Sam Goodman - Live from ACFS - Safety Day 2021

Today on The Jay Allen Show, Jay speaks with Sam Goodman from The HOP Nerd podcast. They discuss Sam's new coauthored book Safety Sucks Manifesto. This is the first time Sam and Jay sit in person for an interview, recorded live at ACFS - Safety Day 2021 from Orlando FL!

#HOPNerd #SafetyRadio #SafetyPocast #EHS #SafetyDay #SAfetyFM #BITW #KOASM

The transcript is not perfect

[00:00:00] spk_0: it begins in Orlando

[00:00:02] spk_1: florida

[00:00:03] spk_0: and travel steadily to the west, beaming across north

[00:00:06] spk_1: America

[00:00:07] spk_0: and planet Earth into

[00:00:09] spk_1: your head world of

[00:00:11] spk_0: safety never stops. And now the safety

[00:00:15] spk_1: FM podcast

[00:00:16] spk_0: and broadcast with DR

[00:00:18] spk_1: J Allen,

[00:00:19] spk_0: we are streaming live from the Safety FN Roadshow now, okay, here we go. We are coming to you live from the A C F S Safety Day 2021. And I have to tell you, I am so excited because this has been a long time in the making. I know that you've talked about this because I had Sheldon promise on in person and finally, I can say I am physically able to touch Sam Goodman here live at a cf as safety Day 2021. How are you sir? I'm doing awesome man. I'm just pumped to be in the sunny. Beautiful F L A U S. A Man, This is cool! So I am so glad that you were able to make it down. We're able to be finally here in person. This is my first event in Persian meaning outside of the normal group of people that I hang out with probably in about a year. How about for you? Yeah, absolutely. The same other than just like sneaking off and doing stuff, you know just normal travel. This is kind of cool to uh I never thought I would say that it's cool to do work travel stuff so so I'm glad that I was able to sneak you in ahead of time and I don't even know if I'm supposed to do this, but you haven't even done your presentation that you're doing for the A. C. F. S. Today. So how are you excited about this? I mean this is the first event that I've been to that has not been a professional boxing event that has a ring. So what do you think? Yeah, I think it's super cool, right? I mean, I walk in, I see this gigantic boxing, I heard rumors of it and there it is, so I don't know, I'm a nerd, it's, it's gonna be really cool just to just to be in it. So I want to do like the thing, I want to run and climb on the ropes, like being on my chest, like bounce off either side. But I guess it's boxing not wrestling. So I don't know, well I was wondering, could you possibly do that? Could you get away with actually standing in the quarter? You know, after like somebody wins a belt or something, you know, just kind of doing the pumping. I don't know, I was just hoping to get to like throw t shirts out, be kind of cool. So let's talk about, let's talk about a lot, You've got a lot going on today. So besides that you have this going on. You have safety sucks, the manifesto version coming out today or actually came out last night a little ahead of schedule, which is fantastic. Already trending at number one of a new releases. So tell us, tell us, tell us what's, what's going on different, what, what it's about for those people that enjoyed, you know, the first one and maybe for some of the people that haven't heard of the first one. What is the second one about? Yeah, So that happened. It came out a little early, which was awesome. As you said, I won't problem. Yeah, I woke up this, I woke up this morning to discover that it was training at the number one hot new release in a couple of different categories, which is just awesome. Right? I can't say it's not awesome. Right? So I woke up with this big smile on my face. Number one excited to be here. Number too excited to see that just kind of made my day. But yeah, so if the first book, if you haven't heard of safety sucks, the Bs and the state of profession, they don't tell you about. It's a really, it's a deep dive down this rabbit hole of the sucks that reside within the professional practice of safety. It's kind of that. And when you get to the manifesto, safety sucks in manifesto, it really takes a much deeper dive into an IAN and I and my co author and Allison in our opinion to wear those sucks stem from, but not only as it relates to the professional practice of safety, but just how we suck at worker safety in general, right? So it's, it's much wider and it's a blast. I've got to tell you, I kind of tooting their own horn here a little bit. It's just a fun read too. So for those folks that did dig into the original safety sucks, you know, that we like to keep it light hearted, you know, that we like to take some jabs and I'll say we like to body slam, maybe some more traditional safety things. Um, and we do exactly that. So let's talk about the difference between the 1st and 2nd. So you decided to go with the co author this time. So why the decision, I mean, and you put out three books at this point prior to prior to this one. So why why are the co author? So Ian and our number one just Great Friends. So, but to kind of expand on that, it's this every time we would get together and we've done a bunch of podcasts together, done a bunch of stuff like that, and we've worked professionally together in the past as well. It seems like every time that we hang out and we start down the rabbit hole of talking about safety at work in general or work within the safe profession, we find ourselves in these hour long conversations and just great stuff. And finally, one day, I'm like, we're gonna write all this down, that's kind of what we did, right? We went down this path of actually writing it down and uh, enjoy. That's that's really what I can say there. But as far as another reason for the co author, uh is I get a little wild and out there, and that's a good thing, I'm gonna say, that's a good thing, released from my perspective. But Ian Ian is a good kind of not opposite, but a good grounding effect. And this self exclaimed, you know, from himself, but so we we help to balance each other's ideas, that we help to challenge each other's ideas. We help to um he might pull me a little bit closer to ground and I'll drag him to the sky, right? So it's it's that it's that dynamic, and I think you'll feel that come through to where you might get a really big wild idea throwing on you. But then we ground that in solid business practice and we ground that uh actually do ability. So here's the question then, who ends up doing the editing when, when when the manifesto is done both? Because I was gonna say, yeah, because I was like, you own the publisher, So how does that work? You know, it worked out really well, it worked out really, really well. Um the one thing that I'll say about the manifesto, and we started out not necessarily with this idea in mind, but it's just kind of, you know, stuff just kind of magically happens. Um every chapter within the manifesto could stand on its own legs so it flows together. But what was nice, and I say that because it made the editing super easy, is that if you take any particular chapter, you could rip it out of the book and read it and gain something from it without reading the rest of the book if you want to, so you can flip through the book, pick a chapter, read it, you're going you're going to get something out of it without feeling like you need to read the entire. So was this done intentionally about halfway through the swim uh back back to ease of editing? But let's talk about, I mean, the first book was so excellent and it really kind of gave the F you to the industry. I mean, that's that's how it came across it. And that was the intent with the manifesto. Is that kind of still the continuation to what's going somewhat? So to kind of boil that down into something the way that I've described it to others is that uh if safety sucks um kind of more of the problem statement. The original book, at least as it relates to the profession, um, safety sucks manifesto is at least I won't say the cure, but it's at least how we can make safety maybe suck a little bit less. Right? So, if if you have kind of the first book is the problem statement, the second book dives into at least how we can start to fix some of that. All right. At what point did you come up with the idea for the manifesto? Because I mean, you are you are one of the most creative people that I know you're constantly putting out new version of new versions of content. No, let's be realistic. I mean, you've done books, blogs, podcast, I mean, you even delved into some scary stuff. Yeah, for sure. You know, the idea. Um it was really born out of those conversations. Um, the whole idea for the manifesto is we kinda exactly wanted that, right? We started with the F you and this is this is our manifesto moving forward, right? This is how we can make at the very least, safety suck a little bit less for the people that it's supposed to help, that we forget about so often. Right? The fact that this is actually supposed to help people uh, and then for the folks that actually practice safety, that their life should be miserable either. Right? So that's kind of how we kind of landed on the manifesto side to go extreme because I think that's exactly where we need to go in our industry. Um so much of what we dive into in the book is about how we have constantly embraced safe air, quote safe, mediocrity over innovation for so long in our world. And it's literally crippling their companies and quite often crippling our people, Right? So it's that it's moving past all of that. So we have some questions coming, we have some questions coming in. So the manifesto we're referring to is safety sucks the manifesto. That's what that is, what the book is titled. Um, so why don't you take the easy approach and let me, let me get to be an ass about this where some people would go revision one or revision to instead of going full board and doing a full rewrite, you know, so we brought out a kind of a little bit of a second expanded edition of the original book um which it really just added on kind of afterthoughts to some of the chapters kinda after publishing the original book, getting to have many, many, many more conversations with other safety practitioners. It was kind of the afterthought. So that was kind of experiencing kind of after living in the world of safety sucks for a year. Post publishing, right? But we already know the problem. I mean, we and, and that's exactly what the original safety sucks book captured again, at least as it relates to the profession. Um, we captured the problem. We don't need to continue talking about how much it sucks, We need to start doing something to fix it. And that's really where we went down the path of the manifesto. It's completely different than the first. So as you're looking at this now, so you've done warden on how the industry was not so great, you've done this one now with the manifesto. At what point do you start going out there? That you're saying, hey, we're gonna do, I mean we're at a conference now, but when you can start doing speeches and really doing some teachings out of this, because there is so much truth to that first book of, there is a lot of stuff that's inside of our industry that people don't share on how bad it sucks. So when are you gonna go out here and say, okay, this is, these are lessons. I mean, I have a tangible version right now, but how, when are you gonna go out and say okay, I'm gonna teach us as a clause, we're available 24 7 just saying I mean, but so that that's kind of in the works that stuff that we're starting to do, you know, I've been fortunate enough over the past few months um you know, we were somewhat unfortunate obviously with the pandemic and kind of grounding a lot of us for a long time. Um but especially over the past few months as we've kind of built up to releasing this book um kind of preemptively, I've got to give a lot of virtual talks around a lot of what we cover in the book and so yeah, that that's exactly the plan. You know, we'll just see how that, how that works out. But that's the plan. Very cool, very cool. So right now if people want to pick it up, are you doing an audio book? Are you staying? You know, I had assad? Yes, we are at some point. Let me, let me see that. Um some point is too broad, so I'm known for my uh and this is probably the one thing that Ian will tell you is that I'm known for, like an aggressive schedule, right? So when I say at some point it could be tomorrow. I don't I don't know, so, but but we're working through some plans on how we want to do that from a co author perspective and how to create something that's not just your normal well, well, kind of audio book, we're trying to figure out how we can do that with both of us and how to make it kind of sort of different because that's what we kind of do. Right? Well, I remember this guy named Jack O, something that that he did a co author book. Have you thought about doing maybe a concept on the similar? Yeah, that's somewhat of the kind of options that was going around that. So at what point did you decide there were there were there needed to be a second book? Like, when did you say was it shortly after the first one came out? The first one was extremely successful. I mean, I would imagine, to this data and it's extremely successful. You know, the original book continues to blow my mind. I'll just I'll just say that it out performed kind of wildest dreams and from my perspective, just getting and what makes me so happy about that isn't necessarily a performance of the book. It's the fact that it's out there and it's generating conversations and I'm probably, I don't know, I hope that more authors and more kind of public figures in this space would say this more often. But from my perspective, I hope that my work generates more questions for you than it does answers, right? I don't want you to take my word is the gospel. I don't want you to take my opinion is the gospel. There's a million right ways to do the same thing. I hope that is thought provoking. And it sends you off on a path of exploring how you can do things better in your neck of the woods, right? Um, but yeah, it's gonna be interesting to see kind of how the manifesto goes. But with the first book, just the fact that it's done well and it's out there and it's starting this conversation, I get emails, text messages, DNS almost every single day, people sharing the sucks of the safety profession with me, which makes me laugh, makes me cry. Makes me kind of everything in between to know that that our profession has found itself into such a kind of sorry state, kinda in certain areas. Um to put it politely, but back to the manifesto, that's where that pushes is how our profession is far too cool, right? We have one of the best jobs on the planet. It's far too cool. It's far too valuable to be set out on the trash heap. Right. And so much of the manifesto is how we can actually make it better and not only the profession, but again, this book's pretty broad. I mean I would encourage leaders to take a look at it even if safety is not like the middle of your wheelhouse, right? Go out and take a look at it. There's a lot of lot of solid stuff in it. So do you think that the title for some, because we're talking about leadership, is it going to turn them off? Because that's the people you don't wanna listen to do? I mean we we have to um you know, I'll scream safety sucks from, from the rooftops, right? Um but with that, does it mean that again, it's the purpose isn't to send it out on the trash, right? I think most folks that are turned off by the title. Um the Only get Hate and I believe it or not, the only real hate me that I ever get around the books are from folks that never actually read the books. Yeah, sucks until you cut off a finger, right? What you should probably read the book before you comment. Um but I hope that it's not so much off putting uh as it is thought provoking, right? Because it does something right? If you really peel back the layers, safety sucks because safety is hard, right? It does suck. Some of that is embracing the suck and understanding that by embracing it, acknowledging it, that we can make it start to suck less. Right back to this idea that we so consistently in our starchy, stodgy, stale profession, just embrace safe air quotes, safe mediocrity above innovation. Um, we would rather just lean into doing the same thing is harder to say. Well, it sucks. It is what it is. All right. Well what I've been amazed about is that you took this concept, you came out with it, you said, hey, I'm gonna wave my flag, I don't care. And you said, hey, this is what's going on. And I've been to presentations virtually in other countries where you've been at speaking and I've just been inside in the audience watching you do your thing. Did you think you were going to have that kind of impact when you originally wrote it? No, no, no. To be honest with, you know, you know, um when we first started the podcast, when I started going down the road of the book, I never intended to write a book. I don't know if I've said that enough, but there was no like master plan to like start a podcast to write a book on this date that I'm gonna release this and I'm gonna, you know, there was never this master plan to do this stuff. The book started as a link to an article called the six sucks of the safety profession and when I published that the overwhelming outpouring of messages back to messages, Diem's emails, you know, I'm the lunatic that puts my cell phone on the internet, you know, all that kind of stuff. Um, it actually does work. I've had, I have sent you messages directly there before. I had your number and the, the, the stories, Right? And so from those stories, from those conversations, um, it really led me down this path of understanding that number one, like safety does suck. Like safety, safety sucks, right? Number two, the suck is systemic, right? It's across industries, across companies, across borders, right? It seems like every person that I talked to, whether it was in Arizona or it's in florida or we were talking to somebody in kuwait. They had a lot of the same problems, right? Which led me to the kind of the third piece of that, which was, we need to freaking do something about it, right? There's long gone are the days where we can just say that sucks and that safety is I want to just live with it. We had to do something about it. And so when I started doing, was actually writing a follow up article and then I started, I'm an early riser. So I'm up at like four or five a.m. I'm watching the sun come up and I'm writing and then I watched the sun go down and a half of the original book, you know, kind of written. Um, and so again, it never started this master plan. It started by listening to piers that were around me and started by really just looking around and understand that we were all going through this together and it was about time that somebody started screaming about, I think we just stayed quiet for way too long and we just pretend like it doesn't suck. And again, back to you, kind of maybe the ways that, um, the suck of the profession itself, again, I think it's just a symptom of, you know, our deeper assumptions around safety, the ways that we approach that, how we think we influence it, uh just sucks that we see as it relates to worker safety, same thing, it's all kind of coming from the same place. Um, but if we want to just better that entire experience and make safety suck less, both for the practitioner and the folks, back to the point that the folks that it's supposed to actually help that we so often forget about, it's about time we start talking about it, it's about time that we start doing something. Well, I appreciate you actually going out there in doing this because that was, I think that that was the biggest thing. A lot of people wanted to hold back and not say anything. I mean it's amazing just to hear on how that article changed everything. Have you thought about doing the junk professing thing? Am I, am I am I hitting the holy grail here? Because I'm asking the question because I think that this is really a part that's left out where this is not being discussed, where people need to hear this, right? I'm completely open to wherever this crazy wildlife takes me, who knows? Who knows what's in the cards, right? It will be whatever it shall be, right. Um, but I think that that would be a great place at least to see and safety sucks. The original book found its way into several different pieces of course curriculum and several different universities. Um, and for me that was such a, I'm grateful for that. Not from the, I'm an author and I'm glad to see my book their space, but because I started in the safety profession, extremely young younger than most. Um, to the point where any construction site, any power plant was on, I was always named the kid. Like you just go get the safety kid or safety guy safety kids, right? But yes, Junior, I understand right? And to so much of kind of my perspective and writing those original sucks. It wasn't to scare people away from this profession. It was, I think we need to talk about them before we just send people off into the field. Going to have safety is awesome because my first couple of years and I'm like, what the hell I want to do this? Is this, is this a, I should've got into like sales or something like this is crazy. Well technically this is part of sales, I mean it's like sales and marketing and all that kind of fun stuff combined together. So what do you have going on outside of this? So let's, let's let's take a break back. How's Covid treated you, How's the world going inside of their house, your world change? And I know you did a pretty, you didn't move recently to, yeah, you know, as with most, we kind of hit like brick wall down for a little while. I'm in phoenix Arizona, um we're in Orlando. Yeah. Um that's crazy so suddenly, but you know, as with most, you know, we kind of just felt our way through it and just kind of went with it. Um things kind of more recently, most of Arizona's pretty open, you know, so we kind of hate to say it kind of back to air quotes, right? Normal life things have felt pretty normal, you know, things have been pretty normal as far as everything and kind of this world, you know, when you're writing books can pretty much do that anywhere so that that's kind of easy. Most of our other life has gone virtual as with most people, but we've kind of just filter away through it and figured it out and we did move. So we were living in downtown middle of downtown phoenix Arizona um and the pandemic made us realize that we do not want to live in the downtown of anywhere um because it back to things that suck, like that's great, that's great when like you can actually go outside um but when you're in the concrete jungle and everything is closed. Not fun. So how are you liking suburbia? Because that's a hell of a change. I like it, man, I like it. So we're to the point now to where we're like, ok, we're gonna, our plan is to continually move farther and farther into the country right until one day I want like, you know, gates and fences and like compounds. You're not, you're not going to go to Virginia. No, I'm just, I'm just checking checking west Virginia. No joking. So we wrote the manifesto. So next is the compound, right? We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna go straight Waco because oh, you went there. You know, I am from there. You know, I did great. I did grow up in Waco. I love me some wake up. So nothing against that. So I know that I've taken up a lot of your time because you have a speech coming up here in the next few moments, but I appreciate you coming on jumping on having your combo where this is going to be our shortest conversation to date. I'm in shock. Yeah, I think God, our last podcast. I think it's been forever. Mostly my fault. We have to do one. We have to do one. But I think the last was like four hours or something, right? It's ridiculous. Right? So this is a 20 minute thing is not going to work, but I wanted to jump on and talk about the manifesto. Please tell people where they can get it if they want to go out there and look for it. So the easiest place to find right now is just go in. Amazon Search safety sucks. The manifesto, you can get a hold of it. You can also find uh safety sucks. The original book again. If you just go click on hot new releases under industrial safety, you'll find it there. But if you just, if you just search, safety sucks or safety sucks manifesto, it is available on amazon and it is amazon prime. You can get it real fast. I'm so excited about this. Can't wait to take a look forward to it. Sam. Thank you for coming by. We are broadcasting live from the A c. F. S. Safety Day 2021 in Orlando florida and we'll be back shortly after. Well, if I can move my screen around shortly after this. This episode has been powered by safety FM.