Episode 358 – Guest: Christie Hunter Arscott
Guest: Christie Hunter Arscott

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Kelly talks to Christie Hunter Arscott, an award-winning advisor and speaker. She has a new book, it’s called: “Begin Boldly: How Women Can Reimagine Risk, Embrace Uncertainty, and Launch a Brilliant Career.”

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There are so many adages in the world of improv that seek to inspire young performers to take playful risks. We talk about seeing all obstacles as gifts; we talk about replacing blame with curiosity; and we talk about following the fear rather than being consumed by it. That parallels your work, right?

“Yeah, it does. I was just frantically trying to write those phrases down. I’m glad I get to listen to this again because there’s such synergies between my focus and the improv world and what you’re doing and what I love this first one that you brought up the idea of playful risks. I mean what a powerful concept! Because my whole idea in the book is how we almost break down misconceptions about risk having to be this end. Like it’s all one big move and we’re facing failure. And I really want to create a ritual around risk and the idea of making them playful is so compelling because it makes them much more enticing.”

You write ‘brilliant careers are seldom built without bold moves,’ and that made me think of the improv adage that we need to move from ‘blame to curiosity’ if we’re going to manage the inevitable failures along the way.

“It’s funny, you quote ‘brilliant careers are seldom built without bold moves.’ I don’t know a brilliant career where someone didn’t take a great chance and failed on their way. Yeah, I completely agree with you. And one thing I say in the book is that even risks gone wrong have the chance to propel us further than a consistent choice to play it safe. Imagine this is my career: I could take little steps my whole life, or I could take a risk. And even if the risk fails, what I learned will get me further than that consistent choice to play it safe. And I think that’s what people forget. Sometimes we don’t understand that that learning those instincts and moving that blame to curiosity, which is something you just said, which is such a synergy again in a work.”

And these risks don’t need to be giant moves.

“You want to take the right risk, and you can practice it in very sort of small bets in your life, you know. Taste something, try something, read something.”

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