D&AD Graduate Academy Day 2 - Gold

Somehow, Day 2 was even better than Day 1. I didn't think that was possible. I mentioned on twitter that it was life-changing and I really believe it was. I am going to actively practise as many things as I can from what I learned today, so that I can improve myself and be brilliant in every situation (particularly during internships). I've already started with what I learned yesterday about having neutral body language and I'm trying to adopt this as often as I can so that it becomes habit (in order for something to become a habit it needs to be continually practised for three weeks).


So what did we do? Andrew and Darius from The Spring Project gave us advice which was so valuable it was compared to gold. They used the '10 minute psychology in a box' to explain how we make decisions. 

Decisions are made on four levels, starting with the deepest level - your personal values and beliefs. Above this we have your intentions - what you intend to do based on these values and beliefs. On top of this we have the promises that we make so that we can reach those intentions. Finally we have the actions that we take in order to keep those promises. If these are aligned then we are being brilliant, if they are not aligned then we are not being brilliant. The strongest relationships are based on overlapping beliefs and values. If we understand our own beliefs and values, we can be clear with others and allow them to be clear with us. Therefore, I will be practising this alignment from now on and trying to apply it to every situation. 


It became clear throughout the morning that the most important thing is to have a clear intended outcome and not to get distracted by Life's Street Market of Distractions. In other words, don't let anything stop you or get in your way from keeping the promises you have made to yourself and others in order to reach your clear intended outcome. It is also necessary to put yourself in other people's shoes in order to see and understand their clear intended outcome. We need to ask how we can remove the pain from a situation, which will help us to spot opportunities for contribution. 


We explored how to improve our public speaking which I found to be incredibly helpful as I feel nervous about this. The key piece of advice was to speak loudly as this gives your voice clarity, energy and pace. From doing the exercise, and many others this week, I have learned that the thought of doing something is often much worse than actually doing it and once I have started doing it I proceed with confidence and find that it was actually easier than I thought it would be. As a result I'm going to try and concentrate on reaching my clear intended outcome instead of wasting time worrying which will not help me reach it any quicker.


Following this we received a very open brief addressing our own personal identity from Kevin Palmer from Kin and Derek Yates, which lead to an exercise that produced lots of food for thought about what identity is and how we can approach the project from different angles. I'm really looking forward to starting brainstorming it on Day 3.