Mic Drop

Love, Loathing, & A Life of Creativity (ft. Natalie Nixon)

Episode Summary

Natalie Nixon has spent a lifetime both creating and studying what helps creators do what they do best. This week, discover powerful insights on how to connect with audiences, connect with your own identity, and connect with the big ideas that are waiting to be unlocked within your own mind.

Episode Notes

Love, Loathing, & A Life of Creativity (ft. Natalie Nixon)

Finding space to imagine, creating space for who you are, and much more.

OPENING QUOTE:

“I was really paying attention to the emotional connection I had to this work, where the best I can describe it is that I feel energetically, my body is humming when I'm on stage. I feel vibrant. I feel alive. And I feel happy when I'm connecting to people through these ideas through the medium of speaking.”

-Natalie Nixon

GUEST BIO:

Natalie Nixon is known as the Creativity Whisperer to the C-Suite, and is a highly successful author and keynote speaker. Before making the leap to full-time speaking, she was a cultural anthropologist, PhD in Design Thinking, accomplished dancer, and a professor for 16 years.

Links:

CORE TOPICS & DETAILS:

[9:28] - Reaching the Head and the Heart

How Natalie connects intellectually and emotionally with audiences

Among sometimes unrealistic expectations from clients, Natalie has learned to balance emotionally resonant performances with intellectually stimulating and challenging ones. While she’s a natural performer, she recognizes that truly impactful ideas are what transform audiences— not just flashy performances.

[20:38] - Natalie’s Favorite Question

Natalie’s surprising pre-event question for clients

Natalie’s clients are often shocked when she asks them, “What does success look like to you?” In an industry where speakers can sometimes focus too much on themselves, the best in the business make the satisfaction and success of their clients and audiences the center point of any engagement.

[30:23] - Cultivating Creativity

Surprising (and surprisingly simple) insights for increased innovation

“Create space and time,” Natalie says when asked about fostering creativity. What does she mean by that? She means that you have to prioritize creative thought in your life— it won’t make time for itself. Schedule time in your calendar to think creatively, ask big questions, and move above the day-to-day rigors of your life to tap into your innovative abilities.

[31:56] - The Loathe/Love Audit

A powerful exercise anyone can use today

Take out a blank piece of paper and draw a line down the center. Set a timer and write out everything you loathe about your current state— life, career, pursuits— that you loathe. Then take the same amount of time and write everything you love about your current state on the other side. At the end, you’ll discover that either you can make changes in your life to reduce the things you loathe without losing the things you love— or you already have achieved a great balance and should have the confidence to carry on.

[38:52] - Black Woman Speaker: Opportunities and Challenges

A powerful perspective on leading as a black woman in the industry

In a world with a range of perspectives on how much someone’s race, cultural background, or other characteristics should influence their work, Natalie knows just where she stands. “I love being Black. I love being a woman.” Because of her perspectives, she never ignores those lenses. Instead, she allows them to deepen and enhance her messages. That includes acknowledging the way being both Black and a woman have created unique challenges in her life and career.

RESOURCES:

[14:30] About Strategic Design
[26:466] Figure8Thinking.com
[34:31] A More Beautiful Question, by Warren Berger

Follow Natalie Nixon:

Follow Josh Linkner:

ABOUT MIC DROP:

Brought to you by eSpeakers, hear from the world’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing tipping point moments, strategies, and approaches that led to their speaking career success. Throughout each episode, host Josh Linkner, #1 Innovation keynote speaker in the world, deconstructs guests’ Mic Drop moments and provides tactical tools and takeaways that can be applied to any speaking business, no matter it’s starting point. You'll enjoy hearing from some of the top keynote speakers in the industry including: Ryan Estis, Alison Levine, Peter Sheahan, Seth Mattison, Cassandra Worthy, and many more. Mic Drop is produced and presented by eSpeakers; sponsored by 3 Ring Circus.

Learn more at: MicDropPodcast.com

ABOUT THE HOST:

Josh Linkner is a Creative Troublemaker. He believes passionately that all human beings have incredible creative capacity, and he’s on a mission to unlock inventive thinking and creative problem solving to help leaders, individuals, and communities soar.

Josh has been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million and is the author of four books including the New York Times Bestsellers, Disciplined Dreaming and The Road to Reinvention. He has invested in and/or mentored over 100 startups and is the Founding Partner of Detroit Venture Partners.

Today, Josh serves as Chairman and Co-founder of Platypus Labs, an innovation research, training, and consulting firm. He has twice been named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and is the recipient of the United States Presidential Champion of Change Award.

Josh is also a passionate Detroiter, the father of four, is a professional-level jazz guitarist, and has a slightly odd obsession with greasy pizza.

Learn more about Josh: JoshLinkner.com

ABOUT eSPEAKERS:

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eSpeakers is where the speaking industry does business on the web. Speakers, speaker managers, associations, and bureaus use our tools to organize, promote and grow successful businesses. Event organizers think of eSpeakers first when they want to hire speakers for their meetings or events.

The eSpeakers Marketplace technology lets us and our partner directories help meeting professionals all over the world connect directly with speakers for great engagements.

Thousands of successful speakers, trainers, and coaches use eSpeakers to build their businesses and manage their calendars. Thousands of event organizers use our directories every day to find and hire speakers. Our tools are built for speakers, by speakers, to do things that only purpose-built systems can.

Learn more at: eSpeakers.com

Episode Transcription

Natalie Nixon:

I was really paying attention to the emotional connection I had to this work, where the best I can describe it is I feel like energetically, my body is humming when I'm on stage. I feel vibrant. I feel alive. And I feel happy when I'm connecting to people through these ideas through the medium of speaking.

Josh Linkner:

Welcome to Mic Drop, a podcast for speakers. We cover the ins and outs of the business, helping you deliver more impact on bigger stages at higher fees. You'll gain an inside edge through intimate conversations with the world's most successful keynote speakers. Mic Drop is brought to you by eSpeakers. I'm your host, Josh Linkner. Get ready for some inspiring mic drop moments together.

Josh Linkner:

Today's show is sponsored by 3 Ring Circus, the industry's top training and development program for professional speakers. They've helped hundreds of speakers launch or scale their speaking business, earning tens of millions in speaking fees, landing bureau representation, securing book deals, and rising to the top of the field.

Josh Linkner:

If you are looking to take your speaking business to the next level, they'll simply help you get there faster. To learn more and schedule a free 30 minute consultation, visit 3ringcircus.com/micdrop. That's 3, the number three, ringcircus.com/mic drop. Mic Drop is produced and presented by eSpeakers. If you want more audiences and organizations to be moved and changed by your message, you owe it to yourself to find out why thousands of top experts use eSpeakers to manage and grow their business. When you use eSpeakers, you'll feel confident about your business, package yourself up for success, and be able to focus on what matters most to you and your business. For more information and a free 30 day trial, visit eSpeakers.com/micdrop. That's eSpeakers.com/mic drop.

Josh Linkner:

I feel especially close to today's guest. We both love our rust belt hometowns. Mine's Detroit, hers is Philly. We both come from the arts. Jazz guitar for me, dance for her. And we both speak on innovation and creativity. I have tremendous respect and admiration for my friend and today's guest, Dr. Natalie Nixon. Natalie is known as the creativity whisperer to the C-suite and is an incredibly successful author and keynote speaker. She was a professor for 16 years before making the leap to speaking full time. She's a cultural anthropologist, design thinking PhD, speaks three languages, and is also an accomplished dancer.

Josh Linkner:

In today's conversation. Natalie shares, professorial wisdom, delivered with warmth and enthusiasm. Some of my favorite moments include how she creates both intellectual stimulation and emotional connections with her audiences. Her favorite question to ask on pre-event calls that seems to stun clients every time. Her perspective on being an African-American female in the speaking business, both the positives and the tension. How she cultivates her own creativity, toggling between wonder and rigor to solve problems and create opportunities. And an incredibly powerful exercise that we should all do called the loathe/love audit.

Josh Linkner:

On today's episode, Natalie and I muse on creativity, diversity and the business of speaking. You're going to love my conversation with this self-described nerd and goofball. And one of my all-time favorite humans. My friend, Natalie Nixon. Welcome to Mic Drop.

Natalie Nixon:

Hi, Josh. Thank you so much for having me. It's good to be here.

Josh Linkner:

Yeah. So I've been really looking forward to our conversation. You and I have crossed paths many times, and I'm a big, big fan of your work, but more importantly of you as a human being. I know your passionate about your hometown, as I am of mine in Detroit, but maybe just take us a little bit back. I'd love to learn a bit about your experience and professional body of work before you really explored professional keynote speaking.

Natalie Nixon:

Yeah, I think that is a wonderful intersection between you and me. We come from two very historic and gritty cities, Detroit and Philly in my case, and love our hometowns. And I think that has really shaped who I am. Philly is a place that people just sort of fly over because although we have incredible history in the nation, we were the nation's first capital. We're in between one of the most incredible cities in the world, New York city and the nation's capital. So we have a bit of a chip on our shoulders sometimes.

Natalie Nixon:

But I am from Philadelphia and I grew up in an environment that was incredibly nurturing. I always shared that I went through four very different types of schools by the time I was 17 and graduated from high school, which really shaped the ways that I understood equity, the ways that I understand access, and understand privilege, and how valuable our learning environments are that shape us.

Natalie Nixon:

I have a background in dance, and to this day I consider myself a lifelong dancer. I started studying dance at age four. I've all always assumed it's because I'm incredibly clumsy. My mother shares that it's because as she was exercising and working on losing her baby weight, she would see me joining along in the playpen. She said, "She might be a dancer." And I am a lifelong dancer. And now, while I studied modern and jazz and hip hop, I now am a fanatic of ballroom dance. So that's my jam these days.

Natalie Nixon:

And I have a really loopy background. I have background in cultural anthropology, and fashion, and design thinking, and research in academia. I was a professor actually for 16 years. I love to share that I'm a lusophile. I've lived in Brazil and in Portugal. And well, if I detect a Portuguese accent in the supermarket line or an elevator, I will try to engage in conversation because I love the culture of both Brazilian and Portuguese people. But yeah, that's a little bit about me.

Josh Linkner:

Unbelievable. I feel like so many cool personal connections, Detroit, Philadelphia, to these Rocky Balboa cities, although Philadelphia technically can claim that more than Detroit. I come from a jazz guitar background. You come from a dance background. I'm a tech startup dude, you're a professor. Just such a neat tapestry of experiences that all, funny enough, came together in the same point. You and I both love speaking on the topic of innovation and creativity. But we got there in a very different way, which is just the coolest thing ever. How did coming out of the arts, dance specifically, but also so design, how did that influence your speaking trajectory?

Natalie Nixon:

I always say that I use both anthropology and my training in dance every single day in my work. I believe that dance has been incredible preparation for being adaptive for being intellectually curious, because for visual artists, the medium of different sorts of paints or the texture of the canvas is the appropriate add-on for their work. For dancers, it's music. And so through music, one gets to learn about different cultures, language, et cetera.

Natalie Nixon:

And dance also taught me how to be really gritty and do the work. But because before you can leap across the stage, before you are even invited to be on stage, you must go through the arduous process of mastering the fundamentals. And that is something that requires a lot of commitment, and it's tedious. It's not particularly sexy, it's often very solitary. But it lays the foundation for, as Twyla Tharp, the great American dancer and choreographer has said, "Before you can think out of the box, you got to start with a box." And so dance has really given me a commitment to the fundamentals and appreciation of structure so that I can stretch against them, expand against them. And of course, dance has given me the ability to embrace performance and have a good sense of humor about myself as well.

Josh Linkner:

I love it. And like I'm sure good dancer, unless in my case, good music, someone can overdo it. They can over exaggerate their craft on stage to the point where they look goofy. And one of the things I respect so much about your speaking work is that you are authentic and substantive at this same time. You are uniquely you and I find you compelling, but you're not overdone. And would you be able to comment? And just as someone who's studied performance in many venues, how do you see speakers either underdoing it or overdoing it? And how might they strike the right balance?

Natalie Nixon:

That is such a good question, because I had a conversation recently about a speaking engagement that I did not get, and the person said, "Well, they really wanted someone who could ..." I think they were looking for someone who could really ... It was something the way about the way they described it. It sounded like they were expecting someone who would blow fire out of their mouth, which I was like, "Cool. I'm not the one. That's not me." And I think one needs to know one self and be very true to oneself in terms of what are your interests, what are you uniquely qualified to do, and be really attuned to that feeling that makes you want to come back on stage and share information and knowledge and ideas and inspiration over and over again, because it's been my experience that the audience can connect with us better when we are firmly rooted in who we are.

Natalie Nixon:

For example, I'm a self described goofball. And so I chuckle at myself at moments on stage when I mess something up, or I reverse something, or I thought of a corny, a metaphor to help explain something. And I've learned to lean into that because I don't know about you, Josh, but I use my speaking to prototype ideas, as I'm a nerd and I love intellectual pursuits. I love ideas and exploring ideas and speaking opportunities give me the opportunity to tinker with ideas. And I learn, even in the virtual environments, through the Q and A moments, I learn what's resonating with people. And then that helps me to understand what to build on. But fundamentally, to answer your question, I really think we have to be super self-aware. Don't try to be someone who you are not because the audience can smell that inauthenticity a mile away.

Josh Linkner:

Yeah, couldn't agree more. And look, there's plenty for everybody. Some audiences or buyers might want a fire breather and other people might want a very quiet speaker somewhere in between. And so I think the good news is we shouldn't try to someone that we're not, it's be more of who we uniquely are, which I think, again, you've done a beautiful job with.

Josh Linkner:

So to framing up the conversation for those listening, as you know, many are speakers at varying levels in their path. Tell us about how did you go from your previous body of work to becoming a professional speaker? What was the loose timeframe? And maybe fast forward to give us a sense today in terms of the type of volume that you're doing today so we can get a sense of, again, your path from here to there.

Natalie Nixon:

Yes. And I think it is important for all the listeners to understand the varied pathways that we each have to understand A, do I even like speaking enough for that to be a core part of my business model and my revenue model? And what are the ways I can deliver my content that are most effective?

Natalie Nixon:

So for me, I really do, again, once again credit my background in dance to giving me the foundation for performance, because a lot of speaking is performance. When you go on stage you're on. And it's so interesting to me to this day, when I'm backstage and you could see the tech crew and you're looking at the rafters of the stage, it really brings me back to those times when I was performing as a dancer and I'm really grateful to be back in those spaces and to be able to share ideas in that mode.

Natalie Nixon:

But I really believe that my speaking was honed because I was a teacher for so many years. In my twenties, I was a middle school English teacher. And I have jokingly said that is actually been the best preparation for everything I've gone on to do, because middle schoolers, to teach middle school English, you need to love learning. You need to have a sense of humor about yourself. You need to figure out effective ways to connect with other people.

Natalie Nixon:

I then became a professor. And in that mode, I was certainly doing public speaking as part of the way to profess and to teach and to instruct. But also as an academic, I would get invited into, and I would apply to present papers at conferences. Now, presenting an academic paper is nothing like presenting a conference for an association, for a private corporation.

Natalie Nixon:

However, there are parallels and there are connections in terms of being able to tell story. And that really is also the through line, especially I think that in some ways, college students are some of the biggest skeptics out there. So to be an effective professor, I had to be really good at connecting the dots between an idea concept that they might not have necessarily found relevant to them, and bring it home to them in various ways. So that ability to tell story was really honed as well in all those years as an academic, as a professor.

Natalie Nixon:

And then what started to happen is, I actually was at a chapter in my academic career where I had created and launched a strategic design MBA program. And our program was hosting a Women in Tech conference at the university. And so I was kind of roaming through different rooms and listening in, on different panels. And I remember I happened to pause in a room where one of the panelists was asked, how does she get into speaking about tech and women in tech? And I'll never forget. She said, "I just started showing up. I just started volunteering and asking, do you need a panelist? Would you be interested in me being a moderator?" And what would begin to happen is that she became a common denominator, a face that was familiar. And it shifted from being a volunteer to being invited.

Natalie Nixon:

And I took that to heart because at this point, I was already, I started my current company as a side hustle, was really intrigued by the sorts of projects that I was getting invited to do and wanted to do more of that.

Natalie Nixon:

So I actually took this woman's advice, and I started volunteering to be a panelist, to be a moderator. And just as she had said, I became someone who became top of mind to start getting invited. And the first year or so, I was not charging anything because A, I wasn't depending on speaking as my core revenue stream, but then I might be given an honorarium of $1,500 or $2,500, and then it would increase from there.

Natalie Nixon:

So by the time I decided to resign from academia and built my company out full time, A, I started having proof of concept. So I had examples of events where I had been speaking. And it literally wasn't until I started to follow and take advice from people like you, Josh, and things like your 3 Ring Circus boot camp, which you really advise a much more rigorous and intentional way of collecting testimonials. If you're going to do something gratis, then maybe you get the video. And I wasn't thinking as strategically in that way at the beginning, but I quickly caught on to do that.

Natalie Nixon:

So then I would say probably about two years into solely running my company, and I was saying yes to everything because I didn't know if running my own business was a fluke, if it would grow or not. And I was a little scared about that so I would just say yes to consulting, yes to facilitating, yes to speaking.

Natalie Nixon:

And what happened by year three is I realized how much I loved speaking. And by that, I was really paying attention to the emotional connection I had to this work, where the best I can describe it is, I feel like energetically, my body is humming when I'm on stage. I feel vibrant, I feel alive, and I feel happy when I'm connecting to people through these ideas, through the medium of speaking.

Natalie Nixon:

And by year three and a half, I was starting to able to choose projects that I wanted to do, say no to other things. And then the pandemic happened in 2020. And now I'm in year five of building my company. And I would say that 70% of my revenue now comes from speaking. And I have been able to steadily increase my speaking fees as well.

Josh Linkner:

So you did the reps, and continued to refine the craft. And I know you've been wildly successful. I know audiences, including me, having seen you speak, are delighted. So you're obviously doing just terrific work.

Josh Linkner:

Now I have a question for you. So what's the difference in your mind between performing as an academic, whether you're middle school English teacher or a professor versus giving a keynote. And so just to frame the question, let's assume it's not you, because I bet you're an extraordinary middle school teacher, an extraordinary professor that embraced many of the elements that makes one a successful keynote speaker. So not Natalie doing it, but what's the difference between a normal, everyday average middle school teacher and/or college professor versus a keynote speaker? What are the elements that are the same, and what are different? Because obviously there's an element of teaching and performance, but there may be some other attributes too. How would you compare and contrast the two?

Natalie Nixon:

That's a great question. I would say that what's similar about it is understanding structure. One needs to have a plan. One needs to have a clear idea of where the plane needs to land. And one of the things I learned from teaching is to give people an indication of where we're going to land the plane so that you don't lose them. So that they're like, "Okay, where is this going? Why is she talking about X, Y, Z?" And that is certainly something that I got very good at as a teacher.

Natalie Nixon:

But when you're speaking, you're not teaching. You are oftentimes explaining. There are oftentimes teachable moments. But I think one of the differences is that while I always did approach my teaching to be student-centric, I was much more focused on what I wanted them to get out of the lesson, out of the course, out of the semester.

Natalie Nixon:

But as a speaker, I'm very clear in the pre-event calls to really understand what matters to the client, who is in the audience. Is it their clients who are in the audience? Is it certain members of their organization who they really want to reward for being with them for X number of years? Is it newer junior level people? All of those sorts of details matter. So one of the differences is be really focused in on what is it that the client needs, or do they need the plane to land?

Natalie Nixon:

One of my favorite questions to ask in a pre-event call is, what does success look like to you? And I'm always so surprised that whenever I ask that question, which to me seems like an obvious question to ask that they always say things like, "That's a great question," because I think even if they're not articulating it as such, I'm giving them the control and the power to really name and identify how they want this to turn out. And I really view, and I actually looked at the way I taught, especially towards the end of my teaching years when I was teaching design thinking, I look at myself as a collaborator with my client and I always talk about how we are co-creating this event. So I think those are some of the key ways that they're similar and different.

Josh Linkner:

Yeah. I love that. I mean, you think of, not you of course, but a normal, call it a boring college lecture, could be rich in substance, but lacks entertainment, that it's not inspiring. And so I think part of a keynote's responsibility is to provide both some entertainment value. Doesn't mean you have to be a rock concert, or as you point out, breathe fire, but it's got to be like uplifting and compelling. It's got to go down easy along with the substance.

Josh Linkner:

But one thing I think that she should be more similar, but sometimes it's not is the following. I think if you are teaching middle school kids in English, you know that you're there to help those kids get better in English. But often I think keynote speakers think that their job is to talk about themselves. They're the hero. They're the protagonist. Let me tell you my story.

Josh Linkner:

And I think the best keynote speakers do the opposite. It's not about you as the speaker. It's about your audience. It's not, look what I did. It's look what you can do. And I think that's one thing that we keynote speakers can really learn from teachers is that in teaching, professional teaching, it's pretty clear that the desired outcome is to elevate those in front of you. Where in many cases in keynote speaking, it's not as clear. People think it's about them. "Hey, I got to tell you my war stories and look how smart I am and look what I did." And that to me is a quick way to tank a speaking career. Is that something you agree with?

Natalie Nixon:

A thousand percent. I'm nodding vigorously because that's that example of the parallel of being student-centric, being client-centric, being audience-centric, and focused on what they need.

Natalie Nixon:

I do think it's probably a little easier for a speaker like me where my topic, my subject matter is not that I'm this Olympic ... I'm a former Olympic athlete or the core of my message is not around my personal trajectory. The core of my message is around creativity, future of work, innovation. And so I have this external subject that I want us all to converge on. And so I think that that makes it a little helpful for me to ensure that it's not ... What's that radio station WF ... What's the radio station that we all love to hear. WFME or something. There's something funny. Yeah. It's not about me. It always has to be about the people who we're serving. So it's always back to you.

Josh Linkner:

Becoming a keynote speaker is an amazing profession. The top performers earn millions in annual income while driving massive impact on audiences around the world. But the quest to speaking glory can be a slow route with many obstacles that can knock even the best speakers out of the game.

Josh Linkner:

If you are serious about growing your speaking business, the seasoned pros at 3 Ring Circus, they can help. From optimizing your marketing and business efforts to crafting your ideal positioning, to perfecting your expertise and stage skills. Three Ring Circus is the only speaker training and development program run by current high level speakers at the top of their field. That's why the major bureaus like Washington Speakers Bureau, Premier Speakers, Speak Inc, Executive Speakers, Harry Walker Agency, Kepler, Gotham Artists, and GDA all endorse and participate in 3 Ring Circus.

Josh Linkner:

From interactive boot camps to one on one coaching, 3 Ring Circus will help you reach your full potential in the speaking biz. And they'll get there faster. For a free 30 minute consultation, visit 3ringcircus.com/micdrop. That's 3ringcircus.com/micdrop.

Josh Linkner:

And I think that's really an exciting thing. Well, you have had a very extraordinary background, but there are people that might say, "Hey, I want to be a professional speaker, but is my story really compelling enough? Do people really care about my story?" And I'll just share that some of the most successful keynote speakers from Dan Pink, to Adam Grant, to Malcolm Gladwell to Brene Brown, they're actually not the protagonist in their own speeches. It's not their story. They're delivering a message. They're changing people's minds. They're opening up their people's hearts to new possibilities through their research, but they're not only talking about themselves. And that actually is a very liberating thing, because if you weren't an Olympic athlete or an Everest climber or whatever, you still can be a very effective keynote speaker.

Josh Linkner:

And so shifting gears, on your speaking work, a couple observations. On your site, you've delivered over 160 paid engagements, been published over 125 times, you've appeared on over a hundred podcasts. So there's no question that you're enjoying some terrific success. And one of the things I really admire when looking at your website is the first thing that you see other than this gorgeous, smiling shot of yours, which makes me just want to lean in because you're so cool, but it says the creativity whisperer, and that is a very crisp and succinct and singular idea.

Josh Linkner:

You're not saying, "Natalie speaks on leadership, and work life balance, and health and fitness, and accounting. It's clear you speak a thing and it's crystal clear, and all the messaging. Can you help us understand how you got so crisp on a positioning statement and what you've seen, the more crisp you get, how that's affected the business in general?

Natalie Nixon:

Oh yes. Thank you for that question because if we had looked at figure8thinking.com six months ago, it would not have looked like this. Definitely not a year ago. And so I think what happens to a lot of us who are solopreneurs, who have a small ensemble model of a team, which is what I have steadily been building is that you've just been churning and doing the work and doing the work. And what had happened when I looked up a year ago is that my website, from my perspective, was a bit patchworky. It was just like, and this and this and this and this. And while I would get nice compliments on the website, I was cringing. It's like, I knew it was not a clearly distilled, as you said, representation of what I could offer.

Natalie Nixon:

So I actually invested in a business coach and actually my work. It's funny, my work with my business coach, who is fantastic. I love working with her. I now consider her part of my team because she brings me the fresh eyes perspective and asks me the helpfully, constructively critical questions that I need to grow. I hired her because content has never been my problem. I can dream up content for days. In fact, I love dwelling in the space of just envisioning and dreaming up things. My challenge, and I was self aware to know this, was that I needed help focusing and distilling.

Natalie Nixon:

And so that's actually why I hired Allie. And then that coincided with me, deciding it's time for a website refresh. So it was perfectly timed to have the critical eye of this third party, who I hired. This doesn't come for free. We have to remember that you get what you pay for. And we have to look at these upgrades and the way we are cultivating and shaping our brand as investments in our business.

Natalie Nixon:

And so through a combination of the work with my business coach, combined with the company that designed my website, Pixel Parlor, which does a whole wonderful audit and asked you all those really hard questions that forces you to clarify, what are the customer journeys? And so we did work in developing customer journeys. And what that revealed is I was able to settle on what are the things I love to do and how do I want to earn money?

Natalie Nixon:

And what I love to do and how I want to earn money appears as soon as you get to the home page, which is I would love to speak at your next event. And I would love for you to consider bringing me in as an advisor. That's it. Those two things. And what may seem counterintuitive, but gives us more traction is the clearer and simpler and more distilled we get, the easier it is for people to clearly understand why I need you. This is why I need to hire you and have you on at my next event. There's not a whole lot of bells and whistles going on.

Josh Linkner:

So a couple things just want to emphasize. Number one, that you're always upgrading. You were successful speaker because for you to this refresh, but you just did a refresh. And I just did a new video. And we're always as speakers, having to upgrade. We're also investing in our practice. And yes, it appears that you just jump on stage and magically pour wisdom into the world, but there's investment. And there's deliberate effort that goes into that and all this behind the scenes stuff that brings your speaking career to life. And just want to celebrate you for the professionalism that you've put into it.

Natalie Nixon:

Thank you.

Josh Linkner:

Sfo on that note, I had a question I've been just dying to ask you. So as the creativity whisperer, imagine that I'm a disciple of yours. I'm early in my speaking career, I've had a good business background, let's say, and I desperately want to speak for the right reasons. I want to help the world. I've got an important message to share, but what should I do creatively? What would the creativity whisper advise to an up and coming speaker with their heart in it, willing to invest, willing to do the work on how they can accelerate and grow their speaking business? What can we apply? What creativity can we apply to having a more successful speaking launch?

Natalie Nixon:

Well, Josh, as you know what, one of the ways, well, the way I like to define creativity is that it is our ability to toggle between wonder and rigor to solve problems. And so one of the first things it's important to do is to create space and time. So time in your schedule and the way your physical environment is around you to cultivate the wonder, which is about all audacity, asking big blue sky what if questions. It's also about our ability to pause and also create the time and space for the rigor.

Natalie Nixon:

So how are you creating time and space to master the fundamentals, to invest in, and the experts who can help take you to the next level step by step by step? So that's the first step is to do a self audit about how you currently are engaging in wonder and rigor.

Natalie Nixon:

And I happen to love creativity audits. One of the lessons I share in a course I created called The Wonder Rigor Lab is within the first milestone, one of the exercises is to do a loathe/love audit. And this is actually creativity hack that I did on myself when I reached, as I like to say, my first world existential crisis as an academic, because I worked so hard to be a professor. I had prestige, my ego was involved, I earned my PhD in four years while working full time. There was a lot of sweat equity that I put into that career. And then I got to this crossroads where I realized, I don't think I want to do this anymore. So now what? And I sat down on my kitchen table, I took a blank piece of paper. I drew a line down the center, and on the left, I had a frownie face, just an upside down smiley face. And it was the loathe side.

Natalie Nixon:

And on the right hand side, it was a smiley face. And on the left hand side, I set a timer and I just got out of me, everything that, I mean, loathed, despised about my current state. Then timer went off, did the same thing for the love side. What delighted me and just, what did I adore about the work that I was doing as a professor? And after doing that, which has evolved now into the loath/love audit. I looked at everything on the right hand side of that page that I loved, and this wonderful paradigm shift happened for me because I realized that everything on the right hand side that I loved, I could still do, I just wouldn't call it being a professor anymore.

Natalie Nixon:

And that was mind blowing for me, and that led to me, literally creating my job title, creativity strategist. I'd never met a creativity strategist. I just like, that's what I love, that's what I want to do, that's what I'm good at. There you go.

Natalie Nixon:

So I would recommend try that exercise of doing your own loathe/love audit and see what comes up for you about your current speaking career. What can you dig into more? Where do you maybe need help with in the loathe side or need to get rid of?

Natalie Nixon:

And the last thing I would say, I'm full of frameworks. I've already shared that I love to generate content. I did stop at telling people to toggle between wonder and rigor to solve problems. How do you operationalize creativity? How do you activate that on a daily basis? Well, it's through something I call the Three Is, which is inquiry, improvisation, and intuition.

Natalie Nixon:

So if we just take inquiry, I'm a big fan of the work of Warren Berger, who wrote A More Beautiful Question and the Book of Beautiful Questions. He calls himself a questionologist. Take the time to do some question storming, and I'll leave you with one way to understand asking questions.

Natalie Nixon:

There are what we can call divergent questions, such as what if, why, I wonder. Those big, juicy questions that just starts to pump out your serotonin. You just start to feel happy and excited. And then we also need to shift to convergent questions that help us to get tactical. Questions such as what, when, how.

Natalie Nixon:

So give yourself permission to not have all the answers yet, but just dwell in the land of questions, because questions are inputs into a system, and the system could be what's for dinner, what's our next marketing strategy, or how do we end war? There's different scales and levels of systems. But if we keep asking the same questions, we will keep coming up with the same answers. So questions are inputs into a system. So try that exercise on yourself by just question storming a range of divergent questions and a range of convergent questions, and then choose two to focus on.

Josh Linkner:

So, so good. I mean, I just love not only your wisdom, but the tactical ideas, the love/loathe audit. I'm absolutely going to do that immediately. That's the coolest thing ever. And I love the notion of divergent and convergent questions, but the notion of question storming. Question storming. Love this. It's such a great thing because we are so quick to leap to the answers. And often we fail to ask the right questions, and what a beautiful, thoughtful exercise. I love, love, love that, Natalie. That's amazing.

Josh Linkner:

Okay. So as you think about out your speaking practice, you and I speaking on the same topic, but I know there's an audio recording. We happen to look a little different. I'm a middle aged white dude, and you're not a middle aged white dude. And so I've had this question asked to me a lot by folks who are female or people of color or different types of the rainbow of diversity, is this a middle aged white dude's business? Is there room for people that don't look and act like a middle aged white dude? And I'm probably leading the witness here, but can you share it with me what it means to be someone who is not in a traditional physical looking box, and is that today an advantage versus a disadvantage?

Natalie Nixon:

Well, thank you for asking that question. I am an African-American, middle aged woman from the east coast of the United States. And yeah, I am working in an industry that is male and pale. And there are times when, let me get into my answer in this way. If a white woman who is a physicist gets asked to speak about gender equity. Sure, she could, but that's not her jam. She worked so hard and did all of her credentialing to research physics and to talk about physics. And so one of the things I will find sometimes, not all the time, is that people don't always quite know what to do with me, because my expertise is not diversity, equity, inclusion.

Natalie Nixon:

My expertise is creativity and innovation. And so that's how I want to be considered for. On equal grounding with the very more well known household names. Some of people we should named like Daniel Pink and Adam Grant and Simon Sinek.

Natalie Nixon:

So on the one hand, I sometimes experience that I need to remind people that now this is my expertise, these are my credentials, this is the way my work has been acclaimed globally. And here's how I can help you. And here's how I can help you to advance the work that you're trying to do. And not have people have be stopped by their limiting beliefs about what they expect I will do because of how I look.

Natalie Nixon:

On the other hand, Josh, you are an example of someone who brings your full self and contributes all of your fleshed out experiences to your work. And I do the same. I love being Black. I love being a woman. I love being Gen X. We are the generation that created hip hop for heaven's sake. And so when you read my work, because of those perspectives, and because I studied anthropology and have a PhD in design management and lived in five different countries, I don't ignore those lenses.

Natalie Nixon:

So when I am talking about chaos theory, or improvisation or creativity or future of work, I will reference jazz music. I will reference a play hack that I see Black children in cities around our country who don't have access to playgrounds, they hack their play every day. If they don't have a basketball court to go to, they take a milk carton, they punch out the bottom, and they hook it up to a light pole and they figure it out.

Natalie Nixon:

I reference in my book, the Creativity Leap, I reference how in the 1970s, during one of the greatest divestments of funding of arts education in our public schools, it disproportionately affected poor kids in our cities. A lot of who happen to be Black and brown children. What did young, teenage Black boys do? They turned a turntable into a percussion instrument, which led to the phenomena of scratching, which is one of the most iconic sounds of hip hop music today. And hip hop today is the largest musical genre in the world.

Natalie Nixon:

So I love the blend and intersections of experiences and references that I have. And so what I want to do is be additive to the conversation. My goal is to not say to the established thought leaders, "Hey, you guys should go away." No, just make a little room so that we're inspiring a broader range of people, so we can connect to and relate and have a broader range of people relate to this very important work that we're all talking about as it relates to innovate and creativity and future of work.

Josh Linkner:

So good. Thank you for sharing that. And for anyone listening, I just think that while you're right, our industry before was, they stay, male and stale and pale. I do think it's changing and in a really positive way. And as someone who is the former category, I'm absolutely okay losing speeches. And you're right, it should be around expertise, not someone's automatically a diversity speaker, of course not. But I don't think it's a limiting factor.

Josh Linkner:

I don't think that anyone who is a female or at a different age category, a different ethnicity, shouldn't say, "Oh, there's a block for me to get into this industry. If anything, these days, it may be an advantage, which is a beautiful thing, and I'm really happy you shared that.

Josh Linkner:

So, last thought, Natalie. As you think about your future in the speaking industry, you're rocking it out. You're on the rise, not the decline. And I know you're very popular among audiences and buyers alike. What are you hoping happens for you in the next couple years in you're speaking business, and perhaps what could we learn from it?

Natalie Nixon:

Well, so I'm audacious and ambitious and dream a lot. So I want to be on bigger and bigger stages. I would like to become a household name as Adam Grand and Simon Sinek and Daniel Pink are, as it relates to creativity. Sometimes what I say to people is I would love one of my marks to be the Esther Perel of creativity or the Brene Brown of creativity, because those are the metaphors I can think of right now.

Natalie Nixon:

But I also, in addition to being part of the larger stages, I want to be able to digitize my IP so that the content that I'm developing is available in multiple media and formats for a broad range of people. And I want to be an inspiration to people who look like me, who can maybe find something that is a bit more relevant about me that will inspire them to connect the dots between what might now just feel like an idea and a concept and into something that's real. Could I just share a short story about something that happened to me when I was in college?

Josh Linkner:

Sure. Please.

Natalie Nixon:

When I was a college sophomore, on a fluke, I took anthropology 101. And I did it because I just had an extra space in my roster. I was like, "Okay, I'll just try this course." And I'm in the college bookstore with a pile of books in my arms thinking, "Oh my gosh, how am I going to pay for all these books?" My mother already said, "I hope your professors put a lot of those books on reserve in the library."

Natalie Nixon:

So I'm standing there. And the top book was this big, thick anthology called Anthropology for the Nineties, because that's how old I am. I graduated from college in 1991. And I turned the book over and on the back of this big, thick book is a photograph of a smiling, attractive African-American woman staring back at me with lip gloss and a manicure. And in that moment I was simultaneously excited and embarrassed. And I was excited because I was like, "Wow, she looks like my aunties and she's an anthropologist." And then I was like, "Wow, she's an anthropologist." Because in that moment, although I had quoted Zora Neale Hurston in my high school yearbook page and Zora Neale Hurston was an anthropologist, folklorist, writer. I did not see myself in the world of anthropology.

Natalie Nixon:

I thought anthropologists were all white to from National Geographic magazine. And when I saw Johnnetta B Cole as the editor of this anthology, it shifted my universe. And I took this course, fell in love with anthropology. Naively wrote Johnnetta B Cole a letter, just enthusiastic about how she rocked my world in a good way. At the time she was president of Spelman College, she then became the president of the Smithsonian's Museum of African Art, et cetera, et cetera.

Natalie Nixon:

This woman wrote me back. And that's what I hope to be for other people one day. I hope that someone who doesn't right now see themselves in popular conversations on CNN or MSNBC about future of work. And hey, I would love to be one of those talking heads one day too. But maybe a glimpse of some of my work will inspire them in the way that Johnnetta B Cole did for me those decades ago.

Josh Linkner:

Well, what a beautiful thought and a beautiful place to end our conversation. And while I certainly know that you will inspire people in that category, you certainly have also inspired me, as you do every time I chat with you with your huge grin and enthusiasm, but also your amazing body of work and rich expertise. Natalie Nixon, thank you so much for making an impact in our industry, for sharing your wisdom today, and for continuing to be a role model for us all. Thank you.

Natalie Nixon:

Thank you, Josh. And I always appreciate your professional generosity. Thank you.

Josh Linkner:

Thanks again.

Josh Linkner:

What an absolutely terrific conversation with Natalie. I just love her balance between wonder and rigor, ambition and humility, art and science, intellect and soul.

Josh Linkner:

Here are a few of my favorite takeaways. Number one, I just love how her previous experiences from dance to anthropology to academia helped shape the speaker and expert that she is today. She shows us to learn and grow from our previous experiences, embracing rather than running from them.

Josh Linkner:

Number two, Natalie is always upgrading. This self-described lover of learning continues to invest in herself and her business, adapting to changing conditions and evolving to become the best version of herself. This is fed by her insatiable curiosity as she question storms her way forward.

Josh Linkner:

And number three. And of course that loathe/love audit. Brilliant. We can all benefit from this exercise both personally and professionally. I can't wait to give it a try.

Josh Linkner:

This modern Renaissance woman will undoubtedly continue to make a big impact on stages around the world. I'm grateful for her generosity today and look forward to seeing many more great things ahead from this author, professor, anthropologist, creativity whisper, keynote speaker, and my dear friend, Dr. Natalie Nixon.

Josh Linkner:

Thanks for joining me on another episode of Mic Drop. Don't forget to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Google podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. If you love the show, please share with your friends and don't forget to give us a five star review.

Josh Linkner:

For show transcripts and show notes, visit micdroppodcast.com. Mic Drop is produced and presented by eSpeakers. And a big thanks to our sponsor, 3 Ring Circus. I'm your host, Josh Linkner. Thanks for listening. And here's to your Mic Drop moment.