In today’s episode of Inner Warmup, Taylor interviews Justin Sheils about his journey with improv and the power of embracing hobbies that can't be monetized. Justin shares his experience of trying to monetize his various creative pursuits in the past and how he found freedom and joy in pursuing activities solely for the sake of enjoyment. The conversation highlights the importance of play, reconnecting with our inner child, and finding moments of pure joy in our lives.
Mentioned In The Episode:
Meet Today's Guest:
Justin Shiels has always been compelled by the power of words and pictures to change hearts and minds. He is the founder of SoCurious.co, a wellness platform and online shop that helps creative people find small but meaningful breakthroughs in personal development, career, and creativity. As a creative consultant, illustrator, writer, and speaker, Justin loves solving complex problems using the lens of emotional intelligence. He creates projects that focus on empathy, design, and culture. His upcoming title, The Reset Workbook is scheduled to debut on December 6, 2023, with Spruce Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
Taylor Morrison
You're listening to Inner Warmup. I'm your host Taylor Elyse Morrison, founder and author of Inner Workout, ICF certified coach and fellow journeyer. In 2017, I set out to build a life that didn't burn me out. And I found my life's work in the process. On Inner Warmup, we talk about how self care and in our work show up in your relationships, your career, your schedule, in the conversations you have with yourself. We get practical, we get nuanced. And we're not afraid to challenge wellness as usual. So take a deep breath, and get curious. This is where your inner work begins.
Today on the show, we have Justin Shiels, Justin's always been compelled by the power of words and pictures to change hearts and minds. He's the founder of So Curious Co, a wellness platform and online shop that helps creative people find small but meaningful breakthroughs in personal development, career and creativity. In keeping with the play date theme of this season, we've got Justin on to talk about his journey with improv. Listen in to learn more about the power of letting yourself just be bad at things and how you can embody the yes and mentality on and off the stage.
Justin, I was telling you before we kicked things off, you get the honor of being the first man on Inner Warmup. Thank you so much for being here.
Justin Shiels
Oh, thank you so much, Taylor. I'm so excited to be on the show and very happy to have that honor. That's incredible.
Taylor Morrison
Yeah, and like you just bring the best vibes not that men don't bring good vibes. I just tend to be more in communities with women. But when I was thinking of like, who's a man who I know could match the vibe of Inner Warmup, obviously, you came to mind, even more so because of the topic of the season. But before I dive into talking about hobbies, and play, and all of that, there are people listening who don't know what you do for work. So can you touch on that for us briefly?
Justin Shiels
Oh, absolutely. And I'm really excited to talk about play. But first, let's talk about work. I feel like so much of what I do is tied to making people feel things I kind of realized at a very young age, that words and images have the power to change people's hearts and minds. And so, in everything I do that is always top of mind. But professionally, I'm a creative director. Right now I'm focusing really heavy on public health campaigns for government agencies and nonprofit organizations. And my focus is in the mental health space, the substance misuse space, and sexual wellness. And then there's this other side of me, the writer, the illustrator speaker, the mental health advocate. And that takes shape in a few different forms. I have a really prolific Instagram account, I post almost daily, at least right now, which is overwhelming. Sometimes, I send out a newsletter called The Weekly Reset. I have my own podcast called So Curious About. And then my new book is coming out December 5, it's called The Reset Workbook. And so through these things, it's like I'm trying to make a small dent in the universe by helping people find joy.
Taylor Morrison
What a beautiful way to tie up your work life and helping people find joy and everyone, I mean, there's so many things that you do and that you mentioned, I wanted to do a special shout out for your book and let everyone know that the link to preorder that will be in the show notes. Everything Justin does is so beautiful and so intentional. So I'm excited to get my hands on The Reset Workbook. And you kind of gave like a really nice segue with this theme of your work, being around helping people find more joy. What I find when I'm really present in my leisure and my hobbies and my play is that I'm able to access joy more fully. Something that I was curious about. So I love getting your newsletter every week. We're actually recording this on a Thursday, which is when your newsletter comes out and it's always like this nice little pep talk, high five hug from you. And I remember in one of your newsletters, you talked about how you started taking improv classes. And so that was one of the reasons I was like yes, Justin needs to be on the playdate season of the podcast. And when I reached out to you to ask you to be on the season, you said that you doing improv was really one of the first times that you had a hobby that you couldn't monetize. So, before we talk about improv, I actually want to hear about what your experience has been with monetizing hobbies in the past.
Justin Shiels
Oh, my goodness. So I am fully a multi-passionate, creative. And for all the creatives that are listening, we have the tendency to want to monetize everything, that's just how we are. It's embedded in our core for some reason. And I think that's partially because like, there's this desire to do something that you love and share a part of yourself with the world in that way. So at the height of what I would say, is the younger version of Justin, who didn't make as much time for play. It was like I was doing photography and graphic design, illustration contracts, I was running a local publication about the city of New Orleans. And my focus was like, How can I make money from all of these different things that I also enjoy? And I think as I've gotten older, it's really like, I want work to be a part of my life and important part of my life that that provides meaning. But I don't want to monetize every single little thing. And it's funny, I like during the pandemic, at the height of the pandemic, I started doing punch needling, and I felt it creeping back in even to that hobby. I was like, How can I sell these on Etsy? And it's like, no, I do not want to sell the punch needling on Etsy. I want to enjoy this moment. And I feel like improv is just different, right? It's like, it's not as easy to imagine that as something that you sell. And so it was so much easier for me to like, take that pressure off and just be able to live in the moment and enjoy it.
Taylor Morrison
It sounds like there's a moment of growth for you. Where with the punch needling, you were like, and I don't know how far down the rabbit hole you've got. I definitely sometimes get there. I don't know if you had an Etsy shop name picked out and all of that. But something pulls you back to be like, Nope, I don't need to start this Etsy shop. What was that voice? Or what was that internal conversation that allowed you to not monetize the punch needling?
Justin Shiels
Oh, so the punch needling was funny. Fortunately, I was just not that good at it. So
Taylor Morrison
That always helps
Justin Shiels
It chose for me not to turn into a business. And I'm thankful for that. But to your point, I think the pursuit of play and the desire to just enjoy moments more, that came for me from the pandemic, I think spending so much time alone, being focused on trying to do some inner work and healing. But also trying to find some fun in new and unique ways really helped me to tap into little Justin, my inner child, right. And like, that was such a phenomenal space to remember that like, you know, the world wants us to be these like serious adults all the time. And for me coming out of the pandemic, it was like, No, it is time to have joy I am in my joy era, this is my opportunity to embrace all the versions of me, especially the most fun versions of me.
Taylor Morrison
Ooo, I love that, being in your joy era. And this idea of the inner child, this is not the first time inner child has come up on the season. I actually for our finale, I'm doing an episode that is about how we can find more time for our hobbies. And I actually very recently had a moment where I connected with my inner child and I was like my inner child loves to dance. And I haven't been to a dance class since before the pandemic. So now I signed up for for two dance classes a week. And what's kind of funny is, like you said, it's just harder to monetize dance, because dancers typically don't make a lot of money. And like, I also don't have the time to join a dance company and take all of the classes and things that it would take to even get me to the point to be a professional dancer. So there is something about either having something that you enjoy that you're not good at, or having something that is just inherently like the the career path for it is longer and harder.
Justin Shiels
Alluding to and that I fully agree with is like we need more opportunity to play, we need more opportunity to be silly, but I think the biggest thing is that we need that opportunity to just be a beginner, make mistakes and like not do something perfectly. Because as an adult, there's so much pressure to do everything perfectly. And so we end up kind of losing this aspect of ourselves, where we are exploring our curiosity and like not being afraid.
Taylor Morrison
Yeah. I am curious then, to get into improv. What was your history with improv before you started taking this class?
Justin Shiels
So literally no history at all. I was a little bit of a theater kid. So in high school, I was in a couple of productions, which was super fun, never a leading role, especially in high school, I was kind of more of a background player. And then in college, I took a couple of acting classes because my friend group, most of them were actors. But outside of that I had never tried improv before. I'd never even heard of it outside of the context of Whose Line Is It Anyway, I did watch that show a little bit in my youth. But I kind of went in fully cold and blind, a friend was like, I think you might like improv, and they went to the class with me, and I ended up loving it.
Taylor Morrison
Okay. So that's already something that I feel like we can pull out for listeners is getting a buddy with you, if you're going to be trying something new. And you mentioned before, like this opportunity to be a beginner. So you're going into this improv class, your main context is Whose Line Is It Anyway? How did it feel in those first few classes to be a beginner at it?
Justin Shiels
Improv is fully like a structured form of play. It feels like you're at recess but with like the most fun camp counselor ever. And so especially in your first sessions of improv, you're just playing games, it's helping you to get outside of your head by making weird noises or moving your body in strange ways. And it's fun and funny and silly. And you can see like all these people struggling with how challenging it can be to like, let loose and let go and let yourself be in that moment as this like kind of ridiculous character. But that actually was so engaging and inspiring for me. I was a camp counselor when I was younger. And that was one of those fun experiences in my youth, where you got to be silly and ridiculous, because you were trying to make sure that the kids were having fun. And so I definitely echo back to that time in my life.
Taylor Morrison
It's really interesting to hear kind of the cyclical nature, like you tapping back in with your inner child, you tapping back in with, like this camp counselor version of yourself through improv. So that's kind of like the first few classes, you're being a beginner, you're having all these games. And it's really interesting for you to say like, my, if I had only done improv, probably a handful of times, I went to a theater summer camp, and we would have to play some improv games. I was more along the lines of people who are just terrified to let loose and get things wrong. For you, thankfully, you have the experience and this like past version of yourself that you could fall back into. What are some of the characteristics of this like camp counselor version of you? I'm totally asking for me, because I would love to embody some of that energy as I'm being more of a beginner.
Justin Shiels
So this is a fun way to be able to talk about astrology. So I'm a Taurus. My sun sign is Taurus and I have really grounding energy for some people, which can be fun, like I'm steadfast and steady and, you know, slow and methodical in some interesting ways. But then my rising sign is Leo. And that's that big, audacious stand out, be loud and proud energy. And so I very much connect with both aspects of myself, right? Like, I feel like they are true reflections of who I am. And I think if improv is not your thing, it's okay. If improv is not your thing, I don't think the point of pursuit of play is to do the things that lit your soul on fire, especially as a child and reconnect with the aspects of yourself that feel the most authentic, the most, you each one of us, deep down inherently knows what we want, who we want to be in the things that that really interest us the most. And I feel like a lot of times, if you go back to what you were doing as a child and the things that you enjoy, when you're like four or five, six years old, those are the things that you need to revisit as an adult and see if they continue to spark joy.
Taylor Morrison
I love this reminder. And they may not, but they may it may be like oh, I used to love doing ballet, for example. And now I like doing hip hop, or I used to love playing sports and now I don't like playing sports as much but I do like reading about sports history - could never be me. I'm not a big sports person, but I know some people are into that thing. So yeah, it can be like this breadcrumb that leads us to the things that interest us and I, I also appreciate that you called out that like it's okay if improv isn't your thing. What we're talking about in this playdate season is yes, exposing you to different potential ways that you could play, but also getting into this mindset of okay, maybe that's not how I play. But what does play look like for me personally. I'm curious to hear more about your experience of improv. I already have some guesses as to some of the things you may have learned by playing with improv. But I want to hear it straight from you. What has it taught you to be in that improv class?
Justin Shiels
Oh, my goodness, improv has been teaching me better collaboration. It really supports me in thinking on my feet. I am a slow thinker, and I have a lot of trouble, like talking off the top of my head. I like to plan and prep and prepare and improv, it challenges you to live in that specific moment, to stay in that moment, and try to be as present as possible. I love that aspect of improv. I think another thing that pops up for me so frequently is that it's okay to fail. And specifically, that failure is celebrated in improv because it is temporal by nature, right? What you're doing on that stage in that moment, is just for that moment. And once it's done, it's done.
Taylor Morrison
That being okay with failure piece is just something I think all of us can be reminded of. It's something that I am constantly grappling with as a human, but especially as a human who runs a business and does work publicly. I had another company that I started last year, called Gateway Coaching that I ended up realizing I needed to wind down. And it was so hard for me to be like, that's actually the normal trajectory of a business is it doesn't last that long, and it fails and I learned so many things that I'm already integrating into both just how I show up as a leader. I think that was some of the biggest lessons was I learned to lead a larger team, there is a lot of contractors involved. I learned to communicate, even if it was uncomfortable. I learned to work with tech in a lot of different ways. But it just felt like a failure because it didn't go on forever. And so it sounds like improv is this invitation to be like, Yeah, this thing is happening right here, right now. It's not gonna last forever, there might be some mess ups. But actually, we can take that flub and then roll it into the next bit, or do a call back later on, or just be better performers, because we messed up. And we learned something about ourselves in the process. But man, it's so, that piece about a failure just really hits home for me, because it's hard to fail in general, at least for me, I'm a Virgo rising. And it's hard to fail it when it feels like it's public, at least again, speaking from my personal experience.
Justin Shiels
I fully can't connect with that. I am a recovering perfectionist, and every day I am pushing myself to step outside of the boxes and boundaries that I've created for myself. So when I tell you that is resonating, Taylor like it is fully resonating.
Taylor Morrison
It's like it doesn't matter if anyone listens to this, we just need it to have a conversation and hype each other up and feel seen in that process. And something that I will offer to you, Justin, but also to everyone listening is the more that I have shifted my perspective to being more experimental. Or maybe as you would call it, like more improvisational in the way that I guide my life and my business, the more I see people like being inspired by it, and having these invitations where they're like, Oh, I can try that too. Oh, I can test something out, realize that this specific way I planned it out didn't work. But take a lesson and keep moving. And so this is me like talking to myself but also to other people your willingness to fail and your willingness to pivot actually gives more permission for people to do the same.
Justin Shiels
Oh that's fully the truth. That is so emotionally resonant for me. In improv, there's this thing called yes and rule. Basically the idea is that it's more fun for everyone when someone introduces an idea for you to just say yes and try to build on that idea. And so I feel like the yes and rule is like so easy to apply to all these different aspects of being a human or being an entrepreneur or being a creative, wherever you see yourself right? And thinking about how can I say yes and build on it? I feel like it challenges me to really think about how can I find acceptance in what's happening to me. And like, when we talk about acceptance, it's not saying that the thing that happened to us is good, per se, but it's just like, acknowledging that that thing happened, and I can't change it, right? And then, as you were saying, it's like, how can I expand on the things that I learned through that experience? And like, what is this experience giving me that I can put into something in the future? And I feel like those two aspects of the yes and rule are just fully integrated into the way that I see the world right now.
Taylor Morrison
Yeah. Oo, yes and. And it's so funny because I'm recording in Chicago and we have so much great improv in Chicago. We have Second City. We have man I there's like Logan Square Improv, which someone just told me about, which is like a nonprofit improv space. There's another one that's pretty big that IO, well, they actually had a whole situation. But we don't have to go into their improv situation that just happened. But yeah, I hear about yes and a lot. And the way that you just phrased it kind of unlocked something for me that it's not just saying yes, and when I'm presenting and not entirely sure what to say, or when I'm interviewing, and I'm like, How can I keep this interview going. But it's actually this really mindful approach to living that I definitely could stand to incorporate more.
Justin Shiels
I feel like everything comes back to mindfulness, how can we be fully present in this moment and in every moment and do our best not to look back at the past and not to look too far into the future? Because like, right now is the part that matters.
Taylor Morrison
Yeah, improv does such a good job of forcing you to be in the present moment. Because if you're too busy, and Justin, feel free to speak more to this, because you have a lot more experience than I do. But my hypothesis is that if you're too busy thinking about how you didn't say the funniest thing that you could have said, then you're missing being present to think of something new, that's fun and entertaining. And if you're thinking ahead too far, again, you might say something that's totally disjointed, from what your scene partners are actually bringing to the space.
Justin Shiels
That's fully true. And for context, and I want to say this very clearly and boldly. I'm still terrible at improv y'all. Like I am not an expert at this thing. I have gone through three levels, which is equates to about 12 weeks of training, I am not an expert. But I will say I am that much more confident and comfortable with like going up on stage and looking ridiculous in a way that I never thought that I personally as a recovering perfectionist would be open to doing. And that liberation has been so meaningful for my growth and development.
Taylor Morrison
Wow, liberation through improvisation, that might have to be the title of the episode. It has a nice ring to it. So
Justin Shiels
Oh, I love it.
Taylor Morrison
I got two places that I want to push into. To start, I just am curious to loop back to this idea of not monetizing a hobby. What has your experience been of not monetizing this hobby of improv? And what is that teaching you?
Justin Shiels
So I think the biggest piece of wisdom I want to impart on the audience and something that I feel like I'm continuously learning myself, is that you have permission to enjoy the moment, like we spend 30% of our day working, and we spend 30% of our day sleeping. And so you get to decide how you fill up all those other moments. And yes, you could spend that time doing so many different things. But I really think pursuing joy, allowing yourself to live in the moment to have new experiences to explore your curiosity. That is the opportunity of having a hobby, honestly, like trying new things and putting yourself out there in new ways is not only a way to grow, it's a way to enjoy the moment and we deserve to enjoy the moment.
Taylor Morrison
I just want to make that my ringtone just you saying you deserve to enjoy the moment because I definitely need that reminder a lot a lot. The last question that I want to ask you and you've already pulled some of this out, but I just want to really hammer it home for folks, say that people are listening. And they're like, I love this for you, Justin. So great that you're doing improv you're fine to be silly on stage, that will never be me. But they want to weave some of those lessons that you've learned from improv into their lives. How can they bring some of that like improvisational ethos into their every day, without having to get up on stage in front of a bunch of people?
Justin Shiels
I would say the easiest way to get to a new, meaningful, joyful experience, is to ask yourself, What's something I've always been interested in, but I was afraid to pursue and give yourself permission to be a beginner at that thing and be really bad at it, like be terrible at it so bad at it, that it could be a little bit embarrassing, but you're not embarrassed because you're allowing yourself to just do that thing. You will grow and develop and change from that experience, because you're opening yourself up to learning again, to like embracing a spirit of play, to give your inner child the opportunity to kind of show up and hang out a little bit. And it doesn't have to be improv, it could be drawing, it could be singing, it could be writing, it could be so many different things dancing, it doesn't matter what that individual thing is, it's just giving yourself permission to play.
Taylor Morrison
And for the people out there who are achievers, you could almost trick your brain a little bit and be like, I am winning at this thing if I'm allowing myself to be as bad at it as possible. So it's like, instead of being I need to be perfect, my mission is to be bad and go all in. And that's actually how I quote unquote, win at this or achieve at this is to just get in the mess of it.
Justin Shiels
Oh, that's it, play in the mess. That's the goal of life.
Taylor Morrison
I feel like that's a perfect place to end. So Justin, you told us at the beginning, you have a lot of amazing things that you can do or that you do do. So if people are listening, they want to stay in touch with you. They want to stay in like the the warmth of the joy that you love to spread to others. How can they stay in touch?
Justin Shiels
One simple way to stay in touch, visit socurious.co and you will have access to all the different projects and ways that we can connect online. You can sign up for my email newsletter. You can learn more about The Reset Workbook and you can find all of my social handles at socurious.co
Taylor Morrison
That's perfect. That will be in the show notes. Justin, thanks so much for this conversation.
Justin Shiels
Oh, thank you so much. Taylor. This was so fun.
Taylor Morrison
It really was. We kept on theme playdate theme, we had to have fun. Inner Warmup is a collaborative effort. It's hosted by me, Taylor Elyse Morrison, produced by Jennie Kerns and edited by Carolina Duque. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend. And if you're looking to continue your inner work, our free Take Care Assessment is a great place to start. On that note, take care.