Featuring: Jonathan Fisk Bulette

Jonathan Bulette fell in love with storytelling early. Join us as we go on a journey from the projection room to creating Sightseer.fun

Check out his Journey Line here.

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to Journey Lines, the podcast answering the question, how did they get there? I'm your host, Kim Minnick. Every episode, I invite a guest to complete a reflective exercise where they plot the ups and downs of their career against a line of neutrality. Together, we explore the highs, lows, and everything in between. With me today, Jonathan Buellette. Jonathan, how are you today? Hello, Kim. I'm doing really, really well. It's an honor to be here. I am so excited to have you here. This has been, what, six months in the making now, so pretty pumped. Before we dive into your journey line, I'll ask you the question I ask everyone. What you got going on these days, personally, professionally, holistically, what's happening? Yep. well, I'll start with this reflection, which is, it's pretty cool to be in this moment where, you know, I have a startup and you have a podcast and we're here actually together recording this. so one thing is just to reflect on, that. it's a really, it's a wonderful experience to be here. And, I'm just so proud of you for what you've done. Thank you. For listeners, Jonathan and I worked together at my last full-time in-house job. I think we fired each other at some point in the... Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. That's funny. Yeah. Well you have got quite the journey. no you didn't even say what's going on these days you've got a start up. start. I'll start with that. So personally, professionally, holistically, personally, I live in Santa Monica with my incredible wife. We've been married for over 10 years and our relationship gets better and better. And we have two kids, a boy named Rex, who's eight and a daughter who is two and her name is Polina. And Rex is really into basketball. Polina is a handful. She's really into healing. she, like yesterday, she insisted on me laying down as we're trying to get ready to go to school, put a blanket over me and then put Band-Aids on my nose. healing like a future doctor. That's totally what I was thinking. Yeah, she's got that. really thought you meant healing, like how my dog heals on a walk. And I was like, what? that's funny. You know, there was a previous listener was talking about, or previous guest was talking about a backpack with a leash and being judged. And we've not gone that far with Paulina. Yeah. it happens, you won't be alone. Well, I am so excited to dive into your journey line, quite possibly one of the most visually appealing journey lines we've had. Folks can check it out down in the comments. But why don't you kick us off? We've got a gorgeous tree, we've got some birds hanging out. Sure. Well, I'll say the first thing about the journey line is I was inspired by the thumbnail for the podcast. It has this like botanical element to it, which I really liked. And I was like, that's beautiful. I really like that. And so then I thought about, so if I was going to use a botanical element, what would I choose? What would be meaningful to me? And I came up with this motif of a tree and in particular, the tree in the journey line. is the first thing that came to my mind was a sycamore tree that was on a farm that my dad grew up on near the Delaware River in Pennsylvania. And as I mentioned in the journey line, his cousin controversially sold the farm to a quarry and so the tree and the farm is no more. So now it kind of lives on as a kind of, I don't know, a tree in my imagination. And so. That was the sort of anchoring point is sort of like a deep origin, I guess you could say. I have my parents in the tree, Jane and John, and my younger sister, Emily, is in the tree. And I decided to start in college. I attended Bucknell University. I, let's see, I came across a, I was working as a projectionist. Like in a movie theater? Yeah, yeah, it was like a screening series. And so it was like a campus job. And it was like a foreign film and strange documentary screening series, and really fun. it was like screening 35 millimeter prints, which is like a crazy thing to be doing at any time, especially. I mean, now almost unheard of, but even at that time, it was like really rare and unusual prints. And, and I had no idea what I was going to put on, right. So would show up, take the reels. thread them through the machine, turn it on. And this film came on called Atomic Cafe, which was made in the eighties. And it is all like found media kind of archive. So there's no narration. All the music comes from period sources. And it sort of tells the story of the atomic era of the United States in the 1950s. All the kind of like old duck and cover public service announcements and things like that. And it just sort of kind of shows you the cultural fabric of the country when we were living under the specter of the Cold War and the threat of atomic annihilation, primarily through the lens of kids. And it's a wild film. And I was totally transfixed by it. I'd never seen anything like that. And afterwards, I just I was in like a spell and I just fell in love with the power of storytelling. and how transporting it can be to put somebody in a mood or in a spell like that. So this really kicks off like, because what I know about you is a person who genuinely tells great stories and is wonderful at it. And I feel like this is such an amazing kickoff. you, this is a silly question, were you actually like changing the reels as they ran out? I feel like that's very romantic cinema stuff. Yeah, there's like, you have to watch in the upper right hand corner of the frame and there's a little like white dot. And so it starts off big and then it kind of gets smaller and you have to be ready with the second reel to like switch it over. Yeah. I wonder how often that happens these days, probably rarely. fun fact, it's not really that fun, but it is a fact at another screening where I was, let's say, like less attentive in my duties. was we were screening Toy Story and I started the second reel first and then just didn't like I didn't. Yeah, it was like, that's weird. I don't remember the movie starting this way anyway. So that's right, halfway through. Well, speaking of maybe some mistakes at this job, you kind of, you start your journey line out with a little bit of a drop because you got, did you get suspended? What did you do? Yes. It's interesting. So the one of the things that's incredible about creating a journey line is you make discoveries about your own life as you're doing it. So I would sincerely recommend to people who are listening to the podcast and if you're listening to the podcast, you're thinking about your career and what your values are, what you might want to do next. think about what your story is to this date. If you go through the process of creating a journey line, it's very powerful. So I wanna thank you actually, Kim, for inviting me to do that. Because I made a lot of discoveries actually while I was working on this, it's true. I, it's rare I am speechless and I am so grateful for those words. But mostly I want to hear about why you got suspended from this job. the discovery that I made. So I thought it would be fun to pull fire alarms as like a prank, right? And so because everyone has to like leave the dorm and... Not thinking about obviously the deeper repercussions of this. This is not, I'm not like saying this like this, like in a glib way, like this is I'm super, yeah, it was a prank, right? and part of what I would do is, dress up like a ninja. and then like, like run down a hallway and do fake ninja moves and then like pull the fire alarm and then run away. And yeah. for you to perf- okay. So they're like, it's the fire alarm ninjas like struck again kind of thing. And at a certain point, I decided, like, this is the sort of thing where like you're in your own head in a kind of like way that is like kind of amusing, but also kind of self destructive. I was like, you know, it would be amazing is if the fire alarm ninja struck, like struck my own hallway. Like the irony of that isn't that incredible? take the heat off of you. No one would suspect! well, never they would never suspect who would why would you fire alarm your own your own your own hallway. So that's what I did. And when I did that, that fire alarm had a shot iodine all over the place. So it shot iodine all over my hands all over me. And we went out into the we went outside and public safety is there and I decide to start like, kind of like making a scene about who would have done this. You know, like, like, who was doing that? Yeah, who is doing this? This is outrageous. That sort of thing. Exactly. Excellent use of the word Tom foolery. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Also to kind of throw off like, well, I mean, if he's if he's upset about it, it's not him. So And I had a friend there and she lent me some mittens. So I put like mittens on my hands. And as we were walking back, they actually made everybody show their hands on the way in. so I walked in and showed my hands with the mittens on my hands and went in. And not long after that, a couple of days after that, it wasn't right away, but a couple of days after that, it was actually on a Super Bowl Sunday. I got a knock on my door and it was public safety. And they asked me to come downtown, if you will, and ask some questions. yeah, don't, don't, tampering with public safety is, with fire safety equipment is really serious. You shouldn't do it. They don't like that. No, they really don't. you had to go to the police station? That feels like a- no, no. I mean, a euphemistic downtown, like I had to go down to the to the station, right, and be interrogated and all that sort of stuff. But yeah, I was so I was suspended from from school. And the discovery that I made is, you know, it was like I was I was literally pulling an alarm. Like it was a and I was like, that's so interesting. Like I was kind of sounding an alarm, I think, at that time in my life. Like I wasn't in the right place. You know, like I wasn't, I don't think I should have really been there in a certain sense. And that was sort of something that I was reflecting on. It does seem like a little maybe that Tom foolery was a little bit of a cry for help, right? Like I think that's right. So you get suspended. You're suspended from school. Like not just... You have to leave. You're not allowed to be in the dorms anymore. Where do you go? What do you do? Yeah. I moved back home. My parents are actually very supportive, which was really like highly fortunate. Yeah, exactly. Take a restaurant job, which actually turns out to be amazing. I get a job at this Argentinian restaurant. Waiting tables. learning about jazz. it was really, really cool. It's called Armando's and Armando was this, he was a former boxer from Argentina, a communist, and, taught me about Chet Baker and Miles Davis and, and, so that I started cross dressing too, which is kind of amazing when I was there. And then Armando started cross dressing and it was like this small town. It was just to mess with people's heads, you know, I love this. I imagine you and Armando just like trying to make people go, what? He was wearing big flowery moomoo's. I was more into like, yeah, I was doing like a sheer skirt at the time. Yeah, and it was really interesting because it was totally like a double it was like really a double take, you know, people would come in and then they would sit down and then it would like, Whoa, wow. Okay. Interesting. That's what's happening. I didn't intend to talk about any of this, by the way, on the podcast, but here we are. This is here we are and, yay, journey lines. So part of this, so you're in a restaurant, you're out of school, and you, this is labeled as number one because I think, you read Kubrick biography and you decide the only way to learn is on the job, not in school. What a revelation. Yeah. So and this was a big one. This is why I this is why I labeled it like, you know, an important moment. I read this biography of the filmmaker Stanley Kubrick. At the time, I was watching a lot of Kubrick films. And so the biography is it's like one of these giant super thick, like, you know, 700 page tomes. And he didn't go to film school. He was a photographer for newspaper in New York, kind of like dispatched to crime scenes. And he had, I think he graduated from high school and that was it, had no formal education. And I held him in very high and still do, but held him in very high esteem at the time. And I thought the lesson there that I took from the book and from his life was, You should learn by working, not by, not through academia. And this whole question of, of like getting advanced degrees or being, in the professional world has been like a kind of tension for me. And this certainly set me on a, on a path where I decided like I was going to only learn by doing not learn by. you know, getting a master's degree or a PhD, but even today, think like, what would have happened if, if in a parallel universe, if I would have gotten advanced degrees and, and gone down a different path. What did you originally go to school for? Like what path were you on in philosophy? Hmm, interesting. And clearly, like a PhD in philosophy is like you're only going to teach. And I didn't want to teach. I wanted to make things. Yeah, I did go back and I did finish my bachelor's degree. I did. Yeah. And the interesting thing is However, like when, when my sort of cohort was graduating, I didn't have enough credits to graduate. And, but at the same time, there was a, this opportunity came up in New York to take an internship on this, this, this big film. And they could only give the internship to people who needed college credit. And so that was the credit that I needed to graduate. And I couldn't have had the internship without that. And so it was like an interesting kind of surprise sort of Kismet. So I, you know, got in a car and drove through the night and ended up in Union Square for like a 6 a.m. call time and was, you know, working on a big motion picture. I mean, like any aspiring storyteller, head off to New York, head off to the big city. How great that you can take this internship. So you're there for the 6 a.m. call time. How's the internship go? How's the call time go? Well, I was exhausted when I showed up, And it was like this good luck. There's a 12 hour day ahead of you now. I had no idea what any of that was. It was crazy. It was a big movie at the time. Charlie Starrin was in it. Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Wahlberg, Faye Dunaway, James Kahn. It's a really big movie. My first assignment was... to get in a 12 passenger van with a Teamster. And we were shooting in New Jersey at the time. So they go through the Holland tunnel and we were shooting out in New Jersey. And I guess Faye Dunaway had like five cell phones and she needed one of the cell phones that she didn't have on set. So my first job was to get in a 12 pass van with a Teamster, come back into New York, into Manhattan, go into Faye Dunaway's apartment, find the cell phone that she needed. and then bring it back out again. And I thought like, this is kind of interesting. that is a wild first thing to do. I don't think a lot of people can say I've been in Faye Dunaway's apartment without her and did not get arrested over it. I don't think so. I don't think so. So I assume you crushed this internship. Yeah, yeah, it was it was I made a lot of friends and got a lot of advice. And but one thing I will say about it is so the film was produced by Miramax. And so this was the height of the Harvey Weinstein's power. And even so, I was like, obviously, 65 million layers away from from him. But Some of the people I was working with were not. And one of the things that I experienced was there was just a really weird kind of vibe where it was like, if Harvey was going to show up, like four or five different people would compete to order the pizza that he liked. So like there'd be like six different pizza deliveries showing up with like the exact right pizza for Harvey so they could bring it to him. And it was weird. It was weird. It was, it was bad, weird. It just felt bad and weird. And yeah, yeah. And I was again, like I saw him sometimes, but like I was not like in the orbit. was an intern, but I could still pick up that like there was something not right on some level. And I didn't know like, if it was, this is just what big movies are, or this is what the professional world is, but there was just something off and Obviously it wouldn't be till much, much, much later, 2018, I think, when like allegations started to come out about what was really going on in his orbit. But the advice that I had got from seasoned people who are working there was create your own stuff. Don't try to climb the ladder. Like make your own work. Yeah, don't just try to... get string jobs together and move up the ladder. And so that was when I had offers to do stuff after that and I didn't do it. And instead, I again, sort of taught myself screenwriting. I don't think very well, but I was like, yeah, yeah, I was like, I'm just gonna read all the books and I don't need, you know. I read a bunch of screenplays and then I wrote one. it was, it's embarking on something like that is, it's interesting. It's actually not that different from embarking on any kind of really ambitious thing where you don't know the outcome. It's like, sometimes it's really fun and exhilarating. Sometimes it's very frustrating. Oftentimes it's But I think the point in the journey line is I completed it. And there's actually a contact that I had made on the film who actually since then has gone on to create a media rights capital, which is like one of the biggest studios in the entertainment industry. He's a, but, but, you he, at that time we were, you know, we were intern buddies. and so I sent the screenplay out and didn't hear back. And then I got into my head about it. So, so I should just say, the sake of the story, I complete the screenplay. and this is like physical, you physically print the thing out. Yeah. It's like a hard copy. Yeah. It's a hard copy. It's not like you're emailing anything. It's like a hard copy. Go to Staples and like whatever, get the office supplies. satisfying moment holding your screenplay in your hand? Yeah. thick. was like thick and you know, was like a heavy thing, like a heavy object. Yes. And like a big padded envelope. And I don't know what exactly I expected to happen. I think I expected like some I expected something but in fact what happened was absolutely nothing. Nothing. just just nothing just sent it off and silence. I don't even know if the person I was sending it to received it. It's actually likely that they didn't ever receive it. Just it got like, you know, stuck in the mail room and they're like, who knows what this is. Yeah, just some unsolicited submission, you know? And I like, I got in my head about it. I didn't follow up. I didn't send it to anybody else. I was just like, well, that's it. That's it with that. I'm the worst, this I didn't do it, all done, which explains why like you wrote on your journey line, it's high that you wrote it and then sent it in, never heard back. What would you have done differently? What would you have done anything differently now? Like hindsight is the greatest gift. Yeah. I mean, I would have I would have followed up and then made sure that the person read it or at least would like that it crossed their desk. Yeah, but I was I was so I was like, I was a kid. And I think I had this sense that like, it's such a naive, I think thing around creativity, where it's like, yeah, there's something so undeniably powerful about this that if like once someone like unwraps it and looks at it, they're just going to obviously think it's great or the opposite. They'll just think it's terrible. And so if you don't hear anything, then clearly it can't be that they didn't even look at it or something happened. It's just, it has to be a referendum on the creative object. Yeah. And hated just despised it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. so much they could not even tell me. I get it. I get it though. Like you put stuff out into the universe and you're like if this is good, I will hear about it again. Mmm. place to be. It's such a vulnerable place to be to put so much time into something and then share it for any sort of feedback. It's really something that at the time I wasn't equipped to persevere, I think, the way that I would have needed to in that moment. Yeah, so what do you do from there? so I had some friends who were living in Boston. So I moved to Boston and yeah. and Boston's a fun little place. I just went there for the first time. ugh. we had a really fun little existence. lived in, we had this like top, top floor apartment in Brookline village, which is a very kind of cozy place. I got a job at a production company that did, in the, in the public television space, Boston has a big public television station, WGBH. And this was kind of like a feeder production company there. And I think I was also just thinking like, wow, feature film didn't feel that good. What is like, what is this public television documentaries? What is this world like? And so, yeah. film, public television. Yeah, they are hugely different. And it's very earnest, but I really liked it. so we were, and we were creating one of the ways that this company was sustaining itself is by creating interactive museum kiosks. And so that was really, yeah, that was really fun. So we did a children's museum in North Carolina. And so we were creating the media and also the kind of the interactivity. that would power exhibits throughout the museum. We did a couple of those museums, did some public television programming, and at the same time, my friends and I, I should say, I'm glad that this doesn't exist anymore. It's good that it's gone. We created a parody website. called ultraville.com it's gone. You cannot see it again. Thank God. like the domains gone. I know, I know it's, like, it's better. It's better. It's better. it's better for everybody. me. It's better. the idea was it was like, this is actually like pre-Google and there were all of these like portal websites, like Alta vista, for example. And so they would be like, Here is your life. It's like a portal to the internet, you know, sort of thing. And so we created this site that was like a portal to a like a very silly and absurd world. I put it that way. Yeah, it was really fun. A couple a couple of lessons from that. One is it's funny, we kind of labored under the impression that like a website is something that you make and then you finish it and then it's done. Like a book. I know. like you make a website and the website is now finished. There you go. It's like it's a finished product. It is not how it works. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That is how we treat it. And it was interesting though, because it was like at the same time as like things like the onion were being created. It was very similar in the sense of we're going to use this tool for absurdity and fun. I love that. Did you, I assume you had a lot of aspergillitis and was it popular? Did anything come of it or was it just a fun little side quest in your journey? I think it was a side quest. And then it was interesting because the group of friends that came together to make it, we worked really hard on it for a summer or something like that. then just the centrifugal force of life pulled us apart. we came together, made it, and then dispersed. But it was definitely like... really fun to play with those tools and to kind of, I don't know, to experiment with different modes of storytelling, I would say. I feel like there was a solid time between like 2000 and like 2015 where we were all learning the internet. We were learning how to code. We were setting up these portals. I'm a MySpace gal. Shout out to Tom for teaching me HTML, you know? Wild times. So you make this website for a summer. You have these children museums exhibits. Life keeps on heading up and it looks like you go back to New York City. Yes. Yeah. So I moved to New York because Boston was cool, but I just loved New York. And that was, that was the place for me. Like the, energy, the creativity, it was, it was just where I wanted to be. So I moved back to New York and took a job teaching and which actually ended up, ended up being really important. I started as a sub, was subbing and then I was, I taught a fifth grade classroom and I started teaching science. And this was primarily at a school on 21st and 8th Avenue in Manhattan. And so that was kind of like a foundation. And at the same time, I started doing standup and, and then I started creating live shows and that was a lot of fun. Ooh, so many things to pick apart. science feels a little out of left field given your background up until this point. Yeah, I think that's true. It was just because there was opening, they needed a science teacher. It's like, yeah, I like science. When I was at that production company in Boston, we did a bunch of science content. And so I was like, yeah, it's kind of like that. And I should also say I was Montessori educated. And that was really in elementary school. And that was really important to me. And so I decided to try to implement sort of Montessori learning processes in this little science classroom. And again, teach myself how to teach. What, teach yourself how to teach. For folks who aren't familiar, what is Montessori learning like? that's such a good question. So. only know it, I had a friend who similarly, and she's like, I don't know, we had this class about cloud watching. So that's about my familiarity with Montessori style learning. Yeah. So so Maria Montessori is where is the kind of the the creator of this technique. And I believe the story goes. So this is in Italy around the turn of the century. She's in Naples and she's tasked with educating these kids that are sort of from working class. And she has no budget and these kids, you know, really have, have no kind of formal education whatsoever. And so she puts in place this very practical approach to learning, which is very kind of hands-on where you take. Practical materials and you put them in the classroom at eye height so that kids can access them. And you start with really basic hands-on things. like, for, for counting, for example, There's these classroom materials that are like these color coded beads. And so they're in different units. So like the light blue beads are beads that are in pairs and like bright pink is beads that are in three and like cobalt color is beads that are in four or something like that. And so you learn counting by actually holding these physical objects in your hand and then like laying them on the floor. And I remember like it was thrilling to try to create giant numbers by taking the beads and laying them all the way along the classroom. And then you could actually really count like this is like 740, which is like, you know, an absurdly large number. And this is what it physically looks like. And so Montessori is about hands-on learning. The other thing that is really exceptional about it, there's two other things. One is it's mixed age. So you're in a classroom with kids that are older and younger and the teacher, certainly like sets the kind of the culture in the class. But let's say if you and I were in, in the class together and I knew you were really good at writing, then if I, and I'm working on a story and I have questions about writing, even if I would direct them to the teacher, the teacher would direct that would direct me to you. And I would sit with you and you would teach me and. style learning with those different levels of expertise at your age bands. Cool. Exactly. Yeah. And so that's really, really powerful. So you would know like, you know, this kid is the math expert and you might be the writing expert and this person really knows geography and this person loves botany. And then you create materials for like you would create the learning materials for the classroom, which is really cool. And then the last part of it is you create your own schedule during the day. So it's like, you've got, I remember we had these like green little kind of planner books and you had to do like one of each of the five subjects, but when you did it during the day was up to you. So I would say like, okay, I'm gonna start with math today. Cause I feel like doing some addition or something like that. And I'll save my writing till later. And so the... The feeling in the classroom is all of these people sort of pursuing their own kind of course of independent study. And they're working at different paces in different subjects, and that's fine. They're working at the pace appropriate to them. Yeah. interested in. And the main thing is like, just get good at learning. Yeah. So how did you bring some of those philosophies into a science classroom? Yeah. So I would, I mean, it was a little bit hard because the mixed age thing was the hardest thing because it was like every 45 minutes or like a new cohort would come in and they'd be different. that school had a very diverse, population. and so, and they did tract, was a sort of tract education, which I think is kind of unfortunate. but as a result, You have like a cohort come in and it would put sort of provocations in front of them. So it could be, I spent a lot of my own money on materials. yeah. so like, magnets, right. And iron filings. And so it, yeah. So instead of saying like, let's learn about magnetism or whatever, it would just be like, here's a bunch of stuff. Like let's start playing with it. And like, what do you notice? You know, like, are you noticing something? and then, it's interesting that like these, this one and this one, like they push each other apart. But when you turn it around, they connect. I was like, okay, well, that's kind of interesting. Like, what is that about? And so you sort of like begin this process of open-ended inquiry that's led by what they're noticing, what the, what the students are noticing. And then. What I would do is negotiate with some of the other teachers to move kids from different ages in and out of the class so that you would still have like, it was really valuable to have older kids, some older kids in the classroom and then have them. you'd have like, you know, two or three third graders working in a small group and then one fourth or fifth grader. And like that was actually like a really cool little working unit. And a lot of times, the kids who are older who are in the classroom, it's like they didn't feel like they were with the little kids. They felt like a feeling of leadership, like they were able to guide them and help them. And it really helped them, think, from their... Certainly there's a few kids like behaviorally really helped them to be in that role. Yeah. are leading a science class, bringing in some cool things, and then on the side you're exploring, you said stand up, you said beard championships, we've got some dog shows going on. What is happening outside your nine to five? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'll give you an example. Yeah. So I was I was doing stand up and then I was hosting stand up shows, primarily in the East Village. And so that was like, that would be, you know, like weekday night sort of thing. It is show called Nobody's Getting Famous Tonight. That I really liked. Yeah, it's a great title. It set the tone perfectly well. And it was just a place for comedians to come and like workshop their material. Like really, it was fun. It was a great little show. And then occasionally we do bigger shows. And it's so weird to think about this being relevant to like later in life. So we did this show called Dog Show Party. And so Dog Show Party, at its height, we were running it at a place called Tonic, which I don't think exists anymore, which is, again, like a Lower East Side and it's a capacity of like seven, 800 people, I think. And it was like, when this thing worked, it was like sold out lines around the block. Like it was a thing for a brief shining moment. and what we would do is kind of pirate the signal, the broadcast signal from the Westminster dog show, like the Yeah. the television broadcast. And then we had kind of video mixers where you could kind of separate the video signal from the audio signals. And then we could put video on top of it, if that makes sense, and audio on top of it. So we had projection, it was two floors. So it was projection on the top floor and the bottom floor. And then we created this kind of alternate presentation of the dog show around it. So we had our own Yeah, we had like our own commentators. We had dog show dancers. We had our own like kind of interstitial segments. We had live gambling, which is also amazing. So without a question, not legal. And but it was amazing because like people were really betting and I was like such I cannot believe some stuff. I'm like, I can't believe that we did that because it was like We probably could have lost a lot of money somehow. You know what I mean? Like if somebody made some sort of bet that, but whatever, that didn't happen. We also, was a partnership with this nonprofit called Rational Animal. And so it was also about kind of visibility for animal adoption. So there was like, there was a slight purpose to it. We also had a lot of actual dogs. So we had people bringing dogs and people brought all kinds of like, like obscure, unusual dog breeds there. So we had, we judged some of those dogs that were there. Then we also had the dogs. This was, this didn't work, but we tried to have the dogs judge the humans. Just as you can imagine, not all the segments worked. Hey, you gotta try it. You never know until you try. if the dog if the dogs are being judged, the dog should also be able to judge the people. So interesting. But I remember, like, leaving the so we would do we charge door like a tickets and then we did like a bar split. And I remember leaving those events with like, giant wads of cash. and thinking like, this is so crazy that like, that worked. Yeah, like this night was like, more lucrative than like multiple weeks of teaching. That is painful. So this, this is affording your monosaur. Yeah, that is really what it's doing. right. That's, that's so funny. That's right. but that's exactly right. you know how many magnets this can buy? Yeah. That's funny. Yeah, so that was that was right. So that was similar. That was that was a that was an event. Where was that? another place that's gone, I think it was that knitting factory. I don't think knitting factory exists anymore. but, yeah, so that was a, an event where we, we had judging and we did a bearded mustache championships for New York city. And we got people to come internationally. There was, in fact, the person that won was from Vietnam, if I remember correctly, which is really cool. I don't, I don't know. that guy was awesome. But we also, did, we were very concerned about the gender normative nature of facial hair. And so, we had alternate categories. We had a fake beard, we had a fake category. We also had like, like, brows. so was like a facial hair. Yeah. It was like a facial hair kind of in general thing. Cause, we wanted to be, conscious of the gender normative nature of facial hair. And yeah, and so as a result of that, was able to through somebody who was making a documentary about the beard and mustache world, I made a transition into, was offered to make a transition into television production. Yeah, and it was, it was like, it was definitely like a hard thing to do. The decision came down to two things for me. One was the money. And, and then the other thing was at the time, because they needed teachers, I was able to teach and not have a master's in education, but I was going to need to get a master's in education to stay. And I just didn't. like more money you're sinking into the job that isn't paying you as well as the TV production job. Exactly. I just didn't, again, like I just didn't want to go to school to to. Yeah, I'm not going to. I'm not. No, I'm not. Yeah, that's right. I'm not going. I don't want to do that. Yes. Yeah, that's right. been discovered, I think. I think that's what they call it. I don't know, but it was really, for a while it was really fun because it took me to all kinds of places. I ended up working for National Geographic, which was just a lot of fun. mean, National Geographic at the time was going through this transition from traditional nature to reality television, which is a whole nother conversation. So that part of it wasn't great, but we're still able to... you know, Monday morning, get on a plane and go somewhere. And then you have to just show up, meet people and try to tell their story as quickly as you can. And that was a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah. you sell a TV show? Yeah, so, yeah, so I got really into this question. It's funny because, you know, with what has what has just happened in this country politically, I think was a shock to a lot of people, including myself, who I was like, I was sure Kamala was going to and and very disappointed that she didn't. At the last time I remember really feeling this way was during the Bush administration. And, especially when he got reelected and it was like, how did we just do this? And so I got really interested in red America, red state America is trying to understand like, you know, cause I grew up in Philadelphia. I've been in, I've been in a blue world and I had a friend who's a lovely. person, she's a photographer and she was doing this photo series about kids who were aspiring to be a NASCAR. And so I started traveling with her to North Carolina and spending time with these kids who were aspiring race car drivers. And one of them was from Kansas and I went to Kansas and I just got into this world there. Outside of Kansas City, about an hour and half outside of Kansas City, there's a dirt track. speedway. So it's not paved. It's dirt, called lakeside speedway. And it was just this kind of microcosm of a community where like every Friday night. Like the town shows up and these people are racing the cars that they work on like nights and weekends with each other. And I just fell in love with the community. They were so kind and so funny, like really funny people. and. And I was just documenting it. was shooting them, getting to know them, earning their trust. And I put together a presentation around it and partnered with a company who was LA based. And we sold it to Discovery Networks, which again, Discovery has changed a lot between now and then. But it was a super high budget primetime show. for a while, which was amazing. then it was like these, one of the people that we were working with, Tom Charles was like a welder. And one day I remember having this conversation with him and like his driveway is full of like Cadillac escalates. And there's just like all these people like. from LA just disgorging and coming out and like, you know, rigging cameras and all that kind of stuff. And I just remember having this surreal moment where Tom and I were like, isn't this crazy that this is happening? It was pretty cool. It was pretty cool. It was more than cool. It was really special. Especially that it's sprang from just this interest of exploring communities and identities and places that you weren't familiar with. And by all accounts, according to your journey line, you are riding high until you're not. You have a significant relationship change. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Here's a piece of advice for listeners. If you're if you're in a relationship with somebody and you get into, let's say, an argument with them about something like core, like, you know, should we buy a house or something like that? Don't settle the argument by marrying them. is that not an effective argument relief strategy? That's fair, that's fair. I would strongly warn against that. So you get married to someone that maybe... Yeah, like a lovely like a truly lovely person. And but ultimately, not the person that I think we were meant we were not meant to be together. Yeah, exactly right. And so we did like us like, like a city hall wedding, super fast. We were like, fine, let's get married. Settle this argument by getting married. Perfect. that will settle it. I know how to solve this. Let's get married. Yeah. And yeah, so so like, got married very quickly in City Hall. And I think I think also, I was of the mode I was of the mind where I was like, what is marriage is just a piece of paper, you know, like that. I had that mindset. Yeah. Yep. early, in my early and mid-20s. I was like, what? Why do I need that piece of paper? And now, a little bit older, it's heavier than just a piece of paper, yeah. it's a lot more. it's a lot more. Yeah. Yeah. One thing I had found out this is another kind of realization I had made was my and I found this out much later in life, but my father had also been married once before marrying my mother. And I subconsciously or consciously replicated that pattern. I know. from the South, I'm from the Southeastern United States, and we like to call those starter marriages. you Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. no. So I was going to say, yeah. So that was my starter marriage. And, one thing I didn't expect was, was what like, cause again, marriage is just a piece of paper. What is it? But then when, when you get divorced, it became the set of pieces of paper. And thankfully it was like an amicable, you know, there's an amicable thing. but. It became everything. It became like the center of my identity for a while. Like I'm a divorced person. You know, like, yeah, this is everything. This defines me now. And I, yeah, well, that's what I was thinking at the time. It was, it was, yeah, I would agree with you. That's not really true. But at the time, that was what I was telling myself. and so, I, I got into this really deep depression and My way out again was trying to use the camera. and so I, I shot this interview with my dad. My dad's a psychiatrist. He's been practicing for 40 years. And so I shot this interview with my dad and I put it on YouTube and in the, the interview, I, you know, I was sort of trying to ask him questions. I don't think I would have felt comfortable asking just in a conversation. But somehow having the camera there and having it be in the structure of an interview made it safer. And so, yeah. And so, I, I did that. And then a little while later, I got a message through YouTube and it was this person who was looking for him and, and was unable to find him. And so we started to, we like connected and it turned out that this person was a former patient of his. And so I put them in touch and then she and I started talking and she was an organic farmer in central Pennsylvania and she invited me out to her farm. So I went out to her farm and it was like I had stepped into this place that felt like paradise. There was like this bubbling brook coming down, you know, the middle of this little field and there were kids running all over the place. And this woman's name is Marsha. Her husband's name is Giles. Giles is like this big, ruddy guy who wears a utila kilt. And yeah, he's an amazing guy. He's a chef and growing food because he wanted to like really source the ingredients correctly. Marsha had this patina around her. of like someone who was just at ease at truly at ease. And I was not at the time I was far from being at ease. And I just asked her like, what is your secret? Like, what have you what have you figured out about life? And that sort of started a conversation that began a documentary project, because I really wanted to know the answer to that. Like how did you, it's funny, it's actually kind of like journey lines in a way where I was like, how did you get here? You know? Yeah, I wanted to know. I think a lot of people see people like Marcia and are like, how did you get there? Yeah, so you started a documentary series about it. Yeah. Yeah. So I did this interview with her. I got to know her for a while. Shot several days of interview with her. And then it began this process that took years. the reason, well, there's a number of reasons why it took years. But I think the main thing is that She has, I don't think you can say overcome PTSD because I feel like it's like you integrate this traumatic experiences that you've had in your life and you find a way to integrate those traumatic memories and become, how would I put this? You become, happy. You can find a way to be happy despite having some really traumatic things in your background and form relationships. And I wanted to know what that journey was like, how she did that. Yeah, I like how you use the word confronts PTSD on your journey line. And I think that's right because it's never quite resolved, but you do confront it. There's no, you don't cure yourself, but you, you can, you can evolve, like you can evolve how you feel about, what has happened and you can really gain a lot of strength. And so this person, is, she is by far the strongest person that I know she's incredible person. so, that The process of working on that was really, really hard because it is not a commercial project. For a long time, yeah, it was just me. And then I brought friends on to work with me, some incredible friends. And you finish. You just say start, assume you finish. Great. later in the journey line. Yeah, yeah. But with any of these types of projects where they're self-financed, it's an uphill battle. Alright, well while you are starting, you have to make money. Yes. So I see you start kind of creeping back up above this line of neutrality and you start, you start back in TV. High paying. You even call out high paying. I mean the dream. You've been discovered. Yeah. So I move into a role that is like a showrunner role for for for nonfiction. So not scripted stuff, but for nonfiction stuff. And there was definitely like a period of time. This is kind of like pre Netflix, I would say that kind of like the height of true kind of cable television where there was just a lot of money in that ecosystem. was like, was a, it was a, and that's probably why they tried to, I mean, they did disrupt it, but yeah, yeah, that's right. It was that, and it was also like the, the local cable providers were then paying fees back to the networks. So they're getting paid twice. And so there was just, It was like a, there's, there was a lot of money, a lot of production. There was a lot happening. And, so I'm doing that. But the, but is, I don't really like the storytelling. Like I don't like what these things are about. and I have some truly miraculous, incredible experiences, you know, doing that work. Cause again, you just get put in random places like. in New Orleans with these underground gamblers. And that is a whole thing. That is a whole world. Yeah. And it's fun. It was just fun to be in these places where, again, it was like, And like, there's not like a it's not like a huge crew or a whole lot of support. It's like typically than you just a few people and you are like you're in it. There was a point where I will just say there was a point where I had I was I was trying I was trying to provide a how was the right word? Like, can I say the word hillbilly? Is that like unfair? Okay, okay. Yeah, like right. And I said again, said with love. But somebody like I had $16,000 of cash in like a canvas bag. And and there was it was like, that needed to be delivered to this kind of like Bowie knife wielding hillbilly. That sounds like super nefarious and it's like it really wasn't it was just like a contract thing and this guy would only accept cash. and just what a situation you found yourself in. like, wow, this is really weird. but like, again, I'm like, I don't think I was put on this earth for these reasons, you know, like to be making, and again, like, it's one thing to be making like kind of nature docs and that sort of work. And it's another thing when it sort of becomes reality TV and reality TV starts to take over and it's like, I don't like this. I don't want to watch this. I don't think it's very good. I'm not interested in it. If you don't wanna watch it, I feel like you probably don't wanna create it. just given your background of these ultra independent, kind of quirky events, I feel like this is maybe a little bit more mainstream for your liking. And maybe you end up liking this world a little less and less, this TV world. Yeah, that's right. And I essentially wind up in a job where I'm being paid a lot. But I really, really don't like it. And ultimately, it's like I couldn't for a while, I was able to like pretend to be interested. But then I couldn't even really pretend to be interested anymore. I can't even fake it. I hate this so much I can't even fake it. don't care. And if you're in the showrunner role, you leave a lot of people reporting to you and they're like looking to you for like, you know, guidance and inspiration. And I remember being in a room with one of the editors and like, what do you think about this? I'm like, I don't fucking know, man. Like, it's fine. Like, it's just, it's good. Let's just get out of here. So I assume you're an awarded employee of the year at this point, or? no, no, no, no, I was I was fired. Yeah, I was fired. And I definitely I wrote in my dream line, got myself fired because I definitely was like, you know, it was like I should I guess I should have just quit. But, you know, it was it was like being paid well. And at this time, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I kind of knew in the back of my head like this isn't this isn't really what I want to be doing. and I think the other thing that happened is I had met Gillian at this point, who I was about to, about to marry and my focus was just in our relationship. and so it was like this, yeah, this thing was just this thing I was doing during the day. and so, yes, I get fired. well, actually we, I think we had been married. I think we were already married at that point. Yeah, that's right. That's right. TV show runner. That's right. And it was like, it was somewhat traumatic, but it was also kind of a relief. And I remember Getting fired, not getting married, right? Or both? Okay, not traumatic. Thanks, Gillian. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for clarifying that, Kim. I appreciate that. Yes. getting fired, a little traumatic, but also like, I mean, I've been there, right? It's a little like a weight off your chest. You're like, okay. Now what? I remember I went out to the owner of the company took me out to lunch afterwards. And I remember leaving not to fire me because that had already happened. Somebody else did that. It was just a like, Hey, just want to say no hard feelings like this one didn't work out kind of thing. And I remember walking out of that lunch and just feeling like amazing. Where I was like, I was like walking down the street, Fifth Avenue. And it was like, man. I don't have to do that anymore? This is great. world at my fingertips. So what do you do? I do a lot of hot yoga. And then through a friend, I got hired at a internet media startup. And I mean, it's not really fair to call a startup. It had been around for many, many years, but still it was sort of in a funding and seeking profitability kind of cycle. yeah, definitely, definitely chaotic. But it was a, it was like established, definitely like an established thing. And for a while, I remember this moment of like, was one of these things where I was sort of brought in to do something to do this like virtual reality project. And which is already like, well, this is way more interesting than what I was doing before. OK, what is like, there's a brief shiny moment when people thought virtual reality was going to be like every five years, it's like maybe VR is going to be a thing. It was like during one of those. Yeah. Yeah, it was during one of those crests of possibility. And I remember like within like an hour, an hour and a half of being there, like I was on a call with the Kind of pitching them a concept, which is like. OK, sure. I haven't even signed anything, but I'll talk to the client and we'll try to figure this out. And, like ended up going around the world doing that, which was really fun, not around the world, but to several cities, doing that. And it definitely felt like, this is a, this is genuinely kind of new and really interesting and exciting. Amazing. I'm assuming you keep up with that work. You moved to LA for it? I was in New York for several years and then I ended up moving out to LA, but I took a full-time position there and we did some things that were like, I would say technically complex that were in the live space or the kind of like live entertainment space. did a couple, like, I guess they're really trade show things. We did a couple of those that were like, there was a period of time when I think the idea was that all advertising was going to leave television and move on to the internet. And it was going to be captured by these publishers like Buzzfeed, places like that. And it, a lot of it did move off of television, but they're not who that's not who captured it. but at the time it was. Yeah. Netflix ads, Facebook, Google ad sense. but there was a period of time, there was like a jump ball, like what's going to happen. And it was really interesting to be on the side of, the digital side, it come from the commercial side and it felt really good. And so we were kind of like, worked outrageously hard, like crazy hours. so much, like so much so that I, I like, I don't know if you've ever been to a stage of burnout where you like are close to hallucinating and things like that. Yeah, you're having a lot of panic attacks and things don't feel real and you wonder. Yeah. euphoric kind of feeling a little bit because it was sort of like, I mean, I don't know that was. Yeah. It was a youth. And I remember my wife talks about these moments. She was like, you really went crazy for a while, man. You. It was it was we were really overworked and we were trying to do everything ourselves and. and you have wrecks around this time. Yeah, actually. And one of the crazy things is that Rex, for one of these events, they like the production team set up a little, like crib area for Rex when he was just, when he was a baby. And I remember my, my wife, like it was like one of the, was like, it was like just a couple of weeks after he was born. It was like one of the first times that she like put on makeup and got dressed up again. you know, and like came to this kind of event and they had set up this little area for Rex. And it was actually really wonderful. And like the, there was a lot of women there who had been mothers and were mothers and were really supportive of her. And that was actually really wonderful. And so, yeah, so we welcome Rex into the world. I mean, I remember like having some standing desk set up and like, Rex is like in a little bassinet thing over there and I'm trying to like work when he's napping. there was no limits to the yeah, which you should do when it's your own company. When it's somebody else's company, you should have limits. Yeah, if you work as hard for yourself as you worked for others, what would happen? But you do, almost to the point of hallucination, work really hard for this company. You end up moving to LA. Yep. Yep. Yeah. So we moved to LA. So my wife's a dramatic writer for film and television. And so it was her lifelong dream to live in LA and pursue that career. And so we were fortunate enough to do that. So we moved to Santa Monica, which is where we are now. And she embarks on kind of building a career as a professional writer, which is coming to fruition. That's very exciting. That's very exciting. And your internet media company... less exciting. man. Yeah. So what happens is this is 2020, George Floyd. casual year, nothing happened, very under the radar, forgettable year 2020. Yeah. And so there were, this happened at a number of these companies where they truly kind of imploded where the reports were surfaced of employees being treated unfairly, toxic workplace culture. And so that started to happen in real time. And it was, but nobody was in the office, which I think must have been part of it on some level, right? It must have been part of it. Like maybe that separation gave people the separation to speak up or yeah, okay. And I think the challenge was, and this was actually mentioned on a previous Journey Lines episode where this division between the kind of the values that an organization espouses externally versus the actual on the ground business practices internally. Yeah, when those aren't aligned, is. It's tough for employees. The companies typically implode. It sounds like this might have been a little predictable. Yeah. And so, and, and the challenge with a lot of these, these companies is they are chasing kind of like CPM and they're, they're chasing ad dollars. And so they just need to produce more and more and more content for, for less and less and less money. And there were some people editorially that. I think really tried to hold the line in terms of a standard of work. But there was also, I think, a real push to devalue the content that was being made. And the people that were making it were oftentimes underpaid, worked really, really hard, kind of becomes like a click farm sort of thing. And so I think that's, you know, that was what was happening. And I think there was also from the management standpoint, there was a lot of, there was, you know, oversights, let's put it that way in terms of, the way that, employees were treated for various different reasons, some of that coming down to race. and so it became a really. really negative place. And yeah, and so was like, again, it was like, man, at certain points I've worked so hard for this place and for this brand that for a little while, I have to say, like, I really actually believed in the brand for a little while. And then it began to see like, this is not what I thought it was. that vision gets shattered. You're starting to face some harsh realities about this media company imploding. And then before it finally implodes, they get acquired. acquired. Yes. And we get poured it over to another company. man. Yeah. It's like it's it's tricky to talk about because I actually liked a lot of the people, a lot of the people that were amazing in both places. Amazing, amazing people. Amazing, amazing people. but I think same thing where it's like, business practices can't support the aspirations of the brand. guess you put it that way. And, I find that, I'm not comfortable, like with the, with the volume of work and with the compensation. and with any sense that there's a trajectory here that's going to be good for me, if that makes sense. Yeah. And again, there were some wonderful people there, but those were some hard times, because it was also like, I didn't even choose this place, and now I'm here. Yeah. But now also, my wife's changing careers, so supporting her, and we've got a kid. And so it's like, well, this is what you do. This is what you do. And during this whole time, you're still working on a documentary. Yeah. And that was the thing that was like keeping me. That was like the kind of the candle that I was holding, you know? Yeah. It was like, well, at least there's this, you know, at least there's this like this good thing. and so having that made, made these other elements that were far more unsavory like palatable. and you finish your documentary. The process of recovering. Yeah. Which, you know, was fortunate enough to kind of bring in some incredible filmmakers to work with to help me do that. And the feeling of having something done. So we were able to find financing through Germany, through a German television company that ended up paying for it, which was really cool. And that's where it actually like launched. It launched in Germany first, which was really interesting. And it was amazing to get feedback from German people. Yeah, that was amazing. And so, and the thing I will say about it also is the, there's two, there's two elements of, of the experience of completing it and putting it into the world. One is like the actual feedback from viewers who are like in Europe watching this thing that you've spent years and years and years working on. That was an amazing, amazing experience. And it also kind of brought my relationship with Marsha to a very special place. And so she is now like, I mean, she always would have been, but she is really somebody that I talk to all the time. And like, it's like, I just, you know, you have this person. that is like so wise and strong and powerful that you have like complete trust in and respect for that I can just call anytime. That's really powerful. That is gorgeous. And how wild that that came from you interviewing your dad so you could have a more intimate conversation. I'm blown away. Yeah. And so it's it has had a life in this world. So part of her story is that she was raised in a very conservative Christian world. And it that film has had a life in this community of people who were raised in super conservative Christian communities where traumatic things happened in terms of sexual abuse. and they basically had to escape. And so there's a world of people who are kind of like, they kind of consider themselves refugees from these communities. And so that's highly gratifying to be able to say like, if you want to know how to do it, you could watch that and she did it, if that makes sense. Well, I feel like I know what I'm adding to my queue this weekend. Well, I will say that's really that's that's kind of you. I will say like it's it it's like one of the most optimistic stories I've ever come across in my entire life. Truly. But there's some there's some rough stuff in the beginning. You know, it's like she's person who's confronting some really traumatic things. And we try to be real about what those things are. So I'll say that. Yeah. Yeah. your documentary. And this is where our journey lines cross. We're getting kind of close to our confluence. Firstly, Polina. Hi. I remember when that little nugget was born. yeah. Yeah. So I think what happened is, so, someone who was an investor in refinery reached out to me and said, Hey, I'm, I've invested in this startup. want to meet the founders? and I was like super unhappy where I was. And so, I, you know, I took the meeting and, I thought that there's there, the, I liked her. a lot, the investor was like, had a lot of respect for her and she's, she's a remarkable person. She has, she just has like a great track record. And so, and I was also just like, so interested in like an enterprise that like had a different business model where like a lot of, again, like a lot of these internet media companies, like the business, if it's an ad driven media model, it's really hard. And, and so a model where you have like a direct relationship with your customers, where they're like buying something from you. And in this case, was, education, like classes, exactly online creative learning. and they were, they were people were spending, they were expensive. And, and again, I think this was also sort of a product of the pandemic where people are at home and they're looking to change their lives. And so. Yeah, it was a really great moment in time when you couldn't leave your home and maybe you wanted, you had some extra time on your hands to focus on learning how to build a custom pair of sneakers or taking on a baking class. Right. Bettering yourself in some way. So this tiny little startup with a lot of green to career folks recruits you to join. And I'm excited to hear your perspective from this time. man. Well, it's one of those things where like you you show up and then you like kind of you recognize like what's really happening. And and I think, you know, like I think there was a lot of cultural challenges there. And I think that in addition I think that the enterprise was capitalized in this way that put enormous pressure to deliver outsize results where it was like, I think it was capitalized at like a billion dollar valuation or something like that. We, yeah, it felt like, my perspective, we were chasing after something that was unattainable. And unfortunately, the people who were pushing us to chase it were the people who held the checkbook. Yeah. of putting it. I remember at one point doing my own math and I was like, so how many users would we need to acquire to reach a billion dollar valuation? And I went through like the math and it was like, wow, that's a lot more than we have. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that is a lot of users. I'm buying a lot of classes. so and it was interesting. was like, so there are some there were some they did, I think, and there's probably part of partly some that you contributed to, but like they had some there's some amazing people there. For sure. I mean, some of the best people I've ever worked with. yeah, and so, and that was also part of the appeal initially was like, this is fun. It's, really fun as you know. Yeah, it's fine. was fun. It was fun. Yeah. To be with like, it's like, there's all of these like really, really accomplished people. And it's this very idealistic mission. And there seems to be a market for it. That's kind of proved out. And so now it's about kind of growing and scaling. So like every startup, you grow, you scale successfully, you go public and make a million dollars. No, no. And I think that was was part of it too. It was like, like, you know, having having, you know, equity in in something that where the equity could actually turn into something valuable. It's a new age of playing the lottery, truly. That you, especially when you believe in something, you see the potential. But that's not what really happened. The startup imploded. That's what your journey line says, yeah. Startup imploded. it did. Yeah. And I think it was subsumed by the, there was that shift in the macroeconomic world where all of a sudden, money was expensive and interest rates were super high. I think broadly, I think there's also the time where like a lot of tech companies, the publicly traded ones, their share price dropped considerably. And one thing I didn't realize is that there's a kind of continuum from the investor space between what's private and publicly held companies. And it's like, if the publicly held ones don't do well, it changes the perceived value of the privately held ones. That is something I didn't know, but it seems to be the case. so, yeah. So anyway, Yeah, I think you're right. Like the people who are holding the checkbook were like, well, actually, what if we just because remember, there was years of runway and was like, what if we just don't? What if we just don't? Well, no. then so then and that because I remember I Gillian was pregnant. I went away on paternity. And when I came back from paternity, it was like, this is this is going to go away. was one large change right when you came back and then we hobbled along for a little bit longer. yeah, this is going to go away. so then, you know, it's like, cool. that's like a mortgage in two kids. and it, and like, yeah. and, and, and, and, you know, the, the, startups going away and there's, there's like equity things going away. So, okay. What are you going to do? what does one do, asking for myself, when they get laid off from a startup? What do do next? Yeah. Well, you use, you soul search and I think there's kind of two, there's two ways to proceed. One is you like get right back out there in a job market, if that's what you're looking to do. And I think at this point in my career, I had, this is like the second implosion, you know, they weren't that far apart. Yeah. apart. And I had worked really hard in these places and they both imploded and they weren't mine. And I had this sense of like, you know, and also like on some level, I didn't agree necessarily with how they were run the whole time. Right. And that's a polite understatement, but it was just like, was like, I don't know. I don't don't, didn't sit right with me. and so I thought, I think, you know, you only live once and exactly, you should work hard for yourself. And, and, I think it would be kind of foolish to, given the two lessons I was just taught, right. And that was taught them with, there was no ambiguity about the lesson, about the lesson. was like, you can. you can contribute the best of your years of your life to something and it can go away, just go away. And so I'm like, don't think I should do that again. So I went through a process of trying to figure out what I was going to do. one of the things that was really helpful in that is that it is kind of like the journey line project where I reached out to an old friend and he sort of was asking me, what are you going to do? And, he challenged me to do a piece of writing where, I, I went back and I wrote down like everything I'd ever done. Like sent from probably, probably like even high school, just everything you've ever done. Like, like from a creative or professional standpoint, not, not romantically or personally, but like just, you know, what's your professional output and. I did that. And then as I was writing, just listened for listened emotionally for like, what's coming up, you know, like, when is what's your body responding to? And it was all of these things where people were coming together in person for something and where there was kind of, there was some sort of learning that was happening, some sort of, discovery, some sort of feeling of wonder. and some of it was in that science classroom. Some of it was at the dog show party. Some of it was at the, you know, the those events that I did later. And there was always kind of like this element, this thread of storytelling running through it. But it was also something that had a real like commercial or economic underpinning to it so that it was sustainable and real. fat stacks of cash coming out of the beard competition. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's right. And so, and I've been working for these places where like the business models came and went, you know, and ended up being sort of vaporous. And so I think an enterprise that has like a commercial underpinning to it that is real, where you have a direct relationship with people that you're providing a service for, which is sort of learning discovery and play. Which leads you to co-founding. Yeah, so it leads me to co-founding a company. I don't know how, like, where we are in terms of time. Well, you've got to pick up your kid in about 15 minutes, so. wow. Well, will I will say this, that one of things that happened this year is one of my co-founders died. And I think it's important to say in terms of like these journey, this idea of like, well, you end up at this place and it's like, you know, smooth sailing from here on out. And that wasn't the case. so this past year, her name is Caroline, Caroline Prue. She's an incredible, incredible person. was so lucky to meet her and to get a chance to work with her. And So we kind of co-created this idea and then she died this year, like in the spring. And so it was, that really challenged me to my core in terms of the pursuit of this idea and co-founding this company. And what ended up happening is, I started to, this might sound strange, but I started to hear her voice. And it was a really positive thing, actually. This is after a period of mourning, but it was a really positive thing to sort of be able to hear her. And the thing that she sent me this voice memo from her hospital bed, we were sending voice, I was sending her voice memos when she was in the hospital. And she sent me this voice memo that I received, her partner sent it to me after she had passed away. And it said, collaboration and love are the true tools of an artist. And those were her last words. And I felt like I feel now going into 2025 more grounded in the conviction of, you know, building experiences where people can come together to play and to learn and to have feelings. Where can people find out more about this? So we have a site set up at site seer dot fun companies called site seer. And we have some a little temp site that we made with Caroline. We've we ran some audience testing and some experiences in partnership with Columbia University at Lincoln Center and had some incredible feedback. And so I'm now We're in the process of fundraising and we're going to be taking implementation prototypes and bringing them into the world in 2025. Amazing. I am really excited to see what that looks like and let me know where those prototypes are. I've got a car. I can go places. you. Well, we might maybe we'll bring them to you. Ooh, yeah, bring them up to Napa, please. Jonathan, that brings us to the end of your journey line. What do you think ends next? What did we miss? Anything else you want to tell the world? Hmm. The thing I would want to tell the world is as you are contemplating your own journey line. Be kind to yourself. Well, I've got nothing else to add. Jonathan, thank you so much for joining. You can check out all of Jonathan's information in the show notes and we'll see you next time. Thank you, Kim. Thank you.