Ep 245: Greg Hahn - In 10

Fearless Creative Leadership

Edited highlights of our full conversation.

Are you waiting for someone else to give you permission?

Greg Hahn is the Co-Founder & CCO of Mischief USA.

This is Greg’s third appearance on the show. His first was two weeks after being fired by BBDO. His second was two years ago, a few days after Mischief were named Agency of the year by the Ad Age A List Awards.

Last year, they were named Adweek’s Agency of the year.

Towards the end of this conversation, I asked him what the experience of being fired by BBDO and the subsequent success of Mischief had allowed him to see about his life that he perhaps hadn't been aware of before.

In my work, I see potential everywhere. And what I’ve come to understand is that the potential that’s hardest to see, and hardest to unlock, is in ourselves.

As human beings we want to belong, to be accepted, to be loved. Recent research has suggested that it is more important to us to find our tribes than to be part of a family. You know that old saying, you can choose your friends but not your family. Apparently, that’s more important than we knew.

The desire, sometimes the need to fit in can change our self perception and comes at a price. A hesitation, a reluctance, sometimes, often times, a fear of fully expressing ourselves.

We find a place in the world that lets us do a lot of good things, and let’s us be a pretty good version of ourselves, and then we subtly constrain ourselves - in ways that we’re not aware of, until someone else points out that we’ve been living in a bowl of water the entire time.

Sometimes, we’re able to let go of those constraints, find our voice and unlock that potential.

Sometimes, it takes a dramatic, even traumatic event, like being fired, for us to look at ourselves through different eyes and start saying, “What if?”.

What if we didn’t wait for someone else’s permission to uncover our own potential?

What if we stopped fitting in and looked for ways to stand out?

What if we expressed ourselves, fully and openly? Who might follow us and where might we lead them?