I See Dead Ideas

It's the part of the business I'll never get used to.

I'm not talking about the rejection. We all face rejection, copywriters and art directors perhaps more so than others.

I'm talking about the selection. More specifically, the selection of other ideas over and above the ones my partner and I put on the table.

I know I run the risk of appearing immodest and I'm going to be very thoughtful in the words I choose.

But, seriously, what the FUCK!

You sank 3/4 of a million dollars of precious production money, fought off countless focus groups and twisted the arm of the CMO, the CIO and the CEO, to run that?

They trained an elephant to paint pictures, maybe he's available to work on Phase 2?

You'd think by this middle to late stage of my career I'd be over all this. That, as a freelancer I could simply brush it all off, look at the deposits in my bank account and say, "at least the check cleared."

But the Tom Brady in me can't.

I'm simply too competitive.

Even at 44 I have a raging fire in my belly. Sometimes that fire migrates to my lower intestine. And sometimes it works its way up to my esophagus in the form of heartburn. The point is, the fire is still there and it's not going away until they plant me in the ground and I come back as a poison oak.

That doesn't mean I have to win every creative shootout. And hoot and holler in an obnoxious victory dance. And rub it in the face of my younger, hipper-than-thou colleagues who wanted to do something with hashtags and Will I Am.

Who am I kidding, that's exactly what it means.

I don't know how to make that go away.
Or if I should even try.

Maybe I'll just switch from dark roast coffee to something in the light-to medium range?
That's a start.