Working Towards Our Purpose

Welcome to Working Towards Our Purpose, a podcast that

offers a different perspective on what a job can be. For everyone

out there that's heard that voice in the back their head asking for something

more, it's time to listen to it. I'm your host, Gino,

and join me as I interview people who have decided to work in their own

purpose. Together, we will learn, become inspired,

and hopefully find our own path towards working in our purpose.

So joining me today on the podcast is my new friend, Michael Shawn

Carbaugh, who is a music teacher, a pastor at Pond Hill Baptist Church

in North Haven, Connecticut, owner of Unison Games Cafe in

Hamden, and he's got a new multi use studio in the works.

Michael, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing this morning? Pretty good, Gino. Thank

you so much for the opportunity to be here. Yeah. Definitely. I'm excited to have

you. So, yeah, if you first wanna start by telling me a little bit about

yourself, maybe talking about, like, where you went to school and and what you

went to school for would be a good start. Yeah. Totally. So

I I went to this this college in,

Ohio called Cedarville University, and I went

for music and with a minor in bible. It's a

Christian school out there, liberal arts Christian school, so it was cool because I

got to interact with a lot of different purpose. And I

went for classical music. And the first thing that

my classical professor told me, that was my composition

professor, he asked, are you sure you didn't wanna be a

worship major? Because I kinda told him my, you know, my idea

and, that I wanted to be a pastor and that I wanted

to write music. And I told him, no. I definitely

wanna learn classical music because I felt that there was

an importance with that. The problem was I hadn't really

taken any, official music classes up to

that point. So I went to small schools for the my education prior to

that. And all I had taken really was guitar lessons, which is why he was

like, well, maybe you just wanna play guitar in a worship

band or something like that. But I kinda muddled my way

through that program, and, I ended up doing alright.

And I graduated with a bachelor of arts in music

with an emphasis in composition and music technology. So with the

intention of doing a lot of recording, editing,

composing, writing both songs, like singer songwriter type

things, worship songs for the church, but also writing some

classical things as well, some film score, stuff like that. That was sort of my

intention coming out of college that I was gonna do the pastor thing, and I

was gonna do the the composer, songwriter, producer

thing. So I ended up being offered a job

at the church where I grew up in, and it was a really

cool opportunity. I grew up there actually because my father is

the pastor at this church, and it had been getting to the

point where he needed to hire somebody for a long time. He had had some,

like, interns maybe, like, in my high school years,

and I had ended up picking up most of the

music part of the church when I was in high school anyway.

And then I left for college, and I think he realized

that it was just a little too much for him to be to be doing,

which I totally empathize with now because we never had another full

time person on staff until I came on, and I have no idea how

he was doing all that before before I was there because it's a lot of

work. But but, anyway, so he offered me a job to come back

and work at the church, and so that was kind of my

salaried gig, and it still is actually my salaried gig. And so

I started doing that, and there I I wear a lot of hats at the

at the church. It's a smaller church, so both of us kinda do a lot

of different things. But, obviously, I'm in charge of the music with my music

background. I'm also in charge of the student and family

ministries. So this week, I actually got to, like, baptize one of our kids, which

was really cool. And, I'm also over the young adult

programs, so for, like, twenties thirties, and, our children's

programs. I preach a lot. I do a lot

with outreach and evangelism, event organizing, stuff like

that. It's a really good time. Yeah. It's a really it's a really fun job.

It's different every week, but there's also certain rhythms to it.

And then all the while while I was doing that, I also developed this

studio of students that I was teaching. So my primary instrument is guitar, but I

also sing, and I play piano. And I can play basically anything that has

strings and frets. So I've taught a lot of different things. Even, like,

music technology lessons, I was teaching somebody how to do, like, live sound for a

little while, banjo, ukulele, singing,

songwriting, all that kind of stuff. So I started that

actually in high school, and it kinda kept it going. I had a job with

Passion Army teaching kids in Ohio when I was in college as

well and came back, kinda developed that. So even

still, again, that's another thing that I've been doing for it's been, like, 10 years

now of teaching, which is really cool. And I've written a lot a

lot of songs, and, currently, I'm working on an album.

And I'm also doing covers and releasing those as well. Nice. That's

awesome. So, definitely, music has been a theme throughout your,

education and and work career, which is really cool. And it's cool. You get to

blend, your music degree with your church. It's kind of a unique way, I

think, of being able to use that. So, yeah, so moving on to, like, your

next project, tell me a little bit more about Unison Games Cafe,

and how that got started and and when that got started and everything. Definitely. Yeah.

So that's something that I really didn't expect. I was always kind of a

nerd, so I liked comic books growing up. And, when I went to

college, I had a roommate that was, like, really into comics. So I was

into certain comics. I started dating, realized that that cost money,

and stopped following comics. Then I went back to college, had this

roommate, and somebody actually sent me a care package with the Spider Man comics that

kinda reignited it for me. And I started, you know, spending, like, all

my play money on comic books at that point.

Got out, and, like, through that world, I kind of also became exposed because a

lot of comic stores are also, game stores. Got exposed to trading

cards a little bit. And that was something that I had kind of forgotten about

because as a kid, I had played a couple of the the trading card games.

There was, like, a Marvel and DC game that was out, and there was a

Naruto card game that I briefly played as well.

But in about, I wanna say, like, 2016, I

played, the Pokemon card game for the first time, and I,

like, fell for it, like, really hard. Like, I was so

into the Pokemon trading card game. And, I

graduated college, came back to Connecticut, and

realized that here in the New Haven County, there wasn't a lot of places to

play Pokemon. There's some places up north of the of the

state. But in New Haven County, there's people that sell it, but there weren't a

lot of people that were actually playing it. So I got connected with

a a local store that was in Wallingford, and I started

playing other games there and and talking with them. And, finally, I was just

like, I need to just make a space where I can

play this game and start teaching it. So I started this, like, once a month

tournament series at my church, actually, in the basement. It started out as just,

like, a free thing that was kinda made for outreach, and

that is something that grew. And soon enough,

I wanted to, like, make it another business because I liked it so much. So

in 20 20, I got, like, a a DBA, and

I was all, like, excited, you know, about, like, doing

the the Game Store thing. And then and then COVID happened and shut

down. So so that didn't happen right away, and I

still like, every now and then, people look at my, like, trade name certificate, and

they're like, wow. You got these in January of 2020. And I was

like, yeah. I did. And it and then I took a really long break from

it, which was it was, you know, it was whatever. Everybody was doing that. Right?

Mhmm. But I had a friend of mine who's an entrepreneur contact me,

and, he contacted me in I wanna say it was, like, August.

So it was kinda right after the initial shutdowns, like, things were not fully

back to normal, but everybody was kinda getting stir crazy.

And we crafted this idea to start doing something a little more

seriously. So it started as a once a week instead of a once a month,

and then it grew into, what it is now. So we've had a brick and

mortar for almost 2 years now in Hamden, and we run tournaments every

single day. We're open 7 days a week, and we also serve coffee

there. And so we have, like, an espresso machine that's, like, right on the

cusp of being, like, fully functional, which is great. And, we do drip coffee

and teas and baked goods, Fox and Park soda, things like that. So now we

play every game, not just Pokemon. Like, it started it's it's pretty

much every single game out there. Wow. That's awesome. So it seems like

that business kinda grew out of a community that you started, and then it kinda

moved into the brick and mortar. What was the transition like to brick

and mortar? Because, like, for me, anyways, I always, specifically with

brick and mortar, think about, like, all the overhead costs and the rent and, you

know, all that sort of thing. What was it like to, like, make that jump,

and was it, a difficult one, or what was that like?

It was definitely difficult. It was definitely difficult. So we were running it at the

church, and we were kinda, like, happily doing that because it was during COVID, and

it was, like, small groups of people and stuff like that. But

we found out that by

doing that, we were kind of endangering some of the,

like, tax things that churches get from the

government, which is kind of a big deal because it's like it's not like we're

working on a huge budget at the church. So if we were to

lose some of the tax breaks, it would be pretty detrimental. So we found that

out, and we were like, oh, man. We have to do something about this, because

we were just not aware that we couldn't do what we were doing at the

church. So we figured it out, and we were like, okay. It's time to make

a make a jump. So we started looking for spaces. And

it was tough because there was a lot of places empty, but

also landlords still wanted a lot of money for their spaces.

So it was this weird thing where their space had been empty for a long

time, but they weren't really willing to go down. And we finally found this

space that somebody it had been empty since 2019. And

at this point, it's 2021, so it had been empty for several years. Or, actually,

I think it would have been empty prior to that, but the landlord had acquired

it in 2019, and it was empty then. We walked into the space. It

was, like, all water damaged. It was, like, a complete mess. Both me and and

my business partner have done a lot of, like, construction y type things in the

past that were all pretty handy. So we made this offer to the landlord

that we would revitalize the space on our own dollar if he would give

us, like, a break. So, essentially, for the first for the 1st year,

we were essentially paying half price for the space, and then it

went back to, like, full price. So we pay much more for the space now

than we did in that year. But in that year, we tried to do all

the construction and stuff ourselves. It did take a

little longer than we wanted it to, but we ended

up fast tracking the game side and then slow rolling the cafe

side so that we can get our community back playing as soon as possible. And

that was really good. And people, like, came out in droves, and we built new

communities, and we started carrying new games and things like that. We're in a really

good spot because, like I said, there's not a ton of places in New Haven

County that will run these games at, like, a organized play

level. So each company has, like, certain tournaments that you get that

are their organized place, their official tournaments for that. And

there's some stores in the area, but they're not doing that for every game

like we are. And they're also not always focused on the

playing community. Sometimes they're just flipping product. Because at the end of the day,

it's a retail business. Right? But we see it as, like, just as much a

service provision business as we do a retail business because we want people

in the store playing with other human beings

and creating a community around each game. So it's pretty

neat. Yeah. Wow. That's awesome. Also, can you talk to me

about, like, what it was like to go into business with somebody and to have

a business partner? I've always been kinda solo in in

my adventures, but kinda feel like, I don't know, some sort of

feeling that I would want to do something with somebody because I I I've seen

it, and I've seen other people have business partners and, like, balance each other out

and that sort of thing. But then always think about, like, the negative aspects of

it. It's like, well, I don't wanna ruin a relationship or I don't wanna, like,

you know, get screwed over by somebody or something like that. How how do you

manage of, like, not listening to that and, like, going for it? And

then, what are the strengths and weaknesses that you guys can work together

with? I'll be honest about that. It can be difficult sometimes to

have a business partner, especially if your business partner

is, like, really different than you are. Mhmm. I think a lot of it comes

down to communication. You have to make sure that you guys have communicated about things

ahead of time. I had the advantage of, like, when I started my work at

the church, I always had a partner there. So me me and my father are,

like, co pastors, so it's not kinda like a

boss employee situation. So I came from

a partnership context, which is really helpful.

And I also came from a context where it was very clear that I

had a certain set of skills and that he

had a certain set of skills. And so we were always kind of codependent on

each other for certain things, and it works out really well at the church. So

jumping into that context with somebody else that I obviously don't know as

well as I knew my father, you know, obviously, but, it

was definitely scary. But because of the fact that I

do so many things, I'm acutely aware of the fact that I cannot do

everything alone, even just simply, like, time

at the business. Right? We're open 7 days a week. I have other

other jobs that I do, so I cannot be there 7 days a week. And

I think some of it is just that. Like, you have to recognize your own

limitations, and if you want to do something, that means that you're

saying no to doing something else. And so you have to have somebody that's gonna

be there during your away time. So that was something that I

was always anticipating, which was helpful for the process. But,

honestly, it's a lot of trust. And whether or not you agree with everything that

your business partner does, you have to have a measure of

trust or the relationship isn't gonna work, and the business is, I think, gonna

fail because, yeah, you just have to trust that your your

business partner is doing their best

for your business. And I definitely

trust my partner to make decisions at the business when I'm not

there, and, you know, he wears some hats that I don't

wear now. He's kinda taken over certain things. Like, he has cafe experience. I do

not have cafe experience, so he is totally all things cafe

are are, you know, under his umbrella, and, I think he's doing a

good job so far. But even if even if there's stuff that I would have

done differently, I still need to be able to relinquish control

of certain things, and he needs to relinquish control over certain things with me

as well for it to be successful. And whenever we've clashed

before, which really has not been very often, which I'm thankful for,

it's because one of us was not relinquishing control of something that we should

have and, trust in the other person. Mhmm. Yeah. That

that's really good advice, I think, because without that trust, you know, you're kinda putting

up that wall or prohibiting them from doing what they think is best, and

I think that's a that's a good insight from from experience. So appreciate

that. So you have this game cafe. You work at the church,

and you also do guitar lessons and stuff like that. Basically have, like, 3 full

time jobs. How do how do you manage, you know, like you were saying earlier,

you know, you gotta know your limitations, but how do you how do you manage

your time and and how do you decide what to put your energies into?

Yeah. That's the, that's the always present question in my

life. So I I guess I'll start by saying

you have to be honest about where you are in your life,

and you can't overextend yourself if you have other

commitments in your life. So what I mean by that is I'm I'm a

single guy, and I don't have a family of my own,

you know, I don't have kids, I don't have a wife, and so

I have the unique ability to spend more time

than somebody that is in a family. But if you're somebody that

isn't a family, like, you should be prioritizing your family. You're

just not gonna have as much time as I do for for your

careers. And so I think that's something that's the first step, is you have

to be honest about, like, your stage in life, where you're at, what your priority

is for that time. Right now, my priority is my

my three businesses, and so I can spend more time

than, you know, the average work week is for most people.

So I tend to work about 90 hours a week

usually, so I'm working a lot. And that's not something that's gonna work for

everybody, but it works for my stage in life that might not

be how it is forever, but that's how it is right now for me. So,

so that's definitely the first thing. Like, you have to be honest about, like, how

much time are you actually gonna sink into this. And, I'm having a I'm having

a great time. I I love what I do. I enjoy it, and, I'm

not really upset at all that I that that I work 90 hours. Although, sometimes

I need a small break, and I, will carve that time out

sometimes. So but as far as, like, balancing between the 3, I have

dedicated days for them. So

on Wednesdays, I do all Unison Studios stuff. So

I do all music stuff on Wednesdays. I do my best

not to do anything else on on Wednesday other than music stuff.

Thursday is the same for the church. So I do only church stuff

on Thursdays, so I try to be, like, totally dead to the world in terms

of everything else other than church stuff on Thursday. And then

the business is a little easier because it has actual hours that it's open.

So, obviously, I'm, you know, there on the other days

for for business operating hours, but there there are also certain times in my

schedule, like Mondays Fridays. I know that before

4 PM when when this business opens, that's kinda like a catch

day. So if I have something that needs to be done, like, by the end

of the week, I'm often working on it Monday mornings or Friday mornings,

and it doesn't really matter what business it's for. It's just something

that I'm working on whatever's urgent or super

necessary on those days. And then I try to keep a

like a to do list, which is something that I'll I you know, I

struggle to do the to do list, but I also understand the benefits of

the to do list. So I'm doing my best to, you know, write notes

for myself on the last time I worked on this. So, like, sometimes I won't

do music stuff between or I should say, I won't do Unison

Studios stuff between Wednesdays. So on the Wednesday that I'm

working on, I'm trying to, like, make notes so that I don't have to waste

time the next Wednesday refamiliarizing myself with whatever project I

was working on. So I I try really hard to be

organized in that way, and, I would definitely highly recommend

that to everybody. Like, just make a to do list so that you don't have

to waste time figuring out what you have to do that day. Just know already

what you're supposed to do. I read a book one time called The One Thing,

and it's it's a it's a pretty good book for anybody that's looking to get

into business. And the argument there was, like, what's the one most important thing that

you could do that day? And I find that I have one of

those things for each business. I don't necessarily do that one thing for each

business every day, but I try to be, like, what is my top most

priority in this moment for that thing? That's the thing I'm gonna work on. So

Yeah. I like the idea of having dedicated days to certain things

because I also have, like, you know, different projects and stuff going on, and

I I find that sometimes I'll just neglect it for a long time, you know,

for weeks weeks, and then I'll be like, oh, I didn't work on that thing.

Let me go work on that now. So I like the idea of being able

to consistently put time towards things and even break it

up day wise. Because I I would imagine that probably also helps being

in one mindset and not having to, like, switch gears and switch your mind to

doing a different thing. So I I certainly like that. I'll have to, I'll have

to try that out for myself. Yeah. I don't know. Have you ever heard of

this thing called the flow state before? I have. Yes. Okay. Cool.

So I feel like sometimes, especially with music, we talk about this where it's

like you just kinda get into this rhythm where it's just

like you're firing on all cylinders. And I wish that that was the case, like,

every time that I spent a full day on something. It's just just isn't.

That's just not realistic. But I find that you can get into

this this rhythm of just firing at 100%

at what you're doing when you spend extended amounts of

time in that, you know, mind space. So Mhmm. If I'm

writing music for, like, a whole day, maybe not all the music is good, but

maybe I'll find that, like, for a couple hours in that day, I will be

at, like, a 100% output for for that moment. So I

find that you can actually be more effective when you

spend larger amounts of time on things. I feel like our intention is

so fragmented often, and sometimes minus 2. I'm not saying that

I'm an expert at, like, focus, but I do find that, like, you

have to have a dedicated time to just get in the zone and get stuff

done. Mhmm. Yeah. That's interesting. I I I

guess the the counterpoint to that would be like, well, how do you how do

you avoid distractions? Are you like, how if you're in music all day, how do

you avoid not checking your email for the game cafe? Maybe you have a

customer who, like, needs something. How do you put that out of your mind for

that one day, or or do you not? Yeah. No. So at

first, I take dedicated breaks. It's something that they actually

teach you in in college because for music, music is such

a crazy degree to get. Like, if if anybody out there is, like, going going

to school for music, you know what I'm talking about, but, like, they expect you

to do so much work that you're not getting any credit for.

So, like, I was not a performance major, but I was still expected to practice

guitar for, like, hours a week. You know? And my, like, one credit

composition classes, because that was my focus, I was expected to compose for 3 hours

a day Wow. On top of my, like, 18 credit semester.

Right? So it's like they teach you to be really

effective with your time because they actually know that you can't do everything that they're

asking you to do, but they try to, like, equip you with tools. And one

thing that they they equipped me with was you need to

figure out what your rhythm is and when you need to, like, step away from

something. Because you could be like, sometimes you're practicing your instrument,

and it is just like a wrestling match between you and your instrument. Like, it's

just not happening. And there has to be a moment where it's like, okay, I

know I need to, like, walk away and take a take a lap around the

building or something. But I find that I can't really

work on something for more than, like, 2 hours. And so if I,

like, if I'm writing a sermon for church, I could write for, like,

an hour and a half or 2 hours, and then I'll get up and I'll,

like, stretch my legs, and I'll go do something else. I could watch, like, a

music video or something like that, and then I'll come back, and I can do,

like, another, you know, maybe hour and a half. And I find that, like, decreasing

increments of time. So if I start with 2 hours and then I take a

break, and then I can do, like, an hour and a half and then take

a break, then I can do, like, an hour. Man, I've just found that that

works for me, and, you know, a lot of people can kinda find that rhythm.

As far as, like, checking emails, I really try not to be a notification slave.

I have a very active Discord for Unison Games Cafe and

constantly getting Discord notifications, and I've just kinda learned that I don't need to check

everyone. That helps to have a business partner. My business

partner is the type of person that checks his notifications when

he gets them, And that, I guess, is helpful for me

because I can do something I can do something like check my email

once or twice a day instead of having to check it at all times. Mhmm.

I don't know. I don't find that there's very many things that are so urgent

that you have to get back to somebody immediately in an email anyway. So Yeah.

I think you can kinda relinquish this idea that you're

so important to everybody that you have to get back to them within 5

minutes. Right. Yeah. It's almost like a ego thing Yeah.

Which I like, I was actually thinking about this this morning, I

think, about, like, how I do have the push notification for my email on my

phone. I can open it and see, like, you know, the first sentence or 2

so I can kinda get an idea what it is. And then I'll, like, you

know, not open it, but I'll know that it's there, and then I'll be using

my brain energy thinking about it and thinking about responding to it. And then I'm

like Totally. I if I didn't read that, I wouldn't have been put

myself in this position where I'm, you know, distracting myself with this

thing that I haven't even fully read yet. Right. So that's an

interesting thing. And then I thought about, like, why do I even have these push

notifications? Like, I I know that it's not a good idea to

distract myself with them, but yet I still check them every day and think, like,

oh, well, it's fine. I'm just not reading the whole thing. I'm just looking at

the headline, so it's, you know, it's not the same. But, really, it's still distracting

me. The laptop banners are rough for me because I spend a lot of time

on my computer. I hate, like, phone technology. I just don't enjoy. Like, I don't

know what it is about it. Maybe it's, like, the size of it. I don't

know. Whatever it is, I find that I'm, like even, like, texting, I do it

almost exclusively from my Mac. And, the

the email banners that go in, like, the top right hand corner of the screen

can be they can definitely be distracting for sure. But, yeah, I've done my

best to kinda tone them tone them out. I grew up in, like I have

I have 2 younger siblings, and so there were, like, 5 of us.

And my sisters were, like, always kinda loud,

and I love them, like, a ton, and we're all super close still. But I

think growing up in, like, a family like that that we were all, like, super

close. And, so you're, like, you know, kinda in the thick of it with

their family, and and it and it can be loud and stuff like that. I

developed, like, this skill to just kinda, like, tone stuff out,

you know, and, like, get work done. So if I was, like we were all,

like, doing homework at the table and they were being loud, I kinda developed this

skill to still, like, be able to, yeah, get into the zone a little bit

even even with a lot of distractions. So Interesting.

Yeah. A little bit of practice focus for, all the distractions we face

nowadays. Definitely. Definitely. So yeah. So I wanna kinda,

you know, shift gears a little bit and talk about your new venture, which is

a multiuse studio. Do you wanna tell me a little bit more about that and

what your plans are for it? Yeah. Definitely. So Unison

Studios is what I've been calling my music business for a long time now,

and it's just kinda you know, I have, like, this buzzword, Unison. But Unison

Studios is up to this point, it's been my

lesson studio, so all the lessons that I've done, it's been

when I go out and I perform at different places, like the invoice says,

like, Unison Studios, and it's also been something

that you can see, like, in my YouTube descriptions and

stuff like that. But up to this point, that's all it's been. It's just kinda

been a a note attached to what I've been doing musically.

But I am almost closed on a

lease for a brick and mortar space for Unison Studios, which is super exciting.

And the vision for the space is, like you said, that it will be multiuse.

And what I'm trying to do is address some of the pain points

that I've had as a freelance musician

for all this time that I've been doing that. So some of those are, like,

with teaching, it's really difficult to get all

your students into, like, a central location. A lot of teachers,

when they start, they're traveling to and from students' houses, and

I just found that that's a complete waste of time because most of my students

will come to me, and I could have students in

the time slots that it takes to get to their houses. And so I

have currently, I'm teaching the first half of my day at

Unison Games Cafe in one of our rentable private gaming rooms, and so

I'm there for my first half. And for the second half, I go to my

church, and I teach there. And even that

is having to, like, travel in the middle of your day from one location to

the other location. It's not a terribly long trip, but

it breaks up the day in a way that I feel like, again, another

student could be in that time slot or, like, a lunch break

could be in that time spot. You know? So the first thing that I

thought of with the space was just having rooms that are dedicated and that are

rentable for teachers just like me that have a student. So a lot of

studios will hire teachers, and they'll pay them, like, an hourly rate,

and they'll have them teach lessons. And I'm significantly less interested in

doing that, and I'm more interested in having somebody

pay me, like, $5 an hour or $10 an hour to use this

room. And then the everything their teacher client

relationship is just totally between them. Like, I don't have to handle that money at

all. You just essentially pay a fee. There's a piano in the room if you're

doing piano, or you can bring your guitar and just teach your lesson out of

that. So I just look back, and I wish that was something that I had

access to back then. So that's the first thing that I'm thinking about.

Then there's a podcasting studio that's in the works that is

a similar thing. Like, I feel like a lot of people want to break into

podcasting, but they don't have the money to buy the

equipment that makes your podcast sound good. And, they also don't want it to

sound bad, so they're kinda, like, caught in the in this limbo. And so

that could be, like, another room that that their the equipment's already set up. You

walk into it. A little bit of training on how to use the equipment that's

required for renting the room, and then you're ready to go. You sit down, you

record, and you leave. And maybe there's a computer for editing in there,

things like that. And, again, you could just kinda rent it for an hourly

rate, and part of it could be an educational experience about

teaching you how to manage your own podcast. Or maybe you could link up with

somebody that would do podcast management and and do

it that way. So and then, of course, I'd love to do a recording studio

in the space as well. I've been recording. We were just talking offline about, like,

my mobile recording rig right now. That's, like, less than ideal.

It works for what I'm doing, but it's it's less than ideal. And I would

love to have a dedicated space where even, like, storing instruments would be great

because my room is, like, littered with instruments. And so, like, storing instruments,

but also having a microphone, like, close at hand ready to

set up so I don't have to spend, like, half hour setting up my rig

every time I wanna record something. I'm just gonna walk into a room

and, start recording. So so that would be great, and, of course, that could

grow into recording other people as well and doing collaborations with

purpose, and it could be a space where I do a little bit more audio

engineering or hire other people to do audio engineering. And then a big thing for

me is I love I love producing. Like, I love if you bring me, like,

a song that you've written and are like, hey. What do I do with this?

I would love to be a voice for people that are getting into

songwriting and things like that because I have the technical know how because my

degree was very theory heavy, but I've also written,

like, hundreds of songs at this point. So I would love to be able to

to help people out with figuring out, you know, orchestration or

figuring out things like that. And, again, a studio is just so helpful

to have on hand when you're doing producing because you can walk into the studio

and record something just, like, right off the bat and then kind of mess with

it and see what works and what doesn't work. Mhmm. Yeah. Definitely. And I'd

for sure like the idea of of having a multiuse studio because, you know, I

mentioned to you offline that I used to have a podcast studio out inaugatuck, and

it was just for podcasting. And it it's kinda it's hard to to make

that work when that's the only thing that's going on. And you need to charge

a certain amount because it's the only thing that's going on. But if you can

have these sort of self sufficient rooms where people can come, you

know, follow some instructions and you don't need to be there, That, like, changes the

game as far as being able to make money at the space when you're not

there. So I really like that idea of being able to kind of lower the

barrier to entry by making it a collaborative effort and and being

able to, you know, get to the overhead and and still make it profitable

with more than one thing. So I think that that's a really smart idea,

and looking forward to, to what what comes with that. Tell me a little bit

more about the space that you're looking at. And you said there's a little bit

of renovations that need to be done to it and that sort of thing? Yeah.

So when I was looking for spaces, I was, like, thinking about my

budget and the intended, like, business that I wanna

do, and I was started looking at

empty spaces. Because if you wanna build a studio, you're gonna have to do some

kind of construction anyway because, yeah, there's just ways that you're gonna have

to create a better acoustic environment for what

you're gonna be recording. So I knew I was gonna have to do construction, but

after having done it with Unison Games Cafe, I was like, I can find a

space that's been empty for a long time and renovate and make it

exactly how I want it and get a deal on the rent, hopefully.

So I found this space that's been empty for a long time and

offered that I would renovate it and, if we could work out some

kinda, you know, deal for the space. And so I have a space that I

have a really good deal on. Like I said, the the final

touches on the lease are being put on as we're talking, so I'm hoping

to check my email after this and have a lease so it could totally could

happen today. So, yeah, it's looking like a great opportunity. It's in North

Haven on Broadway Street, and it's kinda, like, right near the

town green of North Haven. It's a it's a nice area. There's stuff close by.

It's very accessible. It's not on the main road, but it's right off the main

road. And, like I said, 15 and 91, the 2 major

highways here are just, like, right there. So so I'm really excited about the space,

and they gave me some time to do the construction where, essentially, I will have

signed the lease, but I won't start paying until after a certain point. So,

yeah, sometimes it takes a little extra work to find deals like that,

but a lot of time, you know, what I'm doing for that space is mutually

beneficial for me and the landlord. And I think that's the key. And that was

the key with Unison Games Cafe too is, like, it was mutually beneficial between me

and the landlord. And so I think that's how you have to go after it

is is find something that works for you and make it something that people can

buy into. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's that's really good advice.

And probably, you know, not just as far as, like, leases, but even in business

partners and stuff like that. I imagine it was a similar kind of mindset of

being like, well, how can we both benefit from this situation? And

kinda just showing, at least in the landlord situation, showing them, like, hey. This

is why it's gonna benefit you. Here's why it's gonna FME, and then, you

know, you can close the deal easier that way. So, yeah, again, some really good

advice. So, you know, as we're we're we're coming to the end

of our time here, I got a couple more questions for you. One question

being, what does purpose mean to you? And, you know,

that's kinda like the the word of this podcast is purpose. And it seems

like up until this point, you've you've done things that, you know, you

are important to you and things that you enjoy. But what does purpose mean to

you? Yeah. I've been thinking about this. I've been I've been binging

your podcast. I love this podcast, man. You you do such a great job.

Thank you so much. It's so cool. Such a cool project. I'm glad that I'm

glad that I got connected with you in this way. So I've been thinking about

this question, and it, you know, I think it's multilayered, and I do think it's

different for every person. You know, I'm a I'm a Christ

follower, so I do believe that Jesus has something to say about

purpose. And, I understand that's not necessarily gonna be

what every listener's opinion is, and that that's okay. I get that.

But I do think that there is some

innate things within each person that we

feel happy when we do certain things. And I think that,

you know, the Lord works in in that as well. So for me,

purpose is, like, partially just being able to enjoy

your life. I think that that's huge. And,

I also think that we are designed as

humans to live in community. And in

living in community, I don't want my life just to be about me and

about what makes me happy. I also want it to impact other people

and, really better their lives as well. And so

for me, it's also about how do I fit into the community that

I'm in right now. So, like, when I started playing games and I started going

to tournaments for Passion, right, I I felt a

connection to the the Pokemon community, and I wanted to do something for

them. And that's how I started Unison Games Cafe. And, the

same is true, like, you you heard me say earlier that, like, I wanna address

some pain points that I felt being a music teacher. Like, I wanna put something

out there that's that's beneficial for music teachers. And I find that,

like, you can make money and help

people at the same time, and that's just like a slam dunk because I do

feel like it's it is very I find a lot of meaning in

helping others and benefiting the communities that I'm that I'm a part

of. And, of course, yeah, following Jesus while while doing that and

kinda pointing people to him as well and saying, like, hey. You know, the reason

why I wanna help people so much is because that's kinda what his story

is all about. Yeah. No. I I agree with a

lot with a lot of what you said there, and the community piece of it,

I think, is super important and can certainly get

lost, especially, you know, nowadays when we could be virtually connected.

But it's not not really the same in my opinion. No. It's

not. Yeah. So I like how, your businesses are

are, you know, even started from the community aspect of it, and I think that's

that's a really cool idea and something that I'm trying to involve myself

more in. And even this project is is more so about the community piece of

it. I I meet cool people that I wanna talk to and interview and and

to show other people that they're doing cool things and to support in that way.

So, yeah, I I would agree that, you know, community is a huge piece of

it. So that brings me to my last question, and, what's what's next for

you, and how can people support you? Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm pretty

stoked about Unison Studios. I'm hoping that that's, like, very much

next for me. I'm excited to get in and start doing construction. I

already have, like, a floor plan drawn up, so I'm excited to, go in and,

like, make that a reality. I think it's gonna be a big paradigm shift for

me. I think, weirdly enough, having a brick and mortar, I think, is actually gonna

save me time in, my business currently just because of all

the running around that sometimes happens there. So I'm really

excited about that. Of course, you know, there's always, like, new initiatives as

well at the church and at Unison Games Cafe also, and so

I'm always looking to, you know, touch more people and

to really, yeah, communicate with them the vision of what's what's

going on there. So, yeah, I'm hoping that happens. I actually do have a

central, like, landing page for everything. Like I said, my

my buzzword is Unison, u n I s o n. So I have a

website called unisonco.com. And, when you go to

that, it has, like, the three things right there, and you can click in. And

one of them takes to the store's website. 1 of them goes to the Unison

Studios website, and the other one goes to, like, a blog series that I have

that is not terribly active, but but it is there for for

Unison Church as as well, which is kind of what I call some

of my ministries as well. Awesome. Yeah. Well, I'll definitely put the the links in

the show notes so people can get to that. And, maybe

one other thing, what what are your store hours? So if people are interested in

stopping by the store in Hamden, when when can they stop by? Yeah.

Definitely. So we're on Whitney Avenue in Hamden, 2285 Whitney

Avenue. And every day is 4 PM

to 10 PM, except for Saturday, which is 10 AM to 8

PM. So it's, like, kinda like an after work thing. We are planning on

extending those hours once we start making, like, hires and stuff like that. But

for right now, while it's just the 2 owners, we're 4 PM to 10 PM.

And you can find, like, a whole event schedule on our website and on Facebook

as well, where you can find out, like, what games we play, what days, so

if you're into certain games. But but we're also just there if you wanna just

grab a cup of coffee and, hang out as well.

Awesome. Yeah. So, again, I'll put everything in the show notes so people can easily

find their way there. And, thanks so much for for being on the podcast, and

I appreciate you, giving us your time. Yeah. Thank you.

Thanks for tuning in and listening to Working Towards Our Purpose.

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