#90 Reflections and predictions from 2023
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Everybody wants those stories of corporate jobs and tech. But I think that's the wrong lens to look at things and that this situation is kind of forcing us to reflect on what are our priorities moving forward? Are we going to prioritize just selling our souls to these big companies and working weekends and overnights and just putting so much effort into this ladder that at some point might serve us nothing if the company decides that they're going to do restructuring?

Or are we going to invest more in things that are in our control, like project, content creation, a book, I don't know, articles?

Hello UX friends and welcome to the last episode of Honest UX Talks for 2023. I can feel the pressure that we get this one right, especially since it just so happened that two hours ago I was walking in a very dreamy state on the street, admiring the trees and looking at some kids playing and then suddenly I hit the streetlight.

with my head. And now I feel this confusion and mental fuzziness. So hopefully this episode will still be one that feels coherent to all of you. With that intro, today we're gonna do our regular retrospective reflection, try to unpack what 2023 meant for each of us,

the lessons, the suffering, the joys, and so on. So I think it's going to be a very interesting and probably relatable episode. And with this intro, I'm going to do the last how have you been question for 2023. Thank you, Brain Fog, for allowing me to speak. And yes, Anfisa, how are the past weeks for you? Hey!

Welcome to the last episode. My last week, generally just a regular week, except the fact that my baby just got his first, I believe it's like a teething period. But the thing is, he got the runny nose and he's like a little bit sick. So he's coughing. And so everybody's telling me, oh, he's teething because he's now six months.

old. So we will see because I'm still figuring out because it's not super logical to me that somebody can be tiffing but also having a runny nose. So we're not sleeping well. Basically, we don't sleep. I'm also a little bit sick. So that's not super fun. However, the rest of the things are pretty good. We're enjoying the good weather. It's almost a Christmas time here in Czech Republic. And

And also we are wrapping up our job hunting strategy course. So we have the last week before the two-week vacation. So today, right after this episode recording, I'm jumping into the mock interview with two people. And then we have another one on Wednesday and that will be a wrap for this year. So yeah, I'm excited about this whole thing. And also I'm excited to kind of reflect a little bit because I'm not sure where we are happening. And I really love those conversations because I'm

It's this moment that I save in my life, in my weeks to just reflect on everything that happened, especially this year. Now this is a big one, right? So yeah, I'm excited to have this conversation with you. But before we start the conversation, how about you, Joanna? Well, except for violently hitting streetlights with my head, the past couple of weeks have been pretty good. Very intense. I think this entire year was very intense. I will dive deeper into that as we move on with our questions.

Yeah, the past couple of weeks have been mostly about my Miro job. I'm now two months into it. I've been to Berlin to meet the team again. We were in a design sprint week all together with the design team. Christmas party. It was super fun. I love office jobs in a way, although for now I'm working remotely from Bucharest. Yeah, so traveling to Berlin, seeing my Miro teams. My course, AI for Designers, is getting a lot of positive feedback, thank God.

had a lot of concerns around how it will age. I recorded it in July and I wasn't sure that by October, November, December, it's going to be relevant. And some things have changed, but I'm getting a lot of positive feedback and people feel like they get a lot of value out of it. So thank God, I'm very happy for that. And I also plan on putting out more AI content on my AI goodies page. That's AI.goodies because AI goodies was not free. Yeah, just doing my AI stuff.

and my Miro AI job and just AI and design, and that's it. Now, that being said, let's jump into the juicy, personal, honest, difficult questions. The first one, Anfisa, what moments will leave you proud this year? A happy question. Yay. I think that my moments are pretty succinct in terms of what I have achieved and what I'm proud of this year, because pretty much everything was revolving about having a baby, right?

So beginning of this year, I was already like six months pregnant. In June, I got a baby. Pretty much the rest of the year is a baby thing. Very design-focused podcast, right? But honestly, I think that there are still a lot of moments I can reflect on and try to find the proud things in it. I think the most proud, if I think about the professional gains or professional achievements, is that I somehow managed to record the new course while having the newborn. And I feel like it's tough

definitely something I'm proud of because the last time I did the course, it took me like two years. Of course, it was like twice bigger course yet. I recorded it in two years and I was so stressing out about it. I thought I will never finish that one. And this time I approached it in a much more structured way. I feel like I'm getting this experience of already producing not the first course, but I

I think it's like a third course, also except the fact that I did a lot of offline trainings. And so the third online course, I was more systematic in how I achieve it. I already had the structure. I knew from the beginning how I have to go from big to small, how to break down the content. And so process I have followed allowed me to record it and produced it and also put it live in just a matter of four months. And that's something I feel pretty proud of. I feel like now I know how to do this. I know the drill. I can be effective in producing new educational courses and content.

I think the second also sort of aligned with the same first point is that I did the master class with the Oedipalist while being 39 weeks pregnant. So basically one week before giving a baby, I was still doing the master class. And it was also pretty interesting.

So yes, I'm definitely proud of that moment. Also, I feel like this year I've been doing a lot of networking. I had much more honest conversations, deeper reflections, deeper thoughts. And that's something I didn't have space to do in the previous years. Because when you work full time and you produce a lot of content and you have your side gigs and stuff like that, you're like a hamster in a wheel. You don't have time to reflect and talk to people. And this year, because I finally somehow got this baby free time kind of opportunity,

I regained the space to start talking to people. And that's something I'm very excited, almost proud of. I think that also leads me to another point. I don't know if it's a proud moment, but it's definitely a shift that happened to me this year. Moving from creator to a consumer mindset. So since I have more free time right now with the baby in my hands, obviously, I don't have an opportunity to create a lot of content.

And that gives me a space for consuming the content. And that changes how I think. I read books. I watch a lot of educational videos, courses and stuff like that. I'm a little bit proud of this because I don't think I have a space for that for years now. Looking back today, I was cleaning out my iPad because I need to give it away to someone. And I was looking into my notes in that iPad. And I realized that I took so many courses back in 2020 when I was laid off. Yeah.

And between the jobs, I was taking a lot of courses and I was like, gosh, I miss these times when I was learning instead of just constantly creating and pushing out the content. I guess that brings me to the point that I'm definitely feeling the gains of it right now, at least. Also,

Also regaining the content creation motivation. I don't know if that's a proud moment, but I guess that's aligned with the rest of the moments that were significant this year to me. I did felt after having a baby that I don't know if it's like it ever makes sense. I have a lot of content. I can put it out. I feel like it's a valuable content, but what value am I getting into it by doing it?

I don't know if it makes any sense to me anymore. I'm a bit puzzled. Should I continue my content creation journey? I think I'm proud that I'm a little bit regaining it. Been doing a lot of networking this year. So by having conversations with a lot of designers, I started regaining it. I started looking back and thinking what joy it was bringing me in the past.

and how do I get motivated from creating it? So it's still in the process. It's definitely a work in progress, but I'm feeling that I'm mostly figuring it out about how do I get excited by creating the new content. And last but not least, well, I don't know if that's something I'm proud of, but I would say that the last weekend I was doing the accounting. So I was like looking back into my finances and

And I have calculated that this year I have earned 75% of what I have earned previous year. So basically it's like 25% loss. And from some perspective, you can say, oh, okay, that's not something I'm proud of that I lose money this year. But I feel like that's also a proud moment for me because

only four months of this year I was working full-time the rest of the time I was not working and I still somehow managed to earn 75% of what I usually do if I work full-time so to me it is perspective how you look into this because obviously I was raising a new baby that's a lot of work like they say you need a village to raise the baby right but I'm pretty much doing it on my own that's it in a nutshell about me how about you what are your proud moments of this year it's funny that there

Every time I have my weekly therapy session, I have a technique, a therapy session technique that I invented for myself. And it helps me with the self-reflection efforts. So what I do is essentially I narrate the timeline of the last week, like the significant events or things that happened. And then for the first half, it's just narrating everything.

facts and then how I responded to them and how I felt and what they mean to me and what the main themes are like concerns and feelings and struggles and so on. So it's really interesting that I took the same path in trying to unpack this question. So from a facts or timeline or just events standpoint, the first half of the year was pretty unspectacular. I would say not a lot of things were happening. I was just

Coming back after two years maternity leave into my AI role at UiPath and uncovering this world of AI, but I was sort of isolated, just very focused on understanding what the hell is going on and just being fully immersed in that full-time job experience. The highlight for the first half of the year is that I was able to fight my extremely potent fear of missing out.

and wanting to be everywhere. So this is, let's say, a personality trait that kind of dominates my psychological landscape. I have huge fear of missing out, which is partly why I've been experimenting with so many things. But also, like, sometimes it can be draining, toxic, never enough, I want to be everywhere and like failing at some things that you can do everything well, so on and so on. So

For the first part of the year, the biggest win or the thing I'm most proud of is that I managed to overcome my fear of missing out and a lot of fears in general and exit two of my businesses. So on one hand, I left Mento, which was the design school I co-founded in equal parts with my ex-business partner, CSP.

So we had the bootcamp. It was very successful. It had a lot of potential. But at some point I felt I don't want to do entrepreneurial stuff. I'm not cut for that. I don't enjoy it. I enjoy doing design and talking about design and just this design world. And so I decided to exit that business. But it was very difficult because it was like, in a way, my professional baby. I built it, designed it, grew it and so on. So it was very tough. And I also co-founded a startup.

which also at some point became something that I was not enjoying anymore because there was too much feeling that I'm accomplishing something, but it's not what I want or what makes me happy in terms of accomplishments. So I left because I felt that I want to prioritize other things like working in teams, being in big companies, my full time roles and AI stuff, which is how I created a space for the AI content, for the AI world.

And soon after leaving these two things that were sort of eating me up inside, I had room to focus on the AI, let's say, niche, which is what I feel now defines my career at this stage of my life. And I started doing AI talks and then I got presented by Interaction Design Foundation with the opportunity to design and record and launch a course about AI for designers, which was recently launched.

I got a lot of proposals for doing talks about AI and the highlight of the talks is going to New York this autumn and speaking in New York on stage in front of hundreds of people about AI and design. And it was a resounding success, which again, I didn't expect, but I'm very happy that I managed to bring some value to the audience. And that was also something that I'm going to cherish forever. And in the meantime, by being able to focus on the role, the full-time job I was in and Clipboard AI, the product I was designing for,

Turns out that it's important to focus and do deep work because that product got awarded by Time Magazine the award for the best invention of 2023. So it was on the list of 100 best inventions alongside the sphere from Las Vegas. So it's pretty intense. So we won the best invention of 2023. And it was amazing to have this recognition, I guess, for the work I've been doing for the past year.

And yeah, so it turns out that if you cut through the noise and you make hard decisions, you create space for better experiences and better choices and things that are more aligned with you. And the last thing I want to mention that I'm proud

of, let's say, but it's important, is that I eventually left my role at Clipboard AI right around when we were winning Time Magazine's Award for the Best Invention. And I joined Miro as the lead product designer for the AI experience. I'm actually the only AI-focused designer in their company, the first AI design hire. And I get to shape the culture, shape the principles, shape the philosophy, the approach,

and so on. So it's a huge responsibility. It's an extremely interesting opportunity to do that in a design space on a product that touches so many designers. So yeah, I think the first half of the year was spent cleaning up, creating room for new things. And then in the second part, I started to ripe the benefits of the hard choices I made.

I'm gonna jump into the second question. What about 2024? Do you have professional goals for next year? So I proposed this question to have for the discussion today, but honestly, I'm the one who doesn't have any good answer for this question, to be completely honest with you. Clearly, I'm on maternity leave and I don't think I will be there for a long time. So I'm definitely considering returning to my full-time job next year. When this is still up in a year, I have no idea.

My original plan was to come back working full-time, maybe when the baby is nine months old or one year old. We'll see. At the moment, I'm leaning towards nine months old, but I feel like a lot of babies are getting more active at this stage, so I have no idea. I'm only now starting to enjoy this process.

instead of just like whining how hard it is and how sleepless I am and all that, I'm just getting started with like loving this experience. And I feel like as soon as I will figure it out or at least feeling that I know what I'm doing, this will be the moment when I have to come back to work. I'm actually missing, you know, I want to come back, but I have no idea how to not have this heartbreak of being detached from the baby, but also being excited to be back. Plus, I feel like

I definitely have this fear of missing out. There's something that you've talked about, but right now in my professional context, because while I'm away, there is just so many things that are happening and I'm just feeling that I'm missing absolutely everything. I'm missing out. I have no idea what's happening. People are changing. Strategies are changing. I'm not part of it. I have so many ideas. When I was leaving my job for the maternity leave, I had so many like concepts and plans

Points that I've gained while I was working in the company, so much user research we did, which I never had an opportunity to manifest practically. I just had all those concepts, which we never built because while I was there, it's a scale-up basically. So there was a lot of things that I were changing. We have changed the leadership. We have changed the process, which we adopted.

And while it all was finally starting to practically being implemented, I had to leave for the maternity leave. So I've never had an opportunity to sort of unleash my ambitions at work.

using all the knowledge I have gained in the last one and a half year I was at this company. And we have this horrible thing that I really need to go back. I really want to finally release all my ideas, catch up with everything that's happening. But I have no idea how I'll do this while being away from the baby. So most likely, my plan is to just return to work part time, let's say four hours a day, and see how it goes. I definitely have like this fear that what if

I'm not able to catch up. Scale-ups, there's this problem that there's a high expectations. Everything is moving very fast. Everything is hyper-growing. There is a lot of people and a lot of ambitions and a lot of promises to investors. And the company definitely wants to IPO. And

You know, there's just like a lot of things you need to achieve when you return after maternity leave. My biggest fear and something I also want to have as a conversation with you, Joanna, next year, obviously already. My biggest fear is how do you not drag the team down by not being able to constantly be present, right?

How do you not reply to every message and yet be aligned with everyone? A lot of those fears, I definitely have them. I just don't want to be a drug for my team. I still want to contribute and be effective, but I know I'll not be able to commit to join every meeting or workshop, you know, because if the baby is crying and baby needs mommy, what am I going to do? You know, basically prioritizing the baby. It's tearing me apart and how do I approach it? And definitely that's the biggest question for the next year for me.

We also talk a lot about our side gigs and side projects. And I'll have to say that I will see how I will be able to still produce the content because that's also my biggest question right now. I know you did a lot of content while you were on maternity leave.

And so I feel like the gap that you had with the full-time job, you could fulfill successfully with your mentor bootcamp and with the content creation. I feel like I'll have to give up this part. I'm very stressed about it because now I'm just gaining this kind of re-motivation to start posting again. And I don't know. I'm definitely planning to do one or two more cohorts for the job hunting strategic program, probably until April next year. And then maybe I'll go back to full-time or part-time job. But

Those are all the questions that are brewing right now in my head. I have no idea. There is no clarity. You know, in talking design language, I will consider it a success for next year if I successfully return to my job and I will not get fired again like I did.

before twice. Well, I was laid off, but still it already happened to me and I'm not surprised anymore if this will happen again. That will be on my side. What about you, Ioana? Yeah, so on your points around how to be productive without responding to every Slack message, I don't have any answer to that. I feel this immediate urge to respond to any notification I get, which

It takes a huge toll on my mental health, given that I get a lot of notifications from multiple channels and mediums and social platforms. And so, yeah, I have a hard time setting boundaries. But I do keep my phone on do not disturb most of the times, but I check it. So...

It defeats the purpose. Whatever. Getting back to the question, my goals for the next year, I did have until very recently before hitting my head on a street and having this life revelation where I don't want to work anymore. I don't know who I am anymore. I have to redefine my identity. But jokes aside, I feel that like very recently, a couple of weeks now,

I started toning down my goals for 2024. I had very ambitious goals. I said that in 2024, I'm going to start my, I'm not going to say what, but I had a lot of ideas. I had a lot of plans. I was very motivated. I was very keen on doing things. I want to take all the AI talks possible, travel the world to give my talk about AI and design and meet people and make friends and expand my horizon and so on. And so I was very, very determined, but I feel tired.

And I think I'm at the moment in my life where I can confidently say, you know what, just give that all up. Like my fear of missing out is not holding me back anymore. So my plans for 2024 are not very ambitious. I just want to do an incredible job at Miro. I want to deliver the best AI experience possible for a collaboration tool, for an innovation workspace, for a place where people come to create stuff.

That's what my focus is, just delivering a great AI experience in my full-time role. And then whatever else might come, we'll see. I'm giving up on my big plans. I don't want to be multiple millionaire. Like, I don't want to be that Forbes 30 under. I would be...

definitely 40 under 40 now I'm I'm turning 35 next year so I don't want to be that anymore I don't have that very big aspirations that I used to have I don't know if that's going to kill my drive or what's going to happen but I'm just enjoying all the amazing things that are happening to me now without a very ambitious agenda I think this is a very good mindset because this is when you under promise but most probably over deliver anyways so yes this is a way to go I think

We'll see. We'll see about that. It's very possible that I don't deliver anything, but let's see. On Miro, I will definitely deliver. So for the Miro experience, I have big plans, but outside that, I just want to enjoy my stuff with no agenda. But I do have a personal goal for 2024, and that is to

And what helped me articulate it was essentially revisiting our podcast last episodes from the past years. And I remember that every time when we had these self-reflection exercises at the end of the year, I kind of came up with this keyword for the next year. And the first year, I think it was finding the right balance between having a

baby and working and so balancing everything. And then in the next year, I felt like I was all over the place and my keyword was focus. And in next year, I think it's going to be authenticity, like being more authentic. And I think that ties into what I was talking about earlier, like dropping all my fear of missing out and wanting to be everything and wanting to be everywhere and wanting to compete on every possible category with the people around me and win. And so now I give up on all of that and I'm just going to do me.

I'm going to be me. And I think I'm a much funnier person when I'm authentic and chill and relaxed. And I don't want to be that, let's say, poster version of who I believe I should be if I'm an influencer or who I believe I should be if I'm a podcast host.

Like these ideas that I have about how I should behave and like the personas. I've sort of built like a protection system to not be stupid or not be perceived as insane or whatever. But now I feel like I start to care less and less. I think it's the magic of mid-30s. Like moving into your 40s, you become who you are. Like you're getting closer to yourself. And so next year, I'm going to be more authentic. And I think it's going to be funnier.

for everybody, myself included. So this is my big agenda. Very ambitious. It's also funny that you mentioned the word authentic while we're talking on the podcast called Honest UX Talks. Very recently, I was reached out by some guys who are writing the books and they're talking to different designers. They wanted to talk to me because we have this podcast called Honest UX Talks. And they said, OK, so are you not being honest in the real life? That's the question they asked.

I found it interesting because some people actually consider this like, maybe we're just putting the mask up there, you know? And my answer was exactly like you said, right? It's not about not being honest in the real life or in other contexts, but I think it's about authenticity. It came to my mind, like there is a difference between authentic and honest.

Authentic means that you're just staying yourself, no matter the context, while being honest. It's just a quality that could be applicable in multiple contexts, but your tone of the voice could change and the story you're saying could change, again, according to who you're talking to. It's a very interesting topic as for me as well, authenticity versus honest. All right, let's move on to the next question.

So the last question we're going to explore is what are some of the biggest challenges faced in the UX design industry for the past year or maybe that you see will be faced in the next year? I think there's a huge overlap, like we're in the middle of something. But yeah, where do you feel that something is?

Oh, obviously. I mean, you're the right person to ask this question, but I'll start first. Well, what's the elephant in the room, right? AI, maybe. So definitely, this is the biggest question right now for everyone. Still, I feel like everybody's, for some reason, keep asking, will AI steal our jobs? How will our life change? What will our job look like? I'm also asking this question because if I come back to work, am I still relevant with my skill set? How do I improve myself? How am I preparing myself to be back at

work and still being relevant? Those are the questions aligned with the challenges industries right now facing. I think that obviously the biggest problem this year, not just the design industry, general tech industry was a massive leo that was almost like brought from 2022 and carried out throughout the whole year 2023. My honest prediction is that it has to stop. I think we have been through a lot of shit this year. Sorry for the word, but it's just way too much.

The war, the crisis, not just war, wars, actually. Obviously, the economic situation that finally starts picking up back. The global layoffs, that's something that just majorly impacted all of us. I think the mental state this year was really low and like everybody was struggling. No matter if you have been impacted or not, you most likely have been still struggling. Some of us more, some of us less, because it's impossible to not care. It's impossible to not fear, not worry about things. We ourselves have a lot of topics at

about this situation you know this year my my course that I just created is revolving about this topic of being laid off right how do you find your true role your true niche your next perfect dream job that aligns with you that will not lay you off moving forward and stuff like that right this is definitely a huge challenge this year most likely maybe first quarter next year we'll still fear or see some of the I guess Romanian problems manifest in some companies maybe I'm a naive optimist but I

don't think it will stay this way. I'm definitely sure that things will start being at least a bit better. I'm sure that many companies will start hiring again. Many companies will just sort of revalue how they approach and probably hiring process and who they are looking for, who's the perfect match for the companies. So instead of just overhiring everyone who had any experience, companies will be much more strategic around how they hire people. And then that would also lead to many people have to reflect on who they are and what

is the dream job for them. Like, yeah, Joanna, right? You found your perfect dream job this year, a match made in heaven, like many say. And so that's the theme for the next year, I believe, for many designers. No matter if you have been affected or you have not, many of us will start thinking about our careers in a more hopeful, authentic way. So yeah, that's the challenges.

from last year. I don't know if they will be carried out to the next year, but I do hope that things will start improving majorly and that will force us all to reflect on us as professionals, but also on the industry and have hopefully more of those honest UX talks. All right. How about you, Joanna? I think you touched on a lot of the points I wanted to make. I think that we see two main themes in the design industry right now and also like a new stage for the design industry. For the past couple of years, there was that expansion

explosion and everybody wanted to become a UX designer. Everybody was transitioning. Boot camps were high on the tide and so on. But now we see that it's not happening anymore. And even more so, a lot of people are being laid off. So the main two challenges for the design industry, on one hand, AI.

definitely automating some of the work we're doing. But you know that my belief is that we will not be replaced by AI. Some parts of the process might be, but we still need to do the thinking and so on. But this is a topic for another episode. And then, yeah, the layoffs. I think this is a very bad situation in the industry right now. But in a way, I'm also kind of reflecting on it a bit anxiously, like from a very cozy place. Obviously, I have a great job right now. I'm pretty comfortable. I'm

I can't say I'm worried about what's going on personally. I'm not affected personally, but of course I see people around me and there's this loading anxiety, like this entire vibe of what are we going to do? Are we still going to have jobs? Or am I going to get laid off? And so on like this looming questions. And so I think what we'll see is a lot more people steering into personal projects or let's say building their businesses, building their startups, becoming more in the

This is also a call to independence, right? So we've relied so much on the tech industry and so many jobs and having this classic career when you move from one role to another and you grow on the ladder and now you're a senior and now you're a principal and now you're the VP of design and so on. And we have these stories about how we've grown in our jobs, full-time roles. And so we want to work for the funk companies and so on. But everybody wants those stories.

stories of corporate jobs and tech. But I think that's the wrong lens to look at things and that this situation is kind of forcing us to reflect on what are our priorities moving forward? Are we going to prioritize just selling our souls to these big companies and working weekends and overnights and overtime and just putting so much effort into this ladder that at some point might serve us nothing if the company decides that they're going to do restructuring?

Or are we going to invest more in things that are in our control, like a project, a studio, content creation, a book? I don't know. Articles can be whatever, whatever resonates with you. But like this idea of becoming more independent professionally and secure in a way is something that we'll see more people doing and probably new businesses emerging. Right. We've seen the design agency subscription.

Super interesting. A lot of reshuffling and independence coming up. We can do a final, final question. Surprise question, which is...

How do you think this podcast will evolve next year? What are your feelings about that? Well, I think that we started this new theme, which I think many people are curious about, at least in my opinion, where you talk a lot about the AI, how it impacts the industry, how it impacts our roles. I speak a lot about career right now. And you talk that career needs to be redefined, which is a nice input that we can discuss as well moving forward.

But, you know, finding your dream job and having the strategy and approaching things in a much more intentional way, that's something I'm very interested in. But I think like another very juicy topic, which we didn't have a proper space for discussing it, which I do think that we should, obviously. Yeah.

It's the motherhood and career. And that's something that you went through. I'm going through right now. There's a lot of thinking and fears and questions that I believe many of us, our listeners might also have around this topic. So that's something I feel like would be a couple of the themes for the next year.

I'm also very curious for the audience, like what do they think we should talk about more, right? That's always the question we ask in the end of our episode. So if you have any topic or any specific challenge you think we should be talking about or something that will really help you out moving forward in your career as a designer, please, please, please submit this. You will find the anonymous link under this episode, as always, and every single episode. That's me in a nutshell. What do you think? Anything that you could

add here? Anything you feel like we should move towards or we are moving already towards? Yeah,

I think we're funnier. We're becoming funnier. I think I should just pursue a career as a comedian without having any humor in me. So I don't have it in me, but maybe this is my calling now after I had this revelation today. No, I think we're going to be funnier in the sense that I think we're becoming more and more honest, right? So to your point about what do you mean honest? Are you not honest?

all the time. No, you're not honest all the time. Like you're not fully honest at work. Recently, I've started to do that, like show up my personal personality at work as well. And it seems to serve me well. So that's why I think authenticity is going to be my priority. I'm happier when I'm a bit weird. Yeah, I love this. And I also like it. I think our podcast is going to get weirder and funnier and just better. Yeah.

Okay, so with that, I'm going to wrap up. Thank you so much for tuning in. We hope that our life lessons and professional lessons resonated for some parts with you and you found them valuable. If you did, we would really appreciate your rating on your platform of choice and just submit topics for our conversations. We want to talk about things that are interesting or challenging or yeah, just you're curious about.

Find us on our socials, reach out to us. We love having honest UX talks. And I think that's it. Anfi, did I forget anything? I wanted to mention the Threads started in Europe, right? So I've just pushed the Threads page we have. We just have it, right? It's empty.

But if you have any submissions, you can also poke us on threads. And we will definitely consider this as the next episode topic. So something new, hopefully helpful or exciting. I think that's it. All I wanted to say also is Merry Christmas, everyone, and have a great rest of the year. Have a great vacation. Time off for yourself. Enjoy this time with your family. Just definitely take some time off after this crazy turbulent year. And that's a wrap for this year. Thank you so much for being with us. We're looking forward to discussing your topics next year. Bye-bye.

Bye, everyone. See you next year.