Here’s to the future! Instead of goodbye, that’s what my friend used to say. HIs name was Arnold Penney. He died at 92. Literally, my oldest friend. And for some reason, he had erased the word “goodbye” from his vocabulary. Perhaps it was because he had had so many hard goodbyes in the past. Especially his brothers in arms he lost in WWII. All I know for sure is that was our traditional send-off: Here’s to the future. It suited Arnie, the youngest senior citizen you ever met. Full of life. And a fan of good Scotch til the end. Since his passing, I’ve tried to keep that forward-looking outlook. That sense that the best is yet to come. And that’s the spirit I hope fills you as we celebrate the first anniversary of our podcast. Welcome to Episode 52 of Navigating the Fustercluck—a podcast full of snackable insights to help you navigate the 7-times-down, eight-times-up world of creativity & management. My name is Wegs, like eggs with a W, joining you from Deaf Mule Studios in Dallas, where our anniversary has placed us in a rather celebratory mood. Thanks again for helping our launch year be such a success. Not only were we an iTunes New & Noteworthy selection, you gave us over 100 5-star reviews. And we appreciate it. If you’ve found the snackable and stackable ideas on Navigating the Fustercluck to be helpful, please share them. Looking back over our first year, here are some of the things about working in the world of creativity that makes me look forward to the future ahead: The Stories Every time I sit around with my oldest buddies, they want to hear advertising stories. And they’re rarely let down. These guys are in fields like pharmaceutical sales, banking and such. Face it, we may not make as much money as some industries, and we may have more headaches than others… But we have our stories. Here’s one I’ve been asked to retell multiple times… It’s The Star Trek Story featuring old school writer, Larry Simon. I didn’t work with Larry long, but he was brilliant. Great writer. Great presenter. Smart, smart guy who used to be featured some on NPR. I’m not going to share the client, but the relationship had gone sideways.Seriously sideways. And while the agency may not have been perfect, but the client was abusive and confused. Toggling between insults and wholesale strategic changes meeting to meeting and sometimes multiple changes within meetings.  Things were coming to a head for awhile when we walked into their offices for what felt like a make-or-break meeting. And people were a bit uptight. Now Larry, he was always uptight. A bundle of energy. Nervous energy that sometimes worked for him, sometimes against him. But he had the big idea and like I said, he was a dynamite presenter. You just didn’t know if he was going to  explode. From the moment we walked into the conference room, things didn’t feel right. We should have pulled a fire alarm and booked. But then we wouldn’t have this story. From the first slide, the meeting started off wobbly and from that point on it just kept sliding down and down and down, but we gamefully gutted it out. When it came to his turn, Larry was brilliant. Smart, clear and engaging. To me at least. The client? Not so much. And when you’re an entertaining guy like Larry, a dead room is a living hell. No matter what Larry said, he couldn’t break their poker faces. Finally, standing dead center in the room, Larry just shut down and stopped cold. He just stood there silently. For a split second, I thought he might be having a stroke. But after a pregnant pause, he pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. Flipped it open like a Star Trek communicator and in his best Captain Kirk voice said, Scotty, beam me up. There’s no sign of intelligent life down here. Larry then snapped his wallet back together,