I wouldn't exchange any of my failures for someone else's success
I’ve recently come to terms with the fact that I have little natural talent for social media. Everyone around me seems to glide through it effortlessly, I’ve never met a single person who manages to flop on their own feed. Behind every post sits a little self applause. And LinkedIn… well, that’s its own special arena of pain. Endless check ins from endless networking events. At some point, people collectively realized that professionally, showing up to pose for the picture was more advantageous than showing up for their actual work.
I still haven’t mastered the art of caring about these social expectation circles as much as I care about the work itself. My charisma is conditioned to hold up for around 8h pretty well, it is trained for my worker class needs by now. As long as I get the chance to go home and have a walk with my dog after a full day, I'll be alright.
But the truth is, what really loads my battery is the work itself. I am a sucker for my own work. I drool over whatever I’m researching. Not because I’m chasing praise, and not because I grew up drowning in compliments (I didn’t, for the record). Of course acknowledgment is nice, and I expect it like anyone else, but give me a market, a cluster, a brand, a product repositioning, a generation to decode, and I’m gone. It’s the context, the ecosystem, the cold water dive into the problem that pulls me in every time.
I love to understand what drives people’s habits. I want to understand what in our muggle brains convinces us that this product, that service, or that choice is the one that fits us best. That curiosity has always been the real drug behind working in advertising for me: being a total outsider to a territory until it suddenly becomes a project, and then I’m knee deep in the mechanics of a new electric car battery that’s about to shift an entire category. Or what is the deal between millennials and barrel jeans and humble fashion, and then you ask me: Who else cares about it, Paula? Exactly, that's why I love it.
It’s the nonsense that gets me. The leap from “I know nothing about this” to dissecting an entire ecosystem like a forensic scientist. My interest is infinite. That moment when a market, a behavior, a cultural quirk reveals itself, that’s the spark that always brought me the feeling of being on the right direction. And honestly, I really believe that's what makes people interesting: the fact they are interested on things.
It’s a shame that this spark ends up being funneled into an industry that’s basically an engine of the capitalist system, you could say that, and I’d agree 200%. I just wish more professionals carried that same spark into their own fields. Imagine being treated by a doctor who genuinely wants to understand your issue. Or a therapist who’s deeply invested. Or an engineer who’s even half as curious about city planning as they are about their deadlines. Architects, politicians, the whole spectrum.
The world would look completely different if more people were fueled by intrinsic curiosity instead of just going through the motions of their profession. Real success has always felt subjective (almost quiet) to me. It never lived in the awards, or the big campaign launches, or the press releases with my name tucked into the credits. I get it: the industry worships those things, so I’m supposed to care about them too. But my gratification comes from somewhere else entirely, from the investigation, the digging, the unraveling.
And yes, I bang my head against things. A lot. The route has been recalculated more times than I can count. But in the middle of all that rerouting, I’ve learned so much about people, and about social bubbles that were never mine to begin with. My work allows me to move through any circle with the ease of a generalist, and that’s the real reward. The quiet one. The one that actually matters.
Talking to a politician, scheduling slots with his secretary, exchanging with the cameraman. Briefing the production team. Approving the material from the content creator, defending your idea to the CEO of whatever I couldn't care less, then grabbing a coffee with the new intern who's a sweetheart. Stumbling into your competitor at an industry event, only to realize they could be your best friend after some drinks. It’s humbling, in the best possible way. People assume this kind of work lifts you into some glossy, unrealistic realm where you float above reality. It’s the opposite. It drags you right back into the reality of things, the human mix, the plurality, the constant shifting between worlds. That’s the part I love because it keeps me grounded.
Honestly, my failures, awkward moments, and bizarre situations make for far better stories than any perfectly delivered project ever could. I wouldn’t trade that for anything. The mess, the curiosity, the detours, that’s where the good stuff lives.
/May26