14.Forget about it

It is sometimes expedient to forget who we are.

Publilius Syrus

Eric: My wife’s got a terrible memory.

Ernie: Really?

Eric: Yes, she never forgets a thing.

Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise

There are three things I always forget. Names, faces—the third I can’t remember.

Italo Svevo

This is something you do only after you follow the advice in the previous chapter.

It is also something that I didn’t get the chance to do often enough in advertising. Usually there wasn’t time to forget about problems. You had to get ideas now. Not tomorrow. Now.

It’s the same in journalism. Just listen to Andy Rooney: “The best creative ideas are the result of the same slow, selective, cognitive process that produces the sum of a column of figures. ...

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