Design Leader, Melvin Hale, joins Media Producer, Justin James Lopez to discuss developing listening to and trusting your instincts and making the decision that’s best for you. Let’s hear his Story!
Melvin Hale is a tenured design leader that brings 25 years of experience. He has spent time working with major agencies and large corporations like Linkedin, Meta, Google, and many others. A true introspective thought leader, Melvin works to connect many different worlds and people through his commitment to building meaningful products as well as relationships.
Learn more about Melvin’s work here!
Melvin Hale:
The promise of working late meant the toys, the bonuses, the cars, the everything, the fame on LinkedIn, everything you post is going to be gold. Thousands of likes. It turns out like “Shit man, I’m just trying to pay bills.” I got kids now. The goals change. The dreams change. And then you realize, that was never it. I don’t think that was ever the point of this. Because if it was, it fucking sucks.
Justin James Lopez:
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Amazon’s Black Stories, where we highlight the stories of Black designers, researchers, and creative minds from all around the world. I’m your host, Justin James Lopez, and today I’m joined by Melvin Hale. As we discuss the importance of listening to yourself and not being afraid to say enough is enough and making the decision that’s best for you, let’s hear your story.
Well Melvin, thanks again for joining me today on this episode. I was really excited about this one, but before we jump into the whole conversation, how about we start with a little bit about who you are and where you are today in life?
Melvin Hale:
Sure. Appreciate you having me on the show. It’s pretty exciting. I have seen some of the posts before and to have you reach out was pretty amazing. So a little bit about me, I like to just read my LinkedIn profile, but I’ve been in the game for about 25 years and have worked both agency side and client side and for the past seven to 10 years have been in Silicon Valley working with places like Google, Facebook, the Big think Group. Yeah, that’s been my journey in design. Started out as a web designer with HTML and DHtml, running how to code and using Dream Weaver to cut everything up and then got into Flash because hey you can make your stuff move and it’s animated. That shit was cool. Then learning how to not just have fun but actually build applications and got hired to build some really cool stuff over the years. Yeah, that’s been the trip. Both design and technology combined to make beautiful experiences. As a Black man in this, it has been a wild ride because I didn’t often see folks that look like me, but when I did meet them and they were really dope designers and it’s been great. To see the industry now it’s browner. It’s great, there’s more diversity, the people from all different backgrounds and genders and it’s wonderful. This was not the case 10 years ago.
Justin James Lopez:
No, no, I love that. Yeah, I absolutely love that. I think that it’s interesting because I was looking at your background and it almost feels like we’re that old phrase of ships passing in the night. Because we’ve spent a lot of our careers in similar spaces, whether it’s Meta, Google, some of these bigger names, but it’s always been a year apart. I would either join or leave a year before you were there, so we never actually had the opportunity to meet in person until more recently when, and this is really interesting to jump into because how we actually met was really interesting. I was just kind of surfing through LinkedIn because I guess that’s a thing, you don’t even scan Instagram anymore, you’re just scanning LinkedIn. I was scanning later at night and I saw a post from you. The post was, and if you remember the post then we can kind of jump in there, but I’ll kind of refresh your memory.
The post was about where you are in your career and which struck me is it was such an honest post that came from a genuine place, which is something that I felt was a bit removed from what I tend to see online. A lot of it is feel good stories that paint a picture that may or may not be reality. We’re always kind of guessing whether or not the truth is buried in the lead there. But for you, I felt like you were very honest about where you were in your career in getting older as a designer, as a creative, trying to figure out where your place was and that is originally why I reached out and honestly why we’re here now. But I wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about that post and kind of where you were and where you are now and what triggered that for you.
Melvin Hale:
Yeah, definitely. When you get into this, nobody tells you that you burn out. You think that you just kind of go and you make it to CEO and then you retire and you have your two and a half kids and a dog. The reality is it gets hard and somewhere along the way you lose sight of who you are and who you were in favor of the career that you are accumulating and the experiences you’re accumulating for that career. For myself, at the beginning of the pandemic being at home, I started to realize I don’t even recognize this person. I look at my portfolio, look at the work and look at, I’m getting older and I’m like, “Did I move in the wrong direction?” It’s just more of a rethink of where I was headed and what I’ve been doing. This has not been something I thought about overnight. It was never just “What, let me just be reactionary.” No, it’s been a journey I’ve been on for the past two years of reading and studying, therapy, just getting my life right, getting my mentality right was that journey and that’s the about face. I’ve been hustling too long and I’ve not aligned my career with the things that I love and I’ve hit my wall and that’s it.
Justin James Lopez:
What are the things that you love?
Melvin Hale:
If you look at my LinkedIn profile now, you’ll see a collection of more stories about the work. I’m pretty honest in my assessment of the work I did at each place. But that’s me now. A lot of that work that you’ll see there, that’s not what I was hired to do. I was hired to do something different. But one thing I’ve learned throughout my career is if somebody doesn’t do these things then we’re all going to hate working at this company.
Justin James Lopez:
Yeah, absolutely.
Melvin Hale:
I’ve made it my job, especially now that I’ve been able to move into position of leadership and management. I try to buck some of the trends and say, “Hey here, this is Melvin. I am this person and I am a real human being that makes mistakes. You can too, and I’m not going to judge you for that.” But we don’t work in an industry that says that’s okay. It’s only about the output, never about the process. I just got tired. Yeah, just got tired.
Justin James Lopez:
I can imagine, I think that there’s probably more people in the world that feel in some way, shape or form the way you felt, currently feel and have openly expressed then are willing to admit it. But I think that what is beautiful about where you are and what was beautiful about how you got to that space is, I’ve always been a firm believer from a psychological perspective, when you are transparent and open, it inadvertently gives other people the space to feel psychologically safe, to be open, to be transparent, to be vulnerable in that way. I saw that, right? I saw that with all of the people that were responding. You had so many of these responses that to the point where you even had a follow up post of like, “Man, just thank you for everyone’s vulnerability and all of that.”
And just kind of added more to the story. But for me as a storyteller, I’m really attached to those types of moments because there is a narrative there that’s helping to drive the greater arc that’s attaching and tethering so many of us as creatives, they come from different places that don’t come from this overarching just whiteness. As people of color, we come from different cultures, different spaces. Whether you’re born or raised here in America or not here in America, because I spent my time in different spaces. Regardless of the answer to that, if you’re going to work in America, you’re thrown into this idea of whiteness. We talked about that in an episode with Timothy Bart Laymans as well previously. That idea to be confronted with that and then to have the vulnerable space to say, “Man, this kind of sucks.” Because the burnout that you’re talking about, it’s not just the normal burnout that everyone feels because there’s this all-encompassing pressure that comes with just showing up as who you are. I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but I know that that’s something that I feel sometimes, so I just kind of wanted to bring that up.
Melvin Hale:
Yeah, no, you’re right. It’s the disillusionment of the promise that you could be yourself and it’s not true. Yeah, it’s not really true.
Justin James Lopez:
It’s not. Yeah.
Melvin Hale:
I wouldn’t encourage your listeners to just go out there and say anything they wanted to say, because it is hard. You don’t want to come off as an asshole.
Justin James Lopez:
Don’t do that. If you’re listening, don’t be that person.
Melvin Hale:
It’s okay to be assertive, as we were talking about earlier, assertive, not aggressive is the way to go. Know what you want and ask for it, but just don’t be an asshole in the process. But yeah, no, we’re promised something at the end of all of this. The promise of being a great designer. The promise of being yourself. The promise of working late meant the toys, the bonuses, the cars, the everything, the fame on LinkedIn, everything you post is going to be gold. Thousands of likes. And it turns out like “Shit man, I’m just trying to pay bills.” I got kids now. The goals change, the dreams change. And then you realize that was never it. I don’t think that was ever the point of this. Because if it was, it sucks. Especially if you don’t make it too well, I shouldn’t say if you don’t. Cause I’ve actually had founders, VPs and CEOs reach out saying, “Man, I feel you. Can we talk?” I can’t say that the endgame is to be a CEO, but I think for many of us being able to say you’ve worked this long in a career, you’d want to look back on that and say, “Yeah, I did all that and that was awesome.” But I’m looking back like, “Dang, what did that leave?”
I heard somebody say the time that passes belongs to death.
Justin James Lopez:
Oh wow.
Melvin Hale:
Instead of looking at your future of one day I’ll die, it’s like, “No, I’ve died 46 years and today is another day.” We started this conversation and I can’t get that time back that is dedicated to the past or the dead Mel that will never exist. What do I do with that time that I’m doing now? Because every day, every hour, every moment that I’m in a job that sucks, I am paying for that with my life. I came to the decision, I don’t want that.
Justin James Lopez:
The way you’re showing up now is absolutely amazing for that cause even it’s inspired me to take a really good look of like, “Okay, where am I going? What am I building right now?” Honestly. We’ve had these discussions before as well, but what am I building right now? You’re already doing a lot of that.
Melvin Hale:
What I can control, as I mentioned earlier, time is fleeting. At the end of this conversation, I can tumble down the stairs and I’m done. That’s the end of the day. That is Mel’s life is ended. Did I do enough today to ensure that folks who hear my voice or see what I’ve done can say, “Hey, he was a good guy.” That’s how I’m living my days. That’s how I consider the things that I post. Even beyond that, if it doesn’t have a sense of edification or just something to make folks happy, then why post? I don’t have to have an opinion about everything. I want to create friction between myself and the technology. Because I want to remember what it’s like to be in control. I don’t want to have to wake up thinking, Dang, who commented on this or who liked this? Yeah, I’m not on display.
I’m just Mel. When folks start looking at it through that lens, what’s most important for you right now? Value your time more than the money and possessions. That is most important. Because that is not going to come back. I know what it’s like to not have time. I don’t have a sister. I didn’t call her. I didn’t call her enough. I didn’t talk to her enough and she passed away before I could tell her all my dreams or tell her things would be okay. Or let her know that, “Hey, my youngest daughter is named after you.”
Justin James Lopez:
Yeah.
Melvin Hale:
It’s those fleeting moments that you remember. What is happiness? What is going to make me happy? Is it somebody telling me that I need to get this design just right and get these pixels perfect? Is it me staying up late all night? You know what I’m saying?
Is that happiness? Because I could tell you from my experience, I can’t tell you if it’s true academically, I don’t know. But I could tell you that happiness does not live in pressure, it doesn’t live in critiques, it doesn’t leave in self doubt. It doesn’t live in self-defeating language. Happiness is that opportunity when you say, “I have the courage to step out on my own and I’m not afraid of the next step, be it big or small.” And the commitment to stay with that charge and the consistency to keep going. That’s the goal. If you keep resetting that cycle for anything that you want to be and become, greatness comes from that. That’s how I look at that. That’s how I lead. That’s how I talk about work. That model applies to anything. You want to go learn how to swim? Be courageous, be committed to that process and be consistent.
You want to learn how to become a UX designer? Be courageous to put yourself out there. Know that your first couple of designs are going to freaking suck and just stay consistent. You’ll get better. If you want to work in an environment where you are celebrated, okay, don’t quit just yet, but have a plan for myself. I quit. I knew for myself that the toxicity and my mental health were more valuable. That post was the acknowledgement, Yeah, now it’s time to go. Anyway, that’s the whole point. Courage, commitment, consistency. You can solve any of these problems and start small. Just keep the whole small steps.
Justin James Lopez:
That’s a nice little gem though, right? What is C cubed? Courage, commitment, consistency.
Melvin Hale:
Yeah, there it is.
Justin James Lopez:
Is. You just got to put that on your shirt. That’s it. I think that that’s really helpful because, and I’m glad that you called out of like, “Hey, don’t just go out and quit your job. That’s not the lesson here.” Whether we want to admit or not,not everyone has the luxury of having 25 plus years developing these skill sets.
Melvin Hale:
I didn’t know what would happen when I posted that. I had no idea folks would reach out because I’m not posting for the likes. I’m not posting for anything other than understanding or just because, shit, I need to get this out my head. I need other people to tell me whether I’m crazy or if you feel me in the same way, let’s talk about it because that’s how we get better. I think that’s our biggest problem with society. People don’t ask for help. They don’t reach out. You’ll see little quotes like “Let your results speak for themselves.” Fuck that shit. That is the dumbest advice.
Justin James Lopez:
Yeah.
Melvin Hale:
It’s terrible.
Justin James Lopez:
You see that a lot. Yeah. I’ve actually given that feedback to people before, I’m like, Yo, that’s horrible feedback.
Melvin Hale:
Terrible.
Justin James Lopez:
Don’t take that advice. But I think that what’s interesting is that, and I’ll speak for myself because this has been my experience. My experience has been growing up, I didn’t grow up in abundance, grew up in very much a place of lacking when it came to resources, not when it came to love or anything like that, but when it came to resources and access to resources more specifically. That’s where I come from. Even when I would ask, when I would gather the courage to ask for help, what’s crushing in those spaces of vulnerability is to be rejected or to be treated as though you’re undeserving or you should be in a more successful place than you are, or in a more connected place as far as your ability to understand the problem instead of just helping people almost put you down.
Then it creates this psychological block or this phobia of asking for help or this resentment towards the idea of not being enough. For me, it’s been very difficult because that creates a blocker where we say these things and we want these things. Even myself, I’ll tell people all the time of like, “Hey, if you need help, just ask for help.” I’m that person that even when I have new teammates or people that join my team, I’ll always say, I’m like, “Hey, I’d rather you ping me all the time about things so that you can start to feel more comfortable quicker in making your own decisions, being autonomous and trusting yourself than pretending you have it all figured out, only to just constantly be victim to this imposter syndrome that can creep in.” But on the back end of it, I’m still the person that falls victim to it because of my experiences. How has that been a problem for you, or how have you dealt with that type of situation?
Melvin Hale:
Yeah, it is. I think that’s a challenge for a lot of us, for sure. The problem that we have when we don’t ask for help is that we create stories of why people won’t help us, and that is the biggest problem. Again, this goes back to also how we talk about ourselves subconsciously. We’re telling these narratives of things that are happening that just aren’t, and then that removes us from the opportunity of the yeses that can come. As humbling as it may be at times, it’s okay to reach out because what that gives people an opportunity is to understand how hungry you are to get something, right? That’s most important. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell my kids as part of the courage, commitment, and consistency. Help is bundled into that. Asking for help and then sharing what you know is also bundled into that because once you’ve gotten to the consistency part, people are going to want to know like, “Dang, you’ve been doing this for a while. Can you show me how to do that?”
Now you’re leading into something else, but you can’t start if you don’t have the courage. You just say, “How did you do that?” Or, “I’m not able to figure this out. What am I doing wrong here? Guide me through this process.” There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s what community is for. The biggest problem that we have in many, many industries, but I’ll just speak to design in general, is that we feel like we have to always be right and get all this stuff. So nobody takes risks, nobody asked for help. And then we hear things like, “Yeah, we’re trying to create a seal team six, knock all this out, and I’m a design ninja, or we’re mercenaries and we come in and solve these problems and get in and out.” It’s like, “Shit man, I didn’t know design was so violent. I really thought this was fun.”
Justin James Lopez:
Absolutely. Yeah.
Melvin Hale:
It makes it scary when you don’t know what you know , but if you look at it from the perspective of being a missionary in design, and none of that saying from a religious perspective, I’m saying from the idea that missionaries aren’t coming in to solve all the problems. They’re simply saying, “I’m here to help provide encouragement and support, whether that’s the Red Cross, whether that’s the UA, the whatever. We’re just here to facilitate and be a function of this community and help them level up.” If you start looking at it through that lens of collaboration, through working together, asking for help is just going to be natural because you’re not asking for help. You’re inquiring, you’re inquisitive, you are showing intention and drive. Those things are important because if you don’t have any life experiences, you’re not learning and you can’t learn and know at the same time. At some point you’ve got to unlock from the know phase and jump into the learn phase, and that means you’re going to stumble.
Justin James Lopez:
That’s a word right there. You can’t know and learn at the same time. I think that what’s interesting is, I want to say a few years ago I started to shift my thinking, my internal conversation with myself almost in this way where I say, “Screw it, like, whatever man. I’m just going to ask the question and I’m going to let people decide how to respond instead of saying, Well, you know what? They don’t care. They won’t help me.” Exactly what you were talking about, that idea of the narrative that we tell ourselves in our head of why people don’t help or why they won’t help us, instead of just doing that, just saying “Why don’t you just read the book that’s in front of you. I’m just going to open up the book and I’m going to read it and see what happens. I’m going to see what the next chapter is by asking the question.” And if they go, “Oh, you’re you’re an incompetent person,” then I go, “Okay, well, this isn’t psychologically safe. This isn’t a place I want to be.”
Melvin Hale:
There you go. That’s it. That’s it. You know your value and worth. That’s it.
Justin James Lopez:
Yeah, and I love that because I’ve heard that before as well. I remember speaking to one of the previous guests and them saying that “Your value doesn’t depreciate just because someone fails to see your worth.” That’s right. We need to really internalize that concept because I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this, but there was this story of this man who gives his daughter a car, right? An old car, it’s like dusty or whatever, and he says, “Hey, go take this to the dealership, see how much they’ll give you for it, and come back.” And she goes to dealership, she comes back and they say, “They’ll give me a thousand bucks.” He’s like, “Oh, okay, cool. Go to this used lot and see how much they’ll give you.” She goes there and they say, “Oh, they said they’ll give me 400 bucks for the parts, whatever. “
And he goes, “Okay, great. Now there’s this trade show. Go to the trade show, see how much it’s worth.” She goes to the trade show and she comes back and she says, “Oh my God, some guy at the trade show offered me 200,000 for this car because it’s vintage and it’s very rare to find now.” He says to her, he says, “Yeah, remember, there’s a difference between what your worth is and what people will be willing to give you for the work that you do and how people value you, whether that’s you consistently giving yourself at a discount. If you do that, you’re in the wrong place and you need to get up out of there. You need to find a place that does value you, that loves you.”
Melvin Hale:
That’s great. That’s great.
Justin James Lopez:
I really attach myself to that story in that sense of what we were talking about where now the way I look at it is, “Hey, I’m just going to ask the question. I’m just going to present my ideas, and if you don’t like it or if it’s horrible, then help me make it better. And if you don’t want to make it better, if you just want to make me feel like I’m not valued, then I’m going to take that as your appraisal of me based on this, the scenario, and I’ll go get another appraisal somewhere else.”
Melvin Hale:
The knowledge is they don’t see what you know, and it’s not you, it’s the thing. Once you and the individual can remove you from the equation and talk about the thing that you’re getting at, conversation goes a lot better. You may still get the no, but you’ll feel a little bit better that they said no to the thing and not you. It’s just a mindset change.
Justin James Lopez:
Yeah, yeah. That dissociate dissociates yourself from it. That’s right. It’s almost that idea of when you over-identify with an idea, when people then attack the idea, it almost feels like they’re attacking you, right? When they’re criticizing the idea, they’re criticizing you because you’re saying, “I am this idea.” No, no, no. That’s right. You are a person that created this idea and that distinction matters. No, that’s a fair call out.
Melvin Hale:
Creativity is not a zero sum game. There is value in many opinions, and pressure doesn’t come from just one side. You need it from all sides. You can’t have pressure just from the front on a piece of coal pressure has to come all the way around that coal to form that diamond the same way, but if we only look at that pressure as a thing that’s hurting me, the piece of coal, then we’re not going to produce the results that we want. In fact, folks will move on to do something different. But anyway, I digress.
Justin James Lopez:
I love that you’ve dropped so many gems that I think that this is going to be an extremely valuable episode for the listeners. Just to recap here, we started with the C cubed, that courage, commitment and consistency.
Melvin Hale:
That’s it.
Justin James Lopez:
Which I think is absolutely amazing. Then you have to lean into your ignorance, and in order to attack that, you need to actively try to ask the questions and learn, because what was it you said? You said “You can’t learn and know at the same time”, and then dissociate yourself and dissociate yourself from your ideas so that you can feel more comfortable presenting them and then not feel personally attacked or devalued when the ideas are adjusted and all of these things. Man, I feel like that’s something that a lot of people should pay you a lot of money to go to your TED Talk. Thank you again for joining me on this episode. I look forward to just kind of building a better friendship.
Melvin Hale:
Yeah. That’s fantastic. I really appreciate being on here, man.
