I recently watched the new Top Gun film and was blown away, as many of us have been. And I was taken by one line in the movie that I thought is a decent motto with which to live life by, “Don’t think. Do.” It made me think about my own life and the times where I didn’t think, I just did. Even the most famous catch phrase in marketing aligns with this with Nike’s "Just Do It." It makes so much sense to me because sitting around thinking about something doesn’t get anything done, and before you know it you are left in the dust. You may have a great idea, but unless you act upon it and do it, someone else—who wasn’t thinking and just did it—will swoop in and seize the day.
Sure, living like that can be scary, but I think we create a sense of fear in our minds that isn’t true in existence. The times when I do the best is when I just act off instinct. And as the old saying goes fear is just False Evidence Appearing Real, so it truly is just all in my head. It’s like that pimple on your face that you think everyone is staring at but in reality, no one really notices it. I know I’ve had my fair share of holding myself back in fear of failure, but when I made the best decisions of my life, I just acted upon them. I realize then that hey, that wasn’t so bad. I don’t know why I was so worried about it.
Like moving to America and leaving my family behind to chase my dreams. Now I still feel I have a way to go for that, but I have set the foundations in place to achieve those dreams by acting upon that instinct. I talked about moving to America for years like a broken record before I just came home one day, working a job I hated, and booked a flight with the intention of not coming back and just making it happen. And I think things worked out quite well in that decision to act.
That’s the way I design. I don’t sit around and contemplate, I just do. And if I don’t know where to start, I just pick a point to start on and that one step sets the ball in motion to a product. Because otherwise, it’s just an overwhelming mess and then I get nothing done. A lot of my ideas come in the process of doing. For example, with my new denim collection, I went into it with a vague idea of what I wanted to do, but it didn’t fully come into focus until I started doing. I feel one idea begets another and another, and a collection starts to come together for me like a snowball effect. And before you know it, that decision to do turns into a full collection. When I am doing, I see things more clearly than when I am thinking. So, this may sound philosophical and in reality it is, but it’s a philosophy that has served me well in the past and present and one that I think will serve me well into the future.
