I’m not usually big on romcoms, but What Women Want stood out to me back in the 90s because the main character worked at an ad agency. And there’s a lesson in that movie that’s always stuck with me.
In the story, Mel Gibson plays a creative director who thinks he understands people better than he actually does. One night he gets electrocuted in his bathroom while testing out a box of women’s products for a client pitch. It’s ridiculous and funny. But when he wakes up, he can suddenly hear the thoughts of every woman around him. At first it’s pure chaos. He’s overwhelmed, panicked, spiraling. And then slowly he realizes he’s being confronted with something he’s never had to face before… other people’s unfiltered truth.
When Your Thoughts Get Too Loud
Most of us never get to hear what’s in other people’s minds. We only what’s in our own. And sometimes ours is the least reliable voice in the room. When you’re stressed, uncertain, or trying too hard to prove yourself, your inner monologue gets loud. It fills in blanks with assumptions. It invents narratives about what clients think, what coworkers think, what your audience thinks. Before long, you’re reacting to stories you created, not to anything real.
How Assumptions Distort Your Work
Every creative has experienced this. You walk into a meeting and assume the room is judging you. You send a draft and assume the silence means disappointment. You pitch an idea and assume the raised eyebrow means rejection. Your mind starts filling gaps with worst case scenarios.
The problem is that the work begins to bend around those assumptions. You over explain in your presentations because you assume people won’t get it. You oversimplify because you assume they’ll push back. You hold back your best ideas because you assume they’ll be shot down. None of this is based on evidence. It’s based on the noise in your head.
When you’re trapped inside your own thoughts, you lose access to the actual people in front of you. You start designing for imaginary pressure instead of real needs. You start interpreting neutral moments as threats. And you forget that your job isn’t to outguess everyone. It’s to communicate clearly and create with intention.
Shift Your Focus Outward
For us who make things for a living, getting out of our own heads is about redirecting our attention. That starts with learning the art of asking better questions. Learn what the client actually cares about. Learn what their audience responds to. When you understand the worries beneath the request, the work stops being a guessing game.
Most creative friction comes from assumptions. You think they want one thing. They meant something else. You hear a comment as an attack. They meant it as a concern. When you don’t know enough, your mind fills the gaps with stories. Education is the antidote. You often have to step into the role of educator yourself, because most clients don’t naturally understand the craft behind your decisions. If they can’t see the strategy, they can’t value the solution. Connect the dots for them.
The more you understand the person across from you, the quieter your internal noise becomes. Listening, questioning, clarifying… these skills pull you out of the false narratives you create. Clients feel heard. Teammates feel understood. And you stop reacting to imaginary threats and start responding to real needs.
If this clicked for you and you want to talk it through, reach out to me. I always respond.
More of My Thoughts
