Colton Mulligan:
You have bought, sold, or been part of transactions at this point in the billions of dollars.

Michael Burcham:
Yeah.

Colton Mulligan:
It's hard for me to imagine. You just said the days that you come home feeling defeated.

Michael Burcham:
Yeah.

Colton Mulligan:
What the Hell looks like a day where Michael Burcham comes home feeling defeated?

Michael Burcham:
First company, I was set to close on a $10 million investment, and 48 hours before the transaction, the investor called me to let me know the deal was off. I had about two weeks of cash on hand. That feels defeated. I'd started Narus, my third company. We were 65 days in, and my son was killed in a car accident, and I had eight or nine people who had left great paying jobs to join me. I remember early after my divorce and coming out as a gay person and losing a lot of friends, and people tell me, "You'll never raise money again. You should not have said that." So yeah, I think all of us have those days where you just feel like, is it really worth it?

Colton Mulligan:
Michael Burcham, you have been Entrepreneur of the Year, Nashvillian of the Year, Tennessean of the Year. You've been Obama's champion of change and invited to the White House. Why has becoming my friend become your greatest accolade to date?

Michael Burcham:
Because you're such a unique bird, and I need unique birds in my life.

Colton Mulligan:
Look at that. Who else do you have in your cage of unique birds?

Michael Burcham:
Well, there's a few of you, but you're by far the most exotic, I'd have to say.

Colton Mulligan:
So, Michael Burcham, what are your philosophies?

Michael Burcham:
My business philosophy is, if you can't state your big why you're here, if you don't have a destination you're trying to take your business so that other people feel excited to follow you somewhere, be part of creating that, and you don't have some guidepost that says, "This is how we're going to behave," you don't ever really have a business. You have some short-term success that, typically through ego, or loss of purpose, or just getting so full of yourself you believe anything you say causes, so many people to fail. So my philosophy is know your why, know where you're going, live by your values, and you'll be fine. But very few people get that right up front. It usually takes three or four failures to figure that out.

Colton Mulligan:
So along that journey, there has to have been some times... "Am I going to let this get me, or am I going to overcome persevere?" What are the times where it got you?

Michael Burcham:
Well, I think they all get you in the short run. I mean, you're not human if, in the face of something really horrific, you don't spend a month or so just trying to recover and deal with it, either in shock or fear or anxiety, but at some point you either shake it off and figure out what you're going to do to move ahead or you become a victim of it. Then you turn to medication and alcohol or anything else that takes pain away rather than working through it, and before you know it, you're a completely dysfunctional mess. Certainly there were times it was very hard, but you have to persevere.

Colton Mulligan:
Will you tell me one of your firsts? "It got me."

Michael Burcham:
When I was like four and my parents split and went to live with my grandmother. I lived with her for probably five years, and we were very poor. I didn't know how poor we were until I started school and my classmates told me how poor we were.

Colton Mulligan:
They just said?

Michael Burcham:
"You guys are on Medicaid. Y'all are poor." And I think it got me, because I wanted so badly to be like other kids. There was no way I was going to be. My grandmother made our clothes. She cut our hair. She was not a very good barber. But I think as a kid, what I realized is I'm just going to be different. Am I going to embrace it, or am I going to shrink in the corner and try not to be seen being so different? And I'm like, "Screw that. You don't like it, too bad. I'm going to be front row."

Colton Mulligan:
You get hired to bring innovation to companies. How do you do that.

Michael Burcham:
Well, what I actually do is bring trend knowledge and strategy, and from that, they have to decide if they want to innovate or not. People hire me believing I'm going to help them innovate, but what I'm actually helping them do is get a real sense of what's happening in a marketplace, what their strengths are, what their... the competitive landscape they live in, what the consumer wants.

Innovation is nothing more than bringing a concept to profitable use. That concept could be brand new. It could be taking something you do and I add certain features to it, make it feel different. But I can just change the narrative and be innovative. I can give a young Gen Z a reason to purchase my product that's more purpose-driven than your product, and that's pretty darn innovative.

I think for me right now, it's always been about impact. It's seeing that you're making a difference not just for yourself and for your bank account, but in somebody else's life. And I think some of the things you said, "You've been Entrepreneur of the Year, Nashvillian of the Year, at the White House," all those things happened because I was investing in other people, not because I was investing in myself. My driving force has always been purpose, and purpose for me, particularly where I am in my career right now, is helping others find success.

Colton Mulligan:
At a Christmas party after you had too many drinks, you told me the anecdote about when you sold this company and what you did for the dinner for the employees.

Michael Burcham:
John and I were co-leaders of this business, and we decided we were going to do one heck of a final party. We rented out a beautiful restaurant in New York called Per Se.

Colton Mulligan:
Michelin Star, James Beard Award-winning chef, I believe?

Michael Burcham:
Well, yeah. This is Thomas Keller, the chef.

Colton Mulligan:
The chef. Not a.

Michael Burcham:
The chef. Yeah. And it was there, and we had an awesome time and just let people tell stories, their favorite moments of the last six or seven years. I just wanted people to recognize and stop for a moment to think about the incredible work they'd done together as a team. They don't remember any particular board meeting, any particular acquisition, any particular day at the office, but they remember that dinner.

Because I think if you do that from time to time, it makes dealing with the rough times or the adversity so much easier, because you say, "We do this for a purpose." We set out with this big why, what we're going to do. We had our vision and our goal. We lived by our values, and we had to say no to certain things and yes to things. But in the end, we persevered and we won because of that.

Colton Mulligan:
Michael Burcham, everybody gets to bring a personal memento as a prop for the background. What'd you bring?

Michael Burcham:
I brought a photo.

Colton Mulligan:
Can I go grab it?

Michael Burcham:
Yeah, please.

Colton Mulligan:
Tell me about it.

Michael Burcham:
So 1979, just graduated high school, joined the army as a way to pay for college. This is my photo from boot camp in Fort McClellan, Alabama.

Colton Mulligan:
Which one are you in this photo?

Michael Burcham:
I'm second row... Third row, excuse me. Second from the end right here.

Colton Mulligan:
You've only aged five to 10 years.

Michael Burcham:
I know. You should see the up-close pictures. I looked like a twelve-year-old in the military, and I felt that way.

Colton Mulligan:
You did?

Michael Burcham:
Yeah.

Colton Mulligan:
So why is this the personal memento you brought?

Michael Burcham:
It was that point in my life... I was 17. I actually had to get my dad to sign for me to join. It was that point in my life when I decided I was in control of my own destiny, that I was not going to let circumstance decide who or what I would be. It was all up to me. And it was my first big lesson in self-reliance, and it's proven incredibly important my whole life. I had no idea then the things I would live through and endure, including losing a child. And I don't think, had I not had this experience, I would have the perseverance I do. And so it was getting way out of your comfort zone. It was choosing I'm going to be in charge of my life, putting myself in probably the toughest thing I've ever gone through, but it made me a better human and a better man.

Colton Mulligan:
You know what I'm glad for?

Michael Burcham:
What's that?

Colton Mulligan:
I'm glad that you made time to come here today.

Michael Burcham:
Thank you. I enjoyed it. It was fun to chat with you.

Colton Mulligan:
Did you?

Michael Burcham:
Yeah, I enjoyed it.

Colton Mulligan:
I can tell when you're lying and when you're not. Believe it or not, that felt true. Thanks so much, dude.

Michael Burcham:
It's fun. Yeah.

Colton Mulligan:
This is the one time I get to lead you in any scenario.

Michael Burcham:
Yeah. It's the one time I get to follow you.

Colton Mulligan:
The honesty with which this is going to start.

Michael Burcham:
Yeah.

Colton Mulligan:
I love that. You are way fancier than I am, and I wouldn't know how to work the damn thing, let alone be able to drink-

Michael Burcham:
It's idiot-proof. You can do it.

Colton Mulligan:
The number of times I hear that. "It's idiot-proof. Trust me, Colton. You have this."