194: Deep Souls with Kathryn Haydon

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot Podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next.

For show notes from this episode. Visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

I am so excited to welcome Kathryn Hayden back to the Pivot Podcast. You've heard me mention Katherine many times. She was most recently in episode 166 on homeschooling while working from home. But today's conversation is about a deeper topic that Katherine has been noodling on for many years and I know that you are going to love it. We are talking today about her concept of Deep Souls. Who they are, what they're like, what makes them tick, and even how Deep Souls might be handling this time. Quick background on Katherine. She's a creativity and innovation expert who founded Sparkativity to help courageous leaders and teams apply the science of creativity to grow revenue, cut costs, and add innovative value in a fast paced world world. She's the author of the Non Obvious Guide to being more Creative no matter where you work and co author of Creativity for Everybody. Without further ado, Katherine, welcome to the show.

Thank you Jenny. I've been so looking forward to our conversation. Me too.

And I think Ratter must be a deep soul because he's been barking nonstop since we set out to start recording. So listeners, if you hear the dog in the background, there's just not much I can do. So sorry about that. Katherine, what inspired you to write about and for and to Deep Souls and tell us a little bit about how you define a deep soul?

I have been thinking about this topic for a very, very long time, probably throughout my professional career, maybe even when I was in college and doing some volunteer work in education and other work that I did in education. This was a concept that I coined the term Deep Souls just a few years ago. But I've been thinking about who these people are for many, many years and I first started to notice that there was a certain type of kid. My background, as you know, is in education. And I have done a lot of work in really all grade levels. But I started teaching sports Spanish at preschool through third grade, and I taught second grade. And then I created Ignite Creative Learning Studio, which was like a think tank learning lab, because I was trying to figure out what draws out the greatest learning and the greatest human potential. And we had people from preschool through adults coming to Ignite. And I started to realize that there was this certain type of person that I loved working with at Ignite, and that seemed to really respond well to the types of approaches and strategies we used, which were all based on the science of creativity.

This particular type of student was not understood in school. I started to see this over and over and over again.

It bothered me because these students were incredibly bright and so perceptive and had unique ways of thinking. They were the type of people that I could see going on to be famous inventors or writers or artists or historians, anything. Someone with a different perspective and different point of view, but across the board.

They weren't seen that way in school and sometimes by their parents. And it really tore at me to see these incredible people that were not understood. And this really hit home. I'd thought about it. I worked a lot. I researched many fields, so the field of creativity, different points in the field of gifted education, general education. And I found bits and pieces on who these people were that I was talking about, But I can never find quite the term for them. I can never quite find a term that was already out there that described the people that I was trying to describe. And things hit home for me when after doing this work for probably about almost a decade and a half, I met a person who is now a colleague and a dear friend who was one of these kids. And. And he was in his 40s at the time, and he was able to connect the dots for me, and he was able to speak very clearly about his journey. And I was able to see what happens when kids who are these deep souls, as I call them, are not seen for who they are and the challenges that occur in life. And that if they are seen for who they are.

They it. It's a totally different life trajectory.

It's fascinating to hear your observations of kids and you say in your article 7 Strengths of Deep souls. The thinkers we need but rarely understand that these are actually universal characteristics of creative thinking that get dulled over time as we grow into adulthood. Before we go further, I want to read these Seven strengths. Because even the labels that you've given are so good, they're so creative. And many of you listening can probably relate to some or all. We have bravely independent meaning seekers, deep divers, knowledge questers learn by making intuitively sensitive and crave authentic understanding. So good.

I do love those. They're great.

They're great. They're so, so descriptive. And these, they're just two words each, but they make so much sense. And you're right, when you were talking, I was thinking, what do we call them? We call them innovators, geniuses, creatives. But there isn't a word until I heard deep souls from you that does convey. And I think if, you know, I guess the closest would be old soul. So in various readings, I've often had people say to me, oh, you're an old soul. And I've always felt older than I was in terms of even who I attracted into my life as friends. And people would say, oh, you're so wise for your age, or oh, I can't believe I'm friends with someone your age. I've just gotten comments like that for a long time. And the whole notion of an old soul is kind of a shift in values of what's important, not placing judgment on whether you're a young soul or an old soul. But for old souls, there may be more challenges that seem like challenges, or there may be a different type of evolution or a type of path that does go against the grain of society. And so I love this shift into deep souls. I'm curious, with so much change happening right now.

How do you think this is uniquely affecting deep souled people, if at all?

Well, I think that you nailed something really important when you talked about that. These are underlying characteristics that support creative thinking. And that is very true. And every single person that exists has a combination of creativity characteristics. Everybody has them. And I want to be so clear that many people can relate to having these characteristics to a degree. And then there are even some more deeper underlying characteristics that kind of frame these that are easier to identify with just in general. And I usually use those in workshops. Going back to Todd Rose, he has this principle of jaggedness. And each of us are very jagged in terms of our shape. We aren't squares or triangles. It's not that easy to characterize people. But I believe deep souls have a different type of jaggedness that makes it more difficult for them to fit into the structures and expectations in society as it is right now.

I think that it's an interesting question to Think about how the situation right now might be affecting deep souls. I think it probably affects them as individually as they are. In some cases, it might be a great relief to have to come home and work from home. If you are used to working in an office, it might be a great stress reliever. Now, on the other side, deep souls aren't necessarily introverts and you can't characterize them as such. On those just very binary dimensions. Some people might be very.

Feeling like they just wish they could get back with their people and maybe their teachers and they want to be back with their students. Or maybe they're a CEO and want to be back leading their people. I think that it would be hard to predict how deep souls would respond, though. In general, they tend to feel very deeply and feel very deeply for others and for the world. And they could have a great concern for the world. They could feel overwhelmed by just the injustice and the seeming feeling of crisis. On the other hand, many of these characteristics support creative thinking and that's one of their great strengths, to think differently. So they might be able to see some opportunities within this that others might not be able to see. So I think it could range just depending on the individual. But there are some real pluses and also some real things that might be very overwhelming.

I love how you refuse to label like this, how very deep soul of you, how creative. It does remind me so much of Michael, my husband, who I think you've met in person.

We talked in person, Jenny, about Michael. I think it was before you were married, when you were thinking about it. And he struck me so much as a deep soul. I know I probably sent you this article right after that.

We just did an episode together on the fact that he's a rebel in Gretchen Rubin's four Tendencies framework. And the episode is called the Pondering Method for. For Rebels, because as soon as there's a plan, he wants to break it or go against it. And the anecdote that came to mind as you were talking, because it's very interesting to me that these terms even of deep empathy or empath or introvert, they could overlap with deep souls, but they're not synonymous. Not all deep souls are going to be deeply empathetic. Not all deep souls are going to be artistic geniuses, you know, but just this.

So.

So it's very interesting to sort of see how you're shaping the conversation without making these sweeping generalizations. And what I was thinking when you talked about different responses to change or to crisis. A couple years ago, there Was a snowstorm that they called snowpocalypse here in New York. Michael and I were on a plane back from Paris via Beirut, where his family is. The plane got halfway over the ocean above Greenland, four hours into our flight and then turned around mid flight. We were almost there. Some of us were so angry, like just drop us off in Florida, who cares if you can't land in New York, just get us to the States. But nonetheless, the plane then made the four hour journey back to Paris. And we had to spend the next two or three days in a sort of limbo in a random hotel outside of the city, checking in at the airport every day, waiting in lines, total confusion. And to me what felt like chaos, especially when I wanted to get back and even my sister in law Jill was going to have a baby any day now. I didn't want to miss it. So I'm completely beside myself and annoyed and pissed off and sad about this whole situation. Meanwhile, Michael is thriving. He is running around the hotel making friends. He doesn't care that it's in the middle of nowhere. Somehow that experience sent him into a bliss state of unexpected intersections of things and people. And he just, I remember him saying like, what a blast he was having. And I couldn't believe it. So I do, I do wonder if so certain deep souls that intersect with the rebel personality do enjoy when things get shaken up a bit.

I think that can absolutely be true. And I think that it's interesting you use the term rebel because I have also talked about rebels, daydreamers and class clowns. And I do think that most deep souls, if they look back on their school history at one point in time, they were at least one of those and maybe all of them. And not even necessarily an overt class clown, like the person that's always saying something and doing something, maybe they were doing something subtly or passing notes or doing something sort of sneakily, but to engage that what I what is divergent thinking? And that's a very big characteristic, the desire to come up with ideas and new thoughts and originate. And that's different from convergent thinking, which is more the analytical.

Sort of judgmental, not in a judgy way, but in a, you know, analysis type way, kind of critical thinking, when they work together, divergent and convergent thinking, that is the highest form of thinking, which is creative thinking. But most of the time in school, convergent thinking is called for and this is backed up by studies of curriculum. So those who tend toward divergent thinking and want to not only come up with the answer themselves, but they want to come up with a problem themselves. This is a very important skill to have. And that's not necessarily. There aren't a lot of opportunities to do that type of thinking in school and even in life a lot of time. So having that ambiguity that you had just being in. In that town and without something that you had to do and. And all of that, it sounds like it. He. He thrives in ambiguity, which again is a characteristic of creative thinking and creative problem solving.

I wonder too, you say it's interesting how you talked about as adults. One thing you said in the article on the seven strengths is the intensity of their ability to think differently cannot and will not be stopped. Because of this, they are at risk of being misunderstood. I wonder if the very notion of a career is antithetical to some deep souls because it does tend to be somewhat linear. In our society. That is changing now we have more portfolio careers, the gig economy. But even the idea of a resume is this linear document that as the one of my favorite memes that my friend Julie pointed out to me is a resume is nothing more than a list of things we don't want to do anymore. But I do wonder, how do you think deep souls? You mentioned some of the more challenging qualities as adults. How do you think deep souls? It must be hard to fit in to certain aspects of society or certainly in America, the capitalist go to work every day. Sameness that can sometimes happen in many different types of work. I wonder how they adapt or.

Rebel against that. But it just seems like deep souls. There must be some additional challenges when trying to figure out what's next and even keep on some kind of path while constantly wanting to diverge from it. Which is that divergent thinking you talked about.

Yes, I agree. I think it is very hard. And you're right that it's becoming probably easier from a career standpoint. In some ways, I think the driver is meaning. I think that if there's any one characteristic that I could say absolutely deep souls have across the board is that they thrive in meaning. And oftentimes, if something is not meaningful for them, they'll have a hard time actually doing it. And that's actually not a deficit because it's often couched as a deficit, but it's not a deficit because when they do find meaning, they will go well beyond what is called for. They will dig deep. They will come up with things that most people can't even imagine and make new connections. So it's really a fuel meaning is such a fuel. And I think that in our society the structure of jobs are loosening up, which is great. And you have books like Emily Gopnik's Multi Potentialite. Is that the title?

I think so. She also did a TEDx talk on multipotentialites.

Yeah. And I think that's something a lot of deep souls struggle with. They'll hear from their parents quite a lot. Why don't you pick something and stick with it? And they want to change and grow. And it doesn't mean that really, even if they take something on for a year, they might get so deep into it that it's the same as if somebody else took it on for 10 years. So I do think that's hard. And one of the hardest pieces, I think, is how we measure success. And I believe that one of the really key lessons that we can learn from deep souls and how they think is. Is maybe not even a lesson. It's sort of a catalyst for further thinking about how we measure success. We really have very few metrics of measuring success these days. And they tend to do with money and power or popularity. And a lot of times those don't resonate with deep souls. And I know deep souls who have just done so many interesting things in their career. They have deeply changed lives. They have helped people. And you couldn't measure their success based on how much money they have earned and all the traditional metrics. Yet they would find themselves very successful if they're able to.

Be comfortable with their own measurement of success.

I think loosening up, what does success look like? And could we look at a different metric like impact? Could we look at a different metric like wholeness and a feeling of maybe constantly living in connection with your values? Does it always have to be around money or social proof or these other pieces that tend to drive what we think of as success?

That is such a succinct way of putting this notion of the current metrics. I've never heard it put so in such a straightforward way that a lot of the metrics we measure have to do with money, power and. Or popularity. And I just love your shift toward impact wholeness. I would also add being. And you kind of said that too. And you said constantly living in connection with your values. That's something I observe from the deep souls that I know you're right. They have no interest in many power or popularity. And in fact, success for them is following the beat of their own drum at all. Really. The ones that I know. And.

I love deep souls. So I know several. But I do feel like no one's going to tell them otherwise. In a way, if you're trying to change a deep soul, you're gone, not them. They're not going to bend to your will or whatever you or society or anyone thinks. They'll just won't talk to you anymore. It's not, it just doesn't work to try to fit a deep soul into the boxes that society creates.

Well, and I think also it's. It's a little easier if someone has been understood from a young age. So I think there's a difference in the, in the deep soul experience. And this is something I've been observing and I'd like to continue to observe this and see if this plays out. But for the people that I know and I've worked with hundreds of deep souls of all ages.

An observation that I have is that if they have a champion at a young age, if they have a parent who sees a little spark in them, or a teacher or a relative, it could be an aunt or an uncle or a grandparent, a lot of times it's a mother.

They.

May have an easier time with things. It's the people that I really worry about are those who don't have that or don't have it as consistently as others and who are told many things from a young age. And the many things can include like, you're too much, you're too intense, you're not dumb, you're just lazy. Space cadet.

That's a hobby, not a career. Yeah. That's not viable.

Exactly. You're too imaginative, you're too energetic. All of it. All of it. Always with t o o fill in the blank.

Right.

Like you are extra. And I think that if, if they're constantly getting those messages without someone seeing that spark, then it's, it's a harder road. But that's why I want to talk more about this and speak more about this because I think if we can notice these strengths in people from a young age, it mitigates a lot of suffering, honestly. And people that I know.

Their life has changed. I'll tell you with when I've written about Deep Souls, I write to my email list and I have blogs and, you know, articles that are out on Psychology Today in different places. When I write about deep Souls, I get the most intense reactions.

Compared to anything else I write. I have had people write me to say, I read your article. I am 70 years old. I have never felt understood in my entire life until I read your article. And I just think this is so important. And these are the people we need to. For the future. If you think about right now you had asked about right now, we need people who can maintain different perspectives, who can think differently, who are comfortable enough, who are willing to take the risk to not conform and to keep their own thinking intact. And that is characteristic of deep souls. They are willing to take the risk to continue to be themselves, even in the face of criticism. And we need people who will think like that and bring a new perspective and question and ask questions that lead us to new solutions. So we need these type of thinkers. I believe that it is deep souls who will save the world. I mean, I know that sounds like such a pie in the sky statement to make, but it's something I've thought about a lot. And I think if we don't recognize these type of thinkers, it's a true detriment to all of us and to the entire world. Because the tendency, and I call this in my book, the inertia of no, it's the tendency to conform and to not take action and to not think differently. And these thinkers are used to overcoming the inertia of no and questioning, like you said with Michael, like the rebel thought. Questioning it, questioning it, questioning it. Not taking the inertia of no for an answer. And we need them. I think that if we can consider the lessons that we can learn from, I would say, more extreme thinkers in terms of depth, complexity and needs, then that makes the world better for all of us.

Absolutely. So well said. I want to add one thing. You mentioned kids, some who have one person, at least one person in their life who supports them, and then others that don't. My dad wrote a book called the Bliss Engine and he shared in the books. This is why I feel comfortable saying it on the podcast. But he's also said to me many times that all the gremlins of his childhood, all the chaos of his family life and his upbringing, in a way that's his creative impulse now for the rest of his life, that his art, his painting, his music, it's how he gets the gremlins out. And he kind of jokes that, well, at least for the kids that didn't have that support and didn't have that encouragement, that becomes their creative impulse for the rest of their lives. And that you need some of the. That chaos to even create from. Not always, but just that that's how he's transformed that. Because, you know, his. His dad was a civil engineer in the military. They moved all the Time. And I think his, his dad appreciated the watercolors, but nothing else. You know, it had to look beautiful and realistic. And so he really didn't encourage some of my dad. That's wackier stuff. But my dad's so prolific and he has, he's. Even though he was an architect for his whole career, now seeing him just thrive, doing whatever he wants. Every room in his house is an art studio, is cordoned off for art, making of some kind, reading, guitar, painting, sketching sculpture. It's amazing to see. So it's been really fun seeing my dad sort of embrace the. Just that freedom to create as well.

That is. That is such a good outcome. And that is true that.

Adversity often drives creativity. And it's interesting that you bring that up with art because that brings up an interesting point. Sometimes.

There are certain, let's say, skill sets that are easier to see with deep souls than others. And I'll give you an example. I had a student once who was a brilliant scientist and he was in grade school. So in grade school science. I don't know if you remember grade school science, but mine, I remember it being excruciatingly boring. And it was like a textbook and it was just nothing about discovery and experimentation and things like that. But this kid was all about discovery and experimentation. And he had these insights with science that were so profound when he was in our sort of creative learning environment. But in school they actually thought he was really dumb in science because he wasn't just sort of memorizing the answers and spitting, spitting them back. And I had to do a lot of convincing to say, do you realize your thinking in science is profound and it's harder to spot in certain areas than others? I don't know if art is easier to spot or not. I think it would be maybe if someone has a particular talent for art or music, something that's traditionally in the quote unquote creative fields, then if your real interest and the way you sort of deep soul think about things is in something that is taught more traditionally or is approached more traditionally during the early part of your life, it might. Might really look like a problem. And I think that's a very interesting point to bring up about how the domain can often drive whether people are recognized or not for their talent or the way they approach it in a different way.

Hopefully this conversation can help people recognize and support the deep soul thinkers in their lives. Or it's not even thinkers the deep soul in their lives, whether children or adults. Is there any advice that you would give being so close to this topic, Having created this topic, is there any advice you would give on how people can better support the beloved deep souls of their lives?

Yes, I think that when I think about deep souls, I think about three reasons to support deep souls. And one of them is for the self. Because if, as you read earlier, one of those seven strengths of deep souls is actually the desire to be understood. And because they're a different type of person, a different type of thinker, they're more at risk for not being understood. So then that desire to be understood is almost even deeper because it's like, oh, if someone understands you when you're not used to being understood, it can be incredibly empowering and healing and confidence building. So I think the first thing is if someone listening to this says, wow, I think I'm a deep soul to really think about that and what that means. And we have some resources we can put on the show notes to help people and to do further reading and to just see is this something that resonates with you? It helps people own who they are and it helps develop creative confidence to go forward and to continue to take that stand and continue to say, wow, my perspective is really important. So that first one is the self, the second one is for work. And this is what will relate to your question, especially in helping deep souls. I was just speaking with a colleague yesterday who wrote an incredibly insightful report on the future of organizational creativity. This is a friend of mine named Clay Bunyard. He's a professional chemist and in R and D at a big consumer products company by day. And right now he's, I think, on his third graduate degree as a futurist. He did this study to look at what the future of work looks like as far as innovation within a big company. And he came to the conclusion, one of his conclusions was that the age of the specialist is over and, and that polymaths. So people who are sort of renaissance people who have knowledge across a variety of domains will be in great demand for being part of innovation teams. That jives with what I've been thinking about with Deep Souls for quite some time, the need for their type of thinking and also the need to think of how they show up at work a little differently. Like we talked about the structures of work, Deep Souls may.

May not be a real 9 to 5 kind of person because if they get onto something, let's say they're put on a project team to come up with a new concept for some kind of product, you get them into it and give them the challenge and they could work night and day for weeks on it. They could stay up all night diving into this with great excitement and desire and then they might need a break after that. So I think really reevaluating our expectations of people and how they work. And now would be a great time to reevaluate since everything is up in the air and people are working from home and remotely and can't really do those nine to five hours very well. They have to move their work around their home, schedule that what's going on in their home and optimize their time and all of that. This is a perfect time to be able to loosen our expectations. Not really loosen, because Deep Souls deliver, man. When they're on something and they get into something, they will deliver, but they just might not do it in the same way or on the same timeframe as others do. So I think that is fundamentally the number one piece of advice I'd give to people trying to work with Deep Souls to really step back and take a look. Does this person have to fit in a particular template of how we work or how we measure work and can we adjust and be a little more flexible to draw out that person's full contribution? Because they have an incredibly full contribution if the conditions can be right to draw that out.

That's so important. And I can imagine that most Deep Souls are not interested in maintenance mode or the typical work schedule. I mean even today. And actually after today's conversation I feel more confused. I don't know if I would fit into a Deep Soul personality or not. But I will say that Wednesdays, today is a Wednesday. I batch podcasts and work and just cleaning up older episodes and I've been working from 9 and then I'll stop today at 4:30 and I'm like this is such a long day. And it's not even the day that most companies ask of their team members of 9 to or 9 to 5 or 8 to 6 or who even knows what I mean. I cannot fathom the level of deep focus, deep work and deep concentration till 6pm I mean I'll do it sometimes when I'm working on a big project but. But I'm with you. I think we have got to rethink the typical work week and especially for Deep Souls. I love what you're saying too about also maybe even a more project based focus or there are many Deep Souls. I know that would be amazing consultants and idea people, but they just don't want to get into the weeds of execution.

Exactly. And that brings me to another interesting concept that I've thought about a lot. And this idea of.

Patronage back in. I wish I had my history points right on this, but you know, back when royalty would hire an artist to solely work for that, for that community and produce beautiful art, I think that I don't know how this would look. But when my friend Clay was talking about the future of work and having polymaths on teams and having more contractors coming onto different project teams, I thought that could be very interesting for Deep Souls. And if, if companies were to be able to look for these particular characteristics and define how to find the people that are going to be thinking truly differently, because that's what we need. And this is a form of neurodiversity, a form of a different way of looking at the world. And companies are talking about this. People are seeing the need. So if we can not only see the need, find the people and then match the job to those people, I think that that could be very, very useful and redefining what their role is again, maybe looking at impact. So does everybody have to do everything? You talk a lot about strength zones and I love that. And how could we create a job so that a particular deep soul could be operating within his or her strength zone and making that full contribution? And that's the key and that's my goal and purpose in life is fighting against wasted human potential and bringing in the science of creativity and bringing in structures and strategies that resonate with people who don't like structure and strategies to pull out the. The full contribution of many different types of thinkers. And this in Deep Souls we have. Have such just a treasure if we could adapt and see them and.

Shift our expectations in order to nurture them as best we can.

You mentioned patronage, which I also find fascinating. And I think it would be brilliant for you to explore that further as you continue developing this body of work. Of course, growing up in, in capitalist America, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. When I first wrapped my would think about patronage, I thought that's not fair. Who just pays somebody to create their work? Like here I am trying to hustle and build my business and whatever, and I just couldn't imagine the idea of patronage. And then over time, as I've researched it and as I've come to understand the deep souls around me and that I interact with, I actually see how important it is that, that the more I've explored the art world, of course, thanks to Michael's influence and My dad and reading books and reading even the Duchamp biography was fascinating. So one of the kind of pioneers of modern art, or ready made, he put a urinal in a museum and called it art that was very controversial.

It's almost like what I came to understand after reading so many books about many artists. I know I'm coming back to the art artist thread of Deep Souls. But what I came to really understand is that making the work is so different than the skill or the business of selling their work. And for so many, they want to be completely unencumbered by all those nuts and bolts of what happens after the creative process. And some can look at that and call it unfair if you want, but there's so many brilliant things that happen in our culture and in our society that come from these pure minds, souls and hearts of artists who just aren't interested and aren't willing to play the rest of the game. And there is something I respect about that and I do think that patronage is a fascinating model to support that. And also, of course, crowdsourced patronage like Patreon.

Yeah, that's such an interesting point. And I do think we probably, if I looked into it, and it sounds like you've looked into this model more than I have, but the idea of a different model and supporting people's work, but also this idea. I have this concept and I love this concept. I think I got inspired about thinking about this from Kevin Kelly's book the Inevitable, which I love. It's about the future, but it's just not scary.

It was actually my dream. I had him on the Pivot podcast talking about that book. So I'll put it in the book.

Oh my gosh.

I know, I've fainted it.

Yeah. Oh, that would be amazing.

He's a co founder of Wired magazine. For anyone who just wants to geek out with us over Kevin Kelly. He's so brilliant.

He is. I'm sure he must be a deep soul. He's just like the thoughts that he has in his book are just mind blowing. But it's this idea, you know, the idea of cyborgs. It's the human machine team of the future. So like the chess champion example is the one that's usually cited where you have a, a high level chess player paired with a Watson AI type of machine and together they could be the power team of the future. And people are talking about that, like the combination of humans with AI. So my concept is that Deep Souls are the human cyborgs of the future. So if we could pair a deep soul with a. Let's just say, I'm just going to say neurotypical. I don't know if that's the right parallel, but let's say a deep soul with a regular thinker that has different skill sets that could be so powerful because you could think of it like that artist who wants to create with somebody who loves to get the word out about this artist's work. So it's kind of like a sales team, a salesperson with the creator. But if we could think of that even on a broader level, level, how could we use these people in a good way? Because I mean, not saying using them, but how could we employ people to bring their full strengths to the table? And part of these are their thinking strengths.

That reminds me of another book called Rocket Fuel, which is a straight up business book, but it kind of talks about the powerful combination of companies that have a visionary and integrator. So the visionary has all the ideas. In fact, they have so many ideas it's overwhelming. And they're very creative and exuberant, but they're not good in the details. And then the integrator is the operations person. They make sure the trains run on time. They help temper the visionaries many ideas and figure out which ones are viable and at what pace to pursue them all. And so the book gives the example of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and I would say the whole. So many artists, musicians, people who are successful, have someone who plays that role in their life or in their creative process, at least the ones that we know about, because that's what gets the work out there, is having someone that does does those things. I think it can be a great compliment.

Yeah, exactly, it can. And again, it goes back to that strength zone and where you're operating. And I think when you're used to thinking in a certain way, sometimes it's very hard to shift gears and to think in a completely different way that you have to think in order to, say, get something to market or design a system for selling or whatever it might be. But something you said, Jenny, earlier was that you're confused because you're not sure if you fit into this category. And I just want to underscore the point I made earlier that I do not like labeling people and I don't like making categories because then it always seems like it leaves people out or there's some kind of discussion about it. But the point of Deep Souls and making a label is to bring up how important these characteristics are. In a person. So this is not something where somebody would take a test and say, am I this or am I not this? But it would be more that you would hear this conversation and maybe read about Deep Souls and say, huh, is there anything here that I resonate with? Is there anything here that maybe people have seen or I've seen as kind of a detriment to myself or my career that seems like, like a real, maybe a liability that actually when you put it in the deep soul framework, is an incredible strength. And that is more the purpose.

And so when you identify with certain characteristics and see how important these are as strengths and maybe how they might show up if they're not supported or if you don't have the opportunity to use them, or if everybody around you is not seeing them as strengths, that's what this conversation is for, to help turn that around and help bring a self awareness to say this is really important and really unique to you. And.

Some people may have seen this about themselves a lot throughout their lives and therefore it's not a big revelation that this would exist and that these are important characteristics. But I think a lot of people don't. And since they're thinking so differently and maybe living and being in such a different mode and maybe on kind of a different dimension or a plane than others.

They really need to have this message to say, wow, wow, wait, this is me, this is me. And to have that familiarity and again to have that confidence that yes, you are needed and your strengths are so important as you are, and how might you use them even more deeply?

I love the way you put that and it makes sense that you don't want to label or categorize. It's just again, it wouldn't be Deep Soul like to do that. At the same time, I'm just going to plant a seed that I do think it's quite helpful to draw some lines in the sand. And these seven qualities. Bravely independent meaning seekers Deep divers knowledge questers learn by making intuitively sensitive, crave authentic understanding, even a shift in perspective. I know that's a bonus one that.

I think part of the reason Susan Cain's book Quiet was so massively popular with it gave people permission to self identify as an introvert. And then some would say I'm an ambivert and some would claim their extroversion. But it just gave a voice to a group of people who had been made to feel that it was a problem. However they were the fact that they would leave parties early or the fact that they didn't speak up too much at work or whatever the stereotypes had been that they were sort of problems. So I don't know. I'm sensing a Deep soul self assessment on your website. I feel like there's so much you can do with that this. But it's not to denigrate anyone who doesn't define themselves as such, but it really is empowering when people can own one or more of these traits. And I love that. How expansive your response was that. Well, any of you, if any of you listening, if you can relate to any piece of this, let it be a permission to be more of who you are and let us all think more creatively. You wrote a book on that about how to incorporate people's different strengths. So Katherine, thank you so much. This has been wonderful. Where can people find you if they want to keep in touch and learn even more about Deep Souls?

Well, they can come to my website, which is sparkativity.com so it's s P A R K I T I v I t y 3 I's and we have a special page of resources for Deep Souls. So it's sparkativity.com.

Amazing. And I'm going to put all of these in the show notes along with all the books that we've mentioned. Such fun, such a good list of resources. I just love it. So those are always@pivotmethod.com podcast Katherine, thank you so much. It was such a joy talking with you and I can't wait to see where you take things from here.

Thank you Jenny and thanks for having me on with this topic. It's really been fun to discuss it and sort of talk about Deep Souls, the world. And I hope that we find more by talking about this. And I should say that on that, on that link that I just gave you that we'll put in the show notes for Deep Souls. We are creating some really fun and interesting and meaningful resources and I'm not going to say what they are, but on that page, Deep Souls or people curious or people with Deep Souls in their lives or just wanting to learn more can sign up for the wait list so that they can be the first to hear when those resources become available.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a cure curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to and the latest tools. I'm geeking out on sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter ennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.