The Hollywood Approach To Great Work! with Kristina Paider | UYGW036

Kristina Paider: 00:00:00

The jobs are making my own path that way or how to do that. I think you really have to stay curious and be seeking you have to be seeking.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:00:10

Welcome to unleashing your great work, a podcast about doing the work that matters the most to you. I'm your host, Dr. Amanda Crowell, a cognitive psychologist, coach, author of the book, great work and the creator of the great work journals. Every week on this podcast, we're here asking the big questions. What is your great work? How do you find it? And why does it matter whether we do it? What does it actually take to do more of your great work without sacrificing everything else? And how does the world change when more people are doing more of the work that matters the most to them? Stay tuned for answers to these questions, and so much more.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:00:56

Welcome, everybody to unleashing your great work. Today. I'm super excited to have developmental editor in writing coach Kristina Paider, she has worked with more than 600 writers across 34 countries. She helps clients brake through. She helps clients break through counterproductive patterns in writing and in life using methods from her masterclass and book, The Hollywood approach. Kristina travels by motorcycle, jumps into waterfalls and is a guest chocolate chef. Welcome to the podcast. Kristina.

Kristina Paider: 00:01:32

I'm so glad to be here. Amanda.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:01:35

I am glad and excited to have you. So we are going to start where we always do. Tell me a little bit about your great work.

Kristina Paider: 00:01:46

I consider my great work. Being a story doctor. What I mean by that is I bring the science, the character DNA and the Hollywood judge, make books, talks, screenplays, and all the stories particularly long form narratives that are so said more elegant elegantly or maybe a more traditional language in the publishing world. That means I'm a developmental editor with entertainment character driven slants. Like I'm like a Marie Kondo story. So I have an eye for structure. And I have an obsession with character.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:02:28

Nice and obsession with I love first of all, everything you said was brilliant. The Marie Kondo of, of what do you say character at the Marie Kondo story of stories? That's right with an obsession about characters? So what you're not only a developmental editor, you're also a writer yourself? Are you not? I am.

Kristina Paider: 00:02:46

That's a true story. I am a two time author. And I'm a screenwriter. And probably some other stuff that I can think of right now. But yes, I have traditionally been a writer my whole really my whole life like since since single digits

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:03:03

Wow, what is it about writing and helping other people write that so fascinates you?

Kristina Paider: 00:03:10

I think I would say it started early the passion fascination started early I'm in a really crazy hilarious family with an amazing mother five crazy ads and I had just an unbelievable like Oprah slash, you know, hilarious Comedian grandmother. Every single holiday every single anything we did together was a mini events and like in our family, you fought for rights for the refrigerator, meaning like if you're if something you did got put in the local and um, Duggins teeny tiny small town paper, or like you fought for rights for your story to be repeated. So for somebody to you know, for like Aunt Mary to say like, oh, Kris, you have to tell Jan the story, you know, the story about the whatever that happened, or, you know, it would be like, Oh, Grandma, like, do the impression of the person again, or something like that. So that was kind of our and everything in our family was viewed through this lens of humor. Like, if it was a problem, we would make fun of it to death, almost like within our family, you know, within the sanctity of our family. And so we would just always feel better about things and so I think it started from that truly honest place of wanting to belong to that culture within the family.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:04:39

And then you tell us, tell us a little bit about like, tell us a little of your history. So you you grew up in this amazing, silly family and then you went off to film school or did you?

Kristina Paider: 00:04:52

Like if we edit it that way? That is totally what happened.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:04:57

Well edit it. Anyway. You like that?

Kristina Paider: 00:05:00

If, yeah, if we do like a little more longer drawn out, variation, I went, I did my undergrad first in journalism and international relations, international PR, communications, intercultural communications. Then I worked in, I worked in television news I worked for NBC was my first professional job. I had a talk show when I was 20 years old, like, if you can imagine my hair, if I showed you pictures, my hair would you see off the screen, and that, um, and so I was into news, but the format for me like, oddly enough, and funnily enough, now looking back, and like, I can't put all these stories into 30 seconds, or, like a short, you know, 250 word something or whatever, I'm telling people's life stories, like, I just, I didn't love it. And I also didn't really love I didn't love being on TV. And then being behind the scenes, the news, everything was always cut to like 32nd segments. 60 Like, if you're lucky, you get a 92nd thing. And I'm like, Oh, my God, that's like 500 words. It's, it's not deep enough for me, and didn't realize at the time that you could have a job as a, you know, that somebody would pay you to write TV shows. I'm from small town, Wisconsin, where, you know, you bleed green and gold for the Green Bay Packers. Right? Like, whatever. Like that was it so it just never occurred to me. So I went the more traditional route in the beginning and worked as a director of advertising and corporate marketing. I worked in luxury hotel real estate, so I had some really cool gigs, some really cool jobs. And then the call, then I had a reverse stalker at age 27. A reverse stalker. That is correct. She is She was a recruiter that I worked with who had placed me in a job as a head of advertising for for a company at 25 years old, where I was in charge of a $2 million dollar budget. And when I left that job, she stalked me into tears. She's like, you have to write movie. You know, I was telling her about the company in my traditionally colorful way, the way that I learned from my wonderful Belgian family, Belgian side of the family. She's like, What are you doing your three movies? And I'm like, what, 27 I just finished this, like, six pronged undergrad degree like, is the deal I like I need a job. And but she just kept stalking me, basically. And then she's like, well, there's this I was in, I was living in Scottsdale, Arizona at the time. And just like there's this guy from UCLA, who is teaching screenwriting, and you really have to be in there. So that was it. I went in, and it was, I was hooked the first night, this professor is still a good good close friend and mentor of mine. We talked about our you know, we're mutual work and stuff like that. And he was a black belt in a Keto and jujitsu and just like a super, he was an Air Force cop and just like a super badass dude, who really had a beautiful heart and was like, you know, tell the story you want to tell like whatever that is, it just there was just such a pureness to it. And it was like, the opposite of the rigid religion that in religious bounds that I observed growing up. So it was just very, like, I just loved it as a philosophy and as a way of life and is a framework to think about things and I was hooked. So that was, that was at 27, I was hooked. And I continued on a corporate path for a while longer. And then I went freelance. I just left I left I moved to Chicago had had a couple of big jobs there. And then left in 2008, went to LA, and was a story analyst for a production company for a while and did some more work there. And since that, since around that time, I've been writing books, writing more screenplays, working as a developmental editor working as a writing coach, then it was like TEDx. Everybody wants to do a TEDx talk and figure out that because that's such a popular thing now like with the evolution of social media, so it's all those things and it just I'm endlessly fascinated with how to do that, how to do it and how to do it better,

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:09:33

huh? So interesting. So did you go to film school at Arizona State University or something like that?

Kristina Paider: 00:09:40

I did. I went, I have a an MFA equivalent at UCLA. Okay, in screenwriting, like, you know, specifically in screenwriting, not the broader film but screenwriting so we were savages to structure and it just takes so much to do it and you can there's certain things You'd only learn about writing by doing as well, like, no teacher like doing it. So.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:10:08

Wow, that's so cool. And so you How did so do you feel like what's the through line of all these things? Like I could guess what it is, but like, you know, screenwriting and developmental editing and TEDx talks and books and book doctoring and stories, structuring, or story, what do you call it? Story analyzing?

Kristina Paider: 00:10:31

Yeah, analysis, story, structure, architecture, all the things. Yeah.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:10:35

What's the Yeah, so how do all those things go together? Like, what's the through line that you feel like you're bringing to all those things like the Kristina Paider lens that runs through all of those things that makes it hang together for you? Oh,

Kristina Paider: 00:10:53

I don't know that. There's one thing, I think I would say there's two. There's one that I was great at out of the gate, I think, like I was always inclined to characters. So even as a child that could, like emulate the Saturday Night Live characters and get into somebody's voice and make up additional compensatory for that character. And then that was a thing that was came naturally for me. And then the other side of that was structure, which did not which I had to really fight for many years to get it right. And so it would be character DNA, I would say it's character, DNA, and then structure.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:11:33

And character DNA is getting into their voice understanding what they would say under different scenarios and things like that. Right. I

Kristina Paider: 00:11:41

would define character DNA, as I do in my book as a character strengths, their flaws, numbness and their superpowers, awesomeness. That is like the simplest way I can put it. So of course, you know, there's other there's other things, we could call those things. But they all fall under those categories, more specifically for character. And of course, there's other elements of story like the character's goal and the obstacles and

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:12:09

yeah, and as far as the structure side of things goes, Can because I did not go to film school. Can you tell me just you said were savages of structure like to tell oh,

Kristina Paider: 00:12:20

what does that mean? So that means that if you want, so if you're familiar with Joseph Campbell's work, as an as one example of the hero's journey, he analyzed all these stories at one point and came up with 12 components that make up most stories. And so what structure means is, I mean, the question I'm always asking is, do I have do I have these 12 elements? And, and in the beginning, so when you're I think in this, I think sevens who a lot of writers who participate in that work in the beginning, you're like, you're trying to make a spreadsheet out of it, and you're trying to make sure every each 12 thing is each 12 ELB component is, like parallel to each other in the same proportion. And that's not the way that's not the way to do it, which is totally what I did. That is not the way to do it. And the way to make yourself totally crazy. It's learning how to it's learning. Okay, what that is, it's learning how to, for me, it was learning how to analyze a story like Erin Brockovich, or Jason Bourne or Akela. Anderson from Cuba and the B, or any any of the stories out there promising young woman or last city, LA City that just came out? And it's looking at, okay, what are these elements? And does the story have this kind of arc to make it satisfying for the audience? Does it show a character? Addressing obstacles that make us want to root for that character? Do we want to be on board? Are we on board with his story, whether we care about an assassin who lost his memory, or an underemployed mother of three, or a young girl trying to win a spelling bee? Can we how do we create the narrative transport? And that's the challenge. I mean, it's a science as much as it is an art and I'm goosebumps talking about that, because it is it is. To me, that's very exciting.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:14:27

Well, what's interesting about it, because the original, right, the way I started was like, What's this? What's this through line? Like, what's the Christina patroness of this? And what it sounds like to me is like you create an environment into which a character can express their full self so if you don't give them a place to go and a reason to be there and conflicts and I don't know like the peak and then the Dania ma right, like you don't, there's nowhere for your character to express their DNA. So it's almost like the thing that you had to learn was the thing That would unleash the characters that came to you. So naturally salutely. Fascinating. So when you do book doctoring, are you mostly book doctoring fiction?

Kristina Paider: 00:15:11

Yes. Lately, in recent years, it's been more nonfiction. For professionally, and more nonfiction, I think. Because I have such a history and such experience in business, I do have a lot of nonfiction business clients, or people writing transformative books, who are like, great, I still need a structure. And even though it's not hero's journey, like so when I say I'm a savage, like me, I've literally had a client called me establish the structure, that's where it's almost like if you think about creating a piece of music writing has a temporal art. So temporal arts are music, dance writing. And so if you're creating in my mind, in my lens, if you're creating a book or a screenplay, it's got to have a rhythm. And so I help people create that rhythm. Using some tools that I've created called, like one of them, that is called Ultimate structure, I also have a thing called the editorial grid, it's kind of like when a mechanic puts your car up on the rack, and you can do it like you know, so any author can do it themselves, or they can work with me to do it. But it helps whoever it is, whatever stage they're at who's ever doing, it helps us get the data to see the information to see, okay, great. chapters three and four are four times the length of chapters seven and eight. Well, that's a big, like, let's pay attention. I don't want to call it a red flag, but it's a big highlight to say, listen, pay attention what's going on in these chapters? Or, Oh, hey, this is interesting. Like this, I once had an author who was doing these very sarcastic and hilarious music, references, music, jokes about musicians, or just like making comparisons in his business book. And it's like, and he's such a great natural comedian. So I'm like, well, great, let's just do an analysis. I'm like, I want to do an analysis to see how often these are coming in. And see if I should advise you to add more in more chapters, one or two in every chapter, like where do we feel the, you know, the Genesect? qua? What do we feel the magic is in that component? I mean, that's just like one tiny example. But it's, so again, it's balancing like the science and the math, which nobody wants to hear me say math. Like, it's a dirty word. But I

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:17:37

love hearing you say math.

Kristina Paider: 00:17:40

Math. It's freeing. It's freeing, if you know how to use it. And yeah, it was so liberating.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:17:48

Yeah. So that feels very structural. How do you feel like the character sort of the Unleashing the character, finding the voice, releasing the voice, all of that works in a business

Kristina Paider: 00:17:59

book. You mean releasing the voice of the author,

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:18:03

you tell me, I feel like you've got such a great way of will. So you say I believe you. And I actually have read your play like I'm halfway through your book, I wish I was all the way through. But that there must be a way that that sort of way have the ability to take on a voice to to unleash your voice to express something in a way that's truer to the character DNA, like, how does that stuff work its way through this sort of nonfiction book?

Kristina Paider: 00:18:29

Well, I think I think it goes in a couple of ways. It depends on the person I you know, and when I work with somebody, I work with people one on one, and it's, you know, it's just like one on one and you read, when I read a manuscript, I can, obviously sense the undertones and a bit about their personality. And when I speak with them, I can sense more about their personality. A lot of my clients are repeat clients. So they come back again and again. And by then you know that by then I know them and I tried to invite, as we say, in California, California to say, which I do invite people to share more of their true selves and their true voice. Like this example of this guy who's really funny. New York Times bestselling author, and I'm like, you know, let your comedic flag fly like that is such an asset. And he's also a wonderful keynote speaker. And so it's like, I know you I've also I've known him for 26 years or and I think it's now more than that, but it's like, I know how much comedy and I'm like, You're funny. Like, let's bring more of that out. Like, what do you think about it? Because it's not my job to tell you what to do, necessarily, but I'm like, here's what I do. I think it's wonderful and it comes across beautifully in the book. So that's, that's like one example. Sometimes it's also you know, how about adding a personal story about why is this book important to you? And first that comes out I had another client I did that with and we did some um, to working together time and bakeries in Scottsdale and pastry shops and having like beautiful teas and stuff like that, you know, and I just having those kind of having like a real one on one conversation with me and me asking a question that I know a reader would want to know, you know, why is this important to you? Why is this so important to you? Where do you find yourself in this book? Why do you why do you have to do it? Like, this is a ton of work? Why? Why? And usually, you know, and I, as you'll get, as you get through later, in my book, there's the thing that I do call the Six Circles of why we often did to get deeper into the story and actually do like a story audit or analysis to make sure like, why is the character doing this? Especially in fiction, especially if you're completely making it out? Or and even if you're not sometimes, because sometimes you don't realize the motivation? But and then, you know, and then you just keep asking, and why is that? And why is that? And why is that? And you get to, you know, this pure this place of pure heart. So many of us that this has happened a few times with clients, where you just, their pure heart just shines through. And it's like, Would you please consider sharing that story in the beginning, because that sets the tone of why you're here. And it's so deep and poignant, and sometimes simple, sometimes more complex, usually very personal. Usually, there's tears involved when they're when they're telling me but that's when you that's, I mean, I'm not I'm not like one of those interviewers that tries to make people cry. But it just means that there's a deep emotion and deep connection for that author, but that writer to that material, and same thing for any for a talk or a screenplay or whatever it is. So that's part of how I bring out the the character DNA is giving an author that space to tell their story, even if it's just to me, even if it's just to me. And then in the books that are more prescriptive narrative or prescriptive nonfiction. Looking at the characters within the mini story within the examples of the stories, and how they're explaining those characters, are you using the character DNA? Do you need to like it's not always necessary? So I don't ever like it to be forced, of course, but it's a good question to ask, what is character strength? What is their weakness? What is their superpower? What is what is the defining characteristic? What do we need to know about them? Even if it's just a little 100? Word metaphor? You know, you can add a lot by the right description.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:22:53

Right? Especially if it's an like, honest to the character, you can tell that as a reader, you can tell like, oh, this, you know, this adds richness, this adds authenticity depth, even just to like a case study or something. See how that would? Definitely,

Kristina Paider: 00:23:07

exactly. Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, you multiply that times the, say, 50, or 100 stories you have in a book and then think of how much more rich and how much more able your reader has the opportunity to get, you know, understand these people and imagine who these characters are in their life. Oh, that's my gardener. Oh, that's my employee. Oh, that's my husband or my son or my whoever.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:23:34

Yeah, or that's me when I was feeling that way. And that's me when I was feeling this way. And wow, I'm resonating all over the place here. If it's honest, yeah. Fascinating. So your six circles of why is a great segue to you know, back to you. When you know like Why Why are you doing this? Like why are you writing screenplays? Why are you booked doctoring? What's the joy here for you? Like what is it allowing you to become or do

Kristina Paider: 00:24:06

I think it's like the technical term for it for me is the joy for me is achieving narrative transport. Which more more simply said is the joy for me is seeing a reader or an author achieve that place where the viewer or reader can step into the shoes first and in the story and all else falls away. That's what narrative transport is and so it's crafting the narrative and the character in such a way that a reader or viewer can do it. So it's again that's that's mixing the art and science part which I love to picture me over here with like nerdy glasses and but getting that right mixture of character goal obstacles, what do we, you know, what are we achieving there, and then helping people, whether they're my own readers or whether they're an author client, get that aha moment, in their own work or in mind to, to help them in another place. And like a great example that happened recently, a reader wrote to me and said, to say that she thinks of my story every day when she has to get up the courage to give herself medical shots. And so she's gotten to this point in her life where she has to give her self self shots every day. She hates it. It's scary. She doesn't want to do it, but she has had needs to do it and also wants to do it because she needs to do it. And so, the idea my book has nothing to do with Well, I guess in a way medical, maybe panic attacks. But my jumping in waterfalls, I tell the story of

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:26:02

yeah, why don't you tell us that story, so we can

Kristina Paider: 00:26:05

underscore? Sure. So in my book, The Hollywood approach, which came out last year, the subtitle is script your life like a hit movie, and live your wildest dream. So I walk readers through exercises and chapters about how to analyze your own life, where you're at what you want, and how to map out where you want to go. In a very step by step fun exercises, you know, using all kinds of movie characters as examples and what they did great and what they did not so great, like in their movie stories, real life and fictional characters, and also include my story of when I came to the Dominican Republic, nine years ago, I was having debilitating panic attacks in the water. And they went from me being a rescue swimmer and leading rescue of two boys in a riptide to I can't put my foot in the water, without freaking out and basically feeling like I'm having a heart attack for a couple of hours. And so, just fast forwarding after that fateful panic attack, I found this place in the Dominican Republic called 27. Waterfalls. And what you do is you hike up for two hours, and the only way back down is air evacuation or jumping into all of the falls. Wow. And I was ready. At that point, I had been dealing with panic attacks for 10 years in the water. And I was ready to what I felt was risk cardiac arrest, or make these jumps, I was ready to do something really dramatic. And it wasn't scary until I started doing the jumps and have six panic attacks in the first six jumps. And so it was so part of the book, Chronicles how I go through that and how you can use this approach to you know, really figure out what you're doing, why you're doing it, you know, again, why I had asked myself why a million times, I was very clear on my why. And so that's kind of the gist of my story with with the waterfalls, and making the jump. So I talk about that experience and where i, where i got caught up on one of the falls and then what I did next. So when this reader wrote to me and just said, I think of you at the waterfalls, and at the seven waterfall, when I have to do my shots, you know, thinking about how you didn't want to do it, but you did. You did. And so and that's an example of achieve, in my mind achieving narrative transport with that person. And I talked about in the book too, like how we all have mentors, and sometimes our mentors are just a story like this that you've not met. The person I talked about. One of my mentors is one of my clients, mothers who did this amazing thing with swimming, and the swim a swimathon to help someone else in need, never met her mother mother since pass. But the idea that she she had to be so brave to do this thing I thought of her when I was she did this thing at the pool. And so I would think of her as I was later in my recovery doing laps. But going again, going back to the reader and even that story, too. It's like creating the narrative transport. This reader was able to step into my shoes on the waterfalls, the herself in that story, see the parallel. She needed the example she needs and currently needs to get through these shots every day. I just I can't. It's always wonderful to hear from readers when they've taken an action. They've made a decision they've taken a leap of some kind. A lot of them right to jump in the water. Follow them like, Dude, I know jump in the water. Like, this is not a renewable licensing, but is that we can find the hero when or hero or courage within ourselves to do the thing that's going to change our life.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:30:19

So that's interesting. So achieving narrative transport on the one hand is like in the moment when you're reading it, and you really feel like you get caught up in it, or you're watching it or whatever it is, right, you get caught up, you get carried away, you forget yourself Self drops away, or whatever. And you experience something as though it's happening to you. On the other hand, it sounds like there's a little bit of like narrative transport, that's a little bit like, let my story, loan you some belief, so that you can be carried a little further in your story, and maybe do something different, which sort of is another sort of thread between the idea of like, you know, what are you? How are you bringing these sort of Film Studies or structure character or all that into narrative nonfiction? It feels like, actually, there's something really interesting there about like, how do we create experiences in narrative nonfiction books that they can actually have the same sort of transported, feeling, like, experiencing what it's like without having to experience it for themselves, and benefit from it? Which is very interesting,

Kristina Paider: 00:31:20

is it's very fascinating when you talk about that. Absolutely.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:31:25

So one of the questions, I mean, either for yourself, or for the clients that you work with, like, what are you doing this sounds like great work, for sure. You know, it's really about finding your story, putting it out there doing it in collaboration with others, leaving a legacy behind you. And I've never met anybody with a history of great work, especially a sustained history of doing great work, who hasn't had quite a lot of struggles and things to overcome and like self doubt, and, you know, dark nights of the soul or whatever. I'm curious, like, what either like, What experiences have you had, that you've had to overcome in order to be able to do this? Or what sort of experiences your clients tend to have that you help them through? Or both?

Kristina Paider: 00:32:10

Well, I think the universal one for myself and my clients is the uncertainty and the self doubt. My sister wrote a book called the creatives guide, and she goes, she has a chapter on fear and uncertainty, the SU, of creative work, or something like that. And she talks about how as creative people, we, you know, there's definitely you're, you know, you're an entrepreneur, there's nobody telling you what to do, you're making your own path the whole time. You're like, what am I supposed to do next you, you can easily, it's easy to get paralyzed and stuck. Like, I don't know what to do. And so also simple, just as easy to, to flip it, if you can talk to somebody, or, you know, work with your creative group, or your Writers Group, or whatever it is that you have, and be like, I can't decide on my next step or, you know, we're usually doing too much, you know, oftentimes, I would say, We're doing too much, or we don't know how to break it down, or we haven't, you know, there's not a lot there are not a lot of schools that teach long form narrative. So I think a lot of people make the mistake of, well, I know my ABCs and their loved essays in college, and I, you know, even for me, I was journalist and I wrote a bunch of marketing stuff. And this and I wrote all these research papers, well, for sure, I can write a screenplay. That is not how it works. That's not how it works. Because if you think about those things are usually one to 500 words to 5000 words. Maybe you've written something professionally, like if you're any kind of writing professional, other than an author screenwriter, maybe 10,000 words, a book, the average book is 60 to 80,000 that a screenplay is round, maybe 20 25,000. But it's like you've got to write really long and then shrink it back and there's only as close work to it. And so when people think it's a obvious thing, they should be able to ensure you know, people are shooting themselves so there's fear, there's uncertainty, there's shooting, there's and then there's just like, oh, yeah, I just think I should automatically know how to do this and what like, I'm, I'm weak or I'm somehow less than somebody else. If I needed a writing coach, like I was in fifth grade, why do I do that? I

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:34:39

was in fifth grade.

Kristina Paider: 00:34:41

I think no, that's like my friends. Look at your look at the acknowledgments of every any book or like the end of a movie and you're just like, oh my god, there's you know, there's a whole team of, of all these people. So I think that's one thing that we all tend to struggle with. I think Another thing you know is that that's just like the that's like within the craft of it the fear uncertainty and that then I think bigger picture is what to do with it. What to do like for me, you know, being a, you know, bringing Hollywood judge or in before that editing, developmental editing before I knew what that was like, What do I do with that, you know, there are jobs, you know, I can be a reporter, I can be a journalist, I can be a talk show host, I can be an advertising director, I can be a marketing director, I can be a copywriter, like it's so very, not what I wanted to do. Not being aware of the, the, you know, jobs or making my own path that way, or how to do that, I think you really have to stay curious. Have to stay curious and be seeking, you have to be seeking the thing that you that you want to do you want otherwise you won't know what to do with, you may not know what to do with it, whatever your great work is.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:36:06

How do you so give us an example of like, you know, nope, nobody, there was no job description of we need somebody to bring the Hollywood Jewish to narrative nonfiction. So how you know, okay, be curious, be on the lookout. Seize opportunities, I guess. But like, what's an example of an opportunity that you seized or like a wait like a windy path that somehow worked? Like, tell us how to do that? Because I do think you're absolutely right, that so many people doing great work. It's so personal. It's so specific. You really, it's calling you from the inside? You know, it exists because it's inside of you. But there's no mirror for it anywhere. Like how do you navigate that? Right? And you navigate that?

Kristina Paider: 00:36:49

Well, I navigated by jumping around to different jobs in until I was 40. And I don't mean like overly jumping, but I was in places two to four years. So first, I was the director of advertising and I was a director of marketing. Then I was another director of marketing. And in the first director of marketing is when I started screenwriting, and people I mean, that was that was in the late 90s. So it was fax machines. That was like when Ben Affleck and

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:37:26

Matt Damon, thank

Kristina Paider: 00:37:27

you very much. Oh, my God, you're so great at this game. We're like battling each other like versions of Goodwill Hunting. Like that's how it was being done. So back in that time, it but it was a time of very being like very purist at your job. And people were like, don't tell anybody your you know, it's like, tell everybody that you're in the advertising club that the American advertising Federation, don't tell people you're writing films, because that was Listen, my first company, but people got wind of it. And then they're like, Oh, we're doing this events like and they wanted it like and so but that was just like one project. One project, they're like, we're doing this event, do you think you could I forgot what they asked me to do. They asked me to do something. And I'm like, No, we need to do an open, I'm like, here's what we need to do, we need video, and I'm going to splice it to whatever list for life and they had some things they wanted. And I'm like, just leave it with me, I'm gonna make it cool. And it's gonna be we're gonna be dancing at the beginning of the thing and what it's gonna be awesome. So like, that was an example. And then we did that event in the US. And then the European team had me come over and replicate that event in London. But that was like one project. Like, at a time that companies were merging and consolidating doing all these crazy things. The next place wasn't so much for Hollywood judge. And then the last corporate job I had, I came in as a director of marketing. And it was like a newly created position, like a hybrid of other stuff. And I think they all so we're very much like you can write you can have writing a screenplay on your smart goals, or you know, as for the company, like for a personal SMART goal, but maybe don't go around telling people that that stuff and it's like, okay, people, but also by then, like I was on my track to be the Senior VP and I had my own department. And so it was basically like a great big laboratory for me of where can I you know, where can I stick in the Hollywood judge? And so we had client entertainment, we have conferences, and these, by the way, are like real estate finance conferences, right, like a mosh pit of like 98% white men in black suits. And you're like, What are you doing? I would have to listen to like Xanadu from Olivia Newton John just to like walk through the lobby of these places. But it was a challenge for me because it's like, yeah, like we want you know, we You want to be we want to have the party that's the most talked about party. Okay, that's fine. But other things like gifting program, like we had a Christmas and birthday gifting program for clients, like, just, you know, I just would put on the creative hat. And I got to run the show, because it was like the it was like a company of one fit. We had 150 on our US team. And I got to work directly with the CEO. And I think he just was like, Oh, I didn't have time. Number one. He's like a world class negotiator. And I know, he's like, I love him. He's like, our clients talking about us. Yeah, that was his metric. And so it was like, okay, great, like so now, you know, I would just do kind of some crazy things. And you got

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:40:50

you just got so like, lit up when you were telling that story. It just seems like you're so delightful. I feel like you know, your sort of essence is like delight. And so there you are just like shining the delight light all over town. And now helping other people shine their delight lights into their books. And

Kristina Paider: 00:41:10

thank you so much. That's That's so kind. And I think, you know, but there was a dichotomy there. So I don't want to like I don't want to like be blowing sunshine and roses too. Too much. Like there was a dichotomy there. Because, you know, for me, like the uniform the wearing the suits for me? Yeah, it was too much. And like work. Yeah, cube. Oh, my God, I hate it. You know, I had like this tree house loft that I bought in Chicago. And I'm just like, I can't work in this ugly. Yeah. 656 Cube, like how? So there were, you know, noticing, like, Oh, that was the biggest problem I had. Because there were some cultural problems. There are some things and I just really like I'm a person, like, Give me just a big stack of your manuscripts or the project. And let me let me sit here and play. And then let me meet with small groups of people or one person one on one when it's time to present something, or I have a, you know, question or a breakthrough or need an approval or something like that. So, you know, ultimately, it was a wonderful experience, and I'm super grateful for it. But I think that's important to know, too. When people are struggling with their great work of like, God, if you can find the 100% Pure, awesome pneus of a situation that's great. If you can look at the lens of what you're gaining through one of those like I did in treating it treating it my like my lab, nobody, nobody else would say that that I can think of you know, my laboratory, I got to experiment and do things that I thought would be fun and the way I got to do it.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:42:48

Well, that's what I think is is interesting is like because a lot of people like you said who are struggling. There are a lot of people in jobs that are like lackluster, right? They're not terrible. Maybe they have some golden handcuffs like, Oh, I got this job. I'm finally lawyer, you know? Yeah, leave it.

Kristina Paider: 00:43:04

Oh, my new kitchen. I want my new swimming pool. Yeah,

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:43:09

yeah. Right. As soon as right like once the divorce, like whatever it is, yeah, like people fighting in life is like that, right? Like, we don't get to very often. I mean, of course, we could do it more. And maybe that's somebody else's message. But I think it's a really interesting and important message to say that you can change so much about your experience of your life and do so much more great work even if nothing external changes. And that's what I liked about your story so much. It was like yes, I was working for the you know, least innovative, you know, Cubicle Nation, maybe, you know, like bunch of traditionalists and clearly this was not my tribe. And if you're on the lookout for the opportunities if you see it you can seize it you can be who you are, you can do more of what you want and like little ways and then of course you should leave if you're really unhappy, but you don't have to leave in order to be happier. And I think

Kristina Paider: 00:44:11

that's super true and I think to in the context of of Hollywood approach and and story in storytelling, it's about the story you're living so what story are you telling yourself about your what is your goal so like if you're miserable and I'm just putting myself back into these my like my last three jobs if you're miserable you're having a really rough time and you identify a goal for being there whether it is stock option investing achieving that title level and you can leave right after you get it or a certain amount of annex smile like think of I mean, I'm not saying those are the only basis like those. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Those are like the bonus things, but but also like it is it's time to assess like Why are you there? What are you getting out of it? What can you get out of it? What could you possibly, otherwise get out of it? I mean, and I will say this company cup only a couple of years ago called me back and said, Hey, can you step back in the PR PR portion of your job? For three months? We have we have a gap? And I'm like, Oh, sure, yeah, I haven't talked to any of these reporters or people for like, 10 years, are they? Sure whatever you need, you know, I was like, Sure. I had, like, I had the bandwidth and could do it. And so for me, another part of my thing was having this corporate infrastructure that I can always go back to if I needed to, number one, number two, like come on my clients for four seasons. Awesome. No hotels, like Ritz Carlton, you know, so I am always happy to take a project with those, you know, as I get to look at pretty things and go to pretty places. And so anyway, the point, though, is, is not just what I can do, it's what can what can your what can you do? What can what can people listening to this do? Within their infrastructure? What can they gain out of it? What can they challenge themselves to do? Is it even just go another six months, save money so that you can make a comfortable move? You know, is it your plan to make a make a plan? Raise your hand for something you'd like to do more of? Is it? I don't know, I can I can keep throwing out ideas, right?

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:46:31

Yeah, and what in I think you're like what you, when you originally were still talking about like you, you wind your way towards it, whatever it is, with this undefined path, right, like this thing in your heart that's calling you and you just sort of get a little closer and get a little closer. And you can do that kind of no matter where you are, no matter what else is happening. And it really opens your eyes to if you really know where you're going, and you're really trying to wind your way there and it's blocked at every turn. That's information to like, I can't get any closer here. And now I got to really face the reality that I either am giving up on that part of my great work, or I'm going to make a bigger step. And those you know, like anything that gives you a way to really see those kinds of truths that were so afraid to see is a good thing. Yeah, yeah,

Kristina Paider: 00:47:24

I really liked the way you said that, too. It's information. And I think, you know, when we look at it as information, we can take some of the emotion, sting out of something we can take, or the emotional charge, we can take a little bit of judgment out of it. And just, it's information, try to look at the data and line it up. I'm a big fan of that. And I personally find that very soothing. I think it's the nerdy part of me again, like I find it very soothing to do sometimes even mathematical tables about what decision am I making about you know, a certain lesson or whatever this or that it can be? It can be soothing.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:48:04

Yeah. Right? Absolutely. Right. It gives you a little bit of objectivity. A little bit of like, you know, let me have a thought about this, that it could go either way, and no one's going to be mad, not including me. Yeah, really, really helpful. Well, I want to hear I want you to have a minute here to say, how people can work with you. Because I'll be honest, like, I'm in the middle of just now starting a project with writing a graphic novel, and like maybe this maybe I will work with you. So tell all of us, including me. What? How do we find out more about you? What's it like to work with you? Where can we reach out to you? How can we get to know you more, give us the info,

Kristina Paider: 00:48:43

you got it. So I work only privately in one on one with clients. And I take about 10 clients here, I do currently have slots. And you can find me on all the socials and all the channels at Kristina Paider, I'm on I'm most active on I would say most active still on Facebook are trying to move over to more on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Tiktok. And if you're totally excited, you can send me an email KP at Kristina paider.com.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:49:18

Love it. And we'll put all your handles for all of your socials in the show notes as well, as well as a link to your website. And apologies for not saying this first, a link to your fabulous book The Hollywood methods so that people could actually I feel like I know you at least a little bit just from reading your book. You're so like open and honest. And your characters they sparkle. So it's a great read. And I'll put a link to that as well.

Kristina Paider: 00:49:44

Thank you.

Dr. Amanda Crowell: 00:49:45

You're very welcome. I just really want to thank you for taking time to talk to us was very, very interesting. And I'm sure that lots of people will be buying your book and learning more about you and we're just so grateful for your time.

Kristina Paider: 00:49:57

Pleasure is mine. Thanks so much.