The Syncreate Podcast: Empowering Creativity
Welcome to Syncreate, where we explore the intersections between creativity, psychology, and spirituality. Our goal is to demystify the creative process and expand the boundaries of what it means to be creative.
Creativity. It’s a word we throw around all the time, but what does it really mean? On the Syncreate Podcast, we share stories of the creative journey. We talk to changemakers, visionaries and everyday creatives working in a wide array of fields and disciplines. Our goal is to explore creativity in all its facets, and to gain a better understanding of the creative process – from imagination to innovation and everything in between.
The Syncreate Podcast is hosted by Melinda Rothouse, PhD. She helps individuals and organizations bring their creative dreams and visions to life through coaching, consulting, workshops, retreats, and now, this podcast. She's written two books on creativity, including Syncreate: A Guide to Navigating the Creative Process for Individuals, Teams, and Communities (winner of a Silver Nautilus Award for Creativity and Innovation), with Charlotte Gullick. She's also a musician (singer-songwriter and bass player) and photographer based in Austin, Texas.
The Syncreate Podcast: Empowering Creativity
Episode 39: Creative Spark Series - The Vulnerability of Sharing Works in Progress with Melinda Rothouse & Charlotte Gullick
In this installment of our Creative Spark series of bite-size, mini-episodes, Melinda & Charlotte discuss the vulnerability of sharing work we know is not finished, but for which we need feedback in order to improve it. Sharing work before it feels complete can be a little scary, so it’s important to consider who we can trust for feedback to get the work where it needs to be. Then we can feel confident sharing it with the wider world. 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, we encourage you to identify at least one trusted person that you can share your work in progress with and receive their feedback.
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 33: Incubation & The Power of Time Away, Episode 35: Navigating the Creative Wilderness, and Episode 37: Giving Back to the Community.
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!
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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 co-authors 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.
Melinda: Hi everyone! We're back. Melinda and Charlotte here. So what we're going to be talking about in this Creative Spark episode today is the vulnerability of sharing work, even if you know it's not quite ready to see the light of day. So we all need to share our work-in-progress often times, to get feedback, in order to know how we can improve and continue to shape the work.
Again, this may depend on what medium you're working in, but certainly, in writing, I find in music that it's really helpful for me to share my ideas and progress and, you know, see how it lands with other people. You know, so I think this, this really spans across different types of work, but it can be really challenging to put it out there, and it can feel very tentative, very vulnerable to share something that, you know, is not yet fully baked.
Charlotte: So, we're thinking about, why is this important? And, I think a lot of people come into the creative process because they want to be known, and they want to explore, and they want to express themselves. And part of sharing our work with others is that it's a connection to that thing that might have been an impulse for us to start.
And, and I don't think there's a single thing in the world that gets made that doesn't have some kind of feedback loop in it, even that's ourselves taking some time away. And, but we want to focus on today is, how do we navigate that feeling of “I know it's not as good as I want it to be, and I need some help to figure out how to get it better, but I don't want the person to think that this is as good as I can do!”
Melinda: Right? [Laughter]
Charlotte: And I’m like, I, and when I was teaching, I would say to students, “I know that you know that I know that this isn't as good as you want it to be.” Kind of lower the stakes for us.
Melinda: [Laughter] Just so we're all on the same page.
Charlotte: Yeah. Like, I know this isn’t, you know… ‘cause no one does, like, their best work on a first go. And so I have a friend who is working on a really important, powerful novel, that is, deals with religion. And he's asked me to read it, but he's been, he hasn't yet sent it to me, because he's like, “It's not as good as I want it to be for you to see it.” And I'm like, “Hey, I'll still think that you're a writer. I'll still think that you are a fine person and a creative, and that we can hold it together, the vulnerability of it finding its way.”
And, you know, it's, I think it's really important to know that you're, what you're navigating within yourself. You’re like, “I do want to share it with someone else, but I'm not sure if I'm ready.” And I think that you're tuning in, because we can also sabotage. I have done this before. I've shown a piece to people, particularly family. And when I'm writing about family. And that's not neutral feedback at all.
Melinda: No. [Laughter]
Charlotte: From family. I’m like, oh, okay, I guess, I guess that, shouldn’t have done that. I know someone who had wanted to write a novel, for a very long time, and her sister, sister-in-law made a comment to her, and she didn't write for two more years because--
Melinda: Oh gosh.
Charlotte: --of the power of that comment.
And so, you know, we're, there's all these layers of psychology, vulnerability, expression, the impulse to be known, that we're navigating. And a lot of this, I think, is about tuning in with yourself. And I think it doesn't matter your medium. If you take some time to navigate to what's underneath, probably, likely, it's fear. And how, who, who is someone that can help me grow as an artist and I still feel safe?
Melinda: Yes. And, and oftentimes, even the work-in-progress is better than we think it is. We might think, “Oh, this is crap,” or, or whatever, you know. And then we actually dust it off, like, we go away from it for a little bit. We come back and we go, “Oh, it's actually pretty good.” You know? So, so sometimes when we're so close to it, you know, we can't quite see it objectively.
And, and another way to do this, if you're concerned, like of sharing, you know, with someone who's working in your same medium, maybe try sharing with somebody who's, who's working in a different medium, you know, who maybe are understands the artistic, the creative process, but they're not going to judge you for your craft. You know, because they're, they're working in a different area. So that could be a workaround.
So our Pro-Tip today, we really want to challenge you to identify at least one trusted person that you can share your work in progress with and receive their feedback. And just a note on that, you know, there's an art to both giving and receiving feedback. And so when we're giving feedback to others, recognizing the vulnerability of that, it's helpful to be, you know, as constructive as possible, you know, and saying, “Well, these things are working really well. Here's a place where it's not quite coming across to me” or “I'm not quite understanding,” or “There's, you know, a little bit of a gap here” or “This is a growth area.”
And, and then there's also an art to receiving the feedback, like with an open, generous heart. You know, acknowledging that someone has taken the time to look at your work and, and give you thoughtful, constructive feedback. And so, you know, it's about sort of receiving it without reactivity or defensiveness, you know, just kind of taking it in with the understanding that, you know, the goal is to make the work the best it can be.
Charlotte: I think one thing I would add to that pro-tip is, saying what you said in just another way, is asking for three pizza, pieces of feedback, or something very…
Melinda: Three pizzas of feedback!?
Charlotte: Three pizzas of feedback! That's how good it is. [Laughter]. Three pieces of, feedback.
Or like, you were saying, like, thinking about like, I know that the dialogue isn’t so great. Or in my, in my dance recital that I have, I'm not quite sure about the finish. Like asking for specific and precise feedback is probably more empowering than like a generalized, “I liked it.” You know, that doesn't help us focus in the way that we might want to grow.
Melinda: Yes. Yeah. So when people send me work to review, I often ask them to specify, “What do you think is working well? What are you struggling with? How can I best support you?” Like, tell me what to focus on and then I can give you the most constructive feedback. So, great.
Charlotte: 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.
