What's in today's newsletter?

1. 8 ways to stop people-pleasing
2. Chance to win $1,000
3. Notch = Clipboard 🤯
4. Design engineer tools
5. This 19yo's visual experiments

Got 5 mins? Need your input →

I thought being “easy to work with” was a good thing.

Chris, can we…

I pride myself on being flexible. I want to be a designer that’s easy to work with. Then it hit me.

I'm just a chronic people-pleaser.

From the outside, it’s me showing professionalism.
Inside, it’s low-level panic attack inducing.

My people-pleasing self was anxious on every design project.

I think I know why…

Born in the UK. Chinese and Vietnamese roots. New school, new city, new friends, every couple of years.

When you grow up like that, you get very good at one thing. Reading the room and becoming whatever it needs.

The internet has a name for this now. The fawn response. Fight, flight, freeze... or just be really, really agreeable so nobody's upset with you.

That instinct kept me safe as a kid.

But it stopped serving me as an adult.

At 31, leading 20 designers, the exact job I'd chased my whole career.

And I was miserable.

I had zero boundaries. I'd said yes so many times there was no version of me left that could say no.

So I started saying hell-fucking-no.

Projects got clearer. Scope creeped a little less. My team actually knew what I wanted.

Some people pushed back.
But majority adapted.

I don’t think saying no made me harder to work with. It made me clearer to work with. I actually set the right expectations for others and myself.

I ended up leaving that role, but for a few months leading up to it and saying "NOPE!" ...absolutely freeing! Tbh, I think that also gave me to courage to eventually peace out.

If you’re like me, a people-pleaser, here’s what worked for me:

1. Separate the request from the relationship
2. Clarify before you commit
3. Name your constraints before you offer solutions
4. Put a trade-off on the table instead of quietly absorbing the work
5. Stop over-explaining
6. Let the discomfort sit with silence
7. Judge the project's health
8. Keep default scripts ready

I've spent 10+ years in UX, across multiple countries, and now I'm running my own thing…

The most valuable skill I picked was saying no without the guilt.

So next time if someone asks you to do free work, tell 'em:

Watch her absolutely shutdown free work with the same line...

A big thanks to our friends at Optimal for sponsoring this issue.

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So what's went down last week?

The going ons, happenings & shenanigans you might have missed ↓

Designers, wanna win $1,000?

Build a single slide using Pitch’s new Anything block, tag them on socials, submit by Friday, October 23rd (updated deadline).

1. $1,000 for 1st place
2. $300 for 2nd place
3. $200 for 3rd place

Pitch’s new Anything block is an interactive element right inside a slide.

Build forms, charts, calculators, buttons, tabbed views, any UI you can interact with.

And I'll be your judge!!!

Takes you 10 minutes, just describe it, then Pitch Agent vibe codes it, and BOOM!

Fun weekend project anyone?

Win $1,000 in 10 minutes

​Supaste turns your notch into a visual timeline of your clipboard.

Just hover over your MacBook's notch to access everything you've copied. Get the preview of your screenshots, images, links, videos, auto-grouped, and with search.

It's fully offline and private. And it's one-time payment of $15, not that subscription-until-you-die-BS. 700+ paying customers in 3 months!

I had this idea a few years ago. I'm kinda bummed that I didn't make this. But absolutely stoked someone knocked it out of the park! ⚾

Great job to prolific designer + creator @soltwagner.

Where's my design engineers at? James Warner curated 50+ design engineer tools and categories them into:

• Inspiration
• AI Code
• Components
• Web Utility
• Desktop Utility
• Video & Capture
• Whiteboard
• Fonts
• Interface
• Motion
• Audio

And more.

And nope. Not a single affiliate link or farming referral credits. It's just a list he made for himself. James, thank you 🙏

This 19 year old design engineer, Arlan Marat, experiments and builds different effects, visual tools, and completely free to use in his Vault.

People, he's been doing this since he was 11. I love this kid's story. Go support his projects for the love of all things Jony Ive!

That's it for today.

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Speak soon 💛
— Chris
​rectangles.fm​