101 Design Rules

Stuck on a problem you can’t solve? Go bigger. Expand it. Make it giant. Do not try to contain it, or simplify it, or reduce it. Make it so large that you can begin to see a new pattern. Solve the larger problem and the smaller one will get solved along the way.

Never hire people for “cultural fit.” What a pernicious term. Instead, hire insanely talented people for their “cultural contribution.” For how unique they are. For why they are different from you. For what they will add that you do not have.

The role of creative leadership is to create more leaders — not more followers. This view is more uncommon than I’d like.

Design is not what we make. Design is what we make possible.

The opposite of courage is not cowardice. The opposite of courage is conformity.

Find a way to connect every project to something much bigger: a higher order value, a truth, a courageous goal, or a larger question. Then, if your efforts start to lag or feel mundane, return to that larger ideal that inspired you in the first place. It works.

The goal is to make the complicated simple — not the other way around. The best ideas are often expressed as simple ideas. They’ll have power because they’ll feel inevitable.

You can live your life as the result of history and what came before, or you can live your life as the cause of what’s to come. You choose.

When someone disagrees with you, do not defend yourself. Instead, listen. Ask them to explain, validate their concern, expand on it, and affirm their point of view. Only then will anyone listen to anything you have to say. I wish someone had told me this in my teens.

Listen for when someone is dismissing your ambitions. Only the petty do that. Avoid them. Instead, seek out those much better than you; they’ll make you feel that you can achieve your dreams, as theirs are probably even larger. They’ll wave you on to the finish line.