Debbie Millman is currently the Editorial and Creative Director of Print Magazine, but she has an insane track record going back decades: she’s the author of 6 books including “How To Think Like A Great Graphic Designer,” a prolific design writer in outlets like NYT, Fast Company, and Design Observer, chairs the Masters In Branding program at SVA (co-founded with Steven Heller), and hosts a long running podcast called “design matters” which has done 265 episodes over 10 years with legends and icons like Michael Beirut, Stephen Heller, Chip Kidd, Massimo Vignelli, Isaac Mizrahi and Malcolm Gladwell. And that’s just the biggest headlines – there’s a ton more I’m leaving out, and I feel terrible about it but we’d literally be here all day if I listed all the amazing stuff she’s done. The bottom line is, if you look up “badass designer” in the dictionary, you’re definitely going to find Debbie’s picture there.
I absolutely love Debbie’s openness, vulnerability and wisdom and I’m super grateful to share it with all of you. If you’re a fan of folks like Brené Brown, Gretchen Rubin or Elle Luna, then this one is for you– and if you like what you hear, check out Debbie’s class on CreativeLive.
Today on the podcast,
- She says that “confidence is overrated.” This is something I know a lot of you struggle with and I love how she talks about this. Confidence is created by repeatedly doing something, and if you’ve never done something before how could you have confidence? Confidence – in her view – is the easy part. It’s finding the courage to do the thing when you DON’T have confidence that is the gamechanger.
- The importance of teaching: why Milton Glaser said it’s the most important thing he ever did and why Debbie has always made it a big focus in her own career– because as she says, when she teaches, the students teach HER
- Why even hyper-achieving legends struggle with feelings of unworthiness and what the levers are for coping with it. This is a nearly universal thing that’s very rarely talked about, and it’s super important that you put your own mechanism in place to keep it from sabotaging your success.
Enjoy!
When I hear “no” I tend to push harder
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Some Questions I Ask:
- What’s the background on the event that you put together for PRINT magazine? [1:00]
- When did you realize that you could make a living and a life doing what you love to do? [6:19]
- How does someone with your aptitude and success on every external level still struggle internally? [13:17]
- What is it about your most recent book, Self Portrait as Your Traitor, that you consider dark? [22:41]
- Did you find power in creating something autobiographical and what was the impetus behind creating
- Self Portrait as Your Traitor? [24:20]
- How did your Design Matters podcast start? [31:55]
- How do you see your career evolving from this point? [38:00]
- Do you know Elle Luna? [41:49]
- How much weight do you put on positivity and mindset? [43:59]
- What’s the advice to the drains of the world? [46:26]
- What are some life lessons that you’ve told students before that we haven’t covered? [49:32]
In This Episode, You Will Learn:
- How Debbie’s dreams of living in Manhattan led to her doing what she loved for a living. [7:19]
- How Debbie stumbled from a job in design to being an authority in branding. [8:55]
- How even through professional and financial success, Debbie struggled feeling secure enough to take big risks. Ultimately, the question that propelled her forward was “if not now, when?” [10:20]
- Why after 22 years of working with Sterling Brands, Debbie left. [11:59]
- Why living life from a point of scarcity is a flawed notion that won’t get you what you want from life.
- Sometimes when you give something up, you free yourself up to take on new, and possibly even better, opportunities. [12:32]
- How Debbie finally became comfortable with her own inner struggle after interviewing fellow world class designers and realizing that the large majority of them shared similar struggles. [14:26]
- How Debbie’s podcast started as a podcast on design, but turned into a podcast on how people design their lives. [16:12]
- “To be able to live wholeheartedly, you have to be willing to risk your whole heart.” [17:53]
- Even in today’s fast paced world, every career worth having takes time to develop. [18:56]
- The lowdown on Debbie’s six books, ranging from textbooks to books on how to design your life. [20:58]
- Milton Glaser’s suggestion for the ages; Construct the perfect day of your life from five years from today. [24:58]
- The power of declaring what you want and asking for it. [26:28]
- How Debbie fell into designing a phenomenal podcast, Design Matters, by accident. It all started with a cold call. [32:00]
- Why you should watch Debbie’s CreativeLive course, A Brand Called You. [36:35]
- The reason why Debbie is passionate about teaching undergrad students is because she remembers the struggles of being 20 something and telling yourself that nothing of what you have is enough. [39:50]
- Once you are willing to declare and stand for what you want, you can start moving forward with that mission. [41:36]
- Why confidence takes second place to courage. [42:06]
- Hire for attitude and train the skill. [45:14]
- The two kinds of people in the world; generators and drainers. [45:51]
- Why nobody cares if you’re a people person. [50:07]
- What is the benefit that you can provide that no one else can provide in the same way? [50:26]
- What to do if you’re feeling stuck; create something that you self generate. [51:19]
- Busy is a decision. If you want to do something badly enough, you don’t find the time; you have to make the time. [51:58]
- Why you should try substituting the words “it’s not a priority” every time you currently say “I don’t have time”. [53:05]
- What the fortune cookie taped to Debbie’s laptop reads; “Avoid compulsively making things worse.” [53:53]
This podcast is brought to you by CreativeLive. CreativeLive is the world’s largest hub for online creative education in photo/video, art/design, music/audio, craft/maker, money/life and the ability to make a living in any of those disciplines. They are high quality, highly curated classes taught by the world’s top experts — Pulitzer, Oscar, Grammy Award winners, New York Times best selling authors and the best entrepreneurs of our times.
