Failure Builds Stories | ​​Matt Searle | Full Battery Media

In this episode of the Full Battery Media Podcast, I sit down with Matt Searle, Head of Product at OpenSesame and SyncStudio, to talk about what really makes content, music, video, and creative work connect with people. Matt has worked across indie record labels, university recording studios, Apple, Mark Rober’s Crunch Labs, and now the startup world, so his perspective on creativity comes from years of real experience inside some of the most interesting media environments out there.

We get into why YouTube editing breaks the traditional rules, what Apple taught him about making corporate content feel human, and why Mark Rober’s team is so good at turning failure into part of the story. We also talk about AI in music and media, why tools do not replace taste, why creators should stop waiting for perfect gear, and why the phone in your pocket is already powerful enough to start.

What I loved about this conversation is how honest Matt was about the hard work behind creative success. Making great content is not easy, and most people quit before they get to the fun part. But if you care about the story, learn the tools, build with people, and keep showing up, you can create something that actually matters.

What is one creative project you have been waiting to start, and what is stopping you from taking the first step?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Yeah, it's interesting too to have, you know, to have the those two different perspectives. Because Apple, while it is this beacon of creativity, ultimately what you're building there is corporate video, right? I mean, Apple does it better than everyone else. What was really eye-opening is that when you go from that corporate video infrastructure to a YouTube video infrastructure, it's totally different. Totally different. And even like being a producer there and like going to the creative director at Mark Rober and being like, hey, like this guy that I worked with at Apple is like one of the best editors I've ever worked with. And like having him do an edit test for Mark Rober's Creative Director, and then Mark Rober's Creative Director is like, yeah, this guy's too corporate. I'm like, what are you talking about? This is like the best editor I've ever worked with. But it's like, you know, that's a very specific thing to do YouTube. It's almost a completely different style of editing. Where, especially in the YouTube world, if you look at like Mr. Beast, Mark Rober, some of those people at the top of the food chain in that space, and you look at how their videos are edited, they're breaking the rules of traditional video. But it works on YouTube. So it's interesting, it's an interesting dynamic for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Welcome everybody back to the Full Battery Media Podcast. I'm your host, Sean Trace, and I was frozen there for a second, but I've got an awesome guest with me today. Would you like to tell people who you are a little bit about what you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Yeah, my name is Matt Searle. Uh right now I'm the head of product for a company called Open Sesame. We build audio collaboration software. Um, yeah, and uh have a kind of a vast experience in the music business and education and you know working in big tech. So yeah, glad to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

That's awesome, man. You've done a lot of cool stuff. Like that was one of the things when I was I look for guests and I try to find people that have interesting backgrounds. And like yours is super interesting. You've got a lot of cool stuff you've done. And I I like that because to me, it's like I love people that have like learned experience, man, lived experience, and it's just cool stuff that they're able to share with the world in general. And I wanted to ask you this because, like, um, how did you get started in this path? How did you get going?

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Yeah, I mean, I went to uh I went to full sale, which a lot of people um go to that school. Uh I specifically went to study audio recording. So, you know, that was what I kind of always knew I wanted to do. I had it, I had an interesting upbringing because I grew up in Southeast Idaho. So, you know, if you know local news markets, Southeast Idaho is market 156 of like, I don't remember, I think it's like 165 or something like that. It's one of the smallest markets in the United States. So they literally hire high schoolers to run their broadcasts. So when I was 17, I started working at the local TV station doing news. And um I got uh the opportunity as a 17-year-old to run audio for the local news broadcast. So live to air, 17-year-old running the audio board, right? Um so uh having that pressure of working in live, um, you know, realizing that I'm I'm pretty good at it. And so I kind of knew what I wanted to do from a really early age. Um, and then as I started exploring colleges, you know, going to a local college where, you know, I knew I wanted to study audio, there's no audio program there. So then I sought out full sale, went there, um, and you know, met some people while I was there that was like, yeah, you just moved to LA, like you'll, you know, you'll figure it out. So I did right out of college, I moved to LA, um, got a job at a record label, was the studio manager and label coordinator for a small indie record label for about five years. Um, really enjoyed that, really had a great time, learned a lot about audio recording because that was kind of my specialty at the label. And then um ended up getting a job as, you know, the staff audio engineer at a fairly large university back where I'm from in Southeast Idaho, um, which had like a three-room, multi-million dollar recording studio. So for seven years I ran that, mentored students, which was a really cool experience. Um, and then out of that, I uh had the opportunity to start doing some freelance work for Apple, which eventually led to them hiring me full-time. So I moved here to Austin, Texas, have been here ever since, worked for Apple for almost eight years. Uh, and then now I'm uh head of product for a tech startup called Open Sesame. And while I've been head of product, you know, we're building a startup. So uh I still was doing some freelance, had the opportunity to work for Mark Rober and Crunch Labs for the last year. I actually just left Mark Rober and Crunch Labs because the things with the startup are um we just had an activation and kind of launched our product, exited stealth mode at South by Southwest this year. So it's time for me to jump in with both feet to the startup. But the year at Crunch Labs was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Yeah. I can only imagine how fun, much fun that must be working at Crunch Labs. You know, it's like you're you're you're around people that are just doing some of the most creative stuff out there. That's just awesome, man. But I want to ask you this too, because like, you know, you've seen it and you've worked at places like Apple and with creators like Mark Robert. What did you learn about what actually makes content and media work while you were there?

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Yeah, it's interesting too to have, you know, to have the those two different perspectives. Because Apple, while it is this beacon of creativity, ultimately what you're building there is corporate video, right? I mean, Apple does it better than everyone else. What was really eye-opening is that when you go from that corporate video infrastructure to a YouTube video infrastructure, it's totally different. Totally different. And even like being a producer there and like going to the creative director at Mark Rober and being like, hey, like this guy that I worked with at Apple is like one of the best editors I've ever worked with. And like having him do an edit test for Mark Rober's Creative Director, and the Mark Roberts Creative Director is like, yeah, this guy's too corporate. I'm like, what are you talking about? This is like the best editor I've ever worked with. But it's like, you know, that's a very specific thing to do YouTube. It's almost a completely different style of editing. Where, especially in the YouTube world, if you look at like Mr. Beast, Mark Rober, some of those people at the top of the food chain in that space, and you look at how their videos are edited, they're breaking the rules of traditional video. But it works on YouTube. So it's interesting. It's an interesting dynamic for sure.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

It is interesting, and it's like because uh one of the things I think people don't realize is that in traditional media, you go through the cycles and you're taught the ways things work, you're shown how to do it, and like this is the right way, this is the way, this is the way it's always been done. I remember this one story about this kid that uh my friend taught him guitar, and the kid had never had a guitar lesson in his life. He just had been given a guitar when he was a kid, picked it up, and jammed with different music. He figured out things, he got a chord book somewhere, and yet he became this absolutely amazing guitarist. And when my friend went to teach him, he said to me, He's like, he does everything wrong. And I said, So what's the problem? You know, that it's easy to fix. He's like, No, I don't want to fix it because it's so amazing how he plays. Like, I'm sitting there and they're like, everyone's like, you need to fix his technique. And I'm like, his technique is something that's completely different, but it's amazing, you know? And I think that's one of the things that we're seeing with the media right now. People are just, they grew up with, you know, for young musicians growing up with a DAW and some, you know, different tools they had, and they're making amazing music. You know, the same thing for video people. They're just like, hey, I've got this iPhone, let's do this. And people are like, you're not supposed to do that. And they're like, I just did. Damn, I just had 20 million views. Should I fix it? You know, they're like, Well, I don't know. I don't know if you should fix it, you know, because it seems to be working.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Well, and there's like the joke, right? Like us coming up in the media, but people that are in, I mean I'm in my mid 40s, right? Like people my age, you have the joke of like when you learn to edit, right? And in the 60s, it's like I had a friend that worked at a TV station. And then like in the 80s, like my high school had two VHS decks that we could use to edit with. And then the 90s is like, oh yeah, we had a we had a Macintosh in my lab that had Final Cut on it. And then like the mid-2000s, it's like, oh yeah, yeah, I got a computer that came with the you know, iMovie. And then like now today, it's like in the back of my car on the way home from daycare on an iPad, like is when I learned to edit. It's just like, it's so different, the world we live in. My son, who's a music producer, he's 16. He's been producing music in Logic Pro and Ableton since he was eight years old, right? Like it's just like a completely different world that they're growing up in. And now these, you know, now this Gen Alpha, Gen Z, like they're the people on YouTube making content that the world is watching, um, and younger millennials as well, right? Like, it's interesting what they've come up with, and it's all entertaining, right? The Sopranos is entertaining, and so is Mr. Beast's last video. Like, it's just a different style, you know, and this is this is entertainment for the next generation, and it's still good. It's not bad, it's good.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Yep. It's interesting that the medium changes, but storytelling's still the same, you know. But we have tools that are making storytelling easier. And you know, that's the thing. The other day, uh, someone I got into this debate with people about new tools. And I'm not gonna go on the whole I AI thing. Like, dude, we've had tools that have been advancements throughout time memorial. You know, it's like there's always been a new tool. And people are like, what is this new thing that we are so frustrated? But like at the end of the day, you know, whether it was cave painting, moving into narrative storytelling, you know, like word of mouth, like you think about that, like the uh the Iliad and the Odyssey, some of the greatest works and were stories that were just passed down, you know, it was a narrative, like like the storytelling structure. And then humans learn to write, you know, it's like you get a way to level it up right there. But like one of the things too is I think that we're just story is still story. And I think that as long as people are tying into great stories, great, you know, um arcs, whether it be a musical arc, you know, what is the story you're telling with your music, you know, it's gonna be good, you know, as long as you anchor into that.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Yeah. Well, and not to completely dive into AI, but I went to a panel at NAM this year um where a bunch of people from Universal Music was there, were there. And um, the two studio managers for East West Studios and Capital Records Studios, which are two of the most iconic studios in the world, they were talking about, you know, hey, people are saying AI is gonna kill recording studios. And they're like, yeah, they said the same thing about Adat and they said the same thing about reverb and they said the same thing about Pro Tools, and here I am, I still have a job. And it's like, yeah, you know, it might change things, it might make things a little bit different. But if you look at the photography industry, people said that Photoshop was gonna kill photography. Photoshop created jobs, it didn't take away jobs, it created jobs.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

We've been, my wife is a singer and we've been integrating AI into our workflow. And it's been really cool because what we do is we have a human songwriter, but then when we would send like demos to people, we're like, hey, we want the demo to sound like this. And my wife has to then describe inspiration, right? And she's like, does this, this, this, and I need this and this. And then if we come back and like she's like, I want a cinematic movie piece. And the guy's like, here's your dubstep. And I was like, no, that's not what I was looking for. And I mean, that actually happened two weeks ago. I sent this guy the cinematic piece and like or a month ago, he sent me back some dubstep stuff. I was like, not what we're looking for. I mean, it's cool, but not what we're looking for. So she's taking AI music generation, throwing the song from the songwriter in there, saying, I want it this like this, and then we're pulling out the the the the the demo that's just awesome at that point, sending it to real music, like our music producer, having him get rely human instruments going back in. It's just such a cool way to like it's a tool, man. That's like how you use it, you know. So 100%.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

And that's and that it's we've had audio processing, all sorts of different things that have used machine learning that have been used as tools in the music business for years, and no one complained about it. Um, I think the biggest thing, I think the biggest thing you have is there's the reality, right, that we want machines to like do our laundry and do the dishes so that we can make art, right? We don't want machines to make art. And so I think that that's what some of the backlash is. And I think the reality is like a completely AI generated song, you know, an artist that has the skills to write a song is never going to use that because they have the skills to write a song. What it democratizes is someone who has an idea but does not have the skills to write a song can now use AI to write that song. And that's not necessarily a bad thing as long as you know we're not platforming slop. Um, which 100% you know that's there's a difference.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

And this is what I talk. I I've been talking to people like I hate AI generated videos, and I'm like trying to go to AI rabbit hole, but I can't stand them, right? But the AI tools that the team my team uses to help us edit and speed up our processes are great. I was thinking about I saw this one guitarist that maybe that guitarist is a a solid guitarist, and they don't have the money to get drums, a drummer and a bassist and a thing, and they want to create their own thing, and then they they can generate some of those other things. I mean, it's great. Auto-tune didn't kill music when it came along. I mean, it did some interesting stuff. It's a tool, it was a tool, yeah, exactly. It was a tool, and I mean, and you know, people were like, Oh, it's gonna destroy music, dude. Jazz is still jazz, great musicians are still great musicians, you know. And like at the end of the day, if you can give some kid in whereverville the chance to get their music out there and to be seen, power more power to you. But I wanted to ask you this next question because a lot of people though, we're not like some people don't even get to that point. Like a lot of people want to create content but never start. And like, why do you think that might be?

SPEAKER_01 15:32

I mean, I think when it comes down to it, like I have you know, I have younger kids and I have older kids. And what's interesting is my younger kids want to be YouTubers, and my older kids have already given up on that dream. And I think what happens is somewhere along the line, people realize how much work it is. I mean, yeah, I don't think anyone fully understands, and I do, what it takes to make a Mark Rober video. I don't think anyone has anything how much work it is to do that. Um, I was pretty heavily involved in the Alcatraz and um goalie robot post-production videos that Mark did last year. And I mean, my time cards were extensive, and I'm just one piece of the puzzle, right? There's there's you know, probably 50 or 60 people working on those videos at the end of the day, and it's just it's so much work, but but it's also it's also an interesting thing when it comes to how Mark does things, is that everybody's on board because there is a creative vision and everybody's behind the creative vision, so it also becomes fun. So I think what happens is a lot of people stop before they get to the fun part. They see the roadblocks, they see the roadblocks in their way, and they're like, I don't want to go through these roadblocks. But once you get past those roadblocks, like I look at my experience on those two specific videos and how much hard work it was, and I don't look back on it like it was a chore. I look back on it like it was fun, but I did work really hard. So I think that's what stops a lot of people is it's a it takes a lot to create good art. And it and especially with today's tools, you can get 40% of the way there, 50% of the way there really fast to creating something great. But to get to that 80%, that 100%, especially to get, you know, that the the theory of that last 20% is the hardest, you know, we've all heard that. It takes a lot of work. And and I think sometimes people just see the hard work of it and don't see the fun of it. And so they miss out, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:06

I 100% agree. And I think that sometimes people I I love that you're saying what you're saying about the hard work, because like doing this for so long, I've seen different, a lot of different creators and different channels that my team's worked with, and it is not easy, it is not simple, it is not a a you know, let's go and just knock this out in two hours, type of a thing. No, it's like months of planning for some of these videos and to put these things into place. Um it is really a challenge. And I think that one of the things that people do is like what I would say though, is start small. You know, I think that that's what I would tell people is like if you want to get out there and you have a reason that you want to be doing this, maybe it's to help build your business, maybe you want to get more visibility for some reason. You don't want to do TED talks. Okay, cool. Don't aim to do a TED talk every day. Instead of sit there and go, I'm gonna record one 90-second reel and put that out there and see what it looks like, you know? And if you can start with that, uh, it will get you closer, it will get you on the right path, you know. And it's like, but I want to ask you this too, because like, what's something people think they need to get started, but like actually don't?

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Oh, oh, the audio industry is the most guilty of this, but the video industry tool too is that you need to have certain tools. A lot of people think that you need to have certain tools. I've dealt with this with my son, where it's like, oh, I need to have this plugin because this is what all the producers that I like use. And it's like, well, the reality is you have this plugin that does the same thing, you just want this other tool because it's what you're the people that you're idolizing are using. And it's interesting because in especially in today's world, yes, software costs, yes, computers cost money, but the reality is the majority, especially in the United States of America, we're such an affluent society. The majority of people have no barrier to entry to make creative work. And that's a reality that a lot of people would disagree with. But the truth is you have more power on your cell phone than the supercomputers that existed when you know I was coming up in the industry. And so and and Garage Band's free if you have an iPhone, and there's you know, FL Studio and other tools, you know, Ableton has a free version, Pro Tools has a free version. Um, DaVinci is free for everybody and does all of these things, including editing and correction. Um, and so the reality is there is no barrier of entry anymore. So I get this question a lot, especially like you know, I try to do as much mentoring with you know alumni from schools I've been to and anyone in the industry that wants to learn more. And I always get this question. I always just say, go and create art, especially like if they're a student, like go find your tribe, go find the students at your university that are doing what you want to do and go make art with them. Like go find other people that that want to do this, even if you're not a student, even if you're an adult in their mid-40s and want to break into this industry, go go find a 24-hour film festival and enter it, right? Like there's all these opportunities to do creative work, and there is no barrier of entry anymore. Like it just go and do 100% of it. One thing that I tell people a lot is if you look at Billy Eilish and Phineas, they swept the grannies from this their parents, the Second bedroom in their parents' house. They swept the from the second bedroom in their parents' house. He has Yamaha HS8s as speakers, which are like $600 speakers when they made that, um, when they made that record that swept the Grammys. They're using a UAD Apollo and Apple Logic Pro. These are all tools that you can go to a guitar center and buy today. They didn't have anything, they didn't have anything that anything extra to make them great, just their talent. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

I remember reading that one, I think one of Billy Adish's like albums was done on like a hundred dollar mic, too.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

Like, yeah, oh yeah. Her parents worked in the like her her mom kind of famously is in the video game Mass Effect. Like her parents worked in the industry, but they were not rich. They did not have a bunch of money. Like they were just average middle class people living in LA. So yeah, they they came from very humble beginnings. Very famously, Skrillix, his record, his EP that won him his first Grammys. The tweeter and his left, I think it was his left speaker, the tweeter didn't work. He was he was using broken speakers and made an EP that won a Grammy and literally changed music. Like if you think I don't know if you know Skrillex, but like he literally changed music.

unknown 23:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

I didn't know about the speaker. I didn't know about the broken speaker. Like that's wild. That's absolutely wild. Well, I I I'm excited to like ask you this next question, then, because like that got back, it just gets me inspired, man. Um, but you know, you've you've worked on some high-level productions. What's the difference between something that's good and something that people actually care about? You know, how do you make something that people remember?

SPEAKER_01 23:50

Dude, that's a great question. Um, I think it really comes down to, you know, curation and care and taste. Because when you care, um, and when and when the people that you're filming or the people that are making what you're making care, that that comes across on camera or that comes across through the speakers. Um when they don't, people can tell. If it isn't if you're making something and it isn't genuine, people who can people will see through it immediately. And so I think you know, you have to care. You know, we kind of talked about the juxtaposition between Mark Robert and what we did at Apple. I think what Apple is really good at, especially where I came from, because I worked in sales. So, you know, at the end of the day, if you think about what we were doing, is we were making sales training videos for Best Buy employees, right? Like that was my job. We could have done that the most boring way. Here's the new iPhone, here's all the features, but we never did that because it was Apple. We always found a way to tell the story in a way that would relate to the people that we were making those videos for. So one of my favorite projects I did at Apple is we did um, once again, this is all training videos for Best Buy, Target, Verizon, T-Mobile, ATT employees, right? And we went, we went to LA, Washington, D.C., and New York, and we filmed with a photographer, a painter, uh music artist, and just showed how they use Apple products to make their art. And those were the videos that we made for sales training. And it was genuine because the artists that we were working with were stoked to be working with us. They were stoked to be making a project for Apple. They were really responsive to like what we were doing, and they were excited because all three of them legitimately used Apple products to make their art. It wasn't fake, it was real. And so it was genuine. It came across as like this is my process, and this is how I use these tools that Apple make to make my process easier. And those videos are super entertaining, they're super engaging, and they were highly successful because it was genuine. And yeah, of course, the filming was impeccable because we hired amazing crews, and the audio sounded incredible because we have amazing people on our team. And technically they were perfect, but what that's not what made them good. What made them good is they were genuine.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

Yeah, that's awesome. It's the uh the genuine nature of that like is is awesome for me because it's like we can at the end of the day um sit there and try to match what other people are doing, or we can make something that actually works according to our vibe, according to our creativity, our whatever it might be, you know? Um, and I wanted to ask you this too, because I'm curious in how you think about this. But like when you're building something creative, how do you how do you know it's worth sticking with it or if you should move on? Like, are you, you know, like should you go and push as hard as you can on that thing that is the thing that you believe in? Or should you just say, hey, you know, this isn't working, let's figure out another angle.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

I think um this goes back to Mark Robert because he really is great at this. No, I think it goes back to Mark Robert. If you watch a lot of his videos, he bakes failure into the video. Um like his his egg drop from space video very famously, like he failed at that multiple times. Like that that video should have been a disaster, but he didn't. You know, he made he made it a good video because he baked failure into the video. Um, so I think a lot of times, yeah, and sometimes you know, you'll fail. There, there's there's projects that Mark started and never finished. There's there's plenty of projects, you know, at Apple that we started on and never finished. Um, there's plenty of products, projects at Apple, because Apple's such a big corporation where we finished the video and no one's seen it because Apple Legal told us we couldn't use it, or something, you know, something in the video didn't work out and we didn't get proper permission or something like that. Um but I think the biggest thing that you have to take away is yeah, sometimes something doesn't work out. And, you know, I think your taste ultimately guides whether or not you continue on on something. But I think the biggest thing to take away in those situations is that you learn from those failures. That you learn and grow and take what you learned into the next project, or even take what you learned into that project um and and finish it, right? Like you can fail and still finish a project, right? It doesn't mean that failure doesn't have to be the end of something. But you know, I think Mark's great at that. And and if you if you're a big you know, watcher of his catalog, there there's he'll tell you was like this is what I intended to film, it didn't work out, but here's what I'm gonna do to fix it, right? Like I don't know that there's very many creators that do that as openly as Mark does, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:14

He's so good at that. Like you'll head in and he'll be like, hey, this is what I thought I was gonna do. Um and but like that's the reality. Like, I don't think people realize how many times things don't go the way you're anticipating. And at that point in time, um you have to improvise. And if you can, it makes it much easier to not go down on your, you know, go down with the ship when things start going the wrong direction, you know, because they often do. Um, but you know, the like leads me to the next question because a lot of people struggle with consistency, you know, it's hard to keep showing up. How do you keep showing up and creating even when you're not feeling it? Because, you know, when things don't go the way you want, it's hard to keep it up, you know? I think there's two things there.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

I think I think one, you know, you have to you have to find your why when it comes to creativity. And once you do that, it makes it easier to show up on the days where you know you're not feeling it. And then two, like I think, you know, I think we have to realize that like it's okay to be mediocre sometimes. Not not not every Mark Robert video has 200 million views, not every Apple commercial is a slam, you know, not every Apple product is a slam. I mean, Apple has famous failures um uh uh as a company. Uh just recently I saw an interview with um with Greg, one of the leaders at Apple, talking about Apple Maps and how much of a failure Apple Maps was. But now Apple Maps is on par, and you know, some people would even argue is better than Google Maps. You know, they they learn from failure. So I think like finding your why and then, you know, realizing that one, it's okay to fail, and one, it's okay to like do something mediocre. You know, not everything you make is gonna be great. And I think going into it, knowing that it actually helps mentally. Um, but then it also like keeps you striving for that greatness, right? Like if you if you're not putting that pressure on yourself, because I think that's what happens to a lot of creators, and I think that's what happens, especially if you look in music and film, um, you know, any high-end entertainment, uh, you know, video games are famous for burnout culture, right? And I think that um in all of those spaces, having a mental attitude that you're not, you know, finding ways to not put pressure on yourself is is so important because you will burn out because creativity is so fun. This industry is so fun, you will burn yourself out. It's just a real it's just a reality to face. And so you have to find you if you even if you have to put in guardrails for yourself, you have to find ways to be mentally healthy in that creative space. Um, and I think you know it's interesting because I've had to work with a lot of different types of creators, and some just show up every day and they're ready to go. And I worked, I worked with the art director at Apple, and the first few years I worked with him, I did not appreciate him as an artist. Just because I didn't understand. But then once I understood, um, you know, because I worked with him as an audio engineer, and then I worked with him as a producer. And as an audio engineer, I was very frustrated with this process. But then as a producer, I got to learn to understand it because he's one of those people that's like my coworkers, we would say he needs to go in his creative cave for a while and figure this out. And so to me, we were wasting time. Why is why are we why are we in our creative cave figuring this out? Like, why are we taking so long to make these decisions? But then, like as being his producer and then seeing like once he comes out of the cave, his ideas are so much more brilliant than anyone else's. And like letting his process play out, it's like, oh, we're so much farther ahead now than we would have been by giving him his space to go in his cave. So I think I think there's I think there's, you know, internally we have to figure out what we need to do for ourselves to be mentally healthy. And then externally, you know, you have to realize, especially as you become a creative leader, that on everybody's creative the same. And that you need to, you need to be flexible and malleable to other people's creative processes so that they could be mentally healthy when they show up. So that's that's something that I learned huge at Apple. Um, and I made mistakes because I was trying to force people into my creative process, you know, and it didn't work for them. And and and I had to learn, hey, no, I need to, I need to manage this person differently than I manage this person, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Like 100%. And you have to manage expectations, man. You have to know what you know what you're getting into and be able to set yourself up for success. Because if you're trying to pull off things that are absolutely outside of the scope of what you're able to, it's gonna lead to burnout, you know? And one mistake that I see creators making over and over again is for myself, I see people trying to do too much.

unknown 34:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

Trying to do too much and not setting up reasonable expectations. Because if your expectations are not reasonable, it is not gonna be something that you can succeed at. And I think that that's where it is for me. Like I have to, I try to tell people, um, that's a thing that you got to be careful of. And I want to ask you, what's up, once what's one mistake you see creators making over and over again?

SPEAKER_01 35:20

Um I think it goes back to you know, what we talked about earlier is and you just mentioned it, is you know, improper expectations and yeah, it's so hard to balance life, right? Because for the majority of people, creativity is an outlet, it's a therapy, it's something they do for fun. When it becomes your job, then it's so hard to have that balance. So, one, I think a lot of people make the mistake of you know, we just mentioned it, overwork. And then I think a lot of people I I this is this is gonna come across as, I don't know, maybe soft, but I think a lot of people in the creative industry are too hard on themselves. I think that I think that we put a pressure bec because if you think about our society, the pedestal that we've put like film, TV, video games, music on where these are now highly profitable industries, whereas you know, like um most painters, right, like Van Gogh, he was never famous while he was alive, right? Like being an artist was not a profitable industry for the majority of human society, whereas now it is, yeah, and because of that, a lot of people put a pressure on themselves to be, you know, something that quite frankly, they may never ever be. But you know, if you look at the past, that's not why people made art. Um, and so I think to land the plane on this question, to give you, you know, something you can use because I've kind of been rambling, but I think that a lot of times, you know, art it becomes a highly pressurized uh industry. And I think that if you're going into art to make money, any creative endeavor to make money, you're doing it wrong. Right? Like if you had if you happen to end up making money by doing your creativity, then that's great. You you you won the lottery. But the reality is if you're going into it to make money, you have the wrong attitude. And that's something that's really hard to grasp and really hard to balance. And so I think uh, you know, with that perspective in mind, you know, uh there's I tell uh just to kind of give you an example of this. Um, you know, I live in Austin, Texas, and Austin's known as one of the most famous music cities in the world, right? But yeah, what musicians do you know that come from Austin? There's a few. There's a few. You got Gary Clark Jr., you got the Black Pumas right now, you've got Stevie Ray Von, Willie Nelson.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

I was gonna say Stevie Ray Von, though.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

That was the one that I was thinking of. But it's not like Seattle, it's not like you know New York or LA, it's definitely not like Nashville, right? And so, like, why is that? And the reality is you have an artist middle class in Austin that kind of doesn't exist anywhere else, where you can have a band that plays Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, El Paso, Lubbock, maybe Oklahoma City, rinse repeat, and make money. And everybody's making a living, they're paying their bills, but no one outside of Texas knows who these bands are.

SPEAKER_02 39:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

And and that regional music scene still exists in Texas in a way that it doesn't exist in other economies. And so I think if you're going into music to be Pearl Jam or to be Bon Jovi or to be right whatever, then you're doing it wrong. If you're going, hey, if I can make enough money to pay the bills and I can make my living doing music, I've won. And that's your attitude, then you're doing it right.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

Yeah. I love that, man. And I think it's it pushes it back into the art. But I wanted to ask one last question. If someone's listening wants to start creating something, what's the first step they should take today?

SPEAKER_01 40:32

Yeah, I think learn the tools. I mean, there's plenty of colleges you can go to to learn all these skills. There's plenty of uh opportunity to learn them on your own. I mean, we've talked a lot about YouTube today. YouTube is college. Right? There's there's nothing you can't learn on YouTube these days. So if there's something that you're wanting, there's ways, there's ways to pay for it and to learn it. And there's ways to get it for free. So take that step to educate yourself. And and I mean, go download the tools. Go down, like if you want to be a music producer, go get the free version of Ableton. Go buy a MIDI keyboard. Almost any MIDI keyboard you buy these days comes with the Ableton Lite, which is their $100 version. Get the software, earn it, learn how to use it. If you want to be a video editor, download DaVinci. You can go to Black Magic's website right now and download it. It's free.

unknown 41:33

100%.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

And it has almost all the features you need. You don't need the paid version of DaVinci to get started. You may get to a point where creatively you need to pay for DaVinci. But for the majority of users that are just starting out, the free version of DaVinci has everything you need, including a DAW. So if you want to be a music producer, go download DaVinci. You can do it there too, right? That's right. So I think I think it's just, yeah, take those first steps to get started. Um, and yeah, there's there's there's plenty to go. There's plenty of places to go from that first step, but take the first step. I love that, man. Well, where can people go to find out more about you and what you do? I mean, LinkedIn's probably the easiest way to find me. Um we're uh the startup that I'm working with, we're in the kind of the beta phase of our software. So you know you can go to syncstudio.live um and sign up for a beta. Um if you're a musician or even a podcaster, anything where you need to collaborate with audio remotely, um, that's kind of the audience we're targeting with our software, doing some pretty cool stuff in that space. Um, we have some videos that we're working on right now that may or may not be out by the time this releases, um, you know, kind of telling the story of how our software works and what we did at South by Southwest this year. So pretty excited about that. So, yeah, LinkedIn, syncstudio.live. Those are the best places to look at what I'm doing.