Success, on a Scale of One to Zen

The total sobriety of a former creative anarchist.

Not long ago, I saw a slogan I had come up with over a casual brainstorming drink with friends show up a few days later in their startup’s branding deck, in advance of their global launch. I know because they shared it on social media. A thank-you from them — like — ‘Hey! We went with that thing you suggested! Thanks!’ — would have been nice.

But the small scratch on my ego wasn’t the problem. Something else pulled at me now. Remorse.

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Every now and then, I’ll feel a mix of pride and regret when I see copy I wrote out there in the world. Clever little names and slogans running nimbly around the social action and entrepreneurial ecosystems, sounding like a young me.

Not based on much data or strategy and barely compensated, my thing was three to seven strong, fast words, arriving electric, unexpected and profoundly satisfying.

For me, it was about creating in the moment; about my Bat-sense seeing through people and enterprises to the core. It was also about not realizing how much I could actually charge for this gift and wanting to be helpful and generous for an industry I love. About never wanting to say no, even to ventures it was doubtful any text could save.

For various innovators over the years, it was about finally being “gotten”; their enterprise being born; being sick of too much process or being out of time; and being broke.

Our damages aligned perfectly.

I was passionate about what I did, and ostensibly good at it, and that was enough. Isn’t it meant to be enough? Aren’t entrepreneurial industries — both social and hi-tech, especially in Israel — about sharing your best self, coolest connections, and choicest skills in the service of a Larger Vision? Doesn’t it all run on genius, charm, and Karma?

But here’s the thing: In my case, it was also a bit about anarchy — no focus group, no huge fees, no obsessive and narcissistic corporate therapy that is built into the sometimes endless strategic branding processes that I’d seen too many times.

It was a middle finger in the air to the grey-green men and women of Excel and Analytics, and the pretentious drafters of position papers in Word. Especially them.

I was a transgressive power player with plenty of willing partners in crime, a True Creative with incisive fangs, dark bravado, and a message to the machine: Bring that back to your strategy team / CMO with my DNA on it, Bro. Let them reverse engineer why it’s perfect.

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Now the Comms Chief for a non-profit, I am a far more sober person with several open dashboards and quite a few dashed hopes. I have come to appreciate the value of trying to know, test, and plan things instead of relying on intuition and ambition. Of alignment between long-term goals and the way we spend our resources, words included, and the precise way we define what the world would be missing if we were not in it.

This is harder in a universe where “viral” has mutated into a sought after condition, in which there is no straight line between quality, value, talent, expenditure, exposure, and revenue.

With every word engineered and so much joy taken out of professional creativity, while dancing babies filmed on a phone get an insane amount of views, anarchy is more tempting than ever.

Likes are crack cocaine which soothe anxiety, but take our eyes off the North Star. The problem is that in a certain volume… they are also metrics.

The magicians, artists, warriors, and scientists who constantly rework and test the puzzle of our attention-challenged broadband society hold hands and hope for the best. Because we all know, in our hearts, that if something succeeds it probably will be, but may actually not be, due to anything we did or could have predicted. But that we will all more than likely take credit, and payment, anyway.

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Here’s the thing: knowing and communicating exactly who you are is the only real way to succeed. It’s as true for companies as it is for individuals, and as true now as it always was. That’s why someone in my network emailed me to name his new enterprise, thinking that the name would give him all the answers.

He introduced me to his group of co-founders as the genie that would grant them, instantly, their elusive identity. I have outgrown being rubbed by flattery, but from a sense of duty was tempted to simply cede his wish.

But instead I asked him what qualities his market survey had said his target audience was seeking. What unique value would he be bringing to the field with his new venture? Then we could try to name it. I didn’t need him to tell me that, even though they had been in development for many months, there had been no market survey. Like, *Ever*. I could tell from the email that this was a last ditch request for creative absolution from grave sins of omission in R&D.

Their sell had no DNA.

I understood that once, not too long ago, I would have loved nothing more than to be his free and false Messiah. But that was Then. And this was No. It felt like taking someone’s hand off my knee.

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My challenge now, I thought to myself, is to avoid getting stuck in that No. If Likes are crack, process and planning are equally addictive, numbing methadone. How can I stay electric and generous even though I’ve found both the off switch and the humility that comes with reading numbers?

And then, out of the blue, an old friend reaches out. He introduces me to an entrepreneur with a life-saving product. Would I help her?

*Would I help her.* Help is code: I know you will do this for free because you are, even with your executive hands deep in the corporate timelines and budgets of a global company, a start-up addict, a hopeless idealist, a branding slut.

I was all ready to be in the No, like last time, but I could not ignore the fact that this was different. I was looking at a product answering a real need with real science and obvious value. Everything gets tested. The founders are bootstrapped and now going to raise serious funds; I believe they will. *Yes.* So much more real now, from a place where No is likely — in my free time, after a 70 hour work week.

There is no thrilling buzz of anarchy. There is the industry as it should sound: the barely audible, inspiring murmur of authentic innovation. I would not call it by any other name.