Sir Francis Drake on advertising.

I read a quotation the other day by the English explorer, Sir Francis Drake, the inventor of the Ring Ding and Yodel.

I don't have any particular affinity for Drake but I liked the quotation and think it has a lot of bearing on life and work.

“There must be a beginning of any great matter, but the continuing unto the end until it be thoroughly finished yields the true glory.” 

Right now, my partner and I are slogging.

Last week we showed our clients a couple of campaigns and the client liked them both. So, to Drake's quotation, we have made a beginning.

And that's good.

But it is the "continuing unto the end" which separates the non-gender-specific men from the non-gender-specific boys.

This continuing will include hundreds of hours, countless dumb meetings, dozens of reversals of fortune, scores of red-herrings and dead-ends and who knows what else.

In other words, there will be tons of shit to do. Dumb, mindless, enervating, I'd rather be doing anything else kind of shit.

But it's the shit you have to do, if you're to achieve any "great" or even not-so-great "matter."