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The Spark Sessions: My Friends Don’t Care About My Creative Work - The Six Relationships Your Creativity Actually Needs · Create Magic At Work®

• 0:00
  Amy Lynn Durham: Hey everyone, Amy here. If you listen to this show, you know we focus on expanding human potential and bring spiritual intelligence into modern leadership. But there's a blind spot that so many high performers may have. We treat creativity like a rare talent or a luxury we don't have time for, rather than an essential everyday resource. Creativity isn't a gift reserved for a lucky few. It's a live relationship that determines how fully you engage with your work, your ideas, and your life. And like any relationship, it must be intentionally resourced and tended to help us
• 0:38
  all shift into this vital, energetic piece of our humanity. I've partnered with elite creativity coach, songwriter, and producer Rachel Ephron to bring you a brand new monthly mini series, the Spark Sessions: Resourcing for Creativity. Each month, Rachel is taking over the mic to share deeply personal stories, break down common myths and hand you a specific 10-minute mission designed to resource your creativity. By the end of this journey, our goal is to help you rekindle your life force, step into infinite possibility, and become a truly vibrant, thriving human being. Get ready because
• 1:21
  you're about to step into the Spark Sessions, resourcing your creativity. Here's Rachel Efron.
• 1:29
  Rachel Efron: Welcome to the Spark Sessions. I'm your creativity coach, Rachel Efron. Here we understand creativity isn't a talent or a mood; it's our natural state, and it comes alive the moment we support it. Every session will challenge myths, break through blocks, and help you discover what's yours and only yours to make. Let's get to it. What do a 28-year-old Peruvian photographer, a cynical high school band director, Adrian Rich, an eight-year-old with an adorable pet dog, Whitney Houston's producer, and the Pacific Ocean all have in common. Well, altogether, they taught me the six
• 2:14
  relationships most important for creativity. So, this episode of the Spark Sessions is about connection. Remember, here at the Spark Sessions, we believe creativity is our natural state. If we are not creating, it means only that we aren't resourced for creativity. There are five essential resources for creativity: inspiration, courage, discipline, rest, connection. If we are under resourced in even one, creativity will feel arduous. If we are resourced in all five, we cannot help but create. So today we are doing a deep dive into one of the five essential resources: connection. We're going
• 3:00
  to explore what is creative connection. I'm going to identify for you the six relationships most important for creative health. I'm going to share with you my very first experiences with each one of these relationships, and finally, we're going to end with a connection mission, so that you can start drawing more connection into your creative life. Okay, here we go. Creative connection is not how many friends you have. You can have 1000 friends and be under resourced in creative connection. Creative connection is not how social you are. You can go to parties every night of the week and be
• 3:49
  under resourced in creative connection. And creative connection is not how socially skilled you are. You can be wildly socially skilled and be under resourced in creative connection. Creative connection means only and completely how the relationships in your life support your creativity. And in the end, friends, parties, even social skills don't have a whole lot to do with it. In my 15 years as a creativity coach, I identified six relationships imperative for your creative health. They are this: allies, mentors, role models, mentees, collaborators, and nature slash spirit. Again,
• 4:41
  allies, mentors, role models, mentees, collaborators, and nature slash spirit. Maybe you think, yeah, I might have some of those. Maybe you're not sure. Maybe you've never heard of some of these relationships. Here is a brief summary. Of what each of these relationships is. Creative allies; these are your companions on the creative road. There is a mutual cheerleading. You cheerlead them; they cheerlead you. They have an innate understanding of creative process, and they enjoy speaking with you about it. You like each other's work, maybe, but what you really like is learning about each
• 5:28
  other's creative process. Mentors have been around the block; they've been around the particular block that you want to go around, and they want you to benefit from the fruits of Their experiences, role models are those that you want to emulate. They could be alive, they could be deceased, they could frankly be fictional. But something about them provides you with a north star, reminding you in every step you take the overall direction you want to be going. Mentees is a very overlooked creativity relationship. Mentees are those who benefit from your experiences. The relationship is great for
• 6:12
  them because they get to learn from you. The relationship is absolutely crucial for you because it reminds you of your skills. It reminds you of your experiences. It reminds you what you bring to the table. Collaborators are the ones you get in the sandbox with, and you play. You make stuff together. You make stuff that neither one of you would make on your own. And nature slash spirit. This is your connection to the greater world. It's good for your emotional health. It's good for your mental health, but it is good for your creative health because it reminds you that in creating, you
• 6:56
  belong. So, if you have a couple of these creativity relationships, your creativity will thank you. If you have many of these creativity relationships, you will feel a synergy between your creativity and the world around you. If you have all of these creativity relationships, God help this world handle everything you are about to create.
• 7:31
  What I'm going to do today is share with you my first experiences with each one of these creativity relationships. My first creative ally. My first mentor, my first role model, my first mentee, my first collaborator, and my first experience of nature slash spirit supporting my creative life. Now, at the time of these relationships, I didn't know what they were. I was like, "What is this? What is this extraordinary thing? It's only looking back that I realized, oh, that was a creative ally. Oh, that was a mentor, and I realized the absolute power they had for my creative life. It was only
• 8:17
  looking back that I resolved to always and forever have these relationships in my creative life. The summer after I graduated from college was an evocative time. That three months between graduation and moving to California to pursue a career as a singer-songwriter. It was transitional. It was liminal. It was scary beyond reason. I had two goals: to make enough money to afford a plane ticket and a few months' rent somewhere in California, and to write songs. So I got a job as an editor at the Center for Latin American Studies, Jose was the center's photographer. For the first couple weeks, we
• 9:09
  were skeptical but polite. For the next couple weeks, we were playful. We were silly, and for the final two months, we could not stop talking about songs and poems and photographs and novels, we obsessed over each other's creative process. He went to my shows. I flipped through his photography books. He took pictures of me for my album. I modeled for his photographs. We were so deeply enchanted by each other's creative interests. Now, at the time, I wondered if it was a romance, because I'd never felt such passion except for a romance. But then I realized, no, this isn't a romance,
• 9:58
  or rather, it was. But it was the two of us together romancing creativity. Now I know exactly what it was. Jose was my first creative ally, and he taught me what a creative ally can do. He helped me be less scared. He helped me feel a sense of belonging. He helped me feel creatively understood. Now I make sure to always have creative allies, just a text away, just a phone call away. I reach out when I need to feel creatively understood. I reach out when I need to feel that sense of creative belonging. I reach out when I want to go to an art gallery and get excited because we're making stuff
• 10:40
  too. I make sure that every step of my creative journey, I have my cohort of trusted creative allies by my side. I am so happy that I get to talk to you about Norm Richardson. Oh my God, did I live from my conversations with Norm Richardson? And right now, talking to you about Norm Richardson, I feel like I get to have one more. So, I was in high school. I was not altogether happy to be in high school. I felt aimless. I felt self-doubt. I felt both a longing for and a fear of the world beyond. Small town Maine. Let's be real. I had a hard time in high school, but every day, I would show up.
• 11:38
  I would go down to the band room to practice piano, and I would talk for hours with the band director Nora Richardson, or more accurately, he would talk at me for hours. He told me about his life. He told me about my potential. He saw something in me. He believed in me, he made me believe in me. He helped me understand that there was something inside of me that was meant for more than just the life that I was currently living. At the time, I didn't know what to do with any of this. I remember being so overwhelmed by the emotion of this experience, but now I know what it was. He was my
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  mentor, and what he left me with is a knowledge of the power of the right mentor. We know mentors are important, but I don't think we realize how crucial they are for our creative life, the right mentor can be an absolute game changer in our creative life. Can be an absolute life saver in our creative life. When I moved to the Bay Area after my 20-year lifetime in New England.
• 13:03
  I did not know which way was up. The street signs looked too big. The landscape was so grand it didn't even register as pretty to me. I thought it was green screened, and the conversations people wanted to have with me. I did not know what they were talking about. People kept asking me, "What are you?" It took me a while to realize they weren't asking me what I did for a living. They were asking me one of two things. Sometimes they were asking me my astrological sign. Now this is not a question you get asked in New England, but more often than not, they were asking me my ethnicity, my
• 13:47
  ancestry. I realized I lacked context, I lacked a sense of the implications of the conversations I was having, and so I paused. I started reading. I read so much. I read so many authors, and ultimately, I read one author. I read Adrienne Rich. Now, I fell in love with Adrian Rich. I fell in love with her poetry. I fell in love with her essays. But more than that, I needed Adrian Rich because she taught me about identity. She taught me that creativity and activism can be one and the same. I emulated not just her work but her creative life. I understand now. Adrian Rich was my first
• 14:38
  creativity role model, and she taught me the importance of having a creativity role model. We need a role model for every bit of becoming that we want to do. And now I am very intentional. I'm very intentional. Every year of my life, I say to myself, "Okay, what?". Becoming this year, Rachel, and I think about who who embodies that, not just in their work, but in their creative life. And then I make sure to spend some kind of quality time with them, whether it's reading a book, whether it's watching a video. I spend some quality time with them every single day. In my first years as a
• 15:26
  recording performing singer songwriter, I supported myself by teaching piano lessons. I would spend my mornings booking gigs or practicing piano. I would spend my evenings writing songs or playing gigs, and every afternoon I would welcome six-year-olds and 12-year-olds and 17-year-olds and 50-year-olds into my studio apartment to play quarter notes and octaves and jazz standards and debussy on my little electric keyboard three feet from my bed, it was a shoddy operation, but also it was very cool because one moment I would be so upset about the gig that I'd wanted so much that I didn't get,
• 16:17
  and the next moment I would be listening to an eight-year-old tell me about her adorable pet dog. One moment I would be ruminating about a chorus I was writing that just wasn't working, and the next moment I would be helping a 40-year-old finally give himself permission to learn the piano. I needed these piano lessons for my income, but I also needed these piano lessons for my peace, I think without them I would have fallen into the total self-absorption of being a 22-year-old singer-songwriter trying to make a name for herself. As it was, I continuously showed up for others. What I
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  realize now is that these were my first mentees, and they taught me the power of having mentees. I don't just think mentees are important. I think they are the foundation of our creative connection. Truly, when I am down and out, I don't call a creative ally. I don't call a mentor. I think to myself, which one of my mentees can I serve today? Because that is the straightest line to my center. Two weeks before the pandemic, I got a Facebook friend request from Narda Michael Walden. I remember where I was sitting, I was teaching a piano lesson to an adorable high schooler. I turned to her and I
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  said, "Narada Michael Walden just friend requested me." She said, "Who's that?" I said, "He's a legend. He was Whitney Houston's producer. He was Aretha Franklin's producer. He was Mariah Carey's producer. He produced literally every icon you could name in the next minute. She said, "Oh!" A minute later, Narda Michael Walden DM'd me, and I lost my mind. So a few days later, I was sitting with him at a piano in the room where Whitney Houston had recorded her vocals, and we were trading hook ideas.
• 18:27
  He had invited me there for half-hour meeting to explore whether he might produce me. But three hours later, we realized we liked writing songs together. We worked unstoppingly, and then he sent me away with two songs to complete. It took me, I think, two days, and I sent him back the completed songs. He sent me a message with 30 emoticons because we had struck gold. We wrote 100, 200 songs during the pandemic. We wrote the first song on the new Journey album. We lived a kind of fever dream. I would lie and wait for his replies to my texts about which parts of the chorus were working and
• 19:16
  which were not. He would wait for my replies about whether we were going to move forward with a major or minor version of a song. I had had experiences creating with other people before. I had worked with producers. I had worked with bandmates. But this was my first true creative collaboration. Talk about starting strong. So now I know I need collaboration in my life. Every single day of my life, I make sure to experience collaboration. Whether it's asking a friend to title my new song, whether it's cooking something weird with my partner at night, I make sure. Letting others uplift my
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  creativity. I lived in California for 15 years before I truly looked at the Pacific Ocean. Like I said, green screen. I didn't believe in it. Also, I had a kind of loyalty to the East Coast, to that dark blue, white-capped, slate-shored Atlantic Ocean. I didn't want to be disloyal. I didn't want to cheat. Then one day, more recently than I care to admit, I took myself on a solo trip to Mendocino, and driving on 128 West, something happened. I followed the Navarro River on its twists and turns, and when it dropped me in front of the Pacific Ocean, it was like she grabbed my shoulders and shook
• 20:55
  me and screamed in my face, "Look at me!" And I did. And she was sparkly, and I thought I'm sparkly, and she was salty, and I thought I'm salty, and she had weird deep sea creatures, and I thought, well, certainly I've got those. I felt a likeness. I felt a resonance. I thought I belong here. I thought I'm home here. And my God, if I was home there, then I wasn't just home in Maine. I was home there. Then I was home everywhere. I was at home in the world. I had always loved nature. I had always had an appreciation for nature, but since that moment, my relationship with nature has changed.
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  Now I step into nature, and I feel a camaraderie. I feel that likeness. I feel like I'm a modest artist going for a walk in reverence for a greater artist than I can ever fathom. I go home inspired to do my little part in creating again. So yeah, that was my first experience of nature slash spirit commanding me to create, and now when I need creative connection, but I don't want to talk to anybody, I just go for a walk in the woods. So, now that you know the six creativity relationships, everything changes. You stop looking for creative support in all the wrong places. You forgive the people in
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  your life who are wonderful but who aren't creatively savvy. You let your friends be friends, and you find yourself some allies. You let your parents be parents, and you find yourself some mentors. You bark up the right trees, and you at last start feeling true creative community. So yeah, now we are going to shift our gaze from the me of it to the you of it. I am going to guide you in a musy connection mission, so that you can start to call more creative connection into your life. Today's connection mission is called Ask. It is very simple, and I'm going to read it to you now. Ask someone
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  about their creative life. One good question, and then just listen. Okay, so I want you to do that. I want you to do that. If not today, then in the next couple days. Okay. Again, ask someone about their creative life. One good question, and then just listen. Here are some examples of possible questions you could ask: What are you making these days? How do you get new creative ideas?
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  How are you finding time for creativity in your life? What's the last thing you learned about your creative process? What are your creative goals this year? Ask one of those questions, or ask honestly anything that piques your curiosity. What matters is less the question and more that you ask something. I'm also going to read you a few notes. Note number one: Once you get to know about someone's creative life, you can ask specific questions. How is your project going? Did you end up stepping away from the gig that was stressing you out? But in the meantime, general questions are more than
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  great. How do you like to celebrate a creative achievement? What's your first creative memory? People will appreciate the opportunity for reflection. Note number two: periodically check in with yourself. About the goodies you bring to creative allyship, do you have endless enthusiasm? Do you offer encouragement? Do you have a unique perspective on creativity? Cultivate what you bring to creative allyship, just as you would any other skill set. Note number three: If you don't yet have creative allies, don't let it get you down. Open your heart to the possibility of having them at some
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  point. In the meantime, keep asking your creativity questions. Okay, I really hope you guys enjoy that mission. I hope it brings some interesting creative connection into your life. And remember, if you want to check out the full mission or a number of other missions for connection and the other four creativity resources, download Musi in the Apple App Store. You can find it by searching Musi Creativity in the App Store or follow the link in the show notes. So we have come to everybody's favorite part of the Spark sessions, the Spark reading. Today I am reading the Spark of Troy. Now Troy
• 26:19
  is the editor of this very series, so it's particularly fun to be reading his spark today. Now, Troy sent me a spark, but he also sent me a clue along with his spark. So I want to admit that I have more than just a spark to work with today. Troy also sent me a little note saying, "I don't think of myself as a particularly creative person, so the creativity assessment was hard. Now it's interesting that Troy doesn't consider himself to be a creative person because objectively he is. Like I said, he edits this video series. He also does all the covers, all the graphics. He's a
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  fantastic collaborator. I can attest to that. So then, what do we make of that? And what do we make of this spark? What's really notable about this spark to me isn't so much the subtle differences between the points. Yes, connection is a little bit higher than the other points. Yes, rest is a little bit lower. But what we see overall is that the points are quite low. I appreciate this opportunity to talk about what it means when a spark's points are overall low. Here's what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean a thing about your personality. It doesn't mean a thing about the quality of
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  your work. Think of it like this. It is your level of resource in a particular moment in time. More than that, think of it like this: everything you're doing right now in your life, in your creative life, you are doing in an under-resourced state. Okay, a spark that looks like this isn't actually bad news. It's not like oh, I'm failing at creative health. It's more like this: oh my God! Everything I am doing, I am doing under resourced. If I resource myself even just a little bit, imagine actually what more is possible for me. So when I see a spark like this, yes, I will say to the
• 28:17
  person, "It's cool. You've got some creative connection, and let's talk about that. Let's talk about what that is, and I'll say, okay, you know what? Creative rest. That means you gotta acknowledge the ways that you're depleted, and you've got to give yourself the particular kinds of rest that your creativity most needs. But what I will say more than anything is, let's just imagine you have a relationship to creativity. Let's start there, and then let's start nurturing that relationship. I'll talk about all five of the resources: inspiration, courage, discipline, rest, connection.
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  Talk about the relationships to each one of those resources, and then I'll just do some very gentle practices to resource for each one of those resources. Okay, I hope this was useful to Troy and to anyone else who feels like, oh, creativity is just not for me. To anyone else who feels like, oh, my creative health is lacking, so I don't know where to start. It is absolutely the coolest place to start because anything you do is going to mean the very most. A reminder to all of you: If you would like your spark read by me right here next month, download Musy in the Apple App Store, take the
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  creativity assessment, and send me your spark. You can find a link to Musy in the show notes, or just search Musy Creativity in the App Store, and reach out to me anytime. My email is rachel@rachelefron.com. That's R A C H E L at rachel again e f r o n.com. I would love to hear from you, and I would love, love, love to see your sparks.