💊 | Amazon, twins, chess, product, tech, ceramics: WHAT A MIXTURE.

Hi there. Different issue today.

So... you probably noticed that I sort of skipped a week sending you product content, right? Well, I didn't skip it, per se. I would say I took a break from it, traveled to the Amazon, and allowed myself to push back and recharge my energies. Consistently sending out weekly emails to 300 people every week is a hell of a job.

By the way, go to the Amazon. Just do it. And see for yourself what climate change is.

Learnings of 9 years old twins playing chess.

So... I took this week off and met these 9-year-old twins at the hotel and every spare time we (all the guests) had before our pre-scheduled tours, they both played chess. Yes. 9 years old. Chess. They played with each other or simply pulled someone else to play with.

At a certain point, I looked at them playing and discussing strategies to occupy the center of the board, get each other's bishops and knights, check this, checkmate that, and... It got me thinking: I'm 31 years old and I don't even know what the bishop does.

You can switch gears, as well.

I know. It's not the end of the world because you might not know what a bishop does, either. So, I feel less guilty. But my point is, we all have our own fears and insecurities (not going to coach you here, don't worry) but... have you ever thought that we always add "age" to any "new stuff" we want or need to learn?

"oh I'm too young to do this"

"I'm too old to do that"

"My time is over. Don't have time for that"

I don't wanna sound like I'll give you some golden advice here, tell you that life is short, that money is not everything, and sell you this 2 days course on how to have time to do stuff for $97. No, not going to do that.

In fact, I just wanted to create a context to tell you that I've been feeling burnt out for quite a while, and... after a hard 14 months of consistently sending out this newsletter to your inbox, I decided to switch gears to learn chess and write about it. 

HA! just kidding. I mean. Technically, I'm not kidding. I did start learning chess (by the way, go learn chess. It's way more than what you think it is), but I'm not quitting this newsletter. Instead, here's what I propose to you.

We got this.

My initial goal with this newsletter was to get to know people, connect with people, learn with people, send value to you people, engage people, and at some point get something out of you people, of course. There's no free lunch, baby. Thanks for sticking around, by the way, people.

This past 14-months period has taught me a lot. Just to give you a quick sip.

• If you're an immigrant, stop crying your heart out. You're just as good as anyone else. You just gotta do it.
• Talking with your users (readers) doesn't make you necessarily user-centered.
• Questions matter (a lot).
• Customer Success is waaaaay more than just talking to customers and tell your internal teams your north star.
• Networking is a win-win game, not a "hey, I saw you're a PM at Tesla. I love Tesla. Do you have a job for me at Tesla?" No. Just don't.
• Putting yourself before your own ego is life-changing, but a never-ending exercise. Go find stuff to do for yourself, not for other people. (by the way - again - go follow my ceramics IG profile. That's my sh@t.)
• Product = Service. Product = Service. Product = S-E-R-V-I-C-E.

Yes. Service. Long short story, back in 2012, when I opened a Service Design agency (1st in Rio de Janeiro, my hometown) and failed after 2 years, I realized how important it is to genuinely put users into the center of how you do stuff, and ended up falling in love with "your product is sh@t if you don't add design to your strategy." way of life.

With the "I got to be cool for people" mindset, I followed the money path, became a cool person (at least in my mind), had a cool job at a cool company, went to a cool MBA program in Boston and spend a lot of money (👀), but... well, wasn't effectively doing cool stuff on own, for myself.

And just to be clear: I don't regret anything.

This newsletter was actually my first attempt to move towards doing stuff for myself. Talk about design, product, tech, and put me out there to learn with other people. But...

To be completely honest with you: I accomplished my initial goal, but still haven't figured out the sweet spot where I talk about cool stuff for me, and you cool people think my content is cool enough to keep reading it.

It's time for new stuff.

So, if you kept reading down to this point, you sort of engaged enough so I can tell you that:

Hey, I'm not going to send weekly issues anymore. Boom.

And I'm not going to exclusively talk about product anymore...Boom again.

Instead, I'm going to start writing about the cool things I've been gathering up until now and what I'm facing out there trying to:

1. Build a Product Team at a SaaS Automotive company.
2. Network with people in Canada while I'm still in Brazil (trying to immigrate, so, thanks for the support Mr. Trudeau 🤡).
3. Build a freelance low-code design hustle (that includes learning Webflow and some other cool tools).
4. Not turn my ceramics hobby into a "go-build-stuff-that-matters" type of thing. I just do ceramics, that's it. I love it and you should check it out.

So, yeah. That is all for today.

You can leave me if you want. Unsubscribe. No hard feelings. I appreciate your time and support during this whole time.

How will it work?

But from now on, that's how it going to work:

• I'll send at least 1 email every month, but definitely not every week lol.
• I'll be covering the "day in the life of" someone working with product, low code design, and ceramics stuff (dang, what a mixture).

Are you down for that?

Thanks for the space in your inbox. Talk soon.

JP PAIVA

Feel free to connect with me on Linkedin, if you want. I'm not an influencer and won't post polls all the time and some other useless stuff.

Your inbox, your rules.