Dare to slow down and think deeper - James Martin (MBJ)

11 Sep 2026 · 1 h · 25 chapters

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In short

James Martin discusses “No Bullshit Branding” and how to build a reputation you can stand behind by slowing down, separating evidence from proof, and balancing perception with substance. He argues branding language has become confused and “theater-like,” especially in social media’s attention economy.

Guests

James Martin, designer/brand builder with 20+ years’ experience; double author (No Bullshit Branding). He previously built a large social following unintentionally, then “slowed down” to write a year-long book. He also serves on Canva’s design advisory board, is a creative partner at Lincoln, writes for Fast Company, and runs a studio. He’s dyslexic and describes himself as a dad/friend/multi-hat creative.

Key claims

Social media rewards effort and visibility more than evidence; this creates “hype brands” (high perception, low evidence) and leaves “hidden geniuses” (high evidence, low perception) unseen. Branding has lost its way due to weaponized/overofficial language and designer-to-designer echo chambers. Books create durable authority beyond algorithmic “digital dust.”

Notable examples

Lush reducing social media content while maintaining high-street sales; comparisons to “love” becoming overused; references to hidden geniuses and Fast Company/Canva doors; “effort heuristic” and cognitive bias.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

Tap a time to open that second in VO

Introduction to the Podcast

0:00 to 0:50

Learn about the Daring Forever podcast and its mission.

“I think it's really, really like, I mean, we'll just go into that kind of building like the perception piece as well.”

Meet James Martin

0:50 to 2:23

Introduction to James Martin and his accomplishments.

“Welcome to Daring Forever, a podcast about being human, wired for wonder, capable of courage, perpetually becoming.”

Celebrating New Achievements

2:23 to 3:00

Discussing James's new book and his journey as an author.

“James, we are here because I'm one of your fans in what you do and we are going to celebrate the fact that you've got your new book out.”

Identity and Creativity

3:00 to 4:25

Exploring the complexities of self-identity in creative fields.

“I think that's the kind of thing that I like to call myself more than anything.”

Navigating Creativity vs. Business

4:25 to 6:40

The balance between creative expression and business demands.

“I mean, look, you started with the word designer and then author and then mentor and then advisory board and all of that.”

The Nature of Problem Solving

6:40 to 8:00

Understanding the importance of solving problems in creative work.

The Journey of Writing a Book

8:00 to 11:20

James shares his experience writing his book and its purpose.

“They see things that other people don't, and they crave that kind of difference.”

The Evolution of a Creative

11:20 to 14:00

Discussion on personal growth and changes in perception over time.

“It's incredible, obviously, to see how you do things and what you put into this and where you want the world to be in a way.”

The Journey of Writing a Book

14:00 to 18:00

Learn about the motivations and process behind writing a book in the context of brand building.

“I physically had to slow down to think because I was like, thinking is going to be so important moving forward.”

Branding and Language Misuse

18:43 to 28:00

Explore how language around branding has become confused and its implications.

“But that, again, was like a really good like, OK, so I've got my title.”
Show all 25 chapters

Designing for Clients, Not Designers

28:00 to 29:19

Learn how to effectively communicate with clients by removing friction in design.

“reduce friction for the people that we're trying to explain this stuff to, which is our clients.”

The Theater of Branding

29:20 to 31:19

Explore the concept of branding as performance and its implications on authenticity.

“Like this idea of building this perception as a thought leader, as this, as that is killing careers.”

Perception vs. Talent in Social Media

31:20 to 33:26

Understand the role of perception over talent in gaining opportunities in the digital age.

“Now with Lush Cosmetics, huge brand on the high street, got the kind of foot flow, the people walking past it.”

The Effort Heuristic Explained

33:27 to 35:31

Discover the effort heuristic and how visibility on social media influences choice.

“When we talk about this perception, I think the effort heuristic is a incredibly important thing for businesses, freelancers, anybody who runs their own business to be tapping into.”

Building Connections and Perception

35:32 to 37:55

Learn how associations and relationships shape your professional perception.

“And I think if you use it intentionally and deliberately, like Edward de Bono says, design is deliberate, like you can use it to your advantage, I think, personally.”

Evidence vs. Perception in Creative Work

37:56 to 42:04

Delve into the difference between evidence and perception in evaluating creative talent.

“Or is it just a part of the back on the phenomena of social media that this came through?”

The Balance of Evidence and Perception

42:04 to 43:20

Learn the distinction and interplay between evidence and perception in branding.

“So there's a big difference between evidence and proof.”

Navigating Visibility in a Noisy World

43:20 to 45:21

Discover strategies to enhance visibility and importance of intentional branding.

“This is really interesting you said you've got hidden geniuses with all the evidence, but no one can find them.”

Understanding Human Behavior in Branding

45:21 to 48:01

Explore how human biology influences branding strategies and social engagement.

“The logical thing to do would be to figure out who you want to work with.”

The Minimum Viable Brand Concept

48:01 to 50:29

Learn about the Minimum Viable Brand and its application in creative projects.

“So you can just do it behind closed doors.”

Collaborative Insights in Book Creation

50:29 to 53:30

Understand the value of collaboration and diverse perspectives in writing a book.

“absolutely tested, validate it, grow it, or get rid of it, essentially.”

Quote on Building a Creative Life

53:30 to 56:01

Reflect on the importance of authenticity in creating a fulfilling life and work.

“I can't quite think of the word right now, but it's better.”

Creating a Meaningful Creative Life

56:01 to 57:22

Learn how to build a creative life that feels authentically yours.

“So having people in this book who can bring their perspective to it, again, I just think elevates it a little bit from like, again, like the gobble gobble show that is like, oh, James is great, which he's not.”

Reflections on Writing and Friendship

57:22 to 58:26

Explore the challenges of writing and the warmth of friendship through humor.

“Well, it was a great joke by Stephen Fry.”

Reflections on Writing and Friendship

58:58 to 59:42

Explore the challenges of writing and the warmth of friendship through humor.

“You can pick up one of my books on themes of mindful creativity, creative business, branding and graphic design.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:08I think it's really, really like, I mean, we'll just go into that kind of building like the perception piece as well. I think another really important thing about that is also who you're spending time with and what you're doing. So whereas maybe three or four years ago, yes, I had a book, but it was predominantly my world. I could only ever speak from my own perspective because that's all I've got. I'd never try and tell other people what they should do. But I realised that was becoming a problem for me. It might not have been a problem for anybody else, but it was a problem for me. So what I wanted to do is I wanted to start putting myself in different rooms and create new opportunities for me.

0:50Welcome to Daring Forever, a podcast about being human, wired for wonder, capable of courage, perpetually becoming. It's about the waves that look us under and the strange stubborn grace with which we surface. My name is Radim Malinic. I'm an author, creative and an eternally curious human being on a mission to speak to incredible people whom I call forever daring humans. Those in pursuit of an extraordinary life. Every week I share an interview that is packed with amazing stories, value and I can only ask you, how will you dare forever? This podcast is inspired by my upcoming book, titled Daring Forever, which is now available for pre-order out in October.

1:34Today on Daring Forever, I'm joined by James Martin, designer, brand builder, and now also double author with his latest book, No Bullshit Branding. James built social media following he never meant to have. And when he started being seen just as another internet influencer, he did The opposite of everything the algorithm rewards. He slowed down and spent a year writing a book. He talked about the difference between evidence and proof, why perception can outweigh talent, the hidden geniuses he keeps meeting who nobody can find, and his five idea keys to turning ideas into action. This conversation is about building a reputation you can actually stand behind.

2:18This is my conversation with James Martin. Hey James, welcome to Daring Forever. It's great to see you again. How are you doing? Brother, I am great. Thank you so much for asking. How are you, Radim? How are you? Do you ever get asked how you are? Are you okay? I'm grand. Great. Fantastic. James, we are here because I'm one of your fans in what you do and we are going to celebrate the fact that you've got your new book out. it's been out in the open for the last few days and yeah let's talk about what it's like to be an author brand builder educator as you know i've got this line that always says well for those who may have not heard of you how would you introduce yourself there's a lot of people who know you because you've got incredible following and incredible community that you've built but if someone finds himself here by accident who's james and what do you do i think firstly i would say James is a human being.

3:18I think that's the kind of thing that I like to call myself more than anything. I think that's an important thing to represent today. But to elevate a pitch, I would say I am James Martin, not the famous chef. I am a designer of 20 plus years. I am now a double author, which is amazing. As you mentioned, the new book is just fresh out, which is incredibly exciting. We'll go into the reasons why I wrote that book, I'd imagine. But brand builder, educator, I try to mentor the new generation of creative people trying to build opportunity for themselves and trying to build their business. And as you say, I wear many other hats, which are design advisory board at Canva, creative partner at Lincoln, writing for the Fast Company, running a studio, all of the bits and pieces that are a part of my world.

4:11But I think as a creative, that makes me happier. I've never been too good at dialing totally into one thing. So that is a really shit intro, but I've never been good at those, even though I've done that a million times. But as you say, we keep evolving. So it keeps changing. Absolutely. I mean, look, you started with the word designer and then author and then mentor and then advisory board and all of that. And I think it was Rob Draper who I've spoken to a few weeks ago. and he said, look, I think just the word creative is actually now encompassing a lot more to just being a specialist. Like we do the things that we've grown into this term because I remember people taking real sort of allergic reactions to the word creative some 10 years ago, whereas now that's what we are.

4:54Like I think the world is changing and we are changing with the world, right? Yeah, I think we're told to niche, aren't we? We're told to tell people exactly what we do, but I think creativity is so different for so many different people. To some, it could be art. It could be the way they think about ideas, the value that they bring into the world. But my plumber is creative. My hairdresser is creative. One of the bigger problems I actually believe within our industry is that we think we own creativity. To be fair, I think that is probably coming to the fore a little bit now, especially with all the new tech and everything that's happening in the world, this kind of ownership of creativity as arty people or designy people has put it all into perspective hasn't it really but i've never truly believed that creativity is ours to own but i do think of things i do like to solve problems i do believe i creatively find solutions to things but again like it's a role isn't it we play would i say i'm a creative i would say that's one role that I play, but I'm also a dad.

6:04I'm also a friend. I'm also a many other things, a bit of a twit. Do you know what I mean? Dyslexic. There's so many roles and things that I am. Not a weird question to ask somebody, not that you ask weird questions, but it's such a difficult question to answer, isn't it? The what are you? Do you know what I mean? I think it's a toughie. Do you know what I mean? It's really interesting what you just said, because when you ask someone in the world of business they say look i'm a trader i work in finance i do this i do that they're a lot more extroverted about their answers because we sometimes have confidence issues or expression issues with the fact like who am i what do i do because some people don't have that problem because they say this is what i do this is who i am and i think with the multi-color multi-faceted multi disneyland world of what we can be and what we can do sometimes it is hard to explain yourself until you really worked on it because you said something which i had to write down it says we are being taught to niche and i'm gonna disagree with that you can only be told what you allow yourself to be told because the world is giving you lots of signals there's loads of signals out there in what you can adapt what you can listen to because some people say do whatever you want some people say this is the one way to find it and you can absolutely be one thing to one type of people and you can be exploring the creativity in a way like you are to find the interest and to find the ability to find something that changes your future as it is because your plumber is not really likely to be writing the next a symphony or be creating a screenplay for something because he just finished plumbing someone else's house so it's just like the linear path of their work is slightly different whereas in creative world we've got the ability to really invent our own dream future which i think is one of the most incredible things we can do because i believe the life is what you make it it's really for us to explore it because the ability to be anyone at any time is incredible yeah i agree with you to some degree but also you'll know the challenges of being a creative person and the multi-potentialite and all of the other things that we humans love novelty in general, but I think creative people are generally looking forward a little bit more.

8:29They see things that other people don't, and they crave that kind of difference. But there is an issue, and there has to be some sort of balance, I think, with that, because you do have to solve problems for particular people to be able to survive as a creative. You do have to know what you do. You do have to be able to articulate your value. So I agree that whilst we shouldn't niche ourselves into a corner and we shouldn't try to edge ourselves and box ourselves into anything, I do believe that's also when people don't do that. This is where the business side of their creativity struggles because nobody knows what they do.

9:17Nobody really knows how they can help them. And I think as creative people, we have to find a balance. There's a lot of creative people who are in flow, doing all sorts of things, no real rhyme or rhythm to it. It's difficult to be chosen. It's too risky for people. So I think creative people do unfortunately have to find a balance with the business and the creativity. And I don't think it's a balance any of us have found. I haven't found it quite yet. So, you know, it's still trying to figure it out. There's a lot to learn from lots of other industries. I think that's potentially what I'm trying to say here is there's so many good people in multiple different industries where we can learn from and bring hospitality thinking into my design business.

10:08I like to try and bring business mindset into creativity and relationship building and psychology into my creative business. Hopefully, I can still pay my bills and support my family and all the other shit we've got to do as people. Absolutely, because when you think about it, I always feel that when you're a novice, creative designer, you know, whoever you want to be, you are very focused on who you are identity-wise. Like, you've got this sort of this inward stage where you need to prove your worth and show the world that you've got something to add. But as you grow older, it's like that lens is getting wider and wider.

10:44And you actually realize that unless someone's got a problem, you're not really working. And obviously, you need to be almost selfless about solving that problem. Because after all, you are delivering the solution to somebody else who's paying for it. This is, for some reason, this analogy popped in my head. Imagine going, jumping on a bus and you're like, hey, can you take me to the next, whatever, next train station? And you're like, yeah, I'll take you there my way. We'll take you there and offer you somewhere else. Like, no, no, no. There's a logic between A and B and that's what we need to sometimes do.

11:12What I want to talk about is one of your hats, which is being an author. And I really want to congratulate you on finishing publishing the second book. It's incredible, obviously, to see how you do things and what you put into this and where you want the world to be in a way. to drive this knowledge that you've got to share is incredible so when we talk about obviously in your books called no bullshit branding a step-by-step guide to discover design and deliver your brand take me to the beginning where did the idea for the book come from why did you feel it needed to exist and what did you want to achieve with this because the books as you know on my seventh one now you can always tussle with the reason does the world need it and then you realize it does and here's the reason why great question now writing books isn't easy and it's not something i don't say that to sound cool i say that because it's really difficult it takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of patience takes a lot of research takes a lot of thinking and i think that really when you mentioned there why another book does the world need another book like this and this particular book i actually wrote for me and what i mean by that is like i i think we've all especially over the last maybe three to five years we've found there's so many things distracting us now there's so much noise do this you're not good enough you're not earning enough you should be doing this you should be following this trend you should become this kind of like what we were saying at the beginning you should niche you should do this well not that we say we should do that and I found myself especially as somebody who is an addict at heart it used to be cocaine and alcohol now it's marketing myself and trying to build a business and work essentially probably not going to kill me as quick but could kill me but we talked only about how you evolve every few years I was kind of going through one of those evolutions where I was maybe being perceived as something I didn't want to be perceived.

13:16I think whenever you grow a community online, you kind of get positioned as the influencer or the twit on the internet, which I am the twit on the internet a little bit. But I realized that wasn't really something that I wanted for myself. It's not something that I'd worked for 20 years to try and build was to then be known as this thing. I was running a studio before even social media was even a thing. So it was something I accidentally fell into a little bit. So basically the book for me was, what do I want to be known for? It was a reason to slow me down. It was a reason to think deeper about the things that I wanted to talk about.

13:59Research more, be more curious. I think in the kind of short form video creation world and the social media world and the email marketing world is all quite quick and the attention spans are quite short and I was like well this isn't really like mastery for me is a long never-ending process of something you never get there and the book for me was just another journey towards that trying to bring a new perspective to my world of brand building because again being in that social media world it's got a little bit convoluted so there's a lot of people saying things I don't believe are totally accurate because they're learning from people who also don't know what it is so I think for me it was like this okay well let me just sit down let me spend a huge amount of time writing 40 ,000 words designing a book creating all the shit.

14:58I physically had to slow down to think because I was like, thinking is going to be so important moving forward. Because this is when AI was coming into it and all this conversation of automation, chatting PT and all this stuff. And I was like, golly, I don't want to fall into that trap of outsourcing my brain. I want to use my brain. So essentially I wrote a book and that is where we are today. It was purely a selfish thing to stop me from getting distracted by a world that I didn't want to be in? Absolutely love the end of the answer. Absolutely. Because there is something part selfish and part obsessive about creating a book.

15:37Because I thought after book five and six, I did two books in nine months in 2023 or 2022, 23. And I just created those two books. I was like, look, I've got it. I know the process. I've got everything. Book number seven. It's taken me longer than anything else to create it because you've got a different lens on the world. It's like, okay, what does the world really need? And actually what you said, how do I slow down to think and how do I want to be perceived? Because the beautiful part of creative journeys is that you are always moving forward. You can decide to stand still for a bit, but you're always moving forward.

16:10And I think that's the magical part because that reveals to you so much more knowledge and so much more information that you can move away from, as you said, I didn't want to be perceived as a sort of internet influence. I didn't want to be perceived as this. You wanted to have something that actually is your own. because you and I met in person three years ago at design thinkers in Toronto I was reading a newsletter at that time I was like James there is a book in those newsletters like what you were writing was so beautifully philosophical like to take this broad take on creativity on life and being a human and I thought there is a book in it you're already writing a book and then you came with a book that I didn't expect to write but then in retrospect that's definitely the book you needed to write because it is something that's giving you a unique space to solidify to cement it like okay this is capitalizing on 20 or 20 odd years of experience how do you distill it to the now because personally i wrote book on branding in 2019 and i wanted to project what we were doing at that time writing it for myself for my clients to demystify the process and again the world didn't need a new book on branding but it hella was it hella worked because everything's moving the process is that some of the old school studios we're doing are no longer valid we're moving with the way of thinking ideation execution and delivery so in your case i was like oh of course that makes sense so in the process of putting this together let's go a bit of a step-by-step journey because even setting no idea on a title or on a theme where did you start with the ideation and where do you start with the direction 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 the light on emerging global talent with a mission to make a positive impact on a creative industry and beyond.

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18:43again another interesting question i can't remember but this was like 18 months ago but for me the fact that i got to swear on the cover was always a good thing i do know what you're like i don't know what you're like in this particular process but when it comes to anything i don't know if this is a creative person problem and when i say creative i use those air bunnies because of the plumber thing earlier but for me a title i'm not one of these people who can write a lot and then all the title will just come to me i have to have the title before i go and if i don't have the title the title sets the tone for me and the title is such a it's almost like this ownership thing it's the same whenever i've done a course it's the same whenever i've built a workshop like the title for me is that kind of tone setter and it allows me to know it's something i can always come back to essentially and go okay is this no bullshit branding okay if it is it stays in if it's not and we talked way way back ago about like certain apps that you were using i'm big on like i don't really know anything who do i know who writes a lot of books so oh i know radic so we talked about like the different apps you were using and how you started to break stuff down all the rest of it is it script scripture or scripture scripts scrivener scrivener that's it Yeah, as you can tell, I didn't even listen to you back then, but I've been using it for the last two years.

20:06But that, again, was like a really good like, OK, so I've got my title. And then from the title, it's like, OK, so what is the kind of things that I want to talk about outside the obvious? So then it's always like chapter breakdowns. OK, what's the story arc like? Is it going to take somebody on a journey? Is it like, I don't want it to be like this kind of self-gobble show where I'm just telling everybody how much I love myself and my work and my family and all this kind of stuff. That's not really my kind of vibe. I know there's anything wrong with that. It's just that this book is there for a reason.

20:42It's maybe offer a new perspective or maybe change people's idea of something and not for me to be right. I think that's a big problem and something I learned quite early on, which is I actively follow people online that I don't like, that I don't agree with, because it allows me to challenge my perspectives and the way I think. I never want to think that I'm right. And even if I don't agree with somebody, I'm always quite willing to accept them because it makes me see the things I see in a slightly different way. It's more dots, as Steve Jobs would essentially say, to curating your taste and all the rest of it.

21:19So you don't want to get into your own echo chamber. So basically, that's the reason why I wrote the book was to try and offer a new perspective and to maybe help people see it in a slightly different way. Because then maybe it will help them manage it or build their perception or their evidence or their reputation, which is something I very much lead into in the book is a brand as a recognizable reputation. because that's how I have been positioning brand to my clients for quite a long time. Because as brand people have a very unique language and you only have to be on LinkedIn for 15 minutes to read people's bios.

21:58And I'm a brand person, 20 years plus. I read some people's posts and their bios and I go, I don't even fucking know what you do. immersive counter culture experiential knobhead i don't fucking know i don't know what that means and so if i don't know how on earth is your client gonna know so even with the made by james first book it was logo process this is more brand based so it's more so like how basically teaching people what i've learned and how i communicate brand to my clients which makes it easier for them to manage and grab hold of has become a very, very powerful tool. And that's something that I share in the book.

22:38And then how you can build that recognisable reputation, how it reduces friction, how evidence and perception work and all of these bits and pieces and how to do this stuff. But again, it's like, okay, with reference to a layout of a book, it's like, okay, so every good book, every good movie, every good story has a beginning, a middle and an end. And I am always trying to think about that. It's like scene setter, perspective shift, ideas, and then the practical elements of that. And then it's like the action. How can you go and do this? How can you go and action? You know, I've always been big on designing your own way and there isn't one right way to do anything.

23:22And I think that's another thing that we've seen in our industry and the social media world, isn't it? Like, do it this way and you'll win. It's not really how it works. again it's i think it's that perception of like what do we think we are being told or what actually will be cherry-picked to hear because there's as many design processes as there are people what i want to do next is actually open a book and i'll talk about some of the sections because i want everyone listening to this to have the book because there's some absolute gems in it so the three people listening to this now i'm joking so you obviously let me open up the book it says that the branding has lost its way how would you describe that section how branding has lost its way i think for me language is probably like without going into absolutely everything i think the language we use in and around brand building branding brand has started to be misused or confused with things that it might not potentially be.

24:28And now that's not happened overnight. That's happened over a longer period of time. But I believe that language, again, is probably the biggest thing that I've seen that I could pinpoint where it has lost its way. And I think we love shortcuts. I think that's what the world we live in now is all about shortcuts. I go to enough conferences i also go to enough conferences outside of our industry and watch and learn how people use the terminology and what they actually think what is a brand even if you asked radim 20 great top studio owners on the planet what is brand every single one of them would give you a different answer there would be no consistency so whoever you talk to it's different answer in a way so they should because if everyone had the same answer they might be producing the same work when you talked about a language it made me think about how we've lost the innocence at the junior or the student level where you get people who are beautifully still young still still novices but their cvs are populated with words like well i've helped the key stakeholders to hit the crucial kpis and i'm like all right pal you just designed a menu like it's okay to say this is what i did because i think we have weaponized the language in a way of like who we work with there is more branding work done for more companies for more brands for more organizations and the language I think has been hijacked by the people who need to justify their KPIs and their stakeholder presence and all of that stuff I think it's been positive and negative influence because I think we speak better business but also we speak better business before we speak good creativity I think in some of the times that's needed because if you're on your creative journey and I hope that we can make that change somehow you don't have to sound like you're an ex-CEO whilst you're looking for internship roles it's okay to say i'm passionate about creativity this is what i need to do so i think you're right i think that the language in some way has been hijacked has been weaponized and maybe weaponized is the wrong word but i think it's been unnecessarily made heavy and too official because ultimately what we're trying to do we're trying to make nice experiences nice products for nice people that's pretty much what it is right in its simplicity isn't it but When I talk about language, I see it, for example, I'll go, love you, man.

27:04Love you, brother. Love you, brother. To you, to my friends. But that would never have happened a hundred years ago. John, I mean, you'd never tell another man you love him. You'd never tell somebody you didn't really know, love you. You'd never do it to a load of strangers. Love you. So again, the power of the word love has diminished. I think when I talk about that, the same thing has happened with brand. You know, it's because it's continuously misused. People are struggling to, because like we talk about like every business is a brand. I design brand, brand, brand, brand, brand, brand. But that isn't something we get to decide either.

27:46Like not every business becomes a brand. The businesses and brands are very different things. So it's not, again, being right or wrong. It's just understanding what the words mean. And again, like I'm not saying that people shouldn't have a different perspective on what a brand is, but our job or our role as designers or brand people or whatever it is, people help people hopefully become brands, is to reduce friction for the people that we're trying to explain this stuff to, which is our clients. And I think, again, with the world that we have found ourselves in over the last decade plus, there's a lot of designers speaking to a lot of designers.

28:27And so now a lot of designers speak the way that they want to speak to designers, but to their clients. So this is where the confusion happens is because of this continuous echo chamber we find ourselves. And we're asking our designer friends for advice on our website when you should be asking your clients. A designer is not going to buy from you. You've got to ask your clients better questions. I think that's the thing for me is like, I'm in the job of friction removal. Like my job is to make myself a safer commercial choice for my clients. It's to reduce risk. It's to create more certainty. I do that by using the right language.

29:01I do that by making the stuff that I do easier to understand. And that's essentially what I try to do in the book is just to break that process down a little bit because you coach people. I coach people. It's quite interesting, the stuff that I see them create this crazy, amazing content. And then I ask them about it in private, about that piece of content they created. And they can't give me the answer. They copied it from somewhere. It's like, what is going on? Like this idea of building this perception as a thought leader, as this, as that is killing careers. In your chapter one, I think there's a really great summary of what you've been saying.

29:39because in your chapter when you're talking about history of branding and you go for branding as a function in the industry or boom and the aspiration or madman and the key takeaway there is that it's branding turned into theater i think that's a good takeaway yeah it's the social media circus it's all performance and what i may be like especially with the rise of personal branding I mean, I've got my own take on that, but it's, at best, it's performed authenticity. It's not real. It's theater. It's a show. I think that's an interesting way of saying it because, yeah, you're right. When you think about the requirements for a brand or, let's say, a product, or let's say Lush, who said they produced 800 piece cosmetics, they said, we're going to go away from social media because they're no longer serving us.

30:31and there was a summary of what they did and there was like eight to nine hundred pieces of content every year three posts today across multi-channel and thinking but you sell on the high street you sell the soaps on the high street why do we need a singular store on the high street in every town in england to be producing you know up to a thousand pieces of content across all of the social media because yes of course you want to sell you always need to replenish your audience which you need to bring the stuff to new people but you don't always have to have an opinion about ice cream an international ice cream day or friendship day or this and that they realized that when they switched off the social media it didn't hurt them in any possible way we were still making the same sales in stores that we could focus in different places because i like what you say like it has turned into a theater because when you think about the technological advances let's say nothing it was facebook who started doing auto plays on their videos on the feed then youtube got caught up than Twitter caught up and everyone just did because it's about the retention of the eyeballs on the platform you're thinking are we doing the right thing here because are we really helping someone live a better life because no you're just stealing their time yeah I've been doing a lot of research on this I've probably already started writing my third book rather than which I'm already hating myself for but it's this idea of perception is such a powerful play or such a powerful tool, words, whichever way you want to look at it, because perception is essentially probably more powerful than talent or ability.

32:04I think social media has proved that to some degree, because if you can be perceived as somebody who is doing lots of work and shows up and is busy, that person will get more opportunity than the incredibly talented person that nobody can find. That is just the realness of it. Now with Lush Cosmetics, huge brand on the high street, got the kind of foot flow, the people walking past it. I can kind of understand to some degree why they could potentially pull away from that side of their marketing. And I think this is a really, really important thing but for and i'll be very honest like i've grown a pretty hefty audience online but a million people on instagram don't buy from me but it's when we talk about perception it's what that creates like would i have had publishers reach out to me to write books if i didn't have that?

33:09No. Would I have got onto the board of Canva without that? No. Would I have got some of the clients and some of the opportunities I've had without that? No. So I think there is a real balance depending on who you are, what you do and who you do it for. I think there is a plan. I'm going somewhere here. When we talk about this perception, I think the effort heuristic is a incredibly important thing for businesses, freelancers, anybody who runs their own business to be tapping into. For anybody who doesn't know what a heuristic is or what the kind of effort heuristic is, a heuristic is essentially a shortcut in people's minds.

33:53It's almost like this kind of people assume that because you're putting effort in, it means you're valuable. It's kind of that you're showing up, you're always there. It makes it easier for them to choose you. So social media is a prime example of when we look at these big, like Jake Paul people, Kim Kardashians and all these blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't know them personally. They're probably really, really nice people. But what they've done is they lend into that kind of effort heuristic. They continuously showed up and they continuously built these patterns and made it easier for them to choose for a certain thing.

34:28And then they grew and then they use that to grow these mega audiences, Mystic Beast and the Kardashians. These are billion, billion dollar companies now, I think. So I think what they did very well is they, whether they knew it or not, they were leaning into this kind of effort heuristic where they were basically allowing people to choose them because they were familiar. And I think it's basically cognitive bias. Like, it's essentially what it is. I think that effort shows commitment and people then reduces friction and then makes it easier for them to choose. Like the clients that I have received from a social media post or a podcast or whatever it is, like it's easy for them.

35:12Like the amount of times I go, well, I saw this and I like the way you do that and I like the way you think. So I want to work with you. And if I hadn't showed that evidence, and this is, I could go on to that. I can go around the houses here with evidence proof and perception. But I think that's where we'll leave it for now because we've probably got a few more other things to talk about. But this effort heuristic and the social media-ness of our lives is here. And I think if you use it intentionally and deliberately, like Edward de Bono says, design is deliberate, like you can use it to your advantage, I think, personally.

35:49Yeah. I mean, what you describe it, obviously, is, let's say, 15, 20-year-old phenomenon. We didn't have that before. It was the only head of selected few, but very visible. you had your dita rams and all of those guys like they were known for particular sort of evidence as you call it evidence of what they've created and they had some high perception there but i think in the world of being able to amplify your visibility through social media channels we've given people a beautiful opportunity to be anyone at any time anyone anywhere anytime to other people because we've created that gatekeeping was obviously it was removed obviously it's democratize it anyone can take that opportunity but it's not for everyone to really then to process it in the best possible way because you open yourself to totally different worlds that potentially can be clouding as you say the way of being perceived because a lot more people can make an opinion about what you do and how you do it and as you said at the beginning like you wanted to create a book so you actually change the way you're being perceived on the back of a basically big big following because i always believe that the posts the social media content it lives and dies with the algorithm dies with the time it gets posted and then it's just a sort of digital dust somewhere in the background whereas just like yourself i've been a big believer in books i believe that books are creating authority they're creating us opportunities where other people don't necessarily go i also believe that not everyone should write a book because i mean if everyone had a book they want to write the libraries or the bookshops would be bigger than town centers with all sorts of crap in it so there's a reason for people to do this and that but indefinitely what you've created plays into your perception versus evidence sort of diagram or your perception versus evidence theory where you go high evidence high perception low evidence high perception you're talking about like how these things really play to the truth of the brand and how you can dial it up potentially on the way that people need to see it.

37:47So it's something that I haven't seen done before when you talk about the diagram between how perception meets the evidence. Where did that idea come from? How did you observe it? Is it something from your own practice? Is it from research? Or is it just a part of the back on the phenomena of social media that this came through? Yeah, I think it's, before we jump into that, I think it's really, really, like, I mean, we'll just go into that kind of building like the perception piece as well. I think another really important thing about that is also who you're spending time with and what you're doing.

Read the full transcript

38:19So whereas maybe three or four years ago, yes, I had a book, but it was predominantly my world. I could only ever speak from my own perspective because that's all I've got. I'd never try and tell other people what they should do. But I realized that was becoming a problem for me. It might not be a problem for anybody else, but it was a problem for me. So what I wanted to do is I wanted to start putting myself in different rooms and create new opportunities for me. So I'm very blessed now that I can look at my phone book now and the people who I'm texting. And that's not like a weird flex, but they're people that I really want to associate with and learn with now from like Debbie Millman, Lisa Smith, Radim, Eddie Opara, all of these amazing people I get to spend time with.

39:02But I've worked really, really hard to prove that I am worth listening to and spending time with. And I don't just do that by creating social media. I do that by writing for Fast Company and doing other bits where it does open doors to other rooms. And I think you are a result of the people that you spend time with as well because you can use their trust as a whole perception game, I suppose they call it, but you shouldn't totally fabricate it. But if I stood next to Andrew Tate, people would look at me very differently compared to whether I stood next to like Paula Sher, for example. I polarize for a reason because you can automatically make that assumption.

39:46Like if I'm seen next to this person, I'm seen as one thing. If I'm seen next to this person, I'm seen as another thing. I'm the same person, but who I'm associated with and standing next to is very, very different. So you absorb those people. I've always been very, very, very conscious of who I'm seen with and who I'm talking to. So that's the first thing. So back onto the perception versus evidence. This actually came from doing a lot of coaching and I've tried real hard to help a lot of creative people over the last decade, really. And I noticed there was this particular segment of people who I call the hidden geniuses, like who, again, like they're not really keen on playing this should we call it the perception game they're not really going on social media they're not really into marketing themselves or not marketing themselves in the way they're told to market themselves i would probably say is a better thing they get a lot of work from referrals a lot of work from word of mouth and but apart from that they're hidden they're incredibly talented they're like some of the best creatives best illustrators best photographers I only know them because I know them but nobody else knows about them and they're these incredibly talented people some of them have got no work and then I look at what I see online and there are some bang average people flying now this kind of just got me thinking I was like what is going on here there's something going on and that's where like this evidence versus perception thing came to me.

41:29Because the thing is with evidence, Radham, is that not everybody has access to it. So for example, let's just take you because you're sitting in front of me, like nobody has access to all of your evidence. They don't have access to every client call, every email, every piece of work. But you've written seven books by guarantee if you added all the words up, there's probably 20 books there. You just had to cut so much stuff. So evidence, evidence, evidence, evidence, evidence. But not everybody has access to all of that. So what you've got to do is you've got to turn some of that into proof. So there's a big difference between evidence and proof.

42:07So I think that's what people are doing with the perception thing. But maybe if they're going the wrong way, they're very, very big on, let's say, they don't have any evidence. So what they're doing is they're taking this trend or they're taking what this clever person says, or they're taking the work from this person and they're talking about it. They're building this perception of somebody who knows what they're talking about. But because they got no evidence to back it up, when a client does reach out to them and goes, oh, hey, you're really interesting. I found you online. And you start talking to this person.

42:40You realize they don't have a fucking clue what they're talking about. And you ask them, can I see some of your work? And they go, oh, none of it's real client work or none of it's this. And then suddenly the client goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. To me, effort, heuristic, shortcut, you are perceived as somebody incredibly powerful. I call them hype brands. But in reality, they can't back up. But then on the other side of that, you've got the hidden geniuses who have all of the evidence who are incredibly good at what they do, high evidence, but their perception is low and nobody can find them.

43:12So this is why I think you do have to have that balance of evidence and perception. and you have to build them together to build opportunity. This is really interesting you said you've got hidden geniuses with all the evidence, but no one can find them. And obviously that still points us to almost, let's call it ancient, like business systems because you're only as good as the people that know you. I think it used to be about the fact that it's about who you know, now about who knows you. But the thing is, you can make yourself visible. You can go to people and say, hey, let's use your words. Like, this is my evidence and this is also me.

43:44Like, how do you want to be perceived? because you can actually, I think in a certain way, you can engineer the perception of how you show up in the world. You can do that. And before all of what you're describing was to be didn't have that and people were busy because there was obviously different channels of getting work, different ways of establishing yourself, you had to go out there and do this. And I think it still becomes very, very truthful and very important even for the world of brands that some of the stuff they do, let's say, on social, let's take Lush again, they were driving people from their social media into their stores.

44:15And when you think about it, like with social media, people think that they, sorry, I'm going to generalize it, but it can be potentially assumed that just because you show up, the world will come to you. Whereas the thing is that you're creating these breadcrumbs, obviously the world will find you bit by bit or you show the world your evidence that you can do certain stuff. And I've been problemizing this in my book there forever that you've read as one of my early readers. Thank you. When I talk about permission and permission and acceptance about the fact that you will never know everything that you need to know sometimes you will have your bullshit patches but you'll be like okay i don't know how to do this and that but it's about being strong within yourself so like this is who i am and this is what i need to be because we can borrow all sorts of stuff from everywhere but it's like how you process it it's like going into higher education you're not doing the exams about what you've learned in the last two weeks but you what you manage to remember it's about how you accumulate all of the information and then realize i want to take this part of information with me on the next part of my journey and i think we've created a world which is so noisy and so complicated that making this and naturally just the first point of like who do i want to be is so disorientating isn't it yeah it's incredibly disorientating but i think like you mentioned there's something about i think the default issue is people like let's take social media for example i don't want this to be a social media rap because it's been what it is it has its i wouldn't know you without it there's so many good sides to it but we tend to prey on the bad side of it but i think the problem is the default system for me of like oh i own a business i need to be creating tiktoks instagrams youtubes and blah blah blah blah blah blah without any ever without any thoughts or reasoning behind it it's just the logical thing to do but it's actually incredibly illogical.

46:08The logical thing to do would be to figure out who you want to work with. Go and ask that person, where do they find people that they want to work with? And then what you do is you just go and hang out there. Because like you said, it used to be very, very different. It used to be, okay, well, I do brand building and design for boat companies. So what you would do pre-social media is you'd probably follow the boating logs, you'd follow the sailing forums, You'd go to boat building events, Southampton Boat Show. I know you're a fellow Southampton dude way back when, but that's what you do. You would figure out where your clients are and then you'd go and hang out there.

46:48But what's happened now is everybody's just hanging out in the same place. And they're not even asking whether their clients are even there. And like, this is one thing I always ask people who I work closely with is like, have you asked your existing clients how they found you? have you asked your existing clients the things that they read the blogs they read the newsletters they're signed up to and all these things and it's like no it's like but they're spending 10 hours a week creating content for a machine it's bringing them nothing and they're getting burnt out and they're getting as an angry and all these other things because they haven't asked the right questions essentially so i think that's a really really important thing because for some people depending on what you want to do in the world it's incredibly powerful but for others you probably don't need to be there we do put ourselves into some of these situations by accident purely because human biology wants us to fit in and to fit in we just do what everybody else does that's hoteling's law and it's very very best we all gravitate towards the same place eventually if we're in competition with each other when you think about it biology to fit in it comes from insecurity because in the past you get left behind by your tribe which normally was about a group of 200 you die this is obviously what i was trying to work through my book it was like this is the neuroscience of the brain like we are working with ancient hardwiring that sort of helps us to not trips us up in every possible way what you've talked about just now i think it takes me to your section in your book which is you got the five keys the five idea keys and i kind of like that you talk about of spark person place energy and offer in there and i feel like it's almost reinforcing the idea that nothing happens in vacuum and all of the steps are connected and this might be another mbj unique talking point rain fart how did you get to those five keys because they are really really intriguing just again through evidence my own evidence thousands of client calls of trying to figure out the right information to get me to the right answer and it's something that I've used for a long time but never really thought about it because it's always just been for me.

48:56So you can just do it behind closed doors. But when you're writing a book and trying to explain the things, you have to sometimes build easy-to-follow frameworks or models that other people can adopt. And that's essentially what the five idea keys is. And that's actually a registered trademark, which I'm very proud of as well. But everybody can use it. I built it for everybody. Not that we're sure that we have a copyright or trademark that's going to mean anything in the next five years, thanks to Mr. AI, but we'll figure that one out. So for me, again, another easy way to explain stuff to my clients, an easy way to explain stuff for the people I'm working with outside of that.

49:32But again, it's like the whole five idea keys is a part of this thing called the minimum viable brand, which is a big thing for me. The only reason I'm sitting here talking to you is I've just managed to take a lot of action and not overthink stuff. And that's a big problem again human biology our brain has this thing in it called an amygdala its job is to scan for brett and essentially keep us safe and it's still working today before it was like stopping us from getting eaten by dinosaurs i know we didn't live with dinosaurs but that's my point just to make a shit point now but we don't need it as much anymore but it's still the thing slowing us down because the idea of putting an idea out to the world is difficult because when it's out in the world, people can judge it and it doesn't feel safe.

50:13So we just don't bother. And I think creative people struggle with that. So the only reason, like I said, I'm sitting here in front of you is because once I've got the idea, I've basically put it into the world. I've taken action on it and then just learn. And if it doesn't work, I just do something else. And I put something else into it. That's just a continuous repetition of this, building stuff, taking action, getting absolutely tested, validate it, grow it, or get rid of it, essentially. So what I realized, that That was a really important thing for me in my growth. So I packaged that up within the book, basically the MVB, Minimum Viable Brand, which is basically a total rip.

50:49It's not a rip, really, but like the MVP, which is from Eric Reese's Lean Startup book, Minimum Viable Products. It's basically like you build a really scrappy version of a product. You put it out into the world to real humans. They tell you what they like and what they don't like. And then you go back and you make it better. And you just go through this process. And that's how I've done the books. That's how I've done my frameworks. That's how I've done my courses in the past. Build small, test it with a few, come back, make it better, put it out into the world. So basically, the five idea keys is a part of that MVB process.

51:20So once you've got an idea, it's like, okay, great. Now what do I do with it? Well, you take it through the five idea keys. But the five idea keys are sequential. You can't go to the blue key without knowing the answer to the first key. Do you know what I mean? So you have to go through all these things. But the beautiful thing about this Radder is the fact that not all ideas are good. And so when you take them through these keys, if you can't answer a question in there, and I've got like little exercises in each key, which is super easy. My mum can even do them. You stop and you have to think about it more.

51:57I write in the book about a chap called Saf. and Saf spent$86 ,000 building his ideas before he tests it in the real world and then found out nobody wanted it. And there are so many businesses and so many entrepreneurs who do this. They chuck loads of money at stuff. They build it, they put it out into the world. And then the world goes, I don't need that. Doesn't solve a problem for me. And they waste time, they waste money, and they waste momentum. So for me, I was like, well, how can I fix this particular problem that I know people have had? Not just my clients, but designers and all the rest of it.

52:35How can I get people to take action, but intentionally? The parallel juxtaposition, there is this opposite logic with people in sales. They will try to sell you something they haven't got with the website they haven't got, with the brand they haven't got. They're like, hey, I think there's a great book called, I think it's called Million Dollar Weekend. And the guy was telling about the ideas he was trying to get off the ground zero branding like he was calling people with a product he didn't have when he made the sales he then started building stuff and of course when you talk about a little view of a designer or someone who takes care greatly about what they try to bring to the world i would be personally in the past discouraging people from an immobile viable brand because you want them to launch the thing properly in the first place but you are right you obviously you do that little bit you do it again and you validate it and we look at knife and fork they are like version 77 of something like they are not the first thing that people invented but i love that i love that term and i love how you find the powers in this before we finish i want to talk about the human side of creating a book and the people who are involved in the process of you making the book because i can see our friends from pennybridge there's a letter from debbie melman there's lisa smith so tell me about the input of others like what made it easier what made it possible for you to make this because a book is an arduous process to make and it's a long one it can test you and obviously doing it with friends what was it like yeah there's probably twofold to this there or threefold selfishly i love other people and i love my friends and so i want to try and get them involved as much as possible there's secondly i think one perspective is okay i think when you can have multiple perspectives from different people in a kind of similar space, associated space or whatever you call it.

54:22I can't quite think of the word right now, but it's better. And for me, it's also access. Like there's not many people who might be able to hear from a Debbie Millman or from a Pennybridge or from a Lincoln or from a Hay Studio or from a Lisa Smith, president of D &D, and all of these things. So to be able to give people a little bit of access to these people is massive. And it also celebrates them and like i mean that's the main thing for me is like perspective we talked about it a little bit earlier about having many dots to connect and i've always suggested that i don't know everything and there are many many cleverer people than me most of them are in this book so lincoln design co i learned a lot from penny bridge they even helped me design the book and my great friends like carl and paul you've got vero hey studio like one of the most one of my favorite designers based out of barcelona and then you got like i said lisa smith who wrote the forward for it the president of the dmd and i think she's like the global cheap brand officer on common which is again one of the most brilliant studios doing one of the best work and then you've got Debbie Millman, who everybody should know.

55:38And if you don't, you should just because of, again, like for me, I'm blessed to call her a friend as I am with them all. But the perspective, somebody who's been in the game for 40 years, almost like longer serving podcast. I worked with the Milton Glaziers, the best in the business and seen all these different transitions. because we're in one right now, the new tech transition. And she's seen print to computer. So having people in this book who can bring their perspective to it, again, I just think elevates it a little bit from like, again, like the gobble gobble show that is like, oh, James is great, which he's not.

56:19I want to finish this conversation with your quote from the book. And that says, I want you to build a creative life that actually feels like yours, to wake up excited by what you're working on, not drained by who you're pretending to be stay sassy as it says here i mean it's a beautiful statement because as you find yourself for your recent years the more you provide for others the more selfless you are the more you actually try to share the information the more you've become visible that's more your evidence more your perception actually it goes out because it's so easy through all of the ancestral reasons to feel panicky to feel scared to feel insecure about what we're doing but when we actually work together as that tribe it's so much better because we actually learn from one another we accept the abundance mindset because there is stuff for everyone there's resources for everyone so i love how you finished the book with this because ultimately when you wake up you're and feeling your best self and don't have a scarcity mindset but actually think about abundance magical things happen so dude thanks for creating another book thanks for putting it all together because i know how much effort it takes to put a book like this together so well done radis out there is doing his thing yeah yeah i was gonna say like last time i told you i was never gonna write another book and here we are with book two so i'm gonna tell you right now i'm not gonna write another book even though i have started writing another book it's a torture that we put ourselves through but it helps it's the brain good brain food absolutely but when you said like obviously i want to build a creative life that feels like yours i mean you created life that is yours and it's obviously everyone can see it so i love it and I think there was a great quote.

57:55Well, it was a great joke by Stephen Fry. He said, friendship is like pissing your pants. Everyone can see it, but only you can feel the warmth. And I can feel it with like making books is like pissing your pants because everyone can see it, but only you can feel the warmth. Love that. What a wonderful thing to finish on. Cheers, brother. Love you. Good to see you.

58:25Hi, thank you for joining me on this episode of the Daring Forever podcast. As always, I'd love to know your thoughts, questions and even suggestions. So please get in touch via the show notes or social channels. This episode was produced and presented by me, Radim Malinij. Thank you for being here and I hope to catch you on the next episode.

58:58Thank you.

59:24Daring 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 ebook and audiobook 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. you

From the publisher

James Martin — designer, educator, and now double author of No Bullshit Branding — joins Radim to unpack why perception so often outruns talent, and what to do about it. ~

The conversation moves from why James wrote a deliberately slow, research-heavy book in a fast-content world, into his central framework: the gap between evidence (everything you've actually done) and proof (what you show the world so people can believe it). 

Along the way, they cover the "hidden geniuses" of the creative industry, the effort heuristic, and why chasing social media visibility without asking where your actual clients are is quietly (well — loudly) burning people out.

Takeaways

  • Evidence and proof are not the same thing — evidence is everything you've done; proof is the fraction of it you make visible to people who don't yet know you
  • Perception can outweigh talent: the effort heuristic means people equate visible effort with value, regardless of skill
  • "Hidden geniuses" — highly skilled people with no visibility — lose opportunities to less-skilled people who are simply better perceived
  • A brand is a recognisable reputation, not a logo or a content calendar
  • The Five Idea Keys are sequential — you can't skip ahead without answering the question in front of you
  • Minimum Viable Brand borrows from lean startup thinking: build small, put it in the world, test, then improve
  • Ask existing clients how they actually found you before deciding where to spend your marketing time
  • Human biology drives us to conform (Hotelling's Law) — awareness of that pull is the first step to resisting it
  • A book (or any deliberate act of proof) can reset how you're perceived, separate from algorithmic visibility

Daring Forever. Podcast with Radim Malinic

daringcreativity.com |  desk@daringcreativity.com

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