Christopher Lumry | How to Navigate the Tension Between External Validation and Internal Fulfillment

Srini: Chris, welcome to the Unmistakable Creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

Christopher Lumry: Thanks for having me, Srini.

Srini: Yeah, well, it is my pleasure to have you here. So you're like this interesting blend of scholar, creative, you know, person who's gone through recovery journey, like all these things together. But from reading the book, I got an interesting sense that, sorry, give me just a sec. Josh, cut this out, please. All right. So you are this interesting blend of an Ivy League scholar, creativity author, and entrepreneur. And so- kind of made me wonder like, as funny of a question as to start with, just based on having read the book, I want to ask what religious or spiritual beliefs were you raised with? Were you like a good church boy or like a total misfit?

Christopher Lumry: Yeah, so I grew up in an interesting place where there were parts of my family that were strongly people of faith. And

Srini: Mm-hmm.

Christopher Lumry: most of my extended family were folks who wouldn't consider themselves religious, maybe a little bit of spirituality, but a lot of folks who weren't, probably wouldn't classify themselves with either word. And I had an experience in the Christian faith. at a young age, but I grew up in a family where that was kind of a, it was a real mixed bag. And so

Srini: Mm-hmm.

Christopher Lumry: I kind of a lot of that sense of tension around faith, because I also always was drawn to studies and school and kind of intellectual understandings of life. And so I kind of grew up with probably exposures to evangelistic kind of evangelism in the Christian world. But then also I was able to travel as a kid through some different family things. My sister was a wildlife photographer. And so I got exposed at a young age to people from across the world. So there's always also this curiosity about kind of different perspectives and why people saw the world the way that the world, why people saw the world the way that they did.

Srini: Yeah. Well, you know, I think that one thing I wonder is as the United States becomes more and more polarized, like, what is it that is lacking in schools? And then, you know, how have we ended up at this place where we actually have trouble seeing the perspectives of other people? Like, how can we bring more of that into the way that we educate? Because I feel like that's where all this starts anyways.

Christopher Lumry: Yeah, that's a great question. I think that actually a lot of our inability or lack of capacity to listen comes from a lack of security in who we are. And there's been a changing blend of cultural norms and societal norms and narratives that as those change, sometimes for the better, sometimes there's costs to that as well. It changes our ability to interact with people on different levels. And one of the words actually that's been on my mind all day is this concept of mystery. In a world

Srini: Mm-hmm.

Christopher Lumry: where we have so much access to information, we've, I think, started training our brains to this understanding that we find safety in full understanding of things, and in sound bites or factoids or things, and it actually decreases our capacity for living life in tension, in paradox, or with things that we don't understand. And because there's this security and there's actually this kind of emotional benefit to having a sense of understanding, it changes how we hold truth and hold truth and tension. And

Srini: Mm-hmm.

Christopher Lumry: I think that so much of what how we engage with the people, how we understand other people, how we offer space for people to be themselves and be on their own journey depends on the level of security and comfort and value system. It's there. And I think it's actually one of the hallmarks that's by no means been perfectly. executed in the history of this nation, but one of the hallmarks of some sort of American cultural identity is this ideal of a freedom of speech and a freedom of belief. And there are definitely challenges right now with technology, with kind of the current news cycle, news media that make it more and more difficult to, I think, operate in a more nuanced approach to the world. but also to navigate how we connect with people. And so in terms of thinking about young people or education or individuals, I'm a believer in both nature and nurture.

Srini: Mm-hmm.

Christopher Lumry: And so I think there's aspects of things that... We need to celebrate some of these innate gifts of curiosity. Celebrate, I think even creativity can be a way to think about our approach to our belief systems. Creativity as an approach to understanding the world around us. Creativity as an approach to learning about others. But then also staying open for discovery and change and growth. Because it's, we look around the world, the natural world around us is constantly growing. Unless it's not.

Srini: Mm-hmm.

Christopher Lumry: And as we see people that inspires people in our lives around us, there's this natural innate human need, tendency, capacity for growth that some of these kind of contextual elements that I'm sharing about I think have made it a little bit more difficult or in some ways we have so many ways to find dopamine hits in our lives and to find a sense of comfort or pleasure. that we turn more and more to that instead of engaging with some of these harder questions or tensions.

Srini: Yeah. Well, so you mentioned your sister was a wildlife photographer. And here you are, this guy who is Ivy League educated, like, you know, two Ivy League degrees, both Princeton and Harvard. I would really, what is it your parents taught you about this whole idea of making your way in the world and creativity? Like, were you, were you like a typical Indian kid where it's like, you know, doctoral or engineer or failure and like, what impacted your sister being a wildlife photographer have

Christopher Lumry: Yeah.

Srini: on the advice that your parents gave you about all this?

Christopher Lumry: Yeah, so this, I think speaks to one of those tensions that is true in, I think, a lot of family settings. I won't speak for every single one, but it's that interesting tension between what we actually experience and what we perceive. And there are elements, now that I'm an adult in my 30s, I see ways that my parents operated in a different lens than I saw as a kid. But I'm also very aware of things that I learned or perceived, whether it's from family structure, kind of that set up or other aspects of kind of community norms or cultural norms of where I was from, where there was this strong desire to have an impact in the world and this desire because I, you know, I grew up, school was something that I, you know, was dedicated towards, but it also came easy to me to some extent. And there was, I think, probably aspects of being the youngest child where there just was this kind of expectancy for myself that that'd be kind of a part of my life. And so looking back, I'd use language that internalized a lot of identity, love, security in my ability to perform. And that was, you know, there's some beautiful genuine aspects of my faith. in those early years, but there's a lot of performance, a lot of stress, a lot of pressure that I didn't realize I was living with, I didn't realize I didn't need to be a part of that kind of process, as well as growing up in the Seattle area, which has an incredible, I love Seattle, I love where I'm from, there's an incredible passion for social justice, there's an incredible passion for change, there's an incredible passion for opportunity, for generosity, stewardship. And I think some of those things all got baked into carrying a load and a weight to constantly be able to understand how much I was stewarding, how well I was doing, finding a sense of security, really emotionally, relationally, personally, a sense of identity in that understanding. And that created an unsustainable pressure. that I think contributed eventually to these different coping mechanisms, addiction, and a place that was very broken but led to an experience of discovery, change, growth, rebirth. So I wander a little bit away from your question there about the

Srini: No, that's fine. That's great. That actually gives me another jump off point.

Christopher Lumry: Yeah, great.

Srini: Because it makes me think, you're talking about all this pressure that you put on yourself, but by all accounts, according to those standards, you've been a smashing success. I have a friend who's a Harvard neurosurgery resident, went to UCSF undergrad, and he always says, your sister is like every Indian parent's dream come true because she's kind of the same. And I'm like, well, that would make me every Indian parent's nightmare come true. were successful by every external measure. I mean, Princeton, from what I hear, is one of the most difficult schools to get into, even more so than Stanford these days, and then Harvard after that. So let's talk about the role of these elite colleges in the narrative that we as a society have developed about success and

Christopher Lumry: Yeah.

Srini: what it means and both the positives and the negatives. Because as a Berkeley undergrad, and I'm sure you can attest to this too, as a Princeton undergrad, Those things open doors, whether we want to admit it or not. It's not a meritocracy. That definitely gives you an edge that other people don't have. You're starting on second base just by virtue of those facts.

Christopher Lumry: Yep.

Srini: So talk

Christopher Lumry: Yeah.

Srini: to me about that and what role that has played and then how that leads to the darker side of things

Christopher Lumry: Yeah.

Srini: and your own addiction.

Christopher Lumry: It's one of those tensions and it keeps coming up in our conversation, which I love. It's that place between the role of external conditions, environments, settings, context, and then our internal reality. And it's interesting because I lean so much personally into these external contexts. It was not just getting into Princeton, but wanting to have, if I'm honest, the one like, what's the word for it? selective major to get into

Srini: Mm-hmm.

Christopher Lumry: selective social groups. You know, it wasn't just enough to get into a certain place, but there's this need to find validation on these external levels. And it motivated a lot of, you know, some good deeds or good charity works or different things or aspects of volunteering, but it was finding fulfillment in what could be seen. And I didn't really have a grid or a much lesser emphasis on it that season around the importance of what was happening inside. And it... kind of start changing my approach and my, my perspective on education very much agree with what you're saying of there's doors open, there's benefits and opportunities that are tied to certain settings and contexts that are very real. But I had those experiences personally. And until I ended up, you know, blacked out on the streets of San Francisco, needing recovery, ended up in a recovery setting and got to really kind of start to look inside. I didn't actually have the internal tools that I needed to discover and find and create in my work, in relationships and experiences that actually brought a sense of meaning and fulfillment on a deep level and more of a daily joy kind of approach to things. And so it's given me appreciation. I don't want to underplay at all the role of the importance of the external. And we need to see, you know, ways to bring opportunity for people in different contexts. And that's a whole wonderful conversation. But having this emphasis on both a passion for recovery, a passion for mental health, and a passion for creativity's role in thriving, whether those terms are part of your journey or whether you're just navigating stress as a high achiever, it's this internal side that was so life-giving for me. And I think one of the greatest gifts I've been given in my life is at a pretty relatively young age, 29. to stumble into the season of life where, as you're saying, I'd kind of gotten the check of the box at a pretty young age. Now I was working for the corporate side of Uber. I had the educational degrees. Through those experiences and other things, I got to go to dozens of countries. I had worked actually before grad school for an amazing. consulting firm, it's a nonprofit that does strategy impact work that, you know, is kind of checking the social impact box. I've been involved in kind of community service and religious organizations and those things were important. And there's a lot of good things within those things. Those things aren't bad, but

Srini: Mm.

Christopher Lumry: they weren't it. And it was this discovery and a life where some of those things suddenly became very uncertain, stripped away to a sense that I had this, these tangible, experiential on multiple levels, experiences of meaningful connection that changed my life. And I got to this place where I had this realization of, wow, I feel this sense of relational, you know, Brene Brown style, vulnerable, authentic connection with these guys in this recovery group and outpatient treatment with me. If I feel the sense of connection on a spiritual level, which gives me a sense of place in this world and it's a whole nother longer story. And in that I'm actually learning how to connect with myself and to honor both from a self-care perspective, how to take care of myself, how to fuel the creative engine of sense, but also be real and authentic about where I actually find joy, meaning and purpose in life. And it's been one of my... the absolute joys, this like kind of these beautiful narrative arcs in our lives of things that are broken, reorganizing to things that are meaningful and beautiful, of both personally on this journey and getting to help other people take those lenses of, I like to use the language and over-emphasis on external validation, off to find that place of peace, quiet and explore, you know, what does make me come alive. And how can I deepen that? And then how can I layer that into my life in a world that still is very much affected in some really important ways by external validation? You know, that it's a world of bills and a world of very important challenges that people are facing on individual, family, societal levels. And so we get to kind of apply that personally, I stumbled into this, of just without, I think in one psych class in undergrad,

Srini: Mm-hmm.

Christopher Lumry: Thank you, Daniel Kahneman and many others who I've just gotten to glean from their incredible work. But kind of this principle of, oh, how can I experiment with this? I think back then I actually used that language of, you know, I've lived my life in a lot of different ways, trying to hold on. I think there's also an element of control for me too, that kind

Srini: Mm.

Christopher Lumry: of some aspects of like little T trauma response, some aspects of looking at places of security and that's learning how to step by step, letting go of things to embrace connection. And then I remember asking myself when I went back to the corporate world after this kind of two month leave of absence, how can I experiment in my life right now to find, identify. and just lean into these moments of meaningful connection. Know whether it's that extra second in the workplace to ask receptionist how the day's going. Whether it's taking a moment after a hard meeting at work to kind of check in with people. You know, whether it's these lunchtime conversations I began having where given my own experience of sobriety and this kind of rediscovered life, I was so fired up. about people finding whether it's through that kind of specific journey or other things, that wholehearted experience of life, you know, that conversation actually, and those, that passion I found, lunch conversations at work actually helped inspire me to take the entrepreneurial leap eventually, whether it was carving out time to start making house music when I didn't think I was a musician, didn't, you know, all this is happening, by the way, in a time where I wouldn't have called myself creative. But it was all this outflow focusing on connection. And then it was, I don't know at what point, maybe a year or two under this experimental process, the beginning of the sea and kind of draw the lines together and saying, oh, you know, I'm creating here and I'm creating there. And wait, actually these moments at work, I'm creating a moment, an experience. And I'd also gotten into some tools that have been helpful for me of. seeing the creative power of our thoughts and words, and cognitive scientists and neuroscientists, not that they all agree with this, but there's a healthy proportion of them that see creativity actually starting in our thoughts and words, because they actually help reprogram neural pathways. So I begin to see this kind of outside the box and saying, you know, as I've been discovering and been gifted this opportunity to find meaningful connection and kind of reorient life from impact from... trying to maximize potential to seeking connection. That's actually what led to this rediscovery and this rebirth of creativity in me. And it's been wild as years have unfolded to see some of those individual projects continue to evolve and grow, but then also to stumble into, you know, helping people in this. Honestly, I thought I was the least qualified person to do some of the things I'm doing now.

Srini: Well, you know, like the sense that I'm getting just from the bulk of your conversation is this ongoing tension between our need for external validation and internal fulfillment that seems to play out in all of our lives. Right. So two questions come from this. One is where does that come from both for you and for people who are listening? But two, like when you look at the trajectory, like if I saw you on paper, like, you know, Harvard and Princeton, Silicon Valley. The way that people would perceive that story is not guy ending up blackout drunk needing to go to rehab.

Christopher Lumry: Mm-hmm.

Srini: Just based on the surface, obviously that takes us back to a whole conversation about perception. But talk to me one about the first question about validation, but then just talk to me what led you to that point in the first place, and then we'll get into the

Christopher Lumry: Yeah.

Srini: book.

Christopher Lumry: So. I think his name is Johann Hari. It might be from

Srini: Mm-hmm.

Christopher Lumry: him, it might be someone else, but the phrase addiction, the opposite of addiction is connection.

Srini: Yeah,

Christopher Lumry: And for

Srini: that

Christopher Lumry: me...

Srini: was Johann Hurry from Stolen Connections. I know because I have that book note,

Christopher Lumry: Yes.

Srini: the book notes

Christopher Lumry: Okay,

Srini: for it

Christopher Lumry: there

Srini: in front

Christopher Lumry: you

Srini: of

Christopher Lumry: go.

Srini: me.

Christopher Lumry: I said I struggle sometimes to remember names and like connecting quotes. I'm terrible.

Srini: I

Christopher Lumry: I'm

Srini: can help

Christopher Lumry: asking.

Srini: you with that.

Christopher Lumry: I'm

Srini: We'll

Christopher Lumry: asking terrible. Trying to quote

Srini: talk about

Christopher Lumry: shows.

Srini: that offline.

Christopher Lumry: Yeah, it's great.

Srini: Yeah.

Christopher Lumry: So I In my process, I had lived through some life experiences where there were choices I'd made that I felt shame around, I felt a sense of just heaviness. And I'd had some tooling, some processes and tools I'd gone through my life to address some of those things. But I don't think I'd really gotten both underneath in a sense, the narratives that were driving some of these desires and needs to escape and was dealing with some compulsive behaviors in my life, was dealing with... substance use disorder, addiction to alcohol. And looking back, that's where it stemmed from of places where it's interesting, things that happen in our lives, things that happen to us and things that we also have a role in. And for me, it was in some ways harder to let go and move on from things that I blame myself for. And that was experiences probably a decade or so before when things really hit like rock bottom for me,

Srini: Mm-hmm.

Christopher Lumry: but I didn't have a toolkit. I didn't have a narrative that actually could really help me process through that. And so I was left in a place where I needed to be doing things, performing, achieving, because I didn't have a place of identity security that felt enough. I didn't feel like I was enough. And I love Brene Brown's language around shame and connection in those areas. And so for me, the process of kind of hitting this bottom point. First time I'd ever started seeing a counselor. First time, you know, I was in spaces where I got to start vocalizing. For folks who have never been in a recovery meeting, and not every recovery meeting has the same atmosphere, but a lot of them do. It is one of the most beautiful, authentic, raw, powerful, spiritual, magical, whatever words you want to use, just because of this reality of authenticity, of human connection. And it kind of blew my mind of, oh my goodness, if I have like this kind of connection in my life and I'm experiencing connection on these other levels, I don't actually, I don't feel the need to have the achievement in my life. I was able to kind of let go of some of those pressures. to achieve, to be able to sustain a certain financial output or things I kind of just grown up with this belief system of saying, if I don't do this, I'm a failure, I'm not enough. And part of that was also very much on a spiritual experience. I think I like the language of narrative. We underweight how much we're impacted by the narratives that we believe and the narratives that we live within. One example, maybe this is a little too soon, having friends who are in very different geographies, but relatively similar in terms of their background, education level, financial level. And looking back last three years at COVID, they would have very, very different perspectives on their level of action. And it seemed like from my anecdotal raw kind of perspective, one of the chief determiners of that was simply where they were based. you know, what the narrative of their community was. And so for me, recovery was a place without getting too much into what can still be, you know, an understandably hot button kind of topic. Recovery is a place where I got to actually investigate what are the stories I'm believing about myself, about the world around me. And those were things that it wasn't like there was, it's an ongoing journey, it's an ongoing process. But I began to discover a narrative about my own story, a narrative about my own. places of connection with other people and relationships, and then a narrative that gave me a sense of place in the world. And there was a very spiritual kind of a rediscovery of faith in that process for me, that was a kinder, closer, more, I'd say more mystical experience of faith than what I'd had previously. And there's an aspect of the letting go that was kind of part of the recovery process and that openness that creates space for that. And those were the things that really are at the core of those different levels of connection that have really been at the core of this discovery process. And one thing I just want to caveat that with, and the way that I love to use this language, because I love where, you know, science meets spirituality and faith, or emotional health and language, the things are kind of in between. If someone's listening to this and saying, hey, you know, I don't have that experience, that worldview, the language of connection has been very helpful for me. of saying, you know, look at where you do find a sense of place in the world. It might be through a political cause. It might be through a meditative practice. It might be through, you know, community can be part of that on an interpersonal level, but can also be really a part of that sense of connection on this with something greater than ourselves. Um, and throughout our lives, we are all on the journey of discovering and actually needing deeper. experiences a meaningful connection on each of those three levels with ourselves, with others, with something greater. I think it's related to actually the law of diminishing returns where we don't get the same benefit from things over time, but it's actually this aspect of our creative nature that is well matched for that, that we can continue to discover new forms, new experiences of connection. And so kind of to your question, I hope I didn't go into me rabbit trails there, but it's been this, not just both an approach or a tool, but really a journey and a process and an openness to continue to experiment and discover connection that came from some of these early experiences and experiences of psychological safety and experiences of comfort and grace. And I felt really, really loved by people who knew nothing about my background, who didn't need anything from me. And it was on multiple levels, that unconditional love that started giving space and courage to do some of the work needed for this new direction.

Srini: Yeah. Well, let's get into the book. You early on in the book say that rooting our creative exploration in a foundation of innate value counters one of the most toxic ingredients for internal realities and creative processes. Shame. Many fears and limiting perspectives come from experiences of beliefs rooted in shame, e.g. the feeling of not being enough, of being unwanted or alone. And in particular, the one that struck me the most of that is not being enough, because I honestly like I'm beginning to. feel like this has been an ongoing theme with my guests like this entire year. Like if I look back at the last eight or nine interviews, like, because we do this, uh, like roundup, uh, book. And if I were to ask the AI note taking tool that I use, like, what is the ongoing theme here? Um, I keep seeing this, like we had Tom Kern talk about, you know, the perfection trap, uh, Jennifer Wallace wrote this amazing book called never enough, which was my favorite book of the year. So it just got me thinking like, you know, one, like. how do we get to this place of not enough, but let's talk more importantly about how it affects us and how we get out of it, particularly as it relates to creativity.

Christopher Lumry: Yeah, yeah. I think it's very common in the human experience and we can actually play into that, I think actually strengthen cycles of shame in our lives in some maybe unexpected ways, where you begin to buy into the belief system or the practice of the personal philosophy that if I achieve this or if I hit this next target, then I'll start to feel different about myself. And there are so many stories, you know, I should have looked at my story, but so many stories out there that we are exposed to pretty consistently if we stop to see them, of people who create, in a sense, incredible sources of value, arts, influence, impact in the world, and yet it's not a guarantee of happiness, of contentment, of feeling enough. both in their words or as we see people's lives develop and unfold. And I think that's one of the traps around shame and creativity is we can kind of kick the can down the hallway, I don't know the end of that metaphor. It keeps thinking that it's gonna change. And sometimes we need those experiences of trying those things and saying, hey, what do I actually get? What are the benefits of creating a certain area? But we also connect in these places and realizing, hey, this isn't it. And are there ways to partner these external aspects of creativity with something that helps me kind of connect in differently? And that's why I like, you know, in the work I've gotten to do with folks in this area, as people experience the gifts of creativity or this characteristic of creativity, of being able to bring something new into existence. And sometimes it sparks right away. Sometimes it's something that as people, you know, finish that draft of the poem they've wanted to write or. they've solved a problem in family relationship or they've organized something in their house, they begin to see the value of this characteristic. And that's why we talk about, can creativity instead of being this tool to help us try to be enough and kind of play into that cycle of performance and shame and perfectionism, can it reveal to us that as human beings, we are innately valuable? that is this defining aspect of the human experience that this potential to create, and we can create things that are wonderful and meaningful, we also can create things that are broken. I look back at my choices when I was in my not great days, and even still, I can create an experience for people that I can have regret around or shame around, or feel that hesitancy around. But as we start to see the power of creativity and start to see the benefits of it from a neurological perspective, from a relational perspective, it can help provide a foundation of identity, of inherent worth as a creative being. And I think one of the things I love, intro and people too is some of the scientific research around forgiveness, because I think there's something too, in a world where we are talking so much and it's needed to talk about the ideals that we want to see in the world. We are left personally in tension between what we espouse as our idealized kind of outcomes for our lives or values and the reality of where we fall short from those things. And we need mechanisms to sense clear our operating systems of some of these memories or some of these, you know, shifting between somewhat spiritual language and some scientific and technological metaphors, but something that helps us reboot when we have a bad day, when we make the choice, or maybe we feel like we missed some opportunity and we feel like we've lost out on something that would have been really helpful in our lives or wonderful in our lives. But we need a process in our lives to kind of creatively clear the slate so that those kind of existing places of difficulty and pain. They might still be valid and real, but they don't get to lead our creative process. And so there's some fascinating research that's been done on the power of forgiveness. There's a, I think his name's Everett Worlington, who we quote in the book. But looking at some people are, you know, they have missed, they have different definitions of it that make this, even that word, that kind of concept of letting go a bit scary. But his writing has been really helpful in enunciating this place of saying. How do I not let my own past or the things that are around me overly determine my creative path forward? And then I also was very much impacted personally by some of the Brene Brown resources and some other aspects of my own kind of faith and spiritual journey that helps process through those things. And it's not just about a removal of some of that clutter, in a sense. Some of these places of regret or... Yeah, you can use a lot of different language for those moments. It's also the healthy building of a positive in those spaces. And so we talk a lot about mindsets and from a neurological standpoint of how incredible it is that our brain is no plastic. And in big and small ways, we can start changing the lenses out, through which we've seen ourselves, seen creativity. One of the folks who I got to partner with on the, she's kind of become a research assistant and just been really helpful in the process, pointed me to some pieces that were all about the combination of the importance of shifting mindsets and some of the exercises that we can use to kind of reprogram our brains, but then also needing to really understand the importance of experiences that validate those. And so helping people take again those baby steps in pairing the internal work and then these external experiences that can help us shift from whether it's simply around a belief system saying I am enough or whether it's you you know, saying, oh, I actually myself, Chris, I am a songwriter, I am musical, I'm a musician. I did not think that was the case seven years ago, but it's been a process of both those internal shifts and then taking stage appropriate creative risks that have helped actually build a foundation where I can now walk into a room with professional musicians, which I am not, and actually say that and own it and believe it and recognize what I have there. And we get stuck creatively where there are places of unprocessed pain in our creative journeys. So these are all tools, whether it's in the mindset side of things and building new creative mindsets for ourselves, or in using forgiveness or other things, kind of that letting go space that help us recognize, honor what we've experienced, we then move forward. Because typically where we've experienced creative pain that keeps us stuck or pain around creativity that keeps us stuck, are in the very areas where we might have some real intrinsic joy, intrinsic value, intrinsic meaning there because we've tried them before. And those places that are most valuable to us are those that are most precious and that's sometimes tender or sensitive. And that's been a huge part, both personally and then the folks we've gotten to serve about helping people explore and rediscover and upgrade their creative process.

Srini: Yeah. Well, so I think that like, you know, you mentioned earlier that we've heard this message a thousand times from people who have achieved this thing that they thought would you lead them to this like great sense of fulfillment, but it doesn't. And it's always the person who's achieved the thing that everybody else wants. And the person who doesn't have that says, well, yeah, that must be fucking nice because you've already achieved it. So talk to me about that. Because like, I think that there is this sort of paradox is like, I don't even know how to phrase it. I feel like an entire like PhD could be done on this sort of tension between ambition and fulfillment. And it's always like, you know, giving an example, Jim McKelvey was a co founder of Square. He's like, Oh, he's like, money doesn't, you know, change your life or make you that happy. And it's like, well, you're a billionaire with a jet, you know, like,

Christopher Lumry: Yeah.

Srini: and he said, he's like, Yeah, but I had my, you know, shitty Cessna for a long time. But people are like, Yeah, in my mind, I think, yes, but you had the option to upgrade from the Cessna to a jet. So

Christopher Lumry: Yeah.

Srini: Talk to me about that because I think that there's a grain of truth to that. It's almost like you can't understand that idea until you actually get to that external accomplishment where you're like, oh, but until you have had whatever it is you think you're lacking, you always think it's going to fulfill you.

Christopher Lumry: Yeah, yep. No, I think it's a very real tension and it's that aspect throughout life of, we often learn through our own experiences and yet there's benefits sometimes when we can learn from the experiences of others, but that's hard. It takes trust. Sometimes the best lessons are those that we learn and failure and loss are in these different places. And I'm saying

Srini: Thank you.

Christopher Lumry: that with a bit of a smile on my face, knowing that sometimes those lessons are costly because it's so painful.

Srini: Mm-hmm.

Christopher Lumry: And those things. For me, what comes to mind immediately as you raise that question is the magic of recovery rooms. And that's something that for me, because I have had this background of opportunity and privilege, it's a question I've thought before as well. Like, how relevant are the things I'm bringing? Because my experience is so unique as well.

Srini: Mm-hmm.

Christopher Lumry: And in the process, one thing that was helpful was seeing in these places where people have navigated mental health challenges and addiction, different places, people coming fully alive, people finding fulfillment, who have a very different background than my own, and who are coming from different socioeconomic, social, people are coming from very different socioeconomic backgrounds, education levels, but begin to see that in this place of being known and being. finding that first interpersonal connection, and then finding the sense of connection with a creative purpose in their lives, navigating through these things, people having really positive, fruitful experiences of life. And that was one of the things that led to research, looking at studies that study these different forms of connection, whether it's interpersonal connection or people who practice. mindfulness or the association of experiences in nature or civic engagement, all of these different forms of connection that are associated with higher levels of fulfillment. It's probably been talked about in this podcast already, but the Harvard Longest Tuval study that tried to study happiness.

Srini: Yep, we've had Waldinger as a guest

Christopher Lumry: Yeah. And that's something too that, you know, people, there's always a choice of saying, you know, how generalizable is this kind of research, is this context? But if you look across, for me it was helpful to see kind of across a range of both anecdotal looking at what's happening in culture as well as the cities are out there, there does seem to be this sense and this kind of overall narrative that's emerging that there is this aspect of connection which is kind of hard sometimes to define that is really associated with fulfillment and happiness. And people might use language around, you know, staying present or different things. relational health, all these different components. So I think it is something, as you're saying, that it's best understood once experienced. But it can be difficult to find those things. I don't know if this is a good recommendation for people, but looking for places in your own community where you can find that sense of authenticity, vulnerability, connection, and kind of taking baby steps in that direction can be a helpful... starting point. I think it actually is a starting point for a lot of people, especially when they're they hit a point where they realize, hey, I need help with my relationship with the substance or this different challenge. And it's one of those opportunities as we're talking about earlier of where difficulty, pain, mess, imperfect situations can become the genesis of discoveries.

Srini: Well, you talk specifically in the book about intrinsic motivation. You say intrinsic motivation is crucial for unlocking creativity. Oversize over emphasizing the metrics of success provided by external sources can cause us to miss out on deeper levels of fulfillment and joy, but this was what caught my attention the most you said. Remember the phrase audience of one, as you explore existing and new expressions, recognize that you can discover opportunities to make more of what you personally love within your unique opportunities and capacity, of course. the reason that caught my attention is because I wrote a book called Audience of One.

Christopher Lumry: Yeah, yeah.

Srini: And I'll tell you, the hardest thing about that book was for me to embrace the ideas in it during the book launch. Yeah, like the core, like to be obsessed with like how the book is performing, how many copies it's selling. Like my behavior was the antithesis of what I was preaching in the book.

Christopher Lumry: Yeah, yep.

Srini: And that takes us back to that tension that we were talking about.

Christopher Lumry: I'm curious, did you in that process of recognition, did that come in the moment? Did it come in upon reflection? And how do you kind of process through that?

Srini: Well,

Christopher Lumry: How do you

Srini: it

Christopher Lumry: handle?

Srini: came from it came from having a really smart ass sister who basically called me and my bullshit. Yeah She called me and you know, like we're talking and then she's like, how's it going? I was like, ah, the book isn't sold as many copies as I hope and she's like you're an idiot She was like, you don't believe what you wrote then if that's what you're thinking about So that was like the wake-up call So I knew at a certain point I had to just surrender and realize that okay, like whatever

Christopher Lumry: Yeah.

Srini: control I have over this is done

Christopher Lumry: Yeah.

Srini: um, and I remember what it was the day like I was like, okay, we had 1000 copies. And at that point, I realized I was like, okay, I'm not going to make a Wall Street Journal bestseller New York Times bestseller list. And the weird thing for me is I had a fluke accident of a self published book that became a Wall Street Journal bestseller. Like,

Christopher Lumry: Mm.

Srini: so like, it's kind of like, you ever seen Friday Night Lights?

Christopher Lumry: Yeah, yep.

Srini: The TV show, you know, like, not that I'm comparing myself to a state champion, you know, football team, but like, You know, when the there's a guy who tells Coach Taylor, he was like, you know, when you're this good, the only place to go is down.

Christopher Lumry: Yeah.

Srini: It's like this standard that suddenly has been set. And you, you're like, am I ever going to measure up to that again? It's kind of like Elizabeth Gilbert's whole Ted talk. Like after he pray love, it's like, wait, if that is like your breakout success. And I'm sure like somebody like Mark Manson, right? Like, how do you ever follow up the subtle art of not giving a fuck? Like there's just, you kind of had. to make peace with the fact that maybe that's it. Like that is the pinnacle of what you'll achieve in this particular domain.

Christopher Lumry: Yeah, yeah. There's, so there's two questions in that I'm excited to jump in on. Um, and that second one about metrics of success and how it affects our ability to create. It's one of my, yeah, we'll come back to that in a second. Um, I resonate with you on that. You know, I've, people will say that you end up writing the book that you needed to read the most

Srini: Mm-hmm.

Christopher Lumry: yourself.

Srini: Yep.

Christopher Lumry: Um, and it has been really fun. I actually didn't realize I was what became creativity unlocked. I didn't know I was writing a book. I just started journaling about this journey around connection and creativity and kind of personal discoveries. And then had a mentor and these other things kind of happen all in a short period of time where it was just a hov, oh, I think I'm supposed to write a book. And I was so focused on the nonprofit that does addiction recovery storytelling. it was actually hard to give myself permission to go after something that I didn't feel like I had, you know, educational qualification for. And I had this very spiritual moment where I had this sense of like, actually this qualification for this is over these three years of discovering connection creativity. I have these natural highs. I come so alive in the creative process on projects that no one knows anything about. And that was really the heartbeat of feeling like this is something that I should share with people. And trying to, you know, knowing that everyone's journey is different, bring pieces that could serve in some way people's journeys of how can we tap into those, I can't believe I get to feel this right now as I'm part of this creative process, whether it's encoding or and creating a moment with your kids or, you know, creating a moment watching a sunset, whatever those things are. And I think a lot of these questions around fulfillment and creativity point back to some questions about our values, not

Srini: Mm-hmm.

Christopher Lumry: just from a sense of like moral things, but a question of how do we want to define success in our lives? And what do we believe, but also what do we kind of practice as an experience of saying This is what I want to go after. And as we're working with people with creativity in lots of things, um, we'll ask people that saying, Hey, you can engage with this and these tools can help you, uh, if you want to focus your creativity on a certain achievement or metric, if you want to focus your creativity on social impact, that's all, that's great. These tools can help you. Um, we also make a bit of a case that ultimately where people find greater fulfillment, um, is this hypothesis that's in connection and joy. And that's what, for me, just, I can echo, looking at book sale numbers or looking at social media posts likes, I don't think, I don't know if we ever graduate beyond some of those questions and some of that tension, because it's not all one or the other. There's really important feedback we get from external validation. We've all heard the karaoke singer that... uh, is really in tune with their own personal joy, but they may actually need sometimes a little bit of external ingredients or coaching or support, or maybe they don't, you know, it's, that's kind of up to people. Uh, we've all seen when people lean into the personal and they don't have the external. And I think for me, I just, I resonate with that story of every time I get to lean into some form of new creative adventure, whether it's, you know, releasing a new creative project, whether it's stepping into a new form of work that I'm doing, whether it's, you know, gone through the process of releasing a song on Spotify with some friends just for fun, it calls me back into, and it becomes either an opportunity to fall back into the trap of over-emphasizing external validation or to lean into that personal And the good news is I think we can actually build patterns that support a new way of thinking and doing things, but that there has to be space for us to not be quote unquote perfect. And so I appreciate your smart ass sister. She sounds like a gift, but

Srini: Yeah,

Christopher Lumry: I

Srini: she

Christopher Lumry: would

Srini: is.

Christopher Lumry: say maybe a little differently that you believe the things that you wrote, but you might be learning how to apply them in different creative outlets and that. The reason I'm getting into the details there is because I think there's probably people listening who that kind of nuance, if you felt this tension between internal satisfaction and fulfillment, you might have a bad day. You might have a day where you don't feel like you're enunciating the values you have, and that's part of the growth process. That's part of the tension, and that's okay.

Srini: Yeah, you know, like the you're running the week that the book came out honestly was not a pleasant week. I was at a low point. Nobody would know it because you know, I'm a public figure who gets to put on a shiny face and like take, you know, pictures and make it look like everything is all well and good, but it was far from it. Yeah, like I was at a low point. And it reminded me of that Neil Gaiman make good art speech. You remember where he talks about how Stephen King meets him and says to him, enjoy this, this is really cool. And I didn't and I realized like what a profound lesson that was

Christopher Lumry: Yeah.

Srini: But not only that like you know speaking of you know creative things that you don't do for any purpose Like I've been writing this life advice book for my ten-month-old nephew, which is meant to be given to him when he's 18 And it's only for him

Christopher Lumry: Mmm.

Srini: But that has actually allowed me to find a lot more joy in writing because like there's I realize I'm like this is literally for nothing Nobody's ever gonna it will never be published, but it's been one of the most fun things I've worked on But I want to go into one, two other things here that you talk about. We'll get back to the nephew in a second because there's a portion of your book I think is relevant to that. You say to create achievable goals and practical plans, unrealistic expectations can be emotionally draining. They can also torpedo your best efforts to create. Remember it's about baby steps. Our society is hungry for quick wins and overnight success, but discovery takes time, especially when intrinsic joy and meaningful connection are the aim. And I think that there are a couple of questions that arise from that. One, you earlier mentioned internal changes supported by external evidence, I'm paraphrasing, but one of my old mentors and business person who says, you want to change your money story, the best way to do that is make more fucking money. Your money story will change instantly,

Christopher Lumry: Yeah.

Srini: which is easier said than done. But to your point, society is hungry for quick wins and overnight success. What role do you think that, you know, what I like to refer to now is the self-improvement industrial complex, which now includes social media and influencers and all that shit plays in that narrative?

Christopher Lumry: Yeah, yeah, I think again, that's one of the unique aspects of our current ecosystem, where we have access to so much information and there is this kind of social pressure and norm depending on whether you see yourself kind of in that community or tribe or not. That can add a lot of pressure to certain things and I actually like the model of personal rapid prototyping. that leaves space because there's amazing pearls of wisdom and practical tools and science based pieces of this whole thing. There's a lot of things that maybe aren't as helpful in this whole kind of, you know, self improvement industrial complex. But giving people language and space to determine, hey, what actually are my goals? It comes back to that question of values again of like, Do I want to prioritize joy? Do I want to prioritize a financial output? Do I want to prioritize personal productivity? And it's probably not one of those things. It's probably a combination and a balance of those things. I think it's important for people to think about, their kind of personal growth journeys, driving back to both what are your kind of current goals? And as you take these steps forward, do you want to keep those as your same goals? People might be in seasons where, those specific goals can change. You know, you hear people, I don't have kids personally, but some of my friends are in the season in the last five years of having kids for the first time. And in a beautiful, profound way, has totally shifted their goals or their values for the season, what they're prioritizing and really how they hold that tension between professional, personal, family, emotional, wellness goals. And so I think so often we're looking for the certainty and maybe there's this desire to have a certainty of I'm doing things the right way. And in a world of so many possibilities, I don't know if there is one way that's specifically right, but it's more so this like, Hey, is this actually producing the results? If I like kind of in prototyping and testing, what if I adjust a little bit this aspect of where I'm putting my time or where I'm investing in personal growth and stepping back for a second, the broader kind of context of personal improvement. For me, it's a great example of this idea of truth intention, that strengths overextended become weaknesses. And so I think there's incredible things that online voices and coaches and leaders have brought to help a generation looking for guidance. And it's not just Gen Z, it's millennials, it's older folks as well. There's great wisdom and value there. But if there's an over-reliance, again, on certain aspects, you can rob yourself of parts of either the creative process or even your own wellness because of this over-emphasis of things. And some people will use the word kind of balance in their lives. I think that's helpful to some extent. I think from a hypothesis that... we are wired for connection. That's been a more helpful terminology for me of thinking, hey, this is a season where I'm really emphasizing how I'm connecting to myself and what I'm creating that's around personal mastery, versus a season, another season where, I need to slow down kind of the self-improvement and take some time to really appreciate and benefit from friendships and relationships. Or this is a season to lean into things that kind of bring that sense of connection to something that's greater in the world. And that multifaceted approach for me actually circles back a little bit to what you're asking about kind of earlier, how do you navigate success? How do you navigate reaching and achieving things that suddenly it can feel like you're playing defense? And I think one of the great hopes there is this recognition of creativity focused on personal fulfillment and connection, not just based on an outcome, but in the process that can help people find um, meaning and joy that might take different forms. And in some of the work we've done with artists, it's been one of the, one of the joys of saying, Hey, it's understandable why, like your art matters. It's beautiful. It brings a lot of joy. But did you know from a scientific perspective, that you can find similar sources of joy of meaning of self-expression of connection with people through other outflows of your creative nature. And our goal with that is to help folks who are doing wonderful things in certain career vehicles or certain avenues or channels, recognize for those moments of whether it's, you know, post-success navigating kind of their next stages, or whether it's needed to diversify or find other income channels or, you know, in places of challenge to recognize the benefit of these multiple kind of creative avenues. Practically, one of my favorite recommendations for people, it can be really healthy to carve out 30 minutes a week. where you're thinking about it in a creative lens, you're thinking this is a creative moment, you create something that is intentionally not connected to anything else in your life. That you don't have to share about other people, that doesn't have to lead to some kind of cause or impact or financial reward or things, taking 30 minutes to create just for the joy of creating, just activating the dopamine and the joy chemicals that can hit in the process of creating. It can be so refreshing, especially in seasons where our creativity and our creative energy is going towards things that might be a little bit more high stress or more outcome specific or dependent. And that's been a really helpful practice for me as well.

Srini: Well, let's wrap this up by talking about developing greater child likeness in your

Christopher Lumry: Yeah.

Srini: creativity. You make this distinction between childishness and child likeness. And as I mentioned before, we'd come back to my nephew and I think the thing that I'm seeing, which I've heard from so many people who have kids is that it's like seeing everything in the world for the first time when you see

Christopher Lumry: Yeah.

Srini: the world through the eyes of a kid. And it really is. Because like For some reason, this guy makes the mundane magical. He literally wakes up every morning with an ear-to-ear smile on his face. It's the most adorable and wonderful thing. It's like, man, we all should wake up like that. Even if he has a shitty night of sleep, he still wakes up with a smile. He's already a morning person. And he's been like that from the get-go. The other thing is, now that he's mobile, is this just absolute, insatiable curiosity about everything. He wants

Christopher Lumry: Yeah.

Srini: to know what's going on. The minute he hears a noise, he turns his head. He needs to be involved in everything. And he's 10 months old, keep in mind. He gets pissed off if people are at a table talking and he's not being involved in the conversation, then he'll start just babbling really loud and he won't stop until everybody acknowledges him.

Christopher Lumry: I love that. I feel like I learned so much from observing, spending time with my nieces and nephews and just the wonder, the joy. It's a picture I'll often come back to when, you know, as I was sharing this with you, I dropped a Dr. Pepper can a few minutes before our conversation and it explodes everywhere. I've just moments where things like that, that used to feel more high stress for me or used to feel like kind of end of the world moments of remembering that in the bigger scope of things. I'm. I'm still, get to kind of be a kid in a sense of like, oh, there's actually a way of seeing my own narrative in those moments that it's not as big of a deal as it can seem. Like those moments matter, but, and seeing sometimes my nephew when he's like seven and throwing a little fit about something, I'll think back to that of like, oh, I'm having a little bit of a fit moment here and that's okay. But this too will pass just like my nephew's seven year old fit, my seven year old nephew's fit about his bedtime or about. the video game or whatever it is. The language of early childhood development and psychology has been really helpful in my own journey of recognizing that actually what I was experiencing that helped restart creativity, or I'd say maybe this rediscovery of creativity in my own life was applications of tools that are so similar to the principles that researchers have found being key for. kids to develop. And it kind of makes sense. There's been some really interesting studies. NASA brought in these researchers to study creativity in their astronauts. This is decades ago. Those researchers actually applied the tests they developed to people at different ages and stages. And they found I think it was in above 90% of five year olds scored at the very high level in this creativity test. Then that number and that percentage drops precipitously. all the way down to about 2% of adults they found scored in that very high category of this test. And it kind of points to this idea that children are naturally very creative and there are also these, all these qualities that they embody that when raised in healthy environments of curiosity, of wonder, of joy, of gratitude, of generosity, of appreciation, and there's aspects of our lives, pain, disappointment, frustration, sometimes, you know. It's a whole conversation about our educational system that might kind of diminish some of those things. Part of it is also how our brains develop. You know, we as our brains are developing, there's much more of a focus on many forms of information and sensory kind of collection versus pattern recognition. So our brains do kind of change. But it's been fascinating for my own journey. And then we kind of bring in these principles of how healthy and supportive is your external environment? How healthy and supportive is your internal environment? How are you nourishing yourself? What are you taking in? Artists especially can feel this pressure to create, to bring something into the world and actually be famished in a sense and starved for experiences of goodness and beauty and joy that, or of other emotions as well that can fuel what they kind of released into the world. One of the key things that's so important to highlight I think in the creative process for people is this idea of stage appropriate risks. How many times have we taken risks that we're excited about? We have this passion around, but we don't necessarily have the capacity to handle the downside. So when it doesn't go the way that we think it's going to go, we get stuck and we don't know why. So stage appropriate steps. And there's a couple other pieces we talked about in the book there. Those are things that I try to stay keyed into myself. And for me, there is an aspect of this discovery, this very, honestly, this kind of mystical experience with God that was the origin point of this peace and comfort and psychological safety that creativity started flowing out of and that profoundly shifted kind of my view of the world itself and my place in it that was also a part of my journey in this place of saying, Chris, as someone who felt Honestly, I feel like it sounds silly now, but I felt like I lived with the weight of the world on my shoulders. I know it was on my shoulders, but I thought that's where I found meaning and success and security. And it was that letting go of it that in that space, creativity, childlikeness started to expound. And that was an aspect of my Christian faith that I hadn't heard emphasized as much, even though it's kind of core to this idea of. of childlikeness that's core to kind of the scriptural approach to things. And it was one of the most unexpected aspects of my sobriety and recovery journey.

Srini: Wow. Well, this has been amazing. I mean, I love conversations like this because they're the ones that leave us with more questions than answers and forces to think. So I want to finish with my final question, which I know you've heard me ask. And that's how we end all of our interviews at the unmistakable creative. What do you think it is? Like somebody or something unmistakable.

Christopher Lumry: I love the phrase that the freedom from fill in the blank anything is the perfect place to become or to do that fill in the blank thing. So the freedom from the, I actually didn't say that perfectly well, the freedom from the pressure to create is the perfect place from which to create. The freedom from the pressure to figure it out is the perfect place from which to figure it out. And as I was thinking about our conversation today, The freedom from the pressure to be unmistakable is the perfect place from which to become unmistakable. And I think that it's a sense of authenticity and joy and wholeheartedness that people are hungry for, that it's interesting because it can make us unmistakable in a sense of it stands out to people. But it's also something that people connect with, of saying, oh, I recognize that, I want that. I've maybe experienced parts of that, or I see you as a fellow traveler who's found a sense of authentic connection that stands out. And by virtue of the amazing array of stories and backgrounds and experiences, when we're connected, you can't help but be unmistakable because there's no one on this planet like you.

Srini: Beautiful. I love that answer. That's one of my favorites I've ever heard in a thousand interviews. Well, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share your story and your wisdom and your insights with our listeners. Where can people find out more about you, your book, your work and everything else?

Christopher Lumry: So thank you. Well, first and foremost,  Srini, thank you for what you do. Your podcast is inspiring. The voices, the questions, the ideas, the concepts. And as a small part, a very small part of the, I feel like there's a movement happening around creativity right now. Thank you. Thank you for creating space for these conversations and thank you for engaging and sharing from such an open and vulnerable and authentic place. It's very inspiring for me and I'm sure for many other people. In terms of our resources, our storytelling platform which is a nonprofit on addiction and recovery, it's stories of hope. It's at one step hope.org. One Step Growth is a separate company I started that's all focused on creativity and you can find links there to. our books, Creativity Unlocked and Creativity Activated, which is the workbook version. And yeah, honestly, I love engaging these conversations. So I'm on social media at Chris Lumery. We have very social media accounts for those entities as well. And yeah, I'll stop there.

Srini: All right, and for everybody listening, we will wrap the show with that.