#34 Creativity Inc: The Autobiography of the founder of Pixar

**David Senra** (0:00)
I want to tell you about a one time only limited event that I don't think you're going to want to miss. I am doing a live show with Patrick O'Shaughnessy from the Invest Like the Best podcast in New York City on October 19th. Patrick has interviewed over 300 of the world's best investors and founders for his podcast. I've read over 300 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs for my podcast. We'll be talking about what we learned from seven years of podcasting, sharing our favorite ideas and stories, and doing a live Q&A. There will also be special event-only swag. If you live in New York City, I think it's a no-brainer. But if not, I think it's a great excuse to fly in. I've already heard from a bunch of people that bought tickets, they're flying in from other cities. Some people are flying in from other countries. That's setting the bar really high, so I will have at least four shots of espresso or four energy drinks before or during the show, so we can make it a night that you'll never forget. If you're interested in attending this unique live event, I will leave a link down below. I highly recommend you get your tickets today, and I hope I get to see you in New York on October 19th. I've said it before, but it bears repeating. Things change constantly, as they should. And with change comes the need for adaptation, for fresh thinking, and sometimes for even a total reboot of your project, your department, your division, or your company as a whole. In times of change, we need support from our families and our colleagues. I'm reminded here of a letter written by one of our animators, Austin Madison, which I found particularly uplifting. To whom it may inspire, Austin wrote, I, like many of you artists out there, constantly shift between two states. The first, and far more preferable of the two, is white hot in the zone, seat of the pants, firing on all cylinders, creative mode. This is when you lay your pen down and the ideas pour out of you like wine from a royal chalice. This happens about 3% of the time. The other 97% of the time, I am in the frustrated, struggling, office corner full of crumpled up paper mode. The important thing is to slog diligently through this quagmire of discouragement and despair. Put on some audio commentary and listen to the stories of professionals who have been making films for decades, going through the same slings and arrows of outrageous production problems.
In a word, persist. Persist on telling your story, persist on reaching your audience, persist on staying true to your vision.
I couldn't have put it any better. My goal has never been to tell people how Pixar and Disney figured it all out, but rather to show how we continue to figure it out, every hour of every day, how we persist.
The future is not a destination, it is a direction. The truth is, as challenges emerge, mistakes will always be made, and our work is never done. We will have problems, many of which are hidden from our view. We must work to uncover them and assess our own role in them, even if doing so means making ourselves uncomfortable.
When we come across a problem, we must marshal all of our energies to solve it. If those assertions sound familiar, that's because I used them to kick off this book. There's something else that bears repeating here. Unleashing creativity requires that we loosen the controls, accept risk, trust our colleagues, work to clear the path for them, and pay attention to anything that creates fear.
Doing all of these things won't necessarily make the job of managing a creative culture easier. But ease isn't the goal.
Excellence is.
Okay, so that was from the end of the book that I want to talk to you about.
And that is Creativity Inc. Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration. And it's written by one of the co-founders of the company, Pixar.
So I'm going to go back to the beginning of the book and move through in a chronological order, as always, hitting the highlights and the ideas that stuck out to me. And hopefully you find these ideas useful in your day-to-day as well. So I want to first talk... So I guess I should start here. Most of you know, especially if you've listened to all of my past podcasts, that Steve Jobs was one of the co-founders of Pixar. And as such, Ed learned a lot from Steve.
And we're going to cover a lot of the lessons that Ed picked up from Steve. I've read Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, and I also read Becoming Steve Jobs. And there's a few more books that I'll eventually talk about the life of Steve Jobs that I'll cover in future Founders episodes. But I have to say, even after reading those other two books, there's a lot of Steve Jobs stories in here that I haven't heard anywhere else. Okay, so this is from the introduction of the book. This is the working environment at Pixar and what Ed thinks makes Pixar successful. I am struck by the unique culture that defines this place.