- Hey everybody what's up,
it's Chase,
your friend here,
I am very happy to welcome you to another
episode of The Chase Jarvis Live Show,
here on Creative Live,
I have a doozy in store for you,
you guys know this show,
this is where I sit down with the world's
top creators, entrepreneurs and thought leaders,
and do everything I can to unpack their brain,
with the goal of helping you live your dreams,
in career and hobby and life,
My guest today this is her second time on the show,
I am super super honored to have her here,
she's an artist,
she is an author,
she is a facilitator of the 100 Day Project,
which I know that most of you know what that is,
and we'll talk a little bit about that,
we are here to celebrate sees the previous author
of The Crossroads of Should and Must,
which we talked about a lot last time,
but today we are here to talk about her new book,
Your Story Is Your Power,
my guest is Elle Luna.
(upbeat music)
(audience applauds)
- We love you.
- Hi, I'm so happy that you're here,
sometimes I shake the hand,
I can't just shake your hand,
welcome to the show again.
- Thank you.
- Thank you for being here.
- Thank you for having me.
- We have a lot of ground to cover.
- A lot.
- A lot of ground to cover,
so we haven't seen each other in a while,
can I start off by thanking you for this,
this is a gardenia which is the first flower
from your plant this year,
it was on the table across the room for a second,
and I could smell it,
and now it's like.
- Isn't that amazing?
- It's amazing,
and if you're listening to this on a podcast right now
and you can't see us smell with flour,
just imagine the most potent gardenia you've ever smelled,
it smells incredible,
thank you.
- It was the very first bloom on
the gardenia bush this year,
and I saw it and I immediately thought
I think that's Chases,
because we are meeting today,
is for you.
- I'm so grateful, thank you,
and it's beautiful vase, I should say vase,
we're gonna just leave that right there,
so gosh you're back,
it's been nearly two years or so.
- A while. - It has,
and the last time you were on the show
we were talking about your previous book,
which is right here The Crossroads of Should and Must,
and every time I share our work in
a previous podcast that we did,
there is innumerable people comment about how
much this particular book changed their life,
and I think it's in part because people
were supposed to be doing the things that they love,
and they're not supposed to be doing things
that they don't love,
but what about your personal journey,
how did you figure that out,
and after write a book about it,
can you go back there for us?
- Sure,
I guess I got to a place in my life where,
I started to dream again,
and specifically I started having a recurring dream,
about a white room,
do you dream?
- I do yes,
and I don't know there's a set of things if I don't do them,
like drink too much,
or if in a weird way,
if I don't allow space to create something every day,
if I just drive straight through my day,
then I find that I don't dream or
I don't remember my dreams,
and if I create every day,
and I leave the right amount of space in my day for life,
then I have crazy dreams,
vivid dreams that I remember,
and sometimes I can steer in them,
so that's a long answer.
- Like Lucid dreaming?
- A little bit, not regularly,
but probably three or four different periods of my life
had pretty active Lucid dreaming phases I would say.
- Wow, that's amazing.
- Rare.
- Dreaming can be a really powerful way in,
and I was not really going in when I was awake,
so I think my dreams started to chip away,
and really fighting me when I was asleep,
and I started having this recurring
dream about a white room,
it was pretty simple,
it was cement floors really tall white walls
and warehouse windows,
and when I would go inside of this room I was filled
with the most unbelievable sense of peace and calm,
and that was it,
that was my dream,
- Recurring?
- Recurring, I had it again and again,
and one day a friend of mine who
is my co-author on my new book,
on her new book, Susie Herrick,
she asked me the question that just turned
my life inside out,
she said have you ever thought about looking
for the dream in real life,
I don't know if you've ever had a dream
and then thought okay I'm gonna go look
for this out in the real world,
but I had never done anything like that,
and at first it seemed a little ridiculous,
and then I started thinking ha,
I wonder if there might be some intelligence,
something going on in my dreams,
and so I decided to start looking for it,
ended up finding the white room on Craigslist,
it was almost exactly the same white room,
have you ever had something like this like a deja vu?
- Yes of course.
- Oh my gosh like I've been here before.
- It's powerful isn't it,
it's so crazy powerful.
- There's a bit of oh my gosh, and also of course.
- Right, the universe provides.
- Yet this feeling of just as I'm looking for it,
somehow it's looking for me too,
and it was an apartment for rent here in San Francisco,
I got the white room,
and on my very first night in the white room,
I began to panic,
the room said very specifically to me
that it was time to paint,
and that one experience,
that all happened in a matter of months.
- The dreaming and the--
- Yeah,
the dreaming and then actually--
- Finding it. - Looking for it,
and believing that it might be possible,
that's a big part of it right, imagination,
I think we'll hopefully talk about that a lot today.
But yes then I got the white room,
and I started asking questions,
I didn't have a lot of answers,
I just felt I was getting a better questions,
and ended up writing a blog post,
which was about The Crossroads of Should and Must,
these two paths which are really the same path,
it just depends on what your calling it,
I ended up writing the blog post which just went crazy.
- I remember seeing the blog post,
that was before I knew you.
- Oh really?
- Yeah I saw the blog post,
then I met you at Adam Ghazali's party.
- Oh that's right,
well the medium is so beautiful,
because you basically get to paint the story,
and then when the opportunity came to turn
the post into a book,
I said yes and that has to be painted,
it has to be full-color,
it needs to be a really beautifully designed object,
and actually in the book itself,
this is a geeky design table,
so the binding is pretty,
unique in that you can actually see
the interior of the binding from the outside,
and for me I really loved this idea
that you could see the interior,
because it's ultimately what it was about,
how do you expose the interior and see it?
- And then you duplicated that on the next project.
- And then we did the same on Your Story Is Your Power,
Maybe all the books are gonna be
about really looking inside.
- So that is how the story,
the arc of the book came in to me,
but for the folks who haven't heard the previous podcast,
if you want to go deep on that subject,
we talk about it for a long time,
and a lot of people have remarked that that's one
of their favorite episodes of all time on the show,
in a nutshell I'll let you give a summary of that book.
- Okay in a nutshell,
the summary of the book is this,
there are two paths in life,
should and must,
should is what we feel,
are all of the expectations and obligations
that culture, family and the community put upon us,
and when you choose should you can feel it,
your body tenses up and you get small,
must is different,
must is oh so very different,
must is who you are,
it's what you believe,
it's what you know to be true,
and you're really really quiet with yourself,
and must can be hard to find,
some people feel really far from their must,
especially right now everything going on in the world,
what is my must in the middle of everything
that's happening?
And how do I sort the shoulds from the musts,
and also a time like right now is
a very good sorting mechanism,
and it really shows us what's important,
so those are the two paths,
and paradoxically,
are you familiar with this man named Grageef?
- No.
- So Grageef with a spiritual teacher around
the turn of the century,
and a friend of mine, Soren, was telling me about
this guy named Grageef,
one day and he said,
that this spiritual teacher posed
a question to his students,
and he said if a prisoner wants to be free from prison,
what's the first thing they need to know?
One student raises their hand and says
the prisoner needs to get to know the guard,
another student raises their hand and says if
a prisoner wants to be free from prison
they need to find the key,
okay,
Grageef looks at all the students and he says no,
if a prisoner wants to be free from prison
the first thing they need to know that they're in prison,
until they know that no escape is possible,
it doesn't even make sense,
so ironically,
should is a doorkeeper to must,
until we can really flip on the light switch,
until we can really get to know our should,
the things that go in our head again and again,
you should never should always,
you should know better than to,
whatever those things are that continue to be
the story that we are telling ourselves about ourselves,
who we should and shouldn't be,
that's really the counterforce that stands
in the way of must,
so if I could redraw the crossroads,
it's almost like shoulds the more
you get to know them eventually turn into must.
- That's a new development since the last time we talked.
- That's a new development since the last time we talked.
- It's true,
so in practical terms,
what I heard is the way it makes you feel,
so can you do that a little bit more,
because to me that resonates.
- Your very in touch with your feelings Chase,
I celebrate that in you,
we talk about that a lot.
- Thank you.
- Maybe we can talk about it with something right,
so as you get to know your shoulds,
you can almost fill them out like a list,
that's one of the exercises in the book,
you can just go through the list,
and try not to think too much,
you shouldn't have wide hips or you should never age,
or you should put on your face before
you leave the house,
whatever it may be depending on who you are,
as you get to know those things,
so one of my shoulds is you should
not say you're a feminist,
isn't that interesting,
it seems like almost impossible that that could
be someone's thought in today's current climate,
but growing up I always had this feeling that
to say you were a feminist was something really bad,
so whenever I was around people who were
really outspoken and were activists,
how would I feel,
going back to feelings,
I would feel kind of put up walls,
or I would not for me,
for example in college I never signed
up for any women's studies classes,
not one,
and I went to a liberal arts school,
and I was largely rooted in this idea that like not for me,
I'm doing something else,
at the time I wanted to be a lawyer,
I'm doing something else,
and I'm sure many lawyers need
to take women's studies classes,
but that was my should,
and that's how it felt in my body,
and it feels a little bit like,
a little yucky and a little scary,
and it feels a little bit like where's something else,
at least that's how I responded with my personality type.
- So verses must.
- Okay, yeah right there.
- That's how it feels and how it sounded right there.
- Like yum,
do you have these things that you just
love that you can't explain that are unique to you?
- That are unique to me, huh?
- Let's say were were to take a dozen of
the things that you love,
that doesn't is probably a pretty unique
rare collection right?
- Yeah I get it, if you start building a,
is it more unique than a personality,
maybe I don't know,
but I get it,
it makes you say yum,
it makes you feel good,
and is it as simple as that,
like I went to the feeling part because
that's how I respond to those two words,
one is it's almost obvious and simple,
versus complex,
what is it,
simplicity is the ultimate sophistication,
and when I think of simple I think of that's just obvious,
you must do this.
- Yes naïvely obvious.
I think must is unavoidable,
I think must is choice-less.
- Choice-less?
- You know you go buy eggs are light bulbs,
oh my gosh,
what are you gonna do,
must isn't like that,
must is like this just is,
this is it.
- And if it just is and it is obvious,
and all these words with just used over the last 30 seconds,
why do we,
and why did you originally describe it as it's different,
the must is different than all of
the things we end up doing,
because we fill our lives with mostly shoulds,
while not everyone, some,
aspirationally we wouldn't,
but the reality is that we do buy eggs and we check
our list and we put our face on before we leave,
or whatever the thing is for us,
why do we do that?
- That's a good question,
why do I do each of those things,
and one of the things I talk about in the book,
is you can almost go through your shoulds,
and there's three questions,
usually things aren't so simple,
but this one is,
we got it down,
the first is where did I first hear this?
Where did I first hear that I should never age?
That's pretty difficult to not age,
and we see women in their fifties,
actresses or actors,
not sure what the correct term is,
but you see women actors applying for
the role of a thirtysomething woman,
and they're seeing 30-year-olds applying
for 50 year old roles,
and them saying no you need to be younger,
or in movies we see a lot of older characters
getting killed off,
maybe some of those places might be where
I picked these things up,
the second question is are you true for me,
So about the line you should never age,
so my hair is gonna change color,
my skin is gonna change,
everything about me is gonna change as I get older,
is it true that I should never age?
No, so how am I going to navigate that,
let's bring it into consciousness,
and then the third is,
do I want to keep holding on to you?
Do I really want to keep carrying this idea about how
I'm supposed to show up into every
podcast into every meeting,
every date, every day,
every time I look in the mirror?
And this is a beautiful tender moment,
because in my own experience there was things that
I was carrying around far too well and for far too long,
I mean what does being a feminist really mean,
it means you believe in equality.
- Right that radical notion that men and women are equal.
- And what's so bad about that,
nothing it's great,
so this idea that I didn't want to be a feminist,
okay I can kindly put that part of me down and let it go,
and I'm inviting something new into my life,
and when that happens,
it's like this Gardenia flower,
things begin to bloom,
and they begin to just unfold and open
in a way that feels good,
and smells good.
- It's true it feels good and it smells good,
so can you tell me,
like you just mentioned lawyer,
I first knew you as a designer before an author,
at IDO and other places,
you've worked at a lot of top brands
in the world as a designer,
but was the should, is the lawyer part of you,
or was that driven appropriately
and personally out of your desires to be a lawyer,
you're holding your head sideways and looking at me,
your side eyeing me right now.
- I come from a long line of really talented lawyers,
and I loved as a kid getting to watch my dad,
my mum would take me out of school my brother
and I to go and hear him give closing
arguments at the courthouse.
- Oh whoa,
that's out of a show.
- Yeah and he's so talented,
and to see the creativity and the skill,
and just to speak and to speak on behalf
of something that he's really passionate about,
for me it was like why wouldn't I want to do that?
It was so fun,
and as I got older,
I had naturally just thought well I quite like
the lifestyle that I was generously given by my parents,
I quite like the world I grew up in,
I quite like all of this,
so there's a part of me that just thought it was safe,
and I really didn't want to be a lawyer,
I mean let's be honest,
I can't even read the fine print on
an IKEA instructional table,
there isn't even any fine print,
I thought maybe I'll be a lawyer so
I can work with other artists,
like be an intellectual property lawyer,
but I think my applications must just
have said please don't let me in, don't let me in,
because I was rejected to every school I applied to,
and if I had gotten into just one Chase
I totally would have gone,
you would be meeting attorney Elle,
I would have gone.
- Well what is it in there,
sorry to hijack this for a second,
but in there was that your access to creativity,
because you thought you wanted to be
an intellectual property lawyer
so you could work with creators,
did you not feel like you had creativity as
a part of your fundamental DNA and who you were?
- I was sleeping at the art studio,
I was like really sleeping in a room that
no one should ever be sleeping in,
but for some reason it just never crossed
my mind that I could live a creative life,
that I could somehow make a living being creative,
again maybe I just didn't have my imagination
dialed totally all the way up,
but I didn't know a lot of people,
they call them starving artists for a reason,
and of course the people around us they want us to be safe,
and they want us to be taken care of
and be okay and not be a starving artist,
so I had a lot of fear about that ultimately,
and of course we are in San Francisco,
the most expensive city in the United States,
and figuring out how are we going to sing for our supper,
and do it in a way that congruent where
we can continue to hold our head up high,
it's a real trick,
it's a real trick.
- I don't know if I should,
but your story and my story are very similar in that,
that I instead of being a lawyer,
it was originally professional soccer,
and when I found out that I didn't really
want to do that just based on doing that,
I went to college on a soccer scholarship,
played every single day for five years
and had played it my whole teen life,
but early on,
I knew I was wildly creative,
and I basically wanted to fit in,
and didn't want to be the weird creative kid,
I was like okay I happened to be athletic,
so I'm just gonna do this,
and it was a means as a six year old or
an eight-year-old to fit in,
okay cool that's acceptable culturally
so I'm gonna run to that,
and then I saw that really kick up again when it started
to be time to think about college and what not,
I ended up as I mentioned with a soccer scholarship,
but I was like what do you do,
and I asked my friends my parents the people
who want you to be safe and looked after,
and they said if you're smart and hard-working you need
to be a doctor or a lawyer or there was
a couple of other choices,
and these weren't things that were literally
prescribed to me like you have to do this,
but they were suggestions on what would be safe
and what would be good and esteemed in
the same breath that you just said earlier,
I didn't know that you could be an artist and not starving,
because of that moniker in our culture,
I literally spent years and years of my life,
hundreds of thousands of dollars in school debt,
and basically paying,
chasing the thing that everyone else wanted,
the should,
and I didn't remember that about you though,
the lawyer bit,
so we are the same,
we are the same,
so what was it that allowed you then to wake
up and that art studio and say I want to do this forever,
because right now I'm just thinking about
the people who are listening,
there's a lot of folks for whom they have
a side hustle or a creative gift that they are curious
about or they're at level one and they want to go to 10,
or they're level zero and they want to embrace this,
so you and your story are helpful for them,
so with knowing who's listening right now or who's watching,
what would you tell those people?
- Well I don't have any advice necessarily,
but I can tell,
I can tell what worked for me.
- Okay do that.
- I started doing the 100 Day Project.
- Amazing,
let's give a little back story on the 100 Day Project.
- So the 100 Day Project is this project
that Michael Beirut
the amazing brilliant designer,
lecturer, author, everything,
Michael Beirut started at Yale,
and he was a faculty in the MFA program.
- Master of fine arts for any of you
that don't know the lingo.
- And it was to make something every day for a hundred days,
but you have to repeat the same thing,
so one guy danced in public for 10 seconds every day,
somebody else drew a doodle a day,
another person made a poster in five minutes every day,
so you do one thing repeatedly,
and he did this class at Yale,
I applied to Yale so that I could take his class,
and I didn't get into Yale,
it's a really top top school,
and I didn't get into Yale,
and I thought oh my gosh,
I'm never gonna be able to do the 100 Day Project,
seven years later,
I'm walking down a dusty road in Mexico and it dawned on me,
I could just do the 100 Day Project,
who knows what I was even thinking,
I probably just had a delicious meal and a margarita,
and I was like I can do the 100 Day Project.
- I don't have to go to Yale.
- I don't have to go to Yale to do it,
so at dinner that night,
I was with some friends I said would anyone want
to do a hundred days of making as a practice,
we could do it together in a community,
because to do it by yourself is hard,
and to do it in a community and have some accountability
and people cheering each other on and doing it together,
wouldn't that be great,
and the answer was yes,
everybody there at the dinner wanted to do it,
so we all posted on our Instagram's,
we're gonna start in one week,
here are the rules,
if you want to play you can start,
and now we are in our fifth year.
- So you do it for a hundred days,
and you've done that,
this is your fifth time,
and we're in the middle of it right now.
- Yes we're on days 38,
this is about when I'm fairly out of good ideas
and I like to say the project actually starts.
- That's when it gets real.
- Yeah yeah,
so we are in our fifth 100 Day Project,
it's a free and open project,
I think of it as one of the greatest mischievous projects,
because basically people instead of being
on all of their social media accounts,
the mindless flipping that we all do,
and I do,
it gives you a chance to reclaim your time.
- Reclaiming my time.
- Reclaiming your time.
- I love that, I love that.
- Yes and that allows you also,
to see what's going on in here,
what's happening,
do I want to meet a new stranger every
day for a hundred days,
do I want to learn how to cook vegan food
for my daughters who are suddenly vegan,
do I want to,
what do I want to do,
and it gives you a chance to begin slightly
seeing the world in a new way,
and some of my favorite stories are,
there's this one woman in St Louis,
her Instagram bio said,
wannabe artist for real mom of two,
her name is Hilary,
she started the 100 Day Project,
and her Instagram account went from like photos of her
at soccer games with her two really cute boys
to these amazing subversive cross stitch pieces,
one a day for a hundred days,
and at the hand of the hundred days,
I wrote her,
I said Hilary you can update your Instagram bio,
you're no longer at wannabe artist,
and it's this amazing thing,
how scary it is to say I'm an artist,
I make art,
have you ever said I'm an artist?
- All the time. - You do?
- Yes and to me that was a huge piece
of actually shifting gears and embracing
the side of me that I was mentioned earlier,
I had repressed,
and you know maybe it was for good reason,
maybe it was for terrible reason,
I do look at that,
I think regret is a horrible thing,
and I do look at that time of my life
as something that was really powerful for me now,
because I never want to regret
and I do regret sort of not doing it,
not calling myself creative or not calling myself an artist,
ironically it was skateboard culture that allowed me
to see that there could be a fusion
between action and activity,
being athletic and being wildly creative,
because I think the community was where
I really first saw it exemplified,
but early on when I decided to shift gears
and call myself an artist,
it was one of the things that I now prescribe,
because words matter,
naming is a powerful thing,
even just thinking about that humans
are hardwired for language,
and that's why brands and advertising words matter,
because we have an emotional connection
to this thing we all speak,
this language,
and calling yourself an artist is something
that clicks in your brain,
and when you call yourself a creator,
call yourself whatever the moniker that you choose is,
so yes I call myself an artist and I prescribed
it as a step in the process,
your 100 Day Project is absolutely incredible,
the fact that your five years in is amazing.
- 500 days.
- That's 500 days making this crazy.
- People in over 65 countries.
- So if people want to check it out,
what the coordinates that we would give them for that?
- #The100DayProject.
- Got it,
and it's just making and the hashtag is the community?
- Yeah,
and we just pick a day every year,
nobody owns it,
their splinter groups,
there's people who are against the 100 Day Project,
so they have their own hundred days of project,
but cool,
it's an art project,
it gets to be whatever it wants to be.
- So the act of making I think we'll
talk about that in a second,
but the act of making,
the science is clear that creativity creates creativity,
so I think it's a study by a guy named
Mark Bunkin in the University of Georgia maybe,
who knows I was getting some talk somewhere,
and I find this really interesting piece of research,
so creativity creates more creativity,
do you have a desired outcome,
from signing up and doing this,
you're not really signing up you just start to do it.
- You start to do it,
we do it annually,
we do it once a year,
you can start a 100 Day Project any time
you want with your friends,
so there is a desired outcome,
and the outcome is the process.
- You realize that the process is the product.
- The process is it,
and it's about letting go this idea
of creating like fetishised objects,
and it's about getting beyond the object itself
and just continuing to get your butt in that seat every day,
to sit down,
but yesterday was really brutal,
yesterday I had all these other things going on,
I had a million reasons not to do it,
and also I'm kind of out of some of
the ideas that I had before I started it,
and I'm doing a hundred days of animation so I'm learning.
- I'm noticing that from your feed,
it's beautiful and it looks hard.
- I have no idea what I'm doing,
I have no idea,
I have never done this before,
so I'm learning on the fly,
and yesterday I decided to go from charcoal to water color,
I don't know how to animate watercolor,
and I was getting really frustrated,
but the 100 Day Project is about just do something,
just do it and get it done and get it out there,
and because you have to do it every day,
the saying is done is better than perfect,
you just get it done,
and you're answering a little question here
and a little question there,
and I think so often with
The Crossroads of Should and Must,
sometimes people think that they need
to quit their job in order to find their calling,
or that their job has to be their calling,
and no not at all,
just because you want to find your calling
does not mean that you need to quit your job,
sometimes a job is a great thing to have
while you pursue your calling on nights and weekends,
keep busting tables,
Elizabeth Gilbert was a bartender.
- Adams put his photographs in menus for 25 cents.
- (laughs) I love it,
and then you have other people who make a great career,
like TS Eliot,
he was a banker,
he was an amazing financial mind,
even the composer Philip Glass,
he was renewing his taxi medallion even
has his work was debuting at the Met,
just in case,
and he was a plumber and an electrician,
so there's a lot of ways to figure out
your job and your career and your calling,
and there are so many ways to get creative
with how you make money,
and it's really important to have
a conversation with your art,
like with my animations,
do I want my animations to pay the rent?
No,
I need my animations to have a sandbox where they
can just explore and I can learn
and I can have a safe space,
so have a dialogue with your practice,
and figure out what this my art want to be in my life,
does it want to be responsible for health insurance,
may be maybe not right?
And then with a 100 Day Project,
what begins to happen is you begin
to find these little loves,
they start just growing and sprouting like seeds,
and suddenly this little thing that you
we're just itching to do has now really grown,
and again back to the flour,
it's really blossomed in your life,
and that's the way most is,
it makes its own space,
but you have to start somewhere,
and the 100 Day Project invites you into that,
process into that practice.
- Well there's a lot about you,
that I feel comes out when you realize
what your blockers are,
I'm not doing this you start to realize because
I want it to be perfect,
or I want it to be good or I want it to
be fast or I want it to be so many things,
and then that is a great reflection about you,
and it turns out that that's actually part
of your next book,
is that Your Story Is Your Power,
and I thought it would be interesting,
so you are the author,
your co-author of this book,
your history is your power,
and the subtitle is for your feminine voice,
your co-author is Susie Herrick,
and I thought it would be cool if we called Susie.
- I love that idea.
- Would you be open to that?
- I would love that.
- Okay we're gonna keep talking,
but we're gonna bring Susie into our show here,
and I don't even know,
do you know where is Susie now?
- I don't know I didn't ask her.
- We are gonna call her right now,
and while the team a setting that up,
I just thought it would be cool since she's your co-author,
to do a little bit of background on Susie
when we bring her into the show,
but I loved knowing you personally,
and knowing the crossroads book well,
I thought it was a really beautiful
transition into Your Story Is Your Power,
can you draw me a picture,
was at the 100 Day Project that helped
you navigate your way here,
or what part of?
- Well the Crossroads of Should and Must came out,
and then Susie was working on her memoir
which she can tell you more about when she comes on,
but I got to help her a little bit with the editing
of her memoir and provide some illustrations for the text,
and you'll get a sense when we get her on the Skype,
Susie is someone who's really been in
the cave of her own life,
and dug her way through with a spoon so
to speak to find her inner treasures,
she's the real deal,
and getting to work on her book with her,
I learned so much from someone who has done decades of work.
- Actually we have heard book here too.
- Aphrodite Emerges. - Aphrodite Emerges, yes.
And the more I started learning about
her experience and her story,
the more I began to look and be invited
into my shoulds as a woman,
not whether you're a woman or man,
Latino African-American are there certain
shoulds that keep you imprisoned as such,
and how do we begin to flip on the lights
and figure out what those stories are?
So for me going into those shoulds of my own femininity,
blocks to my own femininity largely,
and figuring out why was I keeping myself from myself,
that then unleashed a lot of positive impact in my life,
and so we had to write this new book,
we got Susie's book out the door,
and then we had our 45th President elected,
and the women's march and there was an opportunity
to really write a book about what is it like
to be a woman right now during such crazy times.
- Yeah so to me that opens up an amazing opportunity
for us to have a conversation and you and Susie
to do a little bit more talking
and me do a little bit more listening,
so if that was in part the motivation,
just culturally the timing was appropriate,
what are some of the things that
you discovered first of all,
and second of all,
Free Your Feminine Voice,
now as a man I have a feminine voice inside of me.
- This is why we love you Chase.
- So I would like you to first talk about
your experience with finding your feminine voice,
and then for the 50 percent who may be listening
who are not feminine,
paint a really good picture for us
of how important and why that is not just for women,
regardless of the term feminism being
about men and women being equal,
but just I think the feminine voice
is something really important I would
like to hear you talk about.
- Well I'm feeling really sheepish right now,
because I want to pass the mic to Susie.
- Yep is she here?
Hello Susie?
Hi Susie.
- Hi, Chase hello.
- Hi Suse.
- I love this,
this is amazing thanks team for putting that together,
I love it, welcome to the show.
- Thank you Chase,
nice to see you and meet you.
- The timing is perfect,
we were talking about a couple of other things before,
but we've just shifted gears to Your Story Is Your Power,
so A congratulations,
and B just the question as we were connecting with you,
or as the crew was connecting us technologically,
I just asked Elle the question of what was
her journey towards finding that
this was not just culturally well timed,
but personally important to her,
and then given that the subtitle
is Free Your Feminine Voice,
how does that apply after you all talk
about it from the perspective of a woman,
can you help explain how that's
also relevant to the other gender?
- And I was just telling Chase, Susie,
it's so nice to see you.
- It's so nice to see you.
- I was just telling Chase this was the moment
I wanted to pass the mic to Susie to talk about,
to talk about what is the feminine voice
and how do men experience it,
because Chase just beautifully said,
he said I'm a man and I also have a feminine voice,
which was really lovely to hear,
and this has come up quite a bit,
as we just finished the book tour,
a lot of cities from coast to coast
and a lot of our groups were both men and women,
so can I pass--
- Please yes pass the mic. - Susie can I pass it to you?
- Thank you,
this is one of my favorite topics,
partly because when we do our talks,
the men will stand and say amazing things,
a man stood up the first talk we gave,
and he cried,
because he was so moved by the material,
and realized from his own perspective that
the women he saw getting discriminated against also
the feminine in him was getting discriminated against,
so really the question is how to find a feminine voice,
I found my feminine voice by looking at the things
that I shut down when I felt that shame with me,
and the sound is not so great by the way,
are you getting reverberation?
- We're getting a little feedback,
let's try and play through it if it's possible,
I'll do anything I can to troubleshoot,
just because having you here is totally incredible,
where are you right now by the way physically?
- I'm in Mellow Park, California.
Where are you guys?
- We are in San Francisco,
so saved you an hour drive down the 101
in the brutal traffic,
you sound great now,
just go ahead and you said you heard from some men
in the audience when you are on your book tour,
some sort of interesting points of view,
and some openness?
- Yeah, the talks really brought up a lot of emotion,
and a lot of the men that I experienced who go
into this material feel a lot of grief
at a loss of this part of themselves,
at the loss that they feel that men have
not been part of the conversation,
and also their own femininity,
so the way I discovered it was the parts
of myself that impressed what was that,
if someone put me down what would I just move on,
and that's what I did,
and now I forgot what my point was.
- What about you Elle,
how did you discover yours?
- While someone asked I guess recently for an interview,
what is the feminine voice,
and we talked about it in a lot
of different ways in the book,
but my own experience of it,
have you seen this movie Pleasantville?
- No.
- So in this movie Pleasantville
the movie goes from black and white to full-color,
and I think my own feeling,
my own experience of the feminine coming online in my life,
felt like things are going into full-color,
but there was space,
there was a full spectrum available,
and I started just feeling better,
I started feeling better and better,
and what Susie is talking about,
a little bit about how to figure out,
it's a bit like the shoulds are keeping you from the must,
what is it that's keeping you from the feminine voice,
whether you're a man or a woman,
so one of the things we talk about in the book,
we use the symbol of the Labyrinth,
and the Labyrinth is the organizing structure for the book,
and the Labyrinth has two symbols in it,
the first is a spiral which is really about going internal,
going inside,
and the second is the meander,
which we see all through nature,
we see it in the digestive tract in our own bodies,
and these two symbols together are
about going internal and that things just take time.
And so the book is organized in that way,
and it's about how do you get to the center of your story,
how do you find the things that are keeping
you from what you really want,
from the type of work you really want to be doing,
or the types of relationships that you create,
or the person that you long to be,
and in our own experience it was really looking,
first looking at the cultural stories that
we were telling ourselves about ourselves as women,
looking at music looking at fairytales,
looking at all these different things we tell young girls,
like if you want to be the Prince you need
to be beautiful, be slim, be demure,
be beautiful, be a great housekeeper right,
then you get the Prince and become Queen,
and we started really looking at
the ways storytelling it's been going on for generations,
and asking is this really our collective
happy ever after as women,
is this really the world that we dream of,
and the answer is no,
so what's that all about,
so you go in deeper,
then we looked at our family stories,
and also looked at personality,
and ultimately really at the center
of your story realizing that,
that only you can be at the center of you,
at the center of the labyrinth it's just you,
and that that quiet centered place there
may be some insight that comes forward,
and Susie and I both had a unique experience,
I'm wondering if you could share
the story about the place mat?
- Oh yes,
well one of the things I discovered when
I was in the middle of a breakup,
but I had this internal voice that was really critical,
so I sat down with a friend of mine
and I said let's write down everything that we
can think of that comes up from our center about women,
so we wrote it down on a place mat and it was disturbing,
it was really disturbing,
so I started getting a real sense that
the feed that showed up in my unconscious,
were feeds that show up in misogyny in history,
and that was the real clue to me that
I had to do a lot of internal work,
so I started talking to this internal misogynist,
and changed its occupation from critical to supportive,
which enabled me eventually to really confront my father,
and my father's life completely changed,
and that was one of the most powerful experiences
I've ever had in my life,
and it was to me it really showed
that when you do the internal work,
that's when you have the most impact on the world,
and so when Elle and I got together to do this book,
we wanted to set up a roadmap of how to do that,
to really talk to that peace in us,
the disparate voices that get lost,
and the feminine voice is such
a disparate voice in our culture,
and yet that such an needed voice,
I am a psychotherapist and I've been reading lots
of articles recently about how depressed our youth are,
in college and then also in tech companies,
and I think a lot of it is the loss
of connection to emotion and the physical body,
and a lot of it is actually wrapped
up I believe in the feminine,
so anyway.
- No I think that's super powerful,
could I ask you one question on that,
sorry one question on that Susie if I can,
so I brought a conversation that I'd had with my wife
into a conversation that I was having with Brenne Brown,
I don't know if you know Doctor Brenne Brown,
she's incredible,
a friend of my wife Kate and I,
and I was talking about how
I feel like a huge part of the future is feminine,
there is an understanding that
is coming into popular culture,
which has been a voice that's been wildly absent,
and you talked about the misogyny
that's embedded in all of that,
and I think it was Brenne,
and I don't want to miss attribute it,
but I'm talking about,
and it's also not just male-female,
it's just things that are besides just male,
because if we're talking it's like how do you wrap
not being gender specific into this conversation,
I was wondering if you guys could address that?
Susie is that something you can tackle?
- That's a great question and really topical I think,
because what would our language look like,
what would our interactions look like
if it wasn't gender specific,
like what kind of dialogues would be have,
so I think it's a really good question.
We talk about the feminine because that's
the disparate voice that we were focusing on.
- Absolutely I understand.
- Which leads into that dialogue which is what happens
when you take out the imperative to
be strong or to be masculine,
or to have strategic planning,
that kind of thing what happens when you take that out
and allow for things like meandering
and for someone to take time with their emotions,
what happens when we just sit with that?
- Yeah I think you're all approach,
I'm trying to listen and learn here,
but I'm also trying to navigate for our audience,
this is an incredibly powerful topic to,
it is the feminine voice that we have to talk about,
I think it's interesting that there is,
or potentially are an innumerable number of voices,
and the fact is without the gender part,
to my that's a fascinating topic but
I'm watching it unfold sort of in real time,
but it doesn't address the fact that
we've got a thousand miles to go with the feminine,
and so if there is another group of people,
or I don't actually have the right words for it,
because we have our language,
we are limited by language and the duality of gender,
but let's park that third piece for just a second,
and let's go back into the feminine,
and is there a way to talk about,
I think what I've heard so far if
the masculine is goal oriented,
and you just used four or five terms to describe it.
- Or what the culture describes it as.
- Yeah I'm trying to choose my words here,
that's a really important and powerful distinction,
would you do the same for the feminine right now for us,
you talked about taking time and being
in touch with feelings,
give us four or five other terms that we can sort
of help to understand that through?
- Did you want me to do that or?
- One or the other,
I kind of want to hold you all here so
I can get a bunch of knowledge in a small amount of time.
- I appreciate that,
well for me when I started looking at
the things that I had staved off,
the things that I thought were bad about me,
the number one thing was that I wanted a relationship,
that was a big one,
and I had been teased in my early childhood about that,
wanting to be engaged with people and doing things,
and having romantic relationships,
that was really important to me,
and that was often pooh-poohed and said
why are you focusing on that,
and I realized later that was the part of me,
the intelligence of me that knew
that relationship was really important,
and there's a lot of evidence now about
how humans evolved via a good relationship,
and the feminine part of us gets that,
and women tend to be very good at that,
engaging in good relationships and know how
to have relationships that are really healthy,
and engaging,
and it's actually best for our brain chemistry
to have those good relationships.
- Yeah that's incredibly powerful,
what about some of your experiences Elle?
- We also talk in the book about we saw something
in the Obama administration that was really cool,
women were seeing that in the meetings
during his first term,
that when they one of the women would share an idea,
sometimes other people would take the idea,
sometimes men would claim it as their own
and just talk over the women,
and they started to see this happen,
And the women did something really wise
which is the real thing we saw happened last week,
or before last week with with the Bill Cosby conviction,
what we saw was women instead
of being isolated in their meeting room,
or instead of being isolated in this court case,
women started coming together,
and they started sharing intelligence with one another,
and what they decided to do was they called
it an amplification strategy,
whenever a woman had an idea during one
of these big board meetings the other
women with all good idea Jane,
thank you Jane, what are the next steps on that Jane,
everyone just amplified her voice,
and Obama took note,
and during his second,
and he actively said that he saw the women doing this,
and he started calling on the women more,
and during his second administration he actively made
it a point to put 50 percent women in leadership positions,
which wasn't the case in his first term,
so that's an amazing example of women coming together,
and we see with the Cosby conviction,
the MeToo movement,
we see women coming together and saying
I don't want to be isolated,
I don't want to be alone,
I want to share my story,
and I want to be heard and I want to be believed,
and we see these brave women,
60 women coming together,
and really sharing their story and dissolving
this idea that women are alone and crazy,
we were just talking about this last week,
so women are really good at community,
women are really good at relationship,
they're good at community,
we can come together,
there's this quote in the book,
how might war and capitalism
and the thousand other things have been different,
how might they all have been different,
had they not been designed with half
of humanity locked outside the door,
and that's,
Ganan Millibas
I can't say his name,
we'll have to include it,
yes, yes,
how might things be different had women
not been locked outside the door,
what type of the world might we be in now?
I guess when I first started,
this is a really tactical story,
when I first started doing this work,
so I got to work on Susie's memoir after it emerges,
on Susie's been doing this work for decades,
and yes.
- Well thank you.
- When I first got to work on her book,
I was going out on a date,
and on this date we went and had tea,
and it was just like an afternoon tea,
I was kind of like maybe 20 or 30 minutes,
if there is something there we'll go out again,
and it was nice,
but I thought I wasn't going to go out
with him on another date,
and at the end he offered to pay for
my tea which was really nice,
and I thanked him,
and we got up to leave the teashop,
and he cracked his arm back and slapped me on the butt.
- No way.
- Way.
And I'm thinking,
at first I'm like ouch,
and seriously this is Northern California,
these things aren't supposed to happen
in Northern California,
and just a few years ago,
not that long ago.
- I've got to close my mouth right now.
- Right that's how I was,
so first I was shocked and then I was angry,
and then I'm thinking just get out of here,
your car's Right there,
this guy, don't waste your time,
what is the voice that says don't say anything,
what is the voice that says just smile
and nod and thank him for the tea,
and don't make a big deal,
and don't rock the boat.
This is one of the biggest things that
I've learned from Susie and her work,
and hopefully is in this book,
is that the more you get sorted out in here,
and you stop taking the shit in here,
excuse me that's what it is,
you get sorted out out here,
and I knew in this moment that actually
the most loving thing I could do was to just
not be okay with what he had just done,
and that was a new thing for me,
because my personality type,
which we talk about,
the personality types in the book,
is to put a smile and oh it's fine,
don't rock the boat,
it's fine just be okay,
just make everything okay,
and I decided not to make things okay,
and I turned and I looked at this guy,
and I mustered all the courage in my body,
it was really, really hard,
and I think I put my hands on my hips and said,
I think you're here because you want to meet a nice girl,
and you want to go on a second date,
and just so you know,
if you slap her on the butt,
she's not gonna want to go out with you.
So then I ran to my car,
and that's such a tender moment for me,
because that's how it kind of starts working its way out,
once the internal misogyny is seen,
why do I think it's okay for someone to hit me,
that's so violent and inappropriate,
why wouldn't I say something?
And the more I began to realize how inappropriate that was,
and have incredible love for myself,
the more I began practicing in a little ways
with this guy or in another situation,
or if I had been in an amplification meeting,
that would have been cool,
it's like you begin to find moments when
you can try on your feminine voice,
you can try on this voice that says I want to go
on a date where this doesn't happen,
I want to be in a relationship,
I Wanna--
- Be in a meeting.
- I want to be in a meeting where it doesn't happen,
and so how do I begin to create that change,
and one of the things that Susie said many years ago to me,
and it's so beautiful,
is love doesn't always mean making things okay,
sometimes love means making things not okay,
and that was like my brain exploded when
she shared that with me,
because that's what she did,
and that's what we begin to talk about in the book,
is how to realize what's not okay inside,
do you really want to look in the mirror
every day and hear that same,
it sort of like the cultural misogyny gets internalized,
and it sort of becomes the story that
you tell yourself about yourself.
- Not even sort of.
- Every day,
and that's how it was for me,
and as I began to wake up to it and realize,
I realized that not only did impact the story
that I told myself about just existing as a women,
but also in women that I encountered,
I was in San Francisco crossing the street one day
and I saw a woman,
and a misogynist came out and said something
about the women,
and in that moment I basically did what
we talk about in the book,
I got to have an intervention with myself on the sidewalk,
and go through a process of intervening,
and saying we've got to say something nice,
this is not working,
I don't want to live in this world,
and right then and there the woman sneezed,
and I got to say to the woman bless you,
and it was like this intimate immense moment,
where it's like the saying when you take
one steps towards the gods,
the gods take 10 steps towards you,
and this feeling,
the more I began to heal this part of me,
the more it felt like it began to reflect
externally in the world around me,
and it continues,
its ongoing work,
it's elaborate,
we continue to go inside and go inside,
and it continues to reflect externally with what
we see happening I guess economically
but environmentally, politically
with everything we see happening in the news,
it's a really scary time.
- It's also potentially a very profound time,
is it just scary or is the other side
of scary potentially something very powerful,
and I've asked that,
because you all are going through this,
I think we all are culturally,
but I can't take a piece of that,
like I have to understand,
is the other,
or is the place that we are going,
because of this moment,
it's clearly it's better on the other side,
is it better is it hopeful,
is their promise,
I think you get there in the book,
help us understand it in this conversation,
but where are we going?
- Can I respond to that?
- Yeah I'm sorry, you probably can't see,
I'm looking at you right now.
- Okay great,
you're a bit blurred but I can see you, thanks.
- I feel a little bit blurry.
- I think to answer your question directly,
and I think you alluded to this earlier,
I think that when we get this then I think
we can have a real impact on the planet,
and I think we are at a crossroads right now,
we are in a real dire place,
and I've been concerned about this for a long time,
Elle and I have had this dialogue for a long time,
about how the Earth is called mother Earth,
and yet she is treated horribly as well,
and I want to say what Elle is showing you,
is that all the work that she has done to get
to this point where she can step out
in moments where she never did before,
and we went back through many generations
in our own genealogy charts,
and found really interesting things along
the way that would keep women from speaking,
like I found out I had all these relatives
in the Salem witch trial,
and what we learnt was that the more
we stepped out of that and spoke from this place,
because we had to do it first inside,
the more impact we'd have,
so if everyone could get a sense
of how they diminish this part of them,
that gives them much more energy,
much more gravitas to actually make these statements,
so when she did these things,
she had a huge impact,
and I think that's one of the things that
I think will have really impact on the planet,
and my hat is off to Rhonda Burke,
for the MeToo hashtag,
and when she talked about when she,
when it started coming up
and the MeToo hashtag became very visible,
she thought that she would be pushed aside
and she would be forgotten like a lot
of African-American women are,
but actually she got recognized for it
which was a huge step,
and I think that as a culture,
this culture particular we are starting to wake up,
there's been a lot of negativity coming
at us from the powers that be,
but I think that actually people
are coming to the plate because of it,
so I think that we are at this amazing moment
in time that can potentially have
huge impact for the planet,
and maybe get to the point where we have
a society where we can have
these kind of dialogues everywhere,
which would be my dream to have
this really shift everything.
- I think both of you are putting your finger on it,
it's a really scary time,
right now as we are talking our ice caps are melting,
we're seeing unprecedented temperatures,
we're seeing incredible war displacement and refugee crises,
and one of the kind of thesis of the book is that
the loss of the feminine and individual level
as that continues to get reclaimed
and reclaimed and reclaimed,
a lot of individual change creates
a lot of collective change,
and what's it going to be like,
when there's women really using their voice,
and men using the part of themselves
that really yearn for it may be a different world,
what's that going to be like?
Talk about the ultimate,
I believe it was Doctor King who talked
about being creatively maladjusted,
right when we can really get to this place
where we no longer go along with the status quo,
I think this is what so many people here in
the bay area have talked about for so long,
being a round peg in a square hole and thinking different,
I think this is really how do you
say actually what's going on,
the status quo isn't working for me,
and get that sorted out in here,
because then what begins to happen
is things get incredibly creative,
and imagination comes online,
and what kind of a world do we want to be living in,
even just looking at Susie's beautiful house with all
the colors and the beautiful art and textiles,
this is really what it's all about,
what do you want to wear,
what do you want to do with your hair,
what kind of shoes,
everything becomes designable or creatable,
because anything is possible if you can imagine it.
And also at the same time a really, really scary time,
so both of those things are true,
but Susie and I have a lot of hope,
and our hope it's not just in women but in men as well,
seeing the men at the events coming forward and share,
there was a guy in Atlanta who really
wanted to be in musical theater,
and in high school he loved to sing,
so in high school he applied for musical theater and got in,
and then he went into the locker room
and a bunch of his friends said who are you a girl,
being in musical theater,
and they meant that in a derogatory way,
and he unsubscribed from musical theater,
and then I met him at one of our events,
and he stood up and he began to cry,
and he said now I work in the music industry,
but how much different with my life have
been had I just pursued this think that I loved,
and I think people are really getting that,
and they are realizing that by reclaiming
that it's giving them access to,
I guess life in full color so to speak.
- One of the things that I got to watch was
my father shift his life from this experience,
and so he started treating my mother differently,
which shifted her,
his friends started wanting to talk to their wives,
the communication between me and my father,
then serendipitously my brother ended
up having two daughters,
and so he got to help raise them and he felt
really capable of doing that because of all of this work,
and he died now two years ago,
and when he died he felt very at peace and very fulfilled,
and so I think there's a lot of possibility,
and I know in Elle and my work,
we've had impact on our families and impact on our friends,
and the audiences that we've been,
and also the people in the audiences they get touched,
and they respond to us on Facebook and things like that,
sharing the impact that it's had,
and it's just an extraordinary experience,
and it doesn't surprise me,
because when we get together and connect
with each other people have more fulfilling lives.
- I was just going to remark on that,
as I was listening to both of you talk,
a handful of things came to mind which probably have there,
not even probably,
have their identity roots in the feminine,
and you've mentioned things
like creativity, like community,
I preach about this thing that I call the other 50 percent,
which means you can make something,
you can create,
you can even promote the thing that you've created,
but without community it's very hard
for your idea to travel,
so there's this part of us that needs
to be consistently making community for our ideas
to be able to go beyond just the four
walls in which they were created.
And when you think of that,
for the folks at home that are trying to wrap
their minds around a rather complex topic culturally,
it actually can be pretty simple,
if you look at creating community as you talked about,
that is something that is aligned with
the feminine that how powerful that is,
how required it is for culture to not
just survive but to thrive,
and if you bring it back to your daily practice
of being a person in Idaho in your underwear
at home trying to make a go as a designer,
creating community is actually,
it's not just a nice to have its required,
at risk, I don't want to over claim,
or I don't want to tread too heavily in a world
that I'm trying to put together on
piece by piece day by day basis,
as someone who has grown up with a ton of privilege,
white male, middle class, born in America
born in this time and all these things,
but I can't help but think of things like community,
when you talked earlier Susie about that fundamental
aspect of the feminine being really good at that,
it's just so easy to identify,
and you put it so beautifully in that context,
and there's so many others,
even the ability to create,
the fact that women can give birth to children,
that's the foundation of creativity,
that's creating the biggest with a capital C,
I don't know,
but just an observation on how powerful
those vehicles are culturally,
and how watering them and growing them,
could be changing,
like the concept of community,
how important is that?
- Well one of the stories,
this is beautiful,
and thank you for sharing,
Chase's vulnerability makes my whole body just relax,
and it's just really lovely to hear,
thank you.
- Thank you.
- One of the stories in the book we talk
about is and maybe Susie you can tell it briefly,
because she knows it better,
but the story about community and how Star Trek
actress ended up changing a whole community.
- There's a character on the original
Star Trek named Lieutenant Uhura,
and she's an African character,
a black woman who plays a communications officer,
and when she started,
the woman who played her name was Nichelle Nichols,
and when she was in Star Trek I think for about a year,
she went to Gene Roddenberry,
who is the guy who had directed it produced
it and written it,
and she said I want to leave,
and he said you don't want to leave,
because you're having such a huge impact,
and he said think about it over the weekend,
I'm gonna hang on to your resignation,
but I'm not going to accept it till
you have time to think about it.
- And I want to interject Susie that at this time
to cast her as a lieutenant was a really big deal,
as opposed to a housekeeper or something else on the show.
- Right in fact there is one of the things
that Nichelle Nichols talks about his she was
at a convention and a woman came up to her
who was black and said,
when I saw you on TV as Lieutenant Uhura I yelled
to my mom saying look mom it's a black lady
on TV and she's not playing a maid,
and then this woman said that I knew
I could do anything after that,
and that was Whoopee Goldberg.
- Wow.
- So anyway in the meantime during this weekend
that Roddenberry gave Nichelle Nichols to think about it,
she went to a party,
and one of the people at the party said
there's someone who really want to meet you,
a fan,
so she goes and talks to this fan,
and the fan says you can't leave Star Trek,
it's amazing it's having such a huge impact on
the African-American culture in this country,
it's just so empowering,
and that was Martin Luther King.
- Oh Wow.
- That was one character in a TV show that broke precedent,
communicated so many things to so many people
gave an optimistic thought hey I can do that,
I can do something different.
- Isn't that amazing?
- Wow.
- We met a woman in Seattle who went for a casting audition,
there was going to be an advertisement,
a commercial where a Red Cross helicopter
descended to save someone who was drowning,
and she walked out onto the stage
and she said I'm here to apply for the pilot role,
and they said, oh no no the pilot is a man,
the helicopter pilot is the man,
you're the drowning woman,
and she said no I would really like to audition
for the pilot role,
and they said well not only do you need
to addition for the female role whose drowning,
but also she's a blonde woman,
and this woman was an African-American woman,
and she said I brought a whole bag of blonde wigs,
and she put it on,
and they said no you don't understand
you don't fit the part,
and she leaned forward,
and she said this in our group in Seattle,
I'll never forget it,
she said I know I don't fit the part,
but can you imagine it?
And she got the part.
- Wow.
- And I think this is where the imagination
and creativity comes on right,
Roddenberry had this,
he dreamed of a world
were Lieutenant Uhura was a lieutenant,
this woman said imagine it,
just imagine the possibility that different,
imagine how things might differ,
imagine how the world might be different were it
not designed with half of humanity outside the door,
what might that world look like?
- I think there's an interesting point to be made,
or maybe it's juxtaposition,
that we are here in San Francisco recording this,
and that the tech scene has
historically wildly underrepresented women,
or women have been historically
underrepresented in engineering roles,
in tech leadership,
we could probably name half a dozen other verticals,
but specifically here,
is that a Genesis that you are both from here,
is that a thing that has really played
an impact in motivating this worked out of you,
is that part of how it came to be?
- You mean in terms of in the tech world
women being underrepresented?
- Yeah to me of course women are underrepresented,
almost everywhere,
in roles that would typically
in that old world mentality be associated with that,
engineering for example,
that we are in this place,
where that is the narrative,
was it the environment,
that helped push you all to do this work,
I'm trying to figure out if we are all
a product of our environment,
but was it something like we have to do this work,
was it a call to action,
and was it being in a place like Silicon Valley where
I think there's maybe a disproportionately
large problem in that arena,
I don't know,
I'm asking.
- I'm not sure that was part of
the genesis for me particularly,
other than generally that women
are very discriminated against, period,
there's a book that we used a lot called
called Misogyny, The World's Oldest Prejudice,
written by a man, and it's an extraordinary book,
because he says it in the title,
what I've seen in technology,
is I've seen that not only women are not there,
but also the discrimination against emotion,
the discrimination against anything
that's colorful, feminine, relationship oriented,
that's not good right,
and I think that's the part that I find really a concern,
and part of the thing that really concerns
me is that these companies now are developing AI,
and the AI is being developed based on this kind of culture.
- The paradigms.
- And what does that mean,
and I think that's a part where I would like
to be really a part of that conversation,
because the human body response
can aesthetically biologically,
we are more fulfilled when we have contact with one another,
so they are developing AI now acts to listen to people
and stuff without really saying
let's get everybody to listen to everybody,
so that's the part that I'm concerned about now,
and I think that lot's of women in that culture,
the women that are there are holding up a lot,
trying to hold the piece,
but there's a huge counterforce against it,
and that's a concern.
I think Elle can say more to this,
she's had more work in tech-
- You've lived in that environment.
- Yes so one of the things that happened last year was when
we began to see venture capitalists being called
out for their treatment of women,
and we saw some folks handle it unskillfully,
and we saw others handle it in really beautiful ways,
and there's one venture capitalist
in particular who came out on Twitter and he said,
I owe every woman I've ever worked with
or not worked with an apology.
And he wrote a media post about it
and he went through his entire career
as a venture capitalist,
and he talked about inappropriate places
that he had meetings,
he talked about inappropriate topics of conversation,
he talked about not taking meetings
from women CEO start-ups,
he just put it all out there,
and I read this apology,
and my heart just opened for this man
who was doing a really brave, beautiful thing,
to say this is me,
and this is where I am,
and he has an amazing family,
and he said I have the support of my family,
I'm reading more,
and getting help,
and I want you to help me get better,
and this is essentially what happened
with Susie's dad when she confronted him,
and it was this beautiful moment,
and we talk about this in our book,
how when somebody comes forward,
and when somebody says,
look how I've been a part of this paradigm
whose hurt so many people,
look how I've participated in it,
unwittingly maybe,
we train people really well,
and for him to come out and say that is such
an incredible moment to empower
and rush in with support and love,
and it's a huge transformational moment
where they're letting all their guards down,
and it's not a moment to attack or
to point fingers at or to shame,
and of course this being the Internet there was
a lot of that happening online which was so heartbreaking,
and I guess for anyone listening,
if you see someone who just really opens up,
Ann says this is where I am,
this is really what's going on inside of me
and I want to do better because I want to feel better,
I want to be better,
when you see that to meet that vulnerability,
and Brenne talks a lot about this,
to meet that and to celebrate it,
and I think that's where we are now with
a lot of the MeToo conversations happening,
and a lot of people are beginning to dialogue,
we are coming together and people are starting to talk,
there's a quote in the book by Nelson Mandela,
he says,
oh I'm not going to say at quite right,
but it's about hate and love,
and basically about we're not born hating someone based
on the color of their skin or their gender
or where they're from,
and of somebody can be taught to hate they
can be taught to love,
for love comes more naturally to
the human heart than its opposite.
And I think that's where we are,
and it is a great turning point,
and for the start-ups who are finding
a lot of misogyny and sexism within their culture,
well there's lots of paths,
but one of them is to say let's be an amazing example
of what it looks like to accept that we have a problem,
and to really ask the women to come forward
and share what it feels like to be
a woman in our organization,
what does it feel like with some of our policies,
and how do we begin to shift our culture,
how do we begin to then shift what we
are building or even how we're building it,
maybe what we're even building and putting into
the world might be different,
and I guess it is an invitation especially for
the companies who are really getting
a lot of finger pointing right now,
if this folks were to say we want to be a shining light
for what it looks like to shift
the misogyny within our culture,
everyone else will follow suit,
because it's everywhere,
it's everywhere,
and I think if Silicon Valley can invent
all the things we have,
they can certainly be leading the charge on this as well,
and it's going to take a really courageous
vulnerable leader to raise their hand and sign up for that.
- One of the quotes in the book is about how fish
in water can't really describe
the water because it's all around them,
and then when an air bubble goes by for the inquisitive
fish we start to wonder what the water is about,
and that's what sexism and misogyny is like,
and I think that once we start to be able
to describe the water to each other,
like for example,
one of the things I notice often and talking
with men in athletics,
is that they often insult each other
and call each other a girl,
and that's a common practice on TV,
a common practice everywhere,
and so it's like when you say things have you noticed that,
and someone goes oh I guess,
then you helped them say it's fine we just wanted
to start describing these little things that reflect
the cultural phenomena that half of
the human race is discriminated against
and let's work together so it doesn't
have to continue that way.
- Amazing,
thank you both for doing this book.
How long did it take you,
did it just fly off the page or was it
a 10 year overnight success,
how did you all think about it?
- Well Susie had been working
on her memoir for a long time,
and doing decades of research specifically on this topic,
and I was the fortunate one who met Susie,
we met through a mutual friend,
one of her students,
she was a teacher at a graduate program
in counseling psychology,
he introduced us and thought we would be kindred spirits,
which we are,
and I had created crossroads,
so both of those existed and then there
was an opportunity to create a third book,
that really took all of that experience
and wisdom and storytelling and to put it into
a new book and to specifically try
to get out there before mid-term elections.
So it was pretty quick,
it was I don't know maybe six to nine months,
it was pretty quick.
- And it really was built on the two books
that we both wrote,
and just the concept of the must,
it was our must,
that Elle put so eloquently,
it's the crossroads between, and this is the must.
- Thank you so much for making the book,
thank you so much for calling in from down south,
really, really grateful to have you on the show,
congratulations on your earlier book,
Aphrodite Emerges,
congratulations on that.
- It's a beautiful painting.
- I was gonna say,
I recognized some of this beautiful art work.
- Elle did all the artwork and designed the book.
- It's a beautiful,
and then congratulations again on Your Story is Your Power,
thank you so much for joining us,
we'll sign off from the Skype call with you Susie,
thank you for being you,
and I haven't read Aphrodite Emerges yet,
but I have it in my hands now,
so I'm grateful,
and thanks for highlighting all the stuff
that you did to bring this book to life,
so thank you.
- Well thanks for hearing our voices,
thank you.
- Oh, so happy, so grateful,
and I wish you were in the room with us next time,
we'll have a reunion.
Thank you.
- Well thanks for being part of the dream,
and I'll sign off now.
- Okay, Ciao, Bye.
- Ciao, bye Elle, bye you two.
- Bye, that was awesome,
thanks again tech crew for making that happen.
- That was amazing.
- That was perfect.
- Isn't Susie incredible?
- Wow she's someone,
she's a partner you want to have.
Did you have another book in mind,
or was this just serendipity that you met,
and this was this thing that had to happen.
- This was just the thing that had to happen,
so my dream with this book,
with this new book,
is I wanted to with the visuals,
just with the art and the design
I just wanted something that's really hard to talk about,
to be almost a little fun and digestible,
and that's what's scary,
I mean the book that she was talking about,
Jack Collins book Misogyny,
it just says in giant pink letters,
Misogyny,
with an old sculpture of Venus De Milo on the cover,
and I was getting on an airplane
and I was carrying this book,
reading it,
it's such a hard book to read,
every chapter I had to bribe myself
with a glass of champagne,
I mean the history is horrible,
it's just horrible,
and it's also the history,
and it was good to read it,
but I was getting on the airplane
and I had the title facing out,
and I thought,
I'm gonna turn this and I think there's something about,
there's something about that that I felt like,
so I think with this book it's sort of like
the Trojan horse of books,
how do we talk about patriarchy and privilege
and misogyny and how it's internalized
and all these really big things that are so important,
in a way where someone can walk on a plane,
and oh yeah of course get it for a friend,
my 15 year old self growing up in Dallas, Texas
I really would have benefited from a book like this,
I would have loved to have known as a young girl
that it was actually a great thing to be a feminist,
and maybe I would have taken different classes in college,
maybe I mean who knows how much
would have been different even in my own life,
and I'm a woman,
so I think our hope in getting it out there
is how to really guide people to the center of their story,
it feels a little bit like a workbook in that way,
because everybody's journey is going to be different,
but ultimately I think it's a book about love,
and I selfishly would really love more people to read it,
and for there to be more love at every level.
- It's pretty hard to top that as the last line,
if I could just turn the cameras
off right there I would turn them off,
I want to say thank you so much,
super courageous,
wildly creative,
incredibly powerful project,
and congratulations.
- Thank you.
- Also cannot leave without plugging
the 100 Day Project one more time,
because that is just a force of nature,
I forgot to ask,
is there a new start every year,
and is there, just following you is probably the best way,
if you want to follow-on with Elle
and the tribe that you've built does this together,
they should probably just follow you online
and you're just at at Elle am I right?
- Or there's a website,
we finally have a website,
it's the100DayProject.org,
if you could just check that out in February or March.
- It's so cool,
and I would like to do something.
We've had a couple of things called 28 to make,
we had 30 days of genius which you were a part of,
where you get a thing every day,
like maybe we do a thing like--
- My toes are twitching, that's a good sign.
- Maybe,
I know you've had tens of thousands of people
who were doing that with you,
I think we've got a pretty good community
here that would be interested,
a hundred days is so hard-core,
it's so hard-core.
- It's enough to make a big shift,
and if it's around something that
you really want more of in your life,
you're signing up for it.
- I love your E-L-L-E-L-U-N-A On Instagram and Twitter too,
and everything right?
- Yeah everywhere.
- You should follow if you don't already follow Elle,
her animations are awesome.
- Thank you,
I'm learning every day,
I've never done animation so--
- But that's the point right you're learning in public.
- Can I have a thank you for you too?
- I'll take it,
I'll take whatever your giving, I've already got a flower.
- You got a flower,
and thank you for just creating this space,
creating this forum,
we talked about a wide-ranging amount of things,
and the bringing in Susie and your generous and kind heart,
thank you.
- Having you talk about creating a space
with the book to have conversations,
or inviting,
just acknowledging for example,
Susie brought up the sports athletic,
you did that like a girl for example,
and when she said just to bring awareness to that,
from the position that I'm in,
I feel that's the thing I would like to do most,
is provide a place to have a conversation about it,
and I'm on an interesting journey there too I feel like,
I'm learning every day,
and to have you two on the shoe is a great privilege.
- Well there's one thing that Susie
you could feel but she didn't say it,
but it was everything,
when she said that,
the way that she pretended to say,
oh, did you hear how you just said that,
did you realize there was absolutely
no judgment in her voice?
It was this kind, gentle awareness,
and I think that so much of it,
somebody said truth without heart is cruelty,
just because we have a sword of truth,
doesn't mean we should swing it with all we've got,
and you really really want
to keep people in the conversation,
if you really want to stay in relationships,
you've got to marry truth with kindness,
you've got to marry it with heart,
and in that way,
the way she just shifted that,
we're still in the same team,
I'm just helping you see,
it's a beautiful dance.
- She's a good partner,
well thank you again so much.
- Thanks Chase.
- Signing off for another show,
I'll be back in your ears hopefully again,
alright everybody, bye.
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