Being ordinary is so easy.
Resisting the urge to gravitate toward the mean.
It’s a rainy Sunday here on Nantucket — the second day of a week’s vacation that I have been looking forward to all season. The first full week of September is my favorite time to be here. The billionaires are packing up their Range Rovers and jockeying for a spot on the ferry. The locals, mere millionaires, are taking a deep breath.
As I sit here in my kitchen, my dog Seven by my side, I’m thinking about all of the work we have done at the agency and how hard we have worked. Which is to say, very, very hard.
In the days leading up to this week of vacation, I must have said, “Maybe I shouldn’t take next week off…” about a dozen times.
But vacations are a necessary part of the process. No song is 100% screaming guitar solo. No stage play is comprised entirely of intense monologue and no movie is all climactic reveal or car chase. There has to be downtime and rest and an opportunity to reflect and set the next scene.
And the truth is, given the amount of stuff we need to accomplish before the end of the year, and the fact that the new business gods have truly smiled upon us this year, I’m really not sure if I will be able to take another week off any time in the foreseeable future. Knock wood.
Staring down a huge amount of work feels great. It’s nice to know that we have the coal to keep the steam engine stoked for months. But it also poses a problem. When the work load reaches a certain level, it’s possible to look at it and confuse doing great work with simply getting the work done. Getting work done can become the goal when what we really should be concerned with is breaking new ground and stretching beyond what we currently perceive as our creative limitations.
I am reminded of something my friend and colleague Andrew Wood said to me the other day:
“Being ordinary is so easy.”
When the creative assignments are lined up on the tarmac like expectant 747s, it’s so easy to just work to get them up in the air, so you can get on to the next one. Just switch on autopilot and deliver work that any other agency in the world could deliver. To give in to the gravitational pull of the majority of creative work out there. Dreck. Blah. Ordinary.
It’s now that we must remind ourselves that the best work is done under a little bit of pressure. When the deadline is looming and the client has set an expectation. That’s when the team asks itself, “how will we exceed that expectation and make this ad or website or business card layout stand out among all of the ordinary work out there?”
We must see ourselves as elite marathon runners. Getting to the finish line is not really the concern. We’ve been there many times. At our creative level, it’s all about getting there in a personal-best time. To stretch. To grow. To do the best work we’ve ever done.
Getting it done feeds us today. Doing great work feeds us well into next year and beyond. It’s a damn good thing we are the agency that doesn’t do easy.
Currently, Grant Sanders is on stay-cation in his home on Nantucket, but in a week, he will be back as Creative Director of Mintz + Hoke advertising in Avon, CT, batteries 100% charged.
