Chapter 6: Nothing to Prove, Everything to Offer

Why we work best when we don’t worry about who’s best.

We work hard. But we don’t do it to prove something—to ourselves, or anyone else. We work hard because we believe our clients deserve the best we have to give.

Because this is what we believe, both about Open Book, and everyone we work with: you have nothing to prove, but so much to offer.

What difference does that make?

We understand the pressure to impress. But many times that can be more about ego than delivering good work. As creatives, if we’re out to prove something, we can get competitive with each other. The work can become more about one-upping each other than serving our clients. We can start to withhold ideas, so someone else can’t benefit from them instead of us.

But at Open Book, we believe our power comes from working as a team. And that when we do, there’s always enough to go around. In fact, we believe that teamwork has compounding returns: one idea plus another idea doesn’t equal two ideas. It can add up to an absolutely great idea.

When we give up trying to prove ourselves, we can take more risks, because failure doesn’t mean we’re not worth anything. We don’t have to see failure as a threat—it can be a chance to learn and get better.

And we can serve our clients out of gratitude and generosity for the trust they’ve placed in us—not out of fear we might mess something up.

When we stop wondering what other people think about us, we can think more about them. We can understand our clients better. We can learn from our peers—not just compete with them. We can take bigger swings, learn faster, amplify others, and create with more freedom.

It’s when we feel like we have nothing to prove that we do our best.