Freedom Friday: Unlocking Creative Leadership and Visual Engagement with Ashton Rodenheiser

Hello everybody and welcome once again to the unlearned podcast. I am your host, ruth Abigail, aka RA, and this is Freedom Friday, where me, or me and a friend of mine come and share something we have unlearned recently and how it has made us just a little bit more free. And I have a super cool guest with me today. I am absolutely so fast and I'm so glad we connected Ashton Rodenheiser. I get it. Okay, perfect, yeah, all right.

Ashton, welcome to the podcast. I am so happy to be here. I've been looking forward to this, so this is like a beautiful way to spend a Friday. It really is. I love it yeah.

Well, so you are based in Nova Scotia in Canada, and outside in Memphis, tennessee, it looks a little bit like Canada we have had. I literally have been in the house for a week because we have been snowed in like, and you know we can't get a few inches because we don't know what to do with that. So I'm just like, I'm just staying in right, so like outside is like still snow, we got a snowman out in the front.

It's just, it's cool, no way, I love that, I love that.

So you have a very unique skill that I want you, I would love for you to tell people about, but you have a company called Minds Eye Creative which I think is so cool, and so I'm just going to kind of hand it to you and tell us what you do. Yeah, sure.

Yeah. So sometimes I'll start by asking people you know, have you ever been to a meeting I was like really boring. Yeah, I try to like make meetings less boring at its like core. So I get invited into conversations, strategic planning meetings, conferences, all those types of settings where people are either having a discussion or they're trying to learn something, and I visualize that usually in real time. So if I'm in person, I'm usually carrying around my giant bag of markers and a big roll of paper and sticking that up and literally drawn on the paper as people are talking, and then when they're done, I'm pretty much done and there's a visual representation of that discussion or that presentation. And then also I do it online as well. So instead of seeing me here in a video, you'd actually see a drawing screen and people can see the drawing unfold in that way, and I was introduced to this world of visual thinking, visual communication, for about 10 years ago.

And so you basically take what's going on in a meeting in some form, or you take words and you translate them into pictures or a graphic of some sort in real time and you do that Like how long are you drawing? Sometimes, like I mean, you know what I mean Like some meetings can last for hours. Do you literally do that for hours?

Yeah, yeah, like I think conferences are unique or different than like a meeting, because usually there's let's say there's eight presentations. I would draw eight individual images. That's just the way that I started doing it. It's the way that my brain is wired to be able. So it just means that I like, if Guinness World Record ever comes up with like fastest handwriting, I'd like to apply. Maybe I could get it, because you have to write and draw extremely quickly. So it is very intense. Like by the end of it I feel bad if people come up to me at event and try to like talk to me, because I like I have, I have like my brain is totally fried. You cannot let yourself just get distracted, not even for a second. So it is very hard on the head, that's for sure. But if it's a meeting or strategy, it kind of depends. Like the output kind of depends on a lot of different factors. I might you know some, like I remember one meeting I did last year and I literally just like covered a whole wall and then I started going down the other side of the wall, you know. So it kind of depends on the conversation and where they're trying to get to and what have you? Sometimes it can be slow in the beginning, as people are kind of getting their footing and what they're talking about, and then they get really get into it. So then I'd be capturing a lot more, but it's it's not just images, it's words, that and images, that kind of support one another. So it's about synthesizing those ideas as well. And, yeah, it's, it's really about being a little like an interpreter, but a bit more than interpreter, because you add in the synthesization of that information but really have to lean in on your visual language and visual vocabulary that you just sort of build up over time.

What have people's? I love how you framed it in the beginning. You make meetings less boring. I don't know anyone that really likes meetings you know what I'm saying. Like nobody really likes them. What has been the response of people who have experienced this Like I could imagine? I mean, once you've done a meeting with this kind of like resource, I don't even know how you go to other meetings you know what I'm saying that are just regular. You know like what, what's been the response.

Yeah, well, it's funny because I was just like I was just last night on a zoom call and we did two hours last night and then we two hours the week before to do some strategic planning. And you know, one of the guys on the call he was like you know, I've never seen this before. It just totally made a huge difference and the engagement in the conversation. So it definitely adds like there is an element of like fun and wow factor to it. But more than that in terms like it's like engaging in the information, right, it's keeping people on track and it's keeping that conversation going during and after an event, and of course I'm biased. what you said is like how would you not like, how could you not have someone me or someone else do this in a meeting? Yeah, of course, of course I would love to every meeting to have a graphic recorder or like a illustrator.

It'd be amazing. I think that'd be amazing. Okay, so yeah, but you are the one that's doing this, Like you, when, when, when people go and they say I want to work with Minds Eye Creative and I want a graphic, Howdy, how do you describe it?

Oh, it's such a funny thing. You know how every industry has all their terminology that they like to use that nobody else understands, you know. So I've actually been using Live Illustrator more because I feel like people understand what that is. But I even just had a call with a potential client on Monday and she's like, once I figured out what to Google, then I found you yeah, because she was looking for someone local. But she's like you know, that's the challenge, right? So what I called myself for years and years which is very industry terminology is a graphic recorder or a graphic facilitator. Those are very common within the industry. But trying to be more client facing friendly, I've been using more Live Illustrator. Even though it's really funny, I have this like weird feeling about calling myself an illustrator. It's like a weird, it's like I don't know. It's weird to me Because what I do isn't like standard or typical illustration. When you think of someone who's an illustrator because of the communication and the listening, the thinking, the words that's integrated into it, you know what I mean. It's more of like an illustrator facilitator. You know what I mean. It's not, yeah, and like when people it'd be the same thing as if I called myself a graphic designer. It's not the right word. But what is the right word? We don't know. But yeah, live Illustrator seems to be the one that makes people the most typefied.

When I was trying to say it early, a graphic designer was what I wanted to say. Right, it's like okay, but I know that's not it, but Live Illustrator okay, yeah, I actually really love it.

I always love listening to how people describe me, either on a call like this, or like when I'm in the meeting. I think people like visual depictor or visual storyteller or like. I find it really fun actually. So I started to kind of collate and write them all down. When I hear a new one, I write it down because, yeah, over in Europe a lot of that community for some reason really gravitate towards the word scribe, so a lot of them call themselves scribes or visual scribe. Yeah, it is.

So that's kind of interesting too. I like that. That's cool, yeah, I like that.

Storyteller, I think is great.

That's really cool. So, all right, we had a pretty awesome conversation about some of the things that you were unlearning around this right, around doing what you do, and I think, like, correct me if I'm wrong, but this idea of doing is a big part of that. Right, because, again, you are the one. If I say I want a live illustrator, I'm getting Ashton. You have two hands, two feet, one brain. Like there's no way for you to multiply yourself in a way that serves as many people as it feels like you want to be able to serve, right, well, all right. So, like, first of all, is that a challenge that resonates with you? If so, what are some of the ways that you're like, how can I, what can I do to get this out there and how's that process been?

Yeah. So I recognize that not everybody wants to be a professional right, Not anyone who wants to like do the work, put in the time to get really good at it, to be able to sell it as a service right. But I think it's a skill set that anybody can learn and benefit from right. So, you know, well, maybe we'll go down the rabbit hole today, but there's like, just even the notion of people thinking that they're creative, that's a whole block, right, like that's a whole thing. That's a whole thing, it's a whole issue. Because most people, you know, I say, well, you could learn this. They're like, oh, no, I couldn't, I'm not creative. And I'm like, oh, but you are. Though, you know, someone just told you that you were and you believed them at some point, right? So, yeah, like, it's not hard to learn. It can be a very powerful skill, or, you know, just adding it in. So when you go to a meeting, you can do your own visual note taking, or sketch noting, as it's called, right, you can do it for yourself and benefit from it. You can share it with someone, or you don't have to share it with anybody, it's up to you, right, just for your own learning and your own engagement. And even, just like, I think one of my favorite things when it comes to individual learning it for themselves is that learning in the moment piece where traditional note taking is like I hear something right or down, I hear something, I write it down, but you're missing the most important part, which is in the middle, is the making sense, or the understanding and the comprehension. So anybody who's ever said to me oh, I took a whole bunch of notes and I looked at them and I don't understand anything, I don't even know. I'm like, because you didn't learn anything in the moment, right, we're making like way more work for ourselves, honestly, because then you're trying to like decipher what you think you're supposed to have learned from all those notes, right, but you can do the learning in the moment, right. And by trying to turn it into a visual or even just using visual elements like lines and squares, can help connect and separate and show direction and flow of information, right. So it's one of these things that I knew I really wanted to get this skill set in hands of people. But then I got busy. You know, I was like I got busy having multiple children trying to start and run a thriving business when COVID happened, all these things right. So about two years ago I was like, okay, I really need to figure out how to get this skill set in hands of people in a really easy, understandable way, and that's when I started writing a book about it and published it last year and my goal with the book was to really try to make it really understandable for people so that when you're done the book which isn't very long and it's mostly drawings you could be like oh yeah, this isn't too hard, I could do this.

What is that process taught you? I mean writing a book, so I've never written a book. My mom is actually finishing a book and there is so much that I know she has gotten from writing it. But you're taking everything that's up here and condensing it to an audience that is unfamiliar with what you've been living with for 10-plus years, and talk about the process of getting information from your head. What have you unlearned as far as releasing what you know into the hands of inexperienced people?

Yeah Well, writing beginner content 101 content is actually very hard to do. I learned that. I learned that and a lot of the learning I did was around a lot of my assumptions. I actually did a beta reading process and I had, I think, almost 100 beta readers, over three rounds of beta reading with over 1,500 comments and suggestions of changes and things. So it really opened my eye. I don't know how people write a book without doing beta reading. Honestly, I learned so much in that process because I really wanted to be the best book that it could be and there was a lot of things that I didn't put in that I realized were incredibly important, like assumptions that I made that people would know that they didn't know. So the amount of hand-holding that I didn't realize I would have to do in the book was really eye-opening for sure. It's like I was writing the book. At step two or three, my beta readers helped me take it back even further. If you really want to begin a book, you're missing things at step one. So that was extremely helpful, extremely helpful, and I can't remember who said this. I heard someone say this recently about if you put your book out and you realized that you missed all the things or there's things you change about it. That's a good thing. If you feel like you put the book out there and you're like, no, I wouldn't change a thing about it, then you probably waited too long to put it out. So, of course, I'm like, oh man, I want to do version two already and it's only been out for six months, because there's things that I've learned incredible amount of things that I've learned just talking to people, walking people through the process of it, things that I'm like, oh, I wish I would have included this oh, I wish I would have included that. So it's been a really interesting humbling experience for me.

So my profession is in youth development and something that we often say is you got to keep the cookies on the bottom shelf. It's got to be accessible for everyone, and I spent some time training youth workers and we would have a whole kind of segment on how do you take dense information that we talk about all the time and make it accessible for a third, fourth, fifth, greater and to your point. It is very hard to do, like it is, I would say, probably one of the hardest skills. That is, it's very much underrated as to how hard it is. A lot of people don't know how hard it is to get information to the lowest level so that people feel like they can really access it. So I love that. That's part of what you have really had to unlearn what that process was Like. If you've never done it before, that's really intense. I think what I'm also kind of hearing is and I think from that that mindset is you've been living as the expert for 10 years, right, you know that's a long time to be great at something. I mean you've built a great business around it. You have a reputation. It takes you no time at this point to produce. You can do it over and over again, but you are transitioning to an educator, right? What has that been like?

Oh, my gosh, oh my gosh. It has been so, so fascinating the things that came up in me Stepping into this different space, this different identity. I didn't realize the amount of I don't even know what the word is. The amount of stuff that came, has come up for me in that process. There's this I. I Finally convinced myself. You know, oh, I can do this and I can get clients and I can work in this industry and thrive and do all the things, just to turn around, start all over again. Yeah, it feels like now, after you convince myself that I know enough. It's like we don't like I think we tend to like it sucked into is like well, I don't, I still don't know enough. I'm not 20 years in, so, goodness knows, I can't teach anybody. I'm only 10 years in, you know. So it's this, this, definitely this new identity of like you know, not just the person that hides behind the illustration, but the person that's standing out in front saying, hmm, I think I know some things, but you might like to know about too. Yeah, you know, that would be really helpful in your life. And adding, there's like a little bit of controversy. Everyone's like so into AI and technology and like all the. And it's like I've really been playing around with this idea that picking up a pen is almost like an act of rebellion Right, because we're so in that, in the digital space, that the act of picking up a pen is.

Could be seen that way.

Anyways, I'm playing around with that idea right now, but even just saying that out loud is like there's like the visibility that comes with that is very, it's very uncomfortable, and I spent the majority of last year, honestly, just getting more and more comfortable with what this looks like, to have my face out there to say things that I believe in, to have opinions, you know, and and part of that process was reaching out to people like you, like, hey, I have something I could say. Maybe people would like to hear it, you know. You know, and I've been pleasantly surprised, like I feel like there's this whole rejection movement and I read a book on rejection A few years ago and that was incredibly helpful because I think there is this, always a sphere of being rejected, and I think part of my journey of being more visible I haven't been rejected too much and the ones I have hasn't really hurt as much as I thought it would, right. So it's been this kind of new identity, from the yeah, the professional to the educator and, like, the way that I like to do things is very intentional, it's very community based, it's very relationship building. So I wanted to, I want the tone of how I work To be reflected in how I'm also teaching, right, so it's important to me that I'm also not the expert every day in my teaching space, because I want other people to learn from each other and build relationship with each other, right? So, yeah, it's been very interesting really learning a lot of you know. You've, I think, described vulnerability.

Really well. I mean, it's this exposure. Yeah, you know you've exposed yourself to possible rejection, possible criticism, you know, and You've what. What's beautiful about it, though, is, like you said, you are your. You didn't experience those negative things as much as you thought, and when you did, it didn't really matter. Like it just, you are more Resilient than you gave yourself credit for. Like would you, would you? Would you agree with that, or yeah?

Yeah, I would definitely say so. Yeah, and we I put together an event last week for one week. I put together an event last week for world sketch note day and we ended up having 740 people registered from 64 countries and that was a whole. It was a whole other level Because it attracted beginner people as well as professionals and kind of everybody in between. But I had some like pretty high caliber speakers on board and that was a whole other challenge of Visibility as someone who is not just a professional, not just as like this person getting into education of it, but now I'm like someone who really is bringing people together from all around the world. Yeah, like really truly that community developer right. So so that was. I honestly still feel like tired from that event because I feel it was like you know, brony Brown's whole like vulnerability hangover was so real for me and but it really it really showed me and taught me a few things, and One of them was one of the speakers. She's just like superstar and I was in love with her before I even knew her and I just love her even more and she's really been a champion. She's like been in my email almost every day Helping me in, supporting me and just being a cheerleader and it it makes me be like, okay, I'm gonna double down on these types of connections, these types of relationships and connect with people who really truly understand what it is You're trying to do and Get you know. And I even had this conversation with her earlier this week about it, about this visibility piece, and and she was like, oh, sounds like you have a little bit more work to do on that. And I'm like, oh, don't we all? But yeah, it feels weird being the like. It's like this whole stepping into being a leader in a particular space, and one thing that I unlearned Recently was that I thought Someone was a leader just by showing up consistently, you know, working at the thing, and Someone just at some day, or a whole bunch of people. They sort of say, oh well, you know a lot, or you show up a lot, you're the leader now, and that person's like, okay, I guess I'm the leader. But what I've realized that I've unlearned in this process is, oh, that person's a leader because they specifically put themselves in that leadership seat. They said I'm gonna be a leader, I want to be known for this thing, and they did. They made choices to put themselves in situations or Write the book, or start the program or beyond that stage. They put themselves there. Nobody else put them there. They made that choice. You know, maybe, maybe not a hundred percent of the time. But you know, that's what I'm Really learning on learning and that this sort of process of what does it look like to be, yeah, a leader in a particular space. Because I felt, like you know, for years I was just like you know. I feel like I kind of wanted to be a bit of a leader in this space. I was like, well, you know, no one's asking me to be on their podcast, or no one's asking me to do the thing. I was like waiting around for someone to recognize that I'd like to be a leader. Ridiculous now that you think about it. Right, just like waiting around like a whole thing.

You're hitting on something I think is really important, because I think that I actually think a lot of people kind of maybe I'll say wrongly assume that people at leadership positions were put there like you know. And I do think that there are some cases where it's like I choose you right. But even in that you have to still make the choice to take it. You know, it's not, it's not like you don't just float there and just you just automatically land, you're so, oh, I just found myself as a leader. It really doesn't work like that. You have to make the choice. Whether somebody puts it in front of you or you go after it. It's still your choice and I think that it's actually a it's a it's a noble decision, because I have definitely been in the position where, you know, we people have nominated me to do certain things right, you're gonna be on this committee, I need you to do that, do it whatever. And I would honestly say for most of my life I have reluctantly said yes, not realizing that you're taking on a leadership position. But I, I took it cuz somebody asked me, not cuz I chose it. And you, you, you show up differently when you do it for someone else, not for yourself, and I'm not entirely sure, even if other people may have seen it, I didn't see myself as a leader For years, even though I had leadership positions, and so I love what you're, what you're saying From that perspective, because you have stepped out there Like I didn't realize that the event you did was something. You convene 740 people At the first event, dude, that's like that's major, that's not, that's not the small, and and so you've put yourself out there as someone who is A leader in the space, and so what? what I mean? You know you're, yeah, like you've you put yourself in a vulnerable position. You're tired, you've got fatigue around that. What's exciting to you about it?

Yeah, I think for me it's like, well, why do I want to be a leader? Right? Why me, and why now? And why this space? So I think, if you know, I think I'm really reflecting on that and I just actually didn't exercise the Brown, like some of my core values, what are my values around the messages that I want to put out there. And doing the event last week was really interesting because it got me a lot of recognition Like, oh, what you did is great. I'm like, oh, okay, you know, thanks for bringing all of us together. I'm like, oh, you're welcome. But now I'm kind of in the now, what space? Right, like I'm trying to build an online community because this work and learning it can be very isolating. Right, Like I don't know what people in my little town think of me. Good, this now. So like there's Ashton doing a weird doodling thing, again Like I don't know what, what they're thinking. But I think it's just me grounding to the why, why me, why now, why this, and what's that transformation that you want to showcase to people? How can this really benefit their life and help them learn and engage in a new way and maybe reconnect to their creativity and it's you can learn stuff and it's fun. It's like a beautiful, like blending of the two. So I think like I need just to be continually reminding myself of that. Why, why am I doing this? And and knowing that this is very useful, very helpful to people who want to give it a go and it can be really like impactful in their life. And you know, I almost feel like I'd be you kind of have to get to a point where you believe in yourself so much and believe in the work that you're doing so much that if someone chooses not to try it out, at least at a minimum that you see it as a fortunate circumstance. You see that as like. You see that like like now, I've been running my business long enough that you're like, oh well, someone chooses me not not to hire me for a meeting. I don't feel the pain of rejection in the same way. I see it as oh, that's too bad, because I know the people in the event or the conference would have really benefited from it. But that only came with time and experience and luckily, like the majority, like high, like maybe 99% of all of my work, clients have been nothing but like incredible and supportive and like, oh my gosh, we need you at all of our things now Right, once they understand the value of it. It's that it's that education to them to see right, so I could take the same understanding of being in a meeting to teaching somebody. So if someone decides I don't want to learn that I'd be like, oh, that's too bad, you know not that. It's like, oh, it's not money in my. You know they didn't buy the book or they didn't. There's no money in my pocket. It's like there's nothing to do with that. It's just unfortunate that they didn't, because I know if they would have at least tried, then they'd know if it was for them or you know it could have been, it could have been really beneficial potentially to their life, and that's unfortunate, that's just really too bad. So, yeah, I think getting you know it might take a while for someone to get to that point of believing in their work so much that you feel that way, but that has been incredibly helpful for me that I just now I need to transition into that education space for me.

That point of believing in yourself, to the point to where, when people decide not to take what you're offering, you see it as an unfortunate missed opportunity for them. Right, I think even just that, even just that transferring that learning to a host of people is life, is life transforming Like that? That's transformative because there's. There's so much, like you said and we you said it earlier and we could we could go down this rabbit hole, this whole create like I'm not creative, right, I don't draw, I don't, you know, have a, I don't have an artistic skill, so I just it means I'm not creative, which is the one of the biggest lies we've been told. I totally agree with you on that. But to understand, because I think having an understanding of how creative you are and how it's a human you are, you're created to create Like we, we literally, we make stuff out of nothing all the time and we don't realize it. But if I grab hold of that truth and then I learned to value what it is that I've been created to create, then I can move in the world with a lot more confidence and a lot less fear, and that's, that's a power, and I think this skill that you're giving people can unlock that reality for them, to help them to realize I am creative, what else am I creative in? And can I get that confidence to then put that out there and not feel, you know, have the fear of rejection around it, because I see the, I see the value first, and then I, because I know it's so valuable, then I can say, okay, you, you may not, and that's okay, and I'm sorry you don't, like, I'm sorry you don't, but this, I know what this is. I love that. I think that's powerful.

Yeah, I think if you can get to that point which does take a little bit of persistence to get past a lot of rejection to get to that point you can kind of do anything because you're not going to hold yourself back right. Whereas why don't you make that offer? Why don't you knock on that door? Why don't Because? you're like, oh, someone's going to like slam it in my face or they're going to say no or whatever. And if you know, on the other side, if they say no and you're like it kind of just bounces off of you like that's a beautiful place to be Like for real. You know it is a superpower. Definitely, yeah, I definitely recommend. I think the book was called rejection proof. Can't remember it was a J name, a double J name. I think you won something, something. The rejection proof is a good one because he did this whole experiment on getting rejected and I've heard, I've seen a few things on Instagram. Some ladies are doing some rejection. You know this is going to be my year of rejection, like seeking it out, because the majority of the time you get pleasantly surprised that you don't get rejected as much as you you think you would, and then when you do, it doesn't hurt as much as you thought it was going to right. So the more rejection you face, I think, the closer you can get to that being in that space where you're like, oh, that's just really unfortunate that they chose not to. And people are smart buyers, shoppers, consumers, people who are like you're like, hey, I have this thing, would you like to buy it? And they're like, yes, people are smart, they're going to be able to see through. If you're shady and you're doing something shady, people are going to see it. If you show up and you're just like, hey, I got this thing, let's work together, it'd be a good time. Here's what might. These are things that I think would be really helpful for your people. They're going to see that Right. So I think we get fear. We're fearful that if we're replying for that job or whatever, people will see through. Someone who is not, who's a little, not great. People can see that. People are not stupid when it comes to that. People can see through that stuff. So if you're really showing up, you're like I'm just going to try to be me, I'm just going to show up, I'm going to say my truth, I'm going to just do it and if they say no, it's all good, at least I showed up and I was me and I wasn't pretending to be me. I wouldn't have this desperation in my voice or their scarcity. I find potential client calls hilarious. Now, for years I was absolutely terrified. I was absolutely terrified, but now they're funny to me. They are so because I just like I like having fun with my work If you're fun, let's do this. And then the potential clients like I think I'm fun. And then they're trying to sell me on how fun they are Not working with you, because if they're not fun enough I might not want to work with them. It's just, it's just so funny. It's so funny to be, you know, like if I would have told like seven, six, even five or four years ago, ashton about this, like she wouldn't believe you. No way she would not believe that I'd be so brazen on calls to be like. Well, if you're not fun, we're not doing this Like that's not going to happen.

No.

It's just so funny to me, right? It's all like I find, when you start to like grow and you deepen your, your experience and you start putting yourself in different positions, you realize all the stuff below that that was absolutely terrifying, was a joke. It was just funny, just a joke, honestly, because we're just scared of all this stuff. That isn't anything to be scared about. Like, my husband and I talk about this stuff all the time and I was like starting a business is hilarious. Everyone puts it all there started, but they have a business. Building a business is easy, it is so not difficult, but everyone makes it seem like it is. Everyone's like oh, I could never. And I'm like you could, though, like I have this friend and I sneak it into every conversation. She's like, it's like this thing. There was a snow day and I said, well, I'm home in my pajamas and she had to go to work through the snowstorm and I'm like, well, you know, she's like I know, I know I had a business and I'm not sure how many of your listeners have businesses or what have you. But like that could, it could apply to anything. It could apply to anything. It's like, you know, we think this is really hard and then you actually do the thing. Yeah, like writing a book to me is hilarious now too, because I had put that on it. It's all about what do you put on a pedestal? Do you put that job on a pedestal, that person who has that particular job on a pedestal? Do you have writing a book on a pedestal? Do you like a French cuisine on a pedestal? Like whatever it is we put on that pedestal. When you actually do it and you realize it's actually not that hard or it's not as scary, it just kind of makes every like all those things that we tend, even people we put up on pedestals. It's just fun to do now.

Man, this is like I think that attitude I'm sitting here being like what can I consider hilarious? Because I'm going to really like, I'm about to really like take inventory of what do I need to start laughing at, like what do I need to start being like okay, like you know, and how can I present whatever it is that I'm presenting in a way that makes people, that almost makes reverse the roles? Now, it's like you have to sell you to me as opposed to like you know, like what? How does that? And I think like, like you said, the confidence around it, the realizing that rejection is not going I reject, I am immune to rejection. You can't, it's not going to affect me, or I can put it all out there, even even the things that you're like. You said that like you really, you really, you're really going to say that to me. Yeah, because now you have to deal with something that's totally unexpected and now you're put kind of in a different seat, in a different mindset. I just think it's such a, it's a freeing space to be like. That is to me, one of the one of the definitions of freedom. It's like I'm I'm immune to the things that other people are afraid of Like I'm just not going to, I'm not going to be, I'm not going to be affected by it. I love you, know it's, it's. It's interesting, like the rejection piece is it feels it feels so massive. But one of the things that I think I've learned, particularly in my in my journey as a nonprofit leader and doing the nonprofit space, and which is it has its similarities to the business space, is that if you like the, the real, you will attract the right people right, and you don't need everyone to say yes, you need the right people to say yes. And I think when we can get past this idea of I need a yes every time, I don't, you don't even want a yes from some people because it's not, it's not going to work, it's not a good fit, they're just going to, you know, be a number on a roll, not going to have an add any value. But if you can, if you can be the right you, the right people will come and you don't need a lot of the right people. You know, you know you, I can, I can be okay with it, like I'd rather have five right people than 50. I'm not sure's, you know, yeah.

Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, I was making some notes here and you're, you said exactly what I was going to say as well. I was like, when it will show you who are your people and who are not right, it makes it so clear, whereas when, if you're not grounded in some of these things, then it's not as clear. But when you show up and you speak your truth and you're really you, whatever that looks like, it really does very clearly show who's on your side or who's you know team Ruth or team Ashton, like it will it shows very quickly yeah, and it's not, you know, it's just, it's all good, it just means they're not for you and that's okay.

And then for someone else. That's okay, I man okay. So real quick, I'm because we have you here and the sketch noting is so cool, so I have to show. I'm going to show people, I'm going to show people my masterpiece, so on. On the website you can actually do a 15 minute workshop with Ashton where she will show you the beginning of sketch noting. And I actually did my first sketch note. I can see it. If you're just listening, you won't be able to see it, but I'm holding it up and it was such a cool experience and you know what I realized? I realized that I actually do some of this already. I don't call it sketch noting, but a lot of my. I use arrows and boxes and, you know, make connections and all that. So it really just kind of like okay, this is some other tools and techniques I can add to that in my own note taking, and it really is not as far fetched as you might feel like it is. So I don't know if you just have this in your back pocket, but I'm going to put you on the spot for a second. What are? Can you give the audience three things that they can do immediately to really start this sketch noting process Like what. What would you say?

Yeah. So first step is you want white paper or it could be a color, but it has to be plain, plain paper. Plain paper is extremely important because if you have lined paper you'll just start to naturally go back into the lines. Take that white piece of paper or a color and turn it on its side, so it's more landscape than portrait style. Those two simple shifts of just choosing that paper can actually be huge because you know, it tells your brain oh, something different is happening. I don't know what yet, but something is I'm going to capture here in a different way. That's always number one, the number one thing that I always tell people to start with, because if you default back into you know, you know taller, taller than wide lined paper, you're just going to your brain, just want to go back to what's comfortable and capture in that way. Starting on a blank piece of paper can be extremely intimidating, be extremely intimidating. So what I usually try to encourage people to do is just put something on it, a little doodle, put a title, put your name, put the date, put something on it. Then it feels a little less intimidating. So that's number two. Number three, I guess like don't worry about materials, don't worry about your handwriting, it's all good Like if your handwriting is really messy, that's fine. If all you have is a broken pencil, that's cool, Like I love how accessible. It is right. A lot of people ask me what's digital tools? The digital tools, the digital. Yes, you can draw on an iPad or a tablet and if that makes you happy, I say go for it. But at its core, you don't need anything fancy to get started. So try not to judge yourself too much, especially in the beginning, about your handwriting or your wonky lines or your weird looking people or boxes or whatever. That just comes with time. So try to be kind to yourself in the process. I would say that's yeah, and just have fun. It's fun, it can help you learn and it's fun right, so just embrace the benefit.

I got to say the thing you mentioned earlier in the conversation. One of the things that I got the most was like this idea of not just listening but also learning in the moment, right, making sense of it. And so it to me like it really narrows down what it is that you're requiring, requiring of yourself, in that short timeframe. You're not going to learn everything you hear in three hours of whatever a presentation, a meeting, whatever, right, you're not going to do that. But if you can kind of isolate in the moment the most important parts of that and only allow yourself to say, okay, I'm going to pay attention to this and make sense of this, like I feel like that really helped me in just in this 15 minute workshop. I was like, okay, yeah, I don't have to feel the pressure to have to get everything. I need to focus on what I can make sense of right now and put that on paper.

And you're going to have a couple of different people in the meeting let's say they all do this. All of theirs is going to look completely different and they might even capture different things. Right? Because, like, when I'm doing it for a client, I'm trying to listen to the whole. Right, I'm listening a bit different than I would listen for myself, right? So if you're listening to something and something really stands out to you might not stand out to me, right, it has to be meaningful for you, right? So I say, like I try to encourage people just to like, lean in on that. And also there's a handfuls of people that don't do it live. Maybe they'll take notes, try to synthesize them a little bit like they normally would, and then they, as part of their study, they're studying instead of, like when I was in school, I would just write pages and pages of the words over and over again to try to get it in my brain. But you can also create a sketch note after. That's good, right? So it takes the pressure off of the having to do it live. I started doing it live, so I built that muscle very quickly. I didn't give my. I'm kind of hardcore when I want to learn something. I'm like no, I'm all in, I'm going to make it really hard so I can get through the learning curve as fast as possible. You know, like I'm hardcore like that, but not everybody's like that, right? So like you could take your notes the normal way and challenge yourself Like, where were the connections here? Right, what is this, what? What did this mean? What was that? And then create a visual note or a sketch note from those original notes to I'm impatient. So that's not my jam, right, but the live part can be very intimidating to people and I absolutely appreciate how you know. So if people are like, oh well, how do I know what to capture, I don't know, I just going to capture everything. I'm like, that's fine, capture everything if you need to. I would just highly suggest, if you are going to try to create a sketch note, try to do it soon after you originally listened to it, because you're going to miss a lot of new wants. Or even just like go through them and take a highlighter and highlight what you would want to include on a sketch note or something like that, and be like, oh, this wasn't that important, I'm going to ignore that or what have you. But if you leave too much time pass, then it's harder to pick back up. Yeah, that's really good.

Man, ashley, this has been an amazing. This has been a life. Giving conversation on this Friday morning Like this has been so cool. Thank you so much. So can you just kind of end our conversation with two things telling people where they can find you and how they can connect with you, and then just a kind of quick statement on why you're more free as a result of what you've unlearned and how other how you think other people can be free themselves.

Right, I would say for my like portfolio, like professional work, that's all our minds. I creative dot CA and all things learning how to sketch note is that sketch note dot school. So I've got that free guy that you walked through on both websites. But then I have my book and I have a playground that has a free and a paid option. In the free option it's we call it the playground. It's like the playground in the classroom. So join the playground. It's free and you can see I don't even know how many 100, 200, maybe more sketch notes that came from the World Sketch Note Day and the recording from that event is on there as well. So it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool to get all the recordings and see all the drawings and stuff that people did. So if that interests you at all, you can certainly hop over to sketch note dot school and I'm very excited. I'm going to be really really vamping my YouTube channel this year. It's my 2024 goal to put out some, some tutorials and tips and things on sketch noting. So I'm excited to to see how that goes. Oh, my gosh, to answer to your question, I don't know. Rewind this and listen to it again. I think, like just, you know, being trying to be patient I know I said I'm a patient person but being patient in the process and if you just stick with whatever it is that you're working on, like your hardware will pay off over time. And I think that's what's made me the most free is just having the tenacity to push through all those uncomfortable feelings, all those like things that my brain told me not to do to stay safe, and just pushing through. Look, there is something on the other side if you stick with it, and that's that's what's been true for me at least. Like I said earlier, if I would even told like a year or two, like 10 years, one year ago, ashton, all the things now, she probably wouldn't believe you, right? So what does that look like for you in a year from now? And write down like all your celebrations and things that you've accomplished. I'm going to do like a monthly report on myself moving forward. It's like what did I do? What did I accomplish? Like celebrate things that happened in that last month, because that's something that I don't take enough time, because I'm just like go, go, go, let's do this, let's do this. So just stopping and pausing and reflecting and celebrating the accomplishments, big or small, right, it's like oh, I, like you know, meditated for five minutes every week. That week, that was an accomplishment, or what have? you right so you know, all of those things combined.

That's really really, really good. Yeah, thank you, ashton, for coming on the unlearned podcast. This has been this. Like I said, it's been amazing conversation and we will see y'all next week for Freedom Friday. Until then, let's keep unlearning so we can keep it living more freely, peace. Thank you once again for listening to the unlearned podcast. We would love to hear your comments and your feedback about the episode. Feel free to follow us on Facebook and Instagram and to let us know what you think. We're looking forward to the next time when we are able to unlearn together to move forward towards freedom. See you then.