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Unleash Your Unicorn

Embracing the Power of "the Pause" to Commit to Creativity

Consider: The Case of the Bad Tinder Date

I was visiting my cousin Jessica at Stanz Cafe in Larchmont, New York. As we were digging into a shared plate of avocado toast, the conversation turned toward her new dating life.

"I've started swiping right," she admitted.

"Really?" I said with a near mouthful. "You're ready, then?"

Jessica's life took an unexpected turn when her husband had a catastrophic stroke at the age of thirty-seven. After Jessica served as caretaker to her husband for seven years to reach a full recovery, while also juggling the needs of their two young kids single-handedly and working a full-time job, their marriage ultimately dissolved, albeit amicably.

"It's been a year since the divorce," said Jessica, "and I'm proud of myself for all I've been able to do on my own, but truthfully"-she paused-"I don't want to keep doing it all alone. So, yeah, I think I'm ready." She nodded assuredly.

"Okay, then," I encouraged, "show me who's made the cut."

Jessica took out her phone, tapped on the Tinder app, and scrolled until she landed on Andy. "Read his profile," she said, handing me her phone.

Andy had a clean yet intentionally disheveled kind of mountain man look. His smile appeared genuine, and his interests were listed as follows: adventure, travel, and cooking.

"He sounds amazing," I enthused. "He lists 'adventure' as one of his top values. That's totally you." When we were younger, I'd nicknamed my cousin Jessica "Adventure" Cohen, because she didn't have a given middle name and because she saved all of her waitressing tip money to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, explore Machu Picchu, and visit the Choeung Ek memorial in Cambodia.

"Was totally me," Jessica corrected.

"And look at this," I continued. "His favorite quote is your favorite quote: Vivian Greene's 'Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning to dance in the rain.' I mean, c'mon, the guy loves adventure and inspirational quotes?"

Jessica sighed and leaned in. "I know, but we already went on one date, and it's not going to work out."

"Oh my God. Tell me," I said a little too loudly, attracting the attention of the full table next to ours.

"Well," she confided, "it was a sort of disaster. Ten minutes into our dinner, he asks me, 'What do you do for fun?' Can you imagine?" Jessica rolled her eyes.

I clearly felt her exasperation but didn't similarly share it. Why was his question so offensive to her? I challenged: "What's wrong with a little fun?"

Her eyes widened. "Who past the age of twenty asks that question? Really, who has time for fun when you're raising kids and juggling a career and taking the dogs to the freaking vet? I had no 'fun' answer for him, so I ended the date early."

I well understood the challenge she was describing, as a working mother with tiny humans underfoot in my own home. Still, fun is not exclusively reserved for Gen Z. Or single people without jobs or pets. Is it?

"Jessica . . ." I straightened and said in my firm but loving voice, "you of all people deserve to rediscover what brings you joy, and you must make time for it."

She gave me the finger and handed me the bill.

***

On the flight back to Los Angeles, I gave the Case of the Bad Tinder Date some thought. Andy's "what do you do for fun" approach to life seemed like the right antidote for Jessica's malaise. She could definitely use some fun, some time and space for herself. A new adventure. A little less responsibility. A little more joy. How could I help her?

Without a clear answer, I spent the next hour occupying myself by clicking on random YouTube videos. And that's when I discovered Shige-boh. Uncertain as to how I'd navigated there, I landed on a video of elderly Japanese men and women unselfconsciously, super earnestly "busting" hip-hop dance moves in of-the-moment urban streetwear. What is this? I couldn't help but break into an ear-to-ear grin at these seniors' jubilant faces, accompanied by CNN anchor Mayu Yoshida's deadpan reporting:

Hip-hop dance lessons for seniors are popping up across Tokyo. This group calls themselves the Senior Monsters. They are part of the latest health craze that proves you are never too old to bust a move.

Never too old, indeed. Yoshida introduced a seventy-two-year-old man named Shige-boh, who demonstrated the complicated footwork of traditional street dance. He's good! He explained in English, "I started dancing to hip-hop after I retired. Six months after I started learning hip-hop, I went on a show. It was a bit embarrassing at first, but I invited my family. It was an unforgettable moment. I am very happy when I'm dancing."

I get it. I'm very happy when I'm dancing, too. I rewound my own mental tape twenty-five years to when I practiced my own moves, with great enthusiasm, in front of the television in my mom's cramped New York apartment. At fourteen, my cousin Jessica and I were obsessed with the In Living Color Fly Girls. Our only future ambition was to become one of them, and we spent hours after school each day choreographing dances in the little space between the television and the sofa. This continued until our hardworking moms and well-meaning school guidance counselors delivered the memo that a sounder plan for our future was required. I kicked off my gold-glitter sneakers and put dance on the back burner in favor of a more traditional professional track-college, law school, mom to three kids. My cousin Jessica, similarly, followed suit.

But to this day, my passion for dance has not waned. Just ask my children, who groan with exaggerated embarrassment when I do the running man while brushing my teeth, flash jazz hands while packing their school lunches, or bust a move as I'm folding the laundry: Mom, pleassssssse stop!!!

My husband, Seth, on the other hand, gets a kick out of my clumsy choreography, goading me into a dance routine when we're out with friends (following a couple of glasses of wine, it happens). After all, it was our shared love for hip-hop when we met more than fifteen years ago that initially clarified for us both that we were perfectly matched.

Watching the Senior Monsters on the flight home, I had a full-circle moment. Jessica's bad date has an important lesson for us. I pulled out my journal and frantically started writing. "Life is a series of storms. As we get older, they tend to be more frequent. Taking time to have 'fun' is how we weather them. The storms will keep coming,  so we must learn to DANCE IN THE RAIN!"

I could hardly wait to share this connection with Jessica. The next morning, with my kids running in circles around me, frantically searching for backpacks and lost shoes, I forwarded the video to Jessica with a note: "MUST WATCH." Ten minutes later, just as I was racing out the door with my two older boys for the school drop-off routine (while balancing their lunches, my laptop, an overstuffed tote, and my car keys in hand), she wrote back: "Is Shige-boh single?"

I responded with an LOL and added: "I think you might be too late and too young for Shige-boh, but there's no expiration date to having a little fun. Pull out your dancing shoes, cuz. It's time to start dancing in the rain."

Creative Time Is Not Optional

I know my cousin and I are not the only people to look up from their busy lives and realize we've left some of our youthful dreaming and passion behind. You might feel it, too. What does your heart sing for? What does your body crave? What piques your curiosity? What does your intellect yearn for? What did you give up that you want to get back to?

Do you want to return to school? Pick up an instrument? Learn another language? Go to circus camp? Climb a mountain? Perfect your Cantonese cooking? Or maybe just carve out some quiet time to paint? What's your version of hip-hop dance?

To be clear, I'm not talking about identifying or returning to a hobby. Let's just retire that word right now. In an article in the Harvard Business Review, hobby was defined broadly to be "the intentional, purposeful use of the time you do have for yourself (however short that window may be)." Unfortunately, as many women well know, a hobby is generally regarded as a superfluous nice-to-have that only comes into play after all the more important check marks in one's already time-constrained life are ticked off.

And while we're at it, let's also throw the term vanity project into the wastebasket, too. The vanity project is, typically, a gendered term that refers to unpaid pursuits (usually performed by women) that are often subsidized by a partner and generally devalued by society. There's very little dignity in the term and even less urgency. Both the hobby and vanity project are categorized as enjoyable but inessential.

To be even more clear, I'm not talking about finding a distraction, either. Believe me, I'm distracted enough just trying to get through my day. I don't need an idle diversion, and neither do you.

So if it's not a hobby, a vanity project, or a distraction-what are we talking about, exactly? I'm referring to the active and open pursuit of self-expression in any form, and which requires value-based curiosity and purposeful sharing of this pursuit with the world. Whether it be creating art, expanding your knowledge within your area of expertise, or developing a new skill, I'm talking about an activity that you lose yourself in. That you crave to go back to when you're away from it. That gives you pleasure outside of your work, your family, and your other obligations. It's something you do just for yourself . . . and because it brings you so much joy, you want to share it with others.

According to a study out of New Zealand, engaging in creative expression like I'm describing contributes to an "upward spiral" of positive emotions, psychological well-being, and feelings of "flourishing" in life, which researchers defined as feeling engaged in daily life, experiencing positive personal growth, and cultivating social connections. This relates to the "broaden and build" theory of positive emotions first developed by Barbara Fredrickson, PhD. Fredrickson explains that when you feel positive, it encourages you to expand your world, thereby eliciting more growth and creativity. Tony Wagner, a senior research fellow at the Learning Policy Institute, takes it a step further with his research showing that creative expression gives us a sense of purpose, along with enhancing resilience and contributing to a sense of playfulness and curiosity.

Given the research (and there's so much more that I'll share in the pages ahead), I invite you to begin thinking of the active and open pursuit of your creative self-expression not as optional or as an "add-on" to your current life but as essential and fundamental to your physical, emotional, and mental health as a whole person.

The Power of Unicorn Space

So, then, if carving out time for creative pursuits is so essential . . . why was I still struggling with it? Wasn't I supposed to be the expert in this?

Let me back up. I'm not just a wannabe hip-hop dancer. I'm also a lawyer who runs an organizational management consultancy-I help foundations, companies, and families run more smoothly. A couple of years ago, though, I'd reached a breaking point in my own home organization: fed up with that feeling that I was doing all the work to keep my work life humming alongside a busy home life with my husband and three kids, I determined to increase efficiency and save my sanity-and my marriage-in the process.

I started by creating a list of all the invisible, unheralded tasks I was doing-from making dinner to overseeing homework to doing the laundry-to keep our family afloat. I called it the "Sh*t I Do" list, and it detailed every minute, yet important but often undervalued task with a time component (signing my kids up for after-school activities, making sure the their vaccinations were up to date, getting the boiler inspected) that was often overlooked and yet absolutely essential. The "Sh*t I Do" list became the basis for a system I created called Fair Play. My goal: to divide domestic work and childcare more fairly in my house (and yours), so that both partners in a relationship are set up for success. With clearly defined expectations and delineated roles, Fair Play applies the same principles of organizational management in the workplace to the home because I believe that our home is our most important organization.

I shared the Fair Play system with my friends and friends-of-friends, and eventually I turned it into a book. The message resonated: Fair Play became an instant New York Times bestseller; it was selected as a Reese's Book Club pick; it spun off into a card deck, a podcast, and a documentary; and that little book got me invited to travel to groups and companies all across the United States and the world to talk about the concept of work-life integration and the injustice of building societies on the backs of the unpaid labor of women and the undervalued labor of domestic workers. It was amazing and gratifying to see that a system that introduces a new vocabulary for talking about domestic life resonates with families everywhere.

People embraced the idea of providing a clear organizational strategy to the home, and more than a few couples told me that Fair Play had saved their relationships, too. But the true magic was what emerged for everyone-especially women-when domestic responsibilities were divvied up more fairly: more time.

Time is the ultimate reward for increasing efficiency and fairness in our home organizations. Time to relax. Time to focus on ourselves. Time to become curious. Time for sustained attention to the things we love. In Fair Play, I called this time Unicorn Space.


WHAT IS UNICORN SPACE?

Creativity redefined as Unicorn Space is the active and open pursuit of self-expression in any form, built on value-based curiosity and purposeful sharing of this pursuit with the world. Whether it be creating art, expanding your knowledge within your area of expertise, or developing a new skill, your Unicorn Space is that thing that makes you uniquely and vibrantly you. But like the mythical equine that inspired the name, it doesn't exist until you give yourself permission to reclaim, discover, and nurture it.

For a while, writing Fair Play had been my Unicorn Space – I loved writing, becoming a published author was a dream come true, and every time I sat down at my computer I could feel the project delivering a Category 5 storm of passion to my life. But as I got busier and Fair Play became a full-time (then, more than full-time!) business, I realized that calling my work my Unicorn Space was, well, no longer hitting the mark. Even though I was killing it on the professional front, I was losing time just for me. Would rekindling my childhood hip-hop dreams with my cousin Jessica lead me in the direction of a new creative passion? Was this the spark of a new creative pursuit that would re-inspire and carry me throughout the inevitable storms of life? I was on the verge of something. I could feel it.

And then the pandemic hit, and all my - and everyone else’s - carefully wrought systems and plans were upended.

POP QUIZ

Which One of These Activities Qualifies as Unicorn Space?

A. Unwinding with your friends over an extended lunch

B. Sinking into a sensory-soothing, aromatic bath

C. Date night: dinner, drinks and dancing with your partner/spouse.

D. An hour of uninterrupted and contented time in the kitchen to roll out homemade pasta and put on simmer your signature sauce that you will later, and proudly, serve to family and friends for dinner.

KEY:

a) This falls under the definition of "adult friendships" and is absolutely valuable and essential to happiness but in a category of its own.

b) This falls under the definition of "self-care" and is essential to your brain and body function, but it does not count as "Unicorn Space" unless it’s connected to a larger goal that can be shared with the world.

c) This falls under the definition of "partnerships." Making regular time to invest in your relationship will ensure its longevity and overall satisfaction, but you still need pursuits beyond your role as a partner to feel ultimately fulfilled.

d) Bingo! This has all the elements that characterize the active pursuit of self-expression and that includes value-based and purposeful sharing.