Success After 70 A Man Reborn

57:19

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, ronald, helping, customer, talk, job, printing, gave, business, printer, machine, damon, driven, servicing, listening, life, leaders, learn, wife, run

SPEAKERS

Ronald Henderson, Damon Pistulka

Damon Pistulka  00:05

All right, everyone, welcome once again, to the faces of business. I’m Damon Pistulka, your host. I am so excited today to bring you my special guest. I’ve got Ronald Henderson with me here today, Ronald, welcome my friend.

Ronald Henderson  00:22

Thank you, Damon, thank you for having me on. I appreciate it.

Damon Pistulka  00:27

This is incredible. Dude, I, you know, it’s it’s, I mean, you’re an inspiration to many whether you realize it or not. It’s great to get you on today, I want to talk a little bit about your interesting career and what you’re up to today and, and just share with people

Ronald Henderson  00:46

be glad to do it. And before we get started, I would like to thank everyone out there and LinkedIn that I’ve been associated with a really appreciate your friendship and your support. Without that I wouldn’t be here today. So thank you.

Damon Pistulka  01:00

Awesome. Yeah. So if people if you’re listening, go ahead and drop in the comments where you’re listening from. But more importantly, if you’re listening, and you’re not connected with Ronald, go ahead and send him a connection request, just let him know on the Note that you heard him here. And we were talking on the faces of business, and he’ll accept it, you can start seeing his good stuff that he’s sharing.

So, Ronald, let’s get started. You got an interesting you had. So first of all, most people just start off having one interesting career. But I think that we’re going to talk about that a little bit, then we’re going to talk about the second interesting career that you’re launching right now and doing that. But earlier, your first career, I’ll call it, your, your servicing business machines that were that were taking care of some very important people. I’ll just say that. So tell us a little bit about what you did in your first career.

Ronald Henderson  02:01

Okay, my first career, I was with IBM, and I planted him to go out into the field as a customer engineer. Yeah. When I first called him up, they told me they weren’t hiring. And then I called him up again. And I said, Well, look, can I just come down and see what you’re doing? So they said, Well, if you want to you can, we’re just looking for scientists and programmers, whatever else. So I went down there. And I had with me a notebook.

And that notebook was filled with logic diagrams for computers and such. So when the follows saw that, I think he must have noticed that they still weren’t hiring, but and he sent me back home, but I got a telephone call. And the telephone call said come down for a test. And I’m thinking like a test my gosh, yeah, come down for the test.

And I took the test. It was like a intelligence type of thing, reasoning and manipulation and so forth, had electronics in there some computer stuff. I pass that test. And he said, Look, we’re still not hiring. But he found me a job elsewhere. He really pursued getting me a job elsewhere. And when he did, I was doing bench work repairing Motorola pagers, believe it or not, I repair those things, pulling out trends, or soldering. Yeah, I had my own workbench, bunch of guys here.

We were repairing those things. And then lo and behold, the very man that hired me, came down to be my manager. Wow. And then after that, after several years of deposition, then I was hired by the branch manager in Washington, DC. Of 1801. K Street, which I met my wife back then, wow, met her at IBM. And then we worked there for a number of years. I serviced the White House Communications Agency, the Executive Office of the President, and the old executive office building. They’re all down to Ground Zero. Yeah. It was a 24 by seven job. Yeah.

So I was very, very committed, the phone rang all hours of the night and on weekends and so forth. And I would go down there and maintain their computers and especially their associated IO. Yeah, their printers, tape drives, disk drives, that sort of thing. And I really enjoyed it. Yeah, I have to say that I enjoyed it too much. To the point where that I was too dedicated. And I offer this out as a word of caution to anyone that is listening is then yes, it’s great to have a job and to do what you need to do but you Do you need to keep things in balance? Yeah, that’s very, very important. You got to know when to say no. And there were times that I just basically kept the job in front of me.

And now I have a reason for saying this right here. One account that I serviced, I was proud to service that account. I was able to take my wife down to the White House with our children during the Christmas season, and they were able to get their own little tour, because I had access there. And wow, it was really, really nice. He still remembers that. Really enjoyed it. Yeah, what would happen would woke me up, will begin to wake me up was that I went down to one site. It was it was a site that the the President leaves and he gets on his helicopter and all that I went down there.

I didn’t have my badge. Oh, and I said, I’ll have my badge. I said, I’m in the system. He looks in the system. I wasn’t there. I say you don’t have any record of me being in there at all. He said, No, you’re not in here at all. What happened was that the system got purged. System was purge, and acid. Oh, man. You mean after all that work and dedication. They just gotten rid of me with a cipher key. That’s a wake up call guys. That was a wake up call. I had all those badges and stuff. And I thought I was the man. But no, nope. They cleared that system out.

And I went along with it. Yeah. So I just say that, yes. I was an account customer engineer. And I service a lot of equipment. And what happened was that when I got transferred to another position, it was fixed and repair. I could not have the same dedication to a site that was fixed and repair that I had to an entire account. Yeah. Where I was a point of contact. Yeah. That was a mind shift. That was very difficult for me to make the transition. Yeah. So I still had the same dedication and the same impact on my family. Because I was so dedicated to the job. Whether I was 10 miles away, or 120 miles away. I was still on the job.

Damon Pistulka  07:30

Yeah. Wow. That’s something I just can’t I can’t imagine what it was like servicing the White House and to be able to be there and and, you know, because if something’s not working there, it’s kind of a big deal.

Ronald Henderson  07:43

If it wasn’t a big deal, it was a big deal. And and the thing is, is that I really was available. But maybe too available. But but that was like the demands of a job. I mean, you’ve got doctors and nurses out there that don’t work in extended hours because of this situation. They their dedication is just awesome. Yeah, it’s just awesome. Yep.

Damon Pistulka  08:07

Well, we got things listed in here and and I put the wrong thing up there. I’m getting it here. He said to Deborah say you can do this show.

Ronald Henderson  08:16

So yeah. Yep. She’s coming in away from me.

Damon Pistulka  08:22

He did she did. So that’s good. So thing, he did get approval. It’s a smart man right there. And so Danes got some comments in here. Thanks so much for being here. thing. But the so I can’t imagine because my wife is a Christmas freak. There’s just no other way to say it. She would just probably, I don’t know, probably have a heart attack if she went to the light house on Christmas. Because that’s one of those things that we do we drive to different towns to just see Christmas lights. But that’s a special special memory, I’m sure it

Ronald Henderson  08:56

was, especially memory. And that’s another thing I like about you is that you’re a family guy and that you seek to have balance in what you’re doing.

Damon Pistulka  09:05

But I don’t know how much balance I have. But I but I love my family dearly. And I will wake up at crazy times in the morning just so I can get my stuff done. So I can be with them later. But so so you’re so you’re there doing that. And now this isn’t just for a couple days. I want I want to just kind of go through your background a little bit because you started you had 33 years at IBM. Then you had another four years at Rico.

And then you had another seven years that what is it computer engineering systems, customer engineering, so customer customer engineering services. I had written CES, but man, you had to know a lot about these business machines that you were servicing, that’s for sure. Yes, I was required

Ronald Henderson  09:55

to yet I found that it was important to though to know your Customer to know your customer. Yes, a service tech can go in and out after doing the job he can breeze in and hopefully fix it right then and then go back out the door. But if you know your customers operation, then you have a better idea of what’s critical, what’s not. If their machine is going to be down, then whether they have a backup. I mean, how is it going to affect it when you’ve got trucks at the loading dock? And they’re waiting for you to have the inventory sheets for them to take elsewhere?

Or to have invoices for the delivery people? I mean, they need to be printed out. Yeah, you got to you got to understand that. You got to know who your point of contacts are, who you dealing with. And that’s the way it was with me with my other sites was that I say, look, these people have deadlines that they’ve got to meet so that other offices can have their paperwork, their product ready for them, when they come in, in the morning, when they come in with a cup of coffee, they expect to have stuff on their desk.

Yeah. And that was my responsibility when I had another site where we printed during the night, and the machines had to run so that the hardcopy was going to be delivered in the morning by the different operators and went through the building. Some of this stuff had to go to the different offices on Capitol Hill. They had to have their products. And it wasn’t just one of those things that you could take lightly.

Damon Pistulka  11:39

Yeah, though, I guess, man. So this is kind of, cuz I am a bit of a nerd. So I mean, when you talk about some of these business systems that you’re servicing, they’re like, how big were they? And how many pages are we talking about something would print? I have no experience with anything like this. So I’m just kind of get an idea.

Ronald Henderson  12:00

Okay. This is going back quite a few years. But several of the printers that I had in particular that were critical printers, were the size of the old large Kodak copiers. You remember those big beasts that they had some 20 some years ago?

Damon Pistulka  12:17

How big is that? Is it like a size of a car? Is it the size of a desk? Is

Ronald Henderson  12:21

it like the size of a refrigerator laying on his backside? Okay, okay. It’s really big.

Damon Pistulka  12:27

Yeah. Yeah. So they just they’re just they’re bulk printing this stuff, man. It was

Ronald Henderson  12:33

the White House budget is a budget for all the different agencies.

Damon Pistulka  12:38

Yeah, that’s a few pages, right. It was a year old agency. Let’s just rack up at you. You serviced a printer that that printed the White House budget,

Ronald Henderson  12:47

three high speed friend who’s doing 91 pages per minute. We were doing the work. This was the Executive Office of the President, but they were doing the work for the Office of Budget. And management. Yeah, Office of OMB Office of Management and Budget management. So what they needed, they needed to have a way to charge the other agencies. Mm hmm. So build a couple of boxes. They had counters on there.

Yeah. And I hooked him up to these printers. So that when the operators ran their jobs during the night, they didn’t have to look at the actual counter of the printer. They can look at these boxes that had counters on them. So they would know how many pages they ran that night. And they would record it. Ah, wow, this was something that we just cooked up so that this particular customer could run. Yeah, efficiently.

Damon Pistulka  13:52

Yeah, that’s crazy, too, because a first of all, the size of the budgets had to be a we’re not talking about, you know, 50 pages, and

Ronald Henderson  14:01

1000s and 1000s and 1000s. Yeah. A night. Yeah.

Damon Pistulka  14:06

Yeah. Yeah, that’s crazy. stuff. Well, because in most businesses, you know, they’ve got a printer or two or they even got one that’s more of guy main printer, but they’re not printing 1000s of sheets, probably even some of them in a week or a month. They don’t print that much but doing it every day. That’s a that’s a whole nother level for for business machines and durability that you need to have.

Ronald Henderson  14:31

It is. It is but but once again, I want to stress knowing your customer and your customer needs. That’s the thing that I walked away with, especially when we talk about leadership during our leaders, building leaders meetings, is that I think about the sensitivity and the relationships that you have with your customers, the relationships that your management has, with the customers and understanding their needs, which ones really have the greatest responsibilities to keep them going?

What are the things that they did one of these sites called me up in the middle of the night to say they needed some toner. And I got out of bed, I drove to another site, got toner for him, and then drop it off for him. Because we knew they had to run.

Damon Pistulka  15:25

Yeah. But it’s just one of those things, you know, they got they’ve got, you don’t want to put them in a bad situation. If you don’t help, no one will probably.

Ronald Henderson  15:35

That’s the thing, you can’t be insensitive to their needs. I mean, who knows? I mean, because of our efforts, that can be the matter of whether or not somebody is going to sign a contract for the next year. Mm

Damon Pistulka  15:48

hmm. And those kinds of things, like you’re saying, it doesn’t matter what kind of business I live in it, and people talk about this a lot in business, it’s that extra few percent of effort that you put in there that extra 10% of effort that drives that long term business, because people are they appreciate that little bit of extra effort so much compared to everything else.

Ronald Henderson  16:12

My efforts, one contracts, Damon. Yeah. My personal ethic and hearing contracts. I’m not saying this out of pride. No, no, I’m just saying this as a matter of knowing the circumstances in some of these sites, if they, they needed to have serviceability, reliability and availability in their product. And they had to know that when this guy showed up, whoever it was, he had a couple of 100 people behind him in order to meet the needs of that site, whether it was hardware, software, marketing, issues, upgrades, whatever the case is, are you going to be the person we can talk to so that we can expand and grow? Yeah, they might have a face?

Damon Pistulka  16:59

Yeah. And you’re helping them be successful? Yes, those

Ronald Henderson  17:03

ideas. Yeah. It’s got to be in your heart that we had, we had a customer. This happened later, it later in my years. But we had one customer that ordered a machine off the web. And when they got that printer, it did not have the correct interface to meet with their system. They didn’t have someone to actually do a hand and glove install. You tell us what you need, what you got. And we’re going to deliver what you need.

So someone dropped the ball. And these people got stuck with a machine they couldn’t use and wires it then we’re going to jury rig a whole bunch of junk that can hang off the back of your machine so that it can talk to your system. Well, it turned into a nightmare. But I said, I compare that with the marketing rep that I used to work with. And this guy, if you said you need us something, he was going to be there until that thing was operational for you. And that mattered a whole lot to that particular customer, multiple customers.

Damon Pistulka  18:16

Oh, yeah. Yeah, that kind of dedication really does.

Ronald Henderson  18:19

Dedication, but that’s what his business was. It was his business. And he took care of his customers.

Damon Pistulka  18:25

Yeah, yeah. So when you’re in those situations, the one thing that I always wondered, because I’ve been on the other side of that, within in settings, where we’ve got manufacturing equipment, and a technical service person comes in, how many times were people glad to see you and nice, or how many times were people kind of grumpy in, you know, just get it fixed kind of thing. That’s one of the things that I would wonder.

Ronald Henderson  18:53

It was a good spread. I had some customers that I had such a relationship with if I saw them on the street, they were told me to come by and just come by and have a cup of coffee with him. Awesome. And I’ve had other customers that just took me for granted. Yeah, I had to do. But I can’t say that I always gave them the red carpet treatment.

Damon Pistulka  19:16

Yep. It’s both ways. I was just curious because you know, some people don’t even don’t don’t. I guess they don’t understand. The person that’s going on the other side of a business transaction sometimes and they don’t understand the situation that they’re that persons coming into. But that was one of the things I wondered. Well, we got Gracie saying hello.

Ronald Henderson  19:36

Oh, great. Great thing. Good to see you. Yeah, yeah.

Damon Pistulka  19:41

Greetings from sunny California. Yeah, she’s gonna run it in.

Ronald Henderson  19:45

Good. New radio like you from California to graze. Yeah, beautiful smile. Yeah, that’s for sure. I’m going to give you an example of something Damon, look at this. One other point of view. When you ask about service tech, and air conditioning guy came in to replace our entire unit.

And I was just talking with him having conversation with him. And then just in the midst of his working, he realized he didn’t have the igniter for his blowtorch. And he was going to go to to Lowe’s and get an igniter. And I said, Hey, look, man, I’ve got igniter out there in the garage. Yeah, as a matter of fact, when you get done with it, you know, you can have it. See, the thing was, was that I was talking to this guy. I mean, we had a relationship.

It wasn’t like, okay, fix my machine, and then I might disappear. Yeah, no, I say he’s a service tech. And I feel in his position. Yeah, so because we had developed some rapport. When you came in the house, he saw a space all prepared for him to bring it in, through the basement door. Nothing blocking away. Here light. I mean, like, I’m going to treat this guy like, I’m in his position. You’re going to set him up for success. I’m going to set him up for success. Yeah, and when my wife knew when she talked to those people told him what a great job he did.

Damon Pistulka  21:16

Yeah, yeah. Well, that’s, that’s who is somebody else? Oh, God. Lenise is talking about that, wasn’t he? When he had because the people that services, that pickup is garbage are so nice. He was talking about remember that.

And, and, you know, there’s so many people that we and even with a, it’s a much different thing. But the E commerce people that I work with, the only it seems like the only reviews that you get are bad reviews. And I think if people can spread the good word, it’s a lot more advantageous. And it helps a lot, because there’s so many people in this world that go around doing an awesome job. And if we can help them, they’re going to do better. And if we even let other people know that they’re doing an awesome job, it just makes it that much better.

Ronald Henderson  22:06

It does make it and we’ve talked about peer recognition, too, and morale on the job, how important that is. Yeah. Well, the things I enjoyed doing was recognizing the guys that I worked with, now working with some fantastic people, some side by side, some part of the support structure.

And I want them to be recognized for the extra effort that they gave, because when this stuff was done online, online recognition, managers get to see that stuff. And they want to know, so they can do their 20 pounds, you know, when their managers they do their reviews. Yeah, the reviews. When they do those reviews. They’ll say, hey, look, you know that I want them to know what these people did. That made my job easier. And made the customer happy to

Damon Pistulka  23:04

Yeah, that’s important. Yeah, it is. It is in Yeah, they’re just so much of this. And I think about I actually this is a Goofy, Goofy kind of comparison, but I was. So I I watched the Seahawks. That’s my football team out here. Right. And Adrian Peterson is a running back that used to play in Minnesota years ago. Adrian is he’s in his early 30s. So for a running back, he’s old and he he came out to the Seahawks this year and played in one game was able to talk but he got hurt. So he’s right age, he’s getting a little older, right?

But what he was able to do is he was able to then switch his mindset and said I am hurt but I’ve got a lot of experience in this game. And he helped Rashad Penny which was a young up and coming running back, learn how to practice better learn how to take care of his body better. And today I was just listening to the this morning I was listening to the end of season video interviews with with a few other people and listening to Rashad Penny, talk about Adrian Peterson and how much he helped him and how much it was it was that feedback and that working together helped him be so much better and then watching how that translated into great play on the field.

Because Rashad Penny really in the last four games was a completely different player comparative you know to like mediocre to going over 100 yards plus a game let yet this this last weekend he wrote 170 yards 170 180 yards against the Arizona Cardinals so he did this fantastic I mean it’s like it’s a new player. And he credits it to the fact that healthy Yes, but Adrian Peterson helped him get this so this the amount that we can help each other peer to peer is rarely emphasis Sighs but it’s dramatic,

Ronald Henderson  25:02

is very important. Yeah. It’s very important. I mean, there are things that we can share that we’ve learned from experience. And if we’re not playing all that guarded business, and we willing to share it with the other team players and the other co workers, and that feels distrustful, then we all succeed. Yeah.

Damon Pistulka  25:24

Yeah, that’s for sure. That’s for sure. Well, real quick, we got Jim Conkel. Here from the I believe it’s a coatings Association. He helps them and some of their stuff in gyms and other broadcast or on LinkedIn and other platforms. Great to see you, Jim. And this is this is where I think we’re going to make a little turn here though, Ronald, because yeah, we your second career.

And and let’s talk about STEM for a minute, because I think one of the one of the things I get, I get to talk to a lot of people about, about manufacturing and business and stuff like that. And one of the things that we talk about a lot is getting kids, young people involved in science, technology, engineering, and when my friend Wesleyan, Greer says that she calls the eminent manufacturing. So, Ed, so what, what, what is cool is you’re very, very passionate about STEM and you’ve helped kids for a long time with stem with with helping them program do 3d printing similar stuff. So let’s talk about that a little bit. The what really got you into the to helping kids with STEM?

Ronald Henderson  26:39

Well, I guess it’s because when I was a child, I was a tinkerer. Yeah, I like to build things I build out of stuff, you know, using tubes. But yes, I like to build things. And I won a science fair project, science fair, local science, fair, DC, science fair twice. The first time was in biology. And here’s a story behind this. I went into my high school biology class. And I saw the teacher I saw the textbook, and I say, I don’t have a chance. No way in the world. I mean, I didn’t have the proper study habits.

But here’s what happened, though, was that somehow it was suggested that I participate in a science fair. And I developed a project to experiment with the effect of electric charges on pair Museum. exactly where that idea came from. I don’t know. This is long before you had YouTube or PCs. Hey, that’s stuff, huh? But the thing was, was that I did have some hardcopy books that said what a paramecium was. I had access to batteries and electronic components. I’ve built my own power supply. I’ve made a microscope slide that had electrodes on there. Yeah. And I had a microscope.

And by applying those charges, I can make the apparent museum the culture, move from electrode to electrode control the speed, and also the direction by reversing the polarity. Wow. Now, being able to do that, first of all, was that it didn’t require me to be a biology expert. Mm hmm. It didn’t require me to be a medical doctor, anything. All I had was my passion and my interests were that particular project. Plus I had my background in electricity. And then also had a background in woodworking. Because my father was a woodworker. I was good with my hands.

Yeah, that project allowed me to get first place in biology in the city. Back in the 1960s. Wow, I learned a lesson from that I said, if I introduce them to other students, if I could just give them some kind of interests, the tools to introduce them to programming, not teach them but introduce them to programming. If I could show them that, the Raspberry Pi, the Raspberry Pi. I got a Raspberry Pi somewhere. But anyway, if the Raspberry Pi was useful, so that they could experiment. Mm hmm. Oh. I think I’ve got something else going on over here. Okay. If

Damon Pistulka  29:53

you got an audible book playing there.

Ronald Henderson  29:55

I think I do have an ego playing. Can you imagine that right there.

Damon Pistulka  30:00

Oh, that’s, that’s cool. This is like, Wait, we got Michelle here. She said she finally made it. So it’s awesome to see Michelle. Good to see you there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, let’s

Ronald Henderson  30:12

wave a wave. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you

Damon Pistulka  30:14

just take your time do it. But that’s cool. Because, you know, there’s, there’s people find inspiration to do things, you know, through different paths. It’s like, learn differently and do it and you just you learn something about biology by applying what you knew. And with the, with a different approach.

Ronald Henderson  30:35

Well, you see, that’s the thing. I try to encourage kids once they’ve got some. Oh, here’s a Arduino microcontroller. Okay, we did projects on that right there tune? Yeah. My wife is helping me to get rid of this fellow that’s talking.

Damon Pistulka  30:54

Oh, you got a video plan. There you go.

Ronald Henderson  30:58

I’ll get rid of in here. Okay, hold tight for a second.

Damon Pistulka  31:08

We got it. We got it.

Ronald Henderson  31:12

Am I Am I disappearing? No. You’re still here. I’m still there. Okay, that’s encouraging. Yeah, I’ll make this go away. Oh, we’ll make it go away.

Damon Pistulka  31:23

Sure. Michelle says great to see you guys.

Ronald Henderson  31:27

It’s great to be here. Okay, wait. Get this right here.

Damon Pistulka  31:42

Oh, Ronald dropped off, he’ll come back. We’ll be ready to go and he gets back here. I will message him and tell him just come back in. So we will do that. And while we’re waiting. We’ll wait for just a moment. Because he can jump right back in and do that. Well, this has happened to me before. But I’m we’re going to talk a little bit more about Ronald’s pursuits and helping helping kids learn about STEM because once you once you hear how his passion drives him to do what he does, it’s going to be it’s going to be pretty good.

So if he can’t come back, we’ll be done. We’ll put another one together here, but I think he’s going to be back. Texting real quick here. So Michelle, are Gracie What are you? What are you up to today? Did you have a good day? You can drop in the comments there. Let’s see they’re talking to each other in the comments. And say? All right, got that? Well, so let’s see. It’s Tuesday this week. So Thursday, we got Joanie Jody Lenise. He’s going to talk about finding the leader within See, I knew Ronald we back I knew he would, bro. I’m not going anywhere. I know, I knew I was filling in your lot better filling in than I am.

Ronald Henderson  33:27

But here’s the point, though. Yeah. Is that I was trying through stim to develop the new generation. Yeah, like guys like you and others need to fill the fill is not all about social media is also about, you know, build you who’s going to be the next, the next Elon Musk or crown out allow Exactly. Oh, the Oh, the next of Steve Jobs. Yeah.

So the thing is, is that when I did the work with these kids, I knew I was investing in their future, hey, look, I showed some of these kids how to use volt meters. To show them digital circuits. My wife and I taught a class together, she helped build a book on electricity and magnetism, to tell kids about ohms law for crying out loud. Yeah, we showed them redeveloped circuit boards, so that they could see the difference in in voltages, and the brightness of lights. There were all kinds of things that we did so they can get some hands on experience.

Damon Pistulka  34:37

And when they understand that stuff, it’s amazing. It’s amazing how the lights come on in their minds, and they start to think of the world differently.

Ronald Henderson  34:45

Yes, he think of the world differently. We show them with digital numbers look like using ones and zeros 000000000100100 011010001010100 No, we showed them how the lights would increment to see what decimal numbers do and how they operated circuits because of the decoding circuits on there. We want to at least show them stuff. Oh, I’ll tell you what we did.

A buddy of mine and I, my cousin, actually, we went to the radio shacks, and bought out their robot kits. Yeah, we bought out their robot kits. And we were working with a stem organization. We had kids for two and a half days. And we brought those robot kits in separated the parts, so that it’ll be easy for them to get into, get the get the instructions, we may, PDFs are the instructions that go on overheads. Yeah, we got six teams. And those kids had robots that they could assemble by hand.

Some of the guys even learned how to load the microcontrollers on their own. Wow, that’s what blew my mind when they could take that microcode and load it into the microcontrollers and then operate these robots that were ultrasonically driven. They were obstacle avoiding robots was the outcome of that. Well, one kid is in his second year of mechanical engineering. Oh, wow, another kid is going to enter into his first year of computer science. Wow. That’s something and these are the families that are kept in touch with Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  36:45

well, you know, and that’s, that’s, it’s a great example. I mean, and then again, when we when we talk about your STEM, when we talk about now going into your second career you’re creating here, I think it’s pretty exciting, because you’re you talk about the title success after 70 A man reborn now, I met you a year ago or so or something like that.

And I see I see someone in front of me that’s learning so much every day and helping others so much. It’s just inspiring. And we had a call last week or whenever it was, and we’re talking more about it, we talk a lot more than that. But when we when we were talking about listening to you, and how the stem is really helping these kids and your passion for it is something because I think that as you look to your second career now and what you can do and mix stem with other for-profit kind of stuff. It really is interesting how you can combine that and help people? Well, it

Ronald Henderson  37:51

is it is I’ve done a lot of pro bono work. Yeah, it was one organization, but did lead a seminar for which I was paid. Yeah. And also taught a class. Yeah, which I was paid. And I’m looking for numerous opportunities in that I’m looking to start a nonprofit organization where we can get into schools, and then perhaps even expand across the country.

Damon Pistulka  38:22

Yeah. Yeah. Because it’s, it’s so cool. It’s so cool that what I mean, because I look at you, Ronald, I think and we talked about this, you’ve got you’ve got desire, and you’ve got skill, and you got time, those three things together, are a powerful combination. It’s a powerful combination, my friend. And I’m just excited to see what you can do by bringing other people in with those technology skills together with you to really show these kids, some stemming, and give them inspiration to like you said, the mechanical engineering student now and the computer science student that they may not have known or been inspired to do that.

Ronald Henderson  39:12

That’s true. That’s true. I do have to mention a transition point in Damon. At the time that I retired, and I no longer had a job. I was like, Ronan. I was like rolling. And I was like a samurai without a Master. Yeah. And I had to go through a transition period. more time at home. No agenda, running, I began to get rid of my agendas. Yes. And I said, I’ve got to get, learn how to be in the public and learn my identity, learn my value, that sort of thing. Yeah. And I got involved I have with a law of attraction group and I’m still with them.

And they gave me a wider view of life and business. And I got to interact with him as people. And then when I got involved in LinkedIn, there were a number of people that I met, that were very, very beneficial with me. We shot I met as one mama lives as another. There’s another person by the name of Dr. Nick, I mentioned these people because they were personally reaching out to me. They were talking with me. And I was making a transition from working on machines, to learning how to relate to folks. That helped me and my family got to learning these different things.

The mind the spirit of body and dealing with allow just talking stuff, I could get involved more with people. And not to be so driven. There was an issue of being driven. So then after that, we ran across thing we ran across fain said, I’d like to meet this fellow. And then we were able to do the leaders building leaders. That was awesome. And it was helping me to learn more about me, and to take that time for their the time to reflect, refocus, and recharge. That was the mantra, I had to do that because my life was out of control.

While I was doing was this running from one thing to another. But then after, we began to realize how important it was to look at your life, from week to week, and what are your daily activities and such, that was something that I never really grasped before. I did the seven habits. And that was awesome. But as far as relating to inwardly, I didn’t understand that. So the leaders building leaders gave me this certificate. And I’m so proud. And my wife and I got this certificate, because we had the discipline to make the meetings to be able to relate to other people to share to learn building relationships that are long lasting. That was so.

Damon Pistulka  42:33

Yeah. As particular book

Ronald Henderson  42:35

right here. And yeah, the 15 laws of invaluable. Yeah. 15 invaluable laws of growth. Yep. I was growing technically. But not individually. I was adapting to the job. But I was not dealing with me as an individual. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I have to really just thank our groups and leaders building leaders in thinking grow rich,

Damon Pistulka  43:05

you know, I mean, you make such a great point, because we’re all driven in our careers to bump bump, bump, bump, bump. And, and, and I think it takes a while until you realize that the career is part yeah, it’s part. But if you’re not, right, if you’re if you’re not, right, first of all, you can’t be as good as you want to be in your career.

If you’re not, right, you can’t be as good as you want to be for your family, and kids and our friends and everyone around you. And you can’t be as good of a leader as appear as a whatever. But when you take that time to really focus on yourself, and that’s what I I love interacting with you do because it’s so it’s, you’ve you put this work in, and it shows. And now when you’re going forward, I think this is going to be you’re going to even be more powerful, helping kids with STEM and inspiring other people to do what they want to do.

Ronald Henderson  44:03

Yes. Yeah, does allow that. And it also gives me a vision for my family too. Yeah. Yeah. All that in balance. I think it was one of the things we said, we said that skill and talent will get you up the ladder, but character keeps you there. And I said, I really need to develop my character. I really need to have a sense of awareness of that time looking in the mirror. The reflection and just developing myself.

Damon Pistulka  44:37

Yeah, yeah, it

Ronald Henderson  44:38

was necessary.

Damon Pistulka  44:40

You’re talking about stuff, Ronald, that I think is incredible. And I think it’s far too rarely spoken about or talked about. Because, you know, everybody is in business now or doing work, technical work, doing whatever they’re doing is always driven on the job and we don’t talk enough as a as a society, at least the United States, I don’t think about making sure that we are building ourselves up. And you know, it’s not. It’s not always something else, it’s you have to look inward on this and really understand it. And sometimes we’re just not ready for it. But when we are ready for it, if you if you embrace it and do it, I think it’s, it’s, it will really allow you to live a much fuller life.

Ronald Henderson  45:26

And that’s important, too. Yeah, there’s, there was a moment in my life. My father was in the hospital. He was in the hospital, I was servicing a customer account that day, it was a Friday. And I was preparing to go to another site. I was going to go to the hospital later that day. In the evening, I was going to go a co worker, who has his values pretty much in place, like you do, said family first.

And I said, Okay, then I’ll tell you what, then I’ll tell my sister, I’ll go to the hospital. And I’ll see my father rather than go to the other account. A father Dad with an army being in the hospital. Yeah. He would have gone with nobody there in his room. If I had gone to that other account. Yeah, he would out alone. I had three over him. And, and, and sit in a chair and F.

And I sat in the chair. And it was such a piece that came over me while I was in that chair. And then someone came in the room. And they said, he’s gone. Yeah. Yeah. But you’re able to be there. I was able to be there. Because someone spoke to me and gave me some advice. And fortunately, I took that advice. Somebody that was balanced, that had their priorities in order. Yeah. And he told me over the phone, he said family first as they Okay, I’ll go. And then boom, that’s it. So I’m just saying, though, that that was an experience. I mean, it’s a learning experience. I’m going to share it with anybody.

Damon Pistulka  47:15

Oh, yeah. Yeah, it is. It is. You know, I’ve spoken about it before, too. I was able to see my father when he passed this last year, and I just wouldn’t do it any other way.

Ronald Henderson  47:26

Yes, yeah. Getting to the voiceovers, I have no idea what the time is.

Damon Pistulka  47:31

Yeah. Because that now the other thing that’s good. Let’s talk about this, though, because, man, you got this smooth voice and you decided what prompted you to start thinking about doing voiceovers? Because I think, yeah, so Deborah, Deborah helped me with that.

Ronald Henderson  47:49

She helped me with it. And she was with me side by side. Alright. And I met with some people and went to the studio while I was making arrangements for training. Yeah, the problem was that it was in my head to be able to focus on that. And pull me away from work. Yeah. Not just physically, but mentally. I really had no idea who the heck Ronald Henderson was. And phone ring run out the door. Yeah, I had no concept.

And I’m saying this, I’ll admit it. So I’m just saying is that, yes, we made some efforts. But it wasn’t consistent. Now, what happened is that several years ago, my cousin was doing documentaries. And he asked me if I would narrate for him. Yeah, he has studio in the basement. And yes, I did. I stood there at the podium and had the microphone there.

And I read his scripts, and we worked it all out and everything. And then one day, he played it back and you show the videos on the screen, and I’m listening to the voice I’m saying Who the heck is that suck? Yeah, this really can happen. Yeah. So then we’ve made several other documentaries there too. And also the work with thing they gave me the opportunities about you know, the the least interesting man in the world. Yeah. And the night before Christmas, we did that. Yeah. And we’re looking at other opportunities.

Damon Pistulka  49:37

Yeah. Yeah. So if people listening out there if you connect with him on LinkedIn, too, because for voiceover he can give you some examples of his work and do that that’d be a it’s a very good at it. Because you I mean, you just like just like someone that would study their craft and anything else you have to put in work on Voiceover And you have to think about the context of what you’re reading and the other the other way that you’re speaking really don’t you?

Ronald Henderson  50:07

You do. You do. But the greatest advice to that my wife has given me is to be yourself. Yeah, that’s, that’s what starters, is to be yourself. And then of course, they go on to be variations. And I can do that under direction. I mean, I’m still getting experience in this, and I still have a way to go as far as training and all that sort of thing. But if you’ve got something within my range, and you want a normal speaking person, and you willing to work with me, I’m willing to work with you.

Damon Pistulka  50:40

That’s awesome. Rando. That’s awesome. Because I just I just love to hear your passion for life, learning. And, and developing these new careers, you know, whether it’s whether it’s, you know, teaching kids to stem, working with your 3d printers, we didn’t even get to talk about 3d printers. You’re like a 3d printer master. If anyone wants to know about that, they should be contacting you about getting 3d printed stuff. Because you said you said you have two 3d printers in your house. Do

Ronald Henderson  51:13

I’ve got them? And yes, I have done some printing. I’ve done a considerable amount. Yeah, I want to learn how to turn into a business. Yes, I mean, able to do things on demand. Yeah, I’ll do that. That’s something. I had an experience. I got to share an experience with you. I was on the job. Slaving away in this a big box store. And I was at a at a cashiers station. And a young man came up to me, I was depressed.

I said, I’m stuck doing this crap. A young man came up to me. He introduced himself. And he was in one of my classes. Oh, wow. And he said to the cashier, he’s my teacher. He taught me engineering. Wow. Okay. When he said that, that I said, Yes, I did make a difference in somebody’s life. Yeah. I said over having a pity party paying my dues. But yet, someone came in there at that time, it was a timing of it. Yeah, that made the difference.

Damon Pistulka  52:27

Wow. You know, Ronald, it’s, it’s, I think that’s, that’s common for people though, we don’t realize the effect that we have on others. And you you’ve impacted a lot of people positively. Not only with your, with your stem work with just being you as well. And, you know, when you talk about servicing your customers in the, in the White House, that needed to print their, their documents, or as you were teaching the children, or as you’re helping to do the voiceover work for the documentaries. I think many of us don’t, don’t take the time to really understand the influence and the positive effect we can have. Or we do have.

Ronald Henderson  53:13

Well, Damon, I’m grateful for the people that with, because it wasn’t always like that. Yeah, this is just recent. When I when I retired, a fellow at my retirement party came up to me with a bottle of wild turkey. Yeah, he had that wild turkey. He was going to give it to me as a retirement gift. And I told him that I was no longer drinking. Yeah. And but I took it anyway. Because I say when I leave my job, I’m going to have to make a decision.

Am I going to go and just fall by the wayside? Over my slogan, I see myself as a person of value that I can still make a contribution, that I’m not going to go off into the dark side. Yeah, am I going to try to make a change in life. And I said, I owe that to my family, to make a change in life to leave the past behind, and to take advantage of other opportunities. And to be here tonight is a great opportunity to be talking with you.

Damon Pistulka  54:28

Wow. I honestly don’t know how we could I could say anything better, any better way. And this is why I wanted to have you on Ronald, because you’re an inspiration. You don’t even realize it. You’re an inspiration. You look at the comments on here is don’t even realize it and I just I’m blessed to know you. And I’m so thankful that you’re able to come on tonight because they’re there you are, you are truly A great example of people that are that are someone that is taking that stick stuff in their life.

And that story is is very, very telling of yourself. And I just thank you so much for being here tonight, Ronald, I appreciate you. I, thanks so much for people listening. I just, I’m speechless, dude. That was, I mean, I knew this is why this is why I want you to come on, Ronald, I wanted you to be able to let people get to know you a little bit better. And understand that because I think it is you are a prime example of why people need to understand that, you know, we’re not done until we want to be done. That’s just a fact. And you’re living proof of that. And I love it, man.

Ronald Henderson  55:48

Well, thank you, Damon, I do appreciate it. I’m grateful to be in a group to be in our leaders, building leaders. And I would encourage anyone who wants to invest in themselves, you invest in yourself so you can invest in others and the world would be a better place. I would encourage anyone to take advantage of the leaders building leaders contact thing I recommend him to Yeah, contact thing. And just to be a part of our group, we have a fantastic group.

And you all just blessed me so to be a part of this, this group that we meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays at seven o’clock get the details from Fein you put that in the in the comments. I’m not just doing this as as you know, as just trying to pump everybody up. I’m just saying is that it’s making a difference in my life. At a time when I have a second chance.

Damon Pistulka  56:50

Yeah, that’s awesome, man. Well, I just gotta say, thanks so much. Today. I had Ronald Henderson on a you know, the topic was success after 70 A man reborn I think without a doubt you you understand what we are talking about here. And I just want to thank you so much for being here. Thanks so much, everyone, for listening. THANE hang out for just a minute. We’re gonna we’re gonna shut off live here and be done for the day. But thanks so much. We’ll be back again later. Thank you.