21: Building with Intention: A Purpose-Led Path to Creative Influence with Ben Rennie

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Creative confidence startswith that, you know, that feeling
of just, it's okay to walkinto the room and ask for help.
It's okay to go and ask forthe raise.
It's okay to go and, you know,like I was listening to Scott Galloway
talk about this yesterday andI just had so much regret over my
career that I never did.
This was if you're in a joband you're there for two to three
years, it's time to leave.

(00:20):
And what he means by thatisn't go and get something else,
it's go and ask the marketwhat you're worth, you know, so that
to me was this.
Just be brave enough to justkeep elevating up.
Welcome to the StandoutCreatives, where making money and
creating meaningful work gohand in hand.
You're already passionateabout what you create.
Now let's turn that passioninto a standout business.

(00:42):
Marketing.
Your work doesn't have to be overwhelming.
It can actually amplify your creativity.
I'm your guide, Kevin Chung,and this podcast is your roadmap
to creative business success.
I'll show you how to turn yourunique talents into a business that
truly represents who you are.
Let's get started.
Welcome to another episode ofStandout Creatives.

(01:03):
Today.
I'm Ben Rennie.
Ben is a designer advisor andco founder of Renny, a certified
B Corp agency that helpsbrands like Patagonia, Google and
Nike create innovative,purpose driven experiences.
Ben believes design isn't justhow things look, it's about the impact
they make.
From advising to top, fromadvising top executives to speaking

(01:25):
at Parliament House.
He spent his career pushingthe boundaries of design, technology
and sustainability.
Ben, that sounds like a reallyfun job that you have.
Can you tell us a little bitabout yourself, how you got into
the work you're doing?
Yeah, it's so interesting whenyou hear it, you know, like I suppose
a 15 year career sort ofsquished into a 40 second intro and

(01:46):
all those brands too.
You know, like when you hearthat like Patagonia, Google, Nike,
it feels like, you know,that's what we're doing all the time,
every day.
But that's stretched over aspan of time.
You know, the reality is withour work, like any agency is, or
any design studio or creativebusinesses, you know, most of the
work we're doing is actually,you know, at grassroots level dealing
with, you know, problemsolving, you know, creative projects,

(02:10):
building websites, designing brands.
And it's really, for us, it'sjust around impact and making sure
we're working with things thathave an impact on community, climate
or the environment, which isreally important.
But how do I get into it?
I was a really late bloomerinto design and I sort of stumbled

(02:31):
my way from brand side.
Like I'd always worked onclient side, like working with Ray
Ban in particular eyewear brands.
You know, my life has sort ofrevolved around, you know, Oakley,
Ray Ban, Dolce and Gabbana,Chanel, like just chasing or sort
of finding myself sort ofworking alongside them for these
really amazing, inspiring brands.

(02:51):
And I think what happens offthe back of that is you get really
connected to why brandsmatter, what the role of a brand
is, what it can do forcommunity and for people, and also
their status of what a brandsays about someone.
And I always just found thatreally interesting, probably more
important than the product.
I found the role of a brandand what that can do in community
sort of more powerful.

(03:11):
So getting to a, you know,closer to 2009, at the age of, you
know, 30, I started to sort ofengage in the idea of designing and
developing and making brands.
So it was a really late changein my life and setting up my own
agency in 2009 without anyidea about how to design or make
anything.
It was sort of like a selftaught journey, you know, to go into

(03:34):
that, into that world.
But yeah, that's how we foundourselves here, which is really interesting.
Awesome.
What did you like to do as akid that would have foreshadowed
you becoming like a branddesigner and agency owner?
That's actually an amazing question.
I played a really boring sportas a kid and as an Australian and

(03:54):
you know, I'm familiar with America.
We spent a lot of time inAmerica, my family and I, and we
haven't.
The agency has an office in,in the States.
But I played a sport called cricket.
If you're really cricket,yeah, like incredibly boring.
Every time I mentioned that toAmericans, they sort of just roll
their eyes and like, like areally bad version of baseball, which
is probably right.
So I grew up sort of inAustralia in the hot sun, scorching

(04:16):
sun, dreaming of other placesto be, literally until I was 20 when
I realized that that wasprobably not a bad idea.
And this connection back tocreativity for me was.
And this is all reflection.
I only really discovered thiswriting my book.
I was going back and going,well, where did it come from, that
connection to brand or designor creativity?
And I think the main catalystwas my mum would.

(04:39):
When we were young, we used todrive a long way to her family, see
her family at Christmas and atEaster and she'd always stop into
old secondhand stores and pickthings up, like little things, tiny
things.
And she'd always share thestories behind them and like, I wonder
who owned this before you?
Or an old record or an oldchair or something.
And as a young kid, I wasalways intrigued by that, the stories

(05:01):
that things could tell, likewhere had they been or what life
had they lived.
So I suppose as I got olderand sort of moved more into, you
know, this idea of making themass manufacturing products like
Ray Ban, which is veryimportant and cool, but started as
I matured into the idea ofbrands, started to understand the
history and the heritage ofthese products and how do we make
them better or different or whatever.

(05:22):
So I just kept like writing mybook and just kept coming back to
those road trips and walkinginto old trinket stores and trying
to, you know, I could give youan example of that.
We, my wife and I, bought adining table from a secondhand store
which we still do things likethis, which we sort of regret at
the end of it because wealways want to buy some beautiful
big table, but we findourselves in the stores and go, that's
the one, let's buy it.

(05:43):
We bought this dining tableand it was a table, it sat eight
at it.
And one spot at the diningtable was worn down, like to the
point of like raw.
And the rest was sort of thisnice finish.
And you know, the reality wasthis, this table, the previous owner
probably lived on their own at home.
And my kids would never sit atthat spot.
They'd always sit around iteverywhere but where the worn down

(06:04):
spot was.
Whereas my mum would come overand she'd run her hands over it.
She'd always say, I wonderwhat stories this table could tell.
Stories, you know, so that'smy connection to creativity and brand
and design.
It's like, what stories can wetell, you know, from the things we're
making.
That's cool.
There's a book called, I thinkit's called Everyday Objects and
it's somebody that did an artproject where they found a bunch

(06:27):
of stuff, like old stuff.
Like you were at like oldthrift stores and whatnot.
And they wrote a history thatthey made up for it and then sold
the objects on ebay.
And then they just showed likehow much profit they made from creating
this story and like justgetting people's reactions from it.
It was a really cool way tolook at.
Storytelling is powerful.

(06:48):
Yeah.
But I think we're, ourinclination is to connect with communities
that way.
And I think you know, whenwe're talking about brands and products,
we also.
We're also talking about, youknow, consumerism in a way, but if
it can bring a communitytogether through a story.
We did a similar experimentyears ago to that one where we had

(07:10):
this.
I was working for a snowboardcompany and we had these goggles,
and it came out with a purple lens.
And everyone we showed thepurple lens to just went, well, that's
ridiculous.
Why would I wear a purple lens?
First of all, it looks dumb.
Secondly, what's the benefit?
So I remember going away andthinking, what is the benefit?
So we come up with this story,and we were young, so this is a.
This is a business lie.
And the story we made up wasthat it opens an adrenaline plant

(07:33):
in your brain and gets you,like, really motivated, like a can
of Red Bull.
Right.
So, like, that's the role ofpurple window lens.
And I remember sitting arounda table laughing about that as, like,
let's tell someone that andsee how they respond.
And I remember years ago,probably three or four years later,
we sold a lot of thosegoggles, by the way, off the back
of that story.
You know, we don't tellstories like that now, very young,

(07:55):
but I remember three to fouryears later, sitting on a chairlift
and this guy had a pair ofgoggles on with a purple lens from
a different brand, which we'dnever seen before.
And he was telling his matethat it opens an adrenaline gland
in your brain, makes you getall excited, you know.
And I remember sitting theregoing, wow, you know, stories can
spread really fast, you know,and you always think, too, that in

(08:15):
these campaigns or these ideasor these brands, you're building,
you know, even my book, likewhen I wrote my book, I felt like,
no one's going to read this.
No one on earth is going toread it.
But people do.
And it takes one, you know, totell, to share the story.
And if the story resonates andthere's a community that wants to
align with it, it spreads.
You know, story spread.
So.
And that's the importance, Ithink, coming back later and maturing

(08:37):
into my agency, you know, I'm50 now and looking back and going,
what stories can we tell thatare true and honest and raw, that
build community and buildimpact in a way that's positive?
You know, in the same way wecan tell stories that aren't so positive
about, you know, purple lensesthat don't really do anything.
Yeah.
So you're just taking this,the same concept and applying it
in a way that feels Obviouslybetter as like a way to make a change

(09:01):
as opposed to just try to sellsomething totally.
There was this sort of journeyin my business.
We started in 2009 and whenyou start, like, we were originally
a brand advisory firm, so wesort of stumbled into design and
development as we grew andexpanded and more around the need
to make something tangible.
Like we wanted to actuallygive someone something as opposed

(09:23):
to thinking, know, when youbring in the advisory space, you're
handing over ideas.
I've sort of come tounderstand that ideas are free because
the hardest thing about anidea is someone doing something with
it.
And the biggest, bigger theorganization, the more of a challenge
that presents because theyjust move slow.
So somehow in our business, in2009, when we started in the advisory
space, we had this reallynoble goal of sort of, you know,

(09:46):
fighting for the small guy andmaking unremarkable businesses remarkable.
And remarkable being justsimply worth talking about, like,
how do we make that companyworth a conversation in the future?
And somehow, and I don't knowhow this happens, and if anyone ever
asked me for advice on how didyou grow the business?
I don't really know what thecatalyst was.
But we found ourselves goingfrom having no clients to really

(10:11):
small clients who couldn'tafford to pay us, to then going to
working with Canon, you know,a camera company, or we were working
with Australia Post, which isthe equivalent of US Mail, on how
to reposition mail fromtraditional mail to digital.
So all these things got reallybig really fast.
First of all, I don't thinkwe're ever geared for that, but there

(10:32):
was this transition for mewhere we started to move into bhp,
Billiton, Gulf oil, likereally big fossil fuel companies
and big banks and the, youknow, and if you remember that initial
goal in 2009, it was to makeunremarkable businesses remarkable.
And we found ourselves sort ofalmost, you know, entrenched in this
system we're trying to avoidor escape.

(10:53):
So now we're just another cogin this big machine of big business.
And it was 2018 where I sortof remember going into a.
A meeting in South Australiain the McLaren Vale wine region,
and I was going to see one ofthe banks, one of the biggest, call
them the Big Four.
In Australia, there's fourmajor, major banks and went into

(11:13):
a meeting with one of the BigFour, and I had a pretty much a panic
attack that I built thisbusiness and I was in this room that
I didn't want to be in, voidof creativity, not designing anything,
just sharing, thinking And alittle bit like, you know, I've had
panic attacks before and thiswas definitely one where I excuse
myself in the meeting, wentinto the bathroom and washed my face

(11:34):
with water three times, whichdid nothing.
So when I left the meeting, Iactually resigned from my own company.
We built this company and Iremember bringing my business partner
the next day and said, I sortof built this thing, but it's not
the thing I wanted to build.
And if I can build this, I canbuild the thing I want to over here.
So we rang, my wife got to theairport, we went to the States and

(11:54):
this is how our relationshipwith the US started.
We went over to the US andspent three months trying to re establish
what it was we wanted to be inthe world and what we wanted to do.
And creativity was the throughline of that was just we want to
make things and that it look good.
And that idea of saying yes toeverything, irrespective of the consequence
of what we're making becamethe catalyst to change.

(12:16):
Whereas now we sort of reflecton if it's a yes, why, why are we
saying yes?
What's a consequence of thatenvironment change in three years,
four years, five years time,you know, so that was the biggest
shift for us and again, itcomes back to storytelling and we
just wanted to tell adifferent story and make sure that
our legacy online was a littlebit more positive, you know, rather
than doing something for thesake of it.

(12:38):
Yeah, I think when you'rerunning a company it's really important
to focus on why you're doingit because otherwise you're going
to end up in that situationwhen you're talking to the bank where
you're panicking all the time,it's like, it's not good for you.
One second it's like, why areyou doing this?
Does it make sense to continue?

(12:58):
Yeah, I totally agree.
It's.
And I even now, like, I thinkthe decision then made our business
harder.
Like this is hard.
And I don't for a secondundervalue how hard it is to first
of all spend your life savingson trying to reset what you're doing
in the age of 40 or 45, whichis what I was doing with three kids.

(13:18):
So we couldn't afford to do itto exit that business which we built.
But I couldn't afford not to.
You know, like, I think yourmental health or your, what you bring
to the world is you only getto one shot, you know, one go round.
So for me it was like, well,if I can build this the wrong Way
I wonder if I can build it theright way.
That was my sort of thoughts.
And I will say that ever sincethen, it's just been a.

(13:39):
It's been a battle.
Like, it's been so hard tosort of try and move into, you know,
designing for impact.
It's been really hard, youknow, because I don't think the world
cares as much about, you know,the things we're making, all the.
The footprint we want to leave.
I think we're just really goodat making stuff for a commercial
sense, you know, so it's been.
It's been a challenge, but a rewarding.

(14:00):
One, you know, how did youessentially decide what the business
was going to be about, likethe principles or whatever that might
be?
And how did you.
How do you pitch that topeople in a way that makes sense
to them?
Yeah, in order to hire you?
Like, for me, I needed to goback and understand what it was that

(14:20):
got me up in the morning andinspired me.
And creativity was the obvious thing.
Like, I was obsessed withstories and things, and I just wanted
to make sure the things that Iwas obsessed with were responsible
things.
The second part is nature.
You know, when we exited thatbusiness in 2018, we went to Lake

(14:41):
Tahoe for a month, whichbecame three months.
And when I say spending ourretirement, that's literally what
we're doing.
But that feeling of being innature was the catalyst for me.
And I remember some of my mostmost important childhood memories
being in the mountains,snowboarding with mates in Sorel
boots that I couldn't afford,and in a borrowed snowboard and just

(15:05):
scraping enough money togetherfor my ticket.
And the excitement and the.
And the feeling I got fromthat was just irreplaceable, you
know, so I. I was just keptthinking, you know, like, I'm sitting
in a boardroom with, with, youknow, one of the most amazing businesses
at one of Australia's best banks.
Great people, great product,but just wasn't giving me the same
feeling as sitting in theocean on a.

(15:27):
On a surfboard with mates, youknow, so it's like, how do you come
back and find balance?
And the.
The through line for me wasalways nature.
So when we rebuilt thisbusiness, it was taking cues from
nature around what is it thatwe love about it?
How do we protect it?
And we continue to tell thestory of nature and how do we facilitate
businesses that want to alsocontinue to protect nature?

(15:48):
And I think through that,that's our relationship came, you
know, back to Bellroy or inthe States, you know, United Climate
foundation found us.
And so I think when you cansort of sit with your internal value
and go, well, this is thething that I like, is the thing that
I love.
So I'm going to build abusiness that reflects that, and

(16:09):
we're going to go out into theworld and as a design agency, we're
going to design solutions.
And when in your introduction,you talked about.
Ben believes design isn't justabout things that look good, it's
about impact they make.
So design should make you feelsomething or change something.
Right?
So Patagonia does a great jobof that.
We think about ourenvironment, we think about the choices.

(16:30):
Don't buy this jacket campaignfrom them was quite profound because
what they were saying was,don't buy that jacket again.
But what they're actuallysaying is, trust us in a way that
our role here isn't justcommercial, it's also environmental.
And sure, it is commercial.
They're a business and they'regoing to survive.
But they're also coming backand saying, we are trying to find
a balance between thecommercial opportunities that we

(16:52):
want to have as a business andthe footprint and the resources that
we draw on.
So that, that's a great modelthat we sort of respected and came
back and applied to our own business.
But again, I'll say it's.
It's really hard.
Like, it's really hard.
And it's really hard to alignwith businesses who see what you're

(17:13):
trying to do and what you wantto do.
So you just got to be reallybrave in telling your story.
Did I answer your question?
I don't know if I did.
Yeah, it's just about focusingon the things that really matter.
And when you do that, I thinkthe other companies that respect
that idea are more likely tofind you because your alignment is

(17:34):
so good that it makes the most sense.
Because other companies canwork just to make money as much profit
as possible.
But when you're doingsomething for a purpose, that's what
really draws in the companieslike Patagonia that are trying to
make a difference.
Yeah, totally.
And we're not changing the world.
Patagonia.
Our role with them is tiny,you know, but from my point of view,

(17:58):
whether it's a day's work or100 days work, with them, it's.
It's an engagement that meanssomething, you know, so our role
with Patagonia is that we'renot going in there and advising them
how to become a better business.
We're doing a specific task.
But for me, that's valuable.
But it's also valuable for usbecause we learn from them as much
as they learn from us.
So how do we take thosestories and confidently share those

(18:19):
stories to find other businesses?
Like, you know, I could goback and we've, we've, we've sat
in meeting rooms with Nike offthe back of a conversation we had
with someone else or Cotopaxiin Salt Lake City and just these
really amazing brands orBellroy and Torquay, you know, tariodology
and in Australia.
And I think it comes frombeing really clear on those values,

(18:41):
being really confident aboutthe stories we want to tell about
ourselves, but also confidentin the idea that what we're learning
collaboratively through allthese relationships has value for
the world beyond justcommercial products.
So that's a really interestingbalance for me.
Yeah.
Can you talk about some of theways that you've built relationships

(19:02):
in order to find business?
Because I think that's thebest way to build business partnerships
is with relationship buildingversus, you know, I don't know, ads
or what have you.
Yeah, well, we've never in ourlife got a, got a, a client off an
ad, ever.

(19:22):
We've had, we've engagedagencies like businesses to get on
the phone and cold call and Ican't think of one client we've ever
had in our life outside of anurtured relationship or doing good
work.
And that story being told tosomeone else.
So that, that comes back to.
And I need to be really clear,we have this business is hard.

(19:43):
So there is months where wego, oh my God, how do we survive?
But then there's other monthswhere we go, this is working, this
is great.
So 15 years is a large span oftime to exist.
That doesn't mean there's notdown periods where we just don't
know how to survive.
That absolutely happens to usall the time.
But I think it's the challenge.
We create that challenge forourself in a way because we're comfortable

(20:06):
saying no to things that weshouldn't do.
So commercially, I think thathurts us a bit, but emotionally it
gives me everything.
I wake up motivated to do thiswork and to talk to you about it.
So how do we get work?
I think again, telling ourstory and being confident about it,

(20:27):
you know, like it always comesback to if you do bad work.
If we say yes to a projectyou're not passionate about, there
is no way the execution can be good.
The end game will fail somewhere.
So if we take on a project ora brand for someone or a brand, we
Just don't understand or don't love.
There's going to be a pointwhere there's a fraction in that,

(20:48):
right.
We're going to get to the endand they're going to go, I don't
love this.
And we're going to go, yeah,well, we don't either because we
don't love the engagement.
So if you love the project andyou lean into something where your
values are aligned, right.
And the dots are aligned and you.
That's a project you want towork on, can guarantee the end is
great, you know, like because.

(21:08):
Because there's alignment of values.
And so, you know, we were, wedo a project look in saying that
sometimes you do get it wrongtoo, and I could name a thousand
examples of that.
But most of the time whenyou're aligned on values, you're
aligned on the creativecollaboration and the outcome's good.
And of course, if theoutcome's good, they're going to
tell someone it's good.
Right.
So that's how we exist.

(21:29):
We literally wouldn't be herewithout the ability to put good work
out into the world or solve aproblem for a client or hopefully
add more or over and abovewhat we've agreed to do.
You know, that's alsoimportant, you know, so I think part
of that is also the idea andthis realization that ideas are free.

(21:49):
You know, when a client rings,not everything's billable.
Sometimes that client's justringing to help and the conversation,
like, that's really valuable,but, you know, nurturing the relationship.
But yeah, we've never had muchluck with scaling our business through
cold calling or EDMs and so forth.
It's been challenging, butyeah, it just comes down to good

(22:10):
work for sure.
Yeah.
I think the thing, the bestthing you can do is.
Well, I think the minimumstandard is good work.
Right.
And then going above andbeyond is what people expect.
So you have to do that all the time.
But plus have good values.
It's like, it's such adifficult thing to maintain, I think

(22:30):
that balance of good work plusthey have to meet all your criteria
and you have to have a goodrelationship with them.
It could be the other two, but.
But it has to be likeeverything coming together.
Yeah.
I wish I knew how to build ideo.
You know, like I look at IDEOor columns in New York or a lot of
these businesses and I.
And you know, I've been in this.

(22:51):
I've been doing this for 19years, this business, and I don't
know.
Or 16 years.
Sorry, I don't know how to scale.
Like I have no idea how to do that.
So there's also this awarenessof we're really good at this thing.
We're not that good at this thing.
You know, there was a periodof time where we had a cap of our
turnover, where we went, wewant to turn over this and we want
to not go a dollar overbecause that means we can be very

(23:14):
personal under that scale orthat cap and we can build really
nice relationships.
We only have to do so muchwork and we can survive.
And then I have these momentswhere I go, oh, let's just go and
build an empire.
Let's just go and make thisthing huge.
How did ideo do it?
And that two or three yearperiod where I'm focused really heavily
on growing my business nightmare.

(23:35):
No way I can do it for your business.
Give you all the advice in theworld on how you should do it.
You know, from research orbranding or conversations on self
reflection and turning thelens back on ourself.
I've always found that really hard.
But it's like that we're at agood size and we're where we want
to be.
But you know, you look atthese businesses like audio, it's
like it's another mindset, another.
It's a whole nother level.

(23:55):
And you know, that's, that'salways been my challenge about if
anyone's got any advice how tobecome that, love to hear it because
it's been a challenge for mejust to find that next tier.
You know.
I often wonder whether or notit makes sense for everyone to scale.
Obviously it makes it easierto live the type of lifestyle that

(24:18):
you want to when you make moremoney and you're like a larger company.
But also when you do that, youlose something.
Right?
You're, you're just doingthings to, to grow and kind of be
more comfortable.
And is that always the right decision?
Hard to say.
Yeah.
I've never had comfort in this business.
It's always been hard.
I always, I always hear whenyou said that I was, I hear my mom

(24:39):
passed away in 2016.
Ringing in my years likeeverything happens for a reason.
You know, you're not meant tobe me, you're meant to be X.
You know, and, and, and I dothink there's truth in that.
I think when you come back andyour focus is impact, you know, it's
always going to be hardbecause not everyone cares about
impact.
Right.
Most businesses are existingfor commercial gain and that's okay

(24:59):
for us, that's we were thatand then we made a very conscious
decision not to be that.
And, you know, that's alimited market, it's a niche.
So, yeah, that's always been a challenge.
But, yeah, place in the world.
I do like the idea of beingideo, though.
Yes.
If you can keep your,obviously, your principles together,

(25:21):
plus reach that size,obviously that's the best case scenario.
But, yeah, yeah, it's notalways guaranteed that something
like that can happen or will happen.
Yeah, we're also.
Yeah, totally.
We're also guilty of moving agoalpost all the time.
Like, I think where we arenow, if I said this in 2018, I'd
be very surprised and proud,you know, and then you get.

(25:42):
You get there and you go,right, what's next?
And it's just a human naturething, you know, maybe there's a.
There's a.
There's a just slow down toget your foot off the gas and just
be comfortable in the presencethat you're doing good work or that
you've even got clients.
You know, there's also that, too.
So, yeah, that's interesting.
Food for thought.

(26:02):
Did you.
When you left the company, didit transition into the new company
or did that company stay andthen you built another one from scratch?
Built another one from scratch.
It was quite interestingbecause it wasn't really planned.
It was a very abrupt, oh, myGod, this is.
I'm dying here.
The biggest reason for it, andI'll swing back around to that question

(26:24):
is I couldn't extradite myselffrom being physically present.
You know, I didn't know how tobecome the director or CEO.
I was still the consultant.
Like, people are still buyingme, not my brand.
So I was still finding myself,you know, when Australia Post ring
and say, we need to solve theproblem with digital mail, Ben, can

(26:44):
you come and help us?
Not can my agency come and help?
So I'd always had thatchallenge around, how do I become
a guy running a business wherethere's people in the business who
could replicate that?
And so that was sort of this.
That was the pressure.
I never knew how to do it atthe time, and I'm definitely better
at it now.
But that was like thisbuilding pressure of when I'm doing

(27:05):
work physically for brandsthat I want to be working with right
now who also don't need me,you know, like a bank doesn't need
me.
You know, they got some prettygood people internally, you know,
what they're doing, you know,so it was almost like, if not here,
then where.
So when that abrupt changehappened my business partner, Paul
Breen, who I love dearly, hisnickname's the Bull because he's

(27:28):
just a fierce business guywith amazing values.
And you know, he's, he's ownedmultiple million dollar companies.
So scale for him was sort ofrelatively easy.
So he had that idea in his head.
Now I think what happened whenwe parted ways amicably was he took
the consulting arm and all themoving parts with that and sort of

(27:48):
set that up into his, hislittle world of different businesses.
I think that business sort ofgot morphed into an educational business
that became more and sellingideas and education.
And where he went with thatI'm not sure.
But I do know that he was veryheavily involved in a business that
went public because he's justthat guy, he knows how to do that.

(28:11):
I was really focused oncreativity and hands on and wouldn't
have a clue how to do that.
So, so there was a reallypositive offshoot of where that business
ended up, which I thought wasreally cool.
What I wanted to take out ofit was creative execution.
So when we solved a problemfor a client and they came to us
and said I could go and designthat pen or go and build as that
brand, that's the work Iwanted to do was not give that to

(28:34):
an agency partner.
I wanted to be the agency partner.
I wanted to go and do thecreative execution.
So that's where I changed.
And this really funny thinghappened when, when we, me and, me
and Paul agreed on that wasI'm going to build a different business
which is a design agency andyou can go and continue to be the
consultancy firm or advisory firm.

(28:55):
So there was a real distinct separation.
Nothing I wanted to do wascrossing over with what the business
was doing or wanted to do.
So it was an easy and amicableseparation and I was really clear
on what I wanted to build.
And one of the first clients Irang that we'd been doing business
with who wanted to buildsomething with a third party agency,
I rang them and said, hey,we're parting ways and I'm setting
up this business and wherebuilding brands and websites and

(29:18):
so forth.
And I wasn't really clear onwhat exactly what it was.
So it was a very fumbling conversation.
And he said I'd love to staywith you guys.
That's amazing.
What, what's it called?
And I realized that I hadn'tactually given the business a name.
And I was sitting, I wassitting at my desk and above my desk
I had a shelf and on the Shelfwas the whole collection of the last
four or five years of Monocle magazines.
Do you know Monocle Magazine?

(29:39):
I think I've heard of that.
Not too familiar with it, though.
Well, it's now owned by CondeNast and I think it's how you pronounce
it.
But that.
That magazine is a beautifulmagazine out of the uk, owned by
Tyler Brul, who.
I think I might be making this up.
I think he was one of theoriginal owners of Ted and.
And Wyatt, I think.
So he shot Monocle magazine.

(30:00):
It's beautiful.
And I just looked at themagazines and went, Monocle.
And the fire went on.
Monacle, that's a great name.
Like.
And then.
And then he's.
And the next thing he saidwas, like, the magazine.
And I was like, well, sort of.
So I went away and did asearch and I registered the name
Monocle Digital as an agencyon Monocle design.

(30:20):
And turns out three yearslater, I met Tyler Brulee at a conference
and he just sold his businessto Conde Nast.
I wish I knew how to pronounce that.
I think that's right.
They own Vogue and everything,and they did a worldwide audit on
this name and found us, and wegot a little letter in the post,
which is how we became RennieR E N Y.

(30:41):
So, yeah, it was aninteresting transition, but I think
we.
We sort of found our feet in avery fumbling kind of way.
And the next three months we.
After I resigned from thatcompany, we booked an airfare at
flight to San Francisco, madeour way to Lake Tahoe and rented
a little cabin there.
And.
And that's when we sort ofjust planned out what, what, what.
What this thing was, what weneeded to build, you know, mate.

(31:01):
And.
And the way to survive throughthat was, you know, a bit like foraging,
you know, for food.
In the old days, we just tookwhat we could find to survive as
we found it, decided todiscover what we wanted to become,
you know.
What was the first projectthat you really remember saying,
oh, this is.
This is what I've beensearching for.

(31:22):
You know, this idea that I canmake an impact in a positive way,
like a change like that.
That is so interesting.
I think it's probably a brandcalled moh so M W A H, which is making
work absolutely human.
So Rhonda Brighton hall, whowas the Australian Businesswoman
of the Year, and she wasformerly at Luxonica, the CEO of

(31:43):
Sara Lee Worldwide, and shewas in Chicago, and she was also
at Luxonica, which is a reallymassive highway company about Of
Italy.
They own Sunglass Hut, Ray Ban.
So she was there, and I knewher through that relationship when
I was working there.
And she rang me around thetime we set this business up that
she wanted to set up a newhuman resource company to make work

(32:07):
human, that businesses weregetting, you know, robotic and we
needed to get back to our roots.
And so she rang me for dinner.
I went, saw her for dinner,and she said two things.
I want you to join RobotAdvisory Board, and secondly, I want
to build the brand and buildthe platform.
So that was.
And I like this idea is shewanted to build this human business,
and all roads went back to us.

(32:27):
She liked what we were doing.
So that, to me, was greatvalidation because I just respect
Wanda at a level that, youknow, I can't even put into words.
You know, she's one of thesmartest businesswoman women I've
ever met, business leadersI've ever met.
And I think, you know, one ofthe things she said to me years ago
when we first met, when I wassort of fumbling my way through my
career, was everything to thePower five.

(32:50):
And I remember she said, if itcan't fit in the palm of your hand,
it's too many things.
So when you wake up in themorning, if you've got more than
five things to do, it's too many.
If you've got more than fivegoals, it's too many.
And I remember hearing that.
And she said, just write it down.
And, you know, it should beyour daily goals or your yearly goals
should just need to fit in thepalm of your hand.
And I loved it.
So for someone like that, whojust had such a influence and inspiration

(33:13):
on my life, to come back yearslater and say, hey, I'm building
this thing.
Can you be?
It was.
Was mad.
Really, really a reallyrewarding experience.
That's awesome.
I think we oftentimes have toomany goals.
Like you're saying, we allwant to do as much as we possibly
can, but it doesn't make sense to.
So I think five is a very goodnumber because obviously you can

(33:37):
just look at your hand.
Remember, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
These are the things that I'mtrying to accomplish.
Because when you set out to dotoo many things, you kind of spread
yourself too thin.
Totally.
I like that word power inthere, too.
Everything to the power offive is so good.
I love that five businessvalues, you know, and we've done
that with our business.
I just wrote an articleactually recently on, you know, the

(33:59):
power of a manifesto in a Business.
And it's like just pick fivegreat words that represent that define
what those words mean and goand live it, you know.
And I think that all came fromBumba for sure.
What is your creativemanifesto or the five principles?
Oh my God, I need to get on awebsite and read it.
It's brand new.
One of the things that isprobably our most important one is

(34:24):
not to take ourselves too serious.
That was really important.
And we're not a hierarchy orwe're not a. I remember writing in
my book about Vortex andthey've got this lattice business
model.
So with the lattice businessmodel, there's no up and down hierarchy.
So whilst there's managementbosses, there's no.

(34:48):
They're not tied into thisidea of slowing things down because
they've got to wait for theboss, if that makes sense.
And I really love that.
So I tried to build that inwhen we build ours, you know, hierarchies
are so 1985.
We wrote now that was thissort of old thinking and there's

(35:09):
a better way and the betterway is this collaborative structure
and so forth.
There's, you know, celebrateemotion, don't be scared to sort
of pat them on the back andthat, that needs to come from anywhere.
And this other idea too, whichI think was a big one for us and
probably the most importantwas, you know, I've been really heavily

(35:30):
focused on human centereddesign, you know, design thinking,
which is coming out of IDEOand that design thinking and this
word of human centered design.
When we're designing forhumans, we're sort of ignoring the
systems in which we operateand the places we play.
So there's a consequence todesigning for humans and not designing
for humanity.

(35:50):
So we changed the word ofhumans to humanity and that, that's
that, I suppose step in ourmanifesto shifted our whole business
to rethink our process, torethink every way the way we actually
did business, the way weapproached the process of design.
And an example of that isbottled water.

(36:13):
You know, it's a greatconvenience for us or single use
plastics, but it's a massiveincome convenience for humanity,
you know, so when we look athuman centered design and we don't
question it, all of a suddenwe think it's the solution that's
going to solve everything.
But at the same time, likeequally, any other thing we create
can create sort of problems ifwe don't consider the systems in

(36:33):
which they operate.
So yeah, that's how amanifesto impacted us.
Yeah, I love that there's sucha Small difference in the wording
of human versus humanity makessuch a big difference in the idea
of what you're working towards.
Because working for humans,obviously you can sell anything to

(36:54):
anybody if you do a goodenough job of it.
But to build something that'spositive for everyone as a whole
is a completely different story.
Right?
Yeah, yeah.
The word systems become soimportant in that it's like because
when we're designing forhumans, we forget we're not all intentionally
good.
And.
Well, I think everyone'sinherently good.

(37:15):
I think everyone is.
I think everyone is inherentlygood, but at the same time, we're
lazy.
I think we can easily make achoice that has an impact.
Even though it might beconvenient for us in the moment,
it might have an impactsomewhere else.
And I remember doing some workwith an airline years ago, and one

(37:36):
of the things they put ontheir website with this little tick
box saying, do you want tooffset your carbon?
You know, for 198 or $2,whatever it might be.
And I think what they do withthat is they go away and they plant
a tree or they'll, they'll do something.
And the statistics, they didthis research and it was significant.
It was over like 20,000 usersand it was like 96% of people tickets

(37:58):
when they're with someone andit was less than 5% when they were
on their own.
Oh, wow.
You know, and they said theywere like, okay, there's this tick
box here and I'm on my own.
I'm rushing through booking,I'm not going to ticket because,
you know, but if I'm bookingthat with you, and I'm like, do you
want to offset your carbon?
Of course I do.
Always offsetting my carbon.
So that research to me wasreally staggering.
And that was a long time ago.

(38:19):
So again, that came back toquestioning design and going, well,
how do we solve that?
You know, how do we solve that problem?
And then education andknowledge becomes really important
in that, you know, or maybe,you know, I think the way they got
around that was, it was preticked was just part of the price.
Our airline offsets carbonirrespective of whether you think
you want to or not.
And if you don't want it, youuntick it, you know, for 1 86.

(38:40):
And you gave that, you made iteasy to untick, but it was a different
approach.
And I think the numbers are65% leave it and are happy to pay
the 1.50, you know, so Ithink, you know, plastic bottles
or single use plastics isexactly, is the exact Same thing
is so convenient for us in theworld we live in, but just incredibly

(39:02):
inconvenient for the planetand almost an irreversible problem,
you know?
Yeah.
It's interesting to thinkabout the ways that it could be solvable.
Like, instead of usingplastic, what are alternative materials
or whatnot?
I know a lot of people aretrying to do this with different
materials, like bamboo andlike banana leaves and all kinds

(39:24):
of interesting things, but Ithink the scaling is always the issue
with these sorts of solutions.
How do we get it so that wecan scale anything other than, you
know, making it inconvenientagain, because you can say you're
doing good for the environmentand stuff, but if your methods eventually

(39:44):
lead to more harm than good,like an example of this is electric
vehicles.
In theory, they're amazing.
Right.
But how do we get the abilityto make these vehicles?
You have to do a lot of stuffwith the environment that's not so
good, right?
Totally.
That's.
That's transition design for me.
I think there's thistransition that we either we.

(40:07):
We overlook or don't thinkabout too often.
And, you know, the solutionisn't to go from coal to wind.
It's to transition over aperiod of time to these things.
You know, we're doing somereally good work at a.
With a company out of LAcalled Mediclo, and I love these
guys, and they're makingreally beautiful, sustainable scrubs.
And they want to solve theproblem tomorrow of, you know, making

(40:31):
scrubs sustainable or you'represented with challenges in a way
that when you're using bambooto make apparel, bamboo's sustainable
from a growth point of view,but it's actually not in terms of
just using bamboo to makefabrics, because you've got to break
it down.
And breaking it down, it canbe really challenging.
And for a long period of time,breaking down bamboo, it's used to
prep load a lot water, like somuch water to do it.

(40:54):
I think a t shirt was 70,000liters of water.
And the challenge you've gotwith that water is that to break
down bamboo, you've got to use chemicals.
So when you're using chemicalsin the water, that water can't be
used again.
So you might be usingsustainable material, but the idea
of circular, meaningeverything goes into it comes back
again, and we can use againthe water that was used to go into

(41:15):
that process of breaking downbamboo to become a stable fabric,
that water can't be used.
So that water's now gone towaste, and that's A lot of water
that a lot of communities cando with all over the world.
So I think the idea oftransition design, so that got us
to a point where they work outa better way to make products that

(41:37):
can use the water again.
My wife has a company which Iwrite about in my book about, she
wanted to make a software.
The water that broke down thematerials such as carpets and so
forth and wood pulp could beused again to continue to make more
and more socks rather thanjust that water going to waste.
So that was, that's transitiondesign for me.

(41:58):
I always look at electric carsas, you know, I've got a hybrid car
as a transition to somethingin the future that's better, you
know, so the, the wind farmsare interesting and people always
go, oh, you know, wind farm inthe ocean, what about the whales?
And there's always a whatabout or a what if or there's a consequence
to everything we do.
And then the trade off for meis, is it progress towards sustainability,

(42:25):
is it transitioning to.
Over a period of time?
And so in the case of medical,it's like, what does it look like
in three years, you know,don't worry about it tomorrow.
I know we care about that, butwhat's our transition to three years
to get to X?
And I love that language.
I think it's all of a suddenwe can take the pressure off ourselves,
give ourselves space and timeto think about it.

(42:47):
You know, there's that classic line.
And my daughter always saysthis to me, you know, when I complain
about paper straws, you know,in America you'd have to worry about
it because I think you justgot, just got the executive order
to get rid of paper straws.
And she always says, you know,like, oh God, I hate paper straws,
or what is a straw going to be?
Plastic straw.
And she always replies withsaid 1 million people, you know,

(43:10):
and I, I think it's a powerfulstatement that, you know, like, this
straw has no impact on the world.
And that's what it doesn't.
But when you put in the handsof a million people in the same time,
you know, then all of a suddenit's a lot of plastic.
So it's like, how do wetransition away from that?
And paper straws are atransition and they're the worst
things you'll ever use in your life.
And if you go to the cinema,guarantee halfway through you're

(43:33):
walking out for.
A second trying to pick it outof the water.
Nightmare.
No, it's a nightmare.
So, and no one denies it's a nightmare.
Of course it is.
But it's a transition, right?
It's a transition and there'ssomething that's going to evolve.
And, you know, my kids all usesteel straws.
They take them with them everywhere.
I don't do that.
You know, I haven't got theenergy or the capacity or the memory
of the shift in my behavior istoo, too big.

(43:54):
But they don't even thinktwice about it.
You know, that does speak tothe hope that future generations
are going to take the advicebecause they have to live in the
future planet.
I mean, some of us are closerto not seeing the results as they
are, but they're going to haveto live through the consequences

(44:16):
of all the stuff that's happening.
So it's good that they'rethinking about what is going to happen
to preserve what we have.
Yeah, I think about that withsocial media, you know, and I.
It's such a transition for mygeneration to go from having no digital
communication to everything,whereas kids have just grown up with
it, you know, it's just.
It's natural to them.
So, you know, I always, youknow, you get on these local forums

(44:39):
about an environment orwhatever, and it's the people banging
their chest are being reallyvocal or really gnarly.
It's generally my generationbecause it's such a shift.
It's like, oh, my God, I'vegot a voice now.
Whereas, you know, we'vealways sort of grown up in our family
and said what we see onlineand shouldn't be different to what
we see offline.
You know, it's.
It's just an extension of us.
And I always.
I compare it in a bit to road rage.
You know, when someone'ssitting in a car and someone cuts

(45:01):
them off and they're like,right, I'm going to kill you.
Whereas if there's no car andsomeone cuts you off, you're not
as angry, right?
You're not.
It's just life.
It's just like, oh, sorry,man, do me anyway.
And I feel like is when we'rein a cage or when we've got a shell
or a shield, like theInternet, or like, you know, our
Twitter channel, when no onecan physically engage with us, then

(45:24):
there's different versions ofus and.
And I think that's a problem.
But I think that's anadjustment too.
You know, going through theevolution of the world we live in
now versus what we grew up with.
And hopefully, you know, theenvironment and climate is like that.
You know, there's a Transitionthat takes an adjustment that, you
know, my kids understandsocial media a lot better than a

(45:45):
lot of people my age who don'treally understand how to use it,
you know.
So hopefully the world's just.
Just grows up healthier andsmarter, you know, with a complete
awareness that cleancreativity is really important, you
know.
Yeah, I think the, theseparation of ourselves from the
world around us, like you weresaying, through social media and

(46:07):
stuff, it's hard to deal withthat because you have the, for the
most part, anonymity of theavatar of whoever you portray yourself
to be online.
So it's, it's very hard unlessyou're conscious about what you're
doing and how you impacteveryone around you.

(46:29):
Totally.
Can you talk about the idea ofwriting your book?
What.
What started it?
And you know, what was thething that said, oh, this is.
I need to get out?
Yeah, sure.
It was, it was very personal.
Like my, like, I like writing.
I've always written.

(46:49):
I used to have a blog whenblogs were a thing.
You know, I remember going,starting with a blogger and then
it became a WordPress, youknow, dot com account and then my
own blog.
And that then transitionedinto sort of me writing about innovation
and design.
And that was almost like a wayfor me to learn and understand design,
you know, in the industry wasto write about it.
So writing became like a bit,you know, my journal of getting things

(47:12):
outside of this build up in myhead and putting it onto a screen.
There was a point where we hadlike 20,000 writers, readers a week
on my blog, sort of, you know,between 2004 and 2009 maybe, you
know, or later.
So that was quite interesting,that journey of understanding the
power of words and puttingthings out there and watching this

(47:33):
community build around it.
In 2016, my mum had cancer for15 years and in 2016 she passed away.
But just before she passedaway, she said, I always wanted to
run a book.
I should have written a book,you know, and she didn't want to
write a book.
I don't know why she saidthat, but it was interesting.
And my response to that was,oh, don't worry, mama.

(47:55):
Right, one for you, you know.
And so not long after shepassed away, it was another way for
me to write and to get thingsoff my chest and.
And I started.
The first iteration of thebook was just.
I was.
If it was in my head, I waswriting about it.
So it was just an almost likeI'm just going to put it all into
words.
And a friend of mine calledTim Ross has written I don't know,

(48:17):
10 books.
He said to me, just write it,then go back and revisit it and edit
it.
And so I did that.
I just started writing and ithad no sense of sensibility or no
through line or no real reasonother than I had some things to share
in my head that I wanted totalk about.
So I rang him in, God, itwould have been July 2023, and said,

(48:39):
Man, I've almost finished mybook, I've written 75,000 words.
And he said, well, you havefinished, that's a book.
And he owns a little place inByron Bay in Australia which is called
the writer's room, where hegoes and finishes his writing.
It's a little cabin.
So I said, I'm going to go tothe writer's room, I'm going to finish
the book.
And I got up there for thefirst time I read it and it was really
bad.
It was so embarrassing.
It was the worst thing.

(48:59):
It was just like it made no sense.
It was all ego, it was all howI wanted to be deceived by the world.
And when I read it, I got just embarrassed.
And I remember ringing him, hewas overseas and I rang him and said,
oh man, it's awful.
And he said, well, startagain, you're in, you're in the writer's
room, just start again.
And so that night I deleted58,000 words and started again and

(49:21):
wrote from a position of I understood.
I wanted to write aboutcreativity, I wanted to write about
the stories that I was tooscared to talk about my business
challenges and be reallyvulnerable and honest about those,
what worked and what didn't,when businesses failed, why, when
projects went wrong, why, likeI wanted to go and be really honest
about that for my own sake,but also for the other people going

(49:43):
through the same journey I'mgoing through.
So when I wrote it again, itwas really easy.
And I'd find myself waking upat 5:30 in the morning just with
this desire to write, youknow, and at 6 I'm on a computer
from 9 and then I'd go to workand then at night time, like 8 o',
clock, I'm back on thecomputer writing.
And so it just sort of pouredout of me.
And so the motivation was avery personal one, driven by my mum

(50:04):
to sort of honor her dream ofwriting a book that she never wanted
to write.
And the second one was justhonoring my own sort of integrity
as well and going, oh, thisisn't very good and now it's got
to be good.
So It's a weird thing whenyou're writing something because
I never.
I just.
When I was writing that, Inever expected anyone to want to,

(50:25):
first of all, publish it oranyone read it.
So it was a really honest bookto write because I just never thought.
I thought maybe my kids mightread it, you know, I might self publish,
because who would want topublish my book?
And.
Yeah.
And so in the end, amazingly,people did want to publish it in.
It's a lot.
I think there's a importantidea of knowing when something needs

(50:51):
to change because there's likea few instances of this happening.
Very famous ones, like ToyStory 2, I believe.
They had to start over from scratch.
I think was the reason.
I think Rogue one was alsorestarted from scratch.
Really.
And then the most recentexample that I know of, not as big

(51:13):
as those, but Chase Jarviswrote a book on creativity that he
also had to rewrite from scratch.
So it's like knowing when tomake that change and why you're making
the change and why the changeis important.
Yeah, it was such a.
It was a.
It was an easy decision todelete the words.
And every time I tell peoplethat, they're like, on my God, how

(51:34):
did you do that?
You know, and it was easiersense of.
I just didn't want people tohear that perspective or that side
of me that I, you know, that was.
It's.
It's the private voice in yourhead, you know, that's on your shoulder
telling you you can or you can't.
That's private, you know,like, that was my ego giving me the
confidence to walk in the room.
And when you walk in the room,you're walking as the best version
of yourself with humility.

(51:55):
And so, you know, there was.
The first version was justfelt like I was beating my chest
and doing amazing things.
And the reality is it's justbeen a hard journey, you know, like,
and.
And.
And recognizing that that'sokay too, you know, that.
And also trying to understandwhat that.
What the upside of hard means.
You know, it's connection,it's relationships.

(52:17):
It's forging, you know,relationships with brands that, you
know and I know that exist inthe world.
And, you know, there's a. Iremember there was a.
The story I wrote in the book.
Years ago, I got invited to.
I was in Milan for a fashionweek, and I got invited to the launch
of the Dolce and Gabbana nightclub.
They built a nightclub.
And in the day it was a cafe,and at night it was called Gold.

(52:38):
And I got invited to that, youknow, and there's Ronaldo's there
and all these famous Italian people.
And I got invited.
And when I walked in, I justthought, first of all, how am I invited?
Secondly, what am I doing in here?
And, you know, growing up in asmall town in western Sydney, you
know, I. I didn't know how totell my mates that I was going because
they just go, what do I say?
What's wrong with you?

(52:58):
And then the second part was,you know, when I was there to convince
my mates that I was there, Istole some knives and forks.
The Dolce and Havana writtenon them.
I put them in my pocket.
And the interesting thingabout that is I don't know where
the knives and forks are, nordid I tell my mates.
And as I mature and get older,I'm like, well, I'm comfortable telling
those stories now and I shouldtell them.

(53:19):
So I wrote about him in thebook, but I also write about what
I felt when I was there.
Trying to understand what.
That.
Why I was feeling like that,which is imposter syndrome, and all
the things we all go through.
And then understanding, youknow, the reason I was in the room,
and I know this now, wasbecause I was invited.
And I was invited because Imade really tough choices in my professional
life which put me in theseplaces to be invited, you know, and

(53:42):
those things are reallyimportant and, you know, and tough
choices in a sense of whensomeone says, hey, you know, working
for brands is a great connector.
You know, when you're workingfor Ray Ban and Tom Cruise wears
Ray Ban the common interest isthis popular product, not me.

(54:02):
So when, you know, I wastelling someone else this, that when
Dewey Cox, the movie came toSydney for the premiere, it's like,
we want to use Ray Bansbecause Julie Cox wears Ray Bans
in the movie.
Can you send us a bunch?
My response is, sure, but I'mgoing to bring him.
I'm going to meet Jimmy Cox,Will Ferrell's best mate.
I can't remember his name, the actor.

(54:23):
Obviously not a very popularmovie because no one ever responds
to Dewey Cox.
What is that?
John C. Reilly?
Is it John C. Reilly, the actor?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So it's him, writes his movie.
And so I'm going to go and I'mgoing to give him the frames and
I'm going to be in the roomwhen the film is on because maybe
I might meet someone, youknow, And.
And I did.
So it's just about.
And that.
That's creativity for me.

(54:43):
It's.
It's oh, there's this reallycool opportunity to send us some
brains.
It's like, yeah, that's cool.
I can do that, but I can alsobring them, you know, and what do
I get back for that?
I get to sit in this room fullof really creative people who just
made a movie for the firsttime in my life.
And it's like, what can comefrom that?
Maybe nothing, but maybeeverything, you know, who knows?

(55:03):
Yeah.
I think the best part ofwriting a book in the way that you're
doing it, is that you get toshow people the lead up into the
Instagramable moments, likeworking with Nike and Patagonia and
all that stuff.
Everyone sees that.
They're like, oh, yeah, that's awesome.
But they don't see the hardwork that leads up to this moment

(55:24):
because obviously there's amillion steps that were taken in
order to get into that position.
Yeah, that's so true, Kevin.
I think that period between2018 and, you know, living in Lake
Tahoe and that next three tofour years of just sort of foraging
and battling and spending thelife savings and almost resetting
back to zero, that.

(55:45):
That was the most challengingperiod of my life to.
To make it work, like, so hard.
But of course, if you just seeit online, it's like, oh, Ben's in
another snow resort living the dream.
So we can look at it in two ways.
We can either look at it andgo, what's the reality?
How the hell did he make that work?
Or we can look at and go, oh,I wish what he had.
I wish I could do what he'sdoing, or I wish I had that.

(56:05):
And, you know, there wasnothing easy about it.
You know, there was risk, it was.
It was expensive.
I was doing it with three kids.
You know, that was the.
The most rewarding and mostchallenging period of my life.
But that choice is open toanyone, you know, and the amount
of people that were like, oh,you're so lucky.
It's like, well, anyone canget on a plane and go to Lake Tahoe
and then drive to Colorado andhang out in Colorado for a few months.

(56:28):
And like, anyone.
And that was the choice we made.
And it came with its own challenges.
It came from restarting againat the age of, you know, mid-40s
financially, because it wasn'tcheap, but restarting from a position
of real.
This is what we want to do nowand really clear on that, you know,
that was.
That was the goal.
And so what we got to do.

(56:51):
Can you talk about finding the publisher?
Like, your journey withPublishing and how you ultimately
selected the publisher thatyou want to go with.
Yeah, every single person toldme that you won't find one, you won't
get published, it's your firstbook, you have to self publish.
Everyone told me that.
Not one person said, with theexception of a couple of my writing

(57:12):
friends who said, just put itout into the world and see what they
say.
Vash Whitfield, a friend ofmine who's my business coach, would
say, just email it out, justput it out there.
And it's.
Once it's out, they eitherwant it or they don't.
So I.
Two really crazy things happen.
One is the original publisherwas one of the biggest in the world.

(57:35):
I don't know if I meant to, ifI'm allowed to mention them because
we're not using them, but theyoriginally come back.
I emailed this publisher, thehead of the publishing the manuscript,
the first three chapters,there's a little email.
And you're not meant to do this.
You meant to go to thewebsite, fill in a form, submit it
on a certain date.
I went to the, one of thosewebsites where you can scrape data,

(57:57):
you know, and I was like,right, there's an email address for
a publisher.
I'm going to get that.
I'm going to cold email this person.
Which I never really, I'dnever done before.
So I email the publisher.
She gets it on a flight fromNew York to Sydney.
She said she gets on herflight, she rings me from Sydney
airport, right, the next day,and I send the email off.
I'm sitting up.

(58:17):
God, I should have done that.
She's on a flight from New York.
She rings me and says, youwouldn't believe what happened last
night.
I'm on a flight from New York.
I, I turn, my screen isn'tworking on her computer, like on
the flight, so she can't watcha movie.
So she's like, oh, you mightas well just work.
And she opens a laptop, turnson the, the airline, WI fi, and the
first email that comes in is mine.
And she goes, oh, maybe it'ssomeone I know.

(58:38):
And it's a.
And it's a manuscript.
And she's like, oh, that'sweird, because she doesn't get sent
them very often becauseobviously people go to the website
and fill in the form.
I didn't.
And she opened it and she'slike, this is really interesting.
And she said, I would neverhave read that at work.
I would have just deleted that.
Go on.
But I'm sitting on a flight.
It was a new environment.
Fly.
So she read it, and when I wastalking on the phone, she said it

(59:00):
reminded me of Shoe Dog, thebook by Phil Knight, right?
It was the CEO of Nike.
And I said, well,interestingly, that was my.
One of my favorite books.
I mean, I was writing this book.
I wanted to channel that typeof journalism.
I'd never written as a writer before.
So that was my inspiration,the Shoe Dog.
And she said, well, that'sinteresting because I was the editor.
And she just saw theconnection straight away.

(59:21):
And so she said to me atSydney airport, and she hadn't even
got off the, you know, out ofthe airport yet.
She was just landing inSydney, and she said, I want to publish
the book.
I want to do it.
And that was.
And I said yes.
So we.
We had an agreement.
The agreement was to meet acertain deadline of which I didn't
make.
So that was me going back andrewriting the book.
So the three chapters she gotwas the first version, which she

(59:42):
liked.
The first three chapters thatyou'll read in the book is the same
as the.
When I deleted everything, itwas after that and ended up with
a tweak to the first three chapters.
So I just didn't finish it in time.
So they kept it.
But they also put into their.
Into the world of.
They.
They publish a lot of bigbooks by a lot of writers, and I'm
a nobody in that world of big writers.

(01:00:03):
So they said.
I said, well, you missed thisdeadline, so you've missed 2024.
We really wanted this in forChristmas because that's our window
to sell books on people whodon't know who you are.
And they sort of shelved itfor a year and said, we just don't
know what to do with it nowbecause you've missed your deadline.
So I said, can I open up theother publishers?
And she said, of course you can.
So I did.

(01:00:23):
I emailed three more.
And amazingly, the next day Igot another phone call from WY in
Melbourne.
So Lucy in Melbourne, Wiley'san American publishing house out
of Brooklyn.
They've got an office in Melbourne.
She got it and she said, wejust had a book cancellation that
we pulled on.
We need to fill a space forthis year for May.
This is probably back inNovember, actually, for May 2025.

(01:00:46):
Do you want to.
You want to feel it?
I was like, yeah, sure.
So it was really just putting my.
You know, I didn't use theforms online.
I emailed people directly.
I did some research online tofind out who I Should email and just
write a really personal email.
I wrote a book and I hope youlike it.
You know, that was it.
And extraordinarily thatworked for me.

(01:01:07):
And, and I don't know if thatwould work for everyone.
It worked already, but yeah,it was.
Wow.
So two very, like,coincidental things.
It's like sometimes you makeyour own luck, right?
I think that's a lesson thatwe all need to take into account
when we see things happeningand success that happens sometimes
it is just, you know, there'sa coincidence either that she opened

(01:01:31):
it right out as she got out ofthe plane or, you know, the other
person, the other persondropped a book and there's just now
an opening that happens toline up with when you asked.
Right.
So, yeah, this is the essenceof creativity.
In a way, it's like, God, it'ssuch a scary thing to ask for help
or to put yourself out intothe world and to go, I deserve this,

(01:01:52):
or I learned this.
Like, that is really scary.
Scary for me.
I get terrified every week ofthose things, you know, and even
social media, when I'm postingon LinkedIn, I look at it for 10
minutes going, what does thissay about me?
What does it say about who'sgoing to like, it's scary for me.
So to do it at the level of abook where I've got, you know, 75,
000 words of my life and myperspective on what it means to live

(01:02:13):
a creative life or how to livea creative life, there's advice in
there which I've always beenreluctant to share.
Yeah, it's really scary.
Shit's really scary.
Terrifying.
Yeah, it's.
It's always scary to bevulnerable, but that's often the
times that you connect themost with the people who need to,

(01:02:34):
to hear it.
Right.
So there's.
There's a balance of beingvulnerable and you knowing that that
is going to make an impact onsomebody, even if it's just one person.
That's right.
So true.
So what is your, your plan,the marketing plan for your book?
Because I said it's coming outin May.

(01:02:55):
Yeah, it may.
So it comes out, comes out inAustralia on the 1st of May, I think
in the US, Barnes and NobleTarget is June, but it is on Amazon
and a bunch of other onlinestores from, from the 1st of May.
You can pre order it now.
The marketing is podcast.
I want to just talk to people.
You know, I love this idea ofpodcasts are forever.

(01:03:18):
You know, they're just thereand, you know, I like you know you've
got an audience and you've gota set of people who like what you're
talking about.
And whether that's one or amillion, it comes back to one of
the first conversations we hadin this podcast was if it's a story
worth sharing and worthtalking about, then it'll scale and
that one will tell one.

(01:03:39):
And so yeah, my approach tothis was podcasts that the publisher's
idea was similar podcasts andof course sharing on socials.
But from a marketing point ofview, I think it's just talking about
the book and talking to peoplewho understand creativity and design
and who have an audience whowant to talk about that.
So that's my approach is justhave these conversations as often

(01:04:00):
as we can.
It's just finding thecommunity and the connections of
people who might have theaudience that fits the message of
your book.
Which is, I think one thingthat is often overlooked.
You're trying to figure outhow do I get out to millions of people?
But that's not really what youneed to be doing.
You need to be finding thepeople who are going to be interested

(01:04:20):
in it because.
Because you can find a millionpeople easy if you pay for it.
Right.
But finding the people who areinterested is a completely different
story.
Yeah.
And the book isn't for everyone.
There's a really interestingstat that I read on the Adobe one
of their research reportsyears ago, which was 96% of kids
believe they're creative butonly 26% of adults agree.

(01:04:41):
And it's really interestingand I actually read recently that
that has now shrink to 3% of50 year olds in a bomb believe they're
creative.
And I actually don't believeanyone's born creative.
I think it's a choice.
Right.
And I love how Ken Robinsonused to talk about creativity in
a sense of it's a choicewithin us, we can learn it, but it's
really just the ability tosolve a problem, to put yourself

(01:05:02):
into the world.
And people misunderstandcreativity as art or painting.
And it's actually much deeperthan that.
It's really the ability tolook at a problem and understand
with confidence that you canlean into it and have it, have the
ability to solve it, that'sone thing.
But also it's, it's theability to sort of, yeah, send an

(01:05:25):
email at 9 o' clock at nightwhen the easiest thing to do is not
send it and see where it landsand see what happens with the person
that calls you.
And then having the confidenceto pick up the phone the next day
and take the call when mostcalls I look at with unknown numbers
I just don't take that scary.
So creativity menace ofmanifests itself in so many ways.
But having you know, creativeconfidence is, is that step to take,

(01:05:48):
you know, to lean into it andyou know there's a re.
And I come back to Dolce andGabbana, the gold nightclub and not
that that's everyone's holygrail and it's not.
I mean but there's a reasonpeople get invited and I actually
think it's because they'recreatively confident.
They put themselves out intothe world in a way that is appealing
to people and, and there's noreason why me being a chubby 50 year

(01:06:09):
old man and bored to getinvited these things over someone
else.
You know what I mean?
So the, the reality is it'sjust lean in and be brave, you know,
that's creativity.
Awesome.
So I got a few more questions left.
Do you know anyone personallywho also runs a standout creative
business and what do they doto stand out?

(01:06:30):
Oh man, so many creative businesses.
I think Vince Cost is myfavorite designer on earth.
I know Vince, I really likehis work.
Andrew Simpson from Bert isprobably, probably the most intriguing
business owner I've ever met.
He's, he's incredibly smart.
Like I sort of put AndrewSimpson at the and think of him in

(01:06:54):
the same sense as I wouldthink of God, you know, like Bill
Gates or you know, reallyclever, really calculated, really
well thought out.
He's an industrial designerand owns a really beautiful agency.
I really admire his work.
He's had it for years.
He understands the businessside of design, he understands the
creativity side of design andhe understands the complexities of

(01:07:15):
leadership for people.
You know, just go tovertdesign.com and you'll see Andrew
and you'll just admire him.
Like my.
I suppose my understanding andpatu around business has evolved
a lot since I'm gettinganother one in the UK is a guy called
Abdio.
He owns Goodness Drift Time Agency.
Abdi again is a big corp. Youknow like my ability to understand

(01:07:39):
my business more comes fromtalking to him.
You know like the abbey details.
Drift Time is just profound.
He's the founding member atDesigner Players which is a charity,
a design charity out of the UKof which my wife and I own the Australian
Chapter 4.
So I think Abdi's amazing.
Just really, really patientand present.

(01:08:00):
You know, like incredible.
He's writing a book at themoment and you know to talk about
Impact.
It's not on Amazon.
It's a book.
He wants to control ofdistribution and he doesn't agree
with Amazon's policies, soit's not on there.
And that alignment betweenyour values is wild.
So yeah, they're three for me.
Vince Ross, from a creativepoint of view is design works.
Amazing.
Andrew Simpson.
I give Taylor.

(01:08:21):
Yeah, I think one of the waysyou can also be a very good creative
business is to learn fromother creative people.
Because doing it by yourselfis fine and it can work, but when
you have a community of likeminded creative people, it just fuels
you to either be better orlearn from people who are doing interesting

(01:08:45):
things.
Yeah.
Then I don't think we need tolook at them as competition.
I think we need to look atthem as knowledge and education,
you know, competition.
It's just.
Yeah, because everyone'sfighting for different people.
So it doesn't make sense tolook at people as competition when
you're all aiming to dodifferent things.
Like, back to that.
Why?
Totally agree.
Yeah.
What is one extraordinarybook, podcast, documentary or tool

(01:09:08):
that has had the biggestimpact on your journey?
Oh, on my journey.
Anything by Mac.
I'm Gladwell.
I always just found so, so insightful.
Love all his writing, his podcasts.
I like his patience and his confidence.
I think Seth Godin's probablybeen, I would say I've met Seth Godin,

(01:09:30):
I've interviewed him.
I actually spoke to him aboutmy book before I wrote it and then
during the writing process Isent him a copy of it.
He sent me back some feedbackthat it was a really good idea to
write about creativity.
I even tried to convince himto write a blurb on the back of which
he said join the line.
You know, join the team.
So I think he's, he's been amazing.

(01:09:52):
I like where he's heading interms of his Carbon Almanac, which
he just wrote, which myfamily's got and we've read.
Amazing.
Rhonda Brighton Hall's been incredible.
I love Brene Brown to death.
Good friend of ours fromLondon is the vice president at Nike.
Every single conversation I'veever had with her in my life has
been a life alteringconversation in a sense around positivity,

(01:10:15):
connection, that place in the world.
So I think, you know, there'sso many, there's so many.
But in terms of just out ofthe box reading Seth Godin, knock
on Fadwell.
I really like Brian Collins inNew York.
Desperate work.
Awesome.
What do you think makes acreative business stand out?
And what is one piece ofAdvice that you give to somebody

(01:10:35):
based on your experience onhow to stand out themselves.
Honesty, like values.
Your manifesto come back tothe end of it, you know, and if you,
if you were to draw a linefrom left to right, you know, and
what we say about ourselvesover here and what the market says
about us over here, if thoselines don't, if that's on a straight

(01:10:58):
line left to right or right toleft, we've got a disconnect and
a problem.
So I think the best thing wecan do is be really clear on the
story we want to tell aboutourselves and then understand what
the market thinks of that andwhat they say about us and just make
sure those thoughts line up.
That's everything.
That's interesting thoughtbecause you don't often think about

(01:11:20):
how what you think and whatother people think should intersect.
But I think like you said,it's very important to know because
you don't want your perceptionof yourself to be completely different
from other people's perceptionof you.
Because when you're talking orcommunicating with people, you're
going to have this bigdisconnect when you have that kind

(01:11:40):
of problem.
Totally agree.
It just, you've manifesto inyour brand, babies become your, your
living, breathing document,you know, like that's.
If you're ever stuck to that,just go to Nike's website and go
and look at their manifesto and.
Or Patagonia's and look attheir manifesto and that'll give
you a benchmark.
I think it's okay to copy.
I think it's okay to copy.

(01:12:01):
You know, I think your versionof copying someone else's work, not,
not the work, don't go andcopy the iPhone.
I'm just saying the idea ofthe framework or the values of a
business like Nike, it's okayto take that, apply that yourself,
because it'll never be thesame like what you do, Kevin, with
your business and me.
And if we try and go andreplicate Patagonia's business values,

(01:12:22):
we're still going to face thatinto the world very differently.
Now I want to leverage on thedots, you know, so draw inspiration
from competition.
Look at them as collaborators,look at them as ways to sort of,
you know, I always say someoneelse's endpoint is your new beginning,
you know, so nothing is ever finished.
And we can talk about, knowmy, my earbuds or we could talk about

(01:12:43):
a coffee cup or a rode microphone.
And that's the end.
That end point is your new beginning.
It's like, what did someone dothere to make it so great.
And what is your point?
To take it further.
You know, and that's the samewith a car.
You know, the way we approachstreet science, you know, wayfinding,
it's like, that's the end point.
What you see is the end wheresomeone got to.
Our new beginning is takingthat and moving forward.

(01:13:06):
We don't need to reinvent the wheel.
We just need to understandwhere that thing left or ended and
where we begin.
There's a very good book.
I don't know if you've read it.
You probably have Steal likean Artist by Austin Kleon.
Amazing book.
I haven't read it, but I knowabout it.
I'm going to run it down right now.
And then he.
This is very common, but it's good.

(01:13:30):
Artists copy and then greatartists steal.
Like, so anyone can copyanybody else, but like, to steal
the thoughts and ideas andprocesses and all that stuff is where
the real gold happens.
Because you're not like doingthings bit by bit exactly as they
did it because you.
Everyone has their own spin on things.

(01:13:50):
Yeah, Well, I think Rick Rubintalks about it as well.
Like, you know, he's had.
He's had the Chili Pepperscome in and say, I want to do what
Johnny Cash did with that.
With that guitar solo.
And they're like.
He's like, great, just do it then.
Because it's never going tosound like Johnny Cash.
It's going to sound like theChili Peppers.
And, you know, I think hetalks about, you know, the Chili
Peppers will always sound likethe Chili Peppers, even if they're
doing Johnny Cash.

(01:14:11):
You know, there's.
And I.
And I sort of feel likethere's truth in that in design and
designing businesses ordesigning your life as well.
Interestingly enough,Questlove, I'm listening to his book.
He as well, talks about hisstyle is just like copying other
people's styles in whichcreates his own style by doing that
right.
So he can go in any whichdirection he wants to.

(01:14:33):
But by doing it and being ithimself, it's just going to be different.
It doesn't matter how much youtry to copy somebody.
It's just going to be your own thing.
100%.
I love the transparency andthe power of that transparency.
I think it's good.
I have those sameconversations that people like going,
why don't you copy Patagonia's manifesto?
I'm like, word for word.
And by the way, when it comesout of my mouth, it sounds so different

(01:14:54):
and it looks different.
And we're a design Agency, andthey're a product company.
So, yeah, I just think I likethe word steal is a better word than
copy.
So I'm going to take that on.
Can you give the listeners achallenge that they can take action
on right away?
Oh, wow.
That's a really tough question.

(01:15:14):
Yeah.
So I don't want to say yes tosomething or say yes to everything.
But, yeah, creative confidencestarts with that, you know, that
feeling of just, it's okay towalk into the room and ask for help.
It's okay to go and ask forthe raise.
It's okay to go and, you know,like, I was listening to Scott Galloway
talk about this yesterday, andI just had so much regret over my

(01:15:38):
career that I never did.
This was, if you're in a joband you're there for two to three
years, it's time to leave.
And what he means by thatisn't go and get something else,
it's go and ask the marketwhat you're worth.
You know, so that to me was this.
Just be brave enough to justkeep elevating up knowledge, skills,

(01:16:00):
and that some.
That starts by walking intosome rooms you don't want to walk
into.
So that to me is the.
That's the most obvious thing is.
And that, you know, you knowthose ideas when you're in the shower
and you have all thesethoughts and you're like, oh, my
God, I'm going to build this today.
I'm going to do that so I canget out of the shower and chow down
and you're dressing, drive towork and you forget everything you
just thought about.
Write it down.

(01:16:21):
Get out your own.
Just write down those ideasand that becomes your power five.
You know.
I heard somebody say thatthey, they have like a.
A marker or something thatthey bring to the shower that's like,
obviously waterproof.
So that way that they canwrite ideas that they're in the shower.
Because oftentimes when youtake a break from things and you're

(01:16:45):
in a mode of not thinkingabout the problem you're trying to
solve, that's when thesolutions come to you and you need
a way for you to capture that.
So I think that's a great wayjust to find a waterproof marker
or something and write downany ideas that you come up with.
I used to do that years ago,not anymore.
When I first started, mybusiness had a waterproof market.
But now I always say theanswers are out there, not in here.

(01:17:08):
And that's true about everything.
You know, your familyrelationships, you know, your parenting
skills.
It's like you can only bringwhat you know.
So how do you find the answersare out there, not in here?
And that's really interesting.
And I think what you just saidabout when you go away from a problem
and in those moments of solacewhen you're out in the world, it's
like, come to the answers,come to you.
Yeah.
You just gotta find a way tocapture that and then be brave enough

(01:17:29):
to do something with it.
That's the challenge.
Yeah.
Remember, write downeverything and take action on it.
It's always great advice.
Well, Ben, it's been reallyawesome talking to you.
Where can people keep up todate with your work and when your
book comes out and all thatkind of good stuff?
Yeah.
Benreni.com is the easiest.

(01:17:50):
So just my website.
There'll be links on there forthe book and.
But I think the best place fora book is to Google search and buy
it from your favorite retailer.
Mate, great to chat.
Kevin, thanks so much, mate.
I really appreciate it.
Yeah, thanks for coming on.
Thank you.
Bye.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of Standout Creatives.
If you're feeling stuck, let'schat and see how we can help you.

(01:18:13):
Start standing out instead ofburning out.
You can sign up for a freestrategy call at the Standout Creative
site.
If you want to keep up to datewith everything I'm working on, including
interviews, essays, andupcoming projects, head to standoutcreativebusiness.substack.com
and if you have any thoughtson this episode or just want to chat,

(01:18:35):
you can follow me on Instagramat standoutcreativebusiness.
Thanks again for tuning in.
And as always, lean into yourcreativity and curiosity.
I'll see you again on the next episode.

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