Madeleine Dore | Redefining What it Means to be Productive

Srini: Again, this

Sometimes it strikes me as odd, because what is a routine? It, by definition, it's a pattern. It's stagnant, it's the same. And we want our days to look like that, which is then almost a Groundhog Day. If we stuck to the perfect routine, we'd have the same day over and over again.

And isn't it that we want our lives to have variance and interest and depth and learnings? And that comes from things having that variance. And so the rut is very much, I think it's it might be a common experience to land in one without realizing because here we are pursuing optimized routines and optimized productivity, and then getting, say, we got there, then we just have the same day over and over again and not realize that we're actually stuck in something.

And so that's where they meet each other, simply through the definition of the two words really. 'Cause, a rut is, being stuck in a groove. And so you might have a routine for a while that is a groove, but then you get stuck in that very groove.

Srini: I'm Srinivas Rao and this is the Unmistakable Creative podcast where you get a window into the stories and insights of the most innovative and creative minds who have started movements, built businesses, written bestselling books, and created insanely interesting art. For more, check out our 500-episode archive at unmistakablecreative.com.

Madeline, welcome to Unmistakable Creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us. It's great to have you here.

Madeleine Dore: What a treat to be joining you.

Srini: It is my pleasure to have you here. I just found out from talking to you that you have been a longtime listener. You have an amazing book out called I Didn't Do the Thing Today, which is probably one of the most contrarian views on productivity I've come across in all the time I've been doing this in a world that is absolutely obsessed with productivity. But before we get into all that, I wanted to start by asking you: what did your parents do for work and how did that end up shaping what you've ended up doing in your life and career?

Madeleine Dore: I have always appreciated this question that you've asked because I think it's such a beautiful way to explore how it's not necessarily what you do, but the way that you do it. And I think that this particular approach that my parents have had to their careers has influenced me in a way that I didn't really appreciate until recent years.

And in particular, my mom grew up in public housing and she was the first in her family to go to university. And she studied primary education there and then went on to become a kindergarten teacher. And from there, she then went and became a teacher at a community college to teach kindergarten teaching.

And slowly worked her way up to different leadership positions. And in order to do that, she actually had to move around a lot. So she'd have to follow the opportunities to different regional towns in Australia and eventually Melbourne and then go on to become a CEO at a particular community college.

And she would commute while we, the family, living in Melbourne. And so she held these different positions over time and has even held positions in the Pacific. So that's an even longer commute. And I think what that really helped, that

Srini: I assume when you say "treaty", that's the Australian term for a blue-collar worker. Just out of curiosity, is that, would that, yeah. So is an electrician blue-collar labor? Yeah. Okay. What I wonder is when you have a dad who's an electrician and a mom who is an educator, what was the narrative about education in your household and also in the Australian culture in general? What is the narrative about education? Cause I know that you guys, for the most part, as everybody does, take a gap year here before they start university. Whereas here you're just put on this conveyor belt from the time you're 18 years old without ever stopping to question why you're doing what you're doing, whether it's actually gonna be a fit for you and whether it's gonna lead to the satisfaction you think it will.

Srini: Yeah. I, it's funny because I have noticed that probably the people that I have met most when I have traveled to all the different countries I've traveled to are Australians. Like every youth hostel I've stayed in has had an abundance of Australians. And I remember, I was at a youth hostel in Amsterdam, these two Australian guys, I think they were construction workers like nine o'clock in the morning.

They're like, all right, let's go smoke a joint and drink a beer. And I was like, this is nine o'clock in the morning. They're like, we're on holiday, man. I'm like, okay, this is how the Australians take vacations. Good to know.

Madeleine Dore: Yeah. I think the first part of that question in terms of having a parent, once an electrician, once an educator, I think what's been instilled is this idea of lifelong learning. I think that, that's the thread and that we can learn from so many different things in our lives, especially with a community college, it's really seeing that it's not necessarily being on a conveyor belt of academia or prestige. It's about pursuing whatever it is that you want to learn. And there are accessible pathways to that. Learning doesn't have to cost anything. Learning can be learning from other people. Learning can be an apprenticeship. Learning can be from, trying and creating and failing and trying again. So I think that's something that comes from both. And then in terms of it's difficult to speak to, I guess a whole Australian view, but it's interesting what you note about the gap year, and I think that certainly not everyone takes a gap year and people go on to pursue many different pathways. But maybe I've thought about it myself and perhaps it's because we are an island in the middle of the ocean that's far away. Perhaps there is more of an impetus to if travel.

Madeleine Dore: Certainly not all. I haven't had the nine o'clock beer.

Srini: Yeah. Okay. Good to know. Keep in mind that, I was in my early twenties. I think I wouldn't find that common case now, but in Australia, when it comes to education, do you have this structure of elite universities and top-notch schools as we do here in the United States where you have the Ivy League? Is there anything that's the equivalent of that in Australia? And then, how does that shape people's career paths and motivation, and desires when they're younger?

Madeleine Dore: I suppose we don't really have an Ivy League equivalent. And perhaps because I suppose the student loan system operates quite differently in terms of it; there seems to be, there's not the same pressure of it. It's through the government loan and so you can pay that back through your tax over years, decades, and so on. And so perhaps there's not the same debt, but it's perhaps there's a little bit more flexibility or freedom in terms of pursuits and there's... Again, not someone who's embedded in the world of academia. I'm sure that there's always a level of prestige that, when you're in a certain world, you're more aware of the hierarchy of things. And again, it's not something I can really speak to directly, but I think that even seeing, there's not really, when I say community college, that my mom taught out and then eventually was in leadership roles. There's not really an equivalent, I don't think. It's skills that adults can develop. And so it's not necessarily something that you go to; you might go to it even during high school instead of finishing high school, you might go to what's called a TAFE or a community

Srini: Hey, Cass!

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Madeleine Dore: That's really interesting because I see that, and I can see that there would certainly be people everywhere. I think that that is becoming quite a contagious thought. Not only contagious but in some parts of the world, very necessary, to work, to survive. And so it's so complex to unpack.

And I suppose I can only really speak to this idea that I chose, similar to you, to speak directly to creative people. Not necessarily to find out a perfect or comprehensive portrait of an Australian approach to work, but rather a creative approach to work. And so I did interview people from Australia and the US and I suppose it's when you're looking at this particular subset of people who are choosing to live a different life.

It's difficult for me to speak to, I guess, a standard attitude with any authority. So I'm not gonna pretend to. So I think it's more that something inside of me wanted to know that it's possible to live a different sort of life. And so I sought out people I thought were doing that.

And that became the inspiration. And to see that it is possible to step outside the confines of

Srini: Yeah. Did you notice any differences in the way that people viewed productivity when you talked to people in different cultures? What was the sort of narrative that people had about productivity? Because, like I, I think I read this book and part of it made me cringe because I'm like, wow, I'm basically everything that she's saying is wrong. And at the same time, I find myself agreeing with her and nodding, and I was like, yep, that's wrong with me too. I do this too. I'm obsessed with productivity. But and we'll get into the book here in just a second, but I, that, that's something that I was really curious about is like you're talking to people from different cultures, like how, particularly creative people, how did it differ?

Madeleine Dore: I feel like I have to caveat and say that this book is built from a labor of love where I was speaking to people to whom I had direct access.

So it's, again, by no means comprehensive, nor is it rigorous in its study anthropologically. So there's no way that I could comment on something so vast and complex as culture. Again, I was just speaking to whom I could when I could. It was a labor of love. So it was done when I had the time and curiosity picked up and put down, and it really stemmed from all these stumbles that I felt within myself.

So anything that you might come across in the book as, being "wrong" with you, which I want to put in air quotations, it's because I was having that very stumble, I was coming up against my own perfectionism as well, or my own obsession with productivity or my own sort of, attachment to what I do being, the definition of who I am.

And so I think that these are all I was speaking about, taking these really tricky, some might frame it as internalized capitalism. Taking that to people whom I thought might have the answers

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Again, that's ikeausa.com. Yeah. As I'm listening to you I just, I can't help but think that there's no way an American person could have written this book; only an Australian would have written a book with this very contrarian view on productivity. With that in mind, I'm curious, what is the narrative about work culture in Australia?

Because I think that the

Srini: Yeah, I appreciate you caveating everything with that because I think there are so many people who have a tendency to position themselves as authorities and experts with nothing to back it up. But the fact that you're openly saying that, I think just means a lot to me. You open the book by saying that when we conflate productivity with worthiness, what we do is never enough. We can always do more, and there's always more to do. And I just think about how I'm sitting at the end of the day making a to-do list thinking, "Yeah, there is always more to do." So is there any way to decouple this idea of conflating productivity with worthiness? How do we not tie worthiness to our productivity, I guess that is what I'm saying.

Madeleine Dore: Yeah, I think that's the big wrestle, I think, because it is this hamster wheel. And, in many ways there's nothing wrong with being productive either, there are those days when we do tick off everything on our to-do list, and they have this amazing shimmer to them. And it feels good.

And I think in part we are chasing that feeling, that high that being productive and that meaning sometimes that being productive can bring, we wanna do the things that are important to us. And so it's not necessarily productivity that's the problem, it's just that it's the wrong goal.

And in terms of, we really narrow how we view productivity. We see it as this consistent linear progress, this sort of, this upward trajectory that has to come with being productive, but actually, productivity doesn't necessarily have to look like that. And instead of pursuing that very narrow version and attaching our sense of self-worth to that version, which is essentially more...so there's never enough. We can reframe it and see, as I speak about taking a more creative lens to our days and to our work and to our lives and to our connection because a more creative lens

Srini: You talk about routines and you say, "The ideal routine we draft for ourselves in which productivity is optimized, distractions are minimized, our output is at a maximum, and then the messy everyday reality of our days as they unfold, rarely is the aspirational ideal achieved." On most days, we're just adjusting, tumbling, and rebuilding. And then you actually go on to say the aspirational routine to which we're pinning our hopes of being better is more like a mirage. Although we strive for it, we rarely reach what it promises. And the reason for this is the variance inherent in our days and our energy, in our interests, in our interactions, and in our everyday chaos are perfectly ordered. Life will always remain outside the imperfect reality of our daily lives. And you actually say that creating the ideal routine, rather ironically, can be the very thing that lands us into a rut. And as I had mentioned to you before we hit record today, my routine got thrown off simply because we were out of food at the house. And I was like, "Damnit, everybody ate everything. And now my day is shot to shit. I needed to be here an hour earlier so I could read before I talked

Madeleine Dore: This is interesting because isn't that like where a lot of epiphanies and ideas come from—is the unexpected surprise and the things that don't go to plan? That's the definition of creativity—that's that landing on something new, that new combination.

And so it's funny that we resist the very thing that is what we're searching for. I guess that's...yeah. And that relates back to this idea of a routine meeting a rut—is that, again, just like productivity, there's nothing inherently wrong with being productive. There's nothing inherently wrong with a routine.

A routine can be really grounding. It can be something that we can really rely on, especially during times of certain uncertainty. It can be the thing that can be paramount to our mental health. But I think what can be tricky is the aspirational side of it. So it's not so much routine, but this idea that we should have a particular type of routine and that we should stick to it every day perfectly.

So it's more the side effects of perfectionism and comparison that actually can make a routine, I guess, something that's

Srini: When you mentioned perfectionism, I couldn't help but think about the role that social media plays in all of this. And, I didn't even watch it, but I remember Ryan Holiday posted a video on Instagram just a few days ago where it's this morning routine. And I couldn't help but think, okay, everybody's probably like, "I need to be like that." Or, but then my friend Benjamin Hardy, I'm sure you've come across this article, the eight things that everybody should do before 8:00 AM. And I remember talking to him, I was like, "Ben if somebody didn't get any sleep, there's nothing on your list they should do. They should get some damn sleep." And I think that's, I wonder in your opinion, what role do the media we consume and social media play in the aspirational routines that we create in our heads?

Madeleine Dore: I really loved your, that's a great counterpoint to have in terms of that eight things before 8:00 AM I think that it really comes down to you. I think that it's so much easier to look for some kind of secret or recipe for how to live our lives and therefore how to go about our day.

And I certainly, spent half a decade looking for that recipe myself, thinking that I could first interview people that were inspiring and successful and had it all together on the outside, then I could just copy and paste and have the perfect day as well. But I think if there's been one sort of major lesson, it's that you can't create the same recipe when you've got different ingredients and we just have different ingredients.

Our mornings will look different depending on our various responsibilities, energy, health, state of mind, commitments, and worries. There are just so many variances as individuals. And then there are the variances of the day. What might happen in the news even can affect us.

And I think that to have these prescriptive, this is what a morning routine looks like, or these are the things

I really loved your, that's a great counterpoint to have in the, in terms of that eight things before 8:00 AM I think that it really comes down to you, I think that. It's so much easier to look for some kind of secret or recipe for how to live our lives and therefore how to go about our day.

And I certainly, spent half a decade looking for that recipe myself, thinking that I could first interview people that were inspiring and successful and had it all together on the outside, then I could just copy and paste and have the perfect day as well. But I think if there's been one sort of major lesson, it's that you can't create the same recipe when you've got different ingredients and we just have different ingredients.

Our mornings will look different depending on our various responsibilities. Our various energy, our health, our state of mind, our commitments, our worries. There are just so many variances as individuals. And then there are the variances of the day. What might happen in the news even can affect us.

And I think that to have these prescriptive, this is what a morning routine looks like, or

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Madeleine Dore: Ahead. Oh, no, I was just going to say thank you. Sure. That means a lot.

When you mentioned perfectionism, I couldn't help but think about the role that social media plays in all of this. And, I didn't even watch it, but I remember Ryan Holiday put up a video on Instagram just a few days ago where it's this morning routine. And I couldn't help but think, okay, everybody's probably like, I need to be like that. Or, but then friend Benjamin Hardy, I'm sure you've come across this article, the eight things everyone should do before 8:00 AM. And I remember talking to him, I was like, Ben if somebody didn't get any sleep, there's nothing on your list they should do. They should get some damn sleep. And I wonder, in your opinion, what role do the media we consume and social media play in the aspirational routines that we create in our heads?

Srini: There's something you say in the book about ambition, you say, alongside the pervading societal message that we are what we accomplish, we're also told we will never be enough. No matter how hard we work to prove ourselves, there's always someone who has more than we do. We can never be quite good enough, smart enough, successful enough, beautiful enough, or fulfilled enough because there's no endpoint to such ambition. And this is a question that I have been wrestling with and I've been asking a lot of people, and I still haven't had an answer that I'm thinking is okay, that's it. How in the world do you find a balance between fulfillment and ambition?

Madeleine Dore: It's interesting because I'm not sure if they're on the same scale in a way. If we're trying to find a balance, maybe they're on different, truly different scales. But I think that, in some ways, maybe it is about first looking at what is fulfillment.

And maybe that is the thing that's very individual and the fact that fulfillment might not be this constant that we arrive at. And then if we acknowledge that fulfillment in and of itself might ebb and flow and change as we do across our lives, then we can see that ambition, its ambition is similar in that we don't arrive anywhere for very long.

And so I think that's the tricky part of pursuing it. Either maybe fulfillment or ambition. Maybe they're both the wrong goal because they're transient things and instead it's about detaching from landing anywhere. And really just I talk about this idea of the drive instead of ambition because drive it's active and there's a sense of movement and there's not necessarily an outcome to that drive. It's actually the driving in and of itself, it's the process essentially.

Whereas we can get so caught up on the end goal of ambition or

Srini: Yeah. No, it's something I've thought about. That's why I don't think I've found an answer yet, because I don't think anybody has, to your point earlier, a simple recipe for this. If it was that simple, I would've figured it out. One thing that I really loved was the concept that you talk about called micro ambition, and then also the idea of being a time realist. And I think that we all try to squeeze in far more than we could possibly do on any given day.

And that's one of the things I find with productivity apps in general, like task management tools, is the biggest sort of issue with a lot of these tools is the fact that they don't have any constraints by design. You can just keep adding and adding. And I was like, okay, this is why I use pen and paper. But talk to me about the idea of time realism and micro ambition.

Madeleine Dore: Okay. Yeah, it's nice that you've bundled (bonded) cause they're quiet, there's a similar, like a connection I suppose. In that everything's really about taking it down to the smallest moment, isn't it? But micro ambition it's actually a concept that I've borrowed from the comedian Tim mentioned (mention).

And so he had a 2013 commencement address where he admits that he has never had a big dream, like a big ambition. Instead, he is an advocate for short-term goals. And so the idea of being micro-ambitious is that you just put your head down and work with whatever is in front of you.

And the idea is that the next worthy pursuit is actually in the periphery. It's not on this big goal because again if we go back to this idea of drive, the direction might change. And so if you are open, if you're just working on this next right thing that's in front of you, it leaves you open to opportunities.

It leaves you open to those possibilities. And it just means that you can actually notice what might be out the corner of your eye and interview people who have very successful coveted

Srini: Yeah, let's talk about comparison. I think that the comparison and the idea of social media go nicely together and you talk about two types of comparison. You talk about enriching comparison and the other form of comparison, which is empty comparison. Talk to me about the distinction between the two and how you make sure that you're not falling into the trap of empty comparison.

Because I think that when you scroll through Instagram, you are basically getting a holographic version of somebody's life. And I've often said it's a bit like looking through a window when you walk by somebody's house and assuming that reveals everything about what their life is like.

Madeleine Dore: Yeah. When it's just a window and maybe you're even looking at a shadow, so you don't even know what you're really seeing—the smoke and mirrors of it all. Yeah. I think that a good way to summarize empty comparison in many ways is that I think that with empty comparison is that we might feel this sense of not being good enough, or we might feel this sense of falling behind based on these, inaccurate glimpses that we're getting of someone's life.

But not only that, where not only are what we comparing to could be inaccurate, but it might actually be that we're comparing ourselves to something that we don't even actually want. We might think that we should do something in a certain way or pursue a certain career because someone else did and because that led to success, but we don't actually interrogate whether that's something we want for ourselves, whether we want to be doing those eight things before 8:00 AM is that something we really want for our life? So I'd say that empty comparison is that there's no sense of real kind of congruence with what you want in your life.

Whereas in enrich

Yeah. When it's just a window and maybe you're even looking at a shadow, so you don't even know what you're really seeing, the smoke and mirrors of it all. Yeah. I think that's a good way to summarize empty comparisons in many ways. I think that with empty comparison is that we might feel this sense of not being good enough, or we might feel this sense of falling behind based on these inaccurate glimpses that we're getting of someone's life.

But not only that, where not only are what we're comparing to could be inaccurate, but it might actually be that we're comparing ourselves to something that we don't even actually want. If we've had so many lessons we might think that we should do something in a certain way or pursue a certain career because someone else did.

And because that led to success, we don't actually interrogate whether that's something we want for ourselves, whether we want to be doing those eight things before 8:00 AM is that something we really want for our life? So I'd say that's empty comparison is that there's no sense of real kind of congruence with what you want in your life.

Srini: Yeah. I think that dovetails nicely into the idea of expectations because I think in a lot of ways, comparison often tends to generate expectations. And you say that we cannot rid our futures of uncertainty, but we can loosen our grip on our desire for certainty. We can change the great expectations of our future selves and relieve some of the pressure.

And you say, expecting too much of ourselves can curtail our ability to do something either by exacerbating our feelings of being already behind or by setting us up to fail. And I think that it, really is fitting, considering that you and I were both talking about our experiences with publishing books.

Before we hit record here, I was just telling you how sometimes, they didn't necessarily live up to our expectations. Like I said, I thought, Audience of One had been a flop commercially because it didn't hit a best-seller list or something like that. And I think there's, like inherent understanding, everybody has that having expectations is pretty much a recipe for disappointment.

And I've noticed in my life, anytime I have zero expectations of a situation, it usually ends up turning out far better than I ever thought it would. Any

Srini: I think it'll work because I think the thing is that you have to detach from the outcome of something and suddenly, the outcomes exceed whatever expectations you had let go of, and then suddenly the expectations come back now that you've got what you wanted. Which I think is actually the hardest thing. But I'm curious, like, when you think about this idea of expectations, how do you let go of expectations while at the same time maintaining your drive?

Madeleine Dore: I definitely don't think I've mastered letting them go entirely. So I think a little trick there is just to make them really small. And so that, I guess that's a nice tie-back to micro ambition. I always think of my friend who was having a bit of a panic about a trip that she was taking abroad. And this is the expectation that she has to have the trip of a lifetime and make all these memories and make the most of every moment. And in that panic, she was given the advice to just go to Europe and have a cup of coffee and then everything else can be a bonus from there. So if the goal is, if the expectation is to have a coffee, it's it means that everything else can be, can be this beautiful bonus and there can be that flexibility and you can be open to different opportunities and things.

And so I think that maybe that's the way to sidestep expectations, I think we'll always want things for ourselves. And so I guess it's about being aware of that and making them. I think there's this interesting tension between we still want to, we still wanna challenge ourselves. And so there is something to be said for having ambition and

Madeleine Dore: Interesting. And so, that's the part that's scary is that it's gonna last forever or that it'll go away? That someone will take away whatever it is you've always wanted? No

Srini: I, in a sort of ironic twist, talk to me about how you actually plan your day because I, and I both have probably read every productivity book under the sun. You wrote one, I've apparently filled Medium with so much productivity porn that it's all I get now when I actually log in. Talk to me about how you apply this in your life day to day. What does your daily planning look like? Or have you just abandoned all productivity advice? I didn't get the sense that that was the case.

Madeleine Dore: No, I think that it's interesting because I am, I'm still someone who is, a devotee to my bullet journal, for example, and I think I will always have an affinity for a to-do list. And so all of this was there, there's, there can be a real joy from that. There's this sort of juicy pleasure to try my next sort of hack. It's just about again, not attaching my sense of self-worth to whether that changes my life or not because chances are it's not gonna change my life. I'm still the same person. And so I think that I have the list, but I hold it lightly.

And instead of having this intense, elaborate schedule for myself that, if it doesn't go to plan the whole day topples over, it's about okay, moving on to the next thing. Something I try to keep top of mind is this quote from Arnold Bennett who wrote a book in 1908 called How to Live 24 Hours a Day. And he talks about how the beauty of time is it cannot be wasted in advance. And so we might waste one hour, we might waste the morning, we might have wasted the day, but we

Srini: I'll tell you about my day. But the sort of big takeaway I think I've had from our conversation is somewhat of a paradox of productivity is the irony is the less we obsessively try to be productive, the more productive we become. And it reminds me of something Chris Bailey said in our recent interview with him about how to be more productive and this idea of an accomplishment mindset and how this accomplishment mindset actually pulls you out of the present moment and as a result actually makes you less likely to accomplish things.

And that's the big sort of takeaway, I guess maybe the universe is trying to tell me to slow the fuck down, like that. That's maybe the message I'm getting considering we had Chris Bailey in the episode yesterday and now I'm talking to you. I'm wondering, I was like, maybe the universe is trying to tell me something.

But as far as my day yeah, my day goes, you know it has pretty much been standard for quite some time. One thing that did change is my sister had a baby. So now because my sister's at my parent's house, at least for another two weeks, he's become an integral part of my morning routine.

And we

I'll tell you about my day. But the big takeaway I think I've had from our conversation is somewhat of a paradox of productivity: the irony is the less we obsessively try to be productive, the more productive we become. And it reminds me of something Chris Bailey said in our recent interview with him about how to be more productive and this idea of an accomplishment mindset and how this accomplishment mindset actually pulls you out of the present moment and as a result actually makes you less likely to accomplish things.

And that's the big sort of takeaway, I guess - maybe the universe is trying to tell me to slow the fuck down. That's maybe the message I'm getting, considering we had Chris Bailey in the episode yesterday and now I'm talking to you. I'm wondering, I was like, maybe the universe is trying to tell me something.

But as far as my day goes, you know it's pretty much been standard for quite some time. One thing that did change is my sister had a baby. So now, because my sister's at my parent's house, at least for another two weeks, he's become an integral part of my morning routine. We're all dreading when he's gonna leave because

Madeleine Dore: Exactly. Yeah. They're the immeasurable kind of epiphanies, I think that's so important.

And just what you're describing in terms of, I think that's was really common with people I interviewed is that it's not routine in the way that we might think of it. It's these little anchors in the day that we've over time cultivated and know that, if we do those things, it's a good day, but it might not happen every day because that's just life.

And I think that the important part is just, again, picking up the pieces. And, finding a way to be present in the day or enjoy the day or learn from the day. I think that's more important than squeezing the most out of every single day. Because what does that even really mean? Is it squeezing the most if you got a lot of work done, or is it squeezing the most if you connected with a new person, so I like, I guess it's it really it's a big question I think about how what we value. Yeah. Wow.

Srini: This has been beautiful, thought-provoking, and insightful. And I have one final question for you, which I know you've heard me ask: What do you think it is that makes somebody or something unmistakable?

Madeleine Dore: I was really reflecting on this because I knew that you'd asked the question. And I actually think I landed on honesty and in, in particular, I think there are some beautiful conversations around vulnerability, and I think that those conversations are really important and enriching, but I think sometimes we're actually mislabeling, we're calling things vulnerable when actually they're just honest.

And I think that there's a real place for knowing what honesty looks like and recognizing it. Because vulnerability focuses so much on the reaction because by definition it means that you're exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed. And so this kind of it's what people are describing or responding to what you're doing is that thing about, oh, you're so vulnerable, or, oh, I would never be able to do that.

Or it's this warning that they're giving you like, oh, you might get hurt. Be careful. But that's people's reactions. Whereas the person doing something might actually feel in a creative way, really strong, really safe. They might feel like they've honed their craft. They might feel in control of this supposedly vulnerable act, but actually

Srini: I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share your story, your wisdom, and your insights with our listeners. Where can people find out more about you, your work, the book, and everything else you're up to?

Srini: Thank you. And for everybody listening, I highly recommend that you check out this book. I think you'll absolutely love it, and we'll wrap the show with that.

Madeleine Dore: Black Voices are making an impact this month and beyond. Keep listening to discover one of our favorite shows, courtesy of a Cast Recommends welcome to Two Black Girls, One Rose. We're two Black girls invading the messiest reality dating shows on earth. I'm Natasha. And I'm Justine. And this season we're recapping Lifetime TV's hit show Married at First Sight in Nashville.

Married at First Sight is a full-on hot mess of a social experiment. Each week on our podcast, we recap the latest episode and dissect the trials and tribulations these five newly married couples are going through while also dissecting relevant dating, marriage, and related topics. And after five years deep in Bachelor Nation, we're now diving into the Married at First Sight universe.

So come join us. Listen to us on all podcast platforms every Thursday, and join our amazing community on Patreon at Patreon.com/twoblackgirlsfilms.

Madeleine Dore: All of that is on MadeleineDore.com and I've got a newsletter where I continue to write about various things so they can also sign up and say hello there.

It's also just been such a treat to be here on Unmistakable Creative, so thank you for all the work that you do and for giving the book a chance even though it was a contrarian. I've just really appreciated the conversation.

Madeleine Dore: Helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com.

Srini: Hey, crew!

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