“When you develop creative capacity of your employees and leadership, you benefit across the board. They aren’t going to just solve problems right in front of them, they’re going to solve problems you don’t even know about.”
Noah Scalin is the founding partner of Another Limited Rebellion, an organization that uses artistic practices to cultivate meaningful growth and change in individuals, organizations, and communities. Noah and his team believe that creativity is innate in all of us. It’s a human trait we’re all born with, the distinction they make is thinking of it as a skill you can develop rather than a fixed-in-one-place talent. This talk was about the ROI of creativity and space pirates (you gotta get to the end for that convo!).
Creativity is a big buzz word.
It’s at the top of the list of ‘ideal attributes’ in job descriptions.
But what is it?
Why is it important?
And how do you harness it?
In this episode, we cover:
- What is the difference between creativity and innovation?
- Why it’s ridiculous to ask, ”What’s the ROI of creativity?” That’s like asking, ”What’s the ROI of electricity?”
- Where creativity sits now in the advent of gen AI tools.
- How creativity is like lifting weights
- Why the episode maybe should’ve been name “We need more skulls”
The big takeaway: Creativity is in you! Yes you! Even if you think you don’t have a creative bone in your body.
The key is tapping back into the innate creativity you had when you were a kid. Yes, it’s about hanging out with your inner child.
Action items:
- What’s one small thing you can do every day to practice your creativity? A lil sketch? Cooking? Haikus?
- How do you think creativity opens up capacity? When have you seen this to be true?
Listen anywhere podcasts roost (except Spotify).
Learn more about Another Limited Rebellion.
“The enemy of art is the absence of limitations” — Orson Welles
Your Brain on Art – Ivy Ross and Susan Magsamen
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain – Betty Edwards
Kirby Ferguson – Everything is a Remix
Matthew Inman – The Oatmeal on AI art
“The enemy of art is the absence of limitations” — Orson Welles
Scarcity Mindset – Carol Dweck
Subscribe for easy access to transcripts, show notes, our secret insider thoughts on the interviews… and the occasional goof reel.
Read the raw transcript:
[00:00:13] Anna: Welcome to Flying the Coop, a podcast about rethinking how business works and who it should work for.
[00:00:19] Janel: We are Janel and Anna, small business owners learning in public as we turn our company Strange Birds, into a worker owned co op. Today we are interviewing Noah Scalin, the founding partner of Another Limited Rebellion, an organization that uses artistic practices to cultivate meaningful growth and change in individuals, organizations and communities. Noah and his team believes that creativity is innate in all of us. It’s a human trait that we are all born with. The distinction that they make is thinking of it as a skill that you can develop in practice rather than a just fixed in one place talent.
[00:00:54] Anna: Noah is also known for his Skull a day project, creating over 100 different skulls from material ranging from paper, food, foliage, and more. We were connected to Noah through Haley boning, which seems to be a theme on this show.
This is a second guess that Hayley was like, you should talk to them. We’re so happy to talk to him about creativity and maybe some space pirates. We’ll see where this interview goes.
So to get into it, Noah, we’re going to start off big. How do you define creativity?
[00:01:26] Noah: Oh, yeah, start with the easy question.
[00:01:28] Anna: Easy question.
[00:01:29] Noah: Yeah, that’s my creativity.
I mean, there’s a lot of ways people talk about it. I think of it as sort of having to do with human expression and how we sort of solve problems.
So I don’t, I guess I don’t have a great simple explanation for it. When I speak in the sort of corporate consulting work I do, which is the company you’re mentioning, I talk about creativity as sort of like the fertile soil that allows us to turn ideas into actual tangible things in the world, which is a little bit of a different way to think of it. But I like using metaphor and I think it helps people sort of think about like, you know, everybody has ideas, but they don’t all become things. And so there’s some kind of action that happens in there. So it’s not just about ideas, it’s about something more than that. And I think that’s where, like creativity is this sort of unique human trait where we can sort of see things and put things together in new ways that create things that haven’t existed before in, in some way. And that also it’s hard because it sort of flows into the innovation space. So again, in the corporate space, I. What’s hard is as a fine artist, I think about it a little differently. So there’s sort of different ways to approach it. But as a consultant that’s sort of how I go down that path. And I really now should write down a very clear definition that I can just read to people because you got me.
[00:02:47] Anna: Well, now I want to know how you think about it as a fine artist.
[00:02:51] Noah: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s that where I started at, which is like that expression piece. Because I think of like creativity as sort of this energy within me that. That is sort of the stuff that allows me to process everything that I’m taking in and then turning it into something else that I’m outputting. And so especially because there’s so much that happens in our. And I literally just was talking to the people who wrote about like the science of creativity and so thinking a lot about that aspect of like what happens in human brains and physical. These are, you know, this is a physical thing, right. Versus what’s happening technologically. You know, where things are happening in a computer. We’re not like that. And so we have this subconscious that we can’t really see what’s happening. Right. This forebrain where we’re picturing things and we’re investigating, you know, like, oh, if I do this, that, that I’m thinking about this. But then there’s something that happens that we can’t investigate. It just happens and it kind of just pops forward. And so that is sort of what I’m thinking about is that like, you know, creativity is. It is mysterious in that way. That is why my work exists, essentially because I think it’s something that people do get a little like, oh, it’s so abstract and confusing and it happens. And when I use that metaphor about dirt, that’s really what that is like when you grow things and you put the seed in the soil, it’s invisible to you. What’s happening down there. Like, you know, we’ve all seen those little time lapse things where like something’s going on down there. Right. But we can’t normally. Right. So it’s just like a mystery. But then if you do things right, something pops up out of it and it’s exactly like that.
I don’t know if that was helpful or if I actually made things more confusing.
[00:04:26] Janel: It is like, I want to say poetic stuff. Like creativity is an act of genesis and it’s like the magic of transformation and something. You’re bringing out the beat poetry.
So you mentioned like the word innovation, which is maybe more often the thing that businesses tend to angle for. Do you see a distinction between those two things?
[00:04:47] Noah: Yeah, absolutely. And I think because, you know, when we get into the corporate space, not just corporate, but you know, nonprofit, organizational government, innovation is a fairly accepted like across the board necessity. And most organizations we work with prioritize it everywhere in the world, regardless of industry. And I think, you know, people can get behind it. But, but that’s that linear piece of like we do this and we get this and this is going to get us more money or more people or more success or whatever it is. And so innovations sort of fall in that space of like the tangible thing, but it’s the creativity that allows you to get to that thing. And so it is more of this, the connective tissue, right? That’s like we have ideas, we have innovations, but what’s between those two things and what often happens in the business space is they say they want innovation, it’s a priority and it is. Because how are you going to deal with the next crazy thing that happens that we are not prepared for?
But how do you get from asking everybody to brainstorm to that actually manifesting? And so there’s some structural ways that people manifest innovation. There’s things like people use tools like design thinking, but, but the reality is that that’s more about like product development tools, whereas the human development is what we were talking about. And so really like developing people’s creative capacities. And you said at the beginning we talk about this idea of creativity as a human trait, which there’s data for and there’s science for, but there’s also just history. You can look at cave paintings and you can see human creativity being expressed 50,000 years ago. And that actually drew about the oldest human created art that was even much, much older than that. And so knowing that we, we’re creative beings and this is something we do.
But what happened between then and now is this change around prioritization, right, where we said the arts are optional, the arts are for elite people, the ops arts are special in some way that only people who have some magical talent can utilize. And, and maybe it’s not for you. And so we’re living in the result of that sort of shift and it’s detrimental. So I feel like I’ve gone off on a tangent here. Am I still answering your question?
[00:06:59] Anna: I actually wanted you to talk a little bit more about what shift do you mean of it being like this creativity as it’s only for the select few?
Because how you approach creativity, it’s something that’s within all of us and can be trained.
Right? So, so how is that shift become detrimental? And what, what are things that we can do to bring us back to. It’s within all of us. We just need space to let our little plant grow in the soil.
[00:07:28] Noah: Yeah, well, well, so it’s interesting. Again, I literally just talked to. So I should shout them out. Ivy Ross and Susan Magsamon, who wrote your brain on art. Did I get the title right? Oh, my gosh. Like, that’s my. That’s my brain. Edit that out. If I said the wrong title, what is it called? I literally.
They talk about how in like. Like indigenous populations, indigenous societies, like, there is no art because art is just what you do and live. Like, it isn’t a separate concept, it’s just an expression. And every culture creates art. They make pottery, they make clothing, they make expressions of themselves this way. But they don’t think of it as other. It’s just. It is what humans do. And so this has been around a long time is what I’m saying. Like, this transformation happened a while back and it has to do with a lot of, you know, cultural shifts that happened around Industrial revolution, but also before that. And, you know, there’s tons and tons of reasons why this has shifted.
But what’s interesting is to. For me to be. My background is as an artist, not as a business person.
So to go into these very corporate spaces and. And see people struggling to solve problems.
And for me to realize that, like, I was lucky as an artist, I was trained with a set of skills for problem solving. And so that really is the sort of seed of what our work is about. And you know, and credit to my sister because she really is the one who saw me kind of doing this. I kind of fell into this work because I had made the skull a day project, which by the way, was 365 skulls, so. Well, more than 100.
And.
But though that project had led me to these random opportunities to like, talk to business people where I was like, I don’t know why I’m doing this, but okay, I’ll do it. And then as I was listening to the people who were contextualizing it, I was like, oh, wow, right? Like, I don’t have a perspective of this because as an artist, I just know that this is. You just do you make stuff. And you know, but I. But. But my story, I share them, is about my own experience of being stuck and getting out of a creative rut and what I had to learn to discover how creativity worked and where it came from. So to be able to share that then with people who are in spaces that are non traditionally Creative and are being told, be innovators.
So then it’s like, how do we give them this information that they have this capacity?
And part of it is helping people recognize that, like, this is in you. And the evidence is, look at the children around you, the children in your lives, and remember that you were a child. Too simple, right? You know, kids are creative. You see them being creative. That was you. So how do you tap back into that? And. And there’s just so much working against it because culturally, societally, we’ve just said it’s. It’s, you know, unless you’re lucky. My parents are both artists. I’m lucky. So I. There was no, you know, if I. I wanted to study art, I can study art. I can do art jobs, like. But that’s rare.
And the.
The way I often talk about it is. Do you know the book Drawing on the Right side of the Brain rings a bell? It’s a classic book about how to draw. Amazing. If anybody wants to learn to draw as an adult and is struggling, that book and the work in it is amazing, fundamental. But what she talks about in the introduction, which I’ll never forget, was, was that she’s like, if you taught reading the way you teach art currently, you would hand a child a book and say, does this interest you? No. Never mind then. And we would never do that. We know that you need to read.
And so what I’d say is you aren’t in English class to become an author, and so you aren’t an art class to become an artist.
But.
Right. What happens is that that’s how it gets pitched to people is like, well, but what you were being taught was a set of, you know, developing this capacity you already have and a set of skills that are extremely useful. And that’s what we found in our work was like, this is what people are craving for, you know, just. Just absolutely desperately needing. And so to be able to help people see that, like, they’ve got that capacity, and then they can grow it easily with just practice.
That’s why that’s our model is creativity is a practice at the company because it’s just a simple concept and people get it.
But it’s like anything. Like, you know, you want to be good at something, you got to actually work at it. And so there is that component to it.
But we do our best to lower the barrier to entry and really be like, let’s do really, really small little things that allow you access this and discover what you could do.
[00:12:01] Janel: Okay, so I’ve got A tough one that’s kind of been rattling around in my head.
I, like, I’m sold on the value of creativity as, like a deeply human thing.
The gas in the tank, the fertility in the soil, whatever you want to call it, that allows us to transform in ways that are uniquely human. Great.
You have to go and make the business case to enterprises to invest in this. And I know that you just gave a talk on the ROI of creativity. I’m super curious to hear more about that. And I’m also cautious about reducing creativity just to what it equates to on the bottom line. I’d be so curious to hear more.
[00:12:43] Noah: Right. So you’re the opposite of my corporate clients, right? Because you’re like, let’s not reduce this to that. They’re like, give us the dollar amount of exactly how much extra we’re going to get for investing in it. Right.
So to be clear, right. As an artist, I have never encountered the term ROI before getting into this world. Right. It’s just no one asked me what the return on investment is for what I do.
So I had to learn this term. And it came up because people would ask me that when we went to do work with him, just like you’re asking, like, how do you. How do you define this for us? And so we developed a talk around this that I’ve been giving a lot. And then we actually just did the Ry of Creativity summit where we had many speakers come, and every one of them, we asked this question of. And we asked this question because it’s a curious thing to hear how everybody gets to it. But the way that we really talk about it is like, I try to actually unask the question, if that makes sense. Like, I basically say, I posit this as the question, what’s the ROI of creativity? @ the beginning of my talk, and by the end of my talk, I’m like, can we look at this question again and realize how ridiculous.
Ridiculous it is to ask at all?
And so my corollary is like, what’s the ROI of electricity?
I mean, you could factor it in, you could figure it out. You could do the math. But what company would waste their time being like, let’s prove that electricity is valuable in our organization.
You literally can’t get your work done. It should be the same thing. And so that’s really what we want people to leave with is like, instead of asking that question, ask a different question, which is like, what happens if you don’t have the creativity you need in your organization? And then how will you get the creativity you need. And that’s why I like other people answering it for us because they really had some great perspectives on how to talk about it. But in the end like it is just so foundational in this way that, that it is a mistake to treat it as. And, and this is something that happened to me where people talk about it as this sort of bonus as the like frosting on top of the cake and it, and it’s like no, it’s an ingredient in the cake that if you don’t have the cake doesn’t exist. And so taking that shift with, again with a different metaphor but taking that shift to get people to understand that like the approach to it is wrong.
And that’s, and that’s culturally a thing that, because we do right. We just treat it that way. It’s like design is like some kind of extra and that as if it weren’t part of this internal, you know, thing. So we very often are talking about process over product in our work. Like that’s how we approach it. So really say this isn’t about your product, it’s about how you get there. What’s, what happens along the way.
[00:15:16] Anna: So I’m, we can’t talk about, I feel like we can’t talk about creativity without talking about AI right now.
And I view AI as like the polar opposite of creativity.
How are conversations. I’m curious how conversations with enterprise corporate world is shifting when they think about creativity put. I, I feel like it’s put against AI.
Right. Well AI can create images now and you’re like cool, but how, how are you asking it? Right. So.
[00:15:56] Noah: Right.
[00:15:57] Anna: How with the trend toward automation.
[00:16:01] Noah: Yeah.
[00:16:01] Anna: Where does creativity sit now?
[00:16:03] Noah: Yeah.
[00:16:03] Anna: In your opinion?
[00:16:04] Noah: Well, so again having just done the ROI of creativity sub and asked.
We had seven different people that were guests this exact question. Like how is your just thinking shift now that gen AI tools are sort of in the public’s hands and being used all the time. And it’s great because there was a range of answers and they, I think the consensus which is where I sort of come at it is that what look this is, it’s technology. There’s always going to be a new thing. It’s always going to be hyped. When it comes out as, as the, you know, the solution to everything, it will calm down and we’ll see what it’s really for.
And it’s not for what I think consumer level people are encountering which is like it can make songs and pictures. Yeah. But they’re garbage and if you wait a year, anything you look at, you’ll be like, this was so obviously AI, like what? And then super hyper realistic video that’s going to confuse everyone. Like, that’s it is that just exists. That’s what it is. It’s not really for that. It’s. It’s really for behind the scenes getting stuff done more efficiently. Like you said, like, getting, you know, it makes making things more efficient. That’s great. There’s tons of stuff I don’t want to do. I would love for technology to do for me. What I don’t want to do is make creative work for me. Because that’s actually the fun part of my job. Why would I, why would I farm that out? Nor do we want it to, because it’s not human. So they have no human expression or emotion to share. They can mimic it, but it has no soul. So there is something deeply, fundamentally missing. If. If that’s what you want from it, which I don’t think people really do. Like, I think you don’t really want to read books written by AI. They’re not going to be good. They’re going to be like just words that have been strung together. Look, AI, in reality, if you take away the hype, all it’s doing is an aggregate machine. It’s just taking everything that’s out there and then spitting out the most average version of it for you. That can be useful if you need a very average written press release or, you know, just from the context about how I think about it, or quiz questions for my students. Like, great, listen to this podcast and write some questions for me. Good job, AI. Thank you.
But it isn’t thinking. And I think that’s what’s hard for people, is that it’s presented as a thinking thing. This is not. This is an actual artificial intelligence. This is large language models which are essentially only just looking at everything that exists and then guessing the next logical thing. Like, I think people, it’s just the hype is so big and it’s so pressured on everyone to like respond to this because it’s been inserted into everything you use now. I think that’s what’s so hard, is it’s like you’re going, I guess I’m supposed to use this because now it’s default settings and every company is the same way. They’re telling employees, like, you have to use this because we heard it’s going to be efficient, but the data hasn’t shown that yet. Like, when you actually look at the studies, it’s not necessarily saving people time or money. It’s it. So, you know, I think again, we’re just. It’s so new, it’s so overwhelming. I think turn off the fear component of it. Because I think when you respond out of fear, right, the choice you are making aren’t necessarily the best for you. And so how do we sort of look back? And so one of our speakers, Kirby Ferguson, who, if you’re not familiar with is excellent video essayist, he made a great series called Everything is a Remix.
And his more recent version of it includes Talk about AI and then he even more recently made a video called Infinite Remix, which was really directly about this question. And what I love is that he talks about it in a very sane, very practical way as this is a tool. You can use this tool to do things you might not have been able to do otherwise. It is not thinking, it is not creative, it is not human. And so everybody’s response essentially is like, let’s emphasize the human right now. What do we do? What’s unique to us and creativity is unique to us. It is not actually something that AI does. It doesn’t. It’s not creative. It kind of goes through the motions of some creativity in terms of doing some fundamental aspects of like taking existing things, sampling it, remixing it, outputting it, but there’s nothing behind it. There’s no person there.
And I think that’s what’s the opportunity now as creative people, is to talk about that and emphasize that folks who are confused about what exactly this moment is about. But look, there are people who just need a piece of very generic, crappy art to like, fill a space.
I get why they’re going to use that. And they would have used crappy stock art instead. And like, honestly, people whose livelihood were based on making crappy stock art are going to have to find a different livelihood like there. That does change. But people whose job was to, like, think deeply about things and come up with unique creative solutions, that’s not going away.
[00:20:34] Janel: You’ve made me think about a recent comic strip from the Oatmeal, Matthew Inman. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but he did. He put one out about AI that is quite extraordinary.
[00:20:44] Noah: I thought that was really good.
[00:20:46] Janel: It’s beautiful. We’ll put all this in the show notes for sure.
And I have a theory that popped into my brain kind of fusing that with what you said earlier about like, historically the place of art in society and how we’ve kind of like lost touch with our own creativity.
My theory that I’m born of a genesis just now so unfounded.
[00:21:05] Noah: This is creativity in action, folks.
[00:21:07] Janel: Right here we are right now. We’re doing it live.
Maybe we, as a general, we think that AI art is good and acceptable because we’ve lost touch with our own creativity, because we have not gone through the process of creation and like, observed that genesis within ourselves and know the value of. Of doing something slowly and putting the work and intention into it. And like, if. If we ourselves have not done those things, then it. My theory is that it’s much harder to observe the value of that in. In others expressions of creativity. And then when you see an AI output, you’re like, yeah, that’s pretty much it, you know, because we haven’t gone through it ourselves. And so maybe there’s. There’s something there of why we as a society haven’t developed an eye for, like, why this stuff sucks because we’ve lost touch with it within ourselves.
[00:21:58] Noah: Yeah, yeah, I see that. I, I think, I think part of it too, especially with the visual art component, right, Is that a lot of people are daunted by drawing, by making images, and they think that good image making is realistic image making. That, that is, you know, the goal is to be able to draw realistically, photorealistically.
And so when you have stopped your art education in elementary or middle school, you draw like you did in elementary, middle school for the rest of your life. Like, you don’t practice it, you don’t get better at it. And so then you go, I’m a terrible artist because I can’t draw, which is not true, obviously. But then when you encounter a machine that can, you go, I want a picture of this, that, the other, and it makes it. And you’re like, oh my gosh, I could never draw that. And it’s helped me express something in my head. And yeah, that’s good. I get that. Like, in terms of you helping get, get you get something out of you that you feel like, trapped because you don’t have the control to make that happen and you didn’t practice it. So this, there’s a benefit there. I can see that. Like, you made a thing that you didn’t had in your head, and now it exists, but because it’s not your, your expression of it, it doesn’t have your hand.
There’s something lacking there. But it doesn’t mean like as a prototype machine or help you conceptualize.
That’s. I could see that use. But as. But then present that as fine art and be like, this is my artwork.
That’s a different thing. And again, it’s just different goals. You know, I think in the like, the reason to make your own art and physically do stuff is because of what it does to you. Like, like helps you emotionally, mentally, physically. It’s a physical action.
Even if you’re using computer, you’re still, you know, interfacing with your physical body. But when you type in something and then let it do it, like you don’t participate in that process.
And so it’s just a different thing. I think, I think it’s just hard because its output is, you know, nice enough looking artwork that people who have been told they’re not good at art are like, well now I can do this. And I’m like, I get it.
[00:24:05] Anna: Yeah, yeah.
So I was wondering going back to the, the, the summit, the ROI of Creativity Summit. I thought the tagline personally was really interesting, right of it was specifically unlocking human capacity in the age of AI. And I wanted to ask you, when we’re thinking about the business world, right? What, what. Why is it capacity and not creativity? Why is it not unlocking human creativity? It’s unlocking human capacity. I just, we’re word people. So. Yeah, why?
[00:24:39] Noah: I would love to wrote the tagline so I would have to default to her to tell you the exact reason. But I do think, you know, we wrote that and we did this summit specifically with, you know, business clients in mind. And I think what we’re trying to help them understand is that creativity, as I was saying, was like not the special sauce that you dip, you know, put on top, but it’s, it’s this inherent ability within each individual in an organization. So that’s what we talk about, capacity. Because I think it’s really about like saying that like when you develop the creative capacity of your employees and your leadership yourself, you benefit across the board. And it’s a much bigger benefit than a one to one relationship of like, do this, get that, I add this, I get 10% more, I made more money. It’s just not that. Because when people are approaching your work with a different mindset, with new neural pathways because they engage in creative activities, then they will find new solutions you didn’t even know could have existed. They won’t just solve the problems that are right in front of them. They’re going to solve other problems you didn’t even know about and they’re going to give you more and it’s so much exponentially greater. So I Think helping them get that headspace around, does that make sense?
[00:25:45] Anna: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I think it reminds me of the times. So I, I do enjoy creative writing.
However, most of the output that we do at Strange Birds is writing. So it’s really hard for me to access more writing when I’m not working. But I notice that my work and business suffers immensely when I don’t do any creative work outside of it. So when I am specifically not doing a creative act outside of work, I am slower. Like, if we want to measure creativity, it is phenomenal how much slower I am in doing my job. When I am not being creative outside of my job. It is like a train, like an old coal train chugging along versus like a high speed train. High speed train where you can get there in an hour.
Super different.
[00:26:40] Noah: Yes.
I was just thinking about how many metaphors we’re using. I love it.
[00:26:44] Anna: So many metaphors. Are we all creatives? What?
[00:26:47] Noah: Let’s give you another metaphor. This time it’s trains. Okay, so.
So when I got out of college, I worked in this graphic design field doing, you know, illustration, marketing, branding, all this stuff, and work for other people and then work for myself. And it was after a dozen years working professionally as a creative that I burned out. And it was partially to what you’re describing, which is I wasn’t making anything for myself. I was just working for clients. It was all about deadlines and what they. Their needs were. And I had a great design mindset about, like, tell me your needs. Who’s the audience? You know, let me solve your problem. And it’s fun because it’s problem solving, but as a creative being, it wasn’t satisfying me. And so then when I did the Skull a Day project, that was my attempt to like get myself doing for myself again. And so exactly to your point, making skulls every day for, for myself became a thing that transformed how I worked. And so then all my work got better and I, and I got more opportunities and things became different. And it was exactly to your point. Like, I needed to do it for myself.
And another metaphor I’ll use for people is, is this idea of like imagining Olympic athletes and level, you know, that they don’t stop practicing what they do once they get to that level. They’re not like, now I’m great at lifting weights, so I’m done lifting weights. Like, no. Or swim in laps. I don’t have to swim any more laps because I’m the best at it. We never would think that. But I think with creative folks, there’s a tendency to be like, you got it. So now just output, output, output forever. And of course, you’re going to burn out. And so to recognize that this isn’t something that is just sort of like, again, to that original concept. It’s not just like an innate thing where you’re talented or you’re not, and if you’re talented, then you’ve got this much talent forever, and you can always produce at this level. Whereas it’s like, no, this is just a capacity we have, and we can feed it and we can give it the. Nurture it in this way that allow us to do more, or we can just use it up and deplete that soil, you know, and just, you know, it doesn’t work anymore. You can’t grow any more things. So thinking of it that way, when I talk to the folks in the corporate space, their experience is like being told, you see that Olympic stage where that guy’s lifting that heavyweight? Now it’s your turn to get up there and lift that weight. And. And you’re like, but I’ve never lifted a weight before. And they’re like, yeah, well, sorry. Like, that’s your job today, right? Is that they’re being told you’ve got to be creative on the spot, solve these massive problems. And I’m like, let them go to the gym first. Like, let’s do some workouts. Like, let’s. Let’s develop your muscles so that you can lift the weights. And they get it. And they’re like, right. They get the gym metaphor. So it’s like, whatever the one you need to say. Look.
[00:29:19] Janel: You use the right metaphor. Ana and I literally send each other, like, sweaty photos after the gym. Like, we’re on this wavelength.
[00:29:26] Noah: I’m glad it makes sense because I don’t go to the gym, so I always am like, is this metaphor making sense? Because I’m making up this idea?
[00:29:31] Anna: No, it’s making a lot of sense. I do have to say sweaty photos that are, like, categorically unflattering, where we, like, just finished, and we’re like, did it? Yeah.
[00:29:41] Janel: Oh, that’s the rule. It has to be. Yeah, kind of.
[00:29:45] Anna: There’s no, like, posing, like, kissy fish lips. It’s like I’m sweating from underneath the.
[00:29:51] Janel: Sweat dripping down my chin. Like, yeah, I did it.
[00:29:54] Noah: I love it.
[00:29:54] Anna: Yeah.
[00:29:55] Noah: Respect the. Respect the hustle.
[00:29:57] Janel: Right?
Okay, so a bunch of what you just said kind of, I think, segues into a thing. I wanted to wrap with you.
[00:30:07] Noah: Talk.
[00:30:07] Janel: You mentioned The Skull A Day project, which I really freaking love. And one of the things that I think is extra cool about it is that it reminds me of a quote of mine that’s been, like, a favorite of mine forever. I’ve said of mine. I did not make up this quote. I forget who said it. I’ll put in the show notes.
That is the absence of limitations is the enemy of creativity. And it kind of felt like the Skull A Day.
[00:30:27] Noah: Yeah, right.
[00:30:28] Janel: The Skull A Day project is all about that, like, put a severe box around yourself and see what you can do within that box. And oftentimes really cool stuff comes out of it. Okay, so in the age of AI, I think a lot of creatives, people in creative roles have started to feel like they are within a little bit of a box. Like the walls are closing in on them, and they’re not sure what to do with that perceived smaller space. Do you have any words of wisdom for people who find themselves in that position?
[00:30:58] Noah: Yeah. So, I mean, you’ve touched on one of the big topics that I talk to the corporate folks about, because no one has really an opportunity to work without limitations. If you’re working in any professional capacity.
You know, nobody’s got unlimited budget, unlimited time, unlimited freedom. And when we do encounter some equivalent of that, where you’re like, here’s a blank page. Write anything you want. Hey, that short story, anything at all. Here’s a blank screen start.
It’s not motivating. It’s. It’s so debilitating. You’re just like, I don’t know where I. What’s the right perfect work? And then you can’t do it. And so the. What I discovered with Skull A Day and what we teach other people is really that the limitations are your friends and that you should embrace them. And that’s hard. I get it. And if you feel like you’re boxed in, it’s gonna be very frustrating. But what’s funny is often I’ll ask people like, hey, what’s creativity? Like you asked me? And they’ll say, getting out of the box. And I’m like, the irony here is I’m gonna tell you about getting in the box, which is so funny, right? Because it’s just the. And afterwards, if they’ll be like, get out of the box. I’m like, I just told you the exact opposite. Get it? Get up in that box. Because in fact. Right. That’s what motivates us to solve problems, is pushing against something. Nothing. No walls, no limitations. Go. No going nowhere. The walls allows you to go places. The trick, though, this is what I tell them is, is finding the openings, right? So when you are surrounded by those walls, where is the door, where’s the window? Where’s the place that you can go places? Because you’ve now got this pressure. And so for me, it’s about pressure. Like, how much pressure will cause you to act too much. I get it. That shuts you down, too. And people get overwhelmed. Not enough. Same thing. So finding the right amount. And so what I do now is I identify the limitations that I’m presented in the opportunities I’m given, and then I add more as needed until I get to the point at which now action is happening, and I’m coming up with ideas and solutions. And so I think it’s really like a. If for folks that are experiencing it currently and are like, there’s nothing but walls, check to see that you’re not just ramming your head into the wall, because guaranteed, that’s going to use up your energy and your capacity for creativity. Because you’re just going to be like, I don’t. I got nothing. Because all I’m doing is fighting this new rule, this new law, this new limitation that got put on my plate instead of saying, okay, right? This is what it is. We got this one.
Now what? How do we turn it around? How do we use that to go places? And when you look at some of the biggest innovations and most interesting solutions and creative results, it came from that place. Someone was like, this is what I. All I had to work with. I only had this material. So I’m. Instead of being like, if only I could get past this and find some other materials. They went, well, then that’s what I’m making out of. And then suddenly they made something new, and everyone was like, wow, who knew you could do that?
That’s where really exciting stuff happens. But it takes a mindset shift, and I think that’s hard when again, it’s sort of the scarcity mindset, the fear mindset, you know, the Carol Dweck stuff around this, like, is basically that, which is like, when you’re in that place, there’s no. You don’t see any opportunities and nothing can happen. So it is. How do you sort of give yourself that chance to see opportunities? And that’s also why with our company, what we do is we do this thing called a creative sprint, which is essentially just teaching people to practice creativity with very small activities using prompts. Not AI prompts, but prompts that are like, hey, something so that your page is in blank, right? So that if I said your short story is about this, you can only use six words, suddenly you’re like, okay, now I got a limitation, right? So that allows people to get started because then their brains start functioning. So showing people through little activities like that little practices, the little gym thing, going each day, practicing, getting better, then allows you to have the big solutions for the big problem. So that when you are like, oh, no, I’ve been handed this new world where AI has taken away this type of work that I used to do, you’re going to find those answers. You’re going to see the opportunities that are in front of you because you’ve been practicing your ability to do that.
[00:34:59] Anna: I wonder just to kind of pull that. Go back to what you said when you were doing graphic design and illustration and you burn out after 12 years because you weren’t doing any creative work for yourself.
And then I’m thinking about, you know, we’re on LinkedIn. We have to be on LinkedIn because work and I follow a lot of copywriters because I was very much in the copywriting world for a while and the number one conversation has been like, oh, EM dashes.
AI. I’m like, no one cares about. I don’t care about it. I’m gonna use EM dashes when I want to use EM dashes. I love an EM dash, but I feel like it’s a conversation that it’s like butting your head against the wall versus finding the window. And I think going back again to me talking about the times where I really struggle with work is when I’m not doing creative practices outside of work.
Perhaps this is everyone’s Noah at 12 years burnout moment, right? Where you realize, I need 365 days of skulls.
And maybe this is if you’re a professional creative and struggling with the advent of AI. It’s all of our wake ups of like, we need some skulls.
Like, we need to remind ourselves not just what the client needs and a target audience and all of these constraints of work, but us, our creative practice. So that’s my big takeaway from this. I don’t know if that’s a good summary or not, but that’s what I’m holding in my heart going forward.
[00:36:36] Janel: I think there’s the episode title. We need some Skulls.
[00:36:39] Noah: We Need Some Skulls.
[00:36:43] Anna: Can it be the episode title?
[00:36:44] Janel: I don’t see why not.
This was freaking amazing. But I would be remiss if I did not ask you while this thing was still on about the League of Space Pirates.
[00:36:56] Noah: Yes. What do you want to know?
[00:36:59] Janel: Why is it so awesome? Like, I put on your band camp.
[00:37:02] Noah: And.
[00:37:04] Janel: I put on the bandcamp in the background and then it just like kept on repeating itself and I like kind of didn’t notice because, I mean, these are bops.
[00:37:11] Noah: Oh, yay. So glad to hear that. And we just recorded our new album. We’re in the mixing stages. And those new tracks, I can’t wait for people to hear them. They’re so good. We played them live the other day. Yeah. So League of Space Pirates is my 20 plus year old collaborative art, science fiction universe band thing.
It started as a phrase.
It started because I was trying to decide on a pair of shoes to buy and I was like, which pair of shoes should I buy? And I said, well then what. What reasoning do I have to buy one over the other? And it was like, oh, which one is more Space pirate? That was my decision. I was like, that, that’s the answer. So then that, that turned into, okay, I’m make a League of Space Pirates, like concept movie or something like idea. And so that first iteration was a sticker. So, you know, it went from being a sticker to a theoretical band, to band that existed in real life, to a massive complicated universe with a big backstory that many, many authors have worked on. We released a book of short stories, we released albums, we have comic book records, we.
I’m working on a podcast right now. So it’s just the, like, I think that’s the creative, like, outlet that, you know, even though I do fine art as well, I also needed yet another thing beyond that because I.
Creativity, you know, I think again, we put everything in boxes in terms of like, you’re an artist, you’re this, you’re that, you’re a visual artist, you’re. But creative expression is what it is. And I like to do all creative expression. So I want to. I write and I. And I make art and I visual art and I dance and I. So who cares which one it is? So. But the problem is that if I’m focused on a visual art career, then I’m missing all this other stuff. So Space Pirates allows me to have more collaborative work. It has music, which I love, and singing and performing, which is not my favorite thing, but as a character I can do. But it’s just, you know, it’s like it just encompasses and I love science fiction and so it just allowed me to sort of have all my other interests go into this other bucket that doesn’t make any money and may never. And it doesn’t have to, you know, because that’s the hard thing, I think, as a creative professional is you got to make a living. And you can make it either by doing something else or doing creative work. And I’ve always wanted to make a living doing creative work. So I figured that out in a variety of ways.
But having that be a requirement, there’s just certain art that doesn’t make money. And you know, being in a. Being in a band when you’re not 20 years old and able to get in a van and tour is one of those, like, you’re just not going to be making money doing a band. So it’s got to be about something else. And I’ve been very lucky to have kind of collaborator collaborators who have come onto the project and been part of it for many, many, many years. And we, you know, once a week go to my basement that looks like a spaceship set and we, you know, rock out and then we go and, you know, play four shows a year.
And so we went to the studio, we recorded, does 10 new songs and we’re in the process of making an album. It’s just a fun process to have going on in the background. Like, oh, let’s come up with, you know, the tracking order now and let’s think about the album cover and let’s, you know, know that’s a fun thing for my brain to do.
To your, again, to your point about like the stuff you do outside.
And that also means that I don’t have to then wish that this came somehow from my other part of my life. That like, if I’m lacking that in my work life, I’m not like, ah, work. I’m just like, switch, switch, switch, go to this, go to this, go to this. And that’s what I like to do. I like to have lots of things to jump around to and sometimes it’s too many things, but. But I thrive on a lot, so I do better. I’m not good if I’ve got only one thing going on. I kind of.
The battery sort of drains out. But if I’ve got a lot going on, then I’m good.
[00:40:47] Janel: You should play one of your four shows a year in Barcelona. I’ll help you find a venue.
[00:40:50] Noah: Oh yeah, that’s where I am.
[00:40:53] Janel: I don’t know if you had that context.
[00:40:54] Noah: Oh, I did not understand, but I was like, sure, why not?
[00:40:56] Janel: Yeah, sure, Barcelona. I like Barcelona.
[00:40:58] Noah: I’ve never been. So you want to bring seven band members and all our gear out there. Let’s do it.
[00:41:03] Janel: Yeah, no sweat.
Flying the coop is Brought to you by Strange Birds, a strategic messaging co op for businesses who care loudly. From websites to onboarding flows, launches to long term strategy. If you want your brand offers and experience to tell the same story, we can help. Find us at Strangebirds Land.