At the end of 2013 I was asked by my good friend Sam to speak to the graduating design students from Texas State University. Terrifying, right? Maybe not for you... but it was a stressful proposition for me. For starters, I didn’t go to college for design and I was intimidated to stand in front of educated and talented students with the intent to impart any type of wisdom. Adding to my anxiety was the fact that my experience with public speaking was largely limited to my freshman year of college. We’ve all done that. I remember trying to structure an argument about how Bill Mallonee was the most under-appreciated American songwriter of our generation (he is). It was riveting stuff.
My anxiety aside, I wanted to help Sam and I wanted to force myself to face my fears and overcome my paralysis. As I began to search my career for some nugget of wisdom, I was quickly reminded of a massive turning point where for better or worse, I was forced to make a decision that would impact my career from that moment forward. Really... it was that big.
In the spring of 2011, Sputnik had just rebranded and was starting to gain momentum as an actual business. We started to have really interesting clients, money was getting better, I was moving into an office and I was looking to make my first hire. That said, I was still decidedly at the crossroads of deciding to remain a one-man band or make the effort and commitment to grow a studio. In the middle of making that decision, something happened. One of my really interesting clients (also the biggest at the time) made me a job offer. Their offer was incredibly generous and it forced me to decide who I wanted to be as a professional but more importantly what I wanted my life to be like. I was immediately presented with a fork in my path that I hadn’t anticipated.
I wrestled with the decision for about 10 days until I sought the counsel of my friend Eric who had just left his steady day job to start his own business in the field of career counseling. The timing of this was beyond perfect. Eric was able to ask the right questions to get to the heart of my dissonance and aspirational goals.
Reframing the Situation
The one thing that will always stick with me from our conversation was the idea of looking at every opportunity (job offer, partnership, major client, etc…) as a comparison between your “body” and theirs. At first it sounded weird to me.. even a little creepy. As Eric explained, every company has its own skin, skeleton, head and heart:
Skin:
How is the company perceived by their peers, clients and industry? These are the things that people say about companies, “Those guys are jerks and charge too much” or “Those are nice people that work hard”.
Eric explained the skin is the number one thing that immediately transfers to you as you align with a company. This can be positive or negative. Happy Cog is a good (and positive) example of this. Anyone who has ever worked for them is probably expected to be of a certain professional prowess.
Skeleton:
The organizational structure of the company. Is it a typical top-down corporate structure or a flat structure? More importantly, who do you report to and what control do they have over your work?
Head:
This is how the company thinks about the world, their work and their people. Just like a human, determining how a company thinks is quite a bit more difficult than just looking at surface level indicators (i.e. skin).
Eric encouraged me to understand myself and codify what I stand for so I could ask the right questions about the company’s thinking. I.E.: “What do you think about work-life balance?, “What do you think about _______ trend in our industry?”.
Heart:
This is a company’s beliefs and ethos. In a lot of ways, this is the hardest possible thing to know immediately. You can ask, but actions and history speak louder than messaging or mission statements.
This is easily the most important aspect of a company to understand before diving in. Aligning with a company that believes something different from you at its core will swallow up your ability to have any passion in your work.
The Decision
Ultimately, it was this framework of thinking that caused me to decline the offer. Without getting in the weeds about the details, I can say that I didn’t align with the company on enough of these elements to confidently move forward. Making the decision not to take the job was the hardest moment of my professional life up to that time.
That gig would have decidedly transformed my income and stability, thus allowing for lots of cool things to happen (probably an Audi). On the other hand it would have also cut me off from pursuing the path I knew I wanted deep down. I knew in my heart of hearts that I would be absolutely miserable if I allowed myself to compromise on these incredibly important things.
My Path
Going through this process made me realize that I’ve chosen a path that places passion over profit and fulfillment over the promise of accumulation. I didn’t get into design (or music) because I was interested in pursuing a tried and true career path. No, there are plenty of careers out there if I wanted something safe and reasonable.
Learning this about myself has since emboldened me to work as hard as possible to continue to protect the path I’ve chosen. I’ve had several other opportunities come up since making this decision in 2011 and knowing what I want has made every decision that much easier. This way of thinking has helped me decide who should work at Sputnik and who our studio should do work for. I consider myself extremely fortunate to work daily with amazing people creating interesting work for our fantastic clients. The path I’ve chosen isn’t easy but it’s my path and it’s worth defending.
I’D RATHER BE A FAILURE AT SOMETHING I LOVE THAN A SUCCESS AT SOMETHING I HATE. — George Burns
