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The Futur with Chris Do
Becoming Unshakable: Design, Filmmaking, and Identity w/ Stan Nwaeze | Ep 375
00:36:35
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- [00:01]
Chris Doe
Stan Nwaze didn't just build a business, he built himself. From growing up with scarcity to leading with vision and values, Stan's story is one of grit, growth and grounded confidence. In this episode we talk about what it really means to lead, how faith shaped his path, and why identity always comes before influence. If you're trying to lead others without losing yourself. This one's for you.
- [00:27]
Stan Lindsay
Hi, my name is Stan Lindsay and you are listening to the Future.
- [00:38]
Chris Doe
Tell me a little bit about your background because I don't know that much about you. I've seen a couple of your videos. I thought they were really well done, super smart how you presented it. So what is it that you do?
- [00:47]
Stan Lindsay
I'm just going to go back in time. So I actually started my career as a web developer at that time. A friend of mine, you know, told me that could make some cool cash as a programmer. That drew my attention because I needed money and I was like, okay, let's see what this would bring. I started learning HTML, CSS, JavaScript and all of those things and I got stuck at some points when I got to JavaScript and then I had a friend then that was, was a graphic designer. So he was also like putting me through one or two things in Photoshop and during my internship then in one of the companies I worked with, one of my colleagues said, why are you struggling with JavaScript? I've seen your designs. If you put more time and attention to this, I mean it can turn out to be something better. And so that day I said I was just going to focus on graphic design. So I started my career as a graphic designer. I was doing a lot of branding, marketing, social media, graphics and all of those and eventually transitioned into doing web design more like UI UX for with Figma. So I did a couple of those as well. And about for the past three years, four years, I found a new love. Framing is the way I express myself. I bring all my expertise together from branding, marketing, motion graphics, UI ux. I felt like I, I needed to share my story and that was why I really piqued interest in shooting new videos and making great videos for myself. So that's just the background in a nutshell.
- [02:40]
Chris Doe
So it sounds to me like you're this kind of curious creative soul that whatever piques your interest, you kind of dive into. And most of this is a self.
- [02:50]
Stan Lindsay
Taught, all of it is self taught because I learned on YouTube. I'm a very curious person. I like to learn, I love to learn.
- [02:57]
Chris Doe
Now I kind of know a little Bit about you. So when you're doing filming, is it something you do for as your profession or is it something you just do to document what you're doing?
- [03:07]
Stan Lindsay
Yeah, I do both of them. So I do filming also as a profession. I like introduced myself as a designer by day and a filmmaker by night. What that means is when I'm not designing, trying to film, I shoot weddings events. I've done some couple of corporate interview videos. All of these things have helped me in my previous place of work. I, I was more like the creative lead. So when it comes to trying to like plan a campaign and videos that would be used to push that campaign, I was in charge of coming with the concepts and working with the other members of the team to create those videos. And it was a, it was a learning curve for me because we've done, we've worked on documentaries, we've worked on corporate interviews and all of those stuff. It's something I do as a profession and it's something I, I do to document my own journey.
- [04:11]
Chris Doe
I think what will be helpful for people right now is there's. We're on two different arcs. You're still in the, the heat of your creative career. I'm on the tail end of a creative career and I think we can share some insights around how you stand out in a crowded space. Think fiercely. A lot of concern about how, how much competition there is, how much noise there is, and it's being exacerbated by the proliferation of AI quote unquote design tools and platforms. And so it feels like it's harder than ever to stand out. What have you found to be helpful in your creative pursuit?
- [04:49]
Stan Lindsay
So in my creative pursuits, what I found to be helpful when it comes to standing out is talking about what I do. If there's anything that stood out for me, it would be the popular saying that I've heard. It says, I might not be quoting it exactly, but it says, don't wait to be discovered, create a stage instead. And that stands out for me. So I got the book Pockets Full of Jokes. I have it here actually. And one of the things that stands out for me in your book is the part where you said, teach what you know, teach what you know. And then I feel like we don't necessarily need to be experts, like pros or expert at what we do before we share our ideas or share what we know. So in trying to stand out, I think one of the things would be to share ideas. What have we learned so far? Because I feel like sometimes we think that what we know is like, a lot of people know it already, and why do we need to. Why do we need to talk about it? But then if we put out our ideas, our knowledge, our experiences, what we've gathered so far over the years, I think it would make a difference in the life of someone, because I know that in this space there are other people coming at other creatives. They're just out of school and they want to learn this, they want to learn that. So one content can be. Can speak to them. So that's what I think.
- [06:37]
Chris Doe
Okay, so you've taken this idea of teaching what you know while you learn it to heart, and you're documenting and sharing that with people. How has that created opportunities for you?
- [06:48]
Stan Lindsay
So there was a point where it's a backstory because I started sharing my ideas sometime. I think it was like 2020. I did my first YouTube video in 2020 during the lockdown, and I started sharing Instagram content. I think then we had the ibitos more of carousels. So we're doing carous. So I started showing, doing carousels and all of those things. And then one day someone reached out to me on Instagram. He was in London then I was still back in Nigeria. And he said that he wanted me to. That he came across my contents and everything, and he was working on a music video on his album. And then he said if I could help him work on the design for the album arts. And that wasn't just it. And the thing about this story is that the same person that reached out to me years back is the same person that I'm still. We still. We are still working together currently in London. That was one of the experiences I had also I had some clients reach out to reach out to me. And the first thing they ask is, can we see your work or can we see your page? And when I redirect them to my page, they see that there's been like a history. They seem that there's something that's been going on. Okay, if this is the kind of person, if this is what you've been putting out, I think it's safe to. To say we can work with you because it shows that you've established an authority in this. Let's see what you can do. Let's try and work with you. And then I've also had situations where I get a referral. A friend of mine refers a client to me, and they're like, it doesn't just stop by referring, can we see your page as well, and then I showed them my page and they're like, oh, okay, that's fine. I've had the opportunity to work with clients from the U.S. across the world just because of that simple step of trying to like put out what I know and share my ideas without hoarding. So it's really been helpful for me. That's what I can say about that.
- [09:11]
Chris Doe
Okay, so where do we go from here?
- [09:13]
Stan Lindsay
I won't ask you, please, because I know that you, you have a lot of experience as an art director, you know, in emotion, building a brand, building an agency blind. You've, you have this vast knowledge and experience. If you are to, if you are to advise someone that is like confused or a creative that's confused on what they want to do or how they want to stand out amongst like the crowded space. What would be like the blueprints or big blueprints that you would give to them and say, these are the steps you should take, this is what you should do. Aside from, let's say, maybe sharing what you know and all of those things.
- [10:05]
Chris Doe
I have two pieces of advice for you. Number one is you need to gather as much proof as possible that you are good at what you do. And there's a lot of external markers that signal to other people that you're very good. It can be awards, certificates, being able to speak on a panel with other famous, well known people. Just those hallmarks that people lean to and say, oh, I'm a best selling author, I've been published in Forbes, the best company, I've won this award or received this achievement, I've judged these shows. All those things really help to build your credibility and that could be verified. The claims that you make that cannot be verified are not as powerful. So you want to look for those things and they're not that hard to attain if you focus in on a few of them at a time. So if you look at whatever notable publications or award shows or conferences or events that are around your industry, I would do my best to get on the radar to be able to speak and to have your work seen by those people. One of the reasons why I speak at some events, when I don't get paid, where it costs me money to do, is because they have name brand recognition. So if you speak for some very small organization that doesn't have name brand recognition, that's good for you, good for practice, but it's not really going to move the needle for you. If I tell you I worked for John Smith & Co. And I've done great things for them. You were like, and so what? But if I told you I've done multiple commercials and campaigns for Nike, for Microsoft, for Google, for Fox Sports, and I've worked with All Stars for Major League Baseball, that will hit differently, you see, because those are name brand things you can't really see. But behind me, somewhere on here are a bunch of little statues. None of them anybody knows about unless you work in the industry. But there is one. It's not here with me right now, but I have an Emmy for art direction and design for a music video that I did. And that's a name that people know. So if you win an Oscar, an Emmy or a Clio or something, or a Cannes lion, those things really help you raise your profile. And we need to, as much as possible, in this day and age, to be able to get as much independent media coverage and press as we can. It's a lot easier to do today than it used to be because there are people actively looking for you right now to write a story about you, to profile you, to shine the spotlight on you. That's number one. Number two, and this is easier, the two to accomplish in concept, but maybe not in application, is to find out what makes you uniquely you and to be able to highlight that we're so much trying to be like everyone else that we start to lose who we are. And there's this quote, I think it's from Sally Hogshead, which says, it's better to be different than to be better. So we want to be different. And branding is really art. The differentiating, meaningful, intentional differentiation. How is this bottled water different from that bottle of water? How is this shirt different from that shirt? And when we can find that point of difference, we need to highlight it, we need to amplify it. Some practical steps for everybody here. I do this with lots of people. I say, tell me everything that you're good at, things that you're trained in, and you can list a lot of different skills, some things that you're certified in or have been coached, something that you put in a lot of deliberate practice in figuring out, and tell me all the things that you're really super passionate about. Make a list of all those things. Then tell me things that you're just interested in or that weird that make you kind of a weirdo. And then we create these clusters and we start to look for overlaps. And when we can take several different things that don't belong together and we put them together, we find a point of differentiation and that becomes who you're supposed to be in this life. And I think I've done this twice recently, within this last week, actually, where each person says to me, wow, I didn't know that was possible. Let me put this in context, okay? I've worn many hats like you. I've been a designer. I've been an animator, a motion designer. I've been an art director, creative director, a director. I'm an entrepreneur, I'm an educator. I teach sequential design. I love all things pop culture, comic books, movies, art, architecture, photography. And it's not until I'm able to bring all these things together that I find my superpower. And when I find this thing, I want to really lean into it. So it's not until I start making content, not from the point of. Point of view of a videographer, but as a content creator. Someone who steps in front of the camera to speak, to share my ideas, my point of view, and to do it in fun and interesting ways do I start to realize all of who I can be. Because every time I just wear one hat and show the world one face, I'm only one dimensional, but I'm a multidimensional being, and I want to be able to show these multidimensions. The trick is to find the overlap between all these things. So I think you found this to be true too. Correct me if I'm wrong. When you're working as a storyteller through the lens of cinema, you're able to incorporate so many different aspects of who you are. Your personality, literally your voice, your style, your aesthetic, your problem solving, your ability to tell stories and frame things. And you're going to be able to show off your editing and how you color grade and how you know how to light things. You're painting with light essentially, when you're doing cinema. So you're bringing a lot of complicated skills together to achieve a very specific result, a feeling or an outcome that would be user experience, design, or maybe that's branding, or maybe that's partly marketing. See? So you're able to synthesize all these super complicated things together to present to the world. I think that's why you might say, like, I'm a designer by day and a filmmaker by night. Because the night part is the part that gets to explore all of you.
- [15:53]
Stan Lindsay
Not just some of you.
- [15:55]
Chris Doe
I think that's really important. So when I go on stage and I speak, I think about the things that make me unique and different. Now, I'm painting with very broad strokes here. So everybody Forgive me. Typically, when you go to a conference, who do you see on stage? This is not to cast blame, but just calling it objectively. You typically see older, white, heterosexual men, okay, Of European ancestry, generally speaking. And why is that? It's not because of the patriarchy or all these kinds of things. It's because European, white, heterosexual men write most of the books. The books that you and I read, they're the ones who we champion as the icon in the industry. So when event organizers go to book speakers, they tend to book those types of people. There's not so much diversity. People of color, people from Africa or people from Asia, queer, gay, lesbian, neurodivergent folks. We don't see that. And so what I do is I don't want to be on stage and try to be a European, white, heterosexual man. It could not be. But there's a cadence of the way they present. They're very professional. They're very eloquent in how they speak. But you know what's missing to me? Some flavor, little seasoning. So I lean into my Asian American roots. I lean into the fact that I'm a refugee from Vietnam, that I love design and I can bring that to the slides. I have a flair for presentation in performance, on stage that maybe I'm not as good as some. I know that for sure. But I'm a lot better than others, so I want to bring as much of that into it. I love being spontaneous and doing a little improv, crowd work and pushing and pulling with the audience. I'm comfortable in the unknown, in the friction of where might this land. And I'm confident enough that I could do that. I love drawing, and I can draw, I can think visually. So I like to have a marker and a whiteboard. So when I share this, it's not to say I'm better than anybody. I'm just different than a lot of people. So I don't want to create a situation where I go on stage and give a presentation like how everyone else is able to give a presentation, because in that space, I'm going to lose. They're more practice. They put more intentionality behind their presentations. But what I do is do something totally different and I stand out. And I think what I do is I help people a have a good time and baby learn in a way that they didn't think that they could learn. And that's how I lean into my roots. So everybody who's listening to this or watching this or thinking about how they can stand out in the world, Lean into what makes you different. It's like you to the power of you. You squared.
- [18:33]
Podcast Host
It's time for a quick break, but we'll be right back. Adobe Max returns October 28th to 30th in Los Angeles and online. Calling all designers, illustrators, photographers, content creators, video pros. Want to know more about the latest 3D and generative AI tools? Expand your skills and future proof your career. Join us for industry defining keynotes and sneaks, fun networking events and more than 200 sessions, labs and photo walks. Learn from the world's top experts. Connect with your creative community and get hands on with the latest updates in Creative Cloud. Can't attend in person? Join Max online for live, streamed and on demand keynote, sneaks and select sessions. But there's nothing like the full in person Max experience. Listeners of The Future save $400 on a full pass. Use code future25 to register. Visit max.adobe.com to build your creative future. And we're back. Welcome back to our conversation.
- [19:33]
Stan Lindsay
That's quite interesting, Chris. Very interesting. When you were speaking, I, I think one of the things you said that really, that really caught my attention was when you said that you, you've had series of speaking engagements that was unpaid but because of, you had to go for it because you had like something you're looking at. So is it safe to say now I'm actually putting out these questions because a lot of people have asked these questions like several times. Is it safe to say at some point it's fine to do free work? Because there's been this debate should I do free work? There's been this debate should I do free work or no, it must be paid. Especially for people that are trying to come into the limelight. Right. Should creatives do free work? What do you think about that?
- [20:27]
Chris Doe
I think it depends on the context. If you feel like you cannot achieve an opportunity or switch into a vertical that you've not done before outside of doing free work, I'd say go for it. Free work needs to be put into a different category though. It's not really work, it's marketing. And every one of us needs to spend some time and money and resources against marketing. So when we take on a client that is the wrong budget, we look at like what is our marketing budget for this year and have we used it? And so we need to be very disciplined about this. And if you use that kind of discipline and discernment, I think you'll do well. I'll give you an example. Back when I was running Blind, we would have a certain amount of money set aside, and I would give each creative director the discretion to say, you know what? For all the reasons this project makes no sense when I'm going to go for it and that they get to exercise that. I'm going to do this because I think this is good for me. It's good for my real. My portfolio and for the company because it's doing something that we normally wouldn't be able to do. Almost always, the types of projects that we're talking about fall in one of two categories. What we would consider public service announcement, a psa. So those could be campaigns to help with homelessness, with drunk driving or drug abuse, or something like that. Because they have no budgets. Usually it's all pro bono work, or more likely the second of the two, which is music video work. Artists spend their own money to make music videos. Regardless of how big they are, they still look at us like, that's money I'd rather not spend because I'm not sure how to get my money back from that. So they're almost always underfunded. They should be 2, 3, 4 times the amount of money they're going to spend. And those are the kinds of projects we take on that will break even on. We'll spend pretty much every dollar we get, or we will go red, meaning we'll spend more money than the money that we receive. We're subsidizing the work, so we're buying the work. So we've worked with bands like Norris Barkley, Justin Timberlake, jet, and the last music video we worked on was for Coldplay. And despite being the world's biggest band, Coldplay also has a finite budget for music videos. And so we did it and we put a lot of love and energy into it because it's good for us because we want to be part of the culture, not just design ads.
- [22:48]
Stan Lindsay
That's really interesting. I think regarding this, one of the. One of the experiences that I've had doing free work would be. There was a time where I did. I worked for a reality show. It was more like a music show and mean, I didn't really get paid the amount that I wanted. Actually, it was more like into four, four parts and say, take this one, this is for you. But then what I learned in that. Cause I. I was. By the end of the day, I saw my work on stage. A lot of celebrities came around and they. They liked the branding and everything, and it really gave me joy and fulfillment and that single art of doing that job gave me another job, a bigger job because someone saw my, so someone saw design that I did the branding and the marketing designs and it was like, who did this? And they had to give my number to him. And he reached out to me and said, would you be willing to work with us? And for, for this amount? And it's, it really made sense to me. I think I, I agree with you because it's. Free work is marketing. You said something and I captured it, said, free work is marketing. So it's more like you're marketing yourself, right? Don't just think about it as free work. And also it depends on the context. You need to also look at envision what is going to be in for you at the long run. So and so that really stands out for me. Chris, I was gonna ask this question, right, Because a lot of people have tried sharing what they know, right? Putting out their content, putting out their videos. And they put out their videos and they're not really getting engagements. It's like nobody's seen me. And I feel like every successful creator had that point in their life. What would you say for people that feel like they're not getting so much engagement, like no one is noticing them. I'm tired, I'm exhausted. What can I do? Should I change my strategy?
- [25:10]
Chris Doe
Okay, good question. There's a couple things that I want to unpack for people. I think you should look at making content as a form of self expression versus a means to get something else. Because when you make things with expectations, you're bound to be disappointed. There's a line from David C. Baker's book the Business of Expertise where he says something to the effect of you gain clarity through articulation that you learn about what it is that you know or you think you know by sharing it with people, by saying it out loud, by writing it, by articulating it, by performing it or doing something, then we know what it is that you know and it's mostly just for you. So if you make content and you're practicing self expression, there's no pressure for it to perform. And act of creating should be its own reward versus some other metric about like likes and follows and shares. That's number one. If you have that mindset, things are gonna be great. Mindset number two is you're gonna say I'm dedicated to this. If I'm committed to doing this, there's two ways I can do this. I can grind at it and make small, small improvements as I go, which is fantastic, or I can find Someone who's done it before, follow their path or just pay them to teach me what it is I need to do. So if you're really good at articulating your thinking, but no one's watching the content, there's probably several problems that you have. Number one is you're not providing a strong enough hook at the beginning of the video to keep people interested. You're taking too long to do the setup and that's problematic. You gotta get right into it. You gotta let people know why they should stick around. And the mistake that a lot of people make is they're speaking to their audience versus to a stranger. Always assume that someone's never seen you before. Why are they gonna care? Right here, right now, you gotta draw em in. Now, before you can even watch a video, you need to read the title and you need to see the thumbnail. I'm talking about YouTube specifically right now. So the packaging of the content is really important because we do lots of content and we find that when we change the thumbnail and the title, it can really perform or it can really tank. So learning from others how to title your content and designing really good visuals to draw people into to watch it, I think that's an important skill to develop. So you can have an entire career by designing thumbnails and titles for people's videos. To package it, I would call it packaging YouTube content. And you could probably create a pretty good business just doing that because it's a very difficult skill. You can take a dud and you can make it into a stud and that's what you need to be able to do. So those are some of the things you need to work on. Continually improve your presentation skills, continue to improve on how you speak, articulate. And one of the things that we learn is, let's just say I'm a high energy guy. I'm yelling all the time. I'm like, rah, rah, rah. Learn this. You know, never do this again. That's good for getting attention for a little bit. But if you do it for any length of time, it's gonna fry people's circuit. They're gonna be completely emotionally drained. It's just too much. Conversely, if you slip into the slow and low FM DJ voice that Chris Voss talks about in his book. Hello, welcome to this podcast. I'm Chris Doe and I'm speaking to Stan. And today we're going to talk. That's very calming, but it'll knock you out cold. You're going to fall asleep. Like when you Said, you sleep on our content. I'm like, I'm hoping. I'm not putting you to sleep, right? So you have to find a balance. So when we look at classical music and the way it's composed, we can learn a lot. There's a build, there's a climax, and there's a rebuild. And there's just moments in the story of the music itself. There's these dramatic moments, and there's calm moments. There's tearful moments, and they're joyful moments. You need to be able to have that. So one piece of advice I can give to every single person is to vary your tone. Simply insert more spaces or fewer spaces, depending on how you speak. When you are short of breath, it shows people that you're really excited. I'll give you an example. Like, Stan, you know, I'm so glad to talk to you today. I mean, we've been talking about this on Instagram, and here we are, today's the day, and people feel excited for that. And that's because you're short of breath, and it's like choppy, staccato kind of speaking. And you can do that for parts that are exciting in your story. And if you take a word and you stretch it out and you put long pauses, you make it much more dramatic. So here's what I was thinking, Stan, the other day, I was mortally wounded. So I just showed you two different examples there. One where it's short and choppy and fast, and one where it's long. It's a little breathy, and we're stretching out words. So if you just vary the pace, the space between words, you can affect the tone and how it's perceived. You have to become a master of your voice, your instrument, to play it for an audience so they don't get bored, so they don't get fried. If you can learn that, you can do really well. Now, I'm curious, because I've watched some of your videos. What's the approach that you take in creating content that really draws people in?
- [30:46]
Stan Lindsay
So the first thing that I do is I always try to be intentional with my hook, because I know that the thing about hook is. So I think hook is divided into the verbal hook and the visual hook. Right? If you're not. If you're not really good at editing, then try and focus on your verbal hook. But if you're not really good at the verbal hook, then probably you should focus on your editing. But I think that there should be some sort of balance between the both of them. So the hook first is very important to me because it says you have like about three, four or five seconds to get people's attention, especially on Instagram. And if the hook isn't inviting, someone is juggling the scroll past. Because social media is a very, very busy place. The world is very busy. People are moving quickly, they're just scrolling. It's a vertical scroll. So it's easy to scroll past your content. So I try to like invest in the hook. And I also try to invest in good sound I like using. So I love listening to sounds like Hans Zimmer cinematic sounds, movies, soundtrack. And although it doesn't always work for all my content, it could be sometimes that I just want to use lo fi, like hip hop and just calm sounds. So I try to focus on book my sound, my messaging. Okay. I try to think about what are things that people would want to know about. And I also bit of research. One of the website I use is Answered Public. I just go there to ask some questions. What are people asking? What are people talking about? What would they like to know? So I just try to look at it and then look at my title. And I also invest in my thumbnails. Right. I have a. I have a particular way that I like my thumbnails to look. So there's this consistency in my thumbnail and I just like it to have a dramatic feel. So those are some of the things that I do. And I also do a lot of B rolls because I feel like B rolls for me is aside from people just seeing you talk, they just want to see some things happening behind the scenes. So I try to infuse those B rolls in my video editing so that people are engaged throughout the process of my video. And yes, five things I've said. The hook, the sound design, the music that I choose, and the B rolls and the messaging. So those are some of the things that I intentionally put in check before putting up my video. If the hook doesn't feel right to me, I probably just make a lot of research. The last video I did, I went online and I searched for fast cuts. And I, when I checked fast cuts, I just wanted to like do a fast cut of different shots and add some sounds there that get people's attention. So that's what I did. And the video really, I mean, it did well. So these are some of the things that I do for my contents.
- [34:10]
Chris Doe
Solid principles. I can tell you're a student of filmmaking because that's pretty much the three most important things that you can do in a piece of content, having a strong, engaging hook. Think about the musical track because that brings most of the emotion. And if you just do talking head videos, they're fine. That's what I do, but I'm too lazy. But the artistry is in the B roll. Trying to metaphorically or symbolically illustrate the kinds of things that you're talking about to give us something to look at. The general rule in making a commercial is you need to edit or put a cut in every three seconds. Otherwise it gets really boring. So you and I are talking right now. We are not editing anything. There's just one camera on each of us, so it's gonna be really dull. So adding some motion design, maybe showing, like, a flower kind of swaying in the wind. Rustling in the wind. If it's relevant to what you're talking about. A little creek bed with water and a leaf kind of floating in it. Very poetically. B rolls, where it's at, like, whether you produce weddings or event videos or corporate talking head videos, you have to find a way to introduce B roll that feels natural to the conversation so that people are drawn into the cinematics story.
- [35:25]
Stan Lindsay
And there's also a video you did that. I watched that video. I kept. I kept repeating the video. That video started this way, and it said, I'm gonna show you Japanese secrets called Shu Hari. Shu hari is this. Is that. And I can't really say everything he said, but that video. And I think that video really, like, it did work because the intro was superb. And then there was a lot of cuts. There was a lot of B rolls. There was a lot of, like, motion graphics attached to the video. And then the sound you used was quite solemn, and a lot of people would just want to, like, pause and see. Oh, what's Chris talking about? Yeah, that video was very interesting for me, and I. That was the first time that I saw the soundtrack. And I copied this from you. I stole like an artist and then I used it. So well done. Thank you, Chris.