speaker-0: Boom boom.

speaker-1: You were made for creativity, learning, problem solving, and of course, action. On the Incredible Mind Podcast, you'll hear from neuroscientists, psychologists, doctors, artists, and others whose work expands our understanding of how the brain works, where things can go wrong, and what simple everyday steps you can take to make the most of the unique intelligence you were born with. The Incredible Mind I'm talking about is yours. Do you have an idea swimming around in your head? Something you'd like to do or make, but it feels impossible to find the time or get the confidence going to make it happen. In today's episode, You Can Create. I get to speak with the woman who literally wrote the book to help the rest of us get over that initial creative hump and make it all the way to the finish line of a completed project. If you like what you hear, please subscribe and share this episode with friends and family. Let's get started. Welcome everyone to Incredible Mind. In today's episode, I am so excited to introduce to you Zarana Ivchevich Pringle. Zirana is the director of the Creativity and Emotions Lab at Yale University. The reason that we have Zirana here is she has written this remarkable book. It's called The Creativity Choice. And so far on the show, we have had these great speakers talking about the arts and all these different avenues of creativity. We've spoken a lot about those, but what About plain old, I want to make something, I want to do something, and I don't know where to get started. I think everybody can relate to this situation. And this book, The Creativity Choice, is this wonderful antidote to this problem that we've all faced. So whether you are an artistic person or you're a designer or a writer, whatever your background is, and there is something that in your heart you want to make. This is really a book that you ought to read, but lucky for us, we get to start out by hearing it straight from the author's mouth. And here is Zarana. So welcome, Zarana. Thank you for coming. My first question for you, Zarana, is what made you write this book?

speaker-0: Thank you for having me. I saw a gap. I saw a gap that was frustrating to me. We knew in the science of creativity a lot about how people come up with ideas. And we also knew a lot about what those products, those inventions, those pieces of art, whatever it is, look like. But what happens in between is something that we didn't know enough about. And I thought That is an interesting question, fundamentally a question that comes to emotions and dealing with the emotional side of uncertainty, frustration, stress, and everything else that happens from idea to its realization.

speaker-1: Well, that does capture your book very well. The book even begins with everyone has ideas, right? We all have friends, even ourselves or family, who always have these ideas about a movie that they could make or an invention, but that's where they stay. They stay in the realm of ideas. So who can take an idea and move it into reality? And what I get a sense from when I read your book is that we shouldn't be viewing creativity. From the perspective that only the chosen few are capable of making creative choices and creating something, but that this is really a mindset that ⁓ all of us could adopt.

speaker-0: Certainly. I think that there is a mindset, there is a set of skills, some of which are about how we think and how we approach coming up with ideas, developing them, and moving them along. And part of it is not creativity skills per se, but all the other skills that enable us for those to shine, such as Dealing with our emotions, harnessing their power, but also when they get in our way, ⁓ having that agency to do something about them so that they do not get us blocked or get us astray.

speaker-1: Let's begin with the first part of your book. It's about choosing creativity, choosing to take that step with your idea and create. So what are the things that surprise you that most of us don't know about creativity?

speaker-0: What a great way of framing it. What is surprising? I think it is surprising that what we are missing is that all creativity comes from uncertainty and involves uncertainty. Sometimes in our culture we act as if uncertainty is something new in our rapidly changing technological world. Maybe the level of uncertainty, how widespread it is and what it influences. could in some ways be broader or bigger or influence more people, but for creativity it is always related to it. Why that is? Well, we can just start with what is creativity in the first place. And scientists define creativity as something that is in the same time original and effective. That originality can have its different forms. It can be original just in relation to your personal experience. Something is new for you, but other people have learned about it or know about it already. It can be original in relation to your social group, it's something new in your community. Or it can be professionally original, some new development in an area of work, for instance. Is effective really means it has a desired influence. If it's a piece of art, it has a reaction in its audiences. If it is a piece of architecture, it has function and utility for its purpose, and we can go on. No matter what we are doing, something has to be original and effective. Where that uncertainty comes is that if we are talking about originality, we are by definition talking about uncertainty. If you are doing something original, you don't know what you're going to do. It is different from what you have done before. It is different from what has been done before in your area of work. And therefore, there is no blueprint. There is no set of instructions that you can follow and just go rely on your previous experience and do it in the same way as you have done it before. And that creates the uncertainty of whether you can even rise to the occasion and make it happen. And it also creates an uncertainty of how are other people going to receive it, take it and evaluate it ultimately. When I

speaker-1: Think about uncertainty and originality's role in it. I think another common feeling that many of us have when we have an idea is, ⁓ this isn't that original. People have already done this. Maybe they didn't do it the way I'm thinking of doing it. It's it's almost having to mine a little bit for what is original about your idea. Sometimes that self-doubt that someone is capable of doing something really original could also be a road.

speaker-0: It's a great point in how we define what is original and what is creative is going to influence what we do, what we are willing to do. And sometimes we have role models that are misplaced. We think in our minds that what is original is what Steve Jobs did, what Coco Chanel did. Just insert your favorite creator who has changed their domain in some monumental way. And we tend to go immediately there. And if that is the only role that originality can have, changing how we live, well, very few people are going to be able to meet that criterion. A better way of thinking about it is to look for people around us, those who we work with. And some things that they might have done, ways they have contributed that have made a difference. And look at originality in context in which we are. Sometimes it can grow in ways that are unexpected. We don't know whether Steve Jobs knew all along or could even imagine all along what Apple was going to become. In many cases people did not even imagine it. So starting where you are in your community of practice and ⁓ in your teams is a better way of thinking about ⁓ originality.

speaker-1: That does remind me of what you talk about in your book of big C creativity, which is the Steve Jobs and the Coca Chanel and the Gowdies of the world, versus little C creativity. We all know people who are really creative cooks or gardeners or even just creative parents.

speaker-0: Exactly. So those are all great examples in that big contrast between something that is creative in everyday life and people who are making contributions that are making other others' lives better, ⁓ those of our children. And on the other hand, we have that big C creativity, those eminent creators who are changing the way we live. In between those two is what we call in the scientific terms, Term procy or professional creativity, which is on the level of what we do in our professional lives. Something that requires a certain area of expertise. Somebody who is a scientist has spent substantial time in school learning their area work. They don't come up with ideas out of a vacuum. It comes in relation to what has been done before, in response to what has been done before, and building on it, or departing from it, but knowing the background. And the same is the case in every other domain of work where there's a certain level of knowledge and expertise of playing how things are, where we came from, and how things are done. Once we know that, we can start breaking rules.

speaker-1: Yes. I have certainly worked with very creative people at what you call pro C marketing teams are such a good example. Those folks are so creative. And even on that little C level, I have a neighbor who started interior decorating and going into her house is the biggest joy because it's just so unique and beautiful. Mm-hmm.

speaker-0: Great examples. Creativity lives even in places where we normally would not expect it to be. And sometimes we think of the arts, then we expand it to creative industries. But it can be in places that are not obviously creative. That maybe your job description doesn't even include creativity and innovation in it. But there's a possibility, and that possibility comes from being present, noticing what is going on and recognizing needs and opportunities.

speaker-1: I love that. I have known people who are in the construction trades or even home repair, the creativity that goes involved with getting inserting some shelving in this spot that's otherwise useless. That is creativity as well.

speaker-0: And I love an example of a manager that I encountered in my consulting with a large teaching hospital. And he was not in research and development, he was not developing new drugs or medical procedures, but he was a supervisor in a food services unit of the hospital. So now you think, how can that possibly be creative? Well, creativity is not in his job description, but what he realized was that his workers were getting Burned out. He paid attention to it, he recognized what they were experiencing, he cared what they were experiencing, and he faced a choice. Now, a choice could have been for him to send them to a wellness program at the hospital, but he wanted to really solve a fundamental issue. And he sold it by completely redesigning the workflow of how they were fulfilling food orders for patients. And so workers did not have to bend or stretch anymore, places were not placed inconveniently, and all kinds of benefits ensued, both to the workers and their well being, but also for the patients, because getting the correct food on your tray can be part of your treatment. So multiple benefits and the position did not even include the requirement of being creative. There was that possibility. And that possibility started with noticing a feeling.

speaker-1: I love that example because it also takes creativity out of this hallowed realm and reminds us that when any of us takes the time to pay attention to what is going on around us, we can be creative problem solvers. If I remember right, with that example, he also involved the workers on his team, right, in developing the solution. So it became a social thing. It wasn't just him.

speaker-0: Exactly. He noticed the need, he attended to the need, he perceived it, and he decided that's that element of choice, to treat it as a creative problem. And then it gets to the team of doing observations, looking at different perspectives and learning in order to create a new design.

speaker-1: You've just done a great job of explaining how we can get to that awareness of the need for an original creative solution, broadening it to a more general conversation. How does someone who has an idea, how do they implement that creatively? And what is required of us as thinking beings to get all the way through a creative process?

speaker-0: Well a lot is required from us. And ⁓ let let's take an example. Recently I gave a talk, and after a talk you have conversations with people, and I was approached by somebody who was sort of laughing at his own expense and said, You know, I had an idea for Airbnb several years before it was launched, and he told me the story. ⁓ he was a successful entrepreneur, he has done lots of things in his life, but this one idea Yeah, he did not end up developing. The idea came in a very similar way as it did for the actual founders of Airbnb. We know, and we have probably used, I have used it, you know, within the last three weeks. So the idea itself came in a very similar way. He decided this sounds like a good idea. So let's do something about it. And his next step was to talk to somebody, which is a great first step. Get something out of your head. And he ended up talking to an executive from Hyatt Hotels. That executive very much discouraged him and convinced him that it was a bad idea, that it would never work, it was a bad idea, and it would be a huge waste of time, effort, and money. This illustrates several things. Now, from the idea person's side, this was the end of the process. In this particular instance, And it didn't get developed. But if we say okay, what was different in the process of the founders of the of the now known Airbnb, what happened is that they went to next steps. Not everybody liked the idea, and people they shared ⁓ the idea with did not universally like it. Certainly those in the established hotel world did not like it. And for inexplicable reasons, right? Fair. But they ended up exploring it more. They ended up trying it out. The very first ⁓ listings they had were not the best because the pictures that people took on their own, this was a long time ago. So it was before our awareness of how to take pictures, of what looks good, of how to present. This was amateur looking. Now they did not stop there. They made another decision and said, Okay, let's go and work together with people who are making the listings, since this was only emerging, and help them with presentation and with shooting and with making it presentable and attractive. And so one decision ended up becoming another decision and another decision, and not to say that it was a smooth process, it wasn't at all. It was a very difficult process, but the dead end in one instance did not become truly dead end. It became a wall that then you can scale over, or you can get around, or you can dig underneath, you can even break through, but it wasn't a dead end with that finality of the dead in the dead end phrase. So, what it takes is when you get that discouragement, not to take it as something that is final, but look for different perspectives. And that brings us to. The importance of exploration once you have an idea.

speaker-1: ⁓ and the other thing I hear in that is persistence. It's helpful to understand that Airbnb went through these things and had failures and not so great starts because for a lot of us it can be so scary to put something out there that we don't think is perfect at the first go that we don't even try, but it is in the doing and sometimes making mistakes, which I certainly have. Each error that we make teaches us.

speaker-0: Exactly. And once we have an idea, that idea is not set in stone. Ideas do not come on stone tablets on a mountain. and they come in rudimentary form, they come as fragments, they come as starting points, and then they develop. To to just share a personal example, as I was writing a book, I had a list of chapters that I have envisioned that. A twist of chapters and the description of those chapters that was part of a book proposal was not what ended up being the case in the end. Things have changed. There was one chapter that ended up becoming two. There was one that I never intended to write, but my editor suggested, and I had a good sense of listening to her and knowing that she knows something that I do not. I was very, very glad in the end that I did take that chapter. It was the chapter on the creative block, and

speaker-1: Great chapter. Great chapter. Thank you.

speaker-0: Thank you. ⁓ thanks to my editor. And then what went in particular chapters ended up developing through time. Version one and the final version sometimes did not even look similar. And that is not because I am a uniquely bad writer. It is just the nature of the creative process. Things change, the first ideas are not the most creative, the first versions are not the most polished or the most creative, it is a matter of doing it, redoing it and exploring what works best.

speaker-1: I'm glad you brought that up because by profession, I am an instructional designer. And instructional designers have different development processes that we work with. And my favorite one is a lesser used one called the SAM model. And it's an iterative ideation. What you do in this SAM model is you get your first idea out and you spell it out. You maybe you do a really basic storyboard. And in our case, this is training, but it could be for anything, right? Then you do another idea and another idea. And it is always the second, third, or fourth that are the good ones. It's as if I need to push the assumed solution out of my head before I can get to the gold.

speaker-0: This is exactly what happens in the mind. Not just your mind, not just the designer mind, in all of our human minds. I love an example of an activity that is often used in creativity research when we test how people come up with ideas. And it's a test called the alternate uses test. And it asks people how you could use in all the ways you can think of some common everyday objects. And it can be anything. It can be a knife, it can be a tin can. Most often one used it's a brick. Garden variety, brick, imagine a brick, that kind of brick. And so if you think of how you can use a brick, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Most people, when you tell them brick, they say build a house.

speaker-1: A brick, okay.

speaker-0: Then they say maybe build a chimney or build a barbecue pit, but essentially building is the first thing that is mentioned. And then the second thing is smash something. And this is invariably the case. Some people start with building, some people start with smashing, but those two things come up first as a rule. What this illustrates is our minds start with what is obvious. If you then go on, just like in your example. Adding, adding and adding, you are going to be adding the next obvious thing, the next obvious thing. But now that you are at the item or use number seven, it is not going to be that obvious anymore. When we ask about the uses for a brick, sometimes we get could be used as a mural for a community of miniature people in a fantasy land. And can be grind down and then used as pigments. People come up with more interesting uses as they put aside those more obvious ones. Now it's easy to see that when we are talking about uses of a brick, because we can all imagine that the first uses would be obvious. But the same is the case when we are looking for ideas of how to name a new product, when we are looking for ideas for A new line of soft drinks or anything else that that that you can imagine. The most interesting thing to me is not that first ideas are not most creative, but that people are not aware of this. If you ask them directly which ideas are going to be most creative, people think those early ones. In reality, they are those that come later on.

speaker-1: It's divergent thinking. Divergent thinking. Yes.

speaker-0: Divergent thinking is one form of creative thinking. It starts at one problem or one task and goes in very different, varied directions. So you are starting with this image of a brick and you go to all these different kinds of uses. That's divergent thinking as opposed to Convergent thinking, which is taking different pieces of information or different parts of a problem and finding one correct solution. Typical school problems on those tests when you have to select one single correct answer would be a good example of convergent thinking. And in creative work we need to do both. We need to think broadly and widely, and then we have to narrow down and it's a process of broadening and narrowing throughout creative work. There is this idea in our culture that creativity comes from sudden insight. And if it comes from sudden insight, your first impulsive reaction should be the most creative. However, that is a myth. ⁓ that is not the case. Think of it as a train network. You are starting in one place, you want to get some place interesting which happens to be far away, but you have to take existing routes through the stops in between.

speaker-1: So the train ride and each stop along the way are the different ideas that eventually get you to something a little more exciting.

speaker-0: And something a little bit more worth pursuing, putting the effort, putting the investment in some unpleasant times too.

speaker-1: Yes, now let's get into that because I think most people have been there at some point. They land in an idea, this is great, I'm gonna do it, and they hit their first roadblock, and for many of us that is where we give up. W what's going on with us emotionally when we hit that kind of roadblock? I don't mean creative block per se, but just some kind of struggle. Is it possible for us to work through that first challenge?

speaker-0: Challenges happen throughout the creative process. The first challenge is even facing that decision to share your ideas. Lots goes in our mind as we are considering that. Is this something I'm going to not even pursue but share with somebody else? Or write down sort of share with myself in a way? And what goes in our minds are worries, concerns about Possible negative social consequences to our reputation? What are other people going to say? Are they going to think this is stepping on toes? Are they going to get angered? Are they going to think it is silly? Lots of people thought the idea for Airbnb was silly, but that did not stop the founders. Another concern we have is one that is more inwardly oriented. Can I rise to the occasion? I am feeling uncomfortable, or I'm feeling self-conscious about doing something with this thought or this fragment of an idea. Maybe it is safer not to do anything about it. And then there's this other concern or other kind of thought that is, but I really want to do it. It is really important to me. And it is possible. Sometimes people say, ⁓ so you want to get those thoughts and not those first ones. We happen to be human and we happen to have more than one thought at a time. And we are considering other people's reactions and we are considering what does it feel to us as we are trying to figure out whether we can do it. All of those can be present in the same time. Now the question is not whether you're comfortable whether you are going to Deal with those feelings of discomfort that are very common as we are starting the creative process. I came across this quote from Georgia O'Keefe, and she said that she was terrified with every single decision she made in her life, but that it never prevented her from doing what she wanted to do. Feeling discomfort is not a problem in itself. It's now what are you going to do about it?

speaker-1: There's so much there because I've known people with great business ideas, but maybe they're locked into a job and they don't want to let down their boss. What I really do appreciate about the creativity choice is that it does include ideas like I'm gonna start my own company. I'm going to invent that thing, or I'm just going to create a new cookie. It can really be anything and right there's there's the smaller stakes creativity and the big ones, launching a new business can be. quite intimidating. But once we so once we get over the sense of risk that you're describing at the personal level of how do I even take the first step? It's the first real hurdle that most of us face.

speaker-0: It's the first big creativity choice. It is not the only one because at every point that we are doing something, we are facing a decision in which the direction to go. Are we going to go with something that might be easier but more commonplace? Or are we going in a direction that is going to preserve that idea and striving towards something that is going to be effective but also original? And you mentioned. In in your question of what can we do when we are facing these emotional blocks? They don't have to be necessarily creative blocks, but there's something that is difficult emotionally. We have agency in relation to our emotions. We have this experience of we get triggered by something, something happens, and it appears that the emotional reaction is immediate and automatic. However, Scientists have uncovered that it is really not so. There are lots of influences on what we end up experiencing and how we are able to react and act in relation to our feelings. There are several things that influence it. What we are paying attention to in a particular situation and how we interpret the meaning of the situation matters. I have come across this wonderful study in a dissertation that examined how people interpret their anxiety before pitching their idea in a big contest with lots of money on the table, and these were real potential investors. Public speaking is one of the most universally anxiety-provoking things. But those people who were interpreting the situation as I am anxious because I really truly and deeply care about what I'm doing, did very differently and much better than those who interpreted the situation as I am anxious because I am not sure whether I'm prepared enough. It was their mindset. How they were thinking about what is going on. What is going on might be the same, but how you are interpreting it can make a big difference.

speaker-1: It was their mindset.

speaker-0: And then sometimes the only thing that we can influence is how we are going to react in the moment. Each of these parts of the emotion experience or influences on the emotion experience, we can do something about. We can sometimes distract ourselves from a particular situation. If we are facing a block, that is the best thing that you can do. Just do something else. Not the thing on which you are blocked. And as you are taking a break, your mind is going to take that edge, the emotional edge off, just the distance will take the edge off, and you might be able to approach what you're doing from a different perspective.

speaker-1: ⁓ yeah, I'll take a walk sometimes where I've been grinding against a problem or a project and I'm feeling so frustrated. Just take a walk, walk around the block. It's amazing. Sometimes I'll say one more, one more loop around the block. And the second one is where the solution comes.

speaker-0: And that's a great example. It does not have to be a big break. It does not have to be you are taking a day off. You do not necessarily need a mental health day. You need distance from what you are working on. Taking a walk works for many people, but you don't have to do even that. If you are feeling pressure because you have a lot of things on your plate, just switching what you are doing and doing something else that is on your to-do list. But think that you are not blocked on directly, you are pushing that productivity, but you are also giving your mind and body break from that thing where where the not is, emotional knot is.

speaker-1: Absolutely. It's ⁓ I'll just respond to emails or file whatever boring paperwork that I know I need to do anyway. I'll just do that. That's encouraging, especially in this high productivity work environment that so many people are in. One of the things that I really liked that you talked about in the making creativity happen part of the book was the idea using our different moods. And harnessing them to complete certain creative tasks. And so not just saying I must banish all my down moods and doubts. You're saying actually that's the perfect time to do XYZ.

speaker-0: Great that you are bringing that up because I think that's something that people often mess about emotions. We intuitively know that sometimes they get in our way and that having strategies to do something about them and change those moods could be helpful. But people often miss that there is a relationship, a tight relationship between thinking and feeling, and that if we know what that is. We can use it to our advantage. So, to be very concrete, different moods are making us more efficient and more successful at particular kinds of thinking. So, for instance, when we are in happy, energized moods, we are better able to think broadly and even be a little bit silly, give ourselves that permission of going in directions that Are throwing caution to the wind. So those happy moods are ideal for coming up with ideas, new ideas, different ideas, diverse ideas, original ideas quickly. And sometimes people say, ⁓ so positive moods are good for creativity. Well, they are good for that part of creativity. But I was writing a book. Writing a book is not just coming up with You know, fragments of an idea, or it could be this, it could be that, it could be the other thing. Now you have to develop it, you have to write it, you have to put all the stories in detail on the page. So that requires different kinds of thinking. And ⁓ in times when we are in more subdued moods and more negative, even more pessimistic moods, we are able to be very critical. Critical thinking shines in those times. Just imagine when you're feeling pessimistic, right? Everything is wrong with the world. So if everything is wrong with the world, everything is wrong with what you are doing too. You can notice what could be improved. You can notice what is not quite right. We tend to have times of typical moods in our daily lives. Some people wake up. All energized and ready to go. I was not blessed with that kind of disposition. So I get up and I am kind of grumpy, but I know how to use it. I know that when I first get up, I am in a mental state that is really great for taking what I have written the night before and finding everything that does not flow, everything that is not elegant, everything that is not achieving its Point of clarity and engagement. I can find everything that is wrong and then I can improve it. And that is ultimately part of the creative process too.

speaker-1: Yeah, if you can't do what some may feel is tedious and be hypercritical of yourself, if you're always pie in the sky, you're gonna throw out some unworkable stuff. But if your more judgmental side comes in and says, ⁓ just let's hold back and let's just pick this apart just a little bit. If you harness it it's just such a different take on a society that is often about just being happy.

speaker-0: ⁓ exactly. We cannot always be happy. ⁓ because being human means that we have a range of emotions. We can be happy more frequently than not being happy, and that is certainly something to aspire, but we are not going to be happy at all times. That's not achievable, and it wouldn't even be good for us.

speaker-1: No, it wouldn't be it's not desirable either. What was the third emotion that you talked about?

speaker-0: One that I talk about a lot is frustration. Frustration is ⁓ very interesting because we don't like it, it's not pleasant, but it can be motivating in very interesting ways. Frustration can be something that gives us a clue to possibilities or something that is a problem to be solved if we only pay attention to. Scientists oftentimes feel frustrated when they notice a disconnect between what we know and what we are still missing. You see, but entrepreneurs' ideas they come up with come from seeing where a problem might be that other people might not see it. I I love the description of founding of Instacart. The founder describes in such vivid detail How much he found in grocery shopping experience frustrating. He was frustrated by the placement of items, by what is right, by the checkout, by lighting. He was going on and on. He realized he couldn't be the only one and asked the question: what if it did not have to be like this? Now you can go in different directions, you can go in the direction of. improving the shopping experience itself. He went in a different direction, in a direction of what if you didn't even have to go physically to a grocery store. So there are always many possible directions, that divergent thinking component, and he went in a particular one that did not exist at the time. It came from being frustrated, paying attention to it, as this is an indication of a possibility. This is something that I could problem solve around. Most of us, most of the other people who are also frustrated by the grocery shopping experience, just don't do anything about it because, well, because they have lives, of course. But what we tend to do when we are feeling something unpleasant is we tend to do something to make ourselves feel better. He did not do that. He said, Let me think. What does this experience tell me? What is the story behind it? And what is its informational value? And he realized that is somewhere he could act.

speaker-1: He sat in the frustration.

speaker-0: He sat with the frustration to learn from it and then he acted from it. But examples are found all over entrepreneurship where people invent things because something did not work, oftentimes for them, sometimes for others who they came in contact with. But teachers do this all the time. When they noticed something did not land right, they Pay attention to that element of frustration, their own or their students, sometimes in combination, and solve around that. Create new approaches, more effective ones, usually original ones around paying attention to feelings.

speaker-1: I now think that my mantra should be what if

speaker-0: What if that's a great way to start your thinking process?

speaker-1: Because it it's very open. Yeah, throw those ideas out there and it maybe you might come up with something really unique. Zarana, one section of your book really talks about the importance of viewing creativity as a almost a social interaction. And I was really compelled by where you talk about the importance of having different types of people in your life who help propel different aspects of a creative process. So Can you just explain to us a a few different types of people we sh we should all have in our lives?

speaker-0: The good news is we already have these different kinds of people in our lives. Researchers have found most prominently at Emory University that who we are interacting with helps at the different parts of the process in different ways. So if we are in the stage of the creative process where we are thinking of new ideas or different ways of looking at a particular problem we have, it's the most helpful to talk to and Interact with people we don't interact with on a daily basis. They call these weak ties. They are there in our social network, but it could be people who we see once a year at a conference, or it could be people we occasionally message on LinkedIn or something of the sort. But in those times when we already have an idea, we are committed to. To a particular course of action, but now we have to deepen it, have to develop it, have to bounce directions off of someone. There it's most helpful to talk to those who are strong ties. Those are our co-workers. Those are close relations of people who we interact with very commonly daily or weekly basis. Because they can say, Yeah, that's great what you have done. They can validate something that we have developed, but also stay very close to those ideas we have by showing respect to where we already are, helping us through support, or helping us by elaborating, giving us ways to develop, deepen, or elaborate something which we already did.

speaker-1: I have really leaned on some of my strong ties through throughout different creative ventures. And I have one friend, her name is Chris, always lets me bounce ideas off of her and she's willing to encourage and yet challenge at the same time. And I find that combination to be really powerful. I'm not looking for a sycophant, but I'm also not looking for someone who's just gonna shoot me down ev every idea. I need something somewhere in the middle. So Hope that we all have a Chris in our lives. Zarana, this has been such a great conversation. I know many people who are out there longing to be more creative in their lives. And first of all, you show that creativity is a dynamic concept. It can be applied across all these different areas. It can be big C, little C, pro C, and just how to actually take our feelings to really push ourselves through a creative process. So Thank you so much. This episode is dedicated to my strong tie, Christina. Chris has listened to every crazy idea I've had, taken it seriously, and provided feedback on some of my roughest cuts. Thank you. Thank you, my friend. Incredible Mind Podcast is written, produced, and edited by me, Michelle Cross-Smith. Peter Aronson is consulting producer. Angela Ferrero designed the cover art, and the music was created by Alex Grohl. You can find Zarana, Ivchevich Pringle's book.

speaker-0: Thank you for having me.

speaker-1: The creativity choice wherever you buy your books. If you're enjoying this content, please like and subscribe to Incredible Mind. Extra credit if you share an episode with friends and family. For more information, visit incredible-mind.org.