I think there are many reasons why we think we can't draw and why that becomes a really big creative stumbling block for so many of us.

Number one, I want to disabuse everybody who's listening to this that you need to be able to be artistic to draw. You don't. You don't even need to be creative.

Drawing is not an artistic process, not the way I'm talking about it. Drawing is a thinking process.

And once you get to that point, you realize I don't care if you're drawing looks like the thing that you're trying to draw.

Say to me that you're going to draw a picture of your car. Okay, then I say that doesn't look like a car. That's a terrible drawing.

Look, if I can get the idea that there are two circles that represents wheels and a box sitting on top of them that looks, if it's close enough to a car for me to say that's a car, that's all I care about.

Because what I'm interested in is what is the idea that you're trying to convey, not the specifics of the details of does it look exactly like that?

I'm Sreeni Rao and this is the unmistakable creative podcast where you get a window into the stories and insights of the most innovative and creative minds who started movements, built driving businesses, written best selling books, and created an insanely interesting art.

For more, check out our 500 episode archive at unmistakablecreative.com.

Dan, welcome to the unmistakable creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

My pleasure, Sreeni, thanks for having me.

Yeah, so I have come across your work by way of our Mutual Speakers Bureau and through a number of our Mutual friends.

So I've been familiar with it for quite some time, but it's our chance to really talk for the first time and I've got a chance to dig into your new book.

And I wanted to ask you because you start this book with a dedication to your dad by saying thanks for giving me wings.

I have to ask by, I have to start by asking what did your parents do for a living and what impacted that have on the choices that you've made about your life and your career?

Both my parents were pilots, not professionally initially. Both my parents were federal employees.

My mother worked for the federal aviation administration. She was an air traffic controller and my dad was a forester and then a land management person and then during the Air Force and became a pilot as well.

So Sreeni, it's interesting because in that dedication in particular to my dad for giving me wings.

I have incredibly powerful memories of growing up in Montana, kind of out in the big sky state and learning how to fly.

I mean, literally learning how to fly with my dad sitting in a little sessna, little two seat sessna for hours and hours and hours and hours flying around through good weather and bad weather.

And you do develop a really powerful bond with someone when you're going through this fairly stressful thing, especially with my dad, it was great because he spent most of his career teaching in one way or another and then being able to spend time with him in the plane.

I learned a lot about how is a really, really effective way to explain to someone, especially in a stressful situation, what you really need them to do and why.

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