This post is part of THE DEEP STUFF - reflective answers to the questions senior professional creatives ask.
I write these pieces as a coach and a former creative director. I work with experienced creatives who are navigating confidence loss, change and the pressure to stay relevant. No platitudes. No fridge magnet philosophy, just picking up on conversations that are hopefully useful to share.
Adapt or die.
All due respects to Darwin, but isn’t this rallying cry, so loved by tech companies and motivational speakers, just that little bit hackneyed now? I mean anyone who has sustained a creative career for over 10 years, has done their fair share of shapeshifting. Or have they? Is there ever a time to draw the line?
So let’s list the agitators - shrinking budgets, streamlining, redundancy, tech, young blood. And so on. The subtext is the same. Can I keep up? Am I relevant any more?
From where I sit there’s plenty to suggest that relevance isn’t the case. Very rarely do I hear ‘I’ve stopped listening and learning’ or ‘I’m complacent’.
Quite the opposite.
The creative industry has always rewarded adaptability, you are well aware of the stakes. It’s just somewhere along the line adaptability became a virtue in its own right. Learn the new thing. Master a new platform, Understand a new trend. Repeat.
So this question isn’t about whether you can, it’s about whether you want to.
There’s also something deeper lurking - the worry that experience doesn’t count for anything. Who doesn’t like a shiny new thing?
BUT, BUT, BUT (and I make no apology for repeating myself across my posts).
Somethings haven’t changed. Businesses still need ideas. Clients still need trust. People still respond to authenticity, judgement, creativity and human connection.
Remember what people come to you for.
Your perspective? Your judgement? Your ability to keep a clear head (when everyone around you is in panic mode)? What is it that has kept you going?
Could it be you’ve forgotten how effortlessly you can do really valuable things?
Where is the real struggle in all of this? Or is that a private conversation for you and I?
Discover more thinking from THE DEEP STUFF — the real questions senior creatives ask.