By the grace of God and a former creative partner,
I recently got a one-week freelance assignment.
It was at half my normal pay rate, but it was an opportunity
to create something out of thin air – an act I hadn’t performed
for a long time – so the pay cut didn’t matter to me.
Besides, beggars cannot be choosers.
When I opened the PDF that was the brief, I had to sit back
and take a deep breath. I wanted to soak the moment in.
To relish what I might not see before my eyes again for who
knows how long. To recall how I had become somewhat
jaded and ungrateful for the previous dozen or so briefs
I had opened before it.
I read it once. I read it twice. I read it a third and fourth time.
I thought about the authors. And all the meetings they had
to orchestrate both internally and with the clients. All the
passionate pleas they must’ve made and all that time they
had to sacrifice along the way to realize this beautiful,
one-page wonder.
I turned several things over in my head at once; the target,
the reasons why, the mandatories, the insights.
Then I walked away from it.
I took my 8-month-old baby boy for a stroll.
I began to think about my old friend Mark Fenske and his
description of what we do. He calls it, “The Golden Process.”
I first heard him call it that a dozen or so years ago. It really
stopped me in my tracks and made me appreciate the idea of
how it’s bigger than any one of us or our flawed egos. How it
can and will go on with or without you. How you’re a part of it,
or you’re not. How it’s an honor bestowed upon a relative few.
And finally, how it can at times be excruciatingly painful –
yet equally rewarding.
It all depends on how you approach it.
When I was finished with the stroll, I placed my son on the
floor near my desk and uttered a sentence I’ve never spoken
in my life: “Daddy has to write now, buddy.”
And therein, I found a whole new appreciation for what we do.
And how it is indeed, The Golden Process.
