Why the People with the Most Talent Don't Always Make the Best Work.
A student in the Film Storytelling class couldn't bring him or herself to do an assignment. 
He or she came to my office to tell me this.
Trying, in a gentle way, to help, I said, "Tough. Do it anyway."
The owner of a sturdy & upright nature, the student went away to work on his/her project.
I was left wondering: what could make a person who came to school in order to learn to do this not want to do it?
This is what I figured:
A lot of people are held back from working by fear of failure.
They're so afraid to make something that's no good that they don't make anything.
Wrong.
Failure is necessary.
Failure is important.
Failure is an irreplaceable ingredient in the creative process.
The right to fail is a right you are wrong to deny yourself.
There's a ton of failure in creating advertising.
(Truly, a great deal of failure is central to the creation of anything in which quality is determined by subjective judgment)
There's a lot of failure.
There's a lot of looking foolish.
It's part of the process.
You learn to accept it.
After a while you hardly notice it.
What's terrifically good about the right to fail is it means you can try anything.
Here's where you can help yourself.
If there's going to be plenty of failure no matter what you do, try something that's worth the trouble.
Instead of sticking to what you see others doing, make something that could only occur to you.
Make something you couldn't describe to someone else without them looking at you funny.
Most of us have been trained by life to avoid the feeling you get when you try things like that.
It requires an act of faith.
Faith is scary.
Even a small act of faith is not for the fearful.
(I believe there is no advancement in any part of life without an act of faith but that's too big an idea to get into here, now)
It's similar to the feeling you get when you think to yourself, heck, I should just kiss that girl.
Most of the time we don't follow through.
Some of us are such dorks we not only stop our instincts, we compound our dorkness by moping for 3 days, and then---ask the girl if we can kiss her, and in that moment damn ourselves as not being men of action.
Don't ask, kiss.
Sure you might feel stupid if someone laughs.
Get used to it.
Could be worse.
You could do crummy work all your life and never know why.
You can try to skip the looking foolish part.
But you miss the part that allows you to understand what makes a great ad great.
Let the great French essayist say it:
"To learn that we have said or done a foolish thing, that is nothing. We must learn that we are nothing but fools, a far broader and more important lesson." -Montaigne
He or she came to my office to tell me this.
Trying, in a gentle way, to help, I said, "Tough. Do it anyway."
The owner of a sturdy & upright nature, the student went away to work on his/her project.
I was left wondering: what could make a person who came to school in order to learn to do this not want to do it?
This is what I figured:
A lot of people are held back from working by fear of failure.
They're so afraid to make something that's no good that they don't make anything.
Wrong.
Failure is necessary.
Failure is important.
Failure is an irreplaceable ingredient in the creative process.
The right to fail is a right you are wrong to deny yourself.
There's a ton of failure in creating advertising.
(Truly, a great deal of failure is central to the creation of anything in which quality is determined by subjective judgment)
There's a lot of failure.
There's a lot of looking foolish.
It's part of the process.
You learn to accept it.
After a while you hardly notice it.
What's terrifically good about the right to fail is it means you can try anything.
Here's where you can help yourself.
If there's going to be plenty of failure no matter what you do, try something that's worth the trouble.
Instead of sticking to what you see others doing, make something that could only occur to you.
Make something you couldn't describe to someone else without them looking at you funny.
Most of us have been trained by life to avoid the feeling you get when you try things like that.
It requires an act of faith.
Faith is scary.
Even a small act of faith is not for the fearful.
(I believe there is no advancement in any part of life without an act of faith but that's too big an idea to get into here, now)
It's similar to the feeling you get when you think to yourself, heck, I should just kiss that girl.
Most of the time we don't follow through.
Some of us are such dorks we not only stop our instincts, we compound our dorkness by moping for 3 days, and then---ask the girl if we can kiss her, and in that moment damn ourselves as not being men of action.
Don't ask, kiss.
Sure you might feel stupid if someone laughs.
Get used to it.
Could be worse.
You could do crummy work all your life and never know why.
You can try to skip the looking foolish part.
But you miss the part that allows you to understand what makes a great ad great.
Let the great French essayist say it:
"To learn that we have said or done a foolish thing, that is nothing. We must learn that we are nothing but fools, a far broader and more important lesson." -Montaigne
10 Comments:
>>You have to sing (sing) like you dont need the money. Love (love) like you'll never get hurt. You gotta dance (dance) like nobodys watching. Its got to come from the heart if you want it to work.<<
Hello Fenske,
I think I have blog now?
I neither have the most talent nor do the best work but I'm doing the failing thing really well.
Lately I've been focusing on failing to earn a paycheck.
Just before that I was doing a bang-up job failing to please a man who ultimately failed to appreciate my sturdy and upright nature. It sounds kinda weird, but it's true! Ha!
Anyway, keep up the insightful stuff on failure. I'm with you on that one!
Lane
"I hope you never lose your sense of wonder
You get your fill to eat
But always keep that hunger
May you never take one single breath for granted
God forbid love ever leave you empty handed
I hope you still feel small
When you stand by the ocean
Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens
Promise me you'll give faith a fighting chance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance
I hope you dance"
Fantastic post, Fenske.
Do you feel that you must continually learn these things? As I progress and become more confident with my work, I'll get nervous before going into a meeting. Sometimes this is a good thing. I'd never want to be placid.
Although I hate the mouse voice I get sometimes. When I feel the room drop out and I can tell my idea isn't going anywhere.
How do you kill the mouse?
Oui.
Love,
Butch
You are a good observer of people. Put us on the spot. Put me on the spot. It's like making someone look in the mirror without clothes.
(I believe there is no advancement in any part of life without an act of faith but that's too big an idea to get into here, now)
I'd like to hear more about this...
Dear marcopolo, The answer is yes, I find it necessary to learn and relearn this and nearly every lesson I run into. I hope this isn't true of everyone. I hope some people are able to learn lessons just once or twice instead of constantly, which seems to be the way my life works. But what may also be true is there are lessons you can learn once--the stove is hot--and also lessons about ascending & descending degrees of quality about which our opinions change as we grow and which, therefore, we must constantly relearn how to accomplish and live with.
I like your image of the voice turning into a mouse when presenting an idea to a room that's not impressed by what you're saying. That's what it feels like to me, too. Feels like that most of the time to me. But kill the mouse and I don't think you'll do any good work anymore. It's the fear that you're not any good that turns your voice mousey. And for comfort's sake, sure, you'd wish to skip that uncomfortable moment. But, it's that fear of not being as good as you think you are that moves you to work past good enough toward excellence. You ever wonder why you're sitting at your desk after hours working longer than would be necessary to come up with an ad the client would buy? It's the mouse that makes you do that. Without the mouse--without the fear you might not be as good as you want to be--a huge part of what drives you would be gone. I remember a couple times years ago when I was so sure I was riding the wave of greatness that I had the mouse buried. Man did I do some crummy work then. I found myself not putting in time on projects, I found myself not pushing my thoughts into areas where I didn't know what I was doing. I stayed in the comfort zone and the work suffered. You need the mouse--the fear--to give you reason to push yourself. Obviously, there are plenty of people in the business interested in killing the mouse. 90% of advertising appears to have been created without any fear of how good the work might be. What's most sad about that thought to me is the number of us who fight the mouse but end up making bad work anyway. That's what makes the creative's job--which looks easy--hard. Love the mouse, it's part of the process.
here, here, Lee Ann!!
I'm having a hard time figuring out how "a lot of people are held back from working by fear of failure" lives in the same world as "hard work is a waste of time if your idea sucks."
It seems like you're saying failure is an important part of the creative process unless -- at the end of it all -- your idea sucks, at which point failure becomes a waste of time.
Post a Comment
<< Home