Latest / Daring Forever (Find your Extraordinary) / Brand strategy for positive impact on people's lives - Danielle Clarke

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Brand strategy for positive impact on people's lives - Danielle Clarke · Daring Forever (Find your Extraordinary)

• 0:09
  Danielle Clarke: The things that have really worked for me is being able to decide what it is that I need Like it's having that freedom and choice that for me, being employed didn't give me that I really desired and.
• 0:23
  Danielle Clarke: Being able to prioritize myself and my needs and what I need first before someone else, I think that flexibility, it doesn't always work out because I think I can be a bit of a tricky boss sometimes, the late nights and the weekends, but I it's really weird because I don't, really see it as work because I love it so much.
• 0:52
  Radim Malinic: Hello and welcome to Creativity for Sale podcast, a show to help you start and grow your life changing creative career and business.
• 1:00
  Radim Malinic: My name is Radim Malinich and creativity changed my life.
• 1:04
  Radim Malinic: You see, I believe creativity can change your life too.
• 1:07
  Radim Malinic: I even wrote a book about it and it inspired this podcast.
• 1:11
  Radim Malinic: I've set out to interview the world's most brilliant creatives, designers, writers, musicians, makers, and marketeers about their life changing experiences with creativity.
• 1:21
  Radim Malinic: If you ever wanted to know how people go from their humble beginnings to the pinnacle of their success, our conversations should provide you with an intimate look into triumphs, challenges, and untold stories behind their creative endeavours.
• 1:35
  Radim Malinic: We also discuss the highs and lows of creative careers and creative life.
• 1:39
  Radim Malinic: So, thank you for joining me on this exploration of passion, creativity, innovation, and the boundless potential within us all.
• 1:46
  Radim Malinic: Let creativity change your life.
• 1:49
  Radim Malinic: Are you ready?
• 1:52
  Radim Malinic: My guest today has been a branding prodigy since the age of eight.
• 1:56
  Radim Malinic: She works with brands that strive to make a positive impact on people's lives, and she aims to make her clients and their communities happier and healthier.
• 2:04
  Radim Malinic: She's a brand and marketing consultant and university lecturer.
• 2:07
  Radim Malinic: It's my pleasure to introduce Danielle Clark.
• 2:14
  Radim Malinic: Hey Daniel, welcome to the show.
• 2:16
  Radim Malinic: I'm so pleased to have you on because I've got some burning questions today.
• 2:20
  Radim Malinic: I've got some burning questions about brand strategy and I've given you a little hint just before we started recording.
• 2:26
  Radim Malinic: for those who don't know you, can you just tell me quickly who you are and what you do?
• 2:29
  Danielle Clarke: Yeah, absolutely.
• 2:30
  Danielle Clarke: Hi Radim, really excited to be here.
• 2:32
  Danielle Clarke: I'm Danielle and I am, as you said, a brand strategist and I help small business owners really, manage the meaning of their brand and help them to understand the power of branding.
• 2:45
  Danielle Clarke: I also do a little bit of lecturing as well, which is great.
• 2:47
  Danielle Clarke: So helping to shape the next creative thinkers.
• 2:51
  Danielle Clarke: and yeah, working with a lot of small businesses that, focused on doing purposeful work and wanting to really have a positive impact on other people.
• 3:00
  Radim Malinic: so I think you've already given me a few strides that I'm going to follow on.
• 3:03
  Radim Malinic: So we'll talk about brand strategy and we'll talk about a future talent and small businesses.
• 3:08
  Radim Malinic: so the hint that I've given you just before we started was that Sort of happened to go on LinkedIn or pretty much wherever else.
• 3:15
  Radim Malinic: It just seems that everyone graduated from a logo designer, graphic designer into the brand strategist.
• 3:20
  Radim Malinic: And this is what I mean, sort of, not negative speak.
• 3:23
  Radim Malinic: It's just more when you learn a new word, you hear it everywhere.
• 3:26
  Radim Malinic: When you buy a new car, everyone seems to have the same car.
• 3:28
  Radim Malinic: And I just kind of feel like we have definitely turbocharged the information out there that you can be more than just a graphic designer.
• 3:36
  Radim Malinic: Do you feel that Brand strategy problem that everyone seems to be just the same sort of thing.
• 3:43
  Danielle Clarke: Yeah, I understand what you're saying.
• 3:45
  Danielle Clarke: I remember I went through a little bit of a, I found it a bit challenging knowing what to call myself.
• 3:54
  Danielle Clarke: And because I was I think I was really worried about jumping on the bandwagon because I was hearing and saying the same thing, I'm going to be very, very honest.
• 4:02
  Danielle Clarke: There were lots of people in the space that were starting to call themselves brand strategists, but it wasn't until I had a conversation with, a few of my mentors, people like, Matt Davis and Peter Wilkin, who have worked in the branding industry, and they knew me very well and understood my process.
• 4:18
  Danielle Clarke: And they were like, you are, you've already been doing strategy without you even realizing.
• 4:24
  Danielle Clarke: You just haven't been calling yourself that.
• 4:26
  Danielle Clarke: You've been calling yourself a designer because I've always wanted to work.
• 4:32
  Danielle Clarke: I've never wanted to work with clients and just give them the, the logo or the identity without first understanding their business and understanding their goals and why they're even thinking about that.
• 4:45
  Danielle Clarke: So strategy has actually always been a part of my process.
• 4:49
  Danielle Clarke: I just didn't know that it was called that.
• 4:53
  Danielle Clarke: And then when you team that with the level of empathy that I have for business owners that don't understand brand and find it very intimidating, sometimes I think a lot of the, the bigger agencies out there can come across as quite intimidating.
• 5:11
  Danielle Clarke: intimidating, and sometimes quite elitist and not approachable.
• 5:16
  Danielle Clarke: And a lot of small business owners need this help.
• 5:20
  Danielle Clarke: And they don't know who to turn to for advice.
• 5:22
  Danielle Clarke: And I want to be that person that they come to, that they feel comfortable coming to.
• 5:27
  Danielle Clarke: So for me, strategy was always there.
• 5:30
  Danielle Clarke: I just wasn't talking about it.
• 5:32
  Danielle Clarke: And then when I discovered it, I was like, why am I getting so hung up on saying that I am a brand strategist?
• 5:39
  Danielle Clarke: When actually.
• 5:40
  Danielle Clarke: I've been doing, I've been doing it.
• 5:42
  Danielle Clarke: I've just not been communicating that.
• 5:44
  Danielle Clarke: So yeah.
• 5:47
  Radim Malinic: I think it's just a sort of way how we evolve as creatives, because you said that people told you actually already do strategy That's almost most often the realization that.
• 5:59
  Radim Malinic: When you speak to someone who's more experienced, they say, Oh, by the way, you've already been doing this.
• 6:04
  Radim Malinic: And you're like, have I?
• 6:06
  Radim Malinic: And I think it's just that question of let me do something a little bit more than just I've been asked.
• 6:10
  Radim Malinic: Or let's question the process.
• 6:11
  Radim Malinic: Let's question the brief.
• 6:12
  Radim Malinic: Let's question the landscape of the client.
• 6:15
  Radim Malinic: Because, Yeah, I think at some point you realize that you can do just a little bit more than you've been asked to because you've mentioned you work with small businesses and usually that's just people like you and I, our parents, our friends, they're like, let's start a new business.
• 6:30
  Radim Malinic: What do you know?
• 6:31
  Radim Malinic: I want to start a business.
• 6:32
  Radim Malinic: That's pretty much all I want.
• 6:33
  Radim Malinic: Not all I know.
• 6:34
  Radim Malinic: What do you need?
• 6:34
  Radim Malinic: a logo, maybe, right?
• 6:36
  Radim Malinic: Okay.
• 6:37
  Radim Malinic: So there's a lot more.
• 6:37
  Radim Malinic: my observation is that you have to live a little.
• 6:42
  Radim Malinic: to provide that information because you can read all the books in the world and not necessarily have that sort of experience on the ground.
• 6:49
  Radim Malinic: Is that right?
• 6:49
  Radim Malinic: Because do you find yourself, and this is a first hand question.
• 6:52
  Radim Malinic: Do you find yourself there?
• 6:53
  Radim Malinic: Not necessarily just a brand strategies.
• 6:56
  Radim Malinic: You're more of a, like a therapist and a mentor and a guidance and that kind of stuff.
• 7:01
  Radim Malinic: Do you have that experience with clients?
• 7:02
  Danielle Clarke: Yeah.
• 7:03
  Danielle Clarke: It's, I laugh because it's funny you say that I was working with a mental health charity in London and they're about to, I mean, they're still in the process of a rebrand now.
• 7:13
  Danielle Clarke: and I went down to really bring the leadership team together and make sure that They were really clear on the, internally what the brand was about and what it was they wanted to communicate.
• 7:28
  Danielle Clarke: So I was working with the two co founders and the rest of the leadership team was about four, I think it was about seven, seven people in total.
• 7:38
  Danielle Clarke: And it was a really intensive session where I was asking them lots and lots of questions and getting them to really think really deeply about.
• 7:47
  Danielle Clarke: The way in which they work together, the way in which they work with external providers and consultants and, and artists and other people that, that were involved in helping to, to shape this organization and, One of them actually said, gosh, this is like a therapy session And we all started laughing because I'm getting them to be really reflective and think about past experiences, share stories.
• 8:17
  Danielle Clarke: and really analyze, how they work, things that have gone well, things that haven't gone well.
• 8:22
  Danielle Clarke: and what they, from a personal side as well, what it is that they really want to achieve by even working within this company, because often it's you work for a business because there's something about that business, something about that organization that speaks to your that speaks to your inner narrative, it speaks to the things that you believe that are true and that, that organization aligns with that.
• 8:52
  Danielle Clarke: And so I was saying to them, okay, if this is what you believe in this, these are the things that you want to change about the world.
• 8:59
  Danielle Clarke: Do you think that what your role and what you're doing and what the business is doing is really going to help make that change?
• 9:05
  Danielle Clarke: so yeah, it, it it really was like therapy.
• 9:08
  Danielle Clarke: We kind of had a little joke about it.
• 9:10
  Radim Malinic: I think it's all about pressing the pause button and actually realizing where have you been?
• 9:15
  Radim Malinic: Where are you going?
• 9:16
  Radim Malinic: How did, how did you get here?
• 9:18
  Radim Malinic: And honestly, what got you here?
• 9:19
  Radim Malinic: And what will it won't get you there?
• 9:21
  Radim Malinic: what's the sort of next set of alignments and requirements?
• 9:24
  Radim Malinic: Because I think we just sometimes, especially with small businesses, they feel like if you built it once, that's it, whereas you've just built it and as soon as you launch it, you start rebuilding.
• 9:34
  Radim Malinic: we just paid you all this money to do this.
• 9:36
  Radim Malinic: I'm like, yeah, because as soon as it hits, obviously the understanding of the business plan and the brand strategy, it hits the first customer, second customer, and they might want something different.
• 9:45
  Radim Malinic: you start forming it with the response and feedback from, from the actual marketplace.
• 9:50
  Radim Malinic: And what you mentioned, the therapy session, like how people were thinking about it.
• 9:54
  Radim Malinic: When it comes to strategy, when you ask, in a C speed, for example, Okay.
• 9:58
  Radim Malinic: How would you describe a company in one sentence and you've got seven stakeholders in a room and everyone says something different?
• 10:05
  Radim Malinic: It's Oh, So you asked me to do this and I'm making you think about all sorts of other things because it's it's almost like I the, uh, the, phrase called spin selling.
• 10:14
  Radim Malinic: If you've ever, ever, have heard of spin selling, it's like you spell out what will happen if you don't address the problems.
• 10:20
  Radim Malinic: You don't say, Oh, by the way, your logo is rubbish.
• 10:22
  Radim Malinic: Oh yeah, this is rubbish.
• 10:23
  Radim Malinic: And that's rubbish.
• 10:24
  Radim Malinic: You go, if you carry on, the competition will overtake you.
• 10:27
  Radim Malinic: They'll look more trustworthy, more authoritative.
• 10:29
  Radim Malinic: They'll look this and people go like, Oh, right.
• 10:31
  Radim Malinic: Okay.
• 10:31
  Radim Malinic: So do you think we should change our logo?
• 10:34
  Radim Malinic: Yes.
• 10:35
  Radim Malinic: And I think there's a lot of value because, and correct me if I'm wrong, but lots of people, if they get in a brand strategy from the visual side of things.
• 10:43
  Radim Malinic: Do you agree that they're mainly hung up on the visuals at first before they actually start thinking about the sort of the greater good of the company and purpose and that kind of stuff?
• 10:52
  Radim Malinic: Would you agree?
• 10:54
  Danielle Clarke: yeah, I absolutely agree because I think that's the bit that's tangible, I think, and that's the bit that people can actually see and distinguish.
• 11:03
  Danielle Clarke: Whereas the other stuff, it's not really tangible stuff, which is, this is why, you know, you said you think branding has got a bit of a, I think you said, an identity problem it has, because it's not something that's actually tangible, like the feeling.
• 11:18
  Danielle Clarke: It's like, how do you really explain and describe that?
• 11:22
  Danielle Clarke: And that's the thing that brand strategy does, you know, it uncovers, the customers and how they feel about your organization and the reason that they.
• 11:32
  Danielle Clarke: choose to engage with the products or service that you offer, people have goals and aspirations and pain points and challenges in their lives.
• 11:42
  Danielle Clarke: that's why we buy what we buy and consume what we consume, because we're trying to We're trying to make those things better.
• 11:49
  Danielle Clarke: We're looking for things to help us thrive and survive, right?
• 11:52
  Danielle Clarke: if you're solely focusing on the visual side of things, the identity of a logo, as much as these are very important, and I talked about that actually this week, you're at risk of having style without substance, and you're at risk of looking really good.
• 12:11
  Danielle Clarke: but not walking the walk.
• 12:13
  Danielle Clarke: So looking really good, but not really being able to connect with your audience to solve their problems and make them feel seen and heard and make them feel like that they can really trust you because you deliver on that promise.
• 12:25
  Danielle Clarke: So, I think a lot of small businesses, yeah, they do focus on the visuals, the identity, because that's the bit that they maybe understand, whereas the other side feels a little bit, elusive.
• 12:39
  Radim Malinic: What you describe, it makes me think that sometimes there's more of a visual strategy rather than a brand strategy, because you're really asking for a very all rounder brand strategist to actually have an experience of these things to actually have happened.
• 12:52
  Radim Malinic: Because you've got examples of people that go deep dive into the companies and actually have an understanding of okay, I've done this before, this is what happens.
• 13:00
  Radim Malinic: Whereas if you've got a making of a brand strategist, where do you even start?
• 13:05
  Radim Malinic: Because.
• 13:06
  Radim Malinic: Do you start as a logo designer?
• 13:07
  Radim Malinic: Do you go straight into brand strategy?
• 13:09
  Radim Malinic: what is the kind of, let's try to decipher.
• 13:11
  Radim Malinic: What is the making of a brand strategy is that unless you have worked in the work, unless you've been in the workplace for 20 years, how'd you become one?
• 13:19
  Radim Malinic: Because I just feel there's many different things that.
• 13:24
  Radim Malinic: Make you all around an article that can understand, be empathetic, have the emotional intelligence, have the experience of, I have solved these problems before.
• 13:32
  Radim Malinic: Because if you start at 21 years old and want to be a brand strategist, you haven't lived up.
• 13:39
  Radim Malinic: You haven't read all the books.
• 13:40
  Radim Malinic: You haven't had all the experience.
• 13:42
  Radim Malinic: Is that right?
• 13:42
  Radim Malinic: Or am I being ageist?
• 13:44
  Danielle Clarke: No, I think you are right.
• 13:46
  Danielle Clarke: I think it comes from.
• 13:48
  Danielle Clarke: It's a mixture of things and I can only answer that question based on my own journey, my own personal experience, you know, the reason I, I said at the start, I was already doing the things that a brand strategist does, but didn't really know it.
• 14:01
  Danielle Clarke: So the fact that I'm a really strong collaborator, I naturally connect people together.
• 14:08
  Danielle Clarke: So whether it's, I remember when I was working at, I was working at Next, for example, and, Next is a, a retailer for anyone that's listening and doesn't know they, they do, lots of fashion, lots of clothing, online and in store.
• 14:22
  Danielle Clarke: And, I was working with, a team, a new team was working in a small studio, all female studio.
• 14:29
  Danielle Clarke: And.
• 14:30
  Danielle Clarke: Me being there actually helped to bring that team together.
• 14:34
  Danielle Clarke: I got them, I got us all going to lunch together, which previously didn't happen, going for walks at lunchtime.
• 14:40
  Danielle Clarke: Like I really changed the dynamic of the team and helped them become more collaborative, really good at connecting people.
• 14:49
  Danielle Clarke: I'm naturally very, very good at talking.
• 14:51
  Danielle Clarke: I've always been a talker.
• 14:52
  Danielle Clarke: I've always been very confident talking.
• 14:55
  Danielle Clarke: hence the podcast and, coming and speaking to you Radim and, lecturing as well.
• 15:00
  Danielle Clarke: That's something that, that I got into where most people would run away from having to speak in front of hundreds of people.
• 15:08
  Danielle Clarke: I seek it.
• 15:09
  Danielle Clarke: I want it.
• 15:10
  Danielle Clarke: I want to talk.
• 15:11
  Danielle Clarke: I want to have conversations with people.
• 15:13
  Danielle Clarke: So this idea of being able to articulate yourself as a strategist, because you're in rooms and you've got to connect and talk to people, right?
• 15:22
  Danielle Clarke: And also having that vision, so because of my experience in design and being, you know, I'm a visual learner and I can also, look to the future.
• 15:34
  Danielle Clarke: So having plans and goals and helping organisations to do that as well.
• 15:39
  Danielle Clarke: And also helping students, being a lecturer, helping them.
• 15:43
  Danielle Clarke: decide on their goal and their vision and figuring out how they're going to get there and how do they get to the end of the project.
• 15:49
  Danielle Clarke: So there's various things along with the empathy and being, curious and creative, all of those things I think come together to make someone a brand strategist.
• 15:58
  Danielle Clarke: And that doesn't come Straight after leaving college or university comes with experience and working in lots of different places and being around lots of different people for you to start to develop those other skills.
• 16:12
  Radim Malinic: So how long on your journey, how long did it take you before you realized I actually am a brand strategist?
• 17:01
  Danielle Clarke: So I think I realized probably a year ago, if I'm honest,
• 17:10
  Radim Malinic: Wow.
• 17:11
  Danielle Clarke: because I was really holding on.
• 17:14
  Danielle Clarke: Because of what you said at the start, this whole, uh, it felt like everyone was a brand strategist.
• 17:18
  Danielle Clarke: So I was like, I don't want people to think that I'm just jumping on this bandwagon.
• 17:23
  Danielle Clarke: I was, I really battled with it with not calling myself a brand designer anymore, or a creative.
• 17:31
  Danielle Clarke: And I actually, went through a process of, because previously I was known as Danielle Clark Creative.
• 17:37
  Danielle Clarke: and I dropped the creative and I changed it to Daniel Clark Consultancy and that was, no one really noticed it, because it's still the C, but for me, was me saying, okay, you're gonna, you're gonna own this now and you're not gonna, you're not gonna worry about what people think because you're already doing it.
• 18:01
  Radim Malinic: Let's talk about a mindset.
• 18:02
  Radim Malinic: This is really interesting.
• 18:03
  Radim Malinic: So there's a pivot, So I still haven't found out like your year ago, when did you actually start?
• 18:08
  Radim Malinic: When did you finish?
• 18:09
  Radim Malinic: Like just let's just put that before we park it.
• 18:11
  Radim Malinic: let's tell me, was it five years, 10 years?
• 18:14
  Danielle Clarke: When did I actually start?
• 18:16
  Radim Malinic: when did you actually start your creative career
• 18:19
  Danielle Clarke: Oh, my creative career.
• 18:21
  Danielle Clarke: Gosh, my creative career, actually, and I have a, a little joke about this because in my, in LinkedIn, it says branding prodigy since age eight.
• 18:33
  Danielle Clarke: And that's when it started.
• 18:36
  Danielle Clarke: and that's quite, a long story.
• 18:37
  Danielle Clarke: So I don't know if, I don't know if you want to go down that path now.
• 18:42
  Radim Malinic: How did you realize you were a branding prodigy at age eight?
• 18:45
  Danielle Clarke: Well, because.
• 18:47
  Danielle Clarke: I, basically, I was at school, obviously at the time, I was in primary school, and Every so often, we get these letters from the school, and these letters were often about fundraising.
• 19:02
  Danielle Clarke: The school needs to raise money for something.
• 19:05
  Danielle Clarke: can the parents contribute?
• 19:07
  Danielle Clarke: and I used to have this little tiny satchel, your teacher would put the letter in your satchel and you'd take it home and take it home to mum.
• 19:15
  Danielle Clarke: But I'd always have a little sneaky peek at this, these letters before I gave them to my mum.
• 19:19
  Danielle Clarke: And I, I was really reluctant to give this letter to my mum because it was about asking her for money and because my mum didn't have a lot of money, we didn't have a lot.
• 19:29
  Danielle Clarke: And so on this occasion, I didn't give her the letter and I said, there's got to be a way that I can try and get the money without having to ask my mum.
• 19:38
  Danielle Clarke: Um, so went into school the next day and.
• 19:43
  Danielle Clarke: I had a chat with my friends.
• 19:44
  Danielle Clarke: I said, I've got an idea.
• 19:45
  Danielle Clarke: I want to start a school magazine, wrote my friends in, then basically pitch this idea to the teachers.
• 19:55
  Danielle Clarke: The teacher said, yes, we can do it.
• 19:58
  Danielle Clarke: So I got my friends to, so some of my friends were really good at telling jokes.
• 20:02
  Danielle Clarke: So I got one to do a jokes page.
• 20:04
  Danielle Clarke: I got another one to do like, to draw like a superhero that was for a coloring page.
• 20:10
  Danielle Clarke: We had like word searches in there.
• 20:12
  Danielle Clarke: I did the front page and it was just full of all of these things and we, we actually designed and created this magazine at school, in school time, using the school facilities, and then we got the teachers to let us photocopy them.
• 20:29
  Danielle Clarke: So we did all that, photocopied them, stapled them together, went outside in the playground and sold them to the parents at home time for like 25p each.
• 20:40
  Danielle Clarke: And no one said no to buying this magazine.
• 20:42
  Danielle Clarke: Everyone bought it.
• 20:44
  Danielle Clarke: Some people gave us more money and we raised some money for the school and I didn't have to ask my mum for the money.
• 20:51
  Radim Malinic: yeah, I'm in awe of that story.
• 20:53
  Radim Malinic: It's amazing.
• 20:53
  Radim Malinic: I think it's the people who got a self it's the people who show this early drive that go on to do amazing things.
• 21:01
  Radim Malinic: And there's people like Johnny Cupcakes who was selling sweets, in school.
• 21:05
  Radim Malinic: I think it was Chris Doe who was selling sweets in school.
• 21:08
  Radim Malinic: and it's, I think that way, when you realize you can actually change the norm.
• 21:12
  Radim Malinic: I love that story.
• 21:13
  Radim Malinic: I love that story.
• 21:14
  Radim Malinic: When you realize.
• 21:15
  Radim Malinic: I don't want to ask my mum, like it's already like the level of understanding, like the emotional intelligence, like we can do something in your early editorial project.
• 21:24
  Radim Malinic: bringing people together.
• 21:26
  Radim Malinic: So you've been bringing people together, working as a team.
• 21:28
  Radim Malinic: I think sometimes you see LinkedIn bios and you go, yeah, that'll never happen.
• 21:34
  Radim Malinic: Whereas I think I love yours.
• 21:36
  Radim Malinic: I think that's really incredible.
• 21:37
  Radim Malinic: Like how You did that.
• 21:40
  Radim Malinic: did you carry on with the magazine or did the magazine project ever inspire you to keep more, more, making more magazines or is it just one off and that's it?
• 21:47
  Danielle Clarke: Well, it was a one off.
• 21:50
  Danielle Clarke: you know, one issue only.
• 21:52
  Danielle Clarke: But it did the job and that was, can still remember the feeling of being in that playground and the excitement and the buzz that was happening.
• 22:02
  Danielle Clarke: You know, the energy, all my friends were so happy to be a part of it.
• 22:06
  Danielle Clarke: The teachers were on board and really proud of us, you know, walking around and, handing this out to the parents and them smiling and being like, yeah, of course.
• 22:15
  Danielle Clarke: And giving us some money, like it made people happy and it brought people together.
• 22:20
  Radim Malinic: Yeah.
• 22:21
  Radim Malinic: Very good.
• 22:21
  Danielle Clarke: And that's what I want to continue to do now, as a strategist.
• 22:25
  Danielle Clarke: So I'll say, like, I've shared these stories with mentors and managers and things, and they're like, you've been doing this for a while.
• 22:33
  Danielle Clarke: You need to just call yourself a brand strategist and not get hung up on, on the fact that everyone else seems to be calling themselves it.
• 22:42
  Radim Malinic: When you tell a story like that in a boardroom, it's such an incredible icebreaker sometimes, you go like, Hey, this is who I am as a human being.
• 22:48
  Radim Malinic: And I remember as an experience of, actually volunteering a story of who you are and how can you help?
• 22:54
  Radim Malinic: And look, we might be working together for six months.
• 22:58
  Radim Malinic: I remember once being in a room of 15 people.
• 23:01
  Radim Malinic: And I was like, look, it came from ice hockey.
• 23:03
  Radim Malinic: I was in bands.
• 23:04
  Radim Malinic: I was doing this.
• 23:04
  Radim Malinic: I was doing that.
• 23:05
  Radim Malinic: And they were like, and you can see all these people going, Hey, All right, this is a different story.
• 23:09
  Radim Malinic: Let's see what we can happen.
• 23:10
  Radim Malinic: And then you see the CEO looking at me like, what are you on about?
• 23:14
  Radim Malinic: And I realized I can't work with you.
• 23:16
  Radim Malinic: Like I've got, let's say 10 people on my side and you're not like, you're looking at me, you might be confused.
• 23:21
  Radim Malinic: You might, try to understand the past sort of personal emotional space, their state, what, like what's happening.
• 23:26
  Radim Malinic: But I was remembering, I remember that, that looking on that person's face, I'm like, what's going on?
• 23:31
  Radim Malinic: I don't think they like me.
• 23:33
  Radim Malinic: I don't think this is gonna work.
• 23:34
  Radim Malinic: And I just, it was quite a lucrative deal.
• 23:36
  Radim Malinic: I just walked away.
• 23:37
  Radim Malinic: I was like, I cannot in any way carry on with these people because, I'm not saying that everyone should be admiring my story.
• 23:44
  Radim Malinic: It's just more like.
• 23:45
  Radim Malinic: If you want to be curious, then you might be listening.
• 23:47
  Radim Malinic: Now it's like, oh my word, like that's different, unless you've got even more amazing story and we should talk about your story too.
• 23:53
  Radim Malinic: But it's like, I'm here, you don't know me.
• 23:56
  Radim Malinic: We should be working for a while.
• 23:57
  Radim Malinic: And you know, each other, cause you guys work together, all this time.
• 24:02
  Radim Malinic: And it totally failed.
• 24:04
  Radim Malinic: I was like, I cannot work with that person because.
• 24:07
  Radim Malinic: Sometimes we have to be honest, whatever you can do, it's not for everyone.
• 24:10
  Radim Malinic: And, you know, it's sometimes, we try to tell ourselves that, we should be, we should help anyone.
• 24:14
  Radim Malinic: We should help absolutely anyone who's asking.
• 24:17
  Radim Malinic: And it's impossible.
• 24:19
  Radim Malinic: So you've mentioned that you work with purpose led businesses and the word purpose, Again, I'm going to challenge this.
• 24:28
  Radim Malinic: It's almost like every single business is now purpose.
• 24:30
  Radim Malinic: everyone, it's great.
• 24:31
  Radim Malinic: There'll be a sort of unearthing these things that sometimes were exclusive to some companies.
• 24:36
  Radim Malinic: Sometimes people didn't even think about purpose led businesses or sustainability on the future of the planet, et cetera.
• 24:44
  Radim Malinic: But having the purpose is your North Star.
• 24:46
  Radim Malinic: It gives you an idea.
• 24:47
  Radim Malinic: okay, so this is what we're working towards.
• 24:49
  Radim Malinic: So how do you go.
• 24:51
  Radim Malinic: And sometimes look for purpose and if company actually lacks it, because, sometimes, especially with a small business setup, people go I need to survive, because you mentioned earlier thrive and survive.
• 25:01
  Radim Malinic: And it's sometimes it's actually, do or die really rather than thrive and survive.
• 25:06
  Radim Malinic: So how do you go about finding purpose for people?
• 25:09
  Danielle Clarke: So health and wellbeing is really important to me.
• 25:14
  Danielle Clarke: so there was a time in my life I had, me and my partner had just bought a house, and it's a house that we're in now.
• 25:24
  Danielle Clarke: And it was our first home together, really excited, and then the day after we got the keys, I got a phone call, and that phone call was from the CEO, bearing in mind it was a Saturday, and they were basically making me redundant, so I was actually in my then flat, cleaning, getting ready to get my deposit back, and I remember sitting down on the stairs, I had like the cleaner in my hand and the cloth in my hand and I just sat on the stairs at the end of the phone call and I don't know how long I was sat on the stairs for because I'd gone from being incredibly happy to being extremely low and like what the hell am I gonna do?
• 26:14
  Danielle Clarke: and, I went through a really difficult time, a really difficult time.
• 26:20
  Danielle Clarke: Now, the thing that kept me going through that time was my partner and the fact that he was extremely supportive and said please don't worry, we'll make it work.
• 26:30
  Danielle Clarke: We'll be okay.
• 26:32
  Danielle Clarke: But going to the gym and meditating, so that was the thing that got me out of bed in the morning.
• 26:40
  Danielle Clarke: because I really felt like a failure.
• 26:43
  Danielle Clarke: So getting up, going to the gym, having that routine, feeling good after I got out of the gym and meditating, and that kept me going, and so having been incredibly low, I know how important having those things that continue to get me healthy were to have in my life.
• 27:03
  Danielle Clarke: And so, because of that, because of my personal experience and knowing how, how beneficial it was to keep moving and, to keep taking care of myself.
• 27:13
  Danielle Clarke: Those are the sorts of businesses that I really want to work with.
• 27:17
  Danielle Clarke: So for me, it's purposeful businesses.
• 27:20
  Danielle Clarke: Yeah.
• 27:20
  Danielle Clarke: But those that are helping to improve our health.
• 27:26
  Danielle Clarke: So whether that's physical health, mental health, emotional health, they're all combined.
• 27:31
  Danielle Clarke: Those are the businesses that I want to continue to work with.
• 27:34
  Danielle Clarke: And I want to help because I know how important it is.
• 27:37
  Danielle Clarke: And there's a particular business I've worked with recently that's been extremely rewarding.
• 27:45
  Danielle Clarke: He's a movement specialist and I met him through my business coach and we had a conversation.
• 27:54
  Danielle Clarke: It was locked down at the time and we had a conversation on Zoom.
• 27:58
  Danielle Clarke: We were just getting to know each other and I'd been Through lockdown, I've been running.
• 28:04
  Danielle Clarke: I started doing the, couch to 5k again.
• 28:08
  Danielle Clarke: Lockdown was tough.
• 28:10
  Danielle Clarke: I couldn't go and play hockey with my friends.
• 28:12
  Danielle Clarke: we're only allowed to go out once a day.
• 28:13
  Danielle Clarke: And so again, for me, exercise, it really helped me.
• 28:17
  Danielle Clarke: So I used to go out and go running first thing in the morning and I was doing that every other day.
• 28:23
  Danielle Clarke: But I suffered a really bad knee injury playing hockey many years ago and that kind of kept coming back so I was telling this guy all about that and He said to me, okay, what's been going on and blah blah blah He's right.
• 28:35
  Danielle Clarke: Do me a favor do a squat for me.
• 28:37
  Danielle Clarke: Bury the one we're on a zoom call So I get up out my chair.
• 28:42
  Danielle Clarke: I'll do a squat facing the camera forward sideways backwards I'll turn around and he's got a list He's got a note thing on his screen, he's got a list of things that are wrong.
• 28:52
  Danielle Clarke: He's yeah, you've got this and this.
• 28:54
  Danielle Clarke: He was like, oh, we can sort you out.
• 28:56
  Danielle Clarke: I'll have you out of pain in six weeks.
• 28:59
  Danielle Clarke: Bearing in mind, I've been to doctors, I've been to physios, pain kept coming back.
• 29:03
  Danielle Clarke: Started running, pain kept coming back.
• 29:05
  Danielle Clarke: And I thought to myself, who is this guy that really thinks he's going to be able to get me out of pain?
• 29:12
  Danielle Clarke: But I thought, I've got nothing to lose, he's been recommended by someone that I trust, let's go for it.
• 29:17
  Danielle Clarke: So I did it, I did what he said, he did the plan, followed it to the letter, and I was out of pain.
• 29:23
  Danielle Clarke: In about six weeks, no more knee pain could carry on running, doing everything.
• 29:28
  Danielle Clarke: I was like, how are you in the position that you are in?
• 29:33
  Danielle Clarke: Because at the time he wasn't doing very well with his business he was struggling and I didn't even realize how much knowledge he had.
• 29:42
  Danielle Clarke: I never would have considered seeing someone like him.
• 29:45
  Danielle Clarke: I'd have gone and seen a physio, right?
• 29:48
  Danielle Clarke: And so we started having a conversation about his brand.
• 29:52
  Danielle Clarke: I said to him, people don't understand what you do.
• 29:55
  Danielle Clarke: People don't know what you do.
• 29:56
  Danielle Clarke: And they think that you're just a PT.
• 29:59
  Danielle Clarke: They think you're a personal trainer.
• 30:01
  Danielle Clarke: They don't know you've got all this knowledge that you can help them get out of pain.
• 30:05
  Danielle Clarke: So we did some brand strategy.
• 30:07
  Danielle Clarke: We looked at the reason he started the business.
• 30:11
  Danielle Clarke: The sorts of people that he wanted to work with and help, his values, what, you know, why he was doing it, the services he provided.
• 30:20
  Danielle Clarke: We got really, really clear on all of that.
• 30:22
  Danielle Clarke: And then we did a rebrand.
• 30:24
  Danielle Clarke: So we redesigned his identity and the transformation for him and his business has been monumental, everyone knows who he is.
• 30:33
  Danielle Clarke: He's the body fix coach now.
• 30:35
  Danielle Clarke: People love wearing his hoodies with his logo on.
• 30:38
  Danielle Clarke: People have really got on board with the brand and everyone understands what he does now.
• 30:43
  Danielle Clarke: He gets people out of pain and he's took on, staff now, he's got a facility and things are going really, really well for him.
• 30:52
  Danielle Clarke: And he's helped some of my friends at hockey players on my team.
• 30:58
  Danielle Clarke: You know, some of them were really suffering with their back, with their knees, and he's helped get them out of pain as well, so that they can continue to play hockey.
• 31:05
  Danielle Clarke: Those are the people I want to work with.
• 31:08
  Radim Malinic: It's an amazing story.
• 31:09
  Radim Malinic: I think it's taking you from a dark place to not only, now back into sunshine, but in your own life where you're helping others.
• 31:17
  Radim Malinic: And yeah, when you started talking about movement coach, I'm like, what sort of, which one is it?
• 31:23
  Radim Malinic: When you say body fix.
• 31:24
  Radim Malinic: Oh, That makes perfect sense.
• 31:26
  Radim Malinic: it's just sometimes we just have to spell out the positive outcome of what the action is.
• 31:30
  Radim Malinic: You know, sometimes it's so, so impossible to know because people can be so snow, like snow blinds to what they do.
• 31:37
  Radim Malinic: They're like, well, it makes sense to me.
• 31:39
  Radim Malinic: Well, tell everybody else.
• 31:40
  Radim Malinic: Does it make sense to even your wife?
• 31:42
  Radim Malinic: You know, it's just, what does it do?
• 31:43
  Radim Malinic: And it's sometimes quite hard because I've mentioned it to somebody the other day, like I, you come, when it comes to graphic designers, wherever you go in the world, people have different ways of explaining what they do.
• 31:54
  Radim Malinic: And some, we overlap around edges of what we do so much, and we give us, give ourselves different titles even though we do something similar.
• 32:03
  Radim Malinic: And you're like, sometimes you think like, how do you get work by being graphic facilitator?
• 32:08
  Radim Malinic: I don't know what that is.
• 32:09
  Radim Malinic: And you do this and you're like, how, what, where, what?
• 32:11
  Radim Malinic: Like what's going on?
• 32:13
  Radim Malinic: If it's okay, I'll go, I want to go back to the day where you got a phone call, which said, you know what, you no longer need it.
• 32:21
  Radim Malinic: what was just, it was the job that you had, but you got redundant from.
• 32:24
  Danielle Clarke: Yeah, so I was working as a creative designer for a luxury retailer.
• 32:31
  Danielle Clarke: So they dealt in luxury watches basically, and the high end, really high end goods, and a lot of their clients were footballers, celebrities that wanted.
• 32:43
  Danielle Clarke: a really nice watch or a bespoke piece of jewellery designed for a special occasion.
• 32:50
  Danielle Clarke: But yeah, they got into some financial difficulty and had to, yeah.
• 32:56
  Radim Malinic: So that's interesting.
• 32:57
  Radim Malinic: So you got let go and you feel quite rightfully almost depressed, right?
• 33:01
  Radim Malinic: So you've got no job.
• 33:02
  Radim Malinic: And so you were relying on somebody else to, actually pay your mortgage in a way.
• 33:06
  Radim Malinic: And not necessarily always having, the whole of the strategy of the business with what you can do.
• 33:12
  Radim Malinic: And reason why I want to talk about it is because, is it, did you go on your own sins?
• 33:18
  Radim Malinic: Did you go like, you've started your own business after being made redundant.
• 33:22
  Radim Malinic: Is that right?
• 33:23
  Danielle Clarke: that was the catalyst.
• 33:25
  Danielle Clarke: Yeah, I'd, I sort of had enough.
• 33:28
  Radim Malinic: Because part of the reason this podcast exists is because in the book that was inspired, it was like, you can make your own future.
• 33:36
  Radim Malinic: You can invent your own dream future.
• 33:38
  Radim Malinic: Because when I speak to people and they're like, I don't really want to leave my job.
• 33:42
  Radim Malinic: I'm happy.
• 33:43
  Radim Malinic: This is good.
• 33:44
  Radim Malinic: Well, they say they're happy.
• 33:45
  Radim Malinic: Sometimes they're not happy, but we've got such a little hold of the future.
• 33:49
  Radim Malinic: Like we don't decide where the company goes.
• 33:51
  Radim Malinic: We don't decide what the work is being done.
• 33:53
  Radim Malinic: We don't decide, so many different things.
• 33:55
  Radim Malinic: Whereas when we go on our own, we go, yeah, this is a bit scary.
• 34:00
  Radim Malinic: You know, I don't know what I'm doing.
• 34:01
  Radim Malinic: I don't know where I'm going.
• 34:02
  Radim Malinic: I don't know how to fix stuff.
• 34:03
  Radim Malinic: But if there's something with the company, you can't fix it.
• 34:06
  Radim Malinic: You've got very little.
• 34:08
  Radim Malinic: very little chance to actually influence things, unless, there's a strong union or whatever, if it's a big company, whereas if you're on your own, it might feel scarier, but if something's not working, you can fix it straight away, you're like, oh, wait a minute, I'm a movement coach, maybe I need to speak to someone, they can fix my business, I can do this, I can, it's actually, I think, I'm not saying that being on your, like starting your own businesses for everyone.
• 34:30
  Radim Malinic: Obviously, I know some people who are very happily being employed and never be employed for the rest of their lives.
• 34:34
  Radim Malinic: But what we perceive as uncertainty in running our own businesses is actually very much a bonus because you need that sort of, that survival instinct to kick in.
• 34:45
  Radim Malinic: I'm like, what do I do?
• 34:46
  Radim Malinic: How do I fix this?
• 34:47
  Radim Malinic: What's needed next?
• 34:48
  Radim Malinic: Because as you've said with your guy, like he was a little bit lost.
• 34:51
  Radim Malinic: But then you fixed it and it helped him to grow.
• 34:54
  Radim Malinic: And I think we are sometimes very guilty of not necessarily branding ourselves.
• 35:00
  Radim Malinic: we spew out a cliche sort of taglines that, make us, sometimes make us sound like silly.
• 35:06
  Radim Malinic: because it's just Oh, we want to work with ambitious businesses.
• 35:09
  Radim Malinic: Or we want to be a creative team, whatever.
• 35:11
  Radim Malinic: It's that's almost given so we've got this problem.
• 35:13
  Radim Malinic: So since you've got on your own.
• 35:16
  Radim Malinic: What has been the benefits?
• 35:17
  Radim Malinic: What have you found that works so much better for you?
• 35:21
  Danielle Clarke: The things that have really worked for me is being able to decide what it is that I need that day.
• 35:29
  Danielle Clarke: So there's times where, say for example this morning, I meditated and I carved out that time to do that.
• 35:37
  Danielle Clarke: when I was employed by other people, you can't, you those decisions if you need, You need to do something that day or if you want to, if you decide you want to book a day off because you want to go and see a friend, you know, I've done that before where we've met up and had a coffee and gone out and it's been a lovely day and maybe that means that I need to work, do a bit of work when I get in that evening, that's fine.
• 36:01
  Danielle Clarke: Like it's having that freedom and choice that for me, being employed didn't give me that I really desired and.
• 36:09
  Danielle Clarke: Being able to prioritize myself and my needs and what I need first before someone else, I think that flexibility, it doesn't always work out because I think I can be a bit of a tricky boss sometimes, the late nights and the weekends, but I don't, it's really weird because I don't, really see it as work because I love it so much.
• 36:39
  Danielle Clarke: I was talking to a friend and they were, I was saying, oh yeah, so on Sunday I need to, I've got to do such and such because I need to write some content, and then like plan, I need to plan something for the next day.
• 36:50
  Danielle Clarke: And they were like, you're working on a Sunday?
• 36:52
  Danielle Clarke: I was like, yeah, like I enjoy it.
• 36:54
  Danielle Clarke: I enjoy getting up in the morning.
• 36:57
  Danielle Clarke: You know, it's quite having a coffee and doing three hours of deep work, I'd rather do that than be watching, I don't know, some Sunday cooking show or something.
• 37:08
  Danielle Clarke: I enjoy it.
• 37:09
  Danielle Clarke: Sounds
• 37:13
  Radim Malinic: and when the universe has been more quieter because when you've got that noise You need to hear yourself.
• 37:18
  Radim Malinic: Sometimes you just need to hear your thoughts.
• 37:20
  Radim Malinic: Okay?
• 37:20
  Radim Malinic: What do I want to do and I can totally agree with you like I used to absolutely adore working at times when everyone was asleep or they were, doing something else.
• 37:28
  Radim Malinic: It's okay, this is my time to actually be alone with my thoughts and actually work on this because it's so easy to buy into Disneyland.
• 37:34
  Radim Malinic: it's so easy to go okay, I want to do all of this and all of that.
• 37:37
  Radim Malinic: And sometimes you feel like you don't get anywhere because If you quite rightfully mention two words, deep work, you get into it and in those three hours, you can actually create something that's going to give you content for the rest of the week.
• 37:50
  Radim Malinic: Now, I think it was Charles Darwin, and.
• 37:53
  Radim Malinic: Charles Darwin, who was the famous writer Charles Dickens.
• 37:57
  Radim Malinic: they both worked four hours a day.
• 37:59
  Radim Malinic: You know, there was no such thing as sort of social media back in the day, but we think like they had to knuckle down tons of work for God knows how long, but they didn't have to work on their social media presence.
• 38:10
  Radim Malinic: They didn't have to work on their SEO and their brand strategy.
• 38:13
  Radim Malinic: Yeah, but it was the simpler times.
• 38:16
  Radim Malinic: It doesn't come.
• 38:17
  Radim Malinic: Darwin, for example, ended up being a very unhappy man because he peaked around sort of 27, 30.
• 38:23
  Radim Malinic: That's not hours, that's the age of 27 and 30.
• 38:26
  Radim Malinic: And then he was struggling to actually get the information from the outside world to progress in his studies and in his research.
• 38:34
  Radim Malinic: Whereas now we have this cross pollinated world that gives us ideas and information that you can learn from.
• 38:40
  Radim Malinic: brand strategy or like brands from South America or from, from Asia, like we've got this window to the world and sometimes it can be so overwhelming.
• 38:47
  Radim Malinic: So knuckling down your own story and be honest, true to your own mission and your purpose sometimes creates the most amazing thing.
• 38:55
  Radim Malinic: So I like that you said that you were always a natural talker and that you.
• 39:02
  Radim Malinic: started your podcast and then you also lecture.
• 39:05
  Radim Malinic: So when we go back to Darwin, let's talk about the upcoming talent.
• 39:10
  Radim Malinic: Where do you teach?
• 39:11
  Radim Malinic: What do you teach?
• 39:12
  Radim Malinic: And what's your current view of design education overall?
• 39:16
  Radim Malinic: I
• 39:17
  Danielle Clarke: Yeah.
• 39:17
  Danielle Clarke: So I'm a visiting lecturer at BCU, which is Birmingham city university.
• 39:22
  Danielle Clarke: And I teach on the graphic design and visual communication degree.
• 39:28
  Danielle Clarke: And I teach the second year.
• 39:30
  Danielle Clarke: they've.
• 39:31
  Danielle Clarke: They've messed around and and done a lot of partying in first year and second year is where they start to get a little bit more focused and start to really develop their craft and also identify the direction that they're going to be taking, which is the module that we literally just started.
• 39:49
  Danielle Clarke: yeah, I absolutely love it.
• 39:51
  Danielle Clarke: I love having conversations with students that.
• 39:54
  Danielle Clarke: Especially when we do one to ones and they'll be stuck on something or they'll be really unsure.
• 39:58
  Danielle Clarke: it happened yesterday, actually.
• 40:01
  Danielle Clarke: A few of the students have just done their placement module and they were talking about they, they were given a brief and they had to come up with ideas very, very quickly.
• 40:09
  Danielle Clarke: And, and they really struggled with the conceptual side and the idea generation.
• 40:16
  Danielle Clarke: And I was talking to them about that part of your brain, it's like a muscle.
• 40:20
  Danielle Clarke: And you have to keep practising, you have to train it, and the more you train it, your brain will start to make these connections, and the more you develop a process, when you get stuck, if you go to that process, it will help to uncover those ideas and concepts, but you have to do it regularly, okay?
• 40:40
  Danielle Clarke: And they were like, Yeah, but we don't know how and so I said, okay, let's try and exercise now.
• 40:46
  Danielle Clarke: So I put them all on the spot.
• 40:48
  Danielle Clarke: I went and grabbed four sheets of paper, grabbed some sharpies.
• 40:51
  Danielle Clarke: I said, I'm going to give you something and you've got to advertise it.
• 40:54
  Danielle Clarke: And I'm going to set a timer for 60 seconds.
• 40:57
  Danielle Clarke: You should see the look of fear on their faces.
• 41:01
  Danielle Clarke: And they were like, Oh, but you've probably already, you've probably already got an idea of what you're going to do.
• 41:06
  Danielle Clarke: Because I said, I'm going to do it with you.
• 41:08
  Danielle Clarke: Okay.
• 41:09
  Danielle Clarke: I was like, we'll get, The other lecturer would get Martin to think of something.
• 41:13
  Danielle Clarke: So I called him over.
• 41:14
  Danielle Clarke: I said, Martin, this is what we're doing.
• 41:15
  Danielle Clarke: give us a suggestion.
• 41:18
  Danielle Clarke: And so he was thinking.
• 41:19
  Danielle Clarke: He said, all right, black bean bags.
• 41:21
  Danielle Clarke: And so we had to sketch, 60 seconds, sketch a poster to advertise Black Bean Bags, put them on the spot.
• 41:29
  Danielle Clarke: But at the end of the session, that 60 seconds, they all had something down on that piece of paper.
• 41:35
  Danielle Clarke: We all started, talking about our ideas and that we're getting excited and then one person sharing an idea.
• 41:42
  Danielle Clarke: then made someone else go, oh okay, and then maybe we could do this and that could be a concept.
• 41:47
  Danielle Clarke: could it be black, wearing black bin bags and looking good in everything or black bin bags being sustainable or whatever.
• 41:52
  Danielle Clarke: All these ideas have been thrown around and they got excited.
• 41:57
  Danielle Clarke: And at the end they were like, Oh, I really enjoyed that.
• 41:59
  Danielle Clarke: I said, so what you're going to do now you've seen how it works, the three of you, whether it's a couple of times a week, you're going to set aside some time to do that together, to start to practice how you come up with ideas.
• 42:11
  Danielle Clarke: I was buzzing after session.
• 42:14
  Danielle Clarke: And that's the thing I love.
• 42:16
  Danielle Clarke: It's, seeing them unsure and doubtful and then giving them a technique or a tool that gets them excited, that gets them believing in their abilities and allows them to be able to take that and continue with that, with it, without me being there.
• 42:36
  Radim Malinic: think it's a scary world to enter the creative industry right now because it's never been more accessible in terms of tools, tutorials, information, troubleshooting.
• 42:49
  Radim Malinic: if you have an idea that you want to make, there's a software, there's a click, there's a YouTube video to show you how to do it.
• 42:55
  Radim Malinic: It's just a question of what you really want to make, in the first place.
• 42:58
  Radim Malinic: did anyone think of Phoenix Knights?
• 43:01
  Radim Malinic: Come and get your Black Bim Bags.
• 43:03
  Danielle Clarke: Heavy Duty Black
• 43:05
  Radim Malinic: Black Bin Bags! Yeah, it's literally, that's the problem of creative minds like, oh, come on, say Black Bin Bags.
• 43:12
  Radim Malinic: so I think this is really interesting what you described, like unlocking that, potential because There's so much in, there's, I think as long as we live and this, and the humanity exists is like, do you need creative education?
• 43:27
  Radim Malinic: Do you not need creative education?
• 43:29
  Radim Malinic: There's always people for, and for, and people against it.
• 43:32
  Radim Malinic: And the more you actually get to the emotional, Sort of investment and actually the time that you're helping people grow.
• 43:39
  Radim Malinic: And as you said, of course we all get hammered in the first year and you're like, whatever happened happened, you know, like you just, you go through like your first whatever, tuition fee, thousands of pounds and you got a massive hangover and not much to show for it.
• 43:51
  Radim Malinic: But that's just the way, no, we go through life like, Hey, you have to get out of your system sometimes, but looking after the students, and I was.
• 43:59
  Radim Malinic: doing a lecture at Stafford University just last week.
• 44:03
  Danielle Clarke: I'm going there,
• 44:04
  Radim Malinic: Yeah, they're lovely.
• 44:05
  Radim Malinic: They're lovely.
• 44:06
  Radim Malinic: And it was the first time I've seen it click because my lectures are about, I'm very much doing a mindful creative lecture as my sort of flagship talk, where I really want to say, look, This is scary.
• 44:20
  Radim Malinic: This is not going to be easy.
• 44:22
  Radim Malinic: And you can almost say like, you can tell it to a founder.
• 44:25
  Radim Malinic: This is scary.
• 44:26
  Radim Malinic: It's not going to be easy.
• 44:27
  Radim Malinic: You know, like whatever we do.
• 44:28
  Radim Malinic: And there's a level of, pain or uncertainty or challenges and, you know, you have to make stuff happen.
• 44:35
  Radim Malinic: Like you can't just turn up and everything's, you know, paved in gold and everything's great because that's never going to happen in life.
• 44:41
  Radim Malinic: So when you see the students like Oh, paying attention and going, Oh, right.
• 44:46
  Radim Malinic: So everyone burns out.
• 44:48
  Radim Malinic: Look, everyone burns out.
• 44:49
  Radim Malinic: Everyone struggles.
• 44:50
  Radim Malinic: Everyone's got anxiety.
• 44:52
  Radim Malinic: We all have to work on it because you mentioned running from, from couch to 5k.
• 44:56
  Radim Malinic: You have to get through certain points.
• 44:58
  Radim Malinic: So you walk the 5k first and you walk a first K or whatever you do minute by minute.
• 45:04
  Radim Malinic: It's about a gradual muscle building, right?
• 45:07
  Radim Malinic: And then that comes physical and mental.
• 45:09
  Radim Malinic: And, it's this sort of view of like, you know what?
• 45:12
  Radim Malinic: We are all human just because I've been doing it for 20 extra years.
• 45:15
  Radim Malinic: And right now doesn't make me any less.
• 45:19
  Radim Malinic: prone to, emotional injury or upset or, struggle or burnout because sometimes, you're pure drive and, you're working, for example, seven days a week, but that still adds up to burnout over time.
• 45:32
  Radim Malinic: So obviously that sometimes is nice to do deep work on Sunday, but you know, you can't do it all the time.
• 45:36
  Radim Malinic: You take time off with your friend, but it's kind of saying, look, The glitzy, shiny thing that you're looking at, that you want to be part of, let's say advertising an industry or a design industry.
• 45:48
  Radim Malinic: It's still a commercial business and it's mixed with expectations, ego, ambition, anxiety, all of that's together.
• 45:57
  Radim Malinic: That's what you're doing, because, if you go and dig a hole, as a builder, that hole needs to be a certain parameter.
• 46:04
  Radim Malinic: You can measure it.
• 46:05
  Radim Malinic: That's good.
• 46:05
  Radim Malinic: No one's going to say, should we try five different ways of digging a hole?
• 46:08
  Radim Malinic: Should we do this?
• 46:09
  Radim Malinic: Or by the way, can you stay overnight and dig the hole again?
• 46:12
  Radim Malinic: because, I didn't like the first one.
• 46:13
  Radim Malinic: That doesn't necessarily happen.
• 46:15
  Radim Malinic: So we set ourselves on this path of unknowingly, we go into this emotional sort of washing machine of experiences.
• 46:23
  Radim Malinic: And I don't think there's ever been enough information how to deal with it.
• 46:27
  Radim Malinic: there was people happily getting drunk and struggling and whatever, and pretending like nothing's a problem.
• 46:32
  Radim Malinic: And people were told to man up and all of that stuff.
• 46:35
  Radim Malinic: And when you tell people like, you know what, it's going to be hard.
• 46:39
  Radim Malinic: But you can cope with this because I'm telling you now how to do this, running the 5k from the couch is going to be hard, but here's the ways how to do with it, like this is how you cope with it.
• 46:47
  Radim Malinic: So with these little sort of gentle souls, they're still hangover from the first year.
• 46:53
  Radim Malinic: How do you get them to Almost started forming a plan and a goal system because you mentioned earlier in the conversation that you help them to focus on goals.
• 47:03
  Radim Malinic: I didn't have a goal till I was about 22.
• 47:06
  Radim Malinic: You know, I didn't really know what exactly I wanted to do.
• 47:08
  Radim Malinic: And that goal was still very much vague.
• 47:11
  Radim Malinic: How do you get them to actually be more focused on a long term game?
• 47:15
  Danielle Clarke: Yeah.
• 47:16
  Danielle Clarke: So we did this very, very exercise with them and we get them to set, I have a bit of a love hate thing with smart goals because I think some of, SMART stands for, so it's got to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time specific, I think that's all of them.
• 47:38
  Danielle Clarke: And I think if you're setting a goal, of course it's going to be relevant.
• 47:41
  Radim Malinic: Too many words already, too complicated.
• 47:43
  Radim Malinic: It's a goal.
• 47:43
  Radim Malinic: That's four letters.
• 47:44
  Radim Malinic: That's enough.
• 47:45
  Radim Malinic: It's a goal.
• 47:46
  Radim Malinic: It's one thing and that's what it should be.
• 47:48
  Danielle Clarke: So, I have a bit of a about smart goals, but hey, we get them to set smart goals.
• 47:53
  Danielle Clarke: And one of them, one of them specifically asked me yesterday, they were like, what goals should I be putting in here?
• 47:59
  Danielle Clarke: And I was like, well, that's up to you.
• 48:01
  Danielle Clarke: I said, obviously you're at university, you're doing this graphic design degree.
• 48:07
  Danielle Clarke: When you get to the end of this year, the end of your third year, what, what You know, what's your ultimate goal?
• 48:13
  Danielle Clarke: I'm assuming it's a job, is it a particular skill?
• 48:17
  Danielle Clarke: what is it that you want?
• 48:19
  Danielle Clarke: And I said, think big, how do you want to be creative director of Nike?
• 48:23
  Danielle Clarke: What do you really, really want?
• 48:25
  Danielle Clarke: I said, it needs to be, I used a term like b hag, like a big hairy audacious girl, something that if you were to tell someone about it, they'd be like, take a step back and look at you as if to say, you're going for that.
• 48:38
  Danielle Clarke: Like, that's what you want.
• 48:40
  Danielle Clarke: who do you think you are?
• 48:41
  Danielle Clarke: Something that's a little bit, out there.
• 48:44
  Danielle Clarke: And she was like, okay.
• 48:45
  Danielle Clarke: And I said, and then think about, okay, so if that's your goal, What do you need to do this year to get closer to it?
• 48:54
  Danielle Clarke: What do you need to do next year?
• 48:56
  Danielle Clarke: Obviously you want to pass your degree you know what marks you need to be getting and if that's the role you want, what sort of What areas do you need to be focusing on?
• 49:05
  Danielle Clarke: is it in particular, graphic design, but layout design?
• 49:10
  Danielle Clarke: Is it more editorial?
• 49:11
  Danielle Clarke: Is motion something that's really important?
• 49:15
  Danielle Clarke: Like what's, get a bit more specific about?
• 49:18
  Danielle Clarke: the skills and techniques that you need to learn in order to move yourself closer towards that goal.
• 49:25
  Danielle Clarke: And then I said, okay, think about your portfolio as well.
• 49:28
  Danielle Clarke: If that's the role that you'd like, and that's the type of business that you want to be working for, what sort of work needs to be in your portfolio?
• 49:35
  Danielle Clarke: And then based on that, what sort of briefs do you need to be working on then to, to make sure that the briefs that you're working on aren't just you know, not related.
• 49:46
  Danielle Clarke: And so she got, she was, and all of the students were doing this writing all of this down yesterday.
• 49:50
  Danielle Clarke: And, one in particular, another one called me over and she said, I think I'm having a bit of a crisis.
• 49:56
  Danielle Clarke: She said, I don't want to, I don't think I want to do graphic design anymore.
• 50:01
  Danielle Clarke: Just remembered.
• 50:01
  Danielle Clarke: And I was like, okay.
• 50:03
  Danielle Clarke: She said, I teach art and design at a school to kids.
• 50:08
  Danielle Clarke: And I love it.
• 50:09
  Danielle Clarke: I'm an art and design teacher.
• 50:10
  Danielle Clarke: That's what I want to do.
• 50:11
  Danielle Clarke: I was like, okay.
• 50:13
  Danielle Clarke: And she thought I was going to be like, but I wasn't, I was like, that's amazing.
• 50:17
  Danielle Clarke: I was like, and you love doing that?
• 50:19
  Danielle Clarke: She was like, yeah, I love it.
• 50:20
  Danielle Clarke: That's all I want to do.
• 50:22
  Danielle Clarke: She was like, I feel like this year and a bit has, it's been a waste, these 18 months has been a waste.
• 50:26
  Danielle Clarke: I said, it hasn't been a waste.
• 50:28
  Danielle Clarke: Because if you hadn't have done this, based on what you then thought your goal was, how would you have known that this wasn't for you?
• 50:36
  Danielle Clarke: She was like, oh yeah, okay.
• 50:38
  Danielle Clarke: And I said, at the end of the day, I said, what do you need to become a teacher?
• 50:44
  Danielle Clarke: She was like, I need a degree, and then I need to do A-P-G-C-E.
• 50:47
  Danielle Clarke: I said, so you need a degree, so you've gotta finish it.
• 50:50
  Danielle Clarke: Which she was adamant she was going to anyway.
• 50:53
  Danielle Clarke: I said, so that's that, that's that tick because it's gonna move you towards your goal.
• 50:57
  Danielle Clarke: And we were talking about what she enjoys and, being creative in the art and design side and typography.
• 51:04
  Danielle Clarke: I said, so now everything that you do.
• 51:06
  Danielle Clarke: Make sure you're doing the stuff that you love.
• 51:08
  Danielle Clarke: Make sure it includes typography.
• 51:10
  Danielle Clarke: Make sure it includes, beautiful art directed art and design.
• 51:16
  Danielle Clarke: And then you'll get your degree and you'll be able to do art and design.
• 51:18
  Danielle Clarke: that's fine too.
• 51:20
  Danielle Clarke: And she was absolutely gobsmacked that I had that, she was like, it's you've just, she's you've just healed me with your words.
• 51:28
  Danielle Clarke: She said, I was like, I said, you know how many people go through their doing things and never find anything that I love.
• 51:37
  Danielle Clarke: I said, when you were telling me about that school and doing art and design, your face lit up.
• 51:41
  Danielle Clarke: I said, if that's what these past 18 months have given you, made you realise that's what you love, I was like, we've done our job, I'm happy for you.
• 51:50
  Danielle Clarke: Now we've got to help you to make sure you get your degree, so you can do your PGCE, so you can do the things that you want to do.
• 51:56
  Danielle Clarke: I said, if that's still your goal, that's fine.
• 51:59
  Danielle Clarke: So yeah, I love, I absolutely love what I do and it's very rewarding and I.
• 52:04
  Danielle Clarke: Yeah, I don't, wouldn't really have it any other way.
• 52:09
  Radim Malinic: I'm absolutely astounded with your kind words and your knowledge and sort of emotional intelligence, like how you heal.
• 52:17
  Radim Malinic: And I think if she said it was another therapy session, I think, you can add that to your sort of life resume of the things that you've achieved.
• 52:23
  Radim Malinic: Because it sounds like you do it for the right reasons.
• 52:26
  Radim Malinic: You want to help other people to become something and have that.
• 52:29
  Radim Malinic: Because sometimes.
• 52:31
  Radim Malinic: We come from an upbringing not necessarily knowing what we wanted to do, how we want to do it, didn't even necessarily have a clue how to do it.
• 52:37
  Radim Malinic: we live in a time where all of this is possible.
• 52:39
  Radim Malinic: Which is and you can come to people like yourself in education and say, you know what, this is fine.
• 52:45
  Radim Malinic: And a hundred percent brilliant comment on this is not wasted time.
• 52:49
  Radim Malinic: Like you, you spend time actually finding yourself.
• 52:52
  Radim Malinic: you might be, Beeping in Asda on the tail for 18 months going, I want to really teach kids, but I don't know how to get started.
• 52:59
  Radim Malinic: You know, is that wasted time?
• 53:01
  Radim Malinic: You just need time to process.
• 53:03
  Radim Malinic: We need time to think and reflect on actually, what do we want to do?
• 53:06
  Radim Malinic: Because I believe, especially for what I wrote in the book, that We can pivot as many times as we want, like we don't have to be stuck with this thing.
• 53:14
  Radim Malinic: no one's telling us what we should be doing unless you've signed some devil's contract or whatever.
• 53:19
  Radim Malinic: you have to be a pop star for Simon Cowell for the next 25 years, if that existed, obviously you can change, you can do the things that make you happy.
• 53:27
  Radim Malinic: And we can always say that about ancestors, our predecessors, like we can always say that because we felt that there was careers that were so much more linear.
• 53:34
  Radim Malinic: So I absolutely admire, Your emotional intelligence, how you look after these people, and like how you build sort of communities around you and what you do, because we only need more people like you, to actually to find that good in others and how to do it and how to enable them.
• 53:48
  Radim Malinic: Because it's not, when you mentioned the word elitist at the very beginning, you said, sometimes it just feels an impossible barrier to break through, always understood or treated riders.
• 54:01
  Radim Malinic: if you try to be small knocking on a big door, that will always be an imbalance, always be, immeasurable.
• 54:08
  Radim Malinic: Whereas I always found through years and years of experience of working in advertising and branding, for big companies, as an illustrator, I always find that The bigger fish never tasted better, the bigger fish, there was bigger bones, there was bigger headache.
• 54:22
  Radim Malinic: There was everything there.
• 54:23
  Radim Malinic: And when you scale it back and you go, you know what, I want to work with small teams, actually making direct impact, work with decision makers.
• 54:30
  Radim Malinic: That's where the magic happens.
• 54:31
  Radim Malinic: You can learn on a job.
• 54:32
  Radim Malinic: You can grow as a person.
• 54:33
  Radim Malinic: You're like, Oh my word.
• 54:35
  Radim Malinic: I felt.
• 54:37
  Radim Malinic: used and abused by, by a large scale sort of drinks company.
• 54:40
  Radim Malinic: Whereas I'm here in a food development agency working on something with someone who's bringing their vision to life and I can be part of this.
• 54:47
  Radim Malinic: That feels like a privilege because you only learn and grow as a creative that way.
• 54:51
  Radim Malinic: So I'm, yeah, I'm so happy for you.
• 54:54
  Radim Malinic: I think you find yourself on, that phone call when you say, I'm sat there with the cleaners, one thing in each hand.
• 55:01
  Radim Malinic: We need those sort of peaks and troughs in our lives to say, you know what?
• 55:04
  Radim Malinic: It's only going to get better because I can decide where my life's going.
• 55:08
  Radim Malinic: I just want to thank you for coming on and sharing your story.
• 55:10
  Radim Malinic: I think it's been amazing.
• 55:12
  Danielle Clarke: Thank you so much, Radim, and thank you for your, thank you for your kind words as well.
• 55:17
  Danielle Clarke: That's, nice of you to say such lovely things.
• 55:20
  Radim Malinic: I only say what I think and what I feel, what's coming my way.
• 55:23
  Radim Malinic: So yeah, it's been a pleasure.
• 55:25
  Radim Malinic: It's been a real pleasure to have you on.
• 55:26
  Radim Malinic: And obviously, thank you for having me on your podcast a while ago.
• 55:28
  Radim Malinic: And it's nice to return, the honor to do this because I think we need your voices amplified in the industry.
• 55:35
  Radim Malinic: And, when you talk about, when we started this conversation about is the brand strategy world too oversaturated with people like yourself, you've got your own strategy, your own person, you can only double on who you are.
• 55:45
  Radim Malinic: So well done to you.
• 55:46
  Radim Malinic: Thank you.
• 55:48
  Danielle Clarke: Thank you, Radim.
• 55:48
  Danielle Clarke: Thank you.
• 55:55
  Radim Malinic: Thank you for listening to this episode of Creativity for Sale podcast.
• 55:59
  Radim Malinic: The show was produced and presented by me, Radim Malinic.
• 56:02
  Radim Malinic: Editing and audio production was masterfully done by Neil mackay,.
• 56:05
  Radim Malinic: from 7 million Bikes Podcasts, Theme music was written and produced by Robert Summerfield.
• 56:11
  Radim Malinic: If you enjoyed this episode and would like to support the podcast, please subscribe and leave a rating or review.
• 56:17
  Radim Malinic: To get your own action plan on how to start and grow a life changing creative business.
• 56:21
  Radim Malinic: You can get a copy of the Creativity for Sale book via the links in show notes.
• 56:25
  Radim Malinic: burning, and until next time, I'm Radim Malinich, your guide through this exploration of passion, creativity, innovation, and the boundless potential within us all.