On Purpose with Jay Shetty - 8 Proven Ways to Get Out of a Creative Block & Find Your Flow

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

Have you ever wondered why our schools don't focus much on nurturing our creative sides?  What possibilities could have happened if we were given more time to explore our creativity? Today, I am goin...g to share with you some insights on why many of us don’t pursue our creative interests, the different ways to respark our creativity, and what we can do to hone our creativity despite our busy schedules. It's a thought that's crossed many of our minds, and today, we're going to explore it together. As we go along, you'll discover eight practical ways to reignite your creativity, and they're as fun as they are effective. From browsing a bookshop to asking thought-provoking questions, from giving your living space a creative twist to engaging your friends in the process, there's something here for everyone. With this episode, learn how to break free and get those creative juices flowing. It's time to embrace your inner artist and find the inspiration you've been looking for. In this episode, you'll learn: How to develop creativity Steps to be more creative How to challenge yourself to be more productive With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 01:28 Developing creativity is not prioritized in educational institutions 04:43 How Schools Kill Creativity 06:13 #1: Walk Into A Bookshop 11:34 #2: Asking Better Questions  14:52 #3: Imagine Solving a Real Live Problem in Your Mind 17:59 #4: Think About the Next Place You’re Traveling 20:22 #5: Play With Toys 21:29 #6: Ask Your Friends What You Can Do Next 23:42 #7: Redecorate More Intentionally 25:40 #8: Find Random Friends Want to be a Jay Shetty Certified Life Coach? Get the Digital Guide and Workbook from Jay Shetty https://jayshettypurpose.com/fb-getting-started-as-a-life-coach-podcast/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Listen to Come Back Stories. I'm Darren Waller. You might know me as a titan for the New York Giants, or some of you might know me from my story of struggling with and beating addiction to become a pro-walt titan. With me, I have my friend and co-host Donnie Starkens, who is a yoga instructor and a personal development coach. Catch us every week on Come Back Stories, on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Womor Madraman, executive producer of the new podcast, Day My Avalita First. Each week, the incredible Viko Ortiz and fabulous Avalita Lillana Montenegra will play
Starting point is 00:00:40 matchmaker for a group of hopeful romantics, right, Viko? You know it! Listen to Day My my Owelita, first! Thursdays on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts or whatever you get your podcasts. And remember, don't do anything I wouldn't do. Just do it better. Visit us. What has happened for most of us is that our minds and our trained to think in limited,
Starting point is 00:01:05 restricted, compartmentalized ways. And we want to change that. What you want to do is become a critical thinker and ask yourself, what is a problem that you're facing? And I want you to deeply think about what it would take to solve that problem, but in imagination, with no limits on time, energy, money. You may say, well, Jay, that's stupid because I won't be able to do that because I'm not limitless in time, energy, money. But what you're doing is you're training your mind, think that way.
Starting point is 00:01:31 Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. I'm your host Jay Shetty, and I am so grateful that you've decided to tune in again. I'm so deeply moved by your commitment, your consistency, your dedication to growing and bettering yourself, because we as humans are wired to keep progressing, to keep moving, to keep evolving. And when we choose to do it intentionally, life can become phenomenal. I wanna thank you all for being here,
Starting point is 00:02:05 for trusting me. I appreciate you. I've loved seeing all your reviews of late. Keep those coming on Spotify and Apple. They helped the podcast so much. Please subscribe on YouTube. I know a lot of you've been watching this show as well. And we've had segments that are only there. Thank you so much again for being a part of this growing community. I am so grateful for you and I couldn't do this without you. And today I want to dive into something because I find that creativity is such an important part of life, yet we were never taught in school how to be more creative. If you think about how school worked, it was learning to know the answer to something and the answer was either right or wrong.
Starting point is 00:02:49 Now this makes sense in subjects like math, but it doesn't necessarily make sense in subjects like English, like if you were reflecting or you were introspecting about a paragraph that you read and you were doing a comprehension exercise where you had to write about how you felt about it, what you thought about it, there was still a finite number of answers, whereas in life it's so important to have that freedom to be creative, to be curious. And so everything in school was pushing us towards having a right answer, having a final answer, having a conclusive answer, and creativity is anything but being conclusive or final. The point of creativity is that it's open, that it's abundant, that it's seeking, discovering,
Starting point is 00:03:36 revealing itself, but we've been trained to think the opposite. We've been trained to believe that it's either yes or no. When in fact, it could be, well, why is it yes or why is it no? That's a far more interesting question. We've been told it's either there or it's there. It's either there or it's that, but it's like, well, why is it this and why is it that is a far more interesting question. So our creative proclivities have been limited from our education. And therefore we ask less questions. Therefore we feel stupid when we ask questions. How many times have you ever said, stupid question, but I had to ask, right? Or you're saying it in your head.
Starting point is 00:04:18 And so often we feel scared or judged. And how many of us push to judge and assume how many of us is judging and assuming our first reaction to something as opposed to curiosity and questioning, as opposed to being creatively thinking about an idea that's put in front of us. How many of you hear an idea from one of your friends about a business or a podcast or an app and straight away your mind goes, no, that's not possible, instead of being creative in thinking, how could that be possible? When and where could it be possible? What could we do to make that a reality? And what I find is that just as we shut down other people's creativity, we often shut down our own. How many times have you said in your own mind,
Starting point is 00:05:03 oh, that's a stupid idea? Where does that voice come from? How many terms of you said in your own mind, oh, that's a stupid idea. Where does that voice come from? How many terms were you told growing up that your idea was a stupid idea or it was a bad idea or that it would never work or that it was guaranteed to fail? How many terms did you hear that? I remember when I was starting this podcast. I remember people saying to me, Jay, people like listening to you for four minutes, people don't want to listen to you and a guest or a friend or whoever it was for an hour, people
Starting point is 00:05:29 don't want to hear that. And the reason I'm sharing that with you is just to help us recognize that if you're limited in your creativity, if you've been restricted in your creativity internally or by others around you, you're not alone. Sir Ken Robinson in his TED Talk, which is called How Schools Kill Creativity, talks about how we need to reconstitute our conception of the richness of human capacity. And says that creativity is now as important in education as literacy. And he talks about this idea of how we shouldn't be making people feel they're wrong, just because they're thinking differently.
Starting point is 00:06:10 And if you think about all the things that we love, all the things that we admire, all the things that we think are incredible in the world, are usually fresh, they're new, they're enlivening, they're abundant, they've come from a place of someone being creative. Right, when you look at a place of someone being creative. Right, when you look at a building, and it looks different to all the other buildings, we're like, wow, that's special, that's amazing. Right, there was creativity there.
Starting point is 00:06:33 When you see a book cover, that's different. It's like, oh, there's creativity there. When you are looking for furniture for your home or a color that's different, there's creativity there. Creativity is so much of what we notice as being special or beautiful or admirable, yet we often restrict our own creative capabilities. Now there's an incredible book by Keith Sawyer called Zigzag, the surprising path to greater creativity.
Starting point is 00:07:02 And if you really want to dive into this subject, I highly recommend it. Keith Sawyer is a research psychologist and an author. And I think some of his advice in this book is fantastic. So I want to start off with what is one way that you can start to get that creative spot going, that creative juice flowing. And I want to start really small, because I think sometimes when we think of being creative,
Starting point is 00:07:24 we think, oh, I've got to build something big or I've got to come up with something unique and that can feel quite intimidating. If you like me, it can definitely feel intimidating. And I love the idea of watching Ted Talks. I love the idea of listening to podcasts. I love the idea of learning as a form of creativity. But I want to try and give you something specific. One of my favorite things to do is to walk into a bookshop. I love being in a bookshop because I feel like the titles, the covers, the amount of research. If you just think about what you're doing, when you're walking into a bookshop, you're actually walking into decades of research, learning, and art. That's literally what it is. Like, let's really think about that. And I know bookshops
Starting point is 00:08:05 are getting less and less popular, but hey, I love going to a good bookshop. And finding a good bookshop is really, really awesome. Because like I said, the covers, the titles, the work that's gone behind them, even though people say don't judge a book by its cover. One of the reason I love bookshops is because you feel you're surrounded by so much thought and intelligence. Now, if you think about it, a bookshop is marketing you ideas. When you're on the streets, you're being marketed products. Think about that for a second, right? When you're walking down the streets and you see a billboard or you see a bus stand or you see an advert on the train or, of course, on your phone, you're being marketed products.
Starting point is 00:08:47 In a bookstore, you're being marketed ideas. Now, products improve your life in a certain way for sure. But ideas define your life. Ideas teach you how to navigate life. Ideas teach you how to make decisions on even the products that you will use. Right, it's the idea that's almost like a compass to your life. And so while products do improve our lives
Starting point is 00:09:10 and buying products is a part of our day-to-day life, we all need to eat, drink, and live and everything else. The ideas are what helps us make better decisions in our life and for the products and everything else. And so I love the idea of being marketed ideas when I'm in a bookshop. And one of my favorite things to do inside a bookshop is to try to pick two random books. And what I'll do is I'll flick to a chapter in one book that seems exciting. I'll go down the contents page and be like, okay, which chapter is something I'm
Starting point is 00:09:42 struggling with, something I'm working on? Let me go to that chapter. Let me do the same in another book that may be on a completely different topic, but what am I fascinated by? And I'll try and find what is similar about those two chapters, or how are they connected? How do they agree or disagree? How can I reflect on them both together?
Starting point is 00:10:01 Maybe there's context that crosses over, maybe there isn't, maybe I've just learned about two new ideas that are completely disconnected. But the point being that what you're doing is you're actually pushing your brain. You're pushing your mind to connect dots where otherwise there is no connection. And Steve Jobs famously said creativity is just connecting things. If you look at what Steve Jobs did with Apple, he combined calligraphy with technology. He wanted to shape things like calligraphy. He wanted the type font to be beautiful.
Starting point is 00:10:35 He wanted everything to feel like art and calligraphy, even though it was technology. He wanted it to feel that fluid and that beautiful. When you think about the rise of Pokemon Go, if you remember Pokemon Go, I'm sure some of you played it, I'm sure you forced your parents to play it with you. If you don't know what it was, it was an augmented reality game
Starting point is 00:10:55 where you could go out into the streets and augmented reality would help you catch Pokemon on the streets. What's really interesting about this game is that the founder talked about why he created it. And the reason he created it is that he said that when he was young his father would take him out and observe wildlife insects, animals and they would talk about them and he would learn about them and he said that he missed the fact that parents were no longer going out with their children so he wanted to find a way that technology could make people more interested in going outdoors
Starting point is 00:11:26 and being outside. So it's really interesting that when you're connecting two ideas that seem opposite, like at that time, people said, kids just want to stay indoors and play video games. That was what society was saying. And he said, well, no, maybe we can find a way of getting them outdoors through a video game. Right, maybe that is a possibility and that's creativity. So when you go into a bookshop and you pick two random books and you see how they can relate,
Starting point is 00:11:51 that's what you're doing. You're pushing your mind in a very small way. Next time you hear two opposing arguments, try and see if you can find the similarities. Try and see if you can find the connection as opposed to the opposition because it's not hard to tell the difference between something, right? It's not complicated to be like, that's different from
Starting point is 00:12:11 that. That makes sense. But to find the correlation where other people see anomalies is a real art and a real skill. People may not have seen art and technology together. People may not have seen the digital world and nature through the same lens, but that's what creativity is about. So this is a really sharp, smart, small way that you can start to do that. Now, number two is really, really interesting for me. And Sawyer talks about it in the book quite heavily. And what I wanna talk about or address here is this idea of asking better questions of yourself and of others. The reason why we struggle with creativity
Starting point is 00:12:52 is because we ask the wrong questions. And I actually wanna take that back. You never ask in the wrong question, we just need to ask more questions. We need to ask deeper questions and we just need to ask more questions, right? We often just limit it to what do you do? How do you like it? Do you enjoy what you do? Notice how all those questions are very
Starting point is 00:13:11 Very basic. We don't necessarily ask well, what do you enjoy about it or on a scale of one to ten? How enjoyable it is, what could make it more enjoyable? What could make it more fun? What is it that makes it so complicated or difficult? Notice how all those questions are different. Now, Sawyer talks about the beginning of Starbucks. Now, this is really, really interesting because the first question that they were trying to answer was, how can I recreate the Italian espresso bar in the United States? That was the original goal. That was the original target of Starbucks. Now think about what question you have. Maybe your question is how do I start a huge podcast?
Starting point is 00:13:57 How do I build my YouTube following? How do I launch my own brand? How do I get a promotion? How do I move to this city or how do I live in this place? Right? Maybe that's your question. And maybe you've just been banging your head against the wall. Maybe you've just said, you know what? I can't figure this out. It's just not working for me. Because every time I ask that question, I get stuck. How many of you have ever felt that way? That whenever you ask the question you've been asking, you've been asking the same question for a long time. And you keep getting stuck. I have a friend who really, really wants to launch a YouTube channel. And he's always getting stuck because he's thinking, well, how do I do it? When do I start? When's the right time? That's the question he's asking. When is the right time?
Starting point is 00:14:40 Now, if he was listening to this episode, what I would say to him is, well, instead of asking when is the right time, what's a better question? How do I make now the right time? What does the perfect time look like? What am I waiting for? What is good timing in my eyes? Let me talk to people about where the time is the right thing that matters when it comes to social media or at all. Right? So what ended up happening with Howard Schultz is the question changed from how can I recreate
Starting point is 00:15:11 the Italian espresso bar in the United States to how can I create a comfortable, relaxing environment to enjoy great coffee? Think about the difference in that question. How can I create a comfortable, relaxing environment to enjoy great coffee? Now Kevin Sisterum also did the same with Instagram where initially he just wanted to create a better location sharing app, but the question turned into,
Starting point is 00:15:36 how can we create a simple photo sharing app? And that slight change made all the difference. So what problem are you trying to solve? What are you trying to create? What are you trying to create? What are you trying to build? What is it that has been blocking you because you're asking the wrong question. Staying in an Airbnb has been a game changer for me.
Starting point is 00:15:56 I tried it on my recent trip and I found a perfect spot that was far away from tourist spots and it made me feel like a local. Maybe you've stayed in an Airbnb before and thought to yourself, this actually seems pretty doable. Maybe my place could be an Airbnb. It could be as simple as starting with the spare room or your whole place while you're away. You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even knowing. Whether you could use extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun, your home might be worth more than
Starting point is 00:16:22 you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca forward slash host. In the 1680s, a feisty opera singer burned down a nunnery and stole away with her secret lover. In 1810, a pirate queen negotiated her cruiseway to total freedom, with all their loot. During World War II, a flirtatious gambling double agent helped keep D-Day a secret from the Germans. What are these stories having common? They're all about real women who were left out of your history books. If you're tired of missing out, check out the Womanica podcast, a daily women's history
Starting point is 00:17:03 podcast highlighting women you may not have heard of, but definitely should know about. I'm your host Jenny Kaplan, and for me, diving into these stories is the best part of my day. I learned something new about women from around the world and leaf-healing amazed, inspired, and sometimes shocked. Listen on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Now, number three, a great way to get creative, to get your creative mind working, is to solve a real problem in your life, but in your imagination. So you don't need to go raise money, you don't need to go and build a website or an app, but how would you solve
Starting point is 00:17:45 it? So what you want to do is become a critical thinker and ask yourself, what is a problem that I'm really, truly struggling with? Maybe it is to come up with broadcast episode ideas, right? Maybe that's something you're struggling with. Maybe something you're struggling with is, I don't know how to communicate with my toxic family members. Maybe that's what you're struggling with.
Starting point is 00:18:06 Maybe what you're struggling with is, I wanna be more focused at work but I keep getting distracted, right? What is a problem that you're facing? And I want you to deeply think about what it would take to solve that problem, but in imagination, right? With no limits on time, energy, money.
Starting point is 00:18:24 Now, you may say, well, Jay, that's stupid because I won't be able to do that because I'm not limitless in time, energy, money. Now, you may say, well, J, that's stupid because I won't be able to do that because I'm not limitless in time, energy, money. But what you're doing is you're training your mind to think that way. See, what has happened for most of us is that our minds and our trained to think in limited, restricted, compartmentalized ways.
Starting point is 00:18:42 And we want to change that for our minds to think in limitless, unrestricted, infinite ways. Right? I had a mentor called Thomas Power, who's a good friend. And when I first met him, he presented this idea to me about how a lot of people are what he called CSE, closed, selective and controlling. They're closed. They're thinking is very, very closed into what's possible. They're very selective. They're selective about who they spend time with and who they don't spend time with.
Starting point is 00:19:16 And that often leads them to miss out on incredible possibilities. And finally, they're controlling, right? There's a sense of a know it all or they know what's going on. And then on the other side, he said, there are people that are open, random, and supportive. They're open to new ideas. They're open to their ways of thinking being changed. That's a really important part of being creative. That how open are you to saying, I know my values.
Starting point is 00:19:40 I know what's important to me, but I'm still open to new ideas. And I find this to be one of the most fascinating things in life is that you can have a philosophy, you can have a set of principles and guidelines that you agree with, yet you can be open to better ones. Random, he talked about this idea of being random, like how many times have you just bumped into someone in a random way? How many times have you come across an idea because of something random? Some of my best ideas are random.
Starting point is 00:20:07 And then supportive. How many of us actually come up with great ideas because we're helping someone else. While we're supporting others, while we're helping others, we may create something phenomenal. So solve a real problem in your life to expand your thinking. Again, you're not gonna solve it. You may not create the product.
Starting point is 00:20:23 You may end up creating the product, but you're gearing and guiding and training your mind to think limitlessly about a problem that makes you feel limited. Now, question number four, think about the next place you're traveling. Where are you going to next? Maybe you've booked a vacation to Bali. Maybe you've booked a vacation to Australia. Maybe you've booked a local weekend getaway, right? Like a staycation almost. What's the next place you're traveling? Here's a couple of things I want you to think about.
Starting point is 00:20:58 Learn some of the language of your local area to ask for basic things. Just the local language so you basic things. Just the local language so you could get about in the local language, maybe to order your favorite food, maybe to ask where the bus stop or the train station is, maybe to ask to get to the restroom. Learn some of the basic language that can help you operate.
Starting point is 00:21:19 This gets your creative juices flowing. The second thing is learn about the history. Maybe there's something you can learn about a building, the area, something that is a bit random, right? Something that you may not even care to learn about. I remember when I first moved to LA, I was being told about so much history, so many events that happened there.
Starting point is 00:21:39 And when you think of LA, you think of Hollywood and you think of movies, but you forget the history of entertainment. There's so much history of Hollywood there. I remember when I watched this movie, Babylon, maybe you saw it with Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt. They show what Bel Air was like before it became Bel Air. You see what Hollywood movie sets look like
Starting point is 00:21:56 before they look like they do now. And that idea is incredible to look into the past, right? And the third thing is read a local paper or listen to a local radio station. What this does is it disrupts your pattern, right? The way we live our life currently is you get into your car to go to work, you listen to the same radio station,
Starting point is 00:22:16 you walk in the same direction, you take the same train, you take the same route to work, or you walk down your stairs, or you sit at the laptop at your bedroom, right? We have a very routine life that doesn't get disrupted often, and allowing yourself to disrupt it by reading a local paper or listening to a local radio station to discover some local music of a place you're about to visit or a place that you're going to visit, or maybe the last place you went to, it disrupts that pattern. It starts allowing creativity's seeds
Starting point is 00:22:47 to be planted. That's a really powerful one. As you can tell, I'm giving the really practical, simple things that you can all do that doesn't mean learning a new skill or trying something crazy. Now, number five, playing with toys. George Bernard Shaw famously said, we don't stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stop playing. I found that when I try and play with Legos, when I'm playing with my niece and nephew or I'm playing with one of my friends' children and we're playing with their toys, we're building a tower, we're building a car, whatever it is, all of a sudden the tangible physicality of that is so powerful. If you think about it right now, we don't really build anything with our hands anymore.
Starting point is 00:23:30 We don't do a lot of, if you're not doing pottery, or if you're not doing painting, we're not actually engaging that part of our brain. When we were at school, you were handwriting, right? We're not really using that much anymore. So if you can do pottery and painting great, but at the very minimal, helping your niece or nephew and a few of your children, helping them build something, create something, can be a great way of getting your creative juices flowing
Starting point is 00:23:54 and watching how they look at things. Right, I think that's what's really fascinating is observing how they observe things. This is something that actually happened to me this weekend. So number six is is ask your friends, what do you think I should do? Now, I say this, not because they're gonna have the best ideas, but you're going to be thrown a lot of different ideas
Starting point is 00:24:15 that help you connect dots. So, I didn't ask this of my friend. I didn't say what do you think I should do. But one of my friends this weekend was like, Jay, I can't wait for you to start a school one day. And I was like, when did you think of that? I've never thought about that. And by the way, I really have not thought about that.
Starting point is 00:24:29 I was like, that's not something that I envision doing. I think schools are very difficult to create. I think we need to do a lot of research around child psychology to get it right. I think there's a lot of work that needs to go into that and so much to be improved. And so that was my reaction. I was like, I'm not qualified to start a school of work that needs to go into that and so much to be improved. And so that was my reaction.
Starting point is 00:24:46 I was like, I'm not qualified to start a school and that's fascinating though. I was like, that's really exciting. And then I thought, wait a minute, maybe that's what I want to study. Maybe I'm really fascinated by how a education system has developed our brains and why it's made us so limited. And maybe even though I don't have the answers
Starting point is 00:25:04 to build a school, maybe that's what I wanna do. Maybe I wanna go and study schools. Maybe I wanted to go and spend time with children who are a part of alternative schools. Maybe I wanna map people's trajectories when they're taught about mindfulness, creativity, abundance from an early age. Maybe that's what I'm really passionate about.
Starting point is 00:25:23 And so it wasn't that his idea was the idea I thought I should do. It was actually completely opposite. That instead of building something, I was like, that's what I want to study. And so, sitting down and asking your friends, what do you think I should do? It's a really great way of then reworking it. Right? So, your friend says to you, you should start a restaurant. You're amazing. You may think, oh, you know, I do really enjoy food. Maybe I should go and take a culinary course. Maybe one of your friends says to you, oh, you know, I do really enjoy food. Maybe I should go and take a culinary course.
Starting point is 00:25:48 Maybe one of your friends says to you, oh, you should start YouTube channel where you talk about football because that's all you do is talk about football on the weekends and you go, well, maybe I should find a friend and maybe we will start recording something together just because we have so much of a passion around it. Right? What is that idea that sometimes you don't see in yourself that your friends might do? So today, I want you to ask your friends, if I could do anything in the world, what do you think I should do? What is it that I do well for you
Starting point is 00:26:10 that you think I could do for the world? And like I said, it may not be the exact answer, but when you flip it, you might discover something. Number seven is redecorate. And what I mean by this is I'm not telling you to go spend tons of money and do a full home makeover. I'm saying how can you place things strategically? So one of my favorite things to do is I found a few years ago that when I was tired and coming back from work, I wanted to sit in front of the TV and switch it on. And I wanted to stop doing that because I never felt fulfilled after
Starting point is 00:26:41 watching TV. That's a personal thing. It's me. I kind of felt dissatisfied, I felt like a wasted time. I didn't feel like I gained anything from it, whether it be rest, refuel, or whatever it may be. And so for me, what I started to do was, first of all, I've removed TVs from every room where I would spend time after my work days over. And we only have a TV in one room. And on top of that, I placed book strategically
Starting point is 00:27:09 in places where I would want to often do something else. So I put a book open next to my work table. I have a book by my bedside table. I have a book by open by my living room area. And so naturally, I'm being pushed to pick up a book and read a page as opposed to something else. So redecorating doesn't mean changing your wallpaper. It means repositioning things so you feel differently. You may find you want to see a piece of art when you wake up. Maybe you want to smell a certain candle and light it when you slide down on the couch.
Starting point is 00:27:46 Right? Whatever that may be, how can you redecorate more intentionally? And that starts creativity as well because you're now again disrupting the pattern. That's the key to creativity is disrupting patterns that have become machine-like. Right? So we start off as humans, we then become machines, and then it's about becoming human again. Now, there is something to be said for machine-like discipline,
Starting point is 00:28:10 which is really powerful in your life. But at the same time, you need these disruptions of creativity. And that's why point number eight is find random friends. We need friends who have different backgrounds, different languages, different walks of life, different cultures. I realized as I started to do that,
Starting point is 00:28:26 as I started to expand my friend network, I recognized what cultures I'd missed out on, what foods I'd missed out on, what music and movies I'd missed out on because I grew up in my own bubble. It's time to burst that bubble as we get older, not just for creativity, but for community. I wanna thank you so much for listening to this episode.
Starting point is 00:28:46 This segment about inspiring creativity is brought to you by AT&T. AT&T believes connecting changes everything. I'm always looking for new ways to get my creativity going with technology. It's like an ongoing adventure where each day brings a chance to find something fresh. Whether I'm calling a friend to chat about cool book ideas or sharing interesting videos, I've noticed that my creative energy peaks the more I bounce ideas of people in my life. I want to share with you a few quick methods that are going to help you be creative with other people connecting via technology. I love taking calls from different settings because you see creativity can hit you anywhere.
Starting point is 00:29:25 If you keep taking a call from the same place, you're gonna have the same ideas, but if you choose to take it outside, maybe while you're on a treadmill, or actually walking back and forth, or taking a walk in the park, changing your atmosphere and connecting changes the ideas that flow to you.
Starting point is 00:29:42 One of my other favorite ways to be creative through technology is I'm always writing notes and I'm always searching for things. So I'll write notes about ideas that come to my mind and then I'll search them, I'll literally just put it in and say, where's that? Maybe I'll search it into chat GPT, right? To be like, what does this look like?
Starting point is 00:29:59 Or what research have I not read on this? I find asking questions and jotting down, copying and pasting answers into my notes is a great way to document that. And here's one last one. Try and learn an idea and then teach it to a group of friends over a Zoom call and get feedback. The more you share the ideas you're learning,
Starting point is 00:30:19 even the ones on this podcast, the more likely you are to remember them and practice them in your own life. Remember, it's not just about learning, the more you share and teach them as well, the better you'll practice them. This has been brought to you by AT&T. AT&T believes connecting inspires, unites, heals and helps us grow, connecting changes how we live our lives for the better.
Starting point is 00:30:52 Dressing! Dressing! Oh, French dressing. Exactly! That was good. I'm AJ Jacobs and my current obsession is Puzzles. And that has given birth to my new podcast, The Puzzler. Something about Mary Poppins? Exactly.
Starting point is 00:31:09 This is fun. You can get your daily puzzle nuggets delivered straight to your ears. Listen to The Puzzler every day on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello. This is Leverand Cox. I'm an actress, producer, and host of the Leverand Cox Show.
Starting point is 00:31:30 Do you like your tea with lemon or honey? History-making Broadway performer Alex Newell. When I sing the Holy Ghost shows up, that's my ministry and I know that well about me. That's the tea, honey. Whoever it is, you can bet we get into it. My guest and I, we go there every single time. I can't help it.
Starting point is 00:31:49 Listen to the LeBernCock Show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

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