A Copywriter Writes

I've been procrastinating.

The bane of my bloody existence.

(It's ironic that I'd been meaning to furiously type this post a few days ago.)

I want to write, but I also want to read, draw, catch up on television shows, watch new movies, start other blogs, try new restaurants, build a website, build a shelf, catch up with friends, give my girlfriend some attention and fit in a jog.

And that's outside of my 8 hour working day.

You read about this time and time again: the creative mind is never relaxed; always jumping from one thing to another; starting many projects and finishing very little; like a fat, squishy kid with ADHD living in your skull.

Yeah, ok, don't panic, it happens to the best of us. But it doesn't help finish this gargantuan list of projects I want to do.

People often advise to tell people of your goals, that way, if you don't do them, you've got people to answer to. Then again, I've observed that the only things people care to nag you about is the fact you're not dieting or exercising as often as you said you would.

I also read the best way to deal with this is lists and schedules and order and goal setting, which I also recommend.

However I also notice that all I've achieved is a gargantuan list of projects in a new organiser app with overdue dates in red under each one.

So that's not the be and end all. There was something missing.

I had to go to Good Fucking Design Advice to figure that out.

Give myself a weighty boot up the arse:

"Get over your fucking self."

"Don't fucking procrastinate."

"Just fucking do it."

So that's it.

They only way I or anybody else is going to get their shit together is to just start and keep going.

I feel renewed vigor to get cracking with these projects now. I suppose only time will tell if I fall back into the same dumb pattern of just catching up on sleep.

Everyone who's customised their Tumblr log will know this one by Confucius:

"It does not matter how slow you go so long as you do not stop."

I suppose I'll take this opportunity to highlight one of my favourite 2012 epiphanies.

Once I returned to New Zealand last May, I fell back into freelancing.

Except this time, I wasn't working at ad agencies, I was being commissioned directly by clients; a totally new experience for me.

My biggest hurdle for me was deciding what to charge people.

I remember when I worked at Interbrand for a spell as a freelance copywriter and I based my rate on what I heard people my age usually get paid at their part-time 'normal' supermarket/retail/cafe jobs.

I charged $16 an hour. 

Pretty low for a freelancer, and I'm pretty sure even for a freelancer with just a year's experience.

One and a half years later, that was still my only frame of reference.

I didn't really have much of a clue to what I was doing.

I basically watched the reactions of people as I told them how much I charged and kept bumping it up a couple of dollars until they stopped looking so surprised.

That tends to be a common problem in the creative community; not knowing the value of our work.

Sometimes it's because we're overly modest or surrounded by stuffy people who don't understand what we do, therefore projecting feelings that our craft is inessential (what's the first budget to get cut when money's low? Creative advertising).

The next hurdle I realised during a client meeting in a cafe.

A start-up diary export company wanted copy for their website.

After asking initial questions we got onto the subject of the brand tone.

"What do you think?" he said.

That's when it hit me.

Here I was, 2-odd years experience, being trusted to make decisions about a brand's direction.

Was I over my head? Should I have been making these decisions?

To which my other side retorted, why the hell not?

I'd been discussing this stuff at the bar after work for two years, it was time to put up.

I had to start taking myself seriously.

Because my clients obviously were.

I had my resume and qualifications posted up on my LinkedIn page where my clients were finding me, may as well act like it.

Sometimes, it's a bit hard to get out of that 'junior position' mentality when you're used to having the safety net of a teacher, tutor or manager standing in your corner ready to save your ass if you get into too much trouble; something you definitely don't have when you're freelancing on your own.

You've just got to shake that off and be sure of yourself.

Sure, you may make a few mistakes along the way, but hey, it's how we learn.

Whether you make ads, write, paint, do accounting, give legal representation or own your own start-up business, the best you can do is best you can do.

And don't be too modest about it.

They were amazing.

And my primary school, bless them, bought a box for every junior class to have.

Every time I was good and was awarded with free time, I'd always choose to play with the blocks.

One day, my friend and I were playing with the Betta Blocks and he showed me how to make a simple army tank using only twelve blocks. I was fascinated! 

We built a few and played armies.

When our teacher told us to pack up for our next lesson, I excused myself to the cloakroom to grab something from my bag.

I opened the zip and placed the concealed tank inside. It would go perfectly with my army men I had at home.

Another day, my friend showed me how to make the tank better by adding a gun-looking thing onto each side.

I had to have it.

I found out how to make more cool things with the blocks.

And I took those too.

A couple of weeks later, our teacher called the class to the mat.

She held up the rounded Betta Blocks box, took the lid off and showed the class the handful coloured ovals that remained.

Oops.

"An entire box of blocks doesn't just go missing. Who knows where they are?"

Silence.

I'd seen children get punished for stealing before, so I was fucked if I was going to own up.

The jig was up when my father woke up one Saturday morning to find me playing with a two-metre snake I'd made out of Betta Blocks that he distinctly remembered not buying for me.

My parents told me they threw the block away to teach me a lesson, but seeing as I didn't hear a peep about the missing blocks from then on, I realised my parents must have given them back to the school and begged them not to punish me.

It made me think about how creative kids are in their problem solving. In a lot of cases, they simply don't factor in the rules.

I want the thing, so I'll take the thing. They took the thing away from me, so I'll take it when they're not looking.

But as we grow up, we start to abide by the rules we're taught; we earn money to purchase things, we begin telling the truth and asking for permission. It kind of puts a damper on achieving some things.

I want the thing, but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to have the thing. I should ask somebody...

Now, I'm not advocating a life of petty crime in order to get what you want. But you should probably ask yourself every time you want something, is it possible to just take it?

In Steve Jobs' biography, there was an instance where Jobs was making something in electronics class. He needed a part that wasn't available to him, so he made a collect call to the manufacturer and told them he was developing a new product and wanted to test the part out. 

The part was air-freighted three days later, much to the fury of his teacher, who didn't approve of his behavior.

I'd have imagined that the process would have taken much longer or not at all if he'd asked for his teacher's permission or told the truth to the manufacturer.

Another time, Jobs was making a frequency counter and needed parts. So he decided to call Hewlett Packard's CEO, Bill Hewlett so see if he could help.

This was during a time where nobody had unlisted numbers and privacy was a little more easily penetrated.

Long story short, he got the parts and a summer job working in the factory where they made frequency counters.

To paraphrase something Picasso said, all children are creative; the problem is staying creative as you grow up, clinging to that naivety and (slight) disregard for less-than-life-threatening rules.

When you're stuck for a creative solution, maybe the most simple execution is the best.

He decided to celebrate by having a boys night out and getting on it at one of Auckland's many fine gentlemen's clubs.

We figured we'd suit up for the occasion and turn seedy into suave.

On the night in question, I, along with two other friends, Mitch and Luke had another party to go to first. So we figured we'd suit up, attend this party for a few hours and meet the others in town afterward.

Except it didn't turn out to be that simple.

We got to the party, we socialised; caught up with friends and what have you. Mitch and Luke started drinking, I was the sober driver.

The party was good, so we stayed an extra hour or so. Luke played a few games of beer pong and flip cup and Mitch joined some of the other guys for a smoke.

Eventually, it got late so I rounded the guys up, who were as loose as an old pair of briefs. And just before we managed to escape, someone came out with a bottle of whiskey and flooded the guys' mouths like we'd just won the lottery.

And that, as Malcolm Gladwell puts it, was the tipping point of the night.

Mitch was complaining in the car:

"Aw man, he got whiskey on the suit! I would've been fine with it if I wasn't wearing the suit, you know?"

We arrived at the gentlemen's club, we entered. One of us strolled, one of us strutted and one of us stumbled in. We saw Gary at the bar and exchanged greetings in a very "gidday-mate-no-I'm-not-dying-to-check-out-the-naked-chicks-behind-you-why-do-you-ask" sort of way.

Mitch was chatty:

"Lookin' fly, Gary!"

"Cheers, bro. You good?"

"Yeah, bro! I'mma buy you a drink. Wuz dat drink that...that wuzizname drinks? Bar...Barney...Barney."

I rolled my eyes.

"Barney Stinson." I helped.

"Yeeah! Barmy Stimsum! Wuz he drink?"

"Scotch on the rocks."

"Three of those!"

And I'm out.

So we met up with the rest of the guys, played a round of pool and then found a booth to enjoy the rest of the show.

Three of the guys and I settled into a couch in the first row. Mitch wanted to join us but there was no room.

"Just sit up the back with the others." I directed him.

And it was good... and then...

A guy on the end of the couch we were sitting on, got up and left. I turned to tell Mitch to come and join us.

"Hey! Mitch! Come, there's an empty spot. Mitch! Hey, Mitch!"

Why the hell is he just staring into space like that? What's he doing? And what the hell is he drinking?

Mitch was holding some weird cocktail-looking drink in his trembling hand.

There's nothing like a sudden realisation this horrible to made all the blood rush back into your brain.

"Dude, dude. Mitch's puked in his drink."

I beckoned him over furiously.

"Give me that, ugh. Get to the bathroom now, before you make a serious mess."

He galloped away.

Soon he waltzed back into the room with a huge grin on his face.

"It's alright guys, I'm cool."

He joined us in a booth and we settled our attention on abundance of exposed skin on stage. I looked over to see Mitch with his hand on his stomach and a look on his face like he was doing advanced algebra.

"Dude, you ok?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. Just settling."

"You sure?"

"Yea-"

His cheeks expanded like a bullfrog and deflated again.

"Ok, I'm good."

"Fuck that! Get your ass back to bathroom just in case. Do not make me leave here to look after you."

Back he went, clutching his mouth. Again, he sauntered back like Fonzie in a suit.

"It's cool, guys. I'm good."

And again, we enjoyed the sights. Everyone was having a good time, we were drinking, laughing, ogling. The night was shaping up to be very entertaining.

It came out of nowhere.

A hiccup that went totally wrong.

Mitch exploded.

His mouth was like a hole in the side of a water pipe. He was gushing.

He tried covering his mouth which was as effective as stopping a hose on full blast with a single finger.

Puke flew across the table in our booth and splattered my knee. The rest was strewn across the table top, in our drinks, down the leg of the unfortunate bastard sitting next to him, on the floor and all over Mitch.

We were all on our feet. You couldn't get a more blatant cue to leave. Poor Mitch was paralysed in shock. The bouncer fixed that.

For the first time that evening, perhaps even ever. The dancer had lost the attention of everyone in the room.

The guys all continued the night elsewhere in town. I volunteered to take the walking sewage pipe home. The rest of the night was pretty standard for that scenario.

I looked at him, covered in his dinner and couldn't help but giggle at his objection to some spilt whiskey on his vest.

A guy always remembers his first strip club. Now, months later, if someone asked me about mine I'd be able to recall the whole night vividly like a movie I'd watched repeatedly.

MISTAKE ONE occurred very early in the process.

In an initial meeting somewhere, someone let slip a phrase along the lines of

"The videos will go viral."

Essentially promising the Holy Grail of advertising campaign outcomes.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure one of, if not the first rule of general business is don't promise what you can't deliver.

Now, there are definitely some ad agencies out there who have a pretty slick idea of what people are going to share online, or not.

But it doesn't matter who you are, you can't guarantee viral... viralbility? Virality? Viralness?

You can't guarantee something will go viral.

It's like guaranteeing the weather in a month's time, or the outcome of a sports game or the stock market.

So, naturally, the client took note of this and expected corresponding results.

MISTAKE TWO also occurred in the initial meeting.

It was a small misunderstanding that was never clarified from the beginning.

We said to the client that we would take all the submissions we received each day and turn the best ten into (hopefully) entertaining news report clips. Assuming we got at least ten submissions a day.

The client heard 'ten videos a day, regardless'.

A mild concern to begin with, but each time we neglected to straighten this issue out, the situation liken itself to cutting a hydra's head off; easy enough to deal with a first, but if we could only foresee the shit storm we were driving ourselves into...

To clarify, coming out of the first meeting we had already promised ten viral videos every day for a campaign period of four weeks. Put away your scissors, because this work has been cut out for us. Ironically, by us.

MISTAKE THREE manifested itself through poor scheduling and time management.

We filmed a teaser video that would herald the campaign a week before it launched, so the client's Facebook fanbase would be aware prior in order not to waste time building awareness during.

The video took too long to edit, coupled with the client's indecision to approve it and the fact the time schedule remained unchanged left us with a week lost. So the teaser video went out on launch day.

On the first day, there was zero awareness of the campaign and the client was still expecting 10 videos.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, fuck.

We got desperate: we got staff to submit, we got family, friends and friends of friends to submit.

It was embarrassing, but we eventually got the ball rolling. By ball, I mean cube and by rolling, I mean a very persistent person flipping it over and over again.

Remember Home Alone 2? Kevin's on the roof of the house and the Sticky Bandits, Harry and Marv are on the street asking him to throw down his camera. But Kevin doesn't throw his camera, he throws a brick. And it hits Marv square in the forehead. That's exactly how MISTAKE FOUR hit us.

After a week, the other creatives and I agreed that one doesn't simply write viral comedy. 10 times over each day, for 28 days.

Now, I say with little to no abashment that I consider myself a funny guy, but when you're required to produce side-splitting humour like a canned goods factory preparing for Y2K, there's a drop in quality.

Long story short, after looking over the videos we produced, we knew we'd bitten off more than we could chew. We couldn't even bear to watch them again.

MISTAKE FIVE, the last of the big screw-ups, was allowing two of the team members to leave the agency halfway through the project, the Art Director and Account Executive.

Balls were dropping left, right and center.

Our Head of Strategy was also acting Creative Director and Account Manager. And at one point, our design intern was juggling the role of Social Media Manager and Client Liason.

I don't think I've ever been closer to wanting to take up residence under my desk and living off nothing but my constantly flowing tears.

It seemed with every week, the project got more and more apocalyptic.

Definitely the worst time I've spent in advertising.

However, it is also a project I learned the most in.

Albeit it was mostly what not to do, but let's face it, most of the most effective learning is just like that. Trial and error.

And say what you want about an agency that didn't have it's shit together for a particular project, to jump head first into something that's unfamiliar to you is pretty ballsy.

Sometimes it's just the best way to learn. Just do it and see what happens.

And succeed or fail, you always get better at what you do.

I'm quietly grateful for the nightmares as much as the dream job scenarios; it all contributes to my growth as a professional.

What? PIDGEY is evolving!

And your Pidgey, or whatever, changed into something completely different, but stronger and more powerful.

PIDGEY evolved into PIDGEOTTO!

Awesome.

After that I moved on to other RPG games, mostly on the Internet, where I could take my character and level it up, and evolve.

My latest is, I write with abashment, a recent find. A game called Urban Rivals. A game where you collect different ‘normal’ looking human characters and evolve them into more supernatural forms.

I can’t help it.

I love this game concept of evolution. The ability to gain experience points (win or lose) and once you fill the bar, you raise a level, learn a new ability or change form completely.

I remember I used to sit at my bedroom window as a kid and look at the birds in the backyard and wish Pokemon existed for real*; catching and training the ones that would appear around the house. And at 10, like in the show, I would’ve been off on my own to wander the globe looking for animals to catch and battle.

Never mind the small fact that a ten year-old kid cannot look after themselves.

I still catch myself wishing that all the aspects in our lives were like this: a little EXP bar floating above us showing our level and skills, all of which would grow every time we did something and suddenly, we would glow and transform into a different, noticeably stronger and smarter form.

But then I think.

That’s exactly how life is, isn’t it?

Sure, ok, we don’t have EXP bars floating above our heads, but we have experience levels for all the tasks we ever do in our lives. Right now, my experience levels (if I had to give numbers to them) may look like this:

COPYWRITING: 31 SHAVING: 74 MAKING BANANA MILKSHAKES: 89 SEWING: 4

We change form, we just don’t notice it until we pull out the old photos. And we do take on new forms and learn new ‘attacks’ or abilities. The only difference is we don’t have a constant update on our lives like you see in games:

DAN reached level 21!

DAN learned IDEAS (Level 1)!

DAN learned ART DIRECTION (Level 1)!

DAN learned COPYWRITING (Level 1)!

DAN obtained the item, UNI DEGREE!

What? DAN is evolving!

DAN evolved into JUNIOR COPYWRITER!

DAN learned HEADLINES!

DAN learned IDEAS (Level 2)

DAN learned COPYWRITING (Level 2)!

DAN reached level 22!

DAN learned COPYWRITING (Level 3)!

DAN obtained the item AD AWARD!

What? DAN is evolving!

DAN evolved into MID-WEIGHT COPYWRITER!

The battles we enter are the everyday tasks we do in our work and our hobbies that give us the experience to become more skillful. It’s the constant practice that raises our skill level.

If you lift weights all the time, do our muscles not get bigger? Karl Fleet, Deputy Creative Director at Colenso BBDO told me:

“The brain is a muscle. Just keep working it and it will get stronger.”

Totally true; if you play a card game enough, you tend to become more strategic in your approach, making you a better player.

The same would be for your passion. Simply keep going. Keep battling every day and challenge yourself to get better at what you love doing and gain more experience. You’ll evolve eventually.

DAN learned INSIGHT (Level 1)!

What? DAN is evolving!

DAN evolved into BLOGGER!

DAN learned BLOG POST (Level 2)!

As soon as you’re settled, find the appropriate person and ask for a list of the agency’s clients. As an intern, there’s a chance you won’t see a lot of work for a first couple of days as you’re introduced to the agency and its culture. In the meantime, pick a client from the list when you have nothing to do and come up with some ads for them with your own SMP. This shows that you have initiative and you add value to the agency. Paul White told this to me toward the end of 2009, and I’ve lived by it ever since.

TWO

Any proactive work you do during the week, compile together and show the Creative Director at the end of the week. You’ll look amazing if you can make this a regular thing. This shows the CD directly that you’re always thinking and don’t waste time. If any of it is good, you’ve got some work to go in the portfolio (GOOD), or gets run (AWESOME) or may even be award winning (CRAZY AWESOME).

THREE

Before doing proactive work for the agency’s clients, do a quick round of the creative department and introduce yourself (if you haven’t already) and ask if you can get in and help on anything anyone else is doing. An agency appreciates a hungry intern. It gets you more relaxed and familiar with the other creatives too and you become more approachable to one another.

FOUR

Be talkative, smile and be approachable. Make sure people know you’re there. A small agency I once worked for took in a couple of interns who kept to themselves most of the time. After a month, the CD still didn’t know their names. In an agency with only 6 people in creative department, that’s awkward.

FIVE

As an intern, NEVER (without permission) drink the last beer/wine/spirit from the bar (if you’re lucky enough to get into an agency that has one). Psychologically, people tend to dislike whoever takes the last of something. Also, it can be perceived as a bit of a smart-ass thing to do. I found this out the hard way. I once drank the last of the whiskey at one agency and this news was quickly spread and was received with mild distaste. The senior copywriter even went as far as to make it a new rule and wrote an amendment to the agency induction document.

SIX

Unless work is beating down on you like a drummer in an African tribe, always take up the invitation to join people from the agency for lunch or after-work drinks. Get to know everyone outside of the office. Who knows? You may make some industry friends and (if you’re a swell person) some solid contacts for later in your career. Just don't get drunk around them. You may get some egging-on by some of them, but try and control yourself.

SEVEN

Get comfortable, but not too comfortable. It’s great if you’re one of those people who can easily adapt to a new environment, but careful not to rub others the wrong way with it. There’s a fine line between a cool intern who’s settling in nicely and cocky shit new kid on the block. One time, I was playing pool with the agency Managing Director and we were giving each other banter, as you do. He made a stab at me being fired if I won the game and I, in jest, made a remark along the lines of

“Please, you need me.” 

To which he replied after a pause:

“Sorry, who are you?”

This was also a joke, but with serious undertones. Got me thinking. Always pack yourself a slice of humble pie for lunch.

EIGHT

When invited to sit in on meetings, contribute. ‘Sit in’ generally means sit there, listen and learn about what’s going on and you’re not really expected to speak up. Show your enthusiasm by diving into the work and getting involved.

NINE

Know that you’ll be working long hours. Expect it. Be pleasantly surprised if they let you go home at 6pm. It helps to inform your family, friends, boyfriend/girlfriend.

TEN

A rule of thumb with most workplaces if you’re interning is to be there before your boss and leave only after he/she does. Special circumstances aside.

ELEVEN

If it’s 6pm and there’s nothing for you to do, stay. I mean, this job is mostly about long hours, you may as well start practising. Pull out that client list.

TWELVE

Know that agency life will be exciting and magical for a first weeks, maybe, if you’re awesome, it’ll last a month for so. But sooner or later, the cherries, rainbows and fairy bread will dissolve and it’ll be crunch time and there’ll be tension and a sea of shit to swim through. But there’s always land ahead.

THIRTEEN

Always check and confirm all meetings, no matter how minute, with your CD. For one, it’ll show that you’re on top of things and you’re proactive about your work. Also, a CD’s schedule is dramatically hectic and dynamic. Don’t be surprised if the number of times a meeting is postponed gets into the double digits.

FOURTEEN

You’re never too busy. Having said this, be sensible. Take on all work opportunities that come your way, but there’s a point where you go from juggling multiple briefs to being ridiculous. Plus, as an intern (and in some cases a junior), you’re hardly in any position to turn people away.

FIFTEEN

The receptionist is the gatekeeper of all things in the agency. She orders the new stationary, she keeps the taxi coupons in her top drawer and she picks the beer brand and biscuits to stock the fridge and fill the jar with. She loves gossip, talking about her (and your) day and dogs or cats or horses or possibly all three. And she loves doing favours for people who are nice to her. Most importantly, she is not, by any measurement, below you in any way. Give her the respect she deserves.

SIXTEEN

Some of the more stressed workers in the agency (usually the creatives) would argue that it is not in fact a good morning or something that even resembles a pleasant evening. But wish them one anyway.

SEVENTEEN

If you’re going to complain about trivial tasks you are asked to do as part of being an intern, don’t trust this to someone within the agency. It’s never a good look, no matter how much they empathise with you. Always be modest in this respect. And never, NEVER describe a task as “tedious” when someone has the gentle kindness to inquire how you’re doing.

EIGHTEEN

The pay will be shit. Deal with it. In my opinion, this is a test of your passion (and budgeting skills). If you can’t survive on the paycheck you’re getting, get a part-time weekend job.

NINETEEN

Sooner or later, you’ll hit the metaphorical fork in the road where you decide whether or not to get involved in the office politics. Try to avoid for as long as possible. If you do, remain as impartial as possible.

TWENTY

Office gossip: collect as much as you want, just don’t be the source of it. It’s fun, I’ll admit, but not worth the crappy consequences. You’ll be surprised at who’s loyal to who and who’s connected to who.

TWENTY-ONE

Attitude is everything. A smile when people enter your office is loved. A groan or a sigh when brochure/mailer work is given to you is not.

TWENTY-TWO

Careful about the bosses you try to impress. You’ll have two. The Creative Director and the Managing Director. In a large agency, you’re probably not going to have much to do with the MD but in a small agency, you’re likely to run into him/her now and again. These two people will have different work ethics. Example: one CD once told my Art Director and I that he didn’t care when we came into the office, as long as the work got done. This led to a couple of times where we sauntered into the office around 11am. The CD didn’t care, but the MD raises an eyebrow to this stuff. Bottom line: who actually does the hiring?

TWENTY-THREE

However, in my reply, I skipped across a topic that really needs do be gone over in detail because it happens to be as important for a student to know as a midwife needs to know how to tie a good knot.

I’m talking of failure.

From when we’re kids, it is indoctrinated into us that failure is a bad thing. You’re given bad grades for not doing well, other kids tease you for not being good at football or handball (I think for girls, if you weren’t good at hand games, your life was pretty much over) and sometimes impatient parents would growl you for not doing something right.

This leaves us with one outstanding fact:

Failure sucks.

It sucks to the point where we are cautious about where we tread in most things we do just so we don’t screw up. We’ve become that annoying chess player who keeps his hand on his piece for half an hour before moving it back to it’s original spot.

We really should be doing the exact opposite.

What I did say to this student in regards to failure was

“Welcome rejection and criticism like old friends, because they’ll be visiting often.”

The smilie, I feel, is spot on because failure, like an old friend is someone you learn from and someone that helps you. Sure, you may not always be glad to see them at the time, but at the end of the day, you’re glad they were around.

Failure is how we grow as entrepreneurs, as creatives, as tradesmen, as parents, as friends, as people. You know, learning from our mistakes and that.

I guess that’s another great thing about learning from failure, is that you’re more motivated not to repeat a failure than you are to repeat a success.

It is failure that motivates us to improve ourselves and succeed next time.

Two non-advertising examples can be found in this very blog. Because of past failures, I’m now very careful about where I make out with girls and I will never look a mall kiosk salesperson in the eye again. Dumb examples, perhaps. But I’m not the one getting robbed from the back seat of a car or spending hundreds of dollars on beauty products I’ll never use anymore.

Most of us are scared to fail, even young people like students and juniors. If anything, it’s students and juniors that shouldn’t be afraid of it at all. When you’re young, most older, weathered people look down upon you and expect you to fail due to your lack of experience. Failing while you’re young is forgivable; it’s an invitation for guidance, waiting until you’re old to start failing gets you fired. So shit, you may as well! 

Take advantage of this and go for those weird ideas that you’re not sure about, feel that twang of unease and unsureness; take a leap onto that big, soft, cushiony bed, knowing that at any second, it may turn into a solid slab of cold concrete.

Many CDs have said they love working with students and juniors because they have an ignorance about what you can and can’t do, so their thinking is a little less stifled. Fear of failure and rejection will take that edge right away from you.

It really is a shame failure is shunned so early in life; the force of habit makes it hard to let that idea go. But a well-balanced diet of failure in one’s life is very healthy. In fact, it’s essential.

Just ask Michael Jordan. He puts it rather simply.

So when you ask yourself next time:

“But will the client/ boss/ partner/ lecturer/ friend/ investor/ consumer/ director like it, though? Hmmm perhaps not.”

Think again.

“Fuck that.”

Show them what you can do and if you get rejected, show them how you do it better, and better, and better each time.

Because at the end of the day it’s not the failing that those that matter look at. It’s the trying, your effort,

Try, fail and keep going and you’ll succeed eventually; it’s almost mathematical.

***

The din was incredible. People chatting over one another, laughing and such, while the waiters screamed at one another, keeping tabs on who was doing what.

We sat, unnoticed. Everybody was far too busy to notice new customers.

As waiters passed us, and we looked up at them, smiling like Oliver Twist, hoping for some food, they would turn away like we were invisible, as if they were Molly Ringwald and we were that nerdy blonde kid from the same John Hughes film.

“Excuse me…”

One would say, sheepishly.

“Yeah, ok.”

The waiter would say back as he walked by, never to return again.

If you wanted to eat in this market, you had to be bold.

I mean, that rule pretty much applies anywhere, doesn’t it?

I saw this restaurant and I saw the world as we know it.

You’re sitting where you are, trying to get the attention of a select group of people, all the while trying to be heard over the noise and demands of those with similar motivations to you.

Whether you’re making an ad, launching a brand, starting a fashion label or even just trying to score a job at the cool music store down the road everybody loves, the situation is usually the same and what you need to do is be heard over the noise.

The answer, I believe, is how you communicate your message.

There are many ways to go about getting the attention of the waiters of the world:

You could engage them with questions,

“You, sir. Would you like to know what I’m sitting at this table for?” 

Or engage them with personality,

“Gidday, mate! How’s your day? Cool, cool! Reckon I could order some food? Alright, sweet!”

Perhaps you might just say something incredibly loud and audacious to get their attention,

“PENIS!”

However, his attention may be fleeting once they find out what you’re trying to say.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter what you say, but how you look. Something that looks interesting can draw in your audience and get them to inquire,

“Hey, you’re naked.”

“Yes I am. May I have some food, please?”

The most effective way, which needs very little justification, is to be straightforward and direct,

“Excuse me, I… Oi! Hey! HEY! Yeah, you. Can I get 3 orders of Roti Canai please?”

“Isn’t that a bit rude?”

I asked, ignorant.

“Well, it’s how you have to get their attention if you want to eat here.”

Get their attention the best way you can.

How? By standing out.

This is a piss poor example, really, because it isn’t as simple as raising your voice. It rarely is. In fact sometimes, that particular method is detrimental to your objective.

Be creative, be different, be bold. Look around you at the others in the restaurant (to keep this analogy going) and be what they’re not. Do what they aren’t doing. Look like what they don’t.

Chances are, they’re all doing the same thing because it’s proven to be the most effective way. 

Not necessarily. 

Different is effective. Once upon a time, it was different to have an incredibly good-looking, suave man in a cologne ad.

Do something different, create the new effective way.

Our method of getting the waiter’s attention seemed to be effective this time.

It really was the best Roti Canai I’ve ever had.