00:00:03:03 – 00:00:24:16

Mark

The Pursuit of… podcast a purely guest centric show focusing on people and organizations that advance positive change. Positivity can be anywhere, and in a time of vast discord, the pursuit of is finding those who championed its causes loudest. Join us as we sit and learn about the pursuits of local leaders in their communities. Let’s go.

00:00:26:00 – 00:00:38:08

Ryan

Hello good people and welcome to the pursuit of podcast where it’s truly not us. It’s you. I’m Ryan Buck, artist Development New Leonard Media. And being here with me is the boss, Mark Wilson, President, New Leonard Media. How are you?

00:00:38:09 – 00:00:41:22

Mark

Ryan I’m doing well. It’s been a while. It’s been a little while today. I have.

00:00:42:14 – 00:00:50:13

Ryan

That is the champion of that. Our guest today is Nick Beadleston, executive director, Common Place. How are you?

00:00:50:19 – 00:00:53:04

Nick Beadleston

I’m here. It’s winter.

00:00:53:04 – 00:00:54:11

Ryan

Wow. Those are.

00:00:54:11 – 00:00:58:02

Nick Beadleston

I don’t know if you wanted this to be evergreen, but I screwed that of physical statements.

00:00:58:17 – 00:01:20:06

Ryan

I’m here. That’s a great way to say. To answer. How are you rather by its to begin with, as we were talking prior to going the name Common place and in your location Common Place grounds, there’s some similarities happening. So your identity, are you an identity crisis at all times?

00:01:20:22 – 00:01:40:11

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, I don’t think it’s so much of an identity crisis. It’s, you know, figuring out what role we play in a very interconnected community. There’s so many folks doing amazing work across northern Michigan. There’s also a lot of duplicity or duplicative ness, right? There’s a lot of something.

00:01:41:04 – 00:02:06:09

Ryan

Well, when I think about what you do, I’ll just tell you just personally, I think it’s cool. It’s unique. It is community. It’s something that’s that’s new, something that’s needed. Those are just things that I’m just rolling off the tongue from one human to another. But what’s the elevator pitch when, you know, socially, Let’s remember when we went to parties.

00:02:06:09 – 00:02:14:15

Ryan

You’re at a party I envision in a tux. I see you in a tux 1,000%. And somebody says, What do you do? And you don’t have a ton of time. What’s the elevator pitch?

00:02:14:16 – 00:02:31:08

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, I’m lucky enough to run Commonplace, which is now two community co-working locations. And so we are the work home away from home for some really fantastic community focused organizations and small businesses. Wow.

00:02:32:06 – 00:02:44:14

Ryan

That’s great. And doesn’t sound practice. That sounds like, you know, you’ve had to say it a few times, but it’s really engaging. And you just talked about spaces. You’re in some very unique spaces. Can you talk to that a little bit?

00:02:44:20 – 00:03:11:22

Nick Beadleston

Yeah. And I think all spaces are unique and we don’t spend enough time thinking about the physical spaces that we occupy and thinking about our agency and the physical spaces that we occupy. I think we occupy our spaces as much as they occupy us. So right now we’ve got two locations where up on the second floor of the box right there at eighth and Boardman, a building with some really interesting history, which I’m happy to talk more about.

00:03:12:09 – 00:03:23:06

Nick Beadleston

And then we just opened our second location up on the second floor of the Common Grounds Cooperative Building, which is just an incredibly exciting place to be. So many awesome humans.

00:03:23:20 – 00:03:39:13

Ryan

Wow. And the first place, now that there is more than one, you have to think of two different things and two different elements. But talking about the first place, what was special about it? Why was it the place to be the first place?

00:03:39:13 – 00:04:06:19

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, it’s actually not our first location. We started up above Rare Bird, which, looking at the history of Rare Bird, is also a really fantastic place to be. What Tina and her team have created there is a phenomenal, really employee focused, community centric business, so it was great to start there. So we were up there in 217. I was a tenant of the space at the time and then moved over to the box.

00:04:06:19 – 00:04:24:22

Nick Beadleston

I want to say around 2018, 2019, and that building started off, as its name would suggest, as a cigar box factory, serving one of like 30 cigar companies in Traverse City. There used to be a ton of tobacco processing up here, Canadian tobacco.

00:04:24:23 – 00:04:43:01

Ryan

That doesn’t come up a lot. So it hasn’t come up a lot on this podcast. And we’re with a lot of prolific Trevor City folk a lot. So what in your opinion does a space need at this point in your time with Commonplace? What does it need?

00:04:44:02 – 00:05:02:13

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, and real quick, I will add that building has been a number of things. Probably the cigar box factory is the least interesting. For a number of years it was a really progressive physical therapy studio, particularly serving those with special abilities and needs. And so what time.

00:05:02:13 – 00:05:03:20

Ryan

Frame was that does that?

00:05:03:20 – 00:05:11:16

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, that’s that’s a great question. Jeff Haas, who’s with Building Bridges for Music, was really instrumental in that physical therapy studio.

00:05:11:17 – 00:05:15:09

Mark

No pun intended.

00:05:15:09 – 00:05:39:14

Nick Beadleston

And yeah, so they would again work with special needs and really get those people that they served out in the community across Michigan, participating in, you know, races and other things to normalize that, to take some of those physical activities out of the realm of, you know, seasoned athletes and make them accessible to all kinds of folks. Way before, it was super cool to talk about accessibility.

00:05:39:14 – 00:05:40:00

Nick Beadleston

Right?

00:05:40:13 – 00:05:55:04

Ryan

Well, that’s an interesting point of view because it obviously led somewhere. And how significant is that to the culture of the organization? Because hearing you talk about it, there’s knowledge, but there’s some passion there.

00:05:55:20 – 00:06:17:15

Nick Beadleston

So I totally circumvented your earlier question, but I think there is a strong throughline because what a physical space needs and what a physical space can be doesn’t really stop at the boundaries of that physical space. I think having a finite space sort of gives you agency and authority to convene. Hey, we got to we got a place come to our place.

00:06:18:02 – 00:06:30:09

Nick Beadleston

But really what it can serve as is a home base for work that really reverberate. It’s past those walls if you’re doing it right. Yeah. And it’s not easy because we know that, right?

00:06:30:10 – 00:06:55:18

Ryan

You didn’t circumvent anything. I could be on this track and hearing you for the next 9 hours because you talk about how a space feels and it’s important. And I don’t think that’s talked about enough and probably not talked about enough at, you know, major corporations decidedly, you know, places where that stuff matters probably more and more. But you’re still have to be a business and you have to operate.

00:06:56:03 – 00:07:02:04

Ryan

So what’s kind of the down and dirty stuff? What are the things that a building or a space really needs for you to be successful?

00:07:02:18 – 00:07:31:04

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, it’s so dependent on the people that inhabit it. We are a501 C3. We are a nonprofit, but the majority of our revenue is earned revenue. So we function very much like a business and co-working is a fascinating industry. I would posit that most people that are in the coworking industry don’t understand the industry that they’re in, because if you look at a co-working space, sort of conceptually, if you look at it on paper, it’s pretty straightforward.

00:07:31:22 – 00:07:56:16

Nick Beadleston

I’m just going to buy a building or lease a space and then I’ll sublease it for more than I’m paying and I’ll make money. Yeah, easy. Right? Right. But I think folks tend to underestimate a the amount of time that goes into managing essentially a bunch of individual real estate contracts and then how important and how much time it takes to really build a culture that makes that space attractive.

00:07:57:14 – 00:08:18:13

Nick Beadleston

I think what’s in a physical space, somewhat ironically, matters less than what’s happening in that space, than who’s showing up and how they’re showing up. Right. I think we’ve all traveled in. Bands are really cool looking, co-working spaces that were ghost towns because they built the thing. They didn’t check to see if anybody in their community wanted it.

00:08:18:14 – 00:08:28:21

Nick Beadleston

They didn’t figure out who that group of people was. That was really going to initially inhabit the space and who they wanted that space to be for. They just saw build something shiny.

00:08:28:22 – 00:08:31:01

Ryan

Well, you touched on something there. Oh, sorry. Oh, I.

00:08:31:01 – 00:08:47:04

Mark

Was going to ask. So is it more you’re looking like it’s niche down where there’s synergy between the organizations that utilize that space. Yeah. Similar to in a business world with having referral partners, potential referral partners, subletting some of your spots so that like there’s.

00:08:47:08 – 00:09:20:11

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, referral partners I think at a base but that’s so tends to be very transactional, very sort of quid pro quo. What we’re lucky enough to have in our spaces are organizations that are already working together or are really excited to be in an environment where they know they’re going to wind up working together. Right? So I think about in our new location and we’ve got the taste of local Difference, a fantastic local social enterprise right down the hall from and a very farms a great ethical animal husbandry farm.

00:09:20:11 – 00:09:41:08

Nick Beadleston

They’re not collaborating together yet that I know of. But one of the reasons they want to be in that space is because they know they’re going to have a chance to work together. And then Crosshatch is right down the hall from them. They’re already teaming up. So there’s a lot of preexisting synergy and then a lot more synergy that we know is going to come.

00:09:42:05 – 00:09:55:16

Nick Beadleston

And also it doesn’t just happen. I think that’s the thing that a lot of co-working spaces fail to understand. We just have a happy hour once a month. Yeah, people are going to network and work together. It requires a little more.

00:09:56:01 – 00:10:07:04

Mark

Does that seem like it just invites all the thirsty people? I mean, it’s always been intended either, but I mean, like, like, like people that are kind of hurting for business and need to you know.

00:10:07:16 – 00:10:12:11

Ryan

This is not the point of networking, though. In the end, you do want people to be connected.

00:10:12:11 – 00:10:35:14

Nick Beadleston

Yeah. And I do not want to discount the importance of getting people together around good drink and good food. I think that’s such a critical kicking off point for really important work. But I we’ve all been to networking events where, you know, you get five cards and you know, at most you use them to level out a wobbly coffee table.

00:10:35:16 – 00:10:36:00

Nick Beadleston

You know.

00:10:36:00 – 00:11:07:08

Mark

No relationship truly built from it. And I’m what I meant is like when you can feel the difference, when somebody has to make a sale and somebody is looking to do business, you know, and wants to really build a relationship. And long term, they’re looking for that mutual benefit and they’re a go giver. And then you have somebody who shows up to events like that and is just trying to get as many cards and throw as many cards and doesn’t really invest in you as a person, let alone your organization.

00:11:07:08 – 00:11:20:03

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, that definitely happens. I will say that you’ll see me all across town, but my event attendance decisions are heavily predicated on where the free food is going to be. Right? I bring Tupperware, Amanda, you know.

00:11:20:14 – 00:11:35:08

Ryan

So I print a menu ahead of time to get Nick in. Can I ask you, Mark, what you said was really, I think, profound, but did you mean to say go getter? No. Oh, did you mean to say it.

00:11:35:08 – 00:11:39:14

Mark

Go Giver because It’s brilliant I’m a fan of the book: Go-giver.

00:11:39:23 – 00:11:42:17

Ryan

Okay. And this basically because I.

00:11:42:22 – 00:11:50:19

Mark

Know it’s basically as as a business owner myself, who I’ve never worked in sales ever. I’ve worked in politics, which is.

00:11:51:01 – 00:11:52:07

Nick Beadleston

Oh, you’ve worked in sales, buddy?

00:11:52:07 – 00:12:19:18

Mark

Yes, that’s what I mean. So I’ve recognized there’s an element of sales to that, which is still to me, sales was like a bad word, you know, like it just made me feel gross. And, and so I had to educate myself to like, well, of course, there’s there’s good marketing, you know, there’s good ways of letting people know, like, hey, I have a service that I think is of value to people, and I’m here if you need me.

00:12:20:04 – 00:12:38:07

Mark

And then there’s the other, like aggressive marketing where it’s like, Get out of my feed, get off my phone, get like, get off my doorstep. Like, I didn’t ask for this. And so that’s what I was getting at with the networking events. Like sometimes if that’s all that your community is based off of, that you’re trying to build is like this networking event.

00:12:38:20 – 00:12:42:05

Mark

It kind of seems like people are only there to speed day and not.

00:12:42:23 – 00:13:04:14

Ryan

You know, Yeah, now we’re, you know, post a time when we couldn’t meet. So are we in a fervor are we in a early 1970s fueled like we’re just can’t wait to meet and we’re meeting as frantically as we can And how many meetings have you clocked today? Person you know and are you logging your meetings? Are we not that intense anymore?

00:13:04:19 – 00:13:24:21

Nick Beadleston

Yeah. And I want to push back a little bit because I’ve heard a lot of this, the assertion, you know, that we weren’t able to meet during the pandemic. And granted, I’m sort of a textbook extrovert, but I talked to so many fantastic people around the world that I would not have taken the time to connect with during the pandemic because, well, shit, I couldn’t go to brew.

00:13:24:21 – 00:13:52:19

Nick Beadleston

I couldn’t go to Mundos. Yeah, Yeah. And so I think it really expanded my thinking on what it means to connect face to face. Three dimensional face to three dimensional face is always going to be the best way to form a deeper connection. But holy cow, we live in such an amazing I keep saying the word amazing. We live in such a rich and vibrant world with so many people that are passionate and experts about what they do.

00:13:52:19 – 00:14:06:02

Nick Beadleston

And a couple of years ago it must have been during film fests. I’m not a big fan of the guy, but I was listening to Michael Moore and he said, You guys realize you’re a peninsula on a fucking peninsula, right? He weakens. And to be a little.

00:14:06:08 – 00:14:15:03

Ryan

Where is that t shirt? Yeah, you know, I mean, that’s hot. And if amazing is what’s in your heart, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

00:14:15:03 – 00:14:17:04

Nick Beadleston

I think lazy and we can do better.

00:14:17:08 – 00:14:41:03

Ryan

Well, speaking of extraordinary, you served for five years in the Army where the food quality was unexpectedly pleasant and you got to jump out of airplanes and you also achieved your bachelor’s degree in communication and media studies. So it’s just putting yourself in the headspace back then. What was the dream? What was the plan and what was the reality that presented itself to you?

00:14:42:00 – 00:14:47:01

Nick Beadleston

I think I watched too many action movies in the late nineties, early 2000.

00:14:47:02 – 00:14:50:14

Ryan

I had a kindred spirit. I knew I knew it. I knew it. Yes.

00:14:50:14 – 00:15:15:18

Nick Beadleston

I had a very specific idea of, yeah, what I was getting into. You know, I think it’s it’s borderline criminal that we let military recruiters in the high school because, man, we’re just so. Well, I’m projecting. I was so stupid at that age. Yeah, I’m sure for me, a lot of it was escapism at the time. You know, I’m getting out of the the town, the family, the immediate surroundings that I was raised in.

00:15:15:18 – 00:15:20:11

Nick Beadleston

And I’m the go around the world and meet interesting people and shoot them. Yeah.

00:15:21:10 – 00:15:23:08

Ryan

The old saying I mean it’s.

00:15:23:20 – 00:15:24:03

Nick Beadleston

Yeah.

00:15:24:16 – 00:15:27:20

Ryan

Interesting how that’s been commoditized even that phrase.

00:15:28:09 – 00:15:36:15

Nick Beadleston

Yeah it it sticks for a reason. I was a really lousy soldier. I was just not cut out for it.

00:15:37:06 – 00:15:40:03

Ryan

Is that something you’re saying now or did you think that at the time.

00:15:40:11 – 00:15:41:02

Nick Beadleston

I mean, were.

00:15:41:02 – 00:15:41:17

Ryan

You told that?

00:15:42:00 – 00:15:45:11

Nick Beadleston

Yeah. Used to show you. I’ll show you the letters from commanding officers.

00:15:45:21 – 00:15:46:12

Mark

The how so?

00:15:47:04 – 00:15:53:02

Nick Beadleston

Like, at least one of them wrote in a counseling statement, If you were in any other military with the shots, you by now.

00:15:54:15 – 00:15:56:22

Ryan

Which is that’s not still pretty fantastic.

00:15:56:22 – 00:15:58:11

Nick Beadleston

I wish I had that frame.

00:15:58:11 – 00:15:59:10

Mark

What do you.

00:15:59:11 – 00:15:59:18

Ryan

Think?

00:15:59:18 – 00:16:11:12

Mark

It motivates me to go in this direction? I’m just really curious. Like not a good soldier, as in your workout ethic, wasn’t there or you didn’t fall in line or you challenged the authority?

00:16:11:12 – 00:16:34:11

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, I definitely constantly challenged authority and people sometimes aware that as a badge of honor, but there’s an effective and a tactful way to push back against authority and then there’s just stupid rebelliousness. Looking back now, there were so many people who could have been mentors. So I think we’re trying to help. Yeah, but I was just too young and dumb and headstrong.

00:16:34:20 – 00:16:36:09

Mark

And thought you were going to win the argument.

00:16:36:23 – 00:16:38:05

Nick Beadleston

Right? Which how could that be?

00:16:38:06 – 00:16:47:07

Ryan

So you had to have had a reasonable expectation of the role of authority in any branch of the military.

00:16:47:07 – 00:16:54:01

Nick Beadleston

So was I don’t think I did. I don’t think no, I don’t think was the expectation was rude was any kind of reality.

00:16:54:06 – 00:17:06:16

Ryan

The Jakey movies in surplus that gave you maybe an expectation of maybe I’ll be the guy who kind of bucks the trend and gets to be the rebel, be the Bill Murray and Stripes and yeah.

00:17:07:04 – 00:17:24:05

Nick Beadleston

I don’t know what the fantasy was. And I should say I did two deployments. I worked very hard while I was in the military, but I still spend a lot of time thinking about and if I had made some different choices, could I have gotten more out of those those five years? Would I still be in?

00:17:24:09 – 00:17:32:07

Mark

Well, see, I was wondering if you’re more like Luke Wilson with is like you always said, lead, follow or get out of the way. So I got out of the way.

00:17:32:09 – 00:17:35:00

Nick Beadleston

The see reference. Yeah.

00:17:35:10 – 00:17:57:05

Ryan

Well, great. I mean that’s what I was trying to another kindred spirit moment, but that’s what I was trying to get to is, you know, you were clearly doing some significant things there. You had some significant learning. So this is kind of the dream we talked about that was clearly shattered. So then what was the plan and then what was the reality that presented itself?

00:17:57:20 – 00:18:21:11

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, and part of some of the self-deprecating nature of that comment, I don’t know if this fully comes across. I have great respect and reverence for those people that have the kind of fortitude and discipline to be career soldiers. Again, not a path that would work for me, but just hugely impressed by what people can do and what they have done for causes that they believe in.

00:18:22:07 – 00:18:58:21

Nick Beadleston

It was really interesting to be on the ground in places that you normally only hear about, read about, and to talk to civilians and to learn about what they were living through and what their experience was. And it really shook a lot of my core beliefs. I grew up in a blue collar Midwestern family and, you know, the people that I were interacting with were the other you know, I’d only seen them again in movies the other.

00:18:59:18 – 00:19:05:16

Ryan

And was that a concept that was known to you at the time, or did you affirm that at another period?

00:19:05:16 – 00:19:29:07

Nick Beadleston

No, no. I mean, there was certainly some lightning bolt revelations, particularly on my first deployment in Afghanistan when I was just out talking to people and realizing, Oh my God, I know somebody exactly like you back home. I know somebody exactly like you back home. Oh, we all I mean, it sounds super Kumbaya, but the personal revelation, because I think everyone has to experience this firsthand.

00:19:29:18 – 00:19:49:02

Nick Beadleston

Oh, holy shit. We’re all pretty much the same. We want the same things. There are really exciting, unique cultural differences that should be celebrated. But when you boil it all down, people want to be left the hell alone. They want their kids to have a better life than they had. They want to pursue their work, their art, their craft.

00:19:49:11 – 00:20:02:21

Ryan

No, that’s not to combine it at all. We put people are people over this segment. If we could afford it, the rights, that’s going to be a little bit out of our reach. So what’s brought you to Traverse City?

00:20:02:23 – 00:20:27:21

Nick Beadleston

Yeah. So when I got out of the military, I really wasn’t sure how the skills I had learned translated to the civilian world at all. I was a scout. And so, you know, unlike being a helicopter mechanic, it’s really not clear how you go about doing that in a very different kind of peaceful civilian environment. So bounced around for a little bit and spent some time in New York, which is an amazing city to visit.

00:20:28:03 – 00:20:29:09

Nick Beadleston

I couldn’t imagine living there.

00:20:29:20 – 00:20:42:14

Ryan

How soon after, you know, the last day of your time in the military, at least at that capacity, What is that like? I mean, I figured through thanks a lot. It seems like there should be more. But I think that there’s not.

00:20:42:14 – 00:21:03:03

Nick Beadleston

You know, both I and the Army were agreed that, you know, we would happily go see other people, that they weren’t sad to see me go. I was not sad to leave. I have much more gratitude in retrospect than I did at the time. Yeah, incredible gratitude for the life changing experiences, both the good and the bad. But yeah, leaving that, I mean, it’s not just a job.

00:21:03:03 – 00:21:22:16

Nick Beadleston

It’s very much an insular culture, you know, everyone’s experience is different. Mine I didn’t feel like I was particularly prepared to again leave that really insular culture and maybe other folks have a lot more support. But yeah, really just drifting mentally, drifting physically around the country. Yeah.

00:21:23:02 – 00:21:28:22

Ryan

New York, big place to go. And prior to this pursuit, you had experience as a writer and working in media.

00:21:29:13 – 00:21:31:05

Nick Beadleston

So that came after.

00:21:31:05 – 00:21:31:19

Ryan

Oh really?

00:21:32:02 – 00:21:37:08

Nick Beadleston

But part of the process of figuring out how do I take these skills that prior to your.

00:21:37:08 – 00:21:39:06

Ryan

Experience at Commonplace by my.

00:21:39:07 – 00:21:40:16

Nick Beadleston

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:21:40:16 – 00:21:55:03

Ryan

But, you know, so you clearly found your way into creativity. I mean, did you ever have Ted Turner ish aspirations in a way? Did you think creativity could be a sustainable career enterprise?

00:21:55:08 – 00:22:00:20

Nick Beadleston

I don’t know what I’m going to have later for dinner, and that’s about as far in advance as I generally plan.

00:22:01:04 – 00:22:02:08

Ryan

It sounds very artistic.

00:22:02:19 – 00:22:33:01

Nick Beadleston

Traditional way for Father. Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good point. I know exactly what I I’m gonna do. I’m going to go home and eat cold noodles while rocking my newborn. But yeah, no, I. I think I had an innate ability for communicating. I’ve always been able to string a couple of words together, but at my core, goddamn guys are diving deep at my core, I’m fundamentally really curious and really excited about stuff, and I just want to tell other people, This is so cool.

00:22:33:01 – 00:22:44:04

Nick Beadleston

I want you to know about this. I want everyone to know about this. And so any writing that I’ve ever done comes from that place. Here’s the thing I learned. I want you to know it, too.

00:22:44:10 – 00:23:05:04

Ryan

It’s like the heart of an entertainer in a way. You know, you want to connect. You want people to feel the joy that you feel, that it’s tangible, you’re shaken. You know, it’s like when you used to get to go into Toys R US when that was the thing, you’re like, Yes, I’m here. You tune the smells of it, the idea of the look of that, you know, giraffe and everything.

00:23:05:16 – 00:23:17:14

Ryan

But was there a transformative moment for you at all professionally that led you, do you think, to commonplace? Do you think was there one kind of lightning bolt that got you to this moment?

00:23:17:22 – 00:23:42:23

Nick Beadleston

Yeah. So shortly after, let me take a step back, New York for a little while. Again, great city to visit, very chaotic to live in. It turns out you don’t have to do everything all the time. Nobody, every you know. Yeah. I thought some time, 24 seven, I got to be there and thank God there illicit substances that at least for a short amount of time, allow you to try and go and do all of those things.

00:23:43:00 – 00:23:54:05

Ryan

Is that enough to propel any type of preconceived notion? But you were used to, I’m sure, a pretty 24 seven lifestyle. So adjusting back to what.

00:23:54:05 – 00:23:59:13

Nick Beadleston

Only comes later on, I why I moved to the Bronx and I know Spanish.

00:23:59:16 – 00:24:03:06

Ryan

To ask the obvious question but yeah, New York it’s big.

00:24:03:17 – 00:24:04:09

Nick Beadleston

It’s noisy.

00:24:04:09 – 00:24:11:10

Ryan

You drawn to to that was it was the idea of the Midwest you know almost repellent to you subconsciously.

00:24:11:17 – 00:24:28:01

Nick Beadleston

Yeah I’m sure it was I think the chaos was attractive. I’ve always again for reasons that any psychoanalysts could quickly figure out, I’ve always tried to that that type of chaos. I think there’s a lot of beauty in it. There’s a lot of potential in it. Yeah, I like the noise.

00:24:28:16 – 00:24:54:14

Ryan

And you could say that a lot of that is transferable into the professional world. The world of nonprofit, the world of groups and folks who have to work hard and where community and camaraderie is essential. Would you say community and camaraderie is essential in the spaces that you’re in or, you know, can you get by on the merits of other things?

00:24:54:14 – 00:24:59:03

Ryan

Can other, you know, competitors you know, try to get by on the merits of other things?

00:24:59:21 – 00:25:20:12

Nick Beadleston

I think people try that all the time, and it works for a little while. But if you’re competitive, advantage is flash. And as the niceness of the furniture, well, that’s really easy for other people to outcompete you. I just need to have a little bit more money to build something that’s just a little bit nicer. And it turns out all nice spaces do great over time.

00:25:20:16 – 00:25:24:01

Nick Beadleston

Right. So what do you have when the dean is gone?

00:25:25:04 – 00:25:44:04

Ryan

Well, you have to do something that is almost, in a way, unenviable and you have to do something that other businesses in a way have to do, is you have to cater to the tastes of so many, like a hotel. You know, you try to be as broad as you can, the ones that are super niche or super niche.

00:25:44:15 – 00:25:56:21

Ryan

So what is your philosophy there? You know, this is a unique area you’re drawing from, and we’ll get to that in a second. But what is your esthetic idea just off the bat, thinking about the website, thinking about how you present?

00:25:57:09 – 00:26:07:06

Nick Beadleston

So we recently had a breakfast for all of our members. We had everybody in a room that was way too small.

00:26:07:06 – 00:26:09:03

Ryan

Good way to make it look filled.

00:26:09:12 – 00:26:38:00

Nick Beadleston

It’s good though. Yeah, it is true. I had to run around and grab more tables and chairs. We made everybody waffles. We thought about having a catered, but we realized we’ve really got a home cooking crowd. And so we had a great facilitator who led those of our members who were able to be present. Not everybody could be there, but she led the group in conversations about what they expect to see out of a shared workspace, what sort of value do they want to see made manifest?

00:26:38:23 – 00:27:10:19

Nick Beadleston

How do they want to see conflicts resolved? What do they want to see Those norms and those expectations be? And one of the really clear things that came out of that session, because not everything was clear, you know, to your point there, people had differing opinions on some different fundamental things. But what was really clear is that our members want and expect to see a co-working space that exists for more than just the benefit and perpetuation of that space.

00:27:11:08 – 00:27:20:14

Nick Beadleston

They want a space that serves the broader community and what that looks like can and will mean a number of different things, sure.

00:27:21:03 – 00:27:34:16

Ryan

But you also have to cater and do cater to solo workers, folks who may have a working style that is a little more solitary. So how do you consider.

00:27:34:16 – 00:27:36:07

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, and this is a big.

00:27:36:07 – 00:27:45:08

Ryan

One, artistic people, you know, people who you would think would be part of the collective. So what’s the strategy there? What are the ideas?

00:27:45:08 – 00:28:19:01

Nick Beadleston

Continuing to talk about it. I know having a dialog is a little cliche, but cohabitation is a motherfucker. Yeah, yeah. And it requires constant communication and dialog because what I want to see as an extrovert that runs a co-working space isn’t necessarily what all of the members want to see. So one of the things that we’ve always talked a lot about, and most recently at this breakfast continue to talk about, is how do we within our space create norms around collective work and individual work?

00:28:19:18 – 00:28:40:21

Nick Beadleston

How do we make it okay for people to close their door, even though it’s a very, you know, sort of boisterous, friendly atmosphere to close their door and say, I’m on a deadline, man. I kind of get this grant and I have to, you know, land this client. And there’s no easy answer, but continuing to talk through it and work through it.

00:28:41:09 – 00:28:50:21

Nick Beadleston

It’s not just important for our space. It’s important for any collaborative environment, whether that’s within one organization or it’s, you know, a multiple organization space.

00:28:51:22 – 00:29:13:08

Ryan

Well, thinking about the interpersonal as in talking to you, it sounds pretty joyous, but there probably have to be moments where people are missing. They’re not collaborating correctly or in the way that everybody would like. So is that something that is in your purview and things that you have to deal with in any way? Or does it come up?

00:29:13:10 – 00:29:38:12

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, I have to be real careful when answering, you know, a question that’s been addressed multiple times in our emails and our communication. What do you mean you don’t know that we’ve made that so clear to you. Yeah. And so it’s really important to take a step back and realize that, again, our members are not homogenous. Different people need different things and they need different things at different times.

00:29:39:02 – 00:30:04:02

Nick Beadleston

And while common Place is one of the most important things in my life, aside from family and some other really important projects in the community, it’s not the number one priority for everybody who’s showing up. We hope that it’s more than just a transactional relationship. Both, you know, they pay us X amount of dollars, we give them X amount of square feet.

00:30:04:03 – 00:30:10:18

Nick Beadleston

We hope it goes beyond that. But we are providing a service for people.

00:30:11:22 – 00:30:16:16

Ryan

You you are the first executive director for Commonplace, is that correct? Officially.

00:30:17:02 – 00:30:22:12

Nick Beadleston

It officially, sure, but commonplace was you’re very modest.

00:30:22:15 – 00:30:37:11

Ryan

I mean, can I just say it and you can just nod or we can just say that you acquiesced with the head motion. So can you talk a little bit about the structure of the staffing and who you have on staff or volunteers? And after that, having said that, is it optimal right now?

00:30:38:04 – 00:31:10:16

Nick Beadleston

Yeah. So I want to first start by talking about the origins of the organization. And earlier we talked about the first physical space that we inhabited, but commonplace was very much the creation of Kate Rudman, a very good friend and mentor and a number of other community members that all came together to design the space. There were exhaustive conversations with people in the community about what they would want to see out of a collaborative workspace.

00:31:10:16 – 00:31:34:02

Nick Beadleston

Many of those folks came from the nonprofit world, but it certainly wasn’t exclusively nonprofit people. Yeah, And so Kate is still on the board of Common Place. She’s still very much involved in providing that mentorship and some of those values, holding space for those values and some of those ethos, especially when I’m, you know, looking at an annual budget and having to make tough decisions.

00:31:34:02 – 00:31:35:23

Nick Beadleston

She’s a fantastic moral compass.

00:31:35:23 – 00:31:51:15

Ryan

For you talked about, you know, the desire for this. And so you obviously had that engagement with Traverse City in the area and then the public, you know, Traverse City seems like a shoo in for this kind of thing. But was it always a guarantee or was there ever any moment of a doubt like, is there an.

00:31:51:15 – 00:31:53:21

Nick Beadleston

Every goddamn day? Really?

00:31:54:12 – 00:31:55:03

Ryan

Really.

00:31:55:09 – 00:32:16:21

Nick Beadleston

Yeah. It’s one thing for a lot of people to stand up and say they want something. It’s another to continue to write. I think this is a challenge that every coworking operator has. Other members say we want more events, we want more opportunities to be together. And then on that Wednesday night. Come on, guys. Come on, come on.

00:32:17:09 – 00:32:17:21

Ryan

Get out.

00:32:17:21 – 00:32:19:09

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, right. That’s got.

00:32:19:09 – 00:32:19:20

Ryan

Something.

00:32:20:01 – 00:32:54:10

Nick Beadleston

And then, you know, there are legitimate reasons because people’s time is precious and there are a lot of demands on people’s time. So earlier when I talked about all the work that goes into building a culture that is really attractive to people, that’s where we’re so much of that time goes into. It’s also if people aren’t always showing up in the ways that we hope they would, where we failing them, where we not providing sufficient value.

00:32:55:13 – 00:33:19:13

Nick Beadleston

At the end of the day, it’s any organization’s fault, be they nonprofit or for profit, not their fault, but ultimate responsibility lands with them. Right? Did you start producing a product? No one really wants because you fell in love with that? Are you offering a service that no one really wants because you didn’t do the hard work of having those initial and ongoing conversations with the people that you want to serve?

00:33:19:23 – 00:33:24:03

Nick Beadleston

Right? It’s also really hard when your feedback that you don’t want to hear, but in.

00:33:24:03 – 00:33:44:19

Ryan

Order for you’re really passionate, you know, and you believe it and you and to the point of insanity, everybody else is wrong, you know? And then it’s better maybe to try and fail or to have the research and do the right thing and put that energy in a trajectory that’s going to deal the positive result, if you can.

00:33:45:08 – 00:34:00:07

Nick Beadleston

Who’s the work for ultimately, Right? This isn’t for one individual or a small group of individuals, or is it in service of something bigger and broader? Yeah. And if it really is in service of something bigger and broader, yeah, you have to continually do the work to.

00:34:00:07 – 00:34:17:21

Ryan

Make it find its way in the right ways. Well, you talked about engagement, I think is you were saying, and ultimately if somebody is not engaged, that’s the organization’s responsibility. So for you, what do you see as the best first step in trying to get somebody reengaged?

00:34:18:03 – 00:34:49:08

Nick Beadleston

It’s absolutely interpersonal and it’s it’s coffee, man. We have so many great local coffee shops. One of the best parts of my job. If I could only do one thing in my role, it would just be to have coffee constantly with all of our members. I learn so much about them and so much about what they’re doing and what we can help provide them with, how we can help support them again, beyond just providing that physical space.

00:34:49:22 – 00:35:05:08

Nick Beadleston

Oh, you’re working on X, Y, and Z. Oh my God. I got to connect you to this person and this person or you’re struggling with this professionally, personally, you know, to the degree that it’s helpful. Yeah, I’m I’m there to talk about it. Yeah.

00:35:06:01 – 00:35:17:22

Ryan

Well, you’re clearly very engaged, and it must take a lot of time to be this engaged. So how many employees do you have? You have a group of people who reports to you and where are your responsibilities there?

00:35:18:04 – 00:35:55:07

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, I have at this point, one part time staffer who is our community manager. She does a fantastic job. She’s stepped into the role within the past six months, but you would never know that she hasn’t been there for years. We’re also starting to contract out more services, communications, things like that, things that yeah, I do it, my growing team could do it, but there are some really sharp people out there and I would rather go earn and raise the money to pay an expert to do it than intend you to.

00:35:55:07 – 00:36:17:22

Ryan

And that’s an interesting position to have to be in as a leader of an organization going, Well, if I want this, you know, most others have to put a case together for it, make sure there’s adequate funds in the budget for that. And there you go. But you just said you have to find out how to get that money somehow and the best way possible in the quickest way possible.

00:36:17:22 – 00:36:19:07

Ryan

And hopefully it works out.

00:36:19:15 – 00:36:57:18

Nick Beadleston

Yeah. Something interesting you said the quickest way possible. All small businesses have this. There’s there’s a sense of urgency. The relationships that sustain an organization long term are not formed quickly. And one of the biggest challenges for a lot of nonprofits or for, you know, for profits that are seeking meaningful long term investment is fighting that urge to rush to ask for the upfront cash rather than really building that deep and impactful relationship that can sustain important work long term, which is easy to say, super hard.

00:36:57:18 – 00:37:03:17

Nick Beadleston

You know, looking at a scary balance sheet at the end of the month. Wow. At the end of the year, yeah.

00:37:04:03 – 00:37:22:21

Ryan

I mean, that’s almost its own economic as it relates to this sort of work podcast. I mean, there’s so many different ways that you can be, you know, you’re beholden to a board at the end of the day. Correct. And so what I think you do Bored.

00:37:22:21 – 00:37:42:17

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, But more importantly, and I think our board and I’m happy to talk about the awesome folks that we have on the board, but ultimately we are certainly beholden to our members. The board is there and they would all say this. They’re there to support the work that the staff do to bring value to members. So I don’t worry.

00:37:42:17 – 00:37:47:09

Nick Beadleston

I don’t lose sleep about what my board members are going to say. I do lose sleep about what our members are going to say.

00:37:47:17 – 00:38:06:09

Ryan

That is phenomenal and we’re going to get to this. But what is just a key for you in successfully engaging a board and how are you being able to say what you just said? Because it’s contrary to a lot of what we hear on this show, too. A lot of what you may hear like, oh, the board, it’s really difficult.

00:38:06:09 – 00:38:17:17

Ryan

And and I get the passion about your members, your guests, who really and hopefully the board knows that that pays the bills. But just what do you have a key to getting to the place that you’re in because you look really Zen when you said it.

00:38:18:07 – 00:38:46:02

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, I do have to remind our board sometimes what pays the bills. So there’s a little work still. Oh, my God. Every everyone does. But. But all important relationships require a lot of maintenance and trust and support. Our organization. And we actually just had our last meeting for the year, a few of our longstanding board members who really stood by the organization during the pandemic have stepped off.

00:38:46:11 – 00:39:08:19

Nick Beadleston

And we have some more folks coming on. One of the things I’m really looking forward to in January and February is that we’re going to go into strategic planning for the first time in quite a few years. We now have two spaces Our role and the value that we provide our community is expanding and it’s really time to sit down and think about what the long term future of the organization looks like.

00:39:08:20 – 00:39:26:21

Nick Beadleston

Right? So our strategic planning is going to take place over the course of a couple of days. We’re going to go spend some time right on little traverse and some cabins. We’ve got some great facilitators coming in to help with the process. We’re going to hash stuff out all day and then a night. We’re going to cook together.

00:39:26:21 – 00:39:52:08

Nick Beadleston

We’re going to have some beers around the campfire, wake up in the morning, probably do a cold plunge in Little Traverse, which is terrible because it’s only like knee deep for five miles out. And then we’re going to get back at it. That’s the kind of relationship that I want to have with the board. Yeah, they are mentors and advisors and they are friends and that’s not the relationship that everyone is lucky enough to have with their board.

00:39:52:21 – 00:39:57:23

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, and when I say friends, I don’t mean supportive at all costs. These are very critical friends.

00:39:58:03 – 00:40:21:00

Ryan

And real friends, you know, should be critical when they need to be critical. So that’s it’s still a great metaphor. Well, from the website, if I may get corny, the guiding principles, positive belief, kindness, generosity, joy and appreciation, where did that come from and why are those important to what you do? Because it could be seen as Why would you have that?

00:40:21:00 – 00:40:33:02

Ryan

You have this, you know, space where you just try to police people to make sure they’re not stealing pens from one another. Why was it important to have guiding principles? Why was it important to have a culture at all?

00:40:33:20 – 00:40:58:00

Nick Beadleston

I don’t think any space I mean, even more broadly, any organization can be successful without a really good culture. I think a lot of organizations are comfortable picking a set of core values off of a sheet because some consultant told them they’re supposed to do that and that’s it. You know, they’re on the website and that’s really the only place that they show up.

00:40:58:21 – 00:41:20:15

Nick Beadleston

And it really is important for us to continually live those values and to test those values. And one thing that we’ve not done a good enough job over the past couple of years is check in with our members and say, are we living up to some of these espouse values? And that’s something we’re starting to do more and more.

00:41:20:15 – 00:41:21:16

Nick Beadleston

We’ll get really.

00:41:21:16 – 00:41:43:18

Ryan

Aware of the values are they. You know, I envision again, you seemed to have brought them into your heart, your business heart as employees almost. So, you know, employees sometimes carry a little card of their company’s values. You know, how is it clear to the members, you know, what you stand for and how do you use that as a tool to gain, you know, more members?

00:41:43:18 – 00:41:49:04

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, having a card and our their values on it. It sounds terrible. I’ve been there.

00:41:49:05 – 00:41:51:07

Ryan

I guess they work at places that did that, you know.

00:41:51:08 – 00:41:53:22

Nick Beadleston

Here’s how you know what we stand for and we put it on a card.

00:41:53:22 – 00:42:03:22

Ryan

You know, somebody would come up, your general manager would be like, What’s the core value? Five? And if you didn’t recite it well, it’s going to sound reminiscent of a military and it at times felt that way.

00:42:03:22 – 00:42:04:17

Nick Beadleston

Yeah.

00:42:04:22 – 00:42:06:20

Mark

How many pieces of flair do you have on your back?

00:42:06:21 – 00:42:08:15

Ryan

Yeah, exactly. The flair principle.

00:42:10:04 – 00:42:18:12

Nick Beadleston

Oh, man, I’ve thought a lot about this, and I’ve actually thought about not posting our values or any kind of values because I.

00:42:20:07 – 00:42:21:11

Ryan

Just where this is going.

00:42:21:11 – 00:42:40:10

Nick Beadleston

This is rambly and unfounded. I love this, but I feel like as soon as you same thing with a mission statement, same thing as a vision. I think these are really powerful tools to motivate a team internally. But I also feel like as soon as you put that shit on your website and then you can just lean on it, you can lean on the rhetoric.

00:42:40:23 – 00:43:04:20

Nick Beadleston

I feel the same thing about accessibility and inclusivity statements. And again, I understand the intention and the value that those can bring. But if you have to say we’re open and welcoming of all people, you kind of miss the point. Everyone should in your community should know that they should know them by the work that you do. They should know that by how you show up and how other people show up.

00:43:04:20 – 00:43:07:13

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, within your space, within your organization.

00:43:08:08 – 00:43:33:19

Ryan

It’s interesting because some people on the other side of it see it printed and think that’s bullshit. Anybody can print that on their website. So you’re always trying to defend your principles in a way, although that’s not what it’s meant for. It’s meant in the way you articulate. It was wonderful in that it’s a feeling, but you’re trying to convey it to again, all these different people who have different needs for their spaces.

00:43:34:06 – 00:43:47:10

Ryan

Or it may be this one person who has their own need. So again, you still are trying to convey that. And do you think you’re successful on a daily basis, or how are you checking your success in that regard?

00:43:47:20 – 00:44:23:07

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, we’re not above having sayings and platitudes posted on our walls, which is a staple of all co-working spaces everywhere. We’ve got a number of quotes from both Stephen Johnson, particularly from his work, where good ideas come from, and then a lot of quotes from Adrian Marie Brown and her work, Emergent Strategies and we’ve got at least one member who, you know, after walking through the space and chatting with me, said part of the reason I’m here is because I walked in and saw that Adrian Brown quote and thought, Oh, yeah, okay, this space is for me.

00:44:24:10 – 00:44:36:13

Nick Beadleston

So there is a value to some of that stuff. So I don’t mean to discount that, but we don’t have the same fucking Steve Jobs quotes that, you know, a lot of co-working spaces have.

00:44:36:18 – 00:44:56:20

Ryan

I think she said to her quote and talks about potential and it’s phenomenal. And you know, it’s not super obvious either. It’s not just thrown at your face when you get on to the website, but again, as an organization doing what you do, you have to think about marketing, You have to think about all this stuff.

00:44:56:20 – 00:45:00:14

Nick Beadleston

So a great communication consultant pushing me on a lot of that right now.

00:45:00:23 – 00:45:18:18

Ryan

But, you know, again, you very clearly want something real and tangible. But again, there’s a business they have to balance and a balance sheet that you, you know, just talked about. So what’s the hardest part about that duality for you? What’s the hardest part about those two things? Or is there.

00:45:19:01 – 00:45:49:00

Nick Beadleston

Oh, no, no. It’s it’s embracing abundance and not falling prey to a scarcity mindset. We live in an incredibly rich community, and there’s enough. There’s absolutely enough. We could easily fill five more co-working spaces. So when I look on LinkedIn and see something that’s happening somewhere else, then I start to feel, you know, I sort of feel that the elbows coming out, Goddammit, why is it happening not here?

00:45:49:00 – 00:45:52:16

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, it’s and we’re all subject to that. But that’s absent.

00:45:52:16 – 00:45:56:07

Ryan

That’s strong mentality. That’s a lot of drive, you know leaders.

00:45:56:19 – 00:46:02:05

Nick Beadleston

And it’s a practice man. I’m sure I’m not particularly good at it, but it’s been.

00:46:02:05 – 00:46:06:19

Ryan

Would you call yourself kind of fanatical about the success of what you’re doing?

00:46:07:18 – 00:46:46:05

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, in a certain way, because there are definitely different kinds of success and some metrics for a successful organization, for a successful coworking space. Achieving those metrics require sacrificing other things to meet some of those metrics for success. They require a finite mindset, and it’s so easy to snap into a finite mindset, right? And having an infinite mindset and again, thinking about acknowledging an abundance rather than scarcity is just it is a constant practice because we’re not hardwired for it, right?

00:46:46:05 – 00:46:50:06

Nick Beadleston

Even if it is a universal truth. And there’s enough. Yeah.

00:46:50:15 – 00:47:07:21

Ryan

Well, it’s a wonderful concept to articulate occasionally, you know, it’s not always the land of plenty and everybody’s eyes, but looking back internally to all the things that you’ve accomplished, what are you proudest up to at this point and why is it making Lewis Black laugh?

00:47:07:21 – 00:47:26:08

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, that was a big one. I definitely accosted him out behind the theater here in town. He was not very smooth. He was not happy to answer. He just wanted to get the hell out of town. Yeah, my my joke to Lewis Black was Mr. Black, I’m a huge fan. I’ve now seen you in to third world countries.

00:47:26:14 – 00:47:37:01

Nick Beadleston

I saw you in Baghdad on a USO tour, and I saw you in Joliet, Illinois. Oh, nice. Where I was born and raised. And so that that at least got a chuckle out of him.

00:47:37:01 – 00:47:44:00

Ryan

Well, you know, I was born in lesser mean streets of awe, born in Chicago, but raised in the northwest suburbs of Binghamton.

00:47:44:15 – 00:47:47:12

Nick Beadleston

So I’m sorry. I didn’t get I’m sorry. But now you’re here.

00:47:47:14 – 00:47:56:09

Ryan

Yeah, we’re in a really, really cool place. But do you think about that? What are you professionally most proud of or personally most proud of? There’s that whole place for you.

00:47:56:09 – 00:48:17:17

Nick Beadleston

As we record this, we’re sliding into the end of the year, and this is a traditional time for reflecting on things like that. And it’s it is something that I don’t do a good enough job reflecting on. Like a lot of folks, I tend to spend more time thinking about how that could have been done better or, you know, man of I just made different choices.

00:48:17:17 – 00:48:37:00

Nick Beadleston

Or if I had, you know, if, if, if and that’s good self-reflection. Internalizing is really important for growth. But I don’t hold enough space for what’s been done. Well, what I’m proud of, we were chatting before the mics heated up. Then I’ve got a week and a half old kid.

00:48:37:11 – 00:48:38:05

Ryan

Yes, you do.

00:48:38:06 – 00:48:57:04

Nick Beadleston

And you know, it’s the obligatory answer to say that you’re super proud of your family. But I Yeah, I really. I really am. It’s, you know, there’s a billion of us. So in some ways, it’s not that big of a deal. But my wife and I, it’s, you know, one of the most important things.

00:48:57:04 – 00:48:58:01

Ryan

That the bigger picture.

00:48:58:04 – 00:48:59:13

Nick Beadleston

And so yeah I yeah.

00:48:59:14 – 00:49:02:21

Ryan

They’re taking humility to the nth degree there but that’s okay.

00:49:03:15 – 00:49:11:02

Nick Beadleston

Oh you should see me around the kid I she is the smartest, best, most capable person. She’s already the president.

00:49:11:15 – 00:49:25:14

Ryan

Well so that’s obviously something motivates you and you see that and maybe it gives perspective. Does that give a different perspective? Does fatherhood this new fatherhood give a different perspective on your work in any way?

00:49:26:11 – 00:49:54:02

Nick Beadleston

One of the things that I most love about my daughter is the future potential. At this point. I’ve been calling her our little lobster mochi because she is red and wrinkled and she’s, you know, just this creamy little blob. But I get so incredibly excited thinking about who she’s going to become and and the work that that I and others are doing to continue to push our community forward.

00:49:54:02 – 00:50:24:13

Nick Beadleston

I’m really excited to think about the town that she’s going to grow up in and she’s going to face a whole new set of challenges. But she will be equipped for those challenges, not just because of how my wife and I raise her, but because of the group people that we’re going to raise her with and around. Yeah, she’s going to see us participating in a community that we weren’t born and raised in but are very much a part of.

00:50:24:13 – 00:50:26:16

Nick Beadleston

And I’ve worked really hard to be a part of. Yeah.

00:50:27:12 – 00:50:50:20

Ryan

And that’s a lovely message. Yeah. When you think about how many people from different backgrounds are in our community, you may look from the outside and think, Well, we’re so homogenous and everybody from Michigan, everybody is just from Michigan. And that seems to be this ubiquitous term. I’m finding more and more lately in comedy for Midwestern people are saying Michigan, they used to be like Chicago or Illinois, if you just talked about that.

00:50:50:20 – 00:51:11:22

Ryan

But that’s the synonymous term with Midwesterner, which is okay. But thinking about your upbringing and professionally, did you receive advice along the way about your future from anybody that seemed insane, that turned out to be true and surprised you?

00:51:13:04 – 00:51:20:13

Nick Beadleston

That’s such a good question, and I will have the perfect answer for that, too.

00:51:20:13 – 00:51:45:21

Ryan

AM It’s one of those two questions, is it? I’ve heard that before. It’s not when I ask all the time. But what I’m trying to get at is I think people are interested in knowing what makes successful leaders and people who are doing good. Successful because you have this balance. You have to balance a business, you have to balance, you know, it’s easy to talk about feeling good and creating togetherness when you’re able to do it.

00:51:46:06 – 00:52:05:20

Ryan

But I also like people from like from your background who has this uniqueness. I have to feel along the way, somebody said something to you when you weren’t listening to authority and you’re like reflecting on it. Maybe it’s who I am and what man. I put that into play at work today from that person.

00:52:06:04 – 00:52:32:13

Nick Beadleston

I think it’s less what people have said and more about what they’ve done. So we, especially in the past couple of years, you know, we really idolize, let’s say, Navy SEALs, for example, you know, there were some movies that that came out. The real popular Everybody loves Special Forces. The reason they’re so incredibly competent and capable is not because they’re made up of a bunch.

00:52:32:16 – 00:53:00:15

Nick Beadleston

And Jean-Claude Van Damme’s, it’s because they do the little things over and over and over again, and they do it with such discipline and rapidity, even when they’re tired, even when they don’t want to, even when it’s so easy to make excuses about why you shouldn’t do another 2 hours of very boring up down drills. And I find that incredibly inspiring.

00:53:01:10 – 00:53:23:19

Nick Beadleston

I also think about Zingerman’s, a great started off as a deli out of Ann Arbor, and they’re now multi, multi-million dollar business. They’re known for their customer service and for their really incredible food. Yeah, and one of their founders, Ari, one of his 12th laws of business is do the things that other people know they should do but don’t.

00:53:25:05 – 00:53:57:11

Nick Beadleston

And it’s there’s no real secret sauce, I think, to to leadership or to performance or other things. It’s really easy and frankly, lazy to take a look at some of those outliers like Steve Jobs. Yeah, those people totally exist. But really what’s much more common in incredible leaders and not just leaders, but people that get shit done is they show up and they know what they’re supposed to do and they just do it and they don’t make the excuses.

00:53:57:11 – 00:54:16:14

Nick Beadleston

They do the reps. They have those uncomfortable conversations face to face. Wouldn’t it be easier to just send an email or let their staff worry about it? So I’m rambling a little bit, but I think it’s actions over inspiring words that have most impacted me.

00:54:17:06 – 00:54:26:20

Ryan

Well, I mean, I think, you know, the act of rambling precludes not having a point veering off. That was very cogent and it had a great point.

00:54:26:20 – 00:54:28:11

Nick Beadleston

And glad it sounded that way to one of us.

00:54:28:14 – 00:55:00:01

Ryan

Well, no, no. I mean, it resonated with me because I’m feeling that, you know, your time in the military, you know, all these other experiences that you’ve had have culminated in a really great fit for what your members are looking for in all of this. But what is the most fun you get to have in the day? And I don’t mean, you know, like fun in a silly way, like bringing cupcakes to the team, but what’s something that literally gives your heart joy about your business day?

00:55:01:16 – 00:55:28:06

Nick Beadleston

It is collaboration. I know that about myself. I cannot work in a vacuum. I can’t remember if we talked about it early or not. I worked in print media for some years and being that raucous, chaotic bullpen, bouncing ideas back and forth, being challenged by editors and being made sharper and better by editors through a collaborative, sometimes violent, collaborative process.

00:55:28:19 – 00:55:50:01

Nick Beadleston

That’s what I love. I love working with other people and being challenged by other people and pushing back in that there’s just that interplay that I find so it’s not even sufficient to call it fun because I just I can’t exist without it. I need that collaborative environment, right?

00:55:50:10 – 00:56:01:02

Ryan

So you don’t have to lean on the one thing you’re looking forward to that day. It’s a lot of things you look forward to and we did skip over a little bit The notion of your time in media and.

00:56:01:07 – 00:56:04:14

Nick Beadleston

In talking about New York. I was only there for six months. I don’t know why I kept going.

00:56:04:14 – 00:56:24:21

Ryan

It’s still it’s still impressive because, you know, you needed that to acclimate and get you here, which is that’s part of your journey. But when you think about your your leadership style, what do you think your defining characteristic is as a leader and what do you think most leaders can improve upon?

00:56:24:21 – 00:56:44:20

Nick Beadleston

Well, I’ll start with the second part, because I know I know what I can improve on. And this is so much has been written about this. This is a classic leadership trap. But I’m working to have more trust and to micromanage less. I think a lot of leaders who micromanage will acknowledge that they do it, but then the follow up question is great.

00:56:44:20 – 00:57:06:00

Nick Beadleston

What are you what are you doing about that? And it people make lots of excuses, but at the end of the day, it is fundamentally about trust and doing some important self work to figure out why you don’t have that trust naturally, particularly if you have a great team, which so many leaders do. If you don’t have a great team, fire them and go get a great team.

00:57:06:02 – 00:57:07:11

Nick Beadleston

So there’s certainly out there.

00:57:07:13 – 00:57:07:22

Ryan

Yeah.

00:57:09:04 – 00:57:24:13

Nick Beadleston

But yeah, that trust and I know I’m a broken record, but embracing that abundance mindset, not falling prey to scarcity because that that crops up so many ways philosophy is clear but also very operationally.

00:57:24:14 – 00:57:33:12

Ryan

Right in this keeps you a mycelium from mission driven business. This is attributed to you. Is that not? You recall saying.

00:57:33:13 – 00:57:34:14

Nick Beadleston

Oh yeah, yeah.

00:57:34:17 – 00:57:43:10

Ryan

I think it’s fascinating, you know, a root structure and I’m very visual, so it created something. Do you have is that something that you’ve woven into your personal philosophy?

00:57:43:10 – 00:57:56:23

Nick Beadleston

The mushrooms are insane. I when I think about what I want to grow. Yeah. Oh, my God. Well, when I think about what I want to be when I grow up is a mushroom. They’re just. They’re incredible organisms.

00:57:56:23 – 00:58:00:07

Ryan

You play a lot of Super Mario or do you? Because that’s a.

00:58:00:23 – 00:58:01:21

Nick Beadleston

Lot of mushrooms.

00:58:01:21 – 00:58:04:21

Ryan

Mushroom, fungus, you know, so to your point, right?

00:58:05:16 – 00:58:46:22

Nick Beadleston

Yeah. And that’s a very cartoonish, infantilized version of, you know, what an incredible the role that they play within any ecosystem and ecosystem right now is a very popular term. And I, I would assume that nine 85% of people that love to use the word ecosystem don’t understand ecology and can tell you much about an actual ecosystem. I during the pandemic, like a lot of people, took up gardening and I’ve learned so much and grown so much in a professional sense from learning about soil composition, learning about my ecology, because there are just so many analogies to community building, to organizational development.

00:58:48:04 – 00:59:14:12

Nick Beadleston

And when a fungus, one of my cilia it remediate a toxin from a soil, it doesn’t just pull that bad stuff out, it actually transmutes that toxin into viable nutrients. And that’s just an incredible metaphor for community building. You know, just get to pull the bad stuff out. That bad stuff isn’t even bad. It has a purpose. It has a function within the ecosystem.

00:59:15:04 – 00:59:31:10

Nick Beadleston

And so what can you do to transmuted from something that’s causing pain to something that’s productive, something that can be taken up, you know, by the neighboring root system? Yeah. Something that the whole community can benefit from.

00:59:31:11 – 01:00:07:02

Mark

Yeah. He’s made me think about people’s misconception of sustainability as well and that when you just said that like every invasive comes from somewhere, has its indigenous roots somewhere and has its purpose. But you know, when I catch a neighbor planting bamboo because it’s like, yeah, grow is really easy to set up a lot of stuff with a lot of it and it’s like, Yeah, but if you plant bamboo right now, you know, it will grow, it will take over and I could plan it here.

01:00:07:02 – 01:00:35:09

Mark

And if you live three blocks from me, the root system will have bamboo growing in your yard and we could destroy the neighborhood. So, you know. Yeah, a good quick growing plant. But think about what you’re doing. General Mills sending flowering seeds and they’re boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios and then quickly realizing they were sending, like, certain seeds to areas that should not be planted there because they will take over a week.

01:00:35:09 – 01:00:35:18

Ryan

Now.

01:00:36:09 – 01:01:01:01

Nick Beadleston

It comes from a fundamental messonnier standing and misattribution of how much impact any individual can have. And again, this is nothing new, but those folks that are planning the bamboo, those folks that are burning their garbage, you know? Well, it’s just I mean, we’ve got a whole planet. It’s not that big of a deal. I’m not causing that much of an impact.

01:01:01:15 – 01:01:21:00

Nick Beadleston

I think it’s really scary for people to think about the incredible negative or frankly, positive impacts that they can be having. Because once people fully understand what impacts they’re capable of, then they’re sort of on the hook for making those things happen or not making them happen. And that’s that’s scary for a lot of folks.

01:01:21:17 – 01:01:54:21

Ryan

Well, you’re attributed as saying on your LinkedIn profile, your raison d’etre is to support those businesses and industries which are awakening to their incalculable potential for social good. And that really stood out to me because, again, you seem like your missions and everything that drives you is very altruistic. You know, you’re always, always giving to others. And so I want to know, one, are you sated by your day to day for this, or do you seek other things and other ways to improve?

01:01:55:02 – 01:02:02:18

Ryan

And then how do you spend time kind of keeping yourself worked on and motivating yourself? Because a lot of time has to be spent doing what you’re doing?

01:02:03:16 – 01:02:27:02

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, like we talked about earlier, I am kept motivated by being around other people that I really respect and want to emulate. There are so many examples in this community specifically, but in other parts of Michigan, all over the country, all over the world that I stay in contact with. And, and I’m fueled by the good work that they’re doing.

01:02:27:02 – 01:03:01:18

Nick Beadleston

And so I do idolize some of these people. And I always think, oh, man, how can I get to that next level of impact? One of the things I’ve been thinking about more lately is that I do think it seems great to say that it’s all altruistic, but really impact is just scorekeeping by another metric. And so in the same way that you can never be satisfied with making enough money, it’s also possible that you can never be satisfied with the level of impact that you’re having.

01:03:02:15 – 01:03:15:03

Nick Beadleston

So one of the things that I think I’m going to have to work in the next couple of years is being satiated, being being sated by a certain amount of of efficacy and impact.

01:03:15:03 – 01:03:22:16

Ryan

Is that trending towards obsession? Is that is that a word that that’s valid about even there internally for you or.

01:03:23:03 – 01:03:51:02

Nick Beadleston

I mean, I certainly use much kinder if it’s in my head, but yeah, it does border on obsession. And the problem with that is that I will always fall short of that idealistic picture, which means, you know, I’ll never be happy, which paradoxically means I will never be as effective as I want to be. You can’t be miserable and be effective, or at least not for very long and at all saying it out loud.

01:03:51:02 – 01:04:02:08

Nick Beadleston

It sounds just crazy, fucking grandiose. So there is some egotism behind all of it and that that probably warrants further self discovery.

01:04:02:14 – 01:04:32:02

Ryan

There’s there’s common themes, you know, on this show we have guests who are all very for others by nature of what they do. And I’m fascinated by the things that drive them. And there a certain level of dedication and and giving to others So often I’m always interested in what you afford yourself as well, what you’re for. Those around you, what time that you have to afford anything to yourself with a brand new baby girl at home and all those new responsibilities.

01:04:32:02 – 01:04:46:11

Ryan

But I have one final question for you, and hopefully it’s not too deep and not too heavy. And, you know, you sometimes save things for the end for reasons, but what is your favorite? Werner Herzog film and his McClure’s the best pickle juice.

01:04:47:16 – 01:04:52:10

Nick Beadleston

You know, if he did a documentary about Pickles, I think that would really that would be.

01:04:52:18 – 01:04:53:10

Ryan

Interesting it’d.

01:04:53:10 – 01:05:06:09

Nick Beadleston

Be a very dark documentary about about the history of pickles staring into the abyss of the empty jar. Yeah. I love Werner Herzog.

01:05:06:17 – 01:05:10:08

Ryan

I’m sorry I butchered his name. I love him as well as one.

01:05:10:08 – 01:05:13:09

Mark

Going to ask you, is this why you were so excited I had this interview?

01:05:13:11 – 01:05:25:07

Ryan

No, no, I just I had we have questions for our guest, and I wanted to end with his favorite Werner Herzog film or performance. And is the question, is McClure’s the best pickle juice?

01:05:25:15 – 01:05:47:07

Nick Beadleston

Yeah. So his best documentary is, Oh, my God. Now I’m blanking on the name, but it’s about McMurdo Base in Antarctica. It’s everything you’d expect out of a film. It’s, you know, sweeping, sweeping landscapes. And, you know, again, his morose, dramatic narration.

01:05:48:02 – 01:05:49:18

Mark

Encounters at the end of the world.

01:05:49:20 – 01:06:01:21

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, that’s it okay. He also has a cameo on Parks and Rec, which is phenomenal because it’s such a funny, upbeat, lighthearted show. And then Werner Herzog is just, you know, I.

01:06:01:21 – 01:06:06:14

Ryan

Mean, you know, he’s he’s in the world of Star Wars cannon now.

01:06:07:13 – 01:06:08:05

Nick Beadleston

Oh, yeah.

01:06:08:15 – 01:06:14:17

Ryan

Yeah. I mean, he’s interesting and. McClure’s is that the best pickle juice?

01:06:14:17 – 01:06:23:04

Nick Beadleston

There are a lot of pickles out there. There are so many pickles I haven’t even tried yet. I’m excited about the potential of all the amazing.

01:06:23:04 – 01:06:24:03

Ryan

So you’re not ready to.

01:06:24:09 – 01:06:25:14

Nick Beadleston

That are out there? Yeah. Okay.

01:06:25:20 – 01:06:27:20

Ryan

No, I wouldn’t want to commit to it either.

01:06:27:20 – 01:06:33:20

Nick Beadleston

I just need, like, another 150 years to figure it out definitively. Perfect. What is the best?

01:06:33:20 – 01:06:36:20

Ryan

Well, ironically, you know, pickling is the way to go.

01:06:37:04 – 01:06:40:23

Mark

Yeah, I was going to say. Well, what was. What was Seth Rogen in?

01:06:41:03 – 01:06:41:18

Ryan

Oh, yeah.

01:06:42:06 – 01:06:42:14

Nick Beadleston

Pickles.

01:06:42:22 – 01:06:45:07

Ryan

Actually. Pretty good film. That’s not what this is about.

01:06:45:09 – 01:06:46:11

Nick Beadleston

Based on hard science.

01:06:46:11 – 01:06:49:22

Mark

But right loose what I thought it was.

01:06:50:22 – 01:07:03:02

Ryan

Well, where can listeners support you get information about commonplace support first get information and what can anybody do? Volunteer donations, anything like that.

01:07:03:17 – 01:07:27:13

Nick Beadleston

Yeah I think at this point going through our website commonplace work dot org is going to be the best way to learn about certainly what we have available through our physical space. We’re always looking for folks that want to rent offices, folks that want dedicated desks, folks that just need a place to work from, you know, maybe a few days or even a few hours a week.

01:07:28:06 – 01:07:54:18

Nick Beadleston

And growing that family of people that use our space is really a way to enrich, certainly our immediate community and then more broadly, our full community. So I think yeah, I think that’s one way to go about it. My email. Nick at commonplace work story My loving wife is going to murder me, but my cell phone is 7193679168.

01:07:55:23 – 01:07:59:00

Nick Beadleston

Yeah, we’ve got a newborn, so we’re not sleeping anyway. Give me a call. You know.

01:07:59:06 – 01:08:04:14

Ryan

It’s that kind of dedication. And I’m sorry. I call that obsession, but it’s two.

01:08:04:14 – 01:08:05:13

Nick Beadleston

Sides of the same coin.

01:08:05:13 – 01:08:24:00

Ryan

It’s dedication honed in the right way and maybe more fun to look at from the outside and live with. Well, Nick, thank you so much for your pursuits and to all of those who pursue along with you, working to make our communities better and more fulfilling places to live, work and connects. And I think it’s really, really amazing what you’re doing.

01:08:24:00 – 01:08:26:13

Ryan

So thank you for taking the time to talk to us.

01:08:26:15 – 01:08:27:10

Nick Beadleston

Thanks, man. This is.

01:08:27:10 – 01:08:36:02

Ryan

Fun. And to all of our listeners, thank you all for listening and thank you for pursuing the positive.

01:08:36:02 – 01:09:00:16

Mark

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us again on the pursuit of podcast here in 2023. We want to say kchi-miigwetch, thank you to Nick Beadleston, for joining us from Commonplace, sharing his story and his efforts to bring community together in one workspace. For more information and to learn about the community, go to commonplacework.org

01:09:01:02 – 01:09:17:14

Mark

And as always, for all things audio, video, podcasting check us out at: newleonard.com.