It is one of the eternal struggles because I don't have a good answer because I think it's one of the eternal struggles of being human is how do you

Maximize your individual creativity your own self-definition, tap into your individual talents,

while also tending to the common good and also understanding other people.

I'm Srenny Rao and this is the unmistakable creative podcast where you get a window into the stories and insights of the most innovative and creative minds who started movements built thriving businesses written best-selling books and created insanely interesting art.

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Sarah, welcome to the unmistakable Creative.

Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

Oh, thank you for having me.

Yeah, it is my pleasure to have you here.

So I came across your book, Hive Mind, and it was one of those books that just surfaced on Amazon,

and I looked at it and I thought this just seems really fascinating and then when I opened it I could not put it down I just kept seeing things over and over again

So I want to start what I think is a very relevant question given the nature of your background and particularly this book and that is what social group were you a part of in high school and what impact did that end up having on choices you've made throughout your life, your career, and your perspective on all of this.

Absolutely. So in high school, I started out without a social group and so I was a pretty anxious kid and I had had a bit of a hard time in junior high and so when I

transitioned to high school I didn't want to make a fuss or didn't want to make a

big noise and so what I did was I just went really quiet and I didn't really have many friends I pretty much stuck to my own I was nearly mute in class and some of my later on I found out that there were rumors about why I was so quiet that I wasn't allowed to talk to people that my parents were really strict that I belonged to some weird religious sect I don't know and then about junior year in

high school I tried out for the school play because I had always loved theater and

there I just that changed my life and I found a group of friends to communicate with that understood me.

I think that the experience of not only having to talk out, but to actually sing and dance and play on stage in front of a big audience really shifted my anxiety, my understanding of the world and kind of put me on this path toward

what would eventually become some public speaking and you know workshop facilitation and things like that yeah I mean there's so many

...