Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
This episode from Rise comes at you recorded live with another very special guest, Rick from Float St. Louis. Not only does he work in a float center, he’s also releasing a float themed quarterly magazine called Third Wave Magazine. While he was a bit tight lipped about the magazine, his choice of question may speak to just how demanding it has been on him lately.
Listen to him chat with Graham and Ashkahn about how to do all the things and when doing too many things is too much.
Show Resources
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Ashkahn: Alright, for those of you listening out here, that was our buddy Rick from Flo STL. He’s with us here today.
Graham: He’s just going to run the podcast for now.
Rick: I’ll just hang out.
Ashkahn: We’re here in St. Louis.
Graham: Hi. By the way, I’m Graham.
Ashkahn: Okay, yeah. Like anyone wanted to know that. We’re here in St Louis. Why you might ask are we in St. Louis? Tell them Graham.
Graham: Okay, Ashkahn. That’s Ashkahn by the way there’s Ashkahn.
Ashkahn: This is Ashkahn.
Graham: We are here for the second annual Rise Flow gathering, which has been a blast so far. Just finished up the first day.
Ashkahn: That’s right.
Graham: And we’re crazy, and decided to do live podcasting from a very noisy space, so-
Rick: As if it wasn’t enough already.
Graham: Yeah, yeah. With that said, it’s been a total blast. So, Rick, you have any good questions for us?
Rick: Oh sure.
Graham: Just one would be fine.
Rick: So, sometimes you have this feeling like you are going to do all the things, and then you’re like, oh yeah, like I can do all the things. And then you start doing all the things.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Rick: And it’s like, man I can’t do all the things. So from your perspective, how do you choose the things you do?
Graham: Well first of all, we’re really bad at this.
Ashkahn: This is real.
Graham: In fact, usually what we do is sacrifice our health, sanity, family time.
Ashkahn: Sleep.
Graham: Social interactions.
Ashkahn: Any other thing we have going on in our lives.
Graham: New crazy ideas we come up with, so.
Ashkahn: I haven’t seen my parents in 12 years at this point. This is the problem-
Graham: We’re running a daily podcast right now. [crosstalk 00:02:46]
Ashkahn: We promised ourselves that we wouldn’t start new projects. And then now we have a podcast we release every single day.
Rick: Yeah.
Ashkahn: Weekends and holidays. So I don’t know, I’m not, okay, well let’s see if we can.
Graham: We have way more projects still that we think of than we do. So-
Ashkahn: There’s some amount to filter out there. Here’s one thing I think we should keep in mind. I think there’s been a great contribution to humanity in general by people who have no idea how big of project they’re getting themselves into. Like I think if people had a good sense of the amount of work ahead of them when they come up with an idea, no one would do anything. Like literally, the human race would be sitting around, being like, ah no, maybe later, like that sounds a little intense.
Graham: And everybody would be drilling oil or something, yeah.
Ashkahn: So, that’s a kind of ignorance that comes with not knowing what you’re getting yourself into. I think it’s one of the driving forces of human civilization.
Graham: That being said, I feel like, my mom has this sign on her refrigerator, right. Which I think is a great reminder. It says, if it’s not fun, it’s not sustainable.
Rick: Oh.
Graham: And I think that’s very true. So, if you’re like coming down to decisions on what you should spend your time doing, and one of them is like, it really seems like I should do that to further my career, and one is like that just seems like you’d be hilarious and awesome. Maybe do the hilarious and awesome thing.
Ashkahn: We should go on a road trip around the country for three months.
Graham: Instead of the boring thing that might further your career you know.
Rick: Was that sign, like knitted?
Graham: No, it was scrolled in pen. She thought of it in the middle of the night … like yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ashkahn: We’re very much of the philosophy that we spend a very, very decent chunk of our lives working. And you can’t see home, I put quote/unquote we’re game around there. That’s because when you-
Graham: We’re on the road podcasting.
Ashkahn: When you spend that much of your time doing something, to me, life and work have to mix.
Rick: Mm-hmm.
Ashkahn: Otherwise work sucks really. Like that’s- [crosstalk 00:04:42] and the time you reserve for life, you’re tired because you spent all your waking time doing the working part.
Rick: Yeah.
Ashkahn: So I, to us, when I look around, at what we’re doing, and we spend our time doing, which we do a lot now. Like we’re really specifically-
Rick: You have to.
Ashkahn: Sit down go like, okay, what are we actually deciding to spend our time doing, and what are we not deciding to spend our time doing. We really factor in life enjoyment into that decision.
Rick: Good, good.
Ashkahn: Because we know we’re going to be spending a lot of time. We have more ideas than we could possibly have time to do. It has be a factor in it for us. Otherwise I just don’t think I could handle it, I think I would have broken years ago.
Graham: I could dig a hole for seven hours a week, and if my only job was digging holes for seven hours a week, and I made the same amount of money that I make helping operate a float center, and creating the things that I want to create, I would much rather work sixty hours a week than digging holes for seven hours a week.
Rick: Uh huh.
Graham: I would make that trade.
Ashkahn: And that’s the enjoyment side of things for sure. I mean, honestly, I think in relating it to hiring employees, or just running a float center in general. I think that’s how we’re able to get such good crews working at float centers, is we’re helping people, and is because people have a choice, right. They’re like, I’m going to apply to this job, and this job.
Rick: Yeah.
Ashkahn: And float centers obviously aren’t the most competitive for the wages they’re offering. But it’s the same thing, right. You get to help people, you get to make a difference. You often feel like you’re a part of this small business that’s rising from the ground up, yeah, there’s something really satisfying about that. Yeah, not just for you Rick, but in general, I think that float centers benefit from that coolness factor, or being a very satisfying industry to contribute to. And certainly that’s why we do this crazy daily podcast in robes and everything else.
Rick: So, if this isn’t taking the idea too far, I’m going to ask another question.
Ashkahn: Alright.
Graham: Alright.
Rick: Question number two.
Ashkahn: We usually don’t allow that, but we’ll make an exception this episode.
Graham: Or usually they both have to be at the beginning of the episode you know.
Rick: Yeah, switching it up. Is there a time you’ve taken an idea too far you’d like to share?
Ashkahn: We’re literally wearing robes right now.
Graham: And you know what we should do, a different intro for every single one.
Ashkahn: Now we spend hours a week making up jingles.
Graham: We’re like jingle artists now. Yeah, we took that one a little too far, but you know, we’re committed so.
Rick: I think I’m going to take some things home from this.
Graham: So you feel like we’ve answered-
Rick: Yeah.
Graham: At least a little bit. I’ve touched on your questions.
Rick: Well I was looking for a way out, and you didn’t give it to me, so.
Ashkahn: We just gave you path of deeper although rolling dice isn’t a bad idea, you can always, if everything seems the same, just roll dice and decide.
Rick: That’s right. Thank you guys
Graham: Yeah, thank you Rick.
Rick: Yeah, anytime.
Ashkahn: And for those of you out there in non St. Louis, and you want to ask us a question. From this episode, I think the way you do that is first you get a job at FLOAT-STL, and you work there for a few years, and then you start running an event and then you come on our podcast live in person. I think that’s the only pathway to asking us a question.
Graham: So good luck guys.
Ashkahn: Best of luck out there. See you later.
Graham: Talk to you tomorrow.
Recent Podcast Episodes
Funding your center through Kickstarter – DSP 119
Crowdfunding has made so many projects possible that would otherwise not exist. It seems perfect for niche ideas, concepts that would otherwise never see the light of day, and passion projects that just need to happen. This sounds perfect for float centers, but there are some caveats.
Crowdfunding is time intensive and there’s not guarantee of success. Aside from that, there are some issues with it that complicate things for float centers that other crowdfunded projects likely won’t face. Graham and Ashkahn talk about the successes of float center crowdfunding and the not-so-successes as well.
Don’t Build Your Own Float Tank! – DSP 118
For anyone considering a DIY float tank, give this episode a listen first. This isn’t a discussion on the merits of doing things one way versus another or expressing an opinion on one side and playing devil’s advocate for the other. Graham and Ashkahn know painfully well from personal experience the pitfalls of falling into the hubris trap of thinking you can build your own float tanks. They built two large open tanks in Float On and even years later they still cause headaches.
What’s more, they’ve spoken with dozens of people who’ve also gone through this themselves and heard their horror stories after they didn’t listen to the advice of not doing it.
The perception that it can be a cost-cutting measure or a more reliable way to get an operating float tank in your center by going DIY is generally pretty flawed. There’s so much to it that you just can’t consider before the fact.
Should Your Float Center have a Blog? – DSP 117
This seems like a good idea on paper. It helps with SEO stuff for Google. It gives you an outlet to write about floating and share information about the industry. And it seems to fall in line with something that other businesses do, right?
So what are the downsides? How much time and effort does a blog really take? What sort of impact does it have for a float center? Graham and Ashkahn lay out the pros and cons as well as things you may not initially consider about the responsibility of having a blog.
Thoughts on Buying Yelp Ads – DSP 116
There are lots of businesses that experience the dogged persistence of Yelp sales people calling them. Float On has done both buying Yelp ad space and living without it and Graham and Ashkahn break down exactly what that experience was like.
They also go into exactly what Yelp ads mean and how it impacts your float center (or doesn’t, as the case may be) as well as how well Yelp stacks up in comparison to other ad sources.
When is it Time to Open a Second Float Center? – DSP 115
Okay, so… Float On only has one location (not counting Float On Hong Kong) and there’s certainly a reason for that. Graham and Ashkahn have toyed with the idea of opening up another center multiple times throughout the years but something else always came up. As they’ve met more people in the industry, they’ve seen some of the pitfalls and successes from people opening additional locations, franchises and whatever else. They share their thoughts on when they think it’d be best to open and why they say to wait a little bit.
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