Joey Cofone is an author as well as the Founder & CEO of Baronfig, a company that makes tools for thinkers. And speaking of thinkers, Joey has brought over 100 different products from zero to launch thanks to his award-winning (literally) design skills. His work as an entrepreneur has been featured in Fast Company, Bloomberg, and Newsweek just to name a select few. But in today’s conversation we’re diving into Joey’s achievement that caught my eye the most: his #1 bestselling book, The Laws of Creativity.
In our conversation, we discuss what creativity really is, how it works, and the ways in which anyone can learn these essential concepts and unleash their own creativity (yes, you can LEARN how to be creative). We also talk about all the ways you can maintain your creativity despite living in a society that tends to suppress it, judge it, and overall diminish its importance. Joey also shares with us the backstory on how his obsession with creativity started in 1st grade, and why he’s spent his entire adult life writing his book.
Whether you work in a creative industry, are looking to explore creativity outside of work, are already in touch with your creative side, or are looking to explore creativity for the first time, you definitely don’t want to miss this conversation. The concepts Joey shares are practical, actionable, and simple enough you can get started right away.
Joey Cofone is the Founder & CEO of Baronfig, an award-winning designer and entrepreneur, and author of the bestselling book, The Laws of Creativity.
Joey has designed and art directed over 100 products from zero to launch. His work has been featured in Fast Company, Bloomberg, New York Magazine, Newsweek, Bon Appétit, Quartz, Mashable, Print, and more. Joey was named a New Visual Artist and, separately, Wunderkind designer, by Print magazine. He is also a 1st place winner of the American Institute of Graphic Arts design competition, Command X.
Joey strives to make work that appeals to curious minds—work that’s beautiful, smart, and communicative. He believes that design is the least of a designer’s worries, that story is at the heart of all tasks, and jumping off cliffs is the only way to grow.
He lives in New York City with his wife, Ariana, and his dog (and writing buddy), Luigi.
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Zack Arnold: I'm here today with Joey Cofone, who's the founder and CEO of Baronfig, which is a company that makes tools for thinkers. You're also an award winning designer, you have designed an art directed over 100 different products from zero to launch. You're also an entrepreneur whose work has been featured in Fast Company, Bloomberg and Newsweek, just to name a very select few. And what we are probably going to spend a good deal of time talking about today is that you are now the author of the number one best selling book, The Laws of Creativity. And Joey, I am so excited about today's conversation that I almost wasted most of our preamble offline time, praising you for how much I love this book before we even got started. So dude, it is a pleasure to have you on the microphone today.
Joey Cofone: Zack, thank you, man, for the honorable, beautiful, wonderful introduction. And I am looking forward to this, this is a good way to wrap the week for me.
Zack Arnold: I love it. So the surprise that I didn't share with you is that this is actually going to be the first in a 38 part podcast series. Free confidence, I could do 90 minutes per law of creativity in your book, which brings me to the the first reaction that I had to this, were just through the grapevine we kind of travel in similar circles of people. And the idea of your book, the laws of creativity came along and a member of my team said, oh, you know what, maybe we should get a copy of this habit sent to you. So you can take a look at it right? And then this giant 400 Plus page book shows up. And I'm thinking cheese like, oh, no, no, I mean, that's this is a lot to get through, maybe I'll just kind of skim it or get the idea. And we'll get them on the calendar eventually. Right? And then I thought to myself is is this really a book? Or is this more of a tome? Right? I'm sure you've probably gotten that more than once, which led me to a Google search. And the Google search was literally what is the difference between a book and a tome? Like that's the way that my creative brain? I did, I actually did. And I can give you the definition. And as soon as I read it, I'm like, Dude, you're gonna have to change your marketing. Because you've written a tome. A tome is often used to refer to a book that is not only really large check, but also unusually important.
Joey Cofone: Oh, hold. That's a beautiful compliment right there.
Zack Arnold: Here's why I think this is so important. And I'm sure you've had this conversation with others about the book, it is really hard to understand what creativity is and to quantify creativity and also to systematize creativity. So I can only imagine it was a challenge to figure out what how do I create these laws, but that's actually not where I want to start? Where I want to start with is a deeper, scarier question. How do you think you are to package creativity into 38 different laws?
Joey Cofone: No, I mean, who the hell was Newton to say that he's going to define gravity and call it a law? Great goddamn question. Probably what prevented me from writing it sooner because I had to go through that. And I actually had a personal metamorphosis that said, You know what, I can do this. So let me ask you this question. Do you like basketball?
Zack Arnold: Me personally, I'm not a big fan. I love sports analogies. I don't like basketball. Personally, sports analogies, I can go all day long.
Joey Cofone: No, I'm glad because I am also not a sports aficionado. And I don't want you to know the answer to this. So Michael Jordan, do you know how many times he won the championship? Yeah, six course. Six. And do you know how old he was when he won his sixth?
Zack Arnold: I know he was in his early 30s. I believe I don't know the exact age but I believe early 30s Correct.
Joey Cofone: 35 years. Yeah, exactly. What I was until several days ago, and No one is going to argue that MJ wasn't an expert. And if MJ wrote a book on basketball, no one's going to go to him and say, Hey, man, what are your sources? Right? And after thinking that through it, I felt like, Okay, I'm 35 100 Plus products, you know, several million bucks worth of revenue to attribute to those products. I said, Okay, I've won my championships. I'm the source. And of course, I did a shit ton of research. But that thought process every time I doubted myself, that was the thought process said, I'm ready to do this.
Zack Arnold: Well, I think the other important thing to factor in here is well, not only in your own world, would you have what you would define winning some of those championships as far as creativity, words, Design Awards, founding a really interesting and unique company around a single idea that's now become something much larger. But also, this is something you've been working on not for a few months or a year or two, you've been working on this pretty much most, if not all of your adult life, have you not?
Joey Cofone: I have. Yeah, I mean, it started in first grade when I walked in the class, and we got the, you know, it's right in the introduction, but we got the paper, where they call it the worksheet with the worm on it, and we were supposed to color it, cut it out, put it on the board, and I colored it and Joey that day was like mine is going to be the best damn worm, you know, in the world. And he didn't have my arm around it doing the whole thing. And I go up to the board. And of course, I'm looking at them. And I guess I took long because most of them are up there. And I realized, Oh, my goodness, mine's the same as all of them. Same, but different. But same, you know. So I went back to my desk, and I was almost in tears. And the teacher was like, Joe, is everything, okay? And I was like, yeah, yeah, it's fine. And a light bulb clicked. And I looked at all the shards of paper that I'd cut this worm out. And I realized that I could use that. So I drew a boombox, a microphone, and a necklace. And I cut them out, I put them on the worm, I put them on the board, and the whole class gathered around, the teacher stood behind me, and she was like, I've never seen anything like it. And that was the day that I realized that I didn't have to follow the rules. And that's the I became addicted to creative, like literally addicted, I was chasing that feeling forever. And then so by the time I started barren fig, my co founder, Adam Kornfield, I was pretty much angry on a regular basis, I was like, Man, this person doesn't understand. Like, it's so much, it's so easy to make an idea or it's very straightforward, don't stress out. And he's like, dude, just write, you know, whenever you have this thought, write it down. And so I wrote for just about 10 years, before I decided to write the book, when the pandemic happened, everybody, all of a sudden was granted the magical gift of time, you know, if not, bit of uncertainty as well. And so I started writing and I took all those notes that I had gathered for years, and years and years. And within just a few hours, I made the Table of Contents, which is largely what's in the book now. So the I like to say, you know, mentioned a little bit earlier, your Newton didn't invent gravity. He just just recognized it and named it. And that's sort of how I feel about these laws is I did not make them up. I recognize them. And I named them, which is why there's 39. Then there's not 40. And everyone is like, Dude, you just needed to add one more. And I'm like, there. There's not a 40th one, I just can't find it. And so yeah, it's been a it's been like a lifelong journey to put this thing out.
Zack Arnold: So I'm assuming given the you spent all this time learning about creativity, writing about creativity and walking in front of the entire world saying here are the laws, you're clearly have a series of multiple high level professional degrees, correct?
Joey Cofone: I do I do. I have to by accident. I went to school for Literature and Philosophy. You're smiling.
Zack Arnold: Right. Yeah and how did that go? By the way? It's, it's actually one of my favorite parts or your story, what I love, by the way, total tangent. But you know, as the creative mind works, it's not always linear, which we're going to talk about No, but I love one of the things you did was structuring this book was having your story at the end instead of the beginning. So you get all these laws and then all of a sudden you learn more about your struggles and your challenges and you're like yeah, you failed. How many classes in college
Joey Cofone: Yeah, 15 classes shitload of credits and way too much cash down the drain. And I, I, quote, unquote, have that degree on paper, but I did not stick around to get it. Literature philosophy minor, and then I went to design school and that's where my life changed when I realized that I was basically wanted to tell stories, or communicate but visually, so I put all that together and ended up with Baronfig.
Zack Arnold: So let's talk a little bit more about what Baronfig is for those that don't know. Because it was something that to be perfectly honest, I wasn't terribly familiar with before and after going to it, and only seeing what it offered, but seeing its mission and who it serves. I'm a huge, huge fan who will be following everything you're doing and have ideas for how we can collaborate together. But for those in my audience that are like what is Baronfig just give us like a super brief understanding
Joey Cofone: Well yeah, totally. I like to say Baronfig is a company that makes tools to help you do your best thinking. And then the other the yin to the Yang is the book, the laws of creativity is a book that teaches you to master your ideas. So you combine those two Baronfig tools are basically notebooks, pens, guided journals, things like that, that I have found that all you really need is a notebook with a blank page to really come up with the best ideas. It's not. Software, of course, helps technology helps. But the beginning of ideation, I have discovered through, you know, 25 years of doing stuff is that a blank page is really the most freedom you can get.
Zack Arnold: So what I find interesting about this, specifically, is the assumption, well, I'm just naturally creative. You give me a blank page, you give me a nice journal, and you give me a pen, and I'm going to be creative. But I know that one of the things that's really important to you is talking to those that say, oh, but but I'm not creative. So that's something I really want to dig into deeper is better understanding the creative process, and eliminating this fear that creativity is a genetic gift, as opposed to it's a learnable skill. And it's a system and it's a process. But let's just start from the beginning. Let's assume that I say to you, yeah, all that sounds great for creative people, Joey, I'm not creative. How do you respond to that?
Joey Cofone: Well, that's what most people think. Okay. And I actually didn't intend to write a book this big. I wrote a book, I was thinking in the beginning, I'm just gonna write the creative process, how to go, you know, start through the steps. But in the early interviews, I did, I discovered so many people said exactly what you said, when I'm not creative. What do you mean? And it turns out that they don't even understand what it is. So before I can teach, you know, guide you through doing something, I need to actually change your mindset. And so then Part one is, your mindset. Part two is the process. And then part three is excellence, which we can talk about later. So the, the gist of creativity is it's very simple. People think that professionals like you know, the pros have it like painters, and, you know, authors and designers, but actually, creativity is something we engage with every single day. It's simply the practice of ideas. Okay? No genius thing that we have like 6000 ideas a day or something like that. And it's like, moving your body you are according to Nike, you are an athlete, just by nature of being alive, you're using your body for all sorts of things, whether you think it or not, you you have athleticism. So same thing with creativity. And what really powers the book is the single data point. And actually, sometimes I hope people didn't read the book so that I can quiz them on this and be like, What do you think the number will be? But NASA for all of you listening out there, NASA did a study and they found that 98% of, of five year olds are at the creative, genius level 98% creative genius. But by adulthood, that number dwindles to 2%. So this is not an accident. Regardless of whether we say talent or skill, let's just set that aside for a sec, the fact that 98% of us were creative, and then it went down to 2%. That means that's actually a systemic problem. We are like kicking ass at screwing our society out of creative thinking. And so you know, I said in the beginning, and I'll briefly give you an overview so we could get to the fun stuff. But there's three things. The first is that authority is always unquestionable, this is what we're taught. Second is manmade rules must be followed to a fault. And third, which I say is the most damaging of all, is that the end we're taught is always visible from the start. So like when you get an assignment at school, you get Fahrenheit 451 Read it in on Friday, two weeks from now, you got to hand in a three page paper on the plot, you know exactly what you're doing before you ever open that book. And then you go to college and it's the same. You go into the workplace and people are telling you what to do, and outlining it before you begin. And so we're never taught how to sit with a blank page and say, Okay, I need to make something from nothing and I need to be my own impetus to what that's going to be. And so creativity is a bit of a I'm massaging that skill. Yeah, and this
Zack Arnold: Yeah, and this is something that I could very easily turn into yet another in our what is now going to become I think I'm up to a 46 part podcast series, so clear your calendar. But I've got a, I've got a soapbox about the modern education system and how it handles creativity and modern problem solving and the fact that to this day, we're still feeding people information, when we know we've outsourced all that information to what's in our pockets. But here's the question I want to throw out at you. And I'm not expecting you to have an answer. But and maybe you do, but it's much more of a bigger conversation. Do you think that's a flaw in our system? Or do you think that's our system?
Joey Cofone: It's one in the same. So one of my very best friends is a teacher, and
Zack Arnold: My wife is a teacher, she teaches third grader, so I see the system in action every single day. And is it a flaw or is a feature.
Joey Cofone: I mean, it's certainly not a feature, it is a flaw in how we are educating youth. Absolutely, I've no doubt in my mind. And I that is not speaking, you know, there, if there are teachers who happen to be listening, that is not a it's not every teacher, I would argue that it's the good teachers don't do it. But unfortunately, most teaching is done this way. And it perpetuates. Unfortunately, that type of thinking that, really what it comes down to Zack is it makes human beings never really have to handle the unknown. That is what we're really talking about here. It's just simple ideas and the unknown. And so when you are a kid, everybody constantly telling you what to do, you go to school, you go to high school, you go to college, you go do this, they're telling you the assignments along the way, and you're never really faced with the unknown. And then you get out into the world. And even you know, you do have the job where they feed you the things but then at home, you have to decide all, you know, how do I even get an apartment? How do I fill it up? How do I find a partner? Well, how do I be a good friend, partner, dad, whatever it is. And unfortunately, we're not preparing human beings for that. And I think it's, it's just the way we are as humans, we avoid the unknown. You know, I said somewhere in the book that how we operate is trailing how we think by centuries. So back in the day, when you know, there were actually dangerous things outside, mostly, you know, I live in New York, it's dangerous in a different way. But I don't have snakes and bears and you know, all sorts of killer crap coming after me that I need to be wary of the unknown nearly as much anymore. And we've educated people using that approach. And so the education needs to change where we actually instead of moving away from the unknown, we teach, walking towards it.
Zack Arnold: My argument would be and I agree with everything that you said, if the goal is to educate and create independent problem solvers and creative thinkers, it's a flaw in the educational system. I argue it's a feature, because conformity is what allows us to run the current economic system that we have, we are born and bred to work on the assembly line, either literally or proverbially. Right? So, like you said, authority is king. This is where you show up to your job. This is how long you do you clock out at this time, here are your duties. Here's what success looks like. Right. And the reason that I want to bring all this up is not because I want to get on my soapbox about the education system, I could very much do this. Every single time my wife and I get into this conversation, I get very angry because she works within it. She works for the LAUSD public school system. And she butts up against the system all the time. The reason I bring it up, is I want anybody that sees themselves as creative, to give themselves permission to not understand how to manage all these things about life that they were never taught how to manage their time, how to structure their own life, if they have their time to themselves, how to manage money, or energy, all these other things. I have so many students that come to me especially like you said, managing the unknown. I want to make a career transition, or I want to make this change. I just there's something wrong with me. And I can't figure it out. I'm like, but have you ever been taught how to manage any of this? Well, not really. And I want people to give themselves permission to realize you're not supposed to know how to do this. Because you're not trained to be an independent human being an independent thinker. That's why I think what you're doing with this book is so important.
Joey Cofone: Yes, yeah, I'm glad and you know, you mentioned keyword conformity right at the beginning there. Chapter one is all about I don't want to be like anti conformist, right it all of a sudden, it makes you think that I'm teaching you to be a rebel, but it's just a question things. So chapter one is be weird, right? And it's all about understanding what weird really means. And you know, unfortunately in this society, we've weaponized, the word weird, we've literally use it as an insult, dude, you're weird. She's weird, don't sit with the weird kid don't eat lunch with the weird guy. And what? What's really funny about it actually is, and I don't have this in the book. So this was sort of a development after talking about it for a while. His, we have this interesting thing where we have our own bubble that we live in, of course, it's generally where we eat and walk and go to school and the people we talked to, you know, a localized area, and within that localized area, you can think of it as a dome, you know, three square mile dome around us. We try to bang out uniqueness, and have people conform, okay. And like, the phrases that I just say, are very common. The you're weird, they're weird kind of thing. But then what's really fascinating is that outside of our dome, we worship those who are weird. So you know, and I'm not saying any of these people I'm a fan of, but let's let's call Elon Musk, Kanye West, I don't know Taylor Swift, Madonna, Lady Gaga, right? They're all unique individuals that are their uniqueness has helped them rise to the top. And there are people that are rabid fans of all five, or however many I just mentioned. And so the first thing and chapter one that we need to recognize is that weird, just means you're different. And different means that you're unique and unique means you are original, and everybody at the end of the day wants to be original. They're just afraid of it. But you want to be an individual. This is what you know, for us here in America, this is American individualism is always a huge thing. So I guess conformity is is a curious piece of the puzzle. And I'm glad you mentioned it. So you know, we can kind of stop and say, Hey, being different are the people who are different in our lives in our bubbles, even though we'll call them weird, or make fun of them. In my mind, they are the bravest people in your world, that that weird kid is okay with the fact that you're gonna bust his chops, where the weird woman at work is okay, that no one's going to sit with her. And she's going to be herself. And that's true bravery. And that's create its creative power too
Zack Arnold: The reason that I wanted to really go deep into this before we start talking about the laws. And this is something that you kind of say as well, but I just wanted to make it really clear for the audience is that it's really hard to talk about the laws of creativity and the steps and the systems if you're not allowing yourself permission to be creative again, and understanding that it's okay to be weird, it's okay to be different. And it's okay to realize this was literally beaten out of me by design my entire life, so I can be a good worker. So I can expect that I should just know how to do all of these things right out of the gate, right? But now we have in a way, this handbook, and it's not step one to be creative. Step two, step three, I love the idea that you made it more about this idea of principles and laws. And I've got I literally have a post it note color for aha moments, which is not, which is different than dog years, which is different than quotes, like I've got this whole system, right. So I've kind of destroyed your book. The point is, there are a lot of aha moments. But if I had to distill it down to one for me, and I'm sure it's different for everybody, because everyone is going to read it from a different perspective. But if we go back to this idea in the beginning of you almost being in tears, because you're in first grade, having to color a worm, and the thought of doing something like other people absolutely was against your identity. That's me, to the to my own detriment. It is such a requirement that what I do must be original, indifferent, and nobody else has ever done it before or else what is the point, which is good to a certain extent, it can be a superpower, but can also be a kryptonite, if it stops you and would change the game for me when I say change the game, we may or may not get into this, but I literally had an aha moment with my company that may lead to five years and a completely different direction with what I'm doing because of this one idea. And that was the law of connection. This idea that creativity is not creating something out of thin air. What is it instead?
Joey Cofone: Yeah, creativity the word creativity is a misnomer. It you're not actually creating all ideas are all things are really just an amalgamation of other things. So you're connecting. And in the book, I give you some really basic examples that have resonated through culture, which is the iPhone is literally just a computer and a telephone that merged I think I said the Avengers is perhaps the allure of the gods and our passion for storytelling or whatever it was that I said. And we just we have these basic things. Oh, and my favorite Pokemon is just our love of fantasy worlds with our love of pets. It's just combining things. And so the love connection is I'm gonna read it briefly is based content concepts can neither be created nor destroyed, they simply merge to form new combinations. Super key.
Zack Arnold: Yeah. And the idea for me is the idea of combinations and breaking it down into a formula where you think whatever it is that I'm doing whatever it is that I'm quote, unquote, creating, it's a combination of certain things. And if it's a combination with individual components, for which somebody else has created the same combination, well, that's different versus all of the components are the same. But here's this one thing that's totally different. That started to give me permission to move forwards towards something that I kept saying, Well, I don't know, this isn't original, and nobody's ever done it before. And then I realized, wait a second, I'm doing something that plenty of people have done before and done it successfully. But I found one component that they're not doing that's unique to just me. And instead of saying, that's not enough, your book led me to believe, fuck it. I'm doing this, what I'm doing is creative and different enough, but I have enough successful components that have proven this can be done and done well. But nobody's doing it the way that I want to do it. That was a huge aha moment for me.
Joey Cofone: Are you ready to talk about the details or we're not in
Zack Arnold: Let's do it man this is a my interview. This is for both of us. You want to lead the conversation you take on
Joey Cofone: Man, I want to hear so. So tell me about the components that you see in this idea that are commonly done? And then what is your component that you're adding and say, Oh, my goodness, this makes it mine and unique. And it adds value to the world and in a different way?
Zack Arnold: Yeah. So the I'm gonna start with all the hesitations in the imposter syndrome. The voice in my head for years and years has been, why am I even bothering doing a podcast, I am not the person that invented both podcasting, or invented, I'm going to talk to successful people or scholars or experts, people that have been successful, I want to deconstruct success. When I first started, kind of lived in a bubble. I'm like, Oh, this is amazing. And then all of a sudden, you search podcast, you're like, oh, everybody's doing this, right. But when you first start any creative process, you kind of sort of have to do it the way that other people are doing it. And it's not necessarily copying, but it is kind of copying. It's like, I don't have my own voice yet. So I'm just going to kind of do what they're doing right a listicle blog post or follow how they do show notes until I kind of find my own voice, right? But then you start to get good at it. And I'm like, you have a why am I still doing this? What's the differentiator? Right? So for me, the next step was I'm building an online educational program, I have online courses that are teaching a lot of these kinds of life skills, these human skills that I feel were not developed or taught to us, as kids were taught a lot of the technical skills and the hard skills, right, but not the what people would call soft skills. But like Simon Sinek, I hate the word soft skills, because it makes them sound less important. He says human skills, why they're human skills are life skills, right? I love teaching those specifically to creative people. But then I asked myself, Well, who am I to be an online educational instructor with online courses, everybody else is doing that. And they're doing it better than me, and they're generating more revenue. But then I realized that there were two components that I feel are missing, where I am exceptionally good and bring something that most people are not the first of which is that if you go to the most successful online educational programs, they give you everything. We've got 20,000 Plus courses with the world's experts on x and y, and z. I suffer from analysis paralysis, and I have unofficially started a group with my students called over thinkers anonymous, and I'm the president and CEO. Don't give me all these choices. I don't think that anymore because of our access to technology. I don't think that information is the solution. Information has now become the problem. We have so much of it. And it's so ubiquitous, that you can't just feed all of it to me on a silver platter and expect that I know what to do with it. It's so what I heard ox of choice. It's the parent absolutely the paradox of choice, right? And I feel that all of these online educational platforms suffer from that. You can go to masterclass and learn this from Gordon Ramsay or filmmaking from Ron Howard all of its great. But just tell me what I'm supposed to do now, and tell me what I'm supposed to do next, specifically based on my unique goals. So what I feel that online education doesn't do well is number one, curate and number two help people to find a path and that's something I've been very, very good at with my students for years. So I feel that's one differentiator. But here's the real key that I think is missing from all of this. This is the component that I think I can bring at a very high professional level with what I've done my entire life. It's the power of a list, Hollywood storytelling. Combining that with education, because what I am exceptionally good at is Hollywood storytelling, because that's what I've done my entire life. And I'm doing it at the very highest levels. And when I look at the online educational platforms, it's all kind of the same thing. Somebody's standing in front of a teleprompter or white background. And hi, today, we're gonna talk about personal development and time management and productivity, which by the way, I've done because it was me learning the process. But when it occurred to me, there's nobody else in any of these fields, that has the level of expertise with Hollywood storytelling that I do. And the best way to get people to learn is through stories. As soon as that clicked, I said, Now I know how to proceed forwards.
Joey Cofone: I like that. And that's you just putting more of you in it. And that's the that's the idea did you did you read the part about the three variables that create uniqueness to remember that it's right at the beginning, and for everyone listening, I'll do very quickly if you take the three things that you like, and let's limit them to 1000 options each. So you know, I'm not even going to give examples, but a book, a movie and a TV show. And there's way more than 1000. The there's a billion permutations of those three. So my wife always jokes do don't go too deep on the math. But when you are, when you are one in a billion, that essentially becomes you go from one and 8 billion people on earth to one in eight people on Earth. And when you add one more option, one more thing, one more facet of your character, and you add a fourth item, it becomes a trillion. It's 128x, the population of Earth and I know this is just numbers kind of make people's eyes gloss over. But the important part is that when you add more of who you are into what you do, you actually are like a unique ass butterfly. And you know, we kind of joke around where you're, as a kid, you're told you're super unique. And then you grow up and everyone's like, Nah, you're not unique, you actually are when you take the stuff, you're often afraid of telling people that you like, and you get brave, and you forget about the cultural bullshit, that's holding you back. And you say, This is what I am, and I'm putting it in. And like you're doing with what's your, what you're adding to it is something that other people cannot. And so you go, like you said, you go from one and many to the only one who's going to do this. And that that makes all the difference. For you to relate. There's more noble companies than Baronfig. When I started, I actually wanted to do Baronfig is my senior thesis. I was 25 or something 26. And my teacher was like, That's a stupid idea. There's a ton of notebook companies, why would anyone give a shit? And I said, Well, I've got a perspective that I don't think is being addressed. And what it was essentially, was the ugly, beautiful mess that average people are doing in their notebooks, the ugliness of lists of just sketching something out that you can't tell what that was the next day. And at the time, this is 2013. All the notebook companies had like, you know, moleskin, that who shall not be named, was essentially, even though they were selling to people in offices and not visual artists everywhere. There was just illustrations, gorgeous illustrations in all their advertisement on their websites. And I'm like, no one's doing this. No one, they are so disconnected. And so when I took my interest in literature, philosophy, and design, combined them I made a note book company, here we are 10 years later, it's still alive and kicking and has served hundreds of 1000s of customers and you know, Shitloads, I don't even know how many products anymore. And that's it. And I can still coexist with other notebook companies, just like you're going to still coexist with other online education. So I'm with you. And I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah,
Zack Arnold: I think it's really important to be willing to embrace that. And all the pieces have been there forever. Nothing materialized. Right? There was no idea that was created or destroyed. They were all there. But it just took me reading that one page to be like, and I think I literally put the book down. I'm like, hold on a second, this idea, this idea and this one, holy shit, boom, right. But it was the idea that it's not creating it from nothing. It's the law of connection. It's creativity is combining. Right? That was really, really important for me to understand. And I think that specifically for those that are listening to do what I do for a living as an editor that literally is what we do all day long. We combined the raw footage and the dialogue with sound effects with music And the way that I edit Cobra Kai is different than another editor edits coworker guide, you give 100 people the same scene, there's going to be 100 different versions. And if you're trying to conform to what you think the right answer is, you're just going to spin in circles forever versus I have the confidence to say this is my version.
Joey Cofone: Absolutely none of them are wrong. And that's that's key. I think people who are uninitiated with creative outlet exercise, let's say can think that there are wrong answers. And you know, I always do the test when, when people give give me shit, I used to be a design freelancer and I did branding for startups. Before I said, Fuck it, I'm going to do it for myself. And when people would say, Why should I pay you to do this? I had a few answers, but one of them was I'd say, that's totally, that's a good question. And I would open my notebook to a blank page, and I'd give them a pencil. And I'd say, Well, you want to start a battery company cool. Draw some logo ideas. And they look at me like, What do you mean, just like doodle them? You know, it doesn't have to be perfect. Just like give me some ideas. They'd be like, well, you know, I don't know how to do that. It's like, exactly. And I do. And that's okay. And it's not that there's wrong answers. But the experimentation needs to be there, there needs to be a willingness to look silly. There's so much that we could go into. I feel like one thing that I do want to talk to you about, you know, you're clearly I would call you like an expert in the field of, you know, creativity, productivity. For sure.
Zack Arnold: PS I hate the term expert. But thank you, I appreciate it. Well, we can go into that later. But
Joey Cofone: yeah, oh, I dig that. I do want to go into that. That's like, I hate the word talent. You got me good. So you call this book a tome. And I appreciate the compliment after hearing the definition that I didn't know. So why, you know, it's the year, I don't even know 2022? Why do you think I have a theory? But why do you think? Do you think a book like this has come out? If so, I'd love to hear about it? If not, why?
Zack Arnold: Oh, now we're getting really existential. I love it. Because Well, the reason it came out is because you decided that you had these ideas, and you wanted to write them down, right? That's the simplest version is that you did it. But there's also the larger version of whatever you believe in, whether it's God or the universe, or energy, or karma, or whatever it is, I firmly believe in some form of collective consciousness. And I don't believe that things manifest out of nothing. And I believe one of the reasons beyond your conscious decision to take these ideas and put them on paper. There's a collective desperation for an understanding of how do we manage our lives and manage ourselves and our thoughts in the 21st century. To go back to what we talked about before, the education system that prepares us for the world no longer prepared prepares us for the world that we live in at all. I mean, 2030 years ago, it was debatable. Now, I think there's absolutely no question whatsoever, we are not prepared to function in a real world, where we think that access to information is what makes us more smart or less smart answers on a test, our ability to retain information is no longer the currency by which we are successful or not successful. It's our ability to solve problems. We're not prepared to do that. And I think the world needs a book like this to better understand how do i systematize this as opposed to I'm either creative, or I'm not. I think that's why this came out if we're really going to talk on an existential level. And I don't know what your thoughts are, right off the top of my head. That's my gut reaction.
Joey Cofone: I think. I like your gut reaction. I think we're on the same page. If I'm reading between the lines, you're saying it's an inevitability based on where we are culturally, socially, technologically. So if Joey didn't write this, someone would, yes, collected
Zack Arnold: I totally and completely believe that. And here's why I believe are coming uniquely, from my Hollywood perspective. There's this phenomenon that nobody can consciously explain, but it happens all the time. Not every year. But it happens every few years, where two movies come out at the same time that are almost identical, A Bug's Life and ants, Dante's Peak in Volcano, Deep Impact and Armageddon. People think, oh, it's because they steal all the ideas. And one writer wrote the script and another wrote another script. I don't believe that there's some collective consciousness that made us all realize, this is a story that needs to be told. You cannot consciously explain how that keeps happening year after year, decade after decade. So yeah, no offense to you whatsoever. I believe this book would have come out had you not written it in a different iteration without your perspective, your unique stories. It wouldn't have started with I was a first grader drawing a worm. But what this the people and the problem that this book serves, I think would have come out eventually,
Joey Cofone: I am 100% with you. Like if if, if Newton Newton didn't identify gravity, someone else would have, if Einstein didn't identify special relativity, someone else would have. And it goes back to the law of connection. So connect the law of connection is what I like to say, the best expression of ideas, you know, only two to three ideas combined together, when you get too many combined, that's what we call an idea that's ahead of its time. People can't parse that, because it takes too much you have to parse first a few things that add up to another thing that then adds up to the main idea. And so I believe that actually, this is the reason why ants and A Bug's Life and the other movies that you mentioned came out is because what happens is we have a combination of things that then get put into the collective consciousness, usually, I mean, we could just say, get go, like, become public, right ideas that become made known, right? It's another way of saying collective consciousness that then sit in our brain, and then someone else goes, Well, I'm just gonna combine this and this. And that's really it. It's as simple as that. And so it's, it's, I agree with you that the book is an inevitability. And I agree, and I see clearly why those similar things happen. You know, same thing with books, same thing with video games. And here's an interesting thing to chew on. So think about this. This is also something I wish I had thought of, for the book, but I, you know, just keeps coming. I believe this book hasn't been written before. Because if you think about the knowledge bases of various practices, okay, like the epistemologies if we want to say, of creative creativity in our understanding versus let's say music, right? Take music back in the day, there were musicians who couldn't read sheet music, okay, like in the 30s 40s 50s, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, they could not read music, but they still play the Navy intuitively understood music, like people still create and intuitively understand it. But they don't necessarily know how exactly to write the music down. Okay, and, and so nowadays, there are very few musicians who don't know how to read music, it's just more common that that knowledge base, the whole practice has evolved. And I think, when you talk about creativity, when we talk about creativity, we are just, you know, if this is music is a little forward. And here's where it is, in terms of understanding, I think creativity is over here. And it's just behind. And so our understanding of things and sounds so obvious when we say it, but our understanding of various things, is not parallel, it's not equal. We understand things at different times. And so for me, I think I was shocked I, I did a lot of work to find a book that did this really well, because, well, it'd be good to read and see how I could do it better. But I couldn't find anything that I thought did it in the way that I wanted to, and at the depth that I want to do and was also entertaining so that people would actually consume it. And then you mentioned early on, and I didn't say anything at the time that there's 39 laws, and who the hell would do that? And it's funny, you said that, because when I first had the idea for this book, I took it to an editor that has was the editor for one of the best selling books in the world. Okay, in the last decade, I won't be too specific.
Zack Arnold: I can presume who who's who will might have been, but I won't say based on your network, but continue?
Joey Cofone: Yes. So I said to the editor, I showed him my idea. And I said, Hey, man, this is this is where it's come. And he said, this is this is not going to work. No good. So what do you mean? And he said, You got to make it. You got to make it in three, five or seven loss. And I said, but it it can't be done. Like maybe if I made how to overcome fear, I can make that a few laws or something or how to overcome or how to do the practice of iteration. But I said, I'm trying to write a holistic view of the entire experience of being creative. And he said you got to fit it into seven loss. And I said I appreciate your appeal. Union, but you're just not the right editor for me. And he agreed it was very, very friendly, the whole thing. But it was curious is that when you are, you know, this goes against our anti conformist thinking, right? When you go to someone who sees things done a certain way, and you say, I want to do this and they say, Cool, this is the way that that works. Go do it this way. And you say, Well, it can't. Two things happen. Either you can form and then write a book that no one reads or doesn't actually they read, and then it doesn't hit, or you write a book that is true to what you believe. And then, of course, that's its own gamble, because it's unique as to whether or not it's going to, it's going to hit. So really, and I want to just, I know I'm blabbing a lot here. But there's one more little screw that I want to turn there, which is, it's not necessarily being different, at least for me, I'm not trying to be different to be different. I'm trying I focus, because I think people can also get caught up on that I gotta be different from that. You're that means you're still paying attention to them. Rather, Just be true to yourself. It sounds so wishy washy, woowoo shit. But it's like, say, if I didn't have to give a shit about what people thought, or how it's done. How would I do it? And then try that or start there?
Zack Arnold: Yeah, I love all that. And I think that for me, probably the the most important thing is, first of all, going back to this idea of being weird. Well, you know, I don't want to be weird, and I have to conform. But then I have this idea. And I don't want to have to conform to what everybody else thinks it needs to be, because that's what already works. Because I think that for me, one of the one of the biggest detriments, or the the mindsets, in any industry, any problem whatsoever, that leads to ultimately where we are now is this idea of this is the way we've always done it. This is again, a giant soapbox for me, right? This is what's always worked. Yeah, but does anybody question if it's still worse. And for me, it's not a matter of well, these things I need to I want to be different to be different, right, I get that knee. But I think for me, personally, I don't know if this is going to resonate with you or not. But for me being different is what really brings true meaning to the work that I do. If I'm thinking any warm body with a base level of technical skills could sit in my chair and do the same work with the same outcome than why am I even breathing? Like, what is the point of that? Right? So it's not I need to be different, and I need to stand out and pay attention to me. That's what Instagram is for. Right? Oh, hi, I'm an influencer. Pay attention to me like me and follow me and click that subscribe button, right? So for me, it's in order to really find true meaning and my creative work and feel like it's having an impact. It needs to be different in some way for it to have meaning it's just inherent in the idea of of being different. But again, that's that can be a very dangerous trap.
Joey Cofone: Right? It can be depending on how much of the whole picture someone understands, you know, if they're just like, I gotta be different without some of the other understandings. It's dangerous. Yeah. Tell me about your hatred of the word expert.
Zack Arnold: Ah, well, I love it. I'm so glad that you came back. And so and it's funny because like you said, you have a hatred of the word talent. The reason that I hate the word expert is that we make so many assumptions about it, right. So when our mind an expert is somebody that has achieved the mastery in whatever their field is, whatever the skill might be, whatever the craft is, but the more you talk to anybody that is perceived that as an expert will tell you the opposite. It's this idea of the Dunning Kruger effect, which I'm sure you're familiar with, right? Is that the more you learn something, the more you realize how much you don't know anything about it. So we think they know everything. And their perception is oh, I'm still very much a beginner. And I'm still learning and whatnot, but we assume that they're an expert at it. What I'm trying to do is redefine that redefine the term expert, because when you put somebody on that pedestal you think, Oh, I could never reach out to them or talk to them, they could never be my mentor helped me because they're an expert, and who am I versus everyone in the world as an expert to somebody else? Right. So it's all about defining who is your expert, and anybody that has walked your path that has achieved what you want to achieve next, that has been there and already achieved it. They become the world's foremost expert based on your goals. So am I an expert? No, I don't believe that I think I always have more to learn. I'm never going to master anything. I'm a student of progression, not perfection, which is very much one of your laws of creativity, in your own words. But at the same time for somebody that says, I want to start a podcast about being more creative, and being an editor in Hollywood and how to be successful, I need to learn how do I create the podcast who are the best guests who's your audience? I'm one of the world's foremost experts to that person. Right but within a certain context, so I just I hate the term, broadly used as expert because we just assume we've attained a level of mastery and you talk to any master and they'll all tell you there For a beginner,
Joey Cofone: It's a relative. It's all about the relativity of knowledge. I like exactly like that. So what do we say someone is? What did I say earlier? I was like your, you know, call it like an expert in creativity or productivity. How do I, I want to I want to adopt your I've already adopted, I've accepted, what you're saying is true, because it is. So how do I rephrase represent my thought that I presented earlier, which was, I respect your advanced knowledge without, you know, saying that?
Zack Arnold: I would say the way to put in I honestly don't know the answer, because it never nobody's ever asked me such a good question. By the way, you need a podcast sidenote, because you're really good at asking great questions and starting a great conversation. But if you were to say, I really respect the fact that you've achieved this specific thing, right? Specific to this idea, or this goal, I respect the fact that you will figure this out, because I too, am trying to figure this out. So that's an area where I do have expertise, I don't mind expertise, I have expertise in a lot of different areas. But saying, I'm an expert, I have an aversion to that, because then that just assumes that I've learned at all. And that also in people that are considered experts or masters can just be throwing gasoline on the fire of imposter syndrome. I actually had that experience years ago, where I'd put together a free online challenge for people in my industry, it was called the 5x challenge. And we were going to come together for five days to 5x our energy, our creativity, and our productivity, just kind of one of these like online fun challenges to help me launch a product right? Something many people have done before. And when I've done challenges like this in the past, I've gotten 10 people, 15 people, 25 people for this challenge, I got 1100 people to sign up. That's great. And I was completely and totally overwhelmed and not prepared for this level of success at all. And I had this Facebook group that I was literally managing for 20 hours a day because I had people on six continents in this group. And one person completely just literally leveled me for eight months dealing with the worst impostor syndrome I've ever experienced, which is where this idea of expert came from. He said, Zach, thank you so much for everything you're doing. You are a true thought leader. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I don't be throwing alone round words like thought leader. Behind the scenes. I'm a mess. I'm trying to figure all this stuff out. though. It's all relative.
Joey Cofone: I guess that's where you got it from? It's like exactly incredible at this. And I, you know, I have a feeling you're an incredible dad with the da dee, behind you and all the pictures.
Zack Arnold: Oh yeah. That's that's by accident. That's to define something that I value more than anything else, right. But at the end.
Joey Cofone: Though, could be a terrible dad and a terrible friend and a shitty human. But still. And we've seen it's actually quite often at high levels still really good at the one thing that they have dedicated their lives to?
Zack Arnold: Yeah, exactly. So I fine to the, I'm fine. Assuming if you want to assume that I have a lot of expertise in specific areas, I just have an aversion to being called an expert. And using that term to talk about others, other than the context of you are my experts, because you have published a book successfully and surrounding yourself with the right people. I would love to publish a book in the near future. And there are certain series of steps that I don't understand. And that sense, you could be one of my experts, right? But it doesn't mean you are the expert. So that's kind of how I frame it. So where I want to go next is another one of these, these key laws. And it's going to go back to something that you said earlier, is that with creativity, there are no wrong answers are wrong ideas when you live in a vacuum. Sure. But if we're talking about the law of collaboration, and you're a designer, specifically a freelancer, if you're an editor, if you're a composer, if you're a writer, you're being hired to do this job, and oh, boy, are there wrong answers. They're called notes. So how do you how do you kind of take this idea that well, with creativity, we want to be open and be ourselves and be authentic. But at the end of the day, if creativity is how we make a living, even if we don't think it's the wrong answer, somebody else thinks it's the wrong answer.
Joey Cofone: Yeah, that's a really good one. Great question. Never been asked that. Love it. And I do have an answer. I think. Think of it this way. You know, we don't need to jump to right and wrong, because there are professional attempts that work and don't work. Let's say instead that there's a spectrum of efficiency. Some ideas work, not at all and some work good enough and some work phenomenally. And I think that is what we're really handling as we develop an idea and really, you know, it's about your goals and what do you want to achieve with the thing you're doing? If you're editing an Episode. That's supposed to be a turning point. And it's emotional. And that's your goal. And it's pretty damn clear. Right? You know, I think going back to earlier on, a lot of people think creativity is this, you know, abstract magic? No, you're telling a story. At this point in the story, the character, discover something about themselves goes through a ton of denial, and then comes out the other end inspired Right? Cool, that is very fucking concrete. Okay. And then your efficiency at delivering the result that you're looking for, is pretty apparent, right? I mean, we watch movies and TV shows, and, you know, video games, and we look at advertisements. And we can say, that was cool, or man, they were really off, or Wow, that was awesome, I gotta tell a friend. And that's the spectrum of efficiency that we're eventually going for. So if you're a hobbyist, you don't really have to worry about it. Because ultimately, you're doing it for yourself. And if you are pleased, that's it. That's all you need. Your drawing doesn't happen. You know, speaking of relativity, your drawing doesn't have to be Rembrandt level drawing. For you to be happy, you just have to do a little bit better or a little bit different than you did another time. And if you're a professional, then efficiency is of course extremely important to the efficiency of you achieving your goals. And that is the part I love about my perspective on creativity is that it's not some wild thing. It's as concrete as what an accountant does. What a basketball player does what a construction worker does, they've got a goal, and they go and do it. And for me, how a building is put together is a freakin mystery. Just like for someone else, a power poster is designed is probably a mystery. But for some reason, I don't jump to wow, it's magic. But so many people jump to Holy shit, that's magic, when it comes to music, and visual art and stuff like that, and that's just wrong. It's just a it's just a total misunderstanding of, of ideation and creation and everything.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, what I find is that the better you get at any specific creative skill, your ability to break it down into its components, component parts, it becomes much, much easier. So I could show you any movie poster or any design or any logo, and you see the whole, but you also see this brushstroke, or I can see how they combined this shape or that shape. Like you can break it down. And you can say, I don't know exactly, but I can pretty clearly understand what the process was the came to this result, right? So which as somebody that works in Hollywood is a blessing and a curse, because 95% of movies and television are completely ruined for me, because I'm just like, I know how you made the sausage. I know every part of the process. I know what your day to day look like I know how you got from point A to point Z. And people are like movies are magic. And they're like, no, they're not. They're actually mostly math. Not all right, there's some inspiration. And there's a lot of emotion. But my job for a living is to create emotions. It's very specific moments, I manipulate the entire journey one frame at a time. That's my job. So I know how to do that where people like, oh, that that scene made me so sad or happy or whatever. I don't know how they did that. And I do I know exactly how they did, I can tell you the moment that you felt this. And then you transition to this emotion, because I'm taking you on that journey, which again, is the unique piece that I want to bring to the educational process. And really, for me even the bigger thing when you talk about and I loved how you talked about with music notes and like the nowadays most everybody reads music, you go back to a certain point in time not as many did right, what you're doing for creativity, kind of bringing it to the mainstream and giving it a framework. The big project that I have in my mind is doing what you've done with creativity, but doing it with time. Because time is my obsession. Time is what I live in a timeline as an editor manipulating time. That's what I've done my entire life. And I understand the components at their smallest component parts how to manipulate emotion into a moment.
Joey Cofone: I would love to watch a movie with you. Where do you live?
Zack Arnold: It's annoying. Oh my god. It's
Joey Cofone: Are you on the East Coast.
Zack Arnold: No, I'm in Los Angeles. Sorry, shit. Yeah, I'm in the epicenter of the industry. But we can do a watch party. Amazon has watch parties.
Joey Cofone: Dude, I would like I'm sure what you do and can annoy the shit out of some people, you know, because
Zack Arnold: I was just gonna say most people, it drives them crazy. But yeah, man, you ever want to do a watch party outbreak anything down for you? I would. Because I I love that that analytical process just to help you understand how they're actually doing it. But for me, it's really understanding our perception and relationship with time. That is something I've been obsessed with my entire life. And how many books are there about time, time management and you know, calendaring. There's a million of them. But nobody's ever talked about it from the perspective that I could is somebody that manipulates time for a living I don't literally manipulate time and space. But in the fictional world, I'm manipulating time and space to generate various specific creative emotions. And I found a way to systematize that so you can do it with your own story rather than just fictional stories. But again, it was your book that largely needed to get in front of me to realize, Oh, it doesn't all have to be original. A lot of it can be because I'm like, Who the hell needs to write another book about time? Right? Who needs to have another educational course about time management? All right, David Allen's doing it better than me Cal Newports doing it better than me. What am I going to teach habits? Please, James clear, he's cornered the market. Right. And I actually do cheat. I do teach James clear his book and his his ideas in my program. But then I realized that it's not just the individual components, it's my ability to put them in the right order at the right time. Right. So you want to learn habits. You go to James clear, you can also go to Charles Duhigg, you can go to BJ Fogg, but James clear has been like, Excuse me, guys hold my beer, right? I'm going to become the guy on habit. What he did in the last few years is just mind blowing the way he just stepped in. I was like, I'm going to create a new market for myself. And I'm going to be on the bestseller list for I don't even how many years? It's not even. Yeah, forever. Exactly. So you can learn habit formation from James clear. But what I have not found, and this is what I'm working on right now, is this idea of curation and a path. There's nobody else that I know anywhere. This teaching you James clear. And right after teaching you Gretchen Rubin, and the four tendencies and right after teaching you goal setting and formation and then teaching you how to overcome limiting beliefs and obstacles. And then how do I deduce what I need to do with the one thing right now? How do I understand the concept of essentialism after that, so I can prioritize? And how do I fit in David Allen's GTD system? I'm not finding anybody that's taking all these brilliant ideas and systems. But saying, here's the order to learn them in, I like to write, and that's what I'm really, really good at is that I mean, I've got an entire bookshelf of books, and I don't see the individual ideas. I see the books, and I'm like, where's the curriculum? Where's the syllabus to put these in the right order based on people's journeys, I can't find that anywhere. And with what I've been building so far, within my community, the results are just astronomical. So that's the area where I found the curation and the order, and the combination, not the creation. But the combination of these things, is the unique thing that I can bring with that Hollywood storytelling flair.
Joey Cofone: I have so many thoughts already on like, I'm seeing it now in my head and how you can go about leveraging that. That's awesome. I'm excited for you.
Zack Arnold: So I have I have another area that I want to go into that really has nothing to do with the book itself. But I think it's just a further further pontification about the creative process. And this is really deviated from. So tell me what creativity is. And let's walk through laws 12 through 70. And you've done that all the time. I get that the the shortest version that I'll say that I said at the beginning that I'll say at the end, just by the book, literally, I believe everybody that does creative work like this should just be next to your desk. Most of the books, if not all of the books that I read, after I do a podcast, they go back on the shelf. This one's going to sit on the table where I read, and I know this is going to be hard for you to comprehend. And this is another one of those combination things. This book sits on top of a book that I have not taken off of my table for a year. Viktor Frankl's.
Joey Cofone: Oh, all right. Oh, come on, Man's Search for Meaning
Zack Arnold: Man's Search for Meaning. This is man's search for creative meaning they were sitting there on top of each other. And I just looked at him like, holy shit. Right. So this goes on to the permanent pile where I have Man's Search for Meaning. I'm honored very different books. Oh, very different stories. Right? It couldn't be about it. But I really it's not just here's the here's the step by step, you know, seven steps or 10 step process to be more creative. There's, there's a lot deeper meaning and finding what it means to be creative. How can I become more creative on a regular basis. So this one is going to just stay on my table as opposed to go on to the bookshelf. So the reason I say that is I don't want to talk about the book anymore because people can read the book. Here's what I want to workshop. Now. I heard you doing another podcast interview with Chase Jarvis, who was one of those people that I look at that I'm like, oh my god, I'm on the exact same path. He was very creative, very good expert, quote unquote, level at a specific school photography, and said, You know what, I want to educate, educate people. I want to build a community. I'm gonna write a book in the process. He's also creating film and television media. And I'm just like, dude, like, if I'm looking for my quote, unquote, expert, Chase, Jarvis is probably one of them. And you mentioned something just very briefly, you kind of dropped the seed, but I want to workshop this with you. You said, I want to be Nike for thinkers.
Joey Cofone: Yeah, I did say that. What you're good. What does that mean chased and chased it and by
Zack Arnold: He didn't run with it. And boy, as soon as I heard it, I'm like, Dude, if you and I don't talk about this for at least 15 minutes, I have wasted my time with you. Because this big, what does it mean to you to be the Nike for thinkers?
Joey Cofone: Yeah. Well, there's a whole, there's a whole host of thoughts there that I will absolutely share with you. First is, I said I was an English literature major philosophy. I learned the power of language and ideas during that time. And we've talked at length about ideas, but let's talk about language for a moment. We actually did talk about language with expert language shapes our thoughts. Okay. There was a, I read a story when I was younger about the scientists went to an island where the the inhabitants had never gone to the mainland. And they were like, totally. What's the right word? Doesn't even matter. They didn't, it didn't have any contact with the outside world. And the scientists went, and they found something interesting when they finally learned their language. And they said, What color is the sky? And the tribe? People, the tribes, people, I don't want to say the tribesmen, the tribes, people said blue, and then they said, What color is the grass, and they said, blue. And they found that it was they really dug into this, they found that the people actually could not tell the difference between blue and green. And they hypothesize that it's because they didn't have a word for green. And then they tested this with other green things, and blue things. And they they called it one thing, they didn't have a different color. And so now let's go zoom. Fast forward to 2013. When I'm thinking about, who am I trying to serve? What do I really care about? And, you know, we talked before the mics started rolling, about, you know, serving creatives. And I felt, I find that to be a challenging word, because people don't consider themselves creatives. And then I dug deeper and I realized that we were having the same interesting effect that the tribes people were having, which is we don't have a word, a collective noun for people who do endeavors of the mind. Like we have for people who do endeavors of the body, people who play sports, they're athletes, but people who do office work, what are they? Or people who are teachers, what are they what is the collective now we don't have this high level collective noun. And so I, I wrote hundreds of words literally looking for this and talked to all sorts of folks. And I came to the conclusion that the word thinkers was the audience that we were serving. And the reason we don't have a company, like Nike that serves athletes is because we didn't have the word. And so part of my whole journey was to not just build a Nike for thinkers, a company that serves people for the mind, like Nike does for the body, but actually to make this word work. So in 2013, there were no brands, no books, no influencers, using the word thinker as a collective now, and I can say, 10 years later, many brands now use it. And I in You even said like earlier, they came in, that's a pretty good word, I might think about how I can integrate that. And so my hope is first to get that word to be more and more understood, because then when I say I am a company that helps thinkers do their best thinking like athletes do their best athletes, athlete ing that people aren't going to ask me, What does that mean? What's the thinker? Oh, yeah, cool. And it's happening, and it's blowing my mind. And so now, what is it Nike for thinkers? I'll be upfront, man, I haven't solved it yet. I haven't. So
Zack Arnold: Which is why I wanted to have this conversation. Because this is an area where I excel in helping people not necessarily solve the problem, but figure out what's the next step. So you know, want to become you know, you want to become the Nikkei for thinkers. There's one word and it's so interesting that you and I have this obsession with language and how important it is. There's a word that you use that I think in and of itself, might be standing in your way a little bit. You said, I hope to hope is introducing doubt into the equation. Right, as opposed to, this is what I'm going to do. So that's part of it. But where are you stuck? If we're just talking about problem solving? If we break this down into an equation, where are you stuck, right, and what is the problem that you can't solve when the solution is Nike for thinkers?
Joey Cofone: Sure. The challenge that I'm facing is what does a company that is the Nike freethinkers look like? So we have Apple, you know, an Apple comes up a lot in my conversations with the team about Well, are they the The company for thinkers and they provide a bunch of tools that help you know, meet design people, right? You edit. And so if I were to say, well, there's not only one athletics company doing one thing, right? There's Nike that does their clothing. And then there's other companies that do you know, just footwear and there's people that do you know? Whatever the hell they call the things that keep your joints looking good, I mean, there's endless amounts of athletics company so there's not only one answer, and we definitely covered that earlier. So what does an analog Nike for thinkers look like? If not digital, like apple? And that is where I am right now. So we do we sell notebooks and it's awesome and guided editions with James clear, Roxane Gay Netflix, there's our squire pen is the number one rated pen by New York mag out of 100. been, you know, we've been called the the, and the apple of analog even. But I still don't, and that the vision is still hazy for me. And it's until I have a crystal clear, it's not going to happen. You know, and I do have doubts. I definitely have doubts. And you can you can hear it when I say I hope to I'm not wanting to say I will unless I think I will but when I do know, then I will definitely tell you, I will. But that's where I'm at.
Zack Arnold: Alright, let me ask you this question and response. Why don't you want to be the Adidas for thinkers?
Joey Cofone: Well, the Nike to me Nike tells the best stories are Nike. I like Adidas. I think adidas has more revenue than Nike, globally, not in the US, but I think globally, but Nike for me, specifically tells the best stories and they get the best athletes. They partner with the best athletes and we you know, James clear is one of our partners. Roxane Gay is one of our partners, we're building that lineup of Michael Jordan, LeBron Kobe. But at the end of the day, attaching it to a product is difficult. It's extremely difficult because even though we do interact with hundreds of things every day, what are the things we really care about? Those are small, the notebooks historically, and still have been a place where we put some of our most important thoughts, right, we're journaling or ideate. Or we're putting, you know, our next business idea in their next course or our next lesson, or we're taking notes on what we're learning, you get the idea. There's things that are important, but I want to make it even better. Right? That's, that's where I'm at. I'm always, it's good. Now, how do I make it better?
Zack Arnold: All right, so now I got another follow up for you. Let's assume that you're on an alternate timeline. And you're the only person on the planet that's aware of Nike and their success, which means you can steal anything from Nike that you want was zero repercussions. What is it specifically about Nike that you are going to steal and replicate and apply to thinkers?
Joey Cofone: I mean, I feel like that we are already on the planet with I'm the only one who's really.
Zack Arnold: But you said it's about it's about Nikes ability to tell a story. Yeah. But that can only be a part of it. There has to be more to it than that is a matter of they have the highest quality products. Is it a matter of they have the most products, what is it that you're going to steal from Nike and nobody's ever going to know.
Joey Cofone: Here. Here's why Here's why I'm having trouble. What Nike has nailed is the product market fit. Everybody has feet. Even if you don't go play basketball or soccer, you can wear Nikes for style. And you can own multiple Nikes. And people do of course, a notebook is different. Not everybody's a notebook user. Those who are myself included, I've got one notebook at a time, I keep it focused. So at best, you know, it takes six months to fill this thing at 19 bucks a pop, I'm worth 38 bucks a year. Right? Whereas Nike, you know, and this is just now we're talking pure business here. Nike can be 100 bucks a sneaker, you could buy three of them. For them, five of them. You don't need one to run out to own another like you do with a notebook. And that is I think my big crutch is what the is what does a What products do the Nike for thinkers fit. That's it.
Zack Arnold: So here's. I don't even know if this is going to be useful to you or not. But here's a thought that I had recently and if we're talking about collective consciousness, and we can't even understand why we are at specific points in our lives intersecting with other people, I had this conversation about a week ago that to me, I was like, Yeah, this is, you know, kind of an interesting thought. I don't know if it's useful or not. Maybe it's useful to you or maybe it isn't. My son has been trying to figure out what he wants us to get him for Christmas. He's 13 years old. He's about as far from an athlete as you can possibly get. He's really into theater and stage tech, really super highly creative. No question. He's a thinker. And he said, I want a pair of Air Jordans. I'm like, they still make Air Jordans. Like the guy retired decades ago, I wear I wore Air Jordans when I was in middle school. Right? But there was an identity associated with wearing Air Jordans, right, it says idea all the way back to the PF flyers, they're going to make you sprint faster and go farther. Right? So you're thinking about it as utility, I only need one notebook, we only need one pair of shoes. So why are people making the decision when they're not athletes, and they don't need high tops, and they don't need all the compression and all the things designed for you to be a better athlete, which is also very arguable, because listen to my podcast with Steve Sashen, CEO of zero shoes, and they'll talk all about big shoe, and how a lot of the things they're doing are actually hurting athletes not helping them total tangent. But at the end of the day, my son wants to wear Air Jordans, even though he doesn't need Air Jordans. So what what makes a notebook or a pen or another product you haven't even thought of yet for thinkers go from? Well, I really only need one to Well, I have one. But I need a lot more because it's part of my identity.
Joey Cofone: I get you, I get you. And I think that the it I have a other half of the story I haven't told you, which is actually that our pens, which we didn't launch the company with, we had one note, but we launched the company, we launched the pen, like two years later, people were like, Dude, you don't know how to make pens. You're the notebook company. Yeah. And then now, you know, like, obviously, we sell it as slow to pens, which is equal to the notebooks. And the reason why I think the pen is so successful, is what we're talking about. The pen doesn't ask anything of you. I cannot fight I do have five pens over here. But the notebook does, a notebook asks something of you to engage with it. And a pen doesn't sneakers don't. You can wear them, you can have them in your closet, if you want to use them, you put them on you forget about it, you want to use a pen, you could grab it and use it with anything but a notebook requires you to then work. And I think if you want mass appeal, which is you know, I'm running a business, I want to create something that's an absolute banger of a hit. It can ask people to work, can't ask people to work. And that's just that's just human nature. You know, what are the huge hits? I don't know the iPhone, right? People aren't doing like, no one is like, oh, I can do so much great business on this thing. No, it's like, look at the cool apps and the cool games. Look at my social media, it's all entertainment. You know, even in the, if you go to the iPhone app store to kind of drill into the point here. There's a section for games in the app store. And then there's a section for apps. And in the apps section. That's all the top shit is still entertainment stuff, which you would think would be sort of relegated to a game area. So it's, it's, I remember back in the day, when I first got the iPhone was like cool productivity apps are the top thing and now it's just entertainment, entertainment entertainment, because it sells. And so roundabout way of saying I don't have an answer. I know now that we've released a pen, and I've watched how this works, I know what it takes. What my journey is, is where does the product fit happen, where it's something that is for thinkers, and something that doesn't really make you work where it was the intersection there. And it's a hell of a challenge. One which I enjoy, you know, 10 years of the same challenge all is quite, quite a thing. But I wish I had a better answer.
Zack Arnold: Well, well, I had no expectation that you're going to have an answer. But the reason I wanted to drill into this as one just so I can you know if there's anything I can do to to spur an idea or plan to see for you. I wanted to be able to do that. But I also want to exhibit the importance of being able to ask yourself good questions, because that's part of the creative process is what is the question that I'm asking? And I guess what I'm trying to ascertain from you, and maybe you know, and maybe you don't, but are you asking the question? How do I become the Nike for thinkers? Or are you now asking the question, what is the product that makes me become the Nike for thinkers or is it another question that I haven't identified? What is the question that you're problem solving right now,
Joey Cofone: The question that I am at right now and we have I have the whole law of what the hell that I call it love. Curiosity is all about asking questions. So many laws, I don't even know myself.
Zack Arnold: There's a lot of them, I understand why you made a cheat sheet for yourself.
Joey Cofone: It's up right now. The question that I'm asking myself and I ran through this thought exercise in the book with self driving cars, if you remember that part, how question evolves from how does a car drive itself to how does a car read the road to how does the car talk to other cars to learn faster? Alright, so I like I like that you're asking me a sequence of questions. The question I've gotten to right now is what product serves the mission of helping thinkers do their best thinking? And, as you know, and then there's some bullet points that I would say, and it needs to hit this criteria, and then one of them is like, it needs to be fun, or it needs to not make you work. So what is kind of shitty in a way?
Zack Arnold: No, that's part of the process. I'm just gonna throw in an alternate question. Maybe it's useful to you, and maybe in three minutes, you're going to be like, That was dumb. I don't know. Okay, what is the product that helps thinkers eliminate the things that are stopping them from being creative? Interesting. Part of facilitating creativity is eliminating the vast majority of things that are stopping you from it, which you also talk about. One of the laws of creativity, I don't remember the exact name of it. There's way too many on this damn chichi, for me to find in 30 seconds. But the importance of eliminating distractions, you can't be creative and have these ideas and put them into a blank notebook with a really nice, elegant pen. If you're surrounded by distractions. I don't know if that's a component that's helpful or not. But instead of what facilitates the most creativity, what's a product that potentially eliminates things that don't facilitate creativity?
Joey Cofone: I like that the law you're referencing is the law of habitat. Thank you. I like that. I have to think about that. That's good. Also, I have not. I have not yet said that Baronfig is creativity. And I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. It's more about and maybe now mincing words here in retrospect, but it's about how having your best ideas? Is that being more creative? Maybe I should lean into that. That's great.
Zack Arnold: So you just you just begged the question. What's the difference? If we're talking about thinkers versus creatives, or being even if it's not my identity is I'm a creative, but I need the tools to be creative. What's the difference between being creative and being a thinker?
Joey Cofone: It's good question. That's a good question.
Zack Arnold: And something tells me that in the clarification of that question, you might get closer to the idea of either what is the product? Or what does it mean to become the Nike for thinkers, etc. I think to me, it's all kind of somewhere in there.
Joey Cofone: It's, excuse me, it's an alluring thought. Like the Nike for thinkers. Just the fact that you picked it up and said, I need to talk about it more it is it's it's, it's like, a legendary creature that I need to discover and say, Oh, that's not fake. It's real.
Zack Arnold: What I love about it is its boldness, as soon as you said, said that, I'm like, Oh, you and I need to talk. Because that's not a that's not a small statement. Right? I want to be the Nike for thinkers. That's not a small idea. That's a big idea that as you can allude to is going to take decades to crack. Right, but I think you're already cracking it, because my first response to seeing your website and seeing the products that you offer, after having listened to that conversation with Chase isn't like you've already done it. Maybe you're not at scale, but I feel like you're already doing it. You're not You're not far away from that it's more a matter of what do we need to continue to iterate to get closer to fully realizing it? But you're already kind of sort of doing it?
Joey Cofone: Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's, you know, it's like creating nice spandex. You know, I'm an athletics company, but like, I want to do the whole kit Caboodle and I want to be like, I want to be the company. You know, that's holy crap. If you want the best gear, you go to Nike. If you want the best tools, you go to Baronfig. Yeah, I appreciate.
Zack Arnold: I'm not sure best is the differentiator, though, because I actually don't think Nike creates the best athletic products. There are other companies that actually create better athletic products when you get into the nuances of it. And part of my story we haven't talked about my audience knows that you may not know it, but for the last five years, I have set the audacious goal of becoming an American Ninja Warrior. So I've been training for Ninja Warrior. I've been on the show twice. I haven't actually aired yet. But I've competed and went from award winning Dad Bod and having no athletic ability whatsoever to now training one of the most difficult and challenging complex sports ever, for the meta goal of I want to learn how to achieve difficult goals. So I'm using this as kind of a training ground to learn that. Right? That's, as soon as I heard this Nike for thinkers, I'm like, ooh, that's bold. That's hard. And that's why I gravitated so much towards it. So yeah, I think
Joey Cofone: I think he's talking. I think over time, maybe we can help each other out?
Zack Arnold: Yeah, well, as soon as we go offline, I already have one thing that I wanted to talk business with you about almost immediately, and then I have a feeling we can continue the conversation. But I don't even know how it's possible. We're already 90 minutes in to chatting. And I feel like we just barely begun. But I really had no intention of actually digging too deeply into the book itself, because I want people to dig into the book themselves. And I wanted to use your laws as a demonstration for how to facilitate much more creative, much more useful conversations. And I feel like we've done that, I hope that we've achieved injective. Good, it's very, very glad. So the Something tells me there might be a part two on our future, maybe not a part 39. But there might be a part two in our future, because my gut says that there's a lot more to discover and on earth here. But in the meantime, simplest question of the entire show, I want to learn more about you I want to buy a notebook or I want to buy your book, where do I go?
Joey Cofone: That's a great question. You can I prefer if you check out The Laws of Creativity at joeycofone.com/book. As a runner up, since we've been talking about it so much, you can check out Baronfig at baronfig.com. And then if you want to say hello to me on Instagram or Twitter, it's at joeycofone. I'm a terrible social media participant, but I do check them every now and then. And I do reply to almost everything. So you will get me.
Zack Arnold: I love it. Well, on that note, I'm going to make sure all of these resources are going to be in the show notes. So anybody that finds them can click on the link. If I haven't emphasized that already, for the love of all that is holy by the book, buy the book, read the book, put it next to your desk and let it inform who you become as a more creative person and as a thinker. So I appreciate that note, Joey, I cannot tell you what a pleasure this was. I've got about 173 questions on my prep sheet that I haven't even addressed yet. But what we'll get to them someday. But really, Joey this is this means a lot to me. And I think a lot is gonna come from today's conversation, though. So thank you.
Joey Cofone: Thank you, Zack, and thanks, everybody out there for listening. I always appreciate the time
This episode was edited by Curtis Fritsch, and the show notes were prepared by Debby Germino and published by Glen McNiel.
The original music in the opening and closing of the show is courtesy of Joe Trapanese (who is quite possibly one of the most talented composers on the face of the planet).
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