Friday, October 5, 2007
In 1985 I was asked to be involved in the startup of a company in Columbus. I joined the team and began a new professional adventure. The company subsequently went through some difficult times. I was asked to find a buyer for the portion of the business that I ran, which I did, putting myself out of a job.
As a result, I took a job in Philadelphia. Carol and I moved away, and there my faith was reawakened... again, that's another story.
1n 1990, I received a call from the CEO of that Columbus startup. He asked if I would be interested in rejoining the firm to work on a new concept, which became NautilusCD. I accepted and we returned to Columbus.
NautilusCD was an incredible idea that involved one of the finest and most creative teams of people I've ever met (including Carol). The concept was the publication of a monthly, multimedia magazine on CD-ROM disc. This concept was so far ahead of its time, it is hard to articulate at this point. All of us poured our hearts and souls into this effort, and it received significant industry praise – including being highlighted in a speech by Bill Gates – but NautilusCD never made the financial return required to succeed long-term.
In addition to the publishing group that created NautilusCD and the first-ever CD-ROM based college textbooks, the company also manufactured CD-ROMs. We lived or died by the success of the manufacturing business and, since it, too, was struggling to bring in enough revenue, a new VP of Sales was brought in from the CEO's old company, CompuServe.
Over the next five years, we all poured everything we had into making the company successful, but it was the manufacturing side that just had to be fed. As a result, tensions took over and replaced common sense on my part and I found myself in an extreme (and self-imposed) period of professional misery; I contributed to the company, but did not work as part of the corporate team.
Eventually the decision was made that I needed to go and a campaign began to help me realize this on my own... meetings with corporate, demotions, etc., until eventually I was laid off. Such an obviously unfounded and shortsighted action could not possibly be my fault! I focused my anger – and, quite frankly, hatred – on the one person whom I chose to blame. In my mind, he was the architect of this misadventure: the VP of Sales. I considered him to be the worst type of traitor, a non-believer in the power of NautilusCD and clearly ignorant of the incredibly significant contributions "I" had made.
Over the next year I continued to stew in my anger. Unrelated, the entire NautilusCD team eventually came under economic scrutiny, and Carol landed in the corporate, cross-hairs. Now, I'm old school about that stuff. Being born and raised from good Southern stock, you just don't mess with my wife, my children and absolutely not my dog. (Note that the dog did remain unscathed.)
By February of 1997, Carol and I were both gone from the company and, by God's Grace, neither of us missed a beat financially. I picked up consulting work and eventually a staff job, but I was mad, I mean really mad, at the person whom I had decided was behind our misfortune. In time, I developed a Pavlovian response to even hearing his name: hear it, hate it. And just as a bell continues to emit a lingering vibration even after it stops clanging, I could not (or chose not to) change my reaction.
Fast forward to 2000. We've started Neulogic, and, while it's struggling, we are surviving. Out of the blue, I get a call from "the architect" of that earlier, unhappy situation. He describes a project his new company needs to complete for a client and wants to know if it might be a fit for our organization. My immediate reactions came back hard and fast, but hey, there was money involved and we needed it, so I said "Sure, we'd love to talk."
This was God's Grace in action, although that realization came to me much later. Greg and some of his team members came to Neulogic, and I sat through the entire meeting wondering how I was going to get screwed this time.
Over the coming months we were able to work together, and a respect began to develop for the skills and gifts we each brought to the table. We even went so far as initial steps to sell Neulogic to a company Greg was putting together, an overture genuinely constructed on his part to help Marty and me extricate ourselves from a difficult situation.
Since that time, Greg has become a confidant, a mentor, a brother, and one of two men I can truly call best friend. Just for icing on the cake, he is also dating Carol's oldest and dearest childhood friend, and the four of us love spending time together.
I mention this not for his credit or mine but for God's, because, as Greg was leaving the hospital yesterday, I recognized this all so clearly that it had to be told. Short of God's Grace this could never have happened, and I am most thankful that it has.
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