CJ Casciotta on Embracing Your Weirdness

We loved sitting down with CJ Casciotta to talk about what it means to embrace our weirdness. CJ is a creative director who has worked with brands like Whole Foods and charity:water to help them tell their stories. He now has his own podcast called “Sounds Like a Movement” where he has had conversations with people like Seth Godin, Krista Tippet, and Tony Hale.

He’s gotten to talk many industry leaders, so we wanted to hear about how this podcast began.

“We started off by gathering friends and talking to them in my living room, almost like ‘Ted’ in the living room. Somebody suggested that we record the talks and it grew from there. “

I feel like this has been a common theme throughout our podcasts, ideas that are simply born out of happenstance.  He wasn’t trying to come up with the next thing, CJ was simply having these conversations and thought, “hey, maybe we should record these.”

Beyond the podcast, he’s gotten to work with some pretty stellar brands and we wanted to hear about the process that he goes through while working with these companies:

“It comes down to figuring out what makes you weird as a company or a leader. Weird is that thing that you’re usually afraid of because we’ve been taught to stuff it down and conform. It’s the thing that once we bring it to the surface, it identifies us in a sea of “same.” Usually there is someone else out there who likes it. When you begin to form this community together you can create something beautiful.”

Weird. It took us a while to wrap our heads around that word. It’s usually used in a negative connotation by society, but here, it’s all about standing out, being unique. But what if someone doesn’t know what makes them weird?

“It’s initially starting off with the realization that someone is weird and that there is nothing they can do to hide that. You can conform to others but you have to remember that everyone is weird. It’s usually the thing that you’re afraid to do. It’s sitting down with it and realizing the potential behind it.”

He even gave us an exercise that he walks companies through and there are some really great answers that come to the surface when you take the time to examine some of these different aspects as a leader or a company. We highly encourage that you listen to hear about some of the important questions to ask while figuring out your “weird”.

CJ had a ton of other great things to say about working with creatives, what makes a movement more than a campaign, and how to hold onto your weirdness.

Listen to the full episode here.

Subscribe to the podcast here.