Getting Work To Work

Last week I had a fight with perfectionism and it won. I was working on my email newsletter and started getting that feeling that it wasn’t quite right. My heart started beating faster. Shortness of breath. What if I can’t write this perfectly? What will people think? How many people will unsubscribe because my thoughts aren’t fully formed? I psyched myself out. In today’s episode of Getting Work To Work, I’m going to explore the feelings of perfection and give some practical tips on working through it.

Today’s interview episode of Getting Work To Work is the fourth in a four-part series promoting Design Week Portland, “a week-long, all-inclusive festival celebrating the projects and processes as told by a creative community across many disciplines.” In these interviews, you've met amazing creatives who are not only producing great work, but also giving back and building a community of equality. Learn more about Design Week Portland at DesignPortland.org.

Now that the stage is set, I would like to introduce you to Celeste Noche and Emilly Prado, the people behind Portland In Color—an amazing website, database, and journal “celebrating the city’s artists of color.” In this conversation, Celeste and Emilly share about the origins of the project, the importance of building trust by honoring and respecting each person’s story, and how building this community has impacted their work.

“Chasing Big Ideas” is a phrase that is showing up in my life and work a lot lately. You’ll hear me say it in the opening to this show, it’s part of my company’s positioning, and it’s a question I ask everyone I talk with. As I listen to what it means for others, I can’t help but ask myself: What does it mean to chase big ideas? Why is that so important to me? In this episode of Getting Work To Work, I’m going to dive into what chasing big ideas means to me and share eight ways you can chase big ideas.

As someone who has gone through several formal education programs and taught in a variety of capacities, I am no stranger to the world of learning and education. We seem to be at a unique place in history with not only how we learn, but the value and importance we place on certifications and degrees. I recently sat down with Aaron Hockley—a photographer and good friend of mine—and talked in-depth about this topic. While we didn’t solve all of the problems, two takeaways are certain: First, you have the ability to learn anything you want to learn right now; and second, the outcome is less important than the journey you take to get there.

Today’s interview episode of Getting Work To Work is the third in a four-part series promoting Design Week Portland, “a week-long, all-inclusive festival celebrating the projects and processes as told by a creative community across many disciplines.” In these interviews, you’ll meet amazing creatives who are not only producing great work, but also giving back and building a community of equality. Learn more about Design Week Portland at DesignPortland.org.

Now that the stage is set, I would like to introduce you to Britta Cabanos, Chief Design Director and Co-Founder of Creative Capital Design, an apparel design consulting studio, as well as Chief Editor at InsideFashionDesign.net. In this conversation, Britta shares about how travel inspires the macro and micro levels of design in every project, how filtering is essential in being a decision maker, the role of collaboration in learning new things, and what the future of technology and apparel is.

I’ve been reading Creativity: The Perfect Crime by Philippe Petit, a great book emphasizing a drastically different approach to creativity from the perspective of a high-wire walker. In the book, he writes an entire chapter about how he approaches both chaos and order in his creative process. As a creative, I understand order, but I never really considered the benefits of chaos. As I become more mature in my career, the less I want to deal with the chaotic: the unknown, the disconnected, and the nonlinearity that is our digital and hyper-connected world.

I love questions! I think a lot about what questions will engage people, bring forth interesting stories, and create a strong bond between myself and the person I’m talking with. In this episode of Getting Work To Work, I’m going to dive into powerful storytelling questions, how tension is a path to enlightening stories, and why listening transforms the overall interview experience for everyone involved.

Today’s interview episode of Getting Work To Work is the first in a four-part series promoting Design Week Portland, “a week-long, all-inclusive festival celebrating the projects and processes as told by a creative community across many disciplines.” Over the next four weeks, you’ll meet amazing creatives who are not only producing great work, but also giving back and building a community of equality. Learn more about Design Week Portland at DesignPortland.org.Now that the stage is set, the second group of creatives I would like to introduce you to are Christina Melander, Amanda Grisham, and Natalie Park, who participated in a program called FTW: For The Women, a mentorship and accountability program that was launched at last year’s Design Week Portland. Christina shares about the inspiration and purpose of FTW and why Swift, the agency she works for, took this project on. From there, the conversation shifts to Amanda and Natalie talking about the mentorship process and what they gained from it. This episode is but one shining example of what people get from Design Week Portland.

I don’t know about you, but I hate it when I feel trapped in a season of struggle. For myself, the past few months have been times of struggle and challenge; life definitely hasn’t gone according to plan. I’ve been highly creative, productive, and in the daily practice of building relationships. But my focus is frayed, my stress levels are high, and my finances are tanking my self-worth. Fortunately, there is one question running rampant through my brain providing comfort: What if struggle is necessary to have a deeper, more fulfilling life?

As I visit websites of creators and artists, I can’t help but notice all of the slashes: artist/writer/leader/executive/storyteller…you get the idea. Sometimes there are a small handful of refined identifiers, but more often than not, there is a long list of words describing who this person is and what they do. While I’m fascinated with how people can get everything done in their list of personal descriptors, I’m more curious with something deeper: what is the thread that weaves through all of the slashes and brings them together?