419. Co-Creation at Its Best

I’m Jody Moore and this is Better Than Happy, episode 419, Co-creation at Its Best.

This is Better Than Happy, the podcast where we study what the healthiest, most successful people in today’s world think, feel and do. And we leverage this knowledge to create our best lives. Are you ready, little bird? Let’s fly.

Hello, friends, welcome to the pod. That’s what Glennon calls it, the pod. I like it. You guys listen to Glennon’s podcast? I love it so much. It’s one of the ones that I am pretty faithful about listening to, it’s called We Can Do Hard Things, if you’re looking to add another podcast to your repertoire or looking to change things up a little bit. Today I want to talk to you about co-creation. I love the word co-creation and I’ll tell you why I like that word so much and how I think about it in my life and why I am bringing it up here today on the podcast.

Before we dive into that, I want to make sure that you know that we’re going to do a tryout coaching webinar. This is a free workshop, you might say, or webinar, meaning I’m going to be live on Zoom. It’s not pre-recorded. It’s live with me on Zoom. It’s an opportunity for you to come and see what coaching is like. If you’ve ever thought, I wonder if I would even like it. I wonder what it’s like. I wonder if it’s weird. I wonder if it’s what I think it is.

Or if you have friends or family maybe, because I know a lot of you are already in my coaching program. You’re already in Be Bold and you know all about coaching. But maybe you have friends or family who are somewhat curious, but they haven’t really taken any steps yet. Tell them to come to try out coaching. Or maybe there’s a new challenge or obstacle for you or someone you love and you’re thinking how are we going to handle this, we need to get some help and you’re curious about whether coaching could be that thing.

All kinds of reasons why you might want to come to try out coaching. It’s totally free. It’s happening later in August. It is a two hour commitment and if you can’t be there live, we’ll send you the replay but you’ve got to register. So head to jodymoore.com/trial to join me for that on Wednesday, August 23^rd .

Okay, so here’s what I want to say about creation. I love that as human beings we are creators. We are wired to create. We need to create, if we don’t, something feels off to us, we start feeling unfulfilled or bored or there’s just this sort of general feeling of something’s lacking if we’re not fulfilling this creation need that we all have. Now, I’ve heard from all kinds of people over the years, psychologists, other thought leaders in all kinds of books and everything, everybody throws out this idea that we are creators. And I have always just taken that at face value.

But I decided in preparation of this podcast to do just a tiny bit of research and I found, first of all, for those of you that are members of the LDS faith, a couple of quotes from some of our church leaders about this topic that I wanted to share to begin with.

The first one is from former General Relief Society President, Mary Ellen Smoot. And she says, “I marvel when I think of this world so rich in beauty, so perfect in function. This world was created by Jesus Christ under the direction of our Heavenly Father. Creation is one of the characteristics that defines God. He takes matter without form and molds it into stars, planets, and solar systems.”

And then she quotes from the scriptures, “Worlds without number have I created, He tells us. Brothers and sisters, we are children of God. Shouldn’t we be about our Father’s business, we be creators as well?” I love that quote. It’s such a beautiful visual of the creation of the universe. I don’t love that she uses the word ‘shouldn’t’. And I think she just means that because this was a conference talk and it’s somewhat formal setting and so she’s using formal language.

But I like to think of it more as, don’t we have this innate desire and ability to create because we are children of God, who is the ultimate creator.

Here’s another quote I want to share from one of my all-time favorites, Dieter F. Uchtdorf, who I have a little bit of a crush on. Is that alright? Just saying. Anyway, Present Uchtdorf, says “The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds or abilities we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before.

Everyone can create, you don’t need money, position or influence in order to create something of substance or beauty. Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty. And I am not talking about the process of cleaning the rooms of your teenage children.” Thanks for that add on. This was at a talk President Uchtdorf gave at a women’s conference. So it was just to a group of women.

Beyond that, I also just kind of looked up, what does the world of science have to say? And there’s a lot out there that I’m not going to go into detail on. But I did just find one sort of interesting quote to share with you here. This comes from a website called theladders.com where they referenced a study that was attempting to answer the question, why are we creative? Why are human beings creative, what is that about?

This is what it says, “After performing a series of neurological experiments, researchers from Drexel University believe they’ve found an answer. Creative epiphanies or aha moments invoke the same activity in some people’s brain reward centers as delicious food, addictive substances and sexual pleasure. While this discovery doesn’t clear up the entire mystery, it definitely provides some evolutionary insight.

Humans brains evolved to reward creativity. Simply put, many of us feel good when we’re flexing our creative muscles. Even if you’re not exactly Picasso or John Lennon, everyone has experienced that rush of relief after an aha moment. That wave of happiness one feels when they crack a riddle, finish a puzzle, solve a confusing math problem, write a few lines of poetry or create a new riff on the guitar, our brains reward us for thinking outside the box.” So I thought that was interesting.

There literally is a dopamine release, if you will, in the brain that we get when we create something new. And I could totally relate to the way they described it in this quote is that aha moment and how good that feels, how satisfying that is. So I like to use the word co-creation because it really helps me tap into my own creativity to stop thinking that it’s about me and that it’s coming from me.

It helps me to think that it’s coming from somewhere else. Maybe you want to describe it as coming from God, coming from inspiration, coming from the universe, coming through me. I kind of like to think about my best creative ideas are ideas that come through me. They didn’t originate in me. In fact, they’re not even original ideas usually. They’re just my own version of the idea or described in a certain way. If it’s a tangible something I’m creating, it’s my version of that thing.

But the ideas I like to think of as moving through me, so I am co-creating with God or the universe. And this is why, to me, creation at its best. And I’m going to talk about why we sometimes don’t experience this level of satisfaction and joy when we’re creating, because sometimes we’re not creating at our best. But when creation is at its best, it is a spiritual experience, to me anyway.

Maybe you’ve experienced this where you create something and you’re like, that’s amazing that I did that. Or for me, it often comes in the form of ideas or stories, as I’m coaching and teaching and creating content here in my business. And sometimes I hear myself describe something in a way that I think, where did that come from, that little moment of genius? And don’t worry, I have many other moments where I’m not in that creative flow and I think that sounded dumb, try again, Jody.

But every now and then I get these spiritual connections where I feel like the idea is coming through me. And that experience not only helps others but it transforms me, it expands me. It helps me feel closer to God in a humble way. I don’t mean it transforms me like look at how great I am. That’s not what I’m talking about at all. In fact, it’s a very humbling, wow, there is brilliance and genius out there. And every now and then I’m able to line up with it and tap into it and it’s super fun when I can.

And it’s always there. I’m just not always able to tap into it, but when I can, it sure is fun. And it sure is useful for me and everybody else who I share it with. So that’s the kind of co-creation I want us to think about today and I want to invite you to try and experience more in your life.

So what I did is I prepared for this episode, as I thought about what are the reasons why we don’t create either at all or at least not as much as our souls desire to, or why we’re not experiencing that highest level of co-creation. We’re not co-creating at our best. We’re doing it and getting a slightly different result. And I have different reasons that I’ve identified from all the people I coach and observe on this topic that I want to offer to you today.

The first reason why we either don’t create at all or not in that higher way is because we have these really limited, overly simplified definitions of creation. When I say create, we’re going to create something, we’re going to go into creative mode or this is a class or a book about creativity and how to access your creativity. What topics come to your mind? What do you picture in your head? I don’t know about you, but first thing I picture is art on a canvas.

I picture an artist who creates either with paint or drawing of some sort, a visual piece of art that you would hang on the wall. And that is definitely creation, but it’s only the very beginning of it. There’s so many other things that are creation.

I also think about music like Taylor Swift, master at creation, creating music, both the notes and the instrumental parts, but then also the lyrics that go along with it. And then she’s along with, I’m sure, some help created this Eras tour. She creates a show, she creates music videos. She’s a musical creator, and that also comes to my mind. People that are really musically and visually, maybe along with it, talented.

People who can dance, people who can write poetry, people who write books, especially fiction. Especially if it’s a really creative maybe a kind of a fantasy type fiction or something. I’m like how in the world do people write a story like that? If someone told me, “Hey, write a fantasy story.” It would sound like a first grader wrote it. I’d be like, once there was a dragon and a child walking down the street saw the dragon and was scared.

I just have never exercised that part of my brain in that way but there are people who do it who are brilliant and amazing, and I love it and respect it And all of that is creation but listen, it can take on so many other forms too. Like I said, for myself and for any of you who might be entrepreneurs like myself, creation happens a lot of times as we’re creating content, content for our customers or clients.

So for me this podcast is a form of creation for me. When I go to create classes or programs or workshops or live events for my clients, that is creation. But even beyond that, sometimes content creation is just for the sake of expression itself. Sometimes it’s to educate and inform, but beyond that, even the creation that I do for my marketing purposes, creating a post on social media, creating a reel, this is all creation. Trying out different marketing strategies, even writing emails.

So whether you’re an entrepreneur or not, if you write emails, if you communicate with people through email, then you have the opportunity to create something. You’re creating a message. And it’s going to go out to people and the amount of creativity, if you will, that you put into it, determines in many cases the quality of that message. I’m not saying everything we do has to be creative and that you have to co-create with every little thing.

I’m just saying, if you’re telling yourself, I’m not a creative person, I’m just not creative. I promise you, that is not true. You are creative. Your creativity shows up in different ways. It might show up through language. It might show up in the form of spreadsheets and processes and checklists and organizing calendars for groups of people who need to communicate. And who need to all be on the same page about what is the process we follow in this situation and what events are coming up and how do we plan for it. That is all creation.

Many of you I think may not always be thinking about how much creative opportunity you have with your church calling. Again, in the LDS faith, we call it a calling. It’s just a job that you are asked to do, and if you agree to do it, you’re doing it on a volunteer basis.

So if you oversee a primary class, if you teach a primary class, every week when you teach primary, that is a creation opportunity, to create the experience that those children will have, what is the lesson going to be? What are we going to talk about? Are we going to sit in a circle or are we going to sit in rows? Are we going to sit on the floor? Are we going to go outside? There’s so many decisions that could be made so many ways to create that experience that allow you to tap into co-creation.

Preparing a meal is a way a lot of people like to line up with God and co-create, by creating beautiful, delicious, amazing food. Hosting some kind of a get together, whether it be a baby shower, something more formal like that or just family dinner, having some family over for dinner. How do I want to create that experience? If you choose to curate the experience, maybe you ask everybody to bring an object that represents how they’re feeling this month.

And then as you have dinner, you go around and you say, “What object did you bring and tell us why you picked it?” There’s so many little things you can do right in just a seemingly every day get together like family dinner. Even meetings, for those of you that are attending meetings either for church or through maybe work you do at the school or your job, whatever it is. And again, please don’t think I’m saying, make sure every meeting is amazing, make sure every get together is creative.

I’m just saying, if you feel this void in your life, if you feel unfulfilled, if you sense that you’re not tapping into your God given inherited even from God, desire to create, consider that you have lots of opportunities to do so and where it might be fun, use that opportunity to co-create. So I like the idea that creation is just organizing matter in a way that makes the world better. By matter that might be people, materials or even ideas in a way that makes the world ‘better’.

In other words, it either makes it easier, more efficient or more beautiful and inspiring. And we have opportunities to do that all the time. Don’t limit your definition of creativity.

Alright, number two reason that we’re not always co-creating at our best is because of judgment. This is one I talk a lot about on the podcast. So I’m not going to spend as long on it today, but it is an important one to bring up. So many of us have the fear of whatever we do being judged by others, which is actually just the disguise of, I’m judging it myself. And I’m waiting to decide if I’m going to allow myself to approve of it based on what other people think and say about it.

And if everybody loves it, maybe I’m going to be proud of myself, but if they don’t, I’m going to feel embarrassed or discouraged and start judging myself as you shouldn’t have done that, you shouldn’t have even tried that, who do you think you are? So you’ve got to be aware of that and you’ve got to, for me the easiest way around this is I just give permission. I just give myself permission first of all to create something and have it be not very good.

My goal when I’m creating is that it’s going to turn out great, but I know that a lot of times it’s not going to. It’s going to turn out so, so or terrible even. So, if you just give yourself permission to create because you’re a creative being and the process of creation is super fun. And at times you will line up with God and create something amazing and at times you won’t and that’s okay, it’s still a useful exercise to do. Because the more you do it, the better you get with lining up with true spiritual co-creation, then it’s okay if it’s not good. Don’t expect it to be good.

Isn’t that crazy that little thought that we all think and say at times? I just want to do a good job on this, is actually a poisonous thought. It should be, I’m just going to give this my all and I’m going to try to line up with the magic of spiritual co-creation. And maybe I’ll do it and it’ll turn out amazing and maybe I won’t and that’s okay, I’m in anyway. It’s okay if it’s not good. And then also give people permission to judge it.

This is something I learned 10 years ago when I went through coach training, Brooke was like, “What if you just give people permission to judge you?” And then we always laugh because we’re like, “They will anyway. We don’t have to give them permission.” But we just do it in our minds. In my mind, I’m just like, that’s okay, I give people permission to judge my work. I give them permission to criticize it even. I give them permission to laugh at it and to laugh at me and to think less of me. I just give everyone permission.

It will set you free if you in your mind give everybody permission to think whatever they want to think. So kind of us.

Okay, let’s go on to number three. The number three reason we’re not always co-creating at our highest is because we don’t prioritize it. We view it as just sort of like an extra add-on like dessert. If I eat all my dinner, I get to have dessert. And the way we do this in our lives is we’re like, “Once I get all these tasks done, once I get all the important stuff done, that has to get done, then I can do this fun thing of creating.” And you can’t think of it that way because it’s not that.

It is an innate human need just like you need to eat food to stay alive. And you need to get enough sleep to stay healthy and you need to drink water. And we have basic needs that if we just are like, “You know what, I’ll do that later when I get all of this stuff done.” That day never comes or rarely, not often enough. So you have to think of it as an important part of your experience.

I did a podcast episode a few weeks ago called Selfish, you might need to go listen to that if you noticed you’re not very good at taking time for things like this that your brain deems unnecessary. Make time for it, prioritize it, put it in your calendar. And when somebody asks you to do something, you say, “I can’t.” Because you already had that time clocked out for some creation.

Number four, which sort of piggybacks on number three is that maybe we are creating, but we’re doing it from either a lesser or a toxic motivation. Here’s what I mean by that. Maybe you’re doing your church calling, you’re planning your lessons, you’re making dinner for the family, you are planning your meeting at work, whatever it is. Maybe you’re doing those things. But you’re just doing it out of obedience or out of a should energy. That’s what I would call a lesser motivation. I don’t think it’s wrong to do it out of obedience or I should do this.

Someone told me I should so I’m just going to do it. I think obedience is a nice shortcut. In other words, if somebody that you trust, somebody whose opinion you value because either they have accomplished what you’re trying to or you respect them, or you believe in them for whatever reason. If they say, “This is a good way to make your life better and to be the kind of person you want to be.” And you’re like, “I don’t know, it doesn’t really seem to me the best way but I trust this person so I’m going to go ahead and make time to create.”

And usually we don’t say it that way, we just say, “I’m going to make dinner because I should make dinner.” I don’t think that’s wrong. I think a lot of times we start from obedience, but then we develop an understanding of how it makes our lives better. But what I think can be more toxic motivation is this desire to prove something, to impress people or to in some way earn our worth. I coach so many people who have this idea that they need to earn the right to be alive.

That if they’re not busy doing things that we might even say could fit into the creation bucket. If they’re not doing things all the time, then what good are they? And that they may as well not be here. That you’ve got to earn the right to be alive or something or you’re trying to earn God’s love or you’re trying to earn your own love. You’re trying to believe that you’re good enough and you think the way to finally approve of yourself and think you’re good enough is just to get enough done, to do enough things and to do a good enough job on those things.

That is what I would call a toxic energy, a toxic motivation behind your creativity. It won’t create the same overall, you might have some aha moments along the way, but overall it won’t create the same feelings of expansion and spirituality and abundance. It will create, instead of resentment. If you’re exhausted, if you’re overwhelmed, if you’re listening to this podcast thinking, great, Jody Moore. Now, I not only have to do these things, I’ve got to take the time to be creative about them, thanks for giving me one more thing.

That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about lining up with a part of you that when it comes alive, expands you and gives you more energy than you had before. It doesn’t take away your energy. It energizes you. So if you notice that you’re just doing it because you think you have to or something like that, we want to work on cleaning that up. We want to work on the truth, which is you don’t have to. You really don’t have to do any of this.

It’s just that if you want to play with it a little bit, you want to experiment and you think that there’s something sort of lacking in your life. It might be that you need more of this kind of playful co-creation.

Okay, number five, the last thing I want to talk about here and this is maybe the most common thief of co-creation at its best in today’s world, which is overconsumption. We have so much to consume and it’s easier to get our hands on than ever before, and it’s easier to consume than ever before.

Remember when we were kids and we wanted to watch TV? We had to wait till Thursday night at eight o’clock when Family Ties came on or whatever the show was that you wanted to watch. And then we got to watch a 30 minute episode and then we had to wait till the next week. And we don’t have to do that anymore. If I want to watch a TV show, I look it up on my Apple TV and it tells me which streaming service it’s on and then I can probably go binge anywhere from 8 to 78 episodes of it if I want to in a row.

So that’s just one example, of course, I know you know all the ways in which we can consume in our world. And here’s the thing, I love this about our world, I love to consume. But consuming other people’s creative work, while it’s a great thing to do, it can inspire us, again, it can make our lives better. But when we over-consume, we trick our brains into thinking we’re meeting that creation need when the truth is, we aren’t. We get that little temporary dopamine hit that the Drexel University study cited.

We can get that aha moment, that same aha moment from seeing somebody else’s creation on Pinterest or on Instagram or reading someone else’s book. Consumption, when we consume something that we love, that we’re inspired by, that we think is well done, that we think is awesome or that we think is funny even, gives us that same sort of little pleasure reward in the brain. The problem is what we don’t get is the long term effects of the evolution and expansion of us, the spiritual connection of having co-created with God. That part we don’t get.

So this is what I mean by it tricks the brain into thinking our creative desire has been met. And it has partially, but we’re missing out on the long term benefits. We’re getting the short term benefits, but not the long term benefits. And so I want you to monitor this. The next time you feel really, what is it for you that you like to consume? Do you like to scroll Instagram? Do you like to get onto Pinterest?

I like to get onto Zillow and look at houses that I have no intention of buying. I don’t why I just like to see the interiors or watch HGTV and see how they remodel a house. When you feel tempted to do that, just ask yourself, am I over-consuming here? And is this a time when I maybe should instead of doing that, maybe I should go create something. And here’s the thing, it doesn’t even have to be the same thing you were going to consume. I’m not an interior designer, but I appreciate good interior design. I love to watch what other people are doing.

My good friend Jessica Bennett, who owns Alice Lane home. I love to listen to her podcast and go to her website and see all the beautiful creations she has. And Erin Haskell, who did our house and owns Design For the People. She is brilliant and I’ll go to her Instagram page and I’ll just get some little dopamine hits of that’s beautiful. But sometimes I pause and go rather than go consume more, is this a time when I want to go create something? Maybe I’m going to go play the piano.

Maybe I’m going to brainstorm a talk that I have coming up. Because my brain is opening up saying, “We kind of need a little creativity here. So what do I want to do?” Again, I’m not saying to stop consuming. The fact that we all create things and then share it with each other is partly what closes the creation loop for us. I’m just saying, are you over-consuming and do you need to cut back a little bit on your consumption to make some room for creation? Consume a little less, create a little more and you will expand yourself.

Alright, thanks for joining me today everybody. I will be back next week with another episode. Have a beautiful rest of your week. Bye bye.

Coaching changed my life and I’ve watched it change the lives of thousands of men and women since, but is it right for you? You’ll only know by giving it a try. Try it out today at jodymoore.com/trial.