Tag Archives: Failure

Friday Fun Quotes: Advertising & Others

Continuing a series of various illustrious quotes, here are some worth-remembering “sayings” which I find interesting and inspiring. Hopefully, you will, too.

Some quotes are from the American Advertising Federation newsletter “Smart Brief,” while others come from various sources. Enjoy!!

Not everything that can be counted counts; and not everything that counts can be counted. – George Gallup

Innovation demands that you take risks, make mistakes, and fail.            – Keynote speaker Dr. Tony Wagner at #SASInstitute2018

My definition, then, of the creative process is that it is the emergence in action of a novel relational product, growing out of the uniqueness of the individual on the one hand, and the materials, events, people, or circumstances of his life on the other. – Carl R. Rogers

I found that after meditating I would go down to my desk in my studio and sit there to write. And nothing would come. Everything was so peaceful, so harmonious; I was blissed out. And I had to realize through harsh experience that the secret of being a writer is to go to your desk with your mind full of chaos, full of formlessness—formlessness of the night before, formlessness which threatens you, changes you. – Rollo May (making an identical observation about his creative process. He was also a visual artist and worked full-time as a writer before becoming a psychologist.)

We were created to be creative, and every day is a battle to turn that into more joy than frustration. – Lee Clow

Now that I have your attention, here are 94 characters making you regret that you gave it. Just like most advertising today. – Lee Clow

The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new. – Socrates

Second hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack. – Virginia Woolf

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. – Isaac Asimov

It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper. – Rod Serling

 

Creativity and Fear: Seth’s Take

Last month I posted a blog on creativity and fear. Interestingly, two days following my posting Seth Godin posted this:

 “How do I get rid of the fear?”

Alas, this is the wrong question.

The only way to get rid of the fear is to stop doing things that might not work, to stop putting yourself out there, to stop doing work that matters.

No, the right question is, “How do I dance with the fear?”

Fear is not the enemy. Paralysis is the enemy.

* * * * * * * *

I’m a follower of Seth’s and subscribe to is blog (linked above). There are times, however, when I wish he’d get into more detail or provide more insight about his points. This is one of those times.

In his brief post referenced above, he’s right. Paralysis is our enemy. We can do nothing when it envelopes us. We have to meet it head on and that can be scary. How do we do that? Well . . .

My earlier posting of “13 ways to deal with fear” also touches on the paralysis factor. We need to do something to jar ourselves out of this newly immobilized state.

When Seth states that paralysis is the enemy, how would one deal with one’s enemy. You can’t ignore him (the enemy), but you could go in another direction to get around him. You’ve faced him before and you’ll face him again. How each of us reacts depends on us. There is no one solution or antidote.

What do you think? How have you dealt with paralysis?

13 Ways to Handle Fear When It Attacks Creativity

We’ve all been there. We’re never quite sure what do to but we feel like we’ve gotta do something. NOW.

But we can’t. We can’t think other than in scattered ways. Incomplete. Disjointed. Frustration sets in. We feel stymied because our creativity has stopped flowing for whatever the reason.

Uh-oh, what’s that. A strange sound. It’s him! Fear comes a’knockin.

Thanks to iStockPhoto

Thanks to iStockPhoto

Fear, as in being afraid (what if the client hates my ideas), being scared (what if I can’t come up with any ideas), feeling intimidated (there’s always someone lurking in the shadows with better ideas).

Fear is also what you get when you sense F.E.A.R. – Failure to Execute Achievable Results – with the key word here being  “achievable.” The results need to be just that and not unattainable.

 

The three “ F” words: Fear, Failure, Fun

Up to now, we’ve referenced two of the three “F” words, fear and failure. The third one we don’t experience nearly enough. That would be fun.

As long as you have fear of failure, you’ll never have any fun!

Dealing with failure is easier than dealing with fear; not that dealing with failure is ever easy. It’s not. It’s embarrassing, even humiliating at times. But failure tends to be short­ lived, relatively speaking.

Society and corporate culture-wise, we talk much more about weaving failure into our systems, our processes. Sometimes it’s all talk and not nearly enough practice. Many successful and innovative companies build and accept failure as a natural way of doing business. More companies should but probably will not. They don’t seem to understand that in order to achieve success, failure is part of the journey.

Fear, on the other hand, can torment, destroy, self-inflict. It can absolutely kill creativity.

You’re angry (about a shortened, possibly unrealistic new deadline), depressed, distraught (you do not want to fail to execute anything). You may even be mystified as to why this happened to you.

Ever receive a phone call late on a Friday from an upset client telling you that new and much better creative needs to be on his desk by first thing Monday morning . . . or else (he doesn’t have to say “or else;” the intimidation suffices)? And nothing you can say will alter how he’s feeling at that point in time.

Hell’s bells, you didn’t have plans for the weekend anyway, didja?!

How do you deal with fear when it attacks creativity, especially when on a deadline (realistic or not)?

13 ways, in no special order, to handle fear when it comes a’callin:

–Walk away – change your surroundings, get into another room or leave for a bit

–Talk it out – if possible, share what’s going on with a colleague, friend or spouse

–Write it down – capture what you now know or understand needs to be done within the new timeline

–Pray – this may be first on some lists and as you’ll see, it’s on mine more than once

–Focus – look at your project from another perspective and focus on different portions of it, thus making it more manageable and doable

–Pray some more – you can never do this one too many times (but you still have to do the work)

–Get more focused – set  realistic parameters that allow you to work on specific aspects of the project without getting overwhelmed

–Think positively – Amen! Repeat this step as often as needed

–Remember past good results – remind yourself that you’ve done this before; that’s why they hired you in the first place

–Acknowledge worry and anxiety – this one is tricky because you need to face what’s happening to you, acknowledge it, then move on

–Get to work – actually doing the work can be therapy in itself and when the thoughts start flowing, creativity will thrive

–Don’t give in to what-ifs – try to avoid thinking too much about that over which you have no control or you simply don’t yet know; this is wasted energy

–Pray for the others – I actually mean the clients (or whoever is giving you grief) who are putting you through this; remember, they may not know (or care) what they do

Fear is hardly ever dealt with, but is dished out way too easily and usually without a care. That’s unfortunate since fear is a dangerous and deadly poison to the creative mind and process.

Now, you may have your own way of dealing with fear. Whatever works! We can’t stop it from happening but we need to try our damndest from letting it totally shut us down.

I have fun when I’m head over heels in the creative process, and I try and remember that when fear comes a’knockin.

Come to think of it, I guess I could also change the locks!

 

 

 

When we fail to fail, we fail. Creativity suffers.

In his recent talk before the Ad Age Small Agency Conference, Dan Wieden, co-founder of Wieden & Kennedy in Portland, OR, stressed the importance of failure, or, rather, the freedom to fail.

Talking about his agency’s mantra, “fail harder,” Mr. Wieden referenced the significance of one making three collossal mistakes before moving on to more fruitful creativity. He mentioned how mistakes are too often seen as marks of stupidity, instead of building blocks of knowledge.

I know, not everyone feels they have the flexibility to make ONE mistake, let alone three or more. That’s a scary thought!

Consistent barriers seem to be erected that prevent us from experiencing failure. Some are self-imposed, while others are insinuated by organizations and companies with which we work or perform services. Time to fail is rarely included in the timeline for producing most projects.

Everyone wants results now, not three days from now (at least, that’s how it feels at times). Yet, one must be diligent in expressing doubt that a hurried or tight timeline would include time to fail.

In today’s fast-paced business climate, failure doesn’t seem to be tolerated. “We don’t have time to fail,” seems to be the business mantra. Ah, therein lies the rub.

When it comes to creativity, those of us practicing it everyday don’t seem to be allowed to think about failure. Yes, I admit it – I did not achieve perfection on the first draft of my _________ (fill in the blank with design, article, illustration, photograph or whatever).

I “failed.”

190px-The_Scream

Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”

That’s hogwash (technical term)!

Companies like Nike, Apple, Pixar and even others much smaller in size, openly embrace failure and incorporate it into their systems.

Those who don’t engage creativity everyday, seem to think that it’s some commodity one can easily switch on or off at will. This attitude does a disservice to those involved in practicing the craft as well as for whom they are practicing it.

It’s unrealistic to ignore failure. It’s unrealistic not to schedule time for its possible appearance. It’s reality that we need to learn from the process to improve upon what we just created. We need to make time to do that, and then move on.

The other reality: Will anybody really care?