Here is a personal confession. I was never really good at design.
In fact, when I started, I was extremely bad. The “oh god what have I done” kind of bad. I had horrible grades, I was depressed and I hated it. I considered more than once transitioning to a new field, thinking I would not be good enough to get a job.
My darkest hour was in my second year at Cégep. We were finally done with design theory and were getting started with the real stuff. We had just finished our first class project, a 3-fold flyer. I was so proud of it I would show it to everyone. I was getting super positive feedback. Even my mom thought it was awesome.
Then it hit me. One day I was called in the teacher office. There, I sat with three other classmates while our teacher explained why our projects were bad. She said we needed to improve quickly, or otherwise we would never find any work in our field.
My classmates got angry. They banded together to make an official complaint against the teacher. Eventually, they had a petition going, trying to get her fired for being insensitive, for having little social tact. This went all the way to the program director, who dismissed the complaint.
As for myself, I was also mad, but I wasn’t mad at the teacher. I was mad at myself. I was mad at how I could suck that much. Mad at the cognitive dissonance between how I viewed myself as a smart and creative individual, and how the teacher viewed my work. It didn’t make sense. I wanted to prove her wrong.
The turning point
While my classmates were getting busy gathering support for the petition, I started doing Photoshop tutorials. I found this great website called PSD.Tut+ and spent hours, every day, doing tutorials after class. I would do tutorials all the time. I didn’t eat, I didn’t sleep, I didn’t go out anymore: all I did was tutorials. I was insane.
A year went by and I had literally finished all the tutorials on the website. So I started writing my own tutorials. I wasn’t finished with school and I was teaching amateurs and professionals worldwide how to use Photoshop. The best part? I was getting paid for it. For someone who, a year prior, was told by his teacher he might never get a job in design, that felt pretty great. And things only got better afterward. My passion for Photoshop transitioned to a passion for interaction design. I went on to win a few design awards and I now have a great career start in Silicon Valley.
To this day, I don’t think I would have made it this far it wasn’t for this awful meeting back in school. This was my turning point. Out of all the student who were in the meeting that day, I believe I am the only one who made a career in design. Those who made the petition? Ultimately, they either changed field or finished school and got an unrelated job.
I’ve always thought of this story as a lesson on the importance of attitude. A lesson on how, if you are too arrogant to listen to criticism, you might miss out on the most important advice in your life. But recently, my perspective on that story changed. I believe that my horrible graphic design skills were actually a blessing.
A blessing in disguise
This might sound crazy, but I believe that when you start something new, being horrible is a good thing. Let me explain.
When starting out, some people are naturally talented and some are not. Those who are immediately good will tend to get praise early and feel little need to improve. They will start out their journey thinking they are already good enough.
But the truth is that being good at something is actually quite easy. Being great is hard. It’s insanely hard. No one ever becomes great by accident. It requires planning, dedication, sacrifices. The amount of hours needed to get there is unhealthy. The opportunity cost is huge. Being great is, by and large, ill-advised.
On the other hand, when you suck at something, it puts you in the right mindset. It makes you a realist. You understand that progress won’t be easy. You accept the pain. You work harder, longer hours than everybody else. You thrive on praises. Every small compliment on your work will make your day, and will push you to work even harder.
And before you know it, you’ll not only be good at your craft, you’ll be great. Starting out bad gives you leverage. The momentum you get from going from bad to good is what will carry you from good to great.
As Jim Collins said, “Good is the mortal enemy of great.”
This is the reason we don’t have that many great schools, great governments, and great institutions. Because most of them are actually quite good.
This is also the reason successful companies like Google or Apple don’t hire good employees. They understand that good employees don’t make great businesses. Good employees tend to compromise; they take the easy route, they settle for good enough.
And ultimately, this is the reason most people don’t live a great life. Because it is all too easy to settle for a good life.
Good is the enemy of great.
And this is why I work my ass off every day to never be a good designer.
In case you missed it, you can see my awful design here.
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