When I think back on my career in advertising and the path it took, I try and consider the foundational bricks that helped me become a solid creative thinker and leader. When I do that I always come back to a few key pieces along the way that helped define me. Below I outline those pieces and provide a bit of context as to why:

1. Dungeons & Dragons
2. Comic Books
3. Atari & Nintendo
4. Fantasy Novels
5. Baseball & Basketball

Now hear me out, all of these have very specific use cases as to how I arrived at the creative world and the value provided.

Let’s start with D&D. This one is easy, I grew up with a close-knit group of friend who all liked playing RPG’s. With D&D I played as the “Dungeon Master” most of the time and we didn’t usually use adventure modules but rather did some real-time storytelling with characters and story arcs devised straight from my head. The approach was all about defining a game world that my friends would identify with more and enjoy more. In most cases, it had a somewhat thieves guild, organized crime vibe. This gave me a true understanding of being creative in the moment, and targeting the creative to those I was telling the story to. See where I’m goin with this?

Next up is Comic Books. The storytelling of my youth into adulthood. I read the stories that are now becoming movies all the time and had an expensive habit. I was a Marvel guy and loved X-Men and all its offshoots. Reading comics taught me that stories with real-world consequences and real-life themes were far more engaging than just saving the world. Characters who had real lives, problems and things they dealt with like Daredevil and Wolverine were my go-to’s. What comic books gave me was a clear understanding of sequential storytelling, which is something we do every day in interactive mediums. It also taught me to define a story not on the “shiny thing” but rather the thing that you can identify with. Moving on…..

Next we have Atari and Nintendo. Two companies that gave me my first taste of video games and the medium I would grow to love. This one is easy. Video games were an outlet that I could do by myself that took some learning, reflexes and often times included a story-based component. But what video games really taught me is that “fun” is really all you need. You don’t need deep stories with meaning sometimes, you can just get away with something that is simple and fun. Super Mario Brothers was at times repetitive, and I could complete it multiple times in a row before game-over, but that didn’t matter. It was fun to do. Look ahead and apply that to advertising and interactive and you realize that sometimes you can ignore the story and just provide a unique and fun path for a person to experience and they remember you well and consider you more.

Now we land on Fantasy Novels. My young late teens to young adulthood included alot of reading stories like Dragonlance and Wheel of Time. Novels were a form of escapism in a way that comic books couldn’t be. A more long-term approach to storytelling with deeper meaning, development and concepts usually. Fantasy novel storytelling often involves loss and failure as a mechanism to draw the reader in further and lead them to want to find the solution or the path that leads to what they are hoping for. What this taught me is that creatively we don’t need to always create the beautiful thing, but rather the goal may be to have a long view and create the thing that people can feel. If they can feel it they want more of it if done correctly. You can lead them to it and the finally give them what they want and they appreciate it more.

Finally, we have baseball and basketball. I played these two team sports and a pretty high level from my childhood through my early adult life. Sports teach us all so many things it’s too much to share but the things that meant the most were twofold. First, being a pitcher in baseball you learn that at times it’s all on you. You have to embrace the decision making process and accept the consequence when you give up a 3-run homer and the accolades when you strike out the side in order. Whatever the case may be you learn to be humble in both. You are the leader in the game. You also easily understand that it’s a “team” game. Your true success comes from a team approach to winning and a tight team culture. My most successful seasons were with teams that were tight. We knew we could count on each other and we supported and pulled for each other at every turn. That is the thing that set me up for success as a leader, you know it’s your job to setup your team to succeed, you pull for them, and your often more excited for others than yourself. It’s great to throw a 12-6 knee-buckling curveball and strike someone out, but it’s way better to win.

Hopefully at this point after reading all of this maybe the big picture is clear. You probably realize that I was a nerd without a lot of friends for a while. But the reality is all of those experiences growing up can translated into something I love to do now and helped me become who I am professionally and personally today.