January 26, 2022 • 40 mins
This week, Eve and Aditi begin to explain how to find your 'Unicorn Space’ —uninterrupted, sustained attention for the things we love—and why making time for it is not a luxury, but essential to our physical, mental, and emotional health in disruptive times. They are joined by creativity strategist and author, Natalie Nixon. To learn more about Natalie, visit www.figure8thinking.com.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Time Out. I'm Eve Rodsky, author of the
New York Times bestseller fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space,
activists on the gender division of labor, attorney and family mediator.
And I'm doctor Addi Narukar, a physician and medical correspondent
with an expertise in the science of stress, resilience, mental health,
(00:22):
and burnout. We're here to peel back to layers around
why it's so easy for society to guard men's time
as if it's diamonds, and to treat women's time as
if it's infinite like sands. And whether you are partnered
with or without children, or in a career where you
want more boundaries, this is the place for you for
all family structures. We're here to take a time out
(00:45):
to learn, get inspired, and most importantly, reclaim our time.
So add I've been thinking a lot about unicorn space,
this idea that, like the mythical eq wine, finding space
(01:07):
and time uninterrupted attention for things that we love is
often difficult because in our society we're often defined by
our roles. We're often taught to give our most valuable
currency away, our time and service of others. And I
remember Anne Marie Slaughter said something to me that I
(01:30):
thought was really powerful. She said that she feels in
community with all women across the globe because at some point,
every single one of us will be defined by our roles.
And so that gets me to something I want to
tell you about a keynote that I started to write
for a women's college that asked me to speak to them,
(01:53):
and the speech I delivered was probably a little bit
different than the one they thought I was going to deliver. Typically,
right command been speeches, or these speeches that we give
to the next generation are all about you can do
anything and you can be anything. But my speech was
called you only have ten years left to live. It
(02:14):
was inspired by Heidi Shriks what the Constitution means to me.
What I loved was that she embodied her younger self,
and so as I started the speech, I embodied the
twenty one year old Eve and a d D. I
was going to be president and senator, right because like
who stopped legislating around four o'clock? Like, you have so
(02:36):
much more time. Right, you can legislate during the day,
and obviously you can pass all of your executive orders
at night. But I'm not going to give up my
dream of being a nick City dancer, because why would
I could just fly Air Force one into New York
because it's such a short jaunt from d C, and
I'll do the twelve thirty shows. I start this way
(03:04):
because I want to remind our listeners of who you were,
say at or that time in your life when you
had that much potential, that much power, that much fire,
and what happens to it? Why did I call it
(03:26):
I only had ten years left to live, because by
the time I was thirty one, my fire had gone out.
It had been extinguished by my roles, by what society
expected of me, of the unpaid labor, that discipline and
screen time and the bathing and grooming of kids, and
on and on. So what happens to us where we
(03:47):
go from being told the lie that we could be
and do anything to the point where society rears its
ugly head. And how do we prevent that? For women especially?
There will always be rain, There will always be the
other backpack to unpack, or the extracurricular sports you have
(04:08):
to take your kids to. But as my favorite Vivian
Green quote, which can come off cheesy, but I still
think it's very important, right we don't wait for the
storm to pass. We have to learn to dance in
the rain. And this idea of unicorn space, which is
something different than self care and friendships, which are also important.
(04:32):
This space to reclaim who we were at our most vibrant,
are most powerful, our most passionate version of who we
were can always be there and can be reclaimed if
we've lost it. It's just about being intentional and thinking
about how we can do this within the current structures
(04:54):
of how we live in America today. We have to
understand the hurdles that our society is put in front
of us, the hurdles to that sustained attention to things
that we love. And one of those hurdles is the
permission to be interested in our own lives and interesting
(05:15):
to ourselves. That permission to be unavailable from our roles,
that idea that we are defined as individuals as opposed
to in relation to others. In fact, even in the
daily act of wearing our kids initials on our neck,
wearing mom on our neck, I have to say a
(05:36):
d D. I said to my kids, you know, I
need unavailability from my roles. I need unavailability to reclaim
what makes me me, And so I'm going to start
with actually wearing my own initial around my neck. And
my kids are so proud of me. They're like, my
mommy doesn't wear our initials, she wears her own. And
they know my name is E V. And my name
(05:57):
is powerful and I'm reclaiming it. Second is this idea
about guilt and shame. And the third is our ability
to use our voice, which we're talking about throughout this
whole season, that we get a chance to vocalize what
we need. Why are those things the idea that being unavailable,
(06:19):
a lack of guilt and shame, and using my voice
a deity? Why are those so hard to exercise in
everyday life. All of those things that you mentioned their
societal constructs that are put up on us and as women,
especially in multitasking is something that we do and it's
a real sense of a badge of honor to be
able to do everything so well, all at once, without
(06:42):
even breaking a sweat. But in fact, multitasking is bad
for the brain, and we don't talk about that enough.
In fact, when you look at the biology of the
brain and you look at how multitasking works, it is
divided attention. And if we want better brain health, better
mental health, a sense of resiliency, and a lack of burnout,
(07:03):
then we can't divide our attention in a million different ways.
We have to have that focused, sustained attention, which is
what the unicorn spaces. It has lots of brain benefits.
This idea of creativity not as a luxury or a
nice to have, but a necessity. And when we carve
out that unicorn space and live within our unicorn space,
(07:26):
we are giving our body and our mind a chance
to really be optimized. When we are fully inhabiting that
unicorn space, it improves our resilience, It decreases our stress,
it decreases our burnout. It also has lots of other
(07:46):
benefits the growth, mindset, innovation, problem solving, creating a sense
of meaning and purpose, imagination, creativity. They are actually very
important hard metrics that impact the bottom line when it
comes to our health, our mental health and physical health.
Creativity has been shown to improve anxiety and depression. It
(08:10):
changes the brain, It decreases our cortisol level, which is
a stress hormone, and it has a huge biological boost.
I wonder if I can interject with just the definition
of the flow state. Before we get into the secret
formula of creativity, I want to give props a d
D to me Hi. Chicks sent me Hi a hard
(08:31):
name to pronounce, but he is the founder, an originator
of the concept of the flow state. And what's so
beautiful about his work is he identified something that we've
all felt, wonder, the wonder of what it feels like
when you lose yourself in an activity. Now, children and
(08:55):
society are the conspirers against flow. They come in to
cut up our time into little bits. And actually the
idea that women that we deserve sustained attention for our
flow state, for things that we love to me is
how we redefine happiness, because what we found lately is
(09:18):
that and this is what the research shows, if you
focus on how to be happy, the pursuit of happiness
for happiness sake actually makes you more sad. And indeed,
you could talk more about that from a scientific perspective,
but what I will say is that happiness is a
clue that you found your unicorn space and whether it's
(09:40):
going back to your childhood, but if you had trauma
in your childhood, maybe it's looking forward to who you
want to be. However you get there, and we will
be talking about this a lot over the season. It
is not easy to inhabit your unicorn space. If it was,
we'd all be living to two hundred, frolicking in a
field of lavender. And I think it's also important to
(10:03):
recognize that any amount of time, even if it's five
minutes in that flow state, can have ripple effects for
our whole day, and actually biological effects. You may not
know when you're in getting into the flow state, but
you certainly know when you've gotten out. It's that sense
of timelessness in the present moment. We lose track of time,
(10:25):
we lose track of where we are, and there's many
ways to get there. It's not the same for everyone.
Probably one of my favorite benefits of getting into the
unicorn space is strengthening our sense of autonomy, which when
we're married, with children and in many roles that can
be weakened, and we as human beings are meaning seeking,
(10:48):
purpose driven creatures. When we cultivate a unicorn space, get
into that sense of flow, we find our sense of
purpose and mastery within our cells, which in turn gives
us mastery in all of the other roles Eve that
you've already talked about. I think that's so beautiful because
(11:09):
some people say it's you know, simmering my signature sauce,
but without the expectation and the interruption of children and
a partner. I think the beauty is understanding what it
is for you, and it can change and it doesn't
always have to be the same, and it's not always
(11:29):
going to be easy, which we're going to be talking
about with our guests today, creativity expert Natalie Nixon. I
think the most beautiful thing that Natalie Nixon talks about
is the fact that creativity, the flow state, is not
just wonder. It also requires rigor. And that rigor is
(11:50):
what's hard because to find rigor and an activity to
learn to climb that mountain, to learn that signature sauce,
to learn about the gender division of labor, which was
my unicorn space for so long, does require this sustained attention.
I can't shake this idea that when we think about
(12:10):
the word creativity, we think of youth, but in fact,
creativity as we age becomes even more important. There was
a study done of older adults which found that when
older adults are engaged in creative pursuits, there is a
greater sense of connectivity in the brain, but also within
(12:31):
their selves. There's better cognitive functioning, and there's a greater
sense of well being. Now, this is not just nice
to have stuff. This is essential, critical stuff that we need.
That is to me the reason why I had to
write a whole second book on this topic because it
(12:53):
should be essential to your life. It is not optional.
But often we've dismissed this part of our life as
a nice to have with words I want to retire,
like hobby or vanity project or leisure or distractions. And
I will say that you said something very important about loneliness.
(13:15):
People ask me when I asked this question now two thousands,
this idea of what makes you you and what and
how do you share it with the world. A lot
of people ask me, well, what's the second question important for?
Why can't it just be what makes me me? Why
do you have to ask how do you share it
(13:35):
with the world? And the reason why is because there
is a distinction between self care, which is important, but
I often likened it to a more passive pursuit. I
mean it can be active like a spinning class, or
taking a walk with your dog, But it doesn't have
the same benefits as that connection, the sharing with your world.
(13:59):
That active pursuit is something different. That's what we're talking
about here. Those are baseline things that we should all have.
The next iteration and elevation up is this idea of
the active pursuit of creative self expression that makes you you.
Whether it be my friend who started as a baker
(14:20):
and now she's leveling up to making robotic cakes that
literally move, that's her unicorn space. The idea is the
sharing with the world, whether it's your neighbor, whether it's
becoming in a marathon group, whether it's getting ukulele recital
for five best friends. That flow state often comes in
(14:41):
the process of the connection of sharing, and that flow
stage is contagious. The unicorn space is contagious. When you
see your friends embodying that creativity or in that sense
of flow and they're really lit up, it makes you
want that too. So we're gonna be talking to Natalie
(15:02):
Nixon after the break about all of these things. I
cannot wait for you to hear what she has to say.
(15:26):
I'm excited to welcome today's guest, Natalie Nixon not only
a friend, she is a creativity strategist, global keynote speaker
and author of the award winning the Creativity Leap Unleashed Curiosity,
Improvisation and Intuition at Work. Hi Natalie, Hi Eve, It's
so good to see you and to be here. Thanks
for having me so before you came on, we were
(15:48):
talking a little bit about the hurdles to creativity, all
of those permissions we have to give ourselves to be unavailable,
to literally burn guilt and shame for spending sustained attention
on things that we love, and to use our voice.
And now I want to go into our shared passion,
which is creativity frameworks. Your wonder Rigor framework. We mentioned
(16:13):
it earlier as well as some of the findings around
how important not just curiosity is, but connection sharing your
creativity with others, whether it be chat chat on Instagram
like I got to see you last night during your
beautiful ballroom chance, or sending your crochet Harry Potter doll
(16:33):
to your aunt as my other friend just did. She
just completed her money and the last secret formula see
that I like to talk about, besides curiosity and connection
is the idea of completion, what it looks like to
actually complete something, as opposed to living in a graveyard
of unfulfilled dreams, as my friend once called it. So
(16:57):
to to go through the journey from curiosity to connection
a completion. I would love for you to tell a
little bit about how you help people to aim for
Curiosity is not a nice to have, but it must
have in their business and social and intimate lives. Sure. Well,
you know, Eve, I've a really loopy background in cultural
(17:18):
anthropology and fashion. I was a professor for sixteen years
and loved what I did until I didn't anymore. I
actually started falling in love with my side hustle, which
at the time that that was figure eight thinking, and
I was getting invited into companies to help them design
and build cultures of innovation. That was really an outgrowth
after I gave a ted Ex Philadelphia talk which was
(17:42):
essentially my PhD dissertation and plain English, I basically proclaimed
that the future of work is jazz and here's why
and here's how, and that talk really catapulted me into
getting invited into companies to help them become more improvisational,
which essentially me it is helping them to become more adaptive,
more experimental, more self organizing. This was probably about eight
(18:07):
years ago now, and everyone was chasing the eye word.
Everyone was trying to innovate, innovate, innovate, and well, that's
cool and that's fine. I was seeing that there's no
lingua franca for what we meant by innovation. We were
kind of like kept missing each other. And we, I
mean the collective corporate America. I know that I can't
(18:29):
critique a system without offering an alternative, another way to
be thinking about this. And so what my hunch was
telling me is that we were starting in the wrong place,
and we actually should be starting with creativity. However, as
you well know, Eve and add that if you lead
(18:49):
with creativity and the how old halls of corporate America,
let look at you like you have three hits. So
that began my journey of figuring out what might be
a simple and accessible way that I could help other
people who don't necessarily think that they're creative to think
about creativity in their work, to amplify it and the
(19:12):
ways that they do their work so that they can
ultimately innovate. And through a few years of really tinkering
with these ideas, I landed on this definition that creativity
is our ability to toggle between wonder and rigor to
solve problems and produce novel value. Along the way, I
(19:35):
came up with the definition that I like for innovation,
which is that innovation is an invention converted into scalable value.
And that value could be cultural value, social value, financial value.
And what's that conversion agent what helps us go from
an invention to an innovation? It's creativity. I love that
(19:56):
toggling between wonder and rigor, tow words and frameworks that
you would never put next to each other, and yet
both are so essential for creativity. You know, you say,
I know it may feel more important to dig in
your heels in times of crisis and only focus on
practical survival mode stuff, And you're right. Creativity is incredibly
(20:20):
practical and it is crucial to survival. I laughed when
I read that, because we never think of creativity as
something that is practical or something that's necessarily a survival skill.
Creativity isn't nice to have, It's a luxury. It's something
to do when all of your to do list is
done and all those boxes have been checked off, but
you really turn that notion on its head. And I
(20:42):
would love for you to tell us a little bit
more about why you think creativity is a survival skill,
especially for the audience that is listening, that is very
much in survival mode right now. So I launched the
Creativity Lead in the middle of the beginning phases of
the COVID nineteen pandemic in June, and I have to
(21:04):
tell you that there were many days I would wake up,
you know, right before I go to and I was thinking, Gosh,
when people are dying, when people are losing their jobs,
when people are going through so much ambiguity and uncertainty,
is creativity a luxury? Am I offering up a mental
(21:27):
model that will be additive and helpful to the ways
we will be able to navigate this time and going forward.
You know, as you said, it's not a luxury. It
is actually more essential than ever to hone your creativity
capacity or your c Q your creativity quotient as I
like to call it. It's important more than ever to
(21:49):
develop that capacity and to hone it because creativity is
a competency. It's something that we can exercise and get
better at. It's something that when we look at our
own children, and we think about our own childhoods. We
have so many great examples of our ability to toggle
between wonder and rigor to solve problems. What has happened
(22:12):
is that through traditional mainstream ways of being educated, we
get the signals that we should air on the side
of solutions versus process. Creativity is also not a luxury
because when I think about some of the more underprivileged,
(22:32):
marginalized groups in our society, oh my gosh, it's full
of create creative moments and output. Because, as it turns out,
creativity loves constraints. Creativity loves constraints on our time, it
loves constraints on money, it loves constraints on people resources.
It's actually just as we know that our greatest learning
(22:54):
happens when we fail, when we mess up big time,
it's when we have those strengths as in a pandemic,
that creativity really flourishes. Wow, I'm sort of freaking out
on that right, this idea that creativity love constraints because
you sort of think you have to be completely free
(23:14):
before you can live a creative life. But the idea
that similar to what Natalie is saying, is that in
my research, this idea that creativity can only come for
the privileged or unicorn space is really only for the
top echelon. It was almost the opposite. It was the
freed to calos of the world, and this idea that
(23:35):
through oppression and and trauma, as we know that some
of the most creative acts have been done and it
is subversive and we have to push through to do it.
Not only is it not reserved for the top echelon
of privilege, but we can't let its stay there. No,
(23:55):
we cannot. I love how you just reference the word
subversive because and some of my kino what I'm talking
about improvisation, I meet people where they are by first
acknowledging that most of us are terrified to improvise. And
that's in part because when we think about improvisation, we
think about about really impressive jazz musicians who do like
phenomenal in the moment, in in flow, majestic innovation and
(24:21):
output of sound. Or we think about the great comedic
artists of Saturday Live and what they're able to do
in the moment. It's a been intimidating, but I remind
people that you hack your way through every day like
probably between breakfast and lunchtime, you have had to hack
your way through supporting a spouse, a child, a colleague,
(24:43):
a client. And then if you look even further back,
we were really great improvisers as kids. There's an image
I show of a basketball hoop in the form of
a milk crate, of a punched out bottom, and it's
hanging under a side that says no ball playing here.
(25:05):
And I love that photograph because that's such a great
example of creativity loving constraints. Because in a lot of
our cities, in poorer communities, where there's no grassy playground
and and net hoops to play ball or light at night,
do you see that all the time? That's incredible hacking
(25:28):
and creativity. I talked about how back in the late
seventies early eighties we saw the greatest divestment of funding
for for arts education or public schools. And what did
African American male teams do. They turned a turntable into
a percussion instrument, and scratching is now one of the
(25:48):
most iconic sounds in hip hop, which is the largest
music genre in the world right now. It's just all
these examples of how in these pressure cooker moments, we
can be quite subversive in some really extraordinary ways. You
talk a lot about this idea of creativity being hardwired,
(26:09):
that we as human beings are hardwired for a creativity,
and yet it's so difficult for some of us to
cultivate because it seems like if we're hardwired for creativity,
then it should just bubble up like it does for kids.
So yeah, so we see that that hardwiredness. And I'll
just go back to kind of breaking down how I
define creativity to explain why I say we're hardwired to
(26:32):
be creative, if you accept or just kind of hold
for a moment, that creativity is our ability to toggle
between wonder and rigor to solve problems. Well, well, let's
break down what each of those dimensions are. Wonder is
about awe and audacity and deep curiosity and asking these
(26:54):
big blue sky what if questions. Wonder is also about
pause ing, because what I remind people is that you
can't wonder going eighty miles. You just can't, Like you
will burn out. You've got to sit your behind down
and pause and space out for a bit. Right. So,
(27:15):
if you think about the attributes of wonder being about
that curiosity, that expansive thinking. That is something that really
is innate to us when we're left alone, when we
get off the carousel of of career chasing or whatever
your particular carousel is, and we definitely see it evident
(27:37):
in our own children and when we reflect back on
our own childhoods. The rigor piece, you know, Rigor is discipline.
It's focus, it's mastery of fundamentals. It's time on task,
it's constraints. It's not particularly sexy, and it is essential.
It's also very solitary work. When we tend to think
(27:59):
about creative we only think about the wonder dimension. We
we forget that the rigor dimension is also part of it.
Now does the rigor dimension come naturally to us? Not always,
But at the same time, if you're so fortunate blessed
to have a parent who can read to you as
as a little toddler, you don't go from that to
like in my case, devouring Nancy Drew Mysteries um overnight.
(28:23):
It's through the rigor of the repetition of being focused
on that, and the seed of that is this desire
to get to that next level. So if we dig
a little more deeply into those those dimensions of wonder
and rigor, I think we begin to see how we're
heart wired. The other thing I just want to add
to that is I have another framework that I like
to share about creativity, which just the three eyes, which
(28:44):
is to say that the way we can consistently toggle
between wonder and rigular solve problems is through improvisation, inquiry,
and intuition. We've talked about inquiry or curiosity. We've talked
a bit about improvisation. The intuition peace is what I
call pattern recognition, and as it turns out, we are
(29:05):
hardwired to into it because we have in our bodies
something called the vegas nerve. It's the second longest nerve
in our body. The first longest nerve is the spinal cord,
and the vegas nerve extends from my cranium down through
our hearts into our gut. And so we literally have
this interior human antenna that lights up before the rationality
(29:28):
can even set in that helps us sense make and
say we should go left, not right. I should work
with her and not him. I should be with this person,
not with that person. Right. So, so the cool thing
about intuition is that it never leaves us. It's like
a radar sonar. A muscle has to be exercised. We
have to use it. The more we use it, the
(29:51):
louder and clearer it gets. The less we use it,
the flabb ear and dimmer it gets. So if you
come along with me and my my definite should of
creativity and also incorporate those three eyes, that intuition piece,
which is this way of exercising it is another example
of that hardwiredness of creativity within us. That was actually
(30:12):
my question of you know, if it's hardwired, and yet
if it's difficult to cultivate, how do we actually cultivate it?
And it's through the three eyes, Through the three eyes yes,
by consistently committing to learning how to ask new different questions,
actively listening self inquiry as well as asking others, which
can be pretty hard if we're not used to it.
(30:34):
Improvisation which is about being experimental, adaptive, and the intuition
and I think the a way to do it, not
the only way, but I have found is a technique
I like to share. People be a clumsy student of
something anything. I'm a clumsy student of social ballroom dance
and I love it. Because I literally practice the three
(30:55):
eyes all the time, I have to into it more
when I'm dancing with a dance partner. If I'm not
getting something, I've got to how to reframe the question.
It helpful when I have a range of teachers. I
observe how my peers who are better than me, how
they do things, and I improvised quite a bit and
that transfer. Those are activating neural synapses in my brain
which transfer over to my daily work to help me
(31:18):
be more humble about exercising the three eyes in my
daily work. What's your favorite ballroom type dance to do
right now? Is the chacha? Because my Bombom dance to
do that. They do something called a showcase, and it
was my first showcase I participated in, and I thought
the chasha was going to be easy. But the shasha
is so precise, it's quick, there's a fluidity to it.
(31:43):
But the beauty of it comes in the syncopation of
how you decide to linger on a certain movement and
then followed up with rapid succession with other movements. I
love Latin, but I also love foxtrot, which is an
example of a smooth a dance. It's it's beautiful as well.
I just love to dance. I love the lynday and
(32:03):
the tango. So one day maybe we can we can
dance together. I would love that. And the tango is hard,
so hard, it's so beautiful. Yes, I was trained as
an Indian classical dancer and did ballet for decades. Oh
my god, we should all three dance together because I
love this communal unicorn space. This is the metaphor that
(32:24):
we began this episode with, which was we can't wait
for the storm to pass. We have to learn to
dance in the rain. And I will say, Natalie, your
work to give us permission to be creative in many
different forms in a wondrous and rigorous way is why
(32:47):
I've always been drawn to your work and I want
to thank you for sharing your insights. Thank you both
so much for having me. This has been a real pleasure.
I loved it. Natalie. Where can people find you? People
can learn more about my speaking and advisory work at
Figure eight thinking dot com. That's the word figure the
(33:08):
number eight thinking. Hi, it's me Eve, and I want
to tell you about my latest book, Find Your Unicorn Space.
(33:29):
So you're playing fair and have established equity in your home.
But now what it's time to find your Unicorn Space.
My new book will help you set personal goals, rediscover
your interests, and reclaim the creative expression of self that
makes you uniquely you. Find your Unicorn Space is a
mix of research space, how to advice, and big picture
inspirational thinking. I hope it can show you a clear
(33:51):
path to reclaim your permission to be unavailable and manifest
your own unicorn space. Find your Unicorn Space is available
now wherever books are sold. So every episode of this
podcast will be ending with an action atem for you
(34:11):
are listeners that we call a time out. This is
really a time for you to focus on yourself and
reflect on what you're hearing today. And we're starting the
conversation first with ourselves and then ultimately with our partners
and others. So a d D I'll say that one
of my unicorn spaces is this podcast with you, because,
(34:34):
as we discussed with Natalie, creativity does not have to
be browsing Blick for paint and and art brushes. It
really is a combination of these amazing three things of curiosity,
where we are curious about issues around what happens to
(34:54):
women when we're defined by our roles, where we can
come here together and connect as spiritual friends and share
ourselves with the world. And then the most important thing
is the completion, the fact that we actually did this.
We've been talking about this for a while, but that
we are completing this. It may not be perfect, we're
new at this, but we're uploading it for listeners. Were
(35:15):
completing something. And that's, as my friend Amanda says, the
opposite of a graveyard of unfulfilled dreams. What else for
you feels like unicorn space? Besides this podcast, I'm hoping
I'm putting the words in your mouth that this is
one of your unicorn spaces. So I totally agree. I
think this podcast and the conversations that we have with
each other and these amazing guests make me really deeply
(35:38):
reflect on my life and bring a new sense of
energy and joy to all of those areas, which I'm
so grateful for. You know, when you first asked me
the question a TD, what is your unicorn space? You
think of these self care activities that you've done forever,
maybe things that you've done as a kid, and you
go right into that. It's a reflex, right because we
(36:00):
often think of creating space for ourselves as self care,
because that's what society has taught us. But what I
love about really crafting this concept of unicorn space is
this idea that you're creating a space for yourself, but
then you are giving it out to the world to
help better yourself, but equally better the world. And so
(36:23):
when I reflected a little bit more deeply on what
my unicorn spaces, my favorite part of being a doctor
is my ability to communicate with patients and really patient education.
There's nothing greater for me. I went into medicine for
the human story and the power of the human story.
So there's no greater joy for me than when I'm
talking to a patient and I'm explaining something complex or difficult,
(36:45):
like a really new on scientific principle, and then that
aha moment for them when the light really goes off
in their eyes, like they get it. But what I
hear from you saying is that you're living at a
really sweet spot between me and happiness. My wish for
our listeners, and what I hope are prompt will be
this week, is that they can start understanding with us
(37:10):
how powerful it is to sit at that intersection of
meaning and happiness. So this week's time out exercise is
a fantasy for those of us who have been journaling
alongside these exercises. Pull out your pen and paper when
you can if you're not driving, and answer this question.
If you were given a year on a deserted island,
(37:31):
thank survivor, but with every privilege in the world, all
the internet you needed, all the food you needed, your
kids are completely fine when you get home a year later.
The fantasy. Just go with it. What would you do
with that year? And the reason why I asked that
is because I asked this to many people in my
(37:53):
Unicorn space research. And while I heard cool things like
I would cross pollinate a mango and a pineapple and
call it a mang apple, what I didn't hear was
get botox, get a manicure, drive an expensive car, make
more money, work more m HM. And I think that
(38:15):
reflection of understanding what intrinsically motivates us can give us
the tools to bring it back to real life. So
that's the time out first, the big dream of what
you do in that year, and really dive deep into
that fantasy and what would you do with all of
that time? And energy and life force, and then think
(38:37):
about how you can incorporate all of that goodness into
your day to day life. And in our next episode,
we're going to start looking at the practical tips, tricks
solutions to actually bring you some found time by redistributing
domestic responsibilities and adding fairness to your home. Thank you
(39:01):
for listening to Time Out, a production of I Heart
Podcasts and Hello Sunshine. I'm Eve Rodsky, author of the
New York Times bestseller fair Play and Find your Unicorn Space.
Follow me on social media at Eve Rodsky and learn
more about our work at fair Play Life. And I'm
doctor add No Rucar, a Harvard physician with a specialty
(39:22):
and stress resilience, burnout, and mental health. Follow me on
social media at dr add ne Rucar and find out
more about my work at doctor add dot com. That's
d r A d I t I dot com. Our
Hello Sunshine team is Amanda Farren, Aaron Stover, and Jennifer Yonker.
Our I Heart Media team is Ali Perry, Jennifer Bassett,
(39:44):
and Jessica Crimeschitch. We hope you all love taking a
much needed time out with us today. Listen and subscribe
to time out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you get your favorite shows.
Welcome to Time Out. I'm Eve Rodsky, author of the
New York Times bestseller fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space,
activists on the gender division of labor, attorney and family mediator.
And I'm doctor Addi Narukar, a physician and medical correspondent
with an expertise in the science of stress, resilience, mental health,
(00:22):
and burnout. We're here to peel back to layers around
why it's so easy for society to guard men's time
as if it's diamonds, and to treat women's time as
if it's infinite like sands. And whether you are partnered
with or without children, or in a career where you
want more boundaries, this is the place for you for
all family structures. We're here to take a time out
(00:45):
to learn, get inspired, and most importantly, reclaim our time.
So add I've been thinking a lot about unicorn space,
this idea that, like the mythical eq wine, finding space
(01:07):
and time uninterrupted attention for things that we love is
often difficult because in our society we're often defined by
our roles. We're often taught to give our most valuable
currency away, our time and service of others. And I
remember Anne Marie Slaughter said something to me that I
(01:30):
thought was really powerful. She said that she feels in
community with all women across the globe because at some point,
every single one of us will be defined by our roles.
And so that gets me to something I want to
tell you about a keynote that I started to write
for a women's college that asked me to speak to them,
(01:53):
and the speech I delivered was probably a little bit
different than the one they thought I was going to deliver. Typically,
right command been speeches, or these speeches that we give
to the next generation are all about you can do
anything and you can be anything. But my speech was
called you only have ten years left to live. It
(02:14):
was inspired by Heidi Shriks what the Constitution means to me.
What I loved was that she embodied her younger self,
and so as I started the speech, I embodied the
twenty one year old Eve and a d D. I
was going to be president and senator, right because like
who stopped legislating around four o'clock? Like, you have so
(02:36):
much more time. Right, you can legislate during the day,
and obviously you can pass all of your executive orders
at night. But I'm not going to give up my
dream of being a nick City dancer, because why would
I could just fly Air Force one into New York
because it's such a short jaunt from d C, and
I'll do the twelve thirty shows. I start this way
(03:04):
because I want to remind our listeners of who you were,
say at or that time in your life when you
had that much potential, that much power, that much fire,
and what happens to it? Why did I call it
(03:26):
I only had ten years left to live, because by
the time I was thirty one, my fire had gone out.
It had been extinguished by my roles, by what society
expected of me, of the unpaid labor, that discipline and
screen time and the bathing and grooming of kids, and
on and on. So what happens to us where we
(03:47):
go from being told the lie that we could be
and do anything to the point where society rears its
ugly head. And how do we prevent that? For women especially?
There will always be rain, There will always be the
other backpack to unpack, or the extracurricular sports you have
(04:08):
to take your kids to. But as my favorite Vivian
Green quote, which can come off cheesy, but I still
think it's very important, right we don't wait for the
storm to pass. We have to learn to dance in
the rain. And this idea of unicorn space, which is
something different than self care and friendships, which are also important.
(04:32):
This space to reclaim who we were at our most vibrant,
are most powerful, our most passionate version of who we
were can always be there and can be reclaimed if
we've lost it. It's just about being intentional and thinking
about how we can do this within the current structures
(04:54):
of how we live in America today. We have to
understand the hurdles that our society is put in front
of us, the hurdles to that sustained attention to things
that we love. And one of those hurdles is the
permission to be interested in our own lives and interesting
(05:15):
to ourselves. That permission to be unavailable from our roles,
that idea that we are defined as individuals as opposed
to in relation to others. In fact, even in the
daily act of wearing our kids initials on our neck,
wearing mom on our neck, I have to say a
(05:36):
d D. I said to my kids, you know, I
need unavailability from my roles. I need unavailability to reclaim
what makes me me, And so I'm going to start
with actually wearing my own initial around my neck. And
my kids are so proud of me. They're like, my
mommy doesn't wear our initials, she wears her own. And
they know my name is E V. And my name
(05:57):
is powerful and I'm reclaiming it. Second is this idea
about guilt and shame. And the third is our ability
to use our voice, which we're talking about throughout this
whole season, that we get a chance to vocalize what
we need. Why are those things the idea that being unavailable,
(06:19):
a lack of guilt and shame, and using my voice
a deity? Why are those so hard to exercise in
everyday life. All of those things that you mentioned their
societal constructs that are put up on us and as women,
especially in multitasking is something that we do and it's
a real sense of a badge of honor to be
able to do everything so well, all at once, without
(06:42):
even breaking a sweat. But in fact, multitasking is bad
for the brain, and we don't talk about that enough.
In fact, when you look at the biology of the
brain and you look at how multitasking works, it is
divided attention. And if we want better brain health, better
mental health, a sense of resiliency, and a lack of burnout,
(07:03):
then we can't divide our attention in a million different ways.
We have to have that focused, sustained attention, which is
what the unicorn spaces. It has lots of brain benefits.
This idea of creativity not as a luxury or a
nice to have, but a necessity. And when we carve
out that unicorn space and live within our unicorn space,
(07:26):
we are giving our body and our mind a chance
to really be optimized. When we are fully inhabiting that
unicorn space, it improves our resilience, It decreases our stress,
it decreases our burnout. It also has lots of other
(07:46):
benefits the growth, mindset, innovation, problem solving, creating a sense
of meaning and purpose, imagination, creativity. They are actually very
important hard metrics that impact the bottom line when it
comes to our health, our mental health and physical health.
Creativity has been shown to improve anxiety and depression. It
(08:10):
changes the brain, It decreases our cortisol level, which is
a stress hormone, and it has a huge biological boost.
I wonder if I can interject with just the definition
of the flow state. Before we get into the secret
formula of creativity, I want to give props a d
D to me Hi. Chicks sent me Hi a hard
(08:31):
name to pronounce, but he is the founder, an originator
of the concept of the flow state. And what's so
beautiful about his work is he identified something that we've
all felt, wonder, the wonder of what it feels like
when you lose yourself in an activity. Now, children and
(08:55):
society are the conspirers against flow. They come in to
cut up our time into little bits. And actually the
idea that women that we deserve sustained attention for our
flow state, for things that we love to me is
how we redefine happiness, because what we found lately is
(09:18):
that and this is what the research shows, if you
focus on how to be happy, the pursuit of happiness
for happiness sake actually makes you more sad. And indeed,
you could talk more about that from a scientific perspective,
but what I will say is that happiness is a
clue that you found your unicorn space and whether it's
(09:40):
going back to your childhood, but if you had trauma
in your childhood, maybe it's looking forward to who you
want to be. However you get there, and we will
be talking about this a lot over the season. It
is not easy to inhabit your unicorn space. If it was,
we'd all be living to two hundred, frolicking in a
field of lavender. And I think it's also important to
(10:03):
recognize that any amount of time, even if it's five
minutes in that flow state, can have ripple effects for
our whole day, and actually biological effects. You may not
know when you're in getting into the flow state, but
you certainly know when you've gotten out. It's that sense
of timelessness in the present moment. We lose track of time,
(10:25):
we lose track of where we are, and there's many
ways to get there. It's not the same for everyone.
Probably one of my favorite benefits of getting into the
unicorn space is strengthening our sense of autonomy, which when
we're married, with children and in many roles that can
be weakened, and we as human beings are meaning seeking,
(10:48):
purpose driven creatures. When we cultivate a unicorn space, get
into that sense of flow, we find our sense of
purpose and mastery within our cells, which in turn gives
us mastery in all of the other roles Eve that
you've already talked about. I think that's so beautiful because
(11:09):
some people say it's you know, simmering my signature sauce,
but without the expectation and the interruption of children and
a partner. I think the beauty is understanding what it
is for you, and it can change and it doesn't
always have to be the same, and it's not always
(11:29):
going to be easy, which we're going to be talking
about with our guests today, creativity expert Natalie Nixon. I
think the most beautiful thing that Natalie Nixon talks about
is the fact that creativity, the flow state, is not
just wonder. It also requires rigor. And that rigor is
(11:50):
what's hard because to find rigor and an activity to
learn to climb that mountain, to learn that signature sauce,
to learn about the gender division of labor, which was
my unicorn space for so long, does require this sustained attention.
I can't shake this idea that when we think about
(12:10):
the word creativity, we think of youth, but in fact,
creativity as we age becomes even more important. There was
a study done of older adults which found that when
older adults are engaged in creative pursuits, there is a
greater sense of connectivity in the brain, but also within
(12:31):
their selves. There's better cognitive functioning, and there's a greater
sense of well being. Now, this is not just nice
to have stuff. This is essential, critical stuff that we need.
That is to me the reason why I had to
write a whole second book on this topic because it
(12:53):
should be essential to your life. It is not optional.
But often we've dismissed this part of our life as
a nice to have with words I want to retire,
like hobby or vanity project or leisure or distractions. And
I will say that you said something very important about loneliness.
(13:15):
People ask me when I asked this question now two thousands,
this idea of what makes you you and what and
how do you share it with the world. A lot
of people ask me, well, what's the second question important for?
Why can't it just be what makes me me? Why
do you have to ask how do you share it
(13:35):
with the world? And the reason why is because there
is a distinction between self care, which is important, but
I often likened it to a more passive pursuit. I
mean it can be active like a spinning class, or
taking a walk with your dog, But it doesn't have
the same benefits as that connection, the sharing with your world.
(13:59):
That active pursuit is something different. That's what we're talking
about here. Those are baseline things that we should all have.
The next iteration and elevation up is this idea of
the active pursuit of creative self expression that makes you you.
Whether it be my friend who started as a baker
(14:20):
and now she's leveling up to making robotic cakes that
literally move, that's her unicorn space. The idea is the
sharing with the world, whether it's your neighbor, whether it's
becoming in a marathon group, whether it's getting ukulele recital
for five best friends. That flow state often comes in
(14:41):
the process of the connection of sharing, and that flow
stage is contagious. The unicorn space is contagious. When you
see your friends embodying that creativity or in that sense
of flow and they're really lit up, it makes you
want that too. So we're gonna be talking to Natalie
(15:02):
Nixon after the break about all of these things. I
cannot wait for you to hear what she has to say.
(15:26):
I'm excited to welcome today's guest, Natalie Nixon not only
a friend, she is a creativity strategist, global keynote speaker
and author of the award winning the Creativity Leap Unleashed Curiosity,
Improvisation and Intuition at Work. Hi Natalie, Hi Eve, It's
so good to see you and to be here. Thanks
for having me so before you came on, we were
(15:48):
talking a little bit about the hurdles to creativity, all
of those permissions we have to give ourselves to be unavailable,
to literally burn guilt and shame for spending sustained attention
on things that we love, and to use our voice.
And now I want to go into our shared passion,
which is creativity frameworks. Your wonder Rigor framework. We mentioned
(16:13):
it earlier as well as some of the findings around
how important not just curiosity is, but connection sharing your
creativity with others, whether it be chat chat on Instagram
like I got to see you last night during your
beautiful ballroom chance, or sending your crochet Harry Potter doll
(16:33):
to your aunt as my other friend just did. She
just completed her money and the last secret formula see
that I like to talk about, besides curiosity and connection
is the idea of completion, what it looks like to
actually complete something, as opposed to living in a graveyard
of unfulfilled dreams, as my friend once called it. So
(16:57):
to to go through the journey from curiosity to connection
a completion. I would love for you to tell a
little bit about how you help people to aim for
Curiosity is not a nice to have, but it must
have in their business and social and intimate lives. Sure. Well,
you know, Eve, I've a really loopy background in cultural
(17:18):
anthropology and fashion. I was a professor for sixteen years
and loved what I did until I didn't anymore. I
actually started falling in love with my side hustle, which
at the time that that was figure eight thinking, and
I was getting invited into companies to help them design
and build cultures of innovation. That was really an outgrowth
after I gave a ted Ex Philadelphia talk which was
(17:42):
essentially my PhD dissertation and plain English, I basically proclaimed
that the future of work is jazz and here's why
and here's how, and that talk really catapulted me into
getting invited into companies to help them become more improvisational,
which essentially me it is helping them to become more adaptive,
more experimental, more self organizing. This was probably about eight
(18:07):
years ago now, and everyone was chasing the eye word.
Everyone was trying to innovate, innovate, innovate, and well, that's
cool and that's fine. I was seeing that there's no
lingua franca for what we meant by innovation. We were
kind of like kept missing each other. And we, I
mean the collective corporate America. I know that I can't
(18:29):
critique a system without offering an alternative, another way to
be thinking about this. And so what my hunch was
telling me is that we were starting in the wrong place,
and we actually should be starting with creativity. However, as
you well know, Eve and add that if you lead
(18:49):
with creativity and the how old halls of corporate America,
let look at you like you have three hits. So
that began my journey of figuring out what might be
a simple and accessible way that I could help other
people who don't necessarily think that they're creative to think
about creativity in their work, to amplify it and the
(19:12):
ways that they do their work so that they can
ultimately innovate. And through a few years of really tinkering
with these ideas, I landed on this definition that creativity
is our ability to toggle between wonder and rigor to
solve problems and produce novel value. Along the way, I
(19:35):
came up with the definition that I like for innovation,
which is that innovation is an invention converted into scalable value.
And that value could be cultural value, social value, financial value.
And what's that conversion agent what helps us go from
an invention to an innovation? It's creativity. I love that
(19:56):
toggling between wonder and rigor, tow words and frameworks that
you would never put next to each other, and yet
both are so essential for creativity. You know, you say,
I know it may feel more important to dig in
your heels in times of crisis and only focus on
practical survival mode stuff, And you're right. Creativity is incredibly
(20:20):
practical and it is crucial to survival. I laughed when
I read that, because we never think of creativity as
something that is practical or something that's necessarily a survival skill.
Creativity isn't nice to have, It's a luxury. It's something
to do when all of your to do list is
done and all those boxes have been checked off, but
you really turn that notion on its head. And I
(20:42):
would love for you to tell us a little bit
more about why you think creativity is a survival skill,
especially for the audience that is listening, that is very
much in survival mode right now. So I launched the
Creativity Lead in the middle of the beginning phases of
the COVID nineteen pandemic in June, and I have to
(21:04):
tell you that there were many days I would wake up,
you know, right before I go to and I was thinking, Gosh,
when people are dying, when people are losing their jobs,
when people are going through so much ambiguity and uncertainty,
is creativity a luxury? Am I offering up a mental
(21:27):
model that will be additive and helpful to the ways
we will be able to navigate this time and going forward.
You know, as you said, it's not a luxury. It
is actually more essential than ever to hone your creativity
capacity or your c Q your creativity quotient as I
like to call it. It's important more than ever to
(21:49):
develop that capacity and to hone it because creativity is
a competency. It's something that we can exercise and get
better at. It's something that when we look at our
own children, and we think about our own childhoods. We
have so many great examples of our ability to toggle
between wonder and rigor to solve problems. What has happened
(22:12):
is that through traditional mainstream ways of being educated, we
get the signals that we should air on the side
of solutions versus process. Creativity is also not a luxury
because when I think about some of the more underprivileged,
(22:32):
marginalized groups in our society, oh my gosh, it's full
of create creative moments and output. Because, as it turns out,
creativity loves constraints. Creativity loves constraints on our time, it
loves constraints on money, it loves constraints on people resources.
It's actually just as we know that our greatest learning
(22:54):
happens when we fail, when we mess up big time,
it's when we have those strengths as in a pandemic,
that creativity really flourishes. Wow, I'm sort of freaking out
on that right, this idea that creativity love constraints because
you sort of think you have to be completely free
(23:14):
before you can live a creative life. But the idea
that similar to what Natalie is saying, is that in
my research, this idea that creativity can only come for
the privileged or unicorn space is really only for the
top echelon. It was almost the opposite. It was the
freed to calos of the world, and this idea that
(23:35):
through oppression and and trauma, as we know that some
of the most creative acts have been done and it
is subversive and we have to push through to do it.
Not only is it not reserved for the top echelon
of privilege, but we can't let its stay there. No,
(23:55):
we cannot. I love how you just reference the word
subversive because and some of my kino what I'm talking
about improvisation, I meet people where they are by first
acknowledging that most of us are terrified to improvise. And
that's in part because when we think about improvisation, we
think about about really impressive jazz musicians who do like
phenomenal in the moment, in in flow, majestic innovation and
(24:21):
output of sound. Or we think about the great comedic
artists of Saturday Live and what they're able to do
in the moment. It's a been intimidating, but I remind
people that you hack your way through every day like
probably between breakfast and lunchtime, you have had to hack
your way through supporting a spouse, a child, a colleague,
(24:43):
a client. And then if you look even further back,
we were really great improvisers as kids. There's an image
I show of a basketball hoop in the form of
a milk crate, of a punched out bottom, and it's
hanging under a side that says no ball playing here.
(25:05):
And I love that photograph because that's such a great
example of creativity loving constraints. Because in a lot of
our cities, in poorer communities, where there's no grassy playground
and and net hoops to play ball or light at night,
do you see that all the time? That's incredible hacking
(25:28):
and creativity. I talked about how back in the late
seventies early eighties we saw the greatest divestment of funding
for for arts education or public schools. And what did
African American male teams do. They turned a turntable into
a percussion instrument, and scratching is now one of the
(25:48):
most iconic sounds in hip hop, which is the largest
music genre in the world right now. It's just all
these examples of how in these pressure cooker moments, we
can be quite subversive in some really extraordinary ways. You
talk a lot about this idea of creativity being hardwired,
(26:09):
that we as human beings are hardwired for a creativity,
and yet it's so difficult for some of us to
cultivate because it seems like if we're hardwired for creativity,
then it should just bubble up like it does for kids.
So yeah, so we see that that hardwiredness. And I'll
just go back to kind of breaking down how I
define creativity to explain why I say we're hardwired to
(26:32):
be creative, if you accept or just kind of hold
for a moment, that creativity is our ability to toggle
between wonder and rigor to solve problems. Well, well, let's
break down what each of those dimensions are. Wonder is
about awe and audacity and deep curiosity and asking these
(26:54):
big blue sky what if questions. Wonder is also about
pause ing, because what I remind people is that you
can't wonder going eighty miles. You just can't, Like you
will burn out. You've got to sit your behind down
and pause and space out for a bit. Right. So,
(27:15):
if you think about the attributes of wonder being about
that curiosity, that expansive thinking. That is something that really
is innate to us when we're left alone, when we
get off the carousel of of career chasing or whatever
your particular carousel is, and we definitely see it evident
(27:37):
in our own children and when we reflect back on
our own childhoods. The rigor piece, you know, Rigor is discipline.
It's focus, it's mastery of fundamentals. It's time on task,
it's constraints. It's not particularly sexy, and it is essential.
It's also very solitary work. When we tend to think
(27:59):
about creative we only think about the wonder dimension. We
we forget that the rigor dimension is also part of it.
Now does the rigor dimension come naturally to us? Not always,
But at the same time, if you're so fortunate blessed
to have a parent who can read to you as
as a little toddler, you don't go from that to
like in my case, devouring Nancy Drew Mysteries um overnight.
(28:23):
It's through the rigor of the repetition of being focused
on that, and the seed of that is this desire
to get to that next level. So if we dig
a little more deeply into those those dimensions of wonder
and rigor, I think we begin to see how we're
heart wired. The other thing I just want to add
to that is I have another framework that I like
to share about creativity, which just the three eyes, which
(28:44):
is to say that the way we can consistently toggle
between wonder and rigular solve problems is through improvisation, inquiry,
and intuition. We've talked about inquiry or curiosity. We've talked
a bit about improvisation. The intuition peace is what I
call pattern recognition, and as it turns out, we are
(29:05):
hardwired to into it because we have in our bodies
something called the vegas nerve. It's the second longest nerve
in our body. The first longest nerve is the spinal cord,
and the vegas nerve extends from my cranium down through
our hearts into our gut. And so we literally have
this interior human antenna that lights up before the rationality
(29:28):
can even set in that helps us sense make and
say we should go left, not right. I should work
with her and not him. I should be with this person,
not with that person. Right. So, so the cool thing
about intuition is that it never leaves us. It's like
a radar sonar. A muscle has to be exercised. We
have to use it. The more we use it, the
(29:51):
louder and clearer it gets. The less we use it,
the flabb ear and dimmer it gets. So if you
come along with me and my my definite should of
creativity and also incorporate those three eyes, that intuition piece,
which is this way of exercising it is another example
of that hardwiredness of creativity within us. That was actually
(30:12):
my question of you know, if it's hardwired, and yet
if it's difficult to cultivate, how do we actually cultivate it?
And it's through the three eyes, Through the three eyes yes,
by consistently committing to learning how to ask new different questions,
actively listening self inquiry as well as asking others, which
can be pretty hard if we're not used to it.
(30:34):
Improvisation which is about being experimental, adaptive, and the intuition
and I think the a way to do it, not
the only way, but I have found is a technique
I like to share. People be a clumsy student of
something anything. I'm a clumsy student of social ballroom dance
and I love it. Because I literally practice the three
(30:55):
eyes all the time, I have to into it more
when I'm dancing with a dance partner. If I'm not
getting something, I've got to how to reframe the question.
It helpful when I have a range of teachers. I
observe how my peers who are better than me, how
they do things, and I improvised quite a bit and
that transfer. Those are activating neural synapses in my brain
which transfer over to my daily work to help me
(31:18):
be more humble about exercising the three eyes in my
daily work. What's your favorite ballroom type dance to do
right now? Is the chacha? Because my Bombom dance to
do that. They do something called a showcase, and it
was my first showcase I participated in, and I thought
the chasha was going to be easy. But the shasha
is so precise, it's quick, there's a fluidity to it.
(31:43):
But the beauty of it comes in the syncopation of
how you decide to linger on a certain movement and
then followed up with rapid succession with other movements. I
love Latin, but I also love foxtrot, which is an
example of a smooth a dance. It's it's beautiful as well.
I just love to dance. I love the lynday and
(32:03):
the tango. So one day maybe we can we can
dance together. I would love that. And the tango is hard,
so hard, it's so beautiful. Yes, I was trained as
an Indian classical dancer and did ballet for decades. Oh
my god, we should all three dance together because I
love this communal unicorn space. This is the metaphor that
(32:24):
we began this episode with, which was we can't wait
for the storm to pass. We have to learn to
dance in the rain. And I will say, Natalie, your
work to give us permission to be creative in many
different forms in a wondrous and rigorous way is why
(32:47):
I've always been drawn to your work and I want
to thank you for sharing your insights. Thank you both
so much for having me. This has been a real pleasure.
I loved it. Natalie. Where can people find you? People
can learn more about my speaking and advisory work at
Figure eight thinking dot com. That's the word figure the
(33:08):
number eight thinking. Hi, it's me Eve, and I want
to tell you about my latest book, Find Your Unicorn Space.
(33:29):
So you're playing fair and have established equity in your home.
But now what it's time to find your Unicorn Space.
My new book will help you set personal goals, rediscover
your interests, and reclaim the creative expression of self that
makes you uniquely you. Find your Unicorn Space is a
mix of research space, how to advice, and big picture
inspirational thinking. I hope it can show you a clear
(33:51):
path to reclaim your permission to be unavailable and manifest
your own unicorn space. Find your Unicorn Space is available
now wherever books are sold. So every episode of this
podcast will be ending with an action atem for you
(34:11):
are listeners that we call a time out. This is
really a time for you to focus on yourself and
reflect on what you're hearing today. And we're starting the
conversation first with ourselves and then ultimately with our partners
and others. So a d D I'll say that one
of my unicorn spaces is this podcast with you, because,
(34:34):
as we discussed with Natalie, creativity does not have to
be browsing Blick for paint and and art brushes. It
really is a combination of these amazing three things of curiosity,
where we are curious about issues around what happens to
(34:54):
women when we're defined by our roles, where we can
come here together and connect as spiritual friends and share
ourselves with the world. And then the most important thing
is the completion, the fact that we actually did this.
We've been talking about this for a while, but that
we are completing this. It may not be perfect, we're
new at this, but we're uploading it for listeners. Were
(35:15):
completing something. And that's, as my friend Amanda says, the
opposite of a graveyard of unfulfilled dreams. What else for
you feels like unicorn space? Besides this podcast, I'm hoping
I'm putting the words in your mouth that this is
one of your unicorn spaces. So I totally agree. I
think this podcast and the conversations that we have with
each other and these amazing guests make me really deeply
(35:38):
reflect on my life and bring a new sense of
energy and joy to all of those areas, which I'm
so grateful for. You know, when you first asked me
the question a TD, what is your unicorn space? You
think of these self care activities that you've done forever,
maybe things that you've done as a kid, and you
go right into that. It's a reflex, right because we
(36:00):
often think of creating space for ourselves as self care,
because that's what society has taught us. But what I
love about really crafting this concept of unicorn space is
this idea that you're creating a space for yourself, but
then you are giving it out to the world to
help better yourself, but equally better the world. And so
(36:23):
when I reflected a little bit more deeply on what
my unicorn spaces, my favorite part of being a doctor
is my ability to communicate with patients and really patient education.
There's nothing greater for me. I went into medicine for
the human story and the power of the human story.
So there's no greater joy for me than when I'm
talking to a patient and I'm explaining something complex or difficult,
(36:45):
like a really new on scientific principle, and then that
aha moment for them when the light really goes off
in their eyes, like they get it. But what I
hear from you saying is that you're living at a
really sweet spot between me and happiness. My wish for
our listeners, and what I hope are prompt will be
this week, is that they can start understanding with us
(37:10):
how powerful it is to sit at that intersection of
meaning and happiness. So this week's time out exercise is
a fantasy for those of us who have been journaling
alongside these exercises. Pull out your pen and paper when
you can if you're not driving, and answer this question.
If you were given a year on a deserted island,
(37:31):
thank survivor, but with every privilege in the world, all
the internet you needed, all the food you needed, your
kids are completely fine when you get home a year later.
The fantasy. Just go with it. What would you do
with that year? And the reason why I asked that
is because I asked this to many people in my
(37:53):
Unicorn space research. And while I heard cool things like
I would cross pollinate a mango and a pineapple and
call it a mang apple, what I didn't hear was
get botox, get a manicure, drive an expensive car, make
more money, work more m HM. And I think that
(38:15):
reflection of understanding what intrinsically motivates us can give us
the tools to bring it back to real life. So
that's the time out first, the big dream of what
you do in that year, and really dive deep into
that fantasy and what would you do with all of
that time? And energy and life force, and then think
(38:37):
about how you can incorporate all of that goodness into
your day to day life. And in our next episode,
we're going to start looking at the practical tips, tricks
solutions to actually bring you some found time by redistributing
domestic responsibilities and adding fairness to your home. Thank you
(39:01):
for listening to Time Out, a production of I Heart
Podcasts and Hello Sunshine. I'm Eve Rodsky, author of the
New York Times bestseller fair Play and Find your Unicorn Space.
Follow me on social media at Eve Rodsky and learn
more about our work at fair Play Life. And I'm
doctor add No Rucar, a Harvard physician with a specialty
(39:22):
and stress resilience, burnout, and mental health. Follow me on
social media at dr add ne Rucar and find out
more about my work at doctor add dot com. That's
d r A d I t I dot com. Our
Hello Sunshine team is Amanda Farren, Aaron Stover, and Jennifer Yonker.
Our I Heart Media team is Ali Perry, Jennifer Bassett,
(39:44):
and Jessica Crimeschitch. We hope you all love taking a
much needed time out with us today. Listen and subscribe
to time out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you get your favorite shows.
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