Christina Bradley 0:04
And we're recording. Hi, James.
James Victore 0:06
Howdy, Christina.
Christina Bradley 0:07
Nice to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for being my guest.
James Victore 0:10
It is a pleasure to be here. Am I your first guest?
Christina Bradley 0:13
You are my first guest.
James Victore 0:14
Oh, I love it
Christina Bradley 0:15
Which is really quite remarkable. And I'm thrilled that we're doing with this.
James Victore 0:20
I'm glad the timing worked out super.
Christina Bradley 0:23
So let's dive in. And we've actually prior to, to recording this, we've been having a good conversation already about creativity.
James Victore 0:30
Mm hmm.
Christina Bradley 0:31
I'm gonna start with my first question. And it's quite broad, but let's see how we go.
James Victore 0:37
I'm gonna get prepared with my arms crossed.
Christina Bradley 0:38
Okay.
James Victore 0:42
Go ahead. Okay.
Christina Bradley 0:44
Can you tell me what creativity means to you? It's a big one.
James Victore 0:46
Yeah no it is a big one but it's a good one. And it's, it's a difficult one for for everybody to answer. But I think that I believe that creativity is, is, for me, is my ability to allow myself to play. Creativity is my ability to allow myself to access the gifts the innate gifts that I was born with, right? That as a three year old, and I see it in my children, as a two year old, a three year old, they are completely free with their bodies and how they move and what they do with their bodies. And they're completely free to make up words, if they don't know, you know, like, like, we want my children instead of instead of talking about yesterday, they always say last year, or instead of this morning, it was last year. That's what they have. And I'm like, That's brilliant. When I write to my wife, and I'm talking about these anything before I say last year, because I think that's, it's just awesome. And it's it's our ability to understand for me, I have this thing when I because I have this this new school called the creative warrior. And we talked about the four freedoms and these are the four freedoms you were born with, that we generally don't have as adults now, because we can't access them. And we can't allow them for a number of reasons; societal, peer pressure, blockages. And the four freedoms are fun play joy and love.
James Victore 2:22
Because life should be fun. I mean, I know the Buddha says the, you know, Buddha's first tenant is that life is suffering, but we suffer from because we attach we attach to outcomes we attach to people. Whoo hoo.
Christina Bradley 2:36
That's a big one.
James Victore 2:37
That's a big one we had when we attach to things. But life's supposed to be fun. That's why we're here.
Christina Bradley 2:45
Yeah.
James Victore 2:45
Sounds hedonistic. It sounds horrible. But...
Christina Bradley 2:50
No, but I think it's I think it's fair to say that I mean, you only get one shot at this so why suffer if you can help it.
James Victore 2:55
Right, right. And that's most people's last dying words is Man, I wish I had allowed myself to have more fun.
Christina Bradley 3:02
I love what you just said that James as well, because it's also allowed myself to have more fun, I think it's about giving yourself permission.
James Victore 3:09
Yeah, yeah, that's all it is.
Christina Bradley 3:10
Yeah. Exactly.
James Victore 3:11
I get i get i get i get texts or emails all the time from somebody who says, don't they don't know me that like their guy yesterday wrote me from from India. And he says, Hey, I work at Google. And you know, I, you know, I have this, you know, pay what pays well, and blah, blah, blah, but I kind of hate my job. And I want to become a healer. And I want to do these things. And I was like, dude, go, go, go, go, go, go. Don't seek permission for me. If you do, boom, you got it. But go. So yeah, so so playful. And no, so I'm supposed to be fine play. Yes. Which is the creativity that you put into your daily work or your or your tasks.
Christina Bradley 3:49
Mm hmm.
James Victore 3:51
Joy is what is the pleasure you receive from that, or we can receive from each other. And love is our ability just to freely love one another and receive freely. And we as adults, even as teenagers and stuff, we stop, we, we stop allowing those in our lives, we have less and less access to those and I see it everywhere, I can see it in the way people you know, these days, I've gotten so good at this I can see in people's bodies and how they carry themselves or in their eyes.
Christina Bradley 4:23
And are you saying and James those four elements are the fundamentals of creativity, and being able to access your creativity?
James Victore 4:31
Yes, and and and, and, and. And those four things all come down to, to me they they they come down to self love.
Christina Bradley 4:39
Yeah, that makes sense. And then what's interesting about that actually is, I think, and this is something we were talking about before as well. We live in a society now. I think being creative has become very fashionable. And so you have lots of people who are able to own their creativity. And then as a result of that lots of people I think that shy away from their creativity because They don't feel valid, calling themselves a creative person. And actually those four principles that you've just talked about, they are innate within all of us, aren't they? They're not something, you know, mystical or magical that, you know, is limited to a special chosen few. They are really with in everyone's reach.
James Victore 5:18
Yeah, it has become mystical and you use stones, and you use Iosco and you use all this shit to get there.
Christina Bradley 5:25
Right!
James Victore 5:27
But it's, you know, but it's, but you know, it's also and here's the, here's the difficult thing that, that that's hard for people to understand. It's hard for me to understand often, that it's also a choice. Oh, yeah, we just choose to choose to, it's just like, it's just like a fucking, it is a fucking switch.
Christina Bradley 5:44
Yeah,
James Victore 5:45
Then, all of a sudden, you're like, wait a second, you know, we were talking, we had a conversation earlier. And I'm in this interesting point in my life. And for me to accept and love and become the man that I want to be, is an attitude and perspective, I can go through years of therapy and do all kinds of drugs and do but it's still going to take me accepting myself and accepting, accepting that I haven't, I have no control of the world or other people, I can only control my thoughts and my actions. So my thoughts are going to be about me, and my future. And the people who I love dearly, and my actions are going to are going to be are going to be out of love and not out of anger, not out of not out of not out of any seeking any reward. Just to do good work. And just to just to, you know, to to have enough self love and confidence that I can do that.
Christina Bradley 6:39
And what about actually this idea of love? How important is it with your creativity to love, whatever the project might be that you're working on? Do you have to have that relationship towards it in order to be able to actually utilise your creativity?
James Victore 6:54
Not all the time. It's not possible. Not all the time. I mean, I love what I do. And I so I've got a I'm in this small town in, in Texas, outside of Austin. And for for various reasons. I've I've, I've fallen out of love with it. And, but I do have a dear pal, who here who reached out to me when I first moved here, and he is now with some friends opened a restaurant. And it's the best restaurant is the best. I mean, I I I don't miss steak frite anymore. And my man Brady has become close with the people at the restaurant. And he's like, I was there a couple nights ago. He's like James, is just opened, but I've been in the place. And I've been talking him and he's like, it's been a year now. So we've got these two booths, you know, with all this wall space. He says, What can you do? And I was like, Huh, so he's given me a nice
Christina Bradley 6:54
A brief
James Victore 6:54
A project, you know, free rein. So I had, I was thinking about it, I came up with something. And I was like, because every time you know what I want to do, my process is like, first, like, what do I want to say? What's my opinion? How am I going to put my opinion in this place? And then and then how do I want to? How do I want to play? Like, what would be fun for me?
Christina Bradley 8:17
How do you want to play, yeah, I love that question.
James Victore 8:18
And then third, third is, is what do I want the audience to feel into experience? Like, I want them to walk in there and go, like, like, Huh? Oh, my God, like, you know, like, be kind of curious, because I'm, I don't want to just go here. It's art. I want them to go, what is this?
Christina Bradley 8:31
Yeah.
James Victore 8:38
And then read through it and go, Oh, that's fucking awesome. So I so I've come up with this thing. And there's there's a meeting coming to shows everybody's on the same board. And on the same page, as they say, and then further than that, I wrote to Brady and I said, Hey, Brady. I'm looking for a filmographers or a really good photographer. He says, oh, there's Jared, who does our social media like, Oh, I just met him. I just met him yesterday. And I spoke with Jared and he's gonna document the entire process of the thing. So it's going to be a teaching tool. It'll be a, it'll be an interesting thing for the restaurant. It'll be so my, what I want to do is I always want to play and I always want to add value. I always want to like, Huh, that's good. But you know, it'd be really funny.
Christina Bradley 9:22
Yeah.
James Victore 9:23
So that's my processes. Like, that's how I work.
Christina Bradley 9:26
And that's pretty fascinating, because that is, in many respects, I don't really like this term, but thinking outside of the box, right?
James Victore 9:33
I hate that term
Christina Bradley 9:33
I hate it as well. But in this sense, that's what it made me think of, I'm sorry to say, but you were given something kind of like okay, here is what we need and the sort of the parameters and then you went totally outside of them to think of other ways you could kind of play with it and what you could bring to the table to sort of create a more joyful experience, I suppose.
James Victore 9:51
And when we have the meeting, I don't know what you know, I know Brady really well, but I you know, Cody and the other guys in the restaurant, don't know as well and I don't Know what they're expecting. And I don't know if they're gonna bracing themselves for a, for a $10,000 $20,000 art installation, that basically I'm going to go there and give away for free. Because there's two reasons I work I work for either you give me a lot of money or I get a shit tonne of creativity, I get, you know, almost free rein. And that this one, I'm going to have the opportunity to do great work, put an imprint in a place that I love, and hopefully basically get a you know, free restaurant tab for forever, forever?
Christina Bradley 10:42
Yeah, that is that is nice. So I have a question for you. Do you think and I'm going to I'm going to come circle back to what we were just talking about in a moment. But do you think that creativity is something that sits within everybody? Everybody is a creative being?
James Victore 10:59
Oh, yeah. And everybody can be creative at their job, at their existing job? You know, I'm a bus driver. And I don't mean like taking a little routes and going boop, boop, boop, excuse me. But a bus driver through their own self love, can make or lack thereof, can make or break your day, right? I mean, how often you know, you you will, you will, if your pal Your friend is you know was like rushing to something and waiting, like, Oh my god, I have to take the bus and he gets on the bus and somebody greets them and smiles at him. And it's and it's a joy and love in their heart. And they will your friend will then that afternoon, go. You know what happened today? That bus drivers can change someone's life, by his own self love. Doesn't have to be a painter doesn't have to be an artist doesn't have to be a musician doesn't have to create anything, but we create joy, they create an experience. And they share that with other people. And that's what we do. You know, you can be you can be a, you know, a, you know, a mom, I think I think when I say artists, I mean anybody who is doing what they love.
Christina Bradley 12:16
Mm hmm.
James Victore 12:17
Like a Mom
Christina Bradley 12:18
Can you talk to me just coming on to parents can you tell me and and all the listeners about your dad? And how because you asked your mom quite an interesting question about him.
James Victore 12:29
Yeah. Yeah, so my dad was a career military guy, pretty strict disciplinarian, um, you know, straight laced, blue collar guy, and not an officer just in the military and, but he was also an amateur photographer. And he was also a very experimental amateur chef, which drove my sisters and I crazy. Always trying this shit, too. It's just like, Um, but, and he built the house we live in and you know, he could just he could figure anything out. And I asked my mom, he died two years ago, and I asked my mom, I said, you know, would dad have considered himself creative? And she was like, No, no, no, no, of course not. And I you know, I was like, that's interesting. But if I asked my dad, if he was creative, he probably would have done the same thing. But if I said, Hey, Dad, can you figure anything out? He'd say, of course.
Christina Bradley
13:32 Yeah.
James Victore 13:33
And that's, that's creativity. It's just doesn't use that dangerous word. It's scary word. Because creativity means you have gifts you have you have talents, you have gifts. You must be weird.
Christina Bradley 13:48
But I think that's why people shy away from their own creativity because it it has been put on this sort of pedestal that people don't feel comfortable actually owning their own.
James Victore 13:59
Yeah.Yeah. Well, if you really want to get into this, Christina, women
Christina Bradley 14:04
Go on hit me with it.
James Victore 14:05
Witches.
Christina Bradley 14:07
Witches?
James Victore 14:07
Witches witches.
Christina Bradley 14:09
Okay.
James Victore 14:10
Witches were first of all, the patriarchy is as old as Adam.
Christina Bradley 14:17
Yeah.
James Victore 14:19
And they built up all these ways to keep women subjugated. So they are so they're malleable, so they're manageable. So and witches were women who are strong and independent and not afraid and then demonised
Christina Bradley 14:31
Hmm.
James Victore 14:32
Because of that. They were creative.
Christina Bradley 14:35
Yeah.
James Victore 14:35
They were creative. They were feminine. They were not afraid of their vaginas and their breasts and their femininity. And other people were men were so we we did we change them into into witches, but witches shouldn't be this kind of dark. It should be just a woman who completely owns her her sexuality and owns her femininity and, and and owns her creativity and knows who she is. And I don't like that term, witches, because it's just so age old. And so, you know, mean and harsh. But, you know, men are still afraid of women's sexuality like women in politics have to become men. Except except in New Zealand. No. Yeah. You know, and we need that. We need that kind of leadership in the world, right? Definitely in the world right now. Caring, nurturing,
Christina Bradley 15:34
And all those feminine qualities, right? Not actually women trying to be men. We have enough men in those roles, feminine qualities, feminine qualities to the table.
James Victore 15:43
Yes. Yes. People who understand that, that normal? Doesn't work for everybody.
Christina Bradley 15:52
Yeah. That's a really lovely segue. Because and I don't know whether we can talk about this, can we the idea of normal and weirdos? And are we able to talk about this a little bit, just this idea of you,
James Victore 16:06
Baby I can talk about anything with you.
Christina Bradley 16:11
So where I'm going with this is this whole idea that as we become adults, we kind of suit up and we put on this armour, and we feel like we have to be normal. And in doing that, we rid ourselves of all of our quirks and the things that make us unique.
James Victore 16:26
Yeah,
Christina Bradley 16:26
The things that as children, we celebrated and embrace I didn't even think about because they were so integral to our DNA. And, for me, that's the fundamental of being creative, I suppose is reconnecting with those with those unique gifts that make you you.
James Victore 16:45
Well what you talked about about growing up and, and gearing up and all that kind of stuff really is shutting down really is just becoming smaller and becoming less. And, and if we really, that, we just pick it, we just kind of start assuming all this, all these habits and all this trauma. And I think there's like three different parts of our lives where we experienced trauma. And the first is when you're just you know, two and three and five, where you were you, you just you know, your parents, your parents are cautious. So they're just saying, Be careful, be careful, careful before you become a little bit afraid of the world, like things like this, just this, this this little things that we that we notice, we don't notice, you know, I was raised by worriers. Well me too. We couldn't have any hopes for the future. Don't get your hopes up. You know, this kind of bullshit. Then you we go into society when we're not right. We're like school. And then you start picking up, like, Oh, I guess I have to be one of these people, or I have to be these people. I have to be these people. And then becomes almost the worst is work.
Christina Bradley 17:47
Work. Yes.
James Victore 17:51
I have to be like that.
Christina Bradley 17:52
Working for somebody else. Yeah.
James Victore 17:54
You know, I taught I taught creativity. 20 years at the School of Visual Arts in New York. And I felt so bad because I got these kids all hopped up on their energies and their power and their creativity. And they got to school and they have debt. And they're like, I better just get a job. I say, Well, what kind of job? They're like one that pays. I'm like, Oh, fuck, so yeah, so the growing up thing is kind of bullshit.
Christina Bradley 18:23
That's it, we could end it there, couldn't we?
James Victore 18:25
Yeah. Thank you. It was great talking to you.
Christina Bradley 18:28
So do you think if people are able to kind of connect a little bit more to this idea of play, and the things that once made them happy when they were younger, or the way they used to interact or behave or that made them them, do you think that that is a way to access creativity as an adult?
James Victore 18:47
Yeah, yeah, totally. So I there's a publishing a publishing company in in the UK that I work for, I've designed all of their covers, I called the Do books, lovely series of books, and actually beautiful series of book they show up in museums, and they like, like, put them all together because they're like a beautiful little gallery show right.
Christina Bradley 19:06
They are beautiful
James Victore 19:07
And one just came out called Do Make, and it's by getting a guy named James Otter, and he's a surfboard maker. And he just today I saw on Instagram, he has this little Instagram story about like, he brings people into a she makes wooden surfboards, and he brings people into a shop, not non creative. And he gives him the tools and shows them a little bit of stuff. And he says, by giving the tools and giving them a little bit of guidance, he says we we unlock the creativity inside of them.
Christina Bradley 19:09
Yes.
James Victore 19:13
And all of a sudden they're like, oh I can do this.
Christina Bradley 19:38
I can do this because that's the key, isn't it? That it's that it's not this question of whether people are creative or not. The question is whether they know how to access their creativity. And by obviously giving them an exercise like that,
James Victore 19:51
they can accept it. I do corporate workshops, and I go into like, you know, these rooms with, you know, kind of tight people or suits and stuff. One of the first things I say is like, Hey, who here can draw? And they're all like mmmm... I said 'You're all fucking liars' And then we do it works, then we do I get them, you know, they're all paper and pencil, and I show them that they can draw, and it's genius. It's genius. You can't draw like Michelangelo and I can't either. But you can draw.
Christina Bradley 20:20
But that's not the point, is it?
James Victore 20:22
No
Christina Bradley 20:23
And I think is well, you know, I feel like a lot of people disassociate from their own creativity, because they don't have a specific career, either creative outlet, or a craft where they can, you know, actually have their creative work validated. But that's not to say that they're not creative, right? You don't actually need to physically, you know, create, you know, write a book or be able to draw a painting to be a creative person, would you agree with that, or...
James Victore 20:49
I would and also, also, another thing is that it's not fostered in society. We just don't live in a creative world where where we're, that is seen as any value and that needs that needs to change because we're at a place in in the world right now. Where our, our, our leaders worldwide are thoroughly uncreative. And that's why we're just keeping the status quo and keeping, you know, people are dying. And we need creativity right now, we need creative answers. But it's not fostered. It's not something that's condoned even my my own household and in school, I mean, it was just constantly, you know, getting slammed down
Christina Bradley 21:27
Same for me as well. It's like, focus on your weaknesses and improve on your weaknesses, and forget your strengths.
James Victore 21:36
School is not a safe space for creative people. You cannot you're not free to, to this belongs right here. You know, you're not we're not free. Creativity needs a safe space, just like when you when you when you you know, in, in grade school, you walk into band practice, or chess club or something, you're like, these are my people, you know, you're like, Oh my god, this is a place where I can just be me. And that's it. Christina is just being yourself just allowing, being allowing and allowed to express those things about yourself that that, that, that beauty, and that is the that is the biggest human flaw mistake, sin is that neither you or even me can really see the brilliance in ourselves.
Christina Bradley 22:32
Mm hmm.
James Victore 22:33
And that's for everybody on the planet. And they will and and it's a that is a real shame. Because we are beautiful creatures and we're capable of really anything but we just don't let ourselves
Christina Bradley 22:50
Which is such a shame, isn't it?
James Victore 22:53
Yeah, well, I'm on this new path. Now. I'm like I've been I've been I've been through the fire and freed and now I'm trying to figure out how to how to free myself and set other people free III tell people I am the Moses for creative people. I want to set them free.
Christina Bradley 23:09
And so how actually probably bringing this to an end now but how do people find out about you and your work, where can they find you?
James Victore 23:12
You know just James Victore. com. My name.com. And I'm doing some, you know, like, quarantine killed my, what I was doing for a living, which I was doing was travelling around the world doing workshops, and or people coming to me to do workshops. And I was going on Instagram Live every day and just talking to you know, people and followers and and it was really awesome. because they'd say, hey, James, I'm really stressed down. How can I be creative? And I'm like, okay, you can't. But here's what you can do until when we talk about stress, and how to relieve stress. And we get I get all these questions. And all this given taken all this energy and vibe. And I was like, I want to continue this. This is awesome. How do I keep this conversation going? And then in a few short weeks I had designed and created and found the genius to help me as my man, my main man, Wayne Fick, who's in the UK, who we built. This online class that is held every Wednesday morning is called the creative warrior. And we have you know, we have people who who are so hungry and horny for transformation. They're like, they're, you know, they're adults. They're mid career, they, they were born creative, and they know it. They went to college or university for it. They've got creative jobs, and they're thoroughly unhappy. I'm like, Okay, what do we do? How do we fix this? Let's go That's amazing. James Victore 24:20 So it says you know and that's just you know, again, that's just through James Victore.com and it's just like me, sharing what I love the same thing with you know, same thing with Feck Perfuction. Same thing with you know, hopefully this the follow up book to feck.
Christina Bradley 24:54
I look forward to that. Can I give you one question before we before we leave,
James Victore 24:58
Of course, darling.
Christina Bradley 25:00
What does it mean to you to live a creative life? It's a tough one to end on.
James Victore 25:05
But it's good. It's good. I think to live a creative life is for, for us to just go out in the world and allow ourselves to be us. And to understand that there are going to be, you know, people who won't dig that. And we can't care. Because they're afraid of their own creativity, their own or they're afraid of they're, they're afraid of their own their own bodies. You know, you your creativity, your freedom scares them. And I tell people all the time, listen, listen, as I know, as a writer and as a creator, as a human being. I know that I'm not for everybody. Just the sexy people.
Christina Bradley 25:49
That's why we've connected.
James Victore 25:51
Exactly.
Christina Bradley 25:52
Beautiful. Thank you so much, James. This has been an absolute pleasure. I've really enjoyed it.
James Victore 25:56
Anytime.