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Welcome creatives! These are discussions, thoughts, case studies, interviews, and lessons about how our creativity relates to life. The host, Mr Benja, is a former video game programmer / designer for Rockstar Games, Sony Santa Monica, The 3DO Company, and others, as well as a fine artist. -- Be sure to check out the website for more.
Over a decade ago, I ran into Taraji P.
Henson at a San Diego Comic Con.
It was a wonderful time.
I was out there with Theo.
Things were going crazy, and I ran into
someone that I respected, Taraji P.
Henson.
After that meeting, I realized something
about entertainment, creativity, the
industry, and people, that I didn't really
take as much of a lesson at the time.
But after all these years of thinking
about it and hearing about her, her
troubles, her journey, I want to actually
say something about this because I think
it's important and I think it's necessary
and that's what I'm going to get into
today on Creativity Threads Life, this
podcast I'm doing To actually explore
and figure out how creativity really
does affect us in all parts of life.
And as you know, if you've been here
before, you know that I think creativity
and creation is essentially life itself.
So studying creativity from a point of
view of creating a life that you want
and creating, that sounded too big.
Just being creative in terms of
building the life that, um, that you
can and with the facilities you have.
I do it all the time With
art, design, and any sort of
development, this podcast even.
But, it extends, the skills and the
ideas extend to much more than that.
So, that's what we're going
to be getting into today.
Taraji P.
Henson.
I want to shout out to everybody from
Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, etc, etc.
But yes, oh, shout out to Eva.
How you doing?
I am just doing this
thing and reminiscing.
So yeah, the San Diego Comic Con.
You probably don't think of the San Diego
Comic Con when you think of Taraji P.
Henson.
If you don't know who Taraji P.
Henson is, she's a well
acclaimed actress, actor.
She's been in many different roles,
worked many different parts of
the industry, very accomplished.
I think I started recognizing her
back, uh, geez, I don't know when,
but she played a role in Baby
Boy a long time ago with Tyrese.
A lot of people know her from 2005's
Hustle and Flow, Hidden Figures.
Obviously, that was one of the, I
won't say more publicly acclaimed
kind of things, but it's like,
oh, yeah, this is positive.
And here's a great, great person
that goes in that role and Taraji P.
Henson did her job there.
I think people really got to
know her from, in terms of the
mass audiences got to know her
from the case of Benjamin Button.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
But she's also, uh, done
work in Smokin Aces.
People know her recently from
Empire, where she played Cookie.
Smokin Aces, Ralph Breaks the Internet.
Person of interest.
This, this show about trying to find out
who, who was causing these problems and
she played in a, she played a detective
and it's kind of a little bit of
supernatural, weird sci fi vibes to it.
But that's why she was at Comic Con.
She wasn't in a, in the next,
Marvel movie or anything like that.
But let me get back to that story.
So, Theo and I, we were college roommates
and we ran a, we used to go to comic cons
all the time, all these events, stuff
we talked about in college, we ended up
going to these, these huge, huge events.
And if you don't know how crazy comic con
could get, you start looking back in the,
the late two thousands when Marvel was
just announcing all of its properties.
When DC was really huge, Game of Thrones
was getting talked about with all
this buzz, a lot of the Pictures and
images you see of all the crowds are
going to be from this thing called San
Diego Comic Con Everybody else calls
themselves a Comic Con, but when you
mention Comic Con generically, we're
talking about the San Diego Comic Con
It's that big huge event that took the
world by storm Nothing's quite like it.
LA Comic Con, third tier.
New York Comic Con, third tier.
Anybody else, I'm just gonna
put you in a third tier class.
Skip the second tier.
And the first tier is San Diego Comic Con.
So I'm walking around this
thing, got a hotel room.
It's crazy, it's going nuts.
I'm seeing all kinds of people.
I haven't slept for like, three days.
It's a, if you do it right,
it's a whole seven day event.
Five slash Six days are official,
but if you do it right, it's a proper
seven, eight day event where you prep
and then you add a day for prepping
and you add a day for decompression
because the whole thing is just so crazy.
But anyway, I was out there one
day Theo and I were walking,
talking about something.
We're going to see some panel deciding
what we're going to do for the day.
And, you don't see that many,
that many black stars out there.
I mean, you catch them, of
course, because just the numbers,
but you don't catch that many.
And we're walking through the
lobby of, I think, uh, it was the
Hilton, I believe, or the Hyatt.
We're walking through the lobby
of the Hilton or the Hyatt down
there on, at the San Diego Harbor.
And we see this beautiful young lady
getting, uh, getting her stuff together.
She's got a few bags with her and
she's over at the checkout aisle.
I mean, checkout counter talking
and I'm like smacking Theo.
I'm starting to get a little starstruck.
Now, mind you, I've been at comic con.
I'm seeing, I'm seeing Arnold
Schwarzenegger talk about Terminator.
I'm seeing the game of
Thrones cast walking around.
We're seeing once in a while, random
people from, from Marvel, DC, et cetera.
It's just, complete nerd fest.
Right.
So we see, I see her and I'm
like, Hey, wait a minute.
I smack him on the shoulder.
I'm like, Hey, isn't that Roger P Henson?
You're like, yes, it is.
Like, Holy crap.
So she's busy doing whatever she's doing,
handling business at the front desk.
So, we get into stalker mode and hang
out behind a pillar, while she's doing a
thing, pretending like we're not, we're
not just waiting on somebody because, that
always freaks somebody out when you're
kind of standing out and waiting while
they're doing whatever they have to do.
Right?
So, after she finishes what she's
doing, and she's just, uh, You know,
putting some papers away or something.
It's like, all right, now's a good time.
She doesn't seem busy.
She's not in the middle of walking.
Now's a good time to ambush her.
Yes.
You have to time your ambushes properly.
No, no time is ever a good time
for an ambush, but this was it.
So, you know, we shuffled over there
and we, tried not to make too much
of a scene cause you never get.
Sometimes people just don't want
to have a scene made right then and
there, but , we did the quick walk
shuffled up there fast, but Hey,
Hey, Hey, how's it, how's it going?
Uh, Taraji P Henson.
We're great fans.
Glad to see you out here.
This is great.
Uh, hustle and flow is awesome.
Baby boy.
We're just all like, we're geeking out.
And she's like, Oh, thank you.
Very gracious.
Nice to meet you.
Wonderful personality.
Wonderful, wonderful presence.
Just a great.
Energy in, in many forms.
Now I got a picture of this quick
encounter on my Instagram page.
If you've been there, it's pinned up
at the top and I pinned it up since she
started popping up in the media lately.
And so we were there talking
just general chit chat.
Hey, why are you here?
Oh, you're here for person of interest.
That's excellent.
Uh, that show is really new.
Haven't seen it yet.
We'll be sure to check it out and
tell all our friends, you know,
feels like, oh, I've heard of it.
We're just excited and we're talking
and we don't want to hold her up.
So we got some quick pictures.
You know, said thank you for doing
all you do encouraged her and whatever
she's up to and what she's doing.
And, she went off about her business
and, we were happy if you remember
the scene from, from coming to
America where somebody recognized the
Prince and those two guys went nuts.
That that's what we were doing.
That that's screw all the
other stars that were there.
Taraji was our fan, our fan favorite.
We were geeking out.
It was great.
So after that moment, though, I kind of, I
kind of started to realize I'm like, huh?
We were geeking out, but Comic Con is
one of those places where everybody
can find somebody to geek out about,
to, to just kind of get giddy over.
So we're all looking
around and we're like, wow,
it made sense in an event like
this, you could have a lot of high
profile people slip under the radar.
That happened all the time.
You'd see comedians like,
you know, uh, Earthquake.
I forgot the one guy's name, um,
who worked with David Alan Greer.
Not David Alan Greer, but
somebody who worked with him.
See, I even forgot his name.
But there are all these people, so many
of them, at this event in downtown.
You could just run into them and
start having conversations and
everything's Everything is everything.
It's like, whatever.
There's so many stars out there.
But, nonetheless, it was kind of
like, yeah, there were like a gang
of people crowding around her.
There wasn't like a lot of fanfare.
And that makes sense at Comic Con.
But it was just kind of like, okay.
Nothing terribly memorable.
It was like, great, but
nothing terribly memorable.
And don't worry, there will
be no disparaging of Taraji P.
Henson here.
And I'm thinking about this right now
because Recently, she's been in the
news for talking about The Color Purple,
and a couple days ago she had to say
a statement that, yes, I don't want my
situation to overshadow what's going on
with this movie, The Color Purple, it's a
really great movie, you need to go see it.
And now, I'm looking back and thinking
like, you know what, the only reason
I might want to see The Color Purple
is because I kind of heard Taraji P.
Henson getting upset over the fact
that she's had all these troubles
and has been talking about it.
It's kind of a weird, unfortunate,
and slightly perverse relationship
we have with celebrity and media and
buzz and the tabloids and all of this
drama that I'm sitting here thinking,
Hey, I should go see The Color Purple.
Why?
Well, because Taraji P.
Henson was crying on TV about it.
Not about the color purple, but
you know, doing movies like that,
it's, it's a bit of labor of love.
You're, you're not doing
it for the big paycheck.
Um, some of these, you know,
epic films that have a certain
attachment to an audience.
But the color purple, I, I'm not, I
have nothing to say on that right now.
What I'm just saying is that I'm
interested in it because I saw
Taraji P Henson crying about the
state of affairs with Hollywood
and actors not getting their due
and the unfairness in the industry.
Now, to be clear, the
unfairness does exist.
There are a lot of problems,
a lot of typecasting.
There's an extreme fall
off from the mega stars.
Like people who get paid 10, 20, or
higher million dollars, for a couple of
weeks of filming in a year after that,
you get down to your 5 million, 3 million
stars, 5 to 10 million or something.
And then you just drop off after that.
And, you're starting to get
into the hundreds of thousands
to film an entire thing.
And you've still got
to upkeep appearances.
You've got to travel.
You've got, you've got a team
behind you to do your makeup,
your outfitting to keep you fit.
You got, you've got agencies to deal with.
You've got a lot to deal with.
And if you're not on that top tier.
It becomes very difficult.
And yes, Taraji is definitely
one of my favorites.
Um, she kind of, she knocks it
out, plays her, plays her part
in every role, does her thing.
But back to the, of course
there's always a but, right?
Back to the issue with, with the
Hollywood and color purple thing.
It relies on this thing called buzz.
And this is a hard concept to
get over to a lot of creatives.
Myself included.
I am a hard head in this respect and
I've been working to get over it.
I get it.
You need to have a certain amount of buzz.
What is buzz and why do you need it?
Buzz is that thing that, that gets your
attention and it makes you look up.
It's like the room is just buzzing, or you
can think of it as no matter what's going
on, if you hear a little buzz in your ear
and you think it's a bug, you're going
to, you're going to take notice of it.
There's that hype.
There's that noise.
There's that rumbling.
There's that talk.
Good or bad.
I'm not saying good or bad.
It could be either.
And if you've tried to create anything
in a straight up and down level,
you know what I'm talking about.
If you've ever been in school, hopefully
all of you have, at any point in
your life, you've known that there
are people who just do their work,
do their job, no drama, no issues,
no problems, and they have no buzz.
They're just really good and really
solid people that you can rely on.
Unfortunately, the more and more we
progress, the more and more we need
this thing called attention, buzz, hype.
I was about to say drama, but
that's always negative or usually
negative, but it's something
that's bothered me for a while.
Like, Hey, Hey man, I
can't just make good art.
I can't just make this and that.
I can't just, it's like.
Yeah, you're going to end up with a
problem and that's a problem of not
being recognized and not being noticed
and not being given your fair worth by
missing out on this thing called buzz
and getting the people going as anchorman
would say, it gets the people going,
you got to get them going somehow now
saying something is unfair.
That could be, that could,
it could very well be true.
In fact, the industry is quite unfair.
It is heavily skewed
towards certain types.
Okay.
And we know this.
Everybody knows this.
They go searching for
something and they go get it.
Anybody else, you may be there just to
make their traditional views look better.
It's not fair.
Nobody's looking out for
the special interests.
Nobody's really looking
out for alternatives.
Nobody's really looking out for
anything unique and special.
They're looking for the buzz and the hype.
So let me tell you how this works.
In any group, in any gathering,
there are a few superstars.
And they're, they're usually there because
they're very skilled or they're simply
known for whatever they bring with them.
Eminem was put on at one point, he's
incredibly skilled, he got put on by Dr.
Dre, and he's a white rapper from Detroit.
And he was just going, when he came out,
I don't know if you remember, anybody
remembers in the 90s when he was breaking
out, he was talking about everybody.
Dropping bombs on Britney Spears,
talking about the Mickey Mouse club,
had words to say with everybody.
And this came from him
being a battle rapper.
So this battle rapper from
Detroit, that's white, that's just
getting attacked on all sides.
Gets picked up by Dr.
Dre.
There's a whole story there.
And he rode with that until he decided
he didn't want to ride anymore.
He's kind of just pulled
back and said, you know what?
I'm good now.
That's one of your superstar types, where
you're just out there and along with
everything that you've brought with you to
get you there, you're still banging away.
Once in a while you get your Keanu
Reeves, does his thing, blows up
big in the Matrix, people are like,
hey, is that the guy from Bill
and Ted's Excellent Adventure?
It's like, yeah, he was in the Matrix,
and next thing you know, he's out there,
he's talking, he's doing his thing,
being in continual hit movie after
hit movie after hit movie, whatever.
Who else?
I mean, there are a few.
You can pick them out from anyone.
Um, you know, you're Snoop Dogg,
Jay Z, in music, in acting, you've
got your certain few people.
Adam Sandler's picked out his own
little niche and group or whatever.
But then right You can only have a couple,
a couple of these superstars and maybe
you remember them back in school where
there were only a couple people like,
yeah, that guy, he's the, he's the head
of the captain of the basketball team.
He's got a scholarship straight
A's, he's dating this person.
He's dating this girl
from a, from a college.
And it's like, wow, really?
Yeah.
She goes to the college up the street.
He's dating her.
It's like, wow, really?
That's crazy.
And you just end up with these superstar
personalities kind of everywhere you go.
We're not talking about those people.
Those people exist, they do whatever.
We're talking about one
step down from that.
One step down from that is A
dangerous territory, because
then you start to get into your,
regardless of your skill level, regardless
of what you bring to the table, you start
to get into this area of, yeah, we know
who you are, but you don't excite us, you
don't get us going, and I've fallen into
that trap too, where I just continually
did good work for a while, and I had no
buzz, I had nothing interesting going on,
and then you try to get out of that,
you try to make some buzz, you try to
make something happen, And people will
start telling you, get back in your lane.
As Drake said, this is the part where
you go from fitting in to standing out.
First, you got to get to the point
where you can, well, you may not
even, you may not ever have to fit in.
You may always just be an outlier.
Some people just start in the game
as an outlier, but most, most people
start in a stage of fitting in.
And then they have to
figure out how to break out.
That's how they become the breakout star.
And I'm using Taraji as an
example, because I don't
think she's ever done that.
So she hasn't, I shouldn't say
Taraji in particular, cause
I'm not trying to pick on her.
She does a great job at what she does.
In fact, she was talking about her.
Her script for the, the cookie
spinoff for the empire series.
That would have been cool.
I would like, I would have
liked to have seen that.
I don't know if what will ever come
of it, if it'll ever make it out.
But that could be cool.
That could be one of those breakout
things where you really start
to see exactly who somebody can
be and what they can build into.
But she said the script wasn't right.
Totally believer.
She's saying the script's not right.
There's no reason not to think that it.
It was right.
And she's just being weird about it.
But if you're in that second phase,
I mean that, uh, that phase of
being a little secondary to the mega
stars, you have to bring something.
You have to bring some kind of buzz,
some kind of stank, something that
gets the people to recognize you.
Now, I had the school example, and you're
thinking back to the times when you were
in school, there are only a couple of
people that really stood out to you.
Everybody else is just
kind of blank faces.
They stood out for a reason.
They may have been a little extra.
They may have been outrageous.
They may have been funny.
They may have had some quirk.
A lot of times, and a lot of times
they're not the superlatives, like, you
know who the fastest kid in school was?
He was just, every time you
went out to the playground,
he was just the fastest kid.
Okay.
You remember the fastest kid that
was actually me for one period.
It was a race between me, Jason
Flack, and um, Isaiah Noah.
Yep, yep, yep.
I was one of the fastest kids.
But anyway, you kind of
know who these people are.
And you put very quick labels on them.
Like, oh yeah, that's the white rapper
from Detroit, who came up with Dr.
Dre.
Boom, boom, boom.
Quick labels.
Try to describe Taraji P.
Henson, and it's difficult.
It's like, yeah, oh no,
she's a great actor.
Played in Hidden Figures.
Played in, uh, Baby Boy.
You can start listing off the roles.
And she's good at them.
That's the problem.
But nothing stands out.
It's like, huh?
Nothing stands out?
If something doesn't stand out or
doesn't get that kind of attention that
you want, then do you manufacture it?
You might have to.
Do you work on trying to build
that buzz by creating some
sort of facet to yourself?
You might have to.
Like I was saying, back to the
examples of kids at school.
I remember the first kid
I saw with green hair.
He was a surfer kid from another
school, came in, had green hair, and
then on top of that, another kid from
another school came in, had a similar
crazy haircut, but he had like, you
know, he put a blue streak in his hair.
So we have this kid with green hair and
a kid with a blue streak in his hair.
One's a surfer, one's a skater, and
they were kind of competing with
each other and never became friends.
And it was just really bizarre
to me that I remember those two.
I remember the kid that pulled a knife
out of me, I'll tell that story one day.
I remember the, the kids who ran fast.
Okay.
I remember the kid I got in kind
of a fight with and I remember the
bully, you know, you remember certain
people and they all have these
trademarks, these labels to them, these
standout bits of their personality
or their behavior that stick out.
And when I realized back at Comic Con that
nobody was checking for Taraji like that.
I felt a little empathy there.
I was like, I know what that's about.
I know that vibe.
Like you could have a great restaurant.
And if it just says great
restaurant on the side, are you
really going to go check it out?
Like, can you hear about a new restaurant?
Like, Hey, what's that
restaurant about in and out?
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
They pretty much only serve
burgers and fries and shakes.
The shakes are really good though.
It's like, really, that's it.
Burgers and fries and shakes.
That's all like, yeah.
What about a happy meal?
No happy meal.
Okay, why would I go there?
Well, it's all natural.
It's cut fresh and like, really?
And you drive by and see the line.
You're like, boom, there
it goes in and out.
They get your food in to get it out.
It's cooked fresh.
It makes an impression on you.
And maybe that's the part
you're talking about.
Does it make an impression?
Do you have enough buzz to
make a mark on somebody?
I mentioned this back in the
be remarkable or GTFO podcast.
You can go back and listen to that.
What I think about being
remarkable, but anything that's
remarkable, incredible, amazing,
spectacular, that'll get you buzz.
In fact, let me go ahead
and start numbering these.
The six things that'll get you some buzz.
Number one, be amazing, incredible,
spectacular, or anything that starts
to put you into the superlative
category where it's like, yo, I went
to the, I went to the, um, the dance.
That person was amazing.
The way they were dressed, that
dress was out of this world, by
far the most interesting dress,
the most attractive dress, the
most expensive, the superlative.
That means putting the most on it.
The most something the most eye catching
the most revealing the most expensive the
most Technologically advanced whatever
you got to have a super if you can
have a superlative on you That'll
get you a little buzz You may not
even need to be the best in the room.
Like if you're talking about people who
are dancing It's like yeah, everybody was
dancing Well, you remember that one guy
who couldn't dance but jumped down in his
tuxedo and started break dancing and got
fruit punch on his jacket that was That
may not have been the best of anything,
but it was what we call number two.
The most being memorable.
Something that stuck out.
Something that was just
kind of wild and crazy.
Anything memorable.
Out of the ordinary.
Call us for a headline
that got people talking.
And you've probably
known people like this.
Somebody's doing, everybody's doing
something normally, and then one person
comes around and just does it different.
They don't have to be the best
or anything, but they just do it
in such a way that it's different
that makes you remember them.
Something memorable where it's
like, huh, I didn't expect that.
So be out of the ordinary, be a
little memorable, something that
strikes you as something different.
So you have the superlative being
number one, the best at something where
it's like, well, yeah, I don't care
what you're talking about with, uh,
with being able to run fast because,
uh, that guy was the fastest and stuff
like that, or that guy's the slowest.
Even it's like, all right,
well, that guy's the slowest.
We always, you can probably even
remember the times back in school
when you had to run laps and there
was the person who came in last.
They're like two or three people.
You probably remember them.
It's funny because I'm thinking back and
now, yeah, I remember there were like
three people who always came in last.
I remember them.
And three people who always
kind of came in first.
I remember those guys.
Everybody else in the middle?
I couldn't give a clue.
I can barely remember my PE classes.
But I remember people who came in first,
I remember people who came in last.
Another one, number three.
Is there a notable feature or quirk?
Now this one's similar to being
memorable, but I remember we, we
had a, I remember a summer program.
And there was this person who couldn't
speak very well, couldn't speak
English very well, Nigerian guy.
And it was just a quirk of his,
and this obviously relates to
being memorable, putting them in a
different category, but the notable
feature or the quirk is kind of just
their personality and who they are.
A lot of people do this naturally,
like if you come from a different
culture or a different country, you
just have different ways of speaking,
different mannerisms, and you're just
naturally going to be a person with a
feature or a quirk, and you don't have
to do anything especially memorable.
You just are featured because,
because of your very nature.
But yeah, every time we're sitting
around talking and making jokes,
suddenly this dude would come
in his, his divorce . Like what?
In his accent when he was
laughing, just made it memorable.
He was like, okay.
Uh, I don't know what you said,
but while you were laughing
we couldn't understand you.
And . Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
It was funny, it was Nigerian accent.
He was a great guy, but his Nigerian
accent, coupled with his laughter,
made him hard to understand.
And that was just a memorable quirk.
So it was just kind of this
memorable feature, um, notable
feature, not memorable.
So that's one, be the superlative number
to be memorable, do something that sticks
out or number three, uh, capitalize on
your notable feature, whatever notable
feature you have, don't shy away from it.
You may not want to try
to hide your accent.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
didn't hide his accent.
He didn't hide his size.
There are people who get where
they are just by nature of
them being whoever they are.
As I said, very similar to being
notable, having a notable feature or
quirk, very similar to being memorable.
But when you're memorable, I think we
can put that in the category of You
want to, it's a more active thing.
You want to do something a little
more memory inducing, catching on to
people's, what people are looking out for.
Be memorable.
Um, and number, number four,
one I don't think is so,
one I don't think is so
noble, but it's drama.
If you know somebody that brings up
drama, it's like they get a reaction out
of people, usually in a negative way.
Somebody has always got to stand up
and start arguments with the teacher.
Somebody's always got to try to jump
in front of the line and and cheat.
Someone's always got to
be the center of attention
like it, but they're just bringing up
all this dramatic tension in your life
and you're like, Oh, dramatic tension.
Here we go.
Or sometimes it's kind of exciting,
like, Oh, shoot, here we go.
Here we go with the dramatic
tension, bringing drama.
Some people thrive off that.
If you do that naturally,
that could be your thing.
50 Cent used to and kind of still does.
Bring up drama naturally.
Actually, the biggest drama
inducer is probably Kanye West.
Kanye West is probably the
biggest drama inducer out there
where he's just always starting
something, showing up in the paper.
You're like, Oh goodness, what's going on?
What is he started now?
He's beefing with his wife, beefing with
Pete Davidson, beefing with Ari Emanuel,
beefing with the entire Jewish community,
beefing with anybody who has sense.
Um, beefing with people in politics,
et cetera, beefing with the black
rapper community, et cetera, drama.
All right.
And number five, um, doing
something incredible and outrageous.
If you do something incredible or
outright, not incredible, um, outrageous.
And I was about to say incredulous,
but I don't want to use that word.
Doing something to get you buzzed
that gets you a certain amount of, uh,
you're just when you're outrageous I
don't mean that you bring up outrage
out of people It's like trying to stir
stir people up, but you're doing what
you're doing and suddenly people are
like, oh my god What are they doing?
That's outrageous.
That's crazy.
That's wild.
And yes, these can probably be memorable
They can probably be amazing, but it's
not necessarily a notable feature.
You just did something outrageous
Like, most people, when they, when
they get mad in the interview, they
stand up and leave or whatever.
And they're like, Oh,
he left the interview.
Okay.
That's, that's a minor
bit of being outrageous.
Really being outrageous is something
like getting up in an interview or no.
How about the Russell brand interview?
When he just started making faces,
that was kind of outrageous.
He just did something outrageous
out of the ordinary, out of the
norm, pushing the boundaries.
I'm totally crazy, totally wild.
Just doing something outrageous.
Probably shouldn't have to give
you too many examples of these.
You've probably seen them on Tik Tok
or Instagram or something like when
someone's going up to get their diploma
for graduation, they get on stage and
do something outrageous, they get in
trouble with the The student, the student
government or they get in trouble with the
academic board, they have to do something
outrageous when they're on stage.
Right.
So that's one thing that you can do.
You can do outrageous things.
Hopefully you don't manufacture
too many of these and you're just
naturally kind of outrageous.
And if you have a righteous
outrageousness, then people will back you.
They're like, no, man, we got to back
him for, for doing what he's, he felt
what he was, uh, he felt he needed to say
that, or she felt she needed to do that.
And then you can get people behind you.
And I was going to have this
with number six, but I don't know
exactly how to frame this one.
I want to have an outrageous,
I mean, outrageous, you need to
have a breakout character role.
Like you're in a situation, you get in
a situation and then people see you in
a completely different light and that
breaks you out of your current mold.
Like if Taraji P Henson
was to play a skateboarder.
Um, and really knocked it out the park.
That would be a breakout role.
That broker, you either break
out of your confined area, you
break out of your stereotypes,
you break out of your whatever.
And people are like, yeah,
that was the breakout role.
That's where everybody stood up and
took notice because somebody was in
that role that shouldn't have been
there, or we didn't expect to be there.
And suddenly that person is knocking it
out the park and everybody took notice.
Why?
Because they broke out of, they broke out
of your thinking and their current little.
Circle.
They're a bubble.
So, those are the six.
I like the idea of breaking out, too,
because sometimes you have to actually
force your way into these situations.
Like, anytime you're getting typecast
or, or put into a box, then it might be
time to break out and try something new.
A lot of times it fails, or
doesn't go as well as you want it
to, but you gotta do it anyway.
Even if it fails, and it doesn't become a
breakout role or anything, it may actually
become something memorable or outrageous.
Like when Michael Jordan went to, went
to play baseball, that was kind of wild.
That was definitely a
memorable moment in our lives.
Like, why is this tall, lanky basketball
playing dude playing baseball?
And to his credit, that is a hard switch
to go from basketball to baseball.
You need to be a superior athlete to
do that and do it at any given level,
be somewhat competent in it, and have
the humility to go through with it.
So I mean, it was, it hit on a couple of
different levels where all of a sudden
we're talking about Michael Jordan again.
So once again, let me go through that.
That's being a superlative, being the
most amazing, incredible, whatever,
doing something memorable, bringing
drama into the situation, having an
outrageous role or being in an outrageous
situation and being a breakout character.
These are the things we need to do in
2024 and beyond in this attention era.
These are the things we might need
to lean into if we're going to talk
about getting anywhere creatively.
Because if you're trying to create
something and it's not getting anyone's
attention, you might need to look back and
see if you're doing any of these things.
Whether that's your product,
your personality, your messaging.
Are you getting out there and
getting people's attention?
Doesn't matter how quote
unquote good you think you are.
Because a lot of the people who are in
these positions, who are getting these
roles and getting into these people's
minds, Aren't the A level characters,
aren't the A level people or the products.
They're not even B level a lot of cases.
A lot of times they're very mediocre.
Oh, you know what?
Numbers I'll, I'll add a number seven to
this or one, two, three, four, five, six.
Yeah.
I'll add a number seven to it.
Get in the right crowd.
If you're, if you can just march with
the right crowd, you automatically
get certain amounts of cache.
You automatically get
certain, certain accolades.
Like, I don't care what anybody says.
It's like, yeah, I worked
for rockstar games.
Oh wow.
Okay, cool.
Now they, all of a sudden you're,
you're in a certain level.
And any of these points can be applied
to anything you're creating your
persona, your brand, your role, your,
your life, your household, anything
you create, your painting, your,
your tax preparation, business, your
music, it can hit on any of these.
There may be some more that I need to go
back and drop, but that's what you can do.
And always, be sure to look
out for these characters.
Be sure to actually go check out for
people who are, who are doing the thing.
And don't happen to
have this type of buzz.
Be on the lookout for them, support them
and know, Hey, maybe, you know what?
They'll break out one
day with enough support.
They'll, they'll probably break out.
If you see something good in them and
keep on supporting these very fine
actors, these very fine products, and
you get the word out, you help build
that buzz, you help generate that talk.
You help show people
how memorable they are.
You help bring it out of them.
You know, you start to platform some of
these things, start to post up people
who, you know, Hey, this guy is awesome.
Boom.
That person's great.
Hey, you know what?
This sticks out to me.
Boom.
Put it out there.
Let people know and help
your other creators.
It really does help when you support
creators, they're thinking they're,
they're not anything exciting.
They're boring.
Uh, they may be, I don't want
to say depressed, but they
may be a little discouraged.
Give them that encouragement.
Let them know they're
doing something right.
Let them know they don't
have to do the stupid stuff.
Let them know they don't have
to start playing this game.
As I said, when I was in, multiple times
in corporate America, I was told, Hey,
you have to learn how to play ball.
Play ball?
Play ball?
I get it, that's the safe way, but Safe
way don't, safe way isn't safe, man.
Nobody's gonna recognize me for that.
I had to go start, I was in the
game industry, I started drama.
I was in the game
industry, I was outrageous.
And I was good at what I did.
I was quite memorable.
I got in the mix, the right people
knew me and that's what you got to do.
Be memorable.
So hopefully this is a
memorable podcast to you.
Hopefully this is a memorable
thing that I'm doing.
I'm going to try to make it
a little more buzzworthy.
I'm going to try to make
it a little more solid.
I'm going to keep improving on it.
I'm going to keep banging these out.
As I said, my goal is right
now to do these every, I'll
do these in the evenings.
I'm not scheduling a time for them just
yet because I'm still working it out.
And the thing that's going to
disrupt me the most is trying
to stick to a rigid schedule.
So I'm going to show up here most
nights of the week, save weekends.
I'll be here most nights of the
week, dropping a podcast on you.
Let me know what you think about it.
Let me know what you enjoy, what
you don't enjoy, what I can improve
on any topics and just in general,
man, I want to keep this flow going.
I want to keep this as a conversation.
I don't want to make these
just presentations, but I'm
starting up a community called
the creative study lounge.
You can go there right now.
It's the creative study lounge.
com still putting it together.
Basically what I want to do
is start all of these creative
discussions that I've been having.
I want to start archiving
them and holding onto them.
I want to start building on
them and I want to start.
Nurturing these conversations even more.
I think that we're missing out on a lot in
this whole TikTok social media generation.
So I want just to create a place where we
can get in rooms and it's like, Hey, let's
talk about what this movie did, right?
Let's, let's break this down.
Hey, let's talk about how we can
create this type of technology faster.
Or what did we all think of this?
What did we learn from this?
And with all the people I've
met in Hollywood, the game
industry, and in different.
Corporate aspects.
I think it's about time
for, for me to do this.
So I wanted to get into that.
So the creative study
lounge is up right now.
And if you want to help support this
podcast, the creativity threads,
life podcast, then how you would do
it is by joining up and becoming a
member at the creative study lounge.
There'll be a lot more going in there.
It's still rough right now, but a
benefit of joining in early is that
you have the opportunity to help
set the stage and help plan out what
it's going to become in the future.
So all of my interactions from
Facebook groups, from discourse,
from forums, from being on Twitter,
X, Snapchat, Instagram, threads,
Facebook, back to Friendster even.
MySpace, Black Planet, Plaxo, Vero,
all these different platforms.
I've had good community experiences,
and they're all kind of scattered.
So, I wanted to bring a lot
of it together, basically.
That's why I have the
Creative Study Lounge.
So yeah, that's what's
been going on with me.
Uh, podcast is over.
I'm just gonna talk some noise right now.
Let's see what else has been going
on recently that we can talk about.
Some things to keep on track.
Finished Attack on Titan.
That was awesome.
Still keep my anime going.
I don't know what's happening with
Crunchyroll and Funimation, man.
They came, I don't want everything
to go over to Crunchyroll.
Crunchyroll bought Funimation now,
so Funimation support has been hard
to come by and they're not updating
as much, but I really prefer their,
their content and their whole setup
to what Crunchyroll has, but I get it.
Crunchyroll is bigger,
more people that dig that.
Uh, let's see what else is going down.
Still doing show versus business.
Uh, we just hit our 150th episode of
that show versus business is more of a
conversation between me and Theo, who
I mentioned earlier in the podcast.
If you just want to hear
a weekly kind of drop of.
Everything that went on in the
show world and the business
world and how they come together.
Uh, we discuss that every week
show versus business dot com.
You can find that on apple also.
So we're going to start doing guests
also, um, for this podcast and
maybe for, for show versus business.
But we're going to bring, start
bringing back guests in my last podcast.
Oh, that's what I wanted to
mention in my last podcast.
This is like version five of my podcast.
And last version of the podcast that
I was creating, what I ended up with
was something that was a little too, I
don't want to say too personal, but it
was just me doing my, my brain dump.
Basically.
I don't think it was
properly formatted enough.
So that's why you have this new
podcast creativity threads life.
And I think this one was a lot more
focused and I can talk about a lot of the
things that I relate to when I'm looking
at things from a creative point of view.
Thank you.
And.
Uh, an entertainment point of view.
So that's the whole reason
why I'm doing it this way.
Um, if you were subscribed
to my previous podcast, Mr.
Benji's ADD experience, I haven't shut
it down, but I'm not really updating
it anymore because this is taking my
full focus now, so I'll probably go
over there and leave a, leave a message
where, Hey, listen, that phase is over.
We're doing this one now.
Uh, and I think I finally found.
That mode that I wanted after
doing blogs, after doing AMP,
after doing all these platforms.
Um, I'm definitely good
with this podcast right now.
So if you're out there in the comments,
let me know what you're, I don't know.
Let me know if you you've heard any of,
of any other episodes of this podcast.
As I said, we've already
done the podcast portion.
I'm just.
Shout out to Carmen.
Shout out to forbidden tours.
Shout out to Margaret.
Shout out to Michelle doing this
multicast thing, by the way.
So I'm showing up on
on different platforms.
Definitely fun to be doing this.
Yeah.
As I said, I'll be back
most nights of the week.
Um, any topic you want to
talk about in terms of.
General creativity, I'm down for.
I'm going to be focusing on a
lot of entertainment aspects,
because that's where I come
from, the entertainment industry.
But anything is pretty much fair game.
I didn't think I'd be
talking about Taraji P.
Henson, but that came up.
So anyway, this is this, and that is that.
You can always follow the
podcast at creativitythreadslife.
com.
My name is Mr.
Benja.
I am your host for this.
Be sure to subscribe on
Apple, Spotify, Google.
Subscribe on, well, Stitcher's not around
anymore, so you can't subscribe on that.
Or whatever podcast player you're using.
I've heard good things about Podbean.
I like CastBox and Overcast.
Those are two good podcast apps.
If you're not using a podcast app, let
me know how you're listening to podcasts.
Or if you just popped into the live and
don't really listen to podcasts at all.
I'd like to hear back from you anyway,
that's going to do it for this one.
Thank you very much.
We'll be back on later this week
to talk a little attack on Titan.
I think I'll, I'll make the commitment.
Yeah, I just said it.
So I'll make the commitment.
I'm going to talk about attack on
Titan may talk about, uh, that's the
only one I'm going to release for now.
Okay.
That's the only one I'm going
to mention attack on Titan.
I'll talk about that
later on in this week.
So be back for that in the meantime.
Thanks everybody for coming through.
I will see you later.