To watch a video version of this podcast, click here: https://youtu.be/bMFQ70dvop0
In this episode, Reuben Saltzman welcomes longtime guest Eric Houseman as a co-host and takes a closer look at Eric’s career journey and leadership experience. Eric shares lessons from his time at Home Depot, Discount Tire, and Structure Tech, including why taking care of employees leads to better client experiences and how treating people with dignity and respect can make a difference in challenging situations.
Eric also discusses how his leadership style has evolved, emphasizing autonomy, problem-solving, learning from mistakes, and avoiding micromanagement. He shares some of his life outside of work, including his love for outdoor activities, community theater, family, faith, and disc golf, before wrapping up with details about Inspector Empire Builder’s upcoming Rapid Gain Training.
Here’s the link to Inspector Empire Builder: https://www.iebcoaching.com/events
Takeaways
Take care of employees so they can take care of clients.
Give employees the tools and autonomy they need to succeed.
Treat people with dignity and respect.
Don’t take difficult customer interactions personally.
Focus on solving problems instead of becoming defensive.
Avoid micromanaging your team.
Encourage employees to bring solutions, not just problems.
Allow people to make mistakes and learn from them.
Failure is part of trying new things and improving.
Trust employees to use good judgment.
Lead people the way you would want to be led.
Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek is a valuable leadership resource.
Life and identity should extend beyond your career.
Personal interests and relationships are important outside of work.
Chapters
00:01 Introducing Eric Houseman as Co-Host
01:53 Eric’s Role as Service Manager at Structure Tech
02:51 Trying New Things and Learning From Failure
03:16 Eric’s Career Background
04:06 Starting at Home Depot
06:17 Moving Into Leadership at Home Depot
08:00 Career at Ultimate Electronics and Discount Tire
09:02 Leaving Discount Tire and Finding Home Inspection
10:11 Shadowing a Home Inspection
10:40 Joining Structure Tech
10:56 Leadership Lessons From Discount Tire
11:31 Taking Care of Employees First
13:38 Working Through High-Pressure Environments
15:46 Handling Difficult Customer Situations
17:01 How Eric’s Leadership Style Has Changed
17:55 Autonomy vs. Micromanagement
18:23 Encouraging Employees to Bring Solutions
19:39 Using Good Judgment in Home Inspections
20:46 Eric’s Recommended Leadership Book
22:26 Life and Identity Outside of Work
24:31 Looking Beyond Career and Profession
25:30 Eric’s Outdoor Interests
26:00 Discovering a Love for Community Theater
27:55 Returning to the Stage
28:47 Family, Faith, and Disc Golf
29:41 Inspector Empire Builder Rapid Gain Training
31:03 Tessa Update and Closing
TRANSCRIPTION
The following is an AI-generated transcription from an audio recording. Although the transcription is mostly accurate, it will contain some errors due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
Reuben Saltzman: Welcome to my house. Welcome to the Structure Talk podcast, a production of Structure Tech Home Inspections. My name is Reuben Saltzman. I’m your host alongside building science geek, Tessa Murry. We help home inspectors up their game through education, and we help homeowners to be better stewards of their houses. We’ve been keeping it real on this podcast since 2019, and we are also the number one home inspection podcast in the world, according to my mom.
Reuben (00:01.155)
Welcome back to the show. Today we are introducing a longtime repeat guest who made his first appearance back in 2020. We’ve got Eric Houseman as the co-host of the show from now until I don’t know, whenever Tessa’s done doing her baby thing. How’s it going, Eric?
Eric Houseman (00:23.544)
So I’m good. I’m good, Ruben. I’m good. How are you?
Reuben (00:27.217)
can’t complain. I was just complaining to Eric before the show that he missed a great round of disc golf. Eric was supposed to go with me, but instead he chose to not go with me and play disc golf. I know. I know. It’s terrible. It’s terrible. But gotta say it just because it’s it’s it’s obligatory, it’s it’s mandated, need to point out.
Eric Houseman (00:41.752)
Some of us have to work on a regular basis.
Reuben (00:57.349)
that Eric has the greatest name in home inspection history, House Man. Come on. Eric, you were on the show for the first time, like I said, back in 2020. And how many how many times do you think you’ve been on the show since then? How many, how many appearances?
Eric Houseman (01:17.998)
nine as a guest. Nope, I know. I keep track.
Reuben (01:21.615)
You cheated!
Okay, I am impressed. All right. Nice work, Eric. So we’ve we’ve dug into a bunch of stuff, and we we’ve learned that you are a total tool geek. You are the services manager at Structure Tech. And that means that you oversee. Well, no, no, you know what? Let me give you the mic. What do you do at Structure Tech?
Eric Houseman (01:31.662)
Thank you.
Eric Houseman (01:53.966)
boy. I am so yeah, like Ruben said, I’m the service manager. That basically means that I oversee the day-to-day business of everything that happens in the field, both with our home inspectors as well as with our ancillary service technicians. I’m also kind of the resident guinea pig of the team, if you will. Yeah. so if we’re
Reuben (02:18.961)
Totally. Yeah.
Eric Houseman (02:22.776)
Trying something new, if we’re branching out on something, it’s definitely in my wheelhouse and I enjoy it to to do those types of things. Yeah, I do. Yep.
Reuben (02:34.223)
You too. Yeah. Yeah. Eric embraces change. He loves trying new stuff. Yep.
Eric Houseman (02:39.084)
Yeah. And and there’s been plenty of things that we have tried and broken. And there have been plenty of things that have been tried and been successful and we’re doing today. Yeah.
Reuben (02:44.485)
Yep. Yep.
Reuben (02:51.365)
Yeah, yeah. And you know, I I like to say if we’re if we’re not failing at stuff, we’re I mean, we’re sitting stagnant. Nobody succeeds at everything. You’re gonna fail at a lot of stuff and it’s okay. It means you’re trying new things. It’s all right.
Eric Houseman (03:00.453)
yeah.
Eric Houseman (03:06.274)
Yep. Yep. Yeah. Just fail fast. Right? Like if it doesn’t work, abandon all hope, ye who tried this.
Reuben (03:10.629)
That’s the goal. Yep.
Reuben (03:16.955)
Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. so yeah, Eric is a service manager. but we we’ve never really gotten into your background, like what brought you here? what year did you start? Was it twenty eighteen? Nineteen. Okay. All right.
Eric Houseman (03:32.622)
- Yeah. Yeah. Yep. I married my wife, who we’ve been together for well, married for seven years, together for over eight now. we got married on June 1st of 2019. I went on my honeymoon and I started the day after I got back from my honeymoon.
Reuben (03:53.702)
Yes, yes, love it. Good times. And what but what what were you doing before then? what I mean, what was your career from high school up until the point of starting with structure tech?
Eric Houseman (04:06.17)
my gosh. so my first job was working at Home Depot with you, or it adjacent to at first. I I started out as cashier, cart pusher, returns cashier, etc. You know, just adrift on the front end of Home Depot.
Reuben (04:12.644)
Woohoo!
Eric Houseman (04:31.638)
And then yeah, I transferred over to the special services desk, which I don’t even know if that’s a thing there anymore.
Reuben (04:40.143)
I don’t think so. They’ve got like returns and I don’t know what else they do. it’s just kind of a service area.
Eric Houseman (04:45.922)
Yeah.
I I often wonder, like, is everything now because obviously they have those bins in the entryway. Like, is everything that you special order, if it doesn’t need to be installed, do they just bring it into the store and put it in one of those bins and you get a code and you go pick it up? Yeah, it is. And then I’m sure everything else is like, no, we deliver it to you. but I mean, man, I I remember when I started working for you at the service desk, like we had
Reuben (05:04.047)
Yeah, it’s so automated now. Yeah.
Eric Houseman (05:18.956)
It was the cage, right? Down at the other end of the store from the service desk, which was wildly inconvenient. no, and we would have everything down there. Faucets, appliances, doors, like anything that you could special order would come into the store and it would go there, and we would have to keep track of it and inventory it. And yeah.
Reuben (05:20.783)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Reuben (05:27.653)
Didn’t make any sense.
Eric Houseman (05:48.61)
I I just remember giving, you know, you giving me the cage report every week to go down and inventory it because we’d have like the customer’s name and the order number, and we’d have to go through. And of course, if we found discrepancies, like did this get picked up? Did this where where is this? so yeah, but from there, I can’t give you the timeline that far back, but obviously, you know, you you were really truly my first.
Reuben (06:05.775)
Yeah.
Eric Houseman (06:17.122)
boss at Home Depot. And then from there that that’s really kind of where you and I parted ways working together was from the St. Louis Park store. And then I actually got promoted to service desk supervisor, which was your position at St. Louis Park when the Shockabee store opened. and I went down there and that was a cool experience because we were opening that store. And
I remember walking into that store on day one, nothing on the shelves. You could see from one end of the store to the other through the racks. And it was long days just literally running product from receiving out to the shelves, stocking shelves, etc. And of course, like, you know, I was at that point in time, I was certified in pretty much every single piece of lift equipment there was.
Reuben (06:53.147)
Weird.
Eric Houseman (07:14.378)
So it was a lot of me, you know, operating different forklifts and the not even like the hand trucks, but like the powered pallet jacks and so it was a lot of fun. That was really cool. And then from there I got
Reuben (07:27.289)
Eric, I remember teaching you how to drive the forklift. Do you remember the obstacle course I made for you? It was super tight and you’d have to go around all these corners. I remember you just nailing it. Yeah.
Eric Houseman (07:32.982)
Yes, I do. Yep.
Eric Houseman (07:39.382)
Yeah, yep. and then from there I got promoted to operations manager at the Burnsville store. and I went there and I was there for a while and at at that point in time like obviously we did like audits of the operations side of things, receiving the front end special services and
I ended up getting heavily involved in that at a district level, traveling to other stores, teaching people how to do it, that type of thing. So that that was a lot of fun. I enjoyed that. And then I don’t even remember what year I left there. but I left Home Depot and I went to go work for Ultimate Electronics for two years, which is now defunct. but it was, you know, previously Audio King and then became Ultimate Electronics and
They were not doing well financially, and I was low man on the totem pole, so I got let go. and then I floated around for a little while, and then I ended up actually finding a job at at Discount Tire Company. And I got hired there, and I was there for almost 11 years, working my way up through from assistant manager to senior assistant manager to store manager, and I ran both the Maple Grove location and the Eden Prairie location.
Reuben (09:02.191)
Yes.
Eric Houseman (09:02.432)
and I left there in early 2019. And I I remember, you know, kind of leaving there, not really having much of a plan, if you will. And you know, you had tried to recruit me, headhunt me over the years, and it never really worked out from a timing perspective. And immediately I I actually I think I called Malind first. And yeah.
Reuben (09:20.847)
Yes.
Reuben (09:29.649)
I th you did. You did. Malen’s the one who said, Ruben, you might want to reach out to Eric again.
Eric Houseman (09:34.156)
Yeah, yep. And I ended up
Reuben (09:36.345)
And why and and I I I never got an answer on this. Why did you call Malin first? I need to know. Okay, all right, fine. Fine.
Eric Houseman (09:41.238)
I don’t remember. I don’t remember. Yeah. There there was a point in time in in you know in early on in this profession where you intimidated me as a boss. Like and I I know you don’t get that. Like I don’t feel that way anymore. but I think that was maybe part of it. You know, Melin was the the safety blanket, if you will. but then he and I
Reuben (10:04.356)
Okay.
Reuben (10:07.909)
Yeah. He’s so approachable.
Eric Houseman (10:11.318)
Yeah, right. Yes. Yeah. He he actually had within like the next week of me contacting him, he had a home inspection for someone that we all used to work with at Home Depot. And I ended up going on that inspection with him and shadowing him and I was like, yeah, I could do this. I like this. This is fun. minus getting on Rose, ’cause that was very foreign to me at that point in time.
Reuben (10:22.993)
Okay.
Reuben (10:29.147)
Yeah. Yeah.
Eric Houseman (10:40.208)
and then, you know, you and I met and you just like everybody else that we hire on, you tried to talk me out of the job and I said, Nope, you’ve tried to get me here enough times, I’m going to say yes this time. And that was going on eight years ago. Yep. Yeah. It has been.
Reuben (10:52.591)
Yeah, yeah.
Reuben (10:56.837)
Love it. Yeah. So glad you did. It’s been a fun ride. I I I want to ask you a little bit about working for Discount Tire. I you what did you learn working there? Cause I know you ended up dealing with you’ve told me a few crazy stories. What what what type of leadership lessons did you learn from discount tire?
Eric Houseman (11:22.552)
That’s a great question. I
Eric Houseman (11:31.36)
I I think the there’s been a lot of like ancillary things that I have learned, but I think the main thing that I took away from there is, and this was instilled very early on in my career there. And I I was there when the original owner, the guy who founded it, was still there. I met him, I shook his hand, great guy. And then I was there through the first few years of the transition after he passed away. And it
Taking over kind of new ownership. but it was instilled in me very early on that if you take care of your employees, your employees will then take care of your clients. That is incredibly important. not that clients and agents that we have now are not important to us, but we know if we
Reuben (12:16.305)
Yeah. That’s good.
Eric Houseman (12:30.868)
listen to our people, treat them with respect, give them autonomy and and and give them the tools that they need to do their job, they will run through a brick wall for our clients. So if if if we run through a brick wall for them, they will do the same for our people, our our clients. Yeah. there there’s a lot of other things that I learned too. Like the that
Reuben (12:47.725)
Amen. Yes.
Reuben (12:53.157)
Yes. Yep.
Eric Houseman (13:00.842)
industry or that job in particular, like it’s you get a lot of long hours. It’s it’s kind of the converse of the real estate industry in Minnesota. Like the real estate industry in Minnesota Minnesota, we slow down during the winter time. It’s the exact opposite in that industry. Like snow comes, everybody slacks off on getting new tires, it hits the fan, and you get insanely busy around the holidays.
Reuben (13:16.699)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben (13:30.341)
Yeah, it’s gotta be after the first snowfall and people realize how bald their tires are and how dangerous it is, and they go, I gotta do this now, right?
Eric Houseman (13:30.418)
Eric Houseman (13:38.144)
Yeah. Yeah. You go from, you know, multiple months the vast majority of the year, you go from, you know, being able to turn a vehicle in from the time the client walks through the door, the customer walks through the door in an hour to an hour and a half the majority of the year, to telling people, yep, we’ll get it done, drop it off, we’ll call you when it’s done. And it’s it’s hours and hours and hours before we can get to it because we’re that busy. but you shove
Reuben (14:03.131)
Sure. Yeah.
Eric Houseman (14:07.094)
and and I’m I’m generalizing in stereotyping, but if you if you shove a bunch of alpha males into a concrete and steel box for twelve, thirteen, fourteen hours a day, ego takes over. And it becomes a who’s going to climb to the top of the pile the fastest and be the the alpha male out of the group, out of all of the alphas. Who’s going to be the most alpha? and I think that
Reuben (14:36.047)
And what what does that look like? Is that who changes tires the fastest or what? Okay.
Eric Houseman (14:39.96)
yeah. Everything’s well, you I mean, for you and me, Ruben, it’s like everything’s a competition, right? Like Yeah.
Reuben (14:45.783)
It’s very true. It’s very true. We are both equally competitive, I’d say.
Eric Houseman (14:50.4)
Yeah. So I mean it’s who can change a tire the fastest, who can, you know, it it’s anything, any aspect of it. But you know, it emotions can take over. And I think that there was a point in time in that career and I didn’t it wasn’t until after I left that that I really moved away from because you you’re working in customer service, right? That’s what it boils down to. And not every customer is going to be completely happy. And
That happens. It’s the way that it works. you’re dealing with people’s perspectives, you’re dealing with expectations, expectations not being satisfied. There was a a long period of time in my, you know, leadership, mentorship career where I took things personally. And it it took me a while to get out of that. And it’s like at the end of the day, I I don’t want to sound callous or cold, but in
Reuben (15:38.865)
Mm.
Eric Houseman (15:46.974)
any type of that position, you have to understand that people are not they’re not upset at you specifically. They’re upset at the situation. And the really cool thing about being in this position and having learned what I’ve learned and the maturity that I have now that I didn’t have ten years ago is it’s it’s very satisfying to
be the person that gets to be the hero, that gets to be the fixer. It it it’s you you can’t take it personally, you can’t get defensive. At the end of the day, it’s just treating people with human dignity and respect. Yeah. Thank you.
Reuben (16:31.727)
Yeah, yeah. And you’re very good at that. Yeah. Yeah. You he he Eric is the one who wears a cape around here for sure. and w what about what about some things that are different the way that you’re leading now versus how you would have led eight years ago? Because I know you’ve said you’ve made a lot of changes. what do you feel like you do differently in leading people today?
Eric Houseman (17:01.23)
I it’s funny, we just talked about this yesterday. I do not feel I I think that you have a tendency to lead your people how you’re led. And if so to simplify it, if you’re micromanaged, if that’s the way that you are managed as a person, if that’s the way that you’re led as a
middle management, upper management type of person, you’re probably going to do the same thing. It’s the trickle down effect, right? and I definitely was micromanaged in previous careers. You know, it’s it’s a numbers game. It’s a business game. And this is a business also, but I no longer feel micromanaged on a daily basis. I feel like I’m given the autonomy to solve
Reuben (17:34.715)
Sure. Yeah.
Eric Houseman (17:55.362)
the things that we have to think outside the box, to think about what we can do to make things better. It’s not even just from a problem solving standpoint. It’s also from a we have the autonomy to come up with new ideas and and venture out and do things that could make our customer experience and our agent experience better. And we’re encouraged to do that. And I like to do the same thing with my people now too that I oversee. It’s like
Reuben (18:16.56)
Yeah.
Eric Houseman (18:23.316)
I don’t need to be the one to bring you the answer every single time. I I’m okay with people making mistakes. There’s nothing that can’t be corrected. There’s nothing that can’t be fixed. I would much rather see you come to the table as one of my people come to the table and give me a solution rather than give me the problem and say, Eric, how do I fix this? Come to me and say, This is the problem. This is what I think that we should do. If you bring me a viable option, I’m
Reuben (18:45.327)
Yes. Yes.
Eric Houseman (18:52.962)
We’ll talk through it, right? I’m probably going to say, yeah, go for it. Let’s see what happens. And if it doesn’t work, we figure out why it didn’t work and we correct it and we do something different going forward. it’s it’s much more I I don’t feel micromanaged. I feel more autonomous in my role, and I want everybody else to feel the same way.
Reuben (19:16.015)
Yeah. Yeah. And I I think if you asked all of our inspectors, I I think they’d say the same thing. I mean, that you are not micromanaging them. They have a lot of autonomy. It’s like here here’s the I mean, you gotta check these boxes. But all right, you got a new situation, like you don’t need to call Eric every time. Just do do what you think is right and Eric will have your back. Yeah.
Eric Houseman (19:39.788)
Yeah. Yep. And we’ve said this before as a company, like when we’re when we’re doing inspections the the question comes up probably at every single inspection, right? You’ve got a gas fireplace that has a gas valve off, you’ve got a blocked attic access panel, you’ve got a blocked electrical panel, like all of these things, right? Like would you move these items if this were a house that you were inspecting for your sister?
Or for your mom or whoever. It’s it’s not a matter of would I do this for my client. It should be the question you should ask is would I do this if this were a close family member or a loved one? And that’s the right answer. Yep. Yes.
Reuben (20:23.695)
Yes. Yeah. Yep. That is what guides us for sure. Yeah. So good. What is the last? No, I I shouldn’t say last, and I won’t say best either, because it’s it’s just too tough to think about that. But what’s a good memorable leadership book that you’ve read?
Eric Houseman (20:46.294)
Ooh, that’s a good one.
I think I’m a big fan of
Eric Houseman (20:59.37)
Simon Sinek. I’ve watched a lot of his, you know, TED talks and interviews, and I think that he puts it in a really easy digestible manner. Leader leaders eat last probably comes to mind to the forefront of my mind as like, yeah, this this is a really, really good book for anybody that leads and mentors people. Yeah. It’s it’s
Reuben (21:01.21)
Okay.
Reuben (21:12.774)
Yeah.
Reuben (21:25.507)
Okay. Okay. All right. Good.
Eric Houseman (21:29.258)
Such a quick, easy read, too.
Reuben (21:32.407)
I it’s been a long time since I’ve read that and I I would not be able to give you the Cliff Notes version, that’s for sure. I’m gonna I’m gonna put that on my list to read again. Leaders eat last. Okay. Thank you.
Eric Houseman (21:43.372)
Yeah.
Yeah, it’s a good one. I mean any anything by Simon Sinek is is is really, really good.
Reuben (21:53.968)
Yeah, yeah. He’s he’s put out a bunch of good ones. Okay. And let’s see. I I think that was about it. I I I was not trying to make this a super long one, but I just wanted to talk to you about leadership style and how you got here. it I guess no, there was one other thing. Past, present, and future. is kind of kind of what I wanted to cover today.
What else is coming up for you? What are you excited about right now that you’re working on?
Eric Houseman (22:26.446)
I’m gonna venture away from the work side of things if that’s okay.
Reuben (22:31.949)
please. And I I did want to actually ask you about that. As our listeners know, I don’t script any questions. I don’t write questions down ahead of time. But that was in my head. I did want to ask you about that.
Eric Houseman (22:45.218)
Yeah. I it’s it’s interesting. my wife and I, Crystal and I have been talking about this quite a bit recently. so she works in the wedding industry. She recently transitioned out of being an an event planner and a wedding coordinator, and she’s now officiating and
We were talking about this last night. Like I’ve been going through a ton of phone interviews with people. And actually we just got done interviewing a bunch of candidates to bring in more home inspectors for this hiring season. And one of the questions that I asked during the interview process, and I I tweak little things here and there, like every time I do these phone interviews, to try and get people out of the mindset of like everything needs to be about your career.
Right. Like I I can look at your resume and I can see your career. If I have questions about your career, I’ll ask about it. But one of the very first questions that I ask people is like the way I phrase it now, and clearly I need to change it, is to tell me about X. Tell me about Ruben. Tell me about Tessa. Tell me about Eric.
And inevitably, and this is such the American way of doing things, everybody goes to their career, everybody goes to what they do for their job. And I’ve yeah, like I I mean, I’ve I’ve traveled and I know that from experiences outside the United States, like if you ask someone that over in Europe, the last thing they will tell you is what they do for their job.
Reuben (24:14.629)
Yeah, that’s that’s kind of what I was asking you about too.
Reuben (24:30.635)
Interesting. Okay.
Eric Houseman (24:31.67)
Yeah, it’s such an American thing. We are we are very much measured by what we do as a profession, not who we are as an individual. So anyway, that’s why I said like I want to get away from work. because it’s truly it’s not what, you know, make people tick on a daily basis, right? I let’s see, what’s currently happening?
What’s down the road? well, I housewise, live in a nineteen eighty-eight build house in Shanaussen. getting our roof replaced next Friday, getting new siding on our house shortly thereafter. So that’s super exciting. Yay, home ownership. but if it feels good to have that project going. outside of work, what do I love doing? anything outdoors as long as it’s not cold outside. I think you and I share that sentiment. We
Reuben (25:16.974)
Yeah.
Reuben (25:30.534)
Yes.
Eric Houseman (25:30.956)
Love the outdoors, just not the cold. so big into spending time at the family cabin, love hiking. I’m a runner, kayaking, stand-up paddle boarding, anything to do with outdoors during the summertime, I’m I’m all in. love that. I have a newfound.
Reuben (25:33.251)
Yep, yep, totally.
Eric Houseman (26:00.566)
Love for theater. I started last year in a it’s community theater, right? So take it with a grain of salt. I’m not a professional by any stretch of the imagination, but I started in community theater a few years ago, just kind of like in a you know, behind the scenes role, right? Like I’m a handy guy, I can build things, I can do that type of stuff, and I kept getting pressured by
people in the cast like, you should try out, you should try out. So last fall I tried out for the fall play and I ended up getting I’d never been on stage before, ended up getting the the lead role in the fall play. And yeah, you I mean, you were there, the family was there, a bunch of people from work came. it was one of the coolest experiences of my life. Like I I have been you know, because we’ve been there, like I’ve been on stage
Reuben (26:39.909)
Yeah you did.
Yeah.
Eric Houseman (26:57.378)
Multiple times. I teach CE classes for the company. I’ve been in rooms full of dozens of people. I’ve been at home inspector conferences across the United States. I’ve been on front in on stage in front of hundreds of people asking uns or answering unscripted questions. Never been nervous in front of a group of people. I walked into that audition. I thought I was gonna throw up on myself. I was so nervous. And I’ve
Reuben (27:22.097)
my goodness.
Eric Houseman (27:24.938)
Not something I have ever experienced for before in my life. But one of the coolest experiences, all the nerves went away. Like the second you go out on stage for that first show and you start doing your lines and the audience reacts like they laugh or you hear them gasp, all of a sudden it’s just like, I get why performing is so exhilarating. It is a feeling that you just cannot describe any other way than just to say, you gotta do it. You just have to do it. So
Reuben (27:47.867)
Sure.
Reuben (27:53.958)
Yeah.
Eric Houseman (27:55.34)
Newfound love. I’m in the fall show again this year. Actually, we start rehearsals tonight, which is very exciting. so super excited for that. But yeah, I just love spending time with my wife, love spending time with my family. We have a niece that’s eleven. She just started middle school. one sister still living, you know, parents still live in the house that I grew up in in St. Louis Park. I’ve lived here my entire life.
Don’t see myself going anywhere. I love Minnesota. Yeah. Yep. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Reuben (28:26.799)
Yeah, yeah. Good. ‘Cause he can’t. Sorry, you’re not allowed. Yeah.
Sweet. All right. Good. Well, yeah, I’m I’m glad thank thank you for bringing that up. I wanted to ask you about that because I know that’s a huge part of your life. That’s where a lot of your passion lies. Yeah. And s and strong faith too. Yep.
Eric Houseman (28:47.788)
Yes, very strong. Yeah. Crystal and I are very much embedded within the church that we go to. leadership roles within the church. we go to church nearly every single Sunday, as much as we can. we always do the we’re always a part of the Christmas portion. We always read scripture at the Christmas.
candlelight service and all that. So yeah, we we love it. and I forgot disc golf. Disc golf. Huge thing that we both love to do. Yeah.
Reuben (29:18.086)
Yeah.
Reuben (29:24.655)
Yes, yes, mute mutual love of disc golf. Yeah, yeah. And we have not gotten out nearly enough this year. We got out a ton last year, but I don’t know what happened this year. All right. Yeah, we’re busy.
Eric Houseman (29:27.724)
Yes. Yeah.
Eric Houseman (29:32.556)
No. Yeah. I don’t yeah, I don’t know. But hey, some is better than none.
Reuben (29:41.146)
D some is better than none. We got out a few times. Yes. All right. Well, I think that’ll just about wrap it up. I I gotta give a shout out to our show sponsors, IEB, Inspector Empire Builder, and talk about a training event that’s coming up soon. This is called Rapid Gain Training, RGT, and it’s coming up in Houston on October fifteenth through seventeenth.
Eric Houseman (29:43.459)
Yep.
Reuben (30:06.709)
And it’s in-person training designed for their launch and builder members. Those are inspectors who are kind of new to the home inspection profession, smaller, maybe not necessarily new, but smaller companies. I should put it that way. and it’s it’s for people who want to get hands-on with the strategies, systems, and the models that can help them make meaningful improvements to their home inspection businesses. So if you’re interested, we will have a link to IEB in the show notes. Check it out.
Eric, you and I have both gone through RGT. Fantastic training. Yeah. It’s very intense. Yep. So, and and I also meant just give an update on Tessa. I have no update. We we we have not heard anything from her yet. So no baby news, but I’m sure by the next time record we record, we’ll have some wonderful news to share with everybody.
Eric Houseman (30:39.362)
Yep. Yeah. Very beneficial.
Reuben (31:03.627)
And she will be a proud new mama of a healthy baby boy. So wishing her well. Say a prayer for a smooth delivery. And I think that’s it. for the listeners. If you got questions for us, always welcome to email us. We read them all. It is podcast at structuretech dot com. And I yeah, I’ll I’ll I’ll end it there. Thanks for tuning in, Eric.
Eric Houseman (31:16.131)
Tweet.
Reuben (31:32.763)
Can’t wait to have you as a co-host and we’re gonna have a lot of good shows coming up.
Eric Houseman (31:34.688)
I’m excited. Yep, we are.
Reuben (31:39.004)
All right. Well, appreciate it. Thanks everyone. Take care.
Eric Houseman (31:43.192)
Thanks everybody.