To find a purpose in life, or a reason for a living, you've got to make something that you believe in.

Music and links from this episode

Action Decisive Move by Komiku

This or That by MindsEye

good looking instrumental by Yshwa

Line-by-line notes

As designers and creators

We make things every day

Design, artwork, videos, podcasts, writing, anything

Whatever creative pursuit we follow

Whatever our medium is

It’s 10 times more powerful

100 times more powerful

If what you’re making, you believe in.

This is AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess

When I started this podcast

On January 1st 2017

I started it for the wrong reasons

I’d long since wanted to make a podcast

As I’ve been interested in the medium for a long time

But I chose the wrong style of podcast to make

I was making a podcast because I wanted to market my business

I wanted to market myself

And I wanted to increase my profile in the marketing world

But, that was wrong on so many levels

Because I’d set my podcast up to talk about design, marketing and business

I mainly focused on marketing and business

As I knew that was what most of my clients would find most useful…

For me to give information about

I had a massive problem though

It was a huge elephant in the room that I chose to ignore

That all this marketing and business talk

Just wasn’t me

And I didn’t believe in it

I’m a designer at heart, and I love, eat and breathe design

I’m interested in other stuff too like human performance

And psychology

But none of that straight forward business stuff I really believed in

Or was interested by

Straight out of the blocks, my podcast was doomed from episode one

There was no way I was ever going to make a success of something I didn’t believe in

Some people might categorise success by the download numbers, and they were strong and getting stronger

But I didn’t feel successful, I felt trapped in something I didn’t enjoy

I didn’t believe in my podcast, or my content

And I didn’t have the passion or drive to carry it on

I figured it out late in the game that I needed to make something that I WANTED to make

Not what I thought would make me successful, whatever that even means

I was making something that I didn’t really dare share on my personal Facebook timeline

Because I knew most of my friends wouldn’t enjoy it

And I never listened back to any of my episodes after I’d produced them

Because I didn’t enjoy listening back to them either

Everything was wrong

Just, so wrong

Now, looking back at it, I can’t believe how stupid or tunnel visioned I’d become with it

But hindsight always has perfect vision

With my new style of podcast? I guess it’s not so new now…

It might sound a bit weird, but I actually enjoy listening back to my episodes now

I make something that I enjoy producing, and that I enjoy listening to

I make something that I think is good, and I make it for myself and nobody else

I make it because I enjoy making things, and because of that, I’m always trying to make it better

I make a product that I believe in 100%, and I believe you should be doing the same too

After all, what is success, really?

What does success really mean?

Lots of people like to categorise success as fancy cars

And big houses

But as a creator, and a maker

I categorise success as making stuff that I believe in

That I can look back at

And think: 

Yeah, that was pretty good actually.

This was Ask a Designer Anything. I’m Craig Burgess.

Music featured in this episode was 

Action Decisive Move by Komiku

This or That by MindsEye

good looking instrumental by Yshwa

For a line-by-line run down of this episode, go to askadesignernaything.com/ep102

I’m back tomorrow for another episode of Ask a Designer Anything

Support Ask a Designer Anything

Ask a Designer Anything Website

Twitter (@craigburgess)

Ask a Designer Anything on Facebook

Leave me a review on iTunes