"Don't regret leaving that music inside of you" (Mitch Monson bonus episode)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Daring Creativity. Daring Forever.

Episode: "Don't Regret Leaving That Music Inside of You" (Mitch Monson Bonus Episode)
Host: Radim Malinic
Date: August 28, 2025

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Episode Overview

This bonus episode of Daring Creativity revisits standout moments from Radim Malinic’s conversation with renowned designer Mitch Monson. The focus is on transformative insights related to creativity, risk-taking, rule-breaking, regret, and investing in oneself. Malinic draws out Monson's inspiring stories and memorable quotes, examining what it means to truly dare creatively across a lifetime.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Breaking Rules as a Creative Superpower

[00:00 – 03:30]

• Self-taught mindset: Both Mitch and Radim highlight the value of entering the creative field without formal constraints. Mitch shares how being self-taught means you “ask a lot more questions,” and always seek input from those more knowledgeable.
• Naivety as an advantage: Radim admires the “eternally curious idiocy” that comes from a beginner’s mind, unrestrained by dogmatic rules. This allows for fresh solutions and innovation.
• Reference to David Carson: Drawing inspiration from legendary designers, both believe in avoiding the “snap to grid” mentality.
• Notable Quote:

  “I'm not the smartest person in the room. And that's exactly where I want to be.”
  — Mitch Monson [01:24]

2. Regret and Leaving the Music Inside

[03:54 – 06:00]

• Formative article: Mitch recounts an influential Fast Company article about retirees regretting the risks not taken in life, especially in creativity and relationships. He stresses the importance of not letting the “music” inside remain unexpressed.

• Reflection and risk: Regularly looking back on one’s choices prevents accumulating regret and encourages bold, creative action.

• Host’s interpretation: Radim amplifies the message, connecting it to the podcast’s central theme—acts of brave self-expression matter more than outward success metrics.

• Notable Quote:

  “The biggest regrets were just leaving that music inside of you...and not taking the risks in creativity and in relationships...”
  — Mitch Monson [03:56]

• Memorable Moment:

  “Don’t leave the music inside you. It was just music to my mind, really. It’s poetry, isn’t it?”
  — Radim Malinic [04:53]

3. Risk: How to Truly Feel Alive

[06:31 – 08:26]

• Embracing risk: Mitch compares creative risk to his passion for backcountry snowboarding and heli-boarding, stating that both provide a sense of feeling alive.
• Preparation vs. recklessness: True risk-taking, in Mitch’s view, is calculated and stems from readiness, not impulsiveness or seeking adrenaline. Creative or career leaps should be similarly informed and intentional.
• Radim expands: Risk in a professional or creative sense isn’t about gambling—it’s about stretching one’s comfort zone and growing, planning the leap rather than jumping blind.
• Notable Quote:

  “That’s when you feel the most alive, the most excited about what you’re doing.”
  — Mitch Monson [06:50]

4. Investing in Yourself and Not Waiting for Permission

[09:00 – 09:41]

• Giving yourself permission: Mitch tells a story of advising a young professional to independently pursue growth opportunities, rather than waiting for employer approval or support.
• Radim’s response: He reflects on how creative culture is often hampered by seeking external validation—yet the most celebrated artists became great by continually investing in themselves.
• Theme of compounded growth: Citing music icons, Radim emphasizes how skill and experience build gradually through constant self-investment.
• Notable Quote:

  “Don’t you want to invest in yourself? Isn’t that the most important thing?”
  — Mitch Monson [09:17]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|-------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:24 | Mitch Monson | "I'm not the smartest person in the room. And that's exactly where I want to be." | | 03:56 | Mitch Monson | "The biggest regrets were just leaving that music inside of you... and not taking the risks..." | | 04:53 | Radim Malinic | "Don’t leave the music inside you. It was just music to my mind, really. It’s poetry, isn’t it?" | | 06:50 | Mitch Monson | "That’s when you feel the most alive, the most excited about what you’re doing." | | 09:17 | Mitch Monson | "Don’t you want to invest in yourself? Isn’t that the most important thing?" |

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Thematic Highlights

• Creativity thrives in rule-breaking: Beginners’ curiosity and lack of dogmatic knowledge fuel innovation.
• Regret comes not from failing, but from failing to try: Don’t let your “music” remain unexpressed due to fear or hesitation.
• Real risk means calculated leaps, not recklessness: Growth happens not by gambling but by pushing well-prepared boundaries in life and work.
• Invest in yourself: Don’t wait for others’ approval or support to pursue growth—be your own advocate.

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• Breaking Rules: [00:00 – 03:30]
• Regret and Reflection: [03:54 – 06:00]
• Risk and Feeling Alive: [06:31 – 08:26]
• Investing in Yourself: [09:00 – 09:41]

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This episode is a powerful call to action for creatives: break from the grid, express your true self without regrets, embrace risk as a catalyst for growth, and invest in your journey—without waiting for permission.

Transcript

[Host]

Hey, welcome to this bonus episode of the Daring Creativity podcast. This. As you might now know, this is where I revisit the interview published earlier in the week, providing me with the opportunity to zoom in on a few standout moments for extra value and meaning. I take time to digest the goodness my guests share with me every week. And this week was really special because I was chatting to Mitch Monson, who's had an incredible career with fantastic achievements working with some extraordinary clients. So if you had a conversation, you had me spending pretty much the first third of the conversation talking about his work for Prince. I had to ask as many questions as I could because if you have a guest who designed the Love Symbol logo for one of the biggest pop stars this planet has ever had, got to spend some time on it. What was beautiful about this conversation that we mainly focused on the few topics that seems to revolve around continuously in our industry. Rules, risk, reward, you know, regrets. And. And this conversation was great for finding some of the standout moments which I would like to highlight now. The first one being about breaking rules.

[Mitch Monson]

Being self taught, or just not having so much formal education. It also means you're asking a lot more questions. And I'm always that person. I'm not the person who's going to ask for directions to get somewhere or to get a recommendation. Something like there's just, there's no embarrassment in that, I guess, or fear of I'm going to be an idiot is like, I always want to be that person in the room. And I think even now when I think of the people that I work with is I'm not the smartest person in the room. And that's exactly where I want to be.

[Host]

Mitch mentioned through the conversation that one of his heroes is David Carson. And David Carson famously says, don't snap to grid, don't follow the grid. In fact, what is great, and I love the fact that Mitch, as I mentioned in our conversation, is a fellow self taught graphic designer. And I think there's that beautiful, let's call it naivety. I call it eternally curious idiocy. If you don't have the preconceived notions about proper design principles, you approach problems with fresh eyes. Therefore, it's more of a beginner's mind. And many breakthrough innovations come from outsiders who don't know something is impossible. When you think about a wave of AI in generative AI spewing out all sorts of ideas and things, it's gonna remix in things that it's learned or picked up kind of cross pollinates the ideas. And sometimes it doesn't follow the grids and doesn't follow the rules. So in Mitch's conversation, you can't be afraid of breaking rules because you don't know they exist. And I love that he said that not knowing rules is a superpower because you can see this as a bit of a bull in a china shop situation. But using carefully, as Mitch articulated in our conversation, he wants to be, put it kindly, the dumbest person in the room. Because when you're the wisest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. You want to be in a place where you can learn, find your own space, find your own rules. There will always be conversation about traditional learning, new ways of learning, self learning, self exploratory work. But what matters in the end, it's how it makes people feel. Because I remember when I started doing my own little experiment and producing my own designs and business cards and stuff, and they were catching attention and someone said, hey, you're not following the grid. And I'm like, well, you see, I haven't followed the grid, but we are now talking about what I did because if I followed the grid, maybe that wouldn't be as interesting. The second quote was something really magical.

[Mitch Monson]

And I think there's this really beautiful article I read almost 25 years ago that literally changed my life in fast company. And it was about this interviewer that he had done like a thousand interviews with senior citizens who'd retired and had really successful careers. And I look back at that article all the time. I give it to so many people on a regular basis because what it said is the biggest regrets were just leaving that music inside of you, but not taking the risks in creativity and in relationships and not looking back regularly and not reflecting at different times of your life so you can kind of assess where things are and where you want to go. And I think that helped me so much at that time and it made me take a lot more risks. Just like I don't want to be that person. And what's really funny is in that article it says I don't want to be at 60 years old regretting that. And like I said, I just reached that point and I just don't feel like I have a lot of regrets. And I think that's a great place to be.

[Host]

I love when people use poetic words about situations. Don't leave the. That music inside you. It was just the music to my mind, really. It's poetry, isn't it? I love it. It just fits perfectly the theme of daring creativity Mitch was referencing quote from the Fast company article from 20 years ago. And that article captures the human fear of unrealized potential. It reframes the risk of what might go wrong to what will I regret not attempting. And as you know, with the theme of daring creativity podcast, it's not about jumping out of planes. It's about doing a thing that you otherwise regret never starting. So with Mitch's quote, the music inside you represents the authentic self expression beyond external success metrics. It just doesn't matter because how many reasons can you find for not starting something? How many fears and issues can you find about a project that you really want to do? But maybe it's not the right time, or maybe it's not the right conditions, or we don't have money. But most people intuitively know what they're capable of. To be making decisions from the deathbed is rarely taken. About risks is about risks avoided because it links creativity to relationships. Both require vulnerability and authentic expression when facing a creative opportunity. Ask yourself, will I regret not trying this more than I'll regret potential failure? The next standout woman is about risk. So here's Mitch's quote.

[Mitch Monson]

The way I've always approached things and I think both in my work and just in like when you're talking, I know you're a surfer. So for myself being a backcountry snowboarder and doing heli boarding, things like that, people just feel like that's like why would you want to take that risk? But I think just like in my work, like that's when I feel most alive, like when I have that opportunity to do something that's a little more out of the ordinary also has that risk component in it. That's when you do feel the most alive, the most excited about what you're doing.

[Host]

The most. People that you admire doing something you wish you were doing will always admit they are very risk adverse. In Mitch's conversation, he admitted that he loves risk. But what seems risky is actually hardly spur of the moment situation. Because when he goes, let's say backcountry snowboarding or heliboarding, it's all ready, like they are ready, they're tuned in, they are prepared in the right performance states. It's not just a sort of idea of standing on a hill with your mates when you nine with your BMX bike going, I think I should give it a try. Because that is a risk that's basically spur of the moment, working on the adrenaline and bit of a stupidity, thinking, I'll give it a go. The idea of risk in a professional application, it goes beyond the experience level. So his snowboarding analogy is perfect. Extreme athletes don't feel extreme because they are prepared, trained and operating with that expanded comfort zone. Something that applies to creative risks. When you think about a professional application of risk, taking on clients beyond your experience level, it's more about growth rather than risk. You'll be risky and put in loads of money in a business venture that doesn't have heads or tails. Whereas if you take on something that you can understand the shape of, it's more about understanding how you can grow and learn from the situation. The topic of risk will never go away and we can be prodding it from every direction. And I think it's the way, how we internalize the way, what we see as risky and what we don't. Because the theme of risk and the way how we perceive risk really depends on how we see our space in the world. The final quote from Mitch was about investing in yourself.

[Mitch Monson]

I had this thing come up the other day where a younger professional had asked me about, hey, I really want to do this thing, but the thing is, it's kind of expensive. My company won't do it for me. And I just heard those words and I just said, just stop a second. What's the purpose of this? What is the purpose of the thing and why do you want to go? And they told me very passionately what that was. And the only thing I said, don't you want to invest in yourself? Isn't that the most important thing? And I really didn't have to have much more of a conversation there. It's like, yeah, I just need to do this. I'm going to pay for it. I'm going to take that time off, I'm going to go and I'm just going to make it happen. And that was a younger me, like that was. I didn't wait for permission.

[Host]

This is another topic. Permission, permission granted. Just keeps coming back. Risks, rules, permissions. It's incredible because let's be honest, Blake, what we've created in the last many decades is incredible. The tools we have, the opportunities we have, the connections, the communities, all of this. Yet it can also feel that we are still stuck in certain way. And maybe is it because we have so much more all of available to us that we're still waiting for someone else to greenlight our development? Because again, I loved in Mitch's conversation that he didn't wait for permission. And it's something I can relate to because there is nothing more beautiful in the world when you decide to follow something follow the idea that just simply doesn't go away and you explore it a bit by bit. The investment mindset is when you invest in yourself you invest in your capabilities because the people that society celebrates the Ed Sheerans, the Taylor Swifts or John Mayers they just didn't wake up and pick up the instruments and stood on the stage being all ready I mean it's a compounding growth because their skills experiences compound over time it's the making of the person and the best bit about let's say people like Taylor Swift people always say that there's nobody else who wants it more than her and this is the question how much do you want to invest in yourself because it is the most important thing if you haven't checked out my conversation with Mitch please do it's absolutely genius and I will see you on the next one.