The conversation embarks on a profound exploration of the art and significance of journaling, led by our insightful guest, Kristen Swan. Kristen unveils her innovative journal, 'Spaghetti on the Wall,' a tool designed to facilitate self-reflection and emotional clarity. She recounts her own transformative journey with journaling, which commenced during a particularly challenging phase in her life. Through the act of writing, she discovered a method to articulate her innermost thoughts and feelings, thereby fostering a deeper understanding of herself. The discussion emphasizes the therapeutic nature of journaling as a practice that not only allows individuals to document their experiences but also encourages them to engage with their emotions in a non-judgmental manner. Kristen describes her journaling approach as one that enables users to observe their daily lives through the lens of a compassionate observer, thereby cultivating a sense of awareness that can lead to personal growth. The dialogue evolves to examine the structural elements of Kristen's journal, which consists of two primary components: the initial documentation of daily experiences followed by a reflective evaluation. This dual approach empowers individuals to identify moments of joy and discomfort, thus encouraging a balanced perspective on life’s events. Kristen posits that recognizing these moments is essential for personal development, as it fosters a greater understanding of one’s needs and aspirations. The conversation further highlights the interplay between personal and professional identities, as both Anthony Wright and Adam Dietz share their reflections on how journaling has influenced their writing practices and creative endeavors. They advocate for an integrated approach that acknowledges the interconnectedness of personal narratives within professional contexts. As the episode draws to a close, Kristen articulates a vital takeaway: the journey of self-exploration is not about altering one’s essence but rather about embracing authenticity. The tools provided in her journal serve to guide individuals toward self-acceptance and a deeper trust in their unique journeys. By fostering a spirit of curiosity and introspection, individuals are encouraged to align their actions with their core values and intentions, ultimately enhancing their contributions to their communities and relationships. The episode encapsulates a rich tapestry of themes surrounding identity, creativity, and the human experience, leaving listeners with an invigorated sense of purpose and the encouragement to engage more fully with their own life narratives.

Takeaways:

1. Maintaining a journal serves as an invaluable tool for self-reflection and personal growth.
2. Kristen Swan emphasizes the importance of recognizing and celebrating genuine moments of joy in daily life.
3. The concept of a non-judgmental observer is pivotal for effective journaling and self-discovery.
4. The discussion highlights the necessity of integrating humanity into business practices for holistic success.
5. Writing can be a transformative experience, allowing individuals to express their creative selves.
6. The conversation underscores the significance of aligning personal values with professional endeavors to foster authenticity.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

1. KristenSwan.com

I'm Anthony Wright and I am your co host today on the Living Conversation with Adam Dietz.

Welcome back.

And we're here with our guest, Kristen Swan.

And before the break, Kristen, you were talking about a journal that you called Spaghetti on the Wall.

And I, I wanted to reflect that I had a, A difficult personal time when I was in my early 30s, and I began to keep a journal at that time and I've kept one ever since.

And I find it to be one of the most useful tools that I can recommend to people because you can write stuff down and, and kind of go back and go, oh, that's where I was and here's what I'm happy.

Oh, and that's how that relates.

And kind of again, this exercise that Peter Elbow talks about in timed writing, you kind of empty out your head and then you kind of go, oh, now all this clutter is gone.

What's, what is this here?

That.

That's here.

That seems to be now being an inspiring thing.

Yeah.

And.

And I, I'm kind of getting that.

Is that what you're wanting your clients to do?

Yeah, I recommend.

I sell the journal on my website and I use it daily myself.

And when I initially conceived of my journal, and I always, as a little kid even I had the diaries with the lock on them that was very easy to break into.

I didn't have siblings, so I wasn't worried about anyone reading my diary.

But I.

What an interesting thing to have your awareness about where you were then.

Yeah.

But it is also, I mean, I think also why I'm so sensitive to having.

Encouraging people to write is that while I was doing a diary and journaling kind of.

Of for as long as I can remember.

And it's always been.

I mean, sometimes it's fits and starts.

Right.

I mean, it's not.

It hasn't been this perfect journey of journaling, but is, I don't know, in terms of writing anything that I was willing to share to other people.

That took a while for me.

And so I actually had to kind of go through different creative modalities and mediums before I was confident enough kind of to find my voice, essentially.

So, I mean, I have a background in fine art.

Oh, okay.

Photography, printmaking, you know, collage, painting.

That was very much a way to express myself when I wasn't necessarily trusting that there was.

That I was adept enough to.

That my words were going to convey what I meant.

And it took a while for me to get there.

So I think that that informs both the way That I set up my journal which allows people to journal.

I call it kind of in a.

Part of the prompt is to write about.

I write each morning.

So I'm really writing about the day past.

And I'm writing about the day past through the eyes of the non judgmental observer.

And then I really like this idea of word painting that seems to be like what you're doing.

Yes.

Yeah.

And so I'm doing this non judgmental observer journaling and documenting.

And then the next part of the journal really asks you.

It's called the experience evaluator and it asks you to pull kind of those, those yeses out of the day.

Right.

What were, what were some bright spots and they don't have to be, you know, big mouth.

I mean it's not like it's got to be a fireworks show every day, but just even noticing.

I mean sometimes for me it can be being able to take a walk and I got to, you know, see some birds or something.

I mean it can, it can be these small but just kind of of noticing what are those, those genuine life affirming moments in your day.

And then the other part of the experience evaluator is noticing those moments where I call it the not so much which is like oof.

That's just not really that And I like to call it not so much because I don't, it's like we don't need to make it bad.

And it doesn't mean that it is not the right fit fit forever.

It just means, you know, yesterday, you know, waiting until I was so hungry to eat and you know, because I was waiting for all these other people because I was trying to people please them because you know, this, you know that didn't.

That was a not so much so and again that's a like a little tidy examples but it could be a bigger thing.

And so just noticing.

And again, I think what I'm trying to get at in this, this, this journal format is like get to know who you are and honor yourself.

Because I feel like there's this.

I haven't quite figured out the perfect equation form of it, but it's like, you know, the constant has to be this curiosity, right?

And then you get to.

You get this knowing about yourself and trusting in yourself and then you can do less harm and do less harm to yourself and by extension less harm to others by making choices that are actually yours and that are in alignment with the person that you know yourself to be and want to be and, and how you want to engage with the world.

That's great.

That's great.

Do we have time, Anthony?

Yes.

Okay, so I just wanted to say I love what you're saying and it's really inspiring to me and it makes me reflect more on my own journey, especially over the past year.

As many of our listeners know, our philosophy department was totally cut.

And the day I turned in grades, I decided I had been working on a manuscript for a while.

But on that note, I will say that it was very helpful for me, actually.

I was.

Ever since my dissertation many years ago, I knew and committed.

I wanted to write more, but I couldn't.

I had little kids for, for one thing, so sometimes you, you know, you kind of beat yourself up a little bit.

But I will say that something very strange happened where we talk so much about technology.

I ended up writing on my phone.

So once we found out we were getting laid off almost a year ago to the day, I said, that's it.

I'm inspired to write the class that I taught because I taught it in such a way that it was a story.

So I wrote the class I taught.

Like writing what you know.

Right.

Yeah.

And the biggest way for me to get it out was wake up in the morning when I'm in bed still and start almost typing a whole chapter on my phone.

So I just, I just want to say that I wanted to mention that because I feel like for our listeners, for our audience, that, yes, if you can write any way you want and write anything you want, Anthony and I are both have a side hustle.

Like I'm a part time soccer coach, Anthony's a piano tuner.

If, if I wanted to write about coaching soccer and the different kids I've met along the way and that kind of thing, then, then that's really a good start.

So.

Right, right what, you know, and go ahead and get started.

And I just wanted to say, like, you're inspiring me to think of it in those terms.

So I hope that that kind of piggybacks off your work.

Oh, absolutely.

And I, you know, I write and post weekly on Substack and you know, there's all these great formats, right.

To share and you know, who knows how many people actually read it.

But it's.

I write for myself and, and I just, I write about what I'm thinking about in the moment, you know, kind of a few days earlier, and I'll go in and clean it up and put a photo with it that I've taken.

That means something to me.

And, and I love that and I love That I love that it's, I finally am in a place of giving myself permission to do something like that and to also that there are these places that we can gather and it's virtually.

But that we can gather our, our kind of collective creativity because that is energetically, that's, that's so just, it's, it's so ripe with possibility.

Great.

Yeah.

And it seems like just making that space for that to happen becomes something that offers tremendous permission.

One of the things.

And we're coming up on a short break here, but I'm, I'm along with Adam, I'm a philosopher, Scott, a philosophy scholar, doctoral level philosophy scholar that's going through a business program and boy, has that been a different experience.

So I would be very interested to know what it is that you bring to your business clients in how.

Because business is all, it seems to me so far that business is all about counting stuff and it's linear and about, well, okay, I have to have this and I have to be able to be accountable to the people who are investing.

And we're going to determine about whether this is a worthy project or not by counting and seeing how soon it's going to mature and do these mathematical things.

But it's all about counting stuff.

But what about the humanity, you know, And I think some of that and that's one of the things that I want to bring to my writing after I am done with the program to bring a bit more about how do we bring more humanity into our daily life rather than just being locked into this limited dimension of business.

Yeah.

So just a quick mention of that and then we'll take a short break and come back.

So what are your directions in a couple minutes that we have before the break?

Yeah, that's not a short topic, but I will say I love the idea of thinking differently or thinking maybe not differently is the right word, but expanding our thinking or our understanding around business.

Because I really do think when you talk about existential crises that capitalism is our existential crises in a way much more.

I mean and interwoven with that is, is climate and.

Right.

Other social justice issues.

But I think we can, we can dive in a little bit.

All right.

Well, we'll take a short break and be right back.

I'm Anthony Wright and I'm your co host today on the Living Conversation with Adam Dietz.

Thanks for joining me.

We're here with our guest, Kristen Swan.

And how can people contact you, Kristen?

Please find me at my website, KristinSwan.com and it is Kristen K R I S T A N KristenSwan.com all one word.

All right, we'll take a short break and be right back.

So stay tuned.

I'm Anthony Wright.

I'm your co host today on the Living Conversation with Adam Dietz.

Welcome back.

And we are talking tonight or today with our guest Kristen Swan.

And before the break I had asked you a question that needs to be kind of unpacked more about how to bring humanity and, and how do you work with your business clients with the writing practice that you do?

Well, I, I have primarily I, for the most part I've really moved exclusively into the work that I do now with workshops and retreats.

So my, my practice at this moment is, is still very much about small group facilitation.

However, I, I have, I come from a very, I mean this is my own business that I do this.

And I also have always been highly entrepreneurial.

I didn't know that's what it was when I was you know, 11 years old and knocking on my neighbors doors because I knew that they were going away or had just gotten a dog or something and I saw, you know, I saw an opportunity to provide a solution for them.

Right, right.

And I, I love, I mean the, how I ended up becoming a business coach is because I, I had either worked in small independ for most of my career or had my own business.

And it was funny.

What I realized is I wasn't really that tied to a specific industry.

I was more tied to the idea of I loved creating businesses because really what I loved is I loved supporting kind of other people being successful and

away from a corporation because that can be really scary for some folks.

Yeah, I didn't end up ever working for a corporation but, and most of my business coaching clients were because of the world I was in, were independent business owners and so people who were the business founders and owners and so helping them kind of grow with their business.

Because I think that there's you know, kind of these different mindsets that we need to adopt at different stages of our, our businesses life.

But back to your original question around that humanity piece.

I think that it is, it is.

So I think that there is a, a need to be very clear about the desired outcome of whatever endeavor you are embarking on.

Right.

And within that is embedded that mission statement.

Right.

And that being a real North Star, so to speak as the business evolves and kind of, because a mission statement, a well crafted mission statement is one that is very different from kind of your kind of yearly vision for the business.

It's very foundational to what you are creating.

And as something that's foundational is going to be that bedrock that you're able to grow upon.

Would you say that's like a value structure?

In part it is values.

I mean, a lot of times when working with clients, we would talk about kind of mission, vision and values, I think.

Oh, okay.

So I think that your values and examining what those are, is.

Is key to crafting the mission statement.

But not necessarily the mission statement is more about your naming who you are and what you do and kind of why.

And those are supported around those values.

And the values are going to be really important as you are thinking about your presence, your outward facing presence with the world.

Right.

So as you get into kind of brand development, so to speak, but your values are also first and foremost going to be so important for that internal structure and culture.

Yeah.

There's an author named Simon Sinek who talks about getting to why.

Yep.

And, and, but also my being that I'm doing this business degree, I'm looking at business ethics.

Right.

And.

Well, what.

What's that?

And that's also about how.

And I really appreciate part of what the reflective process is in the journal writing is we get to notice our own.

How would you say that's true?

Yeah, I would say that's true.

And I think that is kind of what I'm also suggesting as.

The naming of the desired outcome.

Right.

And just, I mean, in a very simple way to illustrate what I'm talking about is, for instance, if you and all three of us are, we're in a company together and we need to have a meeting and we're going to have sandwiches or we're going to have lunch together for our meeting.

And so the desired outcome is that we have a meeting where we have some food so that we're not getting hangry.

But how we do that is there's a whole bunch of different ways.

I mean, we might decide that we're all going to get sandwiches.

Right.

So even if I say I'm going to be the person that runs out and gets those versus Adam, like I may decide to walk there because I have enough time and I can take a call.

So that's the how of how I'm getting.

Whereas you're like, okay, I've got this much time and I'm going to just, I'm going to look at the map and I'm going to optimize my route and I'm going to hop on My bike and go this way.

And you know, Anthony, if at the last minute we had to get you to get the sandwiches, you might have to hop in the car.

So there's.

And so then looking at all those different ways that all those different hows to get those sandwiches.

Is there a way within our three house that is more in alignment with the value structure of what we are doing?

If we are what everyone has agreed to do.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, if we're all about.

I mean, if we're just optimizing and we're all about fast, fast, fast, then maybe, you know, maybe actually the bike is the fastest way because you don't have to worry about parking and you're not going to get in.

You know, you can kind of wiggle through some of those traffic lights.

But maybe the, you know, maybe we're.

We're kind of doing the slow food version of whatever.

So the walking part is.

Is actually part of our company ethos, right.

That we can be.

We can be walking and taking calls at the same time.

So that's kind of a tiny example of kind of how that lived experience.

That's really interesting because I also feel like it comes down to how we are as people.

How do we interact?

I'm writing an article that's coming out next month and Big Think Business about nine Confucian steps for emotional intelligence in the workplace.

And this all about how you are.

If you're angry, you should be circumspect.

When someone's saying something to you, you need to hear it clearly.

So there's nine different ways to relate how to be in the office place.

I feel like we overlook that part of how are we practicing our humanity?

How are we maintaining harmony in all our different fields?

And sometimes the desired outcome or the company goal or, or whatnot can really be jumbled up and torn asunder by disharmony in the workplace.

I think this also relates to.

And Confucian values is always about how that manifests in the family.

So I think, right.

I think talking about how we are as human beings, how we respond to things really is important in every place that we go to.

So when we're talking about how are we choosing to walk, Are we choosing to ride a bike, are we choosing to take the car?

I think we can also look at that.

How are we choosing to promote harmony in the workplace?

Are we choosing to be egotistical and just take everything we can?

I think these are important hows of.

And it relates to your work with the spirituality.

Right.

Yeah, Well, I love that, Adam.

And that really highlights too, I think the, the beauty and the gift to myself with working primarily with independent business owners is.

And part of the reason why I was inspired to make spaghetti on the wall when I was deep in this work was how there wasn't, I mean, this construct of our professional Persona and our personal Persona as being these, these very, you know, distinct boxes within our selves is, is.

It's just, I mean, it's, it's just that it's just a construct and.

Right.

And that to recognize our.

Again, kind of going back to one of our earlier conversations, the, the wholeness of ourselves and so the.

In.

And embracing that in our teams too.

And I think there's an interesting phenomenon that I've seen both in smaller businesses and larger businesses where people are hired and they get hired for the qualities that they have.

Right.

When you're interviewing, you're just, you know, you're all about, you know, all about your, your different strengths and all the things that you do well.

And, and you get hired for that.

And, and hopefully you really get hired for your attitude.

So again, you get hired for that.

And, and then there can be a.

Sometimes there, there can be this thing where we can kind of lose those pieces of ourselves in order to, in order to.

In some ways, we're doing this because we think it's the way towards harmony within the organization.

And I don't necessarily have the answer, but I think a really interesting point of tension is how do you create that culture within your organization that is still really celebrating those beautiful individual characteristics of these people as well as bringing that harmony that you're talking about making a blend there?

So.

Well, we're coming to the end of the interview.

If there was one thing you'd like our listeners to know about your work, what would that be?

Oh, well, my work is I'm not here to change people.

I am here to really, hopefully offer some simple, accessible tools to get to know yourself better and to trust yourself and, and, and be more at ease with yourself and, and hopefully, you know, embrace your, your whole complete wonderfulness.

Great.

Well, thank you for being with us.

I'm Anthony Wright and I'm your co host today on the Living Conversation with Adam Dietz.

Thanks for joining, everyone.

We've been here with our guest, Kristen Swan.

And how can people contact you?

Kristen, please take a look@kristenswan.com that is my website and Kristen is K R I S T A N. Great.

Well, thanks for being here and we will see you next time.