A Thought I Kept
A Thought I Kept is a podcast about the ideas that stay with us, long after we’ve forgotten the rest. In each episode, a guest shares the one thought that shaped their life — the one they couldn’t let go of, and maybe you won’t either.
A Thought I Kept
"This Should Be Fun" — Anne Ditmeyer
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What if fun wasn’t something we earned after we’d done the difficult, serious or important things but part of how we found our way through them?
My guest this week is Anne Ditmeyer, an American writer, creative coach and workshop facilitator living in Paris, whose work asks one wonderfully disruptive question: What if there was another way?
In this episode, we talk about
Creativity, play and why they matter beyond childhood · getting lost and learning to trust yourself · Anne’s grandfather Charles Stark Draper and the Apollo missions · our own “internal guidance systems” · questioning society’s expectations of success · why life and careers rarely happen in straight lines · dancing with discomfort · letting go of timelines · grief and allowing multiple emotions to exist at once · creating a spacious life · connection and community · perfectionism · mapping your own path · and, naturally, drawing maps on bananas.
About Anne Ditmeyer
Anne Ditmeyer is an American writer, creative coach and workshop facilitator based in Paris, France. A designer by training, her work draws from graphic design, design thinking, UX, storytelling and global communication to help people think differently, explore possibilities and find their own way forward.
She founded Prêt à Voyager in 2007 to explore the intersection of travel and design and has since created workshops including Mapping Your Path and Write Your Own Rules. In 2024, she self-published her first book, OVERRIDE! What If There Was Another Way? A Pocket Playbook for Possibility, which she also wrote, illustrated and designed.
Anne describes herself as a “creative connector”, and her work is grounded in curiosity, experimentation, human connection and a willingness to shake up the status quo, sometimes by asking people to draw maps on bananas.
Anne Ditmeyer — website & work
Mapping Your Path
OVERRIDE! What If There Was Another Way?
Books & people mentioned:
Priya Parker — The Art of Gathering
Tina Roth-Eisenberg / CreativeMornings
This is A Thought I Kept — Weekly conversations about the ideas that stay. Listen every Monday morning for a new thought to hold onto this week.
About Claire Fitzsimmons
Claire is the host of A Thought I Kept, a wellbeing writer, author and the co-founder of If Lost Start Here. As a Certified Coach and Emotions Coach Practitioner, Claire helps people navigate the everyday lost moments and all the feelings, from anxiety to grief, overwhelm to disconnection.
Buy Claire's first book, If Lost Start Here: Wellbeing for the Anxious, Disconnected or Uncertain here.
Subscribe to Claire's Substack newsletter here.
Find out how to work with Claire here.
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The music for all episodes from August 10th was made by Leon in the Wilderness.
Hi, and welcome to A Thought I Kept. I'm Clerford Simmons, writer, coach, and co-founder and co-author of If Lost Dot Here. This is a podcast about the ideas that stay with us. The thoughts that we return to, the ones we carry forward, that we test out in our own lives. And we sometimes pass on to others. Each week I sit down with a guest to explore one thought that they've kept. Where it came from, why it mattered. And what it might offer us too. My guest today is, I'm so excited to say this, is Anne S. Dittmeyer. Anne is an American living in Paris who has built the most fascinating career around helping people see that there might be another way. She's a writer, creative coach, workshop facilitator, and the author of Override, What If There Was Another Way? Through her work, Anne encourages people to question assumptions, embrace creativity, get comfortably lost, and find the competence to navigate change in their own way. I've been drawn to Anne's work for a long time because it overlaps with so many of the things that I spend my time thinking about. Creativity and curiosity and exploration. And this idea that we don't need a perfectly mapped-out plan to move forwards. What I love about Anne's work is that it feels so expansive. Whether that's inviting people to draw on bananas, to wander cities differently, to have different kinds of conversations, and to find connection in unexpected places. And creates a world of playfulness and possibility. And one that we get to connect to even in difficult and trying and overwhelming moments. I think this conversation, or I hope this conversation, feels like an invitation to experiment and to put down some of the baggage that we carry and to override some of the assumptions that we have and really to find our own inner guidance system. Here's my conversation with Anne Dittmeyer. Anne, welcome to the podcast. It's so lovely to have you here this morning.
SPEAKER_00I'm so happy to be here.
SPEAKER_01How are you arriving here this week?
SPEAKER_00I am scattered and distracted from tech. And it is interesting because it is counter to what I'm bringing here today. But remembering that it is a blip in the grand scheme of things, but yeah, a little bit more frazzled than usual.
SPEAKER_01It's a good reminder that tech can be a blip, isn't it? Because sometimes it feels like tech is everything. And it's nice to have that reminder that it is just the blip. And we can move on from it, and it's just another thing in the day.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, try to I try to keep humor around everything. French bureaucracy taught me a lot about that. So I'm just like, whoa, how bad can it go? I've been leaving voice notes with friends as oh, happened again, just as a a way to humorize it. But yeah, that that's how I am today. Wasn't planned and trying to fit too much in just to use that time, which sometimes that you just need to let go.
SPEAKER_01You do, yes. Particularly around adminute and bureaucracy when there isn't something that you can control. You have an interesting situation with French bureaucracy. I lived in the States for a while and got to know American bureaucracy. Which sometimes doesn't feel dissimilar, I imagine. And there is this moment of just okay, there's nothing you can do. You hope you get a different person phone call. You just have to let go. Yeah, it's very hard.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's a lot of persistence. I do think French bureaucracy is next level, but at the same time, there are multiple ways you can get around where I feel like in the US you might have been like, no, yes, it's a little bit more strict potentially.
SPEAKER_01So for anyone that doesn't know you and your work, how would you describe what you do?
SPEAKER_00Oh, that is the ever-going question. It's something that I know so well, but I'm so close to it. So I use my background in design and use it for creative analog exercises to get people thinking in different ways, to ship perspectives and open up possibilities. So that can look anything like drawing a map to drawing a map on a banana, various creative prompts and reflections. So I my career started in graphic design, and then I was giving tours in Paris. And so so much of it is linked to this idea of just giving people the confident confidence to explore and get lost. It's something that we go through life wanting to have all the right answers, but I'm here to remind people that it can be a little bit messy, and part of it is about enjoying the journey.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that state of getting lost for some people is so extraordinarily difficult to occupy. We struggle through the discomfort of it, we feel ill at ease in it. Getting lost is something that feels anathema to us right now, particularly when we have so much information. So we feel like we shouldn't get lost and we should be finding our way. And what I love about your work is that you've returned the joy to getting lost. It becomes about exploration again and experimentation.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that we can easily look at others and look from the outside and say, they have it all figured out, they know what they're doing, but we have to remember everybody's navigating this own version. And sometimes we're in denial of this, but I do think it's about embracing it, enjoying it, and dancing with it. So the workshop that caused my tech kerfuffle was about dancing with discomfort. One of the things I have people do is draw lobsters. I don't know how to draw a lobster, but it's just to take people out of their comfort zone and, you know, try something new. But I love a lobster too, is an analogy of we're growing into a bigger shell. And that's not, it's not a sign that we're doing something wrong, but the discomfort is something a sign that we're doing something right. So instead of only thinking about that in the logical mind, I feel like my role is to use creativity and play to have help people get these insights and discover it for their own. And just stop thinking and just do something different for a minute.
SPEAKER_01I think that that dovetails so beautifully into the thought you're bringing this week. And I wonder whether we go there, because as you were speaking to that, the spirit of play and creativity, I think that's the highlighter there, is your thought. So maybe we could go to the thought that you're bringing and why it is so impactful to you and why it's important to you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the thought I'm bringing today is the statement, this should be fun. And maybe it's actually a mantra, and it was actually my grandfather's mantra. And I didn't learn it from my grandfather. My grandfather was born in 1901, so I was like around six when he passed away. But I discovered it in talking to one of his students because I wanted to learn about my grandfather through talking to people who knew him. And this all was sparked by after I lost my mom to cancer. And so it was a way to feel connected. So it became the scavenger hunt. And my grandfather very much changed history, changed the world. He developed the inertial guidance systems to get us to the moon and back. So when I was a kid, I knew the narrative of he worked on the Apollo missions and he got us to the moon and back. But those were just statements, and I didn't really understand more. But one of his students that I talked to was actually a female student. So again, different era. This is Boston. His lab was the MIT instrumentation lab, and it was a female student in a very male-dominated world, and she went on to become the head of the first female head of the U.S. Air Force. And she was the one who told me this sentiment. And she said he would always say this should be fun, or there's a poster. I can't remember the full context. But I was like, if my grandfather can make science and engineering and academia fun, I can make anything fun. And in talking to people, rather than just following the paper trail, I really got this human side and understanding and what teamwork was like and what it was to work together and to solve problems and just enjoy the journey and the process. And my grandfather was really out there to do the impossible. He wasn't there just to do what had been done before, believing in yourself before the world believes in you, and a lot of skepticism. And so I again so much of what I've discovered around about him is through others, and that's the joy, and that makes the process enjoyable. And I can, I've read his papers that he wrote that are in the Library of Congress in the US or the Smithsonian Museums, and he and I are talking about the same thing, about navigation and exploration, just in a different context. And I think there was this sub-thread that was running in the background. And he's also in one of the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum in Washington, D. or in Virginia, technically. And there are his inertial guidance equipment and various awards named after him. And there's also his ballroom dancing trophies. So he picked up ballroom dancing in the 70s. And he would take students up in airplanes, like things he couldn't do today. But I think we get so fixated on what work is or life is and being serious about it that we forget the joys of it. And so it's been a joy and delight for me to discover him in this unlikely way, but also find the parallels and try to embrace that spirit and my work because I stop enjoying things when it's like, okay, how I hate the word funnel, and I I don't necessarily use funnels or do quote business right. But for me, it was like, what is going to make me enjoy the process? What is going to make me feel connected? And for me, also seeing the fun he had with colleagues and the way that they would talk about him or talk about the fight they had, but then they'd be having fun the next moment. And so this allowing multiple things to be true, and you can do like hard things, work through challenges, and also enjoy the process. So yeah, this should be fun, is where I landed.
SPEAKER_01There's so much to that, isn't there? Because as you're talking, I get a real sense of the parallels, but also he was really operating in a time that in my mind doesn't have associations of fun to it. There's a moment of like the turn of the century, that he's working on these extraordinary, life-changing, humanity-changing projects in contexts that you're right, science, maths, engineering, they're very, very serious, that feel like they wouldn't invite in fun. Fun feels we have assumptions that it's frivolous, it's redundant, it's indulgent, it's unnecessary. What do you think, and knowing what you do about your grandfather now as you're going on this lovely scavenger hunt to reconnect with him? How do you think he was able to connect with that that idea of fun in a moment that maybe didn't offer it?
SPEAKER_00It's yeah, that's a really good question. Growing up, he was the black sheep of the family because his brother had a very traditional, societally applauded career. I can't remember if it's dentistry or banking. It's been a little bit, I it's a project I want to dig back into, but I need to look at the details. So I think for some people, they set out to prove themselves or do better than somebody else. But I feel like it was very much his in his literal internal guidance system. And so his work, and my grandfather's name was Charles Stark Draper, just for folks listening and curious. So his work was with gyroscopes and internal navigation systems. And I kind of see that we all have these internal guidance systems. And I honestly, and it might be a naive view, I honestly feel like it was his own internal guidance system leading him to the next thing. And we can talk about compasses, but there's something about a gyroscope that is this beautiful analogy because the more the world shakes us up, it is there to bring us back to center and to help remind us where we are. And space is not just up and down, left and right. You are you have multi-directionality. So I feel like he was he chose to operate under his own operating system. He was connected to his parents through letter writing, and we only have the letters that he wrote them, not that they wrote him. And I think there's something about the different time, too, where there's not instant gratification. There is not tell me what to do, mom and dad, or tell me what to do. And I think he also didn't hold too close, too tightly to he didn't start at age 10, I'm going to get us to the moon and back. Each thing built on each other, and he changed the world in multiple ways leading up to that. But the way he got to MIT was just taking a cross-country road trip with one of his buddies, and his buddies was serious about going somewhere. And, you know, the lore is my my grandfather just kind of like walked in the door, and I'm gonna start taking classes here. And he's taken more classes at MIT than anyone. So there I think there's the love of learning and curiosity, and not trying to prove ourselves. He wasn't trying to get all the certificates, but I think it was genuine love of learning and curiosity. I think learning can be fun. And the clips I've seen of lectures online, the way he was able to engage, quote, audiences, students, versus just you could say the same thing very monotonely and literally, but I think he was able to pull people in. I think his background in psychology, he changed, he started at the University of Missouri and then went to Stanford before going into MIT. But I think that background in psychology, I think psychology, psych, I think so sociology, one of those. I did not again prep my notes, but I think his background helped inform him in ways that he couldn't foresee. And also maybe stereotypically in the sciences and engineering, people don't have that human background. Not that they're not human, but he had the relationships. And so his success was also about building relationships. And building relationships wasn't I'm gonna network, it was going out and drinking or dancing or partying or come out in my airplane or again, a different, different time. But I think there was genuine curiosity about humans, but also wanting to be around people who are smarter than him. So I think I don't know if it became like a self-challenge, but it seems very joyful. For me in my own work, I find myself unlocking different levels or meeting a human who gives me a clue that helps inform what's next or helps something else click or introduces me to somebody else. And I feel like there was a natural flow of that. So, in not having something too prescribed, because that pathway to getting to the moon, men on the moon specifically, not just around it, like is, you know, when something hasn't done been done before, he's he has to figure it out. And I don't think he was using the I need to figure it out, holding it tightly. I think it was really this curiosity and joy. And the war the world was hard. There were wars going on, different things, but I think just the way he worked with people naturally allowed that. And it wasn't a hierarchical working with either. It was a very back and forth and exchange-driven way of working.
SPEAKER_01As you were speaking, I was thinking about how we strive so much to get to the right university that we try to follow the appropriate path, that we go through the steps that have already been decided for us in many different ways. And there was something about either flow and how organic your grandfather's process was. I wondered whether we were able to still do that today. And that speaks to some of my assumptions, I think, and some of my expectations about how we're taught to and trained to live these more linear, more lives that kind of build in a different way. And it does make me think about override because so much of that book is about doing things another way. Do you think it is possible? And I think I know your answer to this, because I've read that book, to live according to the principles that your grandfather had in the conditions that we now exist.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think I wrote this book to help remind myself and others that it is possible, and so much is informed by mapping your path, which is my three-month workshop and global community I run, where I take for granted my own path and realize that other people are struggling just because we're so societally programmed. So I think it is possible to take other paths, but we have to know it's possible because there's so many assumptions of how things need to be done. And yes, that schooling, that degree are part of it. But for me, like when I came to Paris in 2009 for my second master's degree, I didn't want any master's degrees. I ended up with two. Grad school, yes, I learned things in grad school, but it really taught me that I love the freedom and flexibility of doing my own thing. And the container of France allows me to do it with healthcare in a way that the US couldn't. But I also had no idea because I had never seen that entrepreneurial path. I suppose my grandfather was very entrepreneurial, but in his own ways. So much of my work is to remind people and encourage them to discover, and they don't have to discover, it's already there, to find their own way and return to what feels aligned for them. Because I think we are so distracted by the world around us that we have to really open the awareness of what's happening both in our own lives and in society and the messaging and programming we've received growing up and the well-intentioned comments that might have really stuck with us and they end up holding us back or being this anchor that we're dragging along. And if we can learn to release that, we can just really free ourselves, but have fun with it instead of being like, oh, why was I so fixated on that when I could do this or something else?
SPEAKER_01There's so many lovely images in the book and exercises. There is this button at the beginning where someone gets to press override. What gets in the way of pressing override? So that you don't even get to the button. What gets in the way, do you think, for people?
SPEAKER_00We get in our own way, if we're gonna be honest. But again, it it's really I school is amazing and education is essential, but also I feel like so much of my work is helping people unlearn the way they learned. So I think we forget about learning for learning's sake, and it's learning for a good grade or for a test score, which in the grand scheme of life doesn't really matter if you didn't get an answer right or failed a test. I'd rather work with somebody who is curious and willing to learn and get it right in the future. And in life, most of life is not a pop quiz. I'd rather have somebody like say, I don't know, let me go back and check. So I think that we are very indoctrinated into this system of way of working and this unspoken idea that once we graduate, then we'll get a job and it's great without the messiness. So we rarely talk about the messiness and also the fact that life is not linear. I have this doodle that I use, it's in the book. I use it in so many of my workshops, where at first it was the creative process, but then it became the journey of life and realizing that it goes back and forth. There is this messy middle, but sometimes we need that mess to kind of meet the right person, get the right insight, get the experience, build a skill, whatever it is to move on. But I also think traditionally it's like I get to the destination and things will be great then. But really, we need to learn to celebrate the journey and the small steps along the way and Really, the journey is the destination and embrace that and don't keep projecting on the future that none of us have any idea how it's going to turn out. We might have like inklings, but I want to encourage people to trust again their inner guidance system to trust themselves or follow those little nudges or crazy ideas instead of writing them off.
SPEAKER_01Because so often we can be overriding assumptions and expectations from society, but we can also be overriding ourselves. And that internal guidance system that you've been speaking about is just there in the tiniest of whispers, but it's so impossible for us to get to. Did you always have a really strong internal navigation system?
SPEAKER_00It's funny. When my mom passed away, I found a letter the next day in her her sock drawer. And it said to my very my daughter to my daughter, born with her own special guidance system. So it was kind of this nudge, and she'd written to me this letter when I was in middle school, so like 13 or so. And it, you know, it's we can all see things in each other, but we struggle to see it in ourselves. So we need that reminder. So if I zoom out, so I also talk about zooming in and zooming out in the book, in my work, where it's you zoom out, it's like, oh, it totally makes sense. I've never been one to fully take the traditional path or the normal path. In college, I was on the men's crew team and I'm a tall coxswain, but I used to be a rower. You know, there are all these micro moments, and we take for granted kind of our own being, and then years later, a friend or respected person in your life will say, The way you did this was so inspiring. And you're like, What? I had no idea. I was just being myself. So much of the magic comes from these mundane things that we do just by living our own life and not resisting, you know, those pulls to do something else, do it differently, despite the initial discomfort.
SPEAKER_01Has there been something in your life that you've needed to override?
SPEAKER_00I think it's well-meaning comments from parents and my dad say, like, oh Anne, you make any money this month? And I say, Literally, I have not, because my business model comes a few times a year. But it's people who are well-meaning and they care about you, but not having to accept everything as truth, and it can be part of her awareness. So I think stopping overriding myself, because we naturally override all the time, but this book is an invitation to be conscious and also to do things differently. So I think starting my own business in France, I had no idea what I was doing. And all my grad school professors, the career office, they're like, you can't stay in France. And I was like, okay, but it's not again, not accepting everything that people tell you as the truth, but coming back and just trusting yourself. And then I'm like, I get I'll figure it out. Like, let me try. So not writing something off if it doesn't happen instantaneous instantaneously or right away.
SPEAKER_01You talk so beautifully about dancing with discomfort. And as you were saying that, I was thinking about in order for us to follow our internal navigation systems, there are the moments that we are figuring things out, and that can be uncomfortable and it can be uncertain. And that's the moment that how we would like to shape our lives comes into contact with how other people perceive that, how we should be shaping our lives. How have you learned to deal with discomfort and to see it as a dance with something rather than gosh, what's the opposite of that? Getting stuck in it, getting lost in it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, or just yeah, being bogged down by it. I think the biggest realization is knowing that our timeline for things is not necessarily the universe, the world's life's timeline for us. So I think it's a lot about letting go of the when and how things are gonna happen, but just knowing that we're taking action, small steps, and just allowing ourselves to be patient and not forcing things. I have a lot of downtime. People are like, oh, you're out doing all these things. I'm like, it might look like that, but people would be astounded how much time I spend on my couch. But I think just going for walks. And so when people are like, what are you working on or what are you doing? There's certain seasons where I'm like, just I think so much is just normalizing. Like, I'm like, I'm not really sure right now, but I know I know and trust it's gonna come. So I think that's also building a trust muscle as alongside that discomfort and knowing it's normal. Because I think I also wrote this book because I'm like, why didn't nobody tell me any of this? And like, how beneficial would it be if somebody had actually given me a little bit of a clue that this might happen? And everybody's journey with different things are different, but I was just like, wow, nobody talked about discomfort.
SPEAKER_01Yes, they don't. I wanted to give it to my daughter. She's she's really going to this period of learning about some of the assumptions, the expectations, the things that we then spend a life overriding. I think there is a moment that that sort of that training, the social conditioning really does kick in. And I had that thought of I wish I could give her this book because this is the life's work. This is like about all the things that we need to come to believe about ourselves, how we can return to and trust, as you said, about who we are, how we can deal with uncertainty and discomfort, how we can see what we bring and what society brings for us. There's so many different pieces to this. Why did you want to write the book that you did in the moment that you wanted to? Why that moment for you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I published in 2024. It probably started surfing a thing around 2020 with conversations with a friend. And then 2022, I really started writing it, and I didn't know I was writing a book. I was just in an uncomfortable season of life where so much of the world around me was changing, but I felt pretty steady, which is an ongoing theme in my life, where my friends have had babies, moved, bought multiple houses, changed countries and multiple times, and I'm here. But so I just started taking myself to cafes every day and writing, and it became this very enjoyable act. And I think we want everything to have a purpose, but it just was this pleasurable act, a date with myself. And I was listening to a podcast with Stuart Brown, who is a play researcher, and talking about how we think we need to have purpose for everything. And so I was this sacred thing, and I didn't tell anybody I was writing the book. Every now and then, friends in person, I would mention it to, but it became pressure once people started to say, How's it coming? This, and they can start to put a timeline on it. And the first time you're doing anything, it takes longer than we want and expect. And there's learning curves and different sides of it where I got hung up, like tech bringing us back to tech as a lot of the technical. So that takes the joy out of it. But I really wanted to enjoy the process. So that being said, I started it, but within two months, I had my very first draft that I printed, and it looked actually, it might actually be a version of it is down by me. Um, this is version two, but I printed it. The cover didn't change, the subtitle changed. But I was like, oh, I have these skills. What happens if I make it a book? And so having something tangible and physical. So it became this side project to focus on and to distill these ideas that again, I think they're they are for any age. But I say that I needed to write my way through. So traditional publishing, you have to have your proposal and be super clear. But for me, I think this became a metaphor if we don't get clarity from thinking about it, we get clarity from taking action. So, like, that's step three of override is like actually take a step towards a thing, even if you don't know where it's going. So it was a very organic, somewhat messy potentially, but one step at a time and not feeling the pressure of traditional publishing. So yeah, it was again this joyful exploration. And so I wanted to do something that I enjoyed, and that was really fun for me.
SPEAKER_01And then that could be enough. That in itself could be enough that you're doing something that is joyful and that you're enjoying and that you want to do.
SPEAKER_00And yeah, and I I will say that I did feel once I did realize it was a book, I was like, the world needs this sooner rather than later. And I wanted it to be pocket-sized so people carry it with them and didn't feel heavy and overwhelming like so many self-help and nonfiction books. And so I do think that there was a point where it's like the world needs this now, and not to keep everything so close. I think sometimes there's certain things that we just keep for ourselves and certain things that really can benefit the world if we share it with them.
SPEAKER_01You talk about in the book about contagion, and it's an idea that I'm really curious about. What impact do you hope to have by bringing this idea about override to people?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, so much of this bubbled up during the pandemic because it became this mirror to the world, and whoa, like this is not working, and things. So it was very much this idea of contagion for good. So we have these ideas of how things spread, and oh, I need to get likes and followers. But I would love just word of mouth and you know, a friend share it with a friend, a graduation gift for a child. Like, I think all generations need it. So much of my mapping or path community, it can be from college, like late college grad school to retiree, and we have these parallel experiences at different times. So I think it's there's something there for everyone. And so, unlike most books, like my book is worldwide out of the gate. And so just I want it to spread. I also know I need to learn to step into it and spread and share my ideas, but I'm so close to them that I forget that they can feel novel or new to somebody else or refreshing. And I don't think people need to treat it like a Bible. I call it pocket playbook for possibility because it's like, what do you need in this season? And I want people to open one page that day and get the idea they need and the takeaway, and maybe that's all you get out of it. But I really think we're in different seasons and and we take we take that for granted. So yeah, it's fun to see people keep like self-growth close to them a lot, but as an author, I appreciate it so much when I hear from somebody who's read it, or what's stuck out with them because then that sparks and inspires me to share something, or you never know if that's the message that a friend or a family member needs to hear, or a stranger on the internet.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and we do keep self-growth very close to us, but also so much of your work is bringing people together. It's so much about what happens in a room with a group of people, what happens when you take people out into the streets and their experiences. That feels like such an important piece of what you do, the collective.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I do think it's like the balance of inner and then getting out into the world, and movement is key, walks are insightful, but also how we gather, and I'm very inspired by the work of Priya Parker, The Art of Gathering. And I was the quiet one, the introvert growing up. And so I own that identity, and I don't feel comfortable at a lot of events and parties because I'm like, ugh, what do I say? I'm trying to talk about my work. But being able to flip the script and reframe it to see that's an advantage where as the quiet one, I know how to make people feel included and feel part of something. And so I want all my work to be an invitation. And so in the book, I say like, get other friends, make it a book club, or I created a companion website on Substack. And so there's certain things that haven't grown at the speed I would expect, or society has, but I know that these pieces are there, and I also know that things are quietly working behind the scenes. But I love doing workshops online and in person because it's often something that somebody in the room says that can be that missing piece or that thing that you say that you're talking to somebody else, but you're also talking to yourself. And in override, I call that a mirror moment where it's like, oh wait, you know, we we need to remind ourselves and hear ourselves speak it out loud.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and there's always that beautiful moment, isn't there, that you've put something out into a space and it's almost like the thoughts in the show, they take on their own lives, don't they? And I'm thinking about your grandfather and the way that he his process was very organic. Things just build in ways that you can't possibly control. And that's the beauty of this book, and also your workshops and these experiences. You can't possibly determine all the outcomes because they're all possibility and they're all kind of unknowns in their own way, and that's really exciting.
SPEAKER_00It's way more fun, you all. If you stop like clinging to I'm going to do this by the you know, I'm gonna get this. Every friend who has had those milestone moments, like it's worked in the moment, but you also have to trust there have been divorces, there have been completely different changes. So you have to also allow yourself to detour, reroute. Sometimes you might need to take the scenic route to get there, even though this the direct route is right there, leaving a job that's toxic. But I think when we can just open the door just a teeny bit for some possibilities, some different outcome, some different way of things working, it makes life so much more interesting.
SPEAKER_01Is that how you make the case for fun when we're in the more difficult moments? So I'm thinking about people that are going through divorce, grief, job changes. Like when we think about where we started from, when we think about fun, it's almost a thing that we allow ourselves later. Fun is what we get to afterwards. And I'm wondering how you make the case for fun in a moment that might feel heavier, darker, more weighty.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think part of it is how I live my life and sharing what I do is to remind other folks that multiple things can be true at once. And I think that is another like big eye-opener for folks. And it's not about toxic p positivity or false positivity, but it is about acknowledging this is going on and also this. When I launched my book, one of my best friends passed away from a rare cancer, and she was an instrumental part of this book just in text messaging back and forth ideas. And the day after I launched the book in Paris, I flew to her funeral in New York City the next day. But she had asked me to facilitate her celebration of life. And as devastating and hard as it is to lose somebody, and I've already lost my mom at that point, it was a point of content connection, connecting with myself, being so grateful to have these people in my life and to be able to connect with her sisters and to help create an event that isn't just about mourning and sadness, but to show that there's also beauty in the experience and inviting people to share stories that had no plan to get up there and share some stories. So that is like a darker version of it, but at the same time, death and grief was something that was so hard and heavy and not talked about that the night before my mom passed away, we had hospice at home. And I said, This is not how it is on TV and in the movies. And I was so disillusioned that I want to be the voice who said, I love talking about death. I'm really open to it. If you have questions, it's a journey and you cannot predict how you're gonna come through it. And so for a friend to say, Anne, I see you like after your mom passed away, you became this butterfly. Like I had to go inward and be that messy cocoon for a while, but then come out of it. And so I think that we want life to be tied up in a neat fancy bow, but what makes it interesting is to go through this journey and find those small micro moments, find the magical moments. There's a chapter in Override about like looking for the magic. The little homage to my friend is the ladybug on the gratitude page. And when I have book signings, I have this red ladybug stamp, and I make people share a number between one and 220, and I stamp that page, and that's their magical page that they need to hear the message. So I think it's also, you know, in a business, like finding those things that are the extras that don't have you don't have to do, but they bring you joy and delight, even if it's hard. But for me, that became the way to honor her, honor my mom's memory. Again, I wouldn't have gotten to this mantra of this should be fun for my grandfather if I hadn't allowed, and I I didn't even share that the reason I started talking to a hundred different people was because I had shared something on Twitter and somebody writing a book about the moon landing saw my tweet and he said, Your grandfather was amazing, he was like the less crazy Elon Musk of his time. Don't follow the paper trail, you should talk to 100 people who knew him. So a stranger from the internet gave me this clue. And so if I had followed what to the T what a book or a lesson or something had told me to do, I would have missed out on so much. And I think, yeah, there's the these moments that just can make us feel alive.
SPEAKER_01Isn't it extraordinary that it was in that moment too that That's the magic, isn't it? It was in that moment of honoring the loss of your mom that you found this way back to your grandfather.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think I also have found my way back to myself. And we lose ourselves sometimes too, but it's always there. And as I work on business repositioning and how to talk about my work, I keep finding things. I was like, gosh, I knew it in the beginning. It just becomes a little bit more complex as we add different elements or some things, the shoulds we think, but it's also allowing this process just to be fun and messy and be like, oh, and re-it's building our trust muscles that way. And you can either do it in a really like rigid, optimized, productivity strict way, or you can have a little more fun, and that's the path I choose to take.
SPEAKER_01Okay, let's see. Let's see if this is gonna be fun for you. I have prepared some words for you, and the idea is just to see what comes up for you. And knowing that you like to find your own way through something, I think it'd be really fascinating to see what you come up with. And one of the one of the words I really wanted to ask you about, you said something that I got really excited about, which you said that you had created a spacious life. And I'm curious about this word spacious. What is that to you?
SPEAKER_00Spacious is allowing space for I use the word magic, use whatever word works with you, for life to happen. Because I have so many friends who are like, let's hang out in two months, like on this date. And I was like, for me, there's spontaneity and joy. Also, as an introvert, I need a recharge battery. There's certain seasons of life that are launch seasons like do a number on my nervous system. So I need that flexibility to recover, come back to center, recharge just so I can be present for the work I'm doing. And also, I don't know if it's from living in Paris. People come through last minute. I want to be able to say yes to those opportunities, whether it's having a coffee with a person or doing a workshop for a team or whatever it is. But I think that we think success is more, more, more better money, money, money. And for me, I've learned that I really love the freedom and flexibility. It's exhausting at times because it's like decision fatigue and I have to feed myself and do this. But I think it's, you know, giving myself space to go to the gym in the middle of the day if I want to or need to, or go for a walk, or read a book and not judge myself for it just because my life looks different than a traditional nine to five meetings back to back.
SPEAKER_01And it's a real sense of understanding what you need in that, isn't it? How you function, how your energy works, what you value, what success is to you, and really leading from that place of kind of self-understanding rather than self-abandonment.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes. And I'm not good at faking it, and so I like to be real with people, and sometimes that makes people uncomfortable, but it's also not taking on that baggage. Of theirs. And yeah, and I don't want to force things, and I also think it's a way we can all connect.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's my next word. So my next word is connection. And so much of it's interesting that you have talked about being an introvert and also how so much of your practice is about connection. And one of the themes that I've seen again and again in the show is this yearning, this absolute longing to connect in different ways. What have you noticed or come to understand about connection in your work?
SPEAKER_00I think sometimes we can look for connection outside of us. And I think the thing that surprised me the most is like, oh, maybe I need to spearhead this or do this or create the community I wish existed. People often feel connected to me because I was blogging under the name prête à voyager, means ready to travel since 2007, and Instagram and all of that. So people know my story. And so it's just getting a sense of how I see the world. But I also don't want things to just be passive or be some guru. I want it to be multi-directional and have this communication. And when I first started my business, in one iteration, I was doing creative coaching and specifically one-on-one. And I said, told myself, I will never do online, I'm only doing in-person. And then the pandemic happened, and it turns out I love in-person connection. But I in Mapping Your Path, I run what are called connection calls. So it's small group calls with me and four to five people from the cohort, and you don't know who's going to be on those calls. And the magic to bring people together around the world is wild. And I swear the Zoom gods, like I see when people switch between calls, and I was like, oh my God, this theme is so on point. So I think connection happens at so many levels, and ultimately it happens with ourselves. But we have to have that spaciousness to ask some of those questions. And I think I didn't realize that people weren't asking those questions of themselves, but at the same time, I was I didn't get the book in this book. I say I didn't get the memo to work on myself until my late 30s. So it's true to remember, like, oh, this all feels so obvious to me, but it's not to everybody. And I guess my final point to that is, you know, I have a creative background, graphic design thinking, user experience design, but creativity is really connecting the dots. So I love finding these unlikely connections. And I have this mind map I often present of myself with my name in the middle and different experiences, professional and personal. And it wasn't until making this mind map, which is this kind of mess on a page and not linear, that I saw this around the circle loop. I guess there could be a shortcut too, but I took the long way around to find this connection between my anthropology and undergrad to design research, design thinking that I did not even know existed when I started studying that. So I think connection is also finding these new connections, finding them in different ways. I love analog as a way to feel more connected as well.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so our last word is mapping. You've done my job for me today. I think I just seamlessly led to all these things. Let's go to this, let's go to banana mapping because apparently this is what you're known for. Why bananas? Why banana mapping? And tell me about the fun, the playing that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and there are two banana maps in override, which I don't go too deep into it, but there's a QR code in the back for a workshop that I run. I think actually this is a wonderful way to end because it's this epitome of this should be fun. I taught a Skillshare mapping class that's still online over a decade ago, and it was designed to be a two-week course. It is still online. One of the students, Phil Francis in the UK, took my hand-drawn mapping assignment and he did it on his commute on a banana with a by rose, Brits say, but a ballpoint pen. And he talked about the enjoyment of that pressure. So I had given it the prompt. He did this map, he drew his commute with the time between different stops. And so the it wasn't created again, it was created as a two-week standalone class, but then community just jumped on him, like not jumped on, like just rallied behind it in a way that I have never been able just to create community without doing it. And as a side note, my mom signed up for that course and she became my like unofficial TA, kind of showing me how to manage community manage community. Anyway, fast forward to the pandemic, and Tina Roth Eisenberg, who's the founder of Create a Mornings, a global talk series. Folks don't know it, they had started to take what they call field trips online. She DM'd me and said, and I'd met her in New York, because again, connections, small world, I met her through my friend who passed away. So, like, just to connect the dots further. But Tina DM'd me and said, Hey Ann, would you be willing to do a field trip? You know, it's not paid or anything. I was like, sure. And I was like, I just remembered the Skillshare class that everybody loved maps. And I love that I had professionals like artists, illustrators, photographers, and then people just loved maps. Like, and it didn't need to be beautiful. And so I said, Okay, yeah. And so it's called Make a Map Field Trip. And I said, and she's like, you can have fun with it. And Tina Roth Eisenberg, for folks who don't know her, she has a confetti drawer drawer in her office. So she pulls out confetti if there's something to celebrate. So I love her spirit. And I said, Well, I was gonna have everybody bring a banana and have them draw a map on it. And she didn't say anything, but the next thing I knew, it was my first time fully, I can't remember if it's the first or second, like fully facilitating on Zoom. And she brought her whole team. And Creative Mornings is one of those organizations that I just look up to. I love the spirit, the generosity, the creativity, the everything. And they all showed up. And so I had everybody draw their COVID commute on their banana, map it on a banana. So I do my workshops. I'm talking to you from my hallway floor, which becomes my like workshop nook. So I drew my commute from my bedroom to my computer and then back to here doing for this workshop. So it was amazing to have hundreds of people doing this. And then it's banana maps are all inclusive. So sometimes it's mapping on an orange or a toilet paper tube or whatever you have, but it helps us get out of our everyday thinking and perfectionism. And I love a banana because of the texture, but also it's ephemeral, it doesn't last forever. And so you can't it's 3D, you can't help but be a kid again and embrace that inner child, that spirit, and have some fun with it.
SPEAKER_01I love that so much. I haven't tried this. I'm gonna try this. Okay, let's go back to your thought. So this should be fun. And it sounds like this is something that's woven through your life. What happens when you don't remember it, when you forget that something should be fun?
SPEAKER_00I can feel it in my body. Okay. Things I feel it in my head, I just feel more tense, I'm overthinking it. And being fun, it doesn't mean it's all a party, but it's finding that little reframe to be like, oh, this is a game. It's me versus French bureaucracy. Let me write a funny story about how this sofa in the waiting room looks like a giant pill I could swallow. So sometimes it's writing a funny story in my head, or back in the day is writing a tweet, but finding a way to entertain myself around the thing. And sometimes I have to do the admin or the taxes, but it's also celebrating when I do instead of just being like, okay, on to the next thing. So I think it's comes back to enjoying the journ journey and kind of noting it and appreciating it so we can kind of see that growth and evolution over time.
SPEAKER_01It's really beautiful because we started with you arriving feeling a bit frazzled. There was the tech demons doing their thing. And just talking to you. There is such a sort of sense that I have anyway about possibility and play and the real hope in creativity. Actually, like returning that to ourselves. So thank you so much for bringing this thought from your grandfather, via this wonderful person who worked with him through the generations to this moment. Thank you so much for sharing that today.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for having me and bringing me back to the fun and the joy. I feel like mission accomplished is the right word with my grandfather in space. But it is this journey, and my goal is to give possibility. So I think it's allowing myself to get excited about something. So thank you for helping bring that out in me because sometimes I need to be professional. But again, I had the post-it note the whole time. This should be fun in front of me. Hot pink. To remind myself that don't overthink it and enjoy this and talking with a human, even if it's through a screen, is the most wonderful experience in the world.
SPEAKER_01I think it is the most wonderful thing just to spend time with someone and to have fun and to chat. Thank you so much for being here, Anne.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Claire.
SPEAKER_01So, what do you think? Is it the thought that you will keep, remember, share, or perhaps even forget? Anne thought is deceptively simple. This should be fun. But as you heard it, I wonder whether it's also an invitation to approach life with more curiosity, creativity, and just a willingness to explore. Especially when you don't have all the answers. If you'd like to learn more about Anne's work, do get a copy of her book override. What if there is another way? It's a pocket-sized playbook, it's wonderful to carry with you and to scribble on and to ponder about and just to really practice in your everyday life. You can also find details about Anne's workshops and courses in the show notes. If you enjoyed this conversation, I would love to stay connected. You can join my newsletter at If Lost Start Here where I share weekly reflections and ideas and guidance for life's lost moments. You can also find details there about my book, If Lost Start Here, Wellbeing for the Anxious, Disconnected, or Uncertain. It's a creative journal for everyday well-being, and we have a whole chapter devoted to play, another to awe and wonder, another to creativity, so much of the things we talked about today. I think you'd really enjoy it. It's full of exercises and just things to do and think about and to get curious about and experiment with in your everyday life. Thank you as always for being here, for spending this time with us, and I will see you next time for another thought that one of my guests has kept and that I think you might want to as well. Bye for now.
