Christian Gani - Branding Guru on Branding Ourselves

Join Dave in this interesting episode as he sat down with Christian Gani, Partner of company called Outerkind, a visionary in the world of branding and marketing. 

Christian's passion for pushing boundaries and embracing change is truly inspiring. In this episode, Christian shares his unique perspective on staying stubbornly young, how to remain relevant in a world that's evolving faster than ever before and how it's possible to stay open to new experiences even as we venture into our 50s, 60s, and beyond.

Christian highlights the concept of 'opening the aperture' to change and breaking through the misconception that 'you can't teach an old dog new tricks.' Discover practical ways to embrace transformation at any age.

As a branding expert, Christian dives into the world of marketing and advertising, discussing how marketers often miss the mark when trying to connect with the stubbornly young, and that effective branding requires a deep understanding of the stubbornly young demographic. Learn valuable insights on effective branding and staying relevant.

Christian shares his wisdom on how to keep your finger on the pulse of evolving markets and business settings. Discover strategies for evaluating and widening our perspectives to stay ahead of the curve 

Top Takeaways:

• Staying relevant to the younger generation in the business world
• Reframing oneself in the business world
• Importance of being fearless and open to new ideas
• Challenges of marketing to the younger audience
• Impact of technology on business and marketing
• Bifurcation of talent and balancing experience with fresh perspectives
• Embracing change and staying updated with current trends
• Challenges advertisers face in reaching the younger generation
• Role of historical understanding and provenance in developing new ideas
• Valuable insights into the evolving dynamics of marketing and branding

Ponder and Share:

“If you want to continue on your journey to be stubbornly young, it's that you got to be open to the new tricks.” –Christian Gani

“If we're thinking about being stubbornly young, take the age number and throw it out the window. Don't even think about it. What you are is you are trying to create a state of mind that's right for you.” –Christian Gani

“It’s (adaptability) about being open to new ideas. It's about reopening that aperture. It's about being resistant to the old way of doing business and being open to the new way of doing it.” –Christian Gani

Check these out!

Christian Gani on LinkedIn
Outerkind website

About Christian Gani

Christian plays an active and leading role in creating innovative marketing solutions that are designed to move consumers, both emotionally and physically to purchase. Over his 20 years of experience both as a client and agency leader, brands like McLaren, The Lincoln Motor Company, Ford, Mercedes-Benz smart, Progressive, adidas and Nespresso have all been positively impacted by his work. Today, Christian is focused equally on the creative and measurement aspects of all marke

Read my Blog called Rules For Being Stubbornly Young and let me know what you think!

Email your thoughts at dave@stubbornlyyoung.com

Check out where it’s all happening on the Stubbornly Young website

Thanks and looking forward to hearing how you’re remaining stubbornly young!

Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

Christian Gani (00:00:01) - I have thought about reframing myself a little bit. I mean, I'm not the same scrappy 20 year old, you know, bright eyed that, you know, just sort of fearless. But that's the word that kept boiling to the surface for me, which is this idea about being fearless in yourself. 

Dave Tabor (00:00:18) - Welcome to the Stubbornly Young podcast for people in their 50s, 60s and beyond who want to remain engaged in the world and relevant to the younger people in their lives. I'm Dave Tabor, and that last part, staying relevant to the younger people in their lives, is why I've invited Christian Gani to join me for episode nine. Christian's a founding partner of a marketing agency called Outerkind. He advises famous brands like McLaren North America, Jim Beam, Progressive Insurance, Caterpillar and Ford, New Belgium and Red Bull Rampage. He helps them capture the attention of their audiences in appealing way. You know, Stubbornly Young is about staying relevant to the younger people in our lives and, you know, being relevant probably isn't really enough. I mean, showing relevance in an attractive way. I mean, that's almost like marketing our relevance. I don't know, thought it would be fun to talk about that with Christian, as well as how brands are trying to market to us, the Stubbornly Young audience. Christian said he's been wondering about these things, too. So Christian, happy to have you on Stubbornly Young.

[INTERVIEW]

Christian Gani (00:01:15) - Dave it's always a pleasure speaking with you. This topic in particularly, so thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. 

Dave Tabor (00:01:22) - It's going to be fun. I mean, you're too young to be smack in the center of this audience. And yet when we talked about this ahead of time, like you're already laughing, like you're thinking about it. So, you know, you've also thought about being relevant sort of as an adult in quotes in your world. Right? The marketing world. As an experienced marketing executive who now relies on technology and media in the hands of children, I don't know. So, you know, so talk about that.

Christian Gani (00:01:45) - Well, I guess, as I thought about this conversation with you, Dave, it sort of took me back 20 years, 25 years to where I was the young gun at the office, afraid of nothing, never really spending too much time thinking about, you know, the old guys in the office. And they're perhaps more stringent or programmed ways in which they operate. And here we are talking about it 20 years later, where I'm that guy, or maybe trying not to be that guy. And that's part of the conversation to put a five point on it. You know, this is a really interesting topic. It's one that I think relies back on some of the things that we did, what we were in our sort of educated state in high school and college. And I know we're going to talk about that in a couple of minutes, but it's a really interesting state of affairs, especially at the speed at which business moves these days. I'm really looking forward to digging into it with you.

Dave Tabor (00:02:35) - Well, and you've even used the term bifurcation of talent, like the wily veteran and the young gun, you know? So is that really an extreme bifurcation? Is that the right word?

Christian Gani (00:02:45) - It might not be the right word. English was never my forte, as my mom would tell me. Neither was math, which is probably why I'm a marketing executive today. That said, you know, one example I would use here is a sports reference. Those of us out there that follow the NBA, there's a player called Chris Paul who was just recently traded to another team. And he is that wily old veteran who's been in the league 20 years. And everyone who, you know, reads the reports on his trade say, well, he's the veteran that's going to bring stability, he's going to bring experience, and there's a need for that in business unquestionably, those who have been through the buyers before who understand the dynamics of the business. But I also believe that there's a flip side so that bifurcation or that opposite end of the spectrum where it's young, unafraid, that individual I was describing earlier on in our podcast as myself, unafraid to be wrong, unafraid to try something new, unafraid to open up the aperture of educating oneself about a topic not stuck in in the old ways.

Christian Gani (00:03:45) - And so I think just as much as it relates to sports, it relates to business in the same way. I think those need states are a nice balance, but both are necessary, unquestionably.

Dave Tabor (00:03:55) - You know, I wonder in your perception, because you deal with marketing when you talk about some of your clients a little bit. But do you think that in an age that's been accelerated by technology, that the perceived value of wisdom is less or more?

Christian Gani (00:04:08) - I don't think it's less, but I also don't believe it's more. I hate to cut it right down the middle with you. I guess I'll explain in, I'll speak to my business because it's what I know. I will say that over the years, everything that's old is new again. And we find ourselves oftentimes in situations trying to create something that has never existed before. And the education state of those that have been in the business for a lengthy period of time are helpful in guiding and shifting that perspective ever so slightly to either bring forward references that may be this has been replicated previously, or hey, I learned this in a brief that was very similar with the brand that was challenged with this particular problem, so that historical understanding or provenance is really, really critical when it comes to developing what are new ideas.

Christian Gani (00:04:57) - It also gives you a really solid foundation, right? It gives you a sense of comfort that someone who's been in the industry for a significant period of time actually has a thumbs up to this new breakthrough idea. It really gives you a sense of accomplishment and, frankly, some confidence going into some client discussions. 

Dave Tabor (00:05:15) - Do you see that happening? I mean, if you've got clients that are all over, you know, new media, social media, new things, new tech, new this, new that, do they believe that notion that nothing is new?

Christian Gani (00:05:26) - There are some that do you know, there's something in our business that is often written in briefs that says, you know, we're not looking for an idea that's been executed before. Well, I'm looking for something entirely new. and yet there are times when you present said idea and they're asking for evidence that it will be successful. Well, it's really awkward. It puts you in an awkward position to demonstrate something new that has never been tested.

Christian Gani (00:05:50) - But that's a different topic, I think. Where maybe you're going is an example I could give you is TikTok right? For us, elder statesmen, TikTok is like a vortex of people on camera doing silly things with overlays and messaging, and brands are getting into it. And recently, in the past couple of years, we've seen sort of this unencumbered desire by our clients that say we have to be on TikTok. They don't necessarily understand why or want to go through the evaluation process. They just wanted to be present on a new social medium. And that has repeated itself, Dave, as you can imagine. Time and time again, Instagram didn't exist. That was the hot topic for a long time. So that's been the case.

Dave Tabor (00:06:35) - Yeah. I mean, I'm asking you these questions because I want to contextualize sort of where you're coming from is because I'm going to ask you more questions about branding as they pertain to me. I mean, and this audience, Outor kind of in your company exists to apply human insights and challenge conventional thought about how experience between brands and people will be shaped into the future.

Dave Tabor (00:06:56) - So knowing what I'm trying to do here with Stubbornly Young, I mean, if you wanted to brand me, I mean, how would you even start the exploratory phase that those key questions and so forth?

Christian Gani (00:07:07) - The first thing I would do is congratulate you and for wanting to put in the hard work of keeping your finger on the pulse, as it were, right to acknowledge that in the 20, 30, 40 years that you've been in this particular business, markets have changed, business practices have changed, expectations have changed. They're different than what they were when you started. And that goes for any business. So the acknowledgment on that first piece is key. And I'll get to why in just a minute. The second would be to really maybe have an agreement or a conversation, and then an agreement about your interpretation of what it really means to be stubbornly young, right. Because there's a couple different ways you could maybe unpack that. For instance, in my business, stubbornly young means you got to stay on top of culture. You got to stay on top of national and global events, brand campaigns, awards, experiential creativity, news. There is sort of this constant need for a feed of information that comes in that keeps me educated about what the market is doing, and I don't really think that's different for any business. I mean, you're, no matter what business you're in, you're going to study the markets of what your competitors are doing or what your aspirational targets are, and then you're going to evaluate that and figure out where your gap in that marketplace might be. And so first acknowledgement, second would be like what's the interpretation of stubbornly young? Is it more education based? Is it more a value system? Is it more a series of principles that I live by every day? Or maybe it's a combination of all of those things. To me it would be. 

Dave Tabor (00:08:38) - Yeah. So what's it question? If I were your client and you want to find out what I meant, what would you ask? Ask it?

Christian Gani (00:08:44) - I guess I well, I would say, you know what sources of information are you using today that work different than what you were using ten, 15, 20 years ago? Have you broadened the spectrum of sources of information for your business that you're getting?

Dave Tabor (00:09:01) - I just wrote a blog post. I've not published it yet, because one of the nine principles of being stubbornly young is consuming new content. And that's something that I really live by. And as I was, I was kind of bracketing them out and like, okay, what are they? And, you know, certainly audible, you know, podcasts or certain docu shows on Netflix and so forth. Then even media that is like the Wall Street Journal on NPR. One point I made, though, that I'd love your take on like, I don't think CNN and Fox News, like, I don't think that's consuming a thought provoking content. I think that's reinforcing what we already think. And I don't think that encourages us to be stubbornly young on digging in on ideas that we already think like. That's, to me, the antithesis.

Christian Gani (00:09:43) - I completely agree. And I got a piece of advice from an executive not long ago, actually, who was looking at a, an image of 29 business-oriented books that you could read about, you know, the new age in advertising and how to be more creative and the five principles to live by and his perspective was read those if you want, but maybe read some fiction. Open up your thought process to a new way of thinking, and yet let your imagination run a little while, you know? So it's not just news information. It's information about where are you consuming it. And my guess is today, might not my guess, I've all but guaranteed it that today you are consuming information from a multitude, probably more new sources than old sources. If you are that interested in staying current within your business structure.

Dave Tabor (00:10:32) - Yeah, I think that's true. And you mentioned fiction. So funny. I talked in episode one with a guy named Mark Schaefer, a marketing guy, but I shared with them I had read this fictional book called Ready Player One, and it takes place in the metaverse. And it was it's amazing because it was written ten years ago, and yet it seems to be so poignant today. But the idea that I could now, through this fictional book, better understand maybe where all this is going.

Dave Tabor (00:10:55) - It was really quite fascinating that way.

Christian Gani (00:10:58) - It's a great book. It's a great movie too, for those that haven't seen it. 

Dave Tabor (00:11:02) - Okay, I didn't like the movie.

Christian Gani (00:11:03) - You didn't like it? 

Dave Tabor (00:11:04) - No. Well, you did. 

Christian Gani (00:11:05) -  Well, I liked it. I didn't like it as much as the book. So we have that agreement. Okay. Yeah, but education, this will be a topic that probably comes up a few times in our conversation, right? Like, where are you consuming and where are you getting this information from? Because I think that helps. I would also ask you, have you hired or consulted with any younger or more diverse audiences, and if so, what have you learned in that experiment? I'll give you an example. Can I give you an example? Because I think that might, that might help sell it, which is when my partners and I started Outerkind, we were the old guard. Unquestionably. We weren't when we all started together, but we are now.

Christian Gani (00:11:42) - And one of the pieces that we started as sort of a natural output coming out of the pandemic was, you know, work in the office, don't work in the office. We don't know what's going to happen or what type of safety precautions we need to take. So work in the office, work at home, you know, whatever suits you. And that has become, in the ad agency world, almost an essential as like a perk. Right? And so we are talking to our staff about is it helpful to work from home on Mondays and Fridays. Does that improve your, you know, sort of work spirit during the days that you're in the office? Does it help keep you productive? Now the old guy in me would say, you are crazy. I want to, I want to walk the halls at 7:30. I want to see fingers typing. I want to see coffees in hand. But that's just not the way the world works right now. After consulting with these other audiences, we sort of understood that that is sort of a necessary component and frankly, one that's more productive for our teams.

Dave Tabor (00:12:34) - Yeah, yeah. So I think that's a good example of actually asking younger people in your lives about what they're doing, what they're learning and so forth. It can be a little embarrassing, although I do ask my sons, you know, and they are not like avid users of social media, which is kind of encouraging for me. But, I've got attitudes that I. Okay, here's an attitude I'm going to share with you. And I don't know if this makes me old or if it makes me wise. So I've never done this before where you're going to answer the question, old or wise, is social media going to go down in history as the greatest waste of human energy ever?

Christian Gani (00:13:09) - I mean, that is a very bold statement. I would say it has the opportunity to do so. We do a lot on social, right? Because we know that that's where people's attentions are three to five hours a day. Right? And so our job really isn't on the surface to go in and question and push back on the tactic despite our personal preferences to the contrary.

Christian Gani (00:13:31) - Right? All right. Our purpose and mission is to bring forward something that is usable, that is effective, that is memorable, that meets some emotional need for us (inaudible).

Dave Tabor (00:13:44) - Because this is our world, right? All right. I'm going to shift gears a little bit. So with clients you often have to help them sort of reframe what they think they're selling. Speaking to the Stubbornly Young audience, people who want to remain engaged in the world, relevant to the younger people in their lives. What do you think about how we ought to be sort of reframing? Is it necessary to reframe ourselves as the old guy in your office? Are you thinking about reframing yourself at all?

Christian Gani (00:14:08) - I have thought about reframing myself a little bit. I mean, I'm not the same scrappy 20 year old, you know, bright eyed that, you know, just sort of fearless. But that's the word that kept boiling to the surface for me, which is this idea about being fearless in yourself, like in your emotional state, about not being afraid to ask the questions.

Christian Gani (00:14:28) - Like you said, you know, I feel like the old guy or the dumb guy, my sons, I frankly live by a bit of a different code in that the idea here is if you go back again 20 years ago and you were to ask the 30 or 40 year advertising veteran and I walked into his office or her office and I said, hey, I think I got a different way to skin this cat. I would likely get laughed out of the room for a number of different reasons. Right? You don't know anything. You just got here. And frankly, much of it might have been right. Today the code for me is a little bit different. It's about being more accepting. It's about opening up the aperture to the old saying, you can't teach the old dog new tricks. And if anything comes of this conversation between the two of us today, it would be that if you want to continue on your journey to be stubbornly young, it's that you got to be open to the new tricks. You got to open yourself up and be fearless to ask the dumb question in the room. And I don't think young people today think differently about, you know, sort of older people who have been in business. Age today is a number. I mean, people tell me all the time that the approachable environment that we curate within our space helps productivity, but also helps generate better ideas and better solutions for clients. And so I'll be the first to tell you I wanted people there at 7:30. I want to be drinking coffee. I want to walk the halls. But the reality is that our business has changed, the expectation has changed. My aperture for the new trick has got to open. It just does.

Dave Tabor (00:15:55) - Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Aperture. And I remember we talked about that even before we got on this call. And I made a note to talk with you about aperture. You've already brought it up. Now one of your active clients is Caterpillar. And we think of Caterpillar, you know, we think of huge earthmoving machines, farm equipment and so forth. But they want you to make them different from that or have a different image than that. Right?

Christian Gani (00:16:15) - Well, if you again go to my saying that the old dog, new trick, you know, Caterpillar has been around for 100 years, right? And if you ask, you ask ten people, nine out of them will say, yeah, they make these giant excavators or dump trucks and bulldozers and they do that very well, no question. They built a really incredible business with, you know, loyal customers and family owned operated dealer networks and a global reach like they're huge. But those ships, those companies that are that sizable, those ships, they take a long time to turn in the harbor. The piece that I think Caterpillar, to their credit, acknowledged during our early conversations were if we continue to just sell iron, our opportunity for growth will be limited. And if we keep thinking about our business the way that it has been for the last 30, 40, 50 years, sell more iron, sell more iron, sell more iron. Our competitors are digital companies. Technologists will swoop in and will take over the technology aspect of construction, which is by far and away a more profitable and more necessary suite of products that people in the construction industry need. Yes, they need the bulldozer, but they also need the technologies that come with it. And so this is a long winded way of me saying they identified and they opened up their sort of creativity, if you will, on how to solve a unique problem in their business, which is like we're only known for this, we want to become more known for tech. And they asked us to help them on that journey. And I have been suitably blown away. I mean, I've worked with big companies from General Motors and Ford. I've yet to see a brand move at this pace, to embrace the change in sort of experience level within their brand, and it's a big shift for them. But they lived out exactly what we talked about. 

Dave Tabor (00:18:09) - The reason I ask about Caterpillar and why I wanted you to explain that is because I do think that there are clear parallels between their brand and their conscious decision to update it and to stay updated and to get ahead of it.

Dave Tabor (00:18:21) - So I want to shift gears again, and I want to talk about blog posts that I wrote called Advertisers Don't Know Us. And I started by showing an ad and I screamed out loud when I saw it like, that's not me. And it was a travel company that featured in, quote, small groups, big adventures. But the people look like dorks. I mean, they did not look adventurous at all. And so that's just one example that's specific. But do you think that advertisers are having trouble reaching the stubbornly young?

Christian Gani (00:18:47) - They are. They have a lot of trouble. And it's a complex problem because an example in the automotive industry might be Buick or Lincoln, right? These are brands that have been around a really long time, and they've got, you know, solid brands in terms of what people think about them. But if if you're a brand manager for either of those, of those brands or those products, when you do the calculus, we've got older subsets and we have to replenish, so to speak, the customer base, because quite frankly, they get older, they don't buy as much product or they they may frankly just pass away. And then all of a sudden we lose a customer and we don't we don't refill the pipeline. And so it's a really tricky dance, right? Because you don't want to spend all of your marketing budget talking directly to the people who already purchase your products. Part of the growth strategy for all brands is to reach outside of those, those boundaries, and they struggle with that. And the visual image that you just described has occurred to me several times, I've had the distinct pleasure, if you want to call it that, of being in meetings where brands always say, you know, hey, we were trying to get younger. Yep. Okay. and here's a placemat of the perfect person that we're trying to chase. They're 35. They have a dog. They live in this zip code. And it's a delicate dance of allocating the right budgets, but you are articulating a bit of a different set of people, people who are indeed by age, by just the number getting older but in spirit are not that. Which is probably why you reacted so viscerally to an image of a couple of dorks walking across a bridge.

Dave Tabor (00:20:19) - That's exactly right. And I do think it's tricky, right? Because if you're a brand that is, at its core, appealing to 30 and 40 year olds, and you start appealing to somebody who's in their 50s and 60s who are active and staying engaged, are you now alienating your sweet spot?

Christian Gani (00:20:32) - It's really delicate, as you can imagine. I mean, there's a good example that I would give you of a brand that does the opposite, right? And there are some out there that do this. They embrace the authenticity of getting older and they don't let creativity stunt its growth. What I mean by that is there's this company out there. Not many people know who they are, but if you do, congratulations, they're called Caddis Eye Appliances. I'm a customer, so I like them, but we don't work with them. And they're a great example of what they call the anti anti-aging brand.

Christian Gani (00:21:03) - That's their tag. Right? They take a remarkably honest approach on the fact that they just celebrate that their customers are 40, 50 and 60 and we love it. Embrace it. And so the visual imagery is not uploader walking across a bridge Dave. It's hey, you're retired, you're at the pool and you've got your eye appliances. Even the name itself has some level of like, oh, this is cool. It says something about me. They're slightly larger. They're very discerning, oriented, and so you're unafraid of just being who you are. There's a distinct difference between that and some of the brands we talked about earlier. You know, the Buicks and the Lincolns of our days, today that have to take this very delicate approach. If we want to be cool, hip and young, but we don't want to alienate those people walking across the bridge.

Dave Tabor (00:21:50) - Yeah, for sure. And I'm going to talk about you wrote a blog post that I read too where you talk about Marshall Goldsmith's book, What Got You Here Won't Get You There. And you explain that the businesses that will see future success will be the ones that are brave enough to change their habits, change their tactics, change their mindsets. You already talked about that with Caterpillar. I mean, that's a clear example. But as you think about the Stubbornly Young audience, is this a question of authenticity or is it a question of marketing ourselves?

Christian Gani (00:22:17) - I think it's a question of adaptability, if I'm honest, right? So we've all seen that tech curve that says, you know, how fast tech evolved, you know, in the 40s, 50s and 60s, it was sort of a slightly upward and then it has just absolutely hockey sticked, you know, as a native Canadian, I've got to bring hockey into this conversation. And so it skews straight upwards. Right. And we talked early on about the need to be educated about these new platforms, these new technologies. It could be a bit it can be problematic because there's just so much going on.

Christian Gani (00:22:48) - But adaptability to me is what this really is all about. It's about being open to new ideas. It's about reopening that aperture. It's about being resistant to the old way of doing business and being open to the new way of doing it. And so adapting oneself to that state is almost a psychological assignment, right? Like you have to really change who you are, not just professionally, but almost personally as well.

Dave Tabor (00:23:13) - I would think, you know, it comes to mind. I'm listening to William Shatner's book called Go Boldly. He's really a great spokesperson for staying bold as you age and adapting. I think his key thing is learning, continuing to learn. And when you think about what you do to stay with an open aperture, what you do to adapt to what are you doing because you really are in a marketplace where if you don't, you just can't thrive. 

Christian Gani (00:23:38) - Yeah. I mean, it is a significant portion of each of my days is dedicated to reading. It just has to be. And that could be fiction, like we talked about early on just to get those creative pieces flowing, because that's my business. The second is a bit more of that business-oriented, I'll call it self-help or professional guidance, which I think is helpful with some of these new authors that are bringing forward new ideas for workplace, how to keep staff happy, how to make stakeholders and clients understand really complex digital ideas. Then I think the third thing, as we said constantly, is I am just going to be unafraid to try and fail and learn and then try and fail and learn. Maybe that's just a Christian Gani thing. I don't think it should be. I think it should be a lot of people dig into that.

Dave Tabor (00:24:28) - It should be. Do you feel differently? Look, I mean, is it different to try and feel and learn among people that are your equivalents, age wise, career wise and so forth, versus trying and failing and learning in front of people? That that was a big thing for me is like, you know, I'm still making mistakes.

Dave Tabor (00:24:42) - I'm in my 50s and now 60, and I'm still making mistakes at some point, should that be embarrassing? But I've got to believe that, no, it shouldn't be. But maybe it's different in different contexts.

Christian Gani (00:24:52) - Well, I mean, I guess if you were an accountant, and you made a significant number of errors that could be problematic. In the creative industries in that type of work that we rely on that. I mean, we have brainstorming techniques, which is like, what's the worst idea you could possibly think of for this particular assignment? And that forces you to think outside of the box, right? You just got to think creatively, and then you reverse engineer that to try and get to the best idea. And you got to be open to fail. There's no embarrassment from my side ever in those situations. But I can understand how there would be for some, you know, again, stubbornly young for me is not an age. We've talked 40s and 50s and 60s. I think if we're thinking about being stubbornly young, take the age number and throw it out the damn window. Don't even think about it. What you are is you are trying to create a state of mind that's right for you. That would be my advice, because that's kind of how I've lived my entire professional career, is trying to just be in the state of mind that is open to new ideas, that is open to a significant education and new learning techniques. 

Dave Tabor (00:25:58) - So as you matured.

Christian Gani (00:25:59) - Well, you assume, I’ve matured.

Dave Tabor (00:26:00) - So to some extent, I am assuming that you have. As you've matured, does your creativity, does that look different than it did? Do you? Is it somewhat confined by sort of a box that you've learned over the years, things that work and don't work? And I mean, isn't that tough? 

Christian Gani (00:26:18) - It's really, really hard. We used to have a sports activewear client, very tip of the spear fashion, very on the tip of the spear with sports and athletes and gear.

Christian Gani (00:26:27) - And man, it was exhausting trying to keep up with the latest trends, both in the fashion industry and in athletic wear, and what these athletes were doing and what was cool in the music scene. I like a lot of Mozart, okay, not a lot of people who are in their 20s buying basketball shoes really want, really understand, or they just have a different subset of musical preferences. And so that, yes, can be very hard. That's just a small example of how it can be hard to stay current and stay on trend. But like anything else, if it's hard, it's probably worth doing. It still requires a significant, as I said, a significant portion of each and every day is just reading.

Dave Tabor (00:27:04) - Yeah. Now, as you think about this topic, as you think about your evolution as a business person and as a human, you got kids, right? I mean, what do you hope you're conveying to them about staying engaged as you get older? Are you doing it? Are you working at it consciously?

Christian Gani (00:27:18) - Maybe not as consciously as it should be, I don't know. I think through, kids learn by example. And they, obviously like most people who have kids, everyone knows they pay attention to more things than you think they're paying attention to, and the spirit of who you are and how you operate, both in your business world and in your sort of, you know, personal life. Sometimes those can mirror each other quite closely. When we go on vacation, we don't have to make a plan every day. Sometimes we wing it and we just say, you know what? Let's just go have a really good time by just letting the day come to us. And that says something about sort of who you are. Maybe you're just a little unplanned, maybe you're just a little bit adventurous. In the professional world, I think my kids probably have embraced most that. We still are very casual in terms of our appearances. When we dress, you know, to go to work. It's not suit and ties like it was in the early days of the ad world back in the Mad Men days. Our creative sessions look like the beautiful mind with dots and squares and post-it notes and there's a certain level of excitement and untraditionalism to that. So I think my kids will pick up a little bit on that. But the fearlessness part, we talked about that very, I said that word early on and I think nothing else, well, if nothing else, in the ad business, if you're not fearless you're not going to be in the ad business very long. You've got to come with an opinion. You've got to come with something that's sort of got a direct attribution model to the brief that you've created with a client. And I think being fearless in those environments is an absolute essential. But I think that that can translate, again, maybe not to the accountant, although in some situations, maybe. But for the most part, any business, there's a certain level of fearlessness about how you operate as a person that can be really beneficial.

Dave Tabor (00:28:56) - Well and outside of the business world. I mean, to me, what I'm hearing, you're saying the word fearless. I'm hearing sort of this committed energy around whoever you're going to be, right?

Christian Gani (00:29:05) - Yeah. Remember what I said when, you know, at the very outset of this conversation would be to congratulate you for wanting to put in the hard work, because it is going to be hard staying current, staying up to date, reading, being open to these new ideas, like it's not things that we thought we would be doing potentially, maybe at this point in our careers. Right? Like we thought, once you're the 50 or 60-year-old executive, what you do is the right thing. What you say is the right thing, and that's just the way it's going to be. Well, that might have been the case back in the industrial age. It's not the case today.

Dave Tabor (00:29:38) - Yeah, yeah. That's the recurring theme is as I think about all of these topics, as I wrote my nine rules for being stubbornly young. And I mean, it's yeah, it takes some conscious decision, some conscious effort. Right? And you mentioned it earlier, mindset. So yeah, let's wrap up on that. 

Christian Gani (00:29:54) - Yeah. I think that would be my one piece of advice is that it's hard work but be committed. You'll get a more surprising reaction than you think from those that are in your business or professional circle. By being a little bit more committed, by being a little bit more fearless, I think you'll be surprised pleasantly by the result.

Dave Tabor (00:30:09) - Let's wrap up. I'm your host, Dave Tabor, today on the Stubbornly Young Podcast. You've been listening to my conversation with Christian Gani of Outerkind. Christian, thank you for joining me. And also this, I mean, I made several notes about things like aperture, mindset, fearlessness. I mean, these are all things that I think are consistent with where we're going.

Christian Gani (00:30:26) - I look forward to our conversations all the time. This one's no different. So thanks for having me. 

Dave Tabor (00:30:30) - Yeah. Listeners, this has been episode nine of the Stubbornly Young podcast for those in their 50s, 60s and beyond, remaining engaged in the world and relevant to the younger people in their lives.

Please do me a favor. Help the podcast spread by submitting a review and by sharing. Catch you next time on Stubbornly Young.

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