Art. Short bites. Episode #11: Takeaways

So as a timekeeper, we are about to be right at the end of this podcast. We could talk forever, but I want to thank everyone for this insightful conversation. And I'd like to end this discussion the way it began, with a tour de table. So one of the promises of this podcast is that there's too much talking and not enough doing. So let's pass the mic and tell us what you've heard today that will inspire you to start doing something differently, the way you did it prior to this conversation, or anything you want to leave the viewers or listeners with. And I'll start by sharing my own takeaways to give you guys a moment to collect your thoughts. I really enjoyed this discussion. I've always thought of myself as an artist just because I paint and I write poetry, but I've never thought of bridging or building a bridge and bringing this into the business world. And I'm actually one of those people who are a doer. I love to solve problems. I enjoy solving problems. But as I look back on this conversation, I understand that the— and I recently, I mean, I've always been a big fan of co-creation, and I think that's my way of building the bridge through co-creation, because in this co-creation process there's a lot of uncertainty. The same way that when you start painting or writing something, you don't know where you're going to end up. And so dealing— I've learned to deal with uncertainty, which I still— I'm practicing. But I think that gives me a new light of going deeper into this co-creation with my team and other people that I work with. I do want to explore more something that I've learned about pre-nostalgia. I think that's an interesting idea. And I'd be curious, I can already think of a few meetings that I'd like to have with the team as we talk about services and the way we work with customers. And I want to bring to them this— the four pillars of the well-being: emotional, spiritual, body, and rational— and see how can that translate into the work that we do, into the way that we tackle problem, and see what are the system and tools that can support this. So not knowing where this will lead, I really, really enjoyed this discussion and it gives me a lot of ideas and I'm excited. This idea also of labeling, I actually want to revisit the title that I have on my LinkedIn page and see what, what other title would I feel comfortable. And I know that it starts with me. It's not about convincing clients to bring arts within their organization, but it's more me first giving me the myself the permission to express my art in a way that it can be understood. So thank you so much. Okay, so John, would you like to go first and share your own takeaways or anything that you'd like to add or leave us with?

I think it's been a very insightful conversation for me. I'm going to start practicing writing poetry and resonance Honoring the three colleagues above, I think it's always good to be hearing something that you've not heard for the first time. And so I think I've had quite a few concepts that I've not heard before, which is impressive. And, you know, thank you. I pass the mic.

Great. Thank you, Christopher.

I guess the thought I'm going to take away and crunch on, John, when you were talking about bridging leadership and this idea of hanging in contradiction and being able to create a space for contradiction, and what I'm thinking of is some books I've been reading on the history of 20th century philosophy. And how some of the great philosophers of the 20th century, like Wittgenstein, for example, the later they went into their careers as philosophers, the more they gravitated toward poetry because they became increasingly aware that the precision of prose was actually dissolving the stuff, the subject matter that they were trying to work on. And the distinction of poetry is that it doesn't dissolve everything into precision, but it allows the expression and the hanging within contradiction and ambiguity. And so I just find it so interesting that you know, from many different walks of life and perspectives, there is, I think, at a certain level of seriousness, of concentration, one arrives at a similar destination, which is that we— there is this artistic element to reality, and without the kind of artist's toolkit, we just can't we can't engage it. So I think that's fascinating. And I apologize, I need to cut off.

Sure.

It was lovely to share this moment with you.

Thank you, Christopher. And we'll continue with Andy.

Thanks. You know, what I really enjoyed most about today's discussion is the reminder of how immensely productive it is to, especially when one is feeling constrained and stuck in any way, uh, you know, even, even if the feeling is procrastination of avoiding doing something, that, uh, there is always an opportunity to work yourself out of that feeling simply by engaging with artistry, engaging solely for the purpose of trying to get what's inside you right now out. And I think that that's underrated as a way of problem solving. We're so used to this myth of, you know, we can think rationally even though all the evidence is that what we do is we act on emotion and then we, we, we choose something that we ultimately can rationalize, right? That's, that's where all the evidence is. And the, the idea then is, okay, if, if I feel stuck, it's because I don't feel like I can rationalize what, uh, what I sense that I have to do, right? Therefore it's time to spend a little bit of time artistically to try to contain the dissonance that I feel inside something that also has resonance that seems to make sense. And by putting that artistic effort into whatever it is that I'm struggling with, I don't have to solve that thing. I just have to produce some art. That the nice side effect is it's gonna help get me unstuck.

Exactly, very true. And we can see that especially in this crisis that we're currently— humans are not rational thinkers, they're actually emotional creatures, which is why we see what we see. But yes, and then to end this conversation, I'll leave it to Fatemeh for her last words.

Well, I just realized one thing. We've been talking and rationalizing about art, and we haven't shared much of art, which is all the point of this discussion. So I think instead of making another rational summary of it, I'll read a poem so that we can close with some art, actually.

Awesome.

So I read the poem from The Poetry of Leadership, a poem called "Born with Wings." I was born with wings to learn the difference between strength and softness. I learned strength. To fly, I have to learn softness.

So with this— Very nice.

Wow, that's pretty deep. With this, I think I've closed what I had to say.

It's a beautiful way to closing it. So really, thank you again. And I'd like to end by asking viewers and listeners to like this video and subscribe to our podcast and tell us how they have seen art impacting their own well-being in their organization, in their work. They can leave answers to the comment below. And thank you again, everyone, for being on this discussion. Discussion.

Thank you so much.