Creative Musings: Skin in the Game

[To have "skin in the game" is to have incurred risk (monetary or otherwise) by being involved in achieving a goal] Wikipedia 

I kept thinking about what it was about the people who have been really piquing my interest recently. Or as I look back on previous guests what is it that connects them?

I loved the very creative folk, and the last season of reinventors. Everyone in fact. Whether buying land to build a sculpture studio, traveling across the world to enter a hardcore Karate dojo, starting a drag house, becoming a citizen of Japan in order to have political influence, starting a radio show, falling in love, recovering from business disaster, so many of my guests had put serious skin in the game.

I look at my friends and the people I admire. The feminists, the activists, the style mavens, the weirdos, the deeply genuine; the people who speak out or show up along the edges of culture and I noticed; they had skin in the game.

I also realised, if I am to enter into the fullness of the next iteration of myself and my family unit - that’s what I need. And so I am fascinated to explore with my guests, what it means to them and how they are moving through the world with skin in the game. 

For me, getting my skin in the game requires some serious outside help. And that help might not quite be what you imagine.

Of course I am 18 months sober, a constant source of relief and fascination as thought after thought emerges through the sobriety for me to soberly deal with (skin in the game) AND MY LORD did I feel like drinking this past week - it was strange. But I didn’t. 5 months post-surgery, I am getting used to this new body and new way of being in the hormonal world This time last year my body was being physically and emotionally violent towards me. I had severe anaemia and felt utterly insane. Now the stability of hormones and absence of bleeding is a whole new and very welcome landscape to navigate. 

This episode is all about how I am using signals from nature and from my surroundings as my points of coaching inquiry. How I am experiencing a lot of change and choice and communing with the flowers in my garden, the trees in my eye line, the jasmine at my door to deliver messages through the ether. #ordinarymagic And also my neighbour moved out, I was upset but then that revealed something else that I muse on in the recording. My Mum and Dad were visiting their old neighbour the same week. Everything changes all the time, Nature’s rhythms are not influenced by culture, and I probably need to get some fertiliser for the plants if I want them to flower.

What can the nature outside my window tell me about what’s happening inside me, about my thoughts; what emblems and metaphors can I dance with. And the movement of people in and out of our lives. I could see my neighbour every day for 5 years then POOF gone - disappeared, like they’d never been there; a home becomes a house, filled with the #potentmagic if the next occupant.

You see that’s a lot of what’s happening here. I’m looking to see who is following the rhythms and flow of their nature, even if it is outside the flow of the culture. And if you flow outside of culture, then you have skin in the game. Each guest describes this differently yet with some similarity.

Every single day I muse on this, in conversation with the tree outside my door, the neighbours past and present, the books I read, the music I choose, the voices in my ears. I observe my husband, his way of being in the world, our love, our third entity and I muse on this. And the folk with skin in the game. And how if I am to dance with culture even more, reveal my nature, live in the ordinary magic; getting more and more skin in the game is not an option. It is inevitable collateral.

If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love...

[To have "skin in the game" is to have incurred risk (monetary or otherwise) by being involved in achieving a goal] Wikipedia 

I kept thinking about what it was about the people who have been really piquing my interest recently. Or as I look back on previous guests what is it that connects them?

I loved the very creative folk, and the last season of reinventors. Everyone in fact. Whether buying land to build a sculpture studio, traveling across the world to enter a hardcore Karate dojo, starting a drag house, becoming a citizen of Japan in order to have political influence, starting a radio show, falling in love, recovering from business disaster, so many of my guests had put serious skin in the game.

I look at my friends and the people I admire. The feminists, the activists, the style mavens, the weirdos, the deeply genuine; the people who speak out or show up along the edges of culture and I noticed; they had skin in the game.

I also realised, if I am to enter into the fullness of the next iteration of myself and my family unit - that’s what I need. And so I am fascinated to explore with my guests, what it means to them and how they are moving through the world with skin in the game. 

For me, getting my skin in the game requires some serious outside help. And that help might not quite be what you imagine.

Of course I am 18 months sober, a constant source of relief and fascination as thought after thought emerges through the sobriety for me to soberly deal with (skin in the game) AND MY LORD did I feel like drinking this past week - it was strange. But I didn’t. 5 months post-surgery, I am getting used to this new body and new way of being in the hormonal world This time last year my body was being physically and emotionally violent towards me. I had severe anaemia and felt utterly insane. Now the stability of hormones and absence of bleeding is a whole new and very welcome landscape to navigate. 

This episode is all about how I am using signals from nature and from my surroundings as my points of coaching inquiry. How I am experiencing a lot of change and choice and communing with the flowers in my garden, the trees in my eye line, the jasmine at my door to deliver messages through the ether. #ordinarymagic And also my neighbour moved out, I was upset but then that revealed something else that I muse on in the recording. My Mum and Dad were visiting their old neighbour the same week. Everything changes all the time, Nature’s rhythms are not influenced by culture, and I probably need to get some fertiliser for the plants if I want them to flower.

What can the nature outside my window tell me about what’s happening inside me, about my thoughts; what emblems and metaphors can I dance with. And the movement of people in and out of our lives. I could see my neighbour every day for 5 years then POOF gone - disappeared, like they’d never been there; a home becomes a house, filled with the #potentmagic if the next occupant.

You see that’s a lot of what’s happening here. I’m looking to see who is following the rhythms and flow of their nature, even if it is outside the flow of the culture. And if you flow outside of culture, then you have skin in the game. Each guest describes this differently yet with some similarity.

Every single day I muse on this, in conversation with the tree outside my door, the neighbours past and present, the books I read, the music I choose, the voices in my ears. I observe my husband, his way of being in the world, our love, our third entity and I muse on this. And the folk with skin in the game. And how if I am to dance with culture even more, reveal my nature, live in the ordinary magic; getting more and more skin in the game is not an option. It is inevitable collateral.

If you enjoyed this episode and it inspired you in some way, we’d love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Head over to Apple Podcasts to leave a review and we’d love it if you would come and say hi over on @sarahfuruyacreative on Instagram.

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