Dave Trott’s Blog

Many years ago, when I first went to Singapore, there was one particular building that fascinated me.

It was a huge white, square building.

On the front of it was a massive red swastika.

About twenty feet tall.

And underneath a large sign said ‘Temple Of The Red Swastika’.

I was simultaneously repelled and fascinated.

The swastika was the most hated symbol imaginable.

It represented everything that was worst in the human race.

It symbolised ignorance, and bigotry, and torture.

Diabolically efficient mass murder on an industrial scale.

It was such a horrible, embarrassing, shameful image many people couldn’t bear to look at it.

Certainly no one would want it as their logo.

On show, in public.

Twenty feet tall on the side of their building.

And proudly proclaiming underneath, it was a temple dedicated the spirit of the swastika.

A huge, bloody, red swastika.

That couldn’t be right.

I was getting cognitive dissonance.

The evidence of my eyes telling me one thing, my logical mind telling me the opposite.

Eventually, I thought I had to find out.

So, before I left Singapore, I went into the building to ask.

It was clean and quiet and quite empty.

There was no reception desk, just a large bare space.

Eventually an old Chinese man in a silk robe approached me.

He had a long white beard.

I asked him what The Temple of The Red Swastika was.

In slow, broken English he gently explained it to me.

This is the gist of what he said:

“I understand that for you, coming from the West, the swastika has a bad meaning.

For us it isn’t the same.

The swastika has been a Buddhist symbol for thousands of years before it was heard of in Europe.

The red swastika represents compassion to us.

The blood flowing to the four corners of The Buddha’s heart.

For us, the Red Swastika is something like your Red Cross.

A symbol of hope for those in need.

The way your Red Cross brings medical aid to people who have been stricken by disasters.

The Red Swastika does the same thing, but with Chinese medicine instead of western medicine.

We are founded on the belief that most of the major problems in the world are the result of conflict between the six major religions:

Confucian, Taoist, Buddhist, Christian, Moslem, and Hindu.

That is why our Temple is always kept empty.

This way we can all pray together because there are no altars with icons on them.

We can all pray to whatever god, whatever icons on whatever altar, is in our minds.

We can pray side by side, because there is no conflict.”

Everything he said to me was exactly the opposite of what the swastika represented to me.

Where I saw bigotry and hate, he saw kindness, and compassion.

What had seemed evil to me was the soul of goodness to him.

I could see it wasn’t the symbol itself that was bad at all.

It was what was done in its name.

We all do that in our lives, every day.

We do it because it’s easy.

We don’t have to think.

We blame the representation rather than the thing itself.

We demonise a symbol.

And that stops us thinking.

And stops us addressing the real cause of the problem.

And that is evil.

Years ago we were doing the advertising for Fosters.

Paul Hogan was the spokesman.

He’s a very funny bloke.

And he represents everything you love about Aussies.

After the shoot he said to us, “Look fellas, I’ve just made a movie.

It’s called Crocodile Dundee and I wrote it myself.

Maybe we could write the commercials a bit more like that.”

As the film hadn’t been released yet, we arranged a showing at a little preview cinema in Wardour Street.

Luckily Paul Hogan didn’t come with us.

I say luckily, because it was pretty embarrassing.

There were about a dozen of us.

And nobody laughed.

In the small cinema, the movie felt pedestrian and predictable.

Now probably that was because of the audience.

We were an ad agency creative department.

We were used to making commercials.

In a thirty second commercial we have exactly 29 seconds of sound.

Exactly.

If we’re shooting at 24 fps, we have exactly 720 frames.

Not 719.

Not 721.

So there’s no wasted time.

But it isn’t that way in movies.

There isn’t a prescribed length for a film.

A movie can be as long as you want.

If it takes 93 minutes and 12 seconds that’s okay.

Or 112 minutes and 9 seconds. That’s okay.

If you need more time, take it.

The audience are in the cinema for as long as it takes.

Consequently, films generally move at a slower pace.

So we didn’t find it funny when we saw it in that tiny screening room.

But then, later on, something strange happened.

The film had its release at The Odeon Leicester Square.

The client bought space to run the Fosters ads.

And he asked us to go along.

I thought, this is going to be really embarrassing.

I’d already sat through the film when a dozen people didn’t laugh.

How much worse is this going to be when a thousand people don’t laugh?

Then the film started.

And after a few minutes someone started laughing.

Then someone else started laughing.

Then someone else.

Pretty soon the whole audience was laughing.

And here’s the strange thing.

As the audience started laughing, so did I.

The more the audience laughed, the more I laughed.

As if this was the funniest film I’d ever seen.

But I wasn’t laughing at the film.

I was laughing with the audience.

I couldn’t help it.

It was contagious.

A similar effect to seeing someone yawn.

You just can’t help yawning too.

And I realised why they put canned laughter on all those TV sitcoms.

People are programmed to join in with other people.

That’s what we do.

We don’t think for ourselves, we follow the herd.

It’s a primitive instinct.

I notice this when my wife is driving.

We’ll be sitting at a red light and the car next to us starts to rev up and go.

So my wife revs up and starts to go, too.

Even though the light is still red.

She’s more influenced by the cars around her than by the traffic lights.

That’s how people are.

We have a primitive response that wants to fit in.

It’s comfortable, reassuring, to go along with everyone else.

We don’t have to think.

Once we know that, we have an option.

To be passive, and let ourselves be influenced by the actions of others.

Or to be active, and be the person that’s initiating the action.

Remember, our instincts will tell us to do the former.

Wait and see what everyone else does, then join in.

Which, if you don’t want to stand out, if you’re happy to go along with everyone else, if you don’t want to change things, is a good strategy.

Not so good though if you do want to stand out and you do want to change things.

It’s worth knowing that, if you really want to do something different, you won’t get much agreement.

Even from yourself.

About fifty years ago two teenagers broke into a factory at night.

One was 16 years old, Christopher Craig.

The other was 19, Derek Bentley.

Although Bentley was older, he was simple minded.

He had what we’d now call ‘learning difficulties’.

So Craig, although younger, was definitely the leader.

However, neither of them were very bright, and they were soon spotted.

Someone called the police.

When they arrived, Bentley (the older one) made a run for it.

But they grabbed him and he gave up.

While the police were holding him, some distance away, Craig (the younger one) shot two policemen.

One of them died.

Both Craig and Bentley were tried for murder.

They were both found guilty.

Although Craig, the younger one, had fired the shots, he was under 18.

So he was too young to hang, and was sent to prison.

Although Bentley, the older one, was being held by police when the shots were fired, he was over 18.

So he was hanged for murder, even though he didn’t fire the gun.

The evidence that got Bentley hanged was something he shouted at Craig.

A policeman approached Craig saying, “Give me the gun, son.”

Bentley, being held by police, shouted. “Let him have it Chris.”

Bentley said he was encouraging Craig to give up, as he had.

And he was telling him to hand over the gun.

The prosecution said Bentley was using Hollywood slang, and he was actually telling Craig to shoot the copper.

That particular interpretation cost Bentley his life.

The truth is we can all see how those words could be interpreted either way.

We interpret words to mean what’s already in our head.

We respond accordingly.

And usually what happens backs up our interpretation.

If we’re stressed, we hear everything as an accusation.

We think what’s going on in our head is actually what’s happening in the outside world.

In fact we don’t even know there’s a difference.

Just this morning I was waiting at the traffic lights.

They went green and the bus in front of me didn’t move.

I waited for another change of lights and still it didn’t move.

I got out to see what was wrong.

Had it broken down?

Had it hit someone?

Had the bus driver collapsed?

I walked up to his window and said, “What’s the problem mate?”

He started waving his arms angrily at me and said, “Where the fuck am I gonna go eh? You tell me, where the fuck am I gonna go?”

I looked around and there was a tar-laying machine in front.

I said, “Can’t you get round it then?”

He said furiously, “How the fuck do you think I can get round that? Can you drive a bus, eh?”

All the bus driver could was hear people blowing their horns.

He was frustrated and stressed.

So he didn’t hear me asking, “What’s the problem mate?” as a genuine question.

He heard me accusing him, “Get a move on dope, anyone can drive a bus through a gap that big.”

Because that’s the reality that was interpreted and reinforced.

And we all do that every day.

In every interaction.

Create a reality.

Misinterpret it.

Then reinforce it.

As the author Stephen Covey said, “We see things not as they are, but as we are.”

Michael Caine is one of my favourite actors.

He’s made some great films: Zulu, The Ipcress File, The Man Who Would Be King.

In fact he’s even got Jude Law, Sylvester, Stallone and Mark Wahlberg doing his advertising for him.

(Just compare what they did in the remakes of Alfie, Get Carter, and The Italian Job with what Caine did in the originals.)

He’s also won two Oscars.

But more than that he’s been nominated six times.

Every decade since he started in the 1960s.

So we remember him as a great actor with a great body of work to back it up.

But what we don’t remember is the bad stuff.

He made over a hundred films that you wouldn’t want on your CV.

Things like ‘The Swarm’, and ‘Jaws -The Revenge’, and worse.

So, is he a bad actor?

No, because you’re judged by your best stuff not your worst.

Michael Caine did pretty much everything he was offered.

He waited a long time for a break, so when it came he did all the work he could get his hands on.

He wanted to make the most of the opportunity.

And, interestingly, when we think like that, another thing happens.

We stop being precious.

Because, the more we do, the more we can afford to get wrong.

The more we can experiment.

Whereas if we’re only doing one thing we can’t afford to screw it up.

So we don’t take any chances.

We freeze.

And the best we can do is a competent job.

Never great.

But when we’re doing lots of things we can take more chances.

The risks are smaller, the chances of success are bigger.

So we’ll do more bad stuff.

But we’ve got much more chance of doing good stuff.

And people remember the good stuff much more than the bad stuff.

So that’s what we should be doing.

Grabbing everything we possibly can to work on.

Don’t just work on one brief at a time and spend all our time worrying about it.

Get as many things going as we can.

The more horses we have in the race, the more chance we have of winning.

Of course lots of our horses will lose.

But everyone only remembers the winner.

That’s how Richard Branson does it.

He says, at Virgin, they have lots of crazy ideas all the time.

He can’t tell which one is going to make it.

Which is going to be the great idea.

So what he does, is green light them all.

Most of them will fail.

But at least one will succeed really big.

And that one will pay many, many times over for the failures.

And everyone remembers him for the massive successes.

No one remembers the failures.

Churchill was the same.

Much of his life was about trying everything and failing.

He was in charge of the invasion of Gallipoli.

It was a massive blunder.

He was in charge of The General Strike.

That was such a failure he was in the political wilderness for years afterward.

In 1939 he wanted to invade Norway.

Big mistake.

In 1940 he wanted to drop poison gas on Germany.

Big mistake.

In 1941 he nearly lost North Africa by shipping the troops to Crete.

Big mistake.

But none of those things are what he’s remembered for.

Everyone remembers the good stuff and forgets the bad.

Think of that.

You can concentrate all your effort on one project.

And if it goes wrong you’re stuffed.

Or you can work on everything you can get your hands on.

And you can afford a few to go wrong.

The pressure’s off.

Now you can be more creative.

You can enjoy it. Have fun. Lighten up.

Take risks.

Then you’ve got more chances of doing something great.

As they say in New York, “You’ve got to kiss a lot of frogs if you want to find a prince.”

At art school in New York, you don’t just study fine art.

You have to take some liberal arts classes as well.

One of my classes was in psychology.

One of the subjects we discussed there was Primal Therapy.

It explains that The Book of Exodus was a metaphor for the birth process.

I found that really interesting.

The Garden of Eden is the pre-birth state.

You’re in the womb.

Absolutely everything is done for you: food, drink, warmth, shelter.

You don’t have to worry about a thing.

It’s so safe and nurturing, you don’t even need clothes.

All there is for you to is relax and enjoy it.

Then, suddenly you’re forced out of that paradise.

Into the cruel, harsh world.

Piercing light, screeching noise, people grabbing you, cold air on your skin.

Slapped on the arse.

Choking on the burning rush of air into your lungs.

Change, unsettling, worrying, frightening.

All that security is gone and now you don’t know what’s happening.

No wonder you start to cry.

Being thrown out of The Garden Of Eden is a metaphor for that.

But that’s where the metaphore ends.

Because gradually you adapt.

And that new state becomes a great place.

Just watch a toddler.

They’re knocked out to be alive.

They want to discover everything.

To pick things up, play with them, put them in their mouth, cuddle them, sit on them.

They’ve learned the world is a fantastic place.

Now they’re not frightened.

Until their first day at school.

Then they cry their eyes out at this strange, unfriendly place.

It’s new, it’s unfamiliar, it’s unsettling, and they don’t want to be there.

And they won’t let go of Mum.

Fast-forward a few weeks.

They love school.

They can’t wait to get there in the mornings.

They start running towards it as soon as they see the playground.

They’re off with their friends and they’ve forgotten all about Mum.

That seems to be the pattern for life.

Try something new.

It’s unpredictable so it’s uncomfortable.

Then it becomes predictable, so it’s comfortable.

Try something new.

It’s unpredictable so it’s uncomfortable.

Then it becomes predictable, so it’s comfortable.

Try something new.

It’s unpredictable so it’s uncomfortable.

Then it becomes predictable, so it’s comfortable.

Somehow, we never quite spot the pattern.

It never clicks that feeling uncomfortable means it’s a new experience.

And new experience means growth.

Going somewhere we haven’t been before.

Trying something we haven’t tried.

That uncomfortable feeling is being alive.

Just the way we were when we came out of the womb.

The way every experience has been since.

That uncomfortable feeling is growth.

It’s new so it’s uncomfortable.

And we want to avoid being uncomfortable.

That’s what drugs and booze are about.

Anaesthetise ourselves to it.

Avoiding confronting it, participating in it, growing from it.

Avoid being alive.

Nick Sutherland-Dodd was Paul Arden’s producer.

He says he always remembers what Paul used to say.

“It’s okay to feel uncomfortable.”

Just that.

It’s just a feeling, it’s not real.

You don’t have to do anything about it.

It just means you’re somewhere new.

So you’re not comfortable.

But it doesn’t mean you should let that feeling stop you.

There’s a line in The Jungle Book I really like.

“You can either run from it, or learn from it.”

In fact anyone who’s done anything really worthwhile knows that feeling.

Helmut Krone was maybe the greatest art director ever.

Along with Bill Bernbach, he invented good advertising.

Helmut Krone said, “If you can look at something and say ‘I like it’ then it isn’t new.”