Posted by Raphael on Sep 7, 2008 in My Business Adventures, Personal | 0 comments

So we had a small get-together today with other New Media Arts faculty and family.  It was fun…you know, just a casual lunch potluck get-together where there’s always way too much food.

You know, I was a little intimidated.  Not because these folks weren’t cool. They’ve been SUPER nice to me since I’ve started lecturing and helping out wherever needed. It’s just that…here were people who just really knew their stuff.  For the first time in a while, here I was in a crowd of people who could talk design, Photoshop, software, computers, etc just as well as I could (if not better).

It’s the same transition that happens when we went from high school to college. Or college to your first job.  Suddenly you’re not the best at what you do.

Yeah I know I know. My friends always tell me I put myself down too much.  I gotta grow some balls yadda yadda.  I know. It’s not a bad situation at all. They say the best way to learn is to put yourself in a crowd of people better then you. And I’ve always tried to do that in every situation I’m in.

I own my own business, and I’m successful at it.  I can pat myself on the back every once in a while. But here are people that spend their living teaching OTHER people how to create their own business and make their own successes of it. I think that’s the mark of people who demand quite a bit of respect.

I think I can sum it up my feelings this way – I read an article in WIRED magazine lately with a quote that resonated with me. It’s out of context but I hope you get the drift:

You can put a monkey behing a Macintosh – he’s still a monkey.

I’m trying very hard not to be that monkey.