Video Source : 99u

How ‘Adventure Time’ Taught Alexis Ohanian that Sucking at First is Okay

by Jen Durant, April 4, 2014

"None of us ever really figures it out. Whenever I hear someone talking as if they're some kind of expert who actually knows everything about what they're doing, they are lying! Or they're delusional! Or maybe they're just not trying hard enough. Because if you always find yourself in situations where you feel one hundred percent secure, safe, whatever, you're probably not doing anything terribly interesting. And as I clearly love mascots and cute creatures, it should not surprise you that a dog from 'Adventure Time' is the basis from this thesis, it goes something alone the lines of, 'Dude, sucking is the first step to being sort of good at something.' And it's true, sucking really is the first step to being sort of good, so let go of the fact that you don't know what you're doing. That's okay because you're going to have to hack it all along the way."

The above comes from a speech by Reddit, Breadpig, and Hipmunk co-founder Alexis Ohanian from Behance’s 99u Conference. In his talk, Ohanian hammers home the idea that even when you’re successful, or an expert in your creative field, you still need to admit, that you pretty much don’t know anything, and that’s okay. If you know everything, and you’ve got everything figured out, you’ve closed yourself off from learning, growing, and changing, and you’ll get stale.

Ohanian’s central thesis should sound familiar to fans of Cartoon Network’s brilliant animated series “Adventure Time.” Ohanian took inspiration from bendy dog Jake’s advice to his human counterpart Finn in the season 1 episode “His Hero.” As you can see from the clip below, Ohanian got the quote slightly wrong, but I won’t hold that against him, it’s a great bit of advice and should provide a nice dose of inspiration for you guys this weekend.

So go out and suck at something.