When Industrial Designer Philippe Guichard started his career as a designer, success was partly about proving himself. Then he lost everything.
In this excerpt from On Experience, Philippe reflects on how losing his business, combined with years of meditation practice, fundamentally changed the way he approaches design, work and life.
What emerged wasn’t a better design process. It was a different way of seeing.
A conversation about failure, ego, service and what experience teaches us over time.
Edited Transcript
Geoff: I’m really curious about that ego piece because I kind of think that’s a big deal. That you were able to go from, let’s say ‘it was about you’ and ’it wasn’t about you’. How did you make that shift? Was there something that happened there?
Philippe: I think there are a number of events that contributed to help me.
One is I think when I was 22, I published one of my first designs, which was a convertible sofa, and it has five different functions. That was pretty clever, I have to say. But that was really ego-based.
You know, “Oh my God,” you know, like puffing and putting my chest up. It’s like, ooh. You know, that was good. That was really not the base, but that was kind of the consequence of the design and the design high that I had at the time.
After that, there were stories that were a bit less successful, including this product. There’s a bit of a backstory on that particular product.
But at the same time I started design, I also started meditation. So the two threads are completely aligned. I discovered meditation as I was an industrial designer in Canada. The two threads are completely intertwined. And I also have events in my life where the shock of
something really helps you to lose your ego.
So I lost my business when I was twenty-nine or thirty, probably thirty. Anyway, I don’t remember. I’m not good with dates. But I was eight years into my business. I had a few employees, and in two weeks I lost everything.
That’s the type of opportunity in life, you can… you’re either a victim of things and everything, or you can really try to understand the deeper meaning. And, if your business was a bit more ego-based, and so it’s a good way to drop that attitude and move to someone or something that is more of service.
So I think, I had a number of small moments in my life, you know, a slap in the face here and a punch over there that helped me to go through that journey.
And then through that, there’s an underlying condition, which is meditation. And the goal of meditation also is to really get rid of your ego. So there’s a bit of that happening. So I think the two are linked.
Geoff: Yeah, that’s just really interesting because in the previous conversation I spoke with the guy I do the mindfulness study with, Mark Molony. And it was kind of interesting that you brought up something similar because at some level, how does that shape or change your awareness? Like, what are you looking for now that you weren’t looking for before?
Like, how do we practically say, Philippe’s now designing for something else? Are there clues there?
Philippe: I think there’s a willingness to really serve the project versus serving yourself. So when I design a product, I would really look at the context of my clients. And not all clients want to have a big business that is gonna double revenue every year and all that.
Some clients want a very soft and, and sustainable growth, solid so that they can count on and just move slowly from there.
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