💎 Friday Gems (Visualize your future self, Authenticity, Design leadership, and much more!)
Keep your ego in check - Don’t prioritize protecting your ego at the cost of your work relationships!
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Lightness.
That word came up for me as I visualized my future self.
This week's first gem is from Teresa Brazen, who shared the exercise of visualizing your future self to help you make decisions in the present. A question you can ask yourself is, What would you prioritize today to help your future self? The clearer picture we have of our future selves, the more connected we will feel, which will help us make the right decisions in the present.
Try it out and see what comes up for you.
In this edition of Friday Gems:
✨ Visualize your future self
🫵🏼 The key to effective teammates isn’t them. It’s you.
🏔️ On design leadership…
🍕 Gem of a Recipe: 72-Hour Pizza Dough Class
🌟 Gem of Wisdom: It’s ok to…
🎵 Gem of a Tune: up ‘n’ atom/in good company by Mellodaze
💎 Visualize your future self
Have you ever thought about your future self?
there is compelling research that shows that people who have more connection to their future selves...
👉🏼 have less debt, more wealth
👉🏼 procrastinate less
👉🏼 have more ethical behavior at work
👉🏼 have better health
In our fast-paced and busy world, it’s easy not to think of our future selves. We’re so focused on meeting our needs in the present that our future self seems like a luxury we can’t afford and a distant dream that may never become real.
What we do now in the present will either help or hurt our future self, so why not keep our future self in mind and develop a loving and kind relationship with them?
By visualizing our future selves, we can connect with them to make them our guide through our journey in life.
The process of getting to know your future self is simple, as Teresa explains:
Visualize yourself at a specific moment in time
Build your relationship with your future self over time
I tried this exercise by visualizing myself 10 years from now and focused on the minute details to help me connect with my future self. I recommend closing your eyes as it helps to visualize and focus on yourself.
Once you have gone through this exercise, document what you find. Write down what you learn or even create a board in a visual workspace such as Miro/Mural to build a picture of your future self and help it become a wise guide for your life journey.
Read the full post by Teresa Brazen.
💎 The key to effective teammates isn’t them. It’s you.
Can being ourselves help us work better and help those we work with? Research suggests it can.
Researchers in Germany found that not only do authentic workers have higher work engagement and lower work exhaustion, but their teammates had the same results, regardless of whether they were authentic themselves.
This is an interesting effect because the reverse is also true. If an employee who lacks authenticity has authentic teammates, they reap the spillover benefits of higher work engagement and lower work exhaustion.
The lesson is that we can help our teammates be more authentic by being authentic ourselves.
the most productive relationships are those in which information is freely and comfortably shared.
Here are a few qualities of authentic teammates to consider:
Keep their ego in check - They don’t prioritize protecting their ego at the cost of their work or relationships
Not selfish - They recognize the interests of both others and themselves when making decisions
But how do we spot authenticity in ourselves and others?
Researchers have defined four main components of authenticity to look for:
Awareness of our motives, desires, and strengths
Being honest with our achievements and shortcomings
Behaving in alignment with our beliefs
Understanding the extent to which our friends and family see our “true selves.”
Here is an exercise you can try the next time you share an idea at work:
The next idea you share something at a meeting, explain why the idea has personal meaning to you. Then, encourage your teammates for honest feedback about what you shared.
It might feel strange to share something personal at work but by doing so you will be paving the way for others to open up as well and start to bring everyone’s “true selves” to work so you can bring your whole self to work, develop deeper relationships, and work better and happier together.
Read the full post on The Decision Lab
💎 On design leadership…
I used to think that design leadership was only for those with the title of manager, lead, or higher up the ladder. This belief kept me from showing up fully at work and restricted my career growth.
But now I know better. Anyone can be a design leader.
Design leadership is not about the title that is bestowed upon us. It’s about how we:
show up at work
navigate ambiguity
collaborate across teams
move ideas forward
communicate our ideas
bring everyone along
turn uncertainty into growth opportunities
create a culture of authenticity and trust
With this in mind, I love the ideas Matt Venn shares in his post about running design teams. His points equally apply even if you don’t lead a design team if you’re an independent contributor or a design team of one.
Here are a few of the points that stood out for me:
Kindness is *EVERYTHING* - Be kind. Everyone is dealing with challenges that we are unaware of, so be understanding and kind.
Build relationships across Product, Design, and Engineering (PDE) - By getting closer to the action, you can be more effective as a designer and ship great digital products.
Stand up for design - Design isn’t just managing a Figma file, it’s representing the end user throughout the process and pushing for research, ideating, simplifying complexity along the way.
Tell truth to power - Learn to say no to the higher-ups and communicate why an idea will not work. Don’t just say no!
Learn to care less - (I loved this point) Don’t sweat the small stuff. Everything other than shipping a great product is small stuff.
Don’t worry about marketing, or who said what in a meeting, or whether that Slack message was passive aggressive. Make the product better for the user. Solve problems, ship great stuff then go home and unwind.
I love how Matt broke down the roles of the Product, Design, and Engineering teams in the product design process and how each team collaborates with others.
Product design at a successful org should be roughly this:
Product — Run the play, create the product vision and roadmap.
Design and Product — talk to customers/users and research pain points and soft test proposed new features. Prioritise learnings and put into sprints
Design — ideate, solve the problems and create the design solutions
Design and Dev — handoff and discuss
Dev — build what has been designed please
Design — create a framework and be on hand for snagging and questions from devs and product. Push hard for quality, fit finish and faithful recreation of designs in code
Product, Design and Dev — wash up/retro, get better at the process, validate with the users and ship
Pizza and Beer
Rinse and Repeat
You don’t need anyone’s approval to take ownership and start leading design.
Bring your passion, determination, and lead with your values to move ideas forward.
💎 72-hour pizza dough recipe
Phenomenal!
That’s how Andres Lagsdin, creator of Baking Steel, describes this recipe, and let me tell you, he is not joking. Don’t let the 72-hour scare you because that’s only the amount of time the dough rests in the fridge.
All you need to do is mix the ingredients and leave the dough in the fridge for 72 hours or 3 days. When I made this recipe, I kept it in the fridge for an extra day because life happens, and I couldn’t make the pizza the day I had planned, so it was 96 hours in the fridge.
Also, plan it out beforehand so the dough will be ready for the weekend. get the dough in the fridge by a Tuesday or Wednesday so you can have it ready for the weekend.
Once you take the dough out, Andres explains his unique and fun process for shaping the dough balls to give them the right shape and tautness.
Then, you’re ready to make your pizza!
Watch out; it will be phenomenal, and the taste will be like no other pizza you have ever made; it will be out of this world! 🧑🏽🍳🤌🏽
Once your dough is ready, you can follow Andres as he shows you how to shape the pizza for the puffiest, most delicious, and mouth-watering pizza.
The instructions for making this puffy pizza are detailed, but if you can achieve the look, feel, and taste of a wood-fired puffy pizza at home with a regular oven, then all the hard work is worth it.
Try it out, and let me know how it goes!
💎 Gem of Wisdom: It’s ok to…
It's ok to...
feel the way you feel
talk about how you're feeling
ask for feedback
have days off
have off days
go outside during work
switch off at the end of the day
not constantly check chat and emails
have screen breaks
say you're not comfortable with something
raise your concerns
be you
change your mind
say no
have other things going on
forget things
have a meeting
not have a meeting
turn off notifications
block time out to think and reflect
approach tasks your own way
work flexibly
turn your camera off
take time off if you're not well
make mistakes
say you don't understand
ask for help
put yourself first
love what you do
I love the aboriginal idea of time: everything is cyclical and temporary rather than sequential and absolute.
We are always changing from moment to moment, and never the concrete “me” we think of ourselves.
Understanding this helps reduce a lot of unnecessary suffering we put ourselves through.
Can we be just as we are in each moment without the stories we fall into?
💎 A Gem of a Tune: up ‘n’ atom/in good company by Mellodaze
Both melodious songs on this album are crisp and fun Lofi tunes that quickly get you in the groove at work or when making pizza at home which you definitely should try out because it is phenomenal (see recipe videos above)
Feel free to send any recommendations for songs to include in the Low Fidelity playlist.
Enjoy!
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That’s it for this week’s gems. Do you have a gem you would like to share? Hit reply and share, or DM me.
I’m thankful that you read this far.
Have a fantastic weekend!
