User Defenders – UX Design & Personal Growth · Jason Ogle

We Can Be Heroes with Jason Ogle

·1 hr 18 min·5 clips

Jason Ogle describes how a tired outburst at a project manager became his biggest career failure and a lesson in emotional intelligence.

Episode 50 opens with the InVision Studio sponsor message and the usual User Defenders idea that UX work means fighting for users. Then the episode flips the setup. Jason Ogle steps out of the host chair and lets Justin Dower ask the questions for this milestone conversation. It feels warm, grateful, and a little vulnerable. The first idea pushes back on the fantasy that heroes are born different. Jason talks instead about ordinary people becoming stronger through practice and growth. He keeps the superhero language grounded: courage, responsibility, and the choice to keep showing up. The roughest story is the one that sticks. Jason remembers being exhausted, half-awake from a power nap, and taking a hard project call when he was in no shape for it. The client did not like his work. Instead of hearing the project manager as the messenger, he snapped after putting thought, effort, and detail into the design. He calls it a failure, plainly. That moment becomes the episode's real lesson: the tiny space between what happens and how you respond. Emotional intelligence gives him a way to talk about it. Drawing on Dr. Daniel Goldman's book Emotional Intelligence, Jason describes a neural hijacking, when the emotional brain outruns the thinking brain. The point stays practical. He spends the rest of the day rattled by how he handled the call, then turns the mistake into a case for self-awareness in design work. The ending comes back to thanks. Jason thanks the defenders for their ears, time, and heart across 50 episodes and counting. He names Doug Deets and Margaret Hamilton, nods to the work still ahead, and sends listeners back out to fight on.

As heard by us

Jason Ogle takes the guest seat in a reflective episode about growth mindset, client feedback, and the human side of UX.

Episode 50 finds User Defenders turning inward, with Jason Ogle in the guest chair and Justin Dower steering the questions. It sticks closely to the show's core idea: ordinary people can grow into something exceptional through mindset and effort, not because they arrive with…

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Why you'd press play

If you want a self-interview about UX, growth mindset, and owning a bad client-day reaction, press play.

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