Reclaiming Your Creativity, with Majo Molfino – TPW302

In this week's episode, Majo Molfino and I talk about (among other things!) reclaiming your creativity as an important component of a meaningfully productive life.



Reclaiming your creativity and making a life that matters

Majo is an Argentine-American author, designer, and women’s leadership expert. She is the host of the HEROINE podcast, featuring top female leaders, creatives, and visionaries. Her leadership program, IGNITE, guides women to design and share a creative dream with the world. She lives in California with her husband. 

When Majo was 2 years old, she emigrated from Argentine to Canada. Moving around a lot as a child, Majo never quite felt she belonged anywhere. She coped by being the "good girl", getting straight A's, figure skating, playing the piano, and winning competitions. She did everything that was expected of her until hitting a turning point in her 20's. She became depressed and disillusioned, feeling like she was playing a role and never being her true self. Inside, however, she felt very passionate, creative, and free.

Since that time, Majo has been on a journey of reclaiming her creativity and sharing that with other women. One way she has shared her journey is through her first book, Break the Good Girl Myth, which is available for preorder now on Amazon. In this book, Majo discusses "5 Good Girl Myths", which are subconscious tendencies ingrained in women which need to be unlearned in order for us to do the work we need to do.

A typical day

Majo says that given the current Covid-19 pandemic, as well the Black Lives Matter protests and other world events, her productivity has decreased and she has no "typical" day anymore. Everything has been thrown for a loop.

One thing that really helps her, though, is thinking back to when she was writing her book, and learning what time of day she has the most energy to work and be productive. For Majo, this time is in the morning. She has the most energy and focus in the morning and then it begins to decrease after lunch.

Therefore, Majo does her deepest work in the morning and puts strict boundaries in place. For example, she keeps her phone in her bedroom and does not turn it on until noon each day.

After Majo's morning work is complete, she will schedule all other activities such as meetings and calls for the afternoon.

Now that she is promoting her new book, she has changed her day around because she needs all of her energy to go towards talking about the book, not writing about it. All interviews regarding the book (even if they are calls, which would normally be in the afternoon) are in the morning when she has the most energy.

By being flexible, Majo is able to maximize her positive impact for the season she is in right now.

Majo also struggles with perfectionism and this has manifested in her desire to always be achieving things. She's been hard on herself these last few months as her productivity hasn't been the same. She is trying to expand her definition of productivity and give herself grace when it comes to what she accomplishes on a daily basis.

Biggest productivity challenges

One of Majo's biggest dreams is to write fiction. However, when that dream becomes really loud, she internally resists the dream because it's uncomfortable creative work. She avoids it and procrastinates by starting new projects, or numbing herself with food or social media, anything that will distract her from the hard work. Her own resistance is her biggest productivity challenge.

She also deals with her inner critic saying "this has already been done" or "it doesn't matter".  Or she will have scattered attention and become easily distracted.