My Values
"Values are like fingerprints. Nobody's are the same but you leave 'em all over everything you do."
Chase Failures
Failure is how we learn. Whether in design or life, we must fail early and often so we can learn from those failures. The faster we fail, the faster we learn how to be successful. So we must embrace failure as the ultimate teaching tool and run towards it. Learning from failures is one of the most important ingredients in the design process that makes it so powerful.
Be Yourself
Authenticity is a very overlooked aspect of design. Knowing who you truly are as a brand, app, or business can save you a lot of time and money. Knowing who you truly are as a person can be even more rewarding. I have seen several startups circle the drain of possibilities only to circle back to the beginning and doubt every decision they have made up to that point. These companies were plagued by a common enemy, not knowing who they are. Don’t try to become the next Uber of something! Just be yourself.
Always Add Value
“I stood on the streets of a busy town,
Watching men tearing a building down:
With a ho-heave-ho and a lusty yell,
They swung a beam, and the side wall fell.
I asked the foreman: “Are these skilled–
And the men you’d hire if you had to build?”
He gave me a laugh and said: “No, indeed!
Just common labor is all I need.
I can wreck in a day or two
What builders have taken a year to do.”
And I thought to myself as I went my way,
Which of these roles have I tried to play?
Am I a builder who works with care
Measuring life by a rule and square?
Am I shaping my deeds to a well made Plan,
Patiently doing the best I can?
Or am I a wrecker, who walks the town
Content with the labor of tearing down?”
-Edgar A Guest
Quantity Produces Quality
“A ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.
His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pounds of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”.
Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.”
– From the book, “Art & Fear” by David Bayles
What You're not Changing, You're Choosing
In life and business, it is very easy to repeat our habitual mistakes. Maybe we think a recurring meeting is still worth it because we have always done it. How long have you kept your marketing efforts the same with the same basic result? It is very easy to go through life with unmeasured goals and stagnant results but I believe we have the ability to design our lives.
Be intentional about how you spend your time. Design how you use your phone, how you browse the Internet. Plan out your day and stick to your plan. Your company culture can be planned and changed but it takes deliberate designs. If you do nothing, it shows you are okay with your current results. I think design is all about constant improvement.
I have wept in the night, At my shortness of sight, That to others' needs made me blind, But I never have yet, Had a twinge of regret, For being a little too kind.
