Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Jimmy Smith: Creativity, Authenticity, Growth (Part 1)

Episode Date: July 7, 2016

Jimmy Smith, Founder and CEO of Amusement Park Entertainment, is a creator, who has faced down adversity and celebrates both the humanness and spirituality of people. He has earned countless awards for his work as a Writer and Creative Director for Nike at Wieden + Kennedy, Executive Creative Director at BBDO and most recently, Gatorade’s Group Creative Director at TBWA\Chiat\Day LA. In This Episode: -Enduring racism as a child and how it shaped him -Why he doesn’t have hatred in him -Refusing to take no for an answer -Where he developed confidence from -Racism in the ad agency world -How he filters through what a great idea is -Figuring out what he was good at -His 1st ad campaign -The importance of having African-American role models to look up to -Working through his relationship with God -Stresswood as a defining moment in his life_________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I I N.com slash finding mastery. Okay. This conversation is with Jimmy Smith. Now it's two common names, but, um, Jimmy is that dude in his industry. And if you've spent time with creatives and branded entertainment in that world, he needs no introduction. You already know who he is, but for the rest of us, um, you know, some kind of highlights for him to get a quick snapshot of who he is. He was listed as one of the top creative minds for fast company. Um, his footprints are inside

of the companies and the campaigns such as Nike and Gatorade. And those are just tool two that are cool off the top of my head. Okay. Jimmy is bold. He's smart. He's articulate. He sees things off access and he has insight. And he tells story through both of those lenses, meaning a bit off access in a storytelling, which is brilliant and beautiful, but there's insight that is embedded underneath of it. And I think it's the combination of those two that is really intriguing. So he's a risk taker and not a risk taker like some of the people we've had. There's a different form of risk taking that he has embraced. He's definitely got a really strong spiritual framework that is obvious through this conversation. And he's an entrepreneur. And when he laughs, he laughs loudly. When he's curious, he's really curious.

And he's not afraid to ask, like, what do you mean by that? And he's just flat out creative. And that's me saying it, not him. And he's received tons of awards. But he's just creative. And I've really enjoyed knowing him. And the conversations with him are stimulating. They're on point.

And he forces with his creative mind as an intelligence for those conversations to be just that. And not one of the things that I've just said is an exaggeration. God, I just hope that this conversation does him and everyone that we've had on these conversations just the absolute most beautiful justice we can. All right. While I was in this conversation, I was in it and I was loving it and it was just so good. And it went almost two hours. So we're going to split them up across part one and part two so that you can digest the nuances and, and, you know,

just let it marinate and let it soak in just a little bit. So two of the things I think are really important to pay attention to is how he made sense of his early life in a way that has become a compass for his later life. I think it's really cool. And wait until you hear about what it was like for him growing up. I mean, it's unbelievable. And how he used all of that without malcontent, without bitterness to do good by people and in life and in business. And as a side note, he's incredible with names in just a really gracious way. He gives so much respect and tribute to his teachers and mentors along the way. And it's just a really, it was just plainly obvious that he really has great respect for those that have been on the journey with him. And the second part is that he speaks volumes about resiliency without ever using the word. And if resiliency is just about, you know, recovering quickly, the image that comes to mind for Jimmy for me is that he's like water. He flows until he figures it out.

And he's got really rich insights on this concept of resiliency without knowing the science, without knowing all that good stuff. But watch what he does around this concept. Okay, so we dive into racism. We talk about how he's made sense of that for himself and how it's influenced his business direction. We talk about his approach to not taking no for an answer and what goes into that and how he understands the mechanics of confidence to be able to not take a no. We talk through how to filter out ideas to get to great ones. And I guess that that's something that is important for all of us. No, I said,

I guess. I mean, I know that's important for all of us and especially heightened in the creative world. And so we explore that concept. And we also dive into this conversation about a process to find out what you're naturally good at and how he did that for himself. So enjoy this journey inside a creative genius and, and a dude that is just fascinated by it. I mean, that's kind of what this conversation is about. I hope this conversation reconnects you to the importance of carving your own path and

investing deeply in yourself and your craft in others and in nature. And so with that, let's jump right into this conversation with Jimmy Smith. Jimmy. Yo, what's good, Mike? Okay. So let's, um, this is going to be a treat for me and I hope it's a treat for you. But the idea that I want to cultivate is you are, you have your finger on the pulse of what it means to be creative. Then you've organized your life to pursue the creative process and to create things that are meaningful along that journey. So it's not art for the sake of art. You're doing things that have meaning behind it. And at least that's, that's how I think about you. A hundred percent. Okay.

So the hope is that in this conversation, I don't know enough about your path to get to be one of the legends in the field of creating. And we'll talk about that legendary status in just a moment, but I don't know enough about your path. I know a lot, I think about why you do what you do. And I'd love to unpack both of those with this idea in mind that what we'll do is hopefully have a conversation about how you've dealt with difficult things. Because the creative process, I know there's challenge embedded in it. And it's, you know, like pursuing these ideas and ways of living and projects that you're on are big and bold and huge.

And like, how do we create a process that we can share with other people? So with that in mind, where where did you first begin to notice that you were just a little different than other people? Oh, probably when I was four or five, five, probably like five. I was the only black kid in an all white neighborhood in school. So it started off you look different early i was cool from from when i was born up to about four because we lived in a black neighborhood and then um dr martin luther king in double acp all all those camps were saying we needed to integrate so we were blockbusters. My mom and dad brought me along to be a blockbuster. And a blockbuster is when you would bust into a school?

Bust into a neighborhood that was all white. I was bussed out of a neighborhood. Were you really? Yeah, I don't know if we ever talked about this. Where'd you go to school? So this was in Virginia, was like the first couple years of my life. And yeah, I remember I was bussed out. I had to get on a bus for a long period of time to go to a different neighborhood.

And I don't remember actually having it be impactful for me, but I was one of the kids that I was just around other kids. But you noticed it for you. Oh, yeah. Well, KKK threatened the builder of the house and threatened the daughter of the builder of the house in Michigan that you were living in. Yeah, that I was living in. And so we had to get the cat that built the house. My dad had to go get somebody from Ohio to make the house. We had stuff thrown at the house, thrown at the cars, windows shot. Fortunately, they were BBs, but still they were breaking windows. I was called nigger

very often in school. You'd be fighting a normal healthy, if there is such a thing, but just a kid, first grader having a fight and the kids would gather around and go um a nigger a nigger no no uh a fight a fight a nigger and a white and which which which is pretty bad for the kid i was fighting because then you you know you're taking it up to another notch you can't have them win when you're and that's going down but the teachers were always dope the principal mr howe wait hold on before we go there what was that like for you what was it like to be

um your house shot at you know that the experience you just described what was it like as a four five six seven eight year old i can't really tell you because it was normal. It was like, oh, okay. This is the way it is over here. So I didn't really look at it as being like fucked up until I got older. It was like, well, it was really fucked up. And my mom and dad were very supportive. They were like, it would go against

what you're supposed to do today but they they give me all types of names oh they're calling you a nigger well then here's some names that you could call them so we you know they gave me ammo and i never never ever between them and uh principal never got in trouble for fighting you didn't like you couldn't do that today. Like Sequel, this is in the 2000s, late 1990s, early 2000s. An Asian kid called him a nigger, and he clocked him, and both of them got put out of school, which is how they handle things nowadays. But back when I was growing up, they determined who was right, who was wrong. And then that person who was wrong, who it whatever and whatnot would be the one that

got in trouble I never got in trouble what how has fighting which was which was really important it not only it's one thing to have your parents which you need to be supportive but to have a, um, a white principal and white school teachers, because the school was, you know, it was maybe two of us at the school to have, to know that all, um, um, white people aren't bad. So that was, that was part of the experience that you had. What was it like? Um, so do you, okay, I've got like 15 questions hold on let me slow down because where my mind's wanting to go but i want to get there more of a general cadence is that

you don't have hatred in you nope right and so you were punked you were bullied you experienced racism at a young age and in the formative years, you knew what it felt like to be on the underhand, so to speak. Like, right. Like, and you don't have it. You don't have an angry. I don't know you to have angry or hostility or racism or any cynicism even about the way that you see the world. Like you see through hope and love and creativity. And so how did you do that

and i also want to know like how fighting shaped you well in uh i'll you know this will sound weird the same kids who were calling me names some of them ended up being coming my best friends so for them it was like you know whether they heard it in the house or saw it on TV or whatever, the grandparents, I know like, um, one who was quote unquote, my childhood, um, you know, girlfriend, not really, but that's what we said. She was my girlfriend. She was, and, and, um, her grandmother, she'd see us playing. We were only third grade, fourth grade, whatever. And she, she'd say, why are you playing with that black kid? That was her grandmother.

But she didn't feel that way. And there's one kid, Bobby Andre. We played on the basketball team in high school. He was watching Archie Bunker. And Archie Bunker, I guess we called some kid Spade or something. Somebody Spade on the TV show. And so he would call me spade and obviously that that was conflict and so what would you do at those moments when

somebody would say a name to you or insult you in that way what what what do you remember to be your response pop them upside their head right away right away without a question no no we ain't wasting any time zero hesitation no no okay so can you think of a moment where that took place? Yeah, I can think of a bunch. Okay. So you're really good with words, right? You are like, that's part of your genius. And so why would you not use words?

Did you come to learn how to use words later? Or like principal said, Jimmy, you can't beat up everybody that calls you a name. He said that. And it was Mr. Howe. How many fights are we talking about? They're probably from kindergarten until third grade, there would at least be one fight a week. At least. Minimum. That's a lot yeah yeah okay so so this mentor in some ways said to you the present uh principal said you

can't beat everybody up and were you always big no i was probably not no i didn't get big till like high school okay six five six three and a half six three shoes so okay all right all right so six three and a half and but you you you have a big presence but i wasn't little you know i wasn't you know one of the scrawny little kids why use violence as the strategy what was that about for you um black panthers were out then we were kind of digging the black panthers my family was no just me you yeah just me i mean they didn't say anything negative against the black panthers but you know kids always like the the anti-hero dudes and all that kind of stuff so we knew what they even at that age you kind of knew what they were about. And I had a cousin, older cousin who was like about the same size as me when I became an adult. And he was living in Gary, Indiana, which is right outside of Chicago.

So every time we go over there, you'd have what the black power sign and all that kind of stuff. So it was like, you know, power to the people, man. You had J.B.b papa don't take no mess and so with um would did this create the beginning violence was different back then you could have a healthy fight and it wasn't like like somebody's going to get a gun or a knife or anything like that it's like don't do that or we will throw down but it wasn't like somebody was going to end up violently injured or something like that. You never thought someone's gonna pull out a gun or a knife.

And they didn't think so either. That's right. Okay. So without hesitation, and then I would imagine that that had some, well, I guess some cost, but maybe an asset that other people like, okay, well, we're gonna stop calling them names. Yeah. Because eventually that's going to stop. Yep.

So you stopped it. Yep. For you. Yeah. Were there other black people that were your friends that didn't have that strategy that, that, that the vengeance moved to them? You know, they were, um, first of all, there was, there was only literally maybe three black kids so i was in and i would be maybe there's two black kids in my grade one kid in a higher grade or lower grade and that was it right so there's only three of us out of 500 or however many kids were at the school. And then one was female, and then one of them was male,

but I think he was younger, and he was a little scrawnier. What happened for him? I don't really know. We didn't really hang out. Okay. Okay, so how did that impact you moving forward? Not taking no for an answer. And if you want me to lose, the worst thing you can do is say I can't do something.

Because that happened all the time. You're black, so you can't do this. It wasn't just the kids at the school. It was like going to the local shopping market or something like that. Going to the local shopping market or something like that, going to to the park and say, you can't get on that swing. You're black or whatever the deal was. So that was the worst or an inadvertent racism where they didn't intend to be racist per se but um one of the teachers in seventh grade i remember i said you know i wrote in the paper cut off the lights and she said no it's put off the lights and i said well you say put off but in my family we say cut off there's there's no there's not that's not a right even

in the seventh grade that's not a right or wrong. And then my mom's a school teacher, dad owned businesses. So you, you growing up in that environment, knowing what they were about at home, you could stand up for yourself. So that's the worst thing you can do is tell me I can't do something. That's because what happens for you? No, I'm going to do it even. Okay. So, and, and the other other part and it doesn't always obviously you know just like I've had people say your biggest strength is your biggest weakness that kind of thing so somebody telling me no is and and you

don't have a valid like something that makes even if you may be right if you can't articulate why not then I'm gonna going to go full head on and make that happen. Do you think you're better than most people at when somebody says no figuring out a way through? Right. Because of your experience? I got confidence, not arrogant confidence, but you had to be confident growing up in that environment with everybody, with the bullying going on, with the name calling and all that. So you had to develop a sense of, oh, like somebody could say anything to me. It's like, I don't give a fuck. That doesn't mean shit to me. Okay, I hear it.

But I also can create another scenario or picture, which is, man, I don't want to go to school. It's hard there. It is. People are coming after me. It's scary. You know, fill in that blank. Like, but so you said confidence, being able to figure out a way when other people told you, no, where does that come from? How can, how can we, how can I, my mom is bullheaded. So I know where you're going. That's right. One of them, my mom is bullheaded. Dad went his first job that I can remember. He was, uh, um, worked at a factory. He hated that job at the factory, but yet he went every day. And the only reason I

knew he hated that job is because my mom said he hated that job. It wasn't that he came home like, you know, kicking the dog or anything like that. So that was OK. He hates it, but he's working that job to take care of the family. And then he's working it to own his Arby's, which he eventually ended up owning the Arby's. And so he's always doing what he needed to do in order to get to a better spot, a better position. Now, having said all that, I did have friends at school, too. It wasn't like everybody was an asshole. Okay.

I definitely had friends. Okay. So you were able to keep the people that made it difficult for you, you were able to isolate that it's one person person not a race of people or group of people or is it yeah a few people but you saw them as individuals rather than a collective whole I had a weird it was a weird it was a weird environment on top of the assholes like I had one girl that we were really good friends and her dad moved um because he thought we might get married we were second graders so you had that weirdness

going on but on the flip side of it i did have a lot of good a lot of really really good friends my teachers were dope except for that one i pointed out you know a couple of them yeah obviously principal was dope the police officers were dope police officers that one i pointed out you know a couple of them yeah obviously principal was dope the police officers were dope police officers were off the skillet i didn't know police officers were could be fucked up until i left and went to chicago got it oh so you met them there yeah met him in chicago surprise okay all right so that was the formative years yeah officer doherty shout out to officer doherty good or not so good yeah he was awesome oh he was the young northern sheriff okay finding mastery is brought to you by momentous when it comes to high performance whether you're

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And if you're ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to felixgray.com and use the code FINDINGMASTERY20 at checkout. Again, that's felixgray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FINDINGMASTERY20 at felixgray.com for 20% off. All right, so those are formative years. You figured out how to... I don't wanna make this too simple, but you figured out how to respond in a way to stand up for yourself. You figured out how to use your skills,

your internal skills to move forward rather than to get stuck. And you also figured out that when someone told you no, that that's a sore spot. And so if it didn't make any kind of sense, you're going to work through it with a greater fuel. Okay. Mom created, you saw dad that worked his tail off to be able to make better. And then mom was bullheaded. So it was like that combination that you have of working hard, which is sticking with something and the bullheadedness not to believe what others told you okay now let me fast forward really quickly before we get into your craft and mom mom mom had her master's dad had his master's so oh so

education was part of the education even even though you know is like any kid i don't want to do that whatever they made sure your t's your t's were dotted and I's dotted or whatever that saying is you know so so it was hard in for somebody to say you weren't intelligent when you're coming home and and somebody's helping you with the math helping you with the English or whatever whatever and telling you you've written a paper and your mom's checked out your paper dad's done whatever he's done with math yes that was his thing and they're saying no the paper is good so you walked into school with confidence that what you had and they weren't gonna tell

you that you know you know my mom's a schoolteacher okay okay so go back to confidence and I was gonna jump ahead but let's stay here for a minute where did it come from for you did mom begin to confidence. And I was going to jump ahead, but let's stay here for a minute. Where did it come from for you? Did mom begin to shape the way that you spoke to yourself to feel big? Or like where did confidence come from you? Did you figure it out on your own? No, it was through just observing. She was extremely confident.

Dad was extremely confident. They would stick up for themselves she had a teacher i mean a principal that was um and she i never remember it like it was yesterday that would mess with her at school and this was in a different school district this was in the all-black school district and he would um mess with her and she's come home my dad's name is james james i told that man such as such as such so it was this is like often she'd come home with battles with this um principal who was her boss technically her boss and so i'll tell i'll go to the superintendent i'll get switched out and go you know he ain't gonna treat me that way blah blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I understood.

I'm imagining understood from that, you know, stick up for yourself. If you don't believe in yourself, if you don't stick up for yourself, that did a whole hell of a lot more than whatever that whatever antidotes they would give you. And then, Dad, we were at the we were across the street at the park. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. This is so good. This is really good because your parents modeled toughness. Yeah.

They modeled resiliency. They modeled confidence. And then it, that, what I just heard you say is that did more for you. Just observing them living these kind of mindset principles is the way we would talk about it that they were living them so you got to have a clear understanding what it looked like and what it sounded like rather than somebody teaching you hey be confident by this be confident this way i mean they did that too yeah i'm sure but yeah seeing it ah so good okay that's the importance for us all of us to be able to live in alignment yep and that's the best teacher yep there you go one and what i was going to tell you about dad we were across the

street my cousin and i were on a like a bench swing and we were really swinging up really high and it would hit the back of the pole because we were going so high and we were just having fun and uh white cat came out get off get off of that swing you break it and yeah it's like all right jerk how old you um fourth fifth grade okay so we went back home across the street dad was like um you guys just got there. When are you back home so soon? He said, guy told us to get off the swing. We break it. And he flared up. My dad did. And went across the street and said, show me.

Where is this guy? Oh, my God. Where is this guy? And by then, the guy was gone. So we couldn't find him. But it even caught me and my cousin off guard. It was like, okay. Yeah. You liked it?

Yeah, it was dope. Pop defending the home turf at school. Okay. And he wasn't a... It was unusual for him because he's very laid back. So that

was like, okay, yeah, that guy crossed the line. Yeah. He crossed the line. What an incredible preparation for you as a young man, young kid to a young man to be able to have that model and that experience. Because when I think of ad agencies, which is the world that you, where we first met that you came from. Um, and now I'm going to reference the TV show Mad Men, right? It's a, it's a white industry. A hundred percent. Right. And I'm, I'm saying that as an observation that I never met a black man in the industry. I'm sure there's plenty, but I never met. There are not plenty. Okay. And there's a reason you haven't met it. Well, I didn't know if I have a limited population, but so how, so now I understand how you are able to thrive in that environment because that environment, I'm not saying it's racist, but that environment, you know how to get your way. It is racist.

Oh, it is. Yeah. Okay. Keep going. There's a there's a serious, serious problem in the ad agency in terms of inclusion, diversity and inclusion. Big, big. It's been a hot topic for God knows since before I got into the business and nothing has changed is is screwed up. So was it blatant racism or was it the more cunning type where it's just there's a glass ceiling every in a glass wall everywhere you go um i think it's blatant okay i mean i i mean in the beginning i thought it was that the way you described it in the beginning but it's like how do you keep talking about something it's like uh you know my my car's mufflers the muffler in my car making all that

racket i need to fix it but yet it keeps going on and making all that racket. That means you don't want to fix it. You can drive that car around for years and it's making and you don't fix it. That's because you don't want to. So that's the way I look at it. The majority of people in this business do not see it as a problem and do not want to fix it. Oh, yeah, that's large. Yeah, that's a large statement. Yeah. And, you know, in coaching, we talk about there's a phrase that I've heard often, which is either you're coaching it or you're allowing it when an athlete or a coach is doing something, either you're telling them to do that or you're allowing to do it. And so the position the people of Empower and Influence are either coaching this way in the ad agency world or they're allowing it and you're saying that's deep yeah okay so how have you been

so successful in a creative world where you've had um tension is a maybe a nice way of saying it well like i told you um it's um i'm not going take no. The the average huckleberry hound, black, white, pink, blue, whatever is after a while. Just go do something else. Well, I don't know. I don't know that word of give up. Do something. I've said, you know, it happened with basketball. I want to play basketball and and I know exactly what I didn't do to make that happen.

So when I got into the real world, it was like, well, we aren't going to make the same mistake we made. We're trying to play in the NBA. That won't happen. I love it. There was a, um, you and I were kicking around some ideas one day. I don't know if you remember this and I can't remember how it happened, but we were talking and there was a, uh, what I thought was a really wonderful idea. And then we didn't talk for a little bit of time and it was maybe, I don't know, six, seven months later, uh, we chatted and I said, Hey, do you remember that idea? And you said, Mike, they're great ideas don't happen very often. And so when I'm, when I'm around one or in one, of course I remember. And so like, can you walk through for us how you filter what a great idea

is a creative spark that has, uh, that, that, that you consider to be great and all the other stuff that just kind of is out there. Number one one i'm looking for something that hasn't been done before okay that's that's that's probably first and foremost and because there there's so much competition out there for whatever whatever whether it's an ad or whether it's a tv show or whether it's a movie i mean you there's like when you when you get on the airline right what do they say after you land thanks for flying whoever and my case american thanks for fine american we know that you have so many other airlines to choose from right so it's the same thing so if if everything is the same everything's the same. Even if something is kind of bad, if it's not looking, smelling, um, audio wise, not like anything else, it's going to stand out and you're going to, and you're going to notice that. So that's the, that's the first thing with a great idea.

I think a lot of people think that that's what they're searching for as well. So how do you, how do you generate those different ideas? And then how do you filter when one is different versus others that are different but not good? It's actually I truly believe it's a little bit easier for me than than somebody else. Not because I'm special. Got the good Lord. So that makes it, you know, you're doing you're following in what he wants you to do. So that's going to smooth the path a little bit in terms of generating ideas. How important is God and Jesus and the Trinity in your life? Number one.

That's it. Number one. So, yeah, it's just that the, here's the other thing going back to when I grew up, mom and dad said I could do anything. Most even black parents, if kids said he wanted to be president of the United States, baby, you ain't going to be president of the United States or you aren't going to do this or whatever, whatever, whatever the situation. I've heard white parents tell their sons they can't play basketball because they won't be able to jump as high and whatever. So I didn't have that. I had i can do whatever i want to and then so when i'd read the bible and it's saying all things through christ you know nothing's impossible blah blah blah blah so and then take disney and we used to have those things you know you do the

the little clicker on the side. Oh yeah. Yeah. Like what are those called? Not the glow finder, but something finder. Yeah. Viewfinder. Yeah. That was, you know, we didn't have, it wasn't like you could go online and go to YouTube and watch Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or whatever the deal was. So I'd had those. And so between my parents, between God and then Walt Disney and it was like it looked like it was the most magical place on earth right where you could do anything could come true anything could happen so you put all that together I actually believed that stuff I believed it like internalize it still to this day and internalize it well if the Lord wants me to if he gave it to me must have given it to me for a

reason so if he gave it to me i got a shot at making this happen so let's try and make that happen so i never have in my mind that i can't do it wow okay so that comes from may not i'm not saying it happens all the time but i'm just saying, I believe that's doable. And that comes from a spiritual framework. That comes from your study of what I would consider one of the great masters. Yeah. Right. Okay.

And I don't want to downgrade my understanding of Jesus, but like if there's a carpenter, his dad had it locked in, right? You know, like whatever. So, okay. So you've done incredible studying and that becomes the source of the path and philosophy for you yeah is there a word that guides your life a word a word or a phrase or something that really um cuts to the center of guiding your life no faith belief nobody nobody else is going to believe in you've heard that before nobody else is going to believe in you've heard that before nobody else is going to believe in you if you don't believe in yourself so you know i do believe what do you believe yeah um

yeah i can't i won't fail if i'm in on doing what jesus has put me here on earth to do what he created me to do everybody's got their their job. Everybody's got their assignment. If I'm going for that assignment of what he put me here to do, I ain't going to fail. So there's nothing to be fearful of. Now, if I'm doing some stuff that I ain't supposed to be doing, that's not, you know, that ain't my gift or that's not my, not my time or whatever, then, then we're going to run into um problems okay so that's your philosophy that's what's guiding your life faith to believe in myself

that i'm in alignment with to believe in god to believe in god yeah thank you yeah yeah which means that i and in that extension that i believe when i'm on the right path, I can do whatever that is to them. Whatever that is. Okay. Now, how do you, how'd you, Oh,

this is because he, because Jesus always used to get mad at the disciples. They go, Oh, you a little faith, man. How long I got to be with you? How long I got it.

Did you not see me walk on water? Did you not see that dude was dead and he came up? Did you not see, he didn't get it had water and all of a sudden it turned into wine what's wrong with you people so i do not want to go up there before him when my time is up here on earth and go up there and have him sitting up there saying well you know dude you could have been you could have done this this and that what's wrong with you that ain't happening with me he'll have a whole bunch of stuff to say that i screwed up on but that one he won't have okay so how did you sort out what you how did you put it that not you didn't say like what you're designed for but the job you're

supposed to do here how did you sort out what that is for you that's for me that sounds like life meaning purpose you know how did you sort that out? And maybe even try to articulate what it is. Well, he potentially, you know, you won't know until you get up there and holler at him for sure, for sure. But it seemed like I was at home by myself a lot, right? As a kid? Yeah. I mean, no, I'm the oldest by by nine years. OK. So by the time poetry and D got old enough to, you know, do something with I was in college.

So did you always know you're going to college? Yeah. Yeah. Cool. OK. Well, I mean, whether I wanted to or not didn't matter. You were going. You were going to college. But I always did think college would be fun. It wasn't like they had to twist my arm or anything. But oftentimes by myself, I'm sitting there because it wasn't the most pleasant place early on. It got pleasant. Now, I don't want to act like Norton Shores was screwed up from the beginning to the end. It definitely, by sixth grade,

things definitely took a turn for the better. But, but then you're in the mid seventies or whatever it was. But so oftentimes I was home by myself, just, you know, okay, well you got your Scooby-Doo or whatever's on TV. So you pull out a towel, you'd be Superman, you build a fort, you'd be, you know, do all that kind of of stuff that that I know a lot of kids have imagination at that age. But. I had to take it to the next level, otherwise I get kind of boring because there weren't that many friends. So this idea of boredom, can you. So when you said, how did I get to I was I was doing a whole bunch of shit on my own. OK, creating what is coloring, building, watching Disney, doing the viewfinder or whatever. So there's a lot of excessive imagination stuff at work going on. So when basketball failed. Yeah.

And oh, so when I would write my mom and dad would say you know send um grandma sent you ten dollars for your birthday make sure you're writing to say thank you and i would go oh i didn't know i could just say hey grandma thanks for the money love you jimmy and that would be done i'd write like a one or two page in handwriting letter backwards and you know front of the page back of the page and then um grandma uncle whoever it was would go that letter it sounded like you were there it sounded like you were right there in front i mean they would go on and on about my letters so when the basketball thing failed i always knew i I could write. Got it. So there you go. And so is that how you entered into the ad agency world as a writer?

Be which? What does that mean? There's Oh, the TV show. Oh, be witched. Be witch. That's where you started. Well, yeah, the runner be witch Samantha Montgomery and Darren Stevens. Yep. No, yeah, Elizabeth Montgomery played Samantha. And Dick York played the first Darren Stevens. So anyway, he was in the ad business. He had a big house. He had a pretty wife.

And if it wasn't for Indora screwing with him, turning him into a horse or whatever the deal was he would just been sitting up there you know when he get turned when whatever spell was on him so say he was a horse and he got turned back into darren he it seemed like it'd be it was for television but the way they portrayed it he he'd come out of it he had two minutes to come up with some idea for the client he'd run downstairs because the client be at the house or he'd come out of it he had two minutes to come up with some idea for the client he'd run downstairs because the client be at the house or he'd run into the office and say beans beans they're great they they keep you lean and the client go that's great that's great so what when i was i was getting ready to pick a major for college i i you know shoot there he looks like

you just get to write and come up with cool stuff and creative stuff. And I remember the commercials growing up. They would come on in between the shows and stuff. So I said, okay, I'll do that. Mom and dad were bugging me to have a fallback playing in case basketball didn't work. So I said, I'll do advertising. But for me, it was just a throwaway because I'm hooping. I'm'll do advertising. But for me, it was just a throwaway. Yeah, because I'm hooping. I'm not doing this. But if you need something, I got to pick something. Let's do something, pick something where you're creative and you get to write and we'll be done with it.

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And for me, that includes how I take care of my body. I've been using Caldera Lab for years now. And what keeps me coming back, it's really simple. Their products are simple and they reflect the kind of intentional living that I want to build into every part of my day. And they make my morning routine really easy. They've got some great new products I think you'll be interested in. A shampoo, conditioner, and a hair serum. With Caldera Lab, it's not about adding more. It's about choosing better. And when your day demands clarity and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for high quality personal care products that elevate your routine without

complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. What are some of the things that you've created then? I'm imagining you're going to talk about Nike freestyle, but some of the things that you've created that you say, God, that, that was good. That felt right. That was good work. Maybe we've heard of it. Maybe we haven't. Yeah. Um, one was, um, um, like father, like son. So this was, um, by then my dad was maybe at past been dead for two, three years or something like that. It was, it was still pretty fresh and he died of a heart attack like,

like that. Nobody expected the heart attack. So anyway, this was for Nike and I was at a small agency called music or Darrell Chen. And it was like, it was a multicultural ad agency. It was, uh, Muse was Joe Musuce's black, Mavis Cordero, Mexican, and David Chen, Chinese. And you'd walk through those offices and somebody is speaking Chinese, Spanish, Japanese. It was like 20 some different languages at one time. So you'd be working on ads for the Japanese consumer market, the Mexican consumer market, whatever, whatever, whatever. So anyway, they had a sliver of Nike, just a sliver. And so they had, I think it was Jerry Cronin was at Wieden and Kennedy, their main ad agency. And he had done this campaign, just do it campaign.

It was all writing. It was poetry. It didn't necessarily rhyme. And we needed to do it for the Ebeneez and black consumer markets. So I did this joint. What is Ebeneez? Ebeneez Magazine. Ebeneez Magazine.

Okay. African American magazine. Sure. Yeah. So we had to do it for that. The cool thing about sports is it's not black or it's not white in general. And so whether you were doing it for the black consumer market or the white consumer market or whatever, whatever, whatever. It had to be authentic to the sport. So in this case, it was basketball. So I did one called Like Father, Like Son.

And everybody can relate to that, whether no matter what race you are. So it was a shadow of two kids up against the wall. And there was a basketball hoop. And you can see the shadow of the basketball hoop, the shadow of those kids. One kid had a ball in his hand. It's kind of like, you could tell one kid had a which way they're going to go. One kid had a dad, one didn't. And it's like, like father, like son. And you would spell out the negative of a dad going one way and the positive of a kid going a different way.

And I would never forget the ending on it. Let's see. Now that I say I'll never forget. It was like, be there for him. And he'll be there for his brother. And so you could take that a few different ways. Is the brother black brother? Or is it just your your brother as a human being or and I remember the creative director hated that line uh yes you julius hated that line and it's like dude i'm not changing that line he said yeah but it sounds like you're talking about um a black brother i said well that's you i said brother

er i didn't say anything about brother T-H-A which is how I would let you know who I was talking about I wanted it to be ambiguous ambiguous ambiguous thank you so that whoever was reading that thing because I didn't say anything

about what race these kids were it was shadows I didn't say anything about race it was relatable to whoever happened to be because I didn't say anything about what race these kids were shadows. I didn't say anything about race. I didn't, you know, it was relatable to whoever happened to be reading it, even though I was going to be in, in. So in that moment, when he challenged you, you've got a whole history of being able to stand up for your ideas,

yourself, what's right. Right. And so you didn't turtle, you didn't cow, you know, you didn't move away from it. Well, it was also, it also for the African-American market. Here's a white creative director going to tell me what's right for the African-American market. Probably wasn't going to go over too well. I would have found another reason to disagree with him if he would have been black. But it wasn't going to go over. And the cool thing about that, the next one we did was called Goals.

And it had just a shot, overhead shot of a hoop. Scott Bedbury, who was the head of Nike advertising at the time, dug that so much that not only did it run in Ebony magazine, it ran in Sports Illustrated. And that was talking about, and I wove in the story of having goals. Yes, there's your, which was relatable to my life, which is I want to play, be an athlete. I want to play in the NBA and, and, but you got to have other goals. And one of them I put in there was, you know, be president. That was one of the goals. And in other words, nothing's, um, if, if, if you can, if you can't, if you,

if this is not going well, your original goal, what are you going to do? Are you going to alter your shot? So yeah, that was, those are two. And those end up winning awards and stuff. That was, Oh, they did. Yeah. How many awards have you won in this space? I don't know a lot. Yeah. Yeah. I know when we were talking before, I asked you a question about how you get introduced. And you said, man, I don't want to bring that up. Because you do get introduced as a legend in the field. You get introduced as a creative genius.

And are you embarrassed by that? Or is this something that it feels like it's not important? It is important. but it's not it's a weird balance, because it is important because I'm one of the few blacks. So you definitely want to be a role model for other kids coming up. Who like, damn, what's going on with this advertising thing? This is, you know, this is BS. So you definitely want to be a role model so they can have somebody to look up to,

just like I had folks to look up to and not in advertising per se. Not, I mean, not blacks in advertising, but I had definitely had Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Muhammad Ali, who obviously my mom and dad so you you you jim brown michael jackson the j5 i mean all these black figures so you definitely want to be a black figure to be looked up to in a business that had doesn't have that many of these kids you look at you take you take that part seriously so it's important to have yeah damn right yeah you better introduce me right yeah but yeah you got them also you can't take that with you right you can't act like a freaking jerk and can't bring that home can't

bring that into the office or whatever so it's strictly just for somebody to have some inspiration okay it's important were you were you able to meet some of those leaders that influenced you, or was that more the public persona of them? Muhammad and Michael Johnson. I put Ali in a Gatorade campaign, a couple Gatorade campaigns. I put Kareem in a Gatorade campaign. I've met Jim Brown, but not spent a whole lot of time with him but um yeah i've met some of them any disappointments without bootsy collins oh shoot george clinton bootsy collins those

that was uh growing up those cats don't i don't know if they understand like some of them you can talk to i've met obviously like said, I've met some. I won't mention any names. None of the ones I mentioned just then. But you've met some of them and they don't understand how much they mean to you, how they meant to you. And for them, they're just like, oh, here's another groupie or whatever. But it's like for me, growing up where I was growing up, if Ali didn't out george foreman whoo that i couldn't go back to school you said a little too much before the fight huh so yeah oh yeah yeah yeah i wouldn't be i wouldn't

be eating lunch for months and uh like michael jackson that when michael jackson came along the jackson five all of them i mean from tito toito to Jermaine to Jackie to Marlon and Michael, mad important because they had these afros. So I'm going to school before the J5. And what's up with this dude's hair? And you'd be sitting there in class and somebody's bouncing their hand on your afro. And I said, get your hand off my... What is wrong with you?

And they thought it was just the most bizarre, weird thing to them, and it wasn't cool to them. Long come to J5, Afro's cool. How long have you been growing your dreads? They're about midway down your back this is about

um I started growing them again I was bald in uh 24 2004 so I've been growing my hair since 2004. you're bald what what oh you mean you shaved yeah I had dreads from 1994 to 2004. So seven years. No, no. 1997 to 2004. So seven years and I cut it all off. Oh, you did? Yeah. Was that like for an energy reason? Was it for like... No, no. You hear people talk about that right like spiritual whatever no no no it was um um i read somewhere in the i can't remember where it was in the old in the new

testament paul was talking about hair is uh um embarrassment or something something along those lines and i and i wasn't sure about it but rather than um be disrespectful to the Lord, I say, it's only hair. It'll grow back if I decide that I was mistaken about that. So I cut it all off. And then I was talking to a pastor at a church, and he said, Samson had long hair. And that was the essence of it. And I said, good point.

I can grow my hair back. I see a lot of pictures with Jesus with flowy, you know, like not as long as yours, but like hair. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. So Nike freestyle, not something that you're, I mean, it's an iconic, maybe I don't know your involvement.

I always thought that you were the impetus for that, for that. And maybe you can share like what your involvement with that commercial was. And then a lot of people might not know exactly what it is by name, but I'm sure most people listening have heard of it. That is, yeah, I mean, a lot of magazines, Dime Magazine, Slam Magazine, Complex Magazine, any magazine, ESPN, whatever, whatnot, it'll be in minimum top 10, if not number one. And at one point, I don't know if he's got a

new favorite now, but at one point it was Phil Knight's all-time favorite basketball ad. So that was pretty dope. No, I was just going to, without what I did on, I wasn't in Widening Kennedy when I did the JDI. So were those two first projects the one that got you to the next? That helped me to get into. So without that, I'm not in Widening Kennedy and I don't have the opportunity to do Nike freestyle. So let's go back to those first two. Were you trying, and no right and wrong answer, but were you trying to create something special to create something special? Or were you trying to create something to get you exposed to the next larger pond? Like because you had goals of being something as a kid.

It was all of all of the above it was yeah i mean everything i do it it has some type of spiritual nature to it i can't say everything but vast majority of it i can't wait to talk about the two projects yeah two projects in particular one that we're working on together now and the other one which has to do with the drink. I can't wait to talk about that. So, OK, hold the hold those for just a moment. Yeah. So everything, most everything has a spiritual.

Yeah, you and nothing. If you go back and look at my work, I'll drop God off in there. Father and son. Father like father and like son. But no, but that that's a spiritual. Yeah. Yeah. Father and son. How God wants you to treat other people, how the world should be.

It's not unlikely that it's going to have the word God in it in some shape, form or fashion or either his his spirit, how he wants you to act. So that was that. So because of whatever my work, that's, you know, I believe this is coming from the Lord. So he needs to be represented in what you're doing. I can't be everywhere, but my work can be in a whole bunch of places and I'm not there. So they can see, feel. Wait a minute. Hold on. Hold on.

That's really important because we talk, we think often about how important it is to be right and influence the people around you, whatever that right means to you. There's not just one way. There's lots of ways that people think about that concept. And you're saying, okay, that's part one. Part two is have it be infused in your work because your work can reach and go further than you can. I've been in, before I ever visited Japan, my work was in Japan before I went to New Zealand, before I went to China. I haven't been to China yet,

but you know what I'm saying? My work was there. And if my work by extension, a message from the Lord is in that work. And then, you know, building off of that and, you know,

that'll have some influence. Somebody else does something and the next thing you know, they might be able to come to Christ or something. Or something. Or something. Okay, so before we go to Nike Freestyle, the ad or the campaign,

what would you... You work through your relationship with God. Right. And you're touted as a creative genius. I think you probably see yourself as having access to genius creativity i don't i don't know how you respond to that but i imagine you embrace everybody but everybody does it's not that's what i'm saying it doesn't okay that's what it doesn't

make me special that's where i'm going it's because i believe it okay oh that's the only difference i got maybe between some me and somebody else is like i believe that god is doing this thing and so so, you know, I act on it. Okay. So that, those are the, okay. I don't think I got clear on how you knew your path because I think you, I think the way you answered it was I was always doing creative things in the house because I didn't have places to go and I didn't have, you know, kids around. So I was creating from within. I think that that's how you figured out your skill, but I'm not sure I know how you know your path, that this is what you're supposed to be doing. The second that I want to have like a point counterpoint to is, can you have creative

genius if you're an atheist? If you don't believe, if you are heathen, if you're a full pagan and living that lifestyle, do you still have access in your model? Do you still access to creative genius absolutely 100 okay i mean there's um they just don't acknowledge where that's coming from they they can be a atheist and not believe in god and it's like um i cannot believe in you i cannot believe that you're there you're sitting i can believe that michael gervais is not talking to me. It doesn't mean that Michael is not talking. That is real.

That is real. So let's take it a step further more aggressively. If you're a Satan worshiper, I don't even know. I don't know anyone that does that, but I'm sure there's plenty. Right. So more aggressively away from God. Can you have creative genius from there? Yeah, there's been.

I mean, I think I'm not saying they were Satan worshipers or anything like that, but it had been plenty of songs out there with, um, with the devil in it. And shout out the devil. Yeah. Shout out the devil highway to hell. Um, sympathy for the devil has been all types of stuff that has not come from, uh, uh, a good place, but but you know sympathy for the devil is a good song i don't listen to it but i lyrically that's you know lyrically musically that's a good song and um yeah because torment coming from a place of torment can create some incredible things yeah absolutely i don't want to come from that place but i just think that that is also

i mean it's not it's not the the genius the the evil one the adversary is a genius i mean say that again the devil is a genius there you go so you can you can have definitely have some influence for him that is like sheer genius but it doesn't mean it's not evil. So what they did with the 9-11, slamming into the Twin Towers, that was sheer genius. That was on another level, historic, never been done before, so on and so forth. But that doesn't mean that it was not evil. It was one of the most evil acts that you could commit. So you can hold genius and evil.

Those two can work together. Yeah. Hitler. Yep. Genius communicator. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Now, can we go back really quickly? I know we got a couple of things that are really going to be fun to talk about, but I guess you know your path. You can say despicable genius, but go ahead. How do you know you're on the right path now? You had creative exercises in time when you're young.

You naturally were a good writer. You're in love with God. And how do you know you're on the right path? I don't have any reservations. I don't have any doubt. I don't have I don't have like, man, am I doing the right thing? Man, should I be doing something else? I don't have any doubt. I don't have, I don't have like, man, am I doing the right thing? Man, should I be doing something else? I don't have any of that.

For people that don't have or haven't been afforded the space that you have, that don't have the inner fight, they didn't have those models and they are working a nine to five that is not stimulating for them. Either they're not knowing how to be stimulated in it or which is it's their fault right because we can find joy in anything that we're doing or uh they're just they they know it's not right for them that they're meant to be doing something else they don't know what it is yet and they're afraid to maybe take a shot or to, to, to explore. Do you have any thoughts about that? You know, no, I don't know if this answers your question or not, but give it a shot. And then, uh, if it,

if it doesn't just tell me and I'll figure out something else. But, um, I was going through a really rough time in 2013 and 2014. And then in like business was not going good. Like I didn't know if I was gonna be able to keep the doors open for amusement park and that and that was like year two or three of amusement park amusement park started in 2011 2011 so in the beginning money was there and everything and then it started drying up in 2013 2014 okay right and um michael roth from ipg he's the chairman ceo of ipg he's the one that funded the company funded the amusement park he's a ipg is a minority owner and um he's still yeah well in amusement park inc no but in music park entertainment yes a minority owner got

it um but he kept saying now jimmy's gonna be hard it's gonna be hard first time i've sat down and ate with him it's gonna be hard and i said no it's not it's gonna be easy i'm telling you it's going to be hard and um it's like you're talking to your granddad. And no, it's not. And sure enough, 2013 started getting hard. 2014, it started getting harder. And I said, boy, that dude, he's right. And I mean, I was selling cars, selling cars selling our cars selling we had to sell our

house in oregon you did yeah it was like it was when i say hard i it was it was mad difficult and then i was why i was reading this article it just happened to catch my eye it was like it was called stress wood and it was um biosphere 2 that that contraption that they built in the middle of the desert in arizona to kind of mimic what happens if you know the um if we were living on the moon could you build build a facility where humans could live inside of it or if global warming got so bad could you live inside of this facility and they had you know it has water it has um soil they were and they put like eight people i believe in there and they were supposed to live in there for like three years i think they only made it two two years year and a half or something like that but they were not to come out and they

were going to live inside of this facility and they had things that would mimic a lot of the things that happened in the real world in terms of nature. One of the things they didn't mimic was wind. So they would plant these trees and the trees would shoot up shoot up real quick and then they'd collapse. And the scientists and the folks living there couldn't figure out why these trees where they had everything they had sun they had the right temperature they had water they had soil but they just clapped and then they finally figured out

they didn't have any wind they didn't have anything blowing on them left to right sideways forward whatever whatever because as it was a little shoot it get a little wind and they would build up what they call stresswood strength as it grew up more more stresswood is what they call more stresswood more stresswood and that's why a doggone um you know everglade tree or one of the giant sequoias can be however many feet up in the air and not tip over is because they have stress wood every stress every step of the way and i was reading that and i said that's it got this stress wood this is stress wood this is not god throwing this under the bus this is stress wood. This is stress wood. This is not God throwing this under the bus. This is not him trying to damage us or hurt us. And then you relate it obviously to lifting weights. If you don't lift, you don't get stronger. Micro tears.

You got to have the micro tears. added to explain what what what these trees needed they needed that resistance and that bending and pushing early on so they could develop the the strength and to be resilient at a later time i don't know who wrote the article this particular whether it was coming so that's not okay so i'm sorry to interrupt but i'm so excited about this this you don't you're not sure if this is like a concept that is well accepted in science no i think it is it is okay i'm almost positive yeah if you google stress wood it'll come up yeah god i love it so you read that and you said this is my phase in life right now is stress wood stress wood why i got so happy when when i read that so that simple idea yeah stress wood idea. Yeah. Stress would stress would. God, that's good. Okay. I hope you've enjoyed this part of the conversation. This is part one. And for more information, head over to either finding mastery.net

and you can find other podcasts, but also part two will be there as well. And, or punch over to iTunes as well for both finding mastery as well as minutes on mastery. And that's just a quick little reminder that we fired up minutes on mastery, applied insights and takeaways under three minutes, you know, the drill. So hopefully that's, you're finding that useful. And if you're enjoying that, let us know on social, get us a review, help us kind of ride that momentum so that we can expose the insights from just some of the most brilliant creative minds in the world. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us.

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