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- [00:00]
Joe Bilger
Foreign. Why do they fail? I mean, one reason they fail is because they're vendors, they're not leaders. Right. We get trapped into thinking our craft is what makes us valuable to the world, and that's only true to a point. And again, AI hello is a great example of where that's being disrupted. There's so much of what we do that we identify with. And if it's our craft, we're really in trouble because so much of that is replaceable or becoming replaceable. And I want to be careful here because I'm not trying to denigrate the awesomeness of craft. Not at all. Right. It's our relationship to the people and the problems out there that need to be solved. And to reach into those takes an understanding of human relationships and business, all these principles and concepts. It takes an enormous amount of empathy. And if we don't evolve in those ways, we're going to die.
- [01:11]
Radim Malinich
Welcome to the Daring Creative D Podcast, a 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.
- [01:28]
Adam
My name is Radim Malinich.
- [01:30]
Radim Malinich
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 question. Are you ready to discover what happens.
- [01:51]
Adam
When you dare to create?
- [01:58]
Radim Malinich
Today, I welcome Joe Bilger, the founder of Forum and former owner of Impossible Pictures. He's here to discuss the journey from creative excellence to business mastery in a studio world. He talked about how creative talent alone isn't enough to build a sustainable business, and why learning to master the business side of things unlocks the full potential.
- [02:19]
Adam
As a creative professional.
- [02:21]
Radim Malinich
Joe openly talked about his breaking point, how it made him realize that asking for help can transform everything. He advises why hiring smarter people than you is a secret to growth and explains the evolution from being a vendor to expert, why adapting with Soul, not just following market trends, creates lasting impact.
- [02:41]
Adam
It's my pleasure to share with you.
- [02:42]
Radim Malinich
My conversation with Joel Pilger.
- [02:50]
Adam
Hey, Joe. Welcome to the show. How are you doing today, Adam?
- [02:53]
Joe Bilger
It's good to be with you. Thank you. I'm doing great. How about yourself?
- [02:56]
Adam
I'm grand. Yeah, thanks for being here. I'm really excited to talk to you about what you do, how you do it, who you do it with, and why? Because you are helping this ecosystem of creatives to actually enter the world of business like professionals. So for those who may have never heard of Georgia and what you do, please introduce yourself.
- [03:16]
Joe Bilger
Oh my gosh. I am Joel and it's a pleasure to be with you, Radam, and anyone listening. I introduced myself as a creative who I think all throughout my life I was a creative first, but then had a love affair with business and what business allowed in terms of freedom and agency and of course making money. So I spent 20 years running a studio creative agency called Impossible Pictures that was in Denver and it was pretty successful, it was kind of a big deal. After I exited that about 11 years ago, I started helping my friends that were running studios, helping them purely with the business side, like helping them figure out all of the different areas of business. And what I'm finding is that creative excellence is like what starts our journey, but business is what completes it. It's what in a way fulfills it, manifests all of its potential. So that's what I do now. I run a community called Forum. I host a podcast called Fabulist, I host dinners, as you know, which you came to in London a couple months ago, called Fuse. And yeah, my goal is to come alongside all of creative business owners of the world and help them unleash their greatest creative work by mastering business.
- [04:19]
Adam
Creative excellence starts the journey, if I can ask you about that, because sometimes it's creative ignorance, I think sometimes it's. We don't always start because we are excellent, right? We sometimes we are just unaware what we don't know by that pure hunger, passion, idiocy, ignorance, you know, thing. Would you say that that's the beginning where we go? Because excellence is, I think, what we think we're doing. But is it really?
- [04:43]
Joe Bilger
Yeah, I think there's a nuance there because I would say maybe better excellence, it's like hunger, ambition, appetite, desire. Because we all start off as creatives as I want to make cool shit, right? I really want to make this great work. And you're right, we don't master it, but it is something that we find success in and we grow and we learn and we evolve as creatives and we develop this thing we call our craft. But that only gets us so far. And there's this classic myth that says, well, if we're just great at the work, everything else will take care of itself. And of course that's where business really comes in and unleashes us to reach, I think, our fullest potential as creatives.
- [05:20]
Adam
As you just said, like, we start with hunger and start with that. So beautiful naivety. But, you know, there's. There's so much passion in this. But equally, I think as we learn in craft, we realize in that the world of business actually really is the same amount of learning and crafting as it is with the creative work. Because let's have a think about it. Like, when you start, the work doesn't come easy, you know, but if you're lucky and if you're really good, the business comes through your way, right?
- [05:47]
Joe Bilger
Yep. No, it's fascinating that you say that, because what I find is there's this season in our careers, whereas creatives, we grow and we evolve and we become really good at this thing. And I almost hate to say this phrase because it's very controversial. In some ways, it becomes easy as we start to enter the world of business and we say, I want my work to have impact and reach, scale, influence. These things we have to learn as business. This next season of growth is really hard. I've been on this journey for 35 years. I am still every bit just as much learning this mastery of business thing. So it's really quite amazing how so many business owners that I work with would almost say, you know, it's the business part that's really so hard. Like, once we land the job and once we're in production doing the work and making something great, it's not easy, but it's. I don't know, it's more within reach, it's more accessible. They sort of know where to go and how to do it. But in business, there's like these infinite riddles that are never solved that make it forever challenging.
- [06:48]
Adam
We've taken off this plane real fast and real hard.
- [06:51]
Joe Bilger
Yeah, I know. We're at 10,000ft already.
- [06:54]
Adam
We are in a cruise in altitude. Really quickly, what I want to go, I mean, I have written impact, reach and influence as the next thing because as you said at the beginning, you run your own studio, you run your own shop called Impossible Pictures. Is that right?
- [07:07]
Joe Bilger
Correct.
- [07:07]
Adam
Yeah. And once upon a time, you must have sort of strived for the same impact, reach and influence. But how was your own journey, how would you say your own creative excellence started? Impossible Pictures, what was the beginning? And where is the learnings that you now are trying to pass on? How did that come about? And how did you get your thrown on and turbulence of the creative business?
- [07:26]
Joe Bilger
Oh, my gosh. Well, I mean, the early roots were as a kid, having two parents that said, do what you love Joel, right? Just find those things that you really enjoy because you're going to follow those and it's going to lead you to really good places. So I had enormous freedom to pursue drawing, acting, painting, designing, coding, I mean all kinds of things in my career. Music was a big part of my early life. I think it was in a big part of your life as well, maybe still is. And when I, I went to studied university, Georgia Tech, a school of industrial design that was founded by the Bauhaus back in the 50s I believe. So I got that sort of formal introduction into design and method and all these things. So then when I graduated I said I'm going to start my own thing. I had already done 20, 30, little entrepreneurial vent as a youngster before that. And within a few years I was doing animation. Digital was starting to come become a thing. Silica graphics, workstations, 3D animation, this was all brand new. And I said shit, I think I could just start a studio. I'm just going to do this. And I borrowed a bunch of money from my dad, God bless him, and bought, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of gear and went for it. And that was the beginning of Impossible Pictures. And that was a 20 year run where I grew from being this creative, wearing every hat from animator to editor, creator, director, cinematographer. And then of course it evolved into running the business, being the president, business development, marketing, sales, operations, all that stuff.
- [08:53]
Adam
You just said a figure then made me shiver. You said couple thousand. Did you say a couple hundred thousand dollars?
- [08:58]
Joe Bilger
Yeah, I mean like in today's dollars, the amount of money that I borrowed in order to buy a Silicon Graphics workstation and a digital disc recorder and Softimage and all these, you know, high end software. Oh yeah, it was just ungodly.
- [09:10]
Adam
I remember working with retouchers capacity and this is the mid 2000s and they were reminiscent of Asamura technology which was like a million or half a million. And you're like what, how and what? Because sometimes you have to buy a new Mac and you spec it up to like, you know, a rock is power. Like what do you mean 5,000. That's a lot of money, isn't it? And then you look at back and you're like, yeah, in today's money and actually in old money, this is basically like lunch money compared to what you had to spend.
- [09:37]
Joe Bilger
I'll put it this way, random that through my journey, it was one of the biggest pivots that I had to go through, was going from workstations to desktop to what we now, of course, just would call the current state of affairs. Imagine if you had paid $250,000 for a flame and $350,000 for a smoke, and you're charging five or $600 an hour for this thing. And then one day it's a doorstop. And then I would go out and buy Macs and I would buy After Effects. And by my reckoning, I thought of it as basically free. Like, I could walk into the Apple Store and be like, I want five workstations with the biggest monitors, the fastest CPUs, and walk out paying 20 grand. I thought, well, that's might as well be free. At the scale I was operating, like.
- [10:15]
Adam
That'S nothing when you think about it compared to what you had to pay at the beginning. This is, as you said, it feels almost free. So we're borrowing money from your dad. How do you see now, obviously, like, you were more or less seriously in business now because you've got money to repay if you had to repay them, and you need to make money. So you work in with the charge of, like, okay, what is my hourly price? Like, how do we make this work? Did you do that or did you go, well, you know what, hopefully we get some work. Hopefully we do this. Have I got a pipeline? Have I got this? Because this is a big sort of debt over your head. How did you balance out the money and business with the debt?
- [10:49]
Joe Bilger
Yeah, it wasn't nearly as methodical or systematic as you described. It was much more of the former than the latter. And what it was was, I had enough scrappiness, bravado, naivete. There's that word that I could throw myself at something in the industry, a connection, a TV network, someone in the entertainment business, somehow figure out how to get a meeting, hop on a plane, go visit that person, and scare up a job. That might be, in those days, 25 or $50,000 was of course, what, three times that number now. And I just kept doing that over and over again. And I said, I want to play at this really high level where I could do five and six figure jobs until somebody says, no, you can't do that, Joel. You're not allowed. Right. You're not qualified. And that has served me so well back then, even to this day, because you realize people that are playing at these really high levels, they're just like you and me, they just went for it. They said, I don't want to play at this level. I want to play at this level up here. So it wasn't very methodical. No, it was, it was just throw myself into it and go for it. And then when someone says, hey, can you do this? A hundred thousand dollars show open for us? I would say yes. Even though I had no freaking clue how I was going to do it, I would say yes and then go figure it out. And that's how we learn and grow and evolve and innovate and all those things.
- [12:04]
Adam
I think that was a sign of time. I know that people still claim I don't know what I'm doing, but many years ago, no knew anything really. Like people were just hungry, people were excited, people were keen, people wanted to play at high stakes. But even though I remember hearing the story of someone taking on like a 300 grand job in mid-90s and they were like, yeah, we need to build this in Flash. And the person goes, never heard of Flash. But they said, yes, we can do it. And they went and bought a copy of Flash and taught themselves how to do it. I mean, this was sign of times.
- [12:32]
Joe Bilger
You know, I remember when I bought my first Flame. Do you know how much time I had to learn the software? I mean There were like two or three manuals that were 400 pages each. My, my first job on that system was the next morning. I got the system up and running. The client from JWT Big agency showed up like, okay, let's make my spot. And by the end of that day, he was walking out with a tape in his hand and the commercial on the tape you want to talk about? There was no YouTube, man. There were no books, there was no, there was no tutorial. You were like, here's the manual. Here's this computer that runs unix. Good luck. And wow, what a different era it.
- [13:10]
Adam
Was for those who didn't spend time working on flame and reading 400 page manuals. What was Flame? Tell them.
- [13:17]
Joe Bilger
It was a workstation based editing and compositing system. It's still out there. It was by the company was called Discrete or Discrete Logic, now owned by Autodesk. And it's like if you took Nuke and crossed it with Premiere and created this one system that was completely dedicated, but it was real time. So you could sit with somebody and it would render in almost real time, which was in those days unbelievably valuable because you could crank out a commercial in a day. And back then people would say, I'll pay you 500 or even $1,000 an hour, which in today's dollars, right, Double or triple that.
- [13:49]
Adam
I mean, you definitely fit the Element of daring creativity here. This is daring, you know, like. But I think we were just slightly more naive is the word, just to think, you know, because. Because you got a job, you know, you got that over your head, you go work, you got fire in your belly, you want to get this done, and you don't particularly question yourself. Should I. Should I not be doing this? Like, would you agree we didn overthink? Well, you didn't really overthink it at that time, did you? It just. Just got on with it.
- [14:13]
Joe Bilger
No, I think that's, in a way, that's sort of the source of confidence that you eventually develop as a creative person. Because we all struggle with imposter syndrome. And what you find is you say, yeah, I think I can do that. Even though you know you're. You're lying. But it, you know, it will stretch you and you'll figure it out. And then when you do it again and again and again. So the next time that someone says, can you perform at that next higher level? You and I developed this reflexive, yeah, I don't want to leap too far bey my ability. But that next level, that looks really scary and terrifying. But I think I can figure it out. And it's like 99 out of 100 times we did.
- [14:48]
Adam
I know your dad was an airplane pilot. Is there a link between travels, exploring in a way that was the first sort of magnet for creativity, like, influences? How was that for you from the formative time? Thinking. I'm. I'm thinking because you mentioned the word imposter syndrome. Do pilots get imposter syndrome? I don't think they do.
- [15:07]
Joe Bilger
I don't think so. I don't know. I mean, I never sensed it in my dad. But to answer your question, I think at the time, it was normal for me that while my friends would get in the car and their families would go to the beach a few hours away, we would go to the airport and fly across the country for a long weekend because we wanted to go see something in San Francisco or eat at this certain place in Chicago or something like that. So it was very normal to me. It was only later, it was. It was really around the time when my benefits ran out and I couldn't fly for free anymore after college. College that I started to realize, oh, my God, I have this enormous privilege and benefit. And I now look back on it and realize, for me, it was absolutely integral into forming me into the person that I became. And I think part of my journey as a creative person, as a business person, is all wound up in those experiences of other cultures having to be resourceful and. Right. Adaptive. All the things that travel does to us. Yeah. And I also think it's maybe difficult for other people to understand too, that when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s, this was almost like. Do you know the movie Catch Me if youf Can? Right. It was that golden age of aviation where it was, in a way, almost romantic and just very different than what it is today, which it's more mass transit today. But I lived. I've lived through both of those eras, but yeah, it very much has formed me. And still to this day, I'm absolutely a traveler. I spend about half my time away from New York because like I mentioned, you know, you mentioned, hey, when are you next time in London? I said to you, you had an excuse. I'll come next week.
- [16:36]
Adam
Yeah, because, I mean, it's our mutual friend Mitch Monson, who's basically quoted you on this show saying experts travel. You know, people move around because that's the influences that we get. Because you can see a lot of world through your computer screen for your phone. Maybe we find an excuse not to travel as much, not to see the world as much like, because we think that we are very well connected and we've got it, we've got it in front of our eyes so much more than ever before. But maybe that's giving us an excuse potentially to hold back. And I can see you nodding and improve.
- [17:02]
Joe Bilger
I know I'm just waiting for you to pause so I can, I can step in and say, don't even say those words. Don't even put that into the universe. What I often see that I find maddening is creatives, business owners especially, that will say, you know, you can work from anywhere these days. And I, and I, in a way I take them on because I say, I know what you're saying, but it's almost so untrue that I'm going to just be unequivocal and I'm going to say, no, you can't. And the thought is this, yes, you can do the work from anywhere, but you can't get the work. Like getting the work requires relationship, it requires empathy, it requires study and thoughtfulness. Walking a mile in your client's shoes. And I swear to God, the people that think that you are going to do business with people, people at a really high level only working on over zoom, they're in denial. And I've experienced this so many times. I know I speak very. I'm speaking Very binary, right? Very, very strong terms here. But I believe this so much because this experts travel thing, I teach this over and over and over again. I've seen it just have such a great impact on people's lives. And it's part of this journey that I've experienced. And it's kind of my gift that my dad and my mom gave me, that I'm now giving to the rest of the world, to my people. And I'm saying, I'm going to drag you kicking and screaming into your bigger, brighter future. Will you please go with me? Let's go. Let's go there.
- [18:19]
Adam
Those people might have been the ones driven to the beach a few hours down the road, whereas you were flying to, you know, to different places. And I think we get different backgrounds, we get different springboards to our adult life and our professional life. So that brings me to you, if I may, to actually say, okay, so you start your impossible pictures. You got your flame, you're charging your money, you're making commercials in the day. Hopefully they'll be good. And you're running a business, and you need to start growing a business because you're realizing now yourself that, okay, you know, we've got a tank because some clients. How do you make it work? Because you made it work for is. Am I right?
- [18:52]
Joe Bilger
For 19 years, 20 years. Yeah. Almost 20 years to the day. Yeah. And I grew it to about 25 people full time, plus a couple hundred crew and freelancers. All this. I mean, the short, short answer is I always knew I had more potential. And I was very small. For seven years, it was one person. I had one employee maybe that would come and go. And about seven years in, I started to burn out because I was really tired of, I want something more. I want to make more money. I want to produce work that is worthy of my talent. And I started to shift things into another gear. And it was, you know, this is very much part of my story. I brought on a business partner, started hiring, moved the office into downtown Denver, and started applying some very fundamental business mindsets. And I'm emphasizing the word business there because it really had nothing to do with the creative part. It was the same creative that I was essentially method and skill that I always had, but I was applying it through business in new ways. And over those years that followed, it was hiring people, finding new clients, developing new offerings, expanding our expertise, getting out of the service business, getting into the expertise business, raising our prices. I mean, all these things. And it was incredibly thrilling. It was really incredibly thrilling. Especially when you're doing work on a national level, relaunching TV networks, right? Creating national campaigns for brands. People that see your work on TV that weekend and they say, ah, I see, I saw your spot it, right? I saw the thing that you guys did for the big game or whatever and that stuff was all. It was incredibly thrilling. Not to mention the team that I built was 25 absolutely incredible people like Mitch Monson, right. For a couple years with one of my creative directors and working with people at that level, they are way better, way smarter and way more talented at the creative than I ever was. So I don't know if I'm answering your question. You might want to redirect me, let me know.
- [20:46]
Adam
Just like that you actually employed people who are way smarter. Because I think, as you know, that curse of the creative is I need someone who's as good as me or I need to clone myself. That's usually the terminology for those who haven't worked out how to let go. Because when you let go, when you actually say, oh my God, I need some smarter people around me, magic happens, right?
- [21:08]
Joe Bilger
Oh, big time.
- [21:09]
Adam
How was it for you? Because obviously like running your shop and going 100 miles an hour, then saying, I'm burning out. What was the sort of the reckoning, when did you realize I need help? We'll be back after a quick break.
- [21:26]
Radim Malinich
This episode is brought to you by Lux Coffee Co. 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 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.
- [22:12]
Joe Bilger
It was when I was at the studio. I was all alone. I was working on a big year end campaign for Ford through their agency jw and the scene would not fucking render. And my wife is calling, when are you going to be home? You know, when can I start dinner? And I'll be home soon. I'll be home soon. But of course I have to hit the big freaking render button before I can go home because it's got to render all night long. This is how computers were in those days. And then it's finally one or two in the morning and I press the render button and I get this famous dreaded error called Softimage internal Error, which basically means this scene is not going to fucking render at all. And I'm like, I broke down. Like, I had a meltdown. I'm weeping. I'm like, this can't be my life. How did I get here? How can I be under this much stress? And then I remember a buddy of mine had said, oh, I worked with this organization that really helped get my mindset clear, called the Strategic Coach. And a month later, I joined. I meet Dan Sullivan. I go off and on over the next two years under his teaching, and I start developing the mindsets. And that's what changed everything. And that's, of course, how I applied it in the creative industry, was sort of my uniqueness, it was my naivete being translated into our industry. And, yeah, again, the rest is history, as they say, because it was. It just. It gave me what I needed to start implementing a whole set of practices that I now celebrate and teach and share with everybody else inside my community.
- [23:36]
Adam
So here's two daring moments, right? So you were doing commercial for Ford on your own, but you actually did the other daring thing, which is actually you ask for help, which is one of the things that once you master not creative ability to block everything and work it out and not be a bit of a samurai and ninja at the same time. You don't always want to admit that you might be doing something wrong. Or maybe I just need a stronger computer or bigger render button. But actually being that person who says, I need help, who can help me.
- [24:07]
Joe Bilger
That'S interesting you say that, that. Because I've never thought of it in those terms, but I'm thinking of a good buddy I have who ran a studio that was a competitor of mine in Denver. We were really good friends. And I remember he said, you know, I don't really want to work with the advisor, the coach, the consultant, because I want to figure it out on my own. And it's so funny, that stuck with me because I thought, not me, man. If someone has the shortcut, just lay it on me. If you have the mindset that I need, okay, it's going to be painful because I have to open myself up. I have to share, I have to be vulnerable. I have to admit that I don't. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. But I have found that getting past that initial pain is really worth it because all of us are going to achieve our goals and our dreams eventually. I just say to myself, well, if I can get there faster with knowledge, with training, with. I don't know I have coaches in my life, right? This is just a big part of how I live. I have relationship coach, the mental health and soul coach, financial coach, all these things. And these are all people that I say, I don't want to figure it out myself. Can you please help me? So I appreciate that observation. That's really interesting.
- [25:10]
Adam
Well, to someone that. How to even say, like, I didn't want to shortcuts because I thought, I can work it out all myself. Only then you realize you only to get yourself deeper in a hole.
- [25:20]
Joe Bilger
Is it ego that's telling us, I just want to figure it out myself. Like, I'm cool enough, smart enough, whatever. Like, maybe I just don't have a big enough ego to always think I'll just figure it out on my own.
- [25:29]
Adam
I don't think it was ego. It was just naivety. It was just basically like, when you're so far down you can't really see back up and you realize, I just have to dig myself up as opposed to calling for a lift. I think that was the difference. But of course, I was then told that there is an option that you need to take, take, and you get help and you realize, oh, only if I knew about all of this sooner. I think there's a benefit because whilst our previous generation, yours, ours was very good at blagging and working stuff out and make things work and getting us to where we are now, building the foundation of the creative industry. Now, how do we do it better? Because as you quite famously say, what is the real reason why studios fail these days?
- [26:06]
Joe Bilger
Why do they fail? I mean, one reason they fail is because they're vendors. They're not. Not leaders. Right. We get trapped into thinking our craft is what makes us valuable to the world. And that's only true to a point. And again, AI hello is a great example of where that's being disrupted. There's so much of what we do that we identify with. And if it's our craft, we're really in trouble because so much of that is replaceable or becoming replaceable. And I want to be careful here because I'm not trying to denigrate the awesomeness of craft. Not at all. Right. Again, as someone who was sort of Bauhaus trained, if you will, I get that. But it's our relationship to the people and the problems out there that need to be solved. And to reach into those takes an understanding of human relationships and business, all these principles and concepts. It takes an enormous amount of empathy. And if we don't evolve in those ways, we're going to die. We're going to be the person who, you know, it's the buggy whip manufacturer, right? When the horse and buggies got replaced by the automobiles, we're going to say, oh, and I really love making this thing and I'm the best at it, and I'm going to double down and make an even better buggy whip.
- [27:19]
Adam
Since we were talking about, like, spotting the signs, if someone listens to this conversation and says, am I really a vendor? What is the signs of you being a vendor?
- [27:29]
Joe Bilger
I mean, I would say one indicator is that if your clients, your buyers, if they come to you and they've already diag problem and translated it into, we need you to execute this prescription called a project. And see, again, this is very seductive because, for example, like ad agencies, they will come to you and me and they will say, hey, I need you to execute this project at a really high level, at a very high level of craft. Right. You're a live action director. We need your very specific je ne sais quoi that you're going to bring to this, that craft. And we do that, and we make a lot of money doing that. But then as the years go by, wow, there's a lot more directors out there. Wow, there's a lot more noise and competition and the prices keep going down. We can't charge what we used to charge. And this is this process of ephemeralization, which is the Buckminster Fuller word that I love that when a client comes to you and says, I need you to execute this, I need your craft, it's like a red flag. It's a watch out. And of course, the antidote to this is often the simple question of why do you think you need a blank? Right? Challenge the diagnosis. This is the beginning of the journey into becoming an expert and not just being a vendor. And I can elaborate on that if we want.
- [28:40]
Adam
You know, this is really interesting because when you say, like, someone comes to you and asks you to execute something. So for example, that made me think of illustrators. Illustrators, visualizers, 3D designers. They're very rarely involved in a conversation. No, very rarely. Is maybe a wrong statistic. Not half of the time. Let's be both sides. Half of the time you just get told what to do, what to make, because somebody else has already made that decision. So it depends almost on your position in the food chain. Like, where do you find yourself? How much of power, autonomy, freedom do you have to actually be yourself? Rather than providing a solution that obviously we have proven until now that is possible to earn very well because people need your uniqueness, they need that genius that you provide. But that's changing.
- [29:25]
Joe Bilger
I mean, what's brutal is I'll just say this, my God, I'm going to get in trouble when I say this. Probably 90% of the illustrators in the world that are have been traditionally been hired because of that specific look. There are clients that are saying, hey, AI, create me something that looks like this. And boom, there is really close. Now part of that is, yes, AI is certainly replacing a certain amount of that work. Also some of those things are, we wouldn't have paid someone to do this anyways. So it's not like there was a project that was lost. It's just that they would have figured out another way to do it. But nonetheless, I think you make an interesting point that when I think of really great famous illustrators, designers, I would say in my experience that they are brought in, into the process. Like when, I don't know, I'm going to say the Olympics, because my friend Mitch works on the Olympics, right? They are not coming to Mitch and his team after they've got it all figured out and saying, okay, make us the logo for. Right for Paris. Make us the thing. There is this very early on, hey, we're looking ahead four, six years, eight years from now and thinking. And Mitch, of course, is no dummy. He's also saying, I'm looking ahead four and six and eight years and thinking, thinking. And what are they doing? They're thinking about the problem. They're not worried about the project yet. Like, let's just figure out, ask what the problem is, hopefully identify what the problem is and start thinking about it, solving it, diagnosing it, whatever. Before we turn anything into projects. Projects are not really where the magic is.
- [30:53]
Adam
This is really interesting. You made me think of my own personal journey because at once upon a time as a graphic designer, I was an illustrator, advertising. And I got fed up with the system, how it was working. I was, I kind of exited illustration at the age of, of let's say 35. I'm 47 now, 12 years ago, because I was, I hated being briefed by 20 year olds telling me something, I need to do this, this. And I was like, there is almost like a resistance and barrier to actually do work that could be interesting. Like there could be expression and we can do really good stuff. So I'll turn the upside on its head. And I said, okay, I'm going to start a branding studio. And we'll do the work I want to do, which is visual storytelling, but directly with people who care. And all of a sudden, what you found as a roadblock was all of a sudden was. Was an ammunition for amazing work, because you can have a conversation. So in your way, how you describe it, you've gone from a vendor to a visionary. We can take you on a journey that you didn't know even existed, because somewhere out there in that sort of high sphere, you've got, like, people sort of gatekeeping, like, okay, this commercial should be this and this, this and that. And obviously, by the way, there's many people in Czech green lighting your idea. Whereas when you go direct. Yeah. I think that kind of advertise sort of aligned with what you say, you know, from vendor to visionary. Because that's just a small shift. Because you're. When you think about it, we didn't have to do much different. We only sort of repackaged it differently. And I got more people on board like, oh, my God, we having fun. And all of a sudden, everything's possible because you're the one driving rather than hoping that someone will, you know, give you all the freedom.
- [32:18]
Joe Bilger
I came into this backwards because back in 2002, I think my studio started working for Dish Network, which is this big satellite provider company in the States. And we just worked directly with the brand, and we said, I don't know, here's a cool idea for a character that could be the mascot for this billion dollar company. Do you want to do some commercials with this little guy? And they were like, oh, my God. And off we go, right? We're doing millions of dollars a week. Work this way. Little did I know. And it was years later that agencies would come to us and say, hey, do you guys want to pitch on this project? Here are these boards. Here's this script. And we would say, you know, this idea is kind of shitty. What if we did it this way? And they would get so mad. Because I'd like to think our ideas were better, but they were like, no, we've already solved the problem. We just need you to make the thing and follow orders. And by the way, we're triple bidding this and all this, and we're going to give it to the lowest price vendor or so on. And I start noticing this pattern. And I think the pattern is when you are working with middlemen, gatekeepers, and you have that itch called, man, I think I could just go right to the problem. That's the moment called I'm not Anymore in the race to the bottom, I call it now we're in the race to the top because I'm going to get closer and closer to the marketplace, right? I'm going to work with the buyers because the buyers are interfacing with the thing called customers. Wow. Imagine that. So there's this journey, this race to the top thing that I preach of. How do we do that? How do we create more value, move from vendor to exper expert, all these things. It's. And this is what we've been doing our entire careers, Adam. I mean, you look at your career, my career, all of our careers, we're all on this same journey.
- [33:47]
Adam
I submit, let me close the door on Impossible Pictures. Literally, let's close it. Your feet had hit the ground nearly 20 years on the dot with Impossible Pictures and you're like, no more. So how did you feel when you closed that chapter?
- [33:59]
Joe Bilger
Honestly, it's. Gosh, it's funny. I even still feel the emotion of it a little bit now. And that's been 11, seven years ago. This is 2014. It made sense for me to close that chapter because it had been 20 years. Things were changing, pivoting. I wasn't, couldn't, you know, I was like, do I reinvent again? Do I merge? Do I get acquired? I don't know. And I said that I had this really big pitch. It was about a one and a half million dollar pitch. And I said to myself, okay, if we don't win this damn thing, I'm closing. Because this. I just got an offer from a former client that wants to acquire what's left and have me come work for them, his startup and all this stuff. And, and we didn't win the pitch. And I said, that's it. But it was a two year grieving process. It was also a two year financial unwinding and getting rid of all the stuff. And anyways, I could go very deep into that. But let's just suffice it to say it was a journey of grief, but also a rebirth and a rediscovery that every business ends, every business runs its course. You are way more than your business. You have a thing called a career and even something bigger than that. You have a thing called call life. And it was this amazing chapter. 20 years. But yes, it, it ultimately laid the foundation for what I'm doing now. Which, guess what, Way cooler, way more fun, way more meaningful to me personally.
- [35:17]
Adam
When you mentioned the 1.5 million pitch that you didn't win, do you feel that was a Sign, right? That was a sign. It's spooky because I can relate to how I scaled down my own business because we had not 1.5 million pitches, but like we had three or four. Like almost like a career change in projects that were happening all at the same time and none of them came up. Literally became. We were told we became second on all of them. And I was like, you know what? I'm so happy that that never happened. Because I would have been. Everything would be delayed by three or four years in my life because you have to produce the work. Hate everyone, hate everything. Because I think it's really important to put your hand up and say, who do I want to be in the room as? Because we have influx of new creators, new designers, new people with passion coming through going, I want to be not the next Spielberg or whoever next creative, but like it's that thing inside you because it's that purpose is the one that leads you. It's like you don't almost about with it. It's like you follow that because when you look back, you go, you can only blame yourself for not doing that. Right?
- [36:19]
Joe Bilger
You're going to love this little story, this moment. This happened. A few months ago, I was doing a Fuse dinner in la and one of my clients is a guy named Chris. And during the dinner he mentions to the entire table of all these other founders, founders, by the way, I was the guy that Joel pitched on that last project. And everybody at the table is like, wait, his last million dollar, million and a half dollar pitch that he lost? That was you? He's like, yeah, that was me. And everybody's like, boo, yes, you're horrible. Right? We have a good laugh and he says, no, you have me to thank. The Joel is sitting there and what was his story?
- [36:53]
Adam
Did he enjoy the work?
- [36:54]
Joe Bilger
No, no, no. He was working at Fathom Entertainment, which was. I can't remember the name of the parent company, but no, he. He went on to start his own company. Now he's running a. I will call it a small studio, but a very badass elite. I call him a lone wolf model and very successful. And now we're good friends. He went through my Jumpstart accelerator and we just love each other because our shared stories are so interesting how we. We've continued to evolve and get to a new place in this career in life and like, it's really good that we let go of know what was there, even though, damn it, that job so bad. And when we lost it, it was crushing to shut down impossible, and close those doors. But it led to something greater.
- [37:35]
Adam
You sound very happy now. I mean, because I wrote these three words and I said, I. I will come back to them. And they are impact, reach, and influence. I have worked out that when you want the world, love what you've created, you really already narrow down to 50% of people potentially liking it. Potentially.
- [37:50]
Joe Bilger
Not.
- [37:51]
Adam
Not potentially. You've even narrowed down to a smaller percentage. Whereas when you stop looking for that external validation and you say, hey, actually, what is there that I can help you with? Not being a backseat driver, but being more of, like, driving instructor, you realize that your impact, reach, and influence is so much greater because you speak every one language. So how would you summarize the 11 years you've been doing this? And how do you help people for?
- [38:18]
Joe Bilger
Oh, man, I love that you brought up those three words. I was thinking of Rick Rubin when you were saying just a moment ago of, the older we get, I find this. Radom, you tell me, the older we get, the more we have nothing to prove or we just get to be so comfortable in our own skin. People nowadays, they talk about imposter syndrome, and I say, oh, yeah, I remember what that was like. Not an issue for me anymore. That was tough. That was a big deal. But when I started shifting into, okay, I'm going to help my people, meaning my peers, these are former employees that were starting studios, freelancers that were launching a production company, and I just said, man, you guys kind of suck at sales or your positioning is just horrible, or you have no production method. Like, you're losing money like crazy. Let's can I please help you? And then I started realizing, wow, if I started helping all these people and I start traveling and I start connecting people, I start having dinners, I'm going to start a podcast. I'm now going to form a community. It's been. Been incredibly satisfying to see. Oh, I think I may have said this at the dinner that you were at in London. It's like I get to relive my former life as a studio owner all over again on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. But it's like I'm redeeming it because the people that I'm helping, they're running their studio the way I wish I had run mine. They're having the impact or making the money or producing the creative that I always wished I could have. And in a way, now I am am because I'm unleashing them. So I get to vicariously experience this through them. I mean, again, it's making me emotional because it's, it's so. Yeah, it's just very. It's incredibly special. So for me, this is why I look back when people say, oh, do you wish, do you sometimes wish you were still running impossible pictures? And I say, no, it was great. But it, it ran its course. It. It was, it laid the groundwork for what I'm doing now, which is just much more, much more meaningful always.
- [40:09]
Adam
It is a supporting analogy because. Because when you think about it, when you get into the industry, your day is more like running 100 meters or 400 meters or a mile or 1500 meters. You run it every day, Every day. And one day you get really good, you hit that peak. You never know when you hit your peak because you. Only when you look back, you're like, oh, shit, I was already at my peak. And then you realize, you slow down a bit and you're like, you know what? I don't want to run this anymore. So when you run a creative business, you work out the length, the speed, the resilience, you work all of this out and you go, but I don't really want to run this. But I can advise people on how to do this better. And this is why we supposingly improve as a society, as a creative industry. Because when you do it from the sidelines, you help other people to do this even better. That's why performance in sports is so much better. Because we know more about nutrition, we know about this. And I feel like when there's a hard data, especially in sport, people know how to improve, whereas we still got these blurry edges to our creativity, that you're like, you know what, what is the best method? And technically there could be a template of performance. But we also get this. If we have obedient people who would be doing the thing as you tell them, would we ever be as creative as we are? You know, So I think, yeah. Is it complicated? As I'm trying to paint it, it's not.
- [41:27]
Joe Bilger
Here's another thing I would say is I worked with a number of consultants down through my years and they were helpful to a degree. But what I really found helpful was when I started to connect with the community of my pe, that solidarity, that deep, deep empathy. And you saw it at the dinner, right when we all start getting into what's really going on in our lives and our businesses. And so it's not, you know, the expression if you can't do it, teach, which I, of course, I reject in my current paradigm because the way I think of it is, well, I'm not really a teacher, I'm not a coach, I'm not even really an advisor. It's more like, hey, I'm a founder, I'm on this journey. Perhaps I started 10 years before you did, so I'm 10 years further down that road. How can we keep helping each other? Other, Yes, I exited my business, I'm not running a studio presently, but I'm in. My hands are in the sausage of four or five clients I work with directly all the time right now. And believe me in the details, right. Pitching the work like getting the new opportunity, managing the new hire, breaking up with the partner, whatever all those things are. So it's this founder to founder thing that I find so Electronic trick. Yeah. Powerful that when a bunch of founders get in a room and they have start sharing with each other, somebody has the answer. Somebody has bumped again up against that and figured it out. Someone has the insight that we're all looking for and I just love that idea of yes, we are competing with each other and we're going to make each other stronger at the same time.
- [42:57]
Adam
This is an interesting thought. We are competing with each other. Has the industry actually accepted that there's such thing as a healthy competition that we can be cheering on from the sidelines for one another because someone else's success is actually all of our successes together? Because scarcity mindset is such a right when you think about it, like when you actually accept that someone's done something, what we get to see is the shiny results. But we, as you said, you know the sausage sometimes you don't know what's happened behind the scenes. And the projects you didn't win is actually the project. It could have been someone else's nightmare, but they actually got it done. So have we let go? Are we more generous than up to one another?
- [43:34]
Joe Bilger
Know that I'm on a mission to absolutely destroy. It's what Mitch and I call it the prison eater mindset. It's a zero sum thinking. Okay. It's they don't talk to me and try and get my secrets because you're going to use them against me. I've seen that attitude. It still exists in certain markets. It's really interesting. Like when I go to Chicago, I'm like oh yeah, there it is. I go to Dallas, oh yeah, there it is. And I can explain maybe why but to your point point I will just say 1 billion percent. When you compete with somebody and they win because they're the better fit or sometimes we just have to be honest. They're better than you are. And I know that stings, but guess what? Everybody who is great at what they do, they didn't become great just because it wasn't by accident. It's because they got pushed. The market demanded it, the clients had bigger, scarier problems, Somebody else figured it out and they got the job. You didn't wan. I mean, the sooner we take this radical responsibility and say, man, we all, as an industry, you're telling me the people that aren't using AI and all these really crazy innovative ways, the people that are doing shoots on XR stages and all this crazy, you're telling me they're not making you better, Faster, stronger, more innovative, more creative. You're definitely missing out. So this is why, why we, you know, we go to conferences and hang out with other creatives is we're stealing from each other, right? What is it? Good artists borrow, great artists steal? Is that the line?
- [45:02]
Adam
Yeah, I think good artist borrow artists still, I feel something like that.
- [45:05]
Joe Bilger
Something like that. Was that Picasso who said that?
- [45:07]
Adam
I think, I mean, it was Austin Kleon who said, everyone still like an artist. But you said the word better, and this is an interesting one because you don't always want. You don't always want to admit as a creative that someone potentially is better because you some. You imagine yourself with the healthy mindset that what you create in is the best it can be at that day. And it's potentially better than anybody else because there's a competition and you somehow see yourself that way. But what you said, when you accept that there are people that are better than you, therefore you can actually be inspired by the mix of everything that you do. Skills, knowledge, business acumen, creativity. And say, oh, I can actually follow this formula and get better myself because as you said, I like the term prison eater. Very good. There is a break point. There's a breakpoint of like, how do you actually get someone out of this? But can it be taught? Or do you actually have to come up to it naturally?
- [45:59]
Joe Bilger
Because, boy, that's a really good question. I don't know. I think maybe because I was never the best creatively. Never. I could draw really well, but was I the best? No. I could play keyboards and perform songs in my rock and roll band. Were we the best? No. And I've always, throughout my life, I think I've had some sort of a honesty. I wouldn't necessarily say I broadcast it publicly, but I've always known deep down inside, man, pretty Much everybody is better than me. And that's okay, because I can learn. And this idea of, you know what I learned this climbing mountains in Colorado when I lived there, that as long as I keep going, I'm looking up at the summit and I'm sorry, saying, God dang it, that's so freaking far. But if I just put my head down, get back to the business of one step at a time, no matter how slow I go, slow means there's a lot of people better than me, faster than me. But you know what? I'm going to get there because I'm unstoppable, because I have this desire, I have this tenacity. I have this. I don't know, all this stuff I've collected along my journey, and that's served me well. It just means. Means, you know, when you think that I'm the best, that's why I should get this job, I think there's some sort of denial happening there that doesn't service. What service very well.
- [47:17]
Adam
For more context to this conversation, you and I are working on your book. I'm your consulting editor, working on your project. And it's really interesting because I'm going to quote you back from your own book and part of section number four, the Bigger Picture. And you say, adapt with soul, and I think that's a blueprint for longevity. That's a blueprint for careers. Adaptive. Your soul because. Because it's easy to adapt with a business mindset is adaptive, the market, adaptive trends. But when you put your soul in anything that you do, there's no bs. You can look back and say, look, I've gone where the mind told me to go. So what you've been describing and the way you've been doing it and what you're doing and what you're working on and what you're putting out there, you adapt. And with your soul, you put your. You put yourself on that journey. You allowed yourself to be on that journey with all the twists and bumps and all of that stuff. But that is. Is ultimately three words that unleash the next. When you ask yourself, what do I really want? And you said, I realize I can learn. That was, again, adapting with your soul.
- [48:19]
Joe Bilger
Yeah. There's one thought I'm having, which is when I use the word soul, I think I'm challenging myself and all of us with this question of how bad do you really want it? Because the word soul says, this is existential, right? To create is to be human and all this. And what I often find is there are many people who purport to, yeah, I want to be great creative, and I want to make a lot of money. I want to have a really awesome career. But they don't really want it as badly as the next guy or girl. And the people who really want it, they are obsessed. There's this inner hunger and tenacity. It's so important. And it's the fuel that, of course, drives us throughout our career. Now, this is where, when we go through an era like we're going through right in the now with things like generative AI, where I'm starting to see the pattern and I'm even looking at historical references. Like, when I look at this example of, like, the Luddites and what happened back in the 1800s, I think of the Arts and crafts movement, which was Morris, and there was this rejection of mass production, which was what it was the machine of their day. What is AI but the machine of our day and. And Morris and the arts and crafts people rejected the machine. No, we're going to double down on handcrafted, you know, fine tapestries and linens and wallpapers and all this that, guess what? Nobody could afford. Then you have people like the Bauhaus that come along and they say, wait a minute. Maybe it's our job as creatives to imbue the machine with what it lacks, soul. Because if we give soul to the machine, then we what, we take something called mass production. We. We democratize simplicity and design and function and, you know, all the principles of industrial design that I. I grew up learning. And I think we're going through a very similar process now. So when I talk about soul, right, adapt with soul, I think this is the journey. How do we become more human? Because the machine needs us more than ever. Again, this is something I'm exploring in the book, and with your help, I'm going to find a way to articulate it. But that's the gist of the idea.
- [50:26]
Adam
Gerald, I think what you've just been so beautifully describing, it still goes back to those three words, impact, reach and influence. You can't get impact, reach and influence out of a machine, out of AI. That's just a tool. It's how you use it. It's what we do with it. I think those are the key components. Because just like with everything, be it whatever, like that comes from something minuscule to be prevalent, to be mass used, we go past the peak, and I think we just don't know how quickly we go past this peak. And we go potentially like back to normal with the ability of in something new with the extra tool, with the extra ingredient, with the extra one, with the extra muscle. But I think the element of who we are, what we do, how we adapt with our soul and how we go on the back, how we go on to create impact, reach and influence, I think that's always going to be prevalent because after all it's human creativity for our humans and that's how we make the connection. Because it's so easy to see it was being done with AI. It's so lifeless in most cases, like when pedestrians use AI. And I think that's why we need problem solvers. Vendors probably exist, but potentially in smaller numbers because it will go back to the visionaries actually say, you know what, there's the next chapter, there's the next something, and this is how we make some more people feel something extraordinary. So yeah, I salute you for what you do, how you do it and how you helping these people to actually achieve something sometimes against the all odds. Because there will always be change, how we embrace change. Change will make you or break you. And yeah, I'm glad that you are on those sidelines helping them to succeed. So thank you.
- [51:58]
Joe Bilger
Oh my gosh. Well, thank you and I appreciate your support and being part of your story, you being part of mine. And I know this, right, that the world really does need the creatives more than ever right now. The creatives are the ones that are going to lead us into a better future. They're always the ones that are telling the story stories, creating the moments, right? Creating those things that inspire us. And I think this is not a time for creatives to lose heart. It's a time for us to take radical responsibility and lead.
- [52:31]
Adam
Amazing. Joe, thanks very much for today and I hope to speak to you soon.
- [52:45]
Radim Malinich
Thank you for listening to this episode of Daring Creativity Podcast 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 Makai from 7 Million Bikes Podcast. Thank you and I hope to see.
- [53:06]
Adam
You on the next episode.
- [53:14]
Joe Bilger
Foreign.
- [53:29]
Radim Malinich
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 behavior, 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.
- [53:50]
Adam
You are and whatever you do to.
- [53:52]
Radim Malinich
Get 10% off your order. Visit novemberuniverse.co.uk and use the code podcast.
- [53:58]
Adam
Have a look around and start living daringly.