Let’s be blunt: if you want to be taken seriously by serious clients, with serious budgets and serious intent — you cannot, absolutely cannot, be curled up in your hoodie at the end of your bed, toggling between Figma and the fridge.

Creativity might be fuelled by chaos, but commerce is fuelled by confidence. And confidence comes from presence. Physical, professional, proper presence. A place with light, noise, energy, and the occasional accidental genius that erupts not despite distraction, but because of it.

We don’t win work because we sit silently at home, nodding on Zoom like a twit at a disco. We win because we have chemistry. Share insights, ideas, jokes. Big bloody ideas that get born in conversation, scribbled on the back of napkins, not locked in pre-booked 30-minute rectangles.

MANY creatives are introverts. Even more that work in tech are impossibly allergic to people. Lots of designers struggle to present work — hoping instead that the client will simply click through the ideas silently, smile and hand over the cash. The bitter truth is that many commercial creatives are rubbish at standing up in a room full of people. But clients LOVE the creative person, they are willing them, like a best man at a wedding, to do a great job at standing up and telling a story. You only have to half a good job and you've got a massive advantage over the person that convinces themselves that it's better on the sofa.

Yes, getting up earlier requires an alarm clock. Commuting is almost always grim (get a bike and it's far better). And sure, you might prefer to guiltily eat your lunch hunched over a sink than sit next to smelly Ken from Accounts. But that’s not the point. The point is: you’re there. And when you’re there, things happen. Bonds get built. Trust gets formed. Stories get started.

I saw that Mr Read from WPP said yesterday he thought people were happier in the office. I'm not sure that's true, but I am sure that going to a place that is not connected to where you sleep has massive benefits when it comes to completeling a crucial part of the commercial creativity circle. Getting work approved. Getting work out there. If it never goes live, it never happened.

You want to be treated like a grown-up? Act like one. Get dressed. Get out. Get into a space where ideas fly, not buffer. Turn up in person. Shake a hand. Spill a coffee.

Because no one’s buying your pixel-perfect deck. They’re buying you. Your presence. Your thinking. Your energy. And all of that works better in a room full of humans than in a grid full of glitchy thumbnails.

Remote might be easier. It is proabably more comfortable. But easy & comfy rarely wins the pitch. Show up. That’s the job.