Jason White: “We Have the Responsibility to Invent the Future”
“If you get the keys to the shop, don’t leave. Stay there, kick ass, do as much as you can and you’ll transform that company.”
That statement boomed through the speakers as I meekly walked in the conference room to watch Jason White’s talk at this year’s FITC. With a presentation titled Finding Your Way, I was eager to hear what the Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer at Leviathan had to say about taking your personal values, ambitions and talents to build a sustainable business that continuously aims for greatness.
What I did not expect was the highly personal account of Jason’s career path and how candidly he spoke of his failures — something not every executive is keen on sharing publicly. As I watched and recorded the talk, I realized that each slide was a lesson on its own. Here is a summary of that presentation, in the words of White himself. I hope you find it as inspiring as I did.
The driver
I had a teacher in high school who once told me that we have the responsibility to invent the future. I took it to heart.
Part of that responsibility actually means taking actionable steps to break new ground. After working in a design studio, I longed to return to my roots as an artist. This time around, I wanted to fuse emerging digital technology with physical experiences, bringing it all together.
I met with two brilliant people, my business partners, and we devised a plan based on our individual strengths — creative engineering and operations.
Building the company
Our early conversations led to a unified value system that would guide all of our decisions. We decided that humans would come first, that is, people would be the center of our universe. We would be committed forever on. We would be united and equal. There would be work-life balance. And we would forever be pioneers.
I was beyond excited. I felt ambitious. I was working around the clock, building the brand while I held a full-time job. We named the company Leviathan, which translates as an attitude. It is the embodiment of both courage and wild imagination — a feeling I had at the time.
With that, our background in creating motion graphics started to have a whole new purpose. We started working on bigger and bigger shows, and the buzz we got spread like wildfire. It got me in touch with so many talented people, making me realize that everyone was just trying to find their way as well; trying to figure out what they loved to do and how to transform that into a career.
I no longer felt alone and this became a great source of inspiration for me.
The cost of success
However, when you make a hit, you become sought after. New clients started coming from all different directions and everyone was looking for that magic ingredient to connect to their customers. Suddenly, experiential design became a thing, or even, the thing.
Faults started to happen in our business model, revealing that these new experiments with digital installations were not sustaining our bank accounts. Clients weren’t willing to take the financial risk needed to go into the future, that is, they weren’t willing to fully commit.
So we tried some other things. We planted seeds elsewhere, and the entertainment industry started to call and pitch us show titles — which was creatively rewarding, but ultimately led to some confusion within the marketplace.
A portfolio of services that diverse made us come off as unfocused to our clients, and I actually started losing focus myself.
After that, a chain reaction of unfortunate events started to unfold. The business started to tank and my worst fear became a reality — our phones stopped ringing. We were hemorrhaging money. I had to let so much of my team go; to a lot of those people I had personally promised a great future. They were like family members.
Then I found myself working really hard for very little money.
What no one tells you about starting a business
The thing about owning a business is that you pay everyone else before you pay yourself. So I went for about a year without a pay-check. Even worse — my partners and I had to sign off our homes just to save our company. It was like a punch in the gut. Needless to say, I was burning out, while at the same time trying to keep a brave face and encouraging what was left of the team to work hard.
I can tell you right now, if you want to start a business, you have to be all in. Every bit of you has to be in.
It takes a certain level of commitment and sacrifice; it requires more than just showing up to a job. You know this industry is cutthroat. If you want to start a business, it’s going to take every skill you’ve ever learned. It’s down to how to talk on the phone, how to run books, all the tools you’ve ever learned.
And you have to realize that when it’s that bad, the best thing to do is to walk away. So I did that. I walked away. I took a break. I returned to the Pacific Northwest to really ponder about what was important to me. I retraced my steps — the right ones, the wrong ones. It was an absolute lesson in self-honesty.
Hush your inner critic
Oh, the inner critic… does anyone here have one? Let me tell you right now: mine is the fucking worst.
The best way to deal with your inner critic is to confront it.
When self-doubt surfaces, don’t demand answers from your inner critic in fear. It will never give you a straight answer. What I learned at that time was I had to trust myself, that I could turn this around; and even deeper, I had to trust my community, trust that my team wouldn’t fail me.
When I was out in the woods in Washington State, I actually met a Native American shaman on the trail. He told me that once you know a trade well, no one can take it away from you. That gave me a ton of confidence when I returned home.
Finding your way
So when I came home, visions for a better business emerged. I got intensively aggressive. We had been talking to architects for about five years or so, and opportunities for collaboration started to occur. We were offered to come up with new experiences in the form of permanent art installations. For the first time we were given the freedom to completely design entire spaces. We started adding our signature futuristic look into corporate projects and big brands that pushed boundaries.
I really believe you get what you give in the world and this body of work has unlocked something new for us. Everything we do is purposely considered.
I’m starting to gain a sense of how liberation works, how dedication and patience bear certain freedoms in life. I’m entering this new exciting space where I can actually expand my vision, my art, and I believe that I am shaping some sort of new reality. However, given all I’ve been through, I really don’t want to take any of this for granted.
Final lessons
Trust your instincts. If you’re like me, you won’t stop until you get what you want. Take a breather from time to time, and your intuition will tell you what you really need. Listen to that, not your critic.
Take risks. I actually believe life is way too short to play it safe and risks are how we gain experience in life. Be fearless. Tell your inner critic to shut the hell up. Get into things you’ve never done before, or that no one has done before, because that is the space where liberation happens and where you get the most reward.
Think big. This is something that I have to tell myself all the time as I’m working on these massive projects. You know, the idea of we have of ourselves can be quite limiting. Exercise pushing yourself beyond what your own mental boundaries contain. And you’ll find endless opportunity, because it’s worth it.
