Curiosity #62 - Make Your Next Move a Game

🎤 Quotable quotes: “I'm curious who I can become next."

— Anthony Conta

🎧 This Week’s Guest: Anthony Conta

Anthony Conta’s resume reads like the start of a very entertaining board game:

• Started in law and economics

• Taught chess to preschoolers

• Created Funemployed (now Bad Interviews)

• Worked at Nickelodeon, Amazon, and now Meta

• Authored The Art and Science of UX Design

• Teaches at Pratt

• And yes—he’s designing games just for fun, too.

Anthony joined Marnie and Nick for a conversation that felt a bit like improv, a bit like product school, and a whole lot like inspiration for anyone trying to figure out their next move.

🎮 Leadership Rule of the Week

Start before you're ready.
According to Anthony, the secret to creativity and growth is taking action—especially when you're still figuring things out. Whether it's prototyping a card game, building a case study, or switching careers for the sixth time, the magic happens when you do, not just plan.

💡 Other Topics we Loved!

• Why messing around is a valid career strategy

• What three-year-olds can teach you about product design

• The surprising power of gamified storytelling

• Why UX and leadership both come down to one thing: empathy

• How teaching something forces you to master it

• And how a lasso can help you land a job as an astronaut (…at least in a game)

📺 Learn More

Find Anthony on LinkedIn or dig into his writing on Medium.

You can also check out Bad Interviews (the card game formerly known as Funemployed) wherever games are sold.

More leadership musings

🍪 Biscuits with the Boss: 

“If your life were a board game, what would it be called?”

Would it be something strategic like Calculated Risks?
Something chaotic like Oops, I Did It Again?
Or maybe something weirdly specific like The Quest for Good Coffee and Better Wifi?

This week, Anthony reminded us that career paths don’t have to be linear, and sometimes the best growth comes when you treat life like a game, not a checklist.

So grab a marker, name your game, and share it with your team. Bonus points if you add a tagline.

📚Beard’s collection:

📖 Conta, Anthony. The Art and Science of UX Design: A step-by-step guide to designing amazing user experiences.  2023, New Riders
This isn’t just another UX textbook. Anthony built it like a game... complete with hands-on exercises, sample answers, and a fully guided case study. Whether you're a student trying to break into product design or a pro looking to sharpen your toolkit, this is the kind of book that makes learning fun and useful.

🌎 This week in Here - There - Every F’ing where 

Wow we had a great time Leading it Like Lasso with the Career Development Professionals at the SCCDP Conference! The room was full of Teds, Rebeccas, Roys, Sams and Keeleys!

Believe! 

Nick & Marnie