A Letter from Chris Suarez
THE Art of being human
A friend of mine recently sent me a message while I was contemplating a difficult situation. It was a short message, but held so much meaning. It simply said, “The Art of Being Human”.
And as I thought about the word art and the word human, I couldn’t agree more. Sure, there’s definitely a science to life. Humans need to take in energy stored in food, we need oxygen flowing through our lungs and our blood, we need sleep for recovery, and we need exercise for muscle and bone development. But that is all science. That is not art.
Science is made up of facts, and figures. It’s made up of hypothesis turned conclusions - established by experiment and measurement. Science is easy, its textbook. And yes, part of being human and part of living is science. A very small part.
But being human is an art. Living is an art. And living experientially requires becoming a true artist.
To become a scientist, it takes a bachelor’s degree and then a master’s degree. Most scientists also complete a doctorate. That’s four years of undergrad, five years of higher education, and usually another three years of research before becoming a scientist.
Being an artist, well, that can happen with no formal education at all. But that actually makes it more difficult. Any artist, across any genre, becomes truly great by studying the greats. By observing what they painted, admiring what they’ve sculpted, continuously listening to what they’ve composed. They are lessons through observation, admiration, and obsession.
And although not formal classes, the lessons of becoming more human, and living more artistically never end.
Isn’t it ironic then, that growing up the majority of our parents tried to convince us not to become an artist. After all, you can’t make money as an artist. There are no jobs out there for artists. What are you going to do with a degree in art they asked.
Well fast forward, and perhaps now more than ever we are waking up and realizing that being a doctor or lawyer, or engineer, or scientist can be very one dimensional. We can begin to see the world just one way, with just one brush stroke.
So where do we begin on our artist’s journey? Life, as in art, has so many different styles and movements and regional influences. There is Contemporary Art and Abstract Art and Pop Art. There is Impressionism and Surrealism and Renaissance.
And then there is America and British and French Art. There is African and Mexican and Asian Art. And as we observe, and admire, and obsess, we learn. We learn from different artists, and different styles, and different perspectives, and different types of people. It’s the differences that make it real art. Art is also subjective.
Enter, a project I began working on in early 2019. As my focus of delivering on our mission of living experientially continued, I discovered this only happened if six key pillars of my life were being built up simultaneously. I began to read and research the pillars. I began to look for coaches and mentors and thought leaders and artists in those six areas. I talked with, traveled with, shared meals with, worked with, collaborated with, and interviewed many of these individuals. Over the past 50 weeks I’ve written a letter every Sunday morning to anyone that would read them related to one of these pillars. The pillars became the basis of my new podcast: The Xperience Growth Podcast.
Next week we launch that podcast. My intention is not to show up on any “most downloaded” lists or “top in category” list. My intention is not to create a massive media wave around it. My intention is to bring awareness to the art of living. I believe the mission to live experientially is building. To find the artist in each of us committed to build an experiential life by working on their craft. We will dive into the six pillars of experiential living together: Career, Relationships, Wealth, Personal Growth, Health, and Spirituality.
I look forward to allowing all of you into the conversations I’ve been fortunate to have with some incredible business leaders, even more impressive human beings, and each of them true artists of life. My guests come from all genres of “art”, from all different regions, and all different backgrounds. On the path to building experiential lives, we will learn from people building in all different ways. In fact, that note mentioned at the outset, just five simple words - "The Art of Being Human" - was a note sent to me by one of our guests I am most excited to have you meet, Regina Ellis. Regina founded the Children's Cancer Association (CCA) with the simple mission of delivering moments of joy to seriously sick kiddos. She believes that everyone deserves a long happy life, or at the very least, a short happy life. Well, on the path to delivering that, she has also delivered moments of joy to all who are able to give and be a part of her organization and joy based philosophy.
Along the way I'll share books well read, research studies uncovered, whitepapers unpackaged, and conversations recorded along the way. Some of the episodes will be edited, others fairly raw, still others spoken thoughts around the mission of experiential living. It will be a journey in observation, admiration, and obsession with a promise of creating art along the way.
The podcast is launching on the 21st of January. I'll share it with this audience first. Please download it and share it with those that you know committed to perfecting the art of being human.
The new year isn’t going to be new if we just take a breath, turn the page to January, and wait for new to show up. Pandemics, turmoil, and anxiety don’t live by the Gregorian calendar. The new year will be new if we start learning new brush strokes. If we start molding our pillars. If we start composing a new song. If we start practicing our art of living. When we do, well, get ready to Xperience Growth.
Chris