… which is what I thought, until I decided to see one. Three years ago I graduated college, moved to a beautiful city (Seattle), and had landed my dream job (at Excel). I knew a lot of people my age and I partied every weekend.

It seemed like I had all the pieces of the puzzle to be happy – but I wasn’t. This went on for about a year, and I wasn’t getting any happier. So I decided to swallow what seemed like a huge amount of pride and book an appointment with a therapist.

I remember what I said when I sat down during my first appointment with Melissa, my therapist.

“I don’t know why I’m here.”
“I don’t believe in therapy.”
“Let’s not get too emotional or touchy-feely here. That’s not my style”

I didn’t think I would be doing therapy for long, but week after week, I kept showing up. For the first year, I was really ashamed about it. I kept Melissa under a pseudonym in my phone contacts. I had our appointments under a code name in my calendar. No one knew – it was my dirty secret.

You know what’s amazing about therapy? You have someone you can talk to with no filter.

Even with your closest friends, or the love of your life, no matter how open and honest you are – there is always some filter that your thoughts and actions go through. It may be a very thin layer. Maybe you’re just rephrasing the way you say something, or choosing not to talk about it because it’s not right for the moment. But no matter how thin, the filter is still there.

It’s different with a therapist. If you so choose, there’s no filter. You don’t need to worry about hurting your therapist’s feelings, because he or she is not interwoven into your life. Your therapist doesn’t know anyone else you know. You get this black hole that you can pour your heart into, and never worry about anything getting out. There are zero consequences to expressing yourself completely.

It’s emotional freedom.

I figured out why I wasn’t happy. Mainly, I was lonely. I had a hundred “friends” but zero real friends. Also, I was really hard on myself. I felt like every waking moment of my life needed to be put to productive use. I didn’t give myself a second to relax. I was ultra competitive, constantly feeling the need to compare myself to others. That’s just a formula for unhappiness. Melissa taught me to go easier on myself. One unexpected side effect of being kinder to myself was that it made it a lot more natural to be kinder to others. I open up more now, weaknesses and all. Which means I do things that I previously thought unthinkable, like crying in public. Because I’ve opened up, I’ve made some real friends. I’m less lonely and definitely happier.

After a year of keeping the therapy a secret, I told someone. I hadn’t really planned on it – I was catching up with an old friend, and he didn’t seem very happy. And here I was doing this thing that made me happier – so I told him my secret.

After I told one friend, it didn’t seem so bad. So one by one, when I talked to friends who were unhappy or carrying around some burden, I would tell them that I see a therapist, and suggest that it might help them too.

It doesn’t seem like a big deal anymore. So here I am, telling the whole internet. I guess what I’m trying to say is – if someone as emotionally stunted and arrogantly proud as me could get over myself and go see a therapist, anyone can. And as for the whole “therapists are for rich people” thing – a lot of health insurance covers most of therapy, making it pretty affordable. Therapists help you understand yourself, and that is nothing to be ashamed of.

Understanding and feeling your emotions – that is living life in color. Suppressing and hiding from them is a world lived in black and white.

I spent the last few months job hunting, sending out resumes and emails. For most of the companies I applied to, I had no connections. But I did discover a pretty reliable way of getting a job (or at least an interview) with zero connections.

Actually, I did what the women on The Bachelor do. On The Bachelor, 25 women compete for one man. On the first night, the stakes are high – the women have only a few hours before The Bachelor decides to send 7 of them home. This means that the women each have only a few minutes to make an impression.

So the smart ones get creative. Every season begins the same way – the women arrive in limousines, get out, and introduce themselves to the Bachelor. The most recent season was no different – Ben greeted all the women arriving in limousines. But just when he thought he was done, he heard a clunk clunk clunk sound in the distance. And then the last woman, Lindzi, arrived. She rode in on a horse. Ben loved it and gave her the first impression rose.

Ultimately, Lindzi didn’t win The Bachelor. But she got pretty close – she made it to the final two.

Job hunting is like The Bachelor. Only instead of choosing between 25 beautiful women, the recruiter must look at a constant stream of thousands of resumes and cover letters. But unlike these women, resumes have no face, no personality, nothing to make the decision easier. It’s up to you to make the decision easy for the recruiter. So why not use Lindzi’s strategy? Do something creative that makes you stand out. This won’t necessarily get you the job (or the final rose), but it will get you the interview (or exotic romantic dates all over the world).

Here’s what you can do if you want a job, but have no connections:

1. Show them what’s unique about you
Riding in on a horse was brilliant because not only was it unexpected, it also told us more about Lindzi – she loves horses. It made her easier to remember and it gave the Bachelor an easy conversation topic to open with.

What are you passionate about? Are you musical? Write a song about the company and send them a video of you singing or rapping it. Like to bake? Send them a homemade cake decorated with the company’s name and your contact info. Love to run? Use a phone GPS running app to draw your route on a map, then go to a large field and run a path in the shape of the company’s logo. You get the idea – anything goes.

2. Do something that obviously took a lot of effort and time
When someone does something for you, you tend to want to do something for them. This is the basic human principle of reciprocity. But you can’t do this with money or gifts (like sending the recruiter a bottle of wine). That feels kind of dirty, like a bribe. So money isn’t your currency – time is.

When a recruiter or hiring manager sees that you’ve spent all this time applying to their company, they are much more open to give 30 minutes of their time to interview you. In fact, they’d probably feel guilty declining an interview at this point. As a bonus, the interviewer already knows that you’re a hardworking person before the interview even starts.

3. Show that you can do the job
The first two things will get you an interview, but they won’t get you the job. To get the job, you’ve got to show your future employer that you can do the job. Don’t wait until you’ve been hired – start doing the job now. Applying for a web developer position? Give the existing website a facelift. Marketing position? Put together a marketing plan.

And you can mix and match – maybe do one thing to show what’s unique about you, and another to show your ability to do the job.

I admit, this sounds like a lot of work. I’ve spent 100 hours preparing for a job interview before. I did this for Microsoft Excel three years ago and it paid off – I got the job. But I’ve also spent 100 hours preparing for a job that I didn’t get. Rejection hurt, especially when I’d put in that kind of effort, but I’m glad I did it. Better to know I gave it my all than to wonder what if.

Some people have told me that putting in this kind of effort for one company is ridiculous, but I think it’s pretty reasonable. You’ve probably spent 100 hours working on a project for a job you already have (that’s only 2 and a half weeks at a full time job). Why not do it for your dream job?

Above all else…
The best way to get a job is still through a personal connection. I found LinkedIn to be great for this – when I found a company I was interested in, I’d search for the company name on LinkedIn and look for 2nd or 3rd degree connections. I found intros that way that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.

Don’t be shy about the fact that you’re looking for a job. Let your friends and family know that you’re looking, and let them know what you’re looking for. You never know who might know someone. Life is better when you help manufacture some of your own serendipity.

This is Penn and Teller, performing a trick*. First they perform it, then they show you how it’s done. Watch the video again, and it doesn’t feel magical anymore. Yet this is how Penn and Teller must feel about all their tricks. It’s not just the second time they’ve seen it – it’s the thousandth time they’ve practiced it. For a magician to create magic for someone else, he must destroy it for himself. This is the artist’s paradox.

When I was little, I’d watch magic shows. Like everyone else, I wanted to know the magician’s secrets. But I’d take it a little bit further – I’d rewind and watch the video over and over, I’d go search for the answer online, I’d buy magic books, I’d practice it until I could do the trick, too.

This is how I go through life – always trying to figure out how the “trick” is done.

Some people listen and love music…
Others use math to try and figure out why a song is catchy.

Some people laugh and cry at a comedy show…
Others intently analyze every word and every pause, trying to dissect what that comedian is doing to be funny.

Some people sit back and enjoy a movie…
Others study the camera angles, the facial ticks of the actors, the timing of the soundtrack, all to figure out why it’s such a well-told story.

Some people are moved by Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech…
Others plot every word of the speech on a chart to figure out why it inspired so many.

Some people can enjoy life’s magic, just like that…
Others are so obsessed with understanding it that they must kill the magic to do so.

Then… there’s a third group of people. The people who are great artists instinctively. The true naturals. People who are born funny. Incredible songwriters who know absolutely nothing about music theory. Storytellers who speak with nothing but a fire in their heart.

But I’m not in that third group, and I think very few people are. I wonder about Martin Luther King. It sure seems like he spoke with a fire in his heart. But he was also a preacher who spent thousands of hours practicing his sermons. I wonder if he knew exactly what he was doing, and planned out every word of that speech with deliberate precision.

For most of us, even if we have a natural flair for something, we still have to work for it. If we want to create magic, we have to understand it. And understanding it means we lose a little bit of that magic for ourselves.

*Sorry, Gob.

Behind the Design
Let’s take a look behind the design and see the earlier concepts.

Concept 1: Since this monologue is about how western goods are made by Chinese hands, I thought it would be interesting to bring in Eastern influences. Here, the symbols are meant to look like Chinese calligraphy. From left to right: a clock, a hand, a man committing suicide, a coffin, and eyeglasses.

Concept 2: Innocent mobile icons, each with a dark meaning behind it.

Concept 3: Each factory worker is just a faceless pair of hands, so I experimented with replacing their faces with different icons.

I went with concept 2 because I thought it would be the most relatable. I was also fond of the contrast between the crisp, perfect icons and the sick meaning behind each one. I tried pairing it with a handwritten typeface to bring in a handmade element to the design.

I then experimented with taking a bite out of each icon, like Apple’s logo. This meant changing some of the icons so that the theme would be “things Apple takes a bite out of.” I also ditched the typeface and used my own handwriting.

I wanted stronger visual unity between the icons. If I’m using the bite, why not also use the leaf and the apple’s curved base? This required changing some of the icons, as the leaf didn’t work that well with some of the icons from the previous round. I also decided to change back to a typeface, because the handwriting was drawing too much attention to itself.

So here we have the final product:

So here I go.

I’ve got an obsession with learning new skills – from the practical (graphic design) to the seemingly useless (riding a unicycle). In the last year I’ve started to learn an unexpected “skill”. Emotions.

Those of you who know me personally know that I have this tough persona. I’ve had it for as long as I remember. Showing emotions is for the weak. In particular: showing “weak” emotions is for the weak. Showing sadness, pain, loneliness – that was out of the question.

Especially out of the question: crying in front of people. Or even admitting that I’ve ever cried at all. Before last night, I could count the number of people I’ve ever cried in front of on one hand. Women have to be especially careful about crying in the workplace. It’s a big career no-no.

About a year ago I started reading this book on Emotional Intelligence. I was interested in this because I’d read over and over again that EQ is a much greater predictor of career success than IQ. There were some tests in the beginning to score how emotionally intelligent you are, on four different dimensions. I scored extremely low on every single one.

I never finished the book. I only read two chapters:

One: stop treating your emotions as good or bad.
“It’s human nature to want to create two simple and easy piles of emotions: the good ones and the bad ones […] The downfall of attaching labels to your emotions is that judging your emotions keeps you from really understanding what it is that you are feeling. When you allow yourself to sit with an emotion and become fully aware of it, you can understand what is causing it.”

Two: lean into your discomfort
“Things you do not think about are off your radar for a reason: they sting when they surface. Avoiding this pain creates problems, because it is merely a short-term fix. You’ll never be able to manage yourself effectively if you ignore what you need to change. Rather than avoiding a feeling, your goal should be to move toward the emotion, into it, and eventually through it.”

So I started keeping track of all of my emotions in Day One. I’ve always got my phone on me, and whenever I felt anything, even if it was “bad,” I would lean into it, rather than suppress it. Write it down, work through it. I like to think of it as a scientific record of my emotional responses. I believe normal people call this a journal.

I started doing all this as a career-improvement move. But what I ended up getting out of it was much more valuable: a better understanding of who I am. To go through life feeling and experiencing, rather than suppressing and hiding behind a mask. I’ve still got a long way to go, but now that I’ve got a taste of what it’s like, I don’t intend on turning back.

A couple weeks ago, Amy and I started taking an acting class. This, too, I started doing because I thought it would improve my interpersonal skills, and thus help my career. This, too, has helped me in ways beyond what I could’ve imagined.

Our assignment last night was to recite a monologue that we’d found. I chose a piece that is personally relevant to what’s going through my life – a close family member of mine is fighting cancer right now.

I got up in front of the class, plopped down on the chair, opened the book, and started reciting. I didn’t think I would cry. But about one sentence in, I felt something in me break. And rather than fight the feeling of tears coming on, I just let them flow freely. Because here’s what I had: a safe environment where not only was it okay to cry, crying would mean for a “better performance.” So armed with that excuse to let it go, I did.

And when I looked up at my classmates while I was performing, there was no judgment in their faces. They were all as consumed by the moment as I was. It was hard for me to see through my own tears, but I think some of them had tears in their own eyes.

When I was done, I realized that crying in public turned out not to be such a big deal after all. I’d gotten to experience something new that was intense and beautiful. And, dare I say, it’s something that I’m even proud of. It’s something that a year ago, I would have been horrified and ashamed of.

Lean into life. When you have the choice between doing the scary thing or the safe thing, always do the scary thing.

Well, it definitely wasn’t at first. Simple solutions are almost always obvious once you see them. That’s why it’s so easy to take them for granted. But take a look at some of our earlier design concepts – some of which, frankly, I’m a little embarrassed about.

When we first thought about 520 or 90, we had this grand map idea in our head. That’s how existing solutions work, after all.

The Map Design

Okay, where do I start with the usability problems we found with this. For most people that we first tested this on, it actually went OK. But if you look deeper, the design had a bunch of holes:

• What if someone makes their start and end taps on the same side of the water? Then they wouldn’t be crossing the bridge, which is the whole point of the app. We’d have to throw up some rude error message, or figure out how to disable half the map when it came time to make the second tap.
• Some people tapped on the 520 and 90 blue circles, expecting us to give a recommendation about the bridge.
• Some people wondered why the map wasn’t showing the current traffic on the roads.
• Then there’s the fat finger problem – users are not going to be completely accurate with their taps, and you shouldn’t expect them to. So, we’d have to provide some way to start over if people screwed up their tap. Meh.

The Quadrant Map Design
So we came up with an idea to solve the fat finger problem: divide the map into quadrants! Then the user just has to hit a region. You think this would test well?

It didn’t. It was horribly confusing. Once we finally abandoned our grand map vision, we tried a list.

The List Design

This one tested decently. People understood how to use it. But, look at it. It’s so cluttered. In good design, what isn’t there is just as important as what is.

Okay, so how about a less cluttered design? We wondered whether people would get the “enter a zip code” method:

The Zip Code Design

They didn’t. Not only is it a bunch of extra annoying taps to enter in a number, people don’t always know the zip code of where they’re coming from or going to, and it’s a rude design to expect them to.

The Final Design
In the end, we combined the best parts of the list view with the best parts of the zip code method.
Here’s the super rough mockup:

With some photoshopping, you get what’s in the app today:

The asked-for feature that we cut

There’s another feature we were considering for this screen. One that is frequently suggested to us by people we show the app to: location awareness.

Unfortunately, location detection is not instantaneous. It takes the phone a couple seconds. What if the user had selected one thing, and the GPS detected another? Would we just replace their selection without asking? Or pop up an error message asking which one they wanted to use? Yuck.

You know what’s not obvious? Cutting a feature because you just couldn’t get the UI right. But it’s exactly what we did. (It’s also what Dropbox did, and that’s why there’s only one dropbox folder.)

It wasn’t easy to make this call. As engineers, we’re naturally inclined to want to come up with smart solutions that take advantage of the latest technology. It kind of bruised our egos a bit, as if we were somehow now technically inferior for not using location awareness. But, our number one goal was to create a simple design. So, at least for this release, we cut it.

Related post: How we picked the logo for 520 or 90

I guess I’ve always been pretty competitive. Sometimes it means I completely miss the point of what I’m doing. I doubt I followed through with any of the resolutions that year – if I did, it was probably by accident.

So how do we fare as adults? What percentage of people would you guess actually stick with their resolutions all the way through the year? The answer: 10%.

But it’s not the high failure rate that I have a problem with. It’s that new year’s resolutions make us complacent in writing down and sharing our goals only once a year. Life moves too fast for that – just like life is too special for us to celebrate romance only on Valentine’s day, or count our blessings only on Thanksgiving.

One year is usually the wrong time frame for a goal. You’ll have more success if you go for either extreme: seriously commit to a long-term lifestyle change, or break down the goal into smaller achievable steps.

Here’s my personal example of breaking it down – my “holiday checklist.”

And here’s how I did:

Okay, I’m not suggesting you do it like this. As a close friend told me after seeing this (endearingly, I’m sure), “You have a problem.”

But here’s what I’m trying to get across: I found it helpful to write some goals down. All of them were achievable within a couple hours or days, but most of them are part of bigger, longer-term goals. I added some stuff to the list, and didn’t check off everything. But that’s okay. Circumstances change, and priorities do too – whether it’s the big stuff, like making more time for family, or the little stuff, like deciding not to finish that book because it wasn’t living up to the Amazon reviews.

So take the time to reflect often. Make goals frequently. Write them down somewhere you can see them. And then, perhaps most importantly of all: give up on some of them.

Related post: How we picked the logo for 520 or 90