One Apple A Day #809 - dare to suck
A few days ago, I was scrolling through the stories on Instagram or I was watching a video on youtube, I can't remember. What I remember is that on my screen started a video about Masterclass, this program in which famous people teach you stuff. Usually, I skip these videos, I consider them a kind of fee I have to pay to enjoy wasting my time on the screen of my smartphone. For some inexplicable reason, this time, I decided to listen to Dan Brown, the famous author of The Da Vinci Code.
To promote his class, he talks about a conversation he had with Steven Tyler, the lead singer of Aerosmith and one of the rock legends from my teenager years.
So, Tyler said that the band has, or used to have, a weekly ritual called Dare to Suck. At these meetings, each one of the members brings an idea that they think is probably so terrible to be embarrassed only for having it. But they present it to the others anyway. According to Tyler, nine out of ten of those ideas are actually awful. But, here's the magic, the remaining one becomes a good song, sometimes even great.
That sparked a few thoughts in me.
The first one is that you never know where the inspiration hides. This time it was within a commercial that I would typically skip as quickly as possible.
The second one is that rock bands are an incredible source of creative stories and ideas.
Then there is a third one; I love the Dare to Suck ritual, so I need to find a way to bring it in my work.
Finally, there is an opportunity to learn in everything. As an example, this little story made me want to understand why we used the verb "to suck" with this negative meaning. It's a long story, and you can read it here. But my favourite explanation is this one from urbandictionary.com; "The early Jazz musicians would say that a guy could really "Blow" if he had a good sound when playing the horn. If he couldn't play very well, then they would say that he was "Sucking" on that horn."