2057: But What If It Works? by Margo Aaron of That Seems Important on Overcoming Fear Of Failure

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[00:00:58] We'll see you next time. This is Optimal Work Daily. But What If It Works? By Margo Aaron of That Seems Important Few things are more effective at eradicating a bad mood than a good movie involving unrealistically beautiful people. So, when I found myself in a bad mood a few months ago, I chose a title with Chris Hemsworth and Cillian Murphy and proceeded to get cozy with what I thought would be 122 minutes of distraction from the noise in my head.

[00:01:26] And while these gorgeous men were easy on the eyes, they were not beautiful enough to salvage in the heart of the sea. I couldn't tell if it was a script or directing, but the movie was terrible, cliched, and predictable. It had such potential, too. Moby Dick told from the perspective of Melville interviewing his source subject. That's gold. And yet the execution botched what should have otherwise been a movie version of The Iliad. An epic tale of survival and fortitude. Instead, it was slow and boring.

[00:01:56] It got me thinking about how an idea becomes a thing, and how the ideas I've had that are easiest to talk about and explain often are the worst executed. I thought about the pitch meetings Ron Howard, who directed the movie, was in for In the Heart of the Sea, and how compelling this idea had to have been. How strong the script felt. How much potential this story had to become an Oscar-nominated epic tale, next to Castaway and Titanic. And yet, it wasn't.

[00:02:24] Maybe Howard was going through a hard time in his personal life. Maybe the screenwriters slacked on the job because they got high off hubris. Maybe the screenwriters wrote a better script, but the producers insisted on edits to make it, quote-unquote, more marketable or appealing to a mass audience. So they made all the revelations too on the nose, stripped it of subtlety, and stole its power. Maybe the cast didn't get along, and there were fights on set, which is why the connection between sailors never felt real.

[00:02:52] Even the actors couldn't act past their own apathy towards the film they were creating. Maybe they were testing something new. Cinematography, and color, and lighting, and direction, and CGI. Maybe that was the point. And on that point, perhaps it succeeded. Maybe it wasn't about the story at all, but a new way to make films. We'll never know. But then, we have the Sea Beast, which managed to succeed at doing what In the Heart of the Sea couldn't.

[00:03:19] The Sea Beast is an inspired version of Moby Dick that follows a little girl who discovers that the Sea Beast is perhaps not a beast at all. And where you think that storyline would be predictable, it wasn't. And part of it is because of what you expect. You expect to see a sea creature destroying boats in the 1700s. Men hopped up on testosterone trying to be heroes by killing big animals, forced to face the elements, but ultimately having to face themselves.

[00:03:44] What you don't expect is to see a little girl on the whaling boat, or magical giant creatures who live on a secret island. Or the twist that the whalers started this fight, and the Sea Beasts are responding to being attacked. Still, it's kind of flat when I write it like that, isn't it? But the movie isn't. And that's because the idea itself is only part of the battle. The execution is where the magic happens.

[00:04:08] And you can see why when you watch these two movies with ostensibly the same plot, or at least the same source material, executed dramatically differently. The effect on audiences is different too. One is forgettable, and the other leaves a mark on your heart. Kristen Hatcher and I have been thinking a lot about this chasm between idea and execution, or what we call shipping.

[00:04:30] How so many people get stuck waiting, planning, thinking, and perfecting the idea, not realizing that the magic of the idea is in the shipping, in the execution of it. I'm reminded of the million iterations of Moby Dick every time someone tells me they have no original ideas. Fear they're derivative. Everything is derivative. What has not been done is your version.

[00:04:53] And you can't know if your version will become trite and cliché, like In the Heart of the Sea, or revolutionary and transformative, like The Sea Beast, until you put it out into the world. Both these movies came from great ideas, and everyone who has the courage to ship will create both of these. You do not get to the revolutionary story without shipping some trite and cliché things that don't work, sometimes because of your failures, sometimes for reasons that have nothing to do with you. Execution is a beast.

[00:05:23] If you're sitting on a good idea, waiting, thinking, strategizing, it's time to ship. There isn't a point where it will feel ready. My suspicion is Ron Howard and everyone else who participated in making In the Heart of the Sea felt ready. And their battle wasn't the idea. It was execution. It was shipping. Part of what we risk when we put our ideas out into the world is falling short. The other part of the risk is far exceeding our expectations.

[00:05:51] Go find out what happens to your idea when it meets the world. It just might work. You just listened to the post titled, But What If It Works? By Margot Aaron of ThatSeemsImportant.com When you finally find your thing, you want the whole world to know about that thing. So you use a thing called Canva to make it an even bigger and better thing.

[00:06:16] Whether you want to create flyers for that thing, make presentations for that thing, or design merch for that thing, you can do anything. So people can see your thing, feel your thing, love your thing. The next thing you know, it's a thing. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing. And hey, big thanks to Margot for letting us share this post today. In her quest to answer the question, how do you get people to care, and not finding the answers in her job,

[00:06:46] Margot set about learning everything she could about persuasion, influence, direct response, copywriting, branding, and more. And she eventually started her own business. But while she was making money, she still wasn't getting people to care. So she started writing about her experiences, and eventually gained quite a following. Today, Margot is the co-host of the popular internet talk show, Hillary and Margot Yell at Websites. And her website, That Seems Important, was named one of the top 100 websites for writers.

[00:07:15] So please come check it out. You can find it at ThatSeemsImportant.com, and I have that linked in this episode's description. Hope you have a great rest of your day, and I will see you right back here tomorrow, where your optimal life awaits.