Jeremy Bailey, Creative Director at Freshbooks Cloud Accounting, joins us to talk about implementing Design Thinking in your creative process, managing your time as a creative with a full-time job, and redefining art.
This episode is sponsored by Freshbooks Cloud Accounting
Get full show notes for this episode here
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Follow Jeremy on Instagram: @jeremybailey
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Jeremy Bailey, Creative Director at Freshbooks Cloud Accounting, joins us to talk about implementing Design Thinking in your creative process, managing your time as a creative with a full-time job, and redefining art.
This episode is sponsored by Freshbooks Cloud Accounting
Get full show notes for this episode here
---
Follow Jeremy on Instagram: @jeremybailey
Follow Being Boss on Instagram: @beingbossclub
Follow Being Boss on Twitter: @beingbossclub
Follow Being Boss on Facebook: facebook.com/beingbossclub
---
Listen to brand new episodes of Being Boss on the main feed >>
---
Listen to more Being Boss shows on our website, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Follow Being Boss on Instagram: @beingbossclub
Join the Being Boss Community: beingboss.club/community
Hello and welcome to being boss,
Emily Thompson:a podcast for creative entrepreneurs. I'm Emily Thompson.
Jeremy Bailey:And I'm Kathleen Shannon. I'm Jeremy Bailey and I am being boss.
Emily Thompson:Today we're talking about design thinking with Jeremy Bailey. As always, you can find all the tools books and links we reference on the show notes at WWW dot being boss club.
Kathleen Shannon:Okay bosses, I was shocked whenever Emily shared with me this week that she once had a coaching client who had a stack of unsent invoices for clients, and they were like months old, she was literally leaving money on the table. Now I don't know about you bosses listening, but I've got bills to pay. And sometimes it can be hard to stay on top of billing, not to mention getting over the anxiety of asking someone for money even if you earned it. And this is why I love fresh books cloud accounting so much. It makes billing your clients so easy, professional and even automated freshbooks has so many invoicing features, including getting paid a deposit upfront, setting up recurring invoices for retainer clients, and even being able to see when a client has opened their invoice. Try fresh books cloud accounting for free by going to freshbooks comm slash being boss and enter being boss in the How did you hear about us section.
Emily Thompson:We know Jeremy Bailey as the creative director for product at fresh books where he leads a passionate team of designers striving to create a world where anyone can lead a successful small business without ever having to learn accounting. But he also moonlights as the owner of his own small business performing as a self proclaimed famous new media artist, playfully solving big problems with creativity and technology, often very poorly on the internet and cities all over the world.
Kathleen Shannon:Jeremy, it's so exciting to see your face and have you on the podcast. Thanks for joining us.
Jeremy Bailey:Thank you very much. I'm really excited to be here. Despite for your listeners that they don't know I'm on the train tracks right now are their trains going by behind me. So I apologize about that.
Kathleen Shannon:I love it. So you're at freshbooks headquarters where we had being boss, Toronto, and we loved getting to hang with you guys there. And we had like a few speakers giving talks in between our live podcast recording, and you gave a talk all about the creative process and ideation. And we really wanted to bring you on the show to talk about that. But before we get into that, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your role at freshbooks?
Jeremy Bailey:Yeah, so I'm creative director at freshbooks, which is kind of an maybe an intentionally ambiguous term. But I basically direct the design teams here, specifically the product design team. But that more and more that's like, also helping us just all be more creative and produce better work. So that's why I say it's ambiguous. I also work as an artist part time, which freshbooks has always very generously supported my life as like, I have a persona online who calls himself a self he's a self proclaimed famous new media artists so he goes around trying to save the world rather naively with technology and solution first kind of thinking he's kind of the antithesis of my myself as a as a creative director, but he's quite hilarious and how we
Kathleen Shannon:hold up is this kind of like, like Jim Carrey, his man in the moon kind of situation. What's that? You know, I'm
Jeremy Bailey:talking about it's like Andy Kaufman. Yeah. A little bit a little bit. I definitely love Andy Kaufman's comedy. And, yes, I have sort of like this. He's like a comedian. It's comic in a way. I wear like jorts and a turtleneck. And so sometimes most people actually know me as that not as creative director at fresh books. Most people that I run into, like when I'm speaking as a designer will be like, Wait a second, are you that guy that wears the turtleneck? And does augmented reality software performances, like, Yeah, but by day, I'm also great practice.
Kathleen Shannon:That is so funny, and I want to clarify for our listeners, so freshbooks does sponsor being boss and we've worked with you guys for a long time. But this is in no way an ad for freshbooks we just really wanted to talk to you as a creative on that team. I should clarify that But okay, we need to go back to this thing though. You're wearing a turtleneck and shorts and like, Where are you performing out like what kind of stuff like
Jeremy Bailey:yeah, I mean, that's what I started doing school for. So I think as a performance artists, I guess that's the category I fit into, but I come from kind of a video art background. That's what I that's what I went to school for. And there's like a rich history that goes back to the 1970s of people performing with technology. see people like Yoko Ono and Nam June Paik and john cage like all of these, like, it's wrapped up, and there's like a rich cultural history there. But the best history from that time were was that people started to make kind of make up their own identities or design their own identities as persona. And sort of it was the first time that they could get their faces on mainstream media, like in the 1970s. Actually, you know, it was crazy to have your face on TV, right? You would, you would have had to be on the new nightly news or celebrity or something. So at that time, like artists started performing, like on television, right, for the first time they start recording themselves and calling it I don't know, video are and that's my background. So when I went to grad school for video, our my thesis was like, what's changed since the 1970s? Like, how do we, you know, what devices do we perform for today, and from, you know, at that time, it was like web cameras and laptops have become, you know, the devices we perform for and then like mobile phones, and like the internet and live streaming, and that is, so the so much of that is wrapped up in this, like in the same kind of experiments that we're having in the 1970s that resulted in these, like, you know, just being famous on the internet, so are being famous on TV, but the act of pretending to be famous. So I pretend to be famous on the internet, I guess.
Kathleen Shannon:I feel like I'm getting it. Like,
Jeremy Bailey:yeah, I'm famous on the internet. It's like saying you're famous in Tokyo or wherever, you know, we're all sort of performing theme every day. And actually, like, I believe that that's actually like a really powerful thing. That's kind of something that was promised when they remember when the internet came along. And they're like, now the media is in your hands. And then like, I don't know, Facebook came along and ruined it for me, manipulated the elections. But before that, right before that, right, like it was the media was in our hands. And that was the original promise. And I still believe that that's like a really radical, exciting reality and gesture just to get out there, like you are with your podcast, or whomever and express yourself and the internet. For me as a young artists Anyway, what that was like, that was where the audience was. And I could see it was moving there more and more, it was less and less, like I started out doing Film and Video festivals. And those are really exciting, too. But less and less audiences were there and more and more of the people that understood, kind of the crazy things I was doing. Were online. And now of course, like I can't even compete in a way so I'm just like a marginal figure in what is otherwise like a huge sea of zany crazy things going on on the internet. But yeah, that's why I do it while doing it. So
Emily Thompson:I love this so much. I love this like this a form of self expression that really is driven by this. I don't know, I guess the technology to, to share in a lot of ways. Like if it weren't, it sounds like if it weren't for the the avenue of sharing, this wouldn't be created in quite the same way. So I love that this is creation for the purpose of sharing in ways that not a lot of people like a lot of people who painful paid for themselves or whatever. But this is really for the purpose of sharing it with others and whatever Avenue is currently available.
Jeremy Bailey:And that's kind of like what the internet changed about self expression in a way I might say is that it like it came in in the 1970s and 60s, they had this idea of a happening. Are you familiar with this concept? Like people like john Lennon and Yoko Ono that I mentioned earlier, john page, they have this concept that like art was no longer going to happen on the wall, it was going to happen in the head on, you know, the like in the brain, we are going to create artworks inside people's heads often when I perform live like single someone out and embarrass them and say like we just made an artwork called your head is really warm and embarrassed right now. Right? But like, that was a really kind of a political or almost like radical act because the idea that artwork couldn't be owned or belonged to someone, but it belonged to us all. And that we could come together and these things called happenings, which were like, just events where people got together and shared or did one thing together on mass what we now might call like, I don't know, user generated content or something like that. Like the leg we bit we business Slide it business to find it. But back then it was like, yeah, it was the original poet poetry of that is but it's like people coming together and not to make something that they're trying to sell. But just because they want to connect. And I think that's what's always been excited to me exciting to me about art, and making and design anyway is is is sharing right listening and giving back.
Kathleen Shannon:Yeah, I feel like the main question that I was always asking myself in art school in college was like, What is art? And I feel like everything that you're describing here, and the internet itself really helps blur the line between what is art, and what isn't. Right. Everything's a creation. And that even brings me back to this idea that our podcast is for creative entrepreneurs and everybody's creative. have like so it's kind of a little bit. It's a little redundant almost to say creative entrepreneur. All entrepreneurs are creative, and you don't have to be an entrepreneur to be creative. And so I don't know. I see. That's really cool. So with this side hustle, I just I'm a little curious a little bit more about it. Whenever you talked about you making art, and not really needing to monetize it, like, Is it something that you've ever ventured down monetizing? Or do you like having a day job to really fund like a side hustle or to give yourself room to breathe and be creative on the side?
Jeremy Bailey:Yeah, so I would say like, it's, it's been a journey to a certain extent, like after I finished art school, of course, I wanted to do it full time. But then I also didn't want to compromise conceptually on what I was doing, you know, just to sell something. And I've tried little experiments here and there. And I still have works that I do sell. And then other works that I don't. But generally speaking, the reason I did it and started doing it was not for that reason. And so it always feels like when I try and fit it in that box. It's a little bit contrived. And so I used to be really ashamed that I had like, I've always had a side hustle. And it's always been kind of easy to make money into sign for me. I grew up in a design family, my dad had a design agency, and I've been kind of doing it since I as long as I can remember actually an embarrassingly long time. And so when I finished I was kind of a shame, though. Because in our community anyway, you're taught, like, don't let people know you have this like keep the mystery and Mystique and you know, the mythology, train going by the mythology of being an artist keep that alive, right? Like, just keep that because that's what the room the audience wants, they want that romance? Like, how does, how does he do it? And then a few years ago, I just started being honest, like, Look, I've never made more than$10,000 a year as an artist and the average artist internationally makes less than$10,000 a year, it's among the most precarious class of working creatives that exist on the planet. And so, you know, we all have to be a little bit more honest with ourselves about what's going on here. And yes, some people are pursuing their passion, but other people actually are trying to also make a living and like, you know, but a lot of us end up with side hustles. And then we're ashamed of it. And I don't feel like that's really helpful or useful. So more and more. Now, I just like, you know, I say, of course, I don't make a living as an artist, we're really not set up for that to work out, in fact, conceptually didn't make sense. I wish there was a way in candidates a little bit easier, because we have grants. But yeah, like, I actually like doing both. And I get a lot of energy, a lot of my creative energy, and my ideas come out of my professional life now. So personally, I advocate for like having two things because, you know, you're kind of each one is feeding the other. And I often like make fun of what I do by day and my performances anyway. So
Emily Thompson:right, it gives you gives you some experience to talk about for sure.
Jeremy Bailey:Yeah, for sure. Yeah, definitely working in technology, I will say there are a lot of ridiculous things that happen.
Emily Thompson:It makes for good. I love this, I do sometimes get really dreamy. And Kathleen and I have talked about this multiple times about what it would be like to be creative for creativity sake, not be creative for for revenue sake, in some ways. And I've even I've even talked to, for example, like t shirt designers, who will really want to create a certain kind of T shirt, but they know the thing that sells the T shirts with the owls on it, or whatever it may be. And so then they're forced to like keep doing the owl, even if they don't want to. And I think I think some really great creative magic can come from being able to be creative without having to worry about monetization. So I do kind of envy that at least a little bit.
Kathleen Shannon:Before we move forward from that conversation. I want to know a little bit about how you balance your time because that's something that people talk about a lot whenever it comes to wanting to either pursue a passion project on the side if there are a side hustle or even like if they're working for themselves, if they want to create for creativity sake just really finding the time and even energy to do that. So do you have any systems or habits in place that allow you to get it all I wish
Jeremy Bailey:I had like yeah, hub spots, five tips for how to balance a listicle for share with our listeners. Yeah, here's the listicle II like, the best one that's ever given been given to me is like you have a stove with four burners sound, you know, like nice domestic context. And you can really only have to make some decisions, right? a priority is like yeah, you can only cook like four dishes right? And you're not going to do a 12 course meal on that like four burner stove. Not without the help of other people for sure. So if it's just you, my advice is you're gonna have to turn something off and unfortunately like family, this is gonna be sound really depressing. You have family friends, right? partner or love work right and then maybe a side hustle, but I just named five things right? So you have to turn one of them off. A lot of people turn fends off. And then they find friends maybe in their work as we now some people turn family off and then they end up really depressed. They're like, Oh my god, I wasted my life. Why wasn't I there? You know, some people turn off the financial bit that I mentioned. And then they end up like desperately have to quit, right. So it's a kind of a balancing act, you have to kind of choose the most important things for you, I would say that I've turned friends mostly off, I will like, I'm just going to be honest, rather than, like, tell the audience a lie. My friends are mostly the people like I'm creative with and they often are collaborators, and actually find it wonderful. I can travel almost anywhere in the world. And there's someone I've worked with, but they're also really good friend. And we kind of don't think about it as work anyway. So I don't know. I mean, it's, it's, it's a difficult thing to say, but that's what I really enjoy. So it brings me energy to be around those people.
Emily Thompson:I love this analogy a ton a ton of time, because I even imagine, like, I love cooking in the kitchen. And I find myself pretty good at having multiple things on the stove at once. So I can even see like, taking emails a little bit further, like just turning things off and on at will. So it's not like turning on your stove and letting things simmer for a year. Right, you can come back and switch things around as needed. And I find that I find that analogy pretty true for myself as well. There are only only so many buckets that can be filled at any moment. But you can switch them around,
Kathleen Shannon:I like mine are all boiling over right now. Not gonna lie. Like things, okay, so in my family, me and my brother and sister, we get together every weekend and hang out with my parents. And we always end up at my sister's house playing this game on the PlayStation called overcooked, and like things are getting set on fire. And my three year old likes playing it too. And he likes just grabbing the fire extinguisher and like running around in circles and like the little characters can cuss and so he's just like cussing and like putting things out anyway. But I really want to just acknowledge and say thank you for admitting that, like the friends is kind of the thing that you had to turn off. And that really being in the trenches with other creatives still gives you those fulfilling relationships, because I've certainly experienced that. And even with, I don't know, I guess like I'm at this point in my life where whenever it comes to my friendships, I'd rather be creating something with you then like just standing around at a bar drinking, like I'd rather be podcasting or working on a project. And I think that that actually really deepens your friendships and it gives them more meaning even if it doesn't feel as like, I don't know, flippant or fun or whatever. I think it's it brings depth and alertness to your relationships, honestly.
Jeremy Bailey:Yeah, I mean, for me, it's some of the best experiences of my experiences of my life outside of, you know, the experiences I've had with my partner and family have come from pursuing just like this creative passion with other people. So I definitely agree. Of course, it gets stressful sometimes.
Kathleen Shannon:I mean, there are always moments where you look around and you're like, why don't I have any friends to invite to my birthday party? Yes, that happens to me every year. Friends, I could fill a room. But if I wanted to have a birthday party,
Emily Thompson:maybe it should be a birthday party. At work, Kathleen, for sure life, don't you fret about your birthday. Okay, well,
Kathleen Shannon:let's talk a little bit about your role then at freshbooks. As creative director, can you tell us a little bit about your career trajectory, because it sounds like coming from, you know, an art family and family that has like roots and agency and all that. But then also your art background? Like a fine arts background? How did that kind of send you into fresh books and like rising up to creative director there?
Jeremy Bailey:Yeah. Okay. So the short form story is, my parents were always super supportive, but like incredibly judgmental, right. It's like everyone. Like, they said, you know, pursue your creative passion is very lucky, very privileged in that in that way, they weren't like, go get a practical degree. They said, do the you seem to love art, you should do more of that. And the design stuff, they just always like, mentored me and like, let me work in the family business. And secondly, at a very young age, they're like, don't apply to a job. As a designer, why don't you apply as an art director. Because if you know, whatever level you come in as kind of like probably the way people are going to treat you. And so I started out doing design early on, but then I got a lot of opportunities to do art direction at a very young age, like, again, an embarrassingly young age and I kind of faked it till I made it. And I remember actually, the first art direction job I got was not because I was known as a designer, but because I was known as an artist for doing really experimental weird stuff in the city. here in Toronto. I had a collective and we did like video installations. And restaurants and bars. And we were just like self starting. And this small youth marketing agency heard about it and was like, oh, we're like, we're gonna do this weird thing. We want to open a gallery for Nike, which, by the way, is terrible. It was a disaster. But we need someone like you who can think across, you know, all of these different problems that we're going to encounter, we think through this creatively, and who has the experience kind of at that grassroots risk level, not to just like, copy what someone else is doing, but generate new ideas. And so I was like, yeah, I'll do that. And, and they're like, Well, what do you what would you call yourself? And I just said, I'd call myself an art director in that context. And I didn't actually I remember, actually, I didn't know what that meant. Because I was like, I just kind of talked about
Kathleen Shannon:this, because I feel like there's like a graphic designer, art director and creative director, and what is the difference?
Jeremy Bailey:Yeah, and I think like, the, in the best cases, a designer is actually probably what you should call yourself. And it's like, capable of doing all of those things, right. And it's really just a pay scale thing. Pretty much like all of these things are kind of just status, and pay scale things. So they're, they're not really important to do a great job. They're only important if you you know, you want to get paid a little bit more to be honest with the audience about things. So I remember calling my brother and saying like, Hey, what's an art director, like I just said, they said they wanted something like this. And I said, I think it's an art director. And what is that? Because he was doing art direction. And I had done some. So I called my brother. And he's like, well, it's kind of like this or that I was like, Okay, I know enough. Like, I'll just dive in and see what the work is. And yeah, and then I stayed with them accidentally a year. And I was like, this sucks. This is like way too much work. And, I mean, they're asking me to do artwork as a job. And I'd rather just like go do art. So I went back to grad school. And then when I finished grad school, I came out and I again, like I said, earlier, I wanted to be an artist full time. But that was really almost impossible. So I leaned on what was easy for me to do, which was to freelance as a like, as an art director. And I have that title from the past, like it had some credibility, and started to do work for different agencies and some of the and the one that I used to work for too. And then actually, freshbooks was a client of mine that came calling one day, so through a friend of a friend or something like that, they had a problem, where their brand was like scattered and all over the place. And that you know, nothing they were really create. They're really creative people to really create a company, really awesome company, but they like just needed someone to help focus, focus everything. And they had some difficult challenges around that, including how their product integrated with their marketing, stuff like that. And so I said, Yeah, sure, I'll help out. And then this three month project actually turned into the career I've had here, which is a seven or eight year long career. And it was, yeah, it really just, I just continued to take on new challenges. Once I got in here, I just found that some of the things that they were asking me to do, or the opportunities that I saw were challenges that I'd never faced before, because I'd always been in agencies. And I don't know if maybe your listeners have had this experience. But there's two worlds is this agency world where a client comes to you with work. And then there's this, like, what you were told is a terrible world where you're like, internal on a company and like, Ooh, it's gonna be so boring. It's the same work every day. But in this case, it wasn't boring. In fact, it was the first time I could ever like, do something, fail at it, and then like, do a better thing. And then I became just addicted to that concept of like continuously improving things. That's why I say like a three month project turned into a seven year project, because I got to like, build this thing all the way up and build a team around it and work with really inspiring people now, like work on software products and everything. So
Kathleen Shannon:okay, so whenever you went from freelancing to going in house full time, like what factored into your decision making process there, and I'm asking for maybe some of our freelancers who might be working on a contract, and they're like, you know, I'm thinking about it, but maybe ego is getting in the way, or they have this dream of working for themselves. And so, you know, if they change the narrative, they're changing the dream. So did any of that factor into your decision making process? Was there any anks over it? Or did it just make sense?
Jeremy Bailey:Yeah, I know, I said, No. I said, No, I don't want to work here. Why would I give up on the dream? And I like I was living part time in Berlin at the time was like, it was fantastic. But I stopped doing that. And what was great about what the first time I said, No, because I was used to saying yes, as most creatives are, like, I'll take whatever work you can give me, oh, it's great. I won't even need to get paid. And so this is like one of the first times I think I'd received some advice or something. But I was also just like, happy with what I had accomplished. Like I was surviving. And so I said, No, and that was when magical things happen, which was like, the first it was the first time fresh books is the first company to ever say, Oh, well, what would it take? Like, what would what? Like how could we make this work? And I was like, What? Oh, someone's asking me if I want I've never had that. It's always been the other Right. And so I said, Yeah, I'd need to work like 70% time. I think I said even less than that. I like three days a week. I think I said, and then because I because I was is takes me about five days a week to do my artwork stuff. And I want a day off and they compromise. And we we ended up at 80% time, which is what the arrangement I still have with them today and in exchange for 80% pay, actually. But at the time for me like having creative space was way more important than than pay. And that's that's kind of how it went. So it was I really only did it because I said no. And then they were willing to like, negotiate, which I think I was lucky to find. But yeah,
Emily Thompson:right. And it doesn't sound like it was like a one time negotiation, if you're still doing 80% time is it sounds like you started a relationship that was going to be open to growing and staying around as you grew and stay around, which sounds pretty dreamy, too.
Kathleen Shannon:I feel like it sounds similar to our relationship with fresh books.
Emily Thompson:Fresh books is great.
Kathleen Shannon:Like I start with ads, and then we're like, but can you also buy us a yacht? That's on the way, we've got that almost ready to go. team working on here. Okay, so then I think that this really ties into the culture at freshbooks in general, being super creative and open. And it's one of the reasons why we love working with you guys. And whenever we had our being boss Toronto event up at freshbooks, hearing your talk on idea thinking, um, I just see how it can apply to so many different creatives out in companies or agencies or solopreneurs, like of all different sizes. So could we get into that a little bit? Like, tell us a little bit about idea thinking and like what those steps are? Yeah, so I think, yeah, does that like design thinking is kind of the, the Sorry, I was calling it idea thinking design thinking
Jeremy Bailey:No, no, but I actually like I don't mind, I do think it's a good rebrand. But I think, you know, design thinking something I brought with me when I came to freshbooks. It was sort of it's a methodology that's been around for a while. But it's really starting to get popular in the mid aughts. And as I like, call out the sort of what it is, as I started to talk about what it is, I'm sure your listeners are gonna be like, that's what I do. And I think that that's the right attitude. So but it's just like a reminder, if you will of like what we all know is the right kind of way, when we feel good about a project we're working on. It's usually because we followed these basic steps that have henceforth been packaged by different companies or whomever authors, but really everyone agrees to call it now design thinking, which is the design process that's existed since I don't know like Ray and Charles Eames had a studio in California in the 1940s. Right? So basically, design thinking is like a five step sort of process. And you can kind of come in at any step. But generally speaking, I like to start with the first step being empathy. And so that's just like going out into the world. And whether it's a customer or a client, starting with listening, right, like who would disagree with that, like, start with listening, don't just jump to a solution. And then from that listening and observation, defining a problem. And that's the second step kind of defining a problem statement. So like, what is it that I observed or think I observed, then taking that problem statement? And asking yourself, like, how might we or how might I solve that, that problem? And then once you have like, sort of generated a lot of ideas sort of converging around one you think might represent a solution, and saying, Hey, this is my hypothesis. It's kind of a little bit scientific that way, saying, I think this would work. And so building a prototype from that. And then the last step, which is kind of the most important step is then like, very quickly, throwing that out into the world and testing it out. And so and then seeing, observing, again, going back to empathy, observing what the reaction was, and I think that like I said, it probably sounds familiar, like, you're working on a logo, it's like, I just sketched the logo, I'm gonna share it with the client, and oh, they said, it sucks, Okay, I'm gonna make these adjustments baked up based on what I observe. But if you do this in a methodical way, you know, and you don't skip any steps, it can be really, really great because it's iterative. You're always building on the last last cycle.
Emily Thompson:Right? I feel like this is this is sort of a solution to two common issues that I see in creatives. And one is is creating inside a box so not ever going out and seeing what the feedback could be and just like spinning their wheels wherever they are doing the thing and then one day sharing it and the whole whole world being like cool what is that? Because it because they didn't bother getting feedback along the way. So one is where he inside a box and the second one is working inside of a box. I don't know what my second one was.
Kathleen Shannon:Hold on, I think getting it out as fast as possible. Maybe? Yes, no, go
Emily Thompson:with that one.
Jeremy Bailey:Yeah. Yeah, I think that that's the thing as designers, and I've been this way, and I still am this way, like it doesn't feel always natural to share something that you know, isn't right yet or perfect, right? Because a lot of us are perfectionists, and we care about quality and detail. It's like, how could I put out this disgusting thing, and you convince yourself in a feedback loop inside your head? Oh, this is what they're gonna think. Right. And so that's the biggest mistake we make is we make assumptions about what we think people will think instead of actually just testing those assumptions with real people.
Emily Thompson:Right, and once you systemize it, it's not that much of an issue. And so many creatives who have such who can seriously struggle with getting feedback, because they're probably only doing it at like these, you know, high points in a project or when it's like, last moment necessary. But if you're a systemising, that feedback and just becomes part of your creative process, it doesn't hold that much weight over you anymore.
Jeremy Bailey:Yeah, it's nothing to be afraid of at that point. Also, the longer you work on things, the oh shit factor, like kind of increases exponentially, right? And if you get like, what is this kind of feedback on the last day at the 11th? hour? Like, well, I can't do anything about it anyway. Oh, no. It's always best to kind of get stuff out. Like I had a teacher once who taught me like, you know, just don't ever go beyond the sketch on that first round. Like just even a conversation is a form of design, right? Like, this is what I'm thinking, right? And you can do that with your client. But you'd also do that with the stakeholder or someone you're working with a collaborator, hey, podcast, co hosts, like, and that's the cheapest thing you can do to validate, hey, I think this might work or this, you know, just to get the data that you need to make a better product ultimately, without spinning erotically.
Emily Thompson:For sure, we know creatives tend to do that. So systemising not doing that is super important.
Kathleen Shannon:I wanted to talk about systemising a little bit and the structure around design thinking because I think a lot of us, as you were mentioning, Jeremy, I use design thinking intuitively in our creative process, like it's kind of just the natural backbone of how people make things happen, right? But do you really, like let's say, you're setting up your tasks in Asana or whatever project management software, you have? Like, are you laying out those five steps and saying, okay, for this phase, I need to go do a survey or call up some of our customers or do this. And then in this next step, here are some action steps associated with that, like, have you actually literally systemized this and worked within that structure? Or is it still kind of more intuitive?
Jeremy Bailey:I mean, at freshbooks, we have like a, like a pretty defined way of doing it. But I would say my personal practice, it's become so innate, that I really don't have very many other ways of working. I will say sometimes, though, like, I've leaned into, like, doing other steps first. So like, instead of like, sometimes, I, you know, like I don't need to empathize with my own creative process, because I kind of know the space that I'm in. And so I might start with a prototype, like, I might skip a bunch of steps, and throw that out into the world and get feedback as quickly as possible. And then make that observation and then use that to cycle again. So I might skip steps here or there. But generally, just just so I can get back to the start again, kind of thing, but generally speaking, it's it's like programmed now for me, I can't really think any other way. But then also, as an artist, I was trained to do this. So like, it was like, you know, of course you do a sketch before you do a masterpiece or whatever, right? That's what you're taught to do.
Kathleen Shannon:Exactly. So can we go back through the steps and maybe talk about different pitfalls, or mistakes or challenges that you might encounter in each step? And how to maybe overcome those?
Jeremy Bailey:Sure. Yeah, I mean, like, the first step is where most people make a ton of mistakes in empathizing, which is hard to do. And some would say impossible to do real really right to really understand another human being right, you can't get inside of their skin or inside of their head, unless you're like a psychopath or something like that. Wouldn't, wouldn't work out. So and what, you know, the pitfall there is you're bringing a lot of your own unconscious bias to your observation of the world, right? So whatever you think is true, even as you're observing it and doing your best to listen, you're also bringing all of your experiences to that observation. And so a lot of people get tripped up by their unconscious bias what they think they see, you know, in believing that that's true. And so and there are tricks to get around that which I could do a whole podcast on. But jet like the best trick is just like to open your ears to listen and observe without judgment. I often like coach people on like, you know, reserving judgment because it's different way of thinking, right, like, if you're judging, it means you're processing what you're seeing rather than actually seeing it. If you're Drawing I'm sure anyone who's taking a drawing less than they know that they have to turn off a certain part of their brain actually see what they're drawing, right like to see light and dark instead of outline. You need to like learn to draw in and learn to see, there's a lot of books on that topic. So a lot of people forget that.
Kathleen Shannon:I'm remembering my like art school days of like, drawing upside down.
Jeremy Bailey:Yeah, yeah, really seeing it. Exactly. Yeah, like often. Yeah, there's a bunch, there's a bunch of things you can do, you can like, do like we did at the beginning of this podcast, where we recorded, you can do all kinds of things like you can like, just like, stop doing anything, don't think or, like, don't, don't speak just nothing, just pure meditation for 30 seconds, try that then observe, right, or, like you said, change the context, move around, you know, figure out how you could see something from another perspective, there are lots of little things you can do. But ultimately, it all comes down to first recognizing that you're probably bringing bias to whatever you're observing. And certainly for me as like a straight white male, like, I have to recognize that if I'm serving someone else that I'm probably bring a ton of cultural sociological baggage to whatever I'm observing, is I really need to reserve judgment. And just slowly
Kathleen Shannon:there were more straight white males like
Jeremy Bailey:Yeah, I got it, maybe maybe even General, there's just less went straight white male.
Emily Thompson:Just illusion I had not considered yet.
Kathleen Shannon:It's part of the reason why we're one and done. Doesn't need more?
Jeremy Bailey:Well, I would say like, it's only more of them asked more w questions like instead of mansplaining, or whatever, right. So if they only have more of them reserved judgment. So that's the first step. And I think the biggest pitfall people make is that they judge to sin, and they fail to actually observe,
Kathleen Shannon:I just want to mention to like this idea of there's something that you said about processing, and like, as you're processing something, you are judging it. And it really is making me think about this in a different way. And anytime I'm trying to process like, I'm trying to just come to a solution as fast as possible, probably because I'm afraid, like, as a designer, or an artist, or a podcaster, or a writer or anything. I'm just afraid that I'm never going to get to that solution. So I start immediately processing and trying to put that right at the beginning of the process, right?
Jeremy Bailey:Like we've all been in those ridiculous meetings, and there's a short deadline, oh, my God, it's gonna Friday, they want something by Friday, what could we do? Right? You jumped straight to the solution? We could do this, we could do that, like, Well, why would we do any of those things no one stops to ask. And if you start with that, why, you know, then you're really you're switching, you're, you're you're flipping the game, right? And you're moving into empathy. So I think it's very, very important if you ever catch yourself in that position, but even as you're trying to observe, you're going to try and jump to Oh, we could do this to solve that problem. But it's way too soon to be thinking that way. And yeah, if you just spent 90% of your time on the empathy part, actually, you would probably have a much better idea anyway, just like get get out of the way of yourself, basically. So should I keep going through these are like, yeah,
Kathleen Shannon:I mean, we Okay, so we've gone through empathy, and then we got one of five steps. Okay, yeah, let's keep going. Okay, so
Jeremy Bailey:in the next step, which would be like defining a problem or definition. I think the key thing here is that what you want to observe is like, it depends on the context. But generally, like, there's a, there are two kinds of things you're looking for, you know, from your observations, things that surprised you, which would be what I would call insights, right? Like, the things that you just didn't expect, right? And if you did your job, right, you there'll be a lot of those things, because you've reserved judgment, like, Whoa, I didn't realize that women had feelings. Whatever it may be, whatever, realize things suck for them when I act this way. So that would be like, one of the things you might you might be looking for. The other thing would be like a need, which is a verb, like something someone's trying to do or achieve. And in most contexts, there's like some kind of a need, right? Like in marketing world, they might call that an ask or something like that. But you'd want to observe that ask or get more information on what it actually is and why it matters to them. So those would be the kind of the two things that are most important. One defining a problem that you're going to be solving is like, you know, is basically the the insight like the the surprising thing that you just didn't expect, and the ask or the why, why are we you know, what is it they're trying to achieve? And why are they trying to achieve that. And so you have to really have done a good job on the previous step to make this actually work. And coming out of that, hopefully, you have some kind of a problem statement, which would be something like I have observed this and it's causing this negative outcome or this impact or whatever. And so then you can ask yourself, and this is kind of an important word hack that a lot of people recommend. I think it came out of Google or IDEO, I can't remember. Which is if you phrase it kind of as how lightweight, which is like, you want it, what you want to do at this stage is like, open the language to the, you know, the most number of possibilities, right? And using language that doesn't say, like, doesn't sit doesn't constrain your opportunity to solve a problem, in as many ways as possible is super important. A lot of people create these super narrow problem statements when they're working on stuff. And even clients briefs can sometimes be that like, make a ad starring chickens for, you know, KFC or something like that, like, well, do we like why why chickens is thing, you're already defining the solution. So a lot of people trip up by putting a solution in their problem. And that's not really a problem. I guess that would be the big trip up there. I have
Kathleen Shannon:a question like bringing this back to the scientific experiment side of things. Is it possible to have too many variables? Like should you even though you don't want to have that specific or like that solution in the problem statement? Do you want to try and narrow in on like one variable to solve at a time?
Jeremy Bailey:That's a great question. I think like, I would always recommend there being you could like writing more than one problem statement, if you're writing, if you're in the habit of doing that. And say, whenever
Kathleen Shannon:you were redesigning fresh books, which is like a huge project, because it wasn't just a branding project, it was like literally changing the entire interface and user experience. Do you have a lot of different problem statements?
Jeremy Bailey:Yeah, yeah. There's like, different teams working on those? Yes, like, absolutely, we probably written about 1000 statements that comprise all of the problems we're trying to solve. And they're every day there are new ones. And so but I will say that you can, you want to start at the macro level, and work your way down and granularity, that's where it is important, eventually, to get to specifics. But when you're like trying to solve a problem, like I need to redesign the whole product and a brand and the whole, you know, in a strategy for the future, you kind of want to start with those broad strokes first, as you know, and creating anything long term, you know, start with the big, broad strokes and strategy. And hopefully those boil down to some principles that can then inform, you know, more and more granular problems. That's Yeah, so I think it's more like there's a pyramid of decisions that you need to make,
Kathleen Shannon:like thinking about our own creative process. Like for me and Emily, we probably get down into the granular and then expand back out to broad strokes like we I would even imagine that we start on a more granular area, like because that's where we can see the problem. And then going back out to broad strokes, like okay, let's widen this out a little bit and then narrowing back
Jeremy Bailey:in Do you guys ever do? Sorry? Not you guys. I shouldn't use that language. Do you all ever use? Like, do you ever say, Do you ever do five lies? Have you ever heard that concept? Which is to ask why five times? Okay, yeah. So that would be, you could do that. Right? You could start at the very specific, you'd say, like, I don't know, like, something very, very specific about whatever problem you're solving, and then just ask, why is that? And then, you know, between two of you, you might generate an answer. And then if you know, the next person asks why if you do that five times, theoretically, you should get to something that's quite systemic. But it could also lead to something very specific. And that's not a bad thing.
Kathleen Shannon:I know, this is probably like going off on a tangent a little bit. But I feel like the main barriers for creative entrepreneurs and getting more customers always comes down to time and money, like those seem to always be the barriers that people throw out. And I think that asking five why's, like why do people need more time? And then asking the why of that answer. And really getting down to the whys behind time and money are really what get you to the root of how to sell to your customer, or like what their real problem is.
Jeremy Bailey:Exactly. Yeah. So it's a very, that's a very cheap and easy trick, which is, right, why five times on a piece of paper that just, you know, remember and it's hard, but it's hard to do, right? Because especially if you're talking to someone else, like a stakeholder, you when you ask why. And you can use other language as long as it's in the spirit of why sometimes people get defensive by like, What do you mean, why do I care about this?
Kathleen Shannon:It's super challenging, even whenever we do it to ourselves. It's super challenging, and I wouldn't give up by the second why, like, just because yeah, like I'm speaking to my inner toddler.
Jeremy Bailey:So my easy trick to with that is just say, tell me more about that. And that's a lot less, like sort of confrontational. Yeah. Or why do you think that is like, as long as it's just not like Why?
Kathleen Shannon:design thinking therapy? Okay, what next?
Jeremy Bailey:Okay, so next you want to like you have this problem worth solving, hopefully you're excited about it, the next thing you would want to do is come up with some ideas, some solutions. And the biggest pitfall here would be to, like focus in on one solution too early, what they call in design, like, you know, converging too early. So you might have like, five ideas and immediate like, now we'll just do this one, because the rest it's not Yeah, this is the one I like, you know, you might choose a favorite too early. Or you might not even generate any other ideas. You just like, no, it's got to be this. And the problem with doing that is you're like, potentially missing out on all kinds of like, just delightful, crazy ideas. And my biggest trick for this is like a very common one, I'm sure people have heard of this, which is called crazy eights. And just take a piece of piece of paper, fold it into eight, and then set a timer for under 10 minutes, like five minutes even. And very quickly sketch out eight ideas to any problem like and I don't know why it's a Don't ask me. But it's really hard to do. But it gets easier, the more you do it, and you just want to like, you don't want to write that's the other thing is like generally, when generating ideas, language, for some reason prevents us from thinking divergently from thinking about the most number of possibilities. And so typically, you should draw, I don't know if that's recommended very often outside of design, like I don't know how many business people are drawing, but I, when I'm coaching business people on how to think and ideate. You know, I teach them to draw, because it uses a different part of the brain. And also you don't get caught on the details, like the grammar or the words. And you've all we've all been there when someone's like, I don't think that's quite the right word or whatever. But a triangle, no one can judge that anyway. So and you don't have to be good at drawing, you just have to be able to like convey an abstract idea, right without language very quickly. So that's the that's kind of like the main thing to do an ideation and then when you get a large volume of ideas, it's much easier to see, you know, there's crossover potentially where one idea is half good, and you could take from the other. And then when one of your ideas might, you might be really excited about you want to refine it, you might later realize, Oh, no shit, this won't work. But you have those like seven other ideas from earlier. You're like, oh, but this that's another jumping off point, we could go that way instead, instead of being just stuck, you know. And so if you do that with a team of people, it's even more exciting, because you're potentially generating like 40 ideas in five minutes. And if you could do that, like open close, like 40 ideas, then back down to one idea, then 40 ideas, if you do that over and over again, in a period of like, if you didn't have like a cycle of three, like do it three times, I challenge the listeners to do this. In a span of a half an hour, you'll be amazed at what you're able to achieve in 30 minutes that would have otherwise taken a week of just falling one stubborn idea through.
Emily Thompson:This has me craving the like most intense brainstorms. Kathleen, bring your papers.
Kathleen Shannon:I just want to brainstorm now because I will say that we probably very quickly go to just creating the thing. Yeah, I mean, we might kind of go through this process. It's very fast, like in our minds, but doing it in your head. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that there is though, something that is really important to actually going through the process and articulating each step of the process. So if this is your first time to go through a creative process, or to really give your creative process, more boundaries, and structure and definition to actually do these exercises might astound you like it's not enough. I talk about this all the time with the chalkboard method, but it's not enough to understand the concept like actually going through it will do wonders for your creative process. Right?
Jeremy Bailey:Yeah. And we do tend to self edit and say, Well, I don't need it, because I'm proud or whatever. I will say the other thing that's really important to ideation is like, and so you said brainstorming and like immediately, I was like, Oh, no, that's a bad word. But like, it's just not the current, like the douchebag word now is ideation or whatever, like it's
Kathleen Shannon:mainstreaming a bad word,
Jeremy Bailey:I think because it's like, well, so here's what happened is like, it got out the brainstorming was producing worse ideas. Like there are a bunch of studies where groups of people get together. And I forgot to say like, apparently that you know, you get this Hippo problem, the highest paid person in the room. Have you ever heard of that? Yeah. Where it just ends up being not like really a brainstorm or is like a brain jerk like someone owns the room and shames everyone else. There are no bad ideas, but really, there's like the loudest idea that wins. And so like the pitfall there is like that you don't actually end up with those 40 ideas. And the way around that is like, is to do like it alone. And this is maybe great for your listeners, which is like you might think you need a group of people to do ideation or brainstorming with but actually like at a company like ours net, the biggest companies in the world now, people do like they sit quietly for five minutes, and they just come up with ideas. And then they share them. And they generate far more ideas in isolation, like solo just at the idea phase, actually, the one time where you can see that it's just you. And it's wonderful. It's great. Like, that's where you wanted to be a whole time anyway. Right?
Emily Thompson:Right. That's what I want to do not brainstorming. But ideating. Yeah, I want to call
Kathleen Shannon:my branding agency whenever we're taking people through our creative process. And if it's with an organization, sometimes what we do is there's a bunch of white papers hanging up and a bunch of different ideas. And people are kind of voting with stickers. Oh, yeah. And if the CEO goes, first, people are just falling behind him and like or her and just sticking their.on, whatever idea they put their.on. And so we've started like mixing up colors, so that nobody knows about different areas. But this is even making me think about how we go through that process and how we can better facilitate better ideas coming out of that process.
Jeremy Bailey:And what you're solving with the dog voting problem, of course, is the same problem I just described, which is like when it comes time to sharing ideas, who's going to choose the right idea? Oh, like the loudest voice again, there they are. Okay, right. And they might not be thoughtfully considering everyone's point of view. And the end sometimes, like, at that phase, the best ideas are kind of the ones everyone thinks are stupid. Like, they're these really fragile ideas. And I'm sure you maybe haven't heard of this, but I like to use this like, this, like kind of sent like grammar hack, which is to make sure everyone's kind of saying yes, and when they see an idea, right, like building on it, rather than just saying like, what's wrong with it or outlining what's wrong with it, but sort of like, you know, this, everything's super fragile at that stage. But that doesn't mean it's a bad idea just means it needs help, it needs nurturing, need some support. But a lot of people don't always see that.
Emily Thompson:Awesome, so have we gone through all five of our steps.
Jeremy Bailey:Three, combine the two last steps, no one, just the sake of time, and our listeners are probably almost at work, and they need to get out of the car. So prototype and test are the next two steps, but basically, like coming up with something that represents what you think the final object might be realistically in some kind of scenario. And then putting in front of the end user or end customer. So you know, I would encourage people in a client scenario, don't always think of your client as the end customer, if you could get to the real customer, like the person they're serving, that would be ideal. Now, of course, they've had a lot of experiences. But like I said earlier, they're also bringing a lot of their bias to the conversation. So whenever possible, we try at least at fresh books in my life outside of fresh books to get it in front of the final customer, the final consumer, whomever. And before I do that, making sure that I have a hypothesis, which is just in like without getting the science language, like what I think will be true. And which in my experience is 90% of the time absolutely wrong.
Emily Thompson:You're doing it right. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Kathleen Shannon:And how do you how do you measure what's true? Like so for you? Yeah, performance art? Is it getting laughs? is a getting attendance? Or, you know, what is that? Like?
Jeremy Bailey:Yeah, I think for me, yeah. So you can it can be any, it doesn't have to be like, it should be measurable. But it doesn't have to be like from a data MySQL dashboard or something like that. It can be like you said, it could be like, I expect that I'm going to get a laugh on this joke, right? Or it could be, I expect, this person will say this, they'll notice this, given my objective, right was to like, convince them to buy this thing I expect they will click this button, or they will when I asked them what this advertisement was about, they'll be able to tell me what it's about, right? Like, just make it so that you can you can test like a test test of an answer. And you have to build observe the answer, basically. And that's all
Emily Thompson:for sure. I love this. And and Is this a process that you super cognitively go through with your team consistently when you guys are facing problems?
Jeremy Bailey:Yeah, so we have like we we have a version of this process that, yeah, we've modified for our teams and which they basically interact in every week with customers where they're like observing, defining the problem, coming up with ideas, prototyping and testing with them on a weekly cycle. We do it once a week at least. And we just repeat that. So I guess it's, you know, 50 or so times a year.
Kathleen Shannon:I just want to say it feels like you guys are really with this process, embrace a culture of I don't know not getting it right the first time. Like, it seems like you guys are really open to I don't want to say failing but like failing for lack of a better word, because it's really just about iterating And making it better every single time and you can't make it better without knowing what went wrong. So many of us are afraid to confront like what went wrong, right?
Jeremy Bailey:Yeah, I will say that like, yeah, I'll be I'll be very honest. I think even you know, even though we have this process, I noticed all the time I slipping back. And it's like, Larry, you want it, it's like, so relaxing. That's like such a nice velvety like lounge chair to sit back into, you know, just get into the solution. Like, oh, it feels so good to get into that warm bath, where I don't others aren't judging me. And, you know, where I don't have to put myself in my reputation on the line week over week. And so I would say it's like, you know, there's you need to do it's caught, you're constantly diligent about it. And that's kind of my job as well here, right is to make sure that teams are in an environment where it feels a little like a warm bath, hopefully, instead of like a cold shower every time they go through this process. Because it can feel a little uncomfortable. I'll just be like, super
Unknown:vulnerable. Yeah,
Jeremy Bailey:yeah. And so making sure it's right. That's right, making sure that you're bringing your whole self to and exposing yourself to this vulnerability, it can be really, really challenging. And our team slipped back into bad habits all the time. I do as well. And there's no judgment there. But it's just like, you know, you remind yourself that, oh, yeah, that's why we do it this way. You know, every time you mess it up, you kind of figure it out again, and so we're always doing,
Emily Thompson:I could definitely see it being super vulnerable within a team within a team. But as like a solo entrepreneur, someone who's really just doing it for yourself, I see it being the most like the most skill building like brain exercise, almost to like really look at all of your problems from as many facets as possible. After gathering all the information you need to really go at it. Like that's, that's something that will teach you about your people and what you do and how you serve them in ways that you know, nothing else really will if you're really putting yourself through that cycle, every single time you're faced with a problem, or looking for a new solution to a problem. I know if you're just gonna be super boss.
Kathleen Shannon:I know I feel like a lot of the creatives we talked to crave more space to make things with their hands. And I feel like this is like a very hands on process like this is giving you structure to create the space to be incredibly creative. But without feeling like you're floundering or without feeling like, I might as well just go watch YouTube for three hours, or I think it really gives it this. The it gives the creative process boundaries that you can really flourish within.
Jeremy Bailey:Yeah, hopefully some like objective distance is good because we're such like subjective beings, every once in a while, I will say like as like, almost like a Segway. I use this not just for design or creative projects, but I kind of optimize everything. So and I have a hard time not doing that. So my partner and wife often says, you know that I shouldn't bring my work life into our relationship. And I often
Emily Thompson:honestly, it's made to break out the eight pieces of paper for date night.
Jeremy Bailey:But I can't help like, certainly bring those empathy qualities to a relationship or to a problem that you're facing personally, can also be super useful. And then like trying things out and then not being okay with admitting to someone that you were wrong, which I think is a super powerful concept socially, right, for us to try things out and then admit we're wrong and have the objective kind of relationship with our work to say like, Oh, my God, I messed up, and I didn't. I'm gonna go back to empathizing and listening again. I don't know. Yeah.
Emily Thompson:Good. Practice all around, for sure. Thank you so much, Jeremy, for coming to hang out with us.
Jeremy Bailey:Oh, no, thank you so much for having me and for your listeners for listening. If they're still there. I don't know. Maybe we
Emily Thompson:totally are eating it up. I'm sure. All right, we have one. We have a question for you. Okay, what makes you feel most boss?
Jeremy Bailey:Oh, yeah, I thought about this, because you sent me the questions in advance. And actually had a hard time with this because I have like a kind of a lame answer. The thing that makes me feel most bosses not being the boss, I guess, which would be listening. You know, especially like, because I am a boss. I had to like, reflect I'm a boss to a lot of people here. But the times I feel most bosses when I'm, I'm walking like I go on walks with everyone here. And I'm listening to people and I'm getting to know them. And I'm building rapport. And they're trusting me with their feelings, their thoughts, and I'm being surprised by things that I just didn't know were either problems or you know, opportunities. And so I feel like when I do that, I'm going to just this amazing place to coach people based on the experience and the privilege I've had in my life and so I feel most boss when I listen to people and then I give them some solid advice.
Emily Thompson:I love a good answer. No, I
Kathleen Shannon:feel like that's one of my favorite answers. Yeah, I
Emily Thompson:agree. That was a good, good job. That was a good one.
Kathleen Shannon:where can our listeners learn more about you and your projects and what you're working on?
Jeremy Bailey:Um, I think like, Oh, yeah, maybe just Twitter. I know it's not sound style these days, but they just doubled the character limit so we could have a better
Kathleen Shannon:when did that happen? Like last week, I think Yeah.
Jeremy Bailey:Yeah. You have to get a Hackett I think to get it. But anyway, I Jeremy Bailey on Twitter is my handle.
Emily Thompson:Perfect.
Kathleen Shannon:Thank you so much, Jeremy, for hanging out with us. It's been really cool getting to reconnect with you. Oh, no, I loved it. I hope I can one day have you on my podcast. We would love to work down on costs anyway.
Jeremy Bailey:All right. Well, thank you. Thanks, Ellie. Thanks, Kathleen. Really appreciate this.
Emily Thompson:We have gotten so much amazing feedback over the years from listeners about how our podcast has helped them start to grow and uplevel their businesses. So we want to celebrate you. Here's the boss we're celebrating this week.
Kathleen Shannon:Hi, my name is Carolyn burski. And I am being boss. I'm a certified life and career coach working with ambitious women in their 20s at compass Maven calm. And this week I'm celebrating getting my first official paycheck from a speaking gig. I've been doing a bunch of unpaid speaking but this is my first physical check in the mail for getting up and talking in front of people and it feels so so good. If you're feeling boss and when to submit your own boss moment or when go to WWW dot being boss club slash I am being boss. This episode of being boss was brought to you by fresh books cloud accounting, thank you to fresh books for sponsoring us and you guys can try it for free by going to freshbooks comm slash being boss. Thank you so much to our team and sponsors who make being boss possible our sound engineer and web developer Corey winter. Our editorial director and content manager Caitlin brain, our community manager and social media director Sharon lukey. And are being countered David Austin, with support from braid creative and indicia biography.
Emily Thompson:Do the work. Be boss and we'll see you next week.