Zach and Jeff talk about Jeff's time at Go Media including the fun and success but also the challenges with burnout and life balance.
Zach and Jeff talk about Jeff's time at Go Media including the fun and success but also the challenges with burnout and life balance. They talk about the challenges of finding a job in a competitive market. Jeff shares his thoughts on transitioning from freelancing to working at Go Media and the decision to bring his freelance clients into the company. They also discuss the launch of the Arsenal and its impact on the design community. This part of the conversation explores the genesis of the Arsenal, the popularity of Go Media's work, the ethics of stock art, and the impact of Go Media's style. It also delves into the office environment at Go Media, the challenges of balancing work and personal life, and the impact of work on relationships. In this conversation, Zach Hendrix discusses the challenges of balancing work and personal life, particularly in his younger years. He reflects on the struggles he faced in his relationships and the difficulty of finding a work-life balance. Jeff also shares his experiences of working with his wife at Go Media and the tensions that arose from it. He delves into the pressure to succeed and the impact it had on his mental health, leading to burnout and depression. The conversation concludes with a discussion on the evolution of punk rock bands and the paradox of fame.
Takeaways
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Intro Music
03:20 Job Search and Desperation
09:34 Transitioning from Freelancing to Go Media
23:35 Launch of the Arsenal and Impact on Design Community
29:20 Discovering Graphic Design
31:12 Working at Go Media
35:28 The Impact of Go Media's Work
38:47 The Diminishing Integrity of Design
41:40 Balancing Different Types of Work
45:03 The Office Environment
47:57 Leading Two Different Lives
55:03 Finding Inspiration at Go Media
56:28 The Impact of Work on Relationships
01:02:14 Tension between Work and Personal Life
01:03:43 The Pursuit of Creative Arts
01:05:05 The Decision to Leave Go Media
01:09:20 The Pressure to Work and Succeed
01:13:08 The Paradox of Success and Mental Health
01:16:58 Navigating Work Identity in Conversations
01:18:25 Inspiration from Music and Music Videos
01:22:38The Punk Rock Journey
[Music]
Welcome to We Should Be Working. This is week four. I'm Zach Hendricks, that's Jeff Finley, and Jeff, it's good to see you again. How are you? I'm good, Zach. Happy to be doing this episode. We're getting back at it. Look forward to every Monday.
Absolutely. Which, by the way, I'm really happy that-- I know everybody, you all are listening to this in the rears. You already heard it. But Jeff just kicked out this week our intro music for the show, which was phenomenal, by the way. That was a fun development, and I was definitely rocking out to it. Hope you all enjoy it. It was a fun little project, at least on my end, because I didn't have to do any of the work. How was that process for you? Oh, dude, so I'm glad that you liked it, because I was in the project for so long where I just couldn't even tell what music was anymore. And I just was like, does this even sound remotely good? Is this just corny? Is it cliche? Do podcasts even have rock music as an intro anymore? Or is it all just some sort of electronic or some sort of violin symphony or moody music orchestral? I'm like, I don't even know what this is. But I mean, I've got a pop punk history, and you're into this kind of stuff, too. So I was like, let's make something like that. We've got this attitude about it, so I'm going to produce something like that. And by the time I sent it to you, I was like, just completely burnt out. But you're like, this rocks. I like it. So I'm like, OK, good. Yeah, I was blown away by it. I think for me, as a person that's always wanted to be a musician but have no musical talent, it's nothing that I've ever really pursued. I played piano and violin when I was younger but didn't really enjoy it.
I just wanted to be a rock star. I just wanted to be up there singing with band and stuff like that. But as a person that loves music and the music creation, when stuff like that comes out, it's just fascinating to me. It feels like somebody just pulled some gold nugget out of ether, and it's out of the ether, and it's just weird to me how those things happen. I'm like, dude, this is awesome. This is so great. Yeah, let's do this. Give me a little bit more time to finesse this. Sometimes I was just ready to roll with it right away.
Yeah, so that's cool. I'm glad-- it's a new development. As we're doing this podcast, we are learning as we go, basically, and making it a little bit tighter, a little bit better each week. But we're still rough around the edges and learning how to get this thing off the ground.
Exactly. I mean, even in the video and the edits,
I was thinking as well as I'm finishing up other episodes, I go back, and I was like, oh, man, even just a couple weeks ago, it was a little rough. It's a little rough. So hopefully, for all of you, it gets a little bit more natural. But that's also, hopefully, the fun of this podcast is that it's starting off very unnatural for us. And as we move forward, we're trying to figure things out and get it together, and we get new ideas every single week. So we see this podcast as a work in progress.
So yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's get into it this week. Zach, how's your job search going? How's the hunt for your next--
yeah. It's been interesting.
There's been a lot of ups and downs in all of it. And so I've been contemplating going back to my previous--
back to my previous company, not because they're kicking my door down or anything like that. They're not saying, oh, we need to have you back. We need to have you back. It said some roles opened up that would fit me very, very well.
And then you try to decide, is that where you want to go? Do you want to pursue a new opportunity?
And why-- a lot of people ask, if they let you go, why would you ever go back there? It's like, well, again, I could use the insurance. I have kids. It would be nice if I could take them to the doctor and all of that. So those are some of the thoughts and things that as they let me go, the company was nice enough to give me a grace period with my insurance where it's like, hey, you've still got 30 days that your insurance will be active, which is cool. I've been let go from companies before, and they did not do that. So I'm rushing quick to go get a bunch of dental work in. I'm like, oh, I've got to go get my son his new glasses. Oh, we've got to get into the dentist for them and the orthodontist so that they can get their braces going. I'm in all this. It's a weird rush to like, I've been having constant medical appointments where I'm like, oh, Zach, that thing that you should have been getting checked out years ago, you better go get that thing checked out. Better go get this thing done. Oh, you were saying your knee was bothering you. Better go get that done. Your ear was messed up. Go get your ear fixed. So I'm like just rushing to the doctor every single week and trying to plan it out with my wife and my kids to get it done. And so you have those stresses. And then I think as that stress develops,
it really does make you start to overlook some other things that might be important to you where I'm like, I will consider maybe this other job because it's going to give me this benefit. And it will take the stress away of having medical insurance for me. So maybe I wouldn't mind grinding that out. And then you go and do that. And you're like, man, I hate this. And now you're back to the job search again. And that's been a weird cycle for me as well because I've had that with jobs. So I'm like, I'm just going to use this job as a stepping stone. I don't want to do it. I don't like it. And I think when you're in your 20s or maybe even early 30s, that maybe makes a little bit more sense. You have a little bit more energy for that. But for me personally, I'm like these stepping stone jobs. I'm like, really, I want to go torture myself for another two years while I work or while I look for the perfect career or the perfect job. And it's just been frustrating. And so on the actual job search as well,
these postings and one, I'm not finding the jobs that I'm expecting to. There's not as much out there. More and more and more, they're expecting you to cover everything. Like, oh, you have to do this. You're a graphic designer. You're a coder. You do video. You're 3D. You know motion graphics. Oh, and you can do HTML. And we're going to pay you 65K. And I'm like, what? What do these people think they're going to get out there? This is insane.
And then you look up at the-- a lot of the places will show you how many people have applied. The job has been posted for less than 48 hours. And they already have over 100 applicants. And I'm like, well, not even going to get a callback. There's already 100 people in front of me. Is it even worth it to put in? And obviously, I would advise people as well. Yeah, still put in. You don't know. A lot of times people are just spamming all of these, just kind of like I am as well. I'm just like, you're not even really qualified. You don't even fit this. And it's up to the recruiter to sort through all that. But still, it's not a good feeling or sign. When you see a job and you're like, actually, I would like that.
That would be great. And then you're like-- Now, does that feel like you're kind of playing the lottery in a way? You're just like humping-- 100%. One of these-- you're just going to win one of these chances to maybe have some security for yourself?
Yeah, that's a great way of putting it. And I've never thought about it that way, is that 100%, that's what it feels like, is that you almost need to be at the right place at the right time. That if you're not sitting at your computer all day, constantly refreshing, like, did this one just get posted? There's automatically going to be hundreds of people in front of you. So even it might seem some niche job. I don't know. Have you ever heard of the-- there's this kind of art installation place that's in a few cities called Meow Wolf? Have you ever heard of Meow Wolf? I've seen that in Santa Fe. Yep. So there's one in Santa Fe. There's one in Denver here, where I am. And they had a job posting for a director of creative operations. And I'm like, that could be a really fun place to be. That sounds cool. Really weird, cool, artistic stuff, doing all this. But again, I went up there and I go, oh, this has been posted for two weeks.
They have the classic over 200 applicants. Like, I'm still going to put in. This would be cool. But I wasn't there when they posted it. And so even if I'm better than somebody else, I know that all of these resumes are just hitting an inbox. And they aren't looking anymore because a recruiter is going to ask a hiring manager, do you think that you have a candidate that you would want to hire in these 10 that I've provided you? And they go, yes, I think that we would. OK, I'm going to schedule the interviews. How's it going? The recruiter is going to check in. But everything else after that point is just going inbox, inbox. It's just sitting there. It's not going to go anywhere because they don't want to deal with it. So even if you were the best candidate in the world, most qualified, and say you even invented Meow Wolf and you were the original designer, you would not be getting a call back at that point. So it is frustrating that it feels like it's a lottery now. It doesn't feel like the old days where, hey, we're going to look at these resumes. We're going to call the most qualified candidates. We're going to keep it open for two weeks and get back. Now it feels like a mad rush of, did I get there in time to even be considered for this job?
So that part of it is extraordinarily frustrating. Yeah, and you're in this position of being kind of desperate or in this one down where you're in this needy situation. And you just happen to be one of 200 people almost hoping and begging and then trying to impress this company that has all the power in the situation and to gift you or give you a job. And that's a particular frame of mind that does not feel very good or empowering at all. In contrast to something like starting your own podcast or starting your own thing where you're like making opportunities for yourself, the ball is in your court. It doesn't feel like you're one down trying to impress anybody. You're literally honoring yourself. When that employer is not honoring you at all, you're often being ignored and you're just sort of a weird annoying inconvenience. And of course, if you are lucky to get that job, you now have to fill that role as best as you possibly can. And it might not even last. It might just be precarious. You might not even fit in in the company.
And so it's like when you make your own opportunities, like if we're doing this thing and then we get a call from somebody who's like, I really like what you're doing. Hey, I've got this opportunity if you're interested. Those feel so much better. It feels so much different. When you're kind of the prize, so to speak, and people are looking to work with you in a mutually beneficial collaborative way, then I hope I get this job because my security and my livelihood and my health depends on it. Boy, the stakes feel so high there, doesn't it? And it's just not a fun place to be. - 100%. And I think that's an interesting point then as well, even with freelancing, that you bring up a really good point of are you grinding out to make your freelance happen? And that's why this podcast feels so good is that we're, well, yes, we put a lot of work into this and we want to grow it and there's, we have plans of where we want it to go. We're not sitting here going like, all right, I gotta start cold calling all of these agencies. I gotta start cold calling all of these clients again and say, hey, do you have any work you can throw my way? They're not coming to seek me out and say, hey, I have a great project for you. Would you be interested? That feels much better than, I gotta go kick somebody's door down. This is, do you like our podcast? If you like it, great, we like you too. We hope that you come along with the journey
and like and subscribe our channel so we can be supported. That feels way better than just trying to pander to everybody or like these jobs and everything is that, and yeah, I agree. Like I had probably my favorite job that I ever got was over a year ago, and it came from an old neighbor of mine. We haven't even talked for a little bit, but I mean, we were close. We would have dinner together as families and all of that. And then out of the blue, he called me and goes, hey, I think I got some video work to come your way. By the end of it, I was building new websites. We're doing new messaging. We're building out booths for conferences. We're doing videos. We're doing all this stuff. And it was a very collaborative process. It was like, hey, can you help me out with this? I'm like, yeah, what are we doing? Hey, well, what about this thing over here? Oh yeah, we should handle that. Yeah, what do you think? Oh, I think we could do this, this and this. Oh, well, let's go this direction. Absolutely, sure, that's fine. Let's do it. It was such a fun project to go through with somebody that wanted good work that was willing to collaborate. They had their own ideas. Like I think it's unfair of artists to be like, oh, these clients are such jerks. It is still collaborative. They aren't here to go, you do whatever you wanna do, and I don't wanna do anything. It is fun to work with somebody to go like, hey, I'm hoping to accomplish this. Can you help me get there? That's a much better way to go about it than to say, hey, I want you to push these buttons so that the graphics look like this. I don't know how to make Illustrator work, but I want it to look exactly like this. Well, now I'm just a button pusher. You aren't coming to me and saying, hey, I really wanna grow my business, and I'm thinking about doing some advertising. Do you have any ideas for me? What could I do and go, yeah, let's chat about this? And so you bring up a really good point that even in the freelance world, the corporate world, the full-time job world, having to do that grind when you start getting desperate you really do start to kind of say, maybe I'll put up with this, maybe I'll put up with this, maybe I'll put up with this just because you're desperate. I wanna keep my house.
I don't wanna lose it, so what am I gonna be willing to put up with? - Yeah, great question. - Yep, it's gonna be weird. Well, and that being said, I am curious, so this week, well, I should say last week, we were talking about your milkhead days, and so that's kind of when you started off freelancing. Now, as you start getting more success and you started talking with Bill and the guys over there and going into Go Media,
did it feel like a transition to you? Did it feel like a growing up period, like, hey, I've made it now,
these guys invited me in, and what was that process as far as, I know that you'd shown them some work and that they were interested in you and offered partner, but what was that process like going from Bill Ked over to WMC?
- Over to Go Media, yeah, I mean, it was like-- - Sorry, WMC, I keep saying WMC, sorry, yeah, Go Media. - We'll get there, we'll get to WMC. But no, when I was going from freelance, which is my milkhead alias, to Go Media, it definitely felt like an upgrade, like an opportunity to sort of jump five years into the future with a couple of guys who were doing something similar to what I was, which was music industry art, kind of like badass or grungy or cutting edge, you know, artistic graphic design in a much more organized way. They already had a, they kind of had a business and a facade, really, of looking much bigger than they were. Like, they had a lot more clients, they had payroll, they were beginning to have some of these hallmarks of a real business, and I was just a freelancer. So to join this team, it wasn't like I was getting a job at a corporate company. It felt like I had a couple other people that were, like it was like you were joining a band, and now we are more organized. So now you're going from the solo artists doing open mics to, wow, I've got a couple of guys who were serious about this, and we're going to like make it in the industry. You know, that's kind of the energy that we had. And so when they offered-- - Did it feel more stable for you as well? - Oh yes, it felt incredibly more stable because now I'm getting a weekly paycheck, and it wasn't much. The weekly paycheck wasn't much, you know, they basically offered me, like I think it was $10 an hour at the time, but I was partners, so I was getting a percentage of the company, you know? And so we shared in some of the benefits of the profit sharing, and when we would take distributions and stuff like that, but that was kind of just secondary. It felt like a perk almost. I didn't need that money. I was so stoked at this opportunity. I was like, we were going to make badass work together and in a more organized way. So it wasn't like I got a job or I'm here to do my work and get paid. I had a sense of ownership over it where it was like now I was part of the company. It was like my name and my branding was attached to it.
And I will admit though, there was a couple of things that were like not quite,
they were a little bit off for me personally because I felt like my audience, the people who watched, who followed Milkit, like on DeviantArt and others, they kind of thought I was selling out a little bit by like going to this company that's named Go Media and they had a little bit more of a corporate presence. It was like, I'm no longer indie. Now I'm going to the next level up. And I was not Milkit anymore. So I think there was some grief about like letting go of that total ownership of myself and my brand to now I'm sharing it with others. And with Go Media, they also wanted me to bring my freelance clients in to kind of fold my own business into theirs. And I was okay with that myself, but I had people in my ear that were like, not really okay with that. They thought that I was giving something up that they wanted to hold onto. They're like, Jeff,
they're taking something from you or whatever. I'm like, I don't see it that way. I see this as a great opportunity, but I kind of had to convince,
when I was blogging about it, I'm like, Milkit joins Go Media and now I'm going to be using, now my name is going to be Go Media, Jeff. And I think people were like disappointed in some way, but they, of course, they didn't know where I was going to take Go Media and how that was going to look. I ended up helping turn it into another expression of myself. So I still think I brought a lot of people on board with that, but. - You were like a Green Day before the Dookie album came out. - Yeah, something like that. - Yeah. Well, and so that's interesting then in,
did you, do you still feel that way as far as like, yeah, that was the right thing to do to bring my freelance work in? Because I mean, for me personally, it sounds like if that was my situation, I would be okay with that as well. Like you still feel fine that you brought that in. You don't feel weird about that, that whisper in your ear. I've heard that as well. - No, because my freelance clients,
okay, the clients that I did have, they're like, I don't want to pay Go Media. I want to pay you because you're cheaper. I don't want to pay Go Media or go through this extra layer of bureaucracy, even though it wasn't really. It just was like, they wanted to hire Milke, they wanted to hire Jeff. I can still do their project. They just had to pay Go Media. And then I would get my weekly wage in that company, rather than getting all of the money. I didn't feel like I was losing anything, but I think the perspective of clients was different.
They were used to me, they were used to the experience and they didn't really want to be folded in. Now some of them did, some of them stayed.
But Zach, I want to make this clarification. A really good example that I think Bill brought up was like,
there was a tension between me and my entrepreneurial self, this like Milke brand, Jeff brand, versus Go Media. I wasn't like your typical employee who doesn't have an identity outside of the work, or if they do, it doesn't compete with Go Media. So there's a little bit of tension there with like how much attention and Jeff is going to pull away or add to Go Media, it was kind of weird. And a way that he described it was like a lemonade stand. I'm selling lemonade over here, Bill's selling lemonade over here. He wants me to help him out and we join forces. He doesn't want me to be selling lemonade at my own table after I get off work. Like what is the point of that? I thought we were doing this together. So that makes so much sense when you describe it that way. - Well, and that's how I feel as well.
I've had people in the past come up to me. I remember there was a person that I knew that I was close with that was starting their own media company. And they were doing a lot of mostly doing weddings and stuff like that, but we're getting into some slightly more corporate, bigger paying clients and things like that. And in all honesty, when I looked at the work, I was not impressed. I was like, I can tell you guys are starting out, you're not video people, you're not graphic designers, you aren't classically trained on this. That's fine.
And they reached out and said, hey, would you be interested in doing some projects together? Well, I'm like 22 years old, maybe 25 upwards of that. And I'm like, of course I would.
If it would have been approached that way, because the way that then they approached it to me was like, yeah, we would love to, if you bring clients in, we'll give you a finder's fee for that client. And I'm like, but then it's your work. Yeah, so then we can go and take it, we'll work on it, we'll do this, and maybe you can just help find us more, they just wanted me to feed them clients. And I wasn't gonna do any of the work. And I'm like, no, that's my name now that I've got to put on all of this. You want to just go, oh, we'll give you 50 bucks, but you're charging them like three grand and you're doing a bad job. Like if this would have been much more of a partnership where, hey, let's work together, we're starting off, can you please help us so that we can raise,
the quality of the product that we're putting out, we can do that, that would have been a very different story. Or, hey, when we get the smaller clients, we do this or not even that, like, hey, let's work together, we get this one in. But it was very much just like, they just wanted to steal my clients. And I was like, this is not collaborative at all.
I would have been desperate for something like Go Media because I don't know if you realized it or even Bill realized it at the time, but even from the outside, from the very tiniest little peak, that's how it felt to me. Is that I was like, this feels like something that these guys are really in together, that they're doing it, it's being supportive.
And all of, I keep saying in all of that, I've got to stop that in these podcasts. I was on a quick tangent. I keep saying that I go back and I go, and all of that. And whatever that is just-- - I've got my things that I wish I could stop saying, I can't. But it was that perception. I think that that's why it was so intriguing to me is that I saw people in a similar situation to me and then was able to get that camaraderie there. So as you start off and you start bringing clients in, what was, how were those first couple months, years and all of that?
For me, some of the stuff that I'm curious about. And so please feel free to fill in some of the blanks behind the scenes that we can get to in a minute. But for me, when you guys started launching the arsenal, almost even before the arsenal was at in the vector packs and the brushes and all that, I think that's when, at least for me in the nation, that type of style really started to take off all over. And especially when I started seeing brushes and other people's work, that I was like, oh, they're using the Go Media vector packs. Oh, they're using the Go Media stuff and all of that. And I was like, it really started to kind of transform the culture. Were you aware of how big that some of that stuff was gonna go and was it in an effort to say, hey, how are we gonna market ourselves more? What products can we put out? Or was it something like somebody, Bill's just sitting around, he sees your work, like, why don't we just start selling that?
- So when I first started at Go Media, there wasn't any idea of the arsenal. There wasn't any idea of the Go Media Zine, which was our blog, which had a lot of tutorials on there. There wasn't any of that yet. There was our MySpace channel. And I already had kind of a somewhat following of other artists due to me being on DeviantArt and promoting myself and networking a little bit with other freelancers. So when I joined Go Media, they were aware of what I was doing. And I continued to be kind of friends with them or network with some of the design community. And now I, when there was a point when I felt like, okay, I got on MySpace, I was promoting Go Media on MySpace, networking with other designers, trying to get us popular and famous and not really, I don't wanna say that that was my direct motivation, but that was something that I could see happening. And I was like, wow, I wanna make us a big deal, a household name, you know? So I was promoting Go Media through MySpace with other designers. So it's like, we were kind of looked up to and respected in the design community as like people that were doing cool work. And because that's how I perceived other designers like Angry Blue and Rob Dobie, Derek Hess, these other people that felt like they were my inspirations. So I wanted to kind of model them in a way. So I brought that energy into Go Media where we weren't just Go Media working for clients, it was Go Media has like presence in the design community as like a teacher or a mentor or an inspiration. And now Angry Blue and Derek Hess and stuff, they had this grungy style. And I know Justin from Angry Blue would release Photoshop brushes himself on his website for free. And giving away these design resources and stock art vector graphics were a new thing, but like it was common that people shared this stuff within the community. And I remember seeing Justin's splatter brushes all over gig posters and T-shirt designs in the music industry. And when you get good at this and you do a lot of designs, you start to develop your own resources that you reuse and recycle in other projects. And I was like, I wanna make this stuff available to our designers and our community. And so through that, through starting the blog, Go Media Zine, which was basically just our news outlet for us to share and connect with these other designers. And I said, I was like, let's just release this stuff. So I designed a simple webpage that allowed us to put a bunch of these things and sell it with PayPal. I figured out a script that I could copy and paste and have like a little DIY one page website for where I can sell this stuff and made it real cheap, like made each one $9 each pack, like a splatter pack, a skull pack, a heraldry pack, a flourishes pack. And I wasn't the only one making it, but I mean, it was kind of like, hey guys, let's all do this. Like Dave, you do one, Oliver, you do one, Bill, you do one. And then we're all like doing it. We scanned the images, we vectorized them, we put them into these themed packs. And then I was like, well, if we're gonna do like seven of them, let's box them all together and put it into a set, we'll call it set one. And then we will sell it all for a huge discount. So instead of like $70, we'll sell for 35. So that was our very first product. And we had an audience already because of MySpace and because of the Go Media Zine. So we announced it through that and we started getting sales immediately.
People buying our products and our resources because of the reputation that we are beginning to develop. And once we saw that, I mean, it was funny because I think Justin from Angry Blue was one of our first customers too. And he loved what we were doing and we loved what he was doing. And it felt like this designers are sharing and creating resources and sharing with each other and supporting each other. And then I would take that and I would write tutorials on the blog about like how we did this cool illustration because there were other tutorial blog websites out there that broke down illustration processes. I think there was like, oh gosh, I can't even remember. Like this was like maybe PSDtoots.com which was part of the, would become the part of the Envato network.
And a lot of these blogs that would feature news and design insights, we would try to get featured on there and we would network with them and share links and stuff. So it was very much like that. And so I kind of noticed that when I joined Go Media I didn't really contribute much to the client services but more like the design community,
creating products and resources and insight and tutorials for the design community. And that became a whole separate part of Go Media that was pulling in revenue from digital products and teaching and mentoring and networking with other creatives. And then the Bill and Wilson pretty much handled the client input, like working with the business to build them a website, bringing in clients and this and that. So that was the genesis of the arsenal. - Yeah, you were making the money while you guys sleep. So you were kind of handling that side of the business and then the client work, the day-to-day operations. Oh, that's, well, and then I get, that makes a lot of sense then because yeah, your name was all over that stuff. And that was, I remember because I had found your work before and thought that it was really good. And then when the arsenal came out, it was really interesting. It was almost, to me it felt like I had access to your portfolio. I was like, this is so cool. I was like, look at all this great stuff out there. You've got this, you've got that. And I was just trying to figure out what graphic design was. I didn't, I don't think I even really understood the difference between a graphic designer and an illustrator.
And you can argue the lines depending on your perspective, but I don't know if I even quite really knew the difference is that I was like, is a graphic designer know how to draw? Well, not necessarily. Illustrator probably does and all of that. And so what's the kind of difference there? And that's what it was like is those, oh my gosh, you've got all of this amazing work available. And yeah, like you said, I did appreciate that it was really cheap. And then all of a sudden when I start seeing it at other places, I was like, oh, these guys are gonna rule the world. I was like, this is, this is taking off everywhere. And I could easily just start pinpointing. I go, yep, there's that one. Yep, there's that one. And I started seeing it all across everything. And I don't know why this just popped in my head, but it reminded me like, as it almost started going too far and people were overusing it, I remember I was at a concert one time and I don't know if you remember this font, but there was a free font out there on the font.com called Bleeding Cowboys. - Oh yeah. - I started seeing that everywhere. And then I started seeing it at like, cause people were making custom shirts for like country music shows and walking down the street, like outside of a concert and I see Bleeding, like there's Bleeding Cowboys all over again. Bleeding Cowboys everywhere I go, there's this dumb font everywhere.
But it was them trying to like, you know, I was like, they don't know the artistic side of this kind of like grunge movement and all this and all that. I also didn't, but I didn't know how to make it, but I knew I could recognize it when I saw it when it was done well. So when you started off at Go Media, were you going into the office pretty much every day or were you working at home as well? Like, did you, so you grabbed your computer, your mobile, not mobile computer, and took it into the office or they give you a computer? - No, they bought a new computer for me when I started. It was like a Dell Optiplex or something like that. And they had a flat screen monitor where Bill was still working with a CRT, two CRT monitors on his desk. He had not upgraded to the flat screens yet, which were, you know, just getting introduced.
But I want to say something before that, you talked about like the oversaturation of these seeing these vector packs in the wild.
Okay, so one, before we started the artisanal, we would purchase stuff off iStock photo, which was one of the biggest stock photo agencies in the world. And we would buy vectors if we needed to, you know, stuff that saved us time in our projects.
So when we're like creating this stuff, we're like, let's put it up on iStock. And then we realized that we were only getting like fractions of a penny for every sale or 25 cents or 50 cents whenever something would sell. And we're like, this is, we're not gonna, this isn't gonna work, you know? So why don't we just do it ourselves? And that was like a big reason why we started the site, was in response to selling it on stock photos. But yeah, as they did get to become more saturated, there was a little bit of pride that we would take in seeing them out in the wild. It's almost like you're a graffiti artist and you just tagged a train, and then you get to see that train and you're like, that's me, I like, I made that mark, you know? So there's a little bit of pride that we would feel seeing our stuff everywhere. Like we, especially on shirts from bands we listened to or we liked or brands that we were fans of, to see them, wow, they were customers of ours, they use our stuff, that is so cool. Now there was one time we saw them in Target and they, we would be critical of like how people would use our vector packs. And well, before I shared Target, we had this like user showcase area where we would display what customers would produce and we would advertise it. And we realized that was kind of a bad idea because most of the customers who bought our stuff didn't use them in a way that made them look really nice. - Yeah, I go like this, that's the look rate. - We're like, oh gosh, I don't know, it doesn't really sell our products very well. So we kind of are like, you know, we took that opportunity down. But anyway, when, this is a similar story line with the Target stuff. So when we saw everything with Target,
they were basically copied and pasted our vector packs like all over the shirt, without any real design orientation or theme, it was just like, let's just take the stuff in the pack and throw it on the shirt and print it and call it a day. Like literally all over prints with just like a vector here, vector there, and it's like, or a giant skull here with a splatter over top. And it was just like, to us, it felt like no design sense. It felt like fast food design, you know? And then, so I wrote a blog post about this, basically saying, hey, Target, you know, if you really want good design, you can hire Go Media to do it specifically. And then people were like flooding the comments with like, you were just shitting on your customers, you know, people bought your stuff. And now you were like, now you're like tearing them down, telling them that their designs are shit. And I was like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, kind of am doing that. It's probably not a good call.
- That's interesting. Yeah, I guess you're right. I wouldn't have thought about that. Cause now that you say that, I might just be making up a memory, but I'm pretty sure that I read that and be like, yeah, they should, what are they crazy? And like, I knew that my messing around with the packs as well was terrible. It was bad. But I also recognize that other people's were as well. Like, I don't know why I just held in such high regard that I was like, let the professionals handle this, okay? If you want to go make a t-shirt for your daughter's, you know, birthday party that says Team Brittany, and you've got a picture of a skull on there, great, good for you. But if you're going to be putting it out there in your Target, you can afford this, do good work. Get these guys up there, let them, you know, show you how it's done and all of that. It's almost like, you know, making a Super Bowl commercial at that point, like when you see the bad ones, you're like, man, you really should have hired somebody who knew what they were doing. And then when you see those-- - Yeah, yeah, exactly. - Man, great for you guys. Like, that's how it's done. Your brand looks good, but everybody knows, well, I shouldn't say everybody, actually probably most people don't, they're like, man, you know, Acura is so smart for hiring Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno to do this epic car commercial. Like, you think that Acura hired them? No, they hired a creative agency, and the agency hired them and pitched this idea. Like, they left it to the creative professionals. They said, what do you think we should do? And then that's how that came out of it.
So yeah, no, that's great. And then I'm sure you guys, so did you, were you able to pull it off of iStock then once you got up there? Like, so you're like, this is gonna work. We pull it off, we're gonna do it ourselves. And then it's like buying a band from them at the, or buying an album from a band at a show versus at a record store. They're gonna get a lot more money that way. That was kind of the case, well. - And of course, being part of the record label or being part of iStock photo, you get all this exposure that you don't normally have. And of course you're paying to be part of that network.
It just was, the payouts were so small, it was like Spotify, you know, it's like, what's the point? I mean, you just, you're just trying to look, you know, you're not getting paid hardly anything. We were just at the right place at the right time as far as like selling the stuff before a lot of other people were. There was definitely some agencies, boutique agencies that were similar to Go Media that were doing it. I think You Work For Them was another popular one. And they were, had a rough edgy style, sort of street art style too. A little bit more sophisticated than us. I think we were a little bit more geared towards sort of the rock crowd, you know, rather than kind of the math rock, any sort of technicality stuff. They were, they had their own thing. But this is something I'm thinking about, I wanna talk about too is because when Go Media was doing this, when we were creating these illustrations, there was a little bit of fear that it would take away from our originality as artists, that by basically giving people access to our elements, that people could duplicate our work in a way that would devalue ours, that would devalue the work of other artists, by making it accessible and easy for people to just grab some stuff that we drew and paste it into a design where they didn't have to create it themselves. Now that's so popular. Everybody nowadays uses templates and clip art in their work. Even when we were doing it, we didn't draw every single thing by hand every single time. So this is like where artists feel like, where does my integrity end? Where does my artistic ability stop? Is it like, do I have to draw everything by hand and be the most original or am I allowed to use stock? Am I allowed to use those splatters from Angry Blue and put them into my work in a creative way? Now, of course, if I just use his splatter, then it's really just his work that I'm now selling to a client. So I have to make it original. So this was a big ethical moral thing behind the whole stock art industry. And Go Media was a big part of like responsible for blowing it up and making it a little bit more popular. And other people started competing with us and offering it for cheaper. I think like some free vector sites are popping up with like imitations and things that were very similar to ours and we popularize this vector pack phenomenon. So we made clip art a little bit cooler. And I think if you follow that train, now we're in AI as like, you could just basically just create a design from scratch without having to know how to do anything. And then if you sell that, it's like, so the integrity of the artistic creation behind all this design has like really, really diminished into something that it is, does feel a little bit like fast food, sort of pre-packaged design elements that you can just snap together and now you've got a design.
So I don't know, how do you feel about that? - Well, I think for you all it was,
to be honest, I was surprised that it didn't get bigger than it was. And to me, it felt like it got pretty big. And I felt like you all kind of revolutionized the industry and were one of the first ones where it's like everybody was clamoring off of it. And like you said, especially as the ripoff ones started coming off that were making their own, the thing that I thought was fascinating the whole time is, I don't think I ever found any that were as good. So it's like, oh, I might be able to get this pack from these guys or this one or that one. You're like, oh, you've got that, but it's not even close to the quality. And that was really surprising to me is that I expected that to start getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And so I expected more and more brands. And I was like, all of a sudden I was like, they're gonna be redesigning Starbucks logo. They're gonna be doing all of this. We're gonna see these big, huge partnerships because I really would have guessed that with how popular those packs were, and maybe it did. I know that you guys were able to get a new space,
new office, but I was like, I felt like, in a lot of ways, even like the green day trend where it's like, they're this small little punk indie band. They're gonna be the big ad agency now that everybody is competing against.
You know, where you've got these big Chicago and New York agencies and all of this. And I was like, Go Media is about to take all of these guys down because there is a trend popping up in culture. But the thing that kind of happened, at least from my perspective, which is very uneducated and not necessarily thought out at all, is that the Go Media thing was very indie and still kind of underground. The grunge movement doesn't really fit in with a Starbucks or a McDonald's or a Walmart or something like that. But at least for me, I saw it as an artist. I'm like, well, like most graphic designers or video people and all of that, they're not one trick ponies. Now that might be some of their favorite stuff to do, but we can do other things as well.
Like, hey, I can go shoot this really cinematic music video, does that mean that I can't also shoot an engaging talking head video? No, that's not what that means at all. And did you find yourself starting to get typecast throughout all of this? Like, was there any of that at all? Or like, no, we were happy to keep doing the same work over and over. Or was there any bit of a struggle as far as like, hey, we'd love to start getting up here? Or maybe the better question is, where was that as you started getting successful, what was the goal and where did you want to see Go Media get to?
Or was it? - Well, yeah, I think we did get a little typecast. I mean, of course, once you start putting a lot of work out there of a certain type, you will attract more of that. That's the idea. Now we did, we wanted to balance work that was high enough paying, sometimes that's the corporate stuff versus the fun stuff, which is the more grungy music industry oriented stuff. And that's not that high paying. Even if you're doing t-shirt designs for Red Hot Chili Peppers or Metallica, you're not getting paid very much to do those. And they might not even accept them. A lot of it is kind of on spec and you're not really even guaranteed to get it. But at least you have something cool in your portfolio that's got like a name that's associated with somebody that something that you like that is like part of your personality. And we like to have that connection to the music. I think it inspired all of us. Like I personally was into kind of punk rock and emo music and Bill was into electronica and techno. And him and Wilson got their start doing rave flyers and Bill had a very comic book style illustration style. So he loved to be able to draw like sort of a heroic figure in like a really dramatic way with pen and ink and like put that on a gig poster. So he got his start doing that. And so when we could get business that allowed him to do that, he was really happy. But of course that doesn't really pay very much. So we have to do these websites for like this nutrition bar that's coming, that needs like packaging and it needs like a website. And it's not that inspiring, but hey, at least it's gonna pay. And it's another opportunity to do some different type of design.
They would still ask us to do some of our grunge sort of themed work within that. We would still implement a lot of these things into it. And I think that's why people liked our style. But not every designer that we hired had that style or that affinity for grunge design. There were some definitely some guys that we hired that were more clean, minimalist, more sophisticated design.
Somebody you might wanna get hired at like Weeden and Kennedy or these more sophisticated ad agencies. And some of them kind of didn't think too highly of our like badass graphic design. And so it felt a little cheap. It felt a little bit like bleeding cowboy. At some point it started to become a little cliche. And we kind of wanted to move a little bit away from that at some point. So there was a phase between 2006 and like 2009 where that was like all the rage. But then after that, we were getting tired of it. I think I brought a few blog articles like Make It Look Like Affliction was a really common client request. So affliction clothing for anybody who remembers was like a badass clothing brand with like skulls and horsemen and spiders and just like demonic looking cool shit and wings and feathers all over your shirt. And now it's kind of associated with sort of the Jersey Shore kind of frat bro, like muscle, muscle guys, you know. Like nobody really thinks that's very sophisticated, but it's kind of lowbrow. But they like it, but you know.
- So what was the office like and did that, what was, were there different evolutions of that? And I guess kind of what I mean as well is you go into work, are you pretty much at the beginning, you excited. Every day I go in there, I'm working like eight hours.
Or it's like, no, it didn't even feel like work. We were in there hanging out and some days I didn't work at all and we're just sitting there chatting. But you know, work's getting done, we're taking it very professionally.
How was that dynamic?
- Yeah, at first it was like going into, well, we were working out of Bill's condo, so it was on the first floor of his condo and, well actually when I first interviewed at Go Media, it was not at the condo that you went to, that you went about. - Oh, okay. - It was at his house in Cleveland Heights and it was just Bill and Wilson staying there and I went there and I was kind of like, oh, I thought this was a lot bigger company than I thought. I didn't realize it was just two guys working out of their house. - I had the same. - Based on their website. They had a map of the USA with points in California and Florida or whatever as satellite Go Media locations, so I kind of thought it was bigger and they told me that was by design, they wanted to make themselves look bigger than they really were so they can grow, get bigger clients and stuff. But no, they ended up moving out of there. They bought a condo in Cleveland, Ohio City area. And so that's when I first started. I got, it was like the four of us, I think, meet Bill, Wilson and Oliver were there and me and they bought me a computer. We all worked in their little flex space next to each other in the first floor and it was 10 to six. We worked there eight hours, we would go home. Now, shortly after starting that though, I felt like I wanted to really take this seriously and I was going through something with my girlfriend.
We had been together three and a half years at that point and we kind of almost broke up and I felt like there's an opportunity there for me to move in with Bill at Go Media because Wilson, who was sharing a house with him, got an opportunity with his girlfriend at the time down in Florida so he ended up leaving to go follow her career path, her arc. So he worked remotely and so that freed up a room and I was like, Bill offered it to me if I wanted it. And I was like, I kind of want that. I feel like I want to do that. I want to go for it. It did not make my girlfriend happy at the time because we moved out and I moved in with Bill.
And then, so yeah, we got done at six o'clock but there's so much, what else are you gonna do? So we just kept working and then it was just like eight hours, 10 hours, pressure to keep working. I mean, it was hard to pull ourselves away from the computer. My worst habits of workaholism were enabled in a situation like that where it was like, how can you stop working? You just want to keep doing stuff. So you like-- And especially if Bill's doing it, if he's working till 11 o'clock, you're like, well, I don't want to be the one, you know, slacking off or whatever. Even though there was no pressure to do anything. It just was-- Yeah, now I look bad and all that. Yeah. So did you have kind of like that man cave experience where you're like, no, I love this place. This is sweet, I have everything I need here right in a small space where, you know, I don't need much more. I got my work here, this is what I love, this is what I'm dedicated to, the people that I like hanging out with. Is that kind of how it was? Oh yeah, it absolutely was like that. So great. I had that with a buddy, we had an office and we both actually had families as well at the time. We had kids and all that, but you know, we would, a lot of our remark was much more of like, man, I could live at this place just because we're like, small, it's minimal, we've got everything that we need. You go back home and there's toys scattered everywhere. Obviously we liked going home to our kids and all that, but you know, you're kind of just, you know, talking about another style, but we would sit around there and a lot of the times we're like, all right, man, we actually got to work.
Because we just start getting into like really deep conversations and all of this and you know, hey, what are you working on? Oh, that looks cool. And the next thing you know, we're talking about God and the meaning of life and like, man, it's two, which probably gets worked on. But we were of this, of the nature that we wanted to work
until like nine o'clock at night. So starting work at eight in the morning, my brain was not there. Like I still feel a lot of the times I do my best work at night. That's when I'm feeling energized. That's when I'm feeling juiced. I can kind of get in a flow state. Maybe it's just because there's less going on and I have a really hard time shifting gears. So if I'm in the middle of something and something comes up, I'm like, what? I'm now I'm not focused on that at all. I can't focus on that or coming back to my work. I'm like, I don't know where I am. I feel like I've just lost my inspiration. I need to keep my groove. And it's gotten worse as I've gotten older, but I can work at night and get into that flow state. So when it was me and him in that office, that was just like, I was like, oh man, this is, it felt nice to work. Like it didn't feel like work at the time. We were still pretty young and hungry and like, this is so cool. Look at this thing I just made. Look at this thing I just made. And you're kind of showing off to your buddies as well. And I would have to yell at him. I'm like, dude, you got to stop working weekends. You got to stop coming in on the weekend. And he was like, I'll just leave it for this weekend. I'm like, you've got to stop doing that. And I was like, I'm not working this weekend. You know, I'm not going to do that. You've got to go see your family. He was like, no big deal. I like doing it. I'm like, I'm not saying you don't like doing it. Go see your family. Like please go hang out with your kids and stuff like that. And he was just that much of a workahauler.
- Yeah, I know. And I think me, Bill and Wilson were all like workahaul type of people.
And my ex-girlfriend at the time wasn't really too thrilled about that. And I think that was a contention in our relationship that I wasn't putting as much time and effort into the relationship, planning things for us to do. I was really focused on work and my career and creating this stuff.
And did get to a point when we ended up hiring her to be like a temporary assistant help office worker, office manager, you know, to help with some stuff. And she needed some time to, or some extra money. You know, she was going through a hard time. So she ended up working there for us and helping us out. And so we would be seeing each other during work now. So now we're hanging out, we're working, she's there doing stuff. And then her job just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger where she had more and more to do. And so it turned into a full-time job for her. But now at this point, her and I are working together. And so when I moved in with Go Media, it was only a year before I moved back in with my girlfriend. Because after a year, I think it was 2007,
I was like, okay, I can't be this close to Bill, I can't be this close to Go Media. Like I need a break, I need to have some place to go home to. And at that point, I appreciated, like all the time away from my girlfriend at the time, I was like, I appreciate you. And then we ended up getting married and then, you know, it became a whole thing, you know. - Sure. - So. - Yeah, for me, it was kind of interesting. Looking back in retrospect, it was when him and I were running that shop together,
there was a lot of parts that felt good, but because, you know, there is no manual, or there could be a manual, and they're supposed to be parents and stuff like that. As far as like, what's a good healthy relationship? How do you do this? How do you be a good boyfriend, husband, whatever? And what does that mean? And then, you know, how do they subsequently be? What does a good girlfriend? What does a good wife look like? All of these things didn't really know. And looking back on it, it didn't feel this way at the time, but looking back on it is that, I was kind of leading two different lives, where, and obviously that's gonna cause problems in the relationship, where back then, I was probably much more blaming her for all this. Like, why can't you support me? What's this? And then what I'm gonna do, instead of working it out with you, is that I'm gonna separate even further away. I'm gonna do this and not include you, because you don't get it, you don't understand me. So now I've got WorkZach that wants to go to work, that's feeling inspired in all this, and then I'm coming home and I've got HomeZach that maybe now is not as happy as I could be, because I feel like I'm getting judged for wanting to work. But really, it's more of, not to put words in her mouth, I'd let her explain it more, but I would guess it's much more of, that it's like, it wasn't that at all. It's just that you were making another life for yourself, and I'm not there, I don't know what's going on, and you're pulling away from us. Where at the time, I felt it was much more of the opposite. I feel like, oh, you're pulling away from me. And all of this, and it was not the case, is that it was like, I didn't know how to include those two things together, where she could be supportive of my career, because 100% she was, it was a big decision for us to be like, you're really gonna leave your corporate career and go and try to start this video production shop with one other guy, like what clients do you guys have? And I'm like, I just need to do this, this is gonna be really good, creative, this is where I need to go. Starting to take off, I'm starting to do really good work that I'm proud of, and everybody else is telling me is really good as well. I finally feel like I found my thing. And just to kind of link it back to Go Media, because for me, I think Go Media is almost like the first band that I fell in love with, where they're always gonna have kind of a special place in your heart. And so even though I'm not a graphic designer, I'm not an illustrator, I don't do that stuff. I tried to do it and I'm not bad, because I didn't know who I was. As I got into video and all of that, I was like, this is my opportunity to be like a Go Media. This is my opportunity to go and do that. This is finally somebody's telling me my work is good, and maybe I could get to a level where people respect my work, because I've seen this growth and that's where I wanna go. That's where I wanna get to, but I was going the wrong path. It was more of video. I couldn't find out how to get video jobs and all this, and then finally weaseled my way in, maybe six years late to the party.
But then I was like, this is my chance, this is my opportunity, and she was super supportive. But I did, I was leading two different lives. And so it wasn't really fair to her to be like, oh, fun Zach is at work. And then, oh, I have to come home and I don't get to be at the office anymore. And, oh, you know, dinner needs to get made, chores need to get done, kids need to get watched. That's the Zach that I have to deal with. And that was, I didn't realize that at the time, it took probably years and years and years. Did you have any of that going on?
With the relationship? - Well, we ended up getting in a situation where we were with each other all the time because we both worked at Go Media.
So we left, we lived together, and then we left to go to work together in the same car. We would drive back home in the same car, and then we would spend that same, had the same nighttime routine, which was gotta make dinner, and then we're too tired to do anything else, so let's just watch Netflix. And that was our routine for a long time, except for I had side projects, I had band practice to do, so sometimes I would leave to go do band practice. And I don't really feel like she had much else going on.
I was always kind of had other things outside of the relationship that I was focused on, creatively and professionally. So I was like, and of course, I started to make more of a name for myself when I was doing WMC Fest, so that became a huge, gigantic extra thing that I was focused on outside of Go Media that just took over my whole life. I don't think she appreciated that, and I think that's one of the reasons why she ended up having affairs and, you know,
what led to our marriage, the truth of our marriage really crumbling apart and then realizing we had to get divorced. I think it was both of that. I wonder how it would have been different if I didn't spend so much time trying to work and become successful with all of that. - And that's the interesting thing, is because it's like, that was the thing for me as well, is that, you know, I remember I would come back and I'm like, you know, I've got all these other things going on, you should find something to go and do.
And it is, at least for me at the time,
you know, I was like, look, I'm trying to get everything out of here. And my opinion was, again, nice little quote from the movie, because I live my life through movies and music, is a quote from Fight Club, which is, "You choose your own level of involvement."
And I was like, that's what this is. If you want to be involved, then come be involved.
I'm not here to babysit you to say, "Oh, come and do this, come and do this, and I'm gonna help you do this." I'm like, if you want to be there, then go be there. If you want to do this, then go do this. And while I think that there's still some truth to that, for me, I didn't know how to have these other things and have a life. To me, it felt like a line in the sand where you're asking me to choose, do I go play hockey? Do I go pursue, do I go play poker with my buddies? I was getting to be a pretty good poker player at the time, and to the point that I wouldn't say I ever really considered it, but in my mind, I was like, maybe I should go be a poker pro. Pretty good at this, I like doing this, maybe I should go do that. So I was playing poker a lot of the times. I'm playing hockey, I'm going to concerts, I'm doing everything but go to my family. And I think that was the difference, is that it was like, this is supposed to be a big highlight of your life, but you're doing everything you can to get away. And so in retrospect, I can really see that, I'm like, man, you're right, because I do love my kids. I do love my wife, but when you're young and in your 20s and all of that, you're like, I just wanna go party. And that wasn't really an excuse, I didn't know how to be in a relationship. I was just like, well, we're married.
I mean, you're supposed to just love me no matter what now. Right? Like, come on, figure it out, support me. I'm gonna go do this later. She's like, great, now I'm at home with kids, I don't have any friends, I'm not talking with anybody, I don't have a job. I'm not going out and it'd be nice if we could hang out for a little bit and I'm like, up yours. Like, it was not, it's one of those that very much in retrospect, I have another insight on that I had to learn how to have like a passionate work project and then work with her, that I just didn't know how to do that. And so having that other shop was difficult for me and did become kind of a point of contention. I don't regret doing it by any means, I regret some of the actions there, but it's now changed a lot more where now I can run my own little freelance business and be a lot more involved with my family as well as opposed to, I don't have to draw a line in the sand of, I have to pick you or work. And that's a line that I drew, not her necessarily. So it was a weird dynamic. How long were you guys working at Go Media together before? Like, was there times when you're like, this is really, really good for us, this has been cool that we get to work together?
- Yeah, I would say up until maybe middle of WMC Fest, which I would say 2012, 2011, that's when we felt like things were good. Well, so we got together in 2003, that was when we first met, we got married in 2008. And of course all these Go Media people were invited to the wedding, it was, so things were, the things were all blended together, but in a really good way. She worked there with us, she was part of the company. She's a very important part of WMC Fest too, as far as a lot of doing a lot of important roles with the bookkeeping and merchandise and everything. She was outstanding with that. So we definitely, and then we would go home. And I felt like we had a great relationship even at home. The relationship was important to me.
And I would notice this because my single friends would be like kind of jealous that I would go home and wouldn't want to spend much time with the guys or whatever. And it was like, oh, Jeff's got a girlfriend, the old ball and chain, you know, that's kind of how it felt. And I didn't like that because I valued my relationship. And it made me remember that teacher at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, who's like, you can't have a family if you want to be successful in this industry as a, and I'm like, I don't agree with that. I want to have, I feel like I love my girlfriend and I want to spend time with her. And I want to, that matters to me. There's something intangible about it that I didn't know at the time, but it was like very sacred, very important. And I did not like how these people who were successful in the industry, like he just had to sacrifice that. And I would see that with other people. It's like there was always a tension between my level of investment, even as much as I was giving at Go Media or at WMC Fest,
I could have been doing more. Instead, I wanted to go home and take a break and spend time with her. And so it was just the contention, like I wasn't working enough, wasn't working hard enough, could be working harder, you know? Personal life is taking away from the success that we could be having as a business. Even though I think we all knew that no, no, no, no, you gotta have a good work-life balance. You can't just be this way. But there was some contention, not only because that because she also worked there and she would recognize problems that she'd be critical of. And so she kind of was annoying to my business partners at times too. She would have an opinion about things, the way things were being run.
And so there was like, I'm going to bill, but he's got my wife in his ear too. And it's like, Jeff, your wife is really kind of a,
she's coming between everything. - Yeah, so there's tension there. It was tough. - Yeah, that's gotta be tough. I mean, I've actually worked at two different companies with my wife. We met at work and then have left jobs and then came back together at other companies, like helped her get hired. It's a weird dynamic, but you know, it's been nice to see how things have evolved that I think a lot of it for us, fortunately, the evolution has come from problems with work and all of this and this passion of like trying to pursue creative arts. And I think a lot of artists have,
as far as their work goes and their dedication to their work or trying to get freelancers, all of that is that we feel like we have something to prove, or we feel like we have a voice
that other people might want to hear. And it's just like, we have something inside of us that's like, I need to be exposed out there. I need to get it out there. I've got a point of view, I've got an opinion that I feel like is worthy of sharing. And that's kind of an interesting thing to pursue,
that does kind of take a part of your life that it's something me that you're not sharing with somebody else, like I have a point of view. Now granted, there's better ways to do it or that I think is that as I've gotten older, I understand how to make both of those work. And fortunately, because of some of that turmoil, it's actually enriched my relationships now, then I'm like, oh, I thought I knew how to be married and I didn't. Oh, I thought I knew what working on a relationship meant and I didn't, I thought that I did. I was kind of actually being a dick.
And maybe that's not the case. Like we both have things that we have to work on, but it is interesting that work-life balance and then working with your partner as well, which by the way, this light just went out and now I'm super duper dark, but that's right. - It's got a little darker on your end. - Exactly, the light just burned out, whatever.
Anyway, as we kind of wrap things up here, I am kind of, so you get started and then just to kind of get it back to even like we should be working,
when did it start to get to or was there a point, ECHO Media, that you're like, I don't, and this might be a longer story as well that we can even say for later, but when was the evolution or the press supposed to say, I need to leave, I don't feel like this is fulfilling anymore and should I be working here? Should I be pursuing something else?
And was that because of something personal? Was that because of work stuff? Was it both of it put together? And what was your work attitude towards the end there at Go Media? - Yeah, I remember around 2011, 2012, we would do these annual meetings where we would all sit together, especially around New Year's and we would discuss our company goals for the year and we would go around the circle and everybody would get a chance to say what their personal and professional goals were and at that time, I started to feel like I didn't have any goals and I didn't want any goals and I think, I actually had on my list, no goals. I wanna have no goals this year and so that was, it was indicative of how I was feeling where I was getting this ambitious part of me was starting to recede and this, like the doing part of me was receding and the being part of me was starting to emerge
and so it felt like a revolutionary act to be like, I don't wanna do anything.
Like, can I do that? Can I actually not do anything? Like that feels so amazing to me and so rebellious and so true.
I was reading this blog at the time called Zen Habits and it was about minimalism and like just letting go of everything in your life and that started to be really appealing to me and through that awareness and just on how I would feel with going to work, I started to feel more dread and the weight of WMC Fest was really on top of me. Like I imagine we can discuss that in the next episode or something as we dig into that whole world
but because of the weight of all of these projects on me and like the responsibility I felt, I just felt crushing. I just couldn't do it. I had no time to myself, I felt like and of course, my marriage was starting to get, was failing if you will, even though on the outside, it looked like everything was good together. It's just that it wasn't, there wasn't any intimacy and it didn't feel good.
I started to wonder if we should be getting divorced before I even knew she was having affairs. So it started to be like, what is going on? And then at WMC Fest and Go Media, it just felt like I was getting burned out and depressed. I started to take naps in my car in the middle of the day and I started to wonder about what am I doing here? What is my life? Is this what I wanna do with my life? I've had all the success in the world, but somehow I feel so torn up inside, so burned out, jaded, depressed, I just needed to get away. And that was 2011, 2012, 2013, before I, it was 2013 when I told my business partners that I was depressed and I was so embarrassed to say that. I felt like it was like giving them this bad news when it's a really vulnerable thing to share, but I thought that they were gonna be mad at me, like upset with me, like, oh, what, whatever, Jeff, this is a dream job.
One of them even said that to me, they said, "You know, this is a dream job. "Many people would love to work here, "would be in this position." It was kind of like telling me that I didn't have really a reason to feel depressed because I was living the dream, so I shouldn't be depressed. It's just kind of like my fucked up perspective. And there were times when I think, when Bill tried to help me by giving me these books to read about how to feel good, how to use CBT techniques to try to get my mindset back on track. I couldn't finish those, I didn't want to read those.
So it was almost like from their eyes, I was letting depression win instead of like, my success muscle was triumphing over it. So it was like, no, there was something true that was speaking to me through my depression that was like wanting, that was, I've been ignoring for a long time. - Well, and I think as we get older, it really speaks to, we've brought it up on the podcast before of like, what does this mean to work? And especially from a specific point of view from a lot of people, it's like, you just need to get working, you just need to get working. And don't you want this success? Don't you want to be successful? Is that there's a lot of times that we push people to our ideal of success or what society is saying success is as opposed to just, you're like, that's not what I'm saying. Can somebody just listen to me for a minute? I just want to have a conversation.
I don't need you to solve my problem. That's not when I'm here, but I could use somebody to talk to something like that. I don't need ideals, but everybody's, it is a very male thing as well. I'll admit it, but not to make,
too overbearing or too broad of remarks, but men really like fixing things. Like, oh, something's wrong with Jeff. Jeff, this should be good. And why are, you know, you're successful. And it's funny to hear that. Cause yeah, I've been in situations like that before or had other people. And I remember one time I had a guy that I worked with that was really, really good. He worked for me and was a really good designer, did great work, was great motion graphics. And I'm trying to move up this corporate ladder a little bit at this job that I had. And I'm getting promoted and all that. And I'm like, dude, yeah, I get promoted. I can bring you up and all this. He goes, wait, no.
Like, what do you mean? No. And he goes, I don't want that. And I'm like, you don't want to move up and get promoted? And he was like, no, not at all. He goes, man, all I want to do is sit here in front of my computer and you give me a job. And I sit down and get it done. And I'm like, oh, what? And that was kind of like the first time that I'm like sitting in my twenties of hearing like somebody didn't want to be Uber successful or, you know, quote unquote, Uber successful, or they didn't want to move up. They don't want to advance like, and it wasn't because he wasn't ambitious. He was as an artist. He wanted to do really good work, but he's like, I don't need that trouble. Now's the first time that I kind of had that break with reality, like, oh, maybe this is not so great.
Like, man, that does sound pretty good. A lot less responsibility. I just sit here. Somebody gives me a project. I go about my day and I can go home and I don't think about this place one little bit. And I was like, actually, that does sound kind of appealing.
So yeah, so I can feel that. Yeah. There was a moment when we would hire some designers who had that approach more or less. And it's funny. The way I took it was that they aren't committed. They aren't in it like I am. They aren't dedicated. And it's almost like how I almost felt like it was a little selfish. It's so funny using these words, but I felt like I was a little selfish of them to not want to put all, they're all into this work, but that they're treating our company, which we hold so secretly as just the job. And we're interviewing people and we want them to sort of hold up this job with us as if it's like extremely important aspect of their life that we need all their energy. And that's one of the things that I feel like I hate when I'm going out to look for jobs, that they're going to want that from me because I wanted that from our employees.
And it's like, they could have just been, I just want this job and then do the job and then go home and enjoy my life. Like that's how they thought of it. They didn't have this sense of a personal ownership or stake in it of like this job was what my success here is what, how good I am as a person. They didn't go home at night and start tweeting and writing about themselves as if they were like, like there's something about me, right? That needed to put myself out there that I've got something to say. And perhaps it's my own narcissism that has led me to do that. I don't think it's all that is. I think there's something I'm after that is real, but like because I didn't want to just have a nine to five where I just go show up and then I come home till my mooring mundane life. No, I had an excitement. I wanted to build something and to create something and to make a legacy and to be remembered, which I guess you can say all hallmarks of narcissism, or you can just say it's all hallmarks of men and what we want to do in this planet. Because, you know, like that's what we're here to do to build and to create. I don't know. Well, and I think men especially we, I think what it sounds like is that we get caught up in and I know that I did as well of my work is my identity. Yeah. Of like, this is who I am. This is what I do. My job is my identity throughout all of this. And it's like, as I've gotten older, the more and more that I pushed away from that, like once I kind of saw the ugly truth behind that, I was very wrapped up in, of course, my work is my identity. I want you to know that I'm a video producer on this, on that. Like I was even nervous to tell people that that's what I did. Because I'm like, maybe I'm a fraud and all this. What have that? But I was like, that's who I wanted to be. Like I wanted to be the guy and go, I am a, I'm a video producer and all that. That's, and it's then I take a step back and I go, this is really weird that I'm like, you know, and it is an interesting thing with society when they go, what are you doing? I'm like, I don't say I'm a dad, or I'm a husband, or I'm a guy who loves poker. I'm this, I'm that, that you really do your whole identity gets wrapped up in. What is your work? What is your job? That's who you are. And when other people don't treat it that way, you're like, you're not living life to the fullest. You're not giving all of this. This is who you should be. And so it is interesting that yeah, as you kind of start to realize that you hit your depression, everybody's like, Jeff, let's, let's work harder. You have such a good thing here. Right. Yeah. Depression seemed like a, like a problem to be solved that we can help get you back on track to make sure you're happy and successful. What can we do? Yeah. And it's funny when people ask about like, what do you do? You know, it's about what do you do for work? Yeah, I have such a hard time answering that question. And I've had that had a hard time for years, because I've been deconstructing and breaking down my identity since 2013. When I began this journey, the work has led me to where I'm at now. So just the other day, I think I was at the Super Bowl party. And one of the guys there was like, how's work? And I'm like, Oh my god, I hate I hate that question. Because I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. What am I supposed to say? I don't know what I'm doing for work. I don't care about work. And then I feel ashamed of it that I'm like, don't want to work and don't want to do anything. And then and then Kara tells me she's like, she's like, hold on a second. I'm getting it. I'm getting text. I gotta put this on fire. But she tells me, she's like, he's just trying to connect to it to you. He doesn't really care. He's just trying to say, Hey, how are you, man? But that's like how he does it. Yeah, exactly. And I'm like, I take it so literally, I wish I had an answer. I used to always have an answer. And I was always so stoked to tell people about what I did. Oh, man, I'm doing this. I'm doing that. Like you got to see it. I was so passionate because I was like, it was my creation. And since I don't have any of that, I don't feel passionate. So when someone asks me, I kind of feel insecure. And then I'm all like in this weird, insecure, nervous state. And I feel like I'm so exposed and like I'm such a loser. And all of that stuff, I wish I had something better to say. And so I'm like, try to maybe I'll talk about something. Like if I start talking, I'll talk about my anxiety. And I'm like, Oh, here, I'm just bringing it down. He doesn't really want to know about my anxiety. I'm good, man. Work is going great. How are you? I know. Because I was like, I've had the same thing. Now it's like I've been laid off. They go, Oh, how's work going? I'm like really bad. I'm not working. Like, I don't know. But maybe it's good. Like, I'm the exact same way. Like I don't, I hate getting asked that question, especially now that it's like, Hey, how's work? Because the last time they talked to me, I was probably like, Oh, so good. This is great. And then you're, why am I humiliated that I don't have a job right now? Like, it's, yeah, I'm putting it all on myself that I have to be humiliated that I don't have a job and I'm not working. And you're right, that's not even what they're trying to do. If somebody's just trying to say hello, and I open up all this other stuff. And it's like, Jesus Christ, Zach, I think you're overthinking this quite a bit. I'm like, No, I'm not. But I know I am. But I'm a choice. You know, in 2013, when I started to break this down, there was a guy I listened to on the smart passive income podcast, his name was Sean Webb. He wrote a book called How Emotions Work and Humans and Computers. I think he had this a perspective that was really refreshing to me about like who you think you are. And that's your ego. I mean, it was basically Buddhism 101. And it's like who you think you are, is like, not who you really are. You have this ego, which is like your sense of self, and you attach all of these things to it, such as work, your political party, your sports team, your your role in your family, all of these areas make up who you are and the things that you're going to type out into your Twitter bio. Like this is how I identify this is me. But I was like, it was so refreshing to be like, I'm not any of those things. Because on a deep level, I knew that was true. And I'm like, I was tired of identifying as whatever I put in my Twitter bio, I wanted to be nothing I wanted to be, let all that go, and get to the real truth of who I am without any of that stuff. And so that's the thing that kick started my awakening process as I ventured into that direction, instead of going back into the world of like reinforcing the identity of me as a all star, great rock star designer, whatever. But it is it's kind of humiliating and embarrassing. When you talk to somebody that's kind of still in that paradigm. And you don't have any of those markers of anything good to say, and I feel insecure. So I can't I'm not going to be speaking highly of myself. And then how do I describe myself from these mystical perspectives that I have, it sounds so pretentious when I put it out loud. It's just like, I am the presence of God just embodied in this, you know, it's like, yeah, exactly. But make any sense. Yeah. Well, on that note, I think it's a good place for us to wrap up and pursue next week. So before we go, what's, what's inspiring you these days? Well, you know, this week, I decided to watch the bow Burnham special from 2021 called inside. You familiar with bow Burnham? Oh, yeah, I've seen that special. It's great. I love it. It was really cool, you know, and then I was looking looking into a little bit more and somebody was like, he's got nothing on Tim Minchin. Have you heard of him before? Uh, no. So he's another like musical comedy guy that's like, offers like commentary on society and stuff. But like I watched him and I was like, holy shit. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. The guy's right. Bo Burnham is like amateur hour compared to this dude. Really? Even though I think I feel like Bo Burnham is one of the most incredibly talented people I've ever seen. Sure. I'm like continually amazed by him. And of course, I'm curious about his like arc, you know, as a content creator from 16 years old being pushed thrust into viral fame to kind of like pursue this as we all sit and watch him. And he has like panic attacks and his mental health suffering as we elevate him as a star. But he's like brutally honest about how that's affecting him and how we're all affected by it. And he's like, I have to churn out content for you guys. You know, it's like, what is it? And so I'm just fascinated on a meta level. But like what Bo is and how he represents as the creator, and how we are doing this like killing ourselves and mentally through this whole process, like what is happening? I love the paradox that he brings up and presents. And then that special I was so pissed off when that special came out, because it was so good. That I was like, from a creative standpoint from even I was like, this guy doesn't give a shit, he's gonna go get a camera and film himself in his house and make this video work. And I was like, and it looks brilliant. And he's not sitting there agonizing over some details, but then even talks about it sometimes, like I've got these setups, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. And what the hell am I doing? And the back end, and I was like, it was just it was such a great peek behind the curtain. So well executed and filmed and produced. Yeah, I was I was in love with that special. It's it's great. It's definitely on my top list as a content creator, somebody that's even in video or original content that I'm like, that guy really tapped into something that that came out really, really good, really figured out his situation well. Yeah. So what about you, Zach? What have you been inspired by this week? On here's the thing that woke me up. And so not to be a brown noser, but your music track got me into got me back into some old bands and music video. So as we were discussing inspiration and stuff like that, you're like, I don't know, man, what do you want to hear? Check out any of these tracks. I listened to a bunch of tracks. I'm like, I don't know. These all kind of sound pretty stocky to me. But I'm like, What about this band? This band sounds like this, or these guys sound like this. And then as I'm sharing links, I'm like, Oh, I love the way that these guys made their music videos. So I really like this band called pop. And all of their music videos feel very homemade. Like, they're really sticking with the I'm gonna get my buddy that's got a camcorder that knows a little bit about video, and we're gonna go shoot a video, and it's just gonna be dumb and stupid. And we feel like we're in high school or college, just making dumb videos. And I'm so jealous of the videos that they make. And
so that was I started going through the whole catalog again, and all the videos that they made, and all the dumb low budget, and they've just got like stupid wigs on in front of a green screen. And it looks terrible, but that's kind of the whole vibe. And you know, I love that. And then it always makes me think about, you know, the inevitable of you can be a victim of your own success, especially when you're a punk band is when are you not punk anymore. And that was kind of like a theme of their latest album of like, are we sellouts now? Are we too big? Like, we're getting popular people like us, we're getting bigger venues, are we not punk rock anymore? It's kind of how I take some of that stuff. So I really like that journey to see because there are some people that you're like, you totally sold out. And then there's other ones that I think have not really sold out. And they're like, we just evolved where people we change, we I can't make the same music over and over and over again, I want to do something different. You know, that was never part of the deal of you know, if a requirement for you to like me is that I only do this. And then you have other bands that kind of did sell out and came back like, yeah, we didn't like that period. Let's, we're gonna go back, we like doing it this way. And so I like to see that navigation. So they are a bandwidth in a day when you can say punk rock is dead, that there's still punk rockers out there. And then what happens when they start getting some fame, and all that are one of the bigger names in punk right now. And I'm like, they're selling out pretty big places here in Denver and all around the world. And so I listened to my I like their sound, they I'd heard about them. And I, I've heard good things about them. I just never really listened to them. And so like hearing that track that you sent me took me back to like 2007 or 2008, when the style of music was was what I was listening to often. And it kind of had a similar flair, like this really well done DIY kind of like, noisy, angry, but like really catchy, poppy. Yeah, same time, like really good. It wasn't, it was better than I expected. So I'm gonna have to check out their catalog. Yeah, they're, they've been a good one for me. They're one that I can just put a whole album on, especially kind of their last two albums have been great. And I've gone and seen them live twice. And they've got an interesting YouTube channel. He did a great almost like acoustic song during the the pandemic, that I still love that song. I can't believe they didn't put it on an album. And it was, yeah, I've been really loving those guys that I was like, as a punk rocker to hear them, I'm like, alright, maybe punk isn't dead. Here's the this is the modern age punk band for you know, the new kids and the high schoolers to latch on to us like, these are your guys that'll guide the way for you. So somebody's still doing it right. So that's cool. Great to hear. Well, on that note, another another fun one, Jeff, and for everybody else, we'd love it if you hit the like or subscribe button do or do not, but definitely helps us out. And we will see you next week. And this is we should be working. Thanks everybody. See you
[Music]
That's stupid. I'm not doing that.