Aaron Starkman of Rethink
What kind of box are you building for your people?
"FEARLESS CREATIVE LEADERSHIP" PODCAST - TRANSCRIPT
Episode 287: Aaron Starkman
What kind of box are you building for your people?
In this episode of Fearless Creative Leadership, Charles Day sits down with Aaron Starkman, Chief Creative Officer of Rethink and one of Adweek’s 100 Most Creative People in the World. But this is not a conversation about freedom from structure — it’s about why the most creative environments are built on the most thoughtful processes.
Aaron shares how creativity first became his refuge as a child, how anxiety and leadership collided early in his career, and why embracing structure, clarity, and guardrails is the fastest way to unlock originality. He explains how Rethink’s disciplined systems remove friction, protect ideas, and give creative people the oxygen they need to do their best work.
This is a deeply human conversation about creativity, leadership, vulnerability, and designing environments where people — and ideas — can truly thrive.
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Charles Day (03:06):
Aaron, welcome to Fearless. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Aaron Starkman (03:10):
My pleasure, Charles.
Charles Day (03:13):
When did creativity first show up in your life? When are you first conscious of creativity being a thing in the world?
Aaron Starkman (03:20):
That's a...
Hmm, that's a good question. I will say that I think I'm going to start off with a real downer.
Charles Day (03:33):
Okay.
Aaron Starkman (03:35):
I'm going to, I'm... There's two types of people in this world. People that have great childhoods and people that are funny.
I, Charles, I'm funny. So back to the world of creativity and how that manifested itself for me when I was first aware of it. Happened during some dark days a child. Listen, I have a great relationship with my dad now.
He's 87 years old. He has been sober for like 40 years so. But when I was younger, what the world looked like to me was is a lot of yelling. It wasn't my dad. My dad is just kind of a happy drunk. He like, he watched TV and the yelling, the yelling was my mom just yelling, like, are you drunk? Like, where's, where's the bottle? That kind of thing.
I discovered that in the chaos of that environment, I would go and hide. It's kind of like a nook behind the bed. It was a great hiding spot.
Like if I just wanted to be invisible, I would go there and behind that bed there would be things like crayons and markers and I would put little things behind it and no one ever saw it except me. I never showed my sisters or my parents. It was my special thing and I would draw like cartoons and the more loud it would become, the more creative I got in that situation. I'd come up with storylines for cartoons and I created like a rival show to Knight Rider with David Hasselhoff. And I was doing this at age, you know, age seven. and it was...
It was therapeutic, absolutely. And that has carried with me all these years later. And I say everything is everything. It was. I wouldn't be in this business. I wouldn't be creative if it weren't for a rough childhood where I had to find my happy place. My happy place was behind my bed.
and my happy place was creativity. And when there's a pitch or sh*t hitting the fan, you know, present day, I'm calm. I'm very calm. And then I am, also that way at home as a father. So I'm happy, I'm thankful for that opportunity when I was younger, this gift of a tough environment to bring out creativity in me. And if I didn't have that rough environment, maybe I'd be an accountant or something.
Charles Day (07:01):
Was that your happy place or your safe place?
Aaron Starkman (07:03):
That was my safe place. I just went there. Listen, I was never in danger. I was never in danger. My dad wasn't abusive, physically abusive, but it's just tough to listen to, because you can't hear the TV. You can't hear it. It's that the yelling is louder than the TV. I went in there and even though I could still hear the yelling.
I really just blocked it out. I really did. I was in my own world and it's a wonderful place. Whenever I get the opportunity, it doesn't happen so often now because I deal with Q4 meetings and managing several agencies and many people. When the opportunity comes to work on something creatively, my God.
It is so wonderful to be in a profession where you can use your brain in a way that you just get to come up with ideas and solve problems in a creative way, in a way that will make people laugh or be entertained. It's one of the greatest businesses in the world.
Charles Day (08:32):
At seven and eight years old, danger doesn't have to be physical, right, for it to feel terrifying, actually, right? Because you're not, I've got some experiences myself, but you're not getting the thing that you need as a child. It's not being provided to you. As you went through that experience, and as you said, creativity was both a safe place and a happy place, and I could see both. Have you learned over time?
Aaron Starkman (08:48):
Yeah.
Charles Day (09:01):
Are you enough for yourself at this point? Do you need the validation of others given that you didn't get that as a child?
Aaron Starkman (09:09):
Mm.
That's a really good question. It feels like a question my therapist has asked me.
I historically have had that chip on my back. I have had that where I want validation. I am not super proud to admit that because I'd love to say I don't give a f*ck what people think. My partner Sean thinks that and it's so admirable.
Right? To be able to to say that and act like that and to answer your question, that this was call it a gift, it was a gift from my childhood to, to want to please others to, to want to be the best version of myself and
When I am the best version of myself, there's things that validate it. It could be people saying, you did a great job, you were great in that meeting. There's data like FEs and award shows and being the blah, blah, blah agency of the year. These are our RTBs.
On me feeling like I am something, I'm a successful person who's done well, provided for his family. Yeah, those things help. Now, it like it was 20 years ago, that need for validation? No.
But it's come up to the surface in different ways.
Gets mentioned in the same sentence as, you know, big behemoth agencies or, or even not big behemoth agencies, but create creative agencies that I've admired my whole life. You know, when we get mentioned in the same sentence as, as these incredible agencies, Wyden and Kennedy and Goodby, Mischief, you know, when, we get mentioned in the same breath, it's a real source of pride. Yeah.
I care that we get mentioned in those sentences. It makes me feel good. It makes our people somehow feel validated in a way. Like all this hard work to put cool sh*t out in the world, to do things that exceed the media budget, it's being recognized and people are paying attention.
Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon and our work is often in these late night monologues. And there's such a buzz around the agency the next day about, my god, that's taking off. We just put it out this morning. And I can't believe it. Somehow the writers of Jimmy Fallon got in and they're talking about the Heinz puzzle or the Shohei course thing. It's great.
It is absolutely great. And somehow this all comes back to your question from a while ago of do you care what people think about getting validated? It's a me thing. It's a Canadian agency thing. And it's a country of Canada thing. So there's commonalities there for all of it.
Charles Day (13:10):
You know, I've not asked anybody this question, but what you've just said has prompted this new thought for me, actually. So through a number of different perspectives, self-actualization is a goal in lots of ways for people. If you look at Maslow's hierarchy, self-actualization is the ultimate, is the top part of the pyramid. If you listen to the Dalai Lama, self-actualization where essentially you are completely self-determined, other people's feelings and views of you have no destructive ability. Therapy, which I've been fortunate enough to benefit from, one of the ambitions of therapy is... self-actualization to be complete, to be enough in oneself. Do you think, however, that part of the creative condition requires external validation? Do you think that we need that to drive ourselves to express ourselves originally? Can self-actualization exist within the creative body, mind, mindset entity?
Aaron Starkman (14:36):
Without the validation.
Charles Day (14:38):
Yeah, like do you need the valid, does one, not necessarily just you, but does one need the validation in order to be created? Like, are we always trying to solve a problem that makes somebody say, amazing?
Aaron Starkman (14:49):
This is a deep question. This is like the kind of question I get from my friends after a few beers. It's a really good one.
Okay, I think there's a difference. think creatives outside of this business, often the validation wouldn't matter. I think it's it's good enough for you, this art you made, this painting you made, this bench you put together, a poem you wrote. I think that's good enough.
When I was behind that bed, that was good enough. I didn't need it. I didn't need any validation. I didn't need anybody seeing how good it was. That was good enough for me and it made me feel good. you know, it's a commercial business. We're in a business.
You know, we're not making art in a corner for us. Someone is asking us to do something creative to help them, to help their business. Sometimes it gets more personal than that. Sometimes it's like someone could be like, I could get fired if this goes off the rails and you just want to help them, truly.
So I think in our business, these, these little RTBs do, do matter. And I think, I think they're, they are needed. Like if, you know, we put things in, peer review internally with the, a cross section of who would, who would uncover our ads and the ad is not for the creator. The ad is for the people who it's for. So it matters. The validation will come from them. If they love it, if they love it, they'll talk about it. It'll spread like wildfire. could, you know, someone with good taste, like a late show writer will put it in front of their boss, Jimmy Fallon, and they'll talk about your idea.
And that's just a result of the target loving, loving the thing you did. So I think it matters that the people you do the ads for like the ads and like them so much that they're inspired to take an action or do something, buy something.
Charles Day (17:49):
I mean, I think in a commercial world, it must be true. Otherwise, we're just doing stuff for ourselves, right? And that doesn't pay the bills because we probably wouldn't choose to do some of the things that were otherwise paid to do. Did you always want to, was leading always part of your journey?
Aaron Starkman (18:01):
Yeah.
No. My God. was, it was, the, the op, it was something I was scared of totally. So totally scared of, well, I was a, a really, really, really outgoing kid. I was, the one at summer camp, I would tell stories, and—
Charles Day (18:17):
In what way?
Aaron Starkman (18:39):
They'd be like creative stories and my middle name's Gordon. So people at camp called me Gordy. Gordy is the character from Stand By Me and he would tell really creative stories. And I didn't know how, I didn't realize like how good these stories were, but I got my friends laughing and stuff.
Eventually my personality changed quite a bit in terms of my outgoingness and I became much more of an introvert. I didn't realize I was introverted as much as it was like I was just kind of filled with anxiety. When I dove into it later in life…
I am the world's biggest extrovert, just like I was when I was a kid. However, I am an extrovert who has dealt with social anxiety in my life. And when I got into advertising, that social anxiety was there. And I was put with a partner who I love so much, Steven Leps. And Steven... was like the absolute world's biggest extrovert and everyone loved him and had like leadership vibes. As he, as the more, you know, the more Stephen was Stephen, the more I became this guy in the corner hiding. And I would just be like the person that I'll just do the work in the corner and be the, and like Stephen will talk in the meetings.
But deep inside of me… was Gordy, the extrovert who would make everyone laugh and be a crowd pleaser. after Stephen went to Chicago and I was devastated, but everything is everything. And I was thrust into leadership, the last thing I wanted to do. And I was put in charge of a company in Toronto called Zig, which you may have heard Crispin and Porter Bogusky, they bought us and we became that. But I was put in charge of that company as a leader and I still had all this social anxiety and a lot going on in my brain that no one saw and in my heart. And I was thrust in there and I sucked at it. I sucked at leadership. I was way too much in my own head.
I was taking on a leadership style that I thought was expected in this business, which is to be filled with confidence, and it was kind of fake confidence for me, and be demanding, and get your vision across in any way.
You know, it took a couple years of that and back to the being validated. I had a meeting with someone early on, right when I took the helm of Chrisman Porter Bogusky. And they were making a face. I'm like, why are you making a face as I'm talking? Like, you look like the cheese is stinky with that face. Don't make that f*cking face. And I'm like, I'm talking like this. That person quit the next day.
And it was at that moment I went, what the hell am I doing? Why am I doing this? I'm not this person. I'm not this way to my friends. I'm not this way outside of advertising. Maybe I'm being this way because some of the people that I've looked up to are this way. And the Steve Jobs of it all and there's advertising people as well.
And they had this kind of this confidence and like I'm a visionary and like you know what that that is not that is not me and then after that person quit I took a good look in the mirror and I'm like, I did the, who am I? who am I? I'm not that person, not that person that did the yelling, I'm a different person, you know.
My childhood shaped me, a lot of things shaped me, and who I am with my friends. I'm still the person that makes people laugh, a bit of a class clown. And I embrace the real me after that person quit. And it's been a work in progress for many, many years, personally and professionally. And it's starting to come together.
Shout out to, shout out to therapy, cognitive therapy, and shout out to a wonderful support system of friends, family, and co-workers who I love and are very, very dear to me. I will say this, know, listen, I wasn't expecting to, you know, do a whole thing about social anxiety, but I mean, it's the real answer to your question of, did I see myself as a leader?
I do now, now I see myself as a leader in my own style, in my own way, just in terms of social anxiety, one thing I would like to mention is if any of your listeners are out there, they suffer through this and they haven't looked into cognitive therapy, I'm tell you, please look into it. It's fixed me. You know what I tell people?
I licked it, I beat it, I beat this thing. It doesn't even really creep up from time to time. It's gone and I'm back to Gordy. That's me. In terms of leadership at Rethink, I'm very much that guy.
I'll joke around, I'll try to bring levity to situations, I'll try to bring calm to situations and people can laugh with me and laugh at me and it's all good.
Charles Day (25:46):
So within all of that context, how do you describe the environment that you're now conscious of wanting to create for people?
Aaron Starkman (25:54):
I'm very conscious of it and Rethink accidentally and a little on purpose is the environment that is like built for people like me to succeed. This industry is filled with a lot of misfits and weirdos, especially on the creative side.
And, what people like me hate are hurdles, roadblocks, and just like bullsh*t that kills, that just kills ideas. That doesn't let the idea get out in the world, to get seen by people. So there's a lot of chaos out in the world, a lot.
It's noisy, it's ugly, there's a lot of competition for messages, more mediums than ever before. Listen, I'm not the most organized person in my life. I'm not. My sister's a professional organizer, if you can believe that, and we're the opposite. But...
She would, my sister Brenda would be impressed with what's going on at Rethink when Rethink is the most organized place in the world. Because there's so much chaos outside of Rethink, I want the halls of Rethink to be the most buttoned down, organized place in terms of process and practices imaginable. Because it's process that actively murders all those hurdles.
All those hurdles that get in the way of producing good work. Creatives, they need things. They need to be narrowed in.
Good stuff comes out when you have, when there's a lot of like, A, executional considerations, executional mandatories. When there's some of that, it really helps. But at the end of the day, we put in our own process. I don't.
I don't want this to be selly and I don't want to come across as an infomercial for Rethink, but it's just very true. The excellent award-winning creatives, they intuitively kind of know how to come up with a good idea. And it's that combination of timeless... and timely that will yield to really good careers and the kind of work that will make an agency and an individual successful. And internally, we have a criteria called CRAFTS. It's an acronym. ⁓ It's clear, relevant, achievable, fresh, true, and shareable. It's what all creatives look at when they come up with work.
We've been around a long time, a long time. Just had our ⁓ 25th year anniversary, but people think we're a newish agency and they've noticed us after COVID. The reason why is, Kraft's has been around forever. It's been around so long that the S came in when Facebook was invented, the shareable. Okay, that's how long it's been around. But when COVID struck, we needed to, we just said, well, f*ck, what do we have? It's kind of chaos right now. Can we get back to like really being almost religious about following this thing, this process of crafts? ⁓ And we did. And ⁓ we started doing ⁓ work right after COVID. We were the first agency to do something that was funny.
And a team, Jeff and Zach, had an idea for Heinz ketchup. And we had Heinz for about a year and a half before this, and we didn't really do anything good. They had this idea about a puzzle that's just the color red.
And the reason why they did that, they were going through the checklist of crafts and the T, which is like, it ownable to the brand? Is it very true for the brand? And the R, relevancy, it was this serendipitous marriage. Everyone was doing puzzles at that time, Heinz is known for slow. It's kind of ownable. They own it. All right? What if, what, and they wrote, Heinz creates a ⁓ red, the world's slowest puzzle that's just the color red. And that's how Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel and CNN.
That's how they wrote about the idea and it took off. And we haven't stopped since then. And we've just been hitting these craft things, things that are ownable to the client, but you couldn't do it two years ago and you can't do it two years from now. That's the relevancy. That's what we hit. Back to your question.
Your question a long time ago was, did your childhood and the work environment, was it influenced by anything in your life? And it absolutely was. This is the only kind of environment I'd be successful in. And it just happens, there's creatives, they're a lot like me.
They need these things to be successful. They need things to pull out what's inside of them. And this is just a fast way to get it through. And the thing that is spiritually debilitating to them is when ideas just die for dumb reasons. So we do things called go then grow. That puzzle was a great example. It started out with 57. It went to 570. It went to 5700.
Then the client said, well, let's do more. Let's do more. Let's invest more. And then suddenly it's in Walmart. So that is a way to get rid of a very big roadblock of let's have it all figured out and let's pay for it all at once. And this is something that we do for all our clients. And it'll happen 14 times a year where it's not the big paid for media.
Buy that happens all at once it's a little thing that that grows and grows and grows and you keep watering it like a flower and it becomes this you know this amazing thing that smells beautiful and everyone can enjoy.
Charles Day (33:20):
The kind of guardrails and the kind of process you're describing.
Aaron Starkman (33:23):
Mmm.
Charles Day (33:23):
And not necessarily for everybody, right? mean, one of the things in my work that I've realized more and more is I have the ability to be able to identify what are the right personality traits, what are the right qualities and characteristics that will work effectively and well, productively, happily, expansively within this particular environment. I think every creative company is unique, but their problems are not. think different environments require different kinds of personas. Have you experienced that? I mean, you've got a very clear way of describing the kind of, not only the way you work, but the kind of environment that you've created. You've talked in the past about processes and guardrails. Do you need a certain kind of person?
Aaron Starkman (34:05):
Yep.
Yeah, I will say, I will say.
Canadians and Americans are different. We're different as creatives and it has a lot to do with just the environment we were brought up in, the expectations and the media clout and the budget. The kind of work that I'm, know, like, craft's work is normally best under acts, not 60 second commercials. So when you when you when you know, so I'd say to nail the things that I'm talking about where Something happens in the world Everyone's talking about it and it's very right for the brand. It's not just noise Canadians are good at this
The reason why Canadians are good at this is because we've been hacking the system forever. it's just, it's, you know, what I describe with crafts, it's about getting earned media. It's about getting more eyeballs than you paid for, right? Which is kind of just our calling card.
When I was doing TV commercials ⁓ as a junior, very similar brief. ⁓ How do you make a lot of noise for this thing? We don't have a celebrity. And it came down to really, really good creativity. couldn't rely on helicopter shots or things like that. And the first commercial I ever did, I was briefed that way from my bosses, Al Speth and Lorraine. It's like, we can do something really good. The budget is 150,000 Canadian dollars, which will, you know, buy you some &Ms. And so no celebrities, and that often meant you got lock off camera and you're in one location and you're in one, and you don't move. You don't move the set. What can you do? What can you do in that, in that?
With those restrictions. So Canadians are used to this kind of thing. Anyways, that commercial ended up that commercial ended up being like the most successful, cleaning product commercial in Unilever history. And it was my first commercial I won a gold lion, which was, didn't know what that was, but it was great. But
It was do something great with a terrible budget, right? Don't rely on celebrities and don't rely on any of this, expensive directors. The idea needs to be great. So Canadians are forced always to do great ideas. And guess what? So are Brazilians and much of South America.
So these creatives are the certain type of creatives that you're asking about. These are the types of creatives who've kind of learned in a system where they, where this kind of thing suits them well. Now, we have a New York office and our New York team is fucking amazing. But this is not the world they grew up in. The world they grew up in creatively is like, okay, there's a Super Bowl commercial, all right? Think of some celebrities. It'd be really good if there's a great idea. But it doesn't start with the great idea. It starts with like, we got a Super Bowl spot.
And like, you know, what's a great track? What's a great track we can buy? So you get a lot of get out of jail free cards. You know, like, you know, in Canada, you're just, you're in jail and you've got to figure out a real creative way to get out of there.
Charles Day (38:40):
Would your New York people be effective in Canada and vice versa? Is the company culture such that you can move people around?
Aaron Starkman (38:45):
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, no, so we generally do things where like, who are the right people for this project? And it doesn't matter about geography. And we do that all the time. ⁓ We have a Doritos brief that's from Dallas, Texas, and we have some Canadians working on it right now. ⁓ We have some Americans working on it.
You know we play to our strengths and, you know, I have really good broadcast people. I have really good act people. I have really funny people, really poetic people, and we put them on what's right. With that said... are forcing everyone to drink the Kool-Aid, that is, that crafts. To learn crafts, which is a bit of a scrappy Canadian style, in the U.S., in all our offices.
And, what, what scores well in crafts and what doesn't. And ⁓ if you work at rethink this, this, this is just a muscle you're going to have to flex. It's just a muscle you're have to flex. It's, it's—
Charles Day (40:13):
So if clearly talent's a critical factor for you guys, but is cultural fit critical as well? Like can anybody adapt to the kind of environment that Rethink is providing or have you discovered there are certain kinds of people that are great here and certain kinds of people for whom this is just not a good fit? I mean I'm struck by how specific you guys are and clearly it works. I think I went to a, can't remember which industry event it was a year and a half ago. And I thought it would just be easier if they just put the rethink tape groups table up on the stage and just had them leave the stage when they weren't winning an award. Cause it would be faster for all of the rest of us. You had a particularly good year. So I mean, you clearly built something that is very specific and it really works. And I'm, always fascinated by how—
Aaron Starkman (40:48):
Yeah.
Charles Day (41:00):
—critical it is for companies to cast the right kind of people with the right kind of attributes to fit into that kind of environment.
Aaron Starkman (41:07):
Yeah, it's insanely important. It really is. So we really sweat that for everyone we hire. We often hire people that just, they don't have any of this stuff in their books at all.
You look at personality and I will say there's a bit of a Canadian personality which is self-deprecating. The opposite of that person I was trying to be when I first became a creative leader.
The opposite. if I encountered me, the old me in the hiring process, that person would not have a chance of getting into rethinking. So we look for all of that and listen, we have ⁓ a list of competencies and what makes a Rethinker, a Rethinker, and it's 100 pages long.
Charles Day (42:12):
Mmm.
Aaron Starkman (42:13):
It goes into our hiring practice and our evaluations of people who are here.
Charles Day (42:25):
I'm so fascinated by your personal evolution. I'm also conscious of your time. If you were to sit down with the 25 year old version of yourself, knowing what you know now, what would you tell them?
Aaron Starkman (42:35):
Yes.
Well.
I would, okay, it comes back to anxiety and just embracing who you are. Hopefully most people are not assholes, like through and through. I think they just play one on TV occasionally. I played one on TV for a couple of years as a leader, but as a 25 year old, you know, before I became a leader.
It was my anxiety that brought that on when I was 25. I was really struggling it. So the thing I would say to the 25 year old me is the thing...
Again, I started on a dark thing. I'm to end on a dark thing, but I promise you it's a wonderful thing. My mom died several years ago. It was sudden. I had a dream, like one of those cliché dreams. The day after, the night after she died. sure enough, she came to me in a dream. And it was so real, and I woke up, I was like, I'm one of those people that have one of those dreams. I never thought I'd be that person but my mom said to me, Aaron, listen, baby. Yeah, you can't… You can't hold on to all this shit in your head. That's how my mom would talk. You have a—
You got so much good stuff going on in your life, professionally, personally. My mom gave some context ⁓ that wouldn't be relevant to the 25 year old me, but it was relevant to the older me about you've raised a great family, you're raising a great family. You're a good person, unbelievable what's happening at work. You need to be happy and get out of your own head. You need to do something.
Okay, so the thing I would say to the 25 year old me is a version of what my mom said to me in that dream. And after that dream, the next day, the next day, the morning, like the first thing I did was I looked up cognitive, I looked up therapy. Like I went on, actively just looked it up. I booked an appointment that morning. That morning I booked an appointment.
And I would tell the 25-year-old me.
Fix who you are in here and in here. Like just get that right. So when the moments come where there's roses to smell, you can like stop and smell those roses. The freaking smile on your face and enjoy that. And the last many years, I'm enjoying that. I'm enjoying the smell of the roses.
I am stopping to smell them. I'm encouraging our people also. Hey, we just got a thing. Agency of the Year, whatever it is. Think about that. You know those two campaigns you worked on that had a real impact on this and how it got all over the news? It's like, you know what? People are noticing. They're noticing the work you did. Can you just?
Can you stop worrying about this horrible, like this bullshit that you got going on right now, some impossible thing or like a producer told you that we can't do this shot or whatever it is or we gotta go to Serbia to shoot instead of Rio. That happened to me. Stop and smell the roses. It's one of those times.
That's what I say to the 25-year-old me.
Charles Day (47:14):
Last question for you.
What else do you want to find out about yourself in the time you have left?
Aaron Starkman (47:23):
On this earth, in the industry?
Charles Day (47:27):
Either, both.
Aaron Starkman (47:36):
I'm overt about this and I say it and I say it out loud and I've said it on a podcast before. I'm 50 years old right now. I'm going to retire when I'm 55. It's kind of an early age, but I'm going to retire.
I am, this question that you asked about, what do I, you know, where do I want to go from here? Who do I want to be? I think I'm putting that on pause for a bit until I'm, when I'm 55, I'm really, really going to embrace that. Because I'm not going to be, you know, working many, many, many hours a day. You know, I will say,
The present stopgap until then is I will be myself, which is great. But that will change when I pursue different interests and things and hobbies. But I think the thing that will be consistent is... really embracing the relationships I'm in, you know, being there, being in it.
doing things to make others' lives better. My children come to mind and that will always, always be a thing. But when I'm 55, selfishly I think that's when I'll really start to pursue the answer to your question, which is like, yeah, who knows?
Charles Day (49:28):
I suspect you will never actually retire. I'm sure you'll do other things and work in different ways and different structures and different kinds of environments. But I suspect that your curiosity for the world will keep you pretty engaged in some fashion or another.
Aaron Starkman (49:46):
I think so. I'm not going to just sit and watch TV. Yeah, I'm going to be doing something that brings out, ⁓ like, the thing that makes me happiest is when I'm creative. It makes me at peace. And I'll be doing something in that space. And who knows what? Who knows what? But it's five years, the countdown's on, but you know.
Charles Day (49:50):
Yeah, I'm sure that's true.
Aaron Starkman (50:15):
For me to even just… For me to to to retire we're not selling rethink right? I'm not going to get ⁓ I'm not going to the Brinks truck is not going to back out from WPP ⁓ It's not happening we get these phone calls all the time and it's frustrating I have to say no no no, so we have a different thing in place and ⁓
For me to be able to retire, really need to, with the structure we have, we need to do well. Well means the work needs to be great. And it just starts with that. Good things have happened. And it's been as simple as that. Let's just do great work and the people will be happy doing the great work. It'll attract great people and great clients. And more of that for five years and then...
I'll figure out. Maybe I'll invent something then.
Charles Day (51:17):
I can see that. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm really taken by the curiosity and the courage that you've demonstrated consistently to see what else is possible for you and what else you're capable of. And it's clearly been a defining reference point for you throughout your life. And I have no doubt it will continue to be that. I wish you great success and ⁓ self-reflection going forward.
Aaron Starkman (51:45):
Thanks, Charles. wasn't, you know what, I was not expecting to talk about any of this stuff. I started with my childhood, I ended up talking a lot about me and my brain. ⁓ But thank you for getting it out of me. I hope people watch this and listen to this and maybe can take something from it if they're struggling with anything. ⁓ Up here.
Charles Day (52:12):
I have no doubt they will. Aaron, thank you so much.
Aaron Starkman (52:15):
Okay, thanks Charles.
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If you'd like to know more about our work with the leaders of highly creative and innovative businesses, go to fearlesscreativeleadership.com. There, you'll also find the audio and the transcript of every episode. Or, go to our YouTube channel for the video of our most recent conversations.
Fearless is produced by Podshop. Sarah Pardoe is the show's producer and handles all guest inquiries. You can reach her at sarah@fearlesscreativeleadership.com.
And thanks for listening.
