Keynote: Sympathetic Magic – How to Get Other People to Believe in Your Vision By First Believing in Yourself

00:00:14 Speaker 1 Inspired a million people across the planet, And I'm sure have inspired many of you who are here today in this room. From fabricating furniture from phone books to creating massive Kanye installations like his space program mission to the moon, Mars, and beyond. Through his longstanding collaboration with Nike to create the ultimate shoe for basketball players. Sculpture and to inspire us with all of his handcrafted work. We all know Tom as an amazing artist, But I think underappreciated unless you've been following Tom for some time or perhaps you caught his recent appearance on my podcast, you might get the impression that Tom is just that. 00:01:13 Speaker 1 Actually, much more than his innovative, subversive, successful work. He's actually in the refreshing personal development world that you didn't know was needed. Because to my mind, Tom Friedman's creative act isn't his museum installations ;. It can't be distilled down to a static object. It's actually a way of living. 00:01:44 Speaker 1 Foster creativity, and even more than that, to pursue a meaningful and purposeful life. So today Tom is going to privilege us with his many insights. And so without further ado, let's give a resounding welcome. 00:02:18 Speaker 1 Thank you, Rich, for the kind and generous introduction. So today, I'm going to talk about sympathetic magic :, how to get other people believing in a vision by first believing in yourself. This is me as a little boy. 00:02:50 Speaker 1 Can you see it? Okay, okay. So let's get into that. Um, but this is a shameless plug for my new book called The Nonsensical Guy. And I would say that all these images are in this book, and some of these ideas are in there, But I'm hoping that this talk can be a way of helping you understand um how I did it. So that you can see how you do it. And um if you like. 00:03:20 Speaker 1 To see how some of these methods could be applied to helping you build your world the way you want it today. That's all I'll do. Maybe it's worth talking a little bit about just setting that idea, maybe a couple of things. One is the first word is proximity, which should. 00:03:51 Speaker 1 Um, more like a Buddha or a that will come, or the best example is the next Buddha. When you build a model of your daily arm on your great deal, which is practitioner. You say the religious practitioner helps you to believe that you might heal. You believe you might heal, And you might heal, if you believe that you won't heal and you will not heal. 00:04:30 Speaker 1 They've won one out of four times, so they're mostly losers. But they're just losers less than the next guy. They've won one out of five times; they're in the minority. So three out of five last week's greatest of all time, so still you are mostly a loser. And I think one of the key strategies that I've used is learning to live with deep and consistent disappointment and failure over time. 00:05:00 Speaker 1 Once you kind of come to terms with that, you can really achieve a lot. So, this little guy made this sculpture. 00:05:34 Speaker 1 Consisted in that later in life, my dad gifted me the Olympus one and I bought the Nikon FM2. When I became a professional artist, Not photographer, but a sculptor and photography is an ongoing important part of my process. In fact, today if you go to the ISRU app, you can see Mario's twenty pieces on Zach's photography. You can follow along with us on the channel. Is anyone doing ISRU in here? There's some hands. Oh, so many excellent! Got stickers for it. So, when I left school, I was really into Piet Mondrian, the Dutch De Stijl artist. And I really wanted to get this painting. And I realized that I'd have to go down Wall Street or work for millions of dollars and dedicate my life to the obsession of money in order to afford it. And so instead. No, I didn't feel like that was an authentic use of my time. 00:06:35 Speaker 1 I went to the Museum of Modern Art and I studied this painting. I made a model of it, paint but duct tape. This is our duct tape. I got a bunch of tape on the wall, looking at the back. And I realized that I like spent more time with " B oogie W oogie " the name of this painting than Eli Harburg, Who was the man who sold billions of dollars in real estate to get enough money together to buy this painting to enjoy it later at the Museum of Modern Art. So in a way, I have a greater sense of ownership and possession over. 00:07:08 Speaker 1 And I think this kind of commitment to ideas being important over the physicality of it is a theme that keeps running through the things I've done. I made my own Blue Like Jazz program, so we'll talk about. And I got thirty years living near Canal Street in New York City where you can buy fake Gucci sunglasses. So, was really impressed that you know when you leave your. 00:07:40 Speaker 1 You drive away. You go back for them. If you get the five-dollar ones, You didn't buy money ;. You have to figure out do you own those sunglasses? Or do they own you? I mean, that's virtue to a five-dollar crappy pair of sunglasses—they're still Gucci, they're just not authorized. There is one distinction to make—you know, the Kelly bag is the most. 00:08:11 Speaker 1 Some are going to argue with all of them, or I am sticking to my opinions. And you know, T here is a rule that you don't get a Kelly back before your forty, because where are you going to go from that? Nothing beyond that. And the same with a Porsche nine eleven ; I think shouldn't get out before your forty. There is nothing beyond. Sure, you can get Lamborghini or Ferrari if you want. 00:08:41 Speaker 1 Um, but I think it's not so much about how do I say this. Let's go back. Um, when I made this sculpture, I didn't have enough money to buy one, So I went up to Hermes with my credit card and had a walk on it. And then they had they sell it and return for thirty days. It was never actually a horse; was going to scratch up the heads. It wasn't even nice; it was like green, which is the color that. 00:09:12 Speaker 1 I was committed to returning it. If I was going to buy it, I'd get a flywheel, Which I eventually sold this flywheel on and use the money to buy a guy. And, that's another moment of that magic where I use my obsession to create something. How do I say this? Through the work of making something and realizing every extreme detail, this is flywheel not better. And through the work, the must be consuming something. 00:09:42 Speaker 1 Evolves and morphs, transforms into the love of making, and that's an important transformation because sympathetic magic is something that is transformative. The origin I'll go back to tell you more about the word comes from post World War Two anthropologists, who went to New Guinea and studied with Aboriginal people who were really interested. 00:10:19 Speaker 1 Open that door, freeze the cold inside of the house. Food would come out of them, Or they'd have axes that weren't made of stone, but they were made out of iron, and they could really hold an edge and chop things down. And the local people said, " H ow, do we get these iron axes? And how do we get these boxes of coal?" 00:10:51 Speaker 1 Made runways and they made docks and they made control towers out of wood. And the anthropologists kind of laughed and said, "They're never going to land on these." But sure enough, other anthropologists came to study. They were to land there. Other than to see the runway, the runway itself became the support for the original idea. I guess it's all to say it's never going. 00:11:23 Speaker 1 Fully understanding how it all works. Chanel, eighteen. So, um, uh, This was about nineteen ninety eight. And uh I, guess it's worth bragging that this is in the permanent collection of the Pompidou Center in Paris. But but more. 00:11:54 Speaker 1 People to accept this object that represents two of the greatest. 00:12:23 Speaker 1 Build conviction, And I think it's important that we remember that part of the political agenda is called advertising or propaganda. But in order for it to be successful on my campus, Which is one of the ones that doesn't have our you have to see both sides. And I love. 00:12:58 Speaker 1 Both the same time. Um, and I've had people come and say to me the same day, "I don't know how much you hate fashion," and "I love how much you love fashion." Two separate people within seconds of each other. So, um, that's that's important. So I know my consumers really. 00:13:53 Speaker 1 Means total, So it's another way of saying an environmental work of art or a complete story. Or I like to say, "world building." And in Nazi's world, I compare Le Corbusier to build this model. 00:14:32 Speaker 1 Um, uh, and I was like, who's the more successful artist? Ray or Rocky? Who makes all this disgusting food, but somehow weirdly fed more people and killed fewer people than anyone else in the history of literature or art. Or like Roduse is genius mastermind of steel reinforced concrete, whose ideas were very pure, but then became um corrupted by greedy developers. 00:15:02 Speaker 1 Work is for an exploration, but in the meantime, we have to do some wonderful things. Like I got to go to Unité d'Architecture Marseille and study it. 00:15:33 Speaker 1 The whole world is based around race tracks, little cars, and trucks. We see that in the toy shows and Easy J's. Those are toys. 00:16:03 Speaker 1 It is a good question for those who are listening to this. People, rock your head down for our music. Rock your head down. McDonald's will make you fat. They serve Big Macs, they serve Quarter Pounders. 00:17:26 Speaker 1 That is the young kid. My greed and ambition for physical stuff is not limited to Earth, includes the cosmos. So, My next major philosophical work has was and has been the space program since two thousand seven. We've gone on five major missions to the moon, into Europa, and Mars. 00:17:58 Speaker 1 What can I say? There are a lot of other schmucks who have made their own lamp in their backyard for their high school play or treehouse, But I am the only one who's made it without a central column holding it up. Which means these legs are built the same way that the ones that are on the moon are. And again, It's really my greatest privilege standing here in front of all of you today to stand and take to put people on. 00:18:36 Speaker 1 I wanted to be an astronaut, but once they started building the space program from scratch, I realized that I'd become more like a rocket engineer or a cognitive scientist. We need to talk more about what we're going to do with these people. Get the world for really the end. 00:19:06 Speaker 1 But do this all through "recolage," a French word that means to build or repair with available, limited resources. In aerospace industry, we use the word "kluge" or jury-rigged people, But please " reco lage " because we're trying to engage a culture of France and European sensibility of repairing rather than replace. And I think Americans don't take. 00:19:43 Speaker 1 Origin comes from Starling, but also there is like great honor to it. Next phase program, we go to other worlds. We're going to go there, but we do it through our special effects. We can see this monarch taking. 00:20:58 Speaker 1 Oh. 00:21:35 Speaker 1 But it's worth showing you the special effect of approach. And here, you can see that the camera on this little white ball that Drew arrived, coming down towards the camera. I think you see it on the screen, on that little Sony screen. That screen is then blown up to a large projection screen. And then these are other. The move that great ball does. 00:22:06 Speaker 1 So, We had a meeting with Craig Fain, who got a knock on the door one day at the end of the moon mission. I think it was from the next moon mission. I got a knock on the door and he said, "Hi, I am Craig Fain. " And I work at Jet Propulsion Laboratory and I am a director of solar system exploration for Planet Earth. And Craig invited me to be involved as part of in residence of the entry descent landing. 00:22:39 Speaker 1 Make the paper more authentic. When I asked how it would help me, he said, "Well, you know that gray all over the paper with the moon? There is no air. He can help you repurpose your lunar program to work on Mars by covering that with red dot ink." And so I realized that these like hardcore real rocket science. 00:23:20 Speaker 1 One of the many things that I learned during my time at JPL is that we go to other worlds, not because we've fucked up this one and are looking for a new home, but to better understand our resources here on Earth. And I've done a little bit of outbound missions and to around the Moon, and I've confused myself because I think my place here. 00:23:58 Speaker 1 I think it's really important that we take care of this planet, and we go to the other one. Like, I love that song "Way Down the Moon" by President Michael Chanel. Way down the moon, Because of the protest piece about how we're not taking care of our cities, yet we're spending money on science. But I also believe that we must do. 00:24:30 Speaker 1 I met Buzz Aldrin once and he said, "Yeah, my space program has real spacesuits. If I want to ask him about coming to the station in spacesuits, he said how many more of these spacesuits are real?" 00:25:03 Speaker 1 We make the experience more authentic by having these incredible details. We make it real, and what we do a lot of demonstrations, not a performance; it's a demonstration. There are eight hours long, And Bill is about to hear from our guys who know this guy talking about putting them all together for so many years. And we. It's something very. 00:25:40 Speaker 1 So here. 00:26:15 Speaker 1 You know, viability is impossible. And in eighteen eighty eight, there was this thing called. 00:26:53 Speaker 1 Flash forward now, one hundred years. The Outer Space Treaty of nineteen sixty seven says, "Don't bring moon bugs back to your handmade Earth." So and don't bring. 00:27:36 Speaker 1 The area of painting, poetry, and performance. So, The go and the symbol of our space program is this block because it's on hand. If you go to a place and show up with a shotgun, you do not have round buildings; you are replacing rectangular ones. So, the symbol of our space program of pure is this center block. But really, for me, all of this, whether it's the space program or the keepsake book is an excuse to. Educate myself and become masterful in, in this case, Tea or aerospace or craft or fashion or athletics or any of the world of opportunities. So it'll be sculptures. 00:28:36 Speaker 1 There is a thing. We were saying that it takes five thousand whistling bowls of matcha to make one perfect frothy bowl. But I put a little motor on the shot set in here, so you get about eighty percent right on the first try. In this case, program I need a tea bowl. 00:29:10 Speaker 1 I was a little busy at the space program. I said, "Okay, I didn't know where to begin." And he said, "Well, let me teach you." So I took a class with him. The next thing you know, we started Y and made some more people. 00:29:42 Speaker 1 Many, many, many. I do it every day. That's what I started with. And it's a meditation practice every day. Then I mentioned JPL. Oh, also. 00:30:14 Speaker 1 Most likely, people went up to Japan in two thousand eight. There are some collections there; they're not in city care, but it's something about the end of the night. And also, their porcelain—they're not stoneware or rised with fires—they were made on the same clay. There are some toys and bricks that came out. And we don't usually all catch up. So one of the few things that I've learned. 00:30:44 Speaker 1 Sensors that we use in the studio. I don't know if that was a pretty cool flash, you can buy these and they're about sixty bucks, But that wasn't enough. So I had to go ahead and kind of make my own. Because the thousand sixty bucks was too much for a page sensor, so I don't know. That's like that's damn it. So I've got to make my own from scratch. And, if any of you out there have made your own page sensor or want to, I would highly recommend against not doing it. But if you do this. When you make the world from scratch, you must first. If you want to bake an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. And, this is a tarring saw made out of tungsten hook, nails encapsulated in epoxy resin and fiberglass. That's, the hardest part of tape dispenser is the blade because we want to cut tape without actually cutting into it. So there are all these contradictions: we want the tape to stay on. 00:31:48 Speaker 1 I want to get this. I don't know, maybe it's too personal, but I want you to be in my hand. This is a giant thing that we all continue to do with one hand, but all of these struggles are. 00:32:19 Speaker 1 Using their ability to defeat their opponent, they simply run away. And on their deathbed, they think about the accomplishment. But then they remember that their job is to learn and to teach. It's not important that you go to other worlds, but astronauting is a lifetime commitment, just like teaching is a lifetime commitment. 00:32:49 Speaker 1 Spirituality, sensuality, stuff. Spirituality: climbing the highest mountain, going to another world. Asking the big questions: Are we alone? What happens when we die? That's how I know this is definitely do the same thing. 00:33:18 Speaker 1 Is the materials, the chawan, the tea cistern, the spaceship, camera. They're common to all of those materials that clearly I'm not so much about. I'm not James Paul; I'm a curator who actually makes this stuff. And that's my pleasure or recreation and expertise. But it doesn't mean shit without the rituals without. 00:34:01 Speaker 1 Before I fill out the first page. Five ninety eight, and I did this sort of intro to the new year's e show. I did a drawing of what the future would look like in Paris. And, but all the other kind of controls are actually. She's wearing these. 00:34:31 Speaker 1 I was studying spacesuits. They're kind of like a sock, and then an inner boot, and then an outer boot with a hand. I thought it'd be cool if you could wear shoes over your shoes in bad weather. So I made some design that I needed to make it. And now I use this thing: this is the Mars Yard overshoe, and if you cut this open, you'll see inside is a Mars Yard sneaker, and I made this. 00:35:02 Speaker 1 Rovelli, who is a rocket engineer and scientist at Google, if you Google "Tommaso Rovelli," you'll see his patents for things like entry, descent, and landing apparatus for Mars. And for like deceleration platforms for autonomous cars. He's like the deceleration master of many things. But I named this for him to work in the Mars yard at Cina. 00:35:50 Speaker 1 Also, so there's sneakers here. They're pretty phenomenal. Funding call grants in Washington D C today. I am wearing a general purpose shoe, which is sort of a best practice. So, this really expensive because it's the same airbag material that we use on Mars, And this kind of like a one hundred and ten dollars shoe for the day that you can buy. And when I first started working with Nike fifteen years ago, I wanted to make. 00:36:25 Speaker 1 Now, I don't care if it's a sneaker or a sculpture or a video of painting or a presentation. It's all social games. Recolage is another thing. Even this iPad presentation where I'm able to pinch in and zoom on the fact that this is a knit upper instead of is an opportunity that PowerPoint and Keynote platforms do not provide. It was real pain to get this. 00:37:10 Speaker 1 So, you might ask, like, how do I do all this stuff? There are many strategies. There is another lecture for like how to succeed as an artist. That's maybe some of that in the in the handout guide. But. One of my key strategies is channeling my intuition. And the most important thing that you have to do is learn to truly accept yourself. 00:37:40 Speaker 1 Easier said than done. One strategy that I use is called "output before input," and that means every morning before looking at my phone, I touch type, make one of these job ones, or I write my journal, or I study my new notes. Or not studying them, but i write new notes so that I have access to my subconscious. And you think about it when you take this psychedelic journey; you. 00:38:10 Speaker 1 Temporarily to the use of artificial stimulus, Can go to another dimension. And then this time I can come back and remember some of these experiences. But every day nature provides us with an opportunity to take a psychedelic experience. It ironically challenges us by giving us amnesia right after. But in those few moments between sleep and consciousness, you have an opportunity to. 00:38:40 Speaker 1 Into your subconscious mind, people write their dreams down. That's totally viable, But for me, to do anything creative with my hands or my words or writing before the world email. 00:39:18 Speaker 1 Platform called ISRU, and some of you signed up. If you are interested, you can join us. Two hundred thousand people have done this over four million submissions every day. People do a little drawing or touch clay or build something, or they do ten free throws, or they run out and then they run back. Or Sarah Johnson did this last night at the bookstore ;. They read before bed, all these things that help us to be more human. 00:39:49 Speaker 1 You don't have to worry about it. It's going to be a possibility. I just want to leave some time for questions, But I want to conclude by saying that my strategy is to make the world, not the way it is, but. 00:40:19 Speaker 1 Enable to like get our our be our work into um the best possible museums and collections. ten years ago we did a show here at the Contemporary Austin, one of the Fox Works back then. Um and it was really great that um had an amazing opportunity to meet your people in Austin. And we decided to make a speaker for making sculpture. 00:41:00 Speaker 1 And the intermediate surrounding parts, not an advanced intermediate, But intermediate that there is enough love and appreciation in my own time for it that I have this incredible rewarding experience. And from an external. 00:41:35 Speaker 1 Technology is about time that actually gets that touch of materials. That's what drives the car. And if you don't know what that is for you, your job is finding what that is. So I want to thank you for listening and maybe give a few minutes.