In this episode, I talk about why waste typically gets hidden in the back. Out of mind, out of sight, right? But I’m not just talking about trash – physical waste.
I’m talking about all the other wastes in our lives that we tend to hide in the back: wasted time, wasted effort, wasted relationships.
Perhaps if we kept our wastes in the front, where we couldn’t ignore them, we might do something about it.
Full transcript below.
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Transcript
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
waste, hidden, trash truck, nasty, waist, today, much bigger impact, episode, business, handling, industrial waste, checks, alley, sludge, podcaster, podcast, intrigued, upfront, front, harden
SPEAKERS
Mike Malatesta 00:08
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the podcast and to one of my Friday solo episode. So happy to have you here today. And today, I’m calling this episode, Why Waste Gets Hidden in the Back? Why waste gets hidden in the back. As some of you who’ve listened to the show for a while know, most of my career has been spent in the waste management industry. Before I became a podcaster, I was in the waste business, I started as a driver driving a trash truck when I was in college. And that inspired me, believe it or not, that experience inspired me to move into the waste business as for a job out of college, and I got a job in the waste business, and over time, I made a career out of it, I started two waste management companies along the way and eventually sold both of those. And I just made a living doing the nasty stuff, you know, handling the waste. And you may think that a trash truck, or if you’ve ever been to a landfill or seen a landfill on TV or something, is pretty nasty, but we actually made our businesses out of handling really nasty stuff. We didn’t handle the trash, we handled just all kinds of industrial waste from a carwash pit, which was really nasty, to really stinky paint sludge to — and believe it or not — to hardened chocolate in a big tank. You wouldn’t believe how hard hardened chocolate is to remove. It’s a bear, a real bear. So those are nasty ones.
And, you know, I’ve learned to be one of those guys who always checks out the back of the house. So I go in the back of places, whether it’s a factory, or whether it’s a store, or a restaurant, or I’m always in the back or in the alleys just sort of checking everything out because I’m intrigued not only by the waste, but I’m also intrigued about why the waste ends up in the back. And the point is, I’ve learned a thing or two about waste. And that’s what I want to share with you today.
First, while the waste gets hidden in the back, that’s what I say — it always gets hidden in the back. It gets generated in the front, the waste is made in the front, we make it in the front, and we hide it in the back, and that may be impractical. But I’m convinced that if we left the waste right where it was made instead of hiding it in the back, there’d be a lot less of it. And you’re probably thinking, why are you talking to me about waste on this podcast? Well, I’m not talking just about physical waste. Think about, you know, when waste is near you. It’s mine. And when it’s hidden in the back or moved somewhere else, it becomes someone else’s. It doesn’t matter if the waste is physical or mental. As I mentioned, it’s the closer we are to it, and the less options we have to get rid of it or hide it, the more likely we will address the waste and eliminate it.
So my question for you today, in this short little podcast is, how do you deal with your waste? Your wasted time, your wasted effort, your wasted relationships or your wasted whatever? How do you deal with your waste? Do you hide your waste in the back of mind? Or do you keep it up front? Where you can make it go away? Forever? See, waste is a tricky thing. It’s something that we all have the ability to create and we probably all need to create a little bit of waste. But it’s what we do to prevent waste in our lives, in our businesses in our relationships, or whatever, that almost always has a much bigger impact.
So let’s get the waste out of the back. Let’s get the waste out of the alley. Let’s get the waste out of the dumpster. And let’s put it back where it belongs, front and center, and let’s deal with it, instead of pushing it on to someone else. Whether that’s physical waste, or mental waste, we all know that when we have it upfront, we can make a lot more progress on it than we otherwise would. So a little bit of a strange of a topic today, but I was thinking about it and actually saw like a doorway that had the word waste written on it, as if the waste was put inside the doorway, and it made me think, no, the waste isn’t in the back. It’s just moved to the back from the front. So do yourself a favor today when you’re thinking about something that you’re wasting, instead of pushing it to the back of your mind or whatever, keep it up front and deal with it and turn that waste into something positive.
Thanks for joining me today. I hope this episode brought some value to you and until next time, maximize your greatness.
