An Exciting Conversation About a Difficult Thing

Myke here on the blog today. It’s been a long month. To say that it has been jam packed with emotions would be an understatement. Those that know me, might have thought it weird that I didn’t write anything or make that much of ado about Olivia on her first birthday.

To be honest, I had intended to sit down and write something long an beautiful, but the hustle and bustle of everyday life left me having to write it at some point on my lunch break on the day of. 

Unfortunately those plans were derailed a little bit. At my job, I would have weekly one-on-one’s with my supervisor, as most companies do, these are intended to provide a check-in and talk about long term projects and future goals. 

That week, my one-on-one was scheduled for Thursday at about 2 PM, however at the last minute it was changed to 8:30 am. I should have, but I didn’t think this was odd or even consider something might be “up”.

I rolled into work a little early that day and had just sat down at my desk with my half full Rockstar energy drink, when my boss walked by and said something about the conference rooms upstairs being need for something and we would be meeting downstairs. She needed to make a phone call first and I should come down right at 8:30.

I didn’t think anything of it and said that I would be down. I turned on my computer and attempted to print a document I thought I would need for the meeting. It didn’t end up printing so I just wrapped my laptop and headed down. 

We made some brief chit-chat, and made our way to a conference room. A little used conference room. One that I had heard on my initial tour, was usually only used by the HR team.

Then it clicked.

I think I’m getting fired today.

We entered the conference room, and lo and behold, the head of the HR department was sitting there with a stack of paper work.

“Yep” I thought to myself. “I’m getting fired.”

Spoiler alert. I was right. On my daughter’s first birthday, one year from the day we went to the NICU and began our 39 day ordeal at Children’s Hospital LA, I was unemployed. With our second daughter a month and a half from being born.

Shoot.

I chose to not view this as a life destroying attack, this was a blessing with the steps just mixed up a little.

I’ve been here before and losing your job is never easy. It is always awful, no matter how prepared you are for it, even if you hate your job, it’s still a horrifying thing to go through.

Fortunately, I’ve been here before. I’ve gotten through it before, so as I was driving home, not sure how I was going to tell my wife that I was no longer employed, I prayed. I chose to not view this as a life destroying attack, this was a blessing with the steps just mixed up a little. God always has a plan for you, sometimes we just don’t get to see the behind the scenes stuff that connect all the dots. God had something better for me, and this was the first step to that new, better thing.

As I made that last drive home from work, ideas that had been planted long ago began to germinate and bubble up to the surface.

I realized that I didn’t really want to just “get another job, working for someone else”. I know it’s peak millennialism to want to bet on myself and God and not put my hope and security in a random company that could go under at any time or make budget cuts and sweep the rug out from under me. I also wanted to use the skills I have been developing and honing the last few years to provide a better future for me and my family.

So I spun up an “Ideal Week” for myself for this time. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about go ready The On-Purpose Person by Kevin McCarthy. It will change your life, seriously!) This ideal week included finishing some things that God had told me to do long ago that I had been dragging my feet on, looking for a job (The Apostle Paul made tents for a living), and setting time aside to get this video editing business up and running.

So after a month, here we are. We have launched Focus Video and have already gotten our first two clients lined up. This is an exciting time.

Eventually we want to build this into something that can have an impact on the world. We have a heart to help missionaries tell their stories and raise money to get back in the field. 

See, in order for missions workers to do what they do, they have to come back to the states and go on these little tours where they visit local churches to raise money to fund their work. They do everything from bringing clean water to impoverished villages, to pulling people out of human trafficking. As a pastor’s kid I have seen many presentations in church.

Most of them are awful. They play a video that either plays like an eighth grade graduation party slideshow, or it looks like it was filmed on a potato. 

This is because most missionaries don’t have the resources or know how to make a compelling video that showcases the great work they do, and has the appeal to get people to open their wallets. Our goal is to get to the point where we can go visit these missionaries, film them working and doing what they do and then come back home and edit that footage into a compelling piece of collateral that they can send to churches as either an update or as an introduction to help them raise funds.

That’s looking to the future, but it’s where we want to go with this, and we are inviting you to come along and help us get there.

There are two ways you can help.

The first is if you or anyone you know is looking to get video edited, we are now accepting clients. Any video project is welcome, even if you just want your vacation photos and videos edited into something shareable on social media, we can help. You can also share this post, and our website to all of your friends to help get the word out.

The second is a way for you to support us and help us directly. While we know that we don’t have a big enough audience to support a full blown merch campaign, we’re thinking we will give a limited run pre-order a try.

Please visit our little campaign to place a pre-order. We have a t-shirt and a sweatshirt available. These will be a limited run orders and will only be available until November 18th. All the shirts will be printed and shipped out between November 28th and December 7th. 

Here is the link to our campaign. bonfire.com/the-logo-1

Thanks for making it this far. Here’s some great photos I took of Olivia and this cool bridge down by my house.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

•