I twirled my pen around in my fingers, my other arm holding my head up as I tried to keep myself engaged in the boardroom of the ad agency where I worked as a junior associate. Some of the other juniors gave me jealous looks when I told them I’d been assigned to Blake’s team on the most recent round of projects, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. He seemed like a real smarmy bastard to me, standing up there giving us the product specs on the paper towels we were supposed to be selling, telling us all how valuable we were to the file as if he wasn’t just going to go with his ideas like he seemed to do every time.

At least, he always took the credit, and nobody ever contested it. No, they just talked about how enjoyable it was to work with him, right from the brainstorming stage. About how he was able to practically pull the ideas out of his team. 

I wasn’t exactly sure when Blake transitioned from his hype efforts to his business mode, but I was grateful for it. His business mode voice was much more tolerable, even pleasant to listen to. It was actually very easy to listen and follow when he spoke like this. At some point, I noticed that my hand had stilled, holding the pen gently but no longer twirling it. The fidgeting and low-level activity in the room seemed to have stopped, and we were all practically breathing in unison, paying rapt attention to Blake.

One by one, my teammates in the room started sharing ideas. There was no particular order, but no particular flurry of excitement to get ideas out. It was just calm. Almost meditative. It wasn’t like any other brainstorming session I’d ever been a part of. We all just chimed in when there was space, and Blake wrote down the idea on the whiteboard at the front of the room. 

It was a curious thing though, because as soon as the idea was recorded on the whiteboard in Blake’s handwriting, it was impossible to recall who had produced it. I knew that some of the ideas had come from me, but I wasn’t sure which ones. In fact, it was almost like each time I said anything, my mind felt a little bit emptier, as though the idea was spent and that space in my mind had emptied. Almost like as the words left my lips, the ideas and thoughts left my mind. 

By the end of the session, I wasn’t quite sure exactly what happened, and I had no idea what I or anyone else had contributed. Everything was up on the whiteboard in Blake’s handwriting, so I guessed we had mostly given him feedback on his own ideas. Maybe? He was the project manager, after all. I probably just needed a coffee, though the fuzziness I was feeling in my mind wasn’t entirely unpleasant. 

No, scratch that. It was a nice feeling.

I was already looking forward to the next project session.