Christian Solorzano [00:05]

Hello, you're listening to Underscore, a podcast by the Chicago Graphic Design Club dedicated to bringing you conversations with Chicago's creative leaders. On this podcast, we'll explore the craft, theory, and practice of graphic design, plus discuss bold ideas that push the boundaries of what's possible and ways in which we can create a more thoughtful and inclusive community. To learn more about us, visit our website at www.chicagographicdesign.club or find us on social media. Special thanks to the Chicago band Eighties Slang for our theme music.

Steven White [00:44]

Dope Life.

Christian Solorzano [00:56]

Hello, I'm your host today, Christian Solorzano, and it's an honor to be speaking with master storyteller and creative Steven White. Steven has facilitated innovation workshops and sessions with military special forces and thousands of corporate executives and business leaders. He runs Seven Studio, a studio that expands minds via space and time through work in arts and Entertainment and Metacognition.

He has a master's in Design Methods from the Institute of Design, and most recently he published his first graphic novel, Ancient Futures, a sci-fi fantasy that tells a story of humankind through the lens of Afro cyberpunk assassins. An epic tale told on multiple levels. A dark global organization waging a war on science, a rogue professor with an unbelievable technology, angels sacrificing heavenly status, and the superdimensional force coming to oppose them. And one dude caught up in it all, just trying to lead a dope life.

Welcome, Steven. I'm very glad that we're having another conversation. I— so you, you— we, we've done 2 events together in the past. Leading up to your most recent novel.

Steven White [02:18]

Yeah, I'm glad to be here too. Great to, great to see you and chat with you again, and really appreciate the support you've given me just from the start. Even you were one of the first I talked to the club, when I was just coming out with Ancient Futures, and you've been very supportive, and I'm a great follower of your work too. So congrats on the podcast, getting it going. I know that took a while. You told me about it.

And it was a seed of an idea.

Christian Solorzano [02:44]

Yeah, I think you were one of the first people that I mentioned it to. So now we're doing this. And look at us. So you're a storyteller and I want to hear about your introductions to storytelling. What were some of the stories that you grew up, that you grew up hearing?

Steven White [03:00]

Yeah, absolutely. Growing up, my parents were very focused on education and my mom was a teacher and a reading specialist. And she would read to me a lot when I was very small. And so I guess it's no surprise that I became like a serious bookworm. I was the kind of kid that, books were drugs, oh, you can't read at the table, or go to— it's past your bedtime, stop reading. And so I was a little nerd.

And Some of the early stories I really feel like shaped me would be J.R.R. Tolkien, the Lord of the Rings, reading that as a child. C.S. Lewis, the Chronicles of Narnia. And those are kind of some of the mainstream names people would know about. But then there's also a slew of science fiction authors I got into from Robert Heinlein to Isaac Asimov, Alan Dean Foster. And just, I was, I just loved the stories of just different worlds and different beings and creatures and adventures.

And I guess it's really the adventure part that drew me. And I became very, a person that lived in my imagination, I think, because of these books and just understanding that, wow, I can go places in my mind that maybe I can never go in my body.

Christian Solorzano [04:34]

Yeah, that's interesting. I like that. And what— and as you were reading these books, did you have early aspirations to one day be a storyteller yourself? Have you always wanted to write and to tell stories?

Steven White [04:50]

Yeah, it's a, it's a good question because I wouldn't say that was my explicit dream of a career. Like when you ask a little kid, what do you want to do? They say, I want to be an astronaut or whatever. But I think my actions kind of told that because I did write as well. And I would write little poems and little short stories that my parents would keep. And I excelled in English and writing. So I always knew I was a good writer.

And I think as I got old, the older I got, I started to think, man, that would just, it would be a cherry on the top of my life if I could evolve into being a writer somehow, but I never kind of dared to say it out loud because I didn't think it was practical. But I always thought, maybe I could do something like that. How about— yeah. So probably— how about you? Did you ever aspire to be an artist when you were young? Or—

Christian Solorzano [05:51]

Yeah, I mean, when I was growing up, I loved music. And I would say, for me, music was it was my gateway into just about everything that I'm doing today. And I grew up as the only child. So my brother was born, so I have one sibling and he was born when I was 11. So everything up until I was 11, it was just always me by myself. I spent a lot of time alone.

So I was consumed by the stereo and cassettes. And the album artwork of these cassettes.

And I remember I just, I used to study these, the little booklets that came in the cassette tapes. I used to open them up and like read line by line. And I didn't know what I was looking at. And it wasn't until I was a teenager that I realized that was graphic design. And that's sort of, I got my first computer when I was, I think, 12. And I think from then on, I just started to create little experiments on like, Photoshop and Illustrator and stuff.

Steven White [07:04]

Yeah, me too. I got my first computer around that age. And I have some pictures of me like rejoicing, that I got a computer. And yeah, I would also, I would actually got more into kind of like coding, like role-playing games.

Like I would play, I wasn't allowed to play Dungeons and Dragons because it was kind of evil, but I could play, I could play science-based ones like More like X-Men, whereas like you're in a future dystopian world and you're a mutant character and you're on an adventure. But I would try to program little games, you go to this door, a or B, yes, no, like real basic programming. But yeah, I think as time went by though, I didn't— I wasn't the coder mentality of today, probably.

Christian Solorzano [07:52]

Yeah. So what, in addition to storytelling and to books and novels, what were some other influences that were shaping you then. I know you're also a musician. You're a drummer?

Steven White [08:06]

Yeah, absolutely. I'm a drummer. Yeah. So that was a big influence on me. And even today, I still, I've been in bands, probably in the last couple of years. So music was really important to me growing up too, like listening to early electronic hip-hop. Prince was— I was a big Prince fan. A Tribe Called Quest, like all that electronic hip hop and stuff. And it's kind of, you don't really know how different things influence, but everything influences each other.

Even now, I'm really interested in science and physics and things. But then I look back to the drum, right? The drum was really the first technology. If you look at ancient cultures, drums vibrations. And any shamanic culture around the world, their rituals have drums in them.

So I don't think that I appreciated the gift of being a drummer early on, having rhythm, playing the drums. But now I kind of see that as integral to kind of my origin story. If I was a supervillain, that would be my superhero. The drums, I think, would be part of my origin story. And then later, I've got a little bit into bass and things like that.

Christian Solorzano [09:25]

Yeah, one of, one of my favorite musicians, Lou Reed, he mentions he was talking about why the drums or why the beat is such a— it's so universal. And to your point, it's just spanned all throughout different cultures and times. And one of his theories is that is because the beat is one of the first things that we experience, and it's our mother's heartbeat when we're in the womb.

And it's so fascinating because if you listen to, if you listen to music, there is, there is a resemblance to that, to that like visceral feeling of listening to someone's heartbeat.

And I don't, I don't know if there's anything you have to say about that, but I know for me, that's what comes to mind now when I listen to drums that really resonate with me is it feels like, you're being— you have this like blanket over you that's like enveloping you and you're just like in this like really sacred space of, I don't know, something so special.

Steven White [10:29]

And yeah, that's a great point. You tie it back to the heartbeat, right? That's the— we, when we were in the— in our mother's womb, we probably, it probably was a world of sound. You had the heartbeat. But then you had the voices outside came in as vibrations. So like you're saying, why do we love going to the music festivals? Why the raves? Why the concerts? Why the loud music? Probably simulates, that early, those early experiences. Where life was so simple. Yes.

Christian Solorzano [11:06]

So today, fast forward from your childhood, what stories are interesting you today? What do you what do you read? You mentioned ancient cultures, science, physics.

Steven White [11:18]

Yeah, I'm really into kind of what they call maybe the new science today. And it's, I think we're in a process of changing our worldview as a culture. And I think that a lot of things that are happening in the world and science and progress kind of are kind of defining that. I'll give you an example of that. I think that consciousness is becoming a lot more important to us.

And I think we're starting to see that a materialist worldview, right, would be someone that says, okay, matter is supreme. And we live in a world that is pre-described. And we exist within it, and the matter is what's supreme. But what we're seeing now is that the recent Nobel Prize was awarded to 3 scientists that proved that the universe isn't real.

And they put in parentheses, locally real, which is basically the same thing. They basically proven through quantum physics that an atom that is split and one is on one side of the universe and the other's on the other side, they have a relationship that can't be explained by information passing at light speed to get to each other. It just exists.

Therefore, they're telling us that the world around us is a manifestation of mind, and that consciousness is more supreme than the matter and the even spacetime that we see around us. So why is that important? If you think about it, it's like when we used to think that the Earth was the center of the universe, right? And what happened when people found out that, oh no, we're actually orbiting around the sun. We're part of a greater system.

And I think that key point of understanding, oh wow, I'm more important than maybe I thought I was, because my consciousness is kind of key to everything that's happening. I think that's kind of exciting. So I'm like, I'm into TED Talks to talk about that. Yeah, Donald Hoffman, the Case Against Reality. I probably shared that with you at some point.

Christian Solorzano [13:39]

Yeah. So how does, how does all this inform a lot of the work that you do? Because Ancient Futures, there's a big underlying theme that discusses a lot of these belief systems. And one of the things that you mentioned on your website is people are losing faith in all the structures, systems, and beliefs and securities, the realities that held them up for so long. So there's a message in your book that there is no reality.

Which is such a difficult thing to comprehend and grasp because I think we grew up in a society that just from a young age, we start, I don't know, attaching ourselves to things and developing our sense of self and our sense of place in this larger context. So to say there's no reality sort of puts everything on— everything upside down.

And it could, it could be— I feel like it's both liberating, but also I don't know, for me, I go into a little sort of like a panic to hear that. So could you tell us a little bit about, just a little bit about this?

Steven White [15:00]

Yeah. And that's a very natural, that's very natural way to think, right? So, and this kind of goes to what I'm talking about is, there's a shift happening in our awareness. But a lot of people, it's a hassle to change your worldview, right? So a lot of people want to stay in the cultural kind of, mainstream. And, but a lot of people aren't happy there, right? You look at, the rise of depression and other things, suicides, you see that, people are looking for something more.

So when I say there is no reality, what I, what I mean is that what you thought was your reality is not, is not really your reality on a couple of levels, right? I just talked about how scientifically the Nobel Peace Prize has shown that this world around us is not real, so to speak, right? You can touch your table. But those atoms are basically empty. So what is, what is structuring, making that structure work? That's our own mind.

That's the power of our own consciousness that creates this great spacetime world around us. So if we know scientifically that reality isn't real, Think about now the reality that you've talked about that the culture has structured for us.

And you look at the great resignation, right, over the last couple years because of the interruption of the pandemic, people had a chance to look at their reality and say, I always thought I had to do this way or I had to work this way and that things had to be this way. But what happens once people had just a little time to think, yeah, right. People quit jobs en masse, people change lifestyle. I used that opportunity to write Ancient Futures.

So, like you started off as a kid, I never thought I might have an opportunity to write, be a writer.

But then reality changed. But I was nursing that all along. So I guess what I'm saying from my viewpoint is, I've seen how in my own life that through visioning where you want to go, through believing in yourself, through placing— not placing too much importance on other people's opinions, all that kind of stuff changes your vibration, can change your reality to maybe go in the direction that you ultimately want to go.

And that's what, again, the times we're in now, a lot of people saw those opportunities and changed their lives a lot in the pandemic. Right. I think you started Chicago, the graphic design club, in a fashion, right? I mean, do you, do you see that dynamic too of how maybe you change? You've done a lot of creative endeavors. Do you see how maybe you've changed your reality to go in to follow your dreams?

Christian Solorzano [18:01]

Yeah, definitely. I think, I mean, most certainly the design club came as a result. So we started in May of 2020. And that was, that was where, if you went outside, you thought that you were gonna die. If you interacted with someone else, you thought that like now you were gonna get COVID and then you're gonna infect someone else.

So it was born out of me alone in my apartment with no human contact and just reflecting on the meaning of community and the meaning of like, how can we leverage design knowledge and wisdom in a way that could inform and shape how we respond to the world? And it happened because there was like, there was nothing else to do.

Like it was, it was either I just sit here and I, and I And I, and I stay frightened by everything that's going on, or I try to do some, something like proactive and create something. And most likely, yeah.

Steven White [19:15]

Yeah. And that's what I, that's what I think we should highlight just for everybody. And that's a great example, right? Just that thought. You were sitting there and just had the thought, what if I could do this? How might, how might we, as we say, yeah. And then fast forward, a year later, you've created something that is out there in the world that's bigger than you.

And that's kind of what I mean when I say, dope your life, change your reality. I really encourage people because you're only gonna be at your best when you're personally satisfied and really charging after something that you want. Yeah, that you really want to do, right? And that's just natural human nature.

Christian Solorzano [20:09]

Yeah. And I understand that you teach people this and I noticed on your website that you talk about altered states metacognition and you mentioned that it's a way to help leaders reflect on their internal and surrounding realities, and that tends to result in new ways of thinking, self-awareness, and human optimization. So you and I are having this conversation right now, and because we know each other, I feel like it's like we already to some extent are able to identify with each, with each other somehow.

But how do you go about teaching this to a business? Or someone that might be a little bit hesitant to disrupt the way that they operate and do things in a new way?

Steven White [20:58]

Yeah, there's a few ways that we go about it. As, I went to the Institute of Design and here in Chicago, and when I came out of that program, it's really a grooming place for people that want to do innovation and make changes. And bring more empathy into how we build the world around us, right? So empathy is a key term. And so there's different things you can teach people to just start to be empathetic to those around them.

And when I say empathetic, that means you're aware of what someone needs, and you're able to communicate with them in that way and potentially lead them, right? So a lot of leaders need these skills. And one way is through just doing a self-assessment of yourself and kind of understanding, okay, I'm creative in this way. There's 4 stages to the creative process. There's clarify, ideate, develop, and implement. And this is according to International Center for Creative Studies out of Buffalo State.

They have a whole program around this called Foresight. And I teach this to companies and actually in the military as well. So imagine if you're a leader in a company or an officer leading a team, you're gonna take an assessment that's gonna show you like what your preference is in that creative process.

You might be an ideator person, you might be an ideator, and those are very special type of people because they're driven by coming up with ideas, but they might be blind to how to implement those ideas or even develop those ideas, right? So if I'm working with you might be good on the ideation side, maybe I'm good on the development side. Right now, our teams are just put together ad hoc. The people you work with, no one really structured that in any way.

But imagine if you could start to be aware of how you build your teams around understanding their unique skills. So that first, the first thing, we teach is the self-assessment part, and then we teach how do you, how do you recognize that in your teams? And then how do you, how do you build teams around that, or at least be, have an awareness to know where your team's, blind spots might be? And that's where human-centered design methods come in.

So after you kind of understand where you're at, we could say, Okay, these are the tools you're gonna need to use, right? So I'll give you an example. If the team is not good in clarifying, okay, we're gonna give the team these checklists and these templates for the type of research that needs to be done before we launch a new communications campaign or before we, whatever your organization is trying to do. So these methods can be taught. I also teach with the LUMA Institute.

And so in those types of workshops, you're learning things like, the creative matrix, how to, alternatives to traditional brainstorming. Traditional brainstorming in companies is pretty weak because it's unstructured. People don't know what to do. Rank and title come in, everyone listens to the boss, those kind of things. But if you can structure the way people think, and this is why designers are notorious for Post-it notes, because we want to make thinking visual. So it's not just your idea in your head.

That was the big thing I had to learn being a design leader is having a great idea is no good if you can't get it out and at least talk about it with somebody.

So I had to learn how to, how to draw and it doesn't have to be perfect, but it's all about getting people to visualize their thinking. So that would be kind of a tool or a skill that you can easily introduce, at a company or at a team. And they start to work in this way, and they start— they'll get— they're going to get better results because they're using frameworks that are known to pull the best information out of people.

And I do these kind of things all the time, right, where I can bring people together. And how do you make those people productive? How do you set the environment to do that? So being a good facilitator is something, that can be taught and learned as well. Yeah. How do you have productive meetings? How do you do workshops? How do you get people together and harness their creative energy?

Christian Solorzano [25:42]

Yeah. So for— so I just started teaching graphic design here in Chicago. And one of the things that I— because I agree with everything that you're saying, and I think Sadly, sometimes I don't see, especially undergrad programs teach some of the, some of these things.

So how do you, I mean, what would be your advice to, let's say someone that is, fresh out of college in their early 20s? And because I mean, a big part of design, a big part of being a creative is being able to articulate and to communicate your ideas.

And to be able to not just communicate your ideas to other people like you, like other designers and other creatives, but to sell your ideas, to pitch your ideas to people that don't speak the same language as you. So how do you, how do you, how do you go about, doing that? And how, and what sort of advice would you give someone that, didn't learn that and that needs to learn that?

Steven White [26:49]

Yeah, and that's a great question because what I see a lot of the younger design students coming up, I think it's key to make a choice about like where, how you want to take your career. And if you want to become a leader and if you want to really be able to have a platform for your ideas, you're gonna need to learn how to, like you just said, they call it design rationale, right? How do you communicate and sell your ideas effectively to other people?

And that's like you're saying, that's not a skill that is encouraged. And even in some of the fine arts programs that I've heard, it's actually more the opposite. It's a really competitive, no empathy type of situations. I've talked to people that have just gone bonkers in fine arts programs, right?

Christian Solorzano [27:48]

Yeah.

Steven White [27:50]

Doesn't have to be that way. So, but the— I think the good advice would be to start to learn facilitation skills.

Right? And start to learn how to make good presentations and communicate your ideas, because that is really part of— that's gonna be part of pushing your work forward. And because it's such a— this idea of facilitating the process, if you can learn that, people are gonna be coming to you more to move projects forward, right? They're saying, okay, well, Christian knows how to get people together, have a productive review session, and get good critiques, and, socialize the ideas.

But I think, and I'll ask you, do you think that part of it is because, maybe people drawn to the arts may tend to be more introverted and may not seek to maybe be in the spotlight as much.

Christian Solorzano [28:51]

I think that's definitely a big part of it. And I'm speaking for myself because I mentioned in previous episodes, but I got into graphic design as a means of self-expression when I was a teenager. So for me, in the beginning, it was all about expressing, the kind of music that I liked and the kind of artists that I like and things like that.

But I think for me, it was very helpful to get early on to get exposure to people that were thinking beyond the visual and that were thinking about everything else that exists outside of, the little design?

Steven White [29:37]

Right.

Christian Solorzano [29:38]

So I think for me, it's like the earlier you could get exposure to people like yourself that tell stories, that are facilitating workshops, that are working with non-designers, for me, that's the— I mean, that's— I know that plays a really big role is getting that exposure. But I do agree, like some people go into design because yeah, because they're creative people.

And I think creative people are sometimes a little bit more— when I say sensitive, I don't mean sensitive in the sense of like your emotions, but they're just more hypersensitive to their surroundings and they're able to pick up on things that perhaps other people might not be able to pick up on, whether it's, patterns on the wall or color or sound. So I think to your point, like you're saying, like some people are ideators, other people might be Facilitators, etc. Right.

Steven White [30:35]

And I want to key in on something you said because that's what drove me to go back to grad school at ID because I came up in the marketing track. And although I got, I was doing like TV commercials and sponsoring big sports events and it was really cool, but ultimately I began to realize that, and this is something we need to watch out for in our line of work, is we're still just solving a communications problem, basically.

And that's not the whole story, right? So I began to be thinking about, well, what about the products that I'm selling? Or what, how are those being developed? Or what's happening after people are using this and what's going on? So I began to want to have a broader view of what I was doing with the work. And that naturally leads you kind of beyond just the communications part or just the design part. But ultimately, that also makes you much better, right?

Christian Solorzano [31:39]

Yeah.

Steven White [31:39]

That you can stand out for that stuff. But if you can expand, then you're going to have much more influence and people will give the work more respect because you also understood the underlying parts. If you're, working in the corporation or something, do you understand the business side?

Christian Solorzano [31:55]

Yeah.

Steven White [31:56]

You can't just hide behind like doing the graphics and the design. The more you understand that, the better you're gonna also be able to deliver on.

Christian Solorzano [32:04]

Yeah, definitely. So one of the things that I, that I, that I really like about you is that you have, you have this business acumen and this awareness of, that side of things, but you also have this other like really creative part. That does storytelling, is a musician. You collaborate with illustrators, like you have, like you're able to integrate the two of them in a way that obviously works really well for you.

So how does— how do those two parts influence each other, if you even consider them two parts? But how do you— what's the relationship between, the creative and then the other not so creative part.

Steven White [32:54]

Yeah, well, to me, and it's interesting you say that, right? The creative part and the not so creative part. And my journey has been to integrate them all.

That's been, that's been me. My life has been, oh, there's this paradox of, hey, maybe what I love to do and would want to do and, oh, and then I have to have a job. As well. I have— where I'm at now, the more I can integrate them, and they— everything, I begin to see my life as one big kind of lump.

And it's not all these different compartmentalizations, because that takes a lot of energy to put on a different, mask or suit for each different thing. So like you're saying, I have business acumen, I've done things in business, but I'm writing, doing really creative things. And I'm unapologetic, I'll sell comics at a business meeting or tell people what I'm doing, and they're buying my t-shirts, right? It just makes me more interesting on the business side. I'm not some boring dude that just does this.

I'm doing other stuff too, right?

Christian Solorzano [34:05]

Yeah.

Steven White [34:05]

But then at the same time, on the business side, I'm working with, rogue professors with crazy technologies, right? Which is what I'm writing about in the comic books, and I'm teaching, I'm working with, special operations soldiers, teaching them to be more creative. And I'm writing about assassins. So it's like, I just found ways to say, you know what, it all feeds, it all feeds into each other. And part of storytelling is seeing your own story.

And you can frame things in your life in a story. Yeah, that's just gonna make everything— I'll say it this way. The process of writing Ancient Futures, for me, it was a cathartic way for me to integrate all the parts of my life.

Right. So when you think about why someone should embark on a creative work that's important to them, because that's going to help them by externalizing your life, and being able to look at it as a story, then you can kind of reframe things and kind of step away from them and begin to see the adventure of it a little bit more. I'll just pause there because I'm kind of ranting a little bit there.

Christian Solorzano [35:22]

No, I like it. So how long did it take for you, or have you always been this? But yeah, what was that journey like? How— at what point do you because for me, I feel like the last— because of the pandemic, what we were talking about, I— one of my personal, I guess, missions or challenges or whatever you want to call it is I'm also trying to do that. And I'm also trying to integrate, the podcast with the Design Club.

And then I try to have that influence the work that I'm doing from my 9 to 5. And it's a lot of trial and error and it's a lot of like, all right, that maybe I shouldn't talk about this during that meeting.

Steven White [36:09]

Yeah, you're right.

Christian Solorzano [36:10]

You're right. Yeah. But for you, like how, at what point did you, did you start to feel comfortable or what was that journey like?

Steven White [36:19]

Yeah, well, I was, and it kind of was set up and I kind of credit my father for this because he was the initial one to put that I'll call it yoke on me. Okay, the yoke of, because he was a military officer, right? So he, it was about, you do a 9 to 5 job to, take care of your needs, and, take care of your family. And then you enjoy your life outside of that.

So when I, when I heard that, I was like, that's not right. So and it, for a lot of years, I resented my dad for that. Oh, he represents the system, all that. But in a way, it was a gift because it was that challenge. Yeah, I spent my whole life trying to prove him wrong.

And so when did I become— so even when I was, working more in corporate America, I had dreadlocks, or I would like just kind of be myself. And I would, I would push the work that way. I'd pick the most daring ad campaign or whatever could push the boundaries. Or, at one point I was working for— I was working for Allstate, actually, I'll say it. And I was proposing that we change the name because being in 50 states wasn't sexy anymore.

So I was always pushing the envelope in that corporate world. And I kind of was kind of known for that. So I was fulfilling the creative part. But like I told you, I got to a point where I was like I'm still just solving communications issues.

How can I kind of take it deeper? So a little bit of being comfortable with yourself and being able to own that is really important. There's a quote I've got from, recently read from Nietzsche, the great philosopher, and I really love it. He said, the individual will always struggle to not be overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely and oftentimes scared. But there is no price too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

Christian Solorzano [38:33]

Wow, I love that. Yeah.

Steven White [38:36]

Yeah. Yeah. So making a sacrifice, whether it's in your reputation, or people think you're weird or whatever, that really is only going to make you better. It's going to make you stronger. And the owning yourself is important too because we make a lot of decisions that are low risk for security reasons, right?

Christian Solorzano [38:58]

Yeah.

Steven White [38:59]

But I always encourage people to go to entrepreneurship or try it, have a side hustle, do the 9 to 5, have a side hustle too. You might surprise yourself, we live in a gig economy now. So it's like more easier than ever to kind of start to own yourself, own your schedule, own your priorities. And even if you feel like you're not in that place, I had a boss when I worked for a big company.

And she would every year, she would write down 3 things that she thought was really cool that she wanted to do. And her challenge was to integrate it into her work. So there's a lot of ways that we can move forward with expressing ourselves and kind of getting our creative mojo going. And as you keep doing that, you start bringing things together. And eventually, I feel like I got to a place where now it's like, yeah, I feel like I do own myself.

I'm kind of charting my own destiny. I, yeah, sure, could things change or whatever, but I'm multifaceted. So if one thing goes down, dial another thing up.

And ultimately the cool thing too is like with Ancient Futures, I see that as being, becoming more and more prevalent, in my work and maybe devoting more and more time to that. And that has spread into other things, right? So I'll give you an example of how pursuing this can go in different directions. I created, when people would read the story, I think even you, when you, one of you were one of the first people to read my draft.

And I appreciate that. But people would say like, oh, the character's really interesting, but, it's kind of hard to keep track of them. So I thought, well, what if I just did like a little card deck, like flashcards?

Christian Solorzano [40:50]

Yeah.

Steven White [40:50]

And then people could have the cards when they are reading the story. But then I thought, what if I could make— because the way I was writing the story was that like a Jungian psychology, right, of everyone in your life represents kind of a projection of your own psyche. So someone might represent your shadow side, that crazy friend that maybe gets you in trouble. That's the shadow. And then you have the anima, something that's enticing you, that's scary, that you need to do.

And then there's the self and the ego. There's all these parts. So I assigned these Jungian aspects or archetypes to each of the characters. And then I said, okay, well, if that's, healthy, it looks like this. If it's not healthy, it looks like this. And the next thing, I had kind of like a tarot card system. And when we would go, we went to Comic-Con, I was able to use those cards and sit down with Boba Fett.

You can go on my Instagram, you can see me talking to crazy people dressed up and actually kind of read their life where they're at. If you have any intuition, putting it with that.

And I had friends on my team that could also do that were intuitive. And we had people crying, I had someone say, hey, this reading, I'm with my boyfriend, I was hoping he was going to propose. Well, there's more to life than the boyfriend. But finding myself like this really connected with people, right? Even more so than the graphic novel immediately. Other people like the style and just want to buy the t-shirts.

And then I'm creating NFTs. And, all these other things. So I'm just kind of showing how what you do grows. Yeah. You've seen this too, right? You had an idea, Chicago Graphic Design Club. Okay. And then look, that's growing in different things. You have a podcast, you're a thing now. People know that. Like we can, I can be out, oh, Chicago Graphic Design. I see, actually I see your people at these events.

Love it. Some of them follow my Instagram and they're like, hey, we're here. I'm like, hey, what's up? I saw you at this, or AIGA or things like that.

Christian Solorzano [42:58]

So that's great. And I think what you're talking about is like, it's all empathy because you're creating your— for one, you're creating a graphic novel, but not in the ordinary sense of it's just like this flat, fixed object. But now you're giving people an opportunity to interact with it and to engage and to identify with the characters. And I think that's— that just takes what you're doing to like a whole different level. It's no longer just pages.

It's now, something that people could integrate into their life. And I just love that.

Steven White [43:32]

I've never heard it quite said that way. I really like that. And one of the things that for me as an artist that I kind of came up with my raison d'être, or I like to ask myself why a lot, right? Why am I doing this? And basically, I create art to connect with the world in new and different ways.

For me, that's just the really simple thing. It's like, you could talk about the role of ego in art, right? And, but it, that is part of it. We want to make a mark on the world. We want to bring forth something and interact with people in that way. And that's just connecting with people. Like in a new way, like you're saying, the graphic novel is just a small part of it. Look at this journey.

That I'm on with it. And then that way, it just permeates all these different parts of your life. And that's the joy of kind of pursuing your creative passion, because then you're kind of living in this world you create. But if you never take the risk to do that, you'll always kind of like get tastes of that or whatever. But, I kind of want to tell people that, yeah, this— I don't want to say the sky's the limit, but it kind of is.

So the universe isn't real, so there is no sky actually.

Christian Solorzano [44:58]

So could you— could you— so for the people that aren't familiar with Ancient Futures, could you give us a little bit, a little bit of a summary around what the story entails, what it's about? The main character, Valentino. Yeah, what's the— yeah, just give us a little premise of—

Steven White [45:17]

Yeah, well, I like to show, not tell. So I'll just give you an excerpt of it just so people can kind of get a vibe of the story. Driving the streets of Chicago in the dead of night is like a meditation for me. Cruise, turn, stop, repeat. Drawing Nazca lines with my headlights, signaling ancient astronauts, land here. I'm back in town to do a job. So that's kind of how the story kind of starts off.

And it's about a guy, his name is Valentino Cruz, and he was an astrophysics student working on a PhD when he's approached by a powerful woman while he's studying in a dive bar. And she's like— he looks her up on Reddit, finds out she's some kind of an assassin connected to this dark global organization. And she says to him, hey, you gonna sit there behind your gyroscopes and astral charts all day, or you want to see the world?

Let's take some bad guys down and get paid, baby. So she recruits him. I'm sure you've been in that position before, Christian. You're just in Starbucks and someone walks up to you and—

Christian Solorzano [46:42]

All the time.

Steven White [46:42]

All the time. I know it's a common trope. But so he gets, he gets lured into this bounty hunter life, and he gets into this complex relationship with this Zora. Her name is Zora, and she rep— she does represent the shadow. His shadow. And as things get complicated, he's asked to kind of participate in a hit on this beautiful scientist that has discovered that the universe isn't real. She's like these Nobel scientists.

And he starts to kind of question what he's doing. And then from there, pandemonium ensues, and he's rocketed into the biggest decision of his life, and he confronts the professor of this rogue technology at the end. And that's kind of the backdrop for Ancient Futures.

Christian Solorzano [47:37]

Yeah, I love it. I will include links to this, in this podcast so that people could take a look at the illustrations, because not only is the story great, but also the illustrations are really beautiful. And you collaborated with the illustrator Aaron McConnell. Yeah.

Steven White [47:54]

Just a shout out to Aaron McConnell, AMCC Art, I believe, on Insta. But you can put his stuff out there. And it was just a great experience of how we started working together during the pandemic. I found him online and we just— a friend introduced me and it was this slow process of getting to know each other and then me introducing this idea to him and him just being patient and listening and us slowly together just creating this world of Ancient Futures.

And now we're working on episode 2. And yeah, and even he tells me, because he's a, he's a professional, artist, so he has a New York Times credit to his name, the graphic illustrated history of beer, he did, and other things. And he says that our process working together is not like how he works with other writers and stuff.

It's more like you're working for Marvel Comics, you get sent this thing, you have this many days, it's like, and we're like watching YouTube videos on stuff and debating astrophysics and ancient cultures. And I'm showing him, the tombs of the pharaohs. But we just have this deep process, and you can see that comes out in the work. This there's this unified kind of voice and visual aesthetic for it.

And again, that's the depth of collaboration I think that we all should want when we're doing our work. And you can get that too, in professional environments. As we know, the better the communication between, the clients, the subject owners, whatever, and the artist or designer, just be more curious, and that's always going to lead to better work.

Christian Solorzano [49:37]

And is there anything you could tell us about the future of Ancient Futures. What's next? What are you working on?

Steven White [49:45]

Yeah, working on episode 2 now. And we have a different kind of development process. And in the first episode, I initially had like an 80-page draft, and I was told on 3 different timelines. And the feedback I got was, wow, this is too complicated. Can't really read this. So I had to take out a lot of stuff for episode 1. And I had to take out a lot of the ancient mysticism part of it. And so that's in episode 2.

I want to get more into kind of the ancient part of Ancient Futures and kind of tell the story of how civilization came to be and all that kind of stuff. And so that's kind of where that's going. We're also going to be launching a line of NFTs. That'll be kind of based on the art and some unique little unlockable content.

I'll also be at Comic-Con, the next Comic-Con I think is coming up in March of '23, and continue to do, different speaking engagements and, teaching engagements. Yeah, so, I'm out there, you'll see me.

Christian Solorzano [50:57]

Great. Well, and I have another question, but you mentioned on your website and we sort of touched on this, but you mentioned people are losing faith in all structures, systems, beliefs, and securities. And my question for you is, how can— like, what could we do to regain our faith? And what does faith even mean? What does faith mean to you?

Steven White [51:23]

Yeah, no, that's great. And when I said that point, Ancient Futures is a product of the pandemic as well, right? So it was written in that chaotic atmosphere in that time of upheaval.

And you can see just progressively, even since the events of 9/11 and other things, the institutions and the religions and the things that we put so much stock in, are, I think, are diminishing in importance and in some ways crumbling. Right? So what can we do to restore faith? I think ultimately, we need to restore faith in ourselves.

This is a story about looking within. And my message would be, trust yourself more, believe in yourself more. And then that will lead you in the right path as far as, sharing that faith with the world. Or putting your trust in certain things. So yeah, so it's more of an inner, inner-directed kind of thing. And this goes back to what we said at the beginning of the podcast. We now know from science, from science, that consciousness is central. So your consciousness, your felt experience is paramount.

So we discount that, right? Because we say, okay, I'm not important. What the Pope says or what my job says about me, that defines me. And what I think I'm trying to say is, let's try to switch that around. Let's start with ourselves and trusting ourselves and believing in ourselves. And that can— that leads you in a lot of different— that'll lead you on an adventurous path. Let's just put it that way.

Christian Solorzano [53:15]

I love that. That's definitely going to be— that's going to be a quote that we use.

Steven White [53:22]

I may want to say it again, but you said I had the option, right?

Christian Solorzano [53:26]

But yeah, so that, that's great. And I look forward to the future of Ancient Futures and everything that you're doing because you're certainly doing so much.

Steven White [53:36]

And I just want to— yeah, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for your support. And yeah, I just love our conversations and every time we talk, it go— it goes somewhere. So I, I'm excited to see what's going to happen next.

Christian Solorzano [53:50]

Yeah. Yeah, I certainly think— I mean, I don't know if you feel this way about everything that you do, but for me, there's a big element of not knowing and just sort of trusting the process and not going into anything with any expectations. But something I always like to mention is just show up and let everything else sort of take care of itself.

And who knows, who knows what will come out of this conversation. And even for the people that are listening, who knows what they'll take away from this.

Steven White [54:27]

Hopefully through comments or emails, we'd love to hear from you. So let us know what you think of the conversation and we'll even do it better next time.

Christian Solorzano [54:38]

So if anyone wants to reach out, if anyone has any questions for you, or if anyone just wants to get a hold of you, what's the best way for people to get in touch with you?

Steven White [54:48]

Yeah, you can just go to hit me up on Instagram DM. You can hit me up at steven@seven.studio, spelled that. And yeah, LinkedIn, I'm everywhere.

Christian Solorzano [55:02]

So yeah. Yeah. And then, and I have one last question. And I've been wanting to, I've actually been wanting to ask you this since we met. But could you tell us the story behind Seven? Your studio is Seven Studio. I know some people refer to you as Seven. Yes. Yeah. Tell us, tell us the story of Seven.

Steven White [55:26]

The best one for last. So, okay. So how did Seven come about? So as you can see, Seven and Steven are somewhat close, right? This was some years ago and this is part of the process of kind of owning yourself. I was on a retreat. A friend of mine's a counselor, and we were reading a book by this author named John Eldredge, and it was called Wild at Heart.

And it was all about kind of like pursuing your passions, a lot of the stuff that we're talking about. Hey, I was thinking about this stuff years ago too, right? And one of the things was, we learned that each of us probably carries a wound from our childhood where maybe we felt like we weren't seen or heard and we were wounded in some ways.

For me in my life, I felt like maybe my— I was such a weird kid that maybe I didn't live up to my dad's expectations, or I wasn't analytical like he was. So therefore I was a failure. And all these kind of things were kind of part of that wound if I had to think about it. And then we did like a— we all went out into the desert. And we kind of had a time of meditation.

And he said, sometimes God or the universe gives you a new name, kind of based on that wound. And when I was meditating, what came to me is all those things that you thought made you different, or weird, are actually what may make you perfect. And you're in the process of perfection. And 7 in numerology is the perfect number. Therefore, you're Seven. That's where it came from.

Christian Solorzano [57:05]

I love it. That's great. I love the story.

Steven White [57:07]

Thank you. Thanks for asking that. I don't get to tell that story often.

Christian Solorzano [57:12]

It's funny because when we did our first events or talk back in 2021, yeah, last year in 2021 someone reached out to me because they had saw— they saw that we were— that we were going to do something together. And they asked me, how do you know Seven? And I was like, what? Is this— what are you talking about? Who are you talking about? And they're like, Seven.

And I'm like, you— like, you must be sending this to the wrong person because I don't know what you're talking about. And they're like, Steven. So yeah.

Steven White [57:49]

Well, it's funny because and then in the years after that, I said, what am I gonna— what am I, Sting? Just gonna go say, hey, I have a new name now. So kind of like I just kept it as my own little message. But then when I started hanging out with more creative people, like in the conscious community, like going to full moon jams and stuff.

When I first got there, they asked me what your name is. And I was like, I felt it was like I came out to them as Seven. So all my bandmates and people like they know me, they know me as Seven. And but for me, naming my business Seven Studio, Right, is just the gradual transformation of acknowledging, that's kind of my artist name, my nom de guerre.

Names are important, and each name we have, tells a whole different side of us. So, but for me, in all the good books, all the fantasy books or sci-fi books, the hero is given a new name. So part of our journey to if not a new name, have a new message or however we want to express it.

Christian Solorzano [58:56]

Yeah, because I remember looking at your— so you launched a new website not too long ago, earlier this year, I believe. And one, I love the brand identity. I think the logo is beautiful.

Steven White [59:11]

Thank you. I have to shout out to Anna Mort, who worked on that, and the process was just incredible.

Christian Solorzano [59:19]

Yeah, I definitely feel like your website does a nice job of housing all the content and everything just feels very appropriate in relation to one another. Like it's a nice little user experience. So thank you.

Steven White [59:37]

And it's really just my life organizing and trying to integrate all these parts of my life because I sit down like, how am I going to do this? It was like, okay, just put it in there and see what happens. So thanks for recognizing that.

Christian Solorzano [59:50]

Awesome. Great. Well, this was, it was, it was fun to talk with you. I can't believe an hour went by so quick.

Steven White [59:56]

We went over, we went overtime. You're gonna have to cut some of this.

Christian Solorzano [60:00]

No, it's fine. But yeah, thank you so much. And I look forward to, yeah, I look forward to continuing to connect with you and hopefully we could do another collaboration soon.

Steven White [60:11]

Absolutely. And thank you for having me on, Christian. Appreciate it. This is going to be a great one. And we'll, next time we'll talk jiu-jitsu.

Christian Solorzano [60:19]

Yes. Awesome. All right, well, we'll talk soon.

Steven White [60:21]

All right, take care.

Christian Solorzano [60:22]

Bye.