An irreverent comedy like no other in the 1980’s, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is about a charming high school slacker who simply skips school and embarks on a full day of mischievous but ultimately enlightening adventure.
At one point in the film, Ferris refers to his best friend Cameron’s problem with stress. Ferris famously noted that Cameron is so tense and uptight that “if you stuck a lump of coal up his ass, in two weeks, you’d have a diamond.”
Being uptight and stressed out all the time isn’t just detrimental to our physical and mental health, it’s also destructive to creativity.
Many merch makers with whom I work and consult have a real problem with tension. In fact, they are so uptight that they often lack the confidence and comfort to try new things and blaze fresh creative trails in print-on-demand.
When you do the same thing, follow the same steps, and don’t generate excitement and craziness with whatever you’re whipping up for your target audience, you run the risk of falling behind peers who are much more proactive about throwing creative caution to the wind and have fun experimenting with styles, niches, and techniques.
If you don’t find a way to have fun playing with what you bring to life in POD, please find a way to do so. I firmly believe that customers can tell when creators have a good time bringing something new to life. And you really can’t challenge yourself creatively to an adequate degree when your efforts and ideation are tense, rigid and totally unrelaxed.
Photo / Copyright © Paramount/Getty Images
