FEAR.THE FATHER OF COURAGE.

While this was originally written about advertising, it applies to you. Put on your hat about life and you’ll see what I mean.

You know why we have so much ordinary advertising: we’re afraid.

Agencies are afraid of their clients. Clients are afraid of their  agencies

And so it goes. We’re afraid of our bosses. Afraid of our secretaries. Afraid of sticking our necks out. Afraid to make decisions.

If it sounds hard to believe, just look around you. How often have you seen an outstanding creative agency become uncreative once it got substantial business? How about the really talented copywriter or art director who became a creative head at his agency? All of a sudden his head stopped being creative.

The same is true on the client side. The aggressive, innovative guy who is now vice president of marketing or in charge of advertising is not the same guy he once was. Protecting the person’s position becomes more important than selling the company’s products.

It touches all of us. The account person who keeps creative people away from the client is afraid. The client who permits it, is also afraid.

Success plays funny tricks on us. The more we have to lose, the more afraid we are.   While a lot of this fear is understandable, perhaps it’s the thing we should fear most. So what’s the remedy?

The person who creates a pill to make us stop being afraid is going to make a million. But until that time we’d be a lot better off if we’d realize that playing it safe can be more dangerous than being a little different.

In a business like ours, innovation is its lifeblood. Hiding a product is not the best way to sell it

Think about it. The great campaigns of our time had to be produced  by people who were afraid to be afraid. Like Avis and Alka Seltzer and Volkswagen.

People are people. Neil Armstrong, when he got into that space ship heading for the moon, had to be afraid.

How about Branch Rickey, when he signed Jackie Robinson to a major League contract? And Jackie Robinson when he stepped on the field wearing a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform?

Was Christiaan Barnard afraid when he performed the first heart transplant operation?

These great things wouldn’t have happened if fear got in their way and they went about imitating what everyone else was doing.

Their secret was to understand their fear. And handle it. And not let it handle them.

(Originally written by Don Hermann appearing in Madison Avenue Magazine)