Ep 133 - The Psychology Behind Creativity, Design, and Storytelling // Lee Schneider

Architecture, Design & Photography

Trent Bell interviews Lee Schneider about the psychological and narrative forces that shape creativity, architecture, and design communication. They explore how imposter syndrome manifests in

Key takeaways

• Lee Schneider explains that imposter syndrome stems from scenario-building and can be mitigated by understanding your core purpose and physically occupying the performance space to build embodiment.
• Trent Bell shares how structuring his photography business for reliability and dedicating time to a personal van-build project helped stabilize his anxiety and creative focus.

Main topics

• Imposter syndrome and creative confidence
• Storytelling techniques for design pitches

Notable quotes

Imposter syndrome people are perfectly capable of, say, giving a speech or something, but they wonder, am I really the right person to do this?

Conclusion

The episode provides actionable frameworks for creative professionals

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:01) Lee, I would love to start with imposter syndrome and who gets it, why, what it does to you and how to get past it and how it can cripple you. I've had a lot of experience with people I've worked with and everything else that run into that, suffer with it. And myself, I believe I wrestle with it at times as well. So what are your thoughts and perspective on that? Speaker 1 (0:28) Well, what's interesting about imposter syndrome is it's not the same as shyness. Shy people basically don't want to, you know, expose themselves in public, I guess. You know, they don't want to do public things. Imposter syndrome people are perfectly capable of, say, giving a speech or something, but they wonder, am I really the right person to do this? And kind of the bottom can drop out of things. I can be prone to it myself. I think one of the great, there are two ways to deal with it, externally and internally. The internal way is to understand why you're here. For example, before I did this podcast today, I had imposter syndrome. I wondered, am I the right guy to do this? Did they book the right guy? What am I doing here? So I did what a lot of... introverts do is I prepared. We tend to over-prepare, but it's actually a superpower. It's good. So I have my notes. I wrote everything out again, and I feel more connected with my real purpose here. You know, the deeper thing is to ask yourself, why am I here? What am I doing? Simon Sinek did a great TED Talk. He's a consultant called... What is your why? If you can understand why you're really here, that's going to help a lot because then I can go back to, well, I want to talk about cities or I want to talk about storytelling and architecture. And that means a lot to me, you know, kind of like connecting with why I'm really here. The other way to deal with imposter syndrome is completely external. Show up in the place where you're going to give the talk. Speaker 1 (2:18) Occupy the space. Sit down in the chair. Look out over the auditorium, even if it's empty. It doesn't matter, right? Because you want to feel embodied and connected with the space. All of it is about really connecting with yourself. Speaker 2 (2:35) Now, is imposter syndrome more prevalent in creative individuals? And furthermore, how do we define creative individuals? Speaker 1 (2:48) That's a very good question. I don't have a direct answer. Speaker 1 (2:53) I think as creative individuals, you tend to think of scenarios. You tend to be a scenario building, story building kind of a person. And that ties into what can fuel imposter syndrome. The what if. What about this? What if I do that? So I would say yes to that question. You know, as a when I'm not teaching a class in media for USC. I'm a writer and I'm writing novels. And boy, does my mind run away with me. You know, I got plenty of ideas, plenty of scenarios. And it can be fuel for imposter syndrome for sure. Speaker 2 (3:35) So I believe I've struggled with imposter syndrome, but haven't handled it in that way. Speaker 2 (3:49) The way I've interacted with it was just a constant sense of this could all fail at any time. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. You know, lying awake at night worrying about just and never really being able to say, you know what, I've done the work. I'm 20 some odd years into being an architectural photographer. I've probably. pretty much stopped marketing or advertising other than like podcast and website and Instagram. And work comes in just like it always has for the last, probably since COVID was when I really took my foot off the anxiety gas pedal of drive for my business. And I, you know, there's always this like, you know, what am I going to do if this doesn't work out? And I'm like 20 years into this and have, you know, made a good living. And I'm still like, kind of like, I don't know. I wonder, you know, it could all fall apart. And it is that different than imposter syndrome and just worrying like, am I enjoying myself too much? Should I be working harder? Should I not, you know, compared to, am I actually talented in this? It seems like imposter syndrome is more so focused on the, am I talented enough to do this? Am I actually? Speaker 2 (5:22) creating the value that I'm extracting from clients essentially you know and the thing I've found is that I I just kind of tell myself look you've been doing this for how long it keeps working you've only ever had an issue Speaker 2 (5:39) maybe once or twice with people saying like, oh, we need to reshoot this little thing here. You know, it's really good track record. And yet still. Like just nonstop kind of like, might fail, might fail, might fail, you know? Is that, the thing that helped me get over that was COVID to a degree because I stepped back from. trying to get people to notice me so hard and kind of shifted to Do the work consistently. Be reliable. Be honest. Be fair. Just be the things that people want and, you know, lean into that. Also lean into the thing that you've got a track record and you've shown time and time and time and time again that you can do this. But I also have this way of fooling myself that's kind of cynical that I kind of tell myself, well, everybody's stupid. And it's only experience that really rids you of that stupidity. We all have different abilities for... Speaker 2 (6:51) horsepower to handle different subjects and how they relate and the trajectory of where they'd go. I think that's what you'd call projection intelligence, maybe not memorization kind of intelligence. And I've been able to work with that kind of intelligence pretty good and look at that whole thing and kind of mitigate the imposter syndrome through that. You know, it kind of feels like, well, when you're up front, just imagine everyone naked and, you know, that'll, you know, make you less nervous. But, you know, everyone I work with, all the, especially the self-employed creatives are always like, oh, I don't know, I might have to get a job at Starbucks eventually. You know, like Speaker 1 (7:36) it's Speaker 2 (7:37) just a, it's just a thing. Is it just something that never goes away and it's just part of creative entrepreneurial existence? Speaker 1 (7:46) In a way, yes. But listen, everybody needs reassurance, right? When my wife also works independently and when she gets a great testimonial, our standing joke is you ought to have that made into a needlepoint and put it on the wall because we all need to be reminded of how good we are. But I also contend that with creative people, a bit of creative friction is good. Speaker 1 (8:14) A bit of when you go to work in the morning, whether it's at a desk at a computer or with a camera in your hand, that moment of how in the world am I going to do this today? That's actually good. I contend that that's good because in the simplest way, it gets the juices flowing. It's adrenaline rush. Maybe a little panic is helpful when you're trying to create something different. Because imagine the opposite. Imagine if. It was just so ho-hum. Every job you walked into, you just said, oh, I got this. It wouldn't be that creative, would it? Speaker 2 (8:51) Yeah, that's my other part is that I don't anymore struggle with the creative ability to do the work when I'm going to do the work. Like if I'm the night before. It's hard. The day of is not. It's like, eh, I've done this obviously almost 10,000 times and it's going to be fine. But yeah, that somehow processing ahead of you and worrying about that. It's just it's I find it's like a feedback, like a microphone feedback for your. Right. Yeah. And the thing I found recently is if I can have a creative project that's if I'm not doing work things 100 percent, I just go to that. So I bought this van this winter that I'm fitting out to go like skiing and camping and stuff with my kids. And if. If I have any amount of available time, I do everything I can to get back to doing that and don't worry about anything else. And I've structured my business to have it take care of itself. And I show up when there's work, when I do the thing that's most valuable, the creativity of shooting a project. And I have found that that really helps deal with the... the creative mind will occupy itself with something. And if there's nothing creative, it'll create problems. It'll create potential problems. And I find that if I captivate that mind with something that I actually want to do, it doesn't have the ability to go off track and find like, well, shouldn't we think about, you know? And that for me has been a real kind of... emotional stabilizer. I think people who are more creative are generally more sensitive and can experience ups and downs or, you know, extreme ups and downs depending on your biology, psychology, personality, all that, right? I've always... put myself somewhere in the, I can be moody. I don't suffer with depression, but I can definitely be moody as a result of my sensitivity that I'm not aware of and don't take the time to take care of myself sometimes. So if I take the time to spend time by myself, to exercise, and to make sure I have a creative outlet that occupies my... Speaker 2 (11:43) imaginative mind when it's not occupied by things that require its attention my anxiety levels drop by 75 like it's massive and that like oh i'm feeling down for no reason and i'll focus on my wife to take it out you know that's gone i can just be you know like oh she's doing something that i wouldn't do but i'm not going to complain about i'm just going to go you know take care of that those few tasks I had that I wanted to finish on the vet yeah let me go do it and when it's done you're like I Speaker 1 (12:14) feel pretty good you know that other thing wasn't that big a deal There's something about the Speaker 2 (12:19) creative mind. Speaker 1 (12:21) Yeah. Well, I'm glad you hit on that because that's a recommended thing, actually. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. As a creative person, you should always have a personal project. I don't care if your work slate is filled to the brim. There should always be a personal project that you could return to. And it serves the exact purpose that you're talking about. because when things get slow or you don't want to work on the work things, you have that project. And it's a real lifesaver. I've done that for years and years where I say, you know, I'm just going to have this thing that I'm going to noodle around with. It's usually a writing project. Sometimes it's a video project. Sometimes it's Speaker 2 (13:04) a Speaker 1 (13:04) podcast. I'm just going to have this thing to help me, you know, get through the bumpy spots. Speaker 2 (13:11) Now, with video projects, what kind of stuff do you do with video? Speaker 1 (13:16) Well, I used to be a lot more active as a producer. I produced documentaries for the Learning Channel and Bravo and Discovery as an executive producer, editor, writer, director. And when I teach at USC, I produce kind of demo project. It's kind of funny. Like, here's an example of bad audio. It'll be it'll amaze me when people are recording. They won't find a quiet place to record. And there's software that can fix it, but only to a certain level. So I'll go to noisy places and make recordings and say, see, you can't understand a thing, but let's try this in a quiet place. So it's sort of demos in a way. And I do trailers for podcasts. now and again. Some of those are in the real world and some of them are just writing a video version of an audio podcast. Speaker 2 (14:18) That's interesting. Yeah, we 10 years ago now started on a documentary that's still not finished, that's starting to get closer to, you know, pick back up again, kind of let it marinate through midlife. But yeah, that side of creativity, the storytelling side to me is an empty closet of creativity for me. I don't... Speaker 2 (14:45) This is one thing that I'll kind of focus in on because every time I start talking, unless it's around people who really look up to what I do and don't know me. they just zone out so quick like or i feel that way like as soon as i'm like oh today kids i was working on you know family i was working on the van and and they're just kind of You know, and I feel that way most of the time, unless I'm talking to someone who's interested in architectural photography or something like that, where they're like, oh, you've done something and I want to know about that. And otherwise, like my wife and my son and my oldest son and my father-in-law can hold the attention of a room. No problem. They could just be telling you about how they went to the bathroom in the morning. And they can just like, well, Speaker 1 (15:44) how was it? And I Speaker 2 (15:46) don't know if it's like I just feel like that's cheating. Like it's like Thomas Kinkade for communication or something, you know. But it's like you kind of have to put a bunch of sugar and fat in what you're saying so people will. eat it. And it's like, when I talk, they're just getting raw broccoli and no one likes it. Speaker 1 (16:13) Well, first of all, there's that expression, you know, I'm sure the camera loves you. You know, movie stars have it. People who are, they're in a scene. in a movie or a TV show, and even though they're a minor character, you have to watch them. They ooze that kind of charisma. If people have that natural talent, yes, you could recite the phone book and it's going to work. But for the rest of us, it's really, the thing that I find holds people is a setup and a payoff. In other words, a story arc. Now, you don't have to do this at the dinner table, but you could do it if you're giving a talk or, you know. Sure, you could do it like little Speaker 2 (16:55) micro uses or something. You can do it in micro, you Speaker 1 (16:58) know, what's the hook? Like, what's the hook of this story? Like, when I got up this morning, I thought I was going to have the worst day of my life. Why? You know, you leave a little story gap there. Or, you know. This is the moment, you know, if I'm giving a talk, I'll say I have to tell you about the moment that changed me and the reason that I'm here. But we'll get back to that in a minute. You know, I mean, these are hooks. These are little moments that make people listen. Speaker 2 (17:28) Yeah, it makes them look down the road and see something that they want to see, but it's not in focus yet. That's right. But you have to pay Speaker 1 (17:35) it off. You have to pay it. You can't make a statement like that and never deliver. Right. People will call you on it. People will remember. Speaker 2 (17:44) Like, hey, you didn't go anywhere Speaker 1 (17:45) with this. Yeah, Speaker 2 (17:47) exactly. Speaker 1 (17:48) Yeah. But it's really... I learned this trick Speaker 2 (17:51) in a podcast, but not the rest of it. Yeah, Speaker 1 (17:53) exactly. But, you know, it's pretty subtle and it's also simple. You know, this isn't complicated. Like, an example, when you're watching a Netflix rom-com, the two people who meet, they hate each other at first. Or their families hate each other. Or there's some friction there. And then by the end, they love each other or they're getting married. You know, if that story started with, I love you, I love you too. Oh, good. Let's get married. It'd be a very short Netflix show. So you have to have an arc, you know, and it has to have kind of a buildup. It has to have a shape. It can't be a flatline arc. Like you start the same as you ended. Because why listen? Speaker 2 (18:37) I Speaker 1 (18:37) mean, an episodic TV is particularly good to look at for that because it's designed to make you watch the next episode. That's the purpose. I'm watching the show called Murderbot right now. It's a silly science fiction show. And it's based on books, which were great. And boy, did they do those hooks so well. Like, you know, the end of the episode. I'm just ready to watch the next one, even if it's late and even if the neighbors are complaining that the music's too loud. So these hooks really work and these story arcs really do work. Speaker 2 (19:11) I think probably our