My big sister was always the tough guy in our family.
I was always sitting around reading comics while she was out winning medals, and cups, and prizes.
So she was my role model for how powerful women were.
London was too slow, too old fashioned and lazy for her.
So, when I was 15, she went to live and work in New York.
When I was 18 I decided to go to art school.
But I got turned down by 7 art schools, from all over the UK.
I wrote to my sister and told her.
She said “Screw them, come to art school in New York.”
I wrote back, that was all very well, but we could never afford it.
She said, “Don’t worry about it, we’ll get you a scholarship.”
I didn’t expect anything to come of it, but next day the phone rang at home.
It was my sister calling from New York.
She said, “I’m sending you the application forms, you need to fill them in immediately, because they have to be in by the day after tomorrow.”
I told her that wasn’t possible.
It takes 4 days for airmail to get to the UK, and 4 days to get back again.
She said, “I know that. Just be at Heathrow airport tomorrow morning at 10am and ask for the captain on TWA flight 107.”
And she hung up.
So the next morning I went to Heathrow.
He was waiting for me, at the TWA counter, with a bunch of forms in his hand.
He’d just flown a Boeing 707 in from New York.
He said, “Son, I have to wait here and make sure you fill these forms in. Then I have to take them back with me on tomorrow’s return flight.”
It turned out my sister had gone to JFK airport and located a flight that was going to London.
Then she chatted up the captain into bringing the forms over for me.
And then bringing them back again.
I thanked him as I filled the forms in.
He said, “Son, your sister is a very powerful lady.”
And of course he was right.
Which is why my sister went to New York.
There, when you had a really great, outrageous, exciting idea, all the agreement was to help you make it happen.
It was a ‘can do’ culture.
I was used to the English way: great ideas that never happen.
I knew I had no chance of going to art school in New York.
Nice dream, but everyone agreed it was impossible.
I was resigned to accepting reality in London.
In which case I’d never have gone to art school.
And never have gone into advertising.
It would have stayed a nice dream.
The difference was my sister.
She made it happen.
And that’s what I learned from her.
If no one makes it happen, it doesn’t happen.
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Dave
I’m going to have to drop you and put your sister at my desert island dinner table instead!
It’s a god damn shame that bloody Vietnam escalated and resulted in you coming back. Still New York City’s loss was London Town’s gain.
That was a fantastic story, Dave. I suspect people like that crop up more often than we think, so it still feels like a ‘wrong’ way to be. That’s why it’s important to let events like this be known. Thanks for sharing, again!
Did you ever hear the events told from her perspective?
A really apt story for now, methinks. both for those of us in the industry and our clients. I’ve been shocked at how frightened everyone is right now, as they wait to see what everyone else is going to do.
Mind you, sometimes it doesn’t always come off. I, like a lot of people left advertising to make films, I made it happen, made one, then tried to make another and instead lost a smallish fortune of my own money.
Still I genuinely have no regrets, so then again….
Dave
Shouldn’t this post be called ‘if you don’t shoot, you won’t score’?
very inspiring
“And if you fail… what?”
http://ex-blank-page.blogspot.com/2009/03/in-reply-to-daves-great-posts-18.html
If you wait long enough, suddenly nothing will happen.
“It’s better to regret what you have done, than what you haven’t.”
Dave, that quote is what my Philosophy teacher always said to me — and I was a fast learner…
Hi all. I have this famous Samuel Beckett quote pinned above my desk at home:
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
I love the idea of failing “better”.
Ant.
I know that was one of Paul Arden’s favourite quotes.
A rallying cry for the times, Dave. Like yesterday’s ‘Just one goal ‘ post. You should have a newspaper column ( ‘Trott On’?) to guide the nation through the economic gloom. Even if you do go on about football alot.
Meanwhile the thing I need to do is find a talented, obsessive senior art director. Anyone know one who needs a writer?
Leave regrets where you find them.
“Whether you think you can, or you can’t, you’re right.”
Henry Ford
good piece! Im sure it will resonate with many people.
I’ll resist the urge to add a platitude of my own to the comments section though, otherwise this place will end up like an AA meeting
Jump and the net will appear.
or:
“I didn’t fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong” Benjamin Franklin
Your sister sounds fab. Love your blog. I struggle with people who can’t make stuff happen, my mentality is you just do it and see what happens. One of my motos in life is that its better to regret what you have done than to have missed the opportunity.
A stitch in time saves nine.
Feel free to use this.
Great post, pity some people
just can’t leave well enough alone.
Ciaran
When problem-solving:
If you don’t turn it upside down, nothing will fall out.
The “English way: great ideas that never happen.” Blur, the quintessential English band sang:
“Says tomorrow is your lucky day
Well, here’s your lucky day
It really, really, really could happen
Yes, it really, really, really could happen”
Not very convincing, is it?
This is brilliant, inspiration of the week! Any more stories about this brilliant lady?
Hi Claire,
I’ve got tons of great stories about my sister.
But I’m not quite sure how to make them relevant to advertising.
My brush with NYC was when I was asked by a family friend to cat sit for a french lady, who lived on 56th and 1st, during the month of August.
Whilst there, a trip to the vets in East Village was an interesting excursion, to say the least. Consequently, I went a few more times before work got in the way!
wow, what a sister,
“hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly…” Mandela
This is something I have always lived by… you make your own destiny.
i agree with vicky. what a great sister.
question: are you a believer in fate/destiny dave?
there are constantly quotes of Henry Ford appearing but never this one (which is my personal favourite):
“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.”
so true.
Hey Dave,
On a different note.
Read this book about Airport security.
It’s funny and alarming.
The Yanks have become very obsessed with catching airplane passengers with explosives.
So they keep such a sharp lookout for explosives in shoes etc.
As a result, more people carrying firearms have gotten through.
This despite the increased ‘vigilance’.
As the writer notes, the authorities seem to have overlooked that the bad guys on 911 didn’t carry explosives.
They only had paper cutters.
Surely a case of missing the big picture and not being single-minded.
Similar story of Orson Welles. Citizen Kane would never have been made if he sat back, and did nothing “He begged, borrowed, and cajoled people in to building sets and shooting full blown screen tests which eventually formed a third of the film. IT EXISTED.”
R.I.P Paul Arden.
Nothing anywhere would happen ever if noone made it. Sometimes you have to just go out there and make it happen.
I hope that story isn’t exagerrated as its wonderful.
On a personal level; I’ve looked around for years to start another band and never really found one. So I said sod it and am now doing gigs on my own… I hope it works to the same effect!!
I hate to break it to you Dave, but I think your sister might have done more than ‘chat up’ the pilot!
Seriously though, I used to live in California and they definitely have a more positive ‘can do’ attitude out there. People here are much more conservative, conformist, and scared.
“when your mind’s your prison
things just don’t seem so good”
Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci
Hi Vinny,
Fate/Destiny ?
I think I net out at the old saying, “God helps those who help themselves”.
Dave
Did you see Tom Wilkinson play Ben Franklin in John Adams? An excellent mini series, if I say so myself.
In these paired down times would you say a changer of tact is on the cards? Should we just go ahead with punching the consumer in the nose as opposed to goosing? Like the French how does that fit in with our expectation to be seduced before we part with our well earned? Has working class Britain always known they are being sold to and just wanted it straight (between the eyes). Is time up for the degree educated middle classes in advertising that don’t recognise, understand and control this?
Sorry Dave for the typo. Meant to say…a change of tact.
In addition, with Hovis winning the BTAA, are we to see a plethora of nostalgic led work. Should we be bothered? After all should we just be giving the public what they expect? Factoring in their prejudices and ignorances. I don’t know about you but for me (who am I? some would say) advertising has never been about education the man on the street (woman as well if we need to be pc) per se.
Hi John,
If we assume that 90% of advertising doesn’t work, we want to be in the 10% that does.
So the job is just to be different to that 90%.
Maybe the fashion for “advertising” will be seduction, or nostalgia.
Whatever everyone else is doing, we don’t want to do that.
Look at Alex Ferguson, Shankley,Clough, Vince Lombardi, Ali, Murdoch, Malcolm MacLaren, George Lois, Charlie Saatchi, Paul Arden, John Webster.
They weren’t spokesmen for their industries.
The rest of their industry was who they were trying to beat, who they were trying to be different to.
Dave, any chance of a post/advice on working with a new creative partner?
Inspirational stuff (as ever). You know you are going to have to tell more about your sis. What was she doing in the States?
John W. Interestingly the original Hovis ad was harking back nostalgically in a recession. This one is harking back at harking back.
Hi Phil and Steven.
Okay, I’m taking requests.
Rob.
I know what you mean.
“I’ve got tons of great stories about my sister.
But I’m not quite sure how to make them relevant to advertising.” — it’s not your job to make them relevant to advertising, it’s ours. If we, as “listeners”, can’t make ANYTHING/ EVERYTHING relevant to advertising, that’s already a failure.
Stop wavering between relevance and irrelevance and give us the opportunity to either get inspired or gracefully fail.
Okay Anca, fair point.
I’ll write some this weekend and see how they go down.
thanks, Dave.
‘just done it’ innit
Dave - Excellent story, thanks for sharing that with us - next time an Account Handler gives me a “can’t” I think I’ll point him in this direction - cheers GH
[...] I am optimistic about the curiousity and enthusiasm I see in people and it’s power to make things happen [...]
[...] I am optimistic about the curiousity and enthusiasm I see in people and it’s power to make things happen [...]