“I felt like a bird that couldn’t fly” (Thiago Maia bonus episode)

0:00Radim Malinic:Hey, welcome to this bonus episode of the Daring Creativity Podcast. This is the bonus episode number 15. And as you might now know, this is where I revisit the interview published early in the week, providing me with the opportunity to zoom in on a few standout moments for extra value and meaning. Taking time to digest the goodness my guests share with me every week. And this week I was chatting with Thiago Maia, a Brazilian animator, designer, creative who now lives in London, and the episode that got published a few days ago well it had very minimal edits because what we recorded went out it was such an honest conversation about things that matter the creative humans working and living today and thank you to those who've already sent such nice messages about it because it's resonated with many i've been designing an anime turf for the last 26 years but I feel myself more nowadays.

1:00I like to say more like a magician. I like to solve people's problems in a creative way. I'm not the best animator in the world. I'm not the best designer in the world, but I make shit happen. That's what I do.

1:13Radim Malinic:So the conversation started with Thiago being very honest about what he thinks. And it's not that English self-deprecation. It's more about the fact that being honest with what you can do and how you can do it. it goes against the toxic perfectionism that can paralyze so many people. I have to say that in the creative industry, we're constantly bombarded with incredible portfolio and highlight reels, and I can only make you feel like an imposter. But when Thiago said, you know what, I just make it happen, and I go back to something I've said many times on this podcast, is not how good you are, it's how good you want to be, or how good you accept yourself to be, because when you do that, and this resonates back to conversation with mirali patel that letting go is part of self-acceptance because saying what you can do and how you can do it creates a space for you because when thiago said look i'll make shit happen it just represents the execution of over ideation and i just like the way he opened the conversation because it opened the way to say look i am who i am and we're going to get really deep.

2:25I'm still struggling to get back. I still have ups and downs. I was hit by not just all this mental breakdown, but we've been hit by the industry being really bad in the last couple, two years. If the industry was good, probably it would be easier. But I think that's all part of the lesson that I needed to learn and I need to learn hard because all my life, as I told you, I focus on something, I push through, and I get what I wanted. And I'm a person that therapy made me to understand. I'm a person that I create goals, but I create a list and I go and tick and I tick every single goal I put on my list.

3:09But I don't enjoy the process. I lost then through these years as in a relationship, a parenthood, or a work. I lost the enjoyment of the process and there I feel I lost the happiness.

3:25Radim Malinic:The main part of our conversation was about Thiago's struggle with depression. Depression came around COVID time and it's created a lot of negative experiences, negative outcomes. and it was very honest and and beautiful for thiago to say look i was so deep in all of this that i just didn't care about what i had to do and he said he's still not through all of it something that came through depression wasn't something that he thought he would ever have to struggle with but it was at a time where even though things were really good on paper they didn't manifest themselves in his life and even though he's achieved everything he set out to do with his successful studio international recognition financial stability he found himself profoundly unhappy and understand that moment he talked about the fact that he's still working through his depression the hangover of depression or the residue of it and even though he's not enjoying some of the goals that he has to create for himself and just manually take them off.

4:41Radim Malinic:He doesn't enjoy the process, but that process is ultimately what is going to get him through. I think happiness for me is having freedom. I think happiness, it is having freedom. And I think running the business, a lot of people confuse that, especially like the young generation they say I'm gonna open a studio that's the reason I open I'm gonna direct my own work I'm gonna do the things I love yeah but once you're a business you have bills to pay you have staff and you need or you have a few partners then take off everything else or you need to run everything and come from a place then I didn't understand any of them I need to learn on the go I think that really burns me out and I didn't have the freedom to create what I wanted.

5:33My marriage didn't give me the freedom at some point than as I want to be. I'm not saying freedom to be a couple but not being a couple but it's the freedom as a person and in a relationship, the freedom to be the father I wanted to be. So I started being really unhappy because I felt trapped in the loop of relationship, work, parenthood, all that things. None of them was making me happy. But I think what I was, I felt trapped. I felt a bird inside a small cage that couldn't fly.

6:10Radim Malinic:this is part of the conversation where we really talked deep about how the manifestation of depression had very strong impact on creative life on personal life relationships family parenting because feeling like a bird inside a cage that couldn't fly is the antithesis of creative life most people do not want to feel any element of being closed off having limitations because ultimately we dream about creative freedoms in a way that we want to sometimes do what we want to do the way we want to do it and if something stands in our way it can be devastating i think with times in our lives we learn that to be able to do whatever you want to do when you want to do is a massive privilege because if you want to live the high stakes game be a parent have a run your own business there's no lot hanging fruit it's more about the fact that you really want to push yourself and that comes at price because none of this stuff was ever meant to be easy I'll repeat myself there's never such thing as the end of problems and we do see happiness as the ultimate sort of definition of freedom but maybe it's just contentment maybe it's just not needing to fight another battle not having the freedom to express himself had a devastating impact on his studio on his family on everything and being able to say that's how I felt and that's what I wanted to do and changing things is very powerful I said in the talks in the lectures I do I didn't even give a fuck I was in a situation then didn't I was like in autopilot in automatic and I didn't even think I was just going to try and survive and it hit me really badly and that's why I love sharing that story and I'm going through because I realized, as being like an 80s kid, I realized we grow up like swallowing that shit.

8:27Boys don't cry. You just move on. The only way to go is pushing through. And so I never really spoke. I didn't even have a vocabulary to talk to people about what I'm feeling until I met a friend and he said, man, why you don't talk if you want to recommend you to my therapist? And I used to hate the word therapist because my ex-wife used to, you need to do therapy. You need to do therapy. you need to do therapy and I said fuck I don't need to do therapy I know my problems I need just focus and keep going and that's not reality and I've seen most of the 80s people now is doing all on the therapy it's the therapy time but I start opening to people wherever you are in the

9:06Radim Malinic:world listening to this the approach to mental health and fixing mental health is still wishy washy you get maybe some people and some layers of society are a little bit more attuned to the fact that we can get help some societies even as developed as they might be might still not have the best understanding of mental health or ways to help people because some of these things and it seems really strange to be saying this in 2025 we are still getting to understand our mental health is still getting to understand things that make us not function really well and the disabilities or mental health is not always obvious it's not visible and it's not always something that people want to share so thiago talked about the fact that boys don't cry you just move on and what happens you just drag that baggage with you on your back to another day to another destination and it's never going to get lighter in fact even though you're not adding much of a new stuff to that baggage it still gets heavier and heavier until you deal with it so i would encourage you if you feel in a similar position or you're just curious listen to the conversation with thiago because he is someone who clearly struggled clearly struggled expressing himself about what he feels.

10:35Radim Malinic:There was definitely a shield of madliness about the fact that even though people surrounding him suggested that he gets help, he thought it's not something that he would ever do. And luckily he found that help through other people in his life who opened conversations, showed him a way into therapy, showed him a way of solving his problems because as i just said that baggage just doesn't go away until you really you know empty that bag of it all and tell yourself how much of a person do you want to be going forward and how much of that heaviness do you want to carry forward so yeah my conversation with thiago is one of those that has resonated with so many people already and it's been only a few days since it's been released because it's honest and you are most likely to hear some of the stuff that is relevant to you and some of the stuff that you might be going through or have gone through and as you know one of the reasons why i've started this podcast is to really shine a light on the fact that we are so unique yet all equal in life and creativity so thank you for joining me on this bonus episode and i look forward to seeing you next week.