A short bonus episode showcasing a few standout moments from this week's guest interview with James Martin ~

Daring Forever. Podcast with Radim Malinic

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Radim Malinic: welcome to this bonus episode of the Daring Forever podcast. This is my weekly chance to zoom in on a few standout moments from this week's interview, find the ones that deserve a second look, and dig deeper in what, and dig deeper in what makes them special.

This week, I spoke to my friend James Martin, who's a designer, brand builder, and now a double author with his latest book, No Bullshit Branding. In our conversation, we talked about the difference between evidence and proof, why perception can outweigh talent, the hidden geniuses he keeps meeting who nobody can find, and his five idea keys for turning ideas into action.

The episode published a few days ago was titled Dare to Slow Down and Think Deeper, and it was all about branding and building a reputation that you can actually stand behind. And it was an episode about not just branding, it was about reputation that you can stand behind, about moves of a creative that decided to step away from being sort of seen as an influencer and being seen for about something completely different.

If you haven't checked out a full episode, let me share with you these four standout moments

 So there's a big difference between evidence and proof. So, and I think that's what people are doing with the perception thing, but maybe if they're going the wrong way. They're very, very big on let's say they don't have any evidence.

James Martin: So what they're doing is they're taking this trend, or they're taking what this clever person says, or they're taking the work from this person, and they're talking about it. They're building this perception of somebody who knows what they're talking about. But because they've got no evidence to back it up, when a client does reach out to them and goes, "Oh, hey, you're really interesting.

Radim Malinic: I found you online." And you start talking to this person, you realize they don't have a fucking clue what they're talking about. And you ask them, "Can I see some of your work?" And they go, "Oh, it's n- none of it's real client work," or, "None of it's this." And then suddenly the client goes, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa."We're starting with an interesting moment where James was very much talking about the fact how we can, I guess, piggyback, on other people's ideas.

 we talked about the fact, like how much of evidence, of work that we do behind the scenes comes to fruition and showing us a proof of what we know and how we can do things. And in James' moment here, it was quite interesting how he talked about the fact that it's easy to mimic, it's easy to borrow, and it's also potentially, from his own words, quite easy to be found out, to realize that what is being presented to the outside world from our own channels or messaging is actually understood.

Because I guess from his point of view of being seen as a social media influencer person who used to do these, quite interesting videos that, once upon a time made me even question, "What is he doing and why?" Because he's such a lovely human being. You realize it's easy to jump on a trend. It's easy to jump on something which is just surface level, and I think what James was trying to say here is just that, you know, there is more to evidence and proof that makes us connect with potential clients, makes us connect with people

So that's the first thing. So back onto the perception versus evidence. this actually came from doing a lot of coaching and, I've tried real hard to help a lot of creative people over, the last decade really. and I noticed there was this particular segment of people, who I call the hidden geniuses.

James Martin: Like who, again, like they're not really keen on playing this, should we call it the perception game? They're not really, Going on social media. They're not really into marketing themselves, or not marketing themselves in the way they're told to market themselves,I would probably say is a better thing.

they get a lot of work from referrals and a lot of work from word of mouth, and But apart from that, they're hidden. They're incredibly talented. They're like some of the best creatives, best illustrators, best photographers. I only know them because I know them, but nobody else knows about them, and they're these incredibly talented people.

Radim Malinic: So sticking with the concept of evidence, proof, and, and now perception, James talked to me about the fact that he's, through his, you know, through his years of coaching, he's met some people who potentially struggle to get seen, and he calls them hidden geniuses.

And I call it a pot of gold. Unless you've got a pot of gold that everyone sort of knows about and wants, it's all about marketing. It's all about getting yourself seen out there and actually making sure that the proof, evidence, you know, perception is something that we can work on.

Marissa Garcia last week talked about it again herself, how we need clarity, you know, how we need that sort of c-consistency in the messaging. Because we are running businesses, and in some ways it's almost ironic and comical that we've got 

 people who would prefer to go to the edge of the world for their clients to help them build their businesses. But when it comes to promoting themselves, they stall, and they, you know, the brain's giving them signals like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We need some, we need some safety here. We need to be looked after.

 we can't do this on our own, but we can do it for other people." And I think in James' case, it's like, okay, how do you get people to be comfortable with their perception? How do you get them to be discovered? Because, yeah, unless you tell people who you are, might be quite hard to find you because the world is busy and noisy.

So yeah, hidden geniuses and James' work is great when it comes to finding people like them.

It was a reason to slow me down. It was a reason to think deeper about the things that I wanted to talk about. research more, be more curious. I think in the kind of short form video creation world and the social media world and the email marketing world, it's all quite quick, and attention spans are quite short.

James Martin: And I was like, well, this isn't really like... Mastery for me is a long never-ending process of something. you never get there. and the book for me was just another journey towards that, trying to bring a new perspective to my world of brand building. because again, being in that social media world, it's, got a little bit convoluted.

there's a lot of people saying things that I don't believe are totally accurate because they're learning from people who also don't know what it is. So I think for me it was like this, okay, well, let me just sit down, let me spend, a huge amount of time writing 40,000 words, designing a book, creating all the shit.

I physically had to slow down to think 'cause was like, thinking's gonna be so important moving forward. 'Cause this is when, AI was coming into it and all this conversation of automation, ChatGPT, and all this stuff, and I was like, golly, like I don't

wanna fall into that trap of like outsourcing my brain. I wanna use my brain. So essentially I wrote a book and that is where we are today. It was purely a selfish thing to stop me from getting distracted by a world that I didn't wanna be in.

Radim Malinic: I mean, where do we start on books? Books can be the most rewarding thing to make, some of the hardest things to make. Yeah, it's a very much a carnival ride that throws you around, from start to finish, and then when you launch the book, it's even worse.

Because just like with everything else, just like in the previous point, it's evidence, proof, perception, marketing, you know, all sorts of things, reviews. And I, haven't got to know James for the last few years, and he's a, beautiful human being who's very open about his past struggles. And him to say that, "You know what?

I have got a very addictive brain, and I want to be selfish about how I slow down, remove myself from the noise," is honorable. Because I think you can see people in real life who are open with their, you know, shortcomings, with their addictions, and to say to someone out loud who you are and what you do and what you struggle with, that's our identity.

That's who we are. And personally, I found that when I started being very open about my anxieties and just to say, "Hey, look, this is how I'm feeling," as opposed to trying to hide things, it's liberating because there's a sentence that says that if you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

So if you tell everyone how you feel, you don't have to feel guilty about feeling different because you sometimes don't even know what other people might feel like. So going back to James's point, the element of wanting to steer the ship in a direction where you want to travel is the only way to build perception, evidence, and proof.

It's the only way of getting to be where you wanna be and actually find your space to hear yourself thinking, to hear yourself creating stuff. Because, I found there's no such thing as a magic space. You can walk into magic vacuum going, "Hey, I wanna write a book. Can you please give me six months' worth of money, silence, and space to make this happen?"

No, it doesn't work that way. So well done to James getting this book done and finished and getting it out there because he's done incredible work on that

MVB, minimum viable brand, which is, basically a total,rip.

James Martin: Well, it's not a rip really, but like the MVP, which is from Eric Ries's, lean startup, but minimum viable product is basically like you build a really scrappy version of a product, you put it out into the world to real humans, they tell you what they like and what they don't like, and then you go back and you make it better.

And you just go through this process, and that's how I've done the books, that's how I've done my frameworks, that's how I've done my courses in the past. Build small, test it with a few, come back, make it better, put it out into the world. So basically, the five idea keys is a part of that MVB process.

So once you've got an idea, it's like, okay, great. Now what do I do with it? Well, you take it through the five idea keys. But the five idea keys are sequential. You can't go to the blue key without knowing the answer to the first key.

Radim Malinic: Do you know what I mean? So you have to go through all these things. But the beautiful thing about this, Radim, is the fact that not all ideas are good. And so when you take them through these keys, if you can't answer a question in there, and I've got like little exercises in each key, which is super easy, my mom can even do them.In James' book, No Bullshit Branding, that we're celebrating in this week's episode, there's so many incredible ideas, and one of them was, the five idea keys.

So the sequence of actions that, get James to basically get ideas to validate them, and it's interesting. And I guess it's, again, very liberating for us, to be honest, to say, "Look, just because of an idea doesn't mean it's gonna work."

I mean, the best bit about an idea is to actually have an idea and create another idea from it. It reminds me of an episode with Pablo Juncanella, from Mucho Studio in Barcelona, who literally just said like, "Look, you've got idea today, and you have another idea tomorrow, and one idea basically takes you somewhere else.

It's almost like a sequence." here we go. "Like a sequence of actions that take you somewhere." And for anyone who might be, you know, in their early twenties and feeling like they really wanna defend their idea to the hills and say, "Look, what I've got is great," I think the most liberating thing I've ever found is to actually open yourself to the fact that are you potentially wrong all the time?

Because if you feel you might be wrong, not that you are doubting that your idea might be good, but being open to be wrong is one of the most fantastic things. Because you can see something online and go like, "What is this?" And then it might have 5,000 likes from people who absolutely love it, and you realize that half of the world is not for you.

In fact, 90% of the world is not for you, and90% of the world isn't here for your ideas. Your ideas are for the right audience, for the right people. And yeah, I just love that James has got the sequence in his book and various, basically, and throughout, throughout the book of how he sees the world of branding through the current lens that, will definitely help and unlock a lot of potential in lots of people.

There was a question when I published a book titled Book of Branding in 2019, and I looked at it in a way that the world doesn't need anything new whatsoever. We technically have enough of everything. But it's the personal way of the contemporary way of seeing how we progress, how we do things differently, that I found my Book of Branding so successful when it, when it launched because it was, it was a new way of seeing things.

And in James's case, I think he's timed a book to a perfection because the way he sees the world, the way the world sees him, and how we can reframe the process of how we help people in lower stakes is, immeasurable because 

 we need a book like his to prove that the world is moving, the world is changing, and, the entry barrier to creating this work perfectly is now so low that you can do incredible work with just not just yourself or with a small team Thank you for joining me on this bonus episode with James Martin.

 again, the episode published a few days ago was titled "Dare to Slow Down and Think Deeper." I think it's an incredible way of sort of summarizing where James has got himself into the process of being a creative, being, you know, the brand builder, community builder, the face of Canva and Affinity, because 

 It feels very deep and mature what he does, and he's the right person to do it. Thank you for being here, and I'll see you next week on the next episode.