Good Life Project - Creative Trespassing | Tania Katan

Episode Date: September 24, 2019

Tania Katan (https://taniakatan.com/)is a speaker, bestselling author, and co-creator of globally viral empowerment campaign #ItWasNeverADress. Her inventive way of formulating ideas led to the groundbreaking bestseller, Creative Trespassing: How to Put the Spark and Joy Back into Your Work and Life (https://amzn.to/31fZC4U). While she’s now known for her unique ability to make unseen connections, generate imaginative innovations, and foster creative breakthroughs across a wide range of industries, the way she got there was anything but a straight line. From finding the right blend of “pay the bills work" to creative work as a young playwright to subverting the status quo of the art world with arm wrestling events, she’s explored what it means to harness creativity in all kinds of arenas. In today’s conversation, Katan shares the story of how she came to embrace creative trespassing, and what she’s learned about finding opportunities for new ways of working and being, even in the most mundane circumstances.-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So the moment I first saw my guest, Tanya Kattan, on stage a couple months back, I knew immediately I wanted to sit down with her for a deeper conversation. She was absolutely captivating. And it was partly about her story. So she was actually born in New York, grew up in Arizona with a lot of challenges, but also knowing that she was always a very different kid than everyone around her. And then the other part was the way that she basically stepped into the world, the way that she embraced unapologetically who she was, and then brought her unique lens, her voice, her creative abilities,

her flair for creativity and drama into jobs, arenas, entire industries, companies, in a way that completely defied the descriptions on paper of what she was doing, brought them alive, brought the cultures alive, and in doing so completely transformed wherever she ended up landing. Along that journey, she also created a massively viral campaign that would sort of redefine what it was to be a woman, especially in the world of tech and business. And her book called Creative Trespassing is a really fun and super informative deep dive into sort of the fundamental principles and extractions that she has really divined from this journey in an effort to share them with anyone and everyone so that they can understand

how to turn whatever it is that they're doing into what they need it to be to make it more creative and more alive in every way, shape, and form. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum.

Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is?

You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. I remember the playground in our school and the playground was actually just cement. And we did an exercise where we. Which for those outside of New York is normal. Oh, totally difficult.

Yeah. Yeah. And I remember, though, that the cement kind of fell away. We did an exercise where we were lying on our backs and we were asked to look up at the clouds and name what animals and things we saw in the clouds. And I thought, wow, what a transcendent experience. And I realized, though, that the ability to see, you know, a bunny rabbit in the clouds as a kid was probably the beginning of my creativity and curiosity in the world. Were you that kid? Were you that kid who was kind of walking around sort of like in your head, creating things and seeing things? Yes and no. I'm a weird, like super extrovert. However, I have like a really steady relationship with my imagination. And also I

wanted to have friends, but people didn't want to be my friend. So I spent a lot of time creating entire worlds in my brain. Yeah. Yeah. What, talk to me about the people didn't want to be my friend thing. Cause your, your face definitely changed like for a heartbeat when you said that. I know. I feel like growing up, I had a lot of strikes against me. According to society, I thought I was awesome actually. And my parents said I was awesome. You know, I had like good self-esteem and love and all that kind of stuff. And yet, you know, I was Jewish in an area in Phoenix where I ended up growing up that not very many people were Jewish. So that was weird to my friends or to potential friends. You know,

they're like, oh, do you celebrate Thanksgiving? And I'm like, yeah, I don't know what to, so I felt sort of other in lots of ways. And also I grew up very poor with a single mommy and a brother and a sister. And so we struggled financially and all of that. And so I remember wearing like the same pants several times in a row. And, you know, kids are kind of, they're kind of relentless when noticing things that are different or other as prescribed by society. And so, yeah, I wanted to have friends and stuff. And I'm like, look at me, pick me, I'm a good time. And they're like, not so much. You don't have the fancy clothes or whatever. Yeah. And then it wasn't actually until I started finding drama or speech

and debate in high school that I found my people. Right. So you mentioned that your mom was a single mom. Yeah. But you also like you share a lot of stories and about your dad. I sure do. Tell me about your dad. I mean, I'm curious about both of them. Yeah. Because you have this really, it seems to give this really interesting blend. Yeah. So my parents split when we were really little and they were really different people. My mom is from France and she was sort of like the wild, like let's have belly dancer parties and stinky cheeses kind of mom. And we'd play records and sing and dance and all of this stuff. And she also exposed us to a lot of arts and culture. So even though we were poor, she found free days at museums and really championed the arts. And my dad was the opposite. He was a New York cab driver in the 60s and 70s. And so he was like,

you know, gruff, a little rough around the edges. You know, he liked to gamble a little bit and maybe have a scotch or three. And somehow they met in a bakery where he worked and they shacked up and had kids really quickly. But weren't, you know, there's this phrase that I've been thinking about, adult child of, you know, which is usually like an adult child of an alcoholic or an abusive situation. And I realized my parents were just adult children, period. Like they didn't know how to be parents. They were sort of of the 60s. They were a little wild. And therefore, the way in which they parented us was like, we don't know.

Let's do it together. And sometimes that worked and provided freedom. And other times we were like, can we have some structure, please? So it was a weird, wild, and kind of open, but very loving environment to be around. I kind of went on a tangent. I don't know. Jonathan, you asked these questions and my brain literally, it's like all of these little compartments are just opening up, up, up. It's okay. We can go there. Because I'm just, I'm really curious when, interestingly also, right? So in the sixties and seventies, when people think about New York,

very often they think about New York now. The sixties and seventies in New York was not a good time. It was a very different city. Yeah. My dad, and maybe this, I mean, my dad was kind of like a fake tough guy anyway, you know, like he's a softy, but he was a little tough to begin with. And he was driving cab and he's like, people would fucking vomit in my cab. You know, I had some of the Rolling Stones in there. People would tell me to fuck off. And so, you know, my dad was rough. He would, I tell people to get the hell out of my car, you know, get out. He would just drop people off. Yeah, it was kind of like the wild east, you know?

I mean, so yeah, but he made a good living actually at the time, which is so weird. I remember as a kid when my parents were still together, they had enough money to buy a house in New York. I mean, they didn't end up doing it, but we sort of went shopping for a house because of his income from driving a taxi cab. So when you end up, when you're around five and you end up moving out of the city, is that when your parents were separated at that point? Yeah. She stayed here? Yeah. Well, my mom wanted to be geographically as far away from him as possible. And so she had

family in Arizona. Got it. And so that was the choice. Yeah, I was curious, like, why Arizona? If you could move anywhere away from New York, that would explain it. Yeah. But yeah, it was the family. I don't think my mom was like, cactus in extreme heat.

That sounds sexy. You know, like, but it was having a support system to go to with three little kids, you know, that kind of. So of the three kids, where are you? I have a twin brother. Okay. And then a sister that's two years younger than us. Right.

Yeah, but emotionally, I feel like I'm the oldest. It's interesting also that she had that, even though, as you said, when you sort of touched down in Arizona, you were not a family with resources. But she, so there was something inside of her that said, no matter how I do it, I need to expose my kids to the world of creativity and art. Totally. And in fact, she, you know, she was like a dabbler in painting and writing poetry. And, you know, I think also being a product of the 1960s, it was like everybody sort of like could express themselves creatively. That was actually the underpinnings for being, you know, counterculture in the 60s. And so my mom just kind of played and developed those skills. And as a result, you know, she taught summer camp,

she taught arts and crafts so that we could go to summer camp for free because we couldn't afford it. And she's actually a beautiful cook. And so she bartered her cooking skills for us to attend a very fancy summer camp. And at first I was embarrassed, you know, I'm here at this camp and I'm making friends and they're like, oh, wait, is your mom the cook? And I'm like, yeah, I guess she is. And I was just sheepish about it until they tried her food and they're like, your mom's the best. And I'm like, I know. I was just playing it cool. That's so funny.

It's interesting also that you say that you're sort of a raging extrovert, but you struggle with others. Because so much of the conversation that I've had with so many people is the opposite, is that there's social struggle, which is not so much, you know, it's not super unusual in your teens. But I've talked to so many people over the years where they're very introverted. is that there's social struggle, which is not so much, it's not super unusual in your teens, but I've talked to so many people over the years where they're very introverted. And that actually caused a lot of sort of struggle trying to find the people that, who are your people and how do you move into that world

and how do you develop relationships? It's interesting to hear that as an extrovert, who's very comfortable around people and very comfortable talking to random people, that you had a similar struggle, but almost like for a very different reason. Totally. Absolutely. And I'm so glad that I didn't fit in, that I was sort of perceived as an outsider because it allowed me to develop my observational skills and it allowed me to create entire worlds in my brain. Like I was writing Saturday Night Live skits in my brain as I walked

to high school because I didn't really have friends to share it with. So I would write characters. Yeah, I thought I was awesome. Seriously, I wasn't like, oh, they don't like me because I'm this or I'm chubby or I wear braces or I'm just like, I'm awesome. They need to get on board soon. And so I just didn't let that be a barrier to me hanging out with people. Just the people I hung out with were in my brain and characters I was developing as a writer. Yeah. Yeah. And as a result, I became a writer. Like, I mean, that was really my pursuit and my safe space and my place to kind of make sense of the world around me. I carried a journal with me everywhere I went.

I was going to ask you. I was so curious. Oh, my God, Jonathan. I have literally like boxes and boxes. That's all I have. I'm a minimalist except for journal. And like when I was, from when I was like six years old and then, you know, like when I was 13.

Oh, so you started really young. Little, little. Well, when I was six, I had a diary that had a lock and key and it was pink. Just like I am. Yeah. And then I, you know, I grew up and I had journals that were like those puffy, they look like, like a, what is it? Like a bordello. They were kind of floral and soft.

And yeah, but that was my safe space. That felt like a full world with people talking and ideas being hashed out. And the space that I wanted in real life existed on the page until, you know, people got on board and that was an okay time in real life. It's amazing. I think how, how powerful writing can be as a form, not just of expression, but for processing emotion and getting to a place where maybe you're not like completely awesome, but where you're kind of okay because you have this outlet. I know so many people that have struggled so much, especially early in life, but they were journalers and they literally feel like that was their third. That was the thing that got them completely through it. And very often, it also became the thing that turned into something profoundly different on the expressive side as they move further into life. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, it did two things.

It became sort of my therapeutic outlet as a kid, and then it became source material for everything that I've written. I mean, truly, you know, I mean, whether I was writing plays or, you know, I wrote a memoir and then I wrote my new book. Everything has been hashed out in journal style first because it's a totally free space. It's a space, you know, when entrepreneurs are like, make mistakes and take risks and then people stop you from doing that within a work context. But within a journal, nobody is waiting to read your journal. You're not sharing it with anyone. It literally is the safest space as far as I'm concerned for us to really take risks. That's such an interesting frame on journaling. Because yeah, in the world of entrepreneurship and creativity, even people are sort of like have adopted this

fail off and fail publicly. It's all okay. It's part of the process. And yet we still feel the moment somebody else is in the room, the moment we're creating something where we know at some point somewhere down the road, somebody might see it, it affects what we do. But the idea that of your journal being an expressive palette where you really can just completely do everything you want and there's kind of no failure, but you can look as good or as bad as you want in your own mind and nobody's ever gonna see it. And you kind of work through it in that way.

That's kind of a really interesting idea. Yeah, and I used to teach memoir writing more formally. Now I do it every summer. I started a workshop in Italy. And that's what I tell people to do is like your journal is the place that you vomit out everything because knowing nobody is going to read it. Nobody's going to buy it. Penguin Random House

isn't going to be like, I want to read your journal. But that's a space you need to work it all out. And then when you're ready to write your book or a story or whatever, you can kind of take a sentence from there and then take a microscope on that sentence and then blow it up into an entire world. Yeah. Did you ever get into Julia Cameron's work, The Artist's Way and Morning Pages and stuff like that? Or was that almost like already being taken care of by the way your practice had gone? Yeah, that came out after my practice was fully formed. However, the person and book that influenced me more specifically was Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones. And that's what I recommend to, like, you know, when I go to corporations and talk about creativity and stuff, you know, that I can you make any recommendations of books.

And I think they expect me to say, like, lean in or whatever. And I'm like, Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. And there's also Gail Shear, One Continuous Mistake. I don't know that one. Oh, it's based in, she's a practicing Buddhist and also a writer. And so it weaves in Buddhist principles with the idea of expressing yourself creatively and that there are no wrong turns. It's all right and messy and in front of you. Yeah, I'm a big fan of, and I think Natalie Goldberg has some Buddhism weaved into her work as well. So I'm a fan of those two ways of being intertwined.

Yeah, that's super cool. So you end up, so you're rolling into high school, you have this practice. What is the thing that happens or what is the thing you discover that allows you to start to sort of like step out of your head and more into, okay, this is who I am more publicly and this is who I want to surround myself with. And this is my lens and my voice. Yeah. High school drama all the way. I took a drama class. And the first day of class, I think we did a game called Freeze and Justify where two people get up in front of the class and they start performing some made up scene.

You know, nothing from a script or anything like that. And then you can yell from the audience, freeze. And then the two people have to freeze in whatever like gesture or physicality they're in. And then you take over one of their physical. So if you're raising your hand when I say freeze, I come up, I take your place, I'm raising my hand and I change the scene altogether. So maybe you're raising your hand because you're like, I want to ask a question and then I stop you and I get up there and I raise my hand and I'm like, stop it. I'm going to, whatever, I don't know. But yeah,

so this idea of being able to disrupt and interrupt something that seems so formal as a scene on a stage to kind of impose whatever idea or instinct I had. I thought, oh, my gosh, this is awesome. And plus, we seem sort of like unsupervised children. My drama teacher was awesome, Mr. Fountain, if you're listening. I love you. And also he allowed us to be free and silly. And then, you know, not only did I meet kind of the other outsiders or the weird, queer, awesome kids, but we started using text or our own writing to create scenes. And that's where I realized, that's my passion. It

wasn't necessarily taking scenes that had been written by Shakespeare and reinterpreting them as a performer. It was writing my own material. I love that. So we had assignments where we could write our own stuff and perform it. And I think that was the foundation. So meeting the weird kids, because I was a weird kid, and using writing as a foundation for performance and for speaking and for connecting with audience. Oh my gosh, I loved it. Yeah. And it sounds like that was, so that was the seed of it, but that was also just the beginning of it for you. Cause then that becomes like a much more expensive sort of course of study for you and devotion. Yeah. And in fact, now I'm in Terp, where you could write a piece that was about seven minutes long with different characters. And then you'd stand planted from the waist down, you couldn't move, and you'd perform and act out all these characters. And I'm like, oh, so fantastic, my jam. And so when I became an adult

human, I did a series at Comedy Central Stage in LA called Sit and Spin, run by Jill Soloway and Maggie Rowe. And I became sort of a regular storyteller there. And one day, Maggie, who's a brilliant storyteller, we were backstage and we were like, you're so good. And like, you're so good. Why are you so good? And we realized we did high school speech and debate.

We both did humor interp. So there was something about that training that I wasn't just, I didn't just absorb it, but a lot of us, we realized, I think it trained us for being in front of a live audience with our stories. So. So you ended up in college studying this? Yeah, I got a degree in theater. Right. Was your intention while you're sort of like doing this thing, I mean, was it the type of thing where you're just like, I love this, I want to do as much as humanly possible? Or did you also think like, this is what I'm going to do.

Like, this is how I'm going to go out into the world and be and live and earn my living and exist. And, or were you kind of more in the moment, just like, this is my jam. I just want as much of it as I can now. That's a really, that's sort of a deeper question. I feel like I approached it more in the present tense, which was when I went to theater school, I loved writing and I started writing plays, a ton of them, 10 minute plays, full length plays. And I just assumed I would be

a playwright. It wasn't as like logical as you're presenting, like I will be a playwright and I would pay all my bills like this, or I will starve or whatever. It was more like, I love doing this. I'm really good at it. And I'm working with mentors who are helping me become better at it. And I had professional productions when I was in college, I was like in the New York times and stuff like that, which is crazy for a young ego. It was both good and bad. But yeah, so I didn't think I would do anything else, but I didn't really think of like, how am I going to make money writing plays and sending them in an envelope with a sassy? Yeah. But you also had experiences early on where you sort of, you kind of took risks and you

stepped into like other groups or classes where in theory, you know, maybe you almost shouldn't have been there according to the quote description or qualifications, but people recognized something in you. It sounds like there were mentors along the way who kind of saw something in you that said, no, come in, do this with us and you'll figure it out. And then they saw what you were creating and there was something bigger that was happening at a really early time that, and you also were willing to kind of step into this space of not entirely sure if I'm ready for this, but I'm going there.

Yeah. Because I never fit in, again, going back to the foundation of me being this extrovert who just wanted friends and didn't have them. I always, whenever somebody welcomed me in, whether that was a mentor or a class or later in life, companies hiring me when it didn't make sense for anyone, I was always open to that proposition. And also because I'm so curious, I like to learn about, you know, different ways of being in the world, different courses of study, different fields, like stuff that I never would instinctually be interested in. I'm interested in learning about on some level. And this is why, you know, it's funny, your questions are prompting my brain to

go in lots of different directions. But I'm just thinking there's sort of a wealth of writers and people that you've probably spoken with who talk about formal education being like, meh. And I have to say what formal education actually taught me that I love so much is to study and look at subjects that I never would study or look at on my own. And that is so beneficial to my life and to my career. And so I think that that's where, you know, formal education sometimes gets a bad rap, and it's not accessible to everyone. You know, there's all kinds of issues.

However, it said, you know what, Tanya, you can't just take courses because you like them. You're going to take this one because you have to. And I'm like, no, this sucks. And that really now, you know, I go into like technology companies and manufacturing companies and all kinds of weird shazit that I never would have pursued. And I learned that we are all we all have processes that kind of overlap in some way, whether it's a thought process or a literal way of being and doing in the world. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like it also got you acquainted with the idea, which I know is sort of like a central part of what you teach out into the world these days. That, you know, whether it's creativity, whether it is whatever it is, that thing that is inside of you, you know, like that when you're looking at how you're going to bring that to the world, like what, what channel do you choose? What industry, what company, whatever it may be,

what job that it's actually less about like what that predefined container is and more about your ability to find the conduit, find the outlet, find a way to, to reimagine it in a way that lets you still be that person almost no matter where you are. Yeah. I think that that's actually the superpower of being in the world is realizing what your skills are, what you do well, and what you want to learn more of, because then you can jump into any form. You can jump into any industry with all of those intact. And that's theater training too, kind of trained me for jumping into wildly different worlds. It's like you create a show. Right. And it's opening night, but it's live. So you tell a joke and everybody cries instead of laughs.

You gather information, you respond and you kind of move on. But you know that you created a world solid enough that you can respond to whatever is going on around you. And so, I don't know, when I go into different, you know, companies or forms, I know that whatever happens, I have the skills to kind of deal with it. I'm equipped to kind of address it. Yeah. Was improv a meaningful part of what you did when you were sort of like somewhere along the way? I'm curious.

Yes, and. Everyone who's ever done improv will understand what that was about. Yeah, that's for you guys. Shout out to improv-ers. Me, you know, I didn't focus on it as an, I focused more on playwriting. However, you know, I did do some improv workshops and also in school we learned, you know, some basic improv. And I mean, the basis of improv is the same as theater, which is about kind of trusting and developing your instincts.

You know, with theater, you have a script and you have some architecture to hang on to, whereas improv, you're like, I don't know, you know, it's like you're free falling. So yeah, I mean, I think it's super valuable valuable in the world. So in my arsenal, but not specifically improv. You know what I'm saying? Like I had friends who were like, improv, throw out a word, Tanya, give me an idea. And I'm like, babies. And they're like, I'm not, you know. But it wasn't necessarily a jam.

No. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to

previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. So when you get out of school then, you're like, okay, so what now? Where do you go with all this? And I know there's also, there are some big wrinkles that get thrown into your path. Yeah, I would say I leave school and I'm convinced that I'm going to make a living as a playwright because that's what I do really well. And then what I realize is I will always have a slash mark. So I will be a barista slash playwright, or I will be bagging groceries slash playwriting, or that in order to pay my bills and be in the world, I will have to have both things. And and then pretty soon.

So I worked like myriad of weird jobs. I was like a print broker in San Francisco working with I mean, I was like like in my 20s, super scrappy lesbian as I am today, only a little bit older. And I was working with like fancy, like the Folgers and different, you know, fancy families helping their daughters with wedding invitations, which I think is just so funny. So I did all this weird, I'm like, of course you'd like that to be engraved in sage. And they're like, Tanya, that's fantastic. Should I go with ecru or white for the paper? And I'm like, ecru. Anyway, I didn't know anything. I was just making shit up. I was just trusting my instincts and kind of going for it. So what I would do, I'd have these like sort of typical jobs, like nine to five-ish. And I would wake up at five in the morning and I would go to a coffee house, no matter where I was, no matter what my

job was. And I would write a play or work on a play in the morning. So I had a whole rich writing life about four hours every morning before I went into work. So it didn't bug me, I guess. And it allowed me to keep my sanity in jobs that I was like, oh, my soul is being sucked out of a straw and spit out on the ground. I love the idea though, of being able to reframe of sort of having that blend, right? Where you've got your main gig, like your full-time gig, and it's making you okay in the world and paying your bills and all this other stuff. It's not great. It's not awful. It's just kind of there. But the fact that it allows you to then do the five to nine in the weekends, and then like maybe after work, it gives you the freedom to go there

and also not be constrained by constantly questioning, is this commercially viable? Because you know, you got that covered. Like, I feel like that blend is really powerful for so many people, but it's poo-poo by sort of like a lot of pop culture. This is not like, you should just devote a hundred percent of your energy to like your purpose and your passion. And for some people, yeah, you can find a way to do that. But for others, I feel that blend is actually a completely viable alternative way to sort of put things together. No, totally. And actually, you're making me think of the fact that

I remember once working in this soul-sucking job, and I thought, you know what, I'm going to just save like two months worth of rent and bills, and then I'm just going to write plays. That's it. So I saved money. I took a couple months off and I was like, this is awesome. And then I realized this sucks because a lot of the characters and conversations that I was writing about, I listened and gleaned from work. I didn't realize that actually work had become my source material for writing. So I needed the two

and having that time away from it, you know, I mean, playwriting, any kind of writing is all about like tension, you know, overcoming obstacles. I mean, it's basically work relationships, let's just call it like it is. So I got sad and uninspired when I was away from work. And then eventually what I realized was in my jobs, I was treating the best jobs that I had, even if they seemed silly or they weren't going anywhere, allowed me to be myself in those contexts. So whether I was taking work and weaving it into my playwriting or writing books and things like this, or I was taking my creativity and weaving it into bagging groceries.

You know, it could work both ways. And that really kind of blew my mind and shifted my consciousness about how I could be. And if I could be creative in less creative spaces, or if I could glean creativity from less creative spaces, then maybe other people could do it. And so that was when I kind of- It's like the genesis of a lot of what, yeah. Yeah. That became, yeah. Like really that is like foundational work that I've done personally and then professionally. Yeah. So as you're doing this, so then you're at this point, you're-

107. Early 20s, right? This is also when you get a diagnosis that also like completely sends you off in a different direction. Yeah. So when I was 21 years old, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. And this is for context. It's 1992, which, you know, I mean, this is when still in movies and in forms of entertainment, when they talk about cancer, they're like, your father has cancer, you know? And so, and we didn't see representations of women and young women were not being diagnosed with breast cancer like they are today. So I was literally a medical anomaly. And so I found a lump in my breast and I didn't think it was anything.

Again, I'm 21, 1992, no big whoop. Going to get it checked out becomes a big whoop really fast, like super hyper speed. They do a biopsy and then they're like, this is cancer. It's advanced stage. And I was just like, what? You know, none of it made sense. And so I felt like I was literally pushed into a medical labyrinth and had 10 seconds to get out and had a mastectomy scheduled very quickly after diagnosis, like a couple of weeks later. You know, I mean,

actually now it's kind of a blur. I mean, it really happened so fast. And in some ways that's great because, you know, when you have foresight and you know what's coming and how painful or uncomfortable or weird it might be, there's something instinctually that stops you from moving forward in that direction. And I didn't know anything that was coming next. And that was both terrifying and probably saved my life, you know, in some ways. So, yeah, I got a mastectomy and then I had six months of chemotherapy. But all the while, what I was doing is I was writing about my experience as it unfolded in front of me. And that was a way for me to both distance myself from it when it felt really uncomfortable emotionally and physically, and also access it in a way that felt safe, you know, like we were talking about

through writing, felt like a way to sort of, you know, like we were talking about through writing, felt like a way to sort of journal and be that safe space for me. Yeah. I mean, I'm curious, you've mentioned that you've gone back to some of your other journals and that's like where you gained some of your writing inspiration. Have you gone back to, or do you have any desire to ever go back to sort of like that six month window and look at the journals from then? That's a, that's, that's an awesome question. So what I did with the writing of that time is I actually wrote a play about it. So that was produced and professionally and things like that, which is its own weird thing to see your life performed, you know, five nights a week and twice on Sunday. Especially at sort of like the most vulnerable, intimate sort of like moment of your life. Yeah.

So I feel like I explored those journals fully and deeply as the kernels for the play. However, you know, to see for me physically writing in journals as opposed to computer mediated form of writing is really different. Like to even see the stroke of my pen on a piece of paper, maybe in times where I was like sitting in the waiting room for results might be interesting. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't be opposed to seeing it. I'm not like, I need to get to it, but yeah. Well, another curiosity of mine, because this also, as you mentioned, this happened to you when you were very young and at a time where there's a very different frame.

No matter when this happens, and I've had this conversation with so many different people, when you have that diagnosis and you're living with it yourself, you experience your own thing. And then other people around you tend to not know how to handle it in any way, shape, or form. When this is happening to you and you're literally 21 years old where people don't know how to handle themselves anyway, looking back at that window, I'm curious what the experience was. You're new in the world, out there solo, just creating yourself. I imagine you have a crew of people you're rolling with who are creative and from the theater scene too and blending stuff up.

And this doesn't just enter your life, but their life and the relationship between you. How did it affect that and how did you experience it? situations like cancer with by being really like funny about it or kind of making light and also wanting to make other people feel comfortable as opposed to myself so I didn't have that emotional maturity to be like oh my god this sucks like I need my time I was just like shut up this is so crazy let's have a going out of boobie sale you know where you could touch my boobie for a dollar and so the image that came to mind that sort of encapsulates how I was feeling in that moment and what I did was I literally was in the hospital after having my mastectomy

and in the room was my girlfriend at the time and my mom and friends and da, da, da. And it was like a party. And we were so loud that, you know, somebody had to come into the room and say, could you please keep it down? And at the time I was that, you know, somebody had to come into the room and say, could you please keep it down? And at the time I was like, shut up, like best party ever, Cancer rocks, you know. And I realized after everybody kind of left the room and became quiet, I did have a moment where I was like, this is fucked up, you know.

And yeah, I think, sorry, I just went so deep. You're asking questions that are triggering so many images in my brain, um, that I'm not sure where I was going with it, but, but, um, people, you know, people did things like quietly, um, retreat, you know, I had a friend and I was actually diagnosed with a second breast cancer at 31 years old. And at that time, I had a friend who had kind of like slowly gone away. And another person in my life that couldn't talk about the cancer, like everything was about just regular stuff. And I finally had to say, you know what, actually, I don't give a shit about the fact that you can't find a parking space. I have no hair and I feel sick.

And I didn't realize that it would impact me like that, but that's how it was. Different things became of vital importance and other things I just did not give a shite about. Yeah. Yeah. And then some people really showed up in unexpected ways as well. I had a really good boyfriend, gay boyfriend, Ben, who when I was going through cancer the first time at 21, he's like, let's go dancing. And I'm like, you know it. But really taking me out of those situations and into places that felt joyous and I also felt a connection to my body was of vital importance to me too. Yeah.

I also know you share the fact that it recurred when you were 31. And at that point, you were already familiar with what the scars looked like and felt like. But you also turned to running. And there was a moment at a race where you decided to show up and do something. Take me to that moment and sort of like what was going through your head and what happened when you decided to make a move and talk to somebody next to you. So when I was first diagnosed with breast cancer, the thing that actually freaked me out was the fact that I was going to, I didn't know when they said a mastectomy or they remove your breast, I was like, do they take machete and chop it off? Like literally, I did not know what that meant and what the physical ramifications were, what it looked like, like what a scar looked like, because nobody was showing scars at that

time. And it scared me to not know. And then when I had my mastectomy and I saw my scar, I'm like, it's not so bad, right? And so when I was diagnosed again, another mastectomy scar, and I thought, well, what if I can show people that the mastectomy scars kind of, yeah, I mean, when your body's like poked and prodded at from the medical industry, it just, it feels like it's not your own. And so running for me became a way for me to literally and metaphorically move forward with my body. And so I decided to run a 10K at the end of my chemotherapy. That was a goal of mine. And that's when I decided that I would do it topless to share the fact that I was now a healthy body in a different form. I just had scars where my breasts used to be, but that enabled me to save my life. And so, yeah, I remember showing up on race day and I, you know, it wasn't about making a grand gesture. In fact, it was the opposite. I felt really like small and vulnerable in that

moment. And anybody who's listening who runs races, it's like there are literally thousands of people at a race. It's not just you and your awesome idea to share your scars. And so I'm there and I'm about to take off my shirt before the race to expose my scars. And it's a race for breast cancer awareness and all this kind of stuff. And there's a woman standing three or four feet away from me. And I thought, I'm just going to tell her that I'm going to take off my shirt and expose two mastectomy scars so she doesn't freak out. And so I turned to her and I'm like, in a few seconds, I'm going to be taking off my shirt, exposing two mastectomy scars. I just didn't want you to freak out. And she looked at me and she said, can I hug you? And I, yeah, in that moment, I was just blown away and we embraced. And then, you know, the announcer said, and runners go. And I went. And that moment, had that moment not happened, I would what happened after the race and in other races that I'd run without

my shirt on, which is people got really scared. Some people avoided eye contact with me. Some people avoided looking at my chest, even though the races I ran were all about breast cancer awareness, which I thought was sort of ironic and also necessary, you know, and it wasn't fun for me to do. It wasn't like, oh, I'm taking off my shirt. This is so fun. It literally, you know, when we talk about vulnerability in this word, to me, that's the most vulnerable I've ever felt is to be half naked in a sea of thousands of people with my scars exposed, just wanting to share this new way of being in a body in the world that has scars. Yeah. Do you still run? No, because I went on to run like marathons and half marathons for years. And then I hit a moment where I'm like, I think I'm done right now. You

know, I think I spent about seven years running at least one or two half marathons, you know, a year. And although recently I kind of feel like I might have another one in me. Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious about, so we talked about the moment that you decided to take your shirt off and then the fact that you continue to do that through races. I'm also curious about, did you eventually say, okay, I'm good. I want to keep running, but I can have my shirt on again. And what it felt like to sort of the first time you said, okay, I'm showing up differently.

I'm showing up and I don't need to take this off now. I'm going to keep it on. How did that feel for you after having done it for a while? I think that it's actually more profound of a feeling when I would show up and take off my shirt. Because in those moments, I'm making a conscious choice to put myself in a situation that is extremely uncomfortable to myself, knowing it might not be received with open arms or a hug. So it was really sort of a natural process of the, of the putting my shirt back on. And also I'm very focused on context and audience, you know, I mean, maybe this comes from theater. It's like you, you read the room,

you consider your audience. So I wasn't interested in running like a topless race for testicular cancer, you know? So they were, they were really focused on breast cancer communities and things like that. So it literally ran its course for me. I felt like I, I, I did like a handful of them. Like I did what I came to do. I did what I came to do and, and I felt good and bad. And it was all the things that make us feel alive, made me feel alive. And when I didn't have that instinct to do it anymore, it just had run its course. And then I realized, oh, I'm a runner. Like I love running. So it sort of transcended

the need to share my scars. And it was more about me feeling like I was once again connected to my body in a healthy way. Yeah. So it's almost like you made the journey from making, to a certain extent, making a public statement. Like that was a central part of why you were out there moving your body to making the journey to, no, I'm showing up for me and entirely me at this point and I'm okay with that. Absolutely. Yeah, and also for me, walking long distances or running long distances

is part of my creative process and practice. So, you know, it's less, it's more internal actually. So the ways in which I was showing up to share something with people was sort of an external gesture. And then I went out into the world and stepping back into this world of contribution and work and trying to figure out what does this look like? Like, how am I actually going to do this thing? And what's the blend going to be? And it took a lot of different shapes and forms. So over the years, you end up also at some point finding yourself in a museum, an art museum. Tell me about that experience. Yeah. So it was at a point in my life where I feel like I have lots of these points

in my life and maybe this is just a creative soul. Maybe we all, you know, everybody who's listening is like, I always have those points in my life where I'm like, what the hell am I doing? What am I doing with my life? What am my purpose? Am I focused on the things I need to? Am I being the human I was meant to be? And I was having one of those existential moments. And I had a phone call from the director of a contemporary art museum a few weeks before my existential crisis. And the museum's called Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Arizona. And he said, you know, we are creating this new space in the museum's called Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Arizona. And he said, you know, we are creating this new space in the museum, and we want new programs, new revenue streams, and new audience members to fill it.

And we want to break the rules of the larger museum. And is this something you'd even be interested in? And I'm like, hmm, you know, that's interesting. So that kind of incubated in my mind. And it was a slower process for them to get the space up and running. In the meantime, I'm like, you know what, actually, I was hating Arizona. We'd moved from LA to Arizona because my wife had a good job in Arizona. And I'm like, this place sucks. And then I thought, hmm, I can either whine or I can take a job where I'm building, I'm building something from the ground up. And maybe in doing that, I can bring in all

these amazing performers that I've shared the stage with around the country and internationally and bring in things from the outside. And so I started to think, yeah, this actually would be an awesome idea. And so I got the job. And the job was called program coordinator. Sounds pretty plain, Viola. Well, I say it because it just goes to show you that it doesn't matter what the job is called or where it is, but you can do whatever the F you want, right? There are like thousands of different ways to create new revenue streams, get new audiences in the door, you know, do what your job responsibilities are. So yeah, I took the job and I started and on my first day, my boss introduced me to all the real curators and they were just freaked out that I was there. They're

like, you know, he's like, this is Tanya. She's a, you know, has a degree in theater and we could use some drama around here. And they're like, no. And and so I hit the ground running with no I had the budget of like a Girl Scout. I had like I sold like 10 boxes of cookies and that was my budget. I didn't have a team because I wasn't a real curator. And anyway, so I decided that the way to bring people into the museum was to acknowledge the fact that museums had been a little bit uninviting and maybe sometimes austere. This was in 2011, 2012-ish. And instead of pretending that people who enter the space need to know all the rules or they're going to be judged, maybe we should offer an olive branch and invite people in who weren't just, you know, in the art world. So one of the programs that I made, I bought with my budget, an arm wrestling table. Which you typically see in your average museum. Well, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And, but I,

this, I never, I never talk about before. So I decided I would do an event called Arm Wrestling for Art. Okay. The idea was, I thought, okay, everybody likes art. Everybody wants art, but art can't be procured by everybody because it's expensive and that's shitty and elitist. And how do we break that down? And so I thought, okay, I'll get a famous artist to give a piece of art. I have access to some well-known artists. So I called up Eric Fischel and I'm like, hey dude, can you make a piece of art that we will give away? And he's like, sure, dude. And then I'm like, arm wrestling, like that's such a democratic way to win something, right? It doesn't involve money. It involves like a little bit of grit and sweat and trash talking. And so we'll do it. And then I thought, arm wrestling, that's a fun name.

Go Tanya. So I came up with all these things then I thought, arm wrestling, that's a fun name. Go, Tanya. So I came up with all these things. I bought the arm wrestling table a couple of weeks before I decided to do a little R&D. And this I never talk about. I have a video somewhere. And I go to a mall because there's an arm wrestling competition. I'm like, I'm going to enter it because I'm going to see what am I doing here at like a crazy person. And so they have like the men's heat before, you know,

and these guys throw down and one guy breaks the other one's arm, like a chicken bone that was like hit in the joint. And it literally went limp. I know it freaked me out too. And here I like, you know, the flyers went out for arm wrestling for Art. We send it, we post it on Facebook and da, da, da. And I was like, fudgesicles. And then my heat came up and I kicked ass. I won. Okay. Now the girl I was up against was 13, but she was angry. You know how 13 year olds can be. And so anyway, I had this weird experience. So what I did was I got back to my desk and I wrote the best release ever. You know, because I didn't want, it was like my first few months on the job and like somebody's going to break. You don't want the ambulance showing up. Tanya's on fire for real.

So yeah, so I started, you know, doing these programs. And Arm Wrestling for Art, we had, it was multi-generational, the people who came. It was, you know, super diverse. We had people from the arts community. But we also had, like, people on first dates. We had grandpas and grandmas. We had people from the fitness community. It was awesome.

And so this is how I ticked the boxes of my job. It's creating, you know, like new programs that brought people in from the outside and also showed that museums didn't have to be like the sterile don't touch. In fact, we could touch each other. And yeah, it was awesome. It was a great experience for me. Yeah. I mean, such a powerful example too, of just, again, this is such a huge part of who you are and what you share with the world is the idea of taking the quote box of the constraints that you've been given that traditionally, like you've assumed like, okay, so these are the rules, these are the resources, these are the constraints. And this is, I have to work within all of them

and saying, kind of questioning it all, saying, well, is, I have to work within all of them and saying, kind of questioning it all. Saying, well, okay, I do acknowledge that there are resources that we have limitations and there are constraints, but there may still be entire ways to bring myself to this experience so that the outcome, the creative output, the experience can be profoundly different. And the way I experience it personally can be profoundly different too. Yeah, absolutely. And also you should know that people weren't necessarily like, go Tanya and like, oh, you're bringing in new revenue. I would imagine a lot of the sort of like more older installed people were sort of like,

this is, it's almost like an assault to what, you know, like the idea of fine art and the culture of fine art and is all about. Yeah, it was. And I wouldn't even be like, point to a specific age, because there were definitely like young people who, more to your point, people who had gone on a very clear and focused trajectory were pissed off. You know, it's like I went to school and I got my degree in art history. And then I studied curatorial studies. Now I'm a curator.

And now this knucklehead, this like scrappy lessee running around, like having people arm wrestle. It's insane. But what they didn't realize, and some did, is that my job was to fill the museum so that people could see their job. It wasn't like a one-off thing. We did storytelling events and arm wrestling and all kinds of – I did a Good & Plenty artist grant that was community-funded.

So all of these people who had either never been to the museum or felt uncomfortable going into the museum now knew about the museum, now felt seen and heard and invited in, and then came back to see the art that the curators had installed. So, you know, my job at the end of the day was contributing to the vision and mission of the museum. Definitely plenty of people were like, she's not working, she's just having fun. Cause I, I, I smiled a lot and I had a sense of joy and purpose in the work I was doing. And, you know, I'm like, work and play are not mutually exclusive. It's so interesting to me also, cause sort of that in the cultural level and then,

and I've seen this unfold in the world of art across, you know, fine art, but all sorts of different domains is that there's this weird tension between the fact that, okay, you're running an institution or a gallery, an organization, wherever it is, that has to become and remain a viable entity that is self-sustaining. So there's got to be an engine of people coming in, which means we have to rob in the base.

We have to bring in people from all walks of life. And yet at the same time, there can also be this sense, but what we have on offer can only be appreciated by a certain type of people. So those are the people who should be here. And there's this really kind of fascinating tension. And I feel like that's also changing a lot these days. Oh, absolutely. Like without any doubts. And in fact, I'd say one of the museums that were pioneers in bringing in irreverent, uncomfortable, and playful programs was MCA Denver. And Adam Lerner really was at the forefront of doing that. And what I'll also say that I think is really fascinating and weird, and this is not relegated to museum or arts and culture, is the disconnect between what a museum or what anyone is quote-unquote selling and how they're doing it. That, to me, is the weirdest.

And, you know, when I speak in companies, this is like the number one question people ask is like, you know, how do I have fun and poke at the rules and da-da-da, you know, if I might get fired? And it's like, hold the line. Let's look at what the vision is. So for a museum, for example, I'm certain a lot of the vision is to bring people in and have new experiences and make them feel excited about arts and culture. And yet the way in which we're doing that, if we're rigid and we're like, but you can only do it like this, then are we connected or is there a disconnect between what we're offering up? I mean, if you're selling transcendence and you're approaching it in a really rigid, not creative way, are you really selling transcendence? Yeah. You know, I mean, I think that that's, that's, that disconnect is when people feel like they're

stuck or out of whack, I always say, go back to the text, go back to what, read your mission statement, look at the, your company's website, see what the language is, or, you know, your values, you know, everybody said like, our company's values are innovation. I'm like, when was the last time you innovated? You know? So it's like, we don't have to, because it's in our value statement. That's right. But it's so easy.

It's, you know, it's like we've already plotted our map towards success. It's just that nobody's taking the time to see the signposts anymore. That's it. It's like, we think we've sort of, we're beyond being creative anymore. Anyway, I think that that's the issue is the disconnect. Yeah. And I think there's also a lot of the sort of like, you know, the innovative dilemma in there. A lot of us start out scrapping and artistic and innovative and pushing the envelope and breaking all the rules.

Because that is how we actually create something different that exists in the world differently and grows differently and fills a new need in a different way. And then we get to a point where you reach a certain level of success. And then you move from, you know, like prevent offense, you know, instead of being the agitator and the disruptor, you start to play to defend what you have already achieved. And you become more and more conservative and less and less. And I think part of that process is you end up moving away from the values and the actions and the ethos and the culture that got you to this place simply because you're afraid of retreating from it, not realizing that that is exactly what will ensure that you do in fact retreat. Yeah. That's like the deep dive into ego. I mean, as opposed to being in the world and choosing things that scare

and excite you every single time. And now you're reminding me of something I wrote about, which is Laurie Anderson. Yeah, of course. Of course. She's amazing. Love. Did you see her movie? I didn't. Oh, be prepared to weep and smile and all the things in between. So Laurie Anderson, at the height of her career, decides to get a job at McDonald's. And the reason why is because from behind the counter and in a uniform, she's able to observe people, you know, and in a way that's really natural. I mean, every one of her performances is really about the human condition. I mean, they're about what it means to be alive in the

world. And so that was a vantage point that she didn't have anymore as like the exalted performer on the stage. So, you know, my theory is this, is when you get to a point of success and you're making a certain amount of money that you need to go get a job on the ground. Do it. You know, I think having that balance is it's real and it keeps it real and it stops you from diving into the yumminess of ego. It's not so yummy. It's like eating a bunch of cupcakes. You're just like, oh, this is so good.

I'm going to puke. It's too much butter and too much sugar. Yeah. cupcakes. You're just like, oh, this is so good. I'm going to puke. It's too much butter and too much sugar. or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual

results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die.

Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. So you have this really powerful experience and a bit of a reawakening to what is actually possible in your experience at the museum. At some point also, you move back out into the world and you make this really interesting leap into the world of tech. And then again, you show up and you're like, okay, so I'm going to do something profoundly different,

which turns into this massive viral eye-opening campaign. Yeah. So first of all, a philosophy that I have as a mature adult, as opposed to somebody who's in my 20s, is leaving companies or jobs when I'm ahead and things are in a good position, you know? It's always a good thing. Yeah, yeah. Well, in the past, I literally was like, you do your own dishes in the shared sink, I'm leaving, or like fill up your own ink cartridges. But with the museum, I, you know, things were going really well with all the programs. And I felt like it was a natural time to leave. In fact, the space that I was in, it was called the Smoka Lounge. And the

concept behind it, like from my boss was that every three years it would be completely redesigned by an artist. And so I, as I worked there one year and I got my stride on and things were going well. And in year two, I'm like, listen, I don't want to work my way out of a job, but I really think that every three years my position should be like not like filled with someone else. I think that would make so much sense. So I, but ironically in three years, I felt like, oh my gosh, I've done so many things and everything's great and growing. It's time to leave. And around that time, I had a conversation with a software company in Scottsdale called AxoSoft. And they were like, you know, we'd love

to talk to you about software. And I'm like, I don't know anything about software. I did. I really didn't. And I didn't give a shit about technology. And I had like an iPhone 3 and this was not that long ago. Okay. And so I met with the CEO at the time. It was sort of like a let's talk and see who we are and whatever. And they, you know, the company kind of expressed like, we were interested in this role called evangelist, like a brand evangelist. And I had no, I just knew evangelist as like a religious zealot. And I thought, that's cool. My Jewish mom will freak out. That'd be awesome. I want to, I'm like, I want to preach. No, but I didn't, I really did not know what this role was. You know, they said something about sales and you're so good at public speaking and this and that. And I'm like, OK, right time. Let's let's do let's try something.

And they made me a really nice offer. And I thought it's time to take a leap of faith. And so I literally started the job knowing nothing about their software for real. And then my first week on the job, I was like, okay, what is this cool software? I just assumed it was something that I could understand or use. And they were like, it's a project management software for software developers. It's a B2B SaaS. And I was like, holy shit, I don't know what those things are at all.

And it was, you know, like entering any new space, there's a new language and new concepts and everything's weird and exciting and all of that. And so I started to learn about the software on some high level. Seriously, I glazed over. I was just like, holy shit, can I quit? When do I get my first paycheck so I have a bridge to my next job. And so about two months into my job, we decided to sponsor Girls in Technology is a global organization. And they were having an inaugural event in Arizona. And we decided to be sponsors. And so my boss came to a colleague, Sarah and myself, and said, you know, like, let's come up with a big idea about women in technology.

And we'll have like a little booth there. And Tanya, you'll give a talk about it. And I'm like, okay. And so we brainstormed and came up with nothing as per lots of brainstorming sessions. And then, you know, I started thinking about women in technology. This is 2015. The Ellen Pau trial is going on. Women in technology, meaning that the pipeline was not happening. Women were not feeling like they were safe or seen or invited into that space. And so anyway, you know, I started thinking about symbols that represented women and then thought of the bathroom symbol, you know, the triangle dress with the round head and the little arms. Sound like every bathroom.

She's everywhere. Yeah, she gets around, that lady. Yeah, and so I realized that that symbol, you know, I made a lot of different symbols, you know, like the women's symbol with the cross and the blah, blah, blah. But that one I thought was actually easily recognizable across cultures and genders and, you know, having the privilege of traveled.

I've seen her lots of places in the world. And I brought her back to Sarah and I said, I have this lady. And Sarah's like, great. You know, like it wasn't an idea. It was a symbol. That was it. And then I just kept looking at her and, you know, poking at her a little bit to see if there was something there. And it was her triangle dress that triggered the fact that that shape is a dress, but it's also lots of things. And then I

thought, I think she's wearing a cape. And then I felt like a crazy person. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm not going to tell Sarah. She's going to think like I'm the hundred-year-old woman working in technology. Like, sure, it's a cape, Tanya, you idiot. And so I printed out the women's bathroom vector and with a prayer and a pencil, made a few lines and realized, holy shit, she is wearing a cape. And, you know, in fact, we were looking at her the wrong way. We were looking at her back and in front, she's wearing a cape. And I showed her to Sarah and Sarah was like, it was never a dress. And I'm like, that's genius. And so we took this idea to the boss and she thought it was great. And then we got a lot of pushback in-house. And I think it's important to know because, you know, people thought, why would we invest any time or energy and turn in making a, you know, designing an image and Tanya giving a talk like who gives a shit? We're selling software for project managers. What does this have to do with it?

And then some people are like, this is the best idea ever. And sort of all the things in between. And at some point we had her blessing, worked with the designer to make the image. And then I gave, I wrote the website, like, this is like, you can't, you know how people, I speak at a lot of marketing conferences and people are like, I want to create a viral campaign. You can't. And when you do, you are fucked because you didn't realize how much infrastructure needed to happen that didn't happen. You know, because you're not planning, you can't plan that shizit. Okay.

So I wrote, oh, it was never addressed website. And basically, you know, it's like writing a grant where you have to leave it open enough to change, but specific enough to be engaging. It's like, okay, this is about shifting people's perceptions of women in the workspace and, you know, in the home space, in the church and blah, blah, blah. And so I wrote this whole thing. And then we literally went to the, and then I wrote a, like a talk about gender equity. And then we went to the conference a few days later, set up a little table with our project management software, and then these stickers that had the women's bathroom vector, and then it was never addressed written on them. And somebody posted an image of one of the stickers and it went viral in 24 hours. It had over 20 million organic impressions, which is, you know, like fancy tech talk for a lot of people liked it a lot.

And it really, it became huge. It's such an interesting example on so many different levels, right? Of all the things we're talking about, the idea of redefining and re-imagining what you're actually doing, a willingness to look at something and that, you know, even internally you present and you kind of think it's a little bit nuts to the first person, but you're still willing to do it. And then that person gives you some buy-in. And then even internally, there's a battle that goes on around this and be willing to sort of say, I can't even tell you necessarily whether it's going to work or not, but I feel in my gut there's something here. And I'm willing to get behind it. Like I'm willing to actually invest myself in pushing this forward, which I think is such a scary place for so many people who

are working, who are out in the workforce to be these days. I mean, like you and I have this amazing blessing. We kind of run our own thing. But the vast majority of the world works in the context of these big preexisting cultures and organizations. And it's not that they don't have amazing ideas all the time. It's like there's so much fear don't have amazing ideas all the time. It's like, there's so much fear, I think, associated with sharing them and then aligning yourself with them in the context of these bigger organisms that we depend on to sustain ourselves in the world.

Absolutely. And that's actually become my litmus for following through on a big scary idea is that if I find myself instinctually continuing to fight for it as opposed to back away from it, then I realize it's worth fighting for. And that was the case with It Was Never a Dress as well is because we were in lots of meetings where people were all over the place about it. And I just found myself saying, no, it's not a stupid idea, you know, whatever. I mean, I didn't know what the outcome was, but I knew that the idea was worth fighting for. And you bring up an interesting point, though, about getting buy-in along the way. You know, when we do finally express our big, scary, wild ideas and people are pushing back. But those people who say, yeah, you're on the right track are really valuable in the process. And, you know, when I

talk about It Was Never a Dress and I, you know, and I say it's a collaboration, you know, some people, a lot of people think, oh, collaboration, it's like five people in a room and they're all doing the same things, you know, but the collaborative part on this project that I think is so interesting is that, you know, the, my boss at the time, Laudan, took a big, scary, crazy risk to hire somebody who knew nothing about technology, like a playwright by training and background to be an evangelist for a tech company. That was the beginning of the collaboration right there and the buy-in. So when you know foundationally you're supported, and this is why when we're in positions of power and leadership and mentorship and we say, you know what, we support and trust you, come up with wild ideas, and we actually receive them and we don't shoot them down and we allow for that space and that work culture,

then the people who are generating those ideas will generate the best ideas ever. So that initial invitation, like, hey, crazy person, Tanya, come on in. We know it doesn't make sense. And that's why we want you, allowed me to feel safe enough to try out ideas. Yeah. I think that dynamic is so important. I remember reading a study, I think it was out of University of Pennsylvania, maybe seven or eight years ago, that looked at this dynamic of managers or leaders demanding from their people, we need better ideas, give me your most creative stuff. And then a lot of the complaint was, we're just not getting enough ideas. We're

not getting enough creativity. And this team of researchers looked at that. And what they found was that they looked at a whole bunch of different teams and different organizations, different sizes. What they found was that, in fact, and they sort of independently analyzed the quote, creative, you know, the quality of the ideas that were being offered. And they found that, in fact, there were amazing ideas being offered all the time every day or being had but not offered. But what they found was that even when they were offered, very often the person who said, give me your best ideas was looking at all these things and saying, no, not quite right, or no, not good enough, or no, not this, or no, not that.

But not even realizing that, because then they started good enough, or no, not this, or no, not that, not even realizing that, because then they started to deconstruct why is this happening, what the theory was that these people legitimately believe that it's not right because dot, dot, dot, but what's really happening is that if they say yes to something, then they are then backing, stepping into, you know, like Joseph Campbell's abyss, along with the person who offered it, potentially allocating resources and time and energy. So they're on the line too. And their brains literally like would not allow them to see the potential in an idea because it also put them in a position of exposure that they didn't want to be in. I think I read that study.

Yeah, I'm guessing you did. It's so aligned with your work. It's so effed up. And this is where, you know, it's so funny because I really am not like, oh my God, big data, blah, blah. However, this is where data analytics, all of this is those resources allow, I have worked with so many people who are that boss who's like, come up with your wildest ideas.

And they're like, that sucks. That sucks. And then it ends up being their idea in the end. Right. And this is where, you know what? It's not actually about you. You're not our end user. You know, you are not the people we are serving.

So, you know, we need to see who our end user is, who our audience is, and then serve them. And that's where data and analytics and metrics and all that can actually be helpful and ubiquitize this weird dynamic between ego and the boss and people that are trying to get the best ideas from. You know what? You're not the gatekeeper. To remove yourself from that situation of being the gatekeeper. And you're not our audience. That's the weirdest thing that I've encountered in the workspace and working with companies and things is that somebody just anointed themselves as knowing what their audience wants, even though they're not the demographic at all. What the fudge? Like why that's ego? Yeah. A hundred percent. It's also, it's ego and it's fear. It's just, I don't want to put myself and my livelihood on the line because this means, but, but then like you, you actually are putting yourself in a position of stasis and then you're putting the entire organization in sort of like sustained sideways by not going there,

which again, like there is no sideways, you're only going up or down. So eventually if you choose sideways, you're really choosing down, you know, but people don't, we don't process that. And I'm raising my hand because we all, you know, like nobody's above this. We all, we all have brains and amygdalas and like things that make us freak out. You, so, so you're sort of like developing all these ideas and theories and a sense of confidence around how to be creative and how to bring elements of creativity out into the world. So when you step out of your experience in tech, you step into this world of, let me take a lot of these things, distill them into frameworks and ideas and things I can share and teach,

and become not so much an evangelist for this one thing anymore, but an evangelist for these ideas and go into and share these with other organizations. And you come up with this phrase, creative trespassing. Where does that come from? What does it mean? And just talk to me a bit about it because I think it's fascinating. Yeah. I think that after years of people asking, like, so what do you do, Tanya? Because I never made sense in a lot of, you know, like my presence. And again, going back to this idea of me threatening somebody's professional trajectory when they went to school to study the thing and then they did the thing and then they became proficient in the thing. And here I'm like super left field. And so people literally would be like, what do you do? And I'm like, well, I'm a playwright, but I, you know, I work in technology and I'm a storyteller really. And I like to connect the audience and really I love, you know.

So I sat down and I wrote language just like, you know, it was never a dress and writing or drawing symbols. I wrote all the things that I thought that I did. And one umbrella word is creativity. I'm like, okay, creative kind of is the umbrella for everything I do. It's for its imagination, really, you know, it's sort of like me being wacky and wild. And I think creative is a good word. And then I thought, well, what do I do with my creativity? And then I realized, oh, well, oftentimes I go into spaces where I'm not really invited. And then I kind of work some magic. I use my imagination to solve problems or address obstacles with the company. And the people realize, huh, that's pretty great.

And then they're like, I can't live without that shit anymore. I want more of that. But initially, in order to get into those spaces, I felt like I was breaking and entering, you know, and then I'm like, well, what is a word that means that? And then after, I don't know what kind of words I wrote. I think a bunch of words, but then trespassing is definitely something, you know, when you're going into a space you should not be in. But those are the only spaces you should be in, you know, the ones that don't make sense.

So then I just put combinations of words together and creative trespassing. I'm like, that's it. You know, I literally had two columns of words and I circled words and felt them and tried them on. And that's what I, and then I started beta testing it with human beings, you know, as you do, as you do, as the people do. And, you know, people will be like, oh, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm a creative trespasser. And they're like, tell me more. And so I realized it hit a nerve in a really great way because it was enough information that it wasn't so esoteric or abstract creativity people understand. So the moment I say creative, they're like, I understand that.

And then trespassing, they understand that word too. But they're like, how does that even work? And so that was the inception of the phrase that I use just to make people feel better when I did make me feel like I understood what I did in the world. And then I'm like, wait, this is like, like, I'm not the only creative trespasser out there. I meet a lot of creative trespassers in the world and, and actually do this and maybe I could explore it. And so I started really thinking about what it means to be a creative trespasser or to be creative trespassing, especially in the working world. And when I, you know, even when I worked at the tech company and then when I left,

you know, I was invited to speak at like technology conferences and manufacturing conferences and all kinds of industries. And I would talk about creativity and about making the workday and rigid processes fun. And people would come up to me after I would speak and they'd be like, oh my gosh, like, you know, I write plays too or, you know, or like I play music and I wish I could bring some of that to my job, but my job sucks or it's totally rigid. And then I realized, oh my God, there's a disconnect between who we are and what we do. And I know that there's a different way of being in the working world. And so I felt like I had enough information to start really digging in writing Creative Trespassing.

Yeah, it's funny as you're sort of sharing it and knowing like within the book is just a whole series of principles, many of which we've touched on in different ways, that are kind of like a framework or a roadmap to a certain extent of is to get back to that place is where we started our conversation, which is you as a five-year-old lying on your back in the playground, looking up at the clouds and making up all sorts of cool, different, unique stories about what it is and what's possible. Are you trying to make me cry? Is that? Yeah, that's really beautiful. That's a really nice way to bring it around. I mean, that's what it is. And I think that, you know, there's a study I actually write about in Creative Trespassing.

Do you know Dr. George Land? It was a study on creativity. And it's really beautiful. Anyway, he decided, he created a test for NASA so they could hire the best engineers. So it was for adult people and it worked so well. And they hired the most creative engineers in DESA that he decided to, to give the test to a bunch of five-year-olds and do a longitudinal study. And so the five-year-olds did this test. It was divergent thinking. So it was

like coming up with as many creative ways to solve a problem. And they all tested, it was like 95% tested at the highest level called creative genius. And then five years later at 10 years old, these kids dropped to like 50%. And then at 15, it was like less than 20%. And so the point is, is that we're born creative. We're born to lie on a concrete slab and look up and see rabbits and see, you know, see an entire world. And then through systems and training and messaging, we're taught to stop that, you know, funny business. But the reality of it is, those are the only businesses that are gonna survive or ones that employ creativity and imagination. Yeah, and on an individual level, like for us to feel in some way close to fully expressed,

we have to find our way back to that place or at least as close as we can get to it at some point or else we die with a lot inside yeah yeah let's not yeah let's let it out this feels like a good place for us to come full circle also so hanging out in this container of the good life project if i offer up the phrase to live a good life what comes up now to live a good life now. Thank you. Thank you, Jonathan. Thank you so much for listening.

And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we have included in today's show notes. And while you're at it, if you've ever asked yourself, what should I do with my life? We have created a really cool online assessment that will help you discover the source code for the work that you're here to do. You can find it at sparkotype.com. That's S-P-A-R-K-E-T-Y-P-E.com. Or just click the link in the show notes. And of course, if you haven't already done so, be sure to click on the subscribe button in your listening app so you never miss an episode. And then share, share the love. If there's something that you've heard in this episode that you would love to turn

into a conversation, share it with people and have that conversation. Because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change takes hold. See you next time. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised.

The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him!

Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk.