Hi this is Vanessa Joy here with AdoramaTV and I am here with Sal Cinotta. Sal how are you doing?
Good, how are you today?
Sal and I are going to have a little discussion about, well what life is all about I guess.
We're going to figure out the meaning of life today?
We're going to figure out the meaning of life today.
That is good. I need to know, so this is good. Clue me in on it.
Well the reason I wanted to interview Sal is, because I know
that Sal and I have very different definitions of success which is
something that I talk about. When I talk about success, I define it by how much
free time I have and how much time I get to spend not working, how much time I get to
spend with my daughter, my family, my brother. He's shaking his head like I'm nuts,
so fine, what is your definition of success?
I mean my definition of success... I would
say is, you know, a little bit along the lines of world domination. That's
what motivates me every single day. I want to win. I want to win all the time,
so... But there's nothing wrong with your definition either. I think success is
defined by you as an individual and I think that's where most people, I don't know,
maybe get confused with the whole thing and they feel bad about it right like I
run into people and you shouldn't feel bad because you want free time and you
don't, maybe, want, you know, an 80 hour a week career or to have millions of dollars.
Don't feel bad. But you also shouldn't feel bad if, like me, you want world
domination. There's nothing wrong with that either.
So when people say things to you like, what do you do
in your free time, what do you say?
You know, in my free time I like to actually
create. That's what really does motivate me and you're seeing that in, you know,
what we've created between Shutter magazine, you know our own
company. Idle hands for me are brutal, like I cannot stand...
I'm pretty much... I'm pretty sure that it's even like a proverb, like you know, idle hands leads
to just problems, you know? Boredom is just never a good thing.
Well, some people, they love sitting on a beach, relaxing,
kicking back, reading a book, right? There's a picture of me and I don't know
if we have it anymore, but there's a picture of me, and my team is laughing, of
me sitting on a beach in Hawaii. It was a wrap up of a very long year. I'm on a
beach with a towel over my
head on my laptop. Now to anyone else looking at that they might be like 'God,
he's got a miserable life' but I got to be honest with you, I was in heaven in that moment, you know.
And at least maybe your feet were getting tanned.
Yeah and I've got a mean farmers tan so I needed it there, but you know for me, sitting on a beach
reading a book is torture, but again
success is defined differently by everyone and I think, maybe you know
the messaging around that is figure out what makes you tick. Figure out what's
going to make you happy in life and that's what you have to pursue, versus trying to
fit into anyone's stereotype of what happiness is, what success is, right?
So, assuming you never actually dominate the world, how well do you know when you have
been successful, either in the day or the year or at this point in your life.
For me what I do is I set up daily tasks that I want to accomplish and think of it like this
way, I put a flag out there for myself, for my teen on things I want to accomplish
today, right here, right now. And it could be as simple as like 'Hey, read one chapter in
this book,
go to the bank, you know, photoshoot, plan, you know, my next style I shoot'. Really
small tasks to very big tasks. A lot of people have these big tasks. It might be, you
know, for a photographer, it might be open up your own studio, right? Your own retail
space. That's a huge task. There's, you know, a hundred micro tasks that have to happen before
that. I like to work at the micro level. Yes, I have this big task that I'm trying
to accomplish but maybe you want to be a full-time photographer and you set that
task of being a full-time photographer, well it's going to take a year to get there because all these
other things have to happen, so it's seemingly, you become, you know, just kind
of disenchanted with the whole thing if you don't accomplish that task so
instead, set up micro tasks that you're accomplishing and it lets you feel the success.
Concentrating on the means to the end rather than just the end.
Exactly
I love that, so that's what success looks like to you from day today, what does failure look like to you?
That's a good one.
Failure to me is not hitting my goals, whatever those goals are, you know,
and I think we all put pressure on ourselves to
accomplish different things in life. I mean everybody's got their own set of
goals, some are personal some are professional, I really... I think I'm my toughest critic when
it comes to that. I put a lot of pressure on myself a lot of pressure on my team
to perform and I'm a realist as well. I get it. Every day we're not going to accomplish
everything we put down, right. But some people are like eternal optimist, right,
they'll put this list together of items and it's got like 20 things they're trying to do in a
day and they never accomplish those things and for me that would become almost poison, you know?
And counter productive because you're going to be so discouraged by the fact
that you're not accomplishing those things that you probably couldn't have humanly done in a way.
You're spot on. You're setting yourself up for failure because
every day you're looking at this list of things you didn't do, overseeing the
positive on the things you did do.
So how do you deal... I love your definition of success, I
love that you've made those goals and that you are striving towards them. How do you deal with other
people in your life that are against that, like for example, you're close with your Mom, your
Mom loves you, I'm sure she wants to spend time with you. But you don't have all the time in the world.
How do you separate or balance work life, in that, with your definition of success taking up so much time.
Yeah I'm convinced that work-life balance, that term, I want
to punch the person in the face, whoever even tried to create that term because I really
don't believe it exists, right?
If your work is your life it certainly does, I guess.
Yeah well here's the thing I think it's very important to surround yourself with
people who share the same vision and that's from maybe a work perspective because with your family you
can't always have them share your vision, it's your vision. What I found, though, is that my
family and the people closest to me that support me, while they don't necessarily share
my vision for world domination, they accept me for who I am, right and I think
that's equally as important to just have people around you, who maybe they don't
understand you, maybe they don't even get what's going on in your head that's ok
but just accept me for who I am, you know, the mad man that I am because I think we all
have our own level of crazy built inside of all of us, right?
Absolutely that's how we are loved by others,
when we know that they're accepting that crazy.
Yeah I know I've got my fair share of crazy so I just accept it.
Probably about five years ago I saw a video where you're talking about your dad and one of
the things that your dad had said to you at some point was 'Promise me you will do well'. Is that right?
Yes.
Do you think you have done well?