792. Creativity Isn't Something That You Are, It's Something That You Do.

You need a six week break. No, you don't at all. The lack of time is actually leveraged for you. And the reason being is because the time is compressed. It's Parkinson's law. If you had more time, you wouldn't do the right thing with it because you'd be on your cell phone, looking at other shit on social media. So the lack of time, the compression of time that you don't have. Those small micro moments are the times, man, that you can fill in the gaps. Use your creativity muscle to say, I got five minutes. I can do this. I've got an hour. I can do this. I've got 30 minutes while my child is. Doing piano. They're doing something creative and you're sitting in the car. I got 30 minutes, man. I can, I could start doing this. Start with free, man. Welcome to the Marsh Bites podcast, five skills, six daily habits, all designed to get you RFA ready for anything. Dive deep into communication, curiosity, creativity, continuous learning and action and productive confrontation. Here, you'll learn how to embrace uncertainty, handle the adversity and never settle again. Mental toughness isn't easy, but I'll help you make it simple. Let's dive into today's episode. All right. Three, two, one. Let's get it. Welcome to today's episode. I'm your host Marsh Buice and today we're going to dive into the symbiotic. Yeah. Get your dictionary out. Symbiotic relationship between creativity. And mental toughness. And for anyone who's looking to either get more mentally tough or, you know what? I got to flex my creativity muscle. This episode is for you, man. So stick around. One thing that you got to understand is creativity. It's not about painting a picture of like a masterpiece or writing a bestselling novel. It's something that impacts your day to day life everywhere. You're going to be using creativity. Have you ever thought that the way that you view creativity might be tied to how you see yourself? See, most people, they immediately think that they got to be an artist or they have to be able to dance or sing or be good on camera. But let me tell you this, man, creativity goes way beyond that. I mean, at its core, creativity is about harnessing your imagination and the operative word being image and the images. That you have stored in your mind right now, maybe limiting you to your not only creative potential, but your overall potential as well. Because what's happening is, is these images have become locked in from your past or your current situation. And so you have these mental snapshots that's going, that's just locked in and you look at them as. End points when actually they're new beginnings for you when you learn to harness the power of creativity. It's just a starting line. So let me share some ways that you can boost your creativity without. Having to get behind the mic and sing, or get on camera, or get out your easel and your little beret and turn it sideways so you can paint- mai wee. There's other ways, man, that you could be creative and you can do these things and nobody even knows that you're working. Oh, your creativity, man. And this is a superpower for you. All right. Number one when it comes to creativity and ways to enhance your creativity, start small, start with free. Here's the thing that you got to understand when you're starting something, start with free earn what you need because subtractions only after hundreds and thousands of reps. Are you going to realize what you need and don't really need? And then pro up, pro up, not throw up, pro up to get what you want. So the start of creativity is start with free. How many times have you not started something because you felt like you needed all sorts of equipment, all sorts of special mics, all sorts of tapestries, all sorts of time. Start with free. What do you have right now? Not do you wish you had, but what are the resources that you have immediately around you and time is probably your largest resource, but you think that you need this big envelope of time. You need these. Weekend getaways. You need a six week break. No, you don't at all. The lack of time is actually leverage for you. And the reason being is because the time is compressed. It's Parkinson's Law. If you had more time, you wouldn't do the right thing with it because you'd be on your cell phone looking at other shit on social media. So the lack of time, the compression of time that you don't have... Those small micro moments are the times, man, that you can fill in the gaps, use your creativity muscle to say, I got five minutes. I can do this. I've got an hour. I can do this. I've got 30 minutes while my child is doing piano. They're doing something creative and you're sitting in the car. I got 30 minutes, man. I could, I could start doing this. Start with free man. And while you're doing that, and I'm a caution as I say this, yeah. But you can, you can leverage videos, podcasts, books to start assimilating what you have. But I say that with caution because you could be doing a whole bunch of research thinking that you're getting ready and you're going to forever be getting ready because you're never going to think that you're quite good enough. Dude, behind me are hundreds of books. They're everywhere. And I can tell you this, I bought many of those books thinking I had to get ready in order to start something. No! You got enough in the tank to get started. Besides, if you read all those books, they're not gonna come out worth a crap anyway. Because your dues are in your do it's the reps that you put in. Understanding you have a baseline back here from these books. But you're really not gonna know your lane, your forte, your dharma. Your essence until you actually start doing it. So start free, man. And even if they fail, they're of such low consequence, the most it cost you was time. Think about it. If you start free, how much did all that free cost? Nothing. You spend a little time and many times what looks like a failure now is actually setting you up for a bigger thing because you had to fail here in order to succeed there. So you have to look at him. That's why I say, man, you got to look at them not as end points. It's new beginnings. It's just, it's just a new evolution and we're going to talk about reframing, but the whole episode on a follow up episode on the power of reframing because I'm about to hit you with it here in just a second, but stay tuned. All right. Number two. So start with free. Number one, number two, help out. This is how you can boost your creativity. Not only are you helping someone else out. But you're also able to get a front row seat to what they do. And because you're lightening their load and it's probably shit they don't even want to do anyway. You do it for him. This is ways that you can begin to level up, get your skill set. And the good news is it's their stamp on the whole damn project, not yours. Not that you're going to sabotage them or anything. You're not. But it's their stamp on there. You're just helping them out. And also you make yourself available. So that way they can critique. They can say, Hey, and they'll leverage all of the years of experience, man. You got a master class. No one is ever going to sit down to teach you. But if you lighten someone else's load, they'll in turn teach you. It's the law of reciprocation because you're helping them out and they'll say, Hey, don't do it like this. Here's the way you do it. And then you add a little flavor to it. You add something, some newness that you had that they had no idea they could even do it. I have young managers that do that to me all the time. You're like, Marsh, did you know you could do this? I'm like, bro, I never knew that button even existed. It's that newness with the OG like me. It's your superpower, man. So help out. It's not about being charitable at all. Okay. I can pay for this. Oh, you're investing now. And you will get well paid way on down the line. All right. Another way to boost your creativity, be resourceful. When you lack resources, get resourceful. This kind of ties into the start with free area. But, you know, you go back as I was thinking about this when I was writing this, you go back to your childhood days. And you remember when you wanted to build a fort, what'd you do? You went to the shed, or you, you went to the old barn, and you looked around at stuff and used what was already there. Your parents weren't taking you to Home Depot with a list. Hell, Home Depot wasn't even around when I, when I grew up. No, you used what you had. And if you think about the times in your life, man, we had no way, but one way and that's forward. Like you had to take stock. No one, no one was there to help you. You had no money. Oh my God, dude, I would sit down with you and one day I'm going to tell you some of the times that I, I, I like so much resources and I was so broke and so bottomed out. I was like, well, God dang, what can I use? Here I am today and I look at it, it's, it's funny. It's painful in the moment, but it's sure funny as hell later on. And you look back at it and you're like, Ooh, I have no idea how I got through that. That's the way, man. That's the way. So be resourceful when you lack resources, stop whining about the lack, create your luck using what you already have. Number four, adapt, adapt. This is how you get more creative. You just adapt. Things will always go your way. If you adapt for the way life's always going to throw challenges at you, man. So. No matter in life, in your profession, you got to adapt. It's funny, man. Somebody came to my office the other day, because depending on when you're listening to this, but you know, there's the, there's the strikes going on. We're just come, we just came off the supply chain. I say off, but it's minimized the supply chain shortages. You know, with COVID and the pandemic and, and auto parts and stuff like that, because I work in the car business and, you know, so we had that and now we got the big strike, all big three Stellantis and Chevrolet and Ford, you know, all these, you know, they, they've got this big strike going on with the UAW, the UAW wants their employees to get paid more, work less, but more benefits, blah, blah. Blah. So somebody came to the office the other day and he's like, What y'all gonna do about the strike? And I'm like, I'm gonna do the same thing I've been doing for 25 years. I'm going to adapt it's just another situation, dude. I don't think anybody in the car business would even know what to do if they didn't have a crisis. Like there's always something we just have learned to adapt and it's a kind of a superpower for us because we've been able to use it in so many other areas of our life as well. So that's what you have to do. This is what I was going to tell you about the reframe. With the adapting, you're constantly reframing. So when situations come, while 90 percent of people, 99, 101 percent of people out of 100 complain. You're sitting there and just saying, okay, let's adapt. Let me, let me see. And you're resourceful and you're helping out and you're starting with free. See how all this stuff ties in man. Number five, how do you get more creative? You stay alert. Let me tell you something, dude, opportunities are everywhere, but you got to be the one to look for them. If you see them at the same time, everyone else sees them. It ain't an opportunity. Opportunities are taking full advantage. I say full advantage taking advantage of something that no one else is seeing. So let me try it again. It goes back to low consequence when you take these opportunities on many times, man, they don't cost but a little bit of time and you start tinkering with it at first and you keep adding to it and before you know it, man, you catch fire. And then you got a real big. Situation on your hand. Cause you're like, Oh my God, this hobby, this opportunity, I just kind of followed the thread is now become a full blown situation. So now I got a full blown business. Do I stay at the job I'm at and pimp this one off or do I stay with this one until the boss, I'm out of here. So what opportunities are all about, but dude, you got to stay alert, man. You got to stay open. And if you're sitting there bitching to the, to the team huddle there about how bad things are back in the day, it was so much easier. I had a guy that was in my office the other day. He's like, man, back in the days I said, no, cause back in the days you bitch too. He's like. Yeah, you're right. So don't give me that back in the day bullshit because you complain back then too. You don't appreciate it until in hindsight anyway. So adapt. Stay alert on that. All right, so that's the creativity side. Now you said Marsh We're gonna be talking about creativity and mental toughness. How in the hell does mental toughness tie in to the Creativity side. Well, I'm gonna tell you how. Okay? mental toughness And creativity, they go hand in hand. Because when you're resilient and you got a resilient mind, remember resilience is stretch, compress, stretch, compress. And so when you have a resilient mind, what you're doing is, is you're going back, forth, back, forth, back, forth. But it's maintaining it's, it's, it's shape, it's endurance. That's what that mental toughness is. So when you're creative... Then that mental toughness means that you're always asking questions, you're always staying open, you're always adapting, you're being resourceful, you're starting with small, starting with free, you're helping out, see, you're constantly... Evolving and bouncing, keeping this ball bouncing, bouncing this ball over and over again. And that's what keeps you in the game mentally. You don't fold, you don't get whipped. So let me tell you a couple of ways that you can apply mental toughness that's infused with the creativity. Number one, problem solve, problem solve. It wasn't just about little Johnny back in. Grade school, you know, Johnny leaves the house at 9 15 and Sally leaves an hour and a half Later, Johnny drives 55 miles an hour and Sally drives at 67 miles an hour, who will get there faster in a shorter amount of time, or whatever the distance traveled, you know, whatever these problem solving things are, don't you hate those problems back in school? You're like, dude, where's the back of the book, man? So problem solving man is so key, both in your profession. And also in life, it's a situation for you that you haven't been confronted with before. It could be totally brand new. It could be something maybe that's not brand new. It's just brand new to you. But you know, just ask some questions, man, kind of break these things down. Use your mental resilience. Don't throw shit across the room and don't pop a bud light. Get real curious with these things, real creative with it. And tinker around with it. Sometimes, man, you tinker with it for a little while, you get away from it. You just go on a jog or you go work out in silence. And then I can, I can tell you, man, just a lot of times the answers come just poof out of thin air. And you're like, ah, got it. Another way that you can apply creativity and mental toughness is by embracing failure, man. This is what I say in, in, in, in every episode, man. You have to learn to embrace uncertainty, handle the adversity, and never settle again. So, the embracing the uncertainty means, yeah, you could be set up for some failing, but failing's a process, failure is an identity, always keep it a process, it's just part of the process, it's just, it's point A. To get to point C to get to F to get the H they're different points, man. So, but embrace that man. Don't resist it. Think about how much energy you spend just pushing back, resisting that failure. Don't embrace it, man. Embrace it. It's just part of the feedback mechanism that you just continue to tinker and go at. Alright, another way that you can boost your mental toughness and infuse the creativity is the emotional balance. Now, if you remember when we first started, Communication was the first thing of that. I coach on my program. And by the way, I'm this stuff I've coached on and I'm giving it to you for free, man, because I just, I want you to succeed. If you do business with me, great. If you don't, here you go. It's all yours, man. Hopefully you do something with it. But the emotional balance in the communication part. Remember, we talked about that. If you didn't listen to the communication piece, Go back and listen to it. And so the emotional balance is being able to express yourself effectively. That's part of communication. The emotional balance is being able to keep those things in check and not letting the current situation or previous situations just overload and overwhelm you where you literally break and snap, it's not going to be anything of productive use at all. So that problem solving using the creativity. And again, start with free, adapt, stay alert, be resourceful, help out. Others will in turn help you out. See, being able to do those things, that's what will keep that emotional balance in check for you as well. Let me give you a few exercises to try, and this is how you're going to get stronger, both in creativity. And also with your mental toughness, number one, reframe challenges. This is what I was going to talk about. While I'm going to do a whole follow up episode on reframing. So I don't want to get too much in the weeds on this one. Cause we've got to get out of here, but reframe the challenge, whatever challenge that you see, reframe it. And reframing is just taking a situation, finding productive use of it, respin it, and then reapply it and go forward. Think of it like a, like puzzle pieces to your game of life. Life's a game, man. And you just find the puzzles, new game, new strategy, rock it out. All right. Another way that you can boost your creativity and your mental toughness is break routine. Do things differently, man, where you watch on this, on, on a, on a different risk, I did that the other day, go in reverse order in your workouts, read something that's not even. You know, really so much. So you're curious, but it's, you know, if you're in sales, all you do is read sales, read something else, read about meditation. I don't know. But, you know, just, just break routine, whatever that routine is. If you come home and you do this every single time when you come home, do something totally different, break that routine. And then the last part, seek feedback, be open to some constructive criticism, man. Be open, ask questions. Don't, you don't want a bunch of people to be, Oh, that was great. No, like what was wrong with it? What, what didn't work, what didn't resonate with you? And you know, I'm always. Learn wanting to learn and evolve, man. And so there are people who will send me messages about the podcast. I didn't really understand what this meant. It made sense to me. And I'm like, Oh, well, I see that. And so they'll, they'll DM me with that. So there are things, and speaking of go to marshbuice.Com bottom, right? Is a mic from you to me, man, leave me some words of wisdom, leave me some insight. I'd love to be able to, to use that and get better at this thing as well. All right, so let's get out of here. You got to remember, man, that creativity is not something that you are. It's something that you do. So many people say, Oh, I'm not creative. Well, you're not creative because you're not doing creative things. So hopefully this list, when you go back through them, hopefully this list, you grab a few things that really resonate with you. Creativity is a muscle. You start flexing these things. If they don't work, just adjust, don't abandon it, just go back at it. And remember, it's like you're building a muscle, man. You're building a muscle. And not only are you getting your creativity muscle up, but also you're strengthening your mental toughness. This is why I say the five skills that you need to be successful in life are communication, curiosity, creativity. Continuous learning and action and productive confrontation. You, you use these five skills every day, man. And you spot, okay, well, if, if things aren't going well for you in life, it's because you're not working in one or more of these areas. You're not communicating. You've you've stopped talking. You're not being creative anymore. You're talking about the lack. Okay, you're not being curious. You're making statements all the time. You've stopped learning. You think you know it all when you need to be a no at all or you're not confronting some shit, man. You're letting too much slide. Not only personally, you're not confront yourself, but also you're not confronting other people and setting those boundaries as well. All right. So with that, remember, keep it simple, keep it moving, never settle, keep selling, stay tuned to the end to learn how to communicate and how you can help support the show as well. All right, peace. Thank you for joining me on the Marsh Buice Podcast. That's M a R S H. B U I C E and your support means everything to me. Please help support the show by sharing with others, leave a rating and dropping a voicemail right there on my website until next time. Keep it simple. Keep it moving. Never settle. Stay tough. Peace.