What chance do those of us who aren’t talented stand against those who are?
Is it ever possible for ordinary people to beat the gifted?
In my experience, yes.
Talented people tend to be complacent, and consequently lazy.
All you have to actually do is work harder.
So the issue becomes, where do you get the energy to work harder from?
Some people get it artificially: coke or speed for instance.
Such a chemical dump into the bloodstream will certainly give you energy.
But it is illegal and unhealthy in the long term.
So is there any chemical dump into the bloodstream that isn’t illegal or unhealthy?
Well yes actually, adrenalin.
Great, but where do you get it?
The answer is fear.
If you learn how to make yourself frightened, you can turn on the adrenalin tap.
This will give you a massive dump of energy into your bloodstream.
The energy to stay at your desk writing ads when everyone else is over the pub.
The energy to do what you know you ought to do, but don’t want to do.
The energy to put short term fun on the back burner, and long term career on the front burner.
The trick of course, is to control the fear.
Make sure you’ve got it, and it hasn’t got you.
Choose to be frightened rather than resisting being frightened.
It’s a great source of energy.
Of course most people will tell you the opposite.
Don’t be afraid, it’s unproductive.
In my experience these are the people who are over the pub when they could be working.
In my experience these are the losers.
People who are frightened of fear.
Because fear is the enemy of laziness.
And talented people have learnt that they are better.
So they don’t have to try so hard.
They’ve learned they can afford to be lazy.
And that’s where they’re vulnerable.
So don’t resist fear, learn how to generate it.
Make fear your friend.
Fear generates energy.
And energy will always beat talent in the long run.
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Anger is an energy.
There’s too little genuine talent in agencies these days - and too much ‘energy. And I put ‘energy’ in quote marks because it’s really often nothing more than a kind of desperate careerism - evident in people who, quite frankly, have no talent. (See, for example, the horrors who turn up on The Apprentice.)
Me, I’d take talent over ‘energy’ any day…
Hi Paul. How do you judge whether someone’s any good or not?
For me you judge them by what they’ve done.
The pubs of Soho are full of talented people who haven’t done very much because of whatever excuse.
The pubs are not stuffed with energetic people grumbling, because they’re too busy doing it.
I’ve always found it’s easy to teach people who’ve got energy.
It’s impossible to teach arrogant people who think they’ve got talent.
You and I have different experiences about the source of arrogance, that’s all.
Interesting thought, Paul, but I don’t buy your argument. I don’t actually believe the muppets on ‘The Apprentice’ have that much energy – just a combination of ego, greed and idiocy: all mouth and no trousers. The energy/fear Dave’s talking about seems to me to be a sense of what you have to lose in the long term if you take the easy option today. The shedload of creatives (including me) we all come into contact with every day who whinge about their situation and go on about how they should have got this job/won this award/achieved whatever. The truth is we’re all responsible for our own situations and you can accept that and deal with it or deny it/hide from it and pay later.
It puts things into context for me if you substitute ‘talent’ for ‘potential’. Potential is great – but it’s nothing unless you fulfill it. Gordon Ramsay probably had the potential to be a good cook in his 20s. He could be sitting in a council house in Glasgow today with that same potential. But he’s not – because he’s converted the potential using energy/fear of failure.
I think my ‘argument’, such as it was, stemmed from what I first said - that there is too little genuine talent in agencies these days. And really, I’m probably talking about uniquely intelligent, fascinating and even eccentric people who wallow in their cleverness (even when they’re in the pub) and are refreshingly free of ego, greed, careerism etc. Probably the very people you’re decrying. The thing is, you just don’t see these people anymore - or at least not as much. I don’t know, maybe I’m just being romantic….
And maybe I’m just sick to the back teeth of seeing so many unpleasant dimwits making up for their lack of intelligence and talent (that is, their utter ordinariness) through their obvious ‘energy’ and ambition.
By the way, I’m well aware that my thoughts on this are influenced by my personal experience and observations (and prejudices)….
Paul, I think you have to differentiate between “unpleasant dimwits” driven by ego and greed (ie The Apprentices) and people driven by an urge to achieve things they believe they are capable of through hard work (ie Heston Blummental/Haruki Murakami/Bill Hicks).
Paul: John Webster, Paul Arden, Derrick Hass, David Abbott, Charlie Saatchi, Alan Parker, Robin Wight, Tony Scott, Tim Delaney, Helmut Krone, Ed McCabe.
None of them considered themselves talented or gifted, which is perhaps why they are (or were) all very hard working.
You win by considering yourself the underdog, whether you are or not.
That’s not a Foxtons attitude.
Interesting debate. I don’t agree that talent and hard-workingness are mutually exclusive though.
I mean, what about your list of hard-working types like John Webster, Paul Arden and David Abbott? They were obviously talented. The fact they didn’t think that they were only proves that they were modest. (Except perhaps Charles Saatchi!)
Hi Scamp. Of course you’re right, they aren’t always mutually exclusive and, if you have both, this distinction is academic.
But if, like the majority of us, you’re not naturally talented you have to find a way to make up for it.
All the people I mentioned knew they weren’t talented, so they were all the more determined to beat those that did by sheer hard work.
I certainly don’t think it’s modesty.
It’s a simple response, “How can I beat people who are better than me? Out think them and out work them.”
Hi Dave, yet another good post :o)
My old photographer teacher told us “there are no geniuses, just people who work hard.”
As when it comes to great people, I believe they are all around us, but as Antony Mayfield said the other day about revolutions: You can’t see them while they are happening. Wait five, ten or twenty years, and you will have the names.
I don’t agree that fear does anything but close the mind to focus on a to narrow path of possibilities (that is how the brain reacts to fear – it closes up). A study I came across some years ago said CONCENTRATION was the ONE and ONLY ONE factor they managed to identify as important to creativity. It seems many people believe fear or melancholy are important, but they are only “states of mind” that help us concentrate.
And of course - you have to be dedicated. It’s so competitive today that unless you really live it, feel it, breath it - you’re just as good as the next person.
Was John Webster a hard worker? Not trying to be cheeky here, it’s just an honest question, Dave. Maybe you have a story to share.
Most people (specially juniors) think of the proverbial creative has someone with a Midas touch. He gets a brief, works some magic and off he goes down the pub. After all, how hard is it to come up with the idea of a Gorilla beating some drums?
I believe the idea of hard work, or at least the kind of hard work your generation did (the abbots, the websters, etc) is sadly, long gone. Those were times where everyone wanted to outsmart, the bloke working next door. Today, everybody is trying to beat gorilla. An ad, his own creator has failed to follow up.
Hi J. John Webster was the proof that the theatre of creativity is inversely proportional to actual creativity.
He wore a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, like a woodwork teacher.
We would often see him interviewing really dull people with really bad books, who were wearing silver jackets like rock stars.
John started work at 8.30 prompt every morning.
He took an hour for lunch and finished work at 6.00.
The rest of us rolled in around 10, took 2 or 3 hours for lunch, and worked until 8 or 9.
We were good, but John won more awards than all of us put together.
Discipline isn’t the enemy of creativity.
Discipline empowers creativity.