Creative Confidence with a Twist
By Peter LloydIt happens in every creative project as its deadline approaches. Anxiety begins to well up from my gut. I wake up from dreams in which I’m unable to solve the challenge. And yet, every time I sit down to solve such a creative challenge, I always come through. So why the anxiety?
If you suffer from this kind of creative performance anxiety or evaluation apprehension, take a look at the famous video below. You’ve probably seen it, but it’s only a minute long, and it illustrates something all creators, innovators, and inventors need to keep in mind.
As the narrator reminds us, “Every precious minute of their two-and-a-half hours on the surface was programmed.” Even Armstrong’s legendary “One small step” line had been scripted.
With about 450 million folks back on Earth hanging on his every word and motion, Armstrong’s palms must have been moist. He has admitted that he believed the Apollo 11 mission had only a 50-percent chance of succeeding. “I was elated, ecstatic and extremely surprised that we were successful,” he admitted years later.
And when Armstrong confirmed that the landing vehicle had touched down, one of his Earth-bound collaborators replied, “You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again.”
Dangerous Delight
I remember the advice I used to give my team when I was an advertising agency creative director. “If you’re on your way to a creative presentation and your palms are not sweaty, you haven’t done your job.”
Yes, I think creative solutions should make you anxious about what your clients will say or whether or not they will reject your work or even you. You’re not doing your job as a creative person if you delight your clients with exactly what they expect.
Of course you want to delight, but the delight clients express when they see exactly what they expect is a dangerous drug to a creative person. It can lull you into a creative complacency that can dull your edge and mess with your mojo.
Exciting Surprise
I know it always feels good to delight your clients, but if you do not surprise them and exceed their expectations, you will not stretch them. If you don’t stretch them, they won’t stretch their expectations. Their competitors will surpass them. You and your clients will sink into the status quo and never succeed. You certainly won’t arrive anywhere near the moon.
And on the flip side, if the people you work with never challenge your work, never demand more than you deliver, they aren’t doing their job either. Fire those kinds of clients or creative partners. They will go down and can bring you down with them.
Shoot for the Moon
If you’re doing any kind of work that means to persuade people or improve conditions, to break new ground in business or the arts, the work you and your collaborators create has to scare you. All of you. Running with it has to involve risk and sweaty palms.
Everyone involved in creating the work should feel confident with a twist. Confident that you’ve planned and executed your work with all conceivable diligence, you should still feel a twist of anxiety in your gut for the new ground on which you are about to tread. Is it solid ground or soft like quicksand? Along with Neil Armstrong, you shouldn’t really know for sure.
Peter Lloyd is co-creator with Stephen Grossman of Animal Crackers, the breakthrough problem-solving tool designed to crack your toughest problems.
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