golf Outing Funds Roofers In Recovery

2026-09-0945:41

Send us Fan Mail A golf tournament doesn’t fix addiction, but it can do something powerful: pull an industry into the open and put real money behind real help. I’m joined by my brother and friend Stephen Spence from Project Map It, the founder of Swing for Recovery, a golf outing that raises funds for Roofers in Recovery while building awareness for alcohol and drug addiction in the roofing and construction world. We talk about why this year carries extra weight as we honor Mike Ippolitti’s ...

Are You Protecting The Mission Or Your Pride

2026-09-0247:18

Send us Fan Mail The fastest way to break trust as a leader isn’t changing your mind. It’s watching something fail in plain sight and defending it anyway. Today we get brutally practical about the thin line between persistence and stubbornness, and why that line is usually drawn by ego, fear, and quiet pride not by logic. We walk through how hard decisions really work when you’re leading a business, a team, or a family: you make a call without perfect information, you commit, and then you ve...

If Nobody Challenges You, You Are Leading Blind

2026-08-2601:01:41

Send us Fan Mail Nobody plans to build an echo chamber, but it happens fast. The more authority we carry as owners, managers, foremen, coaches, and parents, the more people start filtering what they say around us. They hear our opinions as decisions, our casual comments as direction, and they quietly ask themselves: Is it safe to disagree? When that truth stops showing up in the room, it doesn’t vanish, it goes underground and comes back as frustration, sloppy execution, side conversations, a...

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