Don’t believe your business card.

Reach into your wallet, desk, pocket, or purse and pull out your business card.

What does it say? The job title part.

Mine says Writer.

The thing is, my business card is lying to me. And I’m willing to bet yours is, too.

Technically, my card is right. Writing is a major part of my day-to-day. But I don’t see myself as just a writer. At least, not always.

Sometimes I’m a visual designer, inventor, UX designer, artist, planner, developer, project manager, maker. And while I admit that’s probably too much for a business card, Writer doesn’t cut it for me. I just happen to write a little bit better than I do any of those other things. Quite a bit better, in some cases.

As it turns out, not everyone feels this way. There are people whose job title is their identity. It is how they define themselves and how they want others to define them.

Objectively, I understand this logic. Especially when it comes to working within a large organization. There is safety in knowing the boundaries of your sandbox. You know exactly what’s expected of you and you know what you have to do to succeed. I lived this life for a short time.

When I received my business card, it felt like I
was looking in the mirror for the first time.

Scott MacGregor sat there in bold black ink. Underneath was the word Writer. It even had an email address and a 416 area code followed by seven unique digits that connected the world to my desk.

I did everything I could to keep that card honest. I worked the late nights and weekends writing line after line after line for ads. Every word I wrote gave that card reason to exist. I wore that title like a badge of honour, showing it off at parties and family get-togethers. As far as I was concerned, it carried a certain mystique and implied intelligence.

As I continued along the career path my business card had laid out for me, my interests spilled over into other fields and my skill set started to expand beyond the confines of my title. I became interested in art direction, strategic planning, development, UX design, and visual design. The list continued to grow. Suddenly the title of Writer started to fit like that suit jacket you pull out of your closet after eight long months of dormancy; it fits as long as you don’t plan on sitting, shaking hands, or raising your arms above your head.

And while I worked in an industry that encouraged a little off leash time every now and then, being a writer in advertising still felt a little too restrictive for me. So, occasionally, I’d call myself a Creative — as if I were the only one qualified to call myself that.

When you don’t know how to describe what you do, you give yourself permission to turn an adjective into a noun.

The truth is that it was a vacuous label that used a heavy coat of arrogance to cover up a desperate need to qualify myself as something more — an artist. And it worked, for a while. But soon the walls of classification started to feel like they were closing in on me again.

That’s when opportunity knocked with a chance for me to completely step outside my sandbox and test the elasticity of my job title. I left advertising behind and joined some friends who were starting a design company. For the first time in 10 years, I was no longer a copywriter. In fact, I suddenly found myself without any real title at all. And I loved it.

Heist is a small design company. In order to make it work, each of us needs to be able to step outside our titles. Designers write; writers sketch; planners code. You chip in where you can and learn as you go. On any given day, you’ll find yourself doing ten things that don’t actually match your defined skill set. We find it difficult to decide what our ‘official’ titles actually should be — if they weren’t such a common currency in the world of business, we probably wouldn’t bother.

I’m not saying you have to be great at everything. I’m not nearly as skilled in areas beyond my title as someone whose business card actually reads visual designer, planner or developer. But I don’t let that stop me from stepping outside my sandbox. Not anymore.

Today, I allow my interests to expand my skill set. I define my title, not the other way around. And the more I learn, the more my business card lies to me.