I made a bad decision once and ended up with this four-inch scar on my forehead and very little feeling on the top of my gourd. I tried for a year or so to cover it with long hair. Long hair was an equally bad decision. I applied collagen. I tried to “circle the dragon” with acupuncture. I painfully massaged the scar tissue. I shot it with lasers.

I hate that I have this scar.

I hate what it means, the memory it conjures.

I hate that it will never go away.

And I can’t change it.

For the first three years of my career at RHB, I thought that the most valuable “thing” that we gave to our clients was gorgeous and effective recruitment publications. For the next three years of my career, I thought that our most valuable deliverable was intelligent strategy obtained by distinctive research methods. For years 7, 8 and 9, I thought that the best possible thing we could deliver was our collective intelligence to help our client’s position themselves.

While I don’t think I goofed around for (all of) nine years, I was wrong. 

What we deliver is confidence; it’s the sum of all of what I mention above. Our time with clients is marked with discovering the truth about an institution: Who they are, why they are who they are, what they are, quirks, warts and all. But discovering that truth is one thing—embracing the truth with confidence and fervor is another. 

Our most successful clients find and acknowledge their undesirable marks; they hug them rather than hide them. Their scars are different than mine. Theirs are made up of controversial moments, insensitivity, violence, an embarrassing point of view that the institution no longer holds. 

Scars may fade, but they don’t go away. They simply become a part of an institution’s being. And when our clients know where their scars are, they can stand and live naked and confident in the marketplace. It’s the only way that an institution can ever align what people expect of them with what they deliver.

It’s not likely that I’ll get over this scar on my head, but it’s a part of who I am, for better or worse.

My friends call me “the boy who lived.”

-Sam Waterson is the Executive Vice President and Creative Director of Richard Harrison Bailey/The Agency. Follow him on Twitter @slwaterson.

image via “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” by J.K. Rowling