20102011
How To Be A Sore Loser
It’s really simple if you think about it. They just didn’t get my idea and that’s not my fault. All that matters is that I know my idea’s awesome, and they’re just idiots if they don’t know real advertising when they see it. They wouldn’t know real advertising, even if a meerkat jumped out of my pitch and punched them in their faces. Yeah, it’s totally their fault.
Now that’s all out of your system, you begin to realise what it is to be a sore loser. Let’s begin with, as all losers do, with an epic fail. In my case, it was losing out on the ‘Name Your Agency’ and ‘Design Your Studio’ Brief. Now, I’m an extremely competitive person, especially when it comes to things I’m supposedly good at, but just imagine by shock, horror and surprise when I realised that I wasn’t going to be doing my victory dance Friday afternoon, up on the stage. Like most people, the opening paragraph would have described my attitude to a tee, and if I’m honest, that probably was my initial reaction – and sure as hell, I was mighty sore about it.
Unfortunately, what drives me is the desire to learn and better myself. What comes with losing are many lessons that could not have been learnt whilst winning. The key to winning (next time) is essentially losing, whilst incorporating lessons learnt. Next time you’ll come back bigger and better (you may not win, but you’d have improved most certainly).
Honestly? We f**ked up – how does one pitch a ‘safe’ idea to the Tango Ads guy? All I can say is, lesson learnt – do your research. And how does one present a pitch thrown together hours before, and expect it to look like two weeks work? Again, lesson learnt.
There were many lessons, but if I didn’t care, and if I wasn’t so sore, I wouldn’t want to try harder or be better. What I’m trying to get at is that being a loser is ok, and being mighty sore about it is ok too, but it’s what you do with this that matters. You can wallow in self-pity, shrouded in a cloud of self-denial, or you can hear out your critics and respond with an attitude that says, ‘I accept that and my heart is still open’ (whilst quietly planning your sold-out comeback gig on the side.) I feel I should quote Kanye West’s ‘Harder, Stronger, Faster…’ but the exact phrase evades me, and his ego is big enough already without me giving him a shout out in my blog for the School of Communication Arts 2.0.
So here’s to losing, and feeling mighty sore about it, since there’s nothing like a loser scorned – kinda.
