Interview #004: Mig Reyes of Threadless & Humble Pied

About Today’s Subject:
Mig Reyes

Creator of: HumblePied.com
Day Job: Interactive Designer at Threadless, Instructor at the Chicago Portfolio School
Location: Chicago, IL
Websites: Threadless, Humble Pied, Mig Reyes
Twitter: @spigumus

Encouraging and Inspiring Others to Unleash Their Creativity

You’re in for a treat today, my friend.  Today’s conversation is the fourth interview on Create the Map, and it features Mig Reyes, a talented designer at Threadless and the creator of a very cool website called Humble Pied.  (Threadless, as you probably know, was one of the pioneers of crowdsourcing and has been tremendously successful at building community.  Through their business model, the public votes on user-submitted t-shirt designs, and a few winning designs are chosen to be printed and sold via Threadless’s website.)  Mig embodies that spirit of community; he clearly loves encouraging and inspiring other people to unleash their creativity.  His website Humble Pied presents “one inspiring creative sharing one piece of advice, all over video chat.”  It’s an awesome collection of interviews (featuring the likes of Jason Fried, Aaron Draplin, and Jessica Hische to name a few).  You should definitely bookmark the site and take the time to soak up the wisdom there.  Seriously.

As regular readers know, I’m in the midst of posting a series of interviews (this is #4 of 9) I conducted at the 2011 Weapons of Mass Creation Fest, and Mig was one of the featured speakers there.  We caught up shortly after his inspiring talk.  Among other things, we discussed the vision for Humble Pied, how he deals with his inner critic, how he makes decisions when he reaches a crossroads, and his thoughts on failure.

A Few Lessons that Stood Out from My Conversation with Mig

These are just a few notes of what stood out to me, but it’s better of course if you watch the video below and hear directly from Mig.  We covered a lot of ground in our conversation, and there are some seriously powerful ideas packed into 10 minutes.  Here are a few:

1. Let Go of Expectations. When Mig made Humble Pied, he didn’t go into it with grand expectations.  He started it while he was still a student and simply wanted to interview inspiring people and ask them to share one piece of advice.  Mig just focused on doing what he loved and let it evolve naturally and organically without the weight of expectations mucking it up.
2. Fail Often. Mig says he fails everyday and that’s just the nature of the beast.  Don’t expect to always hit homeruns; in fact, accept that you’re probably going to be failing more often than not.  It seems like he’s able to value the failures along the way because he knows they’re getting him closer to the homeruns.  (I share his belief in changing our view of failure, and as a lead-up to this interview, I posted an article earlier this week called The Difference Between Failing and Being a Failure.)
3. Don’t Compare Yourself to Others. Everyone can be their own worst critic.  It’s easy to compare yourself to the top people in your field and feel like you’re not good enough.  But instead of comparing yourself to others, just focus on doing your own good work.
4. Just Start. Don’t wait to get inspired. The time you spend reading about other people’s success stories is keeping you from starting and doing your own awesome work.  Get started and go the distance.  Do what it takes to go the extra mile.  That might be staying late at work or staying up an extra hour.  There’s value in being someone who’s a doer, not just a dreamer.

You have two options:

1. A Taste (1 min. clip). In case you only have a minute.
2. The Feast (full 9 min. interview). If you don’t want to miss something special, choose this.

Option #1: A Taste (1 min. clip)

Option #2: The Feast (full 9 min. interview with viewer’s guide)

Viewer’s Guide for the Full Interview

You really shouldn’t miss the full interview.  Trust me.  But if you want to skip around, here’s a quick summary of what we discuss, in chronological order.

• Cliffs notes version of Mig’s bio
• What he’s most proud of so far in life
• What made him decide to become a designer
• Intro to Humble Pied
• The vision for Humble Pied
• Thoughts on perfectionism and his inner critic
• Don’t compare yourself to others
• How he makes decisions when he reaches a crossroads
• One of his favorite pieces of advice on Humble Pied (aka the Jessica Hische quote)
• Checking in on yourself to see what kind of progress you’re making
• Failing more often than not
• Where he finds the greatest meaning in life
• Advice for people creating their own path

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