 This is how I became a UX designer by accident. That's right, by accident. Wait, not only that, I was living in a developing country where I didn't speak the language, had no design degree, had no experience, and had never heard of UX design. Hi, I'm Chris, a self-taught UX designer. I went from zero experience to head of product design in four years. This is a story about how it all started and what I learned from the beginning of my journey. Hope this helps you fast track your career into UX. Now let's dive in. November 2013, I was on a 16-hour journey to Vietnam. The plan was to stay in Southeast Asia and travel for about six months. In the meantime, I'll think about my career. Because I struggled to find a decent job back in England, no one was hiring for a business graduate, unless you're from the top three schools or so. Four months went by, traveling, partying, I completely ran out of money. In January 2014, I found a job in tech, luckily. I joined a company called Misfit Wearables, a Silicon Valley high-growth startup. I was hired for a communication associate role. That meant I was in charge of growing our social media. The job needed some design skills, like emails and social posts. Overall, I found my day-to-day pretty unrewarding. Seven months later, I quit. I was thinking to myself, should I continue to live in Vietnam? Should I get another marketing job? In July 2014, I was jobless, zero savings and staying at my Vietnamese grandparents. A friend needed a new website for her startup, so I offered to help. I spent hours and hours designing and building a website in Wix. I was instantly addicted, so I built my own website the very next day. I posted my website on social media, offering services like web design, digital marketing, and whatever I can get my hands on. In September 2014, I got my first client, a small startup that wanted SEO. I didn't know what I was doing, but I said yes. I spent the nights learning, the same client gave me more and more projects, months go by, hacking away. I was taking interviews everywhere for basically anything. Games companies, British American tobacco company, whatever. I think I even applied for Burger King. Anyway, eventually I got a new job. January 2015, I got hired as a digital marketing lead. I was working for a small startup at Vietnam's most popular event website at the time, before Facebook events was really a thing. I was working with the founders directly, across the company from sales to product. I was designing banners, sales deck, anything I can get my hands on. I redesigned their website using Keynote. That's before I found Sketch. However, I wasn't really happy at that job. I would get locked out of my email if I came into work at 11 a.m. That's crazy, right? So a few months later, I quit again. I was once again applying for anything, the Burger King leadership program, marketing roles in Hong Kong. Then I interviewed with one company for a design role. There was two rounds of interviews, really casual and just asking about tools I used, some design and collaboration questions, but nothing super technical. During the interviews, I was so nervous because I felt like an imposter. Yes, I had some experience in marketing, but I had no clue of apps and software as a service. They hired me anyways. In July 2015, I started my first full-time UX design role at Tiny Pulse. To this point, I had still never heard of UX design. I was their first design hire. In my first week, I stayed up till 1 a.m. every night at the office. I worked Saturdays. I got obsessed with design podcasts. I flew to Seattle to work with the CPO and CEO. I kept on saying yes, and I soaked it all in. And whilst there for two years, I was promoted and got four pay rises, hired designers and grew the team to five. Instead of having one product, we built a whole product suite. Even after I left, I was mentoring and getting paid to do so 12 months after. Okay, that's a lot. From January 2014 to July 2015, and eventually stumbling into UX design, what did I learn from those experiences? Moving to Vietnam, I changed my environment. I broadened my perspective. And Vietnam's entrepreneurial spirit and drive gave me motivation personally. My opportunities became more apparent. You might not necessarily need to pack your bags and go, but changing your stagnant environment can lead to unexpected surprises. Getting my first job in tech and quitting. Well, I knew I liked tech, but not so much the job. Even if I didn't have a plan B, I still quit. This created urgency for myself. I put a healthy, maybe unhealthy amount of pressure, which increased my drive and motivation. Sometimes you've got to be in a hole to know how to climb out of one. Being a freelancer, I had never freelanced before. I especially didn't know anything about SEO. In my head, I was like, okay, I'll learn as much as I need to get the job done. So I really put myself out there and started to market my skills. Getting that digital marketing role. Honestly, the job sucked. But I got a chance to work on all sorts of design stuff. I realized that websites is the thing I really enjoyed the most. I asked for more of what I enjoyed. It was the first product I shipped with a significant amount of users. And then finally, what did I learn from my first UX role? Well, maybe I got lucky. Maybe it was the right place at the right time. I still remember filling out the entry form before landing in the US, the occupation section, and I wrote designer. And I was like, holy shit, wow, I'm getting paid to design. That was the best feeling ever. I think it's just me saying yes a bunch of times. If you're going to take one thing from this video, it's this, it's okay to have a goal or a career path that's already defined. If you're lucky enough, everything is clear. Do this and then that. But for those who are not sure, like I was, just wonder, try a bunch of things, give up on others and keep exploring. That's it. If you like this video, you know what to do. Hit the big red button and it should be somewhere along the bottom or something. All right, that's it from me. Bye.