The Awesome Power of Being Uncomfortable

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For folks that don't have time to read, here's a video!!

You know that feeling when you put your shirt on backwards? You don’t even have to look into the mirror to know it’s wrong… You can just feel it. The other day, I was doing the “shirt turnaround” dance and I had a thought… Is being uncomfortable ever good? In the case of my shirt, that uncomfortable feeling saved me from going outside with my shirt on backwards. Not the end of the world, but I’m not in an early 90’s one hit wonder hip-hop duo, so I couldn’t pull off the look.?

Growing up, my dad was in the army, and we moved around A LOT... 3 elementary schools, Jr. High in another country, 3 high schools, and 2 colleges. Throughout my childhood, I spent a ton of time as “the new kid”. On the first day of school, not only did I not know anyone at all, but I was normally one of just a few non-white kids in the entire building.

That first morning either walking alone to school, or sitting alone on a bus was “uncomfortable” to say the least. You know those old-time maps with “Thar be monsters” written over the parts that nobody had ever been to before? It felt like I was heading into the unknown and I was probably gonna get eaten along the way

Uhhh spoiler alert… you survived.

Obviously, Snarky Voice in my Head. But life is more than “survival” (at least it should be) and all those first days had a huge impact on my personality and how I would move through the world later in life. Not going to school wasn’t an option, so all I could do on those terrible first days was walk in the door, pretend I knew what I was doing, and try to find my way.?

All that time being the new kid meant that I had to become very comfortable with being UNcomfortable.?

Throughout my working life, people have mistaken me for an extrovert. They’d see me teaching classes, presenting at conferences, or hugging tons of people at trade shows, and assume that meeting and talking with people came naturally to me. NOPE. At best, I’m an ambivert on the spectrum of interaction. I had to learn very early in life how to walk into a situation with my head up and figure out how to make it work. I don’t always get it right LOL, but I do always walk in.?

I spent the last 11 years deep in a comfortable situation that was slowly making me uncomfortable. Good paycheck, awesome people, interesting work. But, along the way, the organization changed and the “wash, rinse, repeat” nature of the role no longer presented me with the kinds of creative challenges I’d had throughout my career. Sooooooo, I jumped ship to “build a creative life”.

Not so comfortable now are you??

LOL… No, I am not, Snarky. I really am in uncharted waters. I have a “plan”, but the steps of the plan are not clear cut like a recipe for gumbo or directions to the store. The steps are much more like suggestions… “Rebuild your creative habit and focus” was phase one and I’ve spent the last few months eliminating distractions, learning and re-learning software, and creating 3 animation projects.?

I feel like I’ve proved to myself that I have a good grasp of the latest generation of tools, and I can still create interesting sequences that tell a specific and entertaining story.?

Phase One… CHECK

OK, so now what??

Duhhhh Snarky… It’s time to begin Phase Two which reads… Rebuild your presence.

Uhhhh what the hell does that mean?

Well… Back before I started my full-time role at Lynda dot com, I was a widely known person within the small world of 3D motion design. Thousands of people all over the world have learned how to use Cinema 4D and After Effects through my courses on the internet, I was teaching at one of the top art and design colleges in the world, I was a regular presenter at conferences, and I had a lot of on-site clients where I taught group lessons. But then I kinda disappeared.

The corporate world swallowed me up and a whole generation of artists and designers has come up who don’t know me and I’m sorta starting over. To make it even more intimidating, there’s an entire generation of amazing young instructors sharing their knowledge on social platforms like YouTube, Facebook/Instagram, Tik Tok, and LinkedIn.

Hey… What about Twitter??

Thanks to the remarkable new leadership, I am definitely not messing with that dumpster fire anymore. Oh, and don’t forget platforms like Coursera, Skill Share and Udemy. The point I’m trying to make is that there’s a buttload of content out there.

When I stepped behind the scenes to manage content in the online education world none of that stuff was a factor. Lynda dot com was THE place to learn creative software. That one place is gone now, and it’s been replaced by a teeming jungle of choices all vying for the desperately short attention spans of potential learners. I am jumping into a very crowded swimming pool, and by the very relaxed look on that one dude’s face… I’m pretty sure somebody just peed in the pool.

Hmmmm that DOES sound pretty uncomfortable.

Yep… I am scared shitless LOL… but like any large challenge, you have to break it into manageable chunks and attack the problem one chunk at a time. What’s that old adage about how you eat an elephant?

Ewwwwwww… Seriously though, what are you gonna do?

You mean “What are WE gonna do?”… don’t forget Snarky Voice in My Head, you’re in this too and WE have a pretty clear idea what the first chunk of the process is, so that’s where WE’LL start…?

When I started this journey earlier in 2022, I got some amazing advice from Chris Do. I told him that I wanted to spend some time just creating things and he said…

“Buy a big ass hard drive, then record and take notes on everything you do… You’ll have more content ideas that you’ll know what to do with.”

I’ve known him for a long time and watching him transform his life and then work his ass off to help creative people transform their lives has been a huge source of inspiration for me and zillions of people all over the world. The general rule is that when Chris Do tells you to do something, you should probably shut the hell up and do it.?

So that’s what I did… I got a gigantic USB drive that was fast enough to capture directly to, and I kept Evernote open throughout each of my projects. Chris was right. I’ve got pages of notes and video ideas.

One of the things I’ve been saying consistently is that I don’t want to teach people “How to make a cube” anymore. There are enough basic software tutorials out there and I want to teach people how to get shit done.? All of the notes and ideas I have are about all the little moments that happen in a project. Sticking points and challenges you have to get through to get to the finish line.?

Ohhhh snap… Time to get to recording then!!

Hold your horses there Snarky… I want to be systematic about this so the next thing I’ll be doing is cataloging these ideas and building a content database in Airtable. Yes, I could just dive into recording but my goal is consistency… This is a marathon, not a sprint and taking the time to get organized is going to pay off in the long run with a well organized bank of ideas that I can dip into regularly to create a consistent flow of content.?

Hmmm you sure you’re not just procrastinating?

You do know me better than anyone LOL… I’m terrified of that first posting. It’s probably going to be just “OK” and it’s definitely not going to “change the world”. There is something to be said for just doing it, but again I want to create a sustainable presence. Blurting out that first idea then getting behind the 8 ball and not putting out another one for a while is just going to create stress and anxiety. Neither of those emotional states are sustainable.

So I’m going to take a deep breath, be thoughtful, systematic and prepared. A plan will allow me to batch my content and record in blocks that can be released consistently. I don’t need one amazing video, I need a buttload of decent videos, and you can’t scale to a buttload of content without a buttload of planning.?

I guess that does sound better than “going off half cocked”…?

I’m glad you think so… I know this whole thing feels uncomfortable, but just like those terrible first days of school, all we can do is walk in the door… The biggest difference is that now we (mostly) know what we’re doing. Besides… we always did end up making at least one friend on that first day, I think we’ll be fine.

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I’m not a fan of buckets of water so this was uncomfortable to make

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