How Art Regulates the Brain When the World Feels Overwhelming | Ivy Ross

I've noticed that most people choose in their first seconds if this conversation is worth their time. So Ivy, before we talk about your work, your story, which is incredible, what is one thing you hope people will see differently about their future after our conversation?

I'd say to embrace the tension of opposites. And for every trend, there's always a countertrend.

When most people think about the future, they don't feel excited. They feel uncertain, sometimes overwhelmed, sometimes like they're already behind. And in moments like that, it's easy to wait, to react, or to let others decide what comes next. But the future doesn't arrive one day, fully formed. It gets created. In small moments. In everyday choices. In how we show up when things feel uncertain. In this podcast, we explore how we can create a better future. One that feels worth living in. And maybe even falling in love with. Not as an idea, but as a practice, a lived experience. I'm Frederik Pferdt, and this is The Future Is How. All right, welcome friends to this episode of The Future Is How. Most conversations about the future focus on technology or speed. Or intelligence. Today, I want to talk about something quieter. Something we often push to the edges: art. And what if art isn't decoration or entertainment? What if it's actually infrastructure for our nervous system, our empathy, and our ability to imagine what's next? So my guest today has spent her life designing not just products, but emotional experiences. She likes to say, and she just shared that with me before we went online, she likes to feel herself into the future. And we're going to talk definitely about that more deeply. So my guest today, again, has spent her life designing emotional experiences for people around the world. She's currently the Vice President of Design at Google and the co-author of Your Brain on Art, a book that makes a bold and also a gentle claim: art changes us biologically, emotionally, and also socially. So Ivy, it's a great pleasure to have you on the show. Welcome to The Future Is How.

Great to be here, Frederic. Really honored.

So I'd like to start off each episode with what I call a future bio, right? So I don't want to talk about the past, your past. I want to talk about your future. So imagine it's 5 years from now and the world has changed in ways no one ever imagined. When someone describes your contribution to the future, What do you hope they say you helped people feel, see, or remember?

I hope they say that she made magic and made the invisible visible and that people felt what the full spectrum of life feels like. That people are now, she helped bring that feeling to them. What's been invisible is now visible and they, people are now feeling it all.

Thanks for sharing that. Is there something what would you not want to be remembered for anymore?

No, you know, because every step of my life, and I've, I've recently gone back and it's really fun to make a list of all the, you know, it's great to look back and all of a sudden you can connect the dots of everything you did, good, bad, everything that happened, and you start to see the pattern and see how they all added up to this moment. And I love that about life and I embrace it. And so there's nothing not to know because I think it's all got me here to this moment.

Perfect. If you could hold up that list, what would be the top 3 things where you say like, oh, these would be like the moments that really stood out in your life? And that could be like, you know, some of these breakthrough moments where we like really enjoy what we're doing and what we're contributing to the world, but also it could be like a moment where you just shifted or pivoted.

Yeah, they were probably early on. It's interesting. I would say I read the book over and over again, Horton Hears a Who, as a kid. And there's a moment where For those that don't remember, but, you know, the elephant is holding the flower and there's a whole world of people on that little flower, but tiny, tiny people. And no one else believed him that these people existed. And this young little girl, tiny one on the flower, ran around and gathered everyone and they held hands and they made a tone. A sound to let the world know that they existed and they were on this little flower. And early on, I got very engaged in, in sound and vibration as a key element of how I understand life. And so I looked back when I was doing this exercise and that book and me reading it over and over again, I realized that It informed, for example, so much of why I'm in the corporate world and why I like working with teams of people, because together we hold hands and we become louder than any one person individually. And then, so that was a pivotal moment. Another pivotal moment, working at Mattel Toys and being super brave and creating a whole new way that it was the first time I took the mysteries of life, which I've always explored, like sound, color, light, frequency, and experimented with seeing if I brought some of the things I usually studied and kept out of my corporate life, if I brought it in, what would happen? And I fast forward to me accepting an award for saving the entire company by the chairman. And, um, and so I, that was like a moment that proved you can be brave and step out and have a vision for what you feel to be true. And then, um, the third one, um, and again, there's these many things in between, but I'm just trying to think of the big, you asked for 3. Is, you know, I fell into Google kind of by accident because I happened to be an eyewear designer. I've been, I've designed products throughout my whole life, everything from clothing and Calvin Klein, Swatch watch, Mattel toys, and now technology. But I got into it because I had been an eyewear designer for 8 years and I totally forgot about that. When I got the call from Google Glass that they were looking for someone to lead it, And I said, why me? And they spit back to me, why me? And I go, yeah, that makes sense. I would say the third one is really being grateful for that. I wouldn't call it a happy accident, but that circumstance that brought me to Google, because I've always been a bit of a futurist in looking forward, not looking, uh, my husband is a history, he likes history and English. And I like math, science, and art in the future. So together we make a whole person. So the third one would be arriving at Google through these circumstances, but feeling like I am at the right place at the right time.

So let's stay at Google for a moment. You know, you've led design at Google for years.

I wish— there's no such job as leading all of design. But right now it's, right now I'm the chief design officer for consumer devices. So my team does all the, you know, Pixel phones, earbuds, watches, home products, et cetera.

Amazing. And I have probably all of them, um, around me. So thanks for engaging in that work. So how did your understanding of art and neuroscience change how you think about designing products?

Yeah. So the concept of neuroaesthetics, which is how the arts and aesthetic experiences change your mind and body and aid in health and wellbeing, is really this idea that we are wired for the sensorial nature of life. We have incredible senses. With incredible sensitivities in our fingertips, our ears, our, and we, you know, I think we've been optimizing or operating since the Industrial Revolution, a bit like machines as humans. And we put aside the arts as nice to have. Whereas really, and my co-author and I wrote the book to say the they're not, it's not nice to have, it's imperative. It's the way the universe designed us. And in fact, when we don't exercise that right is when we get in part, perhaps depressed or ill, or our nervous system deregulates. And so even in forming the hardware design group at Google and along with my initial team, you know, it started from a very small team and it's grown up. The idea was in defining the principles of Google hardware, we looked around, you know, the nice thing about coming late to the game to consumer devices is to stand back and say, we're not this, we're not this. There's these other brands out there. What are we? And we, I watched a lot of, uh, the team and I watched a lot of Sergey and Larry and Sundar, all their speeches, and a lot of times it's, we're for everyone, we're for everyone, we're for everyone. And so we sat and we riffed with that and it's like, well, we're for everyone, so we're more human. Well, what does it mean to be more human? We're tactile beings. We, um, we respond to textures, color, temperature. And so this idea of using some of the principles of neuroaesthetics, which is everything matters. It's not just the way something looks, it's the way something feels. And nature happens to be the most neuroaesthetic place there is because you walk in nature and it enlivens all your senses immediately. It has shape, texture, color, temperature, sound. And you know, 99.8% of the time we humans have been on this planet, we've lived in nature. It's only 0.2% we've lived in the built environment. So our nature is to be in nature and we were designed that way. So, you know, the team and I embraced this idea of let's make sure that one of our principles was around making things not just obviously function well and be beautiful looking, but be conscious of the neuroaesthetics, how something feels to hold. And in fact, we even, with our consumer research, the designers started, when they would design a product, have an intention. How do you want people to feel when they hold this or when they put this on their wrist? And then we would monitor that to The research group would come back with word clouds of what the consumer said, you know, when they lift off the, the drape and reveal the products, like what, what did they, what were their emotional reactions? And so, you know, we're emotional beings and technology is here to stay and be part of our lives. So our position was, how do we embrace that and make it part of our lives, make it more human, make it not a foreign object, but more familiar. And so we were very inspired by neuroaesthetics and inspired by nature.

And I remember when we, when we last met, which is quite some time back, you just came back from the Salon de Mobiliers in, uh, in Italy and, uh, you and your team actually created a space where people entered and you measured how they react to that environment, right? How they physically change when they are in a specific room, right? And so people walked from room to room and you had like a couple of experiments or products in that environment. Also, lighting was changing and so forth, and you measured how people physically change in their bodies.

So what we did is we collaborated with the Arts to Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins, and we developed a band that people wore when they came into the exhibit that was taking 3 or 4 different biometrics, i.e., you know, skin temperature, heart rate, a few things, and we worked with an architect and developed 3 different rooms. It was so interesting because we built a small maquette of it on, uh, down in Sunnyvale in an empty warehouse so that we could test our hypothesis and make sure it worked. But we kind of did a grid of all the elements that make up the aesthetics of a place. So it was even the music, the smell, the textures, the colors, the lighting, the books on the table. And we made sure that each of these 3 rooms had exactly the same elements, because it's so interesting. If you put anything that looks like a desk, it triggers a different emotion because people associate it with work. So it, everything had to have the exact same kinds of pieces of furniture. And then we allowed 10 people in each room at a time. The idea was no devices, no talking. It was called the Space for Being, and it was just about being in the space, experiencing it. And they wore this band and the idea was we invited people to, you know, notice the lighting, touch the art, just be in the space. And it was, I think it was about 6 minutes in each of the 3 rooms. And the fun thing was we had a palate cleanser in between, a room with gray foam. You know, it's like when you get sherbet in between like a first course and second course. Because I thought, you know, the idea was that we have to now, you've had this experience and now cleanse you before you walk into the next. And after the three rooms, we had band tenders, not bartenders, band tenders that took off the band. At first they would ask people, which room did you like the best? And they would make note, you know, First room, second room, or third room. And they had very different aesthetics in them. And the person would say, you know, room number 2, oh my God, I love the color couch, blah, blah, blah. And the bartender would then reveal the data. And we had done an algorithm of to try and find in which room the person's body, their physiology, not their mind, felt the least stressed or the most at ease or most at home. And we of course delivered the data and then erased it cuz we're Google after we showed it to them. But in a beautiful, the data was delivered almost like a watercolor painting and different colors represented different things. But we would show them, oh, room number 2, but room number 3, your body actually loved room number 3 more. And, you know, the person would go, how could that be? And then we got the opportunity to explain that your body is feeling all the time, taking in information. And often we're not connecting to that because we're in our frontal lobe. We're thinking like, I love that couch. My friend has a couch like that, but our body is feeling differently in this environment. And so we had said from the onset, Uh-oh, this is gonna be a disaster if at least over 50% of the people don't have a mis— like if everyone's, uh, cognitive mind named the room that their body liked, this experiment doesn't work. Like we're not proving neuroaesthetic. So it was, it was great that 58% had a mismatch, meaning there was a disconnect And so it gave us the opportunity to demonstrate neuroaesthetics, that our body is taking in information all the time. We're not aware of it. And that, and so of course people would like to know, well, what's the right answer? What's the right room? And the whole point was there is no right room. It's what's right for you and what's right for your body. And there is no right answer. The idea. And so it, it was. People waited online for 3 hours for that exhibition because the word got out that, um, you know, they learned something. It was a beautiful experience and it changed the way they, they, they saw things. I mean, I think, I know, and we write about this a little bit in the book, the aesthetic mindset. I know when my coauthor and I were talking about, and it's interesting because I come more as having started as an artist. She comes from more more the scientific world. And, you know, artists and scientists are more alike than we think. We're both curious people. We got so many people writing me letters that said, thank you for acknowledging what we do as designers, you know, as important because also space changes the way you think. And I think that's, you know, something we're dealing with in office design in the future of the, of the workplace, because I, everything, everything matters, not, not to become neurotic over it, but the aesthetic mindset is like walking around. I realized most creative people, I'm sure, I'm sure yourself and many of your listeners who are creatives, we walk around with our antennas wide open, taking in information all the time. And the beautiful thing is we take in like 95% of what we take in goes into our subconscious mind. And the other 5% in our conscious mind. So when we get an intuitive hit, it's actually coming from this 95% material. It's real. But this idea that, um, we all need to walk around and I get such joy out of, I'm just looking out my window, paying attention to everything, the way the light is hitting the leaf on that tree. You know, the way, like, really, um, you know, you always think people are walking around the world the way you do until you start talking to people and they're like, oh, I don't do that. But that's what we had hoped the outcome of this exhibition, and we achieved it in that it got the buzz started about what neuroaesthetics is. It got people more conscious of it. And, um, and then the book came out, uh, what was it, in '23. I think it was '23 or '24. And we've really started a bit of a movement because we see more and more, um, uh, references and people starting art cafes and companies wanting to know, how do I bring more art, you know, have my executives do more art projects? So it's been great.

Wonderful. Thanks for sharing that. Let's actually do like a mind state moment, like a quick guided practice, like just 1 minute. Building on what you just shared, because you looked out the window and you noticed something, right? And so I want to just invite our listeners to follow that too. So just take a moment and look around you, wherever you are, if you're outside, if you're inside, and find one object or a color or a texture that you usually ignore and stay with it for 10 seconds. And just notice what happens in your body, not in your thoughts. This is art at its simplest, attention that softens us enough to feel again. So Ivy, if you can talk a little bit more around that term that you coined, which is neuroarts, where you share in the book as well that, you know, this is a tool for healing and why art especially is powerful in moments of trauma or even uncertainty, right? And we live in a world that is showing in our way and how we approach the future that uncertainty has a peak at the moment, right? All around the world. So you have actually mentioned that doctors have been prescribing museum visits for people to address loneliness, dementia, and many other mental health concerns. So Why do words often fail where images and sound or movement actually succeeds?

Yeah. So, you know, it's so interesting because, and the book talks about everything from how doctors are using the arts, like having people with Parkinson's actually dance, which is counterintuitive, you know, have some of these art modalities helping these disease states. But in terms of also mental anguish and just to flourish as a human, as a human being, which is so important right now, there's a couple of things. We all have little micro traumas, especially now, even if we don't realize it, there's big traumas and little traumas and we hold it in. And so the first thing I would say about, and we believe the arts is anything that allows you to creatively express. And by the way, we talk about in the book, whether you're a maker or a receiver, like going to a museum or being the artist, it's both as powerful. And by the way, the maker, it's not about good art or being great at it. It's the act of making because by creatively expressing, you're bringing out that material that is trapped inside. So, and that is in part what releases some of these little traumas that we're keeping inside. And you know, when people get into big trauma, often they can't talk because the Broca region of the brain shuts down. But we've seen, but they can draw and they communicate their emotions and how they're feeling from using these other modalities other than speech. So there's a couple of things. Not only is it great to get out what's inside. Also for neuroplasticity, we now know new connections are constantly being made. And what you don't want to do is keep going deeper into the neural pathways that we've dug, right? We, you get to a certain place and you, it's like the monkey mind. It just keeps the anxiety and the stress. It just keeps going down the same ditch it's dug. When you put yourself in these situations of being confronted with something new, going to a museum, a sculpture, looking at a piece of sculpture that you don't even understand, or actually doing something different than you've ever done, pick up a paintbrush. This is all making new connections and creating new pathways. And the way this works is it's almost like storage. There's only so much room. So what happens is the brain gets rid of some of the old ones. As you make these new, cut these new roadways, it has to get rid of the old ones. So this is how I got rid of my first husband. No, is that you, you create new experiences and it overrides the the old ones. So it's super important, therefore, to get out of ruts or anxiety or stress states, to put yourself in these new situations and being confronted with, you know, whether it's going to theater, going to the museum, taking a lump of clay and just playing with it. I mean, we got so many notes from people that say we started art date night. We now every, every week we challenge our friend with a different, pick up a different art modality. No judgment. The key is no judgment. You know, I think this idea that, you know, play is doing something different than you do every day, but without a preconceived outcome. And we're so outcome driven in our lives, especially now, the list of things to do at work, we're highly productive, being driven to efficiency. Everything we do is for an outcome. The beauty of art is that, and creativity, is giving yourself permission to play, which is getting into that state where there is no preconceived outcome. I don't know what this is going to look like. I'm going to take watercolor and a brush and some, and start throwing it down on paper and no one's even looking and it doesn't matter. And I'm going to throw it away when it's done. That is so good for us to do. We're designed to express ourselves and we're designed to take in through our senses everything the world has to offer. But we forget about that. And, you know, in ancient times and still today, there's 500 different tribes. There was no word for art. It was the way civilization, the way we lived was through dancing, singing, cave painting. I mean, it was just called life. And then at some point during the way, and I think it had to do with commerce and, and look, I collect art. I love art. There's, you know, there's art with the big A and then there's this idea of us creatively expressing and like I said, being either the maker or the receiver. We put that out of our lives. We didn't understand how important it was. And all of this leads to better executive function. I mean, the irony is you can be more productive. You know, the brain, we keep our brain in this idea of rigor, rigor, rigor, rigor, and we don't give it any time to wander. And it's super important that the brain be able to go into these other modes of taking in all the information we've taken in and making connections so that when we get back to the rigor, we're, we're more creative and innovative. So there's so many things I think we don't understand, even the way we've driven work ethic. That goes against the grain a little bit.

Absolutely.

That was a long answer. I forgot your question. I went off.

Amazing. No, thank you. Yes. And thank you for allowing me to express a little bit of our family's approach to art, where we try to really, yeah, just do things, right? And see how they turn in. And I sent you a little package of something to smell, something to taste. Something to write with, something to plant, and just various ways of absolutely helping me and my children and my wife to express our sense of art and creativity. That is something that I just highly recommend to everyone, right? And you do too, is like just without feeling the pressure of this has to be perfect, right? This has to be like the the perfect piece of art or the perfect smell or perfume or the perfect herb salt or whatever it is. Just give it a try. And just the art of making, the art of creating something is a true joy. And you're absolutely right. That's how we lived our lives, right? So you talked a little bit about workplace and leadership as well. So If leaders truly understood what art does to the brain and the body, how would workplaces look different? And what I mean by that is, what would meetings feel like, right? What would offices include that they currently exclude? And yeah, just walk me through a little bit about how would meetings feel different? How would the offices just not just look different, but also feel different.

Yeah. Well, it's interesting because I'm so grateful to my boss at the time at Google, because when we were doing, creating the design center at Google, he said to the architects, you know, let Ivy and team be more involved in designing the space so that it reinforces the aesthetic that they've created. And he knew enough to know how strongly I felt about how space changes the way we, we think and we act. So, um, you know, conference rooms would be a little more neuroaesthetic, a little softer. Um, you know, I think again, it's not either or, it's both and, right? It's function, but it's also the thoughtfulness of considering the textures, you know, conference rooms can tend to be very efficient, you know, your severe table and your bright lights. And it's like you're in there to do this job and versus to create an environment that supports holding a conversation, an important conversation. So I also think offices would have a studio area where you could take a painting class, you know, once a week. I've proven this in a number of companies I've worked in, but if you give people, take them out of their jobs and get them into the other state, the flow state, even if they're not creative, and then they go back to their desk, I had people that go, oh my God, I addressed the problem I've been avoiding for 2 months, you know? And so I think you would have, and that would be encouraged. I've done tests where, you know, you know, I would love someday to do a test where you took an A/B test, a group of executives that were asked to take a creative arts class once a week, whether it was painting or watercolor or clay, and then a group of executives that didn't, and have them solve similar problems and see the difference. You know, we, when the book came out, we were asked by a pharmaceutical company to give a talk. The CEO, someone who works for the CEO called us and we said, a pharmaceutical company, why do you want us to talk about your brain on art? And we then find out that the CEO was a painter when he was a kid. Did not give it up, even though he wasn't making a living at it, actually has painted in his garage ever since. And I'm not talking about painting the walls. I'm talking about just expressing himself on a canvas. And he says, I actually attribute my breakthrough success in drugs, this drug company he created, to the fact that I've been a painter all my life. And some of the acts of making and creating develop those muscles of resilience, agility, creativity, empathy, things that you need to be successful. And especially now, you know, the beautiful thing about why, and I think you said in the beginning, this is so important now is we have to amplify what only humans can do. To be able to copilot back with our machines and together take us to a new place. But we can only do that if we've exercised our imagination. So I think, I think it would be the, the, the environment, the textures, the colors, looking for not just, usually when you're designing a space, even offices, okay, they call it the program. What, what needs to happen in this space? So it's not just what needs to happen in the space, but how do you want people to feel in the space? So it's like, okay, what has to happen in a conference room? Well, we need a place, we need 12 chairs, we need blah, blah, blah list. But we have to turn things on its head and say, also, how do we want people to feel when they're sitting at that table?

Amazing.

And so I think we would go about asking a different set of questions or additional set of questions. In designing our spaces. But I think really, it's funny, since the book, we've been getting a lot of outreach to companies saying, how do I bring this into my team? And I, I've always worked in creative teams, managed creative teams, but the whole point is There's aspects of this that need to be done in every part of the company, whether you're in finance, in marketing, engineers, everyone benefits. They're even actually now doctors, and there's a new medical school where the doctors are required, half of the classes they're taking are in the arts. To make better doctors, and that's actually so that they can get more in touch with peeling back the layers and expressing themselves and learning how to be a little more sensitive and tap in, uh, to things differently. So it's, it's fascinating. I think we're gonna see that more and more. It's like we really need to work with the whole person. I remember we also got an outreach from someone at Stanford that was doing a conference. Um, I think it was for Women That Code that wanted us to speak. And I said, why? And they said, because we're really afraid that parents are dropping off their kids at Stanford going, now leave your guitar at home. Because by the way, we're, you know, we're talking about music, dance, singing, fine art. When they drop the kids off, oh honey, make sure you, you know, leave your guitar at home and now remember to get into those great tech companies, only take computer science classes, the classes that will get you into these good tech companies. No, you know, don't, none of that painting stuff. Don't worry about dancing. And luckily this woman who was a teacher there said, I'm really worried that not only, I said, oh my God, these kids are not only leaving a piece of their soul at home, but they're not becoming whole humans. I mean, these are the people whose hands we're in for the future. So it's incredibly important because we've been designed to be sensorial beings as well as using our brains.

Absolutely, yeah. You touched briefly on the art in the age of AI and in the world that we now live in, where we have machines and computers and technology all around us. So when we are entering this world where machines can generate art, right? And I mean like music and visual art and all the other things as well. What does that change and what does it not change?

I think there is still, there's so much room. I think it puts the pressure on us to exercise our imaginations even more so than we've been doing because they've been dormant. To be able to take what AI can do and bring it to next level that we can't even imagine yet. It's like when digital photography, and my husband's a photographer, so I know this, came up, people were panicked about photographers. Oh my God. And then you look, what's going to happen now? And for the most part, You look at what's happened to photography and there have been amazing, because of digital photography, some beautiful new creative things that still take the human, but it's the, it's man and the tool together to bring them to a new level. And so I've already seen this with, um, some amazing things that have been done with AI and the artistic mind. And I think, I think it's, I understand it's a, um, right now we have to just play. We have to play, play, play, play with it, experiment with it. And I absolutely maintain that we will the human plus AI from an art standpoint will produce a next level kind of expression that we may not yet see because we're just getting started, but we have to kind of have faith and jump in there and play and use our imaginations.

Incredible. So I have a I have a couple of what I call rapid reflections. So it's just some quick prompts for you that you can answer very—

Uh-oh, is this like a lightning round? Am I going to feel like—

Similarly, like a lightning round. Yeah, I don't want you to feel pressured, but just relax and trust your senses, but also your your experience and just, yeah, whatever comes up is good. So the first one is a future without art would feel cold. Cold. Perfect. The emotion we most need to design for is love. The one question leaders should ask more often is—

You said leaders, right?

We can open that up for everyone. The question everyone should ask more often is—

How do I become more of who I am?

Beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing those. So one of my last questions for you is about unlearning, right? As you had a whole list of things that you just visited, right, in terms of like your life and how that now connects the dots and where you see patterns. What is something about the future or success or creativity or even the arts that you had to unlearn?

I don't know if I ever had to unlearn. You know, it's interesting. I, I know at some salons when they go around and they say, how would you describe yourself? And we don't mean your occupation. Hmm. I would always say a child of wonder. And I realize that the reason I don't think I've had to unlearn anything is because I've been that from the beginning and I've stayed that. And if I can stay that and embody that, that's who I am, it puts you on a lifelong learning path automatically. So I really don't feel like I have to, I don't unlearn anything. I just keep learning more and I pay attention to what gets my attention. And then I am like Alice going through the rabbit hole. I'm like, I want to know more about that. I read, I got into sound and vibration because I read about 45 years ago in an EAR journal. Don't ask me where I found an EAR journal, EAR, a man that was bombarding cancer cells with musical notes. And I was like, I could feel in my body there was truth to that. You know, we use ultrasound to break up kidney stones. I mean, We're all just vibrating atoms. It's like, oh my God, that makes perfect sense. And, you know, I went to study with him and it opened up a whole world of more questions. And so when I say I'm a, I'm a very curious person, I stay with it and I'm like, okay, so if that's the case, then what? Then what? Then what? And it's a beautiful, yeah, revealing of more dots to connect.

If you could leave our listeners with one invitation this week, a small way to practice the future through art, what would it be?

To practice the future through art. I would say use any modality. I mean, it could be a bunch of paper you have on your desk that you could rip up. Like, it's almost like make a visual something of what you want your future to feel like using anything you see or pick one object. And you don't even have to explain yourself to anyone, you know, that feels like the way you want your future to feel. And it could be a very abstract connection because if you can do that, um, then every time you look at that object, it would remind you to hold that possibility. Because I think, I think That's to me what the future is about is possibility. And so, and I always hold that in my mind's eye. And if you can do that, keep your eye on possibility, then no matter what you encounter, even if it's some negative things getting in the way, I keep my eye on the possibility of what I envision for myself.

Amazing. So Ivy, thank you so much. And I want to close with some of your words. The future isn't something we plan. It's a possibility. It's something we feel. And we as human beings can feel ourselves into the future. And art might be one of the most reliable ways to remember who we are while we build what's next. Ivy Ross, thank you so much for your incredible story, your incredible work. And I'm excited that we could have that conversation and that people will take away that your brain on art is something that actually can transform us and make us better human beings. Thank you so much.

Thank you for all the work you do and for the things you make with your family.

All right, Ivy, I hope to see you soon, and, uh, thank you so much.

Same here.

So let me take a moment to look back at this conversation with Ivy Ross to help you look forward in your life. I want to share 3 things. So first, what surprised me. What surprised me in this conversation with Ivy was how clearly she named something we often ignore or even push to the Edges. That art isn't decoration. It isn't a nice-to-have or entertainment. It's what she calls infrastructure. Infrastructure for our nervous system, for our emotions, for how we stay human in a world that is optimized for speed, efficiency, and output. And at one point, Ivy said something very simply. Everything matters in design. And suddenly that landed much bigger than design. Because if everything matters, then what we surround ourselves with, what we built, what's in our environment is shaping us all the time. And neuroaesthetics just gives language to something our bodies already know. We are biologically wired to respond to beauty, to rhythm, to sound, to form. So this isn't about taste, it isn't preference, it's biology. So second, how did I feel? So what stayed with me wasn't a concept, it was a feeling, a softening, and almost like my shoulders dropped without me telling them to. I kept thinking about something else Ivy said, almost in passing: Art is a tool for healing. Not a metaphor, a tool. Because art doesn't convince us, it doesn't argue, it calms us enough to feel again, and from there to imagine again. And that calming isn't an escape from reality. It's what allows us to meet reality without hardening, without shutting down. That's why art can heal individually, but also collectively, through emotional experience, through human connection. Now what? Now what does that all mean? So now what I'm gonna do with this is that I'm gonna make a a small shift to treat moments of beauty and making or simply noticing not as breaks from the future, but as preparation for it. And toward the end of our conversation, I asked Ivy how she hopes to be remembered. And she said, I hope they say I made magic. And I love that. Not impact, not scale, not legacy. Magic. So this week, don't overthink what's next. Put yourself in front of art. Visit a museum or listen to music with your phone away. Make something with your hands. Not to be good at it. Not to share it. Not to optimize it. Just to remember how it feels to create. Because the future isn't something we plan, it's something we feel our way into. And that's That's how Ivy framed it beautifully. And art might be the most human technology that we have.