When You Want to Make "Breaking Bad," But Your Work Is Just Breaking. Badly.
This piece was the 100th edition of my fortnightly newsletter, Playing Favorites. Together with my writing, my podcast, membership, and coaching are all dedicated to helping you make things that matter to your career, company, and community. In the newsletter, I talk about storytelling, resonance, craft, and creativity.
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Before the rise of dating apps like Tindr and Bumble, before services like eHarmony, OKCupid, and Match.com, there was another company called Great Expectations.
You'd walk into their office, select a binder full of single people, and begin flipping through a bunch of printed profiles. If someone checked your most important boxes, you'd then ask to watch their video tape, and that's when you'd encounter the work of the one and only... Walter White.
Okay, yes, by "Walter White" I really mean Bryan Cranston.
And, sure, by "Bryan Cranston" I really mean "Bryan, a young aspiring actor and Great Expectations employee in charge of shooting dating testimonials when he'd really rather be starring in a play or a show or a film than interviewing these jabronis."
Long before his role in Breaking Bad as [Jesse Pinkman voice] Mistah Whiiite -- and years before any consistent acting gigs -- the great Bryan Cranston was just a guy in charge of a bunch of bland, predictable customer videos.
The Bryan Cranston you and I know has won six Emmys. He has a Hollywood Walk of Fame star. He's MADE IT. But one of the first things he made was not at all the thing he really aspired to make, the thing he knew he could make ... if only given the chance. He aspired to do more, but he was stuck creating meh.
(This is, as the kids used to say on The Internet: #RelatableContent)
But he needed the gig. It paid for his life. And the gig demanded that he make these customer testimonial videos. That was his situation.
What he did to meet that moment reveals a powerful lesson for all of us.
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Every day at Great Expectations, Cranston would sit in a chair across from a customer with a camera behind one shoulder and a list of questions on his lap, and he'd begin the next interview.
Well, kind of.
He'd chat with the customer, joking around, asking some questions here and there, maybe reflecting back his own stories a bit too. But the entire time, the camera was off. He wouldn't turn it on until he felt the person's essence was real and alive.
Eventually, they'd relax. They'd laugh and, in doing so, transform into their true, best selves. And in that moment, he'd start recording.
Remember, this was on tape. It was pre-digital. He had a finite number of minutes available on said tape with which he could record this person. And forget about the simple-yet-fancy editing we can do today. For Cranston and for those videos, the first moments of actual recorded content would matter, and he knew: it had to be great. It had to be THEM. By waiting until they were laughing and warm and personable, he ensured the first moment potential partners saw from them would be the real person.
So they'd laugh, he'd hit record, and they'd talk for a minute or two more before he'd tell them, "Good. We're done."
"Wait," they'd say to him, "I didn't get to share that I like to do THIS in my life or I work HERE or I'm looking for THIS in a partner."
But Cranston would just smile and reassure them.
"It's not about that. It's about them seeing you as you are most of the time. That's what they want to see. How is this person going to act when I'm sitting across from them drinking coffee?"
Even before he was an accomplished actor, Bryan Cranston was unbelievably successful at his job. And why?
Because he did the job with taste.
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To understand what, precisely, Cranston did that was so magical and so transferable to all our work, we have to understand that nebulous notion: taste.
Taste is defined lots of ways.
From the dictionary:
Critical judgment, discernment, or appreciation
The ability to recognize beauty in something.
Individual preference.
Meh. Sometimes, knowing is different than understanding.
From a couple of dudes who are good at waxing eloquent about meaningful things:
Anticipating what others want before they want it. (Seth Godin)
Deciding whether something is beautiful or not through "disinterested satisfaction." Merely contemplating the thing gives you pleasure. (Immanuel Kant)
And just for good measure, I also turned to Twitter, LinkedIn, and members of the Creator Kitchen. Here are a few responses I liked:
From my call for answers on Twitter:
"Taste is the kind of stuff you like. But it can be hyper specific; so, not just 'podcasts,' but 'women-hosted podcasts.' Not just 'strategy board games,' but 'asymmetrical resource management strategy board games set in space.' Taste helps you decide what you'd like to try out." (Cody Gough, Podcast Growth Strategist, NerdWallet)
"Taste is appreciating the complexity of something. It requires a deeper understanding of what makes something 'good.'" (Leo Guinan, Sr. Software Engineer, Copy.ai)
And one for the funnies: "The thing that people who disagree with you lack." (Nancy Harhut, Cofounder/Chief Creative Officer, HBT Marketing)
From my call for answers on LinkedIn:
"It’s an instinct for what looks or sounds good to a defined audience." (Amanda Natividad, VP Marketing at SparkToro; also a Creator Kitchen member!)
"Taste refers to personal preferences or inclinations. What do you gravitate towards?" (Jaclyn Schiff, Principal at PodReacher)
"A sense for recognizing when another person or group would also agree and resonate with your preference." (Mariya Delano, content marketing consultant)
And last but lightyears from least, members of the Creator Kitchen:
"Taste is the insatiable pursuit of what speaks to you at an emotional or aesthetic level, developed to the point that others start to trust you too." (Mia Quagliarello, Head of Creator Community, Flipboard)
"When other people like what I like and for the right reasons." (Chris Fox, thought leadership consultant)
"Good taste makes you a connoisseur. Lack of taste means, at best, you’re destined for the sea of sameness." (Britney Gardner, freelance content strategist and creator)
"Taste is really an extension or indication of your journey. As you go through life and build out a frame of reference you use to view or engage with the world, that frame becomes your taste." (Dozie Anyaegbunam, host, The Newcomers Podcast)
"What creates the gap between what you’d like to make versus what you are able to make now." (Minnow Park, coach for creators/founders; photographer)
"Your own personal barometer for discerning whether what you see, experience or surround yourself with is in harmony with what brings you joy.” (Carmen Hill, B2B content marketing consultant)
Whew. Okay. That's a lot. A lot of smart and creative thinking from a lot of smart and creative people.
I don't dislike any of these. In fact, most are quite illuminating, while some are even useful. But it all feels very ... big. It feels hard to grasp. Moreso, hard to use proactively in our work. Isn't that the point? If you HAVE taste, how do you USE it? That usage, like all of creativity, unfolds in the daily grind, the minutiae of our work and lives. I don't know about you, but I don't experience life as All The Things in All The Places All at Once. (I believe that's a bootleg film spammers tried to sell me once.)
But "taste," apparently, refers to how you perceive All The Things.
What about this next thing, in this next project, for this next moment? How do we USE our taste? That's what Bryan Cranston did. He was able to rise to the (micro) moment. How can we?
I want to try this definition on for size and see how it fits:
Taste: the ability to decide what the situation needs next to get the result you want.
Oh that's nice and snug. I might wear this right out of this piece, walk around in it awhile.
It's not that a master chef "has taste" in some monolithic sense. It's that they can pick up a spoon, taste the dish, then decide, "More paprika. Pinch of salt. Less heat."
They sample the dish. They sense what's needed. They make it happen.
You perceive. You assess. You adjust.
Over and over and over again.
A chef can't activate their taste without TASTING. Yes, they have a vision for what they want to create, but imagine them simply grabbing the ingredients, tossing them in the pan, and then serving that to a customer without sampling anything? They didn't check the tomato for bruises by looking at it. They didn't ensure the knife was sharp by trying to slice something. They didn't sample the dish before it was served.
They didn't activate or USE their taste.
They'd never do that. They'd sample, assess, adjust.
Taste: the ability to decide what the situation needs next to get the result you want.
What does this dish call for? Is it present? Is it enough? Too much?
Should I buy that shirt? Well, I dunno, I imagine it looking nice on me, but I can't really validate my imagination without trying it on. What's in my head has to meet reality.
Should I define "taste" a certain way or accept someone else's definition? Well, I dunno, I imagine my definition working, but I think maybe I'll sample the ideas of the dictionary, some big thinkers, some valued connections first.
Taste is about tasting. It's not the envisioning so much as the sampling and adjusting of things to match what you're picturing.
It's one thing to have vision. That's using your imagination. But to make your vision reality? You need taste. That's using your senses.
That's what Bryan Cranston did. He knew what the moment called for to get the desired result. He didn't apply one process to everyone. He would sit down and ask a question, then gauge the result. Are they stiff? Are they natural? Somewhere in between? A little paprika, a pinch of salt, less heat. Let them simmer aaaand there we go. They're laughing, they're natural, they're them. Recording ON. Tape DONE.
The dish is ready.
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Taste is what makes me decide I need to add that final line ("The dish is ready"). I wrote it. I read it. It needed something. Ah, yes, a final punchy moment. Maybe "Order up"? Nope, that's not it. Doesn't look right. Feels kinda cheap. Are Cranston's eligible singles fast food in my writing now? What else? Hmm, do I need anything at all? Read it again. Another taste. Yep, I need a final line. "Dinner's served." Better! Go with it. Wait, no, that's implying others will eat these tapes or (worse) the people on them. Maybe? Am I overthinking it? More tasting. Not quite there. Keep tweaking.
"The dish is ready."
(Taste is what also could make YOU decide not to include that line at all. Nor this aside you're reading right now.)
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They say constraints unleash your creativity. I say, maybe, but I think constraints actually activate your TASTE.
For instance, when the makers of the movie Rocky realized they lacked the budget to book Rockefeller Center's iceskating rink for the signature scene in their film, they had to get creative. They chose a rinky-dink little rink in Philly, not NYC, and it became one of the most legendary moments in movie history. Constraints, they say, unleash your creativity. Or maybe, just maybe, they activate the harbinger of your creativity: your taste.
Change the constraints, change the situation. Change the situation, change what the situation calls for next in order to trigger the desired outcome. If you want something spicier, but you don't have fresh chiles, what do you use? Black pepper? Let's try it! A pinch here. Taste it. Maybe! How about chili powder? Canned chiles?
Cranston faced a situation many of us face too. He didn't aspire to make those dating tapes. But unlike many of us, he didn't proceed in a huff. He wasn't bored or mailing it in. He activated his taste. His situation called for both this job (even if it wasn't THE job he wanted) and this task (even it wasn't THE task he wanted). What does this situation called for? What is the desired outcome?
He paused. He considered it. He did it with taste.
Maybe YOU aren't able to create what's in your heart right now for whatever reason. Maybe you'd like to publish beautiful human interest stories but feel stuck shipping basic blog posts for an employer or client.
Maybe you can picture your version of a smash-hit project, but you can't stand the way it feels once you draft it. Your work isn't Breaking Bad. It's just breaking. Badly.
We all have moments of feeling we could contribute so much more, but the path TO that work is paved with tiny moments -- each of which we can meet with taste. The thing is, we don't often hear stories like Cranston's. We aren't often privy to just how much tasting the visionary creator really went through to hone their Taste (with a capital T).
Can the chef really remember how many times they sampled the sauce in their career? How about just tonight? That's not likely to be part of their heroic story when the media covers their ascent. But they know they've done plenty of sampling, adjusting, sampling again. They've learned to sense what the situation calls for NOT because they've received some giant gift ... but because they did the trial-and-error work. They met each micro-moment. Extrapolated out over the long arc of time, and "suddenly," they're more Master Chef than line cook. (Line cooks follow the recipe. Master Chefs can taste what's being assembled and know what the situation calls for -- whether or not it's on the list already.)
Imagine being Bryan Cranston back at that company. Imagine having the narrative in your head that you are going to be a STAR ... then shooting these rinky-dink little videos to help strangers find love or, let's be honest, something a lot less inspiring to support than love. It'd be easy to numb yourself and not care.
Now imagine not only engaging with the work, but innovating. That's what he did.
As my newsletter passes 100 editions and my back-of-the-envelope math tells me I've also passed 1,000 podcast episodes in my career (both my shows + 1:1 coaching/show development clients I've worked with), the only "big" realization I have about taste is about the importance of meeting each small moment.
All we can do is decide to meet that next micro-moment. The only thing that separates us from everyone else is the ability to decide what the situation calls for in order to get a better result. That unfolds in the minutiae. If you do that everywhere, not just the big, attractive, dream-like work, I promise you, you'll succeed. Bit by tiny bit, you'll make things. Perceive them. Assess them. Adjust them.
Over and over and over again.
Whatever you do, do it with taste.