From nGen to the Bureau of Digital it's been a ride of a lifetime. Here is part four: The 3rd Act.
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Carl: What are we doing? What are we talking about? All right.
Gene: I forgot. Yeah, I'm having a great time talking to you today, man. It's been a while. So, this is the last episode, but-
Carl: If you're listening to this episode and you haven't listened to the three before it-
Gene: It's going to be weird.
Carl: You might want to back up, because we're doing a four-episode-
Gene: I guess. Might be 10, who knows?
Carl: Series. I don't know.
Gene: But, you and I did a podcast for a long time together.
Carl: We did.
Gene: Called Biz Craft and-
Carl: Yup.
Gene: There's a lot of this stuff in there, over those episodes, but we never really touched on that again, once we started this old Bureau Briefing thing spun back up. So-
Carl: I like you remember the name.
Gene: Took a second.
Carl: The Bureau, Briefing?
Gene: So, some guy sent you a text and there you go.
Carl: Some guy.
Gene: Yeah. So, we're talking about history through your services-based company, nGen.
Carl: Yeah, golden jars.
Gene: And it felt like a little bit of a cliff hanger in the last episode.
Carl: Yeah.
Gene: You're a little down on that last note. So, spoiler alert, Carl's still with us to this day-
Carl: I'm here, still alive.
Gene: So, let's get to that point. Let's get from there, where you're like, "What the hell is happening?"
Carl: Yeah.
Gene: "With all these people and why am I responsible for stuff that somebody else did? And I don't understand things." And now, you're-
Carl: Well.
Gene: At the Bureau, or you're running the Bureau.
Carl: And if you think about it, and you can go back and listen to the episode we had, where we both talk about getting sued. So, you can get more details on that. We'll hopefully link that up. But, yeah. So, we get to that point and the thing I realized about the model that didn't work was, even though we were being pitched work, it was only a certain amount of time of telling so many people, no. Before your reputation becomes-
Gene: They're the people that say no-
Carl: Hard to work with.
Gene: Well-
Carl: And so-
Gene: Would you say that? Would you say that, nGen was hard to work with? Difficult?
Carl: I wouldn't say, hard to work with. I would say, we were difficult to hire, not difficult to work with.
Gene: Mm.
Carl: Although, I think there was an amount of freedom that if you decide you don't want to work on something anymore, but you've committed to it. It goes against that sense of freedom.
Gene: Right, right.
Carl: So, there's probably some challenges there too, but I think the bigger thing was, there was no sustained Biz Dev effort.
Gene: Mm.
Carl: Had there been, had I kept getting on stages to talk about nGen, to talk about the Biz Dev. Had I continued to do more of that direct outreach, all of those types of things. I think, it would've made a huge difference and made nGen a lot stronger. We truly ended up being too many eggs in one basket. I mean, that really was it. And also, I had fallen in love with The Bureau, [crosstalk 00:05:10] so I truly wasn't there.
Gene: Last time you said, you took nine months off. What does that mean?
Carl: So, the jellyfish model had gotten to a point... I'll back up just a minute. So, we had a house fire and this would've been 2008?
Gene: That's right. I remember that.
Carl: Or, maybe it was a little bit later. And during that house fire, I couldn't do anything with nGen. I was dealing with insurance companies. I was making sure my family was settled in the new place. I was doing all this stuff. And it's part of nGen lore. The two weeks that I couldn't be a part of the company, were the most successful two weeks of the company.
Gene: But, that affected you. I remember talking to you about that, that affected you deeply.
Carl: It was one of these things where you're really happy that you've suddenly been released from what you thought was your burden-
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: Of having to take care of a dozen people's mortgages and you're responsible for them getting paid. You've got to find the work, you got to this. No, they can stand up and do it themselves. And I was talking with a good friend and was explaining, it's like, if you're this big Oak that's standing there and everybody's underneath you for shade, they're never going to feel the sun. You're always going to be the one feeling like you have to protect them. But, as soon as the tree is gone and they feel the sun, they stand up and they start doing stuff, because now they don't feel like they've got somebody else who's doing it. And the thing was, it's not that they were lazy, they just thought it was my job.
Carl: So, as soon as they knew I could not do my job, they all started doing different parts of it. And much better than me. They landed business. They got things out on time. The whole machine kept running without me. And it was depressing. It was a bad time for me, because I felt like I had spent all this time in my life creating something. And now, it didn't really need me.
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: So, the sense of, I didn't want to be important. And I wrote this article, My Relevant Strategy, because I did want to become irrelevant after that point, when I realized it doesn't need me. And I thought, you know what? I've got another season personally. So, maybe nGen isn't just where I'm so supposed to be. Now, in 2012-
Gene: Were you, I'm sorry to interrupt your chain of thought, but-
Carl: Yeah, yeah. No, it's fine.
Gene: At the time, were you aware of your company going through these seasonal changes and reinventing itself every three to four to five years? Were you aware of that?
Carl: I think towards the end, I was. We actually have a graphic novel, I've got to find, which is the [inaudible 00:07:39] of nGen. We had a client called Round Table, who basically made graphic novels out of-
Gene: Right, right, right.
Carl: Famous literature, right? They would turn The Elliot, into a graphic novel-
Gene: Right, right.
Carl: Although, that would take up a whole room.
Gene: Yes.
Carl: But, we did a trade out. I won't get into the details, but yeah. So, we took a significant amount of trade out for this graphic novel that I never published, or put anywhere, or shared publicly, because I thought it could hurt people. There was some stuff in there that was very real. But, anyway, so yeah. So, I get to this point. I think, I do realize there's seasons. I had always heard in my just, business life, that the most success people shift careers in their 30s.
Gene: Right.
Carl: They take everything they've learned. And that for me, was from the advertising agency, to nGen.
Carl: But then, we get in and things are rolling great. It's 2012, when I get that first connection to The Bureau.
Gene: Mm.
Carl: Now, we have not had the threat of lawsuit, or any of this stuff. I'm backing up in the timeline here, a little flashback. I get an email from Greg Hoy and Greg Storey, who are both running Happy Cog, Independent Happy Cogs, which is really weird.
Gene: We should get them to talk about their story.
Carl: We should, yeah. And we actually call them BFFs, The Bureau Founding Fathers.
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: But, they contacted me about coming to hang out with about, 24 other owners-
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: To just talk about what's going on. And I didn't even know, they knew who I was. And I just replied back, "Why me?" And they said, "Well, we've been reading your blog and about the jellyfish model. And you're either really smart, or totally full of shit."
Gene: We want to find out.
Carl: We want to find out. And I replied back, "I would like to know as well."
Gene: Yes.
Carl: So, we went and hung out and literally fell in love with this idea of connection. It was called The Bureau, it was called Shop Talk. And then, because of [inaudible 00:09:35] podcast, it shifted over to Owner Camp.
Gene: Right.
Carl: And I fell in love. I became a serial attendee. So, this is to the nine months thing. nGen is going great, making great money. I am now the absent owner, who's checking in weekly. I do have key people who are letting me know, "Hey, we could use your help here, whatever." It's not like people aren't allowed to talk to me, or whatever, like I'm totally absent. But, I took like nine months. I got in shape, I lost 30 pounds.
Carl: Remember, we were on stage at Converge in Florida. And I was just so heavy, I'd gone over 200 pounds, which for me, a normal weight's 170.
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: So, I was a disaster. And so, that nine months I did that. I learned how to cook a little bit, not great. I did all these things, but I mainly just went to Bureau events.
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: Anything they did, I would go to. I was still speaking a lot and I was trying to figure out what I was going to do. And the Gregs wanted to talk to me about joining them-
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: Because, I was starting to do things that were a little competitive. I wasn't putting on events like they were, but I was thinking about a lead sharing network, and this and that. And it was actually Alyssa, she's 18 now. But, at the time she would've been 12, or even younger. Yeah, she would've been younger. She would've been 10. So, she came out back and I was working on stuff. And she said, "How do you want people to remember you?"
Carl: And I said, "What do you mean?" She goes, "When you're gone, when you're dead, how do you want people to remember you?" I said, "I want to be remembered as a nice guy who was able to succeed."
Gene: Mm.
Carl: And she looks at me and quotes me to me. "How are you going to measure that?"
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: Because, that was the thing, when we were playing around, I was a shop owner. And I said, "Oh, I'll judge it based on the number of people that can help."
Gene: Right.
Carl: "I'll keep track of everybody that I help." And then, she goes, "How does that scale?" And these are just little jokes. And it turns out, I think her mom put her up to it. But then, I looked at her and I said, "I really don't know. I'll have to get back to you on that."
Carl: And then, went back to reading this email from the Gregs. And I was like, "oh shit, the bureau is the jellyfish model."
Gene: Mm.
Carl: I don't have to help anybody. I just have to connect people that can help themselves, help each other, right? And so, if I can connect people who help each other, then that totally scales. And now, I'm in love with two ideas. nGen, that I've been with for a long time, that is now, in 2014, starting to suffer, right? I don't remember exactly when the lawsuit threat came in, and then all of that stuff unraveled, but it was 2013, 2014 and the bureau, which I am becoming part of now.
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: And then, we get to, it was a failed buyout effort. I don't want to really get into that. I was looking for anyone to help and I hurt some people during that. I mean, that's the thing. If you look back on 14 years of doing something, there're going to be people that you let down, there're going to be people that you hurt. There're going to be-
Gene: Right.
Carl: People that probably don't want to see you-
Gene: Right.
Carl: Shopping on Christmas day, right?
Gene: Mm.
Carl: Nobody wants that. Why would you shop on Christmas day? I don't know what I'm talking about now.
Gene: Well-
Carl: But, there're going to be people who are upset. And I get that. And I hope, if anybody's listening, I own everything. I accept responsibility for everything that went down. But, you get to that point, you're trying to just get an out, "What can I do?" But, eventually it gets to this point where, 2016, we had health scare in my family. My wife, it looked like she might have had cancer. And I wasn't making a lot of money at The Bureau.
Carl: And nGen was on the ropes. And I remember talking with Greg Hoy, we were at Taps in Midtown, in Atlanta, the Owner's Summit was going on. And I said, "Hey, I got to spin nGen back up. I got to be able to make sure to keep my insurance on. I got to make sure all this stuff is happening. I've got this stuff going on with my family." And he was like, "Hey, I think I'm going to double down on Happy Cog. And I'm going to really try to get it rolling." And I looked at him and I said, "So, I can just have The Bureau? We can figure that out." I mean, I compensated him. We did all that stuff, did a buyout, whatever. But then, I was like, "Okay, okay." And the interesting thing, to really bring it around. At the end, nGen was not nGen. That final season, it was somebody else's company that I was trying to transition to.
Gene: Right.
Carl: And that was a lot of the stuff that I wish... People say, they have no regrets, or whatever. I have a regret. I shouldn't have done that. I should have realized that when something sounds too going to be true, it's too good to be true. That when you're in a emotional state and you're trying to transition, I should have just called it and taken care of everybody the best I could and closed nGen. But, what was funny was, I told my family, and again, this was 2016. So, I'd also just turned 50. So, you're at this point where you're like, "Am I starting over again?"
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: "Oh my God." So, you have all these different things were coming at me.
Carl: And I remember telling my family, "I think I'm just going to close nGen. I'm just going to shut it down and just dive into The Bureau." And Alyssa again, right? 10 year old Alyssa, goes out there and says all those things, which make me realize, The Bureau is my thing. And now, at this time, she comes and she's 14 and she's like, "You can't close nGen." And I'm going, "What?"
Gene: Hmm.
Carl: And she goes, "You told me, you started nGen, because you love me and Kaylee and mom, and you wanted to be able to have flexibility, to be home and to watch us grow up and all this stuff I was born when nGen was born and you can't just close it." And I was like, "I was already shattered from all these things that I felt like a failure for."
Gene: Right, oh man.
Carl: And now, I'm going, "Okay." So, technically, The Bureau acquired nGen. I owned both 100%, so I was able to do it for a dollar. And I asked Alyssa's permission. I did. I said, "Is it okay if The Bureau acquires nGen, and then mGen is within the DNA?" And she was like, "Yeah, yeah."
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: But, to this day, occasionally I'll see somebody wearing an nGen shirt, or something like that. And I miss it. I mean, I miss those times with those people. I miss all that stuff. And I do regret. I mean, I made some bad decisions. Things I just shouldn't have done and it did hurt people, but I also know that when the times were good, it really helped.
Carl: And I can't just focus on those negative things. You need to go back and you need to look and you need to realize that, Travis became the Design Director at Square.
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: That's not a crap job, right? That's pretty amazing. Veric is doing amazing stuff with video. And I keep tabs on people through social and just see what they're doing. But honestly, the day that stands out the most for me, with nGen, of all the things that we accomplished and all the different battles we went through and all the struggles and all that stuff. Paul Figura was our landlord. And I remember probably about two weeks in, he came over and he was on the phone and he said, "I can't right now, I'm at nGen." And my life changed that day, because we were a place. We weren't an idea. We weren't a concept, or a business model. We were a place and Paul was there. And I just remember he got off the phone and I went, "Yeah."
Gene: Hmm. Hmm.
Carl: Oh man.
Gene: Well-
Carl: That was quite a ride.
Gene: Yeah. I think, you have a lot of very specific questions and I think it's hard to get into a lot of the... I know, there are people that listen to the show, who are owners, or operators, or whatever that are big picture thinkers, creative feelers. And I know there are a lot that are nuts and bolters-
Carl: Oh yeah.
Gene: You know what I mean? I don't know, that we get into a lot of the nuts and bolts of the handoff and the logistics of that stuff.
Carl: Well-
Gene: Nor, do I think you should.
Carl: Well, and the thing I was going to say is, I was talking with Rob about this yesterday. Rob Harr from Spark Box. Rob called after DPM Summit was over to see how I was doing, because we've talked about this too. After a big event, bit of a decompression re-entry into the real world, a little bit of depression stuff. And he was like, "You good?" I'm like, "I'm good." And we just started talking about things. There just comes a time when you're a part of something, that you need to realize it's not who you are. And we had another episode recently about removing yourself from those things. But, for me, when I look back on nGen, I wonder what would've happened if I had had The Bureau in those early years. Not in 2012, when it was just forming, and I was set in my ways. But, that was part of the conversation with Rob, because he came into The Bureau as they were going through one of these transformations.
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: And Rob is crazy smart, really great on the op side, the nuts and bolt side. But, had The Bureau, right? To help elevate, or at least, speed up, right? Accelerate what he was doing. I wonder, if it had come earlier, would it not have worked? Did everything lay out the way it was supposed to? Probably. But, yeah, there is nowhere I would rather be, than right here.
Gene: Right.
Carl: With The Bureau, this is just-
Gene: The whole thing.
Carl: This is just it. And I just-
Gene: It is the culmination of your history though. You know what I mean? And the fact that you're literally part of it, The Bureau from-
Carl: Yeah.
Gene: Almost, its inception to where it is now. I mean, it's a natural progression, I think, for you.
Carl: Yeah. It totally is. And the reason that I feel it works, is because I can be a neutral entity.
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: I'm not doing any of that work anymore, but I totally know what that work was, and for the most part, is. The human part of it doesn't change.
Gene: Mm-mm (negative).
Carl: The processes may change. The tools may change, but the inner workings of the humans that are doing this stuff, we're still struggling with the same thing. And so, it's a place where... I explained it to somebody this way. Those first 14 years when I was at Husk, where Melanie was just grooming me and teaching me. Those 14 years, I was learning, right? I was just learning, what is it to be a leader? How is it she does this siren song where she can fire somebody and they still come to the Christmas party and give her a hug? Who is this creature? She's learned these things. And so, for 14 years, I'm getting that education. I didn't do nearly as well as she did. For the next 14 years, I'm doing, right?
Gene: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Carl: I'm nGen and I'm doing that. And I'm all this stuff. And now, this final third, I'm just sharing and connecting. And so, to be able to go from learning, to doing, and now have this, as that personal final season. Yeah, I just can't even imagine-
Gene: It's beautiful.
Carl: Being anywhere, but right here.
Gene: It's beautiful. Yup, I think it's where your heart led you the whole time, man.
Carl: Yeah.
Gene: Awesome. Well, all of that. What's something you can leave the kids with?
Carl: Again, things are going to change and you're going to move from one part of your life to the next part of your life. Don't feel like the best times are behind you, or that there are parts of your life you're not allowed to look at and question. Just keep learning, just keep moving forward and embrace all of the pain and embrace all of the joy, all the success, all failure, because that's why you're here. That's where you are right now. And the one thing that I think is always true, I know it's been true for me and most of the people that I know, you are in a better position right now, to succeed than you have ever been before, because you know yourself better, you know what works better and you know what doesn't work better. And if you just trust yourself, you're going to crush it.
Gene: Man, I love that. What a great note. And on that one-
Carl: I am going to take that nap, I mentioned the first [crosstalk 00:23:43].
Gene: You deserve it, my friend. You deserve it, my friend. Go change your shirt, because you spend four weeks of this-
Carl: It stinks in here. And I'll also say, next week, we're going to talk about Eugene Crawford.
Gene: We'll see about that.
Carl: We're going to dig into period three.
Gene: Sounds like a crazy terrible ride. All right.
