Designer Boss
Designer Boss
Meg Lewis on being yourself in your design biz - Summit Speaker Series
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0:04
Welcome to the designer boss podcast, listen, learn, love and level up with the ultimate success guide for web and graphic designers.
0:17
My name is Anna Dower. I'm a cake lover and success slaying graphic design mentor.
0:23
And I'm Emma Kate your personal sensei for mastering the wonderful world of the Web.
0:30
Together, we'll show you how to harness our tried and tested experiences and hard earned lessons while you soak up everything we know about building a successful design business.
05:50
Hi, and welcome. The Designer Boss Podcast. I'm Anna Dower, and today I will be introducing an interview I did with the amazing Meg Lewis in 2020.
01:00
Meg is a designer who mixes comedy with performance to help others shine through brand design, podcast workshops, popups, and videos. Meg is a designer like no other.
I love how she is 100% herself and her goal is just to make the world a happier place. Meg will be one of the headlining speakers at the Designer Boss Summit in February, 2021. I hope you enjoy this interview. You do so many things. You're a designer, you are a podcast host. Tell everyone all the things you do.
1:47
It's so hard to explain what I do and it's nice that I'm getting a lot of opportunities lately to do so because every time I do, it's a practice round . So I would say by trade, I'm a designer, but I use my love for comedy and Performance and all of the aspects of my personality and skillset that make me most unique. And I do a lot of things with that. So it spans from online classes and workshops to popup and designing spaces to obviously client work and podcasts as you mentioned. Um, but really I like to let the sky be the limit in, in terms of what I'm doing, So it really just means that I have a career that's, A bunch of tiny things are smushed together and I love it so much.
2:34
Yeah, and that's so cool because I feel like the whole time during my career I've been trying to keep all the noise down. Like, no, you can't do all these little things just for fun. You need to be making money, money, money. And that's what I love about you because you are doing so many things and it seems like you genuinely enjoy all of them.
2:57
I do. And I think, you know, Of course, that little voice is inside my head all the time pressuring me, and I think that that fear is really the thing that either makes it or breaks it for everybody. And I, I know that's why a lot of my friends and people I've lo I love have not survived as. People that are self-employed because the fear gets to them and they can't handle it, and they just wanna go to what's secure. And for me, I think it's, it's a personality type thing. You know, I'm extremely self-motivated and when I get that fear, it makes me push harder to succeed because I wanna prove myself and the world wrong. I wanna prove to everybody that I can do it . So that fear has really guided me and I'm so glad that it's there and cuz I've had to learn how to deal with it and how to push through it and not get in my own way.
But that is so hard and it's really something that we all have to face and deal.
3:54
And when it's our own stuff, it's really hard to see. But as someone who mentors graphic designers through the fear, I can always see when people are creating their own obstacles and it's so hard. You just kind of wanna shake them and go, no, it will be okay.
Keep going. And yeah, it is all about just being motivated and wanting to get to the other side, I think. So you do so many things now. Where did you start? Like, did you always know that you wanted to be a designer or was it a bit of a journey to figure that out?
4:30
Yeah. Well, when I was a kid and growing up, I really wanted to be a comedy actor.
And when I was a really little kid and a tween, I took a lot of comedy classes and went to comedy camp and acting classes, and I did like competitive miming when I was a kid .
Oh, that's awesome. I loved making people. I loved embarrassing myself in front of other people in, in order to get a laugh, and I, I just was obsessed with that. And so whenever I kind of grew up and got to the age where I was a teenager, then I started, you know, like every kid, you know, a normal amount I got made fun of and bullied and picked on, and enough people told me passively, like things like women aren't funny. Nobody ever really told me. I wasn't funny necessarily, but enough people told me that like, you know, women aren't funny or, you know, women can't be good comedians and, and so I just kind of took that information in as you do as a kid and just took it as like, oh, this is a new fact of life that I'm learning. So that just means, okay, well, Can't really pan out for me when I grow up. So I was always looking for other things to do, and as I got older and older, I just kind of let it go and started to find and create ways to be creative that were outside of that and to get my humor out into the world that were outside of necessarily the traditional norm of being a comedian or an actor
And As I got older, I just, I, my, I, I guess I'm just at this certain age where I didn't have enough inspiration when I was a teenager of knowing enough people that had interesting jobs or like a diverse array of, of careers. And so I used the people that I knew as my baseline of what my career choices were, and specifically looking at the women in my life, my career choices were limited. It was either a teacher or doctor, nurse. Um, and that was kind of it. My sister, who's my older sibling, she was a few years ahead of me, and she went into a degree program into the fashion industry. And so all of a sudden I had this new option, that I didn't have before. And so I was kind of like, okay, cool. That seems the most appealing of all. Options that I'm seeing in front of me. So I'm gonna do that. So I went to school for. For fashion in this sort of a design program that was for everything fashion related. That's not fashion design. So it was like styling, um, visual merchandising and designing sets and indi designing retail environments. And that's where I really fell in love with designing. And I really just wanted to design everything. And so it took a lot for me to figure out how to do that, but I found that graphic design was the easiest because all I needed was my computer. I didn't need materials. I just needed my computer and my imagination, and I didn't have to spend that much extra money on anything else.
7:42
And so I naturally just kind of. Fell into it because it was the cheapest option available to me, and it was the easiest and the fastest because rather than waiting hours of laboring for days or weeks or months to do something with my hand, I could just make it happen on a computer very quickly. And so that's kinda how that happened. And then, uh, over the years as I've been a graphic designer, I let those preconceived notions of what I could be. I let them go and I've just allowed myself to do whatever I want and to allow myself to go where my interests allow me to go. And being able to open up my world for myself has been absolutely amazing and I think. Now, luckily you can see that a lot more in my career where I'm just kind of doing whatever I want and the fact that I've always been a freelancer and always had a push so hard to make money for myself, that mindset has really been helpful for me. In forcing myself to succeed in these areas that I'm really scared about these things that I'm terrified to do because I don't feel like I identify in these certain career paths.
Um, comedy or mindfulness or meditation or you know, performance art. Um, all these things on stage that I was once very afraid to do cuz I didn't think I belonged. Um, now I have the fear of making money, so I have to make them make money in order to survive. So, yeah, it's been an a non-traditional career path, but really whose career path is traditional.
9:16
Yeah, totally. Um, and so it's funny that you say the fear of not making money comes second to the fear of putting yourself out there and no one kind of responding to that because usually it's the other way around. For designers, I think, I always feel like they're always worried about the making money factor, and that's why they suppress the fact of who they really are and don't let their freak flag fly, um, because they feel like. No one's gonna give me money if I behave that way, or if I put that out there, I need to behave in a certain manner to be a professional business woman. You know? And I think it's so cool that it was the other way around for you, and you have a really, um, distinct personal style, and it's of course something that is really authentic and aligned with who you are. So how do you infuse that into everything you do now?
10:19
It's been a long challenging journey to figure all of this out and, you know, it started with me, uh, being absolutely self-conscious and hating myself for many years of my life. , and, you know, and we've all been there. Some of us are still there, and, uh, man, I just, I was.
Anything about myself that was different. I was so afraid of anybody even noticing those things. So, you know, like for me, I physically, I have like very strange hands. So I have like really tiny, teeny, tiny hands, and they are so, I've never noticed, they're so, um, wrinkly and coarse and dry and they're just so unusual and my whole life everybody's always commented on them. Um, when I was a kid, I got made fun of for them all the time. You know, I got called old lady hands all the time and you know, I, so I learned to hide my hands. And so now as an adult woman who's not afraid of her, of showing her hands anymore, they're like, because, um, my coping mechanism as a kid and growing up was to hide my hands I would always keep them balded. So like in a fist position. And, uh, so now that's my comfort spot. So even when I sleep at night and I sleep with my hands in a fist like balled up and whenever I walk around, I keep them like that. And that's just cuz I, it's a learned behavior, but, Of course now, if I put my hand flat on a table, my hands just like curl up into a fist because my muscles and my bones have trained themselves that way,
But it's such like a physical metaphor of what we do with our personalities too. Anything that's different about us, we, we hide and we suppress it and we are, we training ourselves mentally to think that it's a bad thing, that we shouldn't show it to anybody or else you. We will lose opportunities or not make money, or people will make fun of us.
And once I started to kind of just dip my toe into the water and show the world who I was a little bit at a time, I realized that that perceived outcome I had in my head of what would happen when I showed myself to the world, you know, I assumed people would make fun of me, laugh at me. Point, point it out. And I'd start crying. That never happened. You know, I would start to do it a little bit at a time, and the perceived outcome of what I thought would happen, didn't happen. In fact, the opposite happened. People loved it. People loved who I was, and were excited to see it. And so then over time, I just became absolutely obsessed with figuring out what I had been hiding about myself my whole life and pushing it forward and showing the world who I am.
And so now what you're seeing is me still doing this. I'm doing it as much as possible. And that just means that I figured out how to visually show who I am, personalities, skillset wise to the world through my personal style of design. Um, I do it with my wardrobe, the way I dress. I do it with my interiors, my home, the way I decorate my spaces. Um, and then I do it with the actual stuff that I'm making. So the businesses I start, the side projects, I, I start, I make sure that they a reflection of what I can offer the world uniquely, cuz I'm always searching for. That, those little epiphanies where I realized that I can offer something to the world, that because of my personality and my skills that I have, that nobody else can offer the world.
So I gotta do this now. I'm always looking for that epiphany, and so you're seeing, I think right now is a magical time for me because I don't care. At all what people think about me. I am so proud of who I am, and I just want to be myself a hundred percent so that I can get everybody else excited about who they are and in what ways they're different from me and how they can finally, Stop suppressing what makes them unique and amazing and start to shout it out loud like I'm doing with myself.
14:31
I love it. I love all of that. And I think it's so true. Once you put out into the world who you really are, you will attract like-minded people. I don't know why we get this thing in our head that we're gonna attract haters. Um, haters will just keep scrolling. Um, the people that will stay are the ones that will be like, oh my God, I get you, you're so like me.
Um, I connect with you. You will attract like-minded people and it kind of gives you like a little ego boost to then give more and then you give more, more and more and you can't stop. Exactly. Yeah, I think it's important to take the first step to put yourself out there a little bit and give them a taste of the real you. And I promise you it will only be good stuff that comes back. Um, And I love that everything you do is a hundred percent. You, um, I was watching one of your videos on your website about finding your own personal style, and in there you mentioned creating a style guide for your own Self for your brand, for your home, everything.
And I love that idea. So when we are creating like a mood board that then turns into a style guide, what kind of stuff should we be looking for to, you know, get it really aligned with who we are?
16:01
Yeah. This stuff is so fun to me because it's, you know, it's something I haven't heard anybody else talking about, and I think it's really fascinating. So what I've realized that you can actually do, and this is what I've done for myself, is put visuals to the things about yourself that makes you who you are. So going through and just writing simple lists about what the personality traits that you have are that make you unique so they don't have to be things about yourself that literally nobody else has in common with You, it's just personality traits that maybe people have pointed out about you that seem really unusual or things maybe that you have been hiding or suppressing this whole time? For me it's stuff like the fact that I love change so much. I love to move. I love, I've never bought the same shampoo twice.
I just love it so much. I wanna do everything the world has to offer, live everywhere. And people have made me feel kind of bad about that my whole life. People are always like, Meg, you gotta commit to something for once. Or, you know, the notion that our career has to just be one job, um, that's never appealed to me. And so taking those personality trait things that you have about yourself, write a list of what those things are and then write another list of basically the inspirational, the points of inspiration you've had throughout your whole life that have remained constant. So what have you been inspired by that you were inspired by as a kid, that you're have been inspired by your whole life up until now? So those through line points of inspiration that you've always had true to yourself. Write a list of what those things are for. It's like definitely mimes, definitely circus stuff. It's a lot of like, uh, character-based comedy actors. Um, very specific people like Mr. Bean, Peewee Herman, people that are very expressive with their faces. And whenever I made mood boards of those things and like popped all those points of inspiration into a mood board, I started to notice very. Color through lines visually and emotionally. So whenever you put visuals to these things, like the inspiration, for example, I was able to see a very specific color palette.
It was a lot of black and white, a lot of bright pops of color. And so I made note of what those colors were and just jotted them down. And then I also noticed that there were so many expression filled bodies and expression filled faces. So then I started to kind of realize what I could create that was based on my life long points of inspiration and see some visuals there.
But then whenever I did the very challenging task of putting visual mood board pieces together for those unique personality traits that I have, which is so hard. So thinking about the fact. I love change. I had to think, okay, what is it I love about change? And then I realized that I popped in an image of the changing seasons. Love that! I popped in an image of someone changing their facial expression because that's what I've loved about change so much, especially doing pantomime and Performance art of, that's what I love so much about miming is that you have to use your face so much. So I included a little bit of that in there.
I included like the fact that I love black and white so much and always have since I was a kid. That's why I love mime so much. I put in there the fact that I love the way that colors change depending on what environment they're in. I love changing textures, so I popped all of that in. And I think an important thing to mention is that I never, when I'm doing these mood boards to figure out what my style could be. I never put in any images of anyone else's work that works in the same medium as me. And I do that because I don't wanna be influenced by somebody else's style at all. And I might just end up, if I do that too much, I'll just end up getting influenced by trends or what's happening in the world. And I don't want that.
I wanna find a style that's unique to who I am at my core, and the things about me that are. Are unique to me are those personality trait things, any inspiration for all my life who has, that's really molded me into the person that I am today. So whenever you create these mood boards for yourself, based on your personality, based on your inspiration, you'll undoubtedly notice a lot of things that seemingly different. Like visual things that might not normally go together, but the challenge here is to take those visual elements you're noticing throughout the mood boards and smush them together. and to make one visual style that is definitely different than anything else that has existed. And this is totally a metaphor for you because you are a person with personality traits and inspiration that seemingly does not go together.
But when you put it all together, it's you who is unlike anybody else in the world. So it's a magical exercise. It's very exciting for me cuz it truly means that we can all totally have a visual style that is so different from one another and it also helps you to create work that's just so fulfilling because it's so meaningful to who you are.
21:00
and then you putting yourself out there and it's just your style, your unique style, and it will not be like anyone else's and it will feel so good and so easy. Um, when I look back at my, you know, when you look back at previous websites and pre previous branding for your. For yourself and your own business, you kind of cringe a bit. And I can see all the stages that I went through. Um, I went through this stage where , I was like, you know, gotta look professional, gotta look expensive. And it's like all black and gold and it makes me wanna vomit. And then I went into this stage where I was like, I've gotta be. Cool and calm and soothing. I've gotta be, you know, really zen and I had all these blues and calm oceans, and it is so not me. And then I fast forward to now and everything is pink and red, and I label myself uncool because that's how I've always felt as a designer and it feels so much better, and it is so much easier. And the amount of designers that come up to me and say, I've never felt cool as a designer, I always felt like the one that, you know, didn't have the cool haircut, you know?
Um, Didn't go to the bars after work. I live in the burbs. You know, all these types of things and you attract those kinds of people, and it's amazing. And it just makes life flow. Yes. It just, I can't describe how good it feels just to be in your own skin and to have it flow.
22:44
Exactly. And one of my favorite parts, the side effect that has come with all of this for me is I used to be so jealous of other people, just other designers. If somebody was better at something than I was, I would feel bad about myself. Like I wasn't good enough just because they were succeeding at something and they were so much better at something than me. But once I've been able to. Very excitedly showcase who I am visually. It's helped me to look at other people's work that are better at me than many things and celebrate them because now that I'm aware of what I'm better at than most people and able to celebrate that, it's really helped me to illuminate and. China line and other people that make about what the things are that make them amazing special compared to me. And so it's really helped me to be really inclusive and lift people up and really celebrate them in a way that I wasn't able to before.
23:35
And it's like instead of trying to be like them, it's not like that anymore. It's like, Two completely separate lanes. They're in their their lane. You are in your lane doing your thing, and there's no more of that. I wanna be like them. I wanna be as good as them. Um, I am definitely not the best designer in the world, and I will admit that, but my style is mine. And I think that's the mindset that all designers need to have, and when we're creating this style guide and mood board for ourselves, like some. Fear is gonna turn up. There's gonna be a mean girl inside of you saying, uh, no one wants to see cuppy dolls. Um, no one wants you to talk about sponge cake all the time. And, um, . And, um, how do you overcome that? How do you overcome that mean girl that says, shut up and play small?
24:38
Yeah, well, It's almost impossible to stop that voice. And, uh, you know, I actually like, I think this is a unique part of my personality, but I have always really l l loved myself, which is rare , um, to the point of that. . I've always created environments for myself that is very loving, but I've had this mentality where I think that everybody else hates me. So , that's my natural state, is that every time I'm alone with myself, I'm like, you're amazing. You can do this. Like you're, this is great. Everything's going well. But then I kind of think like, okay, but whenever I show everyone, they're just gonna hate it. Um, so that is both relatable and unrelatable. It's very challenging to silence that voice, but I think it just takes practice the more that, and social media is a great place to practice because you can put something up and you'll get an immediate reaction, and it's a great place to just be uplifted for a little bit because if you're gonna put something up, People will like it and then you'll get like, okay, people are liking.
I have likes people like it, and it's just a little bit validating for a little bit of time, and it's a wonderful place for you to test things out. And the more stuff that you do that's unique to yourself, that you're scared to do, I think that it's just practice. It allows you to realize that the horrible things that you thought people would say in your head, they, they're not saying them.
And I've also learned in doing this as much as I've now done it, that. . Honestly, everything that I was worried about happening has now happened to me, and over the years, all the stuff I was really afraid of happening, the people that, you know, came into my dms and tore me apart, um, people booing me on stage. Uh, everything has happened to me at this point, and the wonderful thing. I've handled it like it's been fine. I've handled it and I worried about it for either days or weeks, depending on what happened. But I got through it and I am so strong now, and now when it happens to me, I'm like, yeah, whatever. Okay, cool. I've done this before, and so whenever my worst fears have actually happened, it's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I've handled it. I've realized that I'm just being myself. I'm just over here lovingmyself, Not hurting anybody. And if somebody has a problem with that, it really has nothing to do with me.
And now that I've realized that it's helped me to be a really empathetic person and to understand exactly what's going on in their head, and it really does not have anything to do with me. They're just projecting it onto me. And that notion has really, Um, a lot easier to handle. The times when I really, uh, you know, beat myself up too much is when I do something that I wasn't thinking all the way or I say something and maybe I wasn't.
Considering a certain, I don't know, perspective or point of view. And that just breaks me up inside because I try to be so intentional about everything I do to be as inclusive to everyone as possible. And I get it right about [95% of the time. But sometimes you can't control everything. You, we don't have, you know, the largest worldview. All of us. We can't, there's no way we can. So, you know, if somebody bunks me on the head saying like, Meg, Try this next time. Like you didn't word that completely correctly, just so you know. That's okay. I've learned that that's how you learn, that's how you learn and grow as an individual. It's just hard to go through that stuff on the internet, but like it's, of course, this inner mono monologue of yours is gonna tear you apart, but everything is totally okay.
Like when it happens, it happens, and you're so strong and capable. Handling it and making it through this, but it hardly ever happens. It's like there's a 1% chance of all your worst fears happening. And when they do happen, you're gonna make it through .
28:50
Totally, totally. And the kind of coping mechanism, well, not coping mechanism.
The kind of training that I think I've done to my brain over the years is when those kind of Fearful thoughts come in. I kind of just sit there and go, okay, this is a bit of an alarm bell. Let's think about if there's actually any evidence out there that people don't want to hear about sponge cake. There is no evidence out there that suggests that , I shouldn't do a blog post about it. You know?
Exactly.
The evidence is not there. It's just kind of a false belief that your brain is feeding you
29:33
Well, what I've noticed for me that works, it's very similar, brain retrain, reframe mechanism is, uh, I list myself three counter facts. So if I tell myself, if I get all worked up about something like, oh, I shouldn't, I shouldn't do this weird thing, everybody's gonna hate it, or like, For example, something that happens to me a lot is I'll do something and then reviews will come in and you know, 12 people love it. Give it five stars. One person gives it one star, and that's what you, frank. And of course, you know. Yeah, of course, of course. That's. Yeah, that's what I focus on and I beat myself up about it for years probably, and whenever I get sink into that, and then it makes that thing not fun for me anymore. If one person hated it, then I'm like, well, I'm never doing that again. But then I have to remind myself of three or four counter facts of, no, no, you have to keep going and this is why.
Here are three facts about why I have to keep going. One of them, I enjoy it. Another thing is I'm not hurting anybody. Another one is 12 people loved it. Most people love it. So yeah, that's a, it's a wonderful reframing mechanism, right?
30:44
Yeah. Flip it and when you start having those false beliefs come in, you need to train your brain to stop and like recognize it. One thing that I've done is visualize the stop. because sometimes we let those false beliefs and crazy thoughts go to town and it turns into a whole massive scenario of, you know, everyone's gonna hate it, then this is gonna happen, then this and this, and you get totally carried away. So I think the key is to stop it in its tracks as soon as you can feel it coming on. So if a stop sign is helpful, use that. . And one thing that I love, love, love that you do is your meditation podcast. And I feel like it's a hundred percent you. Did you have like fears about putting that out there?
34:41
No. A strangely no. I, I totally had one of those epiphany moments. I was like completely jet lag. I was on an international trip, had not slept at all, was trying to sleep at like three in the morning their time. couldn't go to sleep and I just needed to sleep so bad and I had this epiphany of, oh my gosh, I have to do this right now, . And what happened was, the reason why I had the epiphany in the first place was somebody has a, had asked me if I would like to do a combination workshop with them. They were a yoga instructor and they wanted me to do one of my classic MEG workshops with them teaching like yoga and mindfulness and meditation between all of the lessons I was doing. So it was gonna be this like wonderful, self-supportive sort of inclusive atmosphere where you're working on yourself through self-discovery exercises and then doing some mindfulness exercises too, which sounds great. And so my reaction was like, of course this sounds wonderful, but. Just to check. You don't want me to do the meditations or like lead those, right? Because that would be really weird. I, I don't know what I'd say. It'd be so strange. I'd start laughing. It'd be so silly. And she was like, oh, no, no, no, no. I'll do those. Don't worry. You don't need to worry about that. And then a few weeks passed and then I was jet lagged and I was like, wait a minute. Why are meditations always so serious? why couldn't they be weird and funny? If the whole idea is to get you into a better place at the end of listening to it or going through the exercise, then why can't they be lighthearted and fun and so , that was the sort of like epiphany of realizing, oh my gosh, I have something I can offer the world right now that I, and I can make it in a way that nobody else could make it. I have to do this right now. And, um, that excitement about realizing that I have something to offer the world that no one else can. I think it's just like, usually I, I guess it's a little easier for me to handle because I, I'm doing it for other people. I'm doing it for the world. Cause I think they deserve it and I think they'll enjoy it. And so that motivation of not doing it for myself, I. I enjoy it, but I know that I can do this for the world and that people will truly, truly, find some relief from, from having it in their life. And so that's kind of the motivation that keeps me going is realizing that the world needs me to do this.
34:11
Yes, we do. Thank you, Meg. I love it. . I love it. Um, I am not a WOOWOO type person, but you know, in this time in the world it's really hard to sleep and I love getting into bed and listening to your soothing voice, and laughing. It just makes, it does put me in a better place before I'm about to go to sleep. So thank you. Um, that's great to hear. . So just to wrap, . Um, before we head to my uncool questions, I would love it if you could give our listeners three tips, um, to step out of their comfort zone and stop playing safe.
34:53
For sure. I think that the first thing to start doing is to, um, take more selfies of your self That looking very gross, and this is, this is really where it started for me. I was that kind of, you know, we all have, you've been out with a friend before and you're like your friend. You see your friend look at themselves in the mirror or this definitely applies when you see a, your friend taking a selfie of themselves. And you know that face that your friend makes when you see them see themselves in the mirror and they like look at themselves a different way and it's a, a face that they make that you've never seen them make before.
35:54
My children make fun of my selfie face every day. So I completely understand what you're saying.
35:56
we all have that face. Yeah. We all have that face that we make that we think makes us look better. and that face is a problem only when you see a photo of yourself from an from an angle that's not that face. very true. So, you know, whenever you see like a picture of yourself that's from like the side, or like somebody took a photo of you, you didn't know you were having your picture taken, you see that and you're like, oh, who is that? and I hate those moments so much cuz you're like, is that what I look like? Is that the me everybody else sees? And I just want everybody to not have to feel that way. That's a horrible feeling. So once you start taking photos of yourself and looking at yourself in the mirror from awful angles and just getting all sides of your body and looking as disgusting as possible on purpose. It really makes seeing those photos of yourself from different angles, like very approachable.
36:41
So that's a great way to step outside of your comfort zone.
36:44
Another thing is I would just highly suggest that you assess areas in which you are, like you mentioned, getting in your own way. So assessing these things about your career or your life.
We all can. If you just zoom out a little bit, you'll notice that you are, we are all doing this. I'm doing it to myself too constantly getting in your own way of being fulfilled or having the life or career that you really deserve to have. And so just assessing yourself and maybe identifying one area where you're getting in your. Way. One thing that you can just get outta your own way and do starting today.
And then lastly is to put something on social media that's out of your comfort zone. One thing, it can be a story post on Instagram, it can be a po, a feed post, whatever it is. I just want you to do one thing that's truly you. That is unique to you and uniquely you being your weird self, and show it to the world and just wait and see what happens because I guarantee you. The outcome you think that's gonna happen is not gonna happen. It's people are going to support you and love you and like it.
37:58
Yes. Do all of those things today, ladies. And if you post on social media, use a hashtag, Meg made me do it, and we will look for it. And I wanna see everyone, yes. Getting out of their comfort zone and putting themselves out there, and we will be your cheerleaders. Um, now my uncool questions first up. Yes. Let's have a, what is your favorite color? Um, there are specific colors that I'm loving all the time and you know, I think right now my favorite color is like blue, like cobalt blue. There's like super rich blue because I really enjoy wearing it. Um, I love contrast so much as we know cause of the mime thing.
Um, I. I love harsh contrast, and it's the reason why I have blonde hair and black glasses and dark eyebrows because I love contrast and it's a great way for me to showcase my lifelong points of inspiration and who I am. And so the blue is like against my very pale white skin . It's amazing for contrast.
39:15
Okay, cool. Um, now your favorite cake. Oh, I want cake so bad. I know. I really love, there's a very, and my grandmother is still alive, but she's not able to bake anymore and it's a real bummer cuz she used to, for my birthday, always make me a pineapple upside down cake and hers. Oh, nice. Specifically of course, cuz it's made with love.
39:42
Yeah, it's all about the memories and the love. Exactly. Um, and finally, who is your hero?
39:48
You know, I've been thinking a lot lately about what I'm trying to. Like what my future looks like and what I'm trying to do with my life. . Mm-hmm. I'm like where everything is leading to, I normally don't like to know, but I've gotten to a point where it's like, oh my God.
I'm just like imagining what I want to have my life be, and then I just make it happen because I'm just so used to doing that by now, so. Mm-hmm. It's really hard for me to know what the future holds, and so I've been trying to figure out who's doing something. I could possibly emulate in the future of looking to somebody for inspiration. And when I was trying to figure out who I wanted to be like and what I wanted, the only person I could think of was Peewee Herman and um, , you know, he just like, especially, I'm not sure if any of the listeners are familiar with the show, PeeWee's Playhouse, but it was his. his show back in the day. And really, it, it was like, um, if you take the concept of like Mr. Rogers or just an educational kid show where there's like a, usually a man, um, who's there, who's like, welcome to my home here, all my friends that stop by and teach you different things. Um mm-hmm. , I love that model. And Peewee in particular was really interesting cuz. Friends would be like actual humans. They'd be puppets, they'd be like furniture pieces that came to life. And I love that world. And so I'm really interested in looking to that for inspiration right now because I wanna do that. I wanna have a world of characters that I create or I'm able to teach people things, um, alongside this world of character. So that is my hero, that is the person I'm trying to emulate at the.
41:30
That's an awesome dream and I can't wait for it to come alive. Um, okay. Thanks so much for chatting Meg. Um, before we go, where can people go look at more of your stuff and more of your resources?
41:44
So on the internet, my handle is at your buddy Meg. And my u URL is https://meglewis.com/ and um, that website will point you to everything else I do, but https://www.fulltimeyou.co/ actually is my learning destination. So if you want to [ buy any of my books or learn from me at all, that is the website that you should go to.
42:05
Yes, and go there and do it. And listen to Meg's meditation podcast.
It is the best. Thanks, Meg .
42:16
Thank you.
42:25
You've been listening to the designer boss podcast with Anna Dower and Emma Kate. If you'd like to learn more about us and our upcoming digital summit for graphic and web designers, head to our website designerboss.co