71: Gift of the Magi + Fay Wolf

Connecting with Fay:

Connecting with Janelle:

It’s episode 71 and I’m chatting with Fay Wolf, an artist, author and decluttering pro based in Los Angeles.

Fay founded New Order®, her decluttering business, in 2006, and has since guided thousands of humans toward less inner and outer clutter, more creativity and productivity, and maybe even a happier adulthood.

Her book New Order: A Decluttering Handbook For Creative Folks (And Everyone Else) was released by Ballantine/Random House in 2016, and her methods have been praised in the NY Times, LA Times, among others.

Fay’s second career is as a singer-songwriter, and her sad songs have been heard around the globe on TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Pretty Little Liars.

She holds a BFA in Acting from Boston University School for the Arts, has performed on stages and screens around the U.S., and recently started writing identity-based spoken word.

I first met Fay in a shared online space, and was completely smitten with how she shows up in such friendly, thoughtful, gentle way, and I was also impressed by, and sensed a kindred spirit in the incredible range of different creative pursuits and businesses she pursues.

So, of course, I invited her on the podcast!

We talked about all sorts of things – comic irony, that twist that you weren’t expecting in a story, and how she read her chosen story, the Gift of the Magi, with her father.

We also talked how creativity is good and also very, very challenging, and how to create a space for creativity. Fay is emphatic that your instrument (whatever it is) has to be ready to play. We also talked about the challenges and downward spirals with creativity, inner clutter, perfectionism, fear, resistance, guilt, shame and anything that’s holding us back from doing our creative work.

Oof!!! Such a necessary conversation on such commonly shared creative challenges.

Fay also talked about identity, and her experiences in her body as it relates to race, being a white-passing black and Jewish woman and asking herself the question, everyday, “who will accept me based on what/who they are seeing,” yet being in the balance of trying to feel ok, respect people and making the world a better place.

Finally, we talked about hair and identity, straightening it as a child, then choosing to let it be naturally curly, and inhabiting the role of a shapeshifter in this world.

It was so lovely to connect so deeply with Fay, and I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy listening in.

Enjoy our ramble through The Gift of the Magi as well as Fay’s relationship with her body and creativity.