Letters to My Younger Self

(Written in 2019 at the request of Goldman Sachs, who published it in their mentoring series.)

Steve Turbek is head of User Experience, helping the firm design great software products. He was a nerdy kid who wanted to be an inventor and went to school to make furniture. Here are five pieces of advice to his younger self

1 Make to think.

In design school, they’re going to teach you to think by drawing. That will be useful, since you’ll often need to share your thoughts, and words may not always be the ideal way. You may even find that you don’t understand your ideas as well as you thought you did until you draw them out. It’s going to feel scary when you share those drawings (or words) with others, but don’t be too afraid.

Remember that the essential idea of design is to explore ideas cheaply and get feedback before you build. It’s okay if you fail, if you do it in little bits at the beginning and not all at once at the end. In the future, there will be some good books on this. You’ll have to wait for them to come out, but it will be worth it! I especially recommend Graphic Design Thinking as an introduction to the practice. It’s not just for making things; you can also see how the ideas apply to companies in Business Model Generation.

2 No one (but you) will make time for what you love.

The author and professor Karen McGrane wrote, “As you gain more seniority in an org, you’ll be asked to do more and more things that take you away from the work you find meaningful. It’s up to you to manage your work so that you still (sometimes) get to do the work you love. No one will do it for you.” For example, let’s say you’ll love furniture design and have some success; you might end up spending your time doing billing and sales. That’s life, but never totally lose the parts of the job you enjoyed in the first place!

Projects will come and go, but the important thing is to discover WHY you love something and then follow that. So even though you’re going to go to school for furniture design, this thing called the internet is going to happen and you’re going to end up making these really fun and exciting virtual destinations called websites. The medium will change, but your creative process will remain the same.

And embrace your hobbies! It is surprising where they can lead. For example, one day you will notice that people love popping bubble wrap. And so, you’ll look for an excuse for them to do it, and will create something called the Bubble Calendar. Totally unnecessary, but people will have some fun.

3 Assume the best intentions in other people. You’ll likely find that almost every conflict you have with other people will be because of misunderstood intentions. Most people are just trying to get their own things done. Listen to other people, but recognize that you’ll probably understand only about 10% of what they say. Given enough time, however, people will tell you what they want. Don’t have the time? Make the time. Don’t take shortcuts; this is a bank account you will need to draw from and replenish.

This has a converse point – Like Olin Miller said, “You wouldn’t worry about what people think of you, if you knew how seldom they do.”

4 Every year is like a lap in a relay race.

This only becomes obvious if you are lucky to do enough laps, but you can’t achieve anything meaningful in a short time period. Life doesn’t end; you can’t “win.” This is a good thing! But it means you need a long-term plan. You can build up performance over time, but you need to be mindful about developing yourself (and those around you too). You may find that you like writing, but that you only have a bit of time to do it each year. Those years will stack up! Likewise, if you can make a small positive change, perhaps through volunteering, it will grow over time and you’ll see the small changes add up to something larger.

5 Be useful. Remember that the world would continue functioning without you; it’s your job to convince everyone else to pay attention. If you can help others, you will find people are very happy to help you back. Some of it is not sexy.. Take out the garbage. Find the items you have in common with others and work on those. Being useful is the essence of good business. Likewise in design, it’s not about what you want; your designs will only be successful as much as they help others. As you think about being useful, balance what you love with what the world needs. The Japanese word Ikigai is a nice way to look at it.