When something doesn’t work the first time, we are tempted to globalize our disappointment.

Sometimes we define the task as impossible and just give up. Sometimes we define the idea as impractical and switch gears to something more proven and safe. Sometimes we turn inward and define ourselves as incompetent.

But whatever our response is to that initial failure, the result is the same. It becomes harder and harder to build upon the momentum of our own actions.

Hoffman, the founder of several of the most successful tech companies in the world, makes several great points about this issue one of my favorite business books:

Identify the things that can kill you and engage them sooner. Failing fast is much better than failing slowly, since it enables you quickly to pivot, iterate and redeploy capital.

His words remind us that whatever capital we have, financial, human, social, energetic, intellectual, and so on, we are only able to reinvest that capital once we have gathered the necessary data that only failure can provide.

Imagine two entrepreneurs. Both have an idea, both execute it, both get their assess handed to them by the marketplace, and both are disappointed.

But one of those entrepreneurs starts brooding and ruminating and doubting herself, to the point that her productivity and attitude quickly plummet into the ground. Because she believes the failure was an affront to her abilities.

Meanwhile, the other entrepreneur thinks to herself, well shit, that didn’t work. What else can we try? Because she knows that her failure is not permanent, pervasive or personal. It happened, it sucked, and it gave her useful data for how to approach it the second, third, fourth and fifth time.

Sandeep, one of the founders of my startup, summarized it perfectly. He was telling me about his experiences in acquiring tech companies. You’re not going to be right about every idea, and if you end up spending too much time thinking about that, you’ll drive yourself crazy.

Lesson learned, we don’t have to tackle the entire world on our first time out. Let us take our little spark from the first move that started and the first, and it breathe enough to grow.

Let us take action, fail quickly, correct our own mistakes by collecting information on adversity we encounter, and repeat until we win.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Do you treat failure as the fuel for beating yourself up, or as an opportunity to more wisely begin again?

Here’s a question comes up every once in a while.

Have you ever considered not wearing a nametag for a period of time, just to see if it feels any differently?

The short answer is, sure. The idea has been considered. Going nametag naked, as it were, would make for fascinating experiment within the experiment. It would no doubt yield some very interesting insights and experiences.

But wearing a nametag is way too fun. The disproportionate amount of joy that comes from this little sticker is simply too good to pass up.

In fact, now that it’s been twenty years, that means more of my life has been spent wearing a nametag than not. Isn’t that absurd and exciting? Why stop the insanity now?

But there is a larger issue within this question that’s worth unpacking. Because one of my observations is, the people who ask me about possibly not wearing a nametag all have the same personality.

They’re the authenticity police. You know the type. Nothing is ever enough for them. You always have to pass their little tests before they grant you the gift of their trust. They make you work for every little pellet of their approval.

It’s exhausting. And admittedly, for the first decade of wearing a nametag, the codependent inside of me wanted to please every one of these people at all cost, just to shut them up and come out on top.

Truth is, they’re probably right. Not wearing a nametag would make me break out in hives. I would feel less special, unlike myself and completely anonymous.

But if you’ll excuse the pun, I’m not in the business of sticking it to haters anymore.

Contrary to popular conditioning, proving people wrong is not the sweetest revenge. Earning respect from doubters is not a productive use of my time.

I’m not a child and this isn’t the schoolyard. My worthiness is intact, my locus of control is internal.

Tutu, the great theologian, has a beautiful saying about this very issue.

When it’s your heart, you don’t need to prove to anyone that you can’t live
without it.

This is our challenge. To trust that we’re good enough and that we don’t have to spend our life proving that we are.

To know that if our life is where we want it to be, we don’t have to listen to anybody.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Who are you without your list of people to please?

An auteur is someone who applies a highly centralized and subjective control to many aspects of their creative work.

They have a distinct style and a thematic preoccupation. Their indelible touch is reflected on every frame, every page, every track, every move, every whatever. And their voice and vision shines through, regardless of outside interference.

French filmmakers coined this term the fifties and sixties. Their theory listed three attributes of an auteur.

First, they should showcase their expertise in all factors of the work.

Second, they should show a distinct signature of their flair in all their works and differentiate it from that of others.

Third, internal meanings derived from the work shall be crafted well.

What’s beautiful about auteurship is, we don’t have to be filmmakers to uphold the role. Artistic freedom is choice each of us can make. This process of sovereignty over our work, which is more important than the final product itself, it’s ours for the taking.

Because there is no committee, there is no police, and there are no rules. We don’t need permission from a wise authority before we are comfortable with autonomous action.

We make things how we want, when we want, where we want, and for whom we want. And doing so doesn’t make us pretentious, it doesn’t mean we’re control freaks, and it doesn’t mean we’re impossible to collaborate with. It just means we’re free.

P.S. Prolific, my new SaaS for Personal Creativity Management (PMC) has 300+ tools to help you execute your ideas and become an auteur. You can try it for free right now, or if you want to snag one of our last 12 remaining Founding Member slots, it’s only a $1/month, for life. Voila!

One of the ways we can take the pressure off ourselves is by giving up trying to figure out other people.

We can be curious and compassionate and make a concerted effort to acknowledge and appreciate people’s many motivations.

But while human beings are predictable in the extreme, on an individual day to day basis, most people are incomprehensible cosmic anomalies.

And that’s okay. It’s actually quite entertaining. Liberating, in fact. It’s like the mathematician confronting the equation that has no solution. He steps back from the board, sets down his chalk, surrenders to the mystery and moves on with his life.

Debotton, my favorite modern philosopher, writes:

However much people appear to understand us, large tracts of our psyche will always remain incomprehensible to them, to us, and to everyone else. But we shouldn’t accuse them of dereliction of duty if they fail to grasp our internal workings. They are not tragically inept, they simply can’t understand who we are and what we need, which is wholly normal. Nobody properly understands, or can therefore fully sympathize with, anyone else.

Hollywood is to blame for this. Every movie that comes out has that obligatory third act reveal. The great epiphany, eureka moment, lightning bolt of clarity, where the audience finally sees the characters for who they really are.

All of the person’s strange behaviors are neatly summarized like the abstract of a scholarly paper. And by the ninety minute mark, everything gets tied up in a nice little bow, and the credits start to roll.

It would be lovely if human beings were that simple.

But since that’s never going to happen, we may as well surrender to the mystery in the meantime.

It might actually free up some time in our schedule.

Just imagine how many of our own personal goals we could pursue if we gave up watchdogging everyone else.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
What person are you still obsessing over trying to figure out?

If opinions are not something we are terribly precious about, that’s a huge advantage.

Not having to be right gives us agility.

Brown’s book on emergent strategy puts it best:

The easier being wrong us for us, the faster we can release our viewpoint, and the quicker we can adapt to changing circumstances. Adapting allows us to know and name needs in real time, as opposed to wishing and resenting what others don’t give us.

Not having to be right also gives us freedom. Lessing our stake in winning the intellectual gold medal is a profound relief.

Instead of trying to change people who don’t think they have a problem, we can surrender our ego’s insistence on having the solution.

Instead hanging our esteem on how well we influence other people’s opinions, we can decide that feeling peaceful is more important than forcing our views on others.

Instead of vomiting over all the silent moments with our brilliance, we remain silent even when our egos want to scream.

Another benefit to not having to be right is, it sends us on an adventure.

Schultz writes in her profound book about the margin of error:

Being wrong is hard and humbling and sometimes even dangerous, but in the end, it is a journey and a story.

Who really wants to stay at home and be right when you can don your armor spring up on your steed and go forth to explore the world?

Agility, freedom and adventure. Being wrong never felt so right.

And so, for once, let’s holster our fingers. Because jumping into someone else’s life with both feet and a bunch of opinions is rarely the best use of our energy.

Judgment might give us a sense of being correct, but does that really move us forward?

Fuck winning. Fuck saving face. Fuck denying, deflecting and doubling down on our beliefs just to uphold our precious integrity.

We are not gods. We live in this incomprehensible circus of a world that changes its appearance faster than a supermodel on the catwalk, and we’re all just guessing.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Are you assuming that you are basically right, basically all the time, about basically everything?

Have you ever allowed someone else’s behavior to determine how you experience your own day?

It can be disastrous. One minute you’re calmly doing your work, enjoying the workday. And then your tornado of a coworker storms into the office and starts venting about his psycho model roommate who stares over his bed at night, and before you know it, your heart is racing and you’re clenching your jaw like a maniac.

When you give anyone that kind of power over how you feel, emotionally, physically or otherwise, it is a failure of boundaries. And it doesn’t mean you can’t be compassionate to people’s struggle, nor does it mean that everyone should feel happy all of the time.

But there is a constant barrage of relentlessly harrowing information we’re exposed to on a daily basis. Hundreds of thousands of bits of data and stimuli and noise are coming at us faster than our constitutions can handle.

And if we don’t set limits on the degree to which that energy negative affects us, we only have ourselves to blame.

Our yoga teacher puts it best:

If someone steals our peace, we are the losers.

My daily practice is, when in doubt, physically remove yourself. Either by getting up and walking out of the proximity of the other person, or by putting on headphones and turning the volume up to eleven.

Whatever it takes to create a safe space for yourself, replenish your energy and regain a sense of ownership.

And if people have a problem with it, that’s fine. Let them have whatever feelings they want about your boundaries.

Surrender your façade of politeness and do what you have to do. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
To whom have you handed over control of your energy?

The beta user feedback on Prolific has been priceless.

Thanks a million y’all.

The product is already better than it was a month ago.

Now, many have asked for a product tour, so I cut this short video to highlight key features and the problems Prolific solves for creative professionals.

Enjoy!

P.S. Only 24 (of 100) Founding Member spots left. Snag yours today!