"The Society Changer"
Trevor is renowned for his contribution to society and for encouraging future talent. In 1995 Trevor set up Quiet Storm, the first agency to write, direct and produce its own work. He’s chaired the IPA’s Ethnic Diversity Forum and set up “Create Not Hate” to tackle gun crime by getting disenfranchised youth into advertising and creative projects. He was awarded an OBE in 2009 for his services to charity and advertising. This episode was recorded at the Eurobest festival in London..
Three Takeaways
Strive to make a difference
Be willing to discover what you're capable of
Always think positively
"FEARLESS CREATIVE LEADERSHIP" PODCAST - TRANSCRIPT
Episode 40: "The Society Changer" Trevor Robinson
Charles:
Hello, you're listening to Fearless, where we explore the art and science of leading creativity, that unpredictable, amorphous, and invaluable resource that's critical to every modern business.each week, we talk to leaders who are jumping into the fire, crossing the chasm, and blowing up the status quo. Leaders who've mastered the art of turning the impossible into the profitable. This episode was recorded in London at the eurobest Festival, which is now in its 30th year, highlighting, celebrating, and rewarding the best or European creativity. Visit eurobest.com for more information.
Today, I'm talking to Trevor Robinson, founder and executive creative director of Quiet Storm. Trevor is renowned for his contribution to society and for encouraging future talent. In 1995, Trevor set up Quiet Storm, the first agency to write, direct, and produce its own work. He's chaired the IPA's ethnic diversity forum, and set up Create Not Hate to tackle gun crime by getting disenfranchised youth into advertising and creative projects. He was awarded an OBE in 2009 for his services to charity and advertising. Trevor, welcome to Fearless, thank you so much for agreeing to do this.
Trevor Robinson:
My pleasure.
Charles:
When did creativity first who up in your life? What's your first memory of something being creative?
Trevor Robinson:
Well, in terms of, I always liked creativity, and I think my mom was amazing in terms of whatever nonsense I would do. My mom used to do black people's hair in our house, and they'd come in and give her a small fee and she would do their hair, and I used to draw people coming in. I used to find it fascinating drawing them. I remember seeing one of these creations when I was a lot older and it just looked like some crazy monster I'd drawn, it was meant to be portraits of these people, and my mom always praised me. Mom always said, "That's wonderful and amazing," and all these people used to humor me, and I think I got probably bitten by the bug of creativity back then.
I've always been interested in illustration, art, at time I was a court artist, another time I was a freelance, I used to do illustrations for book covers and stuff, and almost became an animator, and obviously I ended up in advertising. I don't even know when I first started gaining influence by creativity, but it's always been a part of me.
Charles:
And then did you study art, illustration, drawing, at school?
Trevor Robinson:
I went to, first was South Thames College of Art, and then I went to Chelsea, which probably was my favorite period. Then I went to Hounslow Borough College, where I didn't really know what I wanted to do to be honest. I did advertising there, but at that time, I didn't think I would be good enough to be in advertising, and I did textile designing, graphic designing, fine art, the whole lot there at Hounslow.
But I used to bunk off and go to other colleges, 'cause I hated being, you know, they were very aggressive, and it's a great college, Hounslow, but they were very much, "Here's a D&AD, copy the D&AD and everything's gonna be hunky-dory," and I just remember finding that a really limited way to be thinking, so I used to sneak into people like LCP, and Chelsea, I used to go back oftentimes my old college and sit in their lessons, and I used to go to St. Martin's.
Because you're a student, the teachers didn't even know that you weren't a part, wasn't meant to be there, so I used to just do their stuff. Half of my exhibition was based on some of the other teaching, so I was always a bit kind of liked but hated college at the same time.
Charles:
Why did you think you weren't good enough to get into advertising?
Trevor Robinson:
I think the main thing was I didn't think I could come up with an idea every single day, and come up with a fresh approach. I just thought I couldn't get my head around how these guys do that. Every day, they have to come up with ideas and the main thing, get your ideas rejected again and again and again, and it felt like a very, you know, it felt like you had to be a very strong individual and a very resilient and also incredibly talented to be able to do that, and I realize you don't have to be any of those things, just turn up.
Charles:
So how did you jump into the professional world? What was your first foray?
Trevor Robinson:
I first started where I met my old creative partner where we went on to do all the Tango work and some of my more famous stuff with pot noodles. I was up for an animation job and up for an advertising job, and the advertising came through and the animation didn't, and I was so in debt from college, I took it. It was below the line agency in Richmond called Samuel and Pierce, and I had a really lovely boss. He did eventually fire me, and quite rightly so, 'cause I didn't fit in there too well after a year, 'cause it just depressed me, 'cause I was doing like, you know, pile creams, and doing brochures and stuff like that.
I've never been, I realized, I've never been that kinda guy for detail, graphic design detail, it just drives me nuts, I just let somebody else do that, but I didn't know that at the time. Also, it had a real elephants' graveyard type feel. There was a lot of old creatives that had just settled there and earning them money and stuff, talented job like that, and they had settled to live there, live and work in Richmond, and it just felt incredibly depressing, 'cause I was on that other curve, 'cause I was just wanting to start and bursting to do something with my life.
So I started working with, during the day and at night times, working on my portfolio, at Dorland, where Tom Carty and Walter Campbell, who went on to do all the Guinness, the amazing Guinness work, and they used to work, Tom was a post boy there and Walt was a junior creative, and they used to team up at night time and work on their portfolio. We used to come there and work through the night and work on my portfolio to get into town.
I think I probably learnt the most about advertising doing those night shifts with those guys, 'cause they were incredibly tenacious and angry. Tom would do this thing where he would write ads, and then he would stick them underneath the desk of the other creatives there, and sort of like go, "They don't even know that true genius is underneath their own desk." He was so charismatic but angry at the same time, and really you knew he was gonna do great stuff. He had already told you he was the best creative in London. "I'm the best creative, who are you?" He was really, really funny. He was one of the biggest influences I think in my advertising career.
Charles:
Did that inspire you? Did that kind of confidence bring out your own determination?
Trevor Robinson:
Not really, 'cause I mean, I remember once, Tom, I was in, weirdly enough, we was in the toilet, and Tom just looked at me, and we were both having a pee, and he looked at me and goes, "What do you wanna do in advertising?" In a very aggressive, Tom way. "What do you wanna do in advertising? What do you want?" And I told him I just wanna do something that people will remember and people will like and people will enjoy, and he just looked at me and goes, "Well, you ain't done it yet, have ya?" And he just stormed out the toilet, and it was this kind of tough love kind of relationship with Tom.
Also, the guy was so amazingly prolific and confident and great, and he would say things like, "I could have played," 'cause he loved Manchester United, he goes, "I could have played football for Manchester United. I'd have been average, but in advertising, I'm the best." You know what I mean? It was like, he was like that, and in some ways, inspiring, but I think more my personality came from the joy of what I did and working with my old creative partner.
We used to just have a laugh, and it was a very different approach to it, it was like, if it makes me laugh, I will try and attempt to try and get it in, that spirit, that feeling you have in your guts where you're crying and you go, "If I can get that, if I can bottle that and make it into an ad, it's gonna be interesting."
Charles:
Interesting to have somebody provoke you with that kind of thought process, though. It must've been interesting to have somebody say to you, "You haven't done it yet."
Trevor Robinson:
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Certainly like, I'm telling you now, it always stuck in my mind.
Charles:
Yeah.
Trevor Robinson:
But I wouldn't have been the thing that would have spurred me on, if you know what I mean. It was brilliant, and it was amazing, but if I'm honest, what was more me and Al being on the dole trying to get into advertising, trying to convince ourselves this is something that we can make a mark in, trying to, you know, the fear of going back on the dole again, people telling me I should forget about advertising, I should go and do brick laying and all that kind of stuff or whatever it was they were trying to convince me of. Those kind of things were the real influences and the real anger to show, prove people wrong. So I think that was the real spur for me.
Charles:
You mentioned earlier just wanting to have an impact and do work that makes a difference, did that come to you early in your life, in your career?
Trevor Robinson:
Yeah, I think it was really weird, 'cause I don't understand why I would have thought that I'm gonna do something interesting. There's no real reason this undereducated little black kid on the council estate, I always thought I was gonna make a mark and do something exciting, and have a very exciting, valuable life, and it's something that I share with lots of my real friends that I've been friends for over 30 years that are now running their own agencies and doing the whole thing. We all, when we spoke to each other about it, we all went, "Yeah, I'm gonna do it," and it was almost like an inevitability about it, but not based on anything than male bravado, do you know? It was like, not real.
I remember my wife saying that, 'cause my wife's far more gifted and bright than I am, but she knows I've got more of that confidence of, "Hey, I'm gonna do it," and I think that can take you a long way, and probably why, you know, men tend to do quite well, because no matter how crap they are, they think they're great and they're gonna succeed.
Charles:
Obviously, your parents were big influences on you. Do you have any other sense of where that confidence came from? 'Cause you're right, it's a really magical quality, and not everybody possesses oftentimes. Where do you think it came from in you?
Trevor Robinson:
I think more than anything was the joy of what I was doing, and the mirroring of other people. You could see, if you draw someone, you draw someone well, and I got to a height when I was at college where I was, Leonardo da Vinci was a real influence on me and everything he did. I could draw almost as well. I copied his style so well. In my head, this guy's a genius, right? "I must be there's abouts, 'cause I can copy him." Again, not a realistic way to look at things, but at least that kind of gave me the confidence and reasoning that, you know, I don't know many people from my background was doing what I was doing and was capable of what I was doing.
But like I said, at the same time, if I was gonna talk to this kid that was me back in the day, I would have no advice for him at all, I could not, 'cause I would be in awe of him, his resilience and his kind of belief in himself, because I still have some, but no way as bulletproof as that kid.
Charles:
How did you react to getting fired at the time, given who you were at that point?
Trevor Robinson:
Well, the first time I got fired was because I was working on my portfolio at night times, and he knew I was using all the equipment to work on my portfolio, and I was being really, you know, coming in bleary eyed, and all that, and he laughed, and he just said, "Look, I'm gonna let you go, gonna give you a big pay off and all that, 'cause I know your destiny's out there, your ambition's out there, I can feel it, but I'm gonna set you free and give you the push you need."
Then the second time we got fired was, I won't say the creative director's name, but he fired Tom and Walter before he fired us, and I knew he was gonna get rid of us, 'cause he was just, he was quite uncomfortable with us. We were all quite edgy, you know, and he was a little bit of a plagiarizer, and he stole, not necessarily from me and Al, but he definitely stole from Tom and Walt, and Tom and Walt wouldn't stand for it.
He was meant to be our creative director, and he was very weak guy, and he didn't really know. He had me and Al, he had Tom and Walt, he had Thomas, he had really strong teams, Pat Holden who's now a film director, all working for him, but all these guys were more talented and stronger personalities than him, and I felt sorry for him in the end. I knew when Tom and Walter got fired, he's going to go, "Right, I'm gonna get everybody that scares me out," and he got rid of us two weeks later.
Then we spent about a year trying to get back in and a lot of soul searching, very hard to try and get back in, and then we got Howell Henry where we did all the Tango and Martini and Pot Noodle work, and that was the one place I didn't get fired from, and since then I've been running my own company, so unless I fire myself, it's not gonna happen.
Charles:
Which is actually a good characteristic, I think, for business leaders. What made you decide you wanted to start your own business?
Trevor Robinson:
What? Start my own?
Charles:
To start your own business.
Trevor Robinson:
I didn't really intend to start my own business at all actually. I never had intention. It was that I just had this idea and this longing to direct my own work, and people kept saying to me they wanted to direct and become a director, but I didn't want to stop being a creative. At the time, there wasn't any place, either you're a creative or you're a director. Frank Budgen stopped being a marvelous creative and became a director, and a lot of people would stop being, I was like, "I wanna be a creative, but I wanna direct my own work. I wanna try and build my own work," and at the time, you would have people like Spike Lee and Tarantino who would write things and then make them. I was saying, "Why can't you do that in advertising?"
So I had this idea that I brought to my old agency and they just went, [inaudible], "Sit behind your desk and shut up," you know? "And go away with your foolish ideas," and it was my creative partner at the time, my producer at the time, who really just wanted us to leave to become directors, but anything to make us leave, she was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll be part of it." My wife at the time was a financial person, and we all for some reason just got together and said, "Right, we're gonna start an agency."
When we all went and left, my producer immediately turned around and said, "I spoke to my lawyer and he said he doesn't think it's a good idea that I come into business with you guys, I'm gonna keep my name, but you can have a bit of office floor if you want," and we went, "Ugh." Made my creative partner instantly have an absolute freak out, and you know, panic attacks, and he went back to Howell Henry again a month after we left, so I was left carrying the baby with my ex-wife financial side, and we started quite strong.
I don't know why, like I said, I just thought, "Right, I've done it now, I'm not gonna go scuttling back, I wanna see if I can make it work," and we had no clients, we had absolutely, again, just like madness, and we managed oftentimes survive, and you know, I'd been bankrupt before, I've come back, and now the company is at the strongest it's ever been, and we're doing, I think, great work, and I think gonna do really great work. We just hired some new, more talented people than myself coming in, so it should give us an extra bit of impetus next year, so it's very exciting times.
Charles:
And when you started this under those extraordinary circumstances, were you conscious of trying to build a company around a set of principles? I mean obviously you were trying to survive and find clients, but were you conscious about the kind of environment you were trying to create?
Trevor Robinson:
I mean, I should have been. I should have been. You hear these guys who start agency and they in campaign with these, you know, what they're gonna do and anger about the industry, and, "We're gonna do something different," and I never had that intention. I just wanted to do work and be, you know, work different ways with account men and planners, not them against us. Us all together, all pushing towards creating exciting ideas that will sell products, and having a system that will really stimulate creatives and make them really feel like they own an idea, and escalate an idea.
I think, at our best, that's what we do. Our best, people say we're like a family when people come to Quiet Storm, and they always feel like it's a place where they can be heard and even if their account person, when they come up with a great idea, that idea can be made, that idea can be nurtured by them, and I think that principle is what I've grown into as opposed to I had a head set of what I felt it was gonna be. It's just something the happened.
Charles:
And were you looking for certain kinds of people when you started hiring people?
Trevor Robinson:
Not really, I was just looking for people I could afford. I was spoiled at Howell Henry. We worked with, it was a maverick agency, people were fighting to work at Howell Henry, and people were, you know, like, our creative directors used to say, if we eff up, there's people waiting to jump in our seat, better than us to jump in our seat, so it felt a very exciting yet toxic environment to work in. You were like, "Ugh," you know, and you knew you'd gotta prove your worth.
I guess some of that influence is obviously still in my agency, but I dare say it's definitely got a different feeling. I find it very hard, I've always found it hard, to brutally fire people, even when they're not very good. I'm getting better at it now, but you have to 'cause it's business, and it's not family, it is something that you're doing, so it's that kind of mind and heart and the ambition.
It's always about the idea, and the ambition is to make the idea the most golden, the most precious it can be. Whatever that takes should be the heart and soul of whatever you do, even though we are selling cornflakes or something, but that for me is what makes me jump out of bed. You might do something that can really, you know, make a mar on the world and really influence people, and really give people joy.
Charles:
What have you discovered about running your own business that is different than you thought it was gonna be when you jumped into this frying pan?
Trevor Robinson:
God, so much. I didn't think it through to be honest. Running my own business was not something I had laid in bed thinking I would ever do so I never knew, do you know what I mean? I just saw it as a template, not a template, but an opportunity to have fun. An opportunity to write my own destiny, an opportunity to pull the best out of me and do work for clients that I've always wanted to do and have the freedom to do that.
But the thing that I've learnt is it's bloody hard selling ideas. It's easy to come up with an idea. I'd be sat there with my creative partner and we'd share, and we'd get it, and you try and say that to somebody outside the office, they look like you're mental, and then you try and show it to a client, and they just don't get it.
There's a real skill in running an agency. Skill in keeping it financially buoyant, skill in terms of keeping clients happy, skill in terms of keeping people happy. Creatives just are one of the most self-destructive, confused, weird, you know, most of the time, they're seeing psychiatrists, they've got all this baggage, and I was never really that aware of it until you're running your own company and people go missing because they're going through a bad time, and it's always the creatives.
Charles:
Did you change your behavior when you started to realize this?
Trevor Robinson:
No. I've always been the same.
Charles:
You just show up the same way.
Trevor Robinson:
I've just kind of, you know, I think you just have to get on with it. One of the things I do like being in advertising industry as opposed to being an artist, is you're not by yourself. You're working with lots of talented people that make your work better. It makes your work stronger. But that's also give and take. You've gotta take on other people's baggage. You gotta become a psychiatrist yourself, you've gotta be that shoulder to cry on, that shoulder to give them a good old nudge and a good old thrust forward, and get the best out of people, and that's really rewarding and exciting as well.
I think that's the thing that I didn't like when I was an artist for a while when I was freelancing was you spend a lot of time by yourself. I realize I really like people, I love directing, I love, you know, interacting with, you know, all sorts of creatives from wardrobe to editing, and you know you could escalate an idea with how you do a set build to how you get a performance from someone, and that's really exciting.
Charles:
So what have you learnt about how you have to show up every day from a leadership standpoint? What do they need from you?
Trevor Robinson:
I'm not entirely sure. I would imagine having a real sense of energy and belief and a real resilience to the idea, 'cause I realize a lot of people bow down to what they think the client wants, and when they get knock backs, and especially creatives, they kinda go, "Oh, give them what they want," and they seem to forget about what they're fighting for and what they're trying to achieve, and it's my job to kind of pull everybody back and kinda go, "Look, let's make this idea great, let's sell this to the client," you know.
I feel like I'm that guy, you know, World War I with my whistle, and forcing people to run over the top all the time against Gatling guns and gas, but that's my job. I gotta be pushing everyone forward, and that comes from the account guys to the planners to everyone involved.
Charles:
Does that get hard?
Trevor Robinson:
Yeah, sometimes it gets really hard, and sometimes you kind of sink under, like everybody else, and I think at the moment, I'm really feeling it now, I'm feeling, "No, next year we're kicking on again." We've got some really stable clients, lovely clients, but they've got too much a dominance on it, and they go, people too, "Oh no, the client won't like that."
I'm like, "Listen, our job is to challenge, our job is to make them slightly uncomfortable with an idea in the same way as us. Our job is not to make it easy for them, our job is to sell their product, and sometimes selling their product means shaking things up, it means surprising your audience, it means doing things slightly differently, wrong, you know, for it to be right, and sometimes, you need brave people and smart people to do that."
Charles:
What would people be surprised to learn about you that they don't already know?
Trevor Robinson:
Oh, surprised to know about me, that's gonna be dangerous. What would they be surprised? I think, you know, things like I used to be a court artist, and things like, they wouldn't be surprised I was a clubber like everybody else. I think it's just the different careers I had beforehand. Probably all very creative, and I think those kind of things, 'cause they only know me running my own business and stuff. The amount of periods that we spent on the dole and trying to get in, and I think people just see you swanning around and they go, "Oh yeah, he's got an OBE and what did he ever do to get that?" Which I often think. I do ads. There's people taking down helicopters single handedly, you know. They get an OBE and I get an OBE, but I do ads.
But no, I think they probably would be surprised to know my background, where I grew up, some of the very violent, angry environments I was around when I was growing up. They would be surprised about that. Often, I'm amazed when I hear people, when they talk about where they're from and what kind of backgrounds, and I just think, "God, I should shut up about mine 'cause it would scare them."
Charles:
How did you, I mean, you bring such a natural energy, clearly, I mean, I've known you for 20 something minutes, right? But you clearly bring a very natural energy. Coming out of that background, how did you retain, develop this kind of sensibility from that environment?
Trevor Robinson:
I don't know, 'cause it's hard for me to look at myself, so it's hard to gauge, look at myself. I've always liked people, you know, and again, I grew up in a very aggressive, I was the youngest of all boys, and I was lucky 'cause they looked after me. So I would come into school and people would walk up to me, coming to fight me because they heard I was a Robinson, and I had teachers came and gave me the cane on my first day of school. He goes, "Don't you think," he just caned me, and he goes, "Don't think you're going to get away with the stuff that your brothers got away with."
It was that kind of environment that I kind of felt good and bad, 'cause I felt protected, but at the same time, there was a legacy. But I just always liked people, you know, and I always knew it was easy to become cynical and become angry, and, "Yeah, yeah, I deserve to take a chunk of your life away because I've got a bad life," and I just didn't, that equation never made sense to me.
I've always wanted oftentimes, rather than do things that would hurt people, I've always wanted to do things that will give them pleasure, and the reward they would give me is their pleasure, so it was a simple equation for me, I just did not, I got to 13, and I go, "I wanna do something creative."
Charles:
You talked about moving the business forward next year. So clearly from having started a business in a very organic, instinctive way, you've now got to the point where you're consciously thinking about what the business needs to look like at least a year ahead. That evolution, how long did it take you to get to that point where you now have more intention around building a business?
Trevor Robinson:
I think, you know, 'cause was is six, seven years ago, where we were at the height of the recession, we had to downsize to about, we went from 30 to about five people, and I had to go through that whole, you know, making people redundant is one of the worst feelings ever. People that you've grown to love, like, and been around. You've had to get rid of them, and I always vowed I'd never be back in that position again, so the last four years, you know, coming up to two years back, two years we've been excelling, growing, and trying to control our growth, 'cause again, I don't wanna be a big old agency, and I never wanted to be a big old agency. I want to still wake up and know who I'm talking to and them knowing me, and having a real relationship with them.
But it's been cozy, as cozy as it gets in this digital world, and people doing less T.V. and us becoming more malleable and creating content and doing all these things, and offering more because the other, you know, the landscape is changing, and people are very scared and excited. Clients nowadays don't know what platform they should be on, and once upon a time, give me a poster, give me a T.V., maybe give me a radio. Now it's just so many different platforms, so many different vehicles you can, and people don't know.
I'm having to be future-proofing and thinking about what, and making sure we're relevant, but I think the good thing is an idea is always relevant. An idea that can sell something is always relevant, and that's the place that I'm really happy in, and I love coming up with ideas in any format.
So the future, now I kinda know the platform, know the kind of environment a bit better, I'm thinking, "Right, we need to kick on." I wanna again do stuff that gets people looking up from over their newspapers and their phones, and going, "What's this?"
Charles:
10 years ago, you started Create Not Hate.
Trevor Robinson:
Yeah.
Charles:
Talk to us about the motivation. First of all, talk to us about what that is and why that's important to you, and why did you start it?
Trevor Robinson:
Well, Create Not Hate is probably the reason I got an OBE. I started it actually because there was two things. There was a way to P.R. Quiet Storm, and a girl came to me and said, "Look, there's knife and gun crime." This is our P.R. girl, and it was a completely publicity stunt at first, and she was like, going, "Why don't you do something around knife and gun crime, Trev?" And I didn't really know what she meant by that. "Do a poster."
And then I've always felt there was some incredibly talented, smart people that are a lot brighter than me from my old school that has never had a career, that has ended up being bus drivers or worse, and that's always frustrated me, and this whole thing about diversity everybody's jumping on. They, to me, don't quite get. They think diversity's, "Let's give them a share of the pie. Let's give them an opportunity, a balanced opportunity."
That's not it. There is incredibly talented people out there, bright people out there, that could revolutionize this industry if they could see a pathway in, if we can draw them in, and I think this is what the industry's not very good at doing, because what it does is draw like-minded people in. It doesn't draw people that people don't understand, and then get those people and allow those people to flourish and come up with some amazing stuff.
Sport's doing it, music has always done it. Our industry's rubbish at getting the talent out there and going, "Okay, I don't understand this kid, but I'm gonna give him a desk. I'm gonna give him an opportunity, 'cause I can see something in there." So I wanted to do something where I could go back to my old school, which I did go to, and get these kids to come up with something that was close to their heart, which was a kid had just been stabbed to death at Lambeth College, and they knew the kid, and I got them to do a campaign, to do an anti-knife and gun crime campaign.
I got all these kids together, and I was pretty rubbish with the kids, 'cause I'm not, I realize, I'm not a very good teacher, but I gave them a platform, and I gave them not only an opportunity to come up with ideas and stuff but to make the ideas, but also I got mates to allow us to do editing, use lighting stuff, location. I tried to get as many people involved rather than the people that just won the competition, I also got people into design the posters, and then I got them to work with designers, I got all the kids. So it was more of a, rather than a pyramid, it was a straight line thing, and trying to get as many people in the door, and getting as much interaction with people in the industry as I could.
You found lots of people were going, their shoulders relaxing, and going, "Brilliant, this is easy, I'm getting these kids to do this stuff, and they're getting rewards from it." I realize this was beneficial to the kids, but also beneficial for people like myself in the industry, they were like, "I can give back, and this is pleasurable." So Create Not Hate was all about, it sounds more like about the angst side to it, but it wasn't really about that for me, it was about getting these untapped resources into our industry, and utilized in the industry, which I still, I'm trying to do it with Creative Circle, doing something now, but it's moving too slow for me, so I think I'm gonna start Create Not Hate again.
Charles:
What are you afraid of?
Trevor Robinson:
Probably being bored, more than anything. My wife always talks about retirement like it's a good thing, and I just don't understand that concept of retirement, 'cause this is fun to me. If I can come up with an idea or draw somebody on beach, I'm gonna do that. I'm never gonna stop being creative, because it's fun. What's not fun to me, what is death to me, is being bored. I have zero tolerance for being bored. Boredom is death to me.
Charles:
I wrap every episode with three takeaways, things that I've heard that I think make you stand out, so let me try these on and you can tell me what you think. One is clearly that, you've said this a number of times, you want to make a difference, so you're drawn to the impact that you can have both on an individual level and I think on kinda a global level. Two is a willingness to discover what you're capable of, even when there is no clear path to do that, just, "This isn't enough, what's next, and let's see what we can do with this," and I think that kind of, to use a cliché, fearlessness, is really endemic to the best leaders.
And then three, again maybe a cliché, but the power of positive thinking. I mean, to come, as you said, talked about from your background, and to relentlessly want to try and find a positive outcome and to find a better way to do something, and just to bring positive energy, it seems to, certainly the way you've described it today, everything that you've done feels to me like a pretty powerful foundation for, not just you, but for other people to join with you in. Do those resonate with you?
Trevor Robinson:
Yeah, wow. Thank you. That sounds good, I'll take that. Yeah, that sounds, I'd say that's fair. I'd love to live by that as well, so yeah, that's pretty cool.
Charles:
It sounds like you do. Trevor, thanks so much for being here, today, I really appreciate it.
Trevor Robinson:
My pleasure, it's been a pleasure talking to you, very easy man to talk to.
Charles:
Thank you very much.
Trevor Robinson:
Thank you.
Charles:
You've been listening to Fearless from eurobest. If you like what you've heard, please take a moment and rate the podcast on iTunes. It makes a big difference, and check out more of the eurobest content at eurobest.com. Thanks for listening.
