It’s Vital to Participate Differently
I Ran the Place Like I Owned It — Even Though I Didn’t
What nearly 18 years at Central Plumbing taught me about ownership, systems, and participating differently.
My title at Central Plumbing was Warehouse Manager. The way I approached the work had very little to do with a title. I managed the warehouse, incoming and outgoing freight, fleet maintenance, facilities, material movement, and whatever else was standing between the crews and getting their work done.
Over time, I learned to notice where time, money, movement, or knowledge were being wasted… and build a practical way to improve it.
At one point, I was working with facility work-order software. Rather than use it only for the building, I reverse engineered how to use the same system to track our trucks, trailers, and four-wheel drives. Preventive maintenance could be documented. Parts and job details could be attached. We could see what had already been done instead of wondering whether a transmission service happened in Helena, Bozeman, or somewhere else.
I applied the same thinking to the warehouse. When material arrived, I could capture the packing slip showing what had arrived and what was still pending, with a timestamp, attach a picture of the material, and record exactly where it was located in the warehouse.
Once the check-in was complete, each foreman and project manager had access to that documentation. So if I was 300 miles away and someone called looking for something, pulling up the record and seeing exactly where it was stored was a snap.
Trust Came From What Happened When Nobody Was Watching
I worked for Central for ten years before the company split and my position was terminated. Eleven years later, they found me and asked me to come back. They reinstated me as a ten-year employee—including the vacation time and 401(k) vesting that came with it.
That told me something about trust. I had run the place as though I owned it, and there were times people actually asked whether I did.
Eventually Central needed the position to require a CDL. That was the one line I had decided years earlier I would not cross, so I gave them six months’ notice.
It took the full six months to find my replacement. Before I left, I took the institutional knowledge I had accumulated and made it searchable. On my replacement’s first day, he didn’t know what a trench drain was. Within about 30 seconds, the system could show him a picture and where to find one.
The Same Principle Changed How I Look at Wellness
Years later, I found myself on the other side of a very different problem: Trying to understand what was happening in my own body.
There was no shortage of information. One person said do this. Another said do the opposite. What I was missing looked surprisingly familiar. I needed visibility. A starting point. A way to know what deserved attention first. A direction to follow. And a way to come back later and ask:
That is what caught my attention about the information I now use through Vital Intelligence. The original idea was already there… establish a baseline, understand what deserves attention, participate, and compare again.
For the first time, I had the whole picture.
A baseline showing where I started. Recommendations showing what deserved attention first. A direction I could actually follow. And a 30-day comparison showing what changed. That became the rhythm:
Now I wasn’t simply paying attention to how I felt. I had something I could actually bring into the conversation with my doctor. Instead of walking in with only: “Something doesn’t feel right,”
I could walk in saying:
The Vital Report doesn’t replace that medical conversation. It changes what I can bring into it.
That Is the Thread
The work looks different today than it did at Central Plumbing, but the way I think hasn’t changed at all. See clearly. Determine what deserves attention. Take action. See what happened. Then decide what comes next.
That is what I mean by participating differently.
And it leaves me with a question I hope each issue of this newsletter helps us explore:
Vital Intelligence provides access to wellness information generated through Vital Health Global systems. Vital Intelligence and Vital Health Global do not diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent disease and are not a substitute for medical care.