“I love being entrepreneurial because it’s really just about getting to play MacGyver, but for business.” -Tony Hsieh Welcome to a very special episode of CREATIVE PROCESSING! This episode was recorded live in collaboration with Talkhouse Podcast at the Life Is Beautiful Music and Arts Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada. For this episode, Joe sat down with the CEO of Zappos, Tony Hsieh, where they took a deep dive into discussing the parallels of artistic and entrepreneurial creativity, and how technology will shape the future of collaboration. As we start to develop the future of CREATIVE PROCESSING, we would love to hear your thoughts on Season 1! What were your favorite moments? What should we change? What should we keep? Let us know! Send us your thoughts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram using the #creativeprocessing, or via email at creativeprocessing@hitrecord.org. Subscribe for updates on future episodes of CREATIVE PROCESSING. Thank you for listening! Learn more about your ...
“You have to push yourself outside of your comfort zone. You have to allow yourself to fail. Once you get over the fear of failure, then you will start to find where your happiness lies, and if ‘good enough’ is sufficient or not.” - Jessica Alba This is the last episode of the season! I've really enjoyed the podcast medium, and I appreciate the audience that this show has gathered, so thank you for listening. The guest this week is Jessica Alba. She’s an incredibly successful actress and entrepreneur. She co-founded The Honest Company, which has not only been extremely successful and lucrative, but also something that’s positive. She’s acted in a number of movies including Honey, Into the Blue, Good Luck Chuck, Fantastic Four, and Sin City (where we first got to know each other). She’s incredibly talented, smart, and just such a cool person. She continues to push herself beyond her limits, which I think is what makes her the perfect guest to answer this week’s question from...
“From an actor's perspective...you have to be prepared for it to be really hard because there's so many factors that are influencing why you get a role and why you don't get a role. When you go into an audition, leave it in the room— otherwise it's too hard on your heart. And getting into those rooms is also tough, but you should try every avenue you can find and think of.” -Mary Vernieu This week’s guest is the incredibly smart and accomplished casting director Mary Venieu. Some of her recent casting credits include Euphoria, A Star Is Born, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and Hobbs & Shaw. She repeatedly works with some of my favorite directors including Darren Aronofsky, Robert Rodriguez, and our friend Rian Johnson. She casted me in Rian’s movie Looper, and also casted the movie I wrote and directed: Don Jon. Mary is incredibly talented at what she does, which made her perfect to answer this week’s question from Monica Patricio from Lima, Peru. Monica asked, ““How much do cont...
“Making things ‘easy’ always has a downside...To pretend that you can make something easy without losing some of your focus and discipline is always a fallacy. There's always going to be a tradeoff.” -Jaron Lanier This week’s guest is Jaron Lanier, who I’ve been fortunate to become friends with over the last number of years. He’s a technologist, computer scientist, musician, writer, and artist who is perhaps most well known for being one of the pioneers of virtual reality. My first exposure to Jaron was through his books, which I highly recommend you check out. I’ve listed where you can find them in the bottom of the description. Jaron is incredibly funny and just an extraordinary conversationalist, who I honestly could have talked with for days. His combination of an incredibly creative mind with a technological, computer-scientist mind made him perfect to answer this week’s question from Chrissy Regler from Dorset, England. Chrissy asked, “How do you feel the digital era...
“When you're an artist, it's not a button you can push on or off. You're always an actor. I sleep as an actor. I wake up as an actor.... I always think about art and creativity, and that's all I want to do.” -Omid Memar This week’s guest is Omid Memar. He’s a fantastic actor who I recently was able to work with for an upcoming movie called 7500 (we actually recorded this episode at the movie’s premiere in Switzerland). Omid’s acting is incredibly honest and real and heartbreaking and human. He also comes from a very culturally-rich background— he’s from an Iranian family, grew up in Austria, moved to Munich, and graduated from a French school. He’s a young guy that’s really just getting started in his career, so I thought he would be perfect to answer this week’s question from Megan Colbert in Springfield, New York. Megan asked, “How do you balance the inner need to create with the practical need to bring in a paycheck?” Omid and I talk about what it’s like to be up-an...
“A lot of people often think of rationality as actually about removing your emotions entirely, but I disagree with that because emotions are what ultimately make us human...To be truly rational, we have to learn to work with our emotions— not completely eradicate them.’” -Liv Boeree My guest this week is Liv Boeree— a magnificent thinker, writer, and speaker. Liv is one of the most successful professional poker players of all time (she is the only woman in history to win both the World Series of Poker and European Poker Tour Championships). On top of all that, she also just happens to have a degree in astrophysics. She’s an all around fantastic person to have a conversation with, and was particularly great at answering this week’s question from Kent Wilson from Nashville, Tennessee. Kent asked, “When does data-backed decision making begin to have a negative impact on the creative process?” Liv and I get into a great discussion on what constitutes analytical thinking, what t...
“There’s times before my mom and I are about to go onstage to play together, and maybe we just argued right before going on. But there’s something about that moment... where I give her a kiss on the cheek and say, ‘Hey, this started with you and me. Let’s go out there and do this.’” -Madisen Ward My guests this week are Madisen and Ruth Ward, who together are known as the mother-and-son folk band Madisen Ward and the Mama Bear. They’ve appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, NPR’s Tiny Desk Series, and recently released a brand new album called Started With A Family (if you haven’t heard their music yet, I highly suggest you take a listen). For this episode, Madisen, Ruth and I tackled a question from Paige Elson from Stockton, California. Paige asked, “What are the benefits and setbacks of working creatively with family?” I’ve always been curious to know how family fits into creativity. Where does creativity come from? Do you get it from your parent’s genes or...
For this episode, I’m going to do something a little different. I recently did a TED Talk, and there was something really distinct and special about it. I’m pretty used to performing on stage in front of people as a character or for a show, but it felt different to be on stage delivering in-depth thoughts of my own about an idea that’s important to me. I’m putting this TED Talk on my podcast because it’s about how the creative process can be affected by the attention-driven model of big tech companies, and how you can feel a difference when you try to pay attention vs. get attention. We’ll be back next week with more episodes of CREATIVE PROCESSING. I hope you enjoy. For more TED Talks, subscribe to the podcast TED Talks Daily, where they post a new idea every day. It’s available anywhere you listen to podcasts. Thanks! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
“At the end of the day, I’d rather make stuff period than make stuff how I want to make stuff. And specific to us, I’d rather make stuff together even than stuff alone.” -Evan Goldberg My guests this week are the comedy duo Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. You've probably heard of their movies Pineapple Express, This Is The End, Neighbors, Superbad, Sausage Party, and most recently Good Boys. They’ve also ventured into the entrepreneurial space with their own cannabis brand, Houseplant. I’ve known these guys are a while, and have had the pleasure of working with them on 50/50 and The Night Before. Seth and Evan are unique in that they do a vast majority of their creative work as a duo. Because of this, I thought they would make the perfect pair for this week’s question. For this episode, Seth, Evan and I discussed a question from Pretince Martin Southwell from Springfield Illinois. Pretince asked, “Have you had people you didn’t get along with personally turn out to be good to...
“To me, it's not about really external/internal. It's about a pipe between me and others...I have all these thoughts and I want to express them all, but people are not always ready to receive them. Then when you get together and express something...sometimes I can find a pipe where we can connect.” -Yuka Honda My guest this week is Yuka Honda- a musician, composer, producer and all around fantastic artist. She’s one half of the duo Cibo Matto, and has worked with a range of musicians: from well-known artists such as the Beastie Boys, Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon, to lesser-known but no-less-incredible artists such as Petra Haden, Mike Watt, and Medeski Martin & Wood. Her latest work is a multi-media operatic theatre piece called No Revenge Necessary. She’s done so many great things over the years, and is a dear friend whom I was excited to sit down and have a conversation with. For this episode, Yuka and I explored a question from Melissa Hui from San Francisco, CA. Melissa asked, ...