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The Tim Ferriss Show #799 · March 11, 2025 · 2h 23m

Richard Taylor and Greg Broadmore, Weta Workshop — Untapping Creativity, Stories from The Lord of the Rings, Four Tenets to Live By, and The Only Sentence of Self-Help You Need

Richard Taylor and Greg Broadmore from Weta Workshop — the company behind Lord of the Rings, District 9, King Kong, Avatar. Started in a bedroom with MDF on a bed, now 400+ employees. Taylor's four tenets: love yourself, love your work, love your colleagues, love your audience. Broadmore on embracing failure and finding joy in the creative process itself.

Highlights

Four tenets: love self, work, colleagues, audience
Taylor's framework for creative success. All four must be present — drop one and the work suffers.
Started in a bedroom, now 400+ employees
Weta Workshop began with MDF on a bed. Taylor and Tania Rodger built it into a global creative powerhouse.
Embrace failure, find joy in the process
Broadmore: the creative process is inherently failure-rich. The joy is in the making, not the result.

Misc

Weta's credits: Lord of the Rings, Planet of the Apes, Superman, Mad Max, Thor, M3gan, Avatar, District 9, King Kong
Taylor's wife Tania Rodger is co-founder — built it together
Greg Broadmore created Dr. Grordbort's — satirical retro-sci-fi world
'The only sentence of self-help you need' — referenced in the title but specifics are in the episode