Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Confidence, Context, Creativity, Culture, Diversity, Egovertising, Emotion, Empathy, Equality, Experience, Fulfillment, Legend, Management, Perspective, Relevance, Resonance, Standards
I’m reading and hearing more and more people position themselves as some sort of elite force … because the pain, hardship and obstacles others face, didn’t affect them.
Except – as the tweet by Daniel above shows – it did.
It’s happening everywhere.
From that prick Piers Morgan claiming he is in someway responsible for the brilliant achievement of Emma Raducanu through to certain members of the marketing community who acknowledge there’s many barriers people face in the industry, but then add how they were still able to succeed … unsubtly insinuating their talent is so exceptional, they got to the top despite all the obstacles others say “holds them back”, conveniently ignoring the fact they’re white, educated to hell and privileged as fuck.
I’m over it.
There’s so many people out there who face challenges the majority of us will never appreciate.
Never understand.
And while that doesn’t mean the achievements of anyone should be dismissed, the assumption that everyone is playing by the same rules and contexts is total bullshit.
Which is why those who put others down by saying ‘they faced challenges and they turned out alright’ are missing the point … both in terms of the effect their actions and behaviours had on their wellbeing and the definition of what success has to be.
We’re all fighting demons and challenges only we know about.
So by all means be proud of what you’ve done, but don’t use that to then backhandedly dismiss the achievements of others – especially when they’re not really comparable in terms of context, category or celebration.
Past or present.
Have a great weekend.
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Well said Robert.
Comment by Lee Hill October 15, 2021 @ 8:13 amThis is really good Robert. I have met many people throughout my career who have done this. It is why I admire your ability to speak so openly about the challenges you have faced at times and how it affected you.
We need more of that rather than the 1980’s style “warrior” attitude which is still very prevalent in US corporate culture today.
Comment by George October 15, 2021 @ 8:22 amFunny you should say that, because when I was working in America I got an email that was none-ironically addressed to “the advertising warriors who reside in this building”.
It then went on to talk about how we faced challenges that would make most agencies fall but we were victorious. We were conquerers. I’m not making this up.
I read it over and over again thinking I’d missed the joke. I hadn’t. Except for the fact I was working for some people who were.
Comment by Rob October 15, 2021 @ 8:30 amworking in america is a full contact sport. a shit sport. the sort of crap even eurosport wouldnt bother showing and those fuckers would show a pair of curtains being opened.
Comment by andy@cynic October 15, 2021 @ 9:17 amThat’s one hell of an analogy.
Comment by DH October 15, 2021 @ 10:31 amI did some work on Eurosport at R/GA. Well, it never ended up happening but there was some great potential in what we could have done with them. The main being that the people who founded it had a really fascinating relationship with sport.
Put simply, they were obsessed with it. So obsessed that they didn’t care what it was as they loved it all. Sure, some of that was driven by the money they had available … but for them, if it was sport it was awesome and that’s why they had the most radically weird and diverse range of sport on any network.
There was something so refreshing and exciting about that in these overly contrived sport broadcast times … a chance to lean into the meaning of sport beyond the privileged and the big spenders … but the new owners wanted to just talk about their ‘range of exclusive sport packages’ … so I left them to it, haha.
Comment by Rob October 15, 2021 @ 12:40 pmThis feels so familiar. I’m not even saying that to have a dig at you Rob. I’ve watched so many people elevate their achievements by talking about how others failed in similar situations. It was uncomfortable and now I know why.
Comment by Bazza October 15, 2021 @ 8:50 amive heard some fucking grade-a wankfest claims. the sort of shit that wouldnt be out of place in a shit hollywood movie.
what always got me was the fuckers talked like they had conquered satan, trump and thatcher at the same time. then would scream like theyre facing torture when their fucking computer crashed. twats.
Comment by andy@cynic October 15, 2021 @ 9:15 amHahahaha … so true.
Comment by Rob October 15, 2021 @ 12:33 pmcampbell has only ever succeeded because hes been a parasite on other fuckers talent so for once he cant be blamed for any of this shit.
Comment by andy@cynic October 15, 2021 @ 9:16 amWasn’t that what the Korean Oscar winning movie was about?
Comment by DH October 15, 2021 @ 10:31 am