Paths in Progress
Paths in Progress
John: Founder and Owner of Madison Flitch Art & Furniture Gallery and Madison Stitch Leather Goods; Bachelors degree in History, Masters Degree in History & Religious Studies, and Master of Business Administration
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How does one go from planning to obtain a PhD to become a professor, to instead entering the corporate software industry, to then starting and owning an Art & Furniture Gallery, then adding a leather goods company? John has had an interesting path, filled with life lessons and a heart for positively impacting his community. Not only does John discuss evaluating his options realistically along the way, but also how other life events can often direct our path in unexpected ways–your ability to adapt is key.
To check out John’s businesses and the beautiful products they offer, visit www.madisonflitch.com and www.madisonstitch.com, and make sure to listen to the history of how each business began in this episode.
Thank you for joining us today on Paths in Progress. I'm your host, Carrie Young. On this podcast, people in a variety of career fields, talk about their journey from choosing their college, deciding which majors and minors to pursue, their first jobs out of college, and all of the hurdles, detours and victories along their path through today. Our goal is to help students hear about a variety of exciting opportunities out there and understand what day-to-day life is like in these careers. I hope you enjoy and learn from our story today. Thanks for listening.
CarrieHi everyone. Thanks for joining us today. We are here today with John Pryor. He is the owner and founder of Madison Fletch Madison Stitch. He runs an art gallery and a leather goods business. He has a bachelor's degree in history and he has two master's degrees, one in history and theology, and he has his M B A. So John, thanks so much for joining us today.
JohnThanks, Carrie. It's good to be here.
CarrieIt's so great to have you. I'm excited to talk to you today.
JohnYeah, me too.
CarrieSo can we start by going back to high school? We had some big fun back then. Can you tell us a little bit about what you were thinking regarding what you wanted to do in college and what you wanted to major in, and if you had any kind of career path for yourself in your mind?
JohnI don't think I really did.
CarrieMany of us don't, right?
JohnYeah, right. thinking about this question. I was just trying to have a good time in high school, trying to fit in, not be so, feel so awkward all the time. And, when you talk to me about my dreams. I was probably more interested in being like a rockstar or some kind of musician.
CarrieReally?
JohnYeah.
CarrieKnow How did all that know that? Oh my gosh.
JohnYeah. Also probably a professional athlete. I mean, I had your basic, you know, adolescent boy dreams. Yeah. But life will humble you very quickly and, I think I discovered I was not going to be a professional musician in freshman year when they had a talent contest. And I got up with my guitar and just played a Jimmy Page, led Zeppelin guitar solo, and everybody laughed at me. Oh my gosh. And but you know, that's pretty good social feedback and it's like, okay, that's probably not for me. Yeah. And I think also I got dunked on by, uh, Jarrod Rush, who, he went to a rival private school in the Kansas City area and eventually played in the N B A. He played for the Lakers for about four years. And, wow. I got totally posturized, totally embarrassed and I have no idea why I thought I could compete with guys like that in high school, but very quickly was disabused that notion.
CarrieSo as you were looking for college, were you looking for any kind of program in particular? You were looking more for like a campus fit for yourself? Like what were you kind of thinking about as you approached college?
JohnYeah, I think the truth and looking back is, I went to college, which was at Kansas State University simply because that's where a lot of my friends from church youth group were going to, and community was probably the most important thing to me. I think by the end of high school or during high school, I finally found a good fit with people and friends through my church, and that's where they were all going. So that's where I went. Things like degree programs, the prestige of the school, campus, none of that really mattered to me. It was who are the people, where were they going and how can I be there with them?
CarrieYeah. Well, community is such an important thing in college, whether you're going into college already having your community or you're trying to find it when you get there, right? Mm-hmm. having that community is so important during that time of your life when you're navigating all of these different things, right? So to have that kind of support, is really essential.
JohnRight, right. I mean, it didn't seem like a bad idea at the time. Now, if I had to do it over again, I would think more carefully about what I was gonna be majoring in and what the program was.
CarrieSo we said at the beginning you do have a degree in history, right? So what led you to that space?
JohnI remember Thinking, well, I liked my history classes, so maybe I should just major in that. And then, maybe I should get an education degree alongside of it to just try to get a teaching job. But the teaching program, we ran into some, I don't know, bad advisors early on that kind of soured my taste it to the program. So I dropped it and I just thought, well, I'll just get a degree. Maybe I'll explore law school after that, and I'll be good to go. But it wasn't until the end of college that I realized I didn't want to be a lawyer. And so it made me just kind of defer entering into the real world by exploring my master's degree in history and theology. I think my dream at that point, or my idea at that point at least, was to be a college professor.
CarrieOkay. So did you go straight into grad school from undergrad or did you take some time first?
JohnI did not. I went straight from undergrad to graduate school.
CarrieThere is something to be said for pursuing subjects that, you know, just interest you if you aren't sure what your path is long term. I think a lot of students just start with the subject that they enjoy. Right, right. And then you figure it out from there.
JohnThis was during like the nineties too, where, I mean, I think the main message to students was, follow your dream. Follow what you love, do what you love. Mm-hmm. And that's still kind of a message that is out there, but I don't remember any concerns towards practicality right from any education advisor or anything like that. And I didn't find out till later that the areas of study that I was looking at to go into, they were the hardest places to find a job. And if you did find a job, you're gonna be paid lower than anybody else. in any kind of industry or market. And if somebody had just sat me down and said, look, like this is the reality of the situation I might have rethought my decisions, but it didn't really occur to me that that was the reality until I experienced it.
CarrieYeah. Well, have you found that studying those subjects through your undergrad and your first master's degree, did you take something from that time or from those studies that you felt like has been really useful to you, whether that's professionally or personally? Mm-hmm. like, do you have some feelings of, you know, I'm grateful I studied that because, It kind of changed me or it made me think in a different way that I needed to do. Is there some piece of that that you feel thankful for?
JohnWell, I think my education definitely established my worldview, sort of the intellectual framework through which I interpret the world and the broad sense. But then also just relationships as well. I studied American history, early Christian history as well as religious philosophy and religious ideas, and all of those things kind of add up to teaching you how people work, how people think. And I believe that as I moved forward in my career, the education did gimme a pretty good framework for just understanding basic things like how to talk to people, how to treat people, how other people act and how they treat you. Understanding your place within a broader world, by understanding just my own world and where I came from and. Of what explains the different issues that created me and created the either the political or religious tribe that I came from, and it helped me understand other people. So, empathy is a big product of my education. I.
CarrieYeah. So once you finished your first master's degree, what was your outlook? Were you still thinking about teaching in some capacity or were you starting to look in other areas? Where were you going? Mm-hmm. when you were done with that Master's degree?
JohnMy plan was to apply to PhD programs across the world, actually. But there were really only about 14 PhD programs that were focused in the areas that I was focused in. So I applied to them all. And the plan was to get the PhD Wow. And be a college professor. But I got rejected by every single PhD program, Oh wow. And that was where I learned, like I was competing with about, I. you know, a thousand different people, in each program. The supply was much greater than the demand. Yeah. And I was a good student. I had a good resume, but it wasn't good enough to be in that top 10 or top 1%. And so that was when I had the, kind of come to Jesus, wake up moment where, I had to realize that I probably wasn't going to compete with other people and I needed to find something different to do.
CarrieWow. One thing I talk with students a lot of is about how rejection can be redirection. 'cause sometimes we are focused on a goal or we're focused on something that we wanna obtain or achieve. And when you're really focused on that, Sometimes it's hard to hear something different, Right, right. Or, or consider other things. And sometimes what has to happen to some of us is you have to be like flat out rejected from that thing that you're focused on in order to get you to focus on the thing that you're actually supposed to be doing. Right. Right. So it's just, it's so interesting how that's happened through so many people's stories is that, you know, I'm on this path, I'm doing this thing, and then the answer is no. Yeah. And I, you know, I don't get it. I can't do that thing. And then you're in this space where it's like, whoa, now I have to completely rethink what I was doing, what track I was on, what I wanna do, and find a new goal or a new direction. So how did you approach that? Was it like a devastating feeling for you, or was it just kind of like a, oh, maybe I'm supposed to be doing something else? Like what kind of space were you in when that happened?
JohnYeah. I would say it probably was devastating simply because I'd spent an enormous amount of time and energy and money trying to make this career happened. Yeah. Because I got two master's degrees. It was really the entirety of my twenties was basically spent in a underground basement library. And so when I rejected, I was like, oh my gosh, I just wasted my twenties. And standard advice is to, you know, try again the next year. But I had a deep, deep sense that this, it just wasn't for me. It wasn't gonna work out. I wasn't gonna be able to compete, and I'm not sure I would even enjoy the process because this was just a PhD, this was not, I was gonna have to do it all over again when I was gonna be looking for a job. Yeah. And the job market was even more competitive. The other thing too is that it was a bit of a spiritual crisis because it was wrapped up with religious ideas of purpose and meaning and what you're supposed to do with your life and Right. There was this kind of idea of like, God calling you to do certain things, and I genuinely believe that this was a calling and to see it rejected, made me really question my entire spiritual worldview up to that point. Basically what I had to do, was Just find work. I was married, my wife was working, but it was time for me to just embrace reality and find a job. So that's kind of how I coped, was I found just this nothing data entry job at a photography studio and worked there for about six months until I found a corporate job that was willing to use my educational background.
CarrieSo, what do you mean a corporate job that was willing to use your educational background? Were they seeking that?
JohnThat's good. Yeah. Yes, they were. They were a research database and search solution technology company. So kind of like Google, but for libraries. And they had just bought a, oh yeah. They had just bought a history and theology database, and they needed somebody who could read the content, index it and tag it with keywords. Wow. So it was like, wow, that was tailor made for me. Yeah. So it was my first real job, you know, where I had like, medical benefits in healthcare, things like that. Yeah. I wasn't paid very much, but it was something, it was a job. And, so I first three years of that job, I just sat down at a computer, read content, and wrote abstracts and assigned keywords.
CarrieWas there some kind of feeling like I'm utilizing the education that I got, because I think that's a struggle a lot of people deal with, right? Sometimes people really struggle with that if they mm-hmm. feel like they're not directly applying the education that they got. Right. Right. And there's a whole conversation about how we can do that. And what you were just talking about earlier with what, you know, things that you took from the studies that you have that don't necessarily have to do with tasks for a job, but. Because that was so specific, was there some kind of reassurance that you were utilizing that, or did you enjoy it? Like how were you feeling about that?
JohnI think it was just a means to an end. I was going to stay involved in my church at the time, explore teaching opportunities through a volunteer non-profit organizations. I started a think tank. There were different things I was doing that, It kinda kept my initial dreams alive and the job, was just sort of a way to fund those activities. I didn't really enjoy it particularly, but I was happy that I was able to use my education and that it was a good fit for what I was doing. It was an easy job for me and it was easy because of the education I had. Yeah. But I was definitely looking to get out of it as soon as I could.
CarrieYeah. Well, I wanna jump on something you just said where it was a way to fund your other activities. Mm-hmm. because I think there are not two, not only two camps of people, but I think there are people who really need to find meaning in that daily work that they do. Right. And then there's people. Who really look at your job. Like there's other things outside of work that I wanna do. And this job is the means to be able to do those things, right? Yes. And sometimes it doesn't matter if what you're doing for your regular paycheck and for your insurance has the meaning, it's the other things outside of that where you're getting your meaning. So, I think that's something for students to think about that. You don't necessarily need to be in one camp or the other, but sometimes it's helpful to kind of self-identify Right. With what you need in your life. Right. And what you need that to be. Right. Can you tell us a little bit about the think tank you just mentioned? You said you started a think tank?
JohnWell, I was always interested in big ideas and how to use big ideas to create a better community around us. And so the think tank was basically based around that, but for the church to try to reform the church, make it a better place, make it more appealing for people to go to, have it focus more on social justice issues, community improvement, things like that. And, I did that for about three or four years. It was kind of structured like a magazine. We would recruit people to write content, write articles, dealing with issues that were coming up in the world or the church. We dropped it after a while because we weren't really able to get it as an official organization in the church. It was just kind of this sidebar thing. And I honestly just got tired of it. Yeah.
CarrieSo that's, I don't wanna jump ahead too much, but it sounds like that was planting some seeds maybe in your mind for what you're doing now. Is there a connection there? I think just with like the community and.
JohnYeah, I think the main connection there is, you know, what I was learning was that I had an ability to mobilize small groups of people to do creative things, right? Yeah. The think tank was like, Hey, like you've gotta think about and reflect on something that is going on in the community and write something that is going to help people enter into the right mindset. And what I do now, of course, is try to start with an idea and actually turn it into a physical, tangible reality. So it's still very much creative work. Using a collective of people to accomplish something.
CarrieHow long were you in that job that you described?
JohnI was in that entry level job at the company for three years. And then I was promoted to management basically. Okay. Yeah, and that kind of began my corporate management career.
CarrieSo once you were promoted to management, were you still kind of in that history theology space or were you doing something totally different?
JohnTotally different. Basically at that point I became a supervisor over the team that I had the original job in. So I managed about 27 people. And they all focused on different areas, so it became much more an operations manager type job and supervisor job. Like you look at their production, their quality, any kind of personnel issues that came up. You manage projects that would come down from the top. And it really turned me more into a content management, professional or knowledge worker. And so I was having to learn things like library science, content integration, things I had really knew nothing about. And it was scary, but that experience more than anything else taught me that I was actually smart enough and capable enough that I could probably do anything that I applied my mind to. It was kinda the first time where I realized like, oh, it's really important to get out of the library, get out of theory, and actually just start doing things because that is what's gonna build your confidence that you can do whatever it's you want to do.
CarrieThat's a really important point. cause especially with people moving jobs during and after the pandemic. Mm-hmm. There's a lot of articles out there about the type of people who they need to like, feel like they already know how to do everything before they apply to a job versus the people who have the confidence to apply to something where maybe they don't know all of the things in the description, but they're willing to learn. So was that a space where you, were you seeking that out to move into management and learn all those things? Or did they just kind of tap you and see something in you and then you kind of found yourself there and you were doing that?
JohnSure. It was a little bit of both. I was getting kind of burnt out by my current job. I was looking to move up, and they gently nudged me to consider the job. And you know, in truth too, it was like I was motivated by money. I know I wasn't paid very much in the entry level job and I needed to do something that improved our, our bottom line. I was 31 at that point and feeling like, uh, oh my goodness, it's time for me to get real. Like I was in school forever. I'm still in this entry level job. I need to, I need to become a real professional. So that was really the baseline motivation.
CarrieYeah. Can you also talk about the fact that you were living in a different city, um, very far away from where you grew up and where you went to college? Mm-hmm. because I think that's someplace that a lot of young professionals find themselves, right? Sometimes people pick up and just move to a new place that they have not spent a lot of time in, or it's very different from where they grew up. So can you talk about that period of life too? Mm-hmm. Where you're kind of starting a professional career in a very different place and what that was like for you?
JohnMm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. When I reflect back on it, I'm sort of amazed that we had any level of success that we did when we were out there because Boston is like a whole other country. I mean, it, there's a lot of features about it that are quite alien to a mid-westerner. In fact, uh, new Englanders and Bostonians look at people outside the community as aliens, they just think you're bizarre, uh, you know, very foreign. If you don't go back 10, 15 generations, if your family doesn't go back 10, 15 generations, they'd consider you an outsider. So it was very hard to break into the community and I really, I had to flip a switch whenever I was working to become, you know, an almost extroverted version of me, a very much a people pleaser, trying to encourage and charm people, and to seeing me as one of them because if I, if I couldn't get them on my side. I was just dismissed. And I'll give you an example of what that, how, Bostonians tend to think. When I left the company to move back to Kansas City, I got asked this question by three different people at three different levels of the organization, including a vice president. I would, I told them, Hey, I'm moving to Kansas City. So I'm gonna be leaving the company and they would wr their hands and be like, oh my goodness, you're going to Kansas City? Are you gonna be able to get a job? Do they have companies out there?
CarrieWhat?
JohnYes. Three different people asked, I mean, this was not a one-off question. This was three different people. Wow. And that's kind of how they viewed the Midwest, that it was still pioneer land. You lived in a log cabin or on a farm. And, they couldn't imagine that there was an actual urban environment where you had big sustainable corporate like companies. Mm-hmm. That's how I was always viewed. I mean, they, they called me the cowboy. I didn't look like a cowboy, but that's what they called me. No And yeah. So wow. There is a cultural issue, that is subtle, but it's there and that's what you have to break through. It does need to be said too, that like Boston is a very competitive environment. It's a big metropolitan area area. It's the intellectual capital of the world because there's so many colleges, that people are very educated. And that was another thing I realized during my M B A because I was considering becoming some sort of analyst or data scientist and taking education to get there. But, I was competing against people from, who were much smarter, much better educated than me. And I was going to Boston University and the people I was in class with were. Just light years ahead of me, but they were terrified of not getting a job. It was important for me to be extremely realistic. I think there is a little bit of this romantic idea that you push forward and pursue your dream, no matter what the evidence or people around you are saying, but me, it was, wait a second, I gotta look at what I am actually capable of doing relative to what the folks around me are doing, because they're the people I'm competing against. And, I kind of realized, through my M B A, that whatever I was trying to do, was probably not gonna work. So I stopped really considering the path of a data scientist or an analyst and tried to keep considering, just a broader management role. So, just continuing to explore leadership in a corporate environment.
CarrieYeah. So you said you had told your company that you were moving back to Kansas City. So how long were you there in total when you decided to do that?
JohnSo I was at the company for 10 years. So I had the entry level job for three years, the supervisor role, for three years, and then I moved into a managerial role, for the next four years until I left the company.
CarrieOkay. Like how would you kind of summarize your experience in that corporate environment and what do you feel like you took with you from that moving forward?
JohnWell, I think the corporate environment more than anything else. I taught me how to work in the real world. It taught me specific things like organizational dynamics and behavior. Simple things like how to manage a project, how to have difficult conversations with people, how to get things done. Not just at the individual level, but at the team level and even bigger at the corporate level. One of the things that at this time in my career, in life that I'm just, I just find remarkable is anytime a leader, or a group of leaders is able to organize and manage a large group of people to get something done, that is a miracle. People are difficult to work with, and it's something we, we really underestimate whenever we plan things. So one of my favorite pastimes is sports. Like, watching the Kansas City Chiefs play. And as much as I love the game days, what I, I really love to look at is how they Manage themselves. How the coach runs a program, how the front office makes plans and strategies and get something done. Because it's a team effort. There's about a thousand employees and the Kansas City Chiefs and they all have a part to play, and winning the Super Bowl. And the organizations that don't really struggle To work cooperatively together. I mean, that's really why organizations fail, is because individuals or groups, departments aren't able to really work very well together. And so whenever you see success, you know that there's a miracle happening behind the scenes where people are working towards the same goal pretty, pretty effectively.
CarrieYeah. Well, and it's so interesting because on paper, you know, if you were to put your corporate job in Boston, like describe it and then put on paper what you're doing now, they seem so you know, not at all the same thing, but the way you just described that and what you took from that experience and clearly how you're implementing that into your own business now, like that is so connected. Even though on paper it doesn't seem like it.
JohnThere was really no crossover in my education into the job I had, but I was able to, yeah. Move from a humanities background into, you know, software development, really by looking at all of the things that make a person a good leader. So I learned things like how to talk to groups of people, how to do a presentation. By the last half of my career at the company, I was making big presentations to the presidents and the executive board because I got good at it and better at it than my peers. I was well known for being really good with people, and I was often sent into having the difficult conversations with other say like a group head or a department head who didn't want to do a thing, and I would go and talk to them. Yeah. And say, well, this is why we need to do it. It has nothing to do with ego or whatever. And we're not trying to get into, you know, a competitive situation between departments. We just want to get this thing done because it's better for the customer. And I was able to communicate that very clearly. So communication became a real skill that I developed, and some people would call 'em soft skills, but it actually, in my case, was a hard skill that really helped get me ahead in the corporate environment.
CarrieYeah, I'm so glad we're talking about this. 'cause I feel like there's a lot of conversation in higher education right now where students and often parents of those students too, like really want these clear lines drawn between, you know, if I get this accounting degree, I become an accountant. You know they want this very clear cut, how much am I gonna get paid? How much am I putting it? Which, you know there's obviously we understand the investment and, you know, people wanna make sure that they're able to do something after that. But there's also all of these lines that you can draw between education and work experience and the next experience that are maybe not so clear cut on paper. Right? And you may not know what they are until you've gone through it, but yet they're so valuable and so transferable. That it's just, you just may not be able to see it, you know, as an 18 year old going into a degree. No,
JohnI mean, it reminds me of a story that Steve Jobs told about how he was kind of a poor student and he was all over the place. But for fun, he took a script writing class or a font class. It was just about like how to write fonts and for whatever reason that really developed his design sense. And so when he finally released the Apple MacBook, fonts were a big part of the package and yeah, he really credits his experience learning about fonts to helping him develop the aesthetics and the design around his first computer. It's kind of the same way with me. Yeah. Like all the things I learned did lead me to be able to manage, at first a furniture company, then pivot to an art gallery. Then started doing more sculptural work and then pivoting to making face masks and then, which led us to making bags. Yeah, I mean there's a whole story there that, we'll, I'm sure we'll get to but the idea of, developing these skills where you have to adapt and survive and then ultimately thrive, was definitely something I learned and was really probably the central skill I developed. Above and beyond any kind of particular career box that an education or experience would've given me.
CarrieYeah. So I know part of the reason you left Boston was because something personal happened, right? Because, you know, sometimes there's personal things that deeply impact our professional path, right? And sometimes we have to make different decisions, whether it's where we live or where we're gonna work or what our hours are, what our schedule looks like, whatever it is, you know, something, sometimes personal happens that can drastically affect that professional space.
JohnYeah, there were a number of personal problems that kind of came up all at once that necessitated to move to Kansas City. I was starting to get burned out at my job. That was kind of the first thing. I was working at least 60 hour weeks while also trying to obtain my M B A at night. My wife got diagnosed with type one diabetes at age 31 or 32. Then my father was diagnosed with dementia. And we were starting to feel like this pull towards home to be closer to family, to have to see family, enjoy family, but then also to have family support. And then, I started to realize I probably wasn't gonna get super far in my career because I wasn't part of the good old boys Boston Club. And this is kind of go back to my point about, I was an outsider and I didn't go back 5, 10, 15 generations all the way to the pilgrims, and it was going to probably keep me out of any kind of executive office, at least at the company I was working at. So I was at this crossroads of like, well, what do I do next? and given all the things that were happening, it was kind of time to consider a change. Then we went through the worst winter Boston had experienced in their recorded history. I think it was over something like over 120 inches of snowfall happened.
CarrieOh my gosh.
JohnI didn't realize that you had to really scrape all the snow off the roof of your house. And if you don't, it's gonna create an ice dam that will tear up the roof and bring water into the house. And that's what happened to us. It ruined about three levels of our house. I think at that point, And it took about a year to fix because every other house in New England was damaged. So every contractor was busy about two years out. And so we were in some sense, lucky that we got our house fixed within a year. But it kind of broke us. We're like, why do we live here?
CarrieYeah.
JohnThat brought the change to Kansas City. And it was the right choice, but it also meant that we were starting over again. We just had to figure out how to make it work.
CarrieYeah. So when did you start to think about moving into the space that you're in now? Because from the outside, it looks like a gigantic pivot. Right. So what led you to think, Hey, maybe I should try to start my own business, or maybe I should move into this kind of creative artist space?
JohnWell, I did try to apply to real jobs when we moved back to Kansas City. And like Kansas City's a little bit of a different environment in that it's a city, but it kind of functions like a small town. And if you don't know a person at the company you're applying to, it's very unlikely that you're gonna be even interviewed. So I didn't know anybody at the companies I was applying to, so I was having a hard time getting any kind of traction. Even though I had an M B A from a very prestigious university,. And I had picked up, woodworking and furniture building, as a stress relief when I was working a corporate job. And we filled up my house with all the things I built, and then we sold our house for about twice what it was originally bought for. And we had to leave all the things I built behind. Oh gosh, it kind of told me that, okay, people value my creativity, so maybe there's something there that I can build, build upon. Yeah. And so that just led me to think all. Let's just do this. You got burned out by the corporate environment. Maybe just start focusing on doing what you love, and see if you can make something out of it.
CarrieHow did you discover that you loved doing that? Where did that come from?
JohnLet's see. What was the first thing I built? Actually to be honest, it was, I started to make beer at my home, I became a brewer. I got a very big fancy brew making system and I just fell in love with making beer. It was so creative. There was so many different ways you could change beer, and it tasted better.
CarrieWhen Boston's a good environment for that. Well, right?
JohnYeah. I just, it became a creative outlet and I couldn't believe the joy I had in it. And then from there it was, you need to make things to improve your house. You could pay somebody else to do it, but then it gets expensive. So I just started with a simple bench and, There's a very funny picture of me after I had built my first bench, drinking one of my homemade beers, and smoking a cigar. I was just in heaven, it was like, this is what brings me joy. This is what brings me happiness. And it was a very late discovery because I think I was 33, 34, when I realized that the arts and the creative arts in particular was what really gave me joy.
CarrieWow. And you just never know what's gonna, when that's gonna happen or what it's gonna be.
JohnYeah. It can take a while to discover yourself. And I had a lot of experiences and a lot of education, but it wasn't until, you know, my mid thirties that I discovered what I truly enjoyed.
CarrieYeah. So once you kind of started thinking about that as a potential business or were you envisioning something in particular or were you just kind of taking a few initial steps to test the waters? Like how did you begin?
JohnYeah, I think I was process oriented at the beginning. I didn't have a n end goal in mind other than to just simply find a way to make something that I could then sell. I focused first on going to a woodworking school, to just develop skills and techniques, finding a shop to practice, and then basically starting to build the infrastructure that would allow me to sell. So that means things like build a website. Find out how to start an L L C, figure out how to get compliant with the government when you're starting a business. So I was doing all of these things sort of concurrently. And through my woodworking school, I started to really find the particular creative expressions that I, I really enjoyed. So for example, like I realized I didn't really like doing reclaimed style furniture. I liked working with hardwoods and building something from scratch, that communicated a more contemporary, modern aesthetic. So it's that kind of discovery process I went through for about two years, and then we kind of officially launched, earlier than I wanted to, but it was because a journalist discovered us and wanted to do an article in the local paper. It kind of jumpstarted the business faster than I really wanted it to We got eyeballs on what I was doing faster than I really intended. And so I started getting a lot of calls and customer requests for different things and that kind of led me to decide who I was and what I needed to be.
CarrieSo were you starting just then with individual requests for things or how did that lead to like a storefront and a space? Like how did that kind of develop over time?
JohnYeah, I just, at that point, I had a very small shop. The article came out and people started asking me for anything and everything. People usually say like, when you're starting out, you say yes to every proposal that somebody plays in front of you. 'cause you just have to build upon, you know, customers. But people were asking for wild things, right? I can't do that because it's, it's gonna take me forever to learn how to do it and it's just gonna be a waste of everybody's time. I really started to, through that process to find what I could and couldn't do. I did that for about another two years, I think. And then, there was a building that became available for sale in the heart of the arts district, that was actually within a reasonable price range. So we just jumped on it. We used some of the money from my career, I got some help from some partnerships and bought the building, renovated it, opened up the gallery and, with an adjacent workshop. So everything we build is then put into this nice looking gallery. And it kind of helped establish an image for us, credibility with our customers, and other designer design professionals. It was great. I loved it. The only problem was that we opened it about three months before the pandemic.
CarrieYeah. Well, and you have a very interesting story with how things grew during the pandemic. So do you wanna tell us about that?
JohnSure. So, I was paying attention to the news and in March we could see the pandemic coming because of everything that was happening in Italy. And the local city leaders were, starting to make announcements in preparations. And then finally the order was given to shut down if you were a non-essential business. So I looked at my assistant at the time and said, well, how do we make ourselves essential? Everybody was talking about the face mask shortage. And we had the space, we had a shop, and I just thought, well, we should be able to figure out how to make face masks and keep ourselves open and afloat. I didn't know how to sew, but I. I've done a lot of weird projects in my past. I'm sure I could figure this out. What I was imagining was maybe selling 20 to 30 face masks a week to, just try to keep the light bulbs on. I didn't have big expectations. It was just gonna be me and my assistant, borrowing a sewing machine, getting some fabric, just figuring out how to sew and make a face mask. And once we figured out the design and put it up on the website, I. Overnight we had thousands upon thousands of orders, somehow, you know, wow. And I was like, oh, okay. I captured all that money and all of a sudden, overnight I had more money in my bank account than I had in the previous four years of being a business person. Yeah. So it was after the moment of panic we had, we had to make a decision on whether we were gonna try to fill the orders or just return it. And I wasn't the kind of person who would quit, so I just said, we gotta figure this out. And that led us to ramp up very quickly. We hired about 70 to 80 people, over the next two to three weeks. We reached out to anyone and everyone who could sew, as well as talking to different city representatives who could connect us to groups that might be able to help. And that is what led us to connecting with refugee and immigration service groups. People like Jewish Vocational Services who help with immigrants and refugees and assimilating them. Catholic Charities and then a handful of nonprofit groups that also worked with refugees, and immigrants. All of them knew how to sew and knew how to sew beautifully. And they had all been laid off from their jobs or they didn't have jobs. We discovered each other. We trained them. And they were able to very quickly help us fulfill our obligations to our customers. And that really kicked off a year and a half journey of making face masks, building relationships with the refugee and immigrant community. Discovering their skill sets and work ethic, it just kind of led me to believe that we needed to keep the momentum going. So we created a new company called Madison Stitch that makes leather bags. We really just kind of built the company off of this idea of just kind of being this farm to table approach to artisan goods. We source all local materials and hire all local people. Because that was really what we did with the face mask project. Everything was sourced locally because you couldn't get anything shipped to you that was during the supply chain fiasco, where you couldn't get materials from normal places. So we had just had a scrounge whatever we could find and. That ended up creating a situation where we felt like we were making a better product in the same way that a farm to table restaurant is able to provide you a better meal than a fast food processed meal. The foundational principles of our company is really based around the local people we met during the face mask project, and then just the beauty of the materials that we're able to source from local suppliers.
CarrieYeah. Well, and what a way to take, you know, a terrible situation in so many ways and serve your community in so many different ways by making the masks, you know, 'cause that that was a serious crisis. Like people needing masks and just not being able to get them and being able to give work to people who didn't have them. And form these community bonds, especially with people who already had the skill, like organizing those people like you were talking about earlier, like mobilizing groups together and putting 'em together. And it's like, it's creative, but it's essential. And then it turns into this other company. It's just an incredible story that you never would've planned right at all. I mean, it's just not even on your radar.
JohnNever would've predicted it Still. Very much feel like a poser at times because I'm effectively running a fashion company. And if you had told me even just five years ago, oh, hey John, you're gonna be running a fashion company and be one of the representatives of the burgeoning fashion revival in Kansas City, I just would've laughed in your face. I just like, no way. I'm not a fashionable person, so it's just not who I am or what I am. So I really had to learn How to fit into that community almost in the same ways I had to learn how to fit into the Boston community.
CarrieAgain, a crossover in your story. It's so interesting. Yeah. So really all of this happened from the beginning of Madison Flitch to now has only been, I mean this has been less than 10 years. It sounds like such a long journey, but how long has it been?
JohnLet's see. I started Madison Flitch, which is my furniture and art gallery company about seven years ago. And then Madison Stitch. We've celebrated our third anniversary this month.
CarrieThat's amazing. What do you feel like you've learned from this chapter of your story? Like from opening your doors to now? Something that you didn't envision, along 10, 15 years ago. You had no idea you'd be in the space right now. What do you feel like has been the big kind of lessons out of this chapter?
JohnYeah, there are so many lessons and it's, it's kind of hard to capture 'em all simply. But, I think the first is, we've kind of hinted at it already, but like for me, the simplest things are actually very difficult to pull off. We pull off well. For example, in Madison Stitch, we make bags. I don't think people understand how hard it is to just make a bag and to make it well, to a point where somebody's willing to hand over their hard-earned money to pay for it. The amount of variables that go into making and creating something is absolutely incredible. We just have a small team to do it. So things like, you know, watching the Kansas City Chiefs, how they built their team to win that is, I mean, that's a modern miracle. When large companies, do or create something really amazing like Tesla and the electric car. That is something that is a modern miracle. You have to get into this mindset of, building, what I kind of think of as a professional resilience in the build process where you have to overcome failure because failure is so much part of the process. You have to learn to get used to it. Yeah. You're gonna fail more than you succeed. With our business, we have maybe have an idea, but going from the idea stage to a final product is extraordinarily difficult and includes a lot of failure. We're in our third year and we've only now just settled into our are the collection that's gonna define us. So it really took us three years to make our current bags that I think best represent who we are and what we can do.
CarrieSo as a founder and a business owner, how has that been for you with balancing your life with your family and just the other things going on in your life? What are the advantages and disadvantages to being your own boss, and being able to do that in your own space?
JohnWell, when you're able to run your own company, and I manage two companies now. You do have the freedom to make your own decisions. You're not beholden to a boss or somebody else who's telling you what you need to do and how to spend your time. That gives me freedom with my family to make decisions that prioritizes them. And I don't have any pressure from somebody putting the squeeze on. But on the other hand, my businesses need my attention a hundred percent of the time. And so it's very hard to prioritize both business and family. I have a five-year-old daughter and we had her a little bit later than most people. I think I was 38 when she was born. It was just a life-changing spiritual experience for me because I think I had been constantly chasing the carrot of who am I and what am I supposed to do with my life? And then suddenly, my daughter was born and none of that mattered to me anymore. Yeah. It was all about my daughter. So I made a decision that she and my wife were priority And so the way it works is I get up around five or 6:00 AM. I'm able to do a little bit of work before people wake up and my daughter wakes up and, hang out for a little bit. I take her to school. Then I go to work and I get, give myself about eight hours of studio time. Then after that I am, I'm home, and I cook dinner, play with my kid, talk with my wife, and then it's bedtime. And so that's the daily grind. It just means I think that there are aspects of business that get delayed. We kind of have our businesses on a slow burn. We're very slowly building. We're not gonna be an overnight success. And I think a lot of it's because I'm not able to give it the same amount of time that a lot of founders usually do. Most founder stories, like you talk to them, they're like, oh no, I'm married to my business. I'm awake 16 hours a day or 18 hours a day. And it, it's all business all the time. I've chosen not to do that, and I think it does delay success a little bit, but I didn't wanna lose my family time in favor of my business. I'm willing to trade overnight success or faster success, to ensure I have, you know, better time with my family.
CarrieI. Yeah. And not to say you're not successful, right? Because clearly you've grown a lot at the time that, I mean, full disclosure to people listening, I went into your business space recently about and I was just so impressed by how much you have accomplished and what I view as a short time, which is funny. It's almost sounds like the opposite of what you just said, but, you have done a lot at a short period of time.
JohnYeah. When I step back or when I listen to people, I'm like, oh yeah, I guess we have done a lot. I'm very impatient if you can't tell. It's I need things to happen faster than what they do. And so my perspective is very much colored by my idea of what's possible versus my interpretation of reality. And so having people like you come along and be like, holy cow, look what you've done, actually that helps.
CarrieWell, and also you're making things by hand. You're making custom things and you're making things by hand. So there's only so much speed that that's gonna happen at. Right. 'cause you don't wanna sacrifice the quality that you're producing.
JohnYeah. And so if you're trying to increase, whatever it's, or improve, whatever it's you're doing, you need to bringing people to help. That's kind of always been my go-to is like, if I can't do something, I either have to outsource it or bring somebody into the studio who can do the work for me. And that's really how we've been able to accomplish everything is, cooperative efforts together.
CarrieWell, looking back over your journey, like we've kind of talked about, you know, you could almost separate your path into these chapters that just seem so disconnected if you're just gonna describe them on paper. But you've talked about all of these ways that they really are woven together and the things you've been able to take from one thing to the next and connect everything in this really unique way. So as you look back over that, do you have some big picture advice for students who maybe either don't know what they wanna do, or they're not sure how they're going to utilize the subject that they're studying, or, they maybe find themselves at a crossroads like you were and they need to pick something new. What is some life advice that you have for students in the types of situations you've yourself in?
JohnI think a breakthrough for me was to stop being so goal oriented. What I mean by goal oriented is saying like, well, I wanna be a doctor by the time I'm 27, 28, instead.
CarrieWhich is so much the focus that students feel like they have to do.
JohnRight. And, and yeah, it's like I needed a name, I needed status, I needed the safety of an identity. The problem is that you're just not gonna get that even if you do become a doctor by 27, because then it's like, well, what kind of doctor are you? What are gonna do in your practice? Where are you gonna live? There are all these like sub-questions that come up that suddenly affect things like your identity and your security and who you are with the ways you identify yourself. So it's much better to be process oriented. And I guess what I mean by that is like, you don't really say, I wanna be a doctor by 27, but I might explore get a biology degree. Then after that, see if I like it and am good at it. Just gather experiences and get out in the world, to meet people, develop skill sets and, see where it takes you. Because you'll be given opportunity after opportunity as people get to know you. Understanding what the opportunity is and when it presents itself and then being able to jump on it, is an important part of your experience.
CarrieYeah, I think it's so important 'cause you know, not that having a life goal is a bad thing. There's some people out there who they, their whole life, they wanted to be X, Y, or Z and that's not bad. But what can happen is if you're so laser focused on, I. A particular goal, especially if once you achieve that goal, you realize it's not what you thought it was gonna be and you don't actually wanna do it anymore, right? Because some people find themselves in that space. But if you're so laser focused on a goal, you can miss these opportunities that come up along the way. 'cause you're too focused on this thing that you know, these other things could come along that are actually better for you, that actually make more sense for who you are and what you love to do. And if you're too focused, you can miss that. It's so important for students to keep that in mind. It's great to have goals, but you can't know with a hundred percent certainty, which is okay. You can't know with a hundred percent certainty that that goal you have is gonna actually be the thing that you end up doing and be the thing that you want to end up doing when you get there.
JohnYeah. Part of it too is, like the world just changes so fast. And yeah, you might get your degree and people all around you will say, yeah, it's a smart degree. But then suddenly the world changes where it doesn't matter anymore. I've seen it uphand in the technology world where things like AI are gonna be replacing a heck of a lot of jobs. Even the job, my entry level job that I started, at my technology company is probably out of date now because of things like AI and language learning models. So, you have to be in the mindset of develop skillsets that allow me to adapt to whatever's going on in the world. I think that's the bottom line of my story is that I was adaptable. I learned how to adapt to circumstances and meet personal, professional, and community needs, by just changing, my models.
CarrieYeah. What has been the importance to you of this community development? 'cause you do have this thread throughout your story of plugging into the community in particular ways, and obviously that became very much at the forefront of Madison Stitch now. Is there a fulfillment there for you? Is there like a mission or a purpose in that? Like how did that kind of start for you and what has that meant for you over time?
JohnSure. Yeah. Subtle, kind of understated, mission behind Madison Stitch, where, we are focused on the people in the community who can help us build this business. And it's focused a lot on the refugee and immigrant community because they were so critical to helping us with a face mask project. And then, starting Madison Stitch and designing and building our bag collections. I think what we've done is be able to provide a platform for creative folk, and people who might be on the margins of the society, to be able to show who they are and what they can do. I think that does go back a little bit to how I was raised in my theological education where you need to think about the foreigner, the immigrant, the refugee, the person who lives on the margin of society because, it's kind of a little counterintuitive, but if you find, people who might be defined as weak or not as capable, but give them a chance, you're actually gonna build something stronger. In my case, people who have like the fancy flashy degrees and think highly of their skillset, they, one wouldn't stay with us very long. And then two, they just thought like the first iteration of their idea was perfect. When it wasn't Mm-hmm and there's kind of like an arrogance and entitlement that comes with being at the top of society. And what with my kind of epiphany was that okay, you could have a flash degree, but that doesn't necessarily mean that You can actually do the job. And the people who were on the margins, whether they were immigrants or a refugee or something else, they were willing to put in the work necessary and had the humility to revise their work, in order to get us closer to creating a product that we could sell. There's this kind of philosophy of build a platform for people who wouldn't normally have it, see what they can do, and it actually shows off, something beautiful to the community and helps reorient their focus to people who need more focus.
CarrieYeah. That's awesome. That's one thing I bring up a lot with students is, you know, there's gonna be these whole industries and companies that'll be sought after when they are, you know, kind of in the prime or the young years of their career that don't exist yet. We just don't even know because when we graduated from college, A lot of these companies that are the sought after companies that people wanna work for. The ones we hear in the news all the time, they did not exist when we graduated from college. You know, you never could have seen that coming. And so the, when you're talking about being adaptable and like a lot of the transferable things that you learn, that's so important because a lot of people will be working at places that haven't even begun yet, right? Yeah.
JohnIt's about, evaluating what's going on in the world and adapting yourself to it.
CarrieAbsolutely. So for people who are interested in looking up your work, can you tell us where they can find you? And we can put all the links in the show notes as well.
JohnMadisonflitch.com. That's our furniture and sculpture business. And then our bag business is at madisonstitch.com. We're probably gonna start advertising Madison Stitch nationally next year. So people might start seeing our ads in their feeds.
CarrieWell, John, thank you so much for joining us today and telling us your story. I really appreciate your time and I hope everybody checks them out on social and on their, that's great. So
Johnmuch for having me. Fun. Talk about business, talk about it for hours.
CarrieThanks, John.
Do you know someone I should interview? Please DM me on Instagram @pathsinprogresspodcast and let me know who I should talk to. I would love to hear about how these stories are impacting your journey. Please follow Paths in Progress wherever you download your podcasts and leave a review to let me know what you think. You can also follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn at Paths in Progress Podcast. Our music is by John Grimmett and the artwork is by Edgar Alanis. Thanks again for joining me today.
