[Transcript starts at 1:31]
Hello, hello, hello my podcast people and thank you for joining me for yet another episode of my favorite podcast. So today we are talking about inspiring creativity. And this podcast episode was inspired by a recent conversation I had with Ashley, uh, over dinner just about creativity. We kind of go about things differently.
We view things differently, not like in a head-to-head, we're fighting about it, but just we're different people. Um, and so we were talking about this and this concept of creativity and she recently shared in her Stories a podcast, uh, that Huberman lab did with Rick Rubin, I, I believe. Um, and the podcast episode title was Accessing Creativity, something along those lines.
And that actually inspired this episode because, I don't really feel that creativity is this thing that needs to be accessed. Now I know it's kind of can be semantics in how you view the word, but, I don't like to think of creativity as this thing that's locked away and we have to kind of persuade it out, or we have to go find it, right?
It's tucked away behind some door, locked away behind some door. We have to figure out a way to access it. Like I think about, uh, that Jurassic Park, I almost said episode, Jurassic Park, the movie, the first one where they're like trying to access the mainframe and like, you know, hacking to the computer and the, the guy comes up on the screen, he's like, Uhuh, Uhuh.
That's what I kind of feel like when I hear accessing creativity. I believe that creativity is something that lives within us and we can encourage it and do things to inspire it simply to come out. So as we were talking during dinner, it became very apparent that I feel that there are kind of two different types of creativity.
One type is where you're like creating something that didn't exist before, like writing a fiction novel. That is just basically beyond my comprehension. I'm like, how did someone do that? Um, I think about, uh, things like, um, what's it called? The high fantasy, like Witcher and the circle of circle of time, what it's called.
No. The Wheel of Time, the circle of time, circle of life, The Wheel of time. Things like that, that are, I'm just like these. And even things like, um, what is it called? Uh, with Frodo and, and Bilbo Baggins, and, uh, Lord of the Rings. I'm like, how do people come up with this? This thing didn't even exist and they're able to like, come up with new languages and new characters and tie 'em together and these storylines.
That to me is really, think, speaks to creativity and a different type of creativity. I think that there's that type where you're making something that didn't exist before, making something from something that didn't exist, exist before. The other side of creativity, other type of creativity is what I tend to do, which is synthesizing something from existing content.
I understand that when you're good at one thing, you tend to think about the other things as like, wow, I couldn't do that. Like, that's so different. So when we're talk, I was talking with Ashley, speaking with Ashley. I don't think of what I do as like this really hard, difficult thing, and I get it. It's, I, I am, it's a gift, it's a blessing.
It comes naturally. But I do want to recognize that there are two different types, or I believe there are two different types of creativity. One where you're making something from nothing and one where you are synthesizing something from existing content. Of note, you all know that I'm all about definitions, and so I went and Googled it.
Synthesize means to combine a number of things into a coherent whole. To me, using Instagram for online business is largely this. It's synthesizing of information. This is how I keep coming up with content. This is, you know, I brought Wini Linguvic on and she spoke about this. This is Wini Linguvic's three Cs of content creation.
If we could link that episode, Courtney, that would be amazing. Thank you. But these three Cs of content creation from WI- as per Wini, are collect the information or collect the dots, connect the dots, and communicate the picture. We are truly synthesizing things there. So when we're looking at how do I come up with content, collecting the dots, collecting the information, everything around us, everything that we do, that's information.
Those are dots. We connect those dots to what it is that we are performing as providing or providing as a service. And then we communicate that connection and that coherent picture to our people, right? You never, ever run out of content. I think the kind of other peop- types of people, I'm thinking of someone like Ali Spagnola, um, I think that's how you pronounce her, her last name.
She's a creator on YouTube. She's literally a creator through and through and she makes things from nothing. Like actually makes things with her hands, but also come up with these storylines and things like that. And so I think those are two different types of, of creating and two types of creativity that we can look to inspire.
To me, I think that yes, inspiring this creativity perhaps starts with identifying which one you are, which camp maybe you are more in. My expertise, clearly is not in creating things from scratch and writing fiction novels, like I don't think I could even make up a story right now. Like I could not do that.
To that end, if that's you, it would probably be helpful or it could be helpful to hear from someone who does that and that is, you know, how they, they think. Those people that write write fiction novels, what's their process and, and how, well, how do they view creativity? Because it could, could be completely different than mine.
It may, it might resonate a bit more with you. I am here to speak to folks that are more in my space obviously the, oh, I miss that, more in, in my space in the online business space and doing what I believe is more synthesizing of information and that leaning on that type of creativity. What I do, however, believe that both types of creativity have in common is that action inspires them.
Meaning, yes, movement, to me, will always inspire creativity. You get the juices going, you get the brain firing. You're, you're, you know, motivated, you're doing things, you gotta sweat, you're breathing hard. Different things are going on in your body. Yes, you should not be surprised that you get your best ideas when you're out on a run or, you know, when you're in, you're, when I personally am in the gym lifting, or you're out for a walk.
But when I'm speaking about action here, I'm talking about the act of creating in and of itself, creativity to me begets and inspires more. Wow, sorry about that whistle there. Creativity, to me begets and inspires more creativity. Doing the thing. I do believe that there, that consumption can play a role in things, both types of creativity.
I think that especially for the synthesizing type of creativity. I think that consumption can be kind of the building blocks, right? I said, if you're gonna go and collect the dots, connect the dots, communicate the picture. So being online, being in on Instagram is, can be important for people, can be helpful for people, and inspiring some of that creativity.
What is, what are people saying? What are my, I almost said what are my enemies saying? What are my, um, competitors saying perhaps? What are my actual clients and customers saying? And that inspires things just like this, this, um, episode right now, right? Ashley is neither a competitor nor a client. Um, but what are the people saying?
What are they talking about? And using that as inspiration, using that as a starting point, a building block for synthesizing, pulling together all this information to create something. What I'm in- what I am going to suggest though is that the limit does exist. I think that consumption, especially of content, can serve as building blocks, but I think it can also have a constipating effect. If we're gonna stay with the Cs, I think it can have a constipating effect where people consume too much of it. They feel it fills all of their time. It leads to comparison. It causes 'em to feel like, oh, it's already been done. I shouldn't even bother doing this thing.
We see if your goal is actually to create, it's going to stop you if you are feeling all of that time, all of that brain space, all of that energy with consumption. Again, as always, my suggestion, my solution is to do the thing. To actually go and create, to look, to balance that consumption and really look to you the consumption as a, a starting point, right?
We can look to use it as, um, I don't wanna say, well, yes, we'll go with, we'll use it as a starting point as opposed to using this things, this content that we're consuming as guidelines, as this is right, and this is wrong. Because when we start comparing to what's already been done and what's out there, it will 100% stifle creativity. Whereas we know when we're first starting out, maybe you just need a little bit of, of inspiration.
You need a little bit of a, uh, permission of like, okay, this thing exists. This can exist, this can be a thing, and then you have to go and reciprocate, right? Create just as much as you are consuming. So again, my suggestion, do the thing, go and create, look to see how other people are doing it as a starting point, not as guidelines or measures of correctness.
So this actually ties into, uh, Thursday's episode. So this episode is gonna drop on Monday, uh, what is it gonna be February 27th. This Thursday, which will be, I'm looking at my calendar will be Thursday, March 2nd. Welcome to March. Um, it's gonna be a guest episode. I haven't had a guest on in a bit. Um, I was talking about ChatGPT, that was episode 439, and when I was all in the ChatGPT stuff, I was having some discussions in the DMs, and one of the people that was in the DMs speaking with me is this woman Susan Miller.
She's a higher education, uh, lecturer. She lectures, uh, in colleges and you'll hear in the episode, and she has a background in writing, a background in communications, and we're talking about ChatGPT.
And it was really cool because at the heart of this discussion, uh, was the concept of self-worth and how that ties into one's willingness to share. Uh, when you believe like, yeah, what I have to say matters. What I have to say is worth saying. That increases your willingness to go and do things. And I think that that ties into what I was saying before, is when we have a lot of consumption, we tend to get some of that comparisonitis.
Maybe we have some questions and doubts with self-worth and like, is it worth that I even say anything. And so that is the plug for Thursday's episode to give that a listen. Um, cuz I think it's a, a really cool, um, journey to go on as it relates to sharing things and, and how it ties into creativity. So, yes, I want you to listen to this episode.
I want you to listen to Thursday's episode. But I want you to create, because at the heart of this episode is, and at the heart of my entire message is that action is the answer. Doing the thing. I heard a good, a good quote the other day. It's from John Maxwell, and just taking two parts of it. And he's speaking about change.
He said, people change when they see enough that they're inspired to, and people also change when they learn enough that they want to. So yes, I believe that if people see enough of, you know, like consume enough content, they see enough of someone else doing that thing, talking about being inspired, talking about being creative.
If people go and consume content and learn about different ways to facilitate, inspire creativity, it can help them. Absolutely. But I truly do believe that the limit does exist and there are diminishing returns if your goal is to actually go and do the thing. If your goal is to learn more about the thing, cool, then go learn all the things.
But if you're like, I am trying to consume this content so that I can go and create and spark creativity, the limit will exist at some point, and you're just consuming, consuming, consuming. You have to balance that, pair that match that with actual creation, and from there we will see creativity inspires creativity.
Backing it up, just a few steps there. I wanna tie this into Strength Finders Assessment. So I recently had Allegra Stein come into the Mafia and she spoke about, spoke about the Strength Finders assessment, which I thought was actually really cool because it gives language to the positive things that we do.
Everything that we do, instead of being like, oh, you do too much of that, it's a bad thing. And you know, do less of that, it looks to say, Hey, these are your traits, these are your strengths. And sometimes, we lean too much on certain strengths. It breaks down the strengths into 34 different types of strengths. You can take the test, it'll give you your top five.
Um, but it, it gives language, which I really like, gives language and options to people. So if this, in this case, if someone's like, I find myself just consuming so much, which was the conversation I was having with Ashley. I find myself consuming so much. There's a good chance that if they were to take the Strength Finders Assessment, that they would perhaps score high in, um, learner as a strength or input as a strength.
It's not a bad thing, but again, we have to think about what's the outcome that we want. If the outcome is to actually create, then we might say, Hey, we're leaning too much on that individual strength or those few strengths, and we can look to balance it by leaning on a different strength that we have.
So what I just did there, folks, was, is actually a perfect example of this kind of synthesized creativity. Where I took information, content from different parts of my life where, you know, the ChatGPT T episode's coming up on Thursday. The discussion that I had with, um, Susan Miller, the John Maxwell quote that I heard on Instagram, the Strength Finder Assessment and learning about that from Allegra, and pulled parts of that to synthesize a coherent new thing. To create a new thing.
This is what I am suggesting you try doing. If you're like, Hey, I'm looking for more creativity. I'm looking to, you know, bring out this creativity, I'm looking to quote unquote, access this creativity. Right? Again, I don't think that it's necessarily locked away.
Um, I think that we can look to just inspire it to come out. We don't have to go and like, fight against ourselves. We can really just lean into it and kind of ride that wave of positivity. I, I, I know that sounds kind of like woo woo, but it is what it is. I said what I said.
So yes, I do believe that there is value in consuming things, but ultimately the magic comes from creating things and you will get better at that skill over time. You will get better at inspiring creativity, especially if you're looking at this kind of synthesized creativity, cuz that's again, my, my more of my specialty, my expertise, what I am most familiar with, you will get better with it over time.
This is one of the reasons quite frankly, that I encourage people to post every day on social media. Because then they start viewing the world in terms of shareable content. They start actually seeing all these dots right out there that they can collect, that they can then connect to what is they actually do, and then they can communicate that picture with their audience.
They can create something from that. And that creativity tends to inspire more creativity. Right. So the value in, in consuming for short, and if you're really, really stuck, you know, Ramit just did a post about this today. He was like, what do I do? What do I do when I'm stuck for, and I, I'm looking for creativity.
And he was like, I don't have some big meditation thing I do. He was like, I don't know, go for a walk, eat a snack, and go on Reddit for two hours. And there's that consumption part. But it has to be balanced with the creativity part. And you will see once you get that ball rolling, it keeps going.
So takeaway here, we're gonna try and keep this episode shorter cause I want you to actually go and create.
The takeaway here is that if you are looking for creativity, I want you to think of it as a regenerative resource. I told you this season, or I mean this season, this year, 2023, more into this regenerative concept, looking more into it. Um, and this ties in with creativity. I do believe it is a, it is a regenerative resource, that it's not finite.
That you can renew it and you can look to inspire it. Yes, consumption, that initial consumption can spark it when you need, you're looking for it. But you're best bet at, you know, helping that, that flame to grow and to really inspire and renew that creativity is going to be action.
So my homework for you, my call to action for you is simply go forth and create.
All right, I'm looking at the time, this is a good one. This is a very bright episode. I got a lot of light coming in here today. Uh, as always, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you. Do not forget Thursday's episode is going to be a guest episode. Switching it up a little bit. Uh, so hopefully you'll tune into that as well and let me know any feedback that you have.
All right, officially wrapping it up. Until next time, friends, Maestro out.
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MOTM #317: Collect, Connect, and Communicate with Wini Linguvic
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