Let's say you're at a conference, someone walks up to you during one of the breaks and asks what you do? What do you say? I run a digital agency? Let’s find a better way to define ourselves that doesn’t impact our happiness after a bad day at work or maybe during a pandemic.
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Carl: Gene Crawford. It has come to my attention from a little birdie who told me that you may have had a birthday. Yeah.
Gene: I did. I'm still alive.
Carl: Yeah, you are. Yep. And you're here to remind me of the mess I left when I went away. Happy Birthday to you.
Gene: No. Couldn't take it.
Carl: Happy Birthday. Okay.
Gene: Thank you.
Carl: You're welcome. Isn't that one of the weirdest things about our world now is that you get 500 happy birthdays. And a big challenge of your birthday is to actually reply on some level, but then it became okay what like two years ago to just do a blanket thank you.
Gene: Whoever that person was genius.
Carl: You're welcome.
Gene: Or lazy.
Carl: Asshole.
Gene: Yeah. I know.
Carl: Lazy asshole that's me. Oh, man. Well, I am glad that you were born brother.
Gene: Thank you.
Carl: I am. Because otherwise this would be really awkward right now.
Gene: You'd be talking to yourself.
Carl: Hey, it happens. I do it. And you know what? As long as I'm in agreement with myself, it's not awkward for other people.
Gene: Yeah. Sometimes I answer and I don't like the answer.
Carl: So Gene, we have an interesting topic for today.
Gene: Let me have it.
Carl: It's basically, how do we define ourselves? Now you just had a birthday. You just had a monumentous occasion where you somehow survived in spite of all your flaws and weaknesses another year.
Gene: Right.
Carl: Doesn't that make you happy?
Gene: It does.
Carl: There you go. So when you meet somebody, this is like a very interesting change with the pandemic too. When you meet somebody and they say, oh, what do you do, what's your lead? What do you start with?
Gene: I say I'm a small business owner. That's usually what I start with just to connect with what I do. Because if I just say I'm a web designer, I'm so far from being a web designer in terms of what I do. And then because I don't design any web anymore personally. And then I think small business owner connects and I say, so I'm a small business owner. I own three businesses. One's a web design company, one's a co-work and one's a gym. And they go look...
Carl: That's it, right? Especially in North America. I don't know. Maybe this isn't true in the rest of the world. But the first thing we lead with is what we do for a living. Right? I'm sorry. Over here living. I did a half quote for those watching at home. But yeah, so we, and this is not new. We all know that it's like, what a decade ago? "Oh, what do you do?" "Well, I'm a runner. I'm a dad."
Gene: Two wonderful kids.
Carl: So people started changing it up where they didn't say, "Oh, I run this shop," or, "I'm a web designer," or, "I build the web," or whatever.
Gene: That's one of my favorites.
Carl: Yeah, I build the web.
Gene: I've built steps outside.
Carl: There's seven of us and we build the web. You're welcome. No, but it's one of these things that changes. And then when the pandemic hit and you see the great resignation, right. Or I don't know if anybody's called this it, I'm sure somebody's called it this and I'm just going to act like I did it for the first time. Because you know, that's what happens. Isn't it more the great realization?
Gene: Ooh.
Carl: Right? Where everybody who has the option kind of went, do I want to do this though? When I meet somebody, do I want to say, yeah, I work for a... Even then you got to take that away because the ups and downs of whatever you claim as your identity, you're going to follow those ups and downs and you're not in charge of them.
Gene: Right. What do you say?
Carl: You know what I say I run a community. I do the same thing. I say I run a community of people who build the web. But, I will also, I guess, want to talk more about running or video games or comic books or whatever the cool show is everybody's binging. Squid Games now or whatever it might be. That's what I don't want to... I love the Bureau. It has like, it gives me purpose in life. And so maybe that's part of the problem. I totally identify myself with that. You know? And so now it's doing really well so I feel really good about myself.
Carl: But there were times not so long ago where I would realize something and literally just like have to sit down or lie down on the floor because, oh my God, that's a lot. But what about... so when you think about it, you got a kid in college now, right? So, and this is that emptiness syndrome. I think that's what a lot of owners of web shops and other companies, and even people who were managers in-house at big companies, I think they feel that a little bit. They feel that kind of empty nest syndrome. They identified themselves with running this thing. And now there's people that are at home and they're having an identity crisis.
Gene: Yeah. This is one of the professions where early on I think all of us, we really did identify with the work we were doing. It was like when we would build a website and put it out in the world, that was us. So we took everything personally in relation to that work.
Carl: We were pioneers.
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: Absolutely. And so, you go back to those late '90s early 2000s when we were building stuff for the web, it was innovative and it was fun. And people were like, how did you do that? And then you get to some of the animation stuff or you get to some of the cool film stuff or whatever it might be integrated in and it's like magic and you're a magician and people want to understand it and it's super cool. Now, it's kind of like, I don't want to say it's lost that shine. There's definitely still stuff going on out there that is magical to me.
Gene: Well, there are robots that do the things I used to do 10 years ago now. So, I just go and there's a website.
Carl: Exactly. I've seen you work.
Gene: Good. It's not that special anymore.
Carl: But when we start thinking about this with regards to people who self-identified with their companies. Like I was Engine, right? And when Engine was running, that was such a huge part of who I was. I actually, in many ways I felt like I was multiple people. I was Carl who was Engine. Right? I was the face of that company. I had a team that was amazing. I was trying to support them. I was trying to make sure we got all the best stuff that we could. Then I was a dad, you know? And I think that's where the identity crisis can come in. I was Kaylee's dad. There were things I would do as the head of Engine that like Carl's singing karaoke with a beer in his hand. Whereas Kaylee's dad...
Gene: You don't want him to be that same guy.
Carl: I mean the karaoke with a beer in my hand, that's fine. I'm being tame. Right? But in terms of high fiving strangers walking down the strip in Vegas, maybe Kaylee's dad shouldn't be doing that.
Gene: Or at the Art Bar, yes.
Carl: Or at the Art... yeah, sorry about that.
Gene: I have video of that. I'm going to cut that in.
Carl: Yeah, you should and thank you so much for making sure that one guy didn't kick my ass because that was like, you're not going to high five... I was like what's your glum chum? And now I realized oh, so I'm the asshole. Yeah, it turns out it was. It turns out it was. But yeah so when we start to think about the great realization, resignation, wherever you want to call it, there are people who are left behind who can't do that. Right?
Carl: We have put everything we have into starting this company. And now even if people are still on the team but they're working from home, it leaves us with a sense of loss and frustration and anger. Because this is from things that I've seen in the community, conversations that I've had outside of the community with other people who own companies where they self-identified. Not all of them were in this situation, but it gave them a sense of meaning, of purpose, of importance. And when suddenly everybody's doing what they did without your supervision or without your guidance or without your control, which I think is a dangerous one, you have a loss of purpose.
Gene: So did you experience that? I guess you're saying you did.
Carl: With Engine yeah for sure. I actually, Richard Banfield was the person who told me, and I've shared this with a lot of people who were transitioning. Nobody will ask what happened to Engine. They will ask what is Carl doing now. They care about the individual and the human more than the thing that that human did before. Because that thing to them will always be like a cool thing, but it's not the person. And that's the difference.
Carl: For you, do you know what we all say when people say, "Oh, who's Gene?" We say Converge dude.
Gene: Oh, I know.
Carl: We say, oh, he ran this amazing company, this amazing event. So you had to feel, and I don't want to drag it out of you right after your birthday, but come on, let's do this. No, but you feel that sense of loss. We all feel that if you run an event, we've talked about this, you have that post event depression that lasts for a couple of days because you were the person who put on that amazing thing that hundreds, or even thousands of people said that was the best time I've had. I learned so much. And then the next day you're going, what do we do now?
Gene: It's the same thing that you have after you complete anything huge in your life. Like after you run a marathon, after you do a 72-hour black belt test, after you put on an event after you, whatever, after your wedding, whatever the next day is always not as good as that time when you were doing the thing.
Carl: Especially for our respective wives. That next day they were like-
Gene: What happened?
Carl: ... I did what? Now you're... him? Okay.
Gene: You signed the contract. I got you.
Carl: No, but yeah, I think you're absolutely right. There's that huge ripping away of all of your focus was on one thing. Now imagine that you didn't see it coming. You know when Converge is going to be done. I knew that Engine was at a point where it made sense to sunset it. Right? So now imagine that you're just la, la, la, I got it. Everybody's at the company and we're rocking and rolling and what's up, what?
Gene: No more company.
Carl: Now everybody's got to work from home and then people started leaving and some of them were your top people. So I know we're kind of going back through a lot of other stuff, but I think to get back to it, identifying yourself with what you do and not who you are it's really dangerous.
Gene: I think so. Absolutely. So how do you sort of, I mean, do you just kind of stick your guns and you're like, well, who are you? What do you do? And you're like, I'm a human male and I sit around. I mean, what do you...
Carl: I have four limbs. They're all operational so I am very happy for that. You know, it's interesting because-
Gene: If you were like, let's say you were out of the thing and they were like, oh, my name is Carl. Hey, cool. Well, what are you into? Well, I'm into-
Carl: What am I into is a very different question, right?
Gene: Star Trek constantly. You'd be like bye.
Carl: Discovery. It's coming back November 11th maybe. I don't know for sure. Yes. No it's one of those things, Dave Fletcher who runs The Mechanism out of New York. Dave is one of the coolest [crosstalk 00:13:36] I've ever met.
Gene: Great name by the way.
Carl: The Mechanism?
Gene: Yeah, it's badass.
Carl: Yeah. And they did magic. They made the first of those music players, those little widgets that you would, that you had to find out how do I turn this thing off? I just want to read. Thanks Dave. And so the thing that Dave would do, we spent some time together at different events and stuff. He would never ask anybody who are you or what do you do or whatever. He would say what's your story.
Carl: And we sat down at a bar really late at night in Vegas and a woman came up to talk to us, as you may think. And Dave said, what's your story? And she said, "Well, I moved here to Vegas about 10 years ago to start a clothing line. And then I lost a lot of my money and I have a kid," so now she's doing what she got to do. But it's one of those things, I know, I know. But it's one of those things where if you had just said what do you do, it would be a different answer. I think that this whole what's your story, I think that's a great way for us to all move forward. Right? And ask.
Gene: I like that.
Carl: Yeah, because if I were to ask you what's your story, where do you start Gene? If I say that, let's do it for our audience at home. What's your story, Gene Crawford?
Gene: What's great about that is that it puts you in context of where you are and what you're doing at the moment. Right? So if you're at a bar and you're talking and you're like what's your story? They're going to talk about their life. What's led them to that point recently or in the past five years or so. If you're out like, for example, one time I was running a race and there's this guy that I kind of spotted and I could tell he had the military tattoos. I'm sort of a Navy Seal geek. I could tell. I was like, oh, that's a Navy Seal. And I went and ran up next to him and we were running a little bit and he just looked at me and he's like, "What's your deal?"
Gene: And I was like, I like this kind of stuff and I started talking. He was like, cool, whatever. But that kind of an intro really puts you in context of where you are and what you're doing. And I think it connects you better than... if I'm at a Bureau conference and I'm like what do you do? Well no shit I work on the internet. What little tiny piece of the internet do you work on? Well, I do content migrations or whatever. You'd be like, well, I don't want to talk to you. I like that. What's your story.
Carl: What's your story and I like what you just said. It's kind of when you ask it, where you ask it. It's going to be the context that surrounds their answer. But you didn't answer my question, Gene. What's your story?
Gene: What's my story?
Carl: Yeah. Where do you start?
Gene: I don't know. I don't even frigging know.
Carl: I mean, think about our bio's that we put on things, right?
Gene: Yeah. What's your story, man. Because it's like which direction do you go? I like that.
Carl: So imagine that you're talking with somebody you've never met before. And let's say that they're at the gym and they just come in and say, "What's your story?"
Gene: My story. I'd say, well, I'm a coach. I've been here for a while. I practice martial arts and I teach over there. Yeah, I would just say what I've been doing.
Carl: Yeah. And in that context it makes perfect sense. Now imagine that you're just out. Do you have a dog?
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: Okay. Imagine you're out walking your dog. I thought you had a dog. All the best people have dogs, Gene.
Gene: I have an alligator.
Carl: Oh, dude. Okay. Imagine you're out walking your alligator and you got your alligator in the park and somebody goes, what's your story?
Gene: What's your story? Well I found him in the swamp.
Carl: You pointed at me dude. And I'll take it. Yeah. But no, say it's somebody that you don't know. Say it's somebody and it's not the gym and it's like, I'm going to bail you out. Okay.
Gene: Help me out.
Carl: I would say, you know, I'm in my 50s now. I'm trying to figure out the rest of my story. But it started off with thinking that I could be an actor and then realizing that that wasn't going to pay crazy well. So I ended up just doing advertising and then I met my wife and I'm like, holy shit, we're having a family. And now I'm a dad so I'm not taking care of myself anymore. I'm taking care of these other people. Now they're starting to take care of themselves. So my story is trying to figure out my story honestly.
Gene: Wow.
Carl: Right?
Gene: Yeah.
Carl: That's not I run a community.
Gene: No.
Carl: That doesn't tie me to one thing. And the other thing I would say is this year, my number one goal has nothing to do with anything except running. Which also was a big mistake because when I hurt myself and I couldn't run, I got a little depressed. Right? But I think having running as part of it, having the Bureau as part of it, having my family as part of it, I think is huge. It doesn't have to be one thing.
Gene: There's definitely a danger in sort of identifying and describing yourself in very narrow terms. I'm looking for a... I'll never find it because we're talking. I just saw a really great thing and I bookmarked it somewhere and now I can't find it so never mind. But, it's like the danger of defining yourself in very narrow terms. Right? And I think it's true to that because the narrower that you define yourself, the more everything is going to scare you and the more everything is going to sort of put you on the defense. Right? If you're like the only thing I do is I'm a runner. Right? Well, what happens if you can't run?
Carl: Exactly.
Gene: What happens if you're in a room full of people that don't like to run, you know what I mean?
Carl: Then I'm in the wrong room.
Gene: Well, you know what I mean?
Carl: But maybe they play video games.
Gene: Yeah. But there is a danger to that too. And what I'm thinking is if you only identify yourself as a digital firm owner, you're probably way too fucking serious. You know what I mean?
Carl: And when something new comes out, you're saying push a button and here's the site. Like when a Wix or a Squarespace or something comes out, you start to question everything that you built, right?
Gene: Yeah, and you're scared. You're very scared of the industry.
Carl: And then you realize that five years later you'll be using those tools.
Gene: It wasn't the widgets that you built. It was your knowledge of how to build the widgets is what you were selling.
Carl: Right. But I love this part of the conversation about don't do it narrowly. I've quoted this study quite a few times, the White Hall Study that came out of the UK where in the UK because they do have more socialized medicine, everyone has the exact same healthcare, right? So the White Hall Study, White Hall is basically where all of the politicians and the government employees and everybody works at White Hall. This is my understanding. Right? And so if you are a front level human working at White Hall, you have the exact same health care as a administrator of the military or whatever. Like whatever high-end job you can imagine. So they were able to test people's health when everything is the same, except for their job and how they associate themselves with their job. And what they found was even if you made significantly less money, but you didn't associate yourself with your job, you were much healthier.
Carl: Because when you have socialized medicine you go in for more checkups and all this kind of stuff. There's a lot of problems with it. I'm not staying on that soapbox-
Gene: You're a socialist.
Carl: ... But you get checked a lot more. Yeah. There's that. And there's also, it can take a long time to get in sometimes when you need specialists because my brother needed one and it was like two months and he's still waiting on the specialists for this sort of thing. But when you get in there you can find that out. And what they found was people who associated themselves and their identity outside of work were tremendously healthier. And the examples they gave were if somebody was an admin for a manager, but they didn't associate themselves with that role, they associated themselves with their kid's soccer team. Like I'm an assistant coach on a kid's soccer team. They felt better because it was something they were doing to help their family. They were in control of it more. It wasn't some huge bureaucracy that they were just a cog in.
Carl: Now if you were one of the administrator levels and you associated yourself exclusively with that job, or if you were an admin and exclusive with that job, your health was much worse. You didn't take care of yourself as well. Your stress level was off the charts. Everything was bad. And I think this plays directly back into this sense of loss that a lot of owners are going through right now. We're going to have in Slack a lot of owners said, hey, we'd love to have a call where we can all just talk about this and think about it. And that's what kind of got me on this path of trying to figure out what happened that's different for us than for the team.
Gene: Yeah. Because you have the luxury of doing that.
Carl: Well, or you are the only one really chained to the entity that is the company. Because other people are going to be there. It is your livelihood. As we've said multiple times, we're not really employable. So I think that that becomes it is we are... I mentioned this when Engine was struggling and I told everybody we're having this voluntary layoff. If you don't have... Or I guess it was transparent lay... I can't remember what we called it. But basically if you didn't have client facing work within three months, and that's where you had to work on, what I didn't realize and what I've shared with a lot of people is we were on this little lifeboat and all I could see was the people on the lifeboat. They were being circled by huge cruise ships going, "Come hang out with us, we're having fun."
Carl: And those were the in-house teams and these other things. And it was just a combination of where the industry was and we had lost some big clients and stuff. But they stayed to help me instead of jumping on those ships for as long as they could. And I think it's the exact same thing here as an employee of an entity, of a web shop, digital services, even big in-house, you have that opportunity to reevaluate everything. In house it's different because even as somebody who's running an in-house team, you're not beholden to that organization. You can go. But if you truly own a shop like that is what you have built for the last 10, 15, 20, 25 years, even the last three, it's a little bit different. But when you get into those longer years, this is you. You have put your DNA in it so it can be really hard to extract your self-importance from it.
Carl: Coming back around to that, how do you do that? Well, I think you just have to realize things are going to have to change. Even if the pandemic does recede like it looks like it's going to, we have no idea when this could happen again. And there are people who are just never going to want to work in an office again. And that seems to be kind of the core is a tactile visible I walk in and I feel the fruits of my labor. Right? So, man, I don't know that there's an answer except that we have to double down on diversifying how we associate ourselves with the things we do.
Gene: I think you do. I think it's healthy.
Carl: Yeah. So, I can't sing Happy Birthday to you? If I start right now are you just going to cut it off?
Gene: Yeah, pretty much.
Carl: Well, in that case, my hot take is you're a hell of a human being, Gene Crawford.
Gene: Thank you. I appreciate that.
Carl: Happy Birthday. And I'm damn glad you're on this planet. And don't bring back Converge because you would only make hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dozens of people happy.
Gene: Don't worry. It's not going to happen.
Carl: But you know why? Because you're bigger than anything you've ever done, Gene.
Gene: I try to be.
Carl: Yeah, there you go. All right everybody. Have a great week. We'll see you next week right Gene?
Gene: Right.
Carl: Bye. Bye.
