Speaker 1: Welcome to Time Out. I'm Eve Rodsky, author of the
Speaker 1: New York Times bestseller fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space,
Speaker 1: activists on the gender division of labor, attorney and family mediator.
Speaker 1: And I'm doctor Addi Narukar, a physician and medical correspondent
Speaker 1: with an expertise in the science of stress, resilience, mental health,
Speaker 1: and burnout. We're here to peel back to layers around
Speaker 1: why it's so easy for society to guard men's time
Speaker 1: as if it's diamonds, and to treat women's time as
Speaker 1: if it's infinite like sands. And whether you are partnered
Speaker 1: with or without children, or in a career where you
Speaker 1: want more boundaries, this is the place for you for
Speaker 1: all family structures. We're here to take a time out
Speaker 1: to learn, get inspired, and most importantly, reclaim our time.
Speaker 1: So add I've been thinking a lot about unicorn space,
Speaker 1: this idea that, like the mythical eq wine, finding space
Speaker 1: and time uninterrupted attention for things that we love is
Speaker 1: often difficult because in our society we're often defined by
Speaker 1: our roles. We're often taught to give our most valuable
Speaker 1: currency away, our time and service of others. And I
Speaker 1: remember Anne Marie Slaughter said something to me that I
Speaker 1: thought was really powerful. She said that she feels in
Speaker 1: community with all women across the globe because at some point,
Speaker 1: every single one of us will be defined by our roles.
Speaker 1: And so that gets me to something I want to
Speaker 1: tell you about a keynote that I started to write
Speaker 1: for a women's college that asked me to speak to them,
Speaker 1: and the speech I delivered was probably a little bit
Speaker 1: different than the one they thought I was going to deliver. Typically,
Speaker 1: right command been speeches, or these speeches that we give
Speaker 1: to the next generation are all about you can do
Speaker 1: anything and you can be anything. But my speech was
Speaker 1: called you only have ten years left to live. It
Speaker 1: was inspired by Heidi Shriks what the Constitution means to me.
Speaker 1: What I loved was that she embodied her younger self,
Speaker 1: and so as I started the speech, I embodied the
Speaker 1: twenty one year old Eve and a d D. I
Speaker 1: was going to be president and senator, right because like
Speaker 1: who stopped legislating around four o'clock? Like, you have so
Speaker 1: much more time. Right, you can legislate during the day,
Speaker 1: and obviously you can pass all of your executive orders
Speaker 1: at night. But I'm not going to give up my
Speaker 1: dream of being a nick City dancer, because why would
Speaker 1: I could just fly Air Force one into New York
Speaker 1: because it's such a short jaunt from d C, and
Speaker 1: I'll do the twelve thirty shows. I start this way
Speaker 1: because I want to remind our listeners of who you were,
Speaker 1: say at or that time in your life when you
Speaker 1: had that much potential, that much power, that much fire,
Speaker 1: and what happens to it? Why did I call it
Speaker 1: I only had ten years left to live, because by
Speaker 1: the time I was thirty one, my fire had gone out.
Speaker 1: It had been extinguished by my roles, by what society
Speaker 1: expected of me, of the unpaid labor, that discipline and
Speaker 1: screen time and the bathing and grooming of kids, and
Speaker 1: on and on. So what happens to us where we
Speaker 1: go from being told the lie that we could be
Speaker 1: and do anything to the point where society rears its
Speaker 1: ugly head. And how do we prevent that? For women especially?
Speaker 1: There will always be rain, There will always be the
Speaker 1: other backpack to unpack, or the extracurricular sports you have
Speaker 1: to take your kids to. But as my favorite Vivian
Speaker 1: Green quote, which can come off cheesy, but I still
Speaker 1: think it's very important, right we don't wait for the
Speaker 1: storm to pass. We have to learn to dance in
Speaker 1: the rain. And this idea of unicorn space, which is
Speaker 1: something different than self care and friendships, which are also important.
Speaker 1: This space to reclaim who we were at our most vibrant,
Speaker 1: are most powerful, our most passionate version of who we
Speaker 1: were can always be there and can be reclaimed if
Speaker 1: we've lost it. It's just about being intentional and thinking
Speaker 1: about how we can do this within the current structures
Speaker 1: of how we live in America today. We have to
Speaker 1: understand the hurdles that our society is put in front
Speaker 1: of us, the hurdles to that sustained attention to things
Speaker 1: that we love. And one of those hurdles is the
Speaker 1: permission to be interested in our own lives and interesting
Speaker 1: to ourselves. That permission to be unavailable from our roles,
Speaker 1: that idea that we are defined as individuals as opposed
Speaker 1: to in relation to others. In fact, even in the
Speaker 1: daily act of wearing our kids initials on our neck,
Speaker 1: wearing mom on our neck, I have to say a
Speaker 1: d D. I said to my kids, you know, I
Speaker 1: need unavailability from my roles. I need unavailability to reclaim
Speaker 1: what makes me me, And so I'm going to start
Speaker 1: with actually wearing my own initial around my neck. And
Speaker 1: my kids are so proud of me. They're like, my
Speaker 1: mommy doesn't wear our initials, she wears her own. And
Speaker 1: they know my name is E V. And my name
Speaker 1: is powerful and I'm reclaiming it. Second is this idea
Speaker 1: about guilt and shame. And the third is our ability
Speaker 1: to use our voice, which we're talking about throughout this
Speaker 1: whole season, that we get a chance to vocalize what
Speaker 1: we need. Why are those things the idea that being unavailable,
Speaker 1: a lack of guilt and shame, and using my voice
Speaker 1: a deity? Why are those so hard to exercise in
Speaker 1: everyday life. All of those things that you mentioned their
Speaker 1: societal constructs that are put up on us and as women,
Speaker 1: especially in multitasking is something that we do and it's
Speaker 1: a real sense of a badge of honor to be
Speaker 1: able to do everything so well, all at once, without
Speaker 1: even breaking a sweat. But in fact, multitasking is bad
Speaker 1: for the brain, and we don't talk about that enough.
Speaker 1: In fact, when you look at the biology of the
Speaker 1: brain and you look at how multitasking works, it is
Speaker 1: divided attention. And if we want better brain health, better
Speaker 1: mental health, a sense of resiliency, and a lack of burnout,
Speaker 1: then we can't divide our attention in a million different ways.
Speaker 1: We have to have that focused, sustained attention, which is
Speaker 1: what the unicorn spaces. It has lots of brain benefits.
Speaker 1: This idea of creativity not as a luxury or a
Speaker 1: nice to have, but a necessity. And when we carve
Speaker 1: out that unicorn space and live within our unicorn space,
Speaker 1: we are giving our body and our mind a chance
Speaker 1: to really be optimized. When we are fully inhabiting that
Speaker 1: unicorn space, it improves our resilience, It decreases our stress,
Speaker 1: it decreases our burnout. It also has lots of other
Speaker 1: benefits the growth, mindset, innovation, problem solving, creating a sense
Speaker 1: of meaning and purpose, imagination, creativity. They are actually very
Speaker 1: important hard metrics that impact the bottom line when it
Speaker 1: comes to our health, our mental health and physical health.
Speaker 1: Creativity has been shown to improve anxiety and depression. It
Speaker 1: changes the brain, It decreases our cortisol level, which is
Speaker 1: a stress hormone, and it has a huge biological boost.
Speaker 1: I wonder if I can interject with just the definition
Speaker 1: of the flow state. Before we get into the secret
Speaker 1: formula of creativity, I want to give props a d
Speaker 1: D to me Hi. Chicks sent me Hi a hard
Speaker 1: name to pronounce, but he is the founder, an originator
Speaker 1: of the concept of the flow state. And what's so
Speaker 1: beautiful about his work is he identified something that we've
Speaker 1: all felt, wonder, the wonder of what it feels like
Speaker 1: when you lose yourself in an activity. Now, children and
Speaker 1: society are the conspirers against flow. They come in to
Speaker 1: cut up our time into little bits. And actually the
Speaker 1: idea that women that we deserve sustained attention for our
Speaker 1: flow state, for things that we love to me is
Speaker 1: how we redefine happiness, because what we found lately is
Speaker 1: that and this is what the research shows, if you
Speaker 1: focus on how to be happy, the pursuit of happiness
Speaker 1: for happiness sake actually makes you more sad. And indeed,
Speaker 1: you could talk more about that from a scientific perspective,
Speaker 1: but what I will say is that happiness is a
Speaker 1: clue that you found your unicorn space and whether it's
Speaker 1: going back to your childhood, but if you had trauma
Speaker 1: in your childhood, maybe it's looking forward to who you
Speaker 1: want to be. However you get there, and we will
Speaker 1: be talking about this a lot over the season. It
Speaker 1: is not easy to inhabit your unicorn space. If it was,
Speaker 1: we'd all be living to two hundred, frolicking in a
Speaker 1: field of lavender. And I think it's also important to
Speaker 1: recognize that any amount of time, even if it's five
Speaker 1: minutes in that flow state, can have ripple effects for
Speaker 1: our whole day, and actually biological effects. You may not
Speaker 1: know when you're in getting into the flow state, but
Speaker 1: you certainly know when you've gotten out. It's that sense
Speaker 1: of timelessness in the present moment. We lose track of time,
Speaker 1: we lose track of where we are, and there's many
Speaker 1: ways to get there. It's not the same for everyone.
Speaker 1: Probably one of my favorite benefits of getting into the
Speaker 1: unicorn space is strengthening our sense of autonomy, which when
Speaker 1: we're married, with children and in many roles that can
Speaker 1: be weakened, and we as human beings are meaning seeking,
Speaker 1: purpose driven creatures. When we cultivate a unicorn space, get
Speaker 1: into that sense of flow, we find our sense of
Speaker 1: purpose and mastery within our cells, which in turn gives
Speaker 1: us mastery in all of the other roles Eve that
Speaker 1: you've already talked about. I think that's so beautiful because
Speaker 1: some people say it's you know, simmering my signature sauce,
Speaker 1: but without the expectation and the interruption of children and
Speaker 1: a partner. I think the beauty is understanding what it
Speaker 1: is for you, and it can change and it doesn't
Speaker 1: always have to be the same, and it's not always
Speaker 1: going to be easy, which we're going to be talking
Speaker 1: about with our guests today, creativity expert Natalie Nixon. I
Speaker 1: think the most beautiful thing that Natalie Nixon talks about
Speaker 1: is the fact that creativity, the flow state, is not
Speaker 1: just wonder. It also requires rigor. And that rigor is
Speaker 1: what's hard because to find rigor and an activity to
Speaker 1: learn to climb that mountain, to learn that signature sauce,
Speaker 1: to learn about the gender division of labor, which was
Speaker 1: my unicorn space for so long, does require this sustained attention.
Speaker 1: I can't shake this idea that when we think about
Speaker 1: the word creativity, we think of youth, but in fact,
Speaker 1: creativity as we age becomes even more important. There was
Speaker 1: a study done of older adults which found that when
Speaker 1: older adults are engaged in creative pursuits, there is a
Speaker 1: greater sense of connectivity in the brain, but also within
Speaker 1: their selves. There's better cognitive functioning, and there's a greater
Speaker 1: sense of well being. Now, this is not just nice
Speaker 1: to have stuff. This is essential, critical stuff that we need.
Speaker 1: That is to me the reason why I had to
Speaker 1: write a whole second book on this topic because it
Speaker 1: should be essential to your life. It is not optional.
Speaker 1: But often we've dismissed this part of our life as
Speaker 1: a nice to have with words I want to retire,
Speaker 1: like hobby or vanity project or leisure or distractions. And
Speaker 1: I will say that you said something very important about loneliness.
Speaker 1: People ask me when I asked this question now two thousands,
Speaker 1: this idea of what makes you you and what and
Speaker 1: how do you share it with the world. A lot
Speaker 1: of people ask me, well, what's the second question important for?
Speaker 1: Why can't it just be what makes me me? Why
Speaker 1: do you have to ask how do you share it
Speaker 1: with the world? And the reason why is because there
Speaker 1: is a distinction between self care, which is important, but
Speaker 1: I often likened it to a more passive pursuit. I
Speaker 1: mean it can be active like a spinning class, or
Speaker 1: taking a walk with your dog, But it doesn't have
Speaker 1: the same benefits as that connection, the sharing with your world.
Speaker 1: That active pursuit is something different. That's what we're talking
Speaker 1: about here. Those are baseline things that we should all have.
Speaker 1: The next iteration and elevation up is this idea of
Speaker 1: the active pursuit of creative self expression that makes you you.
Speaker 1: Whether it be my friend who started as a baker
Speaker 1: and now she's leveling up to making robotic cakes that
Speaker 1: literally move, that's her unicorn space. The idea is the
Speaker 1: sharing with the world, whether it's your neighbor, whether it's
Speaker 1: becoming in a marathon group, whether it's getting ukulele recital
Speaker 1: for five best friends. That flow state often comes in
Speaker 1: the process of the connection of sharing, and that flow
Speaker 1: stage is contagious. The unicorn space is contagious. When you
Speaker 1: see your friends embodying that creativity or in that sense
Speaker 1: of flow and they're really lit up, it makes you
Speaker 1: want that too. So we're gonna be talking to Natalie
Speaker 1: Nixon after the break about all of these things. I
Speaker 1: cannot wait for you to hear what she has to say.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to welcome today's guest, Natalie Nixon not only
Speaker 1: a friend, she is a creativity strategist, global keynote speaker
Speaker 1: and author of the award winning the Creativity Leap Unleashed Curiosity,
Speaker 1: Improvisation and Intuition at Work. Hi Natalie, Hi Eve, It's
Speaker 1: so good to see you and to be here. Thanks
Speaker 1: for having me so before you came on, we were
Speaker 1: talking a little bit about the hurdles to creativity, all
Speaker 1: of those permissions we have to give ourselves to be unavailable,
Speaker 1: to literally burn guilt and shame for spending sustained attention
Speaker 1: on things that we love, and to use our voice.
Speaker 1: And now I want to go into our shared passion,
Speaker 1: which is creativity frameworks. Your wonder Rigor framework. We mentioned
Speaker 1: it earlier as well as some of the findings around
Speaker 1: how important not just curiosity is, but connection sharing your
Speaker 1: creativity with others, whether it be chat chat on Instagram
Speaker 1: like I got to see you last night during your
Speaker 1: beautiful ballroom chance, or sending your crochet Harry Potter doll
Speaker 1: to your aunt as my other friend just did. She
Speaker 1: just completed her money and the last secret formula see
Speaker 1: that I like to talk about, besides curiosity and connection
Speaker 1: is the idea of completion, what it looks like to
Speaker 1: actually complete something, as opposed to living in a graveyard
Speaker 1: of unfulfilled dreams, as my friend once called it. So
Speaker 1: to to go through the journey from curiosity to connection
Speaker 1: a completion. I would love for you to tell a
Speaker 1: little bit about how you help people to aim for
Speaker 1: Curiosity is not a nice to have, but it must
Speaker 1: have in their business and social and intimate lives. Sure. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, Eve, I've a really loopy background in cultural
Speaker 1: anthropology and fashion. I was a professor for sixteen years
Speaker 1: and loved what I did until I didn't anymore. I
Speaker 1: actually started falling in love with my side hustle, which
Speaker 1: at the time that that was figure eight thinking, and
Speaker 1: I was getting invited into companies to help them design
Speaker 1: and build cultures of innovation. That was really an outgrowth
Speaker 1: after I gave a ted Ex Philadelphia talk which was
Speaker 1: essentially my PhD dissertation and plain English, I basically proclaimed
Speaker 1: that the future of work is jazz and here's why
Speaker 1: and here's how, and that talk really catapulted me into
Speaker 1: getting invited into companies to help them become more improvisational,
Speaker 1: which essentially me it is helping them to become more adaptive,
Speaker 1: more experimental, more self organizing. This was probably about eight
Speaker 1: years ago now, and everyone was chasing the eye word.
Speaker 1: Everyone was trying to innovate, innovate, innovate, and well, that's
Speaker 1: cool and that's fine. I was seeing that there's no
Speaker 1: lingua franca for what we meant by innovation. We were
Speaker 1: kind of like kept missing each other. And we, I
Speaker 1: mean the collective corporate America. I know that I can't
Speaker 1: critique a system without offering an alternative, another way to
Speaker 1: be thinking about this. And so what my hunch was
Speaker 1: telling me is that we were starting in the wrong place,
Speaker 1: and we actually should be starting with creativity. However, as
Speaker 1: you well know, Eve and add that if you lead
Speaker 1: with creativity and the how old halls of corporate America,
Speaker 1: let look at you like you have three hits. So
Speaker 1: that began my journey of figuring out what might be
Speaker 1: a simple and accessible way that I could help other
Speaker 1: people who don't necessarily think that they're creative to think
Speaker 1: about creativity in their work, to amplify it and the
Speaker 1: ways that they do their work so that they can
Speaker 1: ultimately innovate. And through a few years of really tinkering
Speaker 1: with these ideas, I landed on this definition that creativity
Speaker 1: is our ability to toggle between wonder and rigor to
Speaker 1: solve problems and produce novel value. Along the way, I
Speaker 1: came up with the definition that I like for innovation,
Speaker 1: which is that innovation is an invention converted into scalable value.
Speaker 1: And that value could be cultural value, social value, financial value.
Speaker 1: And what's that conversion agent what helps us go from
Speaker 1: an invention to an innovation? It's creativity. I love that
Speaker 1: toggling between wonder and rigor, tow words and frameworks that
Speaker 1: you would never put next to each other, and yet
Speaker 1: both are so essential for creativity. You know, you say,
Speaker 1: I know it may feel more important to dig in
Speaker 1: your heels in times of crisis and only focus on
Speaker 1: practical survival mode stuff, And you're right. Creativity is incredibly
Speaker 1: practical and it is crucial to survival. I laughed when
Speaker 1: I read that, because we never think of creativity as
Speaker 1: something that is practical or something that's necessarily a survival skill.
Speaker 1: Creativity isn't nice to have, It's a luxury. It's something
Speaker 1: to do when all of your to do list is
Speaker 1: done and all those boxes have been checked off, but
Speaker 1: you really turn that notion on its head. And I
Speaker 1: would love for you to tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: more about why you think creativity is a survival skill,
Speaker 1: especially for the audience that is listening, that is very
Speaker 1: much in survival mode right now. So I launched the
Speaker 1: Creativity Lead in the middle of the beginning phases of
Speaker 1: the COVID nineteen pandemic in June, and I have to
Speaker 1: tell you that there were many days I would wake up,
Speaker 1: you know, right before I go to and I was thinking, Gosh,
Speaker 1: when people are dying, when people are losing their jobs,
Speaker 1: when people are going through so much ambiguity and uncertainty,
Speaker 1: is creativity a luxury? Am I offering up a mental
Speaker 1: model that will be additive and helpful to the ways
Speaker 1: we will be able to navigate this time and going forward.
Speaker 1: You know, as you said, it's not a luxury. It
Speaker 1: is actually more essential than ever to hone your creativity
Speaker 1: capacity or your c Q your creativity quotient as I
Speaker 1: like to call it. It's important more than ever to
Speaker 1: develop that capacity and to hone it because creativity is
Speaker 1: a competency. It's something that we can exercise and get
Speaker 1: better at. It's something that when we look at our
Speaker 1: own children, and we think about our own childhoods. We
Speaker 1: have so many great examples of our ability to toggle
Speaker 1: between wonder and rigor to solve problems. What has happened
Speaker 1: is that through traditional mainstream ways of being educated, we
Speaker 1: get the signals that we should air on the side
Speaker 1: of solutions versus process. Creativity is also not a luxury
Speaker 1: because when I think about some of the more underprivileged,
Speaker 1: marginalized groups in our society, oh my gosh, it's full
Speaker 1: of create creative moments and output. Because, as it turns out,
Speaker 1: creativity loves constraints. Creativity loves constraints on our time, it
Speaker 1: loves constraints on money, it loves constraints on people resources.
Speaker 1: It's actually just as we know that our greatest learning
Speaker 1: happens when we fail, when we mess up big time,
Speaker 1: it's when we have those strengths as in a pandemic,
Speaker 1: that creativity really flourishes. Wow, I'm sort of freaking out
Speaker 1: on that right, this idea that creativity love constraints because
Speaker 1: you sort of think you have to be completely free
Speaker 1: before you can live a creative life. But the idea
Speaker 1: that similar to what Natalie is saying, is that in
Speaker 1: my research, this idea that creativity can only come for
Speaker 1: the privileged or unicorn space is really only for the
Speaker 1: top echelon. It was almost the opposite. It was the
Speaker 1: freed to calos of the world, and this idea that
Speaker 1: through oppression and and trauma, as we know that some
Speaker 1: of the most creative acts have been done and it
Speaker 1: is subversive and we have to push through to do it.
Speaker 1: Not only is it not reserved for the top echelon
Speaker 1: of privilege, but we can't let its stay there. No,
Speaker 1: we cannot. I love how you just reference the word
Speaker 1: subversive because and some of my kino what I'm talking
Speaker 1: about improvisation, I meet people where they are by first
Speaker 1: acknowledging that most of us are terrified to improvise. And
Speaker 1: that's in part because when we think about improvisation, we
Speaker 1: think about about really impressive jazz musicians who do like
Speaker 1: phenomenal in the moment, in in flow, majestic innovation and
Speaker 1: output of sound. Or we think about the great comedic
Speaker 1: artists of Saturday Live and what they're able to do
Speaker 1: in the moment. It's a been intimidating, but I remind
Speaker 1: people that you hack your way through every day like
Speaker 1: probably between breakfast and lunchtime, you have had to hack
Speaker 1: your way through supporting a spouse, a child, a colleague,
Speaker 1: a client. And then if you look even further back,
Speaker 1: we were really great improvisers as kids. There's an image
Speaker 1: I show of a basketball hoop in the form of
Speaker 1: a milk crate, of a punched out bottom, and it's
Speaker 1: hanging under a side that says no ball playing here.
Speaker 1: And I love that photograph because that's such a great
Speaker 1: example of creativity loving constraints. Because in a lot of
Speaker 1: our cities, in poorer communities, where there's no grassy playground
Speaker 1: and and net hoops to play ball or light at night,
Speaker 1: do you see that all the time? That's incredible hacking
Speaker 1: and creativity. I talked about how back in the late
Speaker 1: seventies early eighties we saw the greatest divestment of funding
Speaker 1: for for arts education or public schools. And what did
Speaker 1: African American male teams do. They turned a turntable into
Speaker 1: a percussion instrument, and scratching is now one of the
Speaker 1: most iconic sounds in hip hop, which is the largest
Speaker 1: music genre in the world right now. It's just all
Speaker 1: these examples of how in these pressure cooker moments, we
Speaker 1: can be quite subversive in some really extraordinary ways. You
Speaker 1: talk a lot about this idea of creativity being hardwired,
Speaker 1: that we as human beings are hardwired for a creativity,
Speaker 1: and yet it's so difficult for some of us to
Speaker 1: cultivate because it seems like if we're hardwired for creativity,
Speaker 1: then it should just bubble up like it does for kids.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so we see that that hardwiredness. And I'll
Speaker 1: just go back to kind of breaking down how I
Speaker 1: define creativity to explain why I say we're hardwired to
Speaker 1: be creative, if you accept or just kind of hold
Speaker 1: for a moment, that creativity is our ability to toggle
Speaker 1: between wonder and rigor to solve problems. Well, well, let's
Speaker 1: break down what each of those dimensions are. Wonder is
Speaker 1: about awe and audacity and deep curiosity and asking these
Speaker 1: big blue sky what if questions. Wonder is also about
Speaker 1: pause ing, because what I remind people is that you
Speaker 1: can't wonder going eighty miles. You just can't, Like you
Speaker 1: will burn out. You've got to sit your behind down
Speaker 1: and pause and space out for a bit. Right. So,
Speaker 1: if you think about the attributes of wonder being about
Speaker 1: that curiosity, that expansive thinking. That is something that really
Speaker 1: is innate to us when we're left alone, when we
Speaker 1: get off the carousel of of career chasing or whatever
Speaker 1: your particular carousel is, and we definitely see it evident
Speaker 1: in our own children and when we reflect back on
Speaker 1: our own childhoods. The rigor piece, you know, Rigor is discipline.
Speaker 1: It's focus, it's mastery of fundamentals. It's time on task,
Speaker 1: it's constraints. It's not particularly sexy, and it is essential.
Speaker 1: It's also very solitary work. When we tend to think
Speaker 1: about creative we only think about the wonder dimension. We
Speaker 1: we forget that the rigor dimension is also part of it.
Speaker 1: Now does the rigor dimension come naturally to us? Not always,
Speaker 1: But at the same time, if you're so fortunate blessed
Speaker 1: to have a parent who can read to you as
Speaker 1: as a little toddler, you don't go from that to
Speaker 1: like in my case, devouring Nancy Drew Mysteries um overnight.
Speaker 1: It's through the rigor of the repetition of being focused
Speaker 1: on that, and the seed of that is this desire
Speaker 1: to get to that next level. So if we dig
Speaker 1: a little more deeply into those those dimensions of wonder
Speaker 1: and rigor, I think we begin to see how we're
Speaker 1: heart wired. The other thing I just want to add
Speaker 1: to that is I have another framework that I like
Speaker 1: to share about creativity, which just the three eyes, which
Speaker 1: is to say that the way we can consistently toggle
Speaker 1: between wonder and rigular solve problems is through improvisation, inquiry,
Speaker 1: and intuition. We've talked about inquiry or curiosity. We've talked
Speaker 1: a bit about improvisation. The intuition peace is what I
Speaker 1: call pattern recognition, and as it turns out, we are
Speaker 1: hardwired to into it because we have in our bodies
Speaker 1: something called the vegas nerve. It's the second longest nerve
Speaker 1: in our body. The first longest nerve is the spinal cord,
Speaker 1: and the vegas nerve extends from my cranium down through
Speaker 1: our hearts into our gut. And so we literally have
Speaker 1: this interior human antenna that lights up before the rationality
Speaker 1: can even set in that helps us sense make and
Speaker 1: say we should go left, not right. I should work
Speaker 1: with her and not him. I should be with this person,
Speaker 1: not with that person. Right. So, so the cool thing
Speaker 1: about intuition is that it never leaves us. It's like
Speaker 1: a radar sonar. A muscle has to be exercised. We
Speaker 1: have to use it. The more we use it, the
Speaker 1: louder and clearer it gets. The less we use it,
Speaker 1: the flabb ear and dimmer it gets. So if you
Speaker 1: come along with me and my my definite should of
Speaker 1: creativity and also incorporate those three eyes, that intuition piece,
Speaker 1: which is this way of exercising it is another example
Speaker 1: of that hardwiredness of creativity within us. That was actually
Speaker 1: my question of you know, if it's hardwired, and yet
Speaker 1: if it's difficult to cultivate, how do we actually cultivate it?
Speaker 1: And it's through the three eyes, Through the three eyes yes,
Speaker 1: by consistently committing to learning how to ask new different questions,
Speaker 1: actively listening self inquiry as well as asking others, which
Speaker 1: can be pretty hard if we're not used to it.
Speaker 1: Improvisation which is about being experimental, adaptive, and the intuition
Speaker 1: and I think the a way to do it, not
Speaker 1: the only way, but I have found is a technique
Speaker 1: I like to share. People be a clumsy student of
Speaker 1: something anything. I'm a clumsy student of social ballroom dance
Speaker 1: and I love it. Because I literally practice the three
Speaker 1: eyes all the time, I have to into it more
Speaker 1: when I'm dancing with a dance partner. If I'm not
Speaker 1: getting something, I've got to how to reframe the question.
Speaker 1: It helpful when I have a range of teachers. I
Speaker 1: observe how my peers who are better than me, how
Speaker 1: they do things, and I improvised quite a bit and
Speaker 1: that transfer. Those are activating neural synapses in my brain
Speaker 1: which transfer over to my daily work to help me
Speaker 1: be more humble about exercising the three eyes in my
Speaker 1: daily work. What's your favorite ballroom type dance to do
Speaker 1: right now? Is the chacha? Because my Bombom dance to
Speaker 1: do that. They do something called a showcase, and it
Speaker 1: was my first showcase I participated in, and I thought
Speaker 1: the chasha was going to be easy. But the shasha
Speaker 1: is so precise, it's quick, there's a fluidity to it.
Speaker 1: But the beauty of it comes in the syncopation of
Speaker 1: how you decide to linger on a certain movement and
Speaker 1: then followed up with rapid succession with other movements. I
Speaker 1: love Latin, but I also love foxtrot, which is an
Speaker 1: example of a smooth a dance. It's it's beautiful as well.
Speaker 1: I just love to dance. I love the lynday and
Speaker 1: the tango. So one day maybe we can we can
Speaker 1: dance together. I would love that. And the tango is hard,
Speaker 1: so hard, it's so beautiful. Yes, I was trained as
Speaker 1: an Indian classical dancer and did ballet for decades. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, we should all three dance together because I
Speaker 1: love this communal unicorn space. This is the metaphor that
Speaker 1: we began this episode with, which was we can't wait
Speaker 1: for the storm to pass. We have to learn to
Speaker 1: dance in the rain. And I will say, Natalie, your
Speaker 1: work to give us permission to be creative in many
Speaker 1: different forms in a wondrous and rigorous way is why
Speaker 1: I've always been drawn to your work and I want
Speaker 1: to thank you for sharing your insights. Thank you both
Speaker 1: so much for having me. This has been a real pleasure.
Speaker 1: I loved it. Natalie. Where can people find you? People
Speaker 1: can learn more about my speaking and advisory work at
Speaker 1: Figure eight thinking dot com. That's the word figure the
Speaker 1: number eight thinking. Hi, it's me Eve, and I want
Speaker 1: to tell you about my latest book, Find Your Unicorn Space.
Speaker 1: So you're playing fair and have established equity in your home.
Speaker 1: But now what it's time to find your Unicorn Space.
Speaker 1: My new book will help you set personal goals, rediscover
Speaker 1: your interests, and reclaim the creative expression of self that
Speaker 1: makes you uniquely you. Find your Unicorn Space is a
Speaker 1: mix of research space, how to advice, and big picture
Speaker 1: inspirational thinking. I hope it can show you a clear
Speaker 1: path to reclaim your permission to be unavailable and manifest
Speaker 1: your own unicorn space. Find your Unicorn Space is available
Speaker 1: now wherever books are sold. So every episode of this
Speaker 1: podcast will be ending with an action atem for you
Speaker 1: are listeners that we call a time out. This is
Speaker 1: really a time for you to focus on yourself and
Speaker 1: reflect on what you're hearing today. And we're starting the
Speaker 1: conversation first with ourselves and then ultimately with our partners
Speaker 1: and others. So a d D I'll say that one
Speaker 1: of my unicorn spaces is this podcast with you, because,
Speaker 1: as we discussed with Natalie, creativity does not have to
Speaker 1: be browsing Blick for paint and and art brushes. It
Speaker 1: really is a combination of these amazing three things of curiosity,
Speaker 1: where we are curious about issues around what happens to
Speaker 1: women when we're defined by our roles, where we can
Speaker 1: come here together and connect as spiritual friends and share
Speaker 1: ourselves with the world. And then the most important thing
Speaker 1: is the completion, the fact that we actually did this.
Speaker 1: We've been talking about this for a while, but that
Speaker 1: we are completing this. It may not be perfect, we're
Speaker 1: new at this, but we're uploading it for listeners. Were
Speaker 1: completing something. And that's, as my friend Amanda says, the
Speaker 1: opposite of a graveyard of unfulfilled dreams. What else for
Speaker 1: you feels like unicorn space? Besides this podcast, I'm hoping
Speaker 1: I'm putting the words in your mouth that this is
Speaker 1: one of your unicorn spaces. So I totally agree. I
Speaker 1: think this podcast and the conversations that we have with
Speaker 1: each other and these amazing guests make me really deeply
Speaker 1: reflect on my life and bring a new sense of
Speaker 1: energy and joy to all of those areas, which I'm
Speaker 1: so grateful for. You know, when you first asked me
Speaker 1: the question a TD, what is your unicorn space? You
Speaker 1: think of these self care activities that you've done forever,
Speaker 1: maybe things that you've done as a kid, and you
Speaker 1: go right into that. It's a reflex, right because we
Speaker 1: often think of creating space for ourselves as self care,
Speaker 1: because that's what society has taught us. But what I
Speaker 1: love about really crafting this concept of unicorn space is
Speaker 1: this idea that you're creating a space for yourself, but
Speaker 1: then you are giving it out to the world to
Speaker 1: help better yourself, but equally better the world. And so
Speaker 1: when I reflected a little bit more deeply on what
Speaker 1: my unicorn spaces, my favorite part of being a doctor
Speaker 1: is my ability to communicate with patients and really patient education.
Speaker 1: There's nothing greater for me. I went into medicine for
Speaker 1: the human story and the power of the human story.
Speaker 1: So there's no greater joy for me than when I'm
Speaker 1: talking to a patient and I'm explaining something complex or difficult,
Speaker 1: like a really new on scientific principle, and then that
Speaker 1: aha moment for them when the light really goes off
Speaker 1: in their eyes, like they get it. But what I
Speaker 1: hear from you saying is that you're living at a
Speaker 1: really sweet spot between me and happiness. My wish for
Speaker 1: our listeners, and what I hope are prompt will be
Speaker 1: this week, is that they can start understanding with us
Speaker 1: how powerful it is to sit at that intersection of
Speaker 1: meaning and happiness. So this week's time out exercise is
Speaker 1: a fantasy for those of us who have been journaling
Speaker 1: alongside these exercises. Pull out your pen and paper when
Speaker 1: you can if you're not driving, and answer this question.
Speaker 1: If you were given a year on a deserted island,
Speaker 1: thank survivor, but with every privilege in the world, all
Speaker 1: the internet you needed, all the food you needed, your
Speaker 1: kids are completely fine when you get home a year later.
Speaker 1: The fantasy. Just go with it. What would you do
Speaker 1: with that year? And the reason why I asked that
Speaker 1: is because I asked this to many people in my
Speaker 1: Unicorn space research. And while I heard cool things like
Speaker 1: I would cross pollinate a mango and a pineapple and
Speaker 1: call it a mang apple, what I didn't hear was
Speaker 1: get botox, get a manicure, drive an expensive car, make
Speaker 1: more money, work more m HM. And I think that
Speaker 1: reflection of understanding what intrinsically motivates us can give us
Speaker 1: the tools to bring it back to real life. So
Speaker 1: that's the time out first, the big dream of what
Speaker 1: you do in that year, and really dive deep into
Speaker 1: that fantasy and what would you do with all of
Speaker 1: that time? And energy and life force, and then think
Speaker 1: about how you can incorporate all of that goodness into
Speaker 1: your day to day life. And in our next episode,
Speaker 1: we're going to start looking at the practical tips, tricks
Speaker 1: solutions to actually bring you some found time by redistributing
Speaker 1: domestic responsibilities and adding fairness to your home. Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening to Time Out, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Podcasts and Hello Sunshine. I'm Eve Rodsky, author of the
Speaker 1: New York Times bestseller fair Play and Find your Unicorn Space.
Speaker 1: Follow me on social media at Eve Rodsky and learn
Speaker 1: more about our work at fair Play Life. And I'm
Speaker 1: doctor add No Rucar, a Harvard physician with a specialty
Speaker 1: and stress resilience, burnout, and mental health. Follow me on
Speaker 1: social media at dr add ne Rucar and find out
Speaker 1: more about my work at doctor add dot com. That's
Speaker 1: d r A d I t I dot com. Our
Speaker 1: Hello Sunshine team is Amanda Farren, Aaron Stover, and Jennifer Yonker.
Speaker 1: Our I Heart Media team is Ali Perry, Jennifer Bassett,
Speaker 1: and Jessica Crimeschitch. We hope you all love taking a
Speaker 1: much needed time out with us today. Listen and subscribe
Speaker 1: to time out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your favorite shows.