Good Life Project - Andy J. Pizza | Your Creative Pep Talk

Episode Date: November 8, 2021

Imagine going through life with the name, Andy J. Pizza. That’s what my guest today goes by, but it wasn’t his given name, but rather his claimed name. More on that when we talk. Andy was the kid who perpetually zagged when everyone else zigged. And, at a young age, he saw this same pattern in his mother, he was so much like her. Which, in part, lit him up, but also terrified him. In his mom, these same impulses were married to mental illness that led to a life of struggle. He feared that’s where he was headed, too, until a realization dropped that would not only lead him down his own path, but also empower him to embrace life differently and trust he could make it work. And, indeed, he has. Andy has built a stunning career as an illustrator, author of kid’s books, animator, and contributor to The New York Times, Apple, Nickelodeon and countless other mega-brands. Driven to share and inspire others in the creative community, he heads up the fantastic Creative Pep Talk podcast, where, by the way, I was his guest recently. And, Andy is a master of the stage, with a style of public speaking that’s one part TED Talk, one part one-man show — with a sprinkle of stand-up comedy. His friends call his approach Laydown Tragedy ( 😆) - because it’s the opposite of stand-up comedy, in that instead of shooting for laughs, he aim for tears, but in the best of ways!You can find Andy at: Website | Instagram | Creative Pep Talk PodcastIf you LOVED this episode:You’ll also love the conversations we had with Morgan Harper Nichols about leaning into creativity and language as a form of both creative expression and emotional processing.My new book Sparked!-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We leave finding yourself to like a 30-minute visit to the high school guidance counselor office and be like, who are you? Okay, that it sounds, you know, you took the little test aptitude thing. This is kind of what you're, what you're all about. And really it's like decades long finding that thing. And there's no other better way to spend your time on the earth. Okay. So imagine going through life with the name Andy J. Pizza. Well, that is what my guest today goes by, but it wasn't his given name, but rather his claimed name. This is the name he said yes to later in life.

And more on that when we talk and why that in fact is the name he goes by. So Andy was the kid who was kind of perpetually zagging when everyone else zigged. And at a young age, he saw this same pattern in his mom. And he was so much like her, which in part lit him up. He loved that, but it also terrified him because in his mom, these same impulses were married to mental illness that led to a life of struggle. And he feared that's where he was headed to. He wondered if that was sort of the only way that these things could show up in life until a realization dropped that would not only lead him down his own path, but also empower him

to embrace life differently and trust that he could make it work. And indeed he has in the largest ways. Andy has since built a beautiful family, an incredible life, a stunning career as an illustrator, author of kids' books, animator, contributor to everywhere from the New York Times to Apple, Nickelodeon, and countless other mega brands and experiences, really driven to share and inspire others in the creative community. He heads up the fantastic Creative Pep Talk podcast, where by the way, I was a guest recently. And Andy is a master of the stage as well with this public style of speaking that's one part TED, one part one man show with a sprinkle of standup

comedy. His friends actually call his approach lay down tragedy because it's the opposite of standup comedy in that instead of shooting for laughs, he aims for tears, but kind of in the best, most inspiring, heart-opening way. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Field, and this is Good Life Project. We'll be right back. Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Super excited to dive in with you.

So many things I want to cover. You and I look at the world in really similar ways, but are wired pretty differently in a lot of ways too. I think there's some really powerful overlap and not so. As we sit here having this conversation, you are what would be considered a successful, accomplished illustrator and author and speaker and teacher. The early days of your life, I think formed you in a lot of interesting ways. And I want to explore that a

little bit because I know you came up and it seems like you had these two profoundly different role models in your parents, but both influenced you. And I think at different seasons of your life in different ways. So tell me a bit about them. Cause I know you, I guess you grew up mostly with your dad. So tell me a bit about him because he seems like almost a diametric opposite of the direction that you ended up going. Yeah, that is true. My dad is like, uh, you know, he's, uh, he works at a fortune 500 company. He's an accountant. Um, he's very organized. Uh, you know, he's kind of a super corporate dude. He has a silly side, which is, I get some of that, but he's just, yeah, very on the nose numbers, kind of by the book career.

Just exactly how you would imagine just someone like working up the corporate ladder kind of thing. And, you know, and I grew up in that household and, you know, I think by the time I was like 18, I started to discover that, wait a second, I have some DNA that isn't just my mom. Like I think some of him is hidden inside. And I think it's, I now feel like it's such a blessing because I happen to be this weird mashup of business person and artist because my mom is just kind of the stereotypical tragic artist really. And so that, yeah, that combination is very, I discovered over time how inherent and baked in that is in me. Yeah.

So that, so, so your dad grows your dad is sort of like a very linear, like this is business. This is the way you do it. Like you say yes to the job at age 22, and then you follow the ladder up and up and up. And you do things the way that they're supposed to be done. Your mom, I've heard you described as going from tragedy to tragedy by trying to fit a mainstream box. Tell me what you mean by that. Yeah. So when I was really little, I remember just thinking I didn't get to see her a lot, but like sometimes on weekends and then different times she moved away. So we'd spend a few weeks in the summer, but I was just crazy about her. I just thought this is the coolest person. She's loud, silly. She draws, she drew Wolverine on my

X-Men card binder. And it was like the coolest like cred in school of like, that is amazing. And I just thought she was the coolest person ever. And all of my relatives and everybody around me when I was really little would constantly tell me, you are just like your mom. You are just like her. And I was like, that is awesome because she is the coolest person I know. And then as I got older and she, you know, she left my family. She started a new family, left that family, gotten this really physically abusive relationship with a guy, ended up with a really hardcore drug addiction and a brain tumor. And this is all around the time I'm like 17, she ends up in a coma in the hospital. And those words from childhood end up coming back and haunting me because I'm watching her and I'm

feeling all the empathy and pain for this person that I was crazy about. But also even deeper than that is just the horror of those words in my mind that you are just like her. This is what happens to people like you in the world. And I think that I think subconsciously, I don't think I realized that at the time, um, I didn't know that I had ADHD. Um, she's never been formally diagnosed, but I have a strong feeling that hereditary component is coming from her side. And I didn't know it subconsciously, but I think at that moment, I realized like she got here by trying to repress who she was. She was trying to be a secretary. She was trying to be a stay at home mom. She was trying to do all these things that just went against her nature.

And so she would try and do well for a little bit. And then she would just implode and just, you know, have to just blow it all up and go somewhere else. And, you know, eventually that all caught up with her. And so I think I, she was my greatest teacher of what not to do. And I think that fired me up. And actually from that time in high school, I thought, I know that the whole plan of like, just do the safe thing is so unsafe for me. Like that's not going to work. And so I thought I'm going to bet it all on doing what I love, which is art and performance and just going for it. So that's what I did. It's so interesting. So there was something, I mean, there was something in your brain that said, okay, so on the one hand, there's a script that says, okay, so people like us end up like that.

But then there was another script in your brain that was running that said, but maybe the reason there's an underlying thing here, which is that it's not so much that people like us end up like that. It's like people like us who don't honor the fact that we may be different in a lot of ways and try and fit into what society tells us is the box that we need to conform to, that that's actually more of the underlying cause of suffering. And so you made this decision to, at a really early age, effectively opt out of that constraint. I think it was something about feeling like I had nothing to lose because I'm watching

her do that. I thought I, you know, living in this, my dad kind of married in a lot of ways, the opposite of my mom. And so he married this other very corporate person. And so I, I lived in this like very linear thinking corporate, uh, environment that just did not fit into at all. And I think that they had me have a job from as early as I could. So I was working a part-time job at 14. And that job, I was working at the movie theater

and I'd have to like, I was the cashier. And I would try so hard to like count the money right, pay attention. Like, and you know, even just a box felt like jail and I would just feel physically ill, right. Pay attention. Like, and you know, even just the box felt like jail and I would just feel physically ill crawling in my skin. And then I would go get my boss would count down the money and I would have lost all this money, even though I tried as hard as I possibly could. And so I end the day with like total shame. Like I can't even do the most basic role in society. Like this is the entry level job. I can't pull it off. And so I think by

the time that was like 14. So by the time my mom went through really, you know, the worst of it, I think I just realized like, I have nothing to lose for going for it because if I try to do the right thing, this is kind of where it goes. And also, you know, I think in my really early life, one of the first beacons, it's funny, of hope was someone else who I know has ADHD, which is Jim Carrey. When I watched Ace Ventura, I thought, this guy's a maniac and people are loving it. And I'm like, maybe this will be okay. And he says something that I think really sums it up. He said he watched his dad, who was hilarious, who like Rodney Dangerfield thought was the funniest guy ever, like Jim's dad, go try to be accountant

and then fail and end up being just in cleaning services. And he said, you know, you can fail at what you don't want. So you might as well try to go for what you do. And I think I knew I would fail at what I didn't want. So that was just giving me license to like, I might as well try the opposite of what she did. I didn't know that it would work at all. And I mean, none of us do, you know, like even to this day.

It is interesting also, you bring up the example of Jim Carrey and like you look at later in life, he's now become an astonishing artist. You know, he was always a performing artist, incredible at, but now actually painter. And I'm always amazed because when you, when you share, there's an assumption, well, if somebody has ADHD, their brain works in an atypical way. And there's just no way that you could stay with anything long enough to focus and finish. And in fact, that's not true

at all. No, it's not true at all. I, you know, over the past decade, there's been so much awareness around autism and I've loved that, especially I really, I love the people with autism that I know are some of my favorite people. And I've loved watching the culture. You know, there's a huge wide variety of what it looks like to have autism, first of all. But, you know, that's been so amazing to watch the neurodiversity kind of get a stage in that way. And I feel like part of my tiny little role is to maybe add a little bit to the equation with ADHD because even the name is so inaccurate to what it is. You know, it's this attention deficit when, you know, the experts would say it's more like you have too much attention. It's like, you can't, you don't know how not to pay attention to things.

And also there's a big misunderstanding is that you have this hyper focus. And so the things that you love, the things that make you light up, the things that feel meaningful, you can actually go way further than the distance than your average person. And so that's kind of what I bet on was like these, the things I like, and that's just kind of my general rule. Like I just follow that curiosity as it lights up. And then I go all the way in until it's kind of run out and then I have to pivot and switch gears, but I can trust that that fuel is a deeper well than your average person. And so if something really is doing it for me, I can, I can pretty much trust that I will figure it out because that's what that obsession does.

Yeah. That's so interesting. I think like you said, over the last decade or so, I feel like we've actually, there's so much more nuanced understanding of neurodiversity and typical versus atypical and what that even means, you know, and how it shows up in different ways and different people and, and how they're like, the brain is wired in ways where sometimes initially people would label it as in some way, quote, broken or less capable of. And now we're realizing that, well, actually there are often some astonishing capacities built into this different way, different wiring. A lot of ways that I remember reading a number of years ago that an unusually high number of entrepreneurs and founders actually live with dyslexia.

Yeah. And it literally like they were forced to come at things, to learn things, to organize their brain and understand differently. And while it caused a lot of struggle early in life, and for some, it still does to this day, it's also, it's given them access to the ability to see things differently. And it's almost forced them to have to come at things differently, which can be an astonishing benefit for both artists and entrepreneurs in a lot of different ways. Absolutely.

And actually, I know that some of the studies around that, there's a lot of correlation with ADHD as well. They're overrepresented in the entrepreneurial kind of sector. And I also just want to highlight, cause I mentioned the word neurodiverse and I, I do really like that word because I, it makes me feel seen, but the word neurotypical is actually pretty, uh, it doesn't really tell the whole truth because there isn't really a neurotypical, like if you go read into it. And so my big thing and why, why I want to celebrate neurodiversity so much is I kind of feel like we have been given this

device in our head. It's like an alien gave it to us and said, this thing is unique in all the universe. It's the known universe's most complex inner machinery. And it's like the alien got cut off before they could tell you, this is what this one does. And if that happened to you, if an alien gave you that device, you would do whatever it took to figure out what does this thing do? Because it's pretty, it's special. And so I think me leaning into my neurodiversity and encouraging everybody, regardless of if they have some diagnosis formally is like, this is a, this is the hero's journey.

Finding out like, what makes you different? What is your, this crazy inner machine that is just, that boggles scientists' minds more than anything. What is yours uniquely capable of achieving? That to me, that is what lights me up. Yeah. I love that. So you use the phrase go for it.

You said when you're sort of like 18 years old or when it was time to sort of like say, okay, stepping into the next season of life, I, something inside me just said, I might as well go for it. What does it actually look like for you? What is going for it look like at that moment in your life? Yeah. what does it actually look like for you? What is going for it look like at that moment in your life? Yeah. So, you know, right when all this stuff happened with my mom, I think I was kind of, I had a period of time where I was in my dark, dark phase, 17, 18, where I really looked out into the future and that road wasn't going anywhere that I wanted to go. It was like, and that's a scary place to be.

You know, that's kind of one of the darkest place you can be as a human is like, I can't see a path into the future that I want to go into. And it was a pretty dark kind of moment for me. But at that same time, just a little bit after that, I discovered Indie Rock and this whole alternative scene and the band posters and all that. And it really felt kind of like a yellow brick road fell out of the sky.

And I was like, all these people not only aren't repressing their weirdness, they are like crystallizing it into a style, into a creative voice. Like they're leaning into it. And so I decided to go to school for illustration and design. My dad actually got transferred overseas to the UK. And so I went to college in the UK, which was a total massive blessing from the universe because once you're in college there, there's no general studies. And if that wasn't true, I don't know if I would have got through college, but once I got there, it's all illustration, all design. And the truth is, you know, I think I was so, I was so kind of panicked about like, I have to turn this into something that I was kind of manic. And I remember in the first year telling my professor like, okay, year one, I've got to find my style. And they're like, okay, just take it easy, buddy.

And I think, yes, I was like, you know, way getting ahead of myself, trying to rush a process that's a lot, that is a lot more mystical than that. But I think their answer and the kind of general creative take on the creative journey and experience is so overly mystified that it actually discouraged me from going on the journey. You know, when I said, I just need to find my style, he replied with something along the lines of like, find your style. Your style finds you. And I was like, I was like, just forget that. And so I, I actually like spent my college years. I kind of wasted some of that because I was trying to look for the, uh, the kind of warp whistle, super Mario brothers three. How do you skip levels? How

do I just skip to a career? Because if I don't figure this out, I'm going to end up like my mom. And so I think that I, I think I just tried to figure out like marketing. How do I figure out how to have a, you know, a breakout success early or something like that, instead of saying yes to the creative journey. And so my, a lot of my work now I have a podcast around this is what are the patterns of the creative journey? What's the science behind creativity? It's not, yes, I do love, I love the mystery and the mystical side of creative practice, but when you dive into this stuff, there's so much that you can learn from the people that came before us. And so I try, I think my whole, a big part of my work is kind of the anti what that professor gave me, which is just like, it's not up to you. It's

up to the universe. Like, well, there's actually a lot of things you can do. And so anyway, so eventually I kind of, I found my way, but it took some kind of rock bottoms before, before I got there. changemakers who want to think differently and solve the world's most pressing challenges. From healthcare and the environment to energy, government, and technology, it's your path to meaningful leadership in all sectors. For details, visit uvic.ca slash future MBA. That's uvic.ca slash future MBA. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running,

swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary.

Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is?

You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. So I have a lot of friends who are artists in a lot of different contexts and ways, commercial artists, fine artists, and the full spectrum. And by the way, I don't necessarily make a distinction between those two. Right.

Yeah. It's just sort of like the label that society happens to give different people who show up in different ways. And I've always been curious about formal education in that context because some of them have been to the best art schools in the world and felt like it was the best decision they ever made. And then some of them have been to similar schools and railed against it and thought it was a waste of money and time. And they actually felt like they had to decondition. They had to literally like reprogram themselves to rebound from the experience. So I'm curious. So you go to a traditional art school, but again, it's different than what a lot of art schools look like in the US. What's your take on formal education versus sort of creating

your own journey of discovery? Yeah. I mean, I always say, cause I get this question a lot from creative people. And I always say that if you can go to art school and not end up in crazy debt, I would actually highly recommend it, but I would make sure that you get your priorities right. Because, you know, especially in America where the, the, the cost is so massive and usually they're selling it to not to the student, but the parents of the student that they usually are over emphasizing so many things that are really not what you're, what you're getting there. You know, they're,

they're talking about, these are the five different software suites that we're gonna cover and we're gonna get every single, you know, technical advantage and all that kind of thing. And for me, the power of school is finding people like you doing things you didn't know you could do. That's what I think.

You know, I can summarize the five things that really changed me at school. And they were all, you know, it was the visiting illustrator that was doing this amazing work. And I had a one-on-one conversation with him. I was like 10 minutes long. And I'm like, this guy's like me. Like, I could do this. And there's just something through osmosis that I think is the only way that you can

kind of lift those ceilings and limiting beliefs in your brain about what's possible. And I just highly recommend, can you get FaceTime with people who you are like, these are my people and they've unlocked things I haven't. If you spend school that way and you can do so without being drowned in debt, then I would say, yeah, go for it. But you can also spend time with the world's greatest creators any day of the week for free with the wealth of podcasts and YouTube videos and all that kind of stuff. And so there, there are a lot of options to get that. Yeah. I mean, I love that. You know, it's interesting. You brought up the

model of the hero's journey, right. You know, which is, you know, the classically memorialized, you know, Joseph Campbell, 12 steps. And it's a journey that so many of us either fiercely resist going out on or find ourselves very often unwillingly stepping out into like very grudgingly hesitating and resisting, which is part of the journey actually. And, and I almost feel like part of what you're, you're saying is like that, that process that if, if school really works to help you step in to figure out like, what is the thing inside of me that needs to come out, that it's, it's, it's effectively creating a frame for you to move through the hero's journey when it works well. But when it doesn't work well, then it's sort of like, you know, it can also end up being

spinning your wheels. But at the same time, so can you spending five years trying to figure it out on your own, you know? So it's much more about like, how do I understand how to create the experience that I need to figure out what that thing is inside of me and then bring it back into my life and then to the work that I do. Yeah. And that really brings up kind of a core philosophy of mine. So if I'm talking to people that don't consider themselves creative, like if I get brought into a business to bring creativity there, I'm usually trying to get them to see how unique

they are, how different they are and lean into that and, and really go on that journey. When I talk to creative people, often I find myself more telling them like, you're not that special. There are people that are a lot like you really close that you can learn so much from. You don't have to reinvent the wheel, like go take advantage of that. And I think that, um, you know, that that's kind of where I, I, I encourage people to go like, go seek those people out that are just so much like you and they will get you halfway through the journey. Um, and so one way or another, I would, I would encourage you to go figure that out. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. And part of that journey is the people who come into your

path, you know, because you're going to stumble, you're going to get stuck, you're going to be brought to your knees in various different ways. And, you know, it is those people who kind of see you and see something that you don't see very often, I think. And don't necessarily tell you this is what I see, but at least say like, there's something here, like don't walk away. Very often I wonder, I think so often we're looking for the people to just give us the answers or give us the direction, like go left here, go right here, because we're suffering by not knowing what the answer is. And I feel like

so often that the greatest benefit that those people who drop into our lives can provide is to actually not tell us left or right, but basically sit there and say like, well, let's talk about this. Like what matters when you're making that decision? Yeah, I completely agree. And I, you know, one of the kind of patterns in the creative hero's journey that I see, it starts with, I actually think that it starts with finding people that are almost exactly like you. Uh, but I don't, and I want to get back to, I'm going to circle back to the whole thing of the master, not giving you the answer kind of thing. But I think part of the reason we get it wrong is that we focus so much on the inflection point of when you become

the hero, which is when you disobey your master. That's the key. Like Luke becomes a Jedi when he disobeys Yoda to save Han and Leia. That's when he finds out what kind of hero he is, which, and he comes into his own, right? So we love that part. George Carlin has this iconic moment where he goes out on stage on live television and he has this cardboard cutout of himself that's in a suit, how he's always performed in the past. And he was really mimicking, I think he said, Danny Kaye, like this hero of a comedian. And he said, this guy right here, he's dead. And he throws him off the stage. You're not going to see that guy anymore. And then he becomes the George Carlin that we all know, the legend. Now, artists love that story.

I love that story because it's like someone being like, I'm not like anybody else. And I think the lesson that is the wrong one to take is that it's all like, don't have any heroes. Don't look to anybody. Don't learn from anybody. Just be yourself, do your thing. But I think the lesson is more being like somebody else who you feel like is so close to who you are is maybe the pathway to finding who you really are.

He actually spent an enormous amount of time being an imitation of his hero. And if you go dive into the creative greats, you're going to see that pattern over and over. And it's so under told because that period of development isn't the story. That's the pre-story, but it's, it's so much of the pattern. And so when it comes to education, I'm always encouraging artists like you're not that special. Like you go find the people that you just want to pattern yourself after and learn from in that whole moment of disobeying your master that will come. And it will be a huge inflection point for me. Uh, one little part of it was calling myself Andy J pizza.

Like none of my creative heroes that are very like serious illustrators or whatever call themselves pizza. Um, and so that was a big, likerators or whatever, call themselves pizza. Um, and so that was a big, like thing of like, am I going to do this? It feels right, but it also feels wrong. So yeah, I think it's, it's little patterns like that, that are kind of an obsession of mine. Like how can we find your creative journey is, is unique, but there are some philosophical big picture touchstones that you can kind of hold onto as landmarks as you go. Yeah. I love that because it's more of, it's actually a gentler process. It's an evolutionary process, but also it speaks to

something that I think a lot of people, I feel like there's an expectation of instant now. And part of it is built on the speed of society, the speed of technology, the speed of interactivity these days. And so now we just expect that we blink and all of a sudden we're at that moment where we figure out like, oh, this is why we're like profoundly different and real. And this is the authentic thing. And for sure there are tools that can help in their processes. But I mean, I look at the analogy of music, right? You know, what's the process there? The greatest people in the world, very often they didn't start out, like they didn't pick up a guitar or sit down at a piano and start playing their own music. Now, you know, they sat down and they started learning scales and it was merciless. And then they started learning like the

most basic things from the people who were masters who came before them. And then they started learning like the most basic things from the people who were masters who came before them. And then they learned the more complex things. And then they learned the more complex things. And then at a certain point, they start to have enough of understanding where, you know, they would take the people, not just who other people told them were the greats, but who they felt were the greats. And they wanted to learn something from them and they would deconstruct their work. Or maybe they'd go find the tab where somebody else deconstructed the guitar licks and they would learn like note for

note the way that their favorite musician played this thing. And they would just master that. And then something just kind of happened years into that process where they started like adding a note or a riff or a bend of a string, or like they hit the keys differently. And then they started to break free, but like they wouldn't have gotten to the point where they knew how to do that in a way that was not just different, but cool. But for the fact that they had actually devoted themselves to all of that work beforehand. And I think so often we don't acknowledge how valuable that is. And that's why I love the metaphor of the journey because it's baked in there. Like this is going

to take some time. You know, when I, like I said, when I got out of college, I had that deep seated fear that if I don't get successful, I'm going to end up like my mom. And, and so I, I want, and I, you know, when I went to go say yes to the call, I felt like I had this whisper that was like the, the creative, you know, success is waiting for you as soon as you're ready to say yes. And I'm like, I'm saying yes, but there wasn't any, any magic moment. It was just a giant maze. And I'm like, if I go into that maze, I'm going to end up just like my mom. So I got to figure out some, you know, way around this. And so I was trying to, you know, kind of like market myself like emails. And I put out this indie rock coloring book,

which was kind of gimmicky. I've still like it, but it was kind of a gimmicky thing. And, you know, I, for a minute it was working out and a year after I got out of school, I got an opportunity to make illustration to be animated on Nickelodeon, which was like, I was like, I did it. I skipped the maze. I'm on the other side of it. And I like worked super hard. I did every trick that I had. I put it into these final illustrations and I sent it over and they replied really fast, which is rarely a good thing. And they said, what they said about my final illustrations was this. They said, rough drafts look okay.

Looking forward to seeing how they shape up in the finals. And I was like, devastated because I was like, I literally did everything I could possibly do. I don't even know. I literally couldn't find anything that I could do differently. And so all I could do was reply, um, those are the finals. And so that like that whole thing and then all the buzz from this indie rock coloring book I did kind of all came to a head and all kind of fizzled out. And I ended up just like burning out overnight. You know, I had this like little bit of little taste of success. And then six months later, no work. I ended up having to get a job at the local youth shelter detention center. And I thought, I'm in that job feeling like I literally, everything I've done was to avoid traditional employment because it felt like a jail. And I've ended up in traditional employment in a jail.

And this is where my life is going to go. And so that's a big part of why I always encourage creative people to see it as a journey and embrace the growth mindset. It's not that you either have it or you don't. It's a thing that you develop over time. And part of that is learning from your heroes. And then I love this thing you said about music because there's this great podcast turned into a Netflix documentary called Song Exploder.

Do you know that one? Amazing. Yeah. It's so good. And one of the things I was struck by from watching it was how many times through the process of making these like massive mega hits do the musicians say, yeah, you know, and also like the killers talking about like, this part is a lot like Bruce Springsteen and we mixed it with like new wave. So we think it's new. We hope it's new. And then the guy from REM talking about the

mandolin part being like, after that was out for a year, I thought this is kind of like Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. Like it's very similar. Please don't sue me. And I think that kind of speaks to the communal nature of creativity and the line between you and them is very blurry. And, and, you know, people that have mystical experiences would cite this kind of experience of oneness experience of like, we aren't, there is no separation. And I think I'm very, uh, enthusiastic about encouraging artists to understand that process to those little breakthroughs that are you. Right. So how do you get back to that place though, when you literally find yourself and you think, yes, this is it. I'm doing it. I'm making it. I'm taking that thing that makes me me. And the world is saying yes. And then you literally find yourself working in this job that is what you feared more than anything else.

How do you go from there back to this place of like, no, actually I'm okay. I have value. I have something unique and I'm stepping back into this space and not just walking away. Yeah. And I'm glad you asked I, I remember I got this job. It was at a youth shelter and I wasn't aware that I would have to pick up shifts in the detention center side of the building. And it was literally like the movie theater job times a hundred because I would walk back into this like windowless environment with locked doors. And I would sit in that.

You got like 10 minutes in this little office before you let everybody out and start going through the programming. And I was just like physically shaking. I was like, this is my literal nightmare. This is the opposite of anything I ever wanted. And I think it gave me a lot of things to kind of face that. And actually, even at the time I took down my website, I like gave up. I was like that, that didn't work. And it wasn't until I got an

email from a friend or a person I didn't know at the time named Andrew Nyer. He's a product designer illustrator. He was running a gallery in Cincinnati and he saw my indie rock coloring book. And he's like, I want to take this adult coloring thing to my gallery. And we could draw these giant black and white murals and we could have people come in and like paint them in. And this was before like adult coloring was really a thing. So it was still kind of special. This is back in 2010, 2011. And I was reluctant to like open my heart again to, to the creative path, but I thought it's a collaboration. It should be fun. I'll just go for it. And so the day before I was set to go to Cincinnati and work on the mural, he called me up and he's a very conceptual guy. He's a conceptual artist. And he's like, you know, I was thinking about this concept and he's like, the walls are

like giant coloring pages. It doesn't make any sense for people to come in with regular size markers and color it in. That just doesn't make any sense. What if we had like five and a half foot giant markers? And I remember thinking, yeah, what if, like if you have a genie or anything, like we'll do that. I'm down for it. And he's like, no, I'll have them there when you get there tomorrow. And I hung up the phone thinking like, they're definitely not going to be there

tomorrow. He's going to figure out you can't just make six foot markers. It's impossible. And so I drove to Cincinnati. I got to this beautiful gallery that he was running and there they were like these giant six foot markers. And I was like, who is this wizard? This guy is crazy. And I spent all this time with them working on these murals and I watched all of these things that he built. a lot of other things. He built this giant, enormous Connect Four thing and all kinds of weird, crazy things. And I thought, this is someone who has said yes to that maze and got to the other side.

And I thought, and I see myself in this person. This is someone like me doing something I didn't know that I could do. And I always joke that I think I would have missed it if the universe hadn't just given me the most giant hint of all time, because his name is Andrew, which is like the grown up professional version of the name Andy. And I remember driving home after that and calling my wife and just feeling like, you know, I don't know how I can explain it, but we're going to be fine. I met the future me. He's very professional. We're going to do this. And I just went back with this, all this belief of like, I can go in this

journey and I can find my way through it. And I can find, you know, what my, what some actual substance is for my practice. Um, and I just started doing loads of personal projects to kind of try to unearth it. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I love, um, yeah, that's that person that drops into your orbit. That is so enough like you that you can see yourself and them, not that you want to be them, but it gives you the green light to be you, um, which is a little bit weird, but that's effectively what happens. Absolutely. I completely, completely agree. And, you know, we've stayed really close over the years and we are, you know, dramatically different, but we have all of these, just these commonalities that gave me the, gave me the courage to, to say yes through that process to find your gift, I could see what a gift it was to other people because we opened up that, uh, show and people would come up and

they would pick up these giant markers and just instantly have a giant smile on their face. Like you could just, his giftedness was just out there. It was on the outside of his body. And I, and I always think about, um about the wizard of Oz is like such a huge, my, my daughter's name is Dorothy. It's a, it's a big, it's a big part of my life. And why I love that is that, you know, the idea, the, the theme of that movie is that the journey isn't to find something you don't have. The journey is to find what you do have. And that watching him kind of just get the internal on the outside, go, go on that inner journey to find like what's in here and pull it out. It just may, it was just such an inspiration not to do what he did, uh, specifically,

but do what he did in the abstract and just find what is, what is that stuff in me? And that's, that's kind of what I was getting at with the alien device thing. Um, you know, go on that journey. I don't think as a culture, we take that call of finding yourself. We leave finding yourself to like a 30 minute visit to the high school guidance counselor office and be like, who are you? Okay. That it sounds, you know, you took the little test and this is kind of aptitude thing. This is kind of what you're, what you're all about. And really it's like, at least it's decades long finding that thing. And there's no other better way to spend your time on the earth. Yeah. And then part of that also is, you know, like even once you start to get a hint of it, then we start to have the conversation around craft and point of view and taste and creative intuition.

And that in particular, in my mind, I'm curious whether you agree with this, the development of that, the identification of that, the teasing out and refining of that, I don't know how you accelerate that. I don't know a technology that makes that go faster. That is, I don't know anyone that has felt really accomplished in understanding what that is within them where that's not been a years long process. I completely agree. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is?

You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results I'm glad you mentioned the idea of taste because this is a concept that I work with a lot when it comes to going on that journey. And I think I just always want to like give a little disclaimer. This is a very like postmodern concept. I'm not saying this is the truth. I'm just saying, here's a concept that's kind of interesting,

might give you some new things to work with. But I think, you know, I think when it comes to the journey, we have had a good decade of talking about doing the work, so to speak, in a very kind of practical way. The whole 10,000 hours thing, the grit thing, you know, all you got to do is put in the time and you will be a master. And then I always just say, but what about my uncle Kevin? I have an uncle Kevin, but this is an abstract uncle Kevin. He doesn't actually play the guitar, but you have an uncle Kevin. Everybody does. They're the person that can play Stairway to Heaven backwards on the guitar with their toes.

And there's just one problem. Yes, they've done the 10,000 hours. They've done the 20,000 hours. But the problem is no one wants to hear them play. Like when it comes to your creativity, there's something else at work. It's not just skill acquisition because, you know, I'm a professional illustrator. I have been for quite some time and I wasn't even the best at drawing in my high school art class. So for me, I kind of, uh, this whole thing that you're talking about, this long process, to me, it starts with

taste. And starting at the right place is such a huge deal because, you know, you can walk forever, but if you're walking the wrong way, you're never going to get where you're trying to go. And, you know, I heard this, I think this whole taste philosophy started brewing in me when I heard, I'm a big fan of Gordon Ramsay. I don't know if he has ADHD, but his energy is very, very my energy. And I heard him on a show once, I think it was Jimmy Kimmel. They said like, what do you look for in young chefs? And I really leaned in because I thought this is what I was always collecting hints of like, what is the foundation that I, what is the thing I'm trying to build on that's innate within me?

And I thought he was going to say something about the 10,000 hours or skill, like some kind of like knife skills, cook a steak to perfection, some kind of thing you do. And instead he said something about how deep you can receive. He said, I look for good taste. If they don't have the palette that can tell the difference between good and bad, they'll never be able to create it. And I just started to think about how that was true across the board. It's not how fast you can move your fingers accurately that makes you a good songwriter. It's do you have an ear for music? Do you have a receptor? Do you have it that's really attuned, sensitive? And I think it's the same, you know,

do you have a funny bone? Do you have a sense of humor? And that sense that how deeply you can receive, I think that is the thing that informs your intuition. It's the little metal detector that allows you to make decisions as you're creating, you know, you're checking in, you're tasting. I had Lulu Miller from Radio Lab on my show. And she talked about when she's in the editing booth, you know, she's, she's listening to her body. She's listening to her receptor. She's like, she's tasting it as she goes. And, and I think, I think that's, for me, that's my best guess at what the starting block to that journey is. And then I think if you know that instead of, you know, leading with your skills, you're leading with your sensitivity and that becomes a sensibility, you know?

So my question around that is you know there's a lot of conversation around like the things that you do to develop craft and skill you know whether it's a 10 000 hour rule it's doing your scales whether it's you know like copying other people's work until it eventually becomes um so there's a lot of a lot of conversation around around craft you like and i think an agreed upon yes there are definitely things that you can do and steps and processes to up-level your craft and your level of skill. When it comes to taste, when it comes to having a point of view, I've seen almost nothing in the context of process. And I wonder

whether that's because the assumption is you either have it or you don't, and the process is not getting it, but understanding what yours is and then hoping that it somehow resonates with enough people that you can somehow use it in the world in some way. I wonder if that's actually the underlying assumption, is that it's much more of like you have it or you don't type of thing, which is a very fatalistic approach if that's in fact how we're stepping into it. Yeah, I completely agree. And I think, and this is why I really believe that the key isn't having good taste because good is subjective. And actually that's even, I could just go on a little side thing here of like, I think we have the wrong understanding generally when we're thinking about subjective, because I think when we use that word, we're saying, well, there is no definition of good. But if you actually go into the definition, it says it's the individual's take.

It's the subjective is you define good. And I think the problem is when you don't know that that's your job, your job isn't to have good taste. It's to know what your taste is. I like to think about how, you know, yes, there's a thing. There's actually a thing called, uh, being a super taster. When it comes to food, you have like an enormous amount of taste buds. There's this huge range. You can have like a few hundred or a few thousand taste buds.

And I think we, when we start talking about taste, it gets really easy to be like, well, you only have a chance if you happen to be a super taster. And I think that, yeah, that can help you, but there's also Guy Fieri, right? Like I think to me, you know, I, you know, having, uh, I'm being, you know, we're both Columbus people. I feel like I can rib this guy. I think he's actually a great guy. I don't know him personally, but, um, you know, the dullness of taste, if you will own

it, if you know your taste and you will own it, there will be an audience for people just like you. You know, a lot of people are surprised to hear that I'm actually partially colorblind, but that actually explains a lot of my color choice because it's pretty explosive. But guess what? Other people are like that too, or other people just like the difference of like, whoa, the colors of that are kind of bonkers. And I think to me, then the start is taste and it's not whether it's not the start isn't good taste. The start is finding your taste, owning your taste. Part of that means, uh, being comfortable with your guilty pleasures. Like that's a real, like hardwired shortcut to finding your taste because that's the stuff you

wish you didn't like. That's your taste. And I think that, yeah, for me, that's the answer. And then there's also, there's all these other elements, like there's such thing as acquired taste. And I like to think about how, you know, when it's not innate, it's kind of like learn, learning a foreign language. You know, I have all of the friends that I've ever had, um, that English isn't their first language. They almost have an easier time playing with the language from afar because it wasn't innate. They were like, you know,

they can see all these connections from as an outsider. And so I don't think it's good taste. I just think it's knowing your taste, being honest about it, creating from it as like a kind of metal detector. Yeah. So, but then, you know, as I dove into this whole thing, first person, I think I heard say it was Gordon Ramsey. Um, there's that huge viral video from Ira Glass talking about the gap and he kind of just goes straight over taste. He said, you know, everybody gets into creative work because they have great taste. And, and then he goes into this whole thing about craft, which I do agree is a big deal. But then, but I was tripped up when he said it, I was like, wait, is anyone else in the understanding that people start creative practices because they have great taste or is he wrong or onto something? And that was another one of those things. And as I was

digging in, I was like, man, I feel like there's something here. And it wasn't till way later that I found that, uh, uh that Emmanuel Kant actually has this huge body of work around taste because it's one of the only things he considers to be a priori, one of the things that's innate. And so, yeah, so there's so many pieces to this. And obviously I could just go on because I love this conversation. And I love the notion of, you know, like good taste versus bad taste is not really the thing. It's just understanding what is your taste?

What is your point of view? What is that thing that makes your body feel something? Either repulsion or attraction or what is that thing inside of you? But I think that also really leads to the necessary corollary conversation on art and commerce. Because what if your taste, what if you get to a point where you're like, oh yeah, I know. I know me. I know what lights me up.

I know what I like to create. I know what I really dislike. I've really figured it out. I've identified it. And I'm a maker and I would love to step into the world and see if I can do this thing in a way that creates resonance and provides value to other human beings on a level where they'll then turn around and pay me so that I can support myself doing this thing, taking this taste and bundling it with my craft and putting it into

the world. But that doesn't always happen. I love this question. I mean, yes, it's a perfect question. And it gets to actually what Kant was saying. He ends up calling, look, I'm no Kantian philosopher. I've tried to read it. I always say, I can't. I'm sure I'm not the first person to say that, but it's very hard to read. I've mostly read commentary. But once he gets diving into this, he starts calling, uses the term common sense synonymously with taste because he says, your taste is a sense that you have in common with other people. When you see a beautiful sunset, yes, that's subjective. It's

beauty. But we also share that with almost every other person. Now, I'm not talking even about that. I would say lean into your weird, unique tastes. And, you know, there's this working definition. I really think it's mostly a product of the kind of industrial revolution thing where in order to succeed as a creator, you have to make a bunch of cheap stuff and make it for as many people, millions of people, because nowadays you can have this extremely niche taste and actually make it work. And I think before anybody would jump to like, you know, well, is that okay to have a thousand people paying you a hundred dollars a year? Like, is that like, you know, are you just like not good enough and you're being super niche? But I would argue that like, that's more of an original model. Like think back to the Renaissance with patrons. They were only beholden to a handful of people who were like, that's my taste. That's what I'm talking about. And I think that that's

the goal is trust your taste. You're again, back to telling creative people, you're not that special. Like you'll be blown away. There's the, I would, I have these really unique little tastes. Like my favorite thing ever is Fraggle Rock. And, uh, and you know, there's not a lot of people talking about Fraggle Rock in 2021, but you'll be blown away by the emails that I get when I talk about it on my podcast, right? Change my life. That particular episode, that line from that particular episode, that's how niche I'm talking about. And I think if you, and that, and that is really what happened, you know, not only am I just passionate about this as a, as a theory, that was the start of my journey. When I went home after being super inspired by my friend, Andrew, I thought, I don't

know where to start. I didn't have any podcasts out there like mine. Um, I don't know where to start. I didn't have any podcasts out there like mine. I didn't know what to do. And so I just started studying my creative heroes and I found that all of them had a deep sense of their taste. They all kind of created taste collections of like, these are the things, you know, I remember hearing Wes Anderson talking about Charlie Brown Christmas. And I thought that's such a weird thing to be like zeroed in on, but it happened to be my taste too. So I got it. And so I just, before Pinterest, I was creating all these folders on my desktop of these things that just, I had these deep receptors to have this deep taste.

And I started to just pile them together. And at first I thought I'm crazy. This isn't anything. I don't know what I'm doing, but then I started seeing all of these connections. I started seeing like, Oh, I love wizard of Oz. I love Alison Wonderland. I love spirited away. Like, Oh, they're all invisible worlds. Um, you know, fast forward 10 years and it leads to this project I have called invisible things. But I didn't know it at the time. I was just trusting that visceral taste, just listening to myself and listening to my body. Yeah, I love that. And I feel like now more than ever, it used to be there were effectively two outlets for

this taste. Either you go the fine art route and then your taste has to align enough with the curator for a gallery or a collection or something like that, or an individual collector, or you went commercial and then it had to align with the brand specs and stuff like that. And those two paths still exist and they're still out there. But now there's also this flattening of the universe through technology where, you know, if on all across the planet, those thousand true fans or 10,000 true fans are like enough people. It literally like the universe has flattens where like your quirky sense of like, this makes me laugh or this makes me feel

nauseous or this makes me, it gives me a feeling you're going to be able to put the work out there. And those other people are going to be able to show up in a way that, you know, a generation ago just didn't exist. Absolutely. And I, you know, um, again, I don't have any data behind this. This is a hunch. Uh, it's a concept for wrestling around with, but I also like to think of that thousand true fans thing as both an end and a means. I like to think about it kind of as an integrated thing with the diffusion of innovation because those early, that supercharged small group where you're like nailing it, you're doing, you know, in the specific lies of the universal, you're hitting this very particular thing. That thousand people isn't going to stay a thousand people very long when people are

that bonkers about what you do. And that's how we see ideas spread. When people are like, I can't shut up about this thing. That's how it spreads. And so you'll see that, you know, things like Marvel Comics was such a niche thing in the 40s. Like, you know, I read the first Comic-Con had a hundred people in the forties. Like, you know, I've read the first comic-con had a hundred people in it. And we think of this as this giant, basic universal thing, but it started out as this like

very little, you know, niche taste. And I think that that is also true. I think when you try to go wide, you're trying to hit a million targets at the same time. That's just impossible to do. But if you do like Stephen King says, which he's like, I write every book for a particular person, like that kind of precision, you can strike a chord on a deep level. And when you do that, they're not going to shut up about it. And I think that that model ends up, you know, all these weird, you know, dungeons and dragons. If you would have told people in the eighties, like this is going to be borderline mainstream. Like I know so many people that play Dungeons and Dragons in their thirties and forties now that are just, you know, the most normal people in the world. I think trusting that, trusting your taste is the pathway to kind of greater appeal. And it also, the good news, it doesn't have to be,

but I think it is a great place to start. Yeah, and when you're trying to find what you just described as that pathway to greater appeal, I think one of the things that sometimes raises the hair on the back of the necks of a lot of people, especially who consider themselves creators is, but does that mean eventually like I'm crossing over to the dark side

where like I'm actually, I the dark side where like i'm actually i'm quote selling out or i'm dumbing down or i'm making a plan in the name of satisfying them and it's interesting because you see you know now you've got the ability to iterate your taste or to to try on a hundred different versions of the way that you might express it in public and get instant feedback about whether this resonates with other people or not. And then the question becomes, you know, when, when iteration number 62, people like, oh yes, more of that. And where can I buy it? Like, is that because you found the sweet spot between something that you still feel

is awesome and a true expression of yourself and what they actually want? Or is it that you've moved away from yourself the 60 second time enough where it's what they want, but it no longer still represents that thing that's inside of you. And I think it's a really interesting dance that, that so many of us do. I absolutely agree. And one of the, you know, for me, the masters of creativity are really standup comics, like their ability to do something that just really resembles magic. Uh, the people at the top of their craft, it's they're, you know, they're playing you. They're like, they know you're, you're an instrument that they're playing. And that is just this incredible thing. And I, I think when you go watch a special on Netflix, you're like, how did anybody do this

magic? Where did all of these pieces come from? But as you go study their process, you find that there's actually these really practical things. One of them being writing on stage. And I love writing on stage, which is if you're not a comedy nerd is just these people will take their hunches. That's their taste. There's something here. They'll go on stage in the clubs. Most of those clubs, you have to lock your phone away because they need a space where they can mess up and do stuff that's not funny. And I love the process of that because I've actually, I went to the comedy store one of the times I was in LA and Jimmy Carr, who's this extremely inappropriate British comedian, very quick, he was doing the writing on stage thing. And he actually came out with a clipboard and a list of jokes and he would read one and he would kind of gauge how it went and then he'd either cross it out or give it a check mark. And I thought this kind of, I love this because it's not, we have this dualistic kind of brain

of it's either only listen to yourself or just listen to your audience. When really, of course, it's both and not just both. It's more like a story or like the seasons where you start with the thing that is viscerally you, you, when you're alone in the hotel, that's when you start writing down these things. You don't get up in front of people and be like, so what do you all think is funny? Like what, just tell me, you know, no,

that's not what you do. You start with your hunches and then you go on stage and either see if you were onto something or if you were through your mechanics and craft able to transfer what was funny about that to this audience. And I think to me, that's just like the, the golden example of how to approach that very difficult game between, you know, connecting with an audience and losing yourself.

Yeah, no, I, I love that. It reminds me also in to a certain extent of, you know, in the world of entrepreneurship, especially on the tech side for years, the notion of lean startup or design thinking in the design context, you know, and as as process to get to a point where you've got something which is real and valuable and helpful for others as fast as humanly possible. And part of that is kind of the same thing. It's rapid prototyping, exposing it to the people who you hope will resonate with it, getting their feedback and iterating on that as quickly as humanly possible. And we're all like, oh, hell yes. If it's in the domain of just pure commerce or building business, we're like, yeah, that's how you do it. And yet that goes out the window so often when we bring in that word, you know, like capital A art. And, but there is in fact this, you know, like beautiful way to hold onto that thing that resonates deeply with you. And at the same time, search for the sweet spot between what also resonates with other people.

I completely agree. And, you know, I, this notion that's kind of creative mythology, you know, religion at this point of you're only an artist if you would do this, if you were stranded on a desert Island. And I would find it such a crazy thought experiment because, you know, the studies would say, if you put someone in isolation, they actually lose their sense of self. So there's no self to express with other, without other people. And I think that, yeah, that you do need to be careful with that, that if you do it just like commerce, you might end up through the process,

lose yourself. But it's really, I'm glad you brought that up because I feel a lot of my work comes from when I hit rock bottom early on, I turned to something super dark, which was marketing podcasts and marketing books and business books. And I started getting into that feeling like, oh, this is the grossest thing ever. And then what would happen is I would read a book from Ryan Holiday and he would be talking about product market fit. And he'd be describing exactly what we're talking about, figuring out what you have that they want. And I would be like, this is brilliant. And I, my podcast and so much of the stuff that I do ends up becoming just translating it because I had product market fit before I had the term writing on stage. I just recognized it later.

I was like, oh, this is exactly what standup comedians do. And we can all agree that they are masters of art, of comedy, of, of creating. And, and so that's a lot of what I do is I, I try not to be, um, I try to be, you know, kind of very open about where I get my lessons. And I think that, yeah, you can go the wrong way with that. You can fall off the horse on that side of the, of commerce. But I think if you get them the hierarchy, right. Of listening to yourself versus listening to them. Um, I think some amazing things can happen. You know, I think of, um, David Sedaris is a great example of somebody who's not a standup comedian, but he uses this process where when he's doing his book tours, instead of reading his new book or his book that he just published,

he'll read what he's working on next. And he'll just get that feedback in real time. And obviously we all can't do that. We don't all go on tours, but I, I kind of liken it to, uh, what Seth Godin talks about when he's talking about making remarkable stuff. Like if you make something and I, uh, and you give it to 10 friends and they don't tell anybody about it, they didn't find it remark worthy. It wasn't remarkable. You need to go back to the drawing board. And for me, that kind of process is kind of what I call the taste test either. Yes. And I would be careful, be careful about taste testing on platforms where there's this algorithm that is

trying, you know, that is messing up all the data. You're not really getting it, anything real. I would say, find those people that have the taste that you have, you know, have a buddy who anytime he's a public speaker, we both do this thing, which we say is like, I said, I said to him, I was like, I kind of feel like my main creative outlet is this kind of public speaking where it's, it's like the opposite of standup comedy, uh, because I'm going for tears and not laughs. Like I'm trying to tell heart, you know, wrenching, meaningful stuff that really touches you, uh, maybe even get you to shed a tear. And he's like, Oh, the opposite of standup comedy. So

you're like a lay down tragic. And I was like, yeah, that's, that's kind of, that's kind of what I'm going for. And so I found that when he's in the audience, like if he comes and visits me doing a talk, my ideas get better because we have the same taste. And I'm like, I know exactly what he's going to think. This is hilarious. He's going to think this, you know, and so I think rather than just, you have to be careful how you conduct these taste tests with the algorithms and stuff. So I would suggest doing the Seth Godin thing of sending it to some close people who you really trust their ability to give you real feedback and their taste. And then also I'm really interested in building your practice on platforms where there's a subscription, meaning either a newsletter with email where it's direct to your people or

podcasts. To me, podcasts are just verbal email. It's just email that you can consume on the go because it's not hosted any particular place. There's no algorithm. It's direct to your people. Those are the places where I feel like that taste test can be really valuable because those are your diehard people. And that's kind of what Ryan Holiday does. He'll have this blog, people subscribe to it. If a blog post, and he's always, every day he's trying to show up and say something that he means that comes from his heart. And then if any of those blow up, he's like, that's the next book. And so that's kind of, you know, that's how I go about trying to practice it. Yeah. It's sort of like, so Mark Manson, who's a friend, you know, who's got this massive, massive book, the subtle arts, like over 10 million copies sold or some ridiculous number

like that. But a lot of folks don't realize that actually started as a blog post. And Mark actually had the title of that as a blog post a year before he wrote the post because something in him said, his inner sense of taste said, this title is so good. I can't let it out into the world until I actually have five paragraphs of writing that is good enough to accommodate this title. And then when he puts it into the world, the post goes massively viral, millions of reads. And then that validates the idea like, oh, this is actually something even bigger than a post. This is a book. And then it spends a chunk of years before he figures out what actually is worthy of this one nugget that he had years before as the six letters or whatever it is, that becomes

eventually this massive, massive phenomenon out in the world. So it's the iteration of that idea. I love that. So working artist, basically you create in so many different domains now. You've referenced a number of times your podcast, Creative Pep Talk, which is fantastic, by the way. Everybody should be listening on a regular basis. Why that? And you talk to from Andy J. Pizza, the creator to also end, not or, but end the teacher? Yeah. Well, you know, there's so many pieces there, but so by the time I started my podcast in 2014,

I was already a full-time illustrator. I was teaching a class. I was teaching one class at the art school, but I already had a bunch of clients and a whole practice doing illustration. And then, you know, I, I did a little talk, just like a community talk. And I'd actually bombed a few times, like doing talks early on in my career to the point of like, I'm never doing that ever again. That was the worst experience. If anybody's bombed on stage doing anything, you know, it is like death. And so

I avoided it for a long time. And then I kept getting invited to do this little community talk and I went up and I was really telling more of my personal story than I was telling the illustration stuff or creative stuff. And I, because I bombed, I like put extra effort in. I was like, I got to find, I got to just really do my work because I have to avoid that awful experience of bombing at all costs. And so I did this talk and while I was doing it, I felt like I'm tasting something I've never tasted. This feels so much more like me than anything I've ever done. And after I got off stage, again, one of my taste test go-to people is my wife. She happened to be in the crowd, luckily. Now, sometimes in my practice up to that point, I would do something

that would feel like, I think there's some magic in this. And I'd give it to her and she'd be like, I don't see it. You know, that kind of thing, just keeping you sensible. And I, after I got off stage and I was feeling all these feelings, I thought I'm going to check in with Sophie and see if she felt any of that. I was like, what did you think of that? And she was like, I don't know what that was. And I was like, no, what did I pick the wrong career? Like, what am I, what am I doing with my life? And for a minute I was tempted to just be like, I'm going to throw my illustration practice in the trash and just go try to do whatever this thing is. And then I instantly remembered I have children. Uh, I have bills. I have all these things that I have to do.

And I like, I really, there's a lot I love about illustration. But I thought, you know, what could I do that was kind of a synthesis of this? And it felt really risky because I, although I was deeply inspired by the designers and illustrators that were doing talks, people like Lisa Congdon and Aaron Draplin were these just huge heroes of mine. I knew that if I went and did talks, they would have to integrate storytelling, personal journey, a lot of stuff that nobody else was really doing at the time. And I always, whenever I'm working with creative people, they'll do something. I'll be like,

do more of that. And they'll be like, but nobody where I am from does that. And I'm working with creative people, they'll do something. I'll be like, do more of that. And they'll be like, but nobody where I am from does that. And I'm like, exactly. That's what creativity is. But at the time I didn't know, like, this is going to be the secret sauce of this thing. Like go tell your stories, tell your, you know, analogies, tell your metaphors. And I went through this period of time after I started my podcast, where I really felt unintegrated. Like I'm living two different lives. Like I don't, they don't make any sense. I I'm doing illustration for my job, but I feel like my thing is these metaphors, these analogies, these stories. Um, and it wasn't until I heard a public speaker, you know, I think it was like a Ted talk and they were going through something and I was

like eating it up. And they're like, I'm just going to give you, uh, I'm going to tell you a little story to help further my point. Let me give you this illustration. And I thought they're the same thing. They're, they're, they're doing the same thing, whether I'm doing it with pictures or I'm doing it with, uh, with words and analogies, it's all storytelling. You know, when I think about illustration, my favorite definition of that is writing with pictures and I'm always trying to illuminate something. I'm always trying to bring something to life. Um, I don't remember what the question was, but there was some, it was in there. The answer was somewhere in there. But yeah, that's kind of what happened. I thought, okay, maybe I can mix my,

what I do know, which is illustration with what feels like my gift. And I think I mentioned this to you when you were on my podcast about kind of finding my sparkotype, finding this performer thing. Instead of just like, I loved what you say in your book

because instead of just being like, all right, that's my gift. I have to divorce my entire life. Now I instead used it to innovate within what I was doing, you know, in my own little tiny way, I use that word innovate lightly, but, um, but that's what the podcast was is how can I, how can I put these together? And, and, and it also was like, it was strategy mixed with writing on stage. It was like, I want to get booked doing conferences and talks and stuff like that. And so I thought I'll just create a portfolio of talks. And that's why my podcast is so monologue centric. And then I'll also learn as I go. And so now my podcast is, you know, something where I put my ideas when they're fresh out of the oven. And I'm just like, I don't even know I'm working I put my ideas when they're fresh out of the oven and I'm

just like, I don't even know I'm working on these. And then they turn into a class or a book or a talk later. But yeah, that's kind of the journey of that. Yeah. I love that because also there's sort of, um, you know, in the podcast space, there's sort of like become this, uh, well, like there are five types of podcasts and these are the former and the formats, and this is why you do it. And this is it.

So I, I love you taking that same lens that you brought to everything and saying, okay, so this is, this is how and why I'm doing it. And this is the role that it serves in my life, in my bigger ecosystem. These are, I'm using it in a different way. You know, yes, I'm creating art. Yes, I'm providing value. And sometimes I'm just testing stuff to see how it feels for me and for other people to see whether it's worth expanding on. So it's sort of like you've created your own audio laboratory that just happens to have, you know, like a global audience to participate and,

and, and give data into that experience too. And it's a great example too, of when I started it, again, I was starting it to kind of be like a, a B2B thing of like getting hired for conferences or getting brought to creative teams or whatever. I thought, you know, a lot of people were like, why don't you do, I didn't even do interviews for like the first hundred episodes. And I think some people were like, what are you doing? Like, and I knew, I thought, I don't think this is going to be everybody's taste. This is a weird, there's not hardly any other podcast like this. I think it's going to be not, you know, really, I was just betting on my own taste. The truth is, you know, back in that day when I was in the kind of really digging into the

business world, one of the people that I was learning from was Michael Hyatt. And he had a podcast in the business world in a totally different sector. At first has started as a monologue thing. It eventually became a guest thing in a, in a more of like a, this American life kind of thing where it's really edited. But I, my taste was such where I was like, I really like when he was just alone like that. I just, and I, and I knew like, I don't know anybody else that's doing that. And so again, it was a kind of thing of trusting my taste and also learning from different mediums. I think that's a huge thing to pulling influence outside of your sphere is always a good idea, but I was convinced I never thought I'll

make any, I'll have sponsors. I w I never thought, I never thought I would have people all over the world listening to it. I thought there's going to be, there might be a hundred people that are like, I, this is my kind of thing. And yeah, it was enough to, as a testing ground and as, as some scratching my own itch kind of thing. Yeah. I love that. You know, coming full circle, it's from, you know, all the way back in the beginning of our conversation, reflecting on the influence of your parents and how they sort of differently touched down. And you're like, you are very much the child of both of your parents. And yet you are also absolutely your own thing, your own existence, not just your own amalgam, but your own individual identity who's like stepping into the world and saying, okay, so the expectations, the molds, the things that were offered to me by each one of these different

sides, I've learned from them. And yet I'm not constrained by them. Like they've informed my choices for sure. And they've informed who I am. And yet I've also made a very intentional choice to step into my life as my life, as my own person. possible. It might even be probable that they're aliens and they have some kind of device that when I walk down the hall, they instantly go back to their human forms. Like that's how much of a weirdo I felt in that house. And, you know, I think it's funny and it's a weird, it's also funny that I didn't think I was the alien, which is some, maybe that's telling of me. But I thought I feel like something that has never been here before. And it goes back to that, my, that alien device thing. You are that combination of those two things.

You know, we, we love diamonds because of, well, supposedly, I don't know. Millennials don't like diamonds anymore anyway, and I'm a millennial and I don't really get it, but supposedly they're rare. And that means that they're worth something. The more rare something is, the more it's worth. And you are unique in all of the universe. Not only that, you also contain the known universe, most complex inner machinery. And if anybody gave you that, you would do whatever it took to figure out what

it could do. What is this thing capable of? You were born into an alien family because nothing has ever, ever existed like you. I love, I think it was Jordan Peele that said like, how could anybody teach me to play an instrument that had never existed until now? That's who you are. So I love what you said. Yeah, I did finally find the part of me that's my dad when I got into those business books and strategy. And I have felt like Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor, you interviewed her, didn't you?

I did, yeah, she's amazing. Amazing. I love her book, Whole Brain Living, because I actually think a lot of the creativity starts in the right brain and we think of creativity as a right brain thing. But I think being the child of a right brain dominant and a left brain dominant person, it really makes me feel like the artist is the person that knows how to dip in and out of those different levels. They're the people that have mapped their inner

consciousness and they can pull them at the right time. There's time to write with no editing. There's time to go into the editing booth, you know? And, and I think for me, that's what it means to be the child of these, these parents is how do I do the whole brain thing? It feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well. So hanging out in this container of good life project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? Man, that's such a good question. And being a reflective individual, I always am pondering this.

And I think for me, I really feel like living a good life is it's playing your part. You know, I find meaning to really be derived from what am I contributing that, you know, nobody in my community could contribute. It doesn't, again, you're not that special. I always, I always say this to creative people. But how do you find, if you can find stuff that you can do just a little bit better than the rest of the people and you enjoy it more, you have a high tolerance for this thing. I think if you can find those things where you know every day I'm showing up and I'm adding my little bit and it's making a difference to the people that

I care about, that is a layer of fulfillment that will carry you through. And to me, that's what I'm always trying to find. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Hey, before you leave, if you love this episode, safe bet, you will also love the conversation that we had with Morgan Harper Nichols about leaning into creativity and language as a form of both creative expression and also emotional processing. You'll find a link to Morgan's episode in the show notes. And even if you don't listen now, go ahead and click and download it so it's ready to play when you're on the go. And of course, if you haven't already done so, go ahead and follow

Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you appreciate the work that we've been doing here on Good Life Project, go check out my new book, Sparked. It'll reveal some incredibly eye-opening things about maybe one of your favorite subjects, you, and then show you how to tap these insights to reimagine and reinvent work as a source of meaning, purpose, and joy. You'll find a link in the show notes, or you can also find it at your favorite bookseller now. Until next time, I'm Jonathan compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die.

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