Fear as a positive tool not an inhibitor.

It’s a strange concept in a field known to chew creatives up and spit them out in a relatively short time. In fact if you talk to a range of creatives from those early in their career, middle of their career or those rare few who have lasted long enough to be long term industry leaders you’ll get an impressive range of mental states. You’ll get those too terrified to speak their mind. Who are literally trapped in a cycle of yes sir, thank you sir. You’ll find those so beat down by the system and their clients flip flopping state of instability that they are bitter to the point of aggressive outbursts and constant late night complaint sessions over too much alcohol. You’ll get those who have stood up to the world and love their job and the creative power they exhibit. Or those who simply had enough one day and left it all behind. And you’ll get all those in between. (I know I fit into a few of those myself). The fact is creative people as a whole are very emotionally sensitive people – no matter how hard skinned we can seem at times. That doesn’t make them weak. That doesn’t make them afraid. It also doesn’t make them untouchable. In fact all we are is passionate about “stuff”. (And I do mean “stuff”). We all have our nuggets of passion that we hold onto and our hates we have to deal with to enjoy those moments of joy. The trick becomes – balancing the two and ensuring you have more joy than heavy lifting.

Over the last decade of my career in this industry as well as other industries I admit to a lot of fear and if someone says they don’t have any I challenge that. It’s a human trait and like all emotions is equally important and to be embraced. Especially to the people who are tasked with connecting brands and materialistic needs to human beings who are after all each a boiling pot of emotion and chaos. After all – you wouldn’t ask someone who doesn’t speak French to give a speech in English to a French crowd.

So there it is – your all have fear and so do I. Suck it up. Unfortunately more and more in a field dominated by growing technology and knowledge which has empowered the client and the consumer and in turn taken a large measure of control and power away from the creative mind has left a sense of vulnerability in one’s skills and ideas. “Why don’t I just design my own ad…my camera copies files to my computer and I have Corel Draw”. That statement is important. And our fear usually tells us to run for the hills or scream for attention with confidence builders like our experience or education. However the reality is this is a powerful turn of events. And it’s ok to feel a little less in control.

Could you be anti-corporate in a corporate world? Maybe. Do you need to be to still have a say? Not at all. It is all a matter of perspective. A champion of going left when they expect you to go right is still a respected trait no matter where you stand. Breaking change and taking chances. Our fear is more than often an inhibitor and therefore viewed as a bad feeling. But it doesn’t need to be. Fear, like all emotions has its place. You enjoy being scared during a scary movie. A little fear keeps us working hard (but hopefully not all night) not because you think you’re wrong in what you may need to present or finish the next day – but because you’re nervous about acceptance. Elevated adrenaline will make the project sell through or that end of the day “good job” compliment all the sweeter. Fear – if you let it – can lead to a very rewarding beginning to a positive result. My suggestion would be to embrace it. Accept it but don’t look at it as negative. It’s not an easy task and in fact we’re all still working on it. And if it truly is a negative fear you should do the scarier thing and turn left instead of right. Too often we hide from our fear as creatives and don’t embrace it as part of the process of people. I wonder if more people did embrace and use their fears how the industry would evolve in the eyes of the burn out and abused who have left or dipped their toe in every few years.

So what are you afraid of?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 at 9 24 am and is filed under All Blog Posts, Inner Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.