Quiet rooms over big stages

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” - Simone Weil

I used to think the answer to success, to being "good" at marketing, brand, strategy, was volume and height and light, the big stage with the big screen and the big audience.

That’s what everyone tells you when you’re trying to build anything at all, be louder, be brighter, be everywhere at once...

and yet...

The older I get and the more i experience and unravel my experiences, it's becoming clearer to me that choosing the small rooms, more personal communities... that is where the ideas can flow, and I can feel myself come back to normal size.

There is a kind of theatre out there that wants you to win the minute, to flatten a complicated thought into a single shiny line and toss it into the tide. Rinse and repeat…

One size fits all is never true. Even less so now where it’s so easy to blend in if you aren’t creative, honest and focused.

It needs the pause, the sideways look, the “wait, say that again” moment that only happens when nobody is rushing you to be digestible on the first pass. I am shit under a spotlight. It takes time for me to relax with people in an honest way to speak in my voice. To not doubt or second guess.

So when anyone has expected me to translate myself into an unnatural form, it’s not worked (what a surprise)…

Finally I am at the place where I can say: no. Just no. No changing myself to fit an aesthetic that just doesn’t fit. I am best in smaller conversation, real talk and authentic relationship.

I can be critical, give my thoughts, invite critique... safe, non-judgemental. I can loosen the mask a little and be me.

You choose to be there, you can leave, you can look down and think without fear that your thoughtful silence will be read as failure.

You can change your mind and nobody screenshot it as a gotcha. You can say “I don’t know yet” and mean it.

We can fully listen, notice the detail that would have been lost in the lights.

Those beautiful burst of "Yes!", that energised feeling of momentum...

I want visibility that serves what we do, not the other way round. Saying no to a big shiny things and yes to smaller circles, coffee at a quiet table, messy notes shared with people who will push back with care.

I would rather be useful and authentic than ubiquitous, and I would rather be remembered for helping someone do the next right thing or unravel a problem, than parade my brain for the masses.

There is also the body to consider, a nervous system that does not love bright noise... the part of me that tips into static if I have to hold too many eyes at once.

To work with it instead of muscling through.

I can feel when the ground goes wobbly and slow down before I fall through it, I can leave with something left for tomorrow, and that matters more to me than anything.