Ep 62: Listener questions: Advice for junior designers, activating empathy, work routine and more.

In this episode of The Crazy One, Stephen Gates answers listener questions on a variety of creative and career-focused topics. Get Stephen’s top recommendations for must-read books, essential advice for junior designers, tips on boosting productivity, insights into effective content creation, and his perspective on being a “jack of all trades.” Tune in for valuable guidance to elevate your skills, expand your knowledge, and navigate your creative career with confidence.

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Stephen Gates : 0:00

What's going on everybody, and welcome into the 62nd episode of The Crazy One podcast. As always, I'm your host, Stephen Gates. And this is a show we talk about creativity, leadership, design, and everything else that helps to empower creative people. Now, be sure to subscribe to the show, because we want to make sure you get the latest episodes as soon as they come out. And whenever you're there on your favorite podcast platform, take just a couple seconds and leave a review. So everybody knows what you think about the show. Now this week, I did an interview with communication art. So it's always interesting whenever you do press like that, because there seems to be a lot more questions that come in after you do something like that. So I thought, you know what, we're going to take this opportunity to do one of my favorite formats, which is this one, where I'm actually going to answer some listener questions. I normally go through and kind of create these shows in a vacuum. So I love these moments, when it's a little more of a conversation than a one way lecture. This show I built from questions that people sent me and some who responded to the calls that I put out for questions on social media. Now a quick disclaimer because I've done these things. In the past, I am sorry if I pronounced somebody's name incorrectly. I have done it in the past, I always feel incredibly horrible whenever I do it. And whenever I find out about it, I always apologize. So please No, obviously not trying to do it on purpose, on purpose. But there are six questions that I want to go through today, which is a bunch but we're gonna fly through these and hopefully get some good answers out there. As always, though, do you have any other questions reach out to me on social media, send me you know, an email or something like that. I always try to get back to people as quickly as I can. And if we get more questions like this, we'll do more shows like this if people are interested in it. On with the questions. Question one comes from Daniel Heron and Daniel asked, When do you check email, get screentime? Write new content. So scheduled social media, etc? Do you schedule posts and do you keep a content calendar? Daniel, that's a really dense question. So let's you know what, let's break this apart into kind of all the different things you're asking about and we go down that list one at a time, email, I try to be a zero inbox guy so that things don't build up. But you know what, it's not always the case. But generally, that's my sort of thing is to deal with it in the moment whenever it comes in, especially if it's important, just so it's not hanging around in my head screentime there is like, there's no substitute for actually doing work. And a lot of it for me is in front of a screen. But let's think about this, right? So for me work is the output of a much bigger process where you need to attend to things like inspiration and insights and creativity and a lot of things like that. So for me, it isn't just about the amount of time I spent in front of the screen bits, the overall balance of how am I also tending to the things that really influenced the work that's being done on that screen. I will say like, like I try to work in a lot of different ways. I try to definitely be able to take breaks, I try to roll between different projects, I try to be able to kind of keep my brain varied but again, I think if you're a digital designer You do this sort of stuff that I tend to do, you kind of end up with a lot of time in front of a screen. But I also think that you know, for me, it is also very important as a leader, that you aren't just heads down and lost in that, that you're getting up that you're working with people that you're doing and building those sort of relationships. So I think again, it for me, it's much more about the balance than kind of like a hard and fast rule, writing new content. This is an interesting one, I am constantly writing and I'm doing so for like something like this podcast, I'm usually working on it, this is gonna sound a little crazy. I'm usually working on anywhere between probably like 15 and 30 episodes at any given time. I do that in a way and I'll actually I'll post a photo of what this looks like in the show notes. There's an app that I'm addicted to called Milla note, Mia LANOT. Just go to Milla note calm, they don't pay me any money, not sponsored, genuinely truly love them. But for me, it's sort of like digital sticky notes. And what I do with a lot of the things that I work on is like if The show whenever you come in, I have different buckets that I put content into. Because what I want to do is capture the moment of inspiration whenever I have an insight, but also understand that I may not necessarily have the time to work all that content all the way up in that moment. And also, because of the time I find that sometimes the best content is something I need to work on over a little bit of time, I need to think about marinate on so the show is really broken up into a number of different buckets. And a lot of my work is broken up this way. The stages usually are raw rough needs polish and ready. And what that means is raw is It is literally just the kernel of an idea. It's just something it's a topic, it's a concept. It's some area of opportunity that I want to just kind of like look there's something there jot it down and stick in that bucket. Rough means that I've taken that out of just the the top line one idea and I've started to blow it out a little bit more. So I've started to rough in what are all the different pieces what's the flow going to be like what are sort of the top line thoughts. They need Polish means that Then I've gone through and I've started to deepen each of those top lines into flows into stories into a little bit bigger thinking. But in that case, what I need to do is I need to basically get it to be done. So it's in the ready to like, in this case, ready to record category, so that it's a show that's all decked up and ready to go. I work this way on everything, where I kind of like start with a big picture and then refine that picture. And then try to break that picture and get into you know, something that I think is really strong and then diving in diving into the details and the execution. One is because it, it creates these sort of like bite sized opportunities that whenever I have an idea, I don't feel like I have to capture it and work it all the way up. I can just be able to hold on to the kernel of that and then develop it over time where I'm able to think about it and to be able to do things like that. So I think that tends to be the way I work creatively on a lot of different things. And so that's why there are a lot of these note taking apps and a lot of things like that that I really like because it lets me get in there rethink, reorganize. I very very little by thinking has Ever been, like in a Word document or an Evernote document where it's this sort of like linear vertical text based format, my brain doesn't work that way I need to be able to move things around, I need to be able to look at different relationships, I need to look at different flows. So that sort of way lets me be able to do that plus then and like I said, as I think it keeps me with a lot of different ideas, a lot of different possibilities, a lot to stay inspired by a lot to be able to work on. And I think that flow also is really useful to me. So I'm not just fixated on one thing, because I think if I did one show at a time, one they probably take I think at least twice as long to I don't know, I get a hell of a lot more frustrated because I think you get a little bit more like perfectionist because you're just focused on that one thing. But I think that Yeah, so for me, that's a little bit of the way that I work. And the last part of your question was around scheduling posts, right, a content calendar, do things like that. In my in my way of thinking, I suck at social media. I think that's why you see people who have like, 20,000 followers and I have like, three, I don't do any of those things like, Look, I know that I should do things differently to be able to drive followers. Do you do a lot of that stuff? Like I know I should do things like sticking to a tighter theme and scheduling content and doing all those things. But the reality is I don't I publish content when I've got something to say. And when I think those things have value, whenever I have a thought I write it. Whenever I see an article that interests me, I post it whenever. And again, there, there are definitely times when like, Look, if it's two in the morning, I'm not going to do that. I will use the app pocket, which I like a lot. It's a great way to be able to capture different sources. It's what I use to do the weekly inspirations that I do every Friday. But for me, I guess it just comes out of the fact I feel like the world is full of these people who say things with no value repost content with no commentary, collect followers and use these connections like it's their job, but they have no actual value or no connection to these people. So I guess I'm more dedicated to not being one Have those people even if it? I don't know what even if success is somehow the size of your audience or your metrics or things like that, I think it's the same reason why I don't pay to create advertising for this show. I think that there's something just better or nicer that I just, I don't know what I just feels better whenever, like this show just grows organically, as opposed to dumping advertising dollars and doing a bunch of stuff like that. But anyway, look, I think my hope is that in the long run, this authenticity pays off. I think that I tend to look at the followers that I have, or tend to look at my audience and think that they know that whatever I post is authentic. They know whatever I talk about is something that I feel they know that whenever it's something I talk about, it comes out of my own personal experience. Because look, this is a world where superficiality and instant gratification content rules the day and it's hard not to rock walk that road it's hard not to get into that but i think you know, so no, I don't I do don't do those sort of things outside of just the super basic ones like this show I know I'm gonna release at some point Sunday night, you Usually whatever I either I'm done writing up all the show notes or Remember to post it or something, but it's not like it's scheduled. And everybody knows that at 901 on a Sunday night, you go in that contents there. I wish I had that discipline, I just don't. Because I think in the past, whenever I've tried to do that, I just start writing bullshit, I just start filling the space and filling the schedule, not really paying attention to quality. And I think it's even the same thing with this show I've talked about before, it's why only release episodes when I think they're ready. Maybe that's in this case where it's in back to back weeks, maybe I go another month until I'm going to release another show. But if I don't think it's good, I'm not gonna put it out there. And I think if people have a problem with that, don't follow me. Fine. I get it. But I also kind of feel like if, if that's the metric that they're going to judge my work by, I'm not really sure. It's a criticism I care about to be honest with you. So Daniel, hope that helps. Any other follow ups hit me up on social media. We could talk about it some more. The next question comes from Jay nields L. And his question was, what are the top three books you often gift for friends, family and co workers? That's a really good question. You know what I think that, man, it's a tough question to answer to. Because I think there's a little bit of like, what I'm going to give to friends or family or coworkers are probably all going to be different because I don't know that you know, that my friends would want to know about remote work, or maybe somebody on my team would. So you know what, let's focus that on like coworkers, because I feel like that's probably gonna be a lot more relevant to this audience. I will say if you're interested in this question, the full list of all the books I keep on there's something on that podcast, Stephen Gates, calm. Go to that site. There's a section called the essentials and this is the list of all the books, all the apps, all the videos, all the classes, all the things that at any given time and I keep it updated, that I use or think are worth doing like melanoma that answer before that's on there. But I think you can go check that out. But so the three books that I've been reading, you're giving Coworkers lately would be there are three that I actually I can see sitting here in my studio. One is called applied empathy, the new language of leadership. This is from somebody you know, who's a friend of mine, Michael Ventura. He's the CEO of an agency called sub Rossa who does some really, really cool work. And this really is a look at the, you know, it's about empathy, that ability to see the world through somebody else's eyes. But how you need that really in business to like, innovate and connect and grow. I really feel like we're in the age of empathy. I feel like as you look at the rise of design, thinking a lot of other things that put this at the center and try to prioritize it. It's really the time for this sort of conversation to happen. And so I think that's been a really, really good book that I've liked. With my recent move to envision, which is a completely remote distributed company. There's a book by Jason freed that I really liked called remote office not required. That really is sort of a manual that as we look as this as the talent continues to kind of, I guess, move towards this model in some way. How do you actually do business this way? How do you have a company? Or how do you as an individual work? remote? How does that actually work? I think, you know, part of it is an interesting exploration in all the stigmas that exists out there all the reasons why, I think, you know, in many cases, companies will sort of maybe tolerate it for like some part of a day on a Friday in the summer. But in general, it's frowned upon because we still have these really antiquated leadership constructs that say, I only believe you're working if you're sitting in front of me, and I can see you working. The concept of trust and empowerment and so many other things just doesn't exist in those models. And then everybody sits around mystified why people just treat those jobs like it's just for a paycheck and have no loyalty and yeah, it's a complete mystery. The last one, this is a book that I've actually liked for for quite a while, and it's an interesting one because I think that a lot of the work that I've done, I've really come to also understand the importance of the That you sell your work the way that you work with people the way that you kind of interact with them. What is that like? And a lot of it, I think that came out of a few too many unfortunate business relationships. Were here again, I didn't like didn't trust, or just was uncertain about some of the people that I worked with, or even whenever I used to be in charge of agency, new business, would have to go in and work with a crowd of people cold and have people to read the room. So that's a book by guy named Joe Navarro. And what it's called is what everybody and so it's two different words every and then body is saying it's an ex FBI agents guide to speed reading people. And what this really does is it helps you understand just what it says how do you speed read people? How do you decode sentiment and behavior, avoid pitfalls, look for deceptive behaviors, read body language. It really is amazing whenever you really start to study what people say versus what their actual body language gives away, because there's a A lot of things, just physiologically that you cannot control and are not aware of that will give away a lot of information about you. You can tell if somebody's lying or not by whenever they're answering a question, and they're thinking about it which way they look, your eyes will look a certain way, whether you're accessing the part of your brain, which is creating, which means you're lying, or the part of your brain which accesses memory, which means that you're actually recalling something that happened. People don't know that they do it. It's completely subconscious. Everybody does it. But there's a lot of these sort of things that become really interesting. And so I think that especially for me is I've been embarking on this journey into design transformation and going in and helping companies I've really been thinking about and exploring this model of if I want a new team, if I want a different model. If I want to do something that nobody else has done before, I need to think and lead and train this team, like people haven't done before. And so part of it for me is looking at things like how do you read body language and do some of these things so that you can get a better read on the conversation you're having and Get a little bit of a better idea of where people are coming from and how honest Are they really being. It's an unfortunate side effect of a lot of business. But it's something that's always fascinated me and I found it to be wildly successful. So I think those are the three books that I'm kind of reading and giving away right now I'm sure that list is going to evolve. Keep an eye on that essentials list, because I'll be adding those and other ones to it as we go. But I think Yeah, so that would be it for that one. Question number three, then comes from Rahul Jain. And they asked any advice you would like to give to junior designers and interns who are starting their careers? How do you deal with ambiguity, self doubt and be more reflective? Yeah. And the other thing I liked about this, this show and nobody was kind of giving me the softball questions. I think I get this question a lot. And I think that the interesting part is that, you know, I you have to think about the stages of evolution in a creative based career. I think in so many cases, whenever you start out whenever you're Junior designer, you're an intern, you're in college or things like that, you often look to people, you can pattern yourself after people that you can copy. Because it's an easy reference point for you to be able to start to find a workflow and to be able to start to get some measure of success in feeling like what you're doing is going to lead somewhere. Because you are filled with all those things. You're filled with ambiguity and self doubt and trying to figure out how to be more reflective. As time goes on, then you'll start to realize that you start to really copy those people that less you find your authentic voice a bit more, until ultimately, you're able to then step out on your own, get a much stronger sense of yourself start to move into leadership and things like that. But Rahul, for the stage that you're at, and you're going to ask, you're asking about those ambiguity, self doubt and being more reflective. My advice, honestly, is to embrace those things as they are going to be constants throughout your career. I think that you are going to go through a stage right now you're very aware of it, you will as you start to find your voice. I think a lot of bravado comes in and you start to feel like you know you're a little bit more of king of the world and that sort of thing, and then it will start to fade away. Again, as I think you get a little more seasoned and start to question things and be able to see beyond the obvious. ambiguity is going to be a constant. Because if your client knew everything, then they wouldn't need any of us. And so I think that sort of ambiguity is gonna always be there, because creativity is a process with infinite answers. So there is going to be ambiguity in all of it. My advice, my advice is to embrace it and find ways to be able to cut through it. Know, what is your process? How do you work a problem from a lot of different angles. So you can create some structure have some confidence in the way that you're going to go about it. And so that you know that you're going to find solutions to the problem, because that's why I said ambiguity is going to be a constant, people are going to have an idea that sounds great in their head and looks like a complete crap and reality. Clients are going to change their mind. They're going to change directions. There's always going to be tons of those sort of things. And I think also, especially as you're starting out your career and you're in that stage, creativity is a fickle mistress I think that you know, you need to spend the time to start to figure out also, how do you have ideas? What do you do whenever you have really good ideas? How do you find creativity and inspiration and insight, and a lot of the things I've talked about in other episodes of this show. So I'd also go back and say, to look at some of those things as I talk about creativity, some creativity on demand, having ideas, a lot of those sort of things were based in those places. self doubt is another one that I think is going to be a constant because look, we are asked to do work that doesn't have a right answer. What recreate what we create comes from our experience, so it's going to be personal for us. Whenever we do anything personal whenever we create anything, we're taking these patterns and insights that come from our personal lives. We're used to questioning everything. We're used to looking at things in different ways. We're trying to find connections that aren't obvious to other people. It's something I've struggled with, and I found that showing it this always sounds strange. This is why stupid people are Successful people because they don't have self doubt. They may not have a lot of intelligence. But it is amazing in this world, how far fearlessness will get you, even if you're a dumb as a stone. But that's the thing is that too many smart, smart people don't succeed because they're full of self doubt. I think that for me it is the recognition. What I've done in my career is to know that it's going to be there is to know that it is a natural and acceptable part of the process. I think that the biggest problem that a lot of people have in these cases is they think that these things that you're talking about are problems, then there's not going to be a solution. These these will always exist. This is a part of creativity, because like I said, we're asked a question that doesn't have a right answer. We're asked to draw on that from our personal experience, what we're going to venture is going to be personal to us, we're going to have self doubt about exposing some part of ourselves and our experience through our work. So these are going to be natural parts of it. So I think that the sooner you're able to recognize that the sooner you can embrace it, the sooner you can get comfortable being uncomfortable. Then the sooner those sorts of things are Gonna flow. And I think this really goes back to the root of again, what this show is all about whenever I've talked about embracing your crazy whenever I've talked about embracing your story and what makes you unique, where that ambiguity comes from, where that self doubt comes from is going to be different, everybody. So this is also why there's a big emphasis on the show, whenever I talk, and I coach with people about them being introspective, I can tell you what I do, I can guarantee you the only thing it's gonna do is not work for you. Because I'm a different makeup. I'm in a different place in my career, I'm a different person than everybody who's listening to the show. So my answer is not going to be your answer. If I give you what it is, works for me, it's like yesterday's winning lottery numbers. And I use that phrase a lot because it's true. What you need to do is define your answers around that. But to also just give yourself permission to be okay with it, that when it comes, it's part of the process to give it time to give it space and air to work through it. Because if you do that, then you can get command of it, then they aren't issues then they aren't things you're gonna have to struggle with. And so I think that that to me is you talk about being more reflective that That's where the reflective part needs to come in. It's reflected to you and reflected through self awareness so that you understand, what do you need to do in your process to make those things better and to make them work harder. Question number four. This one comes from uncle Pradesh. And the question is, how do you go about activating behaviors like curiosity, empathy, courage and trust in large organizations? This is a great question that I think I'm gonna have to take down a little bit the way I did Daniel's first question and break this into pieces. Because there's a lot here, curiosity. Curiosity, I think is very much about hiring the right people. And I think it's very much about the norms that you're going to establish in your team in your company. And the challenge that you're going to have is as you talk about large organizations, you're going to need to find ways in all of these things affect the way people think not the way they behave. Because with all of these, you You see time and time again, new management comes in a new air comes in new goals come in, something comes in, you know, it's an acronym. Now it's whatever it is, right? But what happens is that people will adopt the superficial behavior of what it is is being asked for. But if it still sits on the same old thinking, if it still sits on the same old way of doing things, we're not really changing anything. And it's the same reason why your company is not going to be any different. They're just gonna have a whole bunch of new buzzwords and posters in the hall and HR is gonna have a lot more to do, but you're not gonna see any tangible new results. But behaviors like this are really hard to teach, right? Because I think, to bring it out in people in teams, you know, you just can't do it if people don't have it. The one way that I think is to make sure, like I said, is that you think about this and make this a priority in the hiring process. If you hire people who Oh, I know everything I've been here for forever. I know what this is. If you aren't prioritizing those behaviors, if you aren't hiring people who do that who are open minded, then you're going to run into problems. I think another way is And this is the bigger one where I think you can change people who have been there 20 years or 20 days is to really look at as a company or for your team, what are the norms you establish, because as you as you look at organizational transformation, in my experience that happens through three things it happens through the tools you use, the space you occupy, and the norms you establish the norms being in this case, what is acceptable behavior, what is behavior that you are going to be okay with, what is the behavior that you are going to accept? And then what are the things that you are going to question to push back on to reshape to try to reshape the thinking on this? If you see people who are close minded, if they rush to the answer if they rush to the tried and true way of doing things, which is that sort of like business as usual approach, if you continue to let that be okay to go on question to be the norm that you establish on your team. Curiosity will not exist. This is why and again, as I've talked about, a lot in the show, when are we talking about phrases things like comfort is the enemy of greatness. This is where it is right? Because if you get comfortable in the process, if you get comfortable, that behavior, comfortable in that sort of like blahs a way of doing things with those sort of like defeatist phrases that every company has about? Well, it's always been that way. So we can't do anything about it. You're not gonna get any curiosity. And so I think that a lot of it for me comes from what is leadership doing? What are you doing, to be able to step in and have an effect on this. And I think that you can do it from a top down perspective. Leadership says it, everybody tries to adopt a uniform, a very grassroots way of just inside of your team. But what you want to do is to start to embed that behavior. So it as everybody starts to pick it up, as everybody starts to find, you know, more traction in that what the team will start to do is to reject the people who are not then acting that way. I've seen it and I can actually get it to happen in as little as about four to five hours in the design thinking session, the people who will go from sitting back in the chair and not engaging being the objector and kind of the stick in the mud and things. As the team starts to come together to work to be more curious to work through these things. The person will start to sense that they're being rejected, they're being shut out. They're not being engaged. And so out of that comes any physiological response or what They want to do is then to lean in to be engaged in to change their thinking around this stuff. But so I think that's the one on curiosity, empathy. We already hit on a little bit with Michael Ventura, his book empathy to me and I mentioned this in that question. This comes out of design thinking empathy is the core of design thinking design thinking is not about design is about creativity and empathy. It's about the best way to put the consumer and to put what it is that they go through at the center of your work. And design thing is a methodology is the best way that I know to institutionalize this into a company and into a team. But I think that it very much is about are you willing to do this because in too many cases, people don't have empathy. People think and they have the arrogance to think that they are the consumer, they Oh, I know what my consumer is. I've done this for 10 years. No, you don't. You don't. It's just you can have a good idea. You can have some good insights, but you don't see it the way that they do. And I think that also an ego looking for empathy, go looking for empathy in the extremes. I've talked about this whenever I did the design thinking course. Look for it in people that are beginners look for people that are professionals, those are the two ends that I want. I want to be able to watch and talk to somebody that's never done something before. And I want to watch somebody that does it professionally. If I'm designing a knife, I want to talk to somebody that's never cooked, I want to talk to a chef. Because the way that they do that and approach it one is that there's gonna be a lot of truth in the amateur and a person that's never done it. I'm going to see it through really, really fresh eyes. And in the professional, I'm going to see the power user, the person who use it all the time. Who knows the shortcuts who knows all the little little details that matter to them. But I think a lot of it is putting that at the center of it and doing things like you know, do you try to test with your consumer once a week and even if you don't have money testing can be find somebody in the lunchroom find somebody out on the sidewalk, find somebody from another team, bring them in once a week, sit them down and get their reaction to something that starts to build empathy go out, interview these people do their job, like actually walk a mile in their shoes, all those sorts of things. Again, if you go back, listen to the first one of those two of those episodes I did on design thinking I go into this in a lot more detail. That's where that comes from. And finally, as we talk about courage and trust, these are emotions and you can't fake the funk on this stuff people you've got to you want to get courage and trust, be over be a real leader, you need to walk your talk and to be able to get things done to be able to back that up because people know honestly, if you're bullshit on this or not, this is another one of those things that is not going to happen quickly. None of these things are going to happen quickly. And I think that in a lot of cases, whenever I get questions like this, and I give the answer people kind of, they'll come back to me, they said, Well, nothing happened in three or four months. Right? You can if you've gotten tired, large corporations that have been hardwired for years, decades, even longer have a certain way of doing things, it's going to take a little time to unspool those things. I think, look, if you're a year and a half, two years in and nothing's changing, then you've got bigger problems. But start by making sure that you're a real leader, that you prioritize these behaviors. You're prioritizing courage and trust that you're doing those sort of things that courage comes from actually doing Taking risks. Trust comes from being vulnerable. In a leadership position, it comes from real honesty, it comes from whenever you can hurt somebody that you don't whenever you know something that you can influence them with. You don't. That's that again, these are what trust is. These are things that here again talked about this in the past. This is the stuff is like falling in love. It's a lot of little things that add up to something big, you are not going to have one moment. What's one thing Wow, they all think I'm brave. Wow, I did one thing you all should trust me. That's not the way any of this works. You have to make sure that you walk your talk and do what you say. That's the way this stuff comes to life. The other thing that often helps with this is if you can find leadership and executive Godfather, somebody who is in a role, they can also help you be able to kind of be on the lookout for these things. Give your team the room to be able to develop this stuff. Because again, you want to do courage and trust, you have to take risks, you have to fail. You have to be able to go out and do these things. But you also have to construct an environment where that's okay. Because you can prioritize courage and trust and the first time somebody goes a little bit off script somebody tries something little bit bigger, you come down on them, like, you know, like some kind of house on fire. I'm never gonna trust you. And I'm never gonna have any courage to try to do that again. So again, I think like you want those things lead by example. And I think that's the problem that I see with too many people is they want these behaviors out of other people. But somehow they forget to look in the mirror about what exactly are they doing to bring those things out in themselves and to lead by example, because I think if you want it, you've got to show it and there is no substitute for that. The fifth question comes from Todd shomer. And he asks, How do you focus on a single task and fight constant mode switching? Todd, Todd, Todd Todd, you know what I would and say for this one, that for me, there is there is just there has to be constant mode switching and this is a fact of life and there's no fighting it. I think that you know, this really comes from the more senior you get, the longer you do this. The more you get into leadership, you become a creative director, you know, Executive Director, head of a team You have to be able to plug in and out of a lot of different things really quickly because as I'm moving from meeting to meeting, I need to holistically shift topic, I need to holistically shift even tone and approach. I may go from an hour of a creative review, which is a leave the titles at the door everyone is equal. We're going into have a conversation sort of approach to things, to doing something in working with the executives, where now it needs to be where titles matter of politics matter, much stronger point of view, driving a much bigger opinion getting kind of like something very definite that I want out of that because there is a right answer in that meeting, to going in and doing one on one coaching where it may be not doing any talking at all and maybe, which is what a lot of coaching should be is a lot of listening. And so again, I think that you know the dynamic in interpersonal relationships, that dynamic in power structure, the dynamic in my personality of how much I ratchet that up or ratchet it down. Is mode switching for all of those things, but I think that they're probably two things that I do to try to help control that or to try to bring some sanity to it. The first one I talked about, honestly, in that first question where we talked about developing content, that one really came out of like, how do I capture a big idea and then work them up over time. So I'm able to keep work moving and can make the most of the time when I get it. Because, for me, rarely do I have the opportunity of sitting down and actually working something through beginning to end. So I need to break this up into pieces, I need to be able to break it into something where I can continue to make progress. But it's something where again, I just, I have to be aware of what the demands are on my time and that whenever you reach a certain place in your career, there's going to be some portion of your calendar that is no longer your own and no longer in your control that there are things that you can establish that and that's one of things I try to do is that I know that I need to put things in place to help me deal with what is going on and to let me have the time and the space to actually work. So I will do things like put meetings on my calendar, and what I'll tend to block out chunks of time every week, I'll try to block, I try to if I can to grab two or three hour blocks of time. And the meeting will just simply be called work. And that these are blocks of time where I just need to have some amount of time to have a continuous thought for more than five minutes. I mean, look, it's been my calendar is also the point where also every day from 1230 to one I have a calendar that says eat. Because if not, I it's suddenly three o'clock I've got a headache, I feel like crap, don't know why, and then realize it's because I totally forgot to eat that day. But so I think that some part of it is again, not not letting the water fill the container. Because I think as that as you do things well, things will start to really creep in on this same thing, the water will always fill the container and if you have open time people will take it. So it's just simply not making all the time available. I think the other thing is to really make sure that you're focused on what matters because I think that's the thing that I seen a lot of people when they talk about mode switching is that whenever you dig into it with them, I always described as like 40 lanes wide and a quarter mile long so you're doing a lot of stuff. really badly. And so for me, it really is kind of what I go into every week I have this sort of rolling list of like, what are the two to four things that are truly important to me this week? What is the big picture work? What are the things that I cannot get out of this week without having made X amount of progress on so that I can make sure that I focus? My time I'm sure that I focus how much I need to escalate that time. Is it something that you know, look, if it's Thursday afternoon, and I know that I've only got one of those four things done? Chances are I'm working Thursday night, maybe I'm getting up early Friday morning, I'm working through lunch, I'm doing something so that I'm sure that I'm rebalancing my time, because those priority things need to get done. It's just a natural part of the creative process that so often what we do is we take care of the small problems instead of the big ones. And we take care of those small ones because they're faster to get done. It's easier to get that stuff done, because they're small. And it also has this great byproduct where it feels like we're actually getting something done. Because it's like, oh look, I've got all these little things and all that Look, I plowed through those and I got 40 things done today. That's great. But if the three big ones made no progress, and the three big ones are what you're being judged by the three big ones are what your team needs, then it's great. You did basically 40 things that didn't move the ball forward, it didn't move the needle on what it is that really mattered. So I think for me, it is always being clear and sitting down with myself at the beginning of every week to say like, what are those 1234? At most, at most, I try to keep it between two and three. But what are those things for this week that are really going to matter? So that I'm sure that I'm putting the right amount of time aside, I'm putting the right amount of work aside to make sure that that stuff really goes off without a hitch. Now we get to the last question, question six. Question six comes from Cory George and Cory asks, How do you feel about being a quote jack of all trades, unquote, compared to specializing in one style or one discipline? And I think, you know, this is a really good question, and I think that The answer to it honestly, for me probably depends on where you're at in your career. Because in a lot of cases, what I'll tend to encourage is that whenever you're early on in your career, trying to get a lot of different inputs, a lot of different you know, sort of things that you're good at, or things that you understand, is really, really good. Because I think that, you know, that is the state of modern creativity, it's the state of the modern designer, is that you need to have a broader perspective. And that's the thing is like, for me, I, you know, I've always traditionally specialized in digital design, innovative digital design is my thing. But I'm also highly aware of what's going on in architecture, in fashion, in video games in, you know, a lot interior design, in movies in pop culture, and, you know, a food and a lot of these other things. And so again, I think that it also is not necessarily, you know, thinking about yourself, just as kind of one thing. Now, I think that's a good place to be early on in your career to try to bring in as much expertise as much information As many perspectives as you can, so you're the broadest view possible. Now, I think if we're talking about sort of the anything past the beginner stage, I'm not a huge fan of the jack of all trades sort of thing, because I think in the exception of what honestly would be two to maybe three people that I've worked with in my career, I have never seen anybody who I think would describe themselves as a jack of all trades, who I think did those all really well. I think that it was somebody who categorizes Brett but not quality. This is the sort of again the 40 lanes wide quarter mile long. They know you know, a lot. They know a lot about a little right. It's one of those things where it's like Look, I know 40 different apps but I'm not a master in any of them. And so I think that for me, the conversation that I tend to have and this is why I do shows talking about personal branding. This is why I talk about a lot of these things because I think it is the road to not being the jack of all trades. I think it is also shifting the understanding away from the fact that if you are somebody who really is just looking at how to use specialize in one thing or how to, you know, specialize in a lot of different things, right? Those are executions, those are commodities, those are things that are great, but they age and it's very, very hard to be differentiated in that sort of way. And so for me, it's been much more about how do you build a style? Right, I think that was a little bit of your question, like one style or one discipline. So for me, it's not a discipline. Because I think that you know, like I said, for me, I know digital design is kind of the heart of it. I've designed books, I've edited videos, I've created special effects. I do a show where I edit audio. There's a lot of different stuff that I can do. So for me, it becomes much more about your creative process, the ability for you to summon creativity on demand, the clarity and with you know, you have around the way that you solve those problems. What's your process is To be able to do a lot of those sorts of things. So I think you'd asked about, like, it's not this mix of like illustration and layout and hand lettering and, and doing that sort of stuff. Because I think that that is a view that is very much about the executional layer of your work in your portfolio. This is why I think, again, so many portfolios go wrong, because execution is great, don't get me wrong, that that has to be the foundation of what you do. But it's it's the execution To what end. And so that's what I said is I think, you know, a lot of cases, look, maybe there are some people that are really, really good at things. And they're good at a lot of things. But for me, it's much more about the execution, the thought, the depth of thinking, because the way that I've built my career has been a little bit of the inverse of that because what I did was instead of coming at it from the execution side, I came at it from the idea side. And the thinking for me really was, if I can summon my creativity on demand, if I really understand my process, if I really understand that, if you give me a problem, a problem is going to happen. Audience an audience is going to have a need a need will have an insight and insight can then have ideas against it. That is universal no matter what we are talking about, if you're talking about digital print audio like and literally anything that needs to be created in any format in the world, follows that cadence. And so I think that if you're able to do that, then you can shape the execution and shape the learning about how to do the execution and then master it as you need it. And I think that's why for me, I went from letterpress into print design into video into special effects into digital animation into higher level digital interactions, into branding into storytelling into brand strategy into leadership into now like design transformation. The executions have continued to evolve, but the core has stayed the same. And so again, I think that for me, it's a little bit of turning it around because I've always felt like look, the world is full of people who can be great execute as the world is full of people that can make pretty pictures but the Problem with just doing it that way is like there was a time when there's a lot of people who were phenomenal specialists in Flash. And all of a sudden, Apple had a keynote. And they showed the an icon that you know, was in a web browser that didn't support flash and all of a sudden you watched an entire program an entire kind of line of work, go cratering into the ground. And so for me, it is the recognition, those things are going to continue to change. This is why your brand of how you stand out is important. This is why your process of how do you solve these things. This is why how you solve the problem and lead with that. That, to me is much more important and much more interesting, because like I said is I will take somebody who is really good at solving a problem, who really had an interesting insight, who really had an interesting idea, but maybe missed the boat on the execution. Because I can train that I can teach you how to hold a pencil I can teach you how to become a better execute. That's actually really easy because that's just a matter of now taking the idea and working on the craft of its execution. cannot do that process in reverse. I can't take someone who's a great craftsperson, and make them smart, insightful, and empathetic, I can try. But usually the results are not nearly as good as if I'm able to do it in reverse or take some take somebody who is empathetic, who is insightful, who is creative, who understands their process, and just needs to work on the execution. I think you've seen this in tons and tons of companies. Look at Apple look at Pixar. Look at tons of these companies who will hire creators like Pixar will hire people who are animators who are great storytellers who have never touched a computer a day in their life. Because they know the creativity, they know, they know the skill is there, and that they can just simply teach the execution piece on the other side of that, or they can surround them with people that can help them learn they can help them do those things, but the problem solving, that's the unicorn piece of it. So that's my thing is it's not necessarily looking at them as just what can they do, right? Because I think that that's the challenge is that if you're looking at that you're It's a it's a model, you have to chase for forever if you're just the same way. Like, I feel like it's just like if you look at pedigree I have, I have interviewed so many people with impeccable resumes, they went to the best schools, they came from the best companies, the best agencies, you would think this person is going to walk on water to get here and you man, I've given them a creative test. And they could not fall on a boat and hit fucking water. Because they had great leadership, they had somebody else who did the thinking for them. They had somebody else who filled that in and they were just simply a really great executioner. That's great. It's great that they're able to execute at that level. I don't ever hire them. Because again, for me, my groups have always prioritized creativity, they prioritize thinking they prioritize personal insight and process, because again, I can shape the execution. I can teach you how to use an application, how to refine and design, how to build a design system, how to build a better deck, how to, again, do any of these sorts of things. That's the sort of stuff like just go get to lynda.com subscriptions, sign up for Pinterest and get a bunch of friends who like to rip your work apart and make you better, right like that. You can build That. So that would be my answer on the jack of all trades question. And, you know, I think that this is this is the sort of thing that we need to spend more time talking about, I think it's the sort of thing that we need to be able to put out there to be able to have these sort of discussions because creativity is a constantly evolving concept, right? I think creativity is something where, for me, this wasn't a question, but I guess this would be the one part I would make a statement. Whenever I think about like, what is what defines a modern creative, which is what I think a lot of these questions really kind of circle around. For me, a modern creative is made up of three basic things. One is and we've talked about this is an arc across a lot of these questions, I think one is that you have a holistic approach to design. You understand graphics and you understand product, you understand digital technology, UI art, architecture, technology, right like you all this sort of stuff. You have a very broad view of what design is you Understand the design does not exist in a bubble. And that, you know, in this case in the state of where we are right now, this is not the old days, we could just make something pretty and that was enough. There's a lot of other parties that come in and have an inclusive approach. So you need this holistic approach to design. The second one being that you are business savvy, that you understand the strategies, the business logic, the politics that will ensure that your ideas actually get produced. Because again, as we have the ability, which I have said time and time again, will continue to say time and time again, we're in an era where we have the opportunity to affect business we have not seen since the Industrial Revolution, talking about the way that things are executed talking about the way something just looks is not business savvy. That is design centric, and is why a lot of times our work is not valued. So the ability to see the bigger picture to understand where design exists, what it needs to be successful, and that the business standards that it is now held to, because that's the trade off with opportunity comes responsibility. The opportunity we have effect but we can affect business. The responsibility is we need to be able to prove why That effect is, and this is why you need to be business savvy to think about these things. And the last one we've talked about here again, I think the modern creative for me also really has empathy. You understand the people you design for, but also you deeply understand the people that surround you during the creative process. You understand your team, you understand your leadership, you understand that, at its best creativity is a team sport. I think that those are the three things that really define modern creativity. And that this is the problem is that I think a lot of us still have this idealized, antiquated concept of creativity. A lot of that is because I I also think that in too many cases, that is the model that is taught in too many schools. And that lets us down. But I think that that's where a lot of these questions come from. I think it's what a lot of them are based in is the search for those three things is the understanding around those three things. So a huge thank you to the six of you that wrote in with those questions to those of you I know more had written in I wasn't able to get to all those questions. Sorry about that. I'm gonna try Go back in and answer as many of those as I can online. If you like this format, if there's more of the stuff you want to do, if you like a little bit more of the unscripted format, or these sort of questions that you want to find out more about, like I said, reach out to me on social media, send me an email, reach out to me on Twitter, LinkedIn, wherever it is, I continue to say don't people do it on Instagram 90% of the time, I see it like two or three weeks too late, just because their notification system Sox means Baltar, if you're listening. I'm happy to help. But look, I think that that's really the the thing with this is that, you know, for me, it is about this dialogue, it is about trying to figure out how do we make all this stuff better. So as usual, if you found any of this helpful, go ahead and subscribe to the show, leave a review, tell your friends, I don't pay for any advertising, because I really think that I want to make sure that this show grows organically and it grows on the backs of people who find value in it and want to recommend it. Because I think otherwise, you know, if I'm not doing that, it's not really worth the time that I'm putting into it. As always, like I said, I'm going to post a couple screenshots about things I talked about. I'll post some links The three books that I talked about, head over to podcast Stephen Gates calm Stephen is still STP h n gates like Bill Gates, I got full show notes, all that stuff that's always written up there. You can follow me on social media you can like the show on Facebook, head over to Facebook just type in The Crazy One podcast. Like the show I post inspirations every Friday I have the articles and things that I've seen during the week that I think are interesting, and people should be reading other articles, discussions, answer questions, all that good stuff. As usual. Everybody down in Leo wants me to remind you that my views here are just my own and don't represent any of my current or former employers. These are just always my own thoughts. And finally, I say it every time because I mean it every time but thank you for your time. I know that time is truly the only luxury that any of us have. And I'm always incredibly humbled that for whatever reason you want to spend any of it listening to me. So hopefully this helped. Glad to be able to have a dialogue break from the script a little bit and until next time, stay crazy.