The Human Side of Auto Repair: Emotional Intelligence, Mentorship, and Leadership [THA 506]

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

This is the Automotive Repair Podcast Network.

Carm Capriotto (0:06)

Hello, it's Carm Capriato, Asta 2026 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Glad to have you here.

I've got Margaret Light, Matt Fonslow on the podcast. And oh boy, you may not be prepared for this, but this is going to be a very heavy discussion from Margaret and a very light one from Matt. I'm positive with that.

Matt Fanslow (0:24)

It's probably the opposite, I'm sure, but I'll let her have it.

Carm Capriotto (0:28)

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Yes, I did and do have, Matt, my conference voice. And as I was telling some other guests I had on yesterday, I'm going to get on stage and do my best Barry White later. Look, in the Automotive Field Theory podcast that you have on the Automotive Repair Podcast Network, you were smart enough years ago to say, hey, Margaret, come on and let's talk about.

Matt Fanslow (2:14)

I didn't know who she was. Really, this is all Hawkins fault. So to the listeners, I really apologize for Hawkin.

But as I recall, the sequence of events was that very early on in the life of the podcast when it was named Diagnosing the Aftermarket A to Z, I had had Brandon Steckler on and we're talking about our different divorce scenarios. Hawkin had suggested that I talked to his wife. I thought he meant therapeutically.

What he meant was have her on the podcast. And so we had her on, luckily. She said yes, because she didn't know me yet.

Carm Capriotto (2:52)

He was giving you a referral, right?

Margaret Light (2:55)

Both, probably.

Matt Fanslow (2:56)

Luckily, she didn't know me yet, so she made the mistake of saying yes. And she joined me and it was really good.

And yeah, like mental health stuff, psychological stuff is very, very interesting to me. And I probably know enough to sound like I know what I'm talking about, to most people and then to a real professional. She's just like, oh my God, this guy's got to shut up. But she came on, it was great.

Carm Capriotto (3:20)

But wait, we should tell everybody that you're a licensed marriage and family therapist.

Matt Fanslow (3:25)

Correct.

Margaret Light (3:25)

Yes, that is my official title. But here's the other half of this story that was so funny.

So Hocken had pitched this to me too and he was like, hey, Matt wants to have you on to talk about automotive technician suicide. That was the first episode we did. And you and him were actually supposed to do an episode one night, but he got stuck late at work. And so by chance, this was back when I was still prepping for podcasts. He was like, I need to prepare and show up well.

And so by chance, I had prepped for this. And so he was getting home late and Hocken's like, hey, I'm not going to make it. Will you just do this episode today? And so that was our first episode.

Carm Capriotto (4:02)

And it was good. I mean, it's terrific. It's set off a stream of, let me guess, eight times, something like that.

SPEAKER_5 (4:08)

Six or eight or something.

Matt Fanslow (4:09)

I think it's eight. Yeah, because it was fairly random. I think there was another local police officer had committed suicide. And for whatever reason, I kind of thought that would be a very high likelihood. Like that would be a very high percentage compared to the populace. And I was just curious. Like I thought for sure number one would be the military. Like I would just assumed that number one overwhelmingly would be the military, PTSD, all the things, maybe complex PTSD.