Epilogue: Recovering what you have lost.

Continued from previous post…

So, has your definition for winning and losing changed? Maybe. Money and position don’t beguile you as much. Fortunate, given you have less of both. Yet, you still crave that feeling you got overhearing those students. The yearning never disappears completely. The ego cannot be evicted. From the program: If you want self-esteem do estimable things. Helping others. Or in your case simply not hurting anyone. Taking things in stride.

Serenity will always be ephemeral but it’s not a pipe dream. It can be achieved. You once joked that serenity was a pole dancer in Sacramento. Now that you’ve acquired some would you mortgage it for a shiny new job? Sadly. Probably. But at least you would know better. And that’s a start.

Life needn’t be something you master or endure. Mastery was an illusion. Enduring is a consequence. Letting go is what brings you true contentment. Winning and losing, fine for business and the ballpark, are the wrong terms for right living. Beyond shaking addiction, the word recovery means finding what you had lost.

Author Unknown (Pt. 4)

Promoting yourself made you as many enemies as fans. Haters relentlessly trolled you online calling you untalented, vainglorious or worse. Colleagues wondered if you were paying more attention to your novels than your job. Your wife thought you were chasing windmills. To some extent they all were right. But the genie was out of the bottle; you simply had to keep trying. Something would click. You would have the last laugh.

One morning, you saw a complete stranger reading your novel on the “El” in Chicago. Small sample, but no less thrilling, it was all you could do to keep from introducing yourself to the reader. In terms of validation this rare sighting would have to do.

Much later, your daughter’s high school art teacher read two of your novels, one after the other. During that relatively long period of time, he had constantly told her how good they were. Your daughter respected her teacher and by him praising your work you knew she respected you. Any glimmer of awe she had towards you was significant. Especially given how you’d fallen from her pedestal. This would have to do.

The accolades you received for copywriting, the wealth it provided, ego trips. For many, that would have done quite nicely. For you it wasn’t enough. Like Icarus you’d reached sublime heights, until your wings got clipped and you fell to earth.

In the end as in the beginning, a writer writes. Writing for its own sake, without the obsession for income or outcome. A writer writes. This, too, will have to do.

(If you’re interested in any of my books please click on the links right side of this blog. Thank you!)

Thanks to marketing, social media and our own selfish nature, narcissism runs rampant. But is it (still) a mental disorder?

Could I be any greater?

The American Psychiatric Association held their annual meeting in Honolulu last week. A primary objective for the group was outlining revisions to the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5. The book was last updated 20 years ago. Shrinks the world over use this manual for diagnosis, prescription information and countless other important matters. It’s like a bible of psychiatry.

According to a report in the Chicago Tribune, “among the myriad proposals now on the table (at the convention): reducing the number of specific personality disorders from 10 to five, a move that would eliminate the diagnosis of narcissistic disorder.” Narcissism has long been a marker for mental illness, including sociopathic behavior. In general, most societies view the behavior as a bad thing. Serial killers are said to be narcissists.

That said I think removing the classification is probably the right move. Like it or not, the world is full of narcissists. And the number is only increasing. I attribute this to two things in particular: social media and marketing.

Once we were just ordinary people. Joe from accounting. Sally, the girl next door. Minor roles in the grand scheme of things. Cogs in the proverbial wheel. But the new century changed all that. Our roles got bigger… better… and badder. Joe became a rock star. Sally a goddess. He’s got “fans.” And she has “followers.” We became main characters in the screenplay of our lives. Veritable movie stars! Now people, places and things revolve around us. Our names are like brand names, with images to think about. In other words, we became narcissists. Popular websites like Klout measure our “social currency,” giving each of us a score, which determines are sphere of influence. Basically it tabulates “fans” and “followers” and “likes.” Engagement is a major criteria. More is better. Therefore, Klout is but a measure of our narcissism.

Validate me!

That marketing feeds our desires for popularity, prestige and success is beyond debate. Of course it does. Sally wants to look more like Jane so she buys what Jane has. Jack wants to impress Joe so he drives a BMW. And so on.

Consider Apple: Imac, Ipod, Ipad, Iphone. We love “I.”

Ad copy has always played to our prurient desires, be they material or psychological. Most religions of the world consider that a sin. Whether or not that’s true is a broader discussion and one that we will all be having for the rest of our lives. Yet, while many of us are some kind of crazy we are likely not serial killers. Hence, I think it’s a good move for the APA to take narcissism off the punch list of mental disorders. In the age of Facebook and Twitter, what choice do they have?

Freelancing & creative leadership: my perspective from both desks.

Been there, done that…

My entire career, I’ve been a full time employee of three agencies. Before now, my only work stoppage (six months) was on account of a separation agreement.

This time I have no such covenants. Therefore, in addition to copious amounts of personal writing, I’ve also taken my first foray into freelance copywriting. To my pleasant surprise, I enjoyed it. A lot. Not only did I not miss being the boss I actually relished being inconspicuous. Why? Well, that’s the subject of this post. I think I have a fairly unique perspective. Hopefully, most of you will find it interesting and maybe even enlightening, especially if you’ve got designs on creative leadership.

Freelancing put me back in the creative trenches: conceptualizing and writing. Two things I deeply missed. Fact is, unless a Chief Creative Officer actively fights against it most of us end up being curators and choreographers. Those are important tasks but it’s just not the same as coming up with ideas and writing. Whether my peers admit it or not, the longer they stay out of the trenches the more likely their creative muscles atrophy. It’s the same as anything else: use it or lose it. Remaining a player/coach isn’t easy, especially if various members of the agency are driving you in different directions. In addition, you have to want to do the work. Think about it. If no one at the agency expects you to write copy or compose layouts then would you? Lots of ECD’s and CCO’s (the most famous ones included) don’t create anything anymore. Regarding global creative directors, a colleague once told me the only “books” those guys care about are their passports.

Freelancing, I no longer have to suffer fools the way most creative directors must. A CCO is expected to work with senior people across his or her network as well as for clients. While many in the C-suite are brilliant and pleasant plenty are also tools. Paid only to write they are no longer my concern. A blessing.

Finally, I don’t miss power. As a matter of fact, I’m here to tell you power is overrated. For one thing, it separates you from the people and places and things that make advertising so damn fun. While separation from the troops is endemic to any leadership position I missed the camaraderie. You know who scares me? The ECD or CCO who doesn’t. Those guys are trouble.

As a freelancer, I get to create work with the other people who create work. That “flow” trumps pomp and circumstance. Plus, whether or not I become a CCO again, it’s nice to know I’m comfortable working the skill sets that got me there in the first place.

Full disclosure: As a CCO, I was never a big fan of hiring freelancers. I thought perhaps they wouldn’t try as hard as FTE’s. Or be as vested in outcomes as FTE’s. I was dead wrong on the first point. (Freelancers won’t get hired back if they don’t go full out.) And while the second point is usually true it’s also a moot point. If a company demands loyalty from a freelancer offer him or her a damn job!

Immortality and art. Reflections from a library.

Books unread and way past due…

Recently, I attended a charity auction for my kid’s school at a downtown club, where I found myself having a Don Draper moment in the unattended library, a stuffy, decrepit sort of room where the nicked and worn bookcases were filled with countless navy and maroon hardcover volumes. Clearly, none had been opened in many years. Maybe decades. There was dust on all of them. I even saw cobwebs.

I gazed upon the titles. I’d never heard any of them or their authors. I opened one up and read a few paragraphs, something about a bachelor going over his dead father’s keepsakes. The man’s name was Jack. Or was it Henry or Bill. Anyway, the sentences were finely written. They moved along nicely enough. For a moment I could almost see myself sitting down in the nearby armchair. But no. I already had a bad rap as being anti-social, especially at events like these. If my wife caught me wiling away the evening reading I’d catch hell. The car ride home would feature another steely lecture. I put the book back. Sliding it into the slot, I imagined the bookcase, a la Sherlock Holmes, opening up into a secret passage! Wishful thinking. I’d have to go back to my party.

Before adjourning to the ballroom, I pondered the books once more, and their authors, now so utterly forgotten. When I was younger I thought being a published author was the pinnacle of achievement. For me, it was the goal of goals. The penultimate. Even deeper I believed creating a book was a form of immortality, a legacy. I knew someday I would. Had to. Otherwise, it seemed to me, my inevitable death would be in vain.

Now, gazing upon these hundreds of decaying volumes, I had a different view. There is no immortality, even through books. Unless you are blessed with creating a masterpiece like Moby Dick or Portrait of the Young Man as Artist, nobody but no one will care about it or you. And even in the unlikely event you did create a masterwork, you’d still fade eventually. Ashes to ashes. Dust jackets to dust jackets. High school kids would be required to read your prose but they would do so begrudgingly. A few nerds might carry the torch, less and less of them every year.

Needless to say, the same epitaph exists for movies and other art. For every Hemingway or Caravaggio there are millions of fabulous nobodies. People like me. I’ve written three novels, struggled to have two of them published, and dozens of short stories last read by a college professor whose name I can’t recall anymore than he would my stories.

Staring up at all these old books, I realized how silly my ambition was. Legacy! Please. Besides my kin, who in the hell did I think would read my stories? In fifty years my novels would be lucky –damn lucky- to be housed in a decrepit room such as this. Unlikely, given they are paperbacks. Even online they will be “out of print.” Maybe even –gasp!- Google proof!

Still, I would not trade the years I spent toiling on my books for anything. The countless hours I’ve spent conjuring tales are among the best times of my life. Selfish in the extreme, it was and is the one place where I felt and feel in control. Certainly more so than in all those mind numbing cocktail parties I’d attended and will attend.

So, what’s the lesson here? What is my point? I think it has something to do with living in the present and not worrying about the future or fretting over the past. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating hedonism. This does not mean sex, drugs and rock and roll. Lord knows I tried that. It means if my present is about writing (be it books or ad copy) then that is what I should do. It is my ambition that needs to be tempered. Rethought anyway. For all my blessings, my ambition got me right here, between a few hundred unremembered books and about as many drunks in the next room.

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