Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
A Touch of the Madness – a conversation with author and film producer Larry Karsanoff
24 Plays14 days ago
Larry Karsanoff is the CEO of Threshold Entertainment. He created all sorts of films from action blockbusters like the Terminator films and True Lies to children’s entertainment like the Lego movies.
Larry is also the author of A Touch of the Madness, a book in which he explains how to help people unleash their natural creativity.
In this episode of the Abeceder podcast The Independent Minds Larry uses stories from his career as a Hollywood film producer to explain to host Michael Millward the importance of fostering creativity and how employers can encourage their employees to be creative.
Along the way Larry also quizzes Michael about the creativity he has applied in establishing and running Abeceder.
The Independent Minds is made on Zencastr.
Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform, on which you can create your podcast in one place and then distribute it to the major platforms.
Zencastr really does make creating content so easy.
If you would like to try podcasting using Zencastr visit zencastr.com/pricing and use our offer code ABECEDER.
Find out more about both Michael Millward and Larry Karsanoff at Abeceder.co.uk
Travel
As you would expect being a film producer, Larry is based in Los Angeles California. USA.
Michael explains that he has visited Los Angeles, and next time he visits he will be making his travel arrangements with The Ultimate Travel Club, because as a member that is where he can access trade prices for flights, hotels and holidays. You can also become a member at a discounted price by using my offer code ABEC79when you join-up.
Three the network
If you are listening to The Independent Minds on your smart phone, you may like to know that Three has the UK’s Fastest 5G Network with Unlimited Data, so listening on Three means you can wave goodbye to buffering.
Visit Three for information about business and personal telecom solutions from Three, and the special offers available when you quote my referral code WPFNUQHU.
Being a Guest
If you would like to be a guest on The Independent Minds, please contact using the link at Abeceder.co.uk.
We recommend that potential guests take one of the podcasting guest training programmes available from Work Place Learning Centre.
We appreciate every like, download, and subscriber.
Thank you for listening.
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencaster.
Introducing 'The Independent Minds'
00:00:06
Speaker
Hello and welcome to The Independent Minds, a series of conversations between abocida and people who think outside the box about how work works, with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone. I am your host, Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abocida.
Meet Larry Kasanoff and His Book
00:00:28
Speaker
Today, I will be learning about creativity from a real Hollywood film producer, Larry Kasanoff. As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, the independent minds is made on Zencaster. Zencaster is the all-in-one podcasting platform on which you can make your podcast in one place and then distribute it to the major platforms like Spotify, Apple, Amazon, and Google YouTube Music.
00:00:58
Speaker
Zencaster really does make making content so easy. If you would like to try podcasting using Zencaster, visit zencaster dot.com forward slash pricing and use my offer code ABACEDA. All the details are in the description.
00:01:17
Speaker
Now that I have told you how wonderful Zencaster is for making podcasts, we should make one. One that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to. As with every episode of The Independent Minds, we won't be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think. Today, my guest, Independent Mind, is Larry Kasanoff.
00:01:43
Speaker
Larry is the CEO of Threshold Entertainment. He has been involved in the creation of all sorts of films from action blockbusters like the Terminator films and True Lies to children's entertainment like the Lego movies. He is also the author of the book, A Touch of the Madness, and has also written a song of the same name.
00:02:10
Speaker
Larry is an advocate for being truly creative by being a little crazy and unleashing the magic.
Podcasting and Visiting Los Angeles
00:02:17
Speaker
Of course, as you would expect, being a film producer, Larry is based in Los Angeles, California. I have visited and stayed in a hotel room with a view of the Hollywood sign, but no one made me a star, so I left. If I decide on another attempt at stardom,
00:02:36
Speaker
I will make my travel arrangements with the Ultimate Travel Club because that is where I can gain access to trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, and package holidays, so as well as all sorts of other travel related purchases. There is a link to the Ultimate Travel Club and an offer code in the description. Now that I have paid some bills, it is time to make an episode of The Independent Minds.
00:03:02
Speaker
Hello, Larry. Hi, Michael. How are you? I am very well. Thank you very much. I hope you can say the same. I'm good. Yes. Great. I'm intrigued. You know, the you're the man who's made all of these films that I have seen. So please could you tell me a little bit about how You got into the movie industry and and your your film career and fascinated please.
Larry's Film Production Journey at Vestron
00:03:21
Speaker
So I wanted to be a movie producer since I was a little kid and I got very lucky and right out of ah grad school or college, I got a job as head of production acquisitions and co-production for a new independent film studio called Vestron.
00:03:34
Speaker
Festron was riding the tidal wave of home video. So in those days, the mid-80s, home video exploded on the scene, much like streaming did in the last five years. And therefore, all these video stores popped up and they needed movies. So my mandate out of school was to bring into the company 80 movies a year, 8-0. The average studio today makes 12 movies a year. And my my instructions were make them, buy them, co-produce them. We don't care.
00:04:00
Speaker
You don't have much money per movie. They were low budget films. But if you lose money, you're fired. Good luck. And so we made like, we're finding rom coms and low budget horror movies and action movies and things like that.
00:04:13
Speaker
And then one day I got a script for a movie called Platoon, which, if you know it, is a very, very different film. Platoon is a serious movie about the psychological effects of the Vietnam War and how it affected the kids who went to it. The tagline of the movie is, the first casualty of war is innocence. Known in the movie were stars. They all became stars, but they weren't. And one of the things we always did was put some level of stars in all of our movies. And the director, Oliver Stone, who I think is genius, and we had done one movie with him prior, which I thought was great, but didn't do much at the box office.
00:04:42
Speaker
But I thought I had an instinct. I wanted to do it. And my boss said, look, it's not the kind of movie we make. And I think you're crazy, but you're the head of production. You can do whatever you want. But if you fail, you're gonna have that movie and it fails, you're fired. What are you gonna do? And I thought, well, I didn't get into the movie business to play it safe, so I green lit Platoon. And when I saw the movie in the early one morning in Italy at a film festival, they showed it to me. I'm the only person I think in history to ever giggle their way for the first screening of Platoon, not because it wasn't good, because it was so good and it was so really, I was like, oh my God, I'm not getting fired, I can keep my job.
00:05:16
Speaker
And in fact, it was so good, it won best picture of the Academy Awards that year. Congratulations. A few months later, I ran into the director um and in in New York in a bar at night. He bought me a drink and he said, you know, kid, I always liked you. You have a touch of the madness. And I thought a touch of the madness, a little crazy. Am I crazy? And then it occurred to me, you know, my boss had a touch of the madness by letting a 25 year old kid with no prior experience run an 80 picture film slate. Oliver had a touch of the madness by insisting on doing a Vietnam war movie the way no one ever did before. And everyone told him couldn't be done. And I had a touch of the madness by bidding the greatest job imaginable early in my career on one movie.
00:05:53
Speaker
And that's what it occurred to me. A touch of the madness is it. That's what we need. That's what you need to be creative.
Creativity in Business
00:05:59
Speaker
That's what you need to be innovative. Why are all these things like creativity and innovation important, especially in business? the The current of the river of life will always pull you towards the middle. Imperceptively, it tries to pull all of us to the middle. Don't be so outlandish. Don't try this. You can't do it. But your audience, your consumers, your customers want the new and the different. And the only way to give them the new and the different is to be innovative.
00:06:21
Speaker
And the best way to swim against that current that's going to try and pull you to the middle is with a touch of the madness. That crazy idea, the one in the back of your mind, you've always wanted to do it, but it's too nuts. It's too out there. Everyone will kill you for it. Your family will be upset. That's the one. Take it and do it. And that's what we want. And ever since that's been my touchstone, a touch of the madness. And I worked the best job for years.
00:06:41
Speaker
And then I worked with the director, Jim Cameron, and we made um Terminator 2 and True Lies and a bunch of other stuff. And I started my own company where we started and still make the Mortal Kombat franchise and and lots of other movies and theme park rides. But my whole life has been a touchstone to a touch of the madness. And in the last few years, I've never seen a time when people are more scared to be their true creative selves. And I was whining to my brother about it not too long ago. And he said, we'll stop whining, why don't you write a book? And so I did.
00:07:10
Speaker
And the book is A Touch of the Madness. Touch of the Madness. And the goal of the book, it uses fun stories. where I hope they're fun from my life in the movie business to try and inspire people to be crazy, to go for it, to be their most true, unfettered, unabashed, crazy creative selves. I think the world needs more of that.
00:07:28
Speaker
You've said some very interesting things there. And of course, I'm going to do my best not to talk about the movies, but to talk about creativity. You say that there is a crisis in creativity. What makes you say that? You know, look, the average person right now, if you say, what did you do last night? They say, well, I went to my streaming services and I rooted around for 15, 20 minutes and I wound up watching a rerun of an old sitcom and an old movie.
00:07:51
Speaker
And why isn't there anything good on? That's what everyone says. And why is everything a sequel? And why is everything not that? So you can just see it in your daily life. and or Or so many times, even just in you know promoting and talking about the book, there someone along the way, the driver, the someone will tell me about a crazy idea they have. But I can't do it. I can't really do it. I've never i've just never heard people say it before. Why it exists, I have my theories, but I'm not even sure that's important. It exists.
00:08:19
Speaker
and And everyone will say it, and you can read about it. And you can just, as I said, from your own experiences, find it. So the question is, what do we do about it? And and in my book, I talk about three things to do. you know Create your idea, ask anybody anything in in pursuit of that idea, and have fun
Essence of Creativity with Examples
00:08:34
Speaker
along the way. by the I also think fun is wildly underrated, and we need more of it. so And I think if you do that, the world gets more creative, and it gets more innovative, and I think that's a wonderful thing, and it will certainly make you more successful.
00:08:47
Speaker
That's an interesting approach to three things to be creative. You haven't mentioned business plans or focus groups or anything really. It's just like have your idea, tell people about it, have fun.
00:09:02
Speaker
So one of the tenets when you're creative, when you have your idea and you're creative, is when you get this idea, you must hold on to it with it with a mad zeal. A touch of the madness isn't just your idea. It's what you do when you have your idea. So here's an example. One of the movies we did at Vesteron in those days was Dirty Dancing. And when we got Dirty Dancing, it had been started and stopped by another studio that's called The In Turnaround.
00:09:23
Speaker
And you know so it was a bit of a mess. And we managed to lure a genius producer named Jimmy Einer to come help us. Jimmy was a legendary music and another producer who had done things like Pink Floyd the Wall and many, many, many, many, many others. And so he came to oversee dirty dancing. And then we he could breathe a bit of a sigh of relief. But when he got to dirty dancing, the song Time of My Life had already been recorded as a high falsetto disco song. And Jimmy knew that that was not what he wanted. So he he rerecorded as a slower, lower, kind of more valid and um no one wanted to record it. And he got Bill Medley of a great old group called the Righteous Brothers to do it, I think is a favor. Anyway, he had the song done and and he he brought in a guy named Michael Lloyd to help him. So Jimmy and Michael did this song in a new way. And then they sent it out to everybody, you know, the the director of the movie, the record company, the manager of the talent, no one liked it. Everyone said, this is wrong. You gotta make changes. And they all sent in notes.
00:10:21
Speaker
And they asked Jimmy, would you make these notes please? Would you make these changes? And he was very gracious and he said, sure, sure, sure. I'll make all your changes. Just give me three weeks. So three weeks later, he sent out version two. with a note that said, i i even I sent this version to some radio stations. In those days, radio stations were very integral in helping you market a song. And he said, the radio stations seem to like it. Hope you like this version. Everyone came back, thanks so much. This version is so much better. We love it. It's great. And and thank you for being so accommodating. So the question is, what genius creative changes did Jimmy make between version one and version two? And here's what he changed.
00:10:59
Speaker
I've got the feeling that he didn't change anything. ah You're exactly right. He didn't change a thing. He changed the label. That's all he changed. But because he said, I went to the record the ah radio stations, and for whatever other reason, people loved it. That song ah won the Grammy and the Oscar that year for best song. And it's because Jimmy didn't listen so much. You had said that everyone tells you to listen so much in their focus groups. If Jimmy listened to everybody else, we wouldn't be talking about Dirty Dancing today.
00:11:27
Speaker
So sometimes you just have to have a zeal and say, you know what, I'm right. And I believe in it. And I don't care what everybody says. And everyone tells you to listen more. I tell you to listen a little bit less. Doesn't mean don't know your audience. That's very important. But but you have to believe in your the first step is you have to create your idea and you have to believe in it. You have to know what it is. You have to believe in the essence of that idea. ah Yeah. ah There's an element of the madness about it in that
Michael's Company Philosophy
00:11:51
Speaker
Everybody can tell you that something won't work. And heaven knows, even, you know, setting up a business and HR consultancy like Abecedah, people told me it won't work, it won't work.
00:12:02
Speaker
But it has, it works. And you do have days when you wonder about it, but you just know that what you're doing is the right approach to take. I believe that when you have a great idea, you have to understand the essence of your idea. So when I decided to risk my career once again on Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat was an arcade game testing in Chicago, and no video game had ever successfully been made into a movie at that point.
00:12:30
Speaker
But I think that you have to know the essence of the idea. So why did I think Mortal Kombat would be successful? And if you look at an idea or an intellectual property or a company as a pyramid, you tend to think the top of the pyramid is what they do. No, the top of the pyramid is your idea. Because the secret is, I didn't think I was making a movie out of a video game. I thought I was making a movie out of the essence of a video game. And I believed, and I still believe, I still make Mortal Kombat movies, that the essence of Mortal Kombat was empowerment. It's about martial arts, which teaches you You don't have to be the the the strongest or the fastest kid on the block to win if you study and and do the right thing. And if you look at the top of that intellectual property pyramid, not as the Mortal Kombat video game, but as empowerment, and then one rung down the pyramid is a video game, and then you go back up and go down another side and as a movie, and you go back up and you go down another side as a TV show, now you're saying, I'm in the empowerment business that I'm spreading via Mortal Kombat. And then you can make, as we have, I think now we're on our 20th Mortal Kombat production in 20-something years.
00:13:26
Speaker
So I think that's very important. You have to understand the essence of your idea. And if you believe in the essence of your idea, you totally understand that, then yeah, you can have that mad zeal to do what Jimmy did. So the essence is like, this is what the idea is. But then when we get into the practicalities, we can do all sorts of different things as long as we remember what the essence of the idea is.
00:13:50
Speaker
Well, I mean, yeah I don't know too much about your company, but you know, you probably said it works. So why why deep down does it work? what I mean, we know you know, look look at Starbucks, is Starbucks really about $7 cups of coffee. I would argue that Starbucks is about creating a meeting place where no one really thought of one. Yes. So, you know, what's the essence of your company? Why is it? Why does it work the way it does? What are you giving people that other people aren't? Well, the essence of of my company is the logical approach rather than the the emotional approach or the let's keep it logical. The name itself means to put is Latin. It means to put into logical order. So the subject we put into logical order is employee management from both perspectives to create the relationship that enables people to look think to for the future. This is a place that I want to work. This is a the people that I want to work alongside and people can think of the future. so
00:14:42
Speaker
thinking about the future that's the essence of it putting in place the things that enable someone to say I can see myself working here in the long term and an employer saying I can see that person working here in the long term building that relationship that I should you should send me an invoice for this you know Larry but that is the essence of my company, my HR consultant. That's great. You know, the essence. It's unusual. You can play that all over the world for what you're currently doing. I'm sure you could, each shoot you could say should you want it to, you know, this idea of applying logic to what is usually emotional, where else can I do that in business? And you can expand on it. And that, and that will embolden you to have your time of my life song and say, I don't care what anybody says. I'm right. Cause deep down, I know the essence of this is right. Yes. And that's one of the reasons as well.
00:15:29
Speaker
why we do the independent minds. It was to make people aware of issues around change management, doing things differently, that you don't have to be stuck in the rut and thinking, I don't like this, this is not going to be something I want to do long term. If you are exposed to ideas from other people about what they have done in terms of looking at a situation and creating a different solution, a different way of of thinking about things, then you are more likely to be open to ideas around change for yourself as well. Right, exactly. And so with that belief, so that's what you have. That's the essence of your creative idea. And then you can do all these other things I encourage people to do because you can have that belief.
00:16:16
Speaker
Yeah, and I take on board what you're saying about the Mortal Kombat franchise of of movies and resources is that you're an empowerment business.
Empowering Moments and Ideas
00:16:28
Speaker
It's an empowerment franchise explaining to people, demonstrating to people, like you said, that you don't have to be the biggest but person on and on the street. If you've investigated what you need in order to be successful and you learn about it, you train yourself, you can compete with the best. You know, when I was deciding again, whether or not to really pull the trigger on moral combat, it was a really big risk at the time.
00:16:53
Speaker
I was wandering around a video arcade, if your listeners don't know that was, or were old places where you would go in there and be video game machines and put a quarter in to play it. Well, you can still find them in some places that places to meet. That's true. Anyway, so I'm wandering around trying to decide what to do. I'm hanging around the Mortal Kombat machine and an 11 year old kid slaps a quarter down and looks up at me and says, I challenge you. And then the kid in Mortal Kombat beats the crap out of me. I mean, he was terrific and he beats the crap out of me. And if you ever played the game, it makes you feel good if you win. sub-zero wins, you lose. And the kid left feeling 10 feet tall, feeling great because he he he had now the he was empowered to win and beat an a adult. And that's right then and there is when I decided to do it. It's strange how sometimes the reason that you need to make a decision
00:17:44
Speaker
appears out of nowhere. No matter how much research you do, no matter how many experts you speak to, there will be something that happens out of the blue that is the evidence, the total 100% of all the evidence you need to say yes. In another part of my thing where you ask anybody anything, I met and became very good friends with this then Buddhist monk named Thich Nhat Hanh. I made a documentary about him and Thich Nhat Hanh has a saying, which is, be still and know.
00:18:13
Speaker
In other words, still water will reflect the ocean and will reflect the sky and the mountain tops exactly correct. Whereas your water is all choppy, it won't. So I agree that I think if you're still and you go around and you can still your mind and you're looking for an answer, the and you'll know the answer will come to you. Yes. Yeah. It's a lot of sense in that, an awful lot of sense.
00:18:34
Speaker
I mean, I'm feeling creative even now, just listening to you and sort of thinking like, okay. Well, you should. You know, let well let me go on. So so the second thing, and once you have it, you know the essence of your idea, you have it and you hold on with a mad zeal. And there's other aspects of it too in the book. But the next thing is ask. You must be willing to ask anybody in the world anything in pursuit of what you want. And I've done that my whole career and I have a hundred examples of it, but ah one I like is during the pandemic, we made an animated movie called Bobbleheads, you know, characters with big bobbling
Bold Asks and Cher's Story
00:19:03
Speaker
heads. And we wanted Cher to be in the movie, not just as a voice, but we wanted her likeness. We wanted Cher to play Bobblehead Cher. And Cher had never done an animated movie. And everyone's, you know, as usual said, you're crazy. She'll never do it. But we called, I called and we asked and asked and asked and long story short, Cher. Well, we'll wait a minute. You have Cher's telephone number.
00:19:20
Speaker
Well, I mean, but, you know, she she said yes, and she did the movie and she was great. When the movie came out, People magazine interviewed her and said, Cher, you've never done an animated movie. Why did you do this one? And she said, I've never done an animated movie before because no one ever asked me before and until Larry did. a and So can you imagine how if Cher, who is one of the most iconic, well-known people and most talented people on Earth,
00:19:46
Speaker
has sitting there, and no one ever asked her to make an animated movie. In your life, that person you're thinking about calling, but you don't because you think, oh, everyone must ask him or her. They they come on. I can't be the first one. Well, you know what? No one ever asked Cher.
00:20:01
Speaker
So, you know, i would I would challenge your listeners right now to say, if you could call anyone on earth for real, someone who's alive and ask them a serious question, who would you call them and what would you ask? It's a very good point. The worst that can happen is that they won't reply, you know, but you asked.
00:20:17
Speaker
Yeah, but you and so what? Most people don't even think of it because we're not taught we can do it. It doesn't occur to you, but you can. I do it all the time. You know, people don't say yes to me all the time. You'd like to think they do, but they don't. But so what?
00:20:32
Speaker
I mean, you just you just give it a shot and and try. And i would I would again challenge your listeners to, you know, by whatever is a week from when they're hearing this, call somebody. Just call one person or call them or text them or email them and ask something in pursuit of of your goal, of you know, based on the touch of the mask. My goal is to build my company. My goal is to do this. Here's what I need. Why not? You know, there are so many things that have happened since I started my business.
00:20:59
Speaker
where people have said, that will never work, or that person will never reply to you, or yeah you're mad to try and that. And you know this is the podcast that isn't about me, it's about you. But people said, The Simpsons will never reply to your email. Well, The Simpsons did a reply to my email, and now we are the only place in the world where you can access the health and safety education resources that feature the characters from The Simpsons TV series.
00:21:29
Speaker
Oh, that's great. eight That's great. Congratulations. That's a great example. and Fantastic. Exactly. Thank you very much. and it's so But you're bringing home to me ah very clearly that actually it's about saying, what if I did this? What if I tried that? Because alongside every story like the the Simpsons one, there's also one where I could think like if I had contacted them three weeks ago, when I first thought about it,
00:21:56
Speaker
we'd be having conversations now rather than them telling me well we've just signed a contract for that because someone else made the call someone else sent the email to actually that I should have sent the call that I should have made somebody else did it because they didn't have a thousand reasons not to they just said so what what if Yeah, the reason we procrastinate is because deep down, we don't think we can do it. And we're worried that what if someone says goodbye, you know, and I'm here to tell you that is, you know, my book is full of great stories where we asked all these, I asked all these famous people to do things, and a lot of them didn't. But I also, as I said, have the opposite. You know, I've been trying to get the Pope, the Pope Pope, you know, and in Italy, to enjoy some movie for a couple of years. And he keeps saying they keep saying no, I mean, lovely past letters, but so what?
00:22:44
Speaker
Why not keep trying? You know, you got to think about it in, if you think about boxing and you're the best boxer in the world, you know, lately I'd say Floyd Mayweather, you know, 50 and 0. You, and you win every fight. You still get hit hundreds of times in that fight. If you win,
00:23:01
Speaker
in um In American baseball, if you hit, so in other words, when you get up to bat, you you hit three out of 10 times and you you therefore you strike out seven out of 10 times, you're the best baseball player on earth. So three out of 10 times makes you the best. You don't have to score with each one and you're not going to and and don't expect to, but so what?
00:23:23
Speaker
Go for it. Yeah, go for it.
Embracing Creativity and Fun
00:23:25
Speaker
that's That is the essence of creativity, isn't it? It's like, you just need the gem of an idea. You need to be curious about what it is that would happen if you actually tried it. And then once you've made that, and I was going to say, that well, yeah, I will. Once you've taken that leap, it's then, it could take you to all sorts of different places.
00:23:48
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And you have to be open to the fact that when you call these people, maybe it will take you someplace different. When I called Thich Nhat Hanh, it was to inspiration for character in Mortal Kombat, but the opposite happened. After two hours with him, I said, I feel great. I feel like I'm on vacation. What's your secret? And he said, no secret practice. And I said, I could learn how to feel this way. And he said, yeah. And I started studying mindfulness and it's now a practice. And he became a great friend.
00:24:15
Speaker
and And I made, as I said, made a documentary. So in other words, the call took me someplace wonderful, but not where I expected. So you have to be open-minded to the fact that, you know, it might take you on ah on a different journey, but it'll take you on a journey. That call took a hand and it certainly changed my life. I still practice mindfulness and I love it. That's, I think is a very important point that you're very to say, because we're saying that people need to have an idea and then pursue their idea. But in pursuing that idea, you'll become exposed to a whole range of different ideas.
00:24:45
Speaker
And you shouldn't shut yourself off from the creativity of other people, but actually absorb it like a sponge, I suppose, and actually and aim to learn from every experience that you have, every encounter with someone one else or with a different way of doing things is, is learned from it. And how can that help me to achieve what I'm set on a la goal to achieve? Yep. Exactly. The whole sort of.
00:25:10
Speaker
Thing is, I'm feeling very enthused at the moment about being creative and and motivated, but I'm thinking, it's it's like, why don't people take the leap into their own creativity? What stops them? And I'm sure that the answer isn't an internal one, but it's all of those external factors that people say, you're weird, you're strange, you're daft, all those sorts of things. Whether people actually say those things to us or not, we fear that they will.
00:25:39
Speaker
and that will be isolated? Well, you know, the the the world in the last, I think it's coming out of this, but in the last five years has been through a very politically correct period. And so people fear, what if I say the wrong thing? What if I get canceled? What if I get fired? What if so-and-so doesn't like me? And at ah valid points, by the way, the world has been very politically correct, but it still is fear. And you still have to decide, you know, what kind of life you want to live. As I said, you can swim against the the current of mediocrity But nothing's free. And yeah, someone, you know, your mother-in-law or you're, you know, the guy in shipping or someone might think you're nuts or call you nuts. But so what? I mean, look look at the upside to it. I mean, again, you know, and I keep saying is nothing great happens without taking a chance. You got to be willing to take that shot. But the downside fear in your in your mind is created and is bigger.
00:26:30
Speaker
than in reality. I've gone to the point, you know, when I, when I go pitch a movie, for example, if people say, my God, that's a fantastic idea. I get a little nervous. And if they say, you're crazy, they don't ever work. What's wrong with you? I think, and I kind of feel this.
00:26:46
Speaker
warm embrace of a touch of the madness like i'm good on the beach and in in a morning or morning walk and I go off to do it. So I actually like it now. I like it when people say I'm crazy. I think it's a good sign and I think people should start to enjoy it. The the other thing too is um You can start to have fun along the way. i mean You should have fun. You should enjoy what you're doing. You should turn your workplace into a fun. People are more open to creativity and and to ideas when they're having a little bit of fun. i mean have you ever you know like like what What have you always wanted to do at work with your staff that you think would be fun but you've just never done? Try it and see and see what happens.
00:27:22
Speaker
You reminded me now of something that you said earlier on, which was all about how yeah we go to our TV screens in the evening and look through the schedules and end up watching the repeats, the reruns of old comedy programs, old films, all this sort of stuff.
00:27:39
Speaker
And yet what we really crave is something that is going to be new, different, and exciting. And that makes me think that you know you will face people who want you to sit there and watch the rerun for the 15th, 20th time. But actually when you are doing something different that is unique and out of the box, you tend to attract other people who are also interested in what is different and unique and something new.
00:28:08
Speaker
that always the most exciting, interesting places are the things that are different and new, whether it's a a new club, a new player in a team, whatever it is, it's the new that gets this exciting. And if you are the source of the new, you are going to be an exciting person for other people to be around.
00:28:27
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. You you certainly live a more interesting and creative life. but But look, as I said, nothing's free. Remember, boxers, baseball players, whatever, you don't, no one bats a thousand. You have to get used to that. You do. You certainly do.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:28:41
Speaker
It's only half an hour, Larry, but I certainly feel inspired to do something something different, be creative, and I'm all fired up. And my work here is done.
00:28:53
Speaker
Thank you very much. Thank you. It has been certainly very interesting. Just to remind people again, what's the name of the book that you've written? A Touch of the Madness, which is available on Amazon or Audible or any place books are sold. Yep, everywhere. We'll put some links in the description. But for now, thank you very much. I've really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you, Michael. Me too. I am Michael Millward, managing director of Abecida.
00:29:19
Speaker
and I have been having a conversation with the very independent mind, Larry Kasanoff. You can find out more information about both of us at abocida.co.uk. There is a link in the description along with links to Threshold Entertainment and Larry's personal website as well. There are also opportunities to buy a Touch of the Madness.
00:29:41
Speaker
well worth getting. If you are listening to the independent minds on your smartphone, you may like to know that 3 has the UK's fastest 5G network with unlimited data. So listening on 3 means you can wave goodbye to buffering. It also means you can watch Larry's films on 3 as well without buffering.
00:30:01
Speaker
There is a link in the description that will take you to more information about business and personal telecom solutions from 3 and the special offers available when you quote my referral code. Description also includes links to all of the websites that have been mentioned in this episode of the Independent Minds. That description is well worth reading, just like Larry's book.
00:30:24
Speaker
If you've liked this episode of The Independent Minds, please give it a like and download it so you can listen anytime, anywhere. To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by our procedure is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to make you think. Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for listening and goodbye.