Note sull'episodio
-- “i wake up with sand in my hair every morning. i do what i love. it’s hard and it’s not always easy to work, but i wouldn’t do anything else because i work with ideas.”
-- “i did the everything bet. i put everything on the line to buy it. and it didn’t work.”
-- “hope makes a great breakfast but a lousy dinner.”
-- “skateboarding is one of the most creative things you can do because you fail all the time.”
this throwback conversation with designer, entrepreneur, and creative director jim nissen was recorded in arizona in 2010. this is part 2 of 3, released as audio from the original video interview.
part two moves beyond the mechanics of running a design studio and into the way jim thinks about entrepreneurship, creativity, failure, work, and survival.
jim opens by talking about what happens when entrepreneurship stops feeling secure. he considers whether he should find a traditional nine-to-five job, but describes design as something inseparable from who he is: he goes to bed a designer and wakes up a designer. for him, the work is difficult, but the opportunity to work with ideas keeps him in it.
he then tells the story of deciding to become a magazine publisher in 2007. after watching publishers make money from magazines he was already doing much of the creative work for, jim bought a publication himself. he put everything on the line just before the financial crisis hit. when the stock market fell and home-equity credit disappeared, the timing became what he describes as nearly the worst possible scenario for a magazine.
the investment did not work the way he expected. instead of walking away, jim found himself doing things far outside his usual role as a creative director, including going door to door in old town scottsdale selling advertising during a period when some businesses were struggling to get customers through their own doors. his immediate goal became survival.
that experience changed his perspective on failure. jim talks about hope, persistence, and reaching a point where surviving one major setback made future failure feel less frightening. he also questions what money actually means when compared with what someone chooses to do with their life.
the conversation then goes further back. jim talks about starting his first company at 14, selling things as a kid, drawing, biking, skating, and eventually recognizing how much skateboarding shaped the way he understood creativity. falling repeatedly taught him that failure was part of getting closer to being able to do something successfully.
he also gets into the less visible side of self-employment: making his own schedule, understanding his creative rhythms, staying disciplined without a boss, organizing himself through writing and lists, and deliberately surrounding himself with people who are better than he is. for jim, work matters, but he is also clear that work should not define the entirety of a person.
find jim nissen today:
-- personal website: https://www.jimnissen.design/
-- current business: https://commandshiftoption.com/
-- instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jimnissen/
this interview was conducted by Courtney Crosslin, now also known as Sisi in Brasil.
find Sat With and my other podcasts at https://FAAFO.app.