← Daring Forever (Find your Extraordinary)
Daring Forever (Find your Extraordinary)
The human side of running a creative business - David Sheldon-Hicks
01:00:07
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- [00:01]
Radi Malinich
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- [00:51]
David Sheldon Hicks
So I think as a studio owner, you get to a point not all of us do, but I did. I got to a point where I thought there's too many great projects out there that I would love to be attached to working on and I only have so many hours in the day and I do have a family and I do need to go back to them. You also realize it's a really arrogant position to think that you're the best creative director in the world. And actually I can hire one of the best creative directors in the world. Do you know what? I've hired seven, eight, maybe of the best creators directors in the world now and they all make me look way better than I made myself look.
- [01:34]
Radi Malinich
Welcome to Mindful Creative Podcast, a show about understanding how to deal with the highs and lows of creative lives. My name is Radi Malinich and creativity changed my life, but it also nearly killed me. In this season, inspired by my book of the same title, I am talking to some of the most celebrated figures in the creative industry. In our candid conversations, my guests share their experiences and how they overcame their challenges and struggles, how they learn to grow as creatives. A creative career in a 21st century can be overwhelming. I wanted to capture these honest and transparent conversations that might help you find that guiding light in your career. Thank you for joining me on this episode and taking the first or next step towards regaining control of your creative life.
- [02:23]
Unknown
You ready?
- [02:32]
Radi Malinich
My guest today has begun his career in graphic design and digital media before moving on to the fast moving world of music videos. This is where his passion for the craft and creativity of motion graphics led him to film, games and commercial campaigns. As founder of Territory Studios, his love of storytelling and technology established a reputation for beautifully crafted design led graphic narratives across genres and media. In our conversation, he discusses the challenges of creative leadership, the importance of embracing uncertainty, and a delicate balance between creative ambition and human well being. It's my pleasure to introduce David Sheldon Hicks Foreign.
- [03:20]
Unknown
Hey David, it's great to see You. Welcome to the show. How are you doing today?
- [03:25]
David Sheldon Hicks
Thank you for having me. I'm sat with a friend talking about stuff, so that's always good. I've just had my birthday, which was a bit emotional because I feel like 45 is a bit of a marker in the ground. I talk and think about it at different times because I think we all end up getting into this trap of measuring ourselves and like where we get to by certain points and it was funny. I've been listening to a lot of your other podcasts more recently and everyone reflects so beautifully. And I had a day yesterday where I. I was just a grumpy. I was just a grumpy git. Really grumpy git. And it's always interesting to see and figure out why that's going on. I think for me it's often when things aren't going to plan or maybe I have the wrong expectation of myself or what's going on around me and then, and then I react to that. Yeah, you've caught me on a funny day. I'm one day past 45, one day past my birthday, and I can't tell if I'm going to be cantankerous today or give you some sage, old wise wisdom.
- [04:30]
Unknown
I will ask you to reflect on some of those 45 years. For those who may have never heard of you, how would you describe yourself and what you do?
- [04:39]
David Sheldon Hicks
My dad and a husband, a conflicted creative. Do I run a business or am I a designer or something else entirely? I feel like at the moment my special thing or maybe the reason that people want to talk to me and understand what's going on in my head is because I went from being a designer, a motion designer, somebody that grew up in the 80s that saw the invention of computers. I'm sure we will have a romantic spot for something like Commodore 64 or a Sega Mega Drive or a Commodore Amiga or whatever your flavor was. In my generation, you saw that coming. You were excited by creativity. You were excited by creativity and mixing it with technology. And you rode that wave probably for a good amount of time. That was really exciting, like seeing that technology come to birth and seeing what could be, like the possibilities of what could be. And I think now I'm using creativity and technology and the understand of what's gone on in the world over those last 30, 40 years and feeling an amount of confidence on what's going to happen in the next 30 to 40 years. However, AI has turned up, so we'll see. All bets are off and Then at the same time building a studio around that, like, I've talked about this in different ways before, but seeing things like Star wars, seeing R2D2 project Princess Leia holographically, or see that 3D chessboard, or the idea that content can be three dimensional and in our environment and it feels like it's still elusive, it's still not quite there. Apple Vision Pro, Magic Leap headset, all that kind of stuff, these technologies excite me creatively because I know that when new technologies come through, whether that's the Gutenberg Press or the Internet, I know that that creates paradigm shifts and creativity. It creates an explosion of ideas and opportunity. So I'm always excited by that. And now in running a studio, in a company, I see the opportunity, but it's always then knowing how are those sounds going to shift on you? And emotionally you then go, is this adrenaline or is this fear? How much of the unknown is going to be a problem for us or an opportunity for us? So anxiety kicks in in interesting ways.
- [07:01]
Unknown
I like your reflective mood today. I think for such a beautiful introduction, you haven't told anyone what to do, you're run, or what you really do. But I want to talk about a thing that we just said. You said adrenaline versus fear. Is it a similar feeling, adrenaline and a fear? How would you distinguish one between another? Because I think you would agree that we need both of them in our creative process.
- [07:26]
David Sheldon Hicks
So if we think about where emotions come from, they're a physical manifestation. And it's probably come from evolution, isn't it? Fear's there to protect us. It's probably like an amber light in the. Just to make sure you don't do anything stupid so you or your tribe don't end up dying. So you should probably listen to it. Why is fear there? It's a signal, but you shouldn't let it. You shouldn't let it overwhelm. Adrenaline also is a chemical reaction. It's still emotional in some ways. You can create. There's excitement that comes from adrenaline and other things. God, I'm sounding incredibly scientific when it comes to emotions. But just sometimes, I don't know. With emotion, it sometimes helps me understand that it is a physical reaction and it will pass with time. And I think when we feel overwhelmed or stressed or anything else, it's useful to just reflect on that for a second and just know that it is a physical manifestation of something. So me feeling grumpy about being 45 is. It will pass. I'll be grumpy again. Don't get me wrong, give me about 45 minutes, I'll be there again. But grumpiness is a good. It's a critical. I can be critical of work and be grumpy and that's useful to make the work better. Maybe, perhaps. But adrenaline is useful too. Adrenaline keeps the energy up for me in moments where I need to get a lot of done stuff quickly. And it's a response to a time based pressure which comes through a lot in film based work. To go back to your original question, yeah. Founded Territory Studio with NICK GLOVER Almost 15 years ago now. We were started on the idea of a few friends coming together. There's also a chap called Lee Fasciani at the beginning. And the three of us set up Territory Studio I think just because we liked working with each other. I'd already had a motion design background. Lee had a kind of traditional graphic design background and Nick was more from the kind of client management side of things. And it was three friends coming together and excited by the ideas I think of the Bauhaus actually, just that you could not get too cut up in how you make something but just come to a project as creative problem solvers and then the realization of that will, will come through and however you decide to make it, you just need to. You need to come up with the best solution first and then worry about how you make it afterwards. So that was the seed of the idea for the studio. And since then Lee's gone on to. He decided that he didn't want to be a company founder. I think I can speak for him. I hope he doesn't mind me framing it this way. And he's gone client side and he's become a creative director client side and it's given him more of what he wanted ultimately. I think he's still very proud of what we're doing at Territory Studio. So Nick and I continue and then we've added others into the business that take it forward beyond us as well. We've got an amazing leadership team that they really run it as though it was their own too. I look at that and I think we must be doing something right because so many other people believe in it and they're running the company in some ways on a day to day anyway. And I don't think we could have got Territory Studio and now Territory Group as big as it is by trying to control the whole thing. And then you go, okay, so what am I doing? What's my bit? What's the value that I'm adding? How am I helping that team. And I gotta be honest with you, Adam, I don't have all the answers. Like, I'm still figuring it all out because every time we do something new, it's for the first time. So going back to the adrenaline thing, adrenaline turns up quite a lot because it is exciting. But I just don't know. And I'll share with the team. My best guess. This is what I think could work here. But we've definitely gone down lots of wrong. We've gone down some bad decisions, wrong decisions. We've learned from it. Other people that have worked with us on those decisions have also learned from it. They've maybe gone off in their own direction or they've stuck with us and evolved with us and turned it into something else. But, yeah, I think my biggest thing as owner, founder of a company and doing it for as long as I have done now is that somebody posted this on LinkedIn the other day, of which I probably spent too much time on. And they said, you're all just guessing, aren't you? I'm like, yeah, yeah, please don't tell everyone. But yeah, no, we totally are. We totally are. Nobody's got all the answers. And if you have got all the answers, you're probably quite formulaic. You're probably just answering the same question all the time. So for us to not have all the answers, but to have a process where we can go into new things, new exciting things and be excited and prepared for that is completely fine. And we do. I'm more talking about the growth of the business when I'm saying these things. When we're doing client projects, though, we do have a really robust process for doing world firsts. We've just worked with Thomas Heatherwick Studio to do an insane, complicated projection mapping project for the developers Crland and Xi'an. And Thomas and the team have come up with this incredible tree light structure. It's over 80 meters tall. And as you can imagine with the Heatherwick Studio projects, they're very organic, very complicated in shape. So you've got these incredible leaf structures that people can walk up and through. It's this huge centerpiece. And sue and Paul on our team have been working on this project now for about two years in terms of storytelling and projection and design and animation that both sympathetic to the architecture, but also tell the story of the region and so much history that goes on in Xi'an that kind of has led it to the city that it is now and being the start of the Silk Road. And so you get These insanely complicated projects and it's. Have you done this before? No, because Thomas Heatherwick hasn't designed a tree like this before and we haven't done storytelling at this scale in this way before. But do we have a process for taking on really tricky things? Yes, absolutely. Do we have probably some of the best brains in the world for taking this on? Yeah. So if anyone can do it, it will be us. But not everything's solved yet. And stress, adrenaline, a little bit of fear, quite a lot of excitement comes through in that. And it's about managing it. It's about managing it as you would a timeline, a budget or a style frame. It's all the same. And what I've realized is actually being a designer is really good preparation for running a business. I don't always employ the lessons that I've learned in a painful way over the years, and I. I sometimes retread the same stupid mistakes that I've made before. But, yeah, it is an exciting journey. And I think if you're going to set up a creative studio, not that anyone's asked me for advice, but my advice would be just make sure that you're doing things that excite you because it's really hard work. It's really, really hard work. And if you just want to make money, can be a banker. If you're going to be a creative studio, just make sure you're enjoying as many of the days as possible because it's not easy doing this stuff. It's ridiculous.
- [14:30]
Unknown
I'm going to make you feel better about yourself because my therapist says that even the best surgeon can't take out their own appendix. You don't always follow your own advice. Like, sometimes we know how to advise people on doing the right thing, yet sometimes our vision through adrenaline and fear and excitement and all the other factors can actually be quite clouded. So what you're describing, I think it's a proper and beautiful roller coaster of how business of creativity works, because adrenaline. And you sounded very scientific about adrenaline and fear. Adrenaline technically only works for 30 minutes. So when you feel really, really hyped up, especially let's say you're about to do a talk to 3,000 people and you're like, oh, shit, I'm really feeling the experience. Pace it around for 30 minutes, like, big presentation, get there for 30 minutes early, burn off the adrenaline and then just go in with just a tinge of fear going, you know what? I can do this. But when you describe it, I think it's a beautiful way of talking about how creativity in the 21st century works. Because if you don't have the answers, you have a process and that's the best part of it. Because who's coming for ready made answers? Like people want something different, people want something new, something exciting. So having them on the shelf ready solution won't be the point. So what you're describing I think is really, really interesting and I thought territory was going for longer than 15 years. I think what you've created in 15 years is remarkable. Yeah, it's been great to see most of it happen in front of my eyes because I've been doing it for 20 odd years. I think when you put that as a designer and a creative and a leader, it's very, very impressive. So you said you were conflicted, you were not sure if you are running a business or if you're a designer. Does it matter these days that you have to have a right title and the right mindset because things change daily, Right?
- [16:23]
David Sheldon Hicks
We'll be back after a quick break.
- [16:26]
Radi Malinich
If you're enjoying this podcast and would like more support and information on your creative journey, you can pick up one 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 the 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.
- [16:54]
Unknown
For extra 10% off your order and.
- [16:56]
Radi Malinich
You can find the links in the show notes. Any day should be a new book day.
- [17:10]
David Sheldon Hicks
So yes and no is my current lesson. Does it matter to me personally and to my family? Nope. They do not care what I call myself other than maybe if I'm filling in paperwork for a mortgage. So no, it doesn't matter at all. For the team. I think it does matter sometimes. Who do I go to for what? When do I talk to David about his decision? When might I just go and do it myself? Basically, if it's going to break the company, please come and talk to me first. Otherwise you're good to go. That's always met with oh crap, maybe I'll check more things with you than I thought, but I know I think titles don't matter. In some ways I think they do though. So I think it comes from a place of as creatives, we're often apologetic for our career choice. I think sometimes we're conflicted. I was thinking on the walk in, like, why are we so conflicted as creatives And I think it's typically when business is going well, you're quite neutral with it, you're thinking cleanly, professionally. It's something that's more run through objectivity than subjectivity. You're there because of your passion for it, you're trading on love and passion for something. And often that gets abused in the commercial arena. And we don't always end up working to the benefit of our profession. So this kind of emotional aspect of what we do is not always to our advantage commercially. And so balancing that in the right way or presenting the right part of ourselves so that's not taken advantage of I think is really important. So things like external title or perception or the way in which we frame our value in the conversation of helping a commercial objective is key. And so sometimes I think it's tricky. I think about it as how do we behave in the grown up world? And it's funny, some of my film clients joke with me that oh yeah, you work in the real world as well, don't you? You actually do real design problems, you don't just do make believe. And I think it's funny that they see it in that way. And I don't think that they realize how much of the real world actually look at what they're doing with rose tinted glasses as well. So I think, I worry for our industry that we don't always give a good version of ourselves and we are self deprecating and I don't think that's just the British guy talking here. I think as an industry or self deprecating and we don't realize the value that we add to the world. And I'm exploring this. I'm going through a process of writing a book at the moment and I'm chatting to lots of really interesting people. Some of them are futurists, scientists, engineers, politicians, some world leaders, artists, designers. And what I realize is that all of those people are connected by a creative thinking. There's a mental model for having a vision for the world, having being, saying this is not great and if we're going to create change, we need to have a new vision of what could be. And once we have a new vision of what could be, we need to go on a journey as a group of people enact and create that new thing. And that could be, that could be a somebody creating a trainer at Nike or somebody at Google creating a new platform experience or a politician creating change in a country or a scientist creating a new innovation moving forward. Like all of these people are connected Through a creative mindset, they're creating change like that. Lateral thinking, not accepting the norm, not accepting the pre established set of rules is definitely a creative mindset. And at school we create this separation between science, maths, English, technology and art is sometimes depicted as the hobby subject. And I think moving forward, if technology is going to take the place of a lot of automation and business as usual for white collar workers, blue collar work, the whole spectrum, I don't think anyone's going to be untouched by AI. And what's coming then really what's left is the new bit. It's the untapped areas that haven't been moved into before and it's the creative thinkers that know how to move into that space and create those opportunities. And we've just devalued it for too long. We've put it down as the hobby and I think as creative professionals we've allowed that narrative to play out. I think we've been too apologetic for our place in the world. And actually I think we need to be up in the C suite just. And entrepreneurs and CEOs, the leaders in these businesses are insanely creative. They're massively, massively creative thinkers. They see it as their point of difference in those conversations. Those visionaries cannot create growth in their businesses at the scale that they're doing without creative thinking, without seeing the new opportunities. So we are in a wonderful position to influence this world in ways that we should be doing, and we do at times, but I just don't know if we're doing it as well as we could do. And I just think that there's time to be more confident and a bit more grown up in that conversation and hold our own. And it's just knowing how to do that.
- [22:42]
Unknown
I mean, you've mentioned many, many, many interesting points and I think the, the question of confidence, what is perceived now, let's say by people like you and me and I feel like the up and coming generations got totally different approach to confidence and an expression because obviously we feel like we need to earn our place at the table. This is my accomplishments, this is what I've did, this is my cv. I haven't done the thing you're asking me to do because obviously if I haven't done it, you know, if I've done it, we would not be creating the future. So that's there. But I think that deprecation you were talking about and the fact that we were working it out most of the time we didn't have the manual, we didn't have the checkpoint or checklist of, okay, am I going the right direction? Am I doing the right thing? Because we were lost, because we have left a lot of breadcrumbs for people who are following our footsteps. There's a lot more information available, there's a lot more tools, there's a lot more tutorials. You can feel like a superhero a lot sooner, a lot quicker in your career because you are already gaining a lot more knowledge and skills a lot earlier if you immerse yourself. Because the technology that you describe and the tools that we have, the advancements in software, they were not there 20 years ago, 15 years ago, 25 years ago. Whereas we've got more of the stuff and it does more of the things. And I'm not going to hopefully cheapen the process, but because you can click a few buttons, a lot of the processes that used to be a skill are now automated. It can give you the perception that you actually moving forward faster. Therefore, I think our generation still feels like, oh, I can't believe this came together. You've worked on it for 25 years, like you've been working on yourself. It's coming together. Own it, enjoy it and stick with it and believe in it, because that's how we do stuff. So I think that the element of confidence, we just need to enjoy it because we've been working hard on actually creating a lot more beyond just our sort of edges of the industry for the benefit of others, in terms of creativity, because most of that has been used for AI learnings, for scraping, and we've been creating a narrative that's been.
- [24:42]
David Sheldon Hicks
Taken forward to add onto your points there. We need to be clear on the difference between confidence and arrogance. The tricky thing with arrogance is you become complacent and then the work starts to falter. So it's being confident in knowing that you need to constantly improve. There's a tricky balancing out there. And I know a lot of your other speakers have talked about meditation and about returning to the breath. And I think in the same way, there's a kind of, how do you return to that mind state of confidently doing things you haven't done before and just being really inquisitive and just not knowing the answers. I know I can excel and do a great job here, but I don't have the answers yet. And so I think arrogance slips in when you think you have the answers immediately, it's okay, you're dead to me now creatively, because that is going to build repetition or the same mistake or Just vanilla work. And I find it in a lot of people here. They're all brilliant, but they don't behave like it because it's really dangerous to start believing in that brilliance. So you don't want to lose confidence and not try new exciting things. And it's like this thin layer of existence you're existing between excited by the possible but not being presumptive, that you've got all the answers. And that's a very delicate mind state to exist in. And I think some people naturally are there and others go in and out of it. And you just help them exist in that space of just being really interested, really into the idea of finding the new potential without believing that just because your last piece of work was awarded or well received or was the right color that year, whatever the thing that you need to re approach this one in a completely different way. It's super hard. It's super hard. As we were talking about that emotional state, returning to the breath, returning to a meditative state, or entering into a state of flow in that mindset is there's a reason you have to practice it every day, because it's so easy to slip out and to go back to bad behaviors and lose sight of what's important in that moment. So easily our head, our minds go to the future or the past and we get into our headspace, we get into that dialogue. I mean, it's nice talking about this now because I definitely see that in myself. Yesterday I was getting into this kind of grumpy state, middle aged man, grumpy state for my birthday. And just it was very inward and poor me for a moment. It's like, God damn it, it's your birthday. And like, just take a look for a second what's going on in your life. You've got your health, you've got your children, your family around. You got wonderful, wonderful creative studio surrounded by brilliant people, brilliant creative minds. There's so much to be grateful for. But how easy for somebody that should be so grateful that you can start like just going inward. And my wife caught me a few times and she called me to bloody pull yourself out of it. Quick verbal kind of slap. And she's wonderful for that. She's very good at just calling the truth. I'm not always ready for it and I take a moment to go back. But you need those people around you to keep you grounded and not to lose sight of just how lucky we all are to be doing what we're doing.
- [28:18]
Unknown
I'm happy for you to go through those stages because it makes you feel alive. We think that we should be celebrating and like dancing in the street, going, look, I've got everything that's happening, but it's the creative conflict is the overwhelm. This is where stuff's happening. Because I did a TED talk a few days ago and I said that my impression of creativity was this calm lake with no ripples and a beautiful sunset. Instead, I got no choppy waves, wipeouts and stormy oceans, because that's how creativity works. It's the thing that you mentioned earlier. We can't control everything. We want to be thinking that we can be in control of everything, but we can't control creativity. But we can learn how to use it. This is the way of manifesting with the medium because it's, in a way, it's an untamed beast. It's got so many options. And as I said earlier, it doesn't have a manual. There's some sort of idea of how things were done in the past with the sort of legacy projects and some precedents, but we are still taking it somewhere new. Because how many creators are happy to fight to their last breath on LinkedIn or whatever, saying, this is my original idea? You thinking, yeah, you don't know what you're saying because that's been done zillion times before. But I'm happy for you to think that way because that's where it's pushing you. So they are almost willingly, we are throwing ourselves into those sort of stormy ways and fighting for idea because we want to be proud of something. So it being easy. How many years ago would you have given up? I'm sensing that you could actually have been feeling yesterday. It's the heaviness and the joy together when they meet together. Because you might have your partner saying, or your wife saying, I think you should have a break.
- [29:53]
David Sheldon Hicks
Oh, yeah, she's been saying that for 20 years. And she also knows that I probably won't retire. We talked about, if you ever stopped doing this, what would you do? And she said, you have to go and still design and go and do work like you don't operate any other way. And she's right. I like, I am this way. I like doing things that are hard. And I'm surrounded by people that are doing hard things all the time. This team that are out in China, I haven't caught up with them recently. I've barely seen them in the last few months. And I know it's because they're living and breathing the project. I know it we've got film team. We are working on some of the most insane film titles right now, none of which I can talk about on this podcast because they're all under NDA but just some of the biggest names in the industry and they're demanding people because they want the work to be great and we're demanding of ourselves. We expect so much of ourselves. I think everyone's their harshest critic, but I truly believe in that. I think sometimes creatives, or maybe I'm trying not to virtue signal and I'm trying not to reflect too much here, but just to acknowledge that I think the idea of legacy for me, the idea that at moments the work could live beyond me. I don't know if that's mad ego, maybe that's male ego, but the work could live beyond me and that this studio could live beyond me. And if when I look at my kids or I look at the younger generation and I know that it's really hard for creatives to feel valued and to feel as though this is the right career choice and it's going to look after them and I think so often it doesn't enough. And so if what we're building here or with what other studios around the world are building towards where it can be a place for those misfits, it can be a place for those people that are wired to be creative, technical, hybrid talents that are finding their way in the world and there can be places to go and do that as a job and it's fun and it's safe and it's innovative and they like working with the people around them. If my work is that I leave that studio or that work and that's my. I like the idea of that legacy like that living beyond me because we know that immortality is impossible. But through creativity, if it can be so corny, isn't it? It's so corny. But if it can be that little, yeah, the world can be left. I think that is wired into us. I think as creators we genuinely believe that it's not. And especially designers, I don't think we are purely self expression. I don't think it is that selfish an engagement. I think we are genuinely, through creative problem solving going. I want my time to mean something genuinely, I really want it. My kids mean something to me. My children, my legacy there means something to me, but also what I'm giving so much of my time in my life for. If that can mean something beyond me, if I don't have religion in my life anymore, if I Don't have that belief. I think as a creative designer or a technologist or whatever you are doing and leaving in the world, if that can be more than a landfill, please. I think that's what we're striving for. And it's hard. It's hard to find those opportunities. And then when you find those opportunities, doing it justice and it does become hard work. And if it isn't hard work, then it probably isn't moving things, moving the needle or doing something. I do like hard work sometimes, but then sometimes I find it. It's hard work and it's too much. It's like, why did I say yes to this? This is really hard. This was my decision. Why did I say yes to this? So, yeah, that's me. That's as vulnerable as I get, I think on a podcast.
- [33:49]
Unknown
Thank you. Thank you for sharing with me. Because it needs to be hard. We dream about easy, but it needs to be hard. It shouldn't be hard all the time because there's a progress that makes us enjoy. We are making sense.
- [34:00]
David Sheldon Hicks
We've worked with Denis Villeneuve since Blade Runner 2049. And whenever I name drop like this, obviously our day to day contact is typically the production designer, the visual effects supervisor. So on Blade Runner it was Paul Inglis, longtime collaborative, brilliant, brilliant designer on films. Then we went over to working on June Part one and we were working with Patrice Vermette again, great friend, great collaborator. On Dune Part 2 We were working with Paul Lambert as the visual effects supervisor on the. On the holographic tables. And Denis was there again asking for us to be on the project, which was so special. And we worked with him, I think for about three or four months. None of that work was easy, but it wasn't not easy because Denis wasn't a wonderful person to work with. I genuinely, yes, he was expecting a lot of the project and the process and wanting the work to be as good as it possibly could be. And if we think about the hours that we put in and we think about, like, how much that project pushed us forward, if that person on the end of the phone line was being horrible, it would have just felt stressful and horrible and tough. But it all just disappeared because they were so wonderfully motivating and inspirational, just such a great creative collaborator. So I think things can be really, really tough, but really, really wonderful at the same time. And when that magic happens, it just disappears. And I think that sometimes what leadership in projects misses is like, how do we turn this really, really tough thing into A really, really wonderful tough thing that we all go, yeah, do you know what? I'm a little bit bruised, I'm exhausted. I really feel like I've gone through the mill on this one. But I look back at it and go, that was so much fun. That was so much fun. It shouldn't be that hard work isn't fun. And I think sometimes in the wokeism and the social media echo chamber that is out there right now, we've gone so far in the direction and Tom, my MT is listening to this, he's going to roll his eyes at this one because I do push hard on the work ethic for the people that are ready for it or that want to do it. I was in early this morning and a whole bunch of them were already in earlier than me. And I said, what are you working on? And they tell me about the film projects like, okay, I know where you're in earlier than me. You are having more fun than I am. I'm going to start my day with a spreadsheet and an email. They're going to start their day with being an after effects and illustrator and designing some beautiful, beautiful things. So I think as long as the pain is accepted because of what you're putting in, you're getting out. I think you choose to go in that direction. You choose that it's worth your time and your effort and that's so hard for a creative studio to always bring those opportunities to you because you don't always know. It's interesting. I think with June2 we always knew even before reading the script it was going to be a wonderful project because Dene had got so many things right before. But you sometimes read a script at the start of and think, well, this is going to be a big project for us. This is going to be really hard. Can we do it justice? Yeah, we think we can. We've got the right team for this, we've got the right capacity, we've got enough time, all the pieces are in place for this to be a great project. And then you get to the cinema and you watch and you go, wow, our work was great idea. Doesn't look like this is going to be critically well received right now. And you go, okay, we've done some brilliant work and a less well received project which kind of takes the shine off of it. So knowing you could never be confident that projects that you're putting all of your love, heart, time, you're making personal sacrifice, maybe you're not seeing your girlfriend that night, whatever is it's tricky to call it at the very beginning. And that's really hard. That's really hard for creatives and producers and a finance team. It, everyone. It's like you're trying to find the projects that you're investing so much love, passion and your life into. Because it is those hours that are ticking away that's you're not getting that time back. You've chosen to devote yourself to it. At that point, is it the right decision? Or should you be on an exercise bike or having a good meal or doing something else entirely else? So it's constantly what we end up asking ourselves. Is it worth this effort?
- [38:20]
Unknown
You mentioned something which I can relate to. You said, there's people having fun in After Effects and Illustrator and I'm looking after spreadsheets. Do you feel as an eternal design thinker and maker, that you should have potentially stayed doing the thing, or are you happy that you progressed to where you are because you are supporting your team? You let them do the right thing. You've created the opportunities for them. So actually you've changed other people's lives so much that your inward look and reflection is actually more about happiness, is what you do for others, not what comes to you. And I think what you describe and I would like you to define the hard and easy in your projects, but what you describe. And you're creating these conditions that other people can actually reach happiness through actually being of service to something which is defining future.
- [39:14]
David Sheldon Hicks
So I think as a studio owner, you get to a point not all of us do, but I did. I got to a point where I thought, there's too many great projects out there that I would love to be attached to working on. And I only have so many hours in the day and I do have a family and I do need to go back to them. You also realize it's a really arrogant position to think that you're the best creative director in the world. And actually, I can hire one of the best creative directors in the world. Do you know what? I've had seven, eight, maybe of the best creative directors in the world now. And they all make me look way better than I made myself look. And you get excited by the variety that that brings with it. And now I get to just be proud through association. So the brand and the studio represents that collective of not just creative directors, but exec producers and accountants and IT engineers and everyone else. And yesterday we posted a credit list for one of the projects that we worked on. And you look at that and go, that's not just designers, compositors, art directors, creative directors. There's a whole collection of different people here that have made that happen. If we didn't get those invoices out on time or if we didn't bring that schedule in that project in our schedule and exceed client expectations, that client won't come back. It's more than the creativity always. It's always more. So I got to a point at least 10 years ago where I hired a brilliant creative director and he's still here. And then he hired some brilliant creative directors and they're still here. And. And then Marty went over to San Francisco and set up that entire team. And then we brought Cantina into the mix and they added additional variety. So it's, you got to do it with friends. And I look at all of them and think, do I miss that work? I personally don't. And I can understand why other creative founders would, they still love doing the thing. But when I brought in people that were just doing such brilliant work and I thought, I'm so pleased to see what Andrew can do on Blade Runner or to step back and see Marty working with Nike or whoever it is, you just go, good God, I'm so proud and pleased that I had the self awareness to step back. Now, honestly, anyone from my team listening back to this podcast right now is going, he doesn't let go of anything. He keeps getting involved in all sorts of stuff. What are you talking about? I'm pretty far away from the creative process right now. It's rare that I get too involved in the projects. What I do is setting them up in the right way to give our team the best chance of success and to engineer that chemistry in terms of the brief coming through, the understanding what's going on for the client. Because it's so much more complex than the initial brief. Always like all the other politics going on their side, whether it's a film director, a brand director, creative on the brand side at the agency. There's so much more to that initial if you can set it up in the right way and it's not just about how you crew your team, but how you set expectations and all the rest of it. At least you're starting from the right place and the right trajectory and you're solving for the right question. And if I've asked all the right questions and the team that I work with in terms of teeing that up, have asked all the right questions, you can get some truly unique special projects from that. So that's the bit that I still personally hold on to and I still get excited by. I still like having conversations with film directors and production designers and creative directors at Nike or design directors at the car brands. They're fascinating, fascinating design and creative leaders to work alongside. But I also do need to get out of the way of my team and I love just watching them take it in directions always exceedingly like expectation. And it's the same when I look at other design videos. I think you, I think you interviewed Simon at Dixon Backsea and you've interviewed so many fascinating people. And I look at their work, you always wonder how they've done it. Is it a similar, is it a similar sort of route? Have they completely stepped away from design or do they still like to keep their hand in? I have a notebook and I'll sketch diagrams and things in front of people. As I'm talking about, I might be talking about like really dry things like operations or like how we split out a budget or what's the organizational dynamic, client side and like where's the decision getting made and then what might be the blockers or how do we unlock the potential of the project in that way. And I'll always be. I've got awful little sketches that probably don't make any sense to anyone. But as I'm talking through in the room and I'm working it through with people and they're sketching over the top of that, that's me being a designer, but really a designer and using that as somebody that's running this size business with four or five offices around the world.
- [44:25]
Unknown
What you're describing, what you've created reminds me of a quote by Ken Robinson, the wonderful Ken Robinson, who said the role of a gardener is not to make the plant grow, it's to create optimal conditions for growth. This is what you do, I think with age that you somehow don't want to celebrate today the older age. Should I say we get a bit more perspective? Because Simon Dixon said, and I'm very much believing that is that in our early stages of our career is very much self obsessed about us. The ego like the ego is being a sense of identity. We want to be in every room, on every credit list, part of every work. In fact, we would like to do it all ourselves. And then we let go because we actually let us finally work out that we're not right about every decision, about every idea, about everything. So we start letting go until to the point of yeah, you know what? I'm actually here for anything, anything goes. Because let Me actually take it all in and make tune into the right signals, understand it and observe what needs to be done. Because yeah, you need people who are self obsessed because they're the new sparks, but you also need people who are like yourself, who are like, you know what, I'm here to support you and give you the chance to actually create some of the most memorable work that can outlive the studio, for example. But what I want to ask you is that, see that comes with responsibility. And you mentioned two words, easy and hard quite a few times in your answers. So when things get hard, we wish them to be easy, but when they get hard, is there some sort of, do you have a studio policy or how do you support your people to get through things that can be sometimes quite tough because what you guys work on is top of the tree. And as it could potentially be as hard as it can get, I again.
- [46:03]
David Sheldon Hicks
I don't think we've solved that entirely. Do we always support people as well as we should do? Nope, not if I'm being super self critical. I don't think we have grabbed it. I think I try and be human and just talk to people. There's a creative director at the moment that Sam, I hope he's listening to this. Sam is working on an incredibly tricky project. He always seems to find some of the trickiest projects too. I know he knows how to manage it. I know he knows how to manage this character that we're working with. And this character is a big name, well known, heavyweight of the industry. And they're going through a process. You can see it. The psychology of it is they're working through some creative problems and they haven't found the answer yet. So they're finding their way and they're getting frustrated. They're getting frustrated with that. And I can see how Sam's trying to help him through, but he's taking on a lot. It's hitting him, it's hitting him hard and he's shielding his team. And I look at that person, I go, how can I help there? I don't know if I've done enough. I talk to him, I check in, I know he's got it covered. And I think as a leader you can sometimes step in too much and then you undermine. So there's such a tricky balancing act around. I need to know that I'm there for them and if they need to come to me, like I'll be open door. But also they know that it's hard but they're working through it. There's very few times where I have to fully step in and go, look, this is too much for your health. Now we need to call it whatever the thing is. But I think just people knowing that you're there and supporting is all you can do sometimes. And it's such a balancing act because. And it goes back to the emotion of it all again. Often I find when people are going through, like you might see them react in a way, you just think, well, that's out of kilter with what you were expecting with the problem that you're solving for. Like, it's such an emotional response, what's going on there? And you find out that things are going on for them at home, or it's is coming from all angles. And it's really hard as a business owner because you can't help people with everything. Like, I can be human about it, and I can say, this is how I work through my problems. I let people know that I've been doing therapy, that I've done therapy for eight, nine years, and that helps me. We have a service here where you can call up and you can access like a professional therapist and stuff as and when you need it. But other than giving them all the team that they need and supporting them with technology and with process and putting a much rigor and experience around them as you possibly can, but some projects just go sideways on you and there's just the. So then it's okay. Do we need to call it? Do we need to have a conversation and talk it through? Talk it through. But I think the honest answer is just be human. Just be human and listen to what's going on for them. Because more, nine times out of 10, they'll then talk it through and go, ah, I see now I need to do this. And it will be an unlock. Sometimes you need to do that for the other side of the equation, for the client partner who is going through their own thing. And I have been on call to people and said, are you all right? Is it all right? Are you okay? Because it's just creativity. We'll figure this out. Don't worry. It's still resolvable. But as long as nobody's gonna die, they just calm the situation down a little bit. And people, like I said to you before, on both sides of the equation, client side and agency side, you are investing so much personally, you get so emotionally attached, you convince yourself of certain internal narratives that are maybe not healthy. And so it's digging into that a little bit, getting a little bit uncomfortable. With all of that and getting to the human truth of it all. If you can get there and it does get a bit sticky and it does get a little bit uncomfortable, if you can get to that, then you find that there's an unlock. Sometimes people just need time. They just need time and distance or a walk. And that's sometimes when I worry about the remote working of it all. When people are just five days from home because they are isolated in some extent and they haven't got the team around them to feel that support. And the video coolness of it all is actually, is not always great. So I do worry about that. And we try and put as much as we can or just do quarterly events where we'll do a screening in our screening room of a cool film, maybe people come in for that. But yeah, that human just being human I think is the best way to support people through tough projects and just to make sure that you've invested in enough of the technology, the tools and the support team. But again, I haven't got it all right. I definitely haven't got it all right. I'm still figuring it out as I'm going along. I'm still trying to get better. If one day we're going to have a legacy of territory, studio living beyond me and the original team, there's still a lot of work to do. There's still a lot of stuff to figure out.
- [51:16]
Unknown
If you think about it, you're still a young teenager, you're 15 years old. You've achieved a lot for a teenager that's 15 years old as a studio. Because what you're describing and sometimes in comparison to something that's been here for, let's say a hundred years, they are still working it out, they're still reflecting to changes, reflecting to new advancements. So I think to be finding yourself on that sort of life raft in the middle of that stormy ocean, I think that's just a part of the equation. Because you mentioned this really interesting comparison when you talked about film directors and them making a joke about you needing to work in a real world. Because when you're making the make believe, you're still making it with the real world situation. Like you can escape for a little bit, but then it all still drills down to, or boils down to the fact that it's produced by humans, for humans, with technology invented by humans. And there's always going to be some element that's going to not work and make it for what it is. With what you described, we hope we can Talk about it for a couple of seconds is that you mentioned that within the last 15 years you've had professional health with therapy. So that means that within the first seven years of running a company, you start working on yourself or start to make sense of things. How much did that influence you as a creative and as a leader? And what sort of different outlook did it give you on creativity?
- [52:39]
David Sheldon Hicks
So for the first seven years of the studio, I wasn't doing therapy. And actually, do you know what, I must have been doing therapy longer than that because I think I stopped being a creative director on projects. It must have been about three or four years in. It was around about the time. So the reason that I stopped being a creative director and hired someone in was because we were on Marvel Avengers Age of Ultron and we were on Star Wars A Force Awakens at the same time. And I realized I was beyond my capacity and I realized that I was the bottleneck. So that was a big realization for me. And I think that's when I became comfortable with stepping away from doing that. So it was a few years after that I started doing therapy. The reason that's important is I think I became a creative leader or a business leader for two, three years before doing therapy. But there wasn't any overlap with therapy and being in the creative. And actually, do you know what? I think it would have really helped. I think it would have really, really helped. Just taking an hour a week just to reflect on what's going on for you and the things that impacting you in your life. I love my dad this year and a close friend, my dad, my stepdad, but very close to me, battle with cancer for about 18 months. And I probably went through the mourning process a number of times because we thought we were going to lose him along that journey. And like I say to you, I think you're not just a creative, you're a human being. And there's things going on in your life separately, right? And normally when I get emotionally overwhelmed with being a creative or running a business, it's also because some crap's going on at home. Really. I'm a complete human being, so you can't separate that. So working on yourself, working on your emotional self is. You do that as a creative and it will be useful to you as a creative, but just focus on you as a human first and foremost. So becoming a better human makes me a better creative, makes me a better business owner, hopefully makes me more empathetic to the team around me, makes me more connected to what they're doing, I think. So the reason I. Sorry, I'm tracing around a little bit all over the place. But I think my dad's passing is relevant. So I say goodbye to him two or three times. And I have a complicated relationship with my close family. So this kind of represented a moment, I think, for me. I think having done therapy seven to eight years on the lead up, I was not ready for it. It didn't feel like I was failing around. I wouldn't say I was in control. That's probably the wrong word. But if you constantly do exercise and then decide to sign yourself up looking at me, I can't really talk about this stuff authentically. But I know that if you're constantly working on yourself, when hard things turn up, it's slightly less disorienting. You feel like you're failing around less. And I would say that emotionally, things have definitely been tough the last two years at work because it's been a tough economic, macroeconomic, blah, blah, blah. Writers and actors went on stride. That was fun. The gaming industry has gone through turmoil with reorganizations. So is the tech industry. So is everything else. You speak to any creative leader right now, I just want to hug them all. There's creative leaders out here right now. Business owners, founders. I feel your pain. It's been really hard. It's been really, really hard. But people are passing away. People are losing loved ones. People are seeing people going through pain. God, what's going on geopolitically at the moment, like war. It's all relative, right? It's all very much relative. And you realize that these emotions will pass, these times will pass. You will learn from it, you'll grow from it and all the rest of it. And I think so. I think therapy prepares you for life and design and profession a part of it. It's not all of it, but it's like going to the gym every week. You're then ready for being a fit human being in life. And I think therapy is like that. I'm not here just advocating for everyone to do therapy, but therapy doesn't work for you. Maybe just try meditation. Maybe just returning to the breath and being mindful. It can be useful. You can find it useful.
- [57:03]
Unknown
Thank you for that. What you describe in obviously is creating, again, creating conditions, because you can be big beef guy, like proper, but you can still break your leg. That's the thing. Like, you are ready for some conditions. You are ready for what's to come. And that's just the reason why I asked you about this because we unlock almost another dimensions to actually understand what is informing our decisions that we make in the present day from our past, what it is, how we operate as a human beings. And I think that level of fruit, that of unlocking emotional intelligence and compassion, that's what I think unlocks creativity like never before. Because you're no longer there, holding onto your credit line and your ego, sort of thread going, yeah, this needs to be me as you go, hey, this is all of us. So I'm glad we had this conversation. I've taken over from it, and it's interesting to see how your business operates behind the scenes and how you operate as a human being. Because this is one of the reasons why I wanted to start this podcast. Because these conversations would have been had at somewhere in a bar after a festival or whatever, and it would stay in that room. Whereas I appreciate your honesty and your transparency, because sometimes it's nice to see people sitting on a pedestal somewhere at the top running something that is so humongous as territory now, thinking, this must be all okay, right? And you realize, no, it's not. I've spoken to many creative founders behind the scenes, and on this podcast, we all grow through the same motions. We all go through the same crap. You know, we all need to work on ourselves. We all need to help others and actually show them there's a better way, because that's how we create change. That's how we influence the future. So, David, happy belated 45th birthday. Thanks for spending your time with me.
- [58:40]
David Sheldon Hicks
Today and thank you for this absolute privilege. Thank you, Radim. Take care.
- [58:56]
Radi Malinich
Hey, thank you for listening to this episode of Mindful Creative Podcast. I'd love to know your thoughts, questions, or even suggestions. So please get in touch via the show notes or social channels. This episode was produced and presented by me, Radim Malinich. Editing and audio production was masterfully done by Neil MacKay 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. Hey, just a quick note to say thank you for joining me on this episode.
- [59:49]
Unknown
If this is your first time or.
- [59:50]
Radi Malinich
Your regular listener, please take a minute and rate the show on your chosen platform. A short review helps every show to.
- [59:56]
Unknown
Be more visible to new listeners and.
- [59:58]
Radi Malinich
Provide them with value. So thank you for helping out. Thank you.