Choosing open-mindedness over ego

This one’s on a different type of growth.

Growing up so isolated from human interaction and I’ll say.. friendship.. definitely changed me for the better.

Because of my lonely childhood, I have what I would call an intense appreciation for people who are nice to me. I didn’t experience that often as a kid.

But with high highs, come low lows.

So when a human disapproves of something I do, especially one I’ve known for a quite a bit, it’s what I would describe as a vivid, emotional experience.

So, imagine working with about 200 startups, and having the vast majority of your campaigns fail, after typically an exciting 1-2 months filled with joy and anticipation, only to quickly be thrust into – well, you know. The opposite…

It was about 10 years in someone told me that the large digital agencies in LA – like Adquadrant, Hawke Media, and MuteSix, retained clients for an average of 3 months. It took a while for that to set in, lol.

Suddenly, I wasn’t horrible, I was kind of, average. At least when compared to the largest agencies in the city I lived in. And I knew the founders of Hawke Media & MuteSix, and considered them pretty awesome and impressive guys, so, ya know. That made me feel a bit more like them, at least when the learning settled in.

But back to the point – client disapproval & my reaction to it.

Every time it happened, I had the choice of how to react to their criticism, disappointment, or occasional lackadaisical attitude towards the unimpressive outcome of the campaigns that failed.

So, what did I do?

Well, I wired people back money, I let people out of contracts, I apologized, I owned my mistakes, amongst other things. And I learned to under-promise and overdeliver, and soon after learn how much under-promising can increase your client close rate, lol. That was a pretty cool lesson.

You see, lying to another human being is something I consider deeply inauthentic to who I am, and is simply one of the hardest things you could ask me to do. I had near zero human interaction as a kid and as a result, am so incredibly grateful when one likes me, the last thing I want to do is put our relationship at risk, and a lie does that.

And it took me about 8 years of running small agencies before I finally learned – if you’re just honest with the potential client that you think the campaign will likely fail, and you explain why, they suddenly trust you far more and respect your openness, and then often times say something to the effect of:

“Well, screw it, I’d rather test it with you then the other 3 agencies who I now think are lying through their teeth about their confidence in the campaign doing well.”

So where am I going with all this? The point is that staying open-minded, and low ego, allows you to even receive all these tremendously valuable lessons. But you have to first lose (most of) your ego, which ain’t easy.

But once you’re there, you’re suddenly awe-struck at all the lessons available, incredible beauty of nature, and the true value of having great humans in your life.

But if you wear your ideas on your chest, or use it as the coat of arms on your iron armor, to use a metaphor, you’re screwed. You need to go into every situation – whether it be reading an article or attending a conference, with your preconceived notions at the door and your mind so open your brain might fall straight out.

I don’t really know what recommendations I could possibly make to help you get there if you’re not already, but I would just say, try to lose all fear of perception, try to engage with good faith (only about 4.5% of people have sociopathic tendencies, the vast majority are good people trying there best), and don’t be afraid of things like saying “I don’t know” or “I could be wrong”.

They’re tools, use them wisely.