Insights: 5 Things I've Learned - OK COOL's Jolyon Varley
The importance of being true to yourself, trusting your taste, and why making things is the point, with OK COOL's co-founder.
If you work in the creative industries and have logged into LinkedIn at any point in the last few years, you’ve probably heard of Jolyon Varley.
One of that platform’s most visible figures, and co-founder of OK COOL, arguably the world’s highest-profile social agency, Jolyon has carved out a unique career at the intersection of tech, culture and creativity.
So when I found myself sitting next to him for dinner on the first night of last year’s Kendal Mountain Festival, where we were both scheduled to speak at the following day’s Outdoor Connections event (Kendal’s first attempt at a B2B summit; read my thoughts on that event below), I was intrigued, and curious to meet someone who’d been so visibly successful in my own industry.
We hit it off immediately. And as I watched him at work, especially during his Outdoor Connections panel, I realised Jolyon’s mastery of communicating ideas around tech, culture, and the way they influence each other, wasn’t limited to LinkedIn.
Over the next couple of days, as the festival progressed, we grabbed the odd beer and conversation, including one late-night chat at the Arc’teryx after party, where Jolyon hinted he had some big news coming.
A few weeks later, the news broke. The agency he co-founded with Liz Stone, OK COOL, was being acquired by US giant Residence. It’s the kind of move almost every agency owner aspires to, though few manage to pull it off on their own terms.
Once things had calmed down, I messaged Jolyon to ask if he’d be up for sharing some lessons from his singular and rapid career with my Insights community.
That’s what you’re about to read. There’s plenty in here worth considering when it comes to your own creative and working life. Let me know what you think.
Insights is the Looking Sideways section, exclusively for my paid subscribing community.
It’s an absolute treasure trove of the - well - insights and wisdom imparted by over 250 Looking Sideways guests; as well as from the 25 plus years I’ve been making a living as a journalist, author, podcaster, business owner, mentor and speaker.
It’s where you’ll find exclusive blogs, podcasts, video chats, guest posts and articles all geared towards answering that two fundamental questions:
How can I spend more time doing the things I’m passionate about?
What does a ‘successful’ creative life actually look like?
Here are a few recent Insights articles to whet your appetite:
1. I don’t know much about anything. But I trust my taste
Most of my best decisions arrive quickly and intuitively, from the heart.
My friend once said that when you are wondering whether to trust your brain or your heart, remember that one is the most sophisticated organ in the known universe, and the other is a pump.
Cool. But I’m still going with the pump.
2. The world wants you to conform. Don’t let it
Society has a quiet way of sanding people down. Stand out too much, and you’ll feel it.
I’ve met a lot of flamboyant characters in my life. They’re easy to criticise because eccentricity tends to announce itself.
Big characters can be triggering. But I think it’s less about their behaviour and more about what they reflect back: how free we might feel if we cared less about what others thought.
I used to find these people intimidating. Now, I try to absorb their confidence.
“The less I temper my own energy, enthusiasm and idiosyncrasies, the happier and more aligned I feel. Authenticity is a colossally overused word - but perhaps one of life’s great challenges is to step, fully and unashamedly, into one’s own character”.
Lean into your weird. Find your people. They’ll love you for it, not in spite of it.
3. Who not how
In Who Not How, Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy argue that the key to achieving bigger goals isn’t figuring out how to do everything yourself, but identifying the right who - the person or people who can do it for you.
“The premise is that high achievers waste time and energy trying to learn and execute every task themselves, when delegating to specialists frees them to focus on their highest-value work and unlocks exponentially better results”.
Will Smith once said something to the effect of: “I’m world-class at only a couple of things. And every hour I’m not doing those things, I am doing a disservice to myself and the world.”
I think The Fresh Prince was onto something.
Never outsource what you enjoy. For everything else: WHO not HOW*
*Sadly, this lofty protocol does not apply to domestic drudgery like the washing up.
4. Make your career the thing you love
At 15, I thought all the subcultures my friends and I were into were the coolest things in the world. Skateboarding, graffiti, hip hop, punk, streetwear, DIY publishing...
“What I didn’t have was the conviction, confidence or experience to realise that my taste and fluency in those scenes was the exact currency the world’s most culture-defining brands were buying”.
So I tried a bunch of other stuff: only to come back to those same things, 15 years later.
Happiness, I think, is solving problems you actually care about.
It looks like work to them. It feels like play to me.
5. The secret is not to find the meaning of life, but to use your life to make things that are meaningful to you.
When I look back over my career, some of my most fulfilling creative achievements have been the most frivolous. The ‘inconsequential’ stuff.
Club nights. Zines. Art shows. Things made with friends, or on a shoestring, rather than for big brands, big budgets or big returns.
The Swedish fashion brand Our Legacy has a sign one of their shop doors that reads: “Is one thing better than another?”
A tantalisingly stark proposition.
“There is no win. There is no fail. There is only make.
So, what are you making today?”
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there he is! good to see his name pop up and congrats to him for the aquisition. Enjoyed this one!
What a great read! I guess I haven't spent enough time on LinkedIn to know who Jolyon was before I came across this post, but I'm so glad I do now. The idea about completely trusting yourself, your style/taste/ideas is something people don't talk enough about. It's something that's greater than self-confidence - it's trusting the whole freaking universe that the thing you believe in/are passionate about will work out.