Mapping the Creative Entrepreneur's Journey with CEO Erica Arvold (Part 2)

Erica and Bree: Part 2 
( This Transcript was automatically generated by AI and has not been edited.)

Bree: Welcome back to the pause-to-go podcast, where we are speaking with creative change-makers who guide the way to living and sharing authenticity and joy in and beyond their professional lives. So last week I spoke with my friend, Erica Arvold, casting director, director, producer, educator, and CEO of Arvold. Productions.

And we talked about how she built her career, her whole life, really? And if you haven't listened to the episode, Stop now go and give it a listen because she dropped some incredible wisdom about cultivating a career as a creative entrepreneur. In today's episode, we go through each of the seven paths to manifesting change in our lives.

This is a sort of game I've been playing, but guests in season two, a pause to go, and there's so much richness. And what Erica offers about how we can use the emotional, analytical, intuitive, physical, creative. Spiritual and social paths to enrich our lives and the world around us because we don't operate in a vacuum.

Thank goodness. But before we dive into this week's conversation, I just want to let you know that on Thursday, March 24th, I'm offering a free. Core values workshop at 1:00 PM. Eastern time. It's on zoom. You can register at my website, the lovely unbecoming.com. And there's a link in the show notes. And on Instagram, if you'd like to follow along there, this workshop is something that I do individually with each of my coaching clients.

And I take myself through the process at least once a year, sometimes twice a year, depending on the year. The core values. Assessment is a really great way to sort of scrub off the societal expectations of what we should want and get right down to the core of what we value. So we can aim our professional and personal trajectory in that direction.

Let's move away from the should. Okay. Friends. Yeah, Erica talks about the word should and what she thinks of it in today's chat. So let's get to it. Here's part two of my conversation with Erica Arvold.

can we take a few moments now to do a quasi rapid fire? 

Erica: Oh yeah. I love rapid fire. You have to cut me off because also keep wrapping fire too long. 

rapid fire look at the seven ways to really creating change in our lives because you have done that. And I would just love to go through each of the seven ways and just have you spitball how that way has been.

Bree: Articulated or important in your journey. And that can be professional. We now know that for you, professional is personal, right. So we will just say your journey, your whole journey, 

Erica: my whole kit and caboodle okay. 

Bree: Okay. Okay. So the first one is emotional, the 

emotional way. 

Erica: Oh yeah. I had, I had to learn to recognize that I went through a lot of pendulum swing emotions and that they were amazing feedback for me.

Not for others. 

Bree: Interesting. Can you tell me a little bit more? 

Erica: Yeah. I mean, I don't think I'm necessarily an overreactor. My husband would disagree, but not in business. I'm not an overreactor. In personal life. I absolutely will because that's probably where I, you know, let all the air out, but, Even just to where my brain goes and then, okay, hold on.

That is not what was meant. I'm taking it in a certain way. I'm not understanding the context, et cetera. And I think it's taken me decades to really, you know, I remember me in my twenties in casting and thinking, you know, dividing the personal, from someone saying no to a role from of course, or, or whatnot.

And, and I think maybe that's just hours and hours and hours of collaborating with many different types of people, with many different shades of ego, et cetera. And a lot of incredibly artistic, specific, nuanced, opinions and ways of working. Now it's about the work, it's just about the work.

And so that pendulum swing is a much narrower swing than it used to be. 

Bree: The next one is analytical. 

Erica: Oh yeah. I can get in that mode. And then I'm like, but analytical, isn't it isn't that somewhat the opposite. I don't think it's the opposite of, but in the Myers-Briggs test, it seems to be opposite of intuitive.

Right. But it is kind of the same in Myers-Briggs and Myers Briggs. I disagree with that just saying, because I think there's a way to be intuitively analytical. That's what I would say. 

Bree: I agree. I agree. I think that they overlap. Right. All of these ways as we go through them.

I see. As being very separate. in that you can, identify them and look at a trajectory that they also are woven together. Right? So it's like a tapestry that you could unravel and see exactly where this thread goes, but they weave together to help us create the full tapestry.

We're just all about Joanne's fabric today. 

Oh, the theme, they should be a sponsor for your podcast. I think you should reach out to them. That's crazy. 

It's so interesting though, because the next one is intuitive. That's the next path? 

Erica: Interesting. Well, I think so. I'm going to combine them if you don't mind. So the analytical to me is it's about data.

It's about how one looks at data and discerns different things. And I have in business. Very specifically in a way that I was budgeting and job costing incredibly precise and analytical. And two years later, I had a financial advisor come in and say, you know, your data is already biased because you 

 Already divided it for a percentage for different factions of your company. So you're just analyzing the data that you already put in that was biased. And I'm like, ah, like it w I was like, oh, it's not. So like, that's where it's like even a research papers and stuff. And ACA, Dem, I can never say this word academician.

How do you say it? Academician? 

Bree: Well, 

Erica: whatever it is, someone in academia, whatever they call themselves. Yeah. We'll say academics. You know, like there's so much research that is done right. But so many people in the world, not even just academics, but in the world do research, looking for the data that supports their theory.

So that's how I feel about analyzing a little bit is like it's got to have absolutely. And you can't have all the data you can't that science doesn't have all the data. Science is discovering the data and constantly changing. That's good science. We know that from the pandemic and the vaccines is good science.

When the rules change, that means we're doing our job. And, and so, so that's why I think analytical is not the answer. Not that you ever even mentioned that, but like, I think it's not the whole picture. And that's why intuition and gut instinct and knowing your values comes into using that, that, those, that data.

Bree: I think you're right on there. I really do. And I think it's something that we. when we get, I mean, looking at bias at the natural bias that happens, even having an awareness of that bias is part of the good science, right? It's it's and it's part of good decision-making.

And I think that the problem is when we can't recognize that our objectivity is somewhat impossible, right? So we have to do the best we can, and also take a broader look at, at our perspectives and our limits too. 

Well, exactly. It's like budgeting anything, right?

Like you're budgeting a movie. You want a 10% contingency. Well, now you want at least a 20% because 10% actually goes to all the COVID protocols. So it's like the, all those contingencies, it just means it's a padded. And I feel like in, in that discernment that you're talking about, it's like, what is that contingency for potential bias?

Maybe you don't know what it is, but just the awareness that that can exist, is helpful. And I think it's balanced out by the joy. If there is an idea or a class, or I don't know, some other grand thing that I've come up with in my brain to say, next year, I want to X right. In, in whatever, create this then, Actually the, well, the unknowns are this much.

I'm probably not thinking of half the things I should be thinking of, which I think is the worst word in the English language, the worst cuss word is "should" in my brain. But then, you know what my heart and my joy is like, screw it. It's all a grand experiment anyway. And that's what I say in all my classes, especially when I'm directing, I'm like you guys, this is a grand experiment.

We might just fail. And if we fail, it's my fault. You can blame me a hundred percent. And if we win, it's all your credit. All I'm there to do is set up the whole tone that it's an experiment. That's how I run the 

company. I mean, that's great leadership, right? That's 

Erica: good. I'm not the first one that said that there are all sorts of amazing leaders.

Who'd like, talk about that concept. I think I did it intuitively just because it's way easier for me to take the heat than it is for me to take the accolades, honestly. So I like doing it out of whatever, whatever psychological reason I have to do that, that that's my comfort zone, but definitely I've read that.

For sure. 

Bree: But reading it and knowing it is different from doing it. So kudos to you for doing that. Thank you. the next one is create, 

Erica: maybe you should ask people at companies if they really do

Bree: well. We'll do a little, a little poll. Yeah, that's good. Creative. 

Erica: Oh, I think everyone's creative. I think, you know, I don't think you can be human without being creative. I think it's a muscle and sometimes people don't use it a lot and sometimes people use it, so, so, so much. but creativity is, is a part of the world.

I mean, it literally is, is why we exist today. You know, with the creative is so many, it doesn't mean necessarily art, creative thinking, creative solutions. Creative doodling. 

Bree: So closely related to the experimentation, right? Giving room for something to arise. It's all about making space, holding space and making space, physical.

Erica: Oh yeah, that's a new, I mean, I was an athlete. My whole growing up, I was a swimmer I'm like swam twice a day, morning and night, like pretty intense. And,so always, always thought that keeping a healthy body means keeping a healthy mind, et cetera, but I've had a very hard time. In my life. I'm very good at meditating.

I'm very good at physical stuff. And, and I don't even know how competitive I am. I started rowing when I was 40 with the group here, the Ravana rowing club. And I haven't done it since which I really want to do. I did it for two years, but we're like rowing, having a beautiful 

view 

Erica: at 5 45 in the morning of the water and the birds and then the boat next to me, someone's like, should we race? And I'm like, no, it's so nice. And someone goes, go, and I'm like, all in, like literally it was like a switch lipped. I was like, screw the beauty we are winning. And 

I was like, wow, Erica, you are flipping competitive. And then of course I tell my family be like, of course you are. And like, I never ever realized that. But in that, that, that kind of an available connection for me is the same with mind and body. So that. My physical was never I was ever able to meditate and move.

If I meditate, I am still as a stone. And if I'm moving, I am really into knowing, okay. is my left hamstring engaged. Like, I mean, I'm just like every part of my body I'm aware of. And so it's been an interesting journey for lack of a better word to figure out how to bring those things close together.

But I don't think I'm that close to still, even though two years at yoga, it's like, I really, but I'm into the yoga. I'm not like thinking about other things, but it's like my mind likes productivity. And in sometimes I feel like, I don't know, it's hard to meditate and also be aware of your body at the same time.

Bree: You know, when you say your mind likes productivity, it makes me think how recently. I have a new friend and the new friend, and I'm doing a little favor for her. And she said, what can I do for you? And I said, no, you don't get it. Like, this is it. This is, this is how I friend, we are, we do something that's what I need.

I need you to let me do this thing. Cause it's, well, it's a productive and creative thing. Right. It is interesting how we find our way invert. Not everyone is, into productivity. 

Erica: Yeah, no. And I just, I found that when I realized that that was like a big aha for me.

Cause you know, when you're in your twenties or at least when I was in my twenties, I thought everyone thought the same as I did. I thought everyone's priorities would same as mine. If everything, like, I think that's just a normal 20 year old thinking, but, But no, it's interesting. And I also thought everyone was a leader.

I also thought everyone had these very specific visions or InVisions of how, how things could be like, it's, it's just a really enlightening thing to know that the way your own mind works is actually worthy individualized and worthy. I wish everyone in the whole planet knew that, you know? 

Bree: Yeah. Well, we'll get there.

We'll get there. That's what these podcasts are for everybody on the planet is going to hear you say that. Okay. the next one is spiritual. 

Erica: Yeah. that's that meditation? That's that? I mean, if this sounds so cliche, it sounds so cliche, but I'll just say it. I am such a believer in that the universe has your back

that I don't know how to operate other than that. And when I don't believe that when there's the day or the weeks that I go through and I'm like, it just doesn't seem like it. It's just like, it's like digging a hole. And as soon as I just go back to that core belief, it's all going to be fine. It's a grand experiment and the universe has my back and everyone in my life too, like it doesn't just apply to me.

It's like the universe has our backs. It's all fine again. And it all starts, you know, talk about law of attraction. It all starts attracting all the, I dunno, but I also think it's just perspective. 

Bree: Well, it is my, I mean, you, you have a whole mindset education program, right? It is mindset, but you are particularly good at it.

Like I see you from afar. Do you have a trick that works for you? It won't work for everyone, but how do you, how do you bring yourself back to that place when you get out of alignment there? 

I grieve and I'm incredibly self-compassionate and I had to learn that through therapy. Like, like I had to have people tell me you deserve self-compassion and I have, bonkers, like 27 inner children that I tried to pay attention to every single one of them.

Erica: And, and, and it's okay to feel like crap and like you're losing and that you're worthless. It's okay to feel like that. Cause it's going to change. 

Bree: I think , there is this trend towards what really feels like toxic positivity, right?

And so that your way to trust. Is through the complexity of emotions, including grieving, including compassion, including recognizing and moving through overwhelm, is really gorgeous. And I think it's, it's actually very helpful for people to hear that the way through to faith is by embracing the shadow.

Erica: Hmm. That's beautiful that Bree and it's weird because when I'm in those places, those, those yucky places, we'll just call them those menacing stupid places. Then it's like, I'm not able to say, oh, this is just a menacing stupid place because I am seeing it from the outside.

I'm in it. And I think that's where grit comes from. I think that's where practice honestly comes from. That's the starting over the practice of that, because you're going to go through, I think it's just a part of being human too, but it, it's hard to see during those times that things will change.

So to me, that self compassion and that other, almost unconscious belief that things will change and the universe has my back. Those are the keys and I can't remember them other than they're in my body. 

I have a kid in college, right. You have a kid in college and there is a, a part of parenting that I'm just learning. Talk about. Beginner's mind of how they, they fix their own stuff and they have most of their life fixed their own stuff and gotten themselves out of whatever.

But it's, it's a real tricky time with the pandemic and everything going on in the world right now to really, you know, What is the appropriate amount to step back and what's not. And so then that voice has to come back in that to me too, like the universe has your back, you're going to do just fine.

They're going to do just fine. social. So social is not just friends or colleagues, but it's all relationships. 

Yeah. The thing I have to say about relationships. Personal and business is a thing that's really hard for me to do, so I will articulate it. What I've and this is like what I've learned, what I've learned, what are we talking?

What's the whole overall scope. 

Bree: It's the seven ways to manifesting change. 

Erica: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. To manifest, to try to change. So the thank you, not keeping score of giving and taking, making sure if you are keeping your own score that it's not always taking, so that's the antithesis to not keeping score, but I think it's really important not to keep score of the other, put it that way, make sure, but make sure you're not giving too much either.

You're not taking everything, but you aren't giving too much and then really ending on good terms quicker than before things go sour. I think that's really, really important because expect having expectations in relationships is just a dead end street. 

Bree: It's so true expectations in, in general. 

Are a dead end street and certainly in relationships. And what I, what I also appreciate about that as I think about my own relationships is that they have seasons, right? Where you, where you may, interact with someone or be closer to them in a season. And then you move apart for a while.

And then you can come back in a new configuration, but not putting a relationship or a human into a box that that is immutable is so important and gives us more room for grace, just like you were speaking of. And. I love the reminder to, to try to titrate that before it becomes a crisis . To be mindful of that and to titrate it before resentment sets in, because resentment is calcifying 

Erica: absolutely, and sometimes it's hard.

Sometimes you just are unable to see that it is going south. And because hope, you know, rose colored glasses, there's all sorts of, you know, legitimate sayings and, and then you just have to go, okay. I learned something great, move on, but I think that, you know, on the other hand, relationships literally built.

Something exponential. So having relationships, having the social aspect within integrated into creativity, that's why filmmaking is such a passion is because it takes an entire group of sometimes hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of people to create one project. And I just think that it's incredible and people at the top of their game, in their very specific focus of their art and they're contributing 

that's why it's movie magic to me. That's movie magic. It's not because they're falsifying a fake background and you believe it. The magic is that all these creatives come together full of unbelievable talent and joy and craft and all commit to one specific creative idea and then create. That's crazy.

It's like building 

pyramids.

Bree: The alchemy of creative collaboration, right. It's unparalleled. It is the most extraordinary experience. I wish it on everyone. 

Erica: Yeah. I mean, you hope you have a great product, but like they say, you can make a bad, bad film. It takes equal amount of creativity and passion than a good film, you know?

So, yeah. 

Bree: I was in a screenwriting group some years ago with, with a small group of women and nothing ever happened with this thing. We never finished it. It didn't matter. The friendship. That emerged from that, the relationships, the understanding of self that came from that was the lesson in it.

Right. That was the, that was the true product of it. 

Erica: I think that's amazing. And we're all social creatures. I mean, humans are a, a community-based, animal, so I remember going in LA, we'd always have these book clubs and more than half the people didn't read the book and it just became a great catalyst to, you know, a gathering of, of people who loved hanging out with each other.

And, yeah, sometimes I feel like films are actually, 

yeah, I also have to say most of the time you end up with a product that you're really proud of. I mean, that's what you really want. Right? You want 

both. 1000000%. And I do believe, I mean, there are some horror stories about really cool films that came out, but I think the vibe on the set, I think the energy that is put into a project does show up on the screen.

And if it's a positive, productive, you know, I just think it's, I mean, I just finished, I D just finish, it came out, I cast dope sick. I has 229 roles, on this limited series called dope sick. And there were a whole lot of reasons,that I could've said, no, I'm not going to work on this project, but there was something about the team about the people, about the, the, the content, et cetera.

And it was just one of the things I'm so proud of doing. And I'm so glad I didn't, say no for some really silly, very obvious reasons that I was considering not doing it, , But that just shows. Everyone is really focused on the worthiness of what they're doing that shows on the screen.

Bree: It's so true. We've gotten through all seven ways. Yeah. So I have one more question for you beyond that. And that is if you had one wish for people who are question one, wish for people who are really transforming their lives, who are in the throws of that kind of transformation, what would it be? 

it's twofold.

Erica: It's that the way you see the world, your voice, Is unique and important to the world that it matters to the world. And, if you happen to already know that, or just discovering that

it's the responsibility of knowing that your voice is unique to the world is coupled in my mind with your also exactly where you should be, where you need to be. You don't have to be more successful or ahead or have done something else and you don't have to do less. You shouldn't be, I have not done this, or you shouldn't have not done that.

Like there is just trusting that where you are on your existential journey as a creative human being, because we're all creative human beings, is perfect, but that value you can give yourself. Just acknowledging that your voice is unique and it matters that's what I wish everyone knew, period.

And I think when people are in that place of knowing that that's when magic happens, 

Bree: I love that. Well, thank you for being a great example and mentor 

Erica: and living 

Bree: and living by those living by those standards and living by those wishes that you have for other people, it shows it shows and all that you do, and it shows in who you are.

Erica: Well, thank you. It's a pleasure. You're one of my favorite people, you know, that and agree. I would say the right right back to bright back at ya, right back at you, all the things you just said, I'm just putting a little mirror up right 

Bree: You mentioned the universe has your back. Gabby Bernstein of course wrote a book called the universe has your back.

And she has a new book coming out or that's out maybe now. And so she has been doing the whole podcast, junk it, and she, somebody was complimenting her and she said, you know, I'm just a mirror. And, and what you see is, is absolutely a reflection of who you are. So thank you for that reminder and, I'm honored to, to reflect with and by you.

Here are my key takeaways from this conversation with Erica Arvold number one. We come into the world and into any situation with inherent bias, full stop, and having an awareness of that bias, understanding that we have a limited perspective is absolutely crucial when we are making decisions, whether that's looking at the systems that we are creating in business are analyzing our spending patterns.

Also our perspectives can shift as we get more knowledge. And that is good. That is growth. Number two, Erica says that should may well be the worst cuss word in the English language. Where are you falling subject to the sherds in your life? And where are the opportunities to shift your perspective around.

Number three. When you get out of alignment, it may be helpful to grieve, to acknowledge the full spectrum of emotions that arise when you're in a place of doubt or shame or frustration. The way through to faith is not toxic positivity. It's about embracing our shadows with compassion and that takes practice.

Number four. I love Erika's wish for all of us to know that the way you see the world and the voice that you bring to all you do is uniquely yours. So use it well.

And know that you are exactly where you need to be to do. if you're interested in checking out the classes that are called Warner studio, and I highly recommend it, visit Arvold online@arvold.com.

Special, thanks to our sponsors at Codebase Coworking to Dilinistic for the beautiful pause, to go artwork and to w T J U and the Virginia audio collective for your support.