INTERVIEW: Scott Belsky on The Messy Middle and Creative Life – Episode 085 - a podcast by Brandi Sea

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week we had the incredible opportunity to interview one of Brandi’s creative heroes, Scott Belsky. He is the co-founder of Behance, Adobe’s Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President, Creative Cloud. He is here to talk about his new book, “The Messy Middle”, the future for designers, and has so much wisdom. He was an incredible guest and we can’t wait for you to hear this interview!



Takeaways:



Scott’s new book is “The Messy Middle”  You NEED this book!



* Just because someone tells you that you should do something doesn’t mean that you should do that thing. Even if you feel you need to try something new.

* Creative meritocracy is a utopia that will never be fully attained, but the idea is to have systems that match the best ideas with the best opportunity.



Ultimately when you match the best ideas with the best opportunity, that’s when the greatest things happen.



* Those who show initiative in what you’re doing may be better to have on your team rather than the ones with the most experience.

* The middle volatility, the messy middle is this endless, repetitive, mundane. Full of anonymity, ambiguity or uncertainty, and hopefully complemented by some hacks and tricks to keep you going when you aren’t receiving short term rewards.

* Alignment and process are two tools that solve the same problem.

* Have short term rewards.



* When you have a big long term goal in mind, short term rewards that lead you to that goal help keep you on the pursuit.







 

“We have to recognize in this volatility that we are not our best selves at either the lows or the highs… At every low, we make decisions out of fear… When things are going well we falsely attribute the thing that we did to the things that work.” -Scott Belsky

 

 

“ I don’t subscribe to the idea that like winner’s never quit. You don’t want to spend so much of your time pursuing something you don’t believe in just because you initially committed to doing it.”

 

 

“Creativity is ultimately the most unique human trait we have.”

 

 

Questions We Ask Everyone:



* Describe yourself in three words



Optimistic yet paranoid.



* What do you geek out about?



New technology.



* What would your mom tell her friends that you do?



Now my mother would simply say, he’s doing too much. At the beginning of Behance, she probably would say, something for creative people.



* How do you want to be remembered?



One of the things I want to be remembered is as a great dad and a great husband and I want to be remembered as someone who gave back more or then he got.

A huge thank you to Scott Belsky for talking with us. We really enjoyed this opportunity!

Scott Belsky: “No, thank you so much for having me and I’m a fan of what you guys are doing. Thank you for. Thank you for doing it for the design world and thanks for having me. This was awesome.”

 

This Month’s book:

We are doing book reviews on the podcast every month-ish!

If you would like to read along, THIS MONTH, we’ve been reading, Called to Create, by Jordan Raynor.



Want to support us?

Go to Patreon and help support our podcast!

 

Further episodes of Design Speaks

Further podcasts by Brandi Sea

Website of Brandi Sea