This felt wrong. It felt like I was spamming my friends online, when nobody wanted to see that.

My business life was in the office, my personal life was my own. There was a line.

That was early social media. Then LinkedIn came onto the scene. I could now have a business profile and a personal profile online.

Still a distinction, two paths but both on the internet.

It was naive to think someone would see one profile and not the other. Not that I acted inappropriately, but LinkedIn had business shirts, while I normally wear a t-shirt. Think of the scandal if a client saw me in a t-shirt!

Fast forward to today. Most people have turned themselves into a business. Self promotion is now commonplace. The “business” may be how well they are doing in life, or how happy they are (or want to appear). But everyone seems to be in a promotion game.

We went from separation of business and personal, to everything being business. I’m hoping we see a third phase to this. That it’s okay to be personal in your business.

I find this everyday with clients. To act professional doesn’t mean to use words like synergy and always be dressed in a suit.

I use animated gifs and regular language with my clients, and not put on an air.

And I see the warmth and appreciation that comes from this. It allows everyone to let their hair down, breath, and relax.

And once relaxed, we can get to the heart of the business.

During Covid, I had clients who had to take meetings with children on their lap. It was a challenge for them, but it was great. It’s okay that everyone knows you to have to juggle many responsibilities.

It’s time to be human, in total. Know that we have families, and friends, and love to eat, and cry at sappy movies.

That’s what a professional looks like in this decade.

• Have a product that solves a problem
• Be empathetic to the person who has this problem, understand them and their problem. Build trust.
• Make it easy and simple to solve their problem with the product

The executions on this simple 3 step plan is the ”devil in the details.” There are millions of ways this manifests itself, but it all comes down to building trust and making it easy to buy.

I don’t disagree with this. Many startup founders get stuck on the wrong details that don’t matter. My first dips into web design client work always contained a “make the logo bigger.”

Founders get stuck on the vanity of design. Back in the day, it was well designed business cards. Today is large hero’d websites.

Getting stuck on the window dressing and not the content is a problem.

But let me be clear, design is important, but not at the expense of story.

You can deliver pizza in a Honda Civic and a Ferrari. Both work equally as well. Most founders will get stuck in thinking they NEED a Ferrari to deliver pizzas.

But that’s not to say design isn’t important in business. If you are trying to sell luxury cars when you driving a Civic, why would anybody believe you.

Design is the first impression and frame of your story, but not the complete story. Your business needs to prioritize the storytelling with design supporting it. Not drive a Ferrari with nowhere to go.

Yesterday’s post in my Hello World, I mentioned working out. Muscle building takes a goal, but it also takes dedicated time and consistency. It’s a slow build, brick by brick.

The problem coming from believing I can do anything and setting big goals exposed my impatience. I wanted to get from point A to point B, immediately. I’d like to believe this is human nature, but personally I’ve probably taken it to a perverse degree.

People would always tell me, “Just be patient, it will come.” My dad included.

This annoyed me beyond belief. It felt lazy. It felt handwavy, as if my goals were just clouds to be brushed off. And to hear this from my dad, it felt hypocritical. I was told that I could do anything.

It took me into my adult years to understand that you can still work hard, work fast, and be patient.

My time in the gym is my example of this. You attend consistently, you push yourself to your limit, but you know progress will happen a drip at a time.

My younger self may have gotten frustrated at the slow progress and quit (actually, I did many times).

My older self see every drip of progress as a piece to a bigger goal. The longer I work at it, the more clear the goal comes into vision.

My competitive self also loves these goals with dripping progress. It means there’s a higher bar to entry and will put me further down the road as long as I stick with it. If it were easy to have 8-pack abs, everyone would have them.

My last example is this blog. As I’m writing this, this is a brick into a larger institution. Little by little I drip my thoughts into these writings, hoping to contribute to a professional goal and to meet more people like myself.

I finally have found to love the process for its value, along with the fruits at the end.

My young self has always seen the value in it, but time goes by and the habit fades.

Honestly, it feels the same as working out, or eating right. I know I should do it, but somehow it falls to the side.

Will this time be different? Hopefully. But what’s different?

Accountability. I have people around me who know I’d doing this, so I don’t want to disappoint them.

Momentum. Quantity is the goal (for now). Quality will come. But keep the habit going without slowing down is priority.

Lastly, weirdly enough, working out and eating right also help. Not only having the energy levels to write, but all the good habits sorta reinforce each other. I workout every day and start my day correct. If I’m able to keep up one habit, I can keep up another. Momentum in all things.

I’m a developer and design nerd who’s been in this business for a long time. And yet imposter syndrome and “shoemaker’s children” always stick in my head.

Let’s see what happens. The future is up to me.