Joel's journey from running Impossible Pictures, a successful Denver creative agency, to becoming a business advisor for creative studios reveals the essential truth that creative excellence alone isn't enough. 

The conversation explores the evolution from vendor to expert, the importance of challenging client briefs rather than simply executing them, and why physical presence and travel remain critical for building relationships in an increasingly digital world.~ Joel's philosophy centers on the concept of "adapting with soul"—bringing humanity to business decisions while embracing change, including technological disruption like AI. Rather than competing in a race to the bottom as vendors, creatives must position themselves as visionaries who solve problems at their source.

Through his community Forum, podcast Fabulous, and Fuse dinners, Joel creates spaces where creative founders can share their challenges and solutions, rejecting the scarcity mindset in favor of collective growth. 

Key Takeaways

• Creative excellence starts the journey, but business mastery completes it and unleashes your full potential as a creative professional
• The myth that great creative work will automatically lead to business success is dangerous—you must actively learn and apply business principles
• Asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness, and can accelerate your growth by years rather than figuring everything out alone
• Vendors execute projects that clients prescribe, while experts challenge the diagnosis and solve problems at their source through strategic questioning
• "Experts travel" because meaningful business relationships require physical presence, empathy, and walking in your client's shoes beyond Zoom calls
• Hire people smarter and more talented than you—surrounding yourself with excellence elevates your entire operation and creative output
• The transition from working through middlemen to working directly with brands represents a "race to the top" that increases value and impact
• Closing a successful business chapter can be devastating and liberating—every business has its lifecycle, but you are more than your business
• Competition makes everyone stronger when approached with a growth mindset rather than a scarcity or "prisoner eater" mentality
• AI and technological disruption require creatives to imbue machines with soul, much like the Bauhaus movement democratized design through mass production
• Business longevity comes from "adapting with soul"—making decisions aligned with your deepest values and authentic desires, not just market trends
• The creative industry needs visionaries who lead through change, not vendors who compete on price and execution speed
• Community and peer solidarity provide invaluable support because fellow founders understand the unique challenges of running creative businesses

Daring Forever. Podcast with Radim Malinic

daringcreativity.com |  desk@daringcreativity.com

Books by Radim Malinic Paperback and Kindle > https://amzn.to/4biTwFc
Free audiobook (with Audible trial) > https://geni.us/free-audiobook
Book bundles  https://novemberuniverse.co.uk

Lux Coffee Co. https://luxcoffee.co.uk/  (Use: PODCAST for 15% off)
November Universe https://novemberuniverse.co.uk (Use: PODCAST for 10% off)

[00:00:00] 

Joel: why do they fail? I mean, one reason they fail is because they're vendors. They're not leaders, right? we get trapped into thinking our craft is what makes us valuable to the world. And that's only true to a point. And again, ai Hello is a great example of where that's being disrupted.

There's so much of what we do that we identify with, and if it's our craft, we're really in trouble because so much of that is replaceable or becoming replaceable. And I, I wanna be careful here because I'm not trying to denigrate the awesomeness. Of craft, not at all. Right? 

it's our relationship to the people and the problems out there that need to be solved and to reach into those takes an understanding of human relationships and business, all these principles and [00:01:00] concepts, it takes an enormous amount of empathy. And if we don't evolve in those ways, We're gonna die. 

Welcome to the Daring Creativity Podcast, a show about daring to forever explore creativity that isn't about chasing shiny perfection. It's about showing up with all your doubts and imperfections and making them count. It's about becoming more of who you already are. My name is Radim Malinic I'm a designer, author, and eternally curious human being.

 I am talking to a broad range of guests who share their stories of small actions that sparked lifetime discoveries, taking one step towards the thing that made them feel most alive. 

 Let me begin this episode with a question. Are you ready to discover what happens when you dare to create? 

Radim: Today I welcome Joe Bilger, the [00:02:00] founder of Forum and former owner of Impossible Pictures. He's here to discuss the journey from creative excellence to business mastery in the studio world. We talked about how creative talent alone isn't enough to build a sustainable business, and why learning. To master the business side of things and looked the full potential as a creative professional.

Joe openly talked about his breaking point, how it made him realize that asking for help can transform everything. he advises. Why hiring smarter people than you is a secret to growth and explains the evolution from being a vendor to expert.

Why adapting with soul, not just following market trends, creates lasting impact. It's my pleasure to share with you my conversation with Joel Pilger. 

Hey Joel, welcome to the show. How are you doing today?

Joel: it's good to be with you. Thank you. I'm doing great. How about yourself?

Radim: I'm grand. Yeah. Thanks for being here I'm really excited to talk to you [00:03:00] about what you do, how you do it, who you do it with, and why, because you helping this ecosystem of creatives to actually enter the world of business like professionals.

So For those who may have never heard of Joel PGE and what you do, please introduce yourself.

Joel: Oh my gosh. I am Joel, and it's a pleasure to be with, you, Adam, and anyone listening. I introduced myself as a creative who I think, all throughout my life. I was a creative first, but then had a love affair with business and what business allowed in terms of freedom and agency, and of course, making money.

So I spent 20 years running a studio creative agency called Impossible Pictures. That was in Denver, and it was pretty successful. It was kind of a big deal. After I exited that, hmm, about 11 years ago, I started helping my friends that were running studios, helping them purely with the business side, like helping them figure out all of the different areas of business.

And what I'm finding is that creative excellence is like what starts our journey, but business is what completes it. It's what in a [00:04:00] way, fulfills, it manifests all of its potential. So that's what I do now. I run a community called Forum. I host a podcast called Fabulous. I host dinners, as you know, which you came to in London a couple months ago called Fuse.

And yeah, my goal is to come alongside all of the creative business owners of the world and help them unleash their greatest creative work by mastering business.

Radim: Creative excellence starts the journey. If I can ask you about that, because sometimes it's creative ignorance. I think sometimes it's, we don't always start because we are excellent, right?

We sometimes we are just unaware what we don't know, but it's that pure hunger, passion, idiocy, ignorance, you know? I think, would you say that that's the beginning where we go, because excellence is, I think what we think we are doing, but is it really.

Joel: Yeah, I think there's a nuance there. 'cause I would say maybe better than excellence. It's like hunger, ambition, appetite, desire, because we all start off as creatives as I wanna make cool shit, right? I really wanna make this great work. And you're right, we don't master it, but [00:05:00] it is something that we find success in and we grow and we learn and we evolve as creatives and we develop this thing we call our craft.

But that only gets us so far. And there's this classic myth that says, well, if we're just great at the work, everything else will take care of itself. And of course, that's where business really comes in and, and unleashes us to reach, I think, our fullest potential as creatives.

Radim: as you just said, like we start with hunger and start with that, sort of beautiful naivety. But, you know, there's, there's so much passion in this. But equally, I think as we learn in craft, we are realizing that the world of business actually really is the same amount of learning and crafting as it is with the creative work because. Let's have a think about it. Like when you start, the work doesn't come easy,

you know? But if you're lucky and if you're really good, the business comes through your way, right?

Joel: yep. No, it's fascinating, that you say that because what I find is there's this season in our careers, whereas creatives, we grow and we evolve and we become really good at this thing and. almost hate to say this phrase [00:06:00] 'cause it's very controversial. in some ways it becomes easy as we start to enter the world of business and we say, I want my work to have impact and reach, scale, influence these things we have to learn as business.

This next season of growth is really hard. I've been on this journey for 35 years. I am still every bit, just as much learning this mastery of business thing. So it's really quite amazing how so many business owners that I work with would almost say, you know, it's the business part that's really so hard.

Like once we land the job and once we're in production doing the work and making something great, it's not easy, but it's, I don't know, it's more, within reach, it's more accessible. They sort of know. Where to go and how to do it. But in business, there's like these infinite riddles that are never solved that make forever challenging.

Radim: we've taken off this plane real fast and real hard,

Joel: Yeah, I know we're at, we're 

at 10,000 feet already.

Radim: we are in a cruising altitude Really quickly, what I want to go, I mean, I have written impact, reach, and influence as the [00:07:00] next thing, because as you said at the beginning, you run your own studio, you run your own shop calling possible pictures.

Is that 

Joel: Correct. Yeah.

Radim: and once upon a time you must have sort of strived for the same impact, reach, and influence. But how was your own journey? how would you say your own creative excellence started in possible pictures.

What was the beginning and, is the learnings that you're now trying to pass on? How did that come about and how did you get your nine and turbulence of the, uh, creative business?

Joel: Oh my gosh. Well, I mean the early roots were, as a kid, having two parents that said, do what you love Joel. Right? Just those things that you really enjoy because you're gonna follow those and it's gonna lead you to really good places. So I had enormous freedom to drawing, acting, painting, designing, coding, I mean, all kinds of things in my career.

Music was a big part of my early life. I think it was in a big part of your life as well, maybe still is. And, when I, I went to, studied university, Georgia Tech, and School of Industrial Design that was founded by the Bauhaus back in the [00:08:00] fifties, I believe. So I got that sort of formal introduction into design and method and all these things.

So then when I graduated, I said. I'm gonna start my own thing. ' I had already done 20, 30 little entrepreneurial ventures as a youngster before that, and within a few years I was doing animation. Digital was starting to come, become a thing, SKU Graphics, workstations 3D animation. This was all brand new.

And I said, shit, I think I could just start a studio. I'm just gonna do this. And I borrowed a bunch of money from my dad, God bless him, and bought, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of gear and went for it. And that was the beginning of Impossible Pictures. And that was a 20 year run where I grew from being this creative, wearing every hat from animator to editor, creative director, cinematographer.

And then of course it evolved into running the business, being the president, business development, marketing, sales, operations, all that stuff.

Radim: You just said a figure that made me shiver. You said couple thousand, did you say Couple hundred thousand dollars.

Joel: I mean like in today's dollars, the amount of [00:09:00] money that I borrowed in order to buy a Silicon graphics workstation and a digital disc recorder and soft homage and all these, you know, high-end software. Oh yeah. It was just ungodly.

Radim: I remember working with Retouchers in certain capacity, and this is mid, two thousands, and they were reminiscing about some of the technology, which was like a million or half a million. And you're like, what? How, and what, because sometimes you have to buy a new mark and you spec it up to like, you know, a rocket, power. You're like, what do you mean 5,000? that's a lot of money, isn't it? And then you look at back and

you're like, yeah, in today's money, and actually an old money, this is basically like a lunch money,like compared

to what you had to spend.

Joel: I'll put it this way, Adam, that through my journey, it was one of the biggest pivots that I had to go through was going from workstations to desktop to what we now, of course, twist would call the current state of affairs. Imagine if you, paid $250,000 for a flame and $350,000 for a smoke and you're charging five or $600 an hour for this thing, and then one day it's a door stop.

And then I would go [00:10:00] out and buy Max and I would buy After Effects and buy my reckoning. I thought of it as basically free, like I could walk into the Apple Store and be like, I want five workstations with the biggest monitors, the fastest CPUs, and walk out paying 20 grand. I thought, well, that might as well be free at the scale I was operating like that's nothing.

Radim: when you think about it compared to what you had to pay at the beginning, this is, as you said, it feels almost free. So with borrowing money from your dad, uh. How do you see now, obviously like you were more or less seriously in the business now because you've got money to repay if you had to repay them

and you need to make money.

So obviously you're working with the charge of like, okay, what is my hourly price? Like, how do we make this work? Did you do that or did you go, you know what? hopefully we get some work. Hopefully we do this. Have I got a pipeline? Have I got this? Because this is a big sort of debt over your head.

 how did you balance out the money and business with, with the debt

Joel: yeah, it wasn't nearly as methodical or systematic as you described. It was much more of the former than the latter. And what it was, was, I. Had enough scrappiness, [00:11:00] bravado, naivete. There's that word that I could throw myself at something in the industry. A connection, a TV network, someone in the entertainment business somehow figure out how to get a meeting, hop on a plane, go visit that person, and scare up a job that might be, in those days, 25 or $50,000 was of course, what, three times that number now.

And I just kept doing that over and over again until I said, I wanna play at this really high level where I could do five and six figure jobs until somebody says, no, you can't do that, Joel. You're not allowed. Right. You're not qualified. And that has served me so well back then, even to this day.

Because you realize people that are playing at these really high levels, they're just like you and me. They just went for it. They said, I don't wanna play at this level. I wanna play at this level up here. So it wasn't very methodical. No, it was. It was just throw myself into it and go for it. And then when someone says, Hey, can you do this a hundred thousand dollars show open for us?

I would say yes. Even though I had no freaking clue how I was gonna do it, I would say yes. And then go [00:12:00] figure it out. And that's how we learn and grow and evolve and innovate and all those things.

Radim: I think that was a sign of time. I know that people still claim, I don't know what I'm doing, but many years ago no one knew anything really. Like people were just hungry. People were excited, people were keen, people wanted to play at high stakes. But even though I remember hearing a story of someone taking on like a 300 grand job in mid nineties, and they were like, yeah, we need to build this in Flash.

And the person goes, I've never heard of Flash, but they said, yes, we can do it. And they went and bought a copy of Flash and, and taught themself how to do it.

I,

mean, this was sign of times, you know.

Joel: I remember when I bought my first flame. Do you know how much time I had to learn the software? I mean, there were like, two or three manuals that were 400 pages each. My ne my first job on that system was the next morning, I got the system up and running. The client from JWT big agency showed up like, okay, let's make my spot.

And by the end of that day, he was walking out with a tape in his hand. And the commercial on the tape you wanna talk about, there was no YouTube man. there [00:13:00] were no books. There was no, there was no tutorial. You were like, here's the manual, here's this computer that runs Unix. Good luck. And wow, what a different era it was.

Radim: For those who, didn't spend time working on flame and reading 400 page manuals, what was Flame 

Joel: it was a workstation based, editing and compositing system. It's still out there. It was by, the company was called Discreet or Discrete Logic, now owned by Autodesk. And it's like if you took Nuke and crossed it with Premier and created this one system that was completely dedicated, but it was real time, so you could sit with somebody and it would render in almost real time, which was in those days, unbelievably valuable because you could crank out a commercial in a day and back then people would say, I'll pay you 500 or even a thousand dollars an hour, which in today's dollars, right, double or triple that.

Radim: mean, it definitely fit the element of daring creativity here. this is daring, you know, like, but I think we were just slightly more, naive is the word. just to

think, you know, ' cause 'cause you got a job, you got. You know, you got [00:14:00] that over your head. You go work, you got fire in your belly, you want to get this done, and you don't particularly question yourself should I or should I not be doing this?

Like, would you agree? We didn't really overthink Well, you didn't really overthink it at that time, did you? It just, you just got on with it.

Joel: no, I think that's, in a way that's sort of the source of confidence that you eventually develop as a creative person, because we all struggle with imposter syndrome. And what you find is you say, yeah, I think I can do that, even though you know, you're, you're lying, but it, you know, it will stretch you and you'll figure it out.

And then when you do it again and again and again, so the next time that someone says, can you perform at that next higher level, you and I developed this reflexive, yeah. I don't wanna leap too far beyond my ability, but that next level, whew. That looks really scary and terrifying, but I think I can figure it out.

And it's like 99 out of a hundred times we did.

Radim: I know your dad was an airplane pilot,

it's there link between travels, exploring, in a way that was the first sort of magnet for creativity, like influences how was that for you from the [00:15:00] formative time thinking? I'm sorry, I'm thinking because you mentioned the word imposter syndrome. Do pilots, k Imposter syndrome. I don't think they do.

Joel: I don't think so. I don't know. I mean, I never sensed it in my dad, but to answer your question, I think at the time it was normal for me that while my friends would get in the car and their families would go to the beach a few hours away, we would go to the airport and fly across the country for a long weekend because we wanted to go see something in San Francisco or eat at this certain place in Chicago or something like that.

So it was very normal to me. It was only later. It was, it was really around the time when my benefits ran out, and I couldn't fly for free anymore after college. Then I started to realize, oh my God, I have had this enormous privilege and benefit, and I now look back on it and realize. For me, it was absolutely integral into forming me into the person that I became.

And I think part of my journey as a creative person, as a business person is all wound up in those experiences of other cultures having to be resourceful and [00:16:00] right. Adaptive all the things that travel does to us. yeah. And I also think it's maybe difficult for other people to understand too, that when I was a kid in the seventies and eighties, this was almost like, do you know the movie?

Catch Me If You Can. Right. It was that golden age of aviation where it was in a way almost romantic and, just very different than what it is today, which it's more mass transit today. But I lived, I've lived through both of those eras, but yeah, it very much has formed me and still to this day, I'm absolutely.

A traveler. I spend about half my time away from New York. ' cause like I mentioned, you know, you mentioned, Hey, when are you next time in London. I said to you, got an excuse? I'll come next week.

Radim: Yeah, because I mean, it's, our mutual friend Mitch Monson, who's basically quoted you on the show saying, experts travel. You know, people

move around because that's the influences that we get because you can see a lot of world through your computer screen, through your phone. 

Maybe we find an excuse not to travel as much, not to see

the world as much like, because we think that we are very well connected and we've got it, we've got it in front of our eyes so much more than ever before. But maybe that's given us an excuse potentially to hold [00:17:00] back and

I can see you nodding in, improve. 

Joel: I know, I'm just waiting for you to pause so I can, I can step in and say, don't even say those words. Don't even put that out, into the universe. What I often see that I find maddening is creatives, business owners especially, that will say, you know, you can work from anywhere these days.

And I, and I, in a way, I, take them on because I say, I know what you're saying, but it's almost so untrue that I'm gonna just be unequivocal and I'm gonna say, no, you can't. And the thought is this, yes, you can do the work from anywhere, but you can't get the work. Like getting the work requires relationship.

It requires empathy. It requires study and thoughtfulness, walking a mile in your client's shoes. And I swear to God, the people that think that you are going to do business with people at a really high level, only working on over zoom they're in denial. And I've experienced this so many times. I know I speak very, I'm speaking very binary.

It's right, very, very strong terms here. But I believe this so much because this experts travel thing. I teach this over and over and over again. I've [00:18:00] seen it just have such a great impact on people's lives and it's part of this journey that I've experienced. And that's, it's kind of my gift that my dad and my mom gave me, that I'm now giving to the rest of the world, to my people.

And I'm saying, I'm going to drag you kicking and screaming into your bigger, brighter future. Will you please go with me? Let's go. Let's go there

Radim: those people who may have been the ones driven to the beach a few hours down the road, whereas you were flying to, you know, to different places. And I think we get different backgrounds, we get different springboards to our, adult

life and, and our professional life. 

So that brings me to you, if I may, to actually say, okay, so you start your impossible pictures.

you've got your flame, you've charging your money, you're making commercials in the day, hopefully they'll be good. And you're running a business

and you need to start growing a business because you're realizing now yourself that, okay, shit, you know, we've got a tag, we've got some clients.

How do we make it work? Because you made it work for is, am I right for 19 years?

Joel: 20 years. Yeah. Almost 20 years to the day. Yeah. And I al I grew it to about 25 people full-time, plus a couple hundred [00:19:00] crew and freelancers. All this, I mean, the short answer is I always knew I had more potential and I was very small for seven years. It was one person. I had one employee maybe that would come and go and about seven years in I started to burn out because I was really tired of, I want something more.

I wanna make more money. I want to produce work that is worthy of my talent. And I started to shift things into another gear. And it was, you know, this is very much part of my story. I. Brought on a business partner, started hiring, moved the office into downtown Denver and started applying some very fundamental business mindsets, and I'm emphasizing the word business there because it really had nothing to do with the creative part.

It was the same creative that I was essentially method and skill that I always had. But I was applying it through business in new ways. And over those years that followed, it was hiring people, finding new clients, developing new offerings, expanding our [00:20:00] expertise, getting out of the service business, getting into the expertise business, raising our prices.

I mean, all these things. And it was incredibly thrilling. It was really incredibly thrilling, especially when you're doing work on a national level, relaunching TV networks. Creating national campaigns for brands. People that see your work on TV that weekend and they say, ah, I see, I saw your spot. I saw the thing that you guys did for the big game, or whatever.

And that stuff was all, it was incredibly thrilling. Not to mention the team that I built was 25, absolutely incredible. People like Mitch Monson, right? For a couple years was one of my creative directors. And working with people at that level, they're way better, way smarter and way more talented at the, at the creative than I ever was.

So don't know if I'm answering your question. You might wanna redirect me. 

Radim: I mean, I just like that you actually employ people who are way smarter.

Because I think as you know, that curse of the creative is, oh, I need someone who's as good as me, or I need to clone myself. That's usually the

terminology for those who haven't worked [00:21:00] out how to let go.

Because when you let go, when you actually say, oh my God, I need some smarter people around me, magic happens.

Right.

Um, so how was it for you, because obviously like running your own shop and going a hundred miles an hour, then saying, I'm burning out. What was the sort of the reckoning? When did you realize I need help?

Joel: It was when I was at the studio, I was all alone. I was working on a big year end campaign for Ford through their agency JWT, and the scene would not fucking render. And I, my wife is calling, when are you gonna be home? you know, when can I start dinner? And I'll be home soon? I'll be home soon.

But of course I have to hit the big freaking render button before I can go home because it's gotta render all night long. This is how computers were in the, were in in those days. And then it's finally one or two in the morning and I press the render button and I get this famous dreaded error called Softimage Internal error, which basically means this scene is not gonna fucking render.

And I'm like, I broke down. Like I had a meltdown. I'm weeping. [00:22:00] I'm like, this can't be my life. How did I get here? How can I be under this much stress? And then I remember a buddy of mine had said, oh, I worked with this organization that really helped get my mindset clear, called the Strategic Coach.

And a month later I joined, I meet Dan Sullivan. I go off and on over the next two years under his teaching and I start developing the mindsets. And that's what changed everything. And that's of course how I applied it in the creative industry was sort of my uniqueness. It was my naivete being translated into our industry.

And, yeah, again, the rest is history as they say. 'cause it was. Just, it gave me what I needed to start implementing a whole set of practices that I now celebrate and teach and share with everybody else inside my community.

Radim: So here's the two daring moments, right? So you

were doing commercial for Ford on your own,

but you actually did the other daring thing, which is actually you asked for help,

which is one of the things that, once you master that creative [00:23:00] ability to black everything and work it out and not be a bit of a samurai and ninja at the same time, you don't always want to admit that you might be doing something wrong.

 maybe I just need a stronger computer or bigger render button. But actually being that person who says I need help, who can help me?

Joel: That's interesting you say that. 'cause I've never thought of it in those terms, but I'm thinking of a good buddy I have who ran. studio that was a competitive of mine in Denver. We were really good friends. And I remember he said, you know, I don't really wanna work with the advisor, the coach, the consultant, because I wanna figure it out on my own.

And it's so funny that stuck with me because I thought, not me, man. if someone has the shortcut, just lay it on me. if you have the mindset that I need, okay, it's gonna be painful because I have to open myself up. I have to share, I have to be vulnerable. I have to admit that I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but I've, I've found that getting past that initial pain, is really worth it because all of us are gonna achieve our goals and our dreams eventually.

[00:24:00] I just say to myself. If I can get there faster with knowledge, with training, I don't know. I have coaches in my life, right? This is just a big part of how I live. I have relationship coach, the mental health and soul coach, financial coach, all these things. And these are all people that I say, I don't wanna figure it out myself.

Can you please help me? So I appreciate that observation. That's really interesting.

Radim: Well, I'm someone that's how to even say it. Like I didn't wanna shortcuts because I thought I can work it out all myself. Only then you realize you need to get yourself deeper in a hole, 

is it ego that's telling us, I just wanna figure it out myself. Like, I'm cool enough, smart enough, whatever. Like maybe I just don't have a big enough ego to always think, I'll just figure it out on my own.

I don't think it was ego, it was just naivety. It was just basically like when you're so far down, you can't really see back up, and you realize I just, have to dig myself up as opposed to calling for a lift. I think that was the difference. But of course I was then told that there is an option that you need to take and you get help and you realize, oh, only if I knew about all of this sooner.

I think there's a benefit because whilst [00:25:00] our previous generation, yours, ours was very good at blagging and working stuff out andmake things work and getting us to where we are now, building the foundation of the creative industry

now how do we do it better?Because 

Joel: as you quite famously say, what is the real reason why studios fail these days? why do they fail? I mean, one reason they fail is because they're vendors. They're not leaders, right? we get trapped into thinking our craft is what makes us valuable to the world. And that's only true to a point. And again, ai Hello is a great example of where that's being disrupted.

There's so much of what we do that we identify with, and if it's our craft, we're really in trouble because so much of that is replaceable or becoming replaceable. And I, I wanna be careful here because I'm not trying to denigrate the awesomeness. Of craft, not at all. Right? Again, as someone who was sort of Bauhaus trained, if you will, I get that.

But it's our relationship to the people and the problems out there [00:26:00] that need to be solved and to reach into those takes an understanding of human relationships and business, all these principles and concepts, it takes an enormous amount of empathy. And if we don't evolve in those ways, We're gonna die. We're gonna be the person who, you know, it's the buggy whip manufacturer, right? when the horse and buggies got replaced by the automobiles, were gonna say, oh, I really love making this thing and I'm the best at it, and I'm gonna double down and make an even better buggy whip.

 since we were talking about like spotting the signs, if someone listens to this conversation and says, am I really a vendor? What is the science of you being a vendor? I mean, I would say one indicator is that if, your clients, your buyers, if they come to you and they've already diagnosed their problem and translated it into, we need you to execute this prescription called a project. And see again, this is very, seductive because, for example, like ad agencies, they will come to you and me and they will say, Hey, I need you to execute this project at a really high level.

At a very high level [00:27:00] of craft, right? You're a live action director. We need your very specific that you're gonna bring to this, that craft. And we do that and we make a lot of money doing that. But then as the years go by, wow, there's a lot more directors out there. Wow. There's a lot more noise and competition, and the prices keep going down.

We can't charge what we used to charge. And this is this process of ephemeral, which is the Buckminster Fuller word that I love that, when a client comes to you and says, I need you to execute this. I need your craft. it's like a red flag, it's a watch out. And of course, the antidote to this is often the simple question of why do you think you need a blank?

Right? Challenge the diagnosis. This is the beginning of the journey into becoming an expert and not just being a vendor. And I can elaborate on that if we want.

Radim: Yeah, no, no. This is really interesting because when you said like someone comes to you and asks you to execute something, so for example, that made me think of illustrators like your illustrators, visualizers 3D designers, they're very [00:28:00] rarely involved in the conversation. No, very rarely is maybe a wrong statistic. Not half of the time, let's be, let's be on the both sides.

Half of the time you just get told what's to do, what to make because somebody else has already made that decision. So it depends upon what's on your position in the food chain. Like where do you find yourself, how much of power, autonomy, freedom do you have to actually be yourself rather than providing that solution.

but obviously we have proven until now that is possible to earn very well because people need your uniqueness, they need that genius that you provide.

But that's

changing, 

Joel: what's, brutal is get,I'll just say this, oh my God, I'm gonna get in trouble when I say this. Probably 90% of the illustrators in the world that, are, have been traditionally been hired because of that specific look. There are clients that are saying, Hey, ai, create me something that looks like this.

And boom, they're re, it's really close. Now, part of that is, yes, AI is certainly replacing a certain amount of that work. Also, some of those things are, we wouldn't have paid someone to do this anyways. [00:29:00] So it's not like there was a project that was lost, it's just that they would've figured out another way to do it.

But nonetheless, I think you make an interesting point that when I think of really great famous illustrators, designers, I would say in my experience that they are brought in into the process. Like when, I don't know, I'm gonna say the Olympics. 'cause my friend Mitch works on the Olympics.

Right? They are not coming to Mitch and his team after they've got it all figured out and saying, okay, make us the logo for right, for Paris. Make us the thing. There is this very early on, Hey, we're looking ahead for six years, eight years from now and thinking, and Mitch of course is no dummy. He's also saying, I'm looking ahead for and six and eight years and thinking, and what are they doing?

They're thinking about the problem. They're not worried about the project yet. Like let's just figure out, ask what the problem is, hopefully identify what the problem is and start. Thinking about it, solving it, diagnosing it, whatever. Before we turn anything into projects, projects are [00:30:00] not really where the magic is.

Radim: This is really interesting. You made me think of my own personal journey because once upon a time I was a graphic designer. I was an illustrator in advertising and I got fed up. With the system, how it was working. I was a kind of exited illustration at the age of, let's say 35. I'm 47 now, 12 years ago. because I was, I hated being briefed by 20 year olds telling me something I need to do this December. I was like, there is almost like a resistance and barrier to actually do work that could be interesting. Like there could be expression and we can do really good stuff. So I'll turn the upside on its head and I'll say, okay, I'm gonna start a branding studio and we'll do the work I want to do, which is visual storytelling, but directly with people who care. And all of a sudden what you found as a roadblock was all of a sudden was, was an ammunition for amazing work because you can have a direct conversation. So in your way, how you describe it, we've gone from a vendor. To a visionary we can take you on a journey that you didn't know even existed because

somewhere out there in that sort of high sphere, you go like people sort of gatekeeping like okay, this [00:31:00] commercial should be this and this, this and that.

And obviously by the way, there's many people in check green light in your idea. Whereas when you go direct, yeah, I think that kind of I would say is sort of aligned with what you say, you know, from vendor to visionary, because that's just a small share because you are, when you think about it, we didn't have to do much different, we only sort of repackaged it differently and I got more people on board and it was like, oh my God, we are having fun and all of a sudden everything's possible because you're the one driving, rather than hoping that someone will, you know, give you all the freedom.

Joel: I came into this backwards because back in 2002, I think my studio started working for Dish Network, which is this big satellite provider company in the States. And we just worked directly with the brand and we said, I don't know, here's the cool idea for a character that could be the mascot for this billion dollar company.

Do you wanna do some commercials with this little guy? And they were like, oh my God. And off we go, right? And we're doing millions of dollars of work this way. Little did I know, and it was years later that agencies would come to us and say, Hey, do you guys wanna pitch on this project? Here are these boards, here's this script.

And we would say, you know, this idea is kind of [00:32:00] shitty. What if we did it this way? And they would get so mad because I'd like to think our ideas were better. But they were like, no, we've already sold, solved the problem. We just need you to make the thing and follow orders. And by the way, we're triple bidding this and all this, and you're, we're gonna give it to the lowest price vendor.

So on. And I start noticing this pattern. And I think the pattern is when you are working with middlemen, gatekeepers and you have that itch called, man, I think I could just go right to the problem. That's the moment called, I'm not anymore in the race to the bottom, I call it. Now we're in the race to the top.

' cause I'm gonna get closer and closer to the marketplace, right? I'm gonna work with the buyers. 'cause the buyers are interfacing with the thing called customers. Wow. Imagine that. So there's this journey, this race to the top thing that I preach of how do we do that? How do we create more value, move from vendor to expert, all these things.

It's and this is what we've been doing our entire careers. Right. I mean, you look at your career, my career, all of our careers, we're all on this same journey. I submit.

Radim: Let me close the door on Impossible Pictures,

Joel: Okay, let's close 

Radim: your [00:33:00] feet had hit the ground, nearly 20 years on a dot with impossible pictures, and you're like, no more.

So, how did you feel when you closed that chapter?

Joel: Honestly, it's um, gosh, it's funny. I even still feel the emotion of it a little bit now, and that's been 11 years ago. This was 2014. It made sense for me to close that chapter because it had been 20 years. Things were changing, pivoting. I wasn't, couldn't, you know, I was like, do I reinvent again?

Do I merge? Do I get acquired? I don't know. And I said that I had this really big pitch. It was about a one and a half million dollar pitch, and I said to myself, okay. If we don't win this damn thing, I'm closing. 'cause this, I just got an offer from a former client that wants to acquire what's left and have me come work for them, his startup and all this stuff.

And we didn't win the pitch. And I said, that's it. But it was a two year grieving process. It was also a two year financial unwinding and getting rid of all the stuff. And anyways, I could go very deep into that, but let's just suffice it to say it was a journey of, grief, but also a [00:34:00] rebirth and a rediscovery that every business ends, every business runs its course.

You are way more than your business. You have a thing called a career and even something bigger than that, you have a thing called life. And it was this amazing chapter, 20 years. but yes, it, it ultimately laid the foundation for what I'm doing now. Which guess what? Way cooler, way more fun, way more meaningful to me personally.

Radim: When you mentioned the 1.5 million pitch that you didn't win, do you feel that was a sign, right? That was a sign. it's spooky because I, I can relate to how I scaled down my own base names because we had not 1.5 million pitches, but like we had three or four, like almost like a career change in projects that were happening all at the same time. None of them came up, literally became, we were told, we became second on all of them. And I was like, you know what? I'm so happy that done ever happened because I would've been, everything would be delayed by three or four years in my life because you have to produce the work. Hate everyone. Hate everything.

Because I [00:35:00] think it's really important to put your hand up and say, who do I want to be in the room as? Because we have influx of new creatives, new designers, new people with passion coming through and going, I wanna be the, not the next Spielberg or whoever, or next, ex creative, but like, it's that thing inside you because it'sthat purpose is the one that leads you.

It's like you don't almost fuck above with this. Like you follow

that because when you look back, you go, you can only blame yourself for not doing that. Right.

Joel: you're gonna love this little story, this moment. This happened a few months ago. I was doing a fuse dinner in LA and one of my clients is a guy named Chris, and during the dinner he mentions to the entire table of all these other founders. By the way, I was the guy that Joel pitched on that last project.

And everybody at the table was like, wait, his last that million dollar, million and a half dollar pitch that he lost? That was you. He's like, yeah, that was me. And everybody's like, boo, yes. You're horrible, right? We have a good laugh. And he says, no, you have me to thank that Joel is sitting there.

Radim: [00:36:00] And what was his story? did he enjoy the work? 

Joel: No, no, no. He was working at Fathom Entertainment, which was, can't remember the name of the parent company, but no, he, he went on to start his own company. Now he's running a, I will call it a small studio, but a very badass elite. I call him a lone wolf model, and very successful. And now we're good friends.

He went through my Jumpstart accelerator and we just love each other because our shared stories are so interesting, how we, we continue to evolve and get to a new place in this career, in life. And like, it's really good that we let go of what was there. Even though damnitI wanted that job so bad, and when we lost it, it was crushing to shut down, impossible, and close those doors, but it 

led to something greater.

Radim: you sound very happy now. I mean,

because I wrote these three words and I said I, I will come back to them and their impact, reach, and influence. 

 I have worked out that when you want the world, love what you've created, you really already narrow down to 50% of people potentially liking it.

Potentially not [00:37:00] potentially if you narrow it down to smaller percentage. Whereas when you stop looking for that external validation and you say, Hey, actually what is there that I can help you with? not being a backseat driver, but being more of like driving instructor, you realize that your impact, reach, and influence is so much greater because you speaks everyone language. So how would you summarize the 11 years you've been doing this and how would you help people?

Joel: Oh man. I love that you brought up those three words I was thinking of Rick Rubin when you were saying just a moment ago of the older we get. find this rad. You tell me. The older we get, the more we have nothing to prove. The more we just get to be so comfortable in our own skin. people nowadays, they talk about imposter syndrome, and I say, oh yeah, I remember what that was like, not an issue for me anymore.

that was tough. That was a big deal. But when I started shifting into, okay, I'm gonna help my people, meaning my peers, these are former employees that were starting studios, freelancers that were launching a production [00:38:00] company. And I just said, man, you guys kind of suck at sales or your positioning is just horrible.

Or you have no production method, like you're losing money like crazy. Let's, can I please help you? And then I started realizing, wow, if I started helping all these people and I start traveling and I start connecting people, I start having dinners. I'm gonna start a podcast, I'm now gonna form a community.

It's been incredibly satisfying to see, oh I think I may have said this at the dinner that you were at in London. It's like I get to relive my former life as a studio owner all over again on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. But it's like I'm redeeming it because the people that I'm helping, they're running their studio the way I wish I had run mine.

They're having the impact or making the money or producing the creative that I always wished I could have. And in a way, now I am because I'm unleashing them. So I get to vicariously experience this through them. I mean, again, it's making me emotional because [00:39:00] it's, it's so, It's just very, it's incredibly special.

So for me, this is why I look back when people say, oh, do you wish, do you sometimes wish you were still running impossible pictures? And I say, no, it was great. But it, it ran its course. It, it was, but laid the the groundwork for what I'm doing now, which is just much more, much more meaningful.

Radim: I always see it as a sporting analogy because when you think about it, when you get into the industry your day is more like running a hundred meters or 400 meters or a mile 1500 meters. You run it every day, every day, and one day you get really good, you hit that peak. you never know when you hit your peak because you only, when you look back, you're like, oh shit, that was already at my peak. And then you realize you slow down a bit and you're like, you know what?

I don't wanna run this anymore. So when you're on a creative business, you work out, the length, the speed, you know the resilience, you work all of this out and you go, but I don't really wanna run this, but I can advise people on how to do this better.

And this is why we suppoly improve as a society, as a creative industry because when you do it from the sidelines, you help other people to do this [00:40:00] even better. That's why, performance in sports is so much better because we know more about nutrition, we know about this, and I feel like when there's a hard data, especially in sport, people know how to improve, whereas we still got these blurry edges to our creativity

that you go like, you know what is the best method?

And technically there could be a template to performance, but. We also get this, if we have obedient people who will be doing the thing as you tell them, would we ever be as creative as we are? You know, so I think,

is it complicated as I'm trying to paint it?

Joel: it's not, here's another thing I would say is worked with a number of consultants down through my years, and they were helpful to a degree, but what I really found helpful was when I started to connect with the community of my peers, because that solidarity, that deep, deep empathy, and you saw it at the dinner, right?

When we all start getting into what's really going on in our lives and our businesses. And so it's not, you know, the expression, if you can't do it teach, [00:41:00] which I, of course, I rejected my current paradigm because the way I think of it is, well, I'm not really a. Teacher. I'm not a coach. I'm not even really an advisor.

It's more like, Hey, I'm a founder. I'm on this journey. Perhaps I started 10 years before you did. So I'm 10 years further down that road. How can we keep helping each other? Yes. I exited my business. I'm not running a studio presently, but I'm in my hands are in the sausage of four or five clients I work with directly all the time right now.

And believe me, in the details, right, pitching the work, right, getting the new opportunity, managing the new hire, breaking up with the partner, whatever all those things are. So it's this founder to founder thing that I find so electric yeah, powerful that when a bunch of founders get in a room and they start sharing with each other.

Somebody has the answer, somebody has bumped again up against that and figured it out. Someone has the insight that we're all looking for, and I just love that idea of, [00:42:00] yes, we are competing with each other and we're gonna make each other stronger at the same time.

Radim: This is an interesting thought. We are all competing with each other. Has the industry actually accepted that there's such thing as a healthy competition and we can be cheering on on from the sidelines for one another because someone else's success is actually all of our successes together? Because scarcity mindset is such a bitch, right?

And when you think about it, like when you actually accept that someone's done something. What we get to see is the shiny results by we, as you said, you know, the sausage, sometimes you don't know what, what's happened behind the scenes andthe projects you didn't win is actually the project.

It could have been someone else's nightmare, but they actually got it done. So have we let go? are we more generous to one another?

Joel:  I'm on a mission to absolutely destroy, it's what Mitch and I call it, the prison eater mindset. It's a zero sum thinking. Okay. it's the don't, talk to me and try and get my secrets 'cause you're gonna use them against me. I've seen that attitude. It still exists in [00:43:00] certain markets.

It's really interesting, like when I go to Chicago, I'm like, oh yeah, there it is. I go to Dallas. Oh yeah, there it is. And I can explain maybe why. But to your point, I will just say 1000000000%. When you compete with somebody and they win because they're the better fit. Or sometimes we just have to be honest.

They're better than you are and I know that stings, but guess what? Everybody who is great at what they do, they didn't become great. Just because it wasn't by accident. It's because they got pushed. The market demanded it. The clients had bigger, scarier problems. Somebody else figured it out and they got the job.

You didn't wa I mean, the sooner we take this radical responsibility and say, man, we all, as an industry, you're telling me the people that aren't using AI in all these really crazy, innovative ways, the people that are doing shoots on XR stages and all this crazy, you're telling me they're not making you better, faster, stronger, more innovative, more [00:44:00] creative, you're definitely missing out.

So this is why we, you know, we go to conferences and hang out with other creatives is we're stealing from each other. Right? Good. What is it? Good artists borrow, great artists steal. Is that the line?

Radim: yeah. I think good artist, burrow artist still, I think something like

Joel: Something like that. Was that Picasso who said that? I think. 

Radim: I mean, it was Austin Cleon who said, everyone still like an artist.

but you said the word better. And this is an interesting one because you don't always want, you don't always want to admit as a creative that someone potentially is better because you, some, you imagine yourself in a healthy mindset that what you're creating is the best it can be at that day, and it's potentially better than anybody else because there's a competition and you somehow see yourself that way. But what you said when you accept that there are people that are better than you. Therefore, you can actually be inspired by the mix of everything that you do. the skills, knowledge, business acumen, creativity, and say, oh, I can actually follow this formula and get better in myself.

Because as you said, I like the term prison eater. That's very good. there is a break [00:45:00] point. There's a break point of like, how do you actually get someone out of this?

But can it be taught or do you actually have to come up to it naturally? Because

Joel: that's a really 

good question. I I don't know. I think maybe because I was never the best, creatively never. I could draw really well, but was I the best? No. I could play keyboards and perform songs in my rock and roll band. Were we the best? No. And I've always, throughout my life, I think I've had some sort of a honesty.

I wouldn't necessarily say I broadcast it publicly, but I've always known deep down inside man, pretty much everybody is better than me, and that's okay because I can learn. And this idea of. You know what? I learned this climbing mountains in Colorado when I lived there, that as long as I keep going, I'm looking up at the summit and I'm saying, God dangit, that's so freaking far.

But if I just put my head down, get back to the business of one step at a time, no matter how slow I go, and [00:46:00] slow means there's a lot of people better than me, faster than me, but you know what? I'm gonna get there because I'm unstoppable. ' cause I have this desire, I have this tenacity, I have this, I don't know, all this stuff I've collected along my journey.

And, that's served me well. It just means, you know, when you think that, I'm the best. That's why I should get this job. I think there's some sort of denial happening there that doesn't serve us what serve us well.

Radim: for more context to this conversation, you and I are working on your book i'm your consulting editor 

working on your project. and it's really interesting because 

I am gonna quote you back from your own book

Part of section number four, the bigger picture, and you say, adapt with soul. And I think that's a blueprint for longevity. That's a blueprint for careers. Adapt with your soul, because it's easy to adapt with a business mindset. It's adapt with the market, adapt with trends. But when you put your soul in anything that you do, there's no bs. you can look back and say, look, I've gone where the mind told me to go. [00:47:00] So when you've been describing and the way you've been doing it and what you're doing and what you're working on and what putting out there, you adapting with your soul.

You put, obviously you put yourself on that journey. You allowed yourself to be on that journey with all the twists and bumps and all of that stuff. But that is ultimately three words that,unleash, The next, when you ask yourself, what do I really want? and you said, I realize I can learn. That was, again, adapting with your soul.

Joel: Yeah, there's one thought I'm having, which is when I use the word soul, I think I'm challenging myself and all of us with this question of how bad do you really want it? Because the word soul says This is existential right to create is to be human and all this. And what I often find is there are many people who purport to, yeah, I want to be great creative and I wanna make a lot of money.

I wanna have a really awesome career, but they don't really want it as badly as the next guy or girl. The people who [00:48:00] really want it, they are obsessed. There's this inner hunger and tenacity. It's so important, and it's the fuel that of course drives us throughout our career. Now, this is where when we go through an era like we're going through right now with things like generative ai where I'm starting to see the pattern and I'm even looking at historical references.

Like when I look at this example of like the Luddites and what happened back in the 18 hundreds, I think of, um, the arts and crafts movement, which was Maurice. And there was this rejection of mass production, which was what? It was the machine of their day, what is ai, but the machine of our day and. Morris and the arts and craftspeople rejected the machine. No, we're gonna double down on handcrafted, you know, fine tapestries and linens and wallpapers and all this, that, guess what nobody could afford. Then you have people like the Bauhaus that come along and they say, wait a minute, maybe it's our job as creatives to imbue the machine with what it lacks [00:49:00] soul.

Because if we give soul to the machine, then we what? We take something called mass production we, we democratize simplicity and design and function and, you know, all the principles of industrial design that I, I grew up learning and I think we're going through a very similar process now. So when I talk about soul, right, adapt with soul, I think this is the journey.

How do we become more human? Because the machine needs us more than ever. again, this is something I'm exploring in the book, and with your help, I'm gonna find a way to articulate it, but that's the gist of the idea.

Radim: Gerald, I think what you've just been so beautifully describing, it still goes back to those three words, impact, reach, and influence. you can't get impact, reach, and influence out of a machine, out of ai. that's just a tool. It's how you use it, is what we do with it. I think those are the key components because. Just like with everything, be it whatever, like that comes from something minuscule to be prevalent, to be misused. we go past the peak, and I think we just don't know how [00:50:00] quickly we go past this peak and we go potentially like back to normal with the ability of having something new with with the extra tool.

We have the extra ingredient, we have the extra, we have the extra muscle. But I think the element of who we are, what we do, how we adapt with our soul, and how we go on the back, and how we go on to create impact, reach, and influence, I think that's always gonna be prevalent because after all, it's human creativity for other humans.

And that's how we make a connection because it's so easy to see what's being done with ai. it's so lifeless in most cases, like when a pedestrians use ai. And I think that's why we need the problem solvers. the vendors really exist, but. Potentially in smaller numbers because it will go back to the visionaries actually saying, you know what? There's the next chapter, there's the next something, and this is how you make some more people feel something extraordinary. So yeah, I salute you for what you do, how you do it, and how you helping these people to actually achieve something sometimes against the your odds, because there will always be change.

How we embrace change will, make you or [00:51:00] break you. And yeah, I'm glad that you are on those sidelines, helping them to succeed. So thank you.

Joel: Oh my gosh. Well, thank you and I appreciate your support and being part of your story, your, you being part of mine, and I know this right, that the world really does need the creatives more than ever. Right now, the creatives are the ones that are going to lead us into a better future. They're always the ones that are telling the stories, creating the moments, right?

creating those things that inspire us. And I think this is not a time for creatives to lose heart. It's a time for us to take radical responsibility and lead.

Radim: Amazing. Joel, thanks very much for today and I hope to speak to you soon.

 Thank you for listening to this episode of Daring Creativity Podcast I'd love to know your thoughts questions and suggestions [00:52:00] So please get in touch via the email in the show notes or social channels This episode was produced and presented by me Rad Malid The audio production was done by Neil Mackay from 7 million Bucks Podcast Thank you and I hope to see you on the next episode