Ep 66 Originality: What to embrace, fight, stop and start to rediscover your voice and create your best ideas.

In this inspiring episode of The Crazy One, Stephen Gates tackles the challenge of preserving originality in a world that often pushes for conformity. Learn what truly defines originality, and discover practical strategies to overcome self-doubt, resist groupthink, and navigate corporate cultures that can stifle unique thinking. Stephen provides a roadmap to help you embrace the traits that fuel creativity, fight back against forces that suppress it, and unlock your strongest, most authentic voice. Tune in to reclaim your originality and develop ideas that stand out.

SHOW NOTES AND MORE:
https://thecrazy1.com/

WATCH MORE CONTENT ON YOUTUBE:
https://www.youtube.com/@StephenGates

WORK WITH CRZY:
http://crzydesign.com/

FOLLOW THE CRAZY ONE:
LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook 

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Stephen Gates : 0:00

What's going on everybody, and welcome into the 66th episode of The Crazy One podcast. As always, I'm your host, Stephen Gates. And this is the show where we talk about creativity, leadership, design, and everything else that helps to empower creative people. Now, be sure to subscribe to the show, so you get the latest episodes whenever those come out. And while we're there, take just a few minutes and leave review if you like the show. Now, this is a show I've been working on for a long time, because I've talked a lot about creativity over the course of doing this podcast. And interestingly, there are certain numbers, I guess that just sort of jumped out at me. 66 is one of them. I think that's very much because being a kid who grew up in Pittsburgh, the number 66 was associated with somebody who was an absolute original somebody who brought that town back to life. And if you follow hockey at all, and if you're a penguins fan at all, then you definitely know the name Marissa loomio. I grew up in an amazing time. I'm in Pittsburgh getting to watch Marissa play getting to watch Willie Stargell on the pirates getting to watch the Steelers win Super Bowls it was, it was an amazingly interesting time as on the one hand, the city collapsed and half the population left for other places. But whenever you were there, you got to be a part of something really pretty incredible. And so as the episode numbers have racked up, and as we've gotten closer to this one, I had this one earmarked that I wanted to do it about originality, because for me, Mario did mean so much that he was so different. And because this is a topic I've wanted to do for a while. The challenge for all of us is that even once you start to understand the steps of how you have ideas, and how to summon your creativity on demand, there's still this huge challenge out there around originality, and this week, I was doing a whole bunch of traveling and was listening to a few podcasts people had tagged me in. It never ceases to be I don't know what strange weird It's not the right word. But to hear the people go into a podcast and talk about you to talk about to hear your name mentioned as some kind of like, I don't know what reference point or creative or benchmark or standard. Just I don't know what maybe it just feels weird to me. I'll be honest, it feels strange because I look around. And I think there are so many more amazing people, worthy people, people who are able to do these sorts of things. But it also makes me stop and kind of take stock of why do even a few people think this. And I think that some part of it is the ability to be original, I think original in having a voice and doing this podcast to standing on stage and saying what I do, and also just some of the work that I've done. This is what I want to do when we start out talking about originality. I want you to take a minute and think about your favorite artists, your favorite musician, your favorite designer, or some other creative person who is really influential. Somebody who you really like Loving right now somebody who just found an Instagram and got you really excited. You have that person in your mind. I'm gonna bet that their work stands out because it isn't like anything else. It isn't like everyone else. They have a unique look a unique sound, a unique perspective, a unique view on things. And this is the dilemma that so many of us wrestle with. We love following fetishize originals. People who stand out, have strong voices, and do their own thing as originals. get as creative as we all have self doubt, we're unsure of ourselves. And we work in places that demand conformity to a shared culture, and a common way of thinking. So in this episode, I want to explore this tension. I want to share some of the hard lessons that I've learned I want to look at and really talk about, what are some of the things for you, not for me, I because again, if I feel like if I'm going to talk about what I've done in my life that I think has led me to here I always feel it's a little bit like giving you yesterday's winning lottery numbers. While interesting, not terribly useful for you, and I want to make this about you. And so we're going to talk about what do you need to really embrace in your thinking? What are some of the tendencies you need to fight? What are some of the things you need to stop? And most importantly, what are some of the things that you need to start doing to really help improve some of that originality? Because this is what I see is I see so many people whose portfolios whose resumes don't reflect the quality and the depth of their ideation. I see people who are held back by self doubt, people who aren't sure if their idea is going to be good enough, because that's the thing is that the other half of originality is the ability to stand up and to put it out there. Because here's the thing if you think about it, we're all born originals. originality is born. In our story and our background, the people that again, if you think about it, the musicians, the artists, things like that own, where they came from own some part of their culture own some part of their background, we all have that. But interestingly, our parents, our education system, our jobs, our society, tries to get us to be like everybody else, even we put that pressure on ourselves. As in a way we start to lose that originality, we start to lose that voice. tonality starts to find an expression in the strong, original inner voice that grounds and guides who you are. Again, we've talked about this in the past. That's what the blessing and the curse of creativity is. It's your individual voice, your individual way of connecting the dots, that makes you unique, and too many people see that as a weakness or I see it as a strength. That originality gets stronger. When you start to really own what makes Are you unique? Whatever it is, whatever the background is, whatever the past is, I've had so many of my friends. Interestingly, a really good friend of mine, Luke lessman, incredibly famous, really popular tattoo artist has done all my ink done most of my wife's ink, one of my very best friends. We went to the 15 second Festival this year, and he put on it was the very first time he had done a talk about how to build a personal brand about where his voice and his originality came from. And that's the interesting thing and knowing him why I pushed him to tell this story. Because it's a really interesting thing of watching him go from being really ashamed of where he came from ashamed of his upbringing, ashamed of so many of these other things, only to really find out that it was a strength, that the moment that he started to embrace it, to lean into it, to give it a voice to let it drive his ideation, his thinking, his creativity. That's really where he found that originality that's where he found something that was really different. But what the difference is with him. And the difference in your originality to start it is that that voice that gets stronger, that sets you apart, only works if it's authentic, because there's that other part where people want to pretend, quote, unquote, to be originals. These are the people that I'll see they put like innovator, digital innovator, thought leader, like all this kind of stuff in their social media profile. And it always makes me laugh because anybody who's really an original, anybody who really is one of those things would never put that in their title. It just I know, I'm lucky enough to know a lot of those people and they just don't. But that's the thing is that it sets you apart, when it drives the quality of your ideas when it sets the standards that you hold those ideas to, whenever you start to look at what's that ownership. Yep, all of these things are some of the most difficult and most personal issues we ever tackle our voice this is why and I've said it before, we're going to write books on creativity, on leadership on originality on all these other things until the cows come home. Because it is so personal and so different. But, again, think of what that person is they didn't try to be somebody else. They just tried to beat themselves into being original. So with that foundation in place, let's start working through this embrace, fight, stop and start sort of model because I spent a lot of time again, knowing this episode is going to be coming up to sit down and try to think through whatever I think about the people that I know the people that I've worked with, even in whatever small whatever I don't know how to do this without just sounding like a raving egomaniac. Like even whenever I think about my own work. What were the things that I had to learn what were the lessons that life had to teach me and how do I share those in the hopes that maybe we can skip those with you? So let's, let's start with embrace because I think That part of this, like I said, is that there are just some fundamental things that we need to make peace with. And we need to really embrace the first one and the biggest one whenever it comes to all things. And I think this is bigger than just creativity is you need to embrace honesty with yourself and your work. You need to embrace that the more honest you are, the more people you're going to connect with, the stronger those ideas are. But this is where that insecurity comes in. Because what do we do? We know that if we are honest, it can be uncomfortable. We know that if we're honest, we might be vulnerable. But the most authentic voices, the most original voices are the ones that are the most honest. And I think that is something that doing this show has taught me is that there's a lot of issues that made me really uncomfortable to talk about. There are things that I talk about that nobody else does. But the interesting part has been the more honest that I've been the more vulnerable that I've been with that the bigger the response has been. But if you can't be honest with you yourself, if you weren't willing to fail if you weren't willing to look at that in the harsh Labor Day and understand what worked and what didn't. This is the very building block that trips most people up. Because this is the problem is that for so many people, just like for so many companies, what they really excel at is rationalizing mediocrity, because honesty is hard. Honesty means that you need to look and say, Look, maybe this wasn't good enough, maybe I need to change something. Maybe it's me. That's the problem. Especially in a world where we're surrounded by so many people that it's so easy and so tempting just to say it's somebody else's fault. Can't be being, I'm great, I'm perfect. I'm smart. I'm all those things can't be me, can't be me. It's probably you. But we need to start with honesty. Because that's gonna be the place where you find the strength that's gonna be the place where you find the most original voice of the most original ideas, but from their embrace that we all share the human condition of insecurity. And uncertainty. I get a lot of emails about this about, you know, is it normal that I that I, you know, I'm just not sure if I'm doing the right thing? Is it normal that whenever I'm creating, like, I'm so insecure about this? Sure. I mean, you heard me go on that about that before is I mean, because the problem is the creative condition, really, is the fact that we, we all are going to look at the ideas that we put out there and look back at them and say, they could have been better. I could have done them differently. I could learn because we're not dealing in absolutes. We're dealing in a highly debatable medium, we're dealing in something that is so malleable. There's not a right answer to what it is that we do. And also because of what we're being asked to do is so incredibly personal. That insecurity and uncertainty are just the cost of entry. And the bigger the idea gets the further it gets away from what is safe, that that becomes even the bigger cost. And these are the things ultimately I seem defeat most organizations defeat most people Paul, is that they don't want to take a risk. And again, I'm not saying be stupid. I'm saying be crazy. There's a difference. Crazy understands the foundation of things crazy, is able to put it in a context and to be able to come from someplace with that idea. Stupid just lets it rip in hopes that it works. But that's the thing is that if you're crazy, and I've talked about this before about leaning in and embracing, you're crazy, but I want to come back and hit it here again. Because the thing that we need to do is we need to embrace that we are all born originals. We're all unique. The problem is we lose the story, we lose the plot we want to be able to fit in. But again, think about that person that really makes a difference to you. They don't fit in. They don't look like everybody else. That's not their goal is to do that. Nobody ever really goes out and thinks about how they really want to just go follow a cover band around. Maybe you do maybe the band's dead. Maybe it works in that case, but in all the rest of the cases. That's not What people do, they want the original, they want that unique voice, a cover band never changed the world. And so remember that remember that your story has value, what it is that you learn has value that is the basis of originality. And that's where all of this starts. So those are the parts that we're going to embrace. There's also some things that we need to fight. And maybe these are two sides of the same coin, two sides of the same sword, or whatever the metaphor is you want to use. But there's some of these things that I see far too often, whenever I'm coaching people, whenever I'm talking to people, whatever I'm trying to figure out how to make their work better. There's some tendencies that I think we all share that are the little demons that sit on our shoulders that drag our work down. And that these are the things that I want you to fight I want you to think about if these are things that you're doing in your career, or these things that are a part of you. And here again, you've got to be honest, don't do the sugar coated Oh, that's not me, because this might be something I need. To change kind of bullshit, this is like, take a real look in the mirror and understand, are these those sorts of things? And also, please don't get any of this twisted. These are all things that I struggle with every single day. Because the reality is, is that sitting here and doing a podcast really is not that fucking hard. And the reason why I say that is because what I'm doing is talking about things in theory. And in many cases, I think maybe doing this podcast makes me even more insecure, because people look at me and go, Oh, well, he really should have the answers about this. It's easy to talk about stuff. In theory, it's easy to talk about how things should be. Whenever you have to put in practice, practice in your own life, on your own team in your own company. That's reality. And that's an application. That's something that's different than talking about it in theory. So these fights are things that I fight every day. So again, a lot of this content is drawn out of my own personal experiences of things that I am struggling with. So And the people that I know the people that I look up to and inspired by, are not immune from any of these things. But the things we need to fight, there's about six of them that I think really stand out to me. We need to fight the need to appeal to everyone. I see this a ton. And it really is in two different ways. I think one is either to appeal to everyone, or the fact that we need to fight the want to be a jack of all trades, because both really stem from the same kind of line of thought. The appeal to everyone is I want everyone to like me, I want everybody to think my work is good. I want everybody to be able to come and say how great it is. And wherever I go in a job interview. I want everybody to love me. It's not a realistic standard. They're not going to and this is one of the things that I embrace even whenever I go on job interviews, whenever I go work with companies, whenever I do these sort of things. My style is not going to be for everyone. That's fine. I have my style. It I think I know how to be effective. I I think the people that rally to it, or then the people I want to work with, but it's getting rid of this need to feel like you have to appeal to everyone. Because if you appeal to everyone, you appeal to no one. And that's just simply the reality of it. So stop feeling like, you've got to be this like universal brand that everybody loves, and everybody because it's not true. And then the inverse of that is stop wanting to be a jack of all trades. I mean, I see this the most in younger creatives whenever they come out of school. And I get that because at that point, you're still so much closer to the execution part of it, you know, that part of just wanting to learn the tools and wanting to learn, you know, all these different techniques and all this different way of building and because that is so new. That is extremely exciting. But the problem is we hold on to the mentality too long. Because what you need to do is you need to learn your tools to the point which they become transparent. You need to learn your tools until the point where you're no longer thinking about how you create, but then the problem is, it then becomes about what What you create. And this is, again, where we hold on to this mentality too long. You can work on a lot of different things. But there are things that are going to be your specialty, there are things that you're going to be the strongest at, there are things that are going to set you apart. And this is why I've talked about nauseum about building your own brand, about why you need to think about things like this, because this jack of all trades leads this to these just endless piles of generic forgettable resumes, endless piles of portfolios of people who have worked on tons of stuff, because the reality is, is that I would so much rather see three absolutely amazing pieces in a portfolio than 66 mediocre ones. Because if you're trying to show me a jack of all trades, you can work on all this stuff. Great. A ton of mediocre will get crushed by three astounding every single time. So understand and take a second to look at are you falling into that trap? Are you trying to appeal to everyone at work? Are you trying to be the one that just make yourself into whatever anybody else wants you to be? It's a road to frustration. It's a road to unhappiness, because you're not being true to yourself. And that's the problem with so much of this. You need to be humble. You need to be able to interact and work with other people, but you can't do it at the cost of your voice. You can't do it at the cost of your direction. And it's only going to compound and get greater The longer you go on in your career, because especially as I start to work with leaders, that's a ton of where they feel like they've dead ended. They've lost their voice. They don't know how they got here. This is where it starts. You need to fight, being insecure, from creating from your experiences. Own your backstory own where you came from. And again, understand that insecurity is just the cost of entry. Fight the fear of being judged for standing For something, because this is the other part about whenever you want to be original whenever you want to be different whenever you want to stand out from the crowd, it means that you have to plant a flag and say, This is what I believe in. This is my voice, this is what I do. And again, you're going to see that you're not for everybody. Some people will love it. Some people hate it. Hopefully the ratio of haters to lovers will inverse over time, and you get more people that love it. But understand that it's just going to happen. It's going to be hard, it's gonna feel like crap, you're gonna be incredibly insecure, you're gonna go Holy crap, what did I do? It was just so much easier whenever I floated around and didn't say what I believed in, because then I could appeal to everyone. But that's the problem is that people who are really original original thinking comes from taking a stand from believing in something and vocalizing it. Maybe it's not always right. Maybe it evolves. Maybe it changes over time. Maybe it gets stronger for a lot of different reasons. But it's got to start somewhere. And can you look in the mirror and answer that question, what do you stand Four, what is your work stand for? If you were going to go ask one of your colleagues to describe you, what would they say? And if it's things like he's a really nice guy, he's a really nice woman. Oh, yeah, he's always really funny. Then you need to really get your shit together. Because those are not the kind of things that you want people that you're working with to be able to say, as the first thing. Yeah, they should be in there. Absolutely. But haven't be like sixth, after he's an incredible leader. He's an incredible thinker. He's an incredible problem solver, then, and he's nice, and he's humble and things like that, then she's really great at doing these sort of things. Do that. Because the other big thing that we all need to fight is that yes, we need to be able to stand for something and be okay on being judged for it. But at the same time, we need to fight groupthink. This is the bane of most creative companies. This is the bane of most creatives I see. Now there is a difference here between working with a group and group think because For me that the best work I have ever done has been with amazing collaborators has been with an amazing group of people. But just like any relationship, just like any marriage, if you want it to be strong and you want it to work, it needs to be a collection of individuals who bring individual thinking who will stand up for their opinion, who will discuss and fight for what they believe. Not a bunch of people who sit around and wait for the person with the biggest title to say something and then everybody you know, like lemmings runs up behind them going Oh, yeah, that's great. I love that. That's really wonderful. loved all about that one. You know, I want to be it for Halloween like no, that's what groupthink is. groupthink is whenever you don't want to stand up for yourself. groupthink is whenever you have a leader that encourages people to be sheep, that encourages everybody to come together and they reward sameness. They reward passivity, they, they reward, those sorts of things. Those are the bosses that you quit. Those are the bosses that you leave because the problem is the end of the day. Those are the bosses you don't respect because again, if you want To push for originality, then you need to push for original thinking. And that sort of just groupthink, that apathetic, just approach and agreement because it's easier and it gets me out of this meeting is what kills originality. That's what kills creative spirits. Because at the end of the day, what we need to fight is we need to fight. In many cases, as as weird as this may sound, we need to fight our education system. We need to fight our society. We need to fight our jobs. We need to fight anything that is trying to take originality away from us. Because that is the problem right now is that we see the rise of in house design teams, we see the rise of the value of creativity, but the reason why it isn't seeing more traction, the reason why we aren't seeing more breakthrough ideas, is because there are so many structures in place and there's so many leaders that value groupthink over originality, look, they've all watched enough TED talks so they sound really smart. They've all done enough of this stuff where you're like, Wow, that sounds really good. Look at these things that you need to fight though. Write them down as a list and then watch that leader, watch that boss, watch that team. Because that's where the rubber meets the road. And that's the truth. This is why time and time again, I say that the work is the truth. Because the work that gets produced, if it supports these things, and this is where sometimes you may feel like you're different, crazy, insane, alone, lonely. Because there are a lot of these things is going to try to strip that voice away from you. And it's up to you to have the strength, the energy, I don't know what the rage, whatever it is, to fight against the things that try to take that voice away from you. To fight against the things that are going to make your work less than to fight against the things that want to say silence your voice that want you to just conform. The best bosses, the best teams. Those are the ones that really value originality. And it was a story that I recently heard. Interestingly, whenever I was at one of the huge, wildly successful social media companies that I think has one of the probably the best culture that I've seen anywhere, and every week, they do this big town hall. And somebody got up and asked the CEO and said, Look, I wanted to do something. And I was told that I couldn't. And I, whenever I was told that I couldn't, I went to these people, and I can't understand why they told me I couldn't do it. It's gonna be the CEO looked at him and he said, Yeah, the reason why you couldn't do it was because you asked. It's a rare moment. Whenever you see a leader like that, especially the top of a massive, massive company that still supports that mentality. That Trust, there are people that really wants to fight against that dying of the light, the dying of originality and give it space to breathe. This is where we probably are a generation away from leadership that can start to embrace this. We're probably a generation away from the CEOs and leaders that we need, who are going to let these things really come to life. But until that happens, know that this is not going to be easy. doing any of this stuff isn't just simply showing up and people throwing you a parade. This isn't the movies. And so, the next thing is, what do we need to stop doing? Because the fight is really the fight against ourselves. In some cases, it's the fight against the forces that try to influence us. But the things that we need to stop this is really sort of digging in on that insecurity. It's digging in on what are the things that tend to hold us back? Because that's the reality is in too many cases. We're our own biggest enemy. We're the ones that are stopping ourselves. Because what do we do? And the things that we need to stop are things like imposter syndrome. We just need to cut that shit out. Everybody has it. Everybody feels I mean, again, you heard me just say this. I write like people are talking about me on podcasts looking at my work and saying it's like some sort of standard. I don't understand why. I think what like, Look, the work is okay. podcasts, okay? Again, we're not like revolution in the world. I'm not fucking Oprah. But for some people that has meaning. But that's the thing is that and this is the thing that I've come to embrace is that I know that feeling is going to come. I know that I'm going to feel like I'm not the most creative person out there. I'm not a lot of these sorts of things, that I'm just sort of like, here and at some point, somebody's gonna find me out. Yeah, I've learned to kind of lock that voice up in the closet. Because that's the problem is it held me back from doing things for so long. This was the problem. Are all these stops? Stop rationalizing why you can't do something stop defeating yourself. Before you even start. Stop making excuses for yourself about why something's hard. So I'm making excuses about why something's not gonna work. Because the biggest thing is to stop stopping yourself. And you and that's the interesting thing to me that, honestly. It's probably why I want to do this show above everything because whenever I do so many talks, I people come up to me they say, Steve, I'm thinking about leaving my job. Steve, I'm thinking about making a change in my career. Steve, I'm, I'm thinking about these other things. What these conversations are, are a conversation with somebody who knows the answer, a conversation with somebody who's thought this stuff through. But it's a conversation with someone who is rationalize themselves out of the right decision. It's a conversation with somebody who's made too many excuses about why it won't work. It's a question session was someone who was stopping themselves in so many times all that I simply do is to say again don't think about it should you change jobs Yes or no? without missing a beat to go Yes, absolutely. Great. So you had the answers all that you wanted to do was to talk to somebody else and let the decision be there's because you come to me and you asked me what my opinion is you think I'm whatever you think it is that I am. I've made the decision. It's easier you can say Oh, it doesn't work out. It was his fault. He told me but that's the trap. That's you stopping yourself. That's you not stepping up to being original. That's you not taking the bolder step. It's you doubting yourself in this is all the shit that we need to stop because you know the answers. You know what it is that feels right. You know what it is that you think you should do? It's this need for external validation because You feel like you're an imposter. you rationalize, you're making excuses, you're stopping yourself, all of those things. We got to stop, you've got to stop. Even if it's wrong, own the decision, learn from it. Failing does not make you a failure. What makes you a failure is not learning from it. And that's what I see. And so many other leaders stop copying and looking to what others do for inspiration. Again, you know, these are this is a pattern that is formed early on in our career. Whenever we look at other work, this is how we first start to learn is that we copy what others do, but we hold on to the mentality. And again, all these people that you fetishize all these ones that are originals. They don't copy, don't look for what others do. They don't look for the security of that. They go and try to do their own thing. Again, think back about that. That person you had in your mind, the one who really inspired you, the one who you think's in original. They're not looking to what other people do to be able to copy. But in that stop being afraid to fail. You're not going to do anything original if you aren't willing to fail in your work or in your own life. Try it and see what happens. I mean, look, I invested $200 into a microphone to start this podcast. And basically have since then put out 66 episodes of me sitting here in this room basically talking to myself, maybe at most the two dogs who usually send under my desk, no idea if it was gonna work, no idea for me was gonna give a shit but unafraid to fail. didn't work out most I was out was 200 bucks. But that was the thing was the willingness to do it. Because that's what so many originals do is they take that leap, they start to be able to do those things. And this is where we need to stop. Stop judging yourself and what it is that you feel stop judging your insides by everybody else's outsides. It's an impossible comparison and one that you will never win stop actually thinking that the end result was the journey because someone was successful doesn't mean that it was easy or graceful to be able to get there. There was a time in my career, where I lived in an apartment for three weeks that I ultimately got evicted from, with no power going out and only able to I only had enough money to be able to eat like potatoes that we cooked in the oven because I was that dead broke company went bankrupt out from underneath me. This has not been some glorious thing that worked out perfectly at every turn. Trust me, there are plenty of failures along the way. But that's what I said before what it did. Was it let me understand that those failures weren't that you know, I wasn't a failure. I was only a failure if I didn't learn from it and look, it drove me I will never be in that spot. Again. In my life. I made that deal with myself unequivocally. But don't judge the output. Don't look at where my portfolio is or what it is I've done and go oh, I can never get there. This started with me in my dad's agency and doing print design before I did video design before I did digital before I did branding before, you know, now I do something holistically, ball related, ultimately different. But don't look at the end point. Because this here again, we do this too much. We like the beginning. In the end, we like the two guys in the garage and like the big success, the 90% in the middle, we tend to ignore that stop, give yourself some credit. Stop stopping yourself. But Lastly, what do you start? Because I think it's always easy to be negative. It's easy to be critical it Hope it takes more effort. What do you need to start? One of the things I want you to start doing is to start making more statements and fewer questions whenever it comes to your voice whenever it comes to your originality. This doesn't mean become some asshole who doesn't ask for anybody else's opinion doesn't mean somebody who's hard to work with but what it does mean is have an opinion Because that's what that means. stand for something, have an opinion. Understand what is makes you different. Embrace it, say it work on it. Don't just be that person's kind of like, oh, what do you want me to be? Oh, what do you want me to say? Oh, I'll be whatever you want. Nobody follows that that person nobody ever is inspired by that person. Because again, that's cover band. Carbon never changed the world. start developing a palette to judge your ideas against did a whole episode on this or I talked about your own Oh the session this the chef from Jiro dreams of sushi, about how whenever he talks about how he teaches young creatives young chefs what he does, it says if you want to cook great food if you eat great food, any creative field exactly the same. What you need to do is you if you aren't constantly consuming the best of what your chosen medium is, then you don't have a yardstick to measure if what you're doing is good enough. And this is the failing that I see of so many creatives. They don't know if their ideas are good enough because they don't have a really good palette, they don't have a measuring stick, to be able to set that against to go out and look at what is the best in the world and place your work against that. however far and painful it might be away from it. It understands and gives you an idea of how far you have to go. Because this is the thing is that you are the one that needs to start driving yourself. you own your career, you own your success. Set it before Say it again, success is a choice. It's about the choices that you make about the things that you want to stop doing the things you're going to start doing and how seriously you take this stuff. Because so many people pay lip service, oh, I want to do better work. I want to be an original. Great you need to do these things. Oh, well, I tried one thing and it was hard. So you know, I'm just gonna keep doing the same thing and then, you know, complain about how my career didn't work out? Nope. Again, I think the people that are the most successful the ones that are the originals don't that's not their answer. They're the ones going to be hell bent on getting that stuff done. start having a lot of ideas and not just a few big ones, because that's how you get better. Repetition is working with other people is letting them make you get better, letting people push you being vulnerable, getting feedback, like that's one of the biggest things, the biggest things that I missed for so long that I found to get an envision that makes me so damn happy is that because it's so many other companies people that see my position, they'd see this podcast, they'd see tons of stuff. They'd never give me any feedback. And you know, you'd go out and do these sort of things. And I think this is what you want is you want to have a lot of ideas you want people are going to challenge you on them. And that's what I found in this company. People whenever someone actually say to you, you know what you're the best presenter I've ever seen. But here are a couple things I think you could do better. Bring it on. That is what you want. I don't care what level of seniority it is. We all need that. You we need volume we need to get better and steel sharpens steel put yourself against the best surround yourself with the best people you can ask them for advice to push you to judge you to give you feedback to get those sort of things, so that all of you can get better together. Because that is what makes great teams. It's what makes great ideas and great original people are those ones where we're able to push each other. But you can do that, again, by just knowing that I want to have a lot of ideas. I want to get inspiration, and start doing a lot of these different things. You need to start making decisions that are based on evidence and not intuition. That's so many other people go wrong, because again, it's like why have an original voice, but it's just because of what I feel like this is where Oprah screwed an entire generation, because she just was like, Oh, go do what you love. The problem is what if what you suck at what you love. Look at the evidence, understand if you're actually good at or not make decisions based on that this is the problem is again, as creatives we get really emotional, really intuitive, feel like, Oh, I know what this is. Make sure start living your work. I can't emphasize this enough. If you work in digital, if you work in these different mediums, you need to go out and start speaking During this experience what your customers go through, and notice the things that stand out to you. Notice the things that you feel like are different that whenever you really immerse yourself in it, that's where my best insights have come from. That's where my best work has come from, is my ability to really to live what it is that I'm doing. Start getting inspiration from as many sources as you can outside your field. Get people who will push you, every day on your team, get people who will push you as a person, get people who will push you in your craft of creativity, surround yourself by that seek those people out, find that cohort, that group that was going to be able to do that. And again, that doesn't mean they have to be in the same city doesn't have to even mean they have to be online. Again, reach out to people ask for advice, ask if you can, you know get an email or get on a phone call or do something to be able to do that. And how can I do that on a regular basis? How can I find these people that push me again, this is why I find Luke Westman to be such an astoundingly inspiration. person in my life, because he gave me that that whole thought of like steel sharpens steel, we push each other, there's a lot that he's really good at, that I need to work on. There are things that I'm good at, that he needs to work on each pushes the other, we push each other forward. And I have so many other people in my life who are creatives that are able to do that. It's that inspiration. And again, this is not always just people who are other heads of design. They're street artists, they're tattoo artists, they're chefs, they're photographers, they're all kinds of different. What we share is the creative condition. The execution is different, but the perspective and the condition around creativity is the same. But Lastly, with all of this, the thing that you need to start doing is that you need to start putting in the work to make these changes even if you don't know when it's going to pay out. Even if you don't know when it is you're going to need it. Because you are that constant in all of this. You can be defeated and paralyzed by the fact that you have work to do on yourself. Or you can see it as a part of the process of improvement. But this has always been my belief is that the reason why I found whatever success is is because I have constantly been willing to put in the work to get better. Because what would then happen is whenever an opportunity would come along, whenever the universe would line up and give me something amazing, I had been preparing for that moment, I had been preparing for that opportunity, instead of what most people do. They treat it like a new job. They don't work on their brand. They don't work on their network, they don't work on themselves. Because it's hard. It takes time. It takes nights and weekends and all the things that once again will lead me back to the phrase success is a choice. But that's the problem with this because for me, I was preparing for that moment. So when it showed up, I was ready. This is the Hunger Games people there are a lot of other people who are willing to outwork you my constant thinking was it somebody else out there? I was going to try to work harder than me and I was going to make sure that didn't happen. But that's the thing. Most people what they do, like I said, it's like a job interview, I need a new job. Now I'm going to start working on it, oh, there's an opportunity. Now let me start to get better. The problem is, it's too late. It is gonna pass you by you are not going to be ready, you are not going to take advantage of it in the way that you need to if that's your mindset. This has to be a constant drumbeat, a constant evolution, a constant series of things that you want to work on. And this is why you need to surround yourself with these people. Why you need to have the dedication to be able to do this, because sometimes it's hard, it's lonely, it's stressful, it's difficult. There are some times you'd much rather just go lay on the couch for a week or two then to put in the time to make your book better to make a skill better to learn something new to get feedback that is uncomfortable and you don't want to hear because it means something you need to work on. And for some of you are going to listen to this and go Yeah, and take a whole bunch of notes. But if you've seen me do any of my talks, probably in the last year or two, you've seen that in so many cases, I end them in a very definite way that it was something that was born out of something that I did with my teams. At the end of this, there are two options here. And you're going to pick one of the two. The one is that you're going to take this seriously, you're going to understand what you need to do, you're gonna understand that no one, no matter who you think they are, is perfect. Everyone is a work in progress. But what you're going to do is you're going to start working harder, you're going to start putting in more work, you're going to be more dedicated to your original voice, your original story, your original thought. And that's what it is that you're going to start to work on is you're going to start making those changes. Or you're gonna listen to this, take a whole bunch of notes, sitting there, on a train, in your car, sitting in your office, wherever you're at. You're gonna say yeah, you know what, I should do this but I have other things going on. There are other things that are, you know, at, let me just put those in front of them. And I'm what I'm gonna do. So I'm gonna make excuses. Those are your two choices here. You make changes, or you make excuses. The people that are successful, the people that are able to rise out of any situation, the ones who are able to become great, I don't care what the size of your clients are, the size of your market is where you live in the world, your dedication to making more changes than excuses is going to get you where you want to go, you will become a self made success. Or you're going to make more excuses than changes. These are the people that I see who come to my talks come up to me all full of enthusiasm, bright eyed, talking about how they're gonna go back and do this work, change their company, do these sorts of things. I see them in an event. Maybe it's a year later, maybe it's two years later, and I recognize them. And I recognize them as they try to get out of the back of the theater without me seeing them. They know what the talk is. That's coming And I know that these are people that have chosen excuses over changes. It's hard. It's lonely, it's not easy. there's been plenty of times in my career there plenty of times the conversations I've had with incredibly successful leaders. This is not an easy path. self improvement never is because of the point of the discussion of originality means that your creativity has evolved to a point where you're out of easy. Talent has taken you to where you are, talent has gotten you to where you are, so that what you're left with, when we talk about originality, when we talk about leadership, when we talk about these hard subjects, what you are left with are the dark corners, the dark recesses, of your personality of your talent, the areas that are weak, the areas that are hard to work on the things that are not going to be easy. This is what separates the excuses from the changes is your ability to peer into that. Your ability to recognize it not as a problem but as an opportunity. Be your ability to not be defeated or paralyzed by the work, the insecurity, the darkness where those problems set. Because that's what, that's what makes the difference. I want you to think about that. Don't go back and make a change in the next hour. I'm not even the next day. Take some time and think about the things that I've said here. Take some time to think about and write down. What are the two things three things that you need to stop doing? What are the two or three things that you need to start doing? And maybe what are one of the two of the tendencies that you have that you want to start fighting and I want you to write that down. Put it up on your bathroom mirror, put on the dashboard of your car, put it on post it notes on your monitor, I want it someplace where you can see it every day. As a constant reminder, because as this episode fades as this enthusiasm fades, and you're left with the hard work, you're left with the challenges and occasionally, even the loneliness that comes with that. Those are going to be the things that drive you those are going to be the reminders. And as you start to work through those, as those things go from things that you need to stop and you start to stop them the things you want to start as you start starting them. That's great. Write new ones. constantly keep some log, some reminder on a daily basis of where do you want to go? What do you need to work on? Because that is what change is. Change isn't one big moment. One big speech one big idea changes a lot of little things that add up to something big and really weird way. It's like whenever people ask me about how do i do my job and do the podcast and do all this other stuff, that's the thing. I don't I do them all in little pieces. All these little pieces add up to something much, much bigger. That way of working will work for you and for your career. Just the same. But I want you to take the time to think about those things. Write them down, put them someplace where you can see them every day. If you want to really, really interesting, post them up on social media, put them out there, let them put them someplace for your co workers can see them so they know to because they will ask make it again steel sharpens steel, let them in on part of that process. But like I said, at the end of the day, there's a very clear choice I can give you the best advice in the world. But if you choose excuses over changes, there's no podcast, there's no book there's no person that's going to be able to change that until you decide that the changes have to outnumber The excuses. Hopefully, this has been helpful. Hopefully you're sitting there starting to think about what a few of those things are. If you want to find out and get the show notes, if you want to get some of the different articles and things that are related to this, you can always head over to podcast, Stephen Gates calm. I've got all the show notes there. Everything I've talked about here is laid out there if you want to use that as a cheat sheet. Do me a favor while you're on your favorite podcast platform, subscribe to the show, leave a review heard me say it before, don't need to feel like you need to keep saying it. If you have any questions about this, this is something that you're not sure how to start with if you need somebody to give you a little bit more of a kick in the ass or to kind of make sure and again, even if you just want to share out because what I'll do is like share out what these things are. What to put on a calendar, I'm gonna check on you in a couple months and ask how it's going. And you're either gonna have an answer or you're gonna get guilty and you're gonna get your ass in gear. Or ultimately, we're gonna have a discussion about you know, why are you wasting my time with a bunch of stuff. You're not taking serious Honestly, follow me on social media, like the show on Facebook. Go to my site, there's a million ways to get ahold of me. Twitter, Instagram, my Instagram, Instagram sucks at messaging, Facebook, email, any of these things. Reach out to me if you need advice if you need questions, if you want somebody to help hold you accountable, I'm here for you. And lastly, as always, that I said, All everybody done illegal wants me to remind you that all of us here are my own. They don't represent any of my current or former employers. These are just my own thoughts. And finally, I say it every time because I mean it every time but thank you for your time. This is one of our longer episodes because it's one of the heavier subjects but I know that time is truly the only real luxury that any of us have. is incredibly grateful you want to spend any of it with me. So go and choose changes over excuses. Choose to stand for something choose your voice, choose to own your background. And as always choose to stay crazy