Permission
April 15, 2024
I was inspired to build this website and learn HTML/CSS by my friend Louie. He'd written about why its important to have your own website (as opposed to using services). And he'd also put together a little guide about how to do that. In this second piece Louie said one thing that really propelled me into starting. After describing the steps to creating your first webpage, he said:
Direct your web browser to the HTML file you uploaded. Wow! There it is. A real, actual page on the web! You shipped it. Congratulations. Times New Roman, black on white. Hyperlinks that are blue and underlined. Useful. Classic.
Look at your unstyled HTML page and appreciate it for what it is. Always remember, this is all a website has to be. Good websites can be reduced to this and still work.
Now, Louie is an amazing designer. I mean just look at the website he is building by hand! It's beautiful! In my work I advise designers and developers who also make amazing websites. Not to mention that in our daily lives we use countless websites that are attractive and functional (some more than others). Our world is so full of terrific examples of what something can be, it can sometimes feel like a barrier to someone who wants to try.
So when a really great designer like Louie said that I, someone with no experience, could make something "useful" and "classic" - that was huge. "Wow!" It gave me permission to judge my work against what I was learning as opposed to what others can do. And to appreciate beauty and functionality in simplicity. The power in this came not from the fact that Louie is my friend, but because he is someone who is very good at their thing saying "hey, you can do it too!" And him also appreciating what I made for what it is.
I see this in my own life. I'm an expert in drafting contracts. My clients find it so empowering when I tell them to have the first go at writing something up for me to look over. Or to remind them that there are no magic words in contracts, just clear writing that they can do too. Not that I'm asking them to roll their own - I'll still be there to guide them. But that little bit of encouragement can be enormously empowering.
At home, I make a lot of pizza in our outdoor oven. While I'm no pizzaiolo, I've already made hundreds of pizzas and countless mistakes. When people come over for dinner, I encourage them to try shaping the dough or launching a pie into the oven. These are hard things to do. They invariably say "I can't!" or "I'll mess it up!", but I encourage them to try. Sure, the pizza is almost always a bit misshapen or maybe it gets a little stuck in the oven, but even then it doesn't matter, its still pizza. Appreciate it for what it is! People have so much fun trying and making something. And even when imperfect, its can still be great.
We could all probably do this more with the things we are knowledgeable about. Rather than just helping someone do something (which is good, keep doing that), we can also help people give themselves permission to try for themselves. Tell them "good job!" Sure, they might mess it up, but with a little encouragement from you, they'll likely succeed (even if imperfectly) - and they'll feel great. And you'll feel great too.