S3 E33: D’Ana Joi Spencer on Being a Multi-Passionate Creative Entrepreneur
If you’ve ever been frustrated by the pressure to “choose one thing” in your creative work, this episode is for you! I had a lovely chat with D'Ana Joi Spencer, a multi-passionate, educator, community builder, and content creator who believes having many passions is a gift, not a burden. She teaches creatives how to make friends with focus, overcome overwhelm, and step into their Multi-Passionate Mastery, a message that I really resonate with.
We share a passion for relaxation as the way to restore your creative spark, and celebrating all of the beautiful ways that our various experiences come together to make us who we are, make our creative work what it is, and enable us to support others - the important stuff. As a fellow multi-passionate musician and creative person, I felt really validated by this conversation, and I hope that you will, too!
TOPICS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:
What mastery looks like for multi-passionate people
Why choosing one thing doesn’t have to be the only path to success, and all of the myths and negative self talk that come with that
How we multi-passionate creatives can accept and trust ourselves via curiosity, despite “shiny object syndrome”
Why we should throw out the idea of the “straight and narrow path”
Letting things be easy amidst all of the challenges of a creative and/or entrepreneurial career
Joi’s musical passions and how the pandemic has affected both of our musical plans
How she protects her essential relaxation time from “doing energy” and how that helps her cultivate creativity
Owning your own label as an artist, even when you’ve taken a break from your art
Why “multi-passionate creative” is a noun and not a verb, and how using that label to prove yourself can lead to burnout
Recognizing the overlaps between our various types of creative experience, and how they integrate in a unique web for each of us
Joi’s many different types of passions and how they integrate to support and inform each other
How her curiosity and passion for education fuels her work and personal growth
Joi’s self care practices and her newest relaxation-related obsession
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TRANSCRIPT
Rebecca Hass
So today I'm really excited to welcome D'Ana Joi Spencer to the show. Welcome, Joi! (She goes by Joi.)
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Yes, thank you so much. I'm super excited to be here.
Rebecca Hass
I'm super excited. Can you tell everyone a little bit about who you are and what you do, what you're all about?
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Sure. So yeah, my name is D'Ana Joi. And I go by my middle name, as you said, mostly because the internet rejects my first name, because it has that apostrophe in it. Joi just kind of works in my personality and my overall brand. So my business name is Joi Knows How, and what that means - everything that falls under the umbrella of my business is helping multi-passionate creatives learn how to embrace their talents as a gift, not a burden. And recently, I started taking that a step further. And not only learning how to embrace your talents, but actually moving into a place of having multi-passionate mastery.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
So, turning this idea of the only people who can be a master are, you know, the specialist or the people who have one really narrow niche, kind of turning that idea on its head and saying, "What if as multi-passionate, we could have mastery over that, over our experience over how we choose to speak about that and how we operate in the world?"
D'Ana Joi Spencer
So I do this through my online community, through educational content that I put out into the world, courses, and things like that. And there's a podcast brewing inside of me. So that's probably the next thing that's going to come and be born into the world, but it's just really figuring out, how can we start to rewrite this narrative that choosing one thing is the only path to success because for someone like me, who spent their entire 20s feeling like their, I felt like success was just something I would not get to experience because I could not, I didn't have that one thing.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
You know, I had a lot of things I was good at. And I realized I could choose one and go all in which is what every well meaning person in my life is telling me to do. "So what are you gonna do? And you know, why don't you pursue music? Or why don't you pursue writing?" You know, basically get serious about something was kind of the messaging that I heard from so many people, very well-meaning people in my life, but that inclination to go all in on one thing, just kind of left me feeling really paralyzed, like analysis paralysis, because that felt so incorrect for my experience. I didn't want to choose one thing. And if I did, I would end up feeling like I was being a fraud, like I was rejecting all these other parts of myself. And so, you know, instead, I just chose to choose myself and figure out what that would look like.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
And, you know, I'll be honest, it's not as like, it's not as much of a straight and narrow path as someone who can nice right away and is like here for that journey and is excited about that. It's a lot more trial and error, picking things up, putting them down, being okay with that being confident with pivoting when you need to. And, you know, having a thick skin in order to embrace what it looks like to do this multi passionate way. So it's a kind of a very long winded introduction. But that's kind of summarizes who I am, what I'm here to do. And my life's mission. Really, it sounds kind of cliche, but I'm on a mission.
Rebecca Hass
That's so great. I enjoy the long winded introduction, so, no worries there. I have so many thoughts. So many things just came up hearing you describe what you do, and your thoughts on that. I know that a lot of people listening to this podcast probably describe themselves as multi-passionate or relate with that, even if they haven't heard that term before.
Rebecca Hass
But I know I found it so freeing when I first discovered that term, because I was like, oh, it doesn't mean that you just can't stick with one thing, or if you're trying to divide yourself between many things. Because I've always done that, as a musician, even within music, I've done so many different things. And now I divide my time between music and coaching. And I had a jewelry Etsy store for a while and, I'm sure you relate exactly to this experience. You're so right, we hear that, pick one thing and stick with it, and that always felt so final to me. So like you're committed for life, and I'd be like, I don't want to do that. Like where does that leave room for evolution and for learning and growing? You know, it just doesn't.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Yeah, totally.
Rebecca Hass
I find the idea of mastery of your multi-passionate nature to be really freeing.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
I really like what you said about choosing one thing feeling so final because I think that's what makes it so scary. This idea that, you know, you're making this choice. And to be perfectly honest, we can create a business plan, and we can think about what something's gonna look like a few years from now. But we can't really ever totally feel into that space, we have to be whether you're a specialist or multi-passionate, you've got to be willing to kind of let yourself go on that adventure, right, of like, "Okay, I'm going to start this project, and what is it going to look like a year from now?" You can predict that, but how are you going to actually feel into that? It's difficult to do that.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
But what a multi-passionate can feel, is they can feel that doom, that of the finality, right, you can at least feel that. If you can feel, you know, you'll hear sometimes like a mindset coach, I've heard this a lot in the coaching industry, where you think about an idea and you think about like, does it make your body expand or contracts or something like that? I'm probably butchering it.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you can feel in your body. Uh, huh.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Yeah, like, you can feel your body, like opening up to the idea, and being excited and inviting it in, even even if it's a little scary. Or you can feel this sense of rejection or heaviness, or like, just the constant questioning if you're making the right choice, right? I think we all question if we're making correct choices, that's totally normal. But for a multi-passionate, kind of trying to force yourself into having that one lane that you stay in, and just choosing that one thing, it's it's a different level of questioning that choice, because it feels like you are rejecting other parts of your being. So it's very painful.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
And yeah, that's essentially why I think when we first hear the term multi-passionate creative, that's our first glimpse at permission to embrace that part of ourselves. It's that first moment of this combination of words that makes you realize you're not just a flaky, wishy washy mess. And that actually, there's a category, there's like an extra word for this, oh, there must be other people who feel the same way. And then you kind of just, that unveiling of these layers of realizing that who you are is actually okay. It's such a powerful experience. And I'm really grateful to say that, in that moment, when a lot of people find my work. So it's so wonderful to get a lot of DMs and have a lot of conversations with people who are just realizing that, "oh, my goodness, I'm a multi-passionate creative," you know, it's just, it's a visceral feeling. And I get to relive it so often.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah, I bet. It sounds like the way you describe this is really rooted in self trust. Because you said that straight and narrow path is not exactly the straight and narrow path. But like, isn't that kind of fictional, anyway? Like, who is on the straight and narrow path? Anyone who's in a creative field knows that there's so much adaptation and evolution of what you're interested in doing, and, have you ever met someone who is on a straight and narrow path? I don't know that I have.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
I mean, I've met people who kind of like, choose something and then they're good with that. And maybe they want to, you know, like, I have a lot of friends who are very career driven, you know? And they work in a certain field, and they just want to grow in that field. Whereas I'm like, I want to create an empire within which I can just do a whole bunch of different stuff, because, if I did stuff, even like climbing a ladder in one industry, even that sounds like a snooze fest for me. So like, you know, right now, I'm working on certain elements of my business, but just like you, I'm also a musician. So there will come a time when I record an EP, and I give that part of my life more attention. It's not right now, but it will come, right, and so, nobody's path is straight and narrow, but I do know, I do you know, a good amount of people who, you know, they feel really encouraged by having that direction, and it's kind of like their North Star, their Guiding Light. But yeah, no, it is very fictional. No one's path is straight.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah. In creative fields. Yeah. Like in creative fields and entrepreneurial paths, I feel like the straight and narrow just...
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Oh, yeah.
Rebecca Hass
We should just stop striving for that, or throw out that idea, because it's probably not going to work that way. We should embrace the uncertainty.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Yeah. Do you think that more people need to just show up and just be honest about the journey or even like, I sometimes think that especially in the online education space, like, as you're saying, in the entrepreneurship space, right? There are, of course, going to be people at all different levels. And, you know, we're going to have mentors, and we're going to join programs and all of that. And I do sometimes think that there's just a disconnect after people are so far removed from that point where they were trying things and it wasn't working. And I had to pivot and like, you know, quickly reassess, and not give up, but just going in new directions so they didn't lose their momentum, or whatever.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
I think sometimes that really does get shoved into the back of people's minds. And then they end up just telling us about their, six figure launches, or whatever. And it's great advice, but they're only going back a year or two years, you know, when they talk about their experience and not going back to like, the origin of everything you have to pick up and put down in order to get there.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
The mentors and the leaders who do share that entire journey, I don't know about you, but that's who I really gravitate toward, for like a long term way, like, Oh, my gosh, I could learn from this person for years, and I want to consume all their content and just, you know, be close to them. I know, we're both in the Being Boss community. This is why I love Emily. I feel like she's still so connected to the origin of her business building journey.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
But not all leaders are like that. And I think that that's why we have to have conversations like this where we're like, Can we just be real, like, entrepreneurship is a shitshow? It is not this glamorous, like, it's fun, and it can be easy. Let it be easy. And, you know, that's a whole other conversation, or maybe we can talk about it. But you know, I think we have to be really intentional about letting it be easy, and choosing that it can be easy, because inherently, so many challenges and ups and downs and bumps in the road, you know,
Rebecca Hass
Yeah, I do admire that honesty, and people who are willing to be candid with their uncertainty and figuring it out, because, yeah, we all go through it. We're all new at something at the beginning. And none of us know what we're doing before we know what we're doing. And that's fine. You know, we make our way through it.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Exactly.
Rebecca Hass
So going back to music. What do you do musically? I'm super curious.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Yeah, I sing and play the ukulele. So I have lots of original songs. And I also do covers. And there was a time in my life where I was a lead singer and in a couple of bands and used to play gigs out here in LA where I live and kind of like the smaller, smaller venues around town when I was a bit younger, like fresh out of college. Yeah. Fun. Yeah,
Rebecca Hass
I relate to what you're saying, that it kind of needs to have a season to really focus on producing an album, for instance, like when I did that a few years ago, that was like, the thing I was focused on because I had to run the Kickstarter. And I had to promote it. And then I had to make the album. And because I got a grant for part of it, I was on a kind of tight timeline. So basically, all of 2018 was focused on album making. And then afterwards, it was like, oh, okay, now I can do something else, because that baby has been birthed. You know?
D'Ana Joi Spencer
That's so awesome. No, congratulations on bringing that project into the world. That is huge.
Rebecca Hass
Thank you. It was. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like I have to gear up before I can do it again. And also, it's just weird being a musician right now. But that's a whole other thing.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
I know. I think that's part of the reason why I put it on the back burner, because just before, so, in March, I did, a friend of mine reached out to me and was like, "are you still doing music"? And I was like, "Yeah, you know, for fun. It's not something I'm really promoting right now." But of course, I'm always going to you know, "do music" because it's part of who I am. And so we went out to this beautiful park in East LA and he filmed me playing a song you can put it in the show notes if you want I'll send you that.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah, definitely.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
It was so fun. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is a sign that I was going to get back into performing because what I love so much about music is that universal connection, like when you are performing and you look someone in the eye, complete stranger and they just, for a moment, it's just you and that person, and they can really feel you and feel your soul, and your essence to your voice. And I was like, this is so exciting. And literally two weeks later, the world totally changed. Maybe not this year, but I've seen so many people doing really cool creative virtual, didn't you, are you doing virtual?
Rebecca Hass
Yeah, yeah, some online concerts. I've done some collaborations with the Acapella app with some different friends. You don't have to use that, but just virtual collaborations and ensembles with people, and yeah, the same thing happened to me, actually. I moved to the Bay Area in mid 2019. So it kind of took me a little while to, like, get settled, and I was accompanying for this opera aerial production that just ended on March 1. And I was like, "Alright, I'm ready. I'm gonna start really getting serious about gigging here." And then, two weeks later, just kidding.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
No, you're not.
Rebecca Hass
Exactly. But you know, online concerts are really fun. And I enjoy that I can walk into my living room, and I can connect with people who are far away. And, well, people like to watch stuff sitting on their couch, like our biggest competition to gigs sometimes is the couch, truly.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Right. Right. Well, congratulations on finding a way. I think that's good.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah. Thanks. Yeah.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
And that's something that's been, I mean, I've loved just watching creatives this year, like, we really cannot be stopped, because we're here for the solution, right? We are here for, "Okay, this is what's happening right now, this is what it is. I'm a creative person. So I'm going to feel all of this really intensely. And then I'm going to transmute that into a solution." And I've been just loving the communities that I'm a part of, the people that I've met, and just really feeling like we are so unstoppable. The creative entrepreneur is like, the unicorn of business. We are just so like that. We're really magical. We are magical beings, who, you know, it doesn't always have to make sense. But we just find a way.
Rebecca Hass
Well, and, it takes so much creativity to figure out what you're doing once a pandemic hits, none of us have experienced that before. So if you are accustomed to using creativity in your work, that puts you in a position to, maybe use it in a different way that you haven't used it before. But I think our brains are used to having to be creative. But then the challenge of that I've found with myself, and with clients that I work with, is like they kind of used up their creative juice on, "What am I even doing right now?" And then they don't have a lot left for actually working on their personal creative practices. Have you seen that with people you work with this year?
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Do you mean almost like just not having time to create just for creativity sake?
Rebecca Hass
Yeah, or energy?
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Yeah, yeah, I've definitely seen that. I think what I'm noticing the most is that everyone is a little bit more dialed into the sort of, there's the creative business owner, I think we're all really facing the side of that, where it's the business side. How do we do this? Everyone's online. And I mean, my business has always been online. So I always dreamed about having in person events, but I just hadn't quite figured any of that out yet. So I'm not really talking about myself.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
But I just think that I've what I'm seeing is a lot of people are ready to turn their story and their mission into a business. And I think when you are so business focused, it really can feel like there's nothing else, it can really consume your life, right? Because it's almost like this business is inside of you, and it's being formulated, and it's coming out through you as a human being, who's the channel to put the business from, you know, the energetic ethers or whatever, out into the world, so that it can then have a ripple effect, and impact all these lives or whatever that looks like.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
But I definitely feel it, myself included, it's just like, almost 24/7. All I do is think about my business, what I'm doing next, X, Y and Z. So for me, and for anyone listening, who's just like, yeah, I haven't really created at all for fun, I think really, the key is relaxing.
Rebecca Hass
Yes!
D'Ana Joi Spencer
It's just, not even forcing yourself into doing some other type of creation, like, "Oh, I haven't picked up my paintbrush in a long time," or, you know, for example, I really have not played the ukulele a lot lately. I haven't. It just hasn't been in my awareness. And it hasn't been something I've felt like doing. So I haven't done it. But what that tells me isn't, oh, you know, I'm not making time for my other creative passions.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
What it tells me is, I'm probably not relaxed enough to even crave my other creative passions. So it's just getting that relaxation time and becoming kind of a snob about that like protecting that time, scheduling that time, making it really non negotiable, where the only agenda is to not have an agenda. And I think from that space of relaxation, then we want to go grab our watercolor paint. So then we want to go pick up our instrument, then we want to, you know, create a collage, or do some macramé, or whatever that is. it usually, at least in my case, comes from that relaxed state.
Rebecca Hass
Absolutely.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Because otherwise, we're still like in the doom, just putting that doing energy into something else, but we're still not relaxed about it. We're like, "Oh, I haven't done a hobby, I'm gonna, alright, I'm gonna sit down and do this." But we still feel that tense energy, even as we're creating. So, relaxing, I'm like, definitely talking to myself as well, because I have to, I have to sit, I have to schedule time to make sure that I truly, truly relax and unwind. I do also like unwinding alone, because I was getting relaxed with my partner at the end of the day, and it feels relaxing and nourishing, and I enjoy that time. But I don't consider that time where I'm relaxing to the point where I kind of move into a creative state. Do you know what I mean?
Rebecca Hass
Yeah. Are you an introvert too?
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Yeah, I'm like an extroverted introvert. So I get a lot of energy from being around people, and I love being around people. But if I don't have a charge, then I'm useless. So I guess that's essentially an introvert.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah. I always call myself a friendly introvert. Like, I enjoy being around people, but there's only there's a an amount of time the timer goes off at a party, you know, in my brain, and I'm juiced and that's it, I gotta go.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Yeah.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah. But yeah, absolutely. The solitude and the quiet are so essential for having the mental space to want to do that creative stuff. And it can be so hard when we put so many expectations on ourselves, and our identities are wrapped up in these things that we do. And you're like, "Well, I haven't played the ukulele in a while. Am I still a musician?" Can I still say, you know, not saying you unnecessarily question that. But that comes up so often for people, and I just keep affirming to people, if you haven't done it in a year, you're still a painter. If you want to be. You know, you get to decide when to put the label there.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
That's my, it's like I always say, multi-passionate creative is a noun and not a verb. It's not about how many projects you're juggling at one time. It's not about, you know, how many passions you can blend into one offer, and trying to cram every single one of your creative outlets into your business model. It's not about that. It's simply who you are. So you might bring a different set of solutions to a problem, because you are multi-passionate, you know, or you may have a different opinion to offer, because you are multi-passionate, and you see connections that other people don't see, or don't even consider.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
So, I think we have to be so careful, right? Because even though that term is really empowering, if we are not careful, and we start to take it in as a verb and not a noun, then we end up on the opposite side of the spectrum where we feel like we in order to be validated, we have to do as much as we possibly can. And then you end up burned out. So you know, it's kind of like you were saying earlier, when you were talking about your album, you know, you dedicated a season to that. And it didn't mean that you weren't someone who also had the desire to coach and help people. But in that season, you were focused on your music, creating this album, getting that out into the world, everything that came with that, even things that you didn't expect, that you didn't know, probably were going to be part of that process, when you're in the middle of it, right?
D'Ana Joi Spencer
And seeing that through and what's so beautiful is that process is more than just making an album, right? It's, you planned something, you saw the vision, you brought it to life, you rallied people behind your mission, then you made it happen, right? And so as you move into the other parts of your creative business, which I know you said you're doing more coaching now, you get to speak from that experience, and it makes you a better coach.
Rebecca Hass
Exactly.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
So that's what I mean when I say multi-passionate is a noun and not a verb. It's you being you. That is the gift. When I say embrace your talents as a gift, not a burden, it's not, embrace the fact that you can do it all and you should do it all right now. It's embrace the fact that you because of all of your talents and all of your experience. You have something so unique to offer, no matter what your focus is at the moment. I think that's a really important distinction to make.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah, I think it's funny how sometimes we don't even really realize those overlaps in ourselves, like, a friend of mine, hearing some of my compositions, she was like, "Oh, you definitely write like a percussionist." I've been in a Brazilian drum group for, you know, more than a decade, and I was like, "Oh, you're right. I do!" I had no idea that that was how I was approaching it. But it was. And that's so cool when someone else can mirror that to us, and then show that each of us is this really cool web of different things that are intertwined.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Totally. That's such a great example. Exactly.
Rebecca Hass
So do you have any examples, either of that, or do you want to share some of what your other passions are, besides music and your business? I'm sure there's a really long list.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Yeah, besides music and playing the ukulele, I also really, really, really love home decor. Part of my leisure is definitely flipping through home decor magazines, watching home decor on YouTube, and then going ahead and redecorating my home. We just moved into a new apartment a couple months ago. So it's been so much fun, bringing plants in and hanging things up on the wall. I would say that's definitely a part of my passions. And I would say the overlap there is that I am a creator.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
So, being able to manipulate physical space, and see a transformation in front of my eyes, constantly reminds me what I'm capable of. Even if it's something like creating something online, like a workshop or something like that, I know that I have the ability to shift the energy, to change the vibe, based on how I show up and how I decide to navigate whatever that landscape is, whether it's my living room, or whether it's online. So that's kind of a cool point of overlap.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
I also really love plant care. I think that a lot of us do. My dad came to visit me yesterday, and he opened the door and he was like, wow, you have so many plants. You know, for me, it's just totally normal. But we I do have a lot of plants here. And you know, I kind of take for granted that they're all just living and thriving, but you know, it's trial and error. And I really, really love having them around. I think plants just teach you the beauty of being still in quiet, and slowing down, and they don't ask for much. But they have so much to give. Sometimes I just, I'm looking across the room at my plants right now, and it's just a sense of vitality, and a sense of pleasure. So I don't know that there's a ton of overlap, but it's definitely great for my mental health. Love, love, love plants,
Rebecca Hass
The observation, too, you need to be very attuned to what it looks like in order to know - is it healthy? Does it have too much water? Is it getting a little bit yellow? Is it getting a little bit crispy? You know? There's a mindfulness to that, that probably overlaps with stuff.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
I so love plants like, I don't even know I don't even care. I just love them just bring me more plants. Yeah, but no, I think that presence, that slowing down, and also just remembering the simple pleasures. I think that's kind of part of what plants give me in life.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
I also love crystals. So I have a pretty large crystal collection, I've been collecting crystals for a really long time. They remind me of miracles, and just what's possible, and magic, and to flow, and to be in in a playful relationship with the universe. It's something that I really love, and I have my ebbs and flows with crystals as well. Sometimes they're more so on display, sometimes I'm sleeping with them under my pillow, or like setting up grids and meditating with them. Sometimes I'm wearing them in my bra. It just it comes and it goes as it needs to, kind of depending on, I guess, what's going on in my life. But just the love for the mineral kingdom, and the natural wonder crystals kind of put me in awe of life. To me, I can look into a crystal, and it's almost like I'm looking at a beautiful vast landscape. They're not the same to me, because I'm so enamored.
Rebecca Hass
There's so many colors, too.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
It's amazing, and the structure, just they're just amazing. So that's something that I really, really love. I also love graphic design, which I suppose just from being a solopreneur, I've had to do certain things on my own. And I realized that graphics, and having other people do my graphics was such a hard thing for me to outsource, because I genuinely enjoy it and love it. So it's not something that I really outsource anymore. I just do it myself because I love it.
Rebecca Hass
Cool, that's a very useful skill.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Yeah, so it's fun to just do that, because I can do it for myself. And I'm sure there'll come a point where I do bring someone onto my team to do more of that. But it'll be one of the last things I hand off, because I genuinely love and enjoy it. I'm actually grateful that I get to have fun and play with that in a way that supports my business. So, I mean, there's so many things I could get going, but I think, you know, and the passion of just helping people is, you know, the number one driver for my business building journey.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
You know, every time I feel like, I'm not making forward momentum, or something's gone wrong, or you know, I'm not where I thought I would be, like clockwork, the universe sends someone into my life who DMs me, "Thank you so much, it's changed my life." Like, ah, okay, let me go take a nap and wake up and get back to this, because there's something here. So seeing other people thrive is something that I think is almost really hard to explain. And I wish I could figure out where that comes from. I think it's more of just a sole purpose, but really seeing other people thrive.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
One passion, I guess I could say, I definitely have as well as education, I spent a lot of years as a nanny out of college. So I was a nanny for six, seven years out of college. And then I became a substitute teacher after that, right when I was starting my blog, which kind of led to this business that I have now. And I use so many of my skills at from being a nanny in my life still today, as well as my skills of, you know, being an educator, creating a lesson plan and all of that. It's really, really easy for me to host a workshop because I can lesson plan. So it's very similar. Creating an outline for a workshop is very similar to doing a lesson plan for a classroom.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
So, so many skills have just cycled through different parts of life and different passions. And it all culminates into creating Joi Knows How, this platform. As a multi-passionate person, you have to be ready to keep up with all the places that conversations are going to go. So I love that we're just going on this tangent.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Yeah, this is this is like quintessential multi passionate. If someone's okay with being multi passionate, they will go there with you. They'll tell you everything they love to do. And it does not all have to go together or make sense. And I think that that's just really refreshing to go on that tangent, and realize that it's okay, it doesn't have to, everything doesn't have to end up in your business model. Everything doesn't have to turn into an offer. And if it does, that's great. But no matter what, every single one of your passions has built you up, and has given you a reserve of tools and resources that you can then pull from and bring up as you need them in your life. It's just such a refreshing conversation.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah, I think this just came to me while we've been talking today, but I think it's so intimately connected. Being multi passionate is so intimately connected with curiosity. I think that is the thing that fuels that. And I'm so not surprised that education is one of your passions, because, that's what passion is right? Always wanting to learn more. Always consider yourself a student of life, and you'll never get bored. There's always so much more to learn. And it's so fun.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Absolutely. Yeah. Being curious is definitely a commonality among most passionate creatives, for sure. And some people will say that it's a burden, because they'll say that they just have shiny object syndrome. It could be that you're just being distracted. But if you can even become curious about that distraction, then you really start getting into the nitty gritty, what's going on there.
Rebecca Hass
About understanding yourself and your patterns better. Yeah, definitely. So I want to pivot back to, you were talking about how relaxation was the main thing that you need to get yourself back into creative space. I fully agree with that. I'd love to hear what some of your relaxation activities and self care practices are.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Yes. Oh my gosh, great question. I'm going to share with you my newest obsession, which is, I bought this beautiful all cotton hammock and you tie it between two trees. And I just used it for the first time, literally today, this morning. So I woke up and I thought about all the things I wanted to do. Then I was like, you know what I really want to do though? I just want to go to the park and lay in a hammock. And I allowed myself to just do that. I was like, I'm just gonna go lay in the hammock. I've had it for a couple of weeks, but today's the first day that I got to do it. To lay there and lightly swing underneath the trees with the beautiful clear sky right above it was just so relaxing. And of course, while I was laying there and swinging and just chillin', I worked out this whole, I'm working on a few different projects. Tell me if you can relate to this, Rebecca, I've been trying to figure out, "Okay, which one of these am I going to do first, like, hmm, what is the order of importance? And what is the order of operations? Like, do I do this first?" Because there's so many different ways I could go. And while I was laying in that hammock, I just figured it all out. I was like, "Oh!"
Rebecca Hass
I can totally relate to that. It's not always laying in a hammock. Well, I don't, we actually do have a hammock. My partner really likes hammocks, and he tied one up in our front yard. And he hasn't done it in a while. I should remind him about the hammock. But, to me, my activities for that are going for a walk, or taking a shower. Those are the places where things fall into place, and I'm like, "Ooh, here we are." I just needed the mental space, and that's where I got it. Yeah.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Yeah, if you're working on a problem trying to figure something out, taking a shower is like definitely a fast track to the solution.
Rebecca Hass
Do you know about shower notepads? Because that was a game changer for me.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
No, is it literally what it sounds like?
Rebecca Hass
Yes!
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Like a notepad that you can use in the shower?
Rebecca Hass
Yes, it is a waterproof notepad and it has a pencil. I don't know if the pencil is special, or if it's that the plastic paper stuff is special. But yeah, sometimes I take super long showers because I'm just scribbling. I just found it on Amazon. Just search "waterproof shower notepad" and you'll find it.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Oh, my goodness, I will. That is so cool.
Rebecca Hass
I think it was the one I got is like, "Love notes, leave love notes in the shower," and I was like, I don't use it to...
D'Ana Joi Spencer
I'm about to plan my next project in here!
Rebecca Hass
I just wrote a podcast episode, so...
D'Ana Joi Spencer
That is so cool! Oh my gosh. And that just speaks to like, ah, yeah, showers are amazing. And you know what my thought is? Oh, that'd be so great for the bathtub. Because, yeah, I definitely have a lot of notebooks that are crinkled up and look like they've been thrown in the sea somewhere. I have this great idea.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
One of my number one ways to relax, and I say that with a little bit of heartbreak, because in the last home I lived in I had a beautiful, huge deep bathtub and in our new apartment, it's kind of the standard - this is just so that the shower water doesn't get all over the floor like this really isn't, it's very shallow. It's kind of cold when you're in there, it's not exciting. So I'm putting together literally a bathtub fund, like, okay, I need to have some money on the side, so I can just go to an AirBnB once a month and take a luxurious bath. Like, that's how serious I am about baths. But I really love relaxing in the bathtub.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
And I also really love if there's like a course or something that I signed up for, or any kind of online conference, and I want to watch the replay, but I just haven't been making time for it, or I keep, you know, making excuses, or a particular study. The bath is when I get it done, because I can't go in the kitchen and look in the fridge, my dog's not gonna come up to me and start asking me to go out. You know, my partner isn't randomly asking me a question or something, you know. So, for me, I have found that the bathtub is almost like this little study, study place that I can use to really go deep into some of my learnings if I if I so choose, or just relax.
Rebecca Hass
That's very cool. You're inspiring me to clean my bathtub because it's not clean enough to be that right now.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Do it. Do it, especially if it's nice and you know, a good depth, so that you can enjoy the good soak.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah, it needs to be deeper, I need to be more fully submerged. But I think it would still be good.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
It will be good. Like just the act of getting in there, even if it's not the most comfortable experience, once you're in? Just taking that pause will feel really good. And I'm with you on the walks. I love walking as well. I'm trying to get to the point where I don't feel so guilty walking without my dog because he likes to stop and he gets so excited about every other dog but just walking, getting the energy moving. Being out in fresh air is really great.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
I feel the same way about standing in front of the ocean. I guess just being in front of a vast body of water and letting your thoughts, I just feel, just as open as that landscape feels. So, so, so good. I used to be a big napper. Once I got back into like the nine to five schedule, I really was unable to nap as much as I would like to. But I put in my notice, and I only have four more days left, so I'm probably gonna get back to naps. Now, I love napping. Yeah. And also like, yeah, watering plants I find to be super relaxing, too. Yeah.
Rebecca Hass
I've been doing a lot of puzzles lately. That's been an amazing mental break.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
And that's tactile, too.
Rebecca Hass
Yes, right? No screens.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
You're getting, you know, your hands and your brain gets to talk to each other. That's really cool. Yeah, I think that too, having no-screen time, you know, like, in part of the way that I accomplish this, while still feeling like I'm getting things done is, I'll turn no-screen time into part of my work process. So when I'm creating a course for my community, or working on a workshop, I write that line on paper, and I go out to the park. So I don't even sit in my house. I'm like, "Okay, time to go write this outline." And I'll bring a blanket and some snacks and a binder of paper, and I'll write the whole outline on paper, because it's something I really don't need a computer for. And if I'm on the computer, I'm just going to become distracted by something, so.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
I would say, I don't know, I do feel like there is a different expansiveness, when I'm sitting outdoors with just a paper or a notepad and a pen. There's a different level of expansiveness to what I feel is possible than when I'm just typing at my desk where I normally do my work like, that different environment. You know, it just feels like allowing for a new perspective to arise, and maybe it won't, and maybe it'll just be, you know, kind of sticking to the plan. But every once in a while, it can definitely feel like something magical happens just from being in a different setting. Maybe it's just quarantine driving us all insane, but...
Rebecca Hass
Well, there's something about outside, for sure. And something, there's sometimes magic from just going to a coffee shop and being in a different place, not that I do that anymore.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
So much. I've walked by the most beautiful library, and I was just like, oh, my goodness, what I would not give to just voluntarily not work at my desk, and I love my desk, because we custom built it. It's so beautiful. I have crystals and you know, beautiful calendar and artwork and plants. But sometimes you just need to switch out the setting.
Rebecca Hass
Exactly. Yeah.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
I guess getting where you can, wherever it's safe to do so.
Rebecca Hass
Exactly. We just have to do whatever we can. Yeah. So I want to be mindful of your time here. Let's start to wrap up. What does being a whole person mean to you? I think you'll have a really interesting answer as a multi-passionate person.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
For me, that's such a great question. Being a whole person is a deep acceptance for everything that you feel, and I say this as a very highly emotional person. My emotions fluctuate a lot, I feel very deeply. On my good days, I'm great. And on my bad days, I might not want to talk to anyone at all. The older that I get, the more I am so okay with that. And the more okay with it I am, the more I find that even in those dark moments, I always learn about who I am as a whole person. There's always something else that's uncovered. There's always, "You know what? Because I don't ask for help. Oh, okay, so what would it look like for me to receive support, right?" That's just one example.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
But I think being a whole person, in terms of relating it back to the multi-passionate, it's about being curious about who you are, as a whole person. So I think we all have this inherent desire to fix things and to solve problems and to, you know, when we're feeling bad, figure out how we can feel better, right? Like, okay, I'm not feeling well, I'm not feeling like myself, how can I feel better? Or I'm really, really happy, how can I sustain this?
D'Ana Joi Spencer
I think that being a whole person is not necessarily feeling like you have to fix something or make something last longer, but observing it and just being curious about the entire process, and letting go of anything being right or wrong, and instead just being curious about what that means. And I don't know if I can really answer it, because I think being a whole person is probably just a way of life. And I think that it will be something that evolves more and more through the living of life. So it's actually a really hard thing for me to verbalize I don't know if I'm making sense.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah, absolutely. And anytime I ask someone a question, like, it's implied that it's your personal experience, and how you feel right now. And of course, that will change as you grow as a person. Yeah. No, I love that answer. Sounds like self compassion, and self acceptance are very woven into it. Those themes come up a lot in people's answers of that question, but I love hearing everyone's unique spin on it. So thanks for that.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, I would say lately, it's definitely a lot of self compassion, and a lot of resisting the desire to fix everything, and instead becoming curious about what is being revealed in those moments.
Rebecca Hass
That's good for everything. That's good for life in general. Yeah. So last question, what are you excited about right now? Could be big, could be trivial.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
I'm really excited to start a podcast.
Rebecca Hass
Cool.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
I think I kept feeling like, it's this big thing. Sure, I'm gonna want to do it. And I still feel like, I'm not editing this thing myself. I have no interest in doing show notes. I'm going to have to hire someone to help me, I'm clear on that. But I kind of had this long drawn out timeline where I thought I was gonna launch it a lot later in the year. The more I think about it, the more I'm like, actually, I think I just want to do it really soon. So that's really exciting. I'm just learning more about it. I'm taking a course right now, to just kind of understand a little bit more and looking at microphones and thinking about the title and all of that. It's just so exciting to, you know, consider integrating an entirely new medium into my business model, and all the possibilities that are within that. So that's definitely what I've been excited about lately.
Rebecca Hass
Awesome. I'm really excited to hear it. I'll be keeping an eye out. And I know, there's a lot to learn at the beginning, and there's a lot to figure out, but I feel like you can do it on your own terms. I know you'll figure out how that works. So, nice! Cool. Well, thank you again for coming on today. This has been so fun talking to you.
D'Ana Joi Spencer
Sure. Thank you for having me. It's been really really great as well. So refreshing to just sit and chat.
Rebecca Hass
Yeah, I totally agree.
Pianist and composer