I'm a guest on the Great Design Lead Podcast - Episode 8

is please ask the host to give you permission to record or maybe you could just record and just send me the uh wav file or the mp4 file okay like yeah like how do i i don't how do i give you permission to record okay i'll just actually since youtube's already recording okay you know i mean you can just pull that off of there if that's okay all righty uh we're live oh we are yeah i had it on my other screen cool no intro just go [Laughter] all yeah so how do you wanna do this is your podcast so i will yeah let you fly so uh we can get started just um with you doing the little intro uh and then i can start asking you a bunch of questions and yeah all right hi everyone uh and welcome to the great design lead podcast my name is nelson obelos and i am a pixel geek and right now i am doing my best to help make the web beautiful together that's great thank you so much for for being willing to come on and hang out with me today um i am i'm a fan of yours uh for a bit i i actually um heard about you i was working on a project and i i was trying to figure out how to do a membership site and then i found one of your live streams and i thought this guy seems really really nice and i really love his channel and so i i started looking at your stuff and i actually i i sent you that thing on linkedin i'm kind of weird in which uh if i think somebody's cool i actually like reach out to them personally and want to be their friend even if they're like all the way on the other side of the country that you're not weird i mean um i i myself i'm i'm shy so like you're more brave than i like um even even to this day like if there's someone who's a big time designer or something like that or a really good web flow developer i'm like too shy to even dm them and honestly i i still need to work up the courage to ask people to be guests on uh on my youtube channel really yeah oh i uh i think i just have something slightly wrong with me that i'm like not afraid of it at all no that's called bravery there's a funny story that my parents lost me at a beach when i was a child because i made friends with these kids that didn't speak english and only spoke french and i was just like hanging out with them so i think i've always been like this but um but yeah i i found you and i messaged you on linkedin and i sent you a picture of me looking at your video i'm like hey this is so cool no normal person would do that and um and so so yeah i uh i asked you to um to chat and then since then i uh i do a lot of research from people before i talk to them so like i listened to uh your podcast with your wife i went through a lot of youtube videos about your life and your family twitter all that kind of stuff so anything that you want to bring up i i'd probably remember it and be able to talk to you about it so i'm very excited wow okay but um but yeah so i when you are a pixel geek you also uh work at webflow so i kind of want to hear a little bit about like um explaining that to people that that don't know what you do kind of like what you do on a day-to-day and then we can get more into like who you are as a person because that's what i'm really interested in all right so um i'm just a nerd for web design and um since you've heard uh many of my recordings in the past i'll just say it again it just all started with the natural curiosity of uh of a middle school friend who created a aol member page and i was like you made that on your screen and then i can see it on mine and that's where the spark happened and because of the speed of technology and how it evolves the speed of web design where there's always a new code there's always a new software there's always a new tool it's just always a new fresh new thing to learn and to me it's all just toys you know like ooh new toy to play with let me try to figure out how to do uh how how to break it down and use it and make my website better um and yeah it was just uh just a natural curiosity and so now at webflow uh customer support specialists and helping people learn webflow and understand the power of it um is what i gravitate towards and outside of work i'm also creating my own community at pixelgeekdog community and helping people there but more of a mentorship type of way because um what i've learned from seeing my wife grow into a graphic slash web designer she started as a graphic designer and i've been telling her like hey you got to try webflow you got to try to make websites and as a graphic designer she was scared of code and it makes sense because it's not a visual thing but thanks to webflow it made it more visual and i helped mentor and help her learn the no code way uh before even the term no code was established and seeing her grow into a graph designer to someone who understands how to design for the web but also creates databases on her own is just amazing and it just shows that a lot of people ha now have the power to build on the web with less technical hurdles than there were in the past um and so that's what i'm trying to mentor people in my community and other people just in the general no code community like this new power harness it and make cool things and now with more and more no code tools popping up in easier ways to connect with apis with all these other no code tools like click up asana zapier integromat etc it's just amazing to see and again um it's blowing up so fast that i can't keep up and i'm like oh new toy there oh new toy there i wish i had time to play with that but i don't so it's getting kind of out of hand but in a good way so um that's what i do i mentor and also help people learn webflow my first introduction to webflow was kind of funny um so i'm a little similar uh to your wife in terms of i went to school for graphic design um and then a friend of mine um my a family member recommended me for this project to make a website and i said okay i can design it i i can put all this together um i just need a wordpress developer um and i got connected with a wordpress developer but um because whenever you're working with another person it like takes a little bit longer to get contracts put together and stuff like that and in the time period of me getting in contact with them and getting started uh and getting that contract put together um i spent a lot of time at webflow university uh and i learned about it from rand segal and i'm like oh this is so cool because i saw his uh like build a website in like 10 minutes or five minutes video and i thought it was so cool and it was really funny because i was spending an aggressive amount of time at like my kitchen table just going through all of the web the university videos and um i got to a point where i got the estimate from the wordpress developer and i looked at it and i was like i think i can do this myself there you go and uh and so i i pitched myself to the client i said listen this this other person has like 10 years of experience i just started like this is the price i would give and they looked at uh word they looked at webflow's website and how i described it and i gave them all the materials make your own decision like i'm sure it'd be fine either way but like this is what you want to do um and they said oh we'd love to go with webflow like based on all the interactions and everything that you're talking about and the cms like we're gonna go with webflow we're going with you i was like okay so that project's happening right now and um yeah and and and that's how i i got uh to know you and that's how i got to know a lot of the people and and that's how this podcast even started um i really wanted to meet all these people because i found out that there was actually like a webflow community on linkedin and like everywhere and it's very different um the the way that you talk about webflow is interesting because um uh uh it's it's something that you're like super it's very obvious that you're passionate in a really authentic way about it because um that's i don't know it just seems like there's something different about webflow and it's just really uh like life-changing for people to be able to have this amount of independence to do stuff and and learn things really quickly even though it's something that's really complicated so yeah it's the whole thing of um you know what now i'm gonna get a little philosophical here um it's all about helping each other out and um uh this thing called emergence and it's um emergency is something that i learned from one of my wife's clients and um if you if you think about like nature okay how when you look at an ant and it's by itself and it's just roaming around it's scouting us humans we we look at that single ant and we're like oh it has has no real purpose it seems kind of dumb it's just you know it's by itself but yet you put many ants together and they can build bridges they can hunt they can build cities they can they can do wonderful crazy things that we're like whoa ants are actually pretty cool then and then that got my mind thinking more about like okay same thing like an atom or something you you and adam is like by itself like has no will not really a purple like what by itself it's okay but you put many together it's like okay things are happening you take our organs as as human beings take your organs take one organ out and you're like okay by itself it's like yeah put many together it creates us humans so now think of it from a higher standpoint uh one person by themselves it's like they can't really do much but everyone together and we're building space stations we're going different planets we're shooting robots beyond our our solar system we can do so much together and that's what i think when it comes to this no code movement the fact that people are learning and immediately sharing what they learn for free brings us all up and you've probably heard our ceo of vlad say this a lot um rising tide lifts all ships and that's what we are doing as a no code community we're lifting each other up and so how i started my youtube channel was just from the natural curiosity of oh webflow can do this let me make a video and like show people what i figured out and i still do that today where uh i learned um like this this client wants me to do something super complicated i don't know how to do it so i'm gonna try to figure it out and if i do figure it out i immediately make a youtube video or do a stream and say this is how i figured it out this is amazing here take the knowledge and then from that everyone grows and when i need help i'm looking through youtube too and i've went through like there's like flow base fin suite jet boost um uh just so many wonderful communities people um and videos that are just helping the no code community all grow and it's just awesome and i think that's what's different about this no code community is because we're not selfish we're not like oh i have knowledge i'm gonna keep it and i'm gonna sell it for tens of thousands of dollars if you want this knowledge no here have it because if you grow we all grow if you look at um fin suite they do that all the time with their products like um the cookie consent banner usually you have to pay a third party service for that no they came out with their own went through their legal team and said here everyone you can have the code for free and so that helps you as a designer slash uh web a web flow developer and it saves money on your client too so things like that it's just it makes me so happy to to be in this community and it's just getting started i i wanted to talk to you a little about that because you um you said something specific where when you found webflow and you found your youtube channel and and mentoring all these people you you found your tribe um and so i also wanted to if things are too personal let me know um but uh i remember you talking about um in grade school when uh you didn't feel like you like fit in as much and so i wanted to hear a little bit about that and uh i was just curious as a person like how how you you um went from that space when you were a kid to now uh coming here and feeling like you finally found a tribe that you really jived with so growing up yeah in grade school i i and a lot of people go through this you know you don't really know who you are until you take a step back and realize you know you always feel like you're weird so when you're growing up in school you have all these cliques you have the popular kids you have the nerdy kids yeah like uh the emos goth or whatever like because everyone is just trying to find their tribe right and i'll admit when i was in middle school um and i'm just gonna show my age real quick crisscross was so cool and i would sneak into my dad's closet to use his pants and wear it backwards because i wanted to fit in with the cool kids and when my father came home he was like what are you doing you know like those are my pants i was like but it's cool dad and like i i even changed the way um my handwriting because i was like ooh all the cool kids are doing and you know i was always being fake but then um i quickly grew out of that and uh in grade school i would only have like one or two friends and just being the odd one out and i'd rather hang out at um in a computer lab or math class and just have lunch there rather than because i couldn't really find a tribe of people who understood me um and then even fast forward to high school when i started when i was really into web design there was no one in the school who understood html and css you know there was no really uh a school club and i'm like this is amazing this is before myspace was big you know and so i'm like you can make your own web page how come no one is talking about this how come there's no club and that's why i took over my computer lab class i asked my teacher can i teach html and i'm just writing on the board html and then head tag title tag body tag explaining everything to the class because i'm like if there's no tribe if there's no club about this cool code i'm gonna make one and so i kind of did and it made me happy and fast forward to today that's exactly what i'm doing it's just like hey i learned something new here but instead of on a dry erase board at uh at high school i'm doing it over the internet i i love that story because i i feel like i could really relate to it um i i told you i went to school for graphic design and uh i i got into that because um i i ran out of art classes in my high school and i just like to call them and then i started like making up my own classes which is interesting because that was similar to you and i i was like teaching myself uh indesign and all of this other stuff and i was like assistant teaching and these photoshop classes and um and and then i was like this is really fun i love like making these things on the computer and and i learned about graphic design and i'm like i don't really know what that is but i'm gonna go to school and study it and then i i went there and uh the entire time i was studying graphic design i really loved it but i felt like something was missing but the thing is i had no idea what it was like at all and i just knew that whatever i was doing right now was the closest thing to what i wanted to do and it's really scary when you're in school and you're paying all this money and and like it's and you're you have doubts and uh you don't want to admit it because you feel guilty for spending all this time and and it's really dumb because when you're 21 you have so much of your life to go and that's like the time period i was in and so um i i i took this independent class in user experience design um with daniel walter scott which is a udemy guy he's awesome uh and so i learned about user experience design from that and then uh um finding people from like the webflow community i i have friends now in uh hamburg i have friends in munich and uh um france and all these other places and it's it's really cool um that i can connect with these people and it's it's interesting because um like in high school uh and middle school um i i felt a little similar to you in which i had these friends that i had been friends with since like elementary school since we were in very small kids and they were wonderful and i loved them but um sometimes if i would invite them to hang out um i don't know like like sometimes if you can be surrounded by a bunch of people and still feel alone a little bit yeah and even if you like have all these people around you i remember uh driving home with my dad and i was just crying and he was like what's wrong with you and i'm like i don't know just so i i i just didn't feel right and then and it's just so weird because these people that i'm meeting are online like i've never talked to them in person i've zoomed with them i've done podcasts with them but it's just very weird because when you share a passion with somebody you can like really connect with them on a level that i didn't experience before yeah like outside of a relationship or something like that it's like it's so neat so i i really relate to when you talk about that that's what you know that's what everyone yeah humans are are tribal we're we're we're pack animals that's what we are and we're uh we're always looking for for the tribe that that we fit in with hence why you know we all go through these phases in life um trying to be cool and trying to find out what you really like and there are times just like you and i we have to pave our own path when society doesn't have it but thanks to the power of internet we can find our tribe even faster and um you know it it helps us feel less alone and i think as a kid growing up i've always even with a lot of people around me i feel alone because i didn't understand myself which meant no one understood me and um thinking about you know like my thinking about my past life you know i didn't really find myself until i uh until i found webflow because again there was a moment where like at the current job i didn't know who did i didn't really like it the job before webflow and um the environment was just way too stressful and i was like i need a way out so i'm applying to all these jobs and out of nowhere you know um i was helping people on the webflow forums and then out of nowhere i get this email from this random person on the webflow forums saying hey uh where's pixelgeek he's been helping for a while but now i haven't seen him in a couple months and i'm like someone actually cares someone was noticed holy crap and so because of that small message i was able to lift myself up from a very sad place and i'm like i'm gonna just keep going and a month from that message i get an email from vlad asking if i want to join the team and i'm like let's go and so everything i'm i've been doing was is trying to give back to the community what i was fortunate enough to have to to gain i i gained a dream job and i'm like i need to find a way to give back twice as much and if someone gives me twice as much then i have to give even more exponentially and that's what i try to do all the time because again it is not all these good feelings all these all these things i'm grateful for should not be hoarded they should be given back as much as possible um and that whole rising tide lives all yeah so that thing again and when trying to find your tribe i think that's how you find it just give back with your honesty and empathy and people will notice that and they will either want you to join them or they would want to follow you either way keep giving back and you see this done with so many great youtubers so many great um uh content creators um like one that i always watch i love him mark rober the guy from nasa who now makes all these funny videos but uh he's teaching science and engineering and you're like oh cool you know and you want to follow him because he just feels like the the same type of nerd or curiosity that you have and so yeah thanks to the power of internet uh you can find the tribe and it's it's hard to fake authenticity like that i feel like people sniff it out pretty easily yeah so sadly in the other side of the internet it's so easy to fake something and it's increasingly harder to become honest there's so many tools to help you fake something so in youtube video editing has gotten way easier that you can just edit everything and people have like fast editing and now tick tock and whatnot it's hard i guess i'm too old for it because it's too hard for me to keep up because people either speed up their videos or they have so many cuts and so when they're talking it's like this [Laughter] stop editing you know or instagram filters and snapchat filters it's like there's everything is a filter everything is edited everything has to be perfect and what i it's sad for this society is that we perfection sells marketing promotes perfection when in reality no one is perfect if you perceive yourself as per and i put this on my website if you perceive yourself as perfect you're the least perfect if you perceive yourself as the least perfect but striving for perfection then you are the most perfect it's a weird weird thing in in our in our lives but that's it to me that's what i figured out and i hate perfection mm-hmm yeah i in uh in being transparent uh i this is my my eighth podcast i've done uh but every single time thank you every single time i'm so nervous beforehand and uh it's crazy because um uh i i don't know it's just you think that it would get easier but uh you just go for it and then you start realizing that like even though you're feeling nervous like you can kind of just walk past it like yeah whatever it's fine and um and so like when i was a freshman in in college i uh i joined a the rowing team the crew team and uh i was a coxswain so i was the person that sits in like the very back of the boat and steers the boat um and uh it was the most terrifying thing i've ever done i would wake up every morning and just like feel dread but i would do it anyway and then the rest of my day i nothing was hard because i had to focus on not ramming a boat into a bridge and so um i i guess uh it does get tiring to like people say you should always do something that scares you and then you're progressing but um uh it's it's really tiring and something that um that i noticed with you is that um you're very open about uh if you're frustrated or anything like that like if if something doesn't go well you're like you're like it's okay like it's it's fine like we can just get fix this one thing in the stream and then we'll be fine um but uh one thing that's very consistent with you is that you seem really kind and open and just like wholesome to me often and so i was just wondering that that's not everybody's um go-to and i was just wondering it does it get tiring after a while just being positive a lot of the time when so many people are coming to you for help you can't have one with the other you cannot be happy without understanding sadness and vice versa i'm not always happy i'm not always positive and there are times when i'm just angry at something the world politics society um what i'm eating i don't know just you know like no one can be 100 positive um but having someone there to help you through that part of your life is so crucial and um and again we as humans can't go through life by ourselves we need help and once you express that you need help that's a great first step and then finding help is the harder part so i come from a filipino family and everything you know as asians like oh you have to be the best you have to you know you have to do good and you know i in height i almost didn't graduate high school really yeah like had d c's f's i didn't care about high school because i would i didn't do homework i was more fascinated by computers and web design and video games and i it's the last semester of high school that i i had to take an event accelerated course at high school and then um in the afternoon i'll go home and then at evening i would have to take adult classes just so i can catch up with my my credits and thankfully i was able to to graduate so yeah uh i wasn't ever perfect but sorry i'm veering off track we're going back to perfection um i guess where i've learned uh oh sorry you're talking about positivity uh so where i've learned that for the positivity i guess i've always had it uh naturally because i always cared for other people i didn't know why but it was just in me to be empathetic to others but it didn't come out more until web design because i would always be interested when people use my website so if someone's using a website that i made i always like to look from behind like oh why'd you click there so i was very already naturally interested in user experience but there wasn't no name for it at the time and then whenever i s uh whenever i see my wife install an app base back when the first iphone came out and and the app store came out and i would just watch her use an app and i'm like hmm and i'll be interested i don't know why i was interested why she would click on one thing not another and i guess that comes from an empathy like i'm always thinking how can this be better how can this website or this app how can i make a certain function easier for someone i'd always think that everywhere i go when it comes to digital screens and and then when i when i joined um the webflow forums i was even more empathetic because i was like oh okay i want to help you i want to help and then i got the job at webflow and i'm like oh i want to help even more and then when i uh met uh waldo uh if he waldo is another employee at webflow he used to be my director on the customer support team um when i met waldo if you want to talk about a positive kind person that guy follow him he okay taught me so much about empathy and his saying is live a life live an attitude of gratitude and i've learned so much from him and that just made me even more of a positive person but what made me eve like what tipped it over where i'm like i'm gonna be as positive as possible was when my wife and i got pregnant and had our child nova her going through pregnancy like that is something obviously um as a male i cannot go through and so seeing her go through the ups and downs was like something like i i thank you for taking on this stress you know um even though we both agreed to to have this child you know she has to take the the hard parts of it it's really and then the whole uh going through um labor i was there and um it just crazy crazy what the human accurate word can go through and i'm like jeez like i i am so grateful for you and then she went through postpartum depression and you know it was really a dark dark time for her and what i've learned is me as a husband i'm trying to fix everything like how can i fix this how can i fix this problem and the more that i pushed trying to fix things immediately the more she would get angry um and i've learned that you're there to listen and support you're not there to fix and from a male's point of view you grow up with a father and it's like oh like if you fall and scratch yourself just get back up you know rub some dirt on it and if you need to fix something fix it real quick it was the whole masculinity like oh just deal with it type of thing right yeah that's not that's not the way to go through life you me not understanding the chemical changes the organic changes in my wife's body going through all of these quick changes nine months that's fast going through all these changes i would not understand what's going through her head at all so why am i trying to fix it instead help her by listening and if she wants to find help you help her find help but you have to have faith to let her figure it out and that's what i learned and that's where all the empathy started to just pour in because then i'm like how am i in any situation it's not just web design it's just in life how am i how am i allowed to judge anyone if i haven't been in their shoes through every single moment of their life so i cannot judge anyone and that's why i try to that's why i stay positive all the time because it's like instead of making fun of someone or putting someone down you know what they're going through stuff that you don't understand so just let it be if they want help then they will ask for it and when someone asks for help you give it and that's it i when i was a a kid and i was really frustrated uh about trying to figure out these people that like i was arguing with or anything like that i got to a point where i actually wrote down something similar to what you just said and i put it up uh by my mirror in my bedroom and the phrase was i don't know if it was corny but it was um stop trying to figure out people who don't know who they are yet [Laughter] nice and every day when i would like to put my clothes on and like check my outfit right before i go to school i had that there and so i i really and it's one thing that um that i've gotten in a little bit in trouble for before um where uh somebody would be really just like lashing out or negative or something like that and then people i know would say like oh like you shouldn't talk to that person anymore like because of what they said or like they did this they did that and um i and i would respond like you have no idea what's going on that person's life like i this and um i've heard somebody else say this before that like uh a lot of people when they have kids i don't have kids but when they have kids they really look at people differently um where you like see everybody as like somebody's kid somebody's baby and you like they come out like really like blank slates some of them have like obvious personalities when they come out but um uh it really like when i heard somebody say that i i started to have a lot more empathy for people and it became less of a oh i don't like that person i can talk to them anymore it's just like boundaries of like okay if this person is like this and it like hurts me to be around them i'm not going to judge them i have to be angry at them it's just like i just don't choose to spend time with that person or um or if it's somebody that you love and they're going through a phase or something like that you like listen instead of obvi like automatically being like what's wrong with you all that kind of stuff because i'm sure that would have not solved anything in your your relationship with your wife during her pregnancy but um yeah so i really i really relate to that when when you talk about that and uh in my my way of trying to get to know you um i kind of want to talk about your wife a little bit um you you guys have been together for a really long time how how did you two meet and and when did you meet high school friend um so um so my neighbor um is a high school friend of my wife and uh we met at a at a graduation party of uh of another friend and and then i think we went one like group outing to like an arcade or something and then she beat me in virtual fighter and i was like whoa but like um but it was just one random day i'm bored and i'm like i'm just gonna call random people and like hey go watch a movie and um in like i don't know if she was she probably the third person i called or some something because i'm like hey i want to watch a movie and then like she was like wait is he into me is he asking me to date oh but uh no it was just like just go to a movie but um but that's how we met it was just through friends and we've been together since um 2004 not married since 2004 but like uh dating since 2004 and then got married in um 2013 but we're just you know we're best friends and um it's it's it's relationships are not happily ever after it takes so much empathy and growing up and and listening to all these stories of other relationships i understand now i understand why divorce rates are super high um i understand that you know relationships just get boring and you know it's all calm it all comes with empathy and honesty and and thankfully we both have common interests uh a base common interest in design and i'm a nerd for video games she's not but she'll still play a video game or two with me here and there whenever we have time and um i try to be interested in what she's interested in like there was a time when she was all about rupaul's drag race and oh really yeah and because of that i'm like okay let me try to understand this and i didn't understand the drag culture but then i learned from it and i'm like i have a lot of respect for these people you know it's not easy it's not easy to have a split personality how you're one one person on stage and another person but these people uh look beautiful no matter what [Laughter] that's amazing that's a feat that i'll probably never do and there are times when like my wife's like can i can i put makeup on you i'm like yeah sure you know just like face paint at that point you know try to be interested in what she's interested in and vice versa in in when there's no common ground uh it's just the same thing back to tribes you want you just want someone to understand you or be interested in what you're interested in and so i was lucky enough to find my life partner and that we like each other's interests when when you i was listening to your podcast with um with jessica and i i listened to um you talk about how she's very honest and she called herself very blunt and i wanted to ask uh because uh in my relationship i'm dating somebody from eastern europe and he's very honest and blunt to a fault sometimes and and uh i i took a while where i was trying to figure out like why i was so drawn to that because sometimes it's super annoying but um uh he's there's something that i really like about it and i want to know if you thought of it too um sometimes when people have uh like relationships and and and friendships with people um where you they like keep you guessing and they're not really direct with you and i don't know if that's like an american thing or something like that but um it's really rough sometimes when you're like walking on eggshells you don't know like did i upset somebody did i not and i the only other person that i heard say that other than you and me was this person named michael beirut he's a designer he's a graphic designer at pentagram and he was talking about his wife and how he describes her as um he married the only girl he's ever kissed and their first conversation was uh she looked him up and down she said you need to get new shoes we're gonna go get you some new shoes because like i guess i don't know she was like very honest about about uh about that and and he always felt so secure with her knowing that like i'm never gonna have to be guessing about what this person is like and and when i would get really frustrated with uh my boyfriend and just be like oh my gosh why are you like this i had to remember like you can't have that without the other like and so i was wondering how do you feel about her being so honest and blunt with you because i i really like it for some reason it took me a while to get used to um growing up uh my family is very beat around the bush if there's an elephant in the room we're not gonna talk about that elephant um and uh having a relationship with jessica it helped me learn from that um she's very blunt and she did the same thing she's like your wardrobe is like you need to she was the she taught me to be secure enough to wear a pink shirt you know and i thought i could never pull that off and she gave me the confidence and again uh it's easy to you know be fake and being around the bush it's hard to be honest and she's being honest with me and i had to take that in and let go of insecurities and say okay i trust you i will wear this type of shirt a pink shirt then led to polka dot shirt which led to skinny jeans which led to me like experimenting with different patterns of shirts and like now like wearing loud shirts is not a thing for me and like it used to be like i'm too afraid to to look different no embrace that everyone is different everyone is weird everyone's a nerd just embrace who you really are and um you know that honesty really helps and and plus when uh when jessica's honest it's because she wants me to become better because she knows that i can be better so let me help you with this uh let me help you take that next step in your evolution and um we're honest because of her being honest i've learned to be honest with her and when she's struggling with something or she feels so insecure about something i'm like you can do it and i always tell her um i always tell her and i tell a lot of people this too you are better than you realize and people need to hear that because we all think we are the worst version of ourselves because we are our worst uh own worst critic and you're also around yourself all the time you never get a break yes even when you sleep exactly exactly you see a little little pimple or something on your face and you're like oh the work i look horrible no you don't cancel today yeah you know embrace you and um where we do that in an honest way and again honesty and empathy uh there's that balance of you want to be honest but not to the point you're you're breaking them down and there are times when it hurts it hurts so hard but we respond to each other like you know what that one hurt you know and whenever we have arguments uh there are times yeah it's like i asked her like what's wrong what's wrong nothing nothing oh that word nothing but after an hour or two to cool down uh either her eye would come back and say okay this is what i was really feeling you hurt my feelings when you said this or when you did this and then we would talk it out and we would move on we would figure out a way to move on in and learn and again back to the postpartum depression howie learned more about the empathy was that she told me straight she said i read an article about postpartum depression and how it's doing this and this is how i feel and so every time you're telling me to do something uh or try to fix something you're pushing me away and i don't like it you're making me more upset and that's when that is so good that she can say that yeah it takes a lot of courage you know and it made me step back and go oh i'm the problem i will own up to that that i was causing more harm to you so i will step back and do my best to listen more so yeah honesty but uh honesty and empathy is how i run my life now and and i also really liked how um how how invested you are in in her her life and her success because um that's it's kind of like in in relationships there's there's the love component um in which there's like the the intimacy of a relationship but then on the other side it's a love component in which it's like the most intense friendship that you can have and i i love the way that you talk about her in terms of like you're proud of her accomplishments and and you you try to just give her as much as you can and i i just think that there's something like really beautiful about that that isn't in every relationship and when you talk about i understand how relationships end and i understand why so many people get divorced um a lot of people don't don't have both the the intimate and also like the intense friendship and it's really evident from any video that i see of you guys even if you were arguing like 20 minutes before you clicked record because i've been there yeah it's it's this love that i i wish everyone had um but sadly you know it's not possible again you can't have happy without sad and i'm just very lucky to have found someone that i can be a friend um well even our our wedding theme was uh inc the title of the incubus song friends and lovers and that's what uh that was the theme of it and um it's still prevalent today uh i i just want again if i help her then i'm helping the family and when she helps me she's helping the family and what we've learned from our marriage so in catholicism you're not allowed to to get married until you go through this class and um marriage class you know it tells you about marriage and whatnot and then after you take that class they send your results to the priest who is going to wed you and um the the the letter that's sent to the priest could be like you know what they're not compatible nope cancel wedding even after you've made a deposit on everything the dj and the flowers the photographer yeah like it's like no i had no idea but it but it's up to the priest to be like okay do i take this in or not but hey we got a good uh good grades and so we passed and but what we learned uh from that class the main thing that we learned which you know it still sticks with me is uh if you want to teach your kids love it has to start with the parents if the parents are continually uh expressing love to each other and and being kind and respectful then it'll naturally pass down to your kids and that's what we're trying to do and um and yeah i'm just very very lucky to have jessica and yeah yeah and just you know and even when you're talking about her i was kind of tearing up and i was like yeah oh i'm really really lucky and just seeing her grow is is beautiful to me because i again 2004 she was um she was graduating high school and i've been with her throughout her whole graphic design journey through college uh i remember waking up in the middle of the night because she's like hey this is for my final can you buy me some printer cartridges or print this over at uh fedex because we need this printed and it's like 2 a.m and i'm like okay i'll drive you and you know watching her grow from a graphic designer to her um helping her find her first job and seeing her get down on herself like it's been eight months since i graduated and i have no job i'm horrible to to uh making her own business and now she's starting a new job soon she's going to be a creative director and i'm like oh wow oh my god amazing and i just want her to live the life that she wants and um keep pushing herself to do bigger bigger things i mean bigger bigger things she's just finished running a 50 not 15 5-0 50k ultra run whoa i'm like that you are amazing and so on give her as much space much support as possible to just go even higher and um going back to what you said like how you start each podcast recording super nervous that is a good thing that is a good thing because if you weren't nervous that means you don't care because you're excited and you want the best from this recording and so you i even all right before every stream i have to take a nervous p oh i mean that i'm like yeah that's good because i'm it's relatable i'm excited about this like let's go let's teach you know so and what i learned from my wife as she's training her one thing that her coach said is um the as you're training for ultra runs the mountains don't get easier you just you become tolerant to more pain so the more podcasts you do you'll notice that it's easier easier no it's not easier you just understand it more which means then you can go to the next level because it's gonna get harder and then it'll get easier and then you find the next level and that's what i love about life it's never ending so many things to learn every day and we don't have enough time on this space rock to learn it so learn as much as you can but take breaks screw screw hustle culture take breaks but keep learning even it's something little like oh so that's what a butterfly does or something you know something a wiki you know but um yeah it embrace learning so yeah and then teach learning or teach knowledge that you've learned and we'll all become better i um before we wrap up i there's a couple more things i want to quickly talk to you about um but uh yeah i the first conversation that i had with somebody who is um uh outside of uh like greemer on [Laughter] buffalo university like not talking i'm just like looking on the screen um uh was um my friend nico in uh germany and i asked him uh i was like so what is your deal why do you make these youtube videos why are you giving this information why are you helping people on forums like what's the deal and and he was he said something that was really great he said i i know what i'm worth i just think that this thing needs to happen more and like there's there's like not enough people to do this so like if i uplift everybody then it all gets better he's like he i'm paraphrasing he was like i can't do everything what makes you think that i need to like keep this information and i was talking to him on zoomed i was like that's a totally different way to look at it yeah but um but just speaking of your family and everything something i was like personally curious about was um i know you're a big fan of like spacex and tesla and all of that i was curious uh what the idea oh yes yes yes and uh i um he was uh franny raises listening he has a uh uh a spacex uh a uh um uh astronaut tattoo my only pinned tweet and um uh i was curious if that was part of the idea behind your daughter nova's name so uh when we're coming up with names i told my wife it has to ha there's two one of two requirements okay either a it's video game related or b it's space related you know and i was kicking around the name faith because of a cool game called mirror's edge i was into at the time and my wife um is religious and so i was like okay faith and we shelved it we like to shelve names okay we're gonna come back to it and see if it's still if it still hits you know and then um one day uh she just came home and she was like nova and i was like yeah such a beautiful name starcraft has a character named nova and and nova is space related you win that's it and she loves it too because she's a letter forum nerd she she loves typography and so she's like oh because when you can kern the v with the a real close and then uh yeah that would be so cool you know like okay yeah that's cool like we're already thinking about how she's she's already thinking about like kerning for her daughter's name that's beautiful logos for her and all that stuff for like yeah because we're design nerds and um i learned to appreciate design more because of jessica and packaging and letter uh paper weights and whatnot and so like learning all this and um and uh finding nova's name it's just so amazing and again it goes back to common interests it's just fun no each part of our lives it's just fun i'm so excited for everything with your daughter and and she it seems really like a very sweet relationship that you guys all have with each other and uh one thing that i uh when you talk about how to model and as we're closing up uh as you when you talk about modeling relationships and modeling things for your daughter um i think one thing that's also really important um is like and this is something that i had to learn uh because there's the whole idea of like don't argue in front of your kids thing that some people uh practice um but i think that it's like super important to like teach them how to argue because it's really i don't i don't know if you feel that way but um uh it's it's really helpful because uh uh sometimes people can like get like super in the moment and they like don't know what to do with this feeling but like teaching her that is like so important so that's just one thing that i thought of when you were talking about relationships and and jessica yeah again empathy and honesty the honesty part is you know you're being honest with the whole family like i'm angry about this situation and then the empathy of how can we fix it together and when you don't hide that behind the scenes you know then um our daughter will see that and subconsciously pull that in and say oh this is how you handle situations you just be upfront with it or give someone time to process and cool down yeah but if we just kept that behind closed doors then when she gets into that issue in her life which she will um or that moment in her life which she will then [Music] if she didn't see us work through it then she'd be like i don't know how to work through it so i'm just getting super angry and if i see some other couple dealing with it in a very negative way then i'm just going to gravitate towards that because i haven't haven't been exposed to it parenting is very parenting is hard it's the thing i'll get there one day if you do it's a hard balance of of exposing there's is it exposing too much or too little there's always that balance um are you keeping them too safe from the world or are you letting them be as carefree as possible there's mental balance and it's it's hard to find because there's no such thing as an average kid everyone is different and so there's no book there's no lesson plan that it's it you just gotta figure it out and it's hard and um you learn so so much from your kids because it's a mirror it's a mirror because they're watching you you're watching them and they take after you whether through genes or through actions and if you can come through every situation honesty and empathy then she or she or they will mirror that and yeah and that's what we try to do the there's one last thing i wanted to tell you before we we close um uh and we're coming up on an hour and a half uh i uh but before i i discovered webflow um uh and before i decided to go into i i loved user experience design i was applying to jobs uh now i like run my own company um which is a thing yeah very exciting um and but before i i did this i was actually a maid um and uh and before i did that i worked as a graphic designer in like a corporate company which treated me very well they were wonderful don't want to say anything negative about them but um in the the corporate company i felt kind of similar to the way you described your previous job um where i know there was something just that that was just wrong like i i was like in an office all day and i was like i didn't have any like fresh air i i was like cooking a screen all day and then i was living in a like very very shoebox apartment like i was actually living in a like somebody's closet that they just put temporary walls around that like harry potter and uh i was living in new york and uh uh and and i was like spending so much time on screen and like not doing anything i just not doing anything active and not having less sunlight and then uh it was it was rough and i i i was scared because i i thought this is what my future's gonna be like i don't know if i want to do this because like after after being like so burnt out and and doing this all day every day for like six months i um i like just wanted to just like be asleep all the time like i just wanted to like i i didn't want to do anything bad and i've talked to this about this before but like i just wanted to like go to bed i just didn't want to be awake anymore and it was really rough and then i i came back and i was like oh my gosh i'm in the outside world like i get like a year more of college i can like take a nap in the middle of the day or i can like do things on my own time and i still in my mind freelancing and then like having my own business and working from home was like not in my mind at all and then i started working as a nanny and a maid and i was like uh doing people's laundry and like like cleaning people's houses and stuff like that i was like again all the people that i worked for were very kind but it's just like it wasn't the right place for me and then i uh got that job working the website and then i started with webflow and i was like oh my god this is my ticket out thank you and so if if you talk to anybody at work or anything like that just like like this changed my life so thank you i will send this recording to the team because it changed webflow has changed so many lives for so many people i've heard stories like this you know it's changed my life and uh yeah it oh my god i didn't expect to cry on stream hi everybody it's happy tears it's happy tears i had those too i mean like that just it it's beautiful because again making websites more accessible means that you can spend time helping and uh helping others build up their business because then they'll want to help you build up yours and you can do what you love to do which is design for a great user experience designing with empathy and it's it's beautiful it's beautiful to see and it doesn't get old it doesn't get old and um and i i'm glad that you've found webflow and you've joined the community because uh this is again this is just the beginning and so all these feelings that you're having right now the fact that you're doing a podcast and helping share stories and you've built it on your own website through webflow it that's beautiful keep sharing these stories keep giving avenues for people to learn and thank you for doing it oh i i uh i i did the progress so i can like meet more people and learn from them and everything like that um and so just thank you so much for coming on and being very encouraging um i to close out since people might be listening to to us here on like youtube or anything or they might be listening to us on my uh spotify um i will just close out with uh me saying like who i am and how people can contact me and then we'll close with you and how people can find you on all your different places and then i'll put them all in my description if you're listening to this on my platforms um so uh my name is emily giordano i am a web flow designer and developer uh user experience graphic design person um and what i do is i i make websites uh for people and i do a bunch of really really cool stuff and so if you ever have a project or you just like to talk to me or if you want to recommend somebody for the podcast uh you can find me at uh emily that's e-m-i-l-y at greatdesignlead.com or you can find my website at greatdesignlead.com and now we're gonna finish up with nelson hi again i'm nelson uh uh you can find me at pixelgeek.co or join my community over at pixelgeek.com uh i promise not to make you cry on that chat board but i will do my best to help you level up in your web design journey uh you can find me on twitter at the pixel geek um but in oh yeah in this youtube channel youtube.com pixelgeek uh yeah emily you are a beautiful person and i congratulate you on the journey you've been through from a maid to a entrepreneur business owner graphic and web designer and podcast host i mean i haven't done more than two or three podcast episodes so it i know that it's tough to to even get to 10. so congratulations once you hit the 10 congratulations on that i'm honored to be on this uh podcast and part of your journey um so thank you thank you so much absolutely all right well i guess this is until next time all right have a good day

Channel: pixelgeek

Views: 353

Keywords: webflow, web design tutorial, webflow tutorial, graphic design, web development, pixelgeek, pixel geek, podcast

Id: ErPMbme0IiA

Length: 74min 0sec (4440 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 02 2021