Episode 11, Jason Ogle: Your Mess is Your MESSAGE!

My guest today is Jason Ogle, who describes himself as a passionate user defender — fighting for users who are victims of bad design decisions. 

He's an influential podcaster whose amazing USER DEFENDERS podcast is continuing to inspire and equip an audience of hungry, ambitious designers and UXers. 

Jason believes in failing early, and learning often. And as you’ll hear, every one of those failures has only pushed him to bigger, better and more incredible things. 

Jason Ogle, as the podcast title suggests, truly has a gift for turning a mess into a message.  

Twitter:

@jasonogle

LinkedIn:

Jason Ogle

Instagram:

highgrown

Websites:

User Defenders Podcast
User Defenders Online Community

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Episode Transcript

Joe Natoli (00:08):
Hello and welcome to making Ux work that give good UX
podcast.
I'm your host, Jonah.
Totally.
And our focus here is on folkslike you doing a real often
unglamorous UX work in the realworld.
You'll hear about theirstruggles, their successes, and
their journey to and through thetrenches of product design,
development, and of course, userexperience.

(00:30):
My guest today is Jason Ogle,who describes himself as a
passionate user defenderfighting for users who are
victims of bad design decisions.
He's an influential podcasterwho's amazing user defenders
podcast is continuing to inspireand equip and audience of
hungry, ambitious designers andUx years.
Jason believes in failing earlyand learning off it.

(00:51):
And as you'll hear, every singleone of those failures has only
pushed him to bigger, better,and more incredible things.
Jason Oval in all things hastruly turned a mess into a
message.
Here's my conversation withJason Ogle on making Ux work.
So Jason, how are you?

Jason Ogle (01:12):
Hey, quite well Joe.
I am just starting my morninghere.
I am a morning guy, so I, I'mreally, I love the mornings man.
And I like Mondays too.
I'm weird.

Joe Natoli (01:23):
Wow.
I aspire to both those things Ihave never been able to achieve
either.
Were you always that way or didthat develop over time?

Jason Ogle (01:33):
Not at all.
No.
I was a night owl for a longtime and then I heard Episode
One 50th Pat Flynn, smartpassive income podcast, and it
changed my life quite literallya he in a nutshell.
He talked about how he became amorning person, uh, by following
Hal Elrod, the guy who wrote thebook called Miracle Morning,
which I've been reading.

(01:54):
Interesting.
Oh my goodness.
Uh, I think your next brothermay be, I'm telling you it's,
it's radical.
I love it.

Joe Natoli (02:03):
So out of curiosity, I mean, tell me more about that.
When did you start sort ofchanging your, your morning
habits and how hard was it to dothat at the beginning?

Jason Ogle (02:11):
Yeah, so 2015 was the year that it all began for
me, my, my manager.
We were talking about podcasts.
I just started listening topodcasts.
Like I actually, let me takethat back.
I listened back in like the midnineties, like when podcasts
were brand new.
I listened for awhile and then Istopped.
And then, um, I started gettinginto it again because of my

(02:32):
commute.
And my manager told me, he'slike, have you heard of Pat
Flynn?
Smart passive income podcast?
I said, no, heaven.
He's like, oh, it's, it's great.
You know, it's great forentrepreneurs, it's great for
personal growth people, youknow, all that.
And I, and I had just kind ofbegun my personal growth
journey.
Um, I've been trying to kind ofdevelop my brain and my
knowledge and to, to try to helppeople.
And so I was like, okay, I'mgoing to check it out.

(02:54):
And it was a Friday, I remember,and I, the first episode that I
downloaded was episode one 50.
It was the very first one Iheard.
And it's him basically talkingabout how he started a morning
routine and it's just reallychanged everything for him.
I'm like, you know what, I thinkthis is what's been missing in
my life and I think this is whatI need to do.
And so I said, I commit Monday,I'm starting this and Monday

(03:15):
came, I woke up at 5:00 AM,which is unheard of for me.
And I did it.
And I'm not kidding you.
It felt like Christmas morning.

Joe Natoli (03:22):
Wow.

Jason Ogle (03:22):
It just, it was quiet, it was dark.
And it was just like, I justlike, I woke up for me.
And that's the difference Joeand listeners, it's how often do
we wake up for others.
We wake up for our jobs, we wakeup, I'm sure you know, for our
family, which is good, isimportant of course.
But here's, here's the thing andhere's what I really learned is

(03:42):
that we can't pour an emptyvessel into another.
Right?
So we got to fill our cup inorder to actually have something
to give to others.
And so that's, that's reallywhen it began for me.
I woke up for myself, I had myquiet time, you know, I had some
meditation time for me, which isscripture reading and prayer
and, and also like, you know,doing some journaling.
I do the five minute journal,which has been really, really

(04:04):
instrumental as well.
And then I go into some physicalfitness and um, and it really,
I'm telling you to change mylife.
Like wicked it for me filling upmy cup and just kind of getting,
um, fit, not, not justphysically button, but mentally.
I lost 40 pounds in like sixmonths and user defenders
podcast was a result of mymorning routine.
I'm not kidding.

Joe Natoli (04:22):
Yeah, I can, I can believe that.

Jason Ogle (04:23):
Yeah.
I was driving to work one dayand, and then I just had this
idea, you know, and this isactually scientific Joe.
There's, there's a chemicalthat's released in when you
exercise, there's a chemicalrelease called BDNF and that
stands for brain derivedneurotropic factor and that that
is a chemical that is onlyreleased when you sweat and kind
of do an exercise.
And what it does is it opens newneuropathways and it lends to

(04:45):
new ideas.
I'm not kidding.
And I was like, this makes somuch sense now I realized that
this is what I need to do.
I need to start a podcast tohelp, especially a up and coming
designers to stay inspired andequipped in this ever evolving
field.

Joe Natoli (05:00):
Yeah, I totally believe that it for two reasons.
Number one, like I said, I'vebeen reading how's book and I'm
sort of flirting with this inthe morning.
I'm not very disciplined, I'mgoing to be honest, but the
Times that I've done it, it hascertainly made a difference in
the clarity that I havethroughout the day.
And that's the first thing.
The second thing is that what'sfunny is when I travel, which
last year was a lot, my morningswhen I am traveling, when I'm in

(05:23):
another country, when I'm inanother, even in a city in the
US, my morning habits are verydifferent.
I wake up, I don't know, grab myphone, I don't grab the laptop.
It's just total silence andcoffee in the morning and that's
kind of it.
Right before I go in and dowhatever I'm going to do, which
is, you know, the conference orthe or the Gig or the client
team or whatever the case maybe.

Jason Ogle (05:42):
Sure.

Joe Natoli (05:43):
And it's just very different.
And what's funny is when I comehome, I sort of fall into this
very different routine where I'mconstantly checking email and
constantly checking social mediaof doing this or that.
And um, it makes a bigdifference.
So really encouraging.
I want you to know to hear yousay that awesome.
Because it's all the more reasonto be more disciplined about it.

Jason Ogle (06:05):
And I love hearing that Joe and I, I completely, I
can empathize with you to acertain extent.
I am, I am not a traveling, I'mnot a, you know, a, a jet setter
myself.
I haven't, thankfully I've beenable to kind of stick around
here.
Uh, you know, cause I have avery large family that, uh, you
know, that requires a lot of Band a and I love it, but I, I

(06:25):
can empathize with you becausewhen you're traveling and you
know, when we traveled as afamily, you're just completely
in a different environment and,and environment is, is
everything.
You know, I'm in the sameenvironment every morning
practically.
You know, so I, I have all ofthe, that, the triggers, I have
all the cues around me that,that helped me to get into that
peak state.
I've been reading another booktoo by Benjamin Hardy called

(06:46):
willpower doesn't work andthat's a really great read.
He actually explains kind of whya morning routine is so
important in a, and I apologizein Idaho, I'm not saying that
you're, you're less productive.
I know that you probably are.
Everyone's different.
That's the thing.
I encourage you, if you're, ifyou're not getting as much out
of being a night owl, Iencourage you to try the morning
routine because he explains inhis book that in order for us to

(07:08):
be the best we can possibly beand do the most for others,
we've got to get our bodies intoa peak state.
And the only way to really trulydo that is to start our day off.
That way, when you start yourday off in, in that peak state,
you bring that with youthroughout your day.
And guess what?
Your empathy increases.
I'm not kidding.
Like I, my empathy levels haveincreased in seismic doses

(07:30):
because when you feel good, youwant other people to feel good.
I feel really healthy.
I've never, I'm 43 years old andI didn't care about, there's a
scripture that says bodilyexercise profits, little I based
my life on that teaching formost of my life.
And then when I turned 40 thisis, you know, about three years
ago, you know, 2015 this is whenit all changed for me.

(07:53):
And this has been the podcaststarted, this is when I started
to kind of, you know, building amore influence I guess in the
design community and, and beingable to give back.
That's really the goal for me isto be able to give back because
it took me 20 plus years tofinally do that.
And I know you've been doing itfor a long time, Joe, so thank
you.

Joe Natoli (08:08):
Well and that's, you're welcome and I appreciate
that, but that's, that's part ofgetting older as well.
You know, what you just said issomething that resonates not
only with me but everybody Iknow.
Like I just turned 50 last year.
And every person I know that'ssort of in the same age frame,
you know as us, the older youget, that giving back part

(08:29):
becomes tremendously important.
And you find that the work youdo.
And I've talked to a lot ofpeople who share this sentiment
no matter what you're doing,right?
Even if I'm in a room with aclient, I'm in a room ostensibly
to improve the user experienceof our product, to help an
organization make or save money,blah, blah, blah.
But for me, more so now thesedays it's, it's about those

(08:49):
people in the room.
It's about those people at thatorganization.
It's about the people using theproduct.
And my main concern is theamount of discomfort, right?
The amount of frustration, theamount of stress, the amount of
burnout, the amount of, of allthose things that are
transpiring because of what'sgoing on.
And that's really what I want tosolve.
I really feel like I wanteverybody's lives just to me a

(09:10):
little better, you know?
Absolutely.
And, and I don't know thatthat's, I don't know that that's
the same when you're younger.

Jason Ogle (09:17):
I think you're right, Joe and I can identify
with you.
No, no, I agree.
I just feel like, you know, you,you have gained a lot of
experience.
You've had 50 years, my friend,to gain a lot of experience and
knowledge and life lessons thatyou can then pour into others
who are behind you.
You know, and maybe they're justa little behind you, you know,
but you know, you're still aheadof them in ways that you can

(09:37):
give back.
And I think that as we getolder, and I'm feeling this, I
think we feel like we, we startthinking a lot more about
legacy.
Like what, what, how are wegoing to be remembered?
And I don't want to beremembered for being like a
curmudgeon.
Like, you know, my wife and Italk sometimes there's just some
people and sometimes,unfortunately there they may be
even being your family where youjust get older and they just,

(09:58):
maybe they hadn't taken goodcare of themselves or they just
get kind of miserable or youknow, grumpy and, and it, and it
comes out and everything, youknow, and, and so I, I just, I
think that there's just, youknow, that legacy factor, I
think we went to just beremembered for somebody who, who
really did care and really didtry to make a difference and
leave this place better than wefound it.

Joe Natoli (10:15):
Yeah, I think so.
And I think it becomes a lotmore important, number one, when
you have kids.

Jason Ogle (10:19):
Yeah.

Joe Natoli (10:19):
And number two, as you get older, you just, you see
the world very differently.
I mean, I look back when I wasin my, uh, you know, late
twenties, thirties, even, to behonest with you, right around
40, there are a lot of aspectsof life and work and everything
else that we're just very, very,very different than they are
now.

Jason Ogle (10:38):
Yeah.

Joe Natoli (10:39):
You know, you look at it differently.
Plus not to mention the factthat the physically okay, you
can go a lot harder for a lotlonger when you're younger, you
know, and those sleep is nosweat.
Yeah.
Amen.
And the older you get, time hasa way of saying, well, you know
what, you can't do that anymore.

(10:59):
You're not going to get awaywith it.

Jason Ogle (11:00):
Yeah.
That's, that's an absolutelytrue.

Joe Natoli (11:02):
You've been doing this.
And I say this in a very generalsense, right?
Because when I look down yourexperience on your linkedin
profile, for example, there'stremendous, various here.
I mean, you've touched a lot ofstuff.

Jason Ogle (11:15):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's true.

Joe Natoli (11:17):
Tell me a little bit about that journey.
I mean, how, because it seemslike it's changed.
It has, you know, like youstarted out doing more
interactive work, art direction,work.
Um, this, the piece at my spaceis tremendously interesting, um,
all the way to, you know, whereyou are now, where you're
focused more on UX stuff.
So from the time you sort ofstarted in this area, I mean,

(11:38):
how did all this transpire?

Jason Ogle (11:40):
Yeah, well I was on America Online in 1996, I think
it was 90, 95, 96, right.
In that, that area where everyweek you'd get a new, I mean the
CD Rom, uh, from, yeah, theywere burning money on those

(12:01):
things.
Oh my gosh, what a greatinvestment though at the time.
Right.
But you know, you were happy toreceive them because it wasn't
unlimited.
It was like you get 60 hours andthen you've got to pay them.
So it was like, as long as youkept getting the cds in the
mail, like you got, you got freeInternet service.
Right.
You know, those were actuallyquite covenant.
And I have one disk I open stillthat I kind of, that, that just,

(12:23):
it's sort of a piece ofnostalgia for me that my manager
at the same manager I told youabout, they told me about the
SPI.
He uh, gave that to me.
But anyway, that's where it allbegan for me.
I was a working in a kind of adead end day job.
I was a corporate lease driverfor um, for Ge.
And we would basically, youknow, drive cars to people and
pick them up and then wash them,wash a lot of cars.

(12:44):
So, uh, one day during a break,one of my associates pulled out
his laptop and which was aboutlike six inches thick.
Um, and then he like pulled upAmerica Online and I'm like,
what are you doing man?
And he's like, oh, I'm online,I'm, I'm chatting.

Joe Natoli (13:01):
You're, you're WHAT?

Jason Ogle (13:02):
"I don't know about this inner webs, this
internets." You remember that?
Uh, when Katie Couric, what isthis Internet, so what is this
email?
That that was kind of me man,like at that time I was like,
what?
What are you doing?
What is chat?
He said, well, I'm in a chatroom right now.

Joe Natoli (13:14):
See kids, there was a time when this stuff didn't
exist.

Jason Ogle (13:17):
Yes, that's right.
And I remember, we were there,man.
So I just remember like going,wow.
He's like, yeah, I'm justchatting with somebody in like,
you know, in the UK right now,Mike, how you doing that?
Like that's crazy.
And he's like, here, try it.
And so I, he, let me try it.
And I got into some like reallyengaging conversations right
away and I was like, I gottahave some of this, I need this.

(13:38):
And so I, I got a, I was able toget online using those CDs.
I tried it.
Um, and then I discovered afeature called personal
publisher that they had and itsaid, make your own webpage.
And I was like, that soundscool.
I want to, I want to do that.
And so I got in there and, and Istarted, I discover html for the
very first time and I discoveredthat that I could be artistic,

(14:00):
which, which I have a, anartistic background.
I've always used to draw comiccharacters like in detention in
junior high.

Joe Natoli (14:06):
Awesome.

Jason Ogle (14:06):
So I was like, yeah man.
I was like, you know, and, andso I was like, how I can
actually be artistic andtechnical.
Cause I had a technical benttoo.
I had an Amiga computer in the80s.

Joe Natoli (14:16):
Nice.

Jason Ogle (14:16):
I don't know if you remember.
You remember those, right Joe?
I actually had my first taste ofcode, uh, from that experience.
Like they gave you a manual.
And I was able to learn some, abasic.
So I learned a basic, I was, Iwas able to like make little
dumb, dumb little games and alsomake her talk, which was
awesome.
So I had like, I had an artisticand a kind of a technical
background.

(14:37):
And when I realized I couldcombine those and create a
webpage that anybody in theentire world could access with
just a few keystrokes, I was, Iwas in love.
It was, I was like, this is whatI want to do the rest of my
life.
I knew it.
And, um, and it took me anotherthree years, uh, really to get
my foot in the door.
I did some freelancing, um,until then, and built people's

(15:00):
websites and, you know, just fora few dollars here and there.
And, uh, and of course, DavidSiegel's book, creating killer
websites was the very, veryfirst web design book I ever
bought.
And it just changed my world,like, you know, and, and the
guy, you know, he called himselfan html terrorist or back then
and our web wank.
And, but what he put out intothe world, even though it wasn't

(15:21):
semantic, it wasn't, you know,we didn't have a lot of
standards yet.
That was still being worked on.

Joe Natoli (15:25):
Right, yeah.
Wild West.

Jason Ogle (15:26):
Yeah, exactly.
This was the wild west.
What he did with that book washe showed us designers how to
break out of having a just sometexts on a, like a colored
background.
That's all the web was.
At first it was just text on awhite text on a black background
or whatever.

Joe Natoli (15:41):
Right.

Jason Ogle (15:41):
Or in a ton of of animated gifs.

Joe Natoli (15:43):
Right.

Jason Ogle (15:43):
Like it's so funny to see.
So funny to see the revolution,right.
Go around like now animated gifsare all the rage.
I remember when we, when we gotso sick of those things in my
space was a part of that too.
You know, giving people thekeys, which we can get in, get
into as well if you want, butyou know that that's where it
all started for me, my friendand then I got my first foot in
the door in 99 at an ad agency.

(16:05):
That's where my art directortitle came from.
And uh, I had an awesomeportfolio.
I really did because I spent alot of time on the visual
aspects of it and the web reallyat that point, commerce hadn't
come in yet.
It was a very creative place tobe.
And, and I loved looking at whatother people were creating.
It was just like you said, itwas the wild west man and, and
there was just so muchinspiration on the web.

(16:27):
And you know, people likeJeffrey Zeldman of course, who I
know we both respect greatly,you know, he's a really one of
the pioneers of, of, of thisstuff.
Yeah, absolutely.
And so like, just seeing what hewas putting out there, his
blogging and, and I was just soinspired, man.
And so I got my foot in the doorand an ad agency with my awesome
portfolio, but I had zero clientexperience.
And so, you know, ad agenciesare cutthroat, man.

Joe Natoli (16:49):
Oh yeah.
I worked at several.

Jason Ogle (16:51):
so you know, you know what it's like man, it's,
and so I got in there and theygave me my first project and it
sucked.
It absolutely sucked.

Joe Natoli (17:05):
I have suspicions as to why, but tell me.

Jason Ogle (17:08):
I didn't know I, you know, I didn't know what I was
doing and that's the thing.
Like I hit the ground runningand I guess there's a, there's a
lesson in that.

Joe Natoli (17:16):
Was it a web project?

Jason Ogle (17:17):
It was, it was a web project and it was, I'm trying
to remember cause it was so longago.
I'm trying to remember if it wasa way, it might've been a print
project now that I'm thinking ofit.
It might have been a printproject that might've been part
of the problem that way.
It wasn't my wheelhouse, itwasn't what I had been focusing
on.
Um, so I just had to put a bunchof shapes.
It was so embarrassing, man.
I just, I put like some coolshapes on a, on a, on a page and

(17:41):
some text and I, I thought itwas good enough.
And you know, I really didn'tthink it was good.
I, I think I knew it was bad andI just didn't know what to do.

Joe Natoli (17:48):
Yeah, but that's part of the experience, right?
You gotta...that's really theonly way.
Okay.
I always feel like when you tellthat story and you're telling
me, you know, the time that youcame up when the Internet was
totally in its infancy andnobody really knew very much
about this, right.
And you threw yourself into asituation where you didn't know
the lay of the land and you gaveit a shot in the first instance

(18:10):
was terrible.
And all this stuff.
And the reason I interrupted youto talk about this is because I
hear variations on this questionevery day where young designers,
young UXers, even developerstalk to me about this fear that
they have of screwing up, right?
And I, and I almost, I feel likeI cannot say enough: DO IT

(18:31):
ANYWAY.

Jason Ogle (18:31):
Amen.

Joe Natoli (18:31):
So the story you're telling it is proof positive.
All right.
For those of you that arelistening, look at, take a good
look at Jason's career and thenthink about this story that he's
telling right now.
All right, this is proofpositive.
This isn't going to stop you.
It's how you learn.
Anyway, I'll shut up now.
Keep talking.

Jason Ogle (18:48):
No, no, that's, I appreciate you injecting that
because that is, that is areally important part of that
story.
And I will tell you that after Ishipped that I got some
interesting looks from mymanager, I'm sure.
Um, who then, uh, I'll be honestwith you, kind of like took me
aside probably a day or twolater and said, I don't think
this is going to work out.

Joe Natoli (19:08):
Oh Man.
Did they keep you or did youleave?

Jason Ogle (19:13):
So here's, here's the twist.
He was actually trying to helpme find another place to work.
Wow.
He was ushering me out.
I mean, I get it.
I get it.
It was not agency level work.
Um, and they thought because ofmy portfolio that I, and I was,
it was an awesome portfolio.
I put a lot of creativity andthought into it.
And they thought because of myportfolio, I'd be able to just
jump right into agency work, hitthe ground running.

(19:35):
And you know, and I wasn't ableto offhand, but you know what?
This is where growth mindsetcomes in and anybody who's
listening to me talk on mypodcast and, and even just in
my, my writing, like I alwaysjust really reinforced that that
point is have a growth mindsetbecause I was so hungry to stay
on, to continue doing this workand, and, and also really

(19:56):
terrified to try to find anotherfoot in the door.

Joe Natoli (19:59):
Of course.

Jason Ogle (19:59):
I, you know, and I interviewed for a company, it
was like a semiconductor companywas like this.
I would probably hang myself,you know, like a day into
working at this.
It just was not something I wasinterested in.
So I, I basically, I told mymanager, I said, look, I said, I
know my, I know it wasn't good,but I want this.
Like I will do whatever it takesto make this work.

(20:21):
Like, what, what do you, whatsuggestions do you have for me?
How can I stay here?
How can I make this happen?
And he said, you know, he'slike, maybe enroll yourself in
some courses, take some courses.
There's a, there's an extensioncampus nearby.
It's a night school.
You can jump right in and startdoing that.
And he's like, but it's on yourdime, you know, he's like, it's
your, your, your pennies forthat.

(20:43):
And it was a, certainly a lotmore than, than pennies.
But um, I, okay.
I said done.
And I that like within minutes Ienrolled myself into a graphic
design and visual communication,the certification course over
here at this place.
And um, four nights a week afterwork I was there and doing this,
getting, getting my education.

(21:04):
I'm on the fly and still stayingon at my job.
And you know, what happened?
And this is a really good lessonfor, for all your listeners who
may, may be feeling like thatimposter syndrome of like, I'm
not good enough.
I can't just get my foot insomewhere and just start doing
work.
You got it.
Like Joe said, do it anyway.

Joe Natoli (21:21):
Yep.

Jason Ogle (21:22):
You will regret it if you don't.
That's a big lesson.
You'll look back, you know,like, like 30 years, 20 years
later, and you'll regret nothaving tried.

Joe Natoli (21:29):
Not quitting is important.
I always say you either win oryou learn.
You know, there is no inbetween.
There are no wrong turns.
There's no...
nothing's going to stop you.

Jason Ogle (21:38):
Yes.
Just shortly after I startedenrolling and taking these
courses, one of the biggestprojects that I had at this
agency landed in my lap.
I was able to, to be a lead ondesigning the first like global
website that was connected to adatabase, to using ASP, working
with developers.
Like I was able to be the leadon this.

(22:00):
And the client was blown away bythe comps that I have made.
And, and the actual outcome was,was huge, was a huge leap for
this, this a global business.
Perfect.
And so that was like, that wasit for me.
And unfortunately, theunfortunate thing is that dot.
Bomb happened.
It wasn't my, my work, my workgot better and better as I got
hungrier and hungrier and passmore and more passionate to do

(22:22):
this stuff in an agency setting.
But dot bomb happened, you know,in 2000 and that just killed it.
I, everybody, my wholedepartment got laid off.
Basically, they shut down the,uh, the.com side of things.

Joe Natoli (22:34):
Oh yeah, my first company, it hurt us.
It hit us hard.
I mean, that was, Oh GOD.

Jason Ogle (22:41):
It hurt and nobody could find...
hardly any web designers couldfind any work for a while.

Joe Natoli (22:46):
Yeah.
It was really bad.

Jason Ogle (22:47):
You know, and so that's when I was like, I can't,
I got a family.
I had just been married.
I got married in[inaudible] 99and we had our first child on
the way.
Um, and, and, you know, and thenwe got pregnant with our second
child shortly thereafter.
And so I'm like, I got to dosomething.
I got a family, I've got mouthsto feed, you know, my wife
stays, uh, wanted to be a stayat home mom.
And so that was important to metoo.

(23:07):
And if I did whatever, I took,whatever it took to make that
happen.
And so, anyway, that's when Ikind of like, I need insurance
for the family.
And I was like, and I got tojump in somewhere quick.
I work, I got a job at Starbucksas a shift manager.
I mean, that's weird.
That's not on my LinkedIneither, I don't think.
But I was, uh, probably forobvious reasons.
It's just not really related,but, um, but that was a really,

(23:30):
that was a crazy time too.
I worked there for a year,opened the store Monday through
Friday up at 3:45 AM Mondaythrough Friday.
And, uh, that wasn't enough ofa, of a salary to provide for my
family.
So of course I had to dofreelancing at the time, so I
was working at Starbucks and Iwas freelancing and, uh, that

(23:51):
wasn't quite enough either.
So I had to get a third job andthat's when I got a foot in the
door in a print shop.
You know, it's like, you knowwhat, I can't find anything on
the web right now.
And everybody's lost a lot ofconfidence and faith unless
you're Amazon.
Right.
And so, and you know, andthere's a story there to be
told, but um, you know, I waslike, okay, well I'm gonna try
print.
I would love to kind of get awell rounded view of kind of how

(24:13):
you get ink on paper.
As I heard you mentioned in oneof your other episodes, you were
talking about that, you know,and, and so I figured that out.
I was able to, to kind of to bea lead.
I eventually elite at thatorganization and um, and so
that's kind of been a big partof my well-roundedness and, and
I got into another agency afterthat doing a lot of print work
still.

(24:34):
I'm a little bit of ainteractive and then I got laid
off from that job.
I mean it's, it's crazy.
Looking back, I've been laid offprobably five or six times, Joe,
in this field and I just keep, Ikeep coming back, you know.
Like

Joe Natoli (24:44):
Obviously.

Jason Ogle (24:44):
I have a tattoo on my arm.
It says fall seven rise eight.
I love that.
So it's like it's inked, it's aslong as I rise more than I fall,
then I'm on the right track.
And that's for everybody.

Joe Natoli (24:56):
That's right.
This is what I mean when I saynothing can stop you.

Jason Ogle (25:00):
Yes.

Joe Natoli (25:00):
Okay?
I said this a couple weeks backto somebody online.
Okay.
Was someone who was saying, youknow, he couldn't find a job,
was frustrated and you know,this, this sort of thing where
the world is conspiring againstme.
And I did my best, you know, totry and pump them up and say,
look, you've got to stay at it.
You know, you're good at whatyou do.
You've got evidence that saysyou're good at what you do.

(25:21):
You know, people are sayingpositive things about you and
your work...
And I couldn't get through.
And finally the last thing Isaid was, look, all I can tell
you is that in a career that'slike almost three decades at
this point, I will tell youunequivocally that the only
thing that has ever stopped mewas ME.

Jason Ogle (25:39):
Hmm.

Joe Natoli (25:40):
Okay?
And if you live on this earth,if you get up and put your pants
on in the morning, life is gonnathrow you some hard curve balls.

Jason Ogle (25:49):
Yeah.

Joe Natoli (25:49):
Right?
It's just, that's the gig.
Everybody has struggles.
Everybody has had moments wherethey think to themselves, I
don't know if I can do this.
I don't know if I'm cut out forit.
I don't know if I'm right forit.
And you mentioned impostersyndrome.

Jason Ogle (26:02):
Yeah.

Joe Natoli (26:02):
That's gonna be there.
What you do in those times, howyou react, um, how hard you
push, how, how often do you sayto yourself, I got to just keep
trying.
Has everything to do withgetting where you're going.

Jason Ogle (26:16):
Yeah.

Joe Natoli (26:17):
All right?
So I, to me your story, justthat little piece that you
shared with us just now, istremendously inspiring and, and
you know, not because, well,you're my guest and I want to
make you feel great— which I do—but it really truly is a prime
example of how this works.
All right.
This is what it takes.
You get, what'd you say, knockeddown seven rise eight?

Jason Ogle (26:37):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fall seven, rise eight.

Joe Natoli (26:39):
Fall seven, rise eight.
That's the Gig.
Yeah, it really is.
So think it's fantastic to hearyou tell that story.

Jason Ogle (26:45):
Thank you Joe.
And it's, it's hard.
It's not easy.

Joe Natoli (26:50):
No.

Jason Ogle (26:50):
And that's the thing.
That's why like I never, I neverbuy into the build an audience
in 30 days thing, you know, it'snot possible.
It's not possible.
It's not, and not in the rightways.

Joe Natoli (27:02):
Nah, this is a marathon.
This is a marathon, not asprint.

Jason Ogle (27:05):
Exactly.
Exactly.
And I mean, I remember when I,you know, before I worked at my
space, I was in a band and Idiscovered a really cool piece
of software called FriendBlaster Pro.
Yeah, man.
Guess what?
Within two or three years I had40,000 fans of my band.

Joe Natoli (27:26):
Yeah man!

Jason Ogle (27:27):
Quote unquote quote unquote"fans."

Joe Natoli (27:29):
Yeah.

Jason Ogle (27:30):
Right.
And, and you know, it lookedgood.
Like I was able to kind of get afew opportunities for my band as
a result of what they saw on thesurface.
But guess what, when I put a newsong, when my, my buddy and I
put a new song out, we got maybea hundred listens in the day and
you know, and I mean, I guessthat was okay when you look at
the numbers, but when you lookat the numbers it's like, Jeez,
if those people really caredabout my band, I should have

(27:53):
like 40,000 listens in a day.

Joe Natoli (27:56):
Yeah.
It's, it's a...
I remember that distinctlybecause I was doing the same
thing.
I've been in and out of bandsmost of my life, okay.

Jason Ogle (28:03):
I could tell that about you.

Joe Natoli (28:04):
Really.

Jason Ogle (28:06):
I could, yeah.
Just, listening to a fewepisodes.
Dude, you are a music lover,man.

Joe Natoli (28:09):
Yeah, and I remember the time you're talking about,
right.
We were all over MySpace andthen I had the nerve to start
independent record label, whichwas a lot of fun, but was also
an exercise in frustration.

Jason Ogle (28:21):
Oh, I can imagine.

Joe Natoli (28:22):
Um, partly because of the kinds of things that
you're talking about.
And we, we leveraged the heckout of MySpace.

Jason Ogle (28:28):
That was the thing to do.

Joe Natoli (28:29):
All right.
And Friend Blaster Pro, when yousaid that, that's, yeah, that's
why I started laughing.
And it's this false sense ofconfidence, like, WOW, I'm
connected to all these peopleand you assume that there's a
correlation there.

Jason Ogle (28:39):
Yup.
Yup.

Joe Natoli (28:41):
And then you find out that there isn't.

Jason Ogle (28:44):
Yeah, it's true.
And you know what, it's the samething with a mailing list.
I always, you know, I think, andthere's the gurus out there that
they're like, build your mailinglist built, you know, here's
seven tips on how to do it andyou know, a month or whatever.
Like Yep, here's the thing.
And, and here's what I learnedreally quickly being a podcast
host also in trying to develop,build an audience.
It doesn't matter how manypeople are on your email list if

(29:04):
they're not opening your emails.

Joe Natoli (29:06):
That's right.
That's right.

Jason Ogle (29:09):
So I actually go in and I actually purge my email
list every few months.
If somebody has an open my emailin three or 4 cents, they don't
want to hear from me.
So they aren't on my listanymore.
And guess what?
I get a 50 plus percent openrate, which is I think, pretty
good with an email list.

Joe Natoli (29:25):
It is, it's excellent.
I mean, so you're, you'repreaching...
My wife is a business andmarketing consultant, right.
And she works a lot withentrepreneurs in particular.
So all the things that I'velearned are all the things that
you're talking about.
And her thing in general is theantithesis of all that stuff you
just mentioned.
Like, you know, build a list in10 days, like rule the world.

(29:49):
It's not possible.

Jason Ogle (29:51):
It takes 10 years to be an overnight success.

Joe Natoli (29:53):
Yeah, and there has to be a tremendous amount of
substance.

Jason Ogle (29:57):
Yeah.

Joe Natoli (29:58):
You know, that you're delivering outside of
these empty sort of marketingpromises.

Jason Ogle (30:02):
Yes, absolutely true.
Yeah.
You, it's, it's how well you'reserving people that will
determine how successful youare.
That's the bottom line.
If you're trying to buildsomething.

Joe Natoli (30:11):
Yeah.
I just, and I can imagine, Imean, how long have you been
doing the User Defenderspodcast?
Couple of years at least?

Jason Ogle (30:17):
It's, it, it has started 2015, when I started my
morning routine.
So it was like, you know, Irealized one day on the way to
work, like I've been trying tofind kind of my, my identity I
guess in a way, like on, on, onhow I can serve people.
And, and then I, it just, itjust hit me, I was listening to
a song on my Spotify playlist.
It's by a guy named Morgan pageand it's called fight for you.

Joe Natoli (30:40):
Nice.

Jason Ogle (30:40):
And I realized for a long time, yeah.
I was like, I was like jammin'to that, and, and, and for the
longest time after having seenTron, I always put"I fight for
the users" on my social mediabios.
That was it.
That's all I put.
I fight for the users.

Joe Natoli (30:53):
Yeah.

Jason Ogle (30:54):
And it clicked, man.
That the neural blink I wastalking, we were talking about
in the beginning, the BDNF, the,the, uh, you know, the brain
derived neurotropic factor.
It just triggered those newneural pathways.
It connected those two things.
Whereas like, this is what Ineed to do.
I need this, I love podcasts.
I'm benefiting so much frompodcasts.
I needed to start a podcast thatreaches, especially aspiring

(31:16):
designers who I'm, I've been atthis for 20 plus years and I
think, I'm sure you can relateto this Joe, but I still don't
really know exactly what I'mdoing.

Joe Natoli (31:23):
No!

Jason Ogle (31:25):
You know, you gotta you gotta kinda, you know, we're
always making it up as we goalong.

Joe Natoli (31:33):
That's right.

Jason Ogle (31:33):
You know, we have pillars, you know, like, like we
were talking about earlier, youknow, the longer you live, the
longer you're alive, the morelife lessons and knowledge and
wisdom you have to share ofcourse.
But this industry, it's, it'sconstantly evolving.
It's ever evolving.
There's always something new tolearn, which is both, both
incredibly exhilarating andterrifying at the same time.
So I just started kind of using,I put on my empathy shoes so to

(31:57):
speak, and I thought, you knowwhat, if I'm struggling with
what to learn next and what todo, and then I bet you the
people just diving into this arewanting to dive into this are
too.
That was my hunch.
And it ended up being a reallystrong one.
I really good hunch.

Joe Natoli (32:11):
You couldn't have been more right about that.
I mean, I remember the firsttime I saw it.
Okay.
And the two words like USERDEFENDERS, I'm like, okay, I
gotta, I gotta see what this is.
So, and then I went to the site,right.
And I see the logo, now I'm acomic book Geek from way back.
Okay.
From the time I was like...

Jason Ogle (32:31):
Oh, yes.

Joe Natoli (32:31):
You know, when I was little, I love it.
So number one, this is, this istripping on all levels for me.
And then I see that USERDEFENDERS and, and then I
listened to a couple of podcastsand I'm like, and I remember, I
think Gina reached out to youfirst, right?

Jason Ogle (32:45):
Yes.
Yes she did.

Joe Natoli (32:45):
I said to her, I'm like, we have to talk to this
guy.
This is one of the coolestthings I've ever seen, you know,
and even even the name, right.
I thought, have you ever, haveyou ever read a book or heard a
song and you thought, you know,"I wish I wrote that," or"I wish
I came up with that?" This wasone of those things when I saw
those two words, I'm like, ah,genius.

(33:06):
So...
it's just perfect.
I mean, it couldn't be moreperfect.
So...

Jason Ogle (33:10):
Thank you.

Joe Natoli (33:11):
And it was even more gratifying after listening to a
couple episodes.
Right.
And, and, and hearing you putyourself out there and the kind
of guests that you have in thestories that are being told, um,
it's, it's all really, really,really valuable.
And you and I both know thereare a lot of UX podcasts, right?

Jason Ogle (33:28):
Yes.
Yeah.

Joe Natoli (33:29):
And I'm certainly not bagging on any of them.
All right.
Because every, every show hasits audience.

Jason Ogle (33:35):
Yes.

Joe Natoli (33:35):
But to me, okay.
And it's going to sound like I'mblowing smoke again and I'm
really not the kind of thingsthat you are covering, the kind
of things that you're talkingabout, the kind of guests that
you're having on.
I think of the kinds of thingsthat don't get enough airplay
that we don't talk about enough.
That we don't speak aboutenough.
It's outside of just, practice,right?
It's outside of just, how do Ido the tactical work?

Jason Ogle (33:57):
Yeah.
Oh Wow.

Joe Natoli (33:58):
You know, I think this other stuff is tremendously
more important and they're thethings that we all wonder about
and struggle with on a dailybasis.

Jason Ogle (34:06):
Oh, Joe, that, that means a ton to me, man.
Coming from you.
Honestly, I'm a, it's getting alittle dusty for me.

Joe Natoli (34:11):
No, no, it's, it's the truth Jason.

Jason Ogle (34:15):
I appreciate that a lot.

Joe Natoli (34:16):
Like the one you did with Seth Godin for example.
Um, you know, there was one thatwas just you where you really
sort of fearlessly put yourselfout there.
And I thought, I mean, what awonderful thing, right?
You just said a minute ago thatwe're making it up as we go
along.
That's the truth.

Jason Ogle (34:30):
Yeah.

Joe Natoli (34:30):
Okay?I hate the word expert.
I hate the word Guru.
I get really uncomfortable whenpeople describe me in those
terms because I feel like that'sjust not true.
Okay.
It's a false status then I thinkpeople think they need to aspire
to, right.
I'm going to get to this pointwhere I always know what I'm
doing.
I'm always confident and I'malways have all the answers and

(34:52):
all that stuff.
It just, it's not true.

Jason Ogle (34:53):
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
And you know, I'm a, I'm anintrovert, man.

Joe Natoli (34:58):
Me too.

Jason Ogle (34:58):
For me, if you had asked me like three, three and a
half years ago or four yearsago, if I would be starting a
podcast and like getting on amicrophone and talking to people
and like talking to otherdesigners that I've like
respected and looked up to formany years, they'd be like, no
way not going to happen.
And you know, and there's thatlittle, there's that fear.
Every time I put the pull thismic up to my face, you know,

(35:19):
even this morning before thisconversation with you, there's
that fear, you know?
And we all have it.
We have to like a Seth Godinsays, I love what he says.
He said, you have to dance withthe fear.

Joe Natoli (35:29):
Yeah.

Jason Ogle (35:29):
You gotta dance with it.
You've got to go forward anyway,despite the fear.
And that's what courage is.
Courage isn't lack of fear.
It's going forward despite it.

Joe Natoli (35:37):
Yep.

Jason Ogle (35:37):
And I just, I just think that there's so many of us
in this world that are going toget on our death bed and we're
going to have, we're going to belike, I wished I'd done that.
You know, I, I wished I'd donethat thing that I felt I was
supposed to do, you know, 10,20, 30 years ago.
You know, the comfort zone is abeautiful place, but nothing
ever grows there.

Joe Natoli (35:56):
No.

Jason Ogle (35:56):
Right?
And so comfort zones areexpanded through discomfort and,
and you know, I, I love what TimFerriss says too.
He says, I tried to do at leastone thing a day that scares me
and I really think this worldwould be a better place if we
all did a little bit more thingsthat scared us that we know will
help other people.

Joe Natoli (36:12):
Yeah, I agree with that sentiment.
I really do.
I really do.
I mean I'm, I'm working onsomething right now, a really
large sort of workshop bootcampkind of something or other,
right?
And it's, it's intimidating thehell out of me.
I'm going to tell you the truth.
What happens is I get a coupleof steps through it.
Like my drawing board right nowis littered with paper taped to
it and a bunch of notes and it'sall pencil and it's all, all

(36:34):
these scribbles, right?
And what happens is I get acertain amount of progress and
then I get stuck, right?
It's like all thinking juststops and I'm stuck.
And I'm like, okay, where thehell was I going with this?
And it's uncomfortable.
And it, and, and then in thosemoments you go,"okay, maybe I
really don't know what I'm doinghere." Um, and you have to, like

(36:57):
you just said, you have to pushthrough that because the other
voice is going,"look, you dothis all the time with clients.
You do it with other people,like just chill out, relax, take
a step back, go do somethingelse, come back to it,
whatever."

Jason Ogle (37:10):
Yeah.
Great advice.

Joe Natoli (37:12):
But you can't get the good part without that part,
I guess is my point.

Jason Ogle (37:16):
Yeah.
I've, I've heard a lot ofauthors say that the time that
they declutter is the time thatafter they get the book
proposal.

Joe Natoli (37:24):
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
Don't do anything else.
Right.
Absolutely.
It's absolutely true.
Absolutely.
Like,"okay, I should probablymove those boxes...hmmm, why do
I have so many pencils?"

Jason Ogle (37:39):
Yeah.
Procrastiworking, I think is oneof the terms that we hear.

Joe Natoli (37:44):
Totally true.
Let me ask you a questionthough, related to all this.
Like you mentioned you're anintrovert—

Jason Ogle (37:49):
I sure am.

Joe Natoli (37:50):
Right, which I relate to and people are shocked
when I say this.
I really am at heart anintrovert.
But what happened to me at anearly age when I first started
playing in bands, okay...
when I got on stage...
the world opened up in a, in avery different way.

Jason Ogle (38:07):
Wow.
How so?

Joe Natoli (38:08):
In that I felt like this is what I'm supposed to be
doing, right?
When I started speakingpublicly, when I started doing
more consulting work withclients, where I was in the room
talking, facilitating, workingon a whiteboard, you know, as
opposed to head down in a laptopdoing design work, it felt
natural.
It felt right.
And the response was verydifferent as well, in that

(38:31):
people started paying attentionand saying, okay, can you help
us do this and would you able todo this?
But that part is absolutely 100%sort of natural to me.
Now, I have the same anxiety andtrepidation that you described,
before I do it.
On the day when I'm speaking,that's...
the waiting is the worst thingin the world.

Jason Ogle (38:50):
Oh Man.

Joe Natoli (38:53):
The hours just do not go fast enough, you know?
And I'm, my, you know, my heartis kind of going.
I'm not worried that I'm goingto screw up, it's just this
anxiety.
But what's funny is that thetime in between is really
difficult.

Jason Ogle (39:06):
Yeah, yeah.

Joe Natoli (39:07):
Right?
Even doing this podcast rightnow is something I just truly
love doing.
It feels normal to me.
It feels natural, feels sort ofsecond nature.
Um...
Speaking is that way.
Consulting is that way.
A lot of these things where I'moutward facing are that way.
But at heart I am veryintroverted.
So my question to you, I'mcurious whether you sort of feel

(39:32):
any of that in, in that whenyou're doing the podcast for
example, do you have this senseof, like, this is exactly what
I'm supposed to be doing?

Jason Ogle (39:39):
Yeah, that's a really fascinating question Joe.
I, there are moments there are,and it's not always, I love
some, of MihalyCsikszentmihalyi's work,
especially on flow.
That's what he's most known for.
And I defy you to spell thatname without googling it.

Joe Natoli (39:54):
No thanks!

Jason Ogle (39:57):
But I, I, and I also defy you to find any personal
growth and or psychology relatedbook that does not mention this
man and his work on flow.
And it's fascinating for sure.
And basically just to kind ofsum it up, uh, in, in a layman's
way is, flow is when you aredoing something that you, like
you just touched on Joe, youjust feel like, I am meant to do

(40:20):
it.
I was made for this.
Right?
And, and it's, it's wherethere's a sense of timelessness,
there's a sense of absolute joyand creativity flowing out.
And so, um, it's superfascinating that that whole
study itself, but there are,there are moments in, in a
podcast when I'm podcasting orinterviewing others, uh, and

(40:41):
where I will get, I will justfeel that flow and, and I'll
just lose sense of time.
And I mean, there's some byepisodes of run way over to as a
result.
And thankfully my guests werefeeling that too because they
and, or didn't have a hard stopbecause the conversation just
kept going.
And, you know, and I feel, Ifeel like this conversation,
even if I'm feeling in flow, Ifeel like, you know, we're,
we're, we're jelling, we'reconnecting and engaging as a lot

(41:04):
of kindred spirits here.
And so to answer your question,that's, you can't feel the flow
unless you go forward.
You can't feel the flow unlessyou face the fear.

Joe Natoli (41:13):
Yep.
That's right.

Jason Ogle (41:14):
So yeah, that's kinda my answer to that is, you
know, you've got it.
You got to try it.
You, you don't know until you goforward.

Joe Natoli (41:20):
Yeah.
I think that's, I think that'stotally accurate.
I mean, I hate, I'm going to behonest with you.
I hate preparation.
I hate planning.
I hate all the work that goesinto all the sort of, you know,
preproduction, or whatever youwant to call it, beforehand.
I just want to do it.

Jason Ogle (41:38):
Yeah.
Yeah.

Joe Natoli (41:39):
You know, I don't like I, I stopped rehearsing my
talks years ago because it mademe insane.

Jason Ogle (41:45):
Wow.

Joe Natoli (41:46):
Okay?
It just made me insane.
I'm like, I can't do this.
And I would get so bent out ofshape, right, trying to rehearse
and do all this.
I'm like, you know, I wouldjust, I'm actually better the
more off the cuff I am and theless I think about...what I'm
supposed to be doing, you know,and that, that doesn't mean I
don't prepare and I don't plan.
I certainly do.
Sure.

(42:06):
But I hate it.
Okay.
I would rather somebody drivesplinters under my fingernails
then do that work.
I just, I detest it.

Jason Ogle (42:14):
Yeah.

Joe Natoli (42:16):
I don't know what that is.

Jason Ogle (42:17):
No, I, you know what, and it takes a while to
get there.
It takes a while to get thereand, and I'll be honest, you
know, everybody and anybodylistening who's heard heard user
defenders podcast, I'll behonest with you, I used to
script a lot of my answers.
Like I used to script my, my myquestions I like and even like,
you know, notes that I wouldlike think of and I would read

(42:38):
it, I would read a script and,and, and I'll be honest with
you, I needed that.
I needed that in the beginning.

Joe Natoli (42:44):
At the beginning, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Of course.

Jason Ogle (42:46):
Yeah, I did.
I needed it because I didn'thave the confidence yet.

Joe Natoli (42:49):
Sure.

Jason Ogle (42:50):
To just go off the cuff and you know, and just kind
of let things flow.

Joe Natoli (42:53):
Yeah.
Same here.

Jason Ogle (42:54):
And so, but you've got to get the wins.
That's the thing.
And I, and I mentioned this inthe imposter syndrome episode,
we all have it.
That's the first step toovercoming it is to just realize
you're not alone.
And we all are making it up aswe go along.
But it's also too, to know thatyou need to just go forward.
Like, like we keep saying, youknow, just, just go forward
anyway.
Um, and, and you'll get theconfidence you need by, by

(43:14):
getting the little wins.
You can't get the little winsunless you do something that
scares you.

Joe Natoli (43:18):
That's right.
There is no other path.

Jason Ogle (43:20):
Yeah.

Joe Natoli (43:20):
Okay?

Jason Ogle (43:21):
Yeah.

Joe Natoli (43:22):
There is no other path.
I mean like I'm thinking, youknow, movie metaphors in my head
and for whatever reason— this ishow much of a Geek.
I am— I just flashed back to,um, the Star Wars movie.
I think it's Empire StrikesBack.
Are you familiar?

Jason Ogle (43:36):
Oh, of course.

Joe Natoli (43:37):
It's where, you know, Yoda is trying to teach to
face his fears.

Jason Ogle (43:42):
Yes.

Joe Natoli (43:42):
Right?
And he has to go through thissort of dark, frightening, scary
forest and deal with all thethings that he's afraid of and
he comes face to face with DarthVader.
But that's kind of, it's a lifetruth reflected in a science
fiction movie.
Right.
You, you have no choice but togo into that dark area, that
place that scares you, you haveno choice but to go there if you

(44:06):
want to do anything that's worthdoing that you care about, that
means something to you.

Jason Ogle (44:10):
Oh, I love that.

Joe Natoli (44:11):
It's a necessary part of the program.
I don't know why that is.
I just know that it is.

Jason Ogle (44:15):
Yeah, that's so interesting that you mention
Empire Strikes Back.
In that scene particularly,cause I'm just now kind of
remembering that.
Remember when he went into that,like that swamp that like dark
chasm of that swamp.
Yeah.
And then he, and then he faced,he faced Darth Vader, which was
one of which was really hisfear, uh, for understandable
reasons right at that moment.

(44:35):
But then you remember wheneverthe, he struck the face mask off
and he saw that it was himself.

Joe Natoli (44:40):
Exactly.

Jason Ogle (44:41):
That is so, so deep, man.
And I never really, when I was akid, I was like, why is it his
face?

Joe Natoli (44:46):
Right, I didn't get it either!

Jason Ogle (44:48):
Now I realize like we're our biggest, we can be our
biggest enemy sometimes, right?
Right.
We can be the ones, like yousaid earlier, the only thing
holding us back is ourselves.
It's true.
So the thing that we think we'reafraid of, really, it's a, I
think it starts with beingafraid of ourselves.

Joe Natoli (45:02):
I think that's totally true.
It's totally true.
It's, there are always going tobe things that pop up.
They're going to be extenuatingcircumstances.
There are going to bedifficulties.
You're going to have difficultpeople come in and out of your
life.
You're going to have differentdifficult circumstances come in
and out of your life, right?
You're going to be hurt.
But at the end of the day, thething that really has the power

(45:24):
to stop in your tracks is almostalways yourself.

Jason Ogle (45:28):
Absolutely.

Joe Natoli (45:29):
Right?
So, we talked about the podcast,right?
The User Defender podcast, andhow that came about.
Now to me, you have just takenanother gigantic leap.
And this to me is a very, whatmost people would think of as
fearless to do.
But when I look at it, I go, I'mthinking to myself, he's gotta
be, he's gotta be sweatingbullets over there.

(45:50):
You just launched the UserDefenders Community.

Jason Ogle (45:53):
Yes, yes, I did.
Just a couple of weeks ago.

Joe Natoli (45:56):
That's a tiny little thing.
Tiny little undertaking.

Jason Ogle (46:00):
Oh my goodness.
My goodness.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Joe Natoli (46:03):
My GOD, what a step forward! Because you didn't, you
didn't say"Oh, I'm going tostart a private Facebook group,
or I'm gonna..." which is whatI'm doing, because it's easy.
Um, you said we're going tobuild a community and build a
community site.
We're going to, we're going tomake sure it's designed well.
We're going to make sure it's,it's the interactions are, are
really simple and clean and welldesigned and, and Jason, it's

(46:23):
impressive as hell.

Jason Ogle (46:25):
Thank you Joe.
And thank you for joining.
You are a valued member, man.
And uh, you know, other otherdefenders notice too.
And that's just really neat,it's great that you're there.

Joe Natoli (46:35):
Riff on that.
Tell us about it.

Jason Ogle (46:36):
Oh goodness.
So, first of all, I want to say,and I cannot take the credit for
the look and feel and the, theUI and the interaction.
I am using a platform thatexists.

Joe Natoli (46:48):
Really?

Jason Ogle (46:48):
Yes.
I did not build this thing.
I, Gosh, I wish I had, it's kindof one of those things they give
to you.

Joe Natoli (46:54):
What is it?

Jason Ogle (46:54):
It's called mighty networks and anybody can start
one.

Joe Natoli (46:58):
Wow.

Jason Ogle (46:59):
Okay.
So, and that's the neat thing.
And they have a free plan.
I was on the free trial andthankfully, I was able to avoid
the empty room syndrome, becausethat was honestly, that was my
biggest fear in launching thiswas like, oh nobody wants, maybe
nobody wants this.
Maybe, maybe people are kind ofsick of having another social
network and you know, like maybethere's too much, too much

(47:19):
noise.
And, and so there was that fear,you know, that kind of, that
fear we were talking about.
And I was like, ah.
And I, I kinda like, I wrestledwith it for a little while and I
was like, I got to do that.
This is what needs happen.
I just know it in my gut.

Joe Natoli (47:30):
Yep.

Jason Ogle (47:31):
Um, I need to bring us together.
I need to bring all thedefenders, as I fondly refer to
them together into one place.
And, and I'll be honest withyou, it was something I thought
about years ago.
I and I just didn't know how todo it yet and I didn't think
Facebook was the best place forthat.
Um, and, and frankly I couldn'tdo it on Facebook if I wanted,
cause I deleted my account causeI don't like Marl, I don't like

(47:51):
Mark Zuckerberg at all.
I don't like the'bergs.
Either of the'bergs.
So I just, I, I fled thatplatform and then this thing
came along and I didn't evenknow about it.
And so I just am like, I'm goingto give this a shot.
You get two weeks to try it, andso I tried it and I sent out
some, some invites andthankfully, the response has
been incredible.
There's already 300 activemembers in the community and

(48:15):
it's like the conversations are,are starting to kind of thrive
and people are starting to feelmore confident to ask questions
and it's, it's like I'm just,I'm kind of pinching myself
still that this happened andthis, this exists.

Joe Natoli (48:26):
Well, I think it's awesome.
I mean, I really think it'sawesome and you know, like you
were saying, that was my thoughtwas, it's kind of like, all
right, I'm going to throw thisgigantic party and I wonder if
anybody's going to show up.
And that to me, all right.
Again, I think that's, it's amassive leap of faith in the

(48:46):
face of what I imagine was anextraordinary amount of doubt.

Jason Ogle (48:49):
Yeah.

Joe Natoli (48:50):
And, and you did it, you got 300 people.
And from what I've seen so far,everybody is really, really
committed to the idea.
People are engaged.
And I think it's important.
I also think kind of like, youknow, it maybe in the same way
that you and I came up at a timewhere we were, it was, we were
lucky to be born when we wereborn, right.
Because the Internet was a newthing when we started.

(49:11):
So I think we had a lot moreleeway than most people do sort
of certainly now.
Right.
Cause it's all established.
But I wonder if this isn't sortof a perfect storm situation as
well because saturation onlinewith, with these kinds of
things, right, with articles andvideos and communities and
Facebook groups and whatever,you know, saturation is at an
all time high.

(49:31):
And as a result it takes a lotof effort to sift through the
things that are sort of reallyworth your time, you know?
Yeah.
So I have to wonder about thatas well.
You know, I, again, you're,you're providing something in a
way that maybe it's not beingdone anywhere else.
And I think there's, there'ssomething to be said for that.
You know, your intentions have alot to do.
I believe your intentions have alot to do with whether or not

(49:53):
something is a value.

Jason Ogle (49:54):
Yeah, absolutely.
And the thing I love so muchabout this net, this platform is
that it had very familiarinteractions.
Like, yeah, I mean a billionpeople on Facebook kind of have
figured out how to use it prettywell now even though they have
changed things and they do thatoften.
I think that Facebook hasactually, I guess we should
thank Facebook in in some weirdway for like teaching a lot of

(50:16):
like older people how to use theweb, how to use interactions and
user interfaces.
Yeah, I guess in a way we cankind of thank them and I'm not
saying going at a hamburger menuto your website, just Facebook
did it or you know, apple deadis something, I'm not saying
that, but I think that olderpeople, and that's why there's
not that many younger people onFacebook anymore is because
their parents and grandparentsstarted joining the Facebook,

(50:39):
but the thing I liked about thisplatform is that it had a lot of
similar Ui and interactions likeas Twitter and Facebook does, so
it's super easy to use.
That was kind of a big sellingpoint for me.
And knowing that people, peopleneeded a place.
I, I wanted to give people aplace that's free of
distractions, like Facebook, mywife was just telling me she's
on still.

(50:59):
Um, and I actually transferredthe management rights, the admin
rights to the User Defenderspage before I deleted my
account.
I was kinda, I was doing somedue diligence there, but she was
telling me last night that shedoesn't even see content from
the people she cares aboutanymore on Facebook.

Joe Natoli (51:14):
Yeah, yeah.
It's, it's constant struggle.

Jason Ogle (51:16):
Like she'll see maybe one post and then like 10
ads.
That's a fractured experience.
And so one thing I realized thatwhere this platform would be an
advantage is that it'scompletely focused on what the
members, the people there careabout UX and good design and the
fact that good design can quiteliterally changed the world and
for the better.
So, and I kept, I'm just blownaway by the caliber of designers

(51:39):
and you know, many aspiring butalso many seasoned, like
yourself.
And there's several others thathave joined the platform as
well.
And that's what I was hoping foris to, you know, just to, it's a
way for everybody to feel likethey're giving back.

Joe Natoli (51:50):
Right.

Jason Ogle (51:50):
Right?
Cause it's like, oh, somebodyhas a question about landing a
job.
And that's kind of a recurringtheme with a lot of newer
designers, even people switchingcareers later in life.
Oh Wow.
You know, I think I can helpoffer some wisdom, some, some
knowledge, some things I'velearned on that journey so far.
It's everything and even morethat I was hoping that UD
community would be.

Joe Natoli (52:09):
Yeah.
And you know, again, Kudos toyou for doing it.
Like I said, um, I, I run aprivate Facebook group, you
know, and I was thinking alongthe same lines.
And for me, there's two parts ofthat, right?
Number one, the infrastructurepart of it and running it and
having another platform, likeanother thing to deal with was
just too much.
But to your point, it takes alot of work to, if you're going

(52:30):
to run a group, it takes a lotof work to run it in a way where
the content is alwayssubstantive.

Jason Ogle (52:34):
Yeah.
Yeah.

Joe Natoli (52:35):
Okay.
Myself and the admins, we do alot of work to prune things too.
Unfortunately.
Delete things too, in some casesremove people.

Jason Ogle (52:45):
Sure.

Joe Natoli (52:45):
Um, just because you, you want to make sure that
the content there is helpful,right?
We want to reserve that spacefor people asking each other
questions, help each other out,collaborate, communicate, share
value and that takes a lot ofeffort.
Give folks here the the URL andI'll share it in the notes as
well, but give them the URLwhere they can check it out or

(53:07):
how they can get an invitationor whatever the case may be.

Jason Ogle (53:09):
Thanks Joe.
So, if you go to community.userdefenders.com, that'll take you
to the landing page and you canrequest to join there.
Um, I did open it up for freefor a limited time just to kind
of fill the room and so to speakand let the people in really
truly wanted to be there, offthe cuff.
But I will in order to, to growthe show and to offset cost,

(53:31):
cause I do have to pay for thecommunity as well.
The platform I will, I willstart charging for memberships.
But I, I think it's going to bearound#14.99 a month or it's
like$150 a year or something,which you save like 20% yearly
if you do an annual thing.
But it is a, it's an investment.
It's an investment into youreducation, your growth as a

(53:51):
designer.

Joe Natoli (53:52):
Absolutely.

Jason Ogle (53:52):
And you're like rubbing elbows with like some,
some of the most inspiring andI'm, I'm biased but I really
truly believe there's some ofthe most inspiring, empathic,
um, passionate designers I'veever met in my life already, in
the community.
You're one of them, Joe.

Joe Natoli (54:08):
Yeah, I agree that the investment is well worth
your while.
I totally agree.

Jason Ogle (54:11):
Thank you.
Thanks for mentioning that.

Joe Natoli (54:12):
So I, I don't even want to ask this question
because I don't want you to feelany pressure...
but what's, what's next?
What's, or, or, you know, whatdo you feel like is in front of
you right now?
Or is it these two things?
Because you have a job as welland a family.

Jason Ogle (54:33):
I do, yes.
And a lot of children.
I've got many, many children.

Joe Natoli (54:37):
How many?

Jason Ogle (54:37):
Six.

Joe Natoli (54:38):
Wow.

Jason Ogle (54:39):
So I say, I always say I actually caveat, I say
seven, one's in heaven.
We lost one of our, our childrenabout, uh, four years ago.

Joe Natoli (54:45):
Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.

Jason Ogle (54:47):
Um, so yeah, so we, you know, I count him still.
We met him, he lived for a day.
And, uh, so...

Joe Natoli (54:52):
I've been there.

Jason Ogle (54:53):
Oh, have you?
Oh...

Joe Natoli (54:54):
Yeah.

Jason Ogle (54:55):
I'm so sorry man.

Joe Natoli (54:56):
Yep.
Same here.
So...

Jason Ogle (54:57):
That's one of the hardest things you could ever
face.

Joe Natoli (54:59):
Yeah, yeah.
Talk about adversity, okay...
And you know, I don't know ifthis is the, this is the place,
but, um, you, you definitelylearn something about, about
what you're made of and whatyour resilience is like.
It takes faith.

Jason Ogle (55:14):
It truly does.
Well said.
Uh, it's, and honestly, it's,there's those moments that, you
know, especially within, youknow, the first, you know,
length of time after, you know,going through something so
difficult where, you know, like,I mean, I'm a person of faith,
so I, you know, I, I do believein God.
I believe in divine providenceand, you know, I'll be honest, I
shook my fist at God for a year,you know, like, how could you

(55:35):
let this happen??
How??

Joe Natoli (55:37):
I did too.

Jason Ogle (55:38):
You know, but then I, you know, but then as you,
you know, and my brother-in-lawtold me something, he lost his
father, you know, in a, justreally suddenly, unexpectedly,
um, around the same time.
And he told me, he said, youknow, time doesn't heal, but it
does dull the pain.

Joe Natoli (55:54):
That's right.

Jason Ogle (55:54):
And so that's, that's something that I've
always kind of remembered.
And it's true.
It does help.
Though you never heal fromsomething like that, but it does
dull the pain.
Um, but you know, you justrealize like after you get
through something so difficult,you kind of start to see the
gifts.
As weird as that sounds.
You start to see some of thegifts and what happened in kind
of later in life, through yourown, through your own life, like

(56:15):
your empathy.
You can identify with otherpeople.
You can almost quite literallyget into their shoes that have
gone through something likethis.
That's a really critical designskill.

Joe Natoli (56:25):
Absolutely.

Jason Ogle (56:26):
I'm huge on empathy and, and, and unfortunately or
fortunately, um, it sayssometimes it just takes a lot of
pain.
It takes having, going throughpain in your own life, um, to,
to really build, uh, thoselevels of empathy and to be a
better designer.
I mean, it's, it's really, it's,it's weird saying that, but it's
actually really true.
And the longer you're on thisearth with breath in your lungs,

(56:49):
the more experiences you have todraw from.
And I think that's when you, weget to this place where we
started of giving back.

Joe Natoli (56:55):
That's right.

Jason Ogle (56:56):
Okay.
Now it's time.
There's people who need me.
It's...I use the superherometaphor and I just think it's
so accurate.

Joe Natoli (57:02):
It is.

Jason Ogle (57:02):
To, to this field, right?
It is like people need me, I've,I've, I've got super powers that
I can offer to help people.
Right?
And I have empathy because I,you know, a lot of superheroes
are also human.
A lot of them also have, aresome of the biggest failures you
can imagine.

Joe Natoli (57:17):
Yep.

Jason Ogle (57:18):
But guess what?
They put on the suit, they getout there anyway and they...they
serve a greater good.
They serve the greater good andthey give back.

Joe Natoli (57:26):
Yeah, at the...and I, I totally understand all that
and I agree with it.
Um, at this point, I'm gratefulfor a lot of things, uh, that
have, that have come my way.
Even things like this that wereunbelievably difficult because I
don't believe that I would bethe same person.
We're not for some of that.
I mean, um, last year at onepoint I had somebody contact me

(57:52):
who was literally in a placewhere they were seriously
contemplating ending their ownlife.

Jason Ogle (57:58):
Oh God.

Joe Natoli (57:59):
Based on struggles with imposter syndrome as a
result of being out there in theworld and doing this work in
some very difficult corporateenvironments.
Right.
And if you're, if you're youngand you're inexperienced, um,
you can take a hell of abeating.
Now that story has a happyending, thankfully.

(58:19):
Okay, but afterward it reallysort of hit me that I don't know
that I would've been able todeal with it the same way, okay,
or with as much.
um, and it, maybe it is empathy.
Okay.
In my heart.
Had it not been, you know, forthe, for this experience, I

(58:39):
don't know that that would havebeen possible.
So that's kind of what I meanwhen I say I, I'm grateful and a
lot of ways I'm grateful to bein a place where what I care
about first are the human beingsinvolved.
Right?
And everything else flows fromthere.

Jason Ogle (58:55):
Yeah.

Joe Natoli (58:55):
You know?
And I, and without knowing thisand without knowing your story
at all, I think that that speaksvolumes for you as well.
Because it's, it's quite obviousin everything that you do, how
much you care about the humanbeings who are on the receiving
end of it all.
Right.
That's, it's really obvious.
Okay.
It really is.

(59:16):
So, um, I hope that's positivefodder for anyone out there
who's listening to this and,and, and who's struggling.
Okay?
It's, it doesn't always feel, atthe time, it doesn't feel like
there's any value in thatstruggle.
It doesn't feel like there'sanything good in it, doesn't
feel like, uh...
It doesn't feel like life makesany sense.

Jason Ogle (59:34):
Right, right.

Joe Natoli (59:35):
Right?
But, uh...

Jason Ogle (59:37):
Yeah.

Joe Natoli (59:38):
...there's a lot that can come from painful
experience.
and there's a lot of good thatcan come from that experience.
So I really appreciate yousharing.

Jason Ogle (59:46):
Absolutely.
And likewise, man.
Aye.
You know, words fail.

Joe Natoli (59:49):
Yeah.
Same.

Jason Ogle (59:50):
That's, that's, that's the point, words fail.
And I just appreciate you alsosharing that shared experience
and um, you know, there'ssomething I heard, um, at church
not long ago and it's really,really good and I think it kind
of lends to this.
It's"your mess is your message."

Joe Natoli (01:00:09):
Yeah...that's brilliant.
I love that!

Jason Ogle (01:00:11):
Your mess is your message.

Joe Natoli (01:00:12):
Your mess is your message.
I love that.
I'm writing it down.
Literally.

Jason Ogle (01:00:17):
I think, I think we just named named the episode.

Joe Natoli (01:00:22):
AH! Your Mess is your message! Oh my GOD! You
know, when I woke up thismorning, I had no idea this was
going to be THIS good.
Uh...
That's phenomenal.
It really is.
It really is.
So we're, we're at an hour, butI want to go a little bit longer
if you have time.

Jason Ogle (01:00:41):
I do have a hard stop at 10 my time.
So that's about six minutes.

Joe Natoli (01:00:45):
Okay.
Then let me ask you a couple ofreally quick hot seat questions
and then I will leave you toyour life.

Jason Ogle (01:00:49):
Okay.

Joe Natoli (01:00:50):
Tell me one thing that nobody knows about you.
Something, maybe it's a hiddenskill, a hidden talent.
Um, something that you're reallyinto, really love.
Um, I don't know, somethingthat, that most people don't
know about you, but maybe theyshould.

Jason Ogle (01:01:04):
Well, that these are, this is an interesting, um,
I think that one of the thingsthat comes to mind is, uh, I am
very OCD about laying my clothesout the night before my morning
routine.

Joe Natoli (01:01:16):
Yeah?

Jason Ogle (01:01:17):
So like I will actually, I will actually go to
the trouble of like finding,figure out what I'm going to
wear the next day.
And I'm a man, I'm kind of aminimalist.
So for me it's usually like allblack, like jeans and a tee
shirt.
So, you know, and so I'll justlike go to the trouble of laying
that out and the place that itneeds to be.
So I don't have to think aboutthat in the morning.

(01:01:39):
And so that's kinda one of thoselittle known things about me,
but, and my wife is just, shejust like lays into me on it.
She thinks it's hilarious that Ido that, but, but you know what,
listen, listen, success startsthe night before.

Joe Natoli (01:01:51):
That's right.

Jason Ogle (01:01:52):
Think about it.
The success starts the nightbefore the new day, right?

Joe Natoli (01:01:55):
There's another one.
Write that down, folks.

Jason Ogle (01:01:58):
And there's, there's a reason for it.
There's actually a scientificreason for this too.
As a leader, you only have somuch capacity in your brain to
make sound decisions each day.
So if, if finding, figuring outwhat you're going to wear the
day after the day's alreadystarted, and then trying to get
it in the right place, that'staking away, that's creating
decision fatigue.
So that's of the reasons I dothat.

(01:02:20):
But my wife just cracks up aboutit.
I used to be really OCD.
I used to like put my plate out,my fork and my little pan.
I have, I have eggs everymorning.
I'm serious.
Like I used to have my mugready, like...

Joe Natoli (01:02:31):
Wow.

Jason Ogle (01:02:32):
So I'm a little bit, lot more lax.
My vitamins even, she used tomake fun of me.
She's like, Oh, you've got toline up your vitamins again,
huh?

Joe Natoli (01:02:37):
I wish I was like that.
I wish I was like that.
I'm serious.
You think I'm kidding?

Jason Ogle (01:02:42):
Try it, man.
Try it.

Joe Natoli (01:02:43):
I'm not, I wish I was that, I wish I was that
organized and I aspire to that.

Jason Ogle (01:02:46):
Give it a shot, give it a shot.
You know we have, we all haveagain that decision fatigue.
So why not save that, that brainpower for the most important
decisions you need to make thatday.

Joe Natoli (01:02:55):
It makes sense!

Jason Ogle (01:02:55):
As a leader especially.

Joe Natoli (01:02:57):
Yeah, it makes total sense.
Let me ask you one more questionbefore I let you go.

Jason Ogle (01:03:00):
Sure.

Joe Natoli (01:03:00):
And it's of course it's a big one.
If you were able, this is aclassic right?
But I love this question.

Jason Ogle (01:03:06):
I'm afraid...

Joe Natoli (01:03:07):
Yeah, you should be.
Because the pressure's on.
If you were able to go back andgive your younger self, let's
say when you were just startingout in this industry, if you
were able to give your youngerself and it could be life advice
as well.
One piece of advice, somethingthat you know now at 43 right.
If you could tell yourself onething, your younger self one

(01:03:29):
thing, what would it be?

Jason Ogle (01:03:31):
I was really honest when I said I'm scared, cause
it's hard for me to think on thefly like this.

Joe Natoli (01:03:35):
I told you it was gonna be hard.

Jason Ogle (01:03:37):
Um, so, uh, I would say love well and I guess...
There's a few pieces of this.
Uh, I'd say love well, goforward despite the fear and um,
soft skills trump hard skills.

Joe Natoli (01:03:57):
All.
Day.
Long.
I think that's an excellentplace to stop with that piece of
advice.
Folks, if you just listened tothis episode, I strongly suggest
you do so again with a pen atyour side and you write some of
this stuff down.

Jason Ogle (01:04:09):
Oh, I'm blushing.

Joe Natoli (01:04:12):
Jason, I cannot thank you enough for your time
today.
I salute you again for all youare doing with the User
Defenders podcast, for whatyou're doing with the User
Defenders community.
You are providing something thatI, again, I will say I think is
tremendously valuable,especially to younger up and
coming designers, UXersdevelopers, anyone who has

(01:04:34):
anything tangentially related todo with product design.
And I hope you're proud of that,because you should be.

Jason Ogle (01:04:40):
Well Joe, that that just means a great deal to me.
Um, I am proud of it and I thankyou for having me on.
Like this is truly an honor forme and this has been a really
deep dive and I love that.
On my Twitter profile I put, oneof the first things I put is
"deep diver" and I just lovedoing that and I, and I I thank
you for, for making it that way,for, for providing this platform

(01:05:02):
and this show to, to kind of todo that as well.
So thank you for all you havedone and you continue to do for
our community also.
I feel like we're kind of, youknow, it's, we've got like that
superhero kind of a partnership,that Avengers kind of thing
going on here.
So I appreciate you and all youdo and thanks for having me on.
Thanks for shining a light on,on what I'm doing and, and I

(01:05:23):
hope that, I hope it wasinspiring for the listeners, for
your listeners.

Joe Natoli (01:05:25):
I'm sure it will be.
Thank you sir.
I will talk to you soon.

Jason Ogle (01:05:29):
All right, fight on, my friend.

Joe Natoli (01:05:31):
You too, man.
That wraps up this edition ofMaking UX Work.
Thanks for listening and I hopehearing these stories provide
some useful perspective andencouragement, along with a
reminder that you're not aloneout there.
Before I go, I want you to knowthat you can find, show notes
and links to the thingsmentioned during our
conversation by visiting.
givegoodux.com/podcast.

(01:05:53):
You'll also find links to moreUX resources on the web and
social media along with ways tocontact me.
If you're interested in sharingyour own story here.
Until next time, this is JoeNatoli, reminding you that it's
people like you who make UXwork.