Perfectionism Is Killing Your Career: Here’s What You Can Do About It

Perfectionism can sound like a good idea. At first glance, it makes sense; being a perfectionist must lead to perfection. But the truth is that perfectionism is greatness killer. A 2016 longitudinal study verified that perfectionism doesn’t make you better at anything, and can actually make you significantly less successful in life. Many of us know from experience that it can:

• Hamper creativity
• Decrease risk-taking
• Make the creative process unnecessarily stressful

Pushing yourself to create strictly above-average work and consistently perform at peak levels seems admirable enough. But when your standards become inflexible and unforgiving, perfectionism becomes an impediment to success; creativity diminishes, risk-taking wanes and your stress level goes sky-high.

Perfectionism is counterproductive.

Perfectionists are driven by a critical inner voice that demands flawlessness. This inner voice never self-regulates, never shuts up. It’s your job, as the person in charge of your life and your work, to regulate this voice, so your creativity and productivity can evolve.

The first step in conquering perfectionism is, like they say in 12-step programs, acceptance. Try to accept that you have some thoughts and behaviors that that are undermining your prospects for success. For example, you may be spending 90% of your time on that last 10% of the project (this is one I frequently get stuck in). Step back and look at your thoughts and behaviors from a distance. When you catch yourself in a perfectionist tangle, accept and adjust your reaction. Acceptance allows for change.

Sometimes your inner critic is so fearful of failing that it paralyzes you. I’ve had that “scared stiff” feeling. When I was in art school I used to paint on large five by six-foot canvases. That huge expanse of stark white canvas was very intimidating. Often I would get an idea of what this perfect painting would be, go to my studio…and just stare at the white canvas.

I was absolutely paralyzed by my perfectionistic preconception of the final result.

Then I realized I only needed to do one simple thing to get the creative juices flowing: make a mark. Just making a mark - taking a brush and some oil paint and just marking the canvas. It didn't matter what kind of mark it was. It broke that white surface. It broke down the imposing aspect of not starting. That mark gave me something to react to, something to react against, something to build on.

Of course, I would cover it up with other marks, which would then disappear under more marks. But that first touch of paint to the canvas was the most important brushstroke because it got the ball rolling. It broke the paralysis of perfectionism.

Renowned author Anne Lamott encouraged her writing students to make a “shitty first draft”. “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.” That’s true for all creative endeavors.

When Apple made their first logo, it sucked. It was way too busy and complicated. But they got it out there. Now, their logo now is so well-known I would guess that 90% of the population could probably draw it. It's beautiful, simple and refined. So far removed from their initial identity, yet it would be impossible to evolve the logo if they didn’t take the first messy step.

When you start off, even if you’re Apple, you're gonna suck a little bit.

That's just the truth.

But it’s actually okay because sucking a little bit makes you more human.

It makes you more approachable and relatable. People don’t warm up to other people (or things for that matter) that are too perfect or too polished. They are off-putting. It’s counterintuitive but scientifically verified that being vulnerable is actually magnetic (it’s called the Pratfall effect).

Maxims are great tools to short-circuit perfectionist thoughts. A helpful saying I use is “ship it,” or “done, not perfect.” Getting something out into the world, “shipping it,” is the first step in making it better. It gives you the opportunity to react to it or against it –it’s just like making my mark on the canvas. The faster you get it out there, the faster it becomes something – rather than just an idea in your head or a project cloistered in your office or studio.

“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.” -Steve Jobs

Tech companies in Silicon Valley use a method called rapid prototyping. They create a minimum viable product (MVP) software or website and quickly put it on the market. The MVP is a starting point; it allows consumers to give feedback that’s used to iterate the design or the product; it begins the cycle of feedback and improvement. An MVP is a great model for conquering perfectionism. Put things out into the world that may be 90% there - accepting that it’s not perfect, but knowing you will learn from it. This will put any perfectionist out of their comfort zone, but that is where we grow, try new things, experiment, and innovate. Playing it safe never won any awards.

Pushing through self-imposed barriers opens you up to learning and improving.

Here’s an illustration:  One day my wife decided that she wanted to learn to play the viola. There is so much information about the viola out there. You can watch YouTube videos about the viola. You can attend lectures about the viola. You can read viola books, listen to viola music, but if you want to learn the viola, you have to pick up a viola and drag that bow across those strings and make a horrible sound. That’s the first step. Practice and practice until it makes a beautiful sound.  You will get better over time. That's very much what conquering perfectionism is all about.

It's about starting.

It's about making that mark.

It's about shipping it.

It's about innovating, improving and working outside of your comfort zone.

Conquering perfectionism is not always easy, but it does get you closer to more creative, fulfilling, useful work, with more perfect results (the irony!). Accept your perfectionistic thoughts and actions, and challenge them. Nudge them off the stage by doing something imperfect, no matter how small. It may be scary at first, but I guarantee you’ll feel liberated and more creative over time.

Finding the "Wow!"

SETI is a collective term for anything that concerns the search for extraterrestrial life in the universe. SETI asks the question: Is there anyone out there?

In 1955, Ohio State University built a telescope they called “Big Ear” to continuously scan the cosmos for radio signals. It wasn’t until 1977 that Jerry Ehman, a project volunteer, witnessed a startlingly strong signal received by the telescope. On the computer printout of the data he famously wrote “Wow!” in the margin.

It only happened once. But they heard it. They heard it because they were actively listening.

A couple weeks ago we conducted a strategy offsite with a client in Canada. She has a interconnected series of brands and wanted clarity on the best way to organize and grow her businesses. 

We didn’t approach the session with a specific point of view or predetermined answers. What we did was ask the right questions. And then we listened. 

When you actively listen - a mysterious and convoluted problem can be distilled into a clear signal. At the end of the day, the wall was covered with giant Post-It notes. On the last one we wrote “Wow!” in the margin.

To Win Big, Think Small

“Alice in Wonderland-like” syndrome is a disorder of the brain. The symptoms are named after Lewis Carroll’s protagonist Alice, who went down a rabbit hole and found herself shrinking or expanding depending on her circumstances. People who are afflicted by it misperceive the size and distance of objects, seeing them as larger or smaller than their natural state. 

In a white paper, comScore has reported that a staggering 80% of social media viewing is done on mobile devices. How do people choose what to consume? They click on thumbnails that jump out at them. So not only are viewers encountering content at a tiny scale, they are choosing what to click from even tinier thumbnail images.

When designing artwork for social media, for Facebook, for YouTube, you have to zoom way out.  When people view your post, your thumbnail may be as small as 3/4 of an inch wide. If your designs have lots of copy, small font sizes or detailed imagery, people are going to get frustrated and scroll right past them. Opportunity lost.

But when people click your thumbnail, you get traffic. When you get traffic, you win. To win big, you have to start by thinking small.

THREE LITTLE WORDS (AND PEOPLE ARE FREAKING OUT)

Companies regularly write lengthy vision statements, mission statements and mottos. Sadly, far too many turn out to be empty emotional BS.

Before Google got humongous they wrote a cheeky, three word, silicon-valley-punk credo for themselves: “Don’t Be Evil”. Having written a lot of long client credos, I loved it because it was only three words. And I loved Google as a business for putting a moral stake in the ground. 

Recently Google has been considering working on lucrative contracts for the Defense Department. Something about using AI and video image recognition for drone accuracy from what I’ve read. It seems lots of folks who work at Google are freaking out. They think that helping drones kill people better falls into the “evil” category just a tad. I’d have to agree.

Establishing a credo can be one of the most powerful things a brand can create. It guides every brand decision and action. It keeps you and your employees grounded in the brand values. Sometimes those values are tested.

Ultimately, Google withstood their test by refusing the Defense projects, demonstrating to the world their credo is meaningful and authentic.

Even if it is only three words.

The Big Fish

Anyone who knows me knows I love scuba diving. I love being in the company of fish. Particularly tarpon. Tarpon are huge. They’re metallic silver, can be over 6 feet long, 200 lbs. and are insanely fast. Like human-sized silver bullet torpedos in a hurry.

There’s a night dive in the Cayman Islands where you can lead tarpon around with your flashlight like a cat with a laserpointer. How? By shining the light just in front of their nose they can see smaller fish and zoom around in a midnight-snack feeding frenzy. It’s amazing to watch. They’re happy - and you have an incredible time too.

What I love most about strategy and marketing is that I am helping my clients brands find sustenance. By diving into their business I can shine a spotlight on new customers or markets they may have had trouble seeing. It’s a symbiotic relationship. They need the help of an outsider with special tools to thrive and by engaging we agency folks benefit also. 

There is nothing better than being a facilitator of others success. Because when you are, everybody wins.

The 7 Commandments of Brand Design

"Your brand is the single most important investment that you'll make in your business."
- Steve Forbes

When I talk about branding, I often talk about the 3 R’s: recognized, remembered and revered. The success of any brand can be measured by how well it has achieved those three simple words. But how do you get there? The design of a brand has to hit on a lot of cylinders to get to those 3 R’s. Here are seven of the key attributes of a brand’s design that are critical to success.

1st COMMANDMENT:  Make It Beautiful

Beautiful design is proven to be a quantifiable competitive advantage. Having an elegant, contemporary design is what today’s consumers expect. Great brand design is easy to look at. You need to look successful to be successful. A homely, amateurish brand design is going to make people click away from you, and you're not going to build your business that way. No one is going to volunteer to be an evangelist for an ugly brand.

2nd COMMANDMENT:  Make It Simple

The world is way too noisy and too complicated. We're inundated with a tremendous amount of visual stimulation and information every moment. Everyone's looking for simplicity in their lives. If you make it simple, you make it a less complicated and less stressful experience to interact with your brand. You also make it easier to be remembered (there’s an R again) and easier for customers to communicate what you do to others.

3rd COMMANDMENT:  Make it Strategic

Hoping it looks good is not a strategy. Your brand design has to be created with intentional focus on what your target customer avatar wants and is expecting from you. You have to display an aspirational aesthetic and speak their visual and verbal language. Great brand design is about reduction. Getting rid of all that is unnecessary and boiling down to the essence. Brand design strategy is as much what not to show as it is what to show. All design execution needs to stem directly from the brand strategy.

4th COMMANDMENT:  Communicate

All strategic brand design is communication. You need to communicate who you are, what you do, how you do it, how you do it differently and why people should care. Powerful brand design communicates through three things: semiotics, the meaning of symbols and images, through color theory and color psychology, and through verbal or written communication. By artistically weaving those three together, you tell a brand story.

5th COMMANDMENT:  Be Different

From the time we're adolescents, we all seek to fit in. Humans naturally gravitate towards the median,  to “normal”. It takes a lot of work, concentration and real courage to be different. Just like the brand’s unique selling proposition, having a brand design that visually differentiates you from your competitive environment can make breaking through the noise a hell of a lot easier. Just ask Method the home cleaning products brand. By adopting a product line in clear bottles with whimsical shapes and a rainbow of liquid colors they smashed through the sea of blue and orange dominating the laundry aisle owned by Tide and Gain. Not an easy thing to do. But they did it through design.

6th COMMANDMENT:  Be Consistent

In order to be recognized, you have to be remembered, and in order to be remembered, you have to be consistent. Everywhere your brand shows up, at every brand touch-point; online, retail, social, outdoor, packaging, media, your imagery, your color, all of your brand design elements have to be absolutely consistent. Every inconsistent touch-point erodes customer recognition. Inconsistency bleeds brand equity.

7th COMMANDMENT:  Be Memorable

If you're simple, if you're different, if you're consistent and if you communicate, you'll be memorable. And being memorable is the gold standard of brand design. If you're memorable, people will return to you, and they'll recognize you wherever they come across you. You'll create brand evangelists who will ultimately do the work of building your brand for you. And it doesn’t get better than that. Amen.

photo: Charlton Heston in Cecile B. DeMille film "The Ten Commandments"

The Brand from the Black Lagoon

When the film The Shape of Water was released my first response was disbelief. One of my favorite films as a kid was The Creature from the Black Lagoon, a black and white classic that was terrifying and yet somehow comforting in memory. How could they remake it? 

But when I saw the new version I was stunned by its beauty and poetry and thankfully it was a lot less scary. I guess I wasn’t alone. It just received the Oscar for Best Picture. 

Last week I was contacted by a prospective client who wants me to revise their brand identity. In doing my research I checked out their website. The site was like looking at a faded postcard from 1991. Unresponsive, a clunky columned layout, low resolution photographs.

The client had no idea how dated it had become. They remembered it as classic and comfortable. 

Is there an aspect of your brand that is due for a remake? Something you might revise to reach a level of beauty, poetry and performance that you hadn’t thought possible? And maybe at the same time make a little less scary?

photo: ©Universal Pictures

Going with the Flow

One of my favorite books is “Undaunted Courage”, which is about the Lewis and Clark expedition to map and open the American West. When they came to the Missouri River they knew they had to use it to travel north. The only problem was that the river’s current flows south.

The thing that blows my mind about their journey isn’t the distance they travelled, the brutal winters they survived or the Native Americans they encountered. It’s that they physically dragged a 55 foot keelboat loaded with thousands of pounds of supplies up the Missouri against the current. For hundreds of miles. My back hurts just thinking about it.

Recently, I’ve been working with a client to create a customer journey map for their website. The copy on many business’s websites just crows about themselves. Our services. Our products. Our processes. When you talk to your customers that way you are trying to drag them upstream.

Instead, you need to focus on their mindset. Your customer is there to solve a problem they have. What they really want to hear is that you understand, that you care and that you can guide them to the solution. Effective website copy isn’t about you. It’s about them. Selling is easier when you go with the current.

That Sinking Feeling

The Millennium Tower in San Francisco is sinking. Instead of using supports driven 200 feet down into bedrock, the 58 story structure was built on 950 “friction piles” in the sandy soil.

Now, 7 years after completion it’s sunk 15 inches and is leaning 2 inches to the northeast. The tower sits on a massive fault line in the earthquake-prone city, so having a stable foundation would probably be a good idea.

I thought of the Millennium Tower last week when talking with a client who has built a large online presence. They lamented that they had never invested in a full brand identity system when they launched and instead tacked on bits and pieces as they grew.

Now they find their brand aesthetic is inconsistent across a huge range of visual assets. The brand equity they have tried to build is sinking. 

We’re going to fix it, but in the earthquake zone that is today’s marketplace, it pays to build your brand foundation on bedrock.

photo credit: SFGATE

The Shark and the Chumsicle

Sharks are trendy. There is a shark feeding dive I do in the Bahamas where they use a 3ft. ball of frozen fish chum (yum!) suspended from a float in 40 feet of water. They rev the boat engines like a dinner bell. In a blink of an eye there are 60 sharks milling around.

The sharks start circling the “chumsicle” in a wide rotating arc. You get to join in and swim along side them. They don’t even notice. The sharks are busy strategizing.

Soon the most ambitious peel off and attack the bait. But they have a hard time because the chumcicle is still frozen. Later, it begins to thaw and the action gives new meaning to the word “frenzy”. At the end, when the ball is dwindling, the remaining sharks fill up on what’s fallen to the sandy bottom.

When feeding off new trends you have to strategize where you want to play. Do you want to be the first to try to sink your teeth in? Do you want to join when it’s a frenzy, the food is flying and the competition is the fiercest? Or do you exercise patience and benefit from the work of others? There is no one correct answer. You just have to commit to where you want to be in the food chain.

photo credit: where2wander.com

Your Wolf Pack

There is a behavioral phenomenon in wolves called the Beau Geste Effect. When a wolf begins to howl, his pack mates will begin to howl also. However, when they join the chorus, they don’t howl in the same tone. They pitch their howl up or down an octave - modulating the tone mid-howl. It makes the pack sound larger than it is.

During the Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant wrote that judging from the nightly cacophony, "a pack of twenty wolves" had been shadowing his unit. When the pack was eventually spotted, it turned out there weren’t twenty. There were two. 

When you make yourself appear larger than you are, two things happen: 1. You stake out your territory and lay claim to its resources…and 2. You give the competition second thoughts about messing with you.

Entrepreneurs and creative professionals are leveraging social media, blogs, articles, podcasts and video to multiply their voices and appear larger than they might be in reality. 

Ruling your niche is a smart move. Being small is no excuse for not owning your neck of the woods. What more can you do to keep the competition at bay?

Simply Genius

When I was in art school there was a mansion just across street from the printmaking studio. Looking out of the window at night I would often see a man hosting opulent parties. Waiters. Tuxedos. The house had a full-time gardening staff even though the house sat on only about a quarter of an acre of land. 

I was always curious how he got so rich. So one day I decided to ask one of the gardeners. 

The owner of the house had the patent on the twist tie. A little piece of wire covered in plastic. Whenever anyone used a twist tie, a few cents would end up in this guy’s pocket. I couldn’t be jealous because this guy was obviously a genius.

Innovation is born of necessity. He had a lot of bags. And damn it if stuff wasn’t always falling out of them. What to do? The solution was incredibly simple.

Design is a process of subtraction. Good design becomes great design when there is nothing left to take away. When it offers the solution to the problem in the simplest possible way. Has your brand’s design become overcomplicated? Is it time to simplify?

A Smell That Will Make You Money

Last week I was cooking a recipe that called for coconut oil. When I opened the jar I was immediately transported to being 16 years old on a beach in Michigan putting on suntan lotion. I almost got smell memory whiplash.

Smells are processed by the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for memory functions and processing emotions. Scientists have proven you are 100 times more likely to remember something that you smell than something that you see, hear or touch.

Now brands are increasingly putting the power of scent to work.

In Orlando, a company recently projected "waffle cone" smell adjacent to an ice cream parlor, driving a 50% sales increase. REI used the smell of “campfire and pine” and guess who started selling more backpacks? Don’t even get me started about what Cinnabon does. You know what they do.

Do you have a service or product that you can enhance with a scent? If you do, you might be closer to smelling success.

Schrödinger's Cookie

Pop quiz. When I say these flavors, what do you think of? Biscuits and Gravy, Greek Gyro, BLT, Cappucino and NY Reuben. Well, I’ll tell you what I don’t think of. Lay’s Potato Chips. But that’s what they are. The result of Lay’s “Do Us Flavor” campaign of limited-edition chips.

OK, let’s try again. Jelly Donut, Mississippi Mud Pie, Raspberry Danish, English Breakfast Tea and, wait for it…Swedish Fish. Give up? Oreos.

Marketing folks know that any time you create a line extension, one consideration is whether or not it will cannibalize your mainline product. However, the greatest worry is always: “Will it degrade the brand?”.

New flavors can breathe life and excitement into somewhat boring consumer staples. Happily, they give their social media teams something to tweet about. But they beg the existential question: When does an Oreo become not an Oreo? When does it become a parody of itself?

Experimentation and innovation energize and revitalize brands. But care should be taken that we don’t try too hard to fix something that isn’t broken. I mean, yesterday I walked by Pumpkin Spice Twinkies in the store. Is nothing sacred?

A Close Shave

The viral video from Dollar Shave Club came out 5 years ago, so I’ve known I’ve been getting ripped off for a while. I just never did anything about it. 

Gillette had me hypnotized into thinking that ever-increasing blade counts and handles with more foils than a Lamborghini translated to a shave only their product could achieve. Call me a slow learner, but I didn’t realize the extent of my stupor until Saturday.

That's when I walked into CVS to get cartridges for my aging Trac II razor. $32.99 for ten cartridges. No handle mind you, just bits of plastic with two blades at $3.29 each. I felt violated. My brand loyalty and my perception of quality got nicked by reality and I needed a styptic pencil.

A few days later, my new steel safety razor and 100 single-edge blades (at 5 cents each) arrived from Amazon. Wouldn’t you know it, with a little practice the shave I got from a 5 cent razor was just as close - and as a bonus, the luxurious feeling of the weighty steel handle was intensely satisfying.

Don’t get me wrong, I value quality, design, performance and technology. When you deliver them to me consistently I am the most devoted of brand evangelists. But when a brand begins to take advantage of that devotion, delivering the same results at a 6400% premium and are banking that I won’t notice (and I didn’t), let’s say I felt double razor burned.

How are you honestly earning your customers and clients devotion?

I'm Watching You

Over a period of 6 years, the photographer John Thackwray photographed the bedrooms of 1200 millennials from around the world. The range of physical environments, materials, colors and collections is absolutely fascinating.

In business and design we often develop a products by thinking about our customer target and then creating something we think they will want. But often we land far off the mark and wonder what went wrong.

What went wrong lies in the difference between thinking and observing.

Successful marketing relies on an intimate knowledge of your customer. You can’t learn what you want to know by asking them, because what they say they want and what they end up buying is often very different. Just ask someone who runs focus groups.

You have to observe them.

After looking at the bedroom photograph of just one of these millennials, I guarantee you could design a product experience that would delight them. 

I am sure you have thought long and hard about your customer but have you really observed them?

The Secret

Soft-serve ice cream is simple. Chocolate, vanilla, chocolate-dipped, sprinkles. Like I said, simple. No secrets.

Last weekend my wife and I were biking on a rail trail in the Delaware River Valley. It was hot, so we stopped at a little Mom and Pop soft-serve stand. I mean, why work off the calories if you can’t put a few back on?

They had 21 flavors of soft-serve. Twenty. One. Every flavor you usually find at a regular scoop ice cream parlor, rum raisin, pistachio, rocky road, they had it, but in soft-serve. I’d never heard of such a thing. 

So I got butter pecan and it was…amazing. What kind of soft-serve innovation voodoo magic have these people stumbled upon? Why does the entire world not know about this?

I’ll tell you why. They don’t tell anyone. Oh sure, everyone for 25 miles around knows about them. In a world of failing small town main street businesses, this little soft-serve stand is rock solid. Why? Because they have a complete lock on the market. No competition. Anywhere.

A wildly successfully business isn’t always about scale or marketing. It’s about having a secret. Inside every business there is at least one secret that is magic.

Let’s uncover yours.

This Is Why You Need A Drone

During our town’s 4th of July fireworks I noticed something new. Little red lights up in the sky over the crowd. Aliens watching the festivities? Nope. Drones. Filming the fireworks from just outside the explosions.

High in the upper canopy of the Amazon, hovering above an active volcano, helping search and rescue teams, drones are giving us a new perspective. Perspectives we couldn’t get without their help.

Companies trying to create brand strategies internally are hampered by the same thing: a lack of perspective. They’re just too close. Strategic accuracy requires an aerial view to understand not only what the brand is about, but its competitive landscape and its customers. 

Company insiders can create blindspots. CEO’s and CMO’s have strong ideas about what their company is or is not. Only an outsider has the independence to evaluate, recommend re-thinking, or even setting aside these preconceptions.

Branding agencies are like drones. They can give you that birds-eye perspective you simply cannot have no matter how high up you are in a company. Would your company benefit from seeing the fireworks from a different perspective?

photo:  NANO CALVO/CORBIS

All The Feels

Recently, I worked with a client who specializes in shipping stuff to and from Latin America. Experts in Third Party Logistics. Their competition’s websites are full of online calculators for weights, fees, dates, lists of countries. Lots of data. My client’s website is not. Their website talks about things like how it feels when your boss congratulates you for hitting that impossible shipping deadline. 

In the book “Brand Immortality: How Brands Can Live Long and Prosper”, the authors analyzed 1400 case studies of advertising campaigns. They found that campaigns with purely emotional content almost doubled the performance of ads with only rational content. 31% vs. 16%. We act on what we feel. Not what we think.

When you speak to someone’s emotional center rather than their logical mind you solicit a response that is stronger, deeper, longer-lasting and primal.

That’s why I always counsel my clients on how critical it is to know their customers motivation. Not only what functional problem they want solved, but how they want to feel when that happens. 

Because the feeling is what they are seeking. Security, joy, safety, recognition. If you can describe and deliver the feeling, the mind will follow.

photo credit: Alk3r@flickr.com

Video Is The New Black

When I was 11, I filmed an epic disaster movie in my basement on a Super 8mm camera. It was called “Ball!”, and told the story of a Godzilla-sized Nerf basketball that destroyed an entire town, which consisted of my slot car race track, HO gauge train set and a lot of plastic army men. I used a lot of lighter fluid. Let’s just say it’s a good thing there weren’t smoke detectors in those days.

At the time, my friends and I were drawing lots of robots and war scenes on paper and sharing them with each other. Needless to say the screening of “Ball!” for my buds put me in a class of my own in the storytelling department. Because my story was moving.

It's estimated that 80% of all content consumed on the web will be video by 2020. Gulp. Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Instagram and their mother are now starting to stream original programming. Not happy with being merely platforms, they are jumping into being content creators.

Video is the new black. The nice-to-have is now a requirement to remain competitive. For the entrepreneur, brand owner or creative professional the important question is: Are you moving yet?

photo credit: Philip VanDusen