Nic sits down with Heather Anderson and Clint Bailey at the Bittle Ranch to discuss the dynamics of training the next generation of electrical apprentices.

You may remember Clint from a previous episode. She is a mom of one adult son and would tell you she’s engaged to an amazing life partner, Clint. The two of them just happened to drop in to the Studio for a conversation.

Heather completed the IBEW/NECA Limited Energy Technician apprenticeship program then spent 12 years in the field as a Limited Energy Technician and Technician Foreman

She worked for 7 years with the Des Moines IBEW/NECA Training center as a full-time instructor of Limited Energy and Electrical Apprentices. For the past 5 years has worked at the Electrical Training Alliance as an Assistant Director of Limited Energy Curriculum Development.

Together they discuss the state of apprentice training programs and the opportunity for both young women and men to learn a trade. Heather shares how the classroom today combines online learning modules with hands-on application.

Altogether, her work reaches nearly 45,000 individuals across the country.

If you have a son or daughter who is still looking for a career, or has already decided college isn’t for them, send them this episode. They will be glad you did.

If you enjoy Nic and Tarina’s podcast and get something from listening to “all this Nic Bittle Crap,” please hit the like button, share it with a friend, or both. Your recommendation goes a long way in helping us reach more people.

Also if you have questions that you want Nic and Tarina to answer, email them at [email protected].

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🛟 Click here to order your copy of Nic’s Life Ready Curriculum

🧰 Check out Nic’s new solution for foremen: The Foreman's Inner Circle

💬 To subscribe to Nic’s Leadership DRIP, please text the word “DRIP” to 866-998-4545 then follow the prompts.

❓ If you have questions or comments for Nic & Tarina, please send an email to [email protected].

🎬 Check out Nic's Work Force Pro YouTube channel.

📚 Nic has written 4 books. You can decide which one is best for you here.

Nic and Tarina open this episode talking about his latest travels and how he shaved his head. “Everybody with a shaved head is really sexy,” Nic quotes Tarina. Of course, she denies it. (Time for a new podcast photo!)

Today’s discussion centers on a question Nic’s mentor Mark LeBlanc asked him a long time ago. The question is: What do you want? As Nic explains, this isn’t about wanting a new pair of sneakers. It’s about the life we want and how we want to live, not merely material things.

This question—What do I want?—is actually the second hardest question. The hardest question you will ever have to answer is: What are I willing to do get what I want?

The truth is there’s a cost to pursuing what we want—sacrifices, compromises, and reality checks. It’s these questions which force you to make decisions and better decisions.

Tarina and Nic share some of their personal wants and the hard decisions they each had to make to achieve what was most important to them. They give listeners an peak behind the curtain at the Bittle Ranch.

As Nic points out, to do what we have to do to achieve what we want might only need three seconds of courage. The first victory comes in having the courage to figure out what you really want. The second victory comes in pursuing it.

If you enjoy Nic and Tarina’s podcast and get something from listening to “all this Nic Bittle Crap,” please hit the like button, share it with a friend, or both. Your recommendation goes a long way in helping us reach more people.

Also if you have questions that you want Nic and Tarina to answer, email them at [email protected].

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🛟 Click here to order your copy of Nic’s Life Ready Curriculum

🧰 Check out Nic’s new solution for foremen: The Foreman's Inner Circle

💬 To subscribe to Nic’s Leadership DRIP, please text the word “DRIP” to 866-998-4545 then follow the prompts.

❓ If you have questions or comments for Nic & Tarina, please send an email to [email protected].

🎬 Check out Nic's Work Force Pro YouTube channel.

📚 Nic has written 4 books. You can decide which one is best for you here.

Carlin Day is a husband and father of five with a professional background in insurance sales and service. As the owner of Harms Insurance Agency, Inc., an independent insurance agency in Oklahoma, Carlin has built his career on the belief that people prefer doing business with people.

For years, he has led his agency to live out the simple motto of providing personal service. Early on, despite having the credentials and licenses to sell, Carlin realized he lacked the skills to consistently deliver the results that he and his clients expected.

This sparked a journey of self-improvement through books and training, which transformed his approach. From this, he developed the concept of elevating value—a philosophy of growth through enhancing character, vision, and skills.

Along the way he learned the principle: “The answers you get are based on the quality of your questions.” He shares how a few years ago he wanted to memorize the Book of Proverbs. His initial question produced good verses to memorize, but not a strategy for actually memorizing the whole book.

Because he asked a different question, he found techniques and 1.5 years ago he completed memorizing Proverbs. His other party trick, though, is memorizing the order in a deck of cards. His best time is 1:24 minutes.

As Carlin says, “You can’t remember anything you didn’t remember.” It’s about paying attention. They discuss both the importance of remembering names and how Carlin remembered people’s names perfectly at Nic’s Full Auto program.

His life and leadership inspired his weekly newsletter, Elevating Value, where he shares practical insights for personal and professional development. You can find Carlin on X (Twitter) @elevatingvalue. Or subscribe to his newsletter at www.ElevatingValue.com.

Nic and Carlin discuss a number of topics from how to connect with people, how to make warm calls to customers, and what inspires them on a daily basis. And with each new topic to talk about, Carlin shares a Proverb that applies.

If you enjoy Nic and Tarina’s podcast and get something from listening to “all this Nic Bittle Crap,” please hit the like button, share it with a friend, or both. Your recommendation goes a long way in helping us reach more people.

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🛟 Click here to order your copy of Nic’s Life Ready Curriculum

🧰 Check out Nic’s new solution for foremen: The Foreman's Inner Circle

💬 To subscribe to Nic’s Leadership DRIP, please text the word “DRIP” to 866-998-4545 then follow the prompts.

❓ If you have questions or comments for Nic & Tarina, please send an email to [email protected].

🎬 Check out Nic's Work Force Pro YouTube channel.

📚 Nic has written 4 books. You can decide which one is best for you here.

In this episode, Nic talks with James Ford, CEO Egan Company. James leads all lines of business with an emphasis in creating teams with a strategic focus on long-term success.

James shares how he started his career as an accountant with Eide Bailley then how he served as a leadership development advisor. He took on the Chief Financial Officer role at Egan Company after 20 years in accounting.

Today, as its Chief Executive Officer, he provides best practice strategies for optimizing operations and company performance. His curiosity and natural tendency to focus on the future motivates others to take action.

James attributes his interest in the industry to his father who installed flooring for a living as well as the people within the industry: “hard-working, no-nonsense people who are focused on getting the job done . . . hands down, my favorite part of working at Egan is our amazing people.”

Nic observes James’ ability to create a culture of connection at Egan Company. James attributes this to hiring good people and promote good people—and good people attract other good people. James says he’s only building on Egan’s 80-year history of good people doing good work.

Together James and Nic discuss a variety of topics from company culture and leadership to taking responsibility and making hard decisions. James shares his four operational principles, the most important was the shift they made to put people first and numbers last. He also advises apprentices to raise their hand, to volunteer to do something new.

If you enjoy Nic and Tarina’s podcast and get something from listening to “all this Nic Bittle Crap,” please hit the like button, share it with a friend, or both. Your recommendation goes a long way in helping us reach more people.

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🛟 Click here to order your copy of Nic’s Life Ready Curriculum

🧰 Check out Nic’s new solution for foremen: The Foreman's Inner Circle

💬 To subscribe to Nic’s Leadership DRIP, please text the word “DRIP” to 866-998-4545 then follow the prompts.

❓ If you have questions or comments for Nic & Tarina, please send an email to [email protected].

🎬 Check out Nic's Work Force Pro YouTube channel.

📚 Nic has written 4 books. You can decide which one is best for you here.

Nic and Tarina start off with a good laugh at themselves and one another. One because of Nic’s always hard nipples (seriously, you gotta listen to it). And Tarina’s gig work as a helper of Amazon and USPS delivery guys while wearing flip flops.

Nic goes into more detail about how he helps apprentices understand finding the right fit career. So, he expands on his “Three Circles” idea: 1) What are you passionate about? 2) What are your skills? 3) What will the market pay for?

Together they map Nic’s path for how got to where he is today as a professional speaker. He figured out that he’s good at taking complex ideas and breaking them down into easy-to-understand simple solutions. And how his real passion is helping people—to which Tarina replies, “See, you like helping people, too!” But Nic eventually took a 30,000-foot view to fully appreciate 1) what he was passionate about; 2) what he was good at; and (most importantly) 3) what the market would pay for.

What Nic and Tarina find important about this topic is the tendency of many people to focus on only one aspect of the Three Circles. As Nic says, “When we find ourselves taking a job or a career because of the money. If we only look at what it pays, we’re going to find ourselves in a career that we’re miserable in.” This they see as a major cause of burnout.

The leader’s job in these situations, especially when they see burnout in one of their people, is to apply the breaks for them. This is important for both parents and leaders. So, it’s not a day off people need. They may need you to help make sure they take a little breather. And it’s about giving them the protection, the air cover, they need to do a little less so they can realign and keep going.

And sometimes even leaders need to take a step back. If things aren’t working, the right thing to do is the hard thing to do. This might look like a foreman stepping up to step out and return to working a journeyman again.

If you enjoy Nic and Tarina’s podcast and get something from listening to “all this Nic Bittle Crap,” please hit the like button, share it with a friend, or both. Your recommendation goes a long way in helping us reach more people.

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🛟 Click here to order your copy of Nic’s Life Ready Curriculum

🧰 Check out Nic’s new solution for foremen: The Foreman's Inner Circle

💬 To subscribe to Nic’s Leadership DRIP, please text the word “DRIP” to 866-998-4545 then follow the prompts.

❓ If you have questions or comments for Nic & Tarina, please send an email to [email protected].

🎬 Check out Nic's Work Force Pro YouTube channel.

📚 Nic has written 4 books. You can decide which one is best for you here.

Nic is off the road for a week and feeling good. Tarina got to speak to students about anatomy and her career in nursing.

Figure out what you’re good at. Know your strengths. Know your weaknesses. This is how Nic summarizes what it means to know what makes you tick.

In this episode, Nic and Tarina discuss the importance of understanding yourself. Nic outlines a 3-part system for identifying a career. The mistake he sees most people make is choosing only what they’re passionate about—but it may not be something the market wants to pay for or something they’re good at.

Tarina asks an important question, “How do you figure out what you’re good at?” Nic’s answer: pay attention. In other words, look for the bread crumbs.

Nic and Tarina then shift to Chapter 25 of Know This Do That and talk about the importance of having a strong work ethic. Nic reminds listeners of his friend Clint Bailey who said be the hardest worker in the room.

When Nic and Tarina talk about knowing your destination they emphasize having an end in mind. As the old quote goes, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”

If you enjoy Nic and Tarina’s podcast and get something from listening to “all this Nic Bittle Crap,” please hit the like button, share it with a friend, or both. Your recommendation goes a long way in helping us reach more people.

---

🛟 Click here to order your copy of Nic’s Life Ready Curriculum

🧰 Check out Nic’s new solution for foremen: The Foreman's Inner Circle

💬 To subscribe to Nic’s Leadership DRIP, please text the word “DRIP” to 866-998-4545 then follow the prompts.

❓ If you have questions or comments for Nic & Tarina, please send an email to [email protected].

🎬 Check out Nic's Work Force Pro YouTube channel.

📚 Nic has written 4 books. You can decide which one is best for you here.

In this episode, Nic and Tarina talk about Nic’s travels—the good, the bad, and the very, very ugly. 

As Nic says, “My job finds me mostly in airports.” He shares the best places he’s gotten to stay as well as some scary places. 

It’s clear in this episode how committed Nic is to the work of developing men and women to be better leaders. It’s also clear how much he loves his family and lives by the values he teaches. 

It’s not a glamorous life being a professional speaker and traveling everywhere. It has given him a chance to visit places he may not have ever seen and people he may never have gotten to meet. It can also get lonely. 

The best part of every trip he says is the flight home. Some may take this the wrong way. But if you know Nic, how could he say it any differently?

If you enjoy Nic and Tarina’s podcast and get something from listening to “all this Nic Bittle Crap,” please hit the like button, share it with a friend, or both. Your recommendation goes a long way in helping us reach more people.

---

🛟 Click here to order your copy of Nic’s Life Ready Curriculum

🧰 Check out Nic’s new solution for foremen: The Foreman's Inner Circle

💬 To subscribe to Nic’s Leadership DRIP, please text the word “DRIP” to 866-998-4545 then follow the prompts.

❓ If you have questions or comments for Nic & Tarina, please send an email to [email protected].

🎬 Check out Nic's Work Force Pro YouTube channel.

📚 Nic has written 4 books. You can decide which one is best for you here.

Nic and Tarina kick off with advice for everyone to not move to Corn (wink, wink) and enjoy all its comforts and community.

And Tarina shares her “more this, less that” list as an alternative to goals for the new year or new year’s resolutions. It surprised Nic that Tarina didn’t have items for his goal and resolution list for the year.

Nic quotes Charlie Tremendous Jones: “You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you met and the books you read.”

To invest in yourself requires a commitment to relationships and filling your mind with good information. An investment in yourself is an investment in your growth. To invest in anything means to expect a future return—and as Nic writes in Know This Do That, “reading one hour a day will put you in the top 1% of income earners.”

From Chapter 23, they talk about learning from our pasts but letting go of the hurts, the mistakes, the regrets. This is easy to say and hard to do. It takes both self-forgiveness and forgiveness of others.

Holding on to the past holds us back. Leaving it behind you is a practice—something you have to do every day. And that’s okay. Keep at it and over time you will realize freedom, growth, and new opportunities for a richer life.

If you enjoy Nic and Tarina’s podcast and get something from listening to “all this Nic Bittle Crap,” please hit the like button, share it with a friend, or both. Your recommendation goes a long way in helping us reach more people.

---

🛟 Click here to order your copy of Nic’s Life Ready Curriculum

🧰 Check out Nic’s new solution for foremen: The Foreman's Inner Circle

💬 To subscribe to Nic’s Leadership DRIP, please text the word “DRIP” to 866-998-4545 then follow the prompts.

❓ If you have questions or comments for Nic & Tarina, please send an email to [email protected].

🎬 Check out Nic's Work Force Pro YouTube channel.

📚 Nic has written 4 books. You can decide which one is best for you here.

“The fact is when we remember another’s name, they will automatically feel more valued and respected,” Nic writes at the beginning of Chapter 21 from Know This Do That.

Nic and Tarina discuss the power of connection and then immediately share their own failures at remembering people’s names.

One of the tips Nic uses is called word association. It’s a best practice he brings into Full Auto because knowing everyone’s name is a safety issue. Lanyards are a no-go.

When we choose to not remember someone’s name are we telling them, “I don’t care enough about you”? Nic takes responsibility for a couple of real life events where he did not care enough—and times when he has remembered and the effect it had on each of the people.

If you enjoy Nic and Tarina’s podcast and get something from listening to “all this Nic Bittle Crap,” please hit the like button, share it with a friend, or both. Your recommendation goes a long way in helping us reach more people.

---

🛟 Click here to order your copy of Nic’s Life Ready Curriculum

🧰 Check out Nic’s new solution for foremen: The Foreman's Inner Circle

💬 To subscribe to Nic’s Leadership DRIP, please text the word “DRIP” to 866-998-4545 then follow the prompts.

❓ If you have questions or comments for Nic & Tarina, please send an email to [email protected].

🎬 Check out Nic's Work Force Pro YouTube channel.

📚 Nic has written 4 books. You can decide which one is best for you here.

Cruze Bittle joins his dad, Nic, in his own words, “Because I like food and a bed.” 

They talk about Cruze’s favorite sport (spoiler alert: it’s not football). And spend some time going through Cruze’s morning routine. 

Nic compliments his son as being one of the most disciplined people he knows. Cruze says he started his discipline journey when he decided to workout and get in shape. Getting six-pack abs became an obsession. And the ability to say no to Honey Buns is always hard, but if you want something bad enough then the discipline isn’t really a loss. 

To check out Cruze’s reflections online from his daily reading go to his Instagram @Cruze_Bittle or TikTok @Cruze.Bittle.

As Cruze shares, “Discipline is just who I am now.” It’s not easy they conclude, but it’s worth it. 

If you enjoy Nic and Tarina’s podcast and get something from listening to “all this Nic Bittle Crap,” please hit the like button, share it with a friend, or both. Your recommendation goes a long way in helping us reach more people. 

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🛟 Click here to order your copy of Nic’s Life Ready Curriculum

🧰 Check out Nic’s new solution for foremen: The Foreman's Inner Circle

💬 To subscribe to Nic’s Leadership DRIP, please text the word “DRIP” to 866-998-4545 then follow the prompts.

❓ If you have questions or comments for Nic & Tarina, please send an email to [email protected].

🎬 Check out Nic's Work Force Pro YouTube channel.

📚 Nic has written 4 books. You can decide which one is best for you here.