512 - The Science of Realizing Creative Potential with Yale Researcher Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, PhD

33:59Now we have an impossible set of things going on. And I am very emotional and I can get very high strung. Right. So I am now getting worked up. Yeah. Yeah. I am getting all worked up. This is impossible. This is not going to work out. And all those things we tend to say to ourselves. And then my husband says, wait a second. Let's approach this as a creative problem to solve. Immediately changes our perspective on it. Well, changes my perspective. You already had that perspective. And we start playing as if it was a puzzle. So at this point, I'm like thinking, okay, yes, let's approach this as a creative problem.

34:55what is the key to the creative problem solving process? Playing with the pieces of the problem. Okay. So now I have all of these constraints and all of these problematic things going on. And now imagine putting them a little pieces of paper, like, you know, post-its and try to see how they can create a timeline, move them around. how can all of that be the case? And we found a solution. And it was a terrific solution and fantastic summer that we went to Istanbul. So the solution ended up being that one of the parents took the child to visit grandparents, stayed with him there for a little bit, and then traveled to our chosen destination for a grown-up holiday.

35:51The other parent first flew into the holiday destination. We spent time there first. And then the first parent went back home. And the second parent went to Croatia to spend some time with the child and fetch the child and take him back home. Everything was possible. But it really helped to know that solutions don't come from focusing on a solution. They come from playing with the problem and saying, what are the pieces of the problem? Where do they fit? How we can look at them from a different angle? Because if you think of a problem, we all have to be traveling. You have this unit in your mind traveling as a family, but if you end up breaking it, then solutions become possible.

36:48So you are looking at the problem in a different way. Yeah. You know what is so interesting about that? And it's one of the things that, you know, as I was making this show, the further I went, the more I started to tap into research around creativity. And the more I did that, the more I found it really useful. I like you. This is something that I was dedicated to from the start of the show. I was an illustrator before I started this show. But it was always important to me to be with this show is kind of the lab, but then I'm in the fields too. I'm doing it. I'm making stuff. So that's something that's been a big core value of mine too, because I want to prove the stuff that I'm thinking about and talking about.

37:36But one of the things that happened was I would come across research around things like playing with the problem. And that became second nature because there'd be things in my process that would kind of buzz to be like, this is the time. This is when you play with the problem. And it's really, really helped me. And as you were going through that story, I heard maybe two or three different things that I've heard from the research that have helped me all at play in the same solution. So you had the naming it as a creative problem. It reminds me of what you talk about in your book around whether you tell the person to be creative in this activity or not.

38:25I'll go over the other two in a second, but can you talk a little bit about what it does like if they tell participants um either solve this or solve this creatively how does that affect their uh participation uh this research was rather counterintuitive to uh to many people when they hear about it because we tend to think of creativity cannot be done on demand right creativity is something that comes upon you i love that that shift that's so true so many artists and myself included that's a huge obstacle to get over like uh especially we start getting client work that myth starts playing you're like i can't do this because you can't do creativity on command uh yeah continue but you can you can Oh, creativity on demand.

39:20Actually, people have studied this specifically. So one group of people was given the standard instruction to a creative thinking task. And then another group of people, standard instruction plus three new words, please be creative. And the standard instruction is, Please think about all the ideas, list all the ideas you can think of. And these are very quick game-like idea generation tasks, like think of all the possible uses for a brick or think of what are the consequences, what would happen if people could become invisible at will. so they are playful and they are designed to be like that that you don't need prior knowledge to to engage in them and then researchers compared the group of people who was given standard instruction list as many as you can and the one explicitly asked to be creative and those who were asked to be creative were actually more creative in their ideas well the question is now well, how could that be?

40:33One thing is by being told, be creative, you're given permission. You do not have to wonder anymore. Well, should I be creative or should I do reasonable things? Or should I, what should I do? You know that that is expected. And you give yourself permission a little bit. And it's also that, okay, this can be done because, you know, this is what everybody else is doing. Therefore, you know, I'm going to do it too. And people rise to the occasion. That social risk too, because you're saying, yeah, this is the expectation. We're all doing here. Yeah. It doesn't fully eliminate it. Nothing is ever fully eliminated, but it eases it.

41:22It eases it so that it doesn't become a barrier anymore. And this has been done in different ways. So this is the most, you know, the neatest study. Three words make a difference. But we have seen it in other contexts at work. When you are expected to be creative in your job, you end up being more creative. When leaders say, I want this, I want something creative here, they end up getting something creative there. So yes, we can be creative on demand. That does not mean you can be creative on demand in a way that we sometimes imagine it. Sometimes when you imagine being creative on demand, it means, okay, you are asked a question and the first thing that comes out of your mouth is something amazingly creative.

42:25No, you cannot do that. Nobody can. That's just not possible. It cannot be done because that's not how creativity works at all. The first ideas are never the most creative or just about never the most creative. And as I was talking to my son at one point, I said, if you learn one thing and one thing only about creativity, may it be that first ideas are never the most creative. So if you are asked, okay, be creative right now, let your creative juices flow, no, first thing is not going to be creative. But in the long run, working on that thing, you are going to be more creative.

43:30I wanted to talk to you about this because I think it's a really essential thing that's very difficult to internalize for creative people. Why do we think that our first ideas are the best ideas when in fact, that's not true? It's a great question. And I think that we believe that our first ideas are the best because of that notion of how creative process works, that ideas come to us. And if something valuable comes to us, we should take it seriously. So that's why it might feel like that. But the mind just doesn't really work like our intuition says. So if we use the example of the simplest possible creative thinking exercise, right, Come up with unusual uses or as many uses as you can for a brick.

44:35Where does the mind go first? Building a house. Building a house. Building a house, building a wall, building a path in your garden, right? Building. And then the mind next goes into smashing something. Yeah. So you're going to smash a window. You are going to, you know, do who knows what in the smashing universe. And so these are the first things that come to mind, not because we are not creative, but because the first things we consider are those that have the strongest connection in our minds to a particular topic. And that connection is based from previous experience. Now think about it. You are trying to do something creative, right?

45:28That means it needs to departure from the previous experience. Yet your mind starts with previous experience. And that might not be bad in itself. It could be you start with previous experience and those obvious things. But that prompts you in some, you know, quirky way to something that truly is more interesting and more creative. But the first ideas are usually not the most creative ones, almost as a rule. There are these beautiful graphs that scientists have done of what do you believe is your most creative idea and what is actually the most creative idea. and they go exact opposite directions.

46:15This is so profound and it gets to something that was so difficult for me and also is something that I talk about on the show a lot and I know even sometimes I get pushback around it because it feels so counterintuitive. I just did my 500th episode of the show and in it I was talking about basically similar things. to your book in that I was talking about how do I do that? How did I do that when I'm an ADHD person, when I'm a creative person, how do you just do that many things? And a big part of it was, well, I think the first one I started with was changing how I thought about unpleasant feelings in the process.

47:02And I'm not saying that there aren't types of resistance that are maybe telling you you're going too far on the challenging side or that you're really working against your strengths. There are those things. I think that that's true. But it took me so long to change how I saw bad, quote unquote, bad feelings as not wrong way signs. And I think that's the other that comes to mind with this is I totally relate to the magic of a first idea, the feeling of you're channeling it. It's coming out of nowhere. It's a great feeling. And therefore there's an assumption that it's a great idea. And if you have to grind and work to come to another idea or a few other ideas, and it gets harder and harder the further you push it, if you don't know that the bad feelings don't mean bad idea, you're not going to realize that that might be your best idea.

48:06And I had one example I talk about sometimes it's right here over my shoulder. There's a book that I published right outside of college called the Indie Rock Coloring Book. And the funny thing is that that came from a college project where I was like tasked to come up with four ideas for my final project. I came up with one idea that I thought, this is the idea. I'm doing this. I love this idea. And then the night before I had to present all four ideas, I thought I'm going to come up with three trash ideas that make this first idea look amazing. And the fourth idea I came up with was what became that book.

48:42And it was literally just me trying to come up with terrible stuff. And so I love that the research is kind of supporting that. It's very much supporting that. And our intuitions can be deceiving. When you said good feelings, it's not that we shouldn't listen to our good feelings ever, but also know what they are trying to tell us. Emotion scientists consider that feelings are information. It sounds very cold, but bear with me for a second. They are trying to tell you something. They are trying to tell you something about the state of your mind or something in your environment. And the positive feelings are telling you those, you know, being happy, being satisfied, tells you all is good.

49:33Yeah. No effort needed. Yeah. But that can be really tricky when you are trying to figure out whether something is done or whether something is quite right, because it only focuses on the positive. in my book I have interviewed an artist multi interesting person he is a musician himself doing electronic music but also music producer music label owner just overall very interesting musical person and he has developed a really ingenious system of essentially acknowledging that sometimes you feel so good when you complete something you want to say it's done and immediately publish it and be done with it um but he knows it can be tricky at times so he lets it sit now his approach may be a little bit um little bit too elaborate a little bit too extreme for some people but he lets it sit for a month uh and if if in that month no other thoughts occur and no other things emerge, then it's truly done.

50:52But it sometimes happens that there are other feelings about it, that there are doubts, that there are pieces of nagging frustration about something. And that then gives you additional information. It says, yes, that positive feeling was telling you something. It was telling you that there are great parts to it, But these feelings are telling you something too. Let's pay attention to all of them. Yeah, I love that. And you know, some might think that's not extreme enough. It makes me think of an anecdote I've mentioned a couple of times on the show is one of my favorite filmmakers is named Taika Waititi.

51:31And he says his ideal way to write a screenplay is to write it, finish it, let it sit for a year and then come back to it. And, and then he's got, he's not precious about it. He sees so much more clarity. And I think we, we all can't wait a year to publish the project, but I think, you know, knowing about that incubation phase as a way to collect more feelings. Collect more feelings. Exactly. It's a good way to think about it. And, you know, we oftentimes these are very, very strong cases. And perhaps people would say extreme cases are not achievable. And indeed, in many circumstances, they're not achievable.

52:17So if you are doing client work, you are on a particular deadline, you cannot say now I'm going to sit on it for a year. Maybe you cannot even say I'm going to sit on it for a month. but perhaps you can sit on it for a day. Yeah. Or you could sleep on it. You know, that usually helps me because sometimes, you know, either can happen where I finish a piece and I feel great about it. And the next day I've got, I've got actually complaints or I finish a piece and I'm like, I hate this. It's not, it's not good. And then I sleep on it. And the next day I'm like, actually, no, it has some merit. So even just giving yourself some space to feel different things, I think is a good move.

52:56I want to go back real quick to earlier, the example of you figuring out the schedule. There were three things that came up that kind of reminded me of the research. One was naming it as a creative problem, which we kind of went over this command to be creative. I love that because you were talking about how in the research, just saying, and we want a creative solution, made it, eliminated some of that social risk. And I thought that actually applies within the conversation with the marriage too, because, you know, as soon as you say to your spouse, hey, about vacation, let's be creative about it.

53:35You're giving permission to the other person to say, maybe it doesn't have to look like what we expect it to look like. And maybe, you know, cause if I think about that, I'm like, oh, I'm going to assume that we both mean going on vacation. It's all of us all at the same time. Just by labeling it creative, you're giving permission to think differently. And the same is true in your creative business. If it's, you know, I see so many creative people and for myself included where I'm creative in my art, but I forget to be creative in my business or get creative with my schedule and how I do that and problem solve that way.

54:12So I love this idea of like, just label it as a creative problem to solve. It gives you a signal. It gives you a signal to engage in a process that otherwise might not occur to you. Yeah, I love that. And then the two other ones that I heard, one we talked about a bit, which was playing with the problem. That's one that is always on my mind. Again, I think that coming up with the first idea is often a rush to finish the problem, to not play with it, but to solve it. And you talked about that. And then the third thing you said, I wondered if, I'm not sure I understand this fully, but this realizing there was a creative problem to solve, is that connected to this problem finding thing that you speak about?

55:01Could you speak a little bit about that? Because we know a lot about problem solving, but I'm guessing problem finding is new as an idea for most people. uh i suspect problem finding as an idea is new and to make it more complicated yeah i think it's little bit of a misnomer okay um because when you hear problem finding you have a particular idea in mind right when you hear the phrase problem finding what comes to your mind yeah finding problems exactly yeah you are finding it uh it's not quite that or that is just one small part of it. So you can think of problem finding, and I wish there was a different term we could use, as there are two parts to it.

55:48One is that identifying the problem, there is some kind of opportunity to address something or solve something. Oftentimes, entrepreneurs find something that is frustrating to all of us, but they say they're going to deal with it, thank them. And we see an opportunity. Oftentimes people label it as an opportunity. And so that is that identification part. That sounds like problem finding just by the term, but that's not the end of it. The other part of it is researchers call problem construction, which is another very interesting term, but it's essentially about framing the problem, looking at the problem from different angles.

56:42Then from looking at it from different angles, ideas start to emerge, but you are not focusing on the ideas themselves, but on, okay, what questions can I ask about this? Can I ask about this problem? What angles can it be viewed at? Is there something that could be an assumption here that maybe is or is not an assumption? Are there other assumptions that could be made? And then we kind of play with different pieces of the problem. So to make this much more concrete, because this is all very, very crazily abstract, I want to tell you a story about how this process was first identified. And actually in research world, this was identified long ago in the early 1970s.

57:39But because all of our talk in the translating science to normal people is about coming up with ideas, this never got translated. This never got properly communicated. So there were these researchers at the University of Chicago who recruited art students from the Art Institute of Chicago. So, you know, a really well-esteemed institution brought them into the lab and said, your task is, your problem is to create a still life drawing. So you would say, well, they already had a problem. Yeah, they did. they had a very general problem. But now the question is, how do you approach that problem? What aspect of the problem?

58:30What specifics do you imagine there? And they observed as they engaged in this creative process. Everybody had the same set of objects available. so there was more than 30 different objects anything that you can imagine that could go into still life and what they found is that those artists who ended up being deemed as most creative in their drawings judged by art professors and art critics so these are really expert ratings they did a particular thing They did not just pick a bunch of objects, arrange them, and then spent most of their time doing details of rendering. No, they did quite something different.

59:26They picked some objects and then would arrange them, step back, look at them, rearrange them, maybe drop something, maybe add something. Then they would feel the objects themselves, weigh them, compare them, look at them side by side. There were some objects that had mechanical parts to them. Then they would play with the mechanical parts, you know, think like a little wound up robot. And they would play with it. Now, that seems silly in a way because they are going to make a 2D drawing. In a 2D drawing, you will not see movement of the object, right? So what's the point? You can say, what's the point of playing with the mechanical parts?

1:00:16It seems like a waste of time. We come back to that idea of time. Why does this process oftentimes not happen as much as it should? Because it seems like a waste of time. And we think we do not have the time. But if our goal is something creative, we have to find the time. Otherwise, the outcome is not going to be creative. That is incredible. I think it kind of reminds me of some things you hear in design thinking. So I'm an illustrator, but I started in graphic design. And I think that maybe a lack of self-efficacy. Is that what it's called? Yes. Yeah. Like feeling insecure that I would rush to solve a problem.

1:01:09And one of the things that was really helpful, uh, was spending time with designers that would do two things that I think are kind of related to this problem finding. One, they would say like, let's define what the problem is. Like, what are we actually trying to solve? That's, that's work in itself. And it's, as you say, it's a creative process all on its own to get creative about what is this problem that we're trying to solve and let's really nail it and say it and construct a brief around it. So let's think about what we want, what we don't want. Let's really understand it and spend time with it before we even get to, we're not even talking about the solution.

1:01:44We're just talking about the problem. And I think that shift was really helpful for me. Is that kind of a little bit getting at what you're talking about? That is very much getting to it. It seems that each of these parts of the process are little bit of a time waste. Why am I going to write a brief when we already know what it is? Why am I going to discuss what the problem exactly is? Why? Because especially if you are working with a group of people in a team, there is never going to be an instance when you all define the problem in the same way. And you can learn from different views on the problem.

1:02:29Different views of a problem will suggest different kinds of solutions. Maybe one is better than another, but maybe multiple aspects of those solutions can be all combined into something that becomes transformative in nature. So it very much pays off to spend time discussing the problem and looking at it from different angles. A recent study of a colleague of mine, who is an organizational psychologist, looked at problem solving teams. And they recorded all the discussions within a team. And they have expected that they are going to spend most of their time in coming up with solutions. No, most of the time was spent on discussing the problem.

1:03:22how different people define it, what different people think it means, what aspects of it immediately come to mind. When disagreements emerge, figuring out how to reconcile those disagreements, 50 % of the time in discussions was just that. Hmm. That, that is, that's fascinating. And it, it makes me wonder too, uh, if it connects to another piece that you explore in the book, which is about motivation. So we, I think we tend to think about motivation, you know, this show is called creative pep talk. So we talk about motivation. We're thinking about motivation. How do you stay motivated to start, to finish, to get through the whole messy middle thing.

1:04:13And I think we probably tend to think of motivation as like one thing. You're either motivated or you're not motivated. And I love in the book that you kind of lay out a few different pieces. One of the pieces, the third one I think you get to is like what keeps you motivated in terms of the philosophical cause, like the cause that you're for of like, what are you contributing? That's like the big picture. And I wonder a little bit if that playing with the problem maybe contributes to getting in touch with what are we trying to do here, which maybe helps you stay motivated because you're like, oh, I know what problem we're trying to solve.

1:04:52I know why it matters. You know, maybe that kind of adds to some of that philosophical motivation. I wonder if you think there's maybe anything there and if you could tell us the other types of motivation because I think you need all of them. I love that you're bringing up this issue of motivation because it is one of those things that indeed we think we have it or we are motivated. We are not motivated and we talk about it in those terms. But we can ask a little bit of a different question. Again, it's that how do we frame this issue of motivation is how we are motivated instead of how much we are motivated.

1:05:38And how we are motivated really matters. So there was a lot of research in creativity studies on intrinsic motivation and creativity. And what intrinsic motivation is, is intrinsic just means internal. You are motivated because you want to do something, because you enjoy doing it, because it's a source of positive challenge. And this can sometimes be misinterpreted. I have seen it misinterpreted in the popular media because this is what the reasoning goes. Oh, intrinsic motivation is important for creativity. Check, it is. But right now I am trying to create whatever you're creating and I am not enjoying it.

1:06:36Therefore, I must not have intrinsic motivation. No, no, no. This is not what it is. Intrinsic motivation is not just every single moment you are enjoying every single piece of the process. Not at all. Because creative work is difficult. It is, we have started the conversation with that and it truly is difficult. And some of those parts we don't enjoy, nobody enjoys. It can be frustrating. Some parts can be boring. I am a scientist and there are parts of the research process that are boring. that like yesterday i got a request for a revision of uh from the ethics review board that is they are rejecting something because of the formatting that they misformatted um so you know there are things that are frustrating or boring or perplexing yeah so it's intrinsic motivation does not mean that you're going to enjoying every single piece of it.

1:07:45Intrinsic motivation means that overall, for a big picture, when you look at it as a totality, you enjoy the kind of work you're doing, because it's a challenge and because it's a source of fulfillment. So that is that bigger picture. But there's another thing that there are those parts that are boring or frustrating. And there are some times when you need extrinsic motivation. You need to motivate yourself by kind of blackmailing yourself and saying you can have a cocktail or that pastry we mentioned earlier if you finish this one boring thing. Yeah, that's great. And I want to throw this scenario at you because this is the way I think about it.

1:08:37because I think I do best when I've got all three, the intrinsic, the extrinsic, and the kind of cause, the cause or the why, the bigger philosophical why. And one way I think about at least balancing intrinsic and extrinsic is I think about it like a road trip where the extrinsic, like external goal is a destination that I choose because I know the road to get there will be fun. And so I'm trying, you know, I have earlier in my career when I was like in my twenties, I was much more externally motivated because I need, you know, you're in more need. You need to prove yourself. You need to pay the bills, all that kind of stuff.

1:09:22And then eventually I realized like, oh, not as motivated by that anymore. But I also need it as a guiding kind of post or need it at different parts of the process. So I try to now have, I'm kind of experimenting with an extrinsic soft focus goal. That's more of like a guidepost to point towards that's in the vein of the stuff that I'm intrinsically motivated to do. Like if I'm doing that stuff, I'll probably go close to that. And it kind of gives me a direction to hit. Is that, do you think that's kind of like what you're talking about? It's a very good way of thinking about it. if we have intrinsic motivation is necessary uh but sometimes in addition to it we need something extrinsic if we start with extrinsic it might not be enough uh but if they are both together they can multiply yeah i love that i have one last question um and then i want to just make sure there's not anything you want to add but my last question is uh as someone who is a creative person, most people that listen to this, and I know anybody can be creative.

1:10:38In this show, we're mostly talking to people that want a creative practice of some kind, whether that's a hobby or professionally or something in between. Reading a book like yours and becoming familiar with what the research says, knowing some of these terms, how can that be useful or how can they get the most use out of knowing the good practices? Fantastic question. So essentially, you're asking what can the science of creativity teach you considering you're already doing creative work. And it can make some things easier, I believe. I think understanding the true nature of the creative process or as true as we can possibly make it in the scientific sense, will help you in some instances to remind yourself.

1:11:39So I know this research and as I was writing the book, I kept reminding myself, hey, right now you're going through a creative block. That does not mean that you do not have the ability. Creative block is defined by definition, it is lack of progress that is not due to lack of ability. And sometimes repeating some of these lessons to yourself makes the process easier. when you get in those emotional times, there are multiple chapters in the book that are dealing with the emotional side of creative work. These things are not intuitive. It is not intuitive that all emotions contain information that can be helpful, that all emotions, different kinds of emotions are related to different kinds of thinking.

1:12:31What are those connections? So the book can provide you some of that information that then you can put into use, right? Our to-do lists are infinite. You can figure out, okay, what is my current mood going to make me able to do when I don't even know where to start? so things like that are the benefits of learning from the science it's not it's not something that is that is going to teach you how to create children's books itself it cannot do that but it's going to make the process more effective and less less unpleasant at times or when those unpleasant times happen, more equipped to handle them so that they are maybe not less unpleasant, but less lasting in that unpleasantness.

1:13:29Or less likely to derail you. Exactly. I love that. I think this idea that the different parts of the process will signal these different lessons so that you can kind of affirm what you're doing or remember things that will help you stay the course. Also, I really love what you said about the, you know, the emotions are the information, but they're not intuitive. And I haven't said it this way, but another way I've thought about it is it kind of feels like your book is a bit like, I love that you bring emotions into this because this is exactly what I was talking about at the start where I'm like, nobody talks about how you get, how you get it done.

1:14:17And so much of that is about managing your emotions and how much of a thing that is. And, and kind of not, not just intuiting it, but understanding it a little bit better. And so in a way, I feel like your book, I've used this analogy before of like, it's like the dashboard of your car, the lights that come up are like the emotions and they're not intuitive. Like you can't, if you don't know a car, you see, I always joke, like one of them looks like a fishbowl with a exclamation point. Like, okay, I guess my exclamation point needs a fishbowl now. I don't know. Like, no, it's not that. And the same goes for your emotions.

1:14:53Like in the process, just because you're like, I hate this and I shouldn't do this, just because you feel that way, it doesn't mean that that is true. And a lot of there's, you're having so many emotions throughout the process and so many different experiences blocks, you know, all these different things. It's really useful to get into the manual of it and be like, okay, actually this is the fishbowl thing just means you need to air up your tires. I don't know what that correlates with the creative process, but it's something like that. And I think you're totally, totally on it with that. Emotions are signals, but we need to learn how to read them and read them very precisely.

1:15:32And it's really important in the creative process, not just because the creative process is full of them, but because creative people tend to be full of these emotions. The last thing I wanted to ask you was, just wanted to say, is there anything about this book that you haven't got to talk about or you feel like people miss that's really essential to you? Well, we have talked about the creative confidence. We have talked about various risks in creativity. We have talked about using the power of emotions to to choose what you are doing when to be most effective um one thing that we didn't touch upon is the social side of creativity yeah and um creativity is social even when it does not feel like it is uh so i wrote a book i was the only writer no ghost writers or a team of writers or anything like that, you are creating and illustrating books, probably a very similar instance.

1:16:36But even in these instances, there is a social aspect of creativity, sometimes just implied, because ideas could feel coming out of nowhere, but they don't come out of nowhere. They come from our own experiences interacting with others in the world. They come from conversations with others, from little sparks that we get from people. And that is something important to acknowledge, because oftentimes we talk about it in terms of talent, in terms of skill, in terms of what we can learn and what we can do. But that is another thing that we could potentially do if you know how to read it and if you know how to use it.

1:17:27So if you are thinking of new ideas, people at the very outer edges of your social networks are going to be most helpful because they have different backgrounds. You don't talk to them all the time. So they don't know what you think and you don't know what they think. But if you are developing ideas, now you have something you want to focus on, those people who are the closest to you will be most helpful. Oh, that's so good. And I love this notion that all creativity has a social component because again, it dismantles a common myth that I think can do some damage. I get what it's at, but the damage of like the lone artist on the desert island.

1:18:13Yeah, that's getting at that intrinsic motivation thing, trying to get you to get in touch with that, I think. But I completely agree that no matter what you're doing, if you're writing in your diary or you're making something on stage, you're a social animal and it's going to bleed into everything that you do. And I think that's a great point. I'm glad you brought that up. Thank you so much for your time. This was a blast. I hope to get to chat with you again sometime. And I think everybody should go get the book, The Creativity Choice. Will you tell them where the best place to get it might be?

1:18:50Best place to get it is anywhere you get your books, whatever your preference is, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and everything in between. Yeah, awesome. Well, thanks for spending so much time with me. Thank you.

1:19:18All right, I'm back. Like I said, I would be with this week's creative call to adventure. This week, it is called Prime the Pep. Prime the Pep. And the idea is we talked about in this episode that being in the right emotional state for the work that you're about to do is really essential. And in the book, they talk about how you can hack this a little bit. And I like it because it's not toxic positivity. It's not just like feel great all the time. It's about going with your emotions a lot of the times and doing the kinds of, when you have the flexibility, doing the kind of tasks that match your emotions.

1:20:01I think that's really, really healthy. But then they also address, she also addresses in the book that sometimes you don't get the choice of that. When you're doing this professionally, sometimes there is an assignment and a deadline or a scheduled time where you have to show up and do a certain type of creativity, whether you feel like that or not. Now, for most of us, we don't have to be on set or on TV or whatever it is and have to record at a certain time, but we all have only certain pockets to create. And so you probably know the mornings are your time or the evenings are your time or the Saturday morning or Sunday, whatever it is, you probably know when do you need to get into that creative zone where it would be ideal if you were pepped, if you were in a good state of mind and not in that editing mode, but in that ideation mode, in that generative mode.

1:20:57And so here's my recommendation. I did this recently on the back of this book and it really made a big difference. And this is what I did. I primed the pep. So actors, you might have heard this, prime their emotions sometimes. Some actors choose to like listen to a particular song to get into the mood that they need to be in for that particular scene or they imagine something from their past or watch a clip from a movie and they prime their emotions. And so you might not need to act in your creative practice, but getting into that emotional state that is ideal for the activity you're working on is really important.

1:21:37And so what I did was I said, okay, I know that I have to do this solo episode of the show. I need to come to the studio and record that. I know what kind of state I need to be in for that topic and for this show. And so before that, I'm going to schedule a meeting, a coffee date with a friend who I know puts me in that zone more times, more often than not. And so here's my recommendation to you. So let's say you have a three-hour block to create on the weekend. What if you just took 30 minutes of that and dedicated it to sharpening the axe, so to speak, rather than just using every bit of the time you have to create?

1:22:18hey, what if you use some of that time to get into the right zone so that you could slip right into the creative work that you have to do? And so what if you scheduled a 30-minute, yeah, maybe, or a 30-minute or an hour coffee day, or maybe it's just a phone call. Maybe it's a Zoom call with someone who lives far away, but whoever it is that is likely to get you into that state, that you would take that time to make that connection. And maybe it's not a person. Maybe, like an actor, it is a clip from a movie or maybe it's a show or maybe it's a song or whatever it is, take that little bit of time to adjust and address your emotional state because it is so essential to what you have access in in here.

1:23:03When you're in certain parts of your brain, when you're angry, you're in a part of your brain that is going to have a very difficult time getting into the free association in the creative side of your brain. And so Prime the Pep is just about setting aside that really precious creative time, just a little bit of it to drop in and attune and try to see if you can get, like Zorana said, Dr. Zorana said, I always feel like I really have, I need to show the respect. I very much admire folks in academia and sciences, but even just 10 % closer to that emotional state you're after will make all the difference.

1:23:49And so Prime the Pep, that is your creative call to adventure this week. Massive thanks to Dr. Zorana for giving me so much time to hang out and chat. I hope that we get to chat again. So insightful and inspiring to me and you have a great sense of humor and you're just cool. It was fun. I felt really lucky to get to chat with you. Massive thanks to Sophie Miller for being an editor and producer for the show and for this chat. Thanks to Connor Jones of Pending Beautiful for audio edits, video edits, animation, sound design. He's an extraordinaire. Love this guy. And I just, I always chuckle. Every time Connor and I have a chat, the wheels fall off, man.

1:24:36Like every time I try to call him about some business thing, either I or him start tangenting into just madness. And it's just a lot of fun. So I just imagine him working on this episode, hearing me talk about him, and then it just makes me laugh. Anyway, thanks to Yoni Wolf of the band Y for our theme music and our soundtrack. And thanks to all of you for listening. Until we speak again, stay pepped.

1:25:23Okay, the podcast is over, so I don't know why you're still listening, but I am glad that you enjoyed it enough to stick to the end. And I have one more thing for you. If you're in a place where you're feeling a lack of clarity and you want to figure out your industry market and niche and find the perfect strategic side project to do next, go sign up to our newsletter at andyjpizza.substack.com and you will get a confirmation email that will give you the download of our Creative Career Path hand booklet. And the whole process is in there. and you might also get a few bonuses in there depending on when you sign up.

1:26:06But again, thanks for listening. Glad you enjoyed the episode and stay pepped up, y 'all. Hello, this is Jack Wilson, the host of the History of Literature podcast. For the past 10 years, I've been talking to novelists, biographers, and scholars about the greatest books in the history of the world and the men and women who wrote them. Like our recent episodes on Dante and Love, a starter pack of 10 Indian classics, the pop culture that influenced Sylvia Plath, and a talk with scientist and novelist Alan Lightman about the wonders of nature. Join us at the History of Literature podcast wherever you get your podcasts.