But I was just gonna

say that because there's a, there's a shift there, isn't there?

There's a, there's a problem solving bit, but there's also, what you talk about, which is, is not problem solving for the sake of problem solving, but problem solving for the joy of finding something new.

Hi,

I'm

Angela Phil.

And I'm Carolyn Gibson.

And welcome to the World Beyond Resilience Podcast.

And today

we are

going to be talking about.

The most important and most underrated and least spoken about quality of life that we never, ever address in the resilience conversation.

I, I can't even imagine that because we talk about resilience all the time.

So what is it?

This hi mysterious, hidden quality that you think that nobody talks about.

I tell you what, if I tell you you are just going to laugh But what I noticed in all of my conversations and the research that I've done on this is that the quality we never talk about is creativity.

The conversation's always been about how we can overcome and how we can struggle through and, and, how strong we have to be and how enduring.

And in looking more closely at, at resilience and what it takes to be beyond resilience, what I notice is that we're inherently creative.

We immediately dismiss it, and I believe that this is the quality that's actually key at the very core of, what it will take to, to change things in the world.

Let's start over a little bit.

So where are we down then?

you talked about this being a problem solving mindset rather than a creative mindset.

What is that about?

Well, the problem solving mindset is very linked to the resilience conversation, right?

I have a problem, I'm going to solve it, and I need to overcome it.

And so I need to use my fantastic thinking skills and.

There are never gonna be problems to, to solve or, or overcome.

Sure.

But this in, in inherent focus on only the next problem keeps us in that, you know, struggle and sacrifice cycle.

It's just like, what's the next rock?

Remember the metaphor that we always use for resilience is bouncing back like a rubber band.

And so we are always.

Dealing with the next thing.

Whereas that that's very reactive.

We're only defining ourselves by our next reaction.

The shift in leadership needs to go from reactive to creative.

We are not, we are not just reactive.

I noticed my whole body just went heightened and contracted there.

We, we are more than reactive.

We have this amazing capacity to create and not define ourselves by the circumstances.

And our whole focus in this resilience conversation is just defining ourselves by the circumstances and it's very limiting and very limited.

It's

funny that you say that because,, we sometimes feel as though.

Either we're not creative or we don't have time to be creative., that painting class that we took was a disaster or our parents told us never to sing again or whatever it might be.

So to a certain extent, there's a little bit of the culture saying creativity isn't important right now, or you're not good at it.

So there's two things I think in what you're saying.

In fact, one, it's true that in terms of the creativity that we link to the art and crafts, they have been dismissed.

And I think if you notice in totalitarian cultures, what's really interesting is the people that they go for are the creatives and Those who, who dare to, to think differently, right?

So they're inherently creative people, including artists, I get.

But it's interesting that we will dismiss and minimize that, in our own cultures.

I think back to my own parents, and I wanted to be an actress at the time.

I was saying that when I grew up, you know, they, God don't do that.

You'll never succeed.

You won't earn enough money.

And, you don't wanna be a starving artist.

So we minimized those jobs so that's one thing, but we're inherently creative.

Life is inherently creative life.

Life is always creating, and we are living, being, we are life.

Reducing creativity simply to being able to sing or paint, misses out on a huge dimension of what it is to be creative.

And you know, anytime I do a talk and I ask people in the audience or who are listening, you know, and I'm asking the listeners now, then what would you say?

If I asked you if you were creative, would you put your hand up depending on who's in the room.

Most people will say no, and they will say no, because they're thinking, I can't sing.

I don't know how to paint, so I'm not a dancer.

You know, they'll, they'll go straight to those traditional concepts of what it means to be creative.

But if I start saying, have you ever made a meal of leftovers?

Or, have you ever,, fixed something in your car with a hair or whatever, I'm just thinking, you know, my brother just put in a, a water filter for me and he probably wouldn't say he was creative, but he was inherently creative about getting this thing to fit underneath my sink where, where he is putting modern tap and old tap together or modern pipes and old pipes together.

And so he would probably never see his creative either, but he got very creative when.

And I when he was fixing this, but okay.

We've come back to problem solving.

But I was just gonna

say that because there's a, there's a shift there, isn't there?

There's a, there's a problem solving bit, but there's also, what you talk about, which is, is not problem solving for the sake of problem solving, but problem solving for the joy of finding something new.

Yeah, something new.

And I think that's the, that's the real difference, right?

And, um.

I wanna go back to what you said about the arts as well, but, um, for, for, for this purposes.

Yeah.

You know, what is it, what do you see as that shift?

How, how does it, you go from problem solving, which is inherently reactive to something more creative.

What's that subtle difference?

Well, I think there are, again, there are a couple of things and you know, the way I define beyond resilience is our capacity to create and see new ways forward in every moment.

Irrespective of circumstances.

So there is a shift, and it's a hard shift to make.

It's a really hard shift to make, and it's also subtle, in seeing that we can create for the fun of it.

In fact, we are always being creative if we start looking even closer.

We can create in the moment, and it doesn't have to be in reaction, but that shift to make is just recognizing that we are creative first.

Simply saying, simply recognizing that, acknowledging it.

I think it ties back to what I was gonna say about the arts, which is you said the totalitarian regimes tend tot down on the arts.

And the reason why that is, is are, are the artists being creative people are the ones that challenge the status quo more.

And as leaders in the modern world, in whatever circumstances tapping into that creativity gives you an additional leadership quality that people do recognize,

we need to call that the leadership quality, we need to redefine leadership.

Leadership as a position of power that is not the same thing as leading, not to my mind anyway.

Anybody who's not changing or challenging something is not truly a leader, in any sense.

But positions, power and authority, is how we've defined leader for a long time.

Only that is also what has contributed to the state of the world that we're in.

And we need to define, yeah, it's a leadership quality to create.

And the good news is that we're inherently created.

It's not just given to one person and not another.

We all, we all have different traits.

We all express it differently, but the engineers are creative.

Janitors are creative,

shock drivers are creative.

Everybody has this, everybody has this capacity.

Right?

But there's that difference between, Power versus being creative.

The reason why I point that out is because there's more scope nowadays, for creativity to shine because of the way the internet and, and social media has distributed.

Power.

Yeah.

So where there's a distribution power where somebody can create something.

Create something, yeah.

That grabs the attention of people and really drives something forward.

And that's a fantastic thing to realize that actually you don't have to have hard power to be a leader.

Mm-hmm.

And you could be a leader nowadays by being creative in a way that you've never had the opportunity to do before and have a huge amount of reach.

So, so yeah, for people listening to this, be inspired by that, that creativity is a fantastic, method of, not just influencing the world, but being, a part of it and connected through it and delivering something of yourself that's flowing through yourself into the world

that's so important.

What you've just said is so important and.

Creativity is power because creativity cannot be stopped.

Creativity is unstoppable and that makes a lot of people scared and that's why first people to go are the creators.

And so, but there's so many

creators out of there.

Everybody's a creator now, so can be stopped when

power of.

Metaphor that we, for the, the beyond resilient world, the, the river is unstoppable, ultimately unstoppable.

'cause she transforms and she's inherently created.

And we are going to get into our next conversation about the, you know, the vision, the river's flowing towards the sea and she has a vision and that's an essential leadership quality as well.

And.

my spiritual teachers would say that you don't actually need a vision to create, because also creativity is who you are.

It's the unstoppable, overflowing emergence in the ever unfolding now as air would say as well.

Um, that's the hard thing as well, is to connect to the emergence.

If you connect to the emergence, even in ourselves, it can feel uncontrollable.

But other people also can't control it.

Now that doesn't mean it has to be all over the place and you know, like sprayed everywhere sort of thing.

But it's, it is unstoppable.

If, if you stop reacting, if you start, tapping into that creativity, um, the uncomfortable bit about it is you don't know where it's gonna go.

You know, and, and even authors or some artists will talk about that.

They put pen to paper or they put paintbrush on and they don't know where, what they're creating.

And that, for some people can be really uncomfortable.

Like, why am I doing this?

Where is it gonna take me?

In this doing culture, in this like achievement culture, it feels like perhaps a wasted effort.

But if you trusted the process, everybody says, trusted the process these days.

If you trusted the process, the creativity can lead you to new places and and new skills and new connections that you wouldn't have had if you had tapped it down and, and let the, inspiration pass

totally and better solutions if you happen to be problem solving as well.

And, another thing on what you've said is that, um, whatever anyone says, we don't know what's going to happen next.

We just don't know.

I, I'm still with people who think, oh, and this is predictable.

Nothing's predictable.

So we can create structures that will give us a sense of predictability and work towards them, and that is fine and necessary.

Very important.

But give up on the idea that you still know what's gonna happen next.

And if you connect with this creativity that is actually who you are, fundamentally who you are, then you are led to far better things than you could ever get to from trying to control it and make it work the way you think it should go.

Because life inherently goes as she does anyway, rather than as you want most of the time.

Just as an example, as we're at the beginning of this series anyway, you know, in December we were having a conversation and I was gonna be the guest on your podcast, and by January we decided to do together, and I still have no vision about where this is going.

But hey, it's great fun.

We create every, every time we sit and talk together, and, uh, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

What a great way to, to learn about creativity by doing this with you.

So,

oh, I think that's a great end to our conversation for this, for this conversation.

And we hope that all of you ha can take something away from this and we, um, en encourage you to.

Start looking at just how creative you are in all of the many different ways, and we hope that this will inspire you before our next conversation on, on Vision with Valerie.

And don't forget to look for, through all of our podcasts with our guests, where they bring creativity to this because you'll hear snippets all the way through.

But as Angela said right at the beginning, it's a bit hidden.

So look for it.

Wonderful.

And that brings us to the end of another episode of the World Beyond Resilience Podcast.

If anything you heard today sparked an aha moment or made you think differently about resilience, please tell us about it in the comments.

We'd love to hear from you, and please share it with everyone you know for more episodes, exploring how we can thrive beyond just mounting back, follow our show on your favorite platforms.

And of course, we have additional resources and deeper dives into all the topics we discuss on our website, which is world beyond resilience.com.

So until next time, remember, there's a whole world of possibilities beyond just being resilient.

Take care.

Take care.

So we absolutely love this topic, and we can see the possibility for this to create really powerful, vibrant, prosperous change in organizations and systems.

So if this conversation interests you and you start to feel that spark as well, and you think it would be useful for yourself or within your organization, feel free to get in contact.