How you see yourself

How we see ourselves changes how we see our work.

For instance. I think of myself as an artist.

So when I’m leading my team, I see it as an artist, leading a team. I show up differently because of it. I draw my ideas, treat conversations like a canvas everyone can make a mark on, and look for opportunities for art to lead in the work we make.

Or when I’m writing code, I write code as an artist, too. Even when I’m in Vim — a keyboard-only text editor with no mouse input — I use it on a Cintiq with a Wacom pen between my fingers — all artist tools specifically optimized for non-keyboard inputs. Partly because it’s a twenty-year habit of nearly always having a pen in my hand… and partly because it reminds me to think through code challenges visually on a canvas. I don’t need AI to show me how to solve a problem, I just need a white page to sketch on.

Or when I’m leading a Zoom call, I use Zoom as an artist — a screenshare of a blank white canvas comes up immediately, and what we discuss becomes a sketch of notes and thoughts connected with bubbles and lines. I don’t need a summarization tool to write transcriptions nobody will ever read, we have a sketch instead.

How you see yourself will affect your work, too. Worth think about.