By Lauren Bodiam

The most important email to date.

I don’t think anyone could say SCA is easy. You have to work hard and smart. Sometimes it seems hard to work smart. People can fall in to doubt. I certainly have. I have for the past few weeks and found it hard to get back up. When this happens you shouldn’t be afraid to reach out
for help or advice. Believe it or not Marc is amazing when this happens. I sent him an email about advice and my concerns that have been lingering in my mind.

He told me this.

You have everything you need within you to become brilliant. You are great for each other. You have no reason to doubt yourselves.
Hard to believe, isn’t it? That’s the imposter syndrome working hard to fuck you up. It’s you being anxious (defined as worrying about the future).
It’s because you are not always in mindful mode.

Mindful mode is when you are living in the moment, lost in your work, in flow.

The more anxious you are, the less mindful you are.

Similarly, you can sometimes fall into other states of mind that are opposites of mindfulness.

It is so important that you stay aware of this, and that you do everything you can to stay in that mindful mode.

One great way of being in mindful mode is to do what all creatives love to do – which is make stuff.
Its important to remember that in times where you doubt yourself. You made it in to the school.

So by default Marc and the mentors believe in you. and believe you will be great. That’s only the first step though. Getting anxious will stop you working. It helps the doubt to manifest. I’m now taking 10 minutes in my morning to stop for mindfulness and when I feel it creeping on me
throughout the day, I stop, do another 10 minutes.

Marc always talks about operating like a sausage factory. Churning out work after work. Me and Lucy wanted to create as many campaigns as possible and felt disheartened when a lot of our
work wasn’t working. We felt we had been working hard and that time had been wasted. It had.

Marc gave us this advice. Which we now go through on our campaigns.
I wonder whether you are rushing into adding campaigns without stopping to things about things
like;
– What’s the brief? (e.g. GET, TO, BY)
– Did we do some proper research? Have we found an insight? Or are we just making noise?
– What’s the idea in one sentence?
– What would the Sun Newspaper headline be for writing about the idea?
– Have we done enough (OR ANY) six-hat on this campaign?
– Have we fucked around with media channels enough?
– Have we showed this idea to a friend outside school, and asked them to tell us honestly what
they thought about it?

Finally the last bit of gold from Marc. Through out the year you will believe that portfolio day is the most
important thing. I certainly did. But after this I had a change of heart. Portfolio day is great but its not the
end all. If portfolio day doesn’t go to plan. If you don’t get placements or a job you have the rest of your
career ahead. Go see people you admire. Keep having fun. Keep creating.

Keep pushing for your dream.
You are self-harming by worrying about Portfolio Day. It is a self-defeating thought.

Instead, worry about how you are going to make your partner shit herself with laughter. Worry about the
trouble you might get into with your work. Worry about getting me into trouble.

In other words, forget about something as stupid as inconsequential as an arbitrary date, and worry about
the only thing that matter……. having fun with your work.

When you learn to do that, you will become immortal. You will become legends. They will name perfumes
after you, sing your names in stadiums, erect statues that look slightly prettier than you, but that pass a fair
enough resemblance of you.

Hard to believe isn’t it?