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 86 - Creative Spark Series: Receiving Difficult Feedback with Melinda Rothouse & Charlotte Gullick
In this episode of our Creative Spark series, we share our own experience of receiving difficult feedback on one of our ideas, and how we dealt with it. It can be really vulnerable to receive critical or constructive feedback on our creative work, but if we can assume positive intent and digest it accordingly, it can result in a better quality final product. This episode, like the mini-episodes that preceded it, also includes insights 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 ask for feedback on your creative work, from someone you trust, and to listen with curiosity rather than certainty, so you can find what’s helpful to make the work even better.
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 39: Sharing Work in Progress, Episode 41: Creative Practice, Process, and Product and Episode 84: From Surviving to Thriving.
At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors. If you have an idea for a project or a new venture, and you’re not sure how to get it off the ground, find us at syncreate.org. Our book, also called Syncreate, walks you through the stages of the creative process so you can take action on your creative goals. We also offer resources, creative process tools, and coaching, including a monthly creativity coaching group, to help you bring your work to the world. You can find more information on our website, where you can also find all of our podcast episodes. Find and connect with us on social media and YouTube under Syncreatel. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review! We’d love to hear your feedback as well, so drop us a line at info@syncreate.org.
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Melinda: Creativity and community are absolutely vital in challenging times. 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. We talk with visionaries and change makers, and everyday creatives working in a wide range of fields and mediums - from the arts to science, technology and business.
We aim to illuminate the creative process from imagination to innovation and everything in between. I'm Melinda Rothouse, and I help individuals and organizations bring their dreams and visions to life.
Charlotte: Hi, I'm Charlotte Gullick, and I'm a writer, educator, and writing coach. We are the co-authors of a book on the creative process, also called Syncreate. At Syncreate, we’re here to support your creative endeavors. If you have an idea for a project or a new venture and you're not sure how to get it off the ground, find us at syncreate.org. Our book, now available in both print and audiobook format, walks you through the stages of the creative process so you can take action on your creative goals.
We offer resources, creative process tools, and coaching to help you bring your work to the world. Our monthly creativity coaching group has begun. We'd be delighted for you to join us. We'd also love to hear your feedback on the show. Please drop us a line at info@syncreate.org. We're looking for feedback on how we can improve the show, what's resonating for you, and what future topics you'd like us to cover.
Melinda: Hey everyone! Welcome back to our Creative Spark Series of the Syncreate podcast. And today we want to share - we’ve been kind of delving a little bit into our own process and kind of behind the scenes, what really happens. We tend to so often just see the final product of a creative endeavor.
But we don't always see all the hiccups and things that happen along the way. So, we wanted to share a little bit about an experience that we had giving a conference presentation in Oregon. At the Oregon Creativity Conference a couple of years ago. And we have been gestating a book for a couple of years now.
And our working title around it at the time was Creative Citizenship. And so, we put together this presentation. We both invested quite a bit to travel to the conference: airfare, Airbnb, conference registration. And we were pretty excited about it. And we get there -
Charlotte: A lot of time prepping.
Melinda: A lot of time prepping, yes. And then, what happened, Charlotte, once we got there?
Charlotte: So, you're in the room. You’re waiting, you're waiting. And then it's like, five after. It's like, seven after and you're like, “There are hundreds of people at this conference.” There are only three other things, or four other things, being offered at the same time. And is it really just two people in the room with us?” Two people! (Laughter) It was -
Melinda: Wah wah.
Charlotte: And then you realize those two people are here. We need to show up for them.
Melinda: And maybe these are the two people that most need to hear our presentation, right? Or can help us the most.
Charlotte: You're on the fly. Your expectations aren't being met. You're like, “I'm gonna - we're gonna roll with it. We're going to make the best of what's in front of us.” And we do a little bit of our presentation, and then we get some feedback and..?
Melinda: Well, one thing we didn't really take into consideration is that citizenship is kind of a fraught term these days. We were framing it in terms of the positive - how can we be creative citizens/creative global citizens in the world? But, hmm. Citizenship also has some difficult connotations around it at this particular time in history, and is that really the right word? And also, how are we kind of distinguishing our idea from other ideas that are out there, like community arts and things like that? So it became clear that our idea was still only half-baked.
Charlotte: Yep. Half-baked. We spent a lot of money to find out it was half-baked. (Laughter)
Melinda: And so, we could have just gone away with our heads down, and we did at first. We were kind of bummed. But then we got talking about it and we realized like, “Oh, okay. This is an opportunity.” Because those two people in the room were actually quite brilliant. And probably gave us the exactly the feedback that we needed to move the needle forward with our thinking. What is this book really about?
We realized it's really about creating in community, and the importance of community in our creativity. Our creative process. And the importance of, you know, we're not in this alone. We’re in this together. And how can we support each other? And how can we collectively be of benefit to the world?
Charlotte: And it was really interesting because one of the people that was there - was she from the Netherlands?
Melinda: I think so, yeah.
Charlotte: Yeah. And she had come to the conference, and she'd come to our presentation because she was doing a study that, if people do creativity (like arts and community centers), are they more likely to be civically engaged?
Melinda: Yes.
Charlotte: Which I never would have thought about examining a potential cause and effect around that. I think that it was so insightful for us to see that it's so much like the creative process. As you work and you work, and you work, and then you share it, and then iterative, you get feedback. That our intentions were very good, but the impact was not what we wanted in that way.
Melinda: Well, and our thinking needed to evolve, right?
Charlotte: Yeah.
Melinda: And I remember we were driving up to Portland afterwards and we were really brainstorming. Like, “Okay. What does this mean? How can we move forward? What do we need to really re-consider here?” So, part of this is about how do we receive feedback, right? Because our creative work can feel very vulnerable. And it can feel like our baby. And then if we receive feedback, it can feel like someone's trashing our baby, you know? (Laughter)
Which is a terrible feeling. So how can we receive that with self-compassion and know that if someone - we've talked about this before - but if someone took the time to give us that kind of feedback, showed up to our presentation, then there's something valuable there. And how can we incorporate that? And to make the thing better that we're working on.
Charlotte: And I think it circles back to the discussion about impermanence. Like, we were in the present moment and things were not as we expected them to be. And yet, there was so much for us to learn. We got to be together in a beautiful place. Ashland's incredible. And you did one of your first recordings for the podcast, as a novice, I think. Right? (Laughter)
Melinda: Yeah. So I took my rudimentary equipment, which consisted of basically my iPhone and recording device, and a couple microphones. We set up in the living room (living/dining room) of the Airbnb where we were. There were issues with lighting and background, and I ended up setting up the phone in vertical mode rather than horizontal mode. So, you know, gave our editors a run for their money.
But we pulled it off. And it was the creative process at work. “Okay. We're experimenting. We're trying things. This feels a little dicey. Is this going to come out? Did we hit record?” (Laughter) You know, all these things. And yet it did. And if you'd like to check it out, it's episode seven. Where we were talking about Syncreate and the Syncreate process. So, it came together and it was a step in our learning journey of this show. And so, there you go.
Charlotte: And I think this leads us into the Pro-Tip as we start to think about, not just what's salvageable, but what's good? What’s warm here? How does this help us grow, not with resentment, but with resolve? I think that's a really interesting thing to be thinking about.
So, we've talked about it before, but just reminding folks that, is there something that we're working on, and we can ask for feedback? And can we listen with curiosity, and not certainty? It’s very challenging to move away from ‘either or thinking’. Like, it’s good or it's not. Versus it's maybe in this middle ground where it's got some real strengths, and it's got some flaws, and here's some ways that you might consider growing it.
And the openness. I think, when we build our expectations high, like we did for the conference, I think it's harder. It's much harder. And I think it also helped that we had each other, because though I think if it had just been a solo presentation and we'd gotten that feedback that you know, this is landing a little sideways. For me, the inner narrative would have gotten kind of intense. So, to externalize it was really helpful.
Melinda: Yeah. And again, humor, humor, humor. Can we laugh at ourselves? (Laughter)
Charlotte: Yes.
Melinda: Yeah. Great.
Charlotte: Good.
Charlotte: Find us and connect with us on YouTube and social media under Syncreate. And we're now on Patreon as well. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and leave us a review.
Melinda: We're recording today from Record ATX Studios in Austin, with Charlotte joining us from the Hudson Valley. 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.
Charlotte: Find us and connect with us on YouTube and social media under Syncreate. And we're now on Patreon as well. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and leave us a review.
Melinda: We're recording today from Record ATX Studios in Austin, with Charlotte joining us from the Hudson Valley. 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.
