Influencers, Authenticity & The Connection We're Faking

Camille · 0:01
Tim, what was your favorite thing Bucks Day's episode?

Tim · 0:03
Yeah, my favorite part was when Jen brought influencers back to friendship in the craziest way.

Camille · 0:09
Nice, nice. Camille, what was your favorite part? Um, I think my favorite part was when we were talking about re-evaluating brand stories. Made me feel like I would always have a job. Jen,

Jenn · 0:19
my favorite part was actually when Camille was telling like the real truth about what it's like to look for jobs right now because I think it's such an important issue that affects all of us. Look

Camille · 0:29
at you being so educational, Reggie.

Reggie · 0:31
You know, my favorite part was when Tim used a really cool analogy as it pertains to influencers, and I loved it.

Camille · 0:38
See, Tim gets the spotlight. Will, what was your favorite part?

Speaker · 0:41
I liked it, and now we are two guests. It was fun. Yeah. My favorite part was being a fly on the wall and getting to watch

Tim · 0:49
it all.

Speaker · 1:00
Yeah. What a nice ride. This

Reggie · 1:01
comes to clickity clackity. clackity.

Tim · 1:03
We're getting into a good topic. Hopefully, it's interesting.

Reggie · 1:05
Enjoy. Enjoy this.

Jenn · 1:07
Come on, beaks. We're doing that episode 11. Hey,

Tim · 1:14
everyone. Welcome to episode 11 of Age. I'm not going to do an intro this time. I always try an intro, and I just

Reggie · 1:21
love your intros. Your intros are yes. I

Tim · 1:23
rewatch them. I'm like, what was that? Anyway, this show is all about thinking on your feet. We have four people here from different generations, and we pull a topic out of trash can that's randomly chosen in the morning that we are doing this right now, and we just discuss it. And we go we go to some deep places, some random places, some funny places. We're happy to have you here.

Reggie · 1:44
Sometimes some heated places.

Tim · 1:46
Sometimes, yeah. Like two episodes ago, we got into a little bit of a heated place, and then we actually fight at the table later because

Reggie · 1:52
we all love each other so often. Like with the mediator who comes

Jenn · 1:55
in after an episode to make sure everything's okay. I know, right? I think Will should

Tim · 1:59
be the mediator. Will, if he ever seems like we need Dylan, one time just walked off set. She's like, "No, can't take this. And I would like to say too, you might recognize or not recognize a couple people on the set with us today, and that's because Dylan has taken a break. Well, Mary is also taking a break, and we have two new guests. We have Jenn Maer,

Jenn · 2:20
hello,

Tim · 2:21
who is a brand strategist, creative director.

Speaker · 2:25
Yep,

Tim · 2:25
there's one more writer, badass storyteller, storyteller, total badass,

Speaker · 2:30
TED

Reggie · 2:30
expert,

Tim · 2:31
owner. Yeah,

Tim · 2:33
her company is called the new company is called Knitted.

Jenn · 2:35
Uh huh. Nice

Tim · 2:36
social architecture company centered around friendship.

Jenn · 2:40
I am hiring you for all my. I remembered all of that. It's amazing. And she had

Tim · 2:45
this TEDx talk coming up. I

Reggie · 2:46
will say, I actually saw her TEDx talk. I was in the audience, and that's when I was like, she's amazing. She needs to. It's

Tim · 2:52
not released yet. So Reggie has some behind the scenes live watching of the talk, which only happened, I think, months ago.

Reggie · 3:00
Her whole talk resonated with me about friendship and like cultivating it through experiences, which I thought was really cool.

Tim · 3:05
So it comes out on 698, or nine, the

Jenn · 3:09
eighth next Monday.

Speaker · 3:11
Next Monday.

Jenn · 3:12
You're listening or watching this in actual time, but

Reggie · 3:16
yeah,

Jenn · 3:16
next Monday.

Tim · 3:17
All right, so you can watch it in actual time. I think we'll provide links. You

Reggie · 3:21
might say it came out yesterday.

Tim · 3:24
Oh, that's true. This will come out a few weeks later, so it'll be out already, and we'll put some links below so that you can internet sleuth Jen.

Jenn · 3:31
Yeah.

Tim · 3:31
Yes. Now, Camille, I internet sleuthed you earlier, and I looked at your LinkedIn, and I didn't see a lot. So I know you're creative.

Camille · 3:40
Yes. Yeah. So I just graduated with my bachelor's of fine arts from ETSU.

Reggie · 3:44
Congratulations! Thank you so

Camille · 3:45
much. I'm looking for job experience right now. This is kind of like a great way for me to network right now. And I work part time with ETSU just a little bit with their School of the Arts, but yeah, I'm here to.

Tim · 3:57
What part of your school, your education, did you just love,

Camille · 4:02
like in graphic design? Yeah, like

Tim · 4:04
in graphic design and design itself, in strategy. Like

Camille · 4:07
I really liked the research component. Like I love getting into the nitty gritty of like a brand story or like any sort of just background.

Reggie · 4:14
Yes, that's the meat and potatoes right there. That's the stuff we love. We geek out on brand story.

Tim · 4:21
Yeah, I think story in general is the defining foundation of how we understand life. Absolutely, and here I'll and I'll encourage you here. Like while we're talking, if a story comes up about your life, tell it. That's I think it goes further than like trying to like logically explain something, even though that has to happen.

Jenn · 4:39
Yeah, but

Tim · 4:40
if it triggers a story,

Jenn · 4:41
story makes reality,

Tim · 4:43
right?

Jenn · 4:44
Like that's it. Uh huh. Makes

Tim · 4:46
these these beliefs or these things we live within, like a movement that we live within.

Reggie · 4:51
I think story brings clarity to reality because we're all walking in reality, and sometimes we can't decipher what the hell's going on. But story is the thing that says, hey. This is what's going on,

Tim · 5:01
right? I love that.

Reggie · 5:02
Take it in.

Tim · 5:03
I love that part, and it makes a lot of sense with brand as well.

Camille · 5:06
Yes, for sure.

Tim · 5:07
So it's glad to have you

Camille · 5:08
here. Yes, thank you so much. I'm glad to be here. Yes. All

Tim · 5:12
right. So we're gonna do our thing and pull a topic out of the trash can.

Reggie · 5:15
Let's do it. Oh yeah. Black trash can. I like it. We had a

Tim · 5:20
guest last week who was a social media strategist, and guess who we picked?

Reggie · 5:25
Social media. No joke. It was crazy. I picked Quinn. I think. And

Camille · 5:31
now we're not getting stories. And now

Tim · 5:34
everyone says brand stories.

Reggie · 5:36
Yes, I pulled it, and I was like, "You got to be kidding me! I walked up and showed it to the camera. Hold on a second. I'm gonna move this guy over. By this guy, I mean this mic. Did you get instructed? Will instruct by the Will camera. He wants to hear my voice more resonantly. I want to give a shout out to Will. He's always keeping us honest. Was the man? Thanks, Will. How's this? Better?

Tim · 6:00
Okay. All right. I'm not gonna let you guys see this because it's gonna be a surprise. I'm not even gonna look down and watch this. Is it right side up? Okay. I haven't even seen

Camille · 6:11
it. Oh, you

Reggie · 6:11
haven't even. You're gonna be surprised. All right. Influencer. Oh, influencer.

Jenn · 6:19
That goes off

Reggie · 6:20
social media. What's your first reaction

Jenn · 6:24
to it? I told you that like I I can be a little feisty. You didn't say a little feisty.

Tim · 6:31
You said fucking feisty. I just which I love.

Jenn · 6:35
Feisty.

Tim · 6:35
I love it. Relate.

Jenn · 6:36
I I have a lot of opinions. Influencer man, when I hear that, I just get this like, like something. It's like the word. It's like the word moist. Yeah, that's exactly what I was gonna say. Moist at the same

Reggie · 6:52
time. Really? Oh my god, that's hilarious. Not the word I was expecting. There's a lot of moist influences, though. Moist

Tim · 7:03
is permanently cemented in my brain. What do you mean by moist? Like

Jenn · 7:07
I mean that it's a it's a role. I don't even want to call it a job, but I guess it's a job now. It's a role that exists that didn't exist before. That's just made of fluff.

Reggie · 7:18
It's very fluff induced.

Camille · 7:20
Yeah, this

Jenn · 7:20
idea that just by presenting a lifestyle or way of being that is baked beyond anybody's actual expectations of how they could live a life, then then you make money off of that for kind of doing nothing other than just being on camera. So it kind of gives me the X, like

Tim · 7:41
totally, totally, yeah, I get that too. Like, can you eat cereal and it's just soggy? You hate cereal. I

Camille · 7:49
know cereal. Cereal. I just don't like the wet and dry conversation. I like granolas. I think it's like the perfect

Tim · 7:57
meal. Like

Reggie · 7:57
both. It is just

Tim · 7:58
one bite making. You're eating at

Camille · 8:00
the same time. I'm an egg girl. I don't know.

Reggie · 8:03
I am both. I definitely.

Tim · 8:05
Sorry, I got kind

Reggie · 8:06
of a visceral response.

Camille · 8:08
And now we're on

Jenn · 8:09
Captain Crunch. How did like

Tim · 8:12
influencer

Jenn · 8:13
influencer got to cereal for you in terms of ickiness? So what's your icky quality about influencers?

Camille · 8:19
I think it's that there's a level of like gluttony, almost

Reggie · 8:25
like 100%

Camille · 8:26
Yes, like I think that it's kind of a selfish lifestyle they lead in a sense. Not everyone to an extent, but if you think of like the income they're making, how you said it wasn't a job before, and now it is. They're making money compared like way more than any of us could fathom, and then flaunting it on the internet, trying to promote this lifestyle that's unrealistic. It's all social media driven, and so yeah, it does make me feel the way cereal does.

Jenn · 8:51
Yeah,

Camille · 8:51
gross

Tim · 8:54
influencer cereal. I'm like kind of

Reggie · 8:57
a visceral response to it as well because of similar reasons. I think it's this. I blame influencers. It's kind of bittersweet because I know some influencers, and I know that they're just doing the thing they love. You know, they're influencers because they are kick-ass at yoga, and they are influencers in that world. They become accidental, or they amass like yeah, they amass hundreds of thousands of followers because they're just doing what they love, and those people I absolutely respect. But I do think there are these influencers out there who are painting the picture of this lifestyle to what Camille said that doesn't really not as attainable. You can just travel around the world and buy all these fancy things, and you know not have to work, and this is your life, and the reality is all those things are given to them by the brands that want them to shout out their brand, and so they're not buying all these things. And the job they have is being an influencer; they're being paid to do this thing, and so it's not for everybody.

Tim · 9:58
And ain't that just the way? Someone that doesn't need to buy the product

Reggie · 10:02
gets

Tim · 10:02
it for free. Easily buy the product totally,

Reggie · 10:04
and they get

Tim · 10:05
it for free.

Camille · 10:06
I find that the most. Yes, like

Reggie · 10:08
celebrities. There's a lot of celebrities that are like, "Oh, what are you wearing today? Oh, this is a Gucci bag. It's like, what did that cost? I don't know. They just gave it to me. Yeah, they just trust me, right? You could have bought 20 of those.

Jenn · 10:18
I wonder, even though if there's the the darker side under that is that many of them, because you think of the giant pool of influencers that we have,

Jenn · 10:26
I bet many of them are just scraping by. It's possible, yeah. They're they're putting this front on. It's all a front.

Jenn · 10:33
You know how much they're getting and how much they're doing, and like they really need that more than the celebrity does. Yeah. Well, that's a good point. If the word influencer, if like that's a red herring, like if there there needs to be another word for the people who are doing the thing that they love and sharing

Reggie · 10:50
it, right?

Jenn · 10:51
That's a category because they're not influencer. That's a good point. And then there's influence. It's

Tim · 10:55
compassionate that has an influence. Yes, versus an influencer trying to have an influence. Yes, that's a good

Reggie · 11:01
point. One's a faker and the other's a maker. One's actually doing the thing.

Jenn · 11:04
When it runs, do you think influencer

Camille · 11:06
has anything to do with the numbers that they have falling? Because one of these small creators are not necessarily considered influencers, and that's why maybe they're like in the green, like they're they're fine. But then these people that have more numbers behind their name, they have more. It gets to their head more, I guess.

Reggie · 11:20
And I'm sure there you get to a point where all you're thinking about is those numbers, like oh, I've got 500,000 followers in analytics, 500,000 people know my face and know who I am, and I'm sure because of the human condition, it's gonna mess with you. Okay, let's

Tim · 11:36
take a let's take a vote. How many of us remember life before influencers?

Speaker · 11:40
very

Tim · 11:43
unique perspective here.

Camille · 11:45
Well, like I'm an internet child. Yes,

Reggie · 11:47
grew

Camille · 11:47
up on the internet. You were born

Reggie · 11:48
into a life of influencers, almost. I feel like

Camille · 11:50
it was always like maybe it's my generation thing, but people my age idolize people, influencers, actors, celebrities. I was

Tim · 11:58
wondering why how you were up to get an icky feeling about it, even though it's kind of been part of your culture since you're.

Camille · 12:04
I think the icky feeling comes with maturity, like understanding money and jobs and all that, and kind of maybe looking at it and being like, "Oh, well, how am I on social media posting the same things that they do, and yet they have like 100,000 followers and just doing all these trends? So I think just the maturity part, or like conscious thinking of like, oh, well, these people are doing whatever their job is now. But yeah, no, I can't. I really can't imagine my life without like being 10 on YouTube and watching people or whatever. Was there any

Tim · 12:35
training in your education about being an influencer or learning about influencers?

Camille · 12:40
Not training to be an influencer, but maybe partnering or like helping support and things like that. Yeah, marketing for sure. Yeah,

Tim · 12:48
that's what it's usually every job has like a a path to becoming, and I don't know that influencers have like we're gonna take the influencer one and one course.

Camille · 12:57
I think. I mean, you

Tim · 12:58
probably can buy that online. I was

Camille · 12:59
gonna say I think some influencers do have to Patreon.

Reggie · 13:02
Yeah,

Tim · 13:02
I I have a I have an issue with this subject because I do have an issue with this false front, this acting as if you have and you have not, because I think it puts a lot of pressure on everyone to be at this same level, and it kind of makes a group of people who are like in the in crowd and those that are in the out crowd. I'm not totally like high school all over. It is, and it and it does. I think it is intentionally made to where it touches on some trauma that we experience. I was just talking to my wife about the pool we go to. It's an incredible pool, East Asheville Community Pool. I can't remember the actual name is, but it's a really highly desired pool to be a part of. It's just this random little pool in the middle of East Asheville, surrounded by trees, and it has a six-year waiting list. Whoa! You want to join the community? It's not that expensive, but if you want to join, you have to wait for like five or six years for someone to leave.

Jenn · 13:58
At that time, your kids like I know we don't win the pool anymore, right? And

Tim · 14:03
so we joined back before I guess before it was that popular because we had haven't always we haven't passed down a membership through my family line or anything. But I was talking to Megan about I don't like to go to the pool. I don't know what it is. I just this this feeling of like you

Reggie · 14:19
like coming to my pool though.

Tim · 14:20
I do, but your pool's so laid back and chill.

Reggie · 14:22
There's not a ton of people there.

Camille · 14:23
Private and a public.

Tim · 14:24
Yeah, a

Camille · 14:25
big

Tim · 14:25
difference. And but it does have this vibe of like this old vintage. You know that that picture you have in your mind. You know like on the '70s

Reggie · 14:33
pool with all the Josie

Tim · 14:34
Sandlot, the kids. Oh yeah, yeah, and everybody's around the pool, and it's like this really boisterous community. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Has that feeling? But there's also this. I'm bringing this up because of the high school trauma thing. There's this one group where they all know each other, and they sit at these three or four tables with their umbrellas, and they own this whole section, and it looks so fun. Like that was like you actually didn't like

Reggie · 14:59
go sit in that. I told the close

Tim · 15:03
buddy of mine that I was like felt like I was on the fringe. I was on the outside of this crowd. He's like, get you a table. He says I get there just. I get there at the same time. I can put you in, get you in there. I felt like I was like joining this special club, but I get this feeling with influencers that like I have the I have the direct line

Reggie · 15:23
to the to the

Tim · 15:24
brand and I have all this money and I'm free and I can do whatever I want and it makes the rest of us feel like we're living a life that's not as good at we're on the outside definitely

Camille · 15:33
are you

Reggie · 15:34
in now or do you go sit now yeah you tell your wife you're like honey I can't come over here yet I'm in. I'll get you in. I got a plus one year

Jenn · 15:44
old.

Reggie · 15:46
Your kids are watching you from the other side of the pool. Like, why is Daddy over there?

Tim · 15:51
I'll be an influencer now at the pool. But I, I do feel though that these people have adapted to a changing environment. Yeah, you know, like when you have, like AI is changing our environment right now, and people that are adapting get kind of shit thrown at them.

Reggie · 16:10
Yeah,

Tim · 16:11
you know, they're like anyone that mentions AI in a positive,

Reggie · 16:14
oh right, right, machinely

Tim · 16:16
creative. Oh yeah, absolutely, just thrashed with like you're just taking away jobs,

Reggie · 16:20
right?

Tim · 16:20
Yeah, and I think influencers got the same trash talk, and I think they actually went through a popular phase.

Jenn · 16:26
Yeah,

Tim · 16:26
you know, like we didn't know it was a thing yet. We're like, this person's awesome. They're getting, they like wear these cool things. They do these cool trips, and then all of a sudden, we're inundated with like everyone's an influencer, and you didn't know whether someone was authentic.

Jenn · 16:40
Yeah, that's the word, right? They didn't know if it

Tim · 16:42
was authentic the thing they were influencing you with,

Reggie · 16:45
right?

Tim · 16:45
And I don't really think influencers is a new thing. I mean, like, what is every political campaign but an influencer campaign? I

Reggie · 16:52
mean, think about it. I think the like factory girl, like I think a lot of like influencers have just taken on a different medium, like before, it was the the socialites that would show up at parties, and I'm sure people would like brands would give them stuff like, "Hey, are you going to Andy Warhol's party? Because if you are, I'd love for you to wear my such and such. It's the same thing. All the way to like the

Jenn · 17:15
Bud Light girls who would show 100 percent. Yeah,

Reggie · 17:18
exactly. It's this. It's the exact same role. It's just a different media.

Jenn · 17:21
And if you think about it, then the influencers-it's sort of democratized, right? Because before you would have to be hired by

Reggie · 17:29
right,

Jenn · 17:30
right, whatever, smearing off to go, and now the influencers like, no, I'm taking this money. I'm going to create my platform.

Reggie · 17:37
Yep.

Jenn · 17:37
So if you flip it, it's kind of a positive thing. You've got a whole bunch of people making money off a system that was never intended for them. 100% Wait a minute, maybe we like influencers. They

Reggie · 17:48
flip the script and they somehow they're empowered to like go out and say, "I'm gonna rock. I'm gonna go in with eight different brands and and

Jenn · 17:56
yeah, and when you have a corporate jobby job, I'm gonna do this on my own terms.

Tim · 18:00
And when you realize that our entire government is built on an influencer campaign, voting, who has the most people on their team, you realize that the influencer is a political genre.

Jenn · 18:15
And imagine how

Tim · 18:16
much influence like Elon Musk had on the last presidential election, and he wasn't always an influencer. He was kind of a random dude that's weird and got a lot of stories written about him. But when he bought X, he started becoming an influencer on X. Yeah, yeah. And I think that now companies are trying to embed influencers into the world so that they can move society because it's who people are looking at that determine the direction we're going, right?

Jenn · 18:42
And full disclosure, it just kind of connected with me. I

Reggie · 18:46
you're an influencer.

Tim · 18:48
Reggie does this every show. He's like, wait a minute, I'm an influencer,

Jenn · 18:52
secret influencer. No, I

Tim · 18:56
code name. I

Jenn · 18:58
help to create and teach a class on IDEO U, which is the IDEO's online learning platform, called Storytelling for Influence.

Reggie · 19:07
Oh, interesting!

Jenn · 19:08
I am part of the problem. Wow!

Tim · 19:10
You could be part of the the

Reggie · 19:13
solution.

Tim · 19:14
The solution, like to understand what it means to be an influencer and to understand authenticity in the world, truth. Like we need to bring your true

Reggie · 19:21
self to your point. Truth

Tim · 19:22
in the world right now, in a big way in ourselves,

Jenn · 19:25
and that's what that's what most of the course is about is about finding your real story and telling people real stories instead of throwing up a slide full of like fact, fact, fact, fact, fact where everybody turns it out. It's like, what's the story that's going to get people engaged. Right. So

Camille · 19:43
that necessarily influencers are bad after like us talking about it. I think it's just the way that they portray themselves or act in general.

Tim · 19:49
Yeah.

Reggie · 19:50
Well, they value bad branding. Actually, influencers need us to come in.

Camille · 19:55
We got to rebrand influencer. But it goes with the authenticity.

Reggie · 19:59
Maybe that's our name. They

Camille · 20:00
were more authentic. If they were more authentic, then they would have more like influence in a sense, but it'd be more positive throughout this negative, idealistic life. How difficult do

Tim · 20:10
you think it is, Camille, to be authentic in this world on camera?

Camille · 20:14
I mean, the internet's social media driven. I think it's very difficult, and people find it easier to have a mask on the internet than it is to be authentic,

Speaker · 20:22
right? Yeah,

Camille · 20:24
I don't know. People find it scary to just be human and show flaws.

Tim · 20:28
It's it could be scary, and I think it is fear because there is a statistic that the number one fear is like public speaking,

Camille · 20:36
really,

Tim · 20:36
even above death. So it is a very intense fear.

Reggie · 20:40
You think more people? There are some people that are more afraid of speaking than they'd rather die. I'm more afraid of death to speak in front of people. Man, I'm glad I cracked that one. Yeah, right. Same. But also, I

Tim · 20:52
think that there's this element of I think when it's there, it's hard to determine whether or not you're feeling fear, or whether you're feeling intelligent in that you're protecting a part of your life that maybe shouldn't be out there. Yeah, I think

Camille · 21:08
there's a difference between privacy and authenticity, though. Right.

Reggie · 21:11
Yeah. That's true. How

Tim · 21:12
do you balance privacy and authenticity? Yeah, like you don't have to share

Camille · 21:15
your whole life. Right. Like I'm married. I have kids. I have a dog. I live here. But like you could be like, you know, like look at me. Come see my house. Doesn't know that I'm real, but no. Just share

Reggie · 21:26
what you're going to share. This is my day

Camille · 21:28
to day life

Reggie · 21:28
without the veil.

Jenn · 21:29
What's missing for so many influencers is the why, right? And oh, we're bringing it back to brand. But like

Tim · 21:35
the story,

Jenn · 21:35
there's there's not often I think with people who are just influencers for being an influencer's sake, a why that's driving them to share. Whereas another one of my TEDx co presenters this past year, amazing woman named Ashley, who talks about hosting dinner parties.

Reggie · 21:53
Yeah, that was

Jenn · 21:53
and she's an influencer. She is teaching people about like how to host. She shares recipes, like does this amazing stuff, but she's got a really deep why, and she's talking about like bringing people together across divides, how to do it without you know feeling intimidated. Like she's really focused on why that's important to her, and that makes her feel like a different brand of this kind of influencer. If I'd even call her an influencer. In a sense,

Reggie · 22:21
she is a different brand. Like she, yeah,

Tim · 22:23
she's a new type of influencer. She's

Speaker · 22:24
she's a bad. She had a

Reggie · 22:25
very legitimate reason for doing the things that she do, which feels better

Jenn · 22:29
than like because I like this makeup.

Reggie · 22:31
Yeah, right.

Camille · 22:32
I think it kind of goes back to like the smaller creators. Like I think smaller creators tend to have more of a story because they're doing their passion. Like

Speaker · 22:38
they

Camille · 22:38
like this. There's a reason for it rather than like you said, I just like this makeup, like these,

Jenn · 22:43
yeah,

Camille · 22:43
like whatever girls, guys, whoever on the internet that are getting PR and whatnot, like they don't have a why, no matter how many numbers they have.

Tim · 22:51
Yeah, and I just read something recently about this one particular business owner. I'm not even call her an influencer. She only has 5000 followers, but and this is a case study that someone did about her presence online. She has 5000 followers, but all those followers are very vigorously engaged in what she's doing and buy from her. There was this. There was this old. I used to be a musician in a band called the Enemy Lovers, and we were in this moment of breakdown in the industry where Apple Music was iTunes back then. iTunes was taken over, and so it was making albums worthless-the physical albums-and then Napster was making actually buying digital music worthless because it was like music sharing started. So there was this whole movement of 1000 real fans, a long tail fan base, which is if you could get 1000 fans who will buy everything you put out, you can have a music career. It's all you need, and someone did all the they did all the workup, all the statistics on it, and that's all it really takes. So I think the world has started to realize that you don't need 500,000 followers actually do your business, and so the one that was featuring this particular business owner is someone who has millions of followers. But he was showing how you don't need that

Speaker · 24:13
to

Tim · 24:13
make success in your life. I

Jenn · 24:16
love that, which is

Tim · 24:16
powerful because I think we all think we need to be. And if you're on Spotify as a musician, you do have to be a viral hit to make any money on your music. Yeah, right. But if you are authentic and sharing your journey online as a musician, you only have to have 1000 2000 maybe 5000 followers to actually start generating movement in what you do. Yeah, imagine that micro nature, that community nature. Yeah,

Jenn · 24:40
it goes against what we're taught in our culture, which is scale, scale, scale, scale, scale. Always scale. Always got to grow. Always got to grow. There's no natural system that can support that. Like in on the planet, like anything that grows like that, the only thing that grows like that is cancer, which kills the host. So why are we constantly trying to replicate this model that is actually killing us, right? This idea of like we constantly have to grow, but if you bring it back to what if I have this small community of committed people, like that's actually what human success has always been about.

Speaker · 25:17
It's

Reggie · 25:17
funny that brings to mind. Were you going to talk about the conversation you had with our friend. Yeah, I'll let you do it. No, you do it. Well, Tim had a conversation with one of our good friends, who's a big brand guy, brand influencers. He's amazing. Connected new public companies. Yeah, he's and he said the the days of the big brand agencies that have like 4050, employees, 2030, employees are fading out because it's becoming harder and harder to support that many miles. And he feels that the agencies that are actually going to be more successful moving forward are the ones that are very agile. They have like two to three different, you know, creatives in house, and that's it. Like if you're growing and trying to scale, you are fighting a losing battle. You have anything to add to that?

Tim · 26:09
It's just that growth at all costs. It

Reggie · 26:11
costs in general.

Tim · 26:12
It is. There's research on this right now, where it's the first time in I'm trying to remember the date at which they started this study. Anyway, since like the Industrial Revolution, at some period the growth model started benefiting humanity. Things started to change for the better, like in in leaps and bounds, better. And it did that until like a couple years ago. And the research is just now showing that the growth at all costs model is not benefiting us

Speaker · 26:42
anymore. The

Tim · 26:42
graph has started to drop in what benefit it's bringing to us, and so I think people are obsessed with it because it's worked for so long. It's kind of like capitalism. People are obsessed with capitalism because it's worked, and we're a very big and I would say that there is an an outside perspective that we're a very rich nation, and I think that we're all experiencing that richness at all times. I

Speaker · 27:05
think a lot of us are struggling. A

Tim · 27:07
lot of us out there are struggling. But so capitalism has worked for so long. People think capitalism is good, but you don't realize that sometimes you have something for a moment, and then you move on to something else that can work. It's not just supposed to be forever,

Reggie · 27:22
right? Because there is

Camille · 27:23
evolving, right?

Tim · 27:24
Evolving. There's no creature that is what it is forever without change,

Reggie · 27:28
right?

Camille · 27:28
No,

Tim · 27:29
those creatures get they die out.

Reggie · 27:31
Yeah, they die out.

Tim · 27:32
So I think that there's something to this, and it's hard to say this in the business world. Like if we're going to bring this to a business perspective, if you we run a branding agency here in Asheville, North Carolina, and if you go to a client and say, "Listen, I think it's wise that you scale right now. No, yeah, they're like, "All right, we're gonna. I know you have a six bigger project you want

Reggie · 27:52
to give us, but you know, and

Tim · 27:54
also there's this whole subset of businesses that do need to grow, right? You know, they need that movement, and there are some that need to stop growing. Yes. So it's like if the if the largest tree in the forest is now 100 or 1000 times bigger than every other tree, maybe that tree should start distributing some life to the other trees because a forest can't live in that state. Yep. That tree will consume everything in that area.

Jenn · 28:18
100%

Reggie · 28:19
What a great analogy! I love that.

Tim · 28:22
So I think the influencers democratize the power of this. So like we're trying to doing this podcast, we're trying to become influencers. I do these little LinkedIn videos. I'm trying to become an influencer. I didn't think about it that way, and it kind of irks me to think. But someone out there would probably leave a comment like,

Camille · 28:38
"But again, guys, authentic influencing. So

Tim · 28:41
and mine is straight ahead on the authenticity thing. I think that I called it I call it ruthless authenticity.

Reggie · 28:48
Yeah,

Tim · 28:48
and the reason I use that word because it's a it has a negative connotation. But think about all the people in the world that have been ruthless and now run our world.

Camille · 28:56
Yeah,

Tim · 28:57
and don't don't you think there should be a few of us who want something good in the world that get to that point that can be ruthless enough to get to that point. Yeah, and we

Jenn · 29:07
all won't use that. We don't use that playbook because it's like, oh, we don't want to be the bad person, right? But to have that level of focus and discipline, like that, should be

Camille · 29:15
determination. Yeah, and it's

Tim · 29:17
not ruthless. Not like you're

Reggie · 29:19
hurting people to get there. Ruthless,

Tim · 29:21
and it's like yeah,

Reggie · 29:21
you're not doing it on the backs of other people. You're ruthlessly being authentic so that you can show your truth

Tim · 29:26
about who you are. Because I think right now, if we're able to influence people at a micro scale and have an impact and affect our lives, then we can be ruthless about who we are. Like there's enough space for everyone to be who they are.

Reggie · 29:39
Yeah.

Tim · 29:39
Imagine if everyone had 5000 followers. How many people could have followers in careers?

Jenn · 29:44
Bringing it back. I mean, we're all we're talking about this idea of brand stuff. What kind of gets in my head is like, if you think of all the examples of a brand or a company that has grown, grown, grown, there is always a. Where that starts to collapse, right? Like in every story that we know, it's like the brand gets diluted. They

Reggie · 30:07
hit a threshold.

Jenn · 30:08
They get to you know, like the Starbucks examples. Like they've forgotten their roots. Now they've got to go back to coffee. It's like, why is nobody teaching that and saying like this is kind of actually problematic,

Reggie · 30:21
right?

Jenn · 30:22
You want to grow to a certain point and then know how to handle that level. But we're all brainwashed to think like growth at all, more and more and more. Yeah,

Camille · 30:34
and to make this full circle, that kind of goes with brand story. They're forgetting about it. Yeah, companies are hitting that threshold, trying to go past it, they're forgetting about that brand story that got them to that high point.

Reggie · 30:45
And I think that's something that brands need to constantly reevaluate along the way. And it's like, are we really still who we say we are? Because if we're not, we need to like make some adjustments.

Jenn · 30:55
Yeah,

Camille · 30:56
it's okay to change. Right, right. It's okay

Reggie · 30:58
to change, but like, and and that's what it is. It's like you get to a point and you check in. It's like, is this still who we are, or do we need to rewrite our story?

Tim · 31:07
I always compare this growth predicament. It's kind of a little bit of a predicament, I think, with all companies. I compare it to a person. So, like, if you were to tell a baby, you don't need to grow. That would be very unhealthy for that baby to just like stop growing and like an infant pooping his diaper. But so like there is a point at which your outer growth, you you you grow as a child and as a teenager you're growing and your body's changing and you're getting stronger and you're and then at some point you're not getting bigger anymore because that would be weird if you're like 20 feet tall and all lanky. Yeah, but you start growing deeper. You know, you start to. I mean, there. Tony Robbins actually had a brain tumor, and that's why he's such a big man. So he grew abnormally.

Reggie · 31:53
Wait, who is this?

Tim · 31:54
Tony Robbins.

Speaker · 31:55
Oh, that's some people

Tim · 31:57
grow past the point where they should just stop growing. Yeah, that's why he's so big. He said he had a brain tumor.

Reggie · 32:01
Oh, that's and it caused

Tim · 32:02
him to grow beyond what he. She was a tiny kid in high school.

Reggie · 32:04
Whoa. Anyway, bring it back to the point:

Tim · 32:07
to to grow until you're the the size you're supposed to be, right? The the person you are, and then you grow deeper. So companies don't realize they can grow deeper.

Jenn · 32:15
Yeah, you can grow deeper in your

Tim · 32:17
values, in in your passion, in your desire, in your the

Reggie · 32:21
roots start to grow,

Tim · 32:22
and it's not like you're getting bigger and consuming more. You're actually just getting wiser, and you're in the industry differently. I

Jenn · 32:29
suspect that comes down to who has a place at the table, right? So, and who has the strongest voice at the table? If you're in the C-suite and you don't have a strong voice for the brand. If you don't have a strong voice for design, if you don't have a strong voice even for like ethicists and poets, like that, when you think about some of these tech companies right now who talk about they've got like oh they're chief ethicist and but they're not the ones who have the power. They're just writing papers and creating you know, the cover that they've talked to somebody. But if you if you have a board of directors or you have a C suite that has people who are relentlessly or ruthlessly focused on this story and this authenticity that has enough power to make that happen, then you would think that you would get brands that would grow in smart ways, like the brands that we all there'd be

Tim · 33:25
incentive.

Jenn · 33:26
Yeah, there'd be incentive, and there'd be almost like checks and balances.

Speaker · 33:29
Yeah, because I

Jenn · 33:30
think right now there's no checks and balances. It's just shareholder return and grow, so we all make money and the pay the fee. I see like

Camille · 33:38
a judge in the back being like, nope, that's off-brand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. Do you know where that

Tim · 33:44
judge is right now, or the judge is becoming?

Camille · 33:46
Oh, I don't. Maybe it's a new job opportunity. I don't know.

Tim · 33:50
And we can't talk about influencers without bringing up AI because people are using AI to be the judge and jury of what is on-brand and not an off-brand. Are you

Jenn · 33:59
serious? Yes, they create,

Tim · 34:01
and it's not. I don't know that it's a negative thing because I think when you're running a large company and you have a lot of people trying to talk and share on your behalf, you start to like find people putting their own spin on something, and it gets you into trouble. So out of a fear, which is not a great place to come from, but out of this place of trying to survive and stay outside of court, or whatever other hot water they get into, they create AI that the you know the employee can type in what they want to say, and it spits out the language.

Jenn · 34:32
Thus began the end of the universe. Exactly.

Tim · 34:34
Imagine how this works. Like, wasn't it

Camille · 34:36
funny that you said that people are trying to avoid like copying other people because isn't that what art is built off of? Is taking from other people, and so why do we need a something to think outside the box for us when we can use our resources and then maybe build something? Have

Tim · 34:51
you ever read "Steal Like an Artist"

Camille · 34:53
No, but I should. I've heard of that book. Yeah, it's only like

Tim · 34:56
this little tiny book, and it is an incredible book. I agree with you, and I used to tell when I would do talks with students. I would say my process is this: I copy something directly, like I literally take something and I copy it, and it doesn't work for what I'm doing. Right? I don't know if it ever has worked. You copy one thing over, you're like, "Oh no, this is different information, different pictures. Doesn't look right. Okay, I got to look for something else, and then I find some. I'm like, yes, that's awesome. So I copy that, but I blend it with the one before.

Camille · 35:26
Exactly, and then I

Tim · 35:27
copy another thing. And by the time it works, it's like 10 inspirations copied into this fusion of creativity. Yeah, and that is the way it worked in the old days. Like, like artists would have apprentices, and they would paint their masters' paintings exactly the way. Wouldn't be so

Camille · 35:43
cool if influencers had apprentices, and then we would just have this whole gosh. I mean, magic

Reggie · 35:50
or apprentice. Oh, okay.

Tim · 35:53
You're stepping up a homely bag.

Jenn · 35:57
It's so crazy though, because like the one thing that we know that AI doesn't have is

Reggie · 36:03
taste,

Jenn · 36:03
right? And that's the thing that's getting left out of this conversation. That's the thing that businesses don't understand about. What if you be

Reggie · 36:10
taught

Jenn · 36:10
taste? It can't. I don't think that it can.

Tim · 36:12
What I'm wondering if what you're wanting to say is because I think taste was the word I used, but when we were talking to our good friend, he said AI doesn't share trauma.

Speaker · 36:23
Yeah, it

Tim · 36:24
has no pain,

Reggie · 36:25
and pain is where we get a lot of our inspiration. Right,

Tim · 36:27
that taste, what we, the way we experience in the world, and the way that we want to communicate what we're experiencing is through our trauma. Yeah, shared trauma or shared pain, it doesn't have it. That's where we stand apart.

Reggie · 36:39
Yeah, it can't feel.

Jenn · 36:41
I just, yeah. And

Tim · 36:42
I'll share that his name is Forrest Young. If you want to look Forrest Young up, he's incredible, has insane advice. But that that bit of insight shows you how, and I think this is important. Shows you how you are different and better than AI. AI can outdo us on a lot of things, but it never can share in our experience in our trauma, and

Reggie · 37:04
it doesn't have a soul. Right, and I think that's what our soul is made of. Our soul is the thing that keeps us authentic. It's the thing that it's our anchor,

Tim · 37:12
right? So imagine an influencer who is influencing out of this this connection, this some kind of pain that they are trying to relieve in others, you know, instead of this weird constructed, fabricated thing that's like, buy this, you'll feel better about life if you buy this. Saying, you know, I'm I've been through some pain, and I use this thing and it really helped me, or I read this book and it really helped me. It's like that influencer I have no problems with, right?

Camille · 37:40
Yeah.

Jenn · 37:40
But at that point, are they an influencer?

Tim · 37:43
I don't know, but I guess that's the definition. What is the definition? Yeah, because if

Jenn · 37:46
that person is saying I had some pain and this really helped me, can you trust them? Because they're getting as an influencer, they're getting paid to tell you that this book or this bomb or whatever it

Camille · 37:58
is. That would be the point of an influencer is to influence you to buy things or interact or any sort of thing. Whether it's, I do

Reggie · 38:04
think that is where

Tim · 38:05
important factor here.

Reggie · 38:06
That's it. I think influencers fall off in the fact that they, you know, that they're trying to sell you something. And I have an overactive bullshit meter when it comes to somebody trying to sell me something. As soon as I start talking, if I detect that this is going, even if they start telling some authentic story, I'm like,

Speaker · 38:26
and

Reggie · 38:26
I'm out of here. I'm

Tim · 38:27
just seeing Will's edit right now. Overactive bullshit detector,

Reggie · 38:33
because I don't like to be sold to, and I don't think most people do. And I think you know, I think there's some people that are so burn out because everybody online is trying to sell you something. Yeah, you start listening to someone talking about some really authentic experience. You're like, oh, that's cool. I feel that, and then they're like, and you know what helped me? And you're like, I'm out of here, you know.

Tim · 38:55
But we've built a world. That's that's how you survive.

Jenn · 38:59
Yeah,

Tim · 38:59
we've built a world where everything is commodified

Jenn · 39:02
and everything is content.

Tim · 39:03
Yeah, and everything is content. So you are literally selling everything. Even we talk to our kids and we're like, you should turn that into a business. They're just doing something fun, like making little drawings. You should make that a business. You could sell these and make a career. They're like, no.

Jenn · 39:16
I like okay. So this might be getting too down into the weeds, but my go

Reggie · 39:20
into the weeds.

Jenn · 39:21
Niece was going to a school that I will not name in the Northeast, and their whole thing was about being a school that teaches you practical skills for the workforce. Even though it was a liberal arts college, and they all had to have like businesses, and they're 20 years old, and she's she was getting stressed out because like she didn't have this successful business, and I'm like, why does everything have to be hustle culture? Can you not just go and learn how to learn, read some great literature, take an anthropology class, find what you love, find what you really naturally are drawn to move on? Right,

Tim · 39:58
right,

Reggie · 39:58
absolutely,

Tim · 39:59
right. I agree, and I don't know where we started thinking everyone had to have their own business.

Reggie · 40:05
Yeah, yeah,

Tim · 40:05
because that is an insane amount of pressure, and I know that for you know we're speaking now, having experienced all this, but it is there is a freedom there, but I think it's also a lot of pressure. So

Speaker · 40:17
much pressure. You

Tim · 40:17
don't have a world to go into and learn under like apprentice, you don't have not

Reggie · 40:22
everybody wants to be a business owner, right? So why would we force them down that path? That's just insane.

Jenn · 40:28
Yeah, how how are you feeling about entering the workforce at this moment?

Tim · 40:32
That's a good question.

Camille · 40:33
Yeah, that is a really good question. I feel good about entering the workforce, but it's more about a response. I haven't gotten very many responses. I feel like applying is like just dead. Yes, it's a black hole. Like I just, it's like scrolling on LinkedIn and just never ending.

Reggie · 40:48
Oh yeah,

Camille · 40:49
applying and applying and applying. And you know, I've even reached out to like some HR specialists and whatever, whoever's posted the job posting, and it's still like a black hole. Like I just hear nothing. So it's worrying to some degrees, like the hustle culture, and like I don't want to work my ass off just to go die at whatever old age. Like I want to have fun in my life, in my career, and I know I'll get to that, and I'm fine with working now. But yeah, I mean, it's you

Reggie · 41:18
can do both.

Speaker · 41:18
Yeah, yeah, die and have

Reggie · 41:20
fun. No, you could work and have fun.

Camille · 41:25
Exactly. That's die young. Yeah. No, I want to have

Reggie · 41:27
fun while dying.

Tim · 41:28
Can I ask you a question? Yeah, of course. Is there anything that you have felt like you should do in the past couple weeks that was scary to you, and that you didn't do because it was scary?

Camille · 41:39
Like job related or just anything?

Tim · 41:40
Anything in your life, like something you're like, I should do that? Nah, it's too scary.

Camille · 41:45
Well, I mean, I've had quite some changes. I just moved out of my parents' house. That's huge. Yes, you did

Reggie · 41:52
the thing. Congrats.

Camille · 41:53
Yes. I mean, I think honestly, it's still in the job topic, but I just like don't want to apply anymore because of the black hole? So like sometimes some days I'll be like, oh, I should really sit down and like hit like a few jobs, and I just don't want to because it's just what's the word I'm looking for? It's like

Reggie · 42:12
you're getting burnout or yeah,

Camille · 42:14
burnout. Yeah, demoralizing.

Tim · 42:16
Yeah, yeah,

Camille · 42:17
great words. Right, because

Tim · 42:17
it feels like no one's out there.

Camille · 42:19
Right, exactly. No one's giving me feedback. Yes, exactly. Yeah,

Reggie · 42:23
that also is, I think, a nature of or a direct result of our world becoming overly virtualized. Like we have become so used to like doing everything in this digital world that we forget how to like be human. Like somebody takes the time to apply for a job. Like at the very least, send them a response and say, "Hey, got your resume, got your portfolio. We'll be in touch. Hey, we ended up going a different way, but thanks again for a reply. It's just like crickets.

Speaker · 42:57
Simple

Tim · 42:57
something. I just think I think it's oversimplifying it because everyone is inundated with emails, everyone is inundated, and this could go back to the sales thing-a bunch of scam calls. I mean, even worst-case scenario, you

Reggie · 43:08
can automate those things. Yeah, do a really like personalized message that feels authentic. That would be better than like nothing. See what is anybody

Jenn · 43:16
even looking? Because right, are they even seeing it? Right, right. If I'm on Instagram or

Camille · 43:22
LinkedIn, they're like, "Oh, you only have a 30% chance of them viewing your application. Yeah, and that's just how active they are. Wow, they can immediately

Tim · 43:29
look at your profile and see if you have any posts or any following because they want people that are getting action. This is which is

Reggie · 43:37
also that's a good point. They want people that have influence. They want exactly. They want the ones.

Tim · 43:40
When I was making music to get a record label. You had to actually be a successful band already.

Camille · 43:45
That's just like right realistic. Like

Tim · 43:48
right when you need a record deal. Yeah, the record label is supposed to make

Reggie · 43:51
you a successful band. Yeah,

Tim · 43:52
and it's the same thing now with

Reggie · 43:54
we're already successful. A

Tim · 43:55
job is if or unless you know somebody. Like this is the world that we're in now, where it's nepotism or influencer. Why

Jenn · 44:02
are we creating a world that we don't want to live in?

Reggie · 44:05
Right.

Tim · 44:05
Don't ask that question every day. Just exhausted.

Reggie · 44:08
Right. Right.

Jenn · 44:10
But like, it's like as consumers and as creators and as business people, you know, we in some ways have a choice, and the businesses that we work for have a choice, and it seems like we're all going along on this trail towards something that's not surprising, that's not

Reggie · 44:26
desirable, right?

Camille · 44:27
Yeah,

Reggie · 44:28
like lemmings. One

Camille · 44:30
thing I was going to say about the job hunt is I feel like I have to be like this influencer, this big like star artist, and like sometimes I just feel like me being like from small town Asheville, and even just applying to other places in Asheville, like doesn't compete with like maybe someone who went to like Juilliard or like RISD or whatever. And like I think that that's also like a point to influencers is like if influencers can do something really well, that's great. But they're one in a million. So like to find where. Work your expectations have to be higher or lower based off of that. So I think that kind of contributes to the black hole a little bit.

Tim · 45:07
I had a good friend who's passed away now, but he taught me about community, and community is built on spheres of influence. That you're in the middle. Imagine yourself in the middle, and there's spheres of influence around you. Yeah. Imagine three rings going out. The middle ring are people that are really close to you that you speak to on a weekly basis. The second ring is like monthly or a couple times a year, and the third one is very rarely. Every couple of years, you'll talk to them.

Speaker · 45:34
If

Tim · 45:35
you map out who's connected to you naturally, not online, not with some bullshit LinkedIn algorithm, map out who's connected to you, and then make a vision for yourself about who you want to be more connected to. Like the way you're here today, how did you get here today?

Camille · 45:52
Ah, through Dylan. Dylan.

Tim · 45:53
Dylan. How did Dylan get to you? Ah,

Camille · 45:55
through AIGA.

Tim · 45:56
Right. So you see how that warmth passed through to now you're speaking to two, three successful career creatives. You're you're at the table sitting here with

Speaker · 46:06
us

Tim · 46:07
through your network. That is going to be way more effective than trying to just like throw stuff out into. Yeah, I didn't really think it is a black hole. I don't think you're. I don't think you are experiencing something that's because of you. I think what the system is, so if you see someone like Dylan is a part of probably your inner ring or maybe your second ring. Sure. So if you say put Dylan on that ring and start to map out other people that you're like they're important to me, even the one that you've spoken to, maybe you had one opportunity to speak with someone that's popular or famous. Like I remember the first time I met Michael Bierut, one of my favorite designers, and I had pizza with him because this guy who's teaching community introduced me to him, and I hugged him. It was weird. I met him. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't do anything but hugged him, and I was like. Later, I texted him. He called security. I was like, sorry about the hug, and he said, no, hugs are good, and that made a big impact on me. Yeah, and so when you map that out and you say, you know what, that person, I really want to know that person more. How can I bring them closer into my network? Yeah, and it's not network like icky network, like I'm going networking thing and give my business card out. It's literally like you have a community network around you that you're not acknowledging because social media has put this thing in your face, like you know, you need to advertise

Speaker · 47:25
here.

Tim · 47:25
But what's what's happening is we're realizing with this black hole that we've created that we can't really rely on

Camille · 47:31
it. Yep, it is

Tim · 47:32
a place where we can mass communicate and kind of mess around. But to make a difference, to grow, and to go somewhere in your life, you're going to have to figure out who the network is that values you.

Camille · 47:43
Right. That's

Tim · 47:44
the point. Is the we value you because Dylan valued you because you guys met at AIGA. There's a string of value that threads through all of this. Yeah, it doesn't

Camille · 47:55
feel good. Yeah, you're here

Tim · 47:57
in this conversation because of that network. So I think that's a very important thing to put your time into. Versus these billionaires running these networks, they don't want you to find a job because then, I mean, maybe they do. I'm going to say that. I'm not going to. But they don't. They want you online striving and trying to make.

Jenn · 48:13
Yeah, they're not thinking about it.

Tim · 48:15
Yeah, they they just want. You're not

Reggie · 48:17
invested in your success.

Tim · 48:19
No, they want you to sign up for the pro account where you get to see who's looking at your profile, and you get to sleuth and try and get your way in. But most big projects come because someone knew you.

Jenn · 48:29
And the truth is that people want to help people. Like when you make a one-on-one connection with somebody.

Reggie · 48:34
Oh yeah.

Jenn · 48:34
Like I probably talk to somebody every single month that has reached out to me and said, like, "Hey, can I grab a little bit of your time? Often, I talk to people who graduated from the same college as me. Yesterday, I had coffee with somebody who I didn't meet at TEDx, but who had just reached out and said, "I had an idea that's kind of similar to yours. Can I talk to you about

Reggie · 48:54
it? Oh, I love that.

Jenn · 48:54
And we had the best conversation. And I wound up like, you know, giving her some thoughts and advice that she really liked, and like now we might be buds.

Reggie · 49:03
Yes,

Jenn · 49:04
but and that made me feel good because I was able to help somebody out, and I think people genuinely

Reggie · 49:09
might be buds

Jenn · 49:10
want to help people.

Tim · 49:12
I think so too.

Camille · 49:13
I think influencers are missing; they're missing that human connection. Yeah, and

Tim · 49:17
I think it it does ostracize them and silo them off into their own fake world, and maybe it's more misery than it is. I do have a good friend that lives in Nashville, and she used to post things on Instagram and got really super popular, just blew up, and now she's not. She quit, and I was like, "Why did you quit? You were doing so well. And she said, "Because it felt like everyone knew her, but no one knew her.

Jenn · 49:41
Oh yeah!

Tim · 49:42
People would walk up to her. She's going to the mat, and she she felt strangled by

Speaker · 49:51
it. Yeah,

Tim · 49:51
she couldn't go anywhere where she really knew someone. But they all acted like they knew her. Like people just walk up to her like they knew her.

Jenn · 49:57
Comfortable.

Tim · 49:58
Yeah. So I do think that. Right, I and yeah, that's no good. That's not good.

Jenn · 50:05
I used to write a restaurant review blog like way back in the day, and this is not in any way an influencer influencer. I like that

Tim · 50:15
influencer,

Jenn · 50:16
and then and then influencer, but what I I wound up giving it up because it felt like I couldn't enjoy food anymore because everything became my work and everything recording it and talking about

Tim · 50:32
it.

Jenn · 50:32
I had to analyze this meal and have something clever to say, and I was like, I got into this because I loved going out to eat, but now it's not fun anymore. Yeah, and so I don't want to do it anymore.

Camille · 50:46
I just left my job. I was a line cook for four years at a at a country club. Yes, I made fancy food, but that's how I felt leaving. I was just like, I'm so burnt out. Like I love this as a side gig and like doing it through college, but yeah, you just get burnt out, tired. Yeah,

Tim · 51:02
I know. I I kind of worry sometimes that if I do anything, if I put myself into something really intensely, then I'm going to get this experience and then be attached to it and known for it, and then not be able to change

Speaker · 51:14
it. But

Tim · 51:14
I don't think that's true. I think you can change.

Camille · 51:16
Yeah, yeah, you

Tim · 51:17
can change your career.

Camille · 51:18
Yeah, it's not easy.

Tim · 51:21
What what are you going to do at this university? I forgot to say that Jen is previously at IDEO.

Jenn · 51:26
I was at IDEO. Yeah, and now I'm kind of working on my own. I had a small consultancy for a couple of years. Now I'm on my own, and then also founding Knitted, as you mentioned before.

Tim · 51:37
That's awesome.

Speaker · 51:38
Yeah.

Tim · 51:38
What in the university class that you're going to be teaching,

Jenn · 51:41
not teaching it a university class. I

Tim · 51:43
mean, the idea IDEO U University. Oh,

Jenn · 51:45
IDEO U. Yeah, that's so that's a continuing thing that started when I was at IDEO. It's a storytelling class.

Tim · 51:52
Were you part of that the the creation? Because I remember when IDEO launched there.

Jenn · 51:55
Yeah, yeah, it was one of the first classes that got created because it was such a huge need for people to tell better stories, mostly at work. So we're usually it's like sort of a professional development thing. And I was really interesting process because I had to break down what I know how to do. Not like oh I'm so great, but like I I know how to do naturally. I had to break down my process and then teach people who that doesn't come to naturally how to do it, and that was a really interesting process in and of itself. And so that it could be replicated. And now I'll go to sit down and create something, and I'll I'll do the thing that I taught other people to do that I never used to do on my own. I'm like, oh, actually would be really helpful if I did this thing and it and it helps me out. So IDEO, we filmed that now 10 years ago, and they're still they run it. It's video, and then they have live community that works with that. But if you want to learn storytelling, you can also just reach out to me directly, and then I'll get paid for it. I like

Tim · 53:03
that route better. Do you feel like the influence of storytelling is demeaning its power or its effectiveness or maybe its sentiment? Like the like it's one of those things that's now trended so hard that like everyone starts storytelling. Everyone's a storyteller online now, and it it goes to a place where again, is it authentic? Like, is this person really a storyteller? Are they saying that because that's kind of the thing to say? Didn't

Jenn · 53:28
Sagmeister say like he he did this whole thing about like how awful the word storyteller was because like you you build a a roller coaster, you're not a storyteller. Like I

Tim · 53:39
tell stories through this roller coaster, there are ups

Jenn · 53:41
and downs to life. Sometimes you turn. Yep. I'm of two minds about it because I do think people get really stuck in their heads. We are all storytellers. Oh yeah. We go out to dinner and we sit down at dinner and we're like, oh my god, you're not going to believe what happened on the way to work today, and we tell a story without any problem at all. Some people are good at it, and some people are less good at it. But everybody can do

Reggie · 54:05
it. Yeah.

Jenn · 54:05
Then in a professional context, you sit down and it's like the tyranny of the blank page on your on your screen, and you just people freeze up, and it's really really hard for people to do it. So I think unlocking people to say everybody's a storyteller is a good thing.

Reggie · 54:21
Yeah,

Jenn · 54:21
it doesn't mean everybody is talented. Is

Tim · 54:24
good at it. Yeah,

Jenn · 54:25
and that's the thing I think where it gets really tricky. Bringing it back to AI, bringing it back to some of these tools where you're like, oh, everybody's a storyteller because you can just put it into ChatGPT and you get a story. It's like, well, you get a story.

Reggie · 54:39
Right. It

Jenn · 54:40
doesn't mean that it's good.

Reggie · 54:41
Doesn't mean that it's and

Jenn · 54:42
so the missing piece of taste, judgment, editorial capacity, knowing what the important main points are, knowing how to have a single main idea and execute on that-like those-are really human things that are skills that you have. To practice over a lifetime,

Reggie · 55:01
I would even say is when you were saying earlier that you would part of your creative process is finding something and copying it, and then finding something else and copying it and merging the two. But also the human element there is you knowing whether this was good or not, and that's the thing that I don't think AI can do. AI will. You're like, hey, I want something like this, this, or whatever. It'll take all those things and slop it together, and like, here you go. Except you are looking at and going, that's not good.

Tim · 55:31
I would say from a personal perspective, and I want to speak for anyone who's using AI or have tried to use AI to write emails and messages, because I think there is a fear that you're going to say something the wrong way or not be clear, and when when I first started using AI, I was using it to write my emails. I'm like, oh, this thing writes way better than me. That's what I thought. I'm like, this thing's awesome. I sound like the best writer CEO ever, and I used it for a while, and then I worked with this guy, and he was sending these emails, and they were so well written. And at first, I didn't get it. I didn't like put it together, and I was like, "Man, this guy's like, he's good with words. I don't know why I didn't like put this together first, but then I was like, "This guy's using AI on me, and I felt like a little bit slighted by a little bit. I was like, we're like, we know each other. Why are you using AI on me? And that's a funny way to put it. My favorite verb, AI on me. I got AI, and so I started not using AI. And I'll say this for you as you're coming into your career and as you're trying to put yourself out there, that who you are and how you communicate is part of you, part of your rhythm,

Reggie · 56:44
part of your authentication, part of

Tim · 56:45
people getting to know you. I think that there are times when you can make an email clearer if you got like 15 points and you need them to be organized. AI can help you with that. But the thing about relationship, which is how we get work, which is how we move through the world is you can't build relationship behind something writing and being trying to be you. Yeah, yeah. But the consequence right now, and I'll say this at the same time, the consequence of saying the wrong thing is so intense right now. Like if you go on LinkedIn and you're trying to be your authentic self, and you say something like, "I think influencers are icky, and a bunch of influencers jump on board, and they're like, "This person has no idea what she's talking about. She's an idiot.

Reggie · 57:24
Canceling consequence

Tim · 57:27
of that opinion and that thing is great. So there is this there is this decision we have to make as to whether or not the consequence is equal to the truth.

Reggie · 57:39
I think I think there's a balance. I think you ultimately, and this is what I would say to you, Camille, is write using your own voice. Just do the thing, and if you're gonna use AI, use it to say, "Hey, check this out. Is there anything here you point out? And you can take or leave what it gives you, but you are starting with your own authentic voice. If you

Tim · 57:58
were to write, let me let me push back on that. If you were to write to me, knowing me, like after this chaos, and you were to write to me in AI, I would not know where you are in your journey.

Reggie · 58:10
Oh, and that's what I would not know your pacing. I would not know your. You're getting to know AI. If

Tim · 58:15
you talk to me in the way you talk to me, I would know where you are and how I can connect with you.

Speaker · 58:20
Yeah, you know what I'm saying. If you

Tim · 58:22
come at me and you're speaking in AI CEO language or AI creative, you're a you're a creative writer with 15 plus years experience and you know how to get jobs with agency owners. And then you write me that email, I'm not going to have a clue as to how you fit in.

Reggie · 58:37
Yeah, no, it's a really good point.

Tim · 58:38
Know you,

Camille · 58:39
right?

Reggie · 58:39
Yeah,

Tim · 58:39
I'll hear some weird bullshit pulled from generic sources, but if you reach out to me and you're like, "Hey, I'm Camille. I would love to have a meeting, and and if there's even if there's awkwardness or weirdness, I know that this person is this person. Yeah, it's real, and they're real.

Speaker · 58:59
It's

Reggie · 59:00
real and it's her voice. Like you know that there's some continuity between what you hear when you talk to her versus what she's writing.

Tim · 59:07
Right. So there is continuity there when you finally meet them, but you also have grace and warmth in that community. Yeah. Versus trying to put something out to someone you've never met.

Camille · 59:16
Yeah. You see what I'm

Tim · 59:17
saying? That that's where I think AI is confusing

Jenn · 59:20
us. Yeah. Because

Camille · 59:21
warm invite versus a cold invite. Yeah,

Tim · 59:23
definitely. And people think, well, if I just write the perfect email, I'll get the job. But you don't realize that you're going to have to go through levels of interviews and relationship building that will unravel the thing that AI tried to make so easy and make your ideas are so great, and it makes this flattery happen that confuses us about where we are.

Speaker · 59:40
Yeah.

Tim · 59:40
And so if back to that network thing, if you figure that out, if we all figure that out, because I forget that we can choose who we want to be connected to. You know, it doesn't have to be like some kind of like a star has fallen and now we're connected to this person. But you can like say, I know this person, I want to connect to them more.

Camille · 59:57
Yeah,

Tim · 59:57
I'm gonna call them and see if they want to do coffee or I want to like. Go to a show that they're doing. Know the

Reggie · 1:00:02
real you, like people like us who are industry creatives who have been in this for so long. People know our voice. People know, and so we can't just start using AI to talk to do our billing. Like,

Tim · 1:00:12
yeah. And now, like with with kids, I have three kids. Reggie has four kids, and I have a

Camille · 1:00:18
dog. I'm a child of four dogs. You're a child of four.

Tim · 1:00:21
So when you have kids that grow up in a time when everything you do can get permanently recorded,

Reggie · 1:00:28
yes,

Tim · 1:00:29
that is a scary place because there's no grace for them to be stupid. Yeah, we are all stupid. We've all been stupid. Oh

Reggie · 1:00:36
yeah,

Tim · 1:00:36
just instantly. And we could do it. We had do-overs and people

Reggie · 1:00:40
forgot about it a week later. I did

Tim · 1:00:42
wrong things. Oh, it lives

Reggie · 1:00:43
forever. Yeah, there's a Polaroid

Jenn · 1:00:45
of my stupidity hidden somewhere. Right, right, right. Fantastic, right? But

Reggie · 1:00:49
you'll never find. Yeah, but it's

Tim · 1:00:50
not worth my world. Oh my god. Right. So there is this fear right now. This consequence that it makes it scary to experience your wildness. Your yeah. On

Camille · 1:01:03
the topic of influencers, I think those like simple mistakes that are so scary to make. That's exactly why cancel culture is a thing. Like someone makes arguably a simple mistake, or maybe they're really out outrageous or whatever. But why should a simple mistake warrant cancelation if we're all human? If we're all, I think it's what you're saying. And why should this person now be

Reggie · 1:01:22
ousted forever?

Camille · 1:01:24
Yes, but if you're

Tim · 1:01:25
speaking and you make a mistake within your community, you're. It's very rare you're going to get canceled. Before they like talk to you and like really fucked up.

Reggie · 1:01:33
Yeah, yeah.

Tim · 1:01:33
And you're like, oh, sorry, I did. I really did. Get

Reggie · 1:01:36
to explain, like you know what? I wasn't thinking. I had a bad day. This guy cut me off in traffic and blah blah blah blah blah, and then you land there, but you don't get that grace. We got that grace growing up, but you don't get that grace. We need to

Tim · 1:01:49
provide.

Reggie · 1:01:49
It's like this is the thing that gets snapshotted and sent around the world, and everybody's seeing these four seconds of your accident, and they're gonna judge you by that.

Tim · 1:01:59
You're gonna be that for the rest of you

Reggie · 1:02:00
without any context, and that's it.

Speaker · 1:02:02
Yeah, and

Tim · 1:02:03
so so I'm like, what if

Reggie · 1:02:05
challenging?

Tim · 1:02:05
We turned away from this the influence, the influencer world for ourselves, and this is getting too complicated. What if we focused on our influence within our warm network? What if that was where we influence and are influenced?

Jenn · 1:02:23
Yeah, I like that. I

Reggie · 1:02:25
like that.

Tim · 1:02:26
It doesn't have to be about the black hole because that's like it's like a room of mirrors and weird, funny. And

Jenn · 1:02:30
we're so bad at nurturing our warm networks. When I say we, I don't necessarily mean the amazing people in this room. No, but like I, you know, I struggle with it too, that was my struggle for the first, you know, five years of moving to Asheville. Was this fear of like, how do I meet the people who are going to be my people, right? How do I? How do you make friends? How do you make those connections? Because we're stuck in our little, and it's so much easier to be like, you know what? I'm just going to go watch some Netflix than it is to invest in those times that might be awkward. That might you might make a mistake. Like all of those things, we have to retrain ourselves.

Reggie · 1:03:14
Put ourselves out

Jenn · 1:03:15
there. Yeah, to put ourselves out there to say yes to an invitation to make an invitation.

Tim · 1:03:20
Yeah, that's

Jenn · 1:03:21
so hard for people. It's a muscle you have to build. And

Tim · 1:03:24
I was on the I was on the drive here this morning, and I was you know nervous because this is nerve wracking sometimes. And so I'm like getting all in my head, and I'm listening to what's that the iron the song from AC/DC that's in Iron Man. What's it called? Ah, oh, son loves it. I heard

Reggie · 1:03:40
that song because my son and I just watch Iron Man. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tim · 1:03:45
Anyway, I'm listening to a song, like pepping myself up. I can't think of it. I cannot. All right, I'll have to put. I'll have to get Will to put it over my face when I this is edited. Anyway, I'm listening to a song and I'm and I turn down this road. I'm drop my kid off at preschool, and I turn down this road, and it's someone I know and his kid. And I'm like, ah, I'm not in the mindset to talk to this guy because, like, is it awkward? And I'm just like, I'm feeling nervous already. We're in a different space. So I almost reversed in the road to not run by this guy, but I was like, stupid! I'm like so lame. So I just drove up to them, rolled on my window, and had this fun little interaction with him and his son. And after, I felt pumped. More that drive-through. You

Reggie · 1:04:34
meant drive-up line at school, right?

Tim · 1:04:35
Right. I was at drive-up line at school, but then there was the drive. No, no, not there. Sorry, I was already outside of the Dunkin'

Jenn · 1:04:41
Donuts, and I was just like, "I

Reggie · 1:04:43
was like, I am not going through with this.

Tim · 1:04:46
No, I was already out of the school and going down the road, coming here.

Reggie · 1:04:49
Okay,

Tim · 1:04:49
and they were walking down the road because their children, their their daughter goes to the school street. And so I was like, "Yeah, I don't want to have this interaction right now. And then, and then I had this feeling, like you're saying, like. Why do we avoid these?

Jenn · 1:05:01
Yeah,

Tim · 1:05:02
I think they're almost divine in a way. They're like a spark of the moment. Like life gives you this little thing that's scary, and it says face this moment, and then you like

Reggie · 1:05:12
it's an irrational fear. If there's no logical reason for you to like a murderer, interact with this guy, yeah, match it or something. Like if this guy threatened your life or something, you're like, hell yeah, I'm reversing here.

Tim · 1:05:22
It's not dangerous situation, but I walk, I drove up to them, rolled down my window, had this fun conversation, and I literally came here with a whole different vibe. Yeah,

Reggie · 1:05:31
yeah,

Tim · 1:05:31
changed because you

Reggie · 1:05:32
leaned into it. Yeah, I love

Camille · 1:05:33
it. The best I've advice I've gotten was when I was in high school playing soccer, and my coach told me to be uncomfortable in the uncomfortable. Yes, I love that.

Tim · 1:05:43
Cannot practice that. No,

Camille · 1:05:44
I know. Not enough. Yeah, that's what that. That's what that reminded me of.

Tim · 1:05:48
What would you say? Any what ifs in this group?

Reggie · 1:05:50
I would say, what if we lean into the uncomfortable? What if we use our own human condition and move towards the things that we find scary, because like you found out, it totally changed the course of your day. Did

Jenn · 1:06:09
what if we influenced towards friendship and relationship? Here

Tim · 1:06:15
we go. Yeah, that's another name for what I was meaning by warm network.

Jenn · 1:06:19
Yeah, exactly. Literally, friends.

Speaker · 1:06:21
I

Reggie · 1:06:21
love it.

Jenn · 1:06:22
What if we were like, if you become the catalyst to say, like, I'm gonna say hi to that guy. I'm gonna reach out to that person. I'm gonna ask Gregory to go get coffee with me. Like all of those things. Like what changes in your life? Let's go get some coffee. Yes.

Reggie · 1:06:38
Yes.

Tim · 1:06:38
All right. Final question for this episode. What brand would you like to be an influencer for? Oh, I

Reggie · 1:06:45
know. Ooh, Banana Republic.

Tim · 1:06:51
Banana Republic. Yeah, baby, that's good.

Jenn · 1:06:56
Rivian. That's

Reggie · 1:06:58
a great one. That brand has me in their crotch.

Tim · 1:07:02
Yes. that's such a Dina the Forest. We were talking about he just had a brand at Rivian.

Camille · 1:07:06
No way. Yeah, for years. You go first because I don't know when. I don't know either. I think I would do something in music or like production, something like that. I know that's not a brand, but

Speaker · 1:07:17
I love that. Can't think of an

Camille · 1:07:18
exact.

Tim · 1:07:20
I'm just gonna say the one that comes to my mind because it relates to a past story. No, I'm not gonna do that. That was not right. No, you gotta tell us what it was gonna be. Yeah, it was gonna be North Face.

Reggie · 1:07:30
Oh, I love North Face. Yeah,

Tim · 1:07:33
but I need a car, so maybe it should be something like Rivian.

Reggie · 1:07:36
I need a car.

Jenn · 1:07:38
Rivian, if you're listening,

Reggie · 1:07:39
I know what's Ben and

Tim · 1:07:40
I would love to influence.

Reggie · 1:07:42
Yeah, yeah. What's another

Speaker · 1:07:44
Land Rover? Huh?

Tim · 1:07:47
No, not Land Rover. What?

Reggie · 1:07:48
Oh, Land Rover. Yeah, that's a great. That's a great brand. I love Land Rover.

Tim · 1:07:53
Land Cruiser, Toy to Land Cruiser. All right, I'll be an influencer toy Land Cruiser. I'll just drive down the road, like

Reggie · 1:07:59
I could see you getting out and looking stoic outside of your car, looking out towards the mountains. Yeah.

Tim · 1:08:08
This has been really fun. I know.

Camille · 1:08:09
Yeah. It's been fun. So much for having

Reggie · 1:08:13
us. Yes.

Jenn · 1:08:13
Thanks for

Reggie · 1:08:14
being here.

Jenn · 1:08:15
Can we stay here permanently? Yeah.

Tim · 1:08:16
Just use your spot. Actually,

Jenn · 1:08:18
knock for the rest of the day and watch you work.

Reggie · 1:08:21
You don't have to go anywhere. Just hang out. All right. Got an observation window to my. Perfect. Perfect. You're doing

Jenn · 1:08:27
it wrong, Reggie.

Tim · 1:08:29
All right. I'm going to send this off. For those of you watched all the way to this point, thank you.

Jenn · 1:08:34
Yeah.

Tim · 1:08:34
Definitely wasted a lot of time, and we appreciate that. It's a high value, your time. Thank you for being here. We appreciate you. Bye bye. Bye. All right. Drop your microphone. Get that photo on your seat for the will.

Speaker · 1:08:52
Thanks for listening. This podcast was created and developed by our hosts Reggie Tidwell, Tim Scroggs, Mary Greene, and Dylan Garcia. Very special thanks to our guest hosts Jenn Maer and Camille Kurle. Produced by Mary Greene. Live production and editing by me, Will Canady. Graphic design by Dylan Garcia, and set design by Megan Scroggs. Today's episode is presented lovingly by 40 hearts, creators of enduring value.