Thinking about the Theodore Roosevelt quote* the other day, also reminded me of a quotation from a completely different source. The great photographer Cecil Beaton who died 30 years ago said, “Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play it safers, the creatures of the common place, the slaves of the ordinary”.
Zigging while others zag has always been at the heart of my personal belief set. It is why I’ve always felt so comfortable at Saatchi & Saatchi whose founding purpose was “Nothing is Impossible”. The times we live in today will not be illuminated by the ordinary, by the standard, by the play it safers. Today’s reputations will be made by those who dare to be different.
Happy Thanksgiving, United States of America.
* “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short again and again because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotion, spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
