The Graphic Designer Blind Spot That Destroys Your Design Career

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: The Angry Designer – Graphic Design, Freelancing, Branding & Creative Business
Episode: The Graphic Designer Blind Spot That Destroys Your Design Career
Air Date: March 3, 2026
Hosts: Massimo (A), Sean (B)

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Overview

In this episode, the Angry Designer tackles one of the most detrimental—yet often invisible—threats to a designer’s career: pride. Drawing parallels to the downfall of the famous WeWork startup, Massimo and Sean dissect how unchecked pride manifests in the design community, quietly undermines growth, teamwork, and adaptability, and can ultimately destroy careers. Through candid personal anecdotes, industry observations, and memorable stories, the hosts break down the forms pride can take, why it's so dangerous, and how humility—not bravado—is the true bedrock of a lasting, fulfilling design career.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The False Confidence Trap

• Opening Rant:
  Massimo describes designers who seem supremely confident but are rigid, unteachable, and routinely blame others for their lack of progress.
  • "That's not confidence. That's something else. And it's quietly killing design careers everywhere." (00:36, Massimo)
• He introduces pride as the real culprit and likens its effects to the story of WeWork founder Adam Neumann, whose ego and illusion destroyed what seemed like an unstoppable company.
  • "What killed WeWork is the same thing that's killing so many designers quietly... it's pride." (03:14, Massimo)

2. The WeWork Analogy—Pride at Scale

• Massimo summarizes the We Crashed docuseries for context, highlighting Neumann’s charisma, smoke-and-mirrors leadership, and eventual self-sabotage via pride. The same invisible force quietly erodes designers’ careers.
• "...pride is different because it’s like an illusion... you care more about being right than growth or being truthful." (04:24, Massimo)

3. Dissecting the Blind Spot: 5 Manifestations of Designer Pride

Massimo identifies five concrete ways pride creeps into designers’ work—and sabotages them.

a. Pride in Tools and Technology

• Designers who refuse to learn new software or tools (e.g., AI, Affinity) as a point of principle, confusing refusal with expertise.
  • "Designers are always very snobby about their tools... 'I'm never going to touch AI because it's cheating.'" (06:28, Massimo)
• Refusing to adapt becomes a moral stance rather than a sign of mastery.
  • "Pride actually turns the tools into some sort of moral statement instead of an opportunity." (07:40, Massimo)

b. Pride in Aesthetics or Personal Style

• Treating one’s style or taste as universally correct, and taking any feedback as a personal attack.
  • "I've hired so many people like this... they're more designing for themselves than for the customer." (08:23, Massimo)
• Outcome: Limited growth and difficulty collaborating.

c. Pride in Craft ("Some Work is Beneath Me")

• Designers refusing to do “lesser” work (like PowerPoints), seeing it as beneath their station.
  • "She was trying to frame it as a matter of principle... principle had nothing to do with it. This was pure ego." (12:07, Massimo)
• Example: Firing a talented designer who refused to do “unworthy” tasks, thus hurting teamwork.

d. Pride in Responsibilities (Refusal to Expand Skills)

• Designers who reject adjacent or auxiliary tasks (e.g., light copywriting, offering ideas) because "it’s not my job".
  • "I'm a graphic designer, I'm not going to do copy for the ad... if you treat all this as beneath your role, you’re turning opportunities for growth into your own limitations." (13:39, Massimo)
• Being too rigid spells trouble, especially in small business or freelance settings.

e. Pride in Identity (Fragile Self-Image)

• Any request outside one's preferred scope feels threatening; even non-design tasks become insultingly beneath them.
  • "I've had guys, not even girls, but guys in tears being like, 'I went to college to do graphic design, and now you want me to scrub a toilet?'" (17:46, Massimo)
• Anecdote: Attempting team office-cleaning gamified with prizes—some staff saw this as an attack on their status, not a team ritual.

4. The High Cost of Ego: Clients and AI Don’t Care

• If pride stops you from taking on new tech, doing copy, or tackling “small” tasks, AI or other designers will eat your lunch:
  • "AI is not going to give a wow about... how prideful you are... It will do the job. It doesn't care what's beneath you." (21:14, Massimo)
• The takeaway: Your skills can be replaced by those who are less prideful and more adaptable.

5. Humility: The Real Superpower

• "Pride is false confidence. It's false confidence wrapped up in your ego and all that bullshit. Instead... humility." (23:13, Massimo)
• True growth, trust, and long-term success require humility—openness to learning, feedback, and occasional vulnerability.
  • "Being humble isn't thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less." (24:34, Massimo)
• Sharing real client stories where admitting not having all the answers and inviting collaboration lead to better results and happier clients.
  • "I don't have the answers on this, but if you're willing to go down that journey with us, we'll learn it." (26:26, Massimo)
• Clients value honesty and shared problem-solving more than bravado.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the real difference:
  "Being humble isn't thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less." (24:34, Massimo)

• On the necessity of humility:
  "Humility in no way makes you smaller as a designer... It literally makes you unstoppable." (27:04, Massimo)

• On learning and growth:
  "The only way that we've learned you can be successful in this space is by [being] willing to learn and continuously learn and evolve." (27:44, Massimo)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–04:24 – The opening rant, introduction of pride as the blind spot and brief on WeWork story
• 06:11–15:20 – The five manifestations of designer pride, with real anecdotes
• 17:46–21:03 – Teamwork, humility, and the real-world cost of prideful attitudes
• 23:13–27:18 – Advocacy for humility, client collaboration stories, and the embrace of learning
• 28:08–29:05 – Recommendation: Watch We Crashed for a cautionary tale on pride
• 29:26–29:51 – Closing reflections

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Takeaways for Designers

• Pride, not lack of skill, is the most insidious blind spot that can quietly sabotage your design career.
• This pride shows up in resistance to new tools, rigid styles, unwillingness to do “non-glamorous” tasks, and an overprotective sense of designer identity.
• The creative industry prizes adaptability, collaboration, and continuous learning—all impossible when pride gets in the way.
• Humility is the antidote. Be willing to say “I don’t know,” learn, adapt, and work alongside your clients and colleagues.
• AI and evolving technology don’t care about your ego—the only way to stay relevant is to keep growing.

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Suggested Viewing

• We Crashed (Apple TV) – An energetic, cautionary parable on pride, ego, and blind spots, recommended viewing for every designer.
  • “I highly recommend every designer watch it because I think it’ll give you an insight as to what could happen if you let pride blind your judgment.” (29:05, Massimo)

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This episode offers an honest, often funny, and at times uncomfortable look into the self-sabotage designers rarely admit to—armed with actionable advice and a bit of tough love.

Transcript

[A]

Did you ever meet one of those designers and think, damn, they got it all figured out? I mean, they don't take feedback from clients and they don't touch certain work and they refuse to learn new tools like it's beneath them. And they talk like they're above it all, yet somehow they're always stuck. Same issue, same results, same excuses. And spoiler alert, it's always somebody else's fault. Yeah, that's not confidence. That's something else. And it's quietly killing design careers everywhere. Because while they're busy defending their precious designer identity, they're falling behind in ways that they don't even see coming. In this episode of the Angry Designer podcast, powered by wix Studio, we're breaking down the blind spot that takes out more designers than bad design ever will. Because being a designer is about more than just being awesome at what you do. And the scary part is that most designers that it's happening to are convinced that they're doing everything right. Let's go. Let me tell you what I started watching this past weekend, and I have binged this. Okay. I don't know why. You know, I love the tech world. I love tech startups. We work with tech companies.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

I watched this series on Apple TV called We Crashed, and it is the we work story. Okay? And again, you always, you know, you. You love them and hate him because, I mean, these are generally stories that show this incredible entrepreneurial, you know, voyage.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But when it comes to startups like this, it's, It's. There's very little entrepreneurial anything in there. And it's all, you know, often done, like, you know, with a lot of smoke and mirrors, a lot of illusionary bullshit. Right. And it's driven by egos that are beyond this world. Okay. And I mean, not to say that they were, well, they weren't successful, but they rose to success like crazy. Like in, you know, in such a short amount of years, they were doing almost 2 billion in sales, you know. So the whole thing is about Adam Newman, okay? Who is the entrepreneur who started. He was kind of a failed entrepreneur up. He came up with this idea, you know, for. For we work. And the funny thing is there was already all these co working spaces out there. So he wasn't original, right. But he latched on to this idea of community and, you know, career and this myth that they were doing something different. And it was something bigger than the world has ever known, Right. And it completely, you know, gave this distortion of what was really happening. Right? And it was it was incredible because it was, you know, in one sense, it was fun to watch him go. Yeah. Because he'd be somebody that was charismatic and he was energetic, and, you know, someone like that in a pitch, he's a real bros bro. Yeah. Well, he was engaging because he had everything right? Everybody would be like, eyes on him.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But the thing is, you know, he was selling so much illusion, so much bullshit, so much, you know, fake whatever. It was so big and crazy that it was like he started believing all this own shit like it was for real, so he couldn't step aside. But the thing is, everybody bought into it until he was his own worst enemy. Okay? And then ultimately, what killed him, okay, was his own pride. And this is why I thought this would be really cool to tie into an episode, because, you know, what killed WeWork is the same thing that's killing so many designers quietly, they don't even realize. But it's pride. Okay.

[B]

I thought it was billions and billions of dollars of investment.

[A]

I wish.

[B]

Yes, that would be nice. But, no, it's certainly not that. Pride. Yeah, Pride. This is nasty. This is a nasty one.

[A]

Honestly, they fall into this trap, okay? And it's just okay, obviously on a smaller scale, because we're not dealing with billions. But, you know, I have seen in my 20, you know, okay, so I've been in this space for over 30 years. I've been in business for almost 27, and I have seen so many. Have experienced so much of this with the people that have worked for me, right? I never was like this, okay. This isn't something that I ever embraced, but I saw it everywhere, and it drove me nuts because it was clear as day that, you know, most of the time they were fake. They couldn't get beside themselves, but they had this. This, what looked like confidence, but it totally wasn't.

[B]

It wasn't.

[A]

Okay? And it wasn't that they were proud. There's a difference.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

There's a difference between proud and pride, right? Proud is you're happy with what you're. You accomplished, right? I was proud with what I. Even when my agency was only me and three other people and we were, you know, on top of a lube shop, you know, looking over the universities, and I'm like, this is happy I did this. I worked my ass off, right? Pride is different because it's like an illusion. It's like you. You're knowing unknowingly maybe, okay? Protecting your ego, okay? And you care more about being right than growth or than being Truthful. The problem is, you know, like, whether confidence can turn into pride, you know, or whether, you know pride or whether that's your ego that turns into pride, you know, either way, it's a threat to designers because it will inhibit growth. They just don't realize it. And usually what happens is they just come crashing down. And then I think that's. That's the whole blind spot in all of this. Okay. Because again, it makes them. It makes them constantly trying to grow to. To. To be who they think they are instead of actually growing as a designer. Right.

[B]

Yes, exactly.

[A]

And this is why I call it the blind spot. They don't see it.

[B]

Right, right. You're not aware of that Maybe.

[A]

Like, when we started this and we were younger, remember, this was. This happened a lot when you'd see these hot New York graphic designers, you know, and you never really understood what the hell they were doing. No. Okay. And it didn't make any sense. But. But they were so full of pride. They were so prideful in everything they did, and they believed it all. And they're just like, how. How does that actually work for the client?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because the shit that they were doing was more art than it was design.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And I never understood that world. I never understood that. That feeling that people get like that.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

You know, honestly, this. It's this blind spot that we can keep talking about, but, you know, for people who don't realize it. Okay. I kind of figured out five different ways that pride shows up in a designer and can actually blow up their. And career. I think everybody's going to recognize these.

[B]

Yes. Like, for sure.

[A]

The most. And again, sometimes it comes out of our mouth like this and sounding. So we just have to keep our egos in check. Right. Because, you know, number one, okay. Pride and tools. Tools, okay. Designers are always very snobby about their tools. Right. Like, I'm never going to use a template and nor should you, you know, Or. Or, you know, oh, I'm never going to touch AI because it's cheating. Yeah, you hear that everywhere. Right now, people refuse to use AI because they're saying it's cheating. When it's just like, are you just inhibiting your growth? Yes. You're just holding back. Right. Or it's like, oh, if I learn this new tool, that means I'm obviously not good enough at the old one. Right. I wonder if maybe that's why a lot of people, you know, when you have the opportunity to go to Affinity versus Adobe and it's free, if people Refuse to. Just because, you know, I wonder if that has anything to do with that.

[B]

I've. I've.

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

I've downloaded Affinity, and I struggle with it. And I always go back to.

[A]

You just go back to good old.

[B]

Back to what I know. Is that bad? Is that a bad thing?

[A]

You know, some people just refuse to try it altogether.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Just like some people.

[B]

I get that.

[A]

I get that some people refuse to jump on AI. Right? And what happens in situations like this is pride actually turns the tools into. Into some sort of moral statement.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Instead of actually as opportunities. Right. Because it's like your stance to the world. This one's for sure. Pride and aesthetics. Aesthetic or in your style. Okay. Like, again, treating your design taste, style as the universal truth. I have hired so many people like this where it was just like, you can't tell them you don't like it because it's their style and they take it personally. Right. If you actually give them feedback, they. They look at it like a personal tact.

[B]

Yeah. You've stabbed them in the gut.

[A]

And it's like, well, listen, I. I love your aesthetic. It's. It's light, it's airy, it's elegant. But we're talking to a power tools company here, and it just doesn't work. Well, the power tools is obviously not targeting the right people. And, I mean, I've had these kind of comments made. Fucking blows me away. And what happens is when designers take on this mentality, they're more designing for themselves than for the customer. Right? And we see this time and time again online. Okay. But it's just. It's shitty when you're actually trying to work with these people in a team. And I don't know if they're capable of working in a team. They're probably the ones have to run their own show, right? But it's like they're. They're just assuming that their style is the standard.

[B]

Right?

[A]

And if anybody doesn't want to come up to their style, well, it's their loss. Their loss, their fault. Okay? Needless to say, pride in aesthetics will consistently, you know, prohibit any sort of growth and limit designers to their potential. They just have to be open to seeing it. And now a word from our sponsor. Designers. Let's be honest. Web design should be a graphic designer's job. It's bold, it's creative, it's experimental, and at its core, it is design layout just brought to life online. But somewhere along the way, graphic designers lost it. Developers took over Tools got complicated and creativity took a back seat to cope. The thing is, clients are still expect us to bring their brand to life everywhere. And if we're not offering web design today, you're leaving money and potential opportunities on the table. That's where Wix Studio comes in. It's the web platform built for designers with a drag and drop interface that feels like a designer's tool. Plus no code, animations and AI powered tools. You can create fully custom websites that match your vision. Every pixel, every layout, every detail. So whether it's a simple branded brochure site or an online portfolio, or even a full blown ecommerce experience, WIX Studio makes it all possible for graphic designers with tools that think like a designer, not like a developer. The web doesn't need more templates. It needs you and your creativity unleashed. And WIX Studio is going to give you that option opportunity. So stop giving creativity away and take back the web for design. Visit wixstudio.com and design the web the way it is meant to be. Pride in your craft. Okay, now while this does sound like, you know, what's wrong with that, right? You know, this gets to a point where certain designers will, you know, they'll believe that as a designer, some work is just beneath the them to do.

[B]

There we go.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And we had somebody that you were, that you actually had the pleasure of working for, right? We had a designer here and she was amazing. She was very good designer. Okay. She had her own style.

[B]

Amazing.

[A]

But she was adaptable to other styles.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah. But where she didn't want to budge was when, you know, she was slow for a while. And I asked her, I was like, look, por Sean's got three power points. You're good at layouts. Why don't you, you know, help him and you know, learn PowerPoints? Because this is clearly a part of our business that's not going away time soon. And make some incredible PowerPoints with them, right? Help the guy out, he says. And she was like, to my face, she was like, okay, sure. No sooner did I walk into my office, she goes up to our, you know, our operations manager time. And her exact words were, I did not go to school to become a designer, only to do PowerPoint presentations. And I'm like, this is a fucking team.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know what I mean? We help each other out. Right? And again, she was trying to frame it as like a matter of principle. Okay, but principle had nothing to do with it. No. This was pure ego.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. And what happened is, you know, she wasn't protecting her craft in any way. Right. She was protecting what she thought was her self image as a designer.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Oh, exactly. And in turn showed us all that she was incapable of working in a team. Right. And needless to say, the next week, cut her loose. Yes, we fired her. Yeah, we had to fire her. And I didn't want to again, she had so much talent, but she couldn't get out of her own way. Okay, here's another pride, okay. Pride in responsibilities. Okay. And you're like, well, what do you mean by this? Okay, well, this is that constant story that we see on Reddit. Or, you know, you see designers complaining about where they're like, and then they asked me to do the copy for the ad because they were behind. I'm a graphic designer. I'm not going to do copy for the ad. I'm not going to do that. Like, this is like, you know, it blows me away when people absolutely refuse to brainstorm anything and expand their capabilities within their skill set. Yes. Right. Like, it's, it's, it's. Again, it kind of goes back to. It's being beneath them. Right. They, they refuse to take on any sort of adjacent skills to what they're

[B]

doing because it's not my job.

[A]

It's not.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Well, you clearly haven't worked for a small company, a small agency. Right. Obviously not a freelancer, because I know a lot of freelancers that, that will jump in and do their own and make their own recommendations big time. Like, who are they helping in this situation? Okay. If you want to be that almighty about your skill set and you don't want to pick up anything else, then you're treating basically any. If you start treating all this shit as beneath your role and not your responsibilities, what you're doing is you're turning these opportunities, you know, for growth.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Into your own limitations.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And now it's like, oh, no, I don't touch. I don't touch copy, I don't touch headline. I can't give you any recommendation. I only do the design portion because I am that good. Like, shake your head, people.

[B]

If you actually tell that to a client. Oh, geez, I am afraid to say you're not going to be. That's not going to be your client for very long there, dude.

[A]

You know what happened today? I had one of our designers come up to us and sadly, the client only provided three PowerPoint slides of basically stats and information and said, this is the event and this is the information that we need. Turned into a data sheet. That was it. There was nothing else. It was so thin in information. Right. And it was like, well, what do we do? Should we push back? And we're like, well, they're clearly giving it to us in hopes that we'll do it. We can do it. Yeah. And we can put it together. Yeah. One of two things is going to happen. Yeah. Right. We, we don't put it together. We go back to the client, we waste a couple more days, they get a little bit irritated because this client relies on us. They know that we can get the job done.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Or we'll, we'll obviously find out who it is, find out the event, find out, you know, what the intent was based on the copy information.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Do our own kick of the can, a version of it. Right. Which will be pretty damn good.

[B]

I think it would be close. Yes.

[A]

And then we'll give it to them. And the worst that'll happen is they'll be like, oh, not quite.

[B]

Yeah, but you're.

[A]

Change this, change this. And they will make the change. Because sometimes for customer sake, it's easier for them to edit than it is to come from scratch. Right. All right. And then number five. Okay. Pride in identity. Okay. This is when basically your identity is so fragile that anything else that you're asked outside of what you do feels threatening. And it's like always this flight, this, this fight that, it's like, oh, no, no, no. That's so similar to what we just talked about. Okay. About adjacent. But I'm talking about in adjacent, skills. And I got another great story here. Okay. Oh. So I had a story that I literally had designers crying here at fucking Zed Factor. Okay? Seriously, hear me out. We're about 12 years into the business. Okay? 12 years. Just moved into our kick ass studio here where we are now. Okay. Just moved in within the first six months. Okay. So again, I scrubbed toilets when we started the business. You did, right? I did, right. I wasn't scared. I would come in nights and weekends, you know, we were still early. You know, you can't, you know, you can't afford cleaners, you know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You would do a lot of your thing. So you would. Instead of spending, you know, 200 bucks a week on cleaners, I'd come in for a couple hours, scrub toilets, this, that, right. I'm cleaning up all this. Okay, so new office, much bigger. I was like, okay, you know what, we're going to turn this into a Friday afternoon thing. Okay. We're going to start at 3 o' clock. The whole team's going to do it, right. We're all going to pick something. Right. And I was like, okay, well, you know, who wants to get the bad jobs? Who wants the good jobs? Instead of just picking everybody out, I got one of those big roulette wheels, you know, and I put, you know,

[B]

like the office vacuuming.

[A]

Exactly. But this was before it showed up in the office.

[B]

Really? Oh.

[A]

And so you'd spin it, right? And then it would be like, oh, toilet. Oh, too bad. But some of those were free. Okay. You didn't have to do anything. One was day off. Oh. So again, the. The. The. The whole encouragement here was to. We're doing this as a team. We're all living and cohabilitating in this office.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. We'll clean it together. What? Every single person here, If I can clean a toilet, they can fucking clean it for sure. I had guys, not even girls, but guys in tears being like, I went to college to do graphic design, and now you want me to scrub a toilet? And I'm just like, I can't even believe they were literally, like, they were mortified on Fridays when we. And again, it's like, if the place was that bad. Yeah, you guys are responsible because it's that bad. If there was crap on the walls, one of you probably put it there.

[B]

Somebody did that. Yeah.

[A]

But it obviously wasn't. And so these gu. Were so. I mean, I tried everything. I gamified it. I gave prizes, I gave days off. If somebody legitimate and we do it all together, we cheer, man. Was this impossible? It was horrible. Right. But again, the cleaning wasn't the issue. It was obviously their own egos. Right. Because the cleaning was beneath them. And that's what I couldn't handle. Needless to say, it didn't work out with them either. Okay.

[B]

Yeah, they're probably not here.

[A]

This is such a huge, huge. Because, dude, I have my daughter, okay. And which I pay her now, but she comes in on the weekends. She will clean the place. And intentionally. I don't want her to think that she could come in here one day and just automatically jump up to a, you know, senior designer role. She needs to get the whole experience she needs to get from the ground. And you know what? She takes pride, you know, of how well she does here. Yeah, she does. She takes pride in how good she. She tries hard to keep it clean. She. Our toilets on Monday morning, sparkling. Even puts. She even folds her toilet paper and puts a little, you know, medallion on there. Where'd she get that idea. Because again, she's very. She. You know, she. And. And again, that's who she's becoming. So you're telling me these guys who are actually getting paid and wanting to work in a. In this kind of environment are so scared. It was the worst thing. Dude, this is. If you can't handle cleaning a freaking desk, okay. Or cleaning. Helping clean, like an office, how are you going to handle a client asking for 10 revisions on a project? Exactly. Seriously, cleaning that you. Then you go, yeah, begging to clean.

[B]

The people do that. It's for the break from the. Wow, that is messed up.

[A]

And I mean, speaking of that, imagine if they're that prideful. It take so much pride, they don't want to clean the toilets. Okay. And they got all these revisions for customer. What is that ego going to do to their relationship with their customers? To own your own shop. Okay, granted, you might get to an ego place. Okay. You might get there. But I think when you start, you need to be humble. You need to be able to. You do it all yourself.

[B]

Yes. Yeah.

[A]

You're absolutely this we work guy. I mean, initially, he. But even during this story, as. As he was the most crazy, egotistical, prideful person I've ever seen. He started in a really shitty, dumpy little office that was basically a storage locker.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. He granted, he quickly got out of that because he was able to sell his way out of it. But I mean, the reality, it's. It's. You need to be. There's so many different kinds of sacrifices and. And learning lessons, having your own shop.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Do you really think customers are going to care about your ego? Your precious ego? They just want to get the job done. Work. Yeah, Right. They're not going to care about your attitude.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

You know, who else isn't going to care about your ego and your. Your precious identity? AI. Oh. AI is not going to give a wow about any part of your. You know, your. How prideful you are and how big you're. You know, you don't. You don't care about your tools, you know, or. Sorry, you. You obsess over your tools. Yep. AI is going to be like, hey, it's okay. I'll create templates. I will create all the. I'll use the faster tools. I'll get done 10 times faster. Okay. You know, your aesthetic is so great. Okay. AI is like, fine. I've got a hundred more seconds. I'll give it to you. Right. It doesn't care what's beneath you. You know, you don't want to do copy. No problem. Chad, will your copy for you. Like, it's ridiculous, right? It doesn't give a. Okay. It absolutely won't give a. So again, and that's the scary part, because while pride may have gotten a lot of designers to this point, okay, now using like AI out there is going to decimate not necessarily the skill that designers have. Okay. But it's going to replace everything that that designers refuse to do because of their pride. Right. Again, copy. You know, PowerPoints, doing Leno late at night. The only thing that I don't think AI is going to be doing is doing my toilets, unfortunately. But for now, I have my daughter doing them. So we're okay. Okay. Until Elon creates me that toilet scrubbing robots, she's safe. So I think that, you know, while we're telling everybody to watch out for pride, you know, and out and let this get ahead of them, I think the one thing that they need to embrace instead of pride, because again, in my opinion, pride is false confidence. Yeah, okay. It's false confidence wrapped up in your ego and all that bullshit. I think instead, and we just talked, we just mentioned it, when it comes to owning a business is humility.

[B]

Humility is huge, dude.

[A]

You know, from day one, you know, humility, this our space right now as graphic designers is a long journey of learning. Learning everything is curiosity led. It's on credit based. And the only way you can learn is if you're humble enough to accept the fact that you don't have all the answers. Some people think that, you know, being humble is, is a weakness. I know, you know, not to mention names, but I know Chris do had a video once that I was gonna, you know, give him a heck about, about, you know, being humble shows weakness, but I think it's the most purest form of strength because you can confidently present something, but also not be so scared of your stance that you can't take feedback and try to understand where that feedback comes from. It takes a confident designer to be able to stand, actually listen, and then respond with either why that might be the case, why it might not, or sure, I'll give that a shot, because I think you might be onto something. Yeah, that's confidence. Confidence in who you are and your ability. Right. It's not. Being humble isn't thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And there is a massive difference. It doesn't mean that you think that you can't do the job. It's like, huh, okay, I know. I can do the job, but let me hear what somebody else's take on it. Right.

[B]

And, you know, the funny thing is, too, especially with the client, I think. I think it's almost a. It's almost a kind of a disarming thing where you could say, you know what? I don't know, And I'm not 100% sure here, but I would like to work with you on to get.

[A]

Finding that solution, to get this solution.

[B]

And I think, to me, that's a good thing, rather than saying, you know,

[A]

yes, I'll do it for you.

[B]

Give it to me. I'll take it. I will work with you, and we will find the solution to this. I think a client will. That will resonate with them far more than you taking it all away from them and then showing them at the end.

[A]

That happened twice today. Once in our meeting.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

With that. With that big pitch deck presentation. Okay. Where it was like, their idea. We gave our idea. They didn't like it. Right. They pitched an idea, and I was like, all right, maybe we can make that work. And then we, you know, we. And again, it wasn't like, no, you're wrong. Yeah, our idea is right. I was like, okay. I listened to their apprehensions on that one. On that one slide, and we made it work with their suggestions.

[B]

Right?

[A]

They're happy. They're like, wow, these guys fucking rock. They actually listened to my idea.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And then, you know, elevated it 10 times more using their fucking experience.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Okay? So, boom, that happened. We had another meeting about a customer who wanted to make their website more AI friendly. And again, in the meeting, we had a conversation with them. We talked about it. I'm like, look, you know, like, this. This shit's a moving target. This AI website. SEO is just changing so fast. I'm like, you know, I don't have the answers on this, but if you're willing to go down that journey with us, okay. We'll learn it.

[B]

We'll learn it.

[A]

You will.

[B]

We'll figure it out.

[A]

We'll figure it out. You know that we're gonna get a hell of a lot further than you will based on the fact of where we're coming from.

[B]

That's.

[A]

And what's the worst that's gonna happen? Right? Like, we can't get any worse. A small investment.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

And they were cool with it. They were like, yeah, because 100. Right. So it's not like I pretended to have the answers. And I wasn't a jerk or an egotistical, you know, maniacal egotistical prideful loser about it.

[B]

Yeah, Yeah.

[A]

I was like this. Nobody has the answer to this stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

We'll figure it out together.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yes. Again, humility in no way makes you smaller as a designer, as a business owner, in my opinion.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It literally makes you unstoppable.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because big time, you let them know, okay. That you actually don't have all the answers, but you have all the skills and experience to get to those answers 10 times faster than they do.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Maybe 100 times faster. They're going to invest in you.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Ultimately, I think designers need, especially in situations like this, need to stop trying to prove to everybody that they actually are a designer. Yeah. Right. You don't have to try to prove.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Anything. Right. Instead, you know, honestly, embrace humility. Okay. Embrace being human. And then you will genuinely become a better designer.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Because honestly, I think pride in designers is just cosplay, okay. For being successful. Seriously. And, you know, the only way that we've learned you can be successful in this space is by willing to learn and continuously learn and evolve in this space. And hey, if you're prideful and you're not willing to take any. Anybody's opinion, any sort of new information, you're basically, you plateaued. You won't have the answers.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

With that being said, I would recommend anybody watch the movie. We Crashed. Okay. We crashed. We crashed. It is a great movie. It's got Jared Leto. Oh, he's a little weird. He's a little weird. But I think he does a good job.

[B]

Right. In character.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

As usual.

[A]

And. But. But it has Anne Hathaway and who doesn't love Anna? She's awesome.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

She makes. She makes the movie just as much as he does. But it's pretty accurate. The depiction is pretty accurate. And the story is crazy. But what you can see is how blind, not even blind ambition, but blind pride can lead to. Right. And it was. It's a fun journey. It's only like eight episodes. It's worth the watch. Yeah. But it's just like shakes your head being like, you know, clear as day. You see the problem. Yeah, but he can't.

[B]

He can't.

[A]

And didn't he.

[B]

Didn't he make a deal with somebody? He went surfing with. With some.

[A]

Oh, dude, Indoor waved up.

[B]

That's what it was. The Wave company.

[A]

So again. And there was so much craziness. I mean, again, it's. The story is incredible. And. And again, I highly recommend every designer watch it because I think It'll give you an insight as to what could happen if you let pride blind your judgment. Okay, so again, it's that. It's that blind judgment you want to avoid. For sure. It's the blind spot.

[B]

The blind spot.

[A]

Remember that, guys? Blind spot.

[B]

The blind spot.

[A]

Cool.

[B]

Yeah. That was awesome, man.

[A]

Hope you guys got something cool out of this. You know, don't forget to, obviously, sign up for our newsletter. Anger management for designers. Lot more of this just in a more calm format and without the scotch or bourbon or whiskey or anything.

[B]

Yeah, it was less ranty.

[A]

Less ranty, for sure. All right, my name is Massimo.

[B]

My name is Sean.

[A]

Stay creative and stay angry, Sam. It.