How to convince others you’re still relevant (hint: start with yourself) (Transcript)

[00:00:00] Anne Morriss:
Hello everyone and welcome back. Before we get into things, I wanna start things off with a bit of housekeeping and a reminder to everyone that Fixable is always taking submissions for work problems to solve. Our mission is to solve problems at any industry, any organization, any level. So, we can all learn together and make our professional lives more engaging, enriching, and energizing,

[00:00:26] Frances Frei:
And we need your help to do that.

Thank you to everyone who has reached out and been part of the conversation so far. Please keep doing that. And to everyone else, we welcome you to get in touch. Our email is fixable@ted.com. Our number is 2-3-4 FIXABLE. That's 2-3-4-3-4-9-2-2-5-3. So you can email, call, text, message us on LinkedIn, however you wanna reach out.

We would love to hear from you.

[00:00:50] Anne Morriss:
Absolutely. Now Frances, I have been thinking about how one of the miracles of science right now, uh, and the revolutions in fitness and nutrition means that we're living longer and we're not just living longer. We're also working longer.

[00:01:06] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:01:07] Anne Morriss:
And it's introducing all of these new challenges in addition to the beautiful advantages of having all of this experience in the workplace.

You know, this is a relatively new phenomenon, and I think one of the things we're seeing is that older workers are bringing their own narratives about age into the workplace as they're also confronting real issues of ageism as they build relationships with their colleagues.

[00:01:31] Frances Frei:
I, I think today there are five generations of employees in most mature organizations, five generations.

And to your point of miracle of science, I think there's gonna be six.

[00:01:43] Anne Morriss:
Yes. Um, yeah, for our kids, I think there'll be six. Yeah.

[00:01:45] Frances Frei:
That's really astounding. And so it brings challenges and opportunities, and this episode is gonna help us think about 'em. Beautiful.

[00:01:52] Anne Morriss:
Let's get into it.

I'm Anne Morriss. I'm a company builder and leadership coach.

[00:02:00] Frances Frei:
And I'm Frances Frei. I'm a professor at the Harvard Business School and I'm Anne's wife,

[00:02:05] Anne Morriss:
And this is Fixable from the Ted Audio Collective. On this show we believe that meaningful change happens fast. Anything is fixable and good solutions are usually just a single brave conversation way.

[00:02:16] Frances Frei:
Who do we have today?

[00:02:18] Anne Morriss:
Frances, we have a wonderful caller today, so let's start with her voicemail.

[00:02:24] Julie Freeman:
Hi Anne and Frances. My name's Julie Freeman. I'm an artist. I've been making digital artwork for over two decades, and that includes things like working with lots of data, real time data, artificial intelligence, robotics, that kind of stuff.

And I'm really enjoying the attention that, um, digital art and digital artists are getting. But I'm struggling to position myself and my work in today's context, and I want to educate new artists and I want to support them, but I'd also like my work and my history to be acknowledged and validated. But I don't really wanna be seen as old school or outdated because I'm still contemporary.

I still make relevant work. So I kind of feel stuck. You know, I'm an expert who is still learning. How do I position myself and my work with gravitas and relevance, but not arrogance, um, with confidence and also curiosity. You know, I'd really love your thoughts.

[00:03:19] Anne Morriss:
Oh, I like her already.

[00:03:20] Frances Frei:
I mean. Answers the question, who would you most like to have dinner with?

[00:03:25] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. And the, and all those Cs, you know, confidence, but also curiosity. I mean, I think we're setting the right bar on outcome here.

[00:03:34] Frances Frei:
Uh, she had me at data, AI, robotics, and more.

[00:03:38] Anne Morriss:
I, well, I know I saw your pulse quickening

[00:03:40] Frances Frei:
And, and to have done it before the modern day techies are doing it.

Uh, she was doing it for art that's really. Exciting to me and she wants to graduate from old school to new school.

[00:03:52] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.

[00:03:52] Frances Frei:
And I think all of us that go through chapters in our lives wanna graduate from the past to the present, and that's gonna be really great to double click on.

[00:04:06] Anne Morriss:
Let's build the bridge.

Julie Freeman, welcome to Fixable.

[00:04:13] Julie Freeman:
Thanks for having me. It's nice to be here.

[00:04:15] Anne Morriss:
Well, let's start with your art, which is really fascinating. You and Frances share a conviction that data is not just interesting and useful, but also beautiful. So, tell us how you started to explore data as an artistic medium?

[00:04:35] Julie Freeman:
My sort of fascination with data came from when I was trying to understand the natural world. More deeply through sort of technological devices. So using sensors and other technologies to try and understand and measure elements of nature that couldn't be perceived by our own natural sort of human senses.

[00:04:58] Anne Morriss:
Mmm.

[00:04:58] Julie Freeman:
So for me, data is like really the essence of the way we understand the world and increasingly the way we understand each other. And I think once I realized that it became more about that flow of numbers and symbols and for us to be able to reach out to the natural world to understand what fish are doing in the water that we can't see, to understand what naked mole rats might be doing, or how bacteria are colonizing places using technology and then within that data being able to sort of explain in certain ways. I think that's where the origins were from.

[00:05:35] Anne Morriss:
I love it. Yeah, I can, I can feel across the table, Frances' pulse quickening.

[00:05:41] Frances Frei:
It sure is.

[00:05:43] Anne Morriss:
Can you give us an example of the work?

[00:05:46] Frances Frei:
Hopefully fish centric because our sons love to fish.

[00:05:50] Anne Morriss:
So, yeah. Or, or a favorite piece.

[00:05:51] Frances Frei:
Or favorite piece. Yeah.

[00:05:52] Julie Freeman:
Yeah. I talk about one of my favorite pieces is also one of my oldest pieces, and probably the piece that that started my career really because it was such a long and engaged piece, and it is really personal to me. I had this idea of whether we could understand the beauty of fish and how as well as we love the way that they move and they have this kind of great motion that is often seen as something that is relaxing and um, really kind of indicative of the beauty of the natural world, whether we could transfer that to music.

And to be able to do that, I wanted to track fish movement, look at their behaviors across within themselves and then across each other.

And see if those behaviors and the measurements that I was taking could be used to create music.

[00:06:41] Frances Frei:
Wow.

[00:06:41] Julie Freeman:
So could fish create music? That was the whole kind of like point of the project and then I spent a long time. I mean, it's the seed of the idea.

[00:06:50] Anne Morriss:
Wait, Julie, it's a cliffhanger. Can fish create music?

[00:06:52] Frances Frei:
Yes. The answer has to be yes.

[00:06:55] Julie Freeman:
They, of course, they can.

I think any, you know, anything can make music, but fish being able to sort of like translate from the movement of fish to a sonic world was something that I just became completely obsessed about. And so we created this special software that created animation from the movement of the fish. And also we wrote some software that converted the movement of fish into something that would play sound samples in response to the fish's movement and the sound samples were all recorded from around the lake and in the lake where the fish lived.

And so the whole project became a big installation out in the countryside, right by the lake in a big nine meter tall tower. You walked inside this tower looked above your head and you could see an abstract animation that was moving around as the fish moved around.

And it is also playing this really resonant abstract, quite evocative soundscape that was being generated in real time by the fish. So yeah, it was a huge.

[00:08:14] Frances Frei:
Generated in real time. So, this was the fish that were in the lake at that moment. This is the music they were producing.

[00:08:20] Julie Freeman:
Yeah. So they were making it, it became a real a pivotal thing in my career, people really loved it. They'd come in and they'd often lie down on the bottom of this, um, circular tank where the installation was so that they could just lie there, listen to the sounds, and then watch what was happening above them.

And the kids would go in there and they'll be like, I'm following that one. I've called her. Yeah, you know, called her Frances and they'd like give a personality to one of the fish and the fish would be moving around. But it was such a nice way to connect with the world that we couldn't see. You could see the surface of the lake, but you couldn't see the fish underwater.

But through this artwork, you could really begin to imagine what they were doing. And their activities. So it's kind of, it really sparked a lot of curiosity in the people that saw the artwork.

[00:09:25] Anne Morriss:
Wow. Super cool. Well, Julie, what inspired you to reach out to us?

[00:09:31] Julie Freeman:
So, I reached out to you because I've been working with data and technology and natural systems for nearly 30 years now, and I mean, I feel like I'm in a funny place where I'm an expert on a, on a lot of these things, but I'm also always a beginner.

Technology changes so much that I'm constantly learning, and the way I work is very innovative with cutting edge technologies anyway, so there's always a sense of learning, but I do have a huge amount of experience in everything else I've done. So, I've been working with technology, developing software since pre-internet times.

And so I, I think I wrote to you 'cause I was thinking how can I be perceived to be an expert in my field? When the field is changing so much and new people are coming in developing work with digital technology and it's seen as a, a new thing and suddenly they're the experts and they're getting a lot of, uh, attention.

[00:10:28] Anne Morriss:
Meanwhile, you've been doing this for decades.

[00:10:29] Julie Freeman:
We've been doing this.

[00:10:30] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.

[00:10:31] Julie Freeman:
But I don't wanna be there. The person saying, oh, I've been doing this for decades. You should be talking to me.

[00:10:37] Anne Morriss:
Right.

[00:10:38] Julie Freeman:
I think that was my dilemma. That was what I wanted to, to understand a bit more and see if you could help with.

[00:10:45] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. In a world that associates innovation with youth.

[00:10:50] Julie Freeman:
Yes. Yeah.

[00:10:51] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. I think, I think I get it. Let me ask you just a couple follow-up questions and, and then we're delighted to get into this. Um, why don't you wanna be the person that says, I'm the expert? I've been doing this for decades. Pay attention to me.

[00:11:09] Julie Freeman:
I don't.

[00:11:10] Frances Frei:
Aside from being British.

[00:11:11] Julie Freeman:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean that does factor into it.

[00:11:15] Frances Frei:
Yes.

[00:11:15] Julie Freeman:
It definitely factor into the sort of introversion of the British that definitely factors in, but also I feel like that sets up a barrier somehow. You know, I work with a lot of people and I collaborate a lot, and I feel like I still wanna be accessible and approachable.

And somehow saying, I've been doing this 30 years ago, is also not interesting, is it? It's like, yeah, okay.

[00:11:39] Frances Frei:
Right.

[00:11:39] Julie Freeman:
We've heard what the old people said we do. We are doing it a different way.

[00:11:44] Frances Frei:
Right.

[00:11:44] Anne Morriss:
And how is this tension showing up for you? Practically.

[00:11:44] Julie Freeman:
I mean, I think practically I see people talking about the new wave of digital art and the new artists that are working in that field, and it completely ignores the history of what's gone before.

It affects me directly because it means that I. I'm not in line for commissions.

[00:12:07] Frances Frei:
Mm-hmm.

[00:12:08] Julie Freeman:
Or I get overlooked by curators that have, are seeing who's out there and who's putting themselves out there and who's saying, look, I'm the new artist on the block. The number of followers you've got is a currency at the moment.

And a lot of the newer artists are very good at the social media. So we've come up and we've got social media, but you know, it's less interesting to me to be sitting on Instagram all day. So, that's a, um. I have a smaller follower number, and so there's different things that play into it. That means that when it comes to getting funding.

[00:12:42] Frances Frei:
Yep.

[00:12:42] Julie Freeman:
Or being commissioned or being seen in the same light as the newer artists, it's just not happening.

[00:12:50] Frances Frei:
Yep.

[00:12:51] Julie Freeman:
Yeah.

[00:12:52] Anne Morriss:
And you're a TED fellow, is that accurate?

[00:12:55] Julie Freeman:
I am, yeah, I am a TED Senior fellow. Yeah.

[00:12:59] Anne Morriss:
That, I'm feeling that senior.

[00:13:02] Julie Freeman:
We used to love being senior fellows 'cause we were like, yeah, we are like the, the ones that have advanced more and now I'm a bit older. I'm like, I don't really like to use the word senior.

[00:13:12] Anne Morriss:
And has that community been helpful to you in terms of visibility?

[00:13:16] Julie Freeman:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the, the best thing about The TED Fellowship is the other fellows are amazing.

[00:13:22] Anne Morriss:
Mm-hmm.

[00:13:22] Julie Freeman:
And the fellowship team at TED are just, are just the best. Always super supportive, and it's just really nice to be in a really global network of peers.

[00:13:34] Anne Morriss:
So what did you do to get TED's attention? 'Cause that's not easy.

[00:13:38] Julie Freeman:
It's not, it's not. In fact, this, so my, I became a fellow in 2011 and I wrote to them about the fish making music project and that was one that really captured their attention. I also did another project about dog's ears in the wind, which was an online artwork, which is about the flap of a dog.

[00:13:58] Anne Morriss:
Our audience can't see Frances’ heart exploding at that description.

[00:14:04] Julie Freeman:
And it was a chat project. You could log in, you could chat to a dog online. It was kind of a riff on this old idea that, I think it was a New Yorker cartoon where it, it said, “Nobody knows you're a dog when you're on the internet.” And um, but you can chat to these dogs and they chatted back in a different language.

It was a Japanese dog or a a Russian dog or whatever, and it had a Patreon system wrapped around it. So my idea was to try and make money out of people talking to dogs. And it was like Kickstarter, but a year before Kickstarter. So you'd sign up, you'd say, oh, I like this dog.

I'll give you some money. Or become a Patreon. And I think TED found that entertaining, but also quite entrepreneurial and just a bit. A bit out there at the time.

[00:14:51] Anne Morriss:
I love it. So between fish and dogs.

[00:14:53] Julie Freeman:
Yeah.

[00:14:54] Anne Morriss:
And presumably TED didn't say, thank you for your inquiry, Julie, but you're, uh, you're, you're a little too old to be interesting.

[00:15:02] Julie Freeman:
No.

[00:15:03] Anne Morriss:
That's not what you heard.

[00:15:05] Julie Freeman:
No, no.

[00:15:06] Anne Morriss:
The work spoke for itself. Demographics aside.

[00:15:11] Julie Freeman:
Yeah, exactly.

[00:15:11] Anne Morriss:
All right. I think I get the picture. Frances, any questions before we jump in?

[00:15:14] Frances Frei:
I have so many questions, but may I just summarize this?

[00:15:17] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. Please.

[00:15:18] Frances Frei:
This onto, um, onto here is that what I love about this is what do we do when we have vast experience and we don't have current relevance?

That to me, is the problem in a nutshell, and then it begs the question, whose responsibility is our relevance? Is it someone else's responsibility or is it our responsibility? And I have loads of ways I want to go after this at my wife's discretion.

[00:15:46] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. Um, I just wanna ask Julie how that framing landed with you?

[00:15:52] Julie Freeman:
Yeah, I mean, I, it landed all right until a few seconds later. I kind of felt like, is my work really not relevant? Because I think it is relevant, but it's how it's perceived.

[00:16:04] Frances Frei:
Yep. I, I, I, I very much like that. So, whose responsibility is the current perception of my relevance? I think it's a better, I I like that.

I like that. I like that nuance.

[00:16:15] Anne Morriss:
Okay, so Frances, keep going. Yes, because I feel like you're, you're pulling on a really nice thread.

[00:16:20] Frances Frei:
So, so whose responsibility is that and how do I build it up? If I wanted to take more responsibility because I wasn't satisfied with its pace or it's peak. So, the first thing that comes to mind to me is, well, who's done this well?

Right. Because that's often where I'll do it. And I'll tell you someone who has vast experience and has managed to stay relevant in a fast changing way, and her name is Kara Swisher. She was one of the first people on the beat of internet companies, so way back in the day, in fact, was the reporter before then, and she now has very modern day things like podcasts, has created a media company, has just written a bestselling memoir, so she's doing many of these modern things to keep her vast experience relevant in the eyes of many.

And I'll tell you what I have noticed, and I'm a connoisseur of everything Kara Swisher, I, I think she's amazing, excellent. And she's a woman of a certain age. But I will tell you one of the ways I have observed her doing this.

She can very fluidly talk about, you know there have been, I’m gonna make up a number, five technological revolutions. The current one is AI. The last one was this, the one before that was this, the one before that was this. So, it's using the experience to be value added to current people. So, instead of demanding that someone respect me for my past, how do I create value added for the current from my understanding of the past.

It's I think only a small frame different, but I think it makes all of the difference. And I'm not sure that people today were saying, “Gosh, Kara, will you tell us about how the history of tech informs us today?” But she comes forward and says, “Listen, you need to understand the history of tech because otherwise you're gonna make mistakes or otherwise you're gonna overlook this. Or the last three times this has happened, people are making decisions that you are, it went left and this time you're going right. I hope you have a good reason for doing it.”

So, Kara Swisher is an example of someone who has taken full responsibility for the perception of her relevance and has an education mindset to be value added.

Uh, I'm wondering how that resonates to you?

[00:18:50] Julie Freeman:
Yeah, I mean, I, I think that's interesting that shift from one technology to the next. And what I've been using in the past, like when, when I began to learn computer programming, I learned about artificial life programming, and that's kind of like a bottom up system.

Whereas you could call AI a top down system and you'll see that AI, AI and a-life are kind of these two forms of algorithms that emerge and sit next to each other. And I've been working with them for, for such a long time, but I never, it's interesting to talk about that education mindset. I rarely talk about that.

I talk about what we are doing right now. This project has got this in this project, has got that in. I don't often go, the reason it's got this in is because it’s standing on the shoulders of these other things.

[00:19:37] Frances Frei:
I think if you don't do it, I'm not sure others will do it for you. And then I fear that that vast experience will get discounted.

Um, and I don't mean it solely for your ego or because it's just Julie. I mean, 'cause I want today to be better than yesterday. And I think if we can build in the lessons from yesterday into today, we're gonna be so much better. And I would prefer the people that experienced it be the educators.

[00:20:07] Julie Freeman:
Yeah.

[00:20:07] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a really, that's a really cool. I think the, the irony for me of this conversation, Julie, is that you bring such a youthful orientation to the work as we're experiencing it. Like you, you lead with playfulness, curiosity, excitement about innovation. I, I know you, you discounted the, the optimism at the beginning of the comes from, but I am experiencing you as a very optimistic person.

Uh, like why bother?

[00:20:49] Julie Freeman:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[00:20:50] Anne Morriss:
You know, to, to do this work if there's not a core optimism at the center of it. And so to me it's this question of how do you take up more space in this conversation, in this broader conversation the world is having about data and the digital revolution and the biological world, like you are really at the center of all of these conversations and how do you do it in a way that's energizing for you?

I wanna get there in a minute, but does that framing feel right?

[00:21:22] Julie Freeman:
Yeah. And I think it's making me think of, you know, it just makes me think of confidence and you're right, I am, I get, I get really excited still about new tec, I'm like, I can't get enough of it for re, you know, I just wanna work with it in different ways.

[00:21:36] Anne Morriss:
Let me ask you this. To, to what Frances was saying about Kara Swisher, who's having a career that's aspirational to you, that's older than 25, in terms of the amount of impact they're having on the world?

[00:21:50] Julie Freeman:
Yeah. I mean, I think some careers that are inspiring, Tomás Saraceno makes work that is kind of biologically inspired.

Big installations and sort of sculptural installations that often have sound in them. He's inspiring. Um, Louise Bourgeois, she's a huge artist, not physically obviously, but she's known for sort of sculpture and installation art, very feminist. Um, she's, um, absolutely amazing. She's, um, not with us anymore.

And then also Tracey Emin, who's local to where I live and who is a painter, but she's a very visceral painter. Everything comes from the heart. And she does neon signs sometimes, but she is, um, she's changed a lot. She's kind of used to do quite conceptual stuff, um, but she's just got a very authentic presence and I respect her.

[00:22:46] Anne Morriss:
And directionally, um, what are the ages of these artists?

[00:22:51] Julie Freeman:
So Louise Bourgeois would've been around about 80 when she died. Tomás Saraceno, I should imagine late fifties. Tracey Emin, mid fifties, mid to late fifties as well.

[00:23:03] Frances Frei:
Yeah. Yeah. That's what you were hoping for.

[00:23:06] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. I, I don't think age has anything to do with your problem.

[00:23:11] Julie Freeman:
No, I think, well, I think it's a current thing that I'm carrying at the moment. I'm really hyper aware of it.

[00:23:08] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.

[00:23:18] Julie Freeman:
Hyper aware of it. You know, just becoming into my menopause age has suddenly become something I'd never had to think about before.

[00:23:26] Anne Morriss:
Right. That's, it's your story. Which is, and the really exciting thing about your story being in the way here is that it's entirely constructed and you can construct a different story.

So, and I wanna get into, just in the spirit of an alternative narrative here, just like a very practical brainstorm about what you could do to take up more of the kind of space you wanna take up. You up for that?

[00:23:50] Julie Freeman:
Yeah. Yeah, sure.

[00:23:51] Anne Morriss:
Okay.

[00:23:51] Julie Freeman:
I think it's about having my confidence knocked by various things, but, um, that, that's definitely a part of it.

[00:24:00] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. I'm gonna start with one idea. We'll just play with it. Can you bring on some kind of, partner here to brainstorm, you know, what does a social media presence look like for you? How do you build digital audience? Is this about being more active and visible in certain spaces? Is it about launching an awesome newsletter?

[00:24:24] Frances Frei:
The Instagram short reels, I'm so sorry, but you are made for Instagram reels.

[00:24:30] Anne Morriss:
Oh my god.

[00:24:31] Frances Frei:
Made for it.

[00:24:32] Anne Morriss:
The fact, that the fact that this so.

[00:24:35] Frances Frei:
Animation and music. Come on.

[00:24:36] Anne Morriss:
It's so digital and you're, you're like sound visual. Like it, it is really built for some of these platforms and there are people who really think hard every day about how to leverage them, and there's no reason for you to do this alone.

I'm still stuck on this beautiful interaction you had with Frances around education. And I'm going back to the kid following Frances the Fish and wondering if there are educational institutions where like your partnership or joining the faculty or doing workshops. Then the, the added bonus of the education space, in my experience is that's where the young people are.

[00:25:27] Frances Frei:
That is where they all are.

[00:25:29] Anne Morriss:
And so it's a.

[00:25:29] Julie Freeman:
Mm-hmm.

[00:25:30] Anne Morriss:
It can be a really rewarding place to also test your ideas with the next generation, stay current, connect to the energy of young people.

[00:25:41] Frances Frei:
Connect to their communications mechanisms.

[00:25:43] Anne Morriss:
Y-you know, like become more fluent in the way that young people are communicating now.

[00:25:50] Frances Frei:
What comes to mind when Anne says that?

[00:25:50] Julie Freeman:
I think what comes to mind is, I just met someone last week, funnily enough, and she's who I, I did my PhD with her and that she's still ac in academia and she loves it and it kind of, it did make me think the PhD was so difficult.

[00:26:05] Anne Morriss:
Mm-hmm.

[00:26:06] Julie Freeman:
But I think I'd PTSD from after the submission of that, that huge document.

And so for years I didn't wanna be involved in academia. I, I couldn't, I was, I was like, I just wanna make my work. I don't wanna have to justify everything to everyone. But I feel like now it would be really enriching to be around students and to talk. To share with them about my work and to share the experience.

'Cause I think that, you know, it, it, it does really resonate talking about education. 'Cause if I don't share it, then who is gonna be sharing it and where's it gonna go?

[00:26:40] Anne Morriss:
Yes.

[00:26:40] Julie Freeman:
And, and that's, you know, what's the point of doing all this stuff for so many years if it's just gonna be locked up in a bottle somewhere that people only might stumble across as opposed to it being out there for people to hear and and learn from?

So yeah, I kind of, that is, it is exciting, the idea of sharing it in that environment. Again, getting back.

[00:27:03] Anne Morriss:
Julie, let me ask you this. 'Cause I was struck by the kind of empowered construction of the sentences that you just shared with us, but back to where we started and the challenge of perceived relevance, uh, who, whose job it is to make sure that your work is perceived as relevant?

[00:27:24] Julie Freeman:
Y-yeah, I mean, it's my job. I, I'm responsible for this.

[00:27:28] Anne Morriss:
And do you have a.

[00:27:29] Julie Freeman:
I knew we were gonna come back to this.

[00:27:32] Anne Morriss:
And do you have a, a lot of power in determining the outcome or a little bit of power?

[00:27:38] Julie Freeman:
Yeah, no, I, I have the bulk of the power I think in, in doing that. It's a lit, just not been a focus. And I think a bit, you know, I think a part of me has got, which is it is pretty egotistical.

It's like, it's probably someone else's job. I do the work, someone else can do that. But, you know, it's not, it's not like, it's not, it's not like that anymore. Sometimes you just need to be told.

[00:28:02] Anne Morriss:
It's beautiful to hear you say that.

[00:28:03] Julie Freeman:
And I work, you know, I'm so collaborative in my art making, I always work with teams, but I it, for some reason, it doesn't sort of occur to me to do that in for in self-promotion.

You know, even that word is weird. Self-promotion.

[00:28:18] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. I mean, I would encourage you not to think of it that way. This is about you reaching your audience and finding an audience and finding new audiences.

[00:28:26] Julie Freeman:
Yeah.

[00:28:26] Anne Morriss:
In the places where those audiences are.

[00:28:28] Frances Frei:
It's a super respectful thing to do to go to them.

[00:28:31] Anne Morriss:
And super respectful of the work, and super respectful of the mission that you are stewarding right now.

[00:28:39] Julie Freeman:
No, but that's where I've been caught up in.

[00:28:41] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:28:41] Julie Freeman:
That a kind of resistance to that, but when you're talking about being respectful to your audience and being respectful to all the people that supported me over the years and sharing what I've done. That's, it's essential. It's important.

[00:28:54] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. And respect for the people you've made the work with.

[00:28:57] Julie Freeman:
Yeah.

[00:28:57] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. Let's, let's go get a proper audience for this.

[00:29:00] Frances Frei:
And if I can be a voice of the eager consumers out there that have not yet seen it. Oh my gosh. Bring the Fish Project to life. Bring the Dog Ears project to life, and you all need to, and that's two of two. You're hitting a hundred with me, but please let us have access to it.

We'll consume your art. I would like to just, we please do it somewhere.

[00:29:24] Anne Morriss:
Will you make it easier? Will you make it easier for us?

[00:29:24] Frances Frei:
Will you make it easier for us?

[00:29:25] Julie Freeman:
Make it easier. I make it 12 months of a year.

[00:29:29] Anne Morriss:
Would Julie, how are you feeling? And did we achieve our objective of being more optimistic?

[00:29:37] Julie Freeman:
Yeah. Yeah.

[00:29:37] Anne Morriss:
At the end of this conversation when we started.

[00:29:39] Julie Freeman:
I mean, you've given me, uh, which I thought might never be possible. You've, you've given me sort of an ex excite, a little shard of excitement about actually getting out on social media and making a plan and making it something that is really worth pushing and worth doing properly. And that's, yeah. That's pretty remarkable turnaround. Fair play to you.

[00:29:59] Anne Morriss:
Thank you.

[00:29:59] Julie Freeman:
For doing that. Yeah. It's, it's, I love the idea of being respectful. I, I just, I almost feel a little bit bad that I haven't been seeing it in that way. So, that’s.

[00:30:09] Frances Frei:
That means it's, that means you're digesting it. Yeah. That means you're digesting it.

[00:30:13] Julie Freeman:
Yeah. Yeah.

[00:30:14] Frances Frei:
Alright.

[00:30:16] Anne Morriss:
Thank you. This has been such a pleasure.

[00:30:18] Frances Frei:
It’s really a pleasure. Really delighted. Delighted to now know you.

[00:30:22] Julie Freeman:
Yeah, likewise. It's been, it's been fun. Thank you so much.

[00:30:36] Anne Morriss:
Well, that was fun.

[00:30:37] Frances Frei:
Oh, what an unexpected delight.

[00:30:38] Anne Morriss:
I'm so excited to know that she exists in the world.

[00:30:42] Frances Frei:
I know. I'm very--

[00:30:43] Anne Morriss:
And is making this art.

[00:30:45] Frances Frei:
And that so many more of us are gonna benefit from it.

[00:30:47] Anne Morriss:
Yeah, yeah. Um, it's super energizing. I loved her pushback on relevance versus perception of relevance because it, it's actually a much easier problem to solve the perception of relevance.

[00:31:02] Frances Frei:
Yes.

[00:31:03] Anne Morriss:
And when you frame it that way, you realize how much power you do have in the outcomes.

[00:31:09] Frances Frei:
Yeah. You know, I have colleagues at the Harvard Business School, some of whom 30 years ago did great work and are trying to get other people to appreciate 'em, but I get the sense that they're disappointed, increasingly disappointed every year.

[00:31:23] Anne Morriss:
Right.

[00:31:23] Frances Frei:
And then I have other colleagues. My favorite might be Rosabeth Moss Kanter who.

[00:31:28] Anne Morriss:
Amazing, amazing scholar.

[00:31:29] Frances Frei:
And who has been relevant.

[00:31:31] Anne Morriss:
Unbelievable legacy.

[00:31:32] Frances Frei:
Every single year she has been relevant every single year, and she certainly does work for it and is I think more in touch with the current zeitgeist than I have ever been at any moment in my life.

And based on the conversation we just had, she has taken full responsibility for the perception of her relevance. And so if I was gonna study people, I mentioned Kara, but I would put Rosabeth Moss Kantor there as someone who is phenomenally relevant.

[00:32:06] Anne Morriss:
And, and she was the first woman tenured at HBS?

[00:32:10] Frances Frei:
Uh, she was maybe.

[00:32:11] Anne Morriss:
Among the first,

[00:32:12] Frances Frei:
Among the first think, Regina Herzlinger, who's another person who is relevant.

Both of these women have done Herculean efforts, although it doesn't feel effortful, but they have both worked to maintain their relevance, the perception of their relevance.

[00:32:28] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. And then what is actionable for the rest of us about the pursuit of perceived relevance?

[00:32:33] Frances Frei:
I think the way they do it is they teach 27 year olds every year and the 20, and if you are constantly thinking about, I'm gonna stay relevant to the current 27 year olds.

[00:32:45] Anne Morriss:
Yeah, hang out with them.

[00:32:46] Frances Frei:
You're, you're, you're done. You're relevant.

[00:32:48] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.

[00:32:49] Frances Frei:
Um, whereas others, they'll teach 27 year olds and then they'll teach 30 year olds and then 35, and then you just age with them until you're like, what? And now I'm with the retired CEOs. I'm with.

[00:33:00] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.

[00:33:00] Frances Frei:
And you're just like, more and more uncomfortable.

But stay teaching the current 27 year olds. Stay current in communicating with the current 27 year olds, your perception of relevance will be there.

[00:33:11] Anne Morriss:
It, it's one of my favorite. I, I love the focus on examples of this conversation. It's one of my favorites mind hacks for myself too 'cause as soon as I find myself falling into a narrative where I don't have any power, because the, these forces beyond my control are working against me.

Just finding one or two examples of people who do not fit the storyline that I am so invested in and are living, breathing examples of the opposite of whatever I'm choosing to believe is a very quick exit.

[00:33:46] Frances Frei:
It's such a quick exit.

[00:33:47] Anne Morriss:
From the tyranny of my own storyline.

[00:33:55] Frances Frei:
I love it. I love it.

Thanks for listening everyone. If you wanna figure out your workplace problem together, be like Julie, send us a message.

[00:34:01] Anne Morriss:
Send us a message.

[00:34:03] Frances Frei:
You can email fixable@ted.com. You can call 2-3-4 FIXABLE. That's 2-3-4-3-4-9-2-2-5-3 text, voice message. We'll take all of it. We're so grateful to everyone who has written, called, texted.

We couldn't make the show without you. Our team looks at every single submission and even the ones that don't turn into full episodes, they help us uncover the issues that are most pressing in the workforce today. So, thank you for being part of the conversation.

[00:34:39] Anne Morriss:
Fixable is brought to you by the TED Audio Collective. It's hosted by me, Anne Morriss.

[00:34:44] Frances Frei:
And me, Frances Frei.

[00:34:47] Anne Morriss:
This episode was produced by Isabel Carter from Pushkin Industries. Our team includes Constanza Gallardo, Banban Chang, Michelle Quint, Corey Hajim, Alejandra Salazar and Roxanne Hai Lash. This episode was mixed by Louis at Story Yard.

[00:35:03] Frances Frei:
If you're enjoying the show, make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and tell a friend to check us out.

[00:35:09] Anne Morriss:
And one more thing. If you can please take a second to leave us a review. It really helps us make a great show.