Trowel Spin – June 2026

“Concrete was made for man, not man for concrete.”

 Last night I was listening to a podcast by Shane Parish, as he hosted Dr. Giulia Enders. Enders is a physician and author. She is a microbe researcher and studies the surprising correlation your gut has with the rest of your overall health; mood, sleep, stress etc.

She said something that caught my attention. She said often people will force their body to adapt to an eating system that someone has drummed up; be it the latest fad or diet from the most popular health influencers. What is important rather, she says, is to eat foods and have a schedule your gut and its microbes naturally thrive on. Often it is approximately what your mom prescribed as a kid, if you had a good mom. You know, eat your veggies, don’t drink too much pop. Have a system your body was created to thrive on. Not vice versa.

Jesus said something similar when he was here. The religious leaders of the day had manufactured the sabbath into something it was never meant to be. They had a convoluted list of things that may be done and may not be done on the Sabbath day. One day Jesus and his twelve disciples were travelling by foot which they often did. The guys were hungry. As they passed by grain fields they picked some heads of grain, rubbed the kernels out in their hands and ate them. (Their law allowed to them to hand-pick some heads of grain for a snack from anyone’s field but not harvest it by cutting stalks.)

The Pharisees saw the disciples hand picking and threshing these heads of grain to eat. They told Jesus, that’s not allowed on the Sabbath day, why do your disciples do that? They can’t do that.

That is when Jesus dropped them this line, “the Sabbath day was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

What Jesus was telling them is this. The Sabbath day was designed for the good of man. It is so that every seven days you can rest your body, rest your soul and replenish your spirit in a hallowed day of rest and worship that God dedicated for this purpose. It is a core part of flourishing and health for humanity. It is not a day for convoluted systems that weigh the soul down even more.

I had to think about this in a tiny way last week. I was helping pour a patio for a friend on Saturday. I rarely get my hands on the tools much anymore. For a laser measuring stick, our crews use a simple metal tube with a plate welded on the bottom to constantly check the accuracy of the flatwork pour. I noticed that someone had the brilliancy to make it out of light aluminum instead of metal. For years we used a metal one, which was twice the weight. It was a simple 30$ fix that made a big difference.

When I started my career in concrete, you could only order accelerators in complete 1% increments. So, think about this. Either you had 1% calcium or you had to double it to 2%. That’s 100% more. It was awful trying to organize pours to finish consistently. Either you had way too much or not enough accelerator.

I remember approaching a ready-mix company about being able to order accelerators by 1/4th and even 1/8th % points. They said they wouldn’t do it. I told them, if you don’t do it, someone else will. I am grateful to say, they did it. After that when we approached other companies and they declined, we could say your competition does it all the time, why can’t you. And suddenly they could. Planning and completing a floor finishing job became light-years easier when you could adjust the accelerators in smaller increments.

All I am trying to say this. Lets look into our own companies and processes. Let’s find the little changes we can do to make the job better and easier. They are often simple and inexpensive, just hidden from view by the façade of what we have become used to.

Because finally, “concrete was made for man, not man for concrete.”