Thanks so much for sharing Nina. I totally relate to the addiction to achievement. For me, this came with a side order of a feeling of failure because I never reached the level of achievement I aspired to (to be more like you tbh!). I've moved mostly out of the museum world now, but am still figuring out how to not completely define myself by my work, and feeling like anything less than brilliant is failure. Recently I lost a colleague to suicide and my Dad to cancer mere weeks after diagnosis, both a reminder that life is short and the people who really know and love you aren't the ones keeping a tally of your outward achievements.
I'm so sorry to hear about your dad and your colleague, Regan.
I've always loved the idea that there's a difference between "resume achievements" and "deathbed achievements" - i.e. what will you be proud of at the end of your life. I try (try!) to hold focus on those efforts that might provide comfort, pride, and joy to the end of my days.
This is beautiful, thank you for sharing. I aspire to write stories of inter-generational women being amazing together and murder mysteries are my favorite type of story. Seeing that you wrote something like this is very very inspiring. Also hearing about someone else who has left the impact-focused world is heartening. I worked in nonprofits for years and had to leave because of the high emotional toll and toxicity that seems to be at every organization I've ever encountered. People frequently ask me, so when are you going to be an ED and I'm always like, NEVER, absolutely never. I don't know that there is a healthy way for me to ever do that. I am now consulting with nonprofits so I can keep myself safer emotionally, but part of me also is regularly wracked with guilt. Guilt that I can't "handle" regular work, guilt that I'm not doing enough, guilt that I'm not making a big enough impact, and the list goes on (seemingly forever). Hearing that other people struggle with this guilt is helpful. Thank you again for your honesty and openness.
Thank you for sharing with such honesty and vulnerability, Tatiana. Sometimes I wonder how it might feel to try to meet that guilt (or, in my case, it feels more like shame) with curiosity instead of fear or anger. I'm not always able to do that, but when I can, it feels less threatening and stressful for me.
Sometimes life doesn’t turn out as we planned… and sometimes that’s because what is truly important to us changes. What I hear from your writing above sounds like your acceptance of Grace.
Nina, you are beautiful, magical, worthy and wonderful just because you’re you. ❤️
I feel like you've been teaching me this for a long time, Margaret. You always come forward with honesty, even when life deals you lousy cards. Sometimes I think of your smiling face and how you move forward. Thank you.
Nina I am always grateful for you, and your honesty to let us in. Thank you. At 85, I am thinking about work I choose, whose timelines I control and not the work that others choose for me. I now pick the former unless someone I love asks me to do something. I work with those in my cohort whose presence enrich my soul. And having given up pay as any part of the criteria for choosing, I have discovered that I work because I like it. And I have discovered, thanks to Covid, that idea sharing and solving together is a form of friendship that I most highly prize. So working on a topic with others, checking in with dear ones, and learning so I can be useful to others, is my idea of a day with joy. It helps if the day includes a walk on the beach or the woods. I send my love to you and your mother. e--
Oh Nina. So much to say, applaud, cry over and honor in these words. Thank you for modeling this for all the other Young Nina’s out there who need to know we are greater than what we produce, even if that “product” is social justice.
So many times in the first year of this journey, I would think about what "young Nina" would feel if she met "transition Nina." It was honestly a bit awful to imagine that young Nina might be embarrassed of or disinterested in transition me.
But, over the past 2 years, when I actually meet young ambitious wonderful people, I see I'm able to be a friend and mentor and cheerleader to them. So then I think (hope?) that maybe my imagination about myself is more harsh than is real.
Thanks for sharing this, Nina. I have followed your work in museums and now on IG have wondered what you're up to. I so appreciate you looping folks in. Your message strikes deeply with me right now as I'm going through chemo myself, at 44, and am evaluating all of the questions of worth and purpose as I slog through my treatments. Your writing project for your mom that now gets to be out in the world is such a gift. Can't wait to read it!
I am sending you care and support as you go through this treatment. I hope you are finding slices of joy and love... and that you have some very warm socks! Those chemo clinics are freezing
I've been out of the art museum world going on six years. It took me a few of those years to really understand that my value, self-worth, and identity aren't tied to my job as a museum educator. Would they take away my art historian card? It was all I'd ever known, so leaving was scary.
But man, did I grow!
It felt like I was lost in the wilderness for those first few years. I worked as an adjunct professor (nope!), in a sustainable meat store, at a botanic garden (I was ashamed it wasn't a museum), and now, as a content designer in the tech world (pretty cool work). I used to think I needed a grand thread that connected all these disparate activities. Then I realized that the thread is ME! I am fortunate to have many interests. Being an art museum educator who always strives to touch lives, speaks at conferences, and support the mission—that doesn't have to be how I earn my living. I can drop the rope (whew!). I'm just as smart and interesting and valid without all that.
My takeaway, this many years out of the game: My life got so much more interesting once I left my museum career and let myself be fully me (being in my 40s now helps this). I still love art. I also enjoy being paid well for my work and having opportunities. Plus, visiting museums is more fun now that I don't spend all my time working in one.
I can't wait to read your novel, Nina. Thanks for being real and showing us how you're slowing down to savor life.
Thank you for sharing, and for growing alongside the rest of us. Like you, I'm someone who has multiple different threads of interests... and life feels too short to focus on just one. Wishing you the best.
Hi Nina - So good to hear what you are up to and that the seismic shift you have made has brought the family and you more happiness! My mum passed from cancer two years ago and I love that you were able to connect with her in such a powerful and creative way. So happy to hear she and you are doing well!
First, thank you for writing this. Your openness and honesty freed something up in me while reading it. I am also writing now and the way you articulated the why and being able to do creative things on your own terms is exactly why I am leaning into now. My wife is also in complete support of me and this is, in of it self, a self-journey of acceptance that others can hold and care for you just as you have done for them. Here's to more winding roads to discovering who we really are.
Thank you Nina for being with us again. We miss you so much. A little feeling of "orphanage". One of the things that resonated a lot with me about your story is the acceptance of these kinds of "unchosen" things by you that inevitably happen to you changing your entire life. It was something similar to me because of one of the hardest experiences I had in a Museum (Do you remember our Zoom meeting from Sweden some years ago?). But thanks to this awful situation I am being able today to do exciting/authentic projects that I really believe in with wonderful and truly professional people who are really worthwhile. We can transform awful things into wonderful life opportunities as you have done.
The second impact of your testimony is to prioritize the connection with your true self as a compass of your life. Not to postpone it or put on the background on the benefit of the other ones. Life is so precious to waste your time and energy on this. Pandemic time pushes every one of us to choose: a fake "business as usual" life or an authentic one. You can't pass the parcel on this. Relations, projects, actions, and organizations not based on radical honesty will fail for sure sooner or later. No matter the budget, the marketing campaigns, or the ability to lie, destroy or manipulate. As Maya Angelou says ““Nothing can dim the light that shines from within”
By the way, I would love to have a chat with you and get your opinion about a new concept of the museum I am trying to coin, the organic museum. You can take a look at some tips and prompts in my Medium article.
I loved reading this update on your life. Thank you for sharing it!! Many times I have been victim to the over achiever urge, something I believe was a way of avoiding serious inner reflection on whether I valued myself enough intrinsically to be able to derive joy from simply being. I pursued a master of consciousness studies degree for a couple of years and became a minister at Center for Spiritual Living in 2020. I still have my experience design firm, but will likely transition into ministry full time over the next few years. Change is healthy, change is life, without it we die, and the world needs more people who are alive in who they are in the moment. As Howard Thurman so aptly put it, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Thanks for being alive Nina!!!
What a potent and rich share, Nina! HUGE congrats on your book deal and uncovering of another gift! Thanks for reminding me how life's struggles open up new doorways and possibilities. Caroline Myss calls it "organic divinity"-- everything is happening with precise purpose.
Your work on Participatory Museums was instrumental to my approach at CAFAM over a decade ago, when we met. I very much gravitated to your holistic, grounded approach to promoting the arts. I left the museum world in part because the ethos had turned rather inhospitable to the universal, in favor of the micro. I also turned to fiction writing and wrote a TV show loosely based on my experience running a struggling museum. Exploring "idealism vs ambition" set in a world full of people clamoring to appear "good" has been healing and fun!. May the TV gods agree. My best to you, Maryna
Nina, I knew you were one of a kind when I interviewed you for The Tech. I knew it even more once I saw you charge up the team with your unbounded energy and collaborative creativity. When you became a museum leader, that seemed like a natural step in a career leading to great things. When you opted to step out of that role, that seemed like a natural step in your personal journey.
You have always marched to a different drummer, but you are very aware of those marching beside you. You have a caring heart and an incisive intellect. You are humble and self-assured at the same time.
Knowing you has changed my life for the better. I think I am”more like Nina” than I used to be, and happy about that! I am leading a purpose-driven life, immersed in creativity, inspiring others and being inspired by them. Some days are learning experiences, which almost always make me a better person in the long run. I am less focused on due dates and more focused on impact.
I want to commend and encourage you to share your hopes and concerns with your community of avid readers. Your words will stimulate a lot of introspection and positive soul-searching.
Thank you so much for sharing this, Nina. I am a first-time reader of your blog, and this really resonated with me. I left my high intensity, high demand, non-profit job this past Oct. I just turned 49 and my drive to achieve, create positive change, and the demands of my work environment were taking a very costly toll. I was facing one health issue after another and constantly struggling to meet all the demands, external and internal. I am fortunate to be able to take some time away from structured work, focus on my physical health, my family, and most importantly, my mental and emotional well-being. I'm not sure how I will create my new path for fulfilling work, but I know I need to work on my relationship with work before I start on that path again. In the meantime, I'm working on small consulting projects with nonprofits in my industry to allow me to contribute in a way that I am comfortable with at this time. I am cherishing this transition time, breathing deep and finding what brings me joy, and funny enough also considering writing. Wishing you all the best and the deepest gratitude for sharing your journey.
I'm so glad and honored to hear from you, Katie. Thank you for reaching out. And I am glad to hear you are prioritizing yourself, your family, and health at this time.
Have you seen the book IMPACT WITH INTEGRITY by Becky Margiotta? Becky has been a big influence on me as I've moved in this direction. She's the one who first introduced me to the idea of the hero/villain/victim drama triangle... I feel like unlearning the urge to always be a hero is one of the healthiest things I've done in the past few years - for myself, my colleagues, and the work.
Thanks so much for this & lovely to reconnect, Nina. I'm leaving my 10yr ED role at The LP in 3wks and so much of your (unplanned) shift in gears and attitude resonates with me. After an upcoming "gap year" of travel with my hubby, I too look forward to... "exploring ways to do deep, challenging work that don’t involve aggressive deadlines or managing others." Thank you for this inspiration & notes from the other side of a Type A life! Wishing you more slowness & wonder.
Thanks so much for sharing Nina. I totally relate to the addiction to achievement. For me, this came with a side order of a feeling of failure because I never reached the level of achievement I aspired to (to be more like you tbh!). I've moved mostly out of the museum world now, but am still figuring out how to not completely define myself by my work, and feeling like anything less than brilliant is failure. Recently I lost a colleague to suicide and my Dad to cancer mere weeks after diagnosis, both a reminder that life is short and the people who really know and love you aren't the ones keeping a tally of your outward achievements.
I'm so sorry to hear about your dad and your colleague, Regan.
I've always loved the idea that there's a difference between "resume achievements" and "deathbed achievements" - i.e. what will you be proud of at the end of your life. I try (try!) to hold focus on those efforts that might provide comfort, pride, and joy to the end of my days.
This is beautiful, thank you for sharing. I aspire to write stories of inter-generational women being amazing together and murder mysteries are my favorite type of story. Seeing that you wrote something like this is very very inspiring. Also hearing about someone else who has left the impact-focused world is heartening. I worked in nonprofits for years and had to leave because of the high emotional toll and toxicity that seems to be at every organization I've ever encountered. People frequently ask me, so when are you going to be an ED and I'm always like, NEVER, absolutely never. I don't know that there is a healthy way for me to ever do that. I am now consulting with nonprofits so I can keep myself safer emotionally, but part of me also is regularly wracked with guilt. Guilt that I can't "handle" regular work, guilt that I'm not doing enough, guilt that I'm not making a big enough impact, and the list goes on (seemingly forever). Hearing that other people struggle with this guilt is helpful. Thank you again for your honesty and openness.
Thank you for sharing with such honesty and vulnerability, Tatiana. Sometimes I wonder how it might feel to try to meet that guilt (or, in my case, it feels more like shame) with curiosity instead of fear or anger. I'm not always able to do that, but when I can, it feels less threatening and stressful for me.
Sometimes life doesn’t turn out as we planned… and sometimes that’s because what is truly important to us changes. What I hear from your writing above sounds like your acceptance of Grace.
Nina, you are beautiful, magical, worthy and wonderful just because you’re you. ❤️
I feel like you've been teaching me this for a long time, Margaret. You always come forward with honesty, even when life deals you lousy cards. Sometimes I think of your smiling face and how you move forward. Thank you.
Nina I am always grateful for you, and your honesty to let us in. Thank you. At 85, I am thinking about work I choose, whose timelines I control and not the work that others choose for me. I now pick the former unless someone I love asks me to do something. I work with those in my cohort whose presence enrich my soul. And having given up pay as any part of the criteria for choosing, I have discovered that I work because I like it. And I have discovered, thanks to Covid, that idea sharing and solving together is a form of friendship that I most highly prize. So working on a topic with others, checking in with dear ones, and learning so I can be useful to others, is my idea of a day with joy. It helps if the day includes a walk on the beach or the woods. I send my love to you and your mother. e--
Oh Nina. So much to say, applaud, cry over and honor in these words. Thank you for modeling this for all the other Young Nina’s out there who need to know we are greater than what we produce, even if that “product” is social justice.
We need to catch up. ❤️Huge hugs.
So many times in the first year of this journey, I would think about what "young Nina" would feel if she met "transition Nina." It was honestly a bit awful to imagine that young Nina might be embarrassed of or disinterested in transition me.
But, over the past 2 years, when I actually meet young ambitious wonderful people, I see I'm able to be a friend and mentor and cheerleader to them. So then I think (hope?) that maybe my imagination about myself is more harsh than is real.
Congratulations on a major life realignment on a number of levels (to quote Frozone from Incredibles). Thanks for sharing your journey!
Thanks for sharing this, Nina. I have followed your work in museums and now on IG have wondered what you're up to. I so appreciate you looping folks in. Your message strikes deeply with me right now as I'm going through chemo myself, at 44, and am evaluating all of the questions of worth and purpose as I slog through my treatments. Your writing project for your mom that now gets to be out in the world is such a gift. Can't wait to read it!
I am sending you care and support as you go through this treatment. I hope you are finding slices of joy and love... and that you have some very warm socks! Those chemo clinics are freezing
I've been out of the art museum world going on six years. It took me a few of those years to really understand that my value, self-worth, and identity aren't tied to my job as a museum educator. Would they take away my art historian card? It was all I'd ever known, so leaving was scary.
But man, did I grow!
It felt like I was lost in the wilderness for those first few years. I worked as an adjunct professor (nope!), in a sustainable meat store, at a botanic garden (I was ashamed it wasn't a museum), and now, as a content designer in the tech world (pretty cool work). I used to think I needed a grand thread that connected all these disparate activities. Then I realized that the thread is ME! I am fortunate to have many interests. Being an art museum educator who always strives to touch lives, speaks at conferences, and support the mission—that doesn't have to be how I earn my living. I can drop the rope (whew!). I'm just as smart and interesting and valid without all that.
My takeaway, this many years out of the game: My life got so much more interesting once I left my museum career and let myself be fully me (being in my 40s now helps this). I still love art. I also enjoy being paid well for my work and having opportunities. Plus, visiting museums is more fun now that I don't spend all my time working in one.
I can't wait to read your novel, Nina. Thanks for being real and showing us how you're slowing down to savor life.
Thank you for sharing, and for growing alongside the rest of us. Like you, I'm someone who has multiple different threads of interests... and life feels too short to focus on just one. Wishing you the best.
Hi Nina - So good to hear what you are up to and that the seismic shift you have made has brought the family and you more happiness! My mum passed from cancer two years ago and I love that you were able to connect with her in such a powerful and creative way. So happy to hear she and you are doing well!
First, thank you for writing this. Your openness and honesty freed something up in me while reading it. I am also writing now and the way you articulated the why and being able to do creative things on your own terms is exactly why I am leaning into now. My wife is also in complete support of me and this is, in of it self, a self-journey of acceptance that others can hold and care for you just as you have done for them. Here's to more winding roads to discovering who we really are.
Thank you Nina for being with us again. We miss you so much. A little feeling of "orphanage". One of the things that resonated a lot with me about your story is the acceptance of these kinds of "unchosen" things by you that inevitably happen to you changing your entire life. It was something similar to me because of one of the hardest experiences I had in a Museum (Do you remember our Zoom meeting from Sweden some years ago?). But thanks to this awful situation I am being able today to do exciting/authentic projects that I really believe in with wonderful and truly professional people who are really worthwhile. We can transform awful things into wonderful life opportunities as you have done.
The second impact of your testimony is to prioritize the connection with your true self as a compass of your life. Not to postpone it or put on the background on the benefit of the other ones. Life is so precious to waste your time and energy on this. Pandemic time pushes every one of us to choose: a fake "business as usual" life or an authentic one. You can't pass the parcel on this. Relations, projects, actions, and organizations not based on radical honesty will fail for sure sooner or later. No matter the budget, the marketing campaigns, or the ability to lie, destroy or manipulate. As Maya Angelou says ““Nothing can dim the light that shines from within”
By the way, I would love to have a chat with you and get your opinion about a new concept of the museum I am trying to coin, the organic museum. You can take a look at some tips and prompts in my Medium article.
https://medium.com/@joseantoniogordillo/museums-organism-114525cbb663
I can't wait to read your novel and celebrate your unique tribute to your mother. A warm hug from Jose.
I loved reading this update on your life. Thank you for sharing it!! Many times I have been victim to the over achiever urge, something I believe was a way of avoiding serious inner reflection on whether I valued myself enough intrinsically to be able to derive joy from simply being. I pursued a master of consciousness studies degree for a couple of years and became a minister at Center for Spiritual Living in 2020. I still have my experience design firm, but will likely transition into ministry full time over the next few years. Change is healthy, change is life, without it we die, and the world needs more people who are alive in who they are in the moment. As Howard Thurman so aptly put it, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Thanks for being alive Nina!!!
What a potent and rich share, Nina! HUGE congrats on your book deal and uncovering of another gift! Thanks for reminding me how life's struggles open up new doorways and possibilities. Caroline Myss calls it "organic divinity"-- everything is happening with precise purpose.
Your work on Participatory Museums was instrumental to my approach at CAFAM over a decade ago, when we met. I very much gravitated to your holistic, grounded approach to promoting the arts. I left the museum world in part because the ethos had turned rather inhospitable to the universal, in favor of the micro. I also turned to fiction writing and wrote a TV show loosely based on my experience running a struggling museum. Exploring "idealism vs ambition" set in a world full of people clamoring to appear "good" has been healing and fun!. May the TV gods agree. My best to you, Maryna
Nina, I knew you were one of a kind when I interviewed you for The Tech. I knew it even more once I saw you charge up the team with your unbounded energy and collaborative creativity. When you became a museum leader, that seemed like a natural step in a career leading to great things. When you opted to step out of that role, that seemed like a natural step in your personal journey.
You have always marched to a different drummer, but you are very aware of those marching beside you. You have a caring heart and an incisive intellect. You are humble and self-assured at the same time.
Knowing you has changed my life for the better. I think I am”more like Nina” than I used to be, and happy about that! I am leading a purpose-driven life, immersed in creativity, inspiring others and being inspired by them. Some days are learning experiences, which almost always make me a better person in the long run. I am less focused on due dates and more focused on impact.
I want to commend and encourage you to share your hopes and concerns with your community of avid readers. Your words will stimulate a lot of introspection and positive soul-searching.
Keep it up! Greg B
Thank you so much for sharing this, Nina. I am a first-time reader of your blog, and this really resonated with me. I left my high intensity, high demand, non-profit job this past Oct. I just turned 49 and my drive to achieve, create positive change, and the demands of my work environment were taking a very costly toll. I was facing one health issue after another and constantly struggling to meet all the demands, external and internal. I am fortunate to be able to take some time away from structured work, focus on my physical health, my family, and most importantly, my mental and emotional well-being. I'm not sure how I will create my new path for fulfilling work, but I know I need to work on my relationship with work before I start on that path again. In the meantime, I'm working on small consulting projects with nonprofits in my industry to allow me to contribute in a way that I am comfortable with at this time. I am cherishing this transition time, breathing deep and finding what brings me joy, and funny enough also considering writing. Wishing you all the best and the deepest gratitude for sharing your journey.
I'm so glad and honored to hear from you, Katie. Thank you for reaching out. And I am glad to hear you are prioritizing yourself, your family, and health at this time.
Have you seen the book IMPACT WITH INTEGRITY by Becky Margiotta? Becky has been a big influence on me as I've moved in this direction. She's the one who first introduced me to the idea of the hero/villain/victim drama triangle... I feel like unlearning the urge to always be a hero is one of the healthiest things I've done in the past few years - for myself, my colleagues, and the work.
Thank you so much for the book recommendation. It is in my cart now.
Thanks so much for this & lovely to reconnect, Nina. I'm leaving my 10yr ED role at The LP in 3wks and so much of your (unplanned) shift in gears and attitude resonates with me. After an upcoming "gap year" of travel with my hubby, I too look forward to... "exploring ways to do deep, challenging work that don’t involve aggressive deadlines or managing others." Thank you for this inspiration & notes from the other side of a Type A life! Wishing you more slowness & wonder.