A Bit of Optimism - Ideas That Stick with advertising legend Lee Clow

Episode Date: April 2, 2024

Apple's "1984" commercial, the Energizer Bunny, and the launch of Air Jordans all have one thing in common. They're all creations of legendary ad man Lee Clow.As creative director of Chiat/Day, Lee spent decades making work that transcended advertising and became cultural icons. He shared a close relationship with Steve Jobs, and his Think Different campaign revitalized Apple, transforming it into the brand we recognize today.As someone whose career started in advertising, Lee's a hero of mine, and I was thrilled to sit down with him. He shares the entertaining stories behind his most iconic work and some insights into Steve Jobs's leadership, his rare ability to fearlessly embrace creativity.This...is A Bit of Optimism.For more on Lee and his work, check out:Apple's "1984" Macintosh commercialLee in the Creative Hall of Fame  

I actually started my career in advertising, and I knew of Lee Clow. I actually worshipped him. He was the creative director of Shia Day, Apple's ad agency. He went on to become the global director and chairman of the company until he retired. So it was a particular thrill that he agreed to come and talk to me on this little podcast, because I know he doesn't do much of this stuff. We talked about all kinds of things, how he wrote the 1984 commercial, where that came from, Thank you. push them because it's embracing creativity that actually leads to great innovation and great organizations.

This is a bit of optimism. You know, I started my career in the ad business and you were always a god and a hero to most of us, including me. hero to most of us, including me. And so it is a thrill and an honor personally to have you join me on this on our little podcast. Well, it's fun. I'm kind of old and over the hill. So I hope I have something that can contribute to your audience. You have lived a life and have a perspective on a world that I hate to say might be a bygone era. The work that you have done, and I think it's worth sharing just some of the more iconic stuff. You were creative director back at Chiat Day back in the day. You're part of the twosome that created the iconic 1984 ad for

Apple, which correct me if I'm wrong, was the first ever big budget Super Bowl ad, right? Yeah, that we did. And this whole idea of democratizing technology was the impetus of the 1984 commercial to launch the Macintosh for Apple. But it also kind of dramatically changed the Super Bowl because that theater that we created, that kind of unique, nobody had seen a commercial quite like that before on the Super Bowl, gave permission to every creative guy in the world to say, I want to do a Super Bowl commercial. And every client believing that if they did a brave, interesting Super Bowl commercial with that huge audience, it would be worth the millions of dollars they'd

have to pay for it. So it was a moment in time. Of course, in my career, it was like, amazing in terms of, I mean, we knew we were doing a good commercial. We're working with Ridley Scott. He had just done Blade Runner and introducing a product that nobody had ever seen before. So it's not like you're just introducing another soda pop. Is it true the commercial only ever ran on television just that once? It wasn't intended to only run once only. Now that's the legend that we were so daring and so brave that we ran at one time. And the reality was Steve Jobs, very brave guy, and he wanted to do an amazing, different, shake the world up commercial.

And he believed when we finished that we succeeded. And we showed it at a sales meeting in Hawaii in 1983 and got standing ovation. But then the board of directors got cold feet. They decided we're going to spend millions of dollars on a commercial that doesn't show the product, doesn't explain what the product does. And we're going to spend all these millions of dollars. So the board said, sell all the time. We're not running the commercial. And Steve and I kind of wink and a nod.

We sold a lot of time off, but we had this one spot left. And I don't know, they were going to give us 50 cents on the dollar or something. And Steve says, fuck it, let's run it. And we ran the commercial and the rest is history. But, you know, they think that's part of the legend that we were so courageous as to only run it one time. But it is an amazing thing that I was old enough to see it when it ran. And I think even a lot of people who may not even been born yet know that ad, that 1984 ad that introduced the Macintosh. And it is an astonishing thing that all these years later,

it only ran once. I think that's just an incredible thing that it became an iconic piece of our commercial history. It's pretty amazing. I mean, every year, different media every year wants to do a story about it and tell the story of the commercial. And I don't know if that's where young people kind of dial in and realize it. Of course, kids that are coming into the advertising business probably hear about it, but it seems to have a life of its own.

Yeah. So I'm so curious, again, you get a phone call from Apple, from Steve or whoever the CMO was at the time, that says, we want to do a commercial to introduce our new computer called the Macintosh. We're moving away from the Apple I and the Apple II. It's going to be an entirely new platform. I'm so curious how that first meeting, what happened in that first meeting? Well, we were working for Apple for a couple of years. We did Apple II advertising and were Steve's agency. But Steve threw down the gauntlet

because this computer was his baby, his dream child, that he's going to introduce this, what he believed was the future of computing. It had graphics, it had typography, it had all the aesthetics that Steve loved about a computer, and it was easy to use. So he basically threw down the gauntlet and said, look, we're introducing Macintosh. I want a commercial that shakes up the world. We also did a lot of other advertising launching Macintosh, I want a commercial that shakes up the world. We also did a lot of other advertising launching Macintosh. There were individual, not tutorial, but demonstrations of how it worked. Because it was something entirely new. We were used to typing in commands into a computer. And this was the first computer that was really graphic user interface, mouse, clicking, dragging.

It revolutionized what we know as computing today. Yeah. And he, like I said, we did commercials that showed how it worked and that were charming and wonderful, but they weren't this 1984 thing. And then we did magazine inserts that were like 20 pages that introduced and explained how Macintosh worked. 1984 wasn't the only commercial. It was just the bravest and the most unique one. Right. It was the anthemic one that introduced the piece. So the reason I say you sort of had a front row seat to what is probably a bygone era

was this time where Jobs is still a larger than life personality, even after his death. Jobs is still a larger than life personality, even after his death. He's still seen as able to have created a creativity outside of a company, innovation in a company that seems to have yet to be repeated. What was it about him that allowed people like you and the people who worked at Apple to be so creative? Because there's no lack of creative people in the world today. Why isn't the same innovation and creativity seemingly not coming out of companies today? What did he have in the way he led that you think is lacking today? As far as I'm concerned, he's maybe the only true genius that I ever worked with. I mean, he was virtually able to see two horizons further than anyone else and knew where he wanted to go and what he was trying to accomplish. And his expectations of

people were so high. I mean, you might have heard stories that he was very hard on people, very tough on people. A lot of people threw up their arms and said, fuck it, I'm not going to do this because he was so demanding. But the people that stepped up and said, fuck it, I'm not going to do this because he was so demanding. But the people that stepped up and said, I want to do what Steve wants to do, ended up doing things that were beyond maybe what they thought their capabilities were. They did things when Steve kept challenging them to be better and better and better. And, you know, Johnny Ives later got the same opportunity to become one of the most famous product designers in the world because Steve challenged him. He was in the company for a number of years making beige boxes for John Scully and those guys. And then all of

a sudden Steve came and said, go do something genius. It started with iPod, and then I want to make a phone, and I want to make a pad. And then he went to Pixar after he left Apple, and he didn't go to Pixar. He bought Pixar from Lucas, and they were doing, you know, cute digital stories. And he said, let's go make movies. And he took Pixar into the stratosphere in terms of being maybe the most successful movie studio in history. And then now it's part of Disney. And he just challenged people to do and be better than they knew they could be. I mean, he was the most challenging leader, and he was fearless. Most CEOs don't trust creativity. They're afraid of creativity because it's not rational. It's intuitive.

And Steve trusted that. And most CEOs, most companies don't trust flying by the seat of your pants and trusting your intuition. They believe that we've got to be more methodical. It's just rare that there are leaders like him. There's a lot to unpack in what you said. You said Jobs pushed his people harder and challenged them more than you had experienced in the past. And the problem is when people read books about Jobs or they hear you speak, a young aspiring CEO might come out and start being really hard

on their people and pushing them and saying, ah, well, I'm just like Steve Jobs. I'm pushing my people to do more, but it doesn't make them good leaders. So there has to be more to it than simply putting pressure on their people to perform. It was not only he pushed people, but he knew when they had arrived at some place that was bigger and braver than what they would normally do. A lot of CEOs are hard ass and say, go do something great, but they don't necessarily recognize great when they see it. They don't necessarily recognize the high ground. Like I said, Steve could see two horizons further. So he'd know when you're nailing what he was looking for. And you sometimes didn't even know if this is exactly what Steve's looking for. But you put the bravest, most courageous stuff you could on the table. And sometimes he'd reject it because he didn't

see what he was looking for. And sometimes he'd say, that's it. I love it. And most leaders can be demanding, but they don't necessarily know if they've accomplished what they've asked their people to do. That's so interesting. The other thing you said was that he trusted creativity. And you said a lot of modern leaders don't trust creativity because it's too much trust your gut. It seems to me that you can trust creativity so long as you have vision, right? But you have to know what the distant horizon looks like. And perhaps one of the reasons that too many leaders don't trust creativity, aside from the fact that they're probably too accountant minded, left brain oriented numbers driven, which is a different way of thinking.

So putting that aside, you know, Well, so often it's the manage quote, management of companies that rise to the top and become the CEO and become the, you know, executive vice presidents, as opposed to the developers, the thinkers, the creative people in the company are usually a department as opposed to the leader. Steve was the leader and he was the most creative guy in the company. Apple is credited so much of changing the way computing works, but had it not been for their ability to message

Steve's vision, arguably, it would just be a small little company for hobbyists, even if it was a better product. So I think Jobs gets a huge amount of the credit for the world that we live in today. But I think you deserve at least a good portion of that credit because without his ability to translate his ideas into advertising and marketing so that the world understood his vision, it would just be the ramblings of a crazy man. You translated genius so the rest of us could understand it,

and you did it for years. What was really interesting is he loved advertising, too. He loved marketing messages. He could recite Polaroid commercials by Garner and Hartley. He could recite Sony Walkman commercials. I mean, he understood marketing as a tool, but he loved the creativity of that, too. The idea of introducing the computer that led the way. And you were saying, I have a lot of credit. I deserve some credit for that. And sometimes I'm funny. We're sitting around in a restaurant and everybody's looking at their phones.

And I said, that's my fault. The fact that I introduced the world to this stuff, and now it's changed everyone's lives, not necessarily always in a good way. What was it that David Ogilvie said? He said something to the effect of, the quickest way to ruin a bad company or a bad product is with good advertising.

And so to some degree, the quickest way to destroy society with addictive technology is with good advertising. Okay, Lee, I won't give you too much credit then. But I mean, truly, the Anthem ad, these iconic companies with these iconic CEOs, they produced anthems, advertising anthems that were like visual manifestos for the rest of us to understand what the company stood for, what the company's vision was, what the company's beliefs were, what their values were. And it wasn't there to sell any product per se.

And it seems like the Anthem ad, making these bold statements of vision or purpose, seemed to have completely fallen by the wayside. And most marketing and advertising these days seems to be much more product-driven. Why did that happen? Why are companies not spending money to make bold statements about simply their beliefs and their vision? Well, I think the big change is this mediascape that's changed so dramatically. So everything now lives on your phone. Everything lives on the Internet. And yes, people watch TV and maybe they come to the Super Bowl and watch some commercials.

But the idea of there being a platform to put beautiful manifestos out there is kind of gone. I love doing anthems. The Think Different commercial that we did is still one of my favorites. And I love that part of advertising when the tools were television was the push it out there and then you use other means to explain. Now television has kind of lost its luster, particularly in companies that believe that the internet is some new magic marketing tool and the old ways don't work anymore and the new ways are using algorithms and popping up in your Instagram and telling you you might want to buy this carpet or this trip to Tahiti or whatever. True, the media landscape has definitely changed.

And we now live in a technology world where it is impossible to skip an ad, where whether it's on our streaming services or a website, you're forced to watch an ad before you can get to the content. In fact, I joke that you know how bad a product is when there's literally a timer on top of your product, i.e. the piece of advertising that tells you when it's going to be over, right? But if we're forced to consume advertising, whether it's on television, on our streaming services, or on a phone, why not put a manifesto and force us to watch your manifesto? Tell us what you believe. Do leaders lack the boldness to make these declarative statements? Is that what it is?

I keep believing that the next generation of really creative media artists are going to find a way to do exactly what you're saying. How can we put something out there in these new media scape that's as beautiful and bold and interesting as the historic manifestos or storytelling of the past. And one of the worries is, yeah, lots of ads pop up and I can't escape them. But most of them are pretty ignorable, even though they pop up and I can't escape them. But having the courage to do something that so grabs you that you want to actually pay attention to this commercial that just interrupted

you. I mean, yeah, advertising has always been an interruption to what you're trying to do, whether you're trying to read a magazine, whether you're trying to watch television back in the day. An ad was always an interruption, just like they interrupt you now on the internet. But what we discovered back in the day was if you do something smart enough and creative enough and interesting enough, people will pay attention. And I think the same thing is a little bit true on the internet. If you put some content out there that's so special and amazing and interesting that people want to share it and say, did you see this? And you get comments and all that kind of stuff. I think it can happen and can be the front runner to then other messages from the brand. It's got to be so

captivating and interesting that people actually look at it and say, that's so cool. I've got to send it to all my friends. I've got to repost it. It's got to be that good. But I think lots of companies still are living in the world of products. So we just show our product and say we've got a discount today if you buy it. You know, that's about it. I think you said it before, which is part of

the problem is the creatives, quote unquote, aren't running the companies anymore. It's the accountants that are running the companies. And so accountants will make accounting decisions. Creatives will make creative decisions. That entrepreneurial sort of creative mindset has largely been replaced by sort of like an ROI or pressure from investors mindset. So just to change tack slightly here, how did you come up with the Energizer bunny? That's a very cool story, actually. I don't know if anybody knows what we're talking about, but for many, many years, the Energizer commercial was this bunny that just kept going and going and going.

And I think that's what the tagline was. It just keeps going and going. And this little pink bunny with a bass drum that it would beat would just go. And you would produce spoof commercials. And then all of a sudden, Energizer Bunny would go across the screen. Yep, still going. How did you come up with that concept? It was so genius in its time. They had a pitch for their account. It was at Doyle Dan Burnback, and we were invited to pitch for Energizer. They had done a commercial that was a bunch of mechanical rabbits going, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

And the Energizer bunny marched through. This was Doyle Dane Burnback. Energizer bunny marched through and spun around and left. And when we looked at their history, we said, that commercial is special. And we said, that bunny is special. So we took the bunny from a commercial that Doyle Dane Birnbeck did and launched him from the original commercial out of the studio into the world, where then he showed up in soap commercials

and wine commercials and all the different places that we ended up having the Energizer Bunny just keep going and going and interrupting interrupting commercials but the actual Energizer Bunny was invented by Doyle Dane Bernbach I sometimes think to myself I bet there are a bunch of people at Doyle Dane when they were having the review saying, we got really good reaction to the Energizer Bunny. Let's do something with that. And the creative people said, oh, we're pitching against Shia Day. We got to come up with something better than that. I actually, in my mind's eye, I see that happening.

And now the rest of their careers are kicked themselves. I just love the fact that you want to pitch with their idea. I'm disappointed because, you know, we don't have the account anymore, and they turned him into a cartoon. But I thought the idea that we had was the advertising can last forever because he keeps going and going. Literally, yeah. It became a euphemism, you know.

People in politics would say, oh, he's like the Energizer Bunny. He keeps going and going. Literally, yeah. It became a euphemism. You know, people in politics would say, oh, he's like the Energizer Bunny. He keeps going and going. I mean, we created something very classic with him. What is it that makes ideas stick? I mean, the Energizer Bunny stuck. It became, as you said, it became part of our cultural vernacular. So many of the ads that you created for Apple, people would hang them, think different ads. any of the ads that you created for Apple, people would hang them, think different ads.

And as college students, we would pick some of our favorite icons and we would hang their pictures on our walls as statements of who we were. What makes a great idea sticky? Every brand wants to get noticed and wants to tell their story. But so many brands are category, you know, so there's batteries and there's soda pop and there's so coming up with a personality for a brand is really important if it can become culturally cool culturally relevant the story that you tell the way you tell the story when we got to go to work for Gatorade, it was called Gatorade and it was kind of losing share. And we changed the brand to G. And then that's G became kind of part of the vernacular there for a while when it transitioned

the Gatorade brand to this new brand. Finding a way to take the product or brand that you're assigned to and find some special way to put it out there, sometimes to refresh the brand, sometimes to just find its voice. I grew up surfing and one of the ways I learned about brands was I really wanted to be a really good surfer and the brand that I surf for, Jacob's Surfboards, I didn't want to just own their product. I wanted to be part of that brand or I wanted that brand to be part of me because it said something about who I was. I wanted to know the shapers at the shop. I wanted to, you know, I wanted to know the people that were on the surf team and I wanted to know the people that were on the surf team. And I wanted to wear their T-shirt. Wearing their T-shirt was kind of the symbol of what I want to accomplish for every brand. I want to wear that T-shirt like a badge, like something you're proud of.

And lots of brands have that charm. I think Nike still can do that. I think Nike still can do that. Making the brand so interesting and likable and trustable that you want to wear their t-shirt is kind of my yardstick for finding the idea. Was there ever a company or a brand that you wish you'd worked on that you saw them out there and you had ideas for them that you never really got to put out into the marketplace, but you were itching to help them tell their story? Any company that you missed to work with? Well, we had a moment in time where we worked for Nike during the 84 Olympics in Los

Angeles. And they thought, even though Widener Kennedy was already part of their company, they thought that we could do some interesting work because we lived in LA, because we had just done Apple. And for a bunch of reasons, we got the assignment to do the 84 Olympics for Nike. And we did it and we launched your Jordan and we did some stuff and then we got in trouble and lost the account. I won't tell you that whole story because it's not one of the happier ones, but anyway, we lost Nike. So for years, I, I just, I loved working on the sports

brand. It was just so fun. And for years, and finally we got the opportunity because the guys that we work with at Nike had moved to Adidas in Germany and we got to pitch Adidas. For a long time, I was wanting a sports brand, but we finally did actually achieve that. We got Adidas and did Impossible is Nothing and enjoyed it. You know I'm going to ask what happened and why you got in trouble. If you really don't want to answer, you of course don't have to, but you can't bury the lead that easily. We had done some pretty noticeable advertising, and Jay Shia had moved to New York and opened the New York office. And he had absolutely nothing to do with the Nike account. But Jay was in New York and he got

interviewed by the New York Times about his agency and coming to New York and all that was what the story was supposed to be about. But he talked about Nike proudly as being one of the brands that they were doing great work for in Los Angeles, not in New York. But the people that wrote the story decided to take the Nike conversation and make it the headline of the Sunday New York Times magazine saying, How shy it is to save Nike. Oh, no. We were fired the next day. Through no fault of our own. Other than some editor, some

writer at the newspaper deciding that was a clever headline. I'm sure that's not what Jay intended. Right. Oh, God. That must have been excruciating, especially when it was totally out of your control. Yeah. Very sad. Can you tell me a project you worked on in your ad days that you absolutely loved being a part of it?

Something very specific. It doesn't matter if it was commercially successful. It doesn't matter if it won awards. But was there a project or a product that you worked on that literally if your whole career could have been like this one thing, you'd be the happiest person alive? Well, I know we're talking a lot about Apple, but it was a very special relationship, a very special brand. And as you know, Steve was kind of pushed out of Apple by John Sculley, who Steve had hired from Pepsi and went on to do Pixar.

But when Steve came back to Apple in 1997, and Apple was in big trouble, Apple was maybe gonna go out of business or get sold or something because they'd just become so commoditized. Steve called and said, can you come up here? Emilio just resigned, who was the CEO at the time,

and he was gonna take over as interim CEO. And he wanted me to come up and help. And, you know, classic Steve, he introduced products that changed everybody's mind or changed everybody's lives. But when he came back, he didn't have any products. He had a design department that only was making beige boxes. that only was making beige boxes. So we had to do a commercial. We had to do something to put Apple back on the map,

particularly still had a lot of fans. And so when we did the Think Different commercial, Steve wanted to see what we would do, and we showed him this idea for a film that celebrated imaginative, creative people. Here's to the crazy ones. Yeah, here's to the crazy ones. That's probably the biggest moment in time in my career to have introduced Think Different with the crazy ones. Steve told me, by the way, that the Think Different T-shirt that he handed out to the company was part of him turning the company around,

changing the whole trajectory of Apple with Think Different on people's back on their t-shirt. So that's by far the most amazing moment in time for me. What specifically was it about that campaign? I mean, here you are, you are the originator of the Super Bowl ad. You brought multiple brands to life in ways that few people have ever done. What was it about this one campaign, this Think Different campaign that is so special to you? First of all, the importance of it. I mean, Steve said, we're on life support. We don't know if we're going to make it. So we got to have something that puts us back on the map,

puts us back in the minds and hearts of the people who still care about the brand. Even the software developers were stopping writing software for Apple because they just decided Apple was going to go away. So first it was the importance of it. way. So first it was the importance of it, but then it was, can we find or recapture the soul of what Steve's Apple was supposed to be? And Steve's vision was always to be at the intersection of liberal arts and creativity. The idea that we are going to be this company that gives people the tools to do imaginative, creative things. And finding that kind of soul of the brand, that we make tools for people who want to change the world, who are the crazy ones, the daring ones,

the ones that are brave enough to want to change the world. And Steve ended up being the ultimate crazy one. What I love about this anthem is it is often quoted and often attributed to Jobs. But what most people don't realize, it is from advertising. It is yours and Steve's lines, right? I'm going to read it just because it's so... Look, I'm actually going to read it off my phone here and it's attributed to Jobs even in this reading it. I'm going to read it because it's so magical. Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules.

You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who do. I mean, Lee, you and Steve wrote those. Well, here's how that got written. We introduced the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.

We make tools for those kinds of people. We put that on the table, and then we had to go build the commercial that went with it, all those words that you just read. But we looked at a number of different things. We looked at Robert Frost's poem, The Path Less Traveled. We tried a thing with Seal, the song Seal, you know, gotta be a little bit crazy before we ended up writing the words. A, A, A, Z, before we ended up writing the words. We must have done 10 versions of the words because every time we'd sit with Steve, he'd say, I like that. I don't like that.

Push this. Push that. So Steve was very much a collaborator in creating those words. He didn't write them himself, but he pushed them around until we got to the ones you just read. around until we got to the ones you just read. And it was a wonderful process looking back on it, the fact that we were that immersed in the idea of saving the company. And Steve was so, Steve met with us, he met with us every week on advertising till he passed away. He loved advertising. No CEOs in any of these other giant companies meet with the advertising people every week. That's a department. The advertising department does that. Steve met with us every week and he wanted me sitting there every week.

It was an amazing process. There was a time when the CEOs and the creative directors of ad agencies advised the CEOs of entire companies. And slowly but surely, as you said, those relationships went cold and the admin no longer had access to the CEOs. Then they were put to the CMOs and then even then put down to some brand manager. And that's where we live today where the ad agencies do not have direct access to the CEOs anymore. They don't advise on the vision anymore. What happened that an industry managed to sort of lose its own importance? That's very rare.

I mean, Dan Wyden might have had that kind of relationship with Phil Knight in terms of the trust that he had, CEO to advertising guy. But like I said, most companies are run by managers who rise to the top, and they believe advertising is a department. They don't believe it's something that once a year, maybe they have a review of advertising to see how the advertising is going. This is an important point that you're making here. Phil Knight, who founded Nike, had a relationship with Dan Wyden, who ran his agency. Steve Jobs, who's revolutionized computing, had a weekly meeting and a direct relationship with you, who was writing his advertising. These companies that we revere, these CEOs that we revere for their creativity,

the secret sauce behind is they kept their creative people nearby. Yeah, very rare. You can't name too many of them. I don't think you can name any of them today. But I don't know, another weird way of looking at keeping the creative idea of the brand top of mind. I look at Ralph Lauren, who started selling ties in Grand Central Station or something like that.

But he nurtured and guided that brand with all of his aesthetics, all of his vision, all of his ideas. So that brand is totally Ralph Lauren. From the cars he drives, to the clothes he makes, to the stores he builds, everything a brand does is an ad. So if you open a store, you know, everybody thought Steve was going to fall totally on his face when he opened stores. He didn't like how his product and what he made was being treated in the computer stores. So he needed his own store. So he built stores. And that was maybe one of the best ads Apple ever did.

And lots of people said he's going to fail. But he ended up being one of the dollars per square foot stores in the world, one of the most successful. And now it's one of the most successful smash and grab stores in the world. What's an early specific happy childhood memory? I have this funny story because my mom and dad were very base working class people. My dad worked at Douglas Aircraft. And I always had this artistic bent, this artistic desire.

And my mom always supported it. My dad thought it was crazy. They had to figure out some way to make a living. But I remember I came home from school and I had done, you know, one of those poster art paintings that you do in kindergarten or first grade or whatever. And I had painted a boat and had a smokestack and the smoke was going the right direction. And Mrs. Rice, who was my teacher, told my mom, he has artistic ability. Never let him lose that

or some kind of push that gave my mom impetus to always be there for me my whole rest of my life in terms of developing my art and my creativity and supporting me when I said this is what I want to do for a living. That's back kindergarten when I painted the boat with the smokestack going the right direction was the beginning of somebody recognizing that maybe I had some skill there. Lee, this is what I find so brilliant about that story is it summarizes this entire conversation we've had, which is your teacher sees some ability in you and tells your mom, push this, don't let him lose this. And then your mom takes that as almost a clarion call. She champions you, she pushes you to maybe do things that you didn't realize that

you had capacity for. You end up building a career for somebody who pushes people to realize the talents that they have inside them that they don't even realize it. One of your proudest memories is of putting Apple back on the map after it had been decimated by Scully. And here you are pushing a brand and pushing the public to see something that the rest of us don't necessarily see. And you love to be pushed to realize your own potential. You love to push. You love to work for people who push. And what I've learned from you is if you see talent in someone, a family member, an employee, a friend, if you see talent in someone that they may or may not be able to see, push and push and push because they will accomplish more than

they think they're capable of. Dr. I think I was lucky enough to have mentor, challengers, and I guess one of the sweetest moments, my mom, until she passed away, she always had an Energizer bunny in her bedroom. Because she was a big fan of DDB. That's right. Lee, it is an absolute personal thrill to meet you after all these years. It was so long ago that I had an ad career. I've always revered you. I've always admired your work. And the work that you have created guided how I viewed the importance of manifesto and

vision. And I've taken many, many cues in how I've learned to write and speak from the work that you have done. And so to sit down and talk with you today and hear some of your stories is a personal thrill. Well, thanks for that. I feel like I've had the most blessed life. I think I was born in the sweet spot

of the history of the world. I could be a rebel. I could wear shorts to work. And at the same time, I could be incredibly passionate about what I did. Thank you, man. I so appreciate your time, Lee. You have no idea.

If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website, simonsenic.com, for classes, videos, and more. Until then, take care of yourself. Take care of each other. A Bit of Optimism is a production of The

Optimism Company. It's produced and edited by Lindsay Garbinius, David Jha, and Devin Johnson. Our executive producers are Henrietta Conrad and Greg Rudershan.