Stepping Out of Your Bubble

Dear Friend,

For the last 10 years, I've been living in a career-bubble, breathing the same recycled air.

Somewhere along the way, my friends became more and more related to what I did for work. We shared the same LinkedIn updates, the same conference circuits, the same industry heroes. It wasn't planned—it just happened. There's comfort in speaking a shared language, in not having to explain why something matters.

Then my son turned three, and suddenly I found myself standing in playgrounds and sitting in parent meetings with people whose careers and worldviews couldn't be more different from mine. The paediatric nurse who works nights. The baker who's up at 4am making sourdough. The local politician navigating community tensions. The stay-at-home dad who left a law career.

At first, it was awkward. I fumbled through conversations, realising how rusty I'd become at speaking without jargon. When someone asked what I did, my rehearsed elevator pitch fell flat. When politics came up, I discovered how much my views had been shaped by a decade in a singular environment. I had to relearn how to disagree without the safety net of shared assumptions.

But in this discomfort came an unexpected gift. The nurse's stories about hospital systems revealed more about human needs than any user research session I'd conducted. The baker's approach to craft—the patience, the attention to subtle changes—reminded me of what had first drawn me to design. The politician showed me how messaging works outside my bubble of A/B tests and conversion metrics.

These conversations haven't just strengthened my empathy muscles—they've resharpened my thinking. When you only talk to people who share your mental models, you stop examining them. The friction of different perspectives creates a necessary heat that refines ideas.

Bubbles don't burst on their own. They need something sharp to break them open.

For me, it was a three-year-old's hand, pulling me toward parents nothing like me. For you, it might be something else entirely. But the world expands with every bubble that pops.

And suddenly, you can breathe fresh air again.