Latest / Daring Forever (Find your Extraordinary) / An athlete's guide to creative endurance - Mike Schnaidt

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An athlete's guide to creative endurance - Mike Schnaidt · Daring Forever (Find your Extraordinary)

0:13
Mike Schnaidt: it's a really valuable skill that I've learned from designing is just like how to respond to feedback, how to think about an audience, it's like, kind of goes to what you were saying about Amazon people and like, some people trash in the book, but it's not for them.
0:24
Mike Schnaidt: And it's thinking about, okay, Who's my target audience, right?
0:26
Mike Schnaidt: Because not everyone's going to like every design that I do either, but you have to think about your target audience.
0:31
Mike Schnaidt: Otherwise, like you're just creating this like very vanilla piece of work.
0:36
Radim: Hello and welcome to Creativity for Sale podcast, a show to help you start and grow your life changing creative career and business.
0:44
Radim: My name is Radim Malinich and creativity changed my life.
0:47
Radim: You see, I believe creativity can change your life too.
0:50
Radim: I even wrote a book about it and it inspired this podcast.
0:55
Radim: 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.
1:05
Radim: If you ever wanted to know how people go from their humble beginnings to the pinnacle of their success, our conversation should provide you with an intimate look into triumphs, challenges and untold stories behind their creative endeavours.
1:19
Radim: We also discuss the highs and lows of creative careers and creative life.
1:23
Radim: So Thank you for joining me on this exploration of passion, creativity, innovation, and the boundless potential within us all.
1:30
Radim: Let creativity change your life.
1:32
Radim: Are you ready?
1:36
Radim: My guest today is an author, educator, and creative director specializing in branding and editorial design.
1:43
Radim: Currently, he's the creative director of Fast Company, a monthly magazine focused on technology, business, and design.
1:49
Radim: He guides a team of art directors and photo editors who create visuals for all expressions of the Fast Company brand.
1:56
Radim: his recent debut book title, Creative Endurance, is a practical guide for staying motivated and achieving your goals.
2:03
Radim: It's my pleasure to introduce Mike Schneid.
2:15
Radim Malinic: Hi, Mike.
2:15
Radim Malinic: Welcome to the show.
2:18
Radim Malinic: I want to congratulate you on your recent accomplishment of written or releasing your book called Creative Endurance.
2:24
Radim Malinic: And I would like to use the word endurance as a topic of our conversation, because I want to talk about how we got into publishing, how we got into what you do for a living, all sorts of stuff.
2:33
Radim Malinic: So if you were to take us back, tell us what you do now and what's your sort of story and how did you get to it?
2:40
Mike Schnaidt: Sure.
2:40
Mike Schnaidt: I'm the creative director of Fast Company.
2:42
Mike Schnaidt: Uh, I've been there for about five and a half years.
2:45
Mike Schnaidt: there I oversee the magazine, the website, we do a series of events, we do award programs, social media campaign, all sorts of other branding projects as well.
2:55
Mike Schnaidt: So it's kind of a cross between editorial design and branding.
2:59
Mike Schnaidt: I've worked in publishing for 20 years now.
3:02
Mike Schnaidt: I'm actually coming up on my 20 year mark.
3:04
Mike Schnaidt: worked everywhere from Men's Health to Esquire to Popular Science, Entertainment Weekly, and I think I found that like when I was coming close to my 20 year mark, I started to think a little bit more about what I wanted to do with design.
3:19
Mike Schnaidt: think that, lot of us into this field because we like making things.
3:22
Mike Schnaidt: I think, that's a commonality between most creative people.
3:25
Mike Schnaidt: And I, like, as a kid, I loved making comics and that kind of transitioned me into liking to make magazines because it was like printed material and The closest thing to making comics, right?
3:35
Mike Schnaidt: But, I would say 15, 16 years in to working in publishing, pandemic hit and we saw, like, creatives were thinking a little bit differently about work and we were all facing, we were a little bit more transparent and open about So I think from that I had the idea that I wanted to create some kind of book that could help people, right?
3:58
Mike Schnaidt: you never thought of my, I always wanted to write a book.
4:00
Mike Schnaidt: know, writing was always kind of a little bit of a side interest of mine.
4:04
Mike Schnaidt: Never thought of myself as like a fiction writer.
4:06
Mike Schnaidt: I always felt like I needed some kind of like function and purpose for writing.
4:11
Mike Schnaidt: So thing led to another and I had this idea to, write a book and use what I've learned through editorial design to make a book that felt very servicey for the reader, book that felt like there was some kind of takeaway.
4:23
Mike Schnaidt: on every single page, a book that felt like, creative coach sitting by your side and just giving you a pat on the back and reassuring you and just giving you a little bit of advice.
4:34
Mike Schnaidt: and that's really what led me to write Creative Endurance.
4:38
Radim Malinic: Amazing.
4:39
Radim Malinic: written two things, one of them was comics, and I really want to go to that early stage.
4:46
Radim Malinic: when did you discover, where did you live?
4:48
Radim Malinic: What age?
4:49
Radim Malinic: Because yeah, comics, they're never really cross my path, but I'm always fascinated when people say, comics where something that they, took up and, used it as a sort of starting block.
4:57
Radim Malinic: So where did comics come from?
5:00
Mike Schnaidt: I mean, I'm an only child, so I spent a lot of time just sitting alone and just like, sounds sad, but it was really a lot of fun just to sit around and just draw.
5:08
Mike Schnaidt: And I loved reading like Marvel comics, like X Men and Punisher.
5:12
Mike Schnaidt: And I was like a typical like guy in the 1980s, like reading stuff like that.
5:17
Mike Schnaidt: know, from when I was a young kid, I loved taking like.
5:20
Mike Schnaidt: Eight and a half by eleven sheets of paper, folding them in half, cutting them, and stapling them into little mini comics.
5:27
Mike Schnaidt: And I would like, draw the cover, and it was usually some kind of copy off of like, Wolverine, or Cyclops, or something like that.
5:33
Mike Schnaidt: I'd draw the cover, and then I would just basically draw the inside of the cover was like, my way of me holding myself accountable to like, finish the comic.
5:40
Mike Schnaidt: And but I wasn't like, the best at drawing, but I loved coming up with ideas.
5:45
Mike Schnaidt: Like I was just like loved just the art of like, it was like non stop ideas.
5:49
Mike Schnaidt: Like I wanted to like, as soon as I drew the cover, I'm like, I want to finish this comic so I can move on to the next comic.
5:55
Mike Schnaidt: so I would kind of like just speed through.
5:57
Mike Schnaidt: And a lot of what I learned was from like copying and my mom would give me 10 to go buy two comics at the store.
6:04
Mike Schnaidt: And that was like my weekly allowance or whatever.
6:06
Mike Schnaidt: And And I would just copy, copy, copy, copy comics.
6:08
Mike Schnaidt: And then, know, it was funny because.
6:11
Mike Schnaidt: Years and years later, when I was in college, it was like I found like I was doing it, the pattern was repeating again, but it was with magazines and I was just like going to the newsstands and like I would go to Tower Records, which is like a music store here in the US and like, early 2000s, it was like the magazine racks were just like, it wall to wall, tons and tons of magazines, and I would just go and just buy up all the magazines I could and bring them home and I kept magazines in milk crates.
6:37
Mike Schnaidt: And I found myself then just like copying art directors instead of comics.
6:43
Mike Schnaidt: so that was like my education or, when I was in college, it was like my second education from like whatever my professors taught me was like just emulating magazines and always just dreaming like.
6:52
Mike Schnaidt: Hey, these magazines have like cool celebrities on them and magazines like Entertainment Weekly, like, they look like comics, As far as I was concerned, at that age when I was still learning, the typography and everything was just like It was so exciting and so energetic.
7:05
Mike Schnaidt: I was like, Oh, this, this feels like the right thing for me.
7:08
Radim Malinic: I love the parallel.
7:09
Radim Malinic: And I think, what you named your book, Creative Endurance, it almost seems like you were always destined to write a book, Creative Endurance, because to hold yourself accountable at such a young age, like I'm going to finish this comic, maybe from experience, from mine, and I've seen my kids, like how they operate with, creativity and they kind of give it a start, but they're like, what's next?
7:28
Radim Malinic: maybe they're like too much of a sort of multi dimensional absorbers, but I love that.
7:32
Radim Malinic: you kind of, yeah.
7:33
Radim Malinic: Decided that you're going to finish it and hold yourself accountable, which I think is fantastic.
7:37
Mike Schnaidt: Yeah.
7:38
Mike Schnaidt: It was a little, I was very focused as a kid.
7:40
Radim Malinic: that's amazing.
7:41
Radim Malinic: I think that's, where you are exactly where you are today, but I can only sort of echo your point about the magazines in the year 2000s and early 2000s.
7:49
Radim Malinic: I don't think we'll ever experience this ever again.
7:53
Radim Malinic: I mean, there's still tons and tons of magazines.
7:55
Radim Malinic: Obviously you're working on one of them, but I think there was something in the air.
7:59
Radim Malinic: Like I always say, like being a teenager in the nineties.
8:02
Radim Malinic: It was the best thing on the planet ever, we'll never repeat that.
8:05
Radim Malinic: And the publishing around the time, especially the early 2000s with the arrival of the internet and distribution, I think was really exciting.
8:12
Mike Schnaidt: it was so exciting.
8:13
Mike Schnaidt: And I like, remember back then, like seeing Fast Company cause Fast Company came out in 1995.
8:19
Mike Schnaidt: And then this was like, 2001, 2002 when Patrick Mitchell was the creative director and They were one of the few business magazines out there that were doing like type covers and like they would do just these really bold type covers like some kind of crazy like neon orange Pantone color printed on top of like a gray background.
8:38
Mike Schnaidt: And those caught my eye and I mean I can't say that back then I was like, Oh, I'm going to one day, be the creative director of Fez company like it's definitely not like any destiny happening there but it do remember that was an early moment where I was like, Oh, it kind of like made my heart sing a little bit and I think it kind of makes sense to why like, years and years later, like I've fallen in love with writing too, is like, typography, like seeing the visual part of it was like my gateway drug into it.
9:03
Mike Schnaidt: And then, throughout my years of working in magazines, like as, art director, we work side by side with editors.
9:09
Mike Schnaidt: So we're, collaborators and we, wear each other's hats sometimes.
9:13
Mike Schnaidt: Cause in any kind of collaborative project, as a designer, you have to think a little bit like an editor and you have to allow the editor to think like you.
9:20
Mike Schnaidt: So there's a little bit of like, okay, let me, I have to let go of my ego here and not think that like I'm fully in control of design.
9:26
Mike Schnaidt: But like through that, there's a trade off where the editor will allow you to think a little bit like them too.
9:33
Mike Schnaidt: because together we're creating stories, right?
9:35
Mike Schnaidt: We're storytellers.
9:36
Mike Schnaidt: so throughout those years of working with editors and writers, it's like, while I wasn't necessarily like, coming up with the stories.
9:44
Mike Schnaidt: I was absorbing, I was like a sponge just like paying attention to how they, they came up with their stories.
9:50
Mike Schnaidt: because like I I'm kind of a quiet person when I'm not babbling on like this.
9:53
Mike Schnaidt: And when I'm not talking, I try to really listen and be present.
9:56
Mike Schnaidt: sometimes it might look like I'm just drifting off like I'm fully there and I was always fully there just processing each draft that would come in of a piece of writing and thinking about, okay, how did it change?
10:06
Mike Schnaidt: What is this editor thinking about?
10:07
Mike Schnaidt: So, you when it came time to like produce this book and think about the structure of the book and think about how do I make this an entertaining read for my audience, it all felt like, oh yeah, okay, like, while it was, daunting, I was like, okay, I feel like I got this.
10:21
Radim Malinic: It's incredible.
10:21
Radim Malinic: Did did you pitch to project, or did you get approached to write a book?
10:25
Radim Malinic: How did it come about?
10:26
Radim Malinic: Cause it was, you mentioned that sort of the pandemic hit and we decided to sort of be looked into different ways of working and I like that you said that it was meant to be, the book's meant to be a sort of creative coach, like something that learned from it.
10:38
Radim Malinic: How did the concept come about and how did the book come about itself?
10:42
Mike Schnaidt: So, I started teaching in the beginning of the pandemic or in September 2020.
10:47
Mike Schnaidt: So I think that, teaching design, that's when I, it started to kind of really spark this desire to, Want to find some kind of greater purpose.
10:55
Mike Schnaidt: I really enjoyed teaching the students.
10:58
Mike Schnaidt: And, helping them and, you enjoyed, like, learning about a totally new generation, and seeing, what they were going through.
11:04
Mike Schnaidt: And that started to make me think more and more about, okay, I feel like people need some kind of coach, need some kind of guide.
11:11
Mike Schnaidt: a few years into teaching, when we were finally, back in person, started teaching at this school, Kean University.
11:17
Mike Schnaidt: it's in Jersey.
11:18
Mike Schnaidt: It's about 20 minutes away from where I live in Jersey city.
11:21
Mike Schnaidt: And it was my first semester teaching there.
11:23
Mike Schnaidt: they asked me to give a presentation on myself and, know, they were just kind of like, as many people do when they say, give a presentation, they're just like, yeah, show us some of your work.
11:31
Mike Schnaidt: And like, I don't love just showing some of my work.
11:33
Mike Schnaidt: Like I like, telling the story and I thought let me challenge myself and Tell a story that, talks about the parallels of my career as a designer to the parallels of my hobby as a runner and how the two have fueled each other because, I'm a daily runner.
11:46
Mike Schnaidt: So every morning I get up and I run 3 to 6 miles and, I think maybe in my 20s, it was like, I want to run so I could just eat a burger every day and have a beer, but like, then it became much more of a mental thing and just provided clarity throughout my day.
11:58
Mike Schnaidt: And I thought there's something to this.
12:00
Mike Schnaidt: And also throughout my career as a designer, and a runner, like I've grown as a runner.
12:05
Mike Schnaidt: So I've grown from like a guy who like just runs a couple of miles a day to somebody who's run three marathons.
12:11
Mike Schnaidt: and that worked on the same track as me growing as a, from a designer to a creative director.
12:16
Mike Schnaidt: So anyway.
12:17
Mike Schnaidt: Anyway, I gave this presentation and then afterwards professor I'd never met before came up to me she said, Mike, you've got a book idea in your hands.
12:24
Mike Schnaidt: she said, there's like the whole like Nike just do it crowd and, I think.
12:30
Mike Schnaidt: You should try to pitch a book.
12:32
Mike Schnaidt: so with her help, name was Robin Land.
12:34
Mike Schnaidt: I owe her a lot of credit because she saw something in me that I didn't see in myself.
12:38
Mike Schnaidt: but when somebody says like, Hey, write a book or you should write a book, like you can't ignore that, especially when the thought's been kicking around in your head.
12:46
Mike Schnaidt: and I was like so excited that she saw some potential in me.
12:49
Mike Schnaidt: I didn't even think about Oh, this is going to be really.
12:51
Mike Schnaidt: Frickin hard to do.
12:53
Mike Schnaidt: I'm just gonna go for it.
12:55
Mike Schnaidt: so yeah, I just put together a proposal with her help I pitched it to like probably 20 something publishers I got a lot of rejection letters because the initial idea was this book called the Runner's Guide to Design.
13:05
Mike Schnaidt: So it's very specific and because I thought it would be funny like I thought nobody's written a book like this before and If you like running or design, it'll appeal to you.
13:14
Mike Schnaidt: And I, did pull up a lot of stats about runners in the world and, but people didn't buy it.
13:18
Mike Schnaidt: But then my publisher, Rockport, long story short, they saw the proposal, we talked about it and they said, it's a good idea, but it's not your first book, this feels like it could be your second book.
13:28
Mike Schnaidt: And that was like, okay, now they really see something in me.
13:32
Mike Schnaidt: they'd feel like this could be my second book.
13:34
Mike Schnaidt: And I shaped it into something that felt.
13:36
Mike Schnaidt: more universal and that's what became Creative Endurance.
13:39
Mike Schnaidt: And, through that, I became, you know, it was really a satisfying process because it helped me kind of grow out of like, okay, let me write this book for myself and let me write this book for everybody else.
13:50
Mike Schnaidt: So it started as maybe a little bit of like a memoir and then like it grew into much more than that.
13:57
Radim Malinic: That's an amazing story, Mike.
13:59
Radim Malinic: talks, I've got a section where I'll talk about three superheroes.
14:04
Radim Malinic: And, three superheroes that used to run past my old house that, were running every day.
14:09
Radim Malinic: Mud, winter, snow, everything.
14:11
Radim Malinic: And I always ask in the audience, which is mainly designers, Who's a runner?
14:15
Radim Malinic: And you know what?
14:17
Radim Malinic: I think out of about 500, 600 people so far, About five hands going up and you're thinking, it's like, how is it that I know so many runners?
14:26
Radim Malinic: so many of my friends are runners, designers are runners there, you know, um, a friend, Mark McKee from, from New York, from Creative Factor, like he's amazing runner.
14:33
Radim Malinic: Like I know so many designers who are endurance athletes, but we are older because when I was in my early twenties, I didn't bother, you know, I used to be almost professional ice hockey player.
14:44
Radim Malinic: And I only got into ice hockey because, because I hated running at that time.
14:48
Radim Malinic: I didn't have that patience.
14:50
Radim Malinic: You know, that, I'm in my mid forties now and the patience is plentiful.
14:53
Radim Malinic: You know, I'm a daily cyclist, and I do these sort of hundred mile cycles.
14:57
Radim Malinic: No problem now, it's just, you have to, be more Prepared to ache, to hurt, to, to actually put endurance in, you know, actually, have to be ready for the fact that it's not going to be easy.
15:06
Radim Malinic: And I think that's a testament for, mid career points where you realize, you know what, it was hard work to get to this point, to put on your shoes every day and to run, just because of that burger and that beer that you want to burn off.
15:19
Radim Malinic: that's pretty much half of the reason, but you can never outrun a bad diet or out cycle a bad diet.
15:24
Radim Malinic: And I'm very much, I've tried that, it doesn't work, And I like that, what I'm still getting from this conversation is this endurance that, you're grateful for someone to finding that little nugget and you want to do that same thing with your teaching, which obviously you want to, give something back.
15:39
Radim Malinic: I very much agree with the fact that you're writing a book for yourself at first.
15:42
Radim Malinic: And obviously you want to remind yourself almost of the checkpoints that you've got to, like how far you got there, because I never understood that when musicians said look, we made the record for ourselves.
15:51
Radim Malinic: I'm thinking.
15:52
Radim Malinic: But you want to sell it, right?
15:53
Radim Malinic: You want to get it to other people, then you realize what there's always there'll be people who will connect with it, people who will hate it, you might convert them later.
16:03
Radim Malinic: And sometimes some people who actually liked it might go, you know what, actually, there was nothing in it for me, actually, I had time to spend with it.
16:09
Radim Malinic: And, What always confuses me with the book pitch is that you try to get someone like a full experience through just a few pages of paper.
16:17
Radim Malinic: Like, I mean, I've never had to pitch because, you know, my story is different, but it's just like, how do you break into it?
16:22
Radim Malinic: And I kind of almost seems like a link with the magazines, where, you give people as much information as you can, as you give, page allowances and that kind of stuff.
16:30
Radim Malinic: Live The Runner's philosophy.
16:31
Radim Malinic: Is it, is that going to be a second book?
16:34
Mike Schnaidt: I'm thinking a little bit, I would love to write a book more about like careers and demystify, creative success because, think since I've started teaching, I think a lot about the younger generation and how they like, know, when we have guest speakers come to the class and like, they're like, their first question is just like, how did you get here?
16:51
Mike Schnaidt: Right.
16:51
Mike Schnaidt: And they have no idea how they got there.
16:53
Mike Schnaidt: Right.
16:53
Mike Schnaidt: So I think that a book on creative success, like speaks to a younger generation, but also nobody like works the same industry for their entire career now.
17:02
Mike Schnaidt: Like we want to constantly like evolve and grow.
17:04
Mike Schnaidt: And, think even as me as an example, like I'm morphing into a, designer of design.
17:08
Mike Schnaidt: I already am a writer, but you know, like we're all want to grow to, to some degree and think about how can we continue to change.
17:15
Mike Schnaidt: So I think that a book on the kind of demystifies a creative career could be valuable for people.
17:20
Mike Schnaidt: And, I really loved, part of writing Creative Endurance, one thing I loved was like, talking to so many types of people.
17:26
Mike Schnaidt: And I, I didn't think that going into it, and certainly not when it was a book about running, that I would talk to an astronaut, or that I would talk to a Nordic combined skier, or a race car driver.
17:37
Mike Schnaidt: but that those are just different directions that Endurance took me to.
17:40
Mike Schnaidt: So, would love to write a book where I talk to an even broader group of individuals too, because I just I love learning about other people's jobs.
17:49
Mike Schnaidt: I loved, I love the interview process.
17:52
Mike Schnaidt: I love just sitting down and just following my curiosity and like asking people questions and then finding ways to turn their answers into serviceable tips for the reader.
18:45
Radim Malinic: I love that part about your book that you flip the content on its head because you've got creative endurance, which is okay, I'll be talking just to creative people, but your interviews, like felt a really interesting addition to the whole topic and the structure of the book.
19:01
Radim Malinic: Let's talk about interviews.
19:02
Radim Malinic: how did you get to reach out?
19:04
Radim Malinic: How did you write even a short list of who you're going to speak to?
19:07
Radim Malinic: And how are we going to reach them?
19:08
Radim Malinic: how'd you get in contact?
19:10
Radim Malinic: did your editorial contacts help?
19:11
Radim Malinic: And how did you do it?
19:12
Radim Malinic: And how do you connect interviews?
19:14
Radim Malinic: Because obviously when I sat on the panel, on the book panel last year at the conference, and I was fascinated.
19:20
Radim Malinic: It was like, your first answer was like, I want to turn this into documentary.
19:24
Radim Malinic: And I'm like, Fuck, that's a good idea.
19:26
Radim Malinic: I should have thought of that, but obviously your interview is because we have a different style, we do different things.
19:32
Radim Malinic: And I was really fascinated by that.
19:33
Radim Malinic: So if you can tell us more about.
19:35
Radim Malinic: The interviews and, how did that come about?
19:37
Radim Malinic: And what did you learn from it?
19:38
Radim Malinic: And, I know a little bit, but I want to know more.
19:40
Mike Schnaidt: Sure.
19:40
Mike Schnaidt: 100%.
19:41
Mike Schnaidt: you know, like I interviewed Molly Baas and I interviewed Dean Karnasas, who were, two people that I literally just emailed out of the clear blue.
19:48
Mike Schnaidt: And I said, Hey, I'm writing a book on creativity.
19:51
Mike Schnaidt: Can I interview you?
19:52
Mike Schnaidt: Whereas, I interviewed Jeanette Epps, who's astronaut, and one of my editorial contacts gave me a contact for NASA's PR, which was like a very surreal moment, you know, in my career, just like emailing with NASA and explaining to them, hey, I'm writing a book on creativity, and I want to talk to one of your astronauts, and they're like, how, what?
20:12
Mike Schnaidt: And I'm like, I promise I'm not trying to get any kinds of like trade secrets.
20:16
Mike Schnaidt: I'm not a spy or anything like that.
20:18
Mike Schnaidt: because I was like, listen, being an astronaut is like a dream job, like for all of us when we were kids, and I interviewed a nine year old and it was just like somebody around the block for me who just draws a lot.
20:28
Mike Schnaidt: And I was like, it would be really fun to interview a nine year old and then.
20:32
Mike Schnaidt: At the very end of the process, I met this really cool 76 year old at a coffee shop, and that felt like the bookend moment, because I'm like, okay, well, now I'm speaking to the concept of endurance by showing just like a whole spectrum of time, right?
20:47
Mike Schnaidt: I think part of it was just like, I was just Firehose creativity moment where I want to talk to a race car driver, right?
20:54
Mike Schnaidt: I want to you know, I've okay I've got a runner.
20:56
Mike Schnaidt: I've got a skier.
20:57
Mike Schnaidt: I want a cyclist in the book now Oh, I want a story about somebody who swims So I was just like I wanted to get a little bit of everything in the book a skill that I think from creating packages in the editorial world and you know we always try to create like these well rounded packages that can speak to a A wide variety of audiences, that I started to think in that mode where okay, let me just like I need all these different types of people because that was like when I was really thinking about creating a book that was more universal, right?
21:26
Mike Schnaidt: And like giving a little bit of something to everybody.
21:28
Mike Schnaidt: So not just giving something to like my students, but what about, somebody out there who's, 55 years old and is an insurance sales agent or something like that?
21:38
Mike Schnaidt: Like, how can I give them just like one little story?
21:42
Mike Schnaidt: that would fascinate them.
21:44
Mike Schnaidt: so it basically it's just like, I was following my curiosity, emailing people nonstop.
21:48
Mike Schnaidt: I think for.
21:49
Mike Schnaidt: I have 39 different interviews in the book.
21:51
Mike Schnaidt: I probably emailed and pitched to twice that many people.
21:55
Mike Schnaidt: some people didn't get back to me.
21:56
Mike Schnaidt: Some people are just like, no, thank you.
21:58
Mike Schnaidt: but yeah, it was a really fun journey just to like search for people.
22:01
Mike Schnaidt: And just, you start to learn how you can be creative in different ways.
22:05
Mike Schnaidt: And just internet's an amazing place and you can find a lot of people and a lot of types of people.
22:11
Radim Malinic: I think what was the most, surprising thing you've learned for the interviews?
22:15
Radim Malinic: What was like, cause I was, I love the diversity and, to even think about, I'm going to interview an astronaut, it's fantastic, but have you learned, what was the most surprising thing that like, it seems so obvious
22:28
Mike Schnaidt: I think that, the thing I learned, and I think the thing that changed me fundamentally was like, I would go into an interview thinking, Okay, this is what I want to get out of the person, this is the information I need, I want to get, I want to talk to this person about how to deal with, revisions or whatever.
22:44
Mike Schnaidt: And ten minutes into the conversation, I'd be like, oh, we are, we're not talking about revisions.
22:49
Mike Schnaidt: What they're talking about is just so much more interesting, right?
22:52
Mike Schnaidt: So as an example, I talked to Billy DeMong, who is a Olympic gold medalist.
22:57
Mike Schnaidt: His event was Nordic Combined Skiing, and when we first got on the call, he was like, flush, like he, and I was like, what's, you look flush, what's going on?
23:06
Mike Schnaidt: He's like, oh, I just finished a three hour workout, and he explained to me how he was on the treadmill, and he was just running on the treadmill, and I was like, how do you run on the treadmill for three hours?
23:16
Mike Schnaidt: that just sounds ridiculous, and he said, I just put a post it note with a, dot drawn in the middle of the post it note, and I put it on the wall, And I stare at the dot and I just clear my mind.
23:26
Mike Schnaidt: And that became this whole bit that I wrote in the book about focus.
23:30
Mike Schnaidt: And I didn't even, I can't remember what I went in there with the plan for, but I was like, this story is just so out there that I have to write about this.
23:39
Mike Schnaidt: And it was like a liberating moment where I was like, okay, I'm interested in this.
23:44
Mike Schnaidt: And if I'm going to write about this in a way that.
23:46
Mike Schnaidt: reflects my interest and my enthusiasm for the topic.
23:49
Mike Schnaidt: Ideally, I'd get the reader interested in it.
23:51
Mike Schnaidt: And it was also just a lot of fun to, these connections and say, okay, how do I turn this story about this guy running on the treadmill for three hours, right?
24:00
Mike Schnaidt: And he had so many other great stories that I tried to work into the book, but I was like, This one story that was totally unplanned, like it has to go in there.
24:08
Mike Schnaidt: So it was like, you're a musician, it's like jazz, I guess it's I can't play music, but it's like, you're, improvising.
24:13
Mike Schnaidt: Whereas, and something that like, I may not have been as good at years ago as a designer, because as a designer, it's like, know, we're kind of obsessed with like structure and designing, editorial.
24:24
Mike Schnaidt: It's like.
24:24
Mike Schnaidt: create the look for these packages and be like, okay, it has to fit into this grid and, it has to be this word count and it was like, okay, well, if I want a really good, satisfying book, I have to know, like, when to zig and when to zag and just, go with the flow of things.
24:38
Mike Schnaidt: So, I just learned that, if somebody has a good story for you, when you interview them, you just, you go with that.
24:43
Radim Malinic: I'm fascinated by the dot on the posting note, I'm absolutely fascinated.
24:49
Radim Malinic: reminds me of the book, by Flea from Chilli Peppers.
24:52
Radim Malinic: he was describing someone who was literally playing the same note, same strum for hours.
24:58
Radim Malinic: And we're thinking he's a bit, he's a bit mad, right?
25:01
Radim Malinic: It's and then they realized.
25:02
Radim Malinic: like a master of Zen, like if you can do that for hours and still like just focus on that, it's like a master meditation.
25:09
Radim Malinic: It's just like, how do you do that?
25:11
Radim Malinic: Like because we think that's, that's just seems wrong because when you think about it, we wake up every morning and we just sort of it feels like we just jump on a highway and just go because everything's so sensory.
25:21
Radim Malinic: Like you're going to have so many.
25:22
Radim Malinic: Like by nature, we've got so many like different thoughts and different sensations that we explore and, and it just feel like, where do we stop?
25:29
Radim Malinic: Because now we have to tell ourselves like how to do this stuff, because you described as you learning and sort you taking bit by bit, because When we started in the industry, when we started, when something smells and tastes good, you're like, I want to learn everything now.
25:43
Radim Malinic: I want to do most of it now.
25:44
Radim Malinic: And you don't necessarily think about how am I doing it?
25:46
Radim Malinic: It's just, you're just doing it.
25:47
Radim Malinic: because you're like, it incredible.
25:49
Radim Malinic: Whereas, you think that you need all eight hours a day or 10 hours a day.
25:54
Radim Malinic: Whereas when you grow older, you go like, I'm happy with two hours because I'm spending six hours thinking about this, because it's just like we learn through the edits, like the funnel of output and you sprinkle everything inside, and just, you thinking, okay, what am I going to do?
26:08
Radim Malinic: How am I going to do it?
26:09
Radim Malinic: What's the concept?
26:10
Radim Malinic: I'm going to make first, second, third, you're going to try it.
26:12
Radim Malinic: Whereas when you've tried it already in your, past.
26:15
Radim Malinic: You know that you don't have to do seven different concepts because you know that one, you can finesse it.
26:20
Radim Malinic: You can actually spend more time on it.
26:21
Radim Malinic: And I think that's again, the endurance thinking that you can actually, I can push back because it's going to work.
26:28
Radim Malinic: It's going to be fine.
26:28
Radim Malinic: And we can then focus on just that one thing alone.
26:31
Radim Malinic: So you mentioned adding your second skill, it's your second title as an author.
26:36
Radim Malinic: how did you find your sort of written word next to your, design skills, because, I've been mentioning it pretty much on every episode of this podcast that I could never understand people who went from design into writing when I was at the beginning of my career, 10 hours a day in Photoshop.
26:53
Radim Malinic: I was like.
26:53
Radim Malinic: Why do people write books?
26:55
Radim Malinic: they were great, but you need to be almost like a completely different person.
26:58
Radim Malinic: Whereas what you said earlier, like you can change your career as often as you want, I'm a firm believer that you don't have to have a linear career.
27:05
Radim Malinic: You don't have to be like, Start at the bottom and be the CEO and then retire and just, drop dead because we can do these, amazing things, you know, pretty much how, ancestors, you know, our predecessors pretty much like work, they're like, you know, you work in a factory, you, die in a factory, you know, pretty much.
27:21
Radim Malinic: so I think it's, liberating because we can actually learn.
27:24
Radim Malinic: so much more from one another and they democratization of information.
27:27
Radim Malinic: It's just we can do amazing things every day if you're willing to do it.
27:32
Radim Malinic: So you and written word, how did your environment inspire you?
27:36
Radim Malinic: How did you find it?
27:37
Radim Malinic: And did it start at the comics time?
27:38
Radim Malinic: Did you know when you write and already then, or did you think about concepts?
27:41
Radim Malinic: Is this something that you have to learn?
27:43
Mike Schnaidt: I think that, earliest memory I have of actually enjoying writing was in college.
27:47
Mike Schnaidt: I liked art history classes, believe it or not.
27:51
Mike Schnaidt: I always loved compare and contrast essays that we would have to do, because, It was like, oh, okay, like this could be a really boring assignment or this could be a fun assignment if I just try to compare and contrast like two paintings that like totally don't feel like they're similar, right?
28:07
Mike Schnaidt: And it convinced my teacher that they are similar.
28:10
Mike Schnaidt: I wouldn't say I was the best writer back then, but I do remember like moments when teachers would say, Hey, you're good at writing.
28:15
Mike Schnaidt: So like, as if you can't tell already, like I do really well with encouragement.
28:19
Mike Schnaidt: And when people like say, pay me a compliment, it's something also like, I'm trying to like give other people compliments.
28:24
Mike Schnaidt: Cause it's my way of paying it forward because, those little compliments, as you can see, go a long way.
28:29
Mike Schnaidt: And, you you may not realize that like, younger me.
28:33
Mike Schnaidt: So when a teacher says, Hey, you're pretty good at writing, like that's going to stick with me for decades and decades.
28:39
Mike Schnaidt: So it you know, it started there and I think that throughout the years I've had to write little bits, you know, maybe like for award submissions and share with like my editor in chiefs at my jobs.
28:47
Mike Schnaidt: And it's funny because they would be like, oh, you're pretty good at writing, right?
28:51
Mike Schnaidt: And it was like, it was always kind of like, oh, like it was, they were surprised, like, hey, designer could write.
28:56
Mike Schnaidt: so I think that like building on that confidence, it was just like, okay, let me.
29:00
Mike Schnaidt: try to write this book.
29:02
Mike Schnaidt: my style of writing for Creative Endurance evolved a lot over the course of time.
29:06
Mike Schnaidt: I really don't feel like I got it until the very end because I must have rewritten it like seven or eight times because I was like I designed it so I could like just go back in the text and like I would rewrite it over and over and over and over until I felt like okay, this now sounds like a friendly creative coach.
29:26
Mike Schnaidt: I eventually was like, okay, I know that the tone that I want this book to take, and I was reading a lot while working on the book too, and I remember reading like Stephen King's book on writing, and he would talk about like the ideal reader.
29:39
Mike Schnaidt: And then like, I started to think more and more about somebody who's in their mid twenties, some young designers that I know and thinking, okay, if I'm speaking directly to them, How do I keep them engaged?
29:49
Mike Schnaidt: the very early version of the book, like it was like, I wrote it in like second person, and it was like Tony Robb.
29:56
Mike Schnaidt: I was like, I want to write a book.
29:58
Mike Schnaidt: a wacky Tony Robbins kind of book where like, sounds like the narrator's like yelling at you, but then like my editor was like, we'll give you a lot of creative freedom, but not this.
30:09
Radim Malinic: Did you, with the tone of voice, like how you project yourself, because obviously you said rewrote it quite a few times, did you ever feel like you didn't know how it should sound?
30:20
Radim Malinic: Like, I don't know if that happens with a creative process, with a visual creative process, you never know, am I creative chameleon?
30:25
Radim Malinic: Am I borrowing from a style, from a trend?
30:27
Radim Malinic: Am I borrowing from set ideas?
30:30
Radim Malinic: because personally I had a massive crisis about Year and something ago when I was writing my two books, I didn't know what I wanted to do because I wanted to do, I wanted to write my book on creativity for sale.
30:43
Radim Malinic: Like a comedy like, Hey, this is fun, this happens, this is gonna be this.
30:47
Radim Malinic: And I, the more and more unknowns I wrote was like, this is depressing.
30:51
Radim Malinic: Literally like, no, there's so much stuff that you try to tell people to avoid and how like, okay, this was a battle.
30:56
Radim Malinic: This shouldn't happen.
30:57
Radim Malinic: I shouldn't worked on this.
30:58
Radim Malinic: Client shouldn't have said yes to this.
31:00
Radim Malinic: you're kind of like, okay, we are learning from this.
31:01
Radim Malinic: This will be try and tell people, let's make upbeat.
31:04
Radim Malinic: And, every book I touched when I was writing threw me completely off, course.
31:09
Radim Malinic: I started reading the, um, Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, which is like brash and happy.
31:14
Radim Malinic: And I was like, Oh, let's write it really funny.
31:16
Radim Malinic: And then I read Jimmy Carr's book, which is, I think one of the best books on creativity is if you know, the English comedian, Jimmy Carr.
31:23
Radim Malinic: And I was so like thrown, confused and unrealized.
31:27
Radim Malinic: you've written four books before.
31:28
Radim Malinic: Why don't you just write them in the same way?
31:30
Radim Malinic: Because they worked.
31:31
Radim Malinic: What are you trying to do?
31:32
Radim Malinic: And you're thinking, I think there's a reminder, it doesn't matter how far you've gone and what you've done and like, just be yourself.
31:38
Radim Malinic: It feels so hard to accept it and to do it because you, I remember opening a paperback by Geoffrey Shaw, which is like a self employed life.
31:46
Radim Malinic: It's a beefy, beefy paperback with words and words.
31:49
Radim Malinic: And I'm like, I'll never do that.
31:51
Radim Malinic: Like I can't, can't, cause I was like, and then we had too many words that we could have written three paperbacks, you know, it's just like, Oh shit, because to borrow a quote from another chili pepper, it just, the drama chats me and it says the most interesting shit happens at the end.
32:05
Radim Malinic: once you oil your wheels, once you get going, then you get started.
32:09
Radim Malinic: That was the reason why I did two books, because it was like, we're going to get going.
32:12
Radim Malinic: It wasn't as, it wasn't as easy, but how with your self editing.
32:18
Radim Malinic: Let's talk about, again, there's an invariance, like if you say you've rewritten things seven times, how much of an input of an editor did you have and how much of work, how much did you do on your own and how did you do it?
32:29
Mike Schnaidt: I did not really know what I wanted the voice to be in the beginning.
32:34
Mike Schnaidt: Like I'd be lying if I said I did.
32:36
Mike Schnaidt: the thing I knew that was like, I would eventually get it.
32:39
Mike Schnaidt: know, the feeling chasing was like, when I get it, I'll know it.
32:44
Mike Schnaidt: And it was kind of like, it was a gut reaction.
32:46
Mike Schnaidt: Like I know when this is right, when it's right.
32:48
Mike Schnaidt: So I just rewrote it over and over.
32:50
Mike Schnaidt: and I knew like.
32:51
Mike Schnaidt: towards the end, I was like, I don't know if this is going to be good or not.
32:54
Mike Schnaidt: And, but then when it surfaced, I was like, okay, here it is.
32:57
Mike Schnaidt: my editor gave me a lot of creative freedom, which was really nice, but it was also like, a little scary, especially for my first one.
33:05
Mike Schnaidt: So one thing that I found that worked for me was like, I shared it in different iterations, or different stages with people like, designers that I know, creatives that I know.
33:14
Mike Schnaidt: And it was funny because a lot of times.
33:17
Mike Schnaidt: As soon as I shared it with them, I was like, okay, I know what's wrong with the book and it's too late for me to pull it back from them.
33:24
Mike Schnaidt: But it was like, cause there was something for me about once it goes out there, like it's now a product and I start to think about it more of a product and I kind of get out of my head and think, okay, I know what needs to be right.
33:36
Mike Schnaidt: the other thing that I found that worked for me was like, I would force myself to just put it aside and not look at it, not read it for two weeks.
33:44
Mike Schnaidt: And I think, part of the benefit of designing and writing the book was like, I could just turn my eye towards designing for a bit.
33:51
Mike Schnaidt: Cause like I, You mentioned like, all these like books that are like long and verbose, and I love books like that.
33:58
Mike Schnaidt: I can't write a book like that either, and I actually designed like a version of this book before I wrote it, because that's what got me excited for it.
34:05
Mike Schnaidt: And I was like, oh, I like, I can see it, it was like a bit of like positive visualization.
34:08
Mike Schnaidt: Like I could see this book, now I want to fill those pages with words.
34:12
Mike Schnaidt: So I had like my design on one side, and then I had a Google Doc that I would work the other side.
34:17
Mike Schnaidt: because I couldn't, both.
34:18
Mike Schnaidt: I just write in the Google doc and then pour it into my layouts and then see that the text was like three times longer than it should be.
34:25
Mike Schnaidt: And, one of the goals for me was like, I just wanted it to be really good, fast paced experience because I thought like, okay, well, idea is endurance, the book should move quickly.
34:36
Mike Schnaidt: And I want it to kind of function like, like Aesop's fables, where it's you get a little bit of a story, but you get to the moral of the story quickly.
34:43
Mike Schnaidt: So I was thinking a lot about like.
34:44
Mike Schnaidt: density of information.
34:45
Mike Schnaidt: And I really wanted the book to be dense with tips and, you know, to give stories that would make the tips memorable, because I think tips on their own are just, whatever.
34:53
Mike Schnaidt: but just to give like good stories along with it too.
34:56
Mike Schnaidt: and I think that once I got it into layout and once I started to cut it down and see it shorter.
35:01
Mike Schnaidt: And I started to see it come together and I, mentioned like finding your voice or, leaning into your voice.
35:06
Mike Schnaidt: I would think a lot about my parallel.
35:09
Mike Schnaidt: I would draw parallels between me as a writer and me as a designer.
35:12
Mike Schnaidt: And one thing that I've experienced, like with every Fast Company cover is like, you know, because try to design every cover.
35:18
Mike Schnaidt: So it looks totally different.
35:19
Mike Schnaidt: And like I said earlier, like as a designer, my earlier years, I was obsessed with structure.
35:24
Mike Schnaidt: And now at Fast Company, I try to make a look of the covers by not having to look.
35:28
Mike Schnaidt: but that's really hard because, I can't lean on a template or anything like that.
35:31
Mike Schnaidt: a lot of times, I'll pull a design reference and I'll think, Oh, I want a design like this, or I want a design like that.
35:37
Mike Schnaidt: And my head starts spinning when I just say, like, Screw it, and I don't look at any of that stuff, and I just sit, down and design the way I want to design.
35:45
Mike Schnaidt: that's when it comes together, there's a parallel there between what you're saying about writing, and I felt the same thing where it was just like, okay, let me stop trying to write whoever I just read last week or whatever, me just try to be myself.
35:57
Mike Schnaidt: And that's when I just felt like it all flowed and came together.
36:03
Radim Malinic: I think you're a brave man for designing it first and then writing it and then doing two things at the same time because your book It's beautifully designed.
36:12
Radim Malinic: it's very much a nod to obviously editorial work and it, feels like for me looking at it from England, it seems like it was very American.
36:19
Radim Malinic: It just feels like, how it's done.
36:20
Radim Malinic: and that's great because, It's nice to see something that's not the number one off, you know, I think when I see the paperbacks, I'm always scared of like just the sheer volume of words, it's just like, how'd you make it palatable?
36:33
Radim Malinic: How'd you make it digestible?
36:35
Radim Malinic: How'd you actually get, because I have spoken in my publishing career so far, spoken to lots of designers and surprisingly, not many of them are fast readers or even heavy readers.
36:46
Radim Malinic: You just.
36:49
Radim Malinic: it's a nugget of wisdom.
36:50
Radim Malinic: Okay.
36:50
Radim Malinic: What can I get?
36:51
Radim Malinic: How little, no, do I need to read to actually get this and how can I move on?
36:55
Radim Malinic: And it's just it's getting that research and getting that information from people.
36:58
Radim Malinic: Like, how do you create products that are more engaging than regular paperbacks?
37:03
Radim Malinic: But how do you not make them over design, like a heavy magazine story.
37:07
Radim Malinic: So I love that you've got.
37:09
Radim Malinic: turn the concept on his head and we're like, you know what, we're going to have sort of a hybrid, which I'm a big fan of hybrid, like everything that sort of makes me think differently, like, music, which is a fusion of jazz and death metal or whatever.
37:20
Radim Malinic: And it's always Oh, you made me surprised.
37:22
Radim Malinic: You made me feel something because that's ultimately what we're trying to get from people.
37:26
Radim Malinic: You know, we want to make some people feel so.
37:28
Radim Malinic: I salute you for the design and that because yes, start where it makes sense because if you feel like you've hit a dead end.
37:36
Radim Malinic: There's nothing worse than carrying on.
37:37
Radim Malinic: You're not going to do it whilst you're on the run.
37:39
Radim Malinic: like you're running a dead end.
37:40
Radim Malinic: I'm like, well, that's it.
37:41
Radim Malinic: Let's go back out and see what, what other perspective we can get.
37:44
Radim Malinic: And with the wording, honestly, trimming it down.
37:48
Radim Malinic: that's masterfulness of its own.
37:49
Radim Malinic: Like going, what can we do to not overload people?
37:52
Radim Malinic: with the rewrites, did you?
37:55
Radim Malinic: Did it go through edit afterwards?
37:56
Radim Malinic: Like did you send it off and did you get something different back or did you produce the final version?
38:01
Mike Schnaidt: I mean, I did all the rewriting.
38:02
Mike Schnaidt: the editor, in an early draft, he told me to not curse so much.
38:07
Radim Malinic: play.
38:08
Mike Schnaidt: he said, don't curse if you don't have to curse.
38:10
Mike Schnaidt: and I think I remember when I showed my dad an early version of it, he told me the same thing.
38:14
Mike Schnaidt: He said, don't curse.
38:14
Mike Schnaidt: So I
38:15
Radim Malinic: What were you cursing?
38:16
Mike Schnaidt: I like to throw an occasional fuck or shit or, whatever, just like for emphasis.
38:20
Mike Schnaidt: I think a well placed curse is like really powerful because, one of my goals for this was like to be honest.
38:26
Mike Schnaidt: was something that I had discovered when I gave that presentation was like, I didn't want to just talk about a bunch of work and say, Oh, this is great.
38:33
Mike Schnaidt: Because that's not relatable.
38:34
Mike Schnaidt: So to be relatable, like you got to talk about the hardship that somebody went through to accomplish something.
38:40
Mike Schnaidt: Right.
38:40
Mike Schnaidt: so, you yes, I took out the cursing, but I kept all the honesty in, and that was really important to me.
38:45
Mike Schnaidt: so yeah, shared with friends, you know, I shared with friends that are editors.
38:49
Mike Schnaidt: I shared with friends that were not editors.
38:51
Mike Schnaidt: people gave me really valuable feedback.
38:53
Mike Schnaidt: It's, was so interesting to me to see, like, different people take away from writing.
38:57
Mike Schnaidt: And, I think now, even though, like, they say you're not supposed to read, the reviews or whatever, like, I've been reading the Amazon reviews and it's just, fascinating to see, like, what people like.
39:05
Mike Schnaidt: some people say, hey, the layout's really annoying.
39:08
Mike Schnaidt: Some people say, hey, the layout's really good.
39:10
Mike Schnaidt: Some people say the tips are good.
39:11
Mike Schnaidt: Some people say the tips are fine.
39:12
Mike Schnaidt: whatever.
39:13
Mike Schnaidt: It's you realize, not everyone is going to be happy.
39:15
Mike Schnaidt: And when you accept the fact that, like, not everyone's going to be happy, like, It's a lot, hell of a lot easier, right?
39:20
Mike Schnaidt: And that's not to say that you should only make it for yourself.
39:22
Mike Schnaidt: Like we were talking about, like musicians, some musicians earlier, like you should think about it as a product for other people.
39:28
Mike Schnaidt: But if you put yourself in the mode of I have to make everybody happy, you're going to drive yourself to the drink.
39:33
Mike Schnaidt: So like, had to step away from that mindset, but I found that I really enjoyed the process of sharing it with a lot of other people and getting their take on it.
39:40
Mike Schnaidt: And it be kind of became this social experiment for me where like, I was, Just connecting with people I hadn't talked to for years, whether it was like, Hey, can you read this?
39:49
Mike Schnaidt: Or Hey, do you have a contact at NASA?
39:52
Mike Schnaidt: like that part was really fun for me.
39:54
Mike Schnaidt: I enjoyed the whole process.
39:55
Mike Schnaidt: I mean, there were nights when I was like, ticked off.
39:57
Mike Schnaidt: And especially when I was like, I don't know what the hell this should sound like.
40:00
Mike Schnaidt: or when I had to cut my own copy down by like, 33%.
40:04
Mike Schnaidt: But, for the most part, it was, a fun process.
40:07
Radim Malinic: I have to say that unfortunately you've, you've entered a world of reviews and, oh my word, from personal experience, it's, bewildering sometimes because you feel Like the more you try to help people only to get like a really nonsensical review, you're like, you've not read the title, you've clearly read the book, you've read a few chapters, it doesn't make sense.
40:32
Radim Malinic: And then you say okay, well, how do you make yourself feel believe better?
40:36
Radim Malinic: And I looked up actually today on Goodreads before we spoke, I was looking at some books, which are very successful, sold, a lot of copies, like still like an artist and on Goodreads, people are like more cutthroat than anywhere else.
40:49
Radim Malinic: And they're like, Goodreads has got about 32, 001 and two star reviews.
40:54
Radim Malinic: Of course it's got like 270, 000 reviews, but it's 30, 000 reviews.
40:58
Radim Malinic: Imagine if you're like, when you're not ready or when you're like, when you think about I might take everything personally that's a lot of people who think that your book is shit.
41:08
Radim Malinic: But the book is not shit.
41:10
Radim Malinic: It's just not for them.
41:10
Radim Malinic: Because if you want to speak to everyone, you're talking to no one.
41:13
Radim Malinic: And it's just like double niching to people because ultimately, if you get one person to say, you know what, Mike, you've changed my life.
41:20
Radim Malinic: Like I have actually taken something from this.
41:22
Radim Malinic: That's what it is.
41:23
Radim Malinic: for your personal experiences, I'm sure when you go back and think about the Marvel comics, you know, they used to buy, like a 10 note, they changed you, how you felt and what you did, you know, of of course there were people who thought, oh, these comics are shit.
41:36
Radim Malinic: This is garbage.
41:36
Radim Malinic: Like, why do people make it?
41:37
Radim Malinic: like this, what's this about?
41:39
Radim Malinic: And it's just that realization that, That's what we need to learn because ultimately we're looking for gratification from our creative process because we feel it should work all the time for everyone.
41:49
Radim Malinic: Like, look, this is great, but not everyone buys Nike trainers.
41:53
Radim Malinic: Not everyone buys Adidas.
41:54
Radim Malinic: Not everyone likes Kanye.
41:56
Radim Malinic: people still listen to Kanye and we tell ourselves like, we, we don't want that creativity in conflict.
42:01
Radim Malinic: We want this to be a smooth path.
42:02
Radim Malinic: Whereas we learn from the stuff, you know, we learn.
42:05
Radim Malinic: And, find yourself, like the more you try to help people.
42:08
Radim Malinic: The more you will annoy people who will be annoyed by anything, but you will find that we will hit the people that actually need to speak to, then we'll take your advice and that will be more worthwhile.
42:18
Radim Malinic: So, yeah, think Seth Godin said that he hasn't read Amazon Review.
42:23
Radim Malinic: for the last 12 years or something, because it's got nothing to learn from it.
42:25
Radim Malinic: Like, fuck it.
42:26
Radim Malinic: I don't care.
42:27
Radim Malinic: You know, like it's out there, whatever.
42:28
Radim Malinic: And with medium of books, you can sneakily change and edit, you know, you can, improve layout.
42:33
Radim Malinic: and you can see that which designers, printed their first book because they got type against the gutter.
42:39
Radim Malinic: And it's just you learn from the process, but that's what makes it more enjoyable.
42:42
Radim Malinic: Then, always say one bad review is not going to derail a good product.
42:45
Radim Malinic: And, one.
42:46
Radim Malinic: Good reviews never going to make a bad product a good thing, so it's just it's like yin and yang.
42:50
Radim Malinic: but yeah, if there's one thing, don't worry about the reviews because every book on the planet, every book on the planet is littered with absolute idiots going, what's this?
42:59
Radim Malinic: Tolkien, I don't believe now what he's doing.
43:02
Radim Malinic: fascinating.
43:02
Radim Malinic: Thank you for the insights.
43:04
Radim Malinic: how long did it take you from start to finish from that sort of encouragement to the finished product?
43:09
Mike Schnaidt: I would say it was about like 14 months.
43:13
Mike Schnaidt: Yeah, it was a pretty, like, all things considered, it was a pretty quick process.
43:18
Mike Schnaidt: I would say I got a, book deal within three months.
43:22
Mike Schnaidt: I had, another three, four months to write the full thing.
43:26
Mike Schnaidt: And then, but then, you know, I continued to write it or rewrite it as I designed it.
43:32
Mike Schnaidt: and I really have to like give my publisher a high five because like they allowed me to continue to rewrite it and tweak it.
43:39
Mike Schnaidt: And I'm sure I drove them mad, but I was like, the ideas are hitting me, going with it.
43:44
Mike Schnaidt: And I also just made it.
43:45
Mike Schnaidt: So I'm like, if you give me any changes, I will turn the changes around.
43:49
Mike Schnaidt: Like I just made it.
43:51
Mike Schnaidt: So I'm like, I'm.
43:53
Mike Schnaidt: Ideally the easiest person to work with because you asked me to change something or tweak something, they really were very reasonable with their changes.
43:59
Mike Schnaidt: It was more like, shifting it and making sure it was like broad enough for a wide range of consumers.
44:06
Mike Schnaidt: And I think like I work best with that too is like where you, if somebody gives me some feedback on a design or a piece of writing and they keep it broad enough where like, okay, I can tell me the base problem.
44:18
Mike Schnaidt: And I'll solve it.
44:20
Mike Schnaidt: And I think that it's, being a designer turned writer, it's that's, it's a really valuable skill that I've learned from designing is just like how to respond to feedback, how to think about an audience, it's like, kind of goes to what you were saying about Amazon people and like, some people trash in the book, but it's not for them.
44:35
Mike Schnaidt: And it's thinking about, okay, Who's my target audience, right?
44:38
Mike Schnaidt: Because not everyone's going to like every design that I do either, but you have to think about your target audience.
44:42
Mike Schnaidt: Otherwise, like you're just creating this like very vanilla piece of work.
44:47
Mike Schnaidt: so yeah, like I, found that like responding to feedback from my editors was what helped propel me to actually like create something that was usable for an audience.
44:56
Radim Malinic: before I let you go, I need to know about a cover design because obviously you've produced these most amazing covers Fast Company and it was nice to meet you a few months ago because I'm a fan of Fast Company, I've been linking articles in my newsletters for forever and it was nice to meet you because obviously I really appreciate the work that you've put into it.
45:16
Radim Malinic: When you talk about the covers, when you talked about the magazines just earlier, you said you tried to make them different.
45:21
Radim Malinic: And, the recent cover with Marcus was one of the, another amazing ones.
45:26
Radim Malinic: when it comes to book covers, how many book covers did you go for?
45:30
Radim Malinic: Because.
45:31
Radim Malinic: From my experience, I say, especially working with musicians on their album covers, unless you've got 27 options, you haven't tried hard enough.
45:39
Radim Malinic: And obviously you need, you haven't explored, like, you haven't tried hard.
45:42
Radim Malinic: And with my personal experience working on my covers, even though we had the idea, it still took, it year to finalize what we wanted to do.
45:52
Radim Malinic: How was it for you, for someone who makes covers on a monthly basis, to do a cover for your book?
45:57
Radim Malinic: What was that?
45:58
Radim Malinic: Was there a fight?
45:58
Radim Malinic: That was, it was easy.
46:00
Mike Schnaidt: It wasn't easy.
46:01
Mike Schnaidt: There wasn't a, there wasn't a fight, but I think it was like, it was an unexpected challenge because I was like, Oh, like the cover is going to be the easiest part.
46:12
Mike Schnaidt: I think maybe I went into it, like patting myself on the back thinking like, Oh, I've done a bunch of magazine covers, like book covers are, they're like the cousin of magazines.
46:19
Mike Schnaidt: So I'm like, this will be easy.
46:21
Mike Schnaidt: It was not easy.
46:22
Mike Schnaidt: Yeah.
46:22
Mike Schnaidt: Because, I had a lot of versions with like illustrations on the cover at first and like, very kind of conceptual illustrations, like, somebody running inside of somebody's head and stuff like that.
46:32
Mike Schnaidt: And I think it it was just like too much.
46:35
Mike Schnaidt: was really, really trying to like.
46:38
Mike Schnaidt: not do a type cover.
46:40
Mike Schnaidt: Like as much as I love type, but I think it was like part of me was like trying to like buck what I thought maybe some people would expect me to do because I love type so much.
46:48
Mike Schnaidt: People just say, Oh, Mike's going to do a type cover.
46:50
Mike Schnaidt: so part of it was just like me making it hard for myself.
46:53
Mike Schnaidt: Cause I was just like fighting, fighting, fighting.
46:55
Mike Schnaidt: I want illustration on the cover.
46:57
Mike Schnaidt: at the same time, we were playing around with the name of the book.
47:00
Mike Schnaidt: While I was fighting that, I was like, I do not want to change the name of the book.
47:04
Mike Schnaidt: It was one thing that I was like very, I would dig my heels about because I was like, I, it has to be creative endurance.
47:11
Mike Schnaidt: Cause I was like, I wrapped the whole conceit.
47:13
Mike Schnaidt: around it.
47:14
Mike Schnaidt: And if the name of the book was creative resilience, right?
47:17
Mike Schnaidt: Like having an astronaut and a race car driver in an ultra marathoner doesn't quite click, right?
47:24
Mike Schnaidt: So it's funny how we can just hang our hat on like one little idea.
47:27
Mike Schnaidt: it was like, at the same time, designed probably about a hundred different versions of the cover.
47:32
Mike Schnaidt: And then also designing versions with different names too, because I was just like, you want more?
47:37
Mike Schnaidt: You want more?
47:38
Mike Schnaidt: I'll give you more.
47:39
Mike Schnaidt: I'll give you more.
47:39
Mike Schnaidt: I'll give you more.
47:40
Mike Schnaidt: And then, I did find that once we came to the final cover, when I saw it and printed it out and trimmed it, cause of course I would print out every single cover that I made.
47:49
Mike Schnaidt: I was like, Oh, that's it.
47:51
Mike Schnaidt: That's the cover.
47:52
Radim Malinic: I wanted to ask you how we validate it because I normally just make us literally thumbnail and make a screenshot of Amazon and just try to move it around and obviously I'll always look in a category because it's always going to be seen as small now.
48:04
Radim Malinic: And you're like, what gets big type, small type illustration.
48:08
Radim Malinic: What would you do?
48:08
Radim Malinic: And I was like, you look at that sort of philosophy and I'm thinking for me, like, from a serious perspective, like you never finished with just one book and either series will go on.
48:16
Radim Malinic: Like I never thought about it that way from the beginning because I thought I was one and done at the beginning and people say another one.
48:23
Radim Malinic: I'm like maybe.
48:24
Radim Malinic: Uh, and my first couple of two, literally 10 minutes, because it was a piece of existing work.
48:29
Radim Malinic: And it just worked.
48:30
Radim Malinic: It just clicked.
48:31
Radim Malinic: Job was done.
48:32
Radim Malinic: Whereas, I think with the latest two books, we tried five different illustrators.
48:36
Radim Malinic: We tried different things and sometimes I feel like you have an idea today.
48:41
Radim Malinic: You set on the idea, you work on it and the universe will catch up.
48:44
Radim Malinic: You're like, Hey, we've done 500 other options with similar stuff, you know, like, illustration, especially with characters is very popular right now.
48:51
Radim Malinic: And, we had, digital illustrator doing other things before.
48:54
Radim Malinic: So like things are moving fast and they grow in a volume until they just stop.
48:58
Radim Malinic: And then something new is coming.
48:59
Radim Malinic: Let me just grow a different trend.
49:01
Radim Malinic: so did you actually print every of those hundred covers?
49:05
Mike Schnaidt: Yeah, would say I trim them all.
49:07
Mike Schnaidt: I think like I trim the ones where I was like, oh, this one's like good.
49:10
Mike Schnaidt: I'll trim this.
49:11
Mike Schnaidt: did I share all of a hundred covers like with the publisher?
49:14
Mike Schnaidt: No, like it was like, I don't want to share something that I think isn't going to, isn't good.
49:19
Mike Schnaidt: know, when you're designing, you got to just like get out the bad pancakes, right?
49:21
Mike Schnaidt: Like you just make, making crappy pancakes until you make the good golden brown ones that you're going to share with your, publisher or your client or whoever.
49:28
Mike Schnaidt: so I didn't share them all, but, use Miro, which is like a whiteboarding app.
49:31
Mike Schnaidt: and I just would put all of my covers and all my page designs on Miro.
49:36
Mike Schnaidt: speak in lieu of having a bunch of printouts all around my office and everywhere because like my wife would kill me if like I had the book all over the house.
49:43
Mike Schnaidt: but like, yeah, I would use Miro and just dump everything I had on there.
49:46
Mike Schnaidt: And, it's the same with like writing.
49:48
Mike Schnaidt: I found there was a lot of value in like designing it quickly, putting it there and then just not looking at it.
49:53
Mike Schnaidt: Stepping away from it.
49:55
Mike Schnaidt: And then coming back to it a couple days, and I'm able to look at it objectively and say, oh, like, that's good, or that's shit, or whatever.
50:01
Mike Schnaidt: So, the cover was unexpectedly tricky, but, looking back, I'm like, it's fine.
50:07
Mike Schnaidt: It is what it is.
50:08
Radim Malinic: I like that you said it was unexpectedly tricky.
50:10
Radim Malinic: Now I just, I think when we tell ourselves issues is meant to be easy, it's going to be okay, we always fall on our face.
50:16
Radim Malinic: Like, no, what were you expecting?
50:18
Radim Malinic: Because I think, don't be pre assured.
50:20
Radim Malinic: because when it makes presenting client work, like, Hey, I think this is going to slap, this is going to be good.
50:25
Radim Malinic: And they go like, what are you doing?
50:26
Radim Malinic: This doesn't work at all.
50:27
Radim Malinic: So I think.
50:29
Radim Malinic: I never print, I never put stuff around the house, but, I normally get, when we sort of settle on the cover, I get a printer to make a dummy, which is like a book with blank pages.
50:37
Radim Malinic: So you see like the weight and the size and the feel, and we sit with it and we start to use this early promo.
50:44
Radim Malinic: And yeah, I just, when wife says.
50:47
Radim Malinic: What's that?
50:48
Radim Malinic: Oh, that's good.
50:50
Radim Malinic: You know, it's like when you've got that sort of, that outside, outside perspective.
50:53
Radim Malinic: And sometimes when she says you shouldn't do that, I'm like, okay, I still do that.
50:57
Radim Malinic: But, yeah, I think everything you described, I think you couldn't have named a book better because everything you're doing and the process you've described, it's all about endurance.
51:05
Radim Malinic: It's actually sticking with the idea, seeing it through.
51:08
Radim Malinic: So it's amazing to see the link between your comics and, holding yourself accountable to doing it through all that way.
51:14
Radim Malinic: And it's, fantastic.
51:15
Radim Malinic: and I'm so happy for you that you've made a book.
51:17
Radim Malinic: It's out there.
51:19
Radim Malinic: it looks fantastic.
51:20
Radim Malinic: Everyone should get it.
51:21
Radim Malinic: And it's, as I said, it's, kind of like an outlier in the category because it, Does the same thing, which wants you to be better, do better, you know, grow and learn and work on yourself, but you've shaken it up and you've done a fantastic job.
51:33
Radim Malinic: So, I'll be the first person to say, what's the second book, I guess it's not a running, running philosophy, but it's, I think something on that.
51:40
Radim Malinic: got something there and Mike, this is the encouragement.
51:42
Radim Malinic: So you've got to make it
51:43
Mike Schnaidt: yeah, I know.
51:44
Mike Schnaidt: No, I know.
51:44
Mike Schnaidt: I feel the encouragement happening.
51:46
Mike Schnaidt: no, I, again, I would love to write something that's about creating, designing your most creative life, something like that.
51:52
Mike Schnaidt: demystifying creative success.
51:54
Mike Schnaidt: I would love to now challenge myself to write.
51:58
Mike Schnaidt: in longer form, not like I'm gonna, write a novel or anything like that, but, write with a mix of lengths.
52:03
Mike Schnaidt: Like, Creative Endurance is very much about, short, digestible bits, and I want to have that, but I also would love to write, longer pieces, too.
52:11
Mike Schnaidt: write, longer profiles about creatives.
52:13
Mike Schnaidt: I've been taking writing classes too.
52:15
Mike Schnaidt: So I've like in my break in between books because I feel like a second book is inevitable because I feel like now that I know the process I want to try it again.
52:23
Mike Schnaidt: I'm taking writing classes and just like little.
52:25
Mike Schnaidt: Six week classes.
52:26
Mike Schnaidt: I've taken a class in like non fiction writing and dialogue and character and plot and I'm kind of like this is like my time now to be a student and to learn more about writing and getting charged up to jump into the second one at some point.
52:42
Radim Malinic: I can tell you from the perspective of endurance, I think it took me like seven and a half years before it all started making sense.
52:48
Radim Malinic: It was like, Oh, now we all make sense and, you know, do longer, But I think that's just the key of life.
52:54
Radim Malinic: the longer we do it, the more it makes sense.
52:56
Radim Malinic: You might not be as sometimes as excited or as energetic about it, you do make the right moves.
53:01
Radim Malinic: you just basically, you pound once and you do it right.
53:04
Radim Malinic: And as I'm always full of quotes, I think it's Obama's quote who said, you know what?
53:08
Radim Malinic: I'm not as fast as I used to be.
53:10
Radim Malinic: I'm not as, a rehash of a quote, but it's I know what I'm doing.
53:13
Radim Malinic: I'm not going to maybe as fast, but I know exactly where I'm going.
53:15
Radim Malinic: And that's the key, you know, like you don't have to muck about and, be silly about things.
53:19
Radim Malinic: So.
53:19
Radim Malinic: Mike, thanks for coming on.
53:21
Radim Malinic: So nice to talk.
53:22
Radim Malinic: Nice to see you again and talk to you.
53:23
Radim Malinic: And as I said, I'm looking forward to what you're going to do next because this is the beginning.
53:28
Radim Malinic: This is only, first one is the beginning and yeah, thanks for coming on.
53:31
Mike Schnaidt: Thank you.
53:33
Mike Schnaidt: for having me.
53:39
Radim Malinic: Thank you for listening to this episode of Creativity for Sale podcast.
53:42
Radim Malinic: The show was produced and presented by me, Radim Malinic.
53:45
Radim Malinic: Editing and audio production was masterfully done by Neil mackay,.
53:49
Radim Malinic: from 7 million Bikes Podcasts, Theme music was written and produced by Robert Summerfield.
53:55
Radim Malinic: If you enjoyed this episode and would like to support the podcast, please subscribe and leave a rating or review.
54:01
Radim Malinic: To get your own action plan on how to start and grow a life changing creative business.
54:05
Radim Malinic: You can get a copy of the Creativity for Sale book via the links in show notes.
54:09
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.