I love ideas. I used to get paid a pretty decent salary to come up with ideas. The sad thing is some people don’t value their own ideas. I’m not about judging their ideas; that’s up to context, perspective and ultimately history. (Some of my ideas haven’t stood the test of time too well at all, yet some still work).
Ideas in all their various forms from simple problem solving to solving global warming are the Big Bang of everything. Because before the idea there was nothing. And now’s there’s something.
If you want proof of the immense value of ideas look no further than the US Patent and Trademark Office. The vault where approved patents and trademarks are stored rivals nuclear missile silos, NORAD’s Cheyanne Mountain Complex (which controls those nuclear missile silos) and the nuclear missile-proof bunker under the White House. Ironically the patents for those missiles are housed in that vault.
Ideas are very personal. To me they represent me, they are me. Whenever I pitched an idea which I loved, and it was rejected, my internal monologue went into overdrive and it was not pretty. Aside from the thought, “if they don’t like my idea then they must not like me,” there was the opposite thought, which was typically violent and unpleasant towards those who dare slight me.
I think the only thing which saved me, and perhaps a few clients, were the wise words of one of my early mentors, “Sometimes you have to let the children die.” It didn’t sink in straight away until a later Creative Director told me; “When they reject your work just say, ‘right you bastards, I’m going to do an even better one and get you to buy that!'”
And if that didn’t work, I’d kill ’em.
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