Teaching Creativity in a World of AI and Uncertainty: Keith Sawyer’s Art School Insights #354

In this episode of the SuperCreativity Podcast, James Taylor interviews Dr. R. Keith Sawyer, one of the world’s leading experts on creativity, learning, and innovation. Keith is the Morgan Distinguished Professor of Educational Innovation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of 19 books on the science of creativity—including his latest, Learning to See: Inside the World’s Leading Art and Design Schools.

Based on a decade of immersive research across top BFA and MFA programs, Learning to See explores how artists and designers are taught to transform their perception, navigate uncertainty, and unlock deeper creative thinking. In this conversation, Keith shares why the most creative people don’t start with an idea—they discover it through making. You’ll learn how great teachers foster creative breakthroughs, the power of constraints, why failure is redefined in creative environments, and what business and AI leaders can learn from the artistic process.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, educator, engineer, or executive, this episode will change how you think about creativity, leadership, and innovation.

🎙️ Top 5 Soundbites:

“You can’t tell someone how to see. You have to guide them through a transformation.” – Keith Sawyer

“Making is thinking. It’s through engaging with materials that surprising new ideas emerge.”

“Students arrive with talent—but they haven’t yet learned how to find the problem worth solving.”

“AI can help with problem-solving. But it can’t yet help with problem-finding—and that’s where the most creative work lives.”

“Failure is not failure. It’s a mismatch between intention and result—and often, that mismatch is the breakthrough.”

Links & Resources:

📘 Learning to See: Inside the World’s Leading Art and Design Schools – Buy on Amazon
🎧 The Science of Creativity Podcast – Listen here
📬 Keith’s Substack newsletter – Subscribe
🔍 James Taylor’s SuperCreativity Podcast – All Episodes

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Takeaways

Creativity is not a trait—it’s a choice, repeated again and again.
Emotions are not barriers to creativity—they are information that guide the process.
Cultural perceptions of creativity dramatically affect confidence and identity.
Creative block often comes from emotional overload, not lack of talent or ideas.
Sustained creativity is fueled not only by inner drive but by social ecosystems.

In his upcoming book, James Taylor delves into the transformative concept of SuperCreativity™—the art of amplifying your creative potential through collaboration with both humans and machines. Drawing from his experiences speaking in over 30 countries, James combines compelling stories, case studies, and practical strategies to help readers unlock innovation and harness the power of AI-driven tools. This book is a must-read for anyone looking to elevate their creativity and thrive in the modern age of human-machine collaboration.

Teaching Creativity in a World of AI and Uncertainty

James Taylor is a highly sought-after keynote speaker, often booked months or even years in advance due to his exceptional expertise. Given his limited availability, it’s crucial to contact him early if you’re interested in securing a date or learning how he can enhance your event. Reach out to James Taylor now for an opportunity to bring his unique insights to your conference or team.

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Free 3-Part Video Training Series On How To Unlock Your Creative Potential, Break Down Creative Blocks, and Unleash Your Creative Genius
FREE training video shows you how to unlock your creative potential in 5 simple steps. The world’s top creative individuals and organizations use these exact strategies.

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FREE training video shows you the ten ways to make $1,000,000 from your speaking. The world’s top professional speakers use these exact strategies.
In this first FREE video series, award-winning keynote speaker James Taylor reveals how to become a 7-figure speaker.

CHAPTERS

Timestamps:

00:09 – Intro to Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle and The Creativity Choice
01:06 – Her origin story: studying “interesting people” and discovering creativity science
02:59 – The standard definition of creativity: originality + effectiveness
04:59 – What makes The Creativity Choice different from other creativity books
06:46 – The role of emotions in the creative process
08:28 – Emotional granularity and how to use emotions as feedback
12:20 – How art evokes complex emotion beyond language
16:20 – Why ideas alone aren’t enough—the decision to act
18:26 – Social fear, self-doubt, and identity: the real blockers to creativity
19:17 – Cultural differences in defining and identifying with creativity
22:36 – Japanese Takumi and Western vs. Eastern creative mindsets
24:08 – Language and creativity: being vs. doing
27:02 – Creative confidence is grown, not given
30:24 – Certainty vs. uncertainty—for both creators and audiences
32:43 – Georgia O’Keeffe and embracing discomfort in creativity
34:28 – What keeps people going: social support and creative community
37:54 – Competitors and the creative power of external motivation
39:27 – How to handle creative block and emotional overload
41:21 – Nature, art, and personal recovery strategies
44:41 – How creative habits evolve over a lifetime
46:38 – What a creative life looks like—and why it’s available to everyone
49:43 – Zorana’s personal creative process and emotional timing hacks
50:12 – Where to find the book and connect with Zorana

TRANSCRIPT

James Taylor (00:09) My guest today is Dr. Zohanna Icevic-Pringle, a senior research scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. She's dedicated her life to exploring the psychology of creativity, what sparks it, what sustains it, and how we can all bring more of it into our lives. Her new book, The Creativity Choice, is a powerful guide to turning our ideas into action and making creativity part of our everyday choices. So whether you're an artist, an entrepreneur, an educator, a leader, her work offers the tools that you need to transform inspiration into impact. Zorana, welcome to the Super Creativity Podcast. Zorana (00:49) Thank you very much for coming, James. James Taylor (00:52) Now, before you became one of the leading researchers in this field, what drew you into this area? It's not often a common topic that people go into. What was your early work life and how did you get into this area? Zorana (01:06) Well, I got into it very early. was really an undergrad when I got interested and I wanted to study interesting people. I, obviously that is not a way to define anything in science. And I was reading wide and I was thinking of what I really mean by this very late term, interesting people. And I came down to what I really mean is people who are creative. They are making choices that are difficult. They are making choices that are interesting, unconventional, and they are doing stuff in their lives and with their lives that made me want to study that for, well, the rest of my life, I guess. James Taylor (01:54) So who were some of those early interesting people that kind of inspired you to look further into this area? Zorana (02:00) Well, there was a big boom in creativity research, historical in the 1960s, in the 1950s and 1960s, and it was historically related to the space race. And in the US, there was a big, big movement to study creativity in science, to study how to teach creativity, to learn how it works. And I have read lots of stuff that was done at that time and found it very inspirational. James Taylor (02:35) Now that word creativity is a difficult one because it's quite amorphous as a term, you people use it different ways, often when you see adverts they talk about creativity in one way, we have the advertising industry that uses it in a very kind of distinct type of way as well, and in business they'll use it in a different way, there obviously there's entertainment, the arts, music, literature, so when you talk about creativity how do you define this term? Zorana (02:59) Well, I define it from the scientific standpoint. So the science of creativity has settled on what we call the standard definition of creativity. And the standard part says we really agree on what it is, which is very exciting in scientific terms because, well, we talk about the same thing when we are talking as a scientist. And it has two big two big parts to it. One is always what comes to mind when we hear the word creativity, something that is original. And original does not have to be, it has never existed in any similar shape or form ever in humanity's history. There is a continuum of how original something can be. So it can be a small change in something, some kind of product, or it can be a dramatic revolutionary change. The second part of the definition of creativity is it is effective in some way. And that is where the differences can emerge how we talk about it in different fields. So in the arts, what is effective in something that has an effect on its audiences, has some kind of reaction, oftentimes an emotional reaction, audiences like it or react to it. In business, it's effective because it is solving some kind of problem. It is creating a new product or new innovation, and so on. It has somewhat different meanings depending on what it means for a particular field. James Taylor (04:40) Now, what brought you to kind of really be inspired by writing this particular book? So this book is The Creativity Choice. So we're gonna talk about what is that choice? But was, before you kind of get to that, was there a moment when you realized that the message that you wanted to put across in this book was one that we needed to hear right now? Zorana (04:59) Yeah, that is a great question because there are lots of creativity books out there, lots of good creativity books out there. What I wanted to say that was different is we are talking a lot about thinking, we are talking a lot about how do we come up with ideas, and I didn't think that we are talking enough about what it takes. to do something with those ideas. And in particular, acknowledging that this is a long process, it's a difficult process, it's a very effortful process, and it's never smooth. And when something is not smooth because you're doing something original, therefore there's no roadmap, nobody can tell you how to step by step do it to make it work. then there are going to be some bumps on the road and there are going to be false starts. So you have to make this decision over and over again. So it's not the creativity choice, it is a continuous making of choices. James Taylor (06:06) Now you mentioned this idea of emotion and you're talking about the science side as well. That kind of feels like there's two different things kind of going on there. They feel like they're often at war. You know, the sciences we're thinking about in the case of creativity, something that can be measured, can be repeatable. It's empirical in that size. Side emotion, you know, obviously we think about something as softer. perhaps as well. how do you, how do these things link to each other? How does creativity and how does the kind of the science link with the kind of the emotion and the, what, I guess what some might see that the kind of woo-woo part of creativity. Zorana (06:46) Hmm. Well, it feels like a woo-woo part of creativity. It's actually not woo-woo. That's the cool thing about it. It is there is science of creativity. There's also science of emotions. And my goal in life is to put them together and to say, how do they inform each other? And there is lots of emotions in the creative process. It's pretty much a roller coaster. It is very exciting to have an idea. It's inspirational. It feels energizing. But then we hit roadblocks. We are frustrated. We can be stressed because there could be pressures. There is a lot going on. And oftentimes a lot going on at the same time. The interesting thing that seems to be really surprising to people is that how scientists talk about emotions. We talk about emotions as information. What does that mean? Emotions as information? Emotions are what we feel, they are soft, they are, well, they are both, really. So... If we analyze what emotions do for us and to us, they are conveying data. They are telling us something. They are telling us something about the state of our mind. They are telling us something about the state of the world around us. And if we are skilled in reading those pieces of information, we can use it to our advantage. To give you an example, this sounds very abstract, so let's take it down with examples. There is, let's take different feelings. When you are feeling happy or energized and satisfied, what does that tell you? Well, it tells you that everything is good. You're making good progress, don't need to change anything. It already gives you hints towards your actions. But what if you're feeling frustrated? What does that tell you? Well, and what should you do? Well, sometimes when we feel frustrated, it's unpleasant, so we want to make ourselves feel better. But if we are just going to make ourselves feel better and make that feeling, that unpleasant feeling go away, we won't be able to extract that information that is inherent in the feeling. But if we say, okay, what is this telling us? we can discover that it's probably telling us what you are doing right now is not working. You have to try a different approach. And that is actionable, right? It's saying you don't need to work harder. You need to perhaps take a break, look from a different perspective, try something different. And James Taylor (09:44) So as you're saying that, I'm just thinking about when you talk about the emotions, you mentioned some different emotions there as well. Is one of the issues why it's often been felt as not as scientific in terms of things like emotional intelligence, which I know you've worked a lot on as well, is because the labels that we... give and the fuzziness sometimes of the labels, like if I'm talking about some molecules I can talk about that, there's this chemistry that's going on here, there's this biology going on here, but with emotions we use the things like frustrated as an emotion and it means different things for different people and it can also feel quite broad as well. Zorana (10:28) That is a great point that you are raising and there is even a scientific term for that and the importance of very specifically labeling your emotions if you really want to learn from them. And it's called emotional granularity. If we get very specific in labeling our emotions, then we can truly learn what's going on and we can uncover some actionable information. If we, like in our everyday life, I mean, just think of it. Think of last time somebody asked you how you were feeling. Chances are, if you are like most people, that you responded fine or... busy or stressed perhaps. In our culture, in our Western culture of today, those are socially appropriate responses. And sometimes we go to these responses even if we don't want to just give a socially appropriate response, even in our minds, we go to that. But if we learn, and this is something that is a skill that can be learned, James Taylor (11:15) Hmm Zorana (11:42) If we learn to pinpoint more specifically, okay, stress, what kind of stress? Stress is something that is unpleasant, that is very activating, but what kind of activation and unpleasantness do you have? Well, it could be that you are anxious. It could be that you are confused. It could be that you are frustrated because something's not working. And all of those have different information in them and different courses of action that come from them. James Taylor (12:20) I guess that's sometimes the interesting thing about art because it's not often labeling something. I just finished reading a book about the composer Gustav Mahler, the Venus composer, and this first symphony that he wrote is a lot about the loss. mean, lost, I think he had eight brothers and sisters over the course of his life when he was younger. And this is obviously that time when... disease was very prevalent especially in places like Vienna at that time and there's a part in the the one of the first symphony where he's writing about almost the loss of this, feels to lose a sibling, a brother, little brother and there's a memory that you remembered of his parents owned a bar pub as we say in England and he remembers very strongly that his little brother being who was maybe only three or four years old who'd passed away being taken out through the bar while the bar was going on everyone's drinking everyone's singing everyone's doing their thing and and he said how do I bring those different emotions together because on one side there's that that that feeling of of people enjoying themselves, there's life, and there's also this death there as well, and there's everything that kind of goes with that, and what he ended up doing was he ended up making actually a song, early part in the piece, which was actually a nursery rhyme, but written in the minor key, and kind of feeling quite haunting, and for the listener, you can't almost, if you haven't read the story, you're kind of thinking, why does it not feel right? There's an emotion, and he's not using language, he's using, in this case, music and notes. to be able to get that across and I just find it interesting like sometimes when you're saying that that emotional granularity sometimes language can almost be a hindrance to that and that's sometimes what creativity can can allow us to go a little bit further with. Zorana (14:20) Yeah, and art has great power. It has power to evoke what oftentimes pure words, simple words cannot do. And I'm not even sure that our language has words to describe all of what you just described in writing this piece, but it's very evocative. And when you are hearing it, you hear the discrepancy, you hear something is not right, you have expectations that are not met because nursery rhymes have particular way of sounding, but this is not sounding like that. So you are searching for the meaning and you are searching for what you are deeply experiencing. In terms of science, what we call that, I know scientists can sometimes break things apart. that we experience, that is the ability to use emotions in the service of thinking and problem solving and creativity. It is, he was taking his experience and the totality of it and putting all of it in one piece. We can do that in different ways too. we can use the relationships between thinking and feeling in order to harness them for our power of thinking and creativity. James Taylor (16:02) Now in the book you talk about obviously this creativity beginning with a choice. That sounds simple, but it can also be this idea of like a major shift. How did you come to understand the importance of that initial decision to kind of act on an idea, that choice that you describe in the book? Zorana (16:20) I was very curious about this difference between having ideas and doing something with ideas. I have noticed that I know people who have lots of ideas but don't act on them. And it's not because they are not capable, it's not because they are not smart, it's not because they are any of those things that first come to mind as shortcut explanations. So I was wondering what is it? And I have done some studies where I wanted to see what goes on in people's minds as they are considering whether to do something with their ideas, whether to share them, whether to do that first step. And I found that there's a number of considerations that go through our minds. The first one, very big one, is other oriented. It is asking, well, how will other people react to it? Are those people who hear it going to think it's silly? Are they're going to be angered? Maybe they will think that this is challenging their authority. What will happen? What will happen on the outside? And then there is a flip side of that. What will be the experience for us individually? if we consider sharing those ideas, are you going to be overwhelmingly self-conscious? Are you going to get so anxious that you cannot cope with it? Is that uncertainty around what happens too much for you to handle? And finally, the third consideration is totally different in nature. It is how important for your sense of self and for your identity is creativity and being creative. James Taylor (18:26) I know there's been a lot of studies in terms of the state of creativity by Adobe where they asked broad sections of people around the world, do you consider yourselves to be creative? Is that a term you would define yourselves, an identity idea? And obviously in North America where you are, it's kind of a higher number, it's like 50%, 55%. If you were to go to parts of East Asia, it's as low as 20%, 25%, for example. I think here in Europe where I am at the moment, it's kind of in the middle. is that, that third point you mentioned, is that just a simple idea of confidence, being able to say that you have this kind creative confidence, or is it? that that word, creativity, means very different things for different people in different parts of the world. Zorana (19:17) It's both. And pretty much when you talk about psychology and people, it's usually both. So what people mean by the word creativity can be different. And oftentimes we have in our culture and in what is presented to us, the bias towards creativity and genius. ⁓ so we celebrate people like Steve Jobs, or like very famous artists and we put them out as role models of creativity. And that sounds to everybody like a good idea. Well, it turns out it's actually not a good idea because how many of us really think we are Steve Jobs? How many of us really think we are Nikola Tesla? We don't. Those are such remote role models that it's very hard to imagine ourselves being like those people. And what we think is inspirational, it ends up backfiring. We end up getting a message, well, we are not like that. Therefore it has to be something they were born with. And this idea of you are born with something is very dangerous to your mindset. It means, well, I was not born with it, therefore why even try? So that's one part of it. The other part of it is also that you are related and you're bringing cultures is what is culturally considered to be acceptable? in terms of creative behavior. So oftentimes in, you particularly brought up East Asian cultures where these, according to this research that you cited by Adobe, are people don't think as much, they identify with the word creative. Well, there is a great tradition of creativity in these cultures, but there is an emphasis on word tradition. So when you are an artist, for instance, and you are learning your art, there is an emphasis on you first have to master it and you first have to learn the basics, you first have to learn the craft part of it, and only then you get the right to be truly original. So you have this almost delay in at which point you should even be talking about creativity. And yeah, we are talking about somewhat different things. While where I sit in the United States and in Western Europe, it's pretty similar. There's lots of talk about creativity and this idea of individuality and individual uniqueness and creativity being part of it. So it's easier to say, that word out loud. James Taylor (22:36) Yeah. It's like, and I also think there's something that's going on around this idea you mentioned, tradition, craft. regardless of what your job is, there's a beautiful word in Japan, takumis. So someone that's, in America, you did the 10,000 hour rule, made famous by the Malcolm Gladwells, in Japan, they have this 25,000 hour rule. So someone who's done 25,000 hours in their chosen profession field, could be in pottery, could be someone that's making cars, it could be anything. And they call them takumis. the level, there's a fineness of the level of creativity, because they're building, they feel like they're kind of building upon that. And the thing I often wonder is, with the creativity is, almost like, is there a slightly religious difference going on where many in the West, because in the West we come from more of a Judeo-Christian background, so the world was created in seven days, for example, so ideas are like, come from nowhere. that's the idea of creativity, whereas in the East it's much more because of the Confucian or the Buddhist thing, it's much more about nothing is truly new, it's recycled, regenerated in different ways and we're combining, we're remixing in different ways and so often the idea of creativity that gets put out there is the kind of the more Western style of something coming from nothing as opposed to this is actually something that's kind of, versions of it have been before but we're doing something new with it. Zorana (24:08) Yes, and that scientists who study creativity across cultures have made this connection. That how we culturally and from a cultural and religious traditions are very big part of it, how they influence the way we think about it and then the way we talk about ourselves in relation to it. And at which point we use a particular word. And this subtlety in how we use words goes beyond comparisons of very different cultures, as the North American or Western European and East Asian cultures. I grew up in Croatia and I was talking to colleague in Bulgaria and we realized something very similar in... are native languages, the word, the native word for creativity has very different connotation than the word that was imported essentially from English. And so the word that is imported from English has a connotation of trait, something that is inside a person. It's an attribute of a person and you are more or less creative. James Taylor (25:17) How so? Zorana (25:35) while the native word has a connotation of doing. It is an action-oriented word. You become this through action. James Taylor (25:52) That's interesting. It's all those little kind of, so someone might be thinking, I'm not really that thing because I've never actioned upon that idea. Because for them, it has to be kind of actioned. And once we're getting into obviously the weeds with different languages, but I just find it fascinating when you go to somewhere like the areas of the Antarctic, for example, or the Arctic where they have like 50 words for snow or here in Scotland, we have like 40 different words for rain because we get a lot of rain and we have to have different ways of expressing fine rain, like all these different things. And so maybe what we need to do and obviously this is great, you're doing this work as well as you're kind of expanding that range and also this doing this link with emotion because creativity as we know, isn't smooth sailing. It doesn't always about that actionable thing all the time. What do you find is the biggest emotional or psychological blocks to creativity, from taking it from the idea, the thing, to actually making it real, making it out into the world? Zorana (27:02) Yeah, so I think that there are two kinds of big, blocks. And one we have touched on here with the idea of creative confidence that you mentioned. And I think there are some misconceptions about confidence that get in the way of people. The big misconception is, well, you have to start with confidence. And it's almost as You either have it or you do not have it. Doesn't work like that. Confidence is something that grows with time and something that grows with experience. So think about your confidence in your driving ability. Think of the confidence in your driving ability when you are first learning how to drive and today after 20 years of driving. Very different, right? The same thing is with any other kind of confidence, including creative confidence. It changes. And I have spoken recently to a group of 300 professionals in creative industries. And there was lots of questions about confidence and about doubt. people ask me, because I study the emotional side of creativity, how do you make sure you are free of doubt? and you can't. It's not possible. It's just not human. We are going to have doubts and the confidence will ebb and flow. It will start relatively lower as we start some work because there are a lot of unknowns and it will progress relatively steadily but with some dips because occasionally we run into an obstacle. and then you are not so sure and you have some doubts and you don't know really what you're going to do next. So the creative confidence is something that is not constant and it's not an either or thing. And that's important to know. And if you don't know that starting out, you might misconstrue the fact that you don't have perfect confidence at the get-go as you are not having the ability or the potential to do. And the second part, the second big barrier, emotional barrier is uncertainty. Uncertainty is psychologically experienced as risk and risk breeds anxiety. And so all of these unpleasant things and creative work is by its nature full of uncertainty. We are doing something original. That means we cannot rely on something we have done before. It's not going to work because we are doing something new. And now we cannot be sure what are the exact steps we have to try. We have to try it out and see what works and adjust as it goes. But for some people... that uncertainty and that ambiguity is not something they are able to tolerate. You don't have to be risk taker to be creative. You just have to tolerate it. James Taylor (30:24) I also think also the user or the end consumer of that creativity, there is sometimes a pushing away of or being scared of uncertainty. For example, in America, someone that wants to and buy a suit will often go to Nordstrom. because they have a, there's, and they can see exactly what the suit is, the color, the fit, they know exactly what it is, and it's kind of, it's this kind of creativity of certainty. They know exactly what that is. As opposed to going to somewhere in New York or in London and having someone make something, tailor something specifically for you, which is creativity of risk, because at the start, you're not quite sure, neither particularly you or the person that's making you the creative of this. of this thing is not 100 % sure how it's going to work out. whether it's gonna work, whether it's gonna fit, all these kind of things, and it's gonna require that. And I think sometimes we think about this idea of certainty, we think it's about the, I feel it's kind of pushed onto the creator, but actually it's the consumer of that creativity that also has this kind of thing like how much do I wanna go to a comedy show where I know that I'm gonna laugh by the end of the night, or do I wanna go to something that's a bit more challenging, go to some abstract theater in some way? Zorana (31:45) Yeah, no, certainly it goes on the other way too. And we see this with experience of art in particular, where there is uncertainty in the part of creation. There is an uncertainty in the part of consuming, enjoying, appreciating art where you cannot quite be sure what the artist intended to say. Are you willing to engage anyway? I have recently come across quote from Georgia O'Keefe who is beautiful, beautiful work and it said that that she was never comfortable with anything she did in her life but that never prevented her from doing it and I very much identify with that. It is okay, I don't know whether something is going to work out, it is a risk but James Taylor (32:17) beautiful artist. Zorana (32:43) if that prevents me from doing something, well, nothing's going to happen anyway, so might as well try and have some chance at it. And that attitude in life can lead us places, interesting places. James Taylor (33:01) Now your book draws on interviews with lots of different types of creatives, different fields. Was there any particular individual whose story kind of shifted your own thinking about what it means to be creative? Zorana (33:14) you know, I'm going to say no to that. ⁓ I know it is conventional and expected perhaps to say yes. But, what I really, ⁓ found beautiful kind of there is this aesthetic beauty to science, I believe certainly in my experience is when you talk to people who are doing things that we study. when you see that lived, when you see how it lives in people's lives, how it is vivid in lived experience. And that's what I have really found time and time again, that people are experiencing something sometimes don't fully know how to label it, how to describe it. And that the goal for writers and for science writers is to translate that into actionable terms. James Taylor (34:28) once someone starts to make those kind of creative choices, deciding moving it from just initial idea to actually something that's kind of real, actually take action upon it as well, what helps them stay in motion? What conditions or habits support a kind of sustained creativity? So even though they're gonna get maybe rejected for some of the work that they do, or they feel maybe their work goes out of fashion for a period of time, sometimes decades, and then it kind of comes, it might... come back, it might not come back. What keeps them going? What habits or emotions do they need to have within them? What kind of sense of, I guess, those habits that they must have. Zorana (35:08) It's not so much about habits as one part is this identity that creativity is something that truly matters to me. But the key to what you are saying is actually not inside of us. The key of what you are saying, the sustained creativity is in the social nature of creativity. And what do I mean by the social nature of creativity? Well, People immediately think about teamwork and collaboration and yes, I mean that, but I don't only mean that. Even work that seems to be solitary in nature. I just wrote the book and I was the only one writing the book, therefore it was just me, it sounds like it. But it's not really because there are social influences on thinking. There are social influences. on all those perspectives that I gained from going to conferences, talking to colleagues, talking to all of the creative individuals who were so generous with their time and talk to me and let me interview them. And all of those are social influences. And you gain energy from people and you get that drive from those interactions. And in particular, when we talk about sustained creativity in workplaces, there is much more of a formalized social part of creativity, where you have coworkers who in direct ways or indirect ways can support creative work by sharing ideas or by providing that. emotional, essentially emotional support, support of creating conditions that make creativity possible. And that social infrastructure is what truly keeps you going. James Taylor (37:08) On that, so there's the kind of supportive element of having that sense of community around you, people are doing maybe similar things or have similar aspirations with their work, have similar identities with the work they're doing. But then there's also within that, I sometimes think there's the role of the competitor, let's say. Someone who is maybe on a similar path to you, maybe a bit further along, the same place, just behind you. And what role does the, I'm using the word competitor, but it's not really the best word for it probably, but someone that's kind of going on a similar path as you, and they're pushing your creativity a bit further, or they're making you think your work is speaking to each other. What is that role? Zorana (37:54) Well, so what we have inside in terms of motivation, we talk about it as intrinsic motivation. Motivation because we are enjoying the work, because we find it challenging and stimulating. That competition is part of extrinsic motivation, is something that motivates you from the outside. Those could be different rewards, different goals you want to achieve, and could be competition. And they can push us because they energize action. Sometimes they provide also different perspective. A competitor is trying something that you haven't tried before or haven't considered before. So they can indirectly provide a perspective, but they also just push you. They give that extra oomph to the creative drive. James Taylor (38:57) Now every creative path has its dark nights. You mentioned writing a book, there's those periods where maybe the words aren't flowing as easily and there's maybe a sense of doubt that comes in or someone has been working for a long time and they have burnout in different ways and they need to take a step back a little bit. What's the toughest battle that you've seen people face in bringing their ideas to life? Any examples of those kind of dark nights and how people have gonna go over them? Zorana (39:27) Oftentimes, creative block happens. creative individuals, those who engage in creative work oftentimes talk about creative block. We are making progress, you're making steady progress, and all at once, nothing happens. And if you're writing a book, for instance, there are days when... happens and everything you tempt is clumsy and unclear or plain out ugly and not communicating. And in those times what we really need to do is cool off a little bit because realizing that you're not making progress starts getting you worked up. We use the word term worked up oftentimes in our everyday discourse. In scientific speak, our activation level gets higher. We are feeling very unpleasant and uncomfortable. And so it can start being something that is stressful or anxiety provoking that goes into being overwhelmed. And the trick is not to make ourselves feel happy somehow magically and all at once. We just have to take the edge off so that something that is overwhelming becomes still difficult and challenging, but now you can engage in the process and still go and sit in front of the computer or in your studio or wherever else you are. in doing your work and still engaging with it even if you're not going to make as much progress as you normally would. James Taylor (41:21) I know there's been a lot of scientific research in terms of how the physical environment affects your creative levels, your creativity, and this idea of a third place. And there's lots of writing on people that just, when they get to that point, they just, I'm gonna go out for a walk. And just changing your physical environment, being out in nature in different ways just kind of seems to do something, know, it changes that emotional tenor of what you're doing. Zorana (41:46) Yeah, it lowers that activation we are feeling and then it can provide you different perspective. Oftentimes when we are not directly working on whatever we are stuck on, whatever we're experiencing that block about, those times of insight or breakthrough happen. because we are taking that edge off and our mind, somewhere in the back of our mind, can still be sort of working about it, even if we are not actively and consciously doing that. And what's going to work for different people depends. So taking a walk in nature, going to forest is... James Taylor (42:25) Yeah. Zorana (42:33) really effective for some people. For me personally, it is not. For me, what works is being in the presence of art. If I need to recharge, if I need to reset, I need to get in front of art. And the challenge is that... Sometimes if you read the blogosphere of the world, you end up sometimes getting this sense of you have to go for a walk. No, walks work for many people, not necessarily for everybody. The same way as those morning routines work for some people, perhaps even many people, but not everybody. Let me tell you, if I ever try to get up at 5 a.m., nothing would happen. absolutely nothing. My brain doesn't kick in until 10. So it's the challenge of giving yourself permission to figure out what works for you and giving yourself permission to know that what you have read somewhere might not work for you and it's okay. There's no problem in you. You just have to find what is yours. James Taylor (43:23) You Do you see that sometimes changing with people over time? I remember, like you often was told, know, actually just need to get out nature, be around that greenery. And that's for me, that's great for certain types of, certain times in the creative process when I wanna do certain things, but usually in those kind of earlier, more experimental stages where I actually want almost like... too much input, I want a lot of things and so for me going into a Manhattan or a city or in London or somewhere that just has that a certain energy about it, it's not necessarily it's giving me ideas but it's just because there's so many different point inputs that are going on that work well for me, that took me a few years to kind of figure that bit out, to figure that's actually I need a little bit of both of those that is going on. What happened, have you seen things happen to people throughout the course of their lives as they continue to make this choice of Zorana (44:40) Mm-hmm. James Taylor (44:41) not just keeping something within them, but actually putting something out into the world one way or the other, perhaps how their identity changes or how they think about creativity changes. Zorana (44:52) I think that people become more aware of the complexity of the creative process. So insights like you just shared, how different things work in different parts of the creative process, I think people with more experience and with more achievement under their belt become aware of. So what you are talking about there is something that we know from research studies, especially research on how others can influence us. In the early stages, having contact with lots of different people who you normally don't talk to, input from very different sources, broad interests, and you can be making connections that you... did not think of before, that's good for those early stages when you are still brainstorming essentially. But later on, you need to now put the serious work, put the work of, well, trying it out, trying one way of building something. If it doesn't work, trying another way, trying to do it systematically, and there different things are going to work. So... That insight of how creativity really works inside out is something we gain through experience. James Taylor (46:16) And finally, what does a creative life look like for you? Someone that's creatively fulfilled in what they're doing. They're of, they're at that point in some of the things you mentioned in the book of kind of building that confidence within what they're doing, but continue to adapt and continue changing. What does that look like? And is it something that you believe is available to everyone? Zorana (46:38) I think it is available to everyone if you are willing to engage. And if you are willing to do what, ⁓ what Georgia O'Keefe said, well, I am not necessarily comfortable doing it, but I'm doing it anyway. And that's that big jump. Once you, once you jump over that big hurdle, everything else is the process of learning and process of learning can be bumpy, but it's, it's one that starts. and then grows with time. What does it look like for me? One thing that I was very conscious about as I was writing a book, for instance, is am I taking my own advice? Oftentimes we talk about research, we talk about what are research-based tips, and am I taking my own advice? And sometimes, we react impulsively or not necessarily impulsively, more habitually. And it takes a moment to step back and say, hey, you are getting overwhelmed. What would be the lesson that you would want people to get? And that takes effort. That takes catching yourself when you are slipping in whatever habitual modes of acting and reacting you have, and then putting things to practice. I have gotten into one big habit of putting the science of emotions to practice in my creative work that I know that there are these connections between thinking and feeling. In certain kinds of moods, you're better able to do certain kinds of thinking. And I know that when I get up in the morning, I am not a morning person. I am not energetic in the morning. am, let's be honest grumpy. But being grumpy really and pessimistic in the morning is a superpower for certain kinds of tasks. especially for those tasks that require you to evaluate what you have built or what you have written. So I start my morning by evaluating, reading and revising what I have written before. Around three or four PM when I am at my highest energy, I am doing that writing that needs the flow and that needs to just... be going and words coming in quick succession, they are not necessarily the absolute best words that I can produce, but I can deal with that in those low times. So I am taking these lessons and putting them to action. James Taylor (49:43) So this So this whole conversation today has really been about that link between emotion and creativity and how that can be nuanced in different ways as well. Zerana, I wanna thank you for joining us today. And before we close, I'd love to you to share with us where people can learn more about you, the work you're doing, the research that you're doing, and also just share if they wanna get a copy of the book, the best place for them to go and do that. Zorana (50:12) Best place to get the book is wherever you get your books. The book is going to be available. The book is available on May 6th. And I am happy to share the link in your notes and also the link to get in touch and my personal website. I would love to hear from people and I would like to hear how the book resonated. James Taylor (50:38) Thank you so much for coming on the Super Creativity Podcast. Zorana (50:43) Thank you very much for having me.

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