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He Fumbled a _500_000 Deal... and Still Didn_t Get Fired · NO FILTER

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This is The Bad Hire, the show with the best
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: stories about the worst employees.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: We fired him, of course.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: People are crazy. It's like an HR nightmare. Right? One
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: bad hire stole all of it. Crazy stuff.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: She got what she deserved.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Oh. I'm your host, Ken Monroe, and every week we
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: dive into real-life stories... From the wild world of work
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: and what can happen when the wrong person gets the job.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: These stories aren't just crazy, they're cautionary tales about lessons
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: learned the hard way. Let's get started. Alright, hey, welcome
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: to the Bad Hire. I've got Hudson with me and
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Marcus and... Good to have you guys on the show. Marcus.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: That's Marcus. Wait, not Marcus. Nathan. I got Marcus, too.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Marcus is back there. We do have Marcus. We're leaving
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: that in. Marcus is our producer.
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: My name's Nathan.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Marcus has got it going on. I've been with him
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: all morning trying to get this thing going.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: It's the cold brew talking.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: It's the nitro.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Welcome.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Happy to be here. Dude, tell us. You're first time
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: on the show. Tell us what's up. I want to
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: know a little bit about you. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Name's Hudson.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: Proud Charlatan. I run Unify Visual Marketing. We're a video
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: and photo and design agency. We do a lot of
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: work in like the commercial space and we do some nonprofit.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: We do stuff for local companies around here, but I just,
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: my favorite thing about it is I am the least
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: qualified to be in most rooms I'm in because I
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: just know how cameras work.
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but then you go back to your LinkedIn and
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: it says CEO right there.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: CEO, yeah.
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: So, I mean, at the end of the day, you
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: can have that on your business card.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it turns out it's not that hard to become
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: a CEO.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: It is kind of hard to keep the thing going.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: You know, to not like have.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: It like start a new one. That's what happened. Yeah.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: That's right. On to the next one. Yeah.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: A little bit of white collar crime.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, no problem.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: But I love what I do. I'm happy to be here.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: So what is, what is Unify? Is it Unify?
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Yes, sir.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: So what is, tell me a little bit about, a
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: little deeper about what they do. Yeah.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: So Unify, we primarily work in like the commercial space.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: So we've done campaigns for like Lenovo and Mack trucks
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: and Volvo and, In the sports world, it's like Charlotte FC,
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: the Panthers. So a lot of really cool stuff. Apple's
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: a big name to drop, which is cool. But honestly,
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: what I think my favorite thing to do is work
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: with more local businesses, like smaller businesses.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: So we do a lot of work in the food
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: and Bev world.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: Some of my best friends run a company called Hex Coffee.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: It's the best coffee in North Carolina. Um, we work
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: with the food and Bev like.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Coffee is, is a shop. Like I go and get
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: a cup of coffee or they're making coffee. Yeah.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: So both they've got a roastery. They have a, uh,
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: they have something called the hex kitchen and natural wines
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: and camp North end. And that's, it's a cafe, but
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: it's tricky because no cafe has.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Business making food this good.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Like this intentional, but.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: If you're a coffee nerd too, you go in there
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: and they have. Are you familiar with like heirloom grains
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: and like heirloom tomatoes and things like that? The idea
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: is it's, you know, seeds that don't exist anymore. They
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: have coffee beans that are from reserve lots back in
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: like 2016, 2017 that they have frozen and they have
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: this wildly complicated and extra setup to where, oh, we
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: have this magic coffee that doesn't exist anymore.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: You have the Jurassic Park of coffee.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: They have the Jurassic Park.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Chris Pratt loves the coffee.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Probably.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Probably.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Probably.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: But I love working with the local crews, especially in
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: Food and Bev, because they demand so much excellence. Because
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: someone in Charlotte, I think the heartbeat of Charlotte is
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: people who demand excellence and hospitality. And that's fun because
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: if you go to New York, you're going to get
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: excellence top down, left, right, front and back for sure.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: But if you're from the South, you understand that the
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: hospitality in the South is something a little bit different.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: So I love that.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: And then the last leg of our business is we
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: do like pennies on the dollar nonprofit work. Um, a
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: couple that we worked for, uh, this year is the
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: Down syndrome association of greater Charlotte. They are just a
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: sleeping giant. They have, they do so much work for
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: families and individuals with Down syndrome.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I love that. Yeah.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: And then congregations for kids, they do a ton of
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: advocacy work for people in foster care and for social workers. Uh,
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: so there's a massive support for the social workers and
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: for kids that are aging out of the foster care system.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: It's just stuff that I don't think about immediately when
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: I think about does work in foster care, but they
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: do enough to where they even have pull like in
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: a judicial sense. Like they, they are, they're advocating in
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: courtrooms and whatnot. So there's awesome people doing awesome stuff
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: in Charlotte and we get to have a small part
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: of that just because we know how cameras work.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's cool.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: That's sweet.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Well, it sounds like you're crushing it. Well, for everybody
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: out there, you need somebody in production, video production, film production,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: holler at us, Yeah, follow him on LinkedIn.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, come on through. We love working with... What we
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: say is we currently... I just don't care what I'm
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: working on as long as it's.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I think we ran into you on LinkedIn somehow. Yeah,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: we had.
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: One mutual friend from somebody that I grew up with.
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: And then we reached out talking about camera stuff. And
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: then I was like, oh, hey, you'd be perfect because
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: you're the lead guy.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Right, I'm running a business.
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: You've hired people.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: You've been running a business.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, dude, just a couple of nerds. Just a couple
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: nerds DMing on LinkedIn.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: That's all we need.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Nothing to see here.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Just people together. That's what it was.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're telling me about the bad hires.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Nathan is definitely a nerd when it comes to that. Oh, yeah.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: We met on, we actually. Social media. Yeah, I met
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: on LinkedIn. That's right. LinkedIn DMs. It's a magical place. Yeah. Wait, really?
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: You just found him?
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: I was looking for someone to do, to come in
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: and run, you know, growth marketing for us. Huge. I
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: was just looking and I don't know how, I forget
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: the story really, but I just know that we ended up,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: He was in the valley in California, and he had
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: the skills, but he was across the country, and I
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: really wanted to hire someone here. And it turns out
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: he went to Virginia Tech and was from Virginia, and
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: had this plan to kind of move back east. Right
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: at the same time that he was hiring. And so
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: I was like, I really want you at Charlotte, but
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I finally gave in.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: Have you ever heard of a place called Monk's Burger Bar?
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: And Pungo Island.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: I don't think so. Oh, in Virginia Beach area? Yeah.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: I know Pungo Island like pretty good. Yeah.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: That sounds kind of familiar.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: Monks is, my parents used to live in Virginia Beach
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: for a little bit. And there's this biker bar called Monks.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: It was funny because I was feeling some type of way.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: We went in there and I was like, hey, can
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: I get a double cheeseburger or whatever? And like an
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: extra piece of cheese? No, you don't want to do that, man.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: I was like, what do you mean? They're like, we
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: put like a block of Velveeta on it.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, really?
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Just trust us.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Dude, it was... Don't do extra. It was an.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: Illegal amount of cheese that they put on there.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: It was fantastic.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: I got to take it out. Yeah, Bunga's the place
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: to be. That's cool. It rocked. Well, I was telling
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: you before, I love the, you know, I love the
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: idea of having you on the show because it was like,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: you know, you're not this huge conglomerate. You know, our
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: audience is a lot of recruiting, a lot of people
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: that are hiring folks, but, you know, uh, when you've
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: got a smaller business, you are that guy, the CEO
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: is that guy. I've stayed involved for a long time
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: in our hiring here. Um, you know, but so every
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: hire matters and it's just, you know, that's, you know,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: that's just kind of the, and you know, when you're
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: a recruiter, you live the life you live, you live
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: thinking about hiring great people and, you know, but it's so, uh, for,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: for a CEO, uh, It's the same, right?
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: You're totally correct.
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: My first step into the production world was a small
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: agency that primarily did medical work in Charlotte. And it
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: was funny because I came in just hungry and interested.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: And the CEO, this guy named Russell, who's still a
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: great friend of mine, he just went off of an
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: act of faith of like, I see that you're hungry
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: and I see that you've got a good you know, you're,
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: you're interested and you, you're, you're playing with the kids
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: in the sandbox. Like it's a good fit. Um, but
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: you don't know anything right now. So let's just bring
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: you in and keep you moving. And he had so
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: much integrity with, he said, now you're on the team.
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: That means like you have access to all of our stuff.
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: You have access to all of us as a resources
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: and pieces of information. And there were definitely like mishaps
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: that I had and stumbles along the way, but that really,
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: I'm embedded kind of a thumbprint of moving forward. It's,
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: it's a, it's a people over products kind of thing.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: Culture first, like my business partner, um, for instance, Jono,
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: he's one of the best photographers I know personally, period.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: And I'm not just saying that.
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: Um, but I asked him to be my business partner
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: six months into him buying a camera. He was not
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: a good photographer at that point in time. He was
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: a novice, but he, the way he broke down problems,
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: And the way that he saw the world and the
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: way that he operated culturally and where his priorities were,
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, dude, you compliment me a lot in
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: the ways that I fall short. But also, I feel
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: really good because I was like, I bet in two
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: years you're going to be someone you're gonna be any
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: other person's like 10 year mark of photography yeah and
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: i feel like i was correct he's ripping yeah i
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: mean that's cool yeah i mean i was just saying
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: that we we do photos for uh counter the restaurant
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: in charlotte and they just won the first michelin star
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: in north carolina oh which is crazy yeah the first
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: michelin star in north carolina and in charlotte is is
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: counter and counter is not going to pick just anyone
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: to take their photos so to brag on john oh
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: Good work. I would never say this to your face,
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: but you're a great friend and an amazing photographer.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: And a good hire. And a good hire. Right? Because
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: I really think, I said, when you put together a partner,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: it's still hire. Because I've had some really bad ones
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: in my life. I've had some that have cost me
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: lots and lots of money because it was, you know,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: I just skipped the whole, I skipped the process and just, like,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: hired somebody cause I felt it was going to be
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: good financially or whatever. And then I've had some really
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: phenomenal partners. You know, I tell people all the time,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: picking a partner is you're still, you can still pick up,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: it can still be a bad hire, you know, even
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: though it's a couple of guys owning a business or,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: you know, people owning a business, whatever it's. Yeah.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: On the ownership, I think it's a little bit easier
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: to justify. Oh, we're both going to have skin in
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: the game.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Versus full-time buyers.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Totally what happened to me in one of the worst
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: decisions of my life. Oh, no. Just, you know, business
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: decision of my life. Anyway, it was just, we're going
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: to be together after this. You know, why would you
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: do me wrong? Why would you not tell the truth?
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Why would you, you know, we're going to be doing
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: life together after this, you know? Yeah. So you just
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: think it's.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: You think it's forever. I do think it's.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, we have that.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: Jono and I, and we have another business partner named Landis,
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: we have this conversation where we're like, okay, let's really
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: easily come up with exit ramps for all of us
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: because we really love each other.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: And we've heard a.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: Billion stories about people who are just really close friends
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: who now hate each other's guts because of X, Y,
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: or Z. So here, at least to the best of
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: our abilities, is that we can give each other opt-outs
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: or if you're sucking at your job and you're holding
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: everybody else back, it needs to be pretty obvious and reasonable.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: that you're the odd one out and like, let's just
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: agree to this upfront, you know, and, and who know,
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: I mean, easier said than done.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Luckily I don't think, I don't think we're there yet.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: So tell me about how critical, um, hiring was when you're,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: when you're smaller earlier and, and just, uh, the impact
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: that a singular dad hire could make on a CEO
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: and his business, especially, you know, someone like you was
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: doing business with some really cool brands, right? And you've got,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: you know, a small team and one bad hire in
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: that team could cost you a huge brand, you know,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: that you're working with.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's very true. Hop into a quick story.
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: One of the, I mean, I'll try to stay as
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: anonymous as possible, but one of the bigger brands that
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: we had, we had this big campaign that they do
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: every couple of years.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: And we're like, okay, cool.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: We need to like bring in the big dogs for this.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: And we were creating this stylized brand essentially for an
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: event they had. Um, and I had a friend of
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: mine who have worked with plenty over the years in, uh,
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: at least parallels. I never hired him exactly for any
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: sort of specific technical work, but we'd kind of worked
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: in similar creative circles. Um, anyway, I just trusted the dude,
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: but never realized I just never asked for a proof
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: of concept for his work. I just saw other bits
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: of their work and I was like, oh, this dude's
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: got it.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Oh no.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: And then he, yeah, it was like design stuff and
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: sends the first draft. And do you remember Microsoft paint?
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: Microsoft paint. This looks like efficient. This looks like someone
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: who was like pretty good at Microsoft.
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: It was bad, dude.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: It was just something different. I was like, man, did we,
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: and it was so shocking because this dude's, um, standard.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Tended to be pretty high.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: And, uh, You think you just had him down a
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: path that like, that wasn't like his best skill. Like
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: you had maybe seen others or something.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: God, I hope so. I hope that wasn't his best skill.
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: Was he just like blasted with comic sands and like
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: random colors or like all over the place?
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: Dude.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was, I mean, I'm not a designer. We'll
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: put that out there. I was like, man, I, I
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: even like, come on.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: So it's me.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: I initially thought this is definitely on me.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: 100% on me.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: Um, hey, here are the actual things that we're looking for.
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: Here's a bit more information, blah, blah. And the second
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: round came in and we genuinely were just like, all right,
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: we're just going.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: To buy you out.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: I've been there.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: And move elsewhere. And it was kind of scary. Maybe
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: not scary. Luckily, the client was cool. But the client
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: was like, we're just going to go on Fiverr. And
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: find something. And they found a great design.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: I was like, okay, well.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: There's good talent on there. Sorry.
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: That's got to happen all the time of somebody. You're like, oh,
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: let me just, especially when you're starting out. Just like, oh,
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: let me just hire somebody. That's what you trust, man.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: And totally go south all the time.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: There's no telling how many businesses have just come off
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: the rails because of a mistake like that. You know,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: it's either at a partner level, you bring somebody in
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: and you find out. You know, from a design perspective,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: you know, when that happens, that's happened with us. And
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: it's hard to, you're trying to figure out, is this
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: lack of effort time? Like, did he just try to
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: whip this up last night because it was due today? Yeah.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Or is this like, honestly, best effort kind of work? Like, oof,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: It's funny, you look at it and I'm like, man,
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: I hope you just decided to whip this up on
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: the drive here or something.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: It's harder when there's no excuse.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: If I give somebody, I think about this too, and
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: you guys probably think about this when it comes to
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: being excellent at your craft or what you do. If
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: I gave you 12 months to shoot a commercial or something,
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: I'm going to expect it to be good no matter
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: who you are. You have 12 months. You should get somewhere.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: But if I give you one hour and minimal resources.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: That's where like, you really have to be excellent because you,
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: you have to trust your instincts, your knee jerk reactions,
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: et cetera.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: But we gave this guy plenty of time anyway.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: So it is what it is, but it was, it
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: was funny because the lesson I learned there was a
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: couple of things. A dude is still remarkably talented at
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: a handful of other things. And now I've got like
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: really solid proof of concept. I still work with them. Um,
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: genuinely incredibly talented. Um, Also, I'm just probably not going
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: to just trust that my friends are good at something
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: unless I can just say, hey, like, just as a formality,
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: send me a portfolio that matches X, Y, or Z
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: real quick just so that I don't have to lose
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: thousands of dollars.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Great learning for CEOs, though, for real. Yeah. Don't
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: just assume, you know.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: The contract side of things is very different, you know, like.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: there's the partners there's contractors and then the full-time hires
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: yeah similar to what i was saying about my friend
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: russell i very much live in the world of uh
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: it's it's culture first it's how you connect first and
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: um maybe even maybe how you connect this tide for
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: first with how do you handle uh distress how do
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: you handle like hard times and and whatnot because if
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: if you get stressed out and the world crumbles underneath
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: you and crumbles for everybody else around you.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: It's, it's really hard to keep a strong, keep a
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: strong link of support.
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Um, because if, if you.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: Know the world's burning down, but you got your homies
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: next to you, it's not that big of a deal.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: So it's good to keep that kind of up. But
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: I was, uh, growing up in high school, I played
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: the heavy like metal bands for years. And I remember
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: we had a, uh, our guitarist left or he was,
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: he should have left. He was a Fulbright scholar and
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: was going to like UNCC or UNC Chapel Hill to
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: become a doctor and all this stuff. We were all like,
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: we just signed a first record deal and we're like,
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: all right, we're going to go tour and all that.
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: But we're like, how do we do this without our
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: guitar player? And I remember we, we were thinking, who's
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: good at guitar?
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Who can do this?
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Who can do that? We found a guy who is
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: a friend of ours. We like kind of played banjo,
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: but close enough, but he was such a good dude.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: And so, uh, so sold out to excellence and working hard.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: And yeah, um, just not taking second rate for an answer.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: And he essentially just like locked himself in his room
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: for a couple of weeks and like learned everything and
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: like came in and just didn't stop. Org Harden was
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: an amazing hire for tradesman.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: I'm a big believer in trades and behavior skills, which is,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: you know, the hard work, the dedication, the commitment to excellence.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Those are all like built into, you know, some people. Yeah.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: And you can teach a skill, man. You can teach
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: the hard work, the dedication to excellence, the, The drive,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: that's all.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: Yesterday I was on a set where I was essentially
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: a glorified button presser.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: I was just pressing record. I didn't have to move
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: the camera much at all.
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: So did you guys become a heavy metal bluegrass band overnight?
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: Did you guys change your mind?
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: You're on to something right now. There's a band called
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: Bill Murray. You ever heard of them?
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: I've heard of Bill Murray.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you've heard of Bill Murray. But there's a band
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: called Bill Murray.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: And they, they have a mandolin and lots of like
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: country licks, like all through their music. And then we'll
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: just have some big breakdowns at you and whatnot. It's,
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: it's actually hilarious.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: But we got to check them out.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: But it, but it checks, maybe not.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Whatever, whatever works.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: That's funny.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Get a couple, a little bit of cold brew in
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: you and start mosh pit.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: That's right. Before we dive back into the chaos on
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: the bad hire, this episode is brought to you by Bchex.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Hiring shouldn't feel like rolling the dice. Background checks should
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: come with great tech, seamless integration, and customer service that delivers.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: That's B-Checks. Lightning-fast results, unmatched accuracy, built-in fraud prevention. We
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  Speaker 1: help you hire the right people. Now, B-Checks plugs into
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: over 100 HRIS and ATS systems, so your background checks
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• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Protect your reputation. Protect your sanity. Go to bchex.io. That's
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: B-C-H-E-X dot I-O. Yeah, so Hudson, what we do, we'll
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: tell stories.
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: We have people like you on who tell actual your
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: life experience stories, but then we'll just pull stories from
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: Reddit a lot of times.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Is this from Reddit or is this submitted? This one
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: I have is from Reddit.
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: And then also with our contests, people have been sending
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: in stories.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: I think, Ken, you have another one you actually sent in.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: I'll try to knock that out. This one is from Reddit. So, okay,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: here we go.
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: It's a Monday morning. Tina, who is a co-worker that
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: I met, she calls in sick. She says she's super
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: sick from some bad sushi. She can't even stand up
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: without getting dizzy. It's totally believable.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Normal stuff. We've all been there. Yeah.
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: We've all been there from the sushi. The manager naturally says,
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: no worries, feel better, just normal manager stuff. A few
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: hours later, someone on our team is scrolling through Instagram,
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: and guess who just posted a full photo dump from
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: a breakfast that a brunch with bottomless mimosas.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: It was Tina.
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: So Tina is partying with some avocado toast, some selfies,
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: some champagne glasses, good vibes, all from that same morning.
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: And the caption even says, when life gives you lemons,
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: add some vodka. She completely forgot that her managers follow
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: her on Instagram. So I even commented, I'm glad you're
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: feeling better. And she did not reply to my comment.
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: So she comes in the next day, acting totally normal,
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: like nothing ever happened. And HR had a quick chat
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: with her. And after that, now her Instagram is private.
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: And her sick days magically start at 5 p.m.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: That's funny.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: If you're going to be dumb, you've got to make
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: sure the Instagram is private, I guess.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: Would your reaction to this change at all if you
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: were invited to the function?
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: At least I'd help her sneak away, maybe.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: A reminder to make.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Her Instagram private. If you want to sneak away, I
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: need some PTO time.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: He's so funny.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: You receive an email or something with you and manager
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: and HR, whoever, it's like, hey, sorry, I'm feeling really sick.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: And they slide into another one, they're like, hey.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Actually, come on through to the brunch spot. I'll see
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: you in 20 minutes.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Vodka and lemon.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Totally has happened. Well, that's the craziest part.
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: People will do stuff like that and not think about
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: social media all the time. And not even with a
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: private Instagram or whatever.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Does that sort of blow your mind?
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: I mean, people just don't think about it, I guess.
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: I mean, the fact that like, hey, we can all...
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: see everything at any time. Especially when it's lined up
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: perfectly with some kind of lie.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: It's just like, yeah, that doesn't make any sense. I
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: told you before, we had a guy who wanted to
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: take a trip to Europe and I don't know why
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: he just didn't say, I want to go. And so
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: he came up with some other story that he was sick.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, doctors noticed the whole thing. And he was
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: posting himself, pictures of him in Europe. And you're just like, dude,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: if you'd have just said, I really want to get
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: a beer, I'd have been like, rock on. I want
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: you there too. Send me some pics.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: I'm on a vermouth tour for the next six to
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: eight business.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Months doing it. I need some PTO for it.
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: I said it earlier, but at the end of the day, managers,
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: they want excellence. Obviously, they want people that are heard
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: they're managing to do the best work as possible. But also,
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: you just want communication. Hey, if you need something, just
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: let me know. If you need to go somewhere, just
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: let me know. Don't just try and go around.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you, Nathan, the whole incident with
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: me I was never upset with him. I was upset
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: with myself. I was like, what, what did I do
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: wrong that made him think that he couldn't tell us,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: he couldn't shoot straight with us. That's, that was a
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: reflection of who I thought we were. I was worried about,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, I. friended about that thing and I was
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: like because I he was he was he was good
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: he was good at.
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: His job yeah and a lot of times people will
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: come from other work cultures workplaces that's that is really
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: toxic and that you're always said no to so even
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: when you come into like a normal good positive work.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Culture we're gonna blame that on you know that happened
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: because of the previous we're good it wasn't us we
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: were good you.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Can't prove otherwise yeah I.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Don't know that's a healthy way to look at it
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: but yeah I agree. I know.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: I agree with that fully. There's, I talk about the
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: communication side too. Like that's something I've had to learn.
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: That's been the hardest thing for me is just learning
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: how to adequately communicate. And there was a point where
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: one of the reasons why we have a project manager
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: is because I'm like, Hey, I've just learned that I'm
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: not the, I'm not the most consistent communicator because if
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: there's seven or eight things moving in the background, they
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: need to communicate to, I'm going to drop one at least.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Like I'm just going to drop it.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: And so having somebody else that their entire job is
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: to say, here are the things that you need to
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: respond to, or here are the things that need to
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: have decisions to come, go for it. But I think
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: what you're, what you're saying too, is I, I, for
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: whatever reason you take that on yourself, you say, Hey, you,
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: you didn't respond in a way that made it feel
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: like we are just that we care about you first.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: What did I do to not? I'm right on with it.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: And it makes you feel, I mean, I, I imagine,
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: you know, you're not, you're not just doing this to,
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: you know, build a business, call it a day.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Like you care about people.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You have to, if you want to be great,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. And if you just don't want to be a,
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: you know, maybe you.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Don't have to be, but I, I just don't think it's,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: would be any fun. No. It's so much more, uh,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't know. I like it a lot
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: much when I know that I'm helping not just customers,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: but the people that have joined our team that, you know,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: we're providing real value to them and they're having a
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: good time and they're caught up in a mission and
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: they love coming to work. That that's, part of the deal.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I think it's something like it was, is like stuck
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: with me. You were talking about trying to hire people
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: and you immediately brought it to, you know, they got
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: to be able to handle pressure. I began to think
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: about your work that you have all this planning and
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: then you get, you know, people together, your client, and
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: you have this moment where you got to do everything right. Yeah. Right.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Is he going to pull this thing off, whether it's
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: shooting a show or, you know, something. And you're like,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: if it goes south. it's like you've got to find
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: solutions right now.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: I imagine that if it starts to come off and
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: it's not going perfectly, it probably could get pretty, you
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: need to have a bunch of cool heads around you.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, at least the way I look at that
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: often is, I mean, we've all worked in places where
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: we demand 100% success or this is the roadmap and
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: we have to hit it at 100%. That's a really
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: good way to A, not hit 100% and B, hate
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: what you're doing and at the end of it, you're
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: like this, was the worst and i didn't want to
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: do it so i've said for genuinely years we've at
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: unify we have like a 70 30 like an 80
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: 20 rule and it's 80 preparedness 20 discovery especially when
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: it comes to shooting on set um even if it's
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: scripted or whatever it's like you have an 80 idea
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: of what you want it to be um the specifics
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: that you have to touch on the bullet points that
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: are necessary um but then there's 20 discovery which is
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: super important because a um it allows you humans to
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: be humans. And it allows the thumbprint of the subject
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: matter to come out. You know, we could have come
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: in here and you could have sent me, Hey, here
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: are the five bullet points that we're going to be
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: talking about. It's essentially scripted, go for it. But then
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: we would lose out on a lot of, a lot
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: of things. We'd lose out on things that I have
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: to say. I would learn, I would lose out on
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: what y'all have to say. Um, especially when it comes
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: to people, people are dynamic, right? And so tailing in
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: on what happens when you're under pressure and things go wrong.
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: If we're, if we're doing 80, 20 and something goes
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: wrong throw in the 20 whatever but we expect excellence
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: and that doesn't mean perfection and excellence just means your
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: reaction time is good because you've done a million of
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: these things before or you've done a million things that
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: are analogous to what you're doing right now and when
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: something goes wrong unless it's like obvious malpractice there's there's
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: you're like okay went wrong cool moving on yeah that's.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Right in your business there's there's like a gazillion things
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: that can go wrong too. If you've ever been around
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: it and done any everywhere, there's always some switch that
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: doesn't work. There's a bolt that goes out. There's something
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: that doesn't, I also say this has got to be
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: like ready to solve problems. Totally.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: I say this at the beginning of almost every shoot,
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: especially if there's like a bigger crew. Um, I'll, I'll
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: start to say, I'm like, Hey guys, like you're all
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: here because you're good.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: At what you do.
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: You're all here because you're great people. And like, we're all,
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: we're all friends already. Um, The worst thing that can
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: happen is that the shoot goes to complete garbage cans
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: and catches on fire and we all lose our jobs.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: That is the worst thing that can happen.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Just normal worst case scenario.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Cool.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: You know, it's like we can still get drinks afterwards.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: All good. Right.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Like, you know, whatever. And maybe today's the day.
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: That's why like planning is so important because you can
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: even plan for, okay, like what do we do when
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: things don't go according to plan?
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Like even that's part of the plan, you know?
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: For sure. And it's better than.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, man, it's the worst to be on a
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: stressful set and, and you know that there's no way
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: to hit a hundred percent or an optimal outcome.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: And so then just everybody hates the experience.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: And so you're like, okay, well that sucked.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Cool.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Might as well make it fun. Yeah.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: Moving on, you know?
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: And I mean, that will, I'm sure that will happen
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: at some point and I will feel a little bit
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: less jovial about it, but ideally it doesn't stop, you know,
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: it doesn't stop the ability to go get a pint afterwards.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: Whether they're a bad hire or not.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Right. Well, you know, being a bad hire doesn't mean
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: you're a bad person in a lot of cases.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Bad hire, good hang.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: I've been that before.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: We need to get that on a t-shirt right there.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Bad hire, good hang.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: I've literally, I know I mentioned this to you guys,
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: like I cut my teeth coming up in the camera
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: world and I was a first AC for a long time,
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: which essentially you're the first assistant camera. It means you
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: are the second in command for everything that's going on
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: with the camera. You're responsible for the build out. All
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: the cables that are needed, you'd be shocked at how
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: many hundreds of things need to be ready to go.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: But something else you're responsible for is pulling focus and
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: pulling focus, making sure what's happening in front of the
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: camera stays in focus. That is something that is, it's technical.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: There's a bit of an art to it. And I
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: think that's something that I was like above average at.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: What I was not above average at was the organizational side.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: It's like, make sure all the batteries are charged. Make
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: sure the cards are set. They have all got tabbies
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: for them. Make sure that there's this cable, that cable,
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: spares for all, et cetera. Um, people are like, you know, like,
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: you know, where are these batteries at?
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: Are they charged? I'm like, I don't know. We should
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: find out, you know, like who's, someone should do that.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: You should get somebody to be on top of that.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: Man, you should do that.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh yeah, that makes sense.
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: And, but I had friends that were so demanding so
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: much excellence as first acs that uh i just started
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: realizing like man i'm a decent focus puller i'm not
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: a good first ac like but again with the bad
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: hire good hang your bad person dude i got hired
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: on there were a handful of times i got hired
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: to play hey you're my friend. I am not hiring
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: you because you're the best first AC. But I need
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: someone who can handle pressure. I need someone who can
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: pull focus, whatever. Which is funny.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: But I love that, man. It's just the humanity of
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: what we're talking about is just like that can be
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: a great person and not be the right hire. Sometimes
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: you're just in the wrong position. You go from that
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: to something else and that's all it is.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: Totally, yeah. Finding your strength is super big.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, running a company, right? Part of your job
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: is to help people find their strengths. And I think
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: part of your job that I'm kind of learning right
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: now is, is in what Russell at my first company
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: taught me is he was always talking about, Hey, like
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: once you get to this skill level or once you
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: get to this point where you have these opportunities, whatever, like,
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: I hope you go off and you kill it. He
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: was always talking about like when it was time for
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: me to kind of like leave the nest, so to speak.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: And, um, yeah, it's a good measure. It's a great manager.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: I had this conversation with one of my friends. I
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: was just telling you about like an editor who was
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: part-time with us. I was like, Hey man, you're killing
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: it right now. Um, Stop working for us.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Without someone like, without someone like that in your life,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: would you have ended up like, like if you hadn't
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: had somebody who was like, saw that you had potential
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: and was like, maybe like, I can lift this person.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: They're going to, you know, go on and do great things. Instead, if,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: if it had not had that, would you have been
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: trapped or were you, because I think a lot of,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: a lot of great people get trapped by bad, by
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: bad managers, man, people holding them back.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Honestly like in a I think I'm.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Was your will to get out so big that you
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: didn't matter.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: No I think that I I think it goes farther
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: toward like how I treat people now and and more
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: so I feel like indebted to how many people believed
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: in me and gave me second chances and like still
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: do stuff like that and like speak life into me
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: that it is just not it is a non-negotiable to
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: kind of do that. And I feel like I'm not,
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: Unify shouldn't be a place that people come and work
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: and stay for forever. I don't think because ideally we're
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: hiring people who are so good that their ceiling is
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: like way past what we can do. Now that being said,
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: it's really inspiring because I'm like, I want to meet
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: the ceiling. I want to meet the ceiling and get
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: it up so that I can match the people that
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: I work with. that's a really fun challenge to be around.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: Cause I'm just like, Oh, like things are just getting
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: better and better and better. Let's just keep, let's, let's
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: keep pushing that, um, in a way that is elevating,
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: you know, and instead of there's a difference between like
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: climbing and being lifted.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: And I think there's some, some equal parts. Um, there,
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: there's some equal, equal parts. There's some balance that I feel,
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: I feel very much indebted to Russell. I'm like, Oh dude, you,
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: you gave me so much trust and so much integrity
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: when like I did not earn that in any way.
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: You're just like, hey, I'm giving you this so that
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: you can get to the point where you feel like
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: you've earned it. And I'm like, all right, well, I
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: can't lie. I can't cheat anybody now.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: Thanks, Russell.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: So not that I would want to do that anyway.
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: But that's cool management, though, just be able to, like,
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: identify that in somebody and, like, not hold them back, but, like,
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: kind of let them go to the next stage, you know?
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: And I feel like all of us kind of probably
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: have somebody in our career, in our life who is
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: that person for us, at least, like, you know, I do.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: It's a blessing.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: Who, like, helped you kind of move to the next stage.
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: You know, even, like... I think people look at their
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: careers and wherever they are at in their career, like, oh,
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: this is how it's always going to be, whether it's, like,
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: good or bad.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: And sometimes it's a rollercoaster. Like, there's ups and downs.
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: And, like, you need somebody like that, like a good
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: manager or, like, a good mentor to, like, help you
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: get to the next stage.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: You know, like, through those ups and downs. So that's great.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: I feel like I've always had people who are, like,
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: calling me up.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's... You know?
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: It's an insane blessing, you know? And I'm... That is...
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: the reason that I'm here now.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I wish that for everybody to be surrounded. You know,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: I was talking to somebody who's in the, really in
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: the consulting business who helps businesses, you know, build and
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: retain great work, great workforces and he's worked with a
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: lot of huge companies and he was just talking about
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: the impact of you can set up all these hiring
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: systems to hire the right people, right? All the screening
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: and interview styles and all these ways to, you know,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: increase the probability of great hiring. And you do, and
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: you hire great, and then you send them into the
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: organization and, you know, the manager they get there and
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: the culture, the subculture of that situation has a greater
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: impact of whether that person is successful or not has
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: nothing to do. And I think about that all the
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: time when I think about recruiters who are stressed every
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: day trying to find great talent and put place in
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: their organization and how much control they lose as soon
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: as they drop them off. And they're like, you know, geez,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: you know, and they get a sense. They probably know that's,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: that's going to be tough. Right.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: It's a question mark.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: The, the final, the final anecdote I'll give about, about
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: that is, uh, the time that I was the wrong
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: hire personally. Uh, and more specifically in there, I think
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: it was, it was the worst shoot I've ever been
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: on period. Not because it wasn't set up well, because
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: like my job as the first AC, I just failed
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: almost every single way I possibly could. And there was plenty,
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: there were things going on in my personal life and whatnot.
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: So I think it makes it understandable, but it doesn't
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: make it acceptable.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: Um, and I'll call out my homie, John. He was
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: the DP for this. Shout out, John.
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: Um, he brought me on this and he was very
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: straight up. He's like, man, this is a big client
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: for me. I've been trying to get them for a while.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: And John is, probably the best director of photography that
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: He's insane. He's like, this is a big deal. I
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: know you'll meet it. I know you can do it.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: Spoiler alert, didn't.
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: Long story short, we just got it handed to us
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: because there was a lot of moving pieces and I
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: was just failing here, failing there, failing here. Anyway, fireable offenses, period.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: And we had three, it was a four-day shoot, I think.
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: It was a day somewhere in North Carolina, a few
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: days in Tennessee.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Um, whatever.
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: And, and it was, it was, I don't know the
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: budget of this, but it was certainly close to.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: $ 500, 000 or something for the budget. It was not a
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: small thing.
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: Um, and after this fireable, after my like just worst
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: day ever, et cetera, um, we're driving to Tennessee, separate cars, whatever.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: John calls me and the, and I'm, I'm like kind
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: of shaking in my boots right now. And he's like,
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: Hey man, like, are you okay? like anything you need,
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: I've got you.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: Period. It was just like what he did. And I,
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: I like, it was kind of like, it makes me
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: emotional right now. I was like floodgates. And he's like,
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: Hey man, like we're getting into Tennessee, like drop your bags.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: I'm taking you to dinner. Let's do it. And he,
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: he just, he just big brothered me like super hard.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: And again, like called me up. He said, Hey man,
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: like I get, I told him everything I was going through.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: He's like, I get it.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: He said, there's a, he said, there is an opportunity
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: with the job that we have. to where your personal
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: life is going to be there before you get on
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: set and it's going to be there after you get
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: on set. He said, when you're on set, you have
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: the opportunity to demand excellence of yourself and to like
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: honor the crew.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: And honor what you're doing.
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: And it's totally reasonable to let everything else exist outside
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: of that. And then when you're out, deal with it
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: and deal with it the same way, with honor, with time,
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: with respect. And it was like really cool because I
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: was like, man, like, I can never fire anybody. Like
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: if I, if I'm not getting fired for this, but
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: it was cool.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: Cause he turned a liability into an asset for sure.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: And I, I like, I like.
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: Feel like I'm just like, dude, like big bro for
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: life for sure. Um, I mean, we've known each other in,
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: in many other cases other than just that.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: But that's cool.
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: It sounds like you've had a number of like mentors
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: slash people who've just been there.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: Well, and you can tell it's, and it's really driven this, uh,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: in talking, you listed a theme of excellence. I mean,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: it's like a real high focus of excellence. Yeah. beams
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: out of you when you're talking to you I think
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: it's expected right yeah you can definitely feel it from
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: you and hear it from you and listening to your
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: journey you realize it wasn't by accident you had a
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: couple guys who were real purposeful in the way they
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: you know allowed you to develop and so you went
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: from bad hire to you know he makes it work
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: you end up with another great manager who teases more
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: out of you and eventually sets you on your own
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: and now you've got you know, a successful business. That's awesome.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man.
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: I think that's something that, you know, all of us
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: are ultimately in, in the call to in places of
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: leadership is the, the people over the product, but like
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: really mean it and mean it for like when, when
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: those people let you down, that's when the true colors
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: come out.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: That's when the test is.
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: Everybody's making money and everybody's working great and whatever. It's like,
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: nothing's being tested. You're not, you're not, you got to
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: get in the gym and tear the muscles.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: So to build it up, but I've had a lot
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: of people believe in me. just unreasonable amounts that I
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: very much want to keep that moving forward.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: That's great. For sure.
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because when you have that, then you become that
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: to somebody else because you've had that experience.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: That's the hope.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: That's the hope, isn't it?
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: That's cool. You're carrying it already.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: It feels that way here, man.
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: I've only met a couple of y'all, and y'all are
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: immediately like, yo, sit in the fuzzy chair, dude.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: Let me tell y'all about it. We reserved the fuzzy
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: chair for this special guest.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: I felt it.
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: I felt it big time.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Love it. That's it, man. We appreciate it. Thanks for
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: having me. Yeah, it was cool having you on the show.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: It was great. Yeah, love it.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: Appreciate you guys a lot.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no sport.
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: Well, thanks, man. Thanks, man.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: Thanks a lot.