Hey, creative. Why are we so scared to try new things, to push ourselves, to go with our gut, to run with our vision, to try something that may be new but interesting to us? Why does that scare us so much and why does it hold us back? I have a theory, and it comes from actually from the interviewing that I’ve done at Wewa Films. So in my job at Wewa Films, I’ve interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people all over the country for our projects. People from all walks of life, all different ages, genders, all across the board. But one thing they all have in common is this. One little glitch that I noticed that I think goes to our deep-seated fear as people, but also as creatives of trying new things and trying new ideas. And our fear of failure, I think, goes back to our schooling, actually.
But I’ll, I’ll get to that in a second. I noticed this when I interview people. A lot of times when I say, okay, we’re gonna come out, we’re gonna interview, we’re gonna do all the, all that stuff. They’ll say, okay, can you send the questions ahead of time? Can you send me the questions you’re gonna ask me in an email so I can prepare my answers? And early in my career, I would do that. I would send the questions ahead of time, and they would have all the time to prepare. I would show up for the interview and it would be the worst interview in the world. It’d be terrible. I’ve literally had people walk in with their notes, with the questions printed out and their answers written down, and then they would put them like under their leg and they would refer to them throughout the, it was the worst.
Why is that? Why do they do that? But then I noticed that if I, if I said, no, you know what, we’re not gonna send the questions ahead of time, but I will send topics, I’ll send ideas, things just sort of general topics we’re gonna talk about in our interview, and we’re gonna let it flow around those topics. It was a whole different interview. They were completely natural, they were comfortable, and they were okay with that. And they would talk and they would share, and it would be so great. Those are the best interviews, topics, not questions. I think it has something to do with why we don’t try new things and take risks. Think about when you were in school is we were taught that every question has one right answer. That’s it. Only one. And if you didn’t get the right answer, you were failing.
We were taught that from our, from our earliest, earliest years. And we did that for like 15 years or whatever it was. Our, our formative years is that if you answer, if you didn’t get the one right answer, you were a failure. However, if we’re just talking about topics, ideas, we’re all more comfortable and we can let our minds run and we can follow our hearts and our guts. And so I found in interviewing, I don’t ever send questions ahead of time. I send topics and for whatever reason that works. It frees people up, it gives ’em a little bit of structure, but it frees them up to speak freely. I think there’s something to that. And I think now, if you’ll think about your life not as a series of questions that only have one answer, and if you don’t get the answer right, you’re failing. Think of them as a series of topics that you’re pursuing, things you’re interested in, things that might work out, might not. Who cares? It’s a topic. We’re gonna explore it. We’re gonna check it out. We’re gonna talk about it and see what happens. And that’s okay. You’re not failing, you’re exploring. Doesn’t that feel better? Try that and see how you do. I love you.