[MUSIC] >> Hey, you're listening to Creative Pet Talk, a weekly podcast companion for your creative journey. I'm your host, Andy J. Pizza. The New York Times bestselling author and illustrator in this show is everything I'm learning about building and maintaining a thriving creative practice. [MUSIC] This episode is for you if you are exploring your voice and how you can insert it into your work in a more genuine way. You are exploring being seen and heard and understood through your creative work, or you're considering or working on a collaboration, or you want to strengthen the connection between yourself and your audience. If that's you, this episode is for you. [MUSIC] >> Jason, we have a lot going on. >> We really do. >> Maybe too much, but it doesn't feel that way, thanks to Miro. >> Yeah, Miro is the visual collaboration platform that helps your team work together from anywhere. >> Yeah, and Miro has tools for project management, creating a digital whiteboard with your team where you can brainstorm, making retrospectives and a whole lot more. We have a lot of content here at MNN and we've been trying to figure out how to get our videos up on different platforms and Miro's flow chart tool really helped us get organized and figure out what we need to do to make that happen. >> I really love Miro's mind mapping tool. It's a space where you can organize your thoughts in a way that translates to the rest of your team, so that they can help you take action. >> Super helpful because I can't always reach your mind. >> It would be scary if you could. Whether you work in product design, engineering, UX, agile or marketing, bring your team together on Miro. Your first three Miro boards are free when you sign up today at Miro.com. >> That's three free boards at miro.com. [MUSIC] >> If you want inspiration to make deeper, richer creative work, check out this podcast from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It's called Imaterial 5000 Years of Art, One Material at a Time. Each episode examines a material of art like clay, stone, and even trash. And what they can reveal about history and humanity. One episode I suggest starting with is space part one, giving form a feeling. If you know me, you know this notion of giving form a feeling is very much my jam. And the story of the artist that cast these forms of negative spaces, like in a wardrobe or underneath the table, was particularly moving to me. And I could feel it kind of opening up that essential emotional novelty side of my creative brain. Check out Imaterial by searching Imaterial 5000 years of art, one material at a time in your podcast app that's immaterial 5000 years of art, one material at a time. [MUSIC] In today's episode, I talk with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and best-selling author of the books, The Power of Habit, Smarter, Faster, Better, and Now Super Communicators. Charles Duhigg is here and we're gonna chat about how much I loved his latest book, Super Communicators. I blew through the audiobook and it just made me rethink every conversation I ever had. And it's been super powerful in my relationships, but it also changed the way I think about communicating in my art. So I thought it would be valuable to talk about the power and value of communication and how we can talk about communication as artists and creators. It felt like a very special opportunity to get to sit down and have a chat with a communicator and thinker at this level. And I think that the ideas from this book and in this episode are gonna have a massive impact on your creative practice. All right, let's get into it. [MUSIC] >> First thing I'll say is this is just kind of an intro thing. But you did debate, right? That was your thing when you were younger. >> Yeah, yeah, I did Lincoln Douglas debate. So I was wondering, cuz I was thinking about like, huh, I wonder if that actually. I was thinking about how you said, I've heard you say a few times like, you wrote this book, Super Communicators, not because you felt like a Super Communicator, but because you wanted to learn how to be better at this. And I, in my podcast, it's called creative pep talk. And a lot of people have assumed that's because I'm like a optimistic chipper guy. When really, it's because I know how much creative people need pep talks because I need that energy, I have to go seek that out. And I don't know, I just kind of was wondering if both with habit and this book, you're like researching things you're bad at. Does it kind of, is it a frustrating experience to then be known as the communication guy or the habit guy when you're like, I was trying to get better at this. Does that make sense? >> Yeah, no, it's not frustrating because I think that by the time I've written a book, I've learned a lot about how to do this stuff, right? But I think you're right in that where it comes from is basically, I think that the best pieces of writing like this are writing where the author says, look, I want to get better at this because I have a problem with it, right? I understand what it's like to not, to feel like you can't control your habits, or to want better habits, right? I understand what it's like to want to connect with someone and to sometimes fall short. And honestly, a lot of my books start because I try and try and come up with a way to reach out to experts and ask them for their advice. And then find the parts of that advice that I think are broadly applicable and insightful for everyone. >> Yeah, I mean, I totally relate. And also, the reason I wanted to bring it up is because a lot of the best creative people I know who've had great careers and then also entrepreneurs, they do create from this place of lack or need, or they're like, I needed this product, so that's why I made this thing. And I think it's similar to a lot of artists are like, I wish it was an album like this, or I wish that my favorite musician would take this turn. And that is a good impulse. >> Well, there's actually, in psychology, there's this thing that is referred to as creative desperation, where we know that many of the most creative breakthroughs happen for one of, because of one of two kinds of desperation. The first desperation is, the deadline is coming up and I need a good idea. And oftentimes that creates stress, what's known as you stress, as opposed to distress, to sort of create pressure for that idea to come out. But there's another form of creative desperation, which is, I need this thing in the world, right? Like, this is something that if I had access to, I would love it. And I'm sort of desperate for this to exist. And so I think in a lot of ways, much of what we know about creativity, whether it's that, or whether it's being an innovation broker, sort of taking ideas from different settings and combining them in new ways, much of that is driven by need, by a little bit of stress, by that creative desperation. And that's a very, very powerful force. And one that shouldn't be, shouldn't be ignored. Not all, it doesn't, most creativity doesn't happen, like we're a, you know, a gilded artist in a room waiting for a brainstorm. It happens because we got to make something now. And we feel like the world is missing. Yeah, and I'm glad you drew a line under that and kind of highlighted it because I just think it's a different energy than what the creative mythology would propose as like, this is the moment it strikes. This is what it feels like to create, you know, all of those kinds of things. I think you're hearing you talk about like I wrote the book that I needed to read on several occasions, made me think, yeah, I think a lot of creators maybe could use that nudge rather than this is an outpouring of how awesome I am or how, you know, whatever, my great ideas. Like I think that zoning in on like a need, like you said, I think there's some good creative energy there. Absolutely. Or, you know, and there are times that we have something we feel like is really important to say and we're desperate to say it, right? Like I'm thinking of like some of the work of Kara Walker, for instance, where, you know, it's, it's highly imaginative, it's highly difficult. It's talking to issues like, you know, race and contemporary society. And I think I think that comes from a place of, look, there's something that needs to be said, but I also think that even under the, the construct of creative desperation, that that kind of works because I think in many ways, like when I've seen interviews with her, one of the things that she says that is that these ideas seem so important, she's desperate to get them out. She's desperate to help people understand, you know, others pain and others struggles in a way that seems new and fresh and that we can absorb it as opposed to simply walk by. And so I do think that some of the best art and some of the best creativity comes from, comes from stress. And again, you stress and distress. They often go a little bit hand in hand, but the more that we train ourselves to see the use stress in a situation, the, the better off we usually are. Well, and, you know, just in terms of synchronicity, long time listeners of the show will love this because we've done several episodes about distress and use stress, that's been kind of a, a through line for the past, probably 12 months. It's something I've thought a lot about in relationship to creativity, specifically. You wrote a book about communication. I want to get into that and kind of set it up in a second. But the first thing I wanted to ask you was you wrote about communication and almost every person you've talked to that I've listened to, the first thing they do is kind of jump to, wait, is this about manipulation? And I'm wondering if that says, if that's a projection of what we think communication is and why maybe this book is necessary. Does that make sense? Well, I think it's a projection of the concerns, right? That oftentimes when we think of super communicators, we think of that sort of silver-tongued, you know, devil who comes into our life. And, and the truth of the matter is that although that's very, a very popular figure in like movies and television, in real life, it's actually not, right? What we know about most people who end up manipulating others in untoward ways is that oftentimes it takes scam artists because there's a lot of, um, there's a lot of research now on internet scam artists and how they function. It's not that the person who's getting scammed genuinely believes the story that the scam artist is telling them, it's that the scam artist is often providing something that the person needs in their life, right? They're very, very lonely and the scam artist is willing to be a friend to them. And the cost that they extract is to tell them this extravagant story about, you know, needing money for a kid's operation and can you please send the money? But it's not as if it's not as if those people, when you talk to them, they're like, I absolutely believed what the scam artist was telling me. It's that the scam artist is providing some value in another way. So I think that when it comes to communication, you know, if you think about it, communication is homo sapiens superpower, right? This is the thing that has allowed our species to succeed so well. And as a result, our brains have evolved to be very, very good at communication. And one of the things that they're very good at is detecting inauthentic communication. There's one of my favorite studies of this is some researchers recorded friends laughing together and then strangers laughing together. We're basically the strangers were kind of pretending to laugh with each other. And then they would play one second clips of those tapes for listeners. And listeners with like 90% accuracy could tell the friends from the strangers. And the reason why, you know, and if you looked at the, at the, if you listen to them, it's hard to, it's hard to figure out what they're keying into that makes it easy to detect the stranger and the friend. Yeah. But it's that our brain is so good at picking up on things that are inauthentic, that are disingenuous. And so the concerns that somebody will be a super communicator and therefore manipulate us is actually, is actually much less of a likelihood than we will want to connect with someone for very good reasons and a very well-meaning and good intentioned way. And we'll have trouble doing so because we don't understand the skills of communication. And on that same thread, I feel like when people engage in, okay, why would I read a book about communication? If we're jumping to so that I get what I want, that might highlight what the problem with our communication is. And so yeah, I would say the goal is of being a super communicator. Why, why do we want to get better at it? If it's not to manipulate people. Well, it's a really good question. And, and, you know, this kind of gets to what, what is, what is the point of having a conversation? What is the point of communicating with someone? You know, sometimes we go into that conversation, we think, okay, my goal here is to convince them that I'm right and they're wrong or to convince them that I'm smart or they should like me or they should admire me or they should do what I want them to do. And, and oftentimes that's a, that's a fool's errand, right? Because you're not going to actually achieve that. The goal of a conversation is to understand each other, right? I want to be able to ask you questions and listen to you in such a way that I can understand how you see the world or at least see this thing that we're talking about. And I want to speak in a way that you'll be able to understand me. And if we walk away from this conversation and we both understand each other, but we still disagree with each other, we still think that each other is wrong. We still think that like, you know, you don't know what you're talking about and I do, but we walk away understanding a little bit more how each other sees the world, then that conversation is a hundred percent of a success because the goal of conversation is to make that connection. When we make that connection and that connection is, is echoed in our, or mirrored in our bodies and in our brains, when that occurs, this neural entrainment, as neuroscientists put it, that's when we sort of, that's when we begin to trust and listen to the other person. And again, that doesn't mean that I'm going to convince you that I'm right and you're wrong, or that I'm smarter, that you should like me. But it does mean that we will feel connected to each other. And that connection is at the core of how we build essentially society. And I didn't, I wanted to give you the space to put that there. But that's, that was my takeaway from the book is that the point of communication is understanding. Yeah. And I think that hand in hand with that is that when we understand each other better, the outcomes will be better. And as creative people, it's our, it should be our disposition to have that level of openness and to, because I'm thinking about it through the lens of collaborating to, of like, when I go into a conversation with whoever I'm collaborating with, the, if my assumption is, how do I get my way? I'm collaborating with the wrong person. Because it's, if I think that the best case scenario is just me getting what I want, I should be doing that alone versus if I go into this thinking, us being on the same page, getting everything out there, understanding each other, is going to create the best possible piece when we're all through. And I think that applies to a creative project, but it also hopefully applies to society and how we work together. Yeah. No, absolutely. I think, I think collaboration should be collaborative. Exactly. Yeah. Uh, okay. So I'm going to state my goal here because one of the things I learned from your book is that good conversations have this space at the start where there's a convert, there's a, there's an opening up. These are the goals. Now I know your goal, I'm assuming is to tell creative people about your book. My goal is to show creative people how understanding communication has the possibility of making them best, better creators. Because in my understanding, most creativity, most stuff, especially that we're going to put out in the world that we're going to take, not just put it in our diary, but put it on the internet and into galleries and, you know, on Spotify and what have you, that it's a form of communication. And I'm, I was working through your book, just feeling like these are a bunch of tools. Oh, it's absolutely a form of communication. I mean, the, the goal of art is to, is to be seen, is to communicate. Yes. Right. Now, now sometimes, sometimes we, um, sometimes we don't have a big audience. Sometimes that audience is just ourselves, right? We're trying to communicate with ourselves and have a conversation with ourselves and there's something we want to figure out or we want to share or really solidify, but art and creativity is defined by its ability to communicate. If I create a beautiful painting and, and no one ever sees it, including myself, right? I put it in a, in an attic and I don't even remember painting it, then for all intents and purposes, it really doesn't exist. And it's not, we refer to artistic expression because it is an act of communication. And so you're exactly right. The same principles that allow us to talk to each other, the same rules of communication that allow us to connect with each other verbally or by letter are also the things that allow us to connect with each other through a commercial we design or a painting we create or, uh, a, a graphic that we bring into being. So yeah, absolutely. Creativity in art is an act of communication. Massive thanks to Squarespace. Squarespace is an all in one website platform that makes making a website. Easy peasy. For a moment, creative websites were kind of looking all the same. And I really wanted to break out of the templity look that I heard that Squarespace has this new fluid engine and boy, am I glad I checked it out? Because this thing is what I always dreamed making a website could be like for me, drag and drop stuff and then drag it all over the place, text, images, videos, you can put it wherever you want, layer it up, tear it up, everything I cooked up in my mind, I could figure out how to do without any knowledge of coding. Got a lot of comments like, Hey, who helped you build this? And I was like, Squarespace is fluid engine, baby. You can see it at Andy J pizza.com and head to squarespace.com for a free trial and build your own site. And when you're ready to launch, you can get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain with promo code pep talk, all one word, all caps. You know, I am all about getting to the bottom of what fuels the world's greatest artists. So for me, American Masters creative spark the award winning podcast from PBS is just a treasure trove of creative inspiration. American Masters creative spark catalogs creative journeys of artists and icons across disciplines from music to comedy to poetry to film. This show features some of the absolute best to do it. And the new season is next level with the likes of singer songwriter Jewel. Grammy award winning singer songwriter Connor Oberst for you fellow bright eyes fans and Pulitzer winning playwright Annie Baker. I'd say a great place to start is with Tony award winning actor and one of the most legendary guests we've ever had on the show, none other than JGL himself. Joseph Gordon Levitt, where he talks about the wide spectrum of mental approaches. He needs to be able to tap into from realism to comedic farce and everything in between. That's the juicy stuff I love. So go check it out. Follow American Masters creative spark on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. I wanted to take some of the core ideas from the book and see how we could maybe translate them for the audience a little bit. I'd like to see, I can tell you, I'll throw some of the ways that I started thinking about how they apply and then also see how you would apply it or think about it, but maybe we could start by telling the audience a little bit about the book and then also I would like to go into what I think is the foundational idea around these three types of conversations that we're having without realizing it and for, you know, it creates kind of a dicey situation, not realizing that there are multiple types of conversations. So yeah, if you could introduce the book a little bit and then go into that, I'd really appreciate it. So for me, this book really started when I fell into this pattern with my wife, which is that I would come home from work and I would like complain about my day, right? I was working at the New York Times at that point and sort of would complain about, you know, my boss doesn't appreciate me and my co-workers don't don't don't don't support me. And my wife very reasonably would listen to me complain and she would say, like, look, here's a suggestion. Like, why don't you take your boss out to lunch and get to know each other a little bit better? And instead of being able to hear what she was saying, I would get even more upset, right? And I would say, like, why aren't you supporting me? You're supposed to be on my side. You should be outraged on my behalf. And then she would get upset because I was, I was attacking her for giving me good advice. And, and this was this, I mean, and I think every single person in a relationship, they know, not me, that's nothing like my relationship. I go home and we're just having a great time. No, I can't, I can't relate at all. So I reached out to, to some experts, to some, some neurologists who were working on communication. I said to them, basically, why is this happening? Like, explain to me that I, I'm a professional communicator. Why do I keep falling into the same pattern? And they said, well, you know, you actually came at a good time because we're living through this golden age of understanding communication because of advances in neural imaging and data collection. And they said, one of the things that we've learned that's really important is we tend to think of a discussion as being about one thing, right? We think that we're talking about where to go on vacation or kids grades or what my day was like. But actually, they said, actually, every discussion is made up of different kinds of conversations. And in general, these different kinds of conversations, they tend to fall in one of three buckets. There's these practical conversations where we're trying to solve problems or make plans together. But then there's also emotional conversations where I want to, I tell you about my feelings and I don't want you to solve my feelings. I want you to empathize and acknowledge and understand. And then finally, there's social conversations, which is about how we relate to each other and society and the social identities that are important to us. And they said, the thing that we've learned is if you're having this, if you're not having the same kind of conversation at the same moment, it's very hard to hear each other. It's very hard to connect, right? And that's exactly what was happening with me. I was coming home from work and I was having an emotional conversation. And my wife was responding with a practical conversation. And they're both legitimate conversations, but because we were having different kinds of conversations at the same moment, we couldn't really hear each other. And so I thought that was a really interesting and important insight because you're exactly right. We tend to have these different kinds of conversations without realizing what we're doing. And when our attention is drawn to what kind of conversation is happening, how can I match the person who's talking to who I'm talking to? How can I invite them to match me? That's when suddenly we begin to connect with each other in ways that are much, much more satisfying and fulfilling. Exactly. It's almost like these multiple types of conversations that we have and not realizing that we have these different types. It's almost like speaking different languages and we're just missing each other completely. So we have these three pieces, the practical conversations where we're trying to solve a problem, we have these feeling conversations where we're trying to express ourselves and work through and process emotions. And did, and did you mention the third one? Yeah, social conversations. We're talking about identity, right? I was wondering, well, and how we relate to each other and how we relate to who we are. That's what you say in the book. Yeah. So I want to throw this at you and I have some ideas around it, but I started being really fascinated by applying this to creative work, because I don't think because and thinking of it through the lens of every piece of work, every song, every piece of art, whatever you're making, stories you're telling, I started thinking about how when I was going through my favorite pieces or pieces of other artists, I started to notice that the ones that really hit home really fire well in one of those categories. A lot of them do multiple, but I realized like, oh, there are, there's music that I listen to that solves a problem for me. Like if I'm listening to lo-fi chill hip hop for studying, that's what it's for. It's it was made with an intention in mind and it really solves a problem for me. And I kind of went through these three and I could categorize them. I could categorize lots of art as falling into these buckets without maybe even realizing that. But then as you go to make art, maybe one of the ways you're there's a disconnect is you don't realize the conversation you're trying to have in your art. Does that make sense? And I think artists do recognize that. You know, for instance, take, I mean, you're talking about music that sort of solves a particular problem for you in, in that it allows you to study, but take political music, right? You know, the, the works of like Woody Guthrie or Bob Dylan, which are, they are beautiful, beautiful songs, right? But when the artist comes to that song, they are trying to make a practical point. They are trying to make an argument about how they believe the world should be. And they understand that, that simply making a speech from on top of a soapbox, that's going to be less effective than singing, "This land is your land." And in doing so, tapping into these emotional aspects of our sense of community and of promise. And so every conversation or every discussion contains all three conversations, right? We might start talking about something emotional and then we might get practical and then we might get social and then we might go back to emotional. And as long as we're making those changes together, as long as we're having the same kind of conversation at the same time, then we're going to be able to hear each other. And I think that's what a lot of music or other art does is it the artist, the ones that we really remember, the artist is sort of said to themselves, look, there's a practical aspect of this. I'm trying to make an argument, but there's also an emotional aspect of this. And the emotional aspect has to work on its own, right? This song has to be something that sort of, you know, gets your blood up or this piece of art has to be something that you look at and it looks visually stunning. Again, coming back to Kara Walker, right? She did the in the Domino Sugar Factory. She made that huge, huge sphinx-like creation out of sugar. And part of the reason why I think it's so powerful is because she does recognize the emotional aspects of it. You know, it's so big that it's hard for you to take it in all as a whole and it feels overwhelming, much like the weight of history does and particularly the weight of history is tied up with racism. And then in addition to making a practical, having practical conversation, emotional conversation, she's also having a social conversation, right? Because you're sharing that space with other people and she's very aware of that. There's smaller figures that are surrounding you that make it feel, that make it feel like you're part of a crowd. She, she understands that there's a historical legacy here that she's drawing on and playing into. I mean, the best artists, the best artists know what they want to say, right? They've thought about what they want to say, but equally importantly, they have thought about how they want to say it and how other people, how to help other people hear it and that means recognizing that there is a practical aspect of this, an argument that I'm making. There's an emotional aspect, which is the, the feeling of the art and the awe or the wonder and there's a social aspect that oftentimes you're going to be seeing this not only in a room with other people, but you're also going to be thinking about how, how this relates to our social identities, how this tells us something about who we are in society is. And that's a really important thing for artists to do. Yeah, it really is. And as you're going through that, I'm thinking about, there are a lot of artists that have this weight of social unrest and politics and war. And there's just obviously just so much going on. And I wondered if from your research and your, your writing and diving into all this, if you have any insight on, okay, if I want to talk about, I mean, pretty much anything, even if you're not talking about politics, even if you're just talking about feelings, even if you're just talking about your own lived experience, most of the time you're trying to put something authentic out there. Usually it's something that you feel like this isn't represented. That's why I have that desperation to share it. And I wondered if there was a, anything that comes to mind around, how do we make those kinds of statements, especially the ones that get into identity, which so many, so much creativity is an outpouring of some part of yourself that is how you see yourself. I wondered if you could share any tips around. How could we think about making those conversations go better? Because, and maybe we can wrestle with how that gets filtered into the art that we make, but starting just with, how do we not just put something out that, because there is that shock art, but the shock, I think there's a place for it. But what if our aspiration creatively is actually to connect with people that maybe disagree with us even? Well, I think that's always our goal as an artist, right, is to connect in some way. And I think that the pieces that shock us, oftentimes they're shocking because they connect with us in a way that we hadn't anticipated. So I'm not actually certain the question. Sorry, I kind of went on a little ride there. But my question was, before I put out a piece of work, I just did a whole series about ADHD, about being someone who has ADHD, what that means to me, how I think about that, how it's influenced my positive self psychology. It's been a journey to see myself as a good thing instead of a bad thing. And that's a huge philosophical shift in my worldview. And I realize like that take actually says a lot about how I see people, how I think about psychology, how I think about philosophy, religion, even it touches on those things of, are we a good thing? Are we a bad thing? Who are we? And so as I go to make these episodes and these statements, I'm aware that for some people, this is going to be triggering in such a way where they're going to shut down before they even take it in. And so if it's my aspiration to connect with the people that maybe have a really different opinion of me, if you were doing that in a conversation, how could you enter that conversation in such a way that didn't elicit this shut down response and in the conversation before it begins? Does that make more sense? It's a good question. Yeah. And there's a lot of research has been done on to this, particularly into conversations that we know are difficult conversations, conversations about race or politics, where where people feel differently, they come from different perspectives. And there's been a couple of things that that studies have shown really helped those conversations. The first is usually if you acknowledge at the outset that the conversation is going to be a little bit hard and awkward, then then that actually takes some of the sting out of that challenge and awkwardness. That does not mean that the awkwardness disappears or that the challenge disappears. And in fact, one of the reasons you're having the conversation is because it is hard and awkward, right? It's your goal is not to eradicate that what makes this hard. And it's to, it's to bring it into the light and understand it better. So oftentimes just by saying, look, I want to talk to you about something. And I just want to say at the outset, like, I know this is going to be a tough thing for us to talk about. And then oftentimes, if we anticipate where things might go wrong, the obstacles might encounter. And, and perhaps that means we say something like, you know, this is going to be a tough conversation. And I want to apologize in advance because I might say the wrong thing, right? Sometimes in the gap between my brain and my lips, the words come out wrong. And, and I might say something that's actually kind of offensive to you. And if that happens, like that is not my intent, I totally apologize. And, and I want to know, I want you to know, I promise that if you say the wrong thing, I will not, I will not hold it against you. I will try and understand and assume you're coming from a good faith place that oftentimes when we sort of set the stage or set the table this way, it makes the conversation go much, much better. And then the, the other part of that is kind of what we were talking about before, that we want to spend a little bit of time trying to figure out what we want to say, but as equally what we want to ask the other person. Oftentimes when we go into hard conversations, we think a lot about, here's what I want to say. Here's what I want to get out there. Here's what I want to prove to you. And that's, that's good. Like we should know what we want to say, but we also need to spend some time thinking about like, what do you want to say? Or what do I need to know in order to, for you to hear me? Or what do I need to tell you before I start speaking? So that you're ready for us to have a conversation. And so if you think about, again, the best art, I think one of the things that it's very concerned with is it's concerned with the audience. It does not come in and say, I don't care what you think or feel as an audience. It says to them, look, I'm about to make an argument that like, maybe is a little like, is something you don't want to hear, right? But you're, but you showed up for this, for this. And so, so I at least assume that you're interested in hearing something, even if it's, even if it challenges you. And I'm going to pose this in a way that it's at least understandable to you, right? Take for instance, um, I way way, I think is a great example of this, right? I way way makes a lot of arguments with his art. What he doesn't do is he does not make arguments that are so specific to the Chinese experience in Chinese history, that people outside of China can't understand them. So like his dropping of the Ming vase, for instance, it's interesting that he drops a Ming vase. We are all familiar with the Ming vase. We are all familiar with the fact that this is an, uh, symbol of antiquity and expense, right? There are many other things that he could have dropped in those photos that in a Chinese context would have been able to, to make an argument. But rather he tried to find something that was a more universal. And I think what he's, what's really going on there is that he's saying, listen, I understand if we're gonna have a conversation, I need to figure out who you are. I need to at least accommodate what I think will make this easier for you to understand. That doesn't mean that I need to make it easy for you. It can still be uncomfortable. It can still be awkward. It can still be challenging. But rather than entering into this conversation, pretending that the other person knows my mind as well as I do, I'm going to assume that there's some opportunity for us to have a dialogue. I love that. And it reminds me of something that I think about a lot. It comes from Linda Barry, who's a comic artist and has a bunch of books about comics. Um, and she, one of the things that really struck me was her saying how she'll start a comic, not with a, not often not with a statement, not with this is what I want you to know, but rather with a question, not necessarily for the audience, but a question for herself, kind of similar to how you creatively approach books, which is this way of, I don't know the answer. Right. And then she becomes a proxy for the audience. That's right. Yes. Because she knows that some, some portion of that audience has the same question she does. And she could very well start just by giving them the answer, just by saying, Hey, here's something I found out. I just want to share it with the world, but she understands that's not the journey that the audience needs to take right now. The journey that the audience needs to take is to watch her process of learning, that, that the narrative of starting with a question and getting to an answer, it's the middle part of that that oftentimes helps us understand what the answer is. And that's a real deep appreciation for who the audience is, what they need in order to hear what I'm trying to say. But also it's really a conversation with the audience because as I, and I find this as I'm typing a paragraph, I'm thinking to myself, okay, how are they going to read, how does the reader going to react to this? Like what questions is it going to raise for them? Even though the reader doesn't actually exist yet, I'm having a conversation and a dialogue with them where I'm trying to anticipate, trying to understand how they're going to react to my words. And that's also one of the reasons why editors and collaborators are so important is because they help us, they help us see where we've failed to have that conversation sufficiently. I love that because so many, if I'm teaching a class or working with another creator and some aspect, one of the things that happens often is this place of imposter syndrome, like, I'm not an expert at this. I'm not the person to be talking about this or whatever. But there's this curiosity. And I think what you just said is so empowering to creative people because it's giving them, it's showing them the value of being the beginner. It's showing, it's showing them the value of, yeah, by starting out as the non-expert as the curious person and then using the work, not just to express, but also as a tool to explore and dig into this, that's how you're going to make something that's able to have a two-way conversation, which is that's the kind of engagement that creates interested audiences. Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. And it, I mean, I think about, like, even if we're talking about completely minimalist start, right? Think about, or very abstract art, think about Rothko or think about Stella, who just passed away in some of the Stella retro, like the essays about Stella and his career have been wonderful. You know, one of the things that's really interesting is that what you see in those artists is you see them coming to a piece with a hypothesis and it takes on the world and then trying to figure out how other people react to it. Right. The, the, the liminal borders that exist between colors and in Rothko piece or the black paintings that Stella did, where they're very grid-like and almost look industrially designed. I'm absolutely certain, particularly having read the writings of some of those artists that, that as they're thinking about it, they're trying to anticipate what is this going to elicit in my audience, right? What is this going to elicit in the viewer? If they could speak back to me, what would they say? How do I, how do I, how do I accommodate that comment, right? And try and, try and respond to it. So art is not just an expression of what's inside our, our own soul. Art is an expression of what's inside of our soul in conversation with the person whom we're speaking to. And the best art understands that and, and accommodates that conversation. I love that. I, I wanted to get to looping for understanding because I wanted to see this at, first of all, I just think this is one of the most powerful takeaways of the book. It's something I instantly put to work in my life, not just my art, but just instantly using it and it's, and works. It, it works. Views that in my marriage. And it's like, oh man, like, how did I not know this is what people want? Um, so I wondered if you could explain it. And then we could maybe just, I want to see how, just like what you were saying, it can act as a creative prompt with understanding and communicating with your audience and, and making it more of a dialogue rather than just a monologue. So if you could, could you just explain what that means? Absolutely. Yeah. No, you're exactly right. So, so looping for understanding is a, is a technique that they teach at Stanford and Harvard and a bunch of other places that's particularly useful when we're in a hard conversation, a conflict conversation, when you and I disagree with each other, when we're talking about something that's like kind of hard to discuss, like politics or race, in those moments, there is, there is a very natural, um, instinct, which is that in part of our brain, we start to suspect that the other person is not actually listening to us, but is just waiting their turn to speak. Yeah. Right. And so, and so what's really important in those moments is that we prove that we're listening. And sometimes we think that the way to prove that we're listening is by what we do when someone's speaking, right? We nod our head, we smile in the guy contact, but the truth of the matter is that talking is such a cognitively intense activity. We tend not to notice what our audience is doing when we are speaking. So what matters a lot more is what you do after someone stops talking. And that's where looping for understanding comes into play. And there's three steps to this, right? The first is that, um, if possible, you should ask a question and preferably a deep question, something that asks someone about their values or their beliefs or their experiences, which can sound a little intimidating, but it's as simple as like, if you meet someone who's a doctor, sort of saying, why did you become a doctor? You know, what made you decide to go to medical school? That's a deep question. So go ahead and ask that question and then listen closely to what the person says. And when they're done speaking, prove to them that you've been paying attention by repeating what they said, but not mimicking them. Rather, in your own words, saying, look, this is what I hear you saying. And I hear you saying and show them that you're not only paying attention, you're processing, you're thinking about what they're saying. That's step number two. And then step number three. And this is the one that we usually forget is ask if you got it right. Here's what I hear you saying, am I getting that right? Do I understand you? Because what happens is one of two things. Sometimes someone will say, no, no, you did not understand me, right? I need to explain this again, or I need to explain it in a different way, which is useful to know. But much more commonly what people say is, yeah, I think, I think you heard me. And what we're actually doing when we ask if we got it right is we're asking them for permission to acknowledge that we were listening. Yeah. And one of the things that we know about, again, how our brain has evolved, this is hardwired into our neurology, is that when we believe someone is listening to us, we become much more likely to listen to them. And so this act of asking, did I get this right? Of asking permission to acknowledge that I've been paying attention. What it's going to do is, first of all, make sure that I actually understand what you're trying to say. But second of all, it's going to make it much more likely that you're going to listen to me in return. Yeah, I love that. And I also, even in my own life, trying to translate it into my own words, I find myself reaching for analogies and stories or illustrations to kind of, how do I show that I understood what this person said? And I thought, oh, that instantly creates a springboard of something to create. And so when I start hearing this feedback from people I'm showing the work to or, you know, stuff I'm putting out, then trying to figure out how do I reframe this in the way that I would think about it? That's instantly in the vein of my communication style, which is in the vein of the creative work that I do. And so I love that. And I'm going to run with that and we're going to explore that more on the show. But I loved your book. The only thing I'm, the only thing I'm in now is I'm like, how do I, you know, maybe we'll talk about this another time, but I want to just figure out how do I internalize this because it's, it's such an important book. And so thanks, thanks for writing and thanks for coming to chatting about it. No, absolutely. Thank you for that. And what I would say is this, you know, the reason I wrote super communicators is because communication is just a set of skills and there are a set of skills anyone can learn, right? Any of us can become a super communicator. And the one interesting thing about our brain, again, because of how it's evolved, because of communication, is that our brain is very good at taking lessons regarding communication and making them habits very, very quickly. And so there's a couple of like principles in the book that it teaches, like, you know, ask deep questions, those questions about values and beliefs and experiences, prove your listening, show that you want to connect. And what we found is that when people are exposed to those skills, that if they just practice them a small number of times, they become habits very, very quickly. And so to answer your question, how do you internalize this? Because you're right, it can feel kind of intimidating, right? To read a whole book about communication. And then you're like, it's like, it's like thinking about walking. All of a sudden you can't walk naturally. And now you're like, how am I going to talk if I'm thinking about how I'm talking? But our brain is actually very, very good at saying, Oh, here's a lesson. Here's something that I, here's a goal that I should shoot for. And then letting us stop thinking about it because it becomes a habit. And so my hope is that for anyone who reads super communicators, that they walk away with, you know, just a small handful of things to do on a daily or weekly basis. And you'll find after about a week or a week and a half, you're not thinking about them, but you're still doing them, which is great. As I've been thinking about communication and how it tightly connects to making creative work and making art, I started thinking about these three types of communication that Charles Duhigg mentioned in this talk and lays out really eloquently in his book, the practical, the emotional and the social. And I started considering them in relationship to a project that we did just recently. It's called Right Side Out. It's a podcast series and it's a personal memoir about family relationships, identity and ADHD. And I use this as an example to kind of explore how these three components can show up in a creative project. So there's the practical component, which is what did we want to say? Like, what was the purpose of this endeavor? What are we communicating? And it took me a long time, years of telling these stories on stage and in the podcast and just working it out with friends to realize that the purpose of this whole thing was to communicate the idea that you are a good thing. Now, that might sound like a fluffy platitude, but it's really connected to this massive shift that I had within myself to move away from a negative view of self to a positive psychology of seeing myself as a good thing that doesn't need to be destroyed, but needs to be cultivated. Once I understood that component, it became kind of a rally cry that kept me motivated throughout the whole process. Then there was the emotional side. So there was this part of like, how do we want to say it? I knew that we wanted to say it with all the complexity. We didn't want it to be saccharine sweet. We wanted it to be bittersweet. We wanted it to reflect reality so that when we got to the hopeful payoff at the end, it didn't feel cheap. It felt earned. And then lastly, there was the social. What would this project ultimately say about society and identity? How could I open up a dialogue around these ideas? I wanted to open up discussions around shame and neurodivergence and acceptance and self. And it did open up conversations, even just between me and Sophie who co-wrote the series with me. I wanted to explore what does it look like to identify as ADHD or with a disorder and how my view on that evolved over time into a more positive psychology around neurodivergence, which was something that wasn't about labeling myself as something broken, but just as something different. And like we discussed in the interview, rather than just present the present day conclusion, we wanted to walk you through each part of the journey and let you experience it as a series in a timeline with all the ups and downs. So I run through that series that I'm guessing a decent chunk of you are familiar with as an example of how these three pieces can guide you through your process, make your work more potent and act as creative prompts to say, OK, what does this piece say in relationship to the practical, to the emotional, and to the social, because these are the three things that people are going to be reading into when it comes to the communication of your creative work. [MUSIC] So here's the CTA for this week. It's called Walk a Mile in My Shoes. So here's hopefully a fresh prompt for creating something new. Perhaps it could spark something for you this week as you go to make a piece of artwork, whether it's a story, poem, painting, song, whatever it is. First, notice the practical. What are you wanting to say or communicate today? And remember, it doesn't have to be a statement. It can be a question. You don't have to have the answer. It can be a plea. For example, I wrote a little comic today. I started working on one, and it was all about just noticing what you already have, rather than going out and trying to find more. OK, then secondly, consider emotion. When it comes to this message, what are you hoping the audience might feel through this piece of work? For me, I was hoping that it would come with a sense of relief. For me, I can find myself seeking, hunting for things that are already in my possession, if I can get present in the moment I'm in. And when I can, when I'm reminded of this, it is a weight off my shoulders. That's the emotion that I'm going for, that feeling of low in your shoulders, losing the tension, slackening your jaw. That's the kind of emotion that I was aiming for with this piece of creativity. Then take us on the journey. Don't just create an illustration that's like, be grateful. Think about how does that emotion show up for you? What is the story? What is the process that happens within you within your own life? When this emotion bubbles up naturally, organically, and then bottle that and try to put that in the creative work that you're making, often it's as simple as just sharing the process, telling the story of how this thing came up within you. And when you walk people through it, their mirror neurons in their brain will make them feel what you felt and you can fictionalize it or you can do it like we did with Right Side Out and just tell the true story. And finally, consider the social. How can you use this creative work to connect with other people? How can you invite a response or open a dialogue or spark community and a conversation with those that come in contact with your work? What identity are you connecting with? Are you exploring? Are you expressing? That's a huge component of what it means to be a creative person is to give language and and visuals and symbols for people to express their identity. You know, there are so many times where I can't tell you who I am, but I could tell you that I'm a fan of the band. Why? I can't tell you who I am, but I can tell you my favorite movies, Eternal Sunshine. Like we use creativity to identify who we are. And so having a clear image of who that person is and what they're all about can be really powerful for the process. I think the times when we don't just express what we need to express, but we consider how best to communicate. How do we transfer what's happening within us into somebody else? That that's where it comes out next level. The outcome can become something that isn't just therapeutic for us, but does something therapeutic or cathartic or powerful for the people that are receiving it on the other end. And that's exactly the kind of creative work that will help you build stronger emotional connections with your audience and ultimately bond us as humans. This has been another episode of creative pep talk, a weekly podcast companion for your creative journey. Hey, it's dangerous to go alone, take this podcast with you week in and week out by subscribing to the show to keep you company and keep the best creative practices top of mind, so that little by little weekend and week out, you can make progress in your own creative practice. I'm your host AJ Pizza. I'm a New York Times best-selling author and illustrator. And I make this show not because I have it all figured out, but because as a squishy creative artist type that's prone to big emotions, it takes a whole lot of creativity to just get out of bed sometimes. So every week, I put out the ideas that are helping me stay disciplined and stay excited and have helped me stay on this creative path for the past 15 years plus in hopes that it might help someone else or at the very least help them feel less alone on their own creative journey. Massive thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band Y for our theme music. Thanks to Connor Jones of Pending Beautiful for editing and sound design. Thanks to Sophie Miller for podcast assistance of all sorts. And most importantly, thanks to you for listening and until we speak again, stay kept up. [Music]
This episode is for you if:
-You are exploring your voice and how you can insert it into your work in a more genuine way
-You are exploring being seen, heard and understood through your creative work
-You are considering or working on a collaboration
-You want to strengthen the connection between yourself and your audience
SHOW NOTES:
Co-Writing / Editing: Sophie Miller sophiemiller.co
Audio Editing / Sound Design: Conner Jones pendingbeautiful.co
Soundtrack / Theme Song: Yoni Wolf / WHY? whywithaquestionmark.com
Book ‘Super Communicators’
https://www.charlesduhigg.com/supercommunicators
‘The Power of Habit’ book
https://www.charlesduhigg.com/the-power-of-habit
Artist Kara Walker
http://www.karawalkerstudio.com
Ai Weiwei
https://www.aiweiwei.com
Lynda Barry
https://drawnandquarterly.com/author/lynda-barry/
Abstract artists mentioned:
Mark Rothko
Frank Philip Stella
SPONSORS:
Riverside - The easiest way for you and your team to record, edit and share professional grade Videos and Podcasts, from anywhere in the world.
https://creators.riverside.fm/creativepeptalk
