#8 What to do during a failure
And other powerful things you can learn from a young woman.
Hi,
This is Room To Fail, a newsletter about learning how to become a strategist right beside me, a junior-strat that is constantly (and fearfully) looking for things to do wrong & fail at, just to only get them right the next time. Or the next.
I’m Irina. Welcome and buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. Hopefully.
If you got this from a friend or randomly found it online, you can choose to get it in your inbox every Wednesday.
These read takes you about 12 minutes.
🧠⚡︎BRAIN FAILURE
On the 11th, Edith Andrei randomly bumped into an Insta story about Room To Fail, read the newsletter and liked it.
Then she wrote to me on Instagram. And I wrote back.
She’s getting a Masters of Arts in Digital Media in Birmingham and she’s also learning strategy. And she’s struggling really hard to find a job in the advertising industry right now. In our half an hour talk I felt her strong determination and we connected so well that I decided to ask her some questions. She is that person that motivates you to be strong, even when she’s in an uncertain place herself. We all need people like this around us.
So here’s the junior-looking-for-a-mentor’s point of view over strategy and failures.
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Active procrastinator by day and digital savvy by night. Messy mind with a control freak disorder aspiring to become a strategist. I’d like to think of myself as a junior creative since I’m about to finish a Master of Arts in Digital Media. A young, broke and hungry creative trying to force entry through the back door of an agency since the front one is always closed.
I'm not ready to label myself as a strategist, not yet. I can be a creative guru or unicorn, or however people want to be called when they’re getting into this industry, but I'd like to be real. Shocking, I have a bachelor in Foreign Languages (English/Japanese) which is not the typical degree you'd see in a creative CV.
To be completely honest, I still don't have an answer for my career choice, sometimes I feel like the industry found me, not the other way around. Everything happens for a reason and my gut says this is what I have to do and what I'll be good at. I am self-taught and I must thank YouTube, Seth Godin, Mark Pollard, free online courses and other bits and pieces I've found online for shaping my brain cells and fuelling my ambition.
How do you learn best?
Hmm..when I’m not forced, I guess. Living in Romania most of my life and finishing most of my studies there, everything felt forced. Like I had to learn all that stuff in order to succeed, like I had to follow the classic pattern of school-highschool-university-master-job to have a good career. And so I did. Until I finished Uni and the Questions got me “Who am I? What do I want to do? What am I good at?” and for a while, everything crumbled and I felt lost. Therefore, I decided to take a gap year and find my purpose. I know, it sounds dramatic, but trust me, it was. I am not that type of person who cries and waits for miracles to happen, I am the type of person who cries and applies to jobs.
Long story short, after careful evaluation of the job market, nothing really popped up. The ugly truth was that I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to see entry-level jobs requiring experience. The only jobs that made sense were for marketing positions. Ironically, these were the most demanding and overwhelming, since most of them are looking for meta-humans, but now I know, I have a sweet spot for challenges. Fast-forward to next year, I got a job as a marketing assistant which eventually made me continue my studies, but this time on my terms. So, here I am, after one year of non-forced education, feeling more capable than I felt after 3 years of studies in Romania. I’m not blaming anyone for anything, that’s just my experience and I can’t learn if I am forced or bound to. I like to do it on my terms, at my own pace.
What does strategy mean to you? What do you think is cool about it?
Strategy is the work of pulling apart what exists and turning it into a new reality. That’s how stories happen. As strategists, we tend to freak out constantly, while strategy is the gentle action to remain sane, as Mark Pollard explains. Strategy for me is like finding the right piece in a puzzle. You need to consider each move, look for other pieces that could fit, test some moves until you eventually find the right one that turns the whole mess into a masterpiece.
In a weird way, I am an ‘all over the place’ type of person with an organised mind. But the work of strategy is messy, you need to understand the context you are part of and then surprise that context with unexpected thinking and solutions. Strategy forces new things into the world and the world isn’t always set up for new things, but that’s our job, to make it fit.
How does an awesome job sound to you?
I’ll tell you when I get it. I’m joking, haha. Not really sure, I adapt pretty easily to any environment. I think is more about the people than the job itself. Of course, the position counts too, but people around you count as much.
Sometimes I feel like people are waiting for you to fail so they can build their success on your failure. That’s scary af. The ideal work environment is where people are driven by the same purpose and are willing to help each other. In a team, there’s no competition or envy, is constant communication and support that makes it all work. So yeah, teamwork makes the dream work.
What do you look for in a mentor?
It’s funny because I know what I’m not looking for.
As a strategist, you have to be very confident in your own mind, in your own opinion, but at the same time need to be ready to change your mind if some new information comes up. I need someone to be prepared to fail and take responsibility for his/her mistakes and not blame the it of the problem.
I don’t want someone telling me I was wrong, I want to make me understand why I was wrong. I must admit, I don’t take criticism very well, especially if it doesn’t come with solid arguments. I expect to fail, many times from now on and honestly, I can’t wait to do that. That’s the only way I can learn and become more confident. However, I need someone to guide me a little, to show me the path, not to build it for me. I think I need validation more than I need encouragement. Of course, a tap on the shoulder would be very much appreciated from time to time.
When do you feel most nervous? When do you feel most comfortable?
When I go on a holiday and after 4 days FOMO (fear of missing out) kicks in. It’s a weird feeling knowing I must enjoy the moment but at the same time, I can’t help but wonder what’s new?, what’s the latest thing that launched?, what are the other people doing?. But at the same time, if I try to catch up with the world, I can’t focus. My brain becomes a broken switch every time I take some time off. Fear and anxiety having a blast inside me, while the whole body feels at peace on the outside. I’m a weird human being.
I feel comfortable only when I sleep and get into a routine. I am an introvert with a hyperactive mind. I told you, I’m weird haha. But jokes aside, I don’t like feeling comfortable.
I think it cuts off all my creativity and desire to do stuff. I like to get comfortable with the people around me since it makes things less awkward and allows me to be myself. But when it comes to self-comfort, I try to avoid it. Although, I read a lot and this brings me a lot of peace.
What’s the story of a fail that changed you? How did it change you?
I think I am going through it right now.
Usually, I don’t get sucked in failures and don’t allow them to affect me too long. I accept them, I let the whole charade to manifest, I learn how to avoid things from happening again and move on. I think people have various definitions for failure, but for me failure is an act of quitting on your goals. We all have the potential to fight and do whatever we can to achieve that one thing that keeps us dreaming. But once we decide to quit, we fail. And we do it massively. For me, fighting a failure is like going for a run. You set up a route, get your shoes ready and set off. You know what to expect since is not the first time you’re about to go out. You get ready, lock the door and take a deep breath in. You go out and it starts raining, but you convince yourself you won’t catch a cold and continue to jog. Once you get to the park, you see it is closed and decide to switch the route. You continue to run but your phone dies and the feeling of getting lost cripples in. You continue to run in the rain without a clear trace. But there’s something in you that prevents you from going back home. You run and run and hope the sky will clear. Eventually you get home, drained and exhausted, but you made it. Is not about the journey, is about your drive and will to continue, even when things don’t turn out as you planned.
Where do you see yourself next year?
I see myself getting better, more confident and hopefully stressing my ass over a strategy. I will continue to learn and strive to become better and better at my job. I’m going through a rough time at the moment and I struggle to keep my sanity floating, but good things are coming, hopefully.
I have never been good at predicting, however I am stubborn enough to know that I’ll not quit or take any shortcut to achieve my purpose. I’m quite spiritual and feel like things always happen for a reason, so what’s meant for me, will find me.
As you can see, she’s a great writer too.
If you have a place for Edith - a place that can contain all her determination, passion, optimism and beautiful energy - write to her at andrei.edith@gmail.com.
Aaaand let’s see what else we have this week.
🤯 “HOW DID THEY THINK ABOUT THAT?!” SECTION
This one link but with lots to read - a major new study of effectiveness, carried out in 2020 by marketing effectiveness experts James Hurman and Peter Field on behalf of Cannes Lions and WARC.
🍴INTERESTING TOOLS TO GET WRONG
Because we talked about segmentation and defining the target audience, I feel this WARC deck can help us further. So, this week I’m not talking about any other tool, but letting us go deeper into audience segmentation.
It has examples, dos and don’ts and confirms some of the past materials are still relevant to 2020. Enjoy the read.
📚 THE STRATEGY BOOK CLUB
(How not to Plan: 66 ways to screw it up, Les Binet and Sarah Carter -
COMPLETED: Y/N, page 91)
I can’t say it better, so “This chapter is a mix of articles. All look at the real-world context for communication, not the distorted view of reality it’s easy to succumb to at the planning coalface.”
We’re talking about the third chapter, about brand and communication. Here, I came across Choice System I and System II from Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking fast and slow again - only in a much organised table.
Also, the most interesting part I’ve found was about the difference between differentiation & distinctiveness. Difference is less important than distinctiveness, saying something different is nowadays less important than saying something in a different way.
Yup, still trying to wrap my head around it too, Tom Cruise!
And I’ll leave you with a nice, but cold shower from How to sell without annoying people checklist:
”Remember: your competition isn’t other brands, it’s people’s lives. People don’t want to give you their attention. If you’re not interesting, entertaining, or useful, you’re an irritating distraction.”
Don’t be an irritating distraction, help someone this week and stay curious.
Because you’ll keep failing - only to become better,
i.