[00:00:00] Greg: Hello and welcome back to another episode of The Creative Work, our podcast today is December the 20th, and we're fast approaching Christmas. I hope everyone's ready. Today we're discussing your creative work and we're gonna have a change of format. It's gonna be somewhat of an interview style today, in the room today, we have got myself, we have got Alessandra.

[00:00:24] Greg: We have got Devin, we've got Gretchen, we've got Artemis Shadows, and Bailey Alessandra. Over to you to start it off . What have we got today?

[00:00:35] Alessandra: Hi, Greg. It's hard to believe we are edging into time for packing the sleigh, tying the bows and doing all the stuff.

[00:00:43] Alessandra: You don't really think about things being taken away, stolen. Ripped off or hijacked, but sometimes this stuff happens with our creative work. One of our very special crew members of [00:01:00] Creative Work Hour is Artemis. And Artemis is a fantastic writer.

[00:01:06] Alessandra: She is a fiber artist. She is a community leader. She is a course writer, and I love her to pieces. She has been on the Hive blockchain since 2016. She's OG knows what she's doing and she had a situation come up this week that. You wouldn't think would happen to such a nice person like her.

[00:01:35] Alessandra: Artemis, hi, how are you today? And thank you for being here. We're all gonna share a little bit in this topic, but it's your story. That's the driver of our coming together today to talk about creative work and what happens when the security of it goes sideways. Would you like to tell us what [00:02:00] happened?

[00:02:00] Artemis: Thanks for the flowers. I have been on Hive since 2016. maybe I got a little cocky. I thought I had it locked down my keys. I store only locally. I don't, I didn't think I put them anywhere. And, about a month ago I logged in and went up. Why is my account powering down? What's going on?

[00:02:20] Artemis: At that time, I still had control of my account, so I changed my keys. Luckily there's a really supportive community behind me, and I had shadows and kitty girl with all of their vast knowledge help me do this. So I thought I was good. And then Thursday at p-Y-P-T-I, Couldn't vote, and I thought, what the heck?

[00:02:42] Artemis: What's going on here? I signed in with Hive Key Chain, but I couldn't sign in and it wouldn't work, come to find out they had hijacked my account again, only this time they did it really well. They had changed the recovery account, which is a person that you know really well, who has the ability to help you retrieve your [00:03:00] count.

[00:03:00] Artemis: Well, apparently after some digging by some really great people they found out way back in April, somebody had changed the recovery account. I have no idea why they waited so long. Were they learning? Were they honing their skills?

[00:03:14] Artemis: Were they playing with this? I don't know. But this person said to me, what do you do for security? I said, well, I'm running Linux and I'm doing this and I'm doing that. And he said, do you use Google? And I said, yeah. And he said, well, do you let Google save your passwords? I said, no.

[00:03:32] Artemis: I mean, that's crazy. And then I went, oh wait, long ago, before I became security savvy. That's exactly what I was doing, and I hadn't thought to go back and check to see what had been saved. So I scrolled way back and long ago I had allowed Google to save.

[00:03:51] Artemis: My password was a key like, hello, come rob me. So I got rid of all of that. There's a lesson there. Don't let Google take care of your [00:04:00] passwords. I don't know if that's how they got in and I don't know what they're up to, whether it's personal or just this huge scam, but that's what happened.

[00:04:10] Alessandra: And so you said that, the first 24 hours after something like this happens it's like the whole nervous system did it feel similar to a physical kind of thing being stolen or broken into like this is your digital creative life. And you've got a lot invested in time and effort and real world value there.

[00:04:34] Alessandra: So how was that for you?

[00:04:37] Artemis: It was like somebody broke into my house and rifled through my underwear drawer. To be honest, you're right, Alessandra. That's a lot of blogging. That's a lot of relationships. That's my name, that's my online name. Recently we had a chat on another platform about, why don't you show your face

[00:04:54] Artemis: well, since the nineties. This is who I am. I'm Artemis. I'm Artemis [00:05:00] North, and if you take the time to get to know me, you'll find out you really don't need a picture of me because you'll have everything that you need to know. So that's me, that's my name. And they took that and I thought, that's absolutely insane.

[00:05:13] Artemis: I didn't have very much in my account. It's hive, you're not gonna gain a large fortune. But I gained a large fortune in community and I felt like they had ripped that away from me.

[00:05:24] Alessandra: I can only imagine the upset. Normally we work the podcast topic questions.

[00:05:34] Alessandra: We pull them apart, we put them back together, we send it around the room. But the anticipation of, so I have to ask now rather than send it around the room, I have to ask you now. What is your plan? Now this creative violation has taken place. Your account it's blockchain.

[00:05:54] Alessandra: There was a window of time where you could get it back. You had no idea they were coming after your [00:06:00] account again. So now that window is closed. What happens next? And how are you with that?

[00:06:06] Artemis: Well, like every change there's negative, but there's also a lot of positive.

[00:06:10] Artemis: So far I found out they didn't rip my community away from me. There's a lot of support and I thank you guys very much for that my posts are still gonna be there under Artemis North. People can still read them and see them. I just can't get into my wallet. So that's a real big bonus on the blockchain.

[00:06:27] Artemis: When I really had time to think about it after cleaning up the mess in my mind, I realized the only thing that they really took from me was my crypto. What they gave me is. Acknowledging that there's a really amazing community in Hive and we take care of our own.

[00:06:45] Artemis: Maybe they did me a favor.

[00:06:47] Alessandra: Well, thank you so much for sharing that story with us. When we're, you were Artis Artemis North On the hive key chain, so all of your posts are still there because it's blockchain technology. They will forever [00:07:00] be there unchanged. It's just your access to continue further on that account.

[00:07:06] Alessandra: You can no longer post there. Is that correct?

[00:07:08] Artemis: Yes, so now I'm Artemis north.com, which is my website where I also live. I didn't really lose my name either. I just changed it a little bit.

[00:07:19] Alessandra: And you know what made me think of that, and I mentioned this to shadows and to Artemis earlier today, is I was thinking, this is not a new problem having to do with blockchain technology.

[00:07:31] Alessandra: This is a contract problem and contracts have been around for as long as people have exchanged. One thing for another Artemis situation made me think of Prince. Prince had a contract with Sony records, and that contract was not a unilaterally beneficial contract. And Prince said, you know what?

[00:07:56] Alessandra: We're done. And he said we're done. [00:08:00] I'm walking. I'm no longer working for Sony Records. And they said, fine. You can walk without your name. You'll no longer be Prince. The name belongs to us. That's our property. And from that point forward, he walked out that door and he said, you can call me the artist, formerly known as Prince.

[00:08:22] Alessandra: I love this story so much because it has Artemis written all over it. One, she's an artist, she's a fiber artist. In my head, I found some comfort in thinking of her walking outta there. Like Prince saying, I'm the fiber artist, formerly known as Artemis North. You can find me@atartemisnorth.com.

[00:08:46] Alessandra: Now artemis north.com. When did you start that website?

[00:08:50] Artemis: I'm not sure. Maybe around 2009 or sooner. I'm not a long time ago.

[00:08:57] Alessandra: And I've read your blogs from [00:09:00] that site on several different occasions, and so my thought was, well done. You that on your feet with everything going sideways, you were like, not a problem.

[00:09:12] Alessandra: Artemis north.com.

[00:09:14] Artemis: Well, funny story, Alessandra, this isn't the first time I've rebuild. There was an accident. A few years and artis north.com got deleted. It was a total accident and, it was actually kind of a favor because I wasn't really happy with that design. So when you go and read my blog, not all of the articles that have been written over the years are there, but a good chunk of them are.

[00:09:38] Artemis: And I rebuilt it and, I love it more than my original site.

[00:09:42] Alessandra: So there is an advantage, a silver lining to this little cloud people will know you as Artemis North and they'll know that you live on the interwebs and@artemisnorth.com.

[00:09:59] Alessandra: On [00:10:00] Hive. There's a certain symmetry and beauty to that you wouldn't have gone there unless something weird had happened and the string of events that happened, one after another.

[00:10:11] Artemis: You're absolutely right and if hackers hear this, I'm not giving you permission. Jackass. Sorry, can I say jackass? I think I just said it.

[00:10:19] Alessandra: We've said worse here. Mm-hmm.

[00:10:20] Artemis: Okay.

[00:10:21] Alessandra: Yeah. This is one of those podcast episodes that we have done a handful of these so that it was very interview driven. We've done one. Next in, in the tile next to Artemis is Gretchen gretchen, you have done an amazing amount of work over on YouTube.

[00:10:38] Alessandra: Tell us the name of your channel where we can find you. And was it last year that you were in the interviewees chair for the CWH podcast?

[00:10:50] Gretchen: Yes, that's that one. I'm at Imagine with Gretchen for one channel and the other one is on camera. I was doing a storytelling and [00:11:00] reading some Christmas things and we did CWH.

[00:11:03] Gretchen: It is interesting and sometimes. Nerve wracking platforms out there to traverse and to try to keep secure. Things have changed a lot. I got my master's in technology in. 1998. My first computer in the classroom was a Commodore pet. I've been doing this for a while and it's still one of those things that the security that you have to be aware of it's locking your door before you, we, before you leave the house, you just do it even though you think, oh, I'm in a safe community.

[00:11:42] Gretchen: Yeah you still, it's and you never quite know where the, oh, weaknesses are. It's nerve wracking. It's, I don't say nerve wracking. It is a point of awareness, I think is the big [00:12:00] thing. And these days, my husband just read an article to me yesterday about the advancement in spam scam type things with ai, how much better they're getting.

[00:12:15] Gretchen: And I'm thinking, everything we can do ourselves to up that security is one thing, but everything we can do like this of sharing so that an Artemis, I thank you for sharing that so that we're aware and we can help other people be aware. It, you just never know. I had an instance where I actually had invited someone to come stay with us.

[00:12:39] Gretchen: It was someone who I thought was a very good friend. Turns out he got into our computer and changed the administrator put in himself. Yeah. Not so good. So there's just amazing kind of things that happen, whether it's in real life or online, that you want to [00:13:00] trust, but you also have to look at things with a sense of awareness

[00:13:05] Alessandra: and just a little tinge of skepticism is not bad.

[00:13:11] Gretchen: Thank you for sharing that story. 'cause that is like a, that is a creepy example of an in real life violation at a digital level. And What I love about the crew of Creative Work Hour is that we honor each other's boundaries and we make it safe to describe something that's happened. We wouldn't just necessarily want anybody to know.

[00:13:37] Gretchen: And so I really appreciate Artemis and Gretchen sharing these stories because for those that will listen to this podcast, there is no shame getting outsmarted or outpaced or out. Whatever. There's no shame in that. And in fact [00:14:00] the way that we defend our own boundaries is to say, Hey, something happened.

[00:14:05] Gretchen: Something happened. I may need some help sorting it out. I may need some support in moving forward in rebuilding, and, whose car are we taking, Devin? What? What do you have to share?

[00:14:18] Devin: Thank you, Alessandra. The only example I can think of my creative work being actually stolen from me was, back in the day, and I think it's pretty common knowledge at this point that Alessandra and I are a longstanding item. So I'm not allowed to make specific date references because someone might be able to triangulate that into someone's age.

[00:14:38] Devin: So let's just say my freshman year of college, whenever that may or may not have been I had a collection of mixed tapes, cassette tapes, and a vinyl. Cassette case that I kept in my car, my two 80 zx, and I mixed, that's a creative work. Making a mix tape is an expression of your creative work.

[00:14:59] Devin: [00:15:00] Okay? And someone got into my car and stole the whole case. Just took them all, and I was heartbroken. The irony of that story is that every one of those tapes were contemporary Christian artists. So I'm sure the thief was bitterly disappointed in what they actually got out of that crime, but I hope it did them some good.

[00:15:20] Devin: You know me in this scheme of things.

[00:15:23] Alessandra: That's some Amy Grant bringing them down,

[00:15:26] Devin: right? Yeah. Rookie. Rookie mistake. So what I do now on my. Virtual creative work. My digital creative work is I keep it on multiple clouds and I keep the usernames and passwords for those clouds in one password. And that's all courtesy of Alessandra who dragged me kicking and screaming into a secure password manager.

[00:15:50] Devin: So I now have it secure and it's not perfect. But so far I haven't had any problems and I feel pretty good about where my [00:16:00] stuff is and. I will be able to get to it. Even if one of those were breached, I've got other locations where it's still intact.

[00:16:08] Alessandra: You know what that makes me think of this time of year like when the crew of creative work hour, when we do like a yearly review, some people are into reviews.

[00:16:18] Alessandra: Some of us are like, not, that's not how we roll. Some of us are like, Hmm, what might I. Dream of doing in the coming year. So whatever it is that we do around that kind of, what are the possibilities, we tend to do that in January after everybody's had a chance to put a, put all the decorations away and all of that.

[00:16:37] Alessandra: But I think it would be really helpful if we devoted if we devoted a creative work hour weekend to. Let's just take, a good audit of our own security because what I love and hate about Artemis story is that it's not how she does things now. It's not how she did things five years ago. It's how [00:17:00] we were all doing things nine years ago, 10 years ago.

[00:17:04] Alessandra: If we were using the best tools that we had to secure our stuff then we move forward and we do things that are more secure and more encrypted and more this and that and the other. But it makes me think it could behoove all of us to just take, a designated hour all at the same time.

[00:17:23] Alessandra: We can have some, like James Bond music going or something in the actual hour that we do this. And just go back to how did I use to use Google or Duck? Duck go, what? Convenient password, things that I use on my phone, do that kind of thing. So I'm wondering shadows.

[00:17:44] Alessandra: You, you taught me a lot about. Security and keeping things local. What comes up for you with this general topic of your creative work and thinking that we've got our stuff locked down and then finding out, [00:18:00] oh yeah, we do need to look at the strengths, the weaknesses, the opportunities, and the threats for our creative work.

[00:18:06] Alessandra: What comes up for you?

[00:18:08] Shadows: Well. One of the things that made me really a whole lot more militant about keeping stuff local is it was using Evernote and I had used it for numerous years and somebody got into my Evernote and turned a folder public, and that exposed a key, not for hive, thankfully it was an ethernet or E key.

[00:18:34] Shadows: I lost some money on that, but at the same time I went, yeah, I don't want to use a platform that people could actually hack into. And that's the reason I switched to obsidian, because obsidian keeps all my files on my drive or where I assign them to.

[00:18:51] Alessandra: And so all of your, are you using , I think it has a lot to do with like personalities.

[00:18:56] Alessandra: Do you store anything in a [00:19:00] cloud?

[00:19:00] Shadows: You mean a public cloud or do you mean a cloud drive?

[00:19:04] Alessandra: Like a cloud drive?

[00:19:06] Shadows: Yes. And it's sitting in my bedroom and no, it cannot be accessed remotely.

[00:19:11] Alessandra: And so do you have anything at all stored on a public cloud?

[00:19:14] Shadows: Yeah. By default that I use an iPad, it backs up to the iCloud.

[00:19:20] Alessandra: Yeah. So you have a security protocol that is very, you do these kinds of things. With your computer and your drives and you do other kinds of things with your iOS devices, is that right?

[00:19:33] Shadows: Yeah. I haven't figured out how to get iOS to back up to one of my private clouds.

[00:19:38]

[00:19:38] Alessandra: It's very interesting how in isolation you can't be secure. You have to be sharing tips and tricks with friends that are, trying to keep their own work, security, banking, all of those things. Secure. Greg, how about you? , I could see the concern on your face when you were listening to Artemis story.

[00:19:57] Alessandra: What did that bring up for you and the [00:20:00] security of your own creative work?

[00:20:02] Greg: I've had accounts hacked several times. There's a good website if you are interested to find out if you've ever been in a data breach where your email address password, phone number may have been a, in a data breach.

[00:20:18] Greg: It's have I been PWNED? That's p. WNE d.com and it was a developer that put that site together. It's free to use, I go on there periodically and you'd be surprised, a lot of these data breaches where the information is put out there, they don't even have to tell you in many instances until years after it's happened.

[00:20:40] Greg: So you could have in a data breach or not know about it for a year or two after it's happened because there's no as far as the disclosure, the way that works. So that's very interesting. I use a password manager as well. It's not one password like Devin uses. It's mine's a bit warden, but it works on the same principle.

[00:20:57] Greg: It stores your passwords and such. It's very [00:21:00] interesting what Adam has said about storing your passwords and your web browser because that's not necessarily safe to do. My memory's not the greatest. I know I've had some of my creative work stolen, but I can't remember individual instances, although one does come to mind where an idea was stolen.

[00:21:17] Greg: And I've shared with someone who was actually a friend on Twitter. I was doing Twitter spaces at the time and I had shared an idea for a new space. The next thing I knew that person had come up with the idea themselves and started to do a Twitter space on the very topic.

[00:21:32] Alessandra: Oh, can I hold up my hand and guess who it is? No, I won't.

[00:21:35] Greg: No. We won't go there. So sometimes having ADHD is a blessing 'cause , you forget things quickly, , which, doesn't drive you crazy. Or it can drive you crazy, but it doesn't drive you crazy 'cause you forget some of the madness.

[00:21:47] Greg: So that's me. Thank you.

[00:21:48] Alessandra: Yeah. Bailey, how about you? And you are a writer, you are a musician, you are a composer. You do all kinds of things. And how do you keep your, [00:22:00] how do you keep your stuff secure? Because I am sure there are people up to no good. Who would love to sample the Bailey catalog of work.

[00:22:09] Bailey: I was thinking about this and I don't think I've had any creative work stolen. There was one time where my entire Google account was taken over and I had to verify my identity with Google, over the phone and everything, and finally got it back, but. I don't think I've had any creative work stolen, and I'm grateful for that.

[00:22:31] Bailey: Use score is pretty cool because whenever you post, they actually have a built-in trademark kind of thing. And you can specifically choose which kind you have so that people can or cannot use your work in their own work. So they're actually really cool about that. They're forward thinking with it.

[00:22:48] Bailey: It's really awesome. But I think when it comes to my creative work, I am often afraid to , share it online. There's like many Reddit groups that are [00:23:00] built around sharing your work and having someone else edit it if you edit theirs. And it freaks me out because the whole process requires that you put your work out there without any protection.

[00:23:12] Bailey: And in general, that's not something I really do. That's one of the reasons I think Hive is really cool because it's a lot harder to steal. And also I think that when it comes to my creative work, I'm like most protective of that. Like even over my physical possessions. Yeah, it's like my mind and.

[00:23:33] Bailey: That is more important to me than my physical possession. So yeah, I guess what I've learned throughout this whole thing is that a lot of the things that we think are secure are a lot less secure than we think. Yeah. And I think that I've learned a lot just from talking to you guys about this.

[00:23:49] Bailey: So yeah. Thank you guys.

[00:23:50] Alessandra: Yeah. Thanks for sharing that story with us. Greg is beautiful in how, if there is a tool that we mention in a podcast episode, he will [00:24:00] gather that and drop it into the show notes. So there's the one that he mentioned, Greg, what was that called again?

[00:24:07] Alessandra: Have you been PWNED?

[00:24:09] Greg: Have I been PWNED dot PWNED people?

[00:24:11] Alessandra: Have I been PWNED? And I've used that a few times and it was alarming what I saw there. Also the one that Bailey mentioned is called Muse. As in when your muse shows up to work with you, it is called Muse score. I didn't know that it had those kinds of sharing options that you could toggle on and toggle off.

[00:24:31] Alessandra: That's very interesting. I wanna welcome Melanie into the room. Melanie. Today we are talking about what happens when your security has been breached in your own creative work. We had a pretty serious breach with one of our own this week, and so we're just kind of reeling from that a little bit and just.

[00:24:51] Alessandra: Wondering if, you have, if you have had a breach, could be like a physical one into your own space, or your own [00:25:00] published work, or it could be an account or something that you've created in the digital world. Have you had experience with that?

[00:25:09]

[00:25:09] Melanie: Very minimal, although something happened to someone must have hacked my original Facebook account and I couldn't get back on. But I haven't really, I mean since art school, which was up in, up through the eighties, I can find some of my stuff still there. And I can find the design work that I did for Look of Love the business in Asheville, but there's no real way of my knowing whether it's been swiped or not.

[00:25:36] Melanie: But I would be very nervous about putting written or musical or visual workup in a place where I don't know everybody, I guess these days you just can't do that.

[00:25:47] Alessandra: Yeah. Yeah. And you're one of those really interesting we tend to collect the polymaths here in Creative Work Hour have you ever seen any of your artwork somewhere that it didn't belong and [00:26:00] that was not your idea?

[00:26:02] Melanie: That was, the arts from. Prior to 81, and I actually haven't looked to see if that's happened One time I remember finding something that wasn't quite right, but interestingly enough, the design for the prenatal ultrasound place, I did find where it shouldn't have been and under different names.

[00:26:20] Alessandra: I wanted to ask you about, 'cause there's your work as an artist, there's your work as a photographer, which is different from. Other art types that you've done in the East Village in New York, there is a side of a building that has a mural that's based on one of your pieces of photography, and

[00:26:43] Melanie: two, two of them, there's two of them.

[00:26:44] Melanie: The photo of Evelyn, and the photo of Dennis Charles. Both of those are based on my photos.

[00:26:50] Alessandra: Did you know that was happening at the time, or did you have to catch up to your work Being

[00:26:54] Melanie: I, Anna Pasta, who's the president of that building told me she was gonna do it and [00:27:00] I offered her those photos.

[00:27:01] Alessandra: Wow. It's very interesting how all of these things come together and it could be that somebody has an idea to use your things and they haven't necessarily checked with you first, and these things can be worked. These things can be worked out, can't they, Devin? What have you found one, one of the things that, that we've worked on is, is, and a big change that we're making here in Creative Work Hour come January 1st is we're changing

[00:27:28] Alessandra: how we stream music because we found out that the way that everybody does it online is not actually legally correct to do. And so we are changing services at the first of the year so that we're not inadvertently. Stealing somebody else's creative work for our own enjoyment while we're doing our own creative work here.

[00:27:51] Alessandra: So Devin, do you have anything to add about ways to protect ourselves as creatives?

[00:27:56] Devin: Bailey introduced a very good idea, and that [00:28:00] is, trademarking and copyright and whatever's applicable. That's something you can do to protect it in a different kind of way that even if it's stolen, it can't really be utilized if you're diligent because they don't own the right to use it, even if they get their hands on a digitally or physically.

[00:28:15] Devin: I think Bailey may have come up with some intellectual property, unless he someone else's in, and I hadn't heard of it before, but the line that he used, which is things that you think are secure, may not be as secure as you think. I think I'm gonna go launch a privacy startup right now with that is the byline 'cause that was awesome.

[00:28:34] Devin: But I'll finish all this. Comment. One of the most interesting theft stories that I have heard recently is the London Graffiti artist, Banksy who's, works are now being auctioned off for millions. Is it millions? It's a lot. And, but recently when he reveals. A new work, which is graffiti, obviously it's on a public space, on a building, it's on something physical.

[00:28:57] Devin: People are going and finding ways to steal it, to [00:29:00] cut it out of the structure or remove the physical medium that it's on and take it and take off with it. And so that's just like what, there's still real world physical, tangible art theft going on. And then of course there's the Louvre, there's just nothing safe.

[00:29:16] Devin: Yeah. You've gotta be security conscious all the time.

[00:29:19] Alessandra: Thank you for that Devin. And the last thing that I wanna ask you about that is what is

[00:29:24] Alessandra: for people that don't know attorneys or

[00:29:28] Alessandra: what is just like the base simple way that you can claim your work as your own? What is the dirt, simplest thing that I could do?

[00:29:39] Devin: For written work, you could write copyright. You could, if you're using a word processor, you can write copyright, whatever the year is your name. You could have that as a footer on say, Microsoft Word or whatever you're using. And that will, if that is printed on there, if it's attached

[00:29:55] Devin: to the work, then you have copyrighted it and you can [00:30:00] then defend that if need be.

[00:30:02] Alessandra: There you go. Thank you so much for that.

[00:30:04] Shadows: You might wanna remember that anything that you've published on the blockchain is dated and recorded right then. So it's there for life

[00:30:15] Alessandra: and that's something interesting. This week I noticed the the Cuban author Roswell Borge.

[00:30:22] Alessandra: Even though what he is publishing to the high blockchain is on the blockchain and therefore it's on his account. He's the author. There's the timestamp. It is. It is set in a produced block forever, and yet at the bottom of everything that he publishes, he writes the year and Roswell Borge. And why not?

[00:30:46] Alessandra: It's a good practice.

[00:30:48] Melanie: Can you write copyright on that as well and will that make any difference?

[00:30:52] Devin: You can write copyright, you can use the copyright symbol. Yes, it's helpful. It's helpful to say, this is why my name is on this 'cause I'm [00:31:00] asserting my copyright.

[00:31:01] Devin: Very nice. It's been a really helpful episode and I think that brings us to time. And Greg, what time is it?

[00:31:08] Greg: It's that time again, you've wasted some perfectly good time listening to the creative work, our podcast, when you could have been doing something else, but no, you chose to listen anyway.

[00:31:19] Greg: But how about you? We'd love to hear have you had any of your creative work stolen and how did that happen? What did you decide to do about it what happened exactly. Let us know@creativeworkhour.com. In the meantime, come back next week and we'll have another interesting creative discussion. in. 

Greg
00:00 - 00:41
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the creative workhour podcast this is episode 72 and in the room with me today we've got myself, we've got Alessandra, we've got Devon, we've got Gretchen, Melanie and Shadows Pub. It is December the 13th 2025 and it's fast approaching Christmas and New Year and on that vein we decided we'd have somewhat of a A kind of a recap on how the year has been going. So today's question is, what did being part of the Creative WorkHour community mean to you this year? And what did you aim to accomplish?

Greg
00:42 - 00:49
And what important things happened this year? Alessandra, I will go to you. How about you? What did it mean to you?

Alessandra
00:49 - 01:45
Well, I have to say that creative work hour as the community, it is a buffer for me, like just in my own mental health, that no matter what happens in my creative work, it doesn't matter if I just fall off the wagon with everything I'm trying to do. It doesn't matter because every single day we're here and whoever can make it comes and whoever doesn't, they come when they can. So the whole, proof of concept of we'll see ya when we see ya works no matter what and that seems to be the thing that was like what was accomplished this year above everything is that we see ya when we see ya works. On a personal level in my own creative work It has been a hell of a struggle and a hell of a triumph all in the same year.

Alessandra
01:45 - 02:11
I got one of these, you know, because this is kind of like smell-o-vision. We record these podcast episodes, we record them in a Zoom room so that we have the vibrance of seeing each other as we're recording. And so what I'm doing at the moment is I'm just turning my computer around so that the crew can see this big ass calendar. That thing is two meters wide.

Alessandra
02:11 - 02:38
It's six feet, six feet horizontal wide. And so what I did is I just took that thing and I just put, if I did not have hangups, if I didn't deal with a mental health thing that really does need to be kept mindfully in check, if I didn't have all those things, What would I allow myself to do? Some people like to phrase it as, what would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?

Alessandra
02:38 - 02:52
That doesn't really work for me. To me, that's just like horseshit. But what could I possibly aspire to just on paper? There's something about, ideally, just on paper.

Alessandra
02:52 - 03:03
When you put some ideas out there, they seem doable. Right. Because it's just pen and paper. So that's what I did on this big wall in my flat here in Leeds.

Alessandra
03:03 - 03:24
I just made it like as big of a life as I could imagine. And I guess the accomplishment was that. We took off the things that felt too heavy because because because. Took off a couple of things that felt too heavy, but we kept.

Alessandra
03:24 - 03:58
90% or more of everything. And even though I had the accident in late summer, everything still came about. So there we are, there we all are. And so I'm just really curious to hear from you, Greg, what is it that community has meant to you this year, and what in the world did you get up to in your own sense of accomplishments?

Greg
03:59 - 04:24
Oh boy, you know how I love these parts, right? Well, for me, being part of Creative WorkHour this year has meant being part of a loving family, a caring family, a family of my choosing, one that doesn't judge me, doesn't hold resentment, hold things against me, and a family that encourages and cares about me. And I think for many of us, that's what Creative WorkHour is. This year, I expanded my kindness community.

Greg
04:25 - 04:47
I created the support and kindness community, which includes free weekly support groups on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and as well as a weekly support and kindness podcast, which we do, we record on a Saturday. After this, we record at 5 p.m. And that goes out on Sunday and I'm currently expanding the community within the Gold Brunch community. So that's, that's me.

Greg
04:47 - 04:57
How about you Shadow? What did being part of Creative Work Hour community mean to you this year? And what did you aim to accomplish and what important things happened this year?

Shadows Pub
04:58 - 05:23
Creative Work Hours, people get to hang out with, I don't hang out with people so It's a group that I show up to most days. There's one day that I don't each week. What did I accomplish? Well, I guess I added some new layers onto the Echoes, layers that hopefully will be expanding into income producing in the new year.

Shadows Pub
05:23 - 05:24
We'll see.

Greg
05:24 - 05:39
And now that you've just actually finished GoBranch Expo again, which you've been part of from the beginning, and I was fortunate enough to visit your booth in there. I'm kind of thinking it's number 130, but do you want to talk about that? Cause that was something else that was quite an accomplishment.

Shadows Pub
05:40 - 06:13
So I redesigned all of my rooms in the Echo, what I call the Echoverse. so that I've got rooms that are dedicated to the Echoes. There's some webpages embedded in the room that I used as a booth for the expo, and they show off not only my products, but people can go in there to explore the past Echoes. so they can punt back through the various months and pick out the words they like and kind of have a look at the images and the echo for that particular day.

Shadows Pub
06:14 - 06:23
So some of those are going to get turned into sets journal pages. Some of them already are in wall art and there may be a couple other things being added.

Greg
06:23 - 06:39
Thank you shadows yeah it's true it's truly a really nice room. I think the room is still up if people want to go visit that. Shadows where would they find that if someone wanted to check you out? We can put it in the show notes actually so yeah if you let me have it we'll add that to the show notes that will be much easier to find.

Shadows Pub
06:39 - 06:43
same link that was used for the expo that's in the channel.

Greg
06:43 - 06:46
Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Gretchen, how about you?

Greg
06:46 - 06:56
What did being part of Creative Work Hour Community mean to you this year and what did you aim to accomplish and what important things happened this year for you?

Gretchen
06:56 - 07:21
Well, being part of Creative Work Hour has been really a wonderful, you said it the best about a nonjudgmental group that you can come to, that it's a family of choice that truly is. A gentleman I knew that Brian Klimmer, who who once said to me, it's not right, wrong, good or bad. It just is. And that was a motto that he had in all that he worked in.

Gretchen
07:21 - 07:42
And it just really this is a place that just is. There's you can come when you can and you accomplish what you need to accomplish. I've been with Morning Pages very consistent. I mean, with Creative Work Hour, very consistent with my Morning Pages, which I had not done before.

Gretchen
07:42 - 08:03
this before, I just wasn't consistent about doing that. I would think about journaling, but I wasn't. It's helped me build a better habit in certain areas and then to get things done. But it's also been a source of laughter and encouragement and just community.

Gretchen
08:03 - 08:18
And I've been able to meet some people in real life. You know, I met Dr. Melanie in real life and Sandra and it's just in Devon and Nisabu, of course. But what did I do? Well, I did a little cross-country trip in a van.

Gretchen
08:18 - 08:46
And it was 7,500 miles and live streamed along the way back and forth. I've done a lot of art and I'm working on a couple of photography projects. All of them add to within creative work hour and going on. And then with Greg has his kindness program going that it says, and I have started a campaign with my bucket filler brigade.

Gretchen
08:46 - 09:05
to start make 2026 the global year of kindness. So I'm hoping that in the future, Greg and I can kind of collaborate back and forth on that and, and feed off of each other's. It's just, it's just a place to have ideas in your own head come about. It gives you time and space.

Gretchen
09:06 - 09:13
Creative Work Hour gives you time and space to come up with ideas and to find a way to bring them about.

Greg
09:15 - 09:22
Thank you, Gretchen. I love that sentiment and I would absolutely welcome collaborating with you. That would be a lot of fun. How about you, Dr. Melanie?

Greg
09:23 - 09:31
Being part of Creative WorkHour community this year, what does it mean to you? What did you aim to accomplish and what important things happened this year?

Dr Melonie
09:31 - 09:45
I can answer the first question better than the other two. I can't even remember what the hell I was thinking a year ago to tell you the truth. But Creative WorkHour is a new bunch of friends and that's kind of remarkable. especially post-COVID.

Dr Melonie
09:46 - 09:55
You know, if you don't make friends and I'm at the hospital all the time. And so I don't thank you. I don't make friends. I mean, I make friends in the hospital, but they're hospital friends.

Dr Melonie
09:55 - 10:28
So that's a big deal. And apparently what that does is give you kind of continuum such that At the glacial rate, I get things that aren't hospital and work-related things done. They're still sort of supported and remembered by Pintel, and it makes it easier to do things in a glacial rate, which is not my usual mode. And I just got enough peppers to keep my, and you guys, very warm.

Dr Melonie
10:29 - 10:40
This is Rafiq's way of saying hi. So, I don't know. And I went to ECAM this year and it was Very nice. I really enjoyed it.

Dr Melonie
10:40 - 10:56
I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did. And I really enjoyed the whole dance thing, the structure, everything. And so that was good. So I feel like I'm sort of soon to be collecting things that are going to go off soon.

Dr Melonie
10:56 - 11:11
I hope sooner rather than later. That's how I feel about it. I cannot keep up with the number of things that many of you are doing, creatively doing things. So I just think about, I do it voyeuristically and that's almost as good.

Shadows Pub
11:12 - 11:14
So that's it.

Greg
11:14 - 11:19
I heard, and I may have heard incorrectly, but I heard that you won a microphone at e-commerce.

Shadows Pub
11:19 - 11:19
Is that right?

Greg
11:20 - 11:20
I didn't even win it.

Dr Melonie
11:21 - 11:29
I think our dilly bloody person never didn't have one, first of all. But the woman who was the you don't have one.

Gretchen
11:29 - 11:44
No, no, no. There was there was a reason that you got it. You stood out to Laura. And she came to me and said, would Melanie like she's she's could she uses?

Gretchen
11:44 - 12:02
I said, oh, my gosh, because I went from her went from her several years ago. But yeah, she's you won the Shure microphone from the Shure person for a reason for being who you are. And she saw potential in how you could use it and the difference that you can make.

Dr Melonie
12:04 - 12:10
Well, it's it's on my desk. And thank you very much, Gretchen. It's on my desk. I have not as yet used it.

Dr Melonie
12:11 - 12:29
but I'm two steps closer. I just looked at the calendar and the bloody conference that my nurse practitioners go to at the same time as the e-chem in April. So I might have a problem, I can't do it. But I haven't forgotten this and things are percolating in my head.

Dr Melonie
12:29 - 12:42
But anyway, I did, and she was amazing. Laura was a remarkable woman. And she came up to me at the end of e-chem and said, would you like this Shure SuperDuper Microphone? And I said, Sure.

Dr Melonie
12:44 - 12:46
I would envy much.

Greg
12:47 - 12:54
Very cool. Very cool. Devon, how about you? What did being part of the Creative WorkHour community mean to you this year?

Greg
12:55 - 12:59
And what did you aim to accomplish and what important things happened this year?

Devin
13:01 - 13:15
Thanks, Greg. For me, creative work hour is first and foremost, creative structure. That's the time I know that I can get creative work done. And it, before that, it just wasn't happening.

Devin
13:15 - 13:37
There was no, I would say, oh, I'll do that over the weekend. Weekend would come and go, nothing happened. And just having that set time and seeing people that I like and good to hang out with, and watching them work inspired me to work. And so it just created this time bubble that I got to spend doing creative work.

Devin
13:37 - 14:07
And I would say the biggest thing that came out of that this year is that I conceived of, outlined, and started a musical where I'm writing with my songwriting collaborator, And it's living by law, and I plan to have the first draft done by the end of the year, which is, as you noted, rapidly approaching. So, and without creative work hour, that thing would not have come into existence. There's no question.

Devin
14:08 - 14:24
So I got to do something I really like and I'm interested in and that flexes that creative muscle. And I know that every day I'm going to get to make a little progress because I have that time that I'll be spending with you lot doing our creative work together.

Greg
14:26 - 14:42
Thank you, Devon, I appreciate that. And Alessandra, before I know you have your hand up, but Melanie had mentioned eCAM and CreatorCAM. And I know Gretchen got to that this year, but you did as well, right, to the CreatorCAM.

Alessandra
14:43 - 15:08
Well, I did. I have, you know, what we were talking about before we came into the studio to record this today, we were all talking about different kinds of experiences that we had as kids in using our voices to convey some message of, I am here to the world and world Hello, are you there? I'm listening.

Alessandra
15:09 - 15:49
And I love things about the conveyance of information messages and just that I'm here. Are you there? There's something so childlike to that, that no matter how complicated and glitzy and high production that it gets, whether it's runaway success accounts on YouTube, or if it's coming out of Hollywood, or from wherever it comes, that there's something so simple about communication by voice, whether there's a face with it or not, or artwork with it or not.

Alessandra
15:49 - 16:22
There's something so basically comforting about that, that whether it is in the best of times, I did it. Or on the worst of times, is there somebody there? I just need to know that there's somebody there, that there's absolutely something really magical about the voice. And so that is why in watching Gretchen's creative work two years ago, I started asking her questions about what is this thing called Creator Camp?

Alessandra
16:23 - 17:18
And she shared with me that it is the community the live in-person event that is part of the community of Ecamm Live, which is a beautiful software that allows you to create scenes and make things that you're doing just on your little lonesome. appear more professional looking. And so, you know, the reason why Gretchen's tile always looks more polished and put together than any of the rest of ours is because she has learned how to do some things in Ecamm Live. So what I wanted to say about creative work hour is we have an account on the Hive blockchain, which is one of our values, is that for whatever creative work is being put out there in the world, it's not that we just support it.

Alessandra
17:18 - 17:38
We support it, especially in places that don't have the power to take it away. or take the account down, or to rob you of your content. And because of that, we could learn, we could have creative work hour in all these different platforms. We can, we will, we have.

Alessandra
17:39 - 18:16
But there is something about being on the high blockchain, which means that after we're all gone, the blockchain technology lasts. And anything that we post there directly into Creative Work Hour as the account, or just in supporting each other's content that's published there, it can never go away. Like it technologically is immutable and locked into place. And the Creative Work Hour account on Hive is simply at Creative Work Hour, all one word.

Alessandra
18:17 - 18:25
And this is how we are described there. Creative Work Hour. Live. Coworking daily sessions.

Alessandra
18:26 - 18:36
And here is the tagline. The global daily online coworking space that's dedicated to bringing your ideas to life.

Shadows Pub
18:37 - 18:39
I love that. I love that.

Alessandra
18:45 - 19:05
So does anybody have anything else that they want to add that was sparked by something that someone else said? Because this would be the time. We could grab that and include it. Just know that this episode will be the one that we can, we can pull into pieces and we can use as little testimonials.

Alessandra
19:06 - 19:18
I don't yet know how to do that. I have a friend who knows how to do that, but this is something that we've been trying to do for a while, but I was just too bashful to ask. So here we are.

Greg
19:18 - 19:19
Anybody?

Devin
19:19 - 19:41
I'll just jump in with, you know, because it's a spinoff, it's part of the Creative Work Hour family. Practice Not Perfect also had a huge impact. Certainly, Alessandra had some big performances this year that were prepped during Practice Not Perfect. And just like my writing, the practicing would not happen.

Devin
19:41 - 20:05
Were it not for time dedicated to practice not perfect, I'm with a group and I can look and see other people that are doing their thing, and it gives me time to invest in the music that I want to learn and improve. So, again, that magic of time dedicated to your creative work, no matter what it is, is just magic.

Greg
20:07 - 20:22
Absolutely. Absolutely. I know that I take part, although I'm not practicing my instrument, I do play, I play the saxophone and the clarinet, and I need to get back into doing that. But I use that practice, that perfect time for other things as well.

Alessandra
20:22 - 20:45
Well, thank you guys so much for being here and just telling us what your thoughts are about the year. And, you know, sometimes when we are accomplishing something, that accomplishment is not bearing fruit. Sometimes the idea just needs to germinate for a nice long while. And all of us have ideas that are like that.

Alessandra
20:46 - 21:29
And it took, like Melanie was talking about, that microphone is sitting there, but it is not sitting there losing energy. That microphone sitting on her desk that she's not yet opened, that microphone is gaining energy. It's gaining more and more and more energy because that idea of hers that we know is so needed in the world to help other medical residents that in turn will save lives, it's a bit of a heavy lift, right? This is not like, oh, here's my favorite blouse today, kind of a podcast.

Alessandra
21:29 - 22:00
What she's talking about is a very micro, specific, clinical kind of a podcast that will save lives. So it needs to germinate longer. So Melanie, that is your accomplishment, is that you've got that box of that sure microphone sitting on your desk, gaining energy while the idea germinates. And that is the magic of creative work hour is it's not a judgy environment.

Alessandra
22:01 - 22:48
So when things just need to sit for a season or two or three, We support you in having that idea sit and germinate, because that too is creative work. We have a friend who came by, oh, several times, and he has this beautiful essay that he wrote about what is writing, and we have applied it to what is creative work. And to paraphrase it, creative work is, sometimes creative work is resting, Sometimes creative work is getting the hell out of bed. Sometimes creative work is putting down the pencil and go getting a snack.

Alessandra
22:49 - 23:08
Sometimes creative work is picking up the pencil and writing one word over and over and over because you don't know what else to do. Sometimes creative work is picking up a book and going and sitting in grandma's rocker. Sometimes creative work, uh oh, a fruit. Sorry about that.

Alessandra
23:09 - 23:43
Sometimes creative work is just sitting down at the same time of day or saying, I want to be there, but I just can't today. I've got squirrels screaming at me from work or what have you. But creative work is not always the image of the composer at the piano at night with the candelabra going and the scratchy pen on the parchment staved paper. Creative work is taking care of yourself.

Alessandra
23:44 - 24:05
Creative work is just being there for other people to be there for themselves. The magic is that we do it in a container of one hour at a time, and we do it together. And with that, I have to ask my friend Greg. Greg, what time is it?

Greg
24:06 - 24:23
That time again, you've wasted some perfectly good time listening to the Creative WorkHour podcast when you could have been doing something else, but no, you tuned in anyway. But what about you? Have you been part of the Creative WorkHour community this year or any other year? And has it been helpful to you?

Greg
24:23 - 24:32
What's it meant to you? Have you listened to the Creative WorkHour podcast this year? What's that meant to you? And what did you aim to accomplish?

Greg
24:33 - 24:43
And what's something important that's happened in your life this year? Let us know. You can visit us at creativeworkhour.com. Come back again next week and we'll have another creative conversation.

Greg
24:44 - 24:44
Thank you.

Greg
00:00 - 00:30
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Creative Work Hour podcast. Today is Saturday November the 22nd 2025 and it's fast approaching Thanksgiving and it'll soon be Christmas can you believe that. Today we're going to be talking about morning routines and specifically when it comes to morning routines what works and what doesn't and have you changed your morning routines to make them easier and more enjoyable. Alessandra, interesting topic.

Alessandra
00:30 - 01:01
Oh, I think it is an interesting topic and, you know, you can't talk about morning routines that you don't have the relevance of how did you sleep, right? So the thing that I'm working on in my morning routine is how do I better engineer the night before? Like I got the iPhone out of the bedroom and I set up a charging, kind of a charging station in the, in the foyer. But I outsmarted myself with that, because waking up in the middle of the night, you go through the foyer to get to the bathroom.

Alessandra
01:01 - 01:18
And so inevitably, I stop and I look at what time it is. And inevitably, I'll see a notification. And inevitably, I'll be like, ooh, what's happening with my Hive account? And then, you know, then it's like 40 minutes before I go back to sleep.

Alessandra
01:19 - 01:54
So the thing that I need to tinker with is the get the phone out of the foyer, move the charging station into the kitchen. So I literally went to an IRL department store today during Christmas shopping, which was a little crazy. And I looked at little alarm clocks so I can have something analog that is, you know, on that four-year table that will not interfere with the melatonin and give me the blue light searing through the eyes, keeping me awake. So that's me.

Alessandra
01:54 - 02:05
That's what I'm working on. And that's not necessarily the morning routine engineering, but it's to give myself a shot, a better shot at having a better morning. How about you, Greg?

Greg
02:05 - 02:36
Morning routines, oh my goodness, well my morning routine is wake up, take medicine, take coffee, take more coffee and adjust as the morning goes on. I've tried a few different things for morning routines and creative work hour, cup of joe, creative work hour, practice not perfect, that's my kind of morning routine, that's my grounding time, my grounding exercises when I decide what I'm going to work on. and it sets the tone for the rest of the day. I find that consistency with that, attending every day, you know, it's at the same time.

Greg
02:37 - 03:01
It's just productive for the rest of the day to come. If I don't join in, you know, I can tell, it kind of shows in ways when I miss a session. But not to steal the thunder from anyone else on the group, but I did try something, an exercise earlier in the week, and that's the morning pages. which another member, and I don't want to steal their thunder, but they do, and I'll let them talk about that, because that's going to be their share.

Greg
03:01 - 03:16
But I found it to be very, very helpful as well. Whether I can get into the habit of doing that every day, I don't know. But I would like to think there is something to work towards, because it is beneficial. But speaking of that, and speaking of morning pages, and I'm not sure if that's going to be their share, but I'm going to go to Gretchen.

Greg
03:16 - 03:24
And so when it comes to morning routines, what works and what doesn't for you? And have you changed your morning routine to make them more enjoyable and productive?

Gretchen
03:25 - 03:51
Oh my goodness. I've had kind of a forced morning routine for so long. When I was an elementary school teacher, it was, I had to be there by a certain time and what had to happen and how, and I've never really been a real morning person. So early on in my marriage, my husband used to like run the coffee under my nose and then set it across the room so I could get out of bed.

Gretchen
03:51 - 04:29
literally, was just one of the routines that he and I had. He's modified it to some degree now, but he still kind of, even though I'm retired, he still gets that going for me and the bacon so I can feed Aldo the dog. So having had some kind of set routine for so many years when I was working, after I retired, I went through several phases of what I tried. I do, creative work hour has come into play as something that I love getting up there and it gets me going because it gets me into doing something creative or productive.

Gretchen
04:29 - 04:42
that I have in the morning. At one point, and I still do, Mel Robbins, Give Yourself a High Five. It's just a fabulous way. But I did in March start morning pages.

Gretchen
04:42 - 05:03
And that is a really, it sounds like it should be, oh, I'll just sit down and write three pages. But it becomes much more. And it doesn't always happen every morning. But the mornings that it doesn't, I recognize since the rest of my day that it would have been better if I had.

Gretchen
05:03 - 05:10
I might have been more productive. I might have gotten stuff off my head. I don't always get the three pages done. Sometimes I get two lines.

Gretchen
05:10 - 05:31
Sometimes I don't get any. But it's still something that I have come to look forward to. And I think that's one of the things for me that's changed from when I was getting up to go to work. And yes, even though I loved teaching so much, being there with the kids, it was still that kind of grind.

Gretchen
05:31 - 05:48
This is a thing that I look forward to. And I think for me, the essential part of my morning routine has to be something included that I'm not dreading but that I really look forward to. That brings me some joy.

Greg
05:48 - 05:52
Thank you, Gretchen. Shadows, how about you? Morning routines? What works?

Greg
05:52 - 05:58
What doesn't? And have you changed your morning routine to make them easier and more enjoyable?

Shadows Pub
05:58 - 06:08
There's only one way on earth that I can tinker with my morning routine. It would be getting rid of Hobo or getting her permission, whichever comes first. She's the driver. I'm usually

Devin
06:08 - 06:08
awake

Shadows Pub
06:08 - 06:27
around two thirty or three. And if I'm not, she will be awaking me. So We've had a little bit of a compromise in that I can spend the first hour, maybe even hour and a half, reading. If I don't mind the periodic interruptions of her standing on the iPad with it laying on my chest.

Shadows Pub
06:27 - 06:39
Then I get up. But I do make her wait until I've prepared my morning drink. Then I make their food. Then I have to supervise the eating of said food, or Hobo will eat her food.

Shadows Pub
06:40 - 06:47
And traps. And then about two hours later I make coffee. That decides the morning. Bobo is firmly in charge.

Greg
06:48 - 06:51
You've not trained her to put the coffee pot on ready for you yet?

Shadows Pub
06:51 - 06:53
Have you ever tried to train a cat?

Greg
06:54 - 07:01
No, no, no. Maybe there's a chat GPT script that could help with that. I don't know. Maybe, maybe

Shadows Pub
07:01 - 07:06
not. The coffee doesn't actually come until two hours after I get up. See,

Greg
07:06 - 07:09
I have to have it almost immediately. Almost immediately.

Shadows Pub
07:09 - 07:17
Well, I have another drink that is actually anti-inflammatory. Coffee actually drives your cortisol up first thing in the morning.

Greg
07:17 - 07:21
Really? I did not know that. So what do you drink that's anti-inflammatory?

Shadows Pub
07:21 - 07:25
Oh, it's a mixture. The base of it is cacaya and beetroot.

Alessandra
07:25 - 07:30
I'm curious about this concoction. What color is it? It's

Shadows Pub
07:30 - 07:30
got

Alessandra
07:30 - 07:32
to be red. What color do you think it

Shadows Pub
07:32 - 07:33
would be with cacaya in it?

Alessandra
07:34 - 07:37
Of course, I don't know what that is. Is that a spice? I don't know what that is.

Shadows Pub
07:38 - 07:44
Oh, papaya is the actual cocoa beans. It's in its raw form.

Alessandra
07:44 - 07:49
Did not know that. It's a dark substance then.

Shadows Pub
07:49 - 07:59
Yeah, it is. It's not been processed to the point of being cocoa. It's just lightly refined. Got all the nutrients that it actually is supposed to have.

Greg
07:59 - 08:03
That sounds like you, Shannon. It's not processed. Lightly refined. Exactly.

Shadows Pub
08:03 - 08:05
Or refined. I don't go for refined.

Greg
08:06 - 08:09
And dark. You can't miss that off.

Shadows Pub
08:09 - 08:09
How

Greg
08:09 - 08:18
about you, Devon? When it comes to morning routines, what works for you and what doesn't? And how have you changed your mornings to make them more enjoyable?

Devin
08:18 - 08:33
Thanks, Greg. Well, I've been a Tim Ferriss fanboy for a long time. And if you know anything about Tim Ferriss, he's obsessed with morning routines. Wrote a huge thick book about the morning routines of successful people and all the different variations.

Devin
08:34 - 09:00
So I've tweaked my morning routine many, many times over the years. But as a foundation, I'll say I am a bona fide morning person. So, it's just how I'm wired and most of my adult life, I'd say I've gotten up at 5am, that's the time I get up now. There are times, I'm such a morning person, I have been a competitive morning person with work, back when we used to go into offices and the like.

Devin
09:00 - 09:23
And there are times when if someone else was a morning person, I made it my goal to beat them into the office and they would respond in kind. So there's times where I've gotten up at 3.30 in the morning just so I would have time to get ready and get to the office first. So yeah, it gets a little crazy sometimes. But my current routine, subject to change without notice, is up at five.

Devin
09:24 - 09:43
And the first thing I do is I grab a one liter bottle of smart water. and I drink that, and then I refill it, and I drink that. So my goal is to get two liters of water in me before I have any coffee or tea, and that helps. And I do a lot of news reading.

Devin
09:43 - 10:02
Like, my first thing I do is I check the BBC news app to see if, you know, any earthquakes have happened, for instance. You know, is there anything I should know about? And then I check my work email, and then I check my work Slack posts. If I survive all of that, then I go to reading newspapers.

Devin
10:03 - 10:18
I read at least the headlines of at least three newspapers every morning. I'm a news junkie, so I want to find out exactly what's going on, what to expect. After that, I sit and really just sort of stare off into space for an hour to an hour and a half. And a lot of work gets done.

Devin
10:18 - 10:42
It looks like I'm doing absolutely nothing, but I can tell you a lot of creative ideas, a lot of solutions to problems, and other useful thoughts come in when I'm just trying to meditate. That's when I pray. A lot happens during that time. And then at 730, I do a combination, an exercise routine that's a combination of yoga and kettlebells.

Devin
10:43 - 10:59
Again, shout out to Tim Ferriss. And after that, I have, maybe I'll have a cup of tea. Maybe I'll do some more reading, chase some squirrels I may have seen earlier. And then of course, by 9.45, it's time for Cup O' Joe and creative work hour.

Devin
10:59 - 11:27
So I'm at my computer, hopefully already settled, focused, got my plan for the day. And during creative work hour, that's when I'm going to catch my journal up for the coming day. and that's when I'm going to maybe, and then I have a separate journal that's just for more creative, what I would call morning pages, more of that type of just experiential thing. So that is my rough outline of my basic morning routine as it stands today, and it's working for me.

Devin
11:28 - 11:29
Thank you, Devon.

Greg
11:29 - 11:37
How about you, Bailey? Morning routines, what works, what doesn't, and have you changed your mornings to make them easier and more

Bailey
11:37 - 11:47
enjoyable? Um, I'm the opposite of Devin, like completely. I hate mornings. And if you talk to me in the mornings, just like expect me to walk away.

Bailey
11:47 - 12:04
I am like super bad in the mornings, but I also find them to be the most productive time. Sometimes it really depends on when I wake up. I've been trying to wake up around like six, which is like super early for me. Cause that's when I write the best.

Bailey
12:04 - 12:19
But recently, since daylight savings, I just can't do it. I don't know what happened. So I don't know. I would say my morning routine is inconsistent, but includes three things always, which is music, coffee and contemplation.

Bailey
12:20 - 12:29
It's just, that's what I do every morning. I walk outside and look at the sky. I love clouds and drink coffee and then get on here. So yep, that's about it.

Bailey
12:31 - 12:31
Never the same.

Alessandra
12:31 - 12:48
In our room, who would, who would admit to being a morning person? We know we've got Devin. We know we've got Hobo and Tramp in team shadows. Anybody else a morning person that's in our group of co-hosts today?

Greg
12:49 - 13:01
I'm not a morning person, but I'm more of a morning person now than I used to be, only because I'm too tired by the end of the day now. So it's like role reversal. I would say I'm probably more of a morning person

Alessandra
13:01 - 13:21
now. Yeah. I'm, you know, I'm, I'm not the, I'm not the good example on, on morning routines yet. There's still a lot of resistance about that, but I am really curious about our doing another episode that's related to this for the morning pages.

Alessandra
13:21 - 13:37
So I think that that would be a really fun topic to get into. Yeah, that would be a good one. So I'm wondering in this conversation if anybody thought of anything they want to add based on what someone else said. And maybe you were like, oh my god, I was going to say that.

Alessandra
13:37 - 13:39
I just didn't think of it at the time.

Greg
13:39 - 13:56
I have an observation and that is there's one common thread that's run throughout this whole thing. And that is that caffeine is involved in people's mornings in one way or another. And I'm thinking maybe we need to get our heads together. Could there be a creative workout brand coffee on the horizon?

Greg
13:56 - 13:57
I don't know. Maybe there could.

Alessandra
13:58 - 14:01
Yes. And I already have the roaster for

Greg
14:01 - 14:03
that.

Gretchen
14:04 - 14:21
I think one of the things is that it changes. Even though it's the word routine, routine can be seasonal and it changes. I mean, I grew up on a farm, so routine was very seasonal. My dad grew apples, it was an orchard.

Gretchen
14:21 - 14:42
So routine was very seasonal and what happened when and how and stuff. And for me, it's still that way. I change the routine based on what's going to happen. So my routine may only be for a four or five day period, but it's the routine set for that time.

Gretchen
14:42 - 15:10
The only really consistent thing is, for me, is the don't speak to me before I've at least got a third of the way down my coffee cup. My husband has learned just, because he married to an opposite is a challenge. It's wonderful, but it's a challenge. He wakes up in full conversation mode with everything, and I'm like, no, Not, not willing to do that.

Gretchen
15:10 - 15:15
So I think it's, it's that respecting all the different kinds of routines, but also cherishing your own.

Devin
15:16 - 15:26
Devin, what are your thoughts? Two things. One, I forgot to mention, and this comes from a lot of like recommended morning routines. First thing I do is make my bed, like before I stand up, turn around and make the bed.

Devin
15:27 - 15:32
So now my bed is very simple. I just use the duvet. It's easy. but that's important to me.

Devin
15:32 - 15:49
And then when I walk past it later in the day, I'm like, well, at least I did that. And the other thing to point out from this recent conversation is just because I'm awake doesn't mean I want to talk to you. And Alessandra knows this is true because in my experience, when Alessandra is awake, she's like fully awake. She's ready to go and start processing things.

Devin
15:50 - 16:02
And so she can get up in the morning and be sitting next to me and look at me and say, you know, I've been working out this proof of the Pythagorean theorem and I'm a little stuck on this part. Would you have to take a look at this? What do you think? And I'll just look at her, and she's like, oh, too early, right?

Devin
16:03 - 16:06
Too soon, okay. And then she'll go back to what she was doing.

Alessandra
16:06 - 16:27
Well, I could jump in with the coffee thing. So what I have started doing, and we're only at the 22nd of November, so we'll see how long this lasts. But starting November the 1st, I am doing a coffee selfie every morning. and a little micro blog.

Alessandra
16:27 - 16:59
So, you know, less than a hundred words of where am I, what's so important about me getting this cup of coffee down me so that I can do the next thing. And so that has become part of my morning routine. And so, you know, I've had that tucked away as a short little post on Hive, but I have pulled those out and I've put them on that thing that people call Facebook. I know I said I would never ever right but there it

Greg
16:59 - 17:00
is Yeah,

Alessandra
17:03 - 17:20
so but I like the idea of having our of having our own roast now what would it be like for the likes of this crew to agree on the roast. We might have to have, you know, a couple, a couple of, a couple of roasts to pick from. What do you think?

Devin
17:20 - 17:28
I've already got a roast in the drawer. I could show you right now. It's called smart ass. So I think that fits us perfectly.

Devin
17:28 - 17:28
Is that an

Greg
17:28 - 17:30
actual coffee brand, Smartass Coffee?

Devin
17:31 - 17:35
It's one of the blends of Kicking Horse Coffee Company. Oh, wow. And is

Alessandra
17:35 - 17:37
that a Canadian company? Do we know?

Devin
17:37 - 17:37
Could be. It

Alessandra
17:38 - 17:38
is.

Shadows Pub
17:39 - 17:48
But you might want to try Saltwinds, and then you might kick Kicking Horse to the curb. What is that one again, Shadows? Saltwinds. It's in Nova Scotia.

Shadows Pub
17:48 - 17:50
I think Kicking Horse is actually out in BC.

Alessandra
17:51 - 17:55
Oh, okay. I like this. We can put this on our 2026 wish list.

Shadows Pub
17:55 - 18:02
By the way, I should mention that I have always been a morning person, which is probably the reason that Hobo's been allowed to live.

Alessandra
18:03 - 18:13
Otherwise, it would be cat-throwing time. Speaking of cat-throwing time, I don't know if it's that time ever, really. But Greg, what time do you think it is?

Greg
18:13 - 18:40
it's that time again you've wasted some perfectly good time listening to the creative work hour podcast when you could have been doing something else but just to assure you no cats were harmed in the making of this episode we've been talking about morning routines what works and what doesn't and if you've changed your mornings to make them easier and more enjoyable how about you let us know visit us at creativeworkhour.com and come back next week for another interesting conversation thanks for joining us have a good week.
 

Greg
00:00 - 00:12
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Creative Work Hour podcast. Today is episode 70. We are just trucking along. I don't know where all this time has gone to but it's been a fun ride.

Greg
00:12 - 00:21
But today we're talking about ideas. More specifically the kind of ideas that you've always wanted to do. One day I'll do this. One day I'll write a book.

Greg
00:21 - 00:45
One day I'll travel the world. One day I will learn a foreign language. How do we go from one day to day one how do we turn those ideas into actions and start creating how do we breathe life into the thing and get it going alessandra you and i were talking just a little bit before we started the recording about this and we were some good things came up right

Alessandra
00:45 - 01:32
well i i think so sometimes a one day idea can be something as simple as a problem that you want to solve Like, for me, the problem that I wanted to solve is I wanted to understand the technology that's called blockchain. Like, what is this technology? I'm not looking to be an engineer in that realm, but if the same mechanism that can control crypto markets, can prevent blood diamonds, can keep track of artwork and elements of architecture, then it stood to reason to me that couldn't blockchain be used for daily creative work? And if so, how would that work?

Alessandra
01:32 - 01:50
I talked to a lot of people about it that seemed to know about blockchain. I talked to people who knew about crypto. I talked to people who knew about NFTs. I even paid consultants to explain to me how a use case for daily creative work could live on the blockchain.

Alessandra
01:51 - 02:15
I was getting nowhere. It was stuck in that one day, I'm gonna figure this out container until a day of conversion happened. And it was called, I just got pissed off I got really pissed off, like, dadgummit, I'm sick of not understanding this. And I just looked around for what account do I have in social media?

Alessandra
02:15 - 02:42
Because I wasn't really doing social media. What account do I have that would allow me to open up a channel, open up a live show, and see if I can get some other voices to explain to me if that could be a thing? And out of that utter frustration of all places, I opened my first Twitter space and basically it was like, hello, hello, hello. Is there anybody out there?

Alessandra
02:42 - 03:12
Is there anybody out there that could explain to me what the blockchain is and if it could have use in creative daily work? And the voice that answered, hello, was in this room on this podcast. I would like to introduce her to you because she helped me convert a one day idea. One day I'm going to understand this thing so that I can make something to day one.

Alessandra
03:12 - 03:24
And shadows, do you remember that day? And did, did you know that that was like a day of converting something from a one day idea to we'd started something?

Shadows Pub
03:24 - 03:27
I do remember that day. No, I did not know that.

Greg
03:27 - 03:44
Sometimes we can go from really not knowing that we started to actually starting out, can't we? Gretchen, for you, how do you go from your one day idea into day one, today's day one? How do we go from concept into doing? And at what point does that become a thing?

Greg
03:47 - 03:49
Where do we start? How do we start?

Gretchen
03:49 - 04:22
Well, for me, this was something I just had a conversation with several, with Alessandra yesterday. I had also done a short video short about this and had been thinking about it for some time because I had seen another creator talk about this. And I hadn't really, I hadn't really thought about it because, because it is just, what comes about is how powerful just switching words around is. from one day to day one.

Gretchen
04:22 - 05:14
I mean, just the power of the words themselves and how they're switched in the order. And what, what came about for me was that I looked around and saw all my one day piles, all that were kind of coming in on me and what was happening was a level of frustration with myself and saying, this, oh, well, one day I'll get to that one, but I've got another idea, so I'll go there. And I realized it was not helping my own creative journey at all by doing that, that for me, I needed to say, okay, this is day one on this.

Gretchen
05:14 - 05:51
and give myself permission to have it be okay if that day one had to be repeated. for, again, because it did not go the way I thought it should. And letting go of that, oh, it should, and stop shooting on myself, and say, this is day one, I'm gonna get this far, and what happened, and this is the project. For me, it was and is still kind of like a daily journey.

Gretchen
05:51 - 06:02
It's a daily reminder. This is day one. I'm going to get as much done on whatever I choose to do creatively. And as far as I get is okay.

Gretchen
06:04 - 06:15
If I wander off, I wandered off. It doesn't mean I can't have another day one. They're not limited. They are unlimited.

Gretchen
06:16 - 06:43
But those, and yes, one day is unlimited, but man, one day piles are not a lot of fun to walk into a room to, but day one. piles or projects are like oh yeah that's how I kind of have to think about it I really have to take a look and be a little bit honest with myself which is you know let's let's be honest that's a challenge for everybody.

Greg
06:43 - 07:03
Absolutely Alessandra what you know the whole creative work hour I mean this this must have started with an idea at some point in time you must have had a Maybe, you know, this, you know, how did that go for you? Did it go from a thought like one day I might like to get together with a group of people? I mean, how did your day one start for Creative Work Hour?

Alessandra
07:04 - 07:23
Yeah, like when we started it, it was what they call a soft open. And a soft open comes out of the industry of running restaurants, right? Like, let's just start this thing. Let's just hire enough people.

Alessandra
07:23 - 07:33
Let's get some recipes going. Let's get some food in here. Let's get all the licenses. But let's not make any announcements, like shh.

Alessandra
07:33 - 08:23
Right let's not make a big deal of it a soft opening so creative work hour was it spring up out of a soft opening of. I was the one that was identifying what creatives that i was in classes with what they were craving. and they were not receiving no matter how much they paid for their online cohort-based course, which was for somebody just to give them the time of day to sit with an idea and to encourage them if they took the risk of toying with it a little bit. And so that thing of what Gretchen talked about, permission is key, but I think the realm of living in that it's okay to have soft openings.

Alessandra
08:24 - 08:49
It's okay to have pop-ups too. Pop-ups say there's no commitment. I mean, we have what we barely need to open up this thing in a very small scale, and we could be gone tomorrow. And so when Creative Work Hour, when we turned on the first microphones and used the first platform, it was just like, I think I want to do this thing on Tuesday.

Alessandra
08:49 - 09:09
I'll make an appointment with somebody on Monday that can tell me how to use a platform to do it. And then I'll take a beta blocker and we'll see what happens. And that was the soft opening. And it probably took six months of toying with that, doing another soft opening and another soft opening and another soft opening.

Alessandra
09:09 - 09:44
And at some point I had enough chutzpah to say, okay, on July the 1st of 2021, Creative Work Hour officially begins. Ta-da! And that's how we started. But there was like literally 100 sessions of, I didn't know what I was doing, tripping over it, it was a mess, nobody comes, or worse yet, somebody did come, and I was terrified.

Alessandra
09:45 - 09:59
But yeah, there's something about knowing that you have permission. That is, I have an idea. I have the permission to have this idea. I also have the permission to do a little something with it, and I'm not under any obligation to it.

Alessandra
10:00 - 10:05
There's freedom in that, I think. What about you, Greg? What does that bring up for you? Oh,

Greg
10:06 - 10:29
my gosh. Well, those stories of Twitter and pop-up spaces and Twitter spaces and stuff, you know, I always thought it would be nice to have a podcast. And, you know, not necessarily about a specific topic, just it would be nice to have a podcast and for kindness to be part of the podcast. And I knew that one day I would want to do that, but it was only, you know, it was a one day.

Greg
10:28 - 10:46
And Twitter spaces for me, it filled a space very near and dear to my heart. I mean, that's where I met you on Twitter spaces and many of the people in this room. And I remember you filling in for me one time when I had surgery and playing your clarinet on the Twitter space as well. And that was fantastic.

Alessandra
10:46 - 10:47
Yeah,

Greg
10:47 - 10:47
we didn't

Alessandra
10:47 - 10:48
say it was good, did we?

Greg
10:48 - 11:04
No. And I think I came on like all kinds of under the influence of anaesthetic and, you know, hopefully didn't make too big of a fool of myself. You know, I was supposed to be recovering and, you know, on the show, I got to get on, you know, my people, right? You know, oh my gosh, what I deluded.

Greg
11:04 - 11:21
But now I do have a podcast and it's like Rich and myself, I do have some support groups and PLS support groups on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I do a brain injury support group. I do a chronic pain support group and a mental health support group. And there was a couple of us on the group, Rich being one of them.

Greg
11:21 - 11:35
And we said, wouldn't it be nice, you know, to do this podcast? I've always had this idea. And Rachel was like, yeah, that'd be cool, but I'm no good at doing podcasts. Well, I'm good at editing, you know, so don't worry about how you sound, you know, because I can take out ums and ahs and stuff like that.

Greg
11:35 - 12:01
like so should we do it and you know how we started was like well how what are you doing next week what does wednesday look like and that's kind of how we started you've got to it starts with an idea doesn't it but then you've got to like gretchen said you you know you've got to start somewhere and you've got your one day piles And I think sometimes it's putting a date to it. Maybe today is the day. It's okay to make mistakes, right?

Greg
12:01 - 12:13
Because that's how we learn. And we can use those in future episodes. We can use all that material down the road, repurpose it. Or maybe it means putting a date out there to someone else next Wednesday.

Greg
12:13 - 12:27
I'm going to start doing this thing, you know. or with a partner, or whatever it looks like. But Devon, for you, what does that transition look like for you? How do you go from a one day to today's day one?

Devin
12:27 - 12:54
Well, continuing on with this theme of permission, I think we may be onto something. When I finally become aware of the barriers between the one day and the day ones for me, it's almost always about permission. as I reflect back on that, I'm usually not aware of it. That's the thing with me is very often I'll see someone doing it or doing something like it.

Devin
12:55 - 13:09
And honestly, the thought that drops in my head is, I didn't know I could do that. Who told them they could do that? Look at that person doing that thing that I'm not doing. if they can do it, then I should be able to do it.

Devin
13:09 - 13:53
And it's sort of a combination of resentment, envy, anger, all the seven deadly sins go into finally breaking through and go, well, by golly, I'm gonna do it too. And then I find myself, and of course, then you go, I could have been doing this the whole time. And I just sort of, that process seems to be on repeat and I never seem to anticipate, hey, could this be one of those areas where I haven't been giving myself permission? But I think about this a little as we were talking here, and you know, a lot of the creatives, the artists that I respect, you look at them and a lot of them are really big on, you know, pushing boundaries, violating norms, doing things that normal people won't

Devin
13:53 - 14:16
do or don't do. And maybe that's part of the exercise is, you know, wearing your shirt inside out or, you know, cutting your hair in a wild way. It's like a way of reminding yourself, you don't have to, Comply with convention. You can try different things and giving yourself permission may give yourself permission to do the creative work that for whatever reason that hidden voice back there would say, oh, no, you can't do that.

Devin
14:16 - 14:30
You're not one of those people to stay in your lane. So that's it with me. I've got to have, someone's often going to have to bump into someone doing the thing I want to do. And then that finally lets me give myself permission to go try it.

Devin
14:30 - 14:31
Alessandra, what's your

Greg
14:31 - 14:34
thoughts? I see your face lighting up there.

Alessandra
14:34 - 14:46
Well, I'm cracking up because all I can hear in my head is this thing that Devin tells me sometimes when I'm getting, when I'm getting like, you know, really into things should be one way or another way. And this is the way it ought to be. And he'll be like,

Greg
14:46 - 14:53
I don't need your rules, man. We don't need no stinking rules. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Greg
14:53 - 15:04
Bailey, how about you? How do you go from day one for you? What does that look like for you? And I know that you've got a lot of things that you're juggling and creative endeavors and stuff.

Greg
15:04 - 15:08
How do you go from your one day into your day one? How do we get there? What

Bailey
15:08 - 15:20
do you think? Well, for me, it's two things. One is just the patience and like allowing myself to suck. Because if I don't have that, then I am like afraid to like write one word.

Bailey
15:21 - 16:00
But if I'm not afraid to suck, and I have the patience with myself to just get the words out or the notes on the piano or just get my butt in the seat, then I think that's like a lot of it. But the other thing, and I don't know if this is specific to me or not, but I have an idea sometimes that just will not get out of my head. And to me, writing is, or just doing anything creative, just sitting down to do that thing is like what gets it out. So for me, it's almost like, like, like I'm soothing my brain because there's just this like alert, that's like, like a siren just going off in my head, like at all points in time.

Bailey
16:00 - 16:10
So it sort of allows me to get that out. And to do that, I just need to sit down and start and be patient and let myself suck. So that's it for me.

Greg
16:11 - 16:25
Thanks Bailey. Shadows, how about yourself? How do we go from one day into day one? And I know that it makes me wonder how that process might look like for you doing your daily echoes and stuff, because there's a lot that goes into that.

Greg
16:25 - 16:34
So I can't imagine what might have led up for that. How do we go from one day into day one? How do we get there? What did that look like for you?

Shadows Pub
16:34 - 16:43
So the echoes themselves was never really a one day thing. It was kind of like, oh, let's try this. Let's try this. Let's try that.

Shadows Pub
16:44 - 17:05
You know, so it was a series of layers that, you know, the idea came to me and I did it sort of thing. That wasn't something that I kind of went, yeah, I should do that someday. Well, maybe the journal pages could count as that, but I've, you know, eventually got to them. In my obsidian, my daily note is not a to-do list because I refuse to have a to-do list.

Shadows Pub
17:06 - 17:29
I have a suggestions and idea note. And when ideas come around that, you know, are one day, they land in that note. And every now and again, I take a look at it and decide whether, you know, that's still an idea and we'll stay on the one day list or whether it's going to get stroked off. eventually I might come back to it or not depending what else gets in my way.

Shadows Pub
17:30 - 17:35
So I don't know that I can actually say there's a process from one day to day one.

Greg
17:35 - 17:51
Depends what it looks like and maybe they're ever evolving as well and maybe that's like therein lies the beauty. I think the overriding message to me is just the Nike thing right is just do it, just make a start. Alessandra what are your thoughts on this? Great conversation.

Alessandra
17:52 - 18:22
Well, this this conversation has actually helped me a whole lot and. The things that I have heard in this conversation that I just really want to keep track of and maybe kind of leave us with today is that the conversion point of, you know, how do you tip that one day idea? Or like with shadows, she doesn't let dust settle on an idea. And she has a system for that.

Alessandra
18:22 - 18:52
She's very much a system design, system thinker. But what is that conversion point between the idea that wants doing and the actual beginning, you're at the gate part. And I think what we've heard again and again throughout the podcast is where we have reminded each other that it starts with permission, that we've already given ourselves the permission to have the idea. It's evidenced by, we have the idea.

Alessandra
18:52 - 19:14
And then secondly, we have the permission to do something about it. The who am I, the imposter, whatever, that's not a thing here because the evidence is you already have the idea and you are on the verge of doing something about it. That's that conversion point, right? That's just simple transference of energy.

Alessandra
19:15 - 19:40
And then two, the thing that I love that Bailey pointed out is that, look, you gotta give yourself the license to suck at whatever this idea is. It can be a mess. It could be unrecognizable from the thing that you thought. Well, what if, you know, what if you want, I'm going to learn to paint and you've never painted.

Alessandra
19:40 - 19:47
I'm going to learn to draw and I've never drawn. Okay. That shit is going to suck. That's the, you have a license for that.

Alessandra
19:47 - 20:08
But at the same time, you turn that thing over, you have the license to soar. And bitches better be up out your way, because you do, you have the license to soar. And then obstacles are gonna happen. You know, like crazy settings on the camera, like had the thing up my nose half the week.

Alessandra
20:09 - 20:20
And because I heard what Gretchen said, Don't go there. Just put it out there. Get it out there. Go, go girl, go.

Alessandra
20:20 - 20:36
And so nose, hairs and all, it's out there. These videos are out there. And yes, and I did fix what the obstacle was. And so permission, license, and you know how they say that thing about that the medium is the message?

Alessandra
20:36 - 21:05
My spin on that based on this conversation is that the obstacles are also the message. You can't have in this day and age, you can't make a thing You can't make a movie and not have a piece of equipment get into the frame. You know, you can't record the flute concerto or the clarinet sonata and not hear the keys click, the obstacles. are the message.

Alessandra
21:06 - 21:50
And there's something that no one can ever take away from you, which is the reward for even if you were feeling like, who am I? Even if you were exercising your license to suck, even if the obstacles were all over and it was hard to get your message seen or heard because there were so many obstacles in trying this thing of the conversion of one day, idea to the idea has its day one, is that the reward is that you can go, and this is so human basic, so humanly basic, it's the look ma, no hands. The reward is that you can say, look, I did, I tried.

Alessandra
21:51 - 22:22
There's evidence, and that evidence, it's evidence that you were here, that you were living a life, and that you marked it. with your own creative work. And no matter where you are in the permission and the license and the reward and the obstacles, it all comes down to, whether it's a soft opening or you're going to start the podcast on Wednesday, is it all happens in the realm of time. And Greg, what time is it?

Greg
22:23 - 22:40
It's that time again! You've wasted some perfectly good time listening to the Creative Work Hour podcast when you could have been doing something else but no, you chose to listen to us instead. But in all seriousness though, what does it look like for you? How does your one day turn into a day one?

Greg
22:40 - 22:58
And if you'd like to know more about the Creative Work Hour, about the team and about what we do here, you can reach out to us on creativeworkhour.com and you can find Alessandra on the socials. I believe it's Alessandra White on the socials, right? You can be found there. Let us know what you're working on.

Greg
22:58 - 23:02
Let us know what you want to work on. Why not you? You can absolutely do it. And you know what?

Greg
23:03 - 23:20
We would love to be along for that journey and to see you turn something from one day into a day one. We would love to see that for you and be part of that. Join us again next week and we'll be here for another exciting discussion. Take care and you'll come back now, you hear?
 

Greg
00:00 - 00:27
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Creative Work Hour podcast. Today is Saturday November the 1st and today we're doing episode 69 and Alessandra reminded me just a few minutes ago that it's actually been one year since we started doing our podcast. So that's exciting. We've also got an exciting topic today, and that's the difference between a hobby and creative work.

Greg
00:28 - 00:35
More specifically, today's question is, what's the difference between a hobby and creative work? Alessandra, what do you think?

Alessandra
00:35 - 01:11
Well, it is a very personal question just to suss out what is the difference. If there's something that you're interested in doing, you want to bring your gifts and talents up and interact with them. I mean, for me, I came back to classical music decades after I had given up in a huff. and literally played the best recital of my life, but I couldn't stomach, I couldn't crack how to solve the problem of stage fright.

Alessandra
01:12 - 01:29
And I decided, good or not good, I can't live like this. And I left the stage and I threw away the key to my clarinet case. And in that case, that thing sat for 30 years. And this little public health crisis came across.

Alessandra
01:29 - 01:44
You may have heard of it. It may have kept you from going anywhere for two, three years. And during that two, three years, when we weren't really going anywhere, the same psyche that threw away that key did not throw away the clarinet. It sat there.

Alessandra
01:45 - 02:12
And when I saw online, on YouTube, people starting to sing that had never sang, or people starting to play their guitar that hadn't been played since high school, And some people were coming together in groups and they were like recording individual pieces, and then someone would produce and put these things together and they would have these virtual concerts. And I'm like, that is the coolest thing I have seen since sliced bread. And I started thinking about that clarinet sitting in the closet.

Alessandra
02:12 - 02:37
and I pulled it out, and I sobbed, and I got the thing open, and I sobbed some more. And then I thought, I wonder if I could find somebody to reconstruct this clarinet, pull the keys off, re-soak the wood, test the bore, re-pad everything. I wonder if it could be made playable again. I wonder if I could be made playable again.

Alessandra
02:37 - 02:53
And when you look at something like that, Like, was that a hobby I just lost interest in? Or was that fricking creative work? See, to me, some people's not gonna make a difference. Call it a hobby, call it creative work, call it whatever you want.

Alessandra
02:53 - 03:05
But for me, if somebody were to come along and go, oh yeah, I heard you have a hobby of playing clarinet. To me, those would be fighting words. Why? that's not a freaking hobby.

Alessandra
03:05 - 03:11
To me, that's creative work. Do I get paid for that work? No. I'm lucky.

Alessandra
03:11 - 03:34
Dr. Tomika was talking earlier about having gratitude about doing the work. This is my gratitude. This is my honoring the gift, the talent that was given to me by showing up with the reconditioned clarinet. And now I get to go all over the world and play and sight read and meet people.

Alessandra
03:35 - 03:52
And yes, fall on my face and screw it up sometimes too, because that's my creative work. No, I'm not paid to do that. But in that comes more freedom than my colleagues who are on contract. So for me, that shit ain't a hobby.

Alessandra
03:53 - 04:02
That's my creative work. But that's just me. And I'm wondering, Greg, what is that distinction for you?

Greg
04:02 - 04:14
Well, you know, I love these questions. Not really. You know, I was thinking, because initially, work implies, you could imply financial gain. It doesn't need to be financial gain.

Greg
04:14 - 04:32
It could be any kind of a gain, really, to gain notoriety, to gain status, to gain something, right? To benefit in some way. But when you were talking about your clarinet and your music career, I was thinking, what's my creative work? I guess I hadn't really thought about it.

Greg
04:32 - 04:53
But my creative work, I believe, is to carry a message of kindness into the world and try and bring a little bit of light into the darkness. And I'm also very passionate about supporting people. And so I do some support groups. I do one for brain injury, and I do one for chronic pain, and I do another one for mental health.

Greg
04:53 - 05:04
And I take it very seriously. Now, that's kind of my creative work, but I don't gain from it financially. But it's my mission. It's my creative work.

Greg
05:04 - 05:25
A hobby, like you said, if someone said, oh, I believe you have a hobby of helping people, or I believe you have a hobby when it comes to kindness, it would diminish that, wouldn't it? It would take away from that. So I think it's very subjective, and it can mean different things to different people. But therein, I think, is the secret, what it means to you.

Greg
05:26 - 05:39
Because your creative work, It could be your mission, your passion, your calling. It doesn't need to do with finance, with cash. So that's my thought. But I'd be interested.

Greg
05:40 - 05:47
Shadows, when we talk about the difference between a hobby and creative work, what comes to mind for you?

Shadows Pub
05:47 - 05:53
As long as it's creative fun and not just work, I don't care if it's a hobby or not.

Greg
05:53 - 05:57
Right. Well, it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I can see that.

Alessandra
05:57 - 06:39
And what I wanted to say to Shadows, this made such a difference on me, but I don't know that you remember this as a conversation so much as I was thinking about it this morning. I was taking kind of an artsy walk through Leeds and Contemplating this topic of hobby and creative work is, I used to think that, oh, hobby is like, oh, it's something that you're interested in. It's for fun or enjoyment. There's not really a driver necessarily to take that thing and put it out in the world, although you could, but it doesn't have a driver behind it besides expressing an interest.

Alessandra
06:39 - 06:48
Now, creative work, on the other hand, for me, is like, this is serious. Like, I mean this. Like, ooh, I want to be good at this. You know, I don't want to suck at this.

Alessandra
06:49 - 07:12
I want to grow. I want to see accomplishment with it. And there was a conversation that we had like three years ago, and I was just really kind of starting to hit my head against the wall because I wasn't getting something to work that I needed to work in my creative effort. And you said, hmm, kind of sounds like to me, you're having fun with that.

Alessandra
07:12 - 07:21
And it took my breath away. I was like, what do you mean fun? No, this is like my creative work. What do you mean fun?

Alessandra
07:21 - 07:56
Like I actually thought if it was creative work, that meant it couldn't be fun i had to just do it by pure interest alone and i completely would not pick up on the cues that i was experiencing of enjoyment i was literally because of how i define creative work i was ignoring enjoyment and it took you just teasing me a little bit for me to find that and so shadows Thank you.

Greg
07:57 - 08:22
I think when you enjoy something, you're more invested in doing it and you're going to do a better job because that will follow through in whatever the creative work that you're doing, the fact that you're enjoying it, you're invested. I think that will follow through in that work, in that endeavor. Dr. Tamika, when we talk about the difference between a hobby and creative work, for you, what comes to mind?

Dr. Timeka
08:22 - 08:41
What comes to mind, Greg, and team? The three-legged stool. You know, I take the hobby, I take the creative work, and I also take the third leg as being the pay component. And when I sit down, I make sure I enjoy it, and I kind of intertwine all three.

Dr. Timeka
08:41 - 09:04
to make sure that I have fulfilled the hobby that I've always loved. I love creative work and I love pain. So all three of them create enjoyment for me and that's how I enjoy all three together and make all three work together in concert. So that's my spiel on how I, you know, create, I mean, look at the both of them.

Greg
09:04 - 09:09
Thank you. Devin, the difference between a hobby and creative work, what comes to mind for you?

Devin
09:10 - 09:35
Well, I'm not sure about the difference between creative work and a hobby, but as an old tax preparer, I can tell you the difference between a business and a hobby is about 30% depending on your tax bracket. So you gotta pay attention to that. But seriously, on the creative side, I made a post not too long ago about my hobby, and I'm clear that this is my hobby. I play chess.

Devin
09:35 - 09:38
And I'm very serious about it. I read about it. I practice. I study.

Devin
09:38 - 09:53
And I love all things about chess. But I am not a good chess player. But I'm totally OK with that. I'm happy to play with other people and learn from them and see them get a thrill out of winning when I lose.

Devin
09:53 - 10:12
You know, it's totally fine. And I read an article in a major newspaper about two weeks after I did that, where they said, why do we enjoy failing at our hobbies? Why is it so great to have a hobby where you're not good? And, you know, it's in one perspective, it's you're not under pressure.

Devin
10:12 - 10:34
This is my hobby. I can suck if I want to, or if that's just how it is, because nobody's going to fire me from my hobby because I didn't, you know, meet my quota. But, If I then look at something else I do, not for money, which is write, and I do different kinds of writing. but it doesn't matter what kind of writing it is.

Devin
10:34 - 10:48
If I am in that process, that is something very personal. So I'm gonna call the writing creative work. And now, while I'm still having fun, it's serious to me. My identity is invested in that writing.

Devin
10:49 - 11:21
And I will agree with something Dr. Tameka said earlier, which is being very selective about those from whom you solicit feedback. So, hey, anybody can say anything they want about my chess playing, Not going to hurt me, but you talk about my writing and we may have to step out back. So, I'm going to be very careful who I put that in front of and ask for that feedback because it matters to me and I've got a lot of good or bad. I'm not sure if this is the right way to go, but I'm invested in that writing and I care about.

Devin
11:21 - 11:32
what, you know, those that I trust to share it with think about it. So that's my distinction, I guess, my best distinction of clear hobby versus clear creative work.

Alessandra
11:33 - 12:04
Well, that's the perfect segue for the whole reason. Well, Greg and I were talking in the podcast prep breakout room before we came here and turned on all the lights and checked the sound and all those things that we do to make a beautiful episode to share with our friends here. But what... What we were talking about is, you know, that whole thing about we don't want to put our creative pearls before swine, right?

Alessandra
12:05 - 12:35
Our family and friends may care about us, but they may not give a shit about our creative work. In fact, that is how Creative Work Hour, the community, came to be. We fill a niche between your family who loves you, and they don't care about your creative work, and your friends who love you, but they're sick of hearing about it. That's where we come in.

Alessandra
12:35 - 12:56
because the way that we work here at Creative Work Hour is, yeah, we make this space available every day. Now, we don't want to hear all and all and all and all and all about your creative work. We want to hear about five minutes. And then we turn off the microphones and we go to work.

Alessandra
12:57 - 13:10
And at the end of the hour for five minutes, we want to hear some more about it. Like, how did you progress? Now that, to me, is a really good bowl of soup. It gives you the comfort that you need, that you're not all by yourself.

Alessandra
13:11 - 13:40
It gives you a place to say, ah, this is what I'm working on. I'm not really feeling it today. It also gives you a place to say, I made a breakthrough or it gives you a safe place without judgment to be able to say, yeah, I didn't make the cut on that thing I was going for. And that is the magic of creative work hour is that it is kind feedback where your secrets are kept, where you don't have to work alone.

Alessandra
13:40 - 14:03
And whatever you're going through, you can have as little support or as much as you like. So we want you to know that if you are listening to this podcast and you're like, I don't know what to do with my crazy creative self. Well, we are an option. Look into us at creativeworkhour.com to just get an idea of what is our ethos?

Alessandra
14:03 - 14:17
What are we like? And if you want to get an invitation to apply to sit alongside us, because we keep it small. We keep it trustworthy. This is a safe place.

Alessandra
14:17 - 14:31
We keep it that way. You can reach out to me in any of the socials at Alessandra White. That's 1L2S at Alessandra White, and I'll be there to answer your questions. But I'm wondering, We've got a couple of things worked out.

Alessandra
14:32 - 14:43
We have an idea of what it means to us for something to be a hobby and what it means to us for something to be creative work. But what we need to know is what time it is. Greg, what time is it?

Greg
14:43 - 14:56
It's that time again, and Devon's holding a watch in the air, which you can't see. But it is that time again. You've wasted some perfectly good time listening to the Creative Work Hour podcast. when you could have been doing something else.

Greg
14:56 - 15:08
But what about you? What does the difference between creative work and hobby mean to you? Let us know again at creativeworkhour.com. Come back next week and we'll be here for another interesting topic.

Greg
15:08 - 15:10
Have a great week.
 

Greg
00:00 - 00:13
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Creative Work Hour podcast. Today is episode 68, not 78 as I falsely reported earlier. I got a little bit ahead of ourselves with that. A little bit too eager and ambitious.

Greg
00:13 - 00:37
But today's topic is how do you future-proof your creative work? When we say your creative work, it could be your own personal creativity and how you do future-proofs, you know, staying creative. Or if you are a small company or business, then to you that might look like how do you future proof your business, whatever your creativity looks like to you. Alessandra, interesting topic.

Alessandra
00:37 - 01:12
This comes up because when I am in a point of struggling to get out my creative work, be it because something has happened that's disruptive or Maybe I'm dealing with just having really low energy or it's fatigue, or it could be like in case of creative work hour, we don't have enough hands on deck to run what we're doing for creative work hour. So I'm not much of a manager. Like I don't have managing skills.

Alessandra
01:12 - 01:25
Like I'm a good robot. I can take orders, but I have a hard time managing a group of people. I always avoided being the boss. So here we are at creative work hour.

Alessandra
01:25 - 01:52
We've done this for more than 3,000 sessions now. And the first couple of thousand, I was okay. This last thousand, I'm not so okay because I'm trying to do my own creative work and I haven't future-proofed creative work hour. That is this group that comes together every day so that we support each other in creative work, getting things out there.

Alessandra
01:52 - 02:15
And a big part of the energy of this is that when one of us gets something out there, we all celebrate. right? And that's the feedback loop of how we keep it going. But I see that I don't have a flywheel, as the founder, I don't have a flywheel for creative work hour.

Alessandra
02:16 - 02:38
So I was sharing with you, Greg, and with Shadows earlier, that I get quite concerned about How will we future proof creative work hour? So this is not a post, this is running a community. That's my number one creative work. How do we future proof it when just one person cannot do this?

Greg
02:38 - 02:40
Right. It's a challenge, isn't it?

Alessandra
02:41 - 03:13
It's a real challenge. And one of the things that's been suggested to me is, do you have where everybody sits down and the only thing that we're doing in that session is discussing together, how do we future-proof Creative Work Hour? So when we choose topics for our podcast, it's because we're really working in real time of how to fix stuff. or getting an awareness of how do things affect our creative work?

Alessandra
03:13 - 03:21
Yeah, so that's what I'm tackling with right now. So I thought, why not have this as the topic of discussion today?

Greg
03:21 - 03:54
Thank you, Alessandra. Yeah, you know, I struggle with the same thing as we talked about earlier with myself. I have support groups that I run for mental health, for brain injury, and chronic pain, then there's my kindness community, which I'm building on GoBranch and asynchronously. And I'm not, because I'm fatigued a lot, which I'm trying to get to the bottom of, but I'm not spending the time nurturing those communities, growing them, promoting them, forming, you know, strategic partnerships and alliances and things of that nature, which, you know, that's kind of my creative

Greg
03:54 - 04:47
endeavor at this time is that community, like yourself. And so for me, that would be what that looks like but you know future proofing could look like any number of things if you're you know a solopreneur you know freelancer that's going to look different than if you're a small business or organization and then there's your personal creativity and then there's the you know creativity and continuation of the business as well and that might mean you know making simple things such as you know making sure that there's key players in responsible positions that have the the keys to the store as it were and things of that nature but it's not to oversimplify anything but Bobby what about yourself when it comes to your creativity or how you envision future proof in your creativity or what that looks like for you or even what that you know might look like for creative work hour what

Greg
04:47 - 04:51
are your thoughts or what comes to mind on that topic Bobby Wasserman?

Bobbie W
04:51 - 05:09
For me, I know that what's been helping me lately because everything is changing so fast is actually using new tools that are coming up, right? And so you take what you know and you incorporate these new tools and it brings you to a whole new level. So that's especially with AI.

Greg
05:09 - 05:16
You're talking about the pre-verbal prompting is something that you were talking about. Yes. Oh my gosh. That gets you excited, right?

Greg
05:16 - 05:16
I was

Bobbie W
05:17 - 05:17
so excited about

Greg
05:17 - 05:17
that.

Bobbie W
05:18 - 05:54
It gave me what I needed. I knew in my head what I wanted to do. Translating it into language that was going to incorporate new tools and new thinking and the new vision of business was where I was having problems stumbling. So that AI bridge that takes you from what's in your head and what you know in the language that you know, right, and in your experience that you know, that new technical bridge can take your same ideas, add the nuances of today and get you where you want

Bobbie W
05:54 - 06:00
to be. So that's, you know, it's especially now, it's just business is changing so fast.

Greg
06:00 - 06:10
Bobby, could you give an example of what, if you're able to, what might a pre-verbal prompt look like or what does that actually mean?

Bobbie W
06:10 - 06:46
So my understanding, which, you know, up to interpretation, my understanding with these pre-verbal prompts is being pre-verbal, having the idea that hasn't quite crystallized, right? So it's just kind of bubbling under the surface. And using different AI prompts, you can identify that. If you're talking about something that is in the lexicon and people are implementing, the pre-verbal is something that you've got this idea, it's relative, it's new.

Bobbie W
06:46 - 07:05
That's a dangerous word, new. But it's new and then it still needs to be crystallized and formed into something coherent that can be talked about, right? So yeah, so these pre-verbal prompts have been really helpful for me.

Greg
07:05 - 07:26
Right, because language and learning and pre-verbal I think about, you know, child development and language models are a language model, right? Because I mean verbalized if you can get in right before it's verbalized and manipulate in that in some way I can see how that would be incredibly beneficial and creative. But Bobby B, how about yourself? How do you future-proof your creative work?

Greg
07:26 - 07:30
What does that look like for you and what might that look like for creative work, Howard?

Bobby. B
07:30 - 07:58
It's a real interesting question, and I'm not sure I have a good answer. You know, because all creativity comes from influences from everywhere. When I think of future-proofing, I go to protecting the content that I have uniquely constructed and that someone else would take bits and bobs from and construct for their future. So yeah, I just really can't say I'm very good

Greg
07:58 - 08:05
at it. So when you're saying content, you could be referring to intellectual property as content, right? And that's how I'm taking the question.

Bobby. B
08:05 - 08:06
Yeah.

Greg
08:06 - 08:19
So when you were in your management field and your creative side of being in management or the creative side of that business or enterprise, how did your proofing, what did that look like in that wrapper, in that scenario?

Bobby. B
08:19 - 08:40
Well, now that's a great question. I retired from that industry 12 years ago, before AI, before a number of other things. And it was very critical. The core value, the perceived value of what we did was heavily influenced by protecting what we had come up with.

Bobby. B
08:41 - 08:59
But again, the rules have changed, the games have changed, and I think there's a high level of vulnerability to trying to do that well these days. So right now, I'm just trying to learn about what's possible and not. So it's a growth path for me.

Greg
08:59 - 09:17
So if you were to go back to your current position, let's say that you were still doing that, knowing what you know now that 12 years have passed, is there something that you think that maybe has been missed or something based upon what you know now? Hindsight is everything, right? Is there anything you could take away from that?

Bobby. B
09:17 - 09:42
So we definitely exercised due diligence in the high-tech innovation that we were doing. It was first to market, but it was also first to protection. There were definitely cases where we had something that someone else had caught wind of or seen and found the missing link of maturation before we did. And that's just the game.

Bobby. B
09:43 - 10:19
That's how it plays out. But again, with With that information being so readily available now, it's definitely a different playing field, and I can't say that I really know how to run with it well. I have two things with the trademark office that I'm pushing through, and I did all my due diligence searches to make sure no one else had these things. I think there's, as you're pointing out, Greg, you're asking, there's definitely a need to protect, but you have to have enough maturation in your concept, otherwise it'll get kicked back.

Bobby. B
10:19 - 10:31
One other example, we tried to develop a cartoon character. about 10 years ago, and you'll figure, okay, this is such a weird name. No one's ever thought of this one. We were completely wrong.

Bobby. B
10:31 - 10:39
A major company that has animated characters had patented close to 10,000 potential names.

Greg
10:39 - 10:51
Right, and AI, you know, kicking everyone's heels. Everyone has to be concerned about how that takes place. Shadows, how about you? When you think about future-proofing your creativity, your creative work, what comes to mind for you?

Shadows Pub
10:51 - 11:17
Pretty little, actually. I guess if I look at it from the standpoint of if I should get sick or have an accident or whatever and it's a temporary absence, do I keep things afloat enough to return or don't I? you know, if I've got products out there, do they need to be maintained or are they just going to be able to operate on their own? So those all become questions you have to kind of deal with as you, as you go.

Shadows Pub
11:17 - 11:34
And then, you know, we get down if I'm at an age where I have to think about the possibility that, yeah, I might not be around at all. And do I, I really want to position that what I'm doing so that it continues on with somebody else looking after it, like my niece. So, yeah that's all stuff to consider

Greg
11:34 - 11:39
right because if you were planning on handing it down then there'd be a continuity step for that some training and

Shadows Pub
11:40 - 11:44
yeah she'd have to have access to it first of all she'd probably have to be interested in it

Greg
11:45 - 11:46
that would that usually helps right

Jennifer N
11:46 - 11:46
yeah

Greg
11:46 - 11:47
how about you jennifer

Jennifer N
11:47 - 11:59
This question is one that actually kind of has been oddly floating around in my own head. So good topic. So I approach it three different ways. Personal, I continue to follow my own curiosity that has served me well my entire life.

Jennifer N
11:59 - 12:14
And so that's how I keep my creative juices flowing. As far as the business goes, my sons are now part of my business. And so it's not my business, really, it's our business. and they are in every aspect of it, so they should be able to continue it if they so choose.

Jennifer N
12:15 - 12:37
And then as far as community goes, Alessandra, I'm in the same boat as you are in reference to trying to figure out how to make ensure that the, in my case, Napa Tama, that that community continues on beyond me, because I sure hope it would. Then the last piece is legacy. I have an example of where this is one of the reasons why it's at the forefront. Todd Cochran, the founder of Blueberry, passed away recently.

Jennifer N
12:37 - 13:10
That was a shock and a jolt for all of us because he was just going about his day and all of a sudden he wasn't going about his day. His sons, two sons, he has four or five kids and two of his sons have stepped in to take over his solo podcast. I can't tell you how beautiful and wonderful and lovely it is to be able to listen to his show, even without him, that his two sons are alternating each week being the host of the show. I can hear his voice in them.

Jennifer N
13:10 - 13:30
I hear the mannerisms of him in them. And I don't know I'm such a right now my eyes are getting all teary, because I think it's a lovely thing. If somebody will step into it and that in essence his legacy continues on past him as much as we all miss him. He is not gone, he is not forgotten,

Greg
13:30 - 13:30
you know,

Jennifer N
13:30 - 13:51
the other piece of that is that he had 1800 and something shows that he had done been doing week after week after week his son's. want to get him to at least 2000 and if they like it they'll continue which I hope they do, because that would be the best thing ever. So I think there's those aspects of that of where we all would like us as shadow said if her niece is interested. We would all like for our body of work to continue the reality is it may not.

Jennifer N
13:51 - 14:15
So what have we created that can have long-term visibility. And I think of the beautiful thing about Hive is that it's blockchain and isn't dependent on anything else except itself. So I think that's some of the legacy that we can leave behind, even if no one else within our world wants to continue what we're doing, it still exists to be discovered over and over and over again, because in that way, it's evergreen. And because it's evergreen, it continues beyond us.

Greg
14:15 - 14:25
Thank you, Jonathan. Yeah, what I get from that is ownership and investment, right? If you're invested in being part of the organization, you take ownership of certain things. Alessandra, good conversation.

Alessandra
14:25 - 15:09
It is a really good conversation i think i just had an epiphany while jennifer was talking about the three ways that she was that she was looking at future proofing one's creative work like i think i have been in regards to as a founder of creative work hour and all the sessions that we do more than a hundred a month but What's more important than the number of sessions that we've done or that we continue to do is that it be sustainable. We need an insurance policy of how can this continue to be here for all of us and for people who haven't found us yet? how can we continue to be here?

Alessandra
15:09 - 15:42
Maybe, and this is what was prompted by what Jennifer said, I should stop thinking of this as a, this is what I do every day, this is what has to take place every day before I get to do anything else. Just by it being engineered that way means I don't have the freedom that I need to pursue the things I need to pursue. It's like you can't leave the house. Now, what if in how we run this community, what if I had to take a break?

Alessandra
15:42 - 15:57
Not like a day a week, like what if I had to take a month off? If there's traveling or something like, how do you do that? How do you future-proof a community that comes together? So I'm like, oh, what if there's a break?

Alessandra
15:57 - 16:24
Because as some of you know that have been listening to our podcast, I've sustained a really serious injury. And I was thinking before I could handle my own healing, I was like, I got to get on creative work hour. So I was like, how do we do this? How can we write an insurance policy for creative work, whatever that is, that ensures that when you need a big break, that you can take it?

Alessandra
16:25 - 16:52
How do we write that? And in doing so, that's future-proofing. And I think we'll come back to this future-proofing topic again and again for the podcast, because future-proofing is also, there's preventative work that you do, just like with the body to prevent injuries. Yeah, so I think we haven't really solved anything with looking at this topic.

Alessandra
16:52 - 16:59
What we've done is we've stirred the pot and like, yeah, future-proofing, that's a problem to solve.

Greg
16:59 - 17:14
Sounds like a great project to work on as a group and even do a blog series to accompany it and a podcast series. And in the true spirit of building in public, building public and taking on as a project together, that might be an interesting thing to do. I don't know.

Alessandra
17:15 - 17:23
Yeah. Yeah, well, we'll have to give time to that, but I have to say, it is time to check time. Greg, what time is it?

Greg
17:24 - 17:44
It's that time again. You've wasted some perfectly good time listening to the Creative Workout Podcast when you could have been doing something else, but no. Today's co-hosts on the team were myself, Greg, Alessandra, Bobby W., Bobby B., Jennifer Navarrate, and Shadows Pub. What about you?

Greg
17:44 - 17:55
Let us know. How do you future-proof your creative work? Or what does that look like to you? Visit us on creativeworkhour.com and come back again next week for another lively discussion.
 

Greg
00:00 - 00:27
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Creative WorkHour Podcast. Today is episode 67 and in the room today you've got myself, Greg, we've got Alessandra, Melanie, Bailey, Shadows Pub, Hillary, Bobby B, and Devon. And today's question is inspired by the time of year, and that is, how does the change of season affect your creative work? We've got the fall colors coming with the falling leaves.

Greg
00:27 - 00:46
We're gonna have snowy, frosty landscapes, bare trees, visions of coming indoors to warm log fires and wooden cabins, hearty soups and stews, and painting all the colors of the rainbow. So how does the change of season affect your creative work, Alessandra?

Alessandra
00:46 - 01:12
Well, this past weekend, Dr. Melanie and I were meeting another Creative Work Hour crew member, Gretchen, at a thing called Creator Camp. And it was held in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, early October. So this time of year, the New England colors are all coming out so vibrant. And they were coming out on our way north from New York City and Nashua, getting to Portsmouth.

Alessandra
01:12 - 01:40
But on our way back home, they were just supercharged. And there's something about the palette of autumn colors that is particularly grounding, but it is also particularly inspiring. You see a lot of oranges and reds and yellows. And orange in particular, across cultures throughout the world, orange is orientated as the color of creativity.

Alessandra
01:40 - 02:14
It brings an energy and a warmth to creative work in that you can have a project that's gone cold and something as simple as a change of season can reignite the energy that you have to devote to that project. Or maybe one that's kind of been in the ideation stage actually gets a fire set under it so that you can get it started. And that is the beauty of the color of creativity. Yeah, the warmth.

Alessandra
02:14 - 02:34
Yeah, the beauty of creativity and the color of creativity. And you see it across logos. all across Western civilizations, Eastern civilizations, even Devon works for a company that's in app development and their color is orange for creativity. Yeah.

Alessandra
02:34 - 02:48
So you see it in all kinds of places. And it could be that the start of a season, like now, when we're recording this episode, can say, you know what? The summer is done. The weather has changed.

Alessandra
02:49 - 03:10
It is fill in the blank, whatever that season is for you in your own creative work. But this could be a time where you're going to get started something so that you've given yourself a chance to finish it by the end of the year. I'm going to hand it off to Dr. Melanie first. She wears this uber cool watch when we were at creative camp.

Alessandra
03:10 - 03:30
People were falling over, taking notice of this massive watch that she wears that has this vibrant orange face to it. So Dr. Melanie, how is it for you? How does the change in seasons, maybe even specifically, how does the change of seasons into fall affect your creativity?

Dr Melonie
03:30 - 03:46
Well, my toenails are orange also, and pretty much always have been. And I was thinking about that. I mean, because of the driving, I was actually outside. So the urban versus the slightly more rural experience of change of seasons.

Dr Melonie
03:46 - 04:22
It's different, you know, but this season's been so nicely drawn out, this change, you know, it's like very slow. It's like, oh, it's been about two weeks since I've, three, four weeks since I had air conditioning on and now, you know, a fan, but a little blanky at night. And it's like this, um, in between period where you get to sort of watch things, think about things and watch things that have gone by and evaluate. Sort of like a, it's not really meditation, like maybe a dream state, I don't know.

Dr Melonie
04:22 - 04:38
Anyway, that's this year because it hasn't been abrupt and because I've had some time to do that. So it's been kind of cool. So it lets me get a big picture and big picture is always good for my creativity, you know, not just minute picture.

Alessandra
04:38 - 04:49
And is there anything that you're going to start or finish here that you've got like a full season laid out before you?

Dr Melonie
04:49 - 05:11
Well, I got this prize of a microphone. So maybe I'm going to try and figure out how to use it. And I was, what I worked on yesterday a little was the various channels I have ideas for. So when I did photography, I used to do a lot of portraits, not only, but a majority.

Dr Melonie
05:11 - 05:21
And I liked the idea of interviewing people. So that's the project that's sort of, the new project that's sort of tootling around in my head.

Alessandra
05:21 - 05:38
That sounds really interesting because when people meet you in the here and now, they'll know you as a doctor. What they don't know is that you've got an equal weight of education, training, and experience as an artist.

Dr Melonie
05:39 - 05:44
Yeah, it was almost more for a while.

Alessandra
05:44 - 05:58
Well, we're really looking forward to what you're going to do. And of course, we're here for you. If you want to toy with it, we can always get on a call and toy with how to get that microphone working. I mean, that's what we do.

Alessandra
05:58 - 06:00
We help each other.

Greg
06:00 - 06:31
thanks dr melanie that's really interesting and you know you talked about training as an artist and it makes me think about shadows and her artwork and alessandra was talking about the four colors and the oranges and i notice in today's echo i know you can't see this on the screen but there's some oranges And I'm not sure what they are. They're almost like, I know they're not hammocks, but they almost look a little bit like orange hammocks. But Shadows, does the change of season affect your creative work when it comes to the colors that you work with, doing your echoes and things like that?

Shadows Pub
06:31 - 06:39
Not really. And those are canopies that are in that picture. Because that would be the word for today is canopy.

Greg
06:41 - 06:49
I was just going to say that. Honestly, I really was. How do you pick the colors? I know you've covered this before, but how do you actually decide?

Greg
06:50 - 06:56
Is it more of an object or a word and then the colors come or do the colors come earlier on?

Shadows Pub
06:56 - 07:11
Actually, it's driven mostly by the prompt that I have given to chat GPT that gives me a criteria for possible prompts for the image. It also includes the type of colors that should be used. And then I decide from there.

Alessandra
07:11 - 07:33
So in your work with AI as one of your, one of your paint brushes for your daily echoes work, are you prompting AI to help you with prompting? Yeah. And as an artist, how has that changed? Do you feel like you're getting better at prompting for prompting?

Shadows Pub
07:33 - 07:52
Yeah, to a point. And when it comes to the color choices, to some extent, Mid Journey has a thing that they call mood boards. So I actually can go into my past images, select color palettes that I want to put together and create a mood board out of it so that it gives me a whole new palette.

Alessandra
07:53 - 07:56
Wow. And did you do that for this?

Shadows Pub
07:56 - 08:09
There's always at least one if not two mood boards included and involved in my image. And then they also have style codes that get added into it. So it's multiple layers.

Alessandra
08:10 - 08:31
It's such beautiful work. And I want to make sure that because we reference in our work here on the podcast, we reference the Daily Echoes. So Shadows, tell us where people can find your work and if they want to have the work come to them in their email, what they might do.

Shadows Pub
08:31 - 08:34
They can visit my GoBranch room and they can subscribe while they're in the room.

Greg
08:35 - 08:41
How would we find that room, Shadow? What's the easy way to find a way there if someone's listening and wants to go to the GoBranch?

Shadows Pub
08:41 - 08:46
Yeah, that's not an easy one. I'd have to send it to you to put in the show notes.

Greg
08:46 - 08:54
We can certainly do that. That would be a great addition. Yeah. And maybe if they want to, do you still have the website where they can go and look at the past echoes as well?

Shadows Pub
08:55 - 08:58
That's currently embedded into the Goldbranch Room.

Greg
08:59 - 08:59
I haven't

Shadows Pub
08:59 - 09:00
put it into the website yet.

Greg
09:01 - 09:04
Very cool. Very cool. We'll look for that in the show notes. That'll be coming.

Greg
09:04 - 09:15
That'll be absolutely awesome. Bailey, how about you? How does the change of season affect your creative work? Musically, does it affect your creative work as well, the change of seasons?

Bailey
09:16 - 09:36
It does. I find that the music that I play is often like more meditative, a little bit slower and I guess a little bit less technically demanding, although that's not always true. But I guess really it affects like what I create. So like my compositions, it's like more colorful and like my writing.

Bailey
09:36 - 10:07
I find that what I make is often like a mixture of my experience and like the art and like movies and TV and books that I like digest. So, I guess during this time, it really affects like what I'm intaking. I'm inside more, I'm reading more, like reading like poetry more. So I find that it really like affects what I make because of my activity and like what I'm like taking in.

Bailey
10:08 - 10:20
So yeah I think that overall I output more and it's a lot more like slow and like meditative and I guess more like internal. So yeah I think that that's like the biggest way.

Greg
10:21 - 10:26
Do you have a phase or a season for your creativity? Does one season influence you more than another?

Bailey
10:26 - 10:35
It used to be fall. I love the fall. I actually go outside more in the fall and winter than I do in the summer sometimes. I always do one really big, long winter hike.

Bailey
10:36 - 10:49
But yeah, I think fall, just because it's slower and I'm more indoors. And overall, I think it slows me down enough that I can think slower about what I do, which gives me a better picture of what I'm experiencing.

Greg
10:49 - 10:55
Makes sense. Thanks, Shadows. Bobby, how about you? How does a change of season affect your creative work?

Bobby. B
10:55 - 11:28
Where I live in Southern California, we don't get the dramatic changes in seasons along the ocean. But they're there, and so it does have some effect, which is also why I love all the hiking that I do, and being up in the mountains, because that's all more visible there. And I do find myself having a different type of creativity. So I almost yearn to be up there, at least as much as I can, to get that influence, because it takes a little effort to go find it, but the reward is all worthwhile.

Bobby. B
11:29 - 12:03
Do you have a favorite season for your creativity? I would definitely say the fall has the biggest influence watching, you know, the color changes and, you know, the trees losing their leaves and the, especially fall into some case, also spring because the temperature swings can be much greater. And if I'm out doing like a 10 to 15 mile hike, you know, I'll go through a range of layers of clothing and, and, and change of how the air feels and all that. So yeah, definitely, that's part of the fall change.

Greg
12:04 - 12:12
Thanks Bobby. I'm going to circle back because I should have asked this earlier of other people, but Alessandra, do you have a favorite season for your creativity?

Alessandra
12:13 - 12:27
I totally love fall. Yeah, yeah. And I do because the colors that are part of my personal wardrobe just works with my strawberry blonde blue-eyed coloring. I've always loved that.

Alessandra
12:27 - 12:56
When I was designing for Laura Ashley, I loved being able to wear all the sweatery things and all the scarves. In the summertime, I grew up in Texas, and actually the world's largest location for Laura Ashley and Laura Ashley Home was not in England, it was in Dallas, Texas. And I have a feeling it had to do with the cost of real estate. But I just couldn't wear all the scarves and the things in the summertime.

Alessandra
12:56 - 13:16
So I would just line up this part of my closet with all of those things because I just find it inspiring that when you're wearing colors that resonate with your creativity, I think it just gives you a bit more energy and it rubs off on other people and they see you coming. And it's like, Yeah. Wow.

Alessandra
13:16 - 13:27
It is fall, isn't it? You know, but there's a lot to be said for all the goodies you get to wear in winter as well. But yeah, I'm an autumn girl. Dr.

Greg
13:27 - 13:30
Mullen, how about you? What was your favorite season? Did you have one?

Dr Melonie
13:30 - 13:49
I like the change, whichever change it is. It's kind of hopeful and like this sort of little platform space where you can feel, you know, days go by, day by day, but it stops that. It's sort of like a limbo play, so I don't care which season it is.

Greg
13:50 - 13:52
Thanks, Mel. Shadow, do you have a favorite season?

Shadows Pub
13:53 - 13:59
Not really, other than the time of year when it gets really late, really early, because I'm up early.

Greg
13:59 - 14:06
You're a morning owl. Morning, not a night owl. What would the opposite of a night owl? A morning bird,

Dr Melonie
14:06 - 14:06
I guess.

Greg
14:06 - 14:07
Is it a

Dr Melonie
14:07 - 14:07
lark?

Greg
14:08 - 14:09
Probably more like

Dr Melonie
14:09 - 14:09
cat

Greg
14:09 - 14:09
controlled.

Dr Melonie
14:10 - 14:11
A morning person.

Greg
14:11 - 14:18
Yes, Juliet, tis the lark. morning lark. The early bird catches the worm. I know that much.

Greg
14:18 - 14:24
Maybe it's the lark that catches the worm. How about you, Devon? How does the change of season affect your creative work?

Devin
14:25 - 14:47
Well, to break the fourth wall for a moment and speak to our listeners, aren't you glad you listened to this podcast so that you could get the in-depth autumnal color analysis? As for me, yes. Autumn is my favorite season for creativity, for everything. It's just the best.

Devin
14:47 - 15:12
And it contains my favorite holiday, which is Halloween. And Halloween is great because it's all about my favorite genre, which is horror. And so my creativity does a hard pivot as we get closer to Halloween, because for whatever reason, You know, I've talked about how I have these different interests. I'll switch to different creative outlets constantly.

Devin
15:13 - 15:44
And when it gets to be autumn, and we're talking about Halloween, and then there's witches and skeletons everywhere, I want to write fiction. That's suddenly, I feel that autumn chill, and I see all these October Halloween decorations, and I want to write horror fiction. Whether it's short stories or my poor old, long-suffering, 18-year-old, half-finished novel, I want to write horror fiction. So yeah, yeah, the fall has a huge impact on my creativity, as do all the other seasons.

Devin
15:44 - 15:53
So when it comes to be hard winter, I may pivot away to something else. But for now, yeah, we're gonna be all about the horror for a little bit longer.

Greg
15:54 - 15:59
When was Bruce created? Was that created in the fall season? Yes,

Devin
15:59 - 16:04
I believe it was. Thank you for remembering, Greg. One of my short stories.

Greg
16:04 - 16:07
You want to give a shameless plug for Bruce?

Devin
16:08 - 16:27
Sure, you can find it on Amazon. It's an anthology of short stories published by a Toronto-based writers group. And it's a, yeah, it's a quick, it's the first story in the anthology. It's a quick read and it'll make you think twice before moving in next to a nuclear reactor.

Devin
16:27 - 16:29
I'll just leave it at that.

Greg
16:29 - 16:38
Yeah. I think I would think twice about moving into a next door to a nuclear reactor. Hilary, how about you? How does the change of season affect your creative work?

Hillary
16:38 - 17:08
Thank you, Greg. The changes of season and how they affect my creative work. As someone who tries to, on a spiritual level, honor and acknowledge the change of seasons, things such as the solstice and the equinox, it helps you stay in tune with the natural cycles of life. And so you can kind of think of, you know, projects and plans through the seasons.

Hillary
17:08 - 17:28
In the winter, you are planning your plan. In the spring, you are planting your plan, tilling the soil, getting things ready. In the summer, you nurture it and you let it go through its growth phase. And so then in the fall, it's time to harvest.

Hillary
17:29 - 17:39
And you can kind of reflect your progress and process into that. Where are you? Especially when you're stuck on something. What are you trying to do?

Hillary
17:39 - 17:55
Are you stuck planting? Are you still stuck planting? Does it just need some fertilizer and to be left alone? And, you know, you can really in tune, you know, what you're working on with where in the cycle is it.

Hillary
17:55 - 18:23
And I can help get over humps when you over evaluate and so for my creative projects. I can definitely kind of look at one that's been stuck on the back burner and where is it and what does it need? I'm not sure how much it affects like the particular project I'm on. I'd say there's, I guess my house plants.

Hillary
18:24 - 18:37
I do a lot with house plants, but I know not to mess with them too much in the middle of winter. They don't like to be repotted in the middle of winter. They're not going through a growth phase. They want to sit down.

Hillary
18:37 - 19:04
They want to relax. That's their downtime. But that's where I plan and get ready to execute in the spring when the plants are happy and they're ready to take movement and be rehomed And you can do all kinds of fun stuff with them then because they're going to get the nutrients from the sun to support such a change of environment.

Hillary
19:04 - 19:10
Certain arts and crafts. Yeah. How much time do you have left in the day? When does the sun go down?

Hillary
19:10 - 19:34
You know, that can affect just the energy level to produce anything. I got to say when it gets darker and darker earlier and earlier, It's harder for me to push later into the evening to create something that, you know, just needs the time. So I think that's one of the major factors of how the season affects my creative work.

Alessandra
19:35 - 19:59
Well, I love that, Hilary, because your example is just so good about don't mess with the plants in the wintertime. Don't get cute, because that's not the time for it. I remember when I was in university in music conservatory. I would get really panicked in the fall when it would be getting late.

Alessandra
19:59 - 20:22
It would get dark earlier and earlier. I'd be like, oh my God, I don't want to be walking over to the music practice rooms in the dark. I don't want to do that. So it would make me pull things together and how can I do more with less because the sunlight is becoming a scarcer resource.

Alessandra
20:22 - 20:40
So I really loved how you talked about that. Like, how can we care for ourselves with less resource of sunlight in the change of season? Because that's energy and energy affects the creative work. So I really love that example that you gave us.

Alessandra
20:40 - 20:40
Thank

Hillary
20:41 - 20:48
you. I love how you just tied in that the sun is a resource. That's it is absolutely a resource for our creative endeavors

Greg
20:49 - 21:33
i really love the fall i think it goes back to my days being an upholsterer, i'm the fall colors and autumn colors burnt oranges brown greens earth tones autumn tones, Those colors go with a multitude of things and they're so beautiful. I don't like the summer, it's been a hot summer for me with my air conditioning, so I'm looking forward to the colder nights and I mentioned earlier, you know, the hardy skews, the visions of log cabins and painting and things like that i think i'm going to do some coloring and i think that my writing improves in the colder weather as well it becomes more wholesome maybe it's that stick to your ribs food that does stick to your ribs writing as well if that's a thing i don't know but pretty good discussion alessandra

Alessandra
21:34 - 22:07
Well, it is a really good discussion. And one of the things that, that, you know, I said with Melanie and Gretchen and I were all at Creator Camp together this last week, and one of the things that I wanted to, that occurred to me, you know, to use energy of our being together, that one, we're putting this episode out to the world to find other creatives that are interested in the kinds of things that we are. And we have a rhythm of what we do here, how we start, how we flow through the episode, and how we end.

Alessandra
22:07 - 22:47
But I was going to add a little something that won't really play in the audio of the show. But, and you're not gonna find it online, but just for us chickens here, to have it in our own private channel to put with when the episode comes out, I wanna get a screenshot of us, and I'm gonna work with it in AI, and see what kind of cute thing I might come up with, so that, because all of our backgrounds are different, our lining is all different, and we've all seen like screenshots of, Zoom rooms before, blah, blah de blah. Boring.

Alessandra
22:47 - 23:11
But I thought I would grab a screenshot of us and put it through AI and see what kind of fun thing we could come up with. And then we can tie that at some point, if we all agree, because that's a little bit how we roll here. If we think it's cute and helpful, then we'll put that image into our show notes so you can see the spirit of the people that were here today to make the episode. So, all right.

Alessandra
23:11 - 23:19
So here we go. It's going to take me longer because, you know, I've got one hand that really works well and the other one takes a minute. All right. Give me a sec.

Alessandra
23:19 - 23:25
Three and a two and a one. I know the listeners at home are loving this. There we go. Got it.

Alessandra
23:25 - 23:32
Okay. So look in your show notes and if the crew is like, yes, it's cute. We like it. Add it.

Alessandra
23:32 - 23:37
Then it will be added. Okay. Perfect. I was going to call on, because I saw your hand, Bobby.

Alessandra
23:37 - 23:38
So I was going to call on you.

Bobby. B
23:38 - 23:57
Yeah, guys. Thankfully, your comments have reminded me of something really dear to my heart. I connect deeply, directly with nature. And so the fall equinox, while not a seasonal change, essentially the Earth's doing what it wants to do, and the summer, but the fall is a huge, huge moment for me.

Bobby. B
23:58 - 24:34
It's that transition from days getting shorter to days getting longer. My friends and I generally celebrate by staying up all night. It is a complete shift, a transition point for me as the newness of the winter season and its potential just really resets my mindset. I usually put together a 10-day plan from that point going to the accepted calendar and the start of the accepted calendar year.

Bobby. B
24:34 - 24:41
But my year starts at winter equinox and as does my creative evolution.

Alessandra
24:42 - 24:47
Very cool. The time changes, the times are changing. And Greg, I have to ask you, what time is it?

Greg
24:47 - 24:59
It's that time again. You've wasted some perfectly good time listening to the Creative Work Hour podcast when you could have been doing something else. But how about you? How does the change of season affect your creative work?

Greg
25:00 - 25:08
Do you have a favorite season that you're more creative in? Let us know. We'd be interested to know that. Subscribe wherever you listen to the podcast and give us a thumbs up.

Greg
25:08 - 25:12
It always helps. Come back next week and we'll have another discussion.
 

Greg
00:00 - 00:17
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Creative Work Hour Podcast. Today is September 20th, 2025 and we're on episode 66. Not Route 66, but episode 66. But today's episode will be good as a trip on Route 66, I promise you.

Greg
00:17 - 00:26
Allegedly. Alessandra and I were talking before we came on air, and we were talking about loss. And loss can come in many shapes and forms. It could be loss of your health.

Greg
00:26 - 00:43
It could be loss of a loved one, employment, possessions, material things, relationships. And we thought that it would be a good question to ask, how does loss affect your creative work? Alessandra, how does loss affect your creative work?

Alessandra
00:44 - 01:02
Loss can be an absolute showstopper. You can have it all together, like with the finish line in view on a project. And loss can hit your life like a freight train. And it can take all that momentum and just blow it the hell apart.

Alessandra
01:02 - 01:43
Loss is something that against it we can feel or perceive that we're powerless, that we have no control, that we couldn't cause what happened or limit what happened or reverse what happened. Loss is a stinker and it can bring the creative process to a standstill. Loss is one of those things that is also highly defining about who you are as a person, the priority that a creative work project has taken in your life, but it can also define what a community is. So Creative Work Hour was formed on July 1st of 2021.

Alessandra
01:45 - 02:21
And we didn't really know what exactly it was going to be. We knew it was for people who wanted to get together in the interest of advancing their own creative work, that it wasn't going to be anything that we had ever experienced before. It was going to be something new, and we didn't know what that something new was going to be. But what happened straight away was we found that even though the community is small, tiny even, that are members when things in life happen, that this would be the first place that they would come.

Alessandra
02:21 - 02:51
And what I mean by coming here and to this place, Creative Work Hour, is a daily online community that is Available whether you need it or not. What we say is that we see you when we see you. So if you're working on something and you want the community support while you're working, we check in at the very beginning of the hour and then we all go to work on whatever that is. It's not a table read.

Alessandra
02:52 - 03:17
It's just where we're doing the work alongside everybody else. So if you're thinking about maybe when you were in school, if you had friends and you go to the library together so that you could get work done. It's a little bit like that, but what we noticed is that, say someone had had a very high level job at a tech company, like for 18 years, got fired. And the first place that they came was not home, was not the bar.

Alessandra
03:18 - 03:28
They logged on because we were in session. Someone else got a scary diagnosis. The first thing that they did was they didn't go home. They didn't go to a bar.

Alessandra
03:28 - 03:36
They didn't go shopping. They came here. We were in session. Most recently, someone had a loss of a loved one.

Alessandra
03:36 - 04:15
We were not in session when it happened. But there's an asynchronous piece of Creative Work Hour, which is held on Discord. So if things are happening between the daily sessions, people will show up there if something wonderful happens or if something terrible happens. And so we're able to support each other with a very light touch on a daily basis as needed so that when things happen, when things in life do fall apart, when there's a loss, however severe or not so bad in the scheme of things, but it's still a

Alessandra
04:15 - 04:23
loss, that we're here and we can support synchronously and asynchronously. And that's just who we are.

Greg
04:23 - 04:33
Thank you, Alessandra. As I said earlier, loss can come in many shapes and forms. Loss of a marriage, your health, your home, your employment. I've experienced all of those losses and many more besides.

Greg
04:34 - 04:58
And loss can also bring on its own problems, stress, anxiety, depression. A lot of suicides are a result of loss, usually loss of a loved one, but employment and health as well. And I've gone through a lot of those losses alone, but I don't have to go through losses alone anymore, because I've got a family around me called Creative Work Hour. And I say family because it really is family of choice.

Greg
04:59 - 05:27
I can share good things, I can share bad things, and I know that people will rally around me. And I've also seen people share on Discord, which is our asynchronous community, as Alessandra said. And when we're not in session, I've seen people jump on and say, hey, do you want to get on a call? you know I've got you know 30 minutes or whatever and I've sent people kind of be there for one another in that way and support each other in many ways shapes or form I'm going to add some resources to the show notes just in case you're experiencing loss

Greg
05:27 - 05:53
it'll be some grief and loss resources and the 988 crisis line if you are in crisis and experience a loss What I want you to know is that you're not alone and loss does affect your creative work. Loss can leave you empty, hollow and feelings of meaningless and things that you used to enjoy you may not enjoy anymore. You may find it hard to be creative. But the most important thing is that you're not alone.

Greg
05:54 - 06:14
You know, the suicide crisis line, you don't have to be just suicidal in order to call them. You can call there if you don't have, in the absence of somebody else, if you don't have a friend, a family, a relative, or whatever the reasons might be, you can call there and say, look, I just need someone to talk to. I'm not suicidal, but I'm in a bad place right now. Can we just talk?

Greg
06:14 - 06:21
And they will talk to you. They will do that. you know, let that be a resource for you. But yeah, loss and creativity.

Greg
06:21 - 06:28
Devin, for you, when we ask that question, how does loss affect your creative work? What comes to mind for you, Devin?

Devin
06:29 - 07:21
That it totally depends on the scope of loss. A minor loss might fuel more what I'll call higher level creativity or continuation of that because I want to distract myself from it. If it's a big loss, if it's a can't look around it, can't compartmentalize it, it's just there like a lead blanket on you all the time, that kind of a loss, then what I often do is I have to reduce the complexity of my creative work. I'm not going to do any higher level sort of Content creation, but I will continue to do something creative, but it may be very very simple it may be Crafting memes or sending the perfect gift to someone I consider that a creative work if I'm searching for the

Devin
07:21 - 08:03
perfect gift to send to someone in response to what something they have posted and I've often distracted myself from grief by doing things like that but that's like as much as I can do in those kinds of heavy loss situations and depending on where the particular loss falls, I may do a combination of all those things. So yeah, loss certainly has an effect, but in my experience, the creativity continues on. Now there may be a degree of loss I haven't experienced yet that is a complete and utter showstopper, but So far, the losses I've experienced, I've always been kept doing something creative.

Devin
08:03 - 08:15
And then it's almost a measure of how am I recovering? How well am I recovering from a loss measured by how much is my creative work improving or moving forward into two higher degree

Greg
08:16 - 08:27
levels of output. Thank you, Devin. I'm glad you mentioned that because it reminds me of how kindness factors into loss. And you know, if you're hurting and you're struggling, try doing something for somebody else.

Greg
08:27 - 08:36
It can be a real help to you as well. Shadows, when we ask the question, how does loss affect your creative work? What comes to mind for you?

Alessandra
08:36 - 08:38
All usually goes to hell in a handbasket.

Greg
08:38 - 08:44
You have any more thoughts on that? Care to elaborate? I think it both sums it up. Alessandra, interesting discussion.

Greg
08:44 - 08:49
And that kindness element really comes in as well. I'm glad Devin brought that up. It really does.

Shadows Pub
08:50 - 08:51
Well, what I can say about that is

Alessandra
08:52 - 09:28
there's loss and accessing the belonging and the safety of, well, a group like this. And the group for the listeners may be something similar, something vastly different, or could be an assortment of things. What I have noticed that, and I love what Deva talked about in the recovery of loss, I said, while recovering, today, as you said, is the 20th of September. And it was one month ago today that I took that hell of a fall where I caught myself, so there was no head injury.

Alessandra
09:28 - 09:39
I could still walk. I was kind of bruised up and swollen, but I could still walk. But this left hand was crushed. Right.

Alessandra
09:39 - 10:23
So the loss of my being able to play and participate as a classical clarinetist on the recording, I was going to the next day. I mean, really, really tough, because I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know to what extent I would be able to So now a month later, I have more information and some of that I like, some of that I don't like, some of that is a gain, some of that is a loss, but this community and you and Devin and Shadows and a few others have been there to aid in my recovery from this loss.

Alessandra
10:24 - 10:35
And like what Devin was saying, you know, just the right meme. So, Shadows has this thing and she always catches me off guard with it, but she will send me just the right kitten

Shadows Pub
10:36 - 10:36
meme.

Greg
10:36 - 10:39
Kitten memes always help, right?

Shadows Pub
10:40 - 10:53
I can just be a soupy mess of experiencing the loss, and she will just send the most perfect kitten meme, and it does make a difference

Alessandra
10:54 - 11:16
in how I'm experiencing the loss, and it puts a point or two over in the recovery column. The recovery from loss is not a solo. Sticking with our music metaphor, it is an ensemble effort. And that's what we're doing.

Alessandra
11:16 - 12:07
I mean, I remember last winter that there was a loss of power that went on for days. for and stay and stay warm. There are people in real life and so there's something about being able to even in very few words talk about loss that helps to set perspective. And that's why I think it is so important when you're experiencing that.

Alessandra
12:08 - 12:24
don't play it solo because you need to be able to adjust that perspective and you can only do that with another human being or two or three or however many feel appropriate and safe for you at the time. So what else came to mind for you, Greg?

Greg
12:25 - 12:36
Just the fact that you can't do it alone, you know, you were talking about, you really can't do it alone and you shouldn't try to, you know, seek help. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong at all.

Devin
12:37 - 12:54
I'd just like to say that Alexander's musical metaphor is so apt because this is a non-violent community, accordion, Alessandra, and we encourage people to just stop by and say hello anytime. But maybe that's just her trying to drum up

Greg
12:55 - 13:16
membership. www.creativeworkhour.com www.creativeworkhour.com

Greg
00:00 - 00:20
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Created Work Hour Podcast. Today is episode 65. It is September the 13th, 2025, and in the room today you've got myself, Greg, we have Alessandra, Shadows Pub, Bobby, Lee, and Devin. Today's question is all about confidentiality.

Greg
00:20 - 00:44
Alessandra and I were talking before we came on air about how important confidentiality is in small groups, such as creative work hour or support groups or any small group, really, and how confidentiality plays a pretty major part. So today's question with that said is, why is confidentiality so important? Alessandra?

Alessandra
00:44 - 01:13
I think that confidentiality starts when we're children. We have a value of confidentiality before we even know what that word confidentiality or even what the word value means. As soon as we are old enough and big enough and ambulatory enough to leave the house as our own little selves, we head off to school, right? And that's where we are learning about relationships outside of the family of origin.

Alessandra
01:13 - 01:39
We're learning about the relationship with power that's in the classroom, and the relationship with peers is both in the classroom and out on the playground or in the gym. We're learning that. We're learning that what is friendship Is based on values and I think the first value to hand is the value of commonality. What do we have in common?

Alessandra
01:39 - 01:54
Oh, okay. So, little Alessandra and little Greg and Devin and shadows and Sharon and Bobby that we're all we're all in a classroom. Right. And if we weren't in that classroom, we wouldn't be friends because we wouldn't have met.

Alessandra
01:54 - 02:22
So there's a commonality. So it's not just that we're in school, we're in a particular place, at a particular time, at a particular grade, in a particular classroom, right? And so that commonality brings about friendship at a level. Now, what we learn more about relationships is, I'm going to trust you that I can share this piece of information about my life, about my little life with you.

Alessandra
02:23 - 02:39
I can say to Greg, Greg, I like Devin, but don't tell him. Do not tell him. And that's the contract of that friendship is, yes, we got some stuff in common, and I feel comfortable enough with him that I can tell him that I like Devin.

Greg
02:40 - 02:40
Hey Devin, Alessandra likes you.

Alessandra
02:42 - 02:59
Okay, that's a game changer, isn't it? Why? Because even though it's a big long word, it broke confidentiality. So now that relationship has changed, even if I never find out that Greg has breached that secret that I like Devin.

Alessandra
03:00 - 03:13
Now, so now we're all big kids. We're all big kids and we're grown up or we're doing our best. We're still growing up, right? And friendships are still based on commonality at first level.

Alessandra
03:13 - 03:57
And at a deeper level, you take the risk to trust someone with something that has happened to you or with something that has happened to someone that you love. and it can be something great, but we can't tell anybody yet, or something so not great, and we just can't let it, we just can't talk about it. Now, that is a value that's woven into the nature of particular kinds of small groups, like support groups, like 12-step groups, like even, say, issue group therapy groups, and yes, creative work hour. So it's not just that we're creative that brings us together.

Alessandra
03:58 - 04:18
And it's not that we're creative in particular ways or styles or success levels. but we're creative in a confidential way. So that's what we're exploring with this topic today is so why is confidentiality so important? Greg, why is it?

Alessandra
04:18 - 04:38
This is the part you love the most when I give the question that you've sculpted for us so beautifully. when I ask it of you. So Greg, why is confidentiality so important to you in small groups, whether it's this one or maybe it's one that you orchestrate in your own creative work?

Greg
04:39 - 05:05
Thank you, Alessandra. Yeah, absolutely love these questions. There's an old saying that goes back to wartime, and it rings very true, and that is, loose lips sink ships. And what that means is, if the Allied forces were on a mission, or were going to do a mission a certain time, date, and somebody shared that information, it could get into the wrong hands.

Greg
05:06 - 05:27
And so instead of the mission being successful, ships could be bombed and sunk. So why is confidentiality so important? Well, when somebody comes to you and shares something in confidence, oftentimes they're making themselves very vulnerable. You could hurt that person if you betray that confidence.

Greg
05:27 - 05:47
And so it's all about trust. Vulnerability and that breach of confidence, it's almost a betrayal. You know, Alessandra joked, I like Devon, right? And it's very innocent, but it could be something deeply personal or more serious or something that could harm that person if the wrong person found out.

Greg
05:47 - 06:04
And it's just not nice to go behind someone's back. When it comes to support groups, particularly people are in a very vulnerable situation in space then. And so what you hear there should stay there. You know, I hate that cliche, what you hear here stays here, here, here.

Greg
06:05 - 06:10
But it's true. It's very true. So that's kind of what I think. But Shadows, how about you?

Greg
06:11 - 06:14
Why is confidentiality so important?

Shadows Pub
06:14 - 06:35
Well, I make my life such an open book that when I do share things, you know, I just expect that it's going to get spread around. No, seriously, I really don't share very much. And when I do, it's usually pretty selected. When I find out that somebody is violating that, then, yep, that totally changes the relationship.

Shadows Pub
06:35 - 06:36
So, yeah, it's important.

Greg
06:36 - 06:42
Yeah, for sure. Bobby, how about you? Why is confidentiality so important?

Bobby. B
06:42 - 07:27
I think that trust can be hard to earn and part of that is because some people's level of what they think should be confidential or not can vary. And so my, you know, for me, I'm very, very cautious in what I tell people and how I tell them until I really feel they earn a level of confidentiality. And then, of course, broken is something that can immediately terminate the situation. But knowing what the other person's level of confidentiality is can be huge, you know, because it was, oh, that's not such a big deal.

Bobby. B
07:27 - 07:42
Well, yeah, it was devastating. So there's definitely got to be a level of acceptance and respect. And I think like I said, so that's why I tipped over into any, you know, sharing to the point that I use different author names in part for that reason.

Greg
07:42 - 07:47
Thank you, Bobby. Devon, how about you? Why is confidentiality so important?

Devin
07:47 - 08:34
Well, I'll tack on a little bit to what Bobby said, because a lot of what I do in my job is to read and sign non-disclosure agreements. And one of my favorite provisions in most of those NDAs is that it says the very existence of this agreement is confidential information. And it underscores the fact that you don't know what is confidential to the other party when they're sharing it. And especially, you know, in terms of support groups, you're talking about Greg, you know, we can all think of certain groups that you wouldn't mention somebody that you knew from the group, if it had any potential stigma to it, but you don't know, you could say.

Devin
08:35 - 09:07
You know, I've got this friend Bobby, he's in my creative work hour group. And somebody could think, Bobby's a creative? Oh, he must be one of those insert political party that you hate, you know, and now Bobby's got drama, just because you revealed a confidence that he was in the group or any, you know, anything anyone shares, you just don't know what is confidential. And that it's the fabric of the trust that allows us to take risks, particularly in this group, because Sharing creative work is a risk for most people.

Devin
09:07 - 09:31
Putting something out there, even in a limited universe for other people to see and evaluate, is a risk. And so without the trust, people are going to be very reticent to say, well, here's my creative work that I made. What do you think? So I think in this group, like many groups, confidentiality is just a foundational element that has to be there in order for people to take the risks that we need to take in order to grow.

Greg
09:31 - 09:51
Thank you, Devin. Yeah, especially you have a very good understanding of confidentiality in your line of work, so I can sure appreciate that, because if you were to breach confidentiality, it could have ramifications for yourself, but it could be devastating, like you said, for another party. Alessandro, this is a very interesting discussion. What do we think?

Alessandra
09:51 - 10:11
I think it is tricky, but I think, you know, I was having a conversation with another founder this week and she thought that I had misspoken when I said, yes, we've run these daily live sessions. We've done more than 3000 of them. And she was convinced I meant 300. I'm like, no, no, no 3000.

Alessandra
10:12 - 10:18
She's like, how do you do that? I'm like, it's all in the architecture. She's like, how's that? Like, where's it built?

Alessandra
10:18 - 10:43
I'm like, The architecture i'm talking about is the values of creative work hour and that is more than about being creative it's about holding in honor what we're each working on that we share the spotlight. but we keep our confidences. So the intellectual property is safe, but we're all a golden goose. And these geese, they take care of each other.

Alessandra
10:44 - 10:59
And the biggest way that we take care of each other is in confidentiality. I think that the conveyance of love and honor is to keep confidence. I'm just wondering though, as we've been talking for a bit, what time is it, Greg?

Greg
11:00 - 11:13
It's that time again. You've wasted some perfectly good time listening to the Creative Work Hour podcast when you could have been doing something else. But oh no, you decided to tune in anyway. But I'm glad that you did.

Greg
11:14 - 11:24
But let me ask you a question. Why is confidentiality so important to you? Let us know what you think. You can visit us at creativeworkhour.com.

Greg
11:25 - 11:35
If you have a question that you'd like to hear the crew discuss, let us know that too. In the meantime, be safe and come back next week and we'll have another discussion. Thank you.
 

Greg
00:00 - 00:22
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the creative workout podcast. Today's episode 64 is September the 6th 2025 and in the room today you've got myself Greg, we've got Alessandra, Melanie, Devon, Bailey, Shadows and Wei Ling. Today's question for you, what are you creating right now? Where are you creating it?

Greg
00:23 - 00:26
And where will people find it? Alessandra, what do you think?

Alessandra
00:27 - 01:36
I think it's a wonderful question because when I describe Creative Work Hour and the crew to people that have us as a guest on podcast or just in conversation or if I'm at a conference or on a stage, what I say is we're like the most interesting group of people that get together pretty much on a daily basis for at least an hour at a time and we share our creative work in a way that We don't actually show it, we live it. And some of us are classical musicians, or novelists, or musical composers, or scientific researchers, or specialists, or educators, or artists, or there's this huge gamut of things. And so when we see each other every day, and the platform that we're using right now is called Zoom, you may have heard of it, but we don't know what it looks like on the desk of each of us.

Alessandra
01:37 - 01:49
We just have these very general, oh, this is what I'm going to work on today. So this episode is dedicated to the bigger picture. What are you working on right now? What are you creating right now?

Alessandra
01:49 - 02:20
And September is a great time to talk about this because in the summer, we may have taken some time off or done something different. In September, you may be starting something new or picking up on something that is a seasonal interest for your creativity. So what we're looking at is we just want to know not just what are you doing during your creative work hour, we want to know What are you creating right now? Could be, what do you think of starting?

Alessandra
02:20 - 02:34
Could be, what are you thinking of returning back to? But the basic question is, what are you creating right now? Where? And where will we get to see it when you're ready to show it to us?

Alessandra
02:35 - 02:40
Greg, how about you? What are you working on? What are you creating right now?

Greg
02:40 - 03:04
You know, I just love answering these questions myself, right? What I'm working on at the moment is my kindness community and support groups. Currently I have a live online support group for brain injury. I have one for chronic pain and I have one for mental health and they run on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at different times.

Greg
03:04 - 03:29
I'm creating that mixture of my website, kindnessrx.org, and on the Go Brunch platform. You've probably heard us mention Go Brunch on the podcast before, and to explain it very crudely, if you think of Zoom on steroids, but it's different. It's a wonderful, wonderful platform with a great developer. And so I'm building the support groups on the GoBranch platform.

Greg
03:29 - 03:36
That's where you'll be able to find them. But how about you, Dr. Melanie? What are you creating right now? Where are you creating it?

Greg
03:37 - 03:40
Or are you creating it somewhere? And where will people find that?

Dr Melonie
03:41 - 04:03
I am working on collecting the video files that are old and have to go through four trillion different sorts of manifestations in order to come up to 2025 operating systems in order to be able to redo a website for the jazz drummer Dennis Charles. And so, yeah, that's what I'm doing.

Greg
04:03 - 04:15
Right. And I had the opportunity to see, I think that was the website you'd shown me once before for Dennis Charles, and it was really cool. So that's a great project. I'll be looking forward to seeing that one.

Greg
04:15 - 04:21
Shandos, how about you? What are you creating at the moment? Where are you creating it at? And where will people find it?

Shadows Pub
04:21 - 04:47
So the short answer would be I'm building a room on Goldbranch for the World Building Expo on Tuesday. And part of that is embedding some web pages, one of which is the infrastructure for a explorer for the daily echoes that I do. So people will be able to go and explore back through all the old Eccles as well as pages for my printable products that are being built. It's a place to be.

Greg
04:47 - 04:52
It truly is. It truly is. Shadow, do you want to tell me a little bit about the expo?

Shadows Pub
04:52 - 05:19
So last I heard there was going to be 73 exhibitors. So we enter our quote booth. Basically the booth is just a link to a room that we dedicated to Expo and those 73 exhibitors are a basically a cross kind of a cross view of the various types of ways that people use the the Goldbranch platform. It's really versatile.

Shadows Pub
05:19 - 05:36
Some people are running complete businesses on there, other people are running groups, social groups. They've just brought in a membership system so we'll probably get introduced to some new memberships going on. That's on Tuesday from 10 a.m. Eastern until 10 p.m.

Shadows Pub
05:36 - 05:38
Eastern. It's a 12-hour day.

Greg
05:39 - 05:46
I would encourage anyone to check that out. If you've ever heard of the Goldberg platform and wondering what it's all about, that would be the place to be. Alessandra, did you have a thought?

Alessandra
05:46 - 06:15
Yes, I do. Part of Creative Work Hour, we use Zoom right now for our daily sessions where we come together and we'll have in the show notes creativeworkhour.com where you can get information about if you would like to join us to help to gear up your own creative life and your own creative work. But for the more social things that we do in and amongst the crew for Creative Work Hour, we use the Go Brunch platform.

Alessandra
06:16 - 06:57
And my favorite thing that we do is once a month, we do a drive-in movie party. And what that looks like, Shadows Pub, whom you just heard, She designed this movie, this outdoor, 1950s-style drive-in movie theater. And Devin, who's here in the room, he chooses based on what's going on in the world and with the group and what kind of vibe that we need, he picks the film. How it works is it looks like you're looking up at the screen for the movie, and you see all the cars like with the 1950s fins, and there are little discs.

Alessandra
07:01 - 07:37
that our avatars just float right into. So it looks like we're occupying these old cars out on this old drive-in movie lot. This is just one use case of what you could do with GoBrunch, and we have just found it to be so much fun. We've been using GoBrunch to run the movie parties for going on almost two years now so if that's we're going to include in the show notes go brunch so that you can take a look yourself and see what you think about this this tool if it is new

Alessandra
07:37 - 07:38
to you greg

Greg
07:39 - 07:48
absolutely yeah girl brunch is really really really awesome bailey how about you what are you creating at the moment where are you creating it at and where will people find it

Bailey
07:48 - 08:29
this one's kind of hard because there's like way too many things that i'm creating but I guess I'm writing a book that I sort of have put on the back burner while I progress with my music studies, but I guess more immediately I'm doing two things. I am writing a paper for my college admissions, but it will be posted publicly on Medium, so you guys can check that out. It's all about the new era we're in, after post-modernism, and what that looks like in classical music. And I guess I'm also sort of building a career, and that doesn't sound creative immediately, but I'm doing it with piano, which is super exciting.

Bailey
08:30 - 08:38
I'm accompanying someone for their senior recital for the first time, I've never done that before. Yeah, so I'm sort of like building a accompaniment career as well. So

Shadows Pub
08:38 - 08:39
yeah,

Bailey
08:39 - 08:44
I guess those are the two immediate things, but you guys will eventually see the book sometime. Sandra, how's it fall?

Alessandra
08:44 - 09:08
I do have a thought. So when we were in the pre-production meeting for this podcast episode, I was talking to Greg about what Bailey is doing as a pianist who is accompanying another soloist. So instead of it being digital tools, like writing a thing that gets published on Medium. This is analog creativity.

Alessandra
09:09 - 09:24
So what Bailey is doing is he's practicing at home, he's practicing in the practice room. There'll be, I'm sure, a dress rehearsal. Part of the Medium that is used is, one, a piano. Two, there's the soloist.

Alessandra
09:24 - 09:49
When the soloist is playing, there is the sheet music. There is the blood, sweat, and tears of getting the music learned and styled and the musical phrases interpreted in a corporate way. And then where will that creativity be seen? Well, it will be seen in a recital, on a stage, in a musical.

Alessandra
09:50 - 10:01
And all of these things are just so us. We do game design here. We do novel writing here. We do concerts here.

Alessandra
10:02 - 10:33
We do tiny desk concerts here within creative work hour. So I just, I love, and that was just my favorite example in pre-production today, Bailey, and I wanted you to know that. We were just really excited about what you're doing to take on, because what I learned from my clarinet professor, Peter Yosef in San Francisco, is that an accompanist is not second chair to the soloist, ever. The accompanist is equal to the soloist.

Alessandra
10:33 - 10:55
The accompanist is the orchestra. And the soloist is the soloist. The soloist gets the final say on how something gets phrased, but they're equals on the stage. And if I hadn't studied with him, I would have completely misunderstood my role as an orchestra member, as an accompanist, or as a soloist.

Alessandra
10:56 - 10:59
So good luck with that, Bailey. We're really proud of what you're doing.

Greg
10:59 - 11:06
Yeah, for sure. And hopefully we'll see a Tiny Desk concert with that as well. I'm sure that we probably will watch the space. Wei Ling, how about you?

Greg
11:07 - 11:12
What are you working on? What are you creating right now? Where are you creating it? Where might people find it?

Wai Ling
11:13 - 11:58
Yes, so for those who know me would know that I am in between places right now and I'm making a big move from the US to Malaysia after being here for over 10 years. So I would say I am in the stage where I am actively Creating a new life, but for a place or a chapter that has yet to exist? And I think this is a great question because when we think about creativity, it's often the building that it would come into, the active building of something. but I am actually at that stage where this is the active letting go and negotiating what to keep and what to take for the next chapter.

Wai Ling
11:59 - 12:23
So I am in that stage right now and if I were to think of myself as an artist or a builder, I am Selecting my materials for the next stage. So where will people find it? I guess check in with me again six two months to nine months I will be in a very very different place And I am excited and also very afraid at the same time.

Greg
12:23 - 12:38
Yeah, I can only imagine. I know how difficult it was for me moving from England to the US and then going back again for six months, but not, we were going back for an extended period. And it really is, even though, you know, we live there, right? And, you know, it's our home.

Greg
12:39 - 13:05
When you've been gone for a long time, like, like I had been, like you, you have been, and you go back, it's somewhat, it's almost like moving to another country, even though it's home, right? And there's that apprehension and You know, people have moved on and where do you pick up? I'm just very grateful and privileged to be part of your journey the last few years and seeing you go from Weiling to Dr Weiling Fong. And I'm going to tell you what, because you still haven't put doctor in front of your name.

Greg
13:06 - 13:13
We have our very own doctor and we were part of seeing that happen live. So that's absolutely, absolutely fantastic.

Bailey
13:13 - 13:14
Thank you.

Greg
13:15 - 13:23
Absolutely. Devon, how about you? What are you creating right now? Where are you creating at, and where will people be able to find it?

Devin
13:23 - 14:03
Thanks, Greg. I am co-creating a musical right now, and I am creating it at least in terms of all the dialogue, which is the bulk of what has to be written down. I'm creating it in Google Docs because I know how to use it and it's easy. I should be creating it in Final Draft, which is the industry standard for any kind of movie script or PlayScript or VS Musical, but I don't know how to use all the buttons and the bells and the whistles on final drafts, or rather they get stuck.

Devin
14:04 - 14:14
I'm trying to learn how to use the tool. I'm using what I know on Google Docs and building it there, and then one day we'll have to learn how to convert it. to the proper format. But where can you find it?

Devin
14:15 - 14:26
Well, Broadway, of course. And then a little later, you'll be able to see it in the West End. And after we negotiate the movie rights, I imagine we'll be showing it on Go Brunch, so you can catch it there.

Greg
14:26 - 14:36
Go Brunch goes last. I see how it is. This is a musical that you're creating with Tom, right? And I know that you've been utilizing some of the creative work hour sessions to do that as well.

Greg
14:37 - 14:37
to work on?

Devin
14:38 - 14:53
That's right. Yes, we've gotten into several breakout rooms for Practice Not Perfect to just hash out story arcs, dialogue, actually writing the lyrics for the musical numbers, all

Greg
14:53 - 14:58
of that. Wonderful. I can't wait to learn more. Alessandro, some great conversation there.

Greg
14:58 - 15:00
What do you got for us?

Alessandra
15:00 - 15:34
Well, this has been a really, really fun episode to record because we didn't know quite what was going to just like all of the other 63 episodes, you never know quite what's going to come up. And that just keeps it so interesting because we don't script. and we don't rehearse, all we do is refine a question and then we go live. One of the things about Creative Work Hour is it is not just a daily thing that meets on, at least for right now, that meets on Zoom.

Alessandra
15:35 - 15:56
because there is not anyone in this room except right now for Bailey, whom we have not met in person. And it's not like we're doing camps or conferences. That's not how we work. Like as opportunities present themselves, we will see each other in person.

Alessandra
15:57 - 16:23
In fact, I get to see Devin and I get to see Dr. Melanie this coming week. And so that's a real treat just to get to know each other. a little better and to talk about what it is that we're doing creatively. And that's really part of what makes the texture of what we're doing here so rich is it's not like a deliberate, let's organize this thing and plan it out 18 months in advance.

Alessandra
16:24 - 16:51
It's just that we keep our ears open for opportunities to see each other and support each other. And for me, it just makes all the difference between things that I dream of getting started and things that I dream of getting finished and put out in the world. and I wish I could pull up my left wrist and look at the time. But again, Greg, I have to ask you, at this point in the show, what time is it?

Greg
16:53 - 17:04
It's that time again. You've wasted some perfectly good time listening to the Creative Work Hour podcast when you could have been doing something else. But no, you chose to tune in anyway. But how about you?

Greg
17:04 - 17:12
What are you creating right now? Where are you creating it at? and where can we find it? We would love to check out some of your work.

Greg
17:13 - 17:18
You can visit us on creativeworkhour.com. Come back next week and we'll have another question.
 

Greg
00:00 - 00:23
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Creative Workout Podcast. This is episode 63 and it is August 30th, 2025. In the room today I have myself, Greg, we have Alessandra, Bobby B, Shadows and Devon. We were talking earlier about curveballs and practicing and all things of that nature.

Greg
00:23 - 00:44
And today's question is actually dedicated to Alessandra, who not only broke her hand, but broke it in three places. But I'll let her tell you a little bit more about that story. She's holding up a big cast on her hand. Today's question is, what happens to your creativity when life throws you a curveball?

Greg
00:44 - 00:50
What's your first reaction? And how do you adapt to that? Bobby D will go to you. What do you think?

Bobby. B
00:50 - 01:01
Thank you, Greg. My old project manager head jumps right in and says, is this fight or flight? What's the level of threat? Where could this go?

Bobby. B
01:02 - 01:35
When it comes to creativity, do I need to park all that and find the appropriate place for this to settle before I consider going back to creativity? And other times, of course, it's not that big a deal. Just flow with it. And don't pour too much energy into it because I used to really fret over things and think that it was up to me and only me and without any assistance to assess and all that.

Bobby. B
01:35 - 01:47
And of course, that just puts me into brain freeze. So no, at this point now, it's more often than not, not that big a deal. Thank you, Bobby. Alessandra?

Alessandra
01:48 - 02:13
Yeah, if I'm not a classic example, I'm a dire warning. Yeah, so, you know, 2025 has been just a really remarkable year. It's been a year of dreams coming true, because last year, 2024, I really spent the year focused on dreaming. Like what's the next level thing?

Alessandra
02:14 - 02:31
What would be a dream level experience of being a creative work hour founder? What would be a dreamy experience of participating on the Hive blockchain? What would be the dreamy experience of? So that was 2024.

Alessandra
02:31 - 03:03
So 2025 has been living those dreams. One of those dreams is becoming a member of the preeminent clarinet ensemble in the English-speaking world, which is the British Clarinet Ensemble. And being the new kid on the block, I have worked and fretted and stayed connected with the group, even though it made me just kind of a nervous wreck. But I played my first recordings, my first concert abroad.

Alessandra
03:03 - 03:33
The British Clarinet Ensemble actually hosted a recording studio created inside of the Cockford Parish Church. And for four days, the recording studio was built inside of that small church. Remarkable place. The oldest church paintings, not paintings that are that are hung, but paintings that are in the actual walls of the church, the oldest in the English speaking world.

Alessandra
03:33 - 04:00
So we're sitting in this 1100 year old church for four straight days of recording. And the night before, this only happened last week, the night before it's time to take the train down to record this album, I trip in the garden in our Leeds apartment on the sidewalk. Now, you throw your hands out in front of you to catch yourself, right? And that works really perfectly on the right side of my body.

Alessandra
04:00 - 04:29
On the left side of my body, however, my hand turns and basically what was my very delicate left clarinet playing hand becomes a crushed taco shell. So as I talk to you, I can tell you that that was my fricking curve ball, right? And when it happened, I've been hit by a car as a pedestrian before. It did not come close to the level of shock and pain.

Alessandra
04:30 - 04:52
And as a result, going into those four days of recording, it was impossible to play the clarinet. So there was my curve ball. In my own head, it was, that's it, I'm out. In my fear and maybe a bit of drama sinking, the thought occurred to me, I may never play again.

Alessandra
04:52 - 05:05
And when I caught myself thinking that, I'm like, stop that right now. You stop that because we're going to play. Oh, we're going to play. So connecting with you, my friends here.

Alessandra
05:07 - 05:16
I'm like, I'm going to do this crazy thing. I don't know how, but I'm still going to go to those recording sessions. Eight hours a day for four straight days. We recorded.

Alessandra
05:17 - 05:36
Now, could I play clarinet? Not per se, but one of those pieces required percussion. The percussive instrument was not a timpani, or a bass drum, or a snare, or a glockenspiel, or any of that. No.

Alessandra
05:37 - 06:03
It was clapping, as a percussionist claps. But that takes two hands, unless it doesn't. I worked out different kinds of sounds, and I just kind of went to the conductor and I said, Are you looking for a sound that sounds like this, and he put his hands together and I'm said, Okay, that's the sound to match. So you, you show me, you keep playing that, and I came up with a sound that I could make.

Alessandra
06:04 - 06:24
using my right hand on the side of my right knee. And that matched the sound he was after. So no, I wasn't principal clarinet. I wasn't clarinet at all on these recordings, but I was the percussive lead on those two pages of the score that required.

Alessandra
06:24 - 06:56
So the curve ball is the crushed hand. The adaptation we'll talk about in a second, but how I got through those first few days and all of those 36 hours of recording that album was thinking outside the box. And who knew that you could clap on the side of your knee on anything other than a little kid's school song and still be able to participate in this professional recording. So I'm grateful that I stopped myself.

Alessandra
06:57 - 07:06
when my head started to go into drama. Blah, blah, blah. No, that's not what's happening here. Because I get to write the story.

Alessandra
07:07 - 07:18
I get to write the story. So we'll come back to what happens next. But I really want to hear from you, Greg. and the

Greg
07:34 - 08:09
but you know this isn't scripted oh my goodness well you know if you've got a background of trauma sometimes the first reaction could be oh no depends what that curveball could be it could be a physical injury it could be your circumstances changing an illness you know I've got a friend who has Parkinson's he's part of our chronic pain group he loves to paint buildings and he can no longer paint he's adapting by pencils I think you've got to try and keep on keeping on and try and show up That will get you some traction. It can put you in front. Sometimes it's opposite action.

Greg
08:09 - 08:26
Whatever you want to do, do the opposite. Whatever you think you're doing, do the opposite. And you'll probably get it right. So when you don't want to do the work, when you don't want to be creative, Try anyway, I think, if you're into journaling or something like that, or you want to try journaling.

Greg
08:26 - 09:04
This is a great tip for you. Set the timer for 30 minutes and sit with a pencil and a piece of paper, and just write what comes to mind. And if it gets to 29 minutes and 30 seconds and you think, this is stupid, I have Practice is something that you were not able to do with the injury. At a time when you absolutely needed to, pretty big deal by all accounts, you weren't able to practice.

Greg
09:05 - 09:16
I'm going to knock the curveball back to you because you weren't able to practice and we were talking about practicing and showing up but how did the inability to practice, the adaption, do you want to continue that story?

Alessandra
09:17 - 09:25
Well, so that I answered the right question, Greg, that the practice before the recordings or during the recordings,

Greg
09:25 - 09:27
you have the floor choice.

Alessandra
09:28 - 10:00
Well, actually, before the recordings, I've been dealing with some really just distressing kinds of things at a personal level and. Being somebody who brings the PTSD is just part of my wiring. So if I'm going to show up authentically in my creative life, PTSD is that suitcase that always ends up with me, whether I think I packed it or not.

Greg
10:00 - 10:01
Unwilling passenger, right?

Alessandra
10:02 - 10:05
Yeah. Yes. The unwilling passenger. Yes.

Alessandra
10:05 - 10:41
So part of doing the practice not perfect, there are times when the trauma alarm goes off and the trauma alarm can tell you to evacuate the building or it can tell you to hide. And sometimes for me, Part of how I hide is I stop writing or I stop practicing. And being able to identify, ah, that's the hiding behavior. I'm hiding because I feel a threat.

Alessandra
10:42 - 11:05
And that does affect the creative life. So the first thing that I do is I tell somebody, I tell somebody. And oftentimes that's Devin and shadows. And I can just say, even though it feels really vulnerable, I can just say, yeah, I'm not playing because I don't feel safe.

Alessandra
11:06 - 11:38
And learning how to work with that is part of not so much the curveball, but the long tail of the curveball. And that's okay, too. And what I found happened during one of the evenings that we were doing those four days of recordings, is I sat at a table with three other professional musicians, and one of them said to me, when I had my two children, I just couldn't cope with anything other than that, and I stopped playing.

Alessandra
11:38 - 12:01
And I just swiveled toward her. And looked her in the face, and I looked at the other players that were at the table, and I said, and I think because I need to say this to myself, there is no shame in taking a pause. There is no shame in taking a pause. And even today, I need to hear that for myself.

Alessandra
12:01 - 12:04
There's no shame in taking a pause.

Greg
12:04 - 12:13
You were talking a little bit earlier about that too. But yeah, we'll pass it around the room a little bit more. We're talking about creativity. What happens when life throws you a curveball?

Greg
12:13 - 12:17
How you adapt to that? What your first reaction is? Shadows, how about you?

Shadows Pub
12:17 - 12:34
Depends on the curveball. You know, if the power goes out for a day or two or five, I'm not going to be doing much creativity. But if it's another issue and, you know, all my tools are available, I might even just do the creativity to avoid the other issue. Who never knows?

Greg
12:34 - 12:57
there's always No but I watched a Mythbusters episode the other day where they were trying to herd cats on Mythbusters.

Shadows Pub
12:57 - 12:58
Yeah that worked well didn't it?

Greg
12:59 - 13:06
Yeah not well not really but yeah absolutely. Thanks Shadows. Devon how about yourself? Creativity when life throws you a curveball what's your first reaction?

Greg
13:07 - 13:09
How does it affect your creativity? First reaction and

Devin
13:09 - 13:29
First of all, I can't believe I'm participating in a podcast using a sports metaphor. So, you know, curveball, I don't know much about hockey, but I think we're talking about, like, something disruptive. And I tend to just stop. My creativity, rather, it just stops while I try to deal with it.

Devin
13:29 - 14:03
But if the curveball continues, Then sometimes the creativity sneaks back in as a way of coping with it. And that's often a good thing if it if the curveball is just going to be there and I'm going to have to continue to work around it, then oftentimes creativity gives me an outlet, gives me a way of, you know, self care that I can sort of get my head into a different space and. shift my state, as Tony Robbins would say, for a bit.

Devin
14:03 - 14:09
So yeah, it can be both things. It can be both a showstopper, but then it can be sometimes a facilitator.

Greg
14:09 - 14:29
Thank you, Devon. Alessandro, this is an interesting conversation, but I want to take just a pause for a moment because we did touch on the topic of trauma and things like that, trauma and crisis. You know, if you're in crisis, if you're in the United States, you can dial 988. It's a crisis number.

Greg
14:29 - 14:39
Add that to mine just in case it's touched on something. And if you're in crisis, share that number with someone who could save a life. But Alessandra, great conversation. Great episode.

Greg
14:39 - 14:40
Thoughts?

Alessandra
14:40 - 15:39
Yes, and the episode goes so fast because we're committed to keeping these episodes in bite-sized pieces so that you can both start and finish them before another squirrel runs along to grab your attention. But what I did want to say is just to drive, just to drive the point home with sports analogies. There was something that Shatters and I were talking about just a couple of weeks ago, and it was about, and I think this will be a podcast topic for us, the concept of living a five-star life is not about money. It's about getting dialed in what you really want, so that if you were giving yourself experience stars, that what you're doing with your life's energy and resources is five star, highly recommend.

Alessandra
15:40 - 16:22
That's what we mean by five star life experience. And so pulling that idea over into seeking treatment for this hand injury because, oh, it turns out that this thing is not just broken in three places, it's crushed in two. So I wouldn't have known that if I just left it in the cast that was given to me right after I took the fall. But playing clarinet, or maybe for you it's sports, or maybe for you it's yoga, maybe for you it's being able to type like a fiend as fast as you can with two hands.

Alessandra
16:23 - 17:09
If your five-star life experience involves having two working hands, then you do want to absolutely pull a five-star team into the fix. So I just sent the word around, like, I'm flying back to Boston, and I know there's a lot of sports teams in Boston. Does anybody have any leads into whom I could see that is a specialist for hand injuries for musicians or sports people or artists or what have you. And I walked into the building of Mass General Brigham yesterday to the ortho, the department is called the Hand and Arm Service.

Alessandra
17:10 - 17:42
So everybody in that building is just working on getting people back in the game, literally. So I walk in and here are the logos for the Boston Red Sox and the New England Patriots and the New England Revolution. And I'm like, these people know what they're doing. So now as the adaptation continues to get better and to return to music or clarinet or whatever being dexterous is all about.

Alessandra
17:43 - 18:08
Yeah, that surgery is on Tuesday. And I think it's gonna be kind of a bionic ham for a little bit, but we'll see what happens. So literally this curve ball is being treated by therapists and physicians and surgeons who do nothing but keep people, get people back on their feet, back into the game. it by one of life's curveballs.

Alessandra
18:09 - 18:29
So we hope that this topic gives you something to think about of how to, one, when the curveball hits and that first reaction rises is recognize which ones are helpful. Like when that thought of mine was, I'll never play again. Boo hoo. I was like, no, stop.

Alessandra
18:29 - 18:43
I get to write this story. I don't know how I will adapt, but I know that I will. And that's something that we can all do. We can figure something out because that's creative and it's what the brain wants to do.

Alessandra
18:44 - 19:27
And I really do feel like I've been training for this right now because being able to plug in a phone or comb my damn hair or figure out how to get some lipstick on my face, All of these things are incredible challenges right now, but if we're following. the beauty of neuroscience and plasticity of the brain. Like literally the best thing that is happening for my brain right now is that I have a bum wing because I can literally feel my brain adapting in different ways to see things, different ways to try things, establishing what things are necessary and which ones I can set aside because it's just not important right now.

Alessandra
19:28 - 19:33
So I don't know. I may not wear makeup for six weeks. It's fine. Nobody cares.

Alessandra
19:34 - 19:48
There's a lot of things that are perfectly fine and nobody cares. But what we want to do is just open up to the possibilities of how can we adapt and who's to say what happens next is not better than what we had before.

Greg
19:48 - 19:50
That's very true. Do you want to chime in again?

Alessandra
19:50 - 19:54
I don't know. I had to take my watch off my left wrist.

Greg
19:55 - 20:08
I think it is. It's that time again when you've wasted some perfectly good time listening to the Creative Work Hour podcast when you could have been doing something else, but no, you tuned in anyway. How about you? What happens to your creativity when life throws

Alessandra
20:08 - 20:08
you

Greg
20:08 - 20:16
a curveball? What's the first reaction that you have and how do you adapt to that? Let us know. You can visit us at creativeworkhour.com.
 

Greg
00:00 - 00:24
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the creative work hour podcast. Today is August the 16th 2025. This is episode 62 and we're talking about back to school and back to creativity and things of that nature. It is back to school season and everyone's going back to school and getting all those good deals on notebooks and everything else like that but today's title is back to school back to creativity.

Greg
00:24 - 00:43
If you could design your own school of creativity What classes or experiences might you include? Alessandra, we were talking about this before, and we were talking about actually investing and classes on investing and one thing and another. And you had mentioned the term angel investing, which I'm unfamiliar with that. You were telling me briefly.

Greg
00:44 - 00:53
I guess Devin has been looking at classes on angel investing, and we were talking about even building your own community. Devin, do you want to explain what angel investing is?

Devin
00:53 - 01:19
Angel investors are the earliest investors in a startup. So after the founder has used his or her own funds and tapped most of their friends and family, the first outside investors are typically angel investors, which just simply means they're individuals. It's not a firm like a VC firm, a venture capital firm. It's just individuals who That's what they do.

Devin
01:19 - 01:29
They give their own money and they put it into startups they believe in and hope to hit a home run, hope to be one of the Uber investors.

Greg
01:29 - 01:40
Yeah, because I had mistakenly thought that an angel investor was someone that came when something was at death's door. and preventing it from being deceased.

Devin
01:40 - 02:02
They may also do that. I mean, you know, just because they give money early doesn't mean they don't also give money late in the process. So they can come back around and have and be involved in multiple rounds. But, you know, if you go to the typical life cycle, it's self-funded, friends and family, angel, venture capital, and then, you know, going public or being acquired.

Greg
02:03 - 02:15
So what we were talking about was school of creativity and designing your own school. So would that be something that if you could design your own school of creativity, angel investing would be on the curriculum? Yeah, I

Devin
02:16 - 02:34
mean, it's one of the spokes on my wheel. I imagine my creative interest as being spokes on a wheel and in that it rotates. And so something will come up and I will really zero in on that. And that's the, you know, the creative obsession of the day.

Devin
02:35 - 02:59
And we're talking about this because that's the spoke that I'm on. And so, you know, my school of creativity, it has a well stocked library, because that's how I get excited about and start Learning about whatever it is. I want to learn about I go grab I go to a bookstore I go to a library. I start looking at online books or audiobooks.

Devin
02:59 - 03:02
I go get a book That's just how I'm wired the first

Greg
03:02 - 03:02
thing

Devin
03:02 - 03:32
I want to do when I'm excited about something Whether it's something brand new or whether it's something that rotates around on a regular basis suddenly the next thing I have to do is get a new book and then I may I go from there, I may start looking at communities online, I may start looking at courses or, you know, YouTube series, and I'm probably going to gravitate to that, but for me, that journey always starts with a pretty, if possible, an old-fashioned, you know, book with a cover and

Greg
03:33 - 04:07
actual pages. Devin was holding a book up and it said Angel on the front there, that's absolutely fantastic. Now we have a thing, Angel's Wings, and it's something that Alessandra and I always talk about angel's wings and it goes back to it goes back to twitter spaces days and i used to get really nervous about doing a twitter space and alessandra would say just imagine your angel's wings part of you know meditation we would do and i would just picture that so it's kind of stuck over the uh over the time just reminded me of that alessandra how about you if you could design your own school of creativity what classes or experiences might

Greg
04:07 - 04:08
you include

Alessandra
04:08 - 04:50
what It is really such a fun question and I know that that most of us will pop over to a YouTube video or some such I will not Okay torture for me is a class where you have to Watch all these YouTube videos like that is torture. I do not like sitting and watching videos I love I love to learn from real people. It doesn't matter if I'm standing in the room with them or if I am in a session just like we are right now. We're using Zoom as our recording studio, right?

Alessandra
04:50 - 05:05
And from a real person in real time, that synchronous learning. excites my brain. Asynchronous learning, it takes so much energy. I'm just wiped.

Alessandra
05:05 - 05:45
So anything that I can do that's live, live sessions or a live meeting or what have you, it takes the synchronous for me to do the work. And if there's reading or writing about it or practicing about it, I dread those things too. But if I can attach the reading or the writing and the practicing to a live event, I'll be prepared for the live event, or at least I'll be sweating being prepared for the live event. And that's how my brain works, yeah.

Greg
05:45 - 05:53
Thank you, Alessandra. Hilary, how about yourself? If you were designing your own school of creativity, what classes or experiences might you include?

Hillary
05:53 - 06:01
If I were creating my own school for creativity, I would, I say go with like mixed media. So you've got everything, you

Greg
06:01 - 06:02
know,

Hillary
06:02 - 06:26
like value ladder from, you know, simple written document, you know, some real basic, you know, you're going to take the concept and you want to run with it on your own. Or you've got, then you can move up to, say, like a video. And now you've got audio and visual to help you learn. And then you can take it up to, you know, like a live interactive call.

Hillary
06:27 - 07:02
And now you've got the ability to get response back with your learning. So you've got all these tiers that you can kind of apply that would mix with different learning styles. So some people, as we've been hearing, everybody's got their own way they want to learn. So if you're going to offer, I'd say, the product of the ability to learn, you would want to offer a variety of medias to help really cater to, to let people choose how they learn or where, you know, based on where they're at in their path, because a

Hillary
07:02 - 07:23
PDF may very well be all somebody needs to get going. But for me, No, I like the interaction, you know, like reviewing a PDF before I talk to somebody helps me get familiar with whatever vernacular is about to come up. And then that helps me feel prepared. So if I am going to interact with somebody and with the ability to learn, it helps me ask better questions.

Hillary
07:23 - 08:03
And I think that would be how I would go about putting together a school And when I do do this, it will be for AutoCAD drafters to learn better tips and tricks on how to maneuver within the new professional world, how to do personal time management, and how to keep track of multiple projects and things like that to stay on top of your things, which aren't really taught in the world. You know, you often go in and when you're new to the career, they expect you to just kind of know what to do. And there's not always a lot of mentorship and guidance to really help navigate the transition.

Hillary
08:04 - 08:07
So that's going to be my future school, CAD Coven.

Greg
08:07 - 08:19
Thank you, Hillary. Yeah, I look forward to learning about that. I know that you are really very near and dear to your heart. And when you get that going, I'm sure there's probably going to be a couple of tiny desk concerts along the way.

Greg
08:19 - 08:23
We'll learn more about that. Stay tuned to this podcast. Yeah. Shadows, how about you?

Greg
08:23 - 08:29
If you're going to design your own school of creativity, what classes or experiences might you include?

Shadows Pub
08:29 - 08:39
It would not be a school. If I'm going to learn, I'm going to go for books, articles, maybe videos. Courses would be way down the list. Probably books and articles.

Shadows Pub
08:39 - 08:43
If it's something visual, then I would probably look at videos.

Greg
08:43 - 08:51
Thank you, Shadows. Bobby, how about you? If you were going to design your own school of creativity, what classes or experiences might you include?

Bobby. B
08:52 - 09:17
Thank you, Greg. You know, with all the mentoring and tutoring I do, I've, you know, played with a lot and learned with a lot. And I think there's two things Hillary touched on. One, you have to get to create programs that are going to be adaptive to all the different learning styles, rather than necessarily force students into a learning style.

Bobby. B
09:18 - 09:56
And the other is all the rich knowledge that exists in people that have experienced things in life has to be integrated. You know, getting forums, roundtables, class visits from people that have the ability to communicate what they've experienced and have enough knowledge in it but are also open to sharing. Because in group work, that's where I found that students lean a bit more forward in their seats and their face relaxes a bit more. So those, to me, would be two key elements in my school of creativity.

Bobby. B
09:57 - 10:09
The last one, Edwin warned that, is accessibility. Make it clear. Be generous. And if you're going to excite a spark, in someone's mind.

Bobby. B
10:10 - 10:18
Try and make yourself available for the follow-up questions or thoughts, one through a million, that they may have. That's mine.

Greg
10:18 - 10:40
Thank you, Bobby. I know when I think about my style of learning, I'm a very visual person. Video, audio is a great way for me. I learned a trick, and a lot of people are using AI And one of the tricks I've learned was using the Pareto principle, where 80% of the outcome comes from 20% of the input.

Greg
10:40 - 11:07
So the 80-20 rule, and that's like 80% of the understanding of the subject comes from 20% of the content, right? So if we can figure a way to try and learn that most important 20%, view that as a way of like cutting out the filler and the fluff and the You know, so very kind of condensed way of learning, I guess. So that was something that I used a little bit along the way to help me. But Alessandra, this has been a good topic, good conversation, right?

Alessandra
11:07 - 11:23
Yeah, it was. And it made me think from talking to Shadows, she had invited me yesterday to a go brunch room with a colleague, Jackie. What was Jackie's name? I can't remember her surname.

Alessandra
11:23 - 11:34
I know she's in the UK and she was teaching us about learning and what silence tells us about the effectiveness of learning. What was her name? I think

Shadows Pub
11:34 - 11:37
it's McGinn. I never pay much attention to her last name.

Alessandra
11:37 - 12:06
But it was really good material. And the idea behind the learning is that when, and this is for yourself, or an awareness of how other people may be interacting in a learning situation, is if there is silence, Coming from a learner, whether it's you or the next person, you know, there's usually a reason for that. Could be that they're a deep thinker.

Alessandra
12:06 - 12:27
Could be they don't like to use all the air in the room. could be that they don't feel safe. So how I'll bring that back to our topic is how I learn is, first off, I've got to feel safe. Because when your nervous system is all activated and freaked out, you can't receive the information.

Alessandra
12:28 - 12:54
You cannot retrieve relevant information. Therefore, you can't take that and encode anything new. So whether it's for yourself, here's the tip of the day, whether it's for yourself or for someone that you're learning alongside, the sense of safety is so important to learning any darn thing. And it's most often overlooked.

Alessandra
12:54 - 12:59
So if I was learning how to tell time, What time is it, Greg?

Greg
13:00 - 13:16
You know, it's that time again, isn't it? You've wasted some perfectly good time listening to the Creative Work Hour podcast when you could have been doing something else. But what about you? If you were going to design your own school of creativity, what classes or experiences might you include?

Greg
13:16 - 13:24
We'd be interested to hear that. You can visit us at creativeworkhour.com. Come back again next week and we'll have another topic that we'll discuss.

Greg

00:03 - 00:24

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Creative Work Hour podcast. Today is August the 9th, 2025. And in the room today, you have myself, Greg, we have Alessandra, we have Devin, Bailey, and Shadow Pub, and it's episode 61. Can you believe that?

Greg

00:24 - 00:42

Where does the time go? I do not know. And today's discussion is actually right on time, The chat GPT 5 has just been released. And some people have been talking about that and people have an opinion, be good, bad or indifferent.

Greg

00:42 - 00:59

And so today we thought we would ask, is AI our ultimate creative partner or a replacement? That kind of sounds very sinister, doesn't it? I'll read that again. Is AI our ultimate creative partner or our replacement?

Greg

00:59 - 01:25

And so I can kind of see all kinds of Conspiracy thoughts and theories going on with this, but it is a creative tool, nevertheless. And Alessandra, we were talking about this before, and there's a really good quote on this as well. And it's by the former CEO of IBM, Ginni Rometty. And he said, AI will not replace humans, but those who use AI will replace those who don't.

Greg

01:26 - 01:32

So I don't know what you think about that. But, Alessandra, this gave some really great conversation, didn't it?

Alessandra

01:33 - 01:49

Well, it did. And, you know, there is the, you know, the Echmakena film and that relationship with AI personified. There's that kind of element. Yeah.

Alessandra

01:50 - 02:21

You kind of get the sinister, you get the drama, you get all of that. But the way that I am Keeping AI in my life is, you know, it's not very complicated. It's pretty very basic, but I am using ChatGPT. I've used ChatGPT probably three times before I have my first cup of coffee in the morning because it is just part of the layout of how I think.

Alessandra

02:21 - 03:03

The energy that I always wish that I had for using in my note-taking tools was always like the energy I only had on my very best days. And so there was a lot of really good thinking on days that I just didn't have it all together that I really wouldn't be able to note. Now, so if you're having a dippy day, who's to say you could be having your most remarkable cognitive breakthroughs, you just happen to feel like not great on that day. So I like a tool that meets me where I am with my energy level.

Alessandra

03:04 - 03:33

So if I am not doing great, it's equally accessible to me as the days when I'm knocking it out of the park. And I can do that with chat GPT. And I love that they are making big leaps and bounds of updates and improvements based on what they're having. Now, do they have big boogers?

Alessandra

03:33 - 03:53

Yes, they do. And sometimes you can use chat GPT to solve problems you're having with chat GPT, which I love that. I love the meta of that. But basically, I love it for how it helps me to leverage my energy so that I can get the creative work done.

Alessandra

03:54 - 04:32

Because that's where my life feedback loop works positively, is when I'm able to do the creative work, then come good day or bad, I can look at the evidence of where I showed up in the world. whether it was to play classical music on or off the stage, whether it was to help another creative break through or get over some hurdle. So it may sound like high tech, but really I'm just using it as an extra power supply. That's my take on it.

Alessandra

04:32 - 04:33

But how about you, Greg?

Greg

04:35 - 04:54

You know, I use, I have a brain injury, very high functioning with it. And how I use AI is to help gather my thoughts. So because of my brain injury, I struggle with memory, long-term memory. And so trying to recite stories or remember when this happened, and it was Thursday afternoon, the wind was blowing.

Greg

04:55 - 05:08

And I can't do all that like some people do. So my writing tends to be almost academic. It's like researched and almost like a journalist might do it. And that's just the way that I've adapted.

Greg

05:08 - 05:31

So my thoughts could be scattered all over the place, jump back and forth, not really following any sequence. But I can do a bunch of research, get my stuff together and say, this is what I'm trying to say. Can you organize this into a logical? stream, you know, a cohesive list that reads well, you know, so it'll take what I've done and clean it up.

Greg

05:31 - 05:49

It's not unlike someone would perhaps use Grammarly or Ginger or Wordtune or something like that, right? It's just another tool. And so I like this question, is AI our ultimate creative partner or is it a replacement? I certainly don't think it's a replacement, but I think it's a good partner.

Greg

05:50 - 06:12

You there's an old adage garbage in and garbage out. And I don't really like the saying, but it's very true. And it's all about prompting and what you ask of the AI, you can, you can reword a sentence and get a very different result from it. And I think there's almost like an art form developing in prompt engineering.

Greg

06:12 - 06:30

And that's an actual thing. I don't know if you've heard of prompt engineering, but companies are looking for people who are really good at commanding and steering AI to get the results they want from it. So that's kind of my take. But Shadows, I know that you're a power user when it comes to AI with image generation.

Greg

06:30 - 06:46

But I also know that you spend, oh my gosh, hundreds of hours behind the scenes in coming up with how you ask the questions of it. It's not just about AI. So I'd be interested on your take on this. Is AI our ultimate creative partner or a replacement?

Shadows Pub

06:48 - 07:33

Well, I'll be a little on the stop side. If AI is going to replace me for creativity, I wasn't very creative. So I would say it's my actual partner. I'm And when I come up with a potential product, then it's a conversation about the viability of that product and the style of that product and how it's being put together.

Shadows Pub

07:34 - 07:58

And then when I've got the product figured out, then it's the description for the product, how we're going to approach that. And then we come down to the marketing of the product. And it can create material for Pinterest in a fraction of the time that it would take me. So yes, it's very much a creative partner.

Shadows Pub

07:59 - 08:01

In a sense, the creative team. I

Greg

08:04 - 08:32

like that, I like that. And you do, we've talked about this on the podcast before, Daily Echoes, and that's where you come up with, you know, an image each day. And oh my gosh, the work behind that, I don't know without, you know, taking too much time, What does, can you kind of do an elevator speech on what the workflow looks like for that? I know that I'm asking the impossible, but just to demonstrate, you know, how much actually goes into steering the AI, right?

Shadows Pub

08:33 - 08:47

Well, first of all, we start with the words. We're going to need the definition of the word and how it's utilized. And then we're going to need images, potential images for the word. And then a process to select the final image.

Shadows Pub

08:48 - 09:12

And then once that's selected, then we need the symbolism and understanding behind that image and the word. And then we need the quote, we need the comment. That's just to get the daily epilogue. I actually sent ChatGPT 4.0 almost into a little giddy tizzy the other night.

Shadows Pub

09:12 - 09:14

I had to actually laugh at that.

Greg

09:15 - 09:16

Do share what

Shadows Pub

09:16 - 09:37

happened. I have a Goldbrunch room in which I display a gallery of printables. Which I'm going to be revamping for the next Expo. And when I mentioned about Goldbrunch and the fact that I have a cafe there that I invite people to come to to stay in touch from my email list.

Shadows Pub

09:38 - 10:07

It was very specific, like you use the cafe for conversation, you use the gallery for viewing. And it dawned on me that but the chat GPT didn't have the awareness that Gold Brunch is a place where people can talk. It's a world is world building. So I explained that to it and I showed it a screenshot of my gallery room and pointed out that the circles in there were where people could actually talk while they were looking at the gallery.

Shadows Pub

10:08 - 10:32

That sent chat GPT off into a bit of a monologue about how I'm ahead of the game. That's a whole new dimension on presentation and marketing. And then I need to call all my rooms related to that the echo verse, not even talk about go brunch, just call it the echo verse. It was actually quite funny watching the screens of material that popped up.

Greg

10:33 - 10:38

That's brilliant. The echo verse. I love that. Absolutely awesome.

Shadows Pub

10:38 - 10:38

I

Alessandra

10:39 - 10:42

was just gonna say it was chappy chat GPT going.

Shadows Pub

10:43 - 10:54

Wow. If the way it was putting the material out there, it was almost like that's exactly what it was doing. It was hilarious. I'd never seen that reaction.

Greg

10:55 - 11:00

Like it's like a child, right? Can I can be so this is so good. I love a red one. I love a green.

Greg

11:00 - 11:09

Yeah, pretty much. Brilliant, brilliant. Bailey, how about you? Is AI our ultimate creative partner or our replacement?

Greg

11:09 - 11:09

What do you think?

Bailey

11:11 - 11:31

So I like this question a lot. I actually read like a few years ago about how Descartes actually wrote about this in 1637. So this question has been around for a lot longer than people think. And especially now with like Chachabuti 5, I think it's like a digital multitool.

Bailey

11:31 - 12:17

I don't think it's quite a partner, but I think that it's really good at getting a general like view of things. Like with a multitool, you can't like farm with a multitool, but what you can do is use it for a variety of general things like a screwdriver or like a knife. and like really, really good and it does too. But then there's a whole bunch of stuff that I don't really notice that I'm doing that it like helps me find.

Bailey

12:18 - 12:28

So I don't know if it's quite a partner and I definitely don't think it can replace us, but I do think it's a powerful tool that we can use in a lot of different situations.

Greg

12:29 - 12:36

Thank you, Bailey. Can you, can you give an example with that off the top of your head? And I hate when people say that. So if you can, that's okay.

Greg

12:36 - 12:37

But yeah, sample. Yeah.

Bailey

12:38 - 12:54

Yeah, totally. So with writing, one of my biggest bad habits is that I use multiple tenses by accident. And it's really, really good at noticing and figuring out which tense I'm in and keeping me consistent with that. So that's a good example.

Bailey

12:56 - 13:14

It can help me find new books that are similar to what I'm writing so that I can like study what other people have done. I think it's also, it's not quite good at composing yet, but what it can do is help me find composers in the same kind of genre. So I think it's kind of good for those kind of things.

Greg

13:15 - 13:25

Yeah, I was going to ask you about that because you're, you know, music is your background, your profession. So have you found a way to use it in that endeavor yet? Not really.

Bailey

13:25 - 13:49

I think it's really good at teaching. So like I have, uh, I teach lessons for flute and piano and it's really good at like giving me ideas for things I can talk about or like do in lessons. So I think it's pretty good for like helping me teach a little bit better. And it kind of, it knows a lot of the social situations of like, like teacher, student, and it's pretty good at kind of identifying those kinds of issues and stuff.

Greg

13:50 - 13:55

Right. Awesome. Devin, how about you? Is AI our ultimate creative partner?

Greg

13:55 - 13:56

or our replacement.

Devin

13:59 - 14:15

I don't think it's either. I don't think it will replace us, but I do think it will make the room more crowded. I think AI is going to be out there creating. People are going to be using AI to create, and that's going to mean there's more content out there.

Devin

14:16 - 14:42

That doesn't mean there's room for our voice in our particular brand of creativity, but it's just going to be more crowded. As far as my personal use, my favorite use of it as it exists now for generative AI, is leverage. My example is I love cartoons. I've always been obsessed with cartoons, but I can't draw at a professional level to create a cartoon that would show up in the New Yorker, okay?

Devin

14:43 - 15:07

But I can describe to ChatGPT an image that I would like it to create, and it will create a professional quality image for me that goes along with whatever the caption is that makes it hopefully a funny cartoon. So that was really liberating for me. I can finally do something and show people instead of like, oh, look, here's two stick figures. And if I could draw, here's what they would be doing.

Devin

15:07 - 15:28

No, it's like, oh, here's a real decent image. And the other example of leverage is there's so many people out there creating content and written content. who are non-native English speakers but want their content to be able to be released into the English-speaking world. Well, that's a hard barrier.

Devin

15:28 - 15:47

I mean, people that read, you know, like Bailey's short stories, you know, a native English speaker is often very critical, and they're going to read critically. You know, I used to have trouble with Tent, but that's all in the past now. But it's hard. to present something in another language.

Devin

15:47 - 16:03

But ChatGPT can do that. It can take your best attempt at English and tweak it and find those little, as Bailey said, do the editing and say, eh, I would do it like this. That's not new content. That's not cheating.

Devin

16:03 - 16:16

That's taking what you did and making it better. And I love that leverage aspect of it. But I'll end with this. So, when I was in high school, me and a bunch of my friends worked in a shop that made record crates.

Devin

16:18 - 16:39

So, old vinyl albums and they would pack them in crates and that's where you would store your albums. And we assembled those as fast as we could. And the owner one day came in and had bought pneumatic nail guns so that instead of hammering the nails, we could shoot the nails in place and make the crates. Now, that was a great tool.

Devin

16:39 - 17:04

We made those crates a lot faster. But, we were teenage boys, and so we figured out a way to jam the safety on the nail guns and use them as machine guns against each other. So, nail gun wars broke out in the shop and, you know, it was not good. But, and that just goes to show you can take a great tool that has the potential for incredible efficiency and totally weaponize it and create chaos.

Devin

17:04 - 17:07

So, yeah, it really depends on the intent of the user.

Greg

17:08 - 17:17

That's right, man. You know, those habits and stuff. I used to have a habit with indecisiveness, but now I'm not too sure. But there is that.

Greg

17:17 - 17:36

Yeah, the staple guns. I used, my background is in upholstery and we had frame staple guns, probably like the ones that you used, the, you know, yay big. And those hurt when you staple yourself to a trestle. Then, you know, especially when there's no one else there and you can't reach the pliers and you're like, oh, someone comes soon, you know, a couple of hours and they'll be back from that job.

Greg

17:37 - 17:49

and by then they can undo me. So that's true. But Devin, from a legal aspect, you're not suggesting that people tamper with the safety rails on chat GPT, right?

Devin

17:52 - 18:02

No, I'm not. Actually, no, I wouldn't even say that. I think everything should be tampered with. Things should be experimented with.

Devin

18:02 - 18:18

We should figure out what things can do. We should be mindful of the legal. There's great potential for that kind of harm by ignoring the legal, so we have to be mindful of it. but I don't like saying so don't do this or make sure that you keep these guardrails up because that's creativity.

Devin

18:18 - 18:43

Creativity is making a mess and then and bonding the the gold in there that's somewhere in that all that spaghetti you throw against the wall but yeah we do have to be mindful if we're if we're literally stealing from other creatives and that becomes part of our content, then yeah, we need to be aware of that. And that's not cool. But it's a while it's a wild wild west out there right now on the legal landscape.

Greg

18:43 - 18:57

It really is. And you know, some of the most creative things have come from mistakes, right? So people doing something and you know, getting an unintended result, which turned out to be, you know, the best thing since sliced bread. So Alessandra, this is a great conversation.

Greg

18:58 - 18:58

What do you what do you think?

Alessandra

18:59 - 19:34

I have loved this conversation and I guess as for me, there's a course I'm very tempted to take if I had the energy to do it right now. that there was a surefire way that I could use chat GPT as as a power pack to help me do it. But but you know how I love to learn and teach about design thinking. And there is a new a new course that is out there.

Alessandra

19:34 - 20:16

It's already come out of its focus groups, and is is available and starting at the end of this year about generative AI and design thinking. There's so many things that I want to do or build. And yeah, I just need that power pack to get me over the hill so that I don't quit because I didn't have the energy to finish something that's actually worthwhile. So I think Just staying aware, keep reading, keep asking questions, keep trying it out, be willing to do it wrong, be willing to break it.

Alessandra

20:17 - 20:50

Yeah, and it's really fun. I just appreciate this crew of Creative Work Hour coming together to record these episodes because we're helping people and we're helping each other. I mean, we learn from each other on a daily basis because we meet daily. different configurations of us each day, but it's really lovely to see how it comes full circle and that a topic of conversation as we're checking in or checking out of Creative Work Hour will have everything to do with one of the episodes of this podcast.

Alessandra

20:51 - 21:00

So I love that and I love that, hey, Devin's got a new watch and which begs the question to our Greg, what time is it?

Greg

21:01 - 21:14

It's that time again, you've wasted some perfectly good time listening to the Creative Work Hour podcast when you could have been doing something else. But what about you? What do you think? Is AI our ultimate creative partner or our replacement?

Greg

21:15 - 21:20

How do you use AI? What does your workflow look like? Do you use AI? Is it a good thing?

Greg

21:20 - 21:32

Is it a bad thing? Visit us at creativeworkhour.com. And if you get value from these episodes, please let us know so that we can continue to create more for you. Have a blessed week and we'll talk to you again.

Transcript
Greg
00:00 - 00:31
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Creative Work Hour Podcast. Today is episode 60. It is July the 19th, 2025 and in the room today we have myself, Greg, we have Alessandra, Devon, Dr Melanie, Ellie, Gretchen, Hilary, Shadows Pub, and Wei Ling. And today's question is, you're sharing a struggle with a friend, what would be helpful to hear in response?
 
Greg
00:31 - 00:42
We were talking about this before the recording, Alessandra, and it's quite an interesting subject, isn't it? Because sometimes we think that we can be communicating well, but maybe not quite so much.
 
Alessandra
00:43 - 01:26
And we like to think of ourselves as creatives. And as creatives, we do kind of pride ourselves on being in touch with what needs to be expressed in the creative world, at least in our own creative lives. And the state that we find ourselves in, whether we got up feeling chipper and got our first cup of coffee and we're off to the races, or if we got up on the wrong side of the bed, having the feels throughout the day and sometimes having the feels throughout an issue that is either in time resolving or maybe not resolving in due course.
 
Alessandra
01:26 - 02:04
Sometimes we just feel like we're on a struggle bus. I know I've been going through that this week and I think it has to do with, I've been doing so much at such high intensity levels and then also having Interactions with people at levels that I'm not used to like it's taken a lot and I've really been struggling this week. And so it makes a difference in like how we interact with one another is do we have the kindness skills to be with someone who may be hurting or struggling with something and it could just be a frustration with a tool.
 
Alessandra
02:04 - 02:41
It doesn't have to be some big relational thing, but the feeling is can be quite intense sometimes. And if you're talking to somebody about it, the response you get back from them can either ease the struggle or it could make it harder. And I read an article this week that actually was written by our own Greg, the producer of the CWH podcast. And it did take into account that, you know, people don't know how you feel, their skills, to communicate that, and then their skills to listen.
 
Alessandra
02:42 - 03:02
And so what we're talking about today are about the skills to listen. And in some books, people call that emotional intelligence. And so this episode is about building or reinforcing emotional intelligence and learning how to actively and kindly Listen. Now, that sounds all so serious, and it is.
 
Alessandra
03:04 - 03:38
But my partner in crime, Devin, has a beautiful way of what I'm struggling, that he knows how to listen, and when I least expect it, he knows how to make me laugh. So as we were talking about the topic in the pre-podcast recording session, Devin got us completely cracked up with putting the perfect movie scene in when we least expected it. Devon, tell us what you have that just kind of brings an example of what we're talking about and building an emotional intelligence to be kind and how we listen to someone.
 
Devin
03:39 - 03:57
Sure. Thanks, Alessandra. Yeah, I tend to think and communicate in movie lines, because a good movie line often just captures a whole concept or sentiment. And as we were talking about this idea, the first one that popped in mind was one of my favorite scenes from the original Deadpool movie.
 
Devin
03:57 - 04:13
And this is the scene where the main character, Wade, Deadpool, meets Vanessa, his future girlfriend. And they're standing at the bar where they all hang out. and they start one-upping each other in bad childhood stories. They're just like, we had this, oh yeah, but we had this worse.
 
Devin
04:14 - 04:41
You know, that happened to you once, it's happened to me all the time. I keep going back and back and back and it finally ends when Vanessa says, my family lived in a box. And Wade counters with, you had a box? And that just hit me as a truism because some folks, that's how they respond is, is the, you tell me a struggle you're having and I tell you about a bigger struggle that I'm having or that I had, and obviously that's not helpful to the person who was
 
Devin
04:41 - 04:48
sharing originally, so that's what popped into my strange brain as we were talking through this topic. Thank you Devin.
 
Greg
04:48 - 05:23
Yeah, it is very important when we communicate to communicate well and I think that sometimes as Alessandra mentioned not everyone's taught to listen and really hear we're taught to listen to respond and I think that sometimes people mean very well when they say I know exactly how you feel and they're trying to relate to you and thinking of something that happened to them but it can be you know for some people it can be very dismissive can't it shifts the focus away from you and your struggle and onto them and then you know For me, most of the time, it would just be empathy. It would just be
 
Devin
05:46 - 06:08
I hear what you're saying, that sounds like a difficult situation you're in, that must be a real challenge. Something along those lines, that I hear you, I actually care about what you're saying, and you have my support. Without, really, most of the time, that would be what I would want out of someone I was sharing with.
 
Greg
06:09 - 06:17
Yeah, that would be really helpful, absolutely. Melanie, how about you? Sharing a story with a friend, what would be a helpful response from them?
 
Dr Melonie
06:17 - 06:43
Well, my first tendency, although I've mitigated this tendency a little bit, is to fix it. Somehow make it better. And that's not always the best first step, depending on what the struggle is. For me, it could be a whole bunch of different responses, even one that didn't make me feel completely heard if it were somehow or another appropriate to the setting and our interaction.
 
Dr Melonie
06:44 - 06:57
which I find kind of odd, but I think it's true. I really like humor when it can work. It's lovely. It's like hearing a response that was I didn't expect, which is always nice.
 
Dr Melonie
06:57 - 07:18
I don't know, maybe it's Americans. I don't know what it is, but to be not heard is a big deal. And it goes, I mean, it goes even further if you're female or if you're a female of color, if you're a person of color, if you're this or that. Not being heard or seen is a big deal.
 
Dr Melonie
07:18 - 07:28
So you can be heard or seen in a variety of ways, I think. So that's what I think about it. I really like it when I feel listened to and heard.
 
Greg
07:28 - 07:43
Thank you, Dr. Melanie. Yeah, it's very important and reassuring. You know, this question came about from something I shared with a friend. I'm not from the United States, as you can probably tell by my accent, which allegedly I have an accent, but I disagree.
 
Greg
07:44 - 07:58
Anyway, I was sharing with this friend, you know, I don't have family here, and one thing and another, and I said, sometimes it can get a bit lonely. And she said, I know exactly how you feel. And I was thinking, well, you know, your situation is kind of different than mine. And it does take the emphasis off you and your struggle, doesn't it?
 
Greg
07:59 - 08:07
So it's really important. Sometimes what might we say to a friend who is struggling? So Ellie, how about you? You're sharing the struggle with a friend.
 
Greg
08:07 - 08:09
What would be a helpful response from them?
 
Ellie
08:09 - 08:45
This question is so much more complicated than it seems, because as I sit here and I think about what helps me, I automatically kind of shift into the other role of imagining myself providing something like that, and I notice how tricky it is on the other side, right? The two are not... And I think part of what's there is The second that somebody's following advice about how to respond, it means that they're not actually tuned in and it falls flat. And so there's this way that I can't even quite answer the question.
 
Ellie
08:45 - 09:06
So I know for me, some of the things that always get in the way are somebody who tries to reframe it, tries to fix it. All of those are the things that make me feel like I'm not being heard or somebody's not with me. Some of the ones that really work, but they would stop working if they got overused. I've got one friend who always says, oh my God, that sucks.
 
Ellie
09:06 - 09:32
Or, oh, I hate when that happens. And when they say that to me, I just have this sense of like, oh, it's okay for me to bitch and moan about this, which I really appreciate. And then once I've bitched and moaned, then it helps if I get questions that help me bring myself to a deeper level of thinking. But it's really about helping me think it through and not getting somebody else's reframe, especially on it.
 
Greg
09:33 - 09:41
Thanks, Sally. And it is very difficult, especially when you're in the moment. Gretchen, how about you? You're sharing a struggle, something that you're struggling with, and you're sharing with a friend.
 
Greg
09:41 - 09:44
What would be a helpful response by that friend?
 
Gretchen
09:45 - 10:00
This is something that has come up. It's something Bob and I learned. I've been married for 48 years, 47, 48, I don't know, a long time. And he is entirely left brain and I'm contrarily, and he always tries to fix things.
 
Gretchen
10:00 - 10:19
And it came to the point where I would say, I don't want a solution. I need you to listen. And so, what's really helpful to me is, and for me too, now when I'm with others, is that I know, I was like, do you, what do you need in this? Do you need to just vent this?
 
Gretchen
10:19 - 10:30
Say it? And for me, if somebody says to me, and he'll say, do you want a solution? Do you want ideas? Or do you just need to be heard on this one?
 
Gretchen
10:30 - 11:02
And do you need to just get stuff out? So when it comes to when I'm struggling with something, that's the big thing is that give me the option. And I think I have to focus through when I'm doing that, interacting with others. I think if I need that, I need that option of, no, I don't want a solution, I just need to get it out, or say, or vent, or have some empathy around the situation, or do I need ideas?
 
Gretchen
11:03 - 11:16
And it might be both. It might be a stair step of like, I'm at this level, I need to get this, and then we can either spiral down or stair step up, one of the two. That's me.
 
Greg
11:16 - 11:24
Thanks, Gretchen. Yeah, that's really helpful. You might not know what you need, and that's okay as well. And it would be really helpful if someone said, what is it that you need?
 
Greg
11:24 - 11:34
I really like that as a response from a friend. And, you know, he said, I'm not really sure. And the response back could be, well, you know, I'm here to listen. So absolutely great pointers on that.
 
Greg
11:35 - 11:41
Hilary, you're talking to a friend, you're sharing a struggle. What would be a helpful response?
 
Hillary
11:41 - 12:03
Greg, this is a great question. This is a great question. I am about to find out. I literally get to reflect on what do I want to hear from a friend I've been reaching out to over the last few days to talk about something very specific that I'm hoping to get their help with.
 
Hillary
12:03 - 12:29
So that really gets me into that mindset of what would I want to hear from them? And then of course then I think about how would I respond to somebody coming to me with this kind of situation. And I'm not sure I would naturally do what I'm hoping to get. So what I'm hoping to get would be someone, and I think I want this from everybody, is somebody who will ask clarifying questions.
 
Hillary
12:30 - 13:02
Because if you're listening to me ramble on about something, the odds of me using the proper words to truly describe the complexity of the abstract thought I am trying to get across, you know, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get it right on the first time. So if you were to ask a clarifying question, I think to me, That's the symbol, the action of active listening. And active listening is a skill. I'm still a Toastmaster.
 
Hillary
13:02 - 13:30
I've been a Toastmaster for eight years to better communicate across the board. And the listening is such an important part of the communication concept, you know, to take it in. And that's the concept, you know, not waiting to reply. but to marinate in what they said to you because that's the acceptance of the message.
 
Hillary
13:30 - 13:47
And that's when somebody feels hurt because those words went in and they could tell. So I would hope for that, but I'm not saying I would actually do that. I think I am more of a, I call myself a distractor. So I will listen.
 
Hillary
13:47 - 14:05
I think I'm one of those, man, that sucks kind of thing. And I would hope to, get better at asking clarifying questions myself. I think I'm going to turn that into a maybe table topics at Toastmasters. Greg, this might have given me a really good idea.
 
Hillary
14:05 - 14:12
So yeah, I think that's what I hope for, what I think I do, and a new game plan. Thanks, Greg. You're welcome.
 
Greg
14:12 - 14:26
Hillary, I know exactly how you feel. I'm joking. I'm sorry, I couldn't help. But you know, the clarifying questions, that's a wonderful thing because it shows that they're listening and that they want to understand and they're engaged.
 
Greg
14:26 - 14:46
But it made me think as well that with the whole communication issue, maybe on the flip side of it, we could ask better questions or maybe we could share them better. We could say to a friend, I'm really struggling and I don't need you to try and solve it. I need someone, I need to talk and I just need you to hear. That communication is a two-way street as well.
 
Greg
14:46 - 14:53
Thanks, Hilary, for that. Shadows, you're sharing a struggle with a friend. What would be helpful to hear in response?
 
Shadows Pub
14:55 - 15:07
That's kind of foreign territory for me. I'm usually more on the listening side. So, yeah, I guess probably I'd want to see some indication that I'm not only being listened to, but that I'm being understood.
 
Greg
15:07 - 15:13
Thanks, Shadows. Waylene, you're sharing a struggle with a friend. What would be a helpful response from your friend?
 
Wai Ling
15:14 - 15:56
So by now, I think we have so many rich answers around the room. And I really think that when the person who is sharing the struggle, they are usually maybe a little bit more embedded in whatever they are struggling with. So I feel in that situation, the listener should be the one who should have the emotional intelligence. And I really, really think it's about having active listening like you're listening not to respond but to understand and I really like what Gretchen say on the one the person who is sharing they can if they have the emotional intelligence they can say all right I want to
 
Wai Ling
15:57 - 16:50
vent or I want to process this emotion with you or I need advice because I think you can support me in whatever because this is something that you have gone through But really, listening is really, really a gift that you can give to that person who is sharing. And I also think people should be comfortable with silence, both sides. That you can just speak and let it land and just let whatever that is processing process and not needing to just feel every moment. and I think that's something that I'm also trying to work towards not only asking questions where clarifying but also ask curiosity questions like why do you feel so or how does it make you feel like that you know and not really needing to rush to a conclusion so
 
Wai Ling
16:51 - 17:01
yeah those are my thoughts and I think that at the end of the day the listener has more responsibility in really being there for that person.
 
Greg
17:02 - 17:06
Thank you, Wei Ling. Absolutely. I agree with that. You know, communication is so, so important.
 
Greg
17:06 - 17:23
We're not all toward it. And you know, communication changes depending on the medium, doesn't it? You know, if we're face to face with somebody, we can see facial expressions, we can see body language, we can see tells when we're talking to them, but we can't see them. We can still pick up on tone of voice and collection, volume, things like that.
 
Greg
17:24 - 17:33
If we are communicating in writing, all we have is the words and oh boy, can they sometimes be Please see the video description for more information.
 
Alessandra
17:36 - 17:57
Well, it is. And, you know, a question like today's, like, I almost, I'm getting to the point where I could anticipate what shadows may say to every once in a while, I'll have a question. And so she, this was one of those days, I'm like, I think I know what she's going to say. Let me tell you about shadows.
 
Alessandra
17:58 - 18:35
I would love if we, if we figured out a way I have been an emotional kitten up a tree on a myriad of occasions. And she would be the fireman who would come to the tree and maybe ask me one question. And in her skill of being able to do that, I would find myself in really rapid time, re-regulating my whole nervous system. And I don't know how she does it.
 
Alessandra
18:35 - 19:26
I don't know if it's some hippie witch shit she does, but it is a skill and I would love to learn. The thing that she knows how to do with crafting a very, very brief, clarifying question that helps me when I'm having a hard time. And then when I was listening to Gretchen's response, about what she has worked out with Bob. When I am emoting, it can be really hard to put the words together to say what's happening to me, to someone that I know cares about my welfare.
 
Alessandra
19:27 - 19:41
And when I'm really upset, I would love that. And Devin does that. And I think it may not be as left brain styled as what Bob does for Gretchen. But I do love that.
 
Alessandra
19:41 - 19:56
Because even this week, I remember you saying to me, Devin, when I was telling you about my struggle, you were like, look, I don't want to fix you. If you want an idea in that direction, we can go there. But I just want you to know that I'm here. What do you have, Dr. Melanie?
 
Dr Melonie
19:57 - 20:45
You know, it's also different. I mean, dealing with, for instance, any of us with a certain level of experience and emotional intelligence already, some of what we can do very quickly with each other or ourselves, you can't do with everybody. So, you know, it also depends on who's having the struggle and maybe a little bit how old they are or what they're used to, which takes a little, as I like to call it in my work, profiling and a little test question, you know, and you sort of or maybe even not a test question, maybe just something that's like something that you think will either challenge them or let them know that you're actually sort of sitting there listening.
 
Dr Melonie
20:46 - 21:01
Or you already understand where the hell they are and, you know, how would they like you to go ahead with it? I mean, that's possible to do. But, you know, I mean, none of us are 20 anymore, so it's a whole different kettle of fish. I mean, we've practiced this shit.
 
Greg
21:02 - 21:11
Thanks, Dr. Melanie. I think sometimes the closer you are as well, the more it could be misconstrued because we think we know what they're going to say. Well, Gretchen, I see you have your hand up. What are your thoughts?
 
Gretchen
21:12 - 21:53
Well, I just want to clarify that asking what do you need in this situation doesn't come easily. That came about for us after years of struggling with not having that happen and the fact that We were more committed to being together than to being so that it's caused problems. So it came to a point, it really does come to a point where it's a conscious effort and it is not easy for him. to stop his natural way of trying to fix everything and look at it.
 
Gretchen
21:54 - 22:35
But because of the commitment that we have to each other, it took a long time. And so it's like Wai Ling said about the active listening. It is a conscious effort that you need to say to yourself every time you go into a situation or you're experiencing a situation like that going, hold it. Somebody's sharing, this is not about me, this is about what they're sharing, and if that's what you're hearing, and if you're going into a situation where you're sharing something and the person you're sharing with is not there for you in that, Then why are you sharing it that
 
Gretchen
22:35 - 22:59
with them? Maybe reevaluate and tell or maybe you just haven't told them and that's what came down to it this for us This is how this was discovered. It was a Norwegian redhead blown her top going. I don't need a Solution I need a listen and the look on the face was like oh Why didn't you
 
Hillary
22:59 - 23:00
say that?
 
Greg
23:00 - 23:03
Right. Communication.
 
Hillary
23:03 - 23:32
I just wanted to get in a shameless plug for Toastmasters to say this is the perfect place to practice such skills where the exercises are active listening and learning how to give proper responses and evaluations of things. It's as hokey as it sounds. It makes my communication in my relationship better. and it's a skill set that works across the board.
 
Hillary
23:32 - 23:34
Toastmasters, yay!
 
Greg
23:35 - 23:41
Thanks Hilary. Maybe we can put a note in the show notes with a link for learn more about Toastmasters.
 
Dr Melonie
23:41 - 24:05
There's also something called non-violent communication which is a group, oh my goodness I forgot the name of the psychologist who started it, but it works really well for beginners on up and they have places all over the world you can just google NVC so that's also another way to sort of actually learn how to do it and then maybe apply it in a Toastmaster.
 
Alessandra
24:06 - 24:37
It sounds like a beautiful topic for for a future episode is what in the world is nonviolent communication? And how is that something that you can pull into your life and into your creative work? We're always looking for juicy topics that get us interested enough because we are very we are In Creative Work Hour, this group comes together on a daily basis. And honestly, the tagline for the first year and a half was, we are the best group of friends we've ever had that don't talk.
 
Alessandra
24:38 - 24:47
Because all we do is come in. In the first five minutes, we say, we're going to work on this. And then we turn all of our mics off. And at the end, we turn our mics back on.
 
Alessandra
24:47 - 24:52
We're like, OK, this is actually what happened. And there's no shame. So you don't have to lie about it. Boom, we're done.
 
Alessandra
24:54 - 25:34
And so, yes, the best group of friends that don't talk to each other. So this podcast has become the gift that we give ourselves that once a week we take a topic that has been emerging through the creative work of each of us and we find that thread and we pull that thread and we refine it into a question that we serve to each of us that are equal co-hosts in this episode, and we work the topic, and that is the cake that we all bake together. And yeah, we've got to break a few eggs to make it, and sometimes the mics are wonky, but the conversation is always loving, accepting.
 
Alessandra
25:35 - 26:02
We have learned to listen to each other as the core value of Creative Work Hour from day one, that this is a safe place. that it's okay if shit happens in your life. And we have found that this little group has been the landing spot when some of us have gotten the worst news that a guy can get. And in those moments when you're like, I don't know what to do, we'll have people come here.
 
Alessandra
26:02 - 26:21
And that has got to be the greatest compliment of any of my life's work. I know that. And I know that the trustworthiness that's in this room is nothing that I will ever, ever take for granted. I'm just wondering, Greg, because this may be our longest episode ever.
 
Alessandra
26:21 - 26:31
We like to kind of keep them short, but the value just kept building layer after layer. So Greg, I got to ask you, What time is it?
 
Greg
26:31 - 26:45
It's that time again. You've wasted some perfectly good time listening to the Creative Work Hour podcast when you could have been doing something else. But how about you? If you were sharing a struggle with a friend, what would be helpful to hear back from them?
 
Greg
26:46 - 26:51
Visit us on creativeworkhour.com and come back next week and we'll have another discussion.

Episode 59 Transcript 
=========================================
Greg
00:00 - 00:35
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Creative Work Hour podcast. Today is July the 12th, 2025 and we're on episode 59 and we're talking about creativity and how you decide what to work on. In the room today you've got myself, Greg, we've got Alessandra, we have Rochelle, Devon, Nate, Michael J, Shadows Pub and Bobby B. With that, the question for today is when it comes to your creativity, how do you decide what you're going to work on next?

Greg
00:35 - 00:43
And Alessandra, we were talking right before we started to record and you had given a couple of good examples of that. What was one of those examples?

Alessandra
00:43 - 01:17
Yeah, so one example is sometimes the most creative thing that you can do is take care of yourself. It could be, and in creative work hour we always start the top of the hour by, we just kind of go through the room and each person takes a turn on saying what they intend to work on during that given creative work hour. And sometimes you just need to take care of yourself during that time. But other times, like now, Rochelle and I are actually sharing a tile in Zoom, which is the tool that we use to record our podcasts so that we can see each other.

Alessandra
01:17 - 01:35
It is our recording studio. And we're here for Clarinet Fest. And Clarinet Fest is the largest international grouping that gathers together for clarinetists of all kinds, composers, performers, arrangers, AV people, clarinet makers. the whole thing.

Alessandra
01:50 - 02:08
I'm home and the creative work is that I need to take care of myself or work a little bit on the poem. We've just come off doing two days of speaking engagements here at Clarinet Fest. Rochelle was on Thursday and I was yesterday. And today we have a couple of concerts that we're playing.

Alessandra
02:09 - 02:24
So it's, everything is, is bebopping, but it all comes down to what do you do creatively? one hour at a time, whether you are off on your own, in a big, big group, or right here on Creative Work Hour.

Greg
02:24 - 02:33
Thanks, Alessandra. Yeah, that's interesting. You said what you're going to work on one hour at a time. And I was thinking about creativity being like seasons.

Greg
02:33 - 02:43
What season are you in? What's the season for the creativity? But you know, seasons is four seasons in a year, right? And they last three months at a time.

Greg
02:43 - 03:06
But We also could have micro seasons and a micro season might be an hour, might be a day, a week, a month, a day, a weekday. And I think for me, it's what will my wearable lend itself to me doing? What mental load can I take? Can I take on a project where I'm going to write a thousand word blog post?

Greg
03:06 - 03:24
I'm going to write a book, I'm going to paint a picture, or maybe I'm just going to write a few words on a scrap of paper. Am I in a season or a micro-season? Rochelle, you had given up some good examples earlier as well, because we were on the pre-call with us. When it comes to your creativity, how do you decide what you're going to work on next?

Greg
03:24 - 03:25
And can you give us an example?

Rochelle
03:26 - 03:51
Thanks, Greg. Such a good question, because to me it's a spectrum. From the creative muse, you know, what wants doing, what's worth doing, and then the other side of it is almost like the work that pays the bills, or cutting the grass, what needs doing. So in the middle, what I want to do, I sit and pause.

Rochelle
03:53 - 04:20
And being really honest and with awareness, listen to that still little voice that says, okay, there's that spectrum, but what is the valuation or weight? What really needs done in this moment in this hour? And I think that honesty sometimes is you got to cut the grass and sometimes it is. I need to work on my talk for clarinet fest.

Rochelle
04:20 - 04:23
So the still little voice comes and helps me. I

Greg
04:23 - 04:27
think y'all need to check your creative privilege. Getting to choose what you do next. I don't get to choose what I do next. I have very violent

Devin
04:49 - 05:03
Muses, they just come for me. And I don't know when. I could be in the middle of one creative project, and one comes and grabs me, puts a hood over my head, and drags me into my next creative project. And then there I am, doing the next creative project that I had no idea I was going to be doing.

Devin
05:04 - 05:12
But that's just how it works. Some squirrel runs in front of me, something catches my attention, and I'm off in an entirely different vector. So that's how

Greg
05:12 - 05:22
my creative process works. Right, that's when you need a good alibi. Nate, how about yourself? When it comes to your creativity, how do you decide what you're going to work on next?

Greg
05:22 - 05:22
What are your thoughts?

Nate
05:22 - 05:54
I might be restating a little bit of both what Rochelle and what Devin have just said, but to me, it's what is resonating. I am following the thread of whatever it is. And some of that is like, OK, what do I need for my own sanity? And some of it is like, okay, what is a thing that the world might be incrementally better, funnier, more at peace if it existed?

Nate
05:55 - 06:23
And to me, creativity is a very internal process. sit and ponder and consider like the ratio of sitting and pondering and considering internally like far out see exceeds the like thing that gets built in real life. But then I feel even stronger about the thing that gets built in real life because I have sat and lived with it for so long. So maybe it's the age of the thing that I'm sitting in.

Nate
06:23 - 06:29
It's like a fine wine, an idea eventually percolates like a cup of coffee or a fine wine.

Greg
06:30 - 06:40
The age of a thing, is that like the age of Aquarius? There's a song called The Age of Aquarius. I don't know why I thought of that but... Right, Michael, how about yourself?

Greg
06:41 - 06:44
When it comes to your creativity, how do you decide what you're going to work on next?

Michael
06:45 - 06:59
I like to noodle. I like to just dabble in things and things tend to then have seasons, I suppose. Yeah, everything that was just said resonated for me. The seasons, the changing, following the curiosity, the muse.

Michael
07:00 - 07:12
I guess there's also external things. I don't know. There's a recent call for, you know, submissions for like a local museum or a local place where they show these immersive films. And that spoke to me a lot.

Michael
07:12 - 07:55
So then that creates, I guess, a bit of internal energy to then create something for that external deadline. But generally, these days, I just noodle about and get curious about things and follow my curiosity. But maybe that's just the season of curiosity and then sometimes I'll grab onto one thing and then do it every single week for a whole year and then maybe get burned out at the end and say screw that I'm done with that thing I'm never doing that again and then try to find something else and then go feels like you're stuck in a quicksand swamp or you're you're just in a in a toy store and you just you just can't decide and you just picking everything off the shelves and but i guess it's just depends

Michael
07:55 - 07:57
on the on the season yeah

Greg
07:58 - 08:18
you forgot to mention that often times it will involve a croissant right but that's that's a very important part of creativity i learned from michael is to wake up and smell the croissant. But yeah, I digress. Shadows pub, when it comes to creativity, when it comes to your creativity, how do you decide what you're going to work on next? Do you have a system or thoughts on that?

Shadows Pub
08:19 - 08:26
Well, if it's not something that I need to get done, I take the possibles and I throw them up in the air and whatever lands in my nose is what gets my attention.

Greg
08:27 - 08:34
Now, does that depend on which nostril that it lands in or double barrel or how does that, how does that work?

Shadows Pub
08:35 - 08:37
I never tilt my head back that far.

Greg
08:38 - 08:38
When

Shadows Pub
08:38 - 08:41
something connects with your nose, you notice it. Okay.

Greg
08:43 - 08:47
And you know what? When you know, you know, right? And shadows know. Okay, nevermind.

Greg
08:47 - 08:50
Exactly. See what I did? Now, okay. Okay, nevermind.

Greg
08:50 - 08:57
You guys are no fun. Bobby B, how about yourself? When it comes to your creativity, how would you decide what you're going to work on next? Do you have any thoughts on that?

Bobby. B
08:58 - 09:24
I am a creator fronting guy that is horrible at finishing. So to me, I compartmentalize my creativity for those time gaps I have in my day, like if I'm out on a walk or a bike ride. and I'll record things constantly that my crazy little brain comes up with. But I have to say focused on completion, which of course involves creativity as well.

Bobby. B
09:24 - 09:43
It's taking those wild and crazy guy thoughts and putting them together and seeing if there's any value. But yeah, otherwise I'll just sit there and brainstorm and create forever and you know and never finish. So I have to parent myself in that regard.

Greg
09:49 - 09:54
croissants and all kinds of things. And

Alessandra
09:54 - 10:32
it's and it's true. And you know, and just like in seasons, you know, there's the ebb and flow of the thing like, like this week, it was, you know, I feel like I've been running around with my with my hair on fire going toward the creative things that that needed to be done as deliverables. And so one of the, one of the podcast topics that I would love for us to explore is how do we take stock of what's already been in the works and finish it or so that it can be delivered out into the world.

Alessandra
10:33 - 11:06
Like, I don't know about y'all, but I've got, man, I got tabs open back to when Jimmy Hoffa went missing. I don't even know how to explain that. So, you know, maybe we can talk about how do we, I think it would be a good flip to this topic of if we're saying, if this question is, how do we know what creative thing to work on now or next? Flip it and explore the topic of how do we know how to find which things that wants to be finished and delivered to the world?

Alessandra
11:06 - 11:18
That could be a scary topic. Yeah. So what are you thinking about this after hearing Rochelle and Nate, Michael, Dev and Bobby in Shadows? What are you thinking, Greg?

Greg
11:18 - 11:33
You know, I'm thinking that play is very important in all of your creative endeavors and to incorporate play into whatever you do, even if that's just watching a YouTube video about having an alibi. I'll share that in the show notes. But is it that time again?

Alessandra
11:34 - 11:36
I'm thinking it's that time. What time is that, Greg?

Greg
11:36 - 11:50
It's that time again. You've wasted some perfectly good time listening to the Creative Work Hour podcast when you could have been doing something else. But what about you? When it comes to your creativity, how do you decide what you're going to work on next?

Greg
11:51 - 12:03
Let us know. You can visit us at creativeworkhour.com. And if you have a question or a subject that you would like the crew to discuss, let us know that as well, and we'll do our best. In the meantime, come back next week, and we'll be here again.

Greg
00:00 - 00:15
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Creative WorkHour Podcast. Today is episode 58. It is July the 5th, 2025. We just had the 4th of July or another name for that is Treason Day.

Greg
00:15 - 00:38
In the room today we have myself Greg, we have Alessandra, Devon, Shadows Pub, Michael J, Bobby B and Wai Ling. Today's question is an interesting one and it's can getting lost lead to an unexpected breakthrough? Alessandra when we were talking about this you gave some really good examples just before, can you go over one of those for us?

Alessandra
00:38 - 01:00
Yes, I would love to, Greg. Thank you. In the work that I'm doing in the portion of my life that is about music and music performance, I'm a clarinetist, a classical clarinetist, and my strength is as a soloist. What is not my strength right now is playing with other people in ensemble.

Alessandra
01:00 - 01:41
And there are those of us, like Devin, and you, and Michael, who have done work in ensemble, in music ensembles, and it is not the same as just doing your own solo thing. In fact, there are lots of places along the way when you are performing a work or rehearsing a work where you can just get flat lost. There can be changes in tempo, in time signature, in keys. and interpretation and you're supposed to leave out a section and skip over it and then repeat the one that was before it and there's the Da Capos and the Dal Signos.

Alessandra
01:42 - 02:07
It is wrought with like walking through a forest. You can just get flat lost. And that is what has been happening to me this year as I have been leveling up and as I was describing it to you earlier, Greg, I am so punching above my weight in classical music right now that I keep putting myself in situations where, where are we? Where the F are we?

Alessandra
02:07 - 02:29
Alright, so tomorrow is another performance, and as I've been reviewing the scores, these are the notes to myself that I have found, repeated over and over. And it's these few words. I got lost here. I've got it written right into the scores.

Alessandra
02:30 - 02:42
I got lost here. Now, on one hand, you could say, I screwed up here. But that's not how it feels. And look, I can be as hard on myself as anybody.

Alessandra
02:42 - 03:04
But that's not how it feels when I read those words on the score to do the skull practice for the performance tomorrow. What I read is, I got lost here. Therefore, it's important that I not hold on too tight to what I am doing individually. It's important that I listen to those around me.

Alessandra
03:05 - 03:29
It is important that I keep going. It is important that I don't presume That I know what I know. And there is this uncertainty that if I can just loosen the grip a little bit, I can fly and be part of something that's so much more important than doing it right. Because it's really not about doing it right, is it?

Alessandra
03:29 - 03:37
Creative work is not about doing it right. Creative work is about what does it want to be? What is arising? What wants to be said?

Alessandra
03:38 - 04:08
How does it want to be said? How does it want to be said when it's not just up to you, right? So, from the Practice Not Perfects, which are the twice a day sessions that we have amongst the crew of Creative Work Hour, for people to come and they can practice musically or they can give themselves extra time to work on, hell, a novella or artwork for Daily Echoes like Shadows does.

Alessandra
04:09 - 04:29
The thing is, it's about the experience. And what does a thing want to be? And when we're holding on, white-knuckled, we're choking off the circulation of that thing that is creative, of that thing that wants to be. So what is it about being open and willing to get lost?

Alessandra
04:29 - 04:39
And we'll see what the crew has to say, what they have experienced, or what they might be open to try. in projects that they're working on even right now.

Greg
04:40 - 04:57
Thank you, Alessandra. Yeah, it's about the journey, isn't it? I think if we get wrapped up in the rules of the game, we get to play. Talking about a journey, some of my best destinations I ever went to, some of the most interesting places I ever found myself were as a result of getting lost.

Greg
04:58 - 05:09
But I just kept going on. I'm like, well, let's see where we end up. And, you know, sometimes you're like, wow, you know, you discovered something you never would have a really cool place. But what about the rest of the crew?

Greg
05:09 - 05:14
Devin, can getting lost or off track lead to an unexpected breakthrough?

Devin
05:14 - 05:23
Hey, thanks, Greg. And absolutely. This conversation had me thinking about a line. You see it on a lot of bumper stickers these days, but it's originally from Lord of the Rings.

Devin
05:24 - 05:58
from a letter from Gandalf to Frodo, in which he says, all that is gold does not glitter, not all who wander are lost. And I have certainly found that to be the case in wandering, you know, can be a good part of the process. And I've really been trying to think of a specific example in my life. And this is not maybe directly on point of the examples that we're given, but I can be a bit of a Luddite and I resist new technology.

Devin
05:58 - 06:29
And one of the technologies that I resisted was anything that looked like a smartphone and apps and touchscreens. I literally, my flip phone had to be pried from my cold dead fingers when it broke and could no longer be used. And at that point I was encouraged by Alessandra to finally embrace the new technology. And that led to a series of discoveries.

Devin
06:29 - 06:45
And now that's my whole livelihood is working for a company that develops apps. And I had never touched an app in my life. And I swear to God, if that flip phone had been a little bit tougher and kept working, I'd still be using it today. But you know what?

Devin
06:45 - 06:59
I had to wander a bit and get lost in the technology of learn how to use something different. And it put me on a very different and very good path. So there's my one example of how wandering a bit could lead you to a better

Greg
06:59 - 07:03
destination. Thanks, Devon. That's a great example. Michael, how about you?

Greg
07:03 - 07:07
Can getting lost or off track lead to an unexpected breakthrough?

Michael
07:07 - 07:28
Sure can. Yeah. A few things come to mind here. I heard some story on YouTube recently about bees and apparently 80% of bees will sort of follow the queen wherever she goes right and then will sort of stay around but there's a sort of a 20% of the bee that are just sort of free electrons and they

Michael
07:28 - 08:06
sort of randomly go around and and it's always a lot those ones that keep the the hive alive because without them they would just be stuck in one place and never go from the predefined track and never find other sources of food maybe that are around. So that's kind of it's fun to explore off the track a little bit get lost, mind wandering. And for me, I guess in my creative journey, We could call it that. Yeah, the randomness has been important, and I've just sort of followed my instincts here and there.

Michael
08:07 - 08:43
Although often it was with a mix of the wandering and the structure, I guess, has been valuable for me, like having a daily habit, a daily expression, but letting yourself explore what that is. But having an expectation that you'll sort of produce something, let's say, whatever it might be. And I guess I spent some time wandering about through different things. It was, oh, I was doing doodles every day and then did that for a while and it led to Oh, me realizing how valuable that was the the artistic part, but wanting it to be more dynamic.

Michael
08:43 - 09:10
So branching into sort of like a streaming where the screen and then bringing in music and then realizing like, it's almost a podcast. So let's make it a podcast and then doing this for a while. And then so there's sort of, you know, the bit of randomness here and there that sort of bifurcates and gets you off of the Off of the beaten track while not beating yourself up about it I mean, it's it's easy and in retrospect to look back and say oh, yeah that doodle thing.

Michael
09:10 - 09:17
That was a failure. That was a disaster Thank goodness. I found this but at the time like the doodle thing was great. It was awesome.

Michael
09:17 - 09:36
It was fun. It was valuable It was dynamic. It was energizing so often it's maybe too easy to beat yourself up for having a Oh, look at all the random paths that I followed, and what have they done for me now? Nothing at all, but really, I mean, they were all valuable for you.

Michael
09:36 - 09:39
They've all brought you to where you are today.

Alessandra
09:40 - 10:02
I've loved your doodles, Michael. In fact, I think right in our Discord server that is the stuff that keeps us together in the asynchronous way that Creative Work Hour works, I think we have images of yours that are from some of those doodles. on on the white cards. Right.

Alessandra
10:02 - 10:17
And I think that that inspired Devin to start his own little white cards practice. And there's like he ordered the special box. He's like, yeah, I really like that thing that Michael was doing with the card. So I've ordered in some cards and here's my special box to put them in.

Greg
10:17 - 10:25
They were pretty cool. Bobby, how about you? Can getting lost or off track lead to an unexpected breakthrough? Oh, it sure can, Greg.

Greg
10:25 - 10:25
And it

Bobby. B
10:26 - 10:52
took me a long time to get to the point where I was willing to risk that, you know, to take that, put that toe on that pond and actually create a ripple, let alone follow it. But I'm so glad I have. I mean, part of that was my issues with memory and related things and not being able to even come back to where I was before I decided to branch out. And I've developed coping mechanisms that can take care of that.

Bobby. B
10:52 - 11:12
So for me, though, it's there's an intentionality that I need. And along with that, I have to have the humble confidence to say, you know, this is OK. Go ahead, try that weird-looking food item. Go to that location that's just, you know, curious enough to see what's there.

Bobby. B
11:13 - 11:37
And some of those jump out from an alleyway as I'm walking down the street. But to have that intentionality and humble confidence is the strength that lets me go there and realize, you know, you're going to be fine. And the other thing to all this is remembering to giggle. You know, when we're childlike and things like this happen, you know, we touch them, we look at them, whatever.

Bobby. B
11:38 - 11:50
And sometimes we release that discomfort as giggles. And that's important to me to this day. Just remember to giggle about it and move along.

Greg
11:50 - 11:54
Yeah, I remember to giggle. Remember to smell the coffee. I like that. Wai Leng, how about you?

Greg
11:54 - 11:58
Can getting lost or off track lead to an unexpected breakthrough?

Wai Ling
11:58 - 12:39
I love this question, and while I personally really believe in the virtue of getting lost, I also feel like I personally struggle with dealing with ambiguity that often comes in the process of getting lost. So when I was writing my dissertation, I have this term, I call it navigating the messy middle. Knowing like there's an end and a research question to tackle, but yet it is sifting through the data that can be really demotivating when you're not sure where you're going to go. But the one thing that I did was really just take one step forward each time.

Wai Ling
12:40 - 13:37
And then at the end of it, when I reflect on the whole experience, I actually come to learn new things that were totally unexpected and those insights were written into my dissertation like things like I would not have expect to find and learn and then they were there and that's when I really think like there is virtue when it comes to getting lost. I am personally in the midst of being lost as well having completed my dissertation and I'm in this job phase stage and really feeling like untethered, like I have nothing to hold on. I think the one way that I can describe is while I have the freedom, it is both Paralyzing and intoxicating at the same time because there's so much possibility, but yet it's also paralyzing.

Wai Ling
13:38 - 13:56
And I've recently started reading Anne-Laure Lecov. I hope I pronounced her name right. She's a neuroscientist. and she wrote this book called Tiny Experiments and she actually talked about why we humans get so uncomfortable in this process of getting lost.

Wai Ling
13:57 - 14:27
It's because we are all conditioned to have a very linear way of looking at goals, like you gotta do this and there's only one way to get there. But she proposed that there is a different way which is you set up what she calls tiny experiments. So instead of having a goal to achieve, your only goal is to show up in that tiny experiment. So it could be like, I want to write a newsletter, and your goal is just to show up to write 500 words a week.

Wai Ling
14:27 - 14:34
And that's it. And then after that, you keep gathering the data. Week 1, what does it tell you? Week 2, what does it tell you?

Wai Ling
14:34 - 15:05
and also have a deadline on when you want to stop these tiny experiments. So in a way she's proposing more holistic method of achieving what we want to achieve without having the linear way of looking at things. So it's constantly exploratory and it's not like directive like you gotta reach this one goal. Yeah so I'm in this phase where I'm trying to deal and manage my ambiguity and Feeling lost.

Wai Ling
15:05 - 15:07
So I really appreciate this conversation.

Greg
15:08 - 15:17
Thanks, Wailing. When you're talking about the tiny parts, I was thinking tiny desk concert. But how about you, Shadows? Can getting lost or off track lead to an unexpected breakthrough?

Shadows Pub
15:18 - 15:30
Since I spend most of my time wandering off whatever path I feel like going, I don't know that I could ever say I've actually got lost. Maybe he's deliberately losing. I don't know. I just take whatever path it seems to fit.

Shadows Pub
15:30 - 15:34
And if I can connect it back to what I'm doing, great. And if not, oh, well, I had a wonder.

Greg
15:35 - 15:49
Oh, Roselyta here. Coming in hot, Hilary joined us halfway through and we're discussing finding joy or pleasure in getting lost. Hilary, can getting lost or off track lead to an unexpected breakthrough? What do you think?

Hillary
15:49 - 16:03
I definitely think it can. Is there joy and pleasure in it? I don't know if I'd describe it as that. Yeah, it's like, you know, being open to getting results.

Hillary
16:03 - 16:42
So, you know, maybe you've got some intended results and you know, maybe like cooking a meal, but maybe you mistake an ingredient. I kind of did that once. Macon was a vegetarian manicotti, and instead I used, it's supposed to be a white sauce manicotti, and I ended up, I forget what I was supposed to use, but I ended up using cream of chicken in it, and it made a white sauce manicotti, and it was phenomenal. So I think that was one of the few times I, you know, was okay.

Hillary
16:43 - 16:57
With that kind of pivot, but often, you know, for me, we'll take this to something more intangible of conception of ideas. You know, I'm trying to produce, you know, like an S. O. P.

Hillary
16:57 - 17:07
for work. I find myself. getting pulled to other outcomes as I do the research. Like, oh, this could be good for that.

Hillary
17:07 - 17:33
This information could be good for that, but it's not the end result I want. And figuring out what to do with this extra bit of information that is valuable, but not to where I intended. That's, I think, one of my bigger struggles because you don't want to lose this little bit of value, but it can derail you from getting where you are trying to go. So hopefully you can be aware that it's not what you're going for.

Hillary
17:34 - 17:56
Capture it somewhere to the side. Recall that it's there later and then maybe do something with it. But usually it's just a big mess and I squirrel and nothing gets accomplished and it's just more mess to go through later as I try to get back on task. So that's, I guess, my opinion on that.

Greg
17:56 - 18:01
Thanks, Hilary. Alessandra, some great nuggets of insights in that.

Alessandra
18:01 - 18:31
I love what Hilary was talking about there, like, let's just be real, loss can be messy, and that can be stressful. And I love how, and I remember very distinctly when Wai Ling was talking about this a lot, the negotiating the messy middle. And what I remember is when she was working through that part of her dissertation, her research, she was just sloughing through this stuff, just day after day after day. You could just see the color draining out of her face.

Alessandra
18:32 - 19:03
But when she got to the point where she put those words together and started to describe it as negotiating the messy middle, the color started returning to her face. And I would hear her say things like, so I just have to keep taking the baby steps. I just have to keep going. So with that, you know, when we record these episodes for the Creative Work Hour podcast, there are more people who contribute to the episode than you actually hear their voices.

Alessandra
19:04 - 19:28
And one of those people is Rochelle. And Rochelle, she sits with us every Friday morning, the day before we do these recordings. And we really craft what topic wants to be discussed in this week's podcast. What wants to be what is arising amongst the group of us and how we create together.

Alessandra
19:28 - 20:14
And from that, We take notes and that the hour before we start to record, I go into a room with Greg and we really hash out and craft a succinct question to allow us to easily explore in a short amount of time. in the podcast, what's up for the week. So how I want to just put a recap on this, the beauty and acceptance of getting lost and the opportunities that it allows for us to have just a little, a little synopsis from Rochelle, which she jotted down so beautifully is she was like, here's the thing. And the beauty of getting lost is that it could totally work for you.

Alessandra
20:15 - 21:03
It can allow you to, as Weiling says, negotiate the messy middle, when you, A, can do your best to stay out of that monkey mind, that self-judgment, when you can keep reaching, keep stretching, and keep going, when you can listen to yourself and to those around you doing the work, recognize that you are doing it, Even if you feel stuck in the middle, you're actually doing the work. And there is this phrase that Devon uses that Rochelle has picked up on, and she loves it very much. And it's something that goes like, so whatever you're doing, even if you feel lost, even if you're stuck in the messy middle, allow for the possibilities.

Alessandra
21:04 - 21:09
See what happens. And most of all, just to keep a go. With that, I wonder, Greg,

Greg
21:10 - 21:20
what time is it? It's that time again. You've wasted some perfectly good time listening to the Creative Work Hour podcast when you could have been doing something else. But what about you?

Greg
21:20 - 21:29
What do you think? Can getting lost or going off track lead to some unexpected breakthroughs? Has that ever happened for you? Visit us at creativeworkhour.com.

Greg
21:29 - 21:35
We'd love to hear from you. In the meantime, come back next week and we'll be here with another discussion point.

Greg
00:00 - 00:24
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Creative Work Hour Podcast. Today is June the 29th, 2025 and it's Happy Birthday Creative Work Hour. In the room today we have myself, Greg, we have Alessandra, we have Michael J, we have Devon, Melanie, Brizwiz, Gretchen, Shadows and Bobby B. Happy Birthday Creative Work Hour.

Greg
00:24 - 00:37
First of all I should probably say, Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday dear Creative Work Hour! Happy Birthday to you!

Greg
00:37 - 00:44
Copyright Ricky Bobby Inc. No, just kidding. Alessandra, Happy Birthday Creative Work Hour!

Alessandra
00:45 - 01:22
Thank you. Yeah, so we're doing it today, celebrating the birthday, because we always record our podcast episodes at the weekend during creative work hour. We kick off the session, our formula is, we have a few minutes before the session starts just to kind of have our coffees, sit down, have a laugh, And then at the top of the hour, we start the session. We all check in by taking turns of what do we plan to do with that hour now that we're here together in our own co-vibing, co-working space online.

Alessandra
01:22 - 01:54
And then we all kind of go into that heads down, whatever that identified or ideally identified work is. But how this whole thing came about was we met each other either in courses that we were taking or we met each other in communities that we were involved in. Often, most all of us during the pandemic, but probably about 20% of us after that. So we met in places like Twitter or middle school.

Alessandra
01:54 - 02:09
I met Devin in middle school. Yeah, but when we decided to do this, I had no skills. I could barely, like, get into a Zoom room without, you know, technical cursing. And we were on the road even then.

Alessandra
02:09 - 02:25
Like, this group of Creative Work Hour was literally born. on the road. And that has really never stopped. We were on the road from San Francisco and we were looking at moving to wait out COVID in Spokane, Washington.

Alessandra
02:25 - 02:44
So we had just gotten to Spokane, Washington. We checked into the Melrose Hotel and from the lobby of that hotel, I hooked everything together and I wouldn't let Devin even listen to me speak. He was not invited. Even though he was with me, he had to stay in the room and I was in the lobby, you know, shaking like a leaf.

Alessandra
02:45 - 02:54
And people came for the first time. That was the first session on July 1st of 2021. And now here we are. Now here we are.

Alessandra
02:55 - 03:19
We started out as two sessions a week. We let people know that we were around by posting in the circle community of building a second brain. And we'd say, Hey, there's this crazy little group that we're doing, you know, and if, if, if you want to try us and come meet us, we're just, we're going to hang, hang out for an hour and, and work together. It didn't really have a format other than what are you doing?

Alessandra
03:19 - 03:27
Okay, go do it. And then we come back at the end of the hour and go, what did you do? And then, bye. That was it.

Alessandra
03:27 - 03:39
That was it. That was how it was built. But Greg and Brij and I were talking before we went to recording today. And it was like, well, what is creative work hour?

Alessandra
03:40 - 04:04
And I'm not going to take up anybody else's space with how I describe it. But I am going to give you an analogy, if I can. And that analogy is if creative work hour, if it were a vehicle, what kind of vehicle would it be? It's not really a car, but there's a lot of comfort in car and you hope that it has good gas mileage or that it's an EV and that it has really good air conditioning.

Alessandra
04:05 - 04:31
And it's not really a pickup, which is highly functional, but it's not the same thing, right? It's really a crossover, but it's a luxury crossover. So it's built on the chassis of, you know, like a crossover is typically built on a pickup chassis. It's built on the chassis of the love of productivity and expressing things and how do we express things and our common interest in that.

Alessandra
04:32 - 04:43
But that would be one hell of a bumpy ride if that's all it was. We want a soft, cushy ride. We want a ride that loves us back. We want a ride that helps us navigate.

Alessandra
04:43 - 05:01
We want a ride with all the automatic things so that all we have to do is get in the car and drive. That's the vehicle description of how I hope that Creative Work Hour works. But Greg, let me hand it back to you. What do you think of that analogy of a vehicle?

Greg
05:02 - 05:19
I like that analogy a lot. It's almost like it's on the budget of a mini but with the refinement of a Rolls Royce or a Cadillac, but it's definitely not a Tesla. I know it's not a Tesla, right? So, but talking about analogies and describing it, that's a good question, isn't it?

Greg
05:19 - 05:29
Like, how would we describe this to a friend? Michael, Michael, how would you, if you were going to describe Creative WorkHour to a friend, how would you describe Creative WorkHour to someone?

Michael
05:29 - 06:07
I'll come back to what my analogy might be, but for the moment, how I would describe it to a friend is a bunch of zany, wacky, fun, kind, loving souls who come together out of a love for each other, support for each other, and just a commitment to show up No matter what's happening in their life, and they show up every single day, which blows my mind every time I think about it. I kind of come in and out, but the spirit is always, see you when we see you, and we'll be here for you whenever we need you. Well, you need us.

Michael
06:09 - 06:39
So we just, yeah, a bunch of zany, wacky people who show up to do whatever they're up to in that hour and support each other. And I see it somehow when you talked about vehicles, I thought of a school bus, but I thought of one of those, like, hippie vans on the West Coast. My godfather used to take these, like, green tortoise, I think it was. You go on these trips down into the desert and It shows up on time and from the outside it looks a bit sort of like, hey, like what am I getting myself into?

Michael
06:39 - 06:52
But once you're in there, you know, there's your butler comes with your cocktail and he's got your Tito's and your blue cheese martini and like whatever you need is just there for you and you just sit down in your comfy chair and go on your ride together.

Greg
06:52 - 06:56
Thanks, Michael. Devon, how would you describe Creative Work Hour to somebody?

Devin
06:56 - 07:15
I would say we're more like a mid-sized sedan, you know, because we're all in one accord. And that's what keeps me coming back. I genuinely love this group. I think, if I'm being honest, a lot of it's morbid curiosity, because you never know what is going to happen, what's happening with people, what you're going to see, what you're going to learn.

Devin
07:15 - 07:33
I have learned so much from this group. It's just amazing. And I love it that I can just show up and probably walk away with more knowledge than that. Then what I arrived with, but day to day creative work hour gives me a lot of creative structure, or it is my creative structure.

Devin
07:34 - 07:42
I have all the squirrels in my head. I know we all do. And I park them there because I'll say, oh, I should do this. I need to go write that.

Devin
07:42 - 07:51
I need to go read that. I'm like, I can do that at creative work hour. Park it there. Okay, brain, when we get to creative work hour, we will let that squirrel out.

Devin
07:51 - 08:06
And that's when we will address that squirrel. And that's just so helpful at just managing my brain during the day. And that's one of the greatest things about creative work hour is as you said, as Michael said, it's always there. And so you can depend on it as a part of your daily structure.

Devin
08:07 - 08:08
Thanks, Devon. It

Greg
08:08 - 08:17
provides a good alibi as well. Yes, critical for most of us. Melanie, if you had to describe Creative Work Hour to a friend, how would you describe it? Oh

Dr Melonie
08:18 - 08:51
my God, everybody who went before me, I agree with all of them. When I've described it, I say a bunch of people from all over the world who are meeting up. It's sort of Alessandra's capacity to remarkably and sensitively and with a great awareness of people's, other people's concerns kind of is the undercurrent or the full current. But then there's everybody else popping in and out and it's kind of wonderful.

Dr Melonie
08:52 - 09:06
It's sort of like when you're in school and you have friends in school. That's what I was just thinking when you guys were talking. It's not like going to school. Sort of like going to the cafeteria when you're in school or something like that.

Dr Melonie
09:07 - 09:09
I don't know. I really like it.

Greg
09:09 - 09:14
Thanks, Dr. Melanie. Shadows, how would you describe really work out to a friend?

Shadows Pub
09:14 - 09:39
I've heard Alexander call it the best group of people, people that are best friends, but don't talk to each other. That's only partially true, but the difference is that we could say one word or we could say a thousand words, and it's our choice. And that always helps. And personally, I prefer a mid-sized pickup, so that's the vehicle it's going to have to be.

Shadows Pub
09:39 - 09:40
Thank you, Chados.

Greg
09:40 - 09:43
Briz, how about you? How would you describe Creative Work Hour to a friend?

Brijwhiz
09:44 - 10:21
It's a little bit more difficult for me to explain it because I'm not regular at it but at the same time I sympathize a lot I connect a lot with Michael's input that of it being there for us it's like an oasis we know it's there so even wherever you're in the desert when you need that little bit of creative juice when you need that bit of support you know there's a set of group of people and a place to go to So that's one thing for sure. But if I really put it together, as I was discussing earlier, for me, like we have all heard of co-working space. For me, it has been a co-vibing space.

Brijwhiz
10:21 - 11:03
I think it's a place of people who immediately vibe with each other. And I think that vibe is the backbone of this community that I find, which makes me feel like I know all of you just by or the interactions I have here despite me not having almost any details of your lives but I still feel like I understand you and more importantly or selfishly you understand me so for me that is a place like that for me and from a perspective of a vehicle for me it's like a spaceship it can disconnect you from the earth it's your world out there we are in weightlessness we can do what we want to No one is judging us.

Brijwhiz
11:03 - 11:11
They are mildly curious. Sometimes they may join with you in the fun. So for me, Creative Worker is more like a spaceship. It's a great analogy.

Brijwhiz
11:11 - 11:12
Thanks, Prez.

Greg
11:12 - 11:15
Gretchen, how would you describe Creative Worker to a friend?

Gretchen
11:16 - 11:36
First off, I must say, I love the fact that Michael's Vehicle, it's an essential to have a blue cheese martini in it. Seriously? Okay, I'm gonna have to put the ingredients for that in my 25-year-old hippie camper van that I have. that I dig.

Gretchen
11:36 - 12:12
To describe this, gosh, it's like, you know, there's some things in terms of your life you have for security and in some ways, you know, I have my grandmother's rocker that's kind of that. This is like a worldwide grandma's rocker for me of people who are all over that I know it's going to be there. And I may have things that, like Devin said, that need to be done, that I can put into that time and I'll get it done. Or I can just come and decide to do whatever I need to do.

Gretchen
12:12 - 12:31
And there's no judgment around it. And there's no, I don't have to have, like my new motto is, I no longer serve the should. And that's what this group does for me completely. It brought me to that, coming to this, thinking about stuff like that.

Gretchen
12:31 - 12:55
And I finally said, gosh, I can just be there just because, not because I should, and I don't have to do it because I need to do this or that. It's just there for me to support others. It's like a support group that you don't have to tell the dirty secrets in. And you can just say, okay, oh well, let him go and just be.

Gretchen
12:55 - 13:10
And it's fun, it's laughter, it's just a good time. And like I said, it's gotta be my camper van. A Volkswagen camper van that I bought last year that's 30 years old. What the who?

Gretchen
13:10 - 13:18
Let's go. And everybody I open that door and people go, oh, my God, this is the coolest. And I'm like, that's what this is. That's what's created.

Gretchen
13:18 - 13:22
You open the door to this and you go, oh, my God, this is the coolest.

Greg
13:22 - 13:29
I'm scratching. That's awesome. Bobby, if you had to describe creative work out to a friend, how do you describe creative work out to a friend?

Bobby. B
13:30 - 14:05
Well, it's indescribably delicious, but when I envision creative workout, I actually see it as a gelatinous walled plasma ball. And a plasma ball, you know, a good old toy, has a core and there's all this electricity arcing out to the outer walls and then flowing all around. And we can walk in and walk out like you see in some sci-fi movies where people walk through this soft wall and suddenly they're in another space. And what I love about it is it's okay to just walk in and sit there.

Bobby. B
14:06 - 14:28
or take a peek and leave. Or you can feed the energy and you can feed your own energy. It's wherever you want to take it that day. But the amazing group of creative and welcoming people here is what makes you know that you're going to walk in there and there's not going to be any pushback from anywhere.

Bobby. B
14:29 - 14:36
You're just welcomed in, even if it's just to get that drop of energy that you need to start the day with. and slide right out

Greg
14:37 - 14:50
again. Thanks Bobby, that's awesome. So if you had to boil it down to one word, what does creative work hour mean to you? And if you had to distill that into one word, what would that be?

Greg
14:51 - 14:51
Melanie?

Dr Melonie
14:51 - 14:52
Collaborators.

Greg
14:53 - 14:54
You care to elaborate?

Dr Melonie
14:56 - 14:58
Not allowed. It was only one bloody word.

Greg
14:58 - 15:00
But you walked into that. You said elaborated.

Dr Melonie
15:01 - 15:04
No, I said collaborated.

Greg
15:04 - 15:06
Oh, I thought you said elaborator. Oh,

Dr Melonie
15:06 - 15:10
yeah. I'm really in trouble. I'm just naughty, nutsy.

Greg
15:11 - 15:11
Oh, my God.

Dr Melonie
15:11 - 15:12
Collaborators.

Greg
15:12 - 15:16
Collaborators. Oh, my goodness. Michael J. Support.

Greg
15:17 - 15:22
Love. Oh, shit. That was two words. Michael collaborating.

Greg
15:23 - 15:25
Devon. Safe. Shadows.

Shadows Pub
15:25 - 15:28
I'm going to say presence, but it really should be coupled with mutual.

Greg
15:29 - 15:31
Breath. Belonging. Wretched.

Shadows Pub
15:31 - 15:33
I think comfort.

Greg
15:33 - 15:42
Love that. Bobby. Life force. Ah, so I'll come back to me and how would I describe Creative WorkHour to somebody?

Greg
15:42 - 16:03
Oh my gosh. You know, it's for me, Creative WorkHour is family. It's like a family. It's a group of people who are somebodies and nobodies and wannabes and has-beens who all rub shoulders together in the trenches safe secure it's like that comfortable pair of shoes that you always want to put on that pillow that you want to take everywhere with you the teddy

Greg
16:03 - 16:13
bear that you drag along and How would I describe it? Family. I would describe it. Alessandra, that's a happy birthday Creative Work Hour.

Greg
16:13 - 16:14
What do we sing?

Dr Melonie
16:15 - 16:18
Happy birthday to us.

Greg
16:18 - 16:19
Happy

Dr Melonie
16:19 - 16:20
birthday

Alessandra
16:20 - 16:20
to

Greg
16:21 - 16:21
us.

Alessandra
16:23 - 16:25
And your satisfaction or your money back?

Dr Melonie
16:29 - 16:33
He forgot to say it's free. Happy birthday to us.

Alessandra
16:34 - 16:45
Yeah. Yeah. This is what I love about that. And I didn't, I didn't know you were going to craft that question quite so elegantly, Greg, though.

Alessandra
16:45 - 17:21
I'm not surprised cause we've done this together 57 times in these podcast episodes, but to boil it down to one, Pick a word, pick one word to describe. What I was doing, what are the colors in the imagery express who we are as the crew of Creative Work Hour. I did a lot of design work and design thinking work. Part of that is to what is the brand identity and I don't mean like in a corporate way.

Alessandra
17:22 - 17:41
I mean, like, okay, if you okay, you're our first identification with corporate branding is not like, as a consumer, it's as a teenager, as teenagers, we all We were branding. It's like, what kind of a person am I? What is my aesthetic? What music do I listen to?

Alessandra
17:41 - 18:14
What do I want to drive? With whom do I want to hang? That kind of branding identity exercise is what I spent a four-day weekend working on from Spokane, Washington. Devon was like, oh my God, all these papers, but it was, I was looking for those keywords and out of, I had my Kleenex handy, but out of every single keyword, the only one that is not in our brand identity, design paperwork for Creative Work Hour.

Alessandra
18:15 - 18:46
is one I just simply didn't think of, and that was the one that Bobby B brought to us. So the new addition to our brand identity is Lifeforce. So let me just, let me, let me give you, I'll change the order around so that they match the hierarchy of the brand identity word list for Creative Work Hour. Belonging, safety, support, collaboration, love, being present and a non-dysfunctional family.

Alessandra
18:48 - 19:10
And the cherry on top is life force. As a founder, I couldn't be made more happy that how it's lived out over some 3,000 sessions in these four years time is the list that I breathed and prayed would be who we are. So thank you guys so much.

Greg
19:26 - 19:37
Alessandra, thank you for giving me a reason to get out of bed. But it's that time again. You've wasted some perfectly good time listening to Creative Work Hour podcast when you could have been doing something else. But what about you?

Greg
19:37 - 19:49
What does Creative Work Hour mean to you? Let us know. Visit us online at creativeworkhour.com. And if you have a question or subject that you'd like to hear the crew discuss, let us know that as well.

Greg
19:49 - 19:52
Come back next week and we'll be here again.
 

Episode 56 - Creative Rituals.mp3
=========================================

Greg
00:00 - 00:20
Hello and welcome back to the creative work hour podcast. It is episode 56 and we're talking about creative rituals. Today is June the 22nd 2025. And in the room today you have myself Greg, we have Alessandra, Devin, Gretchen, Michael, Bobby B and Shadows Pub.

Greg
00:20 - 00:30
We were talking just before we came on air, Alessandra and I, about creative rituals. Alessandra, this got us really kind of talking about creative rituals because I didn't think I had any.

Alessandra
00:30 - 00:50
Well, creative rituals are one of those things that can seem mysterious. And we may think if it's not very exciting, that it's not a thing. Like starting your day with coffee, or going outside and taking a run at 5.30 in the morning, like Michael does sometimes. Or it could be something very simple.

Alessandra
00:50 - 01:20
I remember as a young founder to Creative Work Hour, my ritual Basically, to calm myself down, knowing that I really didn't know what I was doing, is I would turn the bathroom lights off and slip into a warm bubble bath, complete with duckies, and I would just sit there. This was not a functional bathy-bathy, no. I would just sit there and think this thought, what is it that my creative friends might need?

Alessandra
01:21 - 01:35
Just on an energy level, what is it that they might need when we come together? in 30 minutes or so when I'm dry and in front of the laptop again. What might they need? And that was my creative ritual.

Alessandra
01:36 - 02:00
And it did two things. One, it ignited a sensitivity of how to really listen and look at people that I care about to see how they're doing. And it displaced my own anxiety about feeling that I didn't know what I was doing. And so it helped all of us, that very simple creative ritual, though I didn't realize that's what it was at a time.

Alessandra
02:01 - 02:32
So when we say creative rituals, we think of something that's really exciting. Like what I was thinking of as I was coming out of a creative ritual today, right before creative work hour and recording this episode 56 of our creative work hour podcast, I was thinking, oh, you know, there are exciting ones. Like there are rituals to say, Not that I am one to really make a sports analogy, but I think this is right on target. That movie Bull Durham, you remember, has Kevin Costner and Tim Robbins in it.

Alessandra
02:33 - 03:00
And the Tim Robbins character, LaRouche, was trying to break the baseball team. They're losing streak. And so he did something, a ritual, that was, well, he was in the locker room and getting ready to go out for the game. And everybody in the locker room turns and looks at LaRouche, who is putting on a pair of white women's lingerie, you know, the ones we call knickers.

Alessandra
03:00 - 03:19
And Kevin Costner turns around, looks at him dead on and says, the rose goes in the front, big guy. And I'm like, boom, that's a creative ritual. Okay, so that's exciting. But maybe you don't really think that your coffee has particular importance.

Alessandra
03:19 - 03:32
And then Greg, what were you mentioning to me? There was a word we were trying to think of in our conversation directly before we came together to make this recording. What was that word we were looking for?

Greg
03:33 - 03:33
Metronome.

Alessandra
03:33 - 03:36
Metronome. The metronome. Metronome. Yes.

Alessandra
03:37 - 03:50
And I was like, oh my God, that's so brilliant. Because as a musician, when I get stuck or I become apprehensive about practicing, I need something to... I need pixie dust. I need a rose in the front.

Alessandra
03:52 - 04:21
And when you said metronome, all of a sudden I realized, you know, as creatives, we don't have to be the God that creates the first heartbeat. We don't have to work some magic spell to remove the blink flashing cursor off the screen. All we have to do is step into the warm bath of what's already happening. All we have to do is join the metronome that's already going.

Alessandra
04:21 - 04:35
Just pick a moment. So here is my artistic example of just joining the moment. Agnes Martin, the famous artist. She walked every day as an artist.

Alessandra
04:35 - 04:57
She also walked every day as someone who lived with schizophrenia. And she lived a big life, and she worked in large scale. And this is how she started, her metronome every day, her creative ritual every day. She would go before her industrial-sized canvas with a folding chair, and she would take a seat, and she would stare at the thing.

Alessandra
04:58 - 04:58
For you, Greg, what is that metronome?

Greg
05:13 - 05:28
Well, I used to be in a marching band with the army cadets. One of the instruments that I played early on was the big bass drum. And if you're not familiar with that, the big bass drum sets the pace for everyone to march to. Left, right, left, right.

Greg
05:28 - 05:32
And we had a lot of marching songs as well. But you know, like, you know,

Michael
05:32 - 05:32
the

Greg
05:32 - 05:38
house was there when I left. The kids were there when I left. My wife was there when I left. Left, right, left.

Greg
05:38 - 05:54
And there's lots of them. And some of them are not safe for work. But I sometimes find myself doing that in my head, you know, getting that kind of flow, which I realized could be, could be a creative ritual, right? If we're going to go down the river, we don't stop the river, we kind of jump in with the flow.

Greg
05:54 - 06:07
And it ties into that whole flow. We have our routines on creative workout, right? We come on, if you do a cup of joe, we say how we're doing, how was your day? You know, how about this politician and this is good and that's bad.

Greg
06:08 - 06:18
And then we do, you know, check in, right? What are you going to work on? And then there's a meditation. And then what's been missing is the little bell, right?

Greg
06:18 - 06:37
Which I just realized you've been holding out on us, Alessandra. And so that's, you know, that's a creative ritual as well. And so for me, I realized that the big bass drum, the marching songs, it's a pace, right? Some people chant, you know, they do the monk chant, it's the same thing, or the repeat things.

Greg
06:37 - 06:53
It's like the skipping ropes, right? They're holding the two ropes and they're going round and the person is waiting for the right time to jump right in, so they don't break their neck and jump in at the right time. And so, yeah, for me, that could be a creative ritual. But how about you?

Greg
06:53 - 06:59
Do you have any creative rituals? Or have you heard of any? How about it, Gavin? Creative rituals, Gavin?

Greg
06:59 - 07:00
So many.

Devin
07:01 - 07:18
Everything has to be just so. I have to have a fresh bottle of water, a fresh cup of coffee. I have to have just read a certain amount, because my creative output is usually writing. And so I have to have done my reading first and have words in my head.

Devin
07:19 - 07:37
And then I have to have all the objects on my desk, all my little talismans, my journals, everything has to be in its place. And then when everything is just perfect, then I start to try and create. And I think sometimes all of that can hold me back because I'll say, oh, I couldn't possibly write today. Look at that.

Devin
07:38 - 07:53
My pen is at a 45 degree angle to my journal. It's all gone. There's no way I can do anything today. When the stars do align, I do find it's easier to slip into that flow and meet my muse and get something going.

Devin
07:53 - 07:55
So yeah, there's a lot of ritual.

Greg
07:55 - 08:01
Thank you, Devin. Shadow, how about you? Do you have any creative rituals or any that you know of that people do?

Shadows Pub
08:02 - 08:15
I don't have anything I consider to be a creative ritual. But since you guys asked, I went to our little buddy, ChatGPT, and asked unusual creative rituals. I got a list of 10. Two of them caught my eye.

Shadows Pub
08:16 - 08:39
The choreographer, Twyla Tharp, she starts her creative day by taking a cab to the gym because for her, hailing the cab is commitment to the day. And Beethoven, he takes coffee to another level. He insisted on 60 coffee beans per cup, counted by hand, in order for him to be able to start his creative day. So those were two that caught my hand.

Greg
08:40 - 08:46
I wonder what would happen if it had 61 instead of 60. It's a day screwed. We'll never know. We'll never know.

Greg
08:46 - 08:53
Gretchen, how about you? Creative rituals, do you have any or what have you heard?

Gretchen
08:53 - 09:22
Well, it's, yeah, I do. Before I do my live show, my garbage can has to be empty. I mean, there's like a checklist of kind of things you do to get ready to go live on YouTube or go live things. But one of the things that if I don't get it done, I mean, I'm like, sometimes I'm running out the door with my garbage can in my hand and to go dump it and come back in just before I hit go live so that it can be cleaned

Gretchen
09:22 - 09:36
up. And if I had to clean my desk, seriously, only time I had a clean desk was when I had a student who thought that that was a fun thing to do. And I would let them do it. You know, like, go ahead, organize my desk.

Gretchen
09:36 - 10:05
Yay. Keep that six-year-old busy for a while. But because I came when we had this discussion and we had this post to us, it came to me in my writing this morning that sometimes a creative ritual, that we will call it a ritual, is really a creative block in disguise. and we claim it to be a ritual and claim it to be this and I can't do this unless I have that.

Gretchen
10:05 - 10:35
And what would really happen if we actually stepped in and tried to do it if things weren't perfect? if things weren't just the way we hadn't met those. So there's that trick that our saboteur, our inner saboteur does to us. And we forget that, and what I use, and this comes from a very good friend of mine that was a very wonderful metaphysical teacher.

Gretchen
10:36 - 10:50
She said, there are angels out there for every little thing that you want. There's a parking lot angel. There's a parking space angel. There's a, you know, there's a sleep angel.

Gretchen
10:50 - 11:22
There's all this and they're just waiting for you to ask them to come help. And so I have really started to try that because I do a whole lot of different kind of creative things. I'll paint, I'll draw my photography stuff, but I will throw a lot of roadblocks up on myself to not fail at that and call it, oh, I can't do it because... So instead, I'm not letting that inner saboteur get to me.

Gretchen
11:22 - 11:44
I'm calling in the creative angel or, you know, I think I'm gonna try getting the cleanup angel and the creative angel to work together and see if that will work. And do that and call me and say, I really need your help. I need you to block everybody else out and just let this go. So the garbage can and the creative angel.

Gretchen
11:46 - 11:46
What do you say?

Greg
11:47 - 12:00
Thanks Gretchen, you know I'm still waiting for the lottery angel but she's not come around yet so we'll keep hope on that. Michael, how about yourself? Creative rituals, do you have any or what ones have you heard of?

Michael
12:00 - 12:31
Thanks, Greg. Yeah, I was reflecting as I was listening to the others and Ranjan mentioned like the live streams and I was doing live streams for a while and I would always start them at 5.12pm or going live at 12.12pm and this was sort of a bit of a shout out to my mother My dearly departed mother who would always call me often, Oh, Michael, dear, it's 1111. I just wanted to say hi, you know that there's something about the the repetition there, which was special.

Michael
12:31 - 12:47
And it's still an inside joke. With me and my wife, we often text each other at 1111. But when I was doing the live stream, I would start at 512, or I would, you know, new episodes would go live at 1212pm. And there was just something a bit off kilter about that.

Michael
12:47 - 12:58
It's not like it's too easy. If you say I'm going to start at like five o'clock, right? Oh, 502 503. And then suddenly it's 10 after and you kind of you're doing something else and you got distracted.

Michael
12:58 - 13:21
Oh, whoops. It's like, Oh, no big deal. Like, so like, there's something about the off kilterness of the 12. I mean, really, like, For me, it was like, I guess having that radio on air light that's going blinking now and it's like pointing at you like go now like the conductor is raising his baton, you know, there's something about that fixed time when something is going to

Michael
13:21 - 13:50
happen, whether you create that for yourself or whether it's externally sort of, you know, imposed through a group or you know, the creative work hour starts at 10 o'clock. you know there's you show up and with whatever you got whether your pen is not working or working or you're not wearing your favorite t-shirt whatever it is well it's too bad now here's the time to go now so you better go now live you know back to you greg

Greg
13:50 - 14:14
thank you michael you know you were talking about the the sign coming on and i don't know if you've got krispy kreme donuts i heard of krispy kreme donuts but They have a sign that they put on and it's a red sign and when the doughnuts are fresh and they're just getting made they put the sign on and then people flock like they come out the woodwork and stuff like that but uh Devin I see you with your hand raised.

Devin
14:14 - 14:44
Just what Gretchen and Michael were saying reminded me I Take classical guitar and, you know, musicians have a built-in routine of warming up and playing scales and doing all the things to get, you know, your fingers or your armature loose and getting ready to play and work on the piece you're working on. and my instructor tells me every now and then you got to do a cold practice. You just got to sit down pick up your instrument and start playing what you're working on because that's how it's going to be when you perform it.

Devin
14:44 - 14:56
The audience isn't going to wait for you to play your scales before you start playing what they're there to hear. So sometimes you got to build in a cold open and just start playing what you're playing, and then you can do

Greg
14:56 - 15:05
your skills later. Thanks, Devin. I know Michael didn't mention it, but I think croissants certainly make part of his creative routine there, but he skipped out on

Michael
15:05 - 15:05
that.

Greg
15:05 - 15:12
That's a different podcast, right? Bobby B, how about you? Creative rituals, do you have any? Have you heard of any unusual ones?

Bobby. B
15:12 - 15:13
Well, I certainly do. And I'm definitely, you know,

Bobby. B
15:15 - 15:41
Others have alluded to this, that we're not talking about diversions or reclamations of creativity, but just, you know, the way we turn the engine over on a regular basis. And for me, I typically write and create first thing in the morning. So I'll open up some games. online and I'll play them and let that kind of get things going.

Bobby. B
15:41 - 15:54
Sometimes 30 seconds in, it's like, I'm ready. Just hold it. It doesn't even matter if you finish, you know, other times I'll be here for a while. But that to me is the most regular way of turning the engine over, seeing how it sputters.

Bobby. B
15:55 - 15:58
And then as quickly as it hums, well,

Greg
15:58 - 16:05
then it's time to get going. Thanks, Bobby. Alessandra, pretty good discussion there. What do you got for us in closing?

Alessandra
16:06 - 16:54
Subscribe in US English Oh my God, that's so good. But I do, I love the thing of that conversations that we have together here, whether they are recorded for the podcast, or whether they're just, you know, during our 15 minutes of hanging out together that we call the cup of Joe before the live daily creative work hour happens, that one person can say something like, what's the word for that? And then the communal retrieving of The word we were looking for can just lead to an insight or lead to a new creative ritual.

Alessandra
16:54 - 17:27
So I think that you have solved a problem with my getting started with the actual practicing, not pulling up the music, not making the music stand stable, not getting the four score app to to respond correctly to my edits, but just get a metronome going and join in. It can just be that simple. Like Gretchen said, don't let it be robbed from you by some, is it agent provocateur? No, that's alluding to the rose goes in the front big guy.

Alessandra
17:28 - 17:30
So what time is it now though, Greg?

Greg
17:30 - 17:49
it's that time again you've wasted some perfectly good time listening to the creative work hour podcast when you could have been doing something else but how about you do you have any creative rituals or routines let us know you can visit us on creativeworkhour.com come back next week and we'll have another discussion again thank you.

Greg
00:00 - 00:23
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Creative WorkHour podcast. Today is episode 55 and it is June the 14th 2025. In the room today you've got myself, we've got Alessandra, we have Devin, We have Shadows and Bobby B. Today we're going to discuss energy vampires draining your creativity.

Greg
00:24 - 00:44
You know that feeling when someone walks into the room and they start complaining about everything, from the weather, to their lunch, to the existential meaning of a Tuesday afternoon, and all of a sudden you're exhausted. Well, that's not a coincidence. That's an energy vampire at work. Alessandra, we were talking about this just before, weren't we?

Alessandra
00:45 - 01:09
Yeah. So here's the thing about energy vampires. And one of our co-hosts here, Shadows, is she, she knows more than your average bear about what energy vampires are, how to spot them, how they work. So it'll be interesting to get her take, but you know, as for me and my experience with energy vampires, well, here's the thing.

Alessandra
01:09 - 01:19
Your creative energy is, well, It's not an infinite resource, is it? It's gold. It's premium. It's precious.

Alessandra
01:19 - 02:12
And the more that you let it get hijacked by the chronic whiners, the vibe killers, the emotional freeloaders, the people that think your attention is on demand, those, well, Then it's the less energy of yours that you have for what really matters in your own creative work, in your life, what you have to give to others in a healthy way. Like these people, the energy vampires, they will suck you dry of all your creative effort. So, Greg, what do we do with this topic in this episode so that we can make ourselves useful to people who hear us and make ourselves useful to ourselves to protect our energy and to surround ourselves with people that are good for us?

Greg
02:12 - 02:30
Well, the question that we're asking today is, can you think of a time when an energy vampire totally zapped your creative energy? And what did you do to get it back? You know, energy vampires. It's a big boundary thing, isn't it? For me, it speaks to boundaries.

Alessandra
02:31 - 03:10
It is about boundaries. And one of the things that is so important to realize in not being the mark or a target, one of the things about guarding yourself from energy vampires is to see them coming and what to do if you can't. because there are energy vampires walking around looking like everyday people and there are some world-class vampires that mimic you. They mirror how you speak.

Alessandra
03:11 - 03:37
how you hold your hands, how you coin a phrase. And they're, they're trickier ones. And I can't say that it was coaching per se, but I did have a conversation with shadows and this was probably three years ago. And I was in the midst of a mess where I was the mark, but I didn't understand what was taking place.

Alessandra
03:38 - 03:53
I felt like I was losing my mind. And I think in my conversation with shadows, shadows, we were, we were talking about this. You use the term energy vampire, and you kind of had to explain to me what you meant by that. What is an energy vampire?

Shadows Pub
03:53 - 04:15
That's a tough one to actually put into words. A lot of times when I pick up on an energy vampire, it's an intuition thing. Generally speaking, it's somebody who not only is taking up your time and energy, but to no good avail. Like they won't actually try to follow anything that you kind of help them with.

Shadows Pub
04:16 - 04:37
I can give you an example of one person who came to me wanting some assistance with chat GPT. And I gave them some suggestions and while I was giving them some suggestions, they were going, no, no, no, I'm going to send you, I'm going to share this, this chat with you. And I'm going to send you all this information. And I was like, no, this is the prompt you need to use.

Shadows Pub
04:37 - 04:56
She was totally ignoring what I was saying, but she still wanted my quote help. and I disconnected myself from her quickly. The simple fact that it was going to suck my time and energy and wasn't going to improve anything for her, she wasn't listening.

Alessandra
04:57 - 05:15
Do you think, Shadows, that we can become, that we can be trained to recognize energy vampire experiences faster and that we can also learn how to, even if it's messy, set boundaries more easily? I

Shadows Pub
05:16 - 05:24
think so over time. It takes a lot of self-awareness and doing what a lot of people don't do is listening to their own intuition, their gut feelings.

Alessandra
05:25 - 05:46
I like that a lot and I think what comes with learning how to take care of yourself, maybe in an experience dealing with an energy vampire, is it requires a lot of grace. We have to give ourselves a lot of grace, don't we? What do you think, Greg, about giving ourselves grace to deal with it?

Greg
05:46 - 06:09
Oh, I think absolutely, because energy vampires are really good at what they do. They come to you in disguise, almost in sheep's clothing, and they reel you in, they get you on the hook, you get them, you know, to trust them. And that's how they kind of get their tentacles into you, you know. But you know, Alessandra, Can you think of a time when an image of vampires totally is up to your creativity?

Greg
06:09 - 06:14
And what did you do to get it back? That's the thing to get it back. How do you get it back?

Alessandra
06:15 - 06:37
Yeah, getting it back. Well, for me, what tends to happen, okay, I'm not going to just show up here and lie about it, okay? I'm going to tell you what really happens. When one gets through, because I was a little thick, or a little slow on the uptake, and one gets through and halves at me, well, once I realize it, I loop.

Alessandra
06:38 - 07:12
And by loop I mean my mind races and I review the material of that person who said this thing and I said that and this wasn't right and I could have done better and it's looping. It's going nowhere. It's looping, looping, looping, looping and I literally can make myself kind of mentally sick for a few days with that stuff. And so one of the things that I do is I just note that, yeah, I'm looping.

Alessandra
07:12 - 07:33
And I reach out to somebody and say, nothing really new happened. It's another day. And I'm still looping on this thing. Because until I recognize the looping, I can't come up with solutions because I'm stuck and all my energy is running out on this.

Alessandra
07:34 - 08:04
I don't know what to do or I should have done or so the looping just noting it is the most important thing for me. Then I can start coming up with a bunch of crappy solutions that I'm too chicken shit to do the hard thing. Now the hard thing is I bide my time. If I'm what I need to do to set the boundary if that scares me, because look, I will run from conflict any day of the week.

Alessandra
08:04 - 08:11
That is who I am. I do not want to go for a fight. I do not want to set hard boundaries. I don't want to do it.

Alessandra
08:11 - 08:33
Like, that scares me. But I figure out ways I can buy myself some time to not be around that person or buy myself some time. How might I put some boundaries around the looping, right? So, but that's me. And this is all very personal, like how you do it.

Alessandra
08:33 - 08:47
But like having somebody in my life, like, like you, Greg, Devin, Bobby, Shadows, like, it helps to put some constraints around the looping, and that it's okay to fail at setting the boundaries.

Greg
08:48 - 08:58
Thanks, Alessandra. Devin, how about you? Can you think of a time when And Energy Vampire totally zapped your creative energy. More importantly, what did you do to get that back?

Devin
08:58 - 09:31
Thanks, Greg. And first, I'd like to say, I don't think it's been mentioned, but if anyone is unclear on what an energy vampire is, you can watch the series, What We Do in the Shadows, which has your traditional vampires, as one would expect, but it also features an actual energy vampire and shows them at work. And you can see the effects and actually inside the mind of an energy vampire as he plots his attacks and finds his victims.

Devin
09:32 - 09:51
And yes, I have been the victim of an energy vampire. And what I find is first, to get my creative energy back, I have to change my state, as Tony Robbins would say. I've got to get a reset. And that usually involves, you know, it could be going for a walk.

Devin
09:51 - 10:31
For me, it could be trying to find something funny, something to make me laugh, get that sort of dopamine hit of laughter is a great way to sort of reset. And then I've got to lower my creative expectations. I've got to start with something maybe just as simple as doodling, you know, something that's I'm not going to go from an exsanguinated state, you know, crawling away from the energy vampire to, you know, creating my Magnus Magnum Opus, because there's just too big a gap. So I've got to work my way back up and let my energy supply rebuild so that I can get back to the creative state where I want to be.

Devin
10:32 - 10:55
So yeah, I've had frequent battles with energy vampires and that's my process. Changed my state, started to lower into the creative spectrum, and worked my way back up. Oh, but I think it would be great to continue this topic by actually having an energy vampire on the podcast so that we could have an interview with an energy vampire.

Greg
10:56 - 11:01
I love that. I love that. Interview with an energy vampire. Yes, that sounds slightly familiar.

Greg
11:01 - 11:10
Bobby, how about you? Can you think of a time when an energy vampire's always up to your creativity? And what did you do to get that back?

Bobby. B
11:10 - 11:34
You know, Greg, luckily, I've had some time in the buildup. And yeah, there's absolutely been energy vampires. And the struggle has been with me. And I think that's been critical because I'm one I've been one of these, you know, let me find a way to help make it all better people in the past.

Bobby. B
11:35 - 12:02
And I realize I am failing myself. I do that. So for me, it's owning my boundaries and there's always the conditional in this of what is the status in my life of the vampire. Because if it's my boss, getting away from that adjusting is different than if it's from, say, a certain family member of mine who is a lifelong energy vampire.

Bobby. B
12:03 - 12:07
So forget about, you know, my boss element for a minute. For

Greg
12:07 - 12:07
all the

Bobby. B
12:07 - 12:24
others, I tell them just directly, I can't go there with you right now. Call me back. Later or I'll call you back later. And if they continue to pursue I simply tell them you're not hearing me.

Bobby. B
12:24 - 12:39
We'll talk later and disconnect. And if they are there physically with me. I will turn around and walk away so that they can visually see that I'm not going to go down this path. That's where I'm at.

Greg
12:40 - 12:59
Thanks Bobby. Shadows, I know you shared a lot earlier but is there a specific time that you can think of that comes to mind or maybe a great example of when an energy vampire totally zapped your creative energy and what did you do to get it back? The getting back is really kind of what I'm wanting to hear about.

Shadows Pub
13:00 - 13:09
There's been several of them over the years. I always look at energy like time. Once it's gone, it's gone. But you can rebuild it if you get an opportunity to recharge.

Shadows Pub
13:10 - 13:22
So that's usually what I have to do to recharge. And by the way, just for total clarity, I am not associated with making In the Shadows. But it sounds like a good movie. Not for you.

Shadows Pub
13:22 - 13:24
No, I think it'd be a good one to listen to.

Alessandra
13:27 - 13:42
We do like to tease shadows about, we like to show movies once a month in the Creative Work Hour community. And she let it be known really quickly that she does not do horror films, okay? Oh, so good. Or green beans.

Alessandra
13:43 - 13:45
Or green beans. No horror

Greg
13:46 - 13:47
films, no green beans.

Alessandra
13:48 - 13:52
What about you, Greg? You're not getting out of here so easily.

Greg
13:53 - 14:03
You know, I'm thinking about it, and there is actually a good example. It's actually a mutual vampire friend. Can you have mutual energy vampires? I guess you can't now.

Greg
14:04 - 14:23
But yeah, it was about three years ago. And I was involved with somebody who turned out to be a bit of a fraudster. But at the time, people thought this person was a very respectable pillar of the community. And I got involved with that person doing some work for their organization for them, free of charge.

Greg
14:23 - 14:40
And some reason along the lines, in discussing that the person said to me, you know, I can't do these coaching calls free for you anymore. I'm going to have to start charging you for that. And that it didn't click. And I was like, there's something not right.

Greg
14:40 - 15:32
I'm helping the person I'm doing something free to help their organization would I need to start paying for it because they can't keep doing this for free and I think I talked to you about it Alessandra and it was probably around the time with the the shadows thing I don't know I'm taking a guess but it could have been right and so you know I think finding someone that you that you can trust and I've got people on creative work out that I can trust that have got good BS meters that are gonna tell me how it is not necessarily might not like what they've got to say but I know that they'll they'll speak truth and I implicitly trust that so I think that's the most important thing is talking to someone and getting a reality check because these people these vampires man they'll check you in and you will not realize it and once they've got their fangs in you they're gonna bleed you dry slowly.

Greg
15:33 - 15:35
Alessandra any closing thoughts on this?

Alessandra
15:35 - 16:09
I think part of the part of the the anatomy of an energy vampire is they're they're extremely good at gaslighting because just in your own self-defense if you're like where I grew up we would say that ain't right that ain't right And it's as though the energy vampire will anticipate that and make you the crazy one. And that's the essence of the gaslighting that comes with it. So all I'm saying is don't fight that.

Alessandra
16:09 - 16:42
Just use that as confirmation that exactly like what Shadows was saying, trust your intuition, and if there is someone who thinks that your attention is something available to them on demand, well, they got another thing coming. And if they gaslight you, that is further confirmation that your intuition was absolutely right. Your creative energy is priceless. Your creative energy is precious.

Alessandra
16:44 - 17:13
It is fleeting and no one but no one is entitled to it but you. Greg, thank you so much for creating this space, producing this podcast for us, using your own creative energy and protecting it so that we can make this where we ourselves can be useful to other creatives, to each other, and to ourselves. It makes me wonder though, what time is it?

Greg
17:14 - 17:38
It's that time again. You've wasted some perfectly good time listening to the Creative Work Hour podcast when you could have been doing something else but you didn't. How about you? Can you think of a time when an energy vampire totally zapped your creativity and what did you do to get it back let us know you can visit us on creativeworkhour.com in the meantime come back next week and we'll be here with another discussion question.

Greg
(00:00) Hello and welcome to another episode of the Creative Work Hour podcast. Today is episode 54 and it's a treat for you today. It is May the 31st 2025 and coming to you live from Bordeaux in the south of France is today's podcast. The question is how does location affect your creativity?

(00:22) Alessandra

Alessandra
(00:24) Well, I have to tell you that being in Berdou for symphonic holidays has been quite an adventure. I have never been anywhere this remote in my life. This little village of Berdou is in the south of France. It's between two mountains that have names that I would need to take Duolingo and a private tutor six weeks to be able to pronounce them in the native language.

(00:47) But I can tell you that this little tiny village goes back to medieval times. And you can walk from building to building, path to path. The buildings are very even and straight. But the second that you step out, you're walking on a mountain.

(01:05) There's trees everywhere. There are seven peacocks that I've seen so far. I've seen only four cats. I hear that there are many cats.

(01:15) Just to get to this food hall, which is called La Taberna, From the house where I'm staying called James's house, I walked through at least two dozen chickens. So it's really a very, very special place and the people who come for this event return year after year. This is the ninth year. of Symphonic Holidays.

(01:38) So we run rehearsals for the orchestra in the morning and from 8 to 10.30 at night and then it's wine time because you can't really pay attention and stay tuned. But yeah, it is. It's an adventure. It's difficult.

(01:55) It's inspiring and the way that I spend my time playing is just like the joke about playing the mandolin. How do you play the mandolin? Well, you spend half your time tuning it and the other half playing out of tune. That's been me.

(02:13) I'm the rookie and that'll be the thing that I work on in my music for the rest of the year. But this is a special place that I wanted to share it with you. So thank you, Greg, for the introduction and allowing us to visit this topic, which today is

Greg
(02:30) How does location affect your creativity? And I'm going to go around the room and ask. You've got myself, Greg. We've got Alessandra.

(02:37) We have Bobby B, Devin, and Shadows Pub. I will go to Devin. How does location affect your creativity?

Devin
(02:46) Merci, Greg. Well, it actually affects me enormously. Example I can think of, the best example, drop me anywhere in the Scottish Highlands and I just want to start being creative. I want to write, start writing a novel on the back of cocktail napkins, anything I can get my hands on.

(03:04) I want to write songs and poems and just want to express myself creatively. But leave me in like my space where I usually work. and my space here in Connecticut. and there's almost no creativity.

(03:20) And I don't completely understand this, but I know something about, maybe it's the work vibe, maybe it's just not, you know, there's latitude, but definitely a huge impact. And I would know that if I needed to be creative, if I had like a creative deadline, I would absolutely make sure I was in one of the places where I was confident that I could access that creativity. Thank you, Devin.

Greg
(03:43) Shadows, how about you? How does location affect your creativity?

Shadows Pub
(03:47) Well, since I don't change location, it doesn't. I'm probably the same no matter where I am. I don't know.

Greg
(03:53) Bobby, how about yourself? How does a location affect your creativity?

Bobby. B
(03:57) It can affect it quite a bit. If I'm writing things that are more in touch with emotion, then the environment can really project on me and sometimes I intentionally simply move to a different part of the property or go to a coffee shop or other location. But I'm going to echo back to Devin for a moment. I do have a location in the house I normally work from and it's like a long-term relationship.

(04:28) You know, sometimes you just have a hard time making it fresh, doing something. And so the other day, I rearranged the shelves above this desk, just took all the books down, reorganized them, moved some other stuff. And that was enough just to make the mundane seem a bit more curious. And it got rid of that little bit of mental block that can happen when it's the same place and the same thing.

(04:56) And you may know I do a lot of mentoring and tutoring, and I've watched some of these students sit down with their homework, their assignments, wherever they're at, and just dive into it. That's a little tough for me at this point in life. But I do take away the fact that you don't have to simply accept where you're at and the detriments that might be there. It doesn't take much to

Greg
(05:20) shuffle the deck. I think going to the library can change your creativity, going in nature changes scenery, even if you can't be there. Go there virtually, right? Bring up some soothing music, the visuals and stuff like that.

(05:45) But Alessandra, how about you being in the south of France? How's that location affecting your creativity?

Alessandra
(05:51) Well, it's certainly taking me out of my routine. I can tell you that because there's a different routine that we have here. But I know that when the old workaholic patterns that I have make me want to get myself to practice in the afternoon, but I... Don't do it because I need the rest.

(06:16) So the location is as beautiful as it is and as many little adventures as I could go off on or sit and write. I really have to preserve my energy. I was able to break, you know how some people have writing streaks and then it's like if they break it they're like, Yeah, broke my streak. You know, and they're putting an L on their forehead.

(06:41) And, you know, with my own writing practice, I'm stuck so much the time that I actually, I think it was a couple of days ago, I broke the, I broke the streak of being stuck, and actually wrote something. And I couldn't have possibly done that except for being here, because what I wrote here could have only happened here. And just let me explain. I stepped into the house, James's house, where I'm staying for the 10 days for Symphonic Holidays.

(07:14) And it was my roomie and me, and it was Jonas who helped us with our heavy bags over to the house. and I turned when we stepped through the door and we closed the door and I looked and I saw the one bedroom that's on the ground floor and I looked through that doorway and what I saw in real life was Van Gogh's bedroom. It looks exactly like the painting. It looks exactly like the period of the painting.

(07:47) What I saw through that Old Lord Doorway was the same window that's in his bedroom painting, the same bed placed in the exact same place in the room, the same armoire. I had to break the I can't write streak to write that. And that could have only happened through the magic of how location can affect creativity. But I do have to ask shadows.

(08:16) Shadows so you everything that you do creatively happens from your home from the same spot really and do you have you ever like Devin and I have been lucky enough to be invited to your home and We we worked at the kitchen table, but that's not where you usually work on a daily basis Is it

Shadows Pub
(08:40) no?

Alessandra
(08:41) And have you tried other places in your house? Because you've lived in that same abode for how long? 40

Shadows Pub
(08:50) years? 40 years maybe? Since 1988. Since 1988.

Alessandra
(08:57) Is that the same sofa? No!

Shadows Pub
(09:00) It could

Alessandra
(09:03) be close. So location can be global, but location could be, and that references what Bobby was saying too, and what Michael has said, and Y-Ling has said about using creative space in their own, is that this can also be micro locations. of changing up furniture, changing up books, changing up the room where you work. So what other places have you worked in that house?

Shadows Pub
(09:27) Well, I have a desk across the room. In fact, it's a desk my dad built. Oh. The problem with using the desk is that the cats do not fit on it well.

(09:40) With the couch, they can sleep on either side of me and I can get my work done. At the desk, they'll usually want to sleep on something I want.

Alessandra
(09:48) Ah, like the computer?

Shadows Pub
(09:50) Yeah.

Alessandra
(09:51) It's for the most. Warm mom. Exactly.

Greg
(09:53) I see a future episode here being something like, how do caps affect your creativity?

Alessandra
(10:00) It helps if you have at least one arm available. Sometimes. Because we referenced the village of Verdu and we referenced the symphonic holidays, we will include information about the place and the program in the show notes. So what do you think, Greg?

Greg
(10:17) I think that it's that time again. You've wasted some perfectly good time listening to the creative work hour podcast when you could have been doing something else. But how about you? How does location affect your creativity?

(10:31) Let us know. Visit us at creativeworkhour.com. And in the meantime, come back next week and we'll be here with another question.