Beck: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Chat GTM podcast. Whatever time of day you happen to be chiming in, morning, noon, or night, we're happy to have you as our guest. My name's Michael Beck. I'm your irrascible host at Inktank GTM, the little company that puts on this little podcast. And joining me is almost always, I'm gonna say it, one my best friends, my business partner, my co-host on the show, Mr. Chad Horn. How you doing today, Chad?
Chad: Doing good back. It's Friday and we have a top tier guest on the program today who inspires us both to a great degree.
Beck: I'm losing my mind. I mean, every figure in my room is starting to walk around trying to figure what's going on here and and and what's what's happening next. And I I don't know if they can really control themselves, but really, you know Like I said before we we started this recording, I am a fanboy of this particular speaker, this person, this this entity. So we saw him last year for the first time at the Prosper Accelerate Conference, in that he taught us about the value of the digital doppelganger, which we leaned into heavily because we were figuring that stuff
Chad: Mm-hmm. yeah.
Beck: out then at the time, right? And there's people that come and they talk about, you know, the world and then doom saying, what's coming next, and and and forecasting. And then there's people that talk about good business and it feels very technical. And what I love about this this this guest is he makes everything very accessible and warm and relatable and human. And I think that's probably one of his superpowers is human his humanity when I see him. Like he puts himself out there from his don't stop
Chad: Yeah.
Beck: believing when he rocks onto the stage to like just I'm
Chad: Leaves it all out on the field.
Beck: gonna say it all giving zero fucks. about how he's perceived and just rocking his authentic self and that I I I we need more of that in the world. And so Chad, who am I talking about so the so the w they know before I start doing my read in?
Chad: Great Andrew Davis.
Beck: The one and only. Yes. Andrew Davis. And so we met him, like I said, at the Prosper Accelerate Last Conference last year and then just recently in Orlando at the Prosper Forum. And I'm telling you, I I hope he's there every year. I hope we get to see him. And if not, we gotta just start buying tickets to where he's doing his stuff. Because honestly, guys, if you haven't Yeah, if you
Chad: I thought about that too.
Beck: haven't heard him speak, this is the s hands down, the single best keynote on the circuit. I would recommend anybody To have them on there. And this by every everybody, this is not a paid thing. This is just two guys that vibe hard on what somebody else puts out there in the world. And every now and then you come across something going, I want everybody to know about this. This is one of the people I want everybody know about. So, all right, without further ado, I'll do a do my quick read-in because
Chad: Let's go, let's go.
Beck: I'm just over over the moon here and I'm highly caffeine this morning. Sorry about that in advance, Andrew. but for our guest today, it's Mr. Andrew Davis. And so every business says it wants more creativity. All right, let's think about that. And the thing that we've been taught over time is that we might have it actually completely backwards, right? That idea of think out of the box. And so today's guest is Andrew Davis. He's the best-selling author of brandscaping and town ink and co-author of The Referrable Speaker. He's an internationally acclaimed keynote speaker and a guy whose career has included everything from producing for NBC and this is where I lose it, working with the Muppets. and we recently watched Andrew speak about his cube. Creativity and one idea followed me home. Constraints don't kill creativity, they fuel it. Think about that, right? So we'll get into that. And that's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about that box. We're going to talk about AI, attention, and why sometimes having less might be exactly what produces something remarkable. So, with that being said, Andrew Davis, welcome to the stage.
Andrew Davis: Yay, thank you guys so much. It's so fun to be here and I love seeing Beaker, you know, show up there. I love it. I love it.
Beck: One more time. Okay, sorry. But the lab won't catch on fire this time. Nothing's gonna go wrong. We've got this one down. Yeah,
Andrew Davis: Nothing Thank you. Thank you. That's
Beck: absolutely. So first off, how you doing today, Andrew?
Andrew Davis: I'm good. I'm so excited to be hanging out with you guys again after after this, like Prosper form was great. Prosper Accelerate last year was so much fun. So
Beck: Right.
Andrew Davis: it's nice to be able to hang out and spend some time together, you know, outside of the forums.
Beck: And where on the planet are you today? Are you back in Boca or wherever in Florida Florida you reside?
Andrew Davis: I'm back in Boca. just got back. was speaking in Mission, Texas yesterday, which is like southwest Texas. And just got back and now I'm spending the day hanging out with you guys.
Beck: Fantastic.
Chad: What what keynote number was that? Are you past five hundred already?
Andrew Davis: man, I think a little bit past probably
Chad: Okay.
Andrew Davis: 510 515 or something over the last 10 years, something like that. No, I didn't. I should have. I feel like it should be.
Chad: Did you celebrate the five hundred milestone? Dang it.
Andrew Davis: I feel like there should be some sort of celebration. We should figure that out. I'll do 550. That's right. Exactly. Exactly.
Chad: Okay.
Beck: There we go. When when the odometer rolls over. Yeah. I love it.
Chad: Ha ha.
Beck: I love Hey, just out of curiosity, for the people who are out there swinging away at this kind of stuff and they You know, I'd love to get on stage one day. How do you get tapped for something like that? What was your first keynote that you ever did?
Andrew Davis: my lord, first key, my first, well first of all, my first speaking engagement was like, I showed up early for a conference. I think it was called the content conference. this is like 2007 or 2008 in, in Miami, Florida. And I got there early cause I'm an early person and the event organizer was like, hi, like here's your name badge. Like, what do you do? I told her that I was like working in a marketing agency in Boston and she said, that's how that sounds great. Hey, you know what? what are you doing at 10 o'clock? And I was like, well, I'm here all day. She was like, well,
Chad: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: we just had someone canceled. Do you want to talk about content marketing at 10 o'clock? And I was like, I mean, I guess I can. And so I skipped the opening sessions from like 9 a.m., 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. I went back to my room and then I came down and, you know, four people showed up to the room because they had made a big announcement that so-and-so wasn't here and that this random person was showing up to do it. But I had so much fun and we got one like prospect. that turned into a client out of that one session. So that was my first, you know, like breakout session. And I started to realize that maybe there was something here from a business standpoint, like maybe we could generate leads for the business. So that's how I got started. And my first keynote, Lord, I can't, I honestly don't remember, but it's, I'm sure it came from one of those breakout sessions where somebody was like, wow, we have a big, it might've been the New England magazine. No, the New England Mail Order Association Conference, is held in Boston in like 2009. it was real niche. I'm telling you, I learned
Beck: Boy, that sounds niche.
Chad: Ha ha
Andrew Davis: so much about I've spoken at some really amazing events where I've learned so many things about stuff I never thought I'd know. You know, like I spoke at the niche magazine conference a couple of times and every time it's
Beck: It was actually called Nich Magazine.
Andrew Davis: called this magazine and they're like my favorite magazine that was there was manure magazine, like manure magazine.
Beck: wow.
Andrew Davis: And it was about
Chad: Wow.
Andrew Davis: it was basically about, you know, all the kinds of manure you need. It was it was crazy. It was awesome.
Beck: That's so funny. That that's like watching the Ocho on Dodgeball, like the obscure sports weekly or something. That
Andrew Davis: Yes, that's what it is. I'm telling you and every time you turn around there's something new There's like like there were like ten horse magazines, which blew my mind There was a there's a magazine just for people who raised chickens There was There was a Like a sewer pipe monthly magazine. There's a porta potty magazine. I'm telling you if they're If there's a magazine for everything, I was convinced after that.
Beck: Yeah.
Chad: And there's a conference for everything.
Andrew Davis: There's a, every one of those magazines, you're right, Chad has a conference, which is why it became a great Legion source for me, because then I've spoken at like, you know, Parenting Magazine and I didn't speak at the manure conference. I guess I don't, I don't have enough crap for that. It was terrible. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Beck: He's not full of S H I T enough for us. so Andrew, the thing I gotta ask you before we go into all this stuff is as I was thinking about you and even as I was introducing you, the the thing that I I have to believe that people love about you so much is your authenticity and I don't know that you call it bravery. I don't think even bravery bakes into that. You're just you and you own it, right? But I I I have to think and maybe I'm wrong. That you didn't come out of the shoot just like that, your first keynote, your keep first presentation. Do you play it safe back then and you or did you or or were you just all in or did you start giving yourself permission to be more and more you each time?
Andrew Davis: I think it's a little bit of both. I honestly, the, the very first time I presented that one time, I just kind of like through all the slides I'd ever put together into one presentation and,
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: about 10 minutes in, I realized there was no way I was going to get through it all. So I kind of went faster than I probably should have, which I think increased my energy. So, you know, the four people that were there were like, wow, you have so much energy and you're so,
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: it seemed like you're really passionate. You know, that's nice. but I think over time I kind of. I've tried to learn to harness it in the right kinds of ways. So
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: I do try to cover a lot. I try to make sure that, you know, there's value for everyone in the audience, but my, like, I, you know, I still get nervous before every speech. And I think that nervous energy comes out as kind of just who I am after
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: that. I did, I have had people tell me, had someone tell me that I prowl on stage and I was like, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
Beck: You do a lot of movement. I've been trying to film you and you move a lot, which is great. Yeah.
Andrew Davis: I do a lot of movement. Yeah, exactly. It's like,
Chad: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew Davis: So I've even tried to calm that down. But yeah, I mean, you're basically getting like an unfiltered version of me.
Beck: And and has always Don't Tell Believing been your walk in music, or is this something like
Andrew Davis: No, no, this is a that's that's just for the cube of creativity. There's
Beck: okay.
Andrew Davis: I have turned down for what for like the curiosity factor. I
Beck: Ha ha ha ha!
Andrew Davis: have like Intergalactic from the Beastie Boys, you know, you
Beck: Yeah, that's a good track.
Andrew Davis: know, I just I have a
Beck: Okay.
Chad: Ha ha
Andrew Davis: wide range of music options and sometimes sometimes it doesn't fit the audience. So they won't let me use it. And, know, I get generic conference music, but that's OK. It's yeah, I'm there for the audience.
Beck: Well yeah, a crowd full of Ben Stein's that Ben Stein's it might not bive vibe with.
Andrew Davis: Exactly, exactly, might not work exactly the same, so I get it.
Beck: All right. So let's let's let's go and track in on the subject
Chad: Right. Yeah.
Beck: and then then I know Chad's as eager to pile in on me on this as I am. I know. I know. So so
Chad: there's a gazillion questions, but yeah, whatever.
Beck: Andrew, start us off here, right? Our whole lives we've been or most of us have been told, right, think outside of the box. You said it in your presentation at at Ex at Prosper and and you and and you emphatically said something that's kinda contrarian to what everybody's been told lately, which is that's not really how it should work. And So why might the box actually be where we our best ideas live?
Andrew Davis: Okay, so like it turns out that that whenever you you're told to think outside the box and like it seems like all there's all these unlimited possibilities out there. I get why that's exciting. Like it sounds
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Davis: fun to just think of anything and then throw it on the board. And like this sounds like a great idea. But the truth is when it comes to executing that stuff for your specific business, even if you even if you looked at like the competition, you said, wow, they're doing some cool stuff. What if we do what they do? Well, their limitations are different than your limitations. Their business
Beck: Uh-huh.
Andrew Davis: is different than your business. Their people, their finances, all of those things are different. And so you end up maybe not being as successful as you'd hoped you'd be, even though you went on this journey with this blue sky, everything, think outside the box thinking. And it turns out the people who kind of don't do that, who say, hey, look, I want you to just embrace the constraints. I want you to I want you to think about the business we're running. And I want you to look at, you know, what we're trying to do, a very specific goal. And I want you to work with inside this box to accomplish the same or similar goal as even the competition. You start to become much more creative, like you're looking for solutions that fit your problem instead of looking
Beck: Right.
Andrew Davis: for any solution. And you actually end up with better outcomes faster. So instead of just hoping that somebody comes up with a genius idea that happens to stick. you're actually coming up with very productive, highly focused ideas that you know you can execute and then might stick. And I think that's the big difference. Yeah, they're in the box. I mean, like if you remember MacGyver, you remember MacGyver? I mean,
Beck: Why do I have a feeling you learned this on Gilligan's Island? They're in a box. They did a lot of creative stuff on there. Yeah. Yeah.
Chad: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: MacGyver
Chad: Yes.
Andrew Davis: was like the, like he's the poster child for embracing constraints. It's like, if you have some gum and a toothpick and a staple and one little half of a gum wrapper, Like you can get out of any situation you don't need because I mean if McGuire McGyver was like how do get out of this? Anyone good ideas? Anyone a good idea? They'd be like well you you need some explosives and a tank. Yeah exactly. Exactly exactly.
Beck: bomb would blow up in McGruber.
Andrew Davis: It's McGroover. my camera's like.
Beck: Chad, I I I've been I've been stealing this, so go go for it.
Chad: So so you had four constraints that you listed in your keynote and of those four, I mean rattle them off, but then which one is the one that people fight against the
Andrew Davis: Hmm.
Chad: most?
Andrew Davis: OK, I'll just rattle them off. The first one is eliminate the unnecessary. The second one is like define a very clear singular outcome. The third one is further limit the options, which means add some more constraints, actually. And then last one is raise the stakes. Like what is at stake if we are not successful with this project? And I think the one that people struggle with most is probably eliminate the unnecessary, especially with. marketers, especially with very ambitious visionary business people, eliminating the thing like the advice is that every time you're going to start some new project or new initiative, you need to kill at least two things. So you can't just keep adding more to everybody's plate and expecting great ideas to come from somewhere. You kind of have to free up their energy, their mental energy so that they can focus on this project entirely. And if you're constantly just saying, hey, We need to launch a podcast. can't wait to launch the podcast. If you say, yeah, we want our podcast to generate at least one lead in the first month. OK, that's a good outcome. If you say, hey, I want you to launch the first podcast on Monday, which would be limiting the options because you need to do it by next Monday. And then second, if you said, you know, I want you to record this entire podcast just on your iPhone. That's another creative limitation. Those two things are great. If you say what's at stake, if you said, hey, you know, look, I know you're interested in podcasting and if this podcast is successful, you can take over the podcast full time and we'll get someone to take over your other opportunity. That sounds great for the person you've just assigned this to. They're very excited about the stakes, but if you don't eliminate the unnecessary, if you don't say, look, I know you've been working on this and this, and I'd like you to put those on the back burner for at least a month, or I'm giving you permission to totally annihilate that other thing you've been working on. It's just not working. And so instead of. spending the time formatting the images for the email newsletter. Let's take the images out of the newsletter. We don't need them
Beck: Mm.
Andrew Davis: anymore. If you don't do that, that person still in the back of their mind is constantly trying to churn on all this other stuff while you're trying to get them to come up with a podcast that generates one new client by the end of the month using only their podcast and actually is launched by their phone and it's launched by Monday. So I think that's the one people struggle with the most. You have to be willing to sacrifice some other stuff.
Chad: Important question, what if the person you're telling to eliminate the unnecessary is yourself?
Andrew Davis: that's the hardest one. This just happened to me. So at the beginning of the year, well, I'd say the end of last year, I decided, hey, you I really want to write a mystery novel. It's something I've always just been interested in and excited about. And I thought, you know, it would be great to write like a James Bond style book like Ian Fleming. And these are the people I like. Yeah. So I thought, you know, it would be great. And I've thought about it for years. I've just never done anything about it. And so I decided, the reason I've not done it is because I just have not used the cube of creativity. I literally have not embraced the constraints because if I really want to get it done, I'm going to have to do that. So in December, I said, look, I got to eliminate at least two things if I'm going to do this. And so the first thing I eliminated was I used to have a weekly newsletter that I sent out two newsletters every week to speakers, to professional speakers. And it was a lot of work. I did a lot of videos for it and I enjoyed it But I knew that that needs to be the hard thing that I'm gonna eliminate if I'm actually gonna take some time from somewhere else and Invest it in writing a book. So I shut that down by the end of January I said look I need to be able to focus on writing my book and I stopped writing the newsletter and I mean, yeah It's disappointing and I feel bad and I'm so I still get emails from people. like I miss your newsletter, which I so appreciate but I feel more fulfilled writing my spy novel. And so, you know, I think if it's you, you're probably more in power to eliminate the unnecessary and you need to be more brutal about it. Every time you start something new, kill two things. There's an easy one and there's always a hard
Beck: Wow, that's smart. Well so so let's think about this. So I think there might be some people that are fuzzy on the difference between a constraint and an excuse. How do you know when a limitation should be creatively embraced versus removed?
Andrew Davis: So I would say, you know, Charles Eames, you guys know the Eames chair. It's like he's like a famous designer and architect. The Eames chair you've definitely seen. It's like one piece of plywood that's like molded. It's
Beck: Hmm.
Andrew Davis: usually in fancy like offices and hotels and stuff. They're very expensive and he designed it. He's that's what he's most well known for. But he said that creativity is the sum of all the constraints. Creativity is the sum of all the constraints when when someone asked him, how do you come up with all of these crazy? Unbelievable designs that were so popular that was his answer So I don't know look like an excuse might feel like just an excuse But there may deep down inside be a constraint you need to acknowledge So like if you're just saying I don't have the time to do something. Well, then you need to eliminate the unnecessary If you're saying, well, I don't have the podcast equipment I need to start my podcast, that's a limitation you need to add. Well, then don't worry about the equipment. Use only your iPhone. Like that's a constraint you should add so that you're productive and you start moving forward. If you're like, yeah, I don't really feel like doing it. Well, then it's very clear that if you're procrastinating, you don't know what's at stake. You haven't set high stakes for you. Like I met a woman. I don't know if I mentioned this in the speech at Prosper, but I met a woman who wanted to learn Italian. Okay,
Beck: You did.
Andrew Davis: okay. Yeah, she she decided that she was going to she'd been saying she was gonna learn Italian for years and she's she you know went to this my session I think this is last November and she went home and she said to her husband I'm gonna learn Italian in a week and he kind of laughed and she said, know, you know what I'm gonna do I'm gonna stop surfing social media for the entire week. I'm not gonna do any of that I'm going to download an app and my goal is to have a five-minute conversation with a native Italian speaker She scheduled a Zoom call with a native Italian speaker that she knew that was like Friday at four o'clock or whatever her deadline was. And she realized before she embarked on this journey, you know, like on Sunday, that she wasn't sure she could do it. And she was kind of thinking, I don't know, I don't think I'm going to be able to do this. Maybe I should just wash up the whole thing. And that's when she remembered she didn't do the four sides. She didn't like actually understand what was at stake if she was not successful. And so She essentially asked her husband. said, look, if I can do this, would you like to go on a trip to Italy with me? Just just you and I will leave the kids at home. We'll go for a week. And if I'm successful, you and I agree that we're to buy those tickets. Like, will you do it? And he was like, yes. High five. I'm in. And so sure enough, she didn't get a full five minutes, by the way. She got like four minutes, 40 seconds or something. But she gave herself the extra 20 seconds and she did it. So like what you if you're procrastinating. It's usually because you haven't been clear about what's at stake if you're not successful or the stakes aren't high enough and you just don't care, which means you should probably eliminate it. Just get it off your list and say, forget it. You know what? I'm not going to do it. So stop saying you're going to write a spy novel. Like that's where I was in December.
Beck: Be brave enough to make some promises too, I guess, along the way, right? Chad?
Andrew Davis: That's it. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. It changes. It changes a lot. I think about your enthusiasm for the project, you know, instead of just saying I was going to work on it, like I'm actually excited about working on it because I've now got time to work on it. And and I'm really excited about finishing it, you know, like it should be. I don't know if it's any good, but I'm enjoying it.
Beck: Yeah. Well at least you don't have that sense of dread, right? That there's something out there looming, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Davis: That's right. That's right. That's right.
Beck: All right, Chad?
Chad: So this isn't a gotcha question. It's I'm just trying to get at the nuance of these constraints. You're an AI fan and AI removes a lot of constraints. So anyone can
Beck: Ha ha ha ha. Busted. No.
Chad: make content in seconds, applications in minutes. So
Beck: Vib code, yeah.
Chad: if constraints remove, you know, add creativity,
Andrew Davis: Yeah.
Chad: does AI make us less creative?
Andrew Davis: Wow, what a ponderous question. Here's the thing. I think it depends on where you're going to leverage the AI to help you. Like if you think about it this way, like if you set up just even a chat or a skill or a bot, whatever you want to call it right now, who every day invited you to just do a quick quick cube of creativity about what you're working on, then I think it's actually helping you embrace the constraints. Like if
Chad: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Davis: it's saying, hey, like you only have eight hours today, like
Chad: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: what do you really want to have today look like? and you just went around the horn, like that's AI helping you embrace the constraints. When it comes to the creativity piece, I guess, that's where I give it pause. You know, I kind of feel like if you embrace the cube of creativity, even with the AI tools we're currently using, and you gave it more constraints, you're gonna come up with a more creative, better outcome at the end of the day anyway. If it understands a better goal, like if you actually define what's at stake, I bet you'll get better quality product. I think the key at the end of the day is what are you, what's your real singular outcome that you're trying to achieve overall and individually for the stuff you're creating? Cause yeah, sure. You can create more, but you know, is it really adding value to the things you really care about? I guess at the end of the day, but I don't know, Chad, it's a really, I'm going to have to ponder that. It's a really good question.
Beck: You guys might be
Chad: Mm.
Beck: onto something though. Like what what if we gave Claude the cube every time? Like that that could be the underlying programming of it. Right? Here's what we're d yeah.
Andrew Davis: I have not tried that. I have not tried that. I'm going to try it tonight.
Chad: Can't think of specifics, but I've seen AI get really crazy creative when you tell it exactly what you need and why and right and yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Davis: Yeah.
Chad: So I'm gonna guess that it can play in those rule that that box.
Beck: I I have a feeling I know what we're doing next.
Andrew Davis: Hehehehehe
Chad: Ha ha ha ha.
Beck: so so Andrew, thinking about that, and especially when you're talking about big businesses, right? So does six do successful companies sometimes become less creative because they have too many resources and too many people and too many options?
Andrew Davis: I think, yes, I think that I think that happens constantly. I think time is unlimited. Money is unlimited. Options are unlimited. I think the more I think you see this actually everywhere in lots and lots of brands like I think that's even happened to Starbucks. And I know Starbucks new CEO is really excited about kind of bringing back the original Starbucks. But I think when you
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Davis: start to drift so far away from what you really started. as and the values you really believed and the experience you were trying to create because
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Davis: you have unlimited resources. I think it really does affect the brand and affects the consumer and it affects the product at the end of the day. So I think the more the more successful you are, the more constraints your team needs to embrace. I think I think what what's really interesting to me is there there's some managers that I've talked to who have have leveraged the cube of creativity. There's a woman a few years ago. who used it with her entire, she's in higher ed and she works for a university. She embraced it for her entire team. So she went back and she taught the cube of creativity to her entire team. She even, they changed the name of their main marketing conference room to the cube and they put a big cube of creativity on the wall. So every time they're starting something
Chad: huh.
Andrew Davis: new, they all go through it. But what she said, and this is really what was amazing, the side effect of having these conversations around the four constraints changed
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Davis: the way the manager employee conversations were happening. So somebody could walk in and say, look, I'm feeling overwhelmed and burnt out. And I think it's because I don't know what to eliminate. Like I'm unclear on what's unnecessary at this point.
Chad: Mm.
Andrew Davis: And some of these things, I'm not even clear on what the outcome was supposed to be, even though I probably knew it at one point. Can you help me walk through those? And that's when the manager can say, yeah, well, let's talk about the outcomes first. And then let's eliminate the ones that maybe aren't making any impact or that you don't feel like you're adding value to. And within 15, 20 minutes, she said she could have a conversation where all of a sudden, you know, the tone of the employees enthusiasm for the work they were doing transformed. So I think, and that's a big higher ed education institution that moves so slowly. They're constantly frustrated with the timelines because everybody's got time to think and time to this. And so, you know, they've changed the way it works just by embracing constraints that they themselves have added instead of
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Davis: unlimited resources and time and energy.
Beck: Smart.
Chad: Andrew, you didn't talk about this in your keynote. I don't remember, but I remember having this thought. Well, what's the link between constraints and boredom? And the the story that came to my mind was, you know, you know, my kids at times, you know, usually summer vacation and various days where they'd be going around the house bored, nothing to do. And there's I'm thinking, I never get bored. You have so much you could do. And to make the point, I I brought one of my daughters to the front yard. And put him in the middle of the yard and said, Here, look at this three inch box square on the grass. And I'm like, We're gonna do something here. I'm taking a little twig and it's a character or a rock and then it's the setting and we're make doing something entertaining with a three inch square on the yard. It's like that's that popped into my head in your key keynote. Has that come up for you? And
Andrew Davis: Yes. yeah. Well, look, I think I think the truth is all of us know this inherently. Like when you're a kid, it's much easier to embrace the constraints like you.
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: You know, you're no one's telling you think outside the box like, hey, you know, like, what do you want for Christmas? It could be anything like no one says that. Right.
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: Like I think I think kids are really good at embracing the constraints. And I don't know if I mentioned in this speech, but when during Covid, my wife yelled at me and said, you got to come see this. And I like ran to the front door and opened the door. And there were these two kids that had taken a box spring, like, you know,
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: from a bed and they had attached it to an electric skateboard and they were flying down the street. Like, I mean, it was real wobbly. They were having, but they were having the time of their lives. And just like you said, Chad, I had never seen kids out there before doing doing anything, let alone being creative with a box spring
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: and a mattress. And you're right. Like as soon as As soon as like COVID has killed everything, you know, like it has stopped their soccer games and their sleepovers and, their schooling was even, you know, all online now. I think parents were like, I don't get outside, do whatever you want. Take a box spring. Sure. Like get creative, have a great time. Just, I just don't want to see you for an hour. And all of a sudden they got creative. So yeah, I think there's a direct link between the power of boredom to inspire you to get creative. And there's nothing wrong with just sitting there and staring at a wall for a while thinking what should I do? And that's one of the reasons you have to eliminate the unnecessary when you're when you as a business person of any kind are just moving from task to task to task to task and you never give yourself a moment to stop and breathe or ponder a problem or think about a new idea or really dive deep into a rabbit hole that may or may not turn into something. You're missing
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: all the opportunities that you hired your employees to deliver on. So instead of making it a bunch of checkboxes, eliminate enough with a clear outcome that you've defined and then give people some time to work on it, to think about it, to talk about it, and you're gonna come up with better ideas, I guarantee it. Let them get.
Beck: Wow. You guys just gave me recovered memory. I when I was growing up I lived on a farm in North Idaho and our nearest neighbor was a mile and a half away and I just had when we had two channels on the T V station, which I was the remote control. And so when I
Andrew Davis: Yeah
Beck: when I was in my room I had a little black tape recorder and I'd sit in the basement with this and just one tape because we didn't have any money and I would record radio plays and just do d voices for every character and I'd come in, I'd play them for the family, I'd go back and erase it and I'd do it all over again. We had nothing and and kids are great examples of the of that because Kids ha are all of kids have our constraints except for their imagination. Right?
Andrew Davis: Exactly, exactly. And they'll take they'll take a shower curtain and make a whole show like that's what we did as kids. I did the same exact thing, you know, and
Beck: Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Davis: I took a refrigerator box and turned it into a puppet theater like that's the that I think that's the stuff that proves that we all know constraints read creativity. We just need to embrace it as adults and stop believing that this blue sky, you know, thinking is going to save our business or transform our. our product or deliver a better marketing campaign. I just don't think it does.
Beck: Maybe that's a cautionary tale in an abundant society too, right? We just have all this stuff all the time. you know, one of the questions I had is as we're talking about this was we have we all had that moment where we're we we're having good ideas because a couple of us that are jamming, and then somebody says, Let's invite more people to the room, and now we have 15 people in there, and now we're trying to reach consensus.
Andrew Davis: Yeah.
Beck: How much of the c creativity do you think gets killed by consensus? If everybody has to agree on the idea and like
Andrew Davis: I think most of it. I think that's the worst. I think there are two problems with most really good creative thinking. One, committees kill great creativity and great ideas. And two, there's not enough hand raisers to say either way, this bores me or this is a problem. So you have to encourage, that comes down to limiting the options, by the way. If you can limit the options and say, look, like we're going to, we need to, I'll give you another quick example. Like maybe, maybe the outcome is you, you need to generate 10 new leads by the end of the week. that's your outcome. You're going to limit the options by it. It can only be done on email. it needs to be, sent by Wednesday. So you get something by Friday that that's a good deadline. it needs to. Let's come up with a really good one. It would have to be. you can only use two people to work on it like something like that. Right. And you get to pick the two people like go ahead. Anyone in the company. But you got to execute it with those two people and those two people alone. All of a sudden you're you're embracing the challenge that only two people are going to actually achieve this and you're
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: inviting them to figure out how to do it the best way possible. being clear that the outcome is still we need those people to shine up as leads. Right. So
Beck: Right.
Andrew Davis: I think when you when you embrace that as an option and say, look, we're not going to get everybody involved and your your management from the top down can has the courage to do that. I think you come up with much better, more creative ideas that deliver bigger results every single time.
Beck: That Chad?
Andrew Davis: Yeah, I think it's
Chad: So
Andrew Davis: key.
Chad: one of the reasons I love that you spoke about the cube of creativity at the Prosper Forum is because restaurants were there and restaurants are know all about operating with constraints, you know, not enough people, resources, time, et cetera. So what have you learned about the industry and how it should best apply the cube?
Andrew Davis: Wow. I'm not maybe you. Do you guys have ideas? Because I don't know the industry well enough yet. But
Chad: Okay.
Andrew Davis: I mean, I thought and because I'm a marketing guy, I always go to marketing. Like, I know they're
Beck: Right.
Andrew Davis: always like working hard to get acquire more people to come in the door. Like the first thing I would do is I would say, look, if I was going to create a cube for any restaurant right now, I'd say immediately what would happen if we stopped spending on any advertising for 30 days and we invested in the customer experience? So that would look like eliminate the unnecessary would be like, want zero spent on, on traditional advertising over the next 30 days. The outcome would be, I want to generate just as many, if not more butts in seats than we would with. did the advertising. the, options that I would limit would be, it can't, it can't cost us anything more than we're currently doing. And it has to use the exact same people we already have. I need the idea by next Wednesday so that you can start executing. by October 1st whatever. And then what's at stake? I think what's at stake is the future of our entire business because we can't just continue to serve new customers with the same service we're currently giving if we're not getting enough return business. And so we need to generate a better, more secure business. That's the...
Beck: Well, I think you can call you can call it out during the show. Like your your acknowledging was I think you you're saying, Yeah, we need to recognize faces when you walk in a door and see how everybody feels, and then we're gonna and that is and my my tech friends out there watching right now are probably gonna hate because they're gonna go, Shh, quiet, bro, I'm working on that, right?
Andrew Davis: Yeah.
Beck: But we're talk but but like think about these poor restaurants. They have twenty pieces of tech, thirty pieces of tech, all layered and and they're all fifty,
Andrew Davis: Yeah, it's getting worse. Yes.
Beck: sixty bucks two hundred, three hundred bucks a pop. And so all this ROI they're trying to achieve. They're kind of spending on all this tech.
Andrew Davis: That's true.
Beck: Right? It it's just yeah. And so I I mean, there's really good ideas out there, but it's also how do you be the arbiter of what actually makes it in the building? You know,
Andrew Davis: Yeah.
Beck: it's it it it's it's tough. you know, thinking about the idea that we know we talked about AI for a minute ago. And and being a content creator yourself, we even talked a little bit about before we hopped on, you know, we're more we're creating more content than ever and AI is accelerating it, right? Everybody can write now, everybody can make a video now and what have you. If everybody can create unlimited content. And I have a feeling I know your answer because I watch you, but what actually earns
Chad: Mm-hmm.
Beck: attention?
Andrew Davis: I, okay, this is really difficult because I know the volume of content is increasing, which makes the good content hard to find.
Chad: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: So I think, like this is what I've been spending a lot of time on back. Like I've been trying to figure out when you look at some like people and brands that all of a sudden have an escalation point, which means Like maybe they've been creating content, they've been getting consistent engagement, but it's not really taking off. Like it's not really making a big impact.
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Davis: Like everybody has an escalation point, a point at which either something external force or some individual piece of content all of a sudden accelerates its growth. And the two things that that acceleration point have in common are that one, people finally have a piece of content that they can tell other people to go watch or consume
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Davis: for a very specific and clear reason or to the media picks up on that one piece of content and knows exactly how to tell an audience of other people that they should go consume this content because of what very specific reason. So which means for all of us if we're going to create better and better content whether it's created by AI or a person instead of just us trying to figure out what the formula is or how long it needs to be or what platform is going great or what trending sound to use on TikTok. I think we need to start asking ourselves like who exactly is going to pass this along and what are they going to say when they pass it along? Like if you
Beck: Mm.
Andrew Davis: can answer those two questions even before you start creating like, hey, this is for Chad and Beck. Okay, great. I know who those two are. I understand their business. I even understand their clients. If I'm going to create something so good, that they're going to talk about it. What is that thing and how are they going to explain it to others? So and I think you start to answer that question. Now, I don't have it figured out yet, but I
Chad: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Davis: think we need to start asking different questions than just what should I talk about? What's the hook? You know,
Beck: Right.
Andrew Davis: I'm a big fan of curiosity gaps. Like there are some formulas that can make great content. But, you know, A.I. is really good at following a great formula. It's just
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: the quality of the content isn't great. And the audience, think, is less and less clear almost every time.
Beck: Well, I have a quick follow up question to pin onto that. So recently I read was reading Gary Vanerchuk and he was talking about the advent of a swing of the pendulum the other way, that analog is gonna be such a interesting piece to people
Andrew Davis: Yeah.
Beck: 'cause they are getting fatigued on the AI and all that. What's your opinion?
Andrew Davis: I mean, like this is a common argument that I think happens after any new technological revolution. People are all of sudden they're like, yeah, the old way is going to come back. You know, like
Beck: Right. Vinyl.
Andrew Davis: as soon as TV came around, everybody was like, well, eventually, you know, people are going to go back and see movies. Like, you know, they didn't like they used to. So I think I don't, I don't believe it entirely. Like will the pendulum swim all the way back? No, but I do think there's of an inherent and consistent value attached to in-person. experiences, IRL experiences. And I think, but I don't see that changing dramatically. Like I don't think people are
Beck: Well think about AI avatars. Like I think nobody likes those. I don't know if anybody's loving the AI Avatar talking to them.
Andrew Davis: No, I don't think so. In fact, I just heard a story. I heard a really interesting story from from a friend who had said they had called a customer service line for a brand and the brand had one of those automated messages like, hey, welcome. Thanks so much for calling. Just so you know, some of our customer experience is delivered by artificial intelligence, which no one's surprised by anymore. Like, OK, but
Beck: Right.
Andrew Davis: I appreciate the transparency. And then this person said they got on and the the. the operator was talking to them about their problem and I think they were trying to cancel something and then they tried to do the upsell and then my friend was like, are you AI? And she was like, no, I'm totally a human. And they were like, no, you're a, it turns out it was a human this whole time.
Chad: no. Impossible.
Beck: Well we Chad and I had that a couple of weeks ago. Yeah,
Andrew Davis: And this, did you have that too?
Beck: well it was it was I I I'd done a voiceover and I was sharing it with a peer who's actually a CMO. I go, I'm really excited about this new vo outro we just did, or we did a video for a client, and she goes, you know, that video is fantastic, but the voice is trash. I'm like, it was my voice. She
Chad: Ha ha ha.
Beck: said the AI voice is trash, it's off-putting, it's not human. I'm like, it's me.
Andrew Davis: That's so funny. That's so funny. Well, so this is this is what I mean. Like, I think only if there's a big gap, a bigger and bigger gap between the IRL experience and the avatar experience, like, will you see an increase in value for the human experience? But I
Beck: Right.
Andrew Davis: don't see it happening yet. Like, I mean, maybe Gary's right. Like, I know Gary, but he and he's really good at proselytizing new big ideas. But I think he's over indexing the human value. is going to be the next big thing. Like let's return to human.
Beck: Got it. Chad up.
Chad: Well, just in terms of from a content creation standpoint, the idea of attention, right? How do you how do you grab attention? So not just like good content, not the whole thing, just that first part. You must have some ideas on what works there.
Andrew Davis: Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah. So look, like I, I, the best way to grab attention is to create tension over time with a great payoff. So like, if you think of the best clickbait headlines, that's creating tension, like immediately when they're like, three of these stars you won't even recognize anymore. Like you're like, whoa, that's a curiosity gap, right? Immediately,
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: it's like, which three stars am I not going to recognize? And who are the other two that I am going to recognize?
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: You've got these questions that are subconsciously and unintentionally in the back of your mind, right? So that's creating tension. And tension is a great emotion. Like tension is really powerful and it can keep you watching anything. So if you create just a little bit of tension and then you pay that attention off, Now, here's the problem with clickbait. It doesn't usually write like you'll scroll those pictures and you'll be like, are you kidding? Like, I know all three of those people and it's not near as bad as they thought. And the two that
Beck: Right.
Andrew Davis: I will recognize, of course, I recognize them. I just saw them on the Today Show this morning. Like, this is bogus. That's a bad payoff, which gives you a bad release of tension. But if you want to create great content, all you have to do is constantly create those little curiosity gaps and then pay it off legitimately, like with a real payoff. So. that could be like if it was a case study video or a testimonial, it would be like, my gosh, like I never realized I had so much time. And people are like, I want time. Like how does she get time? That's the subconscious unintentional question. Right. And then if you say, know, before I had, I didn't have any time and here's what I was doing. I was doing all these things and they're nodding along and then you pay it off. The answer to that. How does she have more time? Like that's really simple curiosity gap generation and the best content. just uses really smart curiosity gaps where they're constantly moving you through. And that's what great TV does. Like we all know that. Like if you watch any reality show, like Ice
Chad: Mm.
Andrew Davis: Road Truckers is my favorite, but if you watch like
Chad: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Davis: America's Got Talent, any of the good reality shows, it works. And even if you watch a murder mystery, it's like the easiest one, right? Like.
Beck: Or the old fashioned serial movies where they just left you with a cliffhanger until you watch the next movie.
Andrew Davis: That's exactly right. That's what it's supposed to be. You're like, my gosh, I can't believe it ended like that. That's emotion.
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: You're like, I have to go see the next one. Yeah.
Beck: Have have you seen examples where it's it feels like there's a term clickbait and switch versus clickbait, right? Like I I saw an illustration a couple of weeks ago where it was an actor that I liked, it had the day he was born and then today's date and I'm like, my god, he died. No, it was his birthday. I'm like, I hate that. Like so I I now I hate that company. I'm like, I'm never clicking your crap again.
Andrew Davis: I saw that too. I did the same thing.
Chad: What?
Andrew Davis: I was like, my gosh, I can't believe it. I almost texted my wife. I was about to just stop and text my wife and be like, did you hear? And so I didn't do it. Thank goodness. Because then I read the caption and I was like, these jackasses, like I'm out. Like, yeah, so
Chad: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: that's a bad payoff. Like they're releasing
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: the tension in all the wrong ways that leaves you with the wrong kind of feeling attached to the brand. So like, You can use curiosity gaps for good or you can use them for evil. But I encourage you to use them for good. Like you
Beck: Yes.
Andrew Davis: can invite someone to watch any length of content you create or read an entire 10,000 word article if you're conscientious about what answer your audience is chasing in every sentence in every paragraph. If you're going to put a photo on Instagram, think about the question it creates in their mind if you want them to read the caption. That's the key. Right. So like even back, even with our example that made us angry, what they
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: did right was they created an image that made us think, my gosh, what happened? Right.
Beck: Right.
Andrew Davis: So then you hit, that's the question and you hit the caption to read. And then you're like, come on. That's the, that's the bad payoff. But if you can, if you can construct that with your marketing or with your, with your, even with your team, I had someone who was talking to curiosity gaps about with me, they use it to get employees to come to meetings on time. So it's a C-level executive. She was so tired
Beck: Who's getting fired today? No, just kidding.
Andrew Davis: of people showing up late that she sent out an email. She does it periodically when she sees that people are starting to show up late again. But she'll say, like if the meeting's at 10, she'll say, I know everybody's coming to the meeting at 10 a.m., but at 9.55, I have a surprise for three of you. That's it. That's a curiosity gap. What's the surprise?
Chad: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: Can I be one of those three people? I don't know. guess I'll get there. I'll try to get there at 954 and see if that helps.
Beck: Wow. That's pretty good. Chad, one more before we go to to our rapid fire session here.
Chad: That's brilliant. yeah,
Andrew Davis: So.
Chad: I I just have to ask you this because I don't know how many people are gonna get to ask this that would have a good answer. So if you've given the same talk, like on a keynote or the a hundred plus times, and you might have hit that number, right? What changes from the first time you give it to the hundredth? Like what
Andrew Davis: Wow.
Chad: what's that journey like?
Andrew Davis: So usually the first time it the first time I perform something it's usually a really rough idea with some good stories that I hope people get. And
Chad: Ha ha ha.
Andrew Davis: usually by the 10th or 12th time it's a pretty solid clear idea with enough substance that people are excited to learn more. And by like the 20th time it's. It's all of those things plus entertaining and funny. And by like the 40th time, it's something that people really want to see again, because they feel like they missed some nuggets that that because they were laughing or because they were writing notes or, they just want to eat it all up. like a lot changes by the hundredth time. It's usually on it's like second rendition. It's usually like, okay, I found a new good story that I'd like to replace. I, know what, this is a, this is interesting, but I think it could be way better. And I just discovered someone or something that's way more interesting. Let me try and incorporate that. So it's ever evolving, but it definitely goes through some very specific phases from like experimental to, you know, kind of a production, would say.
Chad: Mm.
Beck: Awesome. All right. So we we've baked since I think the last time we saw you. We do a rapid fire round of questions
Andrew Davis: Love it!
Beck: at the end. Easy. Should be able to swat him out of the park, blindfolded. And the first one will be a little longer and then they'll go faster from there. You ready? All
Andrew Davis: Okay, yeah, let's do it.
Beck: right. If I gave you unlimited money, unlimited people, unlimited time to solve a creative problem, what's the first thing you take away from yourself?
Andrew Davis: The unlimited time. I'd give myself an unreasonable deadline immediately. That's right. Yeah.
Beck: Simon Sinek inf infinite game doesn't work, right? Yeah, love it. Blank sh blank sheet of t paper or a really tight brief.
Andrew Davis: Blank sheet of paper.
Beck: More time or harder deadlines?
Andrew Davis: man, definitely harder deadlines.
Beck: Curiosity or creativity?
Andrew Davis: Curiosity every time.
Beck: Human first draft or AI first draft?
Andrew Davis: AI First Draft.
Beck: One word you wish marketers would stop using.
Andrew Davis: Engagement. Immediately. It's like it's like a pet peeve of mine. Like anyone that starts talking about engagement, I just I just want to leave. I'm like, okay.
Beck: my god, that was my whole conversation yesterday. I am I'm cringing at my own at my own language. All right, what's something
Andrew Davis: You
Beck: AI can can make us faster at that we probably shouldn't be doing faster?
Andrew Davis: my lord, almost everything. But I and I love that. Let me think. I got to think of something.
Beck: What's something AI can make us faster at that we probably shouldn't be doing faster?
Andrew Davis: I mean, there's a lot. I love this one. Science. that's good. That's. Beaker's got it. Yeah, I don't know. This is that's a really tough one. Maybe maybe maybe we should. We shouldn't go faster at creating more AI. Maybe that's the answer. It is.
Beck: Okay, okay. I think that's a big debate right now. Muppets
Chad: Well, that definitely is an answer.
Beck: or marketers, who's harder to manage?
Andrew Davis: Definitely Muppets. my gosh, they're just a wild, crazy bunch of artists. It's really tough.
Beck: All right, la last question. This is the bonus question. What famous children's book was written by Ian Fleming?
Andrew Davis: wow! Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. BING!
Beck: Good job. Yeah,
Chad: What?
Beck: isn't that funny? It's also about a supercar that does all kinds of cool stuff. It was just a kid's version of James Bond. Yes,
Andrew Davis: It is and it's a great it's a great great movie great movie too.
Chad: Ha ha.
Beck: it is. And and God bless Dick Van Dyke. He's a he's he's America's treasure. Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Davis: he's a legend. Legend.
Chad: Mm.
Beck: So so Andrew, I know we could go on all day and literally we could with you. You're you are absolutely amazing. And and this isn't gushing. This is having seen you a couple of times and
Andrew Davis: Thank you.
Beck: talked to you a couple of times. We are such fans of yours. with that in mind, since there's no shows coming up for us to see you at, where are you gonna be? Where where's somebody could look you up, go to one of your events?
Andrew Davis: yeah, can find well, so my find me on LinkedIn. My handle on LinkedIn is Drew Davis here. So you can find me there. My website akadrewdavis.com has a list of all the events I'm going to. like whatever
Beck: Okay.
Andrew Davis: city you're in, whether you're watching or listening, if you see that I'm at an event in your city, feel perfect. Yeah. And
Beck: It'll be in the description below when you get into the YouTube if you're watching it, we'll have it there for
Andrew Davis: you can, you can check it out. Shoot me a note on LinkedIn. And if you're around and you want to grab a coffee or hang out, let me know if I have time. I'd love to do that. and I'll see you guys, I'm sure, on the road at some point. But those are the two best and easiest places to find me.
Beck: Absolutely fantastic. Well, for everybody that's been watching, you guys get a w you know, check out Drew, his books, his keynote speeches. Prosper I know has some of his his keynotes that he's had on their website. If you go there, you can go see so go see talk. I can't I'm so jazzed. You can go see Drew
Chad: Ha ha ha.
Beck: talk at one of the prosper conferences and maybe one coming up next year if we're lucky, he'll be coming back to the circuit again. Drew, you're absolutely one of the good ones. Don't stop believing and to our audience. You know, we say this at the at the end of every episode, which is random acts of kindness, sprinkle that stuff everywhere. You never know whose day you're gonna make better. And Drew exemplifies that by spending time with us here, spending time with the show. Like you just go extra, man, and you and you spell
Andrew Davis: Thanks.
Beck: that so well. And we need more of that in that world in the world. So for now, it's Drew. man,
Andrew Davis: I appreciate it. You guys are the best. Thank you guys
Beck: I'll take that. Can you say that one more time?
Andrew Davis: You guys are the best. No, I really mean it. Yeah
Beck: You guys are the best. You guys are the best. You
Chad: Yeah.
Beck: guys are the best. Wow, you gotta stop, Drew. It's way too much. But for now, it's true. I I am quick on the sp the turn. So if it's
Andrew Davis: I love it. That's hilarious. That was fast. That was really good. That's so funny. Thank you guys.
Chad: Ha ha ha.
Beck: absolutely it's Drew Chad and Beck signing off here. We'll see you guys in the next one and have a fantastic weekend. If it's Friday for you when you watch this, and we'll see you guys later. Take care.
Chad: Doing good back. It's Friday and we have a top tier guest on the program today who inspires us both to a great degree.
Beck: I'm losing my mind. I mean, every figure in my room is starting to walk around trying to figure what's going on here and and and what's what's happening next. And I I don't know if they can really control themselves, but really, you know Like I said before we we started this recording, I am a fanboy of this particular speaker, this person, this this entity. So we saw him last year for the first time at the Prosper Accelerate Conference, in that he taught us about the value of the digital doppelganger, which we leaned into heavily because we were figuring that stuff
Chad: Mm-hmm. yeah.
Beck: out then at the time, right? And there's people that come and they talk about, you know, the world and then doom saying, what's coming next, and and and forecasting. And then there's people that talk about good business and it feels very technical. And what I love about this this this guest is he makes everything very accessible and warm and relatable and human. And I think that's probably one of his superpowers is human his humanity when I see him. Like he puts himself out there from his don't stop
Chad: Yeah.
Beck: believing when he rocks onto the stage to like just I'm
Chad: Leaves it all out on the field.
Beck: gonna say it all giving zero fucks. about how he's perceived and just rocking his authentic self and that I I I we need more of that in the world. And so Chad, who am I talking about so the so the w they know before I start doing my read in?
Chad: Great Andrew Davis.
Beck: The one and only. Yes. Andrew Davis. And so we met him, like I said, at the Prosper Accelerate Last Conference last year and then just recently in Orlando at the Prosper Forum. And I'm telling you, I I hope he's there every year. I hope we get to see him. And if not, we gotta just start buying tickets to where he's doing his stuff. Because honestly, guys, if you haven't Yeah, if you
Chad: I thought about that too.
Beck: haven't heard him speak, this is the s hands down, the single best keynote on the circuit. I would recommend anybody To have them on there. And this by every everybody, this is not a paid thing. This is just two guys that vibe hard on what somebody else puts out there in the world. And every now and then you come across something going, I want everybody to know about this. This is one of the people I want everybody know about. So, all right, without further ado, I'll do a do my quick read-in because
Chad: Let's go, let's go.
Beck: I'm just over over the moon here and I'm highly caffeine this morning. Sorry about that in advance, Andrew. but for our guest today, it's Mr. Andrew Davis. And so every business says it wants more creativity. All right, let's think about that. And the thing that we've been taught over time is that we might have it actually completely backwards, right? That idea of think out of the box. And so today's guest is Andrew Davis. He's the best-selling author of brandscaping and town ink and co-author of The Referrable Speaker. He's an internationally acclaimed keynote speaker and a guy whose career has included everything from producing for NBC and this is where I lose it, working with the Muppets. and we recently watched Andrew speak about his cube. Creativity and one idea followed me home. Constraints don't kill creativity, they fuel it. Think about that, right? So we'll get into that. And that's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about that box. We're going to talk about AI, attention, and why sometimes having less might be exactly what produces something remarkable. So, with that being said, Andrew Davis, welcome to the stage.
Andrew Davis: Yay, thank you guys so much. It's so fun to be here and I love seeing Beaker, you know, show up there. I love it. I love it.
Beck: One more time. Okay, sorry. But the lab won't catch on fire this time. Nothing's gonna go wrong. We've got this one down. Yeah,
Andrew Davis: Nothing Thank you. Thank you. That's
Beck: absolutely. So first off, how you doing today, Andrew?
Andrew Davis: I'm good. I'm so excited to be hanging out with you guys again after after this, like Prosper form was great. Prosper Accelerate last year was so much fun. So
Beck: Right.
Andrew Davis: it's nice to be able to hang out and spend some time together, you know, outside of the forums.
Beck: And where on the planet are you today? Are you back in Boca or wherever in Florida Florida you reside?
Andrew Davis: I'm back in Boca. just got back. was speaking in Mission, Texas yesterday, which is like southwest Texas. And just got back and now I'm spending the day hanging out with you guys.
Beck: Fantastic.
Chad: What what keynote number was that? Are you past five hundred already?
Andrew Davis: man, I think a little bit past probably
Chad: Okay.
Andrew Davis: 510 515 or something over the last 10 years, something like that. No, I didn't. I should have. I feel like it should be.
Chad: Did you celebrate the five hundred milestone? Dang it.
Andrew Davis: I feel like there should be some sort of celebration. We should figure that out. I'll do 550. That's right. Exactly. Exactly.
Chad: Okay.
Beck: There we go. When when the odometer rolls over. Yeah. I love it.
Chad: Ha ha.
Beck: I love Hey, just out of curiosity, for the people who are out there swinging away at this kind of stuff and they You know, I'd love to get on stage one day. How do you get tapped for something like that? What was your first keynote that you ever did?
Andrew Davis: my lord, first key, my first, well first of all, my first speaking engagement was like, I showed up early for a conference. I think it was called the content conference. this is like 2007 or 2008 in, in Miami, Florida. And I got there early cause I'm an early person and the event organizer was like, hi, like here's your name badge. Like, what do you do? I told her that I was like working in a marketing agency in Boston and she said, that's how that sounds great. Hey, you know what? what are you doing at 10 o'clock? And I was like, well, I'm here all day. She was like, well,
Chad: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: we just had someone canceled. Do you want to talk about content marketing at 10 o'clock? And I was like, I mean, I guess I can. And so I skipped the opening sessions from like 9 a.m., 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. I went back to my room and then I came down and, you know, four people showed up to the room because they had made a big announcement that so-and-so wasn't here and that this random person was showing up to do it. But I had so much fun and we got one like prospect. that turned into a client out of that one session. So that was my first, you know, like breakout session. And I started to realize that maybe there was something here from a business standpoint, like maybe we could generate leads for the business. So that's how I got started. And my first keynote, Lord, I can't, I honestly don't remember, but it's, I'm sure it came from one of those breakout sessions where somebody was like, wow, we have a big, it might've been the New England magazine. No, the New England Mail Order Association Conference, is held in Boston in like 2009. it was real niche. I'm telling you, I learned
Beck: Boy, that sounds niche.
Chad: Ha ha
Andrew Davis: so much about I've spoken at some really amazing events where I've learned so many things about stuff I never thought I'd know. You know, like I spoke at the niche magazine conference a couple of times and every time it's
Beck: It was actually called Nich Magazine.
Andrew Davis: called this magazine and they're like my favorite magazine that was there was manure magazine, like manure magazine.
Beck: wow.
Andrew Davis: And it was about
Chad: Wow.
Andrew Davis: it was basically about, you know, all the kinds of manure you need. It was it was crazy. It was awesome.
Beck: That's so funny. That that's like watching the Ocho on Dodgeball, like the obscure sports weekly or something. That
Andrew Davis: Yes, that's what it is. I'm telling you and every time you turn around there's something new There's like like there were like ten horse magazines, which blew my mind There was a there's a magazine just for people who raised chickens There was There was a Like a sewer pipe monthly magazine. There's a porta potty magazine. I'm telling you if they're If there's a magazine for everything, I was convinced after that.
Beck: Yeah.
Chad: And there's a conference for everything.
Andrew Davis: There's a, every one of those magazines, you're right, Chad has a conference, which is why it became a great Legion source for me, because then I've spoken at like, you know, Parenting Magazine and I didn't speak at the manure conference. I guess I don't, I don't have enough crap for that. It was terrible. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Beck: He's not full of S H I T enough for us. so Andrew, the thing I gotta ask you before we go into all this stuff is as I was thinking about you and even as I was introducing you, the the thing that I I have to believe that people love about you so much is your authenticity and I don't know that you call it bravery. I don't think even bravery bakes into that. You're just you and you own it, right? But I I I have to think and maybe I'm wrong. That you didn't come out of the shoot just like that, your first keynote, your keep first presentation. Do you play it safe back then and you or did you or or were you just all in or did you start giving yourself permission to be more and more you each time?
Andrew Davis: I think it's a little bit of both. I honestly, the, the very first time I presented that one time, I just kind of like through all the slides I'd ever put together into one presentation and,
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: about 10 minutes in, I realized there was no way I was going to get through it all. So I kind of went faster than I probably should have, which I think increased my energy. So, you know, the four people that were there were like, wow, you have so much energy and you're so,
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: it seemed like you're really passionate. You know, that's nice. but I think over time I kind of. I've tried to learn to harness it in the right kinds of ways. So
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: I do try to cover a lot. I try to make sure that, you know, there's value for everyone in the audience, but my, like, I, you know, I still get nervous before every speech. And I think that nervous energy comes out as kind of just who I am after
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: that. I did, I have had people tell me, had someone tell me that I prowl on stage and I was like, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
Beck: You do a lot of movement. I've been trying to film you and you move a lot, which is great. Yeah.
Andrew Davis: I do a lot of movement. Yeah, exactly. It's like,
Chad: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew Davis: So I've even tried to calm that down. But yeah, I mean, you're basically getting like an unfiltered version of me.
Beck: And and has always Don't Tell Believing been your walk in music, or is this something like
Andrew Davis: No, no, this is a that's that's just for the cube of creativity. There's
Beck: okay.
Andrew Davis: I have turned down for what for like the curiosity factor. I
Beck: Ha ha ha ha!
Andrew Davis: have like Intergalactic from the Beastie Boys, you know, you
Beck: Yeah, that's a good track.
Andrew Davis: know, I just I have a
Beck: Okay.
Chad: Ha ha
Andrew Davis: wide range of music options and sometimes sometimes it doesn't fit the audience. So they won't let me use it. And, know, I get generic conference music, but that's OK. It's yeah, I'm there for the audience.
Beck: Well yeah, a crowd full of Ben Stein's that Ben Stein's it might not bive vibe with.
Andrew Davis: Exactly, exactly, might not work exactly the same, so I get it.
Beck: All right. So let's let's let's go and track in on the subject
Chad: Right. Yeah.
Beck: and then then I know Chad's as eager to pile in on me on this as I am. I know. I know. So so
Chad: there's a gazillion questions, but yeah, whatever.
Beck: Andrew, start us off here, right? Our whole lives we've been or most of us have been told, right, think outside of the box. You said it in your presentation at at Ex at Prosper and and you and and you emphatically said something that's kinda contrarian to what everybody's been told lately, which is that's not really how it should work. And So why might the box actually be where we our best ideas live?
Andrew Davis: Okay, so like it turns out that that whenever you you're told to think outside the box and like it seems like all there's all these unlimited possibilities out there. I get why that's exciting. Like it sounds
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Davis: fun to just think of anything and then throw it on the board. And like this sounds like a great idea. But the truth is when it comes to executing that stuff for your specific business, even if you even if you looked at like the competition, you said, wow, they're doing some cool stuff. What if we do what they do? Well, their limitations are different than your limitations. Their business
Beck: Uh-huh.
Andrew Davis: is different than your business. Their people, their finances, all of those things are different. And so you end up maybe not being as successful as you'd hoped you'd be, even though you went on this journey with this blue sky, everything, think outside the box thinking. And it turns out the people who kind of don't do that, who say, hey, look, I want you to just embrace the constraints. I want you to I want you to think about the business we're running. And I want you to look at, you know, what we're trying to do, a very specific goal. And I want you to work with inside this box to accomplish the same or similar goal as even the competition. You start to become much more creative, like you're looking for solutions that fit your problem instead of looking
Beck: Right.
Andrew Davis: for any solution. And you actually end up with better outcomes faster. So instead of just hoping that somebody comes up with a genius idea that happens to stick. you're actually coming up with very productive, highly focused ideas that you know you can execute and then might stick. And I think that's the big difference. Yeah, they're in the box. I mean, like if you remember MacGyver, you remember MacGyver? I mean,
Beck: Why do I have a feeling you learned this on Gilligan's Island? They're in a box. They did a lot of creative stuff on there. Yeah. Yeah.
Chad: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: MacGyver
Chad: Yes.
Andrew Davis: was like the, like he's the poster child for embracing constraints. It's like, if you have some gum and a toothpick and a staple and one little half of a gum wrapper, Like you can get out of any situation you don't need because I mean if McGuire McGyver was like how do get out of this? Anyone good ideas? Anyone a good idea? They'd be like well you you need some explosives and a tank. Yeah exactly. Exactly exactly.
Beck: bomb would blow up in McGruber.
Andrew Davis: It's McGroover. my camera's like.
Beck: Chad, I I I've been I've been stealing this, so go go for it.
Chad: So so you had four constraints that you listed in your keynote and of those four, I mean rattle them off, but then which one is the one that people fight against the
Andrew Davis: Hmm.
Chad: most?
Andrew Davis: OK, I'll just rattle them off. The first one is eliminate the unnecessary. The second one is like define a very clear singular outcome. The third one is further limit the options, which means add some more constraints, actually. And then last one is raise the stakes. Like what is at stake if we are not successful with this project? And I think the one that people struggle with most is probably eliminate the unnecessary, especially with. marketers, especially with very ambitious visionary business people, eliminating the thing like the advice is that every time you're going to start some new project or new initiative, you need to kill at least two things. So you can't just keep adding more to everybody's plate and expecting great ideas to come from somewhere. You kind of have to free up their energy, their mental energy so that they can focus on this project entirely. And if you're constantly just saying, hey, We need to launch a podcast. can't wait to launch the podcast. If you say, yeah, we want our podcast to generate at least one lead in the first month. OK, that's a good outcome. If you say, hey, I want you to launch the first podcast on Monday, which would be limiting the options because you need to do it by next Monday. And then second, if you said, you know, I want you to record this entire podcast just on your iPhone. That's another creative limitation. Those two things are great. If you say what's at stake, if you said, hey, you know, look, I know you're interested in podcasting and if this podcast is successful, you can take over the podcast full time and we'll get someone to take over your other opportunity. That sounds great for the person you've just assigned this to. They're very excited about the stakes, but if you don't eliminate the unnecessary, if you don't say, look, I know you've been working on this and this, and I'd like you to put those on the back burner for at least a month, or I'm giving you permission to totally annihilate that other thing you've been working on. It's just not working. And so instead of. spending the time formatting the images for the email newsletter. Let's take the images out of the newsletter. We don't need them
Beck: Mm.
Andrew Davis: anymore. If you don't do that, that person still in the back of their mind is constantly trying to churn on all this other stuff while you're trying to get them to come up with a podcast that generates one new client by the end of the month using only their podcast and actually is launched by their phone and it's launched by Monday. So I think that's the one people struggle with the most. You have to be willing to sacrifice some other stuff.
Chad: Important question, what if the person you're telling to eliminate the unnecessary is yourself?
Andrew Davis: that's the hardest one. This just happened to me. So at the beginning of the year, well, I'd say the end of last year, I decided, hey, you I really want to write a mystery novel. It's something I've always just been interested in and excited about. And I thought, you know, it would be great to write like a James Bond style book like Ian Fleming. And these are the people I like. Yeah. So I thought, you know, it would be great. And I've thought about it for years. I've just never done anything about it. And so I decided, the reason I've not done it is because I just have not used the cube of creativity. I literally have not embraced the constraints because if I really want to get it done, I'm going to have to do that. So in December, I said, look, I got to eliminate at least two things if I'm going to do this. And so the first thing I eliminated was I used to have a weekly newsletter that I sent out two newsletters every week to speakers, to professional speakers. And it was a lot of work. I did a lot of videos for it and I enjoyed it But I knew that that needs to be the hard thing that I'm gonna eliminate if I'm actually gonna take some time from somewhere else and Invest it in writing a book. So I shut that down by the end of January I said look I need to be able to focus on writing my book and I stopped writing the newsletter and I mean, yeah It's disappointing and I feel bad and I'm so I still get emails from people. like I miss your newsletter, which I so appreciate but I feel more fulfilled writing my spy novel. And so, you know, I think if it's you, you're probably more in power to eliminate the unnecessary and you need to be more brutal about it. Every time you start something new, kill two things. There's an easy one and there's always a hard
Beck: Wow, that's smart. Well so so let's think about this. So I think there might be some people that are fuzzy on the difference between a constraint and an excuse. How do you know when a limitation should be creatively embraced versus removed?
Andrew Davis: So I would say, you know, Charles Eames, you guys know the Eames chair. It's like he's like a famous designer and architect. The Eames chair you've definitely seen. It's like one piece of plywood that's like molded. It's
Beck: Hmm.
Andrew Davis: usually in fancy like offices and hotels and stuff. They're very expensive and he designed it. He's that's what he's most well known for. But he said that creativity is the sum of all the constraints. Creativity is the sum of all the constraints when when someone asked him, how do you come up with all of these crazy? Unbelievable designs that were so popular that was his answer So I don't know look like an excuse might feel like just an excuse But there may deep down inside be a constraint you need to acknowledge So like if you're just saying I don't have the time to do something. Well, then you need to eliminate the unnecessary If you're saying, well, I don't have the podcast equipment I need to start my podcast, that's a limitation you need to add. Well, then don't worry about the equipment. Use only your iPhone. Like that's a constraint you should add so that you're productive and you start moving forward. If you're like, yeah, I don't really feel like doing it. Well, then it's very clear that if you're procrastinating, you don't know what's at stake. You haven't set high stakes for you. Like I met a woman. I don't know if I mentioned this in the speech at Prosper, but I met a woman who wanted to learn Italian. Okay,
Beck: You did.
Andrew Davis: okay. Yeah, she she decided that she was going to she'd been saying she was gonna learn Italian for years and she's she you know went to this my session I think this is last November and she went home and she said to her husband I'm gonna learn Italian in a week and he kind of laughed and she said, know, you know what I'm gonna do I'm gonna stop surfing social media for the entire week. I'm not gonna do any of that I'm going to download an app and my goal is to have a five-minute conversation with a native Italian speaker She scheduled a Zoom call with a native Italian speaker that she knew that was like Friday at four o'clock or whatever her deadline was. And she realized before she embarked on this journey, you know, like on Sunday, that she wasn't sure she could do it. And she was kind of thinking, I don't know, I don't think I'm going to be able to do this. Maybe I should just wash up the whole thing. And that's when she remembered she didn't do the four sides. She didn't like actually understand what was at stake if she was not successful. And so She essentially asked her husband. said, look, if I can do this, would you like to go on a trip to Italy with me? Just just you and I will leave the kids at home. We'll go for a week. And if I'm successful, you and I agree that we're to buy those tickets. Like, will you do it? And he was like, yes. High five. I'm in. And so sure enough, she didn't get a full five minutes, by the way. She got like four minutes, 40 seconds or something. But she gave herself the extra 20 seconds and she did it. So like what you if you're procrastinating. It's usually because you haven't been clear about what's at stake if you're not successful or the stakes aren't high enough and you just don't care, which means you should probably eliminate it. Just get it off your list and say, forget it. You know what? I'm not going to do it. So stop saying you're going to write a spy novel. Like that's where I was in December.
Beck: Be brave enough to make some promises too, I guess, along the way, right? Chad?
Andrew Davis: That's it. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. It changes. It changes a lot. I think about your enthusiasm for the project, you know, instead of just saying I was going to work on it, like I'm actually excited about working on it because I've now got time to work on it. And and I'm really excited about finishing it, you know, like it should be. I don't know if it's any good, but I'm enjoying it.
Beck: Yeah. Well at least you don't have that sense of dread, right? That there's something out there looming, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Davis: That's right. That's right. That's right.
Beck: All right, Chad?
Chad: So this isn't a gotcha question. It's I'm just trying to get at the nuance of these constraints. You're an AI fan and AI removes a lot of constraints. So anyone can
Beck: Ha ha ha ha. Busted. No.
Chad: make content in seconds, applications in minutes. So
Beck: Vib code, yeah.
Chad: if constraints remove, you know, add creativity,
Andrew Davis: Yeah.
Chad: does AI make us less creative?
Andrew Davis: Wow, what a ponderous question. Here's the thing. I think it depends on where you're going to leverage the AI to help you. Like if you think about it this way, like if you set up just even a chat or a skill or a bot, whatever you want to call it right now, who every day invited you to just do a quick quick cube of creativity about what you're working on, then I think it's actually helping you embrace the constraints. Like if
Chad: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Davis: it's saying, hey, like you only have eight hours today, like
Chad: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: what do you really want to have today look like? and you just went around the horn, like that's AI helping you embrace the constraints. When it comes to the creativity piece, I guess, that's where I give it pause. You know, I kind of feel like if you embrace the cube of creativity, even with the AI tools we're currently using, and you gave it more constraints, you're gonna come up with a more creative, better outcome at the end of the day anyway. If it understands a better goal, like if you actually define what's at stake, I bet you'll get better quality product. I think the key at the end of the day is what are you, what's your real singular outcome that you're trying to achieve overall and individually for the stuff you're creating? Cause yeah, sure. You can create more, but you know, is it really adding value to the things you really care about? I guess at the end of the day, but I don't know, Chad, it's a really, I'm going to have to ponder that. It's a really good question.
Beck: You guys might be
Chad: Mm.
Beck: onto something though. Like what what if we gave Claude the cube every time? Like that that could be the underlying programming of it. Right? Here's what we're d yeah.
Andrew Davis: I have not tried that. I have not tried that. I'm going to try it tonight.
Chad: Can't think of specifics, but I've seen AI get really crazy creative when you tell it exactly what you need and why and right and yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Davis: Yeah.
Chad: So I'm gonna guess that it can play in those rule that that box.
Beck: I I have a feeling I know what we're doing next.
Andrew Davis: Hehehehehe
Chad: Ha ha ha ha.
Beck: so so Andrew, thinking about that, and especially when you're talking about big businesses, right? So does six do successful companies sometimes become less creative because they have too many resources and too many people and too many options?
Andrew Davis: I think, yes, I think that I think that happens constantly. I think time is unlimited. Money is unlimited. Options are unlimited. I think the more I think you see this actually everywhere in lots and lots of brands like I think that's even happened to Starbucks. And I know Starbucks new CEO is really excited about kind of bringing back the original Starbucks. But I think when you
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Davis: start to drift so far away from what you really started. as and the values you really believed and the experience you were trying to create because
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Davis: you have unlimited resources. I think it really does affect the brand and affects the consumer and it affects the product at the end of the day. So I think the more the more successful you are, the more constraints your team needs to embrace. I think I think what what's really interesting to me is there there's some managers that I've talked to who have have leveraged the cube of creativity. There's a woman a few years ago. who used it with her entire, she's in higher ed and she works for a university. She embraced it for her entire team. So she went back and she taught the cube of creativity to her entire team. She even, they changed the name of their main marketing conference room to the cube and they put a big cube of creativity on the wall. So every time they're starting something
Chad: huh.
Andrew Davis: new, they all go through it. But what she said, and this is really what was amazing, the side effect of having these conversations around the four constraints changed
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Davis: the way the manager employee conversations were happening. So somebody could walk in and say, look, I'm feeling overwhelmed and burnt out. And I think it's because I don't know what to eliminate. Like I'm unclear on what's unnecessary at this point.
Chad: Mm.
Andrew Davis: And some of these things, I'm not even clear on what the outcome was supposed to be, even though I probably knew it at one point. Can you help me walk through those? And that's when the manager can say, yeah, well, let's talk about the outcomes first. And then let's eliminate the ones that maybe aren't making any impact or that you don't feel like you're adding value to. And within 15, 20 minutes, she said she could have a conversation where all of a sudden, you know, the tone of the employees enthusiasm for the work they were doing transformed. So I think, and that's a big higher ed education institution that moves so slowly. They're constantly frustrated with the timelines because everybody's got time to think and time to this. And so, you know, they've changed the way it works just by embracing constraints that they themselves have added instead of
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Davis: unlimited resources and time and energy.
Beck: Smart.
Chad: Andrew, you didn't talk about this in your keynote. I don't remember, but I remember having this thought. Well, what's the link between constraints and boredom? And the the story that came to my mind was, you know, you know, my kids at times, you know, usually summer vacation and various days where they'd be going around the house bored, nothing to do. And there's I'm thinking, I never get bored. You have so much you could do. And to make the point, I I brought one of my daughters to the front yard. And put him in the middle of the yard and said, Here, look at this three inch box square on the grass. And I'm like, We're gonna do something here. I'm taking a little twig and it's a character or a rock and then it's the setting and we're make doing something entertaining with a three inch square on the yard. It's like that's that popped into my head in your key keynote. Has that come up for you? And
Andrew Davis: Yes. yeah. Well, look, I think I think the truth is all of us know this inherently. Like when you're a kid, it's much easier to embrace the constraints like you.
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: You know, you're no one's telling you think outside the box like, hey, you know, like, what do you want for Christmas? It could be anything like no one says that. Right.
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: Like I think I think kids are really good at embracing the constraints. And I don't know if I mentioned in this speech, but when during Covid, my wife yelled at me and said, you got to come see this. And I like ran to the front door and opened the door. And there were these two kids that had taken a box spring, like, you know,
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: from a bed and they had attached it to an electric skateboard and they were flying down the street. Like, I mean, it was real wobbly. They were having, but they were having the time of their lives. And just like you said, Chad, I had never seen kids out there before doing doing anything, let alone being creative with a box spring
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: and a mattress. And you're right. Like as soon as As soon as like COVID has killed everything, you know, like it has stopped their soccer games and their sleepovers and, their schooling was even, you know, all online now. I think parents were like, I don't get outside, do whatever you want. Take a box spring. Sure. Like get creative, have a great time. Just, I just don't want to see you for an hour. And all of a sudden they got creative. So yeah, I think there's a direct link between the power of boredom to inspire you to get creative. And there's nothing wrong with just sitting there and staring at a wall for a while thinking what should I do? And that's one of the reasons you have to eliminate the unnecessary when you're when you as a business person of any kind are just moving from task to task to task to task and you never give yourself a moment to stop and breathe or ponder a problem or think about a new idea or really dive deep into a rabbit hole that may or may not turn into something. You're missing
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: all the opportunities that you hired your employees to deliver on. So instead of making it a bunch of checkboxes, eliminate enough with a clear outcome that you've defined and then give people some time to work on it, to think about it, to talk about it, and you're gonna come up with better ideas, I guarantee it. Let them get.
Beck: Wow. You guys just gave me recovered memory. I when I was growing up I lived on a farm in North Idaho and our nearest neighbor was a mile and a half away and I just had when we had two channels on the T V station, which I was the remote control. And so when I
Andrew Davis: Yeah
Beck: when I was in my room I had a little black tape recorder and I'd sit in the basement with this and just one tape because we didn't have any money and I would record radio plays and just do d voices for every character and I'd come in, I'd play them for the family, I'd go back and erase it and I'd do it all over again. We had nothing and and kids are great examples of the of that because Kids ha are all of kids have our constraints except for their imagination. Right?
Andrew Davis: Exactly, exactly. And they'll take they'll take a shower curtain and make a whole show like that's what we did as kids. I did the same exact thing, you know, and
Beck: Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Davis: I took a refrigerator box and turned it into a puppet theater like that's the that I think that's the stuff that proves that we all know constraints read creativity. We just need to embrace it as adults and stop believing that this blue sky, you know, thinking is going to save our business or transform our. our product or deliver a better marketing campaign. I just don't think it does.
Beck: Maybe that's a cautionary tale in an abundant society too, right? We just have all this stuff all the time. you know, one of the questions I had is as we're talking about this was we have we all had that moment where we're we we're having good ideas because a couple of us that are jamming, and then somebody says, Let's invite more people to the room, and now we have 15 people in there, and now we're trying to reach consensus.
Andrew Davis: Yeah.
Beck: How much of the c creativity do you think gets killed by consensus? If everybody has to agree on the idea and like
Andrew Davis: I think most of it. I think that's the worst. I think there are two problems with most really good creative thinking. One, committees kill great creativity and great ideas. And two, there's not enough hand raisers to say either way, this bores me or this is a problem. So you have to encourage, that comes down to limiting the options, by the way. If you can limit the options and say, look, like we're going to, we need to, I'll give you another quick example. Like maybe, maybe the outcome is you, you need to generate 10 new leads by the end of the week. that's your outcome. You're going to limit the options by it. It can only be done on email. it needs to be, sent by Wednesday. So you get something by Friday that that's a good deadline. it needs to. Let's come up with a really good one. It would have to be. you can only use two people to work on it like something like that. Right. And you get to pick the two people like go ahead. Anyone in the company. But you got to execute it with those two people and those two people alone. All of a sudden you're you're embracing the challenge that only two people are going to actually achieve this and you're
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: inviting them to figure out how to do it the best way possible. being clear that the outcome is still we need those people to shine up as leads. Right. So
Beck: Right.
Andrew Davis: I think when you when you embrace that as an option and say, look, we're not going to get everybody involved and your your management from the top down can has the courage to do that. I think you come up with much better, more creative ideas that deliver bigger results every single time.
Beck: That Chad?
Andrew Davis: Yeah, I think it's
Chad: So
Andrew Davis: key.
Chad: one of the reasons I love that you spoke about the cube of creativity at the Prosper Forum is because restaurants were there and restaurants are know all about operating with constraints, you know, not enough people, resources, time, et cetera. So what have you learned about the industry and how it should best apply the cube?
Andrew Davis: Wow. I'm not maybe you. Do you guys have ideas? Because I don't know the industry well enough yet. But
Chad: Okay.
Andrew Davis: I mean, I thought and because I'm a marketing guy, I always go to marketing. Like, I know they're
Beck: Right.
Andrew Davis: always like working hard to get acquire more people to come in the door. Like the first thing I would do is I would say, look, if I was going to create a cube for any restaurant right now, I'd say immediately what would happen if we stopped spending on any advertising for 30 days and we invested in the customer experience? So that would look like eliminate the unnecessary would be like, want zero spent on, on traditional advertising over the next 30 days. The outcome would be, I want to generate just as many, if not more butts in seats than we would with. did the advertising. the, options that I would limit would be, it can't, it can't cost us anything more than we're currently doing. And it has to use the exact same people we already have. I need the idea by next Wednesday so that you can start executing. by October 1st whatever. And then what's at stake? I think what's at stake is the future of our entire business because we can't just continue to serve new customers with the same service we're currently giving if we're not getting enough return business. And so we need to generate a better, more secure business. That's the...
Beck: Well, I think you can call you can call it out during the show. Like your your acknowledging was I think you you're saying, Yeah, we need to recognize faces when you walk in a door and see how everybody feels, and then we're gonna and that is and my my tech friends out there watching right now are probably gonna hate because they're gonna go, Shh, quiet, bro, I'm working on that, right?
Andrew Davis: Yeah.
Beck: But we're talk but but like think about these poor restaurants. They have twenty pieces of tech, thirty pieces of tech, all layered and and they're all fifty,
Andrew Davis: Yeah, it's getting worse. Yes.
Beck: sixty bucks two hundred, three hundred bucks a pop. And so all this ROI they're trying to achieve. They're kind of spending on all this tech.
Andrew Davis: That's true.
Beck: Right? It it's just yeah. And so I I mean, there's really good ideas out there, but it's also how do you be the arbiter of what actually makes it in the building? You know,
Andrew Davis: Yeah.
Beck: it's it it it's it's tough. you know, thinking about the idea that we know we talked about AI for a minute ago. And and being a content creator yourself, we even talked a little bit about before we hopped on, you know, we're more we're creating more content than ever and AI is accelerating it, right? Everybody can write now, everybody can make a video now and what have you. If everybody can create unlimited content. And I have a feeling I know your answer because I watch you, but what actually earns
Chad: Mm-hmm.
Beck: attention?
Andrew Davis: I, okay, this is really difficult because I know the volume of content is increasing, which makes the good content hard to find.
Chad: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: So I think, like this is what I've been spending a lot of time on back. Like I've been trying to figure out when you look at some like people and brands that all of a sudden have an escalation point, which means Like maybe they've been creating content, they've been getting consistent engagement, but it's not really taking off. Like it's not really making a big impact.
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Davis: Like everybody has an escalation point, a point at which either something external force or some individual piece of content all of a sudden accelerates its growth. And the two things that that acceleration point have in common are that one, people finally have a piece of content that they can tell other people to go watch or consume
Beck: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Davis: for a very specific and clear reason or to the media picks up on that one piece of content and knows exactly how to tell an audience of other people that they should go consume this content because of what very specific reason. So which means for all of us if we're going to create better and better content whether it's created by AI or a person instead of just us trying to figure out what the formula is or how long it needs to be or what platform is going great or what trending sound to use on TikTok. I think we need to start asking ourselves like who exactly is going to pass this along and what are they going to say when they pass it along? Like if you
Beck: Mm.
Andrew Davis: can answer those two questions even before you start creating like, hey, this is for Chad and Beck. Okay, great. I know who those two are. I understand their business. I even understand their clients. If I'm going to create something so good, that they're going to talk about it. What is that thing and how are they going to explain it to others? So and I think you start to answer that question. Now, I don't have it figured out yet, but I
Chad: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Davis: think we need to start asking different questions than just what should I talk about? What's the hook? You know,
Beck: Right.
Andrew Davis: I'm a big fan of curiosity gaps. Like there are some formulas that can make great content. But, you know, A.I. is really good at following a great formula. It's just
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: the quality of the content isn't great. And the audience, think, is less and less clear almost every time.
Beck: Well, I have a quick follow up question to pin onto that. So recently I read was reading Gary Vanerchuk and he was talking about the advent of a swing of the pendulum the other way, that analog is gonna be such a interesting piece to people
Andrew Davis: Yeah.
Beck: 'cause they are getting fatigued on the AI and all that. What's your opinion?
Andrew Davis: I mean, like this is a common argument that I think happens after any new technological revolution. People are all of sudden they're like, yeah, the old way is going to come back. You know, like
Beck: Right. Vinyl.
Andrew Davis: as soon as TV came around, everybody was like, well, eventually, you know, people are going to go back and see movies. Like, you know, they didn't like they used to. So I think I don't, I don't believe it entirely. Like will the pendulum swim all the way back? No, but I do think there's of an inherent and consistent value attached to in-person. experiences, IRL experiences. And I think, but I don't see that changing dramatically. Like I don't think people are
Beck: Well think about AI avatars. Like I think nobody likes those. I don't know if anybody's loving the AI Avatar talking to them.
Andrew Davis: No, I don't think so. In fact, I just heard a story. I heard a really interesting story from from a friend who had said they had called a customer service line for a brand and the brand had one of those automated messages like, hey, welcome. Thanks so much for calling. Just so you know, some of our customer experience is delivered by artificial intelligence, which no one's surprised by anymore. Like, OK, but
Beck: Right.
Andrew Davis: I appreciate the transparency. And then this person said they got on and the the. the operator was talking to them about their problem and I think they were trying to cancel something and then they tried to do the upsell and then my friend was like, are you AI? And she was like, no, I'm totally a human. And they were like, no, you're a, it turns out it was a human this whole time.
Chad: no. Impossible.
Beck: Well we Chad and I had that a couple of weeks ago. Yeah,
Andrew Davis: And this, did you have that too?
Beck: well it was it was I I I'd done a voiceover and I was sharing it with a peer who's actually a CMO. I go, I'm really excited about this new vo outro we just did, or we did a video for a client, and she goes, you know, that video is fantastic, but the voice is trash. I'm like, it was my voice. She
Chad: Ha ha ha.
Beck: said the AI voice is trash, it's off-putting, it's not human. I'm like, it's me.
Andrew Davis: That's so funny. That's so funny. Well, so this is this is what I mean. Like, I think only if there's a big gap, a bigger and bigger gap between the IRL experience and the avatar experience, like, will you see an increase in value for the human experience? But I
Beck: Right.
Andrew Davis: don't see it happening yet. Like, I mean, maybe Gary's right. Like, I know Gary, but he and he's really good at proselytizing new big ideas. But I think he's over indexing the human value. is going to be the next big thing. Like let's return to human.
Beck: Got it. Chad up.
Chad: Well, just in terms of from a content creation standpoint, the idea of attention, right? How do you how do you grab attention? So not just like good content, not the whole thing, just that first part. You must have some ideas on what works there.
Andrew Davis: Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah. So look, like I, I, the best way to grab attention is to create tension over time with a great payoff. So like, if you think of the best clickbait headlines, that's creating tension, like immediately when they're like, three of these stars you won't even recognize anymore. Like you're like, whoa, that's a curiosity gap, right? Immediately,
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: it's like, which three stars am I not going to recognize? And who are the other two that I am going to recognize?
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: You've got these questions that are subconsciously and unintentionally in the back of your mind, right? So that's creating tension. And tension is a great emotion. Like tension is really powerful and it can keep you watching anything. So if you create just a little bit of tension and then you pay that attention off, Now, here's the problem with clickbait. It doesn't usually write like you'll scroll those pictures and you'll be like, are you kidding? Like, I know all three of those people and it's not near as bad as they thought. And the two that
Beck: Right.
Andrew Davis: I will recognize, of course, I recognize them. I just saw them on the Today Show this morning. Like, this is bogus. That's a bad payoff, which gives you a bad release of tension. But if you want to create great content, all you have to do is constantly create those little curiosity gaps and then pay it off legitimately, like with a real payoff. So. that could be like if it was a case study video or a testimonial, it would be like, my gosh, like I never realized I had so much time. And people are like, I want time. Like how does she get time? That's the subconscious unintentional question. Right. And then if you say, know, before I had, I didn't have any time and here's what I was doing. I was doing all these things and they're nodding along and then you pay it off. The answer to that. How does she have more time? Like that's really simple curiosity gap generation and the best content. just uses really smart curiosity gaps where they're constantly moving you through. And that's what great TV does. Like we all know that. Like if you watch any reality show, like Ice
Chad: Mm.
Andrew Davis: Road Truckers is my favorite, but if you watch like
Chad: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Davis: America's Got Talent, any of the good reality shows, it works. And even if you watch a murder mystery, it's like the easiest one, right? Like.
Beck: Or the old fashioned serial movies where they just left you with a cliffhanger until you watch the next movie.
Andrew Davis: That's exactly right. That's what it's supposed to be. You're like, my gosh, I can't believe it ended like that. That's emotion.
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: You're like, I have to go see the next one. Yeah.
Beck: Have have you seen examples where it's it feels like there's a term clickbait and switch versus clickbait, right? Like I I saw an illustration a couple of weeks ago where it was an actor that I liked, it had the day he was born and then today's date and I'm like, my god, he died. No, it was his birthday. I'm like, I hate that. Like so I I now I hate that company. I'm like, I'm never clicking your crap again.
Andrew Davis: I saw that too. I did the same thing.
Chad: What?
Andrew Davis: I was like, my gosh, I can't believe it. I almost texted my wife. I was about to just stop and text my wife and be like, did you hear? And so I didn't do it. Thank goodness. Because then I read the caption and I was like, these jackasses, like I'm out. Like, yeah, so
Chad: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: that's a bad payoff. Like they're releasing
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: the tension in all the wrong ways that leaves you with the wrong kind of feeling attached to the brand. So like, You can use curiosity gaps for good or you can use them for evil. But I encourage you to use them for good. Like you
Beck: Yes.
Andrew Davis: can invite someone to watch any length of content you create or read an entire 10,000 word article if you're conscientious about what answer your audience is chasing in every sentence in every paragraph. If you're going to put a photo on Instagram, think about the question it creates in their mind if you want them to read the caption. That's the key. Right. So like even back, even with our example that made us angry, what they
Beck: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: did right was they created an image that made us think, my gosh, what happened? Right.
Beck: Right.
Andrew Davis: So then you hit, that's the question and you hit the caption to read. And then you're like, come on. That's the, that's the bad payoff. But if you can, if you can construct that with your marketing or with your, with your, even with your team, I had someone who was talking to curiosity gaps about with me, they use it to get employees to come to meetings on time. So it's a C-level executive. She was so tired
Beck: Who's getting fired today? No, just kidding.
Andrew Davis: of people showing up late that she sent out an email. She does it periodically when she sees that people are starting to show up late again. But she'll say, like if the meeting's at 10, she'll say, I know everybody's coming to the meeting at 10 a.m., but at 9.55, I have a surprise for three of you. That's it. That's a curiosity gap. What's the surprise?
Chad: Yeah.
Andrew Davis: Can I be one of those three people? I don't know. guess I'll get there. I'll try to get there at 954 and see if that helps.
Beck: Wow. That's pretty good. Chad, one more before we go to to our rapid fire session here.
Chad: That's brilliant. yeah,
Andrew Davis: So.
Chad: I I just have to ask you this because I don't know how many people are gonna get to ask this that would have a good answer. So if you've given the same talk, like on a keynote or the a hundred plus times, and you might have hit that number, right? What changes from the first time you give it to the hundredth? Like what
Andrew Davis: Wow.
Chad: what's that journey like?
Andrew Davis: So usually the first time it the first time I perform something it's usually a really rough idea with some good stories that I hope people get. And
Chad: Ha ha ha.
Andrew Davis: usually by the 10th or 12th time it's a pretty solid clear idea with enough substance that people are excited to learn more. And by like the 20th time it's. It's all of those things plus entertaining and funny. And by like the 40th time, it's something that people really want to see again, because they feel like they missed some nuggets that that because they were laughing or because they were writing notes or, they just want to eat it all up. like a lot changes by the hundredth time. It's usually on it's like second rendition. It's usually like, okay, I found a new good story that I'd like to replace. I, know what, this is a, this is interesting, but I think it could be way better. And I just discovered someone or something that's way more interesting. Let me try and incorporate that. So it's ever evolving, but it definitely goes through some very specific phases from like experimental to, you know, kind of a production, would say.
Chad: Mm.
Beck: Awesome. All right. So we we've baked since I think the last time we saw you. We do a rapid fire round of questions
Andrew Davis: Love it!
Beck: at the end. Easy. Should be able to swat him out of the park, blindfolded. And the first one will be a little longer and then they'll go faster from there. You ready? All
Andrew Davis: Okay, yeah, let's do it.
Beck: right. If I gave you unlimited money, unlimited people, unlimited time to solve a creative problem, what's the first thing you take away from yourself?
Andrew Davis: The unlimited time. I'd give myself an unreasonable deadline immediately. That's right. Yeah.
Beck: Simon Sinek inf infinite game doesn't work, right? Yeah, love it. Blank sh blank sheet of t paper or a really tight brief.
Andrew Davis: Blank sheet of paper.
Beck: More time or harder deadlines?
Andrew Davis: man, definitely harder deadlines.
Beck: Curiosity or creativity?
Andrew Davis: Curiosity every time.
Beck: Human first draft or AI first draft?
Andrew Davis: AI First Draft.
Beck: One word you wish marketers would stop using.
Andrew Davis: Engagement. Immediately. It's like it's like a pet peeve of mine. Like anyone that starts talking about engagement, I just I just want to leave. I'm like, okay.
Beck: my god, that was my whole conversation yesterday. I am I'm cringing at my own at my own language. All right, what's something
Andrew Davis: You
Beck: AI can can make us faster at that we probably shouldn't be doing faster?
Andrew Davis: my lord, almost everything. But I and I love that. Let me think. I got to think of something.
Beck: What's something AI can make us faster at that we probably shouldn't be doing faster?
Andrew Davis: I mean, there's a lot. I love this one. Science. that's good. That's. Beaker's got it. Yeah, I don't know. This is that's a really tough one. Maybe maybe maybe we should. We shouldn't go faster at creating more AI. Maybe that's the answer. It is.
Beck: Okay, okay. I think that's a big debate right now. Muppets
Chad: Well, that definitely is an answer.
Beck: or marketers, who's harder to manage?
Andrew Davis: Definitely Muppets. my gosh, they're just a wild, crazy bunch of artists. It's really tough.
Beck: All right, la last question. This is the bonus question. What famous children's book was written by Ian Fleming?
Andrew Davis: wow! Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. BING!
Beck: Good job. Yeah,
Chad: What?
Beck: isn't that funny? It's also about a supercar that does all kinds of cool stuff. It was just a kid's version of James Bond. Yes,
Andrew Davis: It is and it's a great it's a great great movie great movie too.
Chad: Ha ha.
Beck: it is. And and God bless Dick Van Dyke. He's a he's he's America's treasure. Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Davis: he's a legend. Legend.
Chad: Mm.
Beck: So so Andrew, I know we could go on all day and literally we could with you. You're you are absolutely amazing. And and this isn't gushing. This is having seen you a couple of times and
Andrew Davis: Thank you.
Beck: talked to you a couple of times. We are such fans of yours. with that in mind, since there's no shows coming up for us to see you at, where are you gonna be? Where where's somebody could look you up, go to one of your events?
Andrew Davis: yeah, can find well, so my find me on LinkedIn. My handle on LinkedIn is Drew Davis here. So you can find me there. My website akadrewdavis.com has a list of all the events I'm going to. like whatever
Beck: Okay.
Andrew Davis: city you're in, whether you're watching or listening, if you see that I'm at an event in your city, feel perfect. Yeah. And
Beck: It'll be in the description below when you get into the YouTube if you're watching it, we'll have it there for
Andrew Davis: you can, you can check it out. Shoot me a note on LinkedIn. And if you're around and you want to grab a coffee or hang out, let me know if I have time. I'd love to do that. and I'll see you guys, I'm sure, on the road at some point. But those are the two best and easiest places to find me.
Beck: Absolutely fantastic. Well, for everybody that's been watching, you guys get a w you know, check out Drew, his books, his keynote speeches. Prosper I know has some of his his keynotes that he's had on their website. If you go there, you can go see so go see talk. I can't I'm so jazzed. You can go see Drew
Chad: Ha ha ha.
Beck: talk at one of the prosper conferences and maybe one coming up next year if we're lucky, he'll be coming back to the circuit again. Drew, you're absolutely one of the good ones. Don't stop believing and to our audience. You know, we say this at the at the end of every episode, which is random acts of kindness, sprinkle that stuff everywhere. You never know whose day you're gonna make better. And Drew exemplifies that by spending time with us here, spending time with the show. Like you just go extra, man, and you and you spell
Andrew Davis: Thanks.
Beck: that so well. And we need more of that in that world in the world. So for now, it's Drew. man,
Andrew Davis: I appreciate it. You guys are the best. Thank you guys
Beck: I'll take that. Can you say that one more time?
Andrew Davis: You guys are the best. No, I really mean it. Yeah
Beck: You guys are the best. You guys are the best. You
Chad: Yeah.
Beck: guys are the best. Wow, you gotta stop, Drew. It's way too much. But for now, it's true. I I am quick on the sp the turn. So if it's
Andrew Davis: I love it. That's hilarious. That was fast. That was really good. That's so funny. Thank you guys.
Chad: Ha ha ha.
Beck: absolutely it's Drew Chad and Beck signing off here. We'll see you guys in the next one and have a fantastic weekend. If it's Friday for you when you watch this, and we'll see you guys later. Take care.
