I grew up in Mumbai, India.
And in on my journey in the world of advertising, I ran into a creative director called Adi Pocha.
Adi hired me to write 30-second commercial scripts for clients.
Now I’m not really sure why he hired me.
Because frankly, I didn’t have any real skills in copywriting.
Well I thought I had, but now I know that I didn’t.
What’s worse is that I’d never written a thirty-second commercial in my life. (And Adi knew it).
As you can imagine, I was totally at sea, when I was given my first assignment
Two days later, Adi asked if I’d written anything.
I told him I hadn’t.
“I can’t seem to get it done,” I said morosely.
And Adi turned to me and said these golden words
“If you and I go onto the street, and I pull up an uneducated person, give them twenty rupees—and ask them to write a commercial, what will they say?” he asked.
” That they can’t write a commercial,” I answered, matter of factly.
“So that uneducated person says, they can’t. And you say you can’t. So what’s the difference between you and that uneducated person?” Adi asked.
“Any body can say the word ‘can’t‘.
You were hired, because you should give it a shot. And make the mistakes. And then learn from your mistakes.”
And then I was commanded to go and write three sets of commercials.
Can’t do this. Can’t do that.
If everyone on the planet has a talent, it’s the ability to say the word ‘can’t’.
It stops us from improving our lives, and harnessing the enormous power of our brains.
It stops us from improving our weaknesses.
But surely we should work on our strengths and not our weaknesses...
That statement is only half true.
There are situations in business and life, when working on your weaknesses are counter-productive.
But this isn’t weakness myth isn’t true for learning.
We were all weak at learning to walk.
We were all weak at learning to talk.
We were all weak at learning to drive.
We were all weak at things that we take for granted today.
Learning isn’t a matter of weakness or strength.
It’s a matter of the teacher. And the willingness of the student. And the simplicity of the code.
Your job is to seek out the teacher.
To be the willing student.
To find a code, a system that’s simple to crack.
And suddenly the ‘can’t’ factor disappears.
Suddenly, you’re not like everyone else.
Suddenly the word ‘can’t exists, but you know there’s a way out.
And you’re willing to take that way out.
If there’s one talent you don’t want to have it’s this one: The talent of saying ‘I can’t’
Adi would not be pleased.