Good Life Project - The Power of Dabbling (Stop Trying to Be Awesome at Everything!) | Karen Walrond

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

Discover why being proudly mediocre at something you love might be the key to unlocking joy, meaning, and even spiritual practice in your life.In this perspective-shifting conversation, leadership consultant Karen Walrond shares insights from her new book, In Defense of Dabbling: The Brilliance of Being a Total Amateur, revealing how letting go of the pressure to excel can transform simple activities into powerful portals for self-discovery, connection, and personal growth. Learn the seven surprising attributes that make intentional amateurism a radical act of self-care in our achievement-obsessed world.You can find Karen at: Website | Instagram | Episode TranscriptIf you LOVED this episode, you’ll also love the conversations we had with James Victore about making your art and owning your point of view. Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount CodesCheck out our offerings & partners: Beam Dream Powder: Visit https://shopbeam.com/GOODLIFE and use code GOODLIFE to get our exclusive discount of up to 40% off. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So what if the pressure to master everything, be excellent at it, or even just one main thing, was actually holding you back from experiencing genuine joy in your life? What if being intentionally not great at something or many things made you way happier, more fulfilled, and in love with your life? Despite being told that it's a road to mediocrity and slackerdom, what if mediocre was actually pretty awesome? These questions sparked a fun and eye-opening conversation that challenges everything we've been taught about hobbies, creativity, passion, side hustles, careers, and personal growth. And the answers might transform how you think about what makes life worth living. My guest today, Karen Walren, is also a dear friend and sometimes collaborator,

an author, leadership consultant, speaker, and photographer who helps people live better lives. She's trained in positive psychology coaching with the Whole Being Institute and has written multiple acclaimed books, her latest, in defense of dabbling, the brilliance of being a total amateur offers a provocative and welcome new perspective on the power of what she calls intentional amateurism. In our conversation, we explore the counterintuitive idea that being mediocre at something that you love can actually lead to greater fulfillment than striving for mastery. And Karen offers really practical wisdom for anyone feeling the pressure to monetize every passion or turn every hobby into a side hustle. We also dive into seven surprising attributes

that can turn simple activities into portals for self-discovery and joy. And Karen shares how letting go of the need for excellence, open unexpected doors to joy and community, and even becomes a potential spiritual practice. She reveals why activities like pottery or surfing pursue purely for pleasure might be exactly what our souls are craving in this achievement-obsessed world. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this.

is Good Life Project. Feeling unsure in your career path, RBC has programs and resources to help you open the door. Discover RBC-led internships, scholarships, networking opportunities, and upskilling programs designed to help you launch or further your career. At RBC, your idea of career happens here. Learn more at rbc.com slash open doors.

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I would love to start with a five, true, false questions. You are going to be inclined to want to answer way beyond true false. I'm going to ask you to just see if you can hold back whatever is bursting to get out and give me a true and a false. And I promise we will make our way back to them and deconstruct them in a lot more detail. That's good. Number one, if you're not working towards excellence or mastery, you're just wasting your time. False. Two, sucking at something can feel as good, if not better than be amazing at it. 100% true.

Three, if a hobby or passion won't eventually make you money, it's just not worth the effort. False. Okay, four, playtime is critically important to adult mental health. True. All right, last one. It's more rewarding to devote yourself to a single, deeply passionate pursuit than to spread your energy across many. Ooh. Wow. I have to pick true or false. All right. You can say it depends. I'm going to say it depends. Yeah. I'm going to say it depends on that one.

All right. We'll dive into that. Let's talk about each one of these a little bit now. Okay. Number one, if you're not working towards excellence or mastery, you're just wasting your time. We have all heard some version of this from parents, teachers, people who only wanted the best for us, sometimes our own internal voice. We may have uttered this exact same thing to our children. You say this is false. Take me into this. Well, let me start with a preface that I'm not saying that we shouldn't work hard at things, right? Like, for sure, there are certain things in our lives that we have to work hard at, that it will behoove us to work hard at.

Like, maybe your job, certainly parenting, certainly things like that. Like, you want to work really, really hard. What I posit, and what I think is true also, is that, We've gotten to a point in life in our culture where that's the only thing we should be doing. And I think it's actually exacerbated by social media, right? And sort of seeing people do things online, like, well, if they're so great at it, then I shouldn't even try it because I would never be that good at it. What I found, certainly over the last year and a half of working on this book, is that there is so much joy and self-compassion and, self-transcendence that can come from doing something purely for the love of doing it.

Not doing it for profitability or perfection, but just doing it because it's fun. And originally, I think when I first started writing in defensive dabbling, I thought it was just going to be a lighthearted book about hobbies. And what I quickly realized is that, no, no, no, having something that you can keep going back to just for fun, having a cadence of returning to it, is all about self-care, self-compassion, self-transcendence, and it's just good for us. Yeah, and, you know, it's interesting because I want to disagree with this in a weird way. I have had the experience where I've focused on something or on a couple things, and I was like, all right, I'm going to make a long-term commitment

to this, and part of what I wanted to do was get really good at it. Sure. You know, and so I poured myself into it, I worked really hard, and I did get really good at. And what I learned was that the feeling of doing the thing is really cool. The feeling of being really good at it, it is also really cool, but in a different way. And when you add those two together, it feels pretty amazing. But I think you're right. We tend to get caught up in the doing the thing for the purpose of becoming amazing at it. And we sacrifice so much of just the experience of doing it along the way because we're waiting for that feeling of being amazing. We're waiting for the feeling of excellence and mastery. Maybe it comes, maybe it doesn't. But what we've done is we've given up so much

of the joy along the way by focusing only on the outcome of excellence. And I agree, there are so many signals out there in the world that sort of like say, this is what we should strive for, and anything less is kind of a waste of time and energy. Yeah. And I think, I think, you know, in some ways, the idea of pursuing intentional amateurism, like the idea of pursuing something just for doing its sake, I really believe that if you have a practice of going back to something, like constantly, like you're constantly whittling or running or whatever it is that you're doing and you keep going back to it. Naturally, you're going to get better, right? And naturally you're going to like sort of surprise yourself with what you're able to do and what you're not. And that's a

great feeling. But I think what we need to do more of is focus on the now of doing it and how it feels to do that in the moment. And they're going to be let down. Sometimes you're not going to do great. But that whole sort of curiosity into your own evolution, as opposed to I've got to get to X brilliance. It's invigorating. It's energizing. And it's a really, it's a lovely thing for you to do for yourself. So here's my question then. If we are not actively pursuing excellence in something, do we risk becoming slackers and just phoning, like, like spending so much of our time phoning it in. And is that actually a bad thing, if that, in fact, is part of our, the truth of that. Remember, what we're talking about here is an avocation,

is something that's just for fun, right? If you become a slacker and something that there's no repercussions, right? There's no repercussions if I decide that hula hooping is my thing that I want to do, right? Like, if I fail at it, if I become a slacker at it, so what? It's a hula hoop. It's not a big deal. It's not my job. It's not parenting, right? So, yeah, I would argue that depending on what you choose, and what we're talking about is choosing something that you're not going for profitability or perfection, right? It's just something that's fun. There's no repercussions other than the fact that maybe you'll tap into some curiosity or some mindfulness or some play and all of the benefits that come from doing that sort of thing. Like, to me, that's a win, right? Whether or not

you become the best TED Talk speaker or whatever it is that you choose that you're going to be doing. That's so funny as you're describing that, like, at a vision of Jess Spacoli from like that classic 80s movie Fast Times at Ridgeman High, the ultimate slacker and like how happy he perpetually was, just living his life. Granted, he was a little bit baked for most of the day, but that's a whole different issue. That's a whole different thing. And also, like, I mean, it's one thing to, like, I would not suggest doing this. for something that you have to earn a living at. Yeah. Right? Like that, like, no, no, no, no, you really should work hard at your job or you should work hard at your partnership. I'm talking about the thing that you intentionally step away from the responsibilities of your life, from the crazy that is the world, to just focus on your inner joy, right? Your inner love. And what's really funny is like, the question that I seem to keep getting is like, well, what about commitment? Is it being an amateur? Doesn't that require a certain amount of commitment? And what I'm talking about here should not feel like a chore. Like if it starts to feel like a chore, that's probably not your thing, right?

It should be the thing that you're itching to do. Like for my husband, he's a mountain biker. That's his intentional amateurism. And if he's not on his bike for five days, like he becomes really cranky. Like it's to the point where it's like, oh, please go, go ride your bike. You will feel better if you ride your bike. That's the kind of thing I'm thinking about is the thing that you're just like so itching to get back to, that the idea of, oh, I haven't done it and now I must go back. Like, it shouldn't

feel like that. That's not what we're talking about. Okay. But. Oh, we're devils advocating today. Yes. We both have like our ancient lawyers hats on. Exactly. It's like, here's this coming up for me. I'm a writer. Okay. So yes, in part, I get paid to write. Like, I'm an author. I get paid for different types of writing and I have for a long time. I'm very blessed in that way. Yeah. And still, there's plenty of writing. that I do that has nothing to do with getting paid for it. Like the book that took me the longest took me four years to write a book, which I wrote to one person. You know, so writing is a part of me. Writing is that thing. It is that I keep going back to. And yet, there would be many times

where I go back to it, and it feels like a chore to me. It feels really hard. I don't want to do it. Even though I know that there are enough times when I'm doing it, where I feel like it is, I get lost and I get giggly because I've just figured out like three words that fit together in a really beautiful way that took me 10 years. But a lot of times when I'm doing it, and maybe for me there is I am really locked into the pursuit of excellence with that particular thing. And yes, maybe part of it is that I get paid to do it, but I do a lot of writing where it has nothing to do with getting paid. I don't ever expect to get paid for it. Sometimes it feels amazing, but other times I show up to do the activity and it does feel like a chore. Yeah. Who's the writer that said that

I hate writing, but I like having written. Yeah, I can't remember who that was, but yeah. I identify with that so deeply as well. Like, I find writing a really excruciating thing when I'm writing a book, but like I have a substack and I write things all the time that have, I write on Instagram, right? Like, I write things all the time that have nothing to do with it. But for me, writing is, while it can be fun, it can be excruciating, even the fun stuff that I don't do for pay, that for me feels like honing my craft.

That feels like the stuff that I'm doing that ultimately is about the craft of what I've chosen to make my profession around, right? Let's take photography. So I'm a photographer. I'm an avid photographer. I've been shooting for 30 years. I love photography. And I've made a very pointed decision to never accept money for it. Because for me, when I do accept money or when I have accepted money in the past, it does suddenly feel like a chore.

and I don't want photography to ever feel that way for me, because that is the thing that I do that is 100% for just fun. So I would argue that maybe that writing is not your intentional amateur thing. It may be something, I mean, I know you live in Boulder, maybe it's snowboarding, or maybe it's something that has nothing to do that you just don't get paid for at all. And the writing that you do for fun is merely sort of you're honing your craft, right? Like that's part of what you do to do what you do for a living. Yeah. I would then, admit that probably the purest expression of intentional amateurism for me is eating chocolate because I never feel like that's a chore ever. I will for my entire life, that will never be a

sure. I mean, as long as like you don't get to the point where you're eating so much chocolate that you're starting to feel. There are risks there. Yes. But yes. I mean, I too, I'm not, I don't have a sweet tooth, but chocolate can get me. And yes, I think that's a noble avocation for you. Okay. So we've been kind of referencing that third true false that I asked you also, but let's speak to a little bit more directly. And that was, if a hobby or passion won't eventually make you money, it's not worth the effort. And you said decidedly false. If a hobby doesn't make you, yes. If a hobby or passion won't eventually make you money, it's not worth the effort. Absolutely. One of the things that I found, again, when I started writing this book, I thought it was just going to be this light book on hobbies. And one of the things I realized quickly was when we think about the things that are good for you. I'm using air quotes, right? Like one of the things that they always tell you in addition to like working out and eating right is like you should have some sort of spiritual practice. You should meditate for 30 minutes a day or you should do yoga or something like that, which I think is wonderful advice, except I'm really bad at both. I don't have the patience to keep

coming back. I've got my mind goes in crazy places. But I have found, for example, when I'm doing pottery, my mind quiets. I focus on the moment. in front of me, because if I don't focus, the clay is going to go flying off the wheel, right? Like all of the things that they tell you that are really, really good for your spirit, for your mental health, for all of these things, you can find in pursuing a hobby, right? That thing that you lose time with, that you have to focus on, that you forget about the outside world, all those benefits that you get from maybe a yoga practice, you can get from doing something that you naturally do anyway. And I think for those of us,

whom a spiritual practice can feel like a chore. It can feel a little bit more challenging. This is a nice, easy way into getting to some of those benefits. Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think there's a value that's often passed on to us, or again, we absorb it just from the zeitgeist that says, we already have not enough hours in our day to do all the things that we're, quote, supposed to do. And if we're going to allocate some of that time to something else, it really needs to have some sort of value associated with it. And the value we tend to lock into is it earns money. Right. You know, so it's like you can't just have a thing that you love to do on the side. Like, the next question you must ask is how do we turn that into a side hustle? For sure.

And I think sometimes that's fine. But other times, it's not only not fine, but it's actually kind of destroys the whole reason that you're doing in the first place. Absolutely. Like, if the whole point you started was because your job is so stressful, then why would you want to have another job, right? Like, by turning it into a side hustle. Like, that can be really, really tough. That's not to say that maybe you need money and you have to have another job, but that's not what we're talking about here. We're just talking about what do you do to unplug, to be with yourself. Yeah. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Feeling unsure in your career path, RBC has programs and resources to help you open the

Door. Discover RBC-led internships, scholarships, networking opportunities, and upskilling programs designed to help you launch or further your career. At RBC, your idea of career happens here. Learn more at RBC.com slash open doors. Need an escape from the city that actually feels like an escape? Just an hour from the GTA, Waterloo Region offers something truly unexpected. We're talking eerie corn mazes tucked behind farm gates, hidden garden patios with a cocktails taste like stories, and indie festivals popping up in places you'd never expect.

One minute, you're walking through an advanced tech hub. The next? A harvest ho-down with goats, alpacas, and a mechanical bowl. And yeah, both feel right. Waterloo Region is where Old World Charm meets new school energy. Canada's largest October Fest celebration, interactive light festivals, craft cider sips, vintage shops, and maybe even a horse-drawn buggy cruising past your latte stop.

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Sucking at something can feel as good, if not better, than being amazing at it. This is kind of counterintuitive for a lot of people. And you said, yeah, this is actually true. It is true. And I will, as evidence, I go to my pottery practice. I'm really bad at it, right? Like, I am not good at it at all. I've been doing it now for about a year and a half.

I make decidedly mediocre pots. But I've also made the commitment that I'm never, ever going to take money for them, right? So what ends up happening now is when I go to the pottery and I'm, I'm, I'm, sitting in front of a lump of clay, because I am freed of I need to be perfect at it, I need to be great at it, I get to settle into a sense of curiosity about what's going to happen in the moment that I do it. If I fail, if it falls apart, if it slumps, I get to be curious about what feelings did that bring up for me and why did that bring up for me, especially for something that's not making me money, that there's literally nothing, there's no repercussions about the fact that it

failed. And it's a really lovely practice of getting to know myself, right? I don't want to sound like Zen monk on the mountain. Every now and then, like, just the other day, it fell apart and I smashed it really hard. I was really, really upset by it. But overall, this pottery for me is the thing that allows me that when I'm stressed, that I can come to and calm. And I've found interestingly, that when I fail at pottery, it's usually because I have not let go. right like I'm I'm still working through that and and they always say in the pottery the clay knows right it knows your mood and so like you got to slow down you've got to stop and so that kind of thing has been really really interesting for me that's the benefit of the pottery even if I'm making ugly little pots that I foist onto family members yeah I mean it's interesting and we've talked about this off my I'm taking metal smithing classes now and I'm still a total newbie like absolutely terrible at it I was in the studio this was last week actually and I was learning how to do just a really, really, really basic thing, something that is like newbie 101 type of thing. And it required bending metal and it required using oxyacetylene torch

and heating something. And once you did it, once you solder it, you can't easily undo that. So I did it and I brought it back to my teacher and I showed her and she's like, too big, got to redo it. So I literally had to redo this one thing and rebuild the entire thing three times. Wow. And getting to the third time, I'm thinking to myself, like, it was weird that I noticed that I wasn't getting frustrated. And I was, I was wondering why. Because I'm like, there were plenty of other things in my life where, like, if I have to redo something three times, I am beyond annoyed. Yeah. And I was just in it. And I was just like, I had forgiven the fact that I needed to be anywhere, but the level of proficiency or total lack of proficiency where I was in that moment. And I just wanted to learn. learn. And there was something like really magical about it. Yes, exactly it. There's something about failing that becomes, you know, somebody I interviewed in the book says this. There's something about

failing that becomes very fascinating when there's no repercussions for what you have to do, right? You're like, oh, why did that fail and how do that fail and how am I going to get better at it? And how can I save it when I can see it's falling apart and how can I fix it? And that's a really, we don't get a lot of opportunities to do that in life where there aren't repercussions, right? Right. But what ends up happening is that resilience that you've practiced by having to do the metal smithing two or three times, how magical would that be that you could take it into your real life, right? Because now you've been sort of exercising that resilience muscle. And now maybe you can take it into your real life when there are repercussions, like, how do I bounce back when something doesn't go my way? And how do I fix this? And how do I tap into that feeling of curiosity that I had in the metal smithing studio as I'm dealing with this project in my real life? And, you know, like as I was doing this, I came out, and the next day I was telling somebody I was doing this stuff. And their first question to me was like, oh, like, are you going to sell your work? Yeah. Are you? No. I mean, look, I can't say never, you know, but that's not, it's not my intention. My intention right now is just to show up and do the thing because of the way it makes me feel and nothing else. Maybe someday. And, you know, like 5,000 years, I'll be good enough to actually sell something. And maybe at that point, I won't even want to. You know, you know, because of the same reasons that you mentioned. But my knee-jerk direction, as soon as that person said it to me, and they were just

genuinely curious. They weren't just like, but I felt I was like, there was a shift where I was like, that's going to mean I'm going to show up to the studio and do it for a different reason. And I don't want that. Yeah. I know there's almost like a real resistance that you probably felt. It's like, how dare you even suggest such a thing, right? Well, I also wanted to say, if you can see what I'm making right now, you wouldn't be

asking that question, but. Well, you know what? really funny. What I've found for me is, I mean, I'm really, really mediocre at this. And there are people who took that first pottery class with me that have gone on to do much more intricate things than I'm able to do. But I did get to a point where, like, I shared something online and somebody said, I would really love to buy that. Right. And because I've been spending so much time in the pottery and seeing other people work, like, I know that I will be able to do so much better than that. Right. But it's so funny how people will ascribe sort of a value to something. And you're like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. This is not something that I would feel comfortable accepting money for it. I've said that before. I'm like, I could just see like accepting money. And then five years from now, I go back and I'm like, I cannot believe I took money from this person for that thing because you're so much better at it. And just having that thing where the whole goal of it is just to watch your own evolution in your own time, in your own space for no goal. Like, that's a gift to be able to have something that you can do that with, right? And to be clear, like, I mean, I'm sure metal smithing is not the cheapest hobby you could have. Certainly pottery isn't. But I'm not talking about expensive things. It could be running. It could be stargazing. It could be anything that you want that you suddenly realize, oh, you know, I was interested in the stars. And now I go out into the desert and I know all these constellations that I didn't know six months ago or whatever. You suddenly realize what you're learning. It's, transforming the person that you were when you first became. And that in itself is just such a lovely journey to be on with yourself, right? Do you think it's possible to start something to be a dabbler, to be an intentional amateur, to do it, to immerse yourself in it, to commit yourself

to it over time, in the early days especially for no other reason than the feeling it gives you, you just really enjoy doing it. And over time, you start to get better. And then you do reach a point where what you're making is sellable. And then maybe you're just at a point where it's like, well, like, I actually feel like there's, that's comfortable people want it, there's value in it, we get to share something here. Do you think it's possible to hold on to the original feeling that brought you to it, the early days, if and when at some point you do turn the corner and say, I'm going to actually accept money for this? That's such a great question. Because I think a lot of people will hit that moment probably.

I will say in my experience, it's extremely hard to do that, because especially when you start to, if it's an art, like if it's an art form, you have to take people's feedback or you often have to take people's feedback into consideration. So, you know, like I see people at the pottery that are like, well, I like that, but could you make the handle different? Or in photography, it's like, well, I love that, but could you Photoshop that out, right? And it starts to not feel like your own. own full art, right? Because somebody else is telling you. So in my experience, it's a really

difficult thing to do. That said, I think that it's possible if you challenge yourself to experiment somehow with that art in a ways that maybe that you don't sell. So one of the things that I tried in the book was filmmaking, right? And after 30 years of photography, I thought filmmaking is going to be an absolute breeze. It's totally not. It's a complete thing's move in film. Right. But it's been really fun. Now, I don't accept money for photography, but I could see that maybe if I were a photographer, like going into this other realm where it's a little bit different and I'm really sort of a beginner again and playing with that and not accepting money for that aspect of using my camera, I could see potentially that would do it. But the whole point of amateur is to do it purely for the love of doing it. It's not supposed to be for profit. So to me, once you start to accept money, that becomes a whole different thing, whether or not you love it. It's just a different thing. It's not the same. I remember reading Mason Curry's original book, Daily Rituals, where he sort of like revealed the daily rituals of like a whole bunch of really well-known artists and writers and people like that. And actually, his brand new book coming

out, I think it's something like making money, making art or something like that. I can't remember exactly what it is. But a lot of the examples that he would give were people of, like, where they became super well-known for their craft, for their art. But many of them had day jobs. They worked for the postal service. They had like fairly strong. straightforward, reliable, secure day jobs. And many of them never had any desire or intention of leave. Some did want to leave. But many were like, no, no, no.

This allows me to go to that other place where when I create, I don't have to create with anyone in mind or appealing to anyone's aesthetic sensibility than mine. And that allows me the freedom and the power to really just express who I am, what's in my heart, my own sense of taste. And if it resonates with people outside of that, cool. And for many of them, it eventually did, actually at a much higher level than their sort of like their core job. But it gave them the freedom to go to a place that they never would have gone had there been a commercial aspect of it from the beginning.

I thought it was interesting. Just think about also like, I mean, I think you and I have both been online for a long time, right? So think about like when blogging first happened or even when Flickr or Instagram first habit, it felt like a place where, people were just sort of experimenting, right? There was no such thing as monetization. There was no such thing, right, people were just writing and people were just sharing. And think about what the community or the body of work that was being put out compared to what it is now, where everybody seems to be an influencer, right? You're constantly talking everybody. It doesn't even matter if people make a living at it or not. They are sharing pictures of their kids that are ultra curated.

And there is something that changes, I think. Sometimes for the good, sometimes, Not, but something that changes when you're making it for other people, right? When you're doing something for other people, it's a different animal. And I think intentional amateurism where you're practicing what I call the seven attributes, right, curiosity and mindfulness and play, where it's solely for you. I mean, certainly you might be doing something with somebody in the book I was sailing with my husband. And so surely it was doing that, but it was not for the public at large, right? It wasn't for people at large. And there's a different feeling that happens. when you're focusing on doing something just for yourself. So agree with that. It's more rewarding to devote yourself to a single, deeply passionate pursuit than to spread your energy across many. This is kind of related to the opening one where it said it's better to pursue mastery. But this is more about just focusing on a single thing.

And again, this is what so often, this is the message that has been given to us. You pick your one thing. You pour every ounce of yourself into the thing. And every other thing that you do makes, ensures that all of them never get the level that you want. And to a certain extent, like, this is not entirely untrue. Right. But it's often, again, always said in the context of something more professional. Yes. I think I answered it sort of depends on this one, right? In the book, I talk about what I consider dabbling, which is like trying a bunch of different things and seeing how you feel when you do them. And that's what I did

throughout the by, I try seven different things, ranging from playing the piano to surfing. And then I talk about intentional amateurism, which is the returning to the thing that you really love. And I think there's validity in both of those things. I think if you found the thing that really is energizing and calming and self-compassionate and self-transcendant, and you want to focus on all of that, I will be the last person to tell you to stop doing that, right? But I also think that trying a bunch of different things to see, is that sound fun? Is that, does that seem like a part of me that I've never explored before, that I'd like to see that for me that was surfing? Like, I'm not a surfer.

I love the ocean, but I'm not a surfer. But it was such an exhilarating experience to try it and to discover a part of me that likes to surf and can actually stand up on a board, which who knew that was possible? Like, that's really, really fun too, and it has its benefit. So that's why I was sort of, yeah, I don't know how to answer that one about true or false. Because I think there's benefits in both. Ultimately, it's about focusing on how to take care of yourself through doing something that you love or finding the thing that you love. And I think that that's more important than whether or not you do many things that you love or one thing that you love. I mean, that really lands with me.

It's almost like a yes end. Yes. Maybe you actually just stumble early in life even on a thing where you're just like, yeah, for some reason I can't understand. It just feels amazing. It's probably never going to be my career, but I just love doing it. And I just want to spend all my time doing that thing. I found that to be the rarer case. I think a lot of us have to try a lot of different things. And maybe we end up with two or three. Maybe we end up with one. And I think it also can depend on the person. I think some people, they're happier with like an assortment of things they can rotate between. And some people just want that one thing where they can really deepen into it. One of the things that I talk about in the book also is, you know, you said sometimes people early in life might stumble on that one thing. For me, I thought that was piano, right? When I was a kid, I played piano all the time. I played even after I stopped taking lessons. I would teach myself more things. And I returned to it in the writing of this book. And I did it and found out like, yeah, I'm good. Like, I really don't need to do that. And I thought that was really interesting. And maybe it speaks to the fact that I'm just not the same person I was when I was 15 and playing the piano all the time. But that was, in itself, was a really interesting discovery because I really thought that once I had devoted some time to practicing piano again and doing it, that I would suddenly fall in love with it again.

And it actually didn't happen. It was like, yeah, that's cool. I learned a piece and I'm good. I don't need to sit at the piano anymore. That feels a little bit like a chore. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. What's better than a well-marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribby sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribby you ordered without even leaving the kitty pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders.

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region. Plan your trip at staycurious.ca.ca. Feeling unsure in your career path, RBC has programs and resources to help you open the door. Discover RBC-led internships, scholarships, networking opportunities and upskilling programs designed to help you launch or further your career. At RBC, your idea of career happens here. Learn more at rbc.com slash open doors. So the phrase intentional amateurism, you use it a number of times now. how do we actually, what is, how do we define this? What is it? Yeah. So for me, intentional

amateurism is literally focusing on something with no intention of becoming a professional at it, with no intention of creating it into a side hustle or turning it into something that I'm recognized for, that you're recognized for. And really trying to stay out of perfectionism, right? Because I think especially in the rest of our lives, we do have this sort of message that we've got to excel the whole time. And so I came up with what I call the seven attributes of intentional amateurism, which is if you're tapping into these things, you're probably doing it right, right? So if you're tapping into things like play and it feels like play where you lose track of time and you're having a great time doing it, or it feels self-compassionate, or it feels

like you're scratching a curiosity itch, or you're tapping into wonder and awe, like if you're doing those things, then you're probably doing it right. Because if you're focusing on that, you're not focusing on the perfection of it. If you're focusing on those things, you're not focusing on, well, how can I turn this into a income stream or whatever it is? So it literally, for me, is intentionally returning again and again and again to something without feeling like you have to be perfect at it. And I was actually really surprised at how difficult that was for me, which is why I

came up with those parameters. It was also really difficult to find people who do it because most people, if they're really good at something, you already know about it. And they may be really finding friends who were doing things that I knew about and suddenly realizing that they had this other little secret life where they were making automata was one thing with like little robot things that the one woman did. Weaving was one other person. There was a watercolor and all of these things that I hit these secret lives that these friends of my. had that I actually didn't realize that they were doing. And it took a moment to find them. But to a person, they were all like, I don't know that I could do my regular life if I didn't have this practice of intentional amateurism to help return me to myself. Yeah, it's like a grounding

practice. I mean, you also, and this is something you write about, you describe it also in a way as a spiritual practice. A hundred percent. And I did not expect that, especially the things like wonder and awe, right? Like, when you think of wonder and awe, which is the seventh attribute that I talk about, you think of things like, oh, you're studying the universe or contemplating how interconnected we are. Now, for that practice, I did try to photograph the universe. I tried to photograph a Milky Way. But what I found, actually, in my own life, in the pottery, which is the one that really stuck for me, is in addition to the curiosity, the mindfulness, one of the things I think about all the time is the fact that I am now practicing an art that has been practiced for millennia, that archaeologists literally look for shards of pottery as evidence that a civilization was once here.

And to think of myself as now being a part of this community of people that has existed for millennia, that's the wonder and awe for me, right? And so it's really interesting how you think about, oh, I'm part of this tapestry of humanity, that has existed forever, or I'm part of this little tiny dot on this little tiny planet hurtling through space or whatever it is that taps you into a world that is bigger than you are. I mean, that's the ultimate, right? And that's very self-transcendant, and it is very spiritual when you start to practice that. Yeah, I can totally see that. It's like you become, without intending, you become part of a lineage, and you become part

of a conversation that will both go back in time and can be carried forward in time. Absolutely. Which does have this sort of transcendent element to it. You brought up a number of times also these seven attributes of intentional amateurism. We kind of like dance around some of them, but let's dip into them because I think one of the questions people joining us are going to have, okay, so how do I know what I'm doing the thing? And this is basically your answer to that. Like these are the qualities where you say like when I'm able to dip into these seven different qualities, it's a really strong signal that I'm doing the thing, that I'm doing this thing that will give me the feeling that. I want to have. So let's walk through them a little bit more intentionally. The first one is

curiosity. Curiosity is not just about, it sort of scratches that learning it. I want to find out more about something. And it could be the practice of metal smithing, but it can also be how you change and how you react as you're practicing the metalsmithing. So it's about this constant like, what would happen if, what happens if I do this? What does that mean with me? when I do this. That curiosity thing is really, really important. And I want to be clear, as we go through all seven of these, like, the thing that you pick may not hit all seven, but it probably will pick a couple of them, right? One or two when you do them. Yeah, it's like their signals. Yeah. It's interesting, right? Because I would imagine for you, as you said, you tried a whole

bunch of different things. So you gave yourself the ability to see what was repeating, what patterns were recurring as you were doing the different things and you were really intentionally observing what are the feelings that I'm having in order to see like okay so what are the things that keep bubbling up when I have this feeling I want to keep having rather than just like saying trying to deconstruct a single activity exactly right yes that takes us to mindfulness yeah so mindfulness I think when I first and it's really interesting because a couple of times what I had in mind the attribute was going to be sort of shifted and I think for mindfulness I think this one was sort of like losing consciousness of

the outside world, right, is what I originally thought it was. And I was like, oh, this is really about mindfulness. And for me, mindfulness is the thing where you've really focused on the present moment, right, of whatever you're doing. It allows you to do that. I started a swimming practice, right? Because I figured if you're not focusing on your swimming, you will drown. And I'm not a strong swimmer. As a matter of fact, I'm a really poor swimmer. But I thought, well, let me see how it feels to go to the pool, which I don't particularly like. I'm an ocean person. And just swim and see what happens. And it was really transformational because I went in with a little bit of resistance. And what ended up happening was this, the rhythm of doing the strokes and going

back and forth in the water, was allowed me to not only focus on exactly what I was doing, but sort of let go the thoughts that were going in my head. I could sometimes focus like I'd come up with an idea to write or whatever, but it was allowed me to sort of forget the outside world and just focus on what was happening in the present moment. You know, it's interesting as you're describing that, the other phrase I kept coming to my mind is flow, this thing that people describe, you know, that's been well researched also.

And there's a distinction that immediately came to mind because I'm thinking, well, what's the difference between flow and mindfulness? And maybe this is just me, but my experience is that when I'm in a flow state, I have the experience of losing time. Yeah. When I'm in a mindfulness state, I have the experience of time slowing down.

Hmm, interesting. I do talk about flow in this book. And there was something that said to me, what I thought about it was that by practicing mindfulness, it helps me enter into a state of flow for me. So like sometimes flow, in a lot of ways for me, doesn't feel like it's within my control, like it just sort of happens, whereas I can focus on, like, I can be like, okay, I'm going to constantly keep bringing my attention back to this present moment. And so practicing mindfulness for me was sort of a portal.

to get into flow. But I love that losing track of time and time slowing down. I love that sort of the dichotomy of that. I hadn't considered that, but I love that. Yeah, and what you just said makes a lot of sense to me also, because you do have so much more control over the mindfulness aspect of it. It's an intentional returning to the moment, to the experience. Whereas I agree, I mean, part of the definition that, you know, like to see on me high described in experiencing flow is you'll become absorbed in the activity of itself. And that's why you lose a sense of self. So it's almost like there's no self to then become the observer for mindfulness anymore. You're just in it. You're just in it. It's a great feeling. Yeah. Oh, it's amazing. But it's also

really hard to intentionally create. Yeah, for sure. Self compassion. Yeah. So this one was actually going to be originally, this is one of the ones that's shifted as I was writing. It was going to be detachment of ego, right? Like originally I was like, you got to be able to feel comfortable failing, right? What I kept coming up as I was doing it was like, oh, this is actually about being compassionate yourself when you fail. And this was the thing that I did for this was returning to the piano practice because I knew I was not going to be good at it. I hadn't played the piano in 30 years. And so I knew my fingers were going to be doing weird things and that like things were just not going to come as easily as they did. And I wanted to do something where I kept

returning and being able to go, it's fine. It's okay. One of the women that I interviewed for this, as a child, she was an avid roller skater. And she, you know, she grew up. She hadn't roller very much. And then she had breast cancer. And she ended up having a double mastectomy. It took a lot of time to heal. And apparently, I did not know this, in the months where she had to have bed rest and was healing from her mastectomy, her body, her muscles atrophied. And when she was finally strong enough, she got the clearance from her doctor to return to the rink. And she went in knowing, not only had she not done it for years, but also she was recovering from this really huge surgery. And so she had to practice this sort of self-compassion and go, I'm not going to push myself too hard. I'm

going to go easy. And that's a really lovely thing. Like, I think when you're practicing intentional amateurism, the idea that you're like, I'm not going to be perfect at this. I'm going to go easy. I'm going to fail. I think that's really, really an important part of intentional amateurism. Yeah, and life, right? Yeah, and life. Exactly right. Yeah. It's like the self-forgiveness, like actually saying, okay, like I'm not who I was 10 years ago or just things have changed and I can hold myself to the standard either of what I used to be able to do or just some utopian standard of perfection where I think I should be able to perform at this level or I can own the fact

that maybe things have changed in a way where that may actually no longer be accessible to me, at least not in the immediate or near future. And it's almost like if you surrender that, you're like, oh, now I actually have permission to just be in it. To just enjoy it. Yeah, it was really funny. I recently was talking about this subject and somebody in the audience said, you know, one of the things that I really love and I've loved all my life is basketball, but I'm in my 60s now. I've had some health problems and I don't want to go back to playing basketball because I look at these young women in the WMBA and they're so amazing. And I said, okay, but you do understand that you don't have to be as good as the WNBA in order to do what you're doing.

Like you can just go because dribbling a basketball is fun or shooting is fun. Like, that's what you're tapping into. It's just sort of that practice of what is the thing that's really fun about while also letting go of this idea that you have to be perfect in order to practice it. I'm not good at that. It's hard, yeah. Like letting go of that is a practice of mine. And I think repeatedly doing things that I know are going to be really hard and take

a very long time to actually get good at is, on the one hand, frustrating. On the other hand, it kind of forces you into that place of just, grace and self-forgiveness and self-compassion or else you know it's going to be a long road that's not going to be enjoyable and you just kind of like let me just let that go because I just really want to enjoy this which brings us nicely to play also which is one of the additional elements the attributes here and this is one of our earlier questions where we really talked about the fact that we need this in our lives and there's research that shows play really matters it's not just for kids like it's hugely important to our physical and mental well-being and that

people who can be like axe murders and serial killers that they found that that probably happened because they didn't have enough play in their life as children, right? Like they, it is definitely part of our developmental need, but also as an adult. And I just want to circle back to one thing. You know, you said that you're not good at giving yourself grace and self-compassion. And yet, you told a story about metal smithing where you were okay with going back and failing and going back. And I think that's a testament to when you find the thing, it will be easier for you. you to practice that, that self-compassion. If it's hard for you to do that, it's probably not your thing. Yeah. Actually, I really appreciate that reflection. That helps. Yeah. So play,

we talked about that. It's about losing sort of the sense of time, losing yourself in the thing. Play generally doesn't really have much of a purpose to it, right? You're just doing it for the fun of it. And yes, we all need more play in our lives. God knows. We all need it. Stretch zone. This is one attribute. Yeah. Yeah. So stretch zone was really interesting. Originally, it was going to be comfort zone, right? And one of the things that I read, which I thought was so interesting, was that, you know, we're all constantly told you should get out of your comfort zone. You should get out of your comfort zone. And the thing about getting outside of your comfort zone is that you're probably going to get hurt, right? Like, I forget who said it again. I've been quoting all kinds of people and forgetting the source, but the person who said that you should do something that terrifies you once every day. Like, I think that's madness. Like, why would I do something? The world is terrifying. Why would I, do something like that. But the idea of starting where you're comfortable and then stretching, being like, okay, I know I can do this. What would happen if I just stretched a little bit farther, right? Just enough that you're within your comfort zone, but you're actually stretching a little bit more.

For me, this was when I did the surfing class. And for me, I love the ocean. I'm from the Caribbean. I grew up on the ocean. I love the ocean. So the ocean is not scary for me. For some people, people are like, they're sharks. I'm never going to get a, in the ocean. Well, then you probably shouldn't take a surfing class, right? But that wasn't something, you know, I scuba dive, I've been around the ocean. I'm not a strong swimmer, but I'm comfortable with the ocean. So the idea of getting up on a wave and standing on a board and going, like, that was definitely out of my comfort zone, but it wasn't for me bungee jumping or jumping out of a plane, which you're never going to see me do, because that to me is just terrifying. I would never

do that. And so it's really about how can I stretch myself to do something that maybe I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I'm strong enough or brave enough and I want to try a little bit. So that's part of the fun, right, of doing an intentional, an intentional amateur thing where you're just like, huh, what happens if I push myself just a little bit harder? So it's like stretching but in a gentle way, basically. Absolutely. And also I think that, you know, One of my curiosities around this also is there, can we reach a point where we were stretching so much that what becomes a risk that makes sense that helps open doors and lead to the feeling of growth becomes reckless. And I think you're really, you're drawing the line well clear of that

where it's like, no, no, no, like let's not even step to that place and just say, okay, so what would make me feel like I'm a little uncomfortable with this? But I don't feel like there's a meaningful risk here beyond my own sense of competence. Exactly right. And for some people, skydiving is their thing. I hate heights. I'm terrified of planes. Why would I jump out of a plane? That's never going to be my thing. But for a long time, scuba diving was one of my avocations. It's not anymore. But it was for, and there's a lot of people who look to me like, you are bananas. Why would you ever do that? But it doesn't feel like an uncomfortable thing for me. And doing something that feels like life or death, that's probably

going a little bit too far. If it doesn't feel like life or death, then maybe give it a try. And for you, too, like for somebody else, they may be like, bring it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly right. I don't know. When I was in my 20s, I drove out to a jump site with a friend to go up and actually, like, take my first jump out of the plane. And the plane was grounded because of high winds. And I took that as a sign from God that I shouldn't be jumping out of planes. Never went back, never tried to Good for you. And I'm totally good with that decision. I'm 100% I'm at peace with it.

Absolutely, right? God bless the people like George W. Bush or H.W. Bush, you want to jump at 75, 85, 95, go for it. That is not my ministry. I am not going to be doing that. Connection is one of the attributes. I thought this was really interesting. And this really speaks to the notion of, yes, we can be connected between just us and the activity we're pursuing.

But also, there's a broader experience. that sometimes happens when we do something in community. Yeah, for sure. And this actually is a harder thing for me because I am naturally an introvert, right? And I noticed that like most of the things that I was interested in doing, they're really kind of me things, right? Like there are things that I would do. Let's take, for example, the craze for pickleball, right?

Like everybody, like pickleball is not something that I'm necessarily turned on to. But people love that idea of going and doing things with, you know, competing with somebody. And when I say competing, it's competing for that moment, right? Like that I think is really, really healthy. What I did in this case was sailing. I went sailing with my husband and we took a sailing class together. And the feeling of the two of us learning something together and honestly surfing was the same. I did surfing with them as well. Like the idea of being able to cheer each other on and laugh when things didn't quite go well without the feeling like either of us was going to put down the other person, right? Like it was sort of, that's a really,

really lovely, healthy thing. And if you can practice amateurism where you're connecting with family or friends or even strangers, but you're all getting together to do something together and you have that lovely thing in common where you're all doing it and that sort of collective effervescence that might happen, I think that's, I mean, we know there's all kinds of research, Vivek Murthy, the former Sergeant General has written books about it. Like there's something that is really, really healing and nurturing about doing things in community. Yeah, I so agree.

I mean, this is, I think, why you also see so many craft-based activities have circles or community, like knitting circles, like crafting circles, where people get together and commune around the shared pursuit of something. And they're making, they're all working on their own project, but it's just doing it somehow when you're in the presence of others can be really beautiful. Even when you're an introvert, with both of us are, I'll sometimes do this, and I'm not talking to anybody else, but there is something that just feels nourishing around like knowing that, okay, so there are eight of us in this room doing this thing, we're working on our own projects, and maybe it goes

all the way back to that earlier part of the conversation where it's like, now I'm in this micro-community and we're all part of a lineage, a heritage of people, and we're all having this conversation without ever opening our mouths with each other through doing a shared pursuit of an activity and also back in time and maybe serving as the people that one day future generations will reach back to and have the conversation with us. Absolutely. You know, and I'm sure you feel this at your studio, at your metalsmithing studio. Same thing with me.

Like, I sort of reluctantly signed up to be a member of a pottery studio thinking, like, I'm such an introvert. I don't know if I really, like, maybe I should just get a wheel and do this at home. What has happened has been this really lovely thing where we're all focused on the same thing. We're giving each other advice. We're inspiring each other with our work. We don't really even know what our backgrounds are, right? These are a bunch of people that otherwise I may have never ever included in my life. I would have just passed them on the street. Even though we are all from these different backgrounds, we have this one thing in common and we all kind of want to

see each other succeed. And that's just such a lovely, that's a lovely place to be. So agree. And I think especially in, you know, in this moment in culture, in society, where it seems like all we focus on is how we're different and how we're divided. Yep. To have something where you just know that there's a shared curiosity, shared interest, a shared, like you're doing the same thing side by side, even though you may be from totally different walks of life. It helps. It's like an opening move maybe in just seeing the humanity of somebody else. Yeah. And in fact, the book that I'm working on next is about communal compassion. and how we take care of each other. And I think these sort of third space places where we can all gather together to do something together

is a really lovely way to sort of express compassion for each other. And we don't even realize we're doing it. Yeah, I love that. And so agree. That brings us to the seventh attribute. And we touch into this again earlier, wonder and awe.

And I guess one of my early questions is actually, I've always wondered this. Is there a meaningful distinction between wonder and awe? How do you think about them? You know, there is, and I apologize, I'm blanking on it right now. Brene Brown has written about it in her Atlas of the Heart about there's a difference

between the wonder that we feel, where it's sort of a curiosity, I think, and then awe is more like almost being overwhelmed by beauty or something like that. So it's sort of both. There's a curiosity part of it and the overwhelming of beauty. Me, I think that any time we tap into either of those things, it actually helps us exercise an empathy muscle, right? Because when we start to think about ourselves, not as these huge individuals that are better than everybody else, but actually an interconnected part of the world or of the universe, that it helps us remember that some of the petty differences that we

see are just that. They're just petty. And that we can start to remember that, you know, we're all on this big blue marble purdling through space together. And I think, again, It's just one of those things that's just good for us to remind ourselves of that. So, yeah, Wonder-in-law is probably one of my favorites of the things to tap into that feeling. I love that and it resonates also. To me, wonder is often, it's like curiosity on steroids and awe is something fundamental that I believed has now been shattered. And I have an invitation to reassemble the pieces in a new shape or form. So they kind of play together in a really interesting way.

It's like one leads to the other. Seven really interesting attributes. And I think the invitation here is really, is there something that you can do in your life where you can let go of the fact that it has to have some sort of economic value and you can just play, you can dabble, you can become that intentional amateur

for no other reason than a feeling it gives you. And some of the feelings to look for are these seven things. that you list out here. If somebody's listening to this or watching and they're like, yeah, I would actually love to have something like this in my life where I can just turn to it on a regular basis and feel all the feelings that you're describing. But I don't even know where to start. What would you say to that person? Self-servingly, I would just say, first of all, at the very back of the book of this book, the appendix, there's like 250, I think, things just to peruse and start thinking about

maybe this would be something that would be fun. The other thing is actually, if you go to the website, I have a little quiz that you can take, a little free quiz that will help you think, like, what do I need more of in my life? Do I need more curiosity? And that can lead you the right way. For me, what helped me pick the seven things that I did were often looking back into my childhood and thinking about what were some of the things that I really, really loved to do or things that I've always kind of wished I could try and never have. One thing that I think about now is the aerial silks, you know, sort of the circus, like, that's something that I'm like, for years I've been like, I really, really want to try to do that. I really want to just, I probably would

look like a complete fool, but I really would like to do that. And really sort of like make a list of those things that sort of keep coming up and then like schedule a class or start looking at like YouTube University is a real thing, man. Like YouTube will teach you anything. Or just start playing with some of those ideas, grab a friend, right, to take a class with you that maybe would be interesting. That's how I got into scuba. A friend of mine came to me and said, hey, I'm thinking of taking this class, do you want to take it with me? And I was like, yeah, absolutely. And it became something that was quite a bit of a passion for a long time. So just really playing with the idea of what was it the things that I've always thought about? That's really cool. I would love to

what would happen if I started doing that. And then just taking the first step. Yeah, I love that. And I agree with you. I think YouTube is, or like any online video, but obviously YouTube is the biggest. Like literally there's nothing you can't find on there anymore, which is probably both good and bad in a lot of different ways. But it's just a great tool also to kind of be like, oh, this thing popped into my mind. Let me see if there are a couple of videos about it. And like just watching the videos, is there something, is there like, are you getting a visceral

response? Like, oh, that's actually kind of, I'm interested. That'd be cool to learn more about that. There are so many ways that we can see if there's like an, interest in something without actually having to really invest time or money. We can do it from the comfort of our own couch. Yeah. Exactly to dive in. And I'm going to pay more attention in my own experiments now to those seven attributes. And when I do, I don't feel them because I think they're really valuable tells. Thank you very much. Yeah. And again, you know, like that whole curiosity

in yourself and your own evolution, like these little tells, they're just going to make you feel good. They're just so good for you. Yeah. That's not a bad thing. thing. It feels like a good place for us to come full circle. I have asked you this question in the past. It's been a minute. So I'm going to ask you again in this container of Good Life project. If I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? To live a good life means curating and creating a little bit of joy every single day. Thank you. Yeah. Hey, if you love this episode, you'll also love the conversation we have with James Victoria

about making your art and owning your point of view. You can find a link to that episode in the show notes. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers, Lindsay Fox, and me, Jonathan Fields, editing help by Alejandro Ramirez, and Troy Young. Christopher Carter crafted our theme music. And, of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app or on YouTube, too. If you found this conversation interesting or valuable and inspiring, chances are you did because you're still listening here. do me a personal favor, a step and second favor, share it with just one person. I mean, if you want to share it with more, that's awesome too, but just one person even.

Then invite them to talk with you about what you've both discovered, to reconnect and explore ideas that really matter. Because that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. Feeling unsure in your career path? RBC has programs and resources to help you open the door. Discover RBC-led internships, scholarships, networking opportunities and upskilling programs designed to help you launch or further your career.

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