I make tonnes of mistakes.
Not every second of every day of my life, but while at work, I may spell something incorrectly, mess up a presentation slide, or mispronounce something when I'm teaching.
In my interactions with people, I may speak too quickly, say the wrong thing, or commit some social faux pas that I wasn't aware of.
Even while doing something as innocuous as ordering food, I may get a meat dish that's sweet (I know a lot of locals in SG love sweet sauces on meat dishes, but I hate them with a passion) or forget to tell the lady boss at the soy curd / drink stall to make mine with less sugar.
Each mistake I make gives me an opportunity to learn so I don't repeat it (until or unless it happens to slip my mind before I've formed a habit or I "get it").
I figured at some point that I should extend this opportunity to my students.
If they answer incorrectly, miss a step in their experiment that causes it to fail, or do the wrong thing at the wrong time, I get them to try again when they're ready.
Not all of them always take me up on my offer, but enough of them do that I've noticed it's not a trivial thing to them.
Perhaps they have always been harshly penalised for making mistakes, and this is a relief to them. I'm not sure.
Whatever the case, I want to keep giving them opportunities to learn and better themselves.
Because that's my job as an educator, isn't it?
Creative Businesses Are Still Businesses. Some Things Will Never Be Ideal.
I've learned a couple of things about creative businesses:
1) Never fall too much in love with what you create.
Though your clients may like what you do, they don't see, hear, feel like you.
At the end of the day, if they're paying, they'll want certain things their way.
2) Your work is worth what you think it's worth.
But if potential clients cannot or will not pay that, you have a problem. And you may be tempted to lower your prices.
This depends on you. If you're okay with it, and won't begrudge the lowered amount, then don't let anyone tell you that it's wrong to do so.
3) It will take time for you to be "discovered".
And it will help tremendously if you put yourself out there.
Some creatives may think that they will be sellouts if they go into the "debased" world of marketing, wheeling and dealing instead of coming up with new ideas and art.
But the only person who can truly represent what you do is you. And nobody will know what you're doing, no matter how good it is, if nobody ever sees or hears about it.
----
If you're not willing to do the non-creative work or change the way you deal with potential clients, it will be better to keep your creative activities a personal interest or hobby.
That way, you continue to enjoy it for what it is, and never have to worry about "making money" out of it.
And that's fine, too.
Writing for the Eye is not the Same as Writing for the Ear
You have almost certainly listened to someone reciting a speech and found it flat, uninspiring, even disingenuous.
This often happens in the public sphere, especially when politics are involved.
What's to be said is often vetted, edited, and rehashed multiple times by multiple people. This is understandable. A slip of the tongue can cause severe backlash.
There are, of course, brilliant speechwriters who work with the same speaker for long periods of time and produce remarkable speeches for them. These people, sadly, are few and far between.
Many written speeches don't translate well when spoken, because they were written for the eye, and not for the ear.
I'm not saying that speakers should stop hiring speechwriters, just that, if they do, they should be the ones in charge of the final "version", so that they sound like themselves.
And make our listening lives a little bit livelier.
There Are Organisations That I Love to be a Part Of, and Some I Don't. This is Why...
One of my favourite roles to play is devil's advocate.
I've done this in almost every organisation I've been a part of, though never as a formal role.
(If anyone wants to hire me to play this role, I'll be very happy to take it on).
Their response to my roleplay determines how invested I become in that organisation.
So far, the only ones I continue to be invested in have a few similar traits:
They are generally de-centralised, open, and have leaders who are, themselves, often "misunderstood" or unconventional.
In my view, the latter traits are highly desirable.
The other organisations, most of which I have either withdrawn from or exist in their books in name only, also have their own similar traits:
1) They pay lip service to innovation, but shut down new ideas that don't come from their inner circle(s).
Worse, some of them have inner circles who claim credit, but never give it.
2) They lament problems in their organisation, meeting after meeting, but never seem to get any closer to solving them.
This happens in spite of good suggestions and ground-up initiatives.
3) They give little to no support to anyone who's trying something new, and are quick to pounce on mistakes and teething problems.
It's not hard to guess whether the people trying things out continue to do so.
I could go on and on, but this post will turn into a rant. So, I'm going to stop the list here.
If you're in an organisation that exhibits these traits, are you still with them? Why / why not?
I'd love to hear from you, especially about how you handle(d) the situation(s).