Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:02 Welcome to the balanced perspective podcast, where we're going to be challenging perspectives on what it actually takes to be successful in both business and in life. I'm your host, Terry Ann Richards. And with 16 years as a serial entrepreneur, I've experienced some of life's most epic successes and failures. Join me as we journey on a mission to blow the lid off of some of the best kept secrets to living a life of true success from the inside out. Welcome back to the balance perspective. I'm really excited to have my guest on today. I've got lots of stories that he probably doesn't know I'm going to share about him from our past. Let me introduce Jean Jean Fowler is the founder of lugaroo, which is a creative animation agency that works with clients worldwide. He's a really cool cat. I said to him right before going into recording just to be yourself. And I kind of giggle in the back of my mind cause that's all gene knows how to be as himself, which is a great thing to aspire to be more like, so welcome gene
Speaker 1 00:01:16 Morning,
Speaker 0 00:01:16 Morning, morning. I'm loving the background of, of your home. Absolutely gorgeous. Now, where are you? Based out of these days,
Speaker 1 00:01:25 I live in a, in a dome in black river, which is the middle of nowhere, Tufts way to the woods away from everybody.
Speaker 0 00:01:34 Kind of sounds like a place to be as of right now. So Jean let's give the audience because I know a little bit about your backstory, but let's talk a little bit about what brought you into the world that you're in right now. So you've been kind of on your own as an entrepreneur for over 20 years now.
Speaker 1 00:01:56 Yeah, just straight out of college. Pretty much,
Speaker 0 00:01:58 Pretty much straight into college. And so did you go straight out of college in like took college animation and went straight into that? And that's what you've been doing for the last 20 years.
Speaker 1 00:02:10 That's all I've been doing ever from, you know, when I was a kid, I was animating in emergence of my mother's Daniel steel levels, right? Making flip books and little anvil falls down and squishes a little stick man at the bottom, you know, all her novels had that stuff tucked into them. And, um, my parents are snowbirds. They used to pack up this old Chevy van and my sister and I would jump in it in the, in the fall and we'd go down to Florida and right next to Walt Disney world. Right. So I go there a lot and get like a lot of influence from cartoons and, you know, just watching cartoons, but that life in particular and my parents' encouragement of animating and drawing, you know, uh, led me to
Speaker 0 00:02:52 Doing what you do now. So I have a funny story. I can remember. I think when I first you, so we're both graduates of the Wallace McCain Institute here in new Brunswick. And when I first met you, I was at the rod in mare machine. Do you remember this? Do you remember what you did to me?
Speaker 1 00:03:13 Oh God. Uh, I don't remember last week. So you're going to have to fill me in.
Speaker 0 00:03:17 So basically to give you guys all sort of like the Coles notes of this, the way the program worked is you either nominated or you applied, you know, 400, 500 CEOs and leaders from across Atlantic Canada. And then they would chunk it down to like 25 or 30 of us and put us through this corral of, oh my gosh. It was like Dragon's den on fire. And Jean was one of the earlier cohorts that had gone through the program. And I think he really just wanted to get a rise out of some of us and me specifically. Cause I can remember I was sweating to death in the, in the lounge of the rod waiting for my turn. I was next to be called into this seven minutes of hell where they were going to like chastise me and ask me all the hard questions. And you walked by me and you put your two fingers up to your eyes and kind of gave me a look. And then you went like this. You like pretended to cut your throat and walked by me. But like with the most serious look ever, and I'm just looking at you like the hell is that. And that's exactly what you did. And I was like, what just happened? And Nancy, God bless her. She says to me, oh no, no that's gene. That's just what he does. That was my introduction to you. Oh my God.
Speaker 0 00:04:39 And then my next favorite story about you, Jean is when, well, when I lost everything, like in my mid twenties and I was making the decision, whether I was going to close my company or not. And I picked up the phone and I called you and I was like, I think I got to go bankrupt. Like, is that a big thing? Like is my whole life going to be over? And you were like, nah, like, you'll be fine. You know, just do this, just do this. You'll be good. You just made it seem like it was like, no, you made a mistake. You'll be fine. And that was it. Great American advice.
Speaker 1 00:05:15 I
Speaker 0 00:05:15 Was fine. It was really scary to go through it, but I survived it wild day,
Speaker 1 00:05:23 Humans, fear of the unknown, right? It's just a little bit of the unknown. That's all. That's all it was. It was, you know, you, you declare what you want to keep you declare what you don't want to keep. You let's call it your, all your debts and you give them a list. Pay him a bunch of money every month for the year though.
Speaker 0 00:05:38 So many lessons came out of that. So can we talk a little bit because obviously the reason I picked up the phone and called him folks was because Jean had, as most of us entrepreneurs who've been in the realm for a really long time had had his fair share of fallen on his tookus. And so he had fallen on his, took his before me. So I felt like he maybe knew the path and he could give me some great advice. Can you talk to me a little bit through like what that felt like all the way back then when you, because you had a really large agency back then?
Speaker 1 00:06:08 Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, our problem was that we were successful and we couldn't, we couldn't grow as fast as we thought we could, you know, people getting people to the east coast, getting artists, getting animators, you know, world-class guys to a little town in Northern new Brunswick, easiest tasks, but we did it like we, we gathered enough people, but you know, they weren't the right people. And I was a young manager. We were growing hundreds of percent every year, not five 10, you know, like we were ridiculous. And our burn rate was atrocious because we're all labor based so we can cashflow. So it became into, we gotta book this gig or we can't keep going. And it's like, well, we can't do that gig because they don't have enough people. And so we, yeah, we'll make it work. I'll work with Albert cloud projects. I don't care. You know,
Speaker 0 00:07:02 Talk to me about that because here's, I was on a call yesterday with a group of entrepreneurs. One of the women in particular sort of stands out in my mind right now, completely different industry than what you were in, but feeling the same kind of pinch. She's an, a business that is growing at a miraculous rate that, you know, she's now working 90, 120 hours a week. She cannot get qualified staff here, fast enough to feed the need of the industry that she's in. And so we were setting goals yesterday and one of the goals was growth. And I was like, yeah, sure. Why is it that entrepreneurs? That's their go-to like, we're going to grow every year.
Speaker 1 00:07:43 We're, we're totally pre-programmed for this three. Totally pre-programmed as a little piece of organic something or other that pushes through the dirt. Once it gets a little bit of heat, there's a little light, the little water pushes through the dirt and has to go up. We are pre-programmed to progress and we're compulsive about it. We're obsessed with it. We paint our personalities and our behaviors to it. And uh, like dude, after I went bankrupt, I made some rules. I said, I ain't chasing nothing ever again. They're going to find me. I'm going to sit here in the woods and I'm not chasing this dog. I'm not going after this pony show anymore. And I stopped going to conferences. I stopped traveling the world. I stopped going to festivals, stopped going to everything. And you know what? I'm still here. I still got a good crew. They still pump out series after series each year. And I'm far less stressed out. Like the animation industry is fucking grueling right now. Right. Nobody can film anything. Actors can't get together. Crews can't get together. But animators, we all sit in our basement and we can do this. They have more work. Right. It's good time for me to get out there and push the company and grow and expand and look for people and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like this.
Speaker 0 00:09:01 Yeah. Like what you're saying, because it is you're so right. So a humans in general, we're preconditioned to grow. Right? That's what we do. If you're not growing, you're dying. That's the quote that goes around on Facebook. But the reality of it is then you put an entrepreneur in the mix and they're like, like ambitious, always just going for the next thing. I was giggling to my partner earlier because at two in the morning I woke up and was up for an hour because I came up with what I considered a billion dollar idea, two in the morning, last night, that was me. And then I woke up this morning. I'm like, what the hell? That is not even in the realm of the business. I'm in.
Speaker 1 00:09:36 If you get the notes.
Speaker 0 00:09:37 Oh, I got all the notes that all the notes, I, you know, I did the research in the middle of the night. Like that's for those of you who maybe aren't entrepreneurs yet. And you're listening to us, this is literally how our brains work. But what I love, what you're saying is, yeah, we can be preconditioned to want the growth and to be visionaries and always be creative and seeing the next big thing. But doesn't mean we have to do it. And what you did is you learned this one thing that I think so many people could grab from it is you figured out what was most important to you and you put boundaries up.
Speaker 1 00:10:11 Absolutely. And destroy what the story is you, right? I'm no good at finances. No good at fucking accounting. I don't want to know. I don't want to fucking know like that's how I was at. FatCat when there's 120, some odd people working with me and I had five VPs and all this shit, I'm the cartoon guy. I take care of that side. You make sure we're profitable and we're growing. You're doing that. We'll check it all together right now. I'm the only one who has access to the bank accounts. I seized the cost reports all the time. I know exactly what the buckets are and I know exactly how much cash flow is going in every month. I fucking hate this stuff. I hate it. But I've, I've mastered exactly what I needed in order to know that my business is profitable every year. And that we're current on our taxes.
Speaker 0 00:10:56 That is super smart. So I giggle because I'm like, I'm the same. I actually think most entrepreneurs, unless they're entrepreneurial accountants or bookkeepers, most of us, the numbers, the numbers, side's not our thing. Right? The number, side's just not our thing, but it's really difficult to grow a company and not know your numbers, or just have a company and not know your numbers or trust that somebody else is going to manage it, which is so scary because I've done that and then have been audited on that. And then I had to pay that bill. So, you know, it's not,
Speaker 1 00:11:34 It's better than, you know, it's better than, you know, for sure. And then you call them on their mistakes. You don't have to know about if it does. You don't know how you don't have to know what your finance fees are, but you need to know that at the end of the day, you're making more money than, than not. And if you're not involved and you're the last one to know, then you're not in control of your company, like at all.
Speaker 0 00:11:57 Right. So true. So true. So talk to me a little bit about lugaroo and all of the stuff that you guys do. I can draw a Stickman folks. Like that's what I can do. Maybe a tree. I could draw a tree and some clouds and a stick man, but you guys are making some really cool stuff. So talk to me a little bit about what's the core of your business. What are you guys up to? What some of the projects that you're working on, obviously the stuff you can tell us.
Speaker 1 00:12:20 Oh yeah, for sure. I've always been pretty transparent. What I've been working on. And I can't, I can't say all this stuff, but I can tell you that lugaroo in a boutique animation studio. We make a lot of cartoons for the web. A lot of cartoons for the kids on TV, mostly, mostly cartoons for kids on TV, but also pilots commercials. We've done corporate presentations, we've done apps, we've done games. And we do websites. We kind of do it. If you, if you can see it, now we can do it for the last 13 years. Actually it's our 13th anniversary, my partner and I, Jessica Beckett who's like me, but better. Uh, she runs the big, important stuff. And I don't because I'm not a very good manager. I'm a very good creative person. I'll stay up all night to find solutions, but I'm not disciplined enough as an individual to have set boundaries.
Speaker 0 00:13:16 You know what I love about you. I love this because this was my issue in my early twenties. When I first got into business, like late teens, early twenties, I had a mother trucking ego, the size of Mount Everest. I had to be good at everything. Everything I thought I was good at everything, or I had to be good at everything, which means I micromanaged and I needed to have my hands on everything. And the reality is that that's gosh, darn near impossible to be everywhere when you have these large teams and companies in different areas. But I tried to do it. And you know, in a lot of ways, that's a big reason of my demise in my twenties was I burnt out. Lots of the company just made a whole bunch of bad decisions because I didn't let the people who actually knew what they were doing. Doing.
Speaker 1 00:14:07 Yeah, you got it. You got to stick to what you're good at. I know I'm not good at certain things. I know there's, there's better people at everything I can be replaced easily. And so can you, and that should be the goal is to replace you so that your business can, can work on its own and you can work on your business instead of in it. Because if you're working in your business, then do you just not in charge. Right. But if you're watching it, looking at everything, changing the flat tires, making sure people get the toast, you know, uh, it'll do fine, but you can't work in it, gotta work on it. That's it. I love working in it. I'm an artist I want to draw. I want to create. But if I do that, then I'm the bottleneck. And I know it. Right. Cause I, I ain't nobody higher than me than the, my partner and the client. I'll be, uh, I'll be up in bottleneck. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:14:59 Wow. So much awareness. So much awareness. Now, do you think that you had any of this awareness when you had fat cat or do you feel like those lessons and learnings kind of came out of that?
Speaker 1 00:15:10 I know more, I know more far more now. And the lessons from fat cat have certainly molded me to who I am now. I knew more about what needed to be done back then, but I didn't quite know how to do it. And we just did it so damn fast. And we had the wrong people in the wrong spots, including me. I, no way I should have been president of that company. I should have been tucked in right into the crews, you know, and a lot of owners or presidents, they start a company because they want a job and they're really good at that job. So they can get a lot of perspective. They can get a lot of street credit and they can get a lot of clients because they're really good. And then they can't, they can't progress beyond that. And they try and I think it removes the quality, removes the value from the company by removing that president from that position and putting them on top. I see it a lot. Right.
Speaker 0 00:16:06 So true. It's that reminds me a lot of the book. E-Myth right. Whereas some of us are technicians and you're going to do the thing, right? You're the, you're the baker. You're the one who makes the cupcakes. You're the one that puts the icing on the cupcakes. You're the creative, whatever it is you are. If that's what you're great at, that might mean that you're not naturally a leader. You might not be good at HR. Right? You might not be good at finances. You don't have to be there actually people that have gone to school and that's their sandbox,
Speaker 1 00:16:35 There's a lot of people that are just naturally lazy at just that stuff. And I've been trying to like my, my thing, man, is I tried to put together the best teams. I can, I try to find the places where I'm weakest or I can't handle. And I find the best person for that job. And I try to pay them as best. I can give them as many perks of being that person as I can. And hopefully they stay with me for decades and so far so good, man. My partner, she's been with me since 2006, maybe. And, and I've had other people from 2006 or 2005, was it for fat cat and stuff like that. Right. So the turnover rates gone down.
Speaker 0 00:17:14 That's good. Congrats. So let's talk a little bit about hiring. What advice would you give to those individuals who are like, we used to be, whereas they're kind of still on their own, but they're at that point where they can't really be on their own anymore because the company's at that size. So they need to start hiring and delegating and subcontracting this stuff out. But that's a, when it's just been you for a long time or if you've never managed people, that can be scary. So what advice would you give to somebody who's at that point where they need to start bringing on new people?
Speaker 1 00:17:51 Well, it's, it's funny. Cause I'm I'm I just did that like an hour ago, I put an ad on Instagram, on the lugaroo Instagram and I'm looking for an assistant. Like I have a few assistants, but I also have, I don't have enough. I need one more. Somebody who's like me, but better. And I'm nervous. I put the ad out and I'm nervous about it because I'm looking for a generalist, somebody that can do everything that I can do and be better than me. So it's like, how am I going to fucking find that? And it's not like an ego. It's just that I got 20 years experience and I'm always busy enough to have employees. And I'm like that than anybody who has the skillset. It's probably like that too. They're hard people to find and they're worth a fortune. If you can find them, you got to get to know them and you gotta, you gotta text the text and chat and chat and get to know who they are as a person. And, and you know, after awhile, as I'm sure you've encountered as well, people, people are lovely. You know, individuals are lovely, but people do
Speaker 0 00:18:58 Well because everybody's really mostly concerned with their own self-interest right. Unfortunately
Speaker 1 00:19:05 Ain't nobody else going to be concerned as the deer with your interests.
Speaker 0 00:19:11 So true. So would you say then from your words here, in terms of hiring it's, it's like a cording, what is it that hire slow fire fast. You need to court them. So if you're going to post state, you have a conversation, you'll look them up on the social, see what their personality looks like out in that world. Get to know them as a person. And I think that's actually really good advice because the reality is is you can train people on certain skills. I would say for the most part, yes, I've evolved, but I'm about the same as I always have. Right? Like I still got a little bit of spice in me, a little bit of sass in me. And I like to have a lot of fun. No, I know I'm not sassy at all, but that's me. Right? Like, I've been this way since, as long back as I can remember smarter, wiser older, but,
Speaker 1 00:19:58 And, and that's the same with me. I haven't changed all that much. I become a little wiser. I pick my battles and I know when to say, Ooh, audio and that'll be yet. I don't stick around just because it's the right thing to do. I just can't do that anymore. The mileage
Speaker 0 00:20:13 I know it's funny how you get older. And I remember when I was a little bit younger and people would say like, you're going to get to a certain age where just, you kinda don't give a fuck anymore. Like you would remember early on in the walls McCain, I was in everything and every function and every panel, every board, and now I'm like, no, I don't really care. I just couldn't be bothered anymore. I like my little, my little town and hanging out with my little group of people and hanging out with my kids and my dog and that's.
Speaker 1 00:20:40 Yeah. And the, you know, the, a small circle is the well-watered one. I can tell you that everything can grow at a hat. And when you see certain growth out of a very small focus, it breeds a certain certainty and certainty brings tranquility. And dude, you can't beat that. Like that's happiness. You can't, you can't be happy.
Speaker 0 00:21:04 There really is no success without happiness. And so you need to focus on the happy if all we're ever doing is searching for success because we think happiness is on the other side of success. Well, success is like a moving goalpost. It's a widening net. It's forever changing what you want it five years ago is different now. And maybe you want a more simple life that's success now, but it's always changing. But if you can be happy first and put happiness at the peak, that is the goal. And then everything else just kind of floats from there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:21:33 And you know, a key key to this even further than your business or whatnot, is happiness, alone, happiness in solitude, losing yourself for a long period of time and get to know it's really key to know exactly who you are before you, you try to recruit others to help you obtain goals. Um, you know, because I think that's the key to long longevity is that you can connect perfectly and individually and it fits because you've taken the time.
Speaker 0 00:22:07 And so
Speaker 1 00:22:08 It's more about quality than quantity. And that's why hundreds of people don't work anymore. That's why everybody's centralized. Doesn't work anymore. People want a weight wait individually and let them be alone. And that's the girl because when they do decide that, Hey, we should have a studio or we should get together as a company, just because of the time it took, it will be special. It would be better. I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 0 00:22:31 You're totally going somewhere is where I totally believe that this is where society is going. I think the last couple years with all things, big C we've gotten to a place where people are getting a little bit more comfortable in their own space. We've always been so busy in the doing and in the going right, going to events, going to the next networking function, going to the coffee shop and where this last two years have kind of halted. A lot of that. People have had to stay home and by themselves for a lot of times, you're starting to have conversations with yourself without the busy-ness of everybody. Else's voices. Like I have full fledged conversations. I'm not kidding you. When I woke up in the middle of the night, mapping out this business, but I'm having full fledged conversations with myself and let me be honest, my dog, he was to the left of me.
Speaker 0 00:23:21 He's like a good two. I see. Second in command for those of you who are trying to figure out what that meant. I was having lots of fun. I find the ability to be alone, whether it's because you're single and alone or just being okay with having a day where you're not rushing out to go hang out with people. And you're just okay with just being with yourself or when you're having an idea. And you think what you're saying in your head, maybe the wrong thing, give yourself space and time to brainstorm through it and not go to everybody and be like, well, what do you think? And what do you think? Cause what I've learned is if you asked 10 people what they think he get a bunch of different answers and you're no closer to the actual answer.
Speaker 1 00:24:00 Yeah. And you'll loop back around to you, but you originally thought, oh right. Cause that's, that was the right fucking thing in the first place. Right. I guess you, I guess outside influences and always a good thing. Um, and I haven't had cable TV in since 2007. I'm pretty sure. And I don't necessarily, I don't need to see it. I don't check up on what other animation studios are doing. I get the train things and stuff like that, but largely I stay out of it and I do what I want to do. Right. And I try to, I try to make it as fresh
Speaker 0 00:24:34 Freaking freedom. There would be in that. I like, I just feel like there's so many little nuggets that you're saying that can be put into just about anybody else's life. Because the world of social media is just full, full of highlight reels and everybody's chicken dinner and all the cool things that they've been up to. And I'm like kudos to them. High five. The problem with it is, is for some people that becomes their comparison versus comparing to them themselves yesterday or last week or last year, they're comparing to everything they see on social media. And then they start questioning all the decisions that they're making in their business and in their life and in their relationships and in their parenting and what a freedom it would be to just be like, you know what? I'm gonna do me. I'll stay afloat of the industry. But for the most part, I'm going to do it my way, because that's what feels, that's what feels right.
Speaker 1 00:25:29 If it's making money,
Speaker 0 00:25:31 It must be working
Speaker 1 00:25:35 If it's working right. And, and let them decide what they want. Right. I've given up I've people come to me. I can say, I'm a game guy all day long and no one's ever going to give me a game tonight. However, they give me a lots of cartoon guys or a lot, lots of cartoon gigs. And specifically I get a lot of French productions and I'm not French, but I got a lot of French productions because my crew is French thusly. I'm a French producer. Right. I will go after that business because it seems to come to me naturally,
Speaker 0 00:26:10 Listen, any partying piece of advice for those that are listening.
Speaker 1 00:26:15 So first put away the money, uh, invest it, but definitely pay yourself first.
Speaker 0 00:26:23 That is very good advice. Multiple businesses in my twenties. I did not do that. Oh, the lessons we learn. Listen, it has been a hoot hanging out with Eugene. I appreciate you. I wish you the best of success over the next few years. And I look forward to seeing all that you and your crew are up to.
Speaker 2 00:26:47 Hey, thanks so much for tuning in. Don't forget to click.
