Joe Dunaway 0:02

Welcome to the VICI Code, where we unlock real stories of small business owners who've battled chaos, crushed doubt, and conquered their challenges. Faith, family, and finances. No fluff, just raw, honest conversations that decode the path to victory. One story at a time. What is up? Thank you for joining us today as we explore our latest purpose-driven journey, The Art of the Pivot, where we learn about structural reinvention, how a high-stakes corporate career builds the mental rigor required for creative success, the reality of walking away from my multi-decade identity, and why your past professional systems are the secret fuel for your future breakthroughs. We spend decades climbing the ladder. We master the systems, we manage the pressure, and we earn the status. But what do you do when the structure of you of the structure you built no longer holds the truth of who you are? Today's guest didn't take a break from Hall of Fame career. She fundamentally redesigned her existence. The Michelle Bond. From 17 years at Sullivan Cromwell as chief of staff, and H. Rajan Cohen as principal and to a principal role at Hydrick and Struggles, Michelle was an architect of high-level finance. Today, she is a world-class sculptor whose work is exhibited from Jersey City to Harvard Divinity School. Michelle and I connected through Dan Martell's elite mastermind. Having operated at the highest level of Wall Street and executive search, she brings an analytical operator mindset to the world of fine art. Her story provides a masterclass on how to carry high performance discipline into a new creative chapter without losing your professional edge. We are exploring the anatomy of transformation. How do you move from the structure of the corporate world to the surrender of the creative studio while maintaining the discipline of an executive? As always, we'll filter Michelle's journey through the Vici pillars faith, family, fitness, and finance. Michelle, take two. We're excited to have you. Welcome to the Vici code.

Michele Bond 2:18

Hey, Joe, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited for this conversation.

Joe Dunaway 2:23

Yeah, we have a lot to go through. I had so much fun researching you, but let's jump right into the breakthrough. Precision and creative tool. You held one of the highest demanding influential roles in American finance. You weren't just a lawyer, you were the chief of staff to an icon. When you made the irreversible decision to walk away in 2020, what was the biggest fear you had to confront? Was it about the loss of status or the loss of the structure that defined your day?

Michele Bond 2:53

I would say it was a little bit of both. It was the loss of status, it was the loss of structure, it was the loss of the perception of certainty around income, you know, the loss of health insurance. I mean, there were a lot of things that I needed to release in order to explore this new identity. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs go through something similar where they need to let go of that illusion of certainty that comes from that system in order to embrace the opportunity that lives in entrepreneurship. And that's the only place you can get it. But all of a sudden, you're in charge of all these things that used to be taken care of for you. Suddenly it's almost like you're flying and you don't know in the beginning sometimes if your wings are going to spread out and you're going to start soaring. But yes, I absolutely went through a period of time. And some of that still continues to unfold in my journey today.

Joe Dunaway 3:55

And what was the breakthrough moment? Because it must have built up. You must have seen signs that you needed a change. Was there a specific breakthrough moment or was there a trend of something that you noticed about your work or yourself that caused you to make this transition?

Michele Bond 4:14

I was very comfortable. I enjoyed what I did at the law firm and I decided to make a change. So I got my MBA while I was working and I transitioned into recruiting because I was extremely interested in the way that people work. I was fascinated by organizational behavior and I really wanted to lean into that. But pretty quickly after going into recruiting, I realized that wasn't really quite the right fit for me, but I didn't know what to do. And then 2020 happened, everybody remembers what happened then. It inspired me to think a little bit more about whether or not I was living my purpose. So when Heydrich and I decided to part ways, I was suddenly in what I felt like was a bit of a liminal space in terms of what I wanted to do with my life. And I went from, like we were just talking about, a lot of structure into a space where I could create whatever I wanted. And that breakthrough moment came on gradually. I'd love to tell you that there was a very decisive moment with regard to that, but it was gradual. And then there was a moment within that when I made a piece of artwork in an art class that I had started to take online. And that piece is right behind me. I remember that week the teacher talking about what we were going to do and how this particular class was about building something up and then tearing things back. And as I went into working with that process, something about that really resonated with me. And as I was working with my hands, it was almost as if I went into some kind of other state and just knew that I needed to keep making this piece the way I was making it. And I had an intuition that I needed a particular tool. So I went to Home Depot, you know, with your mask on at the time. And I said, What's that thing that people shape nails with and it goes real fast and spins around? And they said a Dremel. And I said, Yeah, give me one of those. And I went home and I was started carving this piece with this Dremel, and dust is flying all over my apartment and making a giant mess. It's getting everywhere. But I just knew that this was what I had to do. And then there's a little turquoise dot right above me. And I remember carving into that spot, that spot showing up. And then something inside of me said, just stop. This piece is done. And I stepped back and I looked at this artwork, and I knew right in that moment that this was the next path for me. But there were a lot of things that led up to that.

Joe Dunaway 6:50

That that sounds like a defining moment to me. That sounds like a breakthrough moment of, yeah, maybe there was some buildup in some areas where you you were looking for a change, but that definitely sounds like a turning point. Um, you describe your art as excavating history through layered paper. Most artists are described as intuitive or messy. You were described as precise and rigorous. How has your Wall Street background, where precision precision was the baseline, actually become the greatest competitive advantage in the art world?

Michele Bond 7:21

Oh, that's a great question. Let me think about that for just a moment before I respond. Precision and chaos are the two tensions that I work within. They're both present in my work because I make abstract art and abstract doesn't look like something else. It's not representational. So there's a tremendous amount of intuition that goes into working in this way. But because I work in accumulated adhered layers, there's also a structure in place. So it's really at the tension of those two, the push-pull of those two, where the dance of making art exists for me.

Joe Dunaway 8:04

Oh, that's interesting. I there's a lot that I want to dive into that, and we'll probably save it for a little bit later, but that's super interesting. Do you find that your studio practice is actually just an extension of the way you manage relationships at Sullivan and Cromwell?

Michele Bond 8:20

Yes, in many ways, because the group of people that I work in service of now is very similar to the group of people that I worked in service of when I was at Sullivan and Cromwell and when I was at Hydrich and Struggles. I'm just servicing it a very different way. I've gone from that more structured, you know, intuition within structure. And now it's more the other way around. So it's a really interesting transition. They're mirrors of each other. And I feel really blessed that I have the opportunity to both employ all of these years of business knowledge and an MBA and all the other tools that I have in my toolkit today in what I do. So I have a lot of time and energy invested in the back end of my business. My father was a CPA. You know, I come from an operational background myself, that, you know, that's what I have a lot of training in and education in. So, in some ways, transitioning has in that way has been easier because I already have some structure to work off of. And then, you know, as you mentioned, we met on Dan Martell's coaching platform, and I love listening to the way that he articulates the journey of the entrepreneur and creating your own systems. I did that within the corporate structure, but now I just create my systems in very different ways. You know, I'm not operating within boundaries. There are no boundaries for me now. It's a lot of freedom and it's a very different way of operating in the world. It's incredibly exciting, but it's a lot of freedom and it takes some time to get used to it. But if it's for you and you want that opportunity to not be bound by what already exists, entrepreneurship is definitely for you. I'll say that. But again, like there's a burden that comes with that amount of freedom. It's it takes an adjustment when you come out of corporate. There's a big mindset shift when you come out of corporate into entrepreneurial thinking, regardless, in my opinion, at least in my experience, of which corporate environment you're in, even if they do nourish creativity and risk taking, there are still boundaries around how much of that can be tolerated within a system, within an industry, etc. As a generalist, I find that where I am now really serves me because I can study philosophy and physics, and I can study ancient um and classical traditions, and I can, you know, do archery, and all of these things in some way feed into the artwork that I make and my ability to articulate that and articulate the ideas that are woven into the artwork through all of these accumulated experiences that I have, as opposed to being in um kind of a siloed uh role or a siloed organization. Does that yeah?

Joe Dunaway 11:33

I was just gonna say, like that the the words you use, it just really creates an image of what you went through to get here. And it just I always mention to anybody, uh, clients, friends, family that are going through transition that you know everything matters. You're the rewards, the challenges, it all builds you up for your next challenge. So and you mentioned risk, right? I want to get into managing the identity shift in the financial pillar. We talk about shift, talk about risk. Walking away from a lucrative career is the ultimate risk, right? And we just talked about that. How did you structure your personal business model to uh to allow for this transformation without compromising your stability or future goals?

Michele Bond 12:22

Uh well, I would say I didn't, um, particularly in the beginning. In the beginning, I was it was very um in the beginning, it was much more of, like I said, like a liminal state. Like if I were to use biblical terms, it was as if I was in like a purgatory in some ways, like an in-between. It was very challenging because I went from, again, a highly structured environment to having to provide structure for myself. And it took me quite a while and many, many, many iterations to figure out what that meant for me. I would say the core part of that process uh was accepting that it is iterative. Like you try something out, maybe it works really well, maybe you double down on it, maybe that's just enough. You try something else, you try something else, you try something else. Most recently I started to use AI to help me do time blocking, not because I have difficulty with the concept of time blocking, but because I wanted to optimize my energy and optimize the different ways that my brain works with my schedule and my daily flow. I need a I need a certain amount of structure, but I also need a certain amount of no structure. But I also want to move my goals forward. So the question that I have been sitting with all these years is how do I create space or hold space for all of that within my business in order to move things forward, but also bring a lot of joy into my life. Um, do you have kids, Joe?

Joe Dunaway 14:04

Oh, yeah. We have four going on five over here.

Michele Bond 14:08

Yeah. So, you know, when you're a kid, you get to have play and you have other people providing structure around playtime. As an adult, you need to do give yourself that structure, but you also benefit tremendously from a creative amount of playtime. There's a big misconception in the world that artists only just play. If you've ever actually tried to paint something or play an instrument or do anything creative, you definitely know that there is a work element in that. And to be excellent at anything, there's a lot of repetition and a lot of structure around moving forward.

Joe Dunaway 14:48

This has come up a few times on the show, Michelle, uh often, about you know, structure versus you know, you know, losing creativity. I like to use structure to give me that time to play and be with family and be creative. That structure in my life gives me more freedom to do those things where I don't have to watch the clock. So where I can be structured on one area of my life, it really helps me, you know, let go in other areas, especially with like family time, because it's like I don't want to be on the clock with family time. I don't want to be worried and be structured. Although that's my nature and it it's my comfort zone. My wife couldn't be any like she if we talk about plans, I start getting on her nerves. She doesn't want to talk about plans, she just wants to go with it. And to be fair, I think I can tell which some which of my kids likes the structure, which of my kids are a little bit more like, let's just go with it. Um, but because I care about them all, you know, being hyper structured in the areas where I can control allows me to, you know, yin and yang with the people that are important to me in my life. So I mean, that's that's so true that to use structure to be able to carve out that time to be less structured and not put any uh restraints on yourself, it's so important.

Michele Bond 16:09

It's incredibly important. Um, for a creative professional of any kind, being able to go into that play is really critical. Another way to look at it is to go into invention time. That's also creative. Too much structure, I found in corporate environments can stifle creative thinking. Yeah. The way that that gets solved for often is through acquisition of new talent or acquisition of new companies that you know have a certain creative solution that you know the organization is looking for, and they bring that in, and then it becomes incorporated into the structure, and then it's living within the boundaries, and so then you have to go out and acquire it again. I find it a really interesting question. How do you know have, you know, military is very similar. You need to have a certain amount of structure, and you need to have a you know, order in order to make sure that the whole machine moves forward in this coordinated fashion. And the laws of physics beautifully mirror this tension. I think Stephen Hawking said something. I think this Stephen Hawking quote is something to the effect of without creativity, none of us would exist. Right. That's really profound, you know, to think about that and to allow for that while maintaining the structure is that balance that all of us are in. And it's what you mentioned yin and yang earlier. That's that's a beautiful example of those tensions at play. Both things have to exist for the, you know, the yin has to exist for the yang to exist. They literally cannot exist without each other. And holding a special space for that within corporate environments is really challenging because it leverages more on the structure. Entrepreneurship goes all the way the other way, where it's all freedom and how do you build structure, but also create something really unique and special that delights and supports the people that you serve in your business.

Joe Dunaway 18:21

Yeah, no, and those those a port those opposing forces just bring harmony, is really how I like to put it. Like you gotta have both. You gotta have the good and the bad, you gotta have the yin and the yang. It it all you gotta have the structure and the freedom to be creative, no question about it. Now let's move on to some other more fun topics. Fitness. I love talking about fitness. The carving process you describe, meticulously layering and cutting paper. To me, it sounds physically and mentally exhausting. In the fitness pillar, how is your how has your definition of performance shifted from high adrenaline output of the corporate world to the sustained, quiet endurance required to create a sculpture?

Michele Bond 19:03

It's a great question. When I was in corporate, I was much more of like a crossfit kind of person. Um, and I haven't like transitioned to yoga, or um, even though I really appreciate the practice of it. What I find really works for me, you're right. My my practice is very physical, it's very intensive. I use industrial carving tools, I use angle grinders and die grinders, and I have heavy-duty sanders and you know, box cutters, and I have all kinds of things. I'm always experimenting with different ways to work with my material and express ideas. I'm finding that as I'm doing certain activities, I have a fitness person, uh person that owns a gym that's a friend of mine, and I ask them, I say, you know, I'm finding I'm doing these activities, what kind of strength training and cardio can I do that will actually set me up to be able to be more free in the studio and less concerned about my body performance. I do get a little bit bored with the repetition of the gym though. So on the weekends, the agreement that I made with myself was that I'll do physical activity on the weekends that's not necessarily in the gym. So I've started to take up foraging and hiking and um archery. I just tried out, and I've decided I do that now. And I really love it because there's something really fun about how many different parts of my body and brain come together in that activity. But I also like it because it gets to certain muscles in my back that, you know, you can't get to any other way. And I leave space for the weekends where I can explore and try different physical activities so that the weekdays feel like they're part of that holistic part, you know, the holistic physical part of my life. So not everything is just for work. I live in deep service of my work, but part of me being in deep service of the work is me being in joy as well. And those fun activities on the weekend really add to that physically and somatically for me.

Joe Dunaway 21:10

Yeah, I do archery as well. I don't hunt yet, but I I've been practicing with my bow for quite a while. And it's breathing, it's core, it's definitely that tension with your back. It's it's actually a more work than people would would imagine with the compound bow. So uh I can appreciate that in the CrossFit in the gym. I'm right there with you. Let's jump into family though. Your work explores ancestry and transformation in the family pillar. How did your family react to your departure from the safe career path? How has this shifted in your own life? How has this shift in your own life changed your definition of what a legacy really is?

Michele Bond 21:52

It depends on who you ask in my family, to be honest with you. Some people in my family um had a fear based response because of the way that they think about the art world and the possibility of making a living in the art world being an artist specifically. So some people thought this was a bad idea. They discouraged me. They they were concerned about my ability to take care of myself. And I think that that's a very fair that's a very fair analysis. I can't argue with the logic. Other people said Michelle, if anybody can do it, you can, you know, you've had this incredible career. You really understand business. You're very creative. It's an unregulated financial market. Come from a heavily regulated market. So you know the the 180 turn was in every aspect. It wasn't just, you know, I changed an industry. I also changed roles. I changed all of it all at the same time, you know, all the advice that you get about do something you know. I didn't listen to any of that. And I did what my intuition and my instincts were telling me to do, which is I need to do this now. Was there a price to pay? Sure. But you know grit grit and focus and belief. And this is you know going to come to faith, you know, the faith pillar belief, belief in yourself, belief that you can figure it out. You know, there I didn't believe all the time, you know, there were plenty of times where I was in a lot of fear, really scared, almost paralyzed by it, completely unsure what to do next. But I knew I kept thinking about all the times when I worked on Wall Street. I kept thinking about 2008 when I was there when the call came in that we were they were going to let Lehman go the next day and we were representing Lehman and watching all of that unfold and seeing not only my own performance but the performance of other people who were very serious about doing everything that they possibly could to keep the system intact and moving forward for the benefit of all people that are connected to the economic system. And seeing that and having learned from observing others and having learned that you know I can do it if I could do that, you know, I can figure this out.

Joe Dunaway 24:16

Right.

Michele Bond 24:17

You know, and there's a lot of tools that you can get into about you know mindset tools you can talk about that help you through all those challenging parts. But the truth is a lot of it is you making a decision to do something and then you showing up and being flexible enough to change who you are and what you're doing to accomplish what you want to accomplish within the boundaries and the discernment that come with who you've decided to be in your core.

Joe Dunaway 24:43

Amen to that and you mentioned faith and that is where the next direction we're going you presented at Harvard Divinity School in your series Cracks in the Temple whether it's in business or spirit where do you find uh coherence when you are breaking things apart to reveal what's beneath the surface I would say it's partially faith in myself and partially faith that I call it the universe that the universe has me.

Michele Bond 25:17

And that has been a big part of my journey into the art world and into my business and into my creativity is understanding that I'm part of something bigger and that I'm in service of something bigger. But part of my responsibility within that service is I need to take care of myself first, make sure my cup is full first and then I can be expansive and trusting that that is true and getting reps in on that. Even faith is a rep-based activity for me. You know I trust a little bit see how it goes ask for some help it shows up I'm like you got me okay okay I can't unsee that I can't unsee it. All right let me let me do a little bit bigger and then I get met again and then I get met again and I get met again. And if I don't get met I need to think about have I been specific enough and what I'm asking for help with what I'm looking to create because I have to create it I'm just asking for help in the creation am I taking enough of a lead role? Am I in victim mentality or am I in creator mentality? Am I being open to the help and I mean am I being specific enough about what it is that I'm asking for so that spirit can meet me.

Joe Dunaway 26:39

How does your how does your faith or sense of the bigger picture guide your hand when you're cutting deep into something so dense that's a great question.

Michele Bond 26:51

In the state of creating I feel completely connected to the divine to the divine let me restate that in the state of creating I feel absolutely connected to the divine I feel like I am a tool and I'm a pass through for this object to be birthed and I am merely here in service of the greater whole so I don't even feel like I'm creating the work. It feels like some energy is passing through my body into my hands. It's very intuitive but it's very structured in the design part when I'm designing the layers I don't actually know what I'm going to get when I design the layers but I intuit what the layers need to be and there's also an element of experience and understanding of how the materials work and there's technical mastery that goes into all of that. But once I start carving I have no idea what's going to show up. I often have like a single color on top and that's all I see. And then I start digging in with the tools and like this piece behind me I just kept going and I would pause and then something in me would say keep going and I would keep going and then I would pause and I just kept going back and forth. And then one moment came where it said stop that turquoise dot I'm done I am what I you have birthed me now.

Joe Dunaway 28:15

Yeah that's amazing um yeah I it sometimes it just you just it it's liberating to know that you're not some it's it's a weird dynamic of like you're not in control. Right? We wighting to be in control right but there's something liberating that like it we're just not in control. And sometimes you just where I struggle the most is you know because there's good there's obviously you know evil and because there's evil there's good right and it's I I find it tough to try to figure out what I'm trying to learn out of certain situations. Is that is that the the the evil kingdom the enemy you know pushing things are going too well and they're they're attacking me or is this something that's pushing me in a direction that you know I I need to slow down or certain people need to come into my life um so in my work I'm always trying to be aware of who's coming into my life things that are going bad and things that are being rewarded things that are going good you know where where that energy's coming from and just like you said you just got to listen and you just keep listening and if you don't if you don't sense something um maybe you're not asking the right questions right maybe you're not putting yourself in a position to hear the message.

Michele Bond 29:39

Back to your yin and yang example the light cannot exist without the dark they need each other. Yeah it's our choice about where we want to live within multiple spectrums and what we want to stand for, what we choose to stand for within that part of the dynamic of my work is holding space for both the light and the dark to exist both visually symbolically philosophically and not judging it just saying it is this is what it is how I choose to show up as a person in my life and the standards that I hold and the boundaries that I have and the discernment that I have is my own choice. But my work speaks to a broader idea yeah I completely agree.

Joe Dunaway 30:36

I feel that I feel that all right we've we've gone to the uh the next portion which is our rapid fire breakthrough round um so we got three questions for you don't overthink it just whatever comes to mind all right um what is one Wall Street system that every artist should adopt to be more successful oh my goodness that is a great question an understanding of finance not of accounting of finance fluency in finance yeah the the hardest part about reinventing yourself at the peak of your career letting go of the idea that I couldn't have a beautiful life without having the money that was there in that part of my life yeah yeah I feel that a hundred percent um we often refer to Vici as victory one of our methodologies is the Vici path to victory what does victory look like for Michelle Bonds in 2026 I recently learned how to delegate collaboratively so victory to me used to mean this yin and yang in order to have a victory somebody had to lose now victory means expansion to me it's a yes and as opposed to an either or I love that so for our for for for our audience I just want to recap that true transformation isn't about throwing your past away it's about layering it into something new discipline is the vehicle but clarity is the dis destination if you're looking to explore the intersection of precision and art please visit MichelleBonds.com or follow her studio process at Instagram on Instagram at Michelle BondsArt both of those links and addresses are in the show notes um and of course Michelle will do a promo after this just if you there's anything you want to say that's relevant to now we can make sure that our our guests find you before the episode airs which is in a couple months um but anything you want to share before we we uh sign off give yourself permission to create there you go do it don't don't think about it just do it right awesome well that's it for now seek the clarity beneath the surface hold your discipline and don't be afraid to carve out a new path we'll see you on the next episode of the Vici Code thanks for tuning in to the Vici Code where the underdogs rise and the numbers finally make sense if today's story hit home share it and remember faith fuels a fight and your comeback is already in progress