Follow Your Curiosity

Creative Pep Talk #14: Comparison and Self-Rejection

Continuing from last time: more on comparison, and how it's actually a way to reject ourselves, even if we don't know it. Perfectionism factors into that process, too, creating an ugly soup of not-good-enoughness. The good news: you CAN do something about it. Details within!

Want more help? Check out my Creative Tune-Up, which is full of my favorite coaching tools to help you get unstuck. 

I'd love to hear your feedback, questions, and experience with these ideas! Send me a note at fycuriosity.com, or contact me on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter! I also post pretty regularly on TikTok.

It‘s Gonna Be Great with Paul ”PB” Bessenbacher

Musician Paul Bessenbacher, known to his friends and fans as PB, lives a genuine optimism best summed up in his signature statement: “It’s gonna be great.” PB has followed the flow of that sentiment from an undergraduate degree that let him experiment with every genre he could find, to learning recording engineering on the fly, to forming a band—more of a collaboration—Opus Orange. Oh, and he also composes for film.

We talk about all that and particularly about how he navigates the flow, avoids being bogged down by worry, and why we should all embrace failure and give each other grace for being imperfect.

Check out the show notes at fycuriosity.com, and join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter! I also post pretty regularly on TikTok, and you can also listen on YouTube. And if you're feeling stuck in your own creative process, I made the Creative Tune-Up just for you!

 

Creative Pep Talk #13: A Story about Comparison

A story about comparison and how it robs us not only of our creative joy but also distorts our sense of ourselves.

Did you know you can watch this episode on YouTube?

I'd love to hear your feedback, questions, and experience with these ideas! Send me a note at fycuriosity.com, or contact me on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter! I also post regularly on TikTok.

Anger and Curiosity with Dr. Ryan Martin

None of us gets through the day without encountering anger somewhere, be it at work, at home, on the road, or even inside ourselves. Ryan Martin is a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay, and he specializes in anger. He’s written a book, Why We Get Mad: How to Use Your Anger for Positive Change, and given a TEDx talk, but a lot of people have encountered him through his @angerprofessor account on TikTok, where he shares interesting new research and offers advice on how to handle anger—and how not to. 

In our conversation, Ryan and I discussed how his fascination with anger began, the positive sides of anger, how anger can fuel creativity (and how we can unintentionally sap that fuel). Ryan also tells me how he came to be curious about curiosity, which inspired him to revamp the way he teaches.

Check out the show notes at fycuriosity.com, and join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok!

Creative Pep Talk #12: How Hard Is It?

"We can do hard things," as the saying goes—but we can also make it way harder to do those things than we have to. Hear how I learned this lesson and how you can make it easier to do the tough things on your list in this episode.

I'd love to hear your feedback, questions, and experience with these ideas! Send me a note at fycuriosity.com, or contact me on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter!

Psychology and Writing with Sarah Fine

Urban fantasy author Sarah Fine, who writes psychological thrillers as SF Kosa, is a clinical psychologist as well as a novelist. As a result, she has a lot to say about the amateur psychology and observational skills writers tend to possess, as well as what she will and won’t do in portraying aspects of mental health in her books. In addition, we also talk about the psychology of the creative process, from artificial pressure to “write every day” to how the unconscious can do a lot of heavy lifting for us as we try to navigate a difficult question or creative block in our process…and even just why it is that characters often seem to escape the control of their authors.

Sarah’s latest book, The Night We Burned, comes out on August 10th.

Check out the show notes at fycuriosity.com, and join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!

Creative Pep Talk #11: Failure

Failure visits us all—and I've been thinking about it a lot lately. Failing doesn't have to be the end, and it definitely doesn't reflect our worth. It's actually a really important part of the creative process (and of growing/learning in general), so maybe we should start embracing it rather than fearing it.

If you'd like to be the first to hear when my new creativity toolkit becomes available, send me a note at fycuriosity.com, or contact me on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter! I'd also love to hear your feedback, questions, and experience with these ideas!

Coming Out of the Cave with Eddie Louise

Eddie Louise, writer of the Sage and Savant audio drama podcast, has lived one of the most fascinating creative journeys I’ve ever heard. She has followed her curiosity from the libraries of Wyoming to undergraduate studies in Edinburgh and back to California, and absolutely none of it has happened in the way anyone is told a life story is “supposed” to unfold.

We talk about her first adventures with Shakespeare, the unexpected detour in high school, how she got to Edinburgh, and, of course, the genesis of Sage and Savant. There’s a lot here about daring to take chances and step out of the cave our society tends to want to tell us is the only safe place to be.

Check out the show notes at fycuriosity.com, and join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!

Creative Pep Talk #10: Tiny Steps

If you're feeling stuck and don't know how to get moving again, this is the episode for you! There's a simple way to get your momentum back, and it's probably not what you expect. (It may even feel kind of insulting... but it works!)

I'd love to hear your feedback, questions, and experience with these ideas! Send me a note at fycuriosity.com, or contact me on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter!

The Empathy of Art with Kathryn Malek

Kathryn Malek is an actor, writer, and coach. Kathryn started focusing on acting and writing as a young adult, studying with apprentices of Lee Strasberg before taking the leap into playwriting. We talked about those early experiences, the ways acting is viewed in our society as performers on demand or as people who “just pretend for a living”—and the truth of what goes into good acting, and how she uses her acting skills as a coach.

Check out the show notes at fycuriosity.com, and join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!