In my book, I take more to this finishing of creativity as a
process and that's our process of developing ourselves,
developing our ability to create and bring novelty in our
professional life. So creativity is more defined
from inside out in my book. What do you think of your
creativity and how can you use it in your professional life?
Hey everyone. My name is Henry Surya, we
Robin. And you're listening to the
Tecla Journal, podcast the show, where I'll be bringing you the
greatest technical leaders practitioners and thought
leaders in the industry to discuss about their Journey
ideas and practices that we all can learn and apply to build a
highly performing technical team and to make an impact in your
personal work. So let's dive into our Journal.
Hello again to you my listeners, welcome to the technology.
You know, podcast the show where you can learn about technical
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My guest, for today's episode is dr.
Hannah Welker lightening dr. Hannah is a neuro leadership
coach and the author of how to develop your creative identity
at work, in this episode dr. Hannah shared, how we can
develop our creative identity at work.
And in our personal life, she first started by describing the
definition of creativity in her book, its relation with
intelligence and explained why creativity is important for
maintaining our sense of Engagement and Motivation dr.
Hannah outlined the four different types of thinking that
can help us Foster. Our creative diversity and
shared several tips on how to explore our creativity.
By channeling our curiosity, choosing our audience, finding
time for Creative work and overcoming the fear of
rejection. Dr. Horner also shared some
potential barriers hindering our creativity at work and why we
should avoid them to Foster more creative Innovations.
I really enjoyed my conversation with dr.
Hannah and I also shared a few things related to my own
creative Journey, including how I ended up doing this podcast.
If you are someone who are looking to exercise more of your
creativity, either at work, or at personal life, or even
thinking of starting your own creative Journey, then you need
to listen to this episode and hopefully it will give you some
inspiration in the end. If you find this episode useful,
please help, share it with more people.
Also, they can also benefit from listening to this episode.
Also leave this podcast of 5 star rating and review on Apple
podcast and Spotify. It will help me a lot to make
this podcast easily discovered by other listeners.
Let's go to the conversation with dr.
Horner after hearing some words from our sponsors.
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latest tech Trends. Hello everyone.
Welcome back to the new episode of the technology on our
podcast. Today, we have a slightly
different kind of gas in our podcast today.
I'm very excited to meet dr. Wanna felt cool.
I didn't she's actually a neuro leadership coach and trainer
focusing on creative thinking. She recently just published a
book titled, how to develop your creative identity at work.
I think these days. So many people are disengaged
and not happy and work. So maybe we can Channel our
creativity at work. We may be able to have that
engagement and also meaning in our work.
So, that's why I bring dr. One here, so that we can discuss
a little bit more about creativity.
And how we can have more job satisfaction because that's one
of her moto2. No job satisfaction.
We need to know our creativity. So dr.
Wanna thank you so much for this opportunity.
Looking forward for the chat. Hello Henry.
Thank you for Having me here. So doctor wanna, I always love
to ask my guess in the beginning to maybe share about the career
Journey. Specifically on the highlights
or any turning points that you want to share with the audience
here in my twenty Decades of career.
I'll say that I have two major turning points.
The first one was when I was a freshly graduated after my
bachelor degree in economics, I realized that, I hardly knew
anything about computers and I felt so embarrassed.
As I had to collect information and analyze information in Excel
which sounds so ready mentally at the moment.
But that's what I had to do and I didn't know how to do it very
well. So that's like 25 years ago,
then I thought that, hey somehow, I had the feeling back
then that the future belongs to technology and I wanted to learn
more about it. So that's one turning point for
me when I decided that I want to understand more about computer.
So I applied to our master program here in Helsinki, which
combined economics with information systems.
It was really fascinating for me to actually learn how to do a
bit of programming. I really loved it, but of
course, I felt that maybe that's not the path to develop.
Yes, I tried it for a couple of years, and I was teaching it
because I worked with Master students, in business, teaching
them. How to understand how computers
are built and how databases are built and how the database is
not connected with the interfaces.
So that was the first major turning point in my career, but
then some years later, the And turning point, which actually
brings me here today is that I felt that it was very
interesting. The research that I was doing on
how information systems, like, Erp systems are used in
companies, but I felt that that's not my calling that my
calling is something else. The second turning point was,
when I was lucky to find this interest, in the psychology of
creativity that changed entirely my career, when I decided to
quit, My academic life and move on to do knowledge solopreneur
ship and that's what I've been doing.
Maybe for the last seven years in the last two years, I've been
focusing, My Bae seventy percent of my time, on doing independent
research, trying to figure out this field of creativity and
writing about it in a more accessible way to people who
might benefit from understanding it.
So my two major turning points are first.
Me wanting to learn more about that.
Knology programming and computers.
And the second one may fall in love with the psychology of
creativity. So hence brings you here as well
in the technology, you know, because we have a largely the
audience from tech industry. I believe there are so many of
us here. Also waiting to channel our
creativity, but let's start with the obvious question.
This is probably open-ended discussion.
What do you mean by creativity? For example, myself.
I don't actually categorize myself as creative.
I always think creativity is something like someone who can
produce beautiful. Full artistic results, maybe
it's paintings, maybe drawings, or whatever that is or have good
eyes for beautiful colors and things like that.
And I never associate myself as being a creative person more
like logical person. But in your book actually, you
have probably a little bit different definition of what is
creativity. So let's start from there.
What do you think is the definition of creativity?
Maybe for people to get the same context?
Yes, I was the same like you and probably also our listeners are
identifying with the creativity, more in the artistic sense of
creative. If I take the most standard
definition in research and that is like creativity as a type of
thinking the ability to combine the information that you have
and come up with an idea that is like interesting and useful for
the people you are working with. So this is the standard way
creativity as a thinking. But in my book I take more to
this finishin of creativity as a process and that's our process
of developing ourselves developing our ability to To
create and bring novelty in our professional life.
So that's the focus of creativity on my book, how to
develop your understanding of, what kind of creative person you
are. And how can we experiment with
that identity in the everyday life?
So creativity is more defined from inside out in my book.
What do you think of your creativity and how can you use
it in your professional life? And like you said, this
understanding that we have creativity as a Artistic type of
talent like drawing or painting. If you feel that though, I don't
resonate with that, then this means that maybe you are going
to stay away from all those professional domains where this
kind of skills are needed. But of course, like I described
in my book, there are so many other impulses within ourselves
that we can decide to pay attention to and bring them in
our professional life. Yes.
Maybe we are not very talented drawing.
People. And we are not going to be like
anything to do with design, but maybe we are like very good
programmers and maybe we like one particular programming
language. That's what we want to focus on
and to develop it into a master competence and into some
Innovative products. So if I made try to summarize so
it's a type of thinking right? Trying to First understand about
ourselves and then afterwards there's a exploration process to
try to bring some kind of novelty novelty here.
That doesn't mean that I always have to be out of the box
thinking. It could be is just novelty in
personal life. And at the end there should be
an outcome as a result of that, which brings like a cycle of
creativity because experimentation and trying to
build something. You know, bring an outcome may
actually come up with something even new maybe for the world or
it could be just for a personal life.
Yes, that's a good summary. So creativity, as a thinking,
and then experimenting different experimentations and then
reflected in this outcome of novelty, this novelty can be
something for a particular audience.
Maybe for some people, they don't need it but you have some
type of people in your mind when you're experimenting with your
ideas. That's one thing that when I
read your book, you mentioned that a lot of people will feel a
sense of disengagement and hopelessness when they are not
able to channel this creativity and again coming back to my
statement earlier, right? For some people who categorized
I'm not creative. That means I block away a few
areas that I could possibly do to channel the Activity.
So what is the relation about channeling, creativity and a
sense of Engagement and hope in our, maybe professional life and
also personal life. Yes, it's very important to be
very aware of how we feel about the work activities, we are
doing. If it's hopelessness, we have to
develop a new sense of hope. And what does it mean?
Hope to start looking around you to start to be proactive in your
environment and create opportunities for For yourself
where you can try out new activities or it can be like
learning new skills, or it can mean likely reaching out to
other colleagues who are doing some projects that might be
interesting to you. So being this person who takes
basically your life in control, that's basically the underlying
idea. That's what I also have done.
When I had this career change, I had this period of trying out,
my sense of hope, by first of all, When I left from the
Academia going to some coaching programs and then after ended
the coaching programs, I went, and I design my own courses, I
learned how to do marketing. I tried I experimented with
different skills, new activities for me, scary stuff.
But you know, like, until that point, when I got to find my
interest in the psychology of creativity and then slowly my
sense of hope grew and then naturally, then when you find
these types of activities, That you know you feel this inner
motivation then you know that okay, I'm starting to be on the
right track for me and you can congratulate yourself for all
the effort, you made all that effort to take yourself from the
sense of hopelessness to feel that I see no possibility for me
in my life to like slowly learning new things thinking.
Okay, is this something that it is for me?
Maybe yes, maybe no, how can I recycle it?
How can I use it in order to get there because In each one of us,
there are some activities for which we can have an inner sense
of motivation. Thanks for sharing your story,
doctor one. And so a few things that I pick
up from what you said. Just now the one thing is that
we should not be afraid of experimenting even though we try
one thing and if it doesn't bring satisfaction, there may be
other things that we could explore.
And when we have found that hopefully there is some sense of
hope and it will bring us new energy and new kind of
Engagement. So that's one thing that I pick
up another thing that I just want to mention as well as part
of again, my research, reading your book is you mentioned in
the book that there is no Ian between intelligence and being
creative because you said that above a certain IQ may be in
this case around 120, it's more about personality factors, like,
it's your motivation. And it's your wisdom that are
more important than intelligence to be able to produce more
creative work. So, tell us more about this
interesting research because some people associate, again,
creativity with intelligence. I'm not creative, I'm not
intelligence, so I have no hope. So maybe if you can demystify,
some of these limiting belief, Yeah, I found very interesting
This research where they are showing that above an IQ of 120,
it's more important to have this inner motivation to learn new
skills. What you're talking earlier on
to keep on acquiring knowledge. That's one aspect of why it
helps to get creative ideas because once you accumulate
Knowledge from different fields than it's more likely that you
can come up with an aspect of novelty and then the other
aspect of motivation is that once you yourself Have found for
instance a project that you feel like I'm very motivated on this
project. It doesn't matter that you are
not a Jedi yet. It's just matters that you have
the perseverance, some people call it greed.
Some people who is stubbornness, but you have this desire to keep
on pushing through the challenges just to see that
project completed successfully. So that's why motivation and
wisdom, count more above an IQ, a certain IQ because they are
helping us to choose what new activities to learn.
And also, they help us be more productive and then the more
projects you do, the faster you complete them.
The more you may get to do that project for which, you know, you
get recognized. So again, for those of us who
have limiting belief, like, for example, I'm not creative, I'm
not intelligent, maybe it's a certain point or we should not
just have that limiting belief all the time.
So the two key things that dr. Want to mention is about
collecting wisdom so I'm sure everyone of you read books.
Listen to podcast like this and also watch YouTube videos.
Eating wisdom may be talking to other people as well, but the
second aspect is to have personal motivation.
So the kind of perseverance grit to always try to explore.
Maybe apply the wisdom that you have and create something novel.
Maybe now, people are like motivated.
They have some inner belief that they can do.
So they want to become a Creator.
So, part of this personal biases, that we are not
creative. There's a second aspect that
normally stop people from trying to be creative.
It is the fear of rejection or what they create.
Maybe it's not perceived as Good enough for this.
Maybe you have some advice here as well.
Yeah, this fear of rejection is like we all have it because if
we take an evolutionary perspective, we human beings
develop in small tribes in small groups.
It was very important to be accepted by the other people and
we still carry on with us this fear.
And if you just think about, you know, like, take a moment when
probably each one of us have been in this meetings, when
there is silence, at one point and nobody says, anything.
And you would be tempted to say, To say something that's one
context where we can check, you know, like How brave are we to
actually speak out? And just say, hey I think this
problem can be solved this way. So this fear of rejection can
keep many of us from trying to move from this place of
hopelessness, where we find ourselves at the moment because
we may think that it's going to be a failure.
And I'm just going to embarrass myself.
I have to be honest, that I also had this fear when I decided to
leave from the First of all, I was afraid how I'm gonna be
judged. Are my former colleagues going
to think that I'm not smart enough for living.
The Academia are my future clients gonna sink the same
that? Oh, she just couldn't be a
successful professor, and look at her now she changed.
So each one of us, depending of what is the professional
context? Where we find?
We have certain types of fears about how we are going to be
judged by others. That's of course.
It's up to each one of Of us. But what I'm urging in the book
is just to give ourselves the chance.
Let's start. Maybe a small steps.
You don't have to make this like, big career change but
starting small steps there are, you know, in the professional
role that you have try to be in a way more like intrapreneurial.
As I said a bit earlier, just be proactive.
Get involved in projects. I know that when you hear get
involved in projects, this sounds like ouch.
I'm already so loaded in work but we have to be very careful
also. I thought the important things
for us, what are the priorities? And the way I see it and that's
why I wrote the book. The priority is to save
ourselves in the sense that it's a shame to not to explore this
potential, which comes from our creative personality speaking
about having the urge to try experiment, right?
You mentioned this in the book as the creative motivation.
So, for us who may have a creative block so to speak.
Right in our mind, we don't know what kind of ideas to explore.
So you mentioned about four types of Inking here which are
imaginative thinking, curiosity, inspiration, and motivation.
So, maybe if you can maybe brief us on these type of different
thinking so that we can spark new ideas in our head.
How can we utilize this for types of thinking?
It's so amazing. Hey, that you picked up on this
part from the book. Because actually, this is a very
important part of the book where I talked about opening up to our
creative diversity. That is in each one of us, we
can start by just thinking when you think about yourself about
your, Is, how would you define? Would you see yourself as an
imaginative person? Like, in this case imaginative,
it doesn't mean that you are like ready to write a science
fiction. Are you the kind of person who
sometimes looks what happens in work and you are thinking well
what if we do something else. So imaginative thinking do you
see yourself as this kind of person who has ideas?
What if we could do something else?
So this is one way to open up to our creative diversity.
City. But then there is the
inspiration way if the second way.
Do you see yourself more like this kind of person who is open
up to reading information from different fields and that you
are one of these people that want to open up to read
information from different fields, not only from your
domains. This is another way to look for
this creative diversity in you and to make space in your own
mind about what new projects you might want to start.
Then the Third Way. Is being motivated looking at
people around you and see who are those people who themselves
feel. Very interesting, really
motivated. And that you would want to
become like them. So these are three ways through
which we can open up to this creative at diversity, which
will lead us to this moment when you think.
Okay, these types of projects, I want to get involved more with
and of the Curiosity it's to be courageous.
And to think okay if I I'm curious about something that
happens at work, I'm just going to follow it up.
I'm going to find that time to understand what other colleagues
in what other projects are doing.
So do not because of the excuse that we don't have enough time.
We shouldn't shut down our curiosity.
I mean, the always good storyline when we talk about
curiosity is that think of us, all of us when we are in
childhood. So, all of us are curious, we
don't know anything. We try different things.
Hence, if you want to look at the true application of It is.
When you look at all the children, they are being
created. Because of curiosity, I guess,
for some adults. We forget that and as we grow
and we have a career, we don't actually explore curiosity and
just do the task at hand or things that are in plate.
Yes, actually. I am talking about this as one
strategy to become more Curious in the book.
I recommend that we go back to the childhood and we try to
remember, what are those activities that we are naturally
doing when we were children? For instance, for me writing,
Was something that was naturally doing and then try to bring to
the present those activities. What else could you be doing
like it for me was writing when I was a child?
I was writing poems. What else would I be doing?
Now, in the present, I wrote a book in the same way with you.
What activity did you do as a child?
There are few things that I like reading books and also listening
to so called elder. People talking about their
experience and their journey and teaching.
So it's something that I love to do when I was younger as Maybe
in the image aspect. Yeah, those are some of the
things that I remember on top of my head.
Okay, cool. You are doing any one of these
now, like the teaching talking to the elderly, I guess, looking
back and connecting the dots with this podcast, for example,
right? I like reading.
So, that's why before the interview with all the guests.
I like to research and try to come up with different topics
and ideas what to ask. And then we are speaking about
elderly, I'm not referring you as elderly but I guess people
who have wisdom. So I like talking and Learn from
this kind of people and teaching.
Hopefully, one day I can also channel that again maybe one day
I would find the Avenue for that.
I guess. That's wonderful.
So you are the embodiment that it works, this strategy that I
talked about and I have tried it on my skin.
Do you also show it that if you bring what you like to do from
childhood? To now, when you are a grown-up
and updated version number to the adult version and then there
is another way through which we can Explore More our curiosity
because also we may not know what we are curious about now.
So another way is to think about what senses we are using.
And for instance, some of us can be using a lot of our
intellectual abilities. We are sitting in front of the
computer typing thinking in a logical way, watching Code
reviewing code, but what other senses could you be using in
your case? If I give you as an example, you
are using this ability to communicate with people to
listen to people and to understand their world of view,
which I guess it could be 2:01 discovering new.
Curiosities, this is the beauty of human dialogue that you can
never know what great idea comes during the dialogue.
This is another way to think each one of us can make time,
you know, like once per week, every two weeks to do something
else it happened outside talking in another podcast with the
podcast and she said, exactly the same thing.
She realized that all that she does Does is to talk with people
in the academic world and right? And then she was to this
Festival where they're like many creative people.
Her mind just opened up to so many other activities that she
could do to compliment her professional activities.
And this is in reaching putting more activities that are
complementing. Our senses.
It's enriching for us, it's more fuel for creativity.
I guess it makes sense. Looking at my journey although I
mean to be frank, I don't start by thinking what is my childhood
curiosity? What are the habits that I had?
I actually connected back, connecting the dots looking back
and yeah it makes sense that I enjoy what I'm doing.
Now speaking about senses, I wasn't that talkative when I was
childhood as well. I guess what I'm trying to say
is that you can explore the senses and maybe hey, this time,
you will enjoy differently than your childhood.
So I guess it's more about exploration experimenting and
see what gives us energy. Energy at this point in time.
So don't give up saying that you are not good at something maybe
because you just didn't find it at the right time.
That's all I'm trying to say exactly exactly.
At the end of the day, when we feel like we could do so much
more and at the same time we feel that we don't see what else
we could do. There is this aspect of chance
of serendipity that somebody from the external environment
comes to offer us? I know a project and then we say
aha that's what I was missing but until The Serendipity or
lock happens. We have to take within our
control and explore this sides of ourselves like this curiosity
and the motivation, and the imagination, whatever comes a
bit more natural because some of us may think that I'm not
Daydreamer. I'm not, you know, the kind of
person to look around at what happens at work and say, Hey,
what if we do this? What if we do that?
But maybe, as I said, we are the kind of person who like to open
up to new information, by reading from diverse field.
Or maybe you are the kind of person who wants to be motivated
by surrounding yourself with motivated people, or to be this
curious, person, trying different senses, or remembering
what we used to do, when we were kids.
That's why I talked about three strategies actually to develop
the Curiosity because maybe it's not enough.
What we did when your kids and what fascinated us at that time,
was the result of our environment where we lived.
But the most interesting thing is to look at ourselves now in
the environment where we are now, and with the mind that we
have now with the with, Some that we have now with the
knowledge that they have now and with the new motivation that we
have as well, right? We get inspired by many people,
maybe it's from YouTube, maybe it's from podcast, maybe it's
from this everydays life. Another important thing that I
pick up in your book which is something with to discuss as
well, because many people may be creative by themselves.
They create a lot of the beautiful things, maybe poems,
novels, whatever, but they never publish it, or maybe don't share
with other people in your book. Actually, you mentioned that
without an audience. There's no purpose to create
anything, so tell us why the importance of having this
audience in creativity. I personally find it very
important because when you have an audience for which you want
to create the product Gadget or book or a service, when you have
an audience in your mind, it helps you Channel your
creativity. We take as an example of me,
writing this book, if I would have had no audience in my mind.
Probably it would have been more like a diary.
Of a book like me telling my stories but just because I had
an audience and the audience who are the people who are very
smart, very capable and they have a creativity in them, this
was my audience and this challenge me this gave me the
challenge to write the best that I can.
So that's why I think when we want to grow our creative
potential is very important to me.
Okay. Who is it?
That I want to create for this gives also the direction just to
think about the The information that you express and to be also
like empathetic for your audience and to make the best
work that you can. So that's why reading with your
audience in mind is first of all, developing your creative
potential, but at the same time finding that right balance
between the world, what are the needs of the world?
What is it that it's my need to create, it has to be a bit of
balance between these two. So I guess some people may not
share with the audience simply because again, coming back to
the first When do we have, is the fear of rejection.
But again, your point here is that, if you have an audience
first, they will challenge you to produce something at best.
Maybe it's not the best, perfect version.
But at least, you will have some motivation to actually produce
something that is better rather than if you just produce it for
yourself. Another important aspect that
you mentioned is about Direction.
So when you have a specific set of audience in mind, that kind
of like Narrows down the scope of what you need to produce
rather than creating it for many different types of people in the
world. You can have a specific set of
audience. And direct your creativity
towards them rather than building it for everyone.
And also like I was thinking now about in your case, with the
podcast, how did you choose your audience?
Well, it's a very interesting question because to me, it's
very straightforward. I always work in the tech
industry. I still love researching about
tech, but I want to mix it with leadership because I feel that
one aspect that is probably not yet.
Explored in details. It's about how to apply
leadership in the technology world or industry.
Another part of selfish reason is for me as well to learn
because it's part of my role. I need to upskill myself in this
area, take leadership. So that brings me to why I'm
doing this podcast. Why would you say that?
It's selfish reason in that? Because I think that at the end
of the day, any creative process involves the learning of the
Creator. You develop you transform
yourself, you gain knowledge because of course, all that you
learn is going to be used or maybe not all.
But part of it is going to be used for the audience.
Thanks for explaining that. Yes, because I myself believe
that even though I cannot consume all this knowledge
because there are so many of them every week, I produce one,
at least. When I share with other people,
they will learn something that piques their interest doesn't
have to be all episodes. But if people learn something in
one episode, I'm personally very happy as well to hear about
that. Which brings us to the next
topic. The old title of the book is
actually about creativity at work these days when I said in
the industry, there's a train Disengagement people feel, they
are not motivated. So what do you think are the
biggest barriers to creativity in work or in teams that you see
maybe part of your research or part of your industry research
as well? The first barrier that I think
is the interactions between team members.
I believe that in order to have a team where people can express
their ideas. First of all ideas about what
new projects to take in ideas about how to implement a project
in order to have this in. Environment of fertile, exchange
of ideas, you need a good communication between team
members, in my opinion, and based on the research and
experience that I had sometimes there are some themes where we
have a star performer that can put a bit in Shadow the other
team members and how to circumvent that is through
expressing more gratitude for the results.
For the contribution. That each team member May
Because when other team members feel ignored, or they feel that,
I know why should I bother? Because there is the best
program right here, who does everything.
Then usually should be the team leader responsibility to help
bring visibility to everybody's contribution in the team.
I also want to probably bring up other parts of research.
Those research says that if you want to be more engaged in work
you have to be given more trust. Some people may refer to this as
psychological safety. These days is quite trendy.
When you have psychological safety in the team, maybe they
are able to express freely. What is in their mind challenge
ideas, maybe also propose ideas and not afraid to try new
things. Coming back to trust is that
when you are given trust, by the leaders that you can do certain
things, I guess people will find inner intrinsic motivation to
try the best and probably that's why the creativity could also be
channeled at work. Yeah, that's true.
Trust is the other aspect and I would say maybe to give the
option to choose Choose to choose what projects you focus
on and how you organize your work.
That's how the human brain gets more motivated in social
interaction when you feel that it's up to you to choose between
A and B. Do I choose on task a, what do I
choose task, B, and then when you have this feeling that I
chose it, then you are more motivated.
Some people refer to it as more autonomy, more outcome driven,
you are given the word, but the how you figure it out yourself
and I think there are few phrases in the Book that I like,
which I quoted, right. So, it's easier to work on
projects that your leaders assigned to you, for example.
But are you actually working on the jobs that match your
creativity and the jobs that you like?
The other one is imposed goals, can be creased
self-determination to engage spontaneously in Creative
action. So I guess the message for all
leaders is that sometimes to give room for people options for
people to actually explore the creative ways of solving a
problem. Not necessarily always low level
test. Precisely.
It's a challenge for leaders but it's again, a question of
choosing between having an environment where people are low
on energy or having an environment where people feel so
alive and feel good in their own skin.
If I were a leader, I will choose the second.
So for people who like exploring creativity for their own
personal life, for example, for myself, I'm doing this podcast
outside of work. So to speak, you mentioned about
trying to come up with a creative motivation or in He
also mentioned about creative impulses.
So maybe having an Impulse to always try to create something.
So many people, these days are overloaded, maybe at work or
personal life. So they think they don't have
more energy to spend to be creative.
What message or advice would you give to people who think that?
Yeah, I just don't have enough time to do this.
I would say that once you come up with some project to do on
the side, that's something like we do with the podcast, but
that's something that you chose because you Are genuinely
curious about it. Then you get so much more energy
and then you may find yourself being more productive, when you
go to work, having this part-time or not part-time side,
work project that give you lots of energy, can be this
intermediary period of experiment between that moment
of hopelessness and the moment of Hope.
But it's like there are needed to try out and to see what is it
that you can actually make it into a sustainable project that
you get stable in. Before then I just wanted to say
that I happen to know some people who have spent many years
of their life, kind of having two types of job, they're like
pay job and this side job that works also.
But what is important is as I said the fact that you find a
way to get more energy, more inspiration and to feel more
empowered and to feel that you are good at performing
something. I think this is very important
for us for human beings and for the people, I wrote the book
with that, we are the kind of Of people that we want to feel that
I am good at this activity. I chose that activity and I have
the right skills for this amount of Challenge.
And also, speaking from my personal experience, you don't
have to start big. I guess, you could always start
something small, have an audience of maybe your family
member of your friends to start with.
But the key is to have the Cadence because the more you
create actually the more that you will exercise this, and if
it really brings you energy, you can He continued it for long.
Like, for example, in this podcast, I've done two and a
half years. If you look back in the
beginning, maybe I think I would struggle as well to produce
this, but now looking back, two and a half years later where did
the energy come from? I guess it's also partly of the
motivation and also partly that you enjoy this activity so that
you can continue experimenting. And maybe one day, hey you can
reach that point as well. So I think the key message don't
always start big try to do small and see exactly.
And also like to avoid Avoid to have this expectations that like
after two years of broadcasting, if I don't get to how many
followers or you know, like not to have this finite results for
yourself because talking about being creative and seeing
possibilities, that's gonna kill the creativity.
And then we, again, we are going to discourage ourselves and we
are going to think, oh, this hopeless job that I have or role
is much better. So, just to keep an open mind,
I'm focusing one week at Time to organize one episode.
That one episode, and leave this open door to the unexpected.
Yes, speaking about avoiding expectations actually.
Before I started the podcast, I did a lot of research as well
about creative life. So this is one of the key
message for me, that kind of inspire day-to-day work.
The message says that we have to focus on the process of the
creation rather than the results.
It's not like the results, the likes.
How many listeners or how many people actually collapse.
I think it's about the process. Like you find yourself in tune
into the ACT. Fatigue and you always produce a
crop out of it. If the result is good and the
people liked it, I guess. Yeah.
You can enjoy the results as well.
But to avoid this expectation. I think it's very key because
like you said right? You can kill our motivation.
If we think it's going to go viral but turns out nobody likes
it. So I guess that's also not a
good thing to always hinge on right?
Yes it's about faces. This results are talking about,
maybe they are going to make sense a bit later on in our
development in experimenting with different projects.
But in the beginning is very important to find this sense of
like motivation and fulfillment. If I would make a parallel in my
own book, for instance, I felt this sense of fulfillment.
The moment when I saw my book, when I finalize the last
manuscript and then the results came, I moved onto the stage and
I wanted to have results. When I said, okay I'm very
content with the manuscript but now I am to find the publisher.
So the result for me came when actually I'm I managed to sign a
contract with the publisher. That's an example that when we
are experimenting with different projects where we want to find
that sense of what gives us energy, what gives us fuel for
our creativity. We have to focus first on being
honest and Phil, does this feel meaningful for me?
When the answer is, yes, think okay, I'm going to find a way to
see how this is going to be accepted by my audience, I did
have my audience in my mind all the time except that I was
prioritize. More like coming with the ideas,
focusing, the creating going with my inspiration with my
intuition. That's what we have to work hard
with ourselves to forget the bit about results because the
results are very important. Also how we perform how others
are going to appreciate our work.
But yeah, let's give ourselves a bit of break from that when we
create yeah, again don't create too big of an expectation.
For example, some people do side projects in the hope of becoming
a self and true Open or stop working and do a full time job
and creative work. I guess for some people, it
work, but it is a hard job as well.
So don't forget that creativity also involves a lot of hard work
that you have to produce week in week out.
No matter what Cadence that you want to do nothing.
It is also a hard work behind it, but if you enjoy the
process, I guess the result will take care of itself.
So dr. Wanna you have done this
research? When you write the book is there
anyone surprising thing or finding that you have when you
do the research, maybe you can With us, what?
Interesting thing that you find from this research.
Yes. One thing, it was that I
surprised myself with the perspective that I took on the
book because in the beginning, I was thinking that I'm gonna just
write a book about how to stimulate the creative thinking.
So more, like from the outside in, I was talking to the reader
and I was telling to the reader, how to develop their creativity,
through different skills, but then I surprised myself, when I
realized that there's lots of research done in this, Style,
the outside in style, I'm doing training in that style but then
I decide know with the book, I have to go more like to move the
perspective of the creativity from inside out.
How does it feel to be a person who has underdeveloped creative
potential? But was for me like this aha
moment, when I decided I'm going to change gears in research, I'm
going to find new research papers that focus on the
creative believes. What do you believe about
yourself? Creativity.
How do you see yourself as a creative person?
So, I could say, I had two stages in writing the book, The
First Stage outside in and then the second stage inside out,
which you also could read. So I was just wondering about if
you have read some other books on creativity, I was about to
say, for me, personally, I always believed about starting
from the inside first not to do something because of an external
motivation, some people say you have to do it from inner
motivation because first of all I think that That will be more
lasting rather than again, if you have big expectations,
external results and motivation, right?
Sometimes when you don't get that, then you kind of like, oh,
I feel so wasted. I don't know what I'm doing.
People don't understand what I did, but if you always start
from yourself, maybe trying to find your strength, your
passion, what brings you energy, or just the things that you want
to explore. I think that gives the meaning
to the cell first if you enjoyed, I guess if the results
also enjoyable for the audience, I think, hey, maybe you have a
mat, you can continue this. Exploration.
So I believe about Inside Out approach as well.
Thanks for sharing the story. How you also got this insights
during your research, maybe if you can give tips for listeners
here who want to start. Now, they are motivated.
I guess like, I want to be more creative.
Are there a certain tips or advice or insights that you want
to welcome them to try in their lives?
Yes, the first Insight is not to be afraid to step out of the
comfort zone. It feels uncomfortable.
That's true. True, but it can also be
rewarding. What does it mean?
Step outside the comfort zone is to actually be active.
We keep on getting back to this like, how to use our time and be
active in using our time to seek out for new people to step
outside the professional sphere. Just looking at what happens in
your town. What kind of outside work
networking happens there and just try it out for instance.
I've been trying out in the last month with this public speaking
Club toast. Fosters.
It's another experiment of stepping outside of the comfort
zone. I would say that it should be a
habit stepping outside of the comfort zone.
I've been doing that ever since I decided to go on the
solopreneur shift. So this is one thing that I
would advise. Another thing is getting back to
paying attention to what happens inside us.
There are some sensitivities in US.
It can be that when we are going from home to work or going for a
walk, or going to the shop or meeting a friend.
We feel something inside. Something happens, something
touches us. Well, for instance, we can read,
like a post at the cafeteria announcing something happening
in town. And if best resonates with you,
please stop and make time for it.
Okay, this seems to be interesting.
How can I develop it? How can I follow it?
This is actually what happened to me, seven years ago when I
was walking in town here in Helsinki with my son, my son was
a baby at that time. I was pushing the pram and I
pass by This Library where they had on the window.
A notice, the notice was saying that here we are welcoming
spirituality courses for all the people from all walks of life,
and then I was like, wow, that's very interesting.
I'm not interested in organizing a spirituality course, but I'm
going to organize my first course, on how to choose
happiness in your life. I felt something strong when I
saw that notice, and I decided to follow it, and I went home
and I started doing research. Search on happiness, that's
another domain of knowledge that I'm passionate about and it
doesn't sound so easy, as you may think.
So, I ended up with the course, and I ended up with organizing
this course, for maybe more than six months.
And I met some interesting people starting from this
feeling that, wow, this is interesting.
So these two things, I would encourage our listeners in order
to find their inner motivation for a particular activity.
First try to make a habit out of stepping outside of the comfort
zone and then pay attention. Shannon at what touches you when
you seemingly do nothing important, just like moving from
one place to another. Wow, thanks for sharing the
beautiful story, coincidentally. Actually, it happened to me as
well. Before starting this podcast, I
was taking a walk. I normally take a walk in the
evening and I listen to podcasts almost all the time.
During that time, I got inspired by all this podcasters, then one
day it just spoke my mind. Hey, is there any Tech podcast
from this region when I searched there was none.
Okay, maybe I could start one. So it's just Like a random wild
idea for me, I kept thinking about that the night after the
day after. Why don't I just try and yeah
actually it happened the same way.
I like a lot to watch you sad because it's very important that
you kept thinking about it. This is a sign that's a
sensitivity that we need to follow.
That's a tiny idea that we need to develop the fact that you
keep on thinking about it. Thanks for that.
So the key thing for me that I took out just now is that always
have a habit of stepping out. It could be taking a Walk, maybe
a shower as well as some people say you can't get a new ideas
when you shower or just random, you know, me in the cafe.
When you look at posts or maybe signs that inspires you.
The next thing that is very important is when it inspires
you stop and take, notice pay attention.
Maybe there's an idea. Keep it in the notes.
I guess some people mention about keeping all these notes
ready so that you can just keep it down and maybe you don't
forget. And one day if you keep thinking
of it, you can go back and explore.
I think that's a really beautiful message.
Zh yes and try to do something about it.
Also take it like a project that you want to develop a prototype
for and try to do not like you said, you did research about the
tech podcast in the area and then think about how would you
do it? If there is none, how'd I do it?
Who I would invite, take small steps to actually make it a real
project. I'm at, once a person who was
such an imaginative person, she was telling that she spends lots
of time during her day daydreaming, but she never did
anything. Think about those Daydreams.
That's why I would urge action. You feel something, you notice,
something you get an idea that triggers your sensitivity.
Just try to develop it a bit. Wow.
I think another beautiful message because some people say
I mean parents sometimes don't Daydream right because it's
wasted of time but to me, they dream is important.
Sometimes could spot maybe while ideas.
Yes. But sometimes he could turn it
into something concrete. So I think don't judge yourself
and you Daydream, I think it's also a chance.
All for you to be creative. Certainly certainly, I mean as I
said in the beginning some of us are natural at imaginative
thinking at daydreaming and if your mind is wired that way, go
for it. I think for some people I myself
get inspired by for some people who listen to this day may also
get inspired. But unfortunately doctor 10, we
have to end our conversation due to time, but I have one last
question. This is what I call tree, Tech
leadership wisdom, it doesn't have to be a tech related so you
can think of it like Leadership is them, I guess.
So if you can, maybe share with us.
What will be your tree wisdom to share with the audience here?
Wow, that's great. I would just say like leadership
wisdom from scientific world, that's where I have been
experience more with. So the first one is like, walk
the talk. If you are a leader with some
values, can you have that expectations from your people?
Then just be the one who walks the talk.
Like for instance, if you are the leader who says that, we
have a flat At culture here in the team just show yourself.
Go to the cafeteria, talk with your team members make yourself,
approachable, make yourself relatable.
So that's the first thing, walk the talk and then I would say
talking about values, one thing would be to think about what
kind of lie there you are. And what are your goals with
your team? If we talk about creativity and
helping people feel good at what they do, I would say to be more
this kind of selfless leader, the kind of leader who wakes up
in the morning and says, how can I make the life of my people
easier? The third leadership wisdom is
to keep up the ability to ask questions.
Try to eat the one, who shows how it is to be curious.
Like, how can we do this? What is it that we are not
seeing what new information do we need and not to be be afraid
to show to the team members that you are not a know-it-all, but
you are a curious person. I really love the second one
actually. So as a leader, sometimes we
wake up on the bed in the morning, we always think about
okay. What goes that we can move the
post this time. What kind of results can be
achieve? But you actually remind a very
good message. What kind of things that we can
do to help others lives better or easier so to speak.
I think I get at the end of the day leadership is about people,
right? It's not about just achieving
results. So thanks dr. 10 for this
wonderful conversation. So if people love this
conversation, they want to find more about you or just top is
their place, they can reach out online.
This place is my LinkedIn profile.
If you look for me on LinkedIn, one novel, cool, Lighting on, or
just drop me an email, wanna at well, kudos fi this to LinkedIn
or email Art easiest way. And if you want to know more
about what I do professionally, Ali.
You can go to my website. Well, kudos fi.
And there. You can see some of the
trainings that I have designed during all these years.
I'm very open talking about, stepping outside the comfort
zone, I'm very open to talk with people and I'm curious to hear
about people's stories and experiences.
I'll make sure to put all those in the show notes.
So thank you again for this wonderful, creativity related
conversation. I hope it inspires some of you
business who wants to also explore About your creative
Journey. So I hope something Sparks you
today and you can take action and do something out of your
curiosity. Thank you so very much.
Henry does very interesting if I would make a summer, it would be
like, don't give up on your inner motivation and be ready to
have new habits to take action. Thank you for listening to this
episode and for staying, right until the end if you highly
enjoyed it. I would appreciate if you share
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