Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Nir Bashan On The Secret To Unlocking Your Creativity EP 36

Episode Date: June 15, 2021

Do you know how to unleash the creator mindset? Learn from Nir Bashan, the author who wrote the book on it, the secret to unlocking your creativity and creating the passion-driven life you have always wanted. Thank you for listening to the Passion Struck podcast. In this powerful Episode, John R. Miles interviews Nir Bashan, author of the Creator Mindset. Nir Bashan is a world-renowned creativity expert. He has taught thousands of leaders and individuals across the globe how to harness the power of creativity to improve profitability, increase sales and ultimately create more meaning in their work. McGraw/Hill published his book The Creator Mindset in August 2020. The Creator Mindset is a system he developed to help teach folks in non-creative fields how to think creatively to solve problems. In today's episode, we discuss how to apply it to your personal life and using creativity to power your journey to becoming Passion Struck. New Interviews with the World's GREATEST high achievers will be posted every Tuesday with a Momentum Friday inspirational message!  Enjoy!! CONNECT WITH NIR BASHAN -http://www.nirbashan.com | Website -http://www.thecreatormindset.com | Book Website -https://www.nirbashan.com/thecreatormindset | Online Community -https://www.linkedin.com/in/nirbashan/ | Linkedin -@nirbashan | Insta -@Nir_Bashan | Twitter -nirbashan1 | Facebook -https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOiXZjhjjVQ2jTpI2iukBAg | Youtube [e-mail] | Email ENGAGE WITH JOHN R. MILES * Subscribe to my channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles * Leave a comment, 5-star rating (please!) * Support me: https://johnrmiles.com * Twitter: https://twitter.com/Milesjohnr * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Johnrmiles.c0m​. * Medium: https://medium.com/@JohnRMiles​ * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john_r_miles   JOHN R. MILES * https://johnrmiles.com/my-story/ * Guides: https://johnrmiles.com/blog/ * Coaching: https://passionstruck.com/coaching/ * Speaking: https://johnrmiles.com/speaking-business-transformation/ * Gear: https://www.zazzle.com/store/passion_struck   PASSION STRUCK *Subscribe to Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-passion-struck-podcast/id1553279283 *Website: https://passionstruck.com/ *About: https://passionstruck.com/about-passionstruck-johnrmiles/ *Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast *LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/passionstruck *Blog: https://passionstruck.com/blog/  

success is really made up of in any business in any field in any career really, a bunch of little steps that lead finally to some big moment. And what was being taught in many of the business schools and sort of popular business culture was to set your sale on a one year, a three year, a five year, make some plan, put some numbers in play, put some targets, KPIs and stuff like that, and guide the ship in that direction. Well, the problem with that is that it doesn't allow for any creativity to come up. Hello visionaries, creators, innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders of all types. Hi, my name is John Miles and I wanted to

welcome you to this episode of the Passion Start Podcast where it is my job to interview high achievers from all walks of life and unlock their secrets and lessons to become a passion start. The purpose of our show is to curvy the listener by giving you lessons, tools and activities that you can use to achieve a passion-driven life. Now, let the journey begin. Thank you for joining me today on the Passion Start Podcast. May at Angelo once said, you can't use up creativity.

The more you use, the more you have. And that quote is a great lead-in to today's guest, near a basham, who is the author of the creator mindset. And today, we're going to talk about the idea of creativity and how, as may have said, you can't use it up in your life. And the importance of it and why so many companies today are failing to use creativity to their advantage and unlocking their companies and taking them to new heights. But before we get to that, let me tell you a little bit more about Nier.

I'm working with Hollywood stars like Woody Harrelson and Ross Stewart near discovered something that may shock you. These creative superstars aren't all that different from you were on. It's just that they have mastered a method of repeatable and predictable creativity. I type of creativity that anyone can learn, and it turns out that's the same type of creativity that can be used in businesses and careers everywhere. Near has taught thousands of leaders and individuals around the globe how to harness our creativity improve profitability, increase sales, boost customer service,

and ultimately great warming in their work. Working with clients such as AT&T, Microsoft, ASE Hardware, the NFL Network, EA Sports, Suzuki, Activision, and Jack Blue. Near has spent the last two decades working on a formula to notify creativity and business. That formula is found in his book, The Greater Mindset, which has been translated into two languages and released worldwide by MacRythell in August 2020. I'm so excited to have Near on the show and you are going to love this episode.

Thank you again for listening or watching. Music Welcome to the PassionStrick podcast. And today, as I've talked about it in the introduction, I am so happy to have near Bishon, someone who I met through mutual friend Caroline Johnson. If you haven't checked out her book, Jack Earl, you've got to, it's about her experiences being a female F-18 pilot. But near welcome to the show. Thank you, sir. Thanks for having me. I am very excited to have you here today and I think the audience is going to love to hear your story about creativity and we're going to get to that later on in the episode.

But before we do, I always think it's good for the listener to get a starting point and kind of understand the journey that you've been taking. And as I told you before the show, our purpose with this podcast is to help the underdogs, the beaten broken, bored of the world, unleashed their creativity, which I know you'll love, and unlock that passion-driven life that they want. So, as I was looking at your background, I saw that you initially didn't start necessarily in the path where you are today. You went to USC and got a music degree. Can you tell me a little bit about that and what led to that start for you? Yeah, definitely.

I came to the US one of the three years old in 1980 and for Israel and it was hard to learn the language, right? So I gravitated naturally toward music. And as people, it might be a controversial thing to say that 80s music looks like good. But I listened to a lot of music and I loved it. And I remember being in ESL classes, learning how to speak English.

And the teacher would say, hey, listen to the radio, listen to music, and learn the words. And the words will help you sort of get an impression of the language. And so that drew me to music at a very, very young age. And so I've been in band since I was 15 or actually more like 13 years old, you know, playing covers, Pink Floyd and the who and like, you know, all the classics, Led Zeppelin. And so when it came time for college, I wanted to go to a school where I'd be introduced to better musicians and learn the craft, right?

I was always sort of ear-taught. I never learned how to read or write before college and read or write music. So I decided, you know what? This is going to be really great. I'm going to go to this school. They're going to teach me this stuff. I'm going to meet some great band members

and I'm going to be in a touring band for the rest of my life. That's what I thought would happen, but if you know, life doesn't really go according to, you know, plans. That's for sure. So what was your instrument of choice? So I was a double bass player forever, and then I switched over to electric in college.

And at the time, the music school at SC was really classical. I mean, they were training first chairs and stuff like that. And they were like, why would you plug in a base? Like, why would you amplify a beautiful, you know, historic instrument? And so I remember I formed a jazz, I had to call it a jazz combo, even though it was a rock band, you know, in order to kind of justify the fact that we were plugging instruments in.

And today, they contacted me to do kind of a talk for them to raise money. And I looked on their website and it's all like, all of that classic stuff is gone now. It's just like, it's a music school, whether it's pop or country or, you know, classical. It's just, you know, it's all about music and I'm so happy that they evolved that way. But it wasn't like that when I was there. Music is something I have always had a passion for in my own life. And very early in both my kids' lives, we got them started playing piano because I had always learned that if you could play piano,

you can pretty much learn any instrument afterwards. And so both of them picked it up, when they were three, four, five years old. And my son ended up getting a huge passion also around playing percussion. And having that piano background allowed him to pick it up very quickly in middle school, still plays a ton today.

But my daughter, who is person who ended who turned out becoming her kind of rock star, she's in two or three different high school bands. She still plays piano and she does a lot of classic piano, but when she was approaching what instrument to play in these bands, I was kind of wanting her to play guitar or drums and she said to me, she goes, bad, what do you think the average composition of these bands are? It's young guys. And what do you think they want to do?

They either want to be the lead guitarist, the lead singer, or the drummer. So I want to get in a band. The best thing I could do is become a bassist because everyone wants a girl in the band, and most of them aren't going to have a bassist. So she started, she picked up the bass, and it's Groc at ships and send and you know she can play the other Instruments as well, but that's been her ticket. Oh, cool. How cool. What kind of beat, what kind of music is she playing? All kinds or? Well, she, so she has jumped into three completely different types of band.

One plays, kind of 90s alternative, another one plays more hard rock. And then the other one is kind of weather. I guess that more that genre. So how cool. You know, people don't talk enough, I don't think about how important having a musical background is and what it does to the brain, right?

Music is an amazingly analytical construct. You think that it's, oh, it's creativity and, oh, it just let loose on the guitar. It's not the instruments. Almost every string instrument is very regimented into a quarter, a half-step construct, right? So it literally is set up in a way to harmonize with another instrument or play together or, you know, counterpoint with some other instrument, so on and so forth.

It's their, the whole craft of western music built around the half-step is a very regimented sort of thing, you know, certain chords to work together with other certain chords and certain chords do not work with others and so on and so forth. I remember when I was in college, we did two years of oral skills where we had to listen the stuff and then kind of, you know, go, oh, that's in, you know, D major or whatever. And we did that. And then we did music theory and counterpoint, which was all math, all of it.

It was 100% math. So, so yeah, people, I don't think understand how that is part of music. And the other thing is, music awak awakened a different part of the brain that allows you to kind of learn in a very different way. And musicians tend to do really well in college, but they also tend to do really well in careers later. Yeah, it's benefited both my kids in many different ways. My son is really a creative and he was the one who, similar to you, learned mostly through hearing. I mean, I can remember him hearing, like, he could hear a few fighter song and, you know, next time he heard it, he could pretty much

drum through the whole thing or or major portions of it. Olivia is much more technical in the way she approaches things. And she, you know, can read music extremely well. So she will look at a song and then look at YouTube videos of the bassist playing it, understand their different techniques and she approaches it much more technically. And I think that's how they both approach their lives too. much more technically. And I think that's how they both approach their their lives too. She is a voracious reader and he's more the the creative buff. So you you went from this start

in music and then I saw that you also got a master's in film. So what was that transition like? So going through college at USC, you can't help run into the film school, which is next door, literally next door to the school of music. So all of my classes were within 15 feet of the other building, which was the film building. So you meet the students coming out of the building,

you have chats, right? And so I did a lot of sound for movies when I was in, when I was in SC, I would sit in a recording studio and work on songs or work on audio, tweaking dialogue, all the way down to effects, a bird, you know, sort of in the background or a dog barking and a scene, so on and so forth.

So I started to get kind of bit by the film bug and I graduated and wanted to start making films. And so I did and was pretty successful, made a couple of short films that won a ton of awards and that kind of spring. Yeah, yeah. And then I decided that I wanted to go to film school to really sort of learn what I'm doing. And so I went to Art Center in Pasadena where you can't but help wander into the advertising program because it's like one of those things that have been connected for, I don't know, 100 years or so of the college's history. And so I ended up taking a lot of advertising classes and started to, you know, make films and do well on some of those films. I made a documentary that sold to

Universal. I had a production company in Hollywood with employees and that whole thing. I sold to Universal, I had a production company in Hollywood with employees and that whole thing. But then I was always kind of working and advertising. I would get different agencies would bring me on, hey, can you help with this project or can you help with that project? We really like your vision. We saw your movies and stuff like that. And so I started working more and more in advertising. It was kind of crazy. And I started, you know, between graduating art center and doing what I do today, I've had several companies, different, all kinds of different things. And I kind of noticed that in order to do well in any business, you had to be really, really creative.

And I asked a lot of people that I admired in the field, I would say, hey, that was a really creative move. You guys put out a digital coupon or whatever. And you got all these signups and you gave this thing away for free. And how did you guys think of that? And a lot of people weren't telling me how. They would be like, well, it's something you either have or you don't.

I'm like, wait a second, but I'm creative. Like, I've been a musician my whole life. I made movies and stuff like that. Can't that creativity work in business also? And what I found was absolutely yes, that not only can it work, it works extremely well. And it's something that a lot of people don't know about. That was the first thing I learned.

And the second thing I learned was that, in order to be really, really successful, you had to apply that creativity, and nobody was talking. Nobody, nobody was saying, hey, this is how I did it. Or this is what I feel is a way, to get more creative in your business. So I started to look at the marketplace

and I said, there's got to be a book on this, right John? There's got to be a book on how to be creative in business. There's no book. Every book on creativity in business is about the why. Why should I be creative and why should I do this? And I would read, I read everything on the market that had to do with creativity. I got really excited because it was like,

yeah, cool, you know, you'd flip the pages, whoa, yeah, I get it, I should be more creative. And then at the end, it was kind of flat, right? Because it never gave you an instruction. So like any entrepreneur, you know, like you and your listeners, I found a gap in the market and I took it, you know, I was like, I'm writing a book, I'm gonna write the How-To Guide for businesses,

business owners and people in their career on how, specifically how to be more creative. Well, that's great. And a great lead end to the topic. And it's a similar scope and approach to what I've been doing with the book we've talked about. I've written, and that is a lot of people have talked about, finding your why or purpose in life. But people haven't really talked about how do you deploy it? How do you cultivate it? How do you,

you know, once you come up with this, you know, idea that you want about passion, then how do you take action on it? You know, what drives you to make that choice and move forward? And so, you know, that's what this whole journey about passion struck is about. It so, you know, that's what this whole journey about PassionStruck is about. It's, you know, part of it is helping the Y, but more importantly, it's cultivating it. So, you know, I think we took similar approaches because I based PassionStruck off of observing, interviewing, working with literally hundreds of different business leaders

and seeing this approach work time and time again. But as you're saying, a lot of them don't wanna tell you how. And you kind of took the same approach with the creator mindset of following and looking at these examples and then similar to me, recognizing patterns that emerged. So what was the first pattern that you saw and what caught your eye about it? So the first pattern that I recognized very early on was that people who do extremely well in

business have a methodical approach to little victories. That was the first thing I noticed. And what I started to kind of dig in and learn was that successes really made up of in any business in any field, in any career, really, a bunch of little steps that lead finally to some big moment. And what was being taught in many of the business schools and sort of popular business culture was to set your sale on a one year, a three year, a five year. Make some plan, put some numbers in play,

put some targets, KPIs and stuff like that, and guide the ship in that direction. Well, the problem with that is that it doesn't allow for any creativity to come up. It is 100% a strict and true analytical approach. Unless we are combining the creative with the analytics, we are performing at half of our potential. We'll never quite get there and we'll always wonder why. I've worked with some Fortune 100 companies and literally I come in after the big five consultants

have come in. And what have they done? John, they've managed some efficiency to 0.003% in every single time I come in, I'm meeting with somebody in the C-suite. I'm meeting with a board of directors. I'm meeting with a board of directors. I'm meeting with a leadership team. Every time somebody dials up, it's classic, right? And I look up on the projector, right? And

and it's look what we've done. And near look, we've saved, you know, shaved off, or point two seconds on this process. And look, look how great we are. And I'm like, okay, guys, and why am I here? They're like, well, because it's just stagnated near it. So it improved, and then it flat-platoed. Improved, and then plateaued. And we're like, you know, we're wondering why we can't get there. And why won't it continue up? So on and so forth.

So what I've noticed is that the little victories are missing from the culture of the organization. There was ice cream salesman many years ago, we wanted to sell a bunch of ice cream machines, right? And his mindset was analytical, like everyone, like most people. And it was, I'm gonna sell a bunch of machines, I'm gonna get a bunch of contact,

we'll sell a bunch of machines, and it's gonna be great. They were like milkshake machines. And so, you know, it worked for a while, but then one day it stagnated like every single, every single analytical construct. And so it stagnated out and he would like, well, wait a second. Why is it stagnating? And, you know, this sort of thing.

And he noticed there was a restaurant in LA that kept ordering machines consistently. They weren't the biggest customer ever, John, but they kept ordering machines, right? So, he's like, wait a second. I'm going to go check it out. That's a creative concept, right? There is no analytics in the world that will tell you that book in a plane ticket, an hotel, and driving to see some customer that orders a machine every half a year, but they're a frequent, a frequent customer's a good idea.

That's like, doesn't work. If you look at the numbers only, it doesn't work. But it's creative, right? And so, he went there and noticed there with the line out the door. I mean, 45 minutes, he stood in line, got to the front of line, had the best burger he's ever had, right?

The best cheeseburger on earth. And the guy's name was Ray Croc, and that restaurant was McDonald. So unless we're looking at all those little victories, hmm, who's that customer that keeps ordering stuff that I get along with really well, what are those little victories that are happening that take me where I need to go? Unless we're doing that, we're stuck in an analytical construct. And so that was the thing that I noticed from the get-go eight years ago, when I started this journey to write this book, which took, by the way, six years.

Took six years to write this thing. I noticed very early on that people and businesses that embrace little victory and don't worry so much about the one or the three or the five-year trajectory, but worry about, you know, those meaningful little tidbit along the way ended up doing really really well. Did you know that Forbes magazine recently cited that 70% of individuals who've been personal development, masterminds, and one-on-one coaching benefited from better work performance, increased communication skills, and overall better relationships. And we, at PassionStruck, are obsessed with self-development,

coaching and mentorship. That is why we've created a free resource to help you unlock your hidden potential. Because people doing great things in business and life, are just like you, only they've had a coach along the way and we've got that covered too. Let us show you the systems and frameworks that we teach, growth-minded individuals to help them step into their sharp edges, execute on their passion journeys and get predictable results time and time again. Go to passionstruck.com slash coaching right now

and let's get igniting. I have this philosophy where I talk about it in the lens of inputs and outputs. And, you know, I think you've got to keep your eye on the output, but I have this philosophy I call the B-Internal Effect. And I often talk about Elon Musk is probably the biggest perfector of it.

Because what he does is he has that long-term goal that you talked about, which is kind of like that turtle, where it needs to be patient, slow, and methodical. But similar to the B, and the B is all about daily activity, he's very caught up in the daily inputs and more importantly, the creativity that's coming from those daily inputs that he's a part of.

Because I think he knows it's a magnifying effect that if you do input upon input upon input, not only are you gonna reach that output, but it's gonna have so much more an explosive force, which is exactly what you've seen now with Tesla, SpaceX, and everything else he's doing, and the creative ways and marketing that they use in the background.

And I remember, I have a similar story to your McDonald's one where probably 15 years ago, I met one of my mentors and at the time, when I first met him, he was a VP at Oracle. He was one of the fastest rising stars. Larry Allison had actually picked him to be a potential successor and become CEO someday. And out of the blue, he decided to take a sabbatical and ends up just thinking that where he is isn't where he wanted to go.

And through about two years in the sabbatical, swimming with dolphins one day, he got this idea and then started to change his life around it. And he used very a similar model to what you're talking about in that it was that output he was looking at, but he started this creative approach where he was using marketing and developing a new category of solution that he called the cloud, which no one at that time had heard of. And he would go on these road shows, do these crazy stunts, get people motivated about this concept of the cloud.

And at first, everyone told him it was crazy. And then, how could you leave that job to do this? And you look at it now and it's Salesforce.com and that person was Mark Benioff. And the way he got there, if you read any of the books of how it is, he used this creativity approach and used intense marketing and creativity to really launch the brand and get people to be energized

by what this new concept could be. Over the past eight years, and I know for me, it's been a journey to write the book as well. What were, you know, some of the fears or obstacles that you encountered along the way? You know, why does it take you six, six years to write something like this? How much time do you have? Yeah, John, you know, here's the thing, right? I am a voracious reader, just like your daughter, I think that is so brilliant that she reads so much. And I constantly look at what's in the marketplace, who released what? And I read nonstop. I read a book a week. I read only nonfiction. I don't read any

fiction whatsoever, novels and stuff like that. Maybe I shouldn't admit that I'll out, but I read only nonfiction and only business titles because I want to continually improve. And the amount of quality out there right now is unbelievable. It's just so good, you know, the books that are being released and and and stuff like that. But what I've noticed is some books out there in business are written by academics. And I love academics. I love school, right? I have a master's degree.

I get it. I have no doubt that it's really important and that it's helpful. But what I've noticed is that there is a lot of books that lack real world know how. And the lack of real world know how comes from somebody who's been struggling to get to a position, struggling to find an audience,

struggling to find a position, struggling to get somewhere. And then when a couple of things start to click and the machine starts to move, these are incredible life lessons. So my particular project comes from years and years of just getting things wrong in order to get them right. Right. Making a bunch of mistakes and then figuring, hey, here's a good path. And my book was written while I was working. I was grinding it out. I was on a plane to see a client.

Here's an hour. The kids are getting up in the morning. Oh goodness, you know, they're sleeping in another half hour. Get the machine quick. Write a paragraph. You know, it was that kind of thing. And the book came together over so many little snippets of time and that sort of thing because I was busy working, right?

I was busy doing it. I, you know, I don't have the luxury of having clashes on Mondays and Thursdays and, you know, being able to write Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, right? And in that sort of thing. And in the other thing is I don't think people talk enough about this, but, you know, there's such a romanticized vision of writing a book, right? You got a cabin in the woods and there's, you know, it's know, there's such a romanticized vision of writing a book, right? You got a cabin in the woods and there's, you know, it's a, there's a bit of smoke coming out of the fireplace, right? And that would be the Matthew, that would be the Matthew McConaughey book that

just came out. Greenlight's exactly what he did. Yeah, it's just like, you know, but it's a grind, man. It's like, oh, the client call got canceled. Great. I have half an hour, you know, but it's a grind, man. It's like, oh, the client call got canceled. Great. I have half an hour, you know, I'm doing some keynote or whatever, I'm backstage and, you know, there's some scheduling delays. Okay, I can bump everything a half hour, no problem. Open the machine and write three paragraphs.

I mean, literally that's kind of the process. And people don't also talk about the disappointment that happened. I spent six years writing it. And John, I met with an agent, and she was wonderful, but on her first call, the first call, she told me, take your manuscript that you spent six years writing and drag it into the trash

and then hit the lean. And I'm like, are you serious? She's like, yes, because it's 85,000 words, which is like 462 pages or I don't know, something like that. And I was like, why, this is good, I spent the years backstage, half an hour, you know, crying. And she would like, well, if you wrote that much, then you clearly don't know what you're doing.

And you need to focus down and it's too long. And she gave me 24 hours to think about it. And I remember talking to my wife, I said, what do you think I should do? And she was like, listen to an expert. You got to listen to people who know more than you about publishing. So I did and I was really glad that I did because

through that, you know, adversity came, you know, the book, it's with McGrawhill, we got four offers to publish. From all the big, you know, three main publishers, one medium-sized publisher, I guess, you know, McGrawhill has been a really great partner on this book and has done a lot to push it. So it's been a really great road, but I couldn't have predicted that that I have not really been creative and listened to sort of different input

and have that ability to change with what comes up. And so that's what the writing process has been for me. I'm sure you have a similar story. I guess for me it was always in the back of my mind, but I didn't really realize I had a gift for writing until I took a very unlikely path. I was, I had another company called Ovesto where we performed fractional and interim services I was, I have another company called Ovesto

where we perform fractional and interim services as chief executive officer, chief operating officer, et cetera. And I was offered to go in as kind of the chief marketing officer and associate publisher for a newly launched business startup. And I never in my life thought I was gonna become So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so that interest me from gut health to social, corporate social responsibility to what was happening around brain and brain research. I've had some traumatic brain injuries myself. And so I started writing articles

and not realizing that I had always enjoyed writing. I had just been doing it as part of my corporate job in the in the form of proposals, business cases, etc. but not creativity. So for me, once I learned that I could actually create a right, then the biggest thing was how do you turn that into stories? Because that's what people really want to read. It's kind of like this podcast. They want to hear a story about what you're doing. And so it was that time as that editor-in-chief that I really came to the conclusion, you know, I could, it's within me to write this book. And I have to just stop putting all these imaginary fears in front of me,

that are stopping me from doing it. And once I started, and I started it just before COVID hit a year ago, it kind of just, in my case, poured out of me in about six to eight weeks. I had the dedicated time to do it. And, you know, it was just one thing after another. But I think it's because I compartmentalized it for many years. So when I finally did it, I had all the examples. I had everything lined up. So, but yeah, it's anyone who says it's not a struggle

or there aren't those days where you're just beating your head against the writer's block, so to speak, has never written a book because it happens. And, you know, I just, I'm not sure what you did, but some of those writing days, I just kind of held myself toward word count. And, you know, I would take breaks or something,

but, you know, sometimes you force your way through 2,000 words, you reach, you read it the next day and you're like, it's a load of crap. And other times, you know, you're like, I a load of crap and other times you know you're like I've man I've got a gem here. So for someone who hasn't read the book yet can you give them a couple lessons on how they can become a creator in their own business setting? Yeah definitely so the little victories of in the book there's the whole chapter that explores how to, you know, make little victory, how to appreciate them, how to find them in your business.

I talk about the art of shutting up in the book of how sometimes you just need to shut your mouth and let other people talk and listen, I talk in the book about empathy on how to make empathy happen, the steps that you need to take to actually go from listening to really understanding, which is a whole different thing. We talk in the book about how not to get complacent. We look at a few different case studies from Toys of Rust to Panam Airlines. And we talk about different sort of traps that they got stuck into. The plethora of choices is one that's in there. A lot of businesses tell me near,

I'm really creative. I've got so many ideas, I just don't know what to do with them. You know, it's the paralysis of choice is also a trap, right? And that's what happened to pan M in the 70s and 80s. They were, you know, being hijacked and all of this stuff. And they had creativity embedded within the organization. So they literally had the seedlings of the TSA. They had metal detectors and scanners and all of this amazing technology that they shared with the military and the woods bought up sort of to protect civilian air travel.

And literally they couldn't make a decision to save their lives. John, like they had all of these really good ideas and nobody could decide, you know what? We should do the metal detector or you know what? Let's scan baggage, so on and so forth. Right. And it literally led to a paralysis of choice because when you do nothing, you're still doing something.

And what ended up happening was, you know, they got hijacked some more time, deregulation hit in the US market for domestic travel. And then all sort of unraveled. And so I talk about, you know, how to not make those mistakes. Again, the books got 92 tools and every one of them is a how every single one of them is how to do this, how to do that. I get emails from readers, which is really cool, you know, saying, Hey, you know, I read this, this one chapter, and it really helped me in this part of my life or in this part of my business. And those are the best. But I also get emails from people are like, this is ridiculous. How would, I would never use one of your techniques. And, you know And I got an email about a week ago. I talked about this.

I did a week-long presentation seminar for a Fortune 500 company. And I talked in the, somebody asked the question, they're like, near, this is great. But do you ever get people who hate stuff? I'm like totally. So I got an email from the sky who was like, I would never use your concept IDN execution method.

I talk about how to frame ideas that you have to generate creativity. It's really about grabbing a pen in a pizza paper and writing down the concept, the IDN, the execution of your business or your career. And you're able to go through those three stages, huge to product level, to skew level with creativity. And it teaches people how to rekindle that creativity that we were all born with.

And so it works for people and people love it. But once in a while, I get an email. So this guy sent me an email that I would never organize my ideas by large medium and small. And how dare you tell me to come up with different executions to launch a new product. And I'm reading this thing and I'm like, you know what, he's literally following the book. Like he's upset, that's cool.

However you come to it, you come to it, but he's literally telling me why he doesn't like maybe the way that I'm naming thing, John, but he likes the way the process. So it really is all about process and teaching people habits that make them more creative, teaching them different things that they can do every day to become more creative. And one thing that I recommend, that all of your listeners do now to become more creative. I mean, literally, they're lifting those podcasts and it's great and they're like, near I'm totally charged up. I don't have $19 to buy your book, although you should because

it's really affordable. And it's the only thing that you pay for in the entire book, everything in the book is free. Every single thing in the book costs zero. It's free. It's a mind shift change or an activity that you have to do. So I talk in a book about grabbing a piece of paper and a pen and writing stuff down. When you're able to write stuff down, you activate a different portion of the mind and literally we study this and I have the science to back it up. But when you write something down, you take the pressure off yourself of getting it right and you allow for that idea to have its life on its own without being completely

and utterly censored by all of your negative thoughts. We talk in a book about how to conquer those negative thoughts because something like 80% or 82% of our thoughts daily, John, are negative, daily. Well, it's got to be English, right? You know, it's because we're, you know, descendants of the of the crown, right? And, you know, England, it's, it's like gloomy. It's gloomy and it rains all the time.

So that's where negativity comes from, right? But it's like gloomy, gloomy, and it rains all the time. So that's where negativity comes from, right? But it's not. It's completely a human thing. We found it in every single culture on earth. We have way more words to describe negative things than positive things. We're predisposed to negative thoughts. And so I talk in the book about how to get rid of those.

One of them is writing stuff down. When you write stuff down, you let go of that, like love affair with your idea and that preciousness that you just want to pet your idea and keep it from people. Oh, no, nobody can see this. This is my idea. Well, when you write stuff down and you get in a habit of learning how to systemize your writing down, you unleash your real creativity. That's something your listeners can do right now. That's great. And one of the things I do every single day as a habit is, I pick my dog for a walk early in the morning every day.

And when I'm on those walks, I listen to a podcast. And those podcasts have generated so many ideas, because sometimes I agree with what they're saying on a podcast. And those podcasts have generated so many ideas because sometimes I agree with what they're saying on the podcast, oftentimes my experience from actually doing it is much different and opposes what they're saying. But that's whether it's the articles I've written or podcasts that I do or topics that I pick.

I get back off those walks and I write you know, I write down, you know, these are the inputs I have to do today. But I also write down, I really like this concept that I heard. I really like this concept that I heard. Or like today, I was watching, uh, imp, or listening to impact theory and they had coach bear on their mic bear. And he was talking about the reasons that you need to change your perspective. I'm like, dude, you just stole chapter out of my book, but at least it tells you that you're onto something. You're onto something. Yeah. A lot of this stuff is similar but different. So you have somebody saying something, but they're approach and the way that they came to that idea is different. And I think that's what makes all of it incredibly valuable.

Usually a listener or a reader is going to absorb what's relevant to them. You know, they're kind of like whatever on the other stuff, but this, this morsel really speaks to me. And so I think the more that you have of that, I think you call them inputs and that's fantastic. I think the more that you have those that, you know, can relatively shoot you into a proper target, I think the more that you have those that you know can relatively shoot you

into a proper target, I think the better. Yeah, so I agree and I think it aligns this concept that I'm going to talk about aligns with much of what you just talked about. I recently did a podcast on I called it stop self sabotaging yourself by being a visionary arsonist. And this concept of visionary arsonist, it's how many times has the company done the things that you're talking about. You know, I see this all the time in private equity. They play the same playbook every single time. Let's go after expenses. Let's economize this. Let's perfect this. Let's do that. But often, what gets visionized is that passion or that creativity that made that company grow to where it was, and that gets sidelined. And because they're focused on bringing all these economies to scale and trying to rework this process, as you said,

or get this, don't worry about top-line growth. Let's get your EBITDA up. They lose the creativity because they're a visionary arsonist to their own, what got them here. I see so many of these companies, the private equity groups end up selling them, and then they flatline because they've lost whether, you know, I would call it that passion start culture that they had or the creativity that was driving them before because they get caught up in doing activities, these inputs that aren't really driving them, as you would say, to this creative endpoint that they could get to. And I see it not only in companies, I see it all the time in people's lives. Yeah, definitely. So, you know, I've studied this quite a bit, and you know, we were all born creative.

It's something that happened as a means of survival. So, we talk in a book about the first creative human being was being attacked by a beast at night. It was a dark and lonely cold night. And she'd been attacked and she was in her cave moments from death and she put a stick and a berry picker that were nothing but a stick and a berry picker that were nothing but a stick and a berry picker and she put them together and was able to you know you did as a spirit to save her life and immediately

she ran into her village and shared it and it grew into hey if I'm creative I can survive. And here we are in 2021 and we've lost our way a bit with creativity. We've lost that sense of what keeps us alive. And so these companies, these private equity companies that you're talking about have lost their impetus of what makes them who they are. I've done work with a lot of groups from pizza franchise to manufacturing. And every time I sit in the room

or on Zoom and I ask people what it is that they're doing and what they're creating, they're sort of creative DNA is. And nine out of 10 time people say it's a skew or it's the product. That's what we do. We do this. And I'll say, yeah, but why? Because every single person in the room could be making way more money if you all were doing something else. And they go, yeah, totally, of course, of course. And then people start to think about it for a while

and they go, you know what, when I was a kid, I would really, really into this or our founder came over from Italy with that. And that's the meaning of why we're doing this sort of thing. And so, okay, now that we've found the meaning of what it is that we're doing, how do we apply it every day? And so, it's really important for people to understand why they're either, you know, how they're doing what they're doing and why it is that they're there. I don't believe in coincidences or, you know,

anything like that. I believe that everybody's doing what they are doing for reason. And so once you kind of understand that, then you could say, okay, let's not lose that and let's apply it every day, that DNA that we have to those inputs, right? And unless the, it's a very easy test, right? You ask yourself, does this, is this relevant to the brand? Yes or no? There's no gray areas. It either works or doesn't.

And sometimes what works is really creative, it's different, but unless it has that thread of connectivity to the DNA of the effort of your business or your career or whatever it is that you're doing, you're just running in circles being productive in meetings all day and wondering why you're an endless Zoom call and you haven't bought enough penny more of profit, and your revenue is soaring, but your profit's going down. All kinds of things like that, or, you know, nothing is moving, and you've kind of rested on success, which I talk about in the book, unless you understand the DNA of who you are as a creative human being, and why it is that you're doing,

what you're doing, you can't expect to be successful. Want to do a quick segue to this experience I had. When I was a CIO at Dell, I got to work with a very talented Chief Marketing Officer. Her name was Aaron Mulligan Nelson. And Aaron and I had a lot of great accomplishments working together. We created the number one social brand.

We're one of the first doctors of listening pools, et cetera. But while we were there, she also came up with a brand new brand image for Dell. And it was this, we were gonna change the whole marketing to Dell, the power to do more. Because Dell at that time was, you know, people were so focused that we were a computer company

and we were trying to switch to being known for creating solutions. And it's not as much the skew, as you say, as what is the experience that you can do with it. And I remember being at this senior leadership meeting for VP's and up, and she unleashed this video that had some people in the audience crying because it was such a great representative

of what you could do with the Dell products. And for whatever reason, I don't know to this day, the board decided to pull the whole campaign and I think it could have changed the whole trajectory. But with that closing thought, I know we're a little bit short on time and one of the things the audience likes the most on these is my rapid round of questions. So I'm going to hit you with three or four of them. So I'm going to hit you with three or four of them. So the first I would say is, what is your cryptonite? I think it's going into a room and being able to read it spot on.

I think a lot of times the subtext is far more important than what is being said. Okay. What would be your favorite superhero and why? Um, I would say Wonder Woman because she's bad ats and awesome. Okay. No explanation needed. If you could win any award, which one would you want to win and why? Oh man, that's a tough one. one would you want to win and want? Oh, man, that's a tough one. Probably the Nobel Prize, because they don't give those out a lot.

And that would be, it would be really great. I think creativity has the ability to unleash human potential that we haven't done yet. I feel like we could have easily have cured cancer by now. We could have landed, you know, someone on Mars, we could have reached our potential, but we self-edit. And we, we tell ourselves, oh, this is not a good idea, you know, someone on Mars, we could have reached our potential, but we self-edit. And we tell ourselves, oh, this is not a good idea, you know, and I would never go out on the limb and

share this creative idea kind of like Aaron did with, with Dell, you know, she took a risk, a creative risk and went out there and wanted to do something different and got shot down for it. But imagine if it would have worked. Imagine it would have worked. And I have to tell you a, a previous thing I found out, a person who I wholeheartedly expected to have won the Nobel Peace Prize was actually nominated, but failed to receive it because he was assassinated

in the year he was nominated. And that was Gandhi. So Gandhi who you would have, and if you talk to the noble laureates, they say the biggest missing person from the noble prize is actually Gandhi. Gandhi, yeah. Yeah. Well, Nier, thank you so much for being on the show today. You had so much inspiration and guidance for the listeners. I know they're gonna just love this episode. So thank you so much.

And where can they find your book? Yeah, so it's in Amazon, Barn De Noble, any bookstore across the country. If you wanna put on a mask and go get it, it's in the bookstores. You can get it online. Website is nearbashan.com, N-I-R are B-A-S-H-A-N.com. Okay, well great. Well, Nier, thank you so much again.

It was a great time doing this with you. Thanks, John. Thanks for having me. I think many of the points Nier brought up today are absolutely spot on. From my experience working in many different companies. And like the story I talked about, et del with Howard Doe Moore. So many companies today are focusing on from my experience working in many different companies. And like the story I talked about at Dell, with Howard Doomor, so many companies today

are focusing on economies in the bottom line that they are not putting enough research and development into what is really driving their culture, what is driving people, their fans, their customers, who want to buy the products that they're creating. Oftentimes, it's this creativity that he talked about for this culture of passion that company and create that makes fans everywhere, jump on board and become enamored with that brand, with their products.

Because they see it as I saw it in the Dell example, as how are these products, services, whatever they may be, impacting me and making me better at who I am or what I do. I hope you learned as much today as I did from here, and I wholeheartedly appreciate each and every one of you for taking the time to listen or watch this podcast. And I hope we all are making passion go viral. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining us.

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