We were lucky to catch up with Adam G recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Adam with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?
I definitely get my work ethic from my parents. I grew up in a pretty privileged home but my parents made me work for everything I wanted. There were no free rides. If I wanted a certain toy or book, my parents would make me learn my times tables, etc. If I wanted some trendy-whatever, it was the same. If we weren’t in school we had to get a job. Period.
I hated it. It was annoying. None of my spoiled friends had to do stuff like that but in the end, it taught me the value of working hard for what you want. There’s no other way around it.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
We started TRÜF in ’06 as an antidote to the corporate jobs we held in advertising and marketing for most of our careers. We wanted to run a design studio in a way that made us (and our clients) happy while doing work we love without all the red tape. Although we’ve been fairly successful for many years, something was missing – artfulness.
I always trained to be a fine artist but long story short, I left it behind to pursue a career in New York advertising – and to pay the rent and eat. Basic survival stuff.
Although TRÜF was always focused on creativity first, it still wasn’t fulfilling me. Somehow I needed to scratch the artistic itch within me while also maintaining our core business. So I slowly started to incorporate my illustrations into the mix. Many people told me not to, that it would dilute our offerings and alienate clients. But I had to ignore those voices and listen to my own.
After a few years of really honing my style, it has become a smashing success with many brands incorporating the illustrations into their identities. Not only did we NOT alienate our existing and potential clients, but it seems to have broadened and differentiate us at the same time. So now TRÜF is kind of known for exploring the spaces between design and art and we couldn’t be happier about that. So now we’re more or less doing both design and art and will continue down that road until we come upon a curve that takes us in a different direction.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
1. Work ethic: you have to put in the time, lots of it (many many years), to hone your professional, creative, tactical and interpersonal skills in a service business. I probably work too much, especially early in my career to the detriment of many more important things, but I love what I do so it never seemed like a sacrifice. But now I’m much better at finding balance.
2. Rebellion! When people tell me I can’t do something or something can’t be done, I take it as a challenge and it fires me up to prove them wrong. From professors telling me I wasn’t good enough to “business” people telling me I shouldn’t change my business to be more artful, sometimes you have to raise your middle finger and go your own way no matter what. That being said, I don’t believe in being a rebel without a cause or doing it for no reason other than to be contrarian. That’s no good. But you should listen to your gut as much as you can.
3. Ego: as creatives, we tend to be sensitive about our work since we put a piece of ourselves into everything we do. Our business tends not to be just transactional but often personal. For many years I found myself always angry or crestfallen when a client or boss didn’t get my vision. I was always fighting or arguing for my creative vision and then one day one of my mentors pulled me aside and said “It’s not about you. It’s about them.” And that’s when everything kind of fell into place, realizing that I’m in a service business and I should treat it as such. That’s the short version, it’s obviously more complex, but as soon as I took my ego out of the equation, things went a lot smoother and arguably I was able to create more impact with my work.
So the advice to the youngs: Work your ass off, rebel for the right reasons, and check your ego at the door.
We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
There’s nothing wrong with being well rounded in general. Everyone should be to a certain extent. But I believe it’s better to go all in on our strengths. Our strengths tend to be the things that get us up in the morning, the things we’re inherently good at. And if you’re lucky enough to be inherently good at something, you should put in the work to make yourself great at it.
I learned early on when we started TRÜF that we can’t be everything to everyone. We learned that the hard way by saying yes to all client requests whether we were actually good at them or not. We just wanted to please everyone. But in the end, we ended up doing subpar work that nobody was happy with and it cost us money and clients. Sure, we can do a complex focus group for an important silicon valley company. NOT!
Experts are experts for a reason and I think everyone should aim to be one in whatever category gets them up in the morning. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with learning new skills or upping your game, but it doesn’t necessarily make you more well rounded professionally, it tends to spread you thin. At least it does for me. I like focus.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://trufcreative.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trufcreative/
- Other: Our art print shop: www.messymod.com
