Alright, alright, alright - who had Matthew McConaughey on their list of self-help advice gurus? Anyone? Possibly not. But, given he’s somewhat of a guilty pleasure of mine (sorry, not sorry about that) when his book Greenlights was published in 2020, I was adamant it was going on that year’s Christmas List. And yes, we still have those in the Bottomley Household…
I’ve recently revisited the book, armed with a highlighter pen, having listened to the audiobook of Greenlights on my commute to work; with McConaughey’s southern drawl exactly as I’d imagined when it occupied my head while reading the first time. I’ve also recently cited his book as an unlikely source of inspiration during a talk I was giving about Design Leadership - both have led to me putting some thoughts down here.
But first, let me share what Matthew McConaughey means by Greenlights:
Greenlights mean go - advance, carry on, continue. … In our lives, they are an affirmation of our way. … We love Greenlights. They don’t interfere with our direction. They’re easy. They say yes and give us what we want.
Greenlights can also be disguised as yellow and red lights. A caution, a detour… We don’t like yellow and red lights. They slow us down or stop our flow. … They say no but give us what we need.
This book is about how to catch more yeses in a world of noes and how to recognise when a no might actually be a yes. This is a book about catching greenlights and realising that the yellows and reds eventually turn green.
The book is based on 30+ years of McConaughey writing his thoughts down, a method he claims is “more a means to forget than to remember”. And as an avid journal writer, this practice alone resonated with me. Getting ideas out of my head and on paper is a [inconsistent] daily practice that I know benefits me by simply not having to carry those thoughts around in my head anymore. I also find it can help me problem-solve; through a stream of conscious reflection appearing on the page, I often find myself challenging my thoughts, playing with shifting my perspective and finding unlikely resolutions.
When I’ve recommended the practice of journalling before, resistance usually comes from those people who feel that they’re not writers or at least, not good at writing. My response is similar to those who claim they can’t draw, if you can mark-make you can draw; if you can think, you can make those thoughts appear on paper or screen. Just remember the audience for this practice is you - no one else needs to read it, therefore what you write doesn’t need to be good or grammatically correct. Hell, even you don’t need to read it again if you don’t want to. Burn it after you’ve written it down if you want. The purpose is the writing, not the reading.
The Greenlights book is an approach or playbook to being open to spotting these moments of flow and ease in life where it appears the universe is just saying “YES”. Practicing gratitude for this, creates awareness of your unique flow state, the patterns and behaviours that allow for it, so that you can create more opportunities for yourself - or at least understand when you need to let go and stop trying to force something that’s not ready for you or you’re not ready for it. Yet. Red lights can become Greenlights, remember?
Matthew McConaughey shares other nuggets of wisdom that bubbled to the surface for him over the years, which I recommend anyone dipping their toe into, but this leads me to reflect more generally on the practice of looking for inspiration in unlikely places. I’ve referred to this with my teams as “looking sideways” - to products and experiences not seen as direct competitors. To consider where interactions or shared features might shape our customers’ mental models so that we can leverage those experiences to reduce friction in ours - in essence, enabling our users to catch more Greenlights of their own.
What does the Art of Looking Sideways look like in practice? Well, it could be:
Understanding where else this problem exists - exploring how the problem has been solved elsewhere enables an understanding of what a great experience looks like.
Breaking down key parts of the experience or journey can help open up more opportunities for this exploration. For example, Search journeys exist across a range of products, services and markets, what are in-direct competitors doing that we’re not?
Introducing play to allow for shifting perspective into our workflow and problem-solving capability. This could be anything from an outlandish futuristic proposition as the problem-solving space, using tactile materials to create physical interpretations (LEGO Serious Play, anyone?) or getting into our bodies more and less of our heads with Clown School-type activities to aid team building and intuition (yes, this is a thing).
However, for me (and something I’ve suggested a lot to people I’ve mentored who are in the throes of job-hunting) the biggest Art of Looking Sideways recommendation I could make is how can we turn our User Centred Design practice back on ourselves to solve problems not just at work and for our users, but for ourselves, too?
After all, as Designers, we’re the problem solvers, the explorers, the uncoverers of truths - the creators of Greenlights, if you will.
Greenlight.