This is where you’ll find a living archive of my projects, the work I’ve done with clients, and chonicles of my adventures as I change the world.
I’m a Miami-based photographer + brand strategist focused on defying the odds and telling the dopest stories for clients who are interested in doing the same.
I believe stories are the vehicles that move culture forward and there’s nothing more important today than strengthening cultural integrity across the arts, urban environments, fashion, and hospitality.
026 Side Quest Stories Episode : 001 [David Griner The Baker]
DOC 1-30-2025
Curiosity: How much more would we enjoy the game of life if we gave more time to side quests? Category: Insights Disclaimer: I didn’t take any of these photographs.
I never quite expected to see David Griner, the man who helped shape the advertising conversation on pre-Musk Twitter, running a bustling bakery tucked away in Birmingham, Alabama. But here I am, years after we first met, and realizing how fitting it actually seems. One of the driving forces behind advertising’s healthiest communities via Adweek Chat, Griner was part moral compass and part guide along the industry’s hero’s journey. He was never pretentious, even when holding the fate of a brand’s perception in the palm of his hand as International Editor for Adweek. Instead, he wielded that influence with a deep devotion to inspiring readers to be and do better.
Reporting on the advertising world for over a decade and then co-founding the nonprofit The Creative Ladder with Ryan Reynolds and Dionna Dorsey seemed like a natural progression; if this were a linear storyline. At Adweek, Griner shared stories; at The Creative Ladder, he offered rising industry talents the tools and access to tell their own. Now, after a sabbatical that evolved into this unexpected yet major chapter in his life, I’m sitting here, a grateful beneficiary of the school of David Griner, watching him easily swap the hum of keystrokes and urgent campaign calls for the simple pleasure of kneading dough and greeting locals by name. It’s a transformation that seems as warm, nourishing, and wholly authentic as the art of baking bread is itself.
Kennyatta: Alright, so how has it been? What’s it like going from Griner the voice of Advertising to Griner the baker?
David Griner: Going from, I’ll bake a few days a week early in the morning, almost no interaction. I was listening to four hours of podcasts a day because I was just by myself making bread, you know? And then six hours of really communal time with people, with other bakers, shaping bread. For me, it was awesome. It was very restorative. No Zoom calls. It was a really good return to earth and spending time with myself and new people with completely different backgrounds.
Kennyatta: Did you feel nervous at all sharing with your online community that you’re going into baking? I know everyone views this through the filter of advertising, so I’d assume that had to come to mind when you were thinking about sharing this new experience with everyone publicly.
Griner: Yeah, I mean, what if this thing I’m so passionate about—baking—turns out I’m bad at it? What if it turns out I can’t work at a bakery? And that’s fine, though, because I wasn’t trained to do that. So realistically, that would have been a perfectly understandable outcome. But I remember being worried that I didn’t want to waste this opportunity to learn something new, and this bakery I’ve been working at is a bakery I’ve been going to for over twenty years. It’s been around for forty years; it’s a landmark. I knew the people who knew me personally and connected with me when I made that announcement would think it was perfect, and that’s exactly what happened.
Kennyatta: Yeah I remember. I saw the post and thought it was the dopest news from you because it was unexpected but also felt appropriate.
Griner: I even heard from a lot of people that it helped inspire them or nudge them to try new things, put themselves out there, and turn a side passion into something tangible. In that way, Kadeem was pretty inspirational for me. I can think of a lot of people in our shared network who have tried to do bold things.
Kennyatta: Do you think part of the courage to do new things comes from being really fluid with your career? You’ve had different jobs over the course of your career and in different industries. So, let’s say some may know you from Adweek—it never seemed like you defined yourself by Adweek or the position you held there.
Griner: I think you learn pretty early in your career not to identify too closely with any one business. Externally, I was always proud of being at Adweek and every job I’ve had, but on a long enough timeline, you know that’s all fleeting because, at some point, you’re bound to stop being associated with something. Some people think that’s cynical, but I think it’s just reality. You are your own person, and if you can find a workplace that sees you, values you, and amplifies you as a person, that’s about as much as you can really ask for.
Kennyatta: It’s true, you own your time in the position but you don’t own the position itself.
Griner: Yeah, I mean, I try to be open about this. I was fired once by a new manager who came in, and it was just after I’d won Employee of the Month. This was twenty-something years ago, and it still stings a bit, but it helped get me out of the nest, try things outside of my comfort zone, and showed me that nothing is permanent. It’s also what led me to get into advertising.
Kennyatta: If you could recommend a way for people to have a better relationship with their career, what would be one of the main things you’d suggest? Personal branding has become ubiquitous across our industry; everywhere you look, you’re encouraged to tie your personal identity to your role, the company you’re at, or your effectiveness at the job. What do you say to that?
Griner: I think that’s a really good point. The advice I would give is not to shift too far in either direction. You don’t want to give so much of yourself that you become an invisible cog in the machine—it feels safer, but it’s very dangerous. On the other extreme, you don’t want to go independent and shift your mindset so much toward yourself that you lose sight of the value you’re supposed to be providing to other people or put yourself too high on a pedestal.
Kennyatta: It makes sense, especially if you started out as a cog in the machine. It’s easy to overcorrect and start thinking you were the only thing that made that machine function, losing sight of your value being based on your role within the whole.
Griner: Yeah, and those are the people who can’t really be honest about how much they make or how much business they’re bringing in because they’ve become so sensitive about it. I mean, I get it. It can be a constructive way to live your life, to define things strictly by your own independence. But my advice would be not to get to the point where you glorify yourself and neglect the role you play in the success of others.
Kennyatta: Yeah, I’ve seen people say they can’t wait to be an entrepreneur so they can tell their clients to 'Fuck off,' and I get the feeling. But at the same time, why would you want to be known as the person who’s just telling clients to go fuck themselves? Why do you think that’s a badge of honor for people?
Griner: I mean, the bigger conversation is around boundaries. We all talk about boundaries and the importance of having them. That’s true—no disagreement. But at some point, we can become so obsessed with boundaries that we become rigid and inflexible, and no one likes dealing with someone like that. Yes, have boundaries and respect them, but learn the difference between your preferences and your boundaries. I hope that answers your question.
Kennyatta: Yeah nah, that was on the money.
Griner: It comes from a very understandable place. When everyone is telling you to demand your worth, be mature enough to understand that the people on the opposite side of the negotiation are doing the same thing—they want to demand their worth. They, too, want to be heard, and they, too, want to be equal partners.
Kennyatta: Lately, I’ve been blaming that on internet culture. Because in the real world, you go outside, interact with people, and you’ll see, in real time, someone take a critique and keep it pushing. I went to a café the other day, ordered a latte, they made it wrong, I told them about it respectfully, and they just remade it and asked me how it was. I told them it was great. We all went on our way. There’s a dissonance I see between internet life and real life, but that’s a whole other rabbit hole.
Griner: It’s an important one for me because I don’t think I would have committed my career—from being a morning baker, which wasn’t feasible for me, to then accepting the role of General Manager—if I weren’t having so many amazing interactions every day. With customers, with coworkers, with the restaurants we supply to. And I don’t say this to fetishize in-person interaction because it is a luxury to be able to engage with people at scale. But I feel so much more connected to my community and to the world as a whole.
Kennyatta: There’s a lot of symbolizing with baking bread and breaking bread with others.
Griner: Our bakery is a very safe space for the LGBTQ+ community and the immigrant community, and I’m proud that it can be that in a traditionally red state. 99.9% of the interactions we have are just lovely. I mean, you’re giving someone a croissant—you’re the bright spot of their day. When you’ve been a journalist for twenty years, you’re never anyone’s bright spot. Unless you’re telling them they’ve just won Agency of the Year. I would covet that role—to be the one to call and tell them that, rather than saying, 'Hey, we heard your CEO got arrested.'"
Kennyatta: If you could give three principles or ways of looking at side quests for people who may either be looking for a career pivot or by people who’ve been forced to look for a pivot, what would they be?
Griner: Well, I don’t really have three, but if I had to list them, I’d say: first, sit down with a notebook and figure out what you’re good at, what people are willing to pay you for, and what you want to do. And those are three different things, unfortunately. If your list gets long enough, you start thinking about what you would like to be good at. It’s a completely personal thing. You can’t just feed this into ChatGPT. You can’t sit down for twenty minutes and just build this. This is something that requires multiple coffee shop visits with a physical notebook—just detox yourself. No headphones, no nothing. Just force yourself into the isolation of discovering more about yourself.
Three years ago, baking got on my 'I love to do this' list, and I was finally able to put it on my 'I’m good at it' list. But would people pay me to do it? That’s what makes it a side quest or a pivot—it’s unknown. If you knew they would, it wouldn’t be a risk
Kennyatta: That’s a really good point.
Griner: Yeah. Like, Kennyatta doesn’t stay up at night wondering if anyone is going to like his photos or think he has a great idea—he’s good at it. But there are probably other things you want to try, and you’re probably nervous about whether people will pay you for them or if you’re good at them.
Kennyatta: That’s true. I like how you call it a detox, even from the headphones. Allowing your thoughts to mix with the environment you’re in to get this stuff out.
Griner: Right. And number two is the most important rule, so maybe it should be one or three—but put yourself out there. You can’t do the kind of thing we’re talking about without jumping out on a limb. And you can’t spend years overthinking it. There will never be a safe moment to do it. But once you believe in yourself and have gone through that exercise, you have to force yourself onto the limb and do it.
In my case, I put a post on the local subreddit saying, 'Is there anywhere in town that’s willing to hire an amateur baker?
Kennyatta: Oh wow.
Griner: Most of the responses were, 'Check out this place, check out that place,' but then one of them said, 'Hey, I’m a baker at the Continental.' I never thought I’d get a response from a bakery that special. I was introduced to the owners, and they were so excited to find someone who had a passion and a background in business. They could see that I was serious about my career and wasn’t just there out of desperation. But none of this would have happened if I hadn’t made that Reddit post.
Kennyatta: It feels like more than shooting your shot at that point.
Griner: Exactly. Because 'shooting your shot' assumes the opportunity is already there, presented to you. You have to go beyond that. I got lucky on my first attempt at it—maybe it should have taken me six or seven tries. But you never know until you do it.
Kennyatta: Okay so what’s three?
Griner: I’d say it’s really about being humble about how much you have to learn and being prepared for how much you have to listen. You may be talking to people who are fifteen years younger than you and infinitely better than you, right? If you’ve been in one career for a long time, you begin to associate your seniority or experience with your quality. But if you go into a completely new area, you’re going to get smoked by a 19-year-old.
It’s easy to say in theory, of course, but you have to swallow your pride and resist the urge to think your experience means you know what to do—because you don’t. None of that experience matters compared to the person who’s been doing this job every day for the last five years and is way better than you at it.
Kennyatta: Okay but you’re all the way in it now, so what’s that experience like? Not necessarily day to day, but overall?
Griner: Oh, it’s fantastic. I have a few dozen employees, and they usually ask fun questions. Maybe not to them, but for me, it’s like, 'Ooo! Let’s find out together.' They’re great and very patient with me wanting to figure things out as a team.
This is universal, of course, and especially as a general manager. Someone comes up to you with a great idea and says, 'We should be doing this.' And you go, 'Well, yeah, that makes sense. Why aren’t we doing that?' So you do it—then you discover all seventeen different reasons why you shouldn’t have been doing that.
Kennyatta: LMAO
Griner: So in my first few weeks as a GM, I really wanted to tackle some low-hanging fruit—make an impact, get things rolling, and show people I’m serious. But every once in a while, it would be like, 'Hey, you know that really old thing you threw away? We actually use that every week,' and I’d just be like… oh, lol.
I love it, though. I love coming in every day, getting hit with the wildest stuff, listening to everyone, solving problems, and still getting done what I needed to do.
Kennyatta: Do you still get to bake?
Griner: No… I mean sometimes I’ll go in there and be like oh here I’ll help you guys. I don’t know if they always need it but I enjoy it. Then you get called to the front because it’s slammed 15 minutes later. The nice thing is I get to talk to customers about bread all day—or about their lives. How amazing is that?
The other day, a guy came in asking if I knew a baker who used to work there—she was a refugee from Ukraine. I remembered her immediately. It turned out he was part of the family that took her in, which was a surreal moment because I had always wondered who the people were that helped her at the beginning of the war.
He then shared with me all of the advocacy work he does for Ukraine, and it was just an amazing conversation. When I tried to compliment him, he told me about others in the community who had done even more than he had. I felt like a whole new branch of my community had just opened up.
Kennyatta: Yeah, that sounds like a movie moment.
Griner: I love it. I don’t wake up in the middle of the night. I don’t get emails at 11:00pm that get my blood boiling. It’s tough at times, but its great.
Kennyatta: What I enjoy most about talking to you is how grounded you are. I don’t know if you actively protect that from the influence of life, but it’s something I’ve always admired about you and learned from whenever we catch up.
Even for me, I know I can be detached if I want to be, but I love working in cafés—no headphones, striking up conversations with strangers, and really being a human being who connects with the present experience I’m in.
Griner: First, that means the world to me.
On your comment about listening to the world, there’s this composer named John Cage. He has a piece called 4'33". People make jokes about it because it’s just 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence. He wrote it to be performed live. It feels like performance art—because it is. It feels weird—because it is. But the reason behind it is beautiful.
His goal was that if someone is playing his music and they get to that piece, that’s 4 minutes and 33 seconds of them listening to the room. You’re not really listening to silence—you’re listening to people shuffle, cars outside, a fan humming—and it changes depending on where you are. I love that. It’s not obnoxious artistry; it’s about recognizing the music of the world around us.
Sometimes what you’re hearing is annoying, right? But that’s fine. Being exposed to the world a little more makes us better humans.
And I love the internet, I met you, I’ve met so many of my best friends because of the internet. But man, do I love going out, interacting with people, and I’m grateful to be in a place where I can have so many of those interactions.
I’ve devoted myself to telling stories, some that sells, some that inspire, and some that provoke. But lately, I’ve been interested in the stories people step into when no one’s paying attention.
This is Side Quest Stories, my personal deep dive into the off-script adventures of marketing and advertising vets who’ve chosen to wander down unexpected paths for reasons I’m hoping to discover.
Maybe they’re opening coffee shops in small towns, crafting custom guitars in a forgotten garage, or making a hot sauce brand based on their favorite uncle’s recipe.
These aren’t detours; they’re the hidden chapters that give our main narratives real depth, and maybe even help us rediscover what we’re chasing in the first place.
So stay tuned here, and let’s see where the side road takes us...