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Most people are other people.
Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions,
Their lives a mimicry,
Their passions a quotation.
— Oscar Wilde

We all want our clients to be happy. The engagement I was talking about Monday sticks out in my mind because it’s the only one in my life where the client wasn’t happy.

I have reflected, and I know I had a few things to learn about professionalism (and salesmanship, obviously). But what I felt then, and I still feel now, is that what’s going to make everyone really happy is great results.

Now, great isn’t easy. It isn’t guaranteed. And we all need to eat, so that means we’ve got to know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em. But nobody ever got great by playing it safe. Trying to implement new ideas is risky business.

Every time we try to do something great, we gamble our reputations. Sometimes we get fired, and sometimes we have to resign. Maybe someday, somebody will shake their fist and yell, "You’ll never work in this town again!" But listen: If we just wanted money, we’d have jobs writing code for Oracle or re-touching photos for Teen People, or as sub-bosses in a 1920s crime syndicate.

"Money, okay, everybody likes money. But somehow it don’t seem like him."

Here’s the news: If we don’t care about it, it’s not ever going to be that good. It’ll pass, probably more often than if we do care about it, but it’s never going to be headline news.

Our clients or bosses will get mad and dress us down because our ideas are impractical or just silly. We’ll be thought of as somewhat erratic, and probably won’t get picked for any middle management tracks in your late 20s. Some self-aggrandizing in-house designer with a silly title to whom we pitched an idea last year will quietly implement it next year, and bag the big promotion. We’ll own enormous piles of rejection slips, or whatever the email equivalent of that is.

But at least we’ll be swinging the bat. Like the man says, "No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better."