Some people know who they are. They have the great fortune of growing up with some sense of communal identity- either within a family or an area. They have a sports team and know the odd chants unique to a history they probably learned from an elder. A baton of sorts was passed to them, and with foundation built, they run from a platform that is sturdy and strong. From that knowing, trajectory is produced towards something. They are planted early and grow into something beautiful in due season. Others do not have such a story. They may have an unthinkable childhood, one of chaos and longing. Everything that could go wrong seems to go wrong, and yet, from that chaos produces an unlikely beauty. Planted in darkness, color begins to emerge. Many times, it is because of that very foundation, a clear contrast is established. The foundation becomes, “Whatever I dealt with before, I will do the opposite,” and their vision is established from their shattered past. And then there is the third plant- the kind that continually is shifted around in various pots. It was watered a few times and then moved to another window. Some locations did better than others. Occasionally, it would ridicule its owner by showing signs of real life, but in the end, it always withered back into the soil. It did not have proper foundation nor the chaos of strong roots. It just kept getting repotted until, in a forest of established plants, it decided to show signs of life again.

2007. Driving in the PNW one year back from Tokyo. I can imagine I was listening to something worthy of the drive; something bought from the record store perhaps hours before. I can't remember if I had bought my Volkswagen Golf, (stick shift of course) with cloth gray seats decorated by one thousand cigarette burns within the fabric this particular year or the following. Those were lonely but wonderful times. I'd drive to Portland just for coffee. Money was spent only on CDs, espresso, and gas. I was officially an art school dropout, played some incredible venues, and was filled with a wanderlust that despised being wherever I was because there was always someplace better that I could be. I was burning for something to do but nothing would ever satisfy me in those days. There's something good about struggling without looking at anything. Facebook was just starting but no one was really looking at it, (or at least I wasn't). In fact, even about four to five years later I didn't have a phone at all in the age of smart phones. I was determined to keep living off pure romanticism, shaping the world into what it ought to be in my head rather than seeing it all at once. I wasn't looking at anyone else, comparing my story to theirs. Everything and anything I thought was written pen to paper in a cafe for myself, to wrestle with who I was and who I was becoming. Throughout history, society and culture were shaped by the rebuke and consequence of an immediate community. Do something rude and get a look that would signify that the action was inappropriate and should not be repeated. To struggle now is to suffer some sort of oppression that is without context- only that it is unfair and should be repaired immediately. Delayed consequence via social media is not good. Celebrating via likes from anonymous people shape a person to repeat actions that have not been approved by the wisdom of the ages. Perhaps I wouldn't have felt so alone in the world and lost but there's a time for everything. There's a time to perhaps feel completely upside down, dropped in another country by yourself to figure out how to piece yourself together into something that can contribute. Struggling is a part of life, especially in the area of identity. It takes time, perhaps a lifetime, therefore anything but immediate. A social media generation- raised without immediate consequence, measured by the world, and shaped via clicks will be an interesting thing to watch. I can say this: if you do give yourself time to struggle and discover who you are, do so unplugged. Perhaps it is impossible to grow up an individual in the age of the collective, but try... Attempt to find yourself away from the constant nagging of others. That time especially is so important. Treat yourself with that importance, no matter the age, to introduce yourself with you. Seven billion voices are a lot to filter through. We need strong people who know who they are.

I’m not sure who is responsible for the saying, “Show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are.” In the digital age, it may force the subtle change to, “Show me your friend list and I’d walk away with nothing.” The internet and social medias have impacted the world for an overall good, but with good things, other things can be lost. Our attention spans are much like the “shorts” or “stories” we watch for one. We need the summary of the story, not the stories in between. Those seem to take too long. Speed up to the clinking glasses, the walk on the beach, the shot of someone jumping into water, and an airplane taking off. Then repeat over and over as someone on the opposite end scrolls past and rewards the video with a heart, or at the very least, a view. The interaction becomes a boring transaction. In fact, the in-betweens of that vacation shown could be two people staring at their screens either editing their experiences or watching sliced up versions of someone else’s. More than the shrinking of attention spans has been the brutal inability to carry conversations with weight and substance. Like the disappearing digital stories that are live for only 24 hours, we simply forget in order to make way for the constant drip of information flowing day by day. Conversations used to be built over time, like one brick laid over the other; information on top of information, often carried by the other party’s curiosity to gain access to that knowledge. Then in turn, either in polite gesture or genuine interest, the two swap stories to create a sort of book between themselves. I have not had the privilege of such an interaction for a long time, and if I have, something important is missing.

As a Christmas present to myself, I went ahead and bought the new Jordan Peterson book “We Who Wrestle with God.” I have especially enjoyed his series on Exodus where he and a panel of other academics and scholars unpack Mose’s escape from tyranny, only to find themselves in the desert. As I reflected on my own life, I saw clearer much of the symbolism in recent years. We left the Seattle area to a place that God would show us, and I could tell you with 100% certainty that I would have never picked this land. We don’t exactly get to choose, and I find this to be a better option when I have been prone to make the worst decisions for myself in the moment. I’d rather someone make a choice for me who knows me, just as often I receive far better presents than I’d gift to myself, (besides this book of course). If I didn’t choose it, then I’m far more confident that something good awaits. I do not have to toss and turn wondering if I had led my family to the wrong destination, not when the choice has been decided by outside forces in a miraculous move across country completely paid for with 100 miracles circling the story much like a Biblical excerpt. All I know is that I escaped the tyranny- whether self inflicted, (most of it of course was) or via exterior happenstance, (and there was that too). Up until recently, I thought for certain that we had entered the theoretical Promised Land, but in my anxiousness to then take it over, I had forgotten the dreaded story of the desert. Compared to the tyranny, the desert is wonderful, but it has come with its own frustrations. Mostly, the desert is not meant to be taken over. It’s an in between, and if you try and take it over, it becomes evident that nothing can be or should be built there.

As a former musician, I was always interested in ideas. There was no software involved, no expensive gadgets, or even a single tool needed. One could whistle out a melody and be instantly inspired to see where the invisible thread flew. Perhaps it dropped suddenly, never to be whistled again as life got in the way and the cloud of inspiration burst forever. Other times, the melody could be so strong that one would keep repeating it over and over until it became a song within their mind. The melody would then have counter melodies and multiple layers to form a complete recipe with nothing but an idea and some talent. I was once approached to write a full record- 12 songs for domestic release and 2 songs to be released internationally. It was the chance of a lifetime to have full funding for an album based upon my songwriting abilities and to be flown to a list of multiple locations to record. I took the opportunity seriously and instantly wrote 21 songs in seven days- never seated at a piano. My songs would come with nothing more than my mind and a walk along the piers in Seattle. By the time I’d reach a cafe or a place to sit down, the songs would mostly be written. The guitar parts, the piano, some horns, the drums- they would all be filled within my mind. As someone who didn’t have money, I didn’t need to convince the world of my talent. I just needed to convince others who could see what I could see, (or hear) and when they caught the vision, then that’s all that was needed. We’d take the invisible notes floating in space and simply bring them down to earth by materializing them through sound. Talent recognizes talent in art. In business, it is not the same.

I sit once again window side looking out on a scene that would be featured in any Hallmark movie. The snow from two nights ago has been carved onto the sides of the streets, now enhancing the color of the red bricks that have built up this small American town. Every now and then, the whirrs of the latte wands will break up the consistent chatter of local regulars. There’s a familiarity with everyone here. There’s something tangible through their nods and their eye contact. They are the characters in the movie. They fit this town. They were cast perfectly for the film. You’d watch the movie and believe they belonged. I’d be one who attempted to be cast as an extra, only to be turned down. “We like you and you do have a certain look. We just don’t feel like you belong in this particular movie. We will keep your resume on file and be sure to call you once the right story comes along!” That was the casting call in Tokyo. That was the casting call in Seattle. And that is the casting call in Hallmark Move 32, shot in the quaint town of Bixby, Oklahoma.

I grew up around jazz. My Grandfather owned a jazz club in Tokyo. I was a jazz piano major at a small arts school in Seattle, and though it ultimately wasn’t for me, my childhood was jazz. By the time I was 12, I playing with professional musicians at the Ballard Bait and Tackle live venue in Seattle. I sometimes ponder what would have happened had I not moved to Tokyo a year later that disrupted all of my lessons. That’s jazz is it not? By the age of 12-13, one might know the basic melody of life and my Tokyo years were playing off the melody. It wasn’t sheet music that was handed to everyone around me. It was a left hand built around scribbled chord progressions and the synergy from the room. Tokyo was “you learned enough about life, now go explore the world solo.” And speaking of solos, there were those too in jazz. Those were prompted by a simple look or nod. Jazz has a lot to do with risks and living in the moment. With music in general, so much is built around the room. If the audience is feeling it, you’re in for a wonderful night. If not, you very well may want to slink off stage to never appear again. There are plenty of articles on UX and startups, but many of them are like sheet music. I’m here to give another angle; that the successful startups are the ones who played off the melody, broke the rules, and were unafraid of experimentation.

Maybe it’s my upbringing in Japan that shaped my respect for all jobs. One may go into a sushi bar and instantly recognize that you’re in the house of a master. You aren’t merely a snooty customer that desires Sriracha dip with a side of mayonnaise. No, you will eat what the master serves because the master is showing YOU something. They are showing you something about culture and you are there to learn. No matter what the job- whether it be a hairstylist or in a mailroom, many people had a sense of respect for the occupation because of the amount of excellence they put in their trade. As I have built out Sun Road Co., a platform for artists of ALL backgrounds this past year, it has been a strange culture shock to build in the city of Tulsa. Over the past year, I have pitched or applied to dozens of accelerators, generators, VC’s, angels, and incubators and they have all said the same thing, (if they said anything at all) which is “excellent story” but they do not understand the problem. They don’t understand the problem because they are not creative. They are not creative but benefit from creatives. They benefit from creatives but don’t realize it. They don’t realize it because they don’t understand the problem.

At the core of everything, we desire purpose. We are inspired by stories of the past- when revolutions occurred for the better and a people rose up to do “good,” often going against the grain of culture and often at great sacrifice to their own reputation. That sort of rebellion was not built around an identity, or a desire for self worth, but instead, entirely a selfless act. It was “look at this thing that is wrong,” rather than “look at me.” It was “this will cost me,” not “this will help me.” Cost means that you’d have to increase your value in some way to the community at large so that you’d be able to give if the time came. Maybe it’s your time, (which is inherently valuable because of the value of life) but the sacrifice would come in that you were authentically trading one thing for the other. If you had no responsibilities, the trade would not be quite as steep. A child trades their time to go to school, but in this way they are not sacrificing their time. They are receiving more than they are “giving.” They attend school and receive an education. The alternative is that they stay at home, perhaps remain ignorant of the world, and the cost in reverse would be a burden to future generations. The question would be, “what is the cost?” and that would determine the sacrifice. The opposing question would be, “what is there to gain?” and that would determine whether there was any tinge of virtue in the supposed act of kindness and selflessness. If there is more to gain than there is to lose, then no matter the facade, the scales of Lady Justice would easily tip towards selfishness. Our eyes can be deceiving. Sometimes, it is better to close them to reveal the truth.

Like many other user experience designers out there, I started my career in the arts. In order to get into my arts college in the subject of music, I had to submit an audition CD recorded in our upper loft in Tokyo. This was before the days of simply messaging over a Spotify link or YouTube video. Once accepted, I flew to Seattle and auditioned once more live and in person. It wasn’t anything special per se. If I were a visual artist, I’d have a body of work to show. I’d simply turn in a bulky folder of pastel and charcoal drawings. If I were attempting to try out for a basketball team, I’d submit my team stats from previous years in high school sports and then play in front of curious scouts. They’d judge me based upon my performance right then and there. My audition would be built around my competence shown in the moment as well as my body of work in years prior. Across a large swath of careers exist the standard resume: a few blocks of text and that is supposed to be the big ticket. For many other professions, it’s the portfolio. Hire me as a producer and songwriter by sampling a few of the songs I had already composed and written. Look at my credits to see I had arranged the horns on this particular song. If I’m a photographer, look at my photographs. If I’m an interior designer, well, the same thing. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to come to the conclusion that your work should speak for itself. Is it there? Then yes, you may assume I did it unless otherwise specified. We look up the credits after a movie to see who had directed it, acted in it, and so on. The examples are endless, but enter the strange career of UX. It’s the only career I’ve seen where we must convince the hiring gatekeepers of our process rather than the end result.

If someone asked me to paint my life on a canvas for them- they’d find a man sitting outside a cafe staring into the abyss. He’d probably live somewhere above the sound of ceramics colliding with the sink and afternoon chatter that meshed together into a soothing ambience. It would be his idea of an ocean sound; something to both wake up to and go to sleep that he could rely upon like the tides coming in and going out. He’d have a one bedroom “flat,” and they’d call it a flat because he’d probably live in London. Or maybe he’d return to Tokyo and it would a similar setting, just more neon. Handing over the canvas to the person who asked, if they knew me even in the slightest, they’d nod and say “Yep, that’s you.” The details wouldn’t really matter really. They’d just know that from that one picture, they could paint the rest if they so wished. Perhaps the little white card just underneath the canvas would say something like, “Man in cafe in cityscape 2012 Oil.” Say I was to bet on my life being an image for anyone to identify me with, I’d push in my life sayings- the whole $4.12. The point being, a portrait of my life so easily identifiable with who I was and where I was going could not be so starkly different than the picture that is today. I’m not saying we sit within a painting our whole lives, but if we did, I’d embarrassingly had been living in the wrong one.

Why culture matters and why, (a legitimate question) do investors not understand this?

I sit in a charming small town cafe in the middle of the country in Oklahoma. If I am a fly on the wall, I’ve been a fly for a couple years now. Sitting quietly in my corner, watching the slow development of condominiums being built. I’ve watched businesses come and go within that short stint of time. Next door was once a unique barbecue place, replaced by a franchise I’ve never heard of and one I’ve never seen anyone enter. The exciting news within the year was that a McDonald’s, an Arby’s, a Scooter’s, and a Chick Fil A would move in. The calvary has arrived. The copy and paste has come in to inject familiar brands into a budding town. This is good news if the same four a mere mile away was too far of a drive. I understand the economics of it all. Money first and then those artsy needy types can move in. Unfortunately for the economics department, this is all backwards. Unfortunately for the citizens, they get the stale cafeteria settings of a rest stop they never asked for. When they sell their homes, the description can say, “Just down the street from three McDonald’s! Your quaint oasis awaits you.” The truth is, that culture is the foundation of any town or city. Ignore this at your own peril.

Maybe we don’t have to make sense of our stories after all.

I once believed that life was strung together by a long string. Much like the game Unravel, one would get through each level of life as a being of yarn. Every step forward would cost a significant portion of what kept us together. To walk forward was life itself, and the used string would be left on the ground as a map to where we started. I therefore would attempt to think like a storyteller. “If I were writing my own story, what would be the natural progression of events?” I’d ask myself and I’d always look back to the bright red thread that exposed my path to get where I was. There were two problems with this. One, I’d rely on a path that had to therefore make some sort of sense from a time where I was not even making my own decisions. The string attached itself to a childhood where I had to make sense out of circumstances I couldn’t control. Then there was the other glaring problem that I was not the author to my life. We attempt to write our story but the Man with the pen tends to throw in plot lines we did not see coming.

Going down to get back up.

I thought, for whatever reason, that saying “yes” to Christ would be like coming out of a cave and into a wonderful panorama view of possibilities and a straight path forward. It’s been a long while since that decision was made. If that precise moment was stretched out on a timeline mapped out over rocks and grass, I wouldn’t be able to tell you where in the vast lands it was located but I know I’m countries away. I’ve walked a long distance and it’s as though I have shed 100 skins with 100 unique lives attached to them. I understand the severity of such a decision. People die for such a choice, not just in the spiritual sense. It is written that “the truth shall set us free” but it forgets to mention that freedom is hard and unnatural. It says that we must die to live but who would really understand such things unless the journey was started? One can describe the oxygen levels on Mount Everest but it doesn’t translate until the air is breathed. What I have learned in a couple decades is that the saying “yes” doesn’t lead to a world of endless possibilities. It leads from endless possibilities into the narrowest hole like a funnel pulling one down with the weight of gravity. Saying “yes” then feels like one million “no’s.” We are no longer our own. There is a path and the freedom of that path is the fact that it’s been carved out for us. The only way down? Death.

When everything becomes a performance, it’s hard not to be the cruelest judge.

The last five or so years, I have been on a journey of self discovery. I know that sounds lame, or at the very least, cliche. It wasn’t as if the process, like all of us, did not start in my formative years. I’m not so much speaking about the “what’s” as I am the “why’s.” I already understood my interests, (for the most part) and I also understood in many ways what made me click. I knew my habits for the better or worse and I knew my past mistakes. I could identify patterns in my life and one of the largest ones I documented here in my first blog post. I put down The 12 Rules for Life, walked out of a chain linked fence, and never looked back. From that point on, it was no longer simply knowing things about myself but doing something about it. I left the metaphorical tyranny and entered the desert and let me tell you… the desert sucks.

Learning to talk in the age of status updates.

It’s an interesting revelation to me that wherever I go- I seem to know more about the people around me than the other way around. For example, I know more about each barista that serves me each and every day. I don’t know if this is an intentional thing. I may ask them how they are and when they reply, I listen. I turn towards a table and begin my work and then without attempting to, really, I retain that knowledge. Those blocks of information eventually stack up like a tower of Jenga to formulate a person. I’ll have a meeting with someone regularly within a couple years for work and realize only later that I once again only listened. I stacked high little bits of information- childhood, family, hobbies, goals, and the list goes on but it never quite seemed to volley back towards the other side of the net. I have to wonder… was it always this way or has something changed? I’ve always been able to strike up conversations. There were certain rules established- the secret kind of rules like in polite Japanese society. Both parties are meant to abide by the rules in order to not come off as rude or self absorbed but lately I do not understand the game. Perhaps in all of our years now with social media, we have lost the back and forth required to build something meaningful. We observe, not through stories, but through pictures. Maybe it’s no longer rude to not ask. We do not ask others to post, they just do, and we respond often times without words but just a tap to affirm a glimpse into their life. Then within a second of tapping, we are onto a new person, perhaps a person we met in some obscure setting several years ago. Maybe we don’t remember because we don’t need to. Who needs to read a map when GPS is built into a phone? Yet I miss conversations. The kind that stack gently on top of one another and build something for both sides. The kind that remembers. The kind that, at least on the surface, symbolizes a sort of care.

The strange life of a third culture kid that never really leaves you.

I didn’t climb into a closet during a game of hide and seek to discover a new wintery world with odd talking creatures. I might as well have. I was born in another land but I don’t remember that of course. None of us do. I’m half of that land and half of another so I automatically stick out without intention in the first. To keep this illustration going, I was dropped off at a house in London, away from the cottages and castles of where I was born. London was what I knew. I did London things. I spoke London English. I had London friends. It was good for me because children need a sense of belonging and connection to where they are. And then, like a right of passage at 13, I was summoned back to my birth place of Narnia.

The tiny gatekeepers holding the keys to giant doors.

I always see the words “apply” everywhere I go. Apply to a job. Apply to secure funding for a startup. Apply to this class that will help you towards your future. I must admit, I’m a late bloomer. I made all the select teams, the jazz programs, and anything I wanted to be a part of growing up. I applied myself and got in. I auditioned into a jazz program for college and it was no different. And then my 20’s hit and I’m not sure if I really applied to anything in particular. I applied myself in the arts, but arts are subjective and culture was shifting. Gone were the days of record labels and a cost to music. In were the cover bands, the instant clicks, and by that time I was a dying breed of musician. Now, in my mid 30’s I’ve bounced back on the application train and it’s been an interesting ride to say the least. After applying to a great deal of many things I’ve stopped to wonder… who are these people that I’m talking to? What makes them qualified to qualify me? If this was The Voice, the judges would be a distinguished panel of accomplished singers. They wouldn’t be judging a song, for example, because many of them do not write their own music. No, they’d specifically be judging most likely a cover song and honing in on the voice, (thus the aptly named title of the show). But what about jobs? What about start up funds? This now more so resembles The Masked Singer but the roles are reversed. They aren’t auditioning for the judges, they are the judge. But who are they?

How to follow success rather than chase it.

I am no Martha Stewart. I do not pretend to know the slightest thing about gardening, so if you’re looking for authentic tips on how to prune an avocado tree, then perhaps another site will do. What I can tell you is a set of truths learned by an eclectic array of skills collected over the years. I was a jazz piano major briefly before a real push into the music world. I have spent a good part of a decade attempting to get a start up off the ground. I have shifted over into the user experience universe. These might seem like completely different skills but they are all potential seeds in the garden of my own life. I’m going to attempt to combine these experiences to help you think about your own successes. What are the things that you should nurture? And what are the things that you should just let die?

From Obscurity to Designing Experiences for Millions

There are plenty of horror stories through the pandemic that, though feeling like lifetimes past, happened just a handful of years ago. I had taken a giant leap of faith after finishing The 12 Rules for Life in a Microsoft cafeteria in Redmond, Washington. I was in one of two places on the Microsoft campus. Either in a giant mostly empty warehouse with a tiny desk comically placed by a wall, or else at another building sandwiched between the outdoor dumpsters, the humming of a server room, and surrounded by a chain linked fence; no heat or air conditioning. Just the wafts of waste every now and then being carried through the loading dock by a gentle breeze. To close my office, you just needed a padlock to slide the metal together and lock it. If you’ve seen the show Silicon Valley, it was where a former CEO was sentenced to as a form of punishment, except theirs was nicer.