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A Re-Introduction to the Born to Create Podcast · The Daily Writer

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Kent Sanders and this is the Born to Create Podcast, where we explore the stories, wisdom, and insights of creative thinkers who can help you make a bigger impact in your art and your life.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for tuning in today.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate you spending time with me here on the show.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I know there are a lot of podcasts you can be listening to, so I really appreciate you choosing this one.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I truly mean that when I say that.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I never want to take your attention for granted and will always do my best to deliver a show that is hopefully worth listening to.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the very first episode of the show, and it's not even really an episode, but it's more of an introduction to the podcast as a whole.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: I considered not doing this episode and just letting episode one truly be a first episode, but then I changed my mind and thought it would be worthwhile to give you some insight as to what the show is all about, who I am, and what you can expect to get out of the show.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Then I want to close this episode by sharing sort of philosophically why I'm doing this podcast in the first place.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: And this is sort of like the big ideas that drive me.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that'll help give you some insight as to what the show is all about and what you can expect from it, and really what I'm about as a person, because I'm the host, and even though I'm interviewing people on each episode, I want you to know some things about me and some things that are important to me because those ideas will definitely be what are driving the show.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, let me share just a little bit about me, and then I'll move on to some other things that probably will be of more interest to you.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, I am a full-time professor at St.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Louis Christian College in Florescent, Missouri.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: I've been teaching there for 14 years, so I'm recording this in October of 2018.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been teaching there for quite a while.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: I teach arts, film, communication, writing, and speech.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, I'm the professor of communication arts, and that encompasses a lot of different types of things.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Before that, I was actually a worship leader at a church in northern Illinois, and worship leading in the arts and music has always been part of my background, even from the time I was a junior high student.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was always involved in, you know, band, theater, choirs, creative arts, that kind of stuff.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: So that is absolutely in my blood.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's only recently that I've made the transition, sort of in my professional life, away from worship and music in the church more to communication arts.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: I am married.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: My wife's name is Melanie, and we have been married for 22 years.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: I have one son, Benjamin.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: I am an author and have written two books.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: My first book was called 30 Days of Evernote for Churches.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: That was for Church Mag Press.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Had a really fun time writing that book, and that was a book for pastors specifically on how to use the app Evernote.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a huge Evernote fanatic, and maybe someday I'll have somebody from the Evernote Corporation on as a guest for the podcast.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: That would be really fun.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, you will find out through this show that I love systems and processes and organization.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think those are really key things to boost your creative life.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, I love Evernote so much that I wrote a book on it for pastors.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: My second book was called The Artist Suitcase, 26 Essentials for the Creative Journey.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: That came out in the year 2015.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea why I said the year 2015.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds like that old Conan O'Brien skit that he used to do, you know, in the year 2000.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: But um anyway, that came out about three years ago, and that was a really short book on creativity.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: I am currently working on my third book, which has been way too long, uh, the process of getting that done.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: But you will see that hopefully sometime in 2019.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh as I mentioned, my background is in worship arts in the church.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Specifically, I'm a guitar player and a drummer, and I play a few other instruments as well.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: I love movies and I love storytelling and the process of just bringing stories to life.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's a big part of who I am.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a writer, as I mentioned, and my blog, of course, is KentSanders.net.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: You can find lots of blog posts there, and that will also be the home for the podcast episodes.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, you can find these episodes on Stitcher and iTunes and podcast apps and uh Spotify and all that good stuff.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Essentially, what you're going to learn from this show is that I am really, really interested in all aspects of creativity and the creative process.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: How creativity works, where does it come from, what can we learn from artists and leaders and the creative greats of history.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm interested in all those things.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll try to bring all those things out week by week in the interviews.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a little bit about me, but let's now put the main focus on you.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Why should you tune in every week and listen to this podcast when there are so many other great podcasts out there?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: There's really four things.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, this show will help you expand your curiosity and grow your appreciation and awareness of the world around you.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, you'll learn practical action steps to help you be more creative in your work, relationships, art, and your life.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, you'll get to know some great thinkers, leaders, artists, and writers who can help you unleash your God given creative potential.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, number four, the fourth reason why you should listen to the show is that it's entertaining.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: My goal is to make the show fun, educational, and practical.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully it'll be all those things rolled up into one.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now you may wonder who is the target audience for this show?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And really there are two answers to that question.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: The first answer is a broader audience that I have in mind, but there's also a more narrow target audience that I have in mind.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: The broader audience for the Born to Create podcast includes anybody who's interested in the topic of creativity.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this might include artists, leaders, coaches, business owners, pastors, speakers, creative professionals, educators, students, and basically anybody else who has, you know, who has ears to hear and who wants to learn about the creative process.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: But really, I have a more narrow target audience in mind.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is kind of the core type of person that I'm making this show for.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I would call that person a Christian creative entrepreneur.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: What I mean by that is that number one, it's a person who's operating from a faith-based perspective.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now that doesn't mean if you're not a Christian or you're not a faith-based person and faith is not a part of your life, that doesn't mean the show will not have value for you.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I believe the show is going to definitely have a lot of value for you.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: But because I'm going to be interviewing a lot of people who are faith-based, and that's just part of who I am, that's naturally going to be the people that I'm more or less talking to in the show.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: However, as I mentioned, if you're not a faith-based person, still tune in because you're going to get a lot out of the show.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: The more narrow target audience I have is what I would call a Christian creative entrepreneur.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: These are people who operate from a faith-based perspective and who want to build a creative business that helps support them and their family.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: So this includes people such as musicians, artists, writers, speakers, designers, filmmakers, actors, etc.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: So in other words, it's people who are creating or making things for a living, whether they're using words or acting or they're making something physical or something digital or graphic.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me do say a word to those of you who are not coming from a faith-based perspective.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely want you to listen to the show, and I believe 99% of every episode is still going to apply to you.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is not a Bible study type of show.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: We're not constantly going to be doing, you know, sermons and Bible studies and that type of thing.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: That being said, though, I am coming from a faith-based Christian perspective.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't come from that perspective, you can just tune out that part.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's totally great.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I just kind of want you to know that is where I'm coming from.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I still want to deliver a lot of value for you, regardless of whether that is your particular perspective in life.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a lot of podcasts on creativity.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you do a search on iTunes or any podcast app, there's gobs of podcasts that are talking about the creative process in different industries and from different perspectives.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of great ones I might add.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: I listened to a lot of the shows.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: So why would I start another show on creativity?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Does the world really need another creative type of a podcast?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think it does.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: There are several things that I think make the Born to Create podcast unique.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, we have a wide variety of guests from many different fields.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be having people on from the world of music and education.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Once in a while I may have a pastor on, authors.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: The first episode features a ghostwriter, people in finance, you know, business people.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to get a broad perspective on creativity from a wide variety of industries.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Second of all, on this show, we're going to have a big focus on curiosity, learning, and application to your creative life and business.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't just want these to be sort of interesting interviews.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely want these to be shows where you can break down what we're talking about and apply it to your life.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that is why at the end of every interview, I'm going to take just a few minutes and break down some things that we can start doing in our lives in a very practical and actionable way.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, as far as things that make this show unique, I definitely want to emphasize the creative process.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we've heard that term creative process before, and on this show I want to really emphasize that, that creativity is a process.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: None of us gets there overnight.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: It takes years to arise to our full creative potential.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe that this show is going to help you develop systems and processes in your life that you can use to unleash your creative potential.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: So that's some information about the show that gives you kind of an idea of what to expect.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now let me take a couple minutes and share several ideas that form, I guess, what I would call the philosophical basis of this podcast.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And these are simply four convictions that I want to share with you.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: These convictions, in one way or another, drive everything that I do in my professional life, and many times in my personal life.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: These, in many ways, just kind of form the basis of who I am as a person.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And all of these stem from what I believe is my vocational mission in life, and that is to help other people release their God-given creative potential.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dive in here really quickly.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, God values creativity.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: The very first image of God that we see in the Bible is that of a creator.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Genesis 1.1 says, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that's telling us that God creates things.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: God brings things into existence.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's first and foremost who God is.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: He is a creator.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now we also have creative powers since we're made in God's image.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now we can't create things out of nothing like God can.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: However, we can take existing materials that God has given to us, and we can put those things together in new and interesting ways that benefit and serve other people.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you look in the Bible, all the way from the priest robes in the book of Exodus, it talks about the artistry of the priest's robes and how ornate and really cool looking they were, to the poetry and music of the Psalms, to the hymns of the Book of Revelation, we see that God is deeply interested in creativity.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, you were born to create.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as I mentioned earlier, I don't normally use a lot of scripture in my writing.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm this podcast is not going to be a Bible study per se, because I see it more as a practical exploration of the creative process, you know, not something where we're breaking down scripture every week and that type of thing.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: However, that being said, I cannot talk about the foundations of my life and my vocation in this podcast without including scripture because it's just foundational to who I am as a person.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: In the book of Ephesians, in the New Testament, chapter two, verse ten, it says, For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, we are literally God's handiwork created for good works.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: So in a very real sense, all of us are born to create.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that your mission in life and my mission in life is to figure out what we were meant to do and to do it to the best of our ability.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite writers, an author named Frederick Beakner, said The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: I love that quote.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think that we find the most joy and we help the most people when we're doing what we were born to do.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, everyone has creative gifts.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's a really common misconception that creativity is confined to artists or people who want to be artists.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Most people believe that music, painting, film, writing, and similar areas are where true creativity happens.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and when we read about creative titans like uh Da Vinci, Steve Jobs, or George Lucas, those kind of people, it's very easy to feel inferior by comparison because we think, well, I could never reach those heights of creativity.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: But creativity by definition is all about making things.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now you can do this in many different ways.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's true that a lot of people express their creativity by making books, movies and music and those type of things.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: But what about the stay at home mom who creates an orderly household for her family?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: What about the auto mechanic who has the skill to create a new engine?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: What about the janitor who creates a clean and an orderly environment for the people that he serves, maybe in a school or in an office building?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: What about the counselor who creates trust and rapport with a client who's going through some really horrible things in their life?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Creativity is not limited to quote unquote artists.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a seriously narrow way of thinking.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: We have to expand our horizons and realize that everybody has the capability to create by bringing something useful into the world.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: So no matter what kind of setting that you're in, no matter what kind of job that you do, you can exercise your creative powers and add more value to people, whether you work at a church, a business, whether you're an entrepreneur or a missionary, a stay-at-home parent, a retail worker, or even an artist.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, number four, creativity is a habit that can be learned.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that creativity is like a muscle that we have to exercise if we want it to get stronger.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Creativity is a learned habit, and it's systematic while also being closely related to curiosity.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: So there's kind of an interesting paradox there.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: It is systematic, it's process-oriented, but it's also something that just kind of happens sometimes.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I love about the creative process is it it contains both of those elements there.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's great to occasionally feel inspired by something and to feel inspired to create things, but if we want to operate at our creative peak, we have to think of creativity as a habit, not just an emotion that we feel whenever the muse hits us.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most important qualities that you'll find in the world's most creative people is that they are lifelong learners.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: They never stop growing and learning.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if we want to do the same thing, we have to commit to constantly growing as well.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: You can find lots of resources, by the way, for your personal and professional growth by visiting my resources page on my website that is Kent Sanders.net slash resources.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: So just to review these once again, these are four convictions about creativity.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, God values creativity.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, you were born to create.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, everyone has creative gifts.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And number four, creativity is a habit that can be learned.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: These four convictions in one way or another drive everything that I do in my professional life.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: They are the foundation of my thinking about creativity and pretty much the foundation for all of my writing and this podcast as well.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my friends, that is pretty much it for this introductory episode of the Born to Create Podcast.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate you tuning in and listening.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: You can find the show notes for this episode at Kent Sanders.net slash zero zero zero.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: And for more great resources to help unleash your creative powers, visit my website at KentSanders.net.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing it with a friend or a family member who you think would enjoy it.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, this is Kent Sanders telling you to go create something awesome.