Dare to lead the machine, not follow it - Joel Pilger

26:41Not at all, right? Again, as someone who was sort of Bauhaus trained, if you will, I get that. But it's our relationship to the people and the problems out there that need to be solved. And to reach into those takes an understanding of human relationships and business, all these principles and concepts. It takes an enormous amount of empathy. And if we don't evolve in those ways, we're going to die. We're going to be the person who, you know, it's the buggy whip manufacturer, right? When the horse and buggies got replaced by the automobiles, we're going to say, oh, and I really love making this thing and I'm the best at it.

27:16And I'm going to double down and make an even better buggy whip. Since we were talking about like spotting the signs, if someone listens to this conversation and says, am I really a vendor? What is the signs of you being a vendor? I mean, I would say one indicator is that if your clients, your buyers, if they come to you and they've already diagnosed their problem and translated it into, we need you to execute this prescription called a project. And see, again, this is very seductive because for example, like ad agencies, they will come to you and me and they will say, Hey, I need you to execute this project at a really high level, at a very high level of craft, right?

27:52You're a live action director. We need your very specific je ne sais quoi that you're going to bring to this, that craft. And we do that and we make a lot of money doing that. But then as the years go by, wow, there's a lot more directors out there. Wow. There's a lot more noise and competition and the prices keep going down. We can't charge what we used to charge. And this is this process of ephemeralization, which is the Buckminster Fuller word that I love, that when a client comes to you and says, I need you to execute this, I need your craft, it's like a red flag. It's a watch out. And of course, the antidote to this is often the simple question of why do you think you need a blank, right?

28:32Challenge the diagnosis. This is the beginning of the journey into becoming an expert and not just being a vendor. And I can elaborate on that if we want. Yeah, no, no, this is really interesting because when you said like someone comes to you and asks you to execute something. So for example, that made me think of illustrators. Illustrators, visualizers, 3D designers, they're very rarely involved in a conversation. No, very rarely is maybe a wrong statistic. Not half of the time, let's be both sides. Half of the time you just get told what to do, what to make because somebody else has already made that decision.

29:04So it depends almost on your position in the food chain. Like where do you find yourself? How much of power, autonomy, freedom do you have to actually be yourself rather than providing the solution? Obviously, we have proven until now that is possible to earn very well because people need your uniqueness. They need that genius that you provide. But that's changing. I mean, what's brutal is, I'll just say this. Oh my God, I'm going to get in trouble when I say this. Probably 90 % of the illustrators in the world that have been traditionally been hired because of that specific look. There are clients that are saying, hey, AI, create me something that looks like this.

29:40And boom, there is really close. Now, part of that is, yes, AI is certainly replacing a certain amount of that work. Also, some of those things are we wouldn't have paid someone to do this anyways. So it's not like there was a project that was lost. It's just that they would have figured out another way to do it. But nonetheless, I think you make an interesting point that when I think of really great, famous illustrators, designers, I would say in my experience that they are brought in into the process. Like when, I don't know, I'm going to say the Olympics because my friend Mitch works on the Olympics, right?

30:12They are not coming to Mitch and his team after they've got it all figured out and saying, okay, make us the logo for, right, for Paris, make us the thing. There is this very early on, hey, we're looking ahead for six years, eight years from now and thinking, And Mitch, of course, is no dummy. He's also saying, I'm looking ahead four and six and eight years and thinking. And what are they doing? They're thinking about the problem. They're not worried about the project yet. Like, let's just figure out, ask what the problem is, hopefully identify what the problem is and start thinking about it, solving it, diagnosing it, whatever, before we turn anything into projects.

30:50Projects are not really where the magic is. this is really interesting you made me think of my own personal journey because i once upon a time was a graphic designer i was an illustrator advertising and i got fed up with the system how it was working i was i kind of exited illustration at the age of let's say 35 i'm 47 now 12 years ago because i was i hated being briefed by 20 year olds telling me something i need to do this this and i was like there is almost like a resistance and barrier to actually do work that could be interesting like that could be expression and we can do really good stuff so i'll turn it upside on its head and i'll say okay i'm going to start a branding studio and we'll do the work i want to do which is visual storytelling but directly with people who care and all of a sudden what you found is a roadblock was all of a sudden was it was an ammunition for amazing work because you can have a direct conversation so in your way how you describe it you're going from a vendor to a visionary we can take you on a journey that you didn't know even existed because somewhere out there in that sort of high sphere you've got like people sort of gatekeeping like okay this commercial should be this and this this and that obviously by the way there's many people in check greenlighting your idea whereas when you go direct yeah i think that kind of i would say is sort of aligned with what you say you know from vendor to visionary because that's just a small share because you're when you think about it we don't have to do much different we only sort of repackaged it differently and i got more people on board and was like oh my god we're having fun and all of a sudden everything's possible because you're the one driving rather than hoping that someone will you know, keep you older for you.

32:17I came into this backwards because back in 2002, I think, my studio started working for Dish Network, which is this big satellite provider company in the States. And we just worked directly with the brand. And we said, I don't know, here's a cool idea for a character that could be the mascot for this billion dollar company. Do you want to do some commercials with this little guy? And they were like, oh my God. And off we go, right? We're doing millions of dollars of work this way. Little did I know, and it was years later that agencies would come to us and say, hey, do you guys want to pitch on this project?

32:47Here are these boards. Here's this script. And we would say, you know, this idea is kind of shitty. What if we did it this way? And they would get so mad because I'd like to think our ideas were better, but they were like, no, we've already solved the problem. We just need you to make the thing and follow orders. And by the way, we're triple bidding this and all this, and we're going to give it to the lowest price vendor. So on. And I start noticing this pattern. And I think the pattern is when you are working with middlemen gatekeepers and you have that itch called, man, I think I could just go right to the problem.

33:15That's the moment called I'm not anymore in the race to the bottom. I call it now we're in the race to the top because I'm going to get closer and closer to the marketplace, right? I'm going to work with the buyers because the buyers are interfacing with the thing called customers. Wow. Imagine that. So there's this journey, this race to the top thing that I preach of how do we do that? How do we create more value, move from vendor to expert, all these things. And this is what we've been doing our entire careers. Adam, I mean, you look at your career, my career, all of our careers. We're all on this same journey.

33:46I submit. Let me close the door on impossible pictures, literally. Okay, let's close it. Your feet had hit the ground nearly 20 years on a dot with impossible pictures. And you're like, no more. So how did you feel when you closed that chapter? Honestly, it's, gosh, it's funny. I even still feel the emotion of it a little bit now. And that's been 11 years ago. This is 2014. it made sense for me to close that chapter because it had been 20 years, things were changing, pivoting. I wasn't, couldn't, you know, I was like, do I reinvent again? Do I merge? Do I get acquired? I don't know. And I said that I had this really big pitch.

34:21It was about a one and a half million dollar pitch. And I said to myself, okay, if we don't win this damn thing, I'm closing. Cause this, I just got an offer from a former client that wants to acquire what's left and have me come work for them, his startup and all this stuff. And we didn't win the pitch. and I said, that's it. But it was a two-year grieving process. It was also a two-year financial unwinding and getting rid of all the stuff. And anyways, I could go very deep into that, but let's just suffice it to say it was a journey of grief, but also a rebirth and a rediscovery that every business ends.

34:55Every business runs its course. You are way more than your business. You have a thing called a career and even something bigger than that, you have a thing called life and it was this amazing chapter 20 years but yes it it ultimately laid the foundation for what i'm doing now which guess what way cooler way more fun way more meaningful to me personally when you mentioned the 1.5 million pitch that you didn't win do you feel that was a sign right that was a sign it's spooky because i can relate to how i scaled down my own business because we had not 1.5 million pitches but like we had three or four like almost like a career changing projects that were happening all at the same time and none of them came up literally we came we were told we came second on all of them and i was like you know what i'm so happy that that never happened because i would have been everything would be delayed by three or four years in my life because you have to produce the work hate everyone hate everything because i think it's really important to put your hand up and say who do I want to be in the room as?

35:57Because we have influx of new creators, new designers, new people with passion coming through and going, I want to be the next Spielberg or whoever our next ex-creative. But like, it's that thing inside you because it's that purpose is the one that leads you. It's like, you don't almost fuck about it. It's like you follow that because when you look back, you go, you can only blame yourself for not doing that. Right. You're going to love this little story, this moment, this happened a few months ago. I was doing a Fuse dinner in LA and one of my clients is a guy named Chris. And during the dinner, he mentions to the entire table of all these other founders, by the way, I was the guy that Joel pitched on that last project.

36:35And everybody at the table is like, wait, his last, that million dollar, million and a half dollar pitch that he lost. That was you. He's like, yeah, that was me. And there was like, boo, yes, you're horrible. Right. We have a good laugh. And he says, no, you have me to thank that Joel is sitting there. and what was his story did he enjoy the work no no no he was working at fathom entertainment which was i can't remember the name of the parent company but no he he went on to start his own company now he's running a i will call it a small studio but a very badass elite i call him a lone wolf model and very successful and now we're good friends he went through my jumpstart accelerator and we just love each other because our shared stories are so interesting how we continue to evolve and get to a new place in this career in life and like it's really good that we let go of what was there even though damn it that job so bad and when we lost it it was crushing to shut down impossible and close those doors but it led to something greater you're so very happy now i mean because i wrote these three words and i said i will come back to them and that impact reach and influence i have worked out that when you want the world love what you've created you really already narrow down to 50 percent of people potentially liking it potentially not potentially you've narrowed down to smaller percentage whereas when you stop looking for that external validation and you say hey actually what is there that i can help you with not being a backseat driver but being more of like driving instructor you realize that your impact reach and influence is so much greater because he speaks everyone's language.

38:12So how would you summarize the 11 years you've been doing this and how would you help people? Oh, man. I love that you brought up those three words. I was thinking of Rick Rubin when you were saying just a moment ago of the older we get, I find this rad and you tell me, the older we get, the more we have nothing to prove. More we just get to be so comfortable in our own skin. People nowadays, they talk about imposter syndrome and I say, oh, yeah, I remember what that was like. not an issue for me anymore. That was tough. That was a big deal. But when I started shifting into, okay, I'm going to help my people, meaning my peers.

38:46These are former employees that were starting studios, freelancers that were launching a production company. And I just said, man, you guys kind of suck at sales or your positioning is just horrible, or you have no production method. Like you're losing money like crazy. Let's, can I please help you? And then I started realizing, wow, if I started helping all these people and I start traveling and I start connecting people, I start having dinners. I'm going to start a podcast. I'm now going to form a community. It's been incredibly satisfying to see. Oh, I think I may have said this at the dinner that you were at in London.

39:18It's like I get to relive my former life as a studio owner all over again on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. But it's like I'm redeeming it because the people that I'm helping, they're running their studio the way I wish I had run mine. They're having the impact or making the money or producing the creative that I always wished I could have. And in a way, now I am because I'm unleashing them. So I get to vicariously experience this through them. I mean, again, it's making me emotional because it's, it's so, yeah, it's just very, it's incredibly special. So for me, this is why I look back when people say, oh, do you wish, do you sometimes wish you were still running impossible pictures?

40:01And I say, no, it was great, but it ran its course. it was it laid the groundwork for what i'm doing now which is just much more much more meaningful always it is a sporting analogy because when you think about it when you get into the industry your day is more like running 100 meters or 400 meters or a mile or 1500 meters you run it every day every day and one day you get really good you hit that peak you never know when you hit your peak because you only when you look back you're like oh shit that was already at my peak and then you realize you slow down a bit and you're like you know well i don't want to run this anymore so when you're on a creative business you work out the length the speed the resilience you work all of this out and you go but i don't really want to run this but i can advise people on how to do this better and this is why we supposedly improve as a society as a creative industry because when you do it from the sidelines you help other people to do this even better that's why performance in sports is so much better because we know more about nutrition we know about this And I feel like when there's a hard data, especially in sport, people know how to improve.

41:03Whereas we still got these blurry edges to our creativity. They go like, you know, well, what is the best method? And technically that could be a template to performance. But we also get this, if we have obedient people who would be doing the thing as you tell them, would we ever be as creative as we are? You know, so I think, is it complicated as I'm trying to paint it? It's not. Here's another thing I would say is I worked with a number of consultants down through my years and they were helpful to a degree. But what I really found helpful was when I started to connect with the community of my peers, because that solidarity, that deep, deep empathy.

41:41And you saw it at the dinner, right? When we all start getting into what's really going on in our lives and our businesses. And so it's not, you know, the expression, if you can't do it, teach, which I, of course, I rejected my current paradigm because the way I think of it is, I'm not really a teacher. I'm not a coach. I'm not even really an advisor. It's more like, Hey, I'm a founder. I'm on this journey. Perhaps I started 10 years before you did. So I'm 10 years further down that road. How can we keep helping each other? Yes. I exited my business. I'm not running a studio presently, but I'm in my hands are in the sausage of four or five clients I work with directly all the time right now.

42:20And believe me in the details, right? Pitching the work, like getting the new opportunity, managing the new hire, breaking up with the partner, whatever all those things are. So it's this founder to founder thing that I find so electric. Yeah. Powerful that when a bunch of founders get in a room and they start sharing with each other, somebody has the answer. Somebody has bumped up against that and figured it out. Someone has the insight that we're all looking for. And I just love that idea of, yes, we are competing with each other and we're going to make each other stronger at the same time this is an interesting thought we are competing with each other has the industry actually accepted that there's such thing as a healthy competition that we can be cheering on from the sidelines for one another because someone else's success is actually all of our successes together because scarcity mindset is such a bitch right and when you think about it like when you actually accept that someone's done something what we get to see is the shiny results but we as you said you know the sausage sometimes you don't know what was happened behind the scenes and the projects you didn't win is actually a project it could have been someone else's nightmare but they actually got it done so have we let go are we more generous to one another i'm on a mission to absolutely destroy it's what mitch and i call it the prison eater mindset it's a zero-sum thinking okay it's they don't talk to me and try and get my secrets because you're going to use them against me.

43:48I've seen that attitude. It still exists in certain markets. It's really interesting. Like when I go to Chicago, I'm like,

43:54Joel Pilger:oh yeah, there it is. I go to Dallas. Oh yeah, there it is. And I can explain maybe why, but to your point, I will just say 1 billion percent when you compete with somebody and they win because they're the better fit or sometimes we just have to be honest, they're better than you are. And I know that stings, but guess what? Everybody who is great at what they do, they didn't become great just because it wasn't by accident. It's because they got pushed. The market demanded it. The clients had bigger, scarier problems. Somebody else figured it out and they got the job. You didn't. Wah. I mean, the sooner we take this radical responsibility and say, man, we all as an industry, you're telling me the people that aren't using AI and all these really crazy innovative ways, the people that are doing shoots on XR stages and all this crazy, you're telling me they're not making you better, faster, stronger, more innovative, more creative.

44:51You're definitely missing out. So this is why we, you know, we go to conferences and hang out with other creatives is we're stealing from each other. Right. What is it? Good artists borrow, great artists steal. Is that the line? Yeah, I think good artists borrow, artists steal. i feel something like that something like that was that picasso who said that i think i mean it was austin cleon who said everyone's still like an artist but you said the word better and this is an interesting one because you don't always want you don't always want to admit as a creative that someone potentially is better because you some you imagine yourself with a healthy mindset that what you're creating is the best it can be at that day and it's potentially better than anybody else because there's a competition and you somehow see yourself that way but what you said when you accept that there are people that are better than you therefore you can actually be inspired by the mix of everything they do skills knowledge business acumen creativity and say oh i can actually follow this formula and get better myself because as you said i like the term prison eater it's very good there is a break point there's a break point of like how do you actually get someone out of this but can it be taught or do you actually have to come up to it naturally because boy that's a really good question.

46:02I don't know. I think maybe because I was never the best creatively. Never. I could draw really well, but was I the best? No. I could play keyboards and perform songs in my rock and roll band. Were we the best? No. And I've always, throughout my life, I think I've had some sort of a honesty. I wouldn't necessarily say I broadcast it publicly, but I've always known deep down inside, man, pretty much everybody is better than me. And that's okay because I can learn and this idea of, you know what? I learned this climbing mountains in Colorado when I lived there, that as long as I keep going, I'm looking up at the summit and I'm saying, God dang it, that's so freaking far.

46:44But if I just put my head down, get back to the business of one step at a time, no matter how slow I go, slow means there's a lot of people better than me, faster than me, but you know what? I'm going to get there because I'm unstoppable. Because I have this desire, I have this tenacity, I have this, I don't know, all this stuff I've collected along my journey. And that's served me well. It just means, you know, when you think that I'm the best, that's why I should get this job. I think there's some sort of denial happening there that doesn't serve us very well. For more context to this conversation, you and I are working on your book.

47:20I'm your consulting editor, working on your project. And it's really interesting because I'm going to quote you back from your own book. And part of section number four, the bigger picture. and you say adapt with soul and i think that's a blueprint for longevity that's a blueprint for careers adapt with your soul because it's easy to adapt with a business mindset is it adapt with the market adapt with trends but when you put your soul in anything that you do there's no bs you can look back and say look i've gone where the mind told me to go so what you've been describing and the way you've been doing it and what you're doing and what you're working on and we're putting out there you adapt them with your soul you put your you put yourself on that journey you allowed yourself to be on that journey with all the twists and bumps and all of that stuff but that is ultimately three words that unleash the next when you ask yourself what do I really want and you said I realize I can learn that was again adapting with your soul yeah there's one thought I'm having which is when I use the word soul I think I'm challenging myself and all of us with this question of how bad do you really want it?

48:29Because the word soul says this is existential, right? To create is to be human and all this. And what I often find is there are many people who purport to, yeah, I want to be great creative and I want to make a lot of money. I want to have a really awesome career, but they don't really want it as badly as the next guy or girl. And the people who really want it, they are obsessed. There's this inner hunger and tenacity. It's so important. And it's the fuel that of course drives us throughout our career. Now, this is where when we go through an era like we're going through right now with things like generative AI, where I'm starting to see the pattern.

49:09And I'm even looking at historical references. Like when I look at this example of like the Luddites and what happened back in the 1800s, I think of the arts and crafts movement, which was Morris. And there was this rejection of mass production, which was what? It was the machine of their day. What is AI, but the machine of our day. And Morris and the arts and crafts people rejected the machine. No, we're going to double down on handcrafted, you know, fine tapestries and linens and wallpapers and all this that guess what? Nobody could afford. Then you have people like the Bauhaus that come along and they say, wait a minute, maybe it's our job as creatives to imbue the machine with what it lacks, soul.

49:53Because if we give soul to the machine, then we what? We take something called mass production, we democratize simplicity and design and function and all the principles of industrial design that I grew up learning. And I think we're going through a very similar process now. So when I talk about soul, right? Adapt with soul. I think this is the journey. How do we become more human because the machine needs us more than ever? Again, this is something I'm exploring in the book and with your help, I'm going to find a way to articulate it, but that's the gist of the idea. Joel, I think what you've just been so beautifully describing, it still goes back to those three words, impact, reach, and influence.

50:31You can't get impact, reach, and influence out of a machine, out of AI. That's just a tool. It's how you use it. It's what we do with it. I think those are the key components because just like with everything be it whatever like that comes from something minuscule to be prevalent to be mass used we go past the peak and i think we just don't know how quickly we go past this peak and we go potentially like back to normal with the ability of having something new with the extra tool with the extra ingredient with the extra muscle but i think the element of who we are what we do how we adapt with our soul and how we go on the back on how we go on to create impact reach and influence i think that's always going to be prevalent because after all it's human creativity for other humans and that's how we make a connection because it's so easy to see what's been done with ai it's so lifeless in most cases like when a pedestrian use ai and i think that's why we need to problem solvers prevent those where we exist but potentially in smaller numbers because it will go back to the visionaries actually say you know what there's the next chapter there's the next something and this is how we make some more people feel something extraordinary.

51:39So yeah, I salute you for what you do, how you do it, and how you're helping these people to actually achieve something, sometimes against the old odds, because there will always be change. How you embrace change will make you or break you. And yeah, I'm glad that you are on those sidelines helping them to succeed. So thank you. Oh my gosh. Well, thank you. And I appreciate your support and being part of your story, you being part of mine. And I know this, right? That the world really does need the creatives more than ever right now. The creatives are the ones that are going to lead us into a better future.

52:17They're always the ones that are telling the stories, creating the moments, right? Creating those things that inspire us. And I think this is not a time for creatives to lose heart. It's a time for us to take radical responsibility and lead. Amazing. Joel, thanks very much for today. And I hope to speak to you soon.

52:44Thank you for listening to this episode of Daring Creativity Podcast. I'd love to know your thoughts, questions and suggestions. So please get in touch via the email in the show notes or social channels. This episode was produced and presented by me, Radim Malinage. The audio production was done by Neil Mackay from 7 Million Vikes Podcast. Thank you, and I hope to see you on the next episode.

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