Cheers to 2022!

January 10, 2022

What a martini can tell us about the year ahead

A glass half full is only half the story

The optimist sees the glass half full. The pessimist sees it half empty.

At McDill, we’re working with a different glass altogether.

For starters, it most likely contains a martini of some sort — a cosmopolitan, probably. But more importantly, it is 75% full.

Why not 50%, you ask, as the famous metaphor would suggest? Well, that’s too cliché. And in the creative world, we try to avoid clichés like the plague (sometimes we fall back on them, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles).

Fill it to 100%, meanwhile, and your cup nearly runneth over. And not in a good way. You’ve either spread yourself too thin, or you’re too satisfied with where you’re at — and nothing is less compatible with creativity than complacency.

Yes, 75% is the sweet spot. It’s where all our wonderful assets live: the skills we’ve finessed, the relationships we’ve developed, the knowledge we’ve gained, and so on.

As for the “empty” 25%? That’s where challenges live. Opportunity. Risk. Room to grow. The unknown. Anyone who’s ever been successful has left room in their glass for all of the above.

So, as we raise our proverbial glass (and plenty of real ones) to the new year, here’s the “25” we’re targeting in 2022.

Have More Fun
Don’t get us wrong — we have plenty of fun already. But our full potential has yet to be realized. And for the record, fun hasn’t always been easy to come by in the last two years.

Having more fun doesn’t mean we’re going to slack off. Fun generates energy, energy fuels creativity, creativity leads to productivity, and productivity is celebrated. The cycle repeats.

Refine Our Talents
In between projects, we like to freshen up our skills — or gain a new one altogether. Whether it’s learning a new programming language or brushing up on a Photoshop technique, McDill is collectively and continuously evolving our skillset.

By doing so, we’re setting ourselves up to achieve our goals in 2022. That includes bringing new perspectives to branding, broadening our digital expertise, and outperforming our already high standards for package design, just to name a few.

Grow Our Team
McDill is settling into a nice groove from a personnel standpoint. We hired a video producer. We brought a full-time copywriter on board. We added a web developer. And as we ring in the new year, we’ll be keeping an eye out for the kind of people who can challenge us, elevate our work, and keep the good vibes going.

For those of you keeping score at home, you’re right — this would theoretically fill our glass to 100% by the end of the year. Except for one thing. There’s a bottom 25% that we lose. Old habits. Expired grudges. Any kind of clutter we picked up that we wish to be rid of.

Thus we find ourselves in this dynamic balancing act with a glass that, on average, is 75% full (although often we take a sip for inspiration).

So next time you happen across a glass-half-full situation, consider that it might not be as simple as the saying goes. For it is the volume itself that speaks volumes about where you are — and where you want to be.