Take A First Try
“All (Pixar) movies suck to begin with. Our job is to take them from suck to not suck.”
— Ed Catmull, Founder and CEO of Pixar, President of Disney Animation
It’s a grave mistake to assume that an effort that resulted in spectacular success started out spectacularly. We see Finding Nemo and we assume that the plot was fully baked from the get-go, that characters appeared perfectly-well-developed from the very beginning, that dialogue always flowed fluidly, and on and on.
Until we read that. And then we realize, “Of course they weren’t. Someone had to create them.”
And what do we think of that process of creation? That it was perfect from the beginning?
“Probably not,” we think.
Did it improve along the way? “It must have.”
Then why does Catmull’s description of Pixar still surprise us? Because the truth is, none of us like sucking at anything, let alone imagine our heroes sucking. And we assume that if people are good at something, they never sucked. Or if an end product is compelling, it must have never sucked.
This is utter presumption. And we know it’s untrue the moment we read the above.
And yet we still think it. It still dominates our presumptions as we approach our yet-to-not-suck next effort.
Brendan Boyle, legendary founder of IDEO’s Toy Lab, says he often tells people to make sketches to warm up creatively.
“But I’m no good at drawing,” they say. “How many drawings have you made today?” he replies. And after a beat, “And how many emails have you written today? Is it any wonder you’re much more comfortable with email?”
What a brilliant way to reveal the fallacies keeping us from progress.
The reality is, everything that is, started out as something that wasn’t nearly as good as it would become, eventually. But that becoming required starting undeveloped. Trying, unsuccessfully. So go ahead and suck a little bit more. Don’t do the amazing version; take a first try.
It hurts, but it’s the only way to create something spectacular.
You know what helps? A community of learners. Call them what you will, but becoming together makes the process a lot less painful. You’re welcome to learn with me and my people here.
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