Nir Bashan  0:01  
So what I think is if we are and embrace creativity as a people, as a society, we will uplift the standard of living around the world far more dramatically than what we have done now. And the result was just a way better life. I mean, I'm being a little selfish, to be honest with you. I mean, I want better things, right? I want a better design microphone, and, you know, a better computer, you know, experience on this chat thing, and so on and so forth. And in those types of things are entirely within the possibility of humanity. But then we're not going to get there unless we get creative.

kevin edwards  0:38  
Uh, you are listening to the real leaders Podcast, where leaders keep it real. I'm your host, Kevin Edwards. And that viewpoint comes from near buchon, the author of the creative mindset, who believes more people need to unleash their creativity. In today's episode buchon, shares the opportunities that come from a positive mindset, how to activate dormant portions of your brain, and ways to see the world as it can be, not as it is. So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for the real near buchon. Enjoy.

Nir Bashan  1:27  
Yeah, let's go.

kevin edwards  1:29  
Let's just continue the conversation.

Nir Bashan  1:31  
I have a nice time. Hey, can people ask questions on here?

kevin edwards  1:33  
Yeah, people can ask questions. Ask questions. And people tune in to this live right now. Ask questions after the show. We're gonna have Nir on for probably nearly 510 minutes after the show. If you're interested in the creator mindset, you know, at all, please, by all means typing your questions in the chat box in the right, and I'll see it. And as near after the show now near were just telling me or you're a Trojan man, what's going on with that? Come on, right on.

Nir Bashan  1:59  
But, uh, so I went there for undergrad. I'm a music, a music program guy. So I did undergrad there and in music. And then I went to grad school at art center in Pasadena.

kevin edwards  2:15  
I've got a good friend out there in passing and it's a great city.

Nir Bashan  2:18  
Yeah, it's a nice place. You know, it's all of California right now, like on total lockdown. Right? So you, you you got to imagine, like, you know what it's like, I mean, I don't know, I'm in Florida. And so Florida has, you know, pretty much been been open and, you know, restaurants are open. And I mean, people are doing a good job with social distancing and wearing a mask and that sort of thing. But yeah, the state's really open, I just have no idea what it would be like to be in California, Pasadena or something like that right now.

kevin edwards  2:54  
Well, let me tell you, because that's where I live. It's very sunny outside, and I'm staying inside. And it's messing with my mind near I'd love to go take a little trip down the tunnel of Florida. But you know, near this seems to be like the topic everyone's talking about right now. It's like, I had a call with someone in Switzerland yesterday, like, oh, you're in California, like, Oh, what's that? Like? And I was like, Yeah, fine. It's, uh, yeah, everyone's going through a hard time. But, you know, what, what's it like in Florida right now? And you know, as a creator, you know, did? Did we miss something here? Was there a creative answer for this whole thing?

Nir Bashan  3:33  
I mean, you know, it's, it's, it's really interesting, I think that I think that, you know, thinking outside the box is really the type of thinking that you need right now to do well. And I know that that most of your audience is intrapreneurs, and people in business in the business community. And I just see so many opportunities around me right now that I've never seen before. And, you know, you get some people that are totally into it, right? They're like, yeah, there's opportunities, let's go out there and do it. But the vast majority of people that I see my clients, some, some of them are kind of down in the dumps about it, right? They're like, Oh, this sucks, you know, in the beginning of 2020, you know, we are projected to do this, in this quarter, we were projected to move this many units. And now the thing is, and this sucks, you know, and, you know, my reaction to that is you got to, you really have to be creative, especially in times of crisis in order to generate a solution right and and to generate a path forward, because it's really easy to fall into pessimism, you know, and it's really hard to embrace positivity as a solution. So you Listen, I see opportunities out there mainly.

kevin edwards  5:03  
So, you know, as a creator mindset, what advice then would you give, you know, the people making the laws, you know, people are frustrated right now, you know, the that some at some point you have to have some type of compromise for some people, and it's very difficult to have an answer that's going to Please, everybody, there never is one, right. So when you're making decisions, and you're in that position, how can you think differently and outside the box to come up with a solution that might not be, you know, in the doctrine with the one that you studied, but when you get into the position, the first place?

Nir Bashan  5:40  
Yeah, I mean, absolutely. So I talk a lot about the world's first creative human being right. Go with me here, right? It was a dark and stormy night, all right, 4050 60,000 years ago, right. And there was a beast attacking, you know, humans live till like, 2022, you were like a grandma or grandpa, right. And, you know, people didn't live long, there was beast all over earth that were felt far more powerful than we were. And so, you know, there was a certain, you know, animal attacking a woman named Harry at our first early woman, and she, you know, she was being attacked by this beast, and it was raining, and it was freezing, you know, she's in her cave. And she had, you know, like three things, three things to her name in our cave, right, she had a stick, and a little berry picker. And the stick would nothing ever other than, you know, walking stick or whatever. And then the berry picker with nothing ever, but you know, something to kind of pick berries off of off of bushes or whatnot. And so she had the world's first creative idea, she decided to take the berry picker and put it on the end of the stick, and, you know, stave off the beets, and she literally saved her life, and creativity for me, since hair yet is part of our DNA, you know, I mean, it's just part of who we are as human being, it is as innate to us as breathing air and survival. And so when you say, Hey, you know, near how, how do we, you know, take a leap on some of these creative ideas, especially with what's going on today in the world. So the answer really, is that, because it is part of who we are, we need to start to realize that thinking with the other part of our mind, not the analytical, which is what all schools teach us and society and all that stuff. But literally tapping into creativity, in order to solve problems connects us to who we are. And it connects us to what we're doing in our product or service, or even in our careers. I don't believe in coincidence, right? I don't think that you're doing this, because you just kind of fell into it. I felt like you went to school, at not ASU at the other one at the better one better. And yeah. And you know, you, you graduated, and now you're doing this, you got the podcast stuff you got, you know, one of the most popular shows from my understanding, you know, in the rankings. And so there's a very, very good reason that you're doing what you're doing. And I believe that you are a little bit more in touch with that creative identity of who you are. And so when you're in touch with the creative identity of who you are, that thing that Harriet gave us, 50 60,000 years ago, making decisions based on that becomes really easy. Because it's in line with your brand. It's in line with your product or service. And it's in line with your market differentiation. It's literally who you are. So it doesn't become a moment of like overwhelming, you know, bravery or whatever. Oh, man, I, you know, we're gonna change your directions and my business. It's not about that. It's about rediscovering who you are and what you're doing, and then emanating that out to the customer,

kevin edwards  9:10  
you know, near I think you did a really good job of illustrating to people that just because your analytical side, and you're an adult now and you may have lost your creative mindset, you can still get that back. And there's ways to do that, whether it's flipping a page and looking at it differently, whether it's drawing a flower within the margins of the page, buying the flower, you know, when you're having the conversation, and just a constant reminder to think outside the box. So for people listening to this that have not had the opportunity to read the book, How can they place themselves back in the mindset of a creator?

Nir Bashan  9:52  
Definitely. So as children, we were all born creative, and then somewhere along the way, we lost it right? We went to business school Heaven forbid. And you know, we just got beat in the analytics, right? How to look at a spreadsheet, spreadsheet logic? What are the numbers and stuff like that. And so it's, it's prevalent, it's prevalent in business today. But it's a little bit, you know, a little bit too much. I actually do keynotes and workshops and stuff like that with finance people quite a bit, because I think they understand that the numbers don't tell you everything. And, and really, the numbers at best are a snapshot of the past, right? They're not, they're not the future, it's not what's happening, or what's going to happen. It's what happened already in at best, it gives you some kind of roadmap that you're operating by, you know, that's at best, something that happened some time ago. So there's got to be a different way, there's got to be a new way, one of the things that I recommend that people do to improve their creativity is to understand that we were all born creative. And that you need to sort of keep that creativity going by listening is a really good thing. It's something I talked about in the book, we don't listen enough. I mean, it's weird. We're on a podcast, right? And I'm talking a lot. But generally, I'm not the talker in the room that generally sit and listen. And when you listen to people, you learn a bunch of stuff, right? One, you learn what they're saying to you learn how they're saying it. And three, you learn a significant amount of subtext into what that person is saying, yet, we're so busy trying to, you know, talk and get our opinion heard, and our voice or whatever, that we lose a critical element of empathy, which is another creative tool to be able to listen in and really hear and understand how and why that particular person got to where they're going. Listen, you and I are both on endless zoom meetings, and go to and all that stuff all day. And, you know, those meetings are usually filled with, you know, people talking over each other and like, Oh, no, I have this great thing to say, you know, that kind of thing. And one thing your listeners can do now is, you know, you're listening to this, and then you're off to do more work is to start to listen, do that in your very next meeting, right, your very next meeting, sit there, introduce Hi, put yourself on mute for a while and really listen and try to hear some of those subtextual elements that are going on, they will spark creativity, no matter what

kevin edwards  12:41  
they're I think you had a lot of examples in this book about instances that were people thought out of the box that ended up being the reason of their survival, such as Apple, the company, with with Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, doing the one thing that no one thought he would do, reaching out to Bill Gates, and asking him to, you know, invest in Apple. And then you also send the book, you know, Bill Gates, having that creative mindset of, Oh, I need competition, this is going to be a good investment. You know, how can people think like that? How can they master a mindset of creativity versus the analytical.

Nir Bashan  13:27  
So it really starts with doing a fair amount of listening. The other thing I, I recommend in order to get that outside the box thinking right, where you're where you're coming up with solutions that aren't there before, is the power of positivity. We talked, we touched upon it a little bit earlier. But when you look at things in a positive way, in a creative way, the world is really a limitless environment for you to practice your product or service. When you look at things in a negative way, you've limited your option. It sounds so simple. And in, you know, in the book I talk about, it's got 92 tools on how to be more creative. And every single one of them is free, every single one of them, it doesn't cost a penny, right? It's not like go buy this piece of equipment or whatever. It's shifting your mindset. So if you shift your mindset from normal, at least normal for me, which is looking at a situation going, Oh crap, you know, what do we do? Instead of that, stop doing that timeout, and then catch yourself going to negative and then instead embrace the positive. So Oh, this happened. Now what can we do to solve it in a positive way? The English language I think I just I wrote it for you guys, for real leaders about how you know English is filled with more negative words and positive words is gravy, right? So for every like good or great, there's like 10 bad words, you know, bad, horrible, terrible, you know, all of these, you know, words, almost 10 times as many to describe something negatively than to describe something positively. And I did a little bit more research and I found that that exists in every language on Earth. All 127 languages on earth have better ways to describe negativity and the doldrums and in horrible parts of life than it does to describe the good things. And you as a business leader, you as a career person trying to get to the next level, you as a small business owner or mid cap or whatever, need to understand that framing the problem in the light of positivity will instantly give you creative solution instantly, because it taps into that creator mindset that all of us have deep within us that you know, we got from area back in the day. And it allows you to look at a problem as what it is, rather than adding all the crap the self doubt the you know, oh, man, I should have never hired that guy. And all of that stuff that comes with it. None of it helps. So the only thing that allowed you to solve problems creatively is to think about a problem positively. What's his name? Not. Steve Jobs did that. Exactly in this case, right. So for those unfamiliar with it, we talked about it in the book. But basically, Apple was in deep, deep poop, and needed money. And they were in the middle of a big lawsuit with Microsoft. For the operating system, you know, the way the trashcan looks, and the way the icons look on the desktop, and all that stuff. Apple felt that Microsoft stole it, okay, they would like a multi year lawsuit. And it was just draining the company of energy draining the company of money, again, negativity, it's just, it kills you. And so Steve Jobs had a thought that he was gonna go talk to Bill Gates and just ask him for a loan. And and all the lawyers were like, that is the stupidest thing you could possibly do. Like, why would you ever ever do something like that, and, you know, it's horrible and terrible. And they had 600 words to describe how bad it was. And what ended up happening was, you know, we don't really know because it's not, it wasn't a public meeting or whatever, we just know the results of it. But Bill Gates ended up bailing Apple out giving them a loan to keep the company going. And both of them had a creativity basis for that vision. Because they both were realizing Steve Jobs wanted to keep the company going. And Bill Gates knew that having Apple around made him a better company. And that's, you know, that's a really, really incredible thing. And so, when you think positively, you come up with ideas like that, you're like, you know what, he's gonna go for it. I think he'll go for it. Let's have a chat. Why not try write those ideas would

never come to you ever if you were thinking like the lawyers thinking, and I'm sorry for the lawyers listening. But if you were thinking in that sort of, you know, way, you would never be able to get positivity. Positivity tells you, yes, you can, yes, it's going to work. Yes, it's going to be great. negativity tells you don't even try, you're worthless. You don't even have a good idea. The company needs to, you know, fail. That's that's the difference in mentality.

kevin edwards  18:38  
It was a powerful case study, and I did a little more digging into it. And I realized that, you know, Jobs was a rebellion. He was a nonconformist, you know, when scoli came in from Pepsi, jobs started his own product team, the Macintosh team, right? He they had a pirate flag in their room saying, you know, it's better to be a pirate than to be in the Navy. That's how much of a rebel Steve Jobs was. He was like, go started NXT are next. And then when he came interim CEO, he also I don't know if you knew this, I don't think it was in the book. But he an anonymous shareholder, sold $1.5 million of shares of Apple wanting to drop the stock 12% and who was it? Steve Jobs. So you know, thinking outside the box is interesting, but how do leaders listening to this embrace a culture of creators?

Nir Bashan  19:38  
You know, it really starts with that creative identity starts with understanding the DNA of why you're doing what you're doing. I consulted a while ago the with a pizza, a very famous pizza brand, here in the US and, you know, I sat around and and, you know, for weeks, and they had all of The top three for consulting firms, right? you name them they've had, and they've looked at efficiency to the point 000 1%. Of You know how we can extract this much more value here, this much more value there. And, you know, Phil, I came in because it was like, you know, we'd like to think differently, how do we as leaders start to think differently? And that's kind of the, you know, that's how that started. So, you know, within there, and I have a technique that anybody can use on how to make ideas, because they, you know, once they were done with efficiency, they want new products, like, what do we do we need something, what's next? Let's go, you know, that kind of thing. I was like, God's great. So I have a, what I call the trinity of creativity, which is the concept, the idea and the execution, right? The execution is the like, nuts and bolts, it's where most of us spend most of our careers write on the exact product or service that we're doing, then the idea is the larger way to view it. And then there's the concept, which is, do you know, the biggest way to possibly view your product or service? And so I started working with them. And I said, Okay, guys, concept idea and execution, execution go. They're like, our number one seller, the Double Stuf, cross meat lovers, cheesy bread, blah, blah, blah, medium pizza. It's 999. And it's our best seller. I said, Okay, great. That's your execution. Great, great, great. What's your idea? They were like, pizza. I said, No, no, no. Okay. Yeah. So that's your execution. But what should give me a bigger idea, not the satellite view in space, just give me like a, like a higher level view. And

they're like, it's pizza. I was like, Yeah, okay, cool. Let's, let's start to work here, you know, and then we started talking, and somebody said, Oh, you know, our founder came over 1918, or whatever, with the secret sauce. And that sauce was like, it gave everyone so much joy. And you know, and then somebody else had comfort food. Our franchise, our brand is a comfort food brand. I'm like, Great. Now we're getting in a higher level, what is the highest level of what we're doing here? They're like, well, comfort food. And you know, you can tell, I don't know how to describe it. But you you just see the weight of self doubt, and the weight of having to get it right all the time, just being lifted off his shoulders, because we were having fun, but we were really exploring the DNA of the brand. Then somebody in the room said, You know what? So I've got a story. And I'm like, I love stories. Let's hear it. And they're like, well, we have plenty of people across America, who would not eat if it wasn't for us. Oh, come on. That's okay. You're going a little far, right? I mean, he like no, no, we have standing orders out a lot of customers that at 645. Every evening, we show up with a pizza. In New York, these guys didn't get pizza, we you know, they go hungry. And I'm like, wow, that's interesting. And so we started to come up with this idea of sustenance, as being their concept, their, you know, sustenance as a concept, comfort food. And then, you know, the double crust, meat lovers medium for 999. Okay, and I was like, Guys, alright, what do you need, you need a new product? Yes, let's start to look at the idea. Before we go through the exit to the concept, let's just start to look at the idea. comfort food. So we wrote comfort food down and we circled it. writing stuff down is a key to becoming more creative. When you write stuff down, you execute a different portion of the mind that deals with looking at an idea on a page. And when you look at an idea, or anything on a page, it becomes more real and less like, you know, esoteric, or cerebral. So I encourage you to keep writing stuff down, they wrote down and we circled the comfort food. And out of that we started getting really excited. And this is not me telling the group what their comfort food was or what their concept idea or execution was. This is the DNA of the brand. This is the leadership of the brand telling me this is how we view our product or service. And basically, they came up with, you know, Capstone either or whatnot. And, and I was like, Great, that's another very easy execution for you. And they did really well. It's funny, because somebody also mentioned chicken soup, right? I was like, you guys should do chicken soup, you know, and it just seeing people get really excited about how to come up with ideas and how to manufacture creativity, in a in a very kind of organized and formal way. You could just tell that people got excited about innovation and new products and, and getting stuff out to the marketplace in a fresh and different way.

kevin edwards  24:49  
And I know your book says unlock the secrets to innovation, growth and sustainability. But when you're in that greater mindset, you're unlocking more than that you're unlocked. Feeling like a kid again. And I think you paint a picture in the book, it's, you know, we learn how to draw before we learn how to calculate or multiply, or, you know, add and things like that. It's, it's going back to, you know, your, the creative part of your mind. So would you be able to illustrate you're talking about excitement the gears are turning? Would you able to illustrate to our audience what it feels like to be in the greater mindset?

Nir Bashan  25:29  
You know, it's a wonderful and stress, you know, reduced sort of state, right? It's a state where everything is possible, nothing is impossible. And it is a natural human state, our brain is divided into two hemispheres. Yes, there's some crosstalk and that sort of thing, but largely one sided in charge of analytics. And one chart side is in charge of creativity, what ends up happening is, when we are able to fuse our mind into one super unit, we get into the state, it's just kind of like, you know, people who exercise and are talking about being in the zone, or people that do yoga, or I don't know, you know, people who surf and they're, you know, six feet, there's, it's an overhead day out at blacks, right? And you're six feet and you're in the pocket, you know, and you're like, wow, it's that moment where everything happens. And everything is just right. And those moments are obtainable there, in fact, you need to get them in your business or in your job, those, those moments are totally doable at work, but we don't do them. Why? Because we're not taught how to do them. We're taught, just worry about the numbers, just how many units did we did we move? I did a workshop with an Auto Group, you know, and it was like, literally all about how many units were talking, like, Guys, what about the relationship? Do we have any relationship here? And and they're like, Well, you know, the dealer over there, and blah, blah, blah, the fourth generation people come in and buy a pickup truck, because, you know, they trust the brand. And I'm like, that's what we need to be talking more about. How did it feel to work there? What are you guys doing? What's happening in that business that enabled that? And then people started getting excited, like, oh, cool, yeah, we could take that from them. We could do this here, let's change this for our market. So on and so forth, you can literally tell people are, you know, in the zone, and they're getting excited. So yes, it can be obtained, it has to be obtained, you have to unite your brain to think as one super unit, you can't just rely on what they taught you in Business School, which is the analytics only or the business plan gives a crap about your business plan. Like, you know, products or services are experienced in real life. They're not experienced on paper, they're not experienced in theory, you know, things go up and down based on emotion. And yet, you know, we don't want to talk about that kind of stuff we want to talk about, you know, what we can seemingly control but when we're able to think creatively, yes, it's a euphoric and natural state for us. And we've been beaten down and talked out of thinking in a natural state, which is where we operate the best and so when we're able to unite both sides of the brain Yeah, there is no problem that it's unsolvable.

kevin edwards  28:28  
And that's a great answer near I feel like what impedes people from being more creative within the workplace is a sense of fear or lack of understanding right it's it's you talked about the analytical in the book and now you mentioned you know, surfing and I got a little story for yet I experienced over over this holiday break went down to Rosarito, Mexico you know 25 minutes away and I was out by myself should not have been out there. big waves. Big Day footers big day should novena not been out there and I had a gut feeling I gotta go back inside and I went back inside and the big a footer came crash right on top of me pulled me down held me down it was one of the scariest instances I've had

Nir Bashan  29:13  
Did you go white in vision?

kevin edwards  29:15  
Yeah, come Yeah, it was really scary and I came back up yeah crashed again back up. I mean, I was just got out like it was it was a surreal moment, and it's stuck with me. And now my visions of surfing these big, you know, ways waves and jaws are in Hawaii or in you know, nazare in Portugal, that dream that vision is now going down to Okay, maybe we should just you know, hang low. I'm just going to go on the two three footers. Now. It blocks my aspirations, my creativity, my happiness, my joy. When things like that come in the way for people, what are some things that they can do to increase the creative mindset to think around something like that?

Nir Bashan  30:00  
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's a really good point, right? You shouldn't be out on a bigger day, you know, you got to work up to things in life. Right. And, and being out on a day that's too big or bigger than what you're you're comfortable with? Is is not a creative idea, right? That's kind of dumb. No, you're just kind of asking for it, you know, especially because, you know, on a day like that, for those who don't serve, you know, generally, you'll have a 10 footer mixed in with those at some point, right. And, you know, generally it's storm generated, it's not, you know, normal for Rosarito Beach to break at eight feet. And so you know, something else is going on some other factors is at play. So understanding that, yes, there is other factors at play, and that you got to kind of ramp up to things is, is creativity, right? And so, but you bring up something else, that's really interesting. And that's the fear part. In, you know, the the self doubt monster that we carry around with us, it's something that like, literally crushes ideas, before they even get out of the out of the box, right there. You know, we think to ourselves, oh, you know, that's a stupid thought, why would we ever do this? And why would we ever do that, but you, you have to take a leap of faith on some of these ideas, so that they can get out into the world and become something significant. You know, the The problem is, is when we just think analytically, right, we don't, we're not embracing the full potential of humanity. So somewhere out there, right now is a scientist working, you know, up the road for me at SpaceX. And she's got like, a crazy, great idea, right? A big wing, and it's gonna pick up, you know, some kind of ions, and it's gonna, you know, accelerate to just about the speed of light, and it'll get to Mars way faster. Yet, sadly, she's not gonna, she's not going to move with that idea forward, because she's afraid of what people might think, afraid of her reputation, you know, she went to undergrad and graduate and PhD school now she's half a million dollars in debt, right. So most people would not take a leap of faith on an idea like that, they'd be like, Oh, you know what I'm just forget about it, you know, I'm just gonna go to work and do do my part, and then kind of go home. But who loses you and I lose, we lose, our society loses when people don't take a leap of faith on a really, really great idea. You know, and we need those people to do that we could have easily have cured cancer by now. Right? We could have easily have, you know, cleaned up air pollution. I've been to some, some conferences where, you know, I've spoke and just walked around the convention area, there's technology today, that is unbelievably good, right? And it could really solve some amazing problems of humanity. Yet, people aren't taking that leap of faith on those ideas, because of self doubt, because they worry about the reputation because they worry, what are people gonna say, and you know, all of this stuff, but they need to do it, we need to do it as a society, right? This isn't about putting yourself out, you know, you you've just learned to swim. And now you're in a, an Olympic sized pool, trying to, you know, do laps, it's not about that. It's about I am a scientist who works at SpaceX, right. And I have a great idea, but I'm gonna hold it back, because I'm worried. Those are the people that we need to get to the, you know, the people listening right now who have a business there, they have a dry cleaning, you know, Empire, right, all across the southeast, or whatnot. And, you know, they're like, I really want to change the model from all a cart, you know, $10 for pants and skirts and $12 for shirts, I want to change it to a lump sum, right, I'm just going to charge somebody a subscription base, they can come every day, 10 times a day, if they want, they can come once a month, they pay it off, I get a credit card, I put it in I auto bill it, that's what I want to do, right? Those are the types of creative ideas that we need. I have one of those dry cleaners here that you know, we just dropped stuff up, I'm sure. I'm sure that they lose money on probably 20% of the customers, right? You know that people are like, I'm gonna go in every day and get my value. But for people like me, I don't, you know, once a month baby, but I like it because I just drop the stuff off. I know what I'm gonna get charged for. And it's a great creative way to adjust the billing model. So we need to get a little bit more confident, a little bit, have a little bit more courage and be able to understand that these are the types of ideas that we need right now. These are the types of creative leaps that we need to take.

kevin edwards  34:44  
I love it. Now let's stick on this topic. The ego, right, I thought the ego was always this thing that was going to tear away relationships, it's going to thing that's going to get in the way of you being the best leader for The team as a whole, but when I had that experience with the wave, and I'm sure it's the same thing with the dry cleaners with the same thing with the scientists a $600,000 in debt, it does something to you. it impedes you it blocked you mix the vision blurry. So when you have this chapter in your book about the ego, and how it's, it's what makes your art unique. What makes the self talk unique? It's, it's expressing that and pulling that out of your ego. What exactly do you mean by that?

Nir Bashan  35:33  
You know, the so I talk a lot in the book about how ego is something that can really destroy ideas, right, it can destroy creativity, why? It tends to want to put predictions on things that are unpredictable. Hey, it was like this yesterday, it's gonna be like this tomorrow. Listen, a lot of people lost a lot when COVID hit because they had literally built businesses that were based on Hey, what happened yesterday is going to happen tomorrow. And there are a lot of people who made an unbelievable amount of money since COVID hit because their businesses were always ingrained with creativity, and that ability to constantly change and constantly adapt to whatever scenario was in front of them. And so, for me, the ego is something that we all have, and we have to understand that it's up to us to manage, you know, us, and our ability to kind of look within ourselves and go, you know, what this decision is based on ego is, you know, is important, and it's something that we have to do, but I will tell you something, when you think positively, it's almost like a direct anecdote for like an anti venom for ego. Because when you think positively, it's almost impossible to think positively and then have an egotistical thought at the same time. Because positivity, the nature of it enabled you to see the world as it can be, not that it's as it is. And when you can see the world as it can be not as it is, you don't go, Oh, this is gonna benefit me in some way and make me look famous, or, you know, make my product sell 10 times better, or whatever it is, you tend to do the right thing you tend to do, the better thing and and that's something that I think is important to look out for when we deal with ego.

kevin edwards  37:30  
So is ego always a bad thing for artists? You know, if you think of the Steve Jobs of the world, and what he was able to do one person, 7 billion people able to create the iPhone? Like, how can people harness the ego with positivity to produce these products like that?

Nir Bashan  37:48  
Well, you know, realizing that the power of creativity that lies within each, each and every one of us, is super important. And the way that I practice creativity is not the same way you'll do it. And it's not the same way your listeners will do it. There's no two people on earth that will ever practice creativity the same way. And so that is your gift. When people tell you, you know, oh, you have a gift, you're really good at such and such. And you're like, yeah, I am pretty good at it. What they're really telling you is that is the innate DNA, the creative DNA that you have inside you waiting to get out and express that. And, you know, for Steve Jobs, that was the iPhone or, you know, any, you know, Elan Musk, maybe Tesla, maybe it was PayPal, no, no, maybe it's, you know, SpaceX and, and so on and so forth. It really is the way that you solve problems, being your unique signature on life, and understanding what those things are, and practicing them in your business to up what you're good at, in less than what you're bad at is critical.

kevin edwards  38:58  
Now, what about the subconscious? Like I know, you said in the book, it's like, you know, you had as turnover a page right? Here, this flip over the page of the book. So it looks different, and you realize that's the creative part of your brain, and this is the analytical part of your brain. So, when I think of the subconscious, it's a similar concept, right? It's like your conscious is the tip of the iceberg. The subconscious, according to Freud, you know, is this below the water? Right? It's this beast that we, a lot of people have a hard time tapping into what role does the subconscious play in creativity? And how can you tap into that? Or do do you tap into that, to unleash this, you know, creative part of your life?

Nir Bashan  39:45  
a huge role. And that subconscious is literally creativity trying to get out. And what we do is we constantly turn the volume down on that part. It's the part that's giving you an idea, right? It's like, Well, you know, I was in that meeting, we should Should we really ought to try it in this way, we really ought to reach out to our competitors and see how they're doing it, we really ought to get a few of the leaders from competing businesses together to have a discussion. And it's probably a really, really damn good idea. But most of us just shut it down and throw it away. And so once we learn how to think a little bit more creatively, we're open to these ideas, we were don't have to wait for them to bubble up from our subconscious, we can use the trinity of creativity to manufacture them, right whenever we want. But literally, your mind, your body is always trying to be in that Zen zone, right? Trying to be in that in the zone, right. And so it's trying to give you ideas and trying to tell you, Hey, you know, you should get out of the water right now, because it's about to get big, or telling you, you know, you should really phone call that one vendor, right? Who is great and always provide really good service, and try to get, you know, some partnership going with them, that will take it to the next level, it's all of these thoughts and ideas that you have, that I have, that most people don't execute, they don't act on it. And so when you don't act on it, you get stale, you get burnt out, you know, you get bored at work you get, you're like, my company sucks, you know, that company is doing it so much better than me, those kinds of thoughts start to bubble up, when you're not listening to who you are. As a creative human being

kevin edwards  41:28  
near any successful person has had to get past hardship. You know, jobs really was able to unlock and unleash his creativity when he got fired originally, or let go or left the company and still can debate there. You know, what personal challenges have you yourself ran into? What are some of the things that no one likes to talk about when they talk about success? Some things that that you that forced you to be creative? How long do we have all the time in the world?

Nir Bashan  41:59  
Well, there's, you know, back in 1991, I mean, you know, here's the thing, right, so something that I think we need to talk more about in business today is failure. Listen, you know, I published a book with McGraw Hill, called the creator mindset about how to become more creative. And, you know, I go to Barnes and Noble. And I'm, like, cool, I take a picture of my book, because it's awesome, right. And then there's a bunch of books around my book, that are literally like infuriating, and you know, it is how to get rich quick in real estate by next Tuesday, make a million dollars today, how to get rich, like my dad, and how to you know, and here I am grinding out a book that is step by step one foot in from the other, you're not going to get rich quick reading my book, you're not I there is no recipe. And if you have or your listeners, or anybody can tell me how to get rich, quick, Bring it on, I'm in totally in, I'm totally in, just send me an email, I'd love to follow your you know, get rich, quick trading, you know, commodities or whatever, whatever, you know, get rich, quick recommendation you have, I'm totally in, I want to do it. But the truth of the matter is that doesn't exist. And we in business need to start talking about failure more often. Because what we tend to present Listen, I, you know, run quarter billion dollar advertising agencies and you know, now I have a small business. It's like, we don't talk about our failures. We're like, Look, everything is great. Here I am. We don't talk about you know, companies that went out of business employees that had to get fired, that were doing an amazing job that we had to let go. We don't talk about, you know, failures, I've had significant failures over my career. One of them was, you know, I owned a production company in Hollywood, and I put out a movie, it didn't really well sold the universal and, you know, back when I was doing that type of work, and literally, I sat on my butt and did nothing else. I thought, hey, the movies out, I'm gonna do great. And the staff was like, Hey, you should do an auxiliary product we should do cooking at home, we should do all of these different sort of shades of what that product or service could have done. And I said, No, it's fine. You know, I rested upon success. I got to a certain point, and I kind of rested on it. And it was, it's a huge regret of mine, because that could have done that could have been a great business. It could have done, you know, incredibly well. But nobody talks about stuff like that. We're always like, Oh, I had a, you know, movie that sold and it did really well. I had a business that you know, made this much profit and look at me, I'm I'm an all knowing kind of person. But when we're able to think creatively, creativity depends on a certain amount of honesty, right, a certain amount of honesty to come out that makes creativity viable. And unless we're being honest with people and saying, yes, we've had failures. Bless, this is what I've learned from the failure yet. This is how I've moved forward. And let's we're having that dialogue and less of the get rich quick stuff, then more of the, hey, it's a long road where you put one foot in front of the other, I think the better off will be 

kevin edwards  45:14  
So Nir what have you learned about what success is then? And how would you defined a successful life and career?

Nir Bashan  45:23  
You know, it's, it's a tough question, right? Because it's, it means something different to everybody. But for me, I think that when you're marrying both sides of the mind, into working as one super unit of creativity and analytics, I'm not proposing that anybody throw the analytics away. The analytics are important, right? But they're nothing unless you combine them with creativity. For me, success is knowing that your business is in the zone, knowing that your product or service is being received by people in a good way. And people are really enjoying the experience, and I don't care what you do, it could be a business to business, it can be a manufacturing company, you know, it could be anything, as long as you know, there's a good experience around the brand, through the entire line from the employees that make that product or service all the way to the customer that consumes it. I think that is a successful entity and something that's worth celebrating. You know, we

kevin edwards  46:25  
interview a lot of what we call impact organizations, organizations intentionally trying to solve a social or environmental problem with a for profit business model. And they all say, you know, our secret sauce is the values. It's what drives people to our company. And they're able to have this philosophical belief that they want to achieve the same thing that we do as well, and retain our employees for much longer. But I think the one thing that isn't really talked about is, those are creative companies. Those are some of the hardest companies around because they're social enterprises, do you get to one, make the world a better place, but to also make money while doing it? That's very difficult to do. And I think the people that want to work for those organizations are equally as creative. Do you think that's the secret sauce to a lot of new companies that are coming up? COVID and coming into this next couple of years here, with climate change, and things like that?

Nir Bashan  47:22  
Yeah. Listen, I think that, listen, I'm a, I'm the biggest proponent and supporter of capitalism. There's been no system on earth that has lifted more people out of poverty, and, you know, just created a better world than capitalism, nothing. Is it the most perfect system on earth and all this stuff? No, but it is the best thing that we have. And embracing those principles and realizing that what you do touches, so many people in so many ways, is critically important. I feel that we have a lack of of global conceptual level understanding of how our product or service affects others. And I think that, you know, you can make a difference, no matter what you do, if you were just to frame the problem and frame the issue, in a way that allows people to reap the benefit of it. You know, I did a nursing group, and people were like, yeah, we're nurses, you know? And I was like, okay, what's your concept, your idea and execution? And, you know, we're nurses, but like, What do you mean, and so we started to dig in, just like we did with the p2p people. And we started to learn that, you know, communication, and it was a particular group, the communication was the most important thing, because they acted as a conduit, between different pieces of information, the lab results, the doctor, the, you know, intake tape, all of this thing, they were like the master communicator, and when you were able to empower somebody with the real reason they're doing what they're doing, they started to get really excited. You know, like, Hey, I'm, yeah, I'm a nurse. But really, what I do is I protect the patient journey, right, and I empower the patient to make their own choices and to, you know, to be informed throughout their process, and that changed people's lives, right. And you could do that in any business that you do doesn't matter what you do, from hospitality to manufacturing, it doesn't really matter. And we as leaders have to do a better job in creating meaning really deep meaning so that people understand the altruistic value of their product or service. And when you're able to understand the altruistic value, I think people work harder. They work later hours, they work with more intensity with more creativity and give of themselves a lot more.

kevin edwards  49:48  
I think you're right on that point. You know, capitalism is amoral, and it's neither good or bad, right? And so now you have this mindset shift of it. influencing more people to think creatively? What do you think comes out of that, when a whole world is now shifting to create it? Like, what's the vision that you have for a creative world?

Nir Bashan  50:15  
So what I see in my Creator mindset, utopia, right is no problem of humanity being unsolvable, I see a cure to COVID, which, by the way, was a very creative thing. Very creative, but Madonna and operation warp speed, and Pfizer did. Super cool, right? And in very, incredibly helpful, but I see cancer being cured, I see, you know, all the problems to humanity being solved by people who are willing to combine the analytic and the creative and take a risk, to have the courage have the empathy, to go out there and to change the game. And that's what I see, I see a better world and what we have now, listen, you know, one of my pet peeves is traffic, I am from LA, I don't live in LA anymore, but I live there 36 years, and I sat for years, in traffic years of my life, let's have a look in front of somebody, you know, the out my windshield, you know, to the car in front of me. So that being said, You know, I did some research, and I found that there's amazing traffic solutions right there synchronous, synchronized light there, you know, different waves to onboard somebody onto a highway and to offload them and all of these really great engineering analytical solution. But nobody ever, ever had the creative capacity to think you know what, we need to try that here, we need to do a demonstration there, we need to go out there and then really put this in the field. Yeah, some of that happened, but not nearly enough. So what I think is, if we are and embrace creativity, as a people, as a society, we will uplift the standard of living around the world far more dramatically than what we have done now. And the result was just a way better life. I mean, I'm being a little selfish, to be honest with you. I mean, I want better things, right? I want a better designed microphone and you know, a better computer, you know, experience on this chat thing, and so on and so forth. And in those types of things are entirely within the possibility of humanity. But then we're not going to get there unless we get creative.

kevin edwards  52:25  
Like that, you know, a lot of creative ideas to solve traffic. But you know, it takes a leader to kind of will it into existence near let's bring this home, what is your definition of a real leader?

Nir Bashan  52:40  
I think a real leader is somebody who can have a degree of empathy, a real big degree of empathy with the market and their staff. Even if you're a one person company, having empathy for the the, you know, person who ends up consuming the product or service is incredibly important. I feel that a real leader has humor. There, we cannot understate the effectiveness of humor, like, you know, and it doesn't have to be like, haha, funny. But when we look at something with humor, we introduced a new way to look at it and a different way to look at it in a creative way to look at it. And we've got to have the level of humor. And then finally, somebody who has courage, who has the courage to take that creativity and combine it with the analytics. I think that is my definition of a real leader.

kevin edwards  53:32  
I love it near it's been a pleasure speaking with you my man. I hope your brother's doing well in the great city of Westland, Oregon and shout out. Also, folks pick up your copy of the Creator mindset 92 tools to unlock the secrets to innovation, growth and sustainability. A great read so far, my friend and it's a breeze You're right. It is a breeze. You can read this book within a couple of hours. There's no doubt about it. For nearby Shannon, Kevin is asking you to go out there have empathy, humor, and courage, focus and always keep it real. Thanks, Nick. And thank you good people for hanging on to this episode of the real leaders podcast with Neeraj. Sean. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. And folks, if you didn't know by now, all of these episodes are streamed live on our crowd cast platform. All you got to do if you want to RSVP and attend where you can ask guests questions. Go on align folks to really there's dot com slash podcast where you can RSVP for an upcoming event, whether it's with Melanie who the CEO of toorani Seth Goldman, the former CEO of Honest Tea, Daniel Goleman, psychologist and author of emotional intelligence Nic Bradley, the host of scale up your business podcast. Misha Brown, the president of PCI media impact, or Simon Mainwaring. You You can RSVP and join these interviews live. That's it for me. Thanks for being a realtor and stay tuned for the next episode.

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