Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #590: Letting Go

Episode Date: November 16, 2018

As I had just dropped my daughter Rachel off at college, I talk about how a designer has to learn to let go of their work and pass it along to other people.

I'm pulling out of the driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work. Okay, so last time I talked about going to Chicago to drop off my daughter, Rachel, my oldest daughter, for college. So this episode is all about letting go. So what I was going to do is sort of compare what it's like as a parent to let your child sort of go off on their own to taking a set and handing a set over. Because one of the things that's been true since I've been working on magic is I tend to work on the early part of them. Whether it's design or vision design or whatever, I work on the part of the design which is it starts with a blank piece of paper. I work on the part of the design, which is it starts with a blank piece of paper, and I develop, and my team develop what the essence of the thing is and what the mechanics are and such.

But at some point, I hand it over to a different person and a different team that is going to continue working on it. You know, there are very few projects, for example, that I was on from the very beginning to the very end. There's a few, you know, Tem was on from the very beginning to the very end. There's a few, um, you know, Tempest, the very first team I designed, I was also on the development team. Um, that was true of Odyssey, uh, the unsets I, I've been on all the way through. Um, but the vast majority of the sets, at some point I'm taking what I'm doing and I'm passing it along

to somebody else. And that one of the things that's important to sort of understand is that there's a lot of parallels I see between sort of being a parent and being a creator. I've talked about this before, that I think the act of making something, of bringing something into existence. It's not all that different from sort of birthing a baby, of bringing a baby into the world. So what I want to do today is I want to sort of, like, I spend a lot of time on my podcast talking about certain aspects of the process, and I tend to lean a little more toward the kind of exciting, happy parts of the process and I tend to lean a little more toward the kind of exciting happy parts of the process but you know one of the things about like the way the process works is you are constantly iterating you are constantly making the set better and the reason we have deadlines is you could work

on a set forever you could remake it you could you know I could always keep working on a set forever. You could remake it. You could, you know, I could always keep working on a set and making it slightly better. Now, at some point, there's diminishing returns. The amount of time I'm spending in order to make something better, you know, is not going to be worth, you know, like, yeah, I can work on and I can make it incrementally better, but is that incrementally better worth the time? So one of the things I like about work is there's deadlines. I have X amount of time. And another part of the process that's very important is that somebody else is going to be handling it, that there's another set of eyes. That one of the reasons we've always had a sort of a two-step process is that you want somebody to be able to look at it who can functionally

change things, who sort of can step back and kind of look at it. And when you sort of made it, while there's a lot of advantages of being close and emotional to it and stuff, sometimes it helps to have someone who can step back and, as we say, call your baby ugly. And say, okay, you know, while you fall in love with this aspect, I don't know if it's really working, now that we step back and look at it. And sometimes the reason that we tend to pass things along is that magic is not a singular creation. No one thing is made by one person. It is made by a team of people, a large team of people. And I think one of the things that really makes Magic shine is that it's a

collaborative effort where a lot of people get to work really hard to make something really cool. And it's always fun at the slideshow when we put up the cards and you see the cards, how many people get to look at it and go, I was part of making that. You know, that's one of the cool things about the slideshows

is that R&D as a whole is very proud because the vast majority of R&D at some point had some, you know, worked on it in some way. Now, I'm in a unique position where I see sort of every set. The nature of my job, I have to make sure I know what every set, I have a thumbprint on every set that goes by. I mean, even the sets that I'm not leading the vision design, I'm overseeing the vision design. And so, you know, I definitely, I'm aware of everything that's going on. A lot of people in R&D, that's not the way they function. A lot of people work on set A, but not set B and not set C and D, work on set D. But they'll make notes on set B. Maybe they'll do a play test on

set C. You know, there's ways in which we have something we call play days where we stop our work and everybody works on a, everyone plays a particular set for a day and gives feedback. So anyway, even if you're not sort of regularly working on something, everybody sort of touches upon something. Okay. So,

so let's talk about like, okay, so I've dropping Rachel off at college. So basically the whole family went. We all went to Chicago. I don't want to talk about what school specifically she went to just for privacy reasons. But Rachel obviously chose a school in Chicago. She's very excited.

I mean, and one of the things about college in general is usually college is a pretty big deal. Just the pure autonomy that comes with it is intoxicating. And, I mean, college is a lot of fun. I went to college. And, you know, the ability to really focus on what you want to do, both. Like, one of the things that college meant to me, I look back at my college. So I went to Boston University.

And I went to, I studied communications, studied broadcast and film. And it's funny, my actual, my classes themselves that I took were very valuable. And I learned a lot from them. I've talked a lot about how even to this day, a lot of the communications learning that I learned have been applied to what I do. And so like, it's amazing how many things I learned in college that I get to apply daily to what I do in magic, even though what I'm doing is not quite what I studied. You know, I, I had planned to go work in Hollywood, obviously, and I ended up not doing that or, you know, for most of my career. Uh, um, but the other interesting thing about college was how much, like, there's a lot of things I did outside of, of studying. Probably the biggest thing is, and I've talked about this a little bit, is

that I did a lot of theater. There was a group called Stage Troupe, which was the acting organization on campus. And through them, I started an improv troupe. I wrote and directed multiple plays. I started a sketch workshop, a writer's workshop, where we wrote sketches and performed them. Wrote, directed, and performed our own sketches. So anyway, college was very informative for me. So first off, the first thing to remember, sort of about letting go, is you are doing it because the thing that you care about, be it your child, be it your set, is going to be better for it.

Like one of the things to realize is the reason we have the process we have, the reason that there's a second set of eyes, the reason that another team is doing it is different teams have different strengths. And that by sort of having multiple people and multiple teams look at something, it makes it the best that it can be. I truly believe that our process results in the best sense. I don't believe if one person from the very, very beginning of the process all the way to the very, very end of the process

necessarily would lead to what would be our best sets. That I think that one of the things that helps a lot is that there's other voices and other, you know, that there's a mix of people looking at something. And that, you know, I like the idea in making magic that, for example, I'll use Innistrad as an example. I handed Innistrad over to Eric Lauer.

That was the first time I had handed over a set to Eric Lauer. Now Eric and I have worked together quite a while and I've handed many sets over to Eric. But at the time, it was the first time I had done it. Not that I didn't trust Eric. Eric is really smart. He had led other sets. He had led some core sets at the time and led Mirrodin Besieged.

But this is the first time he was doing a fall set. First time he was doing a set that I had done. And one of the things I really enjoyed about Innistrad, and Innistrad is one of my favorite sets, maybe my favorite set as far as a set that I made, how it ended up. I think Innistrad is probably the closest to, like the best set I've made, I believe. And there's other sets in contention, but

Innistrad, just the finished product was really, really good. And the reason for that, which is interesting, is I think I did a very good job of figuring out what the set wanted to be about, of figuring out sort of the essence of the set. But, one of the figuring out sort of the essence of the set. But one of the things that happened along the way is I said to Eric, here's my vision,

here's what I want, here's what the set's supposed to do. And what Eric said is, oh, okay, well, some of the choices you made did not optimize the things you're saying you want to do. The classic example would be vampires. So vampires, we made a choice that we wanted to have monsters in the set

and that we realized that there was a tribal theme we wanted to do with vampires, werewolves, zombies, spirits, and then humans. Hold on one second. So vampires ended up being our aggressive tribe. And black and red are not traditionally necessarily the most aggressive combination. And what Eric came back and said is,

what you've done is made a very controlling faction. And it sounds like what you want is a more aggressive faction. Okay, well, let me make some changes so that happens. So, for example, he added in the slith mechanic. That's the mechanic where when your creature hits your opponent, it gets a plus one, plus one counter. So, they're like, okay, well, these are vampires that when they feed, they get stronger. It's very flavorful, but it also said, okay, well this is about attacking. This is about being aggressive. You don't want to sit back and be controlling.

You want to be aggressive. So Eric made a lot of individual small choices to make sure that the vampires acted the way that I, the person who sort of set the vision, wanted them to act. Even though some of the choices I made, wanted them to act, even though some of the choices I made, you know, some of the choices I made didn't quite accomplish the thing I wanted. And so what Eric was able to do, sorry, I'm going to take another, I apologize for my

scratchy throat today. What Eric was able to do was he was able to get the essence of what I wanted and make changes to make it work better that way. And one of the things I've learned over time is, like, one of the things that, I mean, I've made a lot of sets. One of the things I realized is part of making the best magic set is I'm not trying to make a finished set. You know, when I start something, my goal is not to make the best end set

because I'm not responsible for the whole process. What I want to do is set up the next part of the process the best I can. So, for example, whoever my set designer is, I know that. I've worked with the set designers. I have a sense of what they need, and different set designers want different things. What I'm trying to do is make the best set so that when it gets taken over by the next group, the set design group, they can make the best set with it. I mean, the metaphor I use is my team is the architect. The vision design is making the plans for the building and set design is going to build the building. Well, my job is to make the best plans that I can, that I want to give set design all the tools I can to make the

best set. But that doesn't necessarily mean doing all the work. Some of the job is going, you know what, this is better. I know they're going to do this better than I'm going to do. A classic example is we used to, in design, figure out the draft pairings. Like, in draft, what are the color combinations going to do? And what happened was, you know, design doesn't

do cost. Now it happens between set design and play design later in the process sort of figure out cost. Like, in vision, what I'm trying to do is figure out what's fun and pass that along to set design. Let's give set design the tools that they're going to fine-tune things and figure out what they want to push and not push.

And so part of that is, until they figure out what they're pushing exactly, it's hard to figure out the archetypes for the drafting. And that when I was doing that work, really what would end up happening is set design would redo a lot of that work. And after a lot of discussion with Eric, what I've learned is what Vision wants to do is define what the colors want to be doing,

define what the set wants to be doing, define the overall essence of the set. But it is not worth our time figuring out the color pairings that's something that needs to be done later in the process and so i don't do that work you know i do the preliminary work so that they can do that work set design can do that work but i don't um and so a lot of um creating something in a collaborative process is making sure that you are enabling the people down the line to have the tools they need to make the best set possible. And that is, you know, that's an important part of what we do. So let's flip over to my daughter.

There's the same general philosophy. You know, I think when you're a parent, like one of the things about being a parent, and this is funny, so when you find out you're going to be a parent, you talk to people who are parents, and you get a lot of advice. One of the most interesting pieces of advice I got, though,

was someone who said, the thing that is going to surprise you the most is how quickly your life will change in ways you just don't anticipate. And that, you know, you bond with a baby very, very quickly. Kind of shockingly quickly. That it's not often that something gets introduced into your life that you're like, oh, my entire life has changed and this is really important. In a way that you're going to prioritize

things for this thing. There's not a lot of things in your life that function quite that way. But a baby does. You know, a baby, you bond to a baby instantaneously. It is quite, that's one thing about parenthood that I,

even though I was told it to you, it is odd to experience it because it is something that, there's certain things in life that someone could tell you, but until you experience it, it's hard to sort of get the essence of it. So one of the things about being a parent

that I've always firmly believed is, look, it is my job to do the best I can to give my kids the best opportunities they can. To make my daughter or son the best person they can be. Part of that is exposing them to things. Like, it's very clear, for example, that Rachel is very much influenced by me. Her love of games, you know, her love of media, her love of musicals.

They're just things that she really has a passion for that I have a passion for. And, you know, it's not necessarily that they all were because I had a passion for them, but it was something I could share with her. It was something that definitely I had an influence on. There's things that Rachel loves to do.

You know, she loves cooking, for example. That's something my wife Laura really loves to do. And there, you know, you definitely can see the influence that we had on her. But you also can see things that, kind of other things that influence on her. That, you know, that there's things that influence on her that, you know, um, that there's things that she's into that neither my wife or I are into. They're just sort of her own thing that she learned through friends or through, through other experiences.

Um, and that part of like one of the big lessons of parenting, which is a big lesson of design is if you truly care about the thing, which hopefully you do, what you want is what's best for that thing. That for your child, you want what's best for your child. You want your child to be the best that they can be. And so you do a lot of things to try to make sure that your child and or your set has the opportunities and the things it needs. But here's another really important part of it is that you don't know necessarily what your child needs or your set needs. Like you can't, it's very interesting.

When I start to make a set, you know, when I sit down to make a set, I have rough ideas the directions we're going. You know, a good example, Ravnica, the original Ravnica is a classic example. Like, I started down and said, okay, we're doing a multicolor set. It's going to be not like Invasion.

Okay. And I mean, I started with an idea of something I wanted to work off with, but like, did I have any idea that it'd be Ravnica? Did I have any idea that guilds would exist or any of the stuff that later would come? No, I didn't. I sat down with a very clear goal. And that goal put me in a direction and all those choices got me to where the set ended up. But I didn't know that when I sat down to make the set. And the same is true of Rachel. That when Rachel was born and I'm holding a little baby Rachel in my hands, I had no idea where Rachel would go. For example, I talked a

little bit about this. You know, Rachel in high school really had ran into a problem where it was very clear that high school she was going to the local high school, she really was having a problem it was not working and there was a bit of a crisis time and we didn't quite know what was going on and Rachel was the one that found this other school that was this innovative school where there weren't grades and it was project-based. That you made your own projects and you worked with teachers to make sure

that you were learning the things you needed to learn to the days you were doing internships where you were leaving the school and going and learning things by doing hands-on stuff. And that was a very different experience. And I'll admit, when Rachel first came to me and said, I want to go to this school, I was skeptical. I was like, hey, well, why don't you just

stay, like, the school she was in was much more traditional. I understood it. It was kind of like what I had gone to. It was a more traditional school. And it's a good school system. It's why we moved where we moved. But I came to realize that it's something that Rachel needed. That it was the path that

Rachel was on, that to be who Rachel wanted to be, it was an important part of that. And so like part of being a parent is making the choices not for what you want for your kid, but make the choices that are what are needed for your kid. What, you know, your kid is going to be what they're going to be. And your job is to make them the best person that they can be. And you have to be adaptive. You have to make changes. The set is very much the same thing.

When Brady Dartmouth came up with the idea of the guilds for Ravnica, I had to go, oh, that's an amazing idea. That's not where we started. That's not where I thought we were going. But once I hear it and I see it, I had to go, oh, that's an amazing idea. That's not where we started. That's not where I thought we were going. But once I hear it and I see it, I'm like, oh, yeah, okay, that's the direction we're going. And, you know, like one of the things that's really interesting is, just original Ravnica, is when I first proposed the idea that we do a block, a multi-color block of 10 color, of 10 two-color combinations,

and the first set was only going to have four of the 10, a lot of people thought I was crazy. They're like, what are you doing? And the funny thing is, it wasn't that I was trying to do something radical. What I was trying to do is, once I said, okay, let's adopt the guilds, let's take the guild model. I was just trying to do what to me seemed like the obvious thing to do to make the guilds work. That once, like once I, once I understood that, okay, this is what I think the vision is. Well, follow through on that and I think parenting is a lot the same way which is

you don't always know where your child is going, you don't always know but at some point you find something like okay well this in the path that they're going this seems to be the thing that will help them the most. Her school was a really good example where once I went to the school and I met the teachers and I sort of understand the school and I understood

I could see Rachel's response to it. I was, as a parent, I was able to say, oh, well, this is okay. This is the logical, this is where we need to go. And that wasn't something, you know, holding baby Rachel. I, no way in the world saw that coming. But I do think an important part of overseeing something. But I do think an important part of overseeing something, like, be aware that one of the things I often talk about is I do think that the creative process very much is an emotional one at times.

That part of the reason you're able to do what you're able to do with the set or any creative process is that you put some of yourself in it and you care about it and you put its well-being above all. You know, when I'm working on a set, it's like I want it to be the best set it could be. What do I need to do to be the best set it can be? Do I need, you know, Ravnica as an example is, okay, it was clear to me that I needed to do something to, okay, it's about the guild. This is what makes the guilds the best. Now, there's a lot of fighting I had to do. There's a lot of examples where I wanted to do something

that I was convinced was what was best for the set. But it was not an obvious answer. It was not something we, or not obvious, but it wasn't something we had done before. You know, Innistrad, it was clear the double-faced cards was the right way to go. There were people that were really dead set against that but in each case you know, sometimes

to do what's right for your set you gotta, you know is it comfortable, for example, to fight to make things happen when some people believe it shouldn't happen no part of my job sometimes is to stand up for things I believe in and fight people to try to convince them it's the right thing to do.

And that is aggravating, and it is not, you know, but part of the thing is I'm trying to do what's best for my set. Even if it creates discomfort for me, even if it's extra work for me, I'm going to do what's right for my set. Same with my child. You know, there's a lot of things, like one of the things I often talk about being a parent is, I joke about the

amount of homework you have, the amount of things like, okay, well, in order, I have to do this, or I have to do that. And there's a lot of things where, like one of the things about being a parent, I will say this, is the number of times I ended up doing something where I'm like, I never guessed I would do this. Um, but of course, okay, I need to do this. I'm doing this. Um, you know, it is, it is interesting of like, I'll use it by one example is like diapers, for example, is when you first start, you're, you know, the whole act of changing diapers

seems kind of gross. It is kind of gross. But at some point you're like, okay, I'm in on this. I have a baby. I got to do this. And one of the things that they don't really tell you ahead of time is changing diapers can get pretty, like, there's the very tame, like, you know, I can change it quickly and it's not that hard to do. And tame, like, you know, I can change it quickly and it's

not that hard to do. And then there's, you know, all sorts, I won't get into the graphics of it, but there's some, there's some moments where you're, you're dealing with your child that are pretty, pretty gross. And as a parent, you're like, you suck it up. You're like, okay, this is what I signed up for and I got to do it. And I feel that way with, with making a magic set. I mean, metaphorically, there's some things that are hard and difficult and there's some paths sometimes, like sometimes

figuring out the right thing to do for your set can be hard. I've told the Scars of Mirrodin story where I kind of got lost in the middle of the set and I really didn't know where I was going. You know, there were moments with mini sets where even Ravnica had a moment where, like, I wasn't quite sure what I was doing. Zendikar had its moment too.

A lot of sets that turned out to be really good sets. I had a moment of crisis where I wasn't quite sure if I was doing it correctly. And, you know, there's a lot of ups and downs. I mean, I tend to focus on the more ups of design. Like, I love what I do. It is a dream job.

I've been doing it forever because I enjoy what I do. That doesn't mean that at every moment everything is, it's not like, there are downsides to the job. There are hard parts of the job. There are emotional days. There are, you know, there's frustrations. Being a parent is the same way. I love being a parent.

I would not, you know, it's not like if I had to do it over again, I would not sign up again. But being a parent can be very frustrating at times. You know, for example, I've talked about this a little bit in my column. You know, Rachel, when she was younger, got sick for a while. She had a thing called nephrotic syndrome, which was a kidney condition. And, you know, it had a mortality rate, right? Like, some percentage of kids with this condition die. And that

was horribly weighty, you know what I'm saying? Like, as a parent, you know, you have this little baby you care immensely about, and then as they grow up, you know, when they're in jeopardy, you're in jeopardy. Like, when something could happen to them, it rips you. As a parent, it can rip you to shreds.

And, I mean, luckily, Rachel got past it, you know, but you know, there was a point in time where she had a condition that, like, there was a chance she could die. Now, it wasn't a great chance. I think it was, like, 1.3%, if I remember correctly. And 1.3% sounds

like a very small chance, except if I said to you, oh, there's a 1.3% your child will die, well, that's way too high of a percentage chance, so, you know, and you oh, there's a 1.3% your child will die, well, that's way too high a percentage, and so, you know, and um, you know, there is a lot, a lot of raising a kid is, you'll do things you don't realize

you would do, and you're looking out for your kid, and you're trying to do the best you can by your kid, um, but it, you know, there's a lot of things along the way that make it, um, make it difficult. Um, and like I say, when I talk about raising a kid and building a set, There's a lot of things along the way that make it difficult. And like I say, when I talk about raising a kid and building a set, there's a lot of the same thing.

You bring the thing into the world. You care about the thing. You do what you can to make the thing the best that it can be. And there's a lot of sacrifices and a lot of things that you didn't realize you would sign up for that you do once you're sort of involved in it. But anyway, the theme of today is letting go. So let me talk a little bit about this process. So every single time I've ever made a set, I've handed it off to someone. Even when I was on the development team, I still wasn't leading the development team.

I was handing off my thing to somebody else for them to work on it. And likewise, you know, I'm going off to college. So like basically what we did is we went to Chicago. And the first couple of days, because we didn't drive to Chicago, it's like a four hour drive from Seattle. We flew there. We shipped a whole bunch of boxes there because we needed to get a bunch of stuff there. And then a lot of the things that we needed, rather than buying it in Seattle, we waited and we bought it in Chicago. So we did, you know, we went to, got all the bedding and the bathroom stuff and, you know,

some entertainment stuff. And our graduation present to Rachel had been a whole bunch of stuff for her, for her dorm. We got her a TV for her room. Anyway, a whole bunch of stuff. And dorm. We got her a TV for her room, and anyway, a whole bunch of stuff. And so we bought all of that there, or most of it there. And so really, a lot of the trip was sort of setting her up and getting her ready. And then what we had done was, the plan was, the first half of the trip would be getting Rachel ready, and the second half of the trip would be seeing Chicago. Because my family, I mean, Rachel had gone with me to see the school,

but none of my family other than that one trip had ever been to Chicago. And, well, I've been to Chicago a lot of times, as I talked about in my last podcast. My family hadn't. So we spent a lot of time seeing the city. And I talked about some of that in my last podcast. Chicago's a fun town, there's a lot of cool things to see, so we did a lot of that. But what we didn't expect and ended up being very valuable for us is we actually saw Rachel every day after we dropped her off before we left town. Now, some days she just joined us for dinner. Some days she'd, you know, she had a little more time. She'd come with us and, you

know, do some sightseeing in Chicago. But the nice thing was that there was this period of time where she was sleeping in her dorm, and she was slowly sort of meeting people. Classes hadn't started yet. But she was sort of getting accustomed to being at school, but still seeing us. And so there was like a nice transition period that we hadn't exactly planned per se,

but it worked out that way. And part of letting go, which is nice, was that it wasn't all of a sudden. It was like, you're here, here's your school, bye. It was more of like, okay, there's a... We got to casually, over time, sort of slowly, sort of ease letting go. And sets have a similar quality,

which is... We used to call it divine it's not quite named right now but there is a period of time where I'm interacting with the set design the way it works right now is we have the set design lead on some or all of vision design

and then normally during the last like month if they're on the team at that point, I talk with them and say, okay, is there anything that we've not set up? This is kind of how Divine used to work. Is there anything we're not doing that's something that you think is important? And I walk through and understand

the things where they're concerned and I make sure that I use the team's time to give them some options. Because one of the things that, like I said, I want the vision design to do is set up set design to hit a home run, to build the best house they can build. And part of doing that is making sure that I'm giving them enough tools to do that. Usually what I like to do is over deliver a little bit because it is easier for them to pull things out of a set or lessen the volume of things in the set than it is to make things. And so what I tend to do is do a lot of work with our mechanics and a lot of proof of concept and saying, okay, here's the mechanic. Here's a couple different ways you can use it.

Here's all the different mechanics we think you might need. Sometimes it'll be a bonus thing in case they want some extra. We'll make some cycles. We'll make some... We will do some concepting and make them understand, here's the kind of things you need. And it varies on the set. Like, I did a set recently

where we did a lot more card-by-card design. Not because all the design was going to stay, but we needed to model the... The set was more about a lot of individual combined choices than about necessarily just the mechanics in the set. And so whatever it is that I want the set to be, we model it by making cards that sort of demonstrate that.

The important thing to understand in vision design is the cards are proof of concept. I mean, not that none of the cards can stay, but, you know, we expect a lot of the cards will change. It's more using the cards as a means to demonstrate the kind of things we want to show. And so a lot of handing over a set is making sure that the people who are going to get it next, that you're giving them what they need. And so part of letting go, what I find is on the design end, is making sure that you're optimizing your set for the next part of the journey.

That I always understand that the set is going to go from vision into set design and I want to make sure that the set has what it needs to shine in set design. So from a parenting standpoint, what does that mean? It means like I knew my daughter was going to college. I mean, I've gone to college. I understand a lot about college. And I wanted to make sure that she had the skill set and the tools and the knowledge so that she could excel at college. Now, part of that is college is going to do its own thing. You know, she's going to learn stuff there that I'm not necessarily preparing her for. But what I want to do is maximize her having the things she needs, you know, whether it's

objects, whether it's information, whether it's just like, you know, we spend a lot of time talking with her and just like one of the things we said, you know, whether it's objects, whether it's information, whether it's just, like, you know, we spend a lot of time talking with her and just, like, one of the things we said, you know, this summer before we're going to go is, okay, Rachel, are there things you don't know that you need to know? Like, one of the things that Rachel came back and said is, you know what, I don't tend to do the laundry, but I know I'm going to have to do laundry. Can I start doing some laundry so that I can understand, you know, I just want to learn laundry. I want to make sure that I know what I need to know to do the laundry. Um, you know, and that, that's part of the things of sort of before I, you know, the handoff, if you will, to college. Um, I wanted to make sure that I, you know, um, Laura and I both spent a lot of time with her. We spent time talking, we spent time sort of other skills she needed. Uh, we spent time like, okay, what do you need?

What are objects you need? And make sure that you have the tools available to you so that you can excel. And even now, I mean, like, one of the things is, you know, I, as we speak, last week's when we dropped her off, I still text her. I still, you know, I've talked to her on the phone most days since we dropped her off, although some days I'm just texting her. But, I mean, I'm in communication with her. I still, you know, I've talked to her on the phone most days since we dropped her off, although some days I'm just texting her. But I mean, I'm in communication with her. You know, like one of the things is, oh, she forgot a few things at home. Oh, I do need thing X or thing Y. Can you get thing X, thing Y to me? And we're getting those objects to her. You know, and once I hand a set over, it is not as if I have no communication with the set.

a set over, it is not as if I have no communication with the set. You know, once I, you know, once I hand the set over, I keep my, you know, I keep my, what do I keep in? I keep my ear in, I guess. You know, I pay attention to what goes on. And usually the set design lead will come back to me and if they're going to make any major changes, they'll talk to me about it and walk me through the reasons of what they want to do. And most of the time what they're doing is the right thing to do. And I'll say, oh, that sounds good. Every once in a while, someone will want to do something. I'll go, oh, well, you know, can you think about thing X,

thing Y? Usually, if I've done my job in vision and explained what I wanted, you know, they understand why things are doing what they're doing. And if they're making a change, it's because they're trying to improve the system, understanding the system. But, you know, one of the things that is, you know, once I hand the set off, I'm still part of the set's life, if you will. Once I, once my child goes to college, I'm still part of her life. It's just, it's a different, it is a more distant kind of way. And that is something that, you know, as a magic designer,

like, for example, right now I'm working on my, I don't know exactly, 28th, 29th. I mean, I've made a lot of sets. You know, this is my 23rd year coming up soon in October. I mean, by the time you hear this,

I will have been to Wizards. I'll have been there for 23 years. As I record this, I got one more month. But I've worked on a lot of sets. I've led, I've worked on, I've led a lot of sets. And so, I've gotten more used to the process. I mean, I think if I had 23 children by my 23rd child, it, eh, wouldn't just be a big deal that I'm handing my child, you know.

Like, it's funny, because one of the things when you first start working, like, your very first set, I watch new designers and when someone leads a set for the first time oh they're just they want to be responsible for everything

and they're so worried about it and you know like I remember when I handed off my first set that I wasn't on the development team

which I think was Urge's Destiny I watched every day I would look at the file every day I'd see what changes were made and I would leave notes

and you know I was very very conscious of what was going on. I was super protective. As I said, I worked very carefully on and I cared a lot about. I kept an eye on what was going on in development. Now, with time and just more learning how to trust the system, I do check in, but not every day. Also, system. I do check in, but I'm not, not every day. You know, also, you know, back in the day when I handled it versus Destiny, I mean, I was working on other things, but I wasn't leading other things. Where now it's like, as soon as I'm done leading one thing, I'm leading the next thing.

So I'm constantly sort of working on something. So, you know, I'm juggling so many balls that it's part of the system. In order for me to do my job, I can't be as on every possible set. I have to let other people work on stuff because we work far ahead and there's so many different projects going on and under the new 3-in-1 system, there's a lot of different things going on.

It's not even like it's all stuff in the same block. There's a lot to sort of monitor. I keep abreast of what's going on, but I can't, you know, day to day, I'm not watching the changes

made in every set I've ever worked on at the same time. I couldn't do that. Now, this is my first child going off to college. So in some way, I think me texting her

is a lot like me checking the file every day. Hopefully when Adam and Sarah go off to school, I'm a little better about it. I mean, I acknowledge, like one of the hard parts, I think, and this was true early on,

I think because I've done the same thing so many times, I've gotten better at it. But the creative process is a very bonding process, is a very emotional process, is definitely something where you are putting a lot of yourself into the thing. And it is hard to pass it along. It is hard to let it go to the next stage. Because you've invested so much time and you care so much about the thing.

It's a hard process. And the first time you sort of handle off a set to somebody else, it's a hard process, you know, and the first time you sort of handle off a set to somebody else, you know, it, it is a difficult thing. Um, and the first time you take your daughter to college, I'll admit it's a difficult thing. Um, you know, uh, a lot of people ask about what, what it's like to drop my daughter off. And I think the word that, um, my wife and I decided on is bittersweet. Um, in the sense that it's, I know Rachel's excited. I know she wants to go to college. I know, you know, like, it's an important part of her development.

Like, for every reason, of course, it's what she should be doing. And I in no way would ever not want her to be doing this. And I recognize how excited she is. You know, like, this is an awesome thing. And in no way do I not want my daughter to do it. It's what she needs to do. But, on another side, it's sad. You know, it is, in general, humans, change is hard for humans.

And, you know, Rachel was, for 18 years, a daily, I mean, not that she won't always be a part of my life. Obviously she will. But she was a part of my life, obviously she will, but she was a part of my life in a very, very conscious, hands-on, daily kind of way that's going to lessen with time. And that is part of being a parent is starting I call this letting go

is part of it is saying okay, you know, I want what is best for my daughter. I want her to be the best person she can be. I want her, you know, and part of that at some point is okay, I want what is best for my daughter. I want her to be the best person she can be. I want her, and part of that at some point is, okay, I'm not the person, the day-to-day hands-on experience is not mine anymore. That's going to become somebody else's.

Other people, and at some level her, she's responsible for herself. And like I said, the set is the same way. You care a lot about your set. You put a lot of energy, a lot of yourself in your set. And at some point, the set is the same way. You care a lot about your set. You put a lot of energy, a lot of yourself in your set. And at some point, you got to hand it off. And I don't talk, it's funny, I think I talk more about the exciting part of doing magic design, but I don't do as much, I don't do as much explaining that, look, there are a lot of...

It is an awesome job. I love my job. I do, I do love my job. Does that mean every emotion ever related to it is a positive one? No. You know, there are definitely... There are frustrations. I think I talk a little more about things that get me angry or frustrated. But there are some things that make you sad. Not in a bad way, but in a, you know, like I'm very happy when I finish a project.

I'm very proud of the project I made. I'm very happy with the set I made. But there's a little bit of sadness when the project leaves you. When it's like, oh, I've worked on this for so long and it really means something. And, you know, there's a little bit of being scared when you sort of are hands off and when it's in somebody else's hands. Or even when it's pencils down and you're going to print it.

You know, there's a little bit of fear, a little bit of sadness that comes with it. There's more joy. I'm not saying that like, but it's a mix of emotions. And I don't know if I always explain that. You know, I think sometimes it's easy to talk about the happiness and the excitement, and part of what I like to do in this podcast is say, like, it's more complex than that.

And the reason that I like comparing making a set to having a child is, I think when I give the parallel of the child, you get it. Like, I don't think anyone says, oh, dropping your daughter off for college must be just super easy to do. It's not. But in some ways,

handing over your set is not quite as easy. I don't think I've ever really talked about how, look, there is a process to letting it go, and, you know, you do it because it's right for the set, and you do it because you believe that, you know, it will make the set the best the set can be. But that does mean it can't be hard.

So anyway, that's kind of today. This is a little different aspect. I like using parts of my life as a means to show a different aspect of what goes on. And so, anyway, that is my principle, letting go. Letting go of your set, letting go of your kid. You know, it is both joyous, but also sad in some ways. So anyway,

I am now at work. So we all know what that means. It's the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time.