Uncharted Paths

Weaving Wisdom: Lauren Nichols on Law, Life, and Creativity

Episode Summary

In today's episode, get ready to dive into the extraordinary journey of Lauren Nichols ('03). From navigating the complexities of corporate law to embracing the artistry of basket weaving and teaching high schoolers, Lauren's story is a testament to the power of following one's creative calling despite external pressures. Join us as we explore themes of financial challenge, the pursuit of creativity, and the profound wisdom gained from listening to one's inner voice. Lauren Nichols is not just an educator and former lawyer; she's a passionate advocate for practical creativity in every facet of her life. Stay tuned as Lauren shares her insights, challenges, and triumphs that will inspire you to discover your own path of learning and creativity.

Episode Transcription

[00:00:00] Welcome to Uncharted Paths. The podcast that dives deep into the journeys of courageous individuals who listen to their inner wisdom and forge paths of authentic expression. In a world where conventional success often overshadows personal passion, we illuminate those who have dared to venture off the beaten track.

In season one, we're uncovering the untold stories of unique alumni from Harvard-Westlake School. You may recognize names like astronaut Sally Ride, the former mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, and actors Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal. But now we're shining a light on the hidden gems. I'm Lindsey. And I'm Kristin.

Join us as we explore the stories of these remarkable individuals, share their triumphs and challenges, and uncover the lesson that can inspire possibility for all, especially today's generation. It's time to follow your heart and chart your own path. Welcome to Uncharted [00:01:00] Paths.

In today's episode, get ready to dive into the extraordinary journey of Lauren Nichols. From navigating the complexities of corporate law to embracing the artistry of basket weaving and teaching high schoolers, Lauren's story is a testament to the power of following one's creative calling despite external pressures.

Join us as we explore themes of financial challenge, the pursuit of creativity, and the profound wisdom gained from listening to one's inner voice. Lauren Nichols is not just an educator and former lawyer. She's a passionate advocate for practical creativity in every facet of her life. Stay tuned as Lauren shares her insights, challenges, and triumphs that will inspire you to discover your own path of learning and creativity.

Lauren, thank you so much for being here with us today. 

Thank you for having me. I'm really excited. 

And what led you to say yes after you found out about being on the [00:02:00] show? 

 I thought it was an amazing idea. I was really excited to be able to work with both of you and as an educator and someone who's in the classroom every day as I'm teaching, I can't help but think of myself at this age, age of my students, middle school, high school, think of myself now, think about the paths that I was considering then versus now. And just thinking that, I don't feel like there's enough conversations in our culture about designing the life you want. There's a lot of conversations about competition.

There's a lot of conversations about following the beaten path, but I don't think we're necessarily given the opportunity to spend a lot of time thinking about how to listen to that interior voice and chart the life that you want. And I think especially, certain communities have so much privilege.

I think the Harvard-Westlake community, no matter what your background is, once you're part of this community, you have access to a lot of privilege. So you actually have the opportunity to build exactly the life [00:03:00] you want. And so then it's thinking about what are the things that might get in the way of that.

And so just anything that helps to open and broaden that conversation is really exciting to me. 

And when you were talking about the beaten path, versus the uncharted path. What does uncharted mean to you? 

To me, it's about authenticity. I think all of us have that one special thing, or maybe multiple things, that allow us to be the highest and most authentic version of ourselves.

And I think, one path to success is definitely learning how to color in the lines, figure out the system, figure out how the rules work. But that's not necessarily authentic. That's an external practice rather than something that's internal. And so I think if you're on the beaten path, you have aligned and attuned yourself to External standards, which for some people works perfectly because whatever those external standards are, whatever that system is, it was built for them or built for people like them, so [00:04:00] it's perfectly fine for them to follow that.

But if you don't have that and doing that is not authentic, then that's where we get to the uncharted path of thinking, Okay, so how do I chart my own course that's resonates with me. 

And in your Harvard-Westlake experience, where did you find opportunities to tap into your heart led guidance?

Definitely with the arts. So I was, a big ceramics buff. I was always in the clay room. And then with the performing arts, particularly with singing, I did all of the different singing groups. and I loved that. I think actually while I was at Harvard-Westlake, I was really good at just doing stuff that I was interested in.

I was not that transactional student at all. I did exactly what I wanted. I loved all my classes. I feel like I got such a good education. And then something strange happened when I went to college. I said, okay, well, I'm an adult now. I had this idea that if it comes naturally, then it can't be right because [00:05:00] things that come naturally, they might be challenging, but they're easy.

It's easy to find the space and the wherewithal to do it. So I think for me, the stuff that came easy to me, I thought, well, one, how am I ever going to make any money off of that? And two, that can't be what life is about. Life is about struggle, challenge, doing things the hard way. That's the right way. And so, I kept singing, although not as much, stopped acting, didn't do ceramics, didn't do any arts.

And then when you talk about your experience at Harvard-Westlake and then going to college, The college experience, choosing which school you went to, did you make a charted choice or a heart led uncharted choice?

That's an interesting question. So I went to Duke undergrad, and there was only one other Harvard-Westlake person, who went. I'm a little bit of a contrarian, so not a lot of people went to the South, not a lot of people went to North Carolina. [00:06:00] so in that way, it was attractive to me, but one of the primary reasons I chose it is because they gave me a scholarship.

It wasn't my first choice. But I thought it made the most financial sense. Obviously, it's an excellent school. I got a great education there, made some wonderful friends, I definitely don't regret the experience at all. But it was not a heart led choice, no. 

What was the heart led choice at the time?

So I really liked Yale. That was my first choice, but the financial aid package wasn't great. And in retrospect, I don't regret that. So in terms of the uncharted path, I think one of the traps, and it's so predatory, and I think our generation, millennials, really felt it negatively, but debt, debt is a trap that will keep you glued to the beaten path.

And it's a vicious cycle. So I'm glad that I made the educational choice that led me to have less debt, although I still had. and [00:07:00] have plenty of student debt. So I don't regret that choice. I mean, you can't unweave the tapestry of your life.

You unweave one thread and then you might lose something that you really like. So I don't really think of it in those terms, but ceramics, becoming a ceramicist. I think that would have been it. 

Was there a time or place where you could feel like, something inside of you being like, wait, this doesn't feel so right.

I do think about that a lot. So I remember I was studying for the LSAT senior year, which is the exam you take to get into law school. And I had a panic attack. It took me a minute to realize that it was a panic attack because I hadn't had one like that before. And I had an exam in another class. I remember being like, okay, you got 20 minutes to lose it.

And then you got to get it together and go. And nothing like that had ever happened to me academically. Like, I'm a big nerd. I love learning. 

 I had never had an experience around a test. I don't have [00:08:00] test taking anxiety. So that was interesting. And I thought to myself, because I think I'd gotten like a 150 on it on a practice test and.

They said, Oh, if you want to go to a top school, you need a 170 at least. So I had been taking all these practice tests, not scoring very well. And I thought, you know what, whatever, I'm just going to apply. 

I'm going to go with my 150 score to apply to these schools, and if they take me, they take me, if they don't, they don't. And then I had a meeting with the Dean of Admissions from USC. and she said to me, with your grades, with your background, if you get a higher score, you can go anywhere.

So I highly encourage you to take the LSAT again. and so I did, and I think I got my 170. And had my pick of law schools went to NYUI kind of do think back to that moment of like what would've happened if I had just stuck with my 1 53? 'cause I had to contort myself a little bit to rise to that occasion.

And then law school, I was so [00:09:00] disengaged. I mean, I hated law school not to say anything bad about NYU, excellent school, really nice people, made some wonderful friends, but it was just a very alienating experience for me. And so I hated every minute of law school. I've always been that student who did my homework, sat in the front row, raised my hand, really enjoyed the experience of learning, but that was not me.

On your journey, you mentioned the panic attack. Would you say that would be trying to redirect you? 

So I Didn't actually know what anxiety was. I was such an anxious person. It was just a state of being There's a lot of anxiety within my family so It took realizing that I was anxious to suddenly realize, okay, where is that anxiety coming from? And of course the root of it I think is the repression of emotions, the silencing of that inner voice, forcing myself to do things that didn't feel authentic.

[00:10:00] In that instance, I don't know that I would specifically say that, that panic attack was because I was doing something I shouldn't have been doing. Absolutely. And in general, just being aware of the emotional landscape, I think that's for hyper competitive, ambitious, high achieving people.

A lot of times, to do that high achieving, you have to turn off your emotional landscape. one of the professors that I had in law school that I loved, Carol Gilligan, she's this feminist psychologist, and she talks a lot about the concept of dissociation. And how, living in a patriarchal society requires that.

She was the first person to introduce me to that idea. And the course that I took, it was called Resisting Injustice. Which is a great title for a course. that kind of was the first thing that set me on the path to begin really questioning and thinking about what am I doing, why am I following these kind of toxic ideas towards success.

And I think that was really where I started thinking about my [00:11:00] emotional landscape.

And it took years to unravel and think about, figure out, but anxiety is a good messenger, but there are better ones, right? Because anxiety is a secondary emotion. It's what happens when you're covering your primary emotions. and during the time, you were in law school, were there other things going on in your life that you were more passionate about?

I had the great privilege of having Derrick Bell as my constitutional law professor. So he's famous now as one of the founders of critical race theory. learning about critical race theory in law school was really important to me because all of the alienation that I felt in law school was the system is so very clearly rigged in favor of elites and white supremacy, but you're not allowed to see it or talk about it. That's just how the system works, and it's objective, and it's fair. And that was such nonsense to me. So when I finally started taking critical race theory classes, and actually also some [00:12:00] feminist jurisprudence, and basically some critical legal theory I was like, oh this is reflecting the world that exists for me. And so to the extent that I was a good student in law school, it was all related to those classes. So I was very interested in social justice, very interested in thinking about structural racism as it operates within the law, patriarchy, all those kinds of things.

So it's law related, but I never thought about pursuing a career in those because you can get a career, become a civil rights litigator, Making 60, 000 a year and I was going to be coming out of law school with 200, 000 worth of debt. I can make 60, 000 a year having not gone to college or going to college and then, just getting any random job.

So again, it just didn't make financial sense to me. And if you're noticing a theme that the main thing that drove most of my decisions when I was young, is that I was driven by money, that is a theme, and so [00:13:00] thinking now back about what does it mean to have an uncharted path, part of that is believing that the money will come.

That you don't have to be totally constrained by it. Now that's a very privileged statement to make. If you don't come from a certain level of a social safety net, right, for me, if things totally went sideways, I could always move home with my parents. Not everybody can do that. I have this elite education.

Not everybody has that. So, I would say that the faith that the money will always come is a very privileged place to be but I actually do think it's true. regardless of where you come from, that the money will come if you are being authentic to yourself. Now you can't be frivolous and crazy, right?

Like can't just be like, okay, well the money's coming so I can, do whatever I want to do. But, when I became a teacher, my salary got cut in half. and that was a challenge to adjust to, especially with the loans that I had. I figured out how to make it [00:14:00] work and I know that any future career moves I make, money can't buy time.

And you can't take it with you. So the thing that I've come to now in thinking about my journey is I want to prioritize having my time and spending exactly how I want to. as the highest goal. And that's not something that money can buy you. Unless you're rich enough to retire, which I don't think is in the cards for me. Retire early, I should say. What was that rock bottom moment in corporate law that made you look up? 

 I was at what's called a white shoe law firm, those are the kind of elite top, 10 law firms and the people, the culture, it all just really rubbed me the wrong way.

 I got called in on a Sunday to do some work. I was, second or third year at that point. And the mid level associate had messed up a document. 

So I go in, I'm wearing a sundress, I got my hair [00:15:00] tied up, and I'm thinking I'll just be there for a few hours, but I ended up having to pull an all nighter. And so I remember my secretary had come in the next morning, it's like 8 or 9 in the morning, and she's like, oh, you look fresh as a daisy, and the first year looks like crap.

And I was like, do I want to be living this life where it doesn't show? Like, I'm so practiced at working all night that you can't tell. do I really want to live this life? I thought, I'm not doing this anymore. So I decided to pivot and I went to a different law firm, went to a different practice area, hoping that that would be better.

 I don't think it matters what the practice area is. I don't think it matters what the firm is. I don't want to do this. 

And it's funny because a friend who was Also at Harvard-Westlake, a year below me, I had graduated and started law school. She was in her last year of college and I went to visit her and she said, You know, when you were a [00:16:00] sophomore, you said, Oh yeah, I'm going to go to law school and make six figures.

I'm going to hate it. But, Oh, well, how else am I going to make six figures? I did not remember saying that, but I said, Oh, wow. I formulated that plan in 10th grade and then followed through on it. And I had that cavalier naivety of youth like, oh, yeah, it doesn't matter if you hate what you're doing for a while.

The money will be worth it. It doesn't have to be forever. And you don't think about the investment of time and spirit that goes into it. So I had to make a pivot from that.

 I had to think. What are the jobs I've done where I genuinely like them, and I've always liked teaching. And I said to myself, okay, here's my rule for my job hunt.

I can't lie in the interview. Because everybody knows what you're supposed to say in the interview. I can make up positive spins all day long about how I love the challenge and this, that, and the other. It's a lie. So I said, okay, what's a job where I can do this and I don't have to lie. And teaching came [00:17:00] up as one.

And so I decided to become a teacher and I went through that transition from law to teaching. And it's been a good transition. this feels much more aligned with my values, with the kind of lifestyle that I want to live.

So, I'm definitely happy I made that choice.

When you talk about the decision to go into teaching, What did that exploration process look like? 

I decided that I didn't want to do really anything corporate, that I wanted to move in a different direction. And so in terms of making the transition, I reached out to my network. I had several friends who were teachers, and then I reached out to my old teachers at Harvard Westlake, just asking, how would you make the transition from being a lawyer to being a teacher?

And there are actually quite a few people who are teachers here who have followed that trajectory. Uh, really asking for help and leaning on the experts to try and figure out, what steps to [00:18:00] take.

And I think that's essential for an uncharted path. You can't do it by yourself. It has to be authentic to you, but you do not do it alone. And that individualism or that rugged individualism that is so often touted as you make your own way in the world. It's absolutely not true. with anything you figure out what you want, and then you ask for help to help you get there.

And it's a vulnerable thing to do, but embracing vulnerability is also something that is really important in terms of being an authentic path because you're putting yourself out there, you can't hide behind, Oh, well, this is what the rules said. This is what they told me I needed to do. It's not really me.

When you put yourself out there fully and are expressing and engaging with your desires, that's very visible and then can feel very vulnerable. And asking for help with that, well, it's what you want, why don't you know how to do it? It can be easy to get caught up in those kinds of mind games, but the moment you start asking for help, [00:19:00] like you said, you realize, oh, this is normal, this is how it's done, and it becomes so much easier and so much more freeing.

Did you feel like you were disappointing anyone when you left your law career to go into teaching? 

Teaching is respectable enough, even though it's not a well compensated profession, it is, um, everybody said, oh, teachers, bless teachers, everybody has a teacher they love that changed their life.

So I think because it has, social value, if not economic value, that I felt good with that. And then of course, I'm the one repaying my law school loans. I'm the one repaying my undergrad loans. I think, if my parents had paid for my undergraduate education, or my law school education, I might've felt more beholden to them or, weirder about that because I was the one having to face the financial fallout for that.

Which, I think I would need to do some thinking around that, right? I mean, if anybody has invested in me, it was their choice to invest in me. [00:20:00] And you can't control other people's choices, and you don't have to apologize for them, and you're not responsible for them. this idea of feeling guilty for your choices that aren't directly negatively impacting someone, but maybe is, you know, flouting their investment or something like that.

In terms of the narrative that needs to be rethought or examined is the idea of merit or deserving. we deserve to follow our intuition, especially if it's not hurting anybody else.

If it's hurting someone's idea of us, that's their problem, not ours. And particularly with family, that can be challenging. I guess perhaps for me, the transition from lawyer to teacher, I didn't feel like that hurt my parents idea of me. I definitely, I do think about my grandmother, my great aunt. so both of them, grew up in the Jim Crow South.

There was no high school for them in their town. Their [00:21:00] parents had to fight for a high school to be created for them. my great aunt Elaine was a teacher. My grandmother worked as a teacher and worked in education various ways. So in some ways I felt like moving to education was honoring them.

But I also do think about, their lives, the opportunities that I've had that they have not had. And, they have never said anything other than being supportive. My great aunt Elaine has passed since, but I do wonder, you know, they would have been civil rights lawyers, right? I have no doubt about that.

And so sometimes I do think To what extent should the privileges and the gifts that I've been granted be used in a way that would make them proud? But I think ultimately what they have hoped for, and I think what anybody from that generation would hope for, is being able to listen to those whispers and build exactly the life you want.

That's ultimately the greatest privilege. [00:22:00] And so again, going back to that merit or that deserving. I think that people who really love and support you will love and support that you are building the life that is authentic to you. 

And do you feel like you made sacrifices along the way? 

I definitely made sacrifices, they were of the intangible or the metaphysical kind.

I didn't realize I had a soul until I felt it dying. it definitely took a toll on my mental health, my quality of life, my perspective on what life as an adult was. I looked around and I'm just like, how is everybody doing this? I can't do this forever. This is miserable. It made no sense how I saw people moving through the world like everything was fine.

So yeah, it absolutely did take a toll. but I think it also fostered growth because when you realize that a situation is untenable, then you have to figure out how to fix it. And that has a lot to do with [00:23:00] digging into your values and your standards and aligning that to yourself, without concern for what others will say. 

And now in teaching, have you been able to weave in your prior learnings through, from college, law school, life experience, your own journey into the work you do now? 

That's really important to me. So, uh, I created a course here called Race, Identity, and Law. in American society, 

That was great because that was all about what I had learned in law school in terms of thinking about how structural racism and law interconnect and how law is the scaffolding for it. And that's been a really wonderful course to teach with students, because there are so many students here who are interested in social justice, have gotten tastes of it in their history classes, but the history courses have to cover so much that there's not that opportunity to go in depth, so this is their opportunity to go in depth.

And then I think, in terms of the history courses that [00:24:00] I teach, you're not going to remember the dates, the names. I'm giving a basic structure for people to have a sense of this is how our world got to be the way it is. I, I know just from myself, I don't remember all those details that I learned from various classes.

But what I really want students to take away is It's a way of thinking. And what's really valuable to me, this idea that the world isn't what they tell you it is. So you can't always or ever take things at face value. You have to ask the question, why is this information being presented this way?

To whose benefit is this? what agenda do they have? Why do they have the agenda that they have? And so that's how I orient my history teaching. Uh, a lot of historiography, which all of my students now know that word. one of the fascinating challenges I find in teaching is finding that scaffolding and thinking about how to break down information so that it's accessible [00:25:00] to, people of all different ages and levels.

 And would you say from your experiences there's a word or a few words that describe the skills you've gained from Just taking your different paths and not sticking to the charted? 

So first is being able to hear that interior voice which I had to work really hard to do because the more obedient you are to the system, you have to silence that voice.

 So being able to listen to that voice and hear my sense of intuition again, that was a skill I had to rebuild, definitely. creative problem solving, absolutely. Society is set up for us to be employees and to follow certain paths and certain jobs have more prestige than others.

And so, if you want just the starter set of here, everything is laid out for you just go from point A to point B to point C. you're rewarded in the ease of [00:26:00] that, but where's the satisfaction in that? And so if you don't want to do that, if you again want a more authentic path, there's a lot of creative problem solving that might have to be built into that to get similar structures that work for you, but that aren't already prefabricated.

And I guess I'd say another skill again would just be that critical thinking piece of trying to catch myself, When I have a narrative of, oh, the good way is the hard way. Why do I think that? Where does that idea come from? To whose benefit is it that I have this idea? And again, kind of zooming out and thinking about the way that the narrative is presented to see, do I want to participate in this or do I want to tell a different story?

Being both a student at Harvard Westlake and then going into a different career, coming back as a teacher, you have a first person lens on everything that's going on here. how has the school or the environment changed to maybe foster healthier emotional [00:27:00] environment or give kids space to maybe take an exploration? I think about our incredible arts program, all the amazing electives and choices that students have the opportunity to take advantage of. There's courses here that you wouldn't even get in grad school. So, for the student, who has that inner voice or already knows their passion, or maybe is just even exploring and happens to stumble upon something.

I think there's a lot of space for that. now we have the Kutler Center. We have interdisciplinary studies. That's the department that my course race, identity, and law was in.

I also taught a course on genocide. I taught an ethics course, but there's so many amazing courses within that department. 

The goal is to be more student centered and more student generated. So, I know in my courses, my final project I gave them structure because they're used to structure, but I also said, you are free to do whatever you want. And I [00:28:00] definitely had kids take me up on that in some incredible projects come through. 

I don't know if experimentation though is valued as much as the more structured path in part because experimentation is not as safe. Right? When you have the structure, when, a student says, Okay, well, what exactly do I have to do to get an A? And then there's a clear path forward.

It's very different from an assignment, for example, where it says, Okay, well, what do you want to do? Let me give you a blank page. Give me something back. You get an A automatically. A lot of students feel uncomfortable with that. They don't know how to harness that. And I think a lot of teachers might feel uncomfortable with that too, thinking, well, I'm not giving them the scaffolding that they need.

But I think sometimes having the opportunity to not be scaffolded and to just explore and experiment without a goal in mind, per se, just kind of experimenting with the process, I think that's really valuable. I [00:29:00] wish that we gave them more space to explore in the core classes. I think that's a piece that's missing. it's definitely a conversation. It's something that we're working towards, And now there's way more options for students. So there's a lot of stuff that's designed to be more about, growth mindset and, you know, one failure isn't going to wreck you. 

 And in your journey now, exactly where you are today, what is alive for you? 

 I'm always full of random hobbies. I started up with basketry, basket weaving. Uh, so I'm super into ceramics and I love ceramics. 

 I was thinking about, could I find a similar, more sustainable hobby?

And so I switched into basketry because it's very similar. In fact, a lot of people think that ceramics came out of basketry, if you look at human evolution. And I just, I like going around collecting palm leaves and other, found materials and then making baskets out of them. So that's something that I'm really [00:30:00] excited about.

And that's actually transitioned into, thinking about textiles and fiber arts in general. And so one thing I'm really excited about is, Harvard Westlake for teachers has these personal growth grants. So I am putting together one now there's, a very special type of textile that's produced in Okinawa.

That's made out of a banana plant or banana tree. And the whole textile production process is super fascinating to me. So I'm putting together a grant so I can go and learn a little bit more about that process that I'm super excited about. And that's where I think, you know, the money can come, right?

Like I couldn't afford or I'd have to scrimp and save for years to go off and do this trip. But I found a profession, an employer where I have summers off and they have these opportunities where you can do these personal grants. 

 And what does listening to the whispers look like today?[00:31:00]

Absolutely. It looks like prioritizing my time over anything. There's always a pro and a con to any opportunity and there's always a drive to do more. You see billboards that talk about rise and grind. There's a kind of a culture around, being constantly busy, constantly somehow displaying how hard you're grinding, how eccentric you are, how successful you are, something, but it's, I guess it's like the Instagram filter culture where you have to be displaying what you're doing and that might not be super authentic. So for me, it's about, I want to spend my time exactly how I want to spend my time.

That's my wealth. And having to listen to. Oh, that sounds like a cool opportunity. That's very X, Y, or Z, but I don't actually want to do that. So I'm not going to do that. I'm going to guard my time and guard my space. What would you tell [00:32:00] the 10th grader who said, I'm going to go be a lawyer and make six figures and be miserable and that's going to be okay?

What I would say to the younger me, I would say, What would be lost and is it worth six figures? I think of that MasterCard commercial and so it's something like, a fancy vacation to Paris, you know, 5, 000, you know, lunch at Per Se, 600, having your soul intact because you haven't worked in corporate America and a job that doesn't suit you, priceless.

 I think I would try and articulate this idea that Some things are priceless. Some things cannot have a price that is attached to them. I also just love the idea that you can make choices. You can choose to be a lawyer, and then you can choose to not be a lawyer. 

And that's absolutely the thing is that it's okay to make mistakes. Again, talking about experimentation and failure, if you [00:33:00] trust yourself, if you believe in yourself, then it's, alright, I tried this, it didn't work, let me try something else. And the key is just not pushing it so far that you don't have the internal resources to try something else.

Right, not trying to jam, a round peg into a square hole until you've splintered everything, and it's a hot mess. So yeah, if you don't like it, obviously there's some cost to that. But then again, if you trust yourself to be able to handle the consequences of your decision, then, there you go. 

And for students or people who are interested in building that authentic life and want to live more freely, what advice do you have to recognize that whisper?

Yeah, so I think this is so tricky because, It's easy for us to forget, but that age, adolescence, what other people think about you and fitting in is so painfully important. And so it can be [00:34:00] really hard when all you're trying to do is fly under the radar and fit in. It can be hard to think about how am I nurturing my authentic voice.

And when you're used to trusting the adults in the system around you. Everybody says, go to school, work hard, study hard, you'll have a good life. Not necessarily ever being given the time to think, what is the definition of a good life for me? So in a nutshell, there's a lot of challenges facing young people thinking about it.

I think there's a few things. One, I think, is to be a critical thinker and ask questions. What is a good life? Why is the world set up the way it is? How is the world set up? Talking to a lot of different people, not being afraid to ask questions. And also, when you identify a passion, if you're fortunate enough to have one.

Not everybody has a passion, which is fine. But if you are fortunate enough to have one, to recognize that that is something special, that [00:35:00] should not be surrendered lightly. And thinking about, if I'm smart, if I'm talented, if I'm well supported, But believing that you can figure it out, that you will find a way, that you don't have to compromise, that you don't have to look to, well, what has everybody else done?

This isn't safe. A lot of people who do this fail, being afraid of failure. If you can recognize and maybe think through that a little bit clearly and maybe feel through that, what exactly is it that you're afraid of is what you're afraid of actually likely to happen. And I think that is. That is the prerequisite to being able to hear what you want to do and then start searching out those resources to help you get there.

And again, you don't do it by yourself. You build your community around you to help you get to where you want to go. 

How would you define success today? 

Personally, that means being surrounded by people who nourish me. It means having [00:36:00] the freedom and wherewithal to learn what I want to learn, explore new ideas, explore new hobbies.

It's having the time to choose how I want to spend my day, the flexibility to do that. But I definitely think success is an internal thing. There's obviously the shiny, external version of success. And it feels like real success to some people, and I don't want to take away from that. But certainly, everybody has to define it for themselves.

And is there something right now that gives you that feeling? 

 Feeling it in my classroom, it's 15 to 20 of us in a room together.

Where are we at? how are we going to do this? What questions do we have? How quickly do we want to move? And just feeling like we're going to do what makes sense in the room with all of us together, a very much more immediate on the ground, [00:37:00] exchange. Anytime I'm doing my basketry stuff, that always feels like a win.

I love experimenting with cooking. I have very simple, homely. kinds of things that give me pleasure. And so when I'm able to spend the time building up my domestic space and engaging in the crafts that I think of, basketry as kind of a domestic kind of craft. When I can do that, I feel very happy.

And then when I'm at school and I feel like things aren't transactional, they're not a rush, but that I'm authentically engaging with people. actually being able to, have the exchange of energy, that, that feels really good. 

What are three takeaways you'd want someone to put in their pocket to take with them after listening to this conversation? 

 Listen to your inner voice when it comes to making decisions. Trust in your ability to recover if you find that the decision that you made is [00:38:00] incorrect.

 Recognize that Certain intangibles are priceless. Your quality of life, your peace of mind, your mental health, the state of your soul, all of those things are priceless. we only get one soul and we only get one life, at least that we're cognizant of. So use it properly. We all have the same destination.

We're all headed to the same place. So how are we spending that time? Spend it well. 

Thank you for being part. You're welcome. Thank you, Lauren. Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of Uncharted Paths. We hope you feel inspired to carve out your own unique journey and embrace the courage to follow your passions. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to like, subscribe, and share. Stay connected with us on social media for updates and behind the scenes content.

Links are in the description below. Until [00:39:00] next time, keep exploring, dreaming, and charting your own uncharted path.