Tara McMullin | How to Grow Personally and Professionally Without Striving

Srini: Welcome to The Unmistakable Creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join.

Tara Mcmullin: Absolutely Screeny. I'm so excited to be.

Srini: It is my pleasure to have you here. You and I go way back. I think you are one of our guests, prior to our rebrand as Unmistakable Creative. I think this is probably the third or fourth time you and I have spoken on the show.

So I think that just says a whole hell of a lot about your work. And I've been watching the stuff you've been writing on Medium, very closely thinking. Yeah, she's saying a lot of stuff that really needs to be heard. But before we get into all of that I wanna start asking you what social group were you a part of in high school and what.

Did that end up having on your life and where you've

Tara Mcmullin: ended up? That is such a brilliant question. What social group was I part of? I was a band nerd and that is definitely how I would identify my social group as well. I think everyone that I hung out with was in band. , maybe orchestra, but mostly banned.

And same in college as well, for the most part. Although in college it got a little slightly more diverse. But in high school it was the band. And how did that influence me? Band kids are. Odd in that we are we simultaneously think we are very cool and are also very self-aware about not being cool at all.

And I think that is pretty much like how I would sum up, if not how I feel about myself, like where I fall in society. It's like there's a level of coolness here. There's a level of Awareness of being, of wanting to be cool. And striving to be cool maybe. But then there's also a very clear self-awareness that I am not cool.

I will never be cool. The things that I think are cool or not, things that other people think are cool and constantly riding that edge of Cool. Not cool. Does that answer the

Srini: question? Yeah. You know that I'm a band geek

Tara Mcmullin: too, right? I think I knew that. Yes.

Srini: Saxophone tuba for nine years ago, which is as uncool as it gets.

I had a friend who Seren needed his prom date with his soprano sax. He played the Kenny G Song Forever in Love, which is like the most beautiful thing ever. I was like, Man, Seren Saudi with a tuba is basically a guarantee that you're not gonna get laid, let alone even have a date for prom.

Tara Mcmullin: Yeah, I played trombone, so I feel you on the low brass. Just not coolness of it. Yeah. However, being a woman in the low brass section, I think is very different than being a dude in the low brass section. Yeah,

Srini: So the funny thing is you talk about this later on in the book about this sort of cultural systemic validation spiral.

, you say. It's also the very goals we organize our lives around. As an elder millennial, my C wrote was organized around getting into a good college, a wave of my validation spiral started by saying yes to the pursuit of excellent grades and enriching extra. Critical activities. AP English? Yes. AP Latin.

You bet. Independent study music theory. Sure. Win not ensemble. Latin Club Jazz combo. Drum major in the marching band. Yes. Yes. Yes and yes. And so I wonder, how one that sort of influenced. The career choices that you made because as an Indian American I could relate to that. It was a given that we would go to college and we patted our resumes with extra critical activities and it was just like you go to the best college you can get into.

Like I can't even fathom the concept of trying to explain what it would be like to not go to college to my parents cuz it's just that was never on the table. Yeah.

Tara Mcmullin: I think for me,

Man. So I would say that there, there were a bunch of different influences in my life that shaped all of those yeses in my own validation spiral or spirals. And also there was, I think the kind of cultural milu in which I was existing. So I come from a, what I now understand as a working class background.

My mother was a seamstress, my dad was a cop. And they were divorced by the time I was 10 or 11. And so that said, they were. Almost like there was a certain sort of social class regression that happened in my family. And I don't say that in a disparaging way at all. My grandmother had gone to college.

All my uncles had gone to college. My mom's family not so much. But her dad was a. Big, successful farmer in a couple counties over. And so the fact that we were existing in this lower middle class working class kind of environment was I think there was an expectation that I would. Help climb things back up the ladder, right?

. And so while I don't think that the expectation of going to college was, is nearly the same as in what the kind of experience that you describe, I do think that there was just a, there was more of a tat expectation that, this is obviously what's going to happen. Tara, smart Tara with it.

She's gonna go to college, she's gonna get a good job. But at the same time, there was a lack of knowledge around what going to college actually looked like for someone who was going to finish and then hopefully go get a good job. And there was a lack of sort of the social awareness of how relationships how networks propel someone forward.

And By the time I got to college, I did well and I was doing, I was excelling at college, but I wasn't using college in the way that I now understand. I, quote unquote, should have been to create the opportunities for myself after college. That would've been great, right? Yeah. And I just had her I felt like a fish outta water when I graduated.

And I know that, lots of people feel that way, but once I was out and the next step was not just right in front of me to say yes to, when I finally had choices about what to do next, I realized just how much I didn't know how to make those choices. Yeah. And so that went back into that validation spiral where it's just I need someone to give me a yes on a job, and then I'll get promoted and I'll get promoted and I'll get promoted.

And it wasn't so much a conscious decision of this is where I want to be, this is what I wanna be doing. So much as it was looking for that validation that, yes, I'm skilled and I'm talented and I can make this life work in one way or. Yeah,

Srini: It's funny, I don't, I'm probably butchering the exact quote.

It's they said college is wasted on the young or are the youthful . And I think that a lot of us look back at that. Cause I looked at Berkeley and think to myself like, Wow, what a different experience it would be if I knew what I knew now. Yeah. And went back there. For younger people listening to this and parents listening to this, how do you think they should approach this in.

Of, make being in a position to make the decisions that you felt you weren't really ready to make or weren't, educated enough to make when you were in college.

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Yeah, I think about this all the time because my daughter just turned 14, which is insane. . She's thinking about college now. She's thinking about what volunteer activities can I add and what class. Should I be taking and is this gonna look good on a college application?

And that's a whole other component of the validation spiral. 14. Yeah. Yes. At 14. And it's been this way. And since she was about 11, I would say, is when she started worrying about college. Wow. That was new. That was very new to me. I would say I was thinking about college when I was 11 or 12, but not in the way that she was.

It was very much, I don't know if you're familiar with Anne Helen Peterson's work around millennials and burnout. . But she describes how both starting with the millennial generation and then accelerating into Generation Z that we've started to see. Our kids as resumes and how do you take this kid and make them the best resume that they can?

And of course, our kids are internalizing that message as well. And I see that with her completely. And part of me is just I don't know, even with. My positioning and what I've done and what I know. I don't know that I know how to talk her through rethinking that, but to your question I think the most important thing that I would tell her now, knowing what I now know now, but without pushing her in a particular direction, is to make use of as many of the resources as whatever school she is in at whatever time, whether it's high school whether it's college, whether it's graduate school later on, whether it's some professional program somewhere.

That's what I didn't know how to do. I knew how to get good grades. I knew how to write good papers. I knew how to do all of the things that can be measured in college, but I didn't know. To make an appointment with my advisor on a regular basis and talk to them about what my options were and what I should be thinking about.

If, if I say if I wanna go to grad school or if I wanna go to a, I wanna go into a different kind of field, Maybe I wanna change fields later on. What should I be thinking about? I didn't know to do that. I didn't know to go to the career office. I didn't know to go to the networking events that every college campus has with alumni, right?

I didn't know. Any of that, and so I got all these good grades. My, my advisors loved me, my department loved me, but I got out of school not understanding the, the machinations that were happening under the surface. That while there are some problematic stuff in that as well. There's also a lot of like really positive cultural and societal learning that happens outside of the classroom.

That happens when you're building relationships with alumni or with advisors or with just other administrators on campus. And so that's the thing that. Want my daughter to know. It's the thing that I wish I knew. And it's the thing that, as I'm starting to think like maybe it is time to go back to grad school now that's the thing that I'm like, all right, I'm gonna choose a grad program that is going to allow me to really take advantage of those kinds of resources and thinking about graduate school in that way, in addition to thinking about, making it as fun for my intellectual mind as possible too.

Srini: Wow. I wanna get into the core ideas in the book, but there's something you've said in the book at the very beginning, and, this made me wanna ask you a question related to a Medium article, you said that I can't remember a time when I didn't feel a fundamental brokenness about who I am.

I can't remember a time or place when I felt like I belonged to any group or community. I often don't feel at home in my closest relationships. I'm always on edge trying to figure out what others want from me and hopelessly trying to contort myself into that shape. This unease has played me throughout my life.

And I know from having read a media article, you were recently diagnosed with autism and one, I wonder one, what that does for your sense of identity particularly this late in life and clearly like my perceptions of autism are off. Cause I've talked to you probably a half a dozen times.

I think I've even met you in person once or twice. , I would've never guessed in a million years that you would be anywhere near on the spectrum.

Tara Mcmullin: Yeah, so there's so much to unpack in that question. So for me, autism and my identity there's a great paper by a sociologist named Catherine Tan that studied the.

Effects on identity of late diagnosed autistic people. And she refers to the phenomenon as biographical illumination, and I fricking love that term, biographical illumination. And what she means by that is while there are some sorts of diagnoses especially like terminal illness where. Marks a separation from, there was the, before the diagnosis to after the diagnosis.

And there's a disruption in your sense of identity with autism and with some other conditions as well. And just some other realizations it gives you an opportunity to shine a new light. So the illumination part on the whole rest of your life. So there's a sense. And almost an acknowledgement that, yeah, I didn't under fully understand my identity and my relationships and my place in the world until I.

Learned this thing about myself, and once I learned that thing about myself, everything that happened before suddenly has new meaning and makes new sense. That's not to say that it's all good, right? , there's still a lot of pain and a lot of frustration that's embedded in those experiences. But understanding them better is creates a profound feeling of relief.

And so that's what the sociologist was really talking about, and that's my experience completely. Like as soon as I saw this paper, I was like, Yes, that's it. it. It explains so much. And so part of what you mentioned around the profound brokenness and the feeling like I don't Belong, is.

Without that, not without that particular piece of self knowledge. , it's really hard to relate to other people in a way that doesn't reinforce that sense of brokenness, just in. You're not thinking about things the way

,

other people are. You suspect you're not. The suspicion is just as disorienting as actually knowing that you're not thinking about things the way other people are.

It's, yeah. The other piece that you picked up on there with sort of the self monitoring that's, The, I've been thinking about that a lot lately and just the amount of energy that I expend thinking about what other people need in every moment, and that's certainly not it's not ex, it's not just autism.

There are all sorts of other experiences and conditions that can create that sense and that need for self monitoring as well. But for me, it's constantly trying to figure out, am I answering this question correctly as my face making a weird expression because it does that often. Am I being rude?

Forgotten something that I was supposed to remember. There's just all of this stuff that I'm constantly looking for, anytime that I'm relating to someone and the fact that, you and I have talked many times and met in person and that you would've never suspected that I was autistic. Goes to show how good at that I got.

. And that's a, that is an actual documented thing, especially among women who are autistic diagnosed later in life with no mental or with no intellectual impairment. That they are, we are exceptionally good at what we call masking. And masking comes from that self-monitoring. If you are constantly masking, if you're constantly camouflaging as the other term that's used, the it only follows that you're going to have a sense of alienation from yourself and from others as well.

And so it's not just that I don't. Feel like I belong in a room of crowded people or that I don't feel like I belong in a small group of close friends. It is often that I feel like I don't entirely belong in my own brain as well, because anytime I'm relating to someone else, anytime I'm thinking about what I want, where you know what I'm going to do the next day.

It is hard to switch off that masking and that self monitoring to actually get down to some more core identity. And yeah, and that's, it's. It's energy intensive, It's emotionally exhausting, it's mentally exhausting and it really starts to take a toll on your identity. Adding that self knowledge in though.

Makes it easier to make sense of things. It makes it easier for me to say, Oh I'm like fixating. I'm ruminating on the self monitoring again. Or, Oh, I'm only worried about what somebody else is thinking about me in this conversation, and I really need to think about. What I'm, what I wanna say and how I wanna communicate.

And so it's just easier to name it, and that doesn't necessarily mean it's easier to stop doing it, but when I can name it, at least I have awareness that what I'm doing isn't necessarily me, it is just what I'm doing in that moment. Does that make sense? Yeah,

Srini: it makes complete sense. So it's funny because when you mentioned this profound sense of relief.

I can relate when I, I got an ADHD diagnosis as official. , I was like, Okay, cool. That makes a lot of sense. And it's funny because. I, and I've mentioned this before, people are like, Oh, wow, you're, you really good at listening because you do this and then, you put me in a social situation, people are like, You're a fucking horrible listener, dude.

You don't listen for shit. And I'm, And yeah, I finally realized particularly in a dating context, this has happened enough times where I'm just like, Okay. And I realize what it is. Like for some reason you put me behind the microphone, that changes completely. Like when I'm in this context, the moment you change that context, it's like back to you.

I have a million things to say and I can't save them quickly enough. And in my mind I had a friend who said, she's You're like the, you'd be the worst therapist ever cuz you're basically like, you're done processing whatever we're trying to tell you and you're ready to move on. And I'm like, Yeah, that's why I'm not a fucking life coach cuz I would make you cry cause I don't really give a shit about your problems.

I'm only interested in solving them. It's funny cuz I totally relate to that whole sense of Oh, that explains so much about the past.

Tara Mcmullin: Yeah. And what you said about context and social context making it easier or harder to do these things. I also super relate to there's a fairly significant segment of adult autistic women that are, that find themselves in the performing professions, right?

So whether that's professional, speaker, comedian Actress whatever the performance ends up being. And that can be defined very broadly. The context in a performance is so very clear that you know exactly how you're supposed to behave. You know what you're supposed to say, you know how to carry yourself.

And there is something that feels It. There's something comfortable in that, and there's also something that it's nice to be able to take a break from. Constantly figuring things out and just be in that context. And so I very much fall into that same category as well. Whereas when we get on for an interview, whether I'm interviewing you or you're interviewing me, I know exactly what my role is and what's expected of me in that.

And so I feel really comfortable. If I'm on a stage and I'm giving a talk or I'm teaching a workshop, I know exactly what's expected of me and I feel really comfortable in that role. But if I go to a conference and I'm in the crowd with people before I've spoken, I will go mute because I am there's, it's, I'm overstimulated.

I don't know, I don't know what other people know about me, but as soon as I'm on the stage, and then as soon as I get off the stage, I feel comfortable because there's, I know that the people that I'm talking to know something about me and the context feels more. Productive for me and more comfortable for me than when I don't know what's going on and what, who knows what, and, what's expected of me in any given moment.

Yeah,

Srini: I guess that actually explains why I try to limit myself to one interview a day because I think that my bandwidth after this is like just done. Totally. I realized if I do more than one, the quality suffers.

Tara Mcmullin: Save all stuff you really need and stuff you bought for fun stuff you've always really wanted this holiday at Amazon. Stuff that is discounted if you are naughty or you're nice stuff to buy. Your grandma who drinks her chardon nail. Nice stuff to make you big and strong stuff we can name in this song.

Somer Lawn decking hall say big, long stuff at.

Srini: So let's get into the book. What prompted this book? Because I think that, just the way you opened the book itself, which we'll get into really got me thinking, and I've been thinking about this a lot too because, I, my friend Michael calls me the no bullshit personal development guy, and I'm like, basically I'm saying a lot of personal development is bullshit.

So I don't know how that makes me the no bullshit guy. But I felt like you were echoing a lot of what I was thinking when I started to read this.

Tara Mcmullin: Yeah. So I mean there's all sorts of things going on that ended up in creating the sort of the body of work that then turned into this book. One of them was that sort of profound realization that I had been.

Kind of just moving from goal to goal without, not only without necessarily achieving or feeling like I had achieved the thing I wanted to achieve, even though I was meeting goals as I went but also feeling like there wasn't any added. Meaning in my life, there wasn't any, there wasn't any substance underneath the surface.

And so there was that realization and the questions about what does that mean about me personally? What does that mean about the world? What does that like? It was just a very unmoored feeling. So there was that there was also the big. Political wake up that happened in 2016, and thinking about how much of the dynamics of that moment were embedded in the way I thought about the world, even if I didn't like it.

And so a really big shake up and thinking. What my values really were and how I could get back to them that was part of that as well. And reenvisioning my work through those values. . And then there was the process of re-engaging with my own work and the.

Way I work in a different way that allowed me to create this framework that the book is based around both a deconstruction framework and constructing a new framework around goal setting. And when I started sharing that with people, there were, the response to that was really, I don't, I keep using the word profound, but it was profound, right?

There was this complete recognition of, my story might be different than, Your story is different than this other person's story. Our goals all might be different. Our values all might be different. What we, our vision for our lives might be different, but there. I realized how much people were tired of goal setting and tired of striving and tired of constantly trying to achieve something new or finally feel validated, finally feel worthy That.

I realized this was work that I really needed to pursue to some sort of end, some sort of conclusion. And so the book is that, So it's I would say there's other things going on there too, but those are three of the big threads that came together. Yeah. In the process of writing this,

Srini: Yeah.

And so you opened the book by saying, our cultural, our culture is obsessed with goals, achievement, growth, change improvement. For a long time I shared that obsession, but about five years ago, I started to question whether the goals I set and the constant impulse to strive for more genuinely serve me.

And so it sounds like that really is the beginning of deconstruction. And it's funny, right? Because what do people do? They listen to shows like this to hear people like you. Give them insight on how they can accomplish the goals they want to accomplish or live the lives they wanna live.

So there's an irony in all of that. And talk to me about that. Obviously this has been like just pervasive and self-improvement, this sort of endless focus on goal setting. It's I remember, there's a point where it's if we were gonna pick up a book, it's I need to get a tangible outcome from this book of some sort, or it's not worth reading.

Tara Mcmullin: Yeah. Yeah. There is, there's a lot of tension there. I think that was the word that you used. We exist in a culture that is motivated and inspired by constant growth, and it is baked into every. Component of our lives, both individually and societally. So if we're thinking about an individual career, we are, we're in a story about constant growth there.

If it's a business or the economy, we're in a story about constant growth there. If it's political movements, there's a story about constant growth there. It's. Everywhere. And it's part of the larger story that capitalism tells, that neoliberalism tells, that individualism tells, and that supremacy culture tells as well, this need for growth, this need to be constantly conquering, striving, adventuring pioneering, right?

These are all words that we've come to associate. The right thing to do, the shoulds and the supposed to, as I talk about them in the book. And within that though, I think that on it, when we start to interrogate whether constant growth is necessary, whether it's desired, whether it's sustainable, most of us.

Can very quickly come to the conclusion growth can be good. Growth is nice, and also like constant growth doesn't seem, that doesn't seem right. , the cliche about, cons. That cancer is the result of constant growth, right? , and if we look at culture and the economy through that lens, we can see that sort of proverbial cancer everywhere.

But it's in our own lives as well. And part of that striving, part of that need for constant growth. Turns into also a need for conformity because the way you get ahead is to fill the role better than the person before you. The way you make more money is to create the marketing message that resonates with the most people, the, And so there's this Kind of totalizing effect that as we set goals, we are actually becoming more and more like each other.

But in the, like each other, that is the stereotypical Executive in the corner office kind of person. And that person in our culture has a certain gender, It has a certain race, it has a certain educational background. And the fewer of those things that the fewer of those boxes that we tick off, the more kinds of goals that we start to set for ourselves or the more we worry about.

The things that were not ticking off on those boxes. And so we either conform until we burn out, have a, a kind of a disassociation experience, or we're just starting to become like everybody else, which, is not great. So there is that tension. It's hard.

My husband and I were just talking about this the other day. It's really hard to extricate yourself from those stories because those stories are, it's the water we swim in, right? , it is. Everything about our culture is reinforcing these stories all the time. And I know that kind of sounds, I always get nervous that I'm sounding like a conspiracist and I don't want to sound like a conspiracist.

I think it's largely unintended. But the unin, the lack of intention is exactly what makes it easy to forget that it's happening. And and so for me, you, you mentioned, having one takeaway from the book or the, the idea that a book is only worth reading if it has a concrete takeaway.

My concrete takeaway is a question, or it's a, it's an imperative to just constantly be thinking. What is the story that I'm telling myself and is that the story that I wanna live in? Is this a story of constant growth and is that the story I wanna live in? Is this the story of conformity and is that the story I wanna live in?

What is going on underneath the surface that's driving my personal motivation, that's driving the goals that I set, that's driving my need to strive and achieve. Is that serving me? And if it's not, how can I tell a different story while understanding that we still live in the world that we

,

live in and we live in the culture that we live in.

Yeah. Wow. .

Srini: Yeah, there, there's a couple of clips I wanted to bring back from the episodes. What I'm bringing them up here, but while that's happened there's gotta be a way to break this, right? And I think you're absolutely right. To your point, this is the world that we live in.

, we live in a world in which, you have to be defined by something. And often, as you even talk about in the book, like we basically are quantified by our whatever, sort of economic value we are able to produce. And I think that That to me has been one of those things that I've spent a lot of time thinking about.

So one thing, I think about often is whether people like you and I, despite the best intentions, like we have planted seeds of dissatisfaction where there were none before. By doing the kind of work that we do, because we're making people aware of, one way to live. And it, I always go back to this idea.

I was like, who's to say the person who works a nine to five job, collecting a paycheck, going home and spending time with their family, isn't leav living a perfectly good life? But then, they come across like a Tim Ferris type book and they're like, Oh, you know what? My life was terrible.

And it wasn't until they were aware of that. Yeah.

Tara Mcmullin: Yeah. I think you're exactly right. Satisfaction is one of the big themes in the book, and I think that satisfaction is not the same thing as what we think of success. And satisfaction can be finding meaning in. All sorts of different things.

, I think where satisfaction comes is understanding that there is an intention behind what you're doing on a daily basis and creating the practices, the habits, the routines that make what you're doing on a daily basis more sustainable, maybe more enjoyable. And that satisfaction is really subversive in a way, right?

Because part of the story of capitalism and neoliberalism is making sure that we never feel satisfied, because if we feel satisfied, we will not want to. Buy, whatever the world is selling us and our economy is driven on consumption and satisfied. People tend to consume less, right? Fewer impulse purchases.

Fewer assuming that there are. Problems that need solutions in your life, right? Less susceptibility. When you're satisfied, you are less susceptible. Subs, you are less susceptible to marketing messages that are trying to tell you that you have a problem. . And so satisfaction is super. Subversive in that way and seeking it out and recognizing how you can create it in your own life.

Whether you're working a nine to five job, whether you're a freelancer, you have your own business, you're a stay at home parent, whatever it might be, where, how are you nurturing satisfaction in your life instead of striving? or something that you feel you lack, right? Or that you're not far enough along with.

So there's that. And then the other thing I think that you started asking about what is the solution or there's gotta, Oh, you said there's gotta be a way to break this pattern and. I just finished reading a book called Self-Help Inc. By a media theorist named Mickey, and she was looking at self-help literature.

This is back in 2004, 2005, looking at the self-help literature and saying, What is going on here, ? What are the different messages that are being shared? What, why are these messages landing with people? And is there a way to, to approach personal growth, self-improvement, self-help in a way that is also making change collectively, societally, culturally, and.

Even though she goes through all of these just terrible books with terrible messages about just conforming and becoming the best cog in the wheel you can become Right. Cog in the machine. You can become, Yeah. She gets to the end of the book and she's No. I think that there is a way to think about.

Growth in a way that's political, in a way that's subversive, in a way that in disrupts these patterns. And I agree with her. And for me, that's what this book is, what my book is about, right? Yeah. It's trying to approach personal growth in a way that asks questions about what it means for society at large as well.

And then ideally creating creating satisfying lives that. Allow us to start breaking some of these patterns to, at first individually and then second collectively.

Srini: Yeah I wanna bring back a clip from an old episode that we had it was Will store who wrote this book called Selfie Self.

Why would become self obsessed in what it's doing to us? Take a listen. One

Tara Mcmullin: of the things that all those conditions has in common is perfectionism, perfectionistic thinking, and one of the kind of academic clinical definitions of perfectionism is somebody that has unusually high expectations for success and got repeatedly fail to hit those.

Markets for success. So they continually feel like they're a loser and they're a failure. And that's what our culture does these days. It sets an unusually high market for success. It presents us with this perfect self on tv, on radio, on the internet and social media. And it says, If you are not this person, you have failed.

So if you are not Beyonce is the message. If you are not Steve Jobs, then you're doing something wrong. And that is incredibly toxic. It really is incredibly toxic because

Srini: it's not. What do you make of that? I think there's so many commonalities to some of what you're writing about in this book and what he says.

Tara Mcmullin: Yeah. So I completely agree, and I purposefully did not read that book as I was writing my book, which I could have easily, It's on my Kindle. Yeah. Because I knew that I knew there was going to be a lot of overlap and I was trying to like, stay mostly pure my own thinking. So I completely agree.

And coming back to this book Self-Help Inc. By McGee, she. Talks about the self having become belabored. And what she means by that is that not only do we go to work, whether that's in our home office or at another office or at a store or at a restaurant, we go to work and we do work for a set number of hours that we get paid for.

But then when we come home, instead of having that time to pursue things that are satisfying to us, that pursue to pursue things, For the sake of pursuing them. We are engaged in all of these other behaviors, all of these other functions that are quote unquote working on ourselves. We are laboring on ourselves and it's become a, an imperative of survival in this economy and in our political environment.

And Ye yes to store's point. The expectations that are set for us are not only that, the expectations, I think, are com, too high. Just as you said, the. Expectation is that there is no achieving perfection, right? Because we know we're not ever gonna be Beyonce, but we keep working because there's always another level to attain.

And each time we set our sight on that next level, we're saying there's something wrong with me. There's something that I'm lacking. There's some deficit that I have and there's something wrong with other people who aren't striving to that next level as well. And so you're constantly leaving people behind.

And yeah. And. Oh, I have so much to say about this. We could talk literally an hour about just that clip . Yeah. But yes, so to keep it short, I completely agree with him. And I think that it is really important to start to notice all the things that we do on a daily basis that are in essence, working on ourselves in order to.

Go to work and be a better worker or a better business owner, a better freelancer and how much that mediates our sense of identity such that we only see ourselves through transactional terms. And that, again, is profoundly self alienating. And. It's also unsatisfying, and so we get back into this pattern over and over again.

Srini: Yeah. In the interest of time I want to hit one core concept that I think really in my mind was the turning point of the book where you asked this question of, what does growth without striving look like? and you say, We strive because our economic salvation depends on it. We strive because we experience precarity and internalized al Bism.

We strive to prove that we're value members of valuable members of society. We strive because we believe attaining more than our family or friends will make us happier. And we strive to live up to the questionable stories that self-help influencers turn into advice for good living. And funny enough, there's this clip from Jerry Colonna.

That we actually just, weaved into the most recent episode, The Heroes Journey Wisdom. But I didn't think it'll make a perfect jump off point to, to talk about this concept. Take a listen. You strive

Tara Mcmullin: without attaching your sense of self-worth to attainment of the goal so that you can be okay.

So we strive because this meaning and purpose in the striving we strive because magic shit happens when we strive. But when we fail, we remember that we tried and we pick ourselves up and we dust ourselves off and we try again. And that rising after failure is part of the glory of being a human being.

To me, that's much more glorious. Perfect

Srini: attainment

Tara Mcmullin: of every single wish and dream

Srini: and goal. I think that the two messages together, both, reading what you said and what he said I was just curious it made me think it's okay, what does growth without striving look like?

Because I think that to me is really ultimately what this book is about.

Tara Mcmullin: . Yeah. So in. When I talk about what growth without striving or talk about that question and where it might lead us next, I. Also say that striving isn't necessarily a bad thing. There are ways that we use the word striving that I think are really productive and enjoyable and meaningful.

And I think the way Cologna was using the word is that, and like I, I would agree with most of what he said there. And I think when I'm talking about striving, the way I talk about it in that chapter is that sense that. This is a make or break thing. It is that striving where your identity is on the line.

It's the striving where you feel like if you don't achieve this thing, everything is gonna come crashing down around you. And I think that for a lot of people there is truth in. There's truth that we are living on the edge, Whether it's that our health insurance isn't good enough and a medical emergency could bankrupt you.

Whether it's that the business that you've owned for years and run as live events, can be completely upended because of a pandemic. Whether it is recognizing that you've got a. Job. But there's not if you're laid off, there isn't gonna be any severance because the company's too early.

There just isn't the cash. We live in, especially in the United States, we live in a country where there is almost no safety net for those of us who are self-employed. There is no safety net. And so the striving so easily turns into. The quest for survival. The quest to say just one step ahead of ruin.

And that sounds bleak. I know. And also it's true, right? So many of us don't have personal safety nets. We don't have a nest egg waiting in case there's an emergency. We don't have a job that we can fall back on. We don't have a partner that makes good money. There are so many people who are on the edge and that gets turned into striving for survival.

And so what I'm interested in with this question around what does growth without striving look like? Is looking at growth through the growth of meaning, the growth of fulfillment, the growth of satisfaction, the growth of knowledge and understanding. What does that look like? Because those are all things that I'd love to have more of in my life, and what does it look like if we can separate those things from our need and our, the activities that we do.

To survive to stay solvent in the world. And how do we approach personal growth? How do we approach challenge? How do we approach curiosity? How do we approach exploration without constantly reframing it through that transactional exchange value? Building your resume kind of lens.

That's what I'm really interested in. And so I think that, what Cologna said and what I'm saying has more overlap than not, even though we're using words differently. And yeah, that, that question still to this day is just, it gets me so excited thinking. What growth could be, what striving is or might be and how we challenge ourselves in ways that are personally productive without necessarily being economically productive.

Srini: Yeah. Wow. This has been really just mind blowingly interesting because I, it feels to me like a deep rabbit. There's so many threads where we could talk for an hour on just one of those threads.

Tara Mcmullin: Yes. Yes. Hence the book . Yeah.

Srini: I wanna finish with my final question, which I've, I know you've heard me ask before what do you think it is that makes somebody hear something unm?

Tara Mcmullin: I think what makes someone unmistakable is the pursuit of making sense of things, of looking at one's life, looking at one's work, looking at the way one is in relationship with others and. Making sense of it in a way that's unique to them. Make meaning from those things in a way that's unique to them.

Save all stuff you really need and stuff you bought for fun. Stuff you've always really wanted this holiday at Amazon. Stuff that is discounted if you are naughty or you're nice stuff to buy. Your grandma who drinks her char and nail with ice. Stuff to make you big and strong stuff. We can maybe this summer stuff for lot decking hall, big lawn stuff at

and be, and being aware of that process so that you can invite other people into it as well.

Srini: Amazing. I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us. Where can people find out more about you, your work, the book and everything on Share Up to?

Tara Mcmullin: Yeah. So Explore what works. Dot com is the website.

You can find the book there. You can find me there. You can find the podcast there. And you can listen to the What Works podcast wherever you're listening to Unmistakable Creative

Srini: Amazing. And for everyday listening, we will wrap the show with.