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Hey, everybody.
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Catt here.
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Season one of Catt's Corner has wrapped.
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Whoo.
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I wanted to take a couple of minutes to talk about how this whole thing came together, some lessons that I learned from this process, and where it could go from here.
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In terms of why I made this, this originally started as a research project, I was preparing for my talk at Config earlier this year.
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And as part of it, I wanted to hear from staff and principal designers in their own words, what are they doing?
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How are they working during this time where the entire industry is changing?
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How are we using AI at this point?
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Everybody's least favorite acronym.
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I wanted to have the real version, not just the LinkedIn post that I was seeing.
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And I also realized that a lot has changed since I originally wrote The Staff Designer, or that's what I thought.
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And so as part of this, I also wanted to go back to folks that I had spoken to while I was producing that book and ask them to also just catch me up on kind of what's going on in their worlds these days and how they're feeling about the work.
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And what resulted from that was so much more than I thought, which was really cool.
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I do wanna take a moment to just give a huge thank you to Megan, Jessica, Theresa, Edwin, Jen, Sarah, Tom, and Yoko, these amazing people who were comfortable joining me on the podcast.
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They are such wonderful people, and I'm glad that you all got to see that.
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So in terms of what I learned this season, gosh, I talked to these eight people to, again, understand how they're thinking about design work in 2026, and five things did keep popping up over and over.
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Lesson number one for me was that the importance of understanding that you're working within a business context is more critical than ever.
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You really need to know what the business needs and to think about how to act on it as a designer.
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This came up across so many interviews.
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So for example, Megan was talking about the shift from just thinking of design as moving pixels around on the screen to actually thinking about design as creating
business outcomes, and realizing that the designers who are gonna thrive, especially at this point in the world, are the ones who stop conflating design with Figma.
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AI is making execution a lot faster as well, which means that the real value of our work, so glad about this one, is that we're moving upstream a bit to the thinking, to the strategy, and I'll talk more about that in a second.
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But a big part of that is understanding the world of business and acknowledging that the work that we do exists within a business.
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So the more that you prioritize what the business is looking for in those outcomes, it's gonna be beneficial for you.
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Edwin's whole project also, the project that was his, his big moment at the company, started because he noticed a gap in Datadog's publicly announced vision, and this wasn't something that he was asked to fix.
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Instead, he saw a business problem and built a case for solving it, and that is why at the future version of their public event, it actually was featured on the main stage.
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Tom Takigayama also called this out.
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There has to be a business case for your role before the title can exist.
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he was at Justworks for years before the business felt the pain of not having a principal designer, and that is something that he recognized, and over time, he was able to show the business why they needed this person in this kind of position.
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And essentially, you don't wanna wait for this promotion.
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You need to actually focus on showing through, again, thinking about what the business needs and taking action.
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Sarah also has coached senior designers through this all the time, and essentially the ones who get listened to are the ones that can speak the language of the room, which is also why it's important to learn this kind of language.
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And what I reflected back to her is that a lot of the numbers are made up, and businesses run on educated guesses.
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So it's not really about knowing the exact outcome that's going to happen.
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It's more about creating and taking educated guesses based on confidence and giving you permission to do that since that's what other people in the industry are also doing.
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You don't have to know everything.
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You do need to understand business priorities and make appropriate moves based on that.
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Lesson number two is to take ownership of things that will benefit you.
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There are gonna be these moments where you are held responsible or accountable for the output, whether or not it's technically in
your job description, and this is something that really annoyed me at first, and I've come around to understand why it happens.
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Megan said it really well.
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If you are not there taking ownership, you're gonna end up with these kinds of Frankenstein experiences that your team is putting out, and you're gonna have these situations where you're just being driven by other people.
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You just did what other people told you, and now you can't explain that work to anybody.
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Edwin also spent a lot of time, focusing on building a coalition around an idea that he had.
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Nobody said, "This is your project," right?
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he just decided this was something that was so important that if he could explain it to people really well, then they would understand why it was worth taking the time.
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And he spent eight months in total cheerleading, keeping this idea alive, to get it to the finish line, and that was something that resulted in really great outcomes for him long term.
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And then Sarah also said that managing up means coming with a recommendation, not a question, and this is something that I used to find irritating as well because I thought I was doing my manager's job.
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But it turns out that when you show up and you say, "Hey, here's what I think we should do. Do you agree? Let's have a conversation," you are taking ownership.
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You're not waiting for permission.
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You are actually being a leader.
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So if you want to go from senior to staff, you will have to take ownership of things.
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And the important thing to consider is, how is this gonna put me closer to where I would like to be in my career?
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I think if you ask yourself that question instead of, "Is this my job? Was this in the job description?" That's gonna benefit you a lot more Lesson number three is leading with intention.
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In other words, having a strategy and being a strategic thinker.
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Jessica pointed this out, the fundamentals never go away, right?
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We need to make sure that we continue to use our brains.
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We need to show the work that we've done.
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We need to make sure that we're focusing on getting alignment.
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We need to push the right work forward.
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This is something that I think is really important when we talk about AI, for example.
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It makes execution faster, but if you are not actually thinking about where you're going, then what is the point?
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You're going to move quickly toward the ground.
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And so we need to make sure that we are thinking critically about what we're trying to do and to consider the what and the why behind everything that we do.
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I also liked, and I wanna shout Theresa out for this fun phrase, which is quick wins in a trench coat, which is essentially when you're, like, piling on these really cool additions and you're not actually thinking about where you're going long term.
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Nothing is laddering up to anything.
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It's important to make sure that you focus on the long term so you have that confidence that you're going somewhere you intend to go.
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Again, we can use tools to illustrate these outcomes faster, but what really matters is taking the moment to actually consider and to feel confident in where you wanna go.
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Jen also called something out that was really awesome, which is that it's not just about being strategic in the execution of your work, in the artifacts that you create, but also even thinking about the timing of the work that you're doing.
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So she considers if people are actually willing to hear what she wants to share in that moment, and that keeps her from burning extra social capital on the right idea at the wrong time.
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And then Tom also talks about this a ton, especially being a principal designer.
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So Tom's, for example, spent a lot of time turning executive memos, which are just like, these written docs, into tangible artifacts.
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And in that case, he was forcing strategic conversations that were not happening, which helped senior leaders to move the company toward a direction with more confidence, and it underscored the business case for his role.
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So again, if you don't know what the work is building toward, you're just shipping things, and that is not leadership.
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You need to actually put yourself into a leadership position by thinking about outcomes and pushing those conversations and asking those questions that help other people do the same thing Lesson number four: let your energy be your compass.
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So this one really resonates with me, and I've said this to a lot of people over the years.
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I just follow what feels good to me in the moment, of course, but also I am thinking a bit long-term about, what am I trying to do with my work.
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And I really like the idea of us shifting more to being intrinsically motivated and validated.
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This is something that Megan talked about some as well, shifting from tying her self-worth to external validation to actually caring more about what she
believes a good designer looks like and having that realization that her work got better when she stopped caring about what other people thought of her.
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Really, it's about your energy, what drives you.
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I also really like the idea of being secure in your value, and this is something that Theresa called out as well.
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She said that she doesn't worry about her job because she knows what her value is, and she knows that it's not knowing how to use Figma.
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So there's more there, right?
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Like it's that strategy, it's that thinking, it's that conversation that we can create and facilitate as designers.
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Jessica also talked about this.
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She said that it's important to understand what motivates you and then do what you can to put yourself into positions where you are experiencing that motivation.
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And say that you're put on a project that you don't love, what can you learn from it that maybe overlaps with your zone of genius?
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Or what might kickstart your curiosity?
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What's something that's really fun about this project that you can dive really deep into?
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And then Tom also talked about self-doubt as a superpower.
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It's something that he views… he knows that he has that doubt, of course, but he uses it as something to create curiosity for himself.
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It's something that keeps him growth-minded instead of attached to a particular title or an output, and it helps him move forward and find new paths to explore.
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So even if you find yourself in a moment where you're like, "Oh, I don't know how to do this," what if it's something that you can convert to a question, a curiosity, something that you can learn from?
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Sarah's whole coaching practice is also built around this idea of learning to know yourself.
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In a lot of cases, these designers who are waiting for permission to be heard are actually waiting for something that they can only give themselves.
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So you have to be the source of your own validation.
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This is something I also have said to a lot of designers in the workforce that I've worked directly with.
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It's important to shift from external validation to internal intrinsic motivation.
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And then finally, lesson number five: learn to let go.
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So the importance of letting go is pretty much everywhere in this practice.
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There, there are really only certain things that you can control, and as designers, I think that we, of course, have been trained in a lot of cases to be perfectionists, but we do need to let go and to not be as precious.
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Megan talked about this, about the importance of not being precious with ideas or artifacts.
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Jen spoke a lot about this in terms of delegation and the importance of letting balls drop sometimes.
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If something is truly a fire, it is going to come back up again, and you will know that it's worth solving.
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There are gonna be these critical projects that you have to focus your energy on, and you need to do a good job because if you let those balls drop, those are crystal.
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They are gonna break.
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They're gonna spread shrapnel if you drop them.
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You have to focus, and there are gonna be cases where you have to let go to create that focus.
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So by closing some doors, you're opening other doors.
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Sarah also spoke about this, about specifically letting go of expectations about maybe what your job was supposed to be and instead recognizing what is needed from you in
the moment and thinking about what you want from the position in the future, so building your own job, which I think is going to be something that we see a lot more of now.
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Tom also talked about this, about letting go of expectations because, initially he thought that he was just gonna keep going up the career ladder, and instead at a certain point he went sideways.
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He transitioned from head of design back to IC, and that shift from, being a manager to an individual contributor required him to have a conversation with his ego and to give up the status markers.
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He let go of what his career was supposed to look like and found a unique fit for himself.
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And of course, there's Yoko, the wonderful Yoko, whose entire episode is about what happens when you finally let go of who you think you should be as a designer and recognize that design is essentially everywhere.
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She left a staff design role that she was good at with a team that loved her, and she found that her skills could follow her into a completely different industry without her trying.
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She did not have to start over from scratch, but she did start fresh in a certain way, and quitting to her was an invitation.
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So this letting go of these expectations or this picture of who people thought maybe she needed to be actually opened up a lot of space for her to be the person that- She wants to So many amazing lessons.
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I'm so grateful to, again, all the folks that I spoke with during this season of the Cats Corner Podcast, and I'm also grateful that so many people listened.
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I have so many smart, intentional, incredible people in my life.
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I'm really grateful to call these people friends.
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And I, of course, hoped that by platforming a couple of these people, that it would lead to, the broad celebration of these people.
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But honestly, when I kicked off this podcast, I thought that I was just gonna get some cool quotes for my talk.
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I would put a couple of videos out on my YouTube channel, which has, a nonexistent audience.
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Thank you to the couple of dozens of people who follow me or have been here since before this podcast existed.
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And I thought these videos would just, flash into the pan and disappear.
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I 1,000% did not expect that it was gonna turn into something that people would organically actually look forward to every week.
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People in real life came up to me and said that they were excited about it, and it was something that people just shared because they thought it was cool.
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And this humble little podcast, this idea that I had, ended up getting over 4,300 views on YouTube and nearly 800 downloads on podcast distributors.
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And then a couple of the clips on LinkedIn also blew up, which is wild.
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So the response to this season genuinely has completely blown my mind, totally gone past expectations.
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People have shared episodes of this podcast with their teams.
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They've posted comments on the videos and on LinkedIn.
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They've sent emails to me and some of the participants.
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They've told me about moments that hit close to home in person, and the participants have been getting organic love and shout-outs from their coworkers, family, and friends.
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And some of them have even gotten outreach, including requests to speak at conferences, which I really hope they accept.
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It has been wonderful.
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I genuinely appreciate these people so much, so I'm glad that other people are also celebrating them.
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And I guess in a way that this podcast was, one that resonated because it felt like people were having the conversation that they've been wanting to have, which is kinda how I felt.
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I genuinely did feel like this was just me and a friend each episode just having a yap sesh similar to what we've had in real life.
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I'm glad that it's something that resonated so much with people.
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These conversations with Megan, Jess, Theresa, Edwin, Jen, Sarah, Tom, and Yoko, for me, reminded me why this work matters.
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And honestly, it generated a lot of energy for me in a way that I had been missing for a while.
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It's something that I've reflected on a lot I've essentially been quite existential about design work mostly since 2020.
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Surprising nobody, 2020.
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and these conversations actually helped to revive my excitement about my design practice, and I'll quote Edwin here.
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I, too, think that websites are really cool.
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I just… I don't know.
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I just love making things, and I think it's really cool that we get to do this and we get to get paid for it.
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That's not for some people, or some people might need to make a shift similar to Yoko, but for me, it's a really cool job.
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And I think that this is proof that these conversations need to keep happening because this industry is in a genuinely uncertain
moment, and people need spaces to be honest about what this feels like and to have discussions that can help us to move forward.
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Now, here's the part I want to be transparent about.
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Recording and editing a podcast is expensive It takes time and energy, which translates to money in a capitalist society.
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So every episode that you watched was prepared, it was recorded, edited, and promoted by yours truly most of the time.
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I thank everybody who shared it because that was really helpful.
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Everything else, I had to do all of that by hand.
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It was cool.
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It was fun.
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I am grateful to the world of editing tools that we have now that did help some, but I still spent hours on this.
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And if folks do want more of these seasons, or at least another season, then I have to figure out how to do this sustainably.
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Which brings me to two final asks.
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first, if you are a company or a product that wants to reach senior and staff designers, the people who are contributing to decision-making about tools, processes, teams.
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I love my design ops people.
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I am influencing them constantly.
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If you are a person who maybe would be interested in sponsoring season two of Catt's Corner- Talk to me.
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This audience is amazing.
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We are wonderful.
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It is a very engaged audience.
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I'm just, again, I'm just having these conversations because I need to, and other people want to as well.
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and it's really hard to reach us, honestly.
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you have to be doing this kind of work.
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if you are intrigued by the concept and you really liked seeing season one, reach out to me, please.
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I would love to talk.
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You can hit me up, on social media, on LinkedIn for example, or you can hit me at my website at cattsmall.com/contact.
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So that's number one, sponsorship.
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Would love, would totally take.
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Number two, if you are a listener and you wanna see season two happen, simple things are really helpful.
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You can subscribe on YouTube.
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You can leave a review wherever you have been listening.
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You can share episodes and just kind of say what has been helpful for you to hear.
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You can also, of course, always hit me up, again, contact me, or you can post on LinkedIn and say which conversations meant something to you, what really resonated with you, and maybe even who you'd wanna hear from next.
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That feedback is how I also make the case for doing this again.
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Okay.
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That is a wrap, y'all.
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Thank you so much for watching, for listening, for sticking with me over the past, eight weeks and change.
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It really meant a lot to me.
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I really, really appreciate it.
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I am just overjoyed and really heartened about the future of this work that we're doing, design work.
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And I don't know, I just felt like it is possible that we can take the reins of what we want the future of this industry to be.
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It's not gonna be easy.
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It's gonna be really uncomfortable.
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I think that these conversations help us figure out the way forward.
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So with that, cheers to design community, to intention, and to our humanity.
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I will hopefully see you in season two.
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Thanks.
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Hey, everybody.
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Catt here.
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Season one of Catt's Corner has wrapped.
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Whoo.
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I wanted to take a couple of minutes to talk about how this whole thing came together, some lessons that I learned from this process, and where it could go from here.
00:00:22.158 --> 00:00:30.648
In terms of why I made this, this originally started as a research project, I was preparing for my talk at Config earlier this year.
00:00:30.988 --> 00:00:38.668
And as part of it, I wanted to hear from staff and principal designers in their own words, what are they doing?
00:00:38.678 --> 00:00:42.848
How are they working during this time where the entire industry is changing?
00:00:43.138 --> 00:00:45.628
How are we using AI at this point?
00:00:45.638 --> 00:00:47.838
Everybody's least favorite acronym.
00:00:48.283 --> 00:00:54.153
I wanted to have the real version, not just the LinkedIn post that I was seeing.
00:00:54.513 --> 00:01:00.443
And I also realized that a lot has changed since I originally wrote The Staff Designer, or that's what I thought.
00:01:00.793 --> 00:01:14.753
And so as part of this, I also wanted to go back to folks that I had spoken to while I was producing that book and ask them to also just catch me up on kind of what's going on in their worlds these days and how they're feeling about the work.
00:01:15.163 --> 00:01:20.633
And what resulted from that was so much more than I thought, which was really cool.
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I do wanna take a moment to just give a huge thank you to Megan, Jessica, Theresa, Edwin, Jen, Sarah, Tom, and Yoko, these amazing people who were comfortable joining me on the podcast.
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They are such wonderful people, and I'm glad that you all got to see that.
00:01:44.146 --> 00:01:59.286
So in terms of what I learned this season, gosh, I talked to these eight people to, again, understand how they're thinking about design work in 2026, and five things did keep popping up over and over.
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Lesson number one for me was that the importance of understanding that you're working within a business context is more critical than ever.
00:02:09.507 --> 00:02:15.697
You really need to know what the business needs and to think about how to act on it as a designer.
00:02:16.027 --> 00:02:18.027
This came up across so many interviews.
00:02:18.027 --> 00:02:37.727
So for example, Megan was talking about the shift from just thinking of design as moving pixels around on the screen to actually thinking about design as creating
business outcomes, and realizing that the designers who are gonna thrive, especially at this point in the world, are the ones who stop conflating design with Figma.
00:02:38.347 --> 00:02:51.477
AI is making execution a lot faster as well, which means that the real value of our work, so glad about this one, is that we're moving upstream a bit to the thinking, to the strategy, and I'll talk more about that in a second.
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But a big part of that is understanding the world of business and acknowledging that the work that we do exists within a business.
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So the more that you prioritize what the business is looking for in those outcomes, it's gonna be beneficial for you.
00:03:06.057 --> 00:03:18.627
Edwin's whole project also, the project that was his, his big moment at the company, started because he noticed a gap in Datadog's publicly announced vision, and this wasn't something that he was asked to fix.
00:03:18.837 --> 00:03:30.007
Instead, he saw a business problem and built a case for solving it, and that is why at the future version of their public event, it actually was featured on the main stage.
00:03:30.327 --> 00:03:32.377
Tom Takigayama also called this out.
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There has to be a business case for your role before the title can exist.
00:03:36.267 --> 00:03:51.307
he was at Justworks for years before the business felt the pain of not having a principal designer, and that is something that he recognized, and over time, he was able to show the business why they needed this person in this kind of position.
00:03:51.767 --> 00:03:55.407
And essentially, you don't wanna wait for this promotion.
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You need to actually focus on showing through, again, thinking about what the business needs and taking action.
00:04:03.139 --> 00:04:12.939
Sarah also has coached senior designers through this all the time, and essentially the ones who get listened to are the ones that can speak the language of the room, which is also why it's important to learn this kind of language.
00:04:13.349 --> 00:04:19.949
And what I reflected back to her is that a lot of the numbers are made up, and businesses run on educated guesses.
00:04:19.949 --> 00:04:24.159
So it's not really about knowing the exact outcome that's going to happen.
00:04:24.159 --> 00:04:35.769
It's more about creating and taking educated guesses based on confidence and giving you permission to do that since that's what other people in the industry are also doing.
00:04:36.389 --> 00:04:37.569
You don't have to know everything.
00:04:37.609 --> 00:04:42.699
You do need to understand business priorities and make appropriate moves based on that.
00:04:43.359 --> 00:04:47.679
Lesson number two is to take ownership of things that will benefit you.
00:04:48.189 --> 00:05:01.679
There are gonna be these moments where you are held responsible or accountable for the output, whether or not it's technically in
your job description, and this is something that really annoyed me at first, and I've come around to understand why it happens.
00:05:02.099 --> 00:05:03.639
Megan said it really well.
00:05:03.729 --> 00:05:15.229
If you are not there taking ownership, you're gonna end up with these kinds of Frankenstein experiences that your team is putting out, and you're gonna have these situations where you're just being driven by other people.
00:05:15.469 --> 00:05:19.279
You just did what other people told you, and now you can't explain that work to anybody.
00:05:19.699 --> 00:05:25.659
Edwin also spent a lot of time, focusing on building a coalition around an idea that he had.
00:05:25.659 --> 00:05:28.069
Nobody said, "This is your project," right?
00:05:28.069 --> 00:05:37.159
he just decided this was something that was so important that if he could explain it to people really well, then they would understand why it was worth taking the time.
00:05:37.419 --> 00:05:48.809
And he spent eight months in total cheerleading, keeping this idea alive, to get it to the finish line, and that was something that resulted in really great outcomes for him long term.
00:05:49.119 --> 00:05:58.969
And then Sarah also said that managing up means coming with a recommendation, not a question, and this is something that I used to find irritating as well because I thought I was doing my manager's job.
00:05:59.269 --> 00:06:06.729
But it turns out that when you show up and you say, "Hey, here's what I think we should do. Do you agree? Let's have a conversation," you are taking ownership.
00:06:06.909 --> 00:06:08.449
You're not waiting for permission.
00:06:08.459 --> 00:06:10.309
You are actually being a leader.
00:06:10.309 --> 00:06:15.099
So if you want to go from senior to staff, you will have to take ownership of things.
00:06:15.339 --> 00:06:20.889
And the important thing to consider is, how is this gonna put me closer to where I would like to be in my career?
00:06:20.909 --> 00:06:31.543
I think if you ask yourself that question instead of, "Is this my job? Was this in the job description?" That's gonna benefit you a lot more Lesson number three is leading with intention.
00:06:31.953 --> 00:06:36.223
In other words, having a strategy and being a strategic thinker.
00:06:36.803 --> 00:06:40.763
Jessica pointed this out, the fundamentals never go away, right?
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We need to make sure that we continue to use our brains.
00:06:44.053 --> 00:06:46.243
We need to show the work that we've done.
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We need to make sure that we're focusing on getting alignment.
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We need to push the right work forward.
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This is something that I think is really important when we talk about AI, for example.
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It makes execution faster, but if you are not actually thinking about where you're going, then what is the point?
00:07:01.913 --> 00:07:05.293
You're going to move quickly toward the ground.
00:07:05.393 --> 00:07:13.033
And so we need to make sure that we are thinking critically about what we're trying to do and to consider the what and the why behind everything that we do.
00:07:13.763 --> 00:07:27.053
I also liked, and I wanna shout Theresa out for this fun phrase, which is quick wins in a trench coat, which is essentially when you're, like, piling on these really cool additions and you're not actually thinking about where you're going long term.
00:07:27.063 --> 00:07:28.853
Nothing is laddering up to anything.
00:07:29.093 --> 00:07:34.833
It's important to make sure that you focus on the long term so you have that confidence that you're going somewhere you intend to go.
00:07:35.083 --> 00:07:44.403
Again, we can use tools to illustrate these outcomes faster, but what really matters is taking the moment to actually consider and to feel confident in where you wanna go.
00:07:45.053 --> 00:07:57.343
Jen also called something out that was really awesome, which is that it's not just about being strategic in the execution of your work, in the artifacts that you create, but also even thinking about the timing of the work that you're doing.
00:07:57.563 --> 00:08:07.643
So she considers if people are actually willing to hear what she wants to share in that moment, and that keeps her from burning extra social capital on the right idea at the wrong time.
00:08:08.553 --> 00:08:12.953
And then Tom also talks about this a ton, especially being a principal designer.
00:08:13.283 --> 00:08:20.843
So Tom's, for example, spent a lot of time turning executive memos, which are just like, these written docs, into tangible artifacts.
00:08:21.103 --> 00:08:32.383
And in that case, he was forcing strategic conversations that were not happening, which helped senior leaders to move the company toward a direction with more confidence, and it underscored the business case for his role.
00:08:32.393 --> 00:08:37.873
So again, if you don't know what the work is building toward, you're just shipping things, and that is not leadership.
00:08:37.893 --> 00:08:52.037
You need to actually put yourself into a leadership position by thinking about outcomes and pushing those conversations and asking those questions that help other people do the same thing Lesson number four: let your energy be your compass.
00:08:52.047 --> 00:08:56.327
So this one really resonates with me, and I've said this to a lot of people over the years.
00:08:56.667 --> 00:09:05.317
I just follow what feels good to me in the moment, of course, but also I am thinking a bit long-term about, what am I trying to do with my work.
00:09:05.747 --> 00:09:13.207
And I really like the idea of us shifting more to being intrinsically motivated and validated.
00:09:13.517 --> 00:09:30.387
This is something that Megan talked about some as well, shifting from tying her self-worth to external validation to actually caring more about what she
believes a good designer looks like and having that realization that her work got better when she stopped caring about what other people thought of her.
00:09:30.767 --> 00:09:33.907
Really, it's about your energy, what drives you.
00:09:34.137 --> 00:09:40.387
I also really like the idea of being secure in your value, and this is something that Theresa called out as well.
00:09:40.387 --> 00:09:46.857
She said that she doesn't worry about her job because she knows what her value is, and she knows that it's not knowing how to use Figma.
00:09:46.857 --> 00:09:48.397
So there's more there, right?
00:09:48.397 --> 00:09:53.997
Like it's that strategy, it's that thinking, it's that conversation that we can create and facilitate as designers.
00:09:54.597 --> 00:09:56.267
Jessica also talked about this.
00:09:56.267 --> 00:10:04.677
She said that it's important to understand what motivates you and then do what you can to put yourself into positions where you are experiencing that motivation.
00:10:04.947 --> 00:10:10.837
And say that you're put on a project that you don't love, what can you learn from it that maybe overlaps with your zone of genius?
00:10:10.867 --> 00:10:13.307
Or what might kickstart your curiosity?
00:10:13.307 --> 00:10:17.117
What's something that's really fun about this project that you can dive really deep into?
00:10:18.087 --> 00:10:21.937
And then Tom also talked about self-doubt as a superpower.
00:10:22.237 --> 00:10:30.727
It's something that he views… he knows that he has that doubt, of course, but he uses it as something to create curiosity for himself.
00:10:30.747 --> 00:10:40.137
It's something that keeps him growth-minded instead of attached to a particular title or an output, and it helps him move forward and find new paths to explore.
00:10:40.137 --> 00:10:49.787
So even if you find yourself in a moment where you're like, "Oh, I don't know how to do this," what if it's something that you can convert to a question, a curiosity, something that you can learn from?
00:10:50.197 --> 00:10:55.327
Sarah's whole coaching practice is also built around this idea of learning to know yourself.
00:10:55.857 --> 00:11:02.147
In a lot of cases, these designers who are waiting for permission to be heard are actually waiting for something that they can only give themselves.
00:11:02.147 --> 00:11:05.487
So you have to be the source of your own validation.
00:11:05.487 --> 00:11:10.647
This is something I also have said to a lot of designers in the workforce that I've worked directly with.
00:11:10.857 --> 00:11:16.617
It's important to shift from external validation to internal intrinsic motivation.
00:11:17.147 --> 00:11:20.647
And then finally, lesson number five: learn to let go.
00:11:20.707 --> 00:11:26.987
So the importance of letting go is pretty much everywhere in this practice.
00:11:27.007 --> 00:11:40.927
There, there are really only certain things that you can control, and as designers, I think that we, of course, have been trained in a lot of cases to be perfectionists, but we do need to let go and to not be as precious.
00:11:40.937 --> 00:11:45.677
Megan talked about this, about the importance of not being precious with ideas or artifacts.
00:11:46.127 --> 00:11:51.807
Jen spoke a lot about this in terms of delegation and the importance of letting balls drop sometimes.
00:11:52.107 --> 00:11:58.337
If something is truly a fire, it is going to come back up again, and you will know that it's worth solving.
00:11:58.577 --> 00:12:07.217
There are gonna be these critical projects that you have to focus your energy on, and you need to do a good job because if you let those balls drop, those are crystal.
00:12:07.477 --> 00:12:08.307
They are gonna break.
00:12:08.307 --> 00:12:10.287
They're gonna spread shrapnel if you drop them.
00:12:10.297 --> 00:12:16.007
You have to focus, and there are gonna be cases where you have to let go to create that focus.
00:12:16.007 --> 00:12:18.957
So by closing some doors, you're opening other doors.
00:12:19.657 --> 00:12:39.847
Sarah also spoke about this, about specifically letting go of expectations about maybe what your job was supposed to be and instead recognizing what is needed from you in
the moment and thinking about what you want from the position in the future, so building your own job, which I think is going to be something that we see a lot more of now.
00:12:40.257 --> 00:12:50.197
Tom also talked about this, about letting go of expectations because, initially he thought that he was just gonna keep going up the career ladder, and instead at a certain point he went sideways.
00:12:50.287 --> 00:13:02.667
He transitioned from head of design back to IC, and that shift from, being a manager to an individual contributor required him to have a conversation with his ego and to give up the status markers.
00:13:02.827 --> 00:13:07.867
He let go of what his career was supposed to look like and found a unique fit for himself.
00:13:08.387 --> 00:13:19.867
And of course, there's Yoko, the wonderful Yoko, whose entire episode is about what happens when you finally let go of who you think you should be as a designer and recognize that design is essentially everywhere.
00:13:20.167 --> 00:13:30.097
She left a staff design role that she was good at with a team that loved her, and she found that her skills could follow her into a completely different industry without her trying.
00:13:30.227 --> 00:13:39.167
She did not have to start over from scratch, but she did start fresh in a certain way, and quitting to her was an invitation.
00:13:39.167 --> 00:13:52.095
So this letting go of these expectations or this picture of who people thought maybe she needed to be actually opened up a lot of space for her to be the person that- She wants to So many amazing lessons.
00:13:52.115 --> 00:14:04.315
I'm so grateful to, again, all the folks that I spoke with during this season of the Cats Corner Podcast, and I'm also grateful that so many people listened.
00:14:04.325 --> 00:14:08.265
I have so many smart, intentional, incredible people in my life.
00:14:08.275 --> 00:14:11.425
I'm really grateful to call these people friends.
00:14:11.815 --> 00:14:20.335
And I, of course, hoped that by platforming a couple of these people, that it would lead to, the broad celebration of these people.
00:14:20.605 --> 00:14:25.385
But honestly, when I kicked off this podcast, I thought that I was just gonna get some cool quotes for my talk.
00:14:25.625 --> 00:14:30.625
I would put a couple of videos out on my YouTube channel, which has, a nonexistent audience.
00:14:30.625 --> 00:14:37.835
Thank you to the couple of dozens of people who follow me or have been here since before this podcast existed.
00:14:38.135 --> 00:14:40.935
And I thought these videos would just, flash into the pan and disappear.
00:14:41.265 --> 00:14:49.735
I 1,000% did not expect that it was gonna turn into something that people would organically actually look forward to every week.
00:14:50.085 --> 00:14:58.675
People in real life came up to me and said that they were excited about it, and it was something that people just shared because they thought it was cool.
00:14:58.965 --> 00:15:10.185
And this humble little podcast, this idea that I had, ended up getting over 4,300 views on YouTube and nearly 800 downloads on podcast distributors.
00:15:10.565 --> 00:15:15.015
And then a couple of the clips on LinkedIn also blew up, which is wild.
00:15:15.255 --> 00:15:23.645
So the response to this season genuinely has completely blown my mind, totally gone past expectations.
00:15:24.125 --> 00:15:27.555
People have shared episodes of this podcast with their teams.
00:15:27.555 --> 00:15:31.065
They've posted comments on the videos and on LinkedIn.
00:15:31.115 --> 00:15:33.575
They've sent emails to me and some of the participants.
00:15:33.575 --> 00:15:43.355
They've told me about moments that hit close to home in person, and the participants have been getting organic love and shout-outs from their coworkers, family, and friends.
00:15:43.745 --> 00:15:51.445
And some of them have even gotten outreach, including requests to speak at conferences, which I really hope they accept.
00:15:51.805 --> 00:15:53.575
It has been wonderful.
00:15:53.645 --> 00:16:01.095
I genuinely appreciate these people so much, so I'm glad that other people are also celebrating them.
00:16:01.485 --> 00:16:13.065
And I guess in a way that this podcast was, one that resonated because it felt like people were having the conversation that they've been wanting to have, which is kinda how I felt.
00:16:13.095 --> 00:16:21.595
I genuinely did feel like this was just me and a friend each episode just having a yap sesh similar to what we've had in real life.
00:16:21.595 --> 00:16:25.695
I'm glad that it's something that resonated so much with people.
00:16:26.385 --> 00:16:35.055
These conversations with Megan, Jess, Theresa, Edwin, Jen, Sarah, Tom, and Yoko, for me, reminded me why this work matters.
00:16:35.395 --> 00:16:41.015
And honestly, it generated a lot of energy for me in a way that I had been missing for a while.
00:16:41.325 --> 00:16:49.533
It's something that I've reflected on a lot I've essentially been quite existential about design work mostly since 2020.
00:16:49.663 --> 00:16:51.013
Surprising nobody, 2020.
00:16:51.333 --> 00:16:58.263
and these conversations actually helped to revive my excitement about my design practice, and I'll quote Edwin here.
00:16:58.513 --> 00:17:01.583
I, too, think that websites are really cool.
00:17:02.583 --> 00:17:03.513
I just… I don't know.
00:17:03.533 --> 00:17:08.963
I just love making things, and I think it's really cool that we get to do this and we get to get paid for it.
00:17:09.283 --> 00:17:15.823
That's not for some people, or some people might need to make a shift similar to Yoko, but for me, it's a really cool job.
00:17:16.213 --> 00:17:30.593
And I think that this is proof that these conversations need to keep happening because this industry is in a genuinely uncertain
moment, and people need spaces to be honest about what this feels like and to have discussions that can help us to move forward.
00:17:31.203 --> 00:17:35.123
Now, here's the part I want to be transparent about.
00:17:35.613 --> 00:17:45.973
Recording and editing a podcast is expensive It takes time and energy, which translates to money in a capitalist society.
00:17:46.003 --> 00:17:54.523
So every episode that you watched was prepared, it was recorded, edited, and promoted by yours truly most of the time.
00:17:54.953 --> 00:17:58.303
I thank everybody who shared it because that was really helpful.
00:17:58.343 --> 00:18:01.363
Everything else, I had to do all of that by hand.
00:18:01.703 --> 00:18:02.353
It was cool.
00:18:02.353 --> 00:18:03.123
It was fun.
00:18:03.313 --> 00:18:09.313
I am grateful to the world of editing tools that we have now that did help some, but I still spent hours on this.
00:18:09.623 --> 00:18:16.473
And if folks do want more of these seasons, or at least another season, then I have to figure out how to do this sustainably.
00:18:16.713 --> 00:18:19.723
Which brings me to two final asks.
00:18:19.943 --> 00:18:31.103
first, if you are a company or a product that wants to reach senior and staff designers, the people who are contributing to decision-making about tools, processes, teams.
00:18:31.273 --> 00:18:32.663
I love my design ops people.
00:18:32.943 --> 00:18:35.043
I am influencing them constantly.
00:18:35.323 --> 00:18:43.425
If you are a person who maybe would be interested in sponsoring season two of Catt's Corner- Talk to me.
00:18:43.845 --> 00:18:46.325
This audience is amazing.
00:18:46.335 --> 00:18:47.475
We are wonderful.
00:18:47.745 --> 00:18:50.455
It is a very engaged audience.
00:18:50.505 --> 00:18:55.605
I'm just, again, I'm just having these conversations because I need to, and other people want to as well.
00:18:55.905 --> 00:18:57.555
and it's really hard to reach us, honestly.
00:18:57.645 --> 00:18:59.195
you have to be doing this kind of work.
00:18:59.195 --> 00:19:05.415
if you are intrigued by the concept and you really liked seeing season one, reach out to me, please.
00:19:05.465 --> 00:19:06.545
I would love to talk.
00:19:06.585 --> 00:19:14.155
You can hit me up, on social media, on LinkedIn for example, or you can hit me at my website at cattsmall.com/contact.
00:19:14.475 --> 00:19:17.105
So that's number one, sponsorship.
00:19:17.285 --> 00:19:18.995
Would love, would totally take.
00:19:19.335 --> 00:19:25.195
Number two, if you are a listener and you wanna see season two happen, simple things are really helpful.
00:19:25.205 --> 00:19:25.975
You can subscribe on YouTube.
00:19:25.985 --> 00:19:29.435
You can leave a review wherever you have been listening.
00:19:29.435 --> 00:19:34.195
You can share episodes and just kind of say what has been helpful for you to hear.
00:19:34.395 --> 00:19:46.285
You can also, of course, always hit me up, again, contact me, or you can post on LinkedIn and say which conversations meant something to you, what really resonated with you, and maybe even who you'd wanna hear from next.
00:19:46.525 --> 00:19:49.685
That feedback is how I also make the case for doing this again.
00:19:50.805 --> 00:19:51.325
Okay.
00:19:52.165 --> 00:19:53.285
That is a wrap, y'all.
00:19:53.665 --> 00:20:01.705
Thank you so much for watching, for listening, for sticking with me over the past, eight weeks and change.
00:20:01.915 --> 00:20:03.315
It really meant a lot to me.
00:20:03.415 --> 00:20:05.055
I really, really appreciate it.
00:20:05.115 --> 00:20:12.005
I am just overjoyed and really heartened about the future of this work that we're doing, design work.
00:20:12.465 --> 00:20:19.635
And I don't know, I just felt like it is possible that we can take the reins of what we want the future of this industry to be.
00:20:19.895 --> 00:20:20.935
It's not gonna be easy.
00:20:20.935 --> 00:20:22.425
It's gonna be really uncomfortable.
00:20:22.645 --> 00:20:25.805
I think that these conversations help us figure out the way forward.
00:20:26.145 --> 00:20:32.395
So with that, cheers to design community, to intention, and to our humanity.
00:20:32.875 --> 00:20:35.405
I will hopefully see you in season two.
00:20:35.875 --> 00:20:36.415
Thanks.
