What do you love about your job?
The thing I love about my job is that I work with so many gifted and very knowledgeable creative people, and everyone is selfless–everyone is humble. I’ve worked at agencies before where people were intimidating or they really tried to impose their knowledge or their experience on others to essentially own the room or own the direction of whatever we were working on. At Tangible, everybody comes to every call with zero ego and the client is always first.
What’s one interesting thing that everyone should know about where you live?
I think the interesting thing about Vegas is that–besides not having a beach–we have everything to offer that the bigger cities do. But at the same time, we are like a “small town.” We have multiple professional sports teams. Mount Charleston is right down the street. And then we’re pretty close to the border of Utah, so we’re close to Mount Zion, too. There are a lot of things to do.
So, I would say the one-liner is that Vegas has so much more to offer than the nightlife that it’s known for.
What do you think your superpower is in your professional life?
I think I lead with empathy, so I’m able to see everything and treat everyone with that human element. Even as we’re working through deadlines or trying to move things around, leading with that first really helps. It helps me connect with not only the client, but also with a team, too. It’s important for our team not to feel as if they’re just chess pieces on a board. So I think all the projects that I do manage are so much easier because I’ve been able to build that rapport with my teams just by leading with empathy.
Outside of work, I have a real creative bone in my body. I think it’s so fun to be able to pursue creative ventures or hobbies when there isn’t a deadline or a timeline or any budget connected to it. I do film photography and I took up sewing just to exercise that other part of my brain. So, I think outside work it is just being open to new things and wanting to experience new things.
Tell me about sewing.
Sewing is actually something I got into recently. My first project was a tote bag. When I lived in LA, I was right down the street from the fashion district. So I’d go down, grab denim, and make small projects.
I still collect vintage shirts and whatnot. In a past life, a buddy of mine and I had a vintage t-shirt business. So I just repurpose a lot. One of my upcoming projects is going to be to make a patchwork tote bag out of Carhartt denim.
What is one thing your colleagues don’t know about you?
I would say they don’t know that I’m really big into film photography. I have stacks of pictures that I’ve taken. I usually use a Minolta 700 X 700.
When I moved to LA from Vegas, I found a whole new inspiration. I started taking more pictures out there and usually, wherever I was, I would have a camera on me just because you never know when you’re going to come across something beautiful.
Thank you to Mitchell for getting real with us and for letting us into your creative world for a bit!