Sustainable Ambition Forum - 5.30.24
Can engaging in creative practices help us on our journey of Sustainable Ambition? Can we apply them to live and work in more fulfilling and satisfying ways?
These are the questions I’ve been exploring with my last three podcast guests, and I've absolutely loved learning from them. Today I’m featuring my conversations with podcast executive producer Emily Shaw and Dr. Tasha Golden, a singer/songwriter turned public health scientist who is the Director of Research at the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins Medicine and adjunct faculty in the University of Florida's Center for Arts in Medicine.
I found these so inspiring and walked away with so many insights. I’ll pull through a few that stood out to me that relate to how art and creativity can help build our resilience and sustain us along the way.
Appreciate art for your well-being.
While appreciating art on its own has been shown to contribute to our well-being, mental health, and improve health outcomes, this wasn’t Tasha’s focus. Sure, she’d love to see us incorporate art into our lives, and she believes there’s an even bigger opportunity.
My enjoyment of art this month: Vitamin String Quartet. So fun!
Find your expression and process your life.
In my conversation with Tasha, she shared how humans evolved to make and experience art. What she emphasized and what was important for her builds on my conversation with Doug Neill in Episode 131—how art and creativity provide another means for us to express ourselves. She said:
“So a lot of times my big tip is to expect that as a human you're going to need multiple ways to share and express and bear witness to and process your life.”
“This is clearly why we evolved to use a different kind of communicative mechanism. That just must be part of what we need as human beings in order to express the vast complexity of the human experience. Not everything can be drilled down into a really straightforward conversation. And then even if it could, sometimes some of us would feel that that's not quite appropriate for whatever we're feeling in the moment.”
Be more human, rather than performative and robotic. Color outside the lines.
A core part of Tasha’s work witnesses and connects to our humanity. She pushes against the need to fit into the limited acceptable ways of being and encourages us to be more expressive. Based on the discussion, I asked Tasha if she thought part of burnout might relate to the idea of us feeling the need to embrace such performative behaviors that are robotic in nature, as opposed to being more real and human. She agreed and shared:
“How would I go about my days if I didn't try to confine myself to showing up as a kind of robotic professional? And if I knew that I needed something more expansive than that in order to be whole and in order to sustain my work over the long term? What might I do differently? How might I see the art and creativity in my life a little bit differently?”
“So, yes, I think a big part of burnout is not having a license to be a human, and instead feeling like you have to perform the robot choreography that you've been given.”
“I always hope that the work that I'm doing as far as my research and consulting or anybody that I get to work with, the biggest hope that I have is that on the other side of it, people are a little bit more likely to think bigger about what life is and what's possible for them. You don't have to stay in your lane. There is no lane. We made the lanes up. You don't have to color inside the lines.”
Find your doable “creative practice” that gives you joy.
Research has shown that those with a serious hobby outside of work that is active vs. passive are better able to manage challenging and stressful jobs. I loved how Emily models intentionally having a creative practice outside her work, a playground where she can hone her artistry. There’s a distinction for her between her creativity as work that’s a part of commerce vs. creativity as her personal art and something she does for her personal enjoyment.
“I think it doesn’t matter what your job is. It doesn’t matter what you’re getting paid for. What's important is actually just to do something that feels enjoyable, just to make space in the day, even if it's cooking something or painting for five minutes. It doesn't need to be your job title on LinkedIn. I just think it's important to connect with that creative energy.”
“To me, it kind of feels like there's this river of creativity that's always flowing under the surface. And every time I do my little practice in the day or a bigger practice, I'm connecting with that flow that's always happening. And then it just energizes me. I think it's important to tap into that.”
What I appreciate about what both Tasha and Emily shared is how we can walk through the world differently than many of us likely do. There is a way of being, of expression, of experiencing that can allow us to be more free and human, and in so doing, help us find some relief and ease.
It’s with such energy I hope you step into your summer.
Warmly,
Kathy
Founder of Sustainable Ambition
🎶 P.S. Inspired by Emily, I created three songs on Suno to represent Sustainable Ambition (quickly, mind you; the lyrics need some optimizing!): High on the Horizon, Embrace the Journey, and Endless Heights (instrumental). Crazy what AI can do!
The Monthly Round-Up: You+Life+Work
Ideas on becoming consciously ambitious and thriving in life and work
What’s your taste? A way of learning who you are. I appreciated this conversation between Ezra Klein and Kyle Chayka, a staff writer at The New Yorker who wrote the article, “Why the Internet Isn’t Fun Anymore.” They talk about the idea of cultivating our own taste. What is taste? Chayka says:
“... taste is knowing who you are and knowing what you like, and then being able to look outside of yourself, see the world around you, and then pick out the one thing from around you that does resonate with you, that makes you feel like you are who you are or that you can incorporate into your mindset and worldview.”
I love this idea of cultivating our personal taste as a way of learning who we are. What if we walked through the world with more discernment for what resonates with us? Take notice: what creates that spark and connection? It's a way of signaling where to root our personal ambitions.
Deliberately be less ambitious and enjoy the work. This is another conversation I loved with Debbie Millman and Adam Moss, the former editor of the The New York Times Magazine and New York magazine. Moss talks about how he purposely stepped away from his last editing role to do something with less ambition. One of his endeavors was painting. Another is the book he recently released, The Work of Art, which he wrote as a project for himself and to satisfy his own curiosity, not to become a best seller, which it likely will.
I appreciate the modeling of both these concepts: consciously dialing back one's ambition and finding fulfillment in the process not the outcome.
The importance of strength to sustain our pursuits, creative and otherwise. In speaking to my podcast guest, Emily Shaw, she mentioned the book Novelist as a Vocation, by Haruki Murakami, in which he wrote about the importance of being physically strong to have a sustainable creative career. At the same time of our conversation, this article was written by Ryan Holiday, author of several books with expertise around Stoic philosophy, espousing a similar point:
“Having a physical practice is essential to the creative life.” And further, “If greatness is our aim, if we want to be productive, if we want to be capable of enduring the affairs of life, we need to take care of our bodies. We need to be strong and sturdy. We need to keep a physical practice so that it keeps us.”
Finding the beauty. I appreciated this sidewalk art in Mexico City as a way of finding beauty in the unexpected. It made me think of the Japanese practice of Kintsugi, repairing broken pottery with metal laquer. It looks at breakage and repair as part of the life of an object and its continued transformation and beauty. A metaphor for our own journeys of continually evolving—not being attached to who we were, breaking down, and being recreated into something new and just as beautiful.
The Sustainable Ambition Podcast
Conversations with experts, authors, and friends on what it means to live with Sustainable Ambition.
🎙️ E132: Prioritizing Joy and Creativity in Our Lives with Emily Shaw
Podcast executive producer and audio artist, Emily Shaw, joins me to talk about her pursuit of meaning and enjoyment in her life, following her curiosity, and finding her love of storytelling and a through-line around human connection. We also explore how Emily sustains her personal creative practices, the importance of “doable” goals, and the benefits of embracing discomfort.
Listen on your favorite player here or on our website here
🎙️ E133. How Art and Creativity Transform Our Well-Being with Tasha Golden
How can the arts support our ability to thrive and flourish in life and work? I speak with Dr. Tasha Golden about the role of art in our evolution and its power to help us express ourselves more fully. We explore the dangers of “robotic” behavioral norms to our physical and mental wellbeing and how reimagining identity as an evolving narrative rather than a fixed point can help us let go of (some of) our angst and uncertainty as we grow.
Listen on your favorite player here or on our website here
You can also find the podcast, subscribe, and listen on Apple, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, and more. Get it here.
“Art opens the closets, airs out the cellars and attics. It brings healing.”
— Julia Cameron