Speaker 1: Good day, Welcome to the podcast is Better than Yesterday.
Speaker 1: Thanks for downloading it. This show is does what it
Speaker 1: says in the box. We've got useful tools and useful
Speaker 1: conversations to make your day better than yesterday, and we're
Speaker 1: doing it every single week since twenty thirteen. My am
Speaker 1: Josh Againsberg. I'm very glad you here. We have a
Speaker 1: live show. A new live show is happening on the
Speaker 1: sixth of July at the Factory Theater in Marrickville. Huge cast,
Speaker 1: Marley Silver, Merrick Watts, Phil O'Neill, Yeah, Ugly Phil, Nadia Townshend,
Speaker 1: Zoe Dot and Lodge and myself. The theme of the
Speaker 1: show everybody needs good neighbors, live comedy, storytelling, early doors.
Speaker 1: You'll be home by nine. I'd love to see you there.
Speaker 1: The linkers in the show notes and that is also
Speaker 1: where you can pre order your copy of my brand
Speaker 1: new books, So What Now What, illustrated by Campbell Walker.
Speaker 1: If you like this podcast, so this podcast has been
Speaker 1: bringing you value. The greatest way you can repay me
Speaker 1: for any good thing that you've got ever out of
Speaker 1: this show is to pre order that book, because that
Speaker 1: sends a huge signal to the publisher that this book
Speaker 1: is worth getting behind. The partners really want it, particularly
Speaker 1: if you look in Australia. We also have a live
Speaker 1: show we're coming up very very soon. I can't wait
Speaker 1: to tell you about that stuff. We did the first
Speaker 1: technical test the other day and it's incredible. But yeah,
Speaker 1: please bring order the book, and if you do so,
Speaker 1: take a screenshot of your proof of purchase and I'll
Speaker 1: send you a little something to say thank you. Send
Speaker 1: out an email at gmail dot com, just email it
Speaker 1: to me. For a long time. Through popular culture, through movies,
Speaker 1: through books, or whatever, we kind of have this heroic
Speaker 1: vision of a singular creative genius, the solo man or
Speaker 1: the solo woman who just has this incredible breakthrough. But
Speaker 1: what if the greatest ideas aren't found in isolation, but
Speaker 1: only emerge when we truly open ourselves up to be
Speaker 1: influenced by the brilliance of other people. I've been thinking
Speaker 1: about those questions quite a lot, and we'll get to
Speaker 1: the answers right after this. It's really hard to start
Speaker 1: from scratch. Starting anything from scratch is very very difficult.
Speaker 1: Going from absolutely nothing to a fully formed idea is really,
Speaker 1: really tough. It's like trying to pull a rabbit out
Speaker 1: of a hat, except you don't know what a rabbit is,
Speaker 1: or you don't have a hat, let alone. Do you
Speaker 1: know what magic is? You kind of know you want
Speaker 1: to do something, need kind of need something to react to.
Speaker 1: And I have found that when it comes to creativity,
Speaker 1: when it comes to coming up with ideas, even if
Speaker 1: their ideas in a completely different direction, I have found
Speaker 1: that having something to react to the tiniest spark of anything,
Speaker 1: the whole process becomes infinitely easy. That's a whole reason
Speaker 1: why when I'm working, when I'm writing, when I'm creating,
Speaker 1: I actually make time to go and do stuff that
Speaker 1: isn't working right and create, go and see things, experience things,
Speaker 1: to do things so that I have something to react to.
Speaker 1: So I give myself subconscious something to think about, something
Speaker 1: to respond to. And this idea of having something to
Speaker 1: react to was a big breakthrough moment when I started
Speaker 1: working on this new book somewha now what, because I
Speaker 1: knew I wanted it to be illustrated and to be honest,
Speaker 1: it was always going to be Cam Walker, also known
Speaker 1: as Truthless. And if you don't know Cam's work, I
Speaker 1: thoroughly recommend you're checking him out. I've worked with him
Speaker 1: for a long time. He's an artist I've admired for
Speaker 1: a very very long time. I have huge, huge respect
Speaker 1: for him. He's incredibly successful, and he was really the
Speaker 1: only person I ever really wanted to do the book.
Speaker 1: But when it came time to ask him, I was
Speaker 1: kind of apprehensive because I'm he's very accomplished person. He's
Speaker 1: worked in the ad industry, He's worked he huge clients,
Speaker 1: massive footwear, beverages. He's really a very highly regarded person internationally.
Speaker 1: Could I keep up? Would I be able to engage
Speaker 1: in work at that kind of level? Would I be
Speaker 1: able to properly contribute? Would I hold him back? Would
Speaker 1: I be frustrating to work with? I didn't want to
Speaker 1: sour our friendship by being a shit person to collaborate with.
Speaker 1: But here's the funny thing, Deep inside, somewhere, way way
Speaker 1: way down, down down, kind of knew that I was
Speaker 1: going to need to be able to give something to
Speaker 1: Cam to react to. I was going to need to
Speaker 1: be able to give Cam something more than just describing
Speaker 1: what it was that I wanted. So about six months
Speaker 1: before I even asked Ham to illustrate this book. I
Speaker 1: started sketching again, aside from a very brief period where
Speaker 1: I toyed with replicating how my favorite comic book artists
Speaker 1: could draw human figures, about twelve thirteen years ago. I
Speaker 1: haven't picked up a pencil and put it to a
Speaker 1: heavy GSM paper since about nineteen eighty six, when I
Speaker 1: was in primary school art class, so a really really
Speaker 1: long time ago. But I knew I was going to
Speaker 1: need to give cam something to work off. And that's
Speaker 1: when I remembered my dad. He was a doctor and
Speaker 1: in the evenings, as a way to relax, he would
Speaker 1: listen to jazz music and smoke a pipe because that's
Speaker 1: what you did when you're from Europe. I sit on
Speaker 1: a bean bag and using mechanical pencils, rot drink mechanical pencils.
Speaker 1: It was his one shop in Brisbane. We used to
Speaker 1: go to get them, those big, heavy metal things, so
Speaker 1: I think for draftsmen and architects and things to use.
Speaker 1: And he would draw these kind of shaded geometric shapes,
Speaker 1: cubes and spheres and cones, just vanishing into perspective. I
Speaker 1: was always fascinated by that he was doing these repetitive
Speaker 1: kind of tessellations as he listened to jazz music and
Speaker 1: just do it for hours. So about six months ago,
Speaker 1: well six months before I hours Cam, I started practicing
Speaker 1: what I'd seen my dad do. Look, I didn't have
Speaker 1: a bean bag, nor do I smoke anymore, but I
Speaker 1: just draw. Now. I still didn't know what the main
Speaker 1: character of my book was going to look like, but
Speaker 1: I was just drawing shapes, cubes and trying and cylinders,
Speaker 1: because all of nature drawing anything as cubes and triangles
Speaker 1: and cylinders and rectangles. So sure enough, when I finally
Speaker 1: landed on the lead character of So What Now What,
Speaker 1: and I just came to the acceptance like, oh, Cricky,
Speaker 1: it's going to be really hard, but I'm going to
Speaker 1: need the lead character to be a glove. I knew
Speaker 1: that I had to be good. I had to get
Speaker 1: better because hands are really, really, really hard to draw.
Speaker 1: As you heard Cam and I discussed the other Monday,
Speaker 1: there's a reason why comic book characters usually only have
Speaker 1: three fingers sometimes for and they always wear gloves because
Speaker 1: hands are really hard. They're incredibly expressive things, as Cam
Speaker 1: Walker says, they are the eyebrow of their arm, and
Speaker 1: they're very very tricky to draw. So because of the
Speaker 1: work that I've been doing, when I did finally ask
Speaker 1: Cam Hay and he was like really into it. He
Speaker 1: was so excited. I was able to so write the words,
Speaker 1: this are the words that I want the book to be.
Speaker 1: And in this particular moment, I see this glove running
Speaker 1: away from this thing, and I was able to draw
Speaker 1: it with the kind of facial reactions and the sketches
Speaker 1: and stuff that I would want it to do. Now,
Speaker 1: this isn't at all about me going how great artistically
Speaker 1: I am and how much of an excellent sketch artist
Speaker 1: I am, because I'm not. It was about giving Cam
Speaker 1: something to start with, something concrete to react to. And
Speaker 1: what it did was it made at our collaboration incredibly efficient,
Speaker 1: just being able to understand the same vibe of where
Speaker 1: we were going. Now, the other really crucial thing about
Speaker 1: working with Cam was understanding my place in this. I
Speaker 1: am not an expert illustrator. Cam is If in Cam's
Speaker 1: expert opinion, this particular picture that we've ended up with
Speaker 1: is great, then guess what that pictures great? And that's
Speaker 1: the picture that goes in the book. He would say
Speaker 1: things like, well, I kind of see that Globy was
Speaker 1: trying to do this, and so I made this happen.
Speaker 1: You're like perfect. I would never have thought of that.
Speaker 1: That makes it even better. No notes, Because there was
Speaker 1: a time when my ego would really get in a way,
Speaker 1: back when I was working in television and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I would be very selfish on whose idea and who
Speaker 1: owned the idea. And you can waste so much time
Speaker 1: with endless notes and tweaks and adjustments and try to
Speaker 1: make everything fit this exact kind of singular vision of
Speaker 1: this has to be what it is. But thankfully I've
Speaker 1: learned in the last ten twelve years or so that
Speaker 1: if you try and push and pull everyone to conform
Speaker 1: to only your idea, it does make people less enthusiastic
Speaker 1: about being involved because they don't tend to get their
Speaker 1: own input. And that's important for people to have their
Speaker 1: own input in the project. But if I can put
Speaker 1: my ego aside and truly believe that everybody else there
Speaker 1: might just be able to add something that I haven't
Speaker 1: thought of, something that is going to make this initial
Speaker 1: idea even more excellent, then that's only going to make
Speaker 1: the final output, final product, whatever it is we're making
Speaker 1: TV show book, it's going to make the final thing
Speaker 1: even better. And I reckon that was mostly true. If
Speaker 1: there's one hundred and twenty eight or so pages in
Speaker 1: the book, there's probably three illustrations where I was really
Speaker 1: particular and said, you know, I love what you've gone
Speaker 1: with this, but actually for this one, just this one,
Speaker 1: I think it just needs to be this simple. It
Speaker 1: can't be any And that was only ever it. I
Speaker 1: just didn't want anything to confuse those really powerful punching
Speaker 1: moments in the book. And Cam was super cool about it,
Speaker 1: because he's an excellent collaborator as well. That was also
Speaker 1: quite useful. But everything that Cam brought to the table
Speaker 1: only made this book more incredible. And that's the point
Speaker 1: of a great collaboration, isn't it. By adding two people's
Speaker 1: ideas together, you end up with even better ideas than
Speaker 1: just the two of them could have ever come up with.
Speaker 1: You're creating something far more superior to what either of
Speaker 1: you could have achieved a loan. And it's totally okay
Speaker 1: if they're not all your ideas, all right, It's like
Speaker 1: when we were making the news show the Best Droke wins,
Speaker 1: that's it. I don't care who says it, who writes
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter best Droke wins. That's always for the
Speaker 1: best because if you're trusting other people on the team,
Speaker 1: you believe in their expertise, believe that they are wanting
Speaker 1: their final project to six it as well, then you
Speaker 1: know they're going to do their best. And just because
Speaker 1: you may not understand doesn't mean it's not incredible, because
Speaker 1: they might be giving you some sort of next level
Speaker 1: shit that no one's ever thought of, and if you
Speaker 1: can believe their expertise, it's incredibly rewarding for everybody involved.
Speaker 1: And that's there's a truly wonderful feeling as well of
Speaker 1: just letting go of that precise vision that I had
Speaker 1: in my mind. Sometimes now sometimes yeah, like Cam would
Speaker 1: bring me an idea something for then me to react
Speaker 1: back to, and we'll have a trusting space between us
Speaker 1: to go you know what, man, I think the original
Speaker 1: idea that you brought was actually more powerful here. And
Speaker 1: that's fine too, because it allowed us to explore other possibilities,
Speaker 1: and it's important to kind of see what both final
Speaker 1: pictures look like and then you can go actually know
Speaker 1: this is it, This is actually the one so I've
Speaker 1: got to take a quick break. But on the other
Speaker 1: side of this, I just I want to distill all
Speaker 1: those down into four really simple points and really one
Speaker 1: real main, main, main question that I want you to
Speaker 1: ask yourself, if you're ever collaborating with anybody, be right back.
Speaker 1: When I think about what I've learned about collaborating. Any
Speaker 1: TV show I may ever made was always a collaboration,
Speaker 1: sometimes with one hundred and fifteen other people. It was
Speaker 1: always more rewarding and always more fun when I thought
Speaker 1: about it as this is something we're all doing together,
Speaker 1: early on, before I got sober and when I was
Speaker 1: very at my own ass, if I ever thought about it,
Speaker 1: how can I make this make me look more good
Speaker 1: about me? It was always a punish and it was
Speaker 1: always hard, and it wasn't fun. But when I think
Speaker 1: about it in the context of how can all of
Speaker 1: us benefit from all of this, it's always better, always better,
Speaker 1: because then you're also thinking about it together. You're thinking, well,
Speaker 1: what is it we're trying to do with is what's
Speaker 1: the job that this thing does? What truly matters in
Speaker 1: any project, TV show, group holiday with a family with
Speaker 1: your friends, some real estate project, I don't know. Well,
Speaker 1: only really matters is what's the job this thing is
Speaker 1: here to do? In the instance of so what now
Speaker 1: what this book? It's supposed to be a tool. It's
Speaker 1: a resource that people can use when they're having a
Speaker 1: tough time. And our goal it's how can I make
Speaker 1: this book as useful as possible to as many people
Speaker 1: as possible, as valuable a tool for someone who's having
Speaker 1: a bad day. So when Cam and I were able
Speaker 1: to put all of our own ego aside, and it's
Speaker 1: not as easy for Cam to do, both of our
Speaker 1: work is completely aligning with the value and the job
Speaker 1: that this book is trying to do, the value it's
Speaker 1: trying to bring to people's lives. It made it super
Speaker 1: duper easy. So if you're working with somebody else right now,
Speaker 1: his four simple, simple, simple, simple, simple questions to ask
Speaker 1: around collaborating powerfully. The question number one, what's the ultimate
Speaker 1: value you want to bring through this project for anyone
Speaker 1: that's going to experience it or use it. Get really
Speaker 1: clear on that value. What is the thing that you
Speaker 1: need at the end. So if it's the family holiday,
Speaker 1: it's not I want to go on a holiday to
Speaker 1: the cold coast what do you really want out of
Speaker 1: a holiday? I want a time that my family will remember.
Speaker 1: I want to have memories that I can share with
Speaker 1: my family. Okay, great. The second thing, what can I
Speaker 1: give everybody else to react to? Don't expect people to
Speaker 1: come up with ideas out of thin air. If you
Speaker 1: offer a starting point, even a rough idea, just a
Speaker 1: simple sketch, that makes the collaborative process a lot easier
Speaker 1: for everybody. The third thing I would say is try
Speaker 1: to put your ego aside, Embrace the expertise of other people,
Speaker 1: Recognize that their contributions can make your ideas even better.
Speaker 1: Be open to other perspectives, trust their judgment in the
Speaker 1: areas of expertise they that are greater than yours, and
Speaker 1: just trust that they are into this thing succeeding as
Speaker 1: much as you are. And the fourth thing I would
Speaker 1: say is try to align on that shared purpose and
Speaker 1: that value. When everyone's focused on the benefit of the outcome,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter whose idea it was. It really doesn't.
Speaker 1: What matters is achieving the goal of the job that
Speaker 1: this thing is here to do. You want incredible memories
Speaker 1: with your kids, doesn't matter whose idea it was To
Speaker 1: go to work and wild they'll still be talking about
Speaker 1: everybody going down the big tube slide at someone's twenty first,
Speaker 1: And that's what you really want out of it, isn't it?
Speaker 1: The other thing it's just really incredible at working on
Speaker 1: this book is I got to work with Cam fucking Walkerman,
Speaker 1: the guys Wise Wise Wise. And the other night when
Speaker 1: we were on the cusp of sending out the first
Speaker 1: review copies to people, and I texted Cam when I said,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've done plenty of videos about this moment,
Speaker 1: and this moment is is my idea too fucking out? There?
Speaker 1: Is anybody going to get it? You know, this idea
Speaker 1: of a book where a glove is talking directly to
Speaker 1: the reader. And Cam wrote back to me those two
Speaker 1: questions have generally been the experience of my life, But
Speaker 1: sometimes I think the opposite questions are worth asking too.
Speaker 1: Question one is my idea too boring? And question two?
Speaker 1: Will anybody get it? So easily? It feels condescending. Now
Speaker 1: those two things hit me in the chest like a
Speaker 1: street fighter hadukin. But they're really really important. So you've
Speaker 1: got your four steps of collaborating really well, but maybe
Speaker 1: ask those ones is my idea too boring? Will anybody
Speaker 1: get it so easily that it feels condescending? Maybe ask
Speaker 1: those as well, so you can challenge you and your
Speaker 1: collaboration partners to really really swing for the fences. I
Speaker 1: hope this has brought you some value. I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed this today. I've really enjoyed talking about it because,
Speaker 1: you know, I was asked to reflect on what it
Speaker 1: was to collaborate with Cam and it was really freeing
Speaker 1: and really delightful watching what could be possible when I
Speaker 1: let go of ego and just trusted, trusted that both
Speaker 1: people's ideas would make this thing even greater. You can
Speaker 1: pre order your copy of the book right now if
Speaker 1: you like, and you'll find a link in the show notes.
Speaker 1: Thanks Adam bunch Of for making the show. Talked to
Speaker 1: you on Wednesday.