I pay for Squarespace and thoughtfully design my portfolio. I update my resume. I thoroughly answer the application’s questions. I get the follow-up email asking if I’d like to set up a video interview.

“Of course,” I respond.

During the interview, the hiring manager asks if I can complete a test project. A signal that I’ve survived the 1st phase of the hiring process.

“Of course”, I respond again.

The test project is something I hadn’t experienced before entering the design profession. Whenever I used to apply for jobs, the employer only seemed to care about my professional experience, social skills, and goals.

To be honest, I hated the 1st time I had to do a test project. I thought, “Isn’t my portfolio enough? Why drag the hiring process out? Maybe my smile isn’t white enough.”

But things have changed.

Now I actually appreciate test projects. Here’s why.

• You get to learn...

Frustration can breed change. That sentiment most efficiently sums up my path towards design.

It all started in the accounting department. I was a young and ambitious staff accountant for an oilfield service company in Midland, TX.

Life was pretty good.

I was a newlywed. I was making good money. I was living in the same city as my dad for the first time since I was in elementary school. And I was working with great people.

I got into accounting for the same reasons most do…

• I have a passion and aptitude for solving business problems.
• The career path is secure and potentially lucrative.
• It made me feel like a respectable member of society.

It seemed like a home run at the beginning. But after a few months on the job, I realized it wasn’t meshing with how I naturally derive value from work.

Accounting is mostly about keeping track of and reporting what gets produced or consumed by...

Pour out your insides. A few might hate the way they look. And yet others might say, “Hey, me too.”

I’ll be the first to admit that I like to avoid sincere conversation. It’s more convenient to live sarcastically and cynically because it keeps people from seeing your real bones. It’s all armor.

We shouldn’t be afraid of showing our structures — what holds us together. What we should fear instead is waking up one day and realizing that nobody actually knows us.

Because, LiveAuthentic (also LiveFolk and vsco)

I have content fatigue. Is that a real thing? Surely a reliable study has been done. But even if a study hasn’t been done, something has definitely messed me up.

In the spirit of Tom Haverford, here’s a typical Internet Routine for my mornings:

• Grab phone immediately upon waking up because my phone is also my alarm.
• Open Twitter and scroll without even absorbing anything because my eyes are still dead.
• Open Instagram because beautiful photos are very important.
• Check Medium to see if I got any green-hearted love while I slept.
• Once I’m finally walking around, I’ll check out friends’ Snapchat Stories. This results in me laughing at Todd Brison. I do this while handling an Aeropress and getting bossed around by my dog to feed her/let her out.
• Get back on Medium, but this time I’m on my laptop. Twist! At least now I’m producing content...

I’ve added up the failings. Last year I quit 11 projects. So as much as this is for you — it’s also for me.

I personally know:

• Gifted writers who’ve quit writing.
• Imaginative painters who’ve quit painting.
• Boundary-pushing musicians who’ve quit making music.
• Captivating photographers who’ve quit shooting.
• Compelling storytellers who’ve quit telling stories.

They sit on their hands, and they sit on their gifts. Now the world’s artifacts suffer. Our planet isn’t as beautiful or as interesting as it could be.

Some of them traded in their gifts for something that resembles security.
Some of them are too distracted by Facebook-arguments or Instagram-envy or Twitter-attention.

• Some of them have been beat up by the art world and think they’re too wounded to return.
• Some of them got sick of bleeding for their art just to hear crickets.
• Some of them were too proud to be hobbyists for a...

I’m not writing from my nest today. This hasn’t happened in 3 months. It’ll happen again tomorrow. Then I’ll finally get to return to my safe place.

I get distracted. Always. Even when I’m in my usual space at my usual time — I get distracted easily.

Right now, I’m in a fresh place, and my senses want to explode. There’s too much New around. And every single piece of New wants to stop me from blackening this white page.

But I’ll sit here until it’s finished. And when I figure out how I made it work, I’ll share what helped.

When you daydream about combining writing with travel, you never really consider how distracting it can be. It’s easy to romanticize the whole thing.
You could be roaming around Spain and find yourself craving your familiar desk in your familiar apartment in your familiar city. Why? Only because you haven’t written in days. How could you? You’re in Spain...

There are 37 ideas you want to chase down. But you only have time for 1, maybe 2.

The 1st idea doesn’t take off as quickly as you expect. So you move on to the next. Then the next. It’s been the same pattern for a few years now. Your friends and family worry.

So. You stop telling them your ideas. They won’t believe you’ll follow through anyways. They just smile. You don’t even believe you’ll follow through on this new idea.

You’re a god today. Tomorrow you question all existence.

But then. You’re fed up. You cut out the podcasts, blog posts, newsletters, videos, books, and courses. You hide away in the cave that is your office and you work, hustle, make calls, do favors, connect, build, create, experiment, fail quickly, release early, gain insight. Repeat.

You stop consuming and start producing. Get to the cave.

We have to create culture, don’t watch TV, don’t read magazines...

I don’t know what to tell you. My fingers don’t seem to work this morning. It took some effort and good old-fashioned bullying, but I managed to make them share this:

I learned this from Robert McKee. A hack, he says, is a writer who second-guesses his audience. When the hack sits down to work, he doesn’t ask himself what’s in his own heart. He asks what the market is looking for…

…It can pay off, being a hack. Given the depraved state of American culture, a slick dude can make millions being a hack…

(On Pressfield’s success with The Legend of Bagger Vance)
…I trusted what I wanted, not what I thought would work. I did what I myself thought was interesting, and left its reception to the gods. — The War of Art, Steven Pressfield

The term “hack” came about by shortening the word “hackney” — which is a horse that’s easy to ride and bred to pull carriages.

There’s something to that.

...

The coffee hits my cup, I journal for 10 minutes, read Seneca’s “On the Shortness of Life”, then I write an article.

That’s been my morning routine for the last 3 months. The book changes depending on my mood or when I finish 1.

When I clicked “Purchase” on Amazon, I thought I already knew what Seneca was going to say. It was a mindset-affirming purchase. I wasn’t looking for a challenge…just someone intelligent to tell me I’ve been right the whole time.

But this morning, Seneca took aim at me…

But life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future.

For as soon as their preoccupations fail them, they are restless with nothing to do, not knowing how to dispose of their leisure or make the time pass. And so they are anxious for something else to do, and all the intervening time is wearisome…

Any deferment of the longed-for event is...

Life is too short — sorry, I make life too short with my worries. Let me be specific…I worry too much about what my friends and family think when I try something new.

When I gave college a shot, I told a friend that I was interested in PR or marketing. She responded with, “No, you don’t wanna do that. You’re not outgoing enough, or cute-blonde-female enough.”

I reluctantly studied accounting and never finished because I hated it so much.

Things are Changing

These days, I’m trying to step out a little more. But I’m sick of taking baby steps. I want to take giant freaking leaps. It’s just tough to break out of the circle my family and friends drew me into.

The saddest part is they don’t even know they’re holding the chalk.

There are words I want to write, trips I want to take, projects I want to promote, people I want to associate with. But I hesitate because of these 4 words:

...