I am a horrible foosball player. I ended up sitting out all the pickup games at my last agency, because office rules held that you played for a dollar, and I got tired of always losing dollars.I think one of the reasons I'm so bad is because I tense up. I take foosball much too seriously. Especially for someone with such poor foosball skills. Last December, when my nephew and niece were creaming me in a game, my wife made fun of me because because, in her words, I looked like I was "trying to save the world and losing."
I used to tense up when I sat down to make ads. A blank piece of paper. And I'm the one who has to fill it. I was trying to save the world, and I was afraid of losing.
I don't approach ads that way anymore. It's counterproductive and counterfun. I work hard. But I know that if I whiff on an assignment, I've got either another round or another assignment headed my way.
I'm a lot more successful and have a lot more fun coming up with ads than I do playing foosball. Because to me one's a game. And the other is a competition I'm trying to win.