Archive for Duh
Safe and Secure
Posted by: | CommentsSo I went to go see this movie recently, and it completely rocked my world. Here is a brief synopsis:
ART & COPY is a powerful new film about advertising and inspiration. Directed by Doug Pray (SURFWISE, SCRATCH, HYPE!), it reveals the work and wisdom of some of the most influential advertising creatives of our time — people who’ve profoundly impacted our culture, yet are virtually unknown outside their industry
Basically, the film chronicles the several advertisers who came up with the Campaigns of our time, including Just Do It, I Love New York, Where’s the Beef and tried to explore how the idea was created and the stories around bringing it to market and then the impact of it. What I found so compelling was how they explained that in order to be creative you need to feel safe, and supported, and that the heads of these amazing firms main goal was to make sure their staff feel this way.
I found this to be one of those perfect Duh moments. In order to feel safe to be creative or innovative, or solve problems you have to be feel safe that you will not be ridiculed, punished, laughed at etc, because creativity and innovation while amazing as end products, often have long lives of incubation that change are challenged etc. For example they described that a few days before the Where’s the Beef Campaign, Wendy’s wanted to pull the advertisement. This campaign had taken 18 months of so to finally get here, and in the end the client was still very nervous about this direction. Now we all know how it turned out it was great, but for that whole 18 months those creative people needed to feel like they had the support of their company to keep the vision alive.
I think this is incredibly relevant because as many of us are thankful to have the jobs that we have, most of us probably don’t feel that those jobs are safe and secure, and therefore are actions and the actions of those around us come from this place, and consequently creativity is taking a big back seat.
Back to my Finding my Duh theory, now that I realize this, I am aware that I alone can not change this, but I am also more in tuned to the behaviors of others and at least feel a little bit more in control of my own behavior, and feel committed to finding other ways to feel safe and secure enough to be creative and innovative. In fact, in another really stupid Duh moment, I realize I have found it, and I am doing it right now. I know that probably sounds stupid, but its true I just realized that this second, I bet if I asked anyone close to me they could have told me this immediately, but I was personally blind to it. This is why take a hard look at your Duh areas and keeping tabs on them is important, our mind has this amazing way of hiding truth from us, so we have to keep on top of it.
I would love to hear about some examples of when you have felt very creative and been able to harness it.
Finding Your Duh in 2010
Posted by: | CommentsI am glad we are done with that jerk 2009, so besides keeping time with 2010, I am plan on finding and keep my Duh in 2010. The Duh is my philosophy about what works in your life. For example, you have a dream job, you like it so much its Duh. You have a great person to share your life with, its so easy to be with them that its Duh, or on the flip side something is not Duh, so that might not mean it 100% bad, but its not as great as it could be. It important to be well rounded in Duh, but also very hard to achieve. It never fails you love your job and have a great relationship, well low and behold you have not exactly been hitting the gym as much as you need, or you might not have the spiritual connection you are looking for, but that is life, and all we can do is to try to be balanced. So I plan of writing this a lot over the year, as it is kinda my guiding force, but for today I will just give a brief overview of The Duh:
What it is
What to do if you have it
What to do if you don’t
What is the Duh, to keep it simple the Duh covers the four main areas of life, Work, Love and Companionship, Health and Spirituality ( nothing new here) Finding and Having Duh means that these areas are at the best case scenario.. not weirdo perfect.. but realistically ideal.
What do you do if you have it:
So when you have Duh, its really easy to know it. Its as we say so easy its Duh. No just because its easy to see does not mean its easy to keep. If you have Duh in an area, give yourself a high five and feel lucky, b.c I bet you know a lot of people who might not have the duh in the same area and really wish they did. Also, take note now, what about the Duh is so great, how does it make you feel, what does it enable you to do, and how can you protect it, honor it, and keep it in its perfect little Duh state. Spend some time, and work hard here, because Protecting Your Duh is no joke.
What to do if you dont have the Duh in an area
Okay, so I bet you just let out a sigh and know without thinking where you dont have Duh, in fact we often spend more time agonizing about not having it than protecting the duhs we have. So here is some simple ways to think about the NonDuh
What about this specific area in my life is not how I want it?
If I could waive the magic wand, what would I change
Do I have any power to influence those changes
What am I going to do to reclaim my Duh, and what am I willing to deal with in order to get it.
So I realize this can sound a little simplistic, but I like to use it as an easy way to do a quick gut check about what is going on in my life. It also helps me identify the themes in my life that I sometime gloss over. For instance, a few years back, I kinda all of sudden became a little bored at work, and I could not really figure out why, there was not anything dramatically different. So a couple of things, I got kinda scared, I need to succeed at my job, forget my ego or happiness, but I need to pay the bills, and if I don’t have my heart in something I knew I was not going to be successful. So I took a hard look, and I realized that I was at a very fortunate place that my job had become a little easy, and the product I was selling was actually becoming the standard and not the new thing. So I realized that I really excel and flourish in an environment where I can be innovative, entrepreneurial, and work in a collaborative environment where I can work with other team members to solve problems and overcome obstacles, and my role was no longer offering me those things. So the good thing one was I was know able to articulate what I was looking for in a new role and I was also able to identify where I should be looking. This was not an overnight thing, in fact it took about 9 months, but even though I did not have The Duh for those 9 months, I felt like I was in control of searching for it.
I will elaborate more on other example of The Duh in future blogs, but I encourage you to think about your Duhs, and I would love to hear about what is Duh in your life.
