Last weekend I was at a party and at the end of the night, or the start of the next day depending on your perspective, I ran into a friend of a friend who mentioned she’d read a few of my blogs. At this time of the night anything goes and I mentally prepared myself for a bit of criticism. Her tone was one of frustration and I waited for her feedback with bated breath! To be honest I was excited! I know that feedback is the only way to get better so whatever came out of her mouth was going to be useful.
Her criticism in the end was that she didn’t understand how I could be so positive about everything all of the time. Not perhaps the most actionable piece of feedback I’d received but it got me thinking. Earlier that week I’d had a meeting with one of the AGDA VIC Chairs about my role in the organisation moving into 2022. One of her main reasons for me staying was the energy and experience I brought to our council meetings throughout the year. At the AGDA Christmas party one of my fellow council members thanked me for making the meetings more fun and enjoyable.
Within the space of a few days it had become crystal clear to me that my relentless optimism is my strongest and probably most redeeming character trait. If I was to update my resume right now it would be more beneficial to focus on my ‘relentless optimism’ rather than the 17 years of graphic design experience because my ability to encourage others, make people excited about their work and keep pushing forward despite epic hurdles is my superpower and is what sets me apart from others. It's my unfair advantage.
I’m halfway through reading ‘The Unfair Advantage - How you already have what it takes to succeed’ by Ash Ali and Hasan Kubba. This book helped me realise that the feedback I’d been receiving is actually clues in discovering what my unique offerings to this world are. It’s not as black and white as I’d imagined and it doesn’t necessarily relate to the projects and assets I produce as a designer.
“An unfair advantage is what gives you an edge over your competition - everyone has one and it is the seed to your success.”
What resonates with me the most about this book is that your unfair advantage may not be what you expect. Where you are born and when, whether you had access to good education or not, who your parents are and what values they instilled (or didn’t) in you. All of these factors play a role in what makes you, you.
“An unfair advantage is a condition, asset or circumstance that puts you in a favourable business position.”
What this book highlights is that it is not always the positive circumstances that create positive outcomes. You’d expect being born into wealth is an unfair advantage, and it is, but only if you use it. There are plenty of people who have all the money in the world and amount to nothing. The opposite is true of being born into a low income family and becoming a millionaire (have a look into Oprah Winfrey’s life story if you want an epic rags to riches tale!).
The key or foundation of discovering your unfair advantage starts with your mindset. Our mindset is the one thing we have control over. We don’t get to decide where we are born and to whom but we do get to choose how we approach the world. There is a MILES framework in the book that walks through how to discover and lean into your unfair advantages but the good news is everyone has something that is unique to them and can’t be copied or brought by others!
Take my latest discovery of ‘relentless optimism’ for example. There are stacks of optimists out there in the world of course, but what makes me unique is how I got here. My optimism stems from the last 7 years of lessons learned from running my design business and our prefab building business. The failures and mistakes have been huge, expensive and so stressful at times that I quite regularly question why we are doing any of it at all.
People often ask Matt and I how we do it? How do we live with the constant uncertainty that comes with running such a stressful and high risk business. Reid Hoffman hit the nail on the head with his quote:
“An entrepreneur is someone who will jump off a cliff and assemble an airplane on the way down.”
I love this quote. I feel like this sums up our life perfectly right now! From the outside that might sound stressful, even dangerous and believe me, at times it is, but I've turned this ‘lifestyle’ into my unfair advantage. This realisation happened when I had a mindset change and really started to lean into gratitude.
It feels like every 6-12 weeks we have some kind of massive catastrophe that we have to work really hard to overcome - this is part of the journey but this constant barrage of shit means that we don’t take ANYTHING for granted. Every webform that gets filled out for TinyOffice is celebrated (even if someone just thought they were signing up to the newsletter). Every person that you meet and have connection with becomes important and meaningful in our lives. Every time we pick the kids up from school and daycare after not seeing them for 6 hours is like a huge reunion. We are so lucky to be where we are, surrounded by the friends and families we are born, married and welcomed into.
My relentless optimism comes from a well that is constantly refilled by being grateful for what I have. Right now, today. I’m grateful for each and everyone of you! I’m grateful for every person that gives me feedback so I can improve (even if I don’t like accepting it at the time, thanks Matt), I’m grateful for my family in New Zealand who I miss so much that my heart might burst and I pretty much start sobbing as soon as I think that it's been two years since we have all been together. I’m grateful for all the incredible people I’ve met this year (and over the years) who have given me so much of their precious time just to hang out!
To be honest I feel like the luckiest person who ever lived most of the time.
