24. An Essential Intervention with Anika

Speakers

Greg McKeown, Anika

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Transcript

Greg McKeown 

Anika why don’t you tell me your full name and introduce yourself?

Anika  

Gosh, I don’t even know where to start. I am a German who immigrated to America has reverse immigrated to Germany. I’m a traveler, very much so. But I’m stuck and can’t travel, as, of course none of us can. Which was a big reason that we’re re-emigrated back to Germany to travel and here we are.

Greg McKeown     

Came you came back. When did you go back to Germany?

Anika  

It was two and a half years ago.

Greg McKeown    

So you went there partially to travel as you say?

Anika  

Yes.

Greg McKeown 

You’re feeling some cabin fever?

Anika    

Very much. I mean, I’m not alone in this. I’m sure.

Greg McKeown    

You’re absolutely right. And tell me a little bit. Just give me the context. You emailed me. Tell me your story. What did you share in that email?

Anika   

Yeah, so I, oh, I think I’ll start at the beginning. Um, I think most of my adult life, I’ve been very identified with my career as sort of the source of my value that I define. And I’m somewhere a few years ago, let’s say for maybe three years ago, I was in a PhD program, and fairly unhappy and very obsessed with my career. I think that’s pretty normal for PhD students. And I read your book. And I mean, I knew something wasn’t right, I read your book. And it really clarified for me that what wasn’t right is that I wasn’t living according to my values. I had these dreams I’ve had for a really long time. I wanted to become a mother, I wanted to live in Europe. I moved to the US with my parents when I was 12. Yeah, I wanted to move back to Europe, I wanted to travel, that was always a big passion for me in Europe, especially. But I wasn’t doing any of those things, because I kept prioritizing my career. And I made some really big changes at the time, I shortly thereafter, we moved to Paris for six months, which was an unusual move for a PhD student and took me out of my program for a little bit. And then came back to the US to finish my program and get my PhD a year later moved to Germany for a postdoc, which was on paper, it looks like a good decision. And I’m sure I mean, I know in hindsight, it was a very good decision. But it was also me turning down a very prestigious postdoc in the US, something that I think quite a few of my advisors were not terribly happy with. And starting to make some decisions that were not prioritizing my career, and instead prioritizing my dreams. And we tried starting a family, we tried for a very long time. And that didn’t work very well. And so then we did IVF. And try that for a while too. And that didn’t work terribly well for a while. But eventually, we got lucky, very lucky. And I had a daughter in May, in the middle of the pandemic

But what’s sort of happened since then said, so I’d have all these dreams that I’ve had, and I’m finally living them out. I’m in Germany, I’m I’ve had been at least traveling through Europe, I have this daughter, who’s amazing. And my partner and I are happy together. And I can’t seem to enjoy any of it. And it’s because I’m so focused on scarcity on what I’m lacking on the future. One of the big things that’s on my mind is career. My postdoc ends when my maternity leave ends in May of next year 2021 and it’s not a terribly good economy, and I’m scared of not getting a job. And so I started applying for jobs. And I’ve gotten so wrapped up in the stress of squeezing in work while having an infant and no childcare and no family support. I’ve realized I’m not really enjoying this dream that I’m actually living out. And I’m struggling getting back to the kind of person that I was when I was making these really good sort of Essentialist decisions. That’s what I would like to get back to. But in the midst of all this worry and scarcity and an unusual situation and the world, can’t seem to get myself there.

Greg McKeown    

Okay, that’s all very helpful. Let me tell you what I really heard. There were two pods. At first, there was a career path, which consumed more and more of you. You saw it as positive, but it seemed to consume you so much that this second path, the dream was really sidelined for a long time, it hardly got any investment. So the turning point is you read essentialism, and you say, Okay, it’s time to prioritize the dream, and not let the career pursuits dictate the strategy of my life. So you make these strategic tradeoffs, you are deliberate, you’re intentional, it gets you there, it gets you back to Germany, gets you closer to the lifestyle that you want. You’re able to fulfill this, this dream of starting a family, you have this, you have your daughter. So now you have achieved a big part of what it is you were trying to set out to do. Okay, that’s sort of that’s like, the first part of the story. Did I miss anything with that?

Anika       

No, that was perfectly reflected.

Greg McKeown     

But this dream is complicated. By what it sounds like, the biggest complication is COVID. And that has made the dream less satisfying, more, far more isolated. Having a baby at the hospital without anyone to be able to be there, without all of that support you would normally expect to have and would normally have is sidelined. Travels, so that just the variety that comes with travel, the full living of the dream isn’t being manifest. So I thought in advance of today’s conversation that may be what was going on is that you were just saying, quote, The dream isn’t really all I was hoping it would be. But listening to you now, I think what you’re saying is, I can’t seem to get the clarity I had back then. I don’t regret having made those decisions. I am really glad I’ve made all those decisions. But I want to be in that place again, where in this new reality, I can also feel clear about what I’m supposed to do next. Is that right?

Anika   

Yeah, that’s absolutely right. And a piece of this that I think is relevant. as I’m applying for jobs, and I’m also running into the situation that I have to make a choice of where do we live, we’ve made a choice to move back to the US to be closer to parents who are aging. And that, of course takes us away from this dream that we’ve also managed to make a reality. And I’m having to make choices about when to start work do I leave maternity leave early so that I can get any job but just in case there’s no other jobs. And so these factors are pulling at me to walk away from that dream a little bit. And it’s scary, but also family’s really important to us. And COVIDs made it really clear to us that we living abroad maybe isn’t the most sustainable thing if we want to be close to family.

Greg McKeown   

What I hear is a grappling with the power of dreams from before versus your new reality. And it’s before it was career versus dream, in favor of the dream, now it’s moved to being with family versus the dream and what I think you are feeling is some guilt attached to leaving behind the dream. Well, am I failing? Did I fail at my dream? Am I giving up something that felt so clear about that before? Is that what you’re feeling, am I my close? Correct me if I’m wrong.

Anika   

You’re right. I don’t think I realized it. But especially what you said about am I giving something like am I giving up that really resonates? And as you’re speaking, I’m also realizing that I feel fear because I don’t have a clear direction or dream moving forward.

Greg McKeown  

This was the dream. Yeah. So the fear is, well, if I give this up, what if there’s not a new dream? So it’s, it’s not really a clarity problem, in the sense that I sense within you a decent amount of clarity that now it’s time to move back. It’s time to be close to family. That’s what feels right, under these circumstances, under my new reality now as a mother, as the family. But what the sacrifice this time is a known dream for an unknown dream, especially the risk that there won’t be another one.

Anika  

I’m nodding my head, you can see I’m nodding my head. I wish I could have gotten this clear on it on my own. Yeah, absolutely. Right.

Greg McKeown    

And I think what’s important here is that you don’t feel, to my understanding, unsure about the next move. The worry, the fear, is no dream. But that isn’t the same as not feeling clear about what to do next. So I wonder, if, by accepting what you do know, what you are clear about, it might not give you permission to then breathe a little clearer, be a bit freer. And open yourself up to what the new dream could be.

Anika  

So the terminology, I thought it was give up and given. If I give up and give in and move back to the US and walk away from this dream that we worked so hard to get to. Obviously, not all of it, we’re taking our daughter with us. I think she would mind. If I walk away and come back. I worried that what I’m walking away from is dreaming. Not just that I don’t know what the next dream would be. But that I’d say dreaming is all nice and good. And here’s reality and dreaming is not a part of it.

Greg McKeown     

What you just said is important. What you feel like the tradeoff is not this dream, but all dreams.

Anika  

Yes.

Greg McKeown    

That that dreaming itself is really what you’re giving up. As you hear yourself saying that you just had a reaction to it. What’s the reaction inside? What do you feel is you hear that put back to you?

Anika  

A bit of judgment, frankly, I’m recognizing my privilege and seeing that. It is a choice. It is a choice to move back to the US. It’s not no one’s forcing us. And so I’m having a bit of judgment around seeing it in quite such dramatic terms.

Greg McKeown   

You feel like people, somebody listening to that might say, Oh, come on, of course you’re not giving up all your dreams. You’re just doing the next thing that makes sense. Is that what the reaction is?

Anika    

Perhaps somebody that’s listening, but certainly I myself am thinking that.

Greg McKeown  

You, yourself?

Anika       

Yes. 

Greg McKeown  

You that that’s more important. You’ve when you hear it, you go? Well, that’s not true. Yeah. When you hear it coming back to you, you’re going off course that’s Yeah, that’s what you say. It’s not just not true. You’re saying. Of course, that’s not true. I don’t have to give up dreaming just because I’m making this choice right now.

Anika  

I think my struggle has been that it’s been one dream for so long, I mean, over a decade of wondering that I’ve sort of dreamt about and then finally tried to make happen made happen. And now I’m enjoying it because of the fear of giving it up. And I think there’s two parts to this. It’s one that we’re speaking about, which is this fear of giving up dreaming, which I hadn’t realized was actually the fear. So the future but also the present and in focusing on this fear and the future, I’m also not enjoying the dream as it’s happening right now.

Greg McKeown    

Yeah, you’re so you’re so worried about giving it up and what that means and what I think it means to you, what you said give up and give in it means I think I failed. And so, because of the fear of that the worry of it, you’re not even enjoying being there right now, doing it is also being sacrificed.

Anika      

Yeah, yeah.

Greg McKeown    

In my experience, dreams are a really important, powerful elements of our lives, they really matter. And we have got to be very careful that they are our servants, not our masters. That, that we get to choose which direction to go in and when, and especially that we get that we’re careful to know when our dreams have served us and when it’s okay to let go. I’ve shared this story before, but it’s worth sharing again. I was close to 40 years old, when I was staring at myself in a mirror. And staring back at me is me dressed from head to toe in a stormtrooper costume. And the situation is that I am about to fall, I’m on the edge of buying this almost movie level quality Stormtrooper costume, it’s really expensive. And it’s really great quality. And I’m looking at it. And in that moment, I think, you know, there is not one part of me that wants to buy this stormtrooper costume. I have no need for it. No use for it. And so I have this moment of reflection. How am I here? What. And I realized in this moment that I have had this little dream to own this costume for 30 years, I was young. It was at the time when Return of the Jedi had just come out. And one of my older brothers said, in passing, wouldn’t it be amazing to own like a costume just like in the movies, and a combination of the hype of that movie and the power of an older sibling to suggest an idea somehow that little idea, that dream had had its effect for 30 years. And that’s become that’s a trivial example. But it’s become a symbol my wife Anna will use from time to time with me when I’m pursuing something. But perhaps for the wrong reasons, perhaps just because it was a goal from before. And she will say is this a stormtrooper? And in a way I’m saying that to you right now, is it possible that the dream you’ve had has served you it basically to the degree it needs to serve you that it helped you make other decisions in your life, that the PhD and the career weren’t going to dictate your life to you? It allowed you to be intentional about where to live and what to do and when to have a family and how that those things would be a higher priority for you and that those things have happened. And that it’s okay to be grateful for what that dream has given. And also to let it go. And to see perhaps it will come back later. Perhaps there’ll be a desire another season of your life another chapter, but at least for now to let it go, so that there’s space to dream again. I wonder, in fact, if letting this go, this dream go isn’t actually the price for creating space for more dreaming in the future. That it might not be exactly opposite of what your fear is. But that this will be the way for you to create enough space in your life again, to be able to wonder, well, what is it now? What is it next? Then something else can come forward, go ahead.

Anika    

Makes perfect sense. It, it feels so I’ve been clinging on to this, I think, in part, it was my first essentialist exercise, if you will, living out this dream. I think first but at first, and I think I’ve had the subconscious do that. And I’m seeing it sort of play out a little bit. And if I let go of this dream, rather than have another dream, I will slip back into old habits, I will slip back into what I know is not essential. I mean, I love my work and enjoy the work that I do as a researcher, but it’s not essential and I know that. But when I asked myself, and I do actually, by the way, asked myself this frequently, what is essential now if I don’t have something, then I quickly think, oh, work, I must work, oh, I need a job. So I find it, I think holding on to this as a safety blanket to prevent myself from slipping back into those old habits. But you’re right, it also makes sense that as long as I hold on to this so tightly, there’s not going to be a space for something new.

Greg McKeown    

Yes, and you’ve added another important dynamic. You’ve revealed this next layer, which is the gravitational pull of career is strong enough that in the absence of a proper boundary, something a counterweight, which for you has been Germany, and this in this, this previous dream. Without that you’re concerned that there’ll be nothing to keep you from just simply getting back to where you were before where there’s nothing but career and it has consumed everything for you. That’s what you’re worried about that you that. Another thing you’re worried about the next thing you’re worried about is I will end up going back to how life was before and I don’t want that. That’s what you’re saying.

Anika  

That’s exactly what I’m saying. Yeah.

Greg McKeown    

And as you hear yourself saying this, what is your current thought and feeling about that?

Anika  

I’m of two minds. One, my first feeling is, oh, that’s terrifying. It’s fear. But immediately after I have this moment of, but it’s up to me. There’s a choice there. It’s not a given.

Greg McKeown 

And the additional thing I can I think I can sense in you, but you correct me is the very fact that you fear it. The very fact that you have that what feels like a strong almost revulsion. To going back to that life is evidence you are not who you once were that you have become something new. And what you’re what I think you’re saying underneath these words is and I really want to carry on my essentialist journey. I really want to proceed in a way that my values are what guide my life not the not the leavers and, and power of hierarchical career systems that tell you this is what you need to do next, and this is how you’re supposed to live your life. I feel in you a strong desire to take this different path. Am I exaggerating it? Is this how you feel?

Anika  

It’s exactly how I feel, and the funny thing have the images coming. Have you seen Moana?

Greg McKeown 

Yes.

Anika  

Do you remember the scene where she’s on the boat and there’s all these I don’t remember if it’s Spears or something is leaping at the boat trying to pull the boat down.

Greg McKeown 

Yes.

Anika     

That’s the image that just came to mind. But that’s a little bit how it feels like I want to steer this boat to where I want to go. I don’t know where that is. And there’s all these bits of norms in my career or expectations and fears nipping at my boat. And it’s kind of funny image very dramatic, but it feels as though I’m not strong enough to guide the ship, if I don’t know where I’m going.

Greg McKeown    

That image, I think that image coming to you is, is inspired. That’s how it strikes me that it’s capturing for you who several things at once is the things you already mentioned, this old life pulling at you, you know, that’s the symbol of the javelins, and whatever arrows coming at you. And then you’re expressing it to me as fear that you won’t be strong enough to be able to resist all that force. But what I also think is in the Moana story, and in the moment you’re describing, is this very deep and exceedingly strong will and sense of mission within Moana. I mean, the entire story is that is, is this. I mean, we love it in our family, and we love it for all of our children, but for our three girls as well, the feeling that, that you have your own unique mission. And it isn’t to do what the people before you have done. It’s within you. And so I’m wondering, it’s a question to you is whether that is true, whether there is a feeling within you, even though you don’t know the specifics of it but a feeling of there’s something else. There’s something else that I’m supposed to do. Or even if I say you don’t know what it is, your thoughts?

Anika  

Absolutely, there is and there always has been, I’ve never known what it is. But that’s what pulled me away from an academic career. That’s what’s pulled me to Germany into becoming a mother. It’s funny, I didn’t think it would come back to a Disney movie, but it absolutely feels really resonant.

Greg McKeown    

I want to observe for you that the path that taken you to Germany is really significant. It’s not Germany that’s significant. It’s that you had at one time. You know, it wasn’t javelins being shot at you, it was fully attached to you, you know, like anchors, keeping you in a certain way. And it’s really big, that you took the path you’ve taken that, essentialism is the book has only just given a little additional permission, you know, a little extra language, but, but underneath it is a much bigger, much more important drive to this other. There’s something other, calling me, pulling me forward. And I think actually, the power you needed to do that in the first place, could easily be the same thing that’s pulling you back to the US as well. It’s not a failure of that internal desire. It’s just a change in the Germany dream. The next phase of the deeper, more ongoing feeling, which is I will not make career my thing. The thing. It’s important, I like it, it’s it, there’s a place for it. I I’m good at it. I’m competent, I it plays its role, but I don’t want it to take center stage. And I think that your decisions over these last few years show that it isn’t. And I’m trying to shine a light on that journey for you a little for a moment just to have you pause and recognize the significance of the tradeoffs you have made. And again, as evidence that you aren’t being dictated to that you really are discerning and detecting something within you. And this next step is scarier because you don’t know what it is instead, but you are still detecting and seeking that internal guidance that has led you where you are physically right now, does it make sense?

Anika    

It does, and in some ways, I hadn’t really realized this. Moving back to Germany was this really, I just knew I had to almost reintegrate, coming, emigrating as a teenager meant that I had sort of split selves, I had the German child and the American sort of adolescent and adult and I knew coming back to Germany, just intuitively, I needed to do that for myself to come into whatever whole self I would become. And that absolutely has happened. And it’s a same deep, strong feeling that I just have to go back to the US now.

Greg McKeown  

I mean I think it’s obvious, really at this point in the conversation, but my thought for you is, is to feel courage, that you are in fact, following the essentialist way for want of a better term. In wanting again to be with family and I think that’s the word that keeps coming to my mind as I’m listening to you is that really, this has all been about family. And family in a broad sense family, in terms of my place in family, and then my desire to create a family and now a desire to be back with family. And frankly, it matters more to me than other things and in this case for you more than my career, career is good, but this for me is essential. How do you feel right now in the conversation, what is your current sensation?

Anika  

I feel a bit lighter, I feel a bit lighter having a sense of I feel focused, I suppose.

Greg McKeown    

From your words to God’s ears, I mean, I had a conversation recently with a gentleman who just said the most important organization in the world is family. And I so agree. And yet in so many years of studying organizations and it is rare that that is spoken so clearly. But here in this case, you have been guided by this and you are following this and in what I feel when you as I listen, today is the depth of that current, you know, that there’s that there’s this, you know, again, using the water analogy that there’s a strong undercurrent. And what I think is exciting as I listen to you, as you go through this journey and conversation today is, is how is how strong that current is with you. And that you are, well on your way to actually the next dream. The next dream just isn’t Germany. The next dream is to be where your parents are, where your family is to be able to continue to build that. And I’ll use some, you know, the words, intergenerational family, and to make sure that that is prioritized and kept sacred and not consumed by really any other forces.

Anika  

You know, you’ve just helped me actually understand that nothing’s really changed in the sense of what is essential for me, nothing’s changed in my direction. Just what decisions and what sort of lived circumstances make it possible. The actual answer to what is essential now has been the same all along. Basically, I haven’t realized that I think that’s been my trouble is that I felt like I lost the answer to that question. But actually, it’s been the same answer all along. Thank you.

Greg McKeown 

I think I think you name it correctly. And I think that Germany had become the, the word and the place for this deeper value. And now you’re able to unlock that. Separate that and say, No, that was just a manifestation of what the value was. And so that value now lives on in a new manifestation.

Anika  

That’s the right word that it’s, it’s something that can be both permanent and changing at all times, the underlying thing is always there. But we may not see it in the same way every time.

Greg McKeown  

And discerning between the two is tricky. But also you’re doing it. And, and so even at this new crossroads, where something that was so symbolically important to you such a symbolic manifestation of, of what really was essential to you can even there, you’re able to now discern, yes, it’s been a bit of a wrestle, but you are still making these new decisions. And so what led you there is also what’s leaving you to the next chapter in your adventure with what really is essential. Anika it has been my real pleasure and honor. For me, it’s sacred to really listen to you and to experience for just a moment. Your life, your wrestles, your openness and your honesty and your willingness to share. You know your life with me today. And, and in helping to share and show what’s essential. Thank you so much for being with me.

Anika   Thank you very much. It’s been an absolute privilege. You’re incredibly good at reflecting and seeing what’s underneath. I really appreciate it.