Outsiders In Design - with Ryan Rumsey
Wanting to belong is a strong emotional need that drives human behavior, and the desire for acceptance and support from a group is an important need, not just for designers but for all humans. We all have a desire to participate and be part of a community, but also want validation and recognition.
In this episode, Ryan and I talk about having a sense of not belonging and feeling like an outsider in various parts of life, including social groups and design careers. Many aspects can contribute to feelings of isolation.
The feeling of not belonging can be impacted by internal factors, such as self-confidence or a lack thereof, and that it can also be influenced by external factors, such as one's path not conforming to a typical pathway. It can create feelings of shame and struggle with making decisions due to a perception of everything being a risk. We also discuss how these feelings can affect career choices.
Ryan had a lot of impostor syndrome while working at Apple, and so closed himself off and focused on his work. He became a hermit in some ways, and that exacerbated his feelings of being an outsider.
Ryan felt welcomed in the UX community in Switzerland, even though the UX community there was very small. He began to do a lot of self work on his own, to establish where he begins and ends, and to put himself out there, to feel less like an outsider.
We talk about how we compare ourselves to others, which is part of how we feel belonging with others like us. And yet comparing ourselves to others can further our feelings of not belonging, when we measure ourselves against where we perceive others to be. We talk about how to get beyond this, and find a community. Or create our own community.
Ryan has worked hard to build community, and his goal now is to ensure that people feel less of that imposter syndrome, that there are ways to get unstuck with each other, but to really be in community so that we don't have members who feel like outsiders.
Talking more about the need to belong, once our basic needs are met, we seek belonging and fulfillment and meaning in our work and personal lives. It is important to recognize that everyone's journey is unique and that success and fulfillment can be achieved at different points in one's life and career. It can be helpful to focus on personal growth and progress rather than comparing oneself to others.
It takes a lot of work uncovering what are our limiting beliefs. One of Ryan’s biggest lessons in reflection was that he wasn't being active in trying to find community.
He realized he was saying “I'm not included, I feel like an outsider.” And then realized he had to take action to remedy that to try to connect with people in a more meaningful way.
This is also something Ryan teaches to design leaders in his Chief Design Officer school. Once you're getting into people management and organizational management, the way to relieve anxiety, the way to drive things forward is to apply the same rigor that you would to craft as a designer, to relationships and communication. And that really requires us to do a lot of self work to dig into these deeper places. In the Chief Design Officer school, you will learn so many of these frameworks, and learn through reflection that you didn't know you needed.
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Grab your FREE PDF download of Ryan’s book:
Business Thinking for Designers by Ryan Rumsey
https://www.secondwavedive.com/book
Learn more about Ryan’s Chief Design Officer School:
https://thecdo.school/
Find out more about this topic by checking out these books:
Weird: The Power of Being an Outsider in an Insider World
Originals: How Nonconformists Rule The World
Follow along Leigh’s upcoming workshops & programs:
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Leigh Arredondo 00:02
UX Cake is all about developing the layers you need to be more effective in your work and to be happy and fulfilled in your career. I'm your host, Leigh Allen-Arredondo, and I'm a UX leader and leadership coach. Hello, friends. Welcome to UX cake. It's been a little bit longer than usual. Since I published the last episode, I usually try to get these out every couple of weeks. And it's been more like, almost two months. Since the last episode, things will be getting back on track. But I wanted to share with you what I've been so busy with, because well, because I'm excited about it. And because it's for you, for the UX community. So you may know that I am a UX leadership coach, I work with UX professionals at all levels as they navigate their career and supporting them in becoming more strategic and to gain clarity about what's really most important and how to achieve that. And to build practices for a career that is sustainable. And that is authentic, and purposeful, and impactful. And now I'm taking that to group programs, because I just love the sense of community that that creates. And it actually ends up being, I think, even more powerful for for the people who participate. I just wrapped up strategic UX management in November, the seventh week group coaching program, it was awesome, and powerful, and a lot of fun. And now I'm very busy putting together some workshops like half day workshops, and more multi week group programs for 2023 to help you X managers, as well as individual contributors, because I know that people at all levels in UX and in all roles really do need more support. And we need community in order to create the kind of impact and meaning that we that we really want in our work and in our careers. And that's what I want for you. So if you would like to find out more about my programs, now or in the future, head on over to strategic UX leader, as one word strategic UX leader.com. So today, I'm talking with Ryan Rumsey, about feeling like an outsider in design, and the very human need to belong, and how we so often compare ourselves to others, or I should say, to our perception of others, because that's actually more accurate. And Ryan and I are speaking from our experiences within design, but I know that this will resonate with anyone who has felt like an outsider in anywhere that they work. My guest, Ryan Rumsey is the author of business thinking for designers and the CEO of second wave dive and Chief Design Officer school. before founding second wave dive. Ryan worked for over 20 years as a designer and as an executive at Apple, Electronic Arts, USAA, Nestle and Comcast. So Ryan has a plethora of experience and titles in design. But as we talk about those things aren't actually what we need to combat the feeling of being an outsider, or to create a feeling of belonging. As I mentioned, feeling like an outsider isn't exclusive to design, any profession or community can feel like there are insiders, and we aren't one of them. And design does seem to be particularly susceptible to elitism. In my experience, I have wondered if it might have something to do with the visual nature of what we do. Even though not all design is visual design. All aspects of design do tend to have some visual aspect to it when we're presenting and communicating with others. Right. I think there's also definitely this sense of scarcity that drives a lot of the behavior and the rhetoric that I see and hear. Perception of scarcity can really create subconscious thoughts like there's not enough room for everyone. That makes people very competitive and not inclusive, and there are always going to be insiders who do not want to accept outsiders kinda like the cool kids in middle school, right rejecting anyone not deemed cool enough. And that's largely based on their own security and need to belong. There's also a fear of people who are different and combined with a fear of change, also very human human reactions, right. And this can lead to kind of other ring sort of behavior. Now, to be clear, today, we're not actually talking about the other ring or other ring Enos that comes as part of being in an underrepresented group in tech, where or wherever we work, there are a whole host of biases around race and color, and country of origin and gender, and cisgender norms and disability and neuro diversity age, where you went to school, I mean, these other biases can also really magnify this outsider effect. And those are external signals. And they are real, and they have very real consequences. But today, we're really talking more about the internal emotions, and the thoughts of our own, that contribute to feeling like an outsider, as well as how to get out of that mindset and find belonging a little bit about mindset. Here, we talk a little bit in our conversation to the power of celebrating what sets us apart and incorporating it into our unique story. And I want to bubble that up here. Because that is just so powerful, owning your own uniqueness. And what makes you feel different, what makes you different, is part of your brilliant light. And hiding your light not only makes it more difficult for you to see your own path forward, it can also keep others who might be on a similar path in the dark as well. And I think that that's really powerful way of looking at the benefit of getting outside of our comfort zone, which is what it takes to change your mindset. Stick around to the end to find out some other resources that may help. And those links are in the show notes as well. Okay, let's dive into our conversation with Brian Rumsey. Good morning, Ryan. And thank you so much for joining me on your escape today. Yeah,
ryan rumsey 07:45
thanks for having me.
Leigh Arredondo 07:47
I'm so excited to talk about being feeling like an outsider in design. I have actually had that conversation with multiple other people in design. And in fact, leaders in design like you and me, so I know that there are others out there that this resonates with. There are so many ways to experience that feeling of being an outsider or not belonging. So I'd love to start with just finding out. What do you mean, when you say feeling like an outsider in design?
ryan rumsey 08:21
I think like many things, everything starts with our families of origin. And what's more complex have not just designed for me, I think in many aspects of my life, I've felt like an outsider. And knowing what I know now about trauma and trauma, survival, and all that kind of stuff. You know, my parents both survived lots of trauma. And they did this wonderfully amazing breaking of the cycle as parents to myself and my sister. And yet there are still leftover bits of trauma. And so when I think of being an outsider, it really started at a very early age of where the world was presented to me as a risk, everything was like danger. And so it was safer to not express yourself, I think, looking back now and in some of the work that I've I've done self work, it's maybe perhaps I didn't feel safe anywhere, to be able to express my own feelings or whatnot. And so, you know, by the time you get to young adulthood, and then working career, being an outsider and design is always, I think, rooted in feeling like an outsider.
Leigh Arredondo 09:43
It's funny that you're that you are bringing that up, like, the whole like general feeling of not, I actually was gonna get around to that, but you just dove in. So thank you for that.
ryan rumsey 09:54
Yeah. And I was friends with lots of people. But I didn't along, I didn't have a sense of belonging to any group or people growing up. And I think that much of that then easily pivoted into being a young adult and starting a career and all those things. And, you know, I started my design career kind of late, meaning as a young adult, I struggled a lot with mental health stuff. And so just this sort of general feeling of feeling like an outsider, but also feeling like, lots of shame, and, and all these types of things that I, I had lots of interests as a young man. But I also, like everything was a risk. And so I didn't, I couldn't choose or make decisions. And so I was designing, but I never thought of it as a career, I thought of it in the 90s, at least, like, Oh, I was doing this thing. But then I was going at home and playing around on my computer at night. And it's just play. And occasionally people learn that and they would ask to, oh, could I help them with something, and they would pay me to do that, but I never thought about it as a career. And really, I never really thought about it as a career till I was probably about close to 30. And so by the time that I transitioned and said, This is what I really want to do full time, I kind of already felt like it was too late. Like there was a lot of catching up that I had to do, because I have peers, the same age of mine who have blogs, and they were talking about all these other things. And they're being quite public. And there was a lot of movements of contemporaries and peers moving to the Bay Area and getting involved there. And I never wanted to be there I never wanted to live in the Bay Area was sort of wasn't a fit for me. And I think a lot of feeling like an outsider was still very much my own projection of how I saw myself in the world. And that's kind of where it started. But then there were circumstantial things that started to happen to I got hired by Apple, and Apple, especially the org that I was in was one of these, like secretive orgs, where I didn't work on the fun Steve Jobs. in air quotes, of course, today, I like the popular things I didn't work on, I worked in Tim Cook's org when he was the CFO for Apple Care. And so I was doing internal tools and employee experience type things a long time ago. But I knew about product launches about 18 months before they happen. So I was sworn to secrecy. And generally, the vibe was you can't talk about your work, you can't go to conferences, you can't speak, you can't be part of the broader industry. And so I was very much like, in and doing all the same things. But I was not allowed to kind of participate in the community of it. And so I think, as still a relatively young adult, those two factors really compounded into me, internalizing this sort of paradox of wanting to participate, wanting to be involved wanting to feel like I was part of community, but also like wanting to be seen wanting to be validated. I remember I would, the one conference that I was kind of it was okay to that I could go to South by Southwest because it was in Austin, and I was in Austin. And I think it was like 2007 2008, there was a panel, which had some apple designers on it. And they were working more on brand stuff. And I went up and I was very excited. I was like, Oh, I'm gonna get to actually, this is the first opportunity for me to even connect with other designers at Apple. Yeah. And I went up to this person, I said, Hey, I work there, too. And I, I do design in this area. And their response was very hands off kind of thing. They weren't excited. They weren't like looking to expand their community in different ways. They were like, Oh, I never knew that. That happened there. Cool. Nice to meet you very dismissive. And so that sort of courage. It took me internally to go up to a stranger and just say, Hey, I'd like to play to kind of playground, right? Yeah. And then it was MIT met with stiff hand and kind of connection just kind of exacerbated how over time I was feeling mostly about myself. But then my role in feeling like an outsider,
Leigh Arredondo 15:14
wanting to belong is a very strong emotional human need and is one of the, like basic needs that motivates human behavior, right? According to Maslow love and His hierarchy of needs, but it's this desire to be so accepted and supported from a group of others. And I think for a lot of people, there's internal things that are maybe projecting, and or a lack of self confidence is another thing that I see a lot or just like, literally, your path, not conforming to what is the typical pathway, which, similar to you, I think that was a lot of it for me as well. Design, for me was a way to put myself through college, which was a long journey in and of itself for me. Yeah, I actually graduated till I was 29. And I went to film school. And by that time, I was already I had moved from graphic design into interaction design, in the 90s. So it wasn't called UX. And there was definitely this sense of, Am I legit, even though I had jobs, right? Yeah, I know, for me, it actually affected career choices that I made. Specifically, what I recall is agencies were full of designers, or the capital D, and they dressed like designers and they went to design school, or maybe art school. And they talked about dismissive, there was just this aura of better than thou. So I avoided agency work, even though I did end up doing agency work throughout my career, but they were very specific types of agencies that weren't like that. But I'm curious how it you feel like that those feelings affected your career choices.
ryan rumsey 17:20
Or, you know, I had very different pads. I was never a graphic designer, like I don't. I know the basics of color theory and kerning, and all these things. But that's not my fundamental foundational thing I was, I was kind of a hybrid, I knew how to develop and code. And so I got into interaction design, more through like, information architecture, I studied history. And so there was this, like, oh, information architecture is just like the Dewey Decimal System at the library, oh, you know, these sort of sideways things. But I was very much a maker. And I didn't know which role I fit. Because if we also remember the 90s, especially with digital work, it was about making websites. It was about browser standards, and things like that. So I was really into CSS, but CSS with interaction design. So I was really about the sort of helping people resolve needs, and you know, all that kind of stuff. But also really interested in the tech piece of that and getting really interested in sort of browser based CSS capabilities, so that I wouldn't have to learn Java, I learned Java, but it was more, oh, there's all these other ways that I can get out of having to rely on Photoshop, which is clearly not a tool for making things on the web, even though it was the only tool for us. But my career was happenstance. 2000. I was also acting in Los Angeles because I sort of didn't really know what I wanted to do. And I would go home and during my off time, when I wasn't rehearsing, or going to casting stuff, or working, I'd spend eight to 10 hours in front of the computer, making websites for people and but I never thought of it is this is a career I never advertised. I never people just sort of through word of mouth, you know, oh, my, my roommate does this. Oh, so and so my friend Ryan does this and that's how I started getting work. And then my first career choice was a friend of a friend of a friend of my roommate, where I was just saying, I want to stop acting I want To do this full time, I just don't even know where to start. I'm, I'm over 30. Now I'm out of the whole loop of having a university help you get a gig and I don't live in San Francisco, I live in LA, I don't even know where to start. But just through that conversation, my roommates friend said, Oh, my roommate works here. They're looking for somebody, I should introduce you. And so that's where the journey began. And then how I got hired at Apple was just pure luck.
Leigh Arredondo 20:35
I'm sure there was no talent included in hiring process.
ryan rumsey 20:40
What I mean by that is, there was talent, but that they found me was luck, God, meaning it was very circumstantial. I put my resume on dice.com, which was for engineers and for developers, like because there was no real place for designers at the time. And Apple just called me two days later. And I was like, what, what? What are you sure like, I, I'm not one of those people that shows up in the keynote. And you're talking about the this was 2007. So I started at Apple two weeks before the iPhone came out in this weird or, but my focus at the time was not feeling like part of the community, I was just so much impostor syndrome, I was sure that someday, they would just figure out that I was not Apple worthy, that it was just the nose down, just going, going, going going. Because I was like, Oh my gosh, I don't know how I've gotten here. But so that I think just exacerbated my own feeling of feeling an outsider, because I went and became a hermit, in some ways, too. But it wasn't until I think 2013, we moved to Switzerland, that the community there was like, there's no community, very little few people in design, you mean, in design in sort of digital, and UX was very small. And so I just reached out to people on Twitter, said, I'm moving here. And they were like, What, you're moving here. And so it was the first time that I felt welcome in that way. That was quite different. And, but I also wasn't Swiss. And I didn't speak French. So aspects of that a feeling an outsider to, I think, you know, it took a lot of self work on my own, to establish where I began and did for me to then put myself out there to make me feel like less of an outsider. There's still parts of me that I know, I'm part and I'm not part of like the club, if you will. Have your own club, you know, you Oh, yeah. Sort of, I'm not looking to get 10s of 1000s of followers, and I don't, yeah, right, to get that or those things. And I'm quite pleased now that I'm getting to meet people like you and others that I've known about, or they've written things like 20 years ago that inspired me and now they're becoming friends is quite nice.
Leigh Arredondo 23:34
Yeah, same actually. been feeling in the same boat for the last few years, especially since I started the podcast and yeah, kind of opens doors or you start speaking in conferences, which is something
ryan rumsey 23:49
that's a there's a whole other thing with conferences too, you know, I've never been accepted. Hmm, interaction design conference, or IA summits are like I've applied to all of those years on end and could never get an invitation to those and then there was this sort of breakthrough moment where I did write, I wrote an article I think it was 2015 or 2016, like, just wrote and put it on medium at the time, because I moved in everybody was moving away from blogs to medium and all that. But I wrote about introducing organizational culture into existing organizational culture. So introducing design culture into already established organizational culture and Aaron Walter who was at MailChimp at the time and I think maybe moved over to envision right at that time, I just happen to read it happen to find it and so then invited me to this tiny little event called Designing leadership camp and I, I show up there and I'm Nobody knows who I am. And suddenly in the room, I'm with all these people. I was like, Oh my gosh, they did that. And they did that. And but that experience quick, made me quickly realize is like, Oh, wait, we're doing the same things. I totally have these different perspectives. And they have I've had these experiences, and now they're asking me the questions. Oh, I feel like less of an outsider. But also, I think in some ways, it did both that exacerbated the feeling, and then made me feel connected. And in other ways,
Leigh Arredondo 25:37
too. Yeah. And I want to circle back to a couple of things that we've been talking about. One is that sense of comparison, comparing ourselves to others is actually part of this need to belong. So those two things are linked in our how our brains work, and how human behavior works. So we do we compare ourselves to others to see am I accepted here, that's like one thing I'd love to talk about a little bit and how we've gotten beyond that, or at least dealt with it, right? Because I don't know if you can ever get completely beyond it just doesn't come up for me as often anymore. But the other is finding your community and creating your community, which I'm hearing a lot of in what you're talking about. So firstly, that comparison, and we know to compare is to despair. And we know that and yet, often I know that there have been times in the past like I to have done a lot of self work for me, like through self coaching and coaching in cognitive behavior, psychology, but yeah, but in the past, there were times when I would, it was almost like I couldn't even see how I could not compare. And it was so clear to me that I was falling short, when I looked around.
ryan rumsey 27:15
There's this dichotomy, I think, this double edged sword of what happens when people share. And I think, when thinking about comparison, I never thought about it as an individual like me against somebody else, or me against this one person. I don't think I ever went to that individual level. But what I saw was, I would seek out new information. And so I would then read about these perspectives of others where we were kind of at the same moments. And they would write so eloquently, or they would give a speech so eloquently. And I would turn it around and say like, why is Why are those same things working for them are seemingly working for them, and they're not working for me. And it took a while. And then after kind of meeting some of these folks where if you talk to them when the lights aren't on, none of this worked. Like they, you know, they would say, Oh, here's how you approach or design or here's how you approach communication. And then I would go and follow up with them or talk to them after and say like, well, well, how are you doing this? Well, how does that result in this? And they're like, We don't have that figured out. We're not. But for a long time, without having those conversations, there was a good four or five years where I was thankful that they were sharing their information, but also it was turning into why am I broken? But you have to understand that this was still a period of where I was carrying lots of shame, I hadn't really begun cognitive behavioral theory or therapy and doing all that self work. So I was still like, well, how is it working for them, and then finding out later that they were like, it's totally not working in that way. That sort of palpable effects that that had with me, is certainly influenced how I approach community building now and writing and sharing now is I take intentional, purposeful decisions not to put things in the world that I don't have any demonstratable evidence for. I know there's lots of great inspirational reading out there where people are just kind of writing whatever is coming to mind. And I also know that gets interpreted as, oh, that's the way forward. And for me, I was like, I knew how much that affected me and thinking that I was broken and now having I've been in this place that I'm in now of teaching, and developing leaders to be more of that organizational executive kind of role. I would say like 90% of the people of the students have come to us have said, like, why am I broken? Why am I doing this wrong? I read this article about what big name company is doing. And that's where we might talk about well, do you know that they have like a marketing budgets and that it's part of their recruitment practice, and it's part of their business model? To sell it this way? Or do you know that person who's really famous, they've never been a manager, you're already three, you know, levels or whatnot. But beyond that, you manage managers, that person that you are citing here, they've never been a people manager, they've never had your responsibilities. And I don't name or blame, I don't shame, I believe it's very important not to shame people. But also that's, that's then transferred into, gosh, oh, I want to try to when I put things into the world, do my best to think about the harm that might also unintentionally create, in addition to the benefits of me out into the world. And I know, for me that reading so much of what I thought were experts are people who are doing it and proving it. Then finding out later, they're like, No, I, I left that job two months later. Oh, oh, okay.
Leigh Arredondo 31:43
Like pull back the curtain. Right, right. And so for me, this little man who's, right, like, it's just oz behind,
ryan rumsey 31:52
I want to, if I put things into the world and try to build community, my goal is to hopefully ensure that people feel less of that imposter syndrome, that there are ways to get unstuck with each other, but to really be in community so that we don't have members who feel like outsiders or Yeah,
Leigh Arredondo 32:15
yeah. Yeah. Interestingly, I think something that you touched on, kind of goes back to talking about comparing, and one of the dangers of comparing these days is that there's this abundance of, quote, unquote, success out there. of people, we don't know, I mean, this, I think it used to be media, like magazines, television, and books, right. And now, it's just this proliferation of social media that just is showing us how great everybody is, there are a lot long periods of time when I don't engage in social media at all, I just feel so much more stable. In my, in my soul, we should understand that, yeah, they have to capitalize on human behavior on how like this is how we are sort of designed as humans to act which is wanting to belong, which is comparing ourselves to others to see where we do fit in. But I love that you you brought up that building of community, because I think that it can also just look like how people can find their community. And I think it does take time, it does take people a long amount of time sometimes to really find their community. But I suppose the flip side of the proliferation of success on social media is also the proliferation of communities. And so there are a lot more out there, it is still difficult to find the one I know, I've been a part of a lot of different communities or online communities that just really haven't clicked but yeah, now I made a couple that are fantastic. And yeah, one of which is where I met you. And so I think it just it it's trial and error unless you know a better way.
ryan rumsey 34:29
This goes back to like self work of knowing where you begin an end and really understanding what you need. So we go back to Maslow. I think a lot of our careers now, especially if you're a designer, your basic needs are met, but we all have, we're seeking more we want more needs. We want to go higher up that pyramid and we want to seek enlightenment and love in the third eye, whatever it is that we want. And I think that That's the struggle that so many are going, I want more than just a paycheck, and benefits and this, and I want to work at a company that wants more than just creating revenue. It, I want to go back to the comparison thing too, because one of the things with the proliferation of success, and I heard this, I think it might have been Conan O'Brien, when talking about comedy, is that for a long time, he would compare himself to Letterman or Johnny Carson. And it took him a while to then figure out, they're, like 20 years farther down the path. They've just have 20 more years of practice, they're not successful, more successful for me, they are just at a different point on the timeline. And I think that's one of the things that I want to highlight, particularly if anybody's listening, and they are early in their career. And they see the proliferation of success by individuals by companies is a lot of people are 15 to 20 years into this. They've been talking about it, they've got just a lot more repetitions. They are also probably dealing with a lot of the same things in terms of like wanting to be seen wanting to be validated. There just think worrying about those in different parts.
Leigh Arredondo 36:37
Yeah, career. Yeah, exactly. And I think to your point about coming into your career later, at a later age, I know a lot of people struggle with that. Also, making them feel different. But honestly, there are so many people at different places in their careers. Do you need to make too much of my age? And am I doing okay, for my age? Or my peers? Am I doing as much as my peers are people that I worked with 10 years ago, it doesn't matter. It's your journey, and we all have a different journey. And so more focusing on what, what results do I want? Versus do I even really, it sort of dawned on me gradually that I was comparing myself to people who had something I didn't even want. You know, like, it's funny wanted to be in an executive role.
ryan rumsey 37:42
That's right. It's funny, it's often until we're like, at that moment where I mean, if I were to have an honest conversation, I would say like the majority of you do not want to be a VP. Not because it's not interesting, or they're interesting challenges. But it's so completely different than what you know of now. I can't tell you how many people I've met, where they said, Oh, I got that job. And that was not a match for me. And I think is again goes back to like, the importance for me and self work is to say, well, nobody else has my three kids that I'm helping to raise nobody else's in a partnership with my spouse, nobody else is has these responsibilities that are these interests, that I am those that are all mine and completely unique. And so what is healthy, and important for my needs to get those higher level needs are in addition to creating, you know, some stability and financial income and all that kind of stuff. And I had a wonderful conversation with a friend where they were sitting there going, Well, I'm looking at these trends. And this is like what it says I should do next and where I should be next. And we had this conversation I said, well, like think of a time when you felt feel feelings that to you want to have think of a time in your past. What were those feelings? And they mentioned, you know, I felt happy, and I felt safe. And I felt excited. And I was like, well, let's talk about the conditions what were present there. And they were talking about oh, this and that. And I was like UK you mentioned nothing about being a VP. In fact, everything you talked about was like you were running your own tiny little business. And they said yeah, that's actually ultimately what I want to do. And I said, so this job that you're negotiating right now this VP job that you're it's just a step to eventually get you to the place is that going to give you some of the financial freedom that you want? Are you going to be able to do a great job and not have to put your entire emotional self into that? Because really your emotional self, your, the better value or whatever the optimal thing for you is to ultimately be running your own thing and living on a farm. They're like, Oh, I can do both. And I think there's this pressure that we see that, especially for those entering this career journey, or still thinking about, Oh, there's five steps to maturity. I think once you kind of get to a certain point, I think what I would say to my past self is like, actually, there's no limit. There's no, there's no number five you are,
Leigh Arredondo 40:49
we're really kind of limiting ourselves with our right, our limiting beliefs so much of the time, but you can't just like wake up one day and know that, like what you said, and is true for me, it takes a lot of work uncovering what are our limiting beliefs and covering Where is if it's if it is a lack of confidence, or if it is a feeling of being not enough. Like, where's that rooted? And I mean, there's, I think that there's a lot of work to do there is
ryan rumsey 41:22
and I think the biggest lesson that I learned in reflection, when I started my own work was I also wasn't being active and trying to find community, I set for it. I said, for a lot of time going, I'm not included, I feel like an outsider. And then I also through work with the therapist went and I made no, I took no action to remedy that I took no other than that one instance, at South by Southwest, I never did the work to also go try to connect with people in a more meaningful way. And so yeah, that's what I would say it's also work on our own, to go find and be part of community. It's,
Leigh Arredondo 42:15
yeah, that fear of rejection can be really strong. getting to a place where you understand rejection, is emotional pain. But it's recoverable. What other people think actually doesn't really matter in the big picture, like you think about like five years from now, how much will that really affect your life? But yeah, I want to make sure that before we wrap up, we talk just for a minute or two, about what you've got going on, because I feel like I mean, you have a lot of workshops and classes and your company provides what you have a couple now, but sort of schools. But I think that that kind of training also helps a lot of folks who feel like they, you know, would like some more information, what sets them apart, this could differentiate me. So, yeah, I would love to just hear a little bit about both your operations.
ryan rumsey 43:23
Well, it's it's kind of two brands, but it's all wrapped up into one thing. When I first started the company, I was like, Well, I want to do some teaching, I want to do some development. You know, one of the things that I saw out in the world was how often people were given the opportunity to move into people leadership roles and organizational leadership roles. And they were entirely left on their own. It's certainly happened to me every time that at a time when I probably could have used the most coaching and mentorship and guidance. I was on my own. And so that's one thing is me saying like everybody deserves to be developed, no matter what level you're at. And it's often when we get into these people management roles. So the further in our career where we still deserve and can benefit from and need have that innate need to be mentored and to be developed. And this is this is this yes, this is what led to cert wave. Right. But second wave die was is a weird name. And if I talk to somebody for three minutes, they understand it but we did courses there for three years. But what we're also doing is building up a different type of internal community and learning new ways to teach the way adults might learn and to incorporate a lot of coaching into the teaching as well the instructional material But then we just announced Chief Design Officer school because that name sort of speaks for itself. What do we what are we doing here, we're helping you practice your executive skills before you get the gig. And what I can say. And I imagine, you have a lot of familiarity with this, too, is, once you're getting into people management and organizational management, the way to relieve anxiety, the way to drive things forward is to apply the same rigor that you would to craft as a designer, to relationships and communication. And that really requires us to do a lot of self work, to dig into these deeper places. And so what we do with the schooling is that you will learn so many of these frameworks, but so much of it is then the way we instruct is through reflection that you didn't know you needed, and giving you the capacity to reflect a new way. Yes, that is to say you are an equal partner into developing this maturity, you can only mean but as mature as an organization as the least mature. So if you're a design org, that's a level five maturity and you're partnering with a product or that's a level one, guess what, you're a level one. And so it's not just this discussion of design being mature, you then have the all these ways that say how can you invite others to mature with you, while also applying rigor and honoring them? And not being manipulative or coercive? And how can you manage your own emotional energy while still meeting only meeting quarterly goals. So these are a lot of the areas that people aren't really given a lot of practice. And I would say, for the leaders that have learned this over the years, they have not really had the capacity to turn that into coaching and instructional materials for their teams, right. And so that's just an area that serves me like as an individual, I love doing that. And that's kind of what we do now is a new approach to communal learning. But it's all in service to you, as an individual have needs. And you want to serve society in a collective good and new ways. And you want to challenge your organization and in healthy ways, but you also want to see, like, am I working for an organization that doesn't fit me and fit where I want to go? We want to open the curtains and see the Wizard around those areas, too. So that's, that's what we do now. And it's been a lot of fun and used to kind of slowly healthy growth rather than just pure hockey sticks.
Leigh Arredondo 48:06
That's awesome. Thank you so much. I'm sorry that we have to wrap up because this has been a great conversation. And I want to
ryan rumsey 48:13
continue. Yeah, so we our conversation here ends here now, but luckily, I get to keep chatting and I love our chats. And thank you so much for having me.
Leigh Arredondo 48:22
I think I'm speaking for probably a lot of listeners really appreciate your openness and honesty. Thank you.
ryan rumsey 48:31
Thank you for holding a safe space for me.
Leigh Arredondo 48:33
If you want to know more about Ryan's amazing programs and the Chief Design Officer school, go to second wave dive.com Also, I have some resources to share with you related to this topic. I love the book weird. The power of being an outsider in an insider world. I think that title really kind of speaks for itself. That's by Olga Curzon, and it's about the power of knowing where you belong. I also really love the book originals, how non conformists move the world by Adam Grant. And this book really speaks to me, maybe it'll speak to you as well if you identify as a nonconformist, and maybe find it challenging as a nonconformist in the business world. There are links to those and other resources on the show notes page and the episode page on UX kake.co. Thanks so much for joining me on UX cake today. And if you enjoy this episode, leave us a comment on LinkedIn, YouTube or Instagram. You can also help us out by leaving a rating on Apple podcast or Spotify or share a slice of UX cake with a friend or colleague. There's always enough UX cake to go around. Bye for now.