Dare to find silence in the storm - Mitch Monson

0:24Shin Mukherjee Like, I always want to be that person in the room. And I think even now when I think of the people that I work with is I'm not the smartest person in the room. And that's exactly where I want to be. I want to be around people that are challenging me. And then I feel that I can ask those questions because I think, like, it's easier for me to break the rules because of it. Because I don't know the rules. And I think that I thought for sure for years that was a huge hindrance and that was going to hold me back. And I realized that was actually a superpower.

1:03Welcome to the Daring Creativity Podcast, a show about daring to forever explore creativity that isn't about chasing shiny perfection. It's about showing up with all your doubts and imperfections and making them count. It's about becoming more of who you already are. My name is Raleigh Malinich. I'm a designer, author, and eternally curious human being. I'm talking to a broad range of guests who share their stories of small actions that sparked lifetime discoveries, taking one step towards the thing that made them feel most alive. Let me begin this episode with a question. Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create?

1:48Today I'm speaking with Mitch Monson, Executive Director of Creative and Partnerships at Sibling Rivalry. In our conversation, he shares his extraordinary journey from self-taught graphic designer to created iconic work for Prince, Marvel and the Olympics. With a unique background spanning military nuclear submarine service and backcountry snowboarding, Mitch offers insights on risk-taking, leaderships and the power of saying yes to opportunities that initially seem beyond your capabilities. This conversation explores how a young Minneapolis design company landed Prince as a client, leading to the creation of his famous love symbol Mitch also reveals how his self-taught background became a superpower, allowing him to break rules he never learned and approach creativity without traditional constraints It's my pleasure to share with you my conversation with Mitch Monson

2:52hey mitch welcome to the show hey nice to see you it's great to be here likewise so good to see you i think you've got such an illustrious career that you've had so far that the concept of daring creativity daring achievements are just i was gonna say littered but it's scattered all over your career so far so for those who may have never heard of mitch bonten how would you introduce yourself. Well, I am Mitch Munson and I am the Executive Director of Creative and Partnerships at Sibling Rivalry. We're both in New York and in LA and pretty much all over the world. My role really, it's interesting and it's why I'm really excited to chat today because I've always been an Executive Creative Director Designer.

3:37So I've always been a maker, but the past three years a big part of my career has been changed to also business development because I have a lot of background as an owner. So I think I'm excited to talk about that, but that's kind of the different part of my role now that I've been at Sibling Rivalry. And our company itself does a lot of work in the entertainment, tech, and music spaces. We do a lot of work both in production as well as in brand design. And then actually always what's our biggest question is what's the Sibling Rivalry mean and i think the name itself is a lot of our ethos i guess we have a dutch and a british founding partner and i think that's kind of where it starts and it's about having that relationship with our team and our clients that we're always challenging each other and really pushing for excellence so that's a little bit about me you and i have something in common we are both self-taught graphic designers and i found that sort of non-traditional process of getting into all of this exceptionally liberating because nobody tells you what you should be doing or what you shouldn't be doing.

4:46But with your beginnings of you being as a graphic designer, one of your first clients and one of the first pieces of work that you've done totally struck me when I've discovered you and your work. It's like, wait a minute, that symbol that I've known for most of my life is your work. So for those who might not know what I'm talking about, how would you explain this? Well, I think it's interesting because the way we start that story is you never know when you're working on a project where that's going to go or what the legacy is going to be of that particular piece. And I think our original opportunity to work with Prince was exactly that is I think we were really all young in our career.

5:32We started a company when I was 27 with two other partners. So we were only two or three years into our building of this business and really to get the opportunity to work with him in any way, shape or form was amazing. So we were just kind of those young kids that said yes to everything that he asked. And we just kept doing more and more. And just as part of that process, he was looking at getting out of his contract with Warner Brothers and this love symbol became one of the ways that he introduced himself to the world or reintroduced himself. So we were lucky enough to be around at that time.

6:11How do you even get in contact with Prince and the First Price? How did that happen? It's a great question. So the one thing that's great, just was so great about him is that he had as an artist, a real attachment to the state of Minnesota where he grew up. So he used a lot of local artists. So besides production and design and stuff like we do, a lot of musicians and other talent were based in Minnesota. And again, we are a pretty young company. Our work was really much more corporate commercial type of stuff that we were doing. So to get an opportunity with him, it was just word of mouth in Minneapolis when one of his producers and his creative directors heard about us.

6:55He just showed up on a Sunday, you know, Sunday morning to come see our space after hearing about us. He literally looked like he jumped off the stage. He had his full yellow outfit coming out of his full yellow BMW and walked through our space on a Sunday. And by the next week, we were starting to work with him. And he just had, I think from that point forward, as I'm sure you've had with other celebrity or arts or sports clients, is that once you kind of strike up a really good relationship with them it just gets really personal and you get asked to do a lot of amazing things and that was the beginning of the rocket ship we then spent about a year and a half doing music videos and doing a lot of other design for anything from album covers to the stage performances that he's doing in tokyo to whatever like you start opening that door and it just leads to so many crazy things so we were really fortunate i have to ask young company celebrity client and you're not doing just a little bit you're doing everything from stages to album covers to love symbol i mean it's incredible as you know on my show i talk a lot about confidence i talk about the trajectory of a creative where especially at younger age it feels a little bit scary you feel like you want to be daring but you don't have that experience of selling your point or selling your idea, going with his clients as big as Prince, going into the creative battle.

8:25Did it feel overwhelming? Did it feel like you were at the right place at the right time with the right resilience, the right toolkit? Or was it like a big washing machine of experience going, it just worked out? Well, I think you're always intimidated with, especially an artist like that, because the other thing is I was such a fan. And actually all of us, my other partners too, are just such fans of Prince that it's just, It's, again, working with one of your heroes, which was, I think, the first part that was a bit intimidating. But I think the thing is at that age, and I think especially when you're starting a company, and at that point in time, obviously, too, there was a big cash entry into getting into digital production and the kind of things we were doing at that point.

9:07So we had a couple million dollars in debt as far as what we were doing with the new digital facility and our edit suites and graphic suites, etc. etc. So when you're getting to that point of working with somebody like that and then knowing that, hey, this is not only going to be an amazing creative opportunity, but we're going to be able to really push the company forward financially. And as a business, we could be hiring more people. It definitely changed so many different things in our process. So I think we did recognize that early on, that this is a lot. We don't know exactly what we're doing, but if we say yes, and we get the other kind of partners we need and be really scrappy, we can figure all this stuff out.

9:50So even things that were way out of our pay grade, like we knew how to figure it out. Like we were that scrappy and guerrilla about it. You said you got intense work ethic and that's thanks to Prince. How much of that inspiration and how much of that energy was in the room that it inspired you when you started working with him? Yeah, it's a great question because I think I always tell people, because I always ask, what is it like working with him? Is the one really unique thing is you just know when he's in the building. So in our space, like even if it wasn't announced that he was going to be working with us that afternoon, you just knew when he was in the building.

10:26There's just that presence about it and that energy about it. And then when you did know he's going to be there, it just makes you stand at attention and really dive in. And I think the, besides the work ethic part of it, and I'm sure from working with a lot of other artists too, is there's no timeline. Like even in a 24 hour day, it's not a, we're not talking about 24 hours and we're not talking about a Tuesday or Wednesday. That is so fluid in his world. That's why engineers are working at two in the morning on a Thursday or at one in the morning on a Sunday. Is that whenever that kind of happened for him, that's when things were going to be created or be, there's a little bit of that.

11:04you feel like you're on call all the time, but the energy of that is really unique. And I think it got us really good at iterating quickly and doing stuff at a pace that we had never done before. So I learned a lot in that part of it. And then also just the presence of bringing in more collaborators because to work that quickly too, it's not just you have to get a really robust team of people pushing on all this stuff at the same time. So we built a really close team out of it as well. When I described that moment of when he, when we first met him and when he came to our company is that again, it's a Sunday morning at nine o 'clock and he literally looks like he's ready to jump on a concert stage.

11:44So like he was always prepared, always ready. Like he wasn't showing up in sweats. It just that if anybody's just amazing at brand identity and his personal brand, it was him. And I think that was our entire experience from the first day we worked with him till the end is that he was just always he was always prepared he was always put together and i think i'm sure a lot of your mentees are the same way as they're always asking what can i do different it's like when you show up make sure you show up and have it together and come presenting yourself in a really strong way because that first impression is so key and that was definitely him this is i mean you're right about a personal brand because personally i don't listen to music of his i was never really a fan obviously i can have a wiggle to purple rain when it's on the radio or whatever but i love that element of personal brand because it's these little things that i know of him and about him what i've seen what i've heard what i've read what made the impact on me because i'm thinking like how do you create your identity so daring in a way that anyone knows who you are and that's your legacy because whatever he's recorded whatever he's done and he's done some amazing stuff to me first and foremost is that sort of visual experience that sort of presence that visual philosophy like this is what i stand for because as you said he looked like he was ready to go on stage at nine o 'clock in the morning there was not a day off when we were doing this work obviously we didn't have an idea of really what the symbol meant we really thought it was going to be part of what we're doing for the album cover itself and for some of the base elements of what we do for all the promotion etc but none of us thought it was going to be this bigger picture thing of what he was trying to do with his music and wanting to put out more music and also wanting to get out of his contract that there's so many things behind it so there's obviously now that you look at it from this point of view there was obviously a lot of things in his head and a lot of planning he was doing that we just didn't know about but again when you think about that's pretty that like his marketing mind and just how much he thought ahead in so many different parts of his journey is incredible before we leave print and peace we've got one last question about the work as you talk about iteration and sometimes we look at back our past work i'm sure sometimes you look at the symbol and go yeah we had a different version of that which worked better or because that's a piece of work that's either following you or haunting you thinking there was a version that was better so because it still very much exists in the present when you see it is it happy memories well it's actually both so i'm glad you asked because i think the happy memories are just to see something that so symbolizes what he's all about inclusion and acceptance and all the all these things and actually love in general that was kind of who he was so to see that it has that kind of legacy and also that it has that visual presence that when he first passed a lot of people were asking like Like, what's that going to mean?

14:53And a lot of people brought up as the peace symbol itself and a lot of very other iconic symbols that we're going to remember for years to come. And a lot of people felt like that's the way that symbol had an impact on people, especially fans of his music. I think on the other side of it, the stuff that haunts us is that we did refine that logo a lot. But I think that's what's interesting when you look at it, because there's a lot of unrefined parts of it. And I think that's really purposeful. it was supposed to feel more human. It was supposed to feel more hand-touched. So most of my graphic design friends would say, well, couldn't you clean that, clean up those curves and make everything nice and tight?

15:31And that really wasn't the purpose. And I think that's what's so great about it. But also the kind of things as a graphic designer, you want to refine that. But I think it was, there's a reason for that. And it was more of a connection to that human quality. When you were talking about a work at a time where your company had 2 million in debt and you had grow and scale and grow sideways and up that is a lot of risk taking that is a lot of growing up really quickly and you say that risk taking is like a part of your everyday work how do you metabolize it i mean sometimes we see risks in different ways but when you think of something as a risk or when you think something as daring or when you push yourself that takes it out of you so how would you describe a risk in your everyday work that's interesting because i think if you get this a lot as well but a lot of people ask me about the risk but i don't feel like it's that risky it's the way i've always approached things and i think both in my work and just in like when you're talking i know you're a surfer so for myself being a backcountry snowboarder and doing heli boarding and things like that people just feel like that's like uh why would you want to take that risk.

16:45But I think just like in my work, like that's when I feel most alive. Like when I have that opportunity to do something that's a little more out of the ordinary or also has that risk component in it, that's when you do feel the most alive, the most excited about what you're doing. So I think the great thing is that's how I feel my creative life has been built. I think of it as every time I get that opportunity to say yes to something, to take a chance, it really, that's the kind of thing that keeps me going. And I'm just not a risk adverse person whatsoever. And it maybe even starts from like some of my military training when I was in college is that when you get into that situation, I think you're very conscious of the risks, but and you always put the safety measures in place, but, and you're very calculated about it, but the risk part of it doesn't, it doesn't affect you in the same way.

17:36And I think so in my work, I'm always looking at yeah what there's always the things that we need to do that make the sell but there's a lot of things that allow me just to kind of push out into those areas where risk doesn't feel like risk to me this is perfect Mitch because I've had some I would say some daring people on this show I had some people in a way daring that they're going after that thing they don't want to regret not doing they've got their goals they've got their values they've got their visions they've got places they want to reach and to the outside it will be like hey that's pretty risky and they'll be like actually you know i'm pretty risk adverse i'm like i am not that daring person i look on the outside because to get to the certain point you go step by step i mean you don't jump from being regional graphic designer to be making stage design for prints that happens gradually but you said yeah i'm not risk adverse at all you're the first person to say i love risk this is what i do like this is how i push myself coupled with the work ethic that's been inspired by artists formerly known as prince it's interesting because we all have different views on what risk means to us what fear means to us and i kind of been sort of prodding that topic for the last few months and weeks there when you feel and people tell you like i'm really i've got this anxiety i've got fear of this and fear of that when you open yourself up to a conversation with people and you are vulnerable and you say hey this is how i feel you often find yourself to be one of the most bravest people in the room because people go through completely different stuff and you find that validation when you tell people well how is it for you how is it for us because someone needs to take a risk someone needs to do this that thing you don't feel like doing and i think in your work that's been providing with such an illustrious career it perfectly matches because you talk about backcountry snowboarding that's not for the faint-hearted but it's all but it's also for the ones who are scared because you're gonna do something that in my case would as you know as i keep explaining daring to you as a concept like daring is that i'm not gonna regret not taking that action i think such a beautiful description because that's exactly how i see it and i think that's why i related when i first saw the title to your book because i think it's not that I always tell people, especially when I'm speaking to students and stuff too, about getting through that fear part of it is that any of that risk, it doesn't mean I'm not scared.

20:06It doesn't mean, I think you got, you and PJ talked about it beautifully in your podcast with him about that anxiety. Part of it is as designers, as creatives, everything else, you have that anxiety, you have that stuff that gets you all wound up. But I think over the years, I think not doing that is what I would regret the most. And I think there's this really beautiful article I read almost 25 years ago that literally changed my life in Fast Company. And it was about this interviewer that he had done like a thousand interviews with senior citizens who'd retired and had really successful careers.

20:42And I look back at that article all the time. I give it to so many people on a regular basis because what it said is the biggest regrets were just leaving that music inside of you, but not taking the risks in creativity and in relationships and not looking back regularly and not reflecting at different times of your life. So you can kind of assess where things are and where you want to go. And I think that helped me so much at that time. And it made me take a lot more risks. So they're just like, I don't want to be that person. And what's really funny is in that article, it says, I don't want to be at 60 years old, regretting that.

21:18And like I said, I just reached that point and I just don't feel like I have a lot of regrets. And I think that's a great place to be.

21:26Mitch Monson:We'll be back after a quick break. This episode is brought to you by Lax Coffee Co., the first creative speciality comfy company, building a platform to shine a light on emerging global talent with a mission to make a positive impact on a creative industry and beyond. Lux Coffee Co. offers exceptional coffee sourced from around the world through ethical and sustainable practices. And you can discover the current range of signature blends and single origins, coffee hardware and accessories along with exceptional apparel at luxcoffee.co.uk. You can use the code podcast to get 15 % off your first order.

22:16i'm very happy for you saying that absolutely as you were saying this and it's as an article for sure we need to look out but i remember having a personal experience where i saw four words written on a handbag in a really sort of fancy boutique in jersey in london and that was after i launched my last two books came back from the launch in toronto i was tired i wasn't sure where i was heading what was going on i was kind of having time off from all of it for a day with my boy and those four words said no risk no story oh i love that and i'm like you know what for the first time i was two years younger but the fact that was 40 45 and for the first time i was like oh shit that's what i'm doing because i'm looking back i had much sort of the moment that you're describing like i was looking back i'm like some of my decisions are almost made from deathbed like i want to be in the room and say you know what i burned my fingers i've tasted the wrong stuff i've done the silly things i said the wrong things but i did them on a journey to go somewhere so the element of like risk taking like no risk no story is like that story is not gonna write it not write itself when you sit at home in your pajamas hoping for the best and it's funny because years later I'm guessing probably about 10 years after I read that article.

23:37I was working with a friend of mine, Lauren Campbell in Denver, and she had given me this really amazing statement. And it was like the universe rewards risk. And I wrote that down at that time. And I still think of that at every kind of decision point in my life. And I just love that statement because it's so true. And I think everybody gets so wound up about all the possibilities and all the things that could or might happen because of taking that risk that you're talking about. But I think you've done it enough, then all of a sudden it's one of those things that how important it is. And I think the biggest thing that I guess you and I can do is make sure people feel like, hey, that's if you do it once and you start making a practice of it, it's going to change your life.

24:20Absolutely. I mean, when you think about the risk itself, sometimes risk doesn't feel like risk because you're in the middle of a situation and you're like, you have to make a decision left or right, because I want to take it through a short segue to actually that backcountry snowboarding because that's not signposted holiday resort, is it? It's a totally different story because seriously, you jump in of helicopters to go snowboarding. How does that influence your decision-making? How does the sport influence how you work? Because you're not going slow. You're not exactly going on a signposted route.

24:55You're not exactly doing it in the safest place, which kind of goes hand in hand. What do you describe about your work? So tell us about backcountry snowboarding. I appreciate you asking. Well, the interesting thing about it is, and I wrote on something on this particular topic a few months back, and it was just like an athlete's perspective on the creative industry. I think it relates to what you're talking about here, and that is you're taking these risks. You're going in helicopters in very remote places where there could be incidents. But the thing is, you're so prepared. You're so dialed in.

25:29you're very focused and you've kind of calculated a lot of the risk as as much as you can but then it's then it's kind of time to go and I think that's very much how we prepare for projects how we look at creative things and how much we prepare and how much we research before we actually do the thing and so that's the whole process of what I love about the snowboarding experience and even being the helicopter like if they just brought me up there and then brought me down again that part of it itself is just so thrilling because you're in a place that's probably the most quiet and real part of the world and being dropped off there.

26:04It's just, it's hard to describe the sense of how clear your mind is and how focused your mind is, but it also really clears everything else out. And probably the best way I could describe it is when I first did it, I was working here in New York, did the trip, came back. And I think when I came back from that trip, it literally felt like my first day in the office. Like I had never worked there before. And that's how clear everything felt because all the bad stuff had been pushed out and then it was all ready for this new stuff. And I think after that experience, that was the first time I went to Alaska is that gave me the motivation.

26:42It's like, I have to do this every year. And not that I, it always has to be a backcountry experience. There's a lot of other riding I'm doing, but there's always has to be some of those bigger adventures in places, the Arctic Circle, where we went this past year in Sweden or in Iceland, where it's a different form of an experience. But it's the kind of thing that just, again, kind of to that alive feeling that we were talking about earlier, is that's when you feel the most alive, taking that kind of risk, but also knowing you've really prepared at the same time. So as you're describing all of this, I'm thinking of one word, and that's silence, because obviously it's quite windy up top.

27:20but it was reminding me also of a music video for a track called great blondino by stacker boat and it's a kind of silly dark dark humor comedy video of like really famous sort of skier who sort of wakes up with a mistress or whatever takes a volvo up the mountaintop that's got has got like a sort of speed helmet that time trial our cyclists have but what the reason why it reminded me of it is because the video and the music stops in the middle and it's just his breath for a few seconds you got the bit of a wind and it's back 1997 or 96 let's send your link to this but it's like you are at one with yourself you're at one with the nature with the snow and it's like when you think about it that's also in my way this transcending way of creativity because you can buy into the noise, you can buy into everything that's around you, or you can actually be there getting ready for that run going, this is about me.

28:25I'm accountable for my moves and how I do it. So would you say silence is part of this? Yeah, it's a perfect description. And I think it also that that point of the noise that you're talking about is I think that's my reset, right? is that silence being somewhere maybe nobody's ever even been on that part of the mountain or has been down that part of that face. And there's just something about that brings you so close to nature, but is also such a mental reset that I think that's why I experienced what I told you that first Alaska trip. And I think that's one of those things. I haven't really found anything else that does that big of a mental flush of the entire system.

29:07and I think it's really hard for us to find that because and I know a lot of people go on vacation just to totally relax and just read and be on a beach and all those kind of things and that's on one scale and my scale is on the other side for sure like that that active engagement and exploration has just been the thing that really helps me reset and really just get completely refueled to do new work that's where i get all my energy just to dive back in it's been well documented that people in your position and higher power ceos and that kind of stuff they can't lie by the beach with a book the 45 degree heat no because there is something like mostly dead there is a a lot going on on a daily basis and that as you said that doesn't get flashed out by just the new mud hague novel or something it's just it's a hard reset and that makes such a good sense the other thing about it that is interesting i it kind of reminds me a little bit of paradiso too because i our experience there when we connected is that just get a when all of a sudden you get this whole new group of people that are just really high profile high performers successful kind of people that just doesn't happen that often where you get a group of people together like that.

30:25And I think that's the other thing about doing these kind of trips is like the type of people that do that kind of backcountry work is that they're all very physically fit. They're very mentally fit. Usually they're pretty successful in whatever business they've done. They're also very social and they want to connect. So it's interesting because besides all of the benefits that I was talking about, it's a lot of business relationships out of those particular experiences too and just people that have been connected to that they just they're kind of your people they think and feel the same way so there's definitely other things besides just the the reset part of it that i really love it makes perfect sense absolutely perfect sense because you personally you bring people together yourself because you work with assembly obviously you've got a program assembly you also have got a mentorship program which works with unrepresented creative sphere puts them together with the top industry players but you mentioned bringing people together and i think we go through this amazing sort of 360 where we had real communities i mean i wasn't in them because i was too young before i was properly a designer and there was some of it not a decade or so ago or two decades ago but then we all sort of started hanging out online and thinking we've got this online community then we all disheartened about it and they're like yeah we need to go back and see people in real life we need to go back and see them in person because magic happens that cognitive cross-pollination like those ideas spreading and just having that reassurance that the person that might be typing the answer behind the LinkedIn message is okay they'll get seen but yeah putting people together I mean must be a rewarding feeling for you to actually be helping your industry especially people on your side of the pond be seen be heard reassured and give them what i call a sabbatical from their life at least few hours well i know you're really great at that is it's just being present wherever you can to have those experiences and to really put yourself out there to make a point of doing it and it's interesting i had this thing come up the other day where a young professional had asked me about okay i really want to i really want to do this thing but the thing is it's kind of expensive My company won't do it for me.

32:43And I just heard those words and I just said, just stop a second. What's the purpose of this? What is the purpose thing and why do you want to go? And they told me very passionately what that was. And the only thing I said, don't you want to invest in yourself? Isn't that the most important thing? And I really didn't have to have much more of a conversation. There's like, yeah, I just need to do this. I'm going to pay for it. I'm going to take that time off. I'm going to go and I'm just going to make it happen. And that was a younger me. Like that was, I didn't wait for permission. I think you and PJ were talking about that too in your podcast about permission.

33:17It's like, you just weren't asking for permission. It's like, I'm just going to go. This is important. This is invested in myself. And I think that's that community sensibility of you need to put yourself out there and you need to find ways to do it, even if there are other barriers to taking that time or making that trip. But my friend Joel Kilger always talks about experts travel. And I think that's the other part of it is like the more you're out there and the more you're seeing more people you're connecting with, it only brings goodness. Like it's both in your personal relationships, but I think also professionally in what we do, that's how it all happens.

33:53And I think our goal with something like Assembly is just to make that a very low barrier of entry. Like we just, we make that happen with sponsoring studios so that we can just include a lot of people in that experience and get them connected. And I think we just need that more than ever now. There's so much value in this, like investing in yourself. It can feel scary. You can feel like, am I ever ready to do this? but when you when people have time to sort of to to overthink this they get to see too many sides of what that potential risk could be or what might be hiding behind going for the reward because i think there's a beautiful naivety and you as we call it fellow self-taught graphic designer you were not waiting to be ready it would be like i'm gonna do this i'm gonna start and i think that's sort of philosophy for life i think it is for life because there's a beauty in not knowing it hurts not knowing sometimes you make golden mistakes but it's that idea like i can't wait mostly i shouldn't wait for someone to say you can do this because i've read someone on linkedin and i'm like linkedin is myself of self-harm and it's sort of inappropriate joke because i read quite a few posts and i'm going why this why that and i think this post was saying like oh artists don't need inspiration they just need permission to create they just need this and i'm like fuck off like they don't need permission to create like they actually need inspiration they need to be shown that whatever they want to do does work to inspire someone is to show them hey i've gone on this path i've gone maybe 15 miles you can go 17 you can do this you can follow my need you can go this because there are overlapping themes of creative athletes that are like if you see your career as something which is so wholesome and layered and intricate because that's what creative careers are then you realize that there's a sort of movement to what you do and therefore waiting for one part to be unlocked or have somebody else to unlock it for you you'll never get there because that athlete itself will stand at that starting line for themselves because they want to get to the other side as fast as possible yeah one actually what i love what you're talking about is is i think on that permission side of things is that being being self-taught or just not having so much formal education it also means you're asking a lot more questions and I'm always that person I'm not the person that's going to ask for directions to get somewhere or to get a recommendation something like there's just there's no embarrassment in that I guess or fear of I'm going to be an idiot is like I always want to be that person in the room and I think even now when I think of the people that I work with is I'm not the smartest person in the room and that's exactly where I want to be.

36:42I want to be around people that are challenging me. And then I feel that I can ask those questions because I think it's easier for me to break the rules because of it, because I don't know the rules. And I think that I thought for sure for years, that was a huge hindrance and that was going to hold me back. And I realized that was actually superpowers. I didn't have to be. It's probably why the David Carsons of the world were big inspirations for me because I I didn't know much about grids. I didn't really understand how all that worked unless I was reinterpreting. I saw something from another fine artist or designer.

37:17But I think that's been kind of a blessing going forward because I feel maybe to your risk question too, it's also why it doesn't feel as risky to me because I want to learn that stuff. I want to think like a student all the time. And that's just your way of living. Do a list of your influences, when I see them now, it all makes sense. David Johnson, Zahad Hadid, Neva Brody and Tristan Eaton. Like they're all known for doing whatever hell they wanted to do. I like that your influences are messy, opinionated. And you say they're breaking the rules. Because when you talk about rules, it's I'm going wherever I want to go.

37:57Like you verbalize it, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you even studied the rules. You just sort of went wherever you wanted to do. and you did have things made you feel something inside, following your expression. Having looked through your work, and especially some of your recent work with the Olympics in Tokyo and Paris, that's a tricky work to get right because you're trying to please a lot of people, even though you don't want to please a lot of people. But you really sourced, and we're talking about rules and talking about risks. When you're telling the truth, you can tell the truth in any way you want you can make it impressive engaging because the work that you've done for both of those programs and i need to say what you did you actually did the broadcast identity for the american channels doing the broadcast not necessarily not the main olympics logos but i like what you guys did with both of the events where you really looked at the local symbolism, the local ideas, the philosophies, and created these engaging identities that I believe won Emmys.