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I wanted to offer you the advice and very creative teachings today of Becky Blades – she founded and sold an award-winning communications firm, she’s basically run from the board room to the home room, she’s an artist herself, and she’s an inspiring and highly creative author of two books; Her first book, Do Your Laundry or You’ll Die Alone, Advice Your Mom Would Give if She Thought You Were Listening, which she wrote and illustrated, was named a Best Books of 2014 and one of the Top 100 Indie Releases by Kirkus Reviews. It received the prestigious Kirkus Starred Review and was an Amazon best seller for six consecutive years. Now she’s written another wonderfully illustrated book (her own drawings and illustrations) entitled Start More Than You Can Finish. And I wanted it to be a real fresh-er-up-er for those of you wilting in the heat of the summer or fending off one more winter storm – dependent on your hemisphere. And the Next Big Idea Club has selected it as one of “the most essential nonfiction books of the year." She calls herself a bad cook, a hopeful gardener, a passionate tree hugger and a licensed private pilot – and I’m delighted not only to have her on SelfWork... but to call her a friend. Advertisers Link: Have you been putting off getting help? BetterHelp, the #1 online therapy provider, has a special offer for you now! Vital Links: My TEDx talk that today has earned 72,000 views! You can hear more about this and many other topics by listening to my podcast, The Selfwork Podcast. Subscribe to my website and receive my weekly newsletter including a blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome! My book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression is available here! Its message is specifically for those with a struggle with strong perfectionism which acts to mask underlying emotional pain. But the many self-help techniques described can be used by everyone who chooses to begin to address emotions long hidden away that are clouding and sabotaging your current life. And it's available in paperback, eBook or as an audiobook! And there's another way to send me a message! You can record by clicking below and ask your question or make a comment. You’ll have 90 seconds to do so and that time goes quickly. By recording, you’re giving SelfWork (and me) permission to use your voice on the podcast. I’ll look forward to hearing from you! Episode Transcript This is SelfWork. And I'm Dr. Margaret Rutherford At SelfWork. We'll discuss psychological and emotional issues common in today's world and what to do about them. I'm Dr. Margaret and SelfWork is a podcast dedicated to you, taking just a few minutes today for your own selfwork. Speaker 2: Hello and welcome or welcome back to SelfWork. I'm Dr. Margaret Rutherford, and I'm so excited about bringing you a friend of mine and someone that I truly, truly admire. Becky Blades. I wanted to offer you the advice and very creative teachings of Becky today. Not only has she founded and sold an award-winning communications firm, she's basically run from the boardroom to the homeroom. She's an artist herself, and she's an inspiring and highly creative author of two books. Now, the first one was, do Your Laundry or You'll Die Alone, subtitle being Advice Your Mom Would Give If She Thought You Were Listing. She not only wrote and illustrated that book, it was named a Best book of 2014 and one of the Top 100 Indie Releases by Kirkus Reviews. And it received the prestigious Kirkus starred Review and was an Amazon bestseller for six consecutive years. Speaker 2: That is a long time. Now, she's written another wonderfully illustrated book. Again, her own drawings and illustrations entitled Start More Than You Can Finish. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. I wanted it to be a real fresher upper for those of you who are wilting in this heat of the summer, or if you're in another hemisphere, fending off one more winter storm. Her point in this book is that we can get so afraid of failing, we don't start and starting is so important. In fact, she advocates being a startist. And this book also has high praise. It's been named a Must Read by the Next Big Idea Club, which by the way, the members of that club are Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Kane, and Daniel Pink, not bad company. And they call it one of the most essential non-fiction books of the year. It is truly inspiring. Speaker 2: She calls herself a bad cook, a hopeful gardener, a passionate tree hugger, and a licensed private pilot. And I'm delighted not only to have her on SelfWork, but I'm lucky enough, like I said, to call her a friend. Before we hear Becky's interview, let's hear from BetterHelp. So many people start or go back to therapy when their kids are starting school. And that's not too long from now. So everyone's starting something new. I'd recommend calling very early for a therapist in your locale, but with better help. You don't have to worry about that. They're ready to see you when you are ready to be seen. Speaker 2: I recently heard a fascinating reframe for the idea of asking for help. Maybe you view asking for help as something someone does who's falling apart or who isn't strong. So consider this. What if asking for help means that you won't let anything get in your way of solving an issue, finding out an answer or discovering a better direction? Asking for help is much more about your determination to recognize what needs your attention or what is getting in your way of having the life you want better help. The number one online therapy provider makes reaching out about as easy as it can get. Within 48 hours, you'll have a professional licensed therapist with whom you can text, email, or talk with to guide you. And you're not having to comb through therapist websites or drive to appointments. It's convenient, inexpensive, and readily available. Now you can find a therapist that fits your needs with better help. And if you use the code or link Betterhelp.com/self work, you get 10% off your first month of sessions. So just do it. You'll be glad you did. That. Link again is better help.com/selfwork to get 10% off your first month of surfaces. Speaker 2: And now I'm delighted, absolutely delighted to introduce you if you don't already know her. To Becky Blades. I was trying to remember when you and I met, was it at a midlife bloggers Speaker 3: Associated? It was at, it was at BlogHer that in San Jose. Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, that's right. Speaker 3: And it was my first one. Do did you go to a lot of those? No, Speaker 2: I think I went to two. I went to the one there. I went to one in Chicago, I think, and then I went to that one I didn't go to anymore. Speaker 3: And who invited me were Mary Speaker 2: Mary Dell Harrington, and Mary Speaker 3: Darrell Harrington and Lisa Heffernan. And I had just put out that first book. And I, you know, gosh, I am, I'm, you know, everybody I met there was so nice. And I just have still loved maintaining those relationships. Speaker 2: Listen, I was so glad that I took the time to read all of your book because I just laughed and I smiled and I teared up a couple of times and you had me from the very beginning. Your artwork is just incredible. A line is a dot that wasn't, this is what you say, a line is a dot that wasn't afraid to get started. I mean, that's like, Speaker 3: I loved that. Yeah. And a dot can be a splatter. I mean, dots don't need to be neat, perfect little dots. They can be little cuddles. Speaker 2: I didn't remember that until it, then I refreshed my memory and I wrote it that you are also, you're an author, but you're an an artist and you're, you're, you really love combining those things. And can you, why don't you tell SelfWork listeners a little bit about you? Speaker 3: Okay. Yeah. I had a career in public relations, which came out of a degree in journalism. And so I've always liked writing. I didn't like being poor. So journalism wasn't, you know, the job that I wanted out out of school. I grew up poor. So I, I chose to find a way to make money in an, the agency business, the journalism public relations agency business. There were a lot of opportunities for creativity. So I started my own firm in when I was 30. Wow. And ran that for 13 years. And then when I, kind of parenting was at a, at a pitch that I wanted to be home and in, in my creative space at home more too, sold the business and started building what what we now call a portfolio lifestyle. So I had the business oh, I like Speaker 2: That name. I've never heard this Speaker 3: . Yeah. And, and, and then I had the, I had an art studio and I remember - to kind of jump over to this book - when I one time my soon after I sold the business, my daughters were talking, they came home from school and they wanted it an identity for me. 'Cause you know, kids talk what your mother do, you know, what does your mom do? So my youngest said, "Mom, what are you, are you an artist? Are you a business person?" And I said, "Honey, why do those labels matter?" And her sister from the other room said, "She's a startist" . 'cause I was starting some other businesses and you know, they got confused by how I dress different days. So, so during that time, I, I went through my first and second midlife crisis. First that empty nest crisis that, you know, and have been such a great expert on my first book was do Your Laundry or You'll Die Alone. Speaker 3: And that was the subject line of the email I sent my daughter of all these journal entries with advice that I was kind of afraid to give her in person. So after she left for college, I sent it all to her. And, and then, you know, after that, I'm, I, I don't mind saying I'm 64 now. And those, these past 10 years of being kind of all, you know, almost the entire time empty, nested has given me the chance to really see how what I love and what I, who I love spending time with. And I've realized it's, it's people like you who when they think they wanna do a podcast, they'll just haul off and start it, or people have ideas and act on them. So Speaker 2: No, and the, the name of this book is Start More Than You Can Finish. And, and I so agreed with it. I, one of the things that I say to patients all the time is, it doesn't matter where you go, it's that you go Exactly. Just go, just make a choice. Just go. And I, I was just humming along with your book Thinking , I agree. . Speaker 3: And it's been fun to think about the mental health aspects, of course, you know, to, to make the case for something that seems as contrarian as this notion of start more than you can finish, you know, kind of in defiance of what our parents may have said. But the mental health aspects of creativity, we're learning more and more as you know about how creativity makes us flourish and thrive and, and the and then we have other things we can talk about, anxiety, depression as I studied the neuroscience of it, I, I decided, you know, I discovered hidden benefits that I didn't know I had been partaking in. Speaker 2: Wow. What are those? Speaker 3: Well, starting with self-discovery, self-esteem, getting out of anxiety and depression. I'll, I'll tell you a story that I haven't, it didn't make it in the book and I haven't told many people because it seems like kind of a downer, and we wanted the book to be upbeat. But part of my catalyst for writing the book was I was taking art lessons to domestic violence shelters. I did this for a few years. I, I didn't call it art therapy. Now they did because mm-hmm. All art is therapy, but I'm not a, I'm not a licensed therapist. Mm-Hmm. or an art therapist. But what I discovered in my time with those amazing women is that the thing that, that spectrum of creativity, I used to think it was started with, oh, oh, I'm not creative, and ended with, oh, I can start anything on a dime. Speaker 3: Well, the spectrum really starts way over in a place where we feel totally powerless. Totally. devoid of even knowing what we like. Right. What gives us joy, what our idea of beauty is, and our inability to make a decision. So this book is about starting, it's taking that first step, like you said, it's not where you go, it's that you go. And the example is, in the very first class, these women, all of them could not even make that first initial decision. I, I would kind of lay out a little project, very simple. I had all these enticing art supplies, but they literally needed my permission to choose a color. Like, what should I start with purple? Yes. Purple would be a great place to start. They had lost, I mean, they had literally had mm-hmm. the creativity beaten out of them because creativity is, it's trusting our own ideas and owning them, and then also having the, the courage to experiment and say, okay, you know, what? If purple doesn't work well, when we're terrified, when we're traumatized, when we're stuck, I don't think we have the courage to know that the stakes aren't that high. You know, if I choose color, if I choose purple and I don't like it, I can paint over it. Sure, of course. Or as I said, I'll give you another piece of paper . Speaker 2: That's a great point. It's that shutting down of, of risk of any, even, even how what, even no matter how tiny the risk, or seemingly tiny, it's not seemingly, it's not tiny to them. It's like, oh, right. I'm gonna make a choice and it's gonna be out here for other people to see. And yeah, it's right. But, you know, I, and you may Speaker 3: Not know, you know, I think when we're beaten down, we don't know what the risks are. There's this free floating sense of, I'm taking a chance, I'm doing something I haven't didn't do yesterday. So what might happen, because, you know, life doesn't treat us rationally. And for those women who had been, you know, abused, they, they had been abused for much less things than making a wrong color decision. Right. So the healing so to, you know, get back to your first big question was the, the ancillary benefits of acting on our ideas and following that creative process are things we don't even know we need, I think. And, and yet I could really see it dramatically with those, those women who, and this was another really fun thing, is that they came out of that so fast, so joyfully really, that just a few weeks, you know, just, you just give that affirmation that Yeah, purple would be great, and that looks great, and you know what, this other color might work too. And then they start with the self, with their own self-talk. And I mean, they just, those, those stays and those shelters aren't that long. So I only got to see 'em for a short period of time, but it was, it was fast and miraculous. Speaker 2: That's incredible. You know, I got my start in this business by volunteering at a domestic shelter. Oh. Speaker 3: So you get it. Speaker 2: Love so much so, so, so much. Anyway. Mm-hmm. , you know, I, I'm gonna quote you again. It's not that finishing isn't vital and great, but not finishing is not failure. And I, I love that because you know, how many times have I heard the phrase, well, that didn't work out like, that says something bad about me. I mean, you asked in the book to, to make a list of, you know, the things we've started and didn't finish. And to make, I mean, my first tw…
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