Pixar’s Joe Ranft’s 2 Rules for Living

Many years ago I attended Joe Ranft’s memorial service with my sweetie, who, at that time, worked at Pixar with Joe on such films as Monsters Inc. and Cars.

Joe was always generous and kind to my sweetie and to me — and it turned out that he was that way with everyone. Joe was the heart and soul of all the Pixar films.

He also worked on The Nightmare before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach and many other films on which he left an indelible mark.

During the service when one longtime friend of Joe’s asked all the guests who considered Joe their best friend to raise their hands, half the people put their hands up. After a big heart and hilarious sense of humor, what people mentioned most was that Joe Ranft was a storyteller, and that everyone loved hearing his stories.

Joe had 2 sayings on his office door that he lived by:

1. The journey is the reward.

2. Trust the process.

I think it’s easy to forget these things as so many of us are overachievers or hyper demanding of ourselves (myself included), working in a world that glorifies speed. It’s ironic that it takes many slow moments to help us go fast.

Make 10,000 bad drawings.

At the reception after the service we were talking to Eric Frierson, the sole survivor in the car crash, about Joe and what he meant to the community of men he was working with in Michael Meade’s organization, Mosaic and Ed Catmull, the President of Pixar joined us. When Eric found out who Ed was (“Oh, YOU’RE Joe’s boss!”) he said, “I’m glad to meet you because I’m a graphic artist and I want to talk to you soon.” Ed said, “Take Joe’s advice. Do 10,000 bad drawings first. Get them out of your system. After you’ve done that, come talk to me.”

Become a master of mistakes.

This is another thing that we forget: to become great mistake makers. To be unafraid to do crappy work. To make a big mess of things so we can discover something in the muck of it all — or not. To follow the harebrained idea even if it leads to a dead end. To get the 10,000 bad drawings out of our system. To play in the waters of failure without a life jacket. To “Trust the process.”

Joe was a master of mistakes. You have to be to consistently come up with the kind of creative ideas and great stories he fostered and hatched. Once you free yourself up from fearing mistakes you’ll have a lot of energy for other things, other thoughts, other people. Busy as he was Joe made time for people. Lots of them.

Speaking from the podium one longtime friend of Joe’s talked about one of the last times they were together. They were sitting on the couch talking about the direction of Joe’s life. The friend asked, “How’s it going?”

He said he was at a place where he now had a hand in, and was overseeing, all the films at Pixar, was comfortable financially, and could devote more of his time to doing community service.

He was working closely with mythologist, drummer, and teacher Michael Meade who devotes himself to working with gangs, inner city kids, prisoners, men from difficult circumstances trying to live better lives, and people interested in living deeply.

Hearing this renewed my interest in doing more community service with youth.

Meade, in his workshops, often talks about needing more elders in our midst and about developing ourselves into those elders, worthy of the respect of youth.

I want to grow into being one of the worthy ones.

Do good works in the world.

Toward the end of the service, Joe’s wife Su said, “If you want to honor Joe, I have only one request: Do good works in the world. Find something you can be passionate about. Throw yourself into it. Don’t just think about it. Do it.”

I’m taking her advice, and Joe’s example to heart.

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