Topic: Creativity

Foreign. Good morning. It's. Well, depending on where you are, could be morning, evening, afternoon, night. I wonder if it could be tomorrow. I don't think it's tomorrow yet anywhere. So my name is Guy Kawasaki. I am coming to you from Santa Cruz, California. I'm sitting in my closet and slash studio and I'm here to talk about this week's Remarkable People podcast. Last week's remarkable people podcast, which I think could literally save lives, was a compilation of interviews of nine scholars addressing one question. And the question was, how do we get more people to get vaccinated? So if you're in public policy or medicine or just curious about how to get more people vaccinated, be sure to check out last week's. It's called the psychology of vaccination. And of course you can find it@remarkablepeople.com. this week's episode is with none other than Julia Cameron and she is the author and godmother, queen and whatever title you can think of for change and innovation. And she is the author of the Artist's Way, which. What a book that is. Do I have mine here? I saw. I don't think I have. I. I may have it only digitally. So this is a book that was, I mean, or is truly remarkable. It, it has sold about 5 million copies and I think it has about 3,000Amazon reviews that average out to be 5 stars. Which let me tell you something, as an author, to get 3,000 reviews to average five stars is a non trivial task. So. Well, thank you everybody. I see people from Mexico and Finland and New York and Paris and England and holds it. So. Yeah, so, you know, one of the more interesting parts of her. Well, the whole thing was interesting, but one of the most interesting parts of her episode was she has named this self doubt factor, internal self doubt factor, Nigel. And so Nigel is this fictitious character that tells her, no, can't be done too hard, you shouldn't do it. You know, just the naysayer in her. And so she has a constant sort of mental battle with Nigel the naysayer inside of her. That was interesting. And you know, I, I asked her like, what are the. Some of the great barriers to innovation and change? And she said it's really self obsession that you're, you're so focused on yourself, you're not focused on the bigger picture. So if you are interested in change and innovation, you will particularly love, love Julia Cameron's. So she was just delightful. She lives in New Mexico and her dog made a cameo appearance in the recording. So yeah, and you know, a good question for all of you to think about is, you know, what blocks change for you? I mean, what are the things that prevent you from changing and making alterations to your life and upping your game, getting on the next curve, denting the universe, whatever metaphor you want to use? So I'm happy to take questions, fire away, and I hope that you, you go listen to Julia Cameron on Remarkable People. But yeah, so tell me what's blocking your change. And if you want any advice from me, I wrote a book called Rules for Revolutionaries, so I may know a thing or two about change. Of course, right now it seems to me I'm out of focus and I can't figure out. So now I'm in focus and now I'm in focus, but every once in a while, this thing goes out of focus. So someone from Istanbul, what is the connection between creativity and innovation, huh? Boy, you, you might say that they're opposite sides of the same coin. I, I, you know, I kind of hesitate to, to start forming, you know, sort of categories and categorization that people think they are innovative or people think they are creative. You know, I, I guess some of that self reflection helps and, and if you think you are both, some of that flattery and positivity helps. But I would say that generally speaking, truly creative and innovative people, they don't go around thinking if they are creative and innovative. Basically, they just do. So, you know, I kind of doubt that Steve Jobs used to sit around saying, I wonder if I'm creative. And I wonder if Elon Musk sits around saying I wonder if I'm innovative. I just can't imagine that to be true. So my solution to this is just do it. My God. Just, you know, make a better product, make a better widget, get to the next curve and then, you know, worry about other people calling you innovative or creative. But it's not about positioning yourself and you know, as a thought leader and guru and visionary. So let your products do the talking is what I'm trying to say. How do you discover the source of thing that stops your change, huh? You know, I think that kind of gnaws at you and it just tells you. Now don't, don't get me wrong, I think everybody, Elon Musk and Steve Jobs included, they have doubts. So I'm not saying that a truly creative and innovative person has no doubts. I think only a psychopath has no doubts. So now, you know, probably Steve and Elon had less than most people and they probably stuffed it down deeper than most people. But they had their doubts and have their doubts. So the question is not whether you have doubts or not. The question is whether you can push past your doubts and still do something. Because everybody has doubts. See. Do you feel that innovation can be outsourced, such as working with consultants or an id. Ido analog? You know, I'd like to say no. I, I think that, you know, by definition, if you truly want to create innovation that's relevant to your market, it has to come from you, it has to come from internal. That. No. Can you just go and hire some consultants to be innovative for you? I mean, the purist in me says no, that you should have better knowledge of your customer, better knowledge of the market and technology and all that than some hired gun who has an MBA from Harvard who's, you know, been in the workforce for two years and now you're paying him 25,000 bucks or paying her 25,000 bucks through McKinsey. I mean, hard to imagine. So I don't think you should outsource innovation. I think you should build the product that you want to use and hope that you're not alone. Okay, what else? I struggle to get started. Where to start when you're in debt? Jan, I, you know, you get started where you are. I don't know. You know, I meet people with blocks like this and for me, one of the things I learned is that if you wait for this perfect time where you're properly financed, you have a world class team, you have a growing market, there's no competition, and your technology is patent pending, curve jumping, paradigm shifting, Nobel prize winning quality, you will never start. So I think entrepreneurship is about getting dirty and starting. And it's overcoming doubt and it's overcoming negativity. There's no such thing as a silver platter for entrepreneurship. Maybe if you're Donald Trump's son or something, but even that has its downsides. So I think you just have to push past that. If entrepreneurship were easy, and if innovation were easy, more people would do it, trust me. So what else is crazy if you're God given skill they're better at or skill that one can truly develop from scratch. I hope, I hope I'm right. I think you can develop it from scratch. I think that necessity is the mother of innovation. And now, you know, sometimes it's the near death experience of a life, excuse me, of a company. So, you know, when Apple had a near death experience in the mid-80s, guess what forced it to innovate? Change the source of the operating system invent those teardrop shape IMAX with colors. So you could make the case that success is the enemy of innovation. Because when you're successful and you're fat, dumb and happy and you only care about the next 90 days for the stock market, you know, you probably don't create innovation. And I told this story before on this podcast, but it's know Kodak in 1975 invented digital photography. Well, guess what? I mean, they weren't so eager to embrace innovation that would make people not buy film. And so, you know, who among us uses a Kodak digital camera today? So what else? Have you had a harder time being creative during the pandemic and working at home? Huh? Well, I must say that it's not clear to me. Well, I don't consider myself innovative, you know, certainly not in the Steve Jobs, Elon Musk category. But for me, the secret to my success is not necessarily innovation, it's grit. And speaking of grit, an upcoming Gus is Angela Duckworth, who is Ms. Grit, the godmother of Queen of Grit. So you'll enjoy that. And so, you know, like my current two obsessions are Canva and Remarkable People. I can't say that I'm doing anything innovative with remarkable people. I'm trying to find the most remarkable people and get their wisdom onto recording and share that with you. You know, am I breaking new ground? Do I have virtual reality podcasts, augmented reality podcast? Do I podcast that, you know, transmits directly through your brain? You don't have to hear it. No. So the secret to my success is grit, not necessarily innovation. Having said that, I hope I can recognize innovation when I see it. So what else? Keep firing those questions at me. What has been your greatest personal tool for surmounting your own doubt and negativity? I kind of answered that just now by accident. I mean, it's grit. And grit is just the willingness to, you know, work hard and take blows to the body. I don't know what else to say. I don't consider myself visionary or naturally brilliant. You know, I ain't stupid. But I can work. And that's the key to my success. I can work. What else? What do you think? What do you do to get you into your creative zone? Well, you can think this is a real bullshit answer, but I think I get my best ideas when I'm driving and in particular when I'm driving a manual shift car and in particular a Porsche. So if I want it to truly be innovative, I should go buy a 911s stick. How's that for rationalization. But I just, I hardly ever drive anymore. So maybe that's why my innovation is stuck. I mean, I literally, I drive. There are days and days I go without driving. But. Well, right now, to tell you the truth, I live on the east side of Santa Cruz and the waves are too big for me here, so I have to go to the west side to surf. So now I'm driving six miles a day to surf. But if it weren't for that, there are days I don't drive. And also, I'm not driving a Porsche. I'm driving a Mercedes mattress, which is a whole nother story. This Mercedes mattress has been upfitted by a company called Peace Vans. You know, like Peace or V for Victory or even more important, V for vaccination. So Peace fans, they take a mattress and then they change the back seat so that it can fold flat. And they build you a platform on the bottom so the seat folds flat. And then now two people can sleep on the bottom. There's a cassette toilet. They add. They also put a pop top roof so two people can sleep upstairs, two people can sleep downstairs and their surfboard racks on top of the roof. So, I mean, that's my go to vehicle. And it's. I could tell you it's just such a pleasure to just open up the back and throw your boards in, but that drive is too short for me to get innovative ideas. So let's see. Love what you said. Cannot outsource intervention. Can you give us a quick process map for creating something? Oh, man. Kathleen, you know, I don't know. Process map is a strong word. I think that you, you create the tool that you want to use. This is it in a nutshell. I think that great innovation occurs when you create the tool that you want to use and then you hope that you're not the only person in the world who wants to use it. I think that describes Apple Computer, for example. I think that describes Google, probably Facebook too. Mark Zuckerberg needed Facebook to find dates. I think that is the single richest vein. I'm not saying it's the only vein, but I think it's the richest vein. So create the product that you want to use and hope that you're not the only person. How to convince your team that that is more conventional about the importance of innovation and testing new things. Yeah, Danelle, you know, well, I think fear is a great motivator and fear of dying is a very great motivator. So, you know, tell them the Kodak story. Tell your team. In 1975, Kodak invented digital photography. And where's Kodak today? It's because they define themselves incorrectly. They define themselves as being in the chemicals business, putting chemicals on film. Really? They were in the memory preservation business. So if they had figured out that they're in the memory preservation business, they would have embraced digital sensors. Duh. But they thought they were a chemical company. It is Smith Corona and Remington Rand, if you're old enough to hear about those, you know, they define themselves as being in the typewriter business. Guess what? If they had defined themselves as being in the information business, they might still be here today. So I think you have to use negative examples. You know, company that innovates and stays alive, it may not get, you know, the same kind of attention that company events digital photography and doesn't use it and dies. It's a pretty scary story. I mean, who, who among us cannot relate to that? You know, like, why isn't Blockbuster, Netflix? Think about that. You know, if Netflix had defined, Excuse me, if Blockbuster had defined itself as we're in the business of helping people get entertained, then they would have said, so maybe we're not in the business, per se, of brick and mortar. Brick and mortar, enabling people to come in and rent DVDs. Business because, you know, whether you enable people to get entertained via a rental DVD or stream, what difference does it make to you? The irony, of course, is Netflix started with rental DVDs. So. Yeah, what else? Rossi Journal. Other papers and media have been touching on the doom of Silicon Valley and the exodus to places like Austin and Miami. What are your thoughts on this? Isn't this like any energy going, change in scale in different areas? You know, I, I think that. So what, Oracle moves his headquarters to Austin. Is that doom for Silicon Valley? You know, I, I can't tell you that. In Silicon Valley, people. How do I say it? So let's say you're a Stanford grad or you're a Stanford student. Computer science, it may be, even PhD. You probably want to start a company. You want to be the next Google or Apple. But let's say, you know, that's not your goal. Where would you want to go to work? Google or Apple? Maybe Facebook, maybe? I can't tell you that. I believe that the top computer science are saying, oh God, if I could only go work for Oracle, you know, that like, man, that is my fantasy. I could like work for companies selling mainframe databases. Man, that is like just, I was born for that. So I guess. And then, you know, A few venture capitalists moving to Miami. God bless them. The less venture capital Silicon Valley has, the better it'll be. So go. Go to Miami. Stay, you know, go have lunch with DeSantis without a mask. Hallelujah. Yeah, I. Well, you could make the case that you could be a venture capitalist anywhere in the world today, because every meeting and pitch is done by Zoom, So what difference does it make where you're signing into Zoom from? But, you know, I can't tell you that. I'm laying awake thinking, oh, my God, you know, Silicon Valley is pretty soon going to be a slum. Hard to imagine. Hard to imagine. What else? What books could you recommend as a roadmap to help an entrepreneur needs to balance their career, Current career, while bootstrapping their new endeavor? Charlie, I don't think there is such a book. You know, you just. You just have to. Well, you. You know, you. It's. It's a very understandable path that you need current income while you work, you know, on your side, hustle. So what else do you need to know? You need to make money from 8 to 5 to pay for the stuff you want to do at the other time. What else is there? I mean, I guess there's some law, you know, that. That you may have signed the employment agreement that says everything you think about and invent on our computer belongs to us. Well, then buy another computer. Don't do it on their computer. I don't know if you need a book to do that. See, what's the most remarkable innovator alive? Alive. Elon Musk, for sure. Elon Musk. Not that I know him personally, but from the outside looking in, I mean, space cars, solar panels, what else is he like? What isn't he in? So, yeah. So, Elon Musk, in your books and speeches, you have covered a lot of ground. No shit. You also thrive on curse, curating, useful, fun or newsworthy content. How do you maintain focus on a given topic you choose to work on? And so much incoming about everything under the sun, you assume I do maintain focus. Not clear that I do. You know, I. I would say. I would say that if from the outside looking in, you think I'm doing a lot, and so, you know, you're questioning how can I focus and do things well, I'm. I'm being wishful thinking here. I'm. I'm hoping you think I do these things well. So then you ought to know, how can you do several things well? And the answer to that is grit. I keep coming back to Grit. I am just willing to work harder and longer than most people. People. When most people don't care or give up, I can keep pushing. So that's. You should read a book called Grit by Angela Duckworth. You should also read a book called Mindset by Carol Dweck. D W E C K. And there's another book coming in May from Katie Milkman called How to Change. And if you read those three books, you will be an animal. I mean that in a positive way. So if you could choose the theme song for the rest of life, what it would be? Tiny bubbles. What else? How to monetize creativity. I lost a startup in Paris and won different competition trophies and innovation from the French government, but did not manage to raise money. Yeah, Joseph, I mean, you know, therein lies the question. So I remember once. Oh, my God, this is funny. So the founders of Canva, they could not come to ces, I think it was. And at ces, there was a contest for companies to pitch to win. I don't know, whatever it was. And so Melanie and Cliff could not come from Australia for ces. So I went and I made the Canva pitch and I didn't win. In fact, I think I came in third. So, you know, the goal in life is to create a company that changes the world, not win contests. I would also say it's not to raise money. Raising money is a means to an end. It's not the end in and of itself. So I would also make the case that today it's cheaper than ever to start a company. So, you know, you may not have to win the contest or convince the venture capitalist you can bootstrap it. It's easy for me to say, but, you know, that's how life goes. So don't confuse winning pitch contests or winning any kind of contest with creating a viable company. You want to talk about jumping to the next curve in your species, what things to consider to get to the next big thing, you know, I mean, I wish I had a science for you. This is. I can only use metaphors. And you just have to think about, you know, what is the true benefits you're providing your customers. So did Kodak provide film to their customers or. A way to preserve memories, in my opinion. Preserve memories. So I also use the classic ice example. So ice 1.0 is harvesting ice. Ice 2.0 is freezing water central in an ice factory. Ice 3.0 is a refrigerator company. So an ice factory is much better than harvesting ice because you can have an ice factory anywhere, any Time of year. A refrigerator is better than a nice factory because the refrigerator is in your house. You don't have to have ice delivered to your house. Now none of the ice harvesters became ice factories and none of the ice factories became refrigerator companies because everybody defined themselves in terms of what they already do. We harvest ice, we freeze water in a factory. If you had defined yourself as the benefit we provide is cleanliness and convenience then theoretically an ice harvester would become an ice factory and a nice factory would become a refrigerator company. So you know, I mean you just have to think like that. Why isn't Remington Ran and smith corona making iOS devices or you know, phone smartphones and all that? It's because they said we're in the typewriter business. What else? I'm in my 20s, what should I worry about most? Man, I am not your psychologist LinkedIn user. I don't know what you should worry about in your 20s. I don't know what you should worry about in your 60s. So that's above my pay scale. Go, go read a Gary Vaynerchuk or Tim Ferriss book. They can help you. I cannot help you with that. What message do you have for non tech small business to stay motivated in these uncertain times? You know well yeah, there's some hope on the horizon margin. First of all there's vaccines and if we could just get the distribution of vaccines down pat and convince anti vaxxers and people on the fence to get vaccinated, you know or well not or, but and wash hands and maintain mass and don't go into crowded places. Yeah, defeating this pandemic is doable. It isn't rocket science at this point. It may be psychology but it's not rocket science. So there's some good news on the horizon. I, I think that when the pandemic, you know, sort of dark cloud lifts there's going to be such a return to spending and stuff. Now this assumes you're not laid off but I, I think there's such demand, pent up demand being created that things might just explode. Knock on wood. Let's hope I'm right. But until then you know all you can do. Well as a small business I would certainly I would do business directly with my customers. I would not depend on Amazon or any reseller or retailer. I would milk my install base because they're probably the easiest people to sell to. I would just simplify my supply chain and make the calculation that maybe it's better to pay more and have a good supplier in the United States. Than worry about, you know, our relationship at any given moment with China. Well, in about a week I would think that, you know, trade wars and, and tariffs become a whole lot more rational than they are now. But you know, imagine that, imagine that all your manufacturing was done in China and like you wake up one morning and say, okay, so there's a tariff on soybeans, so now there's a tariff on making my socks. You know. Bummer. Yeah. What else? Oh, that was a flashy. How do you bridge thought process between old management practice and new day consumers? Wow. I, again, I, I, I think you just have to scare the out of yourself that if you want to be relevant you have to change. I don't know, you know, positively stated you look at new markets and growth and all that, but negatively stated you get irrelevant. I think actually the negative is more scary. It's a question of whether you believe that what's more important than a painkiller or a vitamin. And I kind of subscribe to the painkiller theory that you know, when you have a migraine, man, you'll do anything to get the migraine fixed. Whereas if you're doing okay, you have to convince yourself, well, should I take vitamin D and turmeric and you know, as a preventive thing? I think that's a lot less compelling. So work on painkillers, not vitamins. Well, well, Elliot says that my psychology of innovation episode convinced his 79 year old mother to get vaccinated. Wow. Huh. That's reassuring. That's flattering. That made my day. So, okay, what else? Our team gets the best in creativity while the deadline being around the corner is functional, but to be honest, quite stressful. Any Minecraft is, I can relate to this because I have to tell you. So back when I was in the software business, Macintosh Software business, there were two shows a year. January Macworld Expo and August Mac World Expo. And guess what? Things tended to get finished in January and August. Maybe it was a coincidence, but I don't think so. So you know, and then I think one of those shows went away. So let's say there was no more Boston Mac World in August. It was only January Mac World in San Francis School. Development time doubled because now there's only one big event a year. I think it's kind of event driven. It's, I, I think it's a psychological thing that, you know, if you, if you didn't know people were coming over for dinner, you don't start cooking. So you just have to force the situation and maybe you know, the external factors, your ally that you could say to your programmers, listen, I didn't schedule Mac World Expo in January. That's when the show is, we've got to meet that date. I didn't pick that date arbitrarily. You could also make the case that that's the beauty of Christmas, right? People know that, well, if we're going to hit the Christmas market, we got to ship in September because we can't delay Christmas because you screwed up manufacturing. So dates matter. How do we balance innovation and the related extraction of resources from the planet Earth? That is a good, good question and I am not qualified to answer that. You know, hopefully people will consider the true and total cost of innovation. That I think good example of this is electric cars. So what's the true cost of an electric car? You know, we have to compare apples against apples. So, you know, so it's not as simple as, well, there's no emissions because, well, you know, somehow depending on where you were, what generated the electricity that can charge the battery. If you're in Virginia, it's probably cold. In California, it's probably an alternate source. So you could make the case that California electric car is cleaner than a West Virginia electric car. And then you have to think about, so what did it take to get the lithium battery? And then what happens to the lithium battery after the car is no longer used? I think you can use old car batteries for power supplies in houses for like eight decades or something. So I'm not sure. But the point is, and I think it's very hard, you truly have to figure out the total impact. It's not just what's coming out the tailpipe or an electric car. There is no tailpipe. But, you know, it's not that simple. So you have to consider the total impact. I, I really, I struggle with this all the time. I don't, not all the time. And I don't awaken it, lay awake about it. But yeah, can you put a timeline on creativity? When do you say stop? Well, it's kind of related to the last question, last answer, which is in my experience, January, macro level. Man, it's funny how many things got done in December. Boy, it was amazing coincidence. So one is an artificial date. I'll tell you another thing that makes things get finished is running out of money. Funny how that works, you know, so you're running out of money. Guess what? You finish your project so you can ship. Duh. So, you know, I don't. That might not be the most scholarly approach. To finishing stuff. But I'm telling you, running out of money is a big motivator. What's the most important part of product? Investors care about sales. What else? In the Macintosh way, you mentioned chutzpah as necessary characteristics for building a great team product. Is that the same as grit? I would not say that grit and chutzpah are the same thing. So chutzpah is. Well, grit is working hard, persevering, and not taking no for an answer, just not giving up. That's grit. Chutzpah is faking it until you make it, asking for. Even though you have no right to ask for something. Chutzpah is. You know, you could make the case that thinking you're going to start a company that's going to defeat Kodak is chutzpah. There's a great definition of chutzpah. That chutzpah is when someone who has murdered his parents asked for sympathy because he's an orphan. I don't know where I read that, but I thought that's an interesting definition of chutzpah. So chutzpah, you could say chutzpah is complaining about having to go to metal through metal detectors in the capital. That's chutzpah. What else? Never run out of questions. So, okay, so I now have chutzpah. I want you to stop what you're doing after this and go to remarkable people.com and listen to Julie Cameron explain to you how to change and how to be innovative. And then I want you to listen to the psychology of vaccination so you can learn not just about vaccination, but about 12 tips on influence and persuasion that I swear you can apply to anything, not just vaccination. You know, here's a interesting. Phil Zimbardo told me this in. In the podcast. So he said that, you know, one point is data, two points is a difference, three points make a trend. So let's say you're Surgeon General of the United States and you have multiple data. So you know that in January, I don't know, I'm making all these numbers up. January, 20% of people said they're getting vaccinated. February was 30%, March was 40%, April was 50%. So instead of saying, well, last month, 50% of the people said they'd get vaccinated. This month it's 60%. Phil Zimbardo would say, no, that's not optimal. What you say is in January was 20%. In March, it was 30%. In December, it was 60%. So those three points make a line and a trend that people assume are going to continue in that direction. But the magic number is three, not two and certainly not one. So that's the kind of stuff that's in the psychology of vaccination and you can obviously apply that to any kind of new product introduction or new product thing. So that's it. So remarkable. People.com and next week's guest, just FYI is Rick Smolin. Rick Smolin is the inventor of the or co creator of the Day in the Life series. Started with Day in the life of Australia. Then he did I think United States and Soviet Union and I like many countries now have that. And he also did America 24 by 7. He did one about data. He did one looking back about the increase and progress in reducing discrimination. He did a book, a a photographic article for National Geographic for a woman who was solo trekking across Australia that became eventually she wrote a book about that with his pictures and all that. And they made a movie about her experience with this photographer called Tracks, which is a really popular indie film. So next week is Rick Smolin talking about photography and creativity and not getting good grades and still succeeding in life. So that's remarkable people. Next week. And with that I will bid you fond of do I hope that you wash your hands, that you don't go into crowded places, you wear a mask and when you can get vaccinated, get vaccinated, man, I am, I am, I am going to be first in line when category 1B comes up in California. So thank you very much. Enjoy your week. Take care. Bye.