Zach and Jeff discuss their backgrounds and how they came up with the name 'We Should Be Working' for the podcast. They explore the pressures and uncertainties they face in their careers and the quest to find their true paths.
In this episode, Zach and Jeff discuss their backgrounds and how they came up with the name 'We Should Be Working' for the podcast. They explore the pressures and uncertainties they face in their careers and the struggle to find their true paths. They delve into the grind and burnout of creative work, the soul-sucking nature of resumes, and the transition from punk rock to corporate culture.
They also discuss the complex relationship with money and the importance of people in work. Overall, the podcast aims to challenge conventional notions of work and explore alternative paths to fulfillment. The conversation explores themes of growing up in poverty, the pursuit of the American Dream, the burden of responsibility, the grind of work, imposter syndrome and self-doubt, the dedication and sacrifices of successful individuals, questioning the traditional path, critiquing marketing and promotion in the online business world, struggling with self-promotion and undervaluing oneself, and future plans for the podcast. Thrash On!
Takeaways
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Background
01:26 The Name 'We Should Be Working'
06:33 The Pressure to Make Money
09:21 Rejecting the Conventional Path
10:15 The Grind and Burnout of Creative Work
13:41 The Soul-Sucking Nature of Resumes
21:41 The Search for Fulfillment in Work
23:35 The Complex Relationship with Money
26:00 The Importance of People in Work
29:22 The Stress and Responsibility of Work
30:50 The Influence of Work Ethic
31:20 Growing up in poverty
34:09 The American Dream and high achievement
38:45 The burden of responsibility
39:43 The grind of work
43:07 Imposter syndrome and self-doubt
46:59 The dedication and sacrifices of successful individuals
50:54 Questioning the traditional path
53:13 Critiquing marketing and promotion in the online business world
55:00 Struggling with self-promotion and undervaluing oneself
58:16 Future plans for the podcast
[MUSIC]
(...)
Welcome to We Should Be Working. My name is Zach Hendrix. Let me explain a little bit who I am and how we got to where we are. I'm Zach. I'm a creative video professional mainly.
(...)
I've been following Jeff for a long time back since the Go Media days. WMC Fest, his blogs, all of that. I just sent him an email. I had this feeling that we would connect really well and had an idea for a podcast where I've always wanted to know a little bit more behind the scenes of how we got to where he was or how any artist gets to where they are.
(...)
And then as we evolved, as I went through all of that, I'm seeing different parts of his life, different parts of spirituality, all of that and us coming together. There's a journey of life that we both kind of seem to be going through, it's similar trajectories. And then it was very, very weird how it crescendoed after I emailed to Jeff.(...) And that's kind of how we came up with the name of We Should Be Working. And so on that note, Jeff, I really would like you to be the one to introduce where you came up with the name of We Should Be Working for both of us.
(...)
Well, hey, Zach. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to do this podcast with you. And it was cool that you emailed me. So for people that don't know, I started up my email newsletter again after being like gone for two years or whatever. And Zach was one of the people that responded to one of my newsletter articles and brought up the podcast idea. And so I'm like, okay, I've been kind of wanting to do a podcast. You know, this sounds great. I love this idea. And you know, here we are. Now, the reason why we're calling it We Should Be Working is because, well, we should probably be working and not doing this podcast, right? I mean, that's the whole premise because I'm in this transitionary period where I feel like I'm feeling a lot of pressure to make money, to get a real job, to do something because I'm going through kind of a tough time and a transitionary period in my life where a previous era is ending and I have to begin something new and I don't really know where to go. I kind of have inklings that my heart is telling me where it wants me to go. But I feel kind of scared and like I don't really know exactly which direction to take and there's things I'd like to do, but I'm like, they don't really make money, but like there's things that I'm like, well, I could do that and I feel pressure to do like go out and redo my resume, go look for a job or start hustling on my freelance work even harder or modify my website or my products, launch new products, try to figure out how to make more money. But my heart doesn't really sing when it thinks about those things, but like doing something like this podcast, it kind of does. So I feel like this is where we got to take that direction and this dynamic of like, I feel like I should be doing that, but I kind of really would love to do that and I'm kind of scared to it's this we should be working mindset that's always in the back of my head that has followed me throughout my entire career from when I first left college trying to apply for a real job and then being like, you know what, fuck that shit. I'm going to do my do it myself and do it my way and become a freelancer. And so that started the trajectory that led me through all the different paths of my life, which is what we're going to talk about on this podcast.
(...)
And then the the nice crazy coincidence. So I emailed Jeff and was like, hey, you know, what if what if we did this podcast and I just kind of pick your brain a little bit get to know you a little bit better. I don't think we ever met before but get to know each other better and that'll kind of be the show. So for you the audience to know as well is that most of the stuff believe it or not, we really don't know each other very well. We've had a few conversations just in the effort to get this podcast up and running, but really we've only chatted about four or five times. So that hopefully is part of the journey as well is that you're really getting to know Jeff and me as well as we as we go along. I'll kind of be your perspective on, you know, asking questions of Jeff and all that.(...) So anyway, the the crazy coincidence is that I emailed Jeff. I was in the similar place where I'm like, I just want to do something more creative. I haven't done much creative lately. There's a lot bursting out in my brain.(...) I've always, you know, admired Jeff's work and his thought process and how he does everything. So I was like, what if we just did this thing? It was like, yeah, and we chatted one or two times and I think after the first time I got laid off and now I don't have a job.(...) And so we both found ourselves in weird situations where we're like, man, I should really be working right now. And so same for me. I really do podcast.(...) That was crazy Zach, because when we started our talk, you had a job and I think we had a couple of calls and you had a job and the next thing you know, you text me, bro, I just got laid off and that was a big deal for you.
(...)
Yeah, it's a it's a very big deal. So small background on me because and I think this will be the fun thing with the podcast for both of us is that we have some nice little overlaps as far as our careers or our thought processes, but at the same time, some of our differences is going to be an interesting contrast, hopefully for the audience where I'm married. I have three kids just bought this house, all of that. So me not working. I'm worried about my insurance for my kids. I'm worried about how am I going to pay for this house?(...) And everything and then I've had the same perspective as Jeff as well as I'm like, I don't know if I want to go back to the same old grind. I don't know if I want to do that. I saw this drive to like want to work for myself, but even freelancing as well sometimes can be such a grind and doing client work can be exhausting and all that. So where does this go? This podcast is inspiring to me. This is what feels great. This is what it feels like I should be doing and all of that. So it's a nice little contrast here for both of us to figure out where for me. Yeah, I feel like I should be working right now not working on a podcast because I need to pay for this house. I need to pay for my kids braces that I have. So it's a weird dynamic.
(...)
We should be working right now. We really should.
(...)
Yeah, and I've been,(...) you know, there's a lot of things about work and work culture and society and capitalism and things like that. I've come to terms with as a freelancer, especially as a content creator type of a person anybody listening to this who's who's a creative or who makes content for living or happens to be self-employed. Maybe you're doing YouTube videos or you have a podcast yourself or whatever you're trying to you're not working in the corporate world or you're working for yourself. You kind of still feel like you're exploiting yourself in some way like there's a grind to it a burnout, you know, and I'm no stranger to burnout anybody who's listening to this who's followed me. I've written about my burnout and my depression and my mental health, my anxiety and it's been a constant companion with me all of these years. And so that's another thing that we'd like to get into is like the mental aspect of what it is like to be a creator an independent creator and kind of one who's really highly sensitive and and feels like they don't really fit into what society wants us to fit into and we live in this age this modern age with social media where it feels like your path as a creator is to go online and and post on social media and try to create an audience for yourself. Build your own audience your own brand personal brand, but I'm questioning all of those things. I took myself offline on purpose to try to deal with some of those issues that were coming up, you know, and to get into why I felt burned out and depressed even though I was living my dream job and doing it on my own terms. So, you know, we're going to get into that and I mean, we'll see where that goes.
(...)
Yeah, well, and I love I love that that thought. I mean, I think that's a really good process and you and I talked about it just a little bit before but to me in a lot of ways this this podcast is like a punk band for me. So despite what you all might think these two guitars don't let it fool you. I'm not a musician. I just learned how to play the guitars during covid. I'm teaching myself. So I'm I'm horrible. I'm really really bad. But this podcast makes me think that it's like starting our own punk rock group.
(...)
15 year old in my you know in high school that just wants to give the middle finger to the man that's listening to punk music for the whole time because that is the other side of we should be working is everybody's telling us you have to do it this way. You have to do this. You need to go chase more money. You need to want bigger better all the times and I'm a victim of it myself. I mean look at this house that I just bought.
(...)
I didn't need it but I wanted it. I wanted it for my family and all of that. But this need for more more more more more where everybody's telling you you have to do it this way. You have to do it like that. You have to get more and it's like no we're not going to do it that way. I want to do something a little bit different. So should I be working sure but up yours. I don't want to that's not what's speaking to me and that's not how I want to go. So when you say that that really that reminds me of that and I am kind of curious with you right now. Do you still have some of that fire in that mindset of like no I don't want to go back and be forced to take this job or I mean do you have any excitement about maybe putting a resume together and going for another company is there any way to be like yeah no I hate it. I actually I tried. I mean oh absolutely. I mean right on with you with the sort of like okay fuck you stick it to the man. Okay. I know that's juvenile. I know I know I know I know I've been there. We've done that. I stick it to the man and I've become the man and then I've stuck it to myself and it's like okay the man lives within my own consciousness. I mean it's a it's like a whole whole thing that I'm deconstructing. Okay, you know the action the act of exploiting something within yourself to turn out and create a product and then sell that product and then try to make a living off that and then become dependent on the fact that you're doing that like I start writing these authentic blog posts about my mental health people start reading them. I start to build an audience and now I feel like I have to continue to churn out like insights about my mental health and kind of turn myself inside out and put myself online for the people to to criticize and to analyze and then how that affects me even more. It's like okay. Wait, wait, wait. I'm doing this independently, but I'm being raw. I'm being emotional being honest. I got that DIY punk rock spirit. I'm putting myself out there, but now I'm like I'm a product in the marketplace. You know everybody out there is listening to content. They probably if they're listening to this podcast, they listen to a bunch of other podcasts. I mean, we're just content to them, but but it's also kind of parasocial that we are real people that people are like, oh my god, finally somebody saying this thing that I've been thinking I agree with them. I think about this stuff too. I I'm so glad that I'm not alone in this. That's one of the big reasons why we're doing that and okay. I lost my train of thought there, but like okay, you see I forget what you asked me, but this is no no no. I I think that you tapped onto it because and the direction that you win as far as one of the big reasons that we're doing it is I feel the same way and hopefully you all do along this journey with us is a big impetus for me is I get tired of this glazing over and while I love a lot of these podcasts all of these celebrity interview podcasts where you're on the surface and you're sitting there. You're talking to one of the best directors or best actors in the world and you don't know how to get into the details with them. You don't know how to say. No, I know you just showed up to Hollywood with five bucks in your pocket and then your dream came true. There's a lot that's missing in between there like literally you went there with $5. All right. What was your plan? Where did you sleep that night? You slept on a friend's couch. Oh, you had a friend that was going to let you stay there for free for how long how long did you get to stay there? How how were you able to do that? Is that that's some of the stuff that I think it's missed and that's where regular conversation comes from. That's how you would talk to a friend and that's how I wanted to be on this podcast as well as to say like what what is what does all of this mean? So, you know when you say, oh you guys should be working and you're you're mad with this mentality. Well, yeah, let's get into that details. So like when I'm talking about building a resume and all of that,(...) it's brutal for me like I can I'm going right now when I'm building my resume out and of course, I've got like five or six different versions of it and all this like oh, here's the video one. Oh, here's the creative one. Oh, here's this one. Here's that one and I'm like this grind and in all honesty, the thing that drives me nuts about this process is I'm building it for an algorithm. No, nobody is probably even looking at this. They're going into a program typing in some search terms and I'm praying that mine goes up to the top. It has nothing to do with me the talent of me what I can do and the fact that people can't even get a conversation to get a job is just absolutely brutal for me and I don't know about you.
(...)
I am kind of curious about your thoughts on this as far as we should be working for mindset is the one thing is when I've ever hired people in the past whenever I looked at that I would tell recruiters all that I'm gonna go. I don't care what you think you see. I don't care what their resume looks like if they have a portfolio on their resume. They need to come to me. I just want to see their work.
(...)
I don't care what they've done in the past. I don't care where they've been show me what they can do and then we'll talk to them up, but I don't want you screening anybody out if they have a portfolio link send them my way. I don't know what your thoughts on that are as far as you know, how you've had to struggle to even get jobs in the past or freelance or hiring people or anything like that because it is a big up yours like people want to be doing great artwork. How do we let them do that?
(...)
Yeah, no, that's a great question. And as far as resumes goes I thought about it, you know, like when I think okay, I'm 41 years old. I have a history of being a designer. I worked at an agency as a partner for nine years and five years of freelance or you know, and so it's like I have a lot of experience, but when I have to write my resume, it's like I oh, okay. And I got to distill in the end of the language and formula that like the industry understands. I haven't worked in the industry. Really. I've never worked at a corporate job because go media was like a punk rock band that just ended up growing into more of an agency and so to advertise myself to turn myself into a sellable product. It's it kind of a soul sucking, you know, and I think anybody's experienced that unless you're really really in the groove of writing these resumes and and you're in that flow and you kind of know the people already and if you that's another thing. As another thing too is like if you know the right people, you don't have to do that stuff that very much, you know, you kind of just use your connections and kind of but I've kind of been a hermit for the past five to seven years. I've taken myself offline. I've like kind of destroyed a lot of those connections. Well, I don't I wouldn't say destroy but I've let them wilt, you know on the vine. They just so I haven't nurtured them and I've been pursuing a different path. So now to be like I got to go out there back out there.
(...)
I don't even know where to start. I feel too old. I feel like my portfolio is stuck in 2010. You know, like I haven't been up with the times. I don't know the modern coding languages for web development or any of that stuff and I don't really care to know and there's there's a ton of AI tools out there that people are using which I'm kind of excited about in a little bit of way. I experimented with them. I tried to have them help me write my resume and it's like, okay, I can ask chat GPT. Here's my my history and it'll spit out a resume for me, but then I'm like, okay, now I need to edit this and I just like oh my god. I just like start falling asleep. I just cannot do it. It's like even and then I look on indeed.com or these places. The higher creative work.(...) It's like I have to go now apply at this agency and and not just impress them with my resume, but like impress them with my desire to fulfill their dreams at their company, which I don't care about. I just need some money man. Like so it's like embarrassing. You can't just say that at the at the interview. Hey, look, I'm only here because I need money and I have some creative talent and I can totally knock some of this stuff out. Like I can do these logos and these brochures and I can work on the you know, the soul sucking social media graphics for your you know, your content that you're making. I don't know, but I can't tell them that can't be really honest. So I have to like compartmentalize myself and turn it myself into this like worker be thick that's going to be like I'm going to put this CEO's company is first in in front of my consciousness and like I'm going to put make them a priority. That's what they want to see. So when we were hiring at go media, we wanted people to kind of show to us that they were going to get in our canoe and paddle with us. Not that they're just looking for a job like so I've been on that side to you want someone that's going to live your dream with you. You know me and Bill and Wilson at go media. We had a dream. We were hiring people to help us fulfill that dream and if they weren't going to get on board then they weren't going to hire us and probably we're going to pay them less because we couldn't really afford it because we were kind of a bootstrappy DIY agency. We didn't have that high paying clients. We did a lot of music industry work. So we couldn't attract the best talent with money. So we try to give them benefits like being part of a cool company. I mean and that that was kind of soul sucking in and of itself, you know having to do all of that and and now you've got these people that are working for you that depend on their income with you now. And as the bigger that we got the more people felt like that we were like a regular job for them. They started asking like gosh, I should have like a raise every year. I should have vacation time. I should have health care and I'm like that's not what a DIY punk band usually thinks about when they're asking members to join. But when you become like an employer with 12 people in your company, you have to be providing all those things and start playing by the rules and doing things that people need and I mean, you can't just be playing in your DIY punk band making the music making the cool art that you want to make. No, now you've got to pay people and they depend on you. So you need to go find the clients. I mean, it's a grind and it's a rat race and it's a language. You have to speak in a game you have to play and when you've been out of the game for so long, it's so hard to get back in there, especially when you've like had a taste of like what life could be like, you know, and trust me, I have and I don't want to leave that behind. I love my freedom. I don't want to give up my freedom. I can't commit to anybody else like that. So it's like, all right, what do I do? You know, so that's where I find myself.
(...)
Yeah, well and it's kind of interesting and you know, there's a lot of different examples of this in life and bands are a great example of this as well. You know, you talk about sophomore flop albums and all this or you know, there's a lot of great bands that as they get success, they become or as they get successful, they become less relevant where I think especially for myself, it's kind of like that punk rock attitude.(...) Well, I started getting what I wanted, but it along the way, it wasn't what I wanted at all like you look back and you know, some of my favorite memories or work memories while it was great. It wasn't the work that is what made me happy.(...) It made me happy that me and my buddy are starting a company together, hanging out in the office together. Some of the great conversations that we had. Did we do some good work? Yeah, we did, but that's not what I remember enjoying about it. I don't remember going like man, it was so cool working on that project. I'm like, no, it was awesome. Like when we started building out the office when we started putting our computers together and we're chatting and we're figuring that out and we had these long discussions all day and then we'd go out and have lunch together and all this and you know, to kind of somewhat quote or make the reference to MC Lars, but it's like when your punk band turns into Hot Topic, you're not punk anymore.
(...)
MC Lars, that is somebody I have not heard about in a long time, but that goes way back. Exactly,(...) but it's kind of true and I think even for me, I never even really thought about it until about now, but it's like you get bigger and bigger and you get these big clients and I was talking with a friend about this. It's like client work. You kind of realize on the freelance side of it or on the agency side of it, you know, as much as you'd like to think you're doing all of this, you're doing all that. In some ways, you have a lot less control than the client does and you're at their service and you have to do it this way and you have to do that and like, well, I'd even rather be on the Starbucks side of things and then you go work for Starbucks. Like, oh my gosh, I'm really working for the man here,(...) really doing this and now I've got to take care of this brand that's not mine and do this and what creative control do I have? Oh, within these brand guidelines that I invented for I'm not sure why. It's a it's a really weird weird mindset, but then also just thinking about as a person that I'm like, man, I used to be punk rock and my dream was to go do this and work with this big brand and I'm going to make this big mark, but I was like, as I started getting these things that I wanted, I've never really felt fulfilled along the way. It's like I'm 42 years old and I still fit feel like I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. Like where do I want to take this? How am I going to get there? And I feel like I've seen a wall after wall after wall and obstacle after obstacle where it's like that. But then you have that drive where when I was 18 years old, I'm getting it again, but then to your point, I'm like, I don't feel like calling up everybody and going, hey man, you got any work for me? Like I had a friend the other day, great guy and we were chatting and he called me up with the call that I recognize all too much and we're both like, it's so slimy, isn't it? Like, I'm sorry. I'm just trying to say like, hey, I'm slow on work. Do you have anything? It's like you get the email. Hey, I'm trying to find great ways we could partner together. Do you have 30 minutes that we could chat and you're like, and I'm like, yeah, I'm in the same boat as you and he's like, oh really? And I'm like, yeah, man, like things are slowed down right now. Like I'm not, my freelance has gone to crap. I haven't done any freelance working forever laid off for my full-time job and everybody's just tired of whoring themselves out and making these sleazy phone calls where yes, we love to have the connection and all of that, but it doesn't feel great to hit up friends for work. It feels like crap even though friends are the best people to go to and like, hey Jeff, if I can help you out in any way, I can't I'm going to I will be there. I'll do that. Whatever I can do will help out, but it's not fun to go. Hey Jeff, do you have any work for me?
(...)
I could really use some money. So it's like, how do we find this out? How do we figure this out? How do we solve this problem of money?(...) It's the dumbest thing in the world. But how do we solve that? I mean, I don't know what your thoughts are on that. It's just odd. Dude, we can get so deep into that money discussion because that's something I've I've thought about deeply. Honestly, I've thought about it so deeply in the past 10 years, you know, because it's like at the root of everything we experience in life and where does it come from? What does it mean? Why?
(...)
Why is it here? What do we have to do? What is it? You know, and I've tried to manifest money using like Wab attraction principles and to I'm sorry about the fire truck going by but no money money is a thing like we all need it to survive, you know, and anybody I try to talk to you about this who's not really like conscious or you know, who's kind of still stuck in the matrix of like, well money comes from working jobs. So why don't you just get a job and then you'll have money money comes from making sales. So why don't you just get better at sales? I'm like, wow, it sounds so simple doesn't it? But like there's so much like depth underneath it of like of like my mind. Maybe it's my mindset or my emotions that are holding me back. I just need to get myself right check myself into therapy and then they're going to help me figure out why I don't want to participate in the system like everybody else does or whatever and and also when you go out and shopping, I mean you have all these people that are working in the system and they're providing the the food and the services that I depend on. So it's like they're doing it just but not everybody I feel like not everybody feels like it's sucking their soul to do and like another thing that you said that was great is when when you started with you said it wasn't really the work that was fulfilling. It was like the people it was the person you were doing it with in the the chats that you had and the energy behind it and that's another thing too that I miss about the working world is the people around me because not you're not always just sitting there working you're talking you're you're shooting the shit with people you're doing extracurriculars with them.(...) There's humanity and it's like I think I've heard this story too like the thing about work that everybody loves. It's not the work everybody hates the work, but what people love is the people and the shared sentiment and the community and like the(...) you know going to work is fun when you've got people that you like that you get to hang out with at work and you get to just you know, maybe do a little bit of work, but that's one of the main reasons. I even when I worked at McDonald's for six years when I was a teenager going through college like it was McDonald's. I was getting paid basically above minimum wage, but like it was the people I have my best friends from high school work there. So it was like that's why I went that's why I wanted to go and I got money. Sure.
(...)
Anyway, so that's that's another thing about it. It's like it's exactly that. I mean one of my favorite jobs was working in a movie theater. It paid probably the worst that I've ever been paid at a job, but I'm hanging out with all these cool people.(...) Some of them were that close a lot of high schoolers. I was a little bit out of high school at the time, but working at a movie theater and just screwing around and doing all of that and you know when I was an intern at a TV station when I was first getting started and all that and learning the biz and hanging out with these guys. I was like, oh my god, these guys are drinking at work like we'd sit in the edit Bay and they'd bring beers in and I'm like you can drink at work. This is crazy to me like it's so I'm on. And I was like, this is this is so great.(...) Well, and it's interesting one thing I wanted to ask you about as well is if you have any of this because I have such a weird and this is why I love the idea of this podcast is I have such a weird relationship with work and I think this is going to be great therapy for me to try to like figure out and I'm sure that it's a little bit of both that I feel like there's other times when it's like I do feel good about working because on the other side of it,(...) I think the way that I was raised and probably the generations that raised us. I was always instilled from my dad and my family. You need to have a job. You are going to have a job as soon as I was eligible to work. I was working now granted my first job that I ever got.
(...)
So when I was younger, I went to a private school for a little bit and it was a big deal for my parents. We didn't have all the money for all that. I was I got some scholarships got some financial aid to go there, but they're like, hey, this is a school you have to buy your own books. Well, I was 11 years old being told that and I took it seriously like in retrospect now, obviously my folks are kind of joking around like oh you have to go get a job. How you going to figure out how to get these books? I think their intention was kind of like and maybe do some more chores around the house find some creative ways to go make some money because you're going to have to pay for your own books and I was like I have to get a job, but to me it felt like deadly serious that if I didn't get a job, I wasn't going to school and that just felt like the end of everything for me. So as an 11 year old, I was like, how am I going to do this? I got to go solve this problem and I went out and I found a buddy. We found an ad in a newspaper for a juggling show at the Renaissance Festival for or for auditions for the Renaissance Festival. So I knew how to juggle and I grabbed my buddy and I was like, hey, you want to go get this job over the summer at the Renaissance Festival and he's like, okay, we go and audition and my parents drive me down there and then I'm sure too much their dismay. We got the job and they're like, oh no, now I have to take him to the Renaissance Festival every weekend all day for them to go perform. So it's like we have our stage show and all this and I was really really proud. I got this job. It was doing something fun. I had my buddy there and all that. So it's like I've always had this mentality of you got to have a job. You got to have a job. You got to have a job. So even when I was 16, it's like now you have to go get a legitimate job during the school year, not just during this summer job. So it's like I've been working since I'm 16 years old and the times that I have not had a job have probably been the most stressful times of my life where it's like that's when I'm freaking out all the time.(...) I just feel uncomfortable. It's hard for me to enjoy something where it's like this podcast. It's like I really should not be doing this podcast right now. I should be working. I should be putting my resume out there. I should be doing something to put food on the table for my family. I've got responsibilities. It's like the more that responsibility is built up the more daunting of a task it becomes to maintain this house of cards that just comes tumbling down and then you realize Mike, what do I like out of life? I like hanging out with my kids. I like hanging out with my wife. I like doing these things. How can I make these things mesh together? Because doing this job and the stress of this job, you know, and as my wife takes put it she was like, do you really want to go back to a place where they can just snap that job away from you with, you know, a snap of their fingers where they have all of that control over your future and you have zero.
(...)
Now granted, that's not 100% true. You know, I can do a good job and if I do a bad job, I'm going to get fired and stuff like that. But I was doing a good job and I got laid off. They didn't hate me. They liked me there. And now I still don't have a job. So I don't get that dichotomy. So I guess long story short, that was kind of a long ramble. Do you have any of that as well, like instilled from a dad or parent or what was that like for you growing up as far as a quote-unquote work ethic as somebody would put it?
(...)
Is that something that you've always felt like you have to work or has it been more for you that you're like, I never want to work?
(...)
Well, that's interesting that you ask that because my dad had very much that work ethic that, you know, get a job, get a job, get a job. And he was yelling at me, yelling at my siblings, you know,(...) because they needed help with the bills in the house. And it was like you get a job and you can help the parents pay the bills because we can't barely make ends meet. My dad was a mechanic and my mom didn't finish high school. She was a stay-at-home mom. She had me when she was 19 and I was the first born and then they quickly had a few other kids after that. So they had three kids and like on a mechanics income. So my dad was busting his ass at the auto shop and so he'd get home and he'd be angry and he would turn to alcohol. And so that was my relationship with work. I would see my dad do that and I had this like idea. I was always a creative kid, you know, an artist artistic kid and I'm like dad, I'm never going to do what you do because his hands were all gnarly. He had all his back pain and I said, I don't want to do anything like that. I'm going to be so rich that I'm going to pay people to do that for me. I mean, I was naive. I was like eight years old, but I remember my dad was so mad because I would be kind of like refusing to do some of the labor that he would ask us to do as kids.
(...)
You know, we needed help chopping wood to put in the wood-burning furnace because we couldn't afford our heating bills. So we tried to cut, you know, chop wood from the trees around us and turn it into heat. I mean, that's how I feel like that's how broke and poor we were, but we weren't as bad off as some of the other kids in the neighborhood who we and I realized that we lived in like the poor part of town. I didn't know that I didn't know I was poor until other kids in my school told us that we were poor or that we looked poor because we didn't we didn't have clean clothes or so it was like, you know, growing up in poverty not really knowing that you're in poverty until you get older and you kind of see how the socioeconomic system works and and oh that was government sponsored housing. We moved around a lot because of X Y and Z like that's why we moved around a lot. Oh, that's why we had to move into those that place and so we struggled with money as a family. So I was like, I'm not going to do that. I became like a very high achiever type. I started to focus on school and get really good grades and then I went to I was the first person in my family to go to college. So I had this like success oriented mindset from my teenage years and soon as I could work I was out the door. I did not want to spend any time at home. I was like get me the heck out of here. I hate being at home. I want to be at work and so I worked at McDonald's and work would work 30 to 40 hours a week while I was in high school. So I had like hardly any sleep at all, but I would much rather be at work because my best friends work there and I had a girlfriend who worked there. So I got to see her got to see my friends. We would hang out afterwards. We go to Taco Bell is my first taste of freedom. We would go bowling. We would just be hanging out late at night. And so yes, I was making making my own money but hanging out with my friends and it was empowering them because it got me out of a worse situation. Now if I have to think about going back to work at McDonald's, I'm like that sounds like hell. It's slavery, but not when you're 15 and you're like I'm getting away from my my crappy, you know, I mean my independence, right? So it's like it's relative like I know that like going back into the workforce feels a lot different today at 41 than it did when I was 15 getting feeling excited about the possibility of like becoming an adult and making a life for myself is you believe you believe a little bit of the lie of the American Dream. If you chase it, you know, even though I felt very punk rock DIY, it was more like I was the punk rock sort of libertarian DIY rather than sort of the anarchist social justice. So I was more like you can do it yourself pull yourself up by your bootstraps and I had that mentality around work and everything we did at Go Media, which is like I'm not going to depend on anybody else. I'm going to do it myself and get really good at it and we did it ourselves. But then comes the this burnout and the this like this depression and the anguish that a lot of people a lot of men especially deal with if they feel this this responsibility to become this protector and provider for their families and they have to carry this burden and you know, of course, my dad felt like that. And didn't have a college education to depend on so he had to continue to do backbreaking labor to bring in money which fueled their which they bought beer and cigarettes with and just was not the best role models, but yeah, I mean was and do you think for you? So for me, it's like when I look at my parents and their relationship with work.
(...)
It is interesting how you bring that up is that you know, I think some of what you're saying is the kids mindset of you don't know what you don't have or you don't know what you have until you're compared to somebody else. And so for me, I was kind of raised middle-class and in some ways you could even argue upper middle-class depending on your perspective(...) and I didn't really know that I didn't really do that. My mom was a very successful nurse practitioner. So starting off when I was younger, she kind of had her own punk rock practice with her in this doctor and they built one of the best practices in the nation. It's nationally recognized and admired and all that and this guy's gone on to you know, Board of Directors for multiple hospitals and all this and is an authority in the field and they kind of built that together. And so while that was all admirable,(...) you know, I'm living this kind of we started off a little bit lower and then as she's successful, she's making more and more money and and all of that and my dad wasn't working for a lot of it.
(...)
And I don't remember him really working or not working and then I just remember one day is like I'm gonna go back to work and you're like, all right. Well, see ya and I was pretty young but as growing up is that as soon as I went to that private school, that's when I felt like I was poor. And so it was weird because we really were not but that's what I was told a lot of my life is we don't have money for this. We don't have money for this. There's money growing trees and all this and so I really thought that we were poor. I was like, oh, we don't have money and then when I look at these other kids that I'm going to school with where I'm like, I'm going to school some of the richest kids in the state and you go over their house and you're like, oh my I am poor. I'm definitely poor and that mindset of oh you better than go hustle. You better than go hustle or this is what you want to go get to isn't this a great upper echelon and so not my parents were necessarily hard on me like that, but I saw my mom busting her ass all the time 24 hours a day. She's on call. She's you know, typically in the car even on the phone in the early 90s with those car phones the old Star Trek flip phones and all that taking calls for patients and all of this as a nurse practitioner and so it's like and then I see for her now that she was living that punk rock lifestyle with the doctor and then she got left in the dust when they got too big for her shoes and she's like, I'm not a doctor and then got left behind and even though she's just as capable in a lot of different ways now, she's on the grind for I got to go get another job. I've got to go do this and everybody leaving her behind and oh, you're not quite good enough to know you're not this because in a lot of ways for her that's her art. That's her passion in a way, but she's grinding it out for all these people.(...) Thanklessly and it's like can I just find a place to go do what I love to do without this person getting in my way, but now like you said we've accumulated this responsibility. It's weird that we're young. I remember working in the mall and being like this job is so dumb. So stupid, but I also had so much fun, but really we're almost like craving responsibility, which is weird. It's really weird to give me more responsibility and stuff that I have to worry about for the rest of my life.
(...)
It's an odd way to look at it where it's like you might not want that thing because now it's going to be stuck to you for the rest of your life that you're going to have to figure out how to make that thing work. Now kids is obviously one thing and I'm not saying kids are a very rewarding thing to have and everybody has their own point of view is what kids are responsibility, but I'm talking about houses the car the this that that that it's like we've strived for all of that. I'm like, I don't know if that was the right direction to go like I don't know if that was the right mentality for me to have so I'm very proud that I've I've worked hard and I've done all this like I don't know if that was the grind. I should have been focusing on I wish I could have some of that time back.(...) I mean what else do we even have one of the other options that we have when we are, you know, young men going into the college becoming an adult, you know, it's everybody not even just men but women. I mean, it's like everybody you're supposed to establish your career. I mean, you can't even really not do it. You can't opt out really. I mean, what are you going to do be poor? I mean or try to marry somebody who's got money. It's you really have to I think it's an initiation into our society like your groom for your train for it. You try to think about what you want to be when you grow up and then you try to become that and I mean if you've got it figured out by 18 and you can and you know which path to take good for you. I mean, I was lucky. I feel like I knew what I wanted to do as a very early age. Everybody was telling me how great of an artist I was and how successful I would be if I just stuck to that. So I had a lot of momentum. Yes, I grew up poor but I had a lot of support as far as like my creativity in my art. So and I would win awards for it at art shows and stuff. So I was validated on this front. So I knew I needed to parlay that into art school and learn how to turn this into a career and become a famous artist or a designer or film director or some sort of creative field and so I had all that momentum. Okay. Now not everybody has that momentum. Some kids when they're graduating high school, they don't know what they want to do and so they might choose the path while this I know will be successful doctors lawyers, you know, let me go to school for business and try to figure it out. You know, not everybody has such a clear path. So yeah, I won that that's kind of a gift for you. I've always kind of been curious what that was like because even though I've been able to pursue the creative arts and I'm thankful for it. Like I'm kind of one of those people that is when it comes to the creative field. I'm a master of nothing but a jack-of-all-trades like I've dabbled in graphic design. It's terrible at that. I dabbled with drawing and illustrating and while I was getting pretty good at that, I stopped in college and never picked that back up. I was in film school and I was like why man in film school enjoying my drawing class? Mike, I should probably leave if I want to do film like let's get out of here.(...) And not do that anymore. But I remember probably one of the biggest reasons that I went to film school was my it's made me this is and this is not much of an exaggeration, but I'm sure the dates are a little bit off is that I'm there about three to four weeks before college is about to start going. I don't know where I'm going to school.
(...)
I applied to one place. I didn't get in there. So what do I do now? And I'm talking with one of my buddies is like what and I'm going to school down in Santa Fe to film school and I was like, oh, yeah, you're going to film school. I was like, I like movies.(...) I can make movies and I was like, oh, I'll apply there. Three weeks later, I'm going to school there.
(...)
Like I call them up figure that out. I'm next door to my buddy,(...) my high school best friend and all that and we're next door in film school and I was like, it made sense. So again, it kind of speaks to us like I wanted the(...) interaction with my friend him and I got along great and I was like if him and I are doing something together, it's going to be amazing.
(...)
I don't care what it is and I do like movies. So I want to go make Star Wars. I'll go do that and then I got really really into that scene. But for me, I've never really felt like a it's a weird break and I think it's a fun thing to chat about is I've never felt like I'm a good creative. I don't think ever in my career if I'm if I'm a hundred percent honest, there's things that as I go on, I feel like I'm much better at this. But if you were to like hand me a bunch of money to go do a feature film, my immediate reaction would be panic and I beg I'm a fraud and everybody hears about this all the time. It's the imposter syndrome and I think artists have it worse than just about anybody where I'm like, I still don't feel like in some ways I can easily go out and like oh, I'm a good professional and all this comparatively, but depending on who I'm talking to, I really may or may not feel like I can live up to that. So so for you growing up where you're like, I've always wanted to be an artist. Did you and I don't want you to come across. I'm not saying this in a way for you to feel, you know, narcissistic or full of yourself or better than anybody. That's not what I'm asking and hopefully it doesn't come across that way.(...) But when did you always feel confident in your ability like I'm pretty good at this and was that so when you're striving to the next level, there's a lot of people are artists that are like, I didn't feel that great. So I had to work harder and work harder or were you like, I'm pretty good at this. I should get to the next level. What would that feel like or what was that process like for you?(...) Yeah, for well for me, I was clearly the best artist in my class since fifth grade fourth grade even in elementary school because I would draw stuff and then kids would come over and be like, wow, they would sit down and watch me draw. So I was getting like this attention by being an artist. So I wasn't getting attention other ways. I was very quiet shy, but when I would draw I would get attention. So and I would my parents of course would show my drawings to my aunts and uncles and they would all praise me. So a lot of that positive validation helped and then I kind of started to see how I was better at creating the the artwork or the look more realistic or I had better technique than other kids in my class. So the comparison was relative in my small school. So I would see how other people were doing and I could be like, yeah, I'm I'm better and I would feel that way. I would feel like but what I considered was better was better at rendering better at shading. I was self-motivated. I would copy other artists that I would be inspired by so I would draw when I got home and I would take it in art school. My art teachers would praise me and I would win awards. I would so it's like I was getting this validation and and I started to feel like teachers pet a little bit because you know, they liked me and I was getting this like validation from the teachers and other other students would be jealous and and they'd be like not everyone can be as good as you Jeff. You know, you're lucky and but I said I had this mentality and I went to art school and you when you go to art school, you're filled with kids who are the best artists in their high school. So you're like now you're not really the best you but you're still pretty good. But now your comparison field is a little bit broadened and now there are some kids in my art school that were like freaking geniuses like I'm like, how did they how are they so good and I would be like, I don't have time and and and then the teachers would be like that's because they dedicate their entire lives to their craft and and I'm like, I just can't do that. There's more to life that I can't just dedicate so much. So, you know, anyway, it's relative, you know, but I took that mental image that I was a good artist and then I was able to turn that that confidence within me helped me in my career. So now that's a really good point as far as that whole, you know, it just paints things while I think that that's a great quote and while I think that in a lot of ways, it's very very true as far as if you make this your number one thing in life or you know, we've talked about this, but you'll probably you'll probably hear me say this a lot on the podcast, but it's like your focus determines your reality which is one of my favorite quotes of all time, but I think it's misinterpreted, but it's like if you dedicate yourself to this, it's like well, yeah, what's going to happen then if I dedicate my entire life to this? What's my personal relationships like? What's my mental state like? Am I even feeling creative anymore? And what does that even mean to dedicate myself to my craft? Does that mean oh, I have to do everything that you say go along these rules or you know, how do I carve my own path along here? Because it's not that black and white life is not just binary in that regard where there can be other things that we like and I think that that's important. And so you have these people and I think that it's such an interesting point of view like I was such a Mac fanboy and I still love Apple. I still love the company. I think that they do a lot of things right now that and so I was like, oh Steve Jobs is my hero all this. Then I read in my biography in his biography and I was like, oh very interesting. I was like, you know what? Being the CEO of Apple or getting to that place is really actually not as difficult as I thought that it would be but the sacrifices and the person that you have to become in order to be Steve Jobs. I'm totally unacceptable for me. It's not okay. I would not be willing to be that guy. He's a horrible person.(...) He did a lot of terrible terrible things. Now did he do some great things as well and innovate and all that? Yeah, but I was like the guy was not a great guy at all by my standards at least. I'm not trying to bring up a debate if Steve Jobs is great or not, but that's the thing of but he was ultimately dedicated to one thing and that was the biggest problem. His family didn't mean crap. Other people didn't mean crap. It was him getting what he wanted and building this company to be the best company in the world and he dedicated himself to that. But I'm like, that's not who I want to be.(...) I don't think that's a great recommendation to a kid or to anybody. It's like we'll just work harder and but that's what we've been told our whole lives is just work harder. Just work harder. Just dedicate yourself. Yeah, and if you're not doing it, it's your problem and it's your mindset. It's your work ethic. It's something about you that you need to fix or practice. I mean, I mean it's everywhere.(...) Yeah, and so, you know, so now you've got young Jeff that's doing great in, you know, doing great. You go to art school and all that. Did you have any competition with any of the other kids? Like did you even get burnout in college at all or did you find that to be still a pretty, you know, ripe phase of your life for creativity? Like were you still feeling pretty inspired back then?(...) Well, I think I could talk a lot more about this and I think we should save some of this details for this era of our life. But yeah, I felt like there was some competition because I lived in a house with about five or six other artists, you know, and at varying degrees of skill level and dedication and work ethic and there's some kids that were really good and of course, you're comparing yourself to what they're doing and you're getting graded on it. So it was naturally a competition and there were kids in my class who were who are struggling and they would look at my stuff and they would feel jealous and they would be asking me how I did it and I would be trying to help them.(...) But it was like, yeah, you could definitely start to feel the competition aspect of it, but I didn't really feel good about it. I didn't like when other people were jealous of me or feeling like they couldn't do it as good as I could and I got that. I started to get that from people that were struggling and had a having a harder time.
(...)
So yeah, yeah, I mean, I think that it's when it comes back again to we should be working. It's I think about that time too in college and film school is that that's when things really started to switch for me of I don't know if this is the path of this grind of go work go work. If you want to be a Hollywood director go down here. You've got to start off as a PA go grind it out there go do all this. It just never felt right to me and I was like, well, I guess this is how it's done. I guess this is how it goes, but I didn't know any better or didn't you know, even to this day. I'm still wondering like I don't know how this guy got there. It's it's just so odd to me and this mindset to adopt of and I feel like in the world today, that's the image that we put out from everybody like oh, they're so successful. Does that mean that they're happy and I think both you and I would love to dispel that that it's like a lot of times when you get everything in the world, it's not what you wanted at all.(...) And you realize you were a lot happier without it.(...) And so it's like, how do you justify those two things together of well, I fought hard for all of this, but it's all is it all going to go away if I don't go get back to work. Yeah, I mean, it's a terrifying. It's a terrifying position to be in and we can get more into that in the in the as these shows go on with your discomfort with not having a job and what that means about you your identity.(...) What stuff you're going to have to sacrifice. I mean, what is the life that you could live that's an alternative to that? That is, you know, it's not like you've got a blueprint for it, or there's a safe place for you to go explore that. It's like you kind of have to buck the system buck the rules and carve out that path for yourself. And that's what we're going to talk about in this episode. So are in this podcast.
(...)
Yeah, and on on that note as well as we start to wind things down just to delay it more for us not working.
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I wanted to ask you real quick and we'll see if we have it as a theme or not. Well, I'll decide as we go forward, but I think a nice way to kind of break things down at the end of the episode is just to say what's what's inspiring you now right now. Is there a movie that you saw a band that you listened to an artist that you went out to or somebody that you read or any type of realization? What's inspiring you lately right now?
(...)
So I set this out in my newsletter a couple this week and the week before.
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It's calling into question a lot of the online business realms of like marketing and promotion and hustle and also it's not if you're if you're avoiding hustle culture, it's like it's the law of attraction. It's the spiritual aspect of living here on Earth and how you can be successful and prosperous. So there's this whole world, but I'm listening to a couple of these podcasts. One of them is called marketing muckracking and she's basically having a critical perspective on all the like the life coach business the online marketing the sales funnels the things that e-commerce businesses have to do online to try to like get their work get their product out there. Why marketing feels ugly and gross to us and that's how I felt and I discovered these podcasts and I'm like man, she's really speaking to a lot of the things that I have problems with.
(...)
You know that you have to do if you're an artist and a personal brand. It's like how okay, she talks about the personal brand stuff. We're in this culture of the personal brand. So it's like even if you are an independent person an artist a creator you by putting yourself out there, you're branding yourself and then turning yourself into this product and then what that does to our mental psyche when we have a product version of ourself and then our authentic human self who's who doesn't live up to the standards were supposed to present because we have to create this perceived value not the actual truth of who we are and how that folks with our mind. So that's been inspired me lately that whole subject.
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Is that led to anything for you? Is it said oh this kind of
(...)
shifted this I might make this adjustment. Have you been able to put that into action or is it something that is still kind of sitting there a little bit because it's brand new?
(...)
Well, it's something I've thought about for years and it's kind of come and gone as I as I evolve, but it's back in my reality again and how I have to apply it to myself. It's kind of like why do I have problems marketing myself promoting myself charging for my work, you know, every time somebody comes to me and asks me how much do I how much do I charge to do to do this design or whatever? I never really have a clear-cut answer because I know the person who's asking me is not in a position of financial abundance. So they I kind of feel like I'd like to help them but that means I have to get paid less in order to do that and or this other person is a band and they need a logo a full-brand identity. So I'm like well, this is what the industry kind of says I should charge so I should do that and I just have these like mental issues with doing it.
(...)
So I don't really know. I feel like I struggle. I don't know how to do this very good and I feel like my sales and my income my money situation suffers because I don't do a good enough or I don't do a good enough job. It's because my mind says there's something fake about it something inauthentic not real out of out of touch with life and reality, but I have to do this and this is what everybody does and you can't talk about it. You can't really be honest with it because that's cringe. You can't just be honest.
(...)
So I don't know. I'm still trying to figure it out. I have an online business. I charge for stuff.
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It's complicated. I don't know exactly what to do. How am I supposed to promote myself? I don't want to use social media, you know, but it's back to that grind again of it kind of feels like cold calling at times where it's like I'm putting it on here. Here's this and I'm going to shove this down your throat and here's this, you know, here's the thing that you're going to get from me every single week and then everybody's going unsubscribe. I'm not following you anymore. I'm tired of this getting rammed on my throat and you're like, it's not really what I'm trying to say. I'm just trying to promote myself and then sounds like you might have the same issue that I have where I'm like, I'm historically undervaluing myself that I'm totally yes. Absolutely. Charge. I'm not charging enough or I don't know. I know that they don't have the money or you know, I pitch a job on something and they go. Oh, you know, I love that but I don't have that much could we do it for like, you know, 2000 less and I'm like, I mean, I want to do the work. It's kind of a fun project. But now I'm taking less money and am I just going to be that jerk and says no, absolutely not but I'm like, but I need the money. I don't know if I'm in a position that I can even say no, I have to take this and now I'm undervaluing even more. So if I do even more work for them, it's going to have to be at a lower price and it's just like this continuing cycle of I'm like, I don't know how I can just do the work and have this not be an issue. But I'm like and everybody will go. Oh, that's well, that's life. Like, oh great. Okay. Sure. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah.(...) Or have somebody that has no issue with it and that can do it for you, which I have never really met anybody or if you do you got to pay them quite a lot to do that promotion for you, but still like I don't know. It's we'll think we're going to figure it out. We're going to figure it out somehow some way. We're going to we're going to discover what that is. Yeah, one way or another. All right. Well, that that has been great. I think that that's a good wrap for our first episode there. And so just as a little housekeeping for our guests, we are going to try to do this on the regular and I think the way that we're thinking about doing this is doing it kind of in seasons where we'll put out we'll come up with a little bit of a plan for a season as far as some topics, but we want it to feel loose and natural and you know, we don't have notes that we're going like, oh, we're going to talk about this. We're going to talk about this, but we do kind of want to have it contained where we're like, oh, here's a season of all of this and then we can take a little break and decide if we want to move on and do more or if we feel satisfied with what we've already done. So I think we're hoping to do this weekly.
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Get these out get these out on the regular for you, but that's we should be working for now. So Jeff any last thoughts?
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No, I think that's great. I'm glad we did it. I'm really happy with our first episode. I'm really excited to see where this goes where it takes us. You know, Zach and I've got a plan that's about 12 episodes of you know, going through my journey in the different phases and we're going to talk about this and see what little nuggets of wisdom come out and and also as a listener, we're always open to feedback. We would love to hear from you. If you've got stories to share we can read your questions and answer them and I think we're probably going to end up developing. I think we would hope to some sort of community where we can interact with our listeners a little bit easier and just to see what other people are thinking about this subject and start this dialogue and and then see where it goes.
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Exactly. I mean, I think that that's a great point if if we can work it out in a way that makes sense, especially for you the listener. That's kind of a theme of this is that you know, I'm here. I'm a fan.
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There's been plenty of times where it's like I I just wish I could be a little bit more engaged in what's happening. And that's how Jeff and I got to be where we are is is all that so yeah, we would like you to to feel that way and feel like an active participant and on that note, I'll leave with one of my favorite stories that kind of put me on this path was me and my best friend that I told you about before from high school read a we're at a punk rock show, I guess for black, but turn this band called man or Astro Man.
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And they were kind of like a sci-fi surfer band.
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Not a lot of lyrics or stuff like that, but they they sent these guys on tour. We didn't know this at the time, but they sent other people on tour. They called it the clone tour. They trained other people how to play their music and then sent them on tour as man or Astro man the clone tour. And so it was other fans of man or Astro man out there on tour playing their music and like oh man, how cool is that? We didn't know it was the first time that we saw them like this guy's look a little bit different. Maybe it's the same dudes and they go up there and me and my buddy were right up front and they go. Hey any punk rockers know the lyrics to destination Venus and he's like, yeah, my buddy's right up front. He goes I do and they go get up on stage. They brought him up on stage and he got to sing the song with them and like to had his own like fun unique take on in going around and the guys were all impressed. They do this big picture. I've got my camera there. You know, we're both kind of film guys getting ready to go to film school and all that. So we've got our camera. We're taking pictures. We're doing all this and I was like how cool that they brought him up this uber fan to go up there and like live this dream and you see bands do it all the time now, but I've always felt like I'm like that's what I want to do. That's what I want to do to somebody else. I want to have somebody else have that awe or at least witness it or be around it. So on that note, we will leave you. This is we should be working and we'll see you next week.
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That's stupid. I'm not doing that.