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Carl Smith, founder of nGen Works, sits down with Treehouse's Dan Gorgone to discuss how to succeed in your company, on your own, and in today's tech industry.
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[Treehouse Friends]
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Hey, everyone, Dan Gorgone here from Treehouse.
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We're at the In Control Conference in Orlando, and we're talking with
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Carl Smith, founder of nGen Works.
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Carl, thanks for joining us. >>Thanks for having me.
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>>Caught your keynote this morning, very cool, very inspirational,
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something that I think a lot of designers and developers, our key audience,
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would definitely be inspired by.
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You talked about your experience—very personal
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experience—getting started in the tech industry.
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>>Yeah, I learned early on how to make money but sacrifice my life for it,
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and later started a company and got kind of all sucked up in that
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and feeling important, and basically today I just wanted to share with people
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the things that I'd learned and that there really can be balance,
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if you just learn how to let go of certain things.
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>>I know this is a lesson that probably had to be learned in stages.
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I know that you talked about one of your 1st experiences
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was working for a company that you weren't actually working for.
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You just sort walked right in there and started doing things because
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you wanted to do them. >>I wanted to work there.
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I had interned at the company, and right when
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I got back to college, they had a layoff.
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They had gotten stiffed for some money, and when I came back, they weren't hiring,
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and I was like, you know what, I know people here, there's nobody sitting over there,
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I'm just going to go sit over there and start working, and eventually somebody
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will ask me to help with something, and that happened.
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And 3 weeks in, one of the owners asked me if I could work on the weekend.
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He goes, "Hey, we're putting together this bid for"—it was actually
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for the Jacksonville Jaguars, right—"we're putting in this bid, you get
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an NFL team, could you come in on the weekend and work on it?"
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I just looked at him and went, "I don't work here."
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And he went, "What?"
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It was like, "No, I've just been showing up. I'm living with my folks.
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"I don't know what to do," and I got a call from the president that night,
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of the company, and she said, "We'll pay you sixteen thousand seven hundred dollars,"
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and I was like, "I will take that money. I will come to work with you
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tomorrow, on Saturday."
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>>You know, there are plenty of other younger people out there that
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are learning skills, and they have interest.
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They have passions that they want to follow,
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and are probably going to be in the same boat, where they just want to start
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doing stuff, and many of them are,
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whether they're members on our site or they're just out there
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learning on their own and practicing things.
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How can they take that step when they're online?
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Or when they don't have a place down the street where they can go to?
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>>You know, I would say you find that 1 thing
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that you're really passionate about that you want to do.
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You find your skills that you're really good at, and then,
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I mentioned this, you find that thing that when you're doing it
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you lose track of time.
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That's when you know that that's what you're supposed to do.
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And what I would say is if you don't have anybody to be paying you to do that,
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sort of do it for yourself.
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Put it out there, and show people what you're capable of.
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And show people what it is that you care about.
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It could be there's a not-for-profit, it could be a
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guy with a hotdog stand, it could be whatever.
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But find something that's real enough that it touches somebody else,
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because the big issue I think a lot of people have is they
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build something for themselves, and they keep the energy trapped.
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It has to go out and touch somebody else so that they're like suddenly
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your ambassador, saying, "Wow. He is awesome at designing identities,
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and that's what he loves to do. Look at what did with this hotdog cart."
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You know, whatever it is, however silly it might feel, just work
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at what it is you love, and make sure that it touches somebody else.
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>>You talked about the concept of stored energy in your talk,
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and energy being stored, being trapped, through money.
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Or worrying about what different people think about what you're doing
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or the strategy that the path you're taking—
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Can you talk about that stored energy?
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Are there different ways to release that energy and to build more energy?
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>>Absolutely. And it's not my concept, although it's one I truly embrace and love,
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and actually, I think the 1st time I ever read about it might
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have been like a Motley Fool's investment portfolio, or something.
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But the idea that we have is we can either have a life, or we can have a lot of money.
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And my belief and things that I've read is that money is just stored life energy.
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So you're going to hire me to cut your lawn for 20 bucks.
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I'm going to give you 20 minutes—well, you probably have a big lawn
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because you're very successful—I'm going to give you an hour and a half of my time,
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and you're going to give me that 20 dollars.
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And I've exchanged that.
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Now you have gotten that hour and a half back in your life
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in exchange for that money that you earned doing something else.
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So a lot of people don't want to have a yard service, or they don't want to have
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a cleaning service, or they don't want to do these things.
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I think it's important to do that, right?
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Because you have to keep energy flowing, and you have to keep money flowing.
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Otherwise, it goes stagnant. If you just try to hold onto money,
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people won't help you.
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But, and I mentioned it, if you're at the bar and you buy that 1st round,
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guess what? Somebody's buying the 2nd, and somebody's buying the 3rd.
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And there's a new person that shows up, and before you know it
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you got a free beer, right?
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And if you guys see me later tonight, we'll totally try this.
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[laughter] You'll buy me a free beer. But that works on a bigger scale as well.
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If you—like, I helped a client who lost a job find a new job.
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Well, a year later, he showed up, and he had work.
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It gets to hippie juice, right, and then that's what I call it
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when you start thinking about certain things, but I really think karma is real.
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I think there's no debt in the universe that doesn't get repaid.
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And so when you do good things for people, intending to do good things
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and not thinking about the outcome, I think it comes back.
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>>You know, as someone that's worked as a designer
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and has built sites and worked on projects, I have some experience of
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trying to do that and do good at the same time.
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And I feel like one of the risks is when you get involved with people who are,
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like friends and family, and it seems like there's a whole different
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set of obligations when you have a client that you don't necessarily know,
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versus someone that you know personally, that you have feelings for.
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You don't want to disappoint them, you don't want the relationship,
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which is so special, to be affected in some way.
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Can you work on these different projects in the same way
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and work with friends and family, at the same time work with other people out there?
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>>You know, I think it's going to be a case-by-case basis,
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and it's going to be the context of that relationship.
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The thing that I would say is take an hour.
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Find a quiet place.
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Sit down and think about what that's going to be like,
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and if you feel yourself in discomfort, do not do it.
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But if you find that you feel really good because you can envision
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everyone celebrating whatever it is you accomplished, then do it.
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We know the things to do, we just ignore the signals.
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So I think that's a big part of it.
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Personally, I think you can. I don't think I could ever work on a project with my wife,
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because it's too personal, right? There's too many little things.
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I wanted to have an office in our house, and I work from outside most of the time.
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And I wanted to have an office in our house.
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She goes, "No, that's the den." And then a year later, she put a desk in there.
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And now she works in there! That's not cool! [laughter]
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But you know, that's what a relationship is. You figure it out.
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I think a big part of that, too, is that idea of becoming defenseless.
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And I mentioned, defenseless is not a negative word.
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It doesn't mean helpless.
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It means there's no longer a need to defend.
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And when you stop worrying about how everybody sees you,
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and not in a cocky way but in a I totally respect you
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and I don't think I'm any better than you, and I don't think you're any better than me,
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so really it doesn't matter what you think, this is what I'm doing,
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you get so much of your time back.
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We spend so much time judging and defending.
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And if you can learn to put it aside—and I mess it up every day.
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I'll see some guy with an iPad, I'm like, did he steal that?
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[laughter] It's little things where you find yourself doing that, and you're like
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this makes no sense; why would I even worry?
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So I think there's a lot of steps that you can take to work with friends
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and work with family, but I think that the truth is you'll feel it in
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your gut or in your heart or your headache that you might get.
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So I think that's the thing—Just listen to the signals for you.
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>>One other thing that you mentioned, and this goes for a lot of our
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members, as well as entrepreneurs—Staying with what you know
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versus trying new things.
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There's always a fear of the unknown.
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What are the advantages of trying those new things
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and sort of breaking down those internal barriers into parts unknown?
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>>You know, I think uncertainty is the path forward.
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I mean, you can go back to, you know, "I chose the one less traveled."
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You can do all of those types of things, but the reality is
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if you fall back on what you know,
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then you're no longer going anywhere.
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You're not moving, you're going backwards or you're standing still.
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If you take that chance, if you do the uncertain thing,
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you're going to learn new things. You're going to find something.
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And it's like I mentioned having goals., and I change those goals all the time
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because I do something I didn't think I would do, and I realize it's—Writing a book is silly.
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There's no reason for me to write a book, it's because everybody else
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has written one, and I feel like I should. But I want that time back
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so that I can then help somebody, right?
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I don't know how I said it, but people tweeted it, so I think it pretty good.
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If you do what you know, you lock yourself in a prison of the past.
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I said something like that, right, it was really good.
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>>I think that works. >>Yeah, that one works.
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So I think uncertainty, if you're nervous about something
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but you don't feel bad if you're nervous, but it's like excitement,
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you need to follow that path. If you're not sure about what you're doing,
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then you're doing something.
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>>Well, this idea of helping others, I know that it has carried through
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your work and through your leadership, too.
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There have been a number of opportunities you've talked about where
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you've supported your own people so that they could leave,
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which seems like—Thinking about running a company or running a business,
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seems like the craziest thing you would want to do is send these
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amazing, talented people out to work on other things.
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But in supporting them, you've actually gained even more.
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Can you tell us about that? >>Sure. I mean it started with Microsoft,
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and Microsoft had come in and, as a company, we couldn't see eye to eye
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on how to work together, and they approached some of the individuals.
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And one of the individuals came to me, and he goes, "You know, this is a
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"lot of money," and I was like "Go do it. You're young.
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"Take their money." And our concept of having a core team and then a—
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what we would call, like we have the engineers and then the fringeneers
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as the secondary team, and I said just don't quit.
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Just take a step back.
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And this kind of set a precedent, where now we had somebody who just got
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pretty much sucked up into a startup,
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and she said, "Can I be a fringeneer?"
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And I was like, "Absolutely, the doors don't shut any more.
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"Go do what you have to do." She wanted to be in an office.
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She wanted that energy, she wanted that excitement, and they pretty much offered her
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a lot of money, and she said, "Well, I'll give you 10 to 15 hours a week."
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And I said, "We'll take it. Let's do it."
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And so she's still maintaining a lot of what she did.
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But the idea that people are supposed to stay somewhere forever
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is a little ridiculous.
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Especially if you're a small team, and there's nowhere to grow.
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There's nowhere to get to.
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So I finally just realized, for me, that doesn't matter.
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If they're learning, and they're going somewhere,
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and eventually they're going to go somewhere else,
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maybe they'll come back, maybe they won't, but either way,
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we still have a really positive relationship, and I'd rather have that
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positive energy than I would, you know, seeing them in the store
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and going, "Oh, I'm going the other way."
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>>And you never know. That relationship could flip as well,
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If something happens, and then suddenly you're looking for a project
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or an opportunity. >>That's absolutely true.
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You know, the team actually picks the work.
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I'm not involved in it that much any more, and one of the things for me,
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and I didn't mention it, was I don't want an exit strategy,
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I want an irrelevant strategy. I just want to become irrelevant.
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And one of the amazing things about doing nothing is how much you become
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a part of everybody else's life.
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How much you—You get that call, and you don't dread it.
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You want to find out how it went.
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One of the people that left, I shot her a quick IM, and I go,
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"How's the first day on the job?" And she was like, "Stop being so nice.
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"You're making me feel horrible." [laughter] I was like, "What? I'm seriously
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curious, I want to know how it's going."
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My youngest daughter, about 2 years ago, she was 7—
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maybe it wasn't quite that long ago—I just finished the Steve Jobs biography,
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and she said, "What do you want people to remember about you?"
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And I said, "That I was a nice guy who was really successful."
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Because it seems like those don't exist anywhere.
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And she wanted to be an astronaut.
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So I think she won, but it was just one of those amazing moments where
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somebody with no expectation of your answer whatsoever
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asks you something, and you get that clarity of—
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I'm not always nice, I should work on that.
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So that was a pretty beautiful thing.
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>>Moving forward, how can our members learn more about you?
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I know you have a podcast. >>Yeah, I have Bizcraft with Gene Crawford.
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And if you go to unmatchedstyle.com, who I believe is 1 of the sponsors here,
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if you go to unmatchedstyle.com, you'll find the Bizcraft podcast.
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And we've done, I think we're coming up on 18 episodes,
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and you'll be able to send in questions, and we'll answer them on the air.
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We actually had Daniel Pink, who—I don't know if you're familiar with Daniel Pink,
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but we had him on a podcast a few weeks ago.
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And that for me was one of those exciting moments where it was just like
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oh, my God, I love your work.
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I'm such a fanboy, I will get this—let's edit that out.
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But so, yeah, so I think that's a way to contact us.
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And also on Twitter, I'm just carlsmith, with a c.
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Or send me an email, carl@ngenworks.com.
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One of the things that I mentioned is I spend about half my day trying to help
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the team at nGen and about half my day trying to help the industry.
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Anybody that I can—One of my goals is to have somebody create a company better
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than mine, and I was just able to help them on some level.
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>>Well, I think we all appreciate that.
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Well, thank you, Carl. Carl Smith, founder of nGen Works, thanks again for joining us.
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>>I appreciate it. >>And we'll see you next time on Treehouse Friends.
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>>Have fun, everybody.
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[Treehouse Friends]
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