Creative Minds Podcast - Episode 1 "Opening the Eye of the idea"

to be able to do stuff that other people can't do and to make things that have never been made before it's a total privilege opening the eye of an idea is like opening up a portal the idea of diversity of thought brings the the best work [Music] thanks for coming um thanks for coming on the the interview the podcast not quite sure what we're calling it The Pilot it is the pilot so a bit of an intro first Stu Wilson um highly decorated creative director can I say award-winning oh there's a few probably not enough but I've got a few in the back award-winning creative director akqa McCann Havas JWT I mean all the all the big famous agencies you're the you're the perfect person to kick off the series um welcome creativity I mean being a creative it's kind of a weird thing how do you describe that to people that aren't in the industry first of all I have terrible Imports imposter syndrome so when people say such things as big dogs and things like that kind of go really is that me because I kind of feel like I'm still 19. in my head it's but I'm sure it's well known a lot of people do not say that but it's you know for for me I still kind of feel like I'm working it out still feel like haven't done my best work still looking for that opportunity to to to get there to do that um but yeah it's it's one of those things like a creative's life is um sometimes difficult but most of the time uh it's a great life you know I've just been able to you know make stuff up um from not from nowhere but but you know to be able to do stuff that other people can't do and to make things that have never been made before it's a total privilege um and it you know for me I I hope my career goes on for another 25 years you know it's tough at the moment with a there's a lot of changes and I'm fighting to stay alive and stay relevant but um still enjoying it as much as I did on my first day at work at akqa that's great to hear so you you love it it still gets you out of bed at the morning the you know brief lands on the desk and you're you're excited yeah there's no there's nothing better than the the potential that's involved um I think a lot of I think I was listening to early in Harlan speak the other night about breaking his um scoring record he got 35 goals uh on Wednesday night I think um and he just his quote when the when he was asked about it was that there was um a lot of opportunity uh during the game and he also spoke almost in a a micro sense about it because he chipped the gold he chipped the goalkeeper to his really stylish finish to get the 35th goal right and this all happens in a split second using Instinct and he said even running up to the ball in that last SEC you know that that last second he didn't know whether he was going to put it to the right or the left he just said that he saw the opportunity to chip it over the head and so that's a really good metaphor for being a creative is you're constantly looking for opportunity um and and that's what you're paid to do yeah so I mean you're talking about the instincts of a great Striker do you find that your your instinct is you know being in the industry 20 25 years that you're you're honed and you're able to kind of crack a brief more quickly and more instinctively or is it still the the process is still you've still got to go through the same process you did at the beginning of your career yeah I think there's I think there's a period of growing up where you're following elders and you're learning from what they give to you but you may not have consciously uh taken note of what's taking place so you end up doing things automatically and almost like Kung Fu type of thing with a Sensei where you don't really know why you're throwing punches but eventually at some point certainly in my career I sat down it didn't happen in in one session you know metaphorically I sat down and thought what am I doing and then Drew up these series of steps that I was kind of like oh wow I mean it came you know a time where I was involved in coming up with process at JWT in the employer brand section and I drafted something up and I wanted to get it checked so I got it checked by uh an old colleague who's fantastic excret director and planner at tbwa ggt it's called Richard Madden and at the time he was at KitKat nor I tapped him up he invited me over and he sent me to lunch with a guy called um Lazar damic and Lazada damick looked at what I'd done didn't quite necessarily pull it to Pieces the pair of us were drawing on beer mats and sketching things all over the place and discussing stuff and it was one of those moments in my career where I was just so lucky to have been put in that position to hear those words and he said you're doing great you know this is great you can change this and you can change that and then he invited me back to his studio and took took his polystyrene sort of uh designed process 10 stage process pulled it off the wall and gave it to me and he said take that back to JWT wow and I was literally holding this thing on the tube on the way back to work so I was kind of like blessed given the keys to the door so since then like you say I have been a bit faster in getting getting to the point but it does depend on the context of each brief sometimes things are harder to crack for certain inherent reasons that other other briefs are more easier and do follow the the funnel or the process to be able to get stuff done so do you think you so you can give creativity process to help or sometimes do you just need a a lightning bolt or is it about the process helps you channel that lightning bolt it gives you the rod I I love I love the fact that you've um brought in the lightning rod I call it um opening the eye of the idea so I'm gonna get a bit spiritual now um we know about conscious and subconscious yeah when you have an idea the verb have right what does that actually mean you know opening the eye of an idea is like opening up a portal and you can open up that portal with stimulus so I kind of have this thing where not necessarily worked it all out yet but in terms of like neurochemistry as we're looking at the research that where or the brief or the stimulus or even looking at um kind of like consumer data what we're doing is we're stimulating that brain chemistry and those synapses are they're firing and that our own eyes are looking deeper and more clearer through through what is a series of disparate bits of information and we start to join the dots now joining dots is not necessarily having having an idea see me I'm sort of bringing it in from that spiritual level I believe the moment that you say lightning rod that's when the eye opens briefly into the subconscious and the subconscious gives us the gift so in a sense I've spent like my whole life trying to open up the eye of an idea right and it's almost like an aperture on a camera so it opens up it delivers it and then it closes again and it's gone now sometimes that gift might be you know cans lion award-winning and sometimes not so much sometimes when it comes through it can be almost like cleared and finished and you have your vision so as a creative director sometimes it may be quite weird to the rest of the team for the person to go I Know the Way Forward we're going to do this this and this and from that point on we we follow that person and we don't ask questions because they seem to have it all sorted out but other times it comes out and it's covered in Vaseline it's it's blurred you know and and we and we're really worried about it because we're not sure that it can actually live or it can do anything but once it's out if you can communicate that to your team another part of the time another person in the team can see past the Vaseline and they go yeah that is good and they start to burnish it right and it can help shape it and yeah and the collaboration part of it then you start to say ah we there's oxygen here but the kindling is coming turning into a fire and there's something going to be born out of this but I think until you get to the point where you admit to yourself that these gifts that actually not coming from you from your soul they're coming from your brain it's saying that you're here with um songwriters or musicians quite a lot you know also creatives that you know you might hear him talking about where the lyrics came from where the melody came from often they're just the response is I just sat down and played it or sat down and you know wrote the lyrics to wonder War it's like there's no that it was just channeled they don't even think it was from themselves and I guess it's Sim it's similar you can't you're just that that Rod that eye that portal for the idea the creative the writing the script the lyrics whatever it might be yeah and you know those those gifts sometimes when you hear someone speak of it in that way you think oh was the portal open for the for the length of Wonderwall for you to write it in real time but actually the vision which is the biggest part of all of this the vision which has come out of the strategy and the strategies come out of the research and the research has come out of the invitation to Tender document which has come out of the client who's done the their own market research and found the problem that they came to the agency with all of that stuff is standing on the shoulders of giants that's another Oasis kind of reference but it's but it is true it's like a pyramid we stand on their shoulders until eventually the vision is high enough to see down almost kind of strange metaphor but it's this but what happens is is the vision that happens really quickly and for a split second but it's like seeing your life before your eyes before you die your life flashes before your eyes that's what they say right so it's almost like this whole project has flashed before you this whole solution it's like a cheat sheet the subconscious provided it because it was stimulated with the right things the right prompts yes all your team your team who are in planning and strategy and all this all the bit before it gets to creative they have to have done all of their jobs properly because if you're stimulating your brain on the wrong things you're going to be a degree out one way or the other so the important thing is when you have the vision you must get it out of your brain because if it stays in your brain you can end up walking around the business and everyone in the agency just thinks you're an idiot because they don't know why you're doing what you're doing so you you have to spend a lot of time after having this spiritual moment of resonance and this gift you have to go around and tell people about it unpack it draw a picture of it play some music whatever it you know take a photo whatever it is you need to articulate the vision and then we build the bridge from where we are now to when it's been completed so at least we've got the vision of it being completed yeah we just have to make sure we get that bit right so I mean so um so much to kind of unpack within that and so many things I want to ask you about but you know collaboration is definitely one have you so traditionally creators would be a a Duo a partnership um was that something that that you've did you work as a as a pair as a creative pair within your career yeah but kind of before when um digital people would just kind of unfashionable in a sense um I was my creative director at the time Nick Moore he saw value in digital and he wanted to create a digital Department within a direct agency which was tbwa gdt and so I managed to get in there early doors on on that project um but what would happen is the you know the six or seven of us that were picked we would get dropped in with creative teams so that was in the days where it wasn't open plan everybody had an office and it was glass etched and you could have you know flat Eric on the shelf and your collection of Star Wars toys what you could you could dress your little cave the way you wanted to and so ultimately I would have to take an empty chair and knock on the door and say hello everyone it's Stu from digital Nix asked me to come in and sit in on this Vauxhall brief and then they would have to let me in sometimes not necessarily that willing yeah um because they didn't see my value they didn't see my use and at the time I didn't really know what I was doing my toes were curling up inside my shoes but they called it the three-person creative team and so you know this would happen where we were cross-fertilizing different skill sets with with different um art director copyright teams and things started to come out of that and they were they did and there was art director copywriter and then they're plugging in digital as well yeah I mean they did try this I heard similar time at Sachi and Sochi that was going on as well um there's there's other people um who've come out of the the industry who have said that almost like the three-person team is very sort of you know it sounds weird but 21st century even though we're 20 years into it it's this thing where you have a salesperson a hustler you know and and this sort of not colder but you know the the person who can actually make stuff happen and so the three of them work together they're not necessarily art director copywriter and a suit yeah but there is Essences of those skill sets between the three of them and so you know certain agencies have used that to really good effect but you know there's still nothing wrong with art direct copywriter teams now because the people who are coming through from um communication arts and you know Memphis all these different places are educating people to think in the ways of all three skill sets in one person it just seems that some two people have got together who have an affinity to one another and have taken the decision to join an organization as a pair and they're they're very good at kind of opening the eye and pulling out the idea which may not be to do with brand communication it might be to do with digital marketing or creative technology or could even be product design or a mix of all of them so you've got to as a art director and copywriter you have to have much more broader set of skills than you had to have 25 years ago but that's just because media has changed and we've all got to stay on board with that and following keep working to you know on the on the sometimes called the Chain Gang but do you know what I mean it's it's sometimes be being able to be masters of what's coming is to be able to predict where it's going and then to be able to find use cases for new technologies which are coming out for example it's really trendy for AI and GPT yeah I've uh I wondered how long it'll be before we got on to AI because it's you know you can't go to any talks or shows or presentations and and AI doesn't come up something that I definitely do want to get into with you before that I just want to talk about environment you know you're talking about that that glass office with the you know the toys and flat Eric on on on the walls uh how important is it to you to get the right environment to kind of get in a creative mindset where do you find yourself being the most creative well it's it's not on an open plan floor okay at all what you you need to be a bit more locked away but of quite time well obviously with cover and everything and we've gone to remote working and hybrid is a really big word at the moment which is this idea that um I can still I can still interface with a team on a project um and affect it but I don't necessarily have to be physically present um with every aspect of every turn of that project I don't need to be present you know like going to the christening of your children it's like sometimes I don't need to be present at that christening if you know what I mean not really well you only get one Christine worth but as every project comes in we and a project is born yeah I don't have to attend every Christian I don't have to be there for every single one and I can still affect it right but you know sometimes that's not a good books if I wasn't a requesting exactly exactly me too but it's that thing where that's not necessarily true yeah because if you go back to before kovid or 2020 um the level of work that was coming out was of a particular standard because everybody was present and there and for me I when I start a project if I'm allowed to from a budget perspective um then I will have I would have 25 people in a room and me stood in front of a a big whiteboard drawing pictures and talking about stuff obviously it wouldn't be 25. I would probably have two creative teams that are possibly going to get allocated this project right but they need to witness everything that we're going to go through uh then no one gets it second hand because when you learn it firsthand you're an expert on the project and that once the once we've got to a certain point we might have a two-day workshop and which starts at creative strategy and moves into executional ideas where we might we might break for two hours and everybody comes back with ideas and then we start to look for an out like a a journey towards getting over that bridge you know what's the actual what is the mechanism what what is the carrier and we might crack that in two days or we might not but to me once I leave those people if I if there's a drag on my time and I need to do other things I don't need to babysit anyone because they know as much as I do and at that point I've given them the vision and we've discussed the vision and maybe we moved the direction of the vision together because that was that was the right thing to do because not that they knew better than I knew but because it actually the idea of diversity of thought brings the the best work and if you don't know that you shouldn't be in advertising it shouldn't be in it's not well whatever it's called now you shouldn't be here if you don't understand that you know a person from Japan and a person from you know Brazil put them together and you get this amazing work that's completely different to what you might expect if you'd have given it to two English graduates who were both from London and middle class yeah you know that said put the English person with the Japanese person and the Brazil you get even better work yeah I love that that thought of moving bringing all that diversity together because you see you have this uh idea that oh this this creatives you know they're on this pedestal they're gonna do something magical and and Brilliant just give them a bit of time and some inspiration they're gonna crack it but what you're saying is it's not that is it it's about getting some people in a room throwing some ideas around with with the right guidance and on a on a track but that's where the that magic would happen yeah I mean I'm not going to start blowing smoke up your ass or anything but that's why I come to you on certain projects when we need a film yeah and we need we need an agency that's gonna take care of it bring this one yeah but it's But ultimately like take it to the next level because ultimately you know I'm not going to say I've made a few films but I I don't still like say imposter syndrome I don't consider myself to be an expert filmmaker but I reckon I'm a really good brief writer I can write a third-party video company you know approaching house to to take what we've got in terms of building the bridge we're halfway across the bridge and we need you to get it over the line and I can hand that brief over to you and we've seen it many times where you complete that it's like doing a relay race and we're handing you the Baton and at that point I'm really happy to just go you know not just because I know you but whoever I was working with if I'd got a treatment back that was like Wow look what they're gonna do to me at that point I'm old enough and strong enough in terms of ego not to want to interfere and just go right it's yours take it because you do this better than I do happy to stand on the shoot and nudge a few things and yeah Joel and help yeah but otherwise it's you know this is your gig and I would say the same thing if I was handing over a piece of creative technology to a development house it's the same you know as long as you know what they're about and you trust what they can do and reputations are good enough there is no reason why you can't take your hands off the steering wheel somewhat yeah but you're but you're still and and it is great when we you know we we work with um we get those briefs and we're given some freedom to add some value whether it's you know uh creatively or from a kind of technical production perspective and that's the type of stuff that we love but I'm I'm kind of interested to know that your role as a guardian of the the original idea the concept you kind of got to be a bit of a a bodyguard ushering this thing through the entire process with so many different stakeholders so many different people that are need to be involved in the delivery of it it's great that you say you know you can stand back you don't have the ego you can trust the people that to help you deliver it but at what stage do you jump in like hang on we've gone off course here I need to wrestle it back or you know gently take it back like how do you manage that process to that because you are still the conductor aren't you you need to keep things on track I like Guardian better than conductor but conductor still feels like I don't I don't like too much control from anyone in the team including myself is that an experienced thing have you always been like like was the younger you would you hold on to it a bit more tightly and then you've kind of learned actually the works better when it's more collaborative nice it's I am a I think I'm an INF J is my personality type from um Myers-Briggs so going back to that sort of spiritual thing I was talking about before about these gifts um I know that my type my personality type the way that I'm engineered whether I grew the form that I became um doesn't respond to the stick I respond to the carrot and that's in binary terms is the best way to explain it um I don't think from my experience that having when I say control I'm talking about you know certain management styles um which have been deployed upon me and I've seen deployed on other people um do not bear the same fruit now you you know the the business itself is full of subjectivity right we're stuck with that it's never going to go away every single you know all of us together we've all got our own opinions about what we think is right or wrong um and sometimes it's like survival of the loudest you know the person with the strongest opinions sometimes wins or who's ultimately paying the bill yeah it does go that far sometimes buddy but but ultimately like I said before I'm I'm comfortable with myself and I do know that there's lots of people within the industry you know in terms of brand Management on client side who are the same and some some of those are not young ones they're they're the ones who are slightly older who've got to this point in their life where they're just kind of like well as long as you follow the brief and as long as this has the values of my brand in it go for your life again not saying I don't care what you do but I'm not gonna necessarily interfere so you know this idea of strong control almost like from a military point of view that style still bears fruit but in my opinion from what I've seen throughout my career it is not the strongest work that people want to feel free that's another reason why they work as a creative is because there's a tremendous amount of Freedom within the vocation and when you see that freedom start to be taken away or to be eroded um even if it's down to the specification of um a platforms um shapes and sizes of images or what you can do and not do on that platform is affecting how you manifest your ideas and sometimes you have to fall in line with that sometimes you have to be smart enough to work with those indicators and to make sure that your audience doesn't see them as being restrictive so it you know the journey the journey with the team and the Juniors and the middleweights and everybody that to me is as important as when we get over to the other side of that bridge and that thing becomes live and it goes out into the world and everybody's going oh wow it's great blah blah blah blah um I don't really it will happen probably where I get Stuart Wilson was the conductor but at that point I'm kind of like I was just one of the team though right you know what I mean yeah and I know this Probably sounds like I'm lying yeah but honestly it's I can't work if everybody's not satisfied we've all got to do a wrap on a shoot and think that was the that was great that was the best shoot ever you know I can't I can't you know I mean I can't launch a product and and think that you know oh it could have been better you know we certain things affected it and didn't allow it to become to raise to its potential but we kind of went okay it's fine that's that's quite a big factor it's impacting on it we'll accept that so it's a it's a case of kind of like it's not a fight it's it's cajoling that's what I do sometimes monster controller no no more like more like um tickling you know what I mean I'm sort of like nurturing tickling you know almost like a piece of clay and and eventually I'll I'll get it across almost like a counselor I'm like I'm like a creative counselor and I guess with with the experience you know whatever is to tickle at what point in the process to get the the the the desired results or un you know get something from being unstuck or whatever it needs yeah and you got to know as well when you're going to get your fingers bitten off so you can't do any tickling it's best just to go okay no tickling over here yeah I understand I mean I just want to talk about like some of the work that you've produced in your course through what if there is one what are you most proud of like what piece of work what project what campaign do you still look at and it's like yeah that was great that was a great process that was a great whatever what what would you what comes to mind when I asked that um I know I keep mentioning imposter syndrome but it was uh 2016 working on the New Balance Global proposition for 2018. no it was for 2017 sorry so you know this I get brought in as a consultant on a on a contract basis and I have two weeks to win a pitch a global pitch against a lot of other similar sized agencies and some big ones Stateside in Boston and um I had a 25 person team everybody was in their 30s or younger um I was the oldest I think I was about 45. um and it was kind of a big responsibility the thing that took the pressure off is that the people who'd employed me they they just said us see how you go if you if you don't win it it doesn't matter but but it didn't matter well yeah I mean they were incapacitated they were doing other things so they weren't in this they weren't in the country right so I had the team to myself with no Senior Management um and it was I ran all of those things that I mentioned we we do deep diving stuff we go into a single room the room has a full wall a glass wall and we can write on it and you know basically designate areas um brainstorm theorize um send check um you know actualize it all happened in that room um and ultimately as I say the end of the first week the tissue session we presented five ideas to the client and they wanted to run two um and that's never happened to me in my career the reason why I think it was happening is obviously you know without going into too much I'm a footballer I've been a footballer since I was six years old um and you know throughout my career I'd I'd managed to get up to you know make Semi-Pro sort of regions playing for [ __ ] Foster this was when I'm too old to play anymore and it's finished but my knowledge of sport and sort of you know call it kinetics um that knowledge Bank was kind of pre it was ready to deploy on the right brief and that brief came along and that was a I guess coincidental or had that Senior Team brought you in knowing that you had that knowledge and deeper understanding they they brought me in because they knew that I'd worked on Nike when I was at akqa I'd worked on Puma when I was at JWT and I worked on Adidas when I was at tequila so they kind of just picked those three brands and when if he's done that he could probably handle this um but I mean it was just one of those moments where when it got to the presentation um we had two mood films created in-house um we had the start of the brand guidelines for how that would roll out in multi-channel um I mean the team was amazing you know just the the the industry in that team and the quality of that work like I said to you before so some of the design work was above and beyond what I could even create myself and and that's my if you want to call me a t-shaped person I'm a designer through the middle so you know it was like everybody uh hit tens every single person hit a 10. and um yeah and they bought one and then they they said we'll run the other one next year wow and I've never this is something I've never seen in all my days in every iteration in every other organization I've ever worked with and obviously like yeah I'm jumping around in my bedroom in my pants going I am a creative director I've arrived yeah and uh you know well imposter syndrome yeah yeah well for a while for a while but it was still kind of like um you know this is the global brand proposition I think it's a four billion dollar sports firm and it goes out to Atlanta and they check the work in an exhibition with all the marketing leads from every part of the planet and they all agreed they wanted to run it so still even though we'd done it with the brand management team it still had to pass all these stakeholders from all over the world who are going to say can I sell my my quota of of apparel or Footwear um in the next 12 months running this proposition and they all said yes um and so you know it's just you know it's not just the fact that we achieved that um it's the fact that you know it was so Monumental yeah you know and and the work itself as well we call it beat predictability because it was going back to the football thing it was like drop your shoulder go the other side of the player and it's just a basic tenet of dribbling you know messy does it 27 times a second didn't he it's constantly like dropping shoulder that's you show someone a fake but then you move to the other side so you're beating predictability so it's really original thought that just came from and say came from kinetic um you know this this idea that you your your body moves beyond your consciousness and the subconsciousness is the thing that fires the synapse is so quick that you know in in a very short space of time you can move your body in ways you know it's back to that instinct isn't it yeah I mean it's not like the Matrix you know I mean it's not that sort of thing but it's just what when you watch football how many times do players take other players on and and obviously some are better than others are doing it because you know a quote from Maradona football is a game of um deceit and that is what dropping the shoulder is you're deceiving the other person with your body language to move into the other direction so you know it's yeah I'll be proud to sit with my grandchildren when I'm 80 and tell them about dropping their shoulders yeah yeah I was just seeing if it was new balance on the Puma today uh and then do you still look at you know work all around you and Ah that's brilliant that's not so much just judging stuff what is this something that you just thought that is brilliant I wish I had thought of that or do not have those thoughts I do um again from from the idea of I suppose excellence so the the highest quality work that that we can talk about um Dan Wyden coined the term just do it I'm sure he had you know a team of people around him and he was in the room and they were all putting up different suggestions until eventually something clicked and and and collaboratively you know just do it comes out um but for me you know if I'm jealous you know if something makes me Green With Envy wishing that I could get in a time machine and go back in time it would be to go to 1988 when that particularly launched the weird thing is when it was to be the beer fly on the wall on that process where they landed on that yeah because the the weird thing is is like when you when you're running brainstorms or workshops when you're trying to crack something particularly at the Brand level when you're going to into sort of like archetypes so we we all we all know about archetypes driving a lot of common stuff and when you combine different Architects you get different types of Brands coming out of them and it is a core tenet of building building a brand um there's lots of different tools that you can get to to use it I use um knock wood cards that I would recommend you know you go out there and find that they're like tarot cards but they really kind of shot in the arm type of gets you and your client you sit with them with these cards over a coffee and you can save yourself three weeks work okay I'll have to check that out yeah but um just do it that having gone through all those brainstorms you start to see commonalities coming out of the brainstorms and and it's the results of what ends up on the wall and they are kind of they surround archetype level but they're doing lots of other things now what I found is in terms of you need to call it like an an out on interpretation of a brand we used to say JWT um there's a brand shelf in everyone's mind for every brand so there's a Coca-Cola one and brand Equity is put onto the Shelf over a period of years until eventually that shelf is absolutely bustling and thick and you know Broad and so it makes it really difficult for a person who's who enjoys that brand Equity or that brand Equity resonates with them to stand at point of sale and not choose Cog or not choose Pepsi whichever one that that you know and that's the battlefield right is that those shells being made but from for me you know the strap line just do it I I did test it once I think it's got 17 inflections right so there are 17 different ways that human beings read that line and it means something different to them like when you say if there's a car accident and 10 people witness it the police interviewed 10 different people and they get 10 different points of view of what happened if you're saying how much or how broad can a brand be to mean something to the most people in the audience then just do it to me has that ability and that's why it's excellent that's why it's absolutely top quality work very difficult to be bettered and has stood the test of time unbelievably so what 1980s coined and still totally valid today yeah I mean the the first ad was a little old man running across um the bridge in San Francisco just with a vo very simple film it what you know what what it's turned out to be is it's grown but the essence is still the same if you read the script um of that of that film it's still the same thing but it's just it's been Amplified right that's the kind of like the next stage for us all isn't it with each of these projects is to come back and amplify again Build That Brand shelf I love I love that knowledge of the the brown Shelf so you mentioned time machine um if you had one uh you know if you're able to go back in time and give yourself your younger self one piece of advice to what what would that be I have written it in my notes what future you gave it to you yeah yeah it's um it's being mindful of telling the truth because it can damage your career telling the truth can yeah and what I mean by that is kind of sometimes you you have to um what is that going back to idioms you you have to kind of butter it up don't you sort of have to you have to make what you're about to say palatable to somebody else you talking in a kind of professional environment yeah like we say whether we're talking to stakeholders or colleagues or or bosses yeah you know anyone really um it's kind of like somebody would say ah you know don't sugarcoat things you know it's not the right thing to do you should be authentic and all these sorts of things and all that's all sort of well and good and and when I was younger I used to be into that um Bob Marley quote that was like um I would rather die fighting than become a slave for the rest of my life and I remember the moment I read that and it was like this you know the Schism was like bloody hell yeah that's what I feel I don't I don't want to be controlled I don't you know all this sorts of stuff um and then out of that can comp probably a a Persona which is you might want to say cocky or not overconfident but kind of like um very sure of themselves yeah Uber confident and not not scared of um kind of dropping bombs you know mic drops um and as I've grown older the damage that that has done not just on me but on other people colleagues friends bosses clients um that's what I would go back and fix what was that channel for show where that guy used to go and undo stuff My Name is Earl my name is earlier yeah my name is Emily it goes back and writes the wrongs yes I would I would do instead of getting into the spaceship yeah I would get into the old rusty car and go back and talk to all these individuals yeah and say look you know I know I know that what how I came across that day pressed a massive button on you um and I'm sorry I wasn't trying to upset you I wasn't trying I was just trying to kind of I guess be right and this is what you have to go through to learn to say it's not really about me maybe that's why the Imposter syndrome stays is because there's that feeling of not getting it right by everyone and I know you can't get it right by everyone but it's just this thing where you kind of go I could have said that in a in a better way that probably would have been a win-win yeah and that's just experience isn't it and you've got to go through those to learn the lessons to inform the next time you do it right final bits do I'm conscious of the time so I've got a little creative briefs challenge for you so well it's kind of two parts actually you're this is the pilot of this little kind of interview um uh Series where the working title has been creative minds Keen to know if you think that's good or not before we commit to it um and then the second part of that is when this goes out we will obviously need a little thumbnail if I gave you the brief of can you design that thumbnail what's going to look like does it have copy is that saying you can you can unlock in the next couple of minutes sketch it out brief it to me you know as if it's going to a designer or a little team whatever um that's my challenge to you a few minutes on the clock can you come up with a an engaging attention-grabbing thumbnail that will just encourage people to be like oh yeah I'm gonna I'm gonna watch that I'm gonna listen to that let's click on that I think all our discussions about you know the the Eye of the idea and we talked about this aperture I think there's something in the idea of um you know the brain but kind of with wings on oh with kind of sneakers on some some kind of way of um you know anthropomorphization of you know of a of a kind of a cheeky a cheeky brain something being ready so it's almost like the brains in the blocks ready to Sprint around the race and get the answer but this the flashing cursor is suggesting I'm thinking yeah thinking and then a tagline to put on put underneath it to sum up this conversation oh attack line uh work hard stay stay humble work hard stay humble love it I think that's probably us time Stu thank you so much for uh being part of our our pilot the first ever creative minds conversation um a lot a lot has been discussed I really appreciate that a lot been has been shared thank you very much um and I think that's kind of concludes things thank you very much thanks for having me you're welcome anytime next time maybe we will do it over a pint yeah I'll buy we've recorded that foreign