Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - How Creativity Can Help Us Unlock Our Potential | Writer of Pixar's Inside Out, Meg LeFauve

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

What does it take to create stories that resonate with millions—and what can those stories teach us about ourselves?Meg LeFauve, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter of Pixar’s Inside Out and Inside Out 2, has spent her career unlocking the magic of storytelling. But her insights go far beyond the screen. Meg is a master of exploring vulnerability, collaboration, and iteration—essential elements for both storytelling and creative mastery.In this episode, we dive into the psychology of creativity, unpacking how anxiety and sensitivity can become superpowers, why vulnerability is the key to connecting with others, and the art of crafting characters (and a life) that feel alive.Meg takes us behind the scenes of Pixar’s creative process, sharing how iconic films are brought to life through relentless collaboration and a commitment to emotional truth. Along the way, she offers practical strategies for navigating the ups and downs of the creative journey and staying energized in the face of challenges.Whether you’re a creator, a storyteller, or simply curious about what it takes to bring bold ideas into the world, this conversation is a treasure trove of wisdom for living a deeply creative, connected life._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Welcome back, or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast, where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I am your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, by trade and training, a high-performance psychologist. Today, I am thrilled to welcome Meg LeFauve to the show. Meg is an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, known for her work on Pixar hits Inside Out and Inside Out 2. When I watched those movies, they nailed it. I had to meet her.

She and they did an incredible job. Meg is a storyteller who spent her career exploring the power of vulnerability, collaboration, and the craft of iteration. And in this conversation, we dive into the psychology of creativity, collaboration, and the craft of iteration. And in this conversation, we dive into the psychology of creativity, how anxiety and sensitivity can become a superpower, why vulnerability is essential for crafting meaningful stories, and the art of making characters and ourselves come alive. Meg's insights into storytelling are more than just about movies. They're lessons for living a deeply creative and connected life. So with that, let's dive right into this incredible conversation with Meg LeFauve.

Meg, this is a real treat. I'll tell you how this started is that I think I was just like love slobbing all over, you know, like Inside Out 1 and Inside Out 2. And I just, I loved your movies. And as I was talking about Ad Nauseam, our head of creative here, Kevin Lake goes, oh, I know Meg. I know who did that movie. And so I was like, please. So we've, we've really been looking forward to having you here. So thank you for coming in. Oh, thanks for having me. I was really looking forward to being here and talking with you. Oh my God. Okay. So one of the reasons I loved it so much is as a trained psychologist with a specialization in, you know, performance,

you nailed it. You got it. And I'm friends with one of your, um, um, what's it called? Consultants. This is one of the psychologists, you know, that was, was helping you. So good job to, um, Dackner. Yeah. I mean, he's so good. So, So, okay, how did you get so good at writing stories, at telling stories, at pulling out the genius of an arc where the viewer or listener is just compelled to want to get to the next arc or to the next note? How did you do that? It's so funny to start the question with how did you get so good? Because I think every writer I know has fraud syndrome. So immediately my brain is like, am I? Is that good?

It's just so funny the way your brain immediately tries to buffer that. I think partly that's just because we're sensitive creative beings and we're always kind of finding our place. I also think that I keep wanting to evolve as a writer and try new things and push myself. So I think that for these specific movies, I am so honored to say that it's my movie, but it's not just my movie. It's Pete Docter is the originator, genius of Inside Out as the first director. And I wrote with him on Inside Out. And then of course, we have the second movie of Kelsey Mann, the director. And Pixar is a place of collaboration. So you're definitely

writing, you're writing a script and you're writing a script. When both movies, each script had three different storylines going at the same time and they have to play with each other like music. If something happens in one storyline, like let's say with Joy Down in the Mind, it has to also affect Riley and it has to also affect what's happening in headquarters. So it's very much three-dimensional chess that we were playing with both movies. But in terms of your question, how do you get to that level of storytelling? One is you work at a place like Pixar where their only motto is fail fast. They really want you out pushing

to the edge of your ideas, the edge of what you think you can do or what the movie or the story could possibly do. And a place that really taught me to iterate. I realized after about three months in the first movie when I got there that this is a building full of artists, and they have been drawing in sketchbooks probably since they could hold a pencil.

So they're very used to iteration, iterate, iterate, iterate, do it again, go again, go again. As a writer, we can get a bit protective of our work and fearful that, but this is a great scene. What if I can't write another great scene? This one works. Why would I throw it out? You can get a bit kind of caught up in that.

But at Pixar, you are going to throw it out because if it doesn't work at the level it needs to work or with all the other elements. So we start over many, many times. I will say in the last movie, Inside Out 2, you go through eight screenings and there's rough cuts of each. So there's 16, you make the movie 16 times. And the first screening, I think of that screening, there's one 10 second shot that has remained. Everything else is gone.

The entire story is different. So how do you get that good? It is iteration. It's pushing yourself creatively. It's bringing something deeply personal, almost something that makes you feel, well, absolutely makes you feel vulnerable, almost to the point of embarrassment. To to admit you spend hours in a room, hours and hours and hours. And this isn't just at Pixar. I'm writing now with my husband and we're doing the same thing. You just spend hours talking about what it feels like to be a human being and how this character relates to other people and why is it personal to us. And I can't feel that yet. So that's an incredibly important element of it.

And then there's just the level of craft that you have to have in any art form or anything. I would think even sports, right? There's a certain level you have to get to just to play ball. And then the art comes and the voice comes from that. So it's taken years and years and years to get even just that craft level, because it's layers and layers and layers of craft. When I meet emerging writers, sometimes they're like, I've rewritten my script three times, and I've been writing for two years. And I'm like, hooray, that's so great. You're starting. You know, it's years and years of craft

and work to learn the craft. I sometimes say to them, you know, if I handed you a metal rod with a glop of wet glass at the end, and I said, make me a cup, you'd be like, I can't do that. I have to learn how to spin this. And I have to learn how to stick in the fire and the colors. And somehow with other art forms, people understand the layering of craft. But writing, I guess because we write emails, I don't know. We all think we can do it. And we can.

And I love emerging writers and finding new voices. But it does take the commitment to that craft too. I feel like there wasn't a word out of place. No was yeah I was like did I just maybe smushed it all too much together but yeah well I get excited about the questions well okay so there's a couple things if I can open it up yeah um I'm thinking do I go in reverse order I don't want to lose track so let me just start with the first kind of insight that I was having as you were speaking. The big one, actually, not the first one, the big one is that it's fully embodied.

The way that you answer that is an embodied expression. Like you understood everything that you just said. You've lived it. You've lived it, yes. You have to live it, yes. You don't have to. You do lived it. Yes, you have to live it. Yes. You don't have to. You do, though. I think one must, to be truly artistic, to live a great life, we have to be fully engrossed in it. that note when you talked about the requirement of vulnerability and to do that publicly as a

tax or as a rite of passage to the art was just you know striking how embodied it is for you and then you also work in systems like i think you were working across like well this and this and you started with community and then you with community. And then you went to iteration. And then you went to vulnerability and deeply personal. And then you move to the basics of how your craft is developed over time. And it's different. It's just like every other craft, but something's different about writing. Okay, I find the same intriguing framing from psychology, meaning that you said because we write emails that we feel like we're a writer. Because we all have a mind, we think we're psychologists.

It's just not the case. I am an armchair psychologist, so I'm guilty. Guilty, yeah. Well, you know, you did a really nice high art moment with it in both of movies. So, okay. So that was cool to watch or to watch you do that. And for folks that do not go all in to the embodied nature of trying to figure something out, and I just added that phrase.

I'm not sure you would add that phrase. What do you say to them? Or how do you encourage them? Or how do you feel about people that one foot in, one foot out, or they hedge their bet? There's a fear to go all in to that level of vulnerability. And that happens for athletes in practice just about every day. Let me open this

up for a minute just to, yeah. So we see athletes, we see your movie. Okay. And we go, oh, amazing. And did you say it was like version 18? What number did you say? I mean, we wrote thousands of pages. I don't know. It was probably a version of each one. It's probably at least 16 versions. Yeah, okay. So awesome. And all of that required, it's not sweat. It's like this deep embodied commitment to open it up in the right way so that it can be expressed in an honest way that touches other people. So it can't be just true to you.

It has to be also true to others. Yeah, the human condition, yeah. Yeah, which is really a tricky thing because you've got a bunch of people like, it can't be just true to you. It has to be also true to others. Yeah. The human condition. Yeah. Yeah. Which is really a tricky thing because you've got a bunch of people like, I don't get it. Well, it's true to me, but it's not true to this person. Well, write that person off. No, no, no. It doesn't work that way. I want to get to that point in a minute. And what athletes do that we miss, so we see them on game day do extraordinary things. But what we miss is the practice piece. And they know that to become better, they have to get to the edge of their capability. They have to get to the

edge of what they know how to do in practice. And they have to be so vulnerable to do that in front of the coach that decides whether they play or not the next. And they do it in front of their teammates who are trying to take their job. And. And so how do you do that vulnerability? And that's my real question. How do you help people go all in like you have done? And or you could answer the question, how do you do the vulnerability piece? Which I think Finding Mastery is brought to you

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variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash findingmastery. Well, there's so many parts of that. I'd say in terms of the hedging, the first thing is to know that everybody hedges. Even though you've been in that vulnerable space, the next time you go to do a project, it comes right back and you put one foot in and one foot out. I think that is part of the process. It can be something that you do over to start a project, it comes right back and you put one foot in and one foot out. I think that is part of the process. It can be something that you do over the, to start a project. It can be something

you do every day just to go back in. There has been moments in writing everything I've ever written that I'm like, I don't know if I can do this one more time. Maybe I just can't write that scene one more time. That's, I think that's part of the process in a weird way of, you know, the hesitation to jump in the cold water is human. It's a survival instinct, I think. Because if we're really talking about vulnerability, on my podcast we call it lava. Because I was asked to consult with a guy who was writing a movie that

was based on his autistic son. And they asked me to talk to him because it wasn't very emotional. And I have a son with special needs. And so I was talking to him, and this writer is now a very good friend of mine. And I said, well, tell me about your son. Just tell me about him. And he told me about all the therapies he's getting and the schedule he's on. And it was all up in his intellect. Because that's where the survival instinct is going to go. It's going to go right into the intellect.

I can control this. Let me explain it to you. I can use my asset, which is my thinking patterns. My thinking power, right? And I said, okay, okay. I'm going to tell you about my son. So I took my son, eight years old, 10 years old, to Target. And he had a meltdown. He threw himself on the floor and then he peed his pants. And I've got to get this eight-year-old up and into the woman's bathroom. I've got a lot of

women who are very unhappy that I'm bringing a boy of this age because they don't understand. I'm getting a lot of judgment. He's screaming. He's soaking wet. I'm realizing, oh, my God, I didn't bring any extra pants. I'm so stupid. And now I've got to go back out into Target. Do I buy the pants?

But I can't leave him here. And he's screaming. And I just had this moment of looking at him and thinking, I just wish you could be normal. And then, of course, I felt like I was going to fall into a thousand pieces. Because, of course, I love my son exactly how he is. But there is an edge that you, as a parent, walk up to sometimes. And so I said that to my writing friend. And he said, oh, so you want me to stick

my head in lava? And I said, no, your whole body. Okay. So you're funny too. So wait, hold on. You just did it. You just did what I want to really understand is how do you create stories? How, okay. I want to, I first asked, how do you get, how'd you get so good at it? And you answered that embodied. And then you just told the story. Do you know how you just did what you did? Or is that like, it just, the ball just comes out of my hand and it's a strike each time. Well, I've always been a storyteller since I was a little girl. I have a very big imagination. The downside of that is anxiety can use your imagination too. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You can't slip that by me.

What does that mean? I mean, that's like what's in the movie. It's in the movie because that's what I do. I was a very anxious child and it wasn't until I started writing that the anxiety calmed down. Okay. This is the quote I had. I want to read back to you right and inside out too joy says is joy you by the way no no i mean she's every all of them are me of course every character in the movie is a part of you damn i thought it was me too okay so joy says i don't know how to stop anxiety maybe we can't maybe this is what happens when you grow up. You feel less joy. It's the last part that is striking. The first part is the complex idea about it, or the acknowledgement that we have it. I don't know if we can solve it. But

let's pin that and come back. Because I want to, I want to, I do want to say in terms of how to get to the lava in terms of your question. And I know I sidetracked with a story, but I was just trying to describe what lava is and where it comes from, that it's not in the intellect. It's in the guts.

You know, somebody once told me that you are, your brain is all over your body. It's not just up in your head and the brain is in your gut. There are brain cells in your heart, you know, and. And the vulnerability and being able to do it is about, I think, wanting something badly enough to put yourself into that vulnerable place. If you don't really want something, I don't know that you will need to be brave and put yourself into that vulnerable spot. And I think it helps to have somebody walk you in. I do a lot of mentoring and a lot of working with other writers

because it's a sacred honor for me to take their hand and walk them down into their own lava. And this is why we created our podcast for that same reason. And I think my son is in film school, and he said to me, Mom, do you think the lava, like you know you're there when you're kind of embarrassed to admit it? And I was like, absolutely. It's kind of embarrassing.

But what's beautiful about it is that it is the power source, I believe, at least in art. And as soon as you admit it, other people will admit they feel the same way. And we as artists are the first ones into the breach. We have the catharsis. We are the brave ones who are willing to go that deep into our guts and humanity to get that we go first. And so that other people then can watch what you did or experience what you did and have it too. But it's not easy.

It's something that even I one day will be like, yeah, I just don't want to go there. It's about knowing yourself and knowing your dodges, how you dodge. That's how another person can help. You have somebody who can not let you dodge uh i i will dodge into this is terrible like why bother uh uh i've had people dodge you know even by like getting hurt like twisting their ankle and now they can't come and you're like well or you could still come with a twisted ankle and we can talk about your story. So the brain will do a lot of things.

I think, and again, armchair psychologist, you'll tell me if I'm wrong, but from working with a lot of writers and being a writer, I think that the brain goes into survival when you get too close to that vulnerability because some part of you believes you'll die if you admit that vulnerability out loud, especially in the situation that you're talking about

with your bosses there, competition there. I mean, I can't imagine a more survival instinct soup to be sitting in. Writers have to do the same thing. We have to go in and get notes in front of the head of the studio, the director, the other writers, the other directors. That's the Pixar brain trust. in front of the head of the studio, the director, the other writers, the other directors, you know,

that's the Pixar brain trust. And I found many times in those situations, you do have to try to stay present versus dissociate or move off. And I would find myself, I would catch myself in these brain trusts, realizing, oh, I'm not in my body at all. My center is out inside of that person and that person and that person. So I would just take a really deep breath and try to feel my feet on the ground and just get myself back to my center. I don't, as a writer, I don't know what it's like in sports, but as a writer, these are suggestions. They're just throwing light on the darkness to try to help you find a way. You don't have to do any of it. You're going to go later with the director and you're going to

talk about what resonated. Sometimes the thing you get the most mad about, you're mad about it because there's a lot of juice in there and you got to go right at it. So in writing, you always at least try it. Even if you're absolutely sure this is the worst idea I ever heard. It happened on the first movie with the Personality Islands. Ronnie Del Carmen, who's the co-director, who is truly a genius. We could not figure out what is the ticking clock of this disaster movie? Like what is the ticking clock? And again, it's hard because you can make it anything you want, which is actually harder. And we just – weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks trying to figure it out.

And then Ronnie Drew, because he's an artist, these personality islands. And we already had so much shoved into this movie in terms of rules and world building that I went to lunch and I just said to Mike Jones, another writer at Pixar, I mean, this is the worst idea I've ever heard. I am not doing it. I cannot shove. I mean, I got so scared. And I just got very defensive. And I was just bitching up a storm.

Can I swear? I was bitching up a storm can i swear oh yeah i was bitching up a storm at lunch to mike mike's listening very patiently and quietly and then he goes you know what i gotta tell you i think it's a good idea and i was like i know right of course you know of course you intuitively in your gut you know you know when you're on your game or you're not that's a a good idea. That's not, sometimes you have to arrive at it. And, and, but it was going to be incredibly hard to make it work, but I knew it was right. And then I have to go figure it out. But so there's a lot of that confrontation with self, I think, in terms of you've trained yourself for how many years,

decades, to not be vulnerable. So I just think it's a repetitive muscle to say, okay, I'm realizing it. I'm doing it. I'm getting defensive. I'm not being vulnerable. I mean, of course, sometimes you should not be vulnerable. There's times that you shouldn't be. But in terms of what we're talking about writing, and then I'm lucky because

the characters will guide me into that. If my intellect and my personality will not allow me to go there, I'm lucky. I get to go and go inside the character and let them be the brave ones to go and try something. But, you know, I don't know, working with writers, a lot of times you have to push them even then. Do you mind if I tell you another story to explain that? Okay. I'm hanging on every word. I was working with my husband, who's a genius writer, and we had a TV pilot we were writing,

and it just wasn't firing all the pieces were working but it just wasn't coalescing into a solid idea and a plot and he said you know what i think it is i think it's because she's leave because she's not allowed into the house she goes off and has this plot without this other part of her life so she's never living a double life. But if she actually, if her aunt allowed her into the house and said, yes, you can stay here, you can come home, I think the show will work. And I got so mad. I totally freaked out.

I was like, she would never, ever be allowed back in the house. Ever. And he was like, no, thank God it's my husband, right? And he was, I mean, literally when I was talking to him, the world around me in this cafe went flat. So I knew somewhere back in my mind, oh, something very large has just arrived in my unconscious because it's actually changing my vision right now. But I couldn't stop it either, the resistance to it. And I've learned

that if the resistance is that big, boy, there's something sitting right there. And because he's my husband and he loves me, he was like, let's just step it through. Let her step over the threshold. Just let her. And so I can imagine my character putting her foot over being allowed home with just her foot. Okay, now bring in her knee. Okay, now she's all the way in. And I am crying and crying at this cafe. And I don't even know what this is about, by the way. I can't say some traumatic moment in my childhood, or I don't know what it

is. But something about her being allowed home. There was such resistance that she would never be allowed home. And I let one character, let the other character come home. And it was so powerful. And it fixed the whole script, by the way. So that's where you go into your lava. So when that resistance comes up, sometimes what you have to do is go right at it, even just in your imagination. You know, what did Freud say?

Isn't it Freud? No, it wasn't Freud. It's Jung, who said, when somebody asked him, what do you do? How do you work with your patients? He said, I work with imagination. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters.

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It's their dream, right? Their metaphors. When you're telling stories, obviously you're pulling a lot of details in. You're talking about they. You're talking about the other. In this case, it was your husband. And you're talking about they you're talking about the other in this case it was your husband and you're talking about yourself so i wonder if you if you have those three components um as part of your story the community the other the intimate other probably and then you're the the main actor you know you're expressing it through there. But you use such kind of clear and colorful language to bring me into, like with your son, in the bathroom with the others.

And they were thinking and I was thinking and feeling. Well, there always is. In any story you build, there's story elements that you're going to have to create a story engine with. There's a world, i.e. the community, the world that you live in. And then there's the main character. And I always try to get my students to think, what does your main character believe about themselves in that world? And what do they believe about the world? Because that's your act one. And you have to, the wonderful weird thing about writing is you have to convince the audience that that is right.

The way they see themselves in that world and how they see themselves. How they see the world. How they see the world. So what are their beliefs about the world and what are their beliefs about themselves in the world?

Okay, so it's not two worlds. It's not this unique set of circumstances. What do they believe about themselves in the world? And what do they believe about the world? Yeah, just to start, just to find a character. So for example, when Pete Docter said, I think this movie is about sadness and how sadness connects us.

Is this Inside Out? Inside Out 1, the first one. I was like, that's genius and could change the world he said don't ever say that again because too much pressure um and it's interesting too yeah too much pressure you know you don't want to put that kind of pressure on you ever every movie i've worked on you're like okay i can't even don't don't think about that just stay with the story stay with the characters um but i had to convince the audience that um sadness shouldn't drive i had to convince the audience that sadness was bad for riley i had to convince the audience that sadness shouldn't drive. I had to convince the audience that sadness was bad for Riley.

I had to convince the audience that she sure as hell should not touch core memories. Because that's what Joy believes. And, you know, if you don't believe that, you're like, Joy, what's the big deal? Like, I can have a good cry. You're being so mean to sadness. Right? Versus, oh, yeah, you're right. Don't let her drive.

I mean, she's cute and I like her, but she really shouldn't drive. You have to believe what joy believes. And then the second act is, is that true? Are you sure that's true? Because she just figured that out and she figured that out and she helped there, right? And so you kind of move through consciousness

of bringing that belief to light and start forming a new one um and it's just the way i've always tried to work um and again sometimes i say that and not right now i'm thinking did i do that on my last script that i'm writing right now with my husband so you know i say this and you're like totally formulaic but there are some big rocks that you're trying to get in the container yeah it just helps to know because you have to convince that's how you get an emotion the audience attached to a character emotionally is we believe what they believe so then you can undo it right and challenge it and challenge it and create a new one the hero's journey is that is that still an archetype that works for you um yes it does in. I do follow a three-act structure.

Not every writer does. If you don't, my only question is why. What does a story need that it's not three acts? And what are the three acts? So it's first act, second act, third act. And second acts always generally divide into, like the lingo is 2A and 2B. And each different things are happening

in different parts of those sections. But I really like the hero's journey specifically for the end of act two because for me, and it's different for different writers, but the hero's journey is that at the end of act two, the hero has a death moment. It goes into the dark cave and has a death moment.

And then because of that death moment, they find the sword and can come out. And for me, that is the moment of that old belief that we started, that belief we started in Act One, it dies. Because you were wrong. You were wrong. And you have to face that this whole thing started

and happened because you started it. Because of this misbelief. And then the new life is the new belief is born. I.e. sadness not only is good for Riley, she's got to drive right now. The opposite. We had drawings on the walls of one drawing is joy keeping sadness away from the controls. And the other drawing is pushing her towards it. So you really see the shift in joy and then she can go act on it in the third act with this new belief

and prove it prove that she actually believes it enough that she will act on it so for me there is a death moment but it's a consciousness you're taking a character through consciousness and something coming up into their conscious mind and having to face and know themselves. Stitching back to vulnerability is in the first act when they're not sure if they're gonna answer the calling, is that vulnerability as rich as the stitch between act two and three, when they have gone into the dark cave and they've-

It's a sliver of it, right? It's literally what you talked about earlier. It's the hedge. Yeah, so which one for you has more vulnerability? Oh, for sure. The end of Act 2 is a death moment. Everything that they were afraid would happen in Act 1, the reason they were hedging,

it has happened. So the hedging is not the big vulnerability because they actually committed to it. They took the challenge. They're going to not the big vulnerability because they actually committed to it. They're going to take the challenge and they're probably going to have a plan to do it. Yeah. And they're going to have a conflict to it. Yeah. Because they're going to have somebody who's in or like in a disaster movie, the disaster itself, there's something diametrically opposed to that want, that drive.

Where do you find the most ease in writing or telling stories? Oh, the most ease? Yeah. Is any of it easy? I don't know. I think you... I don't know. Yeah. Okay. Let me ask this a different way. Since we've been talking, let's just play. Let's go one to 10. 10 is like, I'm flooded with emotions. Five is like, I've got some emotions on board and I can still get my thoughts out. A seven, eight, let's say, is like, I'm right at that line. You know what I'm talking about, don't you?

Yeah. In our conversation, what is your internal arc been? Right now in this conversation? Yeah, in the last, call it 10 minutes or so. Because it was more personal to me, talking about the character having to step over the threshold, it was all coming back. All of that emotion was coming back.

Yeah, I saw that. I felt that. Yeah, because it's still something that lives with me and lives inside me. I'm working on it and digging around in it to see what is that, what's happening. So yeah, of course, if it's about your own personal lava, it's going to have more emotional resonance. But the job is, as a writer, is to put that in the work. When Riley comes home at the end of the first movie and says, you want me to be happy, but I'm not.

I mean, that's me at 11 years old. Got it. And Riley's brave enough to say it. And that's the beauty of writing. And so are you now as well. Well, I did say it to a very large audience. You should. Yes, you did. So when you were telling that story,

let's say you're at that 7-8 kind of like anchor. And the 8 is like, man, I'm about to like really go into a territory that a nine and 10 is like, I think I'm going to fall into a thousand pieces. Right. I can't get words out. And all of that stuff is happening. But if you were, let's just say at a seven, eight, how did you navigate and manage yourself just in that story? And I think you were probably at like a six, seven. It was probably six, seven. Six, seven. And then, but where were you just for calibration for me and the listener is where were you when you were telling the story about your son in the bathroom? It's a story I've told before.

So it's become a story separate from me, if that makes sense. They've almost become characters. Yeah. Okay. Right. You know, if I? I guess if I talked about them from last week, it wouldn't quite be the same because we'd be fresh. So that's a safety distance and repetitions. But it's interesting because now that you ask me, when the emotion came up as I was talking about the character stepping over the threshold, because I do need to stay present, I need to stay here, I need to stay connected

to my intellect and speaking brain, my brain immediately showed me the characters. So there was an imagery that was... An imagery comes up that it's not me, it's her. Yeah, so... And so now connect back into your character now. Because there is danger, you know. Yes, we want it to be lava, but it is a character, right?

It's not you. It's not an autobiographical lava but it is a character right it's not you it's not an autobiographical story this is a character so sometimes you give the character a very different quality than you have so that she will stay separate and she's her own um person it's that's you surprised me there because i feel like your work is so intimate to you that the, maybe this way of not getting completely lost where you are fully, you are fully you and fully vulnerable in your, in your characters. Like you create that little, let's call it a healthy separation between the two. Yeah. Because if you get too flooded, you won't be able to do the work yeah and so keeping that slight distance and listen half the time the unconscious is pulling up imagery that my conscious brain doesn't even know

yet what that means i just know she can't go in the house you know what i mean it's uh it's like a dream and it's sometimes i have to even to dec my own dream. How do you create such a, I'm going to use vulnerability in another way now, that porous vulnerability between when you feel something and making it and using it as opposed to stuffing it down, as opposed to ignoring it or minimizing or explaining it away or you called it dodging. I call it self-esteem saving. So we do all these funny little contortions to not fully be exposed because it's too dangerous. But yeah, so the core question is like, how do you develop that porousness to be so thin that it's available, but not to be overrun by the flood of emotions or the thing. How do you manage that?

I think I don't have a conscious idea of that, meaning it's not something I've thought of. But I think definitely the first thought that came to me is it just takes a lot of practice. Of being vulnerable, of sitting with. Yes. Was it your son that said, is it like an embarrassment piece? Yes. Like sitting at that threshold. Sitting there and allowing it to be.

You don't have to do anything with it. It's there. Just let it be. And I got very lucky because when I was a producer first, and so I was able to see other artists experience this, but I got to stay out of it because I was the producer. And I'm married to a writer who was writing for decades before I became a writer. And, you know, you see at home the vulnerability and the challenge and the lava and his ability to sit in it, right?

So I was very lucky that I was able to see it mirrored to me as a practice with these great artists. So that when it was my turn to finally be brave enough to try it myself, I think I had some at least intellectual understanding of what I needed to do because I watched them do it. I watched my husband do it over and over. I was the producer helping them, right? Meaning assisting and supporting and creating a safe space for them to do it. And I think that's also very, very important. I think to expect an artist or anyone

to be vulnerable at that level, if they're not in a safe space, well, it's just not gonna happen. So- How do you challenge each other and create safety? I mean, the mechanism is support, then challenge, for me, at least. But how do you hold those two together? Because this is a tension in modern leadership. You know, in modern business, we've got to hit deadlines. We've got to have a revenue hit. And I do want to ask you how you do

it as well. But let's just use this dilemma is that we need speed. We need to do things really well. So, you know, there's a tension between speed and substance often. So how do you create that, that right level of support to muse, to explore, to whatever, and then the challenge for a higher standard and maybe even a faster turn? In my experience, and I'm'm not i haven't been a producer in many years and i was never a business person per se so but in my experience it's um i just have to put in my own terms because it's the only thing i know um when you're working on a script you get notes and it's the easiest thing to do the fastest thing to do is just make a checklist

open your document with your script and go in and check off the checklist and let's get going let's get to the next draft get to the next draft we have to do 12 of these just check them off and go and it seems fast um but it's not because you're not the those are symptoms of a disease. And you need to create space and have the time to really look at what's wrong. What are these symptoms of? The writer has to be the doctor who's like, I understand that you think it's that scene, but it's not. It's in Act 1.

It always goes back to act one, right? And you need the space and the support of the team to take that time. Even if they're kind of like, oh my gosh, this is taking, what do you mean? You need like three more weeks to do the lava and get back in and you're throwing it out. Oh my God, you're throwing it out. And the answer is like, yeah, we're going to throw it out and though anything that needs to come back in will come back in in this new form and so it seems longer it seems much more frightening to stop much more frightening to go deep much more frightening to throw things out but ultimately i really believe it's faster it's much much faster than iterating 20 times and then deciding you're going to throw things out,

then deciding you have to go deeper. That's a lot of time. And as a creative, sometimes the writer's ready to do that and sometimes they're not. I can't force somebody to go deep, right? So to me, you do have to create that safe space, especially when working with creatives, to allow them to open it up and see different possibilities. And then,

at least in writing, it will then go faster. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft, like next level soft. And what surprised me the most is how much it actually helps regulate temperature. I tend to run warm at night and these sheets have helped me sleep cooler and more consistently, which has made a meaningful difference in how I show up the next day for myself, my family, and our team here at Finding Mastery.

It's become part of my nightly routine. Throw on their lounge pants or pajamas, crawl into bed under their sheets, and my nervous system starts to settle. They also offer a 100-night sleep trial and a 10-year warranty on all of their bedding, which tells me, tells you, that they believe in the long-term value of what they're creating. If you're ready to upgrade your rest and turn your bed into a better recovery zone, use the code FINDINGMASTERY for 40% off at CozyEarth.com. That's a great discount for our community. Again, the code is FINDINGMASTERY for 40% off at CozyEarth.com. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Caldera Lab. I believe that the way we do small things in life

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A shampoo, conditioner, and a hair serum. With Caldera Lab, it's not about adding more. It's about choosing better. And when your day demands clarity and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for high quality personal care products that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. Kevin Lake, who's listening to this right now, he's my creative partner. Everything we do is like, yep. And I'm like, man, we got a deadline. We got something to get done. Like, what do you mean we're going to take another look at this? Like, it's good. And he's taught me

that what you just described, which is like, I'll write something. I like writing. He's better at it. And I like the writing process, but it comes out oftentimes like three quarters of the idea are there. And he can thread the needle really well. Three quarters. That's a good percentage. It feels good. That's good.

And then, but it's that last quarter, let call that makes all the difference yes and my point is like somebody will read it or like or i'll look at it again or somebody will give some notes on it and i just want to go back and like take those notes oh that's a good idea oh you're right about that oh i like that and then i go back in and i re-edit and it turns into gobbledygook. Yes, yes. It's called a band-aid monster. Oh, that's great. We call it a band-aid monster.

I need to get one of those in the office. All those band-aids will just pop off. I need to get one of those. That's a visual for me that I love. And so it turns into this, so my world is psychology, turns into this psychobabble nothingness. And it looks like copy editors came in and tried to make something out of, I don't even know. And it becomes this, what did you just say? And so that's like the great fear is that I'm saying something when my lips are moving, but there's

nothing underneath of it. I know, right? Yes, it goes brown. It's just like too many paints, right? Too many colors. It all just got browned and there's too many paints right too many colors it all just got browned and there's too many yeah i i literally just posted on our facebook page uh for the podcast i'm in the too much and not enough stage what does that mean there's just way too many ideas there's too much going on but there's there's no what is this? What is the spine of this? Why are we doing this? But I think that's a very normal process of revisions. And some writers are better at that stage than others.

My husband's very, very good at that. He's very open to throwing stuff in and just finding it. Pete Doctors very, very loves that. I don't like it at all. I'm like, what is it? I need to know right now. So it's funny because I have this vulnerable part, but then I can also, I guess because I was a producer, I can go into, oh my gosh, it's a defense. It's a defense because you just have to stay there in the uncomfortableness. You have to find a way to become, if not comfortable, okay with vulnerability, right? I mean, Kevin's asking

you, in a way, you're, oh, look, this is three quarters. Okay, what if we start over? Come on, man, there's good stuff. You know, the killing of darlings, you know, it was that Hemingway's idea. Go ahead, sorry. But, and this is hard to do, don't get me wrong. Let's say you wrote that and it's three quarters there in your mind. If you're willing to really iterate and really throw it away, go again. Try another version.

Try that version. I call it pick a pony. Pick a different pony. Okay, there's way too much in here. Just pick this piece. If you were gonna iterate just this piece, this whole essay was just about this, what would that look like? Write it out, beat it out, beat it out. Feel in your body, always coming back to your body. Do I feel this in my body?

Is this still true to me? Or am I up in my head? If you're brave enough to do that, what will eventually be is so much bigger and so much more deep and complex than what your brain can even imagine right now. So what I want to highlight is that, I don't know what percentage of the world are artistic writers, but I will say, let's say, I don't know, let's say 98% of us are social creatures. There's some people that, there's wolves out there that, you know, let's say 98% of us are social creatures. There's some people that there's wolves out there that, you know, like the lone wolf that have been kicked out and they don't know how to relate to others or whatever. Right. But I don't want to be dramatic with a hundred percent, but okay. So what you're pointing to is not about writing for me. This is about being

honest with yourself and choosing thoughts and words that line up with your first principles, your values, that line up with the person you imagine that you're capable of being consistently with other people. And so when I hear you speaking, I'm thinking about me with my wife. I'm thinking about me and my relationship with Kevin. I'm thinking about how your high art of expressing characters and bringing people into that story is really about me being able to choose more accurately, more fluidly, iterating more with a kindness and a vulnerability to be able to be more connected to that embodied experience that I want to have more often, more moments than not. Just to allow play. This is the year of play for me.

Yeah. You got to allow play. It's hard to do sometimes. I don't see you as playful. Me? Yeah. Are you playful? That's so funny.

Cause I literally was thinking, as you were talking, I was like, oh, my husband listened to this. He's just going to be literally was thinking as you were talking i was like my husband listened to this he's just gonna be like what are you talking about because because i can get very much like we cannot change it this is due in like two days do i literally just said this to him i'm like no no no no i'm not saying you're wrong i am not saying you're wrong that is probably a good idea but this pitch is in two days and that blows up the whole thing. We can't do it. And he's very patient with me and goes, okay, but I know we're going to blow it up because he's right. And I do have to, even if he's not

right, we have to go down the road. We have to play it out. So it's just funny because I can become the taskmaster of the team and he's the kind of imaginative, try this, try that. But I at least know myself well enough to know that I have to push and prod and make myself play. That's really cool. Yeah. Are you naturally intense? Oh my gosh.

You are. I don't know. Yeah, you're naturally intense. And I'll just say it. It's not a statement. know. Yeah, you're naturally tense. And I'll just say it. It's now a statement. Sorry. Yeah, no. And you're really open to ideas, high on that exploratory thing.

But you've also got this other kind of neurotic piece, which is like, no, we made a promise. I am. I am. Yeah. I am. And it drives my husband crazy, as it should, because I should be splunking right now. What is splunking? You know, like, you know, when you go to splunking, you just go down into a cave and it's dark.

I have never splunked. You've never heard splunking? I don't know what this is. It's a good word. People take ropes and they go down into caves, into chasms, and they just have a light on their helmet and they're just going into the darkness. Very cool. So it's kind of like a scary and yet thrilling. And yet who knows what you're

going to find down there? And you've got to meet a deadline. That's that other piece. Yes, you do. So are you late? I'm not generally a late person on deadlines. Okay. So you're reliable. The studio head says, we get Meg, we know we're going to get something amazing. She's a splunker and it's going to be on time. Yes, for sure. That's just part of my personality. I don't like to disappoint people. So I generally will deliver. I will. But listen, my father was an engineer and my mother was a artist. And so my brain, I think, can sometimes, you know, toggle. It toggles.

So with all of your expertise, I don't think you would use that word about yourself, but like with your mastery of your craft, which I'm loving every part of this conversation. So again, thank you. You have not disappointed. Not that that is ever the standard. I cannot have a podcast about being vulnerable and not do it.

So there you go. That's exactly right. Okay. So, all right. Let's speak to people that understand. They go, oh, I love stories, but I'm not a good storyteller. Or they forget to tell stories. And I mean like three-minute stories in a meeting to convey an idea.

Not necessarily a pitch, but to bring people into the world. How would you say in – if I've got like 30 seconds, three minutes, seven minutes, let's say. Attention spans are tricky nowadays for people. I've got seven minutes. No way. They're not going to give you seven minutes. Yeah. So your stories were probably like 30 seconds.

Yeah. Right? How can we practice getting better? Like, how would you guide me and the listener to get better at telling a story? Because I know one thing that doesn't work, and it's this sentence or this phrase, and then, and then. Yeah, no, that doesn't work. And then this happened. No. And then there's no arc it's like a

chronological doldrum right so how would you help well first listen to the stories being told around you and there i'm sure you have a friend who's a great storyteller and i'm not saying they make my friend is a great storyteller i'm not saying they're writers sometimes they're not they can be astrophysicists it doesn't matter um uh but they're at. Sometimes they're not. They can be astrophysicists. It doesn't matter. But they're at a dinner party. And when they start talking, everybody's like, ooh, he's telling a story. Oh, look at you. So this is how you got good, too.

You learned from, you said it. I was a producer and I got to learn from. And then I was in Pixar and I learned from. Because storytelling is rhythm. It's like music. And it's just something you have to get in your body and you can so listen to somebody at the next dinner party who told a great story and how that felt and then reversals and then they land it right it's like a good joke and then listen to somebody

else at that dinner party who's doing and then and then and then and then and they don't really have any concept that people are listening to them that they have an audience that there's a responsibility that to be telling them they're just in their own head swirling around stream of consciousness um and by the way i love them you know no no no judgment but that's not gonna work and what you're asking for yeah. And so that's the first thing is you just have to listen. My friend Javi, who's a great TV writer, he talks about it as being a joke. All great stories are great jokes. They have setups and punchlines and payoffs and right. I don't know that I do that consciously, butoffs and ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum, right?

I don't know that I do that consciously, but when he talked about it, I was like, oh, yeah, no, that's true. That's true. You should have him on your show, by the way. What does Javi do? Javi is a TV writer and showrunner, and he started on Lost and all kinds of places. Okay. Just this incredible mind. So I think that to to tell a story there's this incredible thing that happens in your brain that you are deeply present with yourself so it feels authentic this is an authentic story coming from my guts and me but i'm also very aware i'm telling you and you're part of my story

because you're listening to it do you know what i'm saying? That piece there is like it's the final touches that makes it engaging, stimulating because when you're telling the story and you see my eyes are huge, you go, oh, I got it. He's right there. Or if you see me like squinting and then you know you got to get the payoff in just a clever way or whatever. Or it's just energy being transferred too. Like you can feel it. Right. And yeah, you, you, I always tell young writers, you go tell your story in like a three minute pitch to as many people as you can and watch their body language, feel the energy.

You're going to know where your story isn't working. So let's switch to energy. How do you manage your fleeting resources? We all have these fleeting resources each day. So we eat our best, we move our best, we do our best with our psychology, we get our best sleep, and we wake up in the morning with some sort of reservoir. Right? Yes.

And sometimes it feels full, and sometimes it feels, you know. Really not full. Yeah. So what do you do? What are kind of your committed actions that you take to build that reservoir so it can carry you? My husband came up with this phrase. I'm going to steal it.

I'm giving Joe Forte credit. Extreme rest. I think that's genius. And he'll literally be like, I'm practicing extreme rest right now. I'm very bad at extreme rest. I'm very bad at it. And extreme rest is what? He will say, just go to bed.

Just lay down and take a nap. Just watch TV all day. Just watch some movies all day. But that producer brain is like, what are you talking about? Do you know what stuff I have to do? But here's what I think that is genius about extreme rest, because it's not just about your energy that you do need to refill. But I could be wrong, but somebody told me. it's not the best way to start somebody told me

um there's a buddhist saying what i like it why is that not bad why is that a bad start because that like who told you like in this this age of bubbles and social media and everything like who told you but um i just saw a different part of your personality. That was really funny. Come on. It's ridiculous. My friend and I are always joking. Just say, I heard it on NPR. Okay. So there's a Buddhist koan phrase. Koan.

Koan. Busyness is the highest form of laziness. Well said. So I think my husband's extreme rest is is about that and i think i do not like to rest because then i have to let all those things come up yeah that's great and busyness also is like the signal of importance in our modern life yes your identity and I'm so important. But what's interesting is I'm probably using more energy to keep it down. Keep what down? Whatever it is that I don't want to come up and think about, that if I actually just laid down on the bed and tried to go to sleep

or watched a movie and got quiet, if I literally just stopped and got quiet, what would start bubbling up? Wait, hold on. That is the requisite for vulnerability. Yes. Because when things, so I've been practicing for about 25 years meditating.

Oh, wow. Yeah, there's times when I get quiet, I don't want to deal with that stuff that comes up. You know, like, yeah, okay, here it is. I am that too. Yes. You know, like, yes. I want to be the shiny whatever and like, ooh, there's that part of me too.

You know, like, so the allowing and the space and the courage to allow whatever comes to the surface and to ride that wave? Yeah. Oh, man, it'd take you places. Well, I think also I'm a worrier. I've been a worrier since I was a kid. My grandfather used to say that that's why I had curly hair because I worried so much. But I think actually I was a sensitive being

and I was very attuned. And I have a very big imagination. And so it was just taking things and making, you know, cataclysmic stories all the time. Um, and so I think that when I stop, I think I work myself to the point of being so tired that that worry is just, it's all exhausted and I can really rest. So then the good stuff comes up. Or I can actually rest. good stuff comes up or i can actually rest oh so just create space because i'm trying to stay ahead of the worry and the worry energy is got to be kind of

exhausted i see in order to sit in that space um and be quiet but you know the way i do it uh personally and everybody has a different way um and i realized that the way I rest and, and fill myself back up is I read novels. And so every day, I have to have at least a half hour to 40 minutes. Are you naturally an introverted feeler? An introverted feeler? What is an introverted feeler? I keep that stuff private now. You know, like, but left by devices, I'll keep my feelings private. You know, like I'm an extroverted feeler. It's like, hey, you know,

I'm just feeling really anxious today. And like, how are you doing? Like, well, hold on. Not about you. It is about me. Like I'm, I feel these things in my body. I woke up and it's about the extroverted expression of emotions.

It's funny because I would think I'm extroverted, but because I love so much about vulnerability and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but no, I'm introverted. Yeah, I think you are. I think you're an introverted feeler too, more specifically. Yeah, yeah. Finding Mastery is brought to you by iRestore. When it comes to my health, I try to approach things with a proactive mindset. It's not about avoiding poor health. This is about creating the conditions for growth. Now, hair health is one of those areas that often gets overlooked until your hair starts to change.

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plus an extra $50 off when you use the code finding mastery at checkout. That's lisa.com. The promo code is finding mastery for 25% off and then plus an extra $50 on us because quality sleep is just too important to leave to chance. Beautiful. Okay. So, so much fun. It just as a wrap up, could I, could I share with you how I've experienced you over the, this conversation? Yes, I guess this could be, okay, let's be vulnerable. Okay. Is that an informed consent or Yes, I will be vulnerable. And you can reflect back myself back to you. Yeah. I believe that you will let me know where, where I'm wrong as well.

Yeah. First and foremost is like you, you call yourself a, like, you know, there's a sensitivity about you. And I think you've had to cultivate that. You said you were early on, you were that. But there's an anxiety that fueled that ability to be sensitive. And then you've cultivated this beautiful internal ecosystem to be able to harness that highly charged, emotional, sensitive, neurotic type of feeling to facilitate something meaningful in your life. And the way you do it is by connecting with other people, the bonding piece. So relationships are probably at the high table for you. And the first thing out of your mouth in this conversation was like, oh, am I?

When I talked about, I gave you a compliment. So that uncertainty is the neurotic piece that I'm picking up, but you've done something with it. And that is the testament of a life well lived, is that you are well connected to who you are. You have purpose and meaning in your life. So there's a grounding force about you that is evident to me. You'd be a great partner in so many ways. You are really open to ideas

and experiences. More ideas, I think, than experiences. Yes, for sure. Yeah. You are not agreeable. I think that it has to run through a tumbler first. You are very disagreeable. You're neurotic, very disagreeable. Am I on track? There's the playfulness, yeah. But no, you're committing to a life of discernment and honesty. And so social approval and fitting in and somebody liking you because you go,

oh, you've got great ideas too. You're like, wait, hold on. It has to go through a tumbler. And that tumbler, the way it comes out is kind. So again, that would reinforce the want to bond and maybe the need in those two respects. And then you're an introverted feeler that has developed the courage to express that and you've done it in this really clever way to create characters and to tell stories, it's you. You are in your art

and that type of vulnerable courage, I think is the mark of modern leadership. We need you to show us how to do it. I have been thinking about this conversation with you for a long time because i love what you've done that i the two pieces of art that i know that you've done and again you're a contributor amongst that many but i'm going to give you the all the credit because like the writing because i'm here. No, no, no. Yeah, right. A funny way to not be agreeable, kind of. Yeah.

And then you have this, your attention is interesting because you go broad, then narrow, then broad, then narrow. So you have this internal attentional flexibility that facilitates you to get to the honest point. So the broad is like big ideas. You're aware of me. You're aware of the whole thing. And then I watch you kind of almost gather yourself. And I think you go into your internal

world and you shared it earlier, like you'll see the images of people or something pop up or lava maybe. And then, but you don't get caught there. You come back out. So you have this flexibility of attention that allows you to be more present. And so when you get stressed, I think you will go narrow and stay in there and kind of miss the external broad. But that's only under pressure or stress. Yes, for sure. I think you're really kind to other people. And I wonder if you are also that for yourself. I get the feeling that you back yourself, but I also get the feeling that you could be pretty sharp, you know, on, on, on the way you speak to yourself. But I would, if, if I, if I had to bet, I would say that you value kindness above criticalness.

Oh, for sure. I mean, I hope that's how I live my life. If I die and they say she was kind, I will be very happy. Awesome. Yeah. It's the two values that I, my, my wife and I, when our son was born, we said, okay, how do we do this? What are we going to do? And he said, Hey, let's, let's align on some virtues. And she, and she goes, yeah, she goes and she writes her list and I write my list and we whittled, whittled, whittled, whittled. And we came up with two that were most important. It was kindness and strength. Oh yeah. And that's, those are two really good. Yeah. And you have both of those.

Those are good. Yeah. And it's that tumbler that is your strength. My husband would also tell you that I have a Viking. Oh. I mean, we all have a Viking, but we all have Vikings. Which means? If you push me too far, you don't want to meet the Viking.

And the timing is so good. Yeah. I mean, it's just, that's being a human being. Do you wear a watch? No, I did buy an Apple watch, and this is nothing against Apple. I finally was like, I cannot. Bing, bing, bing, bing.

You value the present experience so much that you don't want to be dragged around. But that's what's interesting, because you value timeliness, but you don't wear a watch. So I don't know how you keep structure and order. And so I think- Neither do I.

Yeah, because I think you get so lost. But you've said over and over, like, no, I've got to get this done. I think, oh, I know what it is. It's you don't want to let people down. They gave you money and a budget and expectations. So you're like, I got to honor that promise. So that's the internal anxiety about letting people down. And somewhere early in your life, me too, there was just enough judgment to create this neurotic- Just enough spicy judgment. Right, this neurotic experience. But it's so funny because, again, I don't know your expertise in terms of what you've

cultivated over your life. But when you say the word neurotic, I'm like, wow, that's a really negative word. Oh, I love every piece of it. So I guess that this is me asking you, what is neurotic? Like what's the modern? Because when I was growing up, neurotic was a very bad thing. So what is it today? Yeah, it's a charged word. I use it provocatively.

The neuroticism, but I think we are all, A-L-L is a very big word, have a neurotic sense somehow. And do we work with it or not? Do we stuff it down? Do we bring it forward? Do we, are we honest with it? Most neuroticism is this emotional volatility, this emotional experience that, and it doesn't mean rage. It could just mean like, man, there's so much happening in there. Like, do I bring it forward or do I tamp it down? And you have just enough courage and kind of maybe energy that it does come forward. But I don't, if you and I were having a conversation somewhere and we're just like enjoying a drink or something, like you're not neurotic like that. You're not going to be like, oh my God, she's so neurotic.

No, it's like, I say it endearingly, that there's this emotional power that comes forward. Because I appreciate that because it's taken me a long time in my life to realize this, you know, when I was young, because I had anxiety. I, you know, my dad called me moody Meg. And it was a very negative thing to have anxiety. It was negative, negative, negative, stop doing that. Stop being that. Stop being anxious, right? And now we need people like you and hopefully me to say, Wait, hold on, I get anxious. And there is a very positive part of being anxious. Anxiety.

I want to hear your thought because anxiety technically is an excessive worry about things going wrong. Right. A worry about things going wrong will help you plan and organize and think and discern. She just wants a job. Right. You know? Yeah.

Amen. And the excessiveness where it kind of runs the whole ship and everything is like spring, all of your thoughts, words, and actions are springing from that well is problematic. Yes, for sure. In a hard way to live. Oh, I was waking up in my first kind of year of college with my handshaking yeah brushing my teeth like yeah like i didn't i didn't understand it i didn't have language around it it was like just flat out anxiety you know and so anxiety is for caring people i there i i find i don't know about all anxious, but a lot of them that I know are, they're tuning forks and they're tuning, tuning, tuning. That's it.

And I find that a lot of them are artists and they need to go do their art because I sometimes think like there's a, the universe has chosen you for this sacred role and you're a tuning fork. And if you don't do it, that energy is still flowing into you. It's still coming in. So it's like water getting backed up and turning brackish. And as soon as you do it, it just releases into what it was coming into you to go through you for. As an artist, you know, my friend Felicity is a painter,

and sometimes when she gets super anxious, I'm like, have you painted recently? Because sometimes you just need to do what you are here to do. And I think anxiety, I'm done with being judgmental about my anxiety. I'm done with condemning her and saying that she should be go away and this is a piece of myself I should be embarrassed about. I'm kind of done with that

because my anxiety is a very big part of why I am who I am and what I've been able to accomplish and give to the world is because my anxiety is always tap, tap, tapping me on the shoulder and saying, are you sure? Did you look there? Look again. I mean, I have a special needs child. Talk about anxiety. Yeah, that's right.

But it got me going. That's right. Which is like, I understand that that doctor just told you nothing's wrong, but something's wrong. That's right. I really do think something's wrong. Because look at that, look at that. Like it's, it's asking me to focus and to believe myself. So yes, it can,

if it gets overpowering or if it stops me from doing something I want to do, that's when I'm reaching a place of, oh no, now it's out of control. And, and sometimes I literally, even before I took Inside Out as a job years before, I would just, if I'm going to go do something and anxiety is really yelling really loud in my head, and I still want to do it, I want to go into that meeting, I want to get on that ride, I want to, whatever it is, I will just say, okay, thank you. Thank you. I know you're trying to protect me. I'm not going to die. I'm not going to die. So just take a seat.

Just watch. So I knew where I wanted the movie to end. Because I've done that for a long, long time. Well, the movie was about integration. Yes. And for me, like, you know, people, when you ask casually, you know, what do you want in life? And they go, I want to be happy. And I, my quick new response is like, there's so much more than just happiness. Like, what do you mean? I want all of them.

I want to feel the depth of all of the emotions. I want range. I want to like be so embodied, embedded, enmeshed, but to have faculty to be able to manage them as well. And so that's the part. Well, I mean, it's funny because people say to us, say to me and Dave Holstein, the other writer who's also a genius, they'll say, why are all these new emotions negative? Most of them. And I'm like, that's your judgment. Yeah, right. They're not negative. You're judging them as negative,

but envy is incredibly important, especially for women. It's incredibly important emotion because it tells you what you want. Well, I think what he might be pointing to is, like if we had a spectrum of emotions, most of them are quite prickly. There's an agitation with them. There's like... So it may not feel good, but it doesn't mean it isn't good. That's 100%. And I was speaking with a friend of mine who was born in Tibet,

practicing Buddhist, richly steeped in this beautiful tradition. And we're having a conversation about anger and she goes, wrath is good. I go, what do you mean? She goes, oh yeah, you need to know how to use wrath. And that idea was like, oh, that's great. Like if it's, there's a facilitative nature, like you need to have to know how to access that. Oh yes, when there's a wrong happening, use wrath. I was like, oh, that's cool. Yeah, my Viking needs to come out sometimes because it's a boundary setting. Mine's a dragon.

Yours is a dragon. Everybody pick your own. Mine's a Viking with a big club. But sometimes I use him wrong. I use him because I don't want to go there. I'm frightened by what you're saying. I don't want to look at that back up. That's right. That's not the right way to use the Viking at all. It's, um, it's a fear, anger, rage, uh, it's vulnerability. It's you're trying to avoid that vulnerability. Um, but yeah, I, I love that. I love accepting all parts of yourself. And I think it's,

and the other thing you said about happiness, I think as I age, it's not a deep enough word. It's not. It's right at the surface. Joy is better. I'm glad you chose joy. Yeah.

Pete chose joy. And I think she's a much, that's a great word. And I have to say that Dave Holstein wrote that line about joy and happiness. The other writer, Dave Holstein. And it's a beautiful line. I hope it's not true. It is not true. It's a good challenge. It's a good question. For me, joy in the movie, in the second movie, her journey is at the beginning, she is kind of a young child's joy, right? But by the movie, in the second movie, her journey is, at the beginning, she is kind of a young

child's joy, right? But by the end, she is self-compassion. Awesome. And that's a different kind of joy. I'm going to look at that in a different way. It's a different kind of joy that she's there to accept all of Riley and a compassionate, to bring all that joy to Riley, yes, but in a compassionate way. The thing that always gets me every time is the image of all of them hugging Riley and all of her flaws and misbeliefs about herself. In that moment, my wife, my son, he's 15, and I'm like, my tears are flowing.

I look over at my wife and she's fully in it. And my son is like, that is a good movie. That's so great. 15-year-old boy, that's good. It was a great gift. Meg, thank you. What a treat. And I could have many of these conversations with you.

So thank you for being so animated and so honest. Thank you for having me. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify. We are incredibly grateful for the support and feedback.

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