Be Yourself. Everyone else is taken.

@media 2005. Credit goes to Cindy Li for this photo. (I was 19 – Earliest I could find)

This is a fact that took me far too long to learn. I started in this industry young. There were already people designing and programming far smarter than I and I always felt the need to project a bigger age, to show anything but myself.

In truthiness, doing the hustle is not a bad thing but there are two things that sell the most: Talent, and Personality. Without one, the other accounts for nothing. No one wants to work with a boring guy, just as much as no one wants to work with someone who will do a bad job.

I learnt that the hard way. I grew a beard as soon as I physically could (not as young as one would hope) coupled with the fact my personality always naturally appeared older. I was well on my way to projecting the persona I wanted to, which didn’t work as well.

Although this is partly just the fact that I lived on the web while growing up, I’ve learnt not to hold back. I try to show myself; faults and all. I swear (see this), I make mistakes, I say when I think something’s wrong. It’s a liberating experience  It’s what I should have done all along.

If you look at the most notable designers or developers, it’s often not their skills that have got them there. In fact I’d say most of the notables are pretty average. It’s their personality. It’s the fact they’ve given large quantities of who they are to the web world and they’ve given a window into their persona.

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” — Oscar Wilde