Ego and Self-Confidence

There is a moment in creative work I know well: you sit in front of a briefing, have an idea that feels right — and simultaneously don't know whether to trust it. Not because the idea is weak. But because you're not sure you have it for the right reasons.

As a Creative Director, you move between these two poles every day. Self-confidence is the precondition for good work. Ego is its greatest trap. Both carry the same handwriting.

Too Deep Inside —
and Too Far Outside

A leading Portuguese sports publisher asked me for an external perspective on their digital presence. What I had to manage most carefully wasn't the design.

The internal team was strong — technically skilled, familiar with the system, loyal to the brand. And that was precisely the problem. They were thinking in constraints that no longer existed. Rules that once made sense and simply stayed.

I didn't discard the existing corporate design. I reread it. The brand's historical foundation was there — it was just buried. I uncovered it, sharpened the storytelling, renewed the visual language. What I had to weigh most carefully wasn't the design. It was the tone.

The team took my layouts and made them machine-readable. That required adjustments — spacing, structures, components. I could have insisted that every pixel remain unchanged. That would have been ego. Instead, I handed it over. That was the right decision.

Wanting to Shine
Is Not a Concept

A campaign for a global technology manufacturer. I wanted to do it properly. Wanted to show what I was capable of.

I developed ideas, discarded them, developed new ones — and in doing so, drifted further and further from the actual task. What I produced convinced no one. Myself included.

A junior designer on the team had a different approach. Less developed, but with a perspective that was fresh — unburdened by the pressure I had built up for myself. I could have overlooked that idea. Could have dismissed it as immature. Instead, we developed it together, refined it professionally, brought it to market.

That was not a moment of defeat. It was one of the clearest moments of my work: the best idea in the room has no age and no hierarchy. A Creative Director who doesn't understand this is not a director — they are a blockade.

The Silence
That Remains

There is also the other story. The one that echoes longer.

As a junior, I was involved in developing a brand identity. My draft felt strong — at the time, and even more so in retrospect. But it was talked to death. Not for substantive reasons, but because I didn't defend it. I didn't yet have the self-confidence to stand behind an idea when others pushed back.

Years later, the client changed direction. The new course was strikingly close to my old draft. I noted it without saying it aloud. It was not a triumph — it was a signal.

Since then I know: self-confidence cannot be retrofitted. It emerges in the moment you are willing to stand behind an idea — and bear the consequences if you turn out to be wrong. Not before. Not through experience alone. But through the decision to do it anyway.