Thanks for tuning in to Cut the Crap on Thursday night. Let us be the first to acknowledge it didn’t go 100% as planned. The irony of talking about “a clusterf*** rollercoaster of emotions” while dealing with a clusterf*** rollercoaster of tech issues was not lost on us.

Many of you who attended are new to Cut the Crap. Some liked it. Some openly loathed it. One of you mused “It felt like I accidentally licked a psychotropic frog” (kind of a compliment, no?). 

Usually, our events are in person. So far they've had really great feedback, but we struggled to translate the in person experience online. We started Cut the Crap because we were bored of business events with regurgitated wisdom, awkward networking and tired topics - so our goal is to create salon-style gatherings that champion debate, in depth discussion, daring topics and thoughtful disagreement. 

The events usually have a marketing slant. Thursday’s topic "The Pitfalls of the Positivity Complex" was less marketing focused than usual, but it's one that felt apt in mercurial 2020. 

We’d love to hear your feedback in a reply email. Feel free to go unfiltered, we can’t profess thoughtful disagreement while not being open to criticism ourselves. If the event wasn’t what you expected and you’d prefer not to hear from us again, just let us know and we’ll remove you from the list (or unsubscribe here). In the same vein - all the proceeds go to charity - but if you'd prefer a refund, let us know and we'll issue you one on Eventbrite. 

Nevertheless, scroll on for the event wrap!

Note from Cut the Crap: after every event we ask our speakers to share with us the words they’d like to leave behind. Mark went one step further and provided The Four Point exercise he shared on Thursday night. Download the PDF with examples here.

Words from the Mark Pollard (more on him here): 

I don't know if you've ever seen the first few moments of a foal's life. In a miracle of nature, the foal squeezes out of its mother and onto its belly on the ground. In front of it lie legs that aren't sure how to be legs. The foal sits there stunned and starts to explore how to use its alien appendages.

"Whoa. Who put these here and what am I to do with them?" 

This is what it feels like to do creative work.

"I feel a need to rush something into the world but I'm not sure what these legs are for."

So you sit there stunned. You know you're a handful of decisions away from a gallop. But between feeling stunned and your eventual gallop, you're all over the place. There's no instruction manual for your legs. They aren't sure where their muscles are. And, boy, is this head heavy.

Every foal has many problems to solve before its first gallop. It knows what it is to gallop before it's ever galloped. And it will gallop. It has no choice. So it works through its unsteady legs and, eventually, it does what it was born to do. Like humans are born to create and, in creating, to solve problems. 

We're Mark fans for his clear thinking, helpful demeanor and incisive commentary. For more Mark - follow him on Twitter, join his Sweathead Group on Facebook (a very useful corner of the internet for marketing strategists) or sign up to his Strategy Summer Camp to really go deep!

Lastly, we raised over $2000 for the Unlonely Project. If you’re interested in learning more about this organization & want to show your support, on the 7th of June it’s their 4th annual UnLonely Film Festival awards ceremony. Registration is free.