When you are creating a presentation, that presentation doesn’t exist yet. It’s not something to either be uncovered or discovered, and it’s not lying around somewhere on the desk waiting to be found. There simply isn’t a presentation. Decisions must be made – one by one – to create it.
The feeling of needing to develop something – especially if against a deadline – can be overwhelming: writers loathe a blank page, painters abhor the empty canvas, and salespeople look in horror at an untouched PowerPoint presentation. One of the most demanding tasks each of us face is to forge something from nothing.
It goes beyond simply pushing through fear and just creating; it’s about striking a balance between the known (what you have created before) and the unknown (what has yet to be created). The appeal of safety and predictable outcomes is why many people are content to openly repeat what they have done in the past. The real balance means engaging in activities where neither the outcome nor the payoff is clear. This is why the most successful and creative people are willing to tread into the murky pond of uncertainty.
Think of it as feet near a line in the sand. One side is what we know, what we are confident about, areas of expertise, and the things/people we can count on. The other side represents the unknown, where things are cloudy, unseen, and uncreated. Far too many won’t place a foot across the line to the unknown because the embrace of certainty keeps both feet rooted in what we know. This leads to a false belief that if we repeat ourselves or what is known to work, we will be safe.
When we cling to what has worked in the past to have a safe outcome, we do little more than tread water in a sea of mediocrity because we choose repetition over innovation.
At the beginning of each project, every person walks up to that line in the sand from the side of the known. It takes courage and grit to place a foot on the side of the unknown because we fully understand that while some of the results will be inspiring and positive, some of it will be dreadful and unusable. That fear keeps us from creativity and innovation.
Truly courageous people – the ones that have the most success in working with continually evolving clients – place one foot across that line in the sand at the beginning of each project and keep it there for the duration. In doing so, they allow themselves to innovate without the shackles of safety restraining them.
The line in the sand can be both tricky and intimidating which causes many to simply stay on the side of the known. Therefore, the goal isn’t to just forge ahead and cross the line. Instead, the goal is to place one foot on either side of the line – one grounded in what is known and the other based in the unknown. In doing so, it allows innovation to flow in the only place it can: uncertainty.
Bill is president of PromoCorner, the leading digital marketing service provider to the promotional products industry, and has over 17 years working in executive leadership positions at leading promotional products distributorships. A featured speaker at numerous industry events, a serial creator of content marketing, immediate past president of the Promotional Products Association of the Mid-South (PPAMS), vice president of the Regional Association Council (RAC) board, and PromoKitchen chef, Bill has extensive experience coaching sales teams, creating successful marketing campaigns, and developing branding that resonates with a target audience. He can be reached at bill@PromoCorner.com.