This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:30] Laura Camien: Welcome to The Spark File, where we believe that everyone, everyone is creative, but smart creative people don't go it alone.

[0:45] Susan Blackwell: I'm Susan Blackwell.

[0:46] Laura Camien: And I'm Laura Camien.

[0:47] Susan Blackwell: And we are creativity coaches who help people clarify and accomplish their creative goals.

[0:52] Laura Camien: You should know that just by listening, all you have to do is listen to this podcast and you are joining a warm and wonderful clan of creatives.

[1:02] Susan Blackwell: But hold up. You may be asking yourself, what exactly is a Spark File, ladies?

[1:06] Laura Camien: A Spark File is a place where you consistently collect all of your inspirations and fascinations.

[1:13] Susan Blackwell: Every episode, we're going to reach into our very own Spark Files and share some sparks. And from time to time, we're going to shake it up and talk to some folks who spark us too.

[1:25] Laura Camien: And your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take some of those sparks of inspiration and make something of your own.

[1:32] Susan Blackwell: So without further ado, let's open up The Spark File.

[1:36] Laura Camien: Hey, not bad.

[1:39] Susan Blackwell: We did our intro.

[1:42] Laura Camien: Full disclosure, listeners, we are having some connectivity issues and we've tried... This is our fourth take.

[1:47] Susan Blackwell: Fourth take.

[1:50] Laura Camien: So wish us the best.

[1:52] Susan Blackwell: Fourth time's a charm.

[1:54] Laura Camien: Bonne chance, podcast.

[1:55] Susan Blackwell: Bonne chance.

[1:56] Laura Camien: Oh, that's lovely. I don't know what you said, but it was beautiful.

[2:00] Susan Blackwell: Good luck, podcast.

[2:02] Laura Camien: Oh, thanks.

[2:04] Susan Blackwell: Laura, how are you today?

[2:06] Laura Camien: I'm doing well, Susan. How are you?

[2:12] Susan Blackwell: We are laughing because the world is on fire and we were having a discussion during one of these takes about how when you ask somebody, how are you doing in these modern times? It's kind of a challenging question.

[2:23] Laura Camien: It's too much in and of itself. We can't encapsulate the multitudes that are happening inside our minds and bodies right now.

[2:28] Susan Blackwell: And what I pitched was that we all carry around a laminated trifold and you just pull it out and you open it up and you just say, how are you doing? Point to the face that best captures how you feel today.

[2:46] Laura Camien: And there's like a happy face and a sad face and a worried face and an angry face.

[2:57] Susan Blackwell: And I countered with, can't we just have a little Velcro on all of our outfits where we can put the little emoji of our emotional experience so you can see it coming?

[3:08] Laura Camien: So you're like, oh, here's Laura. It's not looking good. You could decide before you even like, you know, walk up to me, you know what's happening over here.

[3:19] Susan Blackwell: I think that's a fantastic idea.

[3:22] Laura Camien: Thanks, Suze. And I also, there's a series of those shirts that are like Mr. Grumpy and like, do you know what I'm talking about? Those like children's books.

[3:31] Susan Blackwell: So you could really see it from down the block.

[3:35] Laura Camien: You really could. I actually have a t-shirt that I wear in the summer that just says happy on it.

[3:42] Susan Blackwell: And one day I was wearing it and I couldn't, I had forgotten that's what I was wearing.

[3:49] Laura Camien: And so like people were like smiling and pointing. And then somebody I passed by, he goes, are you happy today?

[3:57] Susan Blackwell: And I was like, yeah, like, how did you know that? And he was like, I could tell. And then I realized I was wearing that t-shirt and I was like, I'm such a doofus.

[4:08] Laura Camien: That's awesome. But it is kind of nice. It lets people know like, hey, here's a happy person approaching.

[4:14] Susan Blackwell: But you can have other shirts made, detached, despondent.

[4:19] Laura Camien: Completely numb.

[4:20] Susan Blackwell: Numbed out.

[4:21] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[4:22] Susan Blackwell: That's a horror movie script I'm writing. It's called The Numbening.

[4:25] Laura Camien: The Numbening.

[4:26] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. I mean, for all, all of our listeners who are most likely highly sensitive people and empaths.

[4:38] Laura Camien: Yeah. It's a lot. It's a lot to try to be a human being in the world.

[4:44] Susan Blackwell: Hey, listen, here's a shameless plug. If you are interested in a safe space, a brave space where you can come, be creative, get in touch with yourself and with other awesome creatives.

[4:59] Laura Camien: And feel your feelings.

[5:00] Susan Blackwell: And feel your feelings. The SparkFile Creative Community is open and it's rocking like docking.

[5:05] Laura Camien: It is my happy place. I gotta say, there are days where, for us, this is our job. Thank goodness. I'm so grateful for it.

[5:15] Susan Blackwell: But going to work means I may enter in one state of mind and by the time I leave hour, hour and a half with our community, I am feeling things and it's energized and it's positive and it's hopeful.

[5:35] Laura Camien: Yes.

[5:37] Susan Blackwell: And it's the opposite of how I stepped into this space and I'm so grateful for it.

[5:41] Laura Camien: I am too. I'm too, Laura. You drop into one of those creativity labs, you drop into an office hour, you drop into a making time session and it really, even if I'm like, oh, lab starts at five o'clock and then I go and I connect with people, I listen to something new that someone's written, I do some quiet creative work on my own.

[6:07] Susan Blackwell: We have creative conversations and it is a mood changer and a game changer.

[6:14] Laura Camien: So if that's interesting to you, go to thesparkfile.com and join us and you can try it for free for two weeks to see if it's for you.

[6:24] Susan Blackwell: It's so delicious.

[6:25] Laura Camien: Yeah. Come check us out.

[6:27] Susan Blackwell: Come check our shit out.

[6:28] Laura Camien: Hey, Laura, do you have a spark for me?

[6:29] Susan Blackwell: I have such a spark for you today. I'm so excited.

[6:31] Laura Camien: I'll jump right in because I know you like a hot, fresh spark. You like it served fresh.

[6:35] Susan Blackwell: You know what I picture is just like you coming out of the kitchen with a big golden diner pancake, just like a stack of hot sparks on a plate covered with maple syrup.

[6:50] Laura Camien: I just want to say for everyone listening, you know it's a fantasy if it involves me having cooked something in the kitchen.

[6:57] Susan Blackwell: How do you cook chicken tenders?

[6:59] Laura Camien: I can rock an apron and I can wear the costume of the fantasy. It's just how edible is it?

[7:12] Susan Blackwell: Just real quick and then we'll get back to your spark. In the Spark Files creative community, there's a community connection, which is sort of like a very, very wholesome, life-giving version of social media.

[7:25] Laura Camien: There's no ads, there's no algorithms, there's no bullshit. Something that we were sharing in response to one of the daily prompts, I was like, something that I am making today is this recipe I've never tried before.

[7:42] Susan Blackwell: Then I circled back and I was like, y'all, this recipe is lit. It was such a good recipe.

[7:50] Laura Camien: We started this recipe exchange, this spontaneous recipe exchange, and I was like, this community's got it all. We have a dedicated thread for the writers of the Spark File, and I was like, do we need to start a dedicated thread for the cooks and the bakers of the Spark File?

[8:05] Susan Blackwell: Why not?

[8:06] Laura Camien: Why not? You can share your famous recipe for chicken tenders.

[8:12] Susan Blackwell: We all have our gifts.

[8:13] Laura Camien: I can clean up after dinner though. How's that?

[8:15] Susan Blackwell: I love that for all of us.

[8:17] Laura Camien: I do, because I don't want to do it, but you know what I do? I want that spark.

[8:22] Susan Blackwell: I want that piping hot spark.

[8:24] Laura Camien: All right. I've got an apron, hot plate in my hands, delivering it fresh to you.

[8:31] Susan Blackwell: I'm excited.

[8:32] Laura Camien: All right. I think I've mentioned on the podcast that I'm currently working on co-writing a book with Matt Goldman, the co-founder of Blue Man Group.

[8:42] Susan Blackwell: Very fancy.

[8:43] Laura Camien: Very classy.

[8:44] Susan Blackwell: Very, very, very fancy and classy.

[8:47] Laura Camien: I mean, I am nothing if not fancy and classy.

[8:51] Susan Blackwell: Joking aside, it actually is very fancy and classy, but please proceed.

[8:55] Laura Camien: Well, thank you. The topic of the book is how to cultivate the conditions for creativity and innovation to flourish.

[9:02] Susan Blackwell: Amazing.

[9:04] Laura Camien: Whether you're an individual or you're leading a team, a corporation, a community theater. I am loving the collaborative process.

[9:11] Susan Blackwell: I've always loved working with Matt.

[9:17] Laura Camien: Matt is like a gift. He's a gift to the world, but I'll just put a plug in here for cultivating long lasting relationships based on trust, if you can.

[9:29] Susan Blackwell: As we get older and we get wiser, if you invest yourself into continued learning and growth and communication, your relationships can get even better and better and better and stronger and more rewarding as you go.

[9:48] Laura Camien: It's an incredible gift. If those relationships can be creative collaborations, my God, cannot say enough about how strongly I advocate for this and Susan, I know you feel the same.

[10:02] Susan Blackwell: I think our life's work, we didn't know 30 years ago when we met just for you and me even like how long and how richly rewarding relationships that you commit to can be.

[10:18] Laura Camien: Matt and I are working on this book and we're tapping into so much learning from our years at Blue Man Group and I know that that work environment is really specific, but the universal aspect of it is that when you build a creative organization or if you desire to live a fully creative life, there are times when you must be creative on demand.

[10:45] Susan Blackwell: That's part of it.

[10:48] Laura Camien: If your company won't survive or your career won't survive, if you cannot be creative on demand.

[10:54] Susan Blackwell: Even if your company is not one that you typically define as creative, you must tap into your creativity always to solve problems, to stay relevant and competitive.

[11:09] Laura Camien: The whole waiting for the muse to visit just is not going to get the job done.

[11:16] Susan Blackwell: You've got to move from relying on a lightning bolt from God, which by the way can still come, but they can't be relied upon to meet deadlines.

[11:27] Laura Camien: You've got to be able to count on your creative impulses to be more frequent and more intentional.

[11:33] Susan Blackwell: You have to be able to access your creativity and innovation if you're going to deliver the creative ideas and the creative results that you and your company or your project are relying on.

[11:45] Laura Camien: The very thought of this makes me sweat a little bit, Laura.

[11:49] Susan Blackwell: Well, you've been there.

[11:51] Laura Camien: Of course. You've been there.

[11:54] Susan Blackwell: Everything when people are like, oh my God, everything's going so great. Your show's going to Broadway and then we're there.

[12:03] Laura Camien: Show's going to Broadway.

[12:04] Susan Blackwell: Show must be rehearsed.

[12:05] Laura Camien: Show must be refined.

[12:08] Susan Blackwell: Marketing materials, ways to promote it must be happening.

[12:13] Laura Camien: Interviews must be done.

[12:17] Susan Blackwell: Every other thing that you're like, can't I clear my schedule and not have to deliver on all of these things right now?

[12:24] Laura Camien: The answer is no.

[12:25] Susan Blackwell: I'm having an acid flashback to when I was hired to write for this award show that Tommy Kail was directing.

[12:33] Laura Camien: Tommy brought me on as the sole writer on this thing.

[12:40] Susan Blackwell: It was one of those things where we wouldn't necessarily know who was presenting the award until like two hours before.

[12:50] Laura Camien: The booker would be like, we got Dave Grohl.

[12:54] Susan Blackwell: You had to very quickly get copy generated or deluxed so that it would be appropriate for Dave Grohl.

[13:05] Laura Camien: I think there are some people that really thrive under that kind of creative pressure.

[13:13] Susan Blackwell: For me, I'm just like, I'm a slow and steady turtle when it comes to writing.

[13:18] Laura Camien: I think that's an extreme form of it. Definitely that's an extreme example and that exists, but like you said, the slow and steady turtle version exists as well, which is just simply like I must continue to get up and deliver on the promises I've made or commitments I've made.

[13:40] Susan Blackwell: It reminds me of Mad Men too. It's very like Don Draper.

[13:42] Laura Camien: He's on his couch all night with a pad of paper and a pencil trying to come up with 72 tags for Pepsi or whatever.

[13:52] Laura Camien: That's right. And at Blue Man, our version of it was, you know, this show material is due, this content for this Children's Museum exhibit that we're committed to, these educational materials that we're writing. This is really making me sweat. The book, you know, the book pages need to be done. Also, we're doing a Tonight Show appearance and we don't know the content of that yet. God dang it. It's just nonstop. And that is living the dream. That is running a creative organization where like everybody's job every day is to be creative. So in the book, we're sharing some principles that need to be in place for the team to be able to make creativity a repeatable practice. But something really interesting happened when we first started writing the book.

Like, of course, we had to define, if we're going to use the terms creativity and innovation throughout the book, we needed to define exactly what do we mean by creativity? And what do we mean by innovation? And Susan, I know at The Spark File, you know this, I know this, we use a specific definition for creativity. And we're going to share that at the very end of this. But let me take you way back, way back to the 1980s, friends.

[15:12] Susan Blackwell: Oh boy.

[15:14] Laura Camien: The 1980s, when the concept of Blue Man Group was conceived, the questions of what is art and is this art were prevalent among creatives and critics alike. It was a topic that inspired several well-known Blue Man Group performance pieces, some of which are still included in the show today. Ultimately, the original show conveyed the belief that anything can be art and anyone can make it. This belief permeated my personal belief system and held true when we formed The Spark File, where we say we believe that everyone is creative, but smart creatives don't go it alone. What I did not expect, though, when I dug into the definitions of creativity and innovation is that we actually did not find a universal definition of either one.

And this fascinated me. So go with me here for a minute. Many people subscribe to the revolutionary concept of creativity and innovation. That's based on the idea of an aha moment, this lightning bolt of an idea, a light bulb suddenly illuminating an idea like the flick of a switch accompanied by eureka. Of course, this creative idea, this 100% brand new, completely unique, a thought or an idea that no one's ever had before, this is what we consider to be creative genius. And that's revolutionary creativity and that exists and that changes the world for sure. But that definition of creativity has caused many, many, many people and many teams and many organizations to believe that they are not creative or innovative because their ideas don't fit that description because they haven't experienced this life changing lightning bolt. They assume that they must not be creative. That's just not who they are.

[17:19] On the other hand, we have evolutionary creativity. Evolutionary creativity can also change the world. When we consider evolutionary creativity, there is no doubt that we are all creative. New ideas and ways of thinking organically evolve from one generation to the next. This is one of the miracles of human evolution. Otherwise, we would all be using the exact same arrowheads that we used 10,000 years ago. We would still be carrying luggage without wheels. I mean, luggage is such a great example of evolutionary creativity because we went from carrying our bags to strapping awkward heavy wheels onto the bags to simply making bags with wheels already attached. Genius. But this type of innovation is called evolutionary innovation.

It might be slower. It might not have a grand lightning bolt attached to it, but it is constant. We spoke a few weeks ago about creation by recombination on the podcast. That is evolutionary. All of creation by recombination is evolutionary creativity. It's the kind of creativity and innovation that comes from committing many, many hours of focus and attention dedicated to a discipline, an idea, or a practice. It's the kind of innovation that develops out of knowing the rules and knowing when to break the rules or which part of the rules can be broken. The innovation that comes from creating environments at home, in school, in the workplace that cultivate a safe space for new ideas to evolve and conducive conditions for the recombining of existing ideas to form new ideas.

[19:17] So you might have noticed already that I'm kind of using creativity and innovation interchangeably. There is a reason for that. So let me return to what I mentioned before. There does not seem to be a universally agreed upon definition of creativity or innovation. I want to share this little journey that Matt and I went on as we attempted to define and differentiate the terms creativity and innovation. So fair warning, there's a lot of gray area. Very few of these definitions feel satisfactory. Let's start with a quick Google search and it will point you to Psychology Today's definition of creativity. Creativity encompasses the ability to discover new and original ideas, connections, and solutions to problems.

Or similarly, the definition from Cambridge Dictionary, creativity is the ability to produce or use original and unusual ideas. Many of these definitions focus on creativity as the ability to come up with a new or novel idea. Which I take issue with, but I'm going to get to that in a moment. Besides the small issue that I take with it, that definition is not too controversial. But interestingly, when you Google definitions of innovation, you get really similar results. Cambridge Dictionary says innovation is a new idea or method. And Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines innovation as new idea, method, or device. Novelty. So at first glance, do they mean the same thing? Are we just talking about new and novel ideas for both creativity and innovation?

It is only by searching for the definition of creativity versus innovation that we start to see how some people attempt to differentiate the terms. Stanford Online says creativity is typically centered around original thought and knowledge, which unleashes potential and is an integral part of idea generation. Innovation, on the other hand, is used to turn the creative idea that you come up with into a viable solution. IdeaScale.com uses a similar distinction. They say creativity involves generating original and unique ideas, while innovation is about implementing those ideas to create value. The Harvard Business Review, which published an article titled, Innovation is Not Creativity, says creativity is about coming up with the big idea. Innovation is about executing the idea, converting the idea into a successful business.

[22:13] And there are others who define creativity based on its impact on a particular field or domain. In his book, Creativity, the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says creativity is any act, idea, or product that changes an existing domain or that transforms an existing domain into a new one. He goes on to say it is important to remember, however, that a domain cannot be changed without the explicit or implicit consent of a field responsible for it. So, Matt and I were surprised, frankly, at the very many attempts to limit the scope of both creativity and innovation by definition, as if you can separate the two. This idea somehow that creativity is brainstorming and innovation is doing the work, or even more limiting, it only qualifies as creativity if it transforms an existing domain.

[23:29] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. Years and years and years and years ago, in preparation for a class I was teaching, I was like, let me look up what a good, solid, clean definition of creativity is. And I was shocked. I incorporated it into the curriculum because I was just like, the number of swings people have taken at trying to define it, some of those definitions are, you can tell they're writing through a very specific lens.

[23:49] Laura Camien: Correct. Many of them are, but some are more generalized, like the dictionary ones, and I'm just like, huh, I don't think you've captured it. I don't know who approved of this. Who signed off on this?

[24:03] Susan Blackwell: I did not sign off. I do not co-sign on this.

[24:06] Laura Camien: I'm with you. I'm with you.

[24:08] Susan Blackwell: So here at The Spark File and at Blue Man Group and in my work with Matt Goldman, in all of this experience, creativity is not limited to ideas or idea generation. It can be, but it can also be incredibly active and produce tangible results. This is the issue that I took with some of those definitions. So much of it focused on being an idea or a novel idea.

[24:37] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[24:38] Susan Blackwell: When you make something tangible with your hands, like you knit a sweater, like our friend Laura Coward is doing right now, or you paint a painting like our dear Wes Day is doing all the time, these things are beyond ideas. These are active. These are tangible results.

[24:57] Laura Camien: So Matt and I looked further and found definitions where the inclusion of verbs, such as produce or develop, seemed to allow for some action in the creative process, at least, which I was happy for. We found ourselves leaning toward these definitions of creativity that were inclusive of both ideas and action. For example, in the Handbook of Creativity, they define creativity as the ability to produce something that is novel and useful. Again, it has to be novel, I guess. We're getting warmer, but we wondered why limit the definition to include useful? Do all of our expressions of creativity have to be useful? And if so, to whom?

[25:45] Susan Blackwell: I'm nodding so hard, my head's going to snap off my neck.

[25:48] Laura Camien: You're a bobblehead.

[25:49] Susan Blackwell: This spark has got my head a-bobbling. Yes, yes, yes. Why did we even have to add that? There's so many novel creative works that don't have to have a particular use other than to exist. If I make a candle, for example, some might think it's useful. Some might not. They might think this is just decorative. I don't know. We have different ideas of what is useful.

[26:19] Laura Camien: So then we came upon the definition from the American Psychological Association. Creativity is the ability to produce or develop original work, theories, techniques, or thoughts.

[26:33] Susan Blackwell: Closer, closer.

[26:35] Laura Camien: We're getting closer. This certainly got closer to the way that we lived at Blue Man Group, where creativity was part of our company DNA and it was valued in every aspect of our work, like the creative content, of course, but also in the way that we produced, budgeted, cast, marketed, rehearsed the show. It applied to the way we grew the business, the opportunities we took or declined. It even applied to our approach to leadership and management, professional development, human resources. Innovation, if you define it as putting those original ideas to work, was also everywhere. But if you believe innovation must be the creation of something novel, again, we didn't always adhere to that. We worked hard to learn when to reinvent the wheel and when a traditional way of thinking or working would suit the job. We also agree wholeheartedly with Stanford Online in an article on creativity and innovation management. They say, naturally, innovation cannot happen without creativity. Only with creative ideas.

[27:43] Laura Camien: So coming full circle here, after much consideration and reflection on all of these ideas, concepts and definitions, and based on our lived experiences, we've tabulated the scores, the judges say we have each considered creative and innovative. Matt and I are also most drawn to, you'll know this, Sir Ken Robinson's definition of creativity, which is applied imagination. Now full disclosure, we both might also be a bit biased because Sir Ken was a very dear friend of Matt's. I had the pleasure of meeting him many times. He was truly an extraordinary person who embodied creativity and was a pure fountain of inspiration. So it was pretty easy to be skewed that way. But bias aside, applied imagination is pretty strong.

I want to say how he arrived there. For Sir Ken, rather than divide creativity and innovation into two separate acts, first the creativity as an act of imagination or brainstorm, wherein the idea is discovered or generated, and then the second innovation is the act of bringing the idea into fruition. Now Sir Ken's definition links the two together. He says in his book, *Out of Our Minds, Learning to be Creative*, imagination can be an entirely private process of internal consciousness. Private imaginings may have no outcomes in the world at all. Creativity does. Being creative involves doing something. To call someone creative suggests they are actively producing something in a deliberate way.

People are not creative in the abstract. They are creative in something, in mathematics, in engineering, in writing, in music, in business, in whatever. Creativity involves putting your imagination to work. In a sense, creativity is applied imagination.

[30:05] Laura Camien: So at long last, Matt and I arrived at our determination. For the purposes of our book, we will embrace the idea of evolutionary innovation. We will consider creativity and innovation together or interchangeably to encapsulate both the generation of ideas and the implementation of those ideas. In our minds, we think of creativity and innovation as making ideas real, which is how Matt has defined it since he was younger, which is kind of funny because when I started my theater company way back when, I wasn't thinking I was doing this because, hey, I'm a creative. I thought, I know so many creative people. We all need to get off our asses and do something. So I'll organize this because I know how to make things happen.

And I did, and I do. I didn't recognize that as a particular creative skill. I do now, of course. As I mentioned at the top, we have a specific definition of creativity at The Spark File. It is also based on Sir Ken Robinson's definition. Would you like to share it, Susan?

[31:11] Susan Blackwell: I would be honored. And I have to say, having done my own deep dive on this over the years, first of all, we are two nerds that have a very special interest in creativity. But if you're listening to this podcast, you're right at home. But this to me is the most elegant where we have arrived with Ken Robinson. Applied imagination, full stop. It's two words. It's so clean. It's elegant. It's expansive and inclusive. And I love it. We at The Spark File have added that fights for the powers of good.

[31:50] Laura Camien: That's right.

[31:51] Susan Blackwell: Because we do not want to energize the creativity of a career criminal.

[31:57] Laura Camien: Evil geniuses.

[31:58] Susan Blackwell: In all sincerity, evil geniuses. That's obviously a choice for us and everyone that we work with, that that's what we want to energize.

[32:07] Laura Camien: Yes.

[32:09] Susan Blackwell: It's not denying that creativity can be applied in other ways.

[32:14] Laura Camien: Absolutely.

[32:15] Susan Blackwell: When you're up to no good.

[32:17] Laura Camien: But we don't.

[32:18] Susan Blackwell: We don't truck with that.

[32:19] Laura Camien: We do not. So all of this means for all of us, we can expand our definition to include so much of what we do.

[32:29] Susan Blackwell: Yes. We often say at The Spark File, it's our, I think both of us personally believe this, the most creative act you can dedicate yourself to is the intentional and thoughtful creation of your life.

[32:45] Laura Camien: Yes. You can build the life that you want to live inside of. You can create a friend group that you want to reside within. You can create relationships you want to invest yourself into. You can apply your creativity and innovation to every area of your life.

[33:05] Susan Blackwell: Yes. Artistic endeavors like writing, painting, playing music, sculpting, making theater, making films, so much more. But you can also apply creativity and innovation to your gift giving, your cooking, your interior design, your lawn maintenance, your skin care regime, your closet organization. Literally everywhere you look, there is an opportunity to apply your creativity. Once you start seeing it, you will see it everywhere. Creativity and innovation are necessary and evident in all areas, art, science, mathematics, technology, education, government, business, and more. And we are all innately creative and innovative.

[34:50] Laura Camien: So what do we make of it? Number one, I hope we create a definition of creativity and innovation for ourselves that is big enough to see ourselves in it.

[34:58] Susan Blackwell: For all of us.

[35:05] Laura Camien: And I hope we begin to make a practice for ourselves. A practice of seeing where and how we already are creative in our daily lives and where we might be able to apply even more creativity. I hope we see our own creativity in the small acts as well as the big ones. I know sometimes I have kept myself from completing a particular creative project because I put this pressure on myself, but I felt this project needs to represent every aspect of me. It must contain all the multitudes that I am as a human being. And if I fall short of that, then I just, I don't want to make it at all. It has to be all of that or it's nothing.

[35:52] Susan Blackwell: Damn, that's a lot of pressure for one project.

[35:57] Laura Camien: What if I saw my own creativity in the totality of my self-expression? It might be the joke I made in class last night that made everyone laugh, the gift I made for a dear friend that expresses my gratitude, the deeply honest lines of dialogue I wrote in my play that made my palms sweaty when I typed them. Can I look at the cumulative effect of my creative expression on a daily or weekly or monthly basis instead of putting the pressure on any given project to try to hold it all? That's just an idea I offer you.

[36:33] Susan Blackwell: I love it.

[36:34] Laura Camien: I love it. I'm going to wrap up with two more quick things, but Suze, is there anything you want to say beyond what we have shared thus far?

[36:44] Susan Blackwell: I just enjoy this.

[36:45] Laura Camien: I just enjoy this.

[36:47] Susan Blackwell: And again, just two nerds with a very special interest.

[36:51] Laura Camien: Two nerds.

[36:52] Susan Blackwell: But I think it's helpful. I think it's genuinely helpful to, like you just said, I'm going to say what you said back to you a different way, to have language that describes something as slippery as creativity in a way that is really inclusive, that it's big enough to hold it all. I love it and I feel forever indebted to Ken Robinson because I'm like all those brilliant minds in the Harvard Business Review and at Stanford, all those brilliant minds coming up with these incredibly complicated, excluding definitions of creativity. And I'm just like, two words, baby, shabap, applied imagination. Dream it up and make it.

[37:42] Laura Camien: Love it. I'm going to wrap with two more quick things. So at Blue Man Group, we were cranking out creative work. We were tapping into our creativity and innovation every day in so many ways. Whenever we attempted to describe what we did and who we were as an organization, we found it really difficult to put into words. And we also went through a million clunky, weird, failed attempts to capture it. We were doing so much more than putting on a play or a concert or performance art. We were working to self-express in a multitude of ways, in a multitude of mediums. And eventually we were able to articulate it as best we could with this sentence, Blue Man Group is our best attempt to create a heightened experience of being alive.

Aspirational, yes. We didn't always hit the mark, but this was literally our goal for each day at the office, to be in a state of constant, heightened aliveness and aware of our aliveness. We were in agreement that that was the goal because we are here for a limited time, friends, a very limited time, and we had best be creating a life that we look forward to living. When we get out of bed, we're lucky enough to put our feet on the floor in the morning. We want a life that will make us feel connected to that miraculous sense of being alive, being connected to everything around us.

[38:29] Susan Blackwell: So I'm going to go out on a limb and say doing things that connect us to our innate creativity and self-expression is a huge part of it. I'm going to leave you with a little excerpt of a poem that I found about this very thing. It's by Jennifer Healy, aptly named *A Poem About Creativity*. All I want to do is delight, throw the mask off, not care, not worry, not explain what I mean or define what I do. Just be whatever I feel like being. Just relish in the energy of this moment. I want to be so alive that I feel like the moon, throwing tides just for fun, creating just because it's what I'm here to do. I want to love the color orange just because it craves delight too. I want to cry because I'm so in love with the miracle of being alive. I don't want to feel like I'm striving. I want to try and feel like I am flying.

[39:30] Laura Camien: Beautiful.

[39:31] Susan Blackwell: That's Ms. Spark for today.

[39:33] Laura Camien: I love that.

[39:34] Susan Blackwell: And I love that poem.

[39:35] Laura Camien: Thank you for that, Spark Pancake.

[39:37] Susan Blackwell: I loved it.

[39:38] Laura Camien: Mm-mm. Maple syrup, baby.

[39:40] Susan Blackwell: Ugh. Now I want pancakes with maple syrup.

[39:43] Laura Camien: Oh, no.

[39:46] Susan Blackwell: I guess that's it. This episode of The Spark File was made on the lands of the Lenape and the Mohican people. And as always, we hope this put another bunch of sparks in your file. Listen, if there is a spark that you would like us to explore on this podcast or if you'd like to learn more about how to coach with us to identify and accomplish your creative goals, you can email us at getcreativeatthesparkfile.com or you can reach us through our website, thesparkfile.com. We'll even happily take your feedback, but you know the price of admission. First, you have to share a creative risk that you've taken recently. You can follow us on social at thesparkfile and be sure to subscribe, rate, and five-star review this podcast.

It really does help other people to find us. And if you like this podcast, we hope you'll share it with people that you love. And if you didn't like this podcast, go out like the tide. If something lights you up and gets your creative sparks flying, we're writing you a forever permission slip to make that thing that's been knocking at your door. It's your turn to take that spark and fan it into a flame. You know you got to take it and make it. Apply that imagination. Apply it!

[41:02] Laura Camien: When I bump into something that inspires me, I dump it in my spark file. Could be something that I want to make or how I want to be. I pump it in my spark file. I jump into my spark file. Let's open up the spark file.