Welcome everybody to another episode of Let's Ask Paul, the podcast where you get
to ask me Paul Abernathy anything you want about the National Electrical Code and all
things electrically related. On today's podcast, it's going to be a little different.
We're going to be doing a promo or talking about our latest electrical program
that's available to all electricians, not just those that are studying for an electric
exam, but for anybody where you're an apprentice, a helper, a journeyman,
a master, if you want to learn the National Electoral Code at a
much higher level, then that's what we're going to be talking about today on
this edition of Let's Ask Paul. I'm also going to be giving a comment.
If you wait until the end, I'm going to be giving a comment
on our social media platforms and some of the efforts that we have and some
of the things that we're no longer going to be doing on platforms like TikTok
and Instagram and things like that, and we're going to be using more of
those platforms for our marketing, and we're no longer going to answer people's comments
or questions anymore. There's other people who think they're experts will let them go
on and pick up that mantle and we'll just move on. And we gave
it a try. We thought we would come back and answer comments for people,
but it just it's just futile to do so on social media like that.
People think they know everything, so it's just not worth the effort.
But we'll talk about that at the ends. Let's get to what the topic
is today. So many people know are familiar with our creation and working with
Engage and creating courses that they're adapted online to learn the National Electrical Code,
especially for electrical exam preparation. So we have since two thousand and seventeen,
we have been creating here in Texas. We have been creating courses using published
material that we have rights to use. We've been augmenting it. We change
it, we modify it, we add our own things, we add our
images and illustrations in video. We're necessary to enhance it all to create something
that we call the fast track system. Now learning the NEC is it's really
not brain surgery, right, So you can buy books, you can buy
DVDs, you can buy other online courses. I think what has helped us
stand out and helped so many people learn the NEEC is the fact that they
can interact with me on special sessions like Wednesday nights message boards, and of
course they can post questions to Paul Abernathy dot com. I think that's what
sets us apart versus a lot of the educators out there. So so we've
been doing the exam prep for many, many years. Of course, grounding
and bonding as well, which is a specialty because most people know that I
serve on two code making panels five and seventeen, and I'm most proud of
being on code Panel five when it comes to grounding and bonding and those applications
in article two fifty and Article two hundred. But I'm equally proud of working
on seventeen, dealing with articles for twenty two, for twenty four, dealing
with six eighty six, eighty two, all of those type of things.
I you know, for twenty two, I think I said that I get
a joy out of those as well. Those are any significant articles to be
a part of, and so we're always excited about working with that and seeing
the change of the codes through cycle to cycle. You know, again,
there's there's people out there in the public that are ignorant. They don't understand
how the cycles change, they don't understand why. All they want to do
is say that, oh, it's because the manufacturers are trying to sell product.
Look, as I tell people, I can't fix stupid. I can't
educate everybody and explain the facts to everybody, especially those that don't want to
listen. But what we can do is create a program that is not tailored
to exam prep, but it's tailored to teaching people anybody, journeymen, masters,
apprentices, helpers, young people who want to get an idea of what
the code is like. It's going to be tougher for them because they have
none of that knowledge, but it's going to be tougher. But we wanted
to create a program or enhance a program that that anybody can buy, that
you know, that it's available on your phone, that you can use anytime
twenty four to seven, it never expires, and you can you know,
maybe you have an office where you're the head electrician and you've got five or
six people that work for you, and you want to get them all on
the same page. Well, then that's what our new program is going to
do. Uh. And so we're going to be talking about that a little
bit today. Uh, and then I'll go into some other stuff later.
So we're talking about mastering the NEC. So Mastering the NEC is a course
that we put out that talks about the National Electrical Code, has the code
references, has great illustrations, and it literally walks you through the beginning history
of the NEC, and it walks you through through things like special occupancies,
special equipment, classified hazardous locations. It kind of moves you through. It
gives you the information that you need to know to be more knowledgeable in the
field as you're learning the trade. And so it's a less of an emphasis
on exam prep. It's more of an emphasis on learning the National Electrical Code.
And so that's what this new program is all about. And again it's
called Mastering the NEC. It's less expensive than our exam prep program for a
couple of reasons. For one, you don't inherently get access to Wednesday nights
okay, because you don't need it. That's exam prep is usually the Wednesday
night sessions, so you don't get that. You also don't get access to
fast Tracks Tube, which is the video platform, because again that is more
tailored towards the electrical videos and calculations and things. It's basically the course material.
Now you're going to get access to all of the basic course material and
of course you can post on our message forum if you will if you have
questions and all that, but it's the base course material. But we were
able to drop the price down so you don't get the the you get to
competency reviews and things like that. None of that changes. You test your
skills and your ability all those type of things to make sure that you understand
the NEC. But you're not under any kind of grading system from us or
anything like that. You just it's it's a learning based system. So we're
excited about it. It's called Mastering the NEC, and it's going to work
you all the way through every element, whether it's the general stuff like spacing
two ten dot fifty two A spacing, it's going to work through the kitchen
two ten, that fifty two B and C. It's going to work through
all of that very detailed graphics and illustrations. Of course, anything that you
don't understand, I'm always here to answer for you. I'm not going anywhere
that I'm aware of. So it's it's it's just a platform that's also going
to go deep into calculations so that we know that you know how to do
single family dwelling, multi family dwelling, commercial dwellings, commercial dwellings, excuse
me, commercial buildings. I guess it could be commercial dwellings. If you
have a multifamily, the individual dwelling units is one thing, but then the
overall building is more commercial, so I guess it could be a commercial dwelling.
So we're going to go in all that and cover that. The only
caveat that we're going to The additional thing that we're going to do with that
program is that we're also going to bundle it with the grounding and bonding,
and that is not done yet, but we were going to do that,
and that's amazing because you're going to get the two courses for really the price
of less than one of them, and so that is something exciting that we're
you know, we're ready to roll out. And again it's it's it's just
part of that package to help people learn the NEC and I've always tried to
make an effort to reduce the costs of our programs and in a world where
everybody's raising the prices. I do my best to try to drop things down
to make it affordable for the average electrician, and you know that they can
afford it to get in a program, and so that's what we created the
fast Tracks program, and we've worked hard to bring the price down to where
we believe it's an amazing offer. So the Mastering the NEC program is going
to offer the base course, but it's also going to offer the grounding and
bonding course. So that's going that's an amazing value right there. In fact,
we're going to say that's a limited time because I can't imagine that we're
going to offer that like that forever because of the sheer costs associated with the
systems and to be able to let people have access. So that's going to
be very limited. And in fact, it's not even posted on the website
at this point. So I will make sure that it gets taken care of.
Because we just launched the Mastering the NEC. So again, it's not
designed for exam prep. It's not what it's for. It's basic, same
core fundamentals, but we have separate courses that are designed specifically for exam prep,
and it offers again the Wednesday night sessions that you can come to as
well as if you get the enhanced one, then you can go to the
fast Tracks tube as well. Okay, so that type of thing, I
guess I should tell you. Some of the other things that that that I
haven't announced very much to people is our webinar. We have a free webinar
that's coming up on July sixth. So depending on when you may hear this
this podcast, it may have already come and gone, but we're going to
make an effort to do some more free webinars and uh, you know it's
uh if you're a member of if you go to fasttracksystem dot com, which
is our website, you have to register. So there's a link at the
top it says register. You got a register. Once you register, then
you can click on the webinars link and then you can go purchase the free
webinar. It's purchased because it puts you in the system. That way we
can track your log in and everything like that. And so we do this
because again, if trolls want to come in to a webinar, we can
lock it and get their ISP and then block them on all of our servers.
And so again we do everything we do is for a reason. Okay,
so that's one way we do that. But let's say you're also a
member of fast Tracks Tube, our video platform, our exclusive video series.
Every video that we post on YouTube, and usually in about a week,
if they're exclusive videos, they're going to come off of YouTube and they're only
going to be available on fast Tracks Tube. So we kind of premiere them
for about a week over on YouTube and then we pull them off. So
some people say they found out about us on YouTube and they wonder where the
videos go when they come there, and they find out about all of our
teaching. And you may or may not like my teaching style. I'm not
changing for anybody. So either you like it or you don't. I tell
people all the time, you can watch it, you don't watch it,
you can block me, you can do it. I don't really care what
you do. But if you do want to learn, it's there. And
then usually about a week into it. And I'm a little slower than this,
and we used to when we had help doing this, but it will
slowly move off of the YouTube platform and you will only be able to access
this on our fast Tracks Tube that platform, and the fast Tracks Tube platform
is quite amazing. We one hundred percent own that platform. That video delivery
system is flat out amazing. I think, in fact, there's so many
features on it that people can't even figure out all the features, the trending
buttons, the what's new buttons, all that stuff on the left. It's
kind of hard to explain all these features to people. So I don't explain
the features, but I encourage people to that are our members of fasttrackstube dot
com. I encourage them to play around on it, uh and just kind
of look around, press the buttons, click around, kick the tires in
that type of thing. So we're excited about that. It's an annual subscription
unless you purchase our enhanced program over on fasttrackssystem dot Com. Of course,
then you get twelve months of access, and at the end of twelve months
of access to the fasttracks Tube platform, you can choose to renew it or
not. That's if you don't feel you get the value out of it,
or you don't like coming to the webinars, or you don't get anything out
of it, then of course you can just don't renew your subscription if you
want that's fine. That's fine. So we have but we have a lot
since we launched Fasttracks Tube. The number of subscribers that are on it now,
I think we're up to two thousand subscribers, and so it's it's you
know, we're blessed that that platform is doing so well, and there's a
lot of videos to watch. Two videos on there alone will pay for it
if you pay ninety nine dollars a year. Two videos pay for it.
That is the Calculations eight hour video. And then of course you have this
pool and Spa and hot Tub series that me and Vince Delacroach do that pays
for it itself. Of course, you also have a twelve hour grounding and
Bonding webinar that I did that's on there, a four part series. Now,
all that pays for the ninety nine bucks. So and we've got other
great stuff coming. The fact that the Just Calculation series is a little delayed,
but that's going to be over there on fast Tracks Tube. So yeah,
I mean there's just so many things we have we have going on that
Mastering the nec the course is just going to be an enhancement to all that.
So it's going to be one of those things where where you could be
on the job and you have the course right there to show your superiors,
to show your people you're teaching, you can use the illustrations, all those
type of things, all straight from your mobile device or your tablet, or
even your laptop or desktop. It doesn't matter. So we're excited about that
platform. The next thing we want to talk about, I guess, is
the tiktoks and instagrams in Facebook. So most people know that I don't do
very much commenting on Facebook. I'm just not into that type of thing.
The most comments that you've ever seen from me has been on TikTok, and
I loathe TikTok, but I keep doing it. So if people say,
well, Paul, you're a hypocrite, why do you keep doing it if
you don't like it. I don't like the platform. I love the platform,
I just don't like the management. So at the end of the day,
I also will tell you that it is the most frustrating platform to post
any type of teaching on because everybody thinks they know what they're talking about and
they don't, and it's it's actually embarrassing for the industry, especially when they
would argue with me, somebody who serves on code panels, who has been
intimate with the NEC for for decades and teach people all over the country.
Yet you've got electricians who just do you know, they pull wire or pull
a cable or bend some condo it, but they think they're anyc experts,
and they post comments and the comments are so far off and left field that
it's just I end up having to block ninety percent of the comments and delete
them because they're so far in left field. And if people say, well,
why do you block them? Why don't you educate people? They don't
want to listen and they don't want to learn, so it's just not worth
the effort. So I try to many people remember that I used to comment
and do a lot of comments, and then of course the people say no
or ignore it. You really can't ignore it when you get the volume of
comments that I get, Like I only have ten thousand followers one TikTok,
probably because nine out of ten people I kick off of it because they post
stupid stuff. And I'm not about building the numbers, so I don't care
whether I get to one hundred thousand or two milligan. It doesn't bother me.
I don't monetize that platform. I don't care to make any money off
of the social media platforms. The only I'm not monetized on Facebook. I'm
not monetized on Instagram. I'm not monetized on TikTok. The only platform that
I'm monetized on, and I've been there for over ten years, is YouTube.
And so I'm monetized on YouTube. But if I move the majority of
my videos off of YouTube and I put them on fast tracks Tube, then
I'm not making any money off of those videos. So you can see I
really don't care about monetizing. There are people that like Dustin and whatnot that
are making a nice living off of their videos, and then they get very
creative with their videos. I mean they do a lot to make their videos
look really nice, and they look really nice. I don't edit any videos.
Anything that I do is one shot. I turn the camera on and
I go. I don't practice, I don't rehearse, I don't edit it.
I don't cut it up. When I turn it on, I just
go. And so I don't have a lot of that post editing required stuff.
So when I do something, I just put it out there. And
so because it's all up in the head, I don't have to research the
topic. And so with that said, though, I don't care that I
get five hundred thousand followers on YouTube because I'm going to move my videos off
of YouTube anyway. So the majority of my stuff is not on YouTube,
and the majority of my videos are over on fast tracks too, where I
do the subscription thing. So some people don't understand the logic of how I
do some things. Now, as far as TikTok's concerned, I will still
do lives. In fact, I believe we're doing a live right now.
I won't answer any of their questions, and I'm no longer answering any questions
on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook. It's just not worth it for me.
They don't want to learn, and I'm not in an I don't want to
teach them anymore. If they want to learn, they can go to the
platforms that I put out there to teach the neec or they can get a
course. Tired of teaching them for free, I'll let Angry and the Bearded
Inspector and Steve and and Rewire. I'll let all those folks who who really
have a good following on TikTok. I'll let them teach people. I am
going to stay in my lane. I am more of an educator and author
who you know, does what we call the long form stuff. Now,
that doesn't mean I'm not going to share promos and snippets of videos on those
platforms because it's a good platform, but it's not really a good educational platform
in my opinion, because it allows too many people to do stupid comments and
take a good discussion downhill and they literally with a passion believe it, and
there's nothing you can tell them, no matter how long you've been doing this,
and they say, well, who the hell is he? You know,
why is he telling me to It's just not worth it. And it's
not that they get me upset. People say, co relax, Paul,
just ignore them. I'm not upset. I'm more saddened and discouraged that this
is where our trade has come to. I mean, there's some great ones
out there, don't get me wrong. There's some of them. They know
who they are on those social platforms that really are sharp, but they're in
the minority. And you know, people say, well that you should be
educating them well, that's the problem. They don't want to listen, you
know. And you know Mike Holt, they maybe you'll listen to He has
much more authority than me. And that's great because I'm a big fan of
Mike. Can educate these people and they'll listen to Mike. Great. They
obviously are not going to listen to what I say, even when I tell
them that anti short bushings aren't required for MC. But they come back just
just with the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of comments, and they just they
don't even understand what they're saying, right They If you want to use something,
especially in the National Electrical Code, if you want to go above and
beyond the minimums and you want to do something, then that's a choice that
you make. It's not a requirement. And when I teach people, I'm
only teaching the requirements of the NEEC. I don't care about local I don't
care about what your jurisdiction makes you do. I don't care about what your
daddy tells you to do. I'm just talking about the National Electrical Code.
That's it. And it's hard to translate that on social media because everybody that
sees it says, well, in my state or in my state or in
my state, and I don't give a damn about their state. I really
don't. I'm just here to teach the code. So that's why social media
becomes very frustrating. It doesn't make me mad. I'm just a very amped
up kind of guy anyway. But it's just not worth my time. It's
not worth my effort. And you know, that is not my area that
I'm trying to reach. I mean, I sell courses, I sell programs.
I'm an educator who it makes a living teaching the NEC or consulting on
the NEC. And so the people on TikTok are not interested in buying my
courses. They already think they know it all, not all of them,
not everybody, So not everybody on there needs to get offended. Those know
who they are, and so it's not really my market. I'm not trying
to sell strippers or codebooks or other than the electrical products that I sell that
are made for electricians, like the coins and the and the cards and the
minimalist wallets and stuff. They're all geared towards electricians, that type of thing
to help promote them spread their word pride in what they do. But other
than that, I mean, I don't have what you call a TikTok store.
Is that what that's what you have. I'm not into that. I
just post some of the things that I make for electricians, and we don't
make a lot of them, by the way, I think, like the
knives we make, there's like we may We've got like twenty five of those,
and a lot of them have already been sold. Thank you everybody that's
purchased one of those electrician knives. They're limited one off things. The different
coins that we make past fail and Spector coin, that's original with us,
you know, it's it's just cool, little novelty things for electricians. But
other than that, we're trying to we're an educator. We're selling programs,
we're teaching people the NEC I am not going to I'm not going to use
TikTok and and Instagram and all that to be able to give massive lessons to
students because they just don't have the attention span to learn on that type of
platform. Now, we will share promos. So for example, up in
our TikTok we have three pinned videos. Those are promos to other videos that
we have that are available over on YouTube for a week and then they'll be
exclusively over on fast Tracks Tube only. So I think people don't understand the
method to what I do and why we do it, and they want to
bash, And that's fine. I tell people, you don't need to bash.
Just don't follow me. You don't have to. I don't need you
to follow me. I'm not out here again to get fifty million followers,
don't. I don't care about that. But if you're somebody out there that
wants to learn the NEEC, then don't worry about me, or don't worry
about a person that you may not agree with. What you should worry about
is whether or not you're going to somebody that can actually teach you the National
Electrical Code. That should be your only goal, and you should use me
and abuse me in that way only to learn the NEC. That should be
your goal. And I don't think that there's anybody that does that better than
me. You can call that cockiness all you want. I'll call it confidence.
And I just don't think there's anybody out there that can. They can
say they can. But you know what, I'll put an open challenge to
anybody. If you want to get into a live debate, let somebody monitor
it. We can get on a video and let somebody do the questions.
I am open to a live code debate. I've did it before. I
did it for Mike Coult and them back years ago when I won the top
Gun. I can compete it against all the other educators in the room,
and I also won there. And I also won the presentation on the stage
in front of everybody, even Mike, and I was voted the top Gun
that too, so I didn't just win the code. I won the presentation
part as well, and I was judged by my peers. So I'm pretty
confident in what I do. You can call it whatever you want. You
can stop following me because you think I'm cocky. I don't really give a
shit. Doesn't bother me at all. But if you want to learn something,
then you'll follow me. You'll follow me, Okay. Other than that,
I don't really have any other major announcements. Look for the Just Calculation
series video series to start in the next week or two. We're almost done
with what I want to cover and you have to create the slides and the
presentation. That is almost completed. I have so much on my plate that
it's just makes it very hard to be able to focus on too many things.
I wear a lot of hats here so in and of course I have
a wife and I have family, and I have to juggle all of that
as well. And most people know I work for a major man manufacturer.
So and I've also in the last couple of months been busy on a couple
cases where I'm the expert witness, but that's done with now for the most
recent case. So yeah, that's about it, folks. So if you're
interested in learning the NEEC and you're not really studying for an exam, but
you just want have everybody in your company, or maybe you want to learn
the NEC better and you're not really studying for an electrical exam, then we
have discounted the program for you. It's like two seventy five and that is
Mastering the NEEC. It's available on our website fastracksystem dot com and we're also
going to bundle in with it the twenty twenty three Grounding and Bonding course as
well. I don't know where else you can get a better value like that.
That's like a value of over seven hundred bucks and you're going to get
it for like two seventy five or something like that, so that that's going
to be a limited time, limited time. So if it's you see it
on there when you purchase, in the notes, it'll say includes the grounding
and bonding course. If you don't see that in the notes before you click
that buy button, then be sure you're not going to get it. But
if you see it in the notes, you're going to get it. Okay,
And it's not there right now, but if you purchase now before we
can get it updated, just just let me know in the notes when you
make the purchase, say, Paul, you said you were going to include
the grounding and bonding and we will hook We will hook you up. Don't
worry. We will hook you up that type of thing. So don't worry
about that, all right, folks. It's just a little short podcast for
those that listen on their way to work where I'm updating you on mastering the
NEC course and talking about our effective social media and what we're going to be
using it for, basically sharing promos and commercials and other things. But we
are going to stop the education on there. Finally, it's just not worth
it. We'll leave that to the other folks. I think that the TikTokers
and the Instagrammers are not my audience anyway, so there's it's kind of pointless
for us to do that. We'll still do the lives on there when we
do podcasting, but we'll stop answering comments and stuff like that. So all
right, folks, till next time, stay safe, God bless and until
next time, take care.