Part 3 - Forget Degrees — Here's What Really Fuels Success

Welcome to this edition of the million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell.

One thing you do well, and I think you've all always done well and I think it has led to you being so incredibly productive is you follow your inspiration, your curiosity, you follow and look for things that will energize you at any given moment. You're very matter of fact in terms of looking at things and it's like, is it working? Is it not working? How can we make it work better? What can I get excited about? In other words, we all want to have wow in our lives. It's just like, what's wow to you? What gives you a little. And you can't fake that it's inside. Right. I mean, it's like people come to your workshop, you can't make them come to your workshop. How far, what are some of the stories, how far people have traveled to go to one of your workshops in one of these places? I know you've had some strange things and happen all the time where people will go across the world to be at a workshop in Singapore or something with you.

Yeah, that's generally like, it's like an adventure experience and it's something that, that you really want to do and then you will make something out of it. It's not, I mean, there's very few that does a workshop out of convenience. That is like, I mean, it's not like I will have people ask, can you, are you going to do a workshop at this place? And I don't, I look up the place and it's like out of nowhere because that's where they live. But that's the general thing is that's not how people do it. They want that. They want the full experience and they want somehow to combine it with that. The whole package sound interesting. You say if you always dreamt of going to Tokyo or Bali or Berlin or Denmark then, or Copenhagen, then you're like, that's part of that. That's where I am. And that's part of what makes it interesting. So here's, so here's an interesting. So talk about preservation. And also we talked about this, that you put life into things. So I have, well, you can say everything I do has always been. Some people say, oh, can you do this? Or you should do this. And if it sounds interesting, I'll do it. If it doesn't ring A bell. Then it doesn't. So here in the New York workshop, I had a handful of guys. Well, I had three guys. So one of them is a guy that retired. He used to work with. Well, he basically worked with IKEA since they began in 72 or something. And now he's retired and his Swedish lives in Canada. And he would give you some funny looks like analyzing. He's trying to X ray me, something like that. And then he says, I think on the second day he said, listen, it's great all this stuff you do about the cameras and so on, but I'm not really interested in the camera. What interests me is you. So he says, like, instead of making a story about behind the photograph, you have to make the story behind Tors Norgaard. How come you can be still so enthusiastic about photography after all these years? And we talk back and forth a little bit and then he shakes his head like you don't understand what it is I'm asking you. And I have two other guys. One is a former pro golf player and the other one is one he would ride 22 years ago. He was. Had a big business in Dresens. And they're like select. We say online spirits guy. And they. And they're like, they all know what it is he's requesting, but they also see I don't have any idea what he's talking about. And so we go on talking about this and next day and I say, well, I have written something about this and there's also this thing. And then we are getting somewhere to where they want to be. And you could say, I haven't figured it out yet. And then you could say that one of the things we talk about is like I said, no, but it comes from inside. You say that it's not like you can't go to university or somewhere to learn this. It comes from you. So you have to find out what is it that you want to do. And you have to find a purpose or something you really want to do. And you can say, once you find something you really want to do, you have unlimited power and energy and you can use all your power to work in that direction. You can also change the direction. You can change your mind. And he said, yeah, that's right. It's like we're spiritual being. It comes from you, of course.

Yeah.

And so on. So that's something I been speculating about for the last 10, 15 days. And then when I went to UK to photograph for five days, just in and out, and then I came home and there was like this box on the floor and. And I thought it was some adapter that was supposed to arrive before I left, so I just left it. And then the day after I opened it and it turns out that one of the other guys has sent me a notebook and a fountain pen and a little card says, here is for your book. You're going to write about this. The working title of the book is Permission to Exist. So now there's no way out. And it's really like. And I mean, they said like, this is the one. This is the one book or books or whatever that your kids and grandkids and everybody else is going to make money off. Because this is forever. And this is so essential.

Yeah.

Which is also part of my big campaign and thing now is like that you can say I always did what I thought I wanted to do. And to some degree in periods I would just do the opposite of what you were supposed to do. Or the way. When I started an advertising agency when I was 19, I specifically studied all the advertising agency. I knew how many people were working in them, how many was creative, how many was administration, I knew what clients they had, I had idea how much money they made and so on. And then I wanted to be not like them, which is kind of stupid from a business point of view. It would better just study what do they do and then copy it and then do it your own way from there. But anyways, or you say maybe that is part of what makes me tick or what makes me is that I just, I don't look for how do everybody do it. And then we get into, you could say today's world, where especially in the U.S. it's like you grow up and then when you get to a certain age, well, you would say one thing is you become a teenager, you 12, 15 years and you want to be on Instagram, you want to be popular, you want to be liked by everybody and you want to be accepted and so on. And that's basically where it stops being unique. And then you get to age where now you have to go to university. So now you have to go to university for some years. And it cost a fortune to go there. And all you get for it is that you don't have time to actually develop yourself, but you have have to do tests and work like an insane to be like everybody else. And the whole idea of that. And if you say a lot of Asians send their kids to the US to do that and then they do two universities, because two must Be better than one. So they do eight years of this cost of fortune. And then the idea is that now you can be successful in life because you have all the papers. And that is so untrue. And I mean, I have a few people around where I can experiment with them, say, wow, you should just write a book or you should just do this. And they just kind of don't get it. They don't dare. Because it's almost like the idea is that if you don't have those papers, you're gonna die or you're not gonna survive, you're gonna be unhappy or something like that. So that's like Maybe goes for 98% of the population. And then you have a few. You say that a lot of great business people, a lot of great artists, they dropped out or they never went to school or they just basically started something and then it took off. And you could say we have the Tesla founder. That one thing I know that he had is what, like at one point he figured out that he could live for $1 a day, so he wouldn't die of hunger if he had $1 a day. And that basically set the bare minimum for how bad he could be a business or anything or how much money he could lose. He could always survive. I have that thing that I'm like, no matter what I have done in my life, I did went to school, like public school, and I did advertising, I did Internet and I did this and that. I had a period where I was consulting and I had one and a half year, whereas I worked in a company for somebody else. So it's kind of like you see yourself in version one, version two, version three, and then suddenly it skips from being very businesslike in advertising and Internet to being like this artist with had a long beard and just travel the world. And it doesn't really matter what I do, I'm always going to survive. So that's kind of like my $1 thing is like I know if I gave a photograph today and I started a retail store or garden company, I would make something out of it. I would make it fun and I will make it worthwhile. I'll make money on it. So how can you instill that self confidence in people? And the key to just like believing yourself instead of believing in papers. So that's part of also what I see what maybe what they're asking this group of people from New York is like they want. I don't know why they want it, but I think it's going to. It is going to be entertaining. And that's why the title of it is. The working title is Permission to Exist, which basically is like, just believe in yourself and just do what you feel you should be doing.

But you've written about this from the beginning in terms of convincing, giving people the courage to. To take up photography and to say, I am a photographer and, you know, I can put my stuff out there and I don't have to defend myself to you or what it's like that. Like, yeah.

And I think, I mean, it's like goes through everything I say and write. That is my opinion. Just believe in yourself and take photographs and you are unique. And what I think this assignment is not just say it, but actually make you believe it when you read it. Or is the key to this. You could say, yeah, it's great. You could say, like, he can live for $1 a day. And Steve Jobs was a genius. And Amazon also figured it out from the beginning, before he opened the store, Amazon in his garage. But that's because he's Jeff Bezos and that's because he's Steve Jobs, and that's because so and so. So how do you jump the gap from that? No, if he can live for $1 a day and be the richest man in the world, I can do the same. I can do better than him.

Yeah.

And more fun and more money. But that is not generally how it works. That you see somebody is great or they're doing something, you think, wow. And you would say, the key is that, no, you're not supposed to copy it. You're not supposed to look at Leonardo DiCaprio, say, wow, he's a great actor. I can be greater than him. So I'm just going to copy him. Like, no, it has to come from you and it has to be unique because you are unique. So you're not supposed to be a copy of Steve Jobs or something. But of course, you want to study them and learn from them. You want to study and learn from Bob Dylan and so on, but you're not going to be them. You're not going to be a repetition of them. You're going to be, yeah, you're going to be unique. You're going to exist as yourself, as an original.

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I'll give you my take on that. My take on is if you follow your instincts and your curiosity and the things that you're interested in and give yourself permission to do that, it can lead, you know, you should start with the belief that curiosity, that interest, that instinct is there for a purpose. And I believe it was put in there. And I'm not like your mother in the sense that I do believe in a God and I do believe that there's a purpose and like if I have that, if I follow it, probably there's a chance anyway something great could come from that. But the deal is you even hear if it's something you're interested in. Like you work 25 hours a day. I mean you're in the sense that you're never stop thinking about what you're doing. And all of us do that are into following our passion, our obsession, our interests. We just do it without thinking. And even Kevin O' Leary on the shark tank, the Mr. Wonderful Guy, he was saying today somewhere that like if, if you want your business of your own, you're gonna work 25 hours a day, you just might. Well, you know, you're just gonna be obsessed with it and it winds up squeezing out a lot of the other things in your life because not because you're giving them up, it's just because you want to do it. It's like Jay Leno with cars now. It's not because he has to, it's just that's his interest and so that's his real thing. Yeah, I think that as you put the hours in there, things come out and your. But it has to be developed. It's not going to come out. Like your first masterpiece is not going to be your first sketch or your first photograph. Once you get the idea, you're going to have to do a lot of it to get a good one.

Yeah, I don't even agree with that. I mean a lot of great artists and great people did, they did the greatest work when they didn't have a lot of experience. So it comes from I think something, if there's something you really want to do, then you have the Skill and talent and you can refine it, but it's not like it's unknown territory. So you could say in one way, I don't, I don't like to tell people, oh, it takes a lot of work. I mean it, yeah, it is work. But when you like it, when you're doing something that you feel you should do, it's not work. It's just that's what you do. It's better than watching television or something else. For example, I was in some weeks ago, I was in New York and then one of my friends from Denmark was there. So he's a graphic designer. He makes books for Museum of Modern Art and all this stuff. And so I thought, did my stepdaughter come because she's in design school and stuff, let's have dinner together and seek and hear from him. And he is self taught. So I mean, I met him in Denmark when he was just a young consultant in that Bertha Stacy where I was. I worked for a company for one and a half year and he was on the floor below. So he was just selling. He was just a consultant selling advertising or whatever. But somehow we connected and we connected on music and Miles Davis and everything and food, making food and so on. And then I left. I started a new company with one of the guys from there. And then we stayed connected. And then one day he said, hey, Thorsten, can you help me? I want to do graphic design. How does the software and so on work? I remember I was like, what a stupid idiot. Why does he want to do that? Because that's what you hire people to do. That's like secretary work almost in advertising. But that's what he wanted to do. I said, well, this is what you do. I showed him a few things and then off he went. And then he happened to show that he was really good at it. And then I had him in on. We did one of the first websites for a museum in Denmark and so on. We did some other stuff and we won awards from it. And then he said 20 years later he is traveling the world and doing graphic design for museums. And the reason he does that, I hadn't thought about that. But that's what he said at the dinner. It's like, no, he used to do for the museum back then. And then those guys that worked at the museum, they went to oil museums and then they would call him, say, can you come to this museum and do this? And that's how he became the guy that is like the dude.

Yeah.

And you say, well, so then he. So that's one thing. I think that's wrong. And he shows this young talent that. Yeah, see us like, how do you get to where you are? I said, oh, that's like. That took me 20 years. And I'm like. I'm thinking, this is bullshit. We're 20 years later. But you had fun all the way.

Yeah.

It's not like you ever worked hard. I mean, he gets stressed because they have deadlines, but that's his own fault. But whatever. But he. He loves it, and he gets well paid, and they love him for what he's doing is the dream life. So it's not that it took 20 years to get there, it's just that. Just different clients he's doing now.

And you make the excellent point, and I stand corrected on the work day. But it's like this. If I were to ask you, how much are you working? You don't think in terms I'm working. You think in terms I'm having fun. And I would say to you that if you. If in our business, if people bring up the question of how much are you working or how hard you have to work, it tells me they're in the wrong place because they're thinking about doing things they don't want to. To me, work is doing something you really don't wanna do. Fun is doing something you really are interested in doing and want to do. And so the people, the high achievers, are usually following their curiosity. They got an idea, let's try this. And. But it is. And so you're exactly right of that. And as a result, most, in fact, the bulk of the great art in the world has been created before the artist was 30 years old. A lot of it out there, like the Pieta was then when Michelangelo was 21, I think the day that he was 24, something like that. But I think what happens as we get older, we lose that fun thing we think of. We stop being as adventuresome as we were when we were young. And then I think your book could speak, could do a lot of good to free up a lot of older creatives to get their fun back in and think, be more adventuresome and go for a while and, like, break out, do something new and challenge them to be a little crazy like they were when they were, and fearless when they were before 30.

Yeah, I agree. Somehow I just like the idea of thinking of I'm talking to 12 years or 15 years old. But it's true. I mean, it's also, for a lot of People, it's like that's when they're going to. When they retire and they have enough money. Yeah. Then they're going to do what they always wanted. That is wrong, I think. And. But that's also why it speaks to those. Because that is to some degree the people who are there. I mean, they were all actually doing something that was fun. Now they're all active, but also what you would call retired. But you could say the ideal is in my opinion, this like the Dire Straits song. Like Money for nothing and Chicks for free.

Yeah.

That's how life at work should be. You just go on a stage, go to private jet. You go on a stage, play some guitar and you get paid a lot of money. And all the chicks wants to be with you and you go to the next place and it's just fun. It's like skip the drugs and everything. But just that I think is right, you know, and how to make people do that. I mean, I had. The other night I had a talk with the manager from New York. He's running a very successful company with his wife and she's like the main personally. And. And I always seen him. It's like he's a really smart businessman. And then we talk and he's almost trapped in this being in business and you have to make money and you have to do this and you look around and you want to do better and so on and something not right for the picker said. So I asked him like. And it's almost like he's more of an artist, but he's not an artist. So then I asked like, what did you really want to like when you were a kid, what did you want to do? I want to be a writer. I said, why don't you just write? Then it's like, yeah. And that's the case with most things because I didn't done also like talks around the world, like artist night. Just a couple of hours for all kinds of artists and this like people they put behind what they really believe in or the arc they want to do. And then they have a data so when they present themselves, they say, I'm an accountant. And then later, if you get to know them, they also like to be a radio host or something. And usually what I said now you have to turn around and say, I'm a radio host. I also do accounting. But because how is anybody going to hide you or hire you to be a writer or radio host or painter or whatever if you don't tell them that where it's going to come from. And it has to come from. Well one thing is it has to come from inside you. And then the next thing is like how are you going to make it known to the world? And that. You could say I'm a product of the Internet and self promotion. I never and part of my whole life of not having a boss. It's like I don't want to ask for approval. So you could say when I started out writing, the only way to publish a book would be to find a publishing house and ask the editor, will you publish my book? And when you found one who would do it then you went in business. But a lot of people wouldn't do that. And now you have the Internet thing. You could say you can self promote, you can self publish, you can do everything, which makes things a lot easier. And you could say that is the natural thing that if you think you're great at playing music, you should play some music and sell it directly. Yeah. And you could do the same with books. And then some people that's going to be in another book somewhere. But some people would criticize that, oh you're not a real photographer, you're just self promoting and stuff like that. I'm like hadn't really thought about that for a long time and I think that's what a crazy thing to say. I mean where would Coca Cola be if they didn't self promote or Tesla? I mean that's how you sell things. I mean but somehow in the art you have to find a museum or some illustrator or something that gives you like this stamp or you have to sew university papers from two universities and then you can become or say that you are like an entrepreneur because you have papers.

Every company is a self promoter, you.

Know what I'm saying?

But that proves there that comment from a critic is.

But I mean all that is just.

Like it proves that when critics open their mouth a lot of times they just show how stupid they really are and the things they come up with.

Yeah, but sometimes you take it to you because there is like some kind of pattern of that. That's how it is. You read in the paper, you read the paper to find out what's happening in the world, what the truth is or something like that. And then somehow it's also you have to break free and just realize no.

You can actually, you know, you're writing. I think what you've done already in your career is giving people the courage to get out there and to, to go do it. And in photography but and it helps if you know a little bit more about it. The more knowledge you have about it, you feel a more confident to turn yourself loose. You don't have as many. If you don't have a lot of technical self doubts and you have a general idea of how to do it, you're more likely to turn yourself loose to go do it.

But also think part of being into something, either it's golf or making Internet pages or being a writer, is that you also have the fire to study how is it done. You want to learn about it and be good at it. So that comes naturally. And even that comes from yourself. You can say, it's not like, I don't believe going to school and learn to photograph is going to make you enthusiastic about photographing. It's just going to make you pay.

Well, if anything, I think a lot of times you see that it stamps the inspiration out of them. Like if this is photography, forget it. If this is fine art, forget it. I'll go do something else. You have to protect yourself is basically a large part of it. And so I'm going to give you, we can go on forever. I'm going to give you a chance to, to wrap this up and say, what do you feel good about that we've covered today that you want people to take away from?

I think it's, I mean we're back to almost like just to believe in yourself. And I was just thinking about one thing. You could say, for example, my friend there, he tells this young talent like, oh, it took me 20 years. And it's almost like one thing is he didn't, he's not really thinking. But then you could say to the degree his thinking is also protecting his own territory and his own reputation. The truth of the matter is that you get to make a new book for an artist, for a museum. You have no idea what you're going to do. But what you do know is that you have done it before and you always never know what to do, but you're going to figure it out. So that's the self confidence you have that you know, but apart from that, you're actually not really certain you can do it. And somehow people also request disrespect like, no, I've been doing this for many years or I went to school, right, Whatever you come up with. And I think that's one thing I basically, I don't have it at all. Like when I talk to somebody, I never have, I never put the idea that you have to put in A lot of work or it's only some of us had to have special talent for focusing cameras. In my opinion. Everybody can do it. And it's easy. That's the Messiah in me. Just that's, that's the constant prayer. It's like, no, just do it. And if you don't want to do it, don't do it. Then find out what you want to do. That it's like, that's the simplicity of it. And then the question is, can I make people believe that it is that easy and just do it? Or how do you make it happen for that person and it is the person themselves that have to have it happen. The worst thing you can do is you hold somebody's hand and tell them how to run a business or how to do this and that. It's like they always crash and burn. They have. If they don't have. If you can't start the fire in them and get them going on something, then go get a job at Starbucks.

Yeah. And that's what you're doing.

Teacher at the university.

Yeah, you say that. And your thing is that my point is to get people excited about photography. And I will. And you've just another wrap up. You've seen. It's gotta be encouraging to you to, you know, in a teacher, student learning situation, the teacher learns. And so how have you been, what's encouraging you to use some of the turnarounds you've seen from some of your students, get that, have that turnaround from the workshop experience?

Well, I see that they do more and they just produce one thing. You could say the general thing is that people have done the workshop. You could say almost no matter what's in the workshop, it's not about the technical stuff or anything, but just that they have done the workshop. They produce more photograph, they take more photographs with more confidence. And once I saw that, I stopped worrying about that. I had to teach people to do it correctly, technically, I had to teach them this or that. It's not about teaching. It is inspiring. And if I inspire them to take more photographs, that's basically what I do. Then you have some that take it further, they start positioning for competition, they start to sell prints or they get published or they make their own books and stuff like that. And that's, you could say, when I see that that's a real sign that they're like they're taking it to the next level. And even, I mean there could also be. Somebody said, I gave up digital, I'm going to film because After I did your workshop. And I don't have anything in my workshop saying you should shoot film almost on the console. If you ask me, it's like, no, don't do that. But then that's what they got out of it, that they found their true self and this is what they want to do and dedicate their time to shoot film. And then comes maybe I meet them three or four years later now, and they did another workshop. Now it takes a different direction, but it's going somewhere.

Yeah.

And that takes. That got to take self confidence and an idea that you can perform this to do that. And that's all. There's a cry. I mean, there is no. You don't get a certificate. That's no exam. There is only one test is like, do you take photographs and do you do something with them? That's all that is requested. And that's the whole point of it. You can say there's no point in going doing a workshop and then you don't take photographs or you take them and you do and you hide them or you don't like them. No, that's not the point. So, yeah, that's what I see. And mean, yeah, all like 98, 90%, 99%. They just take more photographs with pride and then it moves on from there. They take it to a new level or they just keep doing a lot of it.

All right, well, thanks so much, Thorsen. This has been great. It's always fun to catch up and I'm going to look forward to. Well, hopefully the next time I see you, it'll be in person and we can do a workshop. Or I can get you over here to my studio in.

We'll do something.

Palm Beach.

Yeah, we'll do something. But see here, we did one and a half hours of unscripted.

Yeah, just.

Just interesting talk, talking among friends. Hopefully we learn something. And also people, listen to this. Get inspired.

Thank you for listening to the final.

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