I think I’ve written about it before, but I’ve always had this concept of the listen filter. It’s not my concept, it’s something I took from Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s autobiography.

Very little of what I say is my own original thought.

I’m paraphrasing badly now, but the concept I remember from that book is that Zlatan listened to his coaches but he didn’t listen when he thought he knew better, or disagreed.

I think we’re in a time now where we need to dial up our listen filters.

We’re utterly bombarded with content – on socials, in facebook groups, at workshops, in newsletters (sorry) and it all sounds so good, it’s all written so well, and it all sounds so convincing.

But so often the source is questionable, but our brains haven’t caught up because if something sounds convincing or is presented convincingly, then that’s pretty convincing and we kind of absorb it. Times have suddenly and dramatically changed.

Ugh I’m making this sound like a conspiracy theory – that’s not what I’m saying.

But as a creative brain and soul, and going back to the Zlatan thing, you’ve got to really actively not listen as much as you listen.

Just because it sounds good doesn’t mean it’s right for you. Advertisers like Ogilvy knew how to persuade and chatGPT and its mates are trained to be Ogilvy on 21st century steroids.

To stay creative it’s always going to be important to first and foremost know what you creatively believe in, and be stubborn with that even in the face of persuasive and engaging content coming at you from all sides.

I’m not saying don’t listen to anything. But just listen with one quizzical eyebrow raised because while chatGPT knows everything, it also knows nothing, and certainly nothing new.

Thanks for reading.

Adam