クリエイティブマインドセットの探求
This is ReinaMoto's podcast, The Creative Mindset.
Hi everyone, welcome to The Creative Mindset, a podcast about what the future holds at the
intersection of creativity and technology. I'm ReinaMoto, the founding partner of I&CO,
a global innovation firm based in New York, Tokyo, and Singapore.
On this podcast, we explore the creative mindset of the world's top creative practitioners from
various industries and explore ways for staying relevant in the 21st century.
In addition to the in-depth conversation with each guest on the show, we have a Lightning
Questions segment where we ask each guest to react intuitively to a handful of simple questions on
the spot. It often reveals unexpected truths about them as real human beings just like us.
You'll really enjoy it. So let's get started.
Lightning Questions
During the interview, we dig deep into different topics surrounding creativity.
On the contrary, with this section, we ask the same questions to the guests to react on the spot
and we don't let them see the questions in advance.
I wanted to start with our segment, Lightning Questions, where I ask all of our guests the
same 10 questions and I want you to answer on the spot without thinking too much.
Let's do it.
These are not tricky questions. All right, so let's do this.
If you weren't doing this line of work, this occupation, this profession that you have,
what else would you be doing?
The truth is I did pre-med and so I would probably be a doctor. But luckily, I was smart
enough to leave just in time and be able to do what I really love, which is creative work.
Yeah, yeah. I knew about it. You told me ages ago when you and I used to work together,
but I totally forgot that you were a pre-med.
Yeah.
In 2024, a much more mature, much wiser David Charles Rodriguez yourself,
what else could you see yourself doing if you were to do something else?
That's a great question. I think something around hospitality.
Okay.
Like creating a center where people can come and fulfill their dreams or live creatively.
It is still linked to creativity, but I guess from the other end of the spectrum of it.
Yeah, that's a beautiful answer. I didn't expect.
Question number two. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?
Greece.
Greece?
Yep.
Were you born in Greece?
No, I was born in Massachusetts, but my mother's family is all Greek.
Right.
And my dad's Brazilian. So I'm half Greek, half Brazilian.
Right.
And since I've spent half of my life in Brazil and half in America,
I feel like maybe a third chapter in Greece would be a good idea.
Maybe that's your future.
Maybe.
Possibly. All right. Some are related question. Where is the next place you'd like to travel to?
That I would like or that I'm going to travel to?
That you would like. I know you're traveling to Brazil.
Yeah.
Starting tomorrow, but that you would like.
I would love to go to Portugal. For a strange reason,
it's the only country I haven't visited in all of Europe yet.
Oh, really?
Yeah. For no other reason than it just didn't happen. And I have a lot of friends that move
there now. And I know that it's becoming a really creative hub of Europe. Some say it's
the next Berlin. So it would be a fun time to go.
Especially your linguistic ability, being able to speak Portuguese is a big advantage as well.
Huge advantage.
Yeah. Question number four, your favorite food. What's your favorite food?
I have many answers to that question, but the truth is sushi, really.
Really?
It's actually not even sushi. It's Japanese comfort food.
I love the miso black cods and the miso eggplant.
Yeah.
One of the best meals I ever had in my life, I was at an Airbnb on the countryside of Japan,
about an hour outside of Tokyo. I can't even remember the name of the village.
And the woman who hosted me, she was an organic chef. And one day I told her that I loved miso
クリエイティブなライフスタイル
eggplants. And as a parting gift, she made a seven course meal and every dish was a different
version of eggplant. And it was one of the best meals I've ever had in my life.
You have to trace your memory and find where that place was so that I can make a point of
going there next time that I'm in Japan.
I can find it. I'll send it to you.
Or you and I will go together.
Yeah, that would be the dream.
Okay. What's your favorite time of your day? The morning?
My best, right when I wake up. If the best of my creativity and just of my disposition,
I really, I'm a morning person for sure.
Were you always a morning person or is it a more recent thing?
I think it's something that maybe shifted in my 30s.
Really?
Yeah. I was a night person up until maybe like mid to late 20s and then it shifted.
Oh, wow. Do you have a morning routine?
Yeah. I wake up, I do some Tai Chi exercises, nothing serious, just things I learned.
I did Tai Chi for a year, a couple of years ago. And then I take my vitamins,
make a coffee, and I sit down to write. I dedicate at least an hour to writing
that has nothing to do with work-related things, unless there's an early morning call, of course.
If there's not, I just love to sit down and write and to form ideas, whether it's a project I'm
currently developing or it's an advertising campaign I'm working on, or it's just pure
creative writing. But I always love to get that first hour in because that's when the good stuff
comes. What's the most recent thing that you wrote, say this morning or in the last couple of days?
I've been working on a pitch for a big global advertising campaign right now.
Oh, okay.
And that's been my focus. But honestly, first thing in the morning, that's when the best stuff
comes. So if you're not working on an assignment, whether it's a documentary film or an assignment
like a campaign, what do you write about? If you have nothing work-related, what do you write about?
That's a great question. I have two different answers to that.
Okay.
The first, I'm working on a series. I would love to expand into narrative filmmaking. In fact,
the first thing I ever sold to a streamer was a fictional series a few years ago before I started
doing documentaries. And then I'm trying to reconnect with my origin, my creative origins,
which were graphic novel writing. I've been working on a graphic novel as well that's
centered around the Amazon and has to do with supernatural forces that are trying to fight
climate change. So that's the things I've been doing. I want to call them a hobby, but creatively
for fun. And then I also have this art project where I write these stream of conscious sentences
and I do art shows around them maybe every couple of years. So next year, I'll probably plan one.
Yeah. Those are mini like short poses. And I remember you used to, or maybe used to do,
post those to Instagram and your social media, right?
Yeah. Yeah. That's how it started. And then it got traction and then I got invited to do
art exhibits. This year I've had a lot of film releases. So I just shifted to focus on that,
but I'm going to get back into it. And next year, hopefully I'll have a next show. Before
the pandemic, I had a show scheduled in Tokyo. Oh, did you? And it closed. Yeah. Unfortunately,
it closed. The gallery closed during the pandemic and I wasn't able to do it.
But that's something I would love to do. There's a lot of love from there for that work.
What's your favorite song or type of music?
It varies. I like to say I like all kinds of music that is good or all kinds of good music.
Okay. My all time favorite band is New Order.
Oh, wow. I think any New Order song would be a favorite of mine.
Yeah. That's a great answer. And being the generation that I am, I can definitely sympathize.
My generation is slightly younger like you. A lot of us were into New Order.
Okay. What was the biggest turning point in your life?
人生の重要な瞬間
I think I've had a few, Ray. The first big turning point was when I was eight years old.
I moved from this very comfortable suburban town in Massachusetts to a chaotic big city in Brazil.
And almost not overnight, but in the first year, my dad basically lost everything in his business
and our lives just shifted. And although it sounds like a really hard thing and it definitely wasn't
easy, it was also a great thing that happened because it taught me so many different skills
and ways of being and existing in the world. But it showed me both universes, right? And I feel like
everyone that has lived and experienced different countries and cultures, it doesn't have to just
be different social statuses, but I feel there's a power in that of knowing what the other side
looks like. So that was a big moment. And then a second big moment was when I was about 23 when I
lost my mother. And not to get too dramatic, but at the same time that it was the worst thing that's
ever happened to me, that was also the most liberating because after that, I was like,
the worst thing has happened. Nothing can phase me from now on. And I've lived life. I've really
made a lot of choices in my life, following my instincts and my passion and my love. And I
attribute a lot of that license to that moment in time. Okay. Just to dig slightly deeper into both
of those topics by May, the first topic that you talked about when your father lost his job,
was that in Brazil? It was in Brazil. Yeah. So what happened in Brazil? So we moved there in 89.
And it was a business that basically we moved there because he opened this import export of
semi-precious gems. So like crystals and emeralds, and he would polish them and export them back to
America. So he had this, and it was a really promising business, except that in 89 or 90,
I think it was in 90, Brazil was just coming out of its dictatorship. So it had an early stage
democracy. And its first or second president did this thing where he froze everyone's savings. So
imagine overnight, everything in your bank account is frozen and you can't use your money. And you
don't know if you're going to get it back. And that was basically, he was starting a business and
all of his capital to, to get it off the ground was frozen. And then the business just collapsed
and that money basically got pulverized by inflation. His life savings that he acquired
by in America, he had pizza places and he sold all of it. And we went there in a pretty good
position, but the government just confiscated all of it. Wow. It was really, if you really think
about it, it's insane. Yeah. And I'm like nine years old. So I didn't really understand fully
what was going on. That is crazy. How does that show up now or later in your life, in your adulthood,
that kind of impact? Yeah. I think it shows up in my work ethic. I'm not too good for anything.
I'm really grateful for all the opportunities I have. I'm very disciplined in how I work.
Although some of my work may be artful and I'm out there creatively, but the way I work is very
disciplined, I think, and how I relate to all different kinds of people. I think it's very
helpful both in advertising and in documentary filmmaking where it's all behavioral study.
Like advertising is about understanding the audience and understanding consumer behavior
and documentaries is about understanding human behavior at a maybe broader level. But both of
those, when you're thrown into this economical tornado, you learn how to think on your feet and
adapt to any circumstance. And I think that ability to adapt has really helped me and pushed me this
far. Later, slightly later in your life when you were 23, you said that you lost your mother and
that's such a hard thing to go through just to lose such a close family member. But you said
that it liberated you. Can you expand on what you mean by that? Yeah, absolutely. First off,
自己成長と適応力
she had cancer for 10 years. So from like 13, 14 until it was a slow, it was a long journey
and a difficult journey, but a journey full of lessons as well and good moments too. It was
liberating in the sense that I, for some reason, felt that would be the worst thing that would
ever happen to me. And after that, I felt like I could do anything because I had nothing to lose.
Not in a irresponsible sense, just more in a, I'm gonna go live my dreams. And a year or less
than a year after, that's when I was already working in advertising in Brazil. I had been
working for three or four years, but that's when I finally decided to make the jump and come back
to the States and work in San Francisco and ultimately working with you at AKQA. Yes, yes.
Yeah. Okay. Next question. This may be related to what you just talked about,
but how do you switch your mind when you're feeling down? That's a very good question too.
I love to walk, honestly. Walking and playing some great music is really the quickest remedy
to when I'm feeling down. If that doesn't work, then I will walk into a random movie theater
and hopefully it's a good movie and that really shifts my vibe in a great way. And I feel like
that's a big part of my connection with filmmaking is how it's made me feel and how it's helped me
get through difficult times in my life. And that's really my deeper connection to it,
into storytelling as a whole. But those are the two ways. Yeah. Next question. What's your
superpower? I think my superpower is really the ability to adapt and to take on the most
varied projects and subject matters and challenges and people and personalities
and be able to understand where they're at instead of having the situation adapt to me.
Yeah. It's adapting to that situation. Yeah, yeah. Quite honestly. And I don't know,
I guess I'm just being real and honest. I learned a lot of that from you. Oh, okay. That's a surprise.
Yeah. And not to sound biased and I'm very open and honest about this. You were one of the best
bosses I had. Thank you. No, because you really knew how to understand what that person did best
and you gave them those opportunities. Thank you. And I feel like that has become,
maybe not a superpower of mine, but it's become a very important trait in my own work. And that's
helped me make some incredible things I wouldn't be able to make on my own. It's through collaborating
with other people. So I guess this is a long winded answer. I guess the superpower is really
the ability to collaborate. Give me an example of how you adapt it. Yeah. Yes. A stark example
was moving, being an advertising copywriter in Brazil and then all of a sudden moving to America.
Although I was born in America, most of my formative years were in Brazil. So I didn't
really have the culture and the ability to adapt quickly to that culture and to that mindset into
that style of writing was a great example. Or another example, when I made Gay Chorus Deep South,
which is a documentary film I did with Airbnb. It's about 300 gay men from the San Francisco
chorus going to the Deep South, identify a straight. I've never sang in a chorus and I had
never been really to the South that much up until then, but I was able to really immerse myself in
their minds, in their worlds, in both worlds, right? Both the choruses and the Southerners
and be able to understand where they're coming from and becoming this bridge
that brought them together. So I feel like in every circumstances like that,
this new show I have on Apple Omnivore, you're literally thrown in all of a sudden you're in a
banana sanctuary in the Southern tip of India with a father and a son that they raise 500
different types of bananas. They don't speak a word in English and you have to create
a connection with them and you have to get, you have like only a few days. We shot that,
I think we had three to five, four shoot days for that part of the episode and you have to just
ライトニング質問セグメント
connect that. And when doing advertising, it's even quicker. You mainly have a day. Yeah,
just trying to be quick at getting them. Yeah. So that was the lightning questions.
Hope you enjoyed this segment as much as I did. If you're listening to this on Spotify,
there's a Q&A field. So please do send us your questions and comments.
And if you like our podcast, please leave us a five-star rating. We'll be so grateful.
I'm Ray Nomoto and this is The Create Mindset. See you next time.
