Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
It’s easy to listen to this podcast, day in and day out, and think to yourself “why would ANYONE put up with all these issues?” Graham and Ashkahn describe what keeps them, and probably everybody in the industry, in the difficult business of putting strangers in salty boxes and the wonderful life changing experiences that come with it.
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Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: Hey everyone. I’m Graham.
Ashkahn: And I’m Ashkahn.
Graham: And today’s question is “how does running this business make you feel fulfilled? What part of the work is the most enjoyable? P.S., do a samba music introduction.” So we got that covered.
Ashkahn: Check. I think the most obviously is-
Graham: Money.
Ashkahn: I was going to say the gratification of sweeping salt every single day. It’s just very fulfilling.
Graham: Yeah, I like sweeping up. Just throw your cash register on the ground, kind of sweep that up when the day’s over.
Ashkahn: I think Scrooge McDuck-style.
Graham: Dump it into your empty float tank.
Ashkahn: So, yeah, probably second to money is …
Graham: So you’re going to get the same answer from everybody, which is it’s the customers.
Ashkahn: Yes.
Graham: Is the best part.
Ashkahn: Yeah, watching people come out of their floats.
Graham: Watching your customers-
Ashkahn: Watching people while they’re floating. It’s just great.
Graham: Hidden cameras.
Ashkahn: Just tiny holes cut into the wall. No, really though, it’s cool. It’s cool. It’s like-
Graham: There’s one part of this entire thing that has not been a joke, which is the customer actually are people’s favorite part.
Ashkahn: It really is extremely gratifying to watch people come out of float tanks, feeling better, smiling, in less pain, happier, figuring things out about their life that they needed to figure out.
Graham: And sometimes more confused, but also happier which is slightly pleasant.
Ashkahn: People who come out and they give us hugs. People will come out with just looks of relief on their faces. People have come out and told us that they’ve been in chronic pain for years and all of a sudden they had a small respite from that then coming out of the float tank. People have walked by and given us cookies. I literally had a customer once come in, no appointment, just literally came in and dropped off a batch of cookies because she was at home baking cookies and was like, “I should make some for Float On, too,” and made a whole second batch just to bring to us for no reason.
Graham: We have customers who have sent us flowers because they live in another state now and they were thinking about how much they missed the shop and just send us Valentine’s Day flowers and a card and stuff like that.
Ashkahn: Everybody giving us cool salt lamps because they just think they’d be awesome in our shop. It’s just great. It’s both really nice to feel like you’re really helping people and those people you’re helping are super cool. They’re really great people and it’s just really nice, heartwarming experience to be able to feel like that’s the business that you run.
Graham: And you meet amazing people, most are customers, but also the people you end up working with, often are just the biggest float enthusiasts out there. Very often the first few employees you hire are kind of like your best customers who want to float so much and just be around the tanks all the time that they get a job. Yeah. They’re incredibly nice, too. Still, some of our best friends that we have in the Portland area come just as a direct result of them coming in and floating at our shop.
Ashkahn: It’s a really cool way to interact with people. You get to hang out with people after their floats and you get to hear really interesting stories. You’re meeting people who are essentially strangers and you’re not talking about the weather, or their work, or what they do for a living or any of that stuff, you’re talking about dreams of them that they had while they were children. These weird sides of people that probably people who have been friends with them for years have never heard and it’s great. It’s such a cool, interesting way of interacting with the public.
Graham: Yeah, and feeling like you’re actually making an impact on people’s lives. Plus, I don’t know. I’ve always taken a lot of joy out of trying to expand people’s horizons or making them think about things maybe a little bit differently. Through theater is a great example of that, or tutoring, is another good example. But float tanks, you just kind of toss people into this salt water box and trust that they’re going to come out with their minds blown, and it’s really just that process of introduction or especially if people seem stuck, and they’re daily routines and habits, being able to break that up and see the responses is incredibly satisfying.
Especially when people walk in and they’re so just in their heads and they’re really frustrated and they obviously have a problem or just a chip on their shoulder in general and you throw them in a float tank and they come out and they’re just smiling and relaxed and chatting. You’re like, “Oh, didn’t you want a partial refund from a float before or something?” and they’re just like, “Oh, don’t worry about it.” That transformation is so awesome.
Ashkahn: I remember we had two customers once that started a game of chess before they went into their floats and they came out of their floats and their chessboard was still there. I’m like, “Hey, we still have your chessboard, do you guys want to finish your game?” They’re like, “Nah, I don’t think we want to play chess anymore. We don’t want to fight anymore.”
Graham: Yeah, it’s too confrontational. You need to make the pieces move in unison. We declared peace.
Ashkahn: Get all the pieces on one side. But it’s cool, it’s true. There’s something personally satisfying to me, at the very least, that just being responsible for the weirdest thing someone did that day. I really just enjoy just that, getting people to realize that there’s a little bit more to life than their day in, day out sort of thing that they’re used to.
Graham: And I would say my other most satisfying part of running a float center is just being able to say that I run a float tank center. It’s a really fun thing to be able to sit down on an airplane next to someone and they’re talking about whatever it is they do and they’re like, “Oh, what do you do?” You’re like, “Sensory deprivation tanks.”
Ashkahn: Yeah, I’ve actually had to lie before because I was so tired and running a float center is just too interesting and I didn’t want to get into it. But I had to just pretend like I didn’t run a float center because I was too tired to even have the conversation. I was like I can’t even tell this person, honestly, what I do right now because it’s too exciting of a job.
Graham: Didn’t that go horribly, too?
Ashkahn: It didn’t go very well. He started asking me all that. I said I run a spa and the person was like, “Oh, what type of spa?” And I was like, “Just like massage and stuff.” And he’s like, “My wife is a massage therapist. What type of massage?” And I was like I’m way in over my head here. I made a huge mistake.
Graham: Good lesson there, never lie about owning a float tank center. Can’t fake it. But it is. There’s just something really enjoyable about that and even outside of the center, outside of people who are actually floating, I’ve ended up in such cool conversations as a result of just having that as the thing that I do, which is a question you always get asked. But if you open that up and you’re like, “Yeah, I basically do nothing professionally.” That’s a really fun conversation to have with total strangers.
Ashkahn: We talk a lot about, I think, the hard parts of running a float center on this podcast-
Graham: Which are numerous. Which are numerous.
Ashkahn: So this is good to keep in mind. You gotta remember this stuff. All of it is worth it because of this, fixing those pumps at three in the morning and dealing with everything else. It’s hard to remember in the moment and especially while you’re in construction when you don’t even get to see people come out of float tanks. And that happens. You watch someone come out of a float tank and they just thank you because it’s seriously been helping them and significantly changing what they’re doing with their life. Then you’re like, okay, that’s right. That’s why I was doing all this. So it’s good. It’s a good thing to remember.
Graham: Yep. We change lives and sometimes for the better.
Ashkahn: Cool. All right. Good. Well-
Graham: Yeah, thanks for the upbeat question.
Ashkahn: Yeah, that’s nice.
Graham: You can ask more of those anytime, too. Send them along and if you want to do that, you go to floattanksolutions.com/podcast. Yeah.
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Are Tankless Water Heaters the Best? – DSP 270
Graham and Jake take on talking about Tankless or “On Demand” water heaters today. They break down a lot of the benefits of them compared to storage water heaters like the fact that they provide a nearly limitless source of hot water, require less energy consumption, etc. They’re not perfect though, and any float center considering one should look closely on how best to implement them. Jake shares some of the pitfalls of them as well as how to maximize their usefulness.
Should Float Centers use Light or Heavy Gauge Studs? – DSP 269
Still no Ashkahn today. He’s taking a couple of post-conference days to himself.
Jake and Graham are on the scene though to answer construction questions, though. Even the straight forward ones, like today. Jake informs us which to choose when doing construction, light or heavy gauge studs when constructing a float center, while getting a little sidetracked when comparing wooden and metal studs.
Construction to Make Your Life Easier – DSP 268
Graham and Jake cover a wide range of construction tips to make running a float center easier. Everything from making sure you have extra storage to installing mop closets with sinks in them for dealing with heavy duty chemicals.
The advice is pretty much a shotgun approach of tips, tricks, and hard lessons learned throughout the years.
Draining Float Tanks into Septic Systems – DSP 267
Graham and Jake tackle the difficulties of draining float tanks and how that process can differ based on different municipalities, different water treatment systems, or whether you’re using a septic system or not.
Water treatment typically involves whole contained ecosystems and highly concentrated epsom salt water can impact that pretty drastically. The guys provide good tips for each type of system and what to be prepared for if you’re operating in a rural area with a septic system.
The Difference Between STC and Decibels – DSP 266
Post-Conference Ashkahn is still out of the recording studio, but fortunately Jake is keeping Graham company in there.
Graham and Jake break down the differences between decibels and STC ratings, two very important to understand when figuring out soundproofing. There’s a lot to digest in this episode, but fortunately the guys keep it easy to understand by providing a broad level overview of the different concepts.
Latest Blog Posts
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #28
Home sweet home! After so many months on the road, it was strange being back here in Portland. We were exhausted, excited, and a little travel weary. The first night back, I slept in my own bed for the first time in three months and the world just melted away.
Having travelled across the United States, I’m reminded of how insular Portland is. We are aggressively fixated on keeping things local. Local beer, ketchup, bikes, pet food, pillows, phone cases… it’s part of our charm. We want to reward people for living here and being a part of the community. It’s so pervasive that, after living here for so long, I kind of forgot that Secret Aardvark hot-sauce isn’t available everywhere, and that most cities don’t even recycle, let alone compost.
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #27
Our northern neighbor – a sister city, of sorts – Seattle is the largest metropolitan area in the Pacific Northwest. It’s the land of Microsoft and Kurt Cobain, and the culture here embraces both simultaneously. It’s tech business professional in the front and rock n’ roll grunge in the back. This blend creates a perfect storm of high energy business life and high energy nightlife, making relaxation a valuable commodity. Floating helps fill the void left by nightmarish traffic and overcrowded restaurants.
Given that it’s so close to home, the float centers in Seattle are a lot more familiar to us. Our visits here were more like a high school reunion than they were like the first day of school. During some of our visits, we were picking up conversations right where we left them.
The Float Tour Blog Issue #26
Vancouver is the largest metropolitan area in Canada, and third largest on the West Coast. It’s a major hub for international trade, with one of the largest ports in the world, giving it a large migrant population, mainly from Asia, the Middle East, and Australia. It’s also been a long-time home to the Canadian film industry, and has even been nicknamed “North Hollywood.” Dozens of film and television productions from major studios film here every year.
Vancouver is very much an international city. It has large boroughs dedicated to varying cultures, including one of the largest Chinatowns in the world. The society here is more receptive to new ideas, always looking for the next big thing; it’s not surprising that floating has blown up in Vancouver as much as it has.
In the last 3 years, 10 float centers have opened up, most of them being larger 4–6 tank centers. The really interesting thing is how they all opened within the same short amount of time about 1 ½ to 2 years ago, within months of each other.
The Float Tour Blog – Issue #25
We finally made it back to the West Coast! We went through the Canadian Rockies and were overwhelmed by the beauty of it all. We drove through hours and hours of winding mountain roads, fertile valleys, and tiny towns so picturesque they looked like movie sets. It was so captivating, in fact, I suspect Graham and Ashkahn may have secretly replaced themselves with robotic doppelgängers to hike throughout Banff.
This post will focus on the smaller communities in B.C. that are bringing floating to new people every day. We also get to visit Canadian manufacturer Pro Float. They’re relatively new to the scene, just opening up earlier this year – another exciting sign of the growth in the industry.
