“Hey, I Just Felt It. A Twinge of Fear.”
(Written by Edward. A McCabe, former president and creative director of Scali, McCabe, Sloves, this appear in the New York Times Magazine on Dec 7, 1986 whenI was going through a rough time. I cut it out, copied it, and read it every so often to provide inspiration when I’m looking to embark on new things. It’s been a source of support all these years and I’ve shared it with many others. I hope you find some of what I did with his words.)
It wasn’t until this moment, the second I conceived this first sentence, that I began to feel the reality, the enormity of what I had done.
Just a few months ago I quit my job in advertising. “Job” is a poor choice of word. I was president and creative director of the ad agency I had formed along with four other men and had spent19 and 2/3 years building into a large, respected international company. I could have held onto my job by decree. For some time, though, something had been scratching at my insides. Some part of me giving the rest of me notice that all was not well. Some need was not being met.
So I sit here writing this unfamiliar thing that is not an advertisement. A thing that needs to be food for my sake asopposed to some client’s sake.
Hey, I just felt it. A twinge of fear. That what’s been missing. That’s why I’m walking away from a company that was my life for so long. And maybe abandoning a profession that’s been all I’ve known for more than 30 years.
On the way up, the thing I clung to for support was the fear of failing. My personal adrenaline-soaked security blanket. Success robbed me of that. One day I realized I wasn’t scared anymore. People work a lifetime to earn that comfort. Not me. For me, losing the fear was like unexpectedly hearing an old friend had passed away.
Going into business, fear was what we lived on. Fear and room service. We started in a hotel room. We had little money and no clients. We dreamed big dreams, inspired by fear. Early, we made a pact. If we didn’t get some business soon, we’d jump out of the window. One a day. That way someone would be there to answer the phone.
Once on our way, the fear was fuel that drove us. Each of us handled it in a unique way. I felt a need to achieve perfection. I’d rewrite the body copy for an ad 50, 100, 150 times, whatever it took to make it better than anybody’s. Make it better, I believed, and clients would beat a furrow to our door. This fanaticism earned me many industry honors, the give of a whip from some of my employees and an enviable list of clients.
Awe doesn’t come easily to me. Though no one came closer to wringing it out of me than Charles Revson. Cosmetics tycoon, founder of Revlon and a client of mine for three unforgettable years before his death, Charles was the greatest teacher I have ever known.
The first time we met he taught me to see the other person’s viewpoint so clearly, so powerfully, that thinking of it takes me back to that very room. It looked as if it had been built by Mussolini and shipped to New York piece by piece. Antique nautical maps on the walls, marbleized columns, the 25-foot conference table surrounded by a dozen chairs – black leather with gold studs. At the head of the table was the gold phone. That’s where Charles sat. Or so I presumed, having yet to meet the man. Guests were ushered in first. Then Mr. Big would make his entrance.
I was sitting there wondering if he was really going to hire our agency, whether or not I’d pass his scrutiny, what kind of creature inhabits a room like this – you know how your mind flits around – when the creature himself strode in. Hawklike. Here was the nightmare of so many ad men. From the stories I’d heard I expected him to belch lava. Instead, he asked me softly, “Do you think this room is ugly?” He very first words.
“Do you think this room is ugly?” he persisted. “It’s all right. Tell me what you really think.” On such short noticethe best I could do was tell him it wasn’t exactly to my taste.
“I know you think it’s ugly,” he said. “That’s O.K. But I’m looking for someone who also understands that many people would think it’s beautiful.”
Luckily there were to be many such memorable lessons. Frank Purdue once told me a little story that taught me never to unthinkingly bolster a competitor’s position.
When Frank was looking for an ad agency to advertise his chickens, he talked to 60, narrowing the selection down to five. He then invited the head’s of each of the finalist agencies to have lunch with him, one by one. We would have been fifth. At lunch, he asked each man to rank the five finalists in terms of creativity. Everyone put his own agency first and mine second. That eliminated the need for my lunch. Frank told me he was hiring us because we were the only thing all the others could agree on.
From the author Anthony Burgess I learned how to enliven a speech. Waiting in the anteroom before speaking to an audience of magazine publishers, we exchanged pleasantries. He then asked, “What’s that in your pocket?”
“My speech,” I replied.
“Good God, man, you’ve written it all down! You can’t write it down. Once you write it down you’re dead!”
Later, after regaining my composure, I managed to go out and revive the corpseby injecting a few good ad-libs. I haven’tgiven a written speech since.
There’s a lot about advertising I’m going to miss. I could tell you stories you wouldn’t believe. But they’re old stories. In more recent ones I am the teacher, not the student. Through fresher chronologically, they are stale for me. For they are about the learning and growth of others. It’s naivete I’m in need of now. Something new to do that I’m not so good at. Something I can learn now, remember later. Deep inside I feel that by staying a student and putting off the transition to teacher I might avoid becoming old.
It’s time to move on now. To what or where remains to be seen. I’m scared, it’s true. But it’s a fine healthy young fear. I hope it grows up strong and becomes an inspiration.