Authoring Your New Script: April Rinne on How to Flux (and Thrive) in Constant Change

Living a life in full is a conversation you always wanted to have with that person who gave an amazing TED Talk, or the author of one of your favorite books, or that inspirational Olympian you always wanted to know more about. It's graduate level conversations with those making a difference in the world and in the lives of others. This show brings you new ideas and approaches so that you can live a life in full. I'm your host, Dr. Chris Stout and I hope you enjoy this episode. This episode is sponsored by our new video course, how to Publish in the New Millennium. From Scientific Journals to Best Sellers, it's an asynchronous course offering so you can watch it when it's convenient for your schedule. It's based on eight video lessons and provides three hours of material with new concepts, stories and examples and it includes several attempts and humor. You'll learn about the best ways to submit a manuscript to a peer reviewed journal, the mechanics of book contracting, what publishers are looking for, how to evaluate and negotiate a contract, royalties, advances, copyright and ownership, why to never first submit a manuscript to a publisher when you need an agent and when you don't, and the differences between publishers. You'll learn about ebooks, print on demand, Amazon's CreateSpace and KDP programs and other non traditional approaches to publishing, along with how to tell if a platform is of high quality or not. We do a deep dive into marketing, how to create media kits and what goes into them, along with examples how to create a great Amazon author page, how book signings work and how to be invited to do library talks and the economics of both, along with developing speaking engagements, promotional tours and being a podcast guest, as well as a number of other publicity aspects. We cover blogging and provide additional resources to help you in crafting your work and making it better. This is a rich, fun and fact filled course that covers everything you need to know from a practical and actionable perspective. It's for anyone wanting to get their written work into the world, be it academia, popular media, or both. Join the Masterclass in Getting Published. To learn more, please visit tinyurl.com Getting Publishers Published Course Thanks. Welcome to another episode of Living a Life in Full. I'm your host, Dr. Chris Stout. April Renney is equal parts global authority, advocate, ally and adventurer. She spent the first half of her career focused on global development and financial inclusion and the latter half on the new digital economy and the future of work. For more than two decades, she's seen emerging trends early, understands their potential, and helps others to do the same. Today, April is an acclaimed futurist, sought after speaker and trusted advisor, especially known for her role as a bridge between startups and governments, executives and customers, between for profit and for benefit business models, between developed and developing countries, between those excited about change and those resistant to it. She's not afraid to buck conventionality, seeing things differently or seeking to level up her ability to help others reshape their relationship to change. April's work and travels in more than 100 countries have offered her a front row seat to witnessing change at both local and global levels. This includes the better part of four years spent solo, without a permanent address, but with a backpack and an insatiable desire to better understand how the rest of the world lives. Her areas of expertise include policy reform, global expansion, the future of work, travel and tourism, sustainable development and emerging markets. April is an acclaimed keynote speaker and contributes regularly to news and media about the new economy, future of work and global citizenship. She's presented at a wide range of events from Davos to the EU Commission, industry convenings and private workshops. April was the Chief Strategy Officer at Collaborative Lab, a firm specializing in international microfinance, impact investing and regulatory reform, Global Director of WaterCreditr.org, and adjunct faculty at the International Development Law Organization, director of the World Wide Web foundation, and advisor to numerous social enterprises and financial institutions. As a lawyer, she helped draft new legislation and created new investment vehicles for groundbreaking business models in several emerging markets which are considered global best practice standards. Today, she's been an advisor to startups, companies, financial institutions, nonprofits, and think tanks worldwide, including Airbnb, Nike, Intuit, and the World bank, as well as governments ranging from Singapore to South Africa, Canada to Colombia, Italy to India. Her new book, eight Superpowers for Thriving in Constant Change, will be the main focus of our conversation today. April holds a JD from Harvard Law School and an MA in International Business and Finance from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and a BA in International Studies and Italian Summa cum laude from Emory. She's a Fulbright Scholar and studied I'll stutter through this. Studied at Oxford University, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, the European University Institute. She's an World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and is ranked one of the 50 leading female futurists in the world by Forbes. She's hiked everywhere from the Himalayas to Acon Kongwa, runs an impressive half marathon pace, is a certified yoga instructor, and an amazing handstander. Welcome to the show, April.

Thank you so much, Chris. That was quite the intro. I'm thrilled to be here.

Well, this is awesome. I just, I have to give a, to start off with the tip of the hat to our mutual friend Michelle, who we were talking about before we hit record for connecting us. And it's. We were saying that, you know, it seems like we've been kind of circling each other's spheres and universes and stuff. So it's nice to be able to. Very much enjoyed reading your book and kind of getting some insights into you that way, but then also having this opportunity to have a very nice conversation and get to know you even better publicly this way.

Thank you so much. And likewise, I love all the small world layers and connections and it definitely brings us to today.

Well, you transparently, and I would even say poetically start your book with an experience that you had while you were at Oxford that seems to have perhaps in my interpretation of it, influenced not only the trajectory for your work, but your new book, but also really your desire to rebuild family, to live a life of meaning and to be really a lifelong advocate for mental health and humanity. Do you feel comfortable to share and unpack that maybe to start with and then we can shift more into your work and then finally with the book?

Oh, absolutely. I'd be delighted to. So yeah, I mean connecting it to the book at the outset. I often like to say that my baptism or my entry into a world in flux, a world of constant change, but in which everything changed. And I'll give the caveat. Like way back when I didn't think I'd write a book about it. I didn't know how the future was going to unfold. But I look back and that was the moment that I began to really be interested in humans relationships to change.

So.

So go back with me more than 25 years ago when I was in college and I was at Oxford and I received the news. It was the very last week of my studies. I was about to head to the European continent to lead a study trip for the summer and I received a phone call from halfway around the world. And it was my older sister, my only sibling. And she informed me that both of our parents had died in a car accident and that I needed to come, come home. And it was that moment in which you just don't believe what you're hearing. And you know, whatever I thought my reality was, whatever I thought my future was, whatever I thought the world, however I thought the world worked, it all just kind of melted before my very eyes, just before my very being. And you know, I had to figure out how to move forward and that Was, you know, how do you rebuild your family? What does family even mean? What about my career? How does this affect what I will do? Because in this weird way, going through a tragedy like that makes you realize very clearly that I could die tomorrow. If I were to die tomorrow. What does the world need me to do today? Not what does my ego need me, like what does the world need to do? And what, candidly, what do you do when you don't know what to do? And so it sort of catapulted me, it did make me grow up really fast. But it also, in this way, I wouldn't have been able to describe it quite like this back then, but it gave me. Walking through a fire like that gives you a kind of clarity. Not that you have it all figured out and know exactly what to do, but you realize that there's so little in the world at the end of the day that you do control. And when you can get better at letting go what you can't control and sort of preparing yourself as best you can for whatever the future may have in store, that. That will serve you very well over time. And so yeah, that was in many ways like planting the seed for what later became not just a book, but my own way of seeing the world and humans place in it and how to help others reach their full potential, even though no one knows what tomorrow holds.

Wow, that just. You talk too about the book of almost kind of like being somewhat adopted by one of your professors and, and that that kind of gave you then the. The transitional sense of, of a family or some kind of grounding. Can you share that with us?

Absolutely. And I would say more broadly. So my Italian professor and her family to this day are, you know, they didn't officially adopt me because I was still under. I was still technically a minor when my parents died. So like the joke was always like, I couldn't. I couldn't sign paperwork. I couldn't even have a drink technically. But I was yet somehow expected to do all of this other stuff that was much deeper and, you know, required. I think digging further into one's soul. But what, what that experience taught me from a family perspective is that family is what you make it. And there is blood family, but there's also what I call and what I have called ever since then, a family of choice. And it can be as big or small as you are willing and interested and able to invest in. It is people who love you and care for you just as family would. It requires that you be open to see Them, because I think with my Italian professor who knew me before my parents died but never met my parents, the way in which she and her family stepped up. And again, it was me fumbling in the aftermath of truly not knowing what to do, and then seeing the kindness and the goodness of others who simply want to be there for you. And then you start realizing, gosh, we kind of enjoy one another's company. And, gosh, this feels really good. And, you know, another tangent, I think, in all of this, but it. It may be relevant in some way. I grew up in a household that was complicated, we could say, in which my dad was my best friend, he was my rock, he was my champion. We were like two peas in a pod. We really, we got each other. And my mom was difficult to put it lightly. She was clinically depressed. We now know she was bipolar. But back then, you weren't diagnosing or talking about these things. It was an incredibly difficult time with my mom. So losing them both at once was like losing the person who cared about, knew me best. And also a person who had really made me feel like I wasn't worth very much, who had been struggling with her own inner battles. And, you know, I say this because my parents, I think all parents in their own way, my parents did the best they could with what they had. They didn't have a very good guidebook for. Right. So back to this family of choice. All of a sudden, what this family has taught me over the years, oh, my goodness. There's a difference between conditional and unconditional love. There's a difference between seeing somebody simply for who they are, whether or not they share your last name or not. Like, there are all these different ways we think about family. And losing my parents allowed me, yes, it forced me to crack open and open up, but it allowed me to expand my view of family. But also the kind of family that I was allowed to be, grow and nurture in the years since is actually quite extraordinary. It's something that I actually wouldn't want to give up. And that's not any kind of disrespect of my parents. It's just this sense of, wow, I had no idea of the many different kinds of ways that we can live and love and be there for one another and show up.

Wow. You know, I feel that how you've just described this comes through so many times, I think, in your book. And it's sort of like the meta aspect of this is that you seem to have such a fine tuned set of antennae for Observing these kinds of things and recognizing these kinds of things. I don't think that that's necessarily as obvious to John and JQ public in their circumstances. And you have such a, I don't know, an adaptive response to things, to take on challenges and, you know, to not get caught up in, you know, all the very, you know, deserved, you know, this is awful. And I'm in despair and, you know, I'm sure there's, you know, grief and all that too, with it as well. But it just seems like looking over the course of your life, as much as I know it from doing research and preparation, that throughout that you've had that, as, you know, we'll talk about superpowers, but I mean, that also seems to be kind of a, you know, one of the things that you. You bring to your work. But it seems very much authentic to who you are as a person. I think this might tee us up nicely to segue into your book. Would that be good?

Sure. And I just want to say real quick, like, thank you for that. I think what's interesting, I have been in the depths of grief and of this sense of this is not, and you could say, fair. This is not good. This is not right. I've been there. And yet, and maybe this is more existential, perhaps we can refer to it, come circle back to it a little bit later. But it does factor into flux as well. I have this sense that while we're here on Earth, like, when. When someone comes into the world, we do have a right. We have a right to dignity. We have a right to humanity. We have a right to love. We have a right to. To work, to use our efforts like we have certain fundamental human rights. Right. But in separate conversation about how many people think they're now entitled to certain things, and it's like, no, this is. It is a privilege to be here. Right. But at this more existential level, I think what I realized was that, like, yes, I have a right to be happy. I have a right to pursue my dreams. I have a right to do these different things. But if you strip back another layer, I don't actually, I. You. No person on the planet has the quote, unquote right to even exist. And I know I'm going really deep, like, kind of that we're all on borrowed time. The fact that we exist at all is a miracle. It's magic. And so as such, seeing the human experience as even the really hard stuff is still part of this magic. Even going to the depths of stuff you don't want to deal with and shouldn't happen to anybody. It's still part of the magic. And so for me, it was this sense of there can be goodness even in the hard stuff. And the longer I've lived, the more I've learned the really good stuff is actually in the really hard stuff. If everything came easy and everything were just handed you on a silver platter and you didn't have to deal with the hard stuff, that's actually not a life in full. Actually, that's not a life fully lived. And so I just want to tee that up because I don't know, certainly it's been years and years and years of practice, practice, practice and thinking hard and connecting dots and quite a bit of therapy in the middle of all of that as well. I don't think it's something I just came into the world thinking or seeing differently. I've had to really work at it. But what I love is that it's actually accessible to everyone. If you're willing to pay attention and

do the work, that's good. Well, that gives hope for people that maybe have that as a struggle, that it isn't necessarily programmed in one's DNA, but it's a. It's an adaptive kind of thing that people with work and effort can do that's good.

And that there's magic. It's just unbelievable that we're here.

Yeah, that's a very good point. Right, right.

As part of this magic.

Yeah. And appreciating it. Pardon me. I think appreciating it is such as. Well, too. And kind of. I don't know necessarily it's a reframe of it, but just maybe a perspective of looking at it through that kind of lens, I think kind of does reframe it in a certain level for people that might always be kind of a, you know, may we look at things in a more negative. You know, behind every silver lining is a great cloud. So.

Yeah, well. And I find that people who have this sense of I'm entitled to be happy, they're the ones who end up being unhappy.

Right. Well. And oftentimes bring a lot of others along for the ride as well, too,

as opposed to the like, take it all together and the difficult times help you appreciate the happiness. And then when you are happy, I. I find that you appreciate it 10, 100 fold more kind of thing. But anyway, I didn't mean to.

No, I like that. Now, this is. That's what this show is for. That's good. Well, in the segue to your book. I have to first read a few of some of the notables that have said just wonderful and I think spot on kinds of things about it. Adam Grant, New York Times best selling author, said, many people see change as a threat, but April has spent her career learning to recognize it as an opportunity. Flux is a reassuring hands on guide to treating unexpected events as challenges to embrace rather than obstacles to avoid. Daniel Pink noted, if you fear change, read this book. Flux will help you discover the power and the beauty in the invisible, the imperfect and the unknown. Chip Connelly, New York Times bestselling author and founder of the Modern Elder Academy, said of your book, Flux is both wisdom and a wake up call for all ages. April's style is that of a dear friend who celebrates you for who you are and encourages you to evolve. She brings her whole self to Flux, sharing personal stories of loss and transformation alongside first hand accounts of how change is viewed around the world. You'll never look at change and uncertainty in the same way again. And our mutual pal Michelle Wilker, who's also best selling author of Gray Rhino and you are what you Risk, who was on the show very recently said that April will help you replace the old static script of your life with a Flux mindset, a new way of thinking and being in a world that will help you to write and revise many drafts of your own future. Developing your Flux superpowers will help you navigate an uncertain world, tap into your sense of purpose and make the best risk decisions. And also with a little applause, we traded some emails on this but your book is in the next Big Ideas Club is honored in that is one of the top ones and also named one of the best new books of 2021 by Men's Journal, which all of this in the comments too are very well deserved. High praise. So tell us, how did you come to this book?

Oh, thank you again. And it's kind of funny, I'm so deep into the book that I don't get to take a step back and hear some of these ovations and whatnot. Thank you.

I'm like what, we can pause for a second, you can take a victory lap and then

no, it's just, it's been such a long journey and a joyful journey. But as I know you know, I mean one of the, one of the hardest things I've ever done to create this book and to bring it safely into the world and you know, hard just in terms of that, that effort and that discipline and it's just, it's hard, but I'm thrilled in how it's all come together. And so that is a good segue into like how did it happen? And I do like to say that I have been writing the book, actively writing it since 2018, so sort of three years in the active creation phase, but more like the better part of three decades in the actual making. When I go back to that kind of entry, that baptism into flux that I described earlier of losing my parents, that's when the journey began. That's when I began collecting dots, ideas, perspectives, examples. Things started informing my view and my relationship to change. Again, didn't expect I would write a book on it for vast the majority of the 25 plus years since then. But then it was roughly six, seven years ago and it wasn't like one thing happened. But prior to that, for 20 plus years people had been asking me, when are you going to write a book? And many of them thought I would write a travel book because of my adventures around the world and so forth. And they were like, we'd love to read April's adventures.

Sure, right.

And I was always like, you know, I like to write and I had a little travel blog and whatnot. But it goes back to this question that I started asking myself in the aftermath of my parents death, which was if I were to die tomorrow, what would the world need me to do today? How could I best serve others? So it was always about. And my parents had made it very clear to me when it came to my career, they never pressured me into you need to be a doctor or a lawyer or anything like that. They were both educators, so very clear focus on learning, education and travel and diversity. That diversity was our strength kind of thing. That was the environment in which I grew up. But they always made it very clear that my career could never be about me. It had to be about serving others.

Nice.

And they would say, you know, there are lots of ways you can serve. You can be a teacher, you can be a doctor, you can be an environmentalist, you can be all these different things, but never think that this is about you because. And this goes back to some of I think their upbringing, they always reminded me and I have these memories of, you know, being little, little before I was even in elementary school where they would tell me the fact that I was a girl and got to go to school just made me so lucky. One of the luckiest kids on the planet.

Wow.

And of course I thought that was the Kool Aid that all kids were asked to drink.

Right.

Do I learn like, no, that's actually a really special thing to be told every day. And then to be encouraged to pursue that learning and those discoveries and so forth. And so back to the book and these, the 20 plus years in which people like you should write a book. And I would be like, okay, a travel book. And then I would ask myself, okay, if I were to die tomorrow, what does the world need me to do? And I could never answer that question. The world needs me to write a travel book, right? I was like, no, with all due respect, the world needs me to be. The world needs me to be rolling up my shirt sleeves and getting to work on, again, financial inclusion, digital inclusion, whatever the. Lots of different issues. The world needs help I'm doing. And then about 6, 7ish years ago, there was this shift. And it was almost, it was not imperceptible, very perceptible to me, but sort of overnight. I woke up the next morning and again, not one thing had happened. But I do remember I was in this time in which lots of ideas were swirling in my head and you're feeling kind of overwhelmed by like, all that's happening around you, most of it good, some of it challenging. But I woke up in the morning and all of a sudden I was like, oh my gosh, I have a book coming out of me. And I didn't know it was flux at that time. I knew it was about change in some way, but all of a sudden it became this, oh, my goodness, I don't think I'm going to be able to proceed if I don't write this book. I think this happened, it was like this force, force. And what I love is that also previously, I think when people say, you should write a book, we'd love to read your book. I was always like, I'm not going to write a book to tick something off a checklist. I'm certainly not going to do it because somebody else thinks I need to. That just doesn't. That's not right.

Yeah.

And the shift was I need to get this. I need to A, figure out what this book is and B, I need to get it in the world. And it's not because other people think I need to do it. It's because I actually think I could finally say I have lived long enough and layered enough again. Examples, ideas, perspectives, cultures, you name it, around change. I'm connecting dots in ways that I don't see others doing yet. I have something to offer of value to humanity and the best vehicle to do so Is a book. Okay, get to work. I could finally answer that question. Is this the best use of my time? I was like, yes. So then though, that began the process of, okay, what's the structure? What's the title? You know, all of that, which takes many more years, as you know.

Right.

But that's kind of how. That's when the. How the seed began to. It had been planted long ago and then it was just dormant. And then how I began to water it and then how it began to sprout and grow and from there.

I love that you note in the book why you called it flux. Can you share why it's so fitting, such a great word?

Oh yeah, I love the word flux. And we did not land on that on day one, I bet. Lots of post its walls and lots of surveys, lots of ideas hashed out and all of this. But flux is both a noun and a verb. So as a noun, which is how most people know it. And I love that many people are like flux. It's kind of a fun word to say, but I can't say I've ever really dug into it. Right. But. But the noun means continuous change, continuous movement, motion. Like things are in flux, the world is in flux. But flux is also a verb. And to flux means to learn to become fluid. And I love that because there is this element of our relationship to change and the world and the future in flux that we all need to learn how to flux. So yeah, that's what it means also just a fun shout out that the other place that flux. I've learned this in the course of writing. The other place that today flux often shows up is in metalwork and soldering and jewelry making. The agent, it's the chemical agent or chemical compound that binds the metal to the jewel. So when you're making jewelry, the flux is the thing that makes it beautiful. When you're making stained glass, the flux is what holds that colorful, beautiful piece of glass in. In the metal casing.

That's right. I used to do stained glass a million years ago as a kid and. And you had your little jar of flux that you, you know, wiped onto your copper and your glass and your soldering and stuff. So it, yeah, it seems so befitting in a variety of ways. So I want to talk about superpowers, but before that I want to talk a little bit about scripts. I don't want to talk about. I want you to talk about scripts and shifting mindsets. I loved how you said in the book that like, we treat constant Change and uncertainty as a feature that we should do that, not a bug. I just, I thought that was great. Can you say a little bit more about that?

Sure. So the book, people have been. People often say to me, like, oh, you wrote a book about change, or my favorite, change management. I'm like, no, no, I did not. With all due respect to change and change management, I wrote a book about humans relationships to change and how complicated and messy they are, but also how ill fitting, how unprepared we are. And I say this at the risk of generalizing, but the vast majority of humans on the planet today, we are not really well equipped to think about and relate in a healthy way to a world and a future influx, a world in which we cannot control, and the only, you know, the only thing that's certain is uncertainty. And so this notion of what. What do our relationships to change look like? And very few of us, in my experience, including myself, for much of my life, we didn't. We don't really talk about this kind of thing. We manage change, we react to change, we do something about it, we take action. But we fail to recognize that whatever we're doing in the outside world is still coming from an inner relationship to change. And so one of the things for as complicated and messy as our relationships are, one thing that's become clear to me is that our relationship, how we think about and talk about and behave around and react to, to change, begins young. And it's part of what I call our scripts. So our scripts are the narratives and norms and stories by which we live our lives. So you have a script and I have a script, and everyone has a script. Everyone's script is somewhat different because we all have different lived experiences. But all of our scripts are clear and our scripts define the world we expect to live in. And again, a lot of this is taught, absorbed. It's something that. It's part of your socialization, Right. Were you told to approach change from a place of hope or fear? Right. That's part of your script. You pick that up from somebody, your parents or teachers, your community. Were you taught that uncertainty is dangerous or is it an adventure for your curiosity? Right. Two different scripts here. But they have profound effects on how you think about and relate to change. As an adult, were you taught that, you know, things should generally go to plan and if you're. If whatever you plan to do doesn't work out, that somehow you failed? Or were you taught that, you know, most things don't go to plan, and so you learn to be adaptable and resilient, so forth. These are two different scripts. But also in your script are things like study hard, get good grades, go to college, get a good job, climb the ladder, retire. Right. A linear career path, that's part of a script. So there's lots and lots of different parts of your script. The challenge we face is that for many people, many cultures, in many different ways, and again, this isn't judging or criticizing, this is like everybody in some way, everyone's script in some way, shape or form is not really fit or aligned with the world that we live in today. And here's where I love the fact that I didn't write the book about 2020 or the COVID pandemic. But just look at the past 20 months and how much of that worked into your script. Not very much. Right. And so I have this wonderful example to point to what I'm trying to explain and help people with on a much longer term, kind of universal basis, with the best example I could ever hope for right in front of me. So that's a bit about our script. So this notion that a lot of what we've been told and taught about how the world works and our expectations and assumptions of how we fit into it, a lot of that gets really challenged. It gets sort of tossed upside down when change hits. And so this forces us to reassess what is and is not fit for a world in flux. And that leads us, because I fundamentally believe that even though there's more change ahead and certain uncertainty and all of this, you know, the future is not more stable or more certain. The future is more unstable, the future is more unknown, the future is more flux. I don't think we're very well prepared for that. But in that. In that fact is just this enormous opportunity for all of us to learn to level up and to improve how we relate to change. And so you've getting a sense of what is my script and what parts are outdated and ill fitting. That's part of this process to developing what I call a flux mindset. And a flux mindset is that state of mind, that ability to see all change. So whether you expected it or not, whether you would deem it good or bad, whether it is the coolest thing to ever happen or like the worst thing you could possibly imagine happening, to see all of that as an opportunity to learn and to grow and to improve, that's great.

So, pardon me, how does the flux mindset integrate with the theory of flux? And those three steps are they. Is It a separate kind of thing or is it part and parcel of it or kind of unpack that for us.

So I have this theory of flux which I always have to remind people, like, I'm not an academic, it's not a heavy handed, you know, lots of empirical research. I am taking a layperson's view who has lived long enough and worked with enough different kinds of people and organizations and cultures and situations to have a perspective on change. And so the first step of this, of opening a flux mindset of the theory of flux is recognizing that your relationship to change can improve. Now, it's not the same thing for every person. The ways in which you need to improve varies from person to person. But we can all use some help. Then you're going to open this flux mindset, which again, it's not a matter, it's not like ticking a box flux. It's just acknowledging that actually I have a lot to learn about my relationship to change and I can actually level up, I can improve, etc, etc. And then the next step is taking this flux mindset and using it, applying it, harnessing it to develop your flux superpowers. And so there are eight superpowers. Each is a chapter in the book. And the superpowers really reflect the practices and the disciplines or if you will, the quote, how to improve your relationship to change. And so that's kind of how your script, a flux mindset and the flux superpowers, very big picture work together.

Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, that, that is a very good segue then into let's, let's start to deconstruct some of these eight flux superpowers. I think in the book you said something is like a, a bento box for the mind or something. I just, I love your, your turn of phrase. It's. That's what I meant about like, it's poetic. I just, I love that. So the first one is run slower. Tell us, tell us what that means.

Sure. Well, let me, let me first just do a quick. I don't need to overview all eight obviously, but just a little bit more on like, what are these things? Because I love you mentioned a bento box and I do like to describe the superpowers. They are a menu, not a syllabus. So what I mean by that is you do not have to do one before two. You can practice just one or all eight. One thing I love about the book is all of the superpowers stand on their own. They're all equally legit and valid. And you can sort of dive into them on their own. They do enhance one another, though. So the more you practice one or five or whatever, the easier it become to see and understand where the other superpowers are heading. But technically, I do advise that people read the introduction to the book first. But then I like to say you could read the book backwards like you. You don't have to read these in order because they all have their own freestanding value. And I like to remind people just like go where your curiosity takes you because in my experience, and it's really fun now that the book is out and I can, you know, people can get their hands on it and really absorb it, that pretty much everybody. There are a couple of superpowers that they tend to immediately love or gravitate towards or be intrigued by. They're like, oh yeah, tell me more. And there are, you know, at least one, sometimes more superpowers that make people uncomfortable. And I love asking people. And even in this conversation today, as we talk about some of these, pay attention what superpowers or what aspects of them make you uncomfortable. And it may be that all of them are counterintuitive in some way. Some of them run against the grain of what society tells us. Some of this might go against what's in your script. Right? And again, I'm not saying that's good or bad. I'm not judging anything. I'm not none of that. I'm simply saying there are many, many, many more ways to look at how we relate to change. How might you improve? And so I like to tee up the superpowers as a whole by that, by saying some what we talk about today, I'm pretty sure some listeners are going to be like, nope, nope, that's right. Pay attention to when that happens. That is a signal of where your relationship to change might need a little bit of extra attention. It's also just a great opportunity to learn more.

That's good. I have two favorites and I want to ask you if you have one and I want to get if you do, I want to guess what one it is. Because I have a guess.

What are yours? Tell me.

My two favorites are know you're enough and create. Of course we talked about this off mic before, but create your portfolio career. So those and you know, it's like, do you know that story about Joseph Heller, the Catch 22 author, and Kurt Vonnegut? Do you know that story? Does that ring a bell?

I think I might, but I'm not.

As urban myths may go, the two of Them are at some posh cocktail party at some rich fellow's house, and Kurt Vonnegut leans over to Joseph Heller and says something like, you know, well, you know, you've got this popular book and blah, blah, blah, but, you know, this is, you know, look at this guy's place. And oh, my gosh. And great food and, you know, posh, posh surroundings and furnitures and art and stuff. And Joseph says to Kurt, well, I have something that he doesn't have. And Kurt looks at him quizzically and he goes, I have enough. I just, I love that. And I've just. I've been doing some research on some stoic stuff for another project and, like, the whole. You go into that, you know, very, very, very well. So I'm not going to. But can you. Do you want to unpack that for a second or.

Yeah. I love that you bring up the. Know you're enough. And we can circle back to it. But I did. I do know that. I've heard that story and I love it.

Isn't that wonderful? Oh, my gosh.

Well, and here the punchline, if you will, of the superpower, know you're enough. And that's. Y o u r know you're enough. And that's a typo. And I'm like, no. Knowing you're enough. Y o u r your point of sufficiency, satisfaction, harmony, balance, includes knowing that you are enough just as you are, without doing anything further. And that is a huge challenge that we face today in which. And it's fed by consumerism, it's fed by social media, but this whole notion that you will never have or do or be or earn or whatever, enough. And it's this again, it's a narrative. It's part of your script. If you absorb it, it's a narrative, it's a norm, it's a story that we tell ourselves about ourselves, which is completely untrue. So the superpower itself, though, really, it digs into our obsession with more, but also our quest for true happiness. And the punchline is that when we say, seek evermore, so more and more, more, more, more. And that's not just more money or more power, that's more love, more likes, more followers, more clicks, more clothes, more everything, right? Take your pick. When we seek more, when we're always after more, we will never. And here I will use the absolute never find enough. It can't happen by design. It can't happen because think about it. When you're always after more, what happens when you get More. You need more?

Yep.

It's bottomless pit. It's this cycle that keeps us mostly miserable. And I'm seeing this a lot, particularly amongst younger people. I am deeply saddened by the fact that when I speak with students, and this is high school, this is certainly by the time they're in college, this sense that they've already. They've drunk that Kool Aid, they've already at that age, they firmly believe that they will never actually have or do or earn or be enough.

Wow.

And that is deeply disturbing to me because that is a human constructive narrative that we are doing to ourselves. And yet, you know. So part of what I want to do with this chapter is catalyze a different kind of conversation around you. And everyone on the planet is enough just as they are when they are born. Now, that doesn't mean we can't set goals and strive to achieve and do things. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying our inner worth and how this plays out is people start going after those external metrics, I will be happy when I will be successful. Each of those things implies that you're not that now and that you need something more to get there. Versus back to the Vonnegut story. When you actually recognize that you're enough just as you are right here and right now, it reframes completely. What do you need to be happy? Why can't you just be happy right now? This is it. And that plays out.

It kind of circles back to your appreciation too. The gratitude aspect of things to be able to say. You're very fundamental example early on about being a small, you know, little girl and being. You're so lucky to be able to have education, you know, and just having. Having the appreciation for things that oftentimes people take for granted or inadvertently squander and, you know, don't. Don't miss it till it's gone, you know, kind of thing. Make a good country and western song or something.

So totally.

Totally. I think.

Right? You're right. Yeah. But I do know that your. Your question was run slower. Let's go back to that for a minute.

Yep, let's.

I love the. I love taking tangents. And I also feel really, when we never actually get back to the.

We'll circle back. I got notes. So nothing's going to slip through the cracks. No worries.

So run slower. Which is the first superpower. And again, that doesn't mean it's the most important. It just. I will say it's one that everyone wants to talk about. So that's good. Run slower. This is all about anxiety and burnout, but also making wiser decisions. So the superpower itself says that in an ever faster paced world, your key to success and well being is to slow your own pace. So let me explain. Consider this. We didn't talk so much about this at the outset, but there's lots of change in the world today and so much is changing. Change, change, change. It's not, though, just what is changing. It's also the pace of change. Right? And the way I like to put it is that the pace of change has never been as fast as it is today, and yet it is likely to never again be this slow. And when you let that sink in, it's kind of exciting and it's kind of terrifying. Right? Now think about what our scripts typically tell us. They say that when the pace of change quickens, you're supposed to run faster and just keep up, right? This is where I kind of respectfully raise my hand and say, I think we've got this wrong. So think about, like really everyone who's listening, think about this today. We already know that the pace of change is increasing, and many of us are already running as fast as we can. Yet society is telling us that no matter how fast we're running today, we should run even faster tomorrow and next week and next month and next year and all of this effectively for the rest of our lives. And I look at this and I'm like, time out. Hold on. Not only what kind of life is that? But this isn't a reality in which anyone can truly thrive. So from where I stand, this focus on running ever faster leads at best to burnout and exhaustion. But worse, it leads to none of us le. None of us reaching our full potential. And you know, I always have to call out too, like, I did not. When I say run slower, I did not say stop. I did not say be lazy. I did not say nothing. I said run. But do so at a sustainable peace. Because when we run fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, we actually miss much of life. And the way I always like to put it is like at an extreme. When we're running ever faster, ever faster, ever faster, we risk running straight past life itself. And when we do that, we actually completely missed what really matters.

That's good. I remember Stuart Brand from Long now foundation said something like, bad things happen fast and good things happen slow. Sort of like that came to mind. I forget if that was in your book or if it just came to mind when I was reading that, but it's. And you give, you know, one of the other things. I should give a shout out as well. With the structuring of the book, you talk about ways to actualize these things. There's a certain theoretical perspective to it, but then you bring it into the real world. You talk about micro sabbaticals and not to do lists and nature bathing and tech Shabbats and things like that. I find that so helpful because it's sort of like, I'm starting I read something, it's like, yeah, I get that, but how would I apply it? And then I keep reading further and it's like, oh, okay, okay, yeah, I could do that. I could experiment with that. It really does make it a very actionable. You know, going from a thought perspective to a behavioral perspective is super helpful.

So, yeah, and that's. I've tried to make the book very reader friendly, very action oriented, and also to let people make it their own. Right. That sense of. Here's a menu of that you can try. Not all of them will appeal to you, but hopefully some of them do. And. And I find that works really well. And then, you know, at the end of each chapter, there are a series of questions and prompts and like, just trying to, like, turn it into a guidebook of sorts. But, like, it's not about having one destination.

Right.

So thank you for that. I will say this is more just a footnote. The book is for individuals and how you can reshape your relationship, change. And also, of course, I do a lot of work with organizations, and I always like to remind them, they ask me, can an organization have a flex mindset? I'm like, of course it can, insofar as an organization is a collection of individuals. And this can become part of your organizational culture and so forth. There's still a broader societal reckoning we have here in which every single person on the planet today can begin to run slower. One of the things I love about actually all superpowers, none of them require technology that we may or may not have. None of them require any money. They're all kind of easily.

That's a great point. Yeah.

Drawing on a lot of your inner wisdom, but you're paying attention. So I love that. I will say, and when I work with individuals and leaders and executive teams and so on and so forth, there is also this broader reckoning, which is, as a society, if we're gonna. Individuals desperately want to run slower, desperately need that sense of calm, of reduced anxiety and so forth. And yet societally, there's still this kind of manicness. And so I'm trying to figure out how.it's not just for me to do. There's this sense of more broadly, we need to be having conversations like this across society and also rethinking what is the messaging that we're putting out. Because insofar as individuals are crystal clear on their desire to not flirt with burnout, to make better decisions, to show up more fully themselves, that's terrific. That's what we should all want for ourselves and for others. Yet if society is still doing this, like hamster wheel, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, then we've got this big disconnect. And that societal reckoning, I think, is something we still need to be paying attention to.

It's a good point. It makes me think of the whole kind of blue zone concept and, you know, the people with longevity and the kind of lifestyle that they have. I mean, it certainly seems to be that. That, you know, shift away of running slow and appreciation of nature and, you know, finding the joy in cooking a meal or, you know, serving tea or something like that. So. So to circle back, I want. I want to know if you have a favorite one, but don't say it yet. Do you have a favorite one?

That's. I like to say that's like asking your favorite child.

Okay, well, okay, all right, I get it.

What I can say is, actually, I often have favorite.

Okay, I get it. That makes perfect sense. That's. Touche. That's well put.

So it changes often, sometimes a few times in the same day. I will say, though, is that there is one of the superpowers that I call the sort of super superpower because it powers and it fuels more than any other one.

Okay.

And that is actually the fourth one, which is start with trust.

Okay.

And I say this because when it comes to how we navigate change, at some point, pretty much everything comes back to trust.

That's a good point. Yeah, yeah, I totally get that. Because it, you know, it determines behaviors and in full, embarrassing self disclosure. That's probably my hardest one. You know, for whatever reasons, you know, I can lay down on the couch, Dr. Freud and, you know, spin you some stories, but the, you know, it is so fundamental because your action, I think a person's actions are very much predicated upon, you know, you know, do I trust this person or do I trust this company or do I trust this contract or do I trust, you know, do I. What am I getting myself into? And if you, you know, if you're always protecting yourself because that trust is lacking, or you're going full throttle into it because your trust is fully there and ensconced, those are very different behaviors, very different actions. All right. I would have guessed that it was getting lost because I know you and your travel bug and your backpacking era and all that. So that would have been my guess.

If any listeners are wondering, that definitely shows up as on the favorite list. So does portfolio career. So does let go of the future, which is so hard for people. So let go of the future. That's all about our humans relationship to control and our comfort or discomfort with ambiguity. And it's funny too, because when we say, what's your favorite? Favorite can be the one that I feel like I've most recently made success. Progress on. Right?

Sure, sure.

These are not one and done quick fixes. This is not something the box. And move on. Like you're constantly chewing on them. And just when you think you've improved on one, you have for some time, then something else changes and so you're like, oh, another chance to improve. Right. So sometimes my favorite is the one that I've just made the most progress on. More often, though, for me, my favorite is the one that I actually need the most help with.

With.

So it's interesting. Even the word favorite. In what way? Because a lot of people would say, oh, it sounds like a lot of work. It's not my favorite thing. Not the thing that needs the most work. The favorite one is the one that I can tick off and be like, don't want to. Done with that.

Right. Yep.

I find in this case that that takes me further from my journey of personal growth. And so I'm constantly digging in. The favorite tends to be the one that I need to practice the most.

That's good. Okay.

And get lost. I will admit right now, not just in. Well, it's not just about travel and that kind of getting lost, but that is a key theme in the chapter. I will admit that given the last 20 months and the lack of travel and the wanderlust that is going crazy, that right now I feel like I am so primed to practice that.

Blow the. Blow the dust off the backpacks. Well, it is sort of surprising too, with the let go of the future being written and spoken by a renowned futurist. So I get the paradox. You know, I think that's kind of inspiring as well too, you know, to not be pigeonholed or shoehorned or, you know, otherwise classified by certain kinds of labels or whatever, which goes back to then the portfolio career. What do you do? Well, you know, I do a lot of stuff or you know, so it's, I see kind of the, the, the ability of these to be standalone, individualized kinds of concepts. But then you certainly see sort of like this Vin, this moving, you know, acid trip Venn diagram of these circles, you know, overlapping at different levels at different points. Like you say, you know, points in the day, but you know, it's. They're in flux. April.

Well, in the way I like to put it. And the let go of the future. Just a quick footnote on that. Yes, it's quite fun when people are like, you're a futurist. You can't say that.

Whoa, whoa, hang on, hold up.

But then again, I'm like, let me explain what I mean because the superpowers, yes, they're counterintuitive, but they're actually far more fit for a world and a future in flux. And when I say let go of the future, I do not mean giving up, I do not mean failure, I do not mean doomsdaying. I actually mean quite the opposite. And what the superpower says is we need to learn how to let go of the future. Or I could also say let go of our need, our obsession with predicting and controlling the future, like singular, in order to let better futures emerge. This is all about getting out of our own way and actually recognizing that we're so focused on. I need the, like there's one as if there's one future. I need the future to go this way and it needs to go my way. And if it doesn't happen like this, all hell's gonna break loose. I'm going to fall off the rails, whatever that is. So not the way the world works, not just in terms of neither you nor I nor anyone can predict or control the future. We can only control how we respond, which I think a lot of people have heard. But also this notion, neither you nor I nor anyone can single handedly predict or control the outcome, but we can control whether and how we contribute to an outcome we'd like to see. See. Okay, so this notion that there's one future, no if Futurism 101 teaches you that there are all kinds of futures that could play out. One of the challenges we face as again individuals and society is that we have this very narrow vision of what could happen and we don't entertain a lot of other futures that could happen. There's not a guarantee, no One future scenario tends to play out exactly as you've scripted it. But in the world of futurism, there is this process called scenario planning, scenario mapping, which is a hugely helpful tool to map out the many different possible future scenarios that could happen. And then you basically imagine, okay, how would we prepare for each of these things?

Right.

If hypothetical. But what ends up often happening is that different threads, different aspects from different scenarios do end up coming to bear. Not exactly as you'd imagine them, but some form or fashion. And the process of preparing for many different possible futures, but letting go of the future as if you know what it is, that's where we actually could help ourselves a lot and also stop getting so twisted up on ourselves, stop finding ourselves in these just really difficult, often mental situations, because we somehow think that we can predict, but then if we get it wrong, that we've somehow failed.

Right.

So there's this notion when you learn to let go of the future, what you find is it's actually really empowering. It's really freeing. People who learn to do this actually feel a sense of peace.

Wow, it reminds me. Was it Kevin Kelly? Somebody said, I think I want to give the attribution to Kevin Kelly, but I'm not sure, but that the future is here. It's just not equally distributed.

Yeah, not Kevin Kelly I can find.

Is it Watts Wacker? I can't remember.

Stuart. No, I want to say it's Stuart, and I should know this.

Stuart Brand.

No, not Stuart Brand, whom I adore as well. Oh, the name is on the tip of my tongue.

We'll figure it out. We'll put it in the show notes.

We're just saying we don't know.

Yeah, so this is good. I like how your book in some sense sets a context for appreciation, understanding, clarity. It also, like we've said, with some of the tools and suggestions and things could be tools that we could actually test out on ourselves, test out with ourselves and try them on for size. I'd like to maybe finish up our conversation. I would love to talk with you all day, but I would love to start to get towards the end and talk about maybe things that more at the macro level. Is that okay with you?

Absolutely.

Okay, so with these kinds of things, someone has picked up your book. What are some of your recommendations of, like, how do we get started? What's your advice for folks who are maybe overwhelmed with the change that they're now facing? Or maybe they're burned out with work and Covid and life or whatever? What's A what's a good starting point?

Well, it's interesting because the very first thing that I suggest people to do is to spend some time getting to know your relationships change that a lot of people we've not thought about at this point way we're so busy, what am I going to do? How am I going to react? How am I going to manage? It's all about again, the external reactions to change without recognizing that every and this is where I sort of get into this riff in the book about mindset versus strategy. You know that every single we focus so much on the strategies, what decisions we're going to make, what investments we're going to make, what are we going to do. We don't recognize that every single strategy and investment and decision you make is fundamentally rooted in your mindset. And just this isn't a navel gazing exercise. I mean, it's very much designed to get to action, but getting to know your relationship to change. Like what excites it, what triggers it, what delights it, what makes it go off the rails, what kinds of change? And I often have people do this exercise where, you know, just even reflect on the past 20 months. On a sheet of paper, draw two columns, you know, one with a plus, one with a minus. In the plus column, write down all of the changes in the last 20 months that you have loved. Like big or small, at work or at home, like, doesn't matter, don't overthink or judge them. Just write down all of the changes you've loved. And then on the other column, write down all of the changes that you've hated or really struggled with, right? And then look at those lists and start considering, like, what do the changes you've loved have in common? What do the changes you've hated have in common? And you start seeing patterns, right? And for example, one of the patterns that ends up coming up quite often is the changes you've loved. My hunch is that they have some sense of hope, anticipation, freedom, choice, agency, growth. Like some sense that something good was going to happen from this change. The changes you've hated tend to be driven by fear, by anxiety, by anger. The role of privilege is actually super interesting here too. I find that privilege often blinds us. Privilege keeps us from wanting to change. Privilege makes us more fearful of change, often, often, because it threatens that privilege. But we're blind to it in many ways. Privilege, well too. So all of this is just like, what is your, what I call like, what is your flux baseline? What is your starting point that's where you've got to kind of get to. Because then it becomes typically quite. I don't want to say easy, but quite clear which of the superpowers you might want to head towards first.

That's good.

Yeah.

In your work life, one of the things that you've spent a lot of time thinking and consulting with is around looking at the future of work. So are there areas where people's scripts and anxieties, like, I think that can manifest in their careers? You know, people are worried about their job or their next job or they're not happy and they're burned out like we've talked about. But do you have any career advice for someone who's worried about where the future of work is taking us?

Yes. And this feeds directly into the sixth superpower, one of your favorites. So creating your portfolio career and seeing your career less as a linear, singular path to pursue or a ladder to climb, and much more like a portfolio to curate as an artist or an investor would. And one of the things that I love about this superpower, and you know, I have had a portfolio career for the better part of the last 30 years. It's not a brand new concept, but it is very much getting traction and resonance in today's world. And again, this is where I love, like, I've been writing about it for years, but now we've got this thing called the Great Resignation. And the Great Resignation fits really well with this shift from career path to career portfolio. It also speaks to how do you create a career path and a professional development journey that is more unique to you, more customized to you, but also helps you become unautomatable, so to speak. And so the way that I like to phrase it is the future of work is full of uncertainty. I will not sugarcoat that. It is jam packed, one of the areas with the most unknown and uncertainty out there. So it can be hard to know what to do or hard to trust that things will work out. One of the beautiful things, one of the many beautiful things. Things I really appreciate about this concept of a career portfolio, two things. One is everyone. That means you. If you're listening, you already have a portfolio. You may just not realize it yet. Your portfolio includes all of the skills and roles and ways that you're able to create, value and contribute to society. And it goes way beyond your resume. But everybody, including high school students, elderly people, people in transition, people who've been out of the workforce for a while, everyone has a portfolio. But creating it and curating it requires getting deliberate about what are you doing with your professional. A lot of this is about your professional identity, what's in your portfolio. So that's one. And second though, is that no one can take your portfolio from you. You own it, it is your responsibility, but it is also your legacy. It is your professional identity. Because one of the things that I find makes a lot of people nervous today, and at the risk of being really blunt, it's true. Insofar as someone else gave you a job, even if you love your job, even if you're really good at your job, insofar as someone else gave you that job, that job can be taken away. And that's where so much I think of the fear and anxiety sets in around this. And you know, sure, it could be eliminated by automation, it could be eliminated by an organizational change, it could disappear for all kinds of reasons, having nothing to do with you or your abilities or even your team and colleagues. They may be really well intentioned too. And you could still be without a job, your portfolio. And so when you find yourself on this career path in which you're supposed to kind of climb the ladder and pursue that straight line, you get thrown off that. And a lot of people end up in a kind of identity crisis versus a portfolio which is seen as deliberately evolving with you, and that what you're doing is mixing and matching and recombining the skills and capabilities within it. You create your portfolio, you curate it, you own it forever. No one can ever take that from you. And so that in today's world of uncertainty and flux, again, it's really empowering, it's really reassuring. It doesn't guarantee that, you know, your career forever is all sorted out and there's nothing you need to do, quite the opposite. But it does give you a sense of agency and control of something in a world which feels very much, I think, out of control for a lot of people today.

That is beautiful. Yeah. And hear here to that. I feel like having those kinds of things, I think people, you said early on about this linear progress. You go to school, you get a job, you work your job, decades pass, you retire, et cetera. And it's a very stepwise function, linear progression kind of thing versus looking at it in the context of a variety of different kinds of experiences might inform other kinds of your next job that maybe has nothing to do with what your next job is. And I think having those, to me, that adds such richness, but also a diversity. I mean, I remember, gosh, there was some Harvard Business Review article, some Years ago. And they talked about the team of people that they were bringing in, and they were all these diverse kinds of people from education, background, ethnicity, culture, perspective. And it just made for all the richer of whatever their work was that they were doing. And to look at yourself that way and look at your own career that way, you know, I think is very. I don't know, there's a certain. It brings me a certain peace, you know, it's just. It's sort of like, exciting to. To think about that or to say, oh, you know, to also not squelch yourself to say, you know, there's so many people, I think, that, you know, start off, you know, with their freshman major as X, and by the time they graduate, it's B, you know, and that's a good thing, you know, to be able to do that. Or then they go to graduation school for something totally different. So that's good.

Let me just.

Please, please.

There's not only that more diverse teams tend to come up with more solutions. They tend to have. They have more experience to draw from. For me, I continue to come back to this. And what does this mean about how we navigate change? And the more diverse your team, the better you're going to navigate change because you're drawing on a much deeper well of skills, perspectives, experiences. And when we're in a world in which, let's be honest, no one knows what to do, no one has figured it out. Right. And anyone who tells you they have that, to me, the more confident they are in saying we have figured it all out, the more I'm like, no, you haven't. No, you haven't. You're just really insecure about saying, right. And so that's where. When nobody knows. The more different ideas and abilities and life experiences that we can put together, the better for your solution set, but also your overall resilience. And so I love that because even if it's. You're early in your career and you're like, I don't know if this is what I'm going to do forever. Doesn't matter. It's going to be useful. You're Your portfolio later on. And I know you and I talked about this, and I actually had a conversation with somebody just yesterday about it. I loved it. Where they spent their 20s, they really wanted to be an actress, and it ended up not working out. I mean, couldn't make it in New York, wasn't. Wasn't gonna be the thing, but continued to act on the side and so forth, and love stage production. And all this kind of stuff and they ended up in a leadership role. But it turns out that they're now up. There's now this new entity that's forming and I don't want to give too much up, but basically they're going to stand out from every other candidate because of their acting experience, which is what this job needs. But it's not in an acting kind of world. And so the thing that they wanted, that they really wanted to do and gave it their all, but then they thought that they would be kind of shunned by society when they were like, well, I was an actor, but it didn't work out. You know, either a failure perspective or a kind of like, oh, you've been wasting your time. Right. Ends up being absolutely the secret.

That's great.

Going to help them get this job because no one else, if you look at the requirements for this role, very hard to meet every single one of those bullets. Like basically we, they're asking people to speak many different languages. Figuratively. Right. Very hard to find somebody who speaks 10 languages fluent. But in this case that one language ended up being that thing on their resume that they, they love doing but didn't get to do for that long. And yet lo and behold, again, it just, it becomes their, their secret ingredient. Yeah. So I think we all have, each of us has our version of that kind of story, something we love to do but we think society won't take it seriously or we don't really have as much time as we'd like to invest in or whatever the case may be. It's something that you wouldn't necessarily put on your resume, but it is 1000% part of your portfolio and what makes you stand out.

That's good. It also feels like this kind of aspect is very much in a Nassim Talib antifragile kind of way of the total antithesis of automation. If you think about someone being afraid about automation being a replacement for them, just what we have just talked about for the last five minutes is the total opposite of that as well too. So there's a certain resilience or even anti fragile aspect. I think of that in terms of what a portfolio career can mean for people and hopefully that's a salve to diminish anxiety about what it is and maybe an accelerant to saying, well maybe I should try something different even if it's not specifically within what my last job was. So that's good.

It is this sense of how do you make yourself as unautomatable as possible. And if you are only good at one thing and that one thing becomes capable for automation, AI to do, you don't have a lot to fall back on.

That's right. That's right.

You can do a common. So partly it's can you do many different things? And then you lower, you mitigate your risk. But it's the combination of things. And what I love, it actually was Jerry Garcia who said this, and it does show up in the book. But the quote is, don't be the best, be the only. And I love this because he was like, listen, okay, I'm in a band. There will always be somebody who's better on the guitar than me. There will always be a better singer. It's not about being the best. Be as good as you can be, but more than being the best, be the only person that can do A and B and C and oh, by the way, can do them together. Right. That's when you look at this and you go, there's just no machine that can replicate that.

That's right. That's good. You know, Scott Adams, the. The Dilbert author, said something similar to that, that you may not be the best physicist in the world. You may not, you know, whatever. You know, pick whatever. But that same kind of Jerry Garcia point of. But if you have this and you have this, you know, you don't have to be the best. You can be, you know, very good at these three things, and then you are the only. So I like that. I really like that.

And also, every single one of us has our only.

Good. Excellent point.

But every single person has it. Try to just, you know, I like to encourage people, again, kind of in starting out, what does it mean to have a portfolio career? And where would I start? Where do I go? How do I get started? Start writing down what is in your portfolio right now, because your portfolio is itself unique. Now, that doesn't guarantee that all of a sudden you're the only. And you have to do the work of developing your portfolio narrative around it. You have to do the work of connecting those dots and showing how that played out in the real world. But everyone has their own.

That's good. Well, I know you've got some other activities going, but I have one last question, if you're still good for time.

Sure.

I just have to ask, and this is going to sound probably a little corny, but can you share with our audience some of the ways that you live your life in full?

Oh, goodness. Oh, that's a lovely question.

Oh, Good.

Yeah. So a couple different ways I would take that. One is to echo something I said earlier. This question, this defining, grounding question for me, which is, if I were to die tomorrow, what does the world need me to do today? If I can answer that and I can look back at any given day and say that was what I needed to do. And sometimes the world needs me to write a book, and sometimes the world needs me to just be there for others and focus all of my attention on other people and serving them. And sometimes the world needs me to actually take the day off and go for a hike. And that might sound really selfish, but, you know, that is absolutely what the world needs me to do to show up fully for others tomorrow kind of thing. So if I'm living my life in full, it is this sense of, did I spend my time, any given time frame, day, week, whatever, did I spend my time in a way that was of greatest service to humanity? You know, that's a certain kind of fullness that I would feel. So that's one way and then another way. And I kind of blush when I say this because it's not think you don't go after doing this. But then when enough people start saying this, giving you the same feedback that you're like, wow, that's really nice. People keep saying that. I just, I show up really authentically. They're like, it's just you. And that's everything from. You write your book. Just like, you talk to, like,

you

don't mince words, you don't sugarcoat answers. But also, like, you go there. Even that sense of, like, is it okay to talk about your parents? I'm like, oh, my goodness, yes. Now, have I also spent time. There have been times in the past, had you asked me that question, I would have said, yes, let's talk about that question. And I would have cried. That doesn't mean I don't want to talk about it. That just means I want to. I want to show up fully, which makes some people uncomfortable. But I do think also leads into this life and full. So for me, living a life in full also means it's the sense of living true to my values, but living true to who I am. And another fun piece of wisdom that I picked up from a teacher a while back that he picked up from another teacher. But I love the way they put it, which is, you can spend your life trying to be somebody else, but at the end of the day, you're never going to be good at being someone else. As that person. And no one, no one on the planet will ever be as good of a you as you. So the message was be the best you. And that to me speaks to authenticity and genuineness and, and just showing up fully. And that means the warts and the scabs and the scars and all that, those are your stories. Those are your stories. Those are what make you you. And so living a life in full means showing up not with, not with shame, not with a sense of having, not with regret, not with any of that stuff. It's like every single one of my experiences has made me who I am. And so this is my life in full.

That's beautiful. Well put. Well put. No surprise. So April, this has just been a treat for me. It's been so enjoyable. What are some of the best ways for our listeners to get a hold of your book to learn more about you, to connect or follow?

Thank you so much. So the best way to get a hold of a book, it is available on Amazon, you can Google it and flux comes up. But all things flux, including more resources, more articles. I've tried to make a lot of information just publicly available, even without the book, that is fluxmindset.com and then I also have a personal site, aprilrinney.com, which is where you find the handstands. So I give that thus far I have not found anyone else with my name. My last name is Finnish and I think it's just April Rinny is rare enough that I am April Rinny on all social media handles. So Twitter and find me on LinkedIn, et cetera, et cetera.

That's great. Good. Well, I will put all that in the show notes as well too. So again, my heartfelt thanks for being on the show. It's just been a treat for me and I'm looking forward to to what comes next with you.

Thank you so much Chris. And likewise, this has been an absolute joy and a gift and on the one hand, overdue and yet on the other hand, like exactly when it needed to happen.

Good. Good karma. Living a Life in Full is a production of Stout Media, a subsidiary of Gordian Knot, LLC. Assistant Producer Gracie Wong Music Dan O' Brien Executive Producer and Host, Dr. Chris Stout to learn more, stop by our website A lifeinfull for show Notes and please recommend us to your friends and subscribe on your favorite platform. And as for the obligatory disclaimer, this podcast is for general information uses only and does not constitute the practice of psychology, medicine, nutrition or other professional health care. Services, including the giving of medical or psychological advice. No doctor patient relationship is formed. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I take conflicts of interest seriously. For all of my disclosures as well as show notes, please see livingalifeinfull.org podcast and my LinkedIn profile. Thanks. And until next time,