Episode 37: Creative Spark Series - Giving Back to the Community with Melinda Rothouse & Charlotte Gullick

In this installment of our Creative Spark series of bite-size, mini-episodes, Melinda & Charlotte discuss the importance of giving back to our creative communities. This could take the form of mentoring or guiding others, or just simply lending a helping hand with someone’s creative work or process. Helping others can also help us out of our own creative ruts. We might not think we have anything insightful to share, but we probably have more wisdom than we realize; what might seem obvious or second-nature to us, could actually be a revelation to someone else. This episode, like the mini-episodes that preceded it, includes insights and prompts from our book, Syncreate: A Guide to Navigating the Creative Process for Individuals, Teams, and Communities.

For our Creativity Pro-Tip, ask yourself: what's one way you can share your knowledge with others and/or give back to your creative community? 

Credits: The Syncreate podcast is created and hosted by Melinda Rothouse, and produced at Record ATX studios with in collaboration Michael Osborne and 14th Street Studios in Austin, Texas. Syncreate logo design by Dreux Carpenter.

If you enjoy this episode and want to learn more about the creative process, you might also like our conversations in Episode 20: The Syncreate Model of Play, Plan & Produce, Episode 31: The Power of Collaboration, and Episode 35: Navigating the Creative Wilderness. 

At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors, so if you have an idea for a project or a new venture, please reach out to us for 1x1 coaching or join our Syncreate 2024 Coaching Group, starting in July. You can find more information on our website, syncreate.org, where you can also find all of our podcast episodes. Find and connect with us on social media and YouTube under Syncreate, and we’re now on Patreon as well. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review!

Transcript

Melinda: Welcome to Syncreate, a show where we explore the intersections between creativity, psychology and spirituality. We believe everyone has the capacity to create. Our goal is to demystify the process and expand the boundaries of what it means to be creative. I'm Melinda Rothouse and I help individuals and organizations bring their dreams and visions to life.

Charlotte: And I'm Charlotte Gulick. I'm a writer, educator, and writing coach. We're the coauthors of a book on the creative process, also called Syncreate.

Melinda: At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors. So if you have an idea for a project or new venture, please reach out to us for 1x1 coaching or join our Syncreate 2024 Six-Month Coaching Group, starting in July. This virtual, six-month coaching group will guide you through the journey of creativity in order to move from start to finish on a creative project.

Charlotte: Join us for accountability, community and fun! We're offering a 10% discount on the coaching series if you mention this podcast. You can find more information on our website, syncreate.org, where you can also find all of our podcast episodes. 

So today we're going to talk about giving back to the community. And we have found that this is something that's really important in the creative life that doesn't get talked about that much. 

So why is this important? We feel like it's important to discuss because we feel like, through our own experiences and our experiences with people who express themselves in a variety of mediums, everybody gets stuck, when you're in a groove and then it doesn't feel so good, and then you step back out, or you're not sure how to proceed. One of the things that we have found that's really helpful is to give back, and that's one of the reasons that we're doing this podcast, is to share what we've learned.

Melinda: Absolutely. So, you know, once we've come through the creative journey, you know, we learn a lot about ourselves in the process, and therefore we have wisdom to share with others. You know, we can act as mentors and guides for others. So as we'll be talking about in our next book, this idea of creating in community is so important.

Charlotte: Like Melinda just said, you know, we can get stuck in the process, and sometimes we don't recognize that that actually is an area of expertise, that our own struggles can be something that we share with other people, and how we've come through them. It can be ways that we help other people. 

Another thing that can be useful when you're stuck is to think, how can I help somebody else on their creative journey? What is it that I could do in some small way that makes me feel generous and empowered, rather than feeling disempowered in the creative process? So one of the examples that I have done is that, I had a friend, she was a writer, and one of the things that she really loved was getting a certain magazine every month, and she didn't have the funds for that subscription. And what I did is I bought her a subscription for that. 

Another time I bought a registration to a writing conference for someone. And it for me, it just shifts how I'm thinking about creativity. And like Melinda just said, it lets me know that I'm not alone, and that there are small things I can do to empower myself and other people in the process.

Melinda: Absolutely. And we all need each other. You know, this makes me think of, someone just called me yesterday and they were kind of tentative about it. Like, “I have a favor to ask,” you know, and it was like, “Would you be willing to take a look at my new book and maybe write an endorsement?” And I was like, “Of course I would!”        

You know, we had to do that for our book. And that's so important, you know, getting the word out and getting some advance, you know, commentary about the book. And I was so happy to do it. You know, so, yeah, you know, and also really, this podcast is an offering to the community. You know, so far we're entirely self-financed and self-funded.

But, you know, I really, see this as, as a labor of love and a way for us to share what we've learned about the creative journey, you know, beyond what's in our book or, you know, the people that we might interact with directly on a day-to-day basis to, you know, get this out into, you know, the wider world.

Similarly, I know we both kind of donate our time and energy to various conferences and speaking engagements, and these are all examples of giving back. So, you know, that might look different for you depending on, you know, the medium that you're working in, the context that you're working in. But it might just be as simple as, again, you know, going back to our theme of accountability, a partnership, you know, just providing support and accountability for someone else for their creative work.

Charlotte: And I think the other aspect of this is kind-of our mission around creativity, is to make it be a place of good feeling as often as possible.

Melinda: Yes.

Charlotte: So, you know, my experiences and watching other people in a variety of mediums, sometimes we get really bogged down. And how can we help others and ourselves feel better in that process? And that's another reason why it's so important. So your Creativity Pro-Tip is you can ask yourself, what's one way you can share your knowledge with others and or give back to your creative community?

And I was just having a conversation with someone over coffee about two hours ago, and she was like, well, I don't know if I have expertise, but sometimes we might have the most expertise of anyone in the room, and not from a pompous or arrogant place, but from a more experienced place, and that from that more experienced place. We might, ask ourselves, you know, what can I do for someone else that makes two people feel better?

Melinda: That is so important, I think, because, you know, we gather different knowledge and experience along the way, and we incorporate it, and we just kind of think, oh, that's common sense, right? Like, but it might not be common sense to someone else. Right. And it might actually feel like really helpful information that maybe they hadn't thought about, or a situation they hadn't encountered, where to us, it's just like, oh, it's just kind of second nature. Is it even something worth sharing? But it may be exactly what someone needs.

Charlotte: So true.

Find and connect with us on YouTube and social media under Syncreate, and we're now on Patreon as well. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review.

Melinda: And we're recording today at Record ATX Studios in Austin, Texas, with Charlotte joining us from the Hudson Valley. And the podcast is produced in collaboration with Mike Osborne at 14th Street Studios. Thanks so much for being with us, and see you next time.