How Collaboration is Key to Creativity

sixth of July at the Factory Theater in Marrickville. Huge cast, Marley Silver, Merrick Watts, Phil O'Neill, Yeah, Ugly Phil, Nadia Townshend, Zoe Dot and Lodge and myself. The theme of the show everybody needs good neighbors, live comedy, storytelling, early doors. You'll be home by nine. I'd love to see you there. The linkers in the show notes and that is also where you can pre order your copy of my brand new books, So What Now What, illustrated by Campbell Walker.

If you like this podcast, so this podcast has been bringing you value. The greatest way you can repay me for any good thing that you've got ever out of this show is to pre order that book, because that sends a huge signal to the publisher that this book is worth getting behind. The partners really want it, particularly if you look in Australia. We also have a live show we're coming up very very soon. I can't wait to tell you about that stuff. We did the first

technical test the other day and it's incredible. But yeah, please bring order the book, and if you do so, take a screenshot of your proof of purchase and I'll send you a little something to say thank you. Send out an email at gmail dot com, just email it to me. For a long time. Through popular culture, through movies, through books, or whatever, we kind of have this heroic vision of a singular creative genius, the solo man or

the solo woman who just has this incredible breakthrough. But what if the greatest ideas aren't found in isolation, but only emerge when we truly open ourselves up to be influenced by the brilliance of other people. I've been thinking about those questions quite a lot, and we'll get to the answers right after this. It's really hard to start from scratch. Starting anything from scratch is very very difficult. Going from absolutely nothing to a fully formed idea is really,

really tough. It's like trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat, except you don't know what a rabbit is, or you don't have a hat, let alone. Do you know what magic is? You kind of know you want to do something, need kind of need something to react to. And I have found that when it comes to creativity, when it comes to coming up with ideas, even if their ideas in a completely different direction, I have found that having something to react to the tiniest spark of anything,

the whole process becomes infinitely easy. That's a whole reason why when I'm working, when I'm writing, when I'm creating, I actually make time to go and do stuff that isn't working right and create, go and see things, experience things, to do things so that I have something to react to. So I give myself subconscious something to think about, something

to respond to. And this idea of having something to react to was a big breakthrough moment when I started working on this new book somewha now what, because I knew I wanted it to be illustrated and to be honest, it was always going to be Cam Walker, also known as Truthless. And if you don't know Cam's work, I thoroughly recommend you're checking him out. I've worked with him for a long time. He's an artist I've admired for a very very long time. I have huge, huge respect

for him. He's incredibly successful, and he was really the only person I ever really wanted to do the book. But when it came time to ask him, I was kind of apprehensive because I'm he's very accomplished person. He's worked in the ad industry, He's worked he huge clients, massive footwear, beverages. He's really a very highly regarded person internationally. Could I keep up? Would I be able to engage in work at that kind of level? Would I be

able to properly contribute? Would I hold him back? Would I be frustrating to work with? I didn't want to sour our friendship by being a shit person to collaborate with. But here's the funny thing, Deep inside, somewhere, way way way down, down down, kind of knew that I was going to need to be able to give something to Cam to react to. I was going to need to be able to give Cam something more than just describing what it was that I wanted. So about six months

before I even asked Ham to illustrate this book. I started sketching again, aside from a very brief period where I toyed with replicating how my favorite comic book artists could draw human figures, about twelve thirteen years ago. I haven't picked up a pencil and put it to a heavy GSM paper since about nineteen eighty six, when I was in primary school art class, so a really really long time ago. But I knew I was going to need to give cam something to work off. And that's

when I remembered my dad. He was a doctor and in the evenings, as a way to relax, he would listen to jazz music and smoke a pipe because that's what you did when you're from Europe. I sit on a bean bag and using mechanical pencils, rot drink mechanical pencils. It was his one shop in Brisbane. We used to go to get them, those big, heavy metal things, so I think for draftsmen and architects and things to use. And he would draw these kind of shaded geometric shapes,

cubes and spheres and cones, just vanishing into perspective. I was always fascinated by that he was doing these repetitive kind of tessellations as he listened to jazz music and just do it for hours. So about six months ago, well six months before I hours Cam, I started practicing what I'd seen my dad do. Look, I didn't have a bean bag, nor do I smoke anymore, but I

just draw. Now. I still didn't know what the main character of my book was going to look like, but I was just drawing shapes, cubes and trying and cylinders, because all of nature drawing anything as cubes and triangles and cylinders and rectangles. So sure enough, when I finally landed on the lead character of So What Now What, and I just came to the acceptance like, oh, Cricky, it's going to be really hard, but I'm going to need the lead character to be a glove. I knew

that I had to be good. I had to get better because hands are really, really, really hard to draw. As you heard Cam and I discussed the other Monday, there's a reason why comic book characters usually only have three fingers sometimes for and they always wear gloves because hands are really hard. They're incredibly expressive things, as Cam Walker says, they are the eyebrow of their arm, and they're very very tricky to draw. So because of the work that I've been doing, when I did finally ask

Cam Hay and he was like really into it. He was so excited. I was able to so write the words, this are the words that I want the book to be. And in this particular moment, I see this glove running away from this thing, and I was able to draw it with the kind of facial reactions and the sketches and stuff that I would want it to do. Now, this isn't at all about me going how great artistically I am and how much of an excellent sketch artist I am, because I'm not. It was about giving Cam

something to start with, something concrete to react to. And what it did was it made at our collaboration incredibly efficient, just being able to understand the same vibe of where we were going. Now, the other really crucial thing about working with Cam was understanding my place in this. I am not an expert illustrator. Cam is If in Cam's expert opinion, this particular picture that we've ended up with is great, then guess what that pictures great? And that's

the picture that goes in the book. He would say things like, well, I kind of see that Globy was trying to do this, and so I made this happen. You're like perfect. I would never have thought of that. That makes it even better. No notes, Because there was a time when my ego would really get in a way, back when I was working in television and stuff like that. I would be very selfish on whose idea and who

owned the idea. And you can waste so much time with endless notes and tweaks and adjustments and try to make everything fit this exact kind of singular vision of this has to be what it is. But thankfully I've learned in the last ten twelve years or so that if you try and push and pull everyone to conform to only your idea, it does make people less enthusiastic about being involved because they don't tend to get their own input. And that's important for people to have their

own input in the project. But if I can put my ego aside and truly believe that everybody else there might just be able to add something that I haven't thought of, something that is going to make this initial idea even more excellent, then that's only going to make the final output, final product, whatever it is we're making TV show book, it's going to make the final thing

even better. And I reckon that was mostly true. If there's one hundred and twenty eight or so pages in the book, there's probably three illustrations where I was really particular and said, you know, I love what you've gone with this, but actually for this one, just this one, I think it just needs to be this simple. It can't be any And that was only ever it. I just didn't want anything to confuse those really powerful punching moments in the book. And Cam was super cool about it,

because he's an excellent collaborator as well. That was also quite useful. But everything that Cam brought to the table only made this book more incredible. And that's the point of a great collaboration, isn't it. By adding two people's ideas together, you end up with even better ideas than just the two of them could have ever come up with. You're creating something far more superior to what either of

you could have achieved a loan. And it's totally okay if they're not all your ideas, all right, It's like when we were making the news show the Best Droke wins, that's it. I don't care who says it, who writes it doesn't matter best Droke wins. That's always for the best because if you're trusting other people on the team, you believe in their expertise, believe that they are wanting their final project to six it as well, then you

know they're going to do their best. And just because you may not understand doesn't mean it's not incredible, because they might be giving you some sort of next level shit that no one's ever thought of, and if you can believe their expertise, it's incredibly rewarding for everybody involved. And that's there's a truly wonderful feeling as well of just letting go of that precise vision that I had

in my mind. Sometimes now sometimes yeah, like Cam would bring me an idea something for then me to react back to, and we'll have a trusting space between us to go you know what, man, I think the original idea that you brought was actually more powerful here. And that's fine too, because it allowed us to explore other possibilities, and it's important to kind of see what both final pictures look like and then you can go actually know this is it, This is actually the one so I've

got to take a quick break. But on the other side of this, I just I want to distill all those down into four really simple points and really one real main, main, main question that I want you to ask yourself, if you're ever collaborating with anybody, be right back. When I think about what I've learned about collaborating. Any TV show I may ever made was always a collaboration,

sometimes with one hundred and fifteen other people. It was always more rewarding and always more fun when I thought about it as this is something we're all doing together, early on, before I got sober and when I was very at my own ass, if I ever thought about it, how can I make this make me look more good about me? It was always a punish and it was

always hard, and it wasn't fun. But when I think about it in the context of how can all of us benefit from all of this, it's always better, always better, because then you're also thinking about it together. You're thinking, well, what is it we're trying to do with is what's the job that this thing does? What truly matters in any project, TV show, group holiday with a family with your friends, some real estate project, I don't know. Well, only really matters is what's the job this thing is

here to do? In the instance of so what now what this book? It's supposed to be a tool. It's a resource that people can use when they're having a tough time. And our goal it's how can I make this book as useful as possible to as many people as possible, as valuable a tool for someone who's having

a bad day. So when Cam and I were able to put all of our own ego aside, and it's not as easy for Cam to do, both of our work is completely aligning with the value and the job that this book is trying to do, the value it's trying to bring to people's lives. It made it super duper easy. So if you're working with somebody else right now, his four simple, simple, simple, simple, simple questions to ask

around collaborating powerfully. The question number one, what's the ultimate value you want to bring through this project for anyone that's going to experience it or use it. Get really clear on that value. What is the thing that you need at the end. So if it's the family holiday, it's not I want to go on a holiday to the cold coast what do you really want out of a holiday? I want a time that my family will remember. I want to have memories that I can share with

my family. Okay, great. The second thing, what can I give everybody else to react to? Don't expect people to come up with ideas out of thin air. If you offer a starting point, even a rough idea, just a simple sketch, that makes the collaborative process a lot easier for everybody. The third thing I would say is try to put your ego aside, Embrace the expertise of other people, Recognize that their contributions can make your ideas even better.

Be open to other perspectives, trust their judgment in the areas of expertise they that are greater than yours, and just trust that they are into this thing succeeding as much as you are. And the fourth thing I would say is try to align on that shared purpose and that value. When everyone's focused on the benefit of the outcome, it doesn't matter whose idea it was. It really doesn't. What matters is achieving the goal of the job that

this thing is here to do. You want incredible memories with your kids, doesn't matter whose idea it was To go to work and wild they'll still be talking about everybody going down the big tube slide at someone's twenty first, And that's what you really want out of it, isn't it? The other thing it's just really incredible at working on this book is I got to work with Cam fucking Walkerman,

the guys Wise Wise Wise. And the other night when we were on the cusp of sending out the first review copies to people, and I texted Cam when I said, I'm sure you've done plenty of videos about this moment, and this moment is is my idea too fucking out? There? Is anybody going to get it? You know, this idea of a book where a glove is talking directly to

the reader. And Cam wrote back to me those two questions have generally been the experience of my life, But sometimes I think the opposite questions are worth asking too. Question one is my idea too boring? And question two? Will anybody get it? So easily? It feels condescending. Now those two things hit me in the chest like a street fighter hadukin. But they're really really important. So you've got your four steps of collaborating really well, but maybe

ask those ones is my idea too boring? Will anybody get it so easily that it feels condescending? Maybe ask those as well, so you can challenge you and your collaboration partners to really really swing for the fences. I hope this has brought you some value. I hope you've

enjoyed this today. I've really enjoyed talking about it because, you know, I was asked to reflect on what it was to collaborate with Cam and it was really freeing and really delightful watching what could be possible when I let go of ego and just trusted, trusted that both people's ideas would make this thing even greater. You can pre order your copy of the book right now if you like, and you'll find a link in the show notes. Thanks Adam bunch Of for making the show. Talked to you on Wednesday.