From juggling various creative projects to SAT tutoring to becoming a successful mystery writer and creator of the Murdle, an award winning mystery puzzle book series, G.T. shares his journey of honing in on a niche.
Ever wondered how to take your scattered creative ideas and turn them into a focused, intentional career? G.T. Karber has cracked the code! From juggling various creative projects to becoming a successful mystery writer and creator of the Murdle, an award winning mystery puzzle book series, G.T. shares his journey of honing in on a niche. He talks about the power of intentional branding and rebranding, connecting with a specific audience, and the importance of feedback from those who resonate with your work. Greg also highlights how crafting a public persona and using professional visuals can make your transformation feel real. His key message? Seize the opportunities for change and make intentional choices to reshape your life!
Episode Takeaways
Connect with G.T. Karber
Jenny Dempsey (00:00.142)
If I hadn't gone out and done random ideas for years, I don't know that I would have developed the skills and I don't know that I would have kept the energy going. So I'm a little nervous to tell, you know, like a 17 year old figure out your brand, brutally exploit yourself in a way, you know, like I think that there's real value artistically creatively to like do random stuff. But I think once you want to like buckle down,
Really to me, the big discipline wasn't making stuff, wasn't writing these things. It was not pursuing other things. It was not writing something that's not a mystery because it'll blur the focus. Welcome to The Career Flipper, a weekly podcast featuring career change stories from people around the world in a bunch of different industries about how they get from point A to point B and all the twists and turns in between.
And I'm Jenny Dempsey, your career flipping host. After more than a decade working in customer service and experience leadership in the tech industry, as well as teaching to you to meet training courses, speaking at business conferences and running a global customer service mentorship program, I found myself laid off in 2022 from my main corporate job. Ugh, maybe you've been there too. Despite my experience, I couldn't land a new job. And I really started to question my worth. What am I supposed to do now? Who am I without
Then a friend gave me an old junkie table. I saw potential. I binge YouTube and TikTok and Instagram videos to learn how to fix it up and found joy in giving something unwanted a brand new chance at life, which really resonated with me after getting laid off and feeling unwanted myself. And this led me to want to start my own furniture makeover and restoration business, San Diego Furniture Flipper, where I rescue and restore good furniture to keep it out of the landfill.
Alongside that, I also speak at events, do some consulting on the side, and offer career change coaching sessions. Let me know if you'd like one. Despite all this wonderful stuff, I was feeling alone and honestly kind of delusional about my new path. I mean, who goes from the corporate tech world to covered in paint and sawdust in their garage? So I started to reach out to a few people that I knew, just a few, who've also flipped their careers. And hearing their stories motivated me. And it made me realize it's totally okay to change direction
Jenny Dempsey (02:17.302)
any point in life. And I realized there are way more people out there who flip their careers more than I'd ever imagined. And that's why I started this podcast. It came to me in a dream to share these incredible stories and offer support to anyone considering having already been through or currently going through a career flip. So I hope you'll find a takeaway in each episode to help you on your path. There's new episodes every single Thursday, sometimes bonus on a Tuesday. So make sure to subscribe to follow
Now let's get into today's episode. Have you ever wondered how to take your scattered creative ideas and turn them into a focused intentional career? My friend from college, G .T. Carver or Greg, as you'll hear him referred to in the episode, has cracked the code from majoring in math to juggling various creative projects to tutoring students to ace their SATs to becoming a successful murder mystery writer and creator of Myrtle, an award winning puzzle book series.
G .T. shares his journey of honing in on a niche. He talks about the power of intentional branding and rebranding, connecting with a specific audience and the importance of feedback from those who really get it. His key message here, though, seize the opportunities for change and make intentional choices that reshape your life. All right, let's get into the episode now. Hey, Greg. Hey, Jenny. Thanks so much for coming on the Career Flipper. Really cool to have you. It's been a while. It has been a
We know each other because we studied abroad in college. I mean, we're going back a few years now, right? A few years. Yeah, many years. Yeah. Well, how long actually? Like 16, 17 years maybe? be. 2006 is when we studied abroad in Galway, Ireland for the creative writing program. So that's 18 years then. That's like, can vote now. That's like that experience can vote.
That experience can vote, Or drink in Ireland. It was an exciting time for 19 -year -old Greg. It's absolutely true. Yeah, we were just reminiscing on memories of how we'd go to class for half the day, read, study, or, you know, poetry, and then we would all go to the pub. Yeah, it was great. That's how Irish authors get their best ideas, I think. Exactly. Exactly. I think that was actually mandated as part of the program.
Jenny Dempsey (04:40.426)
It was, we got extra credits for that. For how many you drank? Yeah, I thought that was a little inappropriate that they so incentivized binge drinking, but you know, whatever, when in Rome. Or in Galway. exactly, exactly. Well, I've loved keeping in touch with you over the years and you have created this
incredible community around Myrtle. And I was so curious to hear, know, how did you get from point A to point B and everything in between of where you're at now and what you've learned? And it's really, really cool. I'm so, I just think it's amazing what you've accomplished and I am stoked to have you here. So I'm going to stop talking. Greg, let's talk about your career flip. Tell me, tell me your journey. It's actually kind of interesting. was because in some ways I didn't flip maybe as much as some of your other guests, but in another way I like, I flipped
pretty consciously and like intentionally. I had been working on writing out here in LA and I had written some scripts that I couldn't really get produced. And I had directed a musical that I wrote with a friend of mine for very little money. And we were spending forever trying to edit it. Commercial prospects for a horror comedy musical that we made for no money or not nothing, but we were really struggling to finish it. And I was struggling. I had written a novel
I kind of realized it wasn't very commercial. I had made some little like web games that had been, sometimes were interesting, sometimes people played them. And I had been doing an ensemble theater group out here in Los Angeles called the Hollywood Mystery Society. And we had done that for like seven years, I think. It was very like meaningful and it was very gratifying. It gave me like a creative outlet, but it wasn't.
ultimately something that was like a career. When you're like 25, it feels like maybe it could be. That like anything could be a career because you never know what will grow the next year, what will get 30 % bigger five years in a row. But I had sort of felt creatively kind of in a rut and commercially kind of in a rut. And I was tutoring as my job. I was doing, I was tutoring ACT, SAT prep
Jenny Dempsey (06:43.598)
kids on Zoom. So this was all in like 2019. I had started out really liking tutoring. I love, you know, meeting the kid, assuring them that they would do fine on their desk, which, which I think is like the best piece of advice really for these kids. Like you can improve someone's score pretty demonstrably just by like calming them down. The longer I did it, the more empty it felt.
because I went through so many students and I would meet with them and then I prepped them for the test and then they take the test and then I'd find out how they did and then frequently I would just never see them again. I started to feel really sort of I wasn't really doing anything meaningful. So I had thought about switching to tutoring calculus. I was getting to the point where I was like, I guess I'm gonna have to relearn how to do calculus so I could tutor people because I felt like I would find that more meaningful.
Because then, you know, if I teach someone calculus, now they know calculus, they go out into the world, they know calculus their whole life maybe, as opposed to like, they know how to do this kind of SAT test a little better. But at the same time as that was happening, I, like I said, so I was a little in a rut in my career and I was a little in a rut creatively. And I had written a lot of mysteries and a lot of mystery related, but they were always
mysteries and something. A mystery, but it was also a little supernatural. Or it was a mystery, but it was also kind of like a satire. And I also was not very disciplined about it. I would do a mystery, but then sometimes I was working on this project called Cone of the Day, where I wrote little short stories of like this little, like a sage and his like tortoise friend and like a sunflower that they knew. They were creatively like fun to write and I made little games involving them. Anything that I had done that people had liked.
would always be in my bio. And when I was asked to describe who I was to write a biography, it was always like, he's a writer. Couldn't get more specific than that. And I couldn't even say I was a writer because I also liked making these web games and I also liked writing songs and I had directed and I run this theater.
Jenny Dempsey (08:41.486)
group and I write stage shows and just and I was realizing that I had been creating stuff kind of naively just sort of whatever was interesting to me at the time was what I would work on and then I would put it out in the world you know if it did well that would be great if it did poorly I would just move on to the next one so the end of 2020 I decided like okay I am going to focus really specifically on murder mystery and I'm going to try to rebrand myself as a mystery writer
And so it's just like I was so scattered creatively, very consciously decided to rebrand myself around this niche, around making murder mysteries, and particularly around making interactive mysteries. So I did several things and myself, which is that one, I changed my name. I started going by GT Carver creatively.
I thought for mystery writing, would add like an element of mystery and maybe like glamour or sophistication. But really also, it wasn't just that it added glamour or sophistication, it also sort of clears your Google searches. Like if somebody looks you up and you use a slightly different name even, you now have the ability to kind of reshape what that is. So rather than it finding every little project I'd worked on for the last 20 years, it now was only stuff that I had just done.
this year. But I didn't just change my name. also, I also, I had a friend of mine who does professional photography out here to do a photo shoot for me as like a detective. And then I set up a website that's now defunct because I've shifted fully onto Myrtle, which is like a jump forward. But basically I set up a website that was just, I was going to post mysteries and I was going to post a new mystery every week and I was going to try to make them interactive.
in some capacity and I had this big list of mystery games and stories that I was gonna write. I was gonna start the very first week of 2021 and then the very first week of 2021 I got COVID. So I did not start that week. And it in fact delayed me probably two months. It was kind of a thing where I had prepared to do a one a week thing and I had it kind of rough. So it really kind of derailed my launch program and I did not have several, you know, episodes built up.
Jenny Dempsey (10:48.338)
I've never been able to sort of prepare things and then set them aside. So I was really gonna like focus on this as much as I could. So it ended up launching a couple months later. I put out a short story and then the very second week, the thing that I did was Myrtle.
And I had made Myrtle, which is, for people who don't know, a murder mystery puzzle game. And I had made that for a friend of mine. Over the last couple of months, I had first, I was working in a coffee shop, I was supposed to be writing some novel that I was finishing, and instead I sketched out this puzzle for a friend of mine, texted him a photo of it, and he loved it. But there was like a bug in it, so I had to go home and code how to fix it. I created a program that would make them. I was like, this would be a fun, you know, weekly mystery thing. My week two was gonna be Myrtle.
And it just immediately was successful in a way that the other thing hadn't been. And when Myrtle blew up, I sent out a poll saying, like, what should I do next? And I listed a bunch of my, like, other mystery ideas. And one of them was like, just keep working on Myrtle. That was like universally what people wanted me to do, which makes sense because these are the people who like Myrtle. But really rapidly after putting it out, my now agent reached out to me. She just cold emailed me and was like, I think I could sell this puzzle as a book.
First I did, her name is Melissa Edwards and she's great. And, but the very first thing I did was Google Melissa Edwards scam. You know, cause I was just convinced. Yeah. I couldn't believe that an agent was just calling me was like, I sell your book. You know? So I was like, okay, if you think so, by all means try to. The way that you sell a nonfiction book, anything other than a novel really is you put together a book proposal. So it's about a 15 page.
document that describes you, the book, why you think this book will be successful, what are similar books that are like this book that have been successful, hopefully. Basically, you put together a packet to sell this book and then your agent sends that packet to people that they think might be interested in it. We were very fortunate. We immediately had some interest in it. But I think that that was because in this packet, I was able to use all of the
Jenny Dempsey (12:48.514)
that I had sort of created as part of the rebranding. like the photographs that I put in there, I look like a mystery writer. I've got like a magnifying glass. And my biography too, I had sort of consciously rebranded my biography in that I emphasized only the mysteries. I didn't mention anything that I had done in my entire life that wasn't a mystery. I had joined the Mystery Writers of America.
which is a professional organization for mystery writers, you can just join as like a fan. And if you join just as like a mystery enthusiast, you're an associate member, you're not like a voting
because to be a voting member of the Mystery Writers, you have to be officially a professional. But I joined the Mystery Writers as an associate member, and I put that on my bio. You know, he's a member of the Mystery Writers of America. He runs this theater out here in LA, which was called the Hollywood Mystery Society. And I've written, you know, I do these mysteries. And so I, and I had helped friends workshop mystery -related projects, and I mentioned those. I was like, you know, I've worked as a consultant for mysteries, but I was just
conscientious about making sure that everything in my biography just said this one thing. I'm a mystery writer. Because of that, think it allowed me to punch above my weight class because I seemed so professional in mysteries. Now, I'm not trying to say that I, it's not duplicitous or anything. Like I was very into mysteries and these were all real, but I did present it in a way. I didn't say, you know, Greg Carver has decided to consciously rebrand as a mystery writer.
You know, I just presented the new branding and we sold these books. But it was almost like I sort of spoke it into existence in some sense because I framed myself as this mystery writer. I was very disciplined about it. I think a lot about this woman that I knew in grad school named Ali Shouten who since went on to, she show ran that iCarly reboot. She's this really wonderfully talented writer. But more than just being talented when we were in school together,
Jenny Dempsey (14:45.844)
she was very conscious about being a like commercial writer. She wanted to write scripts that sold. She wanted it to be a career. And I mean, that seems really obvious, but a lot of us just was trying to like write good scripts and not that she wasn't trying to write good scripts, but she was like analyzing what the market was and what her own particular skillset was. And from a very young age, she knew that she wrote this kind of comedy.
She knew how to present herself as that kind of person. And because of that, she was successful. I, in grad school, was just like, yeah, we're writers. I don't think that I could have rebranded myself earlier. And I don't think that the rebranding is necessarily the reason that Myrtle was successful. But I do think that had I not rebranded myself, I probably would not have made Myrtle. I really just think that that is the creative secret. When they were all different things,
it doesn't really amount to something. But when they're all mysteries, it made it very holistic. Your excitement and your ability to bring these things to life and the way that you do it, no one else can do it like that. And so you're able to bring those things to life for this specific niche. I don't know. think that that's, yeah. I think that's huge. I was thinking just when you were saying that, that when I wrote this proposal, a key part of it was
And I think that this is true of all creatives who are ever having to pitch themselves or think about themselves for a project is why are you the only person in the world that could do this? And a lot of times with a project, I have written things that I just sort of knew I was not the best person in the world to do this. And I think that like, want to caveat all of this by saying that if I hadn't gone out and done random ideas for years,
I don't know that I would have developed the skills and I don't know that I would have kept the energy going. So I'm a little nervous to tell, you know, like a 17 year old figure out your brand, brutally exploit yourself in a way, you know, like I think that there's real value artistically, creatively to like do random stuff. But I think once you want to like buckle down, really to me, the big discipline wasn't making stuff, wasn't writing these things. It was not pursuing.
Jenny Dempsey (17:13.526)
other things. It was not writing something that's not a mystery because it'll blur the focus. Now, whether it's artistic or business, feel like lot of the conversations I've had around this topic of career and how we make choices is all of these things that we've done in the past are like breadcrumbs to lead us to where we're at now. We have to do these
we have to do the other things in order to figure out where we're going to go. And those all teach us something else. And it sounds like just like for you, like all of the things that maybe were unrelated or even like putting the content out there and you're like, I'm going to confuse them. Like, wait, actually that's not the way to go. But you only know that now because you learned that. And so I, I'm wondering, okay. So throughout all of this, like, was there ever a time where you felt like imposter syndrome? Was there ever a time where you're like,
You know, I've just, you, cause you were so intentional about how you wanted to show up, who you wanted to show up for, who you were in that world for those people. Was there ever a time where you doubted yourself or felt imposter syndrome? So I definitely had imposter syndrome when I didn't have a very specific thing. Not that I felt really like the canonical, like I'm not good enough. People are going to expose me, but no, I guess that exactly. Yeah. I guess that is how I felt. Yeah.
But the time when I didn't feel imposter syndrome, which I feel now too, I constantly think with Myrtle that people are going to like wake up, realize it's not that great, stop buying it and throw me out in the street. Like I still have that. But the time that I didn't have imposter syndrome was when I was consciously being an imposter. When I was changing my name and doing these photographs and redoing my bio.
because I had such a clear view of what I was like trying to transform into and because I kind of knew it was a character. I wasn't really changing who I was, but I was creating this public persona of mystery writer, G .T. Carver. And that was very soothing in a sense, because is G .T. Carver really the world's foremost mystery writer? Like, no, but he's a fictional character.
Jenny Dempsey (19:33.876)
He's a persona that I've created. And I think that that was really helpful. It is obviously easier for people in creative fields. It's hard to tell someone who's like going into the law, like you got to come up with a fake lawyer persona that, know. But for creatively, I think that that comes and I think that that's true. Like obviously everybody can brand themselves. Everybody can come up with, you know, the bio that they want to do. But I think
when you're consciously doing it, when you know there's a level of artifice in it, it's less upsetting or uncomfortable than when you're just... To have imposter syndrome for a person that you aren't is way different than to be yourself and to still feel like an imposter. you know. Yeah. You had those breadcrumbs, you knew what you're interested in, you created that. that was so interesting how you're like, I did not feel like an imposter when I was in this persona. When I was in
and the one that I created that resonated with me actually is because with the podcast, for example, like I'm not a professional podcast host. I've never hosted a podcast, but I had this weird like dream thing about it. And I was like, okay, I don't necessarily know what I'm doing right now, but I know that there's something that I need to create. Maybe I just become the podcast host and started to think about what does my day look like? But what do I wake up feel like just little random things? Like how do I describe myself as a podcast host? Very similar to what you said.
And then it's like, okay, I'm just gonna go for it and live my life as if I am that. And then there are moments where sometimes I look the opposite direction for a second and I'm like, wait, no, who are you? You are not this. Then I look the other way, look right and I'm like, okay, no, I am. And so you kind of get, I kind of pulled in these things, but I'm like, I'm just not gonna look left because I don't wanna hear it. I am gonna just do this thing.
kind of not caring about what someone outside of this thinks. Cause there's been a couple of things that I've, comments that I've received of like, well, you know, about whether it's the podcast or furniture flipping, you know, that's a nice hobby. And it's like, wait, no, this, this isn't a hobby. Like I'm living this. Like this is what I'm doing, but not caring, you know, just having to remove yourself of these aren't my people. I'm not going to care or waste my energy. The people that I want the feedback from are the people in the niche. I don't know if that like makes any sense
Jenny Dempsey (21:54.318)
How do you not care what anyone else outside of that really thinks? I actually think that this is kind of a key writer thing that I've sort of discovered for me at least, which is that every project has like one person that you know who like perfectly aligns with it. And you should really only get their feedback rather than getting feedback of 20, 30 people. I would always send scripts to everybody and get a wide, you know, disparate feedback. And then you kind of take everybody's notes.
And it does get better. Things get better with notes. But it was so much more helpful to several steps along the process, work with one person to make it very suited for them and then only to refine it to see what everybody says. And I think that that is really crucial and it kind of relates to the like, don't chase any idea that you have really.
be intentional on it, don't chase any feedback. Like really be intentional on the feedback. Because a lot of times with writers, creators, you get notes from somebody who would never seek this out. You you write a romantic comedy and you send it to your most serious friend and they give you all these notes on how to make it more, you know, emotionally resonant. But like, they're never going to be the audience for this. So the notes that you take don't help
with that audience, they help you with that one person. That's how you said like sending, know, getting the feedback from the one person, you know, that actually is like aligned with what you're doing. I feel like some of the things that I know for myself that I have even said, you know, sharing certain things and like carrying the feedback were people that were not aligned. And so it makes sense they said things that did not resonate because they're in a different part of their life or a different path.
And so it's like just realizing that there's so much more to that. Yeah. And honestly, I think that, you know, talking about like career flipping, I think that that's actually like a time it's very difficult to make changes in your otherwise same life. For me, I find it very difficult to be like, OK, I'm going to cut back on social media. Why? Because it's not good for me. As part of this sort of broader transformational project, it was much easier.
Jenny Dempsey (24:17.484)
because I think that our lives, we live very mechanically. Every day we kind of wake up, most of the things we encounter, we're not really making intentional choices. We kind of sleepwalk through our days. It's good for a lot of things because like if you had to consciously think about like every brush movement when you're brushing your teeth, it would wreck you, think. Over time, you get in a rut. And this sort of thing of like, I'm gonna consciously transform. I'm going to flip.
Now all of my routines are not routines anymore. They're going to be actual choices that I make. And it's only in these moments of like real transition that we actually have any ability to change our lives. I would say like, you know, seize those opportunities. If you're going to make a big transformation, really go all the way, do anything you can, like try to think how it can affect all of your lives. And I would say I kind
glanced over this but the more we talked about it the more I think it's like crucially important getting those photographs from my friend Annie Lesser who took the photographs who has my author credit or my photo credit on all the books now. I think that was so huge and was so important because it made something that was otherwise kind of intangible real. It was easy to do it was like an afternoon you know I paid her a bit of money but it's worth it. Now I do this thing where I don't do
any events without a photographer there, with any live events, because I just am so aware that like I did so many events that just kind of came and went. And it was like, we rehearsed a show, we put the show on, the show ended, we have no proof that it ever happened. But particularly photos of you being the person that
are becoming. It shocked me that I didn't have any photographs that really struck. I was like, that's a mystery writer. And once I did that, it was like, can look at this photo and be like, what do think this guy does? And it's like, it's very obvious that I do mysteries. And that's also why I still wear this mustache, which is that it was like a pandemic thing, but it fit the character. This very much resonates with me. Yeah. So I actually just had my furniture flipping pictures
Jenny Dempsey (26:31.192)
taken back in June, so earlier this summer, shout out to my girl Danielle Malufo. I worked with her in customer service years ago, and then she moved on to a different company and has been with that company for, gosh, almost a decade, doing like logistics. And she's wanting to switch in the next few years into photography, so she's taking courses right now to learn how to do it.
So inspiring to watch your friends follow their passions. And anyways, I'm derailing the conversation, but you know what I mean. She came and she took photos of me with furniture for her portfolio, but also to help me. Now I have pictures I can put on my website when I do promotional things. I have it and it makes it so real. I am the furniture girl
have pictures to prove it. So yeah, I totally get that. There are so many great things that you mentioned in our conversation, Greg, and I just, I want people to connect with you and find you and like experience all the murder mystery. So how can people find you? Where are the best places? Tell everyone. Yeah, well, first of all, I just want to plug Myrtle Books, which are available. The first three volumes are out right now. It's Myrtle. It's -U -R -D -L
And there's another one coming out in the fall. We've got a board game coming out in August. If you like board games. If your kids are into murder mysteries, we're putting out Myrtle Jr. this November. That'll be available for middle grade readers. you can, I would go to myrtle .com to play one today. And there's also a link to more stuff that I'm doing. And you can follow me on Instagram if you just search for GT Carver with a K. Carver with a K. And a B.
Carver with a K and a B. But my actual name is still my name, name it's at Greg Carver, but it says GT in the... But Greg, thank you so much for making the time, for coming on and sharing so much. I appreciate you. This was also selfishly a really great catch up. So thank you so I had a great time. Yeah. I hope we do it sooner. We don't wait another 15 years to have...
Jenny Dempsey (28:52.526)
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of The Career Flipper. Be sure to connect with GT Carver and grab your copy of Myrtle using the links in the show notes. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend who could use some inspiration. Please rate and review the show and hit that subscribe button for more flipping stories like GT Carver's every Thursday. Your support helps me reach more career flippers and future flippers to be, spreading the love, support, and motivation that we all need on this journey.
And if you ever need a Career Flipin' speaker for your event, wanna sponsor the podcast, or just wanna say hi and share your Career Flip story, pop over to thecareerflipper .com. I'd love to hear from you. Keep on your path, my friend. What's the best that could happen? Talk to you next week.