Unlocking the Courage to Be Seen Trying

Have you ever heard of David Ogilvy? I hadn't either, don’t worry. Ogilvy was a British ad exec who co-founded one of the world’s largest ad agencies, Ogilvy & Mather. He’s considered the father of modern advertising and is even credited with developing the concept of branding.

Once upon a time, across the pond, Ogilvy created an employee handbook to serve as the blueprint for a corporate culture rooted in creativity. So, The Eternal Pursuit of Unhappiness was born. This handbook outlines eight values of creativity: Courage, Idealism, Curiosity, Playfulness, Candour, Intuition, Free-Spiritedness, and Persistence.

Decades later, creatives across lanes still refer to these virtues as a roadmap for success.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be meditating on each one as a community. First up: Courage.

To put a creation into the world is to be vulnerable on a public stage. It requires us to be fearless again and again. Sharing your work means risking rejection and judgment every time you dare to be seen trying. And God forbid the results be anything short of praise; we have to be brave enough to try again. (Insert Aaliyah lyrics here.)

If you’re in a season of more nos than yeses, where your confidence is hanging by a thread and your ego’s recovering from “constructive criticism”, here’s a note from Teddy Roosevelt’s “The Man in the Arena.”

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Going into this week, we’re manifesting the courage to dare to be seen trying, to do the thing despite the outcomes, and know that we’re right there with you!