Well, hello ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, Keto savage.com and today I've got special guest Corey Anderson on the podcast. I'm not sure how exactly I found out about Corey. I think I found him on Instagram, but he's doing some awesome, awesome stuff. He's very passionate about the skills that have built our society, the metalworking skills, fabrication, the welding, He owns a foundry and he just doing some awesome stuff.
He's rebuilt an old school steam fired tractor and he's he's got an academy's taught people how to build these things and develop these skills. He makes kettle bells, dumbbells, things of that nature. He started that business when COVID was going on and there was a shortage of that very successful entrepreneur, very cool individual doing some awesome, awesome things. I just wanted to bring him on the podcast and talk about his story, his passions and his skill set.
Got no doubt that you will take something from this so that further delay. Sit back, relax and enjoy the conversation with Corey. We are live, Corey. How are you, brother? Doing awesome man, how are you doing? I'm good. I'm excited to be chatting with you man. I honestly don't know how we connect. I know I sent you Adm on Instagram, but I don't remember how I found your profile to begin with, but somebody recommended I follow you, I think.
And like the first glance at your profile, you're just doing all kinds of cool stuff. And I'm like, man, I got to get this on the podcast and just dive into it. So that's what we're doing now. Nice. Well, thank you. I appreciate the invite and looking forward to talking with you here. Yeah, 100% man. So give me some back. So I know you make you've got multiple different business
outlets. You're you make like gym equipment, but you've also got a lot of, you know, old school machinery, like you've got a steam traction tractor, whatever the official name for that is. It's super cool. I've been like just doom scrolling, looking at all the, the steam engine work you're doing. So what, what is it you do exactly? Like give me some breakdown of your your history I guess.
Yeah. So a little background about myself, I was raised kind of in, in a family where preservation of history and hard work was, was really a passion and I would say like a core value. And so bit I've been around the preservation of history my whole life, like growing up around antique tractors, steam engines, cars, and as a young boy listening, you know, really that environment allowed me to grow up around a lot of old timers who were, you know, passionate
about preserving history. And so those guys kind of became my influencers growing up as a little boy, You know, now we have social media influencers nowadays, but even before social media, we, we have influencers in our life, right? And, and to me it was, it was those old timers and I just, I love to listen to their stories and was just inspired by them. And, you know, all they talked about was working hard and, and keeping history alive and, and doing good, you know, doing good
things and helping other people. And, and I just, you know, so that that kind of became really a core of, of what I believed in ever since, ever since I was really young boy. And, and that that passion for preservation of history led me to bring to life one of the largest steam tractors that was ever produced. And that became basically it was a childhood dream of mine to bring the 150 case back to life because it was the largest one ever produced.
And none of them survived the the test of time. They were originally built in 19 O 5 and and none of them survived. They all got scrapped. And so as a childhood dream like that became kind of my mission is, Hey, I want to eventually have the resources, the, the shop, the equipment and be able to do that one day and bring this, this tractor back to life. And kind of that, that dream or that vision is what propelled me onto an entrepreneurial journey.
Because in order to take on a project like that, I had to create a lot of resources. I had to, you know, basically develop and build the means to be able to do a project like that. And so I started 20, yeah, just about 20 years ago. And I started started in my garage with a small manufacturing company just working by myself doing welding, machining and and started with nothing. Took out a loan from Wells Fargo for $11,000 and worked worked in my garage for a couple years.
Eventually started hiring some employees and moved out of my garage into a existing factory that was empty and just started growing, growing my business and in manufacturing, primarily doing welding, engineering, machining, metal fabrication. And yeah, within the first eight years grew, grew to a couple 100 employees and about 50-60 million in revenue. And, and at that point, then I, I kind of had developed the resources to be able to start on that big project of building
that tractor. And, and so around 2016, my, my shift kind of focused to focusing on bringing that tractor back to life. And, and, and I worked on that for like a year and a half pretty much as a full time, like
almost like a sabbatical. I mean, I still had to keep my companies running, but I had had teams and people in place to, to really help support that at that time and just worked 100% on bringing this tractor back to life, designing all the parts, casting everything, machining them myself. And with a, you know, I had a handful of friends that, that pretty much helped me ball as volunteers, just friends helping
me along the way. And we built that big tractor and in about a year and a half working on it full time. And so that was a pretty, pretty amazing feat to, you know, make up, make over 3-4 hundred parts, you know, and cast them, machine them, bring everything back to life. And this tractor weighs about £75,000. And so there's a lot of a lot of lot of iron and steel to to make and, and bringing that to life. I.
Love it man. Yeah. And so that's kind of like my, my, you know, just a high level journey in, in entrepreneurship and kind of my background and, and history, the preservation of history and skilled trades, like the skilled trades. Obviously, I, I grew up in the skilled trades passion, you know, had apprenticeship programs who worked under masters of machining and welding. And, and that was kind of my journey. I would say from when I was like 16 until I started my business when I was 22.
There was like a six year period where my, my, my only focus was on learning as much as possible from anyone who would, you know, let me work alongside of them and learn from them and developing skills to be able to do ultimately to build, to build that tractor, but those skills ultimately, you know, be became valuable in business as well. Totally. How old are you, Corey? I'm 41. Nice. Yeah. You feel like you were born in the wrong era.
Yeah, yeah. Everyone always jokes that I was born 100 years too late, but I, I, I have a unique, like, I, I, I, I kind of love the time frame that I'm, that I'm born in. And, and also I'm glad that I was born before technology had a huge influence. Like, you know, I grew up going through high school and we didn't really have cell phones and, and you know, I graduated high school in O2, so kind of before, really grew up without much technology.
And I think one thing that being so passionate about the preservation of history gives me an advantage in, in my business and how I've applied things is because what one of my mentors always said, you don't know where you're going unless you know where you've been. And you know that passion and my, my respect and wanting to learn from history helps me to also be very for like foresighted in what it, what is
coming in the future. So like throughout my business, even throughout my personal life, like I'm my passion is preserving history, but I'm extremely forward thinking when it comes to using technologies like in our manufacturing company, trying to trying to use the state-of-the-art software's
manufacturing equipment. You know, personally, I'm into all the future things a lot we do, I do a lot with AI cryptocurrency, like a lot of just a lot of the future, you know, so just kind of kind of being able to be the bridge in in and my passion for that history to also learn from how technology involved and the impacts it had throughout history to what is coming out today and what potential impacts
might that have. So even though, yeah, it would have been, I would like to have seen a lot of the stuff 100 years ago and how they did it, it would have been a, it have been a damn tough time to be alive, you know, compared to what we're the way we get to Live Today. Now the the preservation of history is cool though, man, before I fell in love with bodybuilding and entrepreneurship, my my passion, like my first real passion life
was Native American history. So after I graduated college, I was either going to start my own business or I was going to go to Alaska and live as a mountain man. I probably watch way too many Jeremiah Johnson movies or something, but that was my thing, man. Like, I loved it. I'd, I would, I'd made bow, bow
and arrows. I'd, I'd made my own buckskin leggings, like all this traditional Native American, you know, wisdom that I just wanted to bring back to life because that's what I was all passionate about. Like I just, I really appreciated how far we had come and what all things were like back then. And I feel like we just as a society, I'm so far removed from it that we just lack the perspective that it brings, you know? Right. Exactly. Yep. No, I I hear you. Exactly.
But not that's that's cool, man. So talk to me about the the manufacturing business. Like what is that entail? Exactly what what are y'all typically produce? And I know you've got the, the kettle bells and everything, but what, what is the what, what is the primary manufacturing you are doing? So our our core business is really our largest, our largest business by revenue is, is the
iron foundry. So at the at Dakota foundry, we we basically meltdown scrap iron and steel and we realloy it to make it a a good high quality either ductile or Gray iron. And then we're pouring, you know, basically pouring molten iron into, into sand molds and we, we are producing castings
for OEM manufacturers. So whether it be like construction equipment, power transmission gearboxes, you know, Department of Defense stuff, fitness equipment, anything that's basically an iron casting, you know, we're, we're producing for, for customers to their specifications. And so that's, that's really our core business. We also have, I also have like a number of products that I've designed and have patents on that are primarily in agricultural or oil and gas
industries. And so we actually manufacture like do the metal fabrication, do the welding and machining and, and build out and, and sell those products directly to whether it's, you know, farmers or drilling rigs rental companies. So we have kind of our own little product line stuff that we that we build those products. I used to, so how I started in manufacturing as I used to do just contract manufacturing, welding and machining. And we did that for about 12 years.
And I actually decided to focus all our contract manufacturing into iron foundry rather than welding and machining to just, you know, grow 1 core business. And also there's a lot less iron foundries than there are welding shops in, in the US And so there's a lot, lot higher demand and, and need for that. And so as far as welding and machining anymore, my my rule is I only pretty much only build something that I've designed. So we only do our own products in that aspect.
Nice. Is soup and then. Like metalworking fatification in general. Like one of my best friends is a master blacksmith and I'll go over there and he makes like these crazy ornate, you know, staircase cases. He just made this elevator for this multi gazillionaire's house. But like seeing what he can do with metal is just, it blows my mind. And it's so malleable. You can create anything with it. And obviously it's pretty
robust. But I mean, like, I just got much respect for the skill involved in creating something of that caliber and being able to do so at scale. Yeah, yeah. And it's, you know, I, I grew up with that passion as well. And, you know, even grew up around other blacksmiths and, and blacksmithing is, you know, one of those things that is becoming a lost art.
You know, understanding how to form metal, how you know how to how to treat it, how to hammer it, how to harden it, you know, anneal it and all that type of stuff is, is getting to be really a lost art. I mean, there's very few guys who understand that level of detail anymore.
And when it comes to metallurgy and, and working with steel and, but yeah, I, you know, having that kind of passion growing up for growing up with that and then embracing the technology is, is really what the technology is really critical in, in scaling that type of business. You know, like it's hard to scale if, if, if you're, you can be the best blacksmith in the world, but you, you, you only have the capacity of your two hands, right?
And, you know, it's hard to scale unless you started implementing some technology with, with that. And it is kind of unique because the shortage of those skilled trades is creating a high demand. So somebody who's a very talented blacksmith, I mean, they can make, you know, multiple 6 figure incomes just working by themselves in a, in a, in a garage, just because they have a talent that is very rare and people will pay, you
know, good money for that. Why do you think there's been this massive decline in that skill set? Obviously with technology, you got a lot of people, you know, working, you know, desk jobs and working from a computer non-stop. But I mean, there's still the demand for the products that come from that skill. So what what's happening on a macro level with just that trade in general, like fabrication in general? Is it just all going the route of robotics and a lot of stamped
material? It's not, as you know, resilient to time. Or what do you think's going on there on a deeper level? Well, I mean, my kind of my belief is that it, it kind of all stems back to the 1980s when, you know, a lot of a lot of college universities are government funded, right, Land grant universities and stuff like that. During the 80s there was a, you know, the universities weren't doing very good.
So that's when they they kind of started coming out with these programs where it was like, you know, trying to appeal, trying to motivate people to go to university rather than going into a skilled trade. So they had, you know, like micro talks a lot about this, you know, those old posters where, you know, they have the guy in the lab coat who went to university and he's got a big smile on.
And then they have the picture of the, you know, the, the blue collar guy with his lunch pail who looks sad and miserable. And they're like, well, if you don't go to college, you're going to be this guy with the lunch pail. And so there was, there was a big over the last 30-40 years, there was really, I don't know, kind of this war on getting people, you know, moving people from skilled trades into getting
them into universities. I mean, that's then there's a whole political debate about that, right? You can, I mean, how much money does it cost the average person graduate with student debt nowadays, right? So there's, there's obviously advantages to getting people to go, go rack up $100,000 in student debt. But aside from that political piece, you know, I think we just really made it and, and we, you know, over the last 20 years taking technology, the, the science and technology classes
out of high school. So basically, you know, telling probably 2 generations of kids like these jobs are so unimportant, we're not even going to show them to you anymore. And it wasn't until I would say, you know, the last five years that we've realized like we're going to have a huge problem in the United States because the baby boomer generation is really the last large generation who
are in the skilled trades. And for the last two or three generations, we haven't put kids, We we've been detouring kids from going into skilled trades. So now there's now there's a huge shortage of supply, but the demand is still there. And so that's why it's like, you know, if if you tried to build a house or try to do a construction project or anything, even try to hire a plumber nowadays, it's like 1, if you can get somebody to show
up, that's one miracle. And two, they're just getting, they can charge you whatever they want because there's such a shortage for capability in, in these, these trades nowadays. Yeah. And I would imagine from like a manufacturing standpoint like we've outsourced so much of it overseas, like there's not near the in house production that there was either. Right.
And, and that was yeah, since since early 2000, we've outsourced, you know, a lot of lot of the manufacturing got sent out to Mexico, to China, you know, and, and like if you, if you look at just iron boundaries, for example, we only have about 500 iron boundaries left in the United States and compared to about 33,000 in China.
So I mean, that just shows the demographics of, you know, we've, we've spent so much of that work into other countries and basically we've shut down those operations here. Besides the ones who were able to adapt and withstand just, you know, the pressure from the cost pressure from over, you know, competing with overseas markets and the different and the
regulations, right? The, the, the, you know, in, in the US to compete, you know, you've got the EPA, you've got OSHA, you've got a lot of regulatory arms that cost a business a lot more money than it does to operate in China or Mexico where, you know, they, they don't really care about how much pollution goes into the air or as much about the safety of their workers as, as we do mandate over here.
Right, And I feel like a lot of people over here, unlike you, they they haven't really, or many of them haven't really embraced the technological component of it. So like the idea of having a website, marketing, social media, like that's all kind of foreign to a lot of these skilled workers. So like, I mean, if I was to, you know, restart like for my kids, for instance, like if they want to get into, you know, mowing yards and chopping firewood like I did growing up for money.
Like if I just come up, hook them up with like a website and like a social platform and like make it legit, I feel like they would already be the light years above the competition who is still maybe handing out business cards if if they're even doing that. Right, they're calling people on the Rolodex. Yeah, yeah. It's crazy, yeah. Talk to me about Iron Warrior. So you've got, so you've got the, the code of foundry.
That's where you're basically melting all this down, putting into the molds, generating whatever you need to from a fabrication standpoint. But then you've got the Iron Warrior of the, the gym production. I guess that's primarily the the the dumbbells, the kettle bells, gym equipment, things of that nature. Right. Yep. I'll, yeah, I'll give you a little background on how Iron
Warrior came about. So the concept of Iron Warrior started about 10 years ago in, in my head when I was, we were hiring a lot of people in the skilled for skilled trades jobs who didn't have any experience in skilled trades because, you know, there, there's not a lot of kids going into tech colleges or community colleges and learning skilled trades anymore. But we, we still needed to grow our team.
And so one thing I recognize is we were, we were having a pretty high success rate with just identifying a key character and value ideals that somebody had to align with and then bringing that person in based on their character and their values and then training them on the job, basically on the job training for skilled trades. And we were able to basically bring, you know, most skilled trades people in within a couple of months and get them from zero to 80% effective.
And, you know, versus. So then why would you go to two years of tech college if you can get paid to do it in two months at a company, right. So, so that was this concept of Iron Warrior actually came about when when I was starting to understand like, hey, there's a huge demand for skilled trades and there's huge demand for people who have the right values, who have the right work ethic, who can be a team player, who have grit, mental toughness, resiliency, accountability, all
these things. And really that's the most important thing because the skills you can teach anybody who has a lot of those the right values. And so the Iron Warrior actually came about as a idea for an apprenticeship program. And now now since it's evolved into a 5O1C3 nonprofit that, that we operate where where basically that we do just that. We, we create opportunities for, for younger kids who have an interest in the skilled trades
and basically run them through. It's like a blend between a boot camp for character development and and a skilled training program like apprenticeship. And so that's where Iron Warrior comes comes about as iron skills warrior character. I like and yeah. And during so that that had been kind of something that I've been brewing for, for an apprenticeship system over the last 10 years.
And then COVID happened and, you know, I'm personally have always been into fitness and, and, you know, focusing on training myself and just always sharpening the axe, you know, and COVID happened. There's there, there's a huge shortage of fitness equipment. Gyms are shutting down. People aren't able to go work out at the gym.
A lot of people are trying to buy equipment to work out at home, but a lot of, you know, 90, like 98 and over 98% of the fitness equipment at the time of COVID was all produced in China and obviously China shut down. There was impact to logistics and getting product here. So they're just, I don't know if you remember you were trying to or you tried to buy anything at that time, but it was just almost impossible to get your hands on fitness equipment for a while.
Yeah I I remember buying I got a whole rack of dumbbells that I got for $0.79 a pound and then COVID happened and everything was non existent or like 4 bucks a pound plus. Right. Just crazy. Yeah. So when that happened, you know, at at the same time, you know, COVID impacted all of our customers, a lot of lot of them manufact, big manufacturing companies that had to, had to shut down for a while or whatever. You know, a lot of our customers ended up down, you know, 5060% that year.
And so basically I thought, well, I either have to lay off my people or cut their hours back, you know, to kind of survive this, this downturn with, with the economy and, and, and our customers being impacted. Or I can find something else that we can make and try to quickly invent a solution that's going to keep, keep my team busy
and keep everybody going. And so recognizing there was an, a need for fitness equipment, that was one of the only things that there was a need for at that time. You know, I, I was like, hey, I mean, we, I can design and make tooling for, for the patterns and gear up and start producing fitness equipment and, and basically, you know, supply a demand and a need out there in this current time. And, and then also keep my people, my team going through throughout. And so that's what I did.
And we started, started with kettle bells. And then since so many people were working out at home, you know, not a lot of people have room at home for a big gym. And so I was trying to think of like, how could I come up with something that's, you know, pretty multifunctional, basically a new innovative approach to a piece of fitness
equipment. Like how can you use one, one or two pieces of equipment and do a lot of multifunctional movements with it. And so that's when I actually designed and invented the War Bell. And I'm not sure if you've seen that product on our. Yeah, I'm going to. I'm going to buy one. Man, that looks super sweet. I'm going to get one.
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's and that that ended up really taking off too, because it's just, you know, so multifunctional, you don't need to have a lot of a lot of pieces of equipment. And so that really just helped us as a team, like overall as a company and a team just ride out that challenge of COVID and, and, and that economic downturn. But then as a result, we created a whole whole nother product line and a whole nother business
around that. And, you know, since the Iron Warrior concept I had in my mind from the from the Academy and the skilled training and, and there was kind of a lot of connection, you know, that just made sense that the brand products with the Iron Warrior because it's, you know, they're iron products, they're made by people who have that Iron Warrior mindset. And, you know, we also support, do a lot of military support and supporting warriors with the proceeds from that Iron Warrior business.
And so, yeah, that's, that's just kind of how that came about. And, and now we just, you know, we, we're still still making the Iron Warrior products and, and still continuing to grow that business as well is. It still growing pretty good now that COVID is totally over. Well, the demand, I mean the demand is quite a bit different, you know, now with, with a lot of the supply now. Now it's more, you know, it's more price, price competitive.
So you know, you can, and even some of the other companies like Rogue and some of them actually came out with, you know, American made product lines as well to compete with the, the to not just sell China or, or offshore equip fitness equipment. But yeah, it's, it's more, it's more competitive based on price now than it is than it was
obviously during COVID. But with the war bell and stuff that we stuff that we have that's unique, there's certainly a lot of, you know, just continued growth and interest in that. So, So what all the Have you got the kettle bells? You got the war bell? What? What else does that leg of the business create? Well, we, we do have. So that's the main stuff that we that we sell. We do, we do have a line of plates and some other products that that we actually don't have on the website.
We, we kind of use them mainly for, you know, sponsoring gyms like, you know, whether it's a high school gym or a, or a law enforcement gym or a military base or something. We'll, we'll make some products that we kind of more or less donate to applications like that, but we don't necessarily sell them because it's, you know, to be competitive with, you know, per pound basis with China and stuff like that, it
gets to be pretty low margin. So it's, you know, it's, it's stuff that I'm passionate about, like doing, but it's, it's better in the right situation for us to almost, you know, give that away and support a good cause rather than to, to try to compete at that on something like that. Yeah, totally. So with regards to The Academy, Is it like a specific age demographic you're primarily
working with? I would say our target, our target age demographic is 18 to 24 is kind of kind of that target demographic that we're looking for. Just because that seems to be the right age where, where, you know, the, the, the candidates are the most moldable yet.
And also starting to be become hungry and, and wanting, you know, wanting to get a, a career, wanting to make money, wanting to, you know, get a life and, and, and stuff kind of planned out and set up and ready to set goals and that type of stuff. What do you? See, like with the people, that kind of our demographic. Oops, sorry. With with the people that are going through that, like what are some what are some common
denominators that you're seeing? Like, are you like impressed by the work ethic as a whole or is it kind of like, man, I got to really get these these young kids up to par? Like what? What's kind of just the overall vibe you're getting from the people coming in these days?
Yeah, it's, I mean, my, my perspective is sometimes a little bit biased just because I, you know, I was, I was raised almost two or three generations older, older than than even I am was just my mindset and how, you know, the, the work ethic, the drive, the attention spans, A lot of that is, is definitely challenging for sure. And, and that's, but that's also where we see the biggest opportunities, you know, and, and that's also where we see the biggest need in the workplace.
If, if, if somebody, if somebody can come in with grit, mental toughness, integrity and accountability into any company nowadays, they're, they're in a, they're in a category of that's pretty rare now, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, it's kind of crazy, man. Like we've had several employees at our operation and like now as it sits currently, like the vast majority of my workforce is twice my age because I've just been more impressed with the older than the the younger
people. But it's like, you're absolutely right, man. If they come in, they've got those core fundamental values. It's like it's they're in a class all their own. Right. And, and the opportunities for them, like when we, when we, you know, if we have a, a, a person like that, that joins our team or they went through the Iron Warrior program and then decided, Hey, we want to, I want to stay on for a longer term apprenticeship or, you know, stay on potentially permanently.
Like when they have those values and, and, and that drive, I mean, they're, they're the ones you invest everything into, you know, and that's, and that's just, you know, they get the most opportunities because they're showing the most interest and effort. Totally. You've got kids, right? I think I saw a picture on your Instagram with some family members there. Yep, I've got a 18 month old girl and then my wife and I have another one coming in May next year.
Nice nice, I got a 2 1/2 year old and one on the way as well. Nice. How, how has your upbringing personally kind of be like this old soul, so to speak, But also with what you've experienced with technology nowadays and how you've been able to leverage that, coupled with just how you've, you know, seen your workforce, how you've seen people throughout the Academy, Like how has all of that shaped
you from a parenting standpoint? It's kind of young now because 18 months, you know, you, it's, it's weird because like you want to install these things, but at the same time at 18 months, they've only got, you know, so much bandwidth that you can put on them. But like. As they get older, how has what you've learned? How are you going to implement that into your parenting
strategy I guess? I think one of the, probably one of the key elements that I've learned just through working with generations of different people is that is, is really, I would say that key element is the importance of discipline and raising, you know, and, and raising kids with, with the right amount of discipline to where, you know, they, they're respectful, they're, you know, they're accountable, they, they understand what's, what's expected and they work hard to
try to achieve that. I mean, I know it's discipline, the one word that covers a lot of things, but it kind of starts just by just by maintaining that discipline and setting those boundaries and, and, and holding accountability to that. And, and that's something, you know, my wife and I are, are both very much aligned on is, you know, trying to stay committed to maintaining a high level of, of discipline with, with how our, how our kids are raised.
Not that, I mean, not that we're, and I don't mean that we're just, you know, spanking them every time they turn around. I don't mean that type of discipline, but just that they are raised discipline in in everything that they do. How do you think y'all will approach like like education for them? Like, you think you'll put them through the public school system, home school, college? I mean, what? What's your thoughts on that? I, that's a good question.
I mean, I personally am not a huge fan of college. I, I, I ended up dropping out of college after three years. I was also work doing an apprenticeship in skilled trades
at the same time. And I just college to me and, and I'm, I mean, there are certain areas, certain backgrounds where it is, I'm sure you know, necessary, but in, in kind of the line of work and where my, where my path fell, it was, it was so much better to learn from the people who were actually doing the work and learning, learning kind of on the job rather than learning like the theoretical behind everything. And especially when it comes to
engineering and manufacturing. So I, I, I definitely would not be forcing them to go to college as far as public education, that that's a tough question, you know, because the alternative with homeschooling is creates other, you know, other challenges. You know, we're, we're as a
family, very Christian based. And so, you know, I know there's, there's also some where, where we're at in Montana, there's, you know, like Christian kind of private schools, which a lot of people around here have been pretty, pretty happy with and successful with. But I think, I think the future becomes a hybrid of homeschooling in a community format, because what I, what I would be afraid of was just strict homeschooling is losing
that social interaction. And, you know, I look at my, I look, I, I, I reflect on my background growing up in high school. I was never, I was never really interested in school except for history and science, but I was never really interested in school. But I, I loved school because I loved the, you know, I loved sports because I loved the team. I loved the teamwork. I loved the, the competitiveness that it taught me. I loved the discipline that it required for training to, to be
competitive. And then I just, you know, loved the social interaction of, you know, a lot of in high school, I was getting in trouble a lot, you know, doing, doing things that my parents probably would have, you know, had a heart attack if they knew that we were doing that stuff. But it just it created, created a lot of experience where, you know, you know, I learned to take risks.
I learned to, you know, you learn to negotiate, you learn to sell, you learn, you learn a lot of skills through that social interaction and a lot of the intangible stuff that comes with going to a school with a group of people and having a community. So I don't know yet exactly what we're going to do. We're still kind of seeing how how the options are shaking out, you know, over the next four or
five years. But I think in general, it has to probably move to some sort of a hybrid approach where, you know, good, good programs are taught in a community based thing, but it doesn't require so many individual teachers to do it because it's, you know, basically using, using a platform. Or maybe it becomes AI. Maybe all the teachers become, you know, are, are AI and they're just the people are the kids are just learning that way.
You know, I, I think it's going to significantly change though from the public school that you and I grew up with. Yeah, it's it's tough, man, because like when I was in school, I mean, we had like a shop class in school. So like my last period we were like, you know, welding and stuff in high school. And I don't think high schools even, they probably don't have liability insurance to do that anymore. I don't know. But now it's like the community component.
I don't even think is there so much because people at school are just looking down their phones the whole time. Right. Yep. Yeah. And that's, you know, I mean that that piece of technology has certainly impacted the social skills and that community aspect and just connections and relationships and in a in a very negative way for sure.
I mean, so that's where it comes down to that, you know, setting those boundaries and having, having discipline because you know, I think I think it's important not it's, it's important to understand how to utilize technology, but it can't become, you can't become the only thing that you have a relationship with. Yeah, I think the homeschooling, I mean, especially now with all the advancements in homeschooling, like back when you and I were kids, homeschoolers were the weird ones.
But like now, in fact, there's just so many opportunities for. I mean, there's so many different homeschooling curriculums. They've got so much. They just have so many resources at their fingertips.
And I feel like from an exposure and a community standpoint, like when you are just exposing them to people, which you would buy you would be doing by default, having employees, having the Academy, having people that your kids are constantly seen and interacting with, I feel like they would be able to kind of capitalize on that interaction standpoint kind of as a default.
Oh, for sure, yeah. And I mean, that's, you know, that's how I grew up too, you know, growing up around the Steam shows and, you know, my parents, between my parents, friends and people that they were working with, I mean, those all of those interactions certainly shaped, you know, you learn from those conversations where you're just sitting at the dinner table and listening to people talk, you know, and, and having that exposure to all sorts of that type of stuff is
certainly beneficial for them as well. Yeah. What do you think? It's kind of like a loaded question. Nobody knows the answer to it. But like with you having kids with you know what you know from the history, but then also leveraging everything that we have at our fingertips from a technological standpoint with AI, with your interest in crypto, with your background and you know, firm faith in your beliefs spiritually. Like, are you more or less optimistic about where things are headed?
Like not to be doom and gloom, but are you you feeling positive about the the trajectory of our society as a whole or you feel like we got a lot of work to do? There's a lot of things that are very positive. I, I mean, I would say in general, I see the technology, the, the shifts and in all the technology, you know, with AI, with, with decentralized finance, which is cryptocurrency reducing a lot of government regulation type stuff through some of these opportunities.
I, I, I see a lot of the technology aspect very positive. The biggest challenge I think is going to be as humans, how we adapt to such a massive shift in technology and how, how the world operates. And I think that's going to be very challenging. I think it's going to require, you know, a lot of the easy jobs are going to become AI or automated and it's going to require people if they want to become successful to have to put in the work.
And, you know, either either going into skilled trades, going into going into some, some job where it requires innovation, it requires thought, it requires, you know, physical work, all the things that can't easily be automated.
I think there's going to be huge opportunities and that's going to be where all the money is made because, you know, a lot of the other stuff is getting going to become very low cost, You know, when it comes to what you can do with AI versus, you know, paying, paying somebody to do that role. So I, I, I'm a little bit fearful how, how fast we can
adapt as humans. And you know, we, we, we went, if you look at just the last century, you know, from start out, from 1920 or The Dirty thirties, 1930s, right? Like that was some of the hardest periods of time to live through with The Dirty 30s with World War 2 and it and it formed some of the hardest men and women who who survived those
times. And then, you know, from the 80's, the 90s and 2000 we have technology has advanced so rapidly that it's arguably really easy to live in in in the United States anyway. And you have pretty much every, every experience, every entertainment, anything, anything you could ever desire you, you almost have at your fingertips for a relatively low cost.
And so just over the last 100 years, you know, we have had to transform from hardened, you know, very, very survivalistic mindset to, I mean, not many people today living in the US are waking up wondering if they're going to survive the day, right, from a, from a food, water and security standpoint. And the, the, the, the challenge with that is that, you know, we're, we're kind of at the interim period where technology has advanced to make things easy.
But the problem is going to be technology is going to advance, continue to advance to take away a lot of opportunity for those things that are too easy. And yeah, I'm not sure how. I'm not sure how we adapt to that. Yeah. And you kind of want to, I mean, like, I don't know, like from a generational standpoint, like the old saying, you know, hard times create hard men, soft times create soft men. It's like it's skipsy a generation, so to speak. And you want to, you know, hedge
against that. I feel like entrepreneurship, building a business and fitness are like 2 very practical, actionable things that kind of hedge against that natural tendency to just lean into, you know, convenience and comfort. Like if you're an entrepreneur, if you're pursuing fitness to some degree, like it's like a self-imposed hardship that keeps you sharp. Right, exactly.
Yeah. And, and I think, I think the transition is going to be, you know, for the, for those who are willing to put in the work, there's going to be, it's going to become easier, easier and easier to become an entrepreneur because there's more, more tools at your disposal.
They're at less cost. You know, I mean, you can have, you can have an AI executive assistant for very low cost, you know, just simple, like a lot of those things are going to help make an entrepreneur's life easier, You know, just allowing them to focus on more on the core business and to be more
producing more value themselves. So I think there's going to be more opportunities for, for kind of that entrepreneurish approach, even though it will limit a lot of the, the other potentially other jobs, but it will be interesting. Yeah. And, and how many people are willing to take on like being an entrepreneur as, as you know is it's, it's extremely demanding. There's a lot of, there's a lot more effort that that goes in before the reward comes.
So you have to have grit. You have to, you have to be willing to stay in the fight when a lot of people would just want to give up at that point. And you have to just have hope that everything you're doing is going to pay off in the future. And so there's a lot of deep rooted, you know, grit and resiliency that has to be a part of your makeup to be able to do
that as well. Yeah, I think the the barrier to entry be so much lower, but as a result, there's going to be a lot more competition at that entry level. So which creates a lot of opportunity for those that are the cream of the cop, the crop to be noticed and just staying far above all that competition because they're no longer competition at that point. They're just, you know, beneath it. For sure.
But it's interesting, man. From a societal standpoint, I feel like with all the technology, all the social media, all the entertainment, I feel like there's just this, you know, it's in our DNA to like kind of return to this very ancestral, deep rooted reality that is just ingrained in our system. So like there's all this technology, all this advancement, but I feel like people are starting to crave and yearn for this kind of old school approach to things like this nostalgia.
Like just simply sitting around a campfire and have a conversation, looking at people in the eye as opposed to to an Instagram DM. I feel like people are craving that more than ever before right now. Yeah, I, I agree. And I think, you know, I think, I think COVID really threw a wrench in, in kind of the development of, of human progression in a way that like it, it, it almost forced that seclusion for a while and really, really rapidly changed a lot of habits.
And I think, you know, we won't know for a while whether whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. But I, I definitely have seen more exactly what you're talking about, more of that, you know, yearning for connection or, you know, technology resets or, you know, just not having technology around for, you know, whether it's a half a day, a day or a couple days, you know, doing retreats out in nature.
Just that that stuff like you, you mentioned is just really rooted in our ancestry and something that we've, we've, we aren't really exposed to much anymore. Yeah, yeah. There's going to be like a a reckoning at some point or another. Some whether it comes, you know, from an implosion from within of us just overcorrecting or or what now, but I feel like at some point in the law stabilize and we kind of figured out our, you know, the right path, but who knows what's going to happen
for that catalyst to take place. It'd be interesting for sure. Yeah, and, and, and in the meantime, you know, the thing that I, the thing that I'm even though there's, you know, there's a lot of things that can be frustrating with, with the development of society today. But the thing that I'm most excited about is there's, I truly believe there's never been a better time with more opportunity for those who are willing to get up and put in the work than there is today.
And you know, it's just those who are willing to work hard, those who are willing to not quit, who, who are interested in investing in themselves, whether that's it. And it really needs to be a combination of fitness, health, you know, learning skills and knowledge. If, if you're willing to invest in yourself, you know, outside of work and, and just growing yourself, there's, there's, there's so much opportunity out there.
I mean, it's if you're focused on growing yourself and taking care of you, know yourself physically, mentally, spiritually like you, you almost can't not be successful nowadays. Yeah, no, I completely agree, man. I'm optimistic in that sense for sure. I mean, when opportunity abounds, then the the equalizer is just the effort you're willing to put in. Right. Yep. So 100% what are what are you
personally excited about? What's what's coming in the pipeline that this gets you stoked for the future? So I am currently setting up a couple additional shops here in Montana and I'm actually going to be setting up and creating apprenticeship opportunities through the Iron Warrior Academy for some, for some young people to, to come and work with me. And, you know, we do training in the morning.
We do like, you know, the physical mental training, but also just doing learning and doing some hands on skills work. I'm, I'm pretty excited for that because you know, I, I'm, I'm really focused on right now. What, what can I do to help pass on the skills that I have that have been taught to me from, you
know, generations before me? And how do we keep, how do we keep transferring these skills and creating more people who are able to keep manufacturing and innovation and those things, you know, a really prominent force in in America. And so that's, you know, besides, besides, obviously, you know, being a new dad in May and, and you know, the family, the family aspect that, you know, that we're growing here.
Like I would say that's probably one of the things that I'm most excited about is just getting, getting the opportunity and and having the, the resources and capacity to, to try to invest more in the in the future generations are. There like any like specific, you know, skills that like you will not allow your kids to leave the house without knowing like basic stuff like, Hey, you got to be able to change your own flex a tire before you can before you can drive or just
something like that. Yeah, well, they're, they're going to probably all know how to Weld and some of these skills they might not ever know need to use, right. But I mean, I'm going to teach them how to Weld. I'm going to teach them machining and G code and and 3D CAD for engineering and designing. So, so basically, I mean, my, my goal would be that they would have the capability to build something that they that they
would want in the future. Because I, I really believe, you know, I don't know if you've ever heard, heard that saying by Musashi, but where he says to no one thing to know one thing really well is to know 10,000 things. And, and he, you know, he, he was a, a master swordsman back in the, you know, hundreds of years ago.
But basically he said that if you have, if you develop and become very good at one skill, the, the process that you've, the journey you went on and learning that skill and also that depth of knowledge and a skill set and understanding makes it very easy for you to learn other things. But also just naturally knowing and, and, and being able to
apply that to other things. So I think even though, even though my kids may never go into skilled trades, my I will, I will be very passionate about making sure they are very skilled because I think that just helps apply to no matter what they do it it just multiple, it's a multiplier. Yeah. And if you're skilled at, if you're like truly skilled at any one thing, like the confidence that that brings with it that you can then apply to anything is is hard to argue. Right, so exactly.
Where? Where in Montana are you in? We are in northwest Montana, Flathead lake nice so up by like Kalispell Whitefish Glacier National Park area. That must be how I stumbled on you in the 1st place. So I've I've been now I'm part of like Rob Bailey's flag nor fail mastermind group. And then I was following a path somewhere there I found Montana Knife company. I think that's probably how I wound up find out about. You. Yeah. Yeah, Rob. Yeah.
Rob's only probably about 2525 miles from my place here. Very cool. Yeah, Montana's beautiful, man. I've not haunted there. I've haunted all around there. But I've been through there several times and Montana's like a whole different spot. Yeah, yeah, it's we, we certainly love, you know, I, I grew up in South Dakota, so I, I
grew up in the flatlands. You know, we always joke that you could watch your dog run away for two weeks, you know, and like moving out to the mountains and, and being kind of in nature, in the trees, like was always a a dream of mine to my dream was to have a shop in the mountains where I could have a wood stove and a fire going in the shop and just be working on stuff and look outside and see mountains and trees and like
that's that. That was a dream that I really aspired towards and, and finally, finally got out there. I. Love it, man, I love it. Well, you're a freaking inspiration, brother. I appreciate the fact that you're, you know, not deviating from our, our history. I think that is very important. I mean, I've, as, as you said in the very beginning, like you can't possibly know where you're going if you don't know where you've come from. And I, you know, having that
passion for history as well. It's like that's what I want to double down on. So I admire the fact that you're instilling that in our youth. And I just think what you're doing super cool as well. So keep doing it man. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. I've really enjoyed our conversation and and appreciate the opportunity to visit with you. Yeah, A. 100% man. So where do people go to to dig deeper into your world? So you can go to Corey Anderson,
KORY, anderson.com. That's, that's my kind of my personal website that has links to a lot of our other, other stuff. But it, you know, it takes you to either the 150 case project, which we have a, a different, different site and, and kind of a whole mission there where we actually take that engine around to different shows and do events and kind of, you know, bring awareness to the, to the preservation of history and American innovation and hard
work. And then, you know, ironwarrior.com is where you can really go see like our fitness, the fitness side of our business. And then there's a link there to the Academy where if you have anybody who's interested in skilled trades, or they don't even have to be interested in the skilled trades. You know, in in particular, just a young person who wants to go through a character development program, learn some skills along the way and just, you know, have have a good opportunity to be
successful in the future. And that's, I mean, that's what we're all about there. And so yeah, coreyanderson.com and ironwarrior.com would be the the two primary locations to check out some info. Awesome. I will definitely link out, make it easy for people to find you and I, I certainly encourage people to check out the case project that my, my 2 year old son is massively into tractors and coal-fired locomotive engines. So like it's a, it's a blend of A2.
It's pretty awesome. Yeah, if he goes to my YouTube page, there's a lot of videos if he hasn't seen the the 150 case there yet. But yeah, on my YouTube at Corey Anderson, we've got a lot of a lot of cool steam steam stuff and rolling coal on that page. Very cool, very cool. Well, Corey, keep killing it, brother. Like I said, I'm out what you're doing. I appreciate what you're doing and definitely keep in touch man. All right. Sounds good. Well, thanks, Robert.
Appreciate, appreciate having me on here. You bet. See you brother. Happy holidays. All right, Merry Christmas. Take care. Christmas bye bye. Bye.