Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Age, Attitude & Aptitude, Childhood, Comment, Culture, Emotion, Family, Mum, Mum & Dad
Recently I was talking to a friend of mine about getting old.
Not in terms of age, but attitude.
We were discussing how there are some people we meet who just seem to embrace stepping out of life.
OK, maybe that’s a bit dramatic … more they choose to only focus on what is of interest to them, but there’s a seemingly deliberate ‘closing off’ to the things that are new or different or just happening around them.
It’s like they’ve put on a pair of ‘cultural blinkers’ they don’t intend to ever take off. Expressed in how they look. How they talk. What they like. What they say.
Now … there is absolutely nothing wrong with these people. They can do what the fuck they like. But it’s definitely not how I look – and live – my life.
And then my friend said something that caught me off guard.
He told me this story of someone he knew who used to tell him, “don’t let the old man in”.
[I subsequently discovered, thanks to a post on exactly the same subject by Kevin Chesters, it was a song by country singer, Toby Keith, who was inspired to write it after a chat with Clint Eastwood – who was about to turn 88 years old – while playing golf]
Anyway, I found it fascinating.
Not just the turn of phrase, but the implication that ‘stepping out of pop culture’ was, at a certain point, a default setting.
That to avoid doing that required a commitment to not doing that.
With hindsight, it should have been obvious, given – as I wrote in her post last week – my Mum was the embodiment of that attitude.
She absolutely did not want others to define her – or judge her – by her age.
And while that didn’t mean she dressed like some suburban version of Madonna, circa 1984 [or even 2023 for that matter] it did mean she was always open to what others were open to.
She followed young comedians … she went to see new movies … she read modern literature … she studied politics …
She didn’t necessarily like – or understand it all – but she was open to learning about it.
Because in her mind, the best way to embrace life was to have a curious mind, and for her, that meant caring about what others cared about.
And I took that all for granted until my mate said ‘don’t let the old man in’ and then I realised it was a conscious effort.
I distinctly remember her telling me about a time someone said they were surprised ‘someone of her age’ would be interested in a particular subject or activity. I still remember the defiance in her voice when she said, “I don’t want to live by their outdated expectations”.
Now you have to understand my Mum was the opposite of a rebel.
She was a kind, considerate, compassionate person. But in terms of not living up to stereotypes, she was an anarchist.
That doesn’t mean she ever did something she didn’t want to do simply because younger people did, it just means she found things interesting that people who ‘let the old man in’ didn’t.
This was a revelation to me.
Not just because I now realised my Mum had actively chosen to refuse to embrace the ‘default’ setting, but I was doing the same.
Please don’t think I’m suggesting I’m on the cutting edge of anything … but by the same token, I’m also not closing myself off to life either.
In fact, I’d go as far as to say, the older I get, the more open I am to stuff.
Views. Fashion. Food. Music. Health. Ideals. Art. Everything …
And while I originally thought this was my default setting, I’m now realising it’s not.
It’s an active choice.
A desire to stay open and interested.
Being in a young persons industry helps.
Working with international rockstars and fashion gods helps.
Having parents who were always looking forward, not behind, helps.
But it is also my choice. I just didn’t realise it.
Which suddenly explains so much that I didn’t realise till that conversation.
From the things I buy … the multitude of magazines I read … the things that grab my attention … the people I hire.
It’s the realisation that I live by a ferocious, subconscious desire to keep the old man out.
Not because I want to be young. But because I definitely don’t want to be old.
In terms of attitude, not age.
Which is why I now realise people who say others are ‘growing old disgracefully’ have got it wrong.
Because they’re not growing old disgracefully, they’re growing old with curiosity’.
And as aging traits go, that’s surely pretty awesome?
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Education
So I am rubbish at word games.
Crosswords.
Scrabble.
Countdown.
Never liked them … never won any of them.
Which is why Wordle was a bit of a revelation … because I not only could do it, I enjoyed it.
Sure, it’s more a game of deduction than vocabulary, but it’s fun.
And then I found Wordiply on the Guardian website.
It’s a game where they give you a few letters and your job is to make the longest word you can that incorporates those letters … exactly as they appear on the website.
Now you’d think I’d be shit at this.
And often I am … but on two occasions, I’ve achieved this:
That’s right assholes … I’ve got the longest word not once, but TWICE.
Is this worthy of celebration?
To normal people, no … but for me, this is like getting the degree I never got.
Happy Monday.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Attitude & Aptitude, Authenticity, Cannes, Comment, Consultants, Craft, Creative Brief, Creative Development, Creativity, Differentiation, Martin Weigel, Paula, Planners, Planners Making A Complete Tit Of Themselves And Bless, Planning, Point Of View, Pretentious Rubbish, Relevance, Research, Resonance, Respect
There are a lot of quotes out on social media that explains how to make great creative work. Hell, a bunch of them are probably mine.
But putting aside the fact many of the quotes originate from people who, arguably, haven’t done much work that is deserving of that description – all of them, in their own way, are right.
And that’s great, because the survival of this industry is down to making work that is great and achieves great things for those it’s for.
But the problem with those quotes is they often reflect an unrealistic World.
One where time … or budget … or client mandatories don’t matter.
Which is why this quote from Leonard Bernstein is so good.
Because it captures how to get to great in the real World.
We need more of this.
I think people want more of this.
Because not only is there a distinct lack of training in our industry at the moment – and what is there is often from the same outsourced ‘gurus’ everyone else is outsourcing to – but Fergus, from OnStrategy, told Paula, Martin and I how so many young planners outside of the ‘big cities’ end up thinking they have no chance to make something even good, as they lack the tools, processes and infrastructure to do what the people on his show said they did.
It’s why we ensured in our Cannes talk we put 3 practical pieces of advice that anyone could use … because if we want to change the standards, we need everyone to have the ability to do that, not just the privileged big city types.
Which is why I leave you with this.
Because as much as time can help craft, a lack of it can force audacious leaps.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Brand Suicide, Comment, Complicity, Corporate Evil, Egovertising, Fake Attitude, Grifting, Innovation, Management, Technology
Warning. This post is topical.
In fact, it may be the most topical post I’ve ever written on here for 20 years.
Please read, while sitting down in case shock overwhelms you.
This is the end of this public service announcement.
So over the years, at Wieden and R/GA, I had a few dealings with WeWork.
And while I admit at the very beginning I thought it was a genius idea – specifically the way they were creating a business that dramatically profited from sub-letting space that was designed to appeal to a particular audience who felt they deserved to work in a particular kind of environment – after I met them, I started thinking something didn’t quite add up.
Please don’t think I am trying to suggest I had any idea of the level of craziness that was going on because I didn’t … I just couldn’t understand why they kept talking about themselves as a tech company and experts in work environments and culture when they were just a new generation of business space renting organisation.
But billions were poured into them and they were the darling of so many – especially those investor/companies who love to talk about ‘disrupting categories’, despite the fact most are about as conservative as you can get.
But over time – as numerous books, documentaries and news reports have documented – WeWork was proven to be a case of Emperor’s New Clothes.
And founder ego and delusion.
Specifically one founder … because on the few occasions I met him, Miguel seemed decent and grounded, whereas Adam most certainly didn’t.
Zoom forward to today and the company has filed for bankruptcy protection.
All that money and they still fucked it.
Worse, the delusional, ego-maniac that is Adam Neumann – who took a good idea and killed it with his God complex – got to walk away with a level of wealth that will last a thousand lifetimes.
Multiple billions.
BILLIONS!
But this isn’t a post about unfairness or WeWork’s craziness – I’ve written loads about that – this is about the challenge to encourage new thinking while not being blinded by it.
We live in divisive times.
Everything seemingly turns into a war.
Those who believe and those who don’t … and that extends to new ideas.
The amount of time I’ve seen people immediately dismiss new concepts or thinking simply because they are not as perfect as something established that has had years to work through issues and train people to conform.
But by the same token, I’ve also seem people blindly back a new concept or thinking because they seemingly want to associate themselves with the topical.
We saw this last one on a grand scale with so many people on Linkedin suddenly announcing themselves as AI experts, in a desperate bid to exploit the market interest and the market lack of knowledge.
Which gets to the heart of this post which is the importance of independent, critical thinking.
Where you are supportive of new ideas and thinking but know it is OK to ask questions about actions and decisions. Not to tear things down, but to better understand what is being done.
Starting from a position of ‘they could be right’ rather than ‘they’re obviously wrong’.
Focusing on the business not the hype … which, as Lee Hill once told me … is often as simply as acknowledging ‘profit is sanity, turnover is vanity’.
Critical, independent thinking isn’t celebrated enough.
Oh we may think it is, but what often we’re seeing is blinkered ego thinking.
Not enough understanding.
Not enough knowledge.
Not enough homework.
Not enough questions.
Not enough patience.
WeWork has cost millions of people billions of dollars … and yet you can’t help but think it didn’t have to be that way.
Their original business idea was a good one.
But the promise of trillions seduced people to lose their ability to think.
Critically and independently.
I wrote about this years ago with a lesson from the master conman, Bernie Madoff:
“I succeeded because when you offer people a deal that’s too good to be true, they never want to look too hard into the facts. They say it’s because of trust. I say it’s because of greed.”
We need to encourage positive pessimism.
The ability to champion new ideas without blindly being seduced by them.
To want to help people succeed without falling into being an accomplice for any delusion or slight of hand.
It’s not hard … but the more we promote blinkered ‘framework and eco-system’ thinking, the more we lose the value of independent thinking and then everyone loses in every way possible.
Especially those who have exciting new ideas that just need our encouragement and time.
Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Advertising, Agency Culture, Attitude & Aptitude, Comment, Craft, Creative Development, Creativity, Effectiveness, Experience
About 6 or so months ago, I interviewed one of the most successful football managers of all time. I wrote about it here.
Anyway, in our conversation, he said something that really stuck with me. Something that feels especially important in these times where organisations seem to value complicity more than experience. Specifically, experience gained and earned at the very top level.
He said this:
“Learn from winners, not players”.
It’s important to note this has nothing to do with age.
I’ve met as many brilliant young people as I have met average and old. What this is about is remembering people who have done great stuff have at least as much value [but really, way more] as those who talk – or just judge – stuff.
Which is why this slide is for my friend ‘Grizzly’ who has been thinking and experiencing this for some time. And why he would have loved the debate it ignited when I presented it as the audience was made up of award winning game designers and procurement people, hahaha.