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- [00:02]
A
Hey, just a quick note to say thank you for joining me on this episode. If this is your first time or you're a regular listener, please take a minute and rate the show on your chosen platform. A short review helps every show to be more visible to new listeners and provides them with value. So thank you for being here and for helping out. Thank you.
- [00:38]
B
My dad was lifelong military, but he was an amateur chef and amateur photographer. He built the house we lived in. I could tell crazy stories about my father. He's no longer around, but I. When I was finishing fact, I asked my mom, I said, hey, if you asked dad if he was creative, would he say he was? She was. She was like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, he wasn't. No, he wouldn't say that. I said, if you asked dad, could he figure anything out? She said, oh, yeah, he could figure anything out. So the idea of creativity scares people. The idea of artist scares people. They're charged words. They're like, those are special things for special people. Or for my dad, it would have been like, oh, were you calling me gay? Right? And he had that. But if you can figure things out, that's a level of creativity. So we're all weird, we're all creative.
- [01:29]
A
Welcome to the Daring Creativity Podcast, the show about daring to forever explore creativity that isn't about chasing shiny perfection. It's about showing up with all your doubts and imperfections and making them count. It's about becoming more of who you already are. My name is Radim Malinic. I'm a designer, author, and eternally curious human being. I am talking to a broad range of guests who share their stories of small actions that sparked lifetime discoveries, taking one step towards the thing that made them feel most alive. Let me begin this episode with a Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create? Today, I'm talking with James Victore, an artist, author, and activist who teaches people how to illuminate their individual gifts in order to achieve personal greatness. In our conversation to celebrate the release of his latest book, hey Weirdo, we explore his evolution from pleasing clients to finding clients who appreciate his authentic voice. Learning that creativity's job is to disrupt, James now coaches frustrated creative adults to express what's truly in their heart rather than succumbing to creative constipation. In this conversation, key themes include the difference between being weird versus seeming weird, the importance of self love in creative expression, and why perfectionism is simply a tool for self sabotage. James also emphasizes that creativity requires business acumen because a Starving artist is just an artist who doesn't know they're in business. It's my pleasure to welcome James Victore. Hey, James. Welcome to the show. How are you doing today?
- [03:22]
B
I am groovy, Radham. It is. It's great to be here. I appreciate you asking me. Thank you.
- [03:27]
A
I think you're like a man who doesn't need an introduction yet. There might be a couple of people listening to this and say, who is James Victori?
- [03:34]
B
I am what you call a recovering graphic designer. Meaning I started my career years ago as a commercial graphic designer, and I realized I'm a pretty good one. Meaning I can get my work into museums around the world. I've had two shows at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. But then when you hit your 30s and your 40s and you become an adult designer, you realize that, what, I'm a racehorse. If you want to win races, hire me. But most. What most clients want to do is put an apple cart behind this racehorse. And I'm like, nah. So I realized I'm a pretty good graphic designer, but I'm a much better teacher. And I taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York for almost 18 years. And now I teach and coach and mentor frustrated creative adults and help them do the work that's in their hearts.
- [04:24]
A
I remember your story about moma, and I think there was a client story that you were arguing about some detail in the project, and you were like, dude, you're arguing about blue color or the font. And I'm in a moment. What is the point of here, of this conversation?
- [04:38]
B
My first poster I created because I had to. Because I had to make comment. I realized that freedom of the press belongs to those who own a press. I didn't own a press, but I was a graphic designer, and I knew printers. And a situation came where it was the 500th anniversary of the celebration of the quote, unquote, discovery of America. And I went to school. I learned about Sacajawea, and I learned about the Pilgrims, and I learned all the bullshit and the Thanksgiving story, the whitewashed version. But I also read some books and some history, and I learned about the continued genocide in this country of the Native Americans from Plymouth Rock to today. And I wanted to make a comment. There was a big parade being planned and parties in New York City, and they usually go down. They go down Fifth Avenue and they stop at Columbus Circle. So I created a poster. We printed 5,000 of them, and I got them put up professionally. And professionally means you talk to Your printer. And you say, hey, how do I get these up on the street? You know, like movie posters and stuff? And he said. They said, oh, there's a whole bunch of. There's two different Greek companies. And what you do is you pay them. And I know the guy's name. You pay them. And then when we're done printing these, we take boxes and we bring them to Lincoln center at night, and we leave them at the back door, and they'll come and they'll pick them up, and the next morning, they just. They'll show up all over the city of New York. So it was, like, legal, illegal postering. So my poster was up next to Calvin Klein advertising posters and movie posters, and it was fantastic. And the day before the parade, like, I'd seen them up all over New York. And the day before the parade, the studio I was working out of the time was I was just working at a friend's studio, and it was the. The 11th floor of Carnegie hall, which was like a hop and a skip away from Columbus Circle. So I took my lunch and I went and sat in Columbus Circle and was just, like, across the street watching, you know, looking at my posters and having a sandwich, right? And I watched the police pull up and they get out of the car and they open up the trunk, and they pull out what looks to be like a, you know, a mop, you know, with those hairy mops. But it didn't have the hairy parts on it. It was just metal on the end, and it was a scraper. And they scraped my posters off the wall. They didn't touch the movie posters on the left of mine or the advertising posters on the right. They just scraped mine down. And I didn't have the balls to ask him why, hey, what are you doing in my poster? I paid to have that shit put up there. So, yeah, I love making the work that's in my heart, and I have to make work that. That entertains, educates, delights, or pisses people off. I need in, like, that strong emotion. Otherwise, I could just not have an opinion and do commercial work and get paid and, you know, and have a house and have a summer house and have all the bullshit and lead a completely boring life, and my graphic design will have meant nothing.
- [07:56]
A
How old were you when you did those posters?
- [07:59]
B
I was just 30.
- [08:01]
A
Wow.
- [08:02]
B
I was maybe 29 or 30.
- [08:04]
A
Lucas sandwich sat there watching all of this happen, especially with the police showing up. Did you feel a bit scared or were you like, oh, let's see what happens?
- [08:13]
B
You Know, I was at a safe distance. I sign all my posters, so, you know, my signature's been on it. And people are. People have said, hey, have you ever gotten arrested? And I'm like, you know what? I think I haven't tried hard enough.
- [08:26]
A
I need to congratulate you on your new book, because in a way, I was gonna say, let's say hello to James and say, hey, weirdo.
- [08:34]
B
No, don't, because I fucking hate that word. There's a whole story behind that, you know? I mean, that's where the book comes from, right? It's like I've realized, listen, my book previous to this was called FEC Perfection. And I didn't realize I was a perfectionist until I was writing that book. And I. And that book cured me. I am so much better at letting things go now, especially in my work. And I didn't really realize how much of a weirdo I was and how much I was hiding from that part of me until I put together, hey, weirdo. But I'm not comfortable with that word. I want to be normal. I want to fit in. I want to be liked just like everybody else. But, yeah, I think I'm a tad weird.
- [09:15]
A
I would defend you on the fact that you don't want to be called weirdo, but you're one of a kind. You're the odd one out in a very good way, just like everybody else is the odd one out. Like we are, you know, on the journey of actually self acceptance, like where we've started in this, you know, in this world, trying to find our feet. The last thing you want to be in school, like, being weirdo, like, being called weirdo, because that's gonna fuck you up in terms of, you know, your social presence, social sort of acceptance. But I think the older we grow, the more eccentric we go. And we go, you know what? This is me. Take it or leave it. What I've learned recently is not what it is, is how people see it. It's not who you are, it's how people see you. So it could be perfectly fine and just strange to her surroundings, or you can be just a little bit odd and totally weird. Your surroundings. So what's your journey into creativity? Like, how do we go from. From the beginnings to now to writing this book?
- [10:07]
B
I was born to do this job. I was just born to do this job. And what I've done is, you know, the short story is that I've done a very good job of listening to that. I've done a fairly good job of listening to that, I've strayed a number of times. So in hey Weirdo, I tell my story, the long version. And in the book there are eight really strong, compelling interviews with high end professionals. And all of my interviews with them started with, you know, what made you weird as a kid? And in the book there were some early copies that I sent around to some friends and they all said the same thing. They said, james, there's one thing missing. I was like, what? They said, what made you weird as a kid? I'm like, oh shit. I didn't tell my story, so. So I tell the story and it goes like this. When I was a kid, I had a. I have a memory. And it's stuck with me my entire life. And the memory is of a pool of melted crayons on a hot cement porch, right? So it's this beautiful melange of color. And I've had that memory my entire life. And the funny thing is, besides for the Cooper black stuff, most of my work strives to recreate that constantly. So it's been this subconscious drive in my work for years. And last couple of years I had to check that vision. I had to make sure. I think I just conjured that. I made that shit up because it's a pretty good story. But I checked with my mom. So I asked my mom and I said, hey, do you remember a pool of melted crayons on a hot porch? And she said, oh yeah, I remember. And I could tell that she did not remember it as being something beautiful, this expressionism of color. She remembered it as, why did you do that? We don't own this house. Who's going to clean that up? So the thing that moved me as a kid for its beauty also has embedded in it her anger. And that's something that I shoot for still. So I've held on to that. I was the weird kid. I was lucky that I was the third of three children. I was the only boy. So I was left alone. I was full of play and joy and fun and love. As a kid. I failed after high school, I failed a lot. I. I tried university. Didn't stick. I tried getting a job. Didn't work. So I moved to New York at 19 years old to become an artist, to become a designer. And I went to the School of Visual Arts. It was another school that didn't stick, that didn't work. So I just started working immediately. I was 21, I just started working. And I've been working ever since, basically. But when I started working, I Started doing the work that I thought I was getting paid for. I was basically making graphic design look like graphic design, making book jackets look like book jackets. And it's what people still do. It's. I call it making the obvious. Obviousr. Right? Stuff that's completely not interesting. So I kind of strayed from my path. I became, you know, commercial, doing work that just didn't move me. And then I woke up one day and I'm like, I fuck this. I've got my own sense of humor, my own way of seeing things, my own sense of color and proportion. Right in typography. And I started putting it in my work and my clients hated it. My clients fucking hated it. So I had to do, you know, the only smart thing and go out and try to find my clients, the clients who would work with me. Because I think that's a big flaw that most designers do is they think, okay, I'm a graphic designer. I have to figure out how to be nice to everybody and make everybody happy and make the client happy all the time. I'm like that because the person that you have to make happy is you. Or else you're going to have a miserable career of placating everybody else. And then you're going to wake up at 30 or 40 and you're going to come to me and say, hey, James, why am I so frustrated? I'm like, well, you're. Because you're creatively constipated, because you've never expressed yourself. Do you know that? Radim, do you know the opposite of depression? Expression is expression. We become depressed. We literally become depressed because we are creatively constipated, because we've got the job, but the job won't let us actually do what's in our hearts. So we're frustrated creatively because we can't express ourselves. We can't be that weird kid. We can't go back and do those things. We can't have that amount of play and fun and joy we did when we were kids. I loved making a mess when I was kids. I loved working with my hands. When I started as a graphic designer, I was lucky enough that computers were just starting. I got, I started because I, I wanted to use my hands and make things. Little did I know that I would grow up to be an adult who basically, as a career, most of my time is spent managing some fucking websites. Goo fucking shoot me.
- [15:17]
A
It does make perfect sense of, like, how you've come, literally the full arc of yourself being frustrated. Things were not sticking and now you're helping those ones that you know, again are in a situation where things are not sticking. So I think it's a perfect circle that you accomplish.
- [15:30]
B
That is pretty much my path. And now what I try to do is I try to express myself in the most truest form. I try to play the way that five year old kid who made a mess with crayons did. And I know how hard it is to be a designer, to be an artist, to be create, to be creative and have that inside of you. And I want to share that with other people. I went out for a walk with my dog and I bumped into some people in the neighborhood who I hadn't, who I hadn't talked to before. And my dog was cute, so people wanted to talk to me. So they said, oh, James, what do you do for a living? I said, oh, well, I'm an artist and a writer, they said. And they immediately, they did that fucking thing. They did that thing which is so beautiful and so amazing. And they said, ah, when I was a kid, one of them said, when I was a kid, I used to take paper and I would draw out a pattern and then I would cut it with scissors and I would staple it or tape it together and I would make. And I'd say, oh my God, that's so awesome. What do you do now? And they said, this woman said, oh, I run a parking garage. And I'm like, oh, my heart. Our creativity, we don't see it as viable. We don't see it as something valuable. We don't see it as something life affirming, life changing. It's something we have to pass through. It's like it comes out of the fucking Bible, right? You read this passage, which one is it? I forget what it's called. We read this passage at weddings here in the States traditionally, and it has this line that says, when I was a child, I played like a child when I was a, you know, and now I am a man and I have to put aside my childish things. You putting away your childish things. Let me just grow up and, and become a fucking mindless drone and a normal person and follow what everybody else is doing until I die a frustrated death too early. Frustrated death.
- [17:18]
A
Here we are, you and I, living my creative life and neither of us have had some special education. It's more like, how much do you want to be actually following those paper patterns and doing the things that made you really happy? Because at what point do people give up on that thing? Or at what point do they get sort of seduced by the societal easiness. Creativity is never going to be easy. Being an artist is never going to be easy. It's never going to pay as well as running a parking garage or being in finance. But at what point do you hold people accountable saying, hey, well actually it's lovely that you want to do this or you wanted to do this, but in some way you made that choice of not pursuing your creativity. Because if the creativity was taught out of us or we were taught out of creativity in school, there would be no artists.
- [18:04]
B
I think the creativity getting taught out of us, it happens in a number of ways. One is that creativity and being weird particularly needs a safe space. And that needs to be either yourself, you need to be the vessel. Like, I was pretty much, I was pretty fucking protective of my play and my creativity. I wasn't going to give it away. Like I was pretty unshakable. But most people aren't. And they need drama club or they need that art club or they need the cool and groovy kids. They need that safe space, right? Because a lot of us, like when I was a kid, I didn't grow up near artists. I didn't know you could do that for a living. That was something talented people did or creative people did. You know, when I was a kid, I was called creative. And it wasn't a compliment. It meant I was loud, it meant I was noisy, it meant I talked too much, it meant I, I talked out of turn, right? And I taught university for, you know, 18 years or more. And I didn't even want creative people in my class because they disrupt, because that's creativity's job. And when you're teaching a class, especially when you're teaching kids, right, you need them to listen. You need to sit down and listen, follow what's on the board. You know, you want order, you want discipline, and creativity doesn't fucking do that. So we need that safe space because society is constantly wanting us to conform. Even when I was in New York and I was like becoming a cool and groovy designer and trying to figure out my ass or my elbow. And I wanted to do social, cultural and political posters and I wanted to do my work, I was around other designers who were completely satisfied doing a high level of mediocre work, a high level of well paid shitty work. And they're like, man, James, I just, I wish I could just do what you do. I'm like, you can just gotta quit your shitty job. Oh no, I'm not gonna. How Am I gonna do that? You know, there's a certain amount of brainwashing that happens, you know, or, you know, oh, I would love to quit my, my job, but, you know, my wife, she likes the paycheck. You know, we just, like, we settle into this bullshit, these lies that we tell ourselves.
- [20:17]
A
I mean, the person you just described was never going to be creative, right?
- [20:21]
B
No. Yeah, true. Well, they don't have the fire. It's like Bob Dylan said, you got to serve somebody. It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you got to serve somebody, right? You got to choose. And at every moment in your life, like, even now, even talking to you, I got. There's moments in the back of my mind it's going, are you going to say that? Really? Are you going to say that out loud? Right? In every moment in our lives, we are either shrinking out of fear or growing out of love. Gotta love what I do. I want people riled up. I want people excited about what they do. I want them to see, oh, my God, I can do that. Cool. I can be happy and even probably well paid. Awesome. I mean, that money's a big reason why people do or don't become artists, right? You know, because they're like, well, you know, that starving artist. A starving artist is just a artist that doesn't know they're in business. Learn to be in business. Learn to be in business. It's like you're gonna. You're gonna be in business. That means you're gonna. To wake up in the morning and you work for a while until lunch, then you have lunch and then you go back to work and you get a little bit more done, right? Be in business. And you gotta keep the books and you gotta watch money and you gotta do this and this. It's the same thing, except it's for you.
- [21:40]
A
I think one of the ingredients that I think we need as creatives or creative people to make it happen is obsession. It's only you can give yourself permission to be creative. It's only you who can go and go out and make it. Like, it's only you who, like, who will actually get those doors open. You know what you mentioned about a person who doesn't want to be in business? You need to know what invoices in any other profession, regardless. So it's just finesse, an excuse. Because I think we fall into sometimes this sort of romantic idea of, hey, I'm a creative person, therefore the world should open up for me. And, you know, I. All I have to do is to show up a piece of artwork that I've created. But we live in ever changing times where you need to be so much more than just a creative. Because I believe creativity is first and foremost verbal. It's your voice. Like you can actually fire up someone. We've just given them idea of what we actually can do. Obviously now you can paint pictures with a thousand words as a prompt, but you can also paint. But for millions of years, we can actually paint stories and vivid imaginary storytelling with just words. And this is, I think, the expression that you talk about, like, how do you get someone fired up? And how we get someone excited. Because when you express yourself, everything else starts falling into place.
- [22:49]
B
For me, the fun part is introducing people to the idea of being bold, being audacious. You know, people come to me and they're like, well, you know, I would make T shirts and I made a shop, but they're not selling. I'm like, so what? How often do you talk about it? How often do you show it? In what ways are you talking about it? Where are you talking about it? You know, like, you gotta, you know, if your excitement breeds excitement, you can't just put up a shop and go, okay, where's the money? Right? We, you know, again, it comes down to. Even in this conversation, I need to talk about marketing. And marketing is having something to say and saying it again and again and again. You know, I have an opinion. I express it again and again and again. That's my marketing. We'll be back after a quick break.
- [23:41]
A
This episode is brought to you by Lux Coffee Company. The first creative specialty coffee company building a platform to shine the light on emerging global talent. With a mission to make a positive impact on a creative industry and and Beyond. Lux Coffee Co. Offers exceptional coffee sourced from around the world through ethical and sustainable practices. And you can discover the current range of signature blends and single origins coffee hardware and accessories along with exceptional apparel. @luxcoffee.co.uk you can use the code podcast to get 15% off your first order. It was pretty interesting. I frequent some forums, some places when you say like, hey, just this is what I'm doing. Somebody comes up like a moderator and says, hey, thanks for posting this. Love the hustle. You know, I'm like you, honestly. What do you mean, love the hustle? Are we just hanging out as a sort of hungry creatives? Oh, I'm no life, I'm poor and this is life is struggle. It was like, no, what do I get when I open my Instagram, ads, ads, ads, ads. What do I get? Like, everyone's promoting something in the world of business, but somehow it's kind of viewed as, oh, if you're promoting yourself as an artist or creative, it's like, oh, this is a bit dirty. You know, you show you. Of course it's look, this is just.
- [25:05]
B
We don't have a business that's other people's though. You know, I hate that word hustle. You know, I love, I like the word love. But hustle is frantic. It's frantic, it's craving.
- [25:18]
A
It's not even a hustle. Like obviously, as you said, marketing, saying something or some that thing over and over again. Because you never know who you might meet, you never know who you might actually change someone's life by what you do. Because it's mostly less about a product and more about a connection with another person. Hey, this is what I'm doing. How do we connect? This is the reason why we having this conversation, because this is how we connected through what we do. Why do you think that there's always this sort of shyness and present and creators. What is it that stops people. No. Doing the thing and they're becoming frustrating, so they need your help.
- [25:48]
B
That's a great question. Because, you know, when I was a kid, I was shy. I have since learned there is no genetic marker for shyness. I wasn't just born shy, I was told shy. I was shy when I was a kid. And my father used to constantly do that. He says, oh, this is because I was the boy and the baby, he was like, oh, this is Jimmy, he's my shy one. And I'm like, am I fuck, am I shy? Okay, I guess I have to be shy, right? I mean, it's taken me a long time to kind of get over that, but here I have two. I have an 8 year old daughter and a 10 year old son. They teach me the most innate and most primal creative drive. And I try to teach everybody this thing. It's so good and it's so strong and it's so easy for us to do when we're kids because I've got two of them and they're like barnacles. It's. They love me. I'm a single dad with two kids, so they're like on me all the time, they love me, but it's just like I'm doing the dishes or I'm trying to do this, or I'm trying to get work done and it's constant and I want to shut it down. But I'm a good parent, and I'm like, okay, guys, listen, I'm doing this. I want to come see what you're doing. Hang on. But it goes like this. And this is something adults need to fucking learn how to do. We need to relearn. We did know it when we were kids, when we were weird. We knew it all the. We knew how to do this. And it goes like this. Daddy, look at me. Look what I did. That. That call. To be seen and heard and loved is so important. And we need to do that all the time. We need to be seen and heard and loved, or if not loved, appreciated. And that means paid. So we have to learn how to say, hey, look at me. Look at. Look what I did. I cannot be shy about my work. I have been shy about my work for too long. Me fucking James Victoria, too shy about my work for too long, and I'm not going to do it anymore. So I'm asking. I was in a tizzy yesterday. I was put into a tailspin yesterday because I'm in this thing of asking, you know, way up over my pay grade, and I asked for something yesterday that I didn't. That I didn't get. The answer was a quick no, and it sent me in. I'm like, wait a minute. No, that's not the answer. Right? But I have to get good at, you know, saying, hey, look at me. Look what I can do. Look what I've done. Look what I can do. You know, for you. Then I have to not ruminate and go into depression when the answer is no.
- [28:21]
A
The way you talk about yourself is like, James Victoria of now versus James Victoria from the past. So there's almost like two Jimmies, the shy one, and Jimmy Now. When was the breaking point? Like, when did this thing change? Was there a particular moment, particular sort of realization? Was it gradual?
- [28:39]
B
It was gradual. I was dissatisfied as a strictly commercial designer for a long time. My role as a teacher at the School of Visual Arts taught me so much. My book, Effect Perfection came from everything I learned when I was teaching at sva because I realized I had kids at the time, and I had. You know, and then I had my students, and I never. I realized the link between teaching and raising kids. And I realized that so much of what my students were learning in other classes was they were learning the rules. And I'm like, guys, fuck that. There's no fucking. They would come up to me after class and they'd go, you know, Mr. Victoria, why do you say the Opposite of all of our other teachers. And I'm like, listen, here's your other teachers. Here's me. Find your place. Find your place in the middle. I think they're wrong. I think they're teaching you how to enjoy gray carpets and fluorescent cubicle or gray cubicles, you know, padded cubicles and fluorescent lighting. I don't want you to like that. I don't want you to learn to enjoy the taste of shit. You know, I want to hop you up with on creativity and make you so addicted to that that you'll never let go.
- [29:57]
A
You mentioned earlier that when you write in that book, you realize you were perfectionist until then, but your work isn't something, especially if your style isn't exactly something that would strike you as a perfectionism. You're like, it's not like a pixel perfect, beautiful, great.
- [30:11]
B
Like you can be an abstract painter with smears of paint. Well, you could draw. You could paint with your buttocks on the thing. You're still going to stand back and go, no, no.
- [30:20]
A
I want to get to the point. What is your definition of perfectionism? What lies behind sabotage?
- [30:26]
B
It's a way. It's a. It's a tool we use to stop ourselves. That's it. It's a tool we use to stop ourselves. And it comes from. Like, we were. Maybe as kids, we were competitive and. Or we had grew up in a competitive family, and we, you know, we always had to do better. We always had to prove ourselves. So we became perfectionists. I was running a. I was running one of my. One of my live workshops that I do occasionally. I have one coming up in the fall I'm very excited about. But I had a guy, he was a CEO, and he'd worked his way up from. He literally joined this marketing agency mopping floors, and he became the CEO. Like, he. He was pretty amazing. And he's at this camp. I realized in conversations that he was a double major in college in chemistry and biology. Double major. And he runs marathons. And we went. We took him for a walk, and we're walking around the property and I forget what I was going to say. His name was. Can. I think. I don't remember his name. Tim, actually. And we were walking around the property and I said, tim, tell me something. Yeah. I said, what are you trying to prove? Who are you trying to prove it to? And he just broke down in tears. He just busted down. He didn't know. He didn't. He. No one had ever seen or told him that he was enough. And he didn't have to constantly fucking prove himself by running marathons and double major and being excelling all the time. Right. But we do that because there's some proof we need that we're worthy or we have to prove ourselves to somebody else. So we really sabotage our lives. We really. We really tighten down the sphincter and don't allow us to. Don't allow ourselves to have any fun.
- [32:05]
A
That easily. Goes to the point. What you said earlier about your children, like, they want to be seen. They want to be, you know, acknowledged.
- [32:12]
B
Accepted. Yeah.
- [32:13]
A
Accepted, acknowledge, seeing, cuddle, giving a hug, like, just being reassured. Whereas when that doesn't happen.
- [32:20]
B
Yeah. You're constantly searching for it. You're like, that's me. I mean, I was brought up in a military household. I'm not saying, you know, daddy never loved me, but it was. You had to work hard for a hug. You had to work hard, right? So that shows up in my work. Look at me. Hey, look at me over here. You know, and it's not a bad thing. And I have to. And I have to intellectually understand that now for myself, that it's not a bad thing. James. I don't have a bad aggressive bone in my body. Like, I can say, hey, look at me. I did this work. Yeah. I mean, the Museum of Modern Art, plus the Stedeli Museum, plus the Louvre, plus, you know, Library of Congress, plus, you know, all these things have won all these nice awards. But I don't. But actually a lot of people don't know that because I'm not good at, you know, telling them.
- [33:14]
A
I think there's a certain thing about awards that to some people, it just doesn't mean anything. When I was writing one of my books, I was like, in England, you've got lots of curry houses, you know, restaurant, Indian restaurant, and they've got walls covered with awards from places you've never heard of. You're like, it's lovely, fellas, but people come here because your food is good. Doesn't matter what award you won. When you talk about Tim and his double majors and the marathons, as you say in your book, the path to self love is being curious about self hate.
- [33:43]
B
Yeah. I talk about that in the book, in Weirdo. Because the core of being weird and allowing that to come out, allowing that to come through you is self love. That's the trigger that turns it on. You have to love yourself and love your creativity so much that you will do what you can to protect it. Right. And to get it out into the world. But what's stopping it is self hate. What's stopping it is doubt and fear. You know, it's that classic story of the Native American grandfather who's telling, he's talking to his son about two wolves. He says, there are two wolves fighting inside of you. And one is jealousy and anger and frustration and doubt and ignorance and fear. And the other wolf is love and compassion and creativity and empathy. And the sun says, which wolf wins? And the old man says, the one you feed. So it's that, it's that, it's how much do you love yourself? How much will you, what work will you do? I just got off the phone a sales call with someone who wants to do coaching with me. And he's 50 and he's in tech. And Tech just dropped, he's in California. And you cannot be 50 years old and out looking for a job in tech. And he's like swirling in, you know, near depression. And that's the thing I have to put through to him is I see you, I see what you're capable of. Let's feed that. Let's not, let's, you know, how do we focus this thing, you know, because it's so easy to go into the self hate, into the I'm not worthy, my wife doesn't like me because I'm not making money anymore, Ron. Like there's no end to that. That'll just keep going, you know, down, down and down. And I think, Radha, it's so funny that you and I, two creative guys who just want to do good work and, you know, get paid for it. That we're having talk, we're talking about fear and doubt and perfectionism and procrastination and it's hilarious. But those are the things that we have to rein in. We have to control if we want to be creative, if we want that. You are at any time, at any time in your creative life. I mean, there's a river of energy, there's a river of creativity that wants to flow through you. And you can allow that to flow through you or you can stand in the way and dam it up. You know, in there's this John Lee Hooker song from, I think it's like from 1938 or something, or 1948 John Lee Hooker song called Boogie Chillin. And in the beginning the song says, he says, I heard papa tell mama. He said, mama, you gotta let that boy boogie woogie because it's in him and it's gotta come out. And he's just saying, he's saying, hey, our son has got this thing. He's got this thing and we cannot squelch it down. He's. It's got to come out. It's got to come out or he's going to be. He's gonna. He's going to end up in jail, quite frankly. He's going to be. He's going to be creatively frustrated and then that's going to. And that's going to pour out and piss all over everything around him.
- [37:12]
A
I think you and I would eat ourselves alive if we had a normal life.
- [37:15]
B
Do you know what normal is here in the States? Normal is you're 30 years old or you're 40 years old. You're probably obese. If someone says, hey, how's work? Here's your answer. It's work, right? You're probably obese. You're probably pre diabetic. You're probably in a relationship that you're not happy with. You're definitely in a job that you're like, nah, okay, you know, I guess I'll just do this. You're probably gonna die relatively early. You're probably gonna raise children who are doing. Gonna do exactly what you're doing. That's normal. I think that is scary. That is scary. But that's normal. It doesn't matter if you like, oh, you're supposed to. What a. What a. What a stupid idea. You're supposed to. Your job. The. Is that. What kind of pansy are you that you get to like your job?
- [38:09]
A
You told me earlier that you weren't born to do it. You were born to do it. And you listened to yourself really well today.
- [38:15]
B
Yeah, I was lucky. I was. That was. I don't know. I wasn't lucky. I worked hard. Worked hard to stay out of the mix. I work hard to stay on the edges. I work hard to be an outsider. I worked hard to be an outsider and get my work seen. Yeah, it's okay. There's this movie and I used to talk to my students about this when I was at sva. The movie lady and the Tramp. The Disney movie, Lady and the Tramp. She's like a beautiful white dog, and she's got these beautiful white dog kids and she's in a nice home and she's protected and they're fed every day. And then there's tramp and he's a. He's an outdoor dog. He's like, lives by his wits and, you know, eats out of the gutter and, you know, and they meet, right? And I Always have this conversation with my students. Would you rather be lady and have everything taken care of but you can't go outside, or would you rather be tramp, where you are free of a free life and you get to scrap it out on your own and figure out your shit? And that's what it's. That's what the question is.
- [39:16]
A
And what you guys are coming out to.
- [39:18]
B
Oh, you know, I mean, whether people say they want to be tramp and whether they do end up as tramp is a different thing. I want to be tramp. Trump was always my guy. Hell, yeah. Scrapper.
- [39:34]
A
I'm trying to piece these things. So on your way to accept who you are and what you do and say, I don't want this boring, graphically designed stuff. You needed to do this type of work. You needed to do the work that you don't want to do anymore. You wouldn't be where you are today if it wasn't for the jobs you didn't want to do or found yourself not wanting them to do anymore. Because we all go through that phase of, I think this looks nice. Only you realize that there's a whole hierarchy and bureaucracy or whatever behind it, like the process of doing a good work in a big team, sometimes it's impossible to actually come up with something really good. So we do the shitty jobs, only to realize there's another door, there's another path that I can go on my own. With your students, does anyone come on this path? Straight going, I'm going to be me forever, because what's the longevity? I know. Sorry, this is a really shitty, complicated question.
- [40:25]
B
I think it's a great question. I exemplified it earlier in our conversation. It's great to get into the business, like, move to New York, because I want to be in advertising, Right. And I think that's awesome, and it's important to follow that. But I think it's also important to fail. And I think failure teaches us a lot. I knew as a designer, even when I was working in New York, clients would say, okay, we got this great job. We're going to pay you all this money, and, you know, we'd like to see three different sketches, and then we're going to do revisions. And I'm like, oh, no, I don't do that. I'm going to do one thing and you're going to like it and you'll pay me. I'm like, I don't. What you're gonna pay me three times. I'll do three different concepts. I don't do that, I can come up with a hundred. I'm that kind of guy. There's this stereo, there's these stereotypes, these cliches of how we're supposed to work, that it's just universally accepted. They're not true. There's no reason for it, you know, Or I remember working for some huge companies early in my career and it would be like Friday afternoon and they'd call and they say, hey, you know, we got some last minute changes and we'd like to see them on Monday. And I'm like, it's Friday. And they're like, oh, we'll give you, you know, a couple thousand dollars more. And I'm like, oh, I see how it works. Slavery, right? They like throw more money at you to like bind you to your desk, you know, it's just this weird way of working that I just, it just didn't sit well with me. I wanted to be free. I wanted to be the tramp. I wanted to pick and choose. I love my clients. I love the clients that I still work for. A few commercial clients. But what I, the way I see them is I can see past my client. I can see the audience out there, the audience that's waiting for someone to tell them the truth, someone to speak to them, someone to stop spoon feeding them. I almost got into a row on LinkedIn yesterday because I wrote something on LinkedIn and they texted or they wrote back and they said, they said, yes, we're, you know, we're, you know, we're all creative and it's all, you know, and it's all good. I was like. And I looked and I saw where they came from. They came from like some shitty marketing agency that does like fucking crappy shit in the supermarket. And I was like, no, that's dangerous to think that what you're doing is creativity and it's good. No, that's. And I actually want to write a piece about that now. The people who think they're creative because they're just putting out like, no, that's. You need some morals and some ethics or some retrospection or introspection to see what you're actually doing that you think that is good. Good for who I want to write about. Hey, I walked into the supermarket the other day and I saw nothing but shit everywhere. All this lookalike crap, fake Italian mama pasta and, you know, fake this and cereal boxes that look like toys to attract the kids, to force the mom and the whole kind of all that.
- [43:37]
A
So I'm going to make A great link to one of the books that you did for do Books for Do Nourish by Sarah Baylis. Because I had her on a show and she said whenever you go into supermarket, don't trust anything not to go.
- [43:50]
B
Down that rabbit hole too far. But you know, like, try not to be too pedantic in front of my kids because. But I want them to be smart. So if we have to go and get dishwashing liquid or you know, laundry liquid, the chemicals that will kill you that don't need to be there. And they're all dressed up with these wonderful colors and bubbles. Oh my God, the lying involved and the shit that there are some neighbors, kids who I won't let in my house because as soon as they come into the house that my entire house smells like chemical flowers. I'm like, get that shit out of here. Really? You. Your bodies are steeping in that. You don't need that stuff. So just. Or garbage bags that smell like lavender because they've infused more chemicals into plastic. Oh, great idea, people.
- [44:41]
A
I mean, this is a dangerous dungeon. Making it work over quite a long time.
- [44:45]
B
But damn, he's actually be burned down. It's.
- [44:50]
A
I want to bring it back to the book because you talk about the importance of finding tribes and communities that appreciate your brand of weird.
- [44:58]
B
Yeah.
- [44:59]
A
It's not really easy to find them straight away, is it? Like, how often do you find like minded souls just like that? Because the vanilla and the lavender will find each other very quickly because they smell similar but weird. It's just unique in. In certain ways.
- [45:16]
B
Oh, I know. But when you do, baby, oh, it's so worth it. It's that wonderful. It's that wonderful thing where you actually see each other and you're like, you're weird. I thought I was the only one. Right. That's where you got something good. That's when you got something good. You know, my work with, you know, you had mentioned the DO books, my work with them, I was constantly. I've been working with them for 10 years. I'm constantly waiting them for them to bring down the boom and say, no, James, no, we can't print that. But it just keeps going. It just keeps going and we both grow and get bigger because of it. So. So yes, those relationships are possibly fewer and far between, but man, they are so rich and so meaningful.
- [46:07]
A
You made me think of something weird is often very simple. Weird is actually so easy to understand because you talk about like your book covers for DO books. They are unusual. Like when I look at them. It's like, how did he come up with this? Why does this work? It's two ingredients. It's an illustration which is very simple and type. But it works, you know.
- [46:27]
B
Yeah. And the illustration or the image is my little self inflict assignment with each of them is to do the cliche without doing the cliche or do the cliche in a completely new way. Because I can't, I just can't put like a severed, you know, Cal's head on a book just because it's funny. Right. But I can kind of investigate these ideas. You know, do walk. Like how do you show something as simple as do walk without showing people walking? Right. And to do that, those little legs, I had to draw those multiple times. I'm like, nah, that's not it. No, that's not it. No, that's not it. Or do design. And the author of this hated it. He hated it. Luckily he doesn't have a say and I have a good reason why I did that thing.
- [47:22]
A
When you see them side by side, it's a part of a set as part of a thinking it's part of something. But that maybe there's a code language and maybe there's a sort of secretive sort of wave transmission between, you know, people like us.
- [47:37]
B
Do you know what it is?
- [47:38]
A
You just get it. What is it?
- [47:40]
B
This, all of these, you know, what they say, pick me up. That's it, that's it. That's my job. That's my job. Pick me up, take a look. I inspire curiosity with them. That's my job. Somebody goes, what, what is that? What is that?
- [47:57]
A
It's not going to be to everyone's taste but those who are in the similar like minded category, you know, like you and I and others, you don't have to explain yourself. Like when you say, hey, I'm a bit weird and I like a bit weird things, you know, like when it looks normal, I've sort of run away from it. Like it's just bit too much. And yeah, I think more I'm thinking about from this conversation. Weird. You don't need to explain to someone that you weird. They would just get it because that there's a simplicity of expression. There's like intelligent person needs to spend a lot of words explaining themselves like how clever they are. Whereas I feel like when you've got this sort of sixth sense, it's just, hey, this is what I do.
- [48:36]
B
Yeah. What you're talking about is the difference between being and seeming. And to seem means to try is to try to be something. And to be is just to right is just to exist. And weird is about being weird, not seeming weird. Like, I. I don't wear pink cowboy shirts to show off. I just like them. I like fluorescent pink and I like fluorescent orange. I put it in my work, you know. But there are people who will wear, you know, crazy clothes and go, hey, I look, hey, I'm weird. I'm like, no, you're actually not weird. You just wear. You're just wearing purple.
- [49:11]
A
By the way, pink shades will always look good on you. Every time I see you, they look great.
- [49:15]
B
See, there are others who are more in touch with their weird and more brave than I, who can be flamboyant and carry it well. Where it is, is. It is them. That's awesome.
- [49:30]
A
Do you remember Steve Edge?
- [49:32]
B
Exactly, exactly who I was thinking about?
- [49:34]
A
Yes.
- [49:34]
B
Because a party might break out at any moment. You know, I lucky, lucky to meet him at the do lectures a couple years ago.
- [49:41]
A
It's absolutely genius. I want to talk about a future. Is weird. Future is weird.
- [49:45]
B
The future had better be weird or we're. Because if we suffer and you. We see it in the United States now. We see it suffering from normal. Normal is, you know, give me mine, I want mine. Normal is. Normal is. I'm angry and I'm going to let it out everywhere. That's normal. So, yeah, the future is weird or we're screwed.
- [50:08]
A
Free of coaching for your teaching. How difficult is it to find weird in people? How difficult is it to dial it up? How difficult is it to let them embrace it and say, look, between you and the future, that is somewhat rewarding, those ways of holding them back.
- [50:24]
B
There's one word. There's one word, and it's to get people to allow it in themselves. That's the hard part, right? Because it's in you and it's got to come out. That's the hard part is to allow it. And you have to let people know that it's. You know, that they're worthy. You have to let people know that the idea of the. In the particular lies the universal, which means the things you love and the things you fear. Radom are the things that I love and the things that I fear. So if you can express those things honestly, if you can allow that out honestly and vulnerably, then you will be speaking energetically to me. Right. And we will witness ourselves, witness each other in a more deeper way, and then that will feed on more, and then that will reach more people, and that will you know, so that's where the future becomes interesting, where we start to allow our weird to express and radiate out to others.
- [51:28]
A
I love it, absolutely love it, especially the word allow. Because when you think about it, how often do people stop themselves? I don't want to look weird. I don't want to do this. This is maybe too much, you know, like, oh, no, no, not too far.
- [51:40]
B
My dad was lifelong military, but he was an amateur chef and amateur photographer. He built the house we lived in. I could tell crazy stories about my father. He's no longer around, but I. When I was finishing fact, I asked my mom, I said, hey, if you asked dad if he was creative, would he say he was? She was. She was like, oh, he wouldn't say that. I said, if you asked dad, could he figure anything out? She'd say, oh, yeah, he could figure anything out. So the idea of creativity scares people. The idea of artist scares people. They're charged words. They're like, those are special things for special people. Or for my dad, it would have been like, oh, were you calling me gay? Right? And he had that. But if you can figure things out, that's a level of creativity. So we're all weird, we're all creative. But whether. Whether we can admit it to ourselves and whether we can allow it out and allow it in others, that's a big thing too. That is not happening in the United States right now. We're not allowing it in others.
- [52:40]
A
How do you demystify creativity to certain people? How do you just say, what you doing it? Like, how many meetings have you sat in? And there were people like, hey, I can't draw this. I'm not the creative one. And I'm like, look, I'm blanking in myself too. I'm like, my drawings are even worse than yours. But I'm sitting on this side of the table.
- [52:58]
B
The resistance is so strong. The resistance is so strong. And it's hilarious. And I would start corporate, if I did was doing corporate workshops, I'd start it by saying, who here can draw? And then everyone's, oh, Tom from it. He can draw. You know, like that kind of thing. And then I would take him through literally a 60, 90 second drawing test, right? And then I'd say, okay, guys, show it. Show your work to everybody. And they. The room would just explode with laughter. And they're just like. And I would say that that is what we want. I don't give a fuck if you can draw like Picasso or Michelangelo. That shared humanity. That's what we're shooting for laughter.
- [53:44]
A
What I always say that I wish as a creative to be as creative as pissed off people with protest placards. Because what you see on those protest placards is I'm not as funny, I'm not as creative. I don't hit hard as this. You know when you see people being.
- [53:57]
B
Pissed off, like it becomes it comes from the truth. That's because it comes from the truth. It comes from the heart and their gut and the truth. And that's. It's so much better than marketing.
- [54:07]
A
Exactly as it says it comes from the truth and it comes from within and the way it comes out and it sounds, it looks brilliant and it hits got an impact. James, thank you very much. I mean, you've dropped so many amazing nuggets of wisdom in this and I feel like this is to be continued because we've barely touched the surface of your book. The book is out there and everyone should read it.
- [54:30]
B
Heyweirdo.org Easy to find.
- [54:33]
A
Thank you so much. Thanks for your time. And I'm urging everyone to read it because we'll give them a kick up the ass to do something.
- [54:39]
B
Yeah, and like I said, the audiobook is coming out and the workbook is going to be available very quickly.
- [54:43]
A
Amazing. Thank you.
- [54:45]
B
Thank you for the opportunity.
- [54:53]
A
Foreign thank you for listening to this episode of Daring Creativity Podcast. I'd love to know your thoughts, questions and suggestions, so please get in touch via the email in the show notes or social channels. This episode was produced and presented by me, Radim Malinage. The audio production was done by Neil Mackay from 7 Million Banks podcast. Thank you and I hope to see you on the next episode. If you enjoyed this episode and would like more accessible resources to help you discover your daring creativity, you can pick up one of my books on themes of mindful creativity, creative business, branding and graphic design. Every physical book purchase comes with a free digital bundle, including an ebook and audiobook to make the content accessible wherever you are and whatever you do. To get 10% off your order, visit novemberuniverse.co.uk and use the Code podcast. Have a look around and start living daringly. It.