Elle Luna: Journey to the Crossroads of Should and Must

Srini: Elle welcome to the unmistakable. Creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join.

Thank you for having me. Yeah, my pleasure. So you have been a long requested guest by many of our listeners by mutual friends, and you've also been referred by former guests. So I knew it was only a matter of time before we had you here on the show. Absolutely love your work, such a big fan. So on that note, can you tell us a bit about yourself, your story, your journey, and your background and everything that brought you to the crossroads of shouldn't be

Elle Luna: wow.

That's a lot. There, there have been so many influences. Looking back, I can see the signs everywhere. The one most clear sign that happened very early on. Really boils down to this. I began to have a recurring dream night after night for months, and it was a dream about a space. It was a white room.

And in my dream I would walk in and sit on the floor of this room concrete floors, tall white walls, warehouse, windows, and a mattress on the floor. And the most incredible thing would happen when I was in that space. I would be. With the warmest, most pervasive sense of peace and calm. And one day I was telling a friend about this room and how weird it was that I kept dreaming about it.

And she asked the question that really turned my life inside out. She said, have you ever thought about looking for this dream and real life and. I don't know how many of the listeners have ever actually had a dream and then got about trying to find the people and the circumstances from that dream.

But I certainly had never done this and the idea felt. If I really can be honest, it felt just silly. But there was something about it where I began to wonder if there was greater intelligence in the dream. And so I started searching for this room on Craigslist and I didn't really know what it was. I didn't really know if it was a house or a studio or a business, I didn't know.

And one day. As the universe would I'm scrolling through Craigslist and I see a photograph literally of the dream that I've been having at night. And I, that words just can't describe how incredible that is when something like that just manifests and happens in your life. And I took it as a big sign.

There was a, an open house the very next day I went, I got the apartment two weeks later, I moved in to this space and I said, In real life on the same floor that I had been sitting on in my dreams. And instead of being filled with peace, I unexpectedly began to panic. I looked around at the room and I began to wonder what was all of this, about what was going on?

And I literally said out loud, why am I here? And as clear as day as clear as anything I know to be true, the room replied and said to me, it's time to paint. The next morning I got up and I had painted a lot as a kid and as a younger woman, but I had stopped along the way I went. I decided to rebuild my painting toolkit and I started painting in this.

White room. And literally, had no idea what I was doing, but I just felt inwardly deeply compelled to do this thing. And this energy just started pouring out of me. And I started making and making it was Almost unsustainable, the amount of energy that was just rushing through me. And around the same time the only small detail in this whole story is that I also had a full-time job.

I was working at a startup in San Francisco called mailbox. And we wanted to revolutionize email on the iPhone. We wanted to change the game and I was working with this incredible team. And. I got to a point where the mailbox work was going so phenomenally so beautifully. And the painting was also feeling so amazing that I remember on launch day, it was February of 2013.

I was sitting at my desk. We launched mailbox. We had a waiting list of almost a million people waiting for our app and I there, and then saw this, what I now call the crossroads of should and must. It was this moment where I could see my entire design career and startup career. I'd worked on the Uber app.

I'm sure most people are familiar with Uber. I, and worked at all these amazing startups and I done all this stuff that all had led me to this amazing point of launching this product. But I had no idea what any of that had to do with my dream of painting in a white room. And I think that.

Really the gist of where I am in my journey. And the story that I'm sharing is that this crossroads of should and must arrives in all of our lives over and over again all the time in big and small ways. And let's look at that day, right? Like peak of a startup and also this kind of fledgling, bizarre expression of wanting to paint.

There, those worlds were both equally appealing, but they were totally different and standing right there between those two points. I had to choose. I couldn't keep it up. I couldn't do both. And I looked at my finances. I saw that I could buy myself some time to give it a go. And I just, I went in all in two feet into painting and that's, what's led me here to today, I guess that was three years ago now.

Wow. No, two years ago.

Srini: Okay. I want to go back to before the dream. We'll get to everything you just said, but I want to talk about the journey that happened before. All of that, working that the startups that you have working at IDEO and all the things that have led you to that point. I'd like to dig deeper into some of those, because I feel there's so much more there in uncovering your story and some of the lessons that you've brought from all of those and some of the childhood influences and people that have shaped and influenced the way you see them.

Elle Luna: Cool. Let's do it.

Srini: So talk to me about the early childhood influences. How do you get to the point of getting to do all these really cool jobs? Cause you know, when I looked at your background, I thought, wow, she has gotten to do some of the coolest work ever. And she's gotten to put her thumbprints on things that anybody would sign with pride.

Elle Luna: Wow. Thank you. I okay. Let's see. I, again, it comes down to this intelligence beyond our individual selves. So when I was in college, I really was making a lot of art, but I felt like I should go to law school. And I took the LSAT, like so many times I I had good grades. I was an English major and I was also doing a lot of art, but I dunno, it's just something about it.

Like the art never registered, it was like, you should go to law school, you should, I come from a family of lawyers. And so it just seemed very logical, I guess it's the world I understood. And I didn't understand what it meant to be an artist. And that also actually sounded very scary. And so I applied to nine law schools, my senior year of college and I was in the universe is great gift to me, rejected from every single law school.

And to be honest, I don't know how it's possible. Like maybe I didn't have good enough grades to go to the best school, but I certainly had decent enough grades to go to the lowest school on my list, but it was like, the universe just said, Hey. Thank you for applying to all of your law schools. We know this took you a lot of time to write all these essays, if you get into one of them, we know that you're really going to go.

And that really is going to set us off by 10 or 15 years. So can we just avoid that? And can we just tell you no, because what happened is the minute I was rejected from all those schools, I took it look at my life and I was like, I've slept in the art studio for the last three days. And maybe I should actually be serious about this art business is art thing.

And so I applied to two arts schools. I got into both. I went to art school. I did just stuff that came intuitively. I was in film doing. I don't all kinds of things. Graphic design, typography illustration, all kinds of wonderful things that the art Institute of Chicago. And at the end, I learned about this company called IDEO, where you can basically go and do all different types of things.

There are a company that believes in diverse skillsets to make really amazing teams and amazing products. And this was the first time I learned about this idea of innovation and disruptive innovation, primarily being based on this idea that through diversity of teams. Practice. We can actually open up the flood gates and let the creativity come into our work and our process.

And. So I applied to this thing called IDEO through ideo.com. I applied online and I put together like a really wild, weird collection of just the kind of experiments that I was up to in life. And I got a job there and IDEO is. I don't know how I got a job there. I think IDEO is like one of the coolest places in the world to work.

And it's like the type of place that you pinch yourself every single day. So your question was about I think I'm headed there. Oh, how did all these things happen? I think they happened because I kept just putting forward really raw. Work that didn't really proclaim to have the answers, but really just surfaced the questions I was grappling with.

And I think people just liked my questions. And I think people said me too, after IDEO. I started, I wanted to get more into startups, so I just started. Pitching app redesigns for different startups and got the Uber was still really young and they're in San Francisco. And I walked right up to Travis at a bar and said, Hey, my name's Al you don't know me, but you should hire me to redo your app because I use it all the time and I really don't like it.

And then he hired me on the spot and I think it has been a very. Rewarding journey to just say, this is what I can do. This is where I am and my work. And and that's really opened all the doors for the different teams that I've had the opportunity to be a part of it.

Srini: You said something at the very beginning of that, you talked about tapping into an intelligence that's greater than your.

When you were making art as a college student, and I'm really interested in your perspective on how we start to do that in our own life.

Elle Luna: Oh, that's such a great question. I love it. So I was at dinner last night with some friends and there was maybe some wine involved and I started ranting about this idea.

So in the spirit of experimentation, I'm gonna, I don't know, maybe you can help me work through this today. So this is how I'm thinking about it, right? I think that like the other day I was walking and I saw this tree it's I'm in New York right now. And there, all the trees are beginning to bloom and I saw this tiny little leaf that looks like it was just born in winter.

And my first thought was, wow. Wow. Wow. Each of us now hang with me. Each of us is this little leaf, like a little leaf born in way. And as we begin to grow, this thing starts happening called spring. But as a leaf, if all you've ever known is winter, spring can be very overwhelming or even scary.

And I think that in our lives, we have these opportunities to change, to transform, to grow. But that change or that shift, we don't understand. We can't possibly understand that because we haven't experienced it yet. And I think there is this where we say, am I going to do it, or am I going to stay as I am?

Am I going to be in control of these matters of my life? And if we do, it's this little leaf on this tree that if it doesn't transform and change, it'll just die. It'll fall off of the tree. But if the tree, if the leaf let's go, and if the leaf says, oh my goodness, I don't know what's happening in my life.

I don't know where this is going. And it is really scary, but I'm going to trust that there is greater intelligence beyond just me. The minute that leaf does that the most miraculous thing happens. The leaf receives all of the miracles of spring, which are color fragrance. Blossoms these concepts.

It never could have understood on its own. I think that the more we go within and the more that we choose must, the more that we connect with our passions, the more we honor the gifts that are inside of us, it's like us saying, okay, I trust that there is greater intelligence here. And if I just let go and allow this force to flow through me, I will experience, transcendent things like color and fragrance and blossoms in my life.

And once that begins to happen, You can begin to see that you are not just a leaf. I am not just the leaf. We are a part of this incredible. Organism, this very layered complex system. And yes, I am an individual. I am in my life and I will always experience it in that way. But at the same time, I'm also a part of this incredible life force this entire web of people and ideas and energies.

And I can also touch the oldest roots of the tree. That means. Spend three, four or five generations beyond and outside of my life. And once you begin to see the system and to see your place within it, things become truly like warp speed and star Trek. It's just like you are going through time. And I think that's the journey.

That's the space that Joseph Campbell, the great mythologist Joseph Campbell. He said once I think this is the great spiritual teacher. It's a man standing on a whale fishing for minnows. That's the tree, that's the tree. We are standing on the whale fishing for a minute. So how do we open up our lives and connect to that larger energy, that larger consciousness of everything.

It's okay, so that I'm done. That's my experiment for today.

Srini: So we know a lot of you have been listening to us for

Elle Luna: years and it means the world to us. What we do here at the unmistakable creative

Srini: wouldn't be possible without the support of our listeners. If the podcast has been valuable to you, one of the best ways you can support us is to subscribe to unmistakable creative prime.

It gives you access to transcripts. All of our courses, monthly coaching calls, live chats with our guests and an incredible community of creatives. And it costs less than you spend on a cup of coffee every month for the school teachers and people in our education system. Prime is completely free to help you with this.

Do teaching online, we've packed it with a ton of value and actionable content, and we hope you'll check it out. Just go to unmistakable creative.com/prime to learn more again, that's unmistakable creative.com/prime. That was brilliant. I'm not even going to touch it because there's so much there. It's one of those like monologues that I'll have to go back and replay over and over again, because it was so good.

Elle Luna: Good. We can build on it. I think that the belief metaphor is a little, I dunno it could use some work.

Srini: So the other thing that really interests me is you said you got rejected from every law school you applied to, but at a very early age, you had the foresight to see that it was a gift from the universe.

I don't know that people that young normally have that level of intuition. And I'm interested in what it is about you that allows you to see the world that way and how we can cultivate that in ourselves because I've had some tough things happen. And amazingly enough, they've led to some really amazing gifts.

Elle Luna: I really wish that what you just said was so true. When I got rejected from every law school, I cried and cried. I was so sad. I didn't understand why the universe was being so mean to me. And to be honest, it was somebody close to me who really brought the wisdom that I didn't have and said, It's not really such a bad thing and really said eliminated what was happening, but that I couldn't see.

And I think this is what we find in our close relationships that these people can serve as mirrors for ourselves, because we can't see ourselves and to really look to our peers and our closest community,

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as people who have wisdom beyond ourselves and can teach us things. So that. That was my state at the moment.

And since then I've really begun to nurture that relationship of mirroring within relationship. It's really powerful.

Srini: Wow. Yeah, it's interesting. I, funny as I, as you were saying, I was thinking if it's any constellation, the people I know who hate their jobs the most are attorneys pretty consistently.

They all tell me they hate their job.

Elle Luna: Oh, wow. Wow. That's. Cool

Srini: with rare exception, but I want to talk a bit about the time at IDEO because I am, I've always been very curious about what it must be like inside the world of working idea, but the really specific question that I have around your time at IDO is how did working in that.

Change the way that you see the world, the way that you see design and the way that you see creativity, which I realize is a really big question. So feel free to go as long as you need to go.

Elle Luna: Do you remember that book? It was, I think it was written in the eighties that said everything I've ever needed to know about life.

I learned in kindergarten. I believe that I could hijack that title and say that everything I've ever needed to know about life, I learned at IDEO.

Srini: Okay. So on that note, what did you learn?

Elle Luna: IDEO teaches you some very basic powerful tools for your toolkit for life. A lot of them are captured in ideas, brainstorming rules when you're brainstorming, you go for quantity over quality, you defer judgment.

You build on the ideas of others. IDEO has. Two things culturally that have stayed with me forever. One of my earliest mentors at IDEO, her name is Beth finer. She said to me, when she looks to hire folks to work at IDEO, she looks for two things, curiosity and optimism. Those two traits. Can carry us. So far curiosity, to keep the wheels spinning, to keep searching and digging and moving forward in our creative pursuits and optimism to be really just a can-do attitude in life.

I, once somebody said to me, there's two types of people in life can do and can't do. And it really has struck me that idea. And I think it's really true. You want to be a can-do person in life and you want to be a candidate. Partner and relationships and friendships and family and ideas. Taught me so much about iteration, about process.

Like in my art practice, I think my art practice is very much rooted in design philosophies. Like I still throw out tons and tons of work, there's some artists that give it a go on one trial. Do it all in one fell swoop and that's not me. I hope maybe one day to be there, but I still throw out tons of work and that's cool.

IDEO teaches you to this wonderful thing about deferring judgment to say I'm going to draw a sandbox around this time and I'm going to play with reckless abandon and I'm not going to judge anything I create in that space. And at the end of it, then maybe we'll come through and we'll filter, but you have to have that space, that permission to play and have freedom in your work.

Other things at IDEO. I think one of the biggest things about IDEO is is that I learned was collaboration and the importance of a team. I here's, this here's a strong opinion, loosely held, which is, I don't think any of us can do this alone. You have to have a team, you have to have a community, you have to be a part of something.

Maybe it's a group of folks, reviewing paintings on the weekends. Maybe it's people to read your blog posts before you publish it. There's so much wisdom in the community and to be able to riff off of, and bounce off of and mirror one another through our teams. It's where one plus one adds up to infinity.

IDEO really taught me, whenever anybody says, oh, you designed the Uber app. I always say no. I was fortunate enough to work on a team of people who designed the Uber app. And that's a huge mental shift that I was able to make really early on. It's never about me. It's always about the team.

Srini: It's interesting to hear you said that because you look at the artwork on our website and all the things that happen creatively, and I'm like, yeah, I can't take credit for any of that. It's all people who have far more skill and talent than I.

Elle Luna: It takes a village and maybe you're the let's take the book for example.

So just wrote a book. Yes. The words are mine. Yes. The illustrations are mine. Yes. The design is mine. However, I have an amazing editor that I get to work with. I have a designer at the publisher who I get to bounce ideas with. I have a guy whose entire job is to fall in love with paper and pick them, pick the most perfect paper for this book.

There's printers and publish press people and logistics folks. And there's like hundreds of people involved in a book. And so I keep saying, we wrote a book, we made a book it's we all made this baby and brought it out into the world. So even something. Simple as that you would think of is it's my book.

No. It's an, it's our book.

Srini: Yeah. I, it's funny we're working on a writing project called the compass and it's a collaboration effort between multiple people. And it makes me think of one of the chapters which, was inspired by me attempting to do a yoga class and, non pretzel humans can't do all the poses.

And apparently if you can't do the poses, the instructor will come over and hand you a block. And to me, that was such a profound metaphor. I thought, anything of great significance. Is accomplished with the help of other people. Sometimes you just have to ask for a block. Oh, I

Elle Luna: love that. Yes. I love

Srini: that.

And I'm still not a human pretzel. Other things that you said about the time of IDEO was this idea of curiosity, optimism, and reckless abandoned and. The reason this came up is there's a book sitting on my desk called what it is by Linda Berry. I'm not sure if you're familiar with her.

She's a cartoonist and Austin Kleon had mentioned her to me when we had him here on the show and she writes about all the things that we stopped doing as we get older, like making art, like dancing, like singing. And if we do it, we do it in private. I'm really interested in why you think we, you.

That sort of childlike, curiosity, optimism, and reckless abandon, and how you start to get it back as an adult. If we aren't, as fortunate as you are to work in a place like that.

Elle Luna: I feel okay. Imagine that your body is a pipe. And imagine that there is this water just rushing through your pipe, like from your feet, all the way up to your head, it's just rushing through like a river.

There's something about society that as we. Older. And I would say that it's the sheds of our life, the sheds it's like a wrench that we wrap around the pipe. Imagine it like at the neck. And it's this action of beginning to tighten the flow. That's running through that pipe and then we tighten it and we clamp it down and we close it up until the water, no longer flows.

And I think the process of. Reversing that action is really looking at the sheds of your life and saying, cool, I no longer want this to divert or to clamp or to, to in any way inhibits. Blow from running through my life. And it's about opening up that valve and beginning to stretch it and let it go.

And this is one of the cool things. When you see people who've really been living their lives and should for a long time. Wow. When you begin to open that valve and let the water go through, it is a lot of pressure that's been building up, on the other side. It comes through and it begins to flow through our lives.

And this is what I think I began to feel when I started painting again, it was this pressure that it was it didn't go anywhere. It didn't dissipate, it just erupted and. I think that society in theory really wants us to be these, flowing pipes, but there's something about should, unfortunately, whether it's society or the community in which we're in, maybe even the time in which we're born into, there are so many things that can divert that energy in other ways, and becoming self-aware of it is the first step so that we can let that water keep flowing.

Srini: So two things. How do you cultivate the self-awareness and how do you trust that flow?

Elle Luna: How do you cultivate self-awareness? One of the things about, as I think about should, and must, we imagined should, and must going in opposite directions. There's one image that I feel like I missed in the book and I wish I could just post it, note it in there today.

Should it must do go in opposite direction. However. Oftentimes the best way to get to must is by understanding should first, because should, is this thing that takes us away from must. It goes in the opposite way. It's like a girlfriend of mine said the other day, oh, you seem really scattered. And what she meant was literally I had energy going in every direction, so it was hard.

Laser beam focused on what was right in front of me, scattering your energy is, or becoming unscattered is literally like collecting it all and coming back to center. And so if you want to get to know must, if you want that energy to be flowing towards the creativity, the passion, the projects spend time getting to know should, and in the book I outlined a couple of examples.

One of them is as simple as grabbing a piece of paper and writing your sheds. You should fill in the blank. You should never fill in the blank. These are oftentimes belief systems that we inherit early on in life. You should know better than to, you should not fill those in on a piece of paper. Take 10 minutes, do it.

And then line by line, go through that list and ask them three questions. The first, where did you come from? When did I first meet you? You can look at the first should. The second question is when did I begin integrating you into all of my decision-making? And do I want to keep holding on to you?

And the final question is about, do I want to keep this should in my life, maybe the answer is. Yes, actually, this is something that's really hard, but I want it in my life. And then that should ceases to be a should and becomes a must. Or you can say, this thing has served its purpose. It's time is done and it's really getting heavy to carry.

And that's when you set that shut down. And that is a powerful moment because the more we scrub away at the sheds of our lives, the more space we make for the energy going towards must. And there's a bunch of other examples in dealing with shed. But I would say for people who want to get more in touch with you.

A really brave, courageous way to go is to say, I'm going to go and look at these shirts. I'm going to, I want to bring self-awareness to where I don't want my energy to continue to go because often those things are camouflaged and they're mixed in, and that's why they're tricky to find. But once you begin to.

Space, you begin saying, okay, now I've got energy. Now I've got time. What do I do with it? And then that's where you begin to step into MOUs. So the book talks about all kinds of things from one of my favorite recommendations is to have people call their mom or call somebody who knew you when you were little right.

Nowhere is the essence of must more purely exhibited than when we're kids. It's just this wild free flowing spirit and call your mom or someone who knew you when you were little and ask them to tell you stories about what you were like and take them. Because those stories contain some of the earliest seeds of our must.

Another great tactic is this is actually a tip from IDEO is to build a toolkit of unconventional tools that you keep in maybe in your home or next to your desk, wherever you work and fill it with all kinds of things that inspire you to. It could be wigs or pipe cleaners, or scissors and construction paper.

It could be photocopier paper, it, anything just fill an unconventional toolkit of parts and then keep it next to your desk. And when you need a break or when you need to shake things up, literally grab it and start to play. And the answer will come because the brain is brilliant and it works these things out.

As we do our work And it will come up with a solution. It will guide you somewhere and just stop and play. And that was one of the great joys of working at IDO is it's a culture who takes their place seriously and it's, you can see it in the work it's fantastic. Wow.

Srini: Yet another monologue that I will have to go back and play over and over again.

And I have actually done that exercise and it was very revealing. It was also very therapeutic.

Elle Luna: Lovely. That's I think that's a great word for it. There are a lot of really awesome. Therapeutic tools out there in the world. When I grew up there were all these stigmas around like therapy and self-help and counselors and coaches.

And what I see happening in the world right now is that's really shifting. It's so exciting to see young teams bringing in coaches. To work with everybody on their team. At IDEO, we had a woman whose entire job was to teach people a tool called the Enneagram. It's a personality typology.

There are all of these amazing ways that we can get more in touch with what's happening in our inner psychic world, which really drives the whole ship. And the more we can go within and the more we can address that and become aware of it. The. The more space we create in our life for most. And I think it's a little tricky sometimes for people who, maybe don't enjoy thinking about those kinds of things or wanting to do those kinds of things.

The coolest way I've thought about describing this. And this one really works. Like we all go to a lot of people, go to the gym and have trainers and spend time and money on having a trainer at the gym. The trainer works, the muscles, the trainer works, the body having a therapist or a counselor, a coach is the same thing, except rather than work your muscles, they work the kind of organ that thinks it's running the show, which is the brain.

And really the organ that's actually running the show, which is the spirit. And these people are trained to help create healthfulness and sustainability in your life. And so if there ever was a more exciting and I guess inviting way to think about how we think about self-help and growing. I think that's a really good analogy for the type of strength and power and all of the amazing things that come from working out.

Like you can do that to your mind, which is how you perceive and understand of the world, which is incredible.

Srini: It's funny. I read that section of the book and it very distinctly stood out to me because I had never been into a therapist office until the last year. I remember thinking, wow, what the hell took me so long to get in here?

I should have done this a lot earlier. This is actually pretty useful.

Elle Luna: Oh, it's so useful. It's thank you for sharing that. I I love love therapy, and I can talk about it. All the time, my friends are always asking to hear therapy stories because it's just such a. A gift to give yourself now, therapy can be expensive.

Some therapists have sliding scales. They'll work with different people. There are a lot of different ways to get therapeutic help in your life. And. I see psychological health as being one of the greatest gifts that we can give ourselves an on an individual basis, because then it affects not only, our creative projects, but it affects our entire life.

It affects quite literally how we see the world. I hope that through this book and through talking about it more and more people began to think about therapy and self-help, and. Very exciting new way.

Srini: So that actually raises a question for me. One that I've asked a handful of people throughout this entire journey of yours.

Have you had any really dark or rock bottom moments where you're wondering how the hell it's all going to work out or you're mired in fear, panic and anxiety.

Elle Luna: Totally. Totally. I, I. Somebody asked me two weeks ago, she said what's

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the relationship between choosing must and a desire. And I thought it was such a brilliant question because sure.

Maybe your passion is I dunno, know, passionate is something that you really desire and something that you really yearn for and you want to go for yeah. And you go for it. What if your passion or your calling leads you to a door that you actually are terrified to pursue? And I actually think that when you're really close to must, it is scary.

It is terrifying. There's something about standing nose to nose with this thing that you unavoidably unequivocably have to do with your life. That when you know it like in your gut, no. It's really scary. What if I fail? What if I don't succeed? What if everybody laughs at me? What if this is a horrible idea?

And the vulnerability piece is a very good indicator that you are onto something. My therapist has this wonderful saying that she shares with me, which is go where there be dragons there in lies your treasure. Wow. I love this. And I would say for anybody who. Maybe not necessarily feeling a rock bottom moment, but maybe just feeling wow, I could never do that.

I could never pursue that exact thing. I would say, take a second. Look, there might be wonderful gifts to be gained there in terms of. Rock bottom, absolute bottom of the barrel. Yeah. You bet you I've had those too. I remember one day it was a couple of days before my very first public art show. I had a pop-up show at a gallery in San Francisco.

And I was exhibiting over 60 pieces of new work. So in terms of a timeline, I had quit my job. Everybody was thinking, why has she done this? This is such a horrible idea. Mailbox was really a great startup, like doing all kinds of amazing things. And now she's just painting in her room by herself. This is very strange.

It was days before my first show when I had just a total meltdown of. And I felt like I was about to, basically stand in a room naked with about a hundred, 200 people in San Francisco to come look at my art. And I remember writing all of those fears down and hitting post on a blog post that I wrote.

And it's literally a wild list of the most horrific things, just one after the other. And. I think when you look at those things what I didn't in that instance was okay, cool. Like we've got two choices. We either keep going that way. Or we have a new narrative.

What's the narrative going to be Joseph Campbell once said, when you think you're falling, dive. And I began to wonder, what is it about the show? W what is the dive? What is that moment? And I realized that I was. I needed to reframe what good looks like in my mind, what good looked was all these people coming and loving it?

No, that actually wasn't it. What good looked like was mounting a show of 60 pieces of new work and a gallery. That was it. That's all I had to do. That was the finish line. So after we finished mounting all of the work, I remember standing in the space and looking around and thinking. I did it. I totally did it.

And then when all the people arrived, it was icing on the cake and what they thought at that point didn't matter because my goal had shifted and it was a much more important goal.

Srini: Okay. I love this. And it's a piece that I wanted to get to, and I'm going to share something that I haven't shared on the show before, because it reminds me of a lot of what I got through in November of this year.

I almost quit. And nobody knows that, like I almost thought about shutting the entire show down because I felt that I wasn't where I wanted it. And it scared the hell out of me and something kept me going. I think it was my must.

Elle Luna: Wow. Wow. Thank you for sharing that with us.

Srini: You mentioned What was important, which is not what other people thought.

And the reason I brought this up, this is something that's been really of interest to me. There's a section of the book where you say, what if, who we are and what we do become one in the same. And I asked Seth Godin this question about not taking the work personally, but taking it seriously. And the challenge that I have faced throughout the last year, as we've gone through successes and failures, some big highs and epic lows.

Is learning to separate my identity from my work and learning to separate my sense of self worth from work. And I'm wondering what your thoughts are around that and how we start to do.

Elle Luna: Okay. Admittedly, I can't even focus. I feel like you just shared something really big and beautiful with us and I, can we talk about it for just a minute?

Yeah, absolutely. So I think it would be really helpful and valuable for me and for other people to hear in that moment when every single doubt is coming in on just showering down. Can we, what is that? What is that moment? When we think, wow, here I am. But But I'm going to go, like I have to do it.

Like what was that like glimmer of hope or that thing that, can you identify it in some verbal way? Or is it experiential? I don't know. Yeah.

Srini: Funny enough. I was writing about this morning. I spent my entire twenties making decisions that led me to where I was at in my thirties. All of them were decisions based on ego validation and ankles.

And what's funny is I never got any of the validation. I never got any of the accolades. And most people know I've been fired from every real job I've been at. And I knew that if I was going to end up in a very different place by 40, regardless of what the world around me thought, I would have to make very different decisions in my thirties.

And that would mean sticking to where I want to go. And I'll share a quote, which you know, this is what reminded, what was brought up for me as you were talking somewhere in Neil Gaiman's speech that he gave at a commencement. I'm sure you've seen this. He says the words don't walk away or he said, I, and I knew as long as I kept walking towards the mountain, I would be okay.

And I guess for me, the six simple words that all boils down to is don't walk away from the mountain.

Elle Luna: Wow. That is so beautiful. That is so beautiful. Yes. I it's almost like we are the mountains. And I think that when you're really tapping into must and when you're really on, it must your passion and your calling.

It is us. How can you leave yourself? It's impossible. And I feel like must is so rooted at who we are and quite literally why we're here. Something that even at the bottom of the barrel, even when you just want to throw the towel and walk away from it all you can't because it's, you there's this Paula Cuelo said this amazing quote once he said we who fight for our dreams suffer far more when it doesn't work out, because we can never fall back on that age, old excuse.

Oh I didn't really want it anyway because we do want it and we have risked everything to make it happen. And I think this is the blessing and the curse of must. You're stuck with it. It's yours. It's your thing. And it's, you can't leave it in once, you know what it is, and maybe it's not a particular.

Way that it's manifesting. Maybe it's, maybe it manifests as, a painting over here one day in a different painting another day, but this kind of inner knowing of your gifts and your talents it doesn't go anywhere. It's always there. And I'm grateful that you have continued to walk towards.

Your mountain, because it's a very big gift for all of us to be able to experience it.

Srini: I really appreciate that. And it's interesting, as you were saying that I can't help, but remember a conversation that I had with a friend and I may have said this before in there. I said, I think I've done irreversible damage to my life in my career.

And he said, I don't think so, but sure, whatever. And it's funny. I Because once I started to stop telling myself that story, I started to see all the other possibilities and they didn't go exactly how I wanted them to, but a world of things have happened in the last several weeks that I couldn't have planned or predicted that has been just absolutely mad.

Elle Luna: My, my therapist, Susie says that's what happens when you're really on it is when the synchronicities start to happen and they start to happen more at a greater frequency. They begin to unlock. It's almost like you're just going through your day. And it's Dora on locked or unlocked.

My, my friend and I, we have this kind of telltale sign, which is of course, like of course that person would arrive on the day that we were talking about. Potentially wanting to write them an email. Of course, this free ticket to this museum would drop into my lap. Of course, it's like the ridiculousness of the magic of the universe.

And I really think that once we like get into that, that the river of must, it just, the whole world says, we want you to do this. We want you to follow this passion because it makes the whole system better. And it's like wind at your back. That just helps you as you go.

Srini: I want to ask you a question on that note.

In fact, I underline this passage from your book yesterday, and I put it on Instagram saying, I couldn't wait to chat with you. And I want to ask you about this. It's here standing at the crossroads of should, and must that we feel the enormous reality of our fears and expectations from others. And this is the moment when many of us decide against following our intuition, turning away from that place where nothing is guaranteed, nothing is known and everything is possible.

And what I want to know is why people decide against falling their intuition and turn away from that place.

Elle Luna: what if I fail? What if the whole world laughs at me? What if it's no good? It's it makes a lot of sense. What if I can't make ends meet with my finances? It goes on forever and forever. It's again, my amazing mentor, Suzie. To say to step into that place of must, it feels like it's the place where you could totally fail.

It's the place, it's the place where you could lose everything. It feels that scary to go after what you really want and why you're here. And it feels like you maybe could die if you step into that gift, that passion. But it only feels that way because on the other side of that wall, on the other side of all of that is total and complete freedom in your life.

If you can just make it past that, it's like being in a video game. It's this is the final level. It's the final duel. And it's really you versus yourself. Once you deal with the sheds of what society says you should do, what your friends say, you should do. What, maybe advertising says you should or shouldn't do the minute you after you've dealt with all of the shades that they put on you.

Your last one is really yourself. And no matter how much help you have getting to that door, it's you by yourself crossing through that final passageway. And if there is one thing that I have. In all of this work, all of it and living it and writing about it and talking with others, it is this choosing must is the greatest thing that you can do with your life.

And when you were standing at that door, I hope that those words will come into your head and you will trust that this process has so many gifts to give you if you'll just trust it. If you'll just let go, if you'll just step into that thing. That really scares you because that's must. And on the other side of that is the most incredible miracles of your life.

It's like the leaf on the tree, they're all waiting, they're waiting, but we just have to understand that there's a greater potentiality with our lives and to trust that will manifest over time.

Srini: Wow. You got me at a loss for words, and that doesn't happen very often.

Elle Luna: It's really special to get to talk about all of this and to I, you're living it too, and you're going through it with your work.

And I think that's the great thing about this. The cool thing about this work and this book is that so many people, the more we talk about it, they say me too. And. So far, it's been about, me sharing my journey, but now what's been happening is there's enough time where I'm hearing about other people's journeys and what other people are doing and how other people are doing it.

And then they're telling their friends and their friends, and I'm watching this work, these ideas ripple through the community. And just two weeks ago, I gave a talk. At creative mornings in San Francisco. And at the end of the talk, we did a Q and a, and this woman raised her hand. I didn't have my glasses on, so I couldn't see her, but she was on the far back side of the room and she was really overwhelmed.

And she said, I read your post a year ago. And I decided to step away from my job. And it almost, it, I couldn't see if she was crying, but it felt like the emotional intensity of that. And. She said a year ago, I read this post. I decided to step away from my job because I knew that my calling was to teach.

I have always wanted to be a teacher. And so I joined an online teaching academy and I have been teaching there now for one year and it has been the greatest joy of my life. And today I brought all of my students from my class. Wow. Those are the moments and the kids were there. They started clapping and those are the moments when you just stop and it just, wow.

Wow. They were there. Now the fact that she has made that decision has empowered all of these students and what must it be like to be a student with a teacher who loves their job? I bet she's an amazing teacher. And. That's really where the book ends is this idea that to choose must in your life is not just for you, although it is a lot of very inward personal work, but when you choose must, you actually give the gift of it to so many others.

And there's this wonderful quote that I love by Howard Thurman. He says don't ask Oh, man, I'm really going to butcher this quote. I'm actually looking for it in the book. He says, don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

Wow. Yes. Yes.

Srini: I want to wrap with one last question, which is how we close all our interviews at the unmistakable creative. What do you think it is that makes somebody or something on mystery?

Elle Luna: I would answer this very simply. I think what makes someone or something unmistakable is when it comes from a place of must, because there is something about work and action and intention that comes from that unavoidable unmistakable place. That's palpable. You can just feel it. You can see it in the work, the design, the words, the images it's simply undeniable.

Srini: Amazing. I have to say this has just been, mind-blowingly beautiful. Really? One of those conversations that I'll probably replay a hundred times because I'd imagine there's inspiration and juice in it. I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share your story and your insights and your journey with our listeners.

Elle Luna: Of course. Thank you so much for having me. This has been really a gift

Srini: and for everybody listening, we will wrap the show with that. Thank you for listening to this episode of the unmistakable creative podcast while you were listening. Were there any moments you found fascinating, inspiring? Instructive, maybe even heartwarming.

Can you think of anyone, a friend or a family member who would appreciate this moment? If so, take a second and share today's episode with that one person because good ideas and messages are meant to be shared. Hey, did you know that every

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Just like this one, just text the word, news to the number 4, 4, 2, 2, 2, and reply with your email address to get them delivered right to your inbox. Again, that's UC

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