I don’t think I’ve ever had a guest who checks off more of our manifesto principles than David Peck. The riskiest thing you can do is play it safe. There’s more than one right way. Don’t expect a linear path. Constraints are opportunities. Make your mark now. He’s lived every one of those, and in our conversation, I asked him how. David is a fashion designer — Taylor Swift launched a campaign wearing his work — and the host of the podcast Inside the Design Studio. He’s also the chair of the board of the Paris College of Art, and, as of November 11, an author. His first book, Artful, lays out a method he calls ART (Assemble, Refine, Try) for designing a life that actually reflects who you are.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a guest who checks off more of our manifesto principles than David Peck. The riskiest thing you can do is play it safe. There’s more than one right way. Don’t expect a linear path. Constraints are opportunities. Make your mark now. He’s lived every one of those, and in our conversation, I asked him how.
David is a fashion designer — Taylor Swift launched a campaign wearing his work — and the host of the podcast Inside the Design Studio. He’s also the chair of the board of the Paris College of Art, and, as of November 11, an author. His first book, Artful, lays out a method he calls ART (Assemble, Refine, Try) for designing a life that actually reflects who you are.
I wanted to talk to him about his belief in edits over overhauls, because I blew my own life up to get where I am, and I was curious whether there’s a gentler way. David had his own drama on the way to his current wisdom: he grew up in an Independent Fundamental Baptist household so strict that Southern Baptists seemed liberal by comparison. He became a classical music major he never meant to be. And even without a formal art education, David was named designer of the year at Parsons Paris with a senior thesis built from Photoshop collages – something that had never been done before.
The part that hit me hardest, though, was hearing how Artful actually came together. David didn’t sit down and decide to write a book. He started a TikTok nobody was watching just to give himself permission to say things out loud. Then a podcast. Then a lead magnet about his annual “word of the year” practice, which I downloaded myself two days before we recorded this. And somewhere in assembling all of that, the book found him. It’s basically proof that you don’t need the big idea upfront. You need to start putting the small ideas somewhere.
Takeaways
Resources and links
Our coach:
Macy Robison: https://macyrobison.com/
Tricia Rose Burt (00:22) Welcome to No Time to Be Timid, where we help artists and entrepreneurs make their mark now. You know all those voices in your head that tell you that you can't? We're the voice in your head that tells you that you can. I'm Tricia Rose Burt. I'm the host of the podcast. And my guest today is David Peck. He's a fashion designer, and not just any fashion designer. Taylor Swift has actually worn his designs. There you go.
He's a speaker, he's the host of the podcast Inside the Design Studio, and he's an author. When David was eleven, he knew he wanted to live in Paris, and he always knew that he wanted to be a writer. He's done both. Not only has he trained and lived in Paris, he's the chair of the board of the Paris College of Art. And he leads intimate groups of people through the Paris that he loves. And as far as writing?
His first book comes out on November 11 and it's called Artful. In it, he helps guide people to really designing the life that they love using a method he's designed called ART, which is Assemble, Refine, Try, a process and a framework he's been using his entire life. It's worked for him, it'll work for you. Sit back and enjoy this fantastic conversation with David Peck.
Good morning, David. We're so glad that you're here. Thank you for joining us.
David Peck (01:49) Thank you for having me. I'm excited to see you in a whole 'nother context.
Tricia Rose Burt (01:52) I know, I know. Okay, so I've been researching you.
David Peck (01:57) Sorry.
Tricia Rose Burt (02:09) I mean, the name of the podcast is No Time to Be Timid. It's based on a manifesto. So far, you have checked off at least five of them. So you're about to be the poster boy of the manifesto, with "the riskiest thing you can do is play it safe," "there's more than one right way," "don't expect a linear path," "constraints are opportunities," "make your mark now." You just keep doing it, man. "courage and community." We could throw that one in too. So I want to say thank you for being the embodiment. You are overachieving, that's why we connect. I can recognize one when I see one.
David Peck (02:25) Yeah, it’s my Capricorn energy.
Tricia Rose Burt (02:35) Well, what I, I wanna start with the whole thing around "don't expect a linear path." Because I enjoy, I really like to have guests on the show who have ended up in a place where they did not start. And what I love that you say over and over again, and because you have done it very differently than I have done it, it being constructing a life,
you say you don't have to blow up your life. "Edits, not overhauls," which I love and I wanna explore 'cause I blew mine up and there was probably a gentler way to do it. Do you wanna comment on that really quickly?
David Peck (03:13) Well, maybe edits over overhauls is what I've come to with age and wisdom, and I'm sure
Tricia Rose Burt (03:19) So we get some blow up along the way.
David Peck (03:23) I'm sure I've blown, I've blown many things up and, like, probably the people around me are like, "What the—" Yeah. So no, but I think as a designer, I think as my day job, one of the things that I've come to realize is that so many of the best designs, they happen over time. It's an evolutionary process, and it doesn't always happen with something either blowing up because you did it or life did it to you, though that can be very true. But creating small, intentional edits is one of the ways that we can design a life that really reflects us. And I think just based on my personality is kind of how I've made a 180 from maybe the way I grew up to the way I look at the world now.
Tricia Rose Burt (04:07) So okay, give me, I want a snapshot of the way you grew up and the beginning of this very nonlinear path that has you in front of us.
David Peck (04:18) Okay, so to give people, I think, the best context, 'cause I like to relate everything to pop culture, if you've watched the documentary series Shiny Happy People on Prime, the Duggar family, the whole kind of the fallout after what happened with the Duggar family.
Tricia Rose Burt (04:34) Yeah, you're gonna tell me what that is, 'cause I don't know this.
David Peck (04:36) You don't know this. Okay. So it was a family that was on TLC. They had a lot of kids, and people were fascinated by them. And then come to find out, like, there was a lot of scandals. The kids had been arrested, for it's, it's just like all kinds of really crazy things. But it brought out this movement that they were part of called the Institute of Basic Life Principles, which is this guy named Bill Gothard. He was this sort of, for lack of a better word, a fundamentalist guru that people followed. Well, I grew up, like, going to those seminars and all of that. But my grandfather was an independent fundamental Baptist preacher. Yeah. So a lot of people are familiar with, like, the Southern Baptists, and they think they're pretty conservative and whatever. I was Independent Fundamental Baptist. So we thought the Southern Baptists were our very, very liberal cousins. Like, they were off the deep end and they were probably not going to heaven and did not read the right Bible. Like, I grew up only reading the King James Version, 1611 King James Version of the Bible. Right. So it was a very prescribed, limited view of not only religion, but Christianity, because the Independent Fundamental Baptist church is very much in the name, like, independent. So each church is its own little, like, private island. And so they're not connected to a larger religious organization. They'll have conferences and
Tricia Rose Burt (05:42) Okay. All right.
David Peck (06:03) things, but each pastor was basically in charge of their own church. And so you get all kinds of things. And a lot of what I see now in the rise of Christian nationalism and what's going on politically in the world is a result of that thinking. And it's sort of like extreme evangelical thinking.
Tricia Rose Burt (06:24) Yeah, yeah. And so how did you find your way out of that particular—
David Peck (06:30) It wasn't, it wasn't a linear path for sure. And, you know, it was one of those things, like, I grew up reading. I think the thing that brought me out of all of that and caused me to think differently was reading, and movies and television. Well, and actually, we weren't allowed to dance — I mean, you think Footloose, so, like, we weren't allowed to dance, we didn't go to movies. But I was able to watch old movies on TV. So anything before 1950 was sort of fair game, even though a lot of—
Because, you know, there's a lot of innuendo in those movies. But I watched all of those, and I read everything I could get my hands on. And so, very quickly — you know, speaking of being an overachiever — going to the library, I very quickly went past the children's section and started just reading all of the adult books. Yeah. Not those kinds of adult books, but the grown-up books.
Tricia Rose Burt (07:20) I gotcha. The grown-up books.
David Peck (07:24) That exposed me to a lot of different ideas. And at the time, I was still very, very much in the mindset of the way I was raised, because I wanted to be the good kid. I never wanted to be rebellious. Like, I was always very good. And it got to be a certain point where I had constructed this life because I was always doing the right thing. And I got myself into being a music major when I never intended to be a music major.
Tricia Rose Burt (07:47) Okay, stop right there. How did that happen? Yeah. How did you end up becoming a music major when you never intended to? Because this is speaking to my soul. I mean, I ended up doing — how did I end up doing this? So I wanna know, did you just slide, like, I made my first decision when I was thirty. So when did you — I mean, a real decision that was mine when I was thirty. So how did you slide into that?
David Peck (08:07) So, I grew up in New Mexico and Colorado. We moved to Ohio my senior year of high school. And I had started playing cello when I was about twelve, almost thirteen, which is very late to start playing a classical instrument. Most people start when they're like three and they're like Suzuki prodigies, and I was not. But I was looking for a cello teacher, and we found this cello teacher who said, "I'm not taking private students, but if you come play for this university, then I bet they would give you a scholarship and I can teach you." And we had moved there my senior year of high school, and my parents didn't want me to move out of state. I had really intended to go to Boston University to study English and graphic design. I thought I was gonna either be a journalist or go into advertising. And so I was like, "Sure, I can go to this school and, you know, get a scholarship and get my basics out of the way and then I'll move to Boston." And it was one of those things wher there was this idea of like, you could really serve the Lord if you were a music major and you could be in a church or whatever. And I never wanted to be a worship leader or anything like that. But it was sort of like music was an acceptable performance vehicle, if you may. Especially classical music. And so I was like, "I'm gonna give it a go." And being the overachiever that I am, I'm like, "I'm gonna put my all into it. I'm not gonna just half-ass this thing."
So I did, and I really enjoyed it. Like, I was like, "Okay, maybe this is something," and I progressed really quickly and got a lot of good feedback. I spent two summers at Aspen Music Festival, which was fantastic. But by the time I got to my junior year, I realized I don't think I'm cut out for this. And I asked my music teacher in Aspen, I said, "Okay, realistically, what am I looking at in terms of a career if I continue down this path," and I go study with you — he was at Ohio University, and I was thinking about going to get my master's with him there. And he was like, "Well, if you study really, really hard for the next ten years, then I think you could get into a really good regional orchestra and teach at a college." And I was like, "Absolutely not. This is not — this is not what is happening." I didn't want to live in a regional-orchestra place in America. No, knock to those who do it, but I knew that was not me.
David Peck (10:20) I had really wanted to study abroad, actually, with my first degree, and it was just not an option with being a music major. There were no options to study abroad. And so I desperately actually tried to quit being a music major. I applied to every school in Boston. I got accepted — well, not MIT and Harvard, I didn't apply to those — but all the other schools I applied to, I got into, except for Boston University, the school I really, really wanted to go to. This is pre-internet days, they messed up my application and sent me the wrong transcript, whatever. And they didn't get my transcripts in time. And they're like, "Well, you could come next year." I was like, "No, this is a sign from the universe, God, whatever, that this is not meant to be." And so I decided to finish my music degree, did it, and then I quit playing cello for three months and said, "If I miss it in three months, then I'll know that I need to go back to it and do it. And if I don't miss it, then I'm done." I didn't miss it after three months.
Tricia Rose Burt (11:19) Okay.
David Peck (11:20) Yeah. But in the meantime, I had been working at Ralph Lauren. I'd started in sales, and they liked how I folded sweaters, and they asked if I wanted to be in visual merchandising, and I was like, "Sure." So I ended up designing windows for Ralph Lauren in Ohio.
Tricia Rose Burt (11:33) In what city in Ohio? We're in Ohio — okay. All right.
David Peck (11:35) Just outside of Cleveland. Yeah. So I lived in Cleveland. I lived in Little Italy in Cleveland. Actually, Cleveland is having, thanks to Taylor Swift, a renaissance. Yeah, and Travis Kelce. I lived in that neighborhood, like, where Travis Kelce grew up.
Tricia Rose Burt (11:51) There you go.
David Peck (12:03) So, I know, my claim to fame now is that I lived in Travis Kelce's neighborhood. Yeah. So, actually my voice teacher at Cleveland State University, where I was — her best friend was an art teacher at a community college and said, "I think you should meet Jackie and she can help you." And she did. She had been at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn for years, was this amazing teacher, helped me get a portfolio together. I'd never taken an art class — because I should say, I was also homeschooled. Okay. That's a whole other thing growing up, there are layers. Like, the more I talk about it, the more I remember other things.
Everything that's in the culture right now in terms of, like or I don't know, scandal, or alternative ways of looking at the world, I probably grew up in it. So, yeah, she helped me put a portfolio together. I'd never taken an art class, and I applied to Parsons Paris and got accepted, and I moved to Paris.
Tricia Rose Burt (12:56) So, was the pushback from your parents significant, or was it, at this point, "I'm outta here, I'm doing my own thing"?
David Peck (13:06) They didn't believe me. When I said I was moving to Paris, they're like, "No, you're not." And I was like, "Yeah, I am." And they're like, "Well, we're not gonna support you." And I was like, "That's okay, I'm just gonna do it." Like, I'd already done all this. Like, I felt like at that point I had been the good kid for so long. I had done everything I thought I was supposed to do, and I had worked so hard. Like, I was taking like twenty-four credit hours a semester and working a full-time job and practicing six to eight hours a day. I don't know how I did it.
But I was a really, really good kid, and I was like, "I'm gonna do something that I really wanna do." And I had told my mom when I was eleven I was gonna move to Paris, and she was like, "No, you're not," and I was like, "Yeah, I am." And so when the opportunity to go to Parsons Paris came up, I was like, "That's it." Yeah. They very quickly did come around, and my parents have been nothing but supportive since then. But I think I probably still boggle their mind.
But they were like, "What is this that you're doing?" I mean, when I moved there, my mom's dad, who was the pastor in New Mexico, really thought I was moving there to start a church. And he kept asking me, like, "When are you gonna start a church? The French really need a good Independent Fundamental Baptist church." And I was like, "No, that's not what's happening here. I'm in fashion school."
Tricia Rose Burt (14:25) But you are spreading a different kind of gospel, David. That's all there is to it. And I heard you tell, I love this idea — now this gets us into "there's more than one right way." Of course, everything you're talking about is "more than one right way" too. There's all sorts of different roads we can take, even though we've been told to take a particular one. But I love the story. I heard you tell it on our friend Macy Robison’s podcast about your experience at Parsons and your senior thesis, and how everyone else were these exceptional illustrators and that's not where you were thriving. So tell that story a bit and how you solved that problem.
David Peck (15:09) Yeah, it was interesting, because I think I was very creative and people could always see that I had a lot of ideas, and that came through in the things that I made. But my sketches and illustrations were never at the same level as my classmates. I had classmates who were just, like, beautiful illustrators. They could just draw something, and, you know, they couldn't make it — like, you know, you asked them to sew the thing, they couldn't do it. But their sketches were beautiful. And so every time we'd go into a critique of, like, a collection or whatever, when it was in the initial phases of design, my sketches were like, "Well, they could be better, they could — like, I'm not really seeing what you're wanting," or, "This feels like whatever." And then they would see my clothes once I made them, and they're like, "Now I get it." So for my senior thesis — and I was always trying to do the right thing, like I was always trying to, you know, be better at sketching, better at whatever, and it just was not happening for me. I mean, I can draw well, but, like, it was just not at the—
Tricia Rose Burt (16:07) Listen, I know — I was at an artist studio residency, and I — excuse me for stepping on you, but it's relevant here. I had in my head that if I was a real artist, I would be able to draw from the figure beautifully. If I was a real artist. And I was terrible at it. I just, the figure undoes me, I cannot do it well at all. One of the visiting artists came in to look at my work, and he was like, "Yeah, you know, you're right, you can't draw from the figure. Right about that." He goes, "But have you looked at your use of line?" And then he just went to each drawing I'd done and pointed out how I was using line in a way that was very compelling. And so it was like — I mean, I'm forever indebted to this man whose name I can't remember — but I was waiting for him to say, "This is gonna decide whether I'm good if I can do it this way," and he was like, "No, no, over here. Look over here. This is where you can really move and take off." So anyway, so I let — that's what your story really resonated with me on this. So keep going, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.
David Peck (17:21) No, no, but it's extremely relevant. So I started giving myself permission to experiment with the way I was developing my ideas, because obviously just the pure drawing itself was falling flat. And so I started experimenting with — which at the time was relatively new, now it's pretty common — collaging on Photoshop. Like, taking things and putting them together and then, like, drawing over them and playing with proportions and, you know, you could do so much with collage on Photoshop. And so I did all of my illustrations for my senior thesis with Photoshop. And it was the first time, like, the whole panel of judges who come in to critique your work, they were like, "My goodness, this — we can see it, we get it," because there was, like, layers and texture, and you could see I was able to develop those ideas visually in a way that they could understand, whereas the flat sketches lacked depth. And so, I mean, it worked. I mean, I won Designer of the Year for my collection, but I think it was because I was able to connect — what I could visualize at the end. Like, I knew what I was making, like, I could always see the end result. I just couldn't illustrate it very well fully from the very beginning. And so, by giving myself permission to, like — cause Parsons is really well known for their illustrative — like, I mean, that's just, like, the drawing part of the fashion program is so iconic in a way. And, you know, you kind of expected to have illustrations that look a certain way, like follow a certain formula. And I just was like, I'm gonna give myself permission not to do that. I'm gonna do something completely different, and it worked.
Tricia Rose Burt (19:10) It's just so useful to hear that, because I think we can be — "Well, this is how we do it in this industry, this is how it's done in this place, this is how it—" I mean, even in my consulting work where I do storytelling often for private equity folks, and it's just data, data, data, and they're like, "This is how—" "But this is how this industry does it." I'm like, "Well, do it differently because it's not working." But you know what I'm saying? People get so, so married to a way of doing something, and it may work for everybody else, but it's not for you — it's hard to take that risk and say, "I gotta do it a different way, I gotta do it different." It takes a lot of bravery to do that.
David Peck (19:52) And I think some people are just born with that entrepreneurial kind of gene. And I do think that's kind of what it was. It was an early exercise in — exercising that part where, like, can you take a problem that everyone is asked to solve, and there is a predictive way of doing it, but can you look outside the box and look at a different way of doing it? You're not reinventing the wheel, you're using tools that are readily available, but applying them in a slightly different way.
And so, like, I think it, that "edits over overhauls" thing — like, I didn't say "I'm gonna do an interpretive dance to tell you what my collection is going to be." I still did an illustration, you know.
Tricia Rose Burt (20:35) I'm visualizing the interpretive dance right now. I think it would've been fabulous, actually.
David Peck (20:38) It would have been amazing, yeah.
Tricia Rose Burt (21:04) But it is, I mean, I think it is that slight change of — you know, I'm still gonna work within these particular constraints, but I'm gonna do it, I'm just gonna approach it a different way. That works for me. Yeah, I think so much of what our struggle is, is "Am I using the language, am I using the medium, am I using the tool that is best for me?”
You and I are very similar, in that whole archetype assessment — we are both resonant orators, where you've said more than one time, "I have to speak something into existence.” I don't know what it — I don't know what I'm talking about until I say it out loud. Yeah. Well, your book is coming out, Artful, is coming out on November 11. I have had a — I've had a bit of a front-row seat watching that unfold, which has been fabulous. But what I like about where it has —how it came to be — and it came to be with these experiments that you're doing in other places, and suddenly you're like, "This is a thing." Because we have a similar experience — as far as where I worked on the memoir, my memoir, forever, it did not get picked up. One of the publishers said to me, "The spark she has on the stage does not come through on the page." Yeah. And it totally resonated with me, broke my heart, but totally resonated with me.
And I'm like — and as Macy, our coach, Macy Robison said, "Tricia, it didn't work because you tried to write it instead of say it out loud." And you're having that same experience, as you're putting your book together — so much of it has been spoken first and then edited later, which is just, I think, fascinating — I love the idea of writing a book really meaning speaking it first. I think Brené Brown writes her books the same way, as a matter of fact. So we're in good company.
David Peck (22:32) Yes.She uses a lot of audio tools.
Tricia Rose Burt (22:33) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, but talk to me about these experiments that you were doing first. Like, you had a TikTok experiment just to figure out what you wanted to do there, and then you've had, you know, you started a podcast because you needed a place that you wanted to say your stuff out loud. And then you had a lead magnet that suddenly became the basis for this book. I just love how suddenly we're making all these things and we don't realize we're making this one big thing.
Right, there are these little things that are happening that suddenly become the content for this larger thing. So talk about that a little bit, if you will — how all of these things came together.
David Peck (23:11) So I think the biggest thing for me was giving myself — again, giving myself permission to experiment in a place that felt comfortable. And so I think because of my day job as a designer, people see me a certain way. And so it's like, you know, "You're a designer, or a business owner, you're a part of the local Houston community" — what business — this is the story I'm telling myself in my head, it's not necessarily what people have said to me — but, like, "What business do you have, like, writing a book or doing this kind of thing? It seems so far removed from who you are and all of this time that you've spent developing this career." And so, for me, like, I had tried with, like, Instagram, I had even started like a personal account to just try to talk about things that I thought were interesting that were outside the realm of my day job. And I still felt a little limited by that. Like, I just felt like I was constantly editing or censoring myself of what I wanted to say because I was too aware of the audience. And so I decided that I was gonna start this TikTok — not because I wanted people to — I mean, I did want people to follow me, but it wasn't because I was trying to become a TikTok star, but I was like, "I need a place where I can say things and experiment with them, play with format, play with ideas, see what resonates in a room outside of the one where people know me.
And if people I know happen to find me on TikTok, great, but I'm not gonna promote it. Like, this is strictly for me. This is just a place where I feel I can put myself and my ideas out into the universe with relatively little judgment." And so I did that for a while.
Tricia Rose Burt (24:51) And this is exactly what happens if you're alone in a studio, right? Yeah. So it's all about process. It's not like, "I am making this so it goes into a gallery." It's "I'm gonna make the stuff and play." So it's your medium just happened to be TikTok as opposed to, you know, something else.
David Peck (25:08) Exactly. And it gave me permission — where I was able to give myself permission to talk about ideas that I had never really talked about out loud in a larger context. Like, I'd had conversations like this with friends, but not out loud to the broader public. And I was really interested in, like, what are the things that are resonating with people, even though I had like no followers — but what are the things that hit? And, like, can I say that in a better way? Can I develop this idea and then create a better hook — or, it was really just an — that whole process thing was very important. And so, while doing that, I was working with Macy, because I had actually written — and have written — another book, which was a sort of a David Sedaris-like memoir in humorous short stories. And that was what I was originally working on and was gonna try to get an agent and publisher and all of that. And in doing these, like, bridging the gap between who I am and who the author of that book was, there was something missing. And I realized that that's really where the TikTok experiment came from — how do I start developing these ideas? So TikTok came first, and then I always — I had started the podcast as well, just as a way to have longer-form conversations. I think I'm way more interested in having a real dialogue and a conversation with somebody than
a lot of the short clips that happen online. I feel like it's just way more interesting, because there's a lot of nuance that gets lost in today's culture. We don't have real conversations about hard things. And I wanted to talk to people about — initially it was just an interview show, I wanted to talk to people about how they got to have the creative career that they had. And then I started, because of the TikTok experiment, really delving into solo episodes and developing ideas and, like, doing little kind of essay-type episodes. And in working with Macy, I realized, "Okay, I'm developing some sort of, for lack of a better word, thought-leadership type of platform." I love speaking. I wanna speak to larger audiences, and I think I have something to say. And in the process of doing that, I realized that there was a method that I had developed in my process. And it was ART —
David Peck (27:36) Assemble, refine, and try. So it's this idea that I think most artists, whether they've articulated it or not, do — where you gather lots and lots of ideas, you assemble these things, you are like a magpie. I don't know if you're like this, but you collect things in your life, whether they're words, they're pictures, they're ideas, they're movies, they're books, and they don't necessarily all — you haven't necessarily found a through line for them yet, but you know you like them.
Tricia Rose Burt (27:49) I am totally like this.
David Peck (28:06) And so I think that is a really, really important part of the process of designing a life that you love — is allowing yourself to follow those little rabbit trails, and, like, go off, and "this connects to this, and I love this." And you've collected all of these things, but you don't know what to do with them. And then the next — and that was really what I was doing with a lot of the ideas that I was experimenting with on TikTok and on the podcast, was that I was collecting ideas, but I hadn't really tried to figure out how they all hung together.
Tricia Rose Burt (28:38) Did you know your container was ultimately gonna be a book?
David Peck (28:40) I did know that I wanted — well, I didn't know it was gonna be this book that I wrote. Okay. I've always wanted to be an author since I was a kid, and I knew that I was gonna write books. But I did not know that I was writing this book. I just knew that there were ideas that I wanted to express and I wanted to experiment with and talk about, and I again did not put pressure on myself to figure out what the container was going to be. And a big part of working with Macy was figuring out that I am a resonant orator, and so a lot of these ideas come from speaking, and just, like, putting it out there. And I had tried writing — I mean, the book that I was writing before, I had actually done a lot of voice-to-transcription with that too, but it was a very different type of book. It's humorous stories, it's more literary, if you — yeah. Rather than like this. And I wasn't looking to write a prescriptive book. And so the next part of, you know, the process is sort of editing,
Tricia Rose Burt (29:27) I know what you're saying. Yeah.
David Peck (29:38) the refining part of it. And so as I was looking at all of the stuff that I had gathered, what was the through line — I realized it was this process of: I gather all these ideas, I figure out a way to refine them and kind of find what is the thing that makes them all hang together. And then I try. And I've been — like, if I look back at my life, I think that's really what I've been doing, is assembling things, refining them, and then trying them. And then, you know, sometimes with great success and sometimes with spectacular failure.
And that is just what we need to do, I feel, in order to have a life that reflects us — and giving ourselves the permission to go through that process without judgment. And that's why I think "edits over overhauls" is — so much of it is we assemble, we assemble, we assemble, and we can get stuck in that assemble phase. I think so many people collect the things and then they don't ever apply the editing or refining process to it, to find out, "What is this thing that makes me, me? Is there a through line? Is there some sort of idea that connects these seemingly disparate elements?" And then some people do that, and then they overthink it. Like, they get stuck in this continual loop of overthinking, and then they never try anything based on what they've refined. And so I think just by identifying those three steps that are stupid simple, but are so big in creating a life that is reflective of you — it's exactly what I've done, not only with my business, but with my faith, with my community, with my political beliefs — like, nothing has felt like a complete overhaul in one moment, but it's been a lifetime of constantly looking at the way I think. Brené Brown talks a lot about metacognition and thinking about the way we think. And I think this is part of what ART is — is giving ourselves a very simple platform. And so the first thing that came out of this ART method was a word-of-the-year exercise that I've been doing for almost seven or eight years now. And I always do a podcast episode about what my word of the year is. And I decided to make what's called a lead magnet — basically a place where people can come to your website and enter their email address, and you give them something for that email address. And I was like, "I feel like I talk about this word of the year so much, this is a natural thing to do." And so I created this lead magnet.
Tricia Rose Burt (32:02) Which I downloaded two days ago. I'm now — absolutely, I'm like, "I need to do—" I was researching, but I'm like, I just need to do this anyway. So, yeah, absolutely.
David Peck (32:24) It's a good time of year to do it — to start, like, collecting all your ideas, assembling all your ideas. And so it started as that. And by the time I got through with creating the lead magnet, which was the end of February of this year, I realized that there were so many ways that this ART method could be applied. It wasn't just this word of the year, or even a word — I don't even think it has to be a word of the year. I think it could be choosing a word to design the next era of your life.
And I realized it applied to the way you look, the way you style yourself, your wardrobe, and then also in a larger context to the way you approach the world. And it was like a lightbulb went on in that moment. And from the end of February, when I published the lead magnet, to basically the end of March, I had outlined and drafted a majority of the book. And it kind of came into being. And so I just spent every spare moment I had, like, collecting these ideas, assembling all of these ideas over the next couple of months, in order to write the book.
Tricia Rose Burt (33:29) And I wanna be clear, it's not like David is sitting around eating bonbons. He ha — I mean, I think, all right, but I wish.
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Tricia Rose Burt (34:22) You have a full-time job with a shop that is filled with the designs that you create, and you also have a family. So, like, carpool can be involved. Yeah. And so, you know, you're finding these moments. It wasn't like you had these long stretches of time to, you know — it's like, "I got five minutes here, I got ten minutes there." I mean, I think so many of us can wait and say, "Well, I don't have the time," or "I'll wait till I have a big stretch of time," and — it just doesn't happen, because it's not —if you are getting up in the morning and leading a life, you more than likely are going to be interrupted. There's going to be a gazillion distractions. And so, how do you create that time? A former guest, Rachel Perry — she was in our first season, I think it's episode six or seven — she didn't work with oil paints because it took too long to dry, so she never worked with that. 'Cause she had a first grader, so she would, like, draw while she was driving her child to school, which was not the safest thing. But, you know, she was like, "Any moment I could find," and she would choose the materials that worked with what her life was. And so that's what you're doing — you're working with what your life is. And so, "I can do this, I can get — I can do soundbites, I can pick these things up, I can do voice memos and turn them into this book that I'm trying to create. And this lead magnet from over here, and this TikTok experience from over there" — just, what you say, assemble things that you've been working on, but not waiting for these long stretches of time to make it happen. Also, you are Speedy Gonzalez, because once you get — I have watched this — once you get an idea in your head, you'll, like, say it on a Tuesday, and the next Tuesday it's like — and here it is, complete. I'm like, I don't know how that happens, but you very quickly — it's almost like, for you, it is physically uncomfortable for you to have the idea stay in your body.
David Peck (36:11) That is a very good way of putting it.
Tricia Rose Burt (36:14) You know, if it stays in your body, you're gonna get agitated. You have got to get it out. Yeah. And I think so many of us, that's why we shop too much, drink too much, sex too much, whatever it is — because those ideas that are in our bodies, we are not getting them out. Yeah. And so we try to smush them down, and you have become a master of getting those ideas out. It's really, it's quite impressive.
David Peck (36:39) Thank you. I think a lot of it I have always done — I've always been, I think, a quick start, in terms of just trying things and experimenting. But I feel like there was a period of my life, especially in my thirties, where you become more self-conscious of that process. I think children are very good at it — like, you know, you look at children's art, they're very impulsive, they're very spontaneous, for the most part. And I think I became —
especially when you have a job like my job, which can be very public in my own community, you become hyperaware of how visible you are and you almost start to self-censor. And I realized that that was limiting my growth on a subconscious level. Like, I wasn't able to really get to the next level. And it wasn't that I wasn't proud of what I had accomplished in my day job, and it wasn't even that I wanted to blow all that up and completely start over, but I knew that there was a part of myself that I needed to give permission to explore. And doing all of this stuff, like, I think that it was all that pent-up energy of years of thinking about all of these ideas, years of kind of letting them percolate in the back of my mind. When I started to say them out loud, it almost was like I couldn't stop it from happening anymore. Yeah, yeah.
And then — because I'd found a method, very similarly to how I did my senior thesis, where I'm like, "I'm not gonna rely on the sketch anymore," or sitting down to write the book, you know, typing it all out and everything — I'm just gonna get this information out any way that I can, it came so quickly. You know, finding that mechanism was really the thing that unlocked my ability to do it as quickly as my brain was working.
Tricia Rose Burt (38:31) I think that's so important — giving ourselves permission to figure out what's the method that works for me to get these ideas out, and to not get frustrated and go, "Well, it didn't work that time, so I'm just gonna quit." It's like, "What else is there?" I have to ask you this question before I forget it, because I think this is important — there's two questions I wanna ask you. Why did you end up in a place that you said you never wanted to live in? Yeah.
How did that happen?
David Peck (39:02) So I met my wife in Paris. She was working for UNESCO doing international education policy. She's much smarter and more well-educated than I am. And I was studying fashion in Paris. So, you know, completely on the same wavelength. But I think we both knew at a certain point that we would move back to the States. In hindsight, I would probably think about that differently, but at the time it seemed like an inevitable.
And Paris is a very transient city. It's much like New York, where people come in and out. And, you know, there's people who decide to stay, but a lot of times people leave, and it's very hard to create a community there. So when we decided to get married, we came back to the States, and her mom had actually been ill with a brain tumor that was benign, but had had a stroke as a result of the process. So Michelle had come back to Houston, where she's from, to help be with her during rehab. And the way jobs in UNESCO work, they're contract jobs. So she was in between contracts. So I decided, "Okay, I'll come back to the States too, I'm not really sure what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna look for a job." We got married — very long story short, it was the worst time to be trying to find a job, in 2007, 2008. Not a good time, especially in a creative industry.
Tricia Rose Burt (40:26) Oh yes.
David Peck (40:27) And just, yeah, really, really great timing. And the feedback that I kept hearing from all of these job interviews that I would go to is they loved my portfolio, and they're like, "You are way too advanced to just be an entry-level designer" — like, what they were doing compared to what I was doing in France. But I didn't have a lot of the CAD, like, tech skills that American designers did. So, like, I couldn't very easily have been able to go to, like, J. Crew or the Gap and design sweaters in, you know, a cubicle — which is also what I did not want to do. So I ended up starting a line in New York with a friend. And during the course of that time — well, actually two weeks before we got married, we found out my mother-in-law had ovarian cancer. And so she went through chemo and everything. We were living in New York, and then when it came back, she decided not to go through treatment again. So Michelle moved back to Houston, and it was very hard doing the long-distance thing and not knowing what the end was going to be. And so I left New York really thinking my creative fashion career was over, really not knowing what I was gonna do. But I had been working for Parsons Paris at the time doing international study-abroad program creation and recruiting students. I traveled all over the country doing portfolio days. And so I at least had a sort of part-time-ish job that could allow me to be a little bit mobile. Yeah. And so we moved to Houston. And I really did think that my life was over in terms of my creativity. I was like, "I've done that." But life has shown me that there's, you know, something else. And so — but then I got bored in Houston, and I was like — and what was funny was when we lived in Paris, Michelle was like, "You know, I always imagined moving back to Houston." I'm like, "That's so nice, I'm never going to move there.
I'm so glad that you had a really great experience there. I'm never gonna live in Texas." And then, you know, never say never.
Tricia Rose Burt (42:29) Speaking to someone who's been in the New Hampshire woods for twenty-five years. I'm like — exactly. How did that happen? I just don't even know.
David Peck (42:36) So seventeen years later, we are still here. And it's the longest I've lived anywhere, which is very strange. I always joke that it's the one city in Texas I would live in, because it's a good-sized city, but also it's so internationally diverse and the food is amazing. The community here is great. It's not the prettiest place to live, so that part is tricky. But it has allowed me to experiment and fail and build back up again. And I feel like I have a really great community of people who have been very supportive of the things that I've attempted to do, and I'm very grateful for that. So even though on paper it seems like the place that makes the least amount of sense for me to be, it has been, I think, exactly what I needed when I needed it. It doesn't mean it's gonna be forever, I have no idea. But it's an unlikely place for me, I think, in many ways.
Tricia Rose Burt (43:36) What I love, and what is so inspirational for the rest of us, is — I thought that part of my life of being creative was over, and it was just getting started. I mean, it literally — you hadn't even scratched the surface when you're going, "Well, it's over." You know, it's like, we are who we are. Yeah. And if we are creative people, we will make. We cannot help ourselves, we will end up making. And I'm just so glad that you listened to yourself and kept going. Yeah.
So right now, you're about to — this wonderful book, Artful, is coming out on November 11. Yes. How can people get that book?
David Peck (44:13) We'll have a link in the show notes, but davidpeck.co/artful — it'll all be there. You can find all the links to where it's available.
Tricia Rose Burt (44:21) What is the chapter — there's always a good time to go to Paris? Is that what one of the chapters is?
David Peck (44:27) "Paris Is Always a Good Idea."
Tricia Rose Burt (44:28) Yeah, Paris, I love that, I love that. And I'm hoping to take you up on that later on in the year. Well, I want to read a quote of yours and then I want to ask you a question. So — I just love this quote: "This is what artists do. We don't abandon a subject because we've explored it once. We return to it. We turn it over. We find new ways to see what was always there." And I love that, because that's kind of what you've done your whole life — is keep returning to things. Again, this "edits over overhauls" — but you keep returning to things and seeing things through a new lens. I think that's the gist of your book as well, right? Going back and looking at these things and what's already there and what can we pull from this? And in many ways it reminds me of what we do as storytellers when, you know, theme, stakes, narrative arc — what's the theme, what stays in and what goes, you know, what are those things that tie it all together so you can make the most impact. And so, very excited to see your book come out, particularly since I've had a front-row seat watching it come together. But I wanna ask you a question that I ask all of our guests, which is: what do you need courage for right now?
David Peck (45:42) I think it's a continual thing that I have to remind myself — to trust the gut, not the fear. And I think it's very easy to conflate those two things. And I think the times that I have maybe gone off track in my life is when I thought I was listening to my gut and was responding to fear instead. And I think in this next evolution of what I'm doing, the thing I know — my true gut is saying, and really sort of staying on that path and not letting the fear cloud what needs to happen, and also trusting that it doesn't have to be perfect in the doing. So there's so many things that have gone right in doing this book and how it has happened so quickly, but also there are so many things that have gone wrong in making it, you know — things that have taken longer than I anticipated. The editing process was so intense, in the best possible way.
But a lot of it, you know, is taking longer. And so trusting that the process is exactly what it needs to be in order for the product to land with the right people. And that is something that is very tricky to do as a perfectionist — somebody who wants things to look a certain way, who can imagine what the perfect launch would be and how this book would be brought into existence — and basically starting before I'm ready. And it's sort of knowing that if I'm supposed to be doing this thing, if I steadily work at it and continually do those edits and not expect the overhaul, it will land the way it's supposed to, when it's supposed to.
Tricia Rose Burt (47:30) And I love — we will lift you up and say "yes for courage" in all those areas, but I also love — when I've heard you speak other times, and you just said it again, which I'm so happy about — it's starting before you're ready. Yeah. Just starting before you — like, just do it. You know, again, "the riskiest thing you can do is play it safe." Like, start, just get it out there and refine it. I am confident this is not the only book that you are going to write. I think this is the first of many books, hopefully, that we're gonna be able to be on the receiving end of. I mean, you've said you wanted to be a writer since you were eleven, and you said you wanted to move to Paris. So we've gotten Paris squared away. Yeah. The writing is the next thing. And so we're so excited to read this book and the ones that follow. So—
David Peck (48:13) Thank you. Well, I will say, and not to make this last longer than it needs to, but I think there is something powerful about putting our intentions out there. So when I was writing the memoir in humorous short stories, in the intro of the book I specifically said, "This is not a prescriptive book, if you're looking for answers or a method or a framework." But if, in the off chance, between the time this book gets published and then I come up with something, don't be surprised.
Tricia Rose Burt (48:47) And yet, here we are.
David Peck (48:50) And yeah, and here we are. And then — you mentioned the "Paris Is Always a Good Idea" chapter of the book, which is sort of the bonus chapter in the book. But in that chapter, I mentioned how much travel has changed my life and how much it has really expanded my worldview in so many different ways. And "everyone should have a Paris," and I hope that I would be able to figure out how to share that with people someday. You know, a dream of mine is figuring out how to do that. And I literally just got back from a trip to Paris with eight clients, where I was able to share my version of Paris with them. And it's — when you put things out there, they somehow come to be. And I think that's a really powerful thing to remember.
Tricia Rose Burt (49:32) And having that — absolutely, and having the self-belief and going, "I can do this." May not be pretty, may not get there the way I thought it was gonna get there, but I can do this. And in the meantime, surrounding yourself with people who can cheer you on while you're trying to do it.
David Peck (49:47) The most important part.
Tricia Rose Burt (50:00)David, I'm so glad you're in my world, and I can't wait till November 11. Hopefully I'll get a sneak — I've had a couple of sneak previews, but I can't wait to see the whole book.
David Peck (49:57) I can't wait to send it your way.
Tricia Rose Burt Yeah. Thank you. And we'll have everything about David in the show notes. Meantime, just say it out loud where everybody can go — say it one more time.
David Peck (50:06) Davidpeck.co/artful.
Tricia Rose Burt (50:09) And that's the book. Tell me the name of your podcast.
David Peck (50:12) Inside the Design Studio with David Peck, and you can find it all the places podcasts are found, and on YouTube.
Tricia Rose Burt (50:17) Okay, there you go. David, thank you again. We're so glad you were here.
David Peck (50:20) Thank you for having me.
Tricia Rose Burt (50:32) I just want an IV drip of David's creative energy and his follow-through. He gets an idea and he gets it done. And he is so willing to experiment and take risks along the way. He is a manifesto role model. Check out his podcast, Inside the Design Studio, and buy his book, Artful, on November 1 at davidpeck.co/artful.
To get all the updates on Artful, follow David at @itsDavidPeck. And if you want to check out his fashion design, which is amazing, follow him @shopDavidPeck.
Thanks for joining us. Now I know you're listening while you're either driving your car or doing your dishes, so when you're done, please make sure to subscribe to the show. And if you'd like to watch the interview, check us out on YouTube and subscribe there. It helps us build our audience. And with more listeners and viewers, it means more opportunities to bring you great content. And remember, this is No Time to Be Timid.
No Time to Be Timid is written and produced by me, Tricia Rose Burt. Our episodes are produced and scored by Adam Arnone of Echo Finch. And our executive producers are Amy Grant, Nancy Perot, and Sage Wheeler. I'd also like to thank contributors to my Fractured Atlas fiscal sponsorship, which helps make this podcast happen.
No Time to Be Timid is a presentation of No Time to Be Timid Productions.