People Don't Tell You How Often Creative Work Gets Rejected

You see the finished song.

The finished poster.

The finished campaign.

The finished collaboration.

What you don't see are all the ideas that never made it.

A concept gets rejected.

A song gets rewritten.

A design gets changed.

A collaboration doesn't happen.

A project gets cancelled.

Creative industries are full of things that never become public.

That's why looking at someone's finished work can be misleading.

You see the successful version.

You don't see the dozens of versions that came before it.