The Power of Boring: James Walters on Creativity, Photography, and Finding Your Purpose

0:00 Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curveball, if you believe you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire. Where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire. Today, I am joined by author podcast host James Walters. James hosts a show called A Joyful Rebellion. He is an author. As I said, he is a dad, he is the creative director of a photography company and his goal is to help people live their best lives by taking creative risks and sharing their stories with others.

0:51 So we're going to be talking to James about everything that he's up to his show and anything else he wants to talk about. So, james, thank you so much for joining me. Curtis, thank you for having me. This is going to be fun today. Absolutely. Why don't you start off by telling the listeners a little bit about yourself? Yeah, well, when I was growing up, I loved to create little worlds, things that didn't exist, that I could see. And when I got into high school I realized I could really do that through photography and I became fascinated with it and, truth be told, it was also a great way to get out of math class because I could switch a science for, which was photography for math.

1:33 A little fun fact. I don't think you can do that anymore, but ended up going to college for it. I came out, did commercial photography for several years and I love that because it was like creating little worlds within reality and did a lot of commercial advertising stuff like that. And then I got bored with that so I wanted to start working with people more. I wanted to start working with less predictable situations. So I got into the world of photographing weddings, where you have to be creative on a spur of the moment and anything could happen. So that was a lot of fun. And then, of course, kind of transitioned out of that and now I do a lot of branding.

2:17 I work with creative people, entrepreneurs, to help them tell the story of what they're all about, tell the story of their brand if they're selling a service, an idea, whatever it might be. But that got me thinking a lot about creativity, because the people I work with are so creative and they are having a good time being creative. And then, on the other hand, I talked to other folks who were like, man, I wish I could be creative like that. I'm thinking, yeah, you could if you put some priority on it. And that got me really wanting to get that message out there, that creativity is not really an option.

3:00 It's essential for a really fulfilling life, which is why I started the podcast A Joyful Rebellion a couple of years ago. And so every week I talk to people now who have been through their own joyful rebellion. And that's a time in your life where you've checked off all the boxes of what you thought success would be, but you're just not feeling it Right. And then you're thinking, ok, so what do I do now to get that fulfillment? And I talk to people every single week who have done it and now they help other people do it much in the way that you're helping people with this podcast, Right? So that's kind of brings us all the way from where this began to where it's going right now.

3:45 Well, what does it truly mean to lead a joyful rebellion? Yeah, when it comes to the joyful rebellion part, there's always this impetus, this realization that everything you were told when you were growing up, everything you were told when you were in school, it kind of got you where you are. And sometimes you look around and externally you say, okay, I've got the family. My parents said that would be cool, I've got the degree. My teachers in high school said that would be useful and I got the job.

4:25 My professors in college said that that's what I needed to be successful and support the family and do all of those things. But sometimes you look around and a lot of people I talk to have looked around and externally they've got all those things, they've got all that success. Internally they've got all those things, they've got all that success. And internally they feel like man, there's got to be more. I mean I'm happy but I'm not fulfilled. And that's when the joyful rebellion part comes in, because a lot of times to get to where you want to be, you've got to rebel against all of those things people told you along the way. In some sometimes it's small ways, you know you've got to go against your family programming.

5:08 Sometimes it is in bigger ways, like I've had guests on who realized that they weren't with the right partner or they were not even remotely in the right industry and just kind of burned down their career and their life. And now they're sailing halfway around the world on a boat for the last several years and they're loving it. So that's the joyful rebellion part. It's got to be joyful, though, because if you're going to have a fulfilling life, it's not something that should seem like. I mean, it's going to take a lot of effort in cases, but it should bring you joy. It shouldn't be something that seems like a chore.

5:50 You should be going towards something that you really want to do, and sometimes it takes people half a lifetime to figure that out. Well, you also talk about how being boring in some ways is crucial to creativity. Explain that one to the listeners. And in some ways it's crucial to creativity Explain that one to the listeners. We all have things that are important to us and we all have things that, eh, we they're necessary, super necessary, but also we don't really care how they get done, which is why I came up with this thought in my life, uh, for myself, about, okay, what are the things I don't really care about too much me personally, and it only really affects me, and I started streamlining those to the point where they were just boring.

6:51 So, for example, for me, I pretty much wear the same t-shirt jeans combo every day, and that's not a new thing. People have heard of that. Some CEOs do it and it's one of those. Okay, take away the decision fatigue. And so I've heard that a little bit on the podcast uh, other podcasts I've been on and and I'm like, yeah, okay, that's where it starts. Is you being boring, in a certain way, being predictable? But once you get going on that, it, the decision fatigue, is the first thing that goes away in that part of your life. But the next thing that happens is the confidence and the not only in yourself because you've, you've got this one decision handled, but it's the confidence in the people around you knowing, okay, this person's going to show up in this way pretty darn consistently, and other things in their life may be a little unpredictable.

7:45 But you know person's going to show up in this way pretty darn consistently, and other things in their life may be a little unpredictable, but they're going to show up in the same, pretty much in the same outfit and they can joke about it whatever they want to do, but that gives them confidence too and that gives them trust in you. Same thing can go for food. That's true for me. I eat about the same five basic things to try to make sure they're healthy. I eat about the same, you know, five basic things to try to make sure they're healthy. And outside of that, I feel like I've got my food situation locked down and again I don't have to think about it too much, I don't have to write out an elaborate grocery list and meal prep and all those things, because I've got that handled. And again, that's just another thing that's boring in my life. So I can go in a thousand different directions in the things that do really interest me.

8:30 So I always tell people this is very personalized. If you are a fashionista, do not try to make your wardrobe boring because that's not going to feel great. That's not going to feel great If you are foodie. What you eat is not the place to make it boring, but maybe you don't care about your clothes so much. So look for something in your life that you can make boring, you can make repetitive, you can make it no brainer, and that leaves so much more space to put your energy into being creative, if that's what you want to do energy into being creative. if that's what you want to do, Well, talk about the most important lesson that you have learned after interviewing over a hundred people on your show about their joy for rebellion.

9:14 Yeah, that's the most fun thing because I didn't expect it and it makes so much sense, like everything does in hindsight. Right, it comes down to awareness and that sounds so simple, but I mean, you would not believe how many people are walking around you and maybe you will, but if you're listening, like there are things that you're just not aware of right now. There are things that I'm trying to heighten my awareness through this experience of talking to lots and lots of people about awareness, but there are things that I'm still not aware of. It's unfolding all the time and it's a self-discovery.

9:57 But the one thing that so many of my guests on the podcast have in common is they've gone through their joyful rebellion, but none of that could happen until they became aware that all of the things that they thought were the answer in their life, they thought were going to make them happy, bring them joy they started to realize that, no, this is not the thing, and it some of them took years to realize that. Some of them, it took a tragedy, some of them it took a health scare to realize that they needed to start making their future very different from what their present and what their past was, and it came through that awareness.

10:43 And everybody comes to awareness a little bit differently. Some is gentle and they read a book and they're like, oh, I'm aware that I do this certain thing, I should probably do something different, but for some people they need it. You know a literal car crash. I've had a couple of those guests on a health scare, whatever it might be that really gets them to confront their mortality. Sometimes it takes something that big to come to an awareness about their own life. So if there's anything I've learned, it's awareness is everything.

11:34 Well, you know, you talk a lot in your bio about how people should be the author of their own story. Explain to the listeners what you mean by that formative years. We're getting a lot of input from other people, people who care about us, people who want to see us do well, right. But they're coming from their own perspective and their perspective is limited to what they've had happen in their life, their experiences, their perceptions of those experience, their upbringing right. So a lot of times it's a generation or more removed. And so if you're being raised by your grandparents, I hung out with my grandparents a lot, but I was getting two generations like removed information and so like what it was like when they were growing up, which is very different from what it was like when I grew up and it's gonna be the same thing for my kids, my, my kids children.

12:31 So I guess, when it comes to writing your own story, sometimes you have those influences and they're really positive and they do mean well. But sometimes people just click the easy button and they're like, okay, cool. Dad said I should be a dentist because they do pretty good, so I'm gonna go ahead and go to dental school. I don't know if I'm gonna like it or not, I'm gonna come out with a ton of debt and uh, but but I'll have that degree, I'll be a dentist and man, I hope I like it, and so that I've heard that story so many times and that's an example of when someone's really not holding the pen when they are writing the story of their own life.

13:17 Now I'm all for and I tell my kids all the time I'm like try a million different things, see what you like and then just get rid of the stuff you don't. But it's important to at least have those experiences so that you can go about the direction you want without having to worry about anyone else's input. It's always good to listen to other people's input, but don't feel like they should be writing the words for you in the story of your life. So that's what I mean by being the author of your own story, because a lot of people also, you know, before their joyful rebellion they realize, oh my gosh, I've been playing out, I've been acting along on this script that someone else wrote, whether it was their family or whether it was their boss or whatever it was.

14:10 They realized I'm not living my own life and that's also part of the joyful rebellion is starting to. So tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on. Well, I guess, before we do that, tell the listeners about your books. Tell us where we can get them from and what we can expect when we read them. Yeah, well, I've got two and they're wildly different. The first one is more like a memoir. I wrote it about a decade ago, but when I got out of advertising photography I needed a different challenge and I described it a little bit before. I used to go into a studio every day.

14:52 I would work with advertising clients. It was great, really challenging creatively, but it was the same place every day and I was in total control of everything that happened in front of the camera. And that's fun for about a dozen years or so. But it started to, you know, itch at me that, hey, there could be something else out there and so, luckily, within photography, there are a hundred different careers you can have. So I switch from advertising photography into wedding photography, which when I was in college, I said I would never do in a million years. When I was in college, I said I would never do in a million years. When I was in college, wedding photography did not seem interesting or fun at all. But 10 years later it did seem interesting because it presented a new challenge.

15:38 It was people who may or may not show up on time. It was situations and environments that might not be optimal for good photographs, like the weather, for example, or maybe there's construction where we thought we were going to be photographing and we have to figure out plan B, and that kept me on my toes. But also working with people keeps you on your toes because I was no longer working with professional models, I was working with just everyday people and I had to bring the energy to get them to feel comfortable and look great. So it was a whole new challenge and that got me into wedding photography and that.

16:22 Coming back to the book about it, though, every time I told someone, you know you meet people for the first time and they say, oh, what do you do? And I said, well, I'm a photographer Never said weddings, but they assumed, oh, you mean like weddings. And I said, yeah, like weddings. And they say, oh my gosh, the first thing they said was you must see some insane stuff behind the scenes at weddings. And this was early 2000, mid 2000s at this point, and I'm like, yeah, I do actually, if I think about it, and I got enough of those questions and comments that I started writing things down as they happen and before long, like seven years in, I had a book worth of information, so that one's called accessory to marriage.

17:09 That's the first book and it's just the subtitle is chronicles of outrageousness from my life as a wedding photographer and it's a fun little trip down memory lane. A lot of short stories and they're easy to digest and hilarious. From what I'm told it's that's not my assessment, but people tell me that. But my most recent project, 10 years after the first book, just came out in the fall of last year and it has been a blast. But it's a coffee table book. It's my very first book that has photos in it, believe it or not, and they're all black and white.

17:51 And I got to reflecting on my time as a commercial photographer and in that field we tend to objectify people a lot, and not in a bad way, but in the way like, let's say, I was working for a company that made jeans and they want to show off their jeans and get people to buy them. Well, it's much more appealing if you can show a model wearing those jeans because people can now see how they fit. You sort of see the curves, all that, that kind of stuff. It's more relatable if a person is wearing jeans than if they're just laying there on the ground.

18:33 So we would hire a model, and we didn't care what the model's name was, we didn't care. You know how they were doing that day. I mean, we, we had all of those things behind the scenes in the studio, but as far as the person who ended up in that photo, they were really just the thing that was holding the jeans on in the photo, and so they were kind of objectified in that way and I thought, well gosh, what would happen If I took everyday objects and I personified them? So instead of objectifying people, I'm personifying objects, and I love to walk around places.

19:14 I walk a lot, I love historic cities and I just started noticing there were things that I would pass, that everybody else would pass too. The first thing I ever saw was a hair tie, and, just like one of those ponytail holders right that women lose all the time, it's either on the wrist or in their hair or it's on the ground, and I saw one and had a little dirt around it. I could tell it'd been there for a few weeks maybe, and I just got to thinking, wow, what's the story behind this? How did it get here? Who used to have it? Does this little hair tie miss the person that discarded it or lost it or whatever the case was. So I started photographing things like that, things that were mundane, and the book's called Meditations of the Mundane and it was a blast.

20:00 I went to so many different cities and just photographed things that people walk by every day, made up really fun stories about them. Things that people walk by every day, made up really fun stories about them, and both of those books can be found at my website, jameswalterscom. Pretty straightforward there. Okay, tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of. Yeah, I've got one. I'm actually working with a group of students. I've never done this before, but I'm hosting a summer camp through an Arts Center that's here in my home state in North Carolina and working with them pretty closely. I'm going to be doing a week in June and it's all about photography and storytelling and in conjunction with that I'm creating a book.

20:47 It's's called the Little Book of Special Powers and it's going to be for kids that are between 9 and 14. So it's going to be aimed at that age range, but it's all about exercises and things that they can do to further explore their storytelling abilities, and through words, like the written word, but also through photography and cameras are everywhere Now they're in our pocket even as young as nine years old and 14. So want to get those kids who are involved with it, or eventually get the book, to be able to communicate.

21:29 I mean, storytelling really comes down to communication right, and people love stories, and so if they have that ability to craft a story and get someone interested, they're going to have some special powers that other people their age won't have. Okay, well, you answered my next question your website, jameswalterscom. So close us out with some final thoughts. Maybe, if that was something I forgot to talk about, that you would like to touch on, or any final thoughts you have for the listeners. Yeah, very much. You know, someone asked me on a podcast last year. They said hey, if you were going to write a billboard, you know it's got to be short and it's got to be immediately readable, but it's got to have a good message behind it.

22:14 What would that billboard say? And for me, that billboard would say nothing changes if nothing changes. And that seems a little weird of a thing to say, but it's something that through my work, through my life, through meeting a lot of other people on my podcast, tends to be true is, if you don't like what your current situation is, you you want to really look around and see what little things you can change. And sometimes it starts out small and it grows a little bigger as you get more confidence, as you get a little more courage.

22:57 Taking action gives you that confidence and before you know it, your whole life could be different. If you want it to be, just by making changes. But if you want it to stay exactly the same, just make sure you don't make any changes and life will kind of happen around you. But that's what I would leave everyone with is is, if there's anything you want to be different, just remember nothing changes if nothing changes that's the perfect message. Ladies and gentlemen, james JamesWalterscom, please be sure to follow rate, review. Share this episode to as many people as possible. Jump on your favorite podcast app.

23:38 Follow us. Leave us a review. Check out the show. For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, go to wwwcurveball337.com. Thank you for listening and supporting the show, james. Thank you for all that you're doing to make the world a better place and thank you for joining me. Thank you, curtis, it was a blast. For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, visit wwwcurveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dream.