The Poetry of Leadership: The Navigating Disruption Podcast

In this episode:

In this insightful episode of the Navigating Disruption Podcast, host Shakeel reconnects with his junior high school classmate, Stephanie Bolster. Stephanie is an acclaimed Canadian poet, professor, and winner of the Governor General’s Award for Poetry. Together, they explore how the arts can help leaders strengthen self-awareness and creativity and build character. They compare notes on the similarities and differences of providing candid feedback as a leader and as a creative writing teacher. Listen in as they reminisce about their school days and dive deep into the complexities of turning a passion into a profession, journaling, and navigating the world’s challenges as a leader. 

Host: Shakeel Bharmal, Executive Coach – The Ivey Academy 

Guest: Stephanie Bolster, Canadian poet and professor of creative writing at Concordia University, Montreal. 

Other ways to listen:

• Apple Podcasts

• Spotify Podcasts

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About The Navigating Disruption Podcast

On The Navigating Disruption Podcast, we engage with intriguing professionals from diverse backgrounds to explore how leaders can create a more meaningful impact in these challenging times. We delve into our guest’s personal and career experiences to uncover connections between life and leadership in complexity and ambiguity. 

In an era where the pace of change and uncertainty permeates every aspect of life, predicting the outcomes of our decisions and actions is increasingly complex. This podcast offers valuable insights, reflections, and practical advice to help leaders, teams, and organizations survive and thrive amidst the disruption. Join us as we navigate these turbulent waters together. 

Note: The podcast is not produced by The Ivey Academy. Produced and edited by Shakeel Bharmal and Lindsay Curtis. Music and lyrics courtesy of Late Night Conversations 

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About the Host

Shakeel Bharmal is an Executive Coach, Facilitator, and Instructor with The Ivey Academy. From his early career in sales and marketing, strategy consulting and general management to his more recent roles as a chief operating officer and leadership coach, Shakeel has always been curious about how leaders can use their humanity and professional acumen to make a positive impact on the people around them. In this podcast, as a lifelong learner, he strives to use that curiosity to serve his listeners. 

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Episode Transcript

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Today's guest used to sit a couple desks in front of me in junior high French class. I always admired her because she was the top student in our school, she was quiet and kind and really lovely to be around. And most importantly, she used to laugh at my corny jokes, one of the few people that did. 

I also got to watch as she evolved into the biggest Duran Duran fan I have ever met. It was quite a transformation to watch in those years. But that's a story for another day. 

After 40 years, we recently reconnected. And her profession struck a chord with an area I'm exploring these days, the role of arts in leadership. Stephanie Bolster is a Governor General's award-winning poet, an esteemed professor at Concordia University, and an influential voice in Canadian literature. Our conversation delves into the transformative power of poetry and art in leadership, exploring themes of self-awareness, ethical decision making, and the creative processes that drive innovation. Whether you are a leader, a creative, or simply someone seeking to understand the deeper connections between art and life, this episode promises to offer some profound insights. Enjoy the conversation. 

[MUSIC PLAYING] 

Welcome to the navigating disruption podcast. I'm Shakeel Bharmal, your host. As the founder of Ocean Blue Strategic, an executive coach at the Ivey Academy, and a partner with The Summit Group, I spend my days exploring the intricacies of leadership, customer relationships, and strategic thinking. Here, we connect with fascinating individuals from various walks of life to discover how we can make a more significant impact in these complex times as leaders, colleagues, and sales professionals, and more importantly, how we can grow as human beings. 

 

Before we begin today's episode, I acknowledge that we are recording from the traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg people. As I am a stone's throw from the meeting of the Ottawa, Gatineau and Rideau rivers, it's important to recognize this area's rich history as a gathering place. For hundreds or probably thousands of years, where these rivers meet has been a site of exchange, of goods, yes, but also ideas and cultures. And they continue to flow through this, our virtual community, shaping our interactions and hopefully our future. 

Stephanie, how are you today? 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: I'm good, I'm good. It's great to be talking to you. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah. And I can't really believe we're actually talking here. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Yeah, it feels strangely kind of normal and also totally bizarre, after decades. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah. After decades. I mean, I can't remember the last time I would have actually seen you. 

But I certainly remember the first time. I don't remember which class, but I know it was Grade 8, and I know I was 13. Would you have been about 13 as well? 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: I turned 13 in October of Grade 8. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: OK. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: I remember my birthday. It was not a good day. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: It was not a good day? Oh, my goodness. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Not a good day, yeah. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Oh, you have to say more about that, even though that's not usually the start of an episode. But say more about that. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Oh, I just had a miserable cold. And I always brought a lunch to school, but my mom had given me money to buy something at the cafeteria, but I couldn't taste anything. And I bought my favorite grape Fanta, and it just tasted like nothing. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Oh, wow. What a memory! 

[LAUGHS] 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: And the school was still-- and I think I was wearing my new headband thing, because that was very-- it was the end of the Olivia Newton-John kind of "Physical" era. And I was still figuring out the school. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Oh, yeah. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Well, I mean, junior high, but it was a world apart from my elementary school. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: For sure, I think we all were in that time in the '80s, trying to figure out who we were, who we were in relation to other people, who we were in relation to ourselves. And yeah, that was quite an interesting time. Figuring out what it meant to be a person in a community, and yeah, it's hard to fully wrap-- I'm sure you wrapped your mind around all that. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Totally. Yeah, I know everything about it. I'm still spending my life, I mean, that's partly why I write, is trying to figure out who I am and what I think and what I feel. And I think at that age, it was still, I don't know, just figuring out myself was enough, never mind trying to negotiate other people. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: And all these new different groups and just so many people and very few people who I knew. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Yeah, it's easier to process in retrospect. But at the time, it was kind of overwhelming. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: For sure. For sure. Well, first of all, let me just say what an honor it is to have a recognized Governor General award-winning, many other award-winning poet on this podcast. I feel like I've arrived now, when I have somebody of your caliber on my podcast. So I'm very excited about that and quite honored that you agreed. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Well, of course, no. I mean, thank you so much for inviting me to be part of this. It's a new context [INAUDIBLE] about the kind of things I do. 

And it's kind of-- I feel like my world has- I've been on sabbatical this past year and done a few collaborative things where I feel academia is really a bubble, and I spend most of my time with other writers. And so just thinking what are the implications of poetry in the world, and I mean, there obviously are a lot, but I kind of exist within this little world where we are just working with students and thinking about publishing. 

But there's so much that poetry has to contribute in the larger world that I'm just having a bit of distance from my craft in order to think about those kind of things. So when you asked me, I thought this is perfect. It's like the universe is aligning. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Oh, fantastic. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: [INAUDIBLE] thinking, yeah. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Fantastic. Well, let's step back for a moment, just to fully catch listeners up. Of course, I've given an introduction about you from my perspective. But you should have the chance to tell us a bit about yourself from your perspective. 

And the way I usually ask this question is tell us what you do, maybe just the description or the proper name for how you define yourself and, more importantly, how do you now describe your role in the world? 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Wow. Well, I mean, I think the foremost thing is that I teach poetry, although I don't actually believe that poetry writing can be taught. But I facilitate poetry writing classes at Concordia University in Montreal. And I've been doing that for 24 years now, almost. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: OK. So let's be clear. You're a professor. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: I'm a professor, yeah. I'm a professor in the English department. The Creative Writing program is housed within the English department. I mean, obviously, I was a writer first, and that's how I ended up in this position. 

But it's interesting, because growing up, there was a time when it was kind of a toss up. Do I want to be a teacher? Do I want to be a writer? And then at one point realizing, oh, maybe I could do both of those things. 

And as a poet, there's not a lot of sustainable income to be made from writing poetry. So poets are always looking for some kind of, as people would say now, a gig or a side hustle to pay bills. And I was just fortunate enough to get this teaching job after having won the Governor General's Award, as you mentioned. I was fortunate enough to win that for my first book, and so it really did open a lot of doors. And since then, I've really defined myself more by teaching than by writing, just because by virtue of the nature of the job, that's what I've spent my time doing. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: It occupies more of your time. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Yeah, it does. And it took me a while to make a peace with that because there's not a lot of time for writing. And writing is the thing that's closest to my heart. 

But I really realized that by facilitating other people's work, I mean, I'm still engaging with poetry in a really meaningful way. But also realizing that just the human impact of working with people, all of these people that I've had in my life over the past almost quarter century, young people, people I would never have met [INAUDIBLE] contexts, and spending time with them as they reflect on who they are as they're coming to find themselves and define themselves through their writing. 

So it really transcends-- poetry is the vehicle. But it's really just a means of understanding other people and understanding the world. And that's the bigger picture that I didn't really have the insight into when I started. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Interesting, Stephanie. So as we are talking and as you're sharing this thought, I see so much-- and I'm going to say this as humbly as I can-- I see so much of myself in you, particularly as it relates to a little bit of motive and interest. 

Look, we had one 15, 20 minute conversation a few weeks ago. We exchanged a few emails when I took the leap to ask if you would do this. But there's one of the things I've picked up-- and you sent me a sample of your writing, something you wrote about in the past. And I shared some of my writing with you a little bit sheepishly, compared to sending my writing to a poet. My goodness, I've never felt more vulnerable in my life. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Oh, no, no. It's great. It's great. I mean, I love the fact that writing is such a big part of what you do. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah, that's what I mean, is this idea of using writing to explore your relationship and your understanding of human behavior, I think I backed into that myself. Because I'm fascinated by human behavior and our individual's role in the world and how they can be deliberate and face their most difficult parts of themselves and their blind spots and interact with that. And writing is a great way to do that. The arts are a great way to do that, which is what attracted me to have this conversation with you. 

And I've been really interested in the relationship between leadership, leadership development, leadership self-awareness, and the arts. And so that's kind of where I wanted to go a little bit with this conversation. But let me step way back now, go back to the '80s, because I remember you as being very quiet. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Yeah, that's totally accurate. I remember myself that way, too. Yeah. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: And you seem like a very humble person. But you were, I think, I don't think I'm exaggerating, when I say you were probably the smartest person in at least our grade, if not the school. Because you always got top marks, and you were always on the top of the honor roll. I remember that. Right? 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: OK, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: You're nodding. That's good. That's good that you're validating. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: I'm proud of that. But it was also kind of hard to be that person. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: OK. Well, I'd love to dive into that a little bit if you're open to it. So here's what I'm recalling. You didn't say much. You didn't talk much. 

But for some reason, and I can't explain it, I felt a little connected to you. And I still don't know if I can fully explain it. But as you talk about your interest in poetry, your interest in human behavior, your reflective nature, looking at the past, I think maybe there was a kindred nature in our spirits that maybe at least I wasn't mature enough to fully understand there. But the body knew, you know? 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Yeah, I think so, too. I mean, I also felt that connection. I mean, obviously during the pandemic, kind of looking around online, who do I remember and where are these people and what are they doing. And it was a handful of people that I looked up. 

And you had really stayed in my mind. I think just yeah, your own intelligence and sense of humor, you were much more-- I mean, I think it was probably easier to get a read on you because you kind of lived closer to the surface of yourself. When I think about myself now, I feel like I was really submerged. And I mean, it's one thing to say I wish I'd been different. But that's who I was and to some degree, still am. 

But I think there is something about maybe the kind of attention we were paying for things. Even though, as you say, neither of us really kind of having the maturity to get that-- 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: --what that connection was. And I really kind of define myself around being a really good student, even though I would say maybe less so through junior high. 

But through elementary school, it was hard to always be the person with the top marks. There was a lot of teasing. I mean, what you would probably now just say is bullying. But basically, it was hard to-- and for some reason, I mean, to me, I felt being a smart girl was particularly difficult, or maybe that was just in my cohort. Maybe that was also just stuff that my parents said to me as a way of comforting me that I just internalized. And I don't know. 

But I did find that it was my defining feature of who I was. And I was proud of it. I mean, at first it was easy to get good marks. And then at a certain point, I worked for it. 

But I also felt I wished that I could be those people who just seem to be, out there enjoying life. I mean, it's not like I didn't have friends. But I think I was much more kind of a watcher, an observer, certainly in terms of extracurriculars. I didn't sign up for anything. 

I didn't do anything. I didn't do student council, I didn't do sports. But I was aware of the people who were doing those things. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah. You were obviously a keen observer of what was going on around you. But let me just say, it's so interesting you talk about this. I think one thing we probably learned as we've gotten older, and it probably didn't take very long for you, is that everything is a double-edged sword. Our best features are also our worst features. Our things that we're most proud of also are the things that sometimes kind of do us in a little bit. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Yeah, totally, totally. And I remember writing a poem, actually, as an undergrad. It was called kind of "Watcher Watched." And I felt I was always watching other people, but I was also aware of that kind of scrutiny on myself, too. I had always had a real self-consciousness. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: OK, interesting. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: So that was an early awareness of yeah, this has two qualities. And the way that I'm observing other people, is it always open, generous, or is it judging? I mean, I think even then I was thinking about the ways that could go in directions I wasn't proud of. 

So yeah, the desire to be liked, is that about being authentic? Or where does that come from? Who does one want to be liked by and why? What does popularity mean in that context? So it's such complex stuff for-- 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah, for sure. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: --to be navigating, really. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: I mean, I listen to you now, and I wish I had a little bit of what you had at that time. Because I'm a little bit embarrassed to say, but I'm a grown up now, I can say it, is that I probably was worried a bit too much about what people thought of me back then. And I was probably trying too hard to be accepted. And I probably made jokes to build my own brand. I would have never called it that then, but that's probably it. 

And so I would say that the whole heart-on-my-sleeve kind of comment you made, I think it was I was right "living at the surface," I think that's very true. And I think during my career, at least my early career, I found that at times it didn't serve me so well. And I might have been, I think, judged a little bit by, at that time, in the '80s, if you think about the management structure of corporate Canada, very staid, very much a boys' club. 

And I always felt like a bit of a square peg in around hole. And it probably wasn't until the last 5 to 10 years that I realized that my approach to life and leadership actually is what's required. It just took a while to get there. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Yeah, no. I think it's true. I mean, first I will go back to say that your extroversion and your sense of humor never seem forced to me. It seemed really natural and joyous, something really, really positive that I felt like I benefited from being around and maybe wanted to be more like that. So yeah, definitely that felt really authentic to me. 

But I can hear what you're saying about that desire to be liked. And I think how it must be difficult in a kind of administrative role, managerial role, to reconcile that with the kind of hard decisions that you have to make sometimes. I mean, I think that myself. 

In the classroom, it's some soul searching I've done, let's say, over the last decade around what does it mean to be nice. I feel like I grew up defining myself as a nice person. And that's not always the wisest way to be. I feel the difference between kind and nice is important, and being attentive is really important. 

But being nice is kind of the surface of that. And it's about how you're seen that doesn't have a lot of depth necessarily or complexity to it. And also then being respected, and where do you find that if there's this surface layer of I want you to like me? 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Yeah. And then also, as a writer, I actually stopped writing poetry reviews very early in my writing career because I realized I didn't have the guts to say what I really thought about books by writers that I might later meet. And I mean, I was doing it to make, it was, like, $100 for a review or whatever, which at the time wasn't bad, in the mid-'90s. And then just thinking if I can't really say what I think, I don't want to be putting my name behind these words. It's not a genuine review. And so I just stopped doing it. 

I admire people who could get out there and say what they really thought in a way that was respectful of the book and not mean-spirited. But I just couldn't do that. So I just made a choice to pivot in another direction and just focus on my-- 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: How interesting. Yeah. So I would say my discovery was similar. I think it really happened when-- I think it was when I became a management consultant coming out of business school. And I realized that companies were actually paying a lot of fees to my company. It didn't go right into my pocket, but they were paying high fees for us to come in there. And if we weren't 100% honest in a respectful way about the way we saw things, based on our analysis, even if it ruffled feathers on a senior management team, I think we felt we were not earning our money, and that was almost a ethical violation of it, by holding back the truth. 

What I did learn over time, Stephanie, is I worked very hard at how do you deliver the truth, even if the truth hurts, in a way that makes it hurt a little bit less and therefore more likely to be accepted and actioned. And that's something I invested a lot of energy and time doing, is making sure the truth is told, but done in a respectful, and you used the word "kind", way. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: And that's huge. Yeah, I mean, we probably don't have time to go into all the details of how you do that. But I mean, that's probably a whole other seminar. But I mean, that fascinates me. Because how do you prepare receptivity in the people that you're speaking to? 

And I find that as a teacher, too. I find I'm constantly juggling knowing how much, and it's not like it's an either/or. But when is it my role to support and just get the students to be writing their work and really not judging it, they just need to get it out there and be encouraged and praised, and then, when do I need to be a little tougher. 

And I find that I actually tend to be tougher on the writers who are better, who are already more accomplished, because I feel like they can handle it. And if I'm telling them you know what, you do this really well, but I've seen you do this before. I know that you can write this kind of poem. How about trying to break that open and do something else? And I have to know them well enough to know. It's reading the work, but also reading the person. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah, for sure. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Are they ready to handle that? And for me also to make clear, where that's coming from and the fact that it's because I hold their work in such high esteem and I think they're already doing so well that I'm encouraging them to push themselves. Where somebody who's really new to poetry and is really kind of vulnerable and just testing it out, I'm not going to be that tough with that person because it's just going to turn them off writing poetry entirely. So it's all about calibrating that interpersonality and figuring out when you can deliver what kind of comments. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Oh, my goodness. You've just decoded what I think is one of the secrets of really positive, giving, generous leadership in what you've just described there. The parallels are very similar. Oftentimes when you have a high performer in a work setting, you will just let them do their thing. 

And because they're doing so good, you don't want to rock the boat, you don't want to disturb it. Maybe you even don't want to hurt their ego because they're so good. But in reality, you're doing them a disservice because you're not supporting the potential for being even greater than they are. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Well, especially in this case. I mean, if your firm is hired to come in and do that, to have that perspective. I mean, as nice as it would to be told, oh, you guys are great, there's nothing I would change, that's not that's not what they're paying for. 

And they probably already sense, that there are ways that they can grow. But they don't have the distance, the perspective to see that. And yeah, it's the same thing with students in a class. They want to learn something. Even though it might be hard for them to learn it in that moment, and it might take them, like, five years before they process. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: But I think, yeah, it is interesting how similar those aspects are. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: So the takeaway for me from what you've said, what I'm thinking, is that when you have the high performance, you have a bit of high performers on your team, actually, you owe them the responsibility of being honest, candid, pushing them a little further in areas that they can get better at so they can be the best they can be to serve the rest of the organization, their team, their community in a stronger way. But I loved what you said about those people that might not be quite there yet, maybe they're a little bit more vulnerable, they're just getting their feet under them. And so you want to be honest with them, but you want to do it in a much gentler way, and you want to pick your moments, I think. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Exactly, exactly. And I have the luxury of working with these students for a whole year, usually, September to April. So you can get to know people. They can get to know each other. 

They may be hearing things from their peers in the workshop that then I can underscore, or I can counter those things. So yeah, it's a whole ecosystem of relationships. And I can wait until there's some things that I'll put in my final comments to the student after the very last portfolio of work, like, this is what you might want to think about for the future. 

And sometimes I get to work with the same writers again the next year. I mean, I have students that I've actually worked with as undergrads, and then they come back and do their master's, and then sometimes even do a PhD. So sometimes it's like a really long period of time I get to work with somebody. Whereas in your case, you're going in, you probably have very limited time. What, maybe like a week, a few days? 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Well, no. I mean, what you're describing is when I used to be a management consultant. But now, as you lead organizations, you're there for quite a time. You have people you're leading. 

I don't know if this is relevant for you, but when you're leading a team of people, sometimes you have to actually counsel people to come to a conclusion that this is not the right fit for them. Either you have to let them go, or you have to lead them to a place where they make that determination for themselves and move on. But it sounds very similar to those kinds of dynamics, getting to know people over time. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: I think so, although I think what you're contending with is harder, because people's livelihood is attached to that, and a really big part of their sense of self. I mean, working with specifically-- I was just talking about undergraduate writers-- some of them, they don't even know the role that they want writing to take in their lives. So there's more flexibility. It's probably easier for people. 

And they're also still finding themselves. So they may be open to realizing, OK, maybe this isn't what I thought it was, or this isn't what I want to do. Or also other cases, where people thought that they were a fiction writer. 

Or they were just taking this class as an elective, and then they realized, actually, poetry is not at all what I thought it was. This is something I can actually do. And they get really excited about it. So there's the opportunity to win people over as well. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Oh, fantastic. Well, you used the words, and it kind of triggered me in a positive way, "finding yourself." And this is one of the hypotheses I had in wanting to have this conversation with you, that my own discovery marinating in the arts for myself is that the arts, whether it be music or poetry or writing, can be a mechanism for helping you build self-awareness, thinking through things, reflecting, finding yourself, and something that leaders really do need. 

And so I was very curious on your thoughts around that, as poetry or writing as a vehicle for self-awareness. What are your thoughts? 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: I think of all of the literary genres-- in my program, we divide it into playwriting, fiction writing, and poetry-- I think poetry scares a lot of people because of the kind of self-exposure they feel is required, which is not necessarily the case. But I think to write good poetry, it doesn't have to be. You don't have to be revealing yourself overtly. I think you have to be paying attention to the world, which is actually hard to do, to just let everything in. 

And I think the kind of qualities that make a good poet is having a very permeable membrane. I think that makes it really hard to be in the world sometimes. Right? 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: You're feeling the global crises that are going on. You're feeling your own life and the things you're contending with. Poets tend not to go through life on autopilot. They're feeling and taking all these things in. 

But as you said before, there's a hard side of that. And then there's the gift of that, which is you're seeing things, you really are living your life, you're paying attention. And then you're making something of it. 

You're making you're making art of it. You're transforming it into something that you can come to understand yourself through the act of writing, but you can also potentially help other people understand themselves as they read your work. And you're giving something. 

You're communicating. I would say my writing is foremost communication with myself, and then secondarily, communication with other people. Some people put that in the other order, and maybe were told to think of it as you're writing for the reader. But for me, it's, like, no, I'm actually more selfish than that. I'm writing for myself. 

And then, if I can make something that I feel proud of that I want to share with other people, then they may find something in that, too. So I think it's different from journaling, because you do have that sense of giving something to the world and really choosing the best word, not just the first word, but you do still have to have that kind of open conduit with yourself in order to get there in the first place. 

And I think a lot of young people, that's what they're thinking about. So they're kind of receptive to writing poetry because they are very actively trying to figure out who they are and what they can contribute to the world. And I feel as if social media has created a lot of alienation, but also created a lot of introspection. People are constantly thinking about who am I, how do I fit into the world, how do I present myself. And so poetry is a way of contending with that, but it goes hopefully deeper than posting selfies on Instagram. But it's part of self-expression and self-knowledge in that way. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Gosh, Stephanie. There's so much there. I don't even know which direction to go. But I'm just going to start talking on some things that you sparked for me. 

First of all, this idea, this concept that if you have the tendency or the inclination for reflection and observation in the world, that is both a strength of yours, but you called it this permeable membrane. You're taking all this information in. And depending how you process that, for some, it could be used as a spark for creativity and innovation. And I would think that some innovators, new product designers probably use that in that way, observing behaviors to create product or create ideas. 

But for others, it can actually be painful to pick up on these emotions, to pick up on what's happening in the world. And in some ways, poetry can be a mechanism to process that for yourself, but also, if shared with others, can also help others that might be going through similar things, maybe. Yeah. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: I think so. People who don't generally read poetry, or who never would define themselves as writers of poetry, they reach for poems at, well, weddings and funerals are the classic occasions. It's joyful, and you want to celebrate. And you feel it calls for some kind of expression that transcends just everyday language. There are anthologies of poems for weddings. 

And then, likewise, when someone passes away, a couple of people close to me have lost people close to them recently, and they've written poems for the occasions of memorial services. Because as writers, they are expected by their family to do this, [INAUDIBLE] to be able to share as a poem. And in both cases, these particular friends of mine, it's been hard for them to write this work, but also really gratifying, I think, in terms of coming to terms with the loss and what they are feeling, but also being able to give something to their family that maybe they feel only they can give. 

And so in this case, I'm talking about people who are writers. But I've certainly heard, anecdotally, people who aren't writers, but they lose someone, and they write a poem about it. And maybe they don't share it with anybody, or maybe they don't think of it as a poem, even. But it's just a means of expressing big emotions. And I think that it's something that people seek out. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Can you tell me when did you know? I mean, you obviously had the interest, had the natural talent, and then you took that and turned that into something, turned that into a profession. How did that evolve for you? 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: I would say I was always writing, even in elementary school. It's funny, because after I won the Governor General's Award, somebody that I had known in elementary school kind of tracked me down and sent me an email and said I'm so happy for you. And I'm not surprised, because you were always such a good writer. 

And I thought, really? This is somebody I knew from Grade 2. I had no awareness of having been seen as a good writer in school at that age. 

But at home, certainly, I was always making little books. My brother would draw the pictures. And I would write stories. So it was always just a means of expression for me. 

I wanted to write YA books, basically. I wanted to be the next Judy Blume. I wanted to write books for 12-year-olds. And then, even when I started studying creative writing at university, that was kind of hard for me to honor that part of myself. 

Because I wanted to do something that felt more practical. I thought studying English literature, even, somehow, seemed more practical, or studying psychology. Ultimately, actually, writing is more practical than studying English literature. Because you're making something. You're not just reading something. 

But I was very concerned about making a living, but I just told myself if I follow my heart-- this was the '80s. My mom was reading a lot of Joseph Campbell books, a lot about mythology. And his phrase was always "follow your bliss." And so if I follow my bliss, and it doesn't work out, I can come back and do something more practical. But I'll always regret it if I don't try it. 

So I was trying following this writing path because it was always something, I felt, that brought me self-understanding. But I also felt like I was good at it. But also, it wasn't something that I was good at in a kind of school way, like, getting an A plus on your chemistry exam or whatever. I would study for those science classes and do well, but it wasn't where my passion was. I knew that writing was what I really wanted to do. 

And then poetry kind of emerged from that just over time, really, realizing that I had a lot of struggles in writing stories with plot, character, the kind of major building blocks. People would say this is beautifully written, but you really need to work on the tension between these characters, or the plot's kind of meandering. And I realized, OK, I think poetry is my thing. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: OK. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: So it was a combination of feeling more at home in the genre and then also listening to the kind of criticism I was getting and realizing maybe I don't have what it takes to be really good at fiction, but I think I can develop the skills that I do have in poetry, while being fully aware that it was the most marginalized of the genres, the least likely to make me any kind of living. 

But also, in retrospect, there's a real freedom in that because you're not thinking about the market at all. It's what do you want to write, and then just hope that somebody wants to publish it. So it's actually incredibly freeing. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah. Fantastic. Well, I'm going to ask you to share some thoughts, maybe think of my listeners as perhaps creative writing students. I know you said it's really not something you teach. You bring it out in people. 

But one of the things I'm thinking about, and I might be making this up completely, from my experience, there's a lot of talk about journaling as a mechanism for self-awareness and developing yourself as a leader, on solidifying the things you learned in a particular day and setting attention to the future. I've tried it. I'm an advocate of it. 

But it's been a struggle for me just to journal and reflect using journaling. And so I realized that the way I do that is I just write posts on LinkedIn that, as you said, are for me. And maybe they have a little bit of poetry or imagery that helped me kind of feel I'm expressing myself. And then I put it out there. 

And I use the excuse that I'm doing it to serve others. But I think the reality is I'm doing it to serve my own needs and serving others gives me a good excuse for doing it. I'm going to wrestle around with that myself. 

But now let's say there are other leaders out there that would need to benefit from daily reflection, or thinking, or self-awareness building, but journaling is also not their thing. And maybe meditation is also not their thing. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Yeah. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Are there two or three things you could suggest that maybe they can use to explore, that maybe creative writing or poetry might be something for them? 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: I think the thing that a lot of people maybe resist in journaling is that it's very much about the self, and focused on the self, which can feel really self-indulgent and kind of unhealthy. Especially if you're in a field where you're defining yourself on doing things, it can feel like a waste of time to just be mired in your own thoughts. So I think if you can maybe bypass that. 

There are so many writing prompts that one can find online for anything. Listen to a song and write something while you're listening to the song. Or I work a lot with visual arts, or just work in other media. You just look at a postcard, you look at a photograph, and just write something about it. 

So I think you trick yourself into getting to some kind of self-expression, because there's something outside of yourself that's the starting point. And so you're ostensibly responding to this image, or this piece of music, or this sculpture, or whatever it is, in whatever way comes to you. Don't think about it too much. Just start writing. 

 

I think, also, don't necessarily think about the quality of what you're doing. Just kind of try to get out of your own way. I just call it free writing. Write as quickly as you can. 

Don't think about grammar. Don't think about any of those things. And just get something out there. And I think that that idea of the external prompts can be really helpful, because it bypasses that kind of self-consciousness. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: I think also there's one basic writing tool that I remember bringing to a group of students at one point. And a lot of them were already familiar with it, because it's used to calm down anxiety. And that's basically this kind of sensory paying attention to the world around you. 

Just take a moment. Think about five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, one thing you can taste. And it's the same thing, whether you're trying to prevent a panic attack, or write a poem, or write something in the moment. 

On the one hand, you're shutting out the chaos of stimulus by paying attention to it in a way. Instead of becoming something overwhelming, it's, like, let me itemize these five things, and let me actually pay attention to where I am. And you'd think, no, I can't taste anything. Of course, you probably can taste something. Or you can smell something, you're just not aware of it. 

And just using those tools, that goes back to when I remember writing haiku poetry in Grade 2 as an exercise. Yeah, it's the same thing. Pay attention to the five senses. Whether you're a 50-year-old or a five-year-old, it's the same thing, about just paying attention to the stimulus. And so that can be another way to get into writing something. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: I love it. And you've given us so many different options. So listen to a piece of music, some kind of visual stimuli, as simple as a postcard, or a piece of art, or something. Or just engage your senses and think about flavors, smells, things that you can touch and just free write. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Yeah, exactly. Describing flavors and smells, too, it's not easy, right? We come up against the limitations of our vocabulary really quickly. 

So maybe you don't have the right word to describe it. So then you start thinking metaphorically. What is this like? And so much of poetry is about things being like other things. 

And it just kind of opens up your imagination. We all have imaginations, but we don't all use them a lot of the time or honor them. And just play. I think you give yourself permission to just play and experiment. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah, fascinating, interesting. That's very helpful. Thank you. At the end of every episode, I do a little bit of a summary, three or four things I took away. So you've given a lot for me there to noodle on and encapsulate at the end of the episode. 

But if you can, I want to move in a similar, but still a slightly different direction here. Here's one of the things I've been thinking about that leaders might be facing right now. There's so much pain and challenge happening in the world right now. It's just hard to list them all. 

But conflict in parts of the world, climate, mental health, so many things that we're being faced with all at once right now that it can be overwhelming for everybody. But I think I'm thinking about leaders right now that are leading teams, trying to be resilient, facing the facts, but also being hopeful and optimistic and inspiring their people. And I'm thinking about there's some leaders, just based on their individual characteristics, that will choose as a coping mechanism to almost shut down and ignore the pain they see around them so they can power through and just focus on driving outcomes and results. 

And I'm painting it simplistically. There's another extreme, I would say, of leaders that feel everything, and feel their people's pain, and see what's happening in the world, and bring that kind of feeling into their leadership. And sometimes, it can also be overwhelming, and they get home at the end of the day and are spent and are exhausted. 

So I think of the two extremes, the kind of overfeeling and the folks that aren't feeling enough. And both extremes are not great. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Yeah, yeah. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: And I'm wondering, is there a way to think about or maybe the way you think about, perhaps, poetry and writing as a way to somehow balance both extremes, or for those people that might be on the edges of either extreme, have a way to process what's going on? Any thoughts? 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Yeah I haven't really thought about it that way. But I think it makes a lot of sense in that when you're writing poetry, you're opening yourself up. You're expressing yourself. 

But you're also exerting some kind of control. You decide when the poem is done or done enough. You decide what you want here. You decide which words you want to use. 

So your first draft might feel like something totally chaotic. That's certainly what my first drafts are like. And then I come in there and I start shaping it. 

I mean, you're still trying to communicate the emotions, but you're taking a little bit of distance from the immediacy of that. And you're thinking about, OK, what do I have to work with here, these are the words that I have. Which ones are working? Which ones aren't? 

And just being really ruthless with the piece of writing. There's a real kind of joy that can come from shaping that that I always forget, because it's not easy. We always say 90% of writing is rewriting. It's comparatively easy to come up with something, but then, how do you make it good? How do you make it better? 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah, yeah. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: But that's also where, for me, a lot of the best moments come from, is when you take something that seems, like, kind of a bunch of sludge, and you have these glistening gems in it. And it's, like, I didn't. Like, who wrote that? I wrote that? 

And you start highlighting the stuff that feels alive and clearing out the rest. And so I think that may be, and this is just kind of a first thought towards that, but maybe where you can bridge that is whether you're the overfeeling or the not feeling enough, you've opened yourself up, you've expressed something, but now this is yours to shape. You do have the ability to do it. It's just one choice after another, which word do I like better. 

Or I know that this isn't good, what else can be stronger? And just sort of having the humility before your own work, and finding what's the best of it, I mean, it's never going to feel perfect. 

But yeah, you're exerting control. You're realizing that you probably know more than you think you do about what makes a good piece of writing. And then if you have that opportunity to share that with somebody and get some response to that, then that's the next stage of the gift is you've shaped something, and somebody is going to be responding to it. 

So I think that maybe that's the way of bridging it, through the act of I'm not just creating, but exerting creative control over it. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah, yeah. I love that. I love that. 

And there's something you said, that twigged for me, was that you know more than you think you know. And I'm thinking of those folks that don't bring enough feeling into their leadership, or are seen not to bring enough feeling into leadership, they probably feel more than they realize they feel. And the act with wrestling around with words and picking the right words and thinking those things actually might help them find a little bit more of that feeling and perhaps a little bit bring more of that humanity to their leadership. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: I think so. Not against their will, but in spite of their awareness, getting out of your own way, tricking yourself into doing things a little differently. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: I have a friend who does workshops with doctors. And they just have to get through the day. The work that they need to do, they're dealing with human beings, but they can't be feeling all the time. 

But he gets them to open up and do this writing. And they have so much to express, but also, they can't be in there all the time. They can't be feeling all the time. 

Whereas my friend, she's feeling all the time. And so we each bring what we have and who we are. And then just find poetry can be a place where so many different kinds of people can meet. 

And that's something that I really find from teaching, is thinking that, OK, all these people, what they have in common is that they're here for a poetry class. But they're not all they're not all the same kind of person. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: They're there for maybe different purposes. They've had different paths to get there. They're going to go different places afterwards. But at this one time, they're all intersecting with the act of writing, whether that's like a one term class in university, or whether that's a one hour workshop in the midst of a leadership seminar or something. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah, wow. So my parallel to that is a few months ago, maybe last fall, I dipped my toe into the world of improv. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Oh, wow. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: And so I'm now on my third, about to take my fourth course. And we have a show actually coming up in a couple of days, our term end class show. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Oh, that's great. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: It's really amazing. And what I thought was just an effort to get out, meet some people, do something social at a time when the kids are kind of all left and gone to school has turned into something quite interesting. And you articulated it as you're meeting people from all different places in life, from all different ages, and we're all there kind of exploring our own self-expression. And it's really quite a remarkable way of discovering it with other another group of people. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Oh I'm sure. I think that's amazing that you're doing that and also, to me, not surprising. I can totally see you doing that. I would be terrified to do that, which is probably exactly why I should be doing that, that really public self, and also not having the time to reflect. 

You just have to just go right in there and do something, which is not at all how I work, which is why it would be great for me. But yeah, I can totally see how that's another means of coming at that same center. And yeah, all these people, for whatever reason, this is the thing that they chose to spend their time with. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Well, wouldn't it be cool if one day you came from Montreal to Ottawa, and I would take you to one of these classes? They have these drop-in ones. I would take you. And we'd actually get to be in a classroom again for the first time in 40 years. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Oh, my God. Could I handle it? It sounds like it has to happen. 

[LAUGHS] 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Absolutely. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: It's only an hour and a half. I could do it. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah, OK. Well, I mean, I can't believe we've been together for almost 50 minutes now, and probably time to bring the conversation, but not the ongoing relationship to a close. So let me ask you-- I have a couple of lightning round questions, if I can ask your permission to put them your way? 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: OK. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah? 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Yeah. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: OK. So obviously I can see your office background, lots of books. And it seems like you're a curator to me. Is there a knick knack or object that's remained a constant in your office over the years? 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Maybe can I slightly expand the range of the house that I'm [INAUDIBLE] here? I've always thought those questions of, like, if there were a fire, what would you take from the house? I have this Dutch tile from the 1600s that I bought in Delft, in the Netherlands, that I have in the kitchen. And just the fact that this has existed, it's probably the oldest thing that I own, and it's not from my family, but just the fact that this was like in somebody's kitchen, this is hundreds of years old, and it was something that was affordable, that I was able to buy, and I've had it in a few different places I've lived now. So that's very meaningful to me. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Oh, I love that. I love that, a little bit of world history from just a regular person's kitchen in the 1600s. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Exactly. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Yeah. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: That's amazing. That's a good one. OK, so the next question is, you did make some reference to visual art. Is there a particular visual artist or art movement in particular that does inspire you? 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Well, again, this is kind of dovetailing with what I just said, writing a lot of poems earlier in my writing career about Vermeer, who was a Dutch painter of that era. And he didn't paint very many works. He didn't live for very long. 

And so the fact that there are just so few works that exist, but also they're very much like poems, his paintings. There's this sense of a suggestion of some kind of mystery, or potentially a narrative, but we never know what the context is. A lot of sense of domestic scenes where you're just, like, there's a couple of people in a room, somebody's looking out a window. What are they thinking? 

 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: I love it. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: There's just a real openness that, for me, as a writer, just kind of invited me to project myself into that, and just this real sense of contemplation. And also, just the craft, I mean, it just brings tears to your eyes just how exquisitely painted these paintings are. I've stood in front of them in museums. And you get right up in front of it, and you still can't figure out where the brushstrokes are. How did he do this-- 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah, yeah. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: --marveling at the craft. So even though I also like a lot of contemporary installation work and work that's totally breaking down that notion of what is a well-made painting, I also have that soft spot for classically recognized beautiful art. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Oh, wonderful, excellent. Thank you. And then, this is-- I think I may know the answer, based on our conversation, but anyway, let's put it out there. If you could only choose one thing to do for the rest of your life, it could only be one of these two things writing or teaching, what would it be? 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Oh. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Let's assume money was not an issue. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Yeah. I guess probably actually writing. Well, but you said only one thing. This is a tough question, Shakeel, I don't know if I can-- yeah. Because I feel like ultimately I would end up doing both somehow, anyway. 

But I feel I owe it to myself to honor my writing self for the next part of my life, if I had that choice. Because I have given a lot of time to teaching, and I feel there's a lot of work that I still have to do as a writer that I don't have time for right now. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah. Well, the good news is you don't have to make the choice. That was completely artificial, and you don't have to do-- 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Exactly, exactly. And it would, as you say. But then maybe I'll win a lottery and I will make the choice. So who knows? 

[LAUGHS] 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: So let me ask you, give you an opportunity, or an opportunity to my listeners, they want to get to know you a little better, they want to read some of your writing, where would be the best place for them to go to get exposed to some of your work? 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Probably just Google me online and look up my books. I always want to send people into independent bookstores, but there are fewer and fewer independent bookstores around. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: My first book is called White Stone, The Alice Poems, poems about and around Alice in Wonderland. So I think it's sort of a place where people who might not read poetry might still find something to connect with. So it's probably the easiest to pick up from outside and has probably more of a sense of humor than my other books, too. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: So that's the one I picked up when I wanted to get to know you a little bit better. Other than the writing, you sent me your reflective piece on history. I picked up that book. 

And I have to say, everything you just said is absolutely true. And I particularly like the extrapolation of a scene with Alice in Wonderland and Elvis, quite, quite enjoyable. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: That was very fun. That was very fun. And the fact that what inspired it was just, well, two things, the fact that Alice and Elvis, just there's a similar little sound there, something a poet would notice. But then also, they're both these iconic figures who were actually real people. And we don't spend a lot of time thinking about the real people, but we all have an image of the iconic figure. So that was my exercise for myself, was, like, who would I imagine these people having been and what would they have to say to each other. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah, I love it. I just thought of another completely unrelated kind of sound, similar thing. I don't know if you ever-- there was a movie and then a TV show about Alice, a waitress or server named Alice? 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: I just imagine there was a part of the movie, or maybe it was the name of the movie that started it all, that says Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore? 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Yeah, I think that was the movie. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: I've forgotten the filmmaker now. But it was a pretty slice of life, gritty realism, a bleak but funny movie. And then the sitcom, it's almost-- because I saw the sitcom first, and then I saw the film afterwards. And I was, like, oh, my God. How did one give rise to the other? 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: That's true. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: They were both great, but in totally different ways. You're right. And that was, like, maybe if I ever come back and write more Alice poems, I need to honor that, Alice. Because that's an Alice who I miss. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore and then the old phrase that "Elvis has left the building." So those two, I mean, are very familiar. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: OK, I'm writing that down, the B-sides collection. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: I love it. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Yeah. And I'll acknowledge you for the inspiration. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Oh, thank you. So, Stephanie, this has been a joy. And I can't believe we're living two hours away from each other after all of these years. There is some poetry there, I think, in the fact that we've come together for this conversation. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Exactly. No, I'm really grateful, really happy for this conversation and for reconnecting this friendship and kind of finding the layers in it that we were too young to see at the time. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mentioned to you I had an episode with Riaz, one of our also friends from those years. So wouldn't it be nice if we could get together and have a coffee or a meal together? That would be quite a lovely experience. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Yeah, I would love to do that. I would love to do that. My brother was, like, so who is this from high school you're talking to? I mean, he didn't even go to the same-- he didn't go to Edmonds at the same time that we were there. But he remembered both of your names. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Wow, fascinating. Love it. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: Yeah, yeah. So you had an existence in my family's imagination, too. So we have to make that gathering happen. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: For sure, I think so. Thin red lines that connect us, right? OK. Awesome. Stephanie, have a fantastic day. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: You, too. 

 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Till next time. 

STEPHANIE BOLSTER: That's right. Take care. Bye. 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Bye. 

[MUSIC PLAYING] 

SHAKEEL BHARMAL: Wasn't that a great conversation? As we wrap up this enlightening episode with Stephanie, here are three key takeaways that really resonated with me. The first was art as a mirror for leadership. Stephanie emphasized how engaging with poetry in the arts can enhance a leader's emotional intelligence, creativity, and their communication skills. By reflecting on human emotions and interpersonal dynamics through poetry, leaders can develop a deeper understanding of themselves and develop the empathy which are essential qualities for effective leadership. 

The second takeaway was around ethical dimensions and integrity. Stephanie's work often deals with ethical considerations of witnessing and documenting tragedy. She drew parallels between the ethical challenges in her poetry and those faced by leaders, particularly in today's difficult times. Leaders can learn from the arts about handling complex, sensitive situations with integrity and processing emotions so that they're better able to deal with them in real life, ensuring that their decisions are not only effective, but ethically sound. 

Third, it was all around creative processes and innovation for me. The creative process in poetry, such as generating ideas, making connections, and expressing complex thoughts can be directly applicable to leadership practice. Stephanie highlighted the importance of critique and revision not only in writing, but also in strategic leadership and decision making. So this iterative process encourages leaders to balance tradition with innovation, fostering agility and resilience. 

Stephanie, thank you for sharing your insights and experiences with us today. I hope this conversation inspired all of you to explore the intersection of art and leadership in your own lives, in your own way. Have a fantastic day! Thank you for listening. 

Whether you're a regular listener or joining us for the first time, I want you to know how much I value your support. Your engagement with our content is what keeps us going. 

If you enjoyed what you heard today, please take a moment to rate, review, and share the episode. It truly helps us reach more listeners like you. To learn more about my work, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. Visit oceanbluestrategic.com, summitvalue.com, or the coaching page at The Ivey Academy. 

[GENTLE MUSIC] 

Thanks to Lindsay Curtis, who helps me edit and produce this podcast, and an exceptional thanks to my favorite indie band, Late Night Conversations, for providing me the music for this podcast. Discover more about them on Instagram at LNC Connected and enjoy more of their music as we close out today's episode. 

[GENTLE MUSIC]

I'm not where I want to be. 

Maybe where I'm meant to be. 

I beg, I plead for clarity. 

Break this cage and set me free. 

I don't care. And I don't feel. 

I don't know what's really real. 

And I cry and I cry.