What’s my fuel?

So recently Jeff Donaldson of Atomic 20 asked me “What’s your fuel when work is tough, clients are brutal, or you need a boost of creativity?”

Hmm. Good question. Well…I grew up in some hostile environments and got in a lot of “situations” in my younger days, there were 3 routes I had available to me. 1. You got tough, you stood your ground and fought. 2. You got funny, and diffused or misdirected your potential threats. 3. You got fast, and you learned to out run your pursuers. I’d like to say I came out with nice combinations of those 3, as a result of those experiences. In reality I’d say I just try harder, but all of these experiences have provided me with coping mechanisms I use everyday, not that I run away from any problem, but I will get up and go on a run or ride my bike when shit seems “unsolvable” that usually shakes the wheels loose and you come back with fresh perspective. I also tend to iterate quickly, giving me more time to adapt and change.

Family, riding bikes and music, especially music, are probably the largest influences on my work. They keep me fueled and inspired creatively. The most valuable tool for staying inspired that I have at my disposal however is experience. I don’t neccesarily mean work experience although that is important, but I mean life and interaction experiences, all those things that make life interesting. Leverage them to make your work interesting. There is a Henry Rollins quote that I think says it best “Knowledge without mileage is useless.” Amen brother. Getting out there, talking to other folks, seeing things, constantly learning and exposing yourself to new situations and conditions is not only an amazing way to stay inspired, but more important you can practice what your preaching because you been there. literally and figuratively, giving you relevance and in this business, and that’s gold.

I also tend to build “valves” into my work. With the nature of my clients, I am not always designing lasers and bikinis, sometimes its just down and dirty, must have communications pieces like datasheets or applications that calculate percentage rates. Even within these projects i’ll build in “valves” things that give my soul some little happy place to go and sit in the sun for a bit. That could be getting super type nerdy and doing some obscure ligature throughout a set of documents or some designing in some super slick java script that hides some thing or other reducing clutter, but not affecting usability, these things will probably go unnoticed to everyone except you. But you can maybe even have a little fun doing a project that might not have seemed so fun.

When work is tough, develop an ethic.

When clients are tough, exceed their expectations. Your are a professional, you know what you’re doing.

When you need a boost of creativity. Leave your desk. problems are rarely solved at the keyboard.

Above all else. Just work hard. Be nice. And do good work that has reason.

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