Robert Downey Jr. on Confidence & Letting Go

“There was a period of time where I did the first Iron Man, then I went and did Tropic Thunder, then I was doing the first Sherlock, I had my shirt off doing martial arts… 

I was all over the place and it felt like I was hitting triples no matter what I did. 

And people were like ‘Are you really as confident as you seem?’ And I was like ‘I guess right now I am, yeah!’

Supreme confidence. There have been times when I felt I’m in possession of it.

The wind is so at your back. But there’s a physics to the moment when the wind’s at your back. 

And then the wind does what the fucking wind does, and it changes. And you’re left there thinking, ‘What?!’

Confidence is great, but then you want to let go a little bit. Because like everything else, it’s a bit of an illusion. It’s always changing.

And then it’s like, ‘Now what?’”

— Robert Downey Jr. via JRE #1411

Changing Winds

Does RDJ’s quote resonate with you too?

Pitch Lab turns 4 this summer and dang the wind has been at our back.

But for now we’re at a standstill. And feeling very uncertain as to when we’ll be back. 

The grief is real.

The energy we create from being face-to-face with our clients is gone.

So for the short term, we’ll count our blessings, endure the endless videoconferences and fight back against Zoom Fatigue.

But this is NOT the new normal. Regardless of what Zoom, DoorDash and Slack want you to believe.

The handshake is not dead. You will get on an airplane again. Quarantine is not forever.

It's okay to wonder how things will change in the future, as long as you're not using the “new normal” in the context of face-to-face is never coming back.

Most of what's happening right now is merely a workaround, a poor substitution for our most critical human interactions, which will be back on the other side of this.

And please remember to take care of yourself, your family and your neighbors, because make no mistake: we’re in an endurance game.