[00:00:18] Speaker A: The point is it's all about batteries. So it's so important just economically and from an intermittent standpoint with all of the electricity that's going to be required for all the loads with electrical vehicles and everything else, our grid's not ready for it.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Hey, there, it's Ramsey here. That was Josh Brum. Josh is a fascinating, energetic, upbeat man. He's a battery expert and business owner of solar plus Storageadvisors.com. we started out talking about the clean energy industry, nerded out for a while about battery technology, but then the conversation took an amazing turn. We dove into what's worthwhile for Josh, and we spoke about his beliefs and about biblical prophecies. I have to say, Josh is one of the most positive, optimistic and engaging people I've spoken to. I got to see Josh's heart during this conversation, and I think you will, too. Let's hop into it.
[00:01:19] Speaker C: Hey, Josh, how you doing today?
[00:01:21] Speaker A: I'm doing good. Thanks for having me, Ramsey.
[00:01:24] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I saw on LinkedIn that you launched a new company, and I just had to speak with you and find out all about it. So let me say for the audience, kind of as an introduction that you and I used to work together recently in the solar industry and that you are particularly an energy storage expert and thought leader, and you're just also just an all around good guy and family man with a passion for God, people and clean energy. So thanks a bunch for coming on the show and talking to me today. I appreciate it.
[00:02:03] Speaker A: Hey, my pleasure. It was great to work with you.
You know, just so knowledgeable and finance and just everything you taught me about lending, I really did not have a background in that at all. So to have an opportunity to work with you for the period of time that we did, I was able to glean a lot of knowledge from you and so very thankful. Thanks for having me on the program, Ramsey. So actually, the launch, I want to start off by giving credit to my wife.
She has a company herself called Brum Media, where she does, she specializes in social media marketing. So any of you out there, feel free to, you know, go to Brum media and check it out. Very, very cool. She did that video. And do you know the, and do you know the video, the trick that people play on us when they, they show us the car going through the beautiful nature filled scene with the stream going by it and, and the eagle flying across, and you're all relaxed and into it, and then suddenly the zombies pop out at you on the screen, you know, not quite like that, but the same concept she got. She got everybody, including myself, staring at the rocket. Before you know it, there's. There's our logo. So that was the launch on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. And full credit. My wife, she is my better half. She's helping me launch this business, and from an administration standpoint, helping me run the business.
So there are some things that God, I believe, made me really great at, and there's some things that I have weaknesses in. And, you know, as a Christian, I believe that in my weakness, he is strong, but I believe that he also teamed me up with a wife.
So that in my weakness, she is strong in a sense, as well. So full credit that this is a team effort, that I could not have gotten this off the ground myself. I mean, I'm sure I could have got some people involved to do the stuff I suck at in the long term, but not so fast as it started off. That's how I know it's a God thing.
I was in a situation where, you know, just challenges in the industry. You know what I'm talking about. 2023 was a bloodbath. And this solar coaster, you know, and I'm just like, we don't need to be on a solar coaster. It's just constant frustration from somebody who has been in, and I'm not talking about the company. I'm just talking about just the overall market has been a very frustrating market to be in. And I wanted to find solutions and really lean on my nearly 18 years in the business of. Of experience to say, no, this is. Maybe this is what we should do. And I start realizing, you know, if I want to do what I want to do, and I know what God is leading me to, then. Then I need to go for it. And I talked with my wife. We prayed about it. And the prayer that we had was, God, if what we're supposed to do is stay right here and bloom where we're planted, then please close all other doors that, you know, we're moving. We're trying, we're trying. We're trying. We're exploring. But close all those other doors and leave it to where this is the one we know we need to do. Or close that door and the other doors and just open the one that you want us to go through so that when we walk through that door, everything accelerates. Right. That was our prayer, and that was my wife's specific prayer, actually. And it happened. All the other doors closed. And this door that I walked through with solar plus Storage Advisors LLC. It opened wide open. And from day one, when I made the announcement, just texting some friends to let them know, they started letting people know, the battery guys back. And before you know it, two or three times a day, I'm getting phone calls. Hey, I got this project, and I heard, you know what to do, and you don't know how rewarding that is. I love helping people, and now I get to do it with my wife, and I get to do it for the glory of God, and I get to do it the right way that I know it needs to be done and not have to depend on others and their decisions that can affect whether I can do what I need to do or not. Forgive me for being on my soapbox, but that's really what, what really preceded the whole thinking of the launch. You know, God's getting us through that door, getting us through that door together and closing all those other doors and accelerating everything. That's really the story of how we launched this business.
[00:06:55] Speaker C: Yeah, well, that's. I mean, that's such a great attitude to have. It brings a lot of peace when you sort of see and work through what kind of God has presented and laid out for you.
So tell me a bit about solar plus storage advisors.
What is the company and where is your service area, and who are your customers? Give me the rundown.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: Great question, by the way, every time I do an interview and the person I'm interviewing says, great question, it always makes me feel better. So I hope great questions on the right track.
[00:07:38] Speaker C: Does anyone ever say, like, that is such a dumb question?
[00:07:41] Speaker A: Never happened. What would you ask exactly? It would never say that solar plus storage Advisors is a national company. Really.
We're virtual. We're virtual. So that's part of how we can provide great service, great advice, great consultation, and even source amazing prices on equipment and materials as well. So we have a couple of different business models that we utilize, people that we service with solar plus storage advisors, and that is installer services for installers. So that would be solar pluss, storageadvisors.com installers, and then, of course, homeowners as well. We can provide fully installed. I am partnered with one of the top EPC solar installer companies in California, one of the top rated ones, my good friend Chris Moran at Solar maintenance Bros. He's been doing it for years, and I respect the living daylights out of this guy. And just, he's a US veteran. Amazing. And I joined forces with him as an authorized dealer, solar maintenance bro. So we can basically the idea I'm not ego, I just have done it. I'm an expert at this stuff, so I'm able to get on with homeowners virtually versus the people with the clipboard and just trying to pressure them into a sale. And I can provide them context, I can provide them with expertise. Like, it's like having. I'm not Bob Vila, right? But it's like having kind of like having Bob Vila talk to you about your remodel job and giving you, you know, a recommendation on the person that should come, come in and do it. You know, it's very similar to that. I want to be the Bob Vila of clean energy, someone, someone that homeowners and business owners can trust. I'm not here to just ram a sail down your throat and talk you into something. I'm an expert at this. Let's have a conversation and I will help guide you to what would be best for you. Now, you can make that decision to go with my recommended choice of who I'm affiliated with or not, but either way, you get that expert advice and information to make the right decisions. And I think that's lacking in our market today. And so that's the homeowner side and then the installer side, they have no clue about storage. Even the ones who think they do, they don't. Or most of them, right, very few are battery specialists. And really get it. There's a different way to sell energy storage. You can't just boom, boom, boom like you do solar. So in order to teach people properly, they need to be trained. And not only trained, most of them, most of them don't even know how to professionally sell. They think they do because they've been sales people, people for years. A lot of these installer companies they've been selling, we've been successful. You know, I know what I'm doing, you know, and whatnot. Like, like that whole, I know better. It's ignorance, it's thinking, you know, but you don't know. So, because that's such a huge problem and people are going nowhere fast doing the same thing and expecting a different result. I want to offer them the opportunity to have training and consulting, not only on the expertise of the actual products and the technical side, but how to sell it. And not only how to sell it, but how to sell in this business and be successful and motivate their team. And so I, through solar plus storage advisors on the installer side, I can provide them consultation, training, training, motivation, co selling, getting on the phone with that installer and their customer to play that third party expert role, to provide that validation and help them close the deal. And we get rewarded in different ways if we sell or not sell, but we provide consultation to an installer, as an example. That installer has us on a phone with a customer, they close the deal. We can get a kickback, like a fee or a percentage for that, but it's probably cheaper than you would, you know, pay otherwise, and you're more likely to close more deals. So two lanes, basically, homeowners, installers. But with the installers, I also am partnered. I was in this business for 18 years, and so I'm best friends with all these people and all these manufacturers and all these different players, and so they realize, oh, my God, Josh is on his own now with solar plus storage advisors. I want to work with Josh, and so I'm connected with all of them, and that allows me not to be the middleman, but to cut out the middleman and directly connect my installer with that manufacturer, that player, and I just get a little, you know, little commission for that on the back end, per, you know, whatever is sold. But if nothing is sold, then the consultation is free. So really, I'm providing a free consultation to homeowners and installers that doesn't cost them anything from an expert. And if they choose to go with my recommendation or my solution with one of my partners, then great, you know.
[00:12:54] Speaker C: So, I mean, what is it about the energy storage? Like, why is that such a critical piece these days? And also, why is it complicated? Why is it tricky?
[00:13:05] Speaker A: Okay, great question again. Look at you.
[00:13:08] Speaker C: That is the question.
[00:13:12] Speaker A: I'm out of here. So, energy storage. Batteries, batteries and more batteries. My previous company that I worked with, a battery distributor, I created a podcast radio show for them called the all things energy Storage show. And at the beginning of the show, there was a little opener. Batteries, batteries and more batteries. It's the, you know, and so I think of that when I. It's so important. I wrote a book, actually, on Amazon, not plugging it to buy it, just letting. I wrote a book on it, because I. And I know ten times more now than I when I wrote that book. So I feel horrible, horrible about it, actually. It was very infantile. Like, yeah, like, gonna have to update it, right? Or I just leave it as that's what it was, what, you know? And the reality is, the knowledge in there that I put in there was to help others. I wanted to teach people, if you want to get into the clean energy industry, you want to learn to sell batteries. You want to learn to sell this stuff. That book showed my, my development through that also as well. How to sell personality styles. Talks about technical stuff. Autobiographical as well. But the point is, it's all about batteries. Why are batteries so important, is your question? Well, right now, especially with solar, let's stick with renewable energy for the moment, but renewable energy style. In most states, the net metering regimes are going away or changing so that whatever excess solar you produce during the day when you're not at home, you won't get an even Steven credit for it anymore. You actually have to sell that back to, if you don't have batteries, you have to sell that back to the grid at like pennies on the dollar. And it makes solar not viable in a lot of those states, including time of use rates where it's cheaper sometimes and more expensive at night, things like that. You can store that energy in a battery instead of selling it back for pennies on the dollar, and you can discharge it to your loads when the rates are high. And in addition to those savings, you also pay for having emergency load. It pays for itself to have emergency load battery backup. Back in the day, when net metering was such that you got even Steven for the excess you sold back, batteries didn't make that much sense to have a big battery. So the only reason why folks wanted batteries back then was just if they had outages and they wanted to have emergency power. Well, now it's all about battling the net metering regimes in different states and situations so that you store it and consume it yourself and get that value yourself. But the cherry on top now, that used to be the primary reason before the cherry on top now is that, oh, by the way, you also have backup power for emergency loads when the grid goes down or, or what have you. So it's so important just economically and from an intermittent standpoint, with all of the electricity that's going to be required for all the loads with electrical vehicles and everything else, our grid's not ready for it. It's overloaded, there's not enough capacity. And the amount that money and investment that it's going to take to truly make a new grid to handle everything, it's insane. It's insane. I mean, it's like a moonshot project. It's nuts. So rather than, I mean, yes, eventually, over time, that needs to happen. But in order to make this transition, the best way to do it is to have widely distributed energy amongst us all. So that just like the Internet. Where's the Internet? There's no, there's no, oh, well, that's the Internet, or, no, this is the Internet. We're all the Internet. And so the same thing. We can, we can have kind of an Internet of energy, if you will. If we're all energy producers, then we can all participate together, and that'll bring that overall load and demand on that grid down so that it'll give us time to make the decisions that we need in order to upgrade it. So that that's number one. And then batteries number two are extremely important, because tell me something in this world that doesn't have a battery in it or isn't connected to a battery, or have a battery as a part of it, whether it's your car or your cell phone or a calculator, I don't care what, there's something that has something battery related and whatever you're, you're using, because not everything can use power connected. You have to go out and do stuff. Your laptop has a battery. Everything has some sort of energy storage connected to it. So it's a vital part of our lives. Your human body is a battery. That's actually how batteries were invented. Well, that's how the western world invented them. I mean, going way back, Mesopotamia, the Baghdad battery, all of that, they, they used a form of a battery. It's too acidic. It's two dissimilar metals in an acidic solution is basically what it is. And so the Baghdad battery, like, going way, way back, like, literally, they would just use that energy coming from that in order to, like, plate gold and stuff. So they didn't even get the idea that, oh, you can use this to turn a motor and make work happen or whatever, they didn't use it for that. They used it for a different function. So batteries have been in existence, but the idea of truly understanding cells of how to have two dissimilar metals stacked in different cells so you can stack voltages in series to create a certain voltage and have a certain amount of energy stored and discharged. That was something that was just alien. And so what happened is Alessander Volta with an s, he actually did an experiment with a frog where he took one end of a poker and another end and ran a current and it moved the frog. And he started realizing, huh, wow. Right here in our own bodies, we have, we have separators, if you will, in our cells and all of these layers, they're separators. And these separators allow, allow a chemical reaction to go backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. We're electrical beings and so was that frog. And charging and discharging constantly. And when he realized that, that's what made him go, oh, my God, I can create a physical battery that is dis. That is. That has a separator between each of those dissimilar metals, bathe it in an acidic solution, and store energy. Holy smokes. And that's where it all starts. Forgive me for the history of batteries, but it's like batteries are so important to our society. And lead acid batteries, as a matter of fact, one more little factoid. Forgive me for being a nerd. Most people don't know this, that lead acid batteries are the most recycled products on planet Earth. More than aluminum cans, more than cardboard, more than plastic. Nothing is. 99% of every single part of a lead acid battery is recycled into a brand new battery. There's nothing else like it out there. So. So the recyclability and the sustainability, they're going to move that into lithium as well, soon, and other things. So the recyclability of energy storage is huge, too, because we can just keep. We don't have to continually mine it. Eventually we can get most of that through recycling as well. So very sustainable, too, for our economy.
[00:20:58] Speaker C: Josh, you're blowing me away right now. I had had no idea that I was going to get both a future vision and a history lesson on the battery effication of frogs. Like, this is. This is beyond. This is beyond my expectations. This is incredible. So, from what I'm hearing from you, batteries are not only important right now, they are the past and they are the future.
Hearing things like what you're saying, I'm a huge fan of distributed solutions. Just in general, whether we're talking about energy or whether we're talking about, like, political power and community decisions, I think that things, when they're happening at the distributed level instead of the centralized power level, that's just the way to go for sustainability.
But I also see and think that electrifying our infrastructure has some pretty significant hurdles and challenges. You talked about the fact that lead acid batteries are recycled at an incredible rate. But what we really need to be worried about right now, I think, is like, the lithium ion and the cobalt and the other rare earth metals that are going into all of these batteries.
The biggest sort of trouble is, are we going to be able to create a sustainable material flows infrastructure fast enough? And it's also just a race against time with our electrical grid in general, because, like you said, everything has battery and everything is electrical, and we're charging and discharging it constantly. And the grid needs to be modernized to handle all of this.
But so talk to me about sort of where you see all of this going. You know, like, do you think that having panels and batteries on, like, nearly every building, lots of buildings all over the place, is the answer, or is it going to get clustered in certain parts of the country? Is the recycling for lithium and other rare earth metals going to be, you know, fast enough and sufficient to meet demand? Like, where do you think all this is going? What do you see in your crystal ball?
[00:23:35] Speaker A: Well, another great question.
Recycling is key. Sustainability is key, and I don't see that being an issue. I'll tackle the first one. Cobalt manganese. Nickel manganese. Cobalt NMC is one of the most popular lithium ion technologies or chemistries. And the reason why is because it's so energy dense. You can have so much energy in such a small footprint, which is great for cell phones and cars.
Problem is, life cycles are low.
It's not the safest chemistry. So why would we want to put that out in mass like we have?
There's lots of safety measures for folks who are using an MC. But even folks like Tesla, who were using an MC, have transitioned in their standby power for their powerwall three recently to lithium iron phosphate, which is less energy dense but more sustainable. And you don't have to deal with those rare earth metals, minerals issues in unfriendly countries, et cetera. Moral issues, kids going through cobalt mines, trying to survive and get some bread that day so that we could play on our phones. There's going to be a change coming soon that's going to make that not an issue. Several ways that that's going to come about. Number one, lithium recycling is coming out of its infancy and to its toddler age, right? Starting to walk around. And so that's. That is growing up, that industry, recycling to where the cost is going, that you're. You'll actually start to make money on what you can separate out and recycle, and as opposed to it being more of a cost like. Like it has been. So that is finally. That scale is finally starting to tip. And so I honestly see some big players.
There's a few that I know of that are currently lithium manufacturers that are recycling. Actually, one I know of for sure right now is for free, offering to recycle folks lithium batteries. So that is a good sign. That means that that problem of recyclability will no longer be an issue very, very soon, if not right now. There are several players, like, I said, who are making that not an issue already? So we're finally getting to the point. We've been talking about that for 1015 years. What are we going to do with all these lithium batteries? Well, finally, that's happening. But I digress, because I want to talk also about other chemistries and other solutions that are coming down the pike, like solid state electrolyte. You can stab that thing with a. You know, stab the grid right through the battery, and just. And you will not catch a fire. It will not burst out into flames or anything like that. Solid state is totally 100% safe. It's got advantages with life expectancy. So it's got as good, if not better, life cycle expectancy as lithium iron phosphate, which is the safer lithium that we currently have available. But solid state also, as well, is more energy dense. So you can. You can take the same amount of energy that you put in a box this big, and now you can add 40% more energy to it, and it's still the same size as that box. That's the difference between regular lithium ion versus solid state solid state. Basically, all those ions have to go in and find parking spaces. And what happens is, if that's not organized like lithium ion batteries are right now, then those ions won't find parking spaces fast enough. Enough, and they'll form what are called dendrites, which. Which are kind of like, imagine metallic icicles kind of forming across, and then that touches that other side. Boom, there's a short fire. Bad news. So, to solve the dendrite problem, lithium ion manufacturers established almost kind of like an apartment building with. So it's. You can fit fewer ions into it, but you can fit them all in there and not have the dendrite problem. Let's just say that. And so it made it less efficient. You can only put so much energy in this box. Well, with. With solid state electrolyte, it's solid. Not an electrolyte, a liquid electrolyte. So, since it's solid, it never even allows those dendrites to form.
So because of that, you can now put in 40% more ions in that. In that. In those parking spaces and. And have that be more energy dense. That's huge, because you can now start to miniaturize things. You can make things cheaper. All of that and safer and longer life that is coming. That's huge. Solid state capacitors. Capacitors are not batteries. They hold energy for a brief moment and then let it go, and then fill back up again and then let it go. Kind of like batteries, but you know what I'm talking about. And so capacitors are huge in our phones. How they solve the phone problem.
It's not a battery that just got smaller in here, it's the same size battery as that crappy battery was six years ago. The difference is, is there are little capacitors in here that they, that these engineers have figured out. Brilliant minds, by the way. These little capacitors take energy, hold it, and then dump it in for a function and then fill back up again. So they're augmenting, you know, like, it's like auxiliary power, if you will, for whatever that main battery is not able to do. So imagine systems just like our cell phone being created with the energy storage and then versions of storage, using capacitors for different functions within that system. So there's a lot of these things that are coming that are going to make the immoral and uneconomic nature of lack of recycling with lithium and the moral issues with the cobalt manganese, and a lot of our national security issues with all of those rare earth minerals, etcetera.
Those are going to, I think, be a moot point as these things progress that I was talking about. In addition to new chemistries like sodium ion, there are other things coming down the pipe that will allow us to use everyday, regularly available minerals that are in total abundance. I mean, I haven't even talked about hydrogen storage or.
Okay, I'm going to talk about something that's a little crazy. So George Friedman wrote a book called the next hundred years. He was in an organization called Stratfor, and I read his book about ten years ago. The most boring thing ever. If for 99% of the even me, it was a little boring, but I suffered through it and what I got out of it. One of the things I gleaned was that the Rand Corporation, back in the seventies, they ran a study to see if this was feasible. Space based solar. You've seen it in the news lately, the Chinese, Japanese, we're doing it. Our military Caltech of what a year ago had a thing where they did an experiment. Point is, I can guarantee you, just for military capabilities alone, and shortening supply lines during war, etcetera, and the electrification of everything, the ability to beam power uninterrupted 24/7 with microwave energy from fixed solar panels, giant arrays in space, not only can it power the military, according to the next hundred years author George Friedman, it's also just like the Internet spun off, you know, a whole economy for us that was primarily created for the military. This is also going to spin off new, unlimited energy, basically from the sun. So you'll still have all of the solar that's on the ground and batteries, because that's, you still want to have that, that, that interconnectedness, but you're no longer going to have these big giant producers. I think space based solar is going to be the future. I think that gravity fed storage, taking big concrete blocks in the city on towers, dropping them down slowly, hooked up to generators to power energy for the grid as needed, and then use solar during the day to go hit excess solar during the day. That's free to raise them back up. I mean, there's so many things. Hydroelectric power right here in Bakersfield, Lake Isabella, one of the Department of Energy's largest hydroelectric programs, where they let loose the water. It's a giant battery, right? So batteries are everywhere, Ramsey, and they are vital to our lives. And so, anyway, I hope that answers some of that question.
[00:32:47] Speaker C: Well, we've been, we've been nerding out about solar and energy and batteries for a while, which was really fun. And like, I. You're so optimistic about these solutions. It's really, it really makes me feel good.
But I'm curious, how did you get into all this stuff? Like, how did you get into lean energy and how did you, because, you know, I'm sure people have noticed that golden voice of yours.
You know, you've got some radio dj background that I presume. And, you know, how did, how did you get to this clean energy space where we're at?
[00:33:30] Speaker A: Amazingly enough, I didn't expect it. Again, let's circle back. Give credit to my wife. I got motivated.
I was in my late twenties and back in 2006, I met my wife. Well, let's go. Let's go back. You know how I got into batteries, but ultimately I was a radio dj. My dream came true when I was in 1996, when I was younger, and I got hired at soft rock 97.1, KSEQ night flights, love songs, identifications 625-9797 toll free from kings. So I loved it. It was a dream come true, right? Listening to Rush Limbaugh with my dad when I was, you know, 1314, 1516 driving around, and he'd be like, if you ever want to be on the radio, you could totally do it. And so it was a dream of mine. I didn't think it was going to happen. I was at Kenny's getting going, Vicelia, opening up the help wanted ads page, and there were no computers back then, so radio stations had to have someone there pushing every button to push the sound or there would be dead air. And so there was a board operator job available at KSEQ, and I applied for it. Probably gonna say no, got hired and whoa. And went on to do classic rock, afternoon drive at the Fox and Fresno. All that came back did KTIP radio after kind of just a couple of things in between selling snapple, all kinds of stuff. I sold radio ads to supplement income, everything. That's how I got a lot of my sales knowledge. Then I got a job at KTIP radio selling ads and being on the air. And in order to sell my ads, I joined the chamber of commerce and Visalia. The ambassador committee ended up being the chair of the ambassador committee. We go around and do all the ribbon cuttings and stuff and business after, and I was like the host for it. So that gave me a perfect spotlight to like, go, hey, ktip radio, you guys need advertising. You're just doing your ribbon cutting. Today is part of my business. You know as well as I love doing it. Well, I met my wife at a business after hours. My wife, my, then not wife, but met her there a couple of times. I met her and just shook her hand and I don't even remember, but we were at a business after hours one time. Yeah, don't tell her I said that. But we were in a business after hours one time, and I have the same story. Do you? Oh, yeah.
[00:35:54] Speaker C: When I officially met my wife, she likes to remind me that's the second time we met. I just don't remember the first time.
[00:36:00] Speaker A: Right. I got, I got Alzheimer's, man. I know, I know. No joke. Serious though. I, I'm so thankful that I met her.
We chatted, had a good time. She said, hey, give me a call, we'll hang out sometime. I'm just, you know, young single guy. I'm thinking, oh, she wants to go on a date. She likes me.
I had my radio vehicle, so I had to have her pick me up because I couldn't go to the wine place in my ktip mobile. I mean, I could have, but I didn't want to. Yeah, it just wouldn't have been a good thing. So I went to the wine place with her. She picked me up, she gave me crap about it. I'm thinking, I'm thinking, this is a date. She's thinking I'm just a friend. She's not even thinking it's a date. And all of a sudden my phone rings and I go, how rude of me to answer that on a date. She still thinks to this day, I set that up. It was my mom. And I was like, no, I didn't set it up. She really called me, and I didn't, I didn't want to mess up a date. I'd like to. And so from that point on, we dated. She knew we dated. And then she told me and told my sister, too. She said, yeah, he's got a. He's got to get a real job, man. I can't, you know, radio is great. I'm glad he likes it, but, you know, yeah, I'm not going to pay the bills on a little radio career only. So I talked to a friend of mine who had been courting me for quite a while just because he knew I could sell and he liked me. His good friend Ron Roth at battery systems. And he said, hey, dude, come over, man. We could use a guy like you. You could sell. You got a great personality. Come on. Come on. And I'm like, batteries. I'm on the radio, man. Why am I going to sell stupid batteries? How dumb. Like, that's, you want me to sell.
[00:37:46] Speaker C: Out to the man?
[00:37:47] Speaker A: You know what I'm saying? I was like. I was like, screw better. I don't want to tell people. So how's your radio career? It's going great. I'm selling batteries. Like, that was my first year working in batteries. I was. I was looking for other jobs every 5 seconds, man. I seriously thought, this is just a money making job, you know? And so, anywho, I always want to be great at whatever I do. I, you know, I. I don't want to suck. I mean, if I got a job at McDonald's, I want to frickin make the cleanest floor. You know what I mean? I've always been that way. And so I decided, okay, I'm going to give it my all since I'm here. Might as well do the best I can. And lo and behold, I slowly but surely started to learn more and learn more and learn more and get a little better at it and, and then about what, just two or three years into it, I got a job opportunity that I felt paid more. And it was in another business, actually doing tools and fasteners and drill bits and stuff like that. I had a job doing that. I go. And I was actually good at it. It was going to make me more money than batteries. The battery company was.
So if it was all about money, I just would have stayed. But what ended up happening shocked me, Ramsey. It shocked me. Folks, you dive deep and started learning stuff. You'll be surprised how all of a sudden you start becoming valuable to people who need that knowledge. It's amazing. So. And God works this way. He knew what he was doing. He knew what he was doing. And by the way, he brought me back in to do the radio and the podcast and all. And, Matt, I'm probably do more of that stuff now than I've ever done when I was actually on the air, locked into a radio studio somewhere.
But, uh, what was I talking about?
Forgive me.
[00:39:42] Speaker C: Uh, it was something that shocked you. What shocked you?
[00:39:47] Speaker A: Oh, uh, that's right. So I'm going around doing a drill bit demonstration. Yeah, I know. I'm a shiny little thing over here.
I was going around doing a drill bit demonstration demonstrations, trying to sell my drill bits because that was my big moneymaker that month. And I was going and talking to all the shops that I used to sell batteries to because they all knew me, and they all bought this stuff as well. So I walked in.
Oh, Josh, how you doing? Yeah, yeah. Show me your drill bit. Hey, Josh, I have this thing going on over here in the corner with these batteries. Can you look at it for me real quick?
Screw it. Might as well, I'm sure. Go over there. Yeah. This is what you need to do, bubba. But matter of fact, I'll call my friend Ralph over there. Battery systems that I used to work for. Tell them what you need. All right, cool.
And, like, the hundredth time that happened, I'm like, God, might as well just kick me upside the head, you know? Like, wake up, dude. This is what I want you to do.
[00:40:48] Speaker C: Batteries.
[00:40:49] Speaker A: Right? Right. I. I realized, crap. I became a battery expert and didn't even know it. And I'm helping everybody, and I should be selling drill bits. I just. What am I doing? I need. I need to go back and start selling batteries. So battery systems was great. They. I was gone for maybe six months. They brought me right back in. So they even. My record shows that I was never even gone. So very cool of them to make that just a seamless career. And they brought me back in. They made me a district sales manager. So one of the five top people in the company that basically not top. Like, I'm better now, but I'm talking leaders as far as leading, training, all of that. Then my owner, he invested so much money and time and effort bringing in one of the top professional sales training companies or people. Debbie Degroat. Debbie degroat. She focuses mostly on real estate, mostly.
So it was weird for her to be there. We're battery salespeople, but sales is sales. And she came in. I'm not talking one class. I'm talking once a month. The whole battery system team goes to Anaheim for three days for the whole year. You know how much expense that was? And then. And then on top of it, we didn't just go through classes. We. We deep dive. Deep dive in sales. I have a. I've never gone to college, but I have a master's degree in sales in how to sell and how to train salespeople. That's one of the benefits I now have.
My job, my past several jobs, my one that I just left, one of my biggest values I provided was training and consulting and teaching not only my team how to sell, but their customers.
And that's that. I got that from Debbie. I got that from Brad. I would not have had this value if he didn't invent. I mean, don't get me wrong. There were people in that class that didn't listen, didn't pay attention. They didn't pull anything from it. I like, I like, listened to every single morsel I could. I soaked it up. And part of my responsibility there, I learned how to lead. I learned how to finally be a businessman as a dj. I was never that. And so I learned how to lead. I learned how to empower my team. I learned how to pick a team. Yeah. I went out. My company didn't open up a solar division. I did my regular battery sales job, selling batteries to all kinds of accounts and national accounts. I got ups, all the batteries and all their trucks for all their fleets for the entire western United States. I got that account so I can sell. And by the grace of God, he helped me with that. And while I was doing that, I went full bore into becoming a solar expert because I started calling on people to. Because I didn't want to sell hundred dollar batteries. I wanted to sell 30,000, $40,000 systems, you know? And so I started going around all the solar people, customers, and saying, hey, I got batteries for you. Great. Do you know anything about that? We don't. I'm like, crap. So now I have to become an expert at it. So I started going classes, camps, trainings, everything I could do. Doing fake load evaluations on myself with my calculator on the weekends, driving my wife nuts.
I.
I just went full bore into it.
The math clicked, which I'm a c minus math student. But suddenly, God opened my mind up, and the math clicked. I understood all the equations. I suddenly saw it different. And that made me special, not only to the customer, but to my team, made them more valuable because they could bring me in third party and help customers. And I brought that to my company that I just left and my team and their customers. And it made me realize, as God was leading me to do this business, that there's a real value in that, and I want to provide that value for folks. And no offense, I want to get paid for it, you know, rather than, you know, helping a bunch of other companies get paid for it, maybe I should get paid for it, you know what I'm saying? So I don't know if that's wrong or not, but I'm just at that point, 100%, man.
[00:45:28] Speaker C: Let's, let's, let's kind of bring this around because we, we've talked about a lot of things and, you know, a lot of aspects of your life and where you've been and where you're going. But, you know, this podcast is called what's worthwhile?
And I want to ask you that question directly. It's something that has been on my mind a lot these past few months, this year, and sort of looking at priorities and, you know, cutting through all the noise that's out there in the world.
And I'm sort of beginning to find an answer for myself around this notion of building mind, body and spirit wellness. But that's, you know, that's for me.
I mean, it's for everybody. But that's kind of where my answer is that. But I'd love to hear kind of what's your answer to that question?
[00:46:17] Speaker A: What's worthwhile being of service?
And I know that's all encompassing, right. Whether you're being of service at your church or in your neighborhood or to your neighbor or your family member or your friend being there, even if it's just a call for encouragement. I think that. I think that all too often during the pandemic, it hit a lot of us, and it hit me, too. I'm just crawling out of this actually being in a bubble. I'm a social butterfly. That's just who I am. My wife's the same way. We're social butterflies, especially since the pandemic, we went into our little protective bubbles and kind of didn't come out.
And because of that, I have great friends, but they spent a whole year and a half hanging out with each other, stopping and having lunch maybe once a month with each other. You know, I don't do. I haven't been doing any of that. And it's robbed my soul because it's not. It's not what I'm designed to be. A social butterfly. And to get that from. We all are really, we all are designed to be together.
And at the end of the day, our spiritual and physical health all depend on other people. And we got robbed of that during the pandemic. And I believe that in not knowing what the pandemic really was, I went overboard in protecting my family. I don't regret it in a sense, because I didn't. I probably do the same thing again, not knowing, but knowing what I know now, I was definitely overboard, I think, looking back on it, and it's done so much damage to our country and our society as a whole that we're just, again, finally crawling out of. But I'm starting to make more efforts. What's worthwhile those relationships, and I want to make a better effort. They always say that if you want to have a lot of friends, you got to be a good friend. And I think I need to pick up the phone randomly every now and again and just call that friend I'm thinking about and say, hey, one, say, hi, what's up? And I don't do that enough anymore like I used to. And so what's worthwhile that. That connection? Because those bonds, I mean, that's part of why I just shot out a mass text to some people when I decided to do my own business. Why suddenly the phone started ringing? Because those people started letting people know about me. And it's not just a marketing thing. Those people love and care about me and wanted to share it. And it's not just a fake friendship that's on Facebook, but a real friendship that's been built over the years. And I want to reestablish those connections because that's worthwhile.
There's a lot of things I could go into, obviously, my relationship with God and my faith in Christ, and not to get into it too deep, but I do believe that we are living in the end times.
I do believe that every single prophecy that has, all the, all the boxes have been checked, biblically speaking, the Ezekiel 38 war to have Rosh and the Gog and Magog were happen. Everything else has already happened preceding that. All the alliances that are going to be with Gog and Magog against Israel during that war are all together on the same side right now. You could not have predicted that hundreds of years ago with such certainty. Matter of fact, back in the early 19 hundreds and the 18 hundreds, there was no state of Israel. So for all of the end times to happen, Israel had to return. And God's prophecy was that all of these peoples from around the world, that were his people, the Jews, that had been scattered hundreds of years earlier. It was prophesied not only that they'd go to Egypt and then come back, and then Babylon and then come back.
But when the Romans, in what, 67 AD or 70 AD, destroyed the temple, the Romans fulfilled God's prophecy that all of those people would be scattered all to all four corners of the earth. And that's exactly what happened. Not just a little bit, but 100% of what happened. And so we know God's prophecies are true because they've all come true. Not some of them, not part of them, but all of them. I listen to Joe Rogan. I love it. I pray to God that someone gets through to him with the gospel, because what a tool that would be for the Lord to have the gospel through his mouth. Everybody, right? But I'm listening to him and I'm just thinking to myself, like, how do you know? Why do you believe the Bible? I'm here to mask people. And I'm like, because it's all come true. That's why. Because God's predicted it with perfect accuracy to the freaking tea. And that's how you know it's for real. I believe we're living in the end times. I believe that Israel was brought back exactly when they were supposed to be. They took over Jerusalem during the six day war, fulfilling that prophecy. They've given up the outer, the outer courts to, to, to the gentiles and to the unbelievers, which has happened whenever they gave up the Gaza Strip and the Golan. All of that has been predicted. So all we have left is, the first of all, the rapture which I believe in is going to come before the right, right before the Ezekiel 38 war. I believe that because he said, like, as it was in the days of Noah and the days of lot, which Noah had to be in the protection of the ark, lot had to be out of the city before judgment could come. So I believe we're going to be taken out, and it says it in second Thessalonians as well, that we'll be meeting him up in the air. So I believe that's going to happen. I believe that's how it's going to go down. That those who have faith in Christ, not those who are perfect, but those who, just like Moses, made the bronze snake in the desert and put it up on the pole under God's instructions that all the Jews in the camp with snake bites that were dying from their sin, they just had to look at the snake on the pole. Jesus is our sin on the pole. Jesus is the snake on the pole. God made us away. We don't have to be perfect. We have to look at it. We have to believe it. That is exactly what has been given to us. That salvation, the end of times, I believe, is happening right now. And I believe all of these things have come to fruition. All of these prophecies have happened. So since all the check boxes are checked, then we know the only reason why it hasn't happened yet. And the Holy Spirit and the church has not been taken out for the tribulation to start is God's mercy. That's it. So that he doesn't want anyone to perish. And so what's going to, anyway, what's going to come is before that, we're going to be raptured, gog Magog, war. Out of that, Israel's going to win because God's going to knock the enemies on their ass. And when that happens, they're going to rebuild the temple. And when they rebuild the temple, that is the start of the peace treaty with Israel that the Antichrist, that one world government's going to make at that time, that is going to rebuild the temple, restart sacrifice, and halfway through that is when he's going to come in and tell everyone to worship him. Take the mark of the beast. I believe that is all happening. The mark of the beast. Everything that, the digital currency that's coming, there's. You're not going to be able to buy, sell or trade without it. They're going to track your every move with AI, like God, like China's already doing. So. Forgive my soapbox on this, but that's why I believe that we're in the end times right now. So what's worthwhile?
Saving as many fellow people as we possibly can by, by living out God's word and his command to us to tell others about the good news of the salvation that comes only through Jesus Christ. That is also the other thing that's most worthwhile right now. I think.
[00:54:27] Speaker C: You talked about end times and you so eloquently described all of that. And at the same time, I think a lot of people, when they hear the notion of end times, it's terrifying and it's apocalyptic.
But you are probably one of the most, you know, optimistic, exciting people that I know. And how do you reconcile those two things, you know, being optimistic and future looking and looking at, you know, beaming electricity from space collected via solar panels to electrify and power the world, and also looking at, you know, the war to end all wars and, you know, the, you know, the rapture coming up. Like, how do you kind of reconcile those very, at the surface, very different things within your life?
[00:55:20] Speaker A: Two things.
Despite the fact that I think we're in the end times because of God's mercy, he could, he could hold that off as long as he wants to. He's sovereign. And so because of his mercy and his desire to save as many of us as possible, who knows when he's going to actually flip the switch on that? And so until that happens, the Bible calls us to live while we're here for him, but also to still live, to still marry, to still do business, to still harvest and plant and do all these things. And so while we're still here, we're supposed to still live. And so I want to live being more valuable to others by providing them with the gift that God gave me and the gifts and experiences and value that he gave me. And yes, that will also bless me as well by providing that value. So that's one way I've got my foot in this world. But that's why I'm optimistic there, because I believe as a believer, God's with me and he's for me. So since I believe that and I have that faith, it's unshakable. I know that as long as I'm here and I'm in his will, he'll, he'll give me what I ask for. Not like a genie with money. It's got to line up with his will. Not my own evil desires, but his desires. I'm looking at it right now. Jeremiah 23 20, 411 20. Forgive me, I need to fix my glasses for those. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you a hope in a future. I read that all the time to myself, because that's God's word, and God cannot lie. That's one of the things God can't do. He can't lie. He cannot lie. So since God can't lie, that's his word right there. And to me, that's a promise to me. So as long as I'm here and his holy spirit is with me to protect me, then I believe that I need to do my duty on this earth of serving others with my gifts and talents. And so that right there is why I'm optimistic in this world. Why am I optimistic about end times about it? Why am I so happy and jovial about it's the end of times?
Because as a Christian, I realize that the end of times really happened when Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden, when sin was brought into the world. When sin, decay, entropy, as they call it in physics, destruction, everything goes bad.
We're not some creature. Once we reach a certain area, then we just maintain our cells are dying and being renewed every single day. We're not the same person we were yesterday, literally not the same person physically as we were yesterday, because we're constantly dying. And if we didn't, by the grace of God, have cells renew themselves, we wouldn't even have a lifespan. So the reality is, ever since sin entered this world, that's where pain, suffering, all the things that. That when the new heaven and the new earth come to this, to this world, and all believers in Christ who are caught up in the air in the twinkle of twinkling of an eye, the Bible says, will be transformed. Transformed.
Think of a caterpillar. We're a caterpillar right now, and I'm all about the caterpillar life while I'm here being a caterpillar, right? I'm gonna eat leaves, I'm gonna do my thing as a caterpillar. That's what I'm supposed to do while I'm here.
But I'm not afraid of the day that God makes me into a butterfly, because the day he makes me into a butterfly, I'm gonna fly, I'm gonna be free, I'm gonna be beautiful.
Not a perfect analogy, but the point is, is we're gonna change into something else. That something else that we're going to change into is going to be sinless. It's going to have no knowledge of good and evil. Just like, just like Adam and Eve had that perfect, that perfection they had before they fell. And I believe, I pray for this, that God takes away my ability to, and I'm making this decision with my free will. Now, we have to realize that this isn't one life and a second life. We're a spiritual being that's eternal. And so we're living one giant life, just in different places, different dimensions. So this is the dimension we're in now. So my prayer is that when I, in my free will, right now, captive to all of my sin, because no matter that I've been saved by the sin, by the sin of this world, I've been saved by Jesus Christ, I will continue, not on purpose, but I will continue in my flesh, which is sinful. The wages of sin is death, so this flesh will die. So my spirit's going to go on, but I'm going to have a new body in that place, that new body in that place, because of my free will decision here to believe in Jesus and to take his salvation, okay, is going to give me a brand new body that can't sin. So for eternity, I will have the ability to do as a son of God in heaven, with Jesus as my king, I will be able to live a life forever and never sin, because I will have the resurrected body of Jesus Christ.
This is all promised by the word of God and sealed by that resurrection. Because without that resurrection, this faith I have, this excitement I have of that world to come, wouldn't be here. So that's my optimism in this world and my optimism for the end times. Because the sooner it comes along, the sooner I'm beamed up like Star Trek and put into a new body that can't sin and will never feel pain or suffering again. That's not a buy and buy. That's a reality. It's more real that eternity is like a seashore of sand, and this life is like one granule. It's even more than a seashore sand. It's forever infinity. You can't even count it. It's impossible. There's a show on Netflix about infinity and math, and so cool. Check it out sometime. Very nerd. Nerdy. But it's infinity we're going into forever, and we're going to live for him forever and with him forever. But it's not going to be something we have to try to do, whereas right now, we have to. We have to work through our salvation, not for our salvation that was won by Jesus, but we're so grateful for the salvation that we received that we don't deserve, that we want to work from our salvation to tell them how thankful we are, but not because we have to. That's been paid for by Jesus. So that's why I'm so optimistic, Ramsey, about the now and the later.
[01:02:31] Speaker C: Well, that is absolutely beautiful, and I cannot think of a better way to just end and leave it there for today. So, Josh, I just want to say, like, I got to know you so much better in this conversation than we've known each other before. Like, I already knew that you were sort of an amazing, unique, and special person. And not just from your expertise around batteries or even just the giant, vivacious voice that you have but just also the the heart and soul. And I'm just so happy that I got a chance to hear so much more from you today and I hope that our listeners and your customers also just got, you know, not just a glimpse but just a bright shining light that you did not hide. You instead put on a lampstand and shared for all of us and so I hope everyone enjoys that. I certainly did. Thank you for joining me today.
[01:03:38] Speaker A: My pleasure brother. Love you much man and prayers for success for your podcast and all your ventures as well man. Thank you so much for having me Ramsey.
[01:03:49] Speaker C: You bet.
[01:03:54] Speaker B: Thank you for asking what's worthwhile visit what's worthwhile.net to learn more about me Ramsay Zimmerman and please provide your name and email to become a supporter. I'm asking for prayer, advice, feedback and connections. The what's worthwhile podcast is on Spotify, Apple, iHeart and Amazon. You can also
[email protected] thanks.
