We were lucky to catch up with Rosie Von Lila recently and have shared our conversation below.
Rosie, we are so happy that our community is going to have a chance to learn more about you, your story and hopefully even take in some of the lessons you’ve learned along the way. Let’s start with self-care – what do you do for self-care and has it had any impact on your effectiveness?
My life’s purpose is human flourishing. When I first began studying and writing on the subject, I knew instantly that if I were to be a voice for human flourishing, then I must have integrity in my own flourishing. This was when I began saying that flourishing is a practice. Human flourishing isn’t that everything is great all the time — that’s just not in reality. Flourishing means that most of your life is working for you and at the same time you’ve developed resilience to navigate adversity. I wrote a short piece titled The 7 Ingredients for Human Flourishing. The Ingredients comprise a holistic view for a life well-lived.
With our FELLOW HUMAN team (the theatre production we are developing), every day we say, “What matters most is integrity in our flourishing. If we are not practicing our own flourishing, then there is no integrity is what we are offering to others. And that just doesn’t work.” With this, I am aware of when I need rest, food, water, play, movement, etc. And I give that to myself. When I feel good, I’m great to my team. When my energy is low, the art and the output suffer.
I unknowingly lived for a long time with what I call “Deficit Mindset sickness.” Deficit Mindset means living in a constant state of Not Enough. It’s never enough, no matter what it is. For me, this always showed up as anxiety in my head. There’s not enough money, time, support, care, etc. Everything everywhere is lacking. It’s such a drag to live that way!
As I’ve endeavored to heal my own Deficit Mindset, my life has become increasingly abundant. It’s astonishing to me. As this has happened, I’ve stopped depriving myself. I recently joined ClassPass which has been life changing for me. I danced ballet for 14 years and many other dance forms throughout the years. And until recently, I deprived myself for many years of taking classes. I’ve been able to turn that around and am moving again, and I love it! It brings me so much happiness! This then corresponds with other lifestyle changes — small changes to what I eat and don’t eat, when I eat, what I drink or don’t drink, who I give my time to, etc.
I’m in a time in my life now where I feel wonderful. It’s been a tremendous threshold of maturity. There comes a point in your life where what you did in your 20’s or 30’s doesn’t work any more. The body starts to hurt, and cries out for better care. Life is both long and short. The more care given to the whole being, the better life will be as the years roll on.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am a voice for human flourishing. My purpose on this planet is to make experiences and art about human flourishing that educate on the subject. My current project, of the last several years, is a non-traditional theatre show titled FELLOW HUMAN: the quest for mass human flourishing. It is in development for NYC premiere in 2025. The show wrestles with building resilience in spite of surviving Life’s Master Teachers (Loss, Betrayal, and Empty Pockets), while discovering what it means to cultivate virtue amidst adversity and danger. FELLOW HUMAN combines true stories with academic research, the magic of theatrical production, and astonishing live music composed and performed by ELEW (who is opening for Sting’s 2024 North American Tour). Current Events: We actively build our fanbase in NYC through live events such as: City Stroll & Mingle in Central Park; The Grand Picnic; The Petite Gala; and Walk Around New York — a 50K walkathon fundraiser for the show in October. You can receive info by signing up for our mostly-monthly newsletter at www.fellowhuman.world
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Quality 1: My mom taught me, “Ask for what you want, Rosie.” It’s the earliest advice I remember her giving me. I was 4, and an ice cream shop keeper asked me what kind of ice cream I wanted. I stared blankly at him until my mom told me to ask for what I want. I’ve been doing so ever since. It’s usually Cookies&Cream.
Quality 2: I’m imperfect. And I’m excellent at it! I create things all the time, I share them with supporters as the work is developing, and I invite them to get involved. As a result, we’re able to create big things together over long periods of time — which yields great works shared by many people. I don’t wait for my little projects to be perfect before I engage others. It’s way more fun to develop something together and have quality people involved in the journey — this is part of practicing flourishing!
Quality 3: I’m expert at building participatory culture. I know how to hold the overall picture, communicate that picture, and then open space for people to create in ways that fill out that picture and make it real. This is true magicianship, and I take pride in our community of magic makers.
Practical Advice:
1. Be Reliable: Respect your time and respect others’ time. Learn how to use your calendar to plan your time. Be on-time. Communicate with people as you are en-route to the meeting with a message that says, “I’m on-time. See you soon.” Or let them know that you’re running late. Do this as soon as you know you’re running late, NOT when your meeting is supposed to start. It’s inconsiderate to send a message at the start time of your meeting that says, “I’m running 10 minutes late.” You knew well before then that you were running late — let them know as soon as you know you’re going to be late (sometimes I do this 50 minutes ahead of time because I know I can’t make it there on-time).
2. Tend To The Relationship: Send hand-written thank you notes. Message from time-to-time with updates. Inquire how the other person is. Extend invitations. Share things that are useful to the other person (which means you need to know something about them). Don’t be that person who only reaches out when you want something. Be brilliant at building and maintaining relationships. Also, know that at some point in your life (maybe in your 30’s or 40’s) you’ll begin to edit people out of your life — life fills up. So be selective about who you maintain relationships with — be sure that they are relationships that are healthy for you and add to your flourishing.
3. Hustle-Porn Is Weak. Be strong: get enough rest and fuel your body sufficiently. Find the practices that work for you and have been proven to increase flourishing: mindfulness, exercise, community, reduce/cut out the stuff that harms you. When you take care of yourself, you’ll feel good and then you’re more likely to be good to your team, which benefits your projects and business, and overall adds to your flourishing.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
This year I have been on an absolute tear through classic dystopian-utopian fiction! Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World; George Orwell’s 1984; Ray Bradbury’s Farenheit 451; Orwell’s Animal Farm; Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Disposessed. I am a wildly cheerful and optimistic person. My entire life is about human flourishing and practicing my own flourishing. Some years back, I read Utopia by Thomas More, penned in 1516. I wanted to know about the original meaning of utopia (which means “no place”), as many well-meaning people seem to be in search of creating utopia. The edition of the book I have includes an introductory essay by Ursula K. Le Guin. I’ve come to learn that Le Guin didn’t believe in utopias. As she points out in that introduction, whenever a utopia is written in a story, it is always isolated: on an island, on a moon, or (in the case of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged) hidden behind a high tech invisibility cloak. The utopia is cut off from the rest of humanity, and in the utopia everyone speaks the same, looks the same, and behaves the same. As Le Guin illuminates, it is rather impractical, and ultimately requires some kind of coercive or clandestine enforcing power to maintain the order of the utopia. While it might sound harmonious that everyone is the same, that’s just not in reality for human cultures on planet Earth. Human cultures are fabulously dynamic and different. For better or worse, we inherit the endeavor of working to create harmony across innumerable superficial differences. But at the foundational level, human flourishing comprises basic domains that are universal across nearly all humans. Le Guin’s thinking around the nature of utopia (and how truly undesirable it is) inspires me in how I think about mass human flourishing.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.vonlila.com
- Other: www.fellowhuman.world
Image Credits
Image Credits: Rosie von Lila
