I’ve been in the creative field for a very long time. Over half of my life if my calculations are correct. I’ve studied and worked the hell out of digital filmmaking, film history, product design and development, prototyping, graphic design and user interface, and photography. I’ve learned it all, yet at the same time I know nothing. I know what I’m good at, and where I am less effective. I know my style. I know what I like, and what I don’t.

I know the rules, and I know how to break them.

I have gathered many observations throughout the years in all these fields – all very different from each other – yet one common denominator rings true for each.

This generation of creatives simply cannot and do not know how to take criticism. Any kind, whether it be constructive or not, or a simple “this sucks” just burns a hole in them. It’s actually terrible to see and realize, as it is very easy to with the openness of social media. So, where did we go “wrong?” I’m not exactly sure, but I have an idea.

I’m going to share a story. Fall semester of the year two thousand and three, when mobile phones were still stupid and dinosaurs still roamed the earth (see what I did there? Hashtag self-deprecation), I’m in Design 300. It’s a completely revamped Design and Industry program by a man who shortly after became my mentor, Professor Marty Linder. Final project was to design and prototype a full-scale sitting stool completely out of cardboard that anyone, and I mean anyone, can sit on and be completely supported. Now at the time, I weighed close to 300 pounds. That’d be okay if I also told you I was 6’6”.

I’m 5’7”. 5’7 ½” on a good day. So if I could design this thing to support me, then it can support anyone and anything.

Now, my three projects before this were… good. I earned A’s on them but quite frankly that wasn’t good enough for me. I wanted, more than anything, to make it to the glass case. And what’s the glass case? The area where everyone in the department and building would see your work – work hand picked by Prof. Linder himself. It would stay there for weeks, and it was a nice achievement and moment of validation for every design student at the time. So this stool was my final shot at making it into the case. And I’ll tell you, I had a sold-out-concert-melt-your-face kind of design that could not fail structurally and aesthetically. I worked on this thing for weeks, pushing 14+ hours a day. I was a man of determination. I was a man of passion. I was a man of precise calculation.

I couldn’t be wrong about this.

Finals day. Everyone brings in their projects, and I am feeling the hell out of my stool. Everyone is coming up to me and congratulating me, painting me up and down with words and idolizing eyes how wonderful my stool is. I love compliments as much as the next person, and if compliments warm the soul then mine burned like the sun that day. But I wasn’t completely satisfied. I was not fully validated. If anyone’s opinion mattered most to me in that room, it was Marty’s.

It was my moment to present. I was confident with a plan and a skit, and I nailed it. To this day, it ranks high as one of my most cherished moments in my college career. Everyone completely loved it. Everyone, except for Marty. But I should say, that he loved 97% of it. No really, 97%. His words exactly. I’ll never forget it.

And that 3% I did not “nail,” he let me know and he let me know in front everyone. He rained on me like a perfect storm, coming with it from the left, right, and southwest. And he’s critiqued me before and gave me a ton of constructive feedback. But not like this. He was Iron Mike that day and he knocked me the $%&# out. I think what was worse was that my face probably showed it, and I was front and center. But he didn’t let up.

He never lets up.

After being severely grilled like a well done burger, he took me down to a medium/medium-well and wrapped up with that 97% he did like about it. After complete devastation I did feel better about it all. I remember the journey – the thought process, thousand sketches on paper and napkins, the countless hunts for quality cardboard (yes, there is such a thing), being able to maintain precise X-Acto knife cuts – hundreds of them – each day for nine days. It was a grueling process and I adored every second. I knew what I made and I was proud of it.

And in the end, so was Marty. He pulled me aside when the final was over. He asked for my permission to display my stool in the glass case over the winter break through the beginning of the following spring semester. Confused at first, but I gladly gave him my blessing. He shook my hand, leaned in close to my right side and told me something I will never forget –

“I hope you know what I did there. And if not now, I trust that you’ll one day understand.” And neither he or myself never brought that moment back up in the many conversations and meetings I had with him afterwards.

Fast forward, over ten years later. No, it didn’t take me this long to understand what he did. It took several months or so to understand that he did what he did that day because he cared enough to knock me off the pedestal that everyone else put me on. And if I didn’t know myself any better I’d say that moment has hit me harder now than ever before. I got more than validation from Marty that day. I got from him – an important life lesson? A way of life? A keener understanding of design and the creative process?

All of the above. To this day I cherish any ”bad” comment or opinion against my work over the greatest compliment I will ever receive. Marty made me understand that day that while creativity never has a right answer, you can always be wrong about it because you need to be. For every photo or film or design I have ever worked on since, there is always something wrong about each one and I accept it that way. The trick is to minimize the wrongs – not to find the right answer – but to achieve higher effectiveness. Did the video make you laugh and cry? Did the photo remind of you a better time and place? Did the design improve your quality of life? That kind of effectiveness.

If I have any advice for all you creatives it’s this – get off the pedestal that either you or everyone around you put you on. You’re better off accepting that you do not belong there. And if you at one point feel like you were knocked off because someone thought of your work as inferior, regardless of how high or low you find their opinion to matter – use it, thank them, and buy them the next round. That person did you the greatest favor in reminding you how much more you can ALWAYS grow.

True success of a person is not told by numbers, at least, numbers in box office dollars or followers or views or ratings. It’s told by people, by someone, who took a moment to share a story of that one time that person made someone else feel 3% wrong.

Knowing that I am always wrong makes me a better person, and that, Marty, makes you one helluva success story in my book.