We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kyle Moore a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kyle, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been one of the most interesting investments you’ve made – and did you win or lose? (Note, these responses are only intended as entertainment and shouldn’t be construed as investment advice)

I appreciate the opportunity and this is a fun one to think about. I think the best investment I’ve ever made as a creative is in creating slowly. During the early days of producing my podcast Life’s a Wreck I’d set myself up to fail with strict and unrealistic timelines as I balanced finishing my undergrad, working a part-time job and trying (largely unsuccessfully) to take care of myself. I fell into the trap that so many creatives do in believing that the ever-present, ever-approach “next” deadline was the key to unlocking my creativity. I will be creative because I must be creative. As I’ve grown and branched out within the field of content creation I’ve learned that there is a tremendous power in allowing your creativity space and patience. Understanding that the creative process is one that will take on many different faces but in there lies the creative growth. I may have been forcing myself to be creative but in doing that I was only ever exploring one type of creativity, rushed creativity. The output may have looked different on the surface but ender the hood was all the same because I was using the same inputs, creating with a similar schedule and relying on the same creative inspiration time and time again, stress.

I use the word “invest” intentionally because creating slowly is something you will not see the benefits of right away similar to most great investments. When your art and creation is your living there are naturally going to be times when a deadline needs to be met because bills have to be paid but I encourage you to structure future creative work in such a way that lets the work breathe. Some of my best work has come from projects where I simply allow myself the luxury to sit with the work and not just execute it.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I love telling a story. I think it’s one of life’s simple joys and regardless of how you go about it, I think it’s a noble pursuit. As a boy growing up with undiagnosed Anxiety and OCD, I enjoyed whenever I had the opportunity to be a part of something that took me out of my head and allowed me to step into a space where the concept of “Kyle” wasn’t so firmly planted. I found this through theatre and sports, the opportunity to be one of many all working on telling a story one way or another. As I grew up, I went through a few different crisis moments because of my mental health challenges and although thankful for the challenges as they helped inspire a life of curiosity and creativity twas not a fun time for Kyle.

While wrestling with extreme suicidal ideation in university I one day found myself on the floor of my apartment feeling something incomparable. I felt like I was being crushed under a tremendous weight, like my stomach was going to melt out of my body and had my inner monologue telling me I wasn’t worth the little space my shrivelled form took up on this dirty floor. I sat there and I felt everything, every bit of shame and disgust, the feelings I thought others had for me and just as I thought I was making my decision to pack it in and move on to whatever was next after this life I had a little thought flicker across my head, like a tiny bug that you barely notice but you know if there that just said: “You can feel extremes, how lucky.” Something clicked and I realized that my whole life I had experienced extreme mental pain but that just meant I was capable of feeling awful and if that existed then the opposite had to be true as well, somewhere within me had to be the ability to feel extremely positive as well, to feel love, and happiness, it had to be there because I could feel the other stuff. Another thought came to my head at that moment, an old saying I used to say to avoid confronting my mental illness or worrying the people in my life “Life’s a Wreck.” I realized life is supposed to be a mess, none of this makes sense, life is chaotic and unpredictable and yet still beautiful so I put my knuckles in the dirt and decided to build from there. I realized I was at rock bottom with nothing to lose so I figured I might as well talk about what I was going through. A couple of weeks later I published the first episode of my podcast, Life’s a Wreck. Now 6 years later I’ve had the opportunity to share not only my story but those of athletes, performers, celebrities, musicians, doctors, thought leaders and people from communities across the world. I’ve also been fortunate to talk with audiences across Canada about the importance of mental health and how we can better address the ongoing mental health crisis in Canada. My podcast is now only one facet of my advocacy work and I’m privileged to work with some of the top mental health organizations across Canada to help communities from across our country both better understand and better access mental health supports and services.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A big one for me was unlearning that doing something independently just for the sake of taking pride in doing it solo is a fool’s game. There is absolutely a time and place for independent work but not asking for help because you want to establish some sort of “wow look at how much he accomplished by himself” ideal is only feeding your ego and holds very little further benefit. 99.99% of the time no one cares about your work as much as you do so to let your work suffer because of your perceived status is something I’d encourage people to unlearn in a hurry. Ask for help people perfection isn’t real but your work is. Let it be great.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

As a society, we’re inherently obsessed with outcomes, and that mindset often stifles the potential to build a thriving community for young creatives. We need to shift our focus away from judging the end result and instead cultivate curiosity about the creative process itself. To me, the process is where the true art lies, the outcome is simply a celebration of that journey. If we judge the work without first exploring the process with curiosity, we miss the opportunity to fully understand and appreciate the outcome.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/lifes-a-wreck/id1471732336
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moorzyyy/?hl=en
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-moore-1a839a16b/?originalSubdomain=ca