Creator Interrupted

[Music]

your potential

as a creator is not born from your

simplicity

it’s born from your complexity from your

nuance

your contradiction and your messiness

you see as creators as those of us who

are

starting businesses and writing books

and launching movements

we are the modern day alchemists our

job is to turn nothing into something we

allow ourselves to be used as the

conduits for creation at scale

and so it only makes sense that we have

access to some kind of

potent power source some internal engine

that

fuels our potential and as we will come

to understand

that fuel is our complexity

it’s born from our ability to see our

strengths and our struggles

our blessings and our burdens our light

and our dark as all essential to our

creative process

as this optical illusion demonstrates

we need both the light and the dark to

see this creation

in its wholeness the renaissance masters

pioneered the style of painting

chiarskuro in which

the interplay of light and dark was used

to create

depth and beauty and mystery and

intrigue

and so too must we as creators use the

play of

our light and dark qualities to tap into

our full potency our full potentialities

as creative beings

these were a few of the things that i

started musing on a few years ago when i

was working in venture capital

and my job was to meet with thousands of

creators

from entrepreneurs to investors to

corporate innovators to creatives

and because of my background in

psychology and neuroscience i was able

to

quickly pick up on a few patterns and

trends in their way of being

the first thing that i was struck by was

the power of their bright

light qualities like a moth to a flame i

was

magnetized to their passion their

ambition their

risk tolerance and other bright

qualities that were so

foundational to their work as creative

beings

but in the same breath i became aware of

a

darker side of their nature it seemed as

though each and every one of their like

qualities went

hand in hand with an equal and opposite

dark compliment

and that none of their strengths could

truly be celebrated

without a nod to the murkier elements

that often sat just beneath the surface

i became aware of the depression the

distraction the delusion the addiction

the obsession the perfectionism imposter

syndrome

mental health issues stress-related

illness emotional dysregulation

existential angst

and generalized naughtiness that was so

prevalent

among creators and while i was floored

by the sheer depths of suffering i

witnessed

i quickly came to realize that creators

are just these wildly complex beings

they are

high and low optimistic and pessimistic

masculine and feminine logical and

creative

open-minded and critically minded

insanely productive

and humorously unproductive and other

poles of

experience that seem as though they

shouldn’t exist within the same being

and yet

when harnessed properly this complexity

and polarity

seems to be the stuff of uninhibited

creation

and it seemed as though these

individuals were not self-selecting

into creative and entrepreneurial work

despite their complexity but because of

it

and this makes sense because when we

look at

elementary science one of the first

things that we’re taught

is that energy exists in the opposites

and potential energy is defined by the

amount of

stress distance discord chaos or tension

in a system

and any system that is too stable or

orderly

will lack the potential energy needed to

catalyze the creative process

this is why we understand that energy

exists between

proton and electron anode and cathode

red wire blue wire north poland south

pole

and interestingly when we look at

psychology and psychiatry we see a

similar sentiment

in the words of the late psychiatrist

carl heung

there is no energy unless there is a

tension of opposites and the greater the

tension

the greater the potential

but one thing that we also know from

science is that when a system is

too complicated too chaotic it has too

much potential

and it has no pressure release valve it

has no on off

switch it has no way of regulating the

output

it will attempt to discharge that

potential through rather

unproductive means like radiation and i

began to wonder if

perhaps the same is true for creators if

their complexity is the source of their

potential but it is

also the very thing that burns them

and i know this because i

lived it another thing happened when i

was working in venture capital

i started to wade into my own deep

dark night of the soul all of a sudden

my

greatest brightest strengths for which i

had always been

so celebrated and praised started to

self-combust and backfire

my desire to achieve warped into

exhausted hyper-competitiveness my

intuition into overwhelm my openness to

experience

into distraction and fear of commitment

my

passion into obsession confidence into

arrogance

charisma into inauthenticity and my

desire to self-actualize into a crisis

of meaning i

started to struggle with my mental

health ping-ponging back and forth

between periods of low energy and apathy

and

periods of high energy and enthusiasm

without the ability to regulate the two

i literally stopped sleeping at night

and whenever i could i no longer dreamt

with the vividness that i once had and

i also started to manifest a colorful

assortment of physical symptoms

including

perhaps most interestingly my hair

for some unknown reason on some not so

special day

my long golden hair just started to fall

and i went to doctor after doctor and

healer after healer and the best advice

i got

was you’re just a high potential young

woman who’s a little stressed

but meanwhile i felt like i had wandered

a million miles into the dark forest and

i had

no idea where i left the breadcrumbs

i was a creator interrupted

but as the zen proverb goes

when the student is ready the teacher

will appear

and my teacher the first of what would

turn out to be many appeared in the form

of an old dead white dude

and the man on the screen william james

has since become

a dear mentor of mine from beyond and

james’s work started to find me in that

funny way that

books start falling off of shelves and

synchronicities start happening when

there’s something that you’re ready to

learn

and the first teaching of james’s that

found me was his

lecture on the difference between once

born souls and twice born souls

once born souls are those among us who

preach a

sky blue optimistic gospel they view the

world

through rose tinted lenses and have a

childlike innocence about them

they don’t care much for the flaws and

imperfections in themselves and the

world around them and as a result

the world is a hospitable place for them

but quite in contrast they’re the twice

born souls

those who live on the darker side of

their misery threshold

for them the world is a double storied

mystery and as if there are multiple

selves

at war within their being they are

plagued by

conflicting and contrasting thoughts

desires

feelings and emotions and they are

acutely aware of the flaws and

imperfections in themselves and the

world around them now james believed

that

these individuals are those with most of

a destiny they are those who are most

likely

to go out into the world and to use that

complexity and that internal fidgeting

to create to create a life that is

better for themselves and for those

around them

but he also called these individuals the

sick souls because they are those who

are

most prone to afflictions of mind body

and spirit and must often traverse a

dark night of the soul

before they can truly learn to hold and

harness their multitudes

but that on the other side of this dark

night is not just a mere reversion to

health as the individual knew it before

but a true rebirth of the individual

into a wider

and deeper way of being

and so upon hearing this every fiber of

my being

lit up with an electric resonance i felt

seen i felt understood i felt

vindicated i was washed with a wave of

self

compassion and self love as i realized

that maybe i’m not bad or broken

maybe i’m just a twice born

learning to manage her multitudes maybe

i’m just

wired this way shortly after having that

personal epiphany i had a second

epiphany which was that

perhaps all of the distress and disease

i had witnessed within the

entrepreneurial and creative ecosystem

was not a result of anybody being bad or

broken and it most certainly wasn’t a

result of a crisis or a plague as the

media was wanted to tell

us but instead was a result of it being

an ecosystem that was full to the brim

with twice

born souls it occurred to me that the

individuals who are

self-selecting into creative and

entrepreneurial work

are those twice born souls those who are

not willing to accept the status quo

those who want to grow into their

potentialities that they are so acutely

aware of and so yes of course

we will have an ecosystem that is prone

to struggling but only until

these creators can learn to manage their

multitudes

and so with this awareness i

set off on a little bit of a heroine’s

journey largely in an attempt to better

understand myself but in doing so

to hopefully shine a light on the

journey of the complex creator

i started by looking at the common

personality characteristics the states

and traits that are

common among entrepreneurs and creators

and i kind of had to laugh at what i

found

because on the light side we see the

qualities that land us

on 30 under 30 lists and tedx stages

what i became aware of was a through

line

connecting the light and dark qualities

each light quality went hand in hand

with an equal

and opposite dark quality what emerged

was this quite

literal two-sided coin or double-edged

sword

that the dark and the light emerged from

the same

foundation of being i then went a step

deeper

and i started to look at the common

mental emotional

physical and spiritual challenges among

creators and

while i’m quite aware of the dark side

of many of the conditions on this screen

what i wasn’t as aware of was the

absolutely invaluable

essential light qualities that go hand

in hand with each of these diagnoses as

well

and to be clear this slide is to not

downgrade the suffering

that’s very real with many of these

diagnoses but is instead to encourage

you to take a closer look

at those parts of yourself that you’re

so quick to shame

because when we look at the individual

with depression we can choose to see

someone who’s capable of slowing down

their energy

withdrawing from the world and

channeling

their focused analytical thinking you

can call it rumination

on solving a problem of their choosing

like writing a book or solving a complex

business problem or rather essential

quality you know when we look at

addiction we can choose to see someone

who’s wired for novelty seeking and

sensation seeking and risk tolerance and

passion and love

and commitment without which tendencies

the individual creator likely wouldn’t

have the stomach

to tolerate the rocky road that is new

venture creation

and even when we look at something like

stress-related illness something that

might seem unequivocably

bad we might be surprised to learn

that researchers have found that the

individuals who are most

prone to physiological illness are those

with high iqs

the reason for this being they’re hyper

vigilant overly sensitive always

perceiving

constantly receiving nervous systems

they have nervous systems that are made

of

gossamer made of lace they’re connecting

every dot

and picking up on every trend and seeing

the patterns that are invisible to

others and so yes

of course our nervous systems will be

run raw from time to time from that

state

of hyper awareness but if we could

choose to change these things about

ourselves i can’t help but think that we

wouldn’t

and this brings to mind a quote by

friedrich nietzsche

careful lest in casting out your demons

you exercise

the best thing in you and so

this brings the question how

do we manage our multitudes how do we

harness our potential without being

burned by it

and the answer may either inspire you or

frustrate you carl heung would call

it integration william james and the

alchemists

would call it unification but

no matter what you call it the meaning

is the same which is that we must embark

upon a process of merging the multitudes

of

unifying the opposites of coming to see

the light and the dark as part of the

same

wholeness of self

the alchemists had a very clever way of

looking at the

power and the potential that was found

in opposites

and they believed that by fusing two

opposites in the elemental world by

fusing sulfur and mercury you could make

gold

similarly they believed that by fusing

opposites

in the human experience by fusing the

light in the dark

you could achieve psychological

perfection they called this

magnum opus or the great work

now unfortunately there is no

three-step cure or 30-day workshop or

20-minute tedx talk that can teach you

how to integrate the self

but for the sake of leaving you with

something i’d like to share

three stages that i’ve seen across

traditions that i’ve studied

the first tradition usually involves

something along the lines of

self-understanding

being willing to come face to face with

our darkness

toe to toe with our demons becoming a

student

of the self with the intention of deep

and

honest understanding the alchemist would

call this the blackening stage literally

reducing the self to ashes

the second stage is typically something

along the lines of self-acceptance

because inevitably what happens when we

embark upon the journey of

self-understanding is

we uncover aspects of ourselves that are

inconvenient to the extreme

and so with this we must meet ourselves

with incredible

self-compassion and self-acceptance so

that we may begin

to welcome the light and the dark into

the same wholeness

of self the alchemist would call this

the whitening stage

finally we may begin a process of

self-transformation

we may use this new learning this

transformed

aspect of self to write that book or to

create

that company or to launch that movement

the alchemist would call this the

reddening stage it’s literally the

creation of the philosopher’s stone

to end on a humble note

when i first started coming to these

awarenesses about light and dark and

energy and integration i

i swear i thought it was coming up with

something brand new um

i thought i had discovered something and

then i began researching it and i

realized how deluded i am

because these concepts exist

across time and culture they are ancient

and they are steeped in archetypal

wisdom and different cultures have

different names for a weather you call

it light and dark or yin and yang

masculine feminine sun and moon heaven

hell anima animus right brain left brain

head and heart

it all means the same thing which is

that in

all of us there exists multitudes and

the purpose

of being a creator is not to cut

ourselves off

from any of it but to learn to create

with our

whole selves

if i leave you with only one feeling

i hope it would be comfort comfort in

knowing

you’re not bad or broken comfort in

knowing that

even if along the journey of

self-discovery you lose your

metaphorical hair

you’ll recover and it’ll grow back

comfort in knowing you have

everything you need inside of you and

comfort in knowing you’re just

wired this way thank you

[Music]