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- [00:01]
Radi Malinich
Before we start today's episode, let me tell you about my latest adventure. Introducing Lax Coffee Company, a specialty grade coffee company inspired by creativity and creatives. The debut range is sourced from some of the best farms in Brazil, Peru, Colombia and Africa offering beautiful flavors and notes. Our single origins and house blends are roasted every Monday. For next day shipping, visit luxcoffee.co.uk and use code podcast for 15% off your first order. And yes, there's exceptional merch too. Luxe Coffee Company is where art meets exceptional coffee.
- [00:51]
Ete Erislan
It was one of the best sleeps ever. As I approached towards the end of my chapter with Nike, I started to build sleep disorders. I was always taking some melatonins and it was really hard for me to fall to sleep and so on. And I was having a lot of headaches as well. And can one person suddenly don't have sleep disorders after one day? Yes. And it happened on actually on the date that I decided I gave my resignation and I left in about four weeks time. And as I gave my resignation I started to sleep better.
- [01:40]
Radi Malinich
Welcome to Mindful Creative Podcast, a show.
- [01:43]
About understanding how to deal with the highs and lows of creative lives.
- [01:48]
My name is Radi Malinj and creativity changed my life, but it also nearly killed me.
- [01:53]
In this season, inspired by my book.
- [01:55]
Of the same title, I am talking.
- [01:57]
To some of the most celebrated figures.
- [01:59]
In the creative industry.
- [02:01]
In our candid conversations, my guests share their experiences and how they overcame their challenges and struggles.
- [02:08]
How they learn to grow as creatives. A creative career in the 21st century can be overwhelming.
- [02:14]
I wanted to capture these honest and transparent conversations that might help you find.
- [02:19]
That guiding light in your career.
- [02:21]
Thank you for joining me on this episode and taking the first or next.
- [02:25]
Step towards regaining control of your creative life. Are you ready?
- [02:37]
My guest today is a consultant, CMO and a brand strategist. Living and working in New York City, she helps brands strengthen their identity and helps them scale and grow. During her career, she's been on both sides of product development and marketing and Nike before striking on her own to build her independent consultancy boutique agency. She also hosts the Marketing Meeting podcast exploring emerging marketing trends. In our conversation, we discuss her courage to live corporate life and her philosophies on time, discipline and soul searching. It's my pleasure to introduce Ete Erislan.
- [03:19]
It it's so nice to have you on the show today. For those who might not know, how would you introduce yourself?
- [03:25]
Ete Erislan
I'm the founder of a boutique based in New York City. Although I don't like to call it agency too much. But I'm focused on strategy building and brand identity and marketing management, especially for the brands that are at the critical growth phase.
- [03:44]
Radi Malinich
I want to know how now you find yourself in New York City. So you've got your studio or your agency, and I want to know what's your background? How did you get into this? How does one get into the world of marketing?
- [03:57]
Ete Erislan
I didn't get into the world of marketing till I was 30, around 30s. I'm actually an engineer and I'm a textile engineer. And I started working at Nike as a product manager. So I was doing all the things that product manager does, which is like taking the innovation, sourcing it out to the factories around Europe and developing the product with the designers and the fabric teams, pricing them out and still shipping it to the stores. So that's where I started. But after a few years of doing that, I recognized that I wanted to be closer to the customer. And with that I approached the sales office at Nike. I was in Turkey back then. And I told them that I want to be a part of the sales organization because I want to be closer to the customer. The reason that I wanted to be closer to the customer is that I do a lot of sports and I feel that if I'll be close to the customer, which is the athlete in Nike, say every person is an athlete that I would be able to bring more value for. And it also sounded quite fun at that time. But there was no. I didn't have any intention to be a marketer or I didn't have any intention to be a salesperson or whatever. I just wanted to be closer to the customer just to have more fun because I'm also a customer of Nike. That's where I started working in the retail team because there was an opening at the retail team and there was one person who was interested to have me on board and I did merchandising, visual merchandising even, and store planning. And then I moved to retail expansion, which involves like a new store analysis, finding a new store, finding new partners. And from there, which involves a lot of strategic thinking. And from there, at one point I found myself in the marketing team. I started working with a very nice person, Massimo Jimko. He's my first boss at Nike who helped me get into marketing. So since then I'm doing marketing. And about seven years ago at my 20s year at Nike, I decided that I want to leave for some specific reasons. And then seven years ago I founded my own company. And since Then I'm working for myself.
- [06:27]
Radi Malinich
Excellent. There's so much to untake. How does one get into product? Would you say textile engineering?
- [06:33]
Ete Erislan
It was so popular at that time. I knew that I wanted to be an engineer because I was not really good at social studies, geography, history. I didn't like any of those. That's why I picked engineering, because I like math, science and so on. And then when I think about engineering, there were a few popular things. One of them was textile engineering at that time in Turkey, because I was based in Turkey, there's too much textile production or I want to be an industrial engineer. I had two options and I want textile engineering and I'm really happy that I did.
- [07:09]
Radi Malinich
It's brought you to where you are today and I think it's a fascinating story. So was your sort of choice of university degree because did you do that as a degree?
- [07:19]
Ete Erislan
Ah, yes.
- [07:20]
Radi Malinich
So was your choice of university degree based on pragmatic reasons or was it based on curiosity? How did you base it?
- [07:28]
Ete Erislan
I think at that age you are not really sure what to do. But I find it nice for a few reasons, like there was no rational reason behind it. For example, GAP used to have their own offices in Istanbul in Turkey. And the building that they had their own offices was a very nice building in the heart of Istanbul. It was very modern and I loved GAP as a brand. And I thought that if I get get graduated from university from textile engineering, I would be working in GAP as a textile person. And some other reasons just like that. And there is no rationale behind. It's just like trying to fit into an identity at that age. But I knew myself, I was not a really a great student, working too much and so on. I was working and I was like immediate middle level student. But the reason that I was not like the top of this class is because that maybe I don't know, I didn't have a significant IQ or whatever. But I was also doing lots of sports. I was at the volleyball team, I was at the dancing team and so on. Because of all these personal interactions and social interactions and cultural things, I couldn't study too much and I was like normal students. But the thing is that about me at, at that time and which still keeps on going is not that I pick textile or I'm a marketer now or whatever. If I'm given a task, I really get motivated and finish the task with whatever I can do. I put myself into it. I really take it seriously. That's why probably I love sport.
- [09:11]
Radi Malinich
So with your Time as a product manager, did you get involved in manufacturing and design and those parts?
- [09:18]
Ete Erislan
Very much involved. I was even doing because the factories that we were producing there were some compliance checkpoints and every product manager has to know how to check a factory product compliance issues. So whenever I do a factory visit, I was also checking if there is like a underage worker or those type of things. So I was really heavily involved in production. Like I was. I even remember checking the color cards based on the fabrics that came from development and deciding if it's off color or on color or so on. It's just like a very hands on textile thing. But I want to add something there because when I was around 20s when I picked textile engineering and I wanted to work in Gap one day at this beautiful building in Istanbul, which is not beautiful at all now. And also the brand is not that inspirational. But I was not like, oh, I don't know what I'm gonna do, I'm just gonna do this and then later on decide what I'm gonna. I was not in that mood. I was very determined about my choices. I was like, I'm going to be a textile engineer. And once I'm a textile engineer, I was just like, I'm going to work at Gap or something similar to Gap. So it was like I was really determined about my decision. That's why nowadays, for example, I'm really determined about my path. Founding an agency, growing an agency in New York. But I know that in two years time this path might shift to something else. And then I know that I'll be determined to that path again. So this is something that I would like to say because if you take it less seriously, if you say that, oh, I'm gonna decide in two years, three years, I don't know what I'm doing right now, then it means that you are not paying enough attention to the path that you are taking. I think that's also something that I'm also saying to my nieces, saying to someone, if someone asks my opinion, I'm just like, okay, your choices might change, but just make sure that the path that you take, you take it seriously. We'll be back after a quick break.
- [11:31]
Radi Malinich
If you're enjoying this podcast and would like more support and information on your.
- [11:35]
Creative journey, you can pick up one.
- [11:37]
Of my books to help you do just that. My titles cover branding, graphic design, illustration, all the way to career business advice with ideas, how to navigate highs and lows of the creative process. You can pick up signed paperbacks at no extra Cost from my store@nobmberuniverse.co.uk and we are shipping worldwide use code podcast for extra 10% off your order and you can find the links in the show notes. Any day should be a new book day.
- [12:15]
So you're now the person who's asking the question, who do you want to be? How seriously are you taking it? So this is you going back and repeating the cycle. It's interesting. So, yeah, if you're not paying focus, if you're not paying attention, then you're off the path. I think that's interesting because it makes sense. It truly makes sense. You mentioned you wanted to go from being product manager to be closer to the customer, the athlete, because it's more fun. How did the word fun appear? Because sometimes customers or athletes or people might be the opposite of fun. So what was the drive? What was the connection there?
- [12:50]
Ete Erislan
I'm trying to think about the rationale behind it, why I was thinking that as fun. But at that time, the sales teams were going to all these sales meetings and they were sharing a lot of pictures and nice videos, like recaps, because that's what marketing is, right? Like motivational speeches, conferences. And it looked like they were having fun. That's the first reason. Because within an organization, I'm the one who is going to the factory and then, you know, doing security checks, checking the fabrics, the apparel and eating the factory food. Whereas I was seeing my friends at the sales office, they were like in Marbella, in Spain, enjoying sun and then watching an inspirational athlete talking on the stage. So that's one of the reasons that I thought that sales and marketing are having fun. But the other thing is that I always had fun when I was doing or watching sports. So I thought that if I be closer to the customer, then I should really feel inflow rather than being on the production side of the business.
- [14:04]
Radi Malinich
I always think that maybe I form my question from a negative perspective, thinking, are you really sure about the word fun? Because what you just described, it was so aspirational thinking. Yes, of course. Yeah, that's what I wanted to do. Because you were driving with your eyes open. You're like, this is what I want to do. Because again, that your path that you talk about as what you've learned through sometimes not as fun work. Were the factories in China, Was it in Turkey or in Turkey?
- [14:35]
Ete Erislan
In Europe, in Israel, in many parts of Europe. And especially I was responsible for the production in Israel. They were producing more high tech products and shipping to us. I was traveling a lot. Yeah.
- [14:49]
Radi Malinich
So we're traveling a lot, obviously like you were picking up the knowledge of like how the product is made, what can be of color. Because I think when you graduate on that level of okay, I'm gonna go into sales or I'm going into marketing, but baseline how the product is made, things about a product that sometimes people who have far too much fun and listening to beautiful keynote speeches be like, yeah, it's it. How is this stuff done? What do we need to know? I think like that makes your, what I call the armor or the skill set, the knowledge so much richer because you are building on this. Because I know it from a similar perspective. Because I think I want to put in a story where a friend of mine was made a restaurant manager for famous chain and he was meant to be like a managing director, but they put him in a kitchen because for the next four months he had to do everything from ground up just to understand every part of the business, how it all works. Because if anything goes wrong, you know how to fix it. So I think the way you've grown into the company sounds great. And yeah, I just love that the word fun is actually about the real richness of the company and its beliefs and messaging about bringing this to athletes. You're going, going up, up, up, all the way to the exit door. More or less obviously, Nike's got its own story at the moment where they've tried to do lots of various things and losing their market share on the ground. Did you see the writing on the wall? If we can talk about it. Did you see the writing on the wall or was it just where you just finished with the ladder being rested on just a one direction wall?
- [16:17]
Ete Erislan
There were a few reasons that I left. Some of them were personal because. And some of them were related to the approach of the company. So it's just, it goes all hand in hand. Let's say the top reason that I left was the company gives you a jacket, which means like they give you responsibility, they give you budget, they give you also some a title. And then that jacket got smaller and smaller for me as I grow. And when I was that jacket was not enough for me and I asked for a bigger jacket and I took the new ones and it's all again grow smaller and smaller to me. And I wanted to do more but the landscape of the business and also that's where the company dynamics got into place. It didn't allow me to get a bit bigger jacket. And I recognized that if I push this path too much, I won't be Happy. I was getting sad and sad every single year. I was working more, but I was having less fun. Let's say that fun is always my, I think criteria when I approach the business. And also I was losing my passion a bit. So that's where I decided that if this jacket is small for me and if the company is giving, not giving it to me, I don't need to stay here and then blame others. I should just take my path own path and leave. And that was the best decision that I've given actually. And I gave enough time to Nike also saying that I'm planning to leave, but I don't want to leave. And because I want a better role, I want a bigger role, I want a bigger jacket. And then they were not able to provide that jacket within that time frame. And then I said, that's okay, no bad feelings. I still love the brand, I still love the team, but I'm leaving. So that was the decision.
- [18:19]
Radi Malinich
Do you remember the first day when you left? What did it feel like?
- [18:23]
Ete Erislan
It was one of the best sleeps ever. As I approached towards the end of my chapter with Nike, I started to build sleep disorders. I was always taking some melatonins and it was really hard for me to fall to sleep and so on. And I was having a lot of headaches as well. And can one person suddenly don't have sleep disorders after one day? Yes. And it happened on, actually on the date that I decided I gave my resignation and I left in about four weeks time. And as I gave my resignation, I started to sleep better.
- [19:07]
Radi Malinich
That is fascinating. That is absolutely, utterly fascinating because you can really pinpoint the stress towards the work. So you just got rid of that, let's call it a burden, like you just get rid of the responsibility and slept properly. So yeah, when you were feeling stressed and when you were taking melatonin and feeling the heaviness of the work, did you always know it or did you just go with it? Were you just too busy to actually say, oh, this is making me ill or this is making me sleepless insomniac? Did you know it or was it only after you've given the notice that you realized that was all of the sort of causes?
- [19:45]
Ete Erislan
I was quite aware of the things that make me sad and stressed out. I was completely aware of many of the things, but I wasn't aware that the sleep problem, for example, was because of my old job. Only then once I left and I saw that I no longer have any sleep problems. And as a child I never had any sleep Problems. I recognized that oh my God, this was so obvious. And then I, since then I'm just taking melatonins only if I travel to my home for seven, eight hours just to avoid the jetnecks. I take it because I just don't want to get jet lagged. That's the reason. But I was aware that things were not going well. I have quite a lot of self conscious but I couldn't take any action till the 18 year mark at Nike. Yeah.
- [20:41]
Radi Malinich
So when you were leaving Nike, did you know where you were going? Was it just a sort of blank piece of paper, empty road like anywhere? Or did you already pre plan what was your next move?
- [20:52]
Ete Erislan
I didn't plan, it was a very fast decision. I, I didn't get fired. So it was me telling the company that this is the time that I'm living and just they made it easy for me and I had no clue. But the first day I had a few options, I was like thinking about a few things and I never saw myself as an entrepreneur. I always thought that I was going to be in corporate. But when I started talking to people that I'm planning to leave because I had a four weeks time between the time that I gave resignation till I left and I started talking to people and to people very close to me and saying that I'm planning to leave, this is still a bit, it's not announced yet and so on. And then those people that are very close to me started to bring me some job saying that we have this company, we need help, we need marketing help. Since you don't know what to do now, would you want to help us? And it's just I left Nike at 31st of July and 1st of August. I was already having two projects in hand. Of course these are not the projects probably I will take right now because they were like smaller scope projects. But I didn't care. I was fine doing anything. And that's how it started. Without any stop.
- [22:12]
Radi Malinich
That's a great sign. When you start on your own and the phone is ringing, obviously you've got something to do because it's almost like the planets align like it's meant to be. Because there's so much fear about changing lanes and so much change, so much fear about making a pivot. But it's only when you do it, when you actually follow your heart and you follow your soul, you're like oh, I was meant to do this and actually I'm happy to leave this behind because is it too easy to weigh yourself to a Wrong solution. Maybe it is. So you said you didn't see yourself as an entrepreneurial person, but here you are, you making it work. So do we overthink it? Do we think that we know something or we are something that we shouldn't be like? Do we overthink it?
- [22:58]
Ete Erislan
Yeah, we sometimes overthink it. I don't want to say to people, just jump to the sea and then you're going to find your path. But I did deliberately for two, three years, I did lots of soul searching. I tried so many different types of experiences. Like I went to acting classes, I went to a sabbatical in New York where I started learning new dance styles and so on. I was just soul searching and soul searching, reading books about career change, what I'm going to do in life. And when you look at my library, which is now a library in our summer house since I couldn't move the books to here, but it's just like that phase is so obvious. It's just like all the personal development books are over there. And when I work on books, I really work on them. If there's like a exercise at the end of the book, I do them. As I mentioned, if I do something, I do it really. So that's why that soul searching, I think helps me identify the possible paths that I can take and maybe probably build some confidence. But also the same attitude. When I left college and I started working as a textile engineer and I took it so seriously at that time I was like, these two projects that has been handed over to me at day one, I'm gonna do it the best I can and then I'll see how it goes on the road. And that's my attitude. I think that helped. But what I would suggest to people, especially if someone asks me, should I start a new business or whatever, should I leave corporate, I asked them two questions. Are you okay to work alone? That's the first question. Because people hate that and are you disciplined enough? And when they say, oh yeah, I'm quite disciplined, and so on, and I really question that answer because I'm a very extremely self disciplined person and sometimes to the extremes, which it should be a little bit less, a little bit less extreme in my opinion. And I still find myself sometimes going off the path and I need to get myself together and so on. And if I struggle about discipline as a person like this, I think that's also a very important checkpoint if you want to go to the entrepreneurial world. But I think you should answer this question better than I Do you are doing this for so many years?
- [25:29]
Radi Malinich
I mean, I can answer your two questions. Am I happy to work alone? Yes, I am. Am I disciplined? I am now, but I was not disciplined for a very long time. I was good at getting the job done, but I was breaking other things whilst I was fixing something else, whilst I was making something else. So for me, it was always like, who shouts louder, gets the job done first and then whoever's not pushing, I'll do that thing in two weeks time. So I was always in the moment, but I was determined. I was not disciplined, but I was determined. I was devoted and determined to actually get a job done. Whereas now in my older age, it's more about discipline. It's absolutely. I know almost every minute or every day what's going to happen, how is it going to happen? And that beautiful feeling of actually knowing, that predictability that you know that you're going to get your exercise done in the first thing in the morning, that you're going to do this with the kids, you're going to have time for that, you've got time for everything. Because we spend so much time talking about work, life, balance, but we don't make it work. Like we just go, I wish it was working. What are you doing for it? Not much, just hoping and moaning. Okay. Yeah. So when you said, if someone says, I'm disciplined and you say, I question that answer, it's just that must be the biggest bullshit in the world. Are you disciplined? Let's be honest, I know lots of very, very successful people and they are more devoted and obsessed and they are disciplined because if they were disciplined, we would not burn out. We would have happier relationships, we're happier families, we would have happier relationship to our body. So the discipline, I think, comes with the headspace, that when you've got more time to think and observe and understand, which is an ongoing progress, that's where we get better. And I know that when you say I'm disciplined, I believe you. Because the way you get everything done and how you come across on, let's say, on LinkedIn and how you do things, there's an aura and there's a sense of sort of peaceful sense in the middle of a chaos. I think those two questions are absolute gold for people if they want to go on their own.
- [27:31]
Ete Erislan
Yeah, I had this friend who's working at Coca Cola. She's very good and working there and then she's going, growing up the leather and so on, and she was like, okay, I just want to explore if there's another world after Coca Cola. I'm just using the company name so cave because I have so many friends in Coca Cola. But then I questioned these things like, are you disciplined? She was like, oh, probably. I'm gonna sleep till 10am in the morning if there was no pressure of going to the office. And then it was already telling the story for her. She's really good because there's a corporate pressure and she's now like at the GM level. But when I ask in a very friendly environment while we are having some drinks and it's a chilled environment and so on, and she's very close to me and she was like, oh, probably, yes, you're right. I will be probably sleeping till 10 and going out at night. So yeah, that's interesting.
- [28:27]
Radi Malinich
Again, I think this goes back to your soul searching because again, I use this word a lot in some of these answers maybe related to how I was in that age. It was quite mature way of looking at the situation. Like soul searching. Like again, that's something maybe I would talk about. But I have done zero official soul searching in my life. Not officially. I'm sure I've done lots of soul searching, but I never had a label for it and I was maybe busy doing it. Maybe some of the book writing is soul searching per se. But soul searching has never been mentioned on this podcast. Like, people have done lots of things to do, but none of them went, I've got a plan. But what you do is do you are disciplined. So you were like, this is my plan. Maybe Stefan Sagmeister, his sabbaticals, best soul search. He never planned. Obviously they still happen and he's on one of them right now. But there's a lot of people who say I don't have a plan or I never had a plan. And we are proud of not having a plan at first look, it's just happening. Then you realize it could have been easier if I had a plan, wouldn't it? So your soul searching seemed to me like with your reading and your inner learnings, that was a sort of formation of a plan of what's going to happen next.
- [29:39]
Ete Erislan
I don't know. That's the main reason that I'm doing this soul searching thing or so on because I am aware that my time here is limited. It started by the time that I lost my dad at the age of 20 and he was really close to me and it was like a a year battle seeing him die every day because of cancer. And back then for 20 years since he passed away for 25 years ago, I thought that I didn't have any traumas and I was okay with that. I was really sad. But the other day I was thinking I actually had quite a lot of trauma because of that, because I still miss him so much. And most of the things that I do right now is motivated by the fact that he's somewhere watching it. Can it be the case? It's been 25 years and he still has that much of influence in my life. And that loss, big loss, very big loss in my 20 years of age made me recognize that this can end any day. Or I can lose my mom any day. I can lose my sister in any day, or I can even die myself any day. So it's just like that consciousness about the time, the age and health that is. It can go away just in a minute time. Make those conscious choices. Sometimes it's a little bit depressing, to be honest, to be that conscious about the fact that life is passing away and it can end anytime. But it always helps me ask this question, is this it that you want to do or are you aiming for something else in this life? So that's why I always wanted to, like at the age of 21, 22, it's the first time that I came to New York and I knew at that time I wanted to live here one day. And that's why I moved here two years ago, because it's the time that I was able to do that physically and financially, all these things. I think that's probably why I'm so determined to make things happen about life. And that's probably one of the reasons that I'm doing soul searching in a regular basis. But it's not like I'm taking like two, three weeks of vacation every time and I'm going somewhere and I'm doing soul searching. But it's just like a constant process in life. I do soul searching every single day. I can't tell.
- [32:12]
Radi Malinich
I think I remember seeing a picture that you posted on LinkedIn about maybe your dad's last day when you guys went to the beach on a. It was this sort of hardcore story. That was beautifully you put it, actually for everyone to see. Because I think there's more openness about our experiences. I think we are more open to share things that not just start with. I'm proud to announce I've just joined X, Y, Z as a marketing manager. Like, I think that thing should die a death because the more we put over our soul of that and more of Our sort of intentions and the way how we operate and live should I say not operate but live. It makes us more connected because it's the stories that we can almost feel them through someone else's post. You mentioned time and you mentioned that sort of feeling that time is limited. And I was actually only wrote one word for this conversation prior which is time. How much of a. How much of an impact does the time have on your day to day being? Do you have the time to enjoy things as maybe wrong question but like how hard is it to stay in the present by being aware of the bigger picture? Like do you allow yourself to get lost in the process or how much distraction kind of mortality have in your day to day work and life?
- [33:31]
Ete Erislan
I'm not sure if I'm doing it really good around this time because as we started it we were not recording at that time. I'm working literally seven days a week. But the construction of a day in that week is not like I start like 7am and I shut the computer around 9pm I open the laptop at 7am and I close it at 9pm the laptop is opened and closed a couple of times during the day because I started by reading a book and writing something. That's the day always starts with like meditation, writing and a book. But this is my flow. It doesn't need to be anyone else's flow. That's how I feel really happy and in the mood. And then I start working and then I go to the gym during the day. So there's blocks of breaks that I go for a walk. And today for example, I went for a walk at 6am in the morning because it was so beautiful. It was still dark and people still running on along the shore and so on. It was so beautiful. But then during the day I had some other breaks as well. I went to the market and so on. So it's just. Yes, I work a lot but I have this mindful breaks in between the day because I know myself that after two hours of focused work I have to give a break of around like half an hour, one hour. Uh, so I cannot work like five hours straight. I don't know if anyone can does that, but I cannot do that. I cannot do also zoom meetings more than two hours. That's my limit. Some people does that, but I don't know if that answered your question.
- [35:15]
Radi Malinich
It answered part of my question. Absolutely. I think you allow yourself to be present because I think if you were, let's say 20 years younger, you could do twice as much or three times as much. And because you would just accept it as a part of the process. Whereas now being aware of the fact that you know what I can do two hours and just go away and actually do things when you feel like them, that's a great way to have it because we can actually maybe lean back on a precedent of actually knowing what it was like to work nine to five every day, or nine to nine every day. Whereas I think because we appreciate the breaks, we appreciate the time that we can actually metabolize things and do stuff. But when you talk about time, it reminded me of a book by Oliver Bergman called 4,000 weeks. And you tell people it's 4,000 weeks and people go, is that all? I'm thinking that's quite a few, right? I never thought we live. If you live to 80, you've got 4,000 weeks. And when you think of it from that perspective, when you really want to do everything really well with every single week, that seems like a lot of effort. Because if you want to waste it, that seems so much easier. I'm not going to do anything. Whereas when you go to meeting of ambitious people, we almost feel like sometimes we don't celebrate enough of our achievements because you're like, I could have still done a bit more. Like, I still have an extra hour there. I could have actually done this and I could have actually done that. So with your time, I know that you, for example, currently number your LinkedIn posts with weeks. So like week 38, week 39. And. Yeah. So does it ever get scary when you realize, shit, it's October?
- [36:59]
Ete Erislan
Yeah, it sometimes feels like that. I don't know if if it stresses me or not. Sometimes it stresses me that time is really flying fast. But yeah, I don't know what to say now about this. Sometimes it stresses me, sometimes it doesn't.
- [37:16]
Radi Malinich
Can tell you that sometimes I just realize actually it's October. Thinking I thought it was April. Sometimes you just get so lost in time because you're busy. What do you mean it's October?
- [37:26]
Ete Erislan
A few weeks ago I was talking to my mom and because we have our summer house, we. We loved going to the summer house. And I thought at one point I didn't share this with her. And how many summers does she has? I don't know if we are lucky, four or five. She. She's not old, but she has cancer and a serious form of cancer. So it's just if we have four or five, then it means like, I need to plan these summers very, very nicely. And I Need to. That's why, for example, I know that she's going to come to New York in June. And I already planned that. Just like German people, they plan it a year ahead. But it's just I started doing longer term plans because of that. Because counting it based on the summers that is left is a disruptive approach even for us. Like how many summers probably you have? We have. We are at the same age. It's just like 30 maybe and already one is gone. So yeah, it feels a bit depressive. But it also makes you just take some risks. Some story to your new book then.
- [38:35]
Radi Malinich
Absolutely. I guess Lectures for mostly young students and I speak to mature creatives. There's a sort of depolar side and it's like how do you inspire people? Which is the wrong way to say it. Like how do you motivate people to actually want to go out and actually risk something and actually do something that might scare them? Because we all dream about change. We all dream about things. Like we. We want stuff that sometimes is running a bit too far to be achieved or to be reached. And the difference between it being done is sometimes so little. It's just a mindset. So yeah, thinking about from like, how do you give that urgency to people? Because it feels. Sometimes time feels so wasteful. I think that's the question of like, how do you do it? So let's go back from mortality and our limited time back to marvelous marketing, if it's all right. Yeah. So you have seen lots of changes throughout your career so far and the changes are happening thick and fast again. So I know that your fantastic podcast marketing meeting has been quite heavily focused on AI because that's very much the presence of our lives. So what have you seen change? What have you excited you, what have scared you recently and all that. So if you were to summarize marketing to someone who's never heard of marketing, how would you sort of summarize it? Like where it's been and where is it going?
- [40:00]
Ete Erislan
I know it since 15 years, 16 years, let's say. And I was not a marketer before that, but I feel that the big agency creatives, ad creation, TV ads and big budget ads are what actually defines marketing. So if you ask any person around you what marketing does, they probably set ads right. Like ads is a big thing and it's. That's the thing that consumes the most budget in a marketing team. I think that's shifting a lot. I'm not going to say that ads are over. I don't Think so. But the form of the ads that we are seeing, meaning that the platforms, the format and the things that we learned about ads will probably change. But the thing about the notion about ads, meaning that something is promoted and it's delivered to you by some kind of a promotion, is probably going to continue, meaning that it can be something like you open generative AI, you ask a question and the answers that you get from there are not generated by completely objective creation of the web like the big web, but it's, you know, filtered through the lens that some brands are putting some ads. So I'm expecting for example, ads to start showing up in generative AI in that world. Or for example, the other day a creative director friend of mine was saying, why are brands doing ads like that? And he's in the ad business, right? And I was just like, because I shared like an ad of a big company, big FMCG company. And I said, okay, what do you think about this? I want to get his thoughts. And he was like, I don't know what I want to think about it. But the question that he told me, why do you think people are doing these ads like this? Like some people are acting, there's like a story behind it and people are watching it and it's like a 60 second and so made up and it doesn't interest me at all anymore. And hearing that, I'm just like, yeah, why are people doing 60 second ads to be promoted in a TV or in like wherever place in social media? Doesn't matter. Maybe that might change in the future. But again, going back to the same question, that doesn't mean that the ad business will die. It's probably going to change format. And the thing about brands is, is it's hard to answer this question actually because I don't want to give declarative like big statements of brands like this will win or so on. Some brands will die probably in this age of AI and some brands will not die. That's all I can say. But back to your question about AI is I'm not scared because if things change or so on, we'll see how it happens. But I'm not in a position to be too enthusiastic or too excited about AI or I'm not in the position of being too pessimistic about AI because just an hour ago I was exchanging thoughts with AI on a messaging that I'm working for a client. And the answers that I see there helped me so much because I work alone. But some of the answers are really just doesn't make sense. But some of the answers really helped me shift some thoughts. But the thing is that not any marketer can take those answers and put it in the action. Because now I need to decide, okay, here are the suggestions of the messaging. I have a new copy. I interacted my new copywriter to come up with a new copy that's there. But then how are we using this copy? Is it going to be on the website? Is it going to be on social? Is it going to be on a white paper or so on then that my expertise comes in? So I see it as like a nice support desk or thought partner. But I'm not expecting too much from that as a thought partner. Yeah, I'm more in an objective state of mind when it comes to AI. And I think I'm no longer interviewing so much people about AI because I was so curious about what's going to happen. Because people are either too optimistic or too pessimistic about AI. There's no one sitting in the middle. It's just, okay, we'll see what's going to happen. It's just like some people are picking like sides on this, which I don't like. That's why I just didn't want to give like a general big statement about what's going on and what's going to happen in marketing, because anything can happen. We're gonna see.
- [44:52]
Radi Malinich
So you've decided to be in the middle. I like it. I'm happy to join you in the middle because I think the arrival of generative AI was met with such panic because it felt like it arrived out of nowhere. Of course, it was bubbling under the surface. For a long time. We were tagging our faces on Facebook going, hey, this is me in this photo. Like, we were helping machine learning for so long, doing also so many things. And then we just gave it a re marketing reworded into oh, it's AI. Oh, shit. Like, this is artificial intelligence. Because I think, I can't remember who was the writer who once said that to a primitive mind, intelligence seemed like a conspiracy. And when you put a word, intelligence, artificial intelligence, it can feel like a conspiracy. And of course there's a lot of stuff that's going on. Data scraping on a mass scale. That's happening right now because it's the commercial advantage, like someone making this stuff. It's not like we have all joint sources between all the countries to produce one model that will have someone that will help us all. It's a centralized thing with certain people doing certain Things. But as you quite beautifully described, you said, I was having an exchange with AI about ideas because I work alone. And I did something similar when I was writing one of these books, Mindful Creative. Almost like, how does the world see this problem? What is the average of seeing this problem? Because I kind of realized it's nice to write things from the first point of view. Like, from my view. But when I opened Claude, I was like, oh, okay, Claude. Like, what can we do here? Like, how do you see it? Can I have an outside opinion? Because a friend of mine called AI, it's like an intern. It'll give you stuff back. It's not very good, you need to clean it up, but it's getting better and more interesting. And I've had so many conversations on this podcast with some celebrated people in the industry. And those who work on their expression, they work on their creativity, don't feel frightened. In fact, they use it as a tool for help. It's something that moves the needle forward, moves the process forward. And I think this is the exciting part because we can't deny it. Like, we never really were threatened. Oh, shit, we got max now. Like, the people with whatever are going to be threatened because it's the progress. And I think what gets people is how fast it's happening. Because, yeah, we're doubling up every so often and it just feels like, oh, what do we do? Yeah.
- [47:23]
Ete Erislan
So if you are really active in marketing, for example, last week we were having this creative review with two, three people that are really creative people, right? Like, we had had comments and we saw it at different places. And then another creative person came in and showed something else, and we were like, oh, yes, this is going to change it. And the creative change after the fourth eye. And thinking about that, if three people that are completely big experts in this area are going through a loop and some other person, the fourth person comes in and still delivers, still is able to deliver a much better perspective, then it means. I don't think that AI would be able to do that. Probably AI would, can be the fifth person. But it really requires, if you are doing marketing work and creative work, it really requires, like some kind of expertise, long years of experience thinking differently, and it shipped. I don't think there's like the aha moment too much when you are working with AI. I said too much because sometimes it happens. It's just aha. I didn't think about that. That's a good perspective. I don't see it as an intern, only sometimes it acts like A real good insightful source resource. But sometimes it's just even worse than a junior intern. It's just like the expectation, what do you expect from it or not?
- [48:49]
Radi Malinich
Yeah, I think the juxtaposition of expectation is that we, we're expecting it not to do very well or just give it very little and expect very lots to come back. Because when you feed it the right questions, you get sometimes very, very good answers. If you were to think about something like this even 10 years ago, hey, you'll feed just some prompts into a machine of, into a software and it'll come back and give you actually quite good writing. Be like, nah, that's never gonna happen. Like we need that solved. But like with the intern, if you ask them, if you teach them how to ask good questions, they will start putting things together through pattern recognition and realizing actually we can do it that way, we can do this. No, this is because sometimes a fresh mind is very, very helpful, just as you described. Because if you are, if you get product focused people that are snow blind to all of it, then they just think it within the sort of echo chamber. So yeah, I think it's a really good example. But is there any particular tools that you use on day to day basis or you would recommend that are quite helpful to your workload?
- [49:52]
Ete Erislan
It comes to generative AI. I use Chat GPT and I previously I recently done my first own GPT and I called it my thought partner. It's just like I've had anything about my business and so on and it helped because I was working on some messaging and I was, I also asked it to say okay, shall I call my agency? An agency, a boutique, a company, a firm firm than all these thinking. But I use some other tools but they. For example, I use Crunchbase when I'm looking for a podcast guest or for a new client. And I know that Crunchbase has an AI algorithm in the back but in terms of generative AI it's only ChatGPT. I tried per pixelity. I sometimes do Google but still it's chatgpt is the one that I use the most.
- [50:50]
Radi Malinich
That's an interesting answer. I had someone calling me and they said I've got problems with my order. I'm like okay, I run a couple of online shops like which one is it? She's like oh, I've got some shampoos. I'm like definitely not me. Oh, but you this, I knew that. But this is your number. I'm like okay, like how did you get my number? I was Google. And Google gave me this number and it was Gemini, totally made up. Like, oh, Brand New is the parent company of masters of brands and this is their number. Like the top and the bottom is right, but the middle bit is not. So it was like, again, we just rely on this to be perfect and it's nowhere perfect at all. I think in some ways it's like, in a way dangerous because have we made people believe that AI is there for the answers and they will take it and just use it? Because you say use Crunchbase to look for clients and cast. Some people ask who's the best branding designer and you get like a preset answers that they are not necessarily based on people's particular skills, they're just because those people might have more data on the system. So would you become more popular with the answer just because you've got more SEO or more pages on your website? So I think that seems quite scary. And I'm a big fan of Robbie Sutherland, who was talking about how the future of basically online search is going to be AI assistant. Like, give me a best toaster and I'll be like, again, here's a piece of shit toaster that's got the most SEO ranking and must be more information on the AI platform gonna be suggested over something. Which is actually a lot better because currently we're still doing it with humans. There's a website in the UK called which Question Mark? And they go and they test the Hoovers and they test the toasters and they do the product research diligently and unbiased. Whereas if you have something that doesn't know what his name is and then just you feed lots of data that's been scraped from a website, makes you a bit worried about teachers. Are we gonna get out of all of this?
- [52:48]
Ete Erislan
Also, like, I have a client, my first client, actually, one of the first projects that I had, they are doing chatbots. So they are in this AI business for so many years. And then when I talk to him, he says, we are in this business and we are doing it really good. But still human beings wants to talk to humans because chat bots are not there yet. They cannot solve the problems. Still, you do like big sentiment analysis and so on, but it's still just not ready to replace humans. But what he says is that where AI is useful in those type of things, people will still have call centers. But when someone calls a call center, the person already sees through the filter of AI the possibilities, the possible questions that might come up. And if someone like Chatbot actually in the back is giving a direction to the call center person. So it's not like we are talking to the chatbot to solve a problem. It's actually we are talking still to a human, but that human is taking some guidance from the chatbot itself. So that's, I think still there's too many things that needs to evolve till we see a big human resource change, probably in the world of marketing, in my opinion.
- [54:10]
Radi Malinich
So we started this conversation with what fun.
- [54:13]
Ete Erislan
Oh yeah, and time and time.
- [54:16]
Radi Malinich
Do you see yourself having fun in your time with your work?
- [54:21]
Ete Erislan
Yes, probably. That's why I'm working on weekends, because I like it. But I know and I'm conscious that I need to inject some more fun into it because I'm doing it too much. And I know that if I do this too much, which means work too much, sooner or later I'm not gonna have fun. So that's why I'm conscious about the fact that I need to inject some more personal time in between the working hours.
- [54:54]
Radi Malinich
I really enjoy learning about you a lot more. Obviously, we've known each other for a while, but I was really excited about joining the dots of how, how you got to where you are today and learning more about you as a person. Because it's given me an idea of what goes behind the mind of someone who's so determined and dedicated to their work and wants to strive and succeed and yeah, I'm sorry to hear about you, mom. Like how that influences the approach to life and sometimes we need sort of these sort of earth shattering events in our lives to actually realize that. You know what, let's take it seriously. Let's do it right. Because when you look back, I think it's a good way to see everything that you've created. So thank you for sharing this, all of this with me today.
- [55:39]
Ete Erislan
Thank you for inviting me to your show and giving me the opportunity to speak about my personal and also my business life, which is also a personal life.
- [55:49]
Radi Malinich
You're welcome.
- [56:00]
Hey, thank you for listening to this episode of Mindful Creative Podcast.
- [56:03]
I'd love to know your thoughts, questions or even suggestions.
- [56:06]
So please get in touch via the.
- [56:08]
Show notes or social channels. This episode was produced and presented by me, Radha Malinich.
- [56:14]
Editing and audio production was masterfully done.
- [56:16]
By Neil McKay from 7 Million Bikes podcast and the theme music was written and produced by Jack James. Thank you and I hope to see you on the next episode.
- [56:49]
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 provide them with value. So thank you for helping out. Thank you.