I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that line. It’s even come out of my mouth on occasion. It’s can’t speak for others but for me it’s not a matter of not knowing what to do, more like, I don’t know which interest I should prioritize. I envy those folks who found that one thing that drives them either through interest or opportunity. Like Neo sees the Matrix, I see opportunity everywhere and I chase them like a dog chases a squirrels. It’s not so much a matter of FOMO as it is interesting to go down the many paths of what could, might, and sometimes, should be.

This thought comes from my own reflection of all of the things I have pursued in roughly the last calendar year. From full-time jobs to new businesses and, ugh, additional hobbies. You might insert a joke about ADHD to which I would laugh and wonder if you’re right, but this year I have refrained from many distractions and tried to hold back only digging into the opportunities that I know from experience would turn into another passing phase.

Ryan Rumsey recently shared an article about minimum viable products vs. minimum viable tests (MVP vs. MVT). And that sums up exactly what I have done throughout the year—dig into something enough to turn ideas into copy and images. Put it out into the world, talk about it, and gauge the interest. It’s the difference between trying to create a new way to fish vs. using a new, intriguing lure.

I’ve had a handful of ideas this year that I tried to promote on LinkedIn, met with potential clients, did the road show and nothing has hit. After a year of no hits, a younger me would have started to take it personally but this year it’s not me. There are so many frozen budgets and head counts that I’m starting to wonder if all this freezing might offset global warming by a degree.

Yet I move forward at a casual pace because eventually the world will reconfigure and new opportunities will introduce themselves if you’re out in the crowd looking to meet them. With that in mind, today I announced my next attempt at consulting. It’s called Same Team Partners and, frankly, it’s the business I should have created after my time at InVision. By that time I had observed and experienced a solid set of patterns that are behind the core of problems facing leaders, teams, and organizations.

This is not to say I don’t have more to learn, but my view of the world has been validated many times over at all size and scale. Now it’s time to go to work and start making everything work better.

Last Wednesday Brett Harned and I took our wives to experience U2 playing at the Sphere. TL;DR: Wow! Magnificent! U2 is still amazing and the Sphere’s debut is incredible.

I have no doubt there are hundreds of articles and blog posts about the experience. Hell, there are bootlegs of the entire show bouncing around YouTube if you want to get a TikTok-sized glimpse. So I'll stick to a few unique observations.

In any other place—with the exception of Hong Kong—the Sphere would certainly dominate the city skyline. Tucked into Vegas it feels like a curious addition to the existing, over-the-top gigantic light features all vying for attention It will definitely dominate the televised coverage of the Las Vegas Grand Prix in a few weeks. The Sphere is a new, incredible wonder of the world and I hope to see more performances there in the future. Especially as they figure out how to really use all of the technology. Today it feels like playing a new game on a new game console (PS3 > PS4 > PS5). A huge improvement from the generation before, but the games only give a glimpse of what’s possible. The same will be true about the Sphere.

Having said that the show did not disappoint and U2 rocked—they haven’t lost a beat or a note. The band showed no signs of slowing down and it’s incredible to see how far they have come.

One pleasant surprise was the ambient music playing in the lobby (the sound was incredible there too). At first, I thought it was just any other chill mix, but after a few songs in it was clear these tracks were made from elements of Achtung Baby. Both Brett and I commented on wanting to buy an album but we did not find anything at the merch tables.

Back at home, I found some background and a full tracklist. Even better, someone posted Space Baby, the entire LP on YouTube. After a minute or two I was easily able to download the file, convert it to audio, and start playing on the HomePods. Now I just need to replace all of my lights with blacklight and I’ll have my own HomeSphere™. Joking aside, I hope U2 digs into their back catalog and produces more of these alternative takes on all the songs we love.

I wholeheartedly recommend the show and the entire experience. As I post this, U2 has added two more months to their residency. This is the perfect time for YOLO. You’ll be glad you did.

In his talk, Ten Things I Have Learned, Milton Glaser hands down a list of axioms he earned through an amazing, life-long career in design. I recently rediscovered this document after it sat in a folder marked “save” for a few years. Instead of leaving it there, I thought I’d share these “ten things” and a comment or two.

This axiom is peculiar to me because of the language Milton uses. It really feels like the language of another generation. I love the short monologue in the middle, his distaste for being labeled a “creative.” I can hear him go off this rant, his voice turning slightly more annoyed, almost grumpy.

I got to see Milton give a lecture once and about halfway through you could tell something was off. It turned out that his assistant had loaded the wrong presentation on his laptop. He said as much as he switched from speaker mode to a casual, “what the hell is going on” mode. After examining the deck in front of us, he recalibrated, shifted his posture, and went back to his previous form. I was in awe of how he didn’t let a problem get in the way of doing his job. I learned a lot from that moment and remember it more than the actual talk he gave that morning.

04 — Professionalism Is Not Enough or Good Is The Enemy Of The Great

Early in my career, I wanted to be professional, that was my complete aspiration in my early life because professionals seemed to know everything—not to mention they got paid for it. Later I discovered after working for a while that professionalism itself was a limitation. After all, what professionalism means in most cases is diminishing risks. So if you want to get your car fixed you go to a mechanic who knows how to deal with transmission problems in the same way each time. I suppose if you needed brain surgery you wouldn’t want the doctor to fool around and invent a new way of connecting your nerve endings. Please do it in the way that has worked in the past. Unfortunately in our field, in the so-called creative—I hate that word because it is misused so often. I also hate the fact that it is used as a noun. Can you imagine calling someone a creative?—Anyhow, when you are doing something in a recurring way to diminish risk or doing it in the same way as you have done it before, it is clear why professionalism is not enough. after all, what is required in our field, more than anything else, is the continuous transgression. Professionalism does not allow for that because transgression has to encompass the possibility of failure and if you are professional your instinct is not to fail, it is to repeat success. So professionalism as a lifetime aspiration is a limited goal.

“Continuous transgression” is certainly an interesting way to say push the boundaries, but he’s right. Leaders have a rabid desire for new ideas but are too cautious to stray too far from what is already known and accepted—what works. Conversely, designers hesitate to fully adopt and use design systems. Believing the system will constrain their creativity when in fact it has the potential to free up time to explore more interesting problems.

The reality is that new ideas can only come from new thinking which requires curious exploration. And the only way to explore curiously is to prioritize your time and focus.

So, we’re left with a real Catch 22 situation that is at the heart of problems seen in design programs around the world. Leaders avoid pushing boundaries too far while designers fear not pushing boundaries far enough. I’ve run up against this everywhere I’ve worked.

The lesson I take away from Milton is that designers—creatives—need to be constantly curious and willing to take risks. It's a lot cheaper for us to fail through our work than it is with, say, engineers or lawyers. We need to push boundaries in one form or another because that’s part of our role to play on this planet, and it will help save our jobs. More on that last bit later.

I’m going to share a personal story that has to do with extreme anxiety. I have learned that this type of post can trigger anxiety in others. So, if that statement resonates with you please go read another blog and come back later in the week.

A year ago I could do little more than lay on a couch and breathe while my mind kept repeating the many ways I was about to die. My heart pounded while adrenaline pumped through my system. Sweat dripped down my forehead and neck so much that my hair was wet. And despite my efforts, it was difficult to believe anything other than I was going to be dead soon. Every minute was surely to be my last.

In search of calm I played meditations over and over again following the breathing exercise instructions until, hopefully, I fell asleep. Then I’d wake up to a voice telling me I had cancer or my heart was about to stop. It was the worst kind of flywheel you can imagine. This went on for almost three weeks until newly prescribed medications started to kick in and provide relief.

Eventually, I was able to stay upright and get a few things done, but on occasion, a thought would enter my consciousness kicking my heart rate up, sending a little drip of adrenaline down my spine—inducing an immediate clammy feeling on my neck. I had to stop whatever I was doing and start to breathe—in for four seconds, hold for four, and exhale for six. I learned this from an old friend who had battled extreme anxiety his whole life. He said it was the best thing you can do during a panic attack.

The attacks continued for the next three months, but their severity and frequency diminished over time. At the end of it all, I felt normal but forever changed. I do not doubt that without the support of She Who Exudes Love, Care, and Kindness, I would not be here today. Her overwhelming support through it all gave me the slightest bit of hope that the thoughts in my head were wrong.

Working through recovery has been a year-long journey of reflection and learning to look forward again while staying in the present. Stoicism has taught me that anxiety lives in the past and in the future. We are not meant to dwell on either for too long.

I don’t know that it’s helpful to share what I think brought all of this on but I have come out of this with clarity on the need for healthier personal and work relationships. Before the events of last year, I spent five years enduring a lot of other people’s bullshit and toxicity. After a string of super fucked up events, I woke up in October 2022 feeling nothing but constant despair and it broke my body.

In addition to my amazing wife, I had family and friends who also helped me get through it all. I am extremely appreciative of their patience and support. I’m in a much better place today because of all of you.

I’m putting this out there for no reason other than I need to get this off my shoulders. Shit went down, I went down, and with the help of others I got up. And I can let this anniversary go now.

Here's a fresh rant, inspired by recent conversations on Mastodon and the Phone app on my iPhone. Here is a short list of things I’m over. Done. Caput.

Software as a Service - SAAS has no end game. Subscriptions as a business model require a constant stream of development and delivery of new content, features, whatever. It doesn’t take long before SAAS becomes bloated and plump full of so many options, bells, and whistles that it becomes more difficult to use—enveloping the core features almost completely. Case in point: Slack after the most recent “upgrade.” It’s just gross. SaaS has become another form of Botox or Helvetica, best used on rare occasions but never on a daily basis. Yet most people forget to heed that instruction.

Clouds and integrations - A friend of mine recently tried to de-cloud his life. It took weeks to get all of their files (property) into a single, trusted source. And they still have a cloud or two hanging. Yesterday I tried to create a simple contact form with, you guessed it, a SaaS product that wouldn’t let me tie an existing HTML form to their service. No, I had to use their “form builder” and pay extra to remove their logo which made my site look like shit. Clouds have truly turned the Internet into a series of tubes. Integrations that only work from one cloud—one subscription—to the next. Cloud is a vail of simplicity, as a service.

Greek Beasts as a Title - I was heavily considering a leadership role at a tech company right up until the recruiter told me that the company was one of nine “centaurs” in existence today. I cringed immediately and detached my focus for the remainder of the call. It wasn’t enough that we have labeled companies and people as “unicorns” for the last ten years (so magic!). No, we needed something more and the name Unicorn+ wasn’t going to cut it. Enough is enough. You’re either unique or you’re not. More importantly, are you getting work done or just talking about it? We don’t need to drag the Greeks and their pets into this any longer.

A seat at the table - I have a few friends who got their preverbal seat at the table and they whined because it didn’t magically elevate their status or result in immediate respect and trust for their shiny new position. Physical proximity to a person does not equate to the level of influence. It’s just a chair at a table, and not the table, it's just a table. If you want to influence real change, you have to earn it through diplomacy, relationships, and doing work that needs to be done, even if it’s not associated with your job description. Real leadership, real influence, takes work, not a meeting.

Notifications - I don’t want another device buzzing me, taptic feed-backing me for attention. Incoming SMS messages...fine. Everything else can go to hell. I can’t stand that people won’t answer their phones, but they are willing to mainline their brains with constant notifications on multiple screens on their desks, in their hands, and on their wrists. Unfortunately, we’re all now living in an episode of Black Mirror.

Call of Duty cosmetics - I can’t believe I just wrote that but it’s true. In-game micro-purchases are great because they are optional and keep games as a single purchase, not a subscription. I do enjoy playing a military genre game and Call of Duty is one of the best, but it’s kinda hard to get into the story when another player attacking me looks like Nicki Minaj in a hot pink outfit. I expect that kind of shenanigans in Fortnite, but not Call of Duty. Ugh. I just need to remove this game and go back to the better title in the genre: Battlefield 2042.