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The beginning of a journey

Today is Thanksgiving, and people are saying what they are thankful for, including life-changing, path-altering things. If there was one moment in time, a single realization, or a crucial decision which set me off on this path I have taken, I think I know what it is. When I stopped to think about it, I was surprised by the answer.

I’ve seen this type of instant occur for other people—in some cases, I’ve been told I was there for it. Something happens, and opens a new door for you or gives you an all new perspective. You walk through this door, even though it feels strange, like uncharted territory. That leads to something else happening, and then something else. It’s a chain reaction that, once set in place, will continue to move you in new directions, even if you don’t realize your new life can be traced back to on event, person, conversation, book, or whatever.

This chain reaction, in a less combustive term, is the path of your life. Is your life stuck in traffic on the highway with everyone else, going to a 9-5 cube farm job? Sometimes it’s not your decision to get kicked off that highway and into the woods, as you can see in the Lemonade documentary. In most cases, if you really want to keep that comfortable, consistent life, you can fight your way back on it. So whether or not it’s your choice to get off the beaten path, it’s up to you to stay on it and see where it’ll take you. This decision is the beginning of a journey.

Setting off on a new path doesn’t necessarily require quitting your job or getting laid off.

After my path-altering realization, I kept my job for a couple of years, and then I got a new job and worked there for almost three years. So for me, entrepreneurship only came after many other things happened and I achieved what I referred to as exit velocity. At some point, it did become inevitable.

In 2005, I realized that even if I reached the peak of my career, having a good portfolio doesn’t make you an industry leader. At the same time, I was starting to wonder how Digg was taking off, even though it was the same content as Slashdot. I realized digg was primarily successful because of Kevin Rose, who had spent years on one of the only nationally broadcasted TV channels that focused exclusively on technology. That gave him an incredible amount of exposure within the tech industry. If you or I had launched Digg at the same time he did, it very well may have floundered, as the first 10,000 users of a User Generated Content site are the most crucial when going up against an incubant like Slashdot. When people heard Kevin Rose had founded Digg, many surely signed up simply because his name was attached to it.

That realization in 2005 set off a series of reactions that eventually led to my change in jobs, starting my business, and my world-wide couch surfing adventures. Digg was where I started getting my name out in the tech industry, which is how my next employer found me. I built simple applications that crawled Digg’s data and allowed Digg users to explore and interact with it. My name was plastered all over it, in hopes that it would start to look familiar among people in the tech industry.

When I signed up for Twitter, it seemed very similar to Digg, except more personal and more interactive. Twitter was primarily made up of people in technology, and thus people I wanted to get my name out to. I did the same thing I did on Digg. I ran experiments and developed simple applications, such as twitter-based games and crappygraphs.com. Next thing you know, I was the second most-followed user on the site! Twitter, then, indirectly led to many more things happening in my life.

But would any of this have happened if I hadn’t made that realization in 2005?

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The magic of human flight

One of the topics I touched upon in my botched Ignite Phoenix presentation was the magic of human flight. The theme of the talk was The View from the Window Seat, which was mostly about perspective. One of the perspectives I described was the magic of human flight. I had a wonderful slide to illustrate the feeling. It showed a young boy staring out an airplane window in awe. I didn’t need to show a photo of a typical perspective. Just imagine a business traveler, checking his email on his blackberry one last time before take-off while wondering why the hell the flight is 7 minutes late. Louis CK had a popular rant about this. Instead of being amazed at the fact that we’re flying through the sky at up to 500 miles per hour, we’re often fretting about how little our seats recline or how much the seat in front of us is reclined.

I always try to get a window seat when I fly. I always stare out the window during take-off and landing. I try to force myself to maintain the perspective of someone who is flying for the first time. I try to be that kid. I try to see the magic of it all, even though I’ve seen it hundreds of times.

This perspective can be applied elsewhere. In a way, your daily happiness can be proportional to how easily amazed you are. I envy people who say “wow” to things I take for granted.

Human flight truly is a magical thing. Just one hundred years ago, the richest and most powerful people in the world—kings and emperors—couldn’t do with all their spoils or slaves what I can do for the cost of a day or two of work.

I was reminded of this today while reading a book recommended to me by my friend John Murch. It’s called, “Eat People: And Other Unapologetic Rules for Game-Changing Entrepreneurs.” I’m only a few pages in, but the author starts by saying these rich and successful entrepreneurs actually got rich by making everyone and society richer. While walking through a museum, “some wealthy dead French guy’s house,” the author remarks that he would never trade places with that rich guy, adding, “this guy was one of the richest in the world, but he’d be considered living under the poverty line in our day.”

While the book will surely go on to make a different point, I couldn’t help but reflect on the idea that we cannot and should not take for granted the magic and wonder of the world around us.

It’s all about perspective.

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A Job’s Return on Investment

While I absolutely loved working in the advertising field, where you constantly experiment and create new things for name-brand clients, there was a downside. It’s a cutthroat industry, where all agencies are trying to do at least one project with any major brand so they can have a more impressive portfolio. This leads to super aggressive promises to “get your foot in the door” with a new client. By the time you’re done breaking your back on your first project with a new client, they’re shopping around for the next agency to out-low-ball you.

As a developer, you’re a resource. A cog in the machine. The more work they put on your plate, the later you work and the more you get done. But with all this undercutting going on, you end up working too hard for too little.

It was well worth it for me, at least at first. My life changed once I had completed that project for Mazda & Quiksilver. My portfolio went from having nothing to having a cool looking project for major brands. The difference between 0 and 1 was immeasurable. They could have paid me nothing and it would’ve been worth it to me.

But what’s the difference between having 10 and 11 name-droppable clients in your portfolio? The value of that 11th client, I realized, was miniscule compared to the 1st.

When you’re listing the clients you’ve worked with, people stop paying attention after about 4 names. By the 7th, they start thinking about how pompous you are. By the 9th, they start thinking about how to ditch you.

When I had this realization, I started to think about what I was getting in return for all the hours and and sweat I dumped into my work. That’s when I realized my days in the ad world were numbered.

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Dropout

I dropped out of college twice. I used to say it was to make it count.

Where I stand on education is complicated. I did what was best for me and my career, and it’s by no means the right answer for people in different positions.

My decision to drop out was based on a number of factors.

First, I’m not a scholar. I always despised homework my D in high school Trigonometry was due to scoring the highest in my class on tests while not turning in any homework assignments. In high school Algebra and Algebra II, I was constantly scorned for not showing my work (or enough work). Where we clashed was that I valued the result and they valued the process. If I understand something, it feels like a waste of time to walk through elementary steps over and over. My educational career was doomed.

While in high school, I got a computer. It sucked me in. I didn’t go to parties. Instead I was at home, on the computer, learning. With a strong background in logic and math growing up, I was well suited to do visual programming. Code-driven animation, interaction, complex effects, physics, video games, etc. I taught myself Flash, with the help of online tutorials and forums.

I decided to get a degree that would help ready me for a career in video games or special effects in video.

Here’s where I lucked out. Because I had become proficient with Flash, I could jump into a lucrative field that flexed similar brain muscles: interactive web development. I had no experience and no degree, but I had years of code samples. I sent my experiments to a local interactive advertising agency, and they decided to give me a shot. They put me on a project that they could assign to someone else if I couldn’t pull my weight. My first commercial software development project? A co-branded microsite for Mazda & Quiksilver.

People who had the degree I had yet to earn would be lucky to land a job like that. The piece of paper doesn’t mean much in some circumstances. Instead, where I was also very fortunate, I was good at something visual. I could *show* my abilities. Then, once I started lining my portfolio with major brands, I realized I had a stronger job-seeking arsenal than any degree could provide.

It was quite a profound realization to have at the age of nineteen.

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One Year

Just over a year ago, the day before my birthday, I submitted the paperwork for my first business. As I made the transition into self-employment, many people who had known me for years were surprised. They said, “I thought you were already a freelancer!” Nope. I got to live the life by working from home for a company based in the Bay Area.

I don’t talk about my work very much, which leaves people to guess or assume based on what I do or say. Even now, while I should be promoting my business, I find it too self-promotional and pretentious to talk about my work.

There’s a fine line, I think, between sharing and bragging. Between informing and self-promoting. I haven’t always avoided that line as much as I do today.

To the time machine!

“Let me show you how awesome I am.”

Around 5 or 6 years ago, I gave a demo at Refresh Phoenix Demo Night of a site I built for Nike (as part of a very talented team, of course). I was about 20 years old at the time. Even though I kept my age under wraps—hoping to avoid the young hotshot stigma—it was pretty obvious I was young. I couldn’t help but wonder, was I demoing or bragging? Perhaps it was in the eyes of the beholder…

“Do you know who I am?”

It was around that time when I realized that having clients like Mazda, Nike, Ford (SVT), Boeing, Twix, (etc. etc. etc. blah blah blah brag brag brag) didn’t mean much. What it did mean was that I wouldn’t have trouble getting a job if I needed or wanted one. It also meant that people who knew of my work were likely to respect my capabilities, which is an immeasurable feeling for someone who invests so much time and energy into his work. However, in the bigger picture, there’s value in having name recognition within a broader community. I realized I could use my portfolio as back pocket credibility and independently get my name out within the technology community. I became the guinea pig of a series of online social experiments, starting with making random crap techies would find neat and plastering my name all over it. Well, the experiments were an unimaginable success and I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for those experiments. However, there were unintended negative consequences, including an outward-facing persona James Archer coined as “THE Brian Shaler.”

“So…. what do you do?” – People who have met me since, even after knowing me for 1-2 years

Some things have changed a bit since the early days in my career, and perhaps I’ve overcompensated.

I’m a data visualizationist. My forte has always been making stuff move with code, but I currently focus on data visualization and the many ways you can bring data to life. I’m not going to tell you I’m good at what I do, but I’m happy to show you my work and let you decide for yourself.