79: Shannon Curtis on Presence and Creating Joyful Community
Shannon Curtis has been a recording artist and songwriter for the last 27 years, and has carved out a unique, community-driven DIY music career with her husband and co-conspirator, Jamie Hill, for the last 19. Her new album — 80s kids, her first-ever covers album — is due out in April 2025, and was a great excuse for her to (re)acquire an Atari 2600. She lives in Tacoma, Washington, and is in love with The Mountain, just like any good inhabitant of the Puget Sound.
“When we were forced to pause, it was an opportunity to realize that maybe we had pushed and pulled and prodded and explored every corner that we could creatively in that medium in that setting.”
“I recognize that presence needs to be my goal. The idea of what is before me today to do. I don't need to take on all of the things all of the time. That's been something that I've really needed to focus on.”
“One of the most powerful tools that we can use to exist and resist, is to hold onto our joy. Our joy really is a refuge and when we create experiences of joy with each other, we create a place of safety for people who are feeling threatened.”
“Leaving well is being able to have the knowledge that I showed up before the leaving, that I showed up to the work, that I showed up to that part of my life with all of me in the best way that I could.”
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Transcript:
This conversation with Shannon Curtis is a little bit of a pivot from who you might be typically used to hearing on this podcast. Shannon Curtis is an artist, a musician, and a dear friend, and I wanted to have her on to talk about the correlation between leaving a thing, uh, when it has to do with a tour, when it has to do with something that you've put, uh, your heart, soul, and mind, and blood, sweat, and tears into, and then it comes to an end.
I also wanted to talk with Shannon about. What it's like to know when the ending is coming. Uh, and we also talk a lot about when it's time to put something to bed, to search for what's, what's out there and what the bigger dreams could be. So I hope you enjoy this conversation with Shannon Curtis.
Shannon Curtis has been a recording artist and songwriter for the last 27 years and has carved out a unique community-driven DIY music career with her husband and co-conspirator Jamie Hill for the last 19. Her new album, eighties Kid, her first ever covers album is due out in April, 2025 and was a great excuse for her to reacquire an Atari 2,600.
She lives in Tacoma, Washington and is in love with the mountain, just like any good inhabitant of the Puget Sound. Shannon, you and I have known each other since, I don't know, 2016 ish, and I'm so excited to have this conversation with you. I'm gonna jump right in to the first question I shared a little bit from your bio about your music career, but I'd love to hear a little bit more about that and also why you've chosen to prioritize intimate experiences over large scale concerts.
I'm so happy to be talking with you. I love you so much. There. There are certain people in my life that my music career has introduced me to, and you're one of those people that's just like, wow, I get to know Naomi. This is the coolest. We're so lucky. You're the best. So, yeah, I, um, just thumbnail sketch history of, of me and music and, and how it became, you know, my, my career.
Um, I, I, I've always been musical. I didn't study music in college. I studied biology. Uh, thought I was gonna be a doctor. That, you know, spoiler alert didn't happen. Um, because I had this compo, I had just this, I had this compelling like feeling that what I, what I was supposed to do with my life was music.
So after college I started trying to figure that out and it was, you know, it's a journey when you're, when you're doing anything. Entrepreneur, entrepreneurial in nature. Certainly anything in the arts, there's not really a prescribed path that, that guarantees success. So it's a lot of, you know, figuring out how the water moves downhill, you know, and following that path.
Uh, lots of pivoting, lots of reinventing. It's, it's a, the act of, of making a life like this is a creative act, you know? Um, aside from the art itself. So I, uh, I was in a band for a number of years in my twenties when I, when I became 30, uh, the band, uh, broke up amicably and I started doing my solo work and I was doing, you know, the, the typical thing that people do, um, when they're trying to get a career going.
I was driving laps around the country and my Volkswagen Jetta hauling my piano with me and playing shows in like little coffee shops and small venues and that kind of thing. And then in 2011, um, I was living in Los Angeles with my husband. We were married, we were married at that time. Me and Jamie were living in LA and I, we did our first ever house concert.
And, um, someone in San Diego was like, Hey, come do a show in my living room. I'll, I'll invite my friends, we'll take donations for the show. And it was a revolutionary night. Um, we went down there and it was just like, wow, this was an amazing experience. Like the, the intimacy. The, the shared experience, the feeling of like just being with other humans, experiencing an art experience together was so transformative.
Um, and it was, we were hooked. Uh, and, and, and not, not only that, it was, it made sense as a business model as well. So we, in terms of when you're. I don't know. You might have heard that artists, uh, artists don't make a ton of money when they're starting out, especially, and you know, like it's, it, there's a lot of places that take for granted the arts.
You know, we, in fact, we were just having a conversation with somebody this afternoon about a show on, on the upcoming tour that we're doing. And like, it's something that, that venues typically do as they ask, as part of the deal that you get. They want to take a percentage of the merchandise that you sell, and it's like.
I'm sorry, but are you investing that in, in the production of that merchandise are you? But what are you doing to contribute and sure, sure, we'll give you 20% of our merchandise, but will you also give me 20% of your food and drink bill at the end of the night? You know, like artists just are not valued in our society that I think the way that, you know, I would like to see.
But anyway, the house concert model took away a lot of those sort of like. Barriers in the business part of things. And so we really just leaned in, uh, to the whole house concert thing. And over the period of 10 years pre pandemic, we did about 600 house concerts in people's living rooms and backyards, including yours when you were living in another state.
Uh, 600 plus house concerts, people's living rooms and backyards all over the United States, and a couple in Canada as well. And they were wonderful. It was, uh, it, it, it transformed my idea of what it is to be an artist mm-hmm. In terms of, it was not just, you know, a career where I write songs and record them and put them out and then perform them anonymously, you know, for groups of people.
We were in people's homes. I mean, our friendship, yours and mine is the evidence of the fact that, you know, these, these experiences created for us a true community, you know, filled with people where we have real relationships with them all over the country and, and I began to see my work as an artist.
More like service work, if you will. You know, like this is what I, this is a, this is a tool I have, this is a skill I have, a talent I have that I can use to contribute to my community. Yeah. And um, and that's kind of how I view what we do. Even though we have moved away from the house concert thing, since then, we've began to do shows and theaters around the country and small theaters.
That community element remains. Yeah. And I'm so grateful for those years that taught me the, the value of that and, and the, the, and the introduce the role of community in my work as an artist, because that will stay with us forever. Yeah. Yeah. I am curious. If you could share a little bit about, so the, the weaving together of the work of leaving well and leaving a thing with intention.
I thought so much about this when I came to your Omaha Theater Show of the Good to Me tour. Mm-hmm. Because you are bringing together not only relationships that you've formed, I would guess that some of the people that still come to your theater shows or that helped connect you to different parts of your theater show are maybe born out of the relationships from your in-home concert series.
Absolutely. And so I'm just thinking about how we intentionally end something, how we intentionally close a chapter. Mm-hmm. And I'm wondering if you like how much thought and preparation went into the end of the Good To me tour? When you first started thinking about it, maybe that's a hard question to answer and we might pivot a little bit from there, but I, I guess that's my first question is that was a massive effort to create the good to me tour.
And it also had, it had to have an end. Right. Well, if you don't mind, I'm gonna back up a little bit further. Yeah. Because the first big ending that we experienced in this arc was ending our house concert touring. We did it for 10 years and then the pandemic hit and. We were kind of forced. Everybody was forced to stop and like, what's going on?
You know, and that obviously wasn't planned, that ending, but what we discovered in the, in the pandemic, when we couldn't go out on the road, um, and we couldn't do the thing that we had been doing, we did realize once we had a chance to pause that forced pause, we realized that actually that wheel that we had been on, we, I mean, I, we.
I wrote and we recorded and released a new studio album every year for those 10 years when we were on the road doing house concerts. 'cause we wanted new stories to tell new songs, new, you know, just a new experience for our people every year. And it became this a wheel, you know, where you're just on the wheel.
And when we were forced to pause, it was an opportunity to realize that maybe we had. Pushed and pulled and prodded and explored every corner that we could creatively in that medium, in that setting. And we began to what? When it first, when the pandemic first hit and we were first shut down, we're like, oh God.
You know, there was panic about that. Unwanted unasked for change in our, in our work lives, in our, you know, in our lives. But it became an opportunity, um, because we, we finally, we had the, we had the time to, to. Really look at it in a ways that we didn't have the time before. 'cause we were just so busy on the wheel, you know?
So that was an interesting thing. Once, once we had sort of that experience of like, okay, this, this is an opportunity to explore new things for us. That was exciting. But then we also had the element of. Of, okay. There are people that have been on this journey with us for 10 years who, you know, a lot of hosts for our house concerts would host us every single summer when we'd go out.
So like, they were count, they, they had come to sort of rely on us coming to their town every year, and it was like, you know, the, the annual Shannon Curtis house concert at so and so's house, you know, and so. We were making a change that affected other people, you know, that, that they had been in this with us and co-creating this with us.
And so we had also the task of, of communicating, um, to them what was next for us, why we felt like it was necessary, and that that was an interesting, uh, bridge to cross. Also, uh, the vast majority of people. Were totally with us. You know, when, when, when we figured out how to communicate that question. But I think that I, I, I wanna underscore that though, having been on the journey watching you, I think that what I would say is that the, the big majority of people were with you because you communicated it.
Mm. Such a beautiful job of not only communicating the decision, but I think letting people kind of into the process of like, oh, we don't know. We don't know what this is gonna look like, and we're here with you, and we're here. Al also in knowing that you also don't know what's going on in your life with the pandemic.
Um, and so I, I guess I just wanna underscore that, that you and your communication prioritization. Is such a huge key part of what I see in your success. I know success is different for you, like you're not like chasing success, but yes, it's powerful to watch. I really appreciate that. So thanks for saying that.
Um, but yeah, it's, it's just, it's important for me. I don't even know when or how it became a priority, but when I communicate with our community at large, you know, whether that be via my love letter list, my email list, or on social media, or you know, whatever, it's become really a value of ours to just be human in those communications, you know, I mean.
And, and, um, I mean, as I'm saying this, I'm, I'm, I'm understanding that yes, that that comes from the fact that the relationship we have with our community is they're real relationships with real people. Like we just, we're human with them. And so, you know, in that time of uncertainty, in that time where we were like, you know, we have some bigger dreams we want to chase here.
We've got some bigger things that we want to create, and we have no idea if it, if we can make it happen. But like being able to communicate that uncertainty, being able to communicate the, we don't know exactly where we're going, but we're just gonna try to do the next right thing. That's one way I feel like that, to go back to the idea that I feel like my role is as, as a role of service to use sort of like those public communications as a way of saying like, I'm not comfy in uncertainty either.
Right. But I'm gonna take some risks anyway. Just like you to just. Portray what we're doing and move forward in, into what we're doing in a way that's not like, oh, it's all shiny and polished and perfect. Because that's honestly what we get from a lot of like, I'll call it entertainment, you know, the, the mass market entertainment.
It just looks like art just happens or there's radio silence in between. Yeah. Which the value, I, I love not having artists need to like. Produced for us, but there's often radio silence where there isn't any communication and there isn't that co-creation, which I think is what's so beautiful about what you and Jamie do and prioritize.
Hmm. So I didn't answer your question. I went, I went and answered a different question altogether. That's okay. That's great. That's good. The, that transition that we made from house concerts into pursuing theaters, I mean, we really didn't know. We had not been in the traditional venue market for a decade, and so we were starting.
From scratch, um, in trying to figure out how to present what we do on these bigger stages and these spaces that hold more people than a living room, you know? So it was, it was a big, huge risk. So it took us a while to sort of build it. We didn't know exactly how long it would take, but we, we ended up spending, uh, from the launch of the Good to Me album.
Let's see that it was the beginning of 2023. We, it was a good two years, two, a good two years that we built that good to meet theater, touring thing. And yeah, when it came to an end this past October, 2024, it was interesting to grapple with sort of a bit of a, like the, the last night, the last show we're like, oh my God, this is the last time we're going to perform this thing that we birthed out of.
Such a wild time in the world, and, you know, it was, it was a, it was, it felt like a big deal. Yeah. Uh, to be ending it. Yeah. You know, I'm curious, and, and you might, this might not be as much of a question and maybe more of a statement. What I'm hearing you say, and what I've witnessed is you planned out your tour, so you almost knew.
Like you knew ahead of time that that was gonna be the last time. Mm-hmm. But that also didn't, and, and I think some people, especially listening to this who are maybe in the nonprofit space or working inside of an office environment mm-hmm. They might not know when an end date is coming, but I don't think it changed, and maybe this is where the question is.
Mm-hmm. Even though you knew that might not have changed the feelings or knowing what feelings to expect or anticipate. And so I'm wondering if you could expand a little bit more on Yeah. Even though, you know, like when you're on the road and, and it's, it's, I guess it's probably not dissimilar to just doing one's life in every day.
If you're working in a nonprofit or you're working in an off, you know, like there's, when you're doing the work, there's often not much time or opportunity to think about. The next day or the next week or the next month, you know, and when you're on the road, it is like that too. I mean, we have, you know, every single day is accounted for we're we have to drive, you know, six hours on this day and then we've gotta show up for sound check and set up and do our thing, do the show, greet people afterwards, crash out in bed, get up the next day, and do the next day.
And you've gotta be so present each day for that and it, and so there's not a whole lot of opportunity to really be dwelling on what's coming, you know? Then it comes and then you're like, oh, oh, we're here. You know? So in that sense, yes, we knew it was coming, but it was also, it didn't matter that we knew it was coming necessarily because we're so busy being present, you know, leading up to it.
That's why we've had, you know, lots of experience touring. Over the years, um, we would go for those 10 years of house concerts. We would do all of our house concerts in the summertime, so we'd be gone all summer long and there was gonna be an end date, you know, for those as well. And we learned over the years that, uh, it probably took us more years to like, register this as a thing to expect, but then, then maybe it ought to have.
But like when you get, when you get home, when we get home from a tour like that, it is like hitting a brick wall. Yeah. There is just this moment where you're like, boom. And it is jarring and it affects every aspect of my life. When we come to an end of, of something like that, it is my, my emotions are all out of whack.
My routine is completely changed. All of the sudden, Jamie likes to say, it's not the fall that kills you. It's the sudden acceleration when you hit the ground. You know? Yeah. We were finding that we'd get home from tour and we should be like, should, should's a big word, should's doing a lot of work there, but we should, you know, you'd think it'd be a time where we'd be like, oh, look what we just did.
This was so exciting and so fun. And, and instead we're like bickering with each other and we're, you know, we're, we're grappling with, you know, these big emotions. We have learned that now, and we, we do know to expect now that that's going to be, yeah. So we, we have to plan in the face of that, we have to plan ways to take extra good care of ourselves and to keep short accounts and on our, our feelings and, you know.
Yeah. Yeah. And, and plan for things. You know, one of the things that really like helps me is to think about like, okay, what's some, what's some house project I can dig into when I get home? Just so I can just, you know, have something else to occupy my Yep. You know, my, my brain. Um, but yeah, that's a, it's a tricky time.
It's a really tricky time. It's so interesting because the parallel to that is I don't work with individuals any longer in in the leaving wall realm. I've shifted over to organizations, but as I work with individuals, I think that there's some interesting parallels because so often we go from thing to thing, we quit our job, or we get fired and we're like right into the next thing.
Mm-hmm. I'm constantly saying to people, if you can afford it, and if you can figure out how to make it happen, give yourself at least two weeks. Four weeks is ideal to just let yourself come down. Like Jamie said, you know, it's, it's not the fall, it's the reverberation of like going right into the next thing.
And so I'm so glad you talked about the reality of that. Mm-hmm. I'm curious what you might have learned from ending the Good to Me tour that might be helping you plan as you are about to launch the eighties Kids tour. Mm. Okay. That's a, it's interest. It's an interesting question. Um, the timing of the end of the Goods Me tour was.
Interesting because yes, it was, it was for lots of reasons. Um, so the last show of The Good to Me tour was October 24th in Portland, Oregon. And the election in the United States was November 5th, and I don't need to tell you what happened that day. And the very next week after that, I was hospitalized for a blood clot that came outta nowhere.
And we, it was, it was just a wild time. So the end of that tour. Was extra emotional for lots of reasons. Well, here's the other thing. The good to me tour, the whole show, and you saw the show, you know, the, the theme of the show was reconnecting to one's peace and power while living in a world on fire. And I don't know about you, but like at the end of October, I was like, I'm so glad that I've been doing this show and this moment, but man, I'm really ready for something different.
Like, let's just pivot to like. Good stuff. And then, and then, and then and so what? In a lot of ways I feel like I, I didn't get to leave that I. Those ideas and that world behind as much as I would've wanted to. But at the same time, I was confronted with some pretty serious health stuff that required me to do a pause, like you were saying before, moving on to the next thing.
I mean, I was in the hospital for a few days, you know, and like then convalescing after that and needing to really take it easy. So like I was really forced in that moment to narrow my focus. Extremely. Yep. You know, um, to really just taking care of myself, which, you know, I, I'm grateful for, especially in the moment of, of have, of grappling with the election results and that kind of stuff too.
I think it really helped me. I. It forced me to create space to prioritize self-care and, um, and getting my bearings and deciding intentionally how to engage with the world. Yeah. And then also deciding intentionally how to engage with the next thing in my work life. You know, like we had plans afoot to, you know, get this eighties kids album up and, and released this spring and, and the tour was already being planned at that time.
The next, the next tour. But I had to, I had to get, I had to get a lot more intentional about how I was choosing to engage with getting started on all that, which I think was a, in a backwards kind of way, a bit of a gift, you know, to, to be forced to do that. I don't know when the eighties kids tour will end.
I mean, the eighties kids will, you know, we're going on an initial 22 date tour this spring, um, around the United States. But I don't, but that won't be the end of eighties kids either. Yeah. So, you know, this is, this is I guess, more akin to some of the folks that you're working with. They're doing the work, they're in it, they're not sure when an end is coming.
Yep. We don't really know that yet. So I think the one thing I will say about all of it, the, the ending, the good, to me, the, the election stuff, the health stuff, the planning, this new thing and launching a new thing. Now, the through line, I think for me, for all of it, that is, that is both sort of, I recognize needs to be.
My goal, and also is often a challenge because things can be so distracting, is presence. Like the idea of what is before me today to do, you know, I don't need to take on all of the things all of the time, and that's been something that I've really needed to focus on. I, my friend, a friend of mine, uh, reminded me of that Ecker Toll book, the Power of Now, and I'm like, I've got to dig out my copy.
I think that that actually probably will be really good for me to revisit some of those ideas again, just because now is the only time I have the ability to do anything and, and my brain works in ways that wants to future trip and also replay the past. And so, you know, like I, I feel like. That is a priority in this moment, um, as we're launching into this new thing, um, is just to remain present and focused.
It's a narrow focus. It's a narrow focus in order to achieve a broader goal. You know what I mean? Yeah. I love that. This is a question I didn't prepare you for and we might find that it's doesn't have a lot of legs, but I'm gonna ask it. The good, to me, content was richly rooted in your own grappling of a lot of things, and I would imagine from a participant and a watcher and a bystander of it, it felt like it was, it was the right time for it.
How do you navigate something that might, to me it felt like that was like you had to really be present and really be. All in on the stage every time you performed that set because it was so emotional, so poignant. Is there a, is there a, I don't know what the word is, um, eighties kids is fun and joyful and celebratory and reminiscent and nostalgic and all those things.
Is there a different feel on how you're gonna need to show up in this next version of Shannon Curtis on tour? Mm-hmm. Than it was for good. To me, and I'm wondering about that for the listener, thinking about as we shift from one thing to another or as we get tired or worn out or weary of one thing and we shift into something else.
So I'm just curious how that lands with you. I love that question actually. So you're right. When I was on stage with the Good to Me tour, it is, it was a very personal show. It was the, the songs on that record and that became the show originated as journal entries. That I wrote in response to prompts. I gave myself grappling with the ideas of, you know, naming feelings, identifying what is in my control and what is not in my control.
The concept of accept radical acceptance and creating space to grab hold of my power in order to act where I can, you know? And so it was very personal and very emotional and, and in order to pull it off, like I couldn't show up half. Yeah, halfway, you know, like, and I wouldn't have wanted to, it wouldn't have done the, it wouldn't, wouldn't have honored the work in any way, you know, and there were nights on that tour where I absolutely did not feel like unzipping myself and showing myself in the vulnerable way that it really did require me to do.
You know, even, even if I walked out on stage with the, for the first, you know, few moments of the show feeling like I can't do this, inevitably the, you know, there's something about music, right? Yes. There's, it opens us up and it worked for me too. And every, you know what, nearly every single night that I performed that show there would be, I would be singing lyrics that I wrote that I'm like, God damn, I really needed to hear that today.
You know? Pick your battles. Little soldier. Yes. You know, like you're not meant to carry it alone. That's right. You know, like I there so often and it was different each night, you know, and so. You are right. The eighties kids show is very different in tone. Um, I mean the eight, the good, to me, music was very fun.
And Cynthia and joyful. Yeah. But with a message that sort of like, I don't know, was a bit of a subversive thing with the sound of how things sounded, you know, and the bright colors and things, but eighties kids, I mean, it is just, it is just joy and you know, that is our mission. We have this saying around the house that our mission for eighties kids is.
In all caps, maximum joy. I love it. You know? Yep. Because I feel like, you know, this is the record. We were, we were working on before the election happened. Um, this is what we have to, to put out in the world. I have done a records, I did a record in 2017 after that election that really got into all of the, unpacking all the feelings and the grief and the separation I was feeling from people here and my family, you know, like, like I did all of that.
So I don't feel like I need to do that again. So the maximum joy thing is really what we're, you know, we're, we're, we're headed for in, with the eighties kids, but also when we were contemplating, when I was convalescing from the hospital and, you know, we were planning, you know, for these eighties kids to are post-election, we're like, you know what, maybe this is actually precisely what we should be doing in this moment, in that when authoritarian movements happen.
One of the most powerful tools that we can use as people to, to exist and resist in it and, and hopefully push through to the other side of it eventually, is to hold onto our joy and to create spaces. Our joy really is a, a refuge. When we create experiences of joy with each other, we create a place of safety for people who are.
Feeling threatened. We've, we create a place of safety for people who are marginalized. Like that is, it's, it's, we can create these little bubbles, not just, I mean, we're, we're gonna do these at the sh at the shows that we're doing on tour, but like, we do it in our community too. Every time we have a neighbor over to break bread, you know, like there's, we've got to figure out ways to hold onto our joy.
This is a long way of coming back to your question, how am I gonna show up differently or will I show up differently? I feel like the good to me tour taught me what it feels like to. Show up in a way vulnerably that allows me to connect with the other humans in the room. And I don't believe that's going to change with the eighties kids tour.
I hope it does. I mean, I'm, I'm planning for it not to, this tour is joyful, the storytelling in the show and so, you know. The, for those of who are listening, who probably don't know, um, my live, our live work, the songs are interwoven together with scripted storytelling narrative that, you know, that brings a, sort of like a human connection to the thing that we're doing.
And that's, even though we're doing cover songs from the eighties, the storytelling is very personal and the story, there's a reason why these songs resonate still. For those of us who grew up in that time. And for those who didn't, I mean, my kids, that's true. Are huge eighties fans. Like eighties music fans.
Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. But there's a reason that it connects because there, it, you know, the topics that they're singing about, the, the, you know, the stuff that, that, that they were reacting to in that time. I mean, in a lot of ways it's a, it's a total precursor to where we are right now. There is lots of space to, to take those lessons I learned from the good to me performances Yeah.
Into this space. And, um, I'm excited about it because like we, I do get to explore some of those, you know, uh, those. The, the humanness and, and my experience of growing up during that time in a way that I, I hope and think will connect with people and just give them an, what I really want is for them to connect in those moments and, and that, for that, those moments to just open up an opportunity for them to just, just feel joy, just experience joy as a result of that connection.
I love that. It's gonna be so good. I'm excited. One of the things that I, I thought about too, as, as I was thinking about you and having this conversation, is that a lot of times. It's easy-ish to talk about leaving in the workplace setting because people leave, um, retirements, re resignations, et cetera.
But what we don't talk a lot about is the other closures that happen when someone has poured their soul into something or has served. And so you talking about music being a point of service mm-hmm. Really connects with even the thought of like folks that are flown in to help with disaster relief. The folks that are coming in to support a community that's had trauma or.
A tragedy. Consultants who come into a project for six to nine months and they get really embedded in with the team. And so I don't see you and Jamie's community as being something that has starts and stops and ends because people are always coming. It's a living being your community. Remind me what it's called.
Oh, we have like a support community called Misfit Stars mis, and these are stars. Yes. Yeah. Yes. You have that, which is an intentionally built community, but you also have just your larger community. Yeah. I don't think that that is like something that is, is ending necessarily, but I'm wondering if you have any thoughts or advice or recommendations to someone about managing goodbyes when you have been.
Kind of dropped into a beloved community. And maybe the, the correlation here is your, your house concerts, you were invited into someone's home and their community mm-hmm. To be very raw and vulnerable and serve them. Mm-hmm. And then you jump out and then you. Get some rest. You get a night of sleep and then you do it again.
So I'm just curious if you have any thoughts that might help someone who finds themselves also in that role of being dropped into a community space. Having to live, love and serve. Mm-hmm. Not, not to be confused with live, laugh and love or whatever those written signs are, but like live in the moment and love them and serve them and then have to be removed to something else.
So I don't know if you've got thoughts there. Yeah, and I, I'm guessing you're not thrifting one of those live left life signs for your new house. I doubt it.
You know, not to like sound repetitive, but I think it comes back to the idea of presence. Being on tour is, is kind of an, an, an interesting sort of, um, metaphor, you know, for the idea of, of choosing presence on a daily basis because we do, we show up in, you know, when we were doing the house concerts, you know, we'd show up at somebody's house and here's a new house.
What we're gonna interact with these people here. We're going to make memories with them here tonight. We're going to connect, we're gonna share, we're gonna dive all the way in, and then we're gonna leave the next day and we're gonna do that. Very same thing at the next house the next night. And the only way to do that in any kind of a personally sustainable way as well as a meaningful way in terms of the, the, the work that we're doing there is to be present.
Like there's, there's no way to do that. Like you can't just go on autopilot. You can't be thinking about, you know, two steps ahead. You've gotta let go of whatever. Flubs you might have made yesterday to honor that day and that experience, you've got, you've got to narrow the focus and be all in in that moment.
I don't have experience working in some of the spaces that, that you're, you know, the people in your, in your community are working in. But I wonder if there's parallels in terms of, uh, the idea of, of choosing to be all in. A day by day choice. That that is, that is what I have found in, in this sort of, you know, realm that we operate in to be the thing that, that makes it meaningful and that keeps it sustainable for me.
Because when you're, when you're doing the work, when we're out there doing the work, I also need the connection, right? Like, I also need the, the fruits of showing up like that, because that's what fuels me. It is tiring. It is like. It rings you out. I'm sure anyone listening here has work that rings them out.
The thing that makes it, uh, makes me able to continue doing it is to be fueled up by the genuine connection, and I'm not, I learned during the pandemic that I'm less of an extrovert than I thought I was. I think I'm much, I think your charismatic. Thank you. Well, that's, that's, I'm a charismatic introvert maybe.
Yeah. Like I think that you are able to do the things that we often connect with extroverted people, but then knowing that you need to refuel certain ways. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even though I need to refuel with quiet time and alone time and don't talk to me, I don't need to be people right now, even though that is true of me, I still do need the connection.
Yeah. So I know that I need to, you know, to, to go all in, in those, in those moments in order to, to get the fuel that I need to keep going. Yeah. I love it. My last question for you is, what does leaving well mean to you? I feel like a big part of it for me is being able to have the knowledge that I showed up.
Before, before the leaving that I, that I showed up to the work, that I showed up to that part of my life with all of me in the best way that I could. That's a big part of it. And in terms of, like you said, our community doesn't really end, we're not like suffering relationships with people, you know, gratitude for the people that were in the journey with me and, and expressing that.
Not just thinking it, but like telling them this was meaningful. Thank you. You were a part of this. If I can leave something, knowing that I, that I showed up the way that I, that honors the work and that honors my, my own sense of integrity and I was able to express gratitude for people to, that were on the journey with me.
I feel like that's, that would be leaving well in my, I think that's amazing. I. Thank you, Shannon, for this conversation and for exploring what might be kind of an odd topic or an odd situation to connect with the leaving. Well idea. I think it was beautiful and well that you joined me. I love every conversation I have with you in particular because you bring a perspective.
To from your work and, and you bring us back to perspective, to these conversations that expands me and I, I appreciate and value you so much. Thank you. If you are an organizational leader, board member, or a curious staff member, take the Leaving Well assessment to discover your organization's transition readiness archetype.
It's quick and easy, and you can find it at naomi hattaway.com/assessment. It's Naomi, N-A-O-M-I. Hattaway, H-A-T-T-A-W-A y.com/assessment to learn more about leaving well and how you can implement and embed the framework and culture in your own life and workplace. You can also see that information on my website.
It's time for each of us to look ourselves in the mirror and finally admit we are playing a powerful role in the system. We can either exist outside of our power or choose to decide to shift culture and to create transformation. Until next time, I'm your host, Naomi Hadaway, and you've been listening to Leaving Wealth, a Navigation Guide for Workplace Transitions.