Latest / Luke's English Podcast / He Fumbled a _500_000 Deal... and Still Didn_t Get Fired

Transcript

He Fumbled a _500_000 Deal... and Still Didn_t Get Fired · Luke's English Podcast

• 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.
• 0:05
  Speaker 3: Of course, people are crazy.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: It's like an hr nightmare. Right one Bad Hire stole
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: all of.
• 0:11
  Speaker 3: It crazy stuff. 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
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: work and what can happen when the wrong person gets
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the job. These stories aren't just crazy when they're cautionary
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: tales about lessons learned the hard way. Let's get started,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: all right, Hey, welcome to The Bad Hire. I've got
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Hudson with me and Marcus and good to have you
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: guys on the show.
• 0:42
  Speaker 4: Marcus, that's Marcus waiting, Not Marcus.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: I got Marcus too, Mark, Mark.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Mar's got it going on. I'm going to him all morning,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: trying to get this thing going.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: The talking.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Well, welcome, Thanks ro It be here, dude. Tell us
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: that you're you know, first time?
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: Will the show?
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Tell us? What's up? I want to know a little
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: bit about you.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, names Hudson, Proud, Charlotte ten. I run Unify
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Visual Marketing. We're a video and photo and design agency.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: We do a lot of work in like the commercial space,
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: and we do some nonprofit. We do stuff for local
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: companies around here. But I just my favorite thing about
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: it is I am the least qualified to be in
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: most rooms I'm in because I just know how cameras work.
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but then you go back to your LinkedIn and
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: it says CEO right there, CEO. Yeah, so at the
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: end of the day you can have that on your
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: business card.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it turns out it's not that hard to become
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: a CEO. It is kind of hard to keep the
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: thing going. Yeah, you know, to not like have it
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: like start.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: A new one. That's what happened. Yeah's right on to
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: the next one.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, a little bit of white collar crime, no problem.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: But I love what I do. I'm happy.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: So what is what is unifies Unify?
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: Yes, sirry, so you know.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: What is tell me a little bit about a little
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: deeper about.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: What they do. Yeah, so Unify we primarily work in
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: like the commercial space. So we've done campaigns for like
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: Lenovo and Mac Trucks and Volvo. In the sports world,
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: it's like Charlotte FC, the Panthers, so a lot of
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: really cool stuff. Apple is a big name to drop, right,
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: which is cool, but Honestly, what I think my favorite
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: thing to do is is work with more local businesses,
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: like smaller businesses. So we do a lot of work
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: in the food and BEV world. There's a some of
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: my best friends run a company called Hex Coffee. It's
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: the best coffee in North Carolina. We work with the
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: food and BEV Like.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Hex Coffee is a shop, like I go and get
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: a cup of coffee, or they're making coffee.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so both. They've got a roastery, they have a
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: they have something called Hex Kitchen and Natural Wines and
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: Camp North End and that's it's a cafe. But it's
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: tricky because no cafe has business making food that's good
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: like this intentional. But if you're a coffee nerd too,
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: you go in there and they have like heirloom grains
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: and like heirloom tomatoes and things like that. Okay, ideas
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: it's you know, seeds that don't exist anymore. They have
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: coffee beans that are from reserve lots back in like
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen. Then they have frozen and they
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: have this wildly complicated and extra setup to where oh
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: we have this magic coffee that doesn't exist.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Say we have the Jurassic Park of coffee.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: They have the Jurassic Park. Yeah, Chris Pratt loves the coffee. Yeah,
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: you're probably probably. But I love working with the local crews,
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: especially in food and bed because they demand so much excellence.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: Because someone in Charlotte. I think the heartbeat of Charlotte
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: is people who demand excellence and hospitality. And that's fun
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: because if you go to New York, you're gonna get
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: excellence top down, left, right, front, Yeah, for sure. But
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: if you're from the South, you understand that the hospitality
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: in the South something a little bit different. So I
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: love that. And then the last leg of our businesses
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: we do like pennies on the dollar nonprofit work. A
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: couple that we worked for this year is the downsing
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: Drom Association of Greater Charlotte. They are just a sleeping
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: giant they have. They do so much work for families
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: and individuals with down syndrome.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I love that.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and then congregations for kids. They do a ton
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: of advocacy work for people in foster care and for
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: social workers, so there's a massive support for social workers
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: and for kids that are aging out of the foster
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: care system. It's just stuff that I don't think about
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: immediately when I think about does work in foster care,
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: But they do enough to worry. They even have pull,
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: like in a judicial sense, like they are they're advocating
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: in courtrooms and whatnot. So there's awesome people doing awesome
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: stuff in Charlotte, and we get to have a small
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: part of that just because we know how cameras work.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's cool, it's sweet.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Well, it sounds like you're crushing it. Well, so for
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: everybody out there, you need somebody in production, video production,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: film production.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: Holleratus Yeah, follow them on LinkedIn.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, come on, come on through. We love working with
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: What we say is we currently. I just don't care
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: what I'm working on as long as it's.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I think we ran into you own LinkedIn somehow.
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: You have one usual friend from somebody that I grew
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: up with then and then we like reached out talking
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: about camera stuff, and then I was like, oh, hey,
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: you'd be perfect because.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Like you're the lead guy and running a business.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: You've hired, you've hired people, you've been running business, and there's.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: Just a couple of nerds. It's a couple of nerds.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: Dming on LinkedIn that's all. We need nothing to see here. Yeah,
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: you're telling me about that.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Is definitely a nerd that we met on. We actually
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: at social media. Yeah, I'm nott on LinkedIn.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: That's right, linked n GM's antical place.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: Wait, really you just found him.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: I was looking for someone to do, uh, come in
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: and run, you know, growth marketing for us at age.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: I was just looking and I don't know how. I
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: forget the story really, but I just know that we
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: ended up. He was he was in like the valley
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: in California, and he had the skills, but he was
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: you know, across the country, and I really want to
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: diire someone here.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: And then it turns out he went to Virginia Tech
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: and was from Virginia and so and had this plan
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: to kind of move.
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: Back east, like right at the same time that he
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: was hiring, and so I was like, we're already talking
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: about I really Charlotte, because but you.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Know, I finally gave in.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: And you ever heard of a place called Monks Burger
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: Bar and Pungo Island?
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: I don't think so in Virginia Beach area. Yeah, I
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: know Pungo Island like pretty good. Yeah that sounds kind
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: of familiar.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: Monks is my parents used to live in Virginia Beach
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: a little bit and there's this biker bar called Monks. Okay,
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: it was funny because I was feeling some type of way.
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: We went in there and I was like, Hey, can
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: I get a double cheeseburger or whatever? And like, yeah,
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: an extra piece of cheese? No, you don't want to
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: do that, man, Like what do you mean? They're like,
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: we put like a block of velveta on it.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Trust us, dude, it would don't do extra.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: It was an illegal amount of cheese that they put
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: on there. Yeah, it was fantastic.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: I gotta take it out. Yeah, Pungo is the place
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: to be. That's cool.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: It rocked.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: What I was telling you before, I love the you know,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: I love the idea of to have you on the
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: show because it was like, you know, you're you're You're
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: not this huge conglomerate. You know, our audience is a
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: lot of recruiting, a lot of people that are hiring folks.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: But you know, uh, when.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: You've got a smaller business, you are that guy. The
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: CEO is that guy. Obviously it involved for a long
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: time in our hiring here, you know, but so every
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: higher 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 as the life you live, you
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: live thinking about hiring great people and you know, but
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: it's so for for CEO, it's the same, right.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: You're totally you're totally correct. I had a my first uh,
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: my first step into the production world. It was this
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: It was a small agency. They primarily did medical work
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: in Charlotte. And it was funny because I came in
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: just hungry and interested. And the CEO, his guy named Russell,
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: who's still a great friend of mine. He he just
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: went off of an active faith of like I see
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: that you're hungry, and I see that you've got a
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: good you know, you're you're interested, and you you're you're
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: playing with the kids in the sandbox, like it's a
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: good fit. But you don't know anything right now, so
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: let's just bring you in and keep you moving. And
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: he had so much integrity with he said, now you're
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: on the team. That means like you have access to
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: all of our stuff. You have access to all of
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: us as resources and pieces of information. And there were
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: definitely like mishaps that I had and stumbles along the way,
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: but that really embedded kind of a thumbprint of moving forward.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: It's a it's a people over products kind of thing.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: Culture first. Like my business partner, for instance, Johano, He's
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: one of the best photographers I know personally period And
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: I'm not just saying that, but I asked him to
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: be my business partner six months into him buying a camera.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: He was not a good photographer at that point in time.
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: He was a novice, but he the way he broke
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: down problems and the way that he saw the world
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: and the way that he operated culturally and where his
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: priorities were. I'm like, oh, dude, you compliment me a
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: lot in the ways that I fall short. But also
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: I feel I feel really good because I was like,
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: I was like, I've bet in two years, you're gonna
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: be someone You're gonna be any other person's like ten
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: year mark of rhotography, And I feel like I was correct.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: He's ripping.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah right, I mean that's cool.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I was just saying that we do
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: photos for Counter, the restaurant in Charlotte, and they just
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: won the first Michelin Star in North Carolina O, which
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: is crazy. Yeah, the first Michelin star in North Carolina
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: in Charlotte is Counter and Counter is not going to
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: pick just anyone to take their photos. So to brag
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: on John, oh, good, good work. I would never say
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: this to your face, but you're a great friend and
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: an amazing photographer.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: And right, because I really think I said when you
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: would you put together a partner, it's still higher because
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: I've had some really bad ones in my life. I've
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: had some that have cost me lots and lots of
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: money because it was you know, I just skipped the
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: whole I skipped the process and just like hired somebody
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: because I felt it was gonna be good, funny actually
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: or whatever.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and then I've had some.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Really phenomenal partners. You know, I tell people all the
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: time picking up partners, you're still you can still pick up.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: It could still be a bad eyer, 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.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: It's Yeah, And on the ownership, I think it's a
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: little bit easier to justify you like, oh, we're both
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: in have skin in the game, right, versus full time buyers.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Totally what happened to me and one of the worst
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: decisions of my life. No, just just you know, business
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: decision of my life. Anyway, it was just we're gonna
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: be together after this, you know, why would you do
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: me wrong? Why would you not tell the truth? Why
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: would you Yeah, you know we're gonna be doing life
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: together after this, you know. Yeah, And so you just.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: Think it's you think it's forever. I do think it's
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, we we have that JOHNO and I and
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: we have another businessartnernam Lilandas we have this conversation where
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: we're like, Okay, let's really easily come up with like
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: exit ramps for all of us, because we really love
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: each other. And you've heard a billion stories about people
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: who are just like really close friends who like now
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: hate each other's guts because of like X, Y or Z.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: So here, at least to the best of our abilities,
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: is that we can give each other opt outs or like,
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: if you're sucking at your job and you're holding everybody
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: else back, and he's been like pretty obvious and coleasonable
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: that you're the odd one out, and like, let's just
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: agree to this up front, you know, and who know,
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: I mean easier something done right. Yeah, yeh, Luckily I
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: don't think. I don't think we're there yet.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: So telling about how critical hiring was when you're when
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: you're smaller earlier, and just uh, the impact that a
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: singular dad hire could make on a CEO and his business,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: especially you know, someone like he was doing business with
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: some really cool brands, right, and you've got, you know,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: a small team, and one bad hire in that team
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: could cost you a huge brand you know that you're
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: working with.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's very that's very true. One hobby A quick story,
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: one of the uh one one. I mean, I'll try
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: to stay as anonymous as possible. But one of the
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: bigger brands that we had, we had this big campaign
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: that they do every time years, 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're creating this stylized brand essentially for an event
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: they had. And a friend of mine who have worked
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: with plenty over the years in at least parallels. I
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: never hired him exactly for any sort of specific technical work,
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: but we'd kind of worked in similar creative circles anyway.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: I just trusted the dude, but never realized they never
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: asked for a proof of concept for his work. I
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: just saw other bits of their work and I was like, Oh,
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: this dude's got it for sure. And then yeah it
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: was like design stuff and sends the first draft and
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: do you remember Microsoft paint? Oh yeah, yeah, Microsoft paint.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: This looks like this looks like someone who was like
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: pretty good at Microsoft Pint. Yeah it was bad, dude.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: It was just something different. I was like, man, did
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: we And it was so shocking because this dude's standard yeah,
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: did to be pretty high, and uh, we think.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: You just had him down a path that like that
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: wasn't like his best skill, like you had maybe seen
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: others or something.
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: And I hope so I spoke that wasn't like blasted
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: with comic sands and like rim colors or like all
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: over the place.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: Dude, Yeah it was. I mean, I'm not a designer.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: We'll put that out there. I was like, man, I
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: even like, come on. So I initially thought, I was like,
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: this is definitely on me, one hundred percent on me. Hey,
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: here are the actual things that we're looking for. Here's
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: a bit more information. Blah blah. And the second round
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: came in and we we genuinely were just like, all right,
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: we're just gonna buy you out. And I've been there,
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: move elsewhere. Uh, and it it was kind of scary.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: I I'm not maybe not scary. Luckily the client was cool.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: But the client was like, we're just gonna go on
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: like fiver and find something, and they found a great design.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: I was like, Okay, well tell it on this.
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: It's gonna happen all the time of somebody's 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's somebody man.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and totally he goes south.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: All the time.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: It's not 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 when that happens with that's happened with us.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: We've like and it's hard to you're trying to figure
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: out is this lack of effort time like did they
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: just try to whip this up last night because it
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: was due today?
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Or is this like honestly best effort kind of work, Like,
• 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 with this up like
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: on the drive here or something. Yeah, because this is
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: hard when there's no excuse. Yeah, if I give somebody,
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: I think about this too, And you, you guy probably
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: thin about this when it comes to being excellent at
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: your craft or what you do. If I gave you
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: twelve months to to shoot a commercial or something, I'm
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: gonna expect it to be good no matter who you are.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: You have twelve months, like you should get some where.
• 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
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: you have to trust your instincts, your knee jerk reactions,
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: et cetera. But we gave hiss Gut plenty of time anyway,
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: So it is what it is. But it was funny
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: because the lesson I learned there was a couple of things.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: A dude is still remarkably talented at a handful of
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: other things, And now I've got like really solid proof
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: of concept. I still work with them genuinely incredibly talented. Also,
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: I'm just probably not gonna just trust that my friends
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: are good at something unless I can just say, hey, like,
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: just as a formality, send me a portfolio that matches X,
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: Y or Z real quick, just so that I don't
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: have to lose thousands of dollars.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Great learning for CEOs for real is don't just assume.
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the contract side of things is very different, you know,
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: like that there's the partners, there's contractors, and then the
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: full time hires. Similar to what I was saying about
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: my friend Russell, I very much live in the world
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: of it's it's culture first. It's how you connect first,
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: and maybe even maybe how you connect. This tied for
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: first with how do you handle distress? How do you
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: handle like hard times and and whatnot? Because if if
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: you get stressed out and the world crumbles underneath you
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: and crumbles for everybody else around you, it's it's really
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: hard to keep a strong keep a strong link of support. Yeah,
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: because if if you know, the world's burning down, but
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: you got your homies next to you, it's not that
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: big of a deal. So it's good to keep that
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: kind of up. But I was growing up in high school.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: I played the heavy like metal bands like for years,
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: and I remember we had a our guitarist left or
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: he was he should have left. He was a full
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: bright scholar and was going to like UNCC or UC
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: Chapel Hill, become a doctor and all this stuff. We
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: were all like, we sign a first record deal, We're
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: like all right, we're gonna go tour and all that.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, but like how do we do this without
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: our guitar player? And I remember we we were thinking,
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: who's good a guitar? Who can do this? Who can
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: do that? We found a guy who is a friend
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: of ours who like kind of played banjo.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: But close enough.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: But he was such a good dude and so so
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: sold out to excellence and working hard and just not
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: taking second rate for an answer, and he essentially just
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: like locked himself in his room for a couple weeks
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: and like learned everything and like came in and just
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: didn't stop. Or Harden was an amazing hire for trades.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: I'm a big believer in trades and behaviors toward skills,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: which is, you know, the hard work, the dedication they
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: commitment to excellencer, those are all like built into you
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: know some people. Yeah, and you can teach a skill man,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: you cannot teach the hard work, the dedication, the excellence,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: the drive, that's all.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yesterday I was on a set where I was
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: essentially a glorified button presser. I was just pressing record.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: I didn't have to like move the camera much at all.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: It was like, Okay, I'm just.
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: Did you guys become like a heavy metal bluegrass band overnight?
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: You know, like you guys change now hard?
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that you're onto something right now. There's a band
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: called Bill Murray. You ever heard of them?
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: I've heard of Bill Murray.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you've heard of Bill Murray. But it's a bad
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: Bill Murray. And they they have a mandolin and lots
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: of like country licks like all through their music, and
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: then's have some big breakdowns. It's screwing and whatnot. It's
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: it's actually hilarious, right, but we gotta check them out. Yeah,
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: but but it checks maybe not, I don't know, whatever,
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: whatever works.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: It's funny.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: Get a couple of little bit cold brew in you
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: and started washpitting.
• 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
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: be checks. Hiring shouldn't feel like rolling the dice. Background
• 18:44
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  Speaker 1: dot io. That's b C h e X dot io.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so what we do.
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: We'll tell stories that we have people like you on
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: who like tell actual your life experience stories. But then
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: we'll just pull stories from Reddit a lot of us
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: and so this one is this from Reddit?
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Or is this submitted?
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: This one?
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: This one I have is from Reddit.
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: And then and then also, like with our contests, you know,
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: people have been sitting in stories. So I think, ken,
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: you have another. Okay, I actually said, I'll try to
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: knock that out. This one is from Reddit, and so okay,
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: here you go. So it's a Monday morning. Tina, who
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: is a coworker that I man, She calls in sick.
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: She says she's super sick from some bad sushi. She
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: can't even stand up without gaining dizzy. It's totally believable,
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: normal stuff.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: We've all been there.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we've all been there.
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: From the sushi, the manager naturally says, no worries, feel better,
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: no manager stuff. And a few hours later, someone on
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: our team and scrolling through Instagram and guests who just
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: posted a full photo dump from a breakfast a brunch
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: with bottom bottom bottom list mimosas it was Tina. So
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: Tina is partying with some avocado TOAs, some selfies, some
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: champagne glasses, good vibes, all from that same morning. And
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: the caption even says, when life gives you lemons at
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: some vodka. Uh, she forgot, she completely forgot that her
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: managers follow her own Instagram. So I even commented I'm
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: glad you're feeling better, as she did not reply to
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: my comment. So she comes in the next day acting
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: totally normal like nothing ever happens, and HR had a
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: quick chat with her and after that, now her Instagram
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: is private and her six days magically start at five pm.
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: So that's funny. Would this be done? You got to
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: make sure the instagram is private.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: I guess would would your reaction to this change at all?
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: If you were invited to the function. Yeah, at least not.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: Help her sneak away.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: Maybe I don't know, a reminder of bigger Instagram.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: You want to see and need some pizzo time at all.
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: He's so funny. If you receive an email or something
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: with like like you and manager and hr about it's like, hey, sorry,
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: I'm like feeling really sick, and they slide into another one.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: They're like, hey, actually, like come on through to the
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: brunch and I'll see you in twenty minutes. Vodka and
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: lemon totally has happened.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: That's the craziest part.
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: People will do stuff like that and like not think
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: about social media like all the time, and like not
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: even with Instagram or whatever.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: Does that sort of blow your mind?
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: I don't know just I mean, people just don't think
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: about it. I guess I mean the fact that like, hey,
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: we can all see everything at any time, especially like
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: when it's lined up perfectly with some kind of lie,
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: which is like, yeah, it makes sense.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: I told you before we had that. We had a
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: guy wanted to take a trip to Europe, and I
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: don't know why, he just didn't say I want to go,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: you know, And so he came up with some other
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: story that he was sick, and I'd bean doctors noticed
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: the whole thing, and he was posting him self pictures
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: of them in Europe, and you're just like, dude, if
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: you'd have just said I really want to get a beer,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: I'd have been like, rock on, I want you there too.
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I'm doing give me some picks, you know,
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: I mean one of remooth tour for the next six
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: to eight business months.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: You do it and PTO for it. Yeah I said
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: it earlier.
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: But like at the end of the day, I mean,
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: managers they want excellence, like they obviously like they want
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: people that heard they're managing to do the best work
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: as possible. But also really used to like you just
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: want communication, like hey, if you read something, just let
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: me know. Like if you need to go somewhere, just
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: let me know, Like, don't just try and go around.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Tell you Nathan the whole incident with me, I was
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: never upset with him. I was upset with myself. I
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: was like, what what did I do wrong? And made
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: him think that he couldn't tell us, he couldn't shoo
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: straight with us. That's that was a reflection of who
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: I thought we were I was worried about I mean,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: I friended about that thing, and I was like, because
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: he was he was he was good. He's good as shown.
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and a lot of time and people will come
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: from other work cultures workplaces that's that is really toxic
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: and that you're always said no to bring even when
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: you come into like a normal, good, positive work hold.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: We're going to blame that because of the previous yead.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: Prove otherwise.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Be honest, that's a healthy way to look at it.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I know I agree with that fully. There's
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: I'm talking about the communications side too, Like that's something
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: I've had to learn that that's been the hardest thing
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: for me, is just learning how to adequately communicate. And
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: there was a point where one of the reasons why
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: we have a project manager is because I'm like, hey,
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: I've just learned that I'm not the I'm not the
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: most consistent communicator. Because if there's seven or eight things
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: moving in the background they need to communicate to, I'm
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: going to drop one at least, like I'm just gonna
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: drop it. And so having somebody else that their entire
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: job is to say, here are the things that you
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: need to respond to or here are the things that
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: need to have decisions to come go for it. But
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: I think what you're what you're saying too, is I
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: I for whatever reason, you take that on yourself. You say, hey, hey,
• 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 3: What did I do to?
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm right one, And.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: It makes you feel I mean, I imad. You know
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: you're not. You're not just doing this to you know,
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: build a business call of a day like you care
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: about people.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you have to feeling to be great.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: I think absolutely. And if you just don't want to
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: be a.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: You know, maybe you don't have to be. But I
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: just don't think it would be any fun. You know,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: it's so much more, uh, you know, I don't know.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: I like it a lot much when I know that
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: I'm helping not just customers, but the people that have
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: joined their team that you know, we're providing real value
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: to them and they're having a good time and they're
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: caught up in a mission and the left coming to work.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: That's part of the deal. I think it's something when
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: I go is like stuck with me. You were talking
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: about trying to hire people and you immediately brought it
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: to you know, they got to be able to handle pressure.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: I begin to think about your work that you have
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: all this planning and then you get you know, people
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: together your client and you have this moment where you
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: got to do everything right. Yeah, you's going to pull
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: this thing off, whether it's shooting a show or you
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: know something, and you're like, if it goes south, it's like,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: you've got to find solutions, Dalen right now for sure.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: And the egine that it if it starts to come
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: off and it's not going perfectly, probably could get pretty
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: You need to have a bunch of cool heads around you,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: for sure.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: Sure. I mean the the at least the way I
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: look at that often is I mean we've all worked
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: in places where we demand one hundred percent success or
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: this is the roadmap and we have to hit it
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: one hundred percent. It's like that's a really good way
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: to a not hit one hundred percent and be hate
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: what you're doing and like at the end of it,
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: you're like, this was the worst and I want to
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: do it. So I've said for genuinely years we've unified.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: We have like a seventy thirty or like an eighty
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: twenty rule, and it's eighty percent preparedness twenty percent discovery.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: Especially when it comes to shooting on set, even if
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: it's scripted or whatever. It's like you have an eighty
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: percent idea of what you want to be, the specifics
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: that you have to touch on, the bullet points that
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: are necessary. But then there's twenty percent discovery, which is
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: super important because a it allows humans to be humans,
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: and it allows the thumb print of the subject matter
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: to come out. You know, we could have come in
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: here and you could have sent me, hey, here are
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: the five billet points that we're going to be talking about.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: It's essentially scripted, go for it. But then we would
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: lose out on a lot of a lot of things.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: We'd lose out on things that I have to say,
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: I would learn it. I would lose out on what
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: y'all have to say, especially when it comes to people.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: People are dynamic, right, and so tailing in on what
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: happens when you're under pressure and things go wrong. If
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: we're doing eighty twenty and something goes wrong, throw in
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: the twenty percent whatever. But we expect excellence, and that
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: doesn't mean perfection and excellence just means your reaction time
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: is good because you've done a million of these things before,
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: or you've done a million things that are analogous to
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: what you're doing right now. And when something goes wrong,
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: unless it's like obvious malpractice, there's there's you're like, okay,
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: we're wrong, Cool, moving on.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in your business, there's there's like a bazillion things
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: that can go wrong to 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, and they always bolt that goes out. There's
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: something that doesn't I also say this, it's gotta 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. I'll start to
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: say like, hey, guys, like you're all here because you're
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: good at what you do. You're all here because you're
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: great people, and like we're all we're all friends already.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: The worst thing that can happen is that the shoot
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: goes to complete garbage cans and catches on fire and
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: we all lose our jobs. Yeah, that is the worst
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: thing they can have. It's a normal worst case in
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: you're cool. You know, it's like we can still get
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: drinks afterwards, all good, like you know whatever, and maybe
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: today's the days.
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: Why, Like planning is so important because you can even
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: plan for okay, like what do we do when things
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: don't go according to plan?
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Like even that's part of the plan, you know.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: For sure, and it's it's better than I mean, man,
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: it's the worse to be on a stressful set and
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: you know that there's no way to hit one hundred
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: percent or an optimal outcome, and so then just everybody
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: hates the experience and so you're like, Okay, well that sucked.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah cool, Yeah, moving on, you know, And I mean
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: that will I'm sure that will happen at some point
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: and I will feel a little bit less jovial about it.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: But ideally it doesn't stop, you know, it doesn't stop
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: the ability to go get a pint afterwards. Yeah, whether
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: they're a bad hire or.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Not, well, you know, being a band higher doesn't mean
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: you're a bad person in a lot of cases.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: Bad higher good. Hang, Yeah, I've been that before.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: We need to get that on a T shirt right there,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: bad good.
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: Hang, I've I've literally I know I mentioned this to
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: you guys like I cut my teeth coming up in
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: the camera world, and I was a first AC for
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: a long time. Yes, essentially, but you're the first assistant
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: camera means you are the second in command for everything
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: that's going on with the camera. You're responsible for the
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: build out, all the cables that are needed. There's you'd
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: be shocked at how many undreds of things and need
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: to be ready to go. But something else you're responsive
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: for is pulling focus and pulling focus, making sure what's
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: happening in front of the camera stays in focus. That
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: is something that is it's it's technical, there's a bit
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: of an art to it, and I think that's something
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: that I was like above average at. What I was
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: not above average at was the organizational side. It's like
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: make sure all the batteries are charge, make sure the
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: cards are set, that they have got all got tabbies
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: for them, make sure there's this cable that cable spares
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: for all, et cetera. People are like, you know, like
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: you know where these batteries out of their charge. I
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: don't know. We should find out, you know, like here's
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: if someone should.
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: Do that, And then I get somebody would that that yeah,
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: 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 a CS that I just started
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: to realize. I'm like, man, I'm a decent focus puller.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: I'm not a good first a C like, but again
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: with the bad higher good dude, I got hired on
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: I've there were a handful of times I got hired
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: to be like, hey, you're my friend. I am not
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: hiring you because be'st or stay seat, but I need
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: someone who can handle pressure. I need someone you can
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: focus whatever, which is which is funny, you know what.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: I love that, man, It's just the humanity of what
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: we're talking about is just like that can be a
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: great person and not and not be the right hire.
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: You know, sometimes it's just in the wrong position something else,
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: and that's all it is, totally.
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, finding finding your strength is super big, and I
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: mean running a company, right you're 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 that 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 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 yes, it's good manager.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: It's a great manager. Yeah. I have this conversation with
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: one of my friends though, just telling you about like
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: an editor who's part time with us. I was like, hey, man,
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: you're killing it right now.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Stop working without someone liked. Without someone like that, 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: and they get they're gonna, you know, go on and
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: do great things instead if if it had not had that,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: would you have been trapped? Or were you? Because I
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: think a lot of a lot of great people get
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: trapped by bad by bad managers, man people holding them back.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: Honestly, Like in it, 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 a it is a non
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: negotiable to kind of do that. And I feel like
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: I'm not you to if I shouldn't be a place
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: that people come and work and stay for forever, I
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: don't think because ideally we're hiring people who are so
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: good that their ceiling is like way past what you
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: can do. And now that being said, it's really inspiring
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: because I'm like, I want to meet the ceiling. I
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: want to meet the ceiling and get it up so
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: that I can match the people that I work with.
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: That's a really fun challenge to be around because I'm
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: just like, oh, like things are just getting better and
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: better and better. Let's just keep let's let's keep pushing
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: that in a way that is elevating, you know, and
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: instead of there's a difference between like climbing and being
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: lifted right, and I think there's some some equal parts.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: There's some equal equal parts, there some balance that I feel.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: I feel very much indebted to Russell. I'm like, oh, dude,
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: you you gave me so much trust and so much
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: integrity 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, thanks Russell.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: So not that I would want.
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: To do that anyway, but that's cool management though, just
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: be able to like identify that in somebody and like
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: not hold them back, but like kind of let them
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: go to the next stage, you know. And I feel
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: like all of us kind of probably have somebody in
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: our career in our life. Who is that person for
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: us at least, like you know I do. Yeah, it's
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: a blessing who like helped you kind of move to
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: the next stage, you know. Even like I think people
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: look at their careers and wherever they are at in
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: their career, like, oh, this is always going to be
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: whether it's like good or bad, and sometimes it's a
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: roller coaster, Like there's ups and downs, and like you
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: need somebody like that, like a good manager or like
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: a good mentor to like help you get to the
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: next stage.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: You know, like really is up and down.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: So that's great. I feel like I've always had people
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: who are like calling me up. Yeah, that's that's inhaes Bro.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: It's an insane blessing, you know, And I'm that that
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: is the reason that I'm.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just I wish that for everybody to be so.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: And you know, I was talking to somebody's in the
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: really in the and and the consulting business who helps businesses,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: you know, build and retain great workforces, and you've worked
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: with a lot of huge companies, and he was just
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: talk about the impact of you can set up all
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: these hiring systems to hire the right people right, all
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: the screening and interview styles and all these ways to
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: you know, and increase the probability of great hiring. And
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: you do, and you hire great and then you send
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: them into the organization and you know, the manager they
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: get there, and the culture of the subculture of that
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: situation has a greater impact of whether that person is
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: successful or not has nothing to do. And I think
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: about that all the time when I think about recruiters
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: who are stressed every day trying to find great talent
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: and put place at the organization, and how much control
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: they lose as soon as they drop them off and
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: they're like, you know, fees, Yeah, yeah, I get a
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: sense they probably know that's that's gonna be tough.
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: Right, it's a question. The final the final anecdote I'll
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: give about about that is the time that I was
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: the wrong hire personally, uh and more specifically and there
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: I think it was. It was the worst shoot I've
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: ever been on, period, not because it wasn't set up well,
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: because like my job as the first AC, I just
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: failed almost every single way I possibly could, and there
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: was plenty. There were things going on in my personal
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: life and whatnot. So I think it makes it understandable,
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: but it doesn't make it acceptable. And I'll call out
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: my homie John. He was the DP for this. Shout
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: out John. He brought me on this and he was
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: very straight up. He's like, man, this is a big
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: client for me. I've been trying to get them for
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: a while and John is probably the best director of
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: photography that I know. He's insane. He's like, this is
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: a big deal. I know you'll I know you'll meet it.
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: I know you can do it. Spoiler alert, it 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
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: offenses period, and we had three. It was a four
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: day shoot. I think it's was a day somewhere in
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: North Carolina, a few days in Tennessee whatever, and and
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: it was it was I don't know the budget of this,
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: but it was certainly close to five hundred thousand dollars
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: or something for the budget. It was not a small thing.
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: And after this fireable, after my like just worst day ever,
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: et cetera, We're driving to Tennessee, separate cars whatever, John
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: calls me and the and I'm I'm like kind of
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: shaking in my boots right now, and he's like, hey man,
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: like are you okay, Like anything you need, I've got you. Wow.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: Period was just like what he did. And I like
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: it was kind of like it makes me emotional right now.
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: I was like floodgates and and he's like, hey man,
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: like we're getting into Tennessee, like drop your bags, taking
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: you to dinner, Let's do it. And he he just
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: he just big brothered me like super hard and again
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: like called me up. He said, hey man, like I
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: get I've told him everything I was going through He's like,
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: I get it. He said, there's a he said, there
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: is an opportunity with the job that we have to
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: where your personal life, your personal life is going to
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: be there before you get on set, and it's going
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: to be there after you get on set. He said.
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: When you're on set, you have the opportunity to demand
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: excellence of yourself and to like honor the crew and
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: honor what you're doing, and it's totally reasonable to let
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: everything else exist outside of that, and then when you're
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: out deal with it and deal with it the same
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: way with honor, with time, with respect. And it was
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: it was like really cool because I was like, man, like,
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: I can never fire anybody, like if I if I'm
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: not getting fired for this. But it was cool because
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: he turned a liability into an asset and for sure,
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: and I like, I like feel I'm just like dude,
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: like big bro for life for sure. I mean, we've
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: known each other in many other cases other than just that.
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: But it's cool.
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: It sounds like you've had a number of like mentor
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: slash people who've just been there well.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: And you can tell doubts and it's truly driven this
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: uh In talking to listening to a theme of excellence.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: I mean it's like a real high focus of excellence.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: Ye beams out of you when you're talking to you.
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: You know, I think it's expected, right and.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: I yeah, it's you could definitely feel it from you
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: and hear it from you, and listening to your journey,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: you realize I didn't you know, it wasn't by accident,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: and you had a couple of guys who were real
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: purposeful and the way they you know, allowed you to develop.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: And so you went from bad hire to you know,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: he makes it work. You end up with another great
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: manager who teases more out of you and eventually sets
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: you on your own and that you've got, you know,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: a successful business.
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: That's awesome. Yeah, man, I think that's something that you know,
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: all of us are ultimately in The call to you
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: in places of leadership is the people over the product,
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: but like really mean it and mean it for like
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: when when those people let you down, that's when the
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: true colors come out. That's when the test is. If
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: everybody's making money, 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, you know what,
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: I mean to build it up. But I've had a
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: lot of people believe in me, just unreasonable amounts that
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: I very much want to keep that. But that's great
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: 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 the experience, you know, fingers.
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: That's that's the that's the hope. Yeah, that's the hope.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: Is that that's cool already.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it feels that way here. Man. I'm only, I'm
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: only I've only met a couple of y'all and you
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: are immediately Yo, sit in the fuzzy chair, dude, let.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Me tell you, let me tell you all about it.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: We reserved the fuzzy chair for the special guest.
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: I felt it. Yeah, I felt a big time it. Man.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: We appreciate it, thanks Louise. Yeah it was cool.
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: I have no shows, right, Yeah, I love it. Appreciate
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: you guys a lot. Yeah all right, so next ton,
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: thanks man. Thanks life