Debbie: Well, I think the biggest mistake that I made was underestimating how long I would do it, and I mean, I hope to be able to do Design Matters for the rest of my life. Tara: Thats fascinating, and very relatable. Go here. Not You can beam some bit-love my way: 197usDS6AsL9wDKxtGM6xaWjmR5ejgqem7. and posts . [10][15], In 2006, she began the blog Brain Pickings as an email sent each week to seven of her friends. Work as hard as you can. [5] As of December 2012, The Guardian was reporting that the blog had "1.2 million readers a month and 3m page views". Lately, I've been working from home quite a bit, since much of what I write about comes from books, reading which requires more concentration than a shared space is conducive to. Maria Popova is the mind behind Brain Pickings, a highly influential and addictive curation of the best content from the web and beyond.Maria reads hundreds of things a day (yes, a day!) Her acclaimed Design Matters podcast has racked up an impressive 264 (and counting) conversations with leading luminaries of contemporary thought. i know debbie millman through maria popova (the one-woman force behind brainpickings.org ), who's been her girlfriend for years. COMMONWEALTH CLUB BOOKSTORE, SAN FRANCISCO, 2021 by Design Matters Media, Inc. Maria reads hundreds of things a day (yes, a day!) Whether youre a reporter on the radio, or youre an entrepreneur trying to tell an effective story about your business. [34] Under the code, the "via" symbol indicates direct discovery, where the "hat tip" symbol indicates an indirect link of discovery. Debbie: Yeah, I do think so. In this audio interview with Debbie Millman, Maria discusses curation, creativity as pattern-recognition, growing up in Bulgaria, and her grandmother following her Google Alerts. Go here. Design Matters with Debbie Millman TED Audio Collective Arts 4.6 1.1K Ratings APR 24, 2023 Carey Lowell Carey Lowell Everything is meticulously tagged and organized, so I can search and cite it later in articles and talks. Not twenty years from now. I quite by accident ended up in the field of branding, and because my background growing up included working in my fathers pharmacy, I had had a relationship with brands almost as early as I could talk and walk, and had spent a tremendous amount of time in his pharmacy, spent a lot of time at the cash register helping him out, and really had this innate understanding of brands and how people shop and why they buy the things that they do. Debbie Millman is the author of six books on design and branding and President . "[27] Popova also seeks out content that has narrative. Tom Bleymaier, founder of a startup in Palo Alto, California, wrote a post on an anonymous Tumblr blog calling Popova out for her actions. Well, I get to do it as part of my job. Tara: I love that. [7], In 2005, while Popova worked at an advertising agency, she noticed that her co-workers were circulating information within the advertising industry around the office for inspiration. Since my day is incredibly structuredit has to be, in order to fit everything in and maintain some semblance of balanceI pre-schedule most of my tweets. 1,460 Followers, 264 Following, 802 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from Mary (@maria_____popova) Debbie: My pleasure, Tara, thank you for having me. Like? Debbie is also an author, educator, and brand strategist. [18][19] Figuring won the 2019 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the Science and Technology category. Not two weeks from now. For seventeen years, it has remained free and ad-free and alive thanks to patronage from readers. I have no staff, no interns, not even an assistant a thoroughly one-woman labor of love that is also my life and my livelihood. maria has been poking me to do debbie's podcast (which is one of the biggest and longest running podcasts in the art universe) for EVER, and we finally finally made the time to do it. Our goal each week is to expose you to something new that you can immediately apply to growing your own business. And so I spend a lot of time doing the things that I love and have been really trying hard over the last three years or so to only do things that I love. Start now. As soon as you begin to treat your stakeholder as a bargaining chip, youre not interested in broadening their intellectual horizons or bettering their life. Read more of it here, then listen to the original recording [here][5]. (It's okay life changes course. My guest this week is Debbie Millman, host of the first and longest running podcast about design, Design Matters. I had very little confidence. Popova describes the period of coming to the U.S. to Hannah Levintova of Mother Jones; in this 2012 interview she states: I didn't immigrate. I'm here on a visa, and I'm not an American citizen. Each week, I deep dive with a thriving entrepreneur on topics like time management, team building, marketing, business models, and mindset. [5] In interview, Popova states that in childhood, one of her grandmothers often read to her from a collection of encyclopedias. If this labor has made your own life more livable in the past year (or the past decade), please consider aiding its sustenance with a one-time or loyal donation. Tracy E. Gilchrist November 14 2019 4:19 PM EST Author and cultural commentator. The How I Work series asks heroes, experts, brilliant, and flat-out productive people to share their shortcuts, workspaces, routines, and more. No. We may earn a commission from links on this page. Where were they born? Often, my guest was in front of me, and so we were both on handsets, and so I dont know if youve ever picked up a landline while somebody else was on the same landline in your vicinity, but you often get an echo, and so thats how I did the show. Is it evergreen in a way that makes it just as interesting in a month or a year? Learn how and when to remove these template messages, Learn how and when to remove this template message, introducing citations to additional sources, "Becoming the Marginalian: After 15 Years, Brain Pickings Reborn", "Fashion & Style: She's Got Some Big Ideas", "Brain Pickings blogger Maria Popova: 'I'm not a big believer in saving' [interview]", "Cultural practices associated to the 1st of March Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Republic of Moldova and Romania", " Brain Pickings ", " : Twitter , [Pass it on: Bulgarian Twitter Star Maria Popova on Curiosity, Creativity and the Media of the Future ]", "Maria Popova: why we need an antidote to the culture of Google", "Abstracting Atlantis: Scientists Find Evidence of Mayan Underwater City", "Nieman Journalism Lab Pushing to the Future of Journalism", "Figuring by Maria Popova review distillation of a lifetime's reading", "The Mind Has a Mind of Its Own: On Maria Popova's "Figuring", "Los Angeles Times Book Prizes Winners Announced", "I'm Maria Popova and this is how I work", "The Brainpickings brouhaha and the problem with affiliate links", "Dear Jonah Lehrer and Maria Popova: Just own up and apologize", "A Code of Conduct for Content Aggregators", "Maria Popova Weaves Together Stories of Human Ingenuity", "Maria Popova - Editor of Brain Pickings", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maria_Popova&oldid=1145694606, Bulgarian expatriates in the United States, Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania alumni, Articles with incomplete citations from December 2019, Articles needing additional references from December 2017, All articles needing additional references, Wikipedia articles in need of updating from December 2019, All Wikipedia articles in need of updating, Wikipedia articles with style issues from May 2021, Articles lacking reliable references from May 2021, BLP articles lacking sources from May 2021, Articles with multiple maintenance issues, Vague or ambiguous geographic scope from December 2019, Articles containing Bulgarian-language text, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2019, All articles with vague or ambiguous time, Vague or ambiguous time from December 2019, Wikipedia articles with style issues from April 2022, Articles needing additional references from December 2019, All articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases, Articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases from December 2019, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 20 March 2023, at 13:32. And now she is my fiance.". The secret, of these and of any life skill, I believe, is practice and stubbornness. I moved to LAwhich I really resented more than anyones ever resented a city in the history of resenting cities. And I went to SUNY-Albany, which was an extraordinary experience for me. Dont compromise and dont waste time. Shes interviewed superstars, and some of my personal heroes, like Malcolm Gladwell, Dan Pink, and Seth Godin. Subscribe to this free midweek pick-me-up for heart, mind, and spirit below it is separate from the standard Sunday digest of new pieces: I work like a gardener, the visionary artist Joan Mir observed in reflecting on his creative process. I finally asked Armin Vitt to help me do that. I do it on the subway, on my bike, at the gym, during flights. CAPTIVATING INTERVIEWS WITH VISIONARIES ACROSS DIVERSE FIELDS. More fine art than commercial art. js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; I if theyre somebody that has published books, I like to read everything that theyve written. That how gardening brings us into intimate contact with the rhythms and relational marvels of nature, with ourselves as humble notes in the rhythm and nodes in the marvel is what artist Debbie Millman, my longtime former partner and now darling friend, explores in this wondrous illustrated love letter to the garden she started with her then-fianc, now-wife Roxane Gay, part of a four-part series for TED, narrated in Debbies own lush and recognizable voice. 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Tara: So we really like to get into the nitty gritty here. I wanted to live in Manhattan. My on-the-job training really was as editor of the arts and features section of the school newspaper, and so when I graduated, and I often joke I have a degree in reading, I my only marketable skill, in order to get a job that had some aspect of creativity to it was doing very traditional old school layout and paste-up, and so and thats how I got a job. Youre also going to learn a lot about the art of the interview. All right, so one more question about the podcast, and then I want to ask you about the class that you have coming up for CreativeLive. combination of the two: poetry. Our theme song was written by Daniel Peterson, who also edited this episode. She has also written for Wired UK, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Nieman Journalism Lab, among others, and is an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow. So he keeps it really snappy, really breezy, takes out all of my mistakes. [citation needed] She states in an interview that she "fell into" the world of bodybuilding during her freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania when her dormitory's resident adviser recommended that she compete in a bodybuilding show, although she no longer competes. On Twitter, Gay thanked her followers for their support in response to the news about her engagement. Pursuit. You prioritize what you want to do in the order you want to do them, and if you dont make the time to do something and say that youre too busy to do it, what it really means is you dont want to do it, and so I often urge my students to be really clear about what they say they can and cant do because of busyness, because if they cant do something because theyre too busy, maybe they should reconsider how much Game of Thrones they want to watch, or what they do while theyre watching Game of Thrones. 52:12. In this audio interview with Debbie Millman, Maria Popova discusses growing up in Bulgaria, the evolution of Brainpicker and inventing the curator's code. Discover how to accelerate your earning as a small business owner with my free class, Revenue Catalyst, at QuietPowerStrategy.com/PPP. And do you guys collaborate on that at all? Where did they where is every place theyve ever worked? That was the only thing I can look back on the journey of my life and say thats the one thing I knew for sure. less, less will be what you undoubtedly deserve. For poet Ross Gay, time spent in the garden is an exercise in supreme attentiveness. Looking back on his life, the great neurologist Oliver Sacks recognized the healing power of gardens as one of only two non-medical interventions that have helped his patients, alongside music. I had very little experience, and just kept sort of going from rejection to rejection, and sort of failure to failure. (Though whether or not I'm actually surviving the email barrage remains an open question!). I listened to the Creative Mornings presentation that you did on their podcast, and you said that if youre not making enough mistakes, youre not taking enough risks. Broadcasting independently for over 15 years, the show is about how incredibly creative people design the arc of their lives. Pursuit. [28] In that blog post, Marco Arment stated that "codifying 'via' links with confusing symbols is solving the wrong problem". [5] Because of the popularity of the emails, Popova felt that there was an "intellectual hunger for that sort of cross-disciplinary curiosity and self-directed learning. Not thirty years from now. Keep up with all things PRINT by subscribing to our weekly email newsletter. Thats a wrap for this weeks episode of Profit. So youre teaching a class here on CreativeLive. CAPTIVATING INTERVIEWS WITH VISIONARIES ACROSS DIVERSE FIELDS. Advocate on your favorite social platforms!Facebook I had really, really goofy ads that ran at different times during the show, but it gave me an opportunity to approach the people that I admired most in the design business and interview them, and essentially, I was given carte blanche via the use of an interview, or the excuse of an interview, to ask all of the questions that I was curious about, and I had a million questions, and so I did the first 100 episodes on Voice America, and then in 2009, the late, great Bill Drenttel, the founder of Design Observer, invited me to bring the show over to Design Observer, with the proviso that I improve the sound quality. [32], This received much media attention from sources such as Reuters and PandoDaily. I probably spend upwards of 10-12 hours preparing for the one hour interview. Complement with this illustrated Victorian encyclopedia of poetic lessons from the garden and a lovely contemporary childrens book about how gardening teaches us to work with unselfish purpose, then savor more of Debbies splendid visual stories and meditations on her Instagram. By Maria Popova "I work like a gardener," the visionary artist Joan Mir observed in reflecting on his creative process. 5 on the New York Times bestseller list upon publication, Popova examines connections between a variety of scientists, writers, and artists, many of them women, and how they created meaning in their lives. She maintains a Twitter account,[21] and a newsletter. In 2012, Popova created The Curator's Code, a project (now suspended) by Popova with input from designer Kelli Anderson. Start now. It came to me while picking beans, the secret of happiness, the bryologist and Native American storyteller Robin Wall Kimmerer wrote in her gorgeous ode to gardening. support for as long as it lasted.) Am I smart enough? Our audio engineer was Kellen Shimizu. Gay and Millman became engaged in November 2019, and made the announcement via Instagram. One of the gifts that I could provide to the students was access to these incredible minds, and what better way for somebody to learn through listening to somebody talk about their life, and to be inspired by their trajectory. The Marginalian has a free Sunday digest of the week's most mind-broadening and heart-lifting reflections spanning art, science, poetry, philosophy, and other tendrils of our search for truth, beauty, meaning, and creative vitality. Headphones. The show actually started out on an internet radio network called Voice America, and it was a little operation that ran out of Arizona, and I believe theyre still in business, but at the time, it was a really fledgling enterprise, and working with them was a little bit like working with Garth and Wayne on Waynes World, but they were really wonderful people. And so I think the students get a tremendous amount out of it. Im Alex Bloomberg, and this is Power Your Podcast with Storytelling. Debbie: Absolutely. And the call came at a time when I really felt like my creative soul was perishing and had just begun to start writing again. As she describes it, Brain Pickings is "your LEGO treasure chest, full of pieces across art, design, science, technology, philosophy, history, politics, psychology, sociology, ecology, anthropology, you-name-itology." ), The Snail with the Right Heart: A True Story, 16 Life-Learnings from 16 Years of The Marginalian, Bloom: The Evolution of Life on Earth and the Birth of Ecology (Joan As Police Woman Sings Emily Dickinson), Trial, Triumph, and the Art of the Possible: The Remarkable Story Behind Beethovens Ode to Joy, Resolutions for a Life Worth Living: Attainable Aspirations Inspired by Great Humans of the Past, Essential Life-Learnings from 14 Years of Brain Pickings, Emily Dickinsons Electric Love Letters to Susan Gilbert, Singularity: Marie Howes Ode to Stephen Hawking, Our Cosmic Belonging, and the Meaning of Home, in a Stunning Animated Short Film, How Kepler Invented Science Fiction and Defended His Mother in a Witchcraft Trial While Revolutionizing Our Understanding of the Universe, Hannah Arendt on Love and How to Live with the Fundamental Fear of Loss, The Cosmic Miracle of Trees: Astronaut Leland Melvin Reads Pablo Nerudas Love Letter to Earths Forests, Rebecca Solnits Lovely Letter to Children About How Books Solace, Empower, and Transform Us, Fixed vs. Growth: The Two Basic Mindsets That Shape Our Lives, In Praise of the Telescopic Perspective: A Reflection on Living Through Turbulent Times, A Stoics Key to Peace of Mind: Seneca on the Antidote to Anxiety, The Courage to Be Yourself: E.E. I actually got cold called from them about doing a show on design and branding, and at the time, I was really honored and thought that they were offering me a job, and what I later came to find out was that actually, they were cold calling me to be a host, which would require my paying them to pay for the production and the air time, but at the time, this was 2004, I had just begun to start doing personal work again after essentially abandoning all my personal work in an effort to build my branding career for the previous 10 years. (TLDR: You're safe there are no nefarious "third parties" lurking on my watch or shedding crumbs of the "cookies" the rest of the internet uses. We add a new episode of Profit. Check out the all NEW Advocate Channel! You can do so on thispage. That is a game-changing answer for me. I use a lot of post-its. And one of my favorite slogans is that busy is a decision. I don't know if you followed the situation in 2007 and 2008? Since 2010, she has resided in Brooklyn, New York. Maria Popova June 2, 2015. Thats amazing and awesome. I will be incorporating that for sure in my own process from now on. PRINT is a member of the Amazon Affiliate program. In more human terms, this means that whenever you buy a book on Amazon from any link on here, I receive a small percentage of its price, which goes straight back into my own colossal biblioexpenses. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Private Policy and Terms of Use. Our theme song was written by Daniel Peterson, who also edited this episode. If youre interviewing somebody, how do you make sure that the interview is engaging, is informative, has moments of emotional resonance? The Highest Paying States for Nurse Practitioners (NPs), debbie millmans spectacular commencement address on courage and the creative life, commencement address on courage and the creative life, the greatest commencement addresses of all time. "[6], She enrolled in a night class to learn web design, took Brain Pickings online, and let the project grow organically.[6]. Debbie Millmanis an American writer, educator, artist, curator, and designer who is best known as the host of the podcast Design Matters. She is the author of seven books; her writing and illustrations have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, Print Magazine, Design Observer and Fast Company; and her artwork has been included at prestigious universities and museums around the world. Can you talk about how the podcast itself has really influenced your branding and design career? Am I good enough? , The Marginalian participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn commissions by linking to Amazon. Cipe pineles. Not thirty years from now. Do you think design thinking has influenced your, you know, the approach that you use to that research or to that preparation for your podcast? Power. It's exquisite, very visual, and much more conducive to making materials organized and manageable than Instapaper, which I used to use. Debbie: No. But moving to New York required just the deep, deep desire to do it, and I had to figure out how to pay my rent, and so I really I felt really bad about myself, and I didnt have any confidence to pursue what I really felt in my heart I wanted to do, which was a combination of art and writing and music and a really creative life. I also wouldn't survive without all my Gmail filters. I think a good interview is like a game of pool. Often, its timeless. as the editorial director at the higher education social network Lore,[when?] I probably have not been as diligent about building the brand, so to speak, as I have in my other work. SHARE YOUR REFLECTION 3 Past Reflections We talk about the 10 to 12 hours she puts into interview prep, how she started with just a phone line back in 2005, and the opportunities that have come her way thanks to the podcast. Debbie: I do not I do not listen to the edited podcast. Favorite Add to Repost. Tara: Fascinating. How to harness youth's centripetal curiosity as a creative force for bettering the world is what Nick Cave himself an insightful reckoner with the art of growing older explores in answering a 13-year-old boy's question about how to live a full, creative, actualized, spiritually rich life in "a world ridden with so much hate, and . And I think all confidence really is, is repeated success at doing something over and over. I gravitate more and more towards historical things that are somewhat obscure and yet timely in their sensibility and message. Not twenty years from now. So the second ten years of my career were building this career. Did they get a graduate degree? The Marginalian has a free Sunday digest of the week's most mind-broadening and heart-lifting reflections spanning art, science, poetry, philosophy, and other tendrils of our search for truth, beauty, meaning, and creative vitality. Thanks for sharing that. Im approaching my 55th birthday, and want to be really clear the older I get to only be doing the things that I truly, truly love, and then its just about joy and doing things with my whole heart. Well, Debbie Millman, thank you so much for talking with me today. Leave me alone with the recipes the life art and. "[22], Popova also has various partnerships with prominent organizations. [10][needs update]. Deliberate differentiation, and how do you stand for something that you believe in. Debbie Millman - writer, designer, educator, artist and podcast connoisseur - has announced the launch of her book entitled Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World' s Most Creative People. I dont take things as seriously as maybe I could or should, just because Im the one doing it, and so I wish that I had taken it a little bit more seriously or taken the effort more seriously, because those hundred episodes dont really sound as good as I would like them to sound. How did they design the arc of their life to date? However, Popova thought creativity was better sparked with exposure to information outside of the industry one was familiar with. "Music, for me, is an enormous trigger of mnemonic associations of time, place, mood, emotion, the smell of fresh-cut grass behind your best friends house when you were 18 and first heard that song. I Maria Popova has helped me, my partner, Maria, has helped me really understand how to better talk about the show online and take the social media aspect of it a lot more seriously, because its a labor of love, and not something that I ever did to, for business purposes or to raise money or to make money. [citation needed] In 2012, she created the "Literary Jukebox", a sub-site where she matches quotes from books with songs. I love doing it, and because its such a privilege, I what I I often say that I dont find the time to do things, I make the time to do things. This stunning anthology includes a foreword by Roxane Gay, an introduction by Tim Ferriss, an afterword by Maria Popova, essays by Steven Heller, Zachary Petit and Debbie Millman and photography from some of the greatest photographers in the world. Featuring creative people from diverse fields. Susan Sontag got a lot of things right. Its one of the things that I feel most important to me, and really helps has helped give me a sense of purpose for being alive. We talked to Maria about how she manages it allfrom the playlists that keep her inspired to the apps that keep her organized. Perhaps what is truly known [27] Popova was featured in 30 under 30 by Forbes as one of the most influential individuals in Media and was listed on The 140 Best Twitter Feeds of 2012 List by Time magazine. Tara: So, you know, you just said that you havent ever done this for business purposes, but at the same time, Im sure the podcast has had a big influence on your career, maybe on opportunities that have come your way. So the show won the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in 2011, which Bill was really, really involved in helping me win, and then last year, iTunes named it one of the top 15 podcasts on iTunes, which was a dream and a miracle. Thats where I have my branding program, and we were first building the studio, and so they incorporated a podcast studio into my space, and so since 2009, I have been recording the show live at my studio at the School of Visual Arts in front of my students, live student audience, sort of like Inside the Actors Studio, and then my guests, when theyre finished with the interview, they come out, and theyre asked questions by my students, which is really, really fun for them, and for the guests, and Ive done I think about 260 or 70 episodes at this point. Lately my talented friend Debbie Millman has been sending me some wonderful custom playlists, so I've been working to those a lot. The Curator's Code is a code of conduct for curators on the web to use. And so for students, and these are my graduate students, although my undergrads can also sit in if they like, they are given access to the journey that the artist, the writer, the designer, the creative soul has created their path. Am I capable enough? And he introduced me to Curtis Fox, who is a producer, and at the time, he was working at the New Yorker and the Poetry Foundation doing their podcasts, and so we started working together. Much of what is published online is content designed to be dead within hours, so I find most of my material offline. Tara: Absolutely. We talked to Maria about how she manages it allfrom the playlists that keep her inspired to the apps that keep her organized. "Debbie Millman has become a singular voice in the world of intimate, enlightening conversations. The blog, renamed to The Marginalian upon its 15th birthday in 2021,[3] features her writing on books, the arts, philosophy, culture, and other subjects.