Late Nights with Trav and Los: Recent Episodes
Travis Neilson and Carlos Montoya
Best friends, Trav & Los, talk late into the night, exploring new ideas for creative professionals. They argue over concepts, share secrets, and interview their industry heroes.
Do you feel safe here? Google’s PILab identified psychological safety as the biggest differentiator between highly effective and less effective teams. Psychological safety is a general term for team members’ willingness to take interpersonal risk as they work together. Members of psychologically safe teams are more likely to feel included, accepted, respected, and to feel safe to take risks, to admit mistakes and to show vulnerability.
What can you do to build psychological safety? 1. Include each team member in social activities, such as lunch or ping pong, especially when he or she is not part of the ‘in crowd’. In meetings, formal or informal, make sure they feel invited to contribute. 2. Accept others for who they are, even when there are things about them that you may not like. Keep in mind that they are people — not just co-workers who are instrumental in getting your job done. 3. Listen to what your team member has to say and make sure you’re on the same page; don’t simply wait for the end of their speech to continue your argument. 4. Recognize the contribution of others - acknowledge their contribution. You’ll discover that sharing the pie of credit with others makes the pie larger. 5. Show vulnerability and admit mistakes — recognizing your own imperfections and mistakes relieves you from the need to project the image of perfection. It also makes room for others to do the same. 6. Make room for conflict — it is okay to strongly disagree. Having said that; focus on the conflicting ideas, not on the people who advocate them.
Travis wants to go back to school so he accepts a job at Google. On his first day he ends up getting on a bus to Apple, not Google.
The rest of the story is about how introspection into ones own strengths and weaknesses can lead you to companies like Google.
Music produced by Morqix: https://soundcloud.com/morqix/body-symmetry-chakra-collab
Trav tells Los about the importance of recognizing your Unconscious Bias, and ways that we can overcome the negative aspects of it.
Three Pillars of Creation = Experience + Trends + Intuition Experience There really is no substitute for experience. It is a hard-won reference for everything that we do. In fact, every new thing that we learn is born from the womb of our experience. It colors everything we know and do, and there is no way around that.
90% of the email answers I give are to “just make stuff” What we all need is more experience, and the only way to get that is to just do it.
Trends Trends are an important ingredient in the recipe of creation. Through being aware of trends we have the ability borrow against the collective knowledge and insight of the rest of the world. If a piece of knowledge is solid enough to make it into the general lexicon, we can cautiously assume that the idea has been tested and tried and remains sound overall.
Having said that, be weary of trends. Things are not always popular because they are good ideas. Use your experience and intuition to validate trends. Doing something just because everyone else is, is never a good idea. Have a reason. Always.
Intuition As new parents in the hospital, my wife and I franticly asked the nurses and doctors about every little detail of infant care. I was so freaked out by this little pink batch of skin and bone that was now my responsibility. Eventually the response came to be “Listen, calm down. Just trust your instincts, you’ll be alright.”
Human intuition is a powerful thing, often when we are creating we make a choice simply because it feels right.
I’m sure you’ve had the experience of having to explain a choice that you made because it just made sense. And now that you are using language to explain it, you see how really brilliant you were in making it. Those are fun moments.
Conclusion Understanding these pillars – these input sources of creation – will better help us to demystify the act of creation itself. To be a successful creator in the long run we must ever be gathering experience, observing trends, and trusting our intuition.
Show Links:
- https://www.youtube.com/littlemusicboxes
- https://www.losmontoya.com
- https://travandlos.webflow.io
- https://onezero.medium.com/being-indistractable-will-be-the-skill-of-the-future-a07780cf36f4
- https://www.instagram.com/littlemusicboxes/
Intro:
Welcome to the Late Nights with Trav and Los Season 3 Premier and Finale!
I’m Los, your host tonight and Tav is joining us as the listener proxy.
Discussion Points:
-
Catch Up
-
Los
-
Company was acquired via a merger with a company called Twenty
-
Our goal is to enable and enrich experiences by bringing people together in real life.
-
Building out Los Montoya Design Co on the side
-
Trav
-
Little Music Boxes
-
Topic
-
Nir Eyal
-
Nir Eyal is the bestselling author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, which drew on his years of experience in the video gaming and advertising industries. He has taught courses on applied consumer psychology at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and at Fortune 500 companies. His writing on technology, psychology and business appears in the Harvard Business Review, the Atlantic, TechCrunch and Psychology Today.
-
I want to more specifically talk about the thesis that “Being Indisctractable will be the skill of the future” around his forthcoming book “Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life.”
-
This is interesting to me and want to expand on it with you for two reasons:
-
- We’ve talked about focus a bit in the previous seasons and
-
- Out of anyone I know, you continue to demonstrate how “indistractable” you can get and accomplish some pretty rad creative endeavors.
-
Distractions are the name of the game right now:
-
Pings
-
Knocks
-
Emails
-
Text Messages
-
Social Media
-
in a sense, our devices have “hijacked” our brains and it’s harder to disconnect from work in this interconnected world.
-
Distractions aren’t your fault, but they are your responsibility. So, how do we equip ourselves to manage these distractions?
-
So, what’s a distraction?
-
It’s something that draws us away from what we want to do, whether it’s to accomplish a task at home or work, enjoy time with a loved one, or do something for ourselves.
-
Distractions can become habits and we may be unable to sustain the focus required for creativity in our professional and personal lives.
-
We are inundated by digital distractions.
-
On the opposite side, we have Traction. Which is any action that moves us towards what we want. Actions done with intent. Traction is doing what you say you will do.
-
So, what prompts us to “traction” or “distraction”?
-
External triggers
-
Cues from our environment that tell us what to do
-
Internal triggers
-
Cues that come from within
-
How?
-
We are going to walk through and discuss these points from the medium post. They are well worded and actionable:
-
Master Internal Triggers
-
Make time for traction
-
PICK YOUR VALUES!!!!
-
Hack back External Triggers
-
Prevent distraction with pacts
Conclusion:
The world is split into two types of people: those who allow their attention and their lives to be manipulated by others, and those who proudly call themselves indistractable.
Hello, this is Travis. Los has been roaming around in the Utah desert for a few months,
And I'm alone in a hotel room in New york, trying to force myself to edit this podcast that I've been
putting off for too long.
This is a particularly hard episode to make. I'm guessing you've read the title, so you know what I'm
talking about. In this episode Los and I agree to end the podcast. It's officially over.
In this episode you'll hear me dance around the topic for a while and finally work up the courage to
suggest we end. It's kind of funny, it's mostly sad, but also joyful.
Los and I are going to talk about some of the standout highlights of making late nights for the
past few years, and give short updates about what is going on in our lives.
I like it. I think it's a good episode. You know, it kind of reminds me of this thing Los and I would
always tell each other when making content like this; we would say "End strong" – just end strong.
It's okay if you loose your place or stumble around in the middle, just make sure to end on a high point. — And I think we do that here. I think this is a beautiful expression of what in my mind was always the best thing about this podcast: that Los and I love each other. I think that comes through —strongly.
Trav and Los talk about the value of being able to doubt your assumptions and provide a little test that you can use to determine if your assumptions are based on good values.
Ultimately, they conclude that if your assumptions are asking other people to change, they may not be productive assumptions.
Trav and Los talk about meeting new people and making deep connections quickly. Download the questions we used as conversation prompts when we led the first night at Epicurrence this year.
See the list of questions here: https://paper.dropbox.com/doc/Speed-meeting-prompts-with-Trav-Los-aFWCavu40GtqXOb6f3kyH
Los recently switched employers and Travis wants to know how to make the best impression at a new job. This is actually a good episode, lol.
In this episode we take a look at how the ethos of "Minimum Viable Product" has been lost in translation. We break it down, unpack it, and talk to the spirit of what once was the MVP.
In this episode, we unravel a thread of an idea and watch it unravel into a fantastic walkthrough from Travis around some potential actions we could take to get started as a public speaker.
Trav gives a live presentation in front of a small group about lessons learned after three years of podcasting. Thank you to invisibletalks.com for putting the event together!
In this episode we talk to Alex Tran about being a Junior Designer and his journey into design
Trav and Aidan talk about the art of podcasting and how Aiden thinks about the work he is currently involved in.
Trav sits down with Aidan Simpson to talk about how his life experiences contribute to the creative work that he does today.
In this episode Trav and Los talk about Craft & Launching & Balance & Dark UX Patterns
Episode Sponsor:
http://bit.ly/FreshBooks001
In this episode Trav and Los brand the podcast network and give it a name in about 30 minutes.
Episode Sponsor:
http://bit.ly/FreshBooks001
Trav and Los ponder the difference between struggling for something, and struggling with something. They arrive at an important realization that "it's the time in line, not the ride, that matters."
Episode Sponsor:
http://bit.ly/FreshBooks001
Travis talks to Los about what it means to really appreciate life. They realize that it's the everyday mundane that is the part that that we really need to value.
Episode Sponsor:
http://bit.ly/FreshBooks001
In this episode Trav and Los talk to Lumen and Pablo about starting a podcast network and what that would look like.
Episode Sponsor:
http://bit.ly/FreshBooks001
Diseño Cha Cha Cha:
https://www.disenochachacha.com/
Trav and Los try and seduce two new design podcasters
New Podcast!: https://www.disenochachacha.com/
Music: https://soundcloud.com/chrldltn/cumbia-sobre-el-mar-quantic
We invite Helen Tran, Chas Barton, and Kunal Patel to gather around a table and try to answer some really difficult questions with real honesty.
We invite Helen Tran, Chas Barton, and Kunal Patel to gather around a table and try to answer some really difficult questions with real honesty.
Stages of Group Development The idea behind this was developed in 1965 by a man named Bruce Tuckman
He identified 4 stages at first. Fifth was added later.
- Forming
- Represents a time, just coming together
- Anxiety and uncertainty
- want to be accepted
- conflict
- controversy
- personal opinions are avoided
- the point and focus for group members during this stage is to become familiar with each other and their purpose, not on work.
- Understanding of the group’s purpose
- determining how the team will be organized
- discussion of major milestones
- outlining general group rules
- discovery of what resources will be available for the group
- Storming
- conflict and competition are at its greatest
- they start to feel confident
- begin to address some of the more important issues surrounding the group
- group’s tasks
- individual roles and responsibilites
- group members
- the more dominant group members emerege
- less-confrontational suppress feelings
- all members have an increased need for clarification
- not many groups are able to move forward
- they need clarity
- Norming
- Group becomes a cohesive unit, morale is high
- sense of community is established
- remain focus on groups purpose or goal
- members are flexible, interdependent and trust each other.
- Leadership is shared, and
- members are willing to adapt to the needs of the group
- information flows seamlessly and is inhabited due to the sense of security members feel in the norming stage
- Performing
- This is the peak of the group
- this is marked by high productivity
- group members are unified, loyal and supportive.
- competence in all members is seen, allowing for a high level of autonomy in decision making.
- the overall objective of the group in this stage is to complete their mission and fulfill their purpose through goal achievement
- Adjourning
- once goals and objectives have been achieved
- at this point it’s important to achieve closure for the group on a positive note
- important to recognize the group members for their accomplishments and celebrate the group’s overall success
Trav tells Los about the five languages of love and how we can use this paradigm to communicate more effectively with everyone around us.
In this episode Trav talks about the way he likes to think through problems in groups and Los introduces the idea that some people are "Talk to Think" and other are "Think to Talk". A can't miss episode.
In this episode Los walks us through some of the ideas to keep in mind when starting a podcast.
Outro music: https://soundcloud.com/dancewiththedead/around-the-world-dance-with-the-dead-remix
Podcasting: Late nights get started guide How to get started 1. Is it solo or with a friend? 2. Interview style? 3. Story telling? 4. Is it live or asynchronous?
The Gear Microphone Shure SM7B Vocal Dynamic Microphone, Cardioid (3)
Amazon.com: Shure SM7B Vocal Dynamic Microphone, Cardioid: Musical Instruments
In-person recording Zoom H6 6-track portable recorder (1) Amazon.com: Zoom H6 Six-Track Portable Recorder: Musical Instruments
Clean audio gain Cloud Microphones Cloudlifter CL-1 (1) Amazon.com: Cloud Microphones Cloudlifter CL-1: Musical Instruments
Cloud Microphones Cloudlifter CL-2 (1) https://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Microphones-CL-2-Cloudlifter/dp/B002WZK3BC/ref=sr_1_4?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1480529314&sr=1-4&keywords=cloud+microphones+cloudlifter+cl-1
Audio interace Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 (1) Amazon.com: Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 (2nd Gen) USB Audio Interface with Pro Tools | First: Musical Instruments
Microphone Mount Because I travel with my set up, I use the RODE boom arms.
RODE PSA1 Swivel Mount Studio Microphone Boom Arm (3) https://www.amazon.com/RODE-Swivel-Mount-Studio-Microphone/dp/B001D7UYBO/ref=pd_bxgy_267_img_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=0AN5W5CWH0YCMNTHP582
Microphone pop filter Dragonpad USA Pop filter Studio Microphone Mic Wind Screen Pop Filter (3) Amazon.com: Dragonpad USA Pop filter Studio Microphone Mic Wind Screen Pop Filter: Musical Instruments
XLR Cables Mogami Gold Studio 03 XLR to XLR Quad Conductor Patch Cable 3 feet (6) https://www.amazon.com/Mogami-Gold-Studio-03-Conductor/dp/B0002E1P2G/ref=pd_sim_267_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=SD37MW4EJT28697PBYCZ
Mobile carrying case Everything but the Audio Interface fits in this case. I use a Fender bass case and took out all of the dividers inside to make room for the gear.
Fender Deluxe Case for Precision Bass - Black (1) https://www.amazon.com/Fender-Deluxe-Case-Precision-Bass/dp/B0002L0458/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1480530098&sr=8-6&keywords=fender+bass+guitar+case
The Software Hindenburg Audio
Garage band
Auphonic
In this episode, Los walks us through the Future of Late Nights With Trav and Los.
Intro & Outro music: Daniel Deluxe - Star Eater
https://soundcloud.com/nrwrecords/daniel-deluxe-star-eater
Morqix: https://soundcloud.com/morqix
Desperate Measures release date March 15, 2017 on PhutureCollective: https://soundcloud.com/phuturecollective/sets
Welcome to another Late Nights with Trav and Los, I’m your host Los Montoya. The episode you are listening to is the second episode of our new segment called; Undiiscovered. A show dedicated to bringing you the raw sounds of new and emerging musicians.
In this episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing Matt McDonald who produces under the moniker of Morqix.
Born in Germany and raised in Northern Virginia, Morqix is an indie electronic producer living in Austin, TX. Starting in early 2016, Morqix is already making major headway in the electronic music scene, with his first few releases landing him upwards of 300k listeners and featured on blogs and channels like Suicide Sheep, Beautiful Buzzz, Run the Trap, High Clouds and Acid Stag, to name a few.
Morqix has an insatiable hunger to create upbeat feel good music while testing the bounds of his favorite genres. His love and knowledge of all things music has allowed him to create songs which unapologetically bridge genres, blending lush future bass sounds with trap, dubstep, hip-hop, jazz and funk vibes for good measure. The end result is a sound which refuses to be categorized, and finds a home with music lovers of all backgrounds.
We get the privilege of getting a pre-release exclusive and interview for his latest track Desperate Measures.
Los talks about the major changes he's made in his life that have resulted in greater creative output and higher satisfaction.
Trav tells Los about the word he is trying to avoid using, enabling him to have more honest and specific conversations.
Welcome to another Late Nights with Trav and Los, I’m your host Los Montoya. My other half, Trav, has been out of the country with work. In this episode, I introduce you to a new show that I’m producing and hosting.
The new segment is called Undiiscovered, a show dedicated to bringing you the raw sounds of new and emerging musicians. For the first episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing and taping a live performance with John Henry’s Farm, an ol' timey fingerpicking funky blues band.
To listen to more music from John Henry's Farm, and to support them go to:
https://tradiio.com/john-henrys-farm or https://johnhenrysfarm.bandcamp.com/
You can also find on on itunes: https://itun.es/us/mnoiA and on cdbaby: https://www.cdbaby.com/cd/johnhenrysfarm2
Mai Tran joins Travis to talk about how to turn your portfolio into a pitch deck that wins work.
- Mai's instagram
- Mai's Medium
- Mai's Facebook
Music by MRSJXN
Travis shares a way to look at some types of problems – think of them as a funnel!
Inspired by Jack Conte's video "Everything is a funnel" Watch the Video
We play a game, then talk about being unstoppable.
Music:
https://soundcloud.com/andrewapplepie/hit-the-gas-1
https://soundcloud.com/sweaters/drop-the-game-sweater-beats-remix
After not recording in the same place for a month, we are back and have a chat.
Music:
https://soundcloud.com/dyallas/still-there
https://soundcloud.com/dubdogzdownloads/heathens
YOU ARE ALL AWESOME! THANKS FOR LISTENING :)
Trav chats with guest host John Eze about ways that we can use our creativity to give more of ourselves.
About Jeremy's work > jeremycowart.com
How to meet someone new (and make them like you) * Smile * Be inquisitive, ask thoughtful questions * body language, mirroring * Be open to peoples POV * What are your Goals when meeting someone new?
If you want to be seen as relevant, you have to start now to collect the evidence that tells the story of the things you do, the value that you bring.
You need Objective Evidence
- Track Impact
- Track metrics that will allow you to show the impact you bring. (The changes you made increased click-through by X%, increasing revenue by Y.)
-
Cross team impact. /you built a tool or library that streamlined others work, increasing their efficiencies./
-
Document difficulty
- Before starting a long-term task, write a design doc or project plan discussing different possible approaches, and get feedback on it. Docs written after the fact are obvious to spot, rather than real evidence of difficulty. Capture the inherent difficulties in diagrams and tables for quick review. Make sure the docs have your name on them!
-
Ensure your bugs and changelists clearly show the difficulties and design trade-offs.
-
Exhibit leadership
- Interact with and help guide other teams.
- Give internal or external talks.
- Meet with outside vendors.
- Write “getting started” guides.
- Find ways to share your expertise.
- Propose new ideas or build a proof-of-concept system, and get buy-in from stakeholders.
- Evangelize best practices.
- Mentor junior team members.
- Host interns.
- Volunteer for work that benefits everyone
In episode 100, Los is your host and talks about staying relevant as a designer. Also, he makes it a little special too :)
Music by Polo & Pan : https://soundcloud.com/polo-pan
Los is back as the host for the episode and he recounts a recent experience with professional complacency.
We are back with Shea. We talk about how his associates are helping him to grow into his new position. We talk about the journey of self discovery; what and how someone should go about improving themselves.
Entrepreneur, designer, young gun – Shea Lewis joins us at the table to talk about growing up, finding yourself and learning from others.
In our second episode with Helen Tran, we discover and expand on her journey to becoming a professional creative.
Some links:
- www.helentran.com
- https://twitter.com/tranhelen
- intro music: https://soundcloud.com/dyallas/shes-right-here
- outro music: https://soundcloud.com/autografmusic/team
- design conference: www.epicurrence.com
- epicurrence video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNHzaOzDrHs&feature=youtu.be
In this episode, Trav and Los venture to Moab, UT for a design conference called Epicurrence. We meet the wonderful Helen Tran and instantly knew we had to invite her onto the podcast.
Some links:
- www.helentran.com
- https://twitter.com/tranhelen
- episode music: https://soundcloud.com/fresh_edm/wild-wild-west-by-filibusta
- design conference: www.epicurrence.com
We had an awesome opportunity to share the recording of this episode with a live audience along with a guest, the talented designer Jamie Leach. AIGA hosted a meet up and we had a great time, met some fantastic people.
This is the second of a two part recording.
The title of this 2 part series is “Designing your authentic self” this second episode focuses on finding your unique voice in your craft.
We had an awesome opportunity to share the recording of this episode with a live audience along with a guest, the talented designer Jamie Leach. AIGA hosted a meet up and we had a great time, met some fantastic people.
This is a two part recording, next week we’ll hear the second part.
The title of this 2 part series is “Designing your authentic self” this first episode is covers the idea of self-awareness, what it is, why we need it, and how to discover an appreciation for everyones little brand of crazy.
It’s a good conversation, hope you like it. Next week we talk about using that awareness to find an authentic voice in your craft.
Daniel Young talks with us about the meditation class he teaches, and the benefits of mindfulness.
Daniel Young stops by the show and tells his story. We learn about constantly reinventing yourself, being brave, and avoiding that feeling of getting stuck in life.
Join us for the live show next week:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/aiga-meetup-live-podcast-designing-your-authentic-self-tickets-28347372755
Episode Music:
https://soundcloud.com/yourrapbeatstv/kaveli-beats-my-name-is-epic-eminem-type-choir-rap-beat-hip-hop-instrumental-2016
https://soundcloud.com/nick-panlook/nickelodeon-till-the-end-sample
How to become a better Visual Designer.
First, what is a Visual Designer? A designer, who understands design principles and critically applies them to solve complex problems visually: balancing craft and execution.
So, how do you become a better Visual Designer, if you have a grasp of the basics.
You must design, with intentionality. That means that when you are designing, your designs are based on solid design principles, research, and attention to detail. How does one do that?
You get good at asking yourself a set of questions while you design.
- What is my type hierarchy?
- What patterns am I using?
- How do these patterns compare to existing or established patterns?
- What are the margins and padding rules?
- Are my icons clear?
- How consistent are my design choices?
- Does everything on the design need to be there?
- How would I define my color palette?
- Is spelling, grammar, and punctuation correct?
- What’s the content strategy?
- How does the flow of the page read?
- How would this design translate to another platform?
Practice, practice, practice. Show your work, get feedback. Observe design in the world and form opinions. Look at established design systems like material design and Human Interface Guidelines. Look at websites, apps, and excellent work on Dribbble and ask yourself: Why is this working?
Episode Music: https://soundcloud.com/dyallas/inquisition
Episode 88: Becoming a designer without design school How do we do that?
-
Learn the tools
-
Sketch and photoshop
-
Origami and Framer JS for prototyping
-
Take online courses
-
Envato
-
Coursera
-
Lynda
-
CreativeLive
-
Skillshare
-
Get feedback
-
From a mentor or a peer
-
Online feedback communities
-
HH Design
-
HH Illustrate
-
Designer’s Guild
-
The Designers League
-
IxDA
-
Build fundamentals
-
The design of Everyday Things (Donald Norman): A well known primer on the rules of usable design, with good and bad examples.
-
Universal Principles of Design (William Lidwell, Kritina Holden, Jill Butler): An encyclopedia of key design concepts and examples
-
Don’t Make Me Think! (Steven Krug): Web usability and user testing
-
Thinking with Type (Ellen Lupton): A guide to typography for print and on screens
-
Graphic Design: The new Basics (Ellen Lupton and Jennifer Cole Phillips): An introduction to graphic design and how to use visual language in design
-
Stay up to date with the field
-
Sidebar
-
It’s Nice That
-
InVision Digest
-
Product Design Weekly
-
Go to IRL design meetups
-
CreativeMornings
-
Dribbble Meetups
-
Designers + Geeks Meetups
-
Gain experience
-
Find an internship
-
Start and Finish a side project
We sit at the table of Jon Lax and he shares his reaction to the backlash on the internet when they closed TeeHan and Lax. Jon also gives us insight into how he sees the future of design playing out.
We sit at the table with Jon Lax and talk about his childhood and how that informed his design philosophy. This is part 1 of 2.
Jon's Eulogy for his mother – https://medium.com/@jlax/madam-justice-joan-lax-9f9782004359#.mdvskbjqy
In this episode, Los had planned to talk about one thing and we end up talking about how does one find importance?
Episode music:
https://soundcloud.com/dyallas/with-me
https://soundcloud.com/andrewapplepie/little-brother
Music
Dj Quad Mix - https://soundcloud.com/aka-dj-quads/back-in-time-vlog-music
Dyalla Remix - https://soundcloud.com/dyallas/lets-go-out
Stranger Things Remix - https://theartistunion.com/tracks/26ccfb
Kimbra Remix - https://soundcloud.com/search?q=kimbra%20remix
Storytelling for designers
Today’s episode is about storytelling.
This is a conversation around what the role of storytelling looks like for a modern designer in this creative economy.
Because, the most successful, companies/designers, who are able to convert known and unknown customer needs, into a story the customer can get behind, end up becoming the best in the industry.
I tweeted this yesterday “The emotions evoked by the stories you tell is what sells a product. It’s no longer about the features.”
So, the conversation prompts are these:
- What are some of the companies that are great storytellers?Why?
- What role does story telling play in what you do?
- What are some things we can do as designers to help evoke the emotions that make it easier for customers to get behind your brand?
- How does it work when you are working at a company and storytelling is not part of the culture. What are some things you can do, to help create a culture that understands the importance of great storytelling?
- If you are in high school, first year in college, or fresh out of college, and you are listening to this, why is this important to you?
Podcast review:
Thanks!
In this episode Guy Kawasaki talks to us about the state of live-streaming, gives us some advice, and cracks a few jokes :)
Check out Canva here : https://www.canva.com/
Episode music: https://soundcloud.com/aka-dj-quads/go-with-me-vlog-music
Los's Minute Vlogger series: https://instagram.com/losmontoya
DevTips: https://youtube.com/devtipsfordesigners
Follow Los's #minutevlogger Vlog on Instagram https://instagram.com/losmontoya
Music by Aspire : https://soundcloud.com/pryced/aspire
Episode 81 - What’s my Vlogging workflow like Intro Welcome to another Late Nights!
Topic Today, I’m going to talk to you all about how I go about thinking through how I am going to produce daily content on the vlog.
Step 1 Understand what your day will look like tomorrow.
It all starts with planning, if you listen back to “Maximise your productivity with these 14 daily habits” you will hear me talk about planning.
I have a Trello board that is broken up into my weekly and daily tasks. By doing, this I can start to get an idea for what my day is going to be like tomorrow.
Step 2 Once you understand what your day will look like, think about what is going to be the most interesting part of the day that I can share.
Step 3 I create and write a mini outline that helps me think through what
- my hook is
- the music i’ll be using
- what my transition will be like
- the main part of the story
- and my outro
Step 4 Once I understand this, I’ll fill the different pieces out throughout the day. I’ll fill them out as they appear in my day. Because I planned, I know what to look for.
Step 5 Put it all together, this is the part I have the most fun with. Re-arrange, cut, etc. It’s where my artistic style meets what I captured. It’s really fun to see what you’ve had in your mind all day, put together in a neat little bow.
Some thoughts I want to keep it all mobile, so everything I capture is on mobile, and all my editing is on my phone. I can then quickly post it up on Instagram, litter it with some hashtags, and post it up.
Thus far, I’m liking it. There is only one thing I don’t like. That is the compression Instagram does on my video. It looks great in iMovie and then Instagram does it’s thing. I’m sure as mobile video picks up, that Instagram will get better at it.
Los's Vlog on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/losmontoya/
Music by Jeff Kaale: https://soundcloud.com/jeff-kaale/secret-sauce-ft-cookin-soul
Episode 80 - Vlogging Intro Welcome to another late nights!
Hook Today’s episode is pretty much solely going to be about what we’ve done the last couple of weeks and my newest creative endeavour I am embarking on.
What have we done? * Adobe * InVision * Some new guests * Brainstormed some new ideas * Some negotiations
My newest creative endeavour * I’ll be vlogging daily on instagram under my account @losmontoya * So when we started this podcast, one of the things I wanted to get better at, was taking an idea, forming an opinion around it, and then regurgitating back in a way that was understood by anyone listening. * I want to do something similar with vlogging. + I want to be able to create, for myself, on-demand, daily stories. + My hope is that I’ll learn how to capture story in one minute, and I hope I get better as time goes on. + Also, instagram’s minute platform is a tight constraint for a daily vlog. Did you know that I’ve coined the hashtag #MinuteVlogger? A Los original
Conclusion Don’t wait for things to be perfect, jump into the pool, start splashing around and see what happens. If you have an idea, own it, and go after it.
Trav and Los chat about how to maximize the influence they have on the organization and the product by getting as far as possible up the stream.
Song :https://soundcloud.com/djkidkobra/antonio-banderas-el-mariachi
Red carpet live-stream: https://www.facebook.com/invisionapp/
Intro
I want to read a definition for you completely out of context.
%% “A discussion between two or more people where (1) stakes are high, (2) opinions vary, and (3) emotions run strong” and the outcome greatly impacts their lives.
The reason I read that to you is because that is the definition of a Crucial Conversation, which ends up being the topic for tonights podcast.
You and I have both been in discussions where the following is present:
- Stakes are high
- Opinions vary, and
- Emotions run strong
I know I have been in these discussions where they didn’t end well, someone leaves with feelings hurt and has an adverse impact on their lives.
To prepare for this episode I found a lot of notes online that all stem from this one book called, Crucial Conversations, Tools for talking when stakes are high. I bought the book today and prepped this episode from the notes I found online.
I wanted to share this episode with you because recently the occurrence of Crucial Conversations have been increasing at work, and I am not as prepared for them as I need to be, so I’ve been meditating on the topic for a few days now and it’s time to share what I’ve come to learn.
My hope for this episode is to introduce you with the tools to prepare for high-stakes conversations, transform intense emotions and hurt feelings into powerful dialogue, and make it safe to talk about almost anything.
How the book came to be
The authors of Crucial Conversations didn’t set out to write a book on communication; rather, they began by researching the behaviours of top performers. They found that most of the time, top influencers were indistinguishable from their peers. But as soon as the stakes grew high, emotions ran strong, and opinions differed, top performers were significantly more effective. What the authors observed during this study and captured is a distinct and learnable set of skills that produce immediate results.
Breakdown
The book focuses on three main ideas, and four very useful models:
Main ideas
- Start with heart
- Master your stories
- Step out, make it safe, step in
Mental models
- STATE (Share facts, Tell a story, Ask for others paths, Talk tentatively, Encourage testing)
- CRIB (Commit to seek mutual purpose, recognise the purpose behind the strategy, invent a mutual purpose, brainstorm new strategies)
- AMPP (ask to get things rolling, mirror to confirm feelings, paraphrase to acknowledge the story, prime when you’re getting nowhere)
- ABC (agree, build, compare)
START WITH HEART
The big thing here is to pause before you even utter a word and get clear on what you want out of the interaction.
The goal here is to move blood flow from the fight or flight areas of your brain to your cognitive ones. Asking questions refocuses the brain and works as a pattern interrupt for what would otherwise be a downward spiral of results you don’t want.
Start by asking these four questions:
- What do I want for myself?
- What do I want for others?
- What do I want for the relationship?
- How would I behave if I really wanted those results?
The last question specifically checks for congruence. By asking these questions you can easily identify a behaviour you can change.
Granted, doing this in the middle of a conversation takes skill and practice, so a tip is to prepare these questions before a crucial conversation.
An interesting metaphor I came across for these conversations is the idea of seeing the space between you and the other person as a “pool of shared meaning”, a pool you both should work to feed with information.
This focuses the conversation back on sharing and transparency as opposed to secrecy and more aggressive debate and negotiation techniques.
MASTER MY STORIES
Others don’t make you mad, you make you mad. In particular, the stories we tell ourselves is what make us mad. Between stimulus and response there’s a space, and in that space you’re allowed to retrace your path, tell yourself a different story and derive different actions from the same stimulus. Others don’t push your buttons, only you do.
The flow isn’t see->feel->act, but see->tell a story->feel->act.
Telling yourself bad stories will lead to feeling bad feelings and acting in a way that’s unproductive.
There’s three ways to break this cycle:
- Retrace your path, get back to facts. What really happened in terms of things you can see, hear? Replace “you looked at me angry” by “your face frowned and you started using your phone”
- Spot the 3 clever stories. Learn how to spot a Victim story (it always happens to me), a Villain story (i know he’s out to get me) or a Helpless story (there’s nothing i can do to change this)
- Tell the rest of the story. Turn victims into actors (change your strategies), villains into humans (what’s the positive intention) and the helpless into the able (what is the best next thing to do)
A good way to share your own story with others is to use the STATE model (Share your facts, Tell your story, Ask for others paths, Talk tentatively, Encourage testing of the findings).
But what about when other people are using a Silence strategy and are unwilling to share their stories (the “ask for other’s paths” part of the STATE model)?
In this case use the AMPP model to help feed the pool of knowledge with details of the interaction (ask to get things rolling, mirror to confirm feelings, paraphrase to acknowledge the story, prime when you’re getting nowhere).
STEP OUT, MAKE IT SAFE, STEP IN
Dialogue is only available when both parties have a sense of security. There is a case for engaging a conversation in dual-watch mode: watching the conversation for content while also watching it for conditions.
Engaging the conversation in both content and form is important because it allows you to spot early signs that create a lack of safety.
When either party feels like safety is lacking, they usually result into one of two opposite strategies:
- Silence [masking, avoiding, withdrawing] or
- Violence [controlling, labelling, attacking].
Once safety is broken, it’s usually due to one of two things:
- Lack of mutual purpose. When one or both parties are not working towards the same goal, the same purpose.
- Lack of mutual respect. When one or both parties feel like the other one doesn’t respect the interests being presented (or worse, the people presenting them!). Respect is like air, if it’s not there, that’s all people think about — yet if it’s there, the purpose of living is not to keep breathing.
There is also a case for “stepping out of the conversation”, “making it safe” and then “stepping back in”. This is a tool that could produce great results.
There are four things that are helpful to do this:
-
Apologise. Just genuinely say you’re sorry — you don’t have to win always, pick your battles. Marshall Goldsmith has gold in his hands when he says: “When it’s sports you want to… win! — when it’s important you want to… win! — when it’s not important you want to … win?”
-
Contrast. This technique is a golden-nugget! The concept is very simple: start with a [don’t] followed by a [do] statement, followed by the [gap]. This is best used when you spot an early sign of lack of safety and want to course correct before the other person jumps to the wrong conclusions. Example: [don’t] I don’t mean to imply you’re not a trust-worthy developer, [do] just last week we worked together on the X feature and you proven to be autonomous and dependable. [gap] What I am saying is that you need to communicate more often on your progress.
-
The CRIB model. (Commit to seek mutual purpose, recognise the purpose behind the strategy, invent a mutual purpose, brainstorm new strategies). This is a similar model to what you find in books like “Getting to Yes”. Again, super useful!
There is this idea of a pattern interrupt and it’s a tool you use early in a conversation when you start to see any sings of lack of safety beginning to emerge.
It looks like this:
%% “it looks like we don’t share the same goals on this one. I’m sure there’s space for us to work together in a way that looks good for both of us. So before we move any further, help me understand what would you like to get out of this?”.
This interrupts the pattern that the conversation may have continued on.
WHAT IF YOU DISAGREE?
So what do you do if you disagree? Well, you remember your ABC’s.
Agree, Build, Compare.
First, make sure you’re not in violent agreement. How many times have you found yourself in the middle of a discussion in where emotions run strong, but you’re all agreeing to the same thing?
In this instance you could use a pattern interrupt, it looks like this:
%%“Well, it looks like we all violently agree on this one [chuckles] — Here’s what I heard: we’re moving on by doing [X] followed by [Y] and that [Z] is the person responsible — does that sound fair to everyone — great let’s tackle the next one“.
The essence here is to agree when you’re agreeing, don’t turn an argument into an agreement.
Second, it’s acknowledging that we are wired to look for points of disagreement.
Instead, setup an attitude of curiosity (like if you’re a scientist observing something that’s happening, or a police officer trying to find out what’s going on). Look for points of agreement and build-on instead of pointing-out the gaps that you see.
Say “in addition to what you said […]” instead of “you forgot […]“.
Third, compare how the situation was presented to how you see it by using tentatively language such as “I see things slightly differently“.
Doing it in this order, these disagreements turn into relationship and idea enhancers.
Conclusion
Well, there it is. I hope that I was successful in introducing you to tools that will help you prepare for high-stakes conversations and help you transform those moments into additive experiences.
Episode 75 Music used in the episode: https://soundcloud.com/beat-fatigue/1-beat-fatigue-optimus-jive Pomodoro technique: http://pomodorotechnique.com/ 14 daily habits for maximising your productivity
What to do when you are overwhelmed
Intro
In our lives we have moments where we are busy, moments when we are busier, and moments when we are the busiest. For the foreseeable future I will be in one of my most busiest seasons.
My wife and I have a third child joining the family, I’m tripling my efforts at work to make a positive impact on what I have influence over, and at the same time I am also doubling down on my maker efforts outside of work. Now, Maker, is a choice word here, because:
- It encompasses anything I make; the podcast, art, making a better self, making a safe home, making lasting relationships, making better choices, etc.
- A Maker is first and foremost, a maker, and then a sharer. We live in a society that is great at sharing and re-posting. I guess we can call ourselves the re-post society?! I simply want to make, more than I share.
So, in summation, I am busy person. and recently I have become a busier person, only this time I wasn’t prepared, and it was scary. I wasn’t prepared because, although you can foresee an arbitrary amount of it, the other, is unplanned, unexpected, and overwhelming.
This episode, is dedicated to all of you who are overwhelmingly experiencing a deficit in attention; whose root cause, is, being busy.
Some thoughts on busy-ness.
Being busy is ok. In fact, I don’t think I will ever “not” be busy. So how do we best manage busy-ness, such that, we are successful with our endeavours and focus? That’s what I want to talk about today.
Overwhelmed
Let me first tell you that, for the last couple of weeks, I feel like I’ve been walking in circles, not knowing what to focus on, or what to do next. I’ve had my moments of success, focus, and productivity, yet those moments were mostly fleeting.
Here is a small list of the feelings that have been overwhelmingly present:
- discouragement
- disappointment
- confusion
- frustration
- lack of control
- lack of focus
- feeling like a waste of time
- etc.
So, What did I do?
I took some time to ponder the following question:
%%What are the moments in my life when I feel in control, productive, successful, focused, happy, eager, and motivated?
and
%%What is the common denominator for those moments?
Here is the answer: I was set up for success in all of those moments. The interesting thing to note here, is that, I took the time to set myself up for success. So how do you set yourself up for success?
I compiled a list of my greatest hits. This is a list of the moments in my life where I was successful in maximising productivity. This is a list of habits to protect as I take another stab at developing and nourishing them. I want to share this list with you.
Want to know something they all have in common? They are all habits that you can and should exercise daily.
14 daily tips to follow
-
Doing it now
- Do it now, decide it now, delegate it now, enjoy it now, finish it now, start it now. Whatever it is, get it done now. Getting it done now, rather than, later, has brought me the most success.
-
Monthly, weekly, and daily planning
-
I have a Trello Board that I call the productivity planner in which I have monthly, weekly, and daily planning.
-
Relentless focus on one task at a time
-
Multitasking is a lie, it is not possible. Sure, one needs to be flexible and able to shift one’s own attention from one thing to another, but the moments where I have been most successful, are the moments when I am able to block out distractions and temptations and focus on one thing at at time, and follow this most importing thing until it is done, handed off, socialised, published, shared, hung on a wall, etc.
- I use a technique called Pomodoro. I’ll link the technique in the show notes. In a nutshell, the idea is simple. You focus for 25-35 minutes on a task, take a 5 minute break, and then re-focus on the same task until it is done.
-
Starting with a task that will free up the most energy
-
You have to start your day off with something. What is the task that will free up the most mental energy. That might be the scariest thing, the hardest thing, the easiest thing, etc. For me, this is how I measure what I work on first. “If this was the only thing you did today you’d be satisfied.”
- Doing this will free up the most mental energy to move onto your next task
-
Manage distractions and delay them
-
When I am on my game, I have a running list of distractions on a piece of paper on my desk. At any point, when I am distracted, tempted towards distraction, or feeling a lack of energy, I jot them down.
- I let the list get to the point, where I think it’ll take about 25 minutes to manage the distractions. I’ll then focus on the distractions for 25 minutes and clear my list :)
-
Say no to the things that create little value and do not get you closer to your goals
-
When things are going well, I am focused on the things that bring me the most value.
- When things are not going well, I am focused on the things that bring me the least amount of value.
- The goal is to create more value, you do this by growing your ability to say no to everything in your life that doesn’t move you towards your goals.
- Don’t say yes to low-value people and activities.
- Fanatically guard your time so you can exponentially advance towards your goals
-
Do one extra
-
Make one extra call, send out one more email, design one more component, write one more line of code, one more sentence, etc. When you add up all these one-extras, they just might make the difference. It usually does for me.
-
Learn when to cut your losses
-
If you are not getting what you need from a person, a strategy, a partnership, or a hobby, make the hard decision early so you free up your time to find something that will give you what you need.
-
A relentless dedication to your goals
-
When things get tough, work through it, have grit, and persevere. The end result is always worth it.
-
Double down on what is working
-
I have heard this before, if it aint broke, then why fix it?
- I’m telling you to do this, if it’s working, then double down your efforts on what is working. The outcome is better than if you let it alone.
-
Have integrity
-
This one is simple, say what you say you are going to do. Be on time, finish what you said you would do. Do it all without excuses and even when you don’t feel like it because the more you practice it the better you get at it.
- Integrity attracts the best people.
-
Maximise your learning from your own life
-
After a project, event, meeting, thought, interaction, ask yourself the following questions:
- What went well?
- What would I do different next time?
- What are the most important lessons for me to take from this experience?
- Doing this will help you get better each day.
-
End your day by identifying the MIT for tomorrow
-
At the end of the day, make notes for how the day went, measure your productivity, and note what happened that caused your level of productivity for the day.
- Plan your day for tomorrow and set yourself up for success.
-
Wherever you are, be there
-
Lastly, when I am maximising my productivity I am feeling successful. What usually accompanies this feeling is joy, growth, and peace of mind. As such, this is an outcome of intensely being present on your goals.
- So to follow that thought, I try to be 100% present wherever I am
- a meeting
- a project
- family
- spouse
- children
- This last habit gets harder every day, attention seekers are everywhere, so when you are distracted, or your mind wanders and you are feeling a deficit, notice it, and bring your attention back to where you are and what matters most in the moment.
How to sell Nicholas Boothman author of “Convince Them in 90 Seconds or Less”
- 90sec?
- tv commercials do it in 30 seconds, magazine ads in 3.
- If you go over 5 minutes trying to convince someone, you’ve lost.
- Confirmation bias: tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions, leading to statistical errors.
- trust, clarity and emotional impact, and they have to happen at the same time.
trust Trust comes from the first impression and comes from lots of body language. We don’t always have the luxury of time to build that trust when we need to quickly sell.
Clarity Your message has to make sense … and it usually it has to be in the positive.
If you say to someone, 'Don't hesitate to contact me,' they don't know what you mean. What you really mean is, 'Phone me Friday,' or, 'Call me if you need some help.’
Speak clearly, don’t qualify what you want. Instead of saying “my services are available” – say “When I make a website for you, it will directly impact your business, drive more leads, and give your company the presence on the internet that it needs.”
Emotional Impact The emotional impact is the big one. Eighty percent of the time, people make decisions based on their emotions, even though they think they're being rational.
Think of the emotional triggers that led to you making a recent purchase. Did you picture how that purchase would impact your life? Did you envision yourself driving that car, placing that furniture in your living room, or taking photos with that new camera before you bought it?
That story came from somewhere. If we can attach our ideas to our prospects desires, they themselves will work to make it a reality.
This is catching the vision.
Use what means you have, in person talks, email, video, social influence (show them other people using your service or product). To implant in their mind the image of them benefitting from whatever you have.
The lost art of the follow up People are quick to make emotional decisions and quick to loose that emotion. That is why you should follow up with them. Early and often.
A quick email, a phone call, whatever. Remind them that you exist and that your idea can still change their lives.
Follow up. You will have a much higher success rate if you just follow up with the people that you have already pitched.
A better elevator pitch. I was reading a post on imgr today where the person gave the advice that people should develop an elevator pitch when looking for a job.
A few comments made me laugh
So, Go to random companies and ride the elevator all day in hopes you catch a ride with a big-wig and strike up a conversation? - clutchthepearls
Of the 6 companies I have worked for, only 1 had an elevator. - jackofshadows51
Sounds like your career has had some ups and downs. - BrecaAndTheSeaBeasts
While it has, the elevator wasn't the cause. Mostly not being valuable enough to the company to survive some of the downturns :-) - jackofshadows51
I don't think that's what elevator pitch means? Granted, I've not actually looked it up - justhereforvoting
View the post: http://imgur.com/gallery/xlXDc
Los, what is an Elevator pitch? Definition * An Elevator pitch is a short and persuasive sales pitch. + Why not just an explanation of what you do? SELL! + Its called an elevator pitch because it has to be so succinct and clear that you can deliver it in the time it takes to have an elevator ride.
Imagine * Imagine you are walking through the airport, or office, or restaurant. It’s not a perfect place for a long personal conversation. Maybe its a bit noisy, maybe you are in a rush. + You run into an old client, or friend, or professional contact of some sort. He asks you what you are doing now or what your company does. You open your mouth, and then pause. Where on earth do you start?
Anatomy of an elevator pitch * There are a lot of ways to construct a compelling story, Keep in mind that this is what we are doing. All selling is story telling. * The model I’ll present tonight is one used by Simon Sinek. Speaker, author. “Power of why.” + 1.What, 2.How, 3.Why. + I’ll add a last one: “And so”, or “Therefore” - this is a call to action, this is the “Pitch” of the message. This is the sell.
What Let’s build your perfect elevator pitch Los. What are you doing?
“I’m working on a podcast for creatives. It’s called Late Night’s with Trav and Los.”
How How are you doing this? Is there anything unique or special about how you do your thing?
“My cohost and I switch weeks hosting the show and have complete autonomy over the content and edit. We record outdoors and at night. Our podcast has a very familiar vibe, in that people often comment saying it feels like just hanging out with old friends, we talk about being healthy and productive professionals in todays creative economy.
Why Why do you do what you do? What is the emotional connection that you can convey that the audience can relate too?
“We have so much fun, it’s not often you get to have purposeful, in-depth, conversations with someone you respect. And maybe even more than that, a lot of people write to us and share how these conversations are helping them. It’s a pretty great feeling.”
Therefore, or the “Goal Statement” * Your pitch must have a goal statement at the end. This is the “Pitch” of the message. e.g. “At the moment I’m hoping to transition into (blank), ideally in the (blank) industry.”
“For the past 60 episodes we have been mostly presenting topics on our own, just the two of us, and growing nicely. But recently we decided to start developing richer stories, and also inviting more influencers and gatekeepers on the show, to hopefully reach a bit of a wider audience.”
Trav and Los host an entire episode dedicated to answering listener questions.
Music: https://soundcloud.com/syntheticepiphany/bob-marley-no-woman-no-cry
Referenced article around Job Fulfillment: https://medium.com/@mags/the-four-dimensions-of-job-fulfillment-and-a-map-to-find-them-81198b50cd79#.9gnl4j6pu
Every day we use physical and digital products. I mean, every day we hire physical and digital products. Today we talk about the "job to be done" of the products you hire everyday and how you can start thinking about the "job to be done" of the things you make.
Article: https://medium.com/@eportelance/the-iceberg-of-jobs-to-be-done-5ad423fa84ff#.mhhzu7lc8
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGuSM3yUxik
Intro Music: https://soundcloud.com/lordrecollectif/daft-punk-random-access
Outro Music: https://soundcloud.com/hbrtmusic/odesza-say-my-name-hbrt-random-access-memories-edit
Lean heavily on building tools and opportunities for yourself and others, rather than trying to follow a prescription or bounding yourself and others with new rules Each episode is a test. We learn from each episode and apply the lessons to new episodes. Maybe not in ways that you think, or that you see right away. The last narrated episode was 7 months ago. But that definitely planted the seeds for what I did this last week.
- Trav thinks it might be about placing tools in the bag to use later on.
- Sometimes Trav is really interested in a tool, or process and itches to use it. He's been wanting to narrate and episode for a while, so when he had an opportunity, he took it. It was a risk, but we embrace trust and improvisation here.
- We have built a flexible structure for the show, over time we add tools, not rules
-
Being a good creator is all about sampling from a wide variety of influences and using and mixing those tools.
- Copy, Combine, Transform.
- people have said that this last episode was reminiscent of serial, radio lab and a few other podcasts, but no-one mentioned this american life, which i will admit was my biggest influence in structuring the episode.
- Ira Glass impersonation
- Copy, Combine, Transform.
Trav travels across the United States and speaks to people all over about their experience with Imposter Syndrome.
Special Guests:
- Ross Popoff-Walker – http://rosspw.com/
- Nick Zakrasek – https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickzakrasek
- Pauline Rose Clance – http://paulineroseclance.com/
- Marty Nemko – http://www.martynemko.com/
- Denise Cummins – http://www.denisecummins.com/
Take Dr. Clance's Imposter Phenomenon test... http://paulineroseclance.com/pdf/IPscoringtest.pdf
All Music from http://epidemicsound.com
Special thanks to Los, who never gave me his permission to record him. Sucker.
– Travis
Los walks us through The Experience Canvas: a framework for project teams of any size to ensure that the end result – whether it’s a minimum viable product (MVP), a new feature roll-out, even a process or other business initiative – is thorough, considered, user-centred and lean, without compromising on flexibility. The emphasis is on the experience to be achieved by that result; a minimum viable experience (MVE), if you will.
Blog: http://blogs.atlassian.com/2013/10/fight-the-dark-side-of-lean-ux-with-the-experience-canvas/
Song: https://soundcloud.com/skeewiff/sesame-street-twelve-skeewiffs
Ep. 67 Song - [https://soundcloud.com/steezmonks/louis-armstrong-aint-got-that-swing-steezmonks-remix-3] Intro Welcome to another episode of Late Nights with Trav and Los, I am hosting tonight and to my left is the ever wonderful, ever bearded, bestie co-host, Traaaaaav.
It feels good to host again. I wanted to talk about last weeks episode for a few minutes before we get going with the podcast.
I found it incredibly insightful. That being good, isn’t enough if you want to make a name for yourself. That really resonated with me. I also, loved that it was an answer to a listener question.
So for today’s episode, we will be answering another listener question. This one is interesting because it’s about publishing.
You ready? Ok, here it is:
Play listener question OK, so Anton posed two questions here. The first question asks this:
As publishers, how do we get to the point where we feel that the content we create is ready to be published?
The second question asks:
How do we get past the point of doubt. How do we get past the thought that the content we created isn’t even worth publishing?
Before we take a stab at answering these questions, I want to give a call out to some early podcast episodes we published around publishing:
- The first one was called why you should be a publisher episode 18 and was framed around the benefits of publishing.
- The second was was called Share To Win! episode 30 and was framed around the idea that by publishing, you create more opportunities to get discovered
If you notice, both of these talk about the benefits of publishing.
So, back to Anton’s first question: How do we get to the point where we feel that the content we create is ready to be published? In other words, when do we think we are “good enough”?
I want to read you 2 quotes:
- The first one is this “If you make things and share them, your heart will at some point be broken. If you never share, it will harden. Your choice.” — Todd Henry
- and the second one is this “You have to be brave, before you can be good.” — a supporting character to a comic book Travis read back in May of 2015.
Both of these quotes where from a podcast episode called, A case for bravery this was episode 19. The point I am trying to make here is that what we share at times will be good enough and other times it won’t. The main take-away from this is to be Brave. You have to get comfortable failing, and failing in public.
The second thing I’d like to mention is something Sean McCabe said in one of his podcasts. The question posed to him was this, why should I even talk about something that has been taught, created, shared hundreds of times already. His answer, was simple. Your unique point of view has not been shared yet. I find solace in that advice, that what I have to say, even if I believe I am duplicating someone else’s work, will still be beneficial to some people. My uniqueness, my take on a problem, my life experiences and how I choose to deliver a message will have a lasting impact on people. That’s how I know that whatever I create is good enough, because it is unique to me.
The second question asked by Anton was this:
How do we get past the point of doubt. How do we get past the thought that the content we created isn’t even worth publishing?
I think our answer to the first question can be summed up to answer this one too:
- Be brave to overcome doubt and know
- that what you have created is worth publishing because you have unique experiences and your content will resonate with a completely different set of people and have a lasting impact on their lives.
How to make a name for yourself Being good isn’t enough, you need a network In his decades-long study of creativity, management psychology expert Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi described what he called a “systems approach.” Since "creative" work tends to be subjective, he posited a model that included three systems:
- The Domain
- The Field
- The Individual
Domain: Master your craft
Field: Get your work in front of people who are seen as authorities in the field.
Individual You and your work must be deemed of value by the gatekeepers.
Communities create opportunities for creative work to succeed.
Don’t be lucky, be connected. Start today.
- Identify the gatekeepers
- demonstrate value, make them want to invest in you
- Help and serve others
In doing so, you will find access, and connection, and friendship that will be a strength to you for your entire career and entire life.
Referenced article –Entrepreneur.com
Keep good mental health by: 1. Learning about your flow state. 2. Getting a support system 3. Taking care of your health 4. Not avoiding the work
Los writes one sentence down and then we podcast about it. We talk about the gap between taste and skill as a response to one of our Twitter followers. Always a great reminder :)
Travis makes a reference to a quote and it's by the great Ira Glass. The quote is below for your reading pleasure!
“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
Today I want to talk about trust. Trust is a super broad topic, so the focus for this episode, is about trust in the workplace.
And to be even more specific. I want to talk about trust as it pertains to it being a soft-skill you must have and subsequently develop as a designer. This is something you can focus on building anywhere. You can build this skill at an in-house design team, a design agency, or as a freelance designer.
I will talk you through how to develop and focus on this soft-skill. The key take-aways that will be synthesised for you will come from my own experiences, Travis’s insights, and some research I have done for you on the glorious internet.
So Travis, what does trust look like when it’s done right?
What does trust look like when it’s done wrong?
What do you do to build trust in the workplace? or better yet, what have you done in the past and what are you actively doing now? The key-word here, is that building trust, is an active experience.
Ok, awesome answers. If I can give you only one take-away, it is that I want you all to positively influence trust in your teams.
And since I mentioned previously that trust is an active experience, here is how you can actively start a conversation with your team before a project, during a project, or even after a project.
Eight things you can do to be a positive influence for trust in your teams. These eight things can all be a conversation starter with your team, however, before you use each one of these topics as a conversation piece with your team, you must first lead by example. So here they are.
- Clarity - Your goal is to be as transparent and open as possible with your team. You want to avoid uncertainty or vagueness as it pertains to you. Remember, as I have said before, every interaction is a brand-interaction. So what does this look like? In a simple example I have experienced myself, if I am about to miss a deadline, I’ll make sure my team knows that as soon as I know it. I’ll let them know that I need help. I have also had times when a project has been assigned to me and it’s the first time I am doing a task, this for example can be, managing an outside agency to help design something. I’ll let the team know that I haven’t done this before and I’m excited to learn and that I will lean on those that know what they are doing if I run into any problems.
- Connection - It is natural for people to follow others and build relationships. What can you do to connect and engage with your team? What can you do to improve relationships and reduce conflicts? For example, you can set up a team outing and get to know the people you are working with outside work, or set up a time to play a board game, or set up what I have taken for myself, a “cuddle session” where you meet for 30 minutes and talk about each others weekends.
- Compassion - We need to care about each other. How are you showing concern for your team? What are you doing to be compassionate and empathetic to your team? For example, when you can tell someone is frustrated with something, don’t wait for them to ask for help. Walk over, look over their shoulder and see if you can help. Even if you can’t the mere fact of you walking over will give them some encouragement and solidarity in the problem or frustration they are experienceing.
- Value - People love to support and be around people that have the same values. What are you doing to help each other align on values. These values don’t need to be moral values, they can be workplace values, or project specific values. So before you start a project, you can create Rules of Engagement. A list of values you all create together. For example, one can be this, if you need help, ask for it!
- Competency - We have confidence in those who stay fresh, innovative and competent. What are you doing to grow your competency? In a previous episode, I spoke about building self-confidence and how it’s a by product of two other skills. The first is, understanding where your strengths and weaknesses are and compare that to what your peers think. The second is focusing, on narrowing the delta between the two. Have you spent time being introspective?
- Integrity - We trust those who demonstrate a commitment to action. How can you take responsibility and fulfil it? When you raise your hand to get something done, are you committed to see it through?
- Contribution - We are all motivated and engaged when we deliver results. People trust results. Are you consistently getting things done?
- Consistency - We love consistency. We are creatures of habit. Are you consistently delivering on what you set out to do? Is your teams trust and confidence rising or falling in your ability to consistently get things done?
- What else is important to you?
Now after you have gone through all of these you will have an accurate picture of where you stand in providing and increasing trust within your team. Once you have an accurate picture you can switch these questions towards your team. For example, you would set up a meeting for an hour with your team before a project or during a project and let everyone know that you are going to run a
Should I generalize or specialize in my career? Reagan Quote
“I believe designers are all designers not just one type. An organization does this (narrow a designers scope) to help better define the individual and role but in reality a designer should understand many roles”
I think it mostly comes down to personality. We have two things here. The first is who you are, as a person. What are your interests and skills. What do you have to offer and what makes you happy.
Then the second thing is what the world needs. Or rather, what do the people that you know what have money need. It’s easier to hire a specialist at a big company. A small company can use a generalist more.
To it really comes down to you, what can you do, and what do you want?
I’ve got some specific talking points here that we can argue over.
-
It’s Easier to Specialize
- Less to learn, remember, and keep up on.
- Doesn’t take as long to be useful in just one thing, generalizing takes time.
-
Income generation
-
Pro specialize
- Competitive field? You might be better off specializing, corner a niche market and only focus on that specific field.
- Specialists can work faster, move on to the next thing and make more money.
-
Higher quality work / charge more per piece. Do you buy a rolex at walmart?
- Pro generalize
-
The more possibilities you have for generating income, which increase as you generalize, the less you will suffer during economic hard times, and the easier it will be to generate income. When the specialist is tapping a dried well.
- Sell add-ons (Design AND Build the website)
- Job Security
-
Pro generalize
- what if your chosen speciality is no longer in demand?
- You are more capable to push the boundaries of a skill, because it can be influenced by the other things you study.
- Harder for others to do exactly what you do, not really a replaceable part.
-
Pro specialize
-
Easier to sell yourself. People put you in boxes.
- Companies often look to fill a role.
- Skill set is clearly defined, not vague like a generalist
-
Personal Satisfaction
-
Pro specialize
- Cal newport says that passion comes from being good at your work, not the other way around.
- Easier to get 10,000 hours if you do the same thing all the time.
- Flow is easier to come by when you are not distracted
-
Pro generalize
-
Don’t get bored a lot, avoid burnout
- more opportunities to find something that really resonates with you
- meet all kinds of different people
_Outtro
- Whichever path you take, push yourself outside your comfort zone on a regular basis. You might end up stagnating if you don’t. Pushing your boundaries helps you grow by necessitating more learning, researching, and studying, and it will keep you motivated and energized in your career.
- Does it have to be one or the other? I’ve noticed that I was more scattered earlier in my career. And over time learned to focus myself. I had very real and specific talks about this topic with friends and colleagues. It ends up, everyone just kinda does what they do.
- There is also the concept of the T-shaped designer. One who has a competency in a vast many topics, but can dive really deep on one or two specialities.
Reagan Kim is a talented and genuine person. Regan was Trav's mentor when he joined Google. He's worked at Fox Entertainment, Netflix, Google, and now Facebook. He walk us through his journey and we pull out the principles of his success.
Feb 24, 2016
Developing Self-Confidence
My wife asked me a couple of weeks ago. How can you be so confident all the time?
You want to know my answer? I told her, I got it from my momma.
For your sake, dear listener,let me expand that answer:
I grew up in a home where my dad usually worked 2 jobs to provide for us, or worked at odd hours of the day where I didn’t see him much. And as such, I was around my mom most of the time, at least in my formative years. I gained a major portion of my confidence from her, she would say things like, I know I’m beautiful and of course people love me, can’t you see how awesome I am.
Now this wasn’t said with a prideful tone. She would always have an underlying joker’s tone to it, always playful.
In today’s episode I want to deliver a message around self-confidence and how true confidence can’t be faked, it is a by-product of two more important skills:
unwavering self-awareness and a continuos fervor for learning
Self-awareness
Q:What is it?
The ability to be assess your own strengths and areas for development.
Q:How do you build self-awareness?
Practice. Create a list of the skills you deem most important for your role, your life, whatever you care about. Then assess yourself on each of those skills. Which are you great at, which are you terrible at, which are you somewhere in the middle?
Q:Then, what do you do?
Get others to assess you. You can’t ask people to go down the list like you did, you have to do it in the moment. Right after you do something that required a skill on your list, ask people how you did.
For example,
- “What was the best/most effective thing I just did there?”
- “What’s one thing I could do better next time?”
What you’ll find is a gap from where your self-perceptions are and where other people’s perceptions of you are like. Your goal is to decrease that gap over time.
Q:What’s next?
You’ll have a sense of what you are good at and what you are bad at. Now your role is to be ok with it and grow by-way of learning.
Coninuous Fervor for learning
You must believe that all skills can be developed through hard work and commitment, that wherever you are now is just a starting point. Having this mindset will not only empower you: it will create a love for learning and a resilience to criticism.
This last part is important, because as you learn, you will make mistakes. You will be criticised there is no way around it. Get comfortable in being corrected and questioned.
If you do this, you will be less afraid of revealing to others that you’re bad at something and more willing to put in the effort to improve at it.
Q:If someone tells you, that you are bad at something how do you react?
Good on you if you instantly become inquisitive and ask “what could I be doing differently?”, “Who’s someone that’s great at this thing?”, “How do you think people get good at this thing?”, etc. Do you become offended by the criticism, or do you thank the person?
Closing Thoughts
Self-awareness and a fervour for learning are the skills to focus on, not confidence. With a continued effort in developing those two skills, you’ll exhibit all the characteristics of a confident person and you’ll develop real confidence as you patiently become an expert in the areas where you invest your effort.
Los meets a startup founder at a coffee shop and tells that story.
Link to contest information here: https://www.instagram.com/p/BCZGEnHs_0H/?taken-by=travandlos
Quick take aways:
- The Story
- Find something you are frustrated about
- Fix it
What I’d like to see a bit more of is people being concerned with their purpose and being true to that. As a follow-on asking the question “How can I appropriately tell that story with the intent of bringing others on board to this purpose.”
Cory Miller is a good human Cory Miller, Designer, Podcaster, Product Director @ SeanWes, Entrepreneur, Father, Husby, more. — We are going to get into all of that in a few minutes, but where did it all start? I want the origin story.
Topics discussed:
- Design
- Shirts
- Product Director
- Podcast
- Branding
Los tackles part two of a two-part series around brainstorming. In this episode we dive into New Rivers.
Los introduces a two-part series around brainstorming. In this episode we dive into Mind mapping.
Thank you everyone for making 2015 a great year for the show! Episodes mentioned in this show
- How We Really Create (travandlos.com/38)
- Set and Achieve Better Goals (travandlos.com/10)
- How I increased my creative output 150% by simply changing the way I sleep (Polyphasic Sleep) (travandlos.com/38)
- Burnout – What it is, how to avoid and overcome it (travandlos.com/22)
- Steal a collage education (travandlos.com/23)
- Expectational Debt (travandlos.com/52)
- The loss of thought (travandlos.com/37)
- Full-Process Designer (travandlos.com/26)
- Sometimes We Fail Hard (travandlos.com/44)
- Chase the Carrot (travandlos.com/11)
Guests
- Jerrod Eroundu - (travandlos.com/42)
- Jonathan Cutrell - (travandlos.com/36)
- Travis McCleary - (travandlos.com/9)
Expectational Debt * back from vacation * trying to get ahead of the work * expectations of others
We are indebted by the expectations of our employers, community leaders, friends, family, and maybe most demanding of all; ourselves.
- How do we impose debt onto ourselves?
- incomplete projects
- other peoples requests
- emotional-based long term commitment
Without completely being aware of it, we can sell the expectations of our time and energy pretty cheaply.
- debt can be positive, its how all relationships work
Controlling Debt * like finances, a lot of debt can be going to places without even knowing it * make a list of your roles / responsibilities * Identify bad debt * Cal Newport calls it deep work and light work (Critical output / vs emails)
+ The ability to focus is the new IQ
Have strength to redouble your good commitments, and abandon your bad debt.
Los tells Trav about the benefits of creativity.
Also, our 50th Episode :) Thank you for listening and we are grateful to have you as a part of our Late Nights podcast ;)
Enjoy this episode and tweet us if you want to chat, or facebook us!
How to Get Motivated What motivates you?
Los says "Creative Freedom" but doesn't want to talk about it right now.
It seems like a lot of my friends and followers are suffering simultaneously from the same ailment; lack of motivation.
Indeed I, myself, have been fighting a healthy dose of resistance lately. I have one particular project that has dragged on for months and months and everyday the obstacles that stand between me and completion seem to be piling up.
So this is the question I've been getting a lot lately: “How do you remain motivated enough to see a project through? I just seem to loose interest…”
Not surprisingly, Calvin has our answer:
Make a deadline In my experience, there is nothing that provides more motivation, inspiration, and pressure to complete than a deadline. The more public, the more hardline, the more grave the consequence for failure — the better!
Parkinson's law states that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
If you really want to get it done, set a date right now for when you will have it done. It will take exactly that long, says Cyril Parkinson.
Why this works If you tell yourself and the world that you’ll release version one of your startup idea on such and such a date, you’ll have it done. It’s as simple at that. Your reputation and integrity are on the line.
If you whisper quietly to yourself that you’d like to finish that sci-fi novel sometime soon, it won’t happen. It’s not real enough, and there is nothing at stake. Nothing will change if you don’t meet that quiet goal. As humans, we are quite okay with nothing changing. It's comfortable. Safe.
But if you put your personal brand on line and fail, something will change – something very personal and significant. You are not going to let this happen.
Let me give you an example: The first week of January I’ll be releasing another DevTips annual report. I do this every year. I review what my goals were last year, what I got done, and what my goals are for next year.
This serves as a guiding star for everything I do. Every moment I waste not getting those things done has to be accounted for.
Your task Make your goals as public and specific as possible. Soon you’ll be the person others ask: “How do you get so much done while I’m just watching netflix?”
I prefer to reflection over celebration Benefits of Meditation or Reflection * See clearly what leads to happiness, success, failure and stress * relate new knowledge to prior understanding * Helps you to think in both abstract and conceptual terms (loosens thinking, enable connections) * apply specific strategies in novel tasks * understand their own thinking and learning strategies * Transforms your experience into genuine learning about individual values and goals and about larger social issues. * Works against the perpetuation of stereotypes (unconscious bias) by raising your awareness of the social structures surrounding you. * Increases the likelihood that you will remain committed to your goals beyond the short term. (reinforcing convictions) * Reflective practice is a way of studying your own experiences to improve the way you work. It is very useful for people who want to carry on learning throughout their lives. The act of reflection is a great way to increase confidence and become a more proactive and qualified professional.
Tips for meditation In my research for this episode I came across this awesome article with some great practical tips for meditation for beginners.
zenhabits.net/meditation-for-beginners-20-practical-tips-for-quieting-the-mind/
Here are a few that I really liked:
- Meditate with Purpose. Beginners must understand that meditation is an ACTIVE process. The art of focusing your attention to a single point is hard work, and you have to be purposefully engaged!
- Experiment. Although many of us think of effective meditation as a Yogi sitting cross-legged beneath a Bonzi tree, beginners should be more experimental and try different types of meditation. Try sitting, lying, eyes open, eyes closed, etc.
I often just turn a nap into a meditation session if for some reason I can’t sleep. I’ll just lay there and try to be quiet and reflective. If anyone were to observe me I would appear to be asleep. 3. Generate moments of awareness during the day. Finding your breath and “being present” while not in formal practice is a wonderful way to evolve your meditation habits.
A Zen Experience
I had a weird experience the other day as I was walking to work. I came upon a really beautiful red-breasted bird perched atop a street sign. It was singing. Unapologetically singing, loudly and beautifully.
I stopped, and after a second or two of enjoyment I took out my phone to capture it on video, but the phone was in camera mode, and I had a hard time fussing with the thing to get it to be in video mode. — All the while missing out on the moment, not being present because I was distracted by the phone UI.
I was frustrated by that. I knew I was killing the moment by fussing with the phone, and it really bothered me.
But then something magical happened. Something transcendent. I had the experience of being outside of the moment, outside of the phone, the bird, myself. And I observed the moment for what it was. No longer was I Travis trying to capture a moment with his phone. But I saw that I became the moment. I was a part of it. The bird wasn’t the moment anymore, the scene of this idiot not being able to operate his phone in time to capture a beautiful thing and thereby missing the spirit of the thing, was the moment.
And it was beautiful.
Alan Watts on Zen
Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.
- Alan Watts
The world would be better if you were more reflective. That’s just the simple truth of it all.
Trav tells Los how much he liked a previous episode and uses it as an example in discussing new creative ideas he was recently exposed to.
I (los) try to get Travis involved in an on-air problem solving design exercise. It doesn't work, at all. We then go on a related tangent about ads and content creation.
Jared Erondu (of TeeSpring, Tree House, and The Industry) stops by to talk to us about getting his start, navigating a creative career, and always being true to yourself.
Jeffersonian Dinners
Intro
I want to talk about what a Jeffersonian Dinner is.
Q:Have you heard of this?
Context:
Imagine being invited to a dinner in 1819 at Monticello, at the elegant Virginia home of Thomas Jefferson — president, scientist, farmer, connoisseur, scholar, and author of the Declaration of Independence.
Around his table, you’d encounter some of the leading sprits of the age — men and women steeped in politics, literature, the arts, the sciences, theology, history, mores, and manners — people that Mr. Jefferson invited because he found them, intriguing and delightful to spend a stimulating evening with. An evening like this was also a prime source of education both for Mr. Jefferson himself and for the guests around the table, all of whom were engaged citizens, eager to share and debate the varied ideas that would shape the fortunes and spur the development of their rapidly-growing young nation.
This was the original Jeffersonian Dinner and these dinner’s have been had by many people ever since.
I came across this idea of a Jeffersonian Dinner in an article I pinned to read about 6 months ago, and as I was looking for a topic, I found this gem again!
Q: So what are some benefits of attending a Jeffersonian Dinner?
A: By attending a Jeffersonian Dinner, it can be a great way to launch the creation of a new cause-centered community. It can also help you to expand the network of individuals connected with an existing community. And although money is not the central focus of the evening, it is likely that, in the end, a Jeffersonian Dinner can activate far more resources than a traditional fundraising event, like an annual gala.
Q: So what makes a modern Jeffersonian Dinner and how do you plan one?
A: A dinner is broken up into 3 parts.
Planning:
- Invite 8-15 people with a common interest (music and kids, innovation in education, women’s health care, design thinking and education)
- Invite a mix of people, some who know one another while others do not
- Avoid inciting a big Kahuna (a celebrity, etc) Everyone at the dinner should feel equally free to contribute.
- Choose a quiet location
- Select an opening question that is related to the dinner theme and encourages each person at the table to tell a personal story (e.g., What technology innovation in the last ten years has most changed your life?)
- Solicit brief written biographies (100-150 words) from each participant in the dinner
- Send out the opening question and biographies ahead of time so people will be ready to carry on the conversation
- Select a dinner moderator — someone with a light style but who can move the conversation around and stimulate discussion.
During dinner:
- 7 p.m.: Cocktails, light conversation before seating
- 7:30 p.m: Moderator opens by explaining the ground rules. Most important rule: No talking to your neighbour, the goal is to have a whole-table conversation
- Ask each person at the table to respond to the opening question
- Moderator introduce a follow-up question to link the opening answers to the general them of the evening. The goal is to move from “me” to “us”
- Let the discussion begin! Moderator will keep the conversation relevant, prevent side discussion from breaking up the table, and ensure that no one or two people are overly dominant.
- 9:15 p.m.: Moderator asks each person at the table to describe any ideas or thoughts they had during the discussion that they would like to follow up on or work with someone on…or just think about more.
- 9:30 p.m.: End dinner. Informal one-on-one conversations usually continue
After dinner(within 2 weeks):
- Moderator sends out a note giving the dinner participants’ contact information and summarising the follow-up points listed at the dinner’s end
- Follow up over the next few weeks, helping people connect with one another and with the nonprofit organisation if desired. Nonprofit leaders may choose to set up on-on-one meetings with the dinner attendees they thought were interested in following up
Q:So how do we make this relevant to us
A: Well, I want to host one :) I think this can be applied to school, work, or friends and borrow a few ideas from the Jeffersonian Dinner
- <14 people, 1 table, 1 question, 1 discussion
- in it’s simplest form, the Jeffersonian Dinner is simply a way to collaborate with a group of people you might now otherwise work with
Fin
5 fears I have 1. Everyone will think I’m a fraud
Impostor syndrome is a psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their accomplishments. Despite external evidence of their competence, those with the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved.
A month before his death, he reportedly confided in a friend, saying “the exaggerated esteem in which my lifework is held makes me very ill at ease. I feel compelled to think of myself as an involuntary swindler.”
Solution: Realize that Everyone else feels like that. Become okay with it.
Psychological research done in the early 1980s estimated that two out of five successful people consider themselves frauds and other studies have found that 70 percent of all people feel like impostors at one time or another. So get over it. 2. I am a fraud, and everyone will find out soon
This week I published a video in which I invited another developer to do a code review of my JS. So far 3K people have seen it. So now they know.
Solution: Okay, now they know. So now I don’t have to worry that they will find out, because that already happened. What now? Keep moving.
3. I will run out of ideas
This is kind of a new one for me. Now that I’ve been sharing ideas that have been bouncing around in my head for a while and sometimes I sit down to spit out a new piece of content and I feel like the well is dry.
Solution: Sean McCabe of Seanwes suggests to “Don’t worry about repeating yourself. People need to hear things multiple times and there are always new people finding your show or blog.”
4. People will loose interest in what I’m doing
I’ve always been afraid of getting old, But now I’m afraid of becoming irrelevant. My work relies on myself being able to have relevant ideas and being able to mold something meaningful from them.
Solution: My value is not the work I did yesterday. My entire body of work speaks for itself.
Solution: People only care about your work as long as it benefits themselves.
I googled “people will loose interest in my work” and every result was about people struggling with their own work ethic. No one cares about you, relax. Then make something that helps someone. 5. It will never be this good again
In economics and decision theory, loss aversion refers to people's tendency to strongly prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains. Most studies suggest that losses are twice as powerful, psychologically, as gains.
Living like this is like driving while looking solely in the rear view mirror. It’s impossible to make good decisions.
Solution: Maybe you are right. YOLO!
How to get better at making things, or HOW WE REALLY CREATE! Have you ever read something or heard someone say something so wonderful and powerful that your heart starts beating almost right out of your chest? I love those moments. I live for those moments.
A few years ago I watched a series of lectures by Kirby Ferguson. The title of the series is called Everything Is A Remix. I've discussed these lectures before. They are paradigm shifting. I recommend them. Especially his TED talk called Embracing the Remix. In fact, if you want to stop listening to this just to go look them up on YouTube I think you would be glad you did.
Anyhow, in his lectures Kirby talks about the three key steps of creation. They are Copy, Transform, and Combine.
Copy
No one starts out original. We cannot create anything new until we have a solid foundation of knowledge and understanding in our line of work. Copying is how we learn.
Transform
Taking an idea and creating variations. Major advances are usually not original ideas, but the breaking point in a long history of progress by many different individuals.
Combine
The most dramatic results happen when various ideas are combined together. By connecting ideas together, creative leaps can be made.
As Kirby outlined the progression of a creative work, he led my attention from entertained to interested, from enthralled to moved and transformed.
I grew up in the post-industrial american school system. We are trained to obey, repeat, and memorize. There is nothing creative about the training I received as a child. In fact, creation — as outlined by Kirby to copy, transform, and combine — is looked down upon and smothered by threats and shameful labels. We have a strange obsession with being original, and often confuse that with being authentic.
Imagine the freedom and validation I felt when Kirby outlined my secret shame as a strength. I had, as a young and aspirational creative, been secretly copying the works of those I admired for years. I repurposed and recomposed their own ideas to meet my needs. I did it in the shadows. Hoping to never be discovered. Never wanting to be branded a plagiarist or unoriginal.
But now Kirby tells me its okay. Not only that, it's the correct path.
Insight / Tips As I look back over my personal history I can see that these steps of creativity of (copy, transform, combine) are not just descriptive of a creations lifespan, but also that of the creator itself.
When I was a boy I would steal my Mom's tracing paper and trace my comic book pages for hours. I would get lost in the lines and curves. I didn't understand it at the time, but I was learning about scale and contrast, light and shadow, hierarchy and story telling. I was just trying to draw a cool superhero, but I was being trained by my generations masters.
Eventually I could draw the characters from memory, after a little while longer I could improvise their poses and create my own little silly stories. I would mix styles and place my favorite characters in scenes that I had seen in movies or read about in books.
Soon enough I was creating new characters made up of elements of my favorite heroes. Wings and claws, guns and katanas, glowing fists and belts with far too many pouches (it was the 90's after all.)
Only now I can look back and see own my personal progression through the stages of copying, transforming, and combining to make something new and personally valuable.
It might be fun to someday outline the various influences that combine to make the DevTips style of videos.
Task Recognize and celebrate the origin of your ideas. Be honest with yourself and your audience. Enable yourself to have a real conversation about your work, your passion, and your influences.
Being aware of how creation comes about will make you more open to the things that you can draw upon and use to create something new.
Or as Kirby puts it:
Our creativity comes from without, not from within. We are not self-made, we are dependent on one another. Admitting this to ourselves isn’t an embrace of mediocrity and derivativeness — it’s a liberation from our misconceptions, and its an incentive to not expect so much from ourselves and to simply begin.
The loss of thought
Most of us have problems or ideas that we want to solve or elaborate on and one of the hardest parts of these problems and ideas is finding the time to think about them. Have you noticed that most of the time when you are taking a shower or a bath, you somehow come up with something brilliant or insightful? Something actionable?
There are many things in our lives that require our attention some are important and some aren’t, either way, our time to think is lost and taken away from us.
So what is unique about the shower or bath that allows us to think?
It is one of the only moments that is built into our routine where we don’t have gadgets, internet, family, peers, or pets fighting for our attention. In the shower, you are still, contemplative, with yourself. You have, by accident, built in time to think.
Imagine if you had more time to think and reflect? How many more problems could you find solutions to? How many different and brilliant ideas could you uncover?
So for the next few minutes, Travis and I are going to get out of your way and give you the time you need to think. Reflect on how you are going to start your school or workday. Reflect on how your day ended. Reflect on what you can start doing, continue doing, and stop doing immediately.
Thank you for listening and enjoy the next few thoughtful minutes.
Questions we discuss * How long have you been doing DevTea? * What is the elevator pitch of DevTea? * why did you start? * What is the most popular episode about? * What is your favorite episode about? * How much time goes into an episode? * What before that? Anything public? * You have a very clear message on DevTea, What was involved in developing that unique voice for yourself? * I've noticed that you've incorporated more hard skill based discussion into Devtea, what difficulties/ insights have you come across from trying new things? * If you were to coach someone in gaining their own unique voice, where would you start? * Where do you turn for content ideas? * We were recently asked this: Once you make awesome content, how do you get people to notice it? * You recently co-founded a podcast network, spec.fm. What is your goal there? Why start a network? * What has been the outcome so far? * What do you hope your listeners will take away from the work you do?
How to enjoy yourself at a conference 1. Focus on the people you meet.
* the most valuable part of the conference is in the hallways between sessions.
* Not your heroes
* people looking at their phones / get off your phone
* be brave
* Don’t have agenda, other than being interested in people
- Have an open schedule, go to all the parties and don’t be lame. Be in introvert when you get home.
-
Make yourself easy to connect to after the conf
- having a card is basic
- make a sticker, or something fun
- have a reason that they should remember you
- make a little project, have a giveaway, write a medium post or something.
-
have a system for recording who you meet.
-
note who they are AND WHAT YOU TALKED ABOUT - jog their memory later
-
Follow up with ppl you met after you get home
-
email
- linked in
- again, have a reason
Travis tell Los how to write an email. Sounds basic, but you'd be surprised. You should listen.
How to write an email that gets noticed. 1. Write a concise, quickly actionable subject line. 2. Quickly introduce yourself and if appropriate what makes you worth a damn. Or pay a simple - yet well considered compliment. 3. Quickly to the point. Keep it focused. 4. Don't attach anything 5. Proofread. Omg proofread. 6. Make your request of the recipient quickly actionable.
* what do you think of x, vs do you agree with x?
* what can you donate, vs can you donate x?
* would you like to have a call, vs can I give you a call Tuesday morning?
- Design your email so that their response can be as quick and simple as possible.
8, End happy
SPECIAL EDITION: Trav and Los look at the reactions to Google's new logo, and then give their own.
In this episode Trav and Los talk to you about not limiting yourself and what you can do to expand you capacities.
Stop Limiting yourself! Medium article referenced: https://medium.com/life-learning/bruce-lee-doesn-t-care-if-you-die-if-you-don-t-do-this-one-thing-ac06cf597e58
Share To Win! Why You should be a publisher I’ve talked about why you should be a publisher before. — travandlos.com/18
What should you share? Scoop up the scraps of your work and spend a few minutes putting them in a format that you can share. You we talked about your process. Share that.
- Share your notebook
- make voice recordings - podcast!
- scrapbook
- take photographs of your process
- make videos of yourself working
- Share your research
- your references and inspirations
- drawings
- plans
- sketches
- user interviews
- pinboards
- prototypes
- demos
- diagrams
- collections
- stories
Austin Kelon says “this isn’t about making art, its about simply keeping track of what's around you.”
Sharing your work is the only way to get interest in the things you do. Share your creativity, get discovered.
The Full Process Eddy said that the whole time He was thinking “Process” — as in big company bureaucracy and red tape. It's not about that. I want to talk about the Creative Process.
Why have a process at all? I get emails a lot from people who are frustrated with their own work.
- This is partially the crucible of creative education. Just the fact that you do suck and you need just to do the work and get better with time.
-
The other part is that they are not working the right way. It’s like trying to drive to disneyland with a map of Texas, or no map at all.
- trying to design before all the questions are answered
- I sometimes get comments from people complaining about the first few videos of my start to finish series because we don’t touch code until the fourth video.
Some Reasons 1. Remove the stress of creating Ex nihilo (out of nothing) 2. Prepares your mind for creative influences 3. the process can actually be the source of the solution 4. Makes it easier to work with a team 5. Showing process gives more credibility to your client or boss 6. Helps you to be organized and to maintain many projects at once 7. more
What is the process? Discover -> Make -> Observe -> Repeat ->
|——––––––––––– ask questions –––––––––––|
"To follow the process you need to calm down and follow the process" 1. Discover On the Wistia blog Jeff Vincent remarks that “your initial meeting, or creative discovery call, is the first – and most important – step to collaborating on a creative project. This meeting lays the groundwork for you and your client’s working relationship, outlines your process, and establishes the direction your [ project ] will take.” [source]
In the discovery phase you need to
- determine success metrics
- identify stakeholders
- determine the target audience
- develop empathy for them. learn to care about what they care about.
- nail the core message
- gather inspiration
- make a plan for the production phase
-
DOCUMENT!
-
Make This is where your unique skill, vision, and value come into play. Just make stuff.
-
Observe This is where you take your creation and you ask the hard questions. Compare the results to your success metrics. Did you succeed?
None of this should be a surprise you you because in the process you need to be asking questions the whole time. But this is the phase where you really test your ideas. Put your prototypes in the hands of users. Do some multivariate testing.
Tim Ferriss famously printed his book cover options out and took them to the local book store. He sat with a counter and clicked it when ever someone picked up that cover design. After a few tries he had a winner. Have you seen the cover? It looks like crap, but it works. That’s the beauty of it. It doesn’t matter if it’s pretty, it matters if it works. He wasn’t trying to impress people on dribble, he was trying to sell books. It’s different.
I got a question in an email last week. “how do you know that some design is right when you work alone? Do you have some procedure you follow?”
I said: “Usually before you start designing you have a set of requirements or goals. If your design meets those requirements then it is a success. Easy!”
His reply: “You know is not that simple. :)”
- Repeat Repeat doesn’t need to be at the end. Repeat is a theme that happens through out, just as you are asking questions throughout the whole project you are committing to a cycle of question, try, test, repeat. Micro cycles and macro cycles.
Eddy says me: “is point #4 doable in the real-world?? A full-process designer is more concerned with process than outcomes, trusting that good process will always lead to good outcomes. What if you do some work and you learn that you had some incorrect initial assumptions?”
So yes, this process accounts for that because you should be using it on the micro and macro level, asking questions throughout, discovering, making, observing and repeating.
In this episode Trav and Los talk about what you can do, such that, people will want to listen to you.
Trav and Los have a late night chat about how we are beginners, amateurs, and experts all at the same time.
We refer to this medium article on Shuhari: https://medium.com/designing-atlassian/shuhari-design-mastery-378e78e7d062
Full-Process Designer 1. A full-process designer concerns themself with the entire creative process (Reflect -> Make -> Observe -> Repeat) 2. A full-process designer does not let the excitement of starting a new project carry them past the important initial steps. 3. A full-process designer has focused their skill set on being able to take an idea from inception to completion, yet is able to interface with, and welcomes the collaboration of others more specialized in their vertical. 4. A full-process designer is more concerned with process than outcomes, trusting that good process will always lead to good outcomes. 5. A full-process designer is not confined by tools or trends although uses these things to achieve the desired result. 6. A full-process designer documents their thinking and will never expect someone to understand their vision without context. 7. A full-process designer can lead as well as follow. 8. A full-process designer asks questions throughout the entire process. 9. A full-process designer understands how to create as well as sell their work. 10. A full-process designer understands that the quality of the conversations held are largely responsible for the outcome of the process. The quality of the resulting product reflects the quality of the creative process—and the curiosity and determination of the participants.
Question: How are you a salesman? Mark Landis
- There is a Documentary about him on Netflix, it’s called “Art & Craft” — he’s one of the most successful art forgers. It’s quite amazing he would recreate Picaso’s, among other
things magic markers and canvases bought at walmart. * He convinced over 45 museums to hang his paintings on their walls.
You or I could not tell the difference between an authentic Picasso and one from Landis. So what makes Picasso’s work with millions and Landis’s a scam?
The story!
“You might think that the pleasure you get from a painting depends on it’s color and it’s shape and it’s pattern. And if that’s right, it shouldn’t matter whether it’s an original or a forgery. — but our brains don’t work that way —When shown an object or given a plate of food, or shown a face, people’s assessment of it — how much they like it, how valuable it is — is deeply affected by what you tell them about it.”
— Paul bloom, Psychology Professor
So this is where I say that every successful artist and creator is a salesman.
Are you placing your work on in your portfolio unaccompanied by context or explanation?
A smart creative displays case studies, not portfolio projects.
If you think your art speaks for itself. You are wrong.
In this episode we remove a word from our vernacular and rethink our habitual sentence structures for better conversations.
TL:DL;
- Remove "Just" and structure your sentences in a "yes, and..." format! Listen through for the full details!
- "No, But!" is more of a mindset to avoid than the word itself. The use of the word "but" is still good to use to contrast ideas!
Learn how to steal a college education. Hack that education! If you have access to the internet, then you have access to all the knowledge you need. What is hard about learning is not knowing what you don't know. We talk you through a simple exercise to learn what you don't know.
Travs Thesis Burn out happens when you don't believe in what you are doing.
Avoid Burnout Los says that if you want to avoid burn out, you should not burn out.
Overcome Burnout Trav says that if you are currently experiencing burnout, you should try to find a shoulder to lean on.
Caleb Meredith "Burn out is when you tell yourself you don't believe in what your doing because that's easier than continuing"
Lukaz Morawski "or when what you are doing becomes a routine"
Karim "burnout happens when you are stuck in whatever you are doing. When you stop learning the fun in zapped !"
Priomh "IMHO burnout happens as a result of not managing your burn rate. I am not referring to financial "burn rate", but physical and mental burn rate. It is so easy to get burned out if you are not clear aboutwhat you are trying to accomplish, so I somewhat agree. Not believing in what you are doing is a huge part of that.
"A common factor for my own burnout that I personally have found is that I am not addressing subconscious issues. Dave Allen gives some great advice on this and said the root of most stresses in life is not knowing what you want and not addressing the task at hand.
- What are you trying to do?
- How are you going to do it?
- Write your answers down.
- Execute on them A.S.A.P
Wash Rinse Repeat"
Mike Heitzke "I don't disagree necessarily, but that sounds more like "What you realize right before you start looking for other jobs".
IMO burnout happens when there's no clear objectives, unclear/unrealistic timelines, a lack of direction, lack of leadership/ownership. Working on a project for any length of time that has any of these characteristics can burn you out."
G Bowden "Back in the day a basketball coach I had once told me, "show my a player who is burnt out and I'll show you a player who doesn't recover properly"
Seye Kuyinu "I don't agree. I think burnout has a lot to do with managing time and communication. You may love what you do and believe what you do but when you don't know when to prioritize and manage resources(both human and material"
Ben Regali "Agree to disagree!
Sounds like a kick in the nuts to all people who worked hard on things they love and still had to experience burnout.
Edit: I don't think there is more than one reason why this happens, but being swamped and working too much are definitely one those reasons. People have different stress levels."
"Change will lead to insight far more often than insight will lead to change." — Milton Erekson * Los sees this as a call to change your perspective and has found that moving your feet helps. * Trav's take is that you should try to change something about your work and see what insights form.
Either way, Milton likes YooHoo! (Or Yahoo, lol :)
Before starting any project or sharing any work, first seek to understand the why? not the what.
In this episode we talk to you about why it's important to understand the why behind anything you are doing or will do.
Rejection You are what you love, not what loves you. That’s from Adaptaion, written by Charlie Kaufman. I quoted that before, but I mis-attributed it.
The point is - so what? You will likely get rejected or even made fun of. So what?
"If you make things and share them, your heart will at some point be broken. If you never share, it will harden. Your choice." — Todd Henry
Obscurity This one is easy. You already are obscure. So, move on.
Failure What even is failure? On our patron podcast we talked about how failure is a necessary step toward success. All great works were born from great failures.
Starvation “I’m not good enough”
I as reading a comic book this morning on the train, and one of the secondary characters has this kind of throw-away line. “Well, you have to be brave before you can be good.”
Parting thought Dr Brené Brown has studied vulnerability for over a decade. One of the key things her research has brought to light is that there wasn't ever a single instance of bravery that didn't require being vulnerable as well.
Why you should start publishing today What is publishing? * Creating content with a speciffic audience in mind.
Why you should start publishing today 1. You will become a better thinker
Knowing a skill or a fact is something entirely different than being able to relate it to an audience in a relatable and consumable way. You learn to simplify and clarify, which is an invaluable skill. 2. You will be more intentional about your life
Once you start writing about your life and the thoughts that shape it, you’ll begin thinking more intentionally about who you are, who you are becoming, and whether you like what you see or not. And that just may be reason enough to get started.
Everything is a potential source for your next blog post or video or podcast. 3. You’ll develop an eye for meaningful things
We pickup and discard valuable lessons every day. We have truly profound moments that never really crack through our ultra distracted attention spans.
Being responsable to an audience forces to look at life with a new lens. You are more critical and observant of cause and effect around you. You learn to draw connections that you would otherwise have no real reason latch on to. 4. Make friends and meet interesting people
This one is not hard to justify. We are on the phone right now with one of fthe coolest guys I’ve ever met and never would have had that oppertunity without making the descision to be a publisher. 5. You will be able to influence and inspire others.
About 5 years ago I wrote a blog post in which I said (I know it’s tacky to quote yourself, but at least its not a tweet, thats always weird.) I said “To be a valuable person, to truly live an extraordinary life, you must strive to reach and influence as many people as deeply and as profoundly as you possibly can.”
A few weeks ago here on this podcast I said that ”webs of weak ties are how ideas are spread”
So basicly, start blogging and live an extraordinary life. 6. Build Confidence
Like anything, putting yourself out there becomes easier with repetition. Standing up in front of people and relying a clear message, wether it’s to an audience of 1, or 100K, is a great way to build self confidence. 7. It feels really good when people appreciate you
I’m not talking about an upvote or a like. I’m talking about when someone takes the time out of their day to thank you for being an instrument in changing their life 8. An audience is a hard-won, yet valueable asset that you can leverage throughout your entire career
* recommendations
* job oppertunities
* buy your product
* promote your product
* provide resources
* offer moral support
* provide man-power
* be social proof
* be your friends
In this episode we teach you some tips and tricks that will help you define the type of feedback you want from your peers or clients.
We talk about the importance of active listening and what you can do to get better at it.
Link to the article Los reads from: https://medium.com/designing-atlassian/how-to-get-better-at-listening-956736d499d8
Kirshnamurti: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiddu_Krishnamurti
Here are the points we discuss from Trav's Book of Knowledge 1. Whatever you do; do the best you can because the work will live forever.
— Jackie Chan 2. You can deal with anything today if you have a compelling future
— Tony Robbins 3. You will never influence the world by trying to be like it. 4. Most people focus on a few strong ties. But webs of weak ties are how ideas are spread. 5. You don’t need to know everything about everything to do anything. 6. If you describe the problem better than anyone else, people will believe that you have the best solution. 7. Do this, or don't this. Choose. 8. You are what you love not what loves you. (In reference to having your self-esteem be built on the opinions of others.) 9. Most of the people we see in the arts are not there because they had the most to offer, but because they wanted to be there the most.
— Jerry Seinfeld 10. I keep track of my successes by counting my failures
— Walt Disney 11. We are all a little stupid and a little brilliant. 12. End Strong.
People remember the end. You can have a slow start, and a weak middle, but make sure you end strong. 13. You can suffer from anxiety and not know it. 14. There are finite and infinite games. You want to play the infinite game. 15. Take this seriously. Not personally. 16. If I fall in love with my songs, I'll never write music.
— Kyle cease 17. All of your plans are stupid. All plans are stupid and a waste of time, until they work, then they are totally worth it. And you never know what plan will work, so you might as well get started on your stupid plan.
Part 2 of Trav telling Los about his new Polyphasic sleep schedule I’ve been on this schedule for a month, here are some of my insights:
- Days are long again, like when I was a kid. Days are not really a thing, but you track time by events or phases. I got to work. I come home. I have family time. I have DevTips time. It’s not really night and day anymore. the sun is up sometimes, and it’s not other times. I loose track of the weekday really easily.
- You are adding to your lifetime. Not piling on years at the back, filled with medications and other issues. I’m living longer than most people today.
- I feel more connected to the earth, to the rhythms of nature more than the concerns of the humans around me. I feel different than everyone. Like I know something they don’t. Like I can see something beautiful that they just walk by. When my colleagues come into the office in the morning (its morning for them) I’ve been awake for 8 hours and have been making videos and stuff for a long time already.
- People are really accepting of my new schedule. It’s not really that hard. I take naps at work, which is probably the coolest thing ever. I’ve left meetings to nap. I’ve napped at other peoples offices. It’s not really that weird, and people are very understanding.
- I get a lot done. A lot.
- It’s not easy, and I’m not perfect. It’s cold these days and my bed is so warm and comfy. I’ve overslept a few times. Those days are hard, I feel like I’ve let self down, and there goes that days extra time. It’s easier to stay up late than wake up early. But I’m focusing on not throwing in the towel on the larger picture when I make small immediate mistakes.
Polyphasic Sleep * What is your most valuable resource? * How would your life change if you added 4 to 6 more waking hours to your day? What would you do?
hours gained over time * 16 hours becomes 20 per day * That’s 28 hours a week * 336 per year — 42 work days (month and 1/2) * I call this new month “Slumbtember”
Have you ever struggled in getting a job? What do you do during a phone interview? How do you approach an in-person interview? How do you negotiate an offer? What do you do in your first 90 days to keep the job? Tune into this weeks podcast and get some insights into "Interview Hacking"
We discuss all of these and more during this late night podcast.
Join in :)
Setting Goals and achieving them 1. Only work on one thing at a time 2. Make changes during periods of calm 3. Make your goal as clear and specific as possible 4. Set things up on autopilot (routines) 5. Make to-do lists 6. pre-commitment 7. Tackle the tough things first 8. Keep yourself and your surroundings tidy and clean 9. Surround yourself with those who have similar goals 10. Delay gratification instead of nixing it altogether 11. remove deterrents. Don’t make the right decision over and over again.
Travis and I go to a meetup. We meet Travis McCleery. He is awesome. He comes and podcasts with us! Yes, we are winning at life.
We take a look at how Travis ends up at Evernote.
Find Travis McCleery on twitter with the handle @cleerdesign or take a look at some his work here http://cleerdesign.com/
-
Break it down
-
Make a list of the small parts of your project.
- Anthony Trollope, a 19th century writer said “A small daily task… will beat the labour of spasmodic hercules"
-
Do anything to move the ball. Don’t end the day having done nothing to progress your work.
-
Rely on your preparation
-
Day work and Night work
-
leave your work half finished and now all you have to do is complete your idea.
-
Get a ritual
-
Woody Allen famously said “80% of success is showing up”
- put your shoes on
-
loses idea of a token.
-
Harness the power of Frequency
-
frequency makes starting easier
- frequency keeps ideas fresh
- frequency keeps the pressure off
- frequency sparks creativity
-
frequency nurtures frequency
-
Prune the branches
-
Eventually the new branches will steal resources from the initial branches. Eventually the entire vine will succumb to systemic mediocrity.
- Cut out anything that is not essential
We don't have the luxury of inspiration. Inspiration is a nice companion on our journey to brilliance, but it is not a necessary companion at the beginning of the journey. Inspiration tends to join you when you are already on your way.
- Todd Henry
00:00 - Trav and Los catch up. Travis misses Los' touch.
4:00 - Travis has a few questions for Los before we start...
5:22 - "How did you switch careers?"
10:53 - Los is charismatic during interviews
15:13 - Los' parents are hustlers
17:40 - Twelve-year olds are useless
19:30 - Los started businesses when he was 16
32:03 - We often don't recognize the things we are passionate about
35:43 - Working with small businesses
42:30 - Care about your clients
47:32 - Los' client management style
59:49 - "Are you human?" — Los' dad
1:12:39 - Los gets mad inspirational and junk!
1:18:00 - Trav and Los sing!
1:21:00 - Trav and Los want to fight you
1:23:00 - Los reads some tweets or something
1:22:20 - "Corndogs for everyone!"
1:23:00 - Goodnight :D
06:18 - Travis and Los sing to you
02:10 - Travis reads an iTunes podcast review
06:50 - Light housekeeping
08:40 - Trav and Los rejected from a podcast network??
11:30 - Los shows up
16:30 - Travis talks about his mentoring sessions
29:48 - Travis continues to ramble... (ramblings with Travis)
32:48 - Question: How do you manage all your creative interests?
34:20 - Travis talks about creative interests
36:19 - Enjoy the work for itself
36:50 - Los starts to answer the question
37:44 - Travis gets real
38:44 - The importance of establishing your passion
40:40 - Los applies advice to himself
44:06 - What a modern designer uses
46:44 - Los sweats
50:00 - Travis is reserved on the notion of "Say NO"
55:48 - Los is frustrated with saying "no" and "yes"
56:18 - We question our effectiveness
59:40 - How do you determine what your passion is?
1:00:00 - Bro, you have to pick one.
33:23 - I sent out a weird birthday email - http://travisneilson.com/notes/7-birthday.html
2:10 - The worst part of birthdays
6:46 - @_ellenbrook released a product called http://morningpages.net
9:40 - Travis has a man-crush on Jack Conte - http://youtu.be/mZ02alEkbLw
10:57 - Peter Hollins and Jackie Evancho Rocked the house - http://youtu.be/9VdwDiedS0Y
13:02 - What is Patreon? - http://www.patreon.com/
19:51 - Eff an umbrella, gimme a poncho!
23:36 - Voice actors documentary - http://www.iknowthatvoice.com/
25:51 - Using Patreon to increase value to listeners
34:19 - Having a pay-community can increase interaction quality
36:37 - Travis might be afraid of rejection
38:59 - Travis wrote a note for his birthday
41:22 - “That one movie” - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0841046/
Travis’ interactive birthday poems: http://travisneilson.com/32-years-of-poetry/
Travis takes Los to the airport while they discuss the best way to find and engage mentors. Review the podcast so far (00:00:01) * It feels good to make, to publish * Brocasting is fun * Put in work up front to find your rhythm and voice
Finding a Mentor is like dating (07:17:16) Best Practices in contacting a mentor (16:24:12) * Choose the platform you contact them on carefully * Keep a good tone, be thankful * Try to offer value right away * what can you supplement their operation with? * who could you introduce them to?
Some don'ts * Ask for a job * Ask for help right away * Correct their mistakes * Gush
Value based relationships (33:44:11) * You need to provide unique consistent value over time * Offer value right away * Don’t stop! * Be ready, they will naturally offer value in return * Show a lot of gratitude about any help you get. Make a big deal about it.
A few action steps (56:23:05) * Make a list of potential mentors * Note where best to make contact * Contact them all * Give first * Be consistent, be ready
Be sure to tweet us @TravAndLos
How to be self-learning I want to talk about the most impactful concepts I’ve encountered and developed while optimizing my learning. This episode is two parts.
Part 2 Intro (00:00:01) 6. Focus on Productivity (00:02:18) Hardest thing about learning is often finding time to do it. Working to become more productive will create the time and willpower you need. Focus on habits to increase productivity.
7. Mix it up (00:12:08) There are multiple ways to learn today so mix it up. Books, magazines, blogs, audiobooks, articles, podcasts, lectures, movies, documentaries, online video, apps, music and debates. Listening to experts disagree with each other is a great way to approach a topic with an open mind.
8. Avoid Confirmation Bias (00:23:09) Remember to always keep an open mind and seek out contradictory opinions. This will keep you more balanced, informed and objective on the topic. It’s easy to limit your consumption to content that agrees with you.
9. Bring your friends (00:45:06) Surround yourself by other people that are interested in the same things you are, it makes the learning process more rewarding. Book clubs, meet-ups, dinners or just spending the evening talking with someone close to you are great ways to grow and support each other.
10. Relate as you go (00:48:29) If you can attach a new idea or concept to something well established in your mind, grasping and remembering concepts becomes a breeze. I can retain new information well when I can draw connections to things I have experience with. At least Isaac Asimov thinks this is were great ideas come from.
Outro (01:03:00)
Most important part to learning is putting what you have learned to use.
Be sure to tweet us @TravAndLos
How to be self-learning I want to talk about the most impactful concepts I’ve encountered and developed while optimizing my learning. This episode is two parts.
Part 1 Intro (00:3:43) Summary (00:8:13)
1. Follow your curiosity (00:11:13) This is your compass for self-learning, and immersing yourself in the things that interest you is the best way to digest and make sense and understand your topic to it’s core.
2. Write it Down (00:16:53) It took me some time, but once I started organizing my thoughts on paper or computer I noticed a profound change. Our brains are capable of amazing things, but by trying to depend on your brain to remember all of your ideas and to-do’s, takes a drastic toll for it to operate at its best.
3. Find your Ambassadors (00:20:09) This is important. Choosing the right people to take advice from in life is one of the most important skills to have. Yes, a skill. Look for people that are humble, compassionate, and above all else are authentic/real.
4. Tune your speed (00:41:16) Finding the optimum balance between speed and comprehension is an ongoing process. Always be pushing yourself to find that sweet spot. Sometimes that means slowing down and at times that means speeding it up. Always be on the lookout for playback speed options in your audio and video apps.
5. Plan on Teaching (00:44:02) Everyone knows that the best way to learn is to teach it, and by opening myself to the possibility, I increase my overall understanding. Sometimes the way to create good habits is to trick ourselves into it.
Outro to Part 1 (00:48:08)