"Don't regret leaving that music inside of you" (Mitch Monson bonus episode)

0:00Radim Malinic:Hey, welcome to this bonus episode of the Daring Creativity Podcast. This, as you might now know, this is where I revisit the interview published earlier in the week, providing me with the opportunity to zoom in on a few standout moments for extra value and meaning. I take time to digest the goodness my guests share with me every week. And this week was really special because I was chatting to Mitch Monson, who has had an incredible career with fantastic achievements, working with some extraordinary clients. So if you had a conversation, you had me spending pretty much the first third of the conversation talking about his work for Prince.

0:39Radim Malinic:I had to ask as many questions as I could because if you have a guest who designed the love symbol logo for one of the biggest pop stars this planet has ever had, you've got to spend some time on it. What was beautiful about this conversation that we mainly focused on the few topics that seems to revolve around continuously in our industry, rules, risk, reward, you know, regrets. And this conversation was great for finding some of the standout moments which I would like to highlight now. The first one being about breaking rules. Being self-taught or just not having so much formal education, it also means you're asking a lot more questions.

1:23and I'm always that person. I'm not the person that's going to ask for directions to get somewhere or to get a recommendation. Something like there's just, there's no embarrassment in that, I guess, or fear of I'm going to be an idiot. It's like, I always want to be that person in the room. And I think even now when I think of the people that I work with is I'm not the smartest person in the room and that's exactly where I want to be.

1:46Radim Malinic:Mitch mentioned through the conversation that one of his heroes is David Carson. And David Carson famously says, don't snap the grid, don't follow the grid. In fact, what is grid? And I love the fact that Mitch, as I mentioned in our conversation, is a fellow self-taught graphic designer. And I think there's that beautiful, let's call it naivety. I call it eternally curious idiocy. If you don't have the preconceived notions about proper design principles, you approach problems with fresh eyes. Therefore, it's more of a beginner's mind. and many breakthrough innovations come from outsiders who don't know something is impossible.

2:27Radim Malinic:When you think about a wave of AI, engenerative AI spewing out all sorts of ideas and things, it's kind of remixing things that is learned or picked up, kind of cross-pollinates the ideas and sometimes it doesn't follow the grids and often doesn't follow the rules. so in mitch's conversation you can't be afraid of breaking rules because you don't know they exist and i love that he said that not knowing rules is a superpower because you can see this as a bit of a bull in a china shop situation but using carefully as mitch articulated in our conversation he wants to be let's put it kindly the dumbest person in the room because when you're the wisest person in the room you're in the wrong room you want to be in a place where you can learn find your own space find your own rules there will always be conversation about traditional learning new ways of learning self-learning self-exploratory work but what matters in the end it's how it makes people feel because i remember when i started doing my own little experiment and producing my own designs and business cards and stuff and they were catching attention and someone said hey you not following the grade and I'm like well you see I haven't followed the grade but we are now talking about what I did because if I followed the grade maybe that wouldn't be as interesting the second quote was something really magical and I think there's this really beautiful article I read almost 25 years ago that literally changed my life in fast company and it was about this interviewer that he had done like a thousand interviews with senior citizens who retired and had really successful careers.

4:09And I look back at that article all the time. I give it to so many people on a regular basis because what it said is the biggest regrets were just leaving that music inside of you and not taking the risks in creativity and in relationships and not looking back regularly and not reflecting at different times of your life so you can kind of assess where things are and where you want to go. And I think that helped me so much at that time and it made me take a lot more risks. I don't want to be that person. And what's really funny is in that article it says I don't want to be at 60 years old regretting that.

4:45And like I said, I just reached that point and I just don't feel like I have a lot of regrets and I think that's a great place to be.

4:53Radim Malinic:I love when people use poetic words about situations. Don't leave that music inside you. It was just the music to my mind really. It's poetry, isn't it? I love it. It just fits perfectly the theme of daring creativity. Mitch was referencing a quote from the Fast Company article from 20 years ago. And that article captures the human fear of unrealized potential. It reframes the risk of what might go wrong to what will I regret not attempting. And as you know with the theme of daring creativity podcast, it's not about jumping out of planes. It's about doing the thing that you otherwise regret never starting.

5:34Radim Malinic:so with mitch's quote the music inside you represents the authentic self-expression beyond external success metrics it just doesn't matter because how many reasons can you find for not starting something how many fears and issues can you find about a project that you really want to do but maybe it's not the right time or maybe it's not the right conditions or we don't have money But most people intuitively know what they're capable of. To be making decisions from the deathbed is rarely taken about risks. It's about risks avoided. Because it links creativity to relationships. Both require vulnerability and authentic expression.

6:16Radim Malinic:When facing a creative opportunity, ask yourself, will I regret not trying this more than I'll regret potential failure? the next down now woman is about risk so here's mitch's quote the way i've always approached things and i think both in my work and just in like when you're talking i know you're a surfer so for myself being a backcountry snowboarder and doing heli boarding things like that people just feel like that's like uh why would you want to take that risk but i think just like in my work like that's when i feel most alive like when i have that opportunity to do something that's a little more out of the ordinary or also has that risk component in it, that's when you do feel the most alive, the most excited about what you're doing.

7:02Radim Malinic:The most people that you admire doing something you wish you were doing will always admit they're very risk adverse. In Mitch's conversation, he admitted that he loves risk, but what seems risky is actually hardly spur-of-the-moment situation because when he goes let's say backcountry snowboarding or heli boarding it's all ready like they are ready they're tuned in they're prepared in right performance states it's not just a sort of idea of standing on a hill with your mates when you're nine with your bmx bike going i think i should give it a try because that is a risk that's basically spur of the moment working on the adrenaline and a bit of a stupidity thinking i'll give it a go the idea of risk in a professional application, it goes beyond the experience level.

7:57Radim Malinic:So his snowboarding analogy is perfect. Extreme athletes don't feel extreme because they're prepared, trained and operating with their expanded comfort zone. Something that applies to creative risks. When you think about a professional application of risk, taking on clients beyond your experience level, it's more about growth rather than risk. You'll be risky and put in loads of money in a business venture that doesn't have heads or tails. Whereas if you take on something that you can understand the shape of, it's more about understanding how we can grow and learn from the situation. The topic of risk will never go away and we can be prodigy from every direction.

8:41Radim Malinic:And I think it's the way how we internalize the way we see as risky and what we've done. Because the theme of risk and the way how we perceive risk really depends on how we see our space in the world. The final quote from Mitch was about investing in yourself. I had this thing come up the other day where a young professional had asked me about, I really want to do this thing, but the thing is it's kind of expensive. My company won't do it for me. And I just heard those words and I just said, just stop a second. What's the purpose of this? What is the purpose of this thing and why do you want to go?

9:18And they told me very passionately what that was. And the only thing I said, don't you want to invest in yourself? Isn't that the most important thing? And I really didn't have to have much more of a conversation. There's like, yeah, I just need to do this. I'm going to pay for it. I'm going to take that time off. I'm going to go and I'm just going to make it happen. And that was a younger me. like that was i didn't wait for permission this is another topic permission permission granted

9:45Radim Malinic:just keeps coming back the risks rules permissions it's incredible because let's be honest like what we've created in the last many decades is incredible the tools we have the opportunities we have the connections to communities all of this yet it can also feel that we are still stuck in certain way and maybe is it because we have so much more all of available to us that we're still waiting for someone else to green light our development because again i love in mitch's conversation that he didn't wait for permission and it's something i can relate to you because there is nothing more beautiful in the world when you decide to follow something follow the idea that it just simply doesn't go away and you explore it a bit by bit.

10:39Radim Malinic:The investment mindset is when you invest in yourself, you're investing in your own capabilities because the people that society celebrates, the Ed Sheerans, the Taylor Swifts or John Mayers, they just didn't wake up and pick up their instruments and stood on the stage being all ready. I mean, it's a compounding growth because their skills, experiences compound over time. It's the making of the person. And the best bit above, let's say people like Taylor Swift, people always say that there's nobody else who wants it more than her. And this is the question. How much do you want to invest in yourself?

11:20Because it is the most important thing.

11:23Radim Malinic:If you haven't checked out my conversation with Mitch, please do. It's absolutely genius. And I will see you on the next one. Thank you.