I recently got an automated email from Adbeat that featured this quote. You’ve probably heard it before it comes from Picasso and was actually made famous by Steve Jobs in 1996.

The quote stuck with me, while the email quickly made it’s way to my trash, for a few reasons. My first digital job I had no experience and a boss who’s mentality was if you break it you need to fix it. This taught me the value of analyzing code to understand how other, more experienced people solved problems. Even today I evaluate people’s solutions to problems as a way to gain insight into them.

As my career continued I worked in entertainment and the digital products that allowed audiences to engage with their audiences. This taught me the value of competitive analysis and research. The power of taking what someone had done and pushing it, even more, to evolve it into something better. It also put me in a place where your job was to always have a new idea. If someone took yours and beat you to the market with it you had to have a new one and a new one after that. This mentality has become me, one of my biggest fears is settling or becoming complacent.

Here’s to not being complacent and a couple of masters who never were — Picasso and Steve Jobs.