Monkeys, circuses and caring too much
There’s a phrase I’ve come to appreciate more and more over the course of my career in communication.
If you’ve worked with me, you’ll have heard me say it many times, especially when you’re freaking out and the stress levels are rising about something so infinitesimal that I feel the urge to calm you down, tell you to breathe and gain some perspective.
“Not my monkey, not my circus.” It’s my reminder to keep some perspective about what really deserves my energy.
I wasn’t always very good at taking my own advice, and earlier in my career, I worried about everything.
My first serious job was in corporate affairs at a big Australian brewing company, where part of my role was looking after publications for staff and investors.
This was well before publishing became the relatively painless digital exercise it is today. We worked in PageMaker, produced bromides and then had chemical proofs made before anything went to print. And you checked those proofs obsessively. Find an error buried in the middle of a paragraph and you’d have to go back to the artwork, output a new bromide and have the proof redone before checking it all over again. I took this responsibility very seriously.
I remember one occasion when I was at home sick with the flu. Properly and miserably sick and thinking I might die. But there were chemical proofs waiting to be checked, so I had the office courier them to my house.
I remember sitting in my pyjamas, feeling absolutely dreadful, poring over proofs and, rather disgustingly, trying not to drip snot all over them. At the time, this seemed entirely reasonable to me.
This was what commitment looked like. You stuck at the job regardless of how you felt or whatever else was going on. The publication had to go out and I had a job to do.
It took me years to realise that I could simply have called in sick. The chemical proofs could have sat in the office for another day or two, and the staff mag might have gone out a little later.
And to be honest, who would have cared? Certainly nobody would have cared as much as I did.
That’s the bit I understand differently now. I had confused treating everything seriously with being serious about my job.
Over the years, I started to notice that people more senior than me didn’t operate that way and they held things much more lightly than I did.
At first, I used to marvel at it. I remember thinking: how could they not be worried about this? How could they make a decision, move on and then not spend the next six hours replaying it in their heads?
Eventually I realised that they knew that not everything was theirs to carry. With experience, they had become better at deciding what deserved their attention.
That’s what “not my monkey, not my circus” has come to mean for me. Being clear on where your role genuinely adds value, and where it doesn’t.
This matters in the comms world, because if you’re not careful, everything starts to feel like your circus:
You get looped into conversations that don’t need you.
You review work that won’t materially change with your input.
You carry responsibility for outcomes you don’t control.
And before too long, your energy is spread so thinly that the things that do matter don’t get the focus they deserve.
So, I’ve learned that what you choose not to care about is just as important as what you do. You can be super intentional about this, and here are five things that have helped me keep it real:
Be clear on what’s yours to own. Not everything with the word “communication” attached to it belongs to you.
Focus on consequence, not the volume of jobs you’re juggling. Some things matter because they carry real risk or impact, but many don’t.
Ask whether your involvement will change the outcome. If the answer is no, it could be a signal for you to step back.
Resist the pull to tidy everything up. I’m not saying leave typos in your work, but not every piece of communication needs to be perfect. Sometimes “good and done” is enough.
Know where your energy is best spent. Strategy, reputation and leadership deserve your best thinking.
I still care deeply about my work and that hasn’t changed, but I no longer believe that treating absolutely everything as deadly serious is the mark of a good communicator.
If anything, it’s the opposite.
Not every monkey is yours to hold and not every circus needs you in the ring. Learning the difference is part of the job.
About the cover photo:For the record, some circuses are yours. That’s me, with my childhood friends doing a handstand on the back wall of my family home. My dad took the photos of our particular brand of childhood entertainment.
