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 112: Creative Spark Series - Creativity for the Common Good with Melinda Rothouse & Charlotte Gullick
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Building upon our recent Creative Spark episodes on creativity in communication (Episode 110) and self-empowerment (Episode 108), Charlotte and Melinda contemplate how we can use our creativity for the common good, such as connecting in meaningful ways, supporting our local communities in challenging times, giving people the benefit of the doubt, and asking questions before jumping to conclusions. 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 use your creativity to bring a more relational (rather than transactional) focus to your day-to-day interactions, and to find ways to support others in your local 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 72: Creative Community, Episode 108: Breaking the Glass Ceiling in Our Minds, and Episode 110: Creativity in Communication.
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 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 Syncreate. 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. Creativity is also consistently named one of the top skills of the 21st century, especially with the advent of AI. 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.
What holds us back? How do we get stuck? And how can we fully embrace our creativity? We talk with visionaries and change makers, and everyday creatives working in a wide range of fields and media - 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: And I'm Charlotte Gullick. 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.
Welcome to Syncreate and our podcast Quickies. We're so glad that you're here. Or we might call them Creative Sparks. Today, we want to talk about creativity for the common good, which feels really important right now, because we might be feeling or thinking stories around what it means to be creative. And we just wanted to draw some attention on how people are helping each other during difficult times. Of course, this is always going on. There are always people out there doing good for others.
But in particular, thinking about, you know, some folks who, resources or support that may have dried up in certain ways and how other people are stepping forward with that with like, food drives. Our local next door messaging is not always a pleasant place to get some information about your community. But one of the things that's been really great around here is someone takes - they put food on a table at the end of their driveway, and they take a picture, and they just say, you know, “This is - it's stocked today. Please tell your friends and neighbors to come by.”
Melinda: That's great.
Charlotte: And I feel like I'm seeing more and more of those things.
Melinda: Yeah.
Charlotte: And the other point in this is like, how do we make sure that we are connecting with each other, rather than filling our feeds or our minds or our thinking with the idea that people are just disconnected from one another? Because for me, I noticed that if I've spent a little time on social media, the world feels kind of yucky. Like, people are filming each other doing terrible things. And then I get off of it (which is hard to do on its own), and then I'm like, “Oh, the world.” And then I go out and I have an interaction with people. And 99.9% of the time it's beautiful. (Laughter) I got a coffee the other day and I said, “How are you?”
And she's like, “You know, I was preparing myself to deal with a public that was grouchy. And I'm so glad that you asked me how I am.” I'm like, “Oh, I'm in it for the people as much as I am in it for the coffee.” And she's like, “You know what? We’re both going to have a great day.” (Laughter) Like, these small ways that we can connect, and making sure that we are cultivating that sense of connection. You know, it could be an interaction with someone. Are we giving in a way that we haven't before? So, those are the things that are coming to my mind when I think about creativity for the common good.
Melinda: Yeah. An example that comes to my mind that just happened to me this last week… you know, I teach graduate students, and they had a midterm paper due, and there's a platform called Turn It In that scans papers for potential plagiarism, and now use of AI. And the scores almost across the board came up quite high for AI use. Higher than I've ever seen before. And my immediate thought was like, “WTF?” Like, “Everyone's using AI for their papers?” And I didn't want to jump to conclusions about that.
And so I… this took me like, countless extra hours of work. But I reached out to those students individually and asked them to contact me, and I set up meetings with them. And I just said, “This is what I've noticed. Your AI score was really high. Can you walk me through your process for composing this paper and what tools you used?” Of course, everyone's stressed. I'm stressed. They're stressed. Like, “Oh no. I'm going to get in trouble…” and all this kind of stuff. But you know what I discovered - and this is pertinent to like, a previous episode we did on AI and creativity - but also like, it's everywhere, all the time in our world these days.
You know, every day platforms like Microsoft Word that most people use to write papers now have AI features integrated into them. So you might be using them without even realizing it, or without realizing that it's a problem. Right?
Charlotte: Mmm.
Melinda: Because in academic work, we want people to think and write critically their own ideas, their own words. But these platforms are making it so easy to get help from AI. And then there's all kinds of problems with that. Yes, they make the sentences sound more polished… but also more generic. They make things up. We lose the students own voice. And so, in having all these one-on-one conversations, it allowed me to connect with my students in a much deeper way than I had previously.
And to learn more about, “How did you come up with this topic and why is this important to you?” And so many of them are writing about, you know, things from their personal experience and looking at it through an academic lens. And it was really wonderful to hear those stories and connect with the students, and I came away with that feeling much better about things than if I had just completely jumped to a conclusion about it.
Charlotte: To me, that's such a good example of so many things. But in particular, creativity for the common good is like, that you could have jumped to some conclusions or you could have been punitive in your approach, but you used your deep well of creativity to say, “I want to connect with people.” And it sounds like you approached them from a curious, creative place. And I also, what I just learned from you when you were speaking there, is the idea that helping students to see that particularly (but with all things), but particularly with writing about personal stuff, is that they're getting sterilized.
Melinda: Yeah.
Charlotte: Or they could be (not to speak in sweeping generalizations), but like, that creativity for the common good, like, thinking about people, we need our distinct voices.
Melinda: Yes.
Charlotte: We need our distinct songs. Like, paintings… we don't want hotel art.
Melinda: Well, and that's another thing that is… there's a number one song on some country music chart that is 100% AI generated. The music, the lyrics, the singing. None of it has to do anything with the real person. And it's reached number one on some chart. I just heard this this morning and it's like… and I listened to it and it's like, you know…
Charlotte: It’s got all the moves, but does it have any heart?
Melinda: Right. Exactly. Exactly. And so, you know, what are we gaining and what are we losing? But again, you know, I think the more that we see AI pervade our lives and our media streams and all this, the more people are going to want and crave organic connection. Coming back to the theme, you know, so…
Charlotte: And then, I think there's that, you know, circling back to a previous Creative Spark episode, the idea that we can be abundant with each other, you know, and how we show up for each other, and how we stand up for each other. I know I told you the story before, but walking with a friend, and she's got so many things going on. And her - she's very vulnerable in a lot of ways right now. Single mom, person of color. Her mother's ill. There's just so much going on. And so, we went for a walk, and someone had their dog, and the dog was friendly, but looked aggressive. And this was so small (and it's not like I'm some hero), but it just seemed like, I mean, we had to pass.
And so, I put my body in between my friend and the dog, so that she wasn't, like, having to face that as directly. And I think that that's a creative moment. Like, how do we stand up for each other? How do we use our little… like, if I have a little more comfort than she does, how do I use it in this moment to not add to the stress that she has? And I feel like we're seeing a lot of people do similar things. Like, how do we stand up for each other? How do we make sure that people have food? I know that they're like, adopting SNAP family initiatives and like, that all happens through community and creativity and collective problem solving.
Melinda: Yeah. And coming back to the local context, like you mentioned, your neighborhood or the local community. Like, I think many of us feel very kind of powerless in some way over these large forces that seem to be dominating and controlling everything. But an antidote to that is to connect deeply within our local communities and have that connection, and have that mutual aid and support. And you know, that it's not only practical, but like, deeply emotionally satisfying and just powerful.
Charlotte: And it can take a lot of different forms. Like, maybe you wear something colorful because you want to make something bright for someone else. (Laughter)
Melinda: Yeah.
Charlotte: I went to the dentist recently and there's a woman who is fairly new there, and she's always, she's looks so like, just right on with her outfits. Like, just so great. And I, you know, gave her the compliment, and I told her about this thing I learned. I don't know if I've mentioned it here before, but they've done studies during oppressive times. People tend to not wear bright colors.
Melinda: Yeah.
Charlotte: And so, because they don't want to stand out. So, are you someone who feels comfortable enough to wear a bright color and that can really enhance someone else's day? I just think that's a really great nugget.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. I was… yeah, I don't even remember where it was (my brain's like, a little off today), but I was someplace yesterday in public and I passed a woman who had this great, like, really colorful outfit. And I didn't even engage with her because we were just passing by. But I noticed, and I was like, “Oh, nice.” You know? (Laughter) Yeah.
Charlotte: Yeah. And that's what I mean. I think for as we move into our Pro Tip, thinking about creativity for the common good. You might look around and say, who is someone in your community who could use some support right now? That support might be material or it might be, “You know what? I'm going to bring them flowers because I hear that their mom is in the hospital.” What I have been thinking of doing is, I've gotten a lot of support from the IT people where I work, and I only ever go see them when I need support. And I was like, “You know, I should make them some cookies.”
Melinda: That's nice.
Charlotte: And I think, I guess another frame on that is, can we be (when we have the time and the resources and the capacity), are there places that we can be more relational and less transactional?
Melinda: Yes.
Charlotte: You know, there are the folks who write the Thank You card to their mail person or whatever. (Laughter) You know, like, maybe there's some small things, what we could do, to kind of connect to each other and stand up for each other.
Melinda: Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
Charlotte: Find and connect with us on YouTube and social media under @syncreate. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review.
Melinda: We're recording today at 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.
