Dare to let your work be rough around the edges - Ryan Luse

27:42Ryan Luse:going you mentioned that 2023 wasn't the best time for getting creative work and yeah it was quite a shocker and then we thought 2023 was bad and 2024 showed up but i think we are kind of past it but how did you solve that situation because you talked about credit card bills you know anxiety around it and that already can be quite paralyzing if you go for an anxiety that's attached to it you know it can be quite paralyzing to see like what is my next move but what was your next move to get out of this like how do you turn things around so back in 2023 initially entered a period of stillness like i mentioned but eventually i knew i needed to kind of change what type of work i was doing and i would say i'm still on this journey but something that came up in 2024 was music industry work so my motion design skills all of a sudden translated to creating concert visuals so backgrounds for for artists so tones and i is an australian pop artist that was the first tour so i art directed a good chunk of of the content and then i animated i believe five songs and that was the first time i've ever done work for the music industry i've worked i've animated to music before but but this was a different thing it wasn't an ad it was a full five minute song often with footage of the artist dancing and then doing heavy heavy after effects treatments and creating a whole narrative arc with visuals, if you will, that kind of match the beat and energy and feeling of the music that they're playing.

29:12And the way I looked at it was that that would amplify the experience at the show. So it's like not just the music, but the visuals are supporting that and just amplifying the energy that is already in the song. That was a really great shift compared to the corporate tech work that I had mostly done before. All of a sudden when I started to do my weird experiments because I tend to like try to go down these certain lanes instead of someone asking me to tame it back because it's a little bit too much they're asking me to turn it up and keep going I found a lot of empowerment and you know liberation in that I would say that's probably my favorite creative avenue is animating to music especially if it's a good song but yeah that was really fun and then I did K-Flay after that she's a hip-hop punk artists so it was quite different than pop but very similar sort of approach and they also wanted things to be kind of as as cool and weird and loud as possible i've got a question for you

30:08Ryan Luse:which i think is a question of many people listening to this right now how did you find that work how did you go from tech incorporate into working with pop artists and hip-hop punk yeah it actually wasn't through design it was through someone i met in cycling in santa cruz His name's Aaron and he owns a shop called Visual Endeavors. And he has done a lot of music industry work and event work. But yeah, he hit me up and said he'd love to bring me in on it. And even though I was fresh and had never worked in that industry before, and there's some nuances to figure out with the world I was used to and the world that is quite different.

30:43But still, my core skills and artistry and all that still applied. So it was very fun to do it my way, if you will. And he gave me a lot of autonomy.

30:52Ryan Luse:me did you come to this project with a question will i be able to do it i was excited i was just like enthusiastic about that because music has been such a big part of my life and definitely influences a lot of my i would say philosophies as an artist especially from hip hop yeah i i just came into it with excitement and thankfully no anxiety i think yeah when you think about it like how many people in that industry come across confident only to find out that they're teetering on anxiety at any moment like it's there's so much attached to it because ultimately the right people do it for the expression of their soul they want to pursue this and i've been thinking about it as i'm writing you know parts of this book about you know daring creativity and how we dare forever like how we pursue the thing and how we go on to the element of what could be you know not what it is but what could be and what could it be for me and how can i change this and what can I pursue and how I can find things and as I'm writing the parts where the dedication and sort of the author's note and we lost a great friend called Rydga Peluso who was incredibly talented artist and it was always pushing into another way of what could be what could be what could be you know I had a friend home back in Czech Republic who was a musician who never gave up making music it was like what could be what could be what could be until he made it to the sort of national fame and then only enjoyed it for a few years because you know there were bad news at on the other side but what i love about those two stories which sadly ended up way too early that those guys never stopped exploring never stopped exploring and kind of looking at what could be because that's the best sort of possibility like and this is a true testament to relationship having someone from biking being a contact and making it happen again And it proves that most of these things don't happen on the end of a cold email or, I don't know, sort of blind ad band because it happens when you actually know people, when you can trust them and when you can do in that sort of way.

32:51Ryan Luse:So it's great to know that things sort of started turning around and going into a proper perspective. But I would like to believe that around the same time, he also started working with Ben Tallon on actual coaching. and the reason why I want to talk about it and I want to give a shout out to Ben and to both of you of what you do together because you've taken an active step to change your reality in a way. You've actually invited someone else's perspective into your process, into your life and I think there's a testament to what Ben does. Tell me, what was it like to change what you do through someone else's help?

33:30Initially, just a listener of Ben's podcast like yours and I think this was about a year and a half ago, he said that he was interested in getting in coaching. He said this on the podcast and that he was going to start with pit stop sessions. So a single four hour session where you just deep dive into everything in your life that's related to your creative condition, as he puts it. So you talk about family, friends, your childhood, creativity, obviously what you do for a job, right? But you kind of dive into the deep end with them. And since I was in a scarcity mode for this time and I couldn't afford therapy.

34:05And he was doing these free pilot sessions with this podcast. So I must have messaged him at least a dozen times because I knew how beneficial something like that would be for me and knew just from listening to his podcast how empathetic he was. So he just seemed like such a good person for this kind of thing. So we did that for our recession and he gave me an analysis back. It was like 12 pages. And reading that from his perspective, because we didn't really know each other at the time, getting his perspective on who I was and the empowerment within that and really unexpected things. I think my favorite detail that I'll share is in one point in the analysis, he said I was personable.

34:43In another point, he said I was rambunctious. And I just really liked that contradiction of being rambunctious and personable. And I would never have labeled myself that way. But hearing that from Ben, I was like, I like that. I'm down to own that, getting that extra a perspective on you. Since that pit stop, Ben and I've been doing biweekly coaching sessions for the last year and some months. And it's been massive. It's been a huge, huge part of my own transformation is just checking in with him. And some of my favorite sessions started out with, I don't even know what I'm going to talk about with him.

35:17What are we going to bring up? And it's almost like creative therapy. Like we kind of just talk about whatever comes to mind related to your own creative condition. And he shares bits about him. So it's not just me talking, but that's coaching has been a massive, massive part of the last couple of years. Cause I think all these efforts that I've had around meditation and his coaching and everything else that feels relevant, it's all about figuring out my own authenticity and really discovering what that is. And I think sometimes it's hard to do that yourself. You need a second perspective and I I can't unload this much on my partner or a friend.

35:55Like, I think it has to be some sort of coaching relationship where you're getting that insight regularly and you know you're not going to, like, overburden their ears.

36:05Ryan Luse:I think it's so important that this kind of work can be done, that you do this kind of work, and that how much actually benefit is provided for you. What I like about what you just said and having experience in therapy with different types of people, some are meticulous note takers and go okay so you told me this let's go there and they literally build that line bit by bit they start at the beginning and then you get to the end and then I remember having a different experience when someone said like hey what do you want to talk about and I'm thinking I've been here twice before where's your notes and then you realize you know what let it loose let it loose and let's see where you get to because you think I've got nothing to talk about and within 10 minutes you're in tears because you're like there's a lot of noise to unpack there's a lot of residue from around the corner to unpack like so i think it's interesting how you work with ben and how you keep it loose because when you say that drive to work with ben was because you felt that you already established a relationship through his voice and what he was sharing on the podcast because there must be the willingness to make that first step like we can listen to everyone for forever but ultimately you really need to want to make a change in your life because a lot of people would accept that you know the change they want equals unknown like i don't know what what it might entail i might feel uncomfortable therefore i would stick with my current suffering and complain about the lack of change but as you said you couldn't really talk to your partner about this sort of stuff like oh offload so much or your friends so what was that feeling that you said that you felt like okay now is the moment where i'm gonna send ben dozens of messages and see if you can take me on i think when i recognized the potential in what the coaching could be like because i mentioned therapy before but something i was also searching for at the time was like creative therapy i was like does this exist i googled around a lot and didn't quite find it i think there's therapists out there that might specialize in it, but nothing locally or even over some kind of Zoom calls seemed to really pop up and resonate.

38:15But it just so happened to be the podcast I was listening to and enjoying. And I also should mention that I saw Ben interview Stefan at OFF in, I think that was 2024. I was front row and I was really excited to watch that and got really into Ben as a podcast or interviewer after that because he asked so many great questions. So it was already sort of like, this guy is really bright and interesting and empathetic and he really leads with his heart yeah when he started talking about the coaching it was kind of like all the dots sort of just connected and i'm i knew it would be really beneficial to me and i'm so glad it worked out because we've had a really good thing going for yeah over a year now this is i think the best

38:55Ryan Luse:verbal review of band services that could have achieved because i've got plenty of time for ben I speak to him a lot and I'm a big fan of what he does. I think when I speak to him, especially in a podcast setting, if it's on my podcast, his podcast, I find him frighteningly intelligent and clever and emotionally astute, which is, I think, rare in our industry. I mean, we have got some really clever, intelligent people, but not in that Venn diagram of where Ben stands in the middle to present it in his own way and kind of look into how he can take that knowledge make it more accessible and also more applicable to people like yourself by making sure that we do move on in as a creative industry and understand ourselves as humans because as you mentioned you know there was no such thing as a creative therapy in a way that it would be even anywhere to be found so this is i think what he's been doing i think it's fantastic and i think i wanted to talk about it because i'm a big fan of what he does and you know It's just like to hear that firsthand.

39:56Ryan Luse:I hope that he gets more phone calls and more messages from people like yourself and people who really want to make that change in their creative careers. Because the reason why I wanted to ask about it, because, yeah, in the concept of change, how much do you get someone to understand that the change can actually provide some value? Because you mentioned in your previous answers that you wanted to find stillness after something so complicated and something so almost earth-shaking and groundbreaking. You wanted to find stillness because you wanted to make sense of things. And would you say that comes with maturity or necessity or curiosity?

40:36Ryan Luse:Like, why would we... I think I'm potentially still trying to find a now moment. Like, you know, like, this is it. Like, I want to change. I don't want this to be anymore. I would call that a leap of faith moment where your intuition, your instinct overrides your rational thinking. And even if it feels dangerous and scary and uncertain, something in you knows you have to do it anyway. Even if you fail, you still have to do it. And for me, yeah, initially with that stillness, that was the bigger leap of faith moment because I was saying no to security in a time where I needed it. And then my partner and I went into a period of scarcity for about a year after, and that was really hard.

41:17We were figuring out rent and groceries every single week and just barely scraping by. And at some point through that, work started to pick up. The work I had was sporadic just because of the slow period in our industry, but eventually things kind of picked up.

41:30Ryan Luse:You've answered it. You were talking about the leap of faith, but I think what you can do, I think you can talk about the scarcity and how things change because I think that kind of works. Yeah. So that initial leap of faith moment, it's a big trusting point in yourself that you can figure it out. You just have to commit to it. And I don't know how else to describe that other than it just being a gut feeling. You asked earlier if it was maturity or curiosity. I think maturity might come out of it as a result, but I don't think maturity feeds it initially. I think it's curiosity and commitment.

42:03And you don't have to fully understand it and you can't. You just kind of have to follow that. So yeah, in that time of scarcity, I think you get into a more alert state when you're in scarcity. When you're in a comfort zone, you don't have to worry about much. But when you do have to worry about things because it'll slip away from you if you don't stay conscious of it, it keeps you in this alert kind of state, which can be really overwhelming for a while. But I think if you balance that well and make sure you're giving yourself rest and you're really treating yourself well and giving yourself the things you need unapologetically and not feeling like you have to throw yourself into the fire in order to prove yourself to, I don't know, anyone or yourself.

42:50I think it's important to know when to rest and recover as well as work.

42:57Ryan Luse:I love this called scarcity and what you've learned from scarcity because I believe everyone should go through it at some point or have a moment of scarcity because sometimes it's economically driven sometimes it's personally driven sometimes you want to be in the room with somebody else and you change how you do things that's you know it could be seen by some as self-sabotage like hey you had it good and now you want to do this but what you were describing in it makes perfect sense because scarcity is hunger you know like it's the tide is out the tide is out and we tell ourselves in the western world that the tide will never come back in well we know that the tide comes back in you know and i think it does that sort of paralyzing state of scarcity could be like oh shit what goes on but would you say it's giving you so much clarity of where you want it to be and what you want it to do because you don't necessarily have too much noise in your world even though that a creep and sort of anxiety or insecurity can be coming in but ultimately it takes you somewhere completely new with a fresh pair of eyes right yeah absolutely i get really excited about that sort of unknown like what's going to happen when this unfurls in the natural way that it wants to what what path will you lead down if you just naturally follow all those individual moments of curiosity i think that can apply to like a project you're working on and a creative endeavor, as well as like different times in your life where you just follow these little bits of curiosity and just see where they lead.

44:27I think you learn more about yourself and what's authentic to you every time you do that right. You're going to do it wrong sometimes. And that's part of the process. I don't think it would be a worthwhile endeavor if every curiosity was kind of like guaranteed building up to your authentic life. But yeah, it's about the risk and all that you learn just as much from if not more from these little failures and mistakes and fumbles than you do with the successes and when you do hit some curiosity that kind of quickly leads into some sort of validation and all that it's like striking gold i guess it's like oh i found one you know but that feeling that comes up when you find that it's only going to come up if it's rare i think you learn more about your internal compass the more you kind of test that it's almost like you're blindfolded in the dark and you just kind of got to feel around and find your way.

45:16Ryan Luse:I'm looking at one of my notes from earlier and it says truth-seeking. And everything you're describing seems to me like a truth-seeking. It's not necessarily truth-seeking that you've embarked on a mission to find the truth. When we are on a mission and it happens that it happens to be truth-seeking, it's almost, as you say, from a point of curiosity, it's liberating because you realize sometimes there's an uncomfortable truth and sometimes there's actually truth, which is the reality. You're like, this is how the world works because if you cover these bases, things become so much more rewarding and more, it's the right way to use, like more rewarding, more, you appreciate more life or appreciate more actually what we've been given because in that noisy world, in the corporate world and the world of tank, you know, like it's frenetic, it's too much, and the world of everything is too much.

46:03Ryan Luse:When you realize actually, you know what, there's more stillness to it, there's more silence to it, there's more actually enjoyment. Realize, oh, why was I doing it any way differently before? because this is what it's all about so with the work that obviously the works come back in you're working with ben how do you feel as a creative human as a creative and artist these days like how does your work come across how do you express yourself and have you found more comfort and easiness in the way of doing things because you said at the beginning sometimes you're both thinking in the past like will i be able to do it do you approach work differently now yeah these days the the biggest thing i'm focusing on is my own personal branding that's what ben and i have been mostly focusing on for i don't know many months now and yeah through that that's really all i'm working on in personal work these days is essentially a personal branding project and you know i could pick a squarespace template or something like that and pick a nice clean sans serif font and call it a portfolio but i really wanted to treat this like how do i really dig deep and figure out what is authentic to me.

47:10I have a weird, unique niche as a designer and animator. So how do I communicate that and what I'm interested in? I love music. Music is a big influence on me. So how does that incorporate into branding? And a big thing we've been working on is basically stylized handwriting. Something I've noticed I enjoy doing. I have this classic technique that I'll spill right now on Procreate, where if you draw a letter form, just basic boxy shape and you hold it down procreate lets you edit the anchor points of that letter form and it creates a really straight strong you know the right angles and all that but if you do that with like the right brush and you you know make for me an r a y and a and n then i have my name in the stylized way and i've just been like gravitated towards doing that for years now and this kind of like personal voices come out of that in a way where that kind of represents my own branding in this messy yet refined almost like graffiti handwriting but it's kind of a lot of things in one but these days I'm actually trying different materials so I recently got some sumi ink brushes and pastels and chalk and giant mop brush marker pens and I'm basically just going to go on a full like probably for the rest of the week figuring out different hand done letter forms and not to be like super refined because I'm not a lettering artist, but leaving it kind of messy and authentic and vulnerable in a way like I want that feeling and tone to come across.

48:40So the end goal is that my website will be mostly comprised of this sort of can done lettering. And if I zoom out, it's kind of weird that a motion designer would do that for their website. It's so different. But I just know that all of this is related to whatever my core creative authentic self is and and it feels really good to be putting in letter forms that i'm making and i'm not trying to make too clean and nice and smooth but letting it be sort of rough around the edges

49:07Ryan Luse:what you're describing reminds me of so many recent conversations with my guests about the fact like how many people came through with flash and flash was such a wild west of like hey anything goes do you want to see some clever shit here it goes as you're talking about it and i think i now i can join the dots above ben talking about the fact like where have all the creative websites gone because some of the really basic ones obviously put a lot more focus on incredible hyper-realistic photography and some of the projects are just delicious you know it's just it's all incredible but we've homogenized lots of things we've homogenized like the easiness and i think we've got for a while to the point of does a website fucking matter anymore like do you need a website of course how quickly people realize they'll be on a borrowed land you know like on instagram or whatever and wherever else you know especially with all of the other people fighting for algorithm you know attention then it all goes come back to the reality of or the true yeah truth seeking of actually where where can you own your traffic and it goes back to the websites and how do you present it because you can cast your mind back to early 2000s where flash was just where people were running right with flash and it was no one cared if that was right or wrong because that could be anything.

50:22Ryan Luse:We go back to, it's not what it is, it's what it can be. And I think going back to that mindset, it's only going to create something that's going to stand out so much because it's so easy to be boring. It's so easy to be easy. It's so easy to be sans-serif. And I had a creative brief for a brand rebrand and they've sent me all the links in the brief of the websites they like. And it's a chunky sans-serif on a black background, white type. I was like, this all looks nice. I don't think this company should play it crazy, but it only shows how is the mutation of the idea that just goes and just permeates.

51:00Ryan Luse:What is the right mathematical way of, biological way of saying, oh no, that it sort of multiplies from 1 becomes 12 and 12 becomes 24 and it just goes and more and more. I think the word is permeates, maybe not. But it's the fact that what there is more of and what's easy to copy, people will do it. but the thing that's different will stand out so i'm excited to see where you where you're gonna know what you're gonna achieve with this with the website is the primary belief objective to create just a home for yourself that just feels your own or is it just a sort of nice to have or you're gonna use it as a business tool per se kind of all the above i think initially it's an exercise for me to create something that's a reflection of who I am.

51:48And it's a method for uncovering what that is and the way that we've been talking about how a process can help you find out what something is. I am definitely finding out what my branding is. And I think that helps me understand what my best offering is and how to talk about it. And in another way, it's also hopefully going to be directing towards business. I would love to work with smaller companies that could maybe have a project that one motion designer would be a good fit for whether I'm designing assets or just animating them or both I think being able to contact a company that makes products that I already like and say hey you make some cool stuff I like what you guys do do you think is there anything else I could do to like to help you guys out even if it's just one little cool animation to post on Instagram so I think having a place to send people to learn about who I am is really essential.

52:41But yeah, the biggest challenge, the website isn't really picking the work to show. I already know what that is. It's all the writing that goes with it because I'm not much of a writer, even though I have discovered in the last year that I really like creative writing. It's really challenging to sum yourself up and to figure out who your audience is and how to advertise that to and speak to them and make it in a digestible, easy to understand way that gets them excited about working with you it goes back to the reps if you don't write about

53:13Ryan Luse:yourself all the time you're going to find it complicated but it's just like how do you do it over and over and over again and i use it with some of my book clients as a consulting editor i just i get them to record stuff i interview them you know just i write some of my book parts by pacing around the kitchen with one of my airports and i just like i'm just saying it I'm just literally like getting it out there because we can easily find a point which makes us freeze. You know, like, oh, I want to write this. And then you go into that executive network and you go like, it needs to be good. Whereas your default network will be like, hey, let's write whatever.

53:49Ryan Luse:You know, this is how I feel about life. And the monkey was like, well, let's validate this. Let's do like, let's make sure this is right or not. I mean, I think we are very lucky that we can switch to tools. We can switch to the techniques and go like, hey, what could it be? Because this is how it is. What could it be? I like where you go with this and I like how you've shared with me. Have you gone through some difficult periods of your life and how you search for help? Have you taken up the offers? Have you made a change in your life that ultimately gets you to where you are today and seem happy in a way where you're moving, where you're heading?

54:23Ryan Luse:And I think very much, I think finding the comforting decision that asking for help is potentially one of the best things you've ever done. So thanks for talking to me today and sharing that with me, because I think it's very important that we have so much honesty and so much transparency in what we do and sharing that with people, because it's easy to think that some of the stuff is only for other people. Some of the stuff is only for maybe for privileged people, but ultimately it's for those who ask for help and put their hand up and say, hey, look, here I am. What can we do? Thank you, Rodham.

54:52and it's been great talking to you. And I also just want to say that I think more than anything, something I've uncovered over this past couple of years is the core of why I do this stuff is to contribute to culture. And when it comes to making the music stuff for the concert visuals, it felt like there was a really cool observation of just seeing people enjoy a concert with my animations in the background, knowing that I had something to do with that. There's going to be many other ways that I can contribute to culture in the future, But I think right now, opening up about my own vulnerability and what I've been through and what I've learned as a result, if that helps just one or a couple people get through whatever they're going through, whatever burnout, anxiety, depression, whatever.

55:35I think more of us need to be open about talking about this on a public stage, and it only helps. So if I saw someone like this talking a couple years ago and vulnerable about their situation, I know that would have helped me get through what I was going through at the time.

55:50Ryan Luse:so love it right thank you so much for talking to me today i found so much value in this and as you said if someone's listening to this and is in the situation where you were a few years ago or feel similar in a similar way you can feel scary to ask for help but ultimately with what you said having that greater vision and saying you know how can you contribute to culture how can you actually get other people to experience your work and then get something out of this it's ultimately very invaluable so i'm excited to see what happens next for you and hope to see you soon thanks for adam

56:31Ryan Luse:thank 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 malinej the audio production was done by neil mackay from seven million bikes podcast thank you and i hope to see you on the next episode

57:15Ryan Luse:If you enjoyed this episode and would like more accessible resources to help you discover your daring creativity, you can pick up one of my books on themes of mindful creativity, creative business, branding and graphic design. Every physical book purchase comes with a free digital bundle including an e-book and audio book to make the content accessible wherever you are and whatever you do. To get 10 % of your order, visit novemberuniverse.co.uk and use the code PODCAST. Have a look around and start living daringly.