One day, well into Willie Nelson’s long and illustrious career, a TV presenter asked the musician why he wasn’t writing all the great classic songs like he used to.
“When I wrote those great songs I was cold and hungry,” said Willie. “I’m not cold and hungry anymore.”
Let’s call this “The Willie Nelson Problem.” How does a person or an organization keep its creative vitality once they have already become successful, already become comfortable?
This, we think, is one of the cardinal problems of any type of successful business that has seen a lot of growth. How do we keep the hunger? The sexy?
David Ogilvy had a two word answer to this question:
“Divine Discontentment.”
A primal, massively incurable dissatisfaction with the way things are, that permeates one’s entire being.
Not necessarily a bad feeling, more like an itch to do something, to change things, to “make a dent in the universe.”
He called Divine Discontentment “The antidote to smugness.”
If you’ve always been a self-starter, you know exactly what we’re talking about. Not only are you driven, you’ve always had something driving you. Maybe it’s because you grew up poor and didn’t like it. Maybe because you weren’t popular in school. Maybe because your family told you you’d always be a bum. Maybe because you always had a gift and nobody ever saw it. Or maybe because you and your parents arrived in this country when you were three with nothing more than a few hundred dollars and two carry-ons.
Or maybe because you were damn curious and always looking for ways to ward off boredom.
To commemorate Mr Ogilvy, some time after his death, the firm he founded, Oglivy self-published a little private volume for its employees, called “The Eternal Pursuit of Unhappiness,” based on some of the cultural norms they acquired via David’s guidance. Farnam Street has a great 3-minute summary of the book, which lists the EIGHT virtues they believe a company needs to keep its internal/eternal flame alight.
- Courage
- Idealism
- Curiosity
- Playfulness
- Candor
- Intuition
- Free-Spiritedness
- Persistence
CS Lewis once wrote that of the Seven Deadly Sins, the worst one was Pride. Why Pride? Because Pride is the one that justifies the other six, the one that is their prime enabler.
Similarly, of Ogilvy’s eight virtues, courage is the most important, because without courage, the remaining seven aren’t going to happen. Like it said in the Ogilvy book, people with serious talent are super rare- people with courage, even more so.
While courage can come from all levels, it must be modeled at the top. Leadership by example, and not by decree, has always been the keystone of any culture, especially in the military. Therefore, rebuilding a culture starts as an act of bravery.
Yes, it might be scary, but it sure beats being cold and hungry.
