This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:10] Susan Blackwell: When I bump into something that inspires me, I jump in my spark file.

[0:18] Laura Camien: Spark file to be something that I wanna make or how I wanna be.

[0:23] Susan Blackwell: I pump it in my spark style.

[0:26] Laura Camien: Spark.

[0:28] Susan Blackwell: I jump into my sparks.

[0:32] Laura Camien: Let's open up the spark file.

[0:37] Laura Camien: Welcome to the Sparks File, where we believe that everyone is creative, but smart creative people don't go it alone.

[0:44] Susan Blackwell: I'm Laura Camien.

[0:46] Susan Blackwell: And I'm Susan Blackwell, and we are creativity coaches who help people fear less, create more, and bring their creative visions to life.

[0:53] Laura Camien: If you're an OG member of the Sparkfile community, welcome back, Sparkler.

[0:57] Laura Camien: If you're joining us for the first time, what welcome, new friend?

[1:01] Laura Camien: Know that just by listening to this podcast, you are joining a warm and wonderful clan of creatives.

[1:07] Laura Camien: But you may be asking yourself, what exactly is a sparkfile?

[1:10] Susan Blackwell: A spark file is a place where you consistently collect all of your inspirations and fascinations.

[1:16] Susan Blackwell: If you're like us and you're making stuff all the time, or you wanna be making stuff all the time, you know if you're not careful, your campfire of creativity can flicker out.

[1:25] Laura Camien: But don't despair.

[1:27] Laura Camien: We're collecting kindling in the form of fresh ideas, images, and inspiration that spark creativity and pique curiosity.

[1:36] Susan Blackwell: To light a fire under our collective asses to make things like this podcast.

[1:41] Susan Blackwell: Or an approach to the arts inspired by athletics.

[1:45] Laura Camien: Oh boy.

[1:47] Susan Blackwell: Every episode, we're gonna reach into our spark files and exchange some sparks.

[1:52] Laura Camien: And from time to time, we're gonna talk to some folks who spark us too.

[1:56] Susan Blackwell: That means we have more sparks than we can possibly use in this lifetime.

[2:00] Laura Camien: So if something lights you up, we encourage you to take that thing and make something out of it.

[2:07] Susan Blackwell: So without further ado, let's open up the Sparks Spark Five.

[2:21] Laura Camien: Wow.

[2:21] Susan Blackwell: Wow.

[2:22] Laura Camien: I think it for you.

[2:23] Susan Blackwell: You did.

[2:24] Laura Camien: Thank you, Suze.

[2:25] Susan Blackwell: You're welcome.

[2:26] Laura Camien: I like it.

[2:27] Susan Blackwell: Elsie.

[2:28] Laura Camien: Yeah, babe.

[2:30] Laura Camien: What a day it's been.

[2:31] Susan Blackwell: What a day it's been.

[2:33] Laura Camien: This little Diddy of a Sparks won't air for, you know, many weeks after this day.

[2:41] Laura Camien: But on this day when we record this spark, on this day in history.

[2:46] Susan Blackwell: Four score and seven sparks ago.

[2:49] Laura Camien: That's about right.

[2:51] Laura Camien: We had the most amazing day.

[2:53] Laura Camien: We completed two courses today.

[2:56] Laura Camien: The eight-week ignite program and the six-month beleys program.

[3:01] Susan Blackwell: And so these two little kittens were essentially crying and laughing for six hours today.

[3:09] Laura Camien: It was intense.

[3:11] Laura Camien: The people that were in those groups are such high quality people.

[3:16] Laura Camien: And each time one of their little faces came on the Zoom screen, just one after the next, I was just like, what a pot of gold doubloons these folks are.

[3:27] Susan Blackwell: I am imagining we might share some of their incredible work on the socials.

[3:32] Laura Camien: We might hear some of the uh they did praise poems, they did tributes to each other, and I think we might be sharing some odes, odes to my fellow sparkler.

[3:44] Susan Blackwell: They were incredible.

[3:46] Susan Blackwell: It was really beautiful, and I cannot believe this is our job.

[3:53] Laura Camien: What a great thing.

[3:59] Susan Blackwell: I don't know why I just gave you the most unattractive sound ever, like a guttural.

[4:04] Laura Camien: I liked it.

[4:05] Susan Blackwell: But it felt good.

[4:07] Susan Blackwell: It felt good to give you that.

[4:08] Laura Camien: Um, I feel the same way, Suze.

[4:11] Laura Camien: I'm just like, uh, what a gift.

[4:14] Laura Camien: And listen, just in case, like you're thinking, God, these two are a little bit full of themselves.

[4:20] Susan Blackwell: We stand back and watch this magic happen in the classes that some of which we planned for, like, some of which I think we would stand here and be like, we can take credit for that.

[4:29] Laura Camien: We did that.

[4:31] Susan Blackwell: Other parts, other parts were like, what?

[4:35] Susan Blackwell: It exceeds it far exceeds it's it is that idea of like something is more than the sum of its parts.

[4:42] Laura Camien: Yes.

[4:42] Susan Blackwell: So we lay the foundation, we invite the people that we think will be uh, you know, an amazing mix of human beings.

[4:51] Laura Camien: And you know, that's the part that we can say, like, yeah, we did that, and we can take some credit for that.

[4:57] Susan Blackwell: What happens next is just magic.

[5:01] Laura Camien: You know what I think it is?

[5:02] Laura Camien: It's coming to me in real time, but it's it's really true.

[5:06] Laura Camien: When you bring together a group of wildly creative people whose creativity is really diverse, when they are asked to bring that creativity out, for instance, to honor a fellow group member, that creativity is surprising and delightful.

[5:26] Susan Blackwell: And I think that's part of the magic.

[5:29] Laura Camien: So for instance, we were doing these odes.

[5:33] Laura Camien: They were doing these odes that they created.

[5:35] Laura Camien: They had time to interview and then develop these odes that they then shared.

[5:40] Laura Camien: And the odes were like a minute long.

[5:42] Laura Camien: And you have somebody who's like, this is what I have observed in this person's growth, their arc over the course of this course.

[5:52] Laura Camien: And now I am going to give you an improvisatory interpretive oboe solo about their creativity.

[6:02] Susan Blackwell: Or now I'm going to do a drawing of their creativity for the past 10 weeks.

[6:09] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[6:10] Laura Camien: I mean, that the range of talent and the creativity on display is phenomenal.

[6:17] Laura Camien: But I also am referring to this magic that is created when you have compassionate, empathetic, emotionally intelligent people in a group together.

[6:29] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[6:30] Laura Camien: Who have spent the last number of months or weeks supporting each other, showing up for each other, being vulnerable.

[6:38] Susan Blackwell: It's a recipe for magic.

[6:40] Laura Camien: It's it's phenomenal.

[6:41] Susan Blackwell: So we there, we've said that.

[6:43] Laura Camien: We're in awe.

[6:44] Susan Blackwell: We're in awe.

[6:45] Laura Camien: They are each and every one a gem.

[6:47] Susan Blackwell: They're a string of pearls.

[6:51] Laura Camien: It is, it's like opening a trap.

[6:52] Laura Camien: It was like opening, you know, the box in in pulp fiction that they the people open the box and it glows gold in their faces, but you never see what's inside the box.

[7:02] Susan Blackwell: It's the people in our courses.

[7:03] Susan Blackwell: That's what was in the box.

[7:06] Laura Camien: Now you know.

[7:08] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[7:08] Laura Camien: Suze, you come up with some amazing metaphors, but that might be one of your best ever.

[7:14] Susan Blackwell: They were they're in the box.

[7:16] Susan Blackwell: The sparklers are in the box.

[7:17] Laura Camien: The sparklers are in the box.

[7:19] Laura Camien: Oh, Laura Kimmy, you got a spark for me today.

[7:21] Susan Blackwell: Oh, Suze, I do have a spark for you.

[7:24] Laura Camien: I'm excited because you know, you won't be surprised by this, I don't think, because I've been talking about it here and there for quite some time now because it's been it's been bubbling to the surface.

[7:35] Laura Camien: Anyone that has listened to the podcast for any amount of time probably knows that I come from a long line of coaches and athletes.

[7:46] Laura Camien: And plus, I don't think I've talked about this, but my sweet Wesley Day is a sports fan.

[7:52] Laura Camien: So we're always watching LeBron or Peyton Manning before he retired, or you know, any one of his favorites.

[8:00] Laura Camien: And because of that, even though I chose to pursue a life in the arts, I can find my way around a sports conversation.

[8:07] Laura Camien: I can do okay.

[8:08] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[8:09] Laura Camien: Pretty much.

[8:10] Laura Camien: Not all sports, of course.

[8:11] Laura Camien: Not all sports, but I have a basic understanding, and I'd say more than a basic appreciation for many of them.

[8:18] Susan Blackwell: I'm impressed.

[8:19] Laura Camien: Thanks, Suze.

[8:20] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[8:20] Laura Camien: Thank you.

[8:21] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[8:21] Laura Camien: But here's the thing.

[8:22] Laura Camien: Once I went to college, I started to notice this real divide, like um a divide between, you know, sportsy people, athletics, and art.

[8:32] Laura Camien: And there was kind of like a ew gross sort of feeling when I was around artists and the topic of sports came up.

[8:40] Susan Blackwell: I think it's like really common to be like, ew, ugh, you know, and similarly around athletes, when the arts come up, I've never really experienced ooh grows from them, but more like confusion like why?

[8:54] Laura Camien: Why the arts, like why that, like they they didn't always like see the point.

[8:58] Laura Camien: Like, what why would you do that?

[9:01] Laura Camien: And so, as someone who's kind of had a foot in both of those worlds, I've wondered like why culturally.

[9:10] Laura Camien: I don't mean this personally about anyone that I know, but just in the big picture sense, culturally, why the negativity from either side towards the other side?

[9:21] Susan Blackwell: And I have some theories, of course, like I think all of it is built on stereotypes and the fears in our culture, like athletes are brutes with no heart, and artists are all heart with no strength.

[9:35] Laura Camien: You know what I mean?

[9:36] Laura Camien: Like they're complete stereotypes.

[9:39] Susan Blackwell: That that idea of like someone who is self-expressed is a sissy, and the someone who is really physically strong is a bully.

[9:47] Laura Camien: None of like these aren't true, like these are tropes, and they're not true.

[9:53] Susan Blackwell: But I do think that some of it comes from that.

[9:56] Susan Blackwell: But another observation, I don't know if this causes resentment.

[9:59] Laura Camien: I don't feel resentment, but I think it's an interesting thing to note.

[10:03] Susan Blackwell: Our culture encourages sports in ways that that it does not encourage the arts.

[10:10] Laura Camien: Like kids who want to play a sport early on, right?

[10:14] Laura Camien: Yeah, they're not told, hey, listen, the likelihood of you being a professional athlete is so minuscule.

[10:23] Susan Blackwell: Why even play little league ball?

[10:25] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[10:25] Laura Camien: Like no one tells them at that age, like, hey, this is really unlikely.

[10:31] Susan Blackwell: Why play junior high volleyball?

[10:33] Laura Camien: Why play softball in the summer?

[10:34] Laura Camien: You're not gonna make any money from that, you're not gonna be a professional.

[10:37] Susan Blackwell: Pee, we football.

[10:38] Laura Camien: No one, no one says that.

[10:39] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, no one says, right?

[10:41] Laura Camien: Yeah, no one does.

[10:42] Laura Camien: And no one expects the kid to be perfect from the jump.

[10:47] Laura Camien: They give them time to develop and grow.

[10:50] Susan Blackwell: They expect it to take time.

[10:52] Laura Camien: But for artists, we have some expectation that if your kid isn't a real Picasso at age 10, they're not going to be a professional artist.

[11:03] Susan Blackwell: And let's not invest the time and the money in that because that's so unlikely.

[11:09] Laura Camien: We literally get told, you want to be more practical.

[11:13] Laura Camien: A life in the arts is so, you know, the starving artist trope.

[11:18] Susan Blackwell: And we get told a lot of discouraging things at really far too young.

[11:24] Laura Camien: Like before it's even time to decide, it's kind of been decided for you or in your art class.

[11:30] Laura Camien: Like, let's say you had to take one art class and you weren't praised up and down for your ability to do something right away.

[11:37] Susan Blackwell: There's no like development of that of like, well, this was your first attempt at a sketching an apple and an orange in a bowl.

[11:45] Laura Camien: And you can develop that skill.

[11:47] Laura Camien: It's a skill you can develop just like the skill of throwing a football, you know?

[11:51] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[11:52] Laura Camien: So I guess I wonder about like why the difference in the approach.

[11:57] Laura Camien: Obviously, culturally, we understand the value of physical activity and physical strength.

[12:02] Susan Blackwell: That's not questioned, and I'm certainly not questioning it.

[12:05] Susan Blackwell: It's great.

[12:06] Laura Camien: We understand that sports will teach us about playing on teams and collaboration.

[12:11] Laura Camien: It's good for our bodies and our brains.

[12:13] Susan Blackwell: Nobody argues that.

[12:14] Laura Camien: But the arts can also be good for our brains and our development of self and our collaboration skills.

[12:20] Laura Camien: And in certain cases, dancing and acting, like there's there are creative expressions that are also physical, but we don't culturally seem to have a common understanding of these benefits.

[12:34] Susan Blackwell: Do you know what I mean?

[12:35] Laura Camien: My my brain is sparking a little bit.

[12:37] Laura Camien: And I don't I don't want to jump your spark, but I do wonder what is the root of what you're describing.

[12:44] Susan Blackwell: I recognize what you're describing.

[12:46] Laura Camien: And Susan, I'm talking out of my butt here, but I wonder if it comes from people's thinking and fears around gender, where sports sort of hues to those old school binary gender norms.

[13:01] Susan Blackwell: And the arts sometimes can be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[13:05] Susan Blackwell: Like there's something threatening about that because there's it's a little, it's not that.

[13:10] Laura Camien: And I just I don't know.

[13:11] Laura Camien: I don't know where that comes from.

[13:13] Susan Blackwell: No, I agree.

[13:14] Susan Blackwell: I think there's something there.

[13:15] Laura Camien: I mean, I I hear just some really crackpot theories from an armchair analyst.

[13:21] Susan Blackwell: What?

[13:22] Laura Camien: I don't know what I'm talking about.

[13:24] Susan Blackwell: The thing is for someone who's given a little thought to this, here's some ideas.

[13:30] Susan Blackwell: But yes, I do think there's some of that like binary thinking.

[13:34] Susan Blackwell: I think sports keeps score.

[13:37] Susan Blackwell: And it's easier, it's simpler to understand something that is definitive than something that is more subjective, right?

[13:45] Laura Camien: I think the arts take more emotional work.

[13:47] Susan Blackwell: I think they take thought and self-reflection.

[13:50] Susan Blackwell: Some of the things we don't want to look at about ourselves or about our society.

[13:55] Laura Camien: Being a sports fan doesn't require that of you.

[13:58] Susan Blackwell: I do think athletics, and I will get into it.

[14:01] Susan Blackwell: Like, like I do think athletes do a lot of mental work.

[14:05] Laura Camien: So I'm not suggesting at all that that's not the case.

[14:08] Susan Blackwell: A lot of mental work.

[14:09] Laura Camien: A lot.

[14:10] Susan Blackwell: And a lot that we can learn from.

[14:12] Susan Blackwell: But I think that as a sports fan, it might not require as much emotional work from you necessarily.

[14:20] Laura Camien: And I I think also sports is big business.

[14:22] Susan Blackwell: I mean, our whole like the amount of money made off of sports.

[14:27] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[14:27] Susan Blackwell: But also I go back to just point of fact.

[14:32] Susan Blackwell: It is good for us to move our bodies.

[14:34] Laura Camien: It is good for us to learn hand-eye coordination at a young age.

[14:40] Susan Blackwell: So all of that is worthy.

[14:43] Laura Camien: I think I wonder, there's two things I wonder about why the either or why the athletics or arts only.

[14:53] Laura Camien: And why couldn't we understand that like athletics, great for your body, arts, great for your brain, great for your intellectual work, emotional work.

[15:05] Susan Blackwell: Anyway, the combination of them is extraordinary.

[15:08] Laura Camien: So we don't know why this is, but it is.

[15:11] Susan Blackwell: It just feels like this is where we are. And I should mention, like, we have some clients who are literally working, making it their life's work or their creative work to change some of these beliefs.

[15:23] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[15:24] Susan Blackwell: And get people to think differently about the arts at a younger age.

[15:27] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[15:28] Susan Blackwell: I mean, as adults, we all have emotional pain carried with us. And so we've got generations of people who were told they weren't artistic and they weren't creative. And you know how we tell stories, we hand down stories in order to protect our sweet new young babies and nieces and nephews and everyone, we tell the story to try to warn them to not get their heart broken.

[15:53] Laura Camien: So I think that, you know, people who felt pain around their creativity for whatever reason, then try to protect their loved ones and be and try to give them a sense of like manage your expectations around that.

[16:09] Susan Blackwell: I don't want you to get your hopes up. It's very unlikely. And so I think we pass that pain down, frankly.

[16:15] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[16:16] Susan Blackwell: That makes sense. I mean, we're not that many years from uh the arts world, especially the traditional art forms, maybe the painting and the ballet and some of these um older art forms, like they really were quite elite, like for the elites.

[16:38] Laura Camien: Yes.

[16:38] Susan Blackwell: And so it wasn't, I mean, it was probably very practical to tell some kid in the Midwest, like you're not gonna be a ballet star.

[16:47] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[16:47] Susan Blackwell: You know what I mean? Like we're not very many years from that. And I think we're still working on breaking down the doors and removing the gatekeepers and making all the arts more accessible to everyone, but we still have a lot of work to do.

[17:00] Laura Camien: Yeah, for sure.

[17:02] Susan Blackwell: All right, so that's just some sheer speculation on our part.

[17:07] Laura Camien: Right, right.

[17:08] Susan Blackwell: That's all we're doing. But the thing that I know for sure is that even with these differences in our culture, I think artists and athletes have a lot more in common than we see at first glance. And we have tons that we can learn from each other.

[17:24] Laura Camien: So, what I wanted to do today, what I'm sparked by is this idea of just looking at a few things that artists might reflect on in regard to athletes, maybe learn from athletes.

[17:37] Susan Blackwell: We'll start there.

[17:38] Laura Camien: We'll start there. How's that?

[17:40] Susan Blackwell: I'm game.

[17:41] Laura Camien: Get it?

[17:42] Susan Blackwell: Oh, I see what you did there, Suze.

[17:45] Laura Camien: Corn dog. What do you get? What do you got for me, Laura Camien? Save me from myself.

[17:48] Susan Blackwell: Listen. Okay, first of all, the investment of time and money. There's a real divide when it comes to the investment of time and money in athletics versus arts. Like physical activities is a necessity. There's no doubt about that. And I just want to state that again. We don't even question that money is spent in order to move our bodies.

[18:09] Laura Camien: And we know that money isn't going to come back to us.

[18:13] Susan Blackwell: We're not going to profit from that. We're going to get rewarded in other ways, like with good health and a strong body, et cetera. But as adults, people who are not professional athletes pay money for a lot of sports-related things besides belonging to a gym. They pay money to be on teams, to be in a league, soccer, softball, you name it. They pay big money to play golf, have golf club memberships.

[18:40] Laura Camien: They pay money for the privilege of spending more money at the golf club that they belong to.

[18:45] Susan Blackwell: They spend money on new clubs and all the accoutrements they need. They buy bikes and helmets and gear. They pay entry fees to run marathons. They even travel to exotic locations to participate in athletic activities. If they are fans of sports teams, they may spend money on fan gear. Maybe they tailgate or they barbecue every Sunday. They spend money on that. They go to the bar to watch the game with friends. They spend money. They spend time, hours of time watching someone else play a sport. They read about the game the next day. Maybe they know the stats of all the games. And no one ever says to them, why do you do that? You're never gonna make any money with all that football knowledge you're racking up. No one's ever gonna pay you for all the time and energy you put into being a fan.

[19:37] Laura Camien: It's just accepted culturally that that is a valid way to spend your time and your money.

[19:43] Susan Blackwell: And it is. I'm all for it. Like if it's bringing you joy, have at it. But why then when we want to take an art class or be in a creativity group or pay for art supplies or make a short film? Why do we get hit with questions like, why would you do that? You're not gonna make any money from it. That's what blows my mind. I think that I uh like, why do we have this internalized idea that our art is only valid if it makes money, which is simply not true? Um, it's not okay to spend money or time on ourselves or our creativity in this way, like investing in an art class. Why? I'm not going to sell my art, so why would I do that? We're skipping the part where we understand just the sheer benefits, the sheer joy of a creative expression, whether it's shared with the world or not.

[20:45] Laura Camien: So you have the flow state that you get your brain into, you have that sense of pride and achievement, you have a sense of uh expansion because you're learning new skills. Like there's so many things to be gained from taking that class, whether you ever intend to quote unquote do anything with it or not. And I guess my question is, and I ask this to you, Sue, is like, what do you think is what's the what's that all about?

[21:09] Susan Blackwell: Again, really, really good question. And I don't know that I have an answer, but I was thinking it where my mind starts to travel to a talk that I recently saw. I was had the pleasure of being in the room for a talk that Emily and Amelia Nagoski gave on processing burnout. And they were talking about the importance of having when they were talking about the different proven strategies for addressing burnout by completing the stress response cycle.

[21:32] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[21:32] Susan Blackwell: And they were talking about having creativity and self-expression that is not specifically that is not tied to money.

[21:53] Laura Camien: Amazing.

[21:54] Susan Blackwell: They're like, don't tie it to money. Don't tie it to any sort of like this has to be an income stream, because by doing that, you create another side grind. And it's like another thing to be stressed about. So I I'm as you're talking, yes, yes to what you're saying. And my mind also goes to that place where I think, based on, you know, the research that I'm hearing and the people that I'm listening to, it's important to have creativity that isn't tied to income.

[22:27] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[22:28] Susan Blackwell: That's another benefit of it.

[22:30] Laura Camien: Yes.

[22:31] Susan Blackwell: Just add that to the list of benefits. And so again, I go back to just culturally, we don't seem to have a collective understanding of the benefits of creativity and self expression, monetized or not, just simply the doing of it, what can be gained from it, why do it? And so there's that. And then we put on this this pressure of monetization in order to have some validity to our art. We know people who are like, they're they're incredible writers, but until someone pays them money to write, they don't think they're a writer.

[23:08] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[23:08] Susan Blackwell: There's another piece of this too that I think you're you're not wrong about that sort of like, well, if you're not making money from it, why are you doing it? And why are you investing money in something?

[23:21] Laura Camien: That's right.

[23:22] Susan Blackwell: Dot dot dot just for the joy of it. My brain also goes to, I do think that there are folks in the world who ascribe to narratives that they've never taken the time to sort of look at objectively and question. It is that thing where somebody looks at, for instance, one of their kids' potential life paths. And they might not just be like, you're not going to be an artist, but they might also be like, you're not going to be an athlete. And the one acceptable path is blank. The one acceptable path is to be a physician. That's the one acceptable path. And I always I this sort of um, these sort of narratives or this thinking that gets handed down and just taken as fact when really it's just a story that somebody came by in some way. I'm just always amazed by it. And I grieve. I grieve for the people that feel trapped by it, either because they're the one that's now peddling the story or holding up their kid's worth against the measuring stick of that story.

[24:34] Laura Camien: And I feel for the, I feel for the kid, and I feel for the parent, and I feel for the person who is who is um listen, I do too.

[24:42] Susan Blackwell: I do too. And I also understand that there is there's a practicality to that too, right? So for people who are like, well, yes, yes. We're always gonna need people who understand computers, we're always gonna need nurses and doctors, we're always going to need lawyers, what have you. And I get that because some people may be like, Oh, that all sounds well and good, ladies, but I do need to pay the bills. So I totally get that.

[25:09] Laura Camien: What I'm suggesting is I'm talking about your free time. Let's say you have a job that pays the bills and you do what you need to do in your free time. Why isn't an investment in an art class or a dance class or why isn't that I I follow you, and I'm also like that that anybody is on the receiving end of like, what are you doing in the garage?

[25:35] Susan Blackwell: I don't know why that character came out, but like that sort of like, what are you doing with those paints? Or like what that that to me is such a it's so sad. Like that, you know. That any kind of passion or interest would be squashed, yeah, before it's even allowed to blossom and sort of see what's there.

[25:56] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[25:56] Susan Blackwell: Maybe it ends up in a career, maybe it ends up in a hobby, maybe it just ends up being a source of joy for someone for their lifetime. Yeah. Just let let it be. And and that anybody has the ability or the right to like squash that. Yeah.

[26:12] Laura Camien: So it's something to think about. Like why why certain things like playing a sport or being a sports fan is a valid hobby to invest time and money in, but creativity is not. And just something to consider and think about that maybe athletics and sports have one up on us there, you know, because people simply don't question.

[26:36] Susan Blackwell: I don't think anyone would question if I did. If I was like, you know what? I am gonna join that roller derby team.

[26:43] Laura Camien: I would be amazed.

[26:46] Susan Blackwell: And I would also be like, we are not the spring chickens we used to be. Please consult your physician.

[26:54] Laura Camien: But you've talked about that before.

[26:56] Susan Blackwell: You've talked about, you know, exactly. That is something that you and when you said that, I have to tell you, I was delighted that that was something that you're like, I feel like in this lifetime I would enjoy a roller derby experience.

[27:12] Laura Camien: Yeah, I I think I missed that opportunity because I think, yes, I am not a spring chicken unless they have like 60 and above.

[27:20] Susan Blackwell: Well, you know, maybe I'll work towards joining that what if they had like a 60 plus team and you were fully padded? Do you know what I mean?

[27:29] Laura Camien: So it's what if I start that 60 plus team if it doesn't exist? You know I love that spirit. That would be amazing.

[27:40] Susan Blackwell: But no one, so yeah, no one would question that. Or even if I decided, yeah, I'm gonna spend some money, and I've done this before. I've done a half marathon and you know, flown to California and done the Long Beach half marathon, and you make a weekend of it, and how fun is that? No one would question that and be like, is that is that really what where you want to spend your money? I would not hear a single person ask that. You know, I feel like the people that are listening to this podcast were preaching to the choir a bit. And I think how fortunate I feel that the people that have surrounded me were neutral to positive.

[28:18] Laura Camien: Uh-huh.

[28:19] Susan Blackwell: Just sort of neutral, just sort of like, all right, to go get them. And when there were those people in my life who said things like, like when I said, I want to be a puppeteer, and the response came back, ha, you can't make any money doing that. How do you think you're gonna make money doing that? I was in my mind, I was just like, you dum dumb. Like I just knew it was ridiculous, even at a very, very young age that that would be the response. But I think the reason why I could identify that is because I had been surrounded, lucky me, by neutral to positive response to most of the the hairbrain schemes that I presented.

[29:02] Laura Camien: Yeah, yeah. And I do think access is a huge thing too, because if you if you can't see it, you can't dream it. And so sports have one up on us there culturally too. Because the access that kids have to sports, again, the visibility, yes. I wouldn't take that away. I I I don't think it should be an either or, but if we if they could have as much access to art forms and creative expression, I think it could be equally good for them because I think they would, you know, I know there were times when my mind was blown about like, oh God, that's a job. If I knew that was a job, yes, huh? I would have, you know, thought about that. I think I've talked about that on the podcast before as well how when the Muse Machine, Susie Bisani created the Muse Machine in Dayton, Ohio, and with Sheila Ramsey and Michael Lippert and Joey Bates, they rolled out these arts programs into the schools.

[30:02] Susan Blackwell: So the arts came to the schools at regular intervals. And I mean, yes, the Human Race Theater Company came to our school. Dayton Contemporary Dance Company came to our school. These, you know, institutions came to our school. And also we got like nearly free tickets to go see opera and dance and theater. Yeah. And it changed my life because I saw things that otherwise I would have I lived in the middle of nowhere. And had I not had that exposure, the course of my life, can I tell you the course of my life would have been so different? So I think you're right, Laura Camien.

[30:44] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. I'm really proud of, I don't talk about this a lot, but one of the things I'm really proud of that I did at Blue Man was Blue Man went on tour first, not with a theatrical show, but with a brand new like rock concert. Yeah. And we played arenas, um, like 20,000 seat arenas, and we worked with the Grammy organization. And I just had the like I had such an incredible experience working with the Grammys. And we brought in student organizations, students from schools in every location for a sound check experience. So they would come in, they would watch the sound check, and then I made sure that we had not just the performers on stage, but the stage managers, the production guys, the you know, the load-in team, if we could, so that these kids could have a talk back in a Q&A with all of them to understand the variety of jobs that are available in the arts, because it's not just like you're either the star or you're not.

That kind of thing changes people's lives. If you grew up in New York City or you grew up in Los Angeles, and if you had access to these things, maybe this stuff wouldn't sound so astounding, but I'm telling you, as a little peanut from the middle of nowhere, that shit will change your life.

[32:09] Laura Camien: Absolutely.

[32:10] Susan Blackwell: That's amazing, Laura. Absolutely. Okay, so another thing to think about in terms of athletes, training and practice. Like this is so this is so basic to say this, but like a sprinter would never attempt to run a marathon without training and preparation. And when they start training, they do not expect themselves to be great. They understand what incremental progress is. It is to be expected and they plan for it. Why do so many artists think they need to get it right on the very first try? And the discomfort of having a beginner's mind, like just starting out, learning a new creative expression. It can be difficult. It can be difficult to have that discomfort of like when your results don't match what your expectations or your hopes or taste level is, which we've talked about that Ira Glass quote, you know, on many occasions. But athletes understand that with time and practice, they'll only get better from here.

[33:13] Susan Blackwell: Like when you watch someone run their very first race, no one says, Well, that wasn't great. They'll never be any better than they are today. So let's just pack it in. Why? And we do see, we do see artists have that very visceral experience of I gave it this one shot. It didn't go the way I wanted it to go. I'm packing it in.

[33:42] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[33:42] Susan Blackwell: That's it. That pains me so much. I don't even have words for it. The fact that we have not been taught an approach that is giving ourselves time to develop, to hang with something and know that we will in fact grow over time.

[34:03] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[34:03] Susan Blackwell: And I know we're working to build that and provide that for people in the Sparks File, which we wouldn't have been able to articulate, I think two years ago. We didn't exactly know that was one of the problems we were solving.

[34:17] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[34:18] Susan Blackwell: But once we got in there and had our first cohort, we're like, oh, oh, this is solving that. Like we have actually structured this in such a way that we can help people to learn to tolerate that uncomfortable feeling of sharing things before it's perfect. And understanding that what I did today may not be most likely isn't the best I will ever do. It's just how I did it today. And I'm gonna grow from here.

[34:50] Laura Camien: As you're describing that, it makes so much sense to me. What you're saying makes so much sense to me. And I think about how vulnerable it is to not be good at something from the jokes. It hurts. It's hurt, it's humbling. And it's it's embarrassing. It hurts. And I think about athletes. My brain jumps over to athletes, though. It must be vulnerable and for them too. But there's such a um ethos of sort of like get up, shake it off, we're gonna do it again.

[35:24] Susan Blackwell: If somebody doesn't have a compound fracture.

[35:27] Laura Camien: No, absolutely, but there's also a understanding that, especially if you're looking at a junior high school player, there's 10 people standing around saying, This kid's gonna develop in this way. If he shows up and does the work each day, and if we push him to like he should be lifting this, he should be running that. There are a team of people helping that person to develop the skills they need to become the player that they are destined to be.

[35:56] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. And we don't have that for artists. And then we have this idea that prodigy or it wasn't meant to be.

[36:05] Laura Camien: Yeah, and that is that imposter syndrome thing of I'm a natural genius or I'm not doing this at all. Or it must not be for me. But this pain and this discomfort is my next topic, actually. So it rolls right into this. This discomfort, this pain, athletes have so much to teach us here. At the Sparks File, we refer to the discomfort that we just talked about, the discomfort of being of beginner's mind, of discomfort of sharing something that's less than perfect, the discomfort of looking at your work and realizing it doesn't even come close to where my taste level is. That's embarrassing and uncomfortable. We refer to that discomfort as the price of admission. It is the very first gatekeeper in the process. If you can't tolerate the physical and emotional discomfort of sharing your imperfect work with the world, then potentially being a professional creative isn't going to be for you because that's the very first thing you have to learn.

[36:53] Susan Blackwell: You have to learn to tolerate it. I mean, you can still create to your heart's content, again, with many benefits to you and never share anything with the world if you don't want to. That's totally fine. But if you do want to share your creativity, think of the athletes. Athletes feel all kinds of pain, emotional and physical. They have to overcome mental blocks and physical blocks, as well as judgment from others and jealousy and media scrutiny, all kinds of bullshit. But one could argue that athletes are trained for it. They do not wait for all conditions to be optimal in order to play the game. They have zero expectation that they will only play when they are free of pain. In fact, many of them will ask to please. I want to be in the game. I don't care that I'm in pain. I want to be in the game. Put me back in. They lean into the pain. They're not intimidated by pain. They know they're going to feel pain. It's part of the gig.

[38:06] Laura Camien: And here's something else, Suze. Athletes are often playing their game in the face of a competitor trying their best to stop them from achieving their goal. When we're creating, whether we're writing or sculpting or painting or acting or dancing or composing and on and on, there is no adversary trying to keep us from finishing the play. There's no competitor trying to push our paintbrush to the left while we're trying to push our paintbrush to the right.

[38:40] Susan Blackwell: I know it's funny, right? It's funny to say. But think about it, athletes are pushing themselves to do their best when they have their own physical pain or limitations, their own mental blocks, and a physical human being or beings trying to keep them from their goal.

[38:58] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[38:59] Susan Blackwell: And with some sports, it's really physical, like football and basketball and soccer. Literally, someone will take you down or get in your face or block you. But in other, like more individual sports like track, your competitor isn't allowed to physically get in your way, but they may be literally right beside you. You can hear their breathing or their footsteps on the track. Maybe they got out of the blocks faster than you, and now they appear to be so far ahead, it's discouraging. Or maybe they're breathing down your neck because they're coming up on you. They will also trash talk if they think it will get in your head and screw you up. So just as you're trying to shoot your shot, someone says, you suck, or you're lame or something much worse than that. Can you imagine?

[39:48] Laura Camien: For creatives, those competitors live in our head, in our imagination. And honestly, they might be alive or they might be dead. Just the thought of them can keep us from doing our best work or doing our work at all. And frankly, we'll trash talk ourselves when there's no one around to keep us from accomplishing our goal. We don't need a competitor.

[40:14] Susan Blackwell: Oh, yeah. So I think there's something to learn from that. I really do. I think there's something to think about and something to potentially learn from that. Here's something else. Athletes, even professional athletes, so they've made it to the level, this elite, elite athlete, and they're on a team of, you know, whatever, 30 guys or 60 guys, whatever your sport is. These athletes get on the court or the field every single day, knowing that they are not the best. They are aware that there are team members and there are competitors that are better than them. And I don't mean subjectively better, but literally better than them. Statistically, definitively, they've gone head to head, and the other person has beaten them repeatedly. Do they stop? Do they say, I don't think I can play today? I'm gonna sit this one out.

[41:13] Laura Camien: But no, they get out there and they do their jobs, they give it their all. And to that I ask, how many of us have taken ourselves out of the game because we think I'll never write the next Hamilton?

[41:28] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[41:28] Laura Camien: I'll never write Book of Mormon.

[41:30] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[41:31] Laura Camien: I'm just gonna stay on the bench.

[41:34] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. Such a small number of people become professional athletes. I expect all of them want very badly to be the best. That is what has driven them to get where they are.

[41:45] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[41:46] Susan Blackwell: But they play game after game, and their name isn't spoken in the press room after the game. You know, like when a review comes out and your name isn't singled out, that is their every day. They play their hearts out. There's people in the press room, and three guys are talked about, and it's not them, but they get out there day after day. They challenge themselves to play in an arena where people are better than them, knowing and believing that that will push them to be better.

[42:19] Laura Camien: Oh, did I mention also sports? Like, they have critics as well.

[42:22] Susan Blackwell: They have sports critics, just like we have arts critics. Their critics are literally commenting as they play the game.

[42:30] Laura Camien: So you make one false move.

[42:34] Susan Blackwell: That's right. You know, and I know that's been like that's been spoofed, and you know, like uh SNL skits and stuff like that, which is which is hilarious because it's true. Like, what can you imagine? If you had an awareness that someone was commenting in the moment that you're performing your finale, no, frankly, a lot of us would be like, uh no, I'll take a hard pass on that.

[42:59] Laura Camien: She's out, yeah.

[43:01] Susan Blackwell: And I've told I've shown you this picture. You know what? I should put this, uh I was gonna do it, I was gonna share this with our list with our like email list. Um, but I have this photo of my uncle Tommy doing a steeplechase, and that's where I don't know if you all know it, but it's like um there's like one big hurdle at the beginning that has like water on the other side, so you have to go over this hurdle and then run another X number of miles. I don't even know. But there's this picture in a newspaper of my Uncle Tommy. Literally, his ass is in the air, he's like tumbled over it, his ass is in the air, he's about to hit the ground like on his head.

[43:43] Laura Camien: And um, it's an amazing photo.

[43:47] Susan Blackwell: I laugh so hard because it always makes me think like, well, we get we get knocked down, but we get up again. And I that photo like brings me so much joy, but having an awareness that someone's commenting, like when you make a bad move like that, and you make literally an ass of yourself.

[44:06] Laura Camien: Yeah, then you have to be thinking as you get back into the game, someone up there is talking on national television to 40 million people about what an idiot I just was, and how the hell I let that happen.

[44:20] Susan Blackwell: Strong and wrong, baby.

[44:22] Laura Camien: Strong and wrong.

[44:23] Susan Blackwell: Strong and wrong.

[44:24] Laura Camien: Okay. Athletes understand goal setting in a way that I'm not sure artists do. It it's a little bit related to the practice thing, but you know, our friend Wheels, hi Wheels.

[44:30] Susan Blackwell: Hi Wheels!

[44:36] Laura Camien: Wheels said this once, and uh she described it in a really eloquent way. She talked about football and what could be learned from football. And I promise, if you hang with this, I'm gonna relate this back to the arts and goal setting. If you're a football player, your ultimate goal for this particular season is to win the Super Bowl.

[44:58] Susan Blackwell: You can't win the Super Bowl today because the Super Bowl's not happening and you haven't qualified for it. So today, what could you do? Well, if you're playing a game today, you need to win today's game. To win today's game, you need to get a touchdown. To get a touchdown, you need to move the ball from where it is down to the other side of the field. And you can take that in 10 yard increments. You have four tries to go 10 yards. And if you make that, then you get another four tries to go another 10 yards, and so on and so forth until you get a touchdown. And what I find compelling about that, if you're an artist, I just think about so 10 yards is the smallest increment that you're really worried about at any given time on the football field.

And you've got four shots at it. How many times have we not even given ourselves two shots at something? The smallest goal. Just think of your smallest goal. Give yourself four tries to get there. When you get there, give yourself four tries to get to the next. That is how you win a Super Bowl. And it's like when we hear someone say, like, well, I want to win a Tony Award. Okay, break that down. First, you need to get in the game. Yeah. You need to, you need to get on a team. You need to write a show. You need to write another show. You need to get your show up. You need to get your show seen. You need to get your show produced on Broadway. You need to campaign to win a Tony. It's increments. It's a lot of work that goes into that really long, long, long game goal.

[46:34] Laura Camien: Yeah. Wheels has a great podcast called Covering Ground. And I feel like the title, covering ground, is exactly what you're describing. It's exactly that.

[46:43] Susan Blackwell: Yes. And she also has a rad tattoo on her arm that is the it's the marker that they use in football. It's this very thing. Laura, you know better than I do because I don't know what what the word is to or the term to describe that, but I love that metaphor. I love it. I think it's amazing, and it's something to learn about and learn from athletes because we many times we find ourselves leaving the game, taking ourselves out of the game, quitting, I guess.

[47:15] Laura Camien: Sure.

[47:15] Susan Blackwell: Um, at the first sign of failure, which takes me to the next topic we could learn from athletes, and that is about losing and failing. There's no world where an athlete thinks they're gonna have a whole career where they don't lose.

[47:32] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[47:32] Susan Blackwell: Losing is part of it. They even make it like part of the ethos. It's you know, learning to lose well and have sportsmanship is equally important to learning to be a good winner. But they lose, they know they're gonna lose. They they know they're like I said, like it's just such a part of the game. It's part of the game. They lose very publicly, they lose in big, big ways. They lose with close-up cameras in their face. And they still get up the next day and they keep going. One of the things that's really interesting, um, major league baseball, most times at bat, like literally more often than not, your bat at your at bat ends in failure. That's the most common thing.

[48:20] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[48:22] Susan Blackwell: If you have an at-bat success rate of like 40%, you're in the hall of fame.

[48:29] Laura Camien: Huh.

[48:30] Susan Blackwell: 40% gets you in the hall of fame. So it's fully expected. There's gonna be a lot of fails, and then there's gonna be an amazing win. Another thing that sports has, as you as you share all this stuff, is the stats, like hard data. You know what I mean? Like we don't have that in the arts, but sports has it.

[48:52] Laura Camien: It's it's true.

[48:53] Susan Blackwell: And that can be good or bad. You can live or die by stats. And there are there's one camp in sports that's like, yeah, but you can't forget heart. Those numbers on the sheet, that's just those are numbers. And certain coaches and certain teams, you know, buy their players based on just those numbers, and they've define success in a certain way. And that works for them. But other people are like, yeah, but there's something to the experience of the human being, the heart of the human being, what they bring to the team. That's where I think it equates a little bit to casting, like finding that magical alchemy of human beings that are greater than the sum of their parts. We look for that when we cast a show or bring together a creative team or a collaborative team in any way. And they're looking for that in players.

[49:47] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[49:48] Susan Blackwell: It's pretty cool. Like that, there's a direct correlation there. But there's a book by Mary Pylon and Louisa Thomas called Losers Dispatches from the Other Side of the Scoreboard. And I think I might do an entire spark on this book. But I'll just mention it in case you want to get a jumpstart on that. But they talk to all of these athletes associated. Yeah, read that book. The Sparkfile Book Club. Come on. And we'll we'll circle back on it. But they talk to many athletes associated with famous losses or even not so famous losses. And that book was recommended to me by one of our dear friends and clients, Deaton Bell. I had a conversation with Deaton when I decided to do the Sparks because why?

Not only is Deaton an incredible human being, but he's a multi Emmy Award winning creative producer. And him and his team put together creative elements to promote the NBA, the NHL, college basketball, the MBL. So he knows his sports stuff, and he's an incredible writer. He knows his creative stuff. He's one of those people who not only sees the value of both arts and athletics, but he lives his life immersed in both. Personally, I think that's the sweet spot, realizing that both have really great things to offer. Deaton Bell is the embodiment of where arts and sports intersect.

[51:17] Laura Camien: He is the Venn diagram.

[51:18] Susan Blackwell: He's the Venn diagram, but what it could look like if you lived, you know, if you uh you have the physical exertion of sports, you have the heart exertion of the arts. It's good stuff. Wow. He's good.

[51:34] Laura Camien: He's good, folks.

[51:35] Susan Blackwell: Okay, I'll say, I'll say a couple other quick things. Suze athletes have teammates and coaches and cheerleaders.

[51:44] Laura Camien: Yes.

[51:45] Susan Blackwell: All right. Huge. Why? It's huge. Teammates push you harder. When you're on the bench, you're cheering them. When they're on the bench, they're cheering you. You all have each other's best interests in mind. Your coaches can see things you can't see. They can help guide you. What's next? What areas need attention? As artists, we have encountered so many people who have a sense that they should be able to do this alone. Why can't they do it alone? If they can't do it alone, they weren't meant to be doing it. There's something wrong with them if they need to get support or help. Why, Suze?

[52:24] Laura Camien: Preaching to the choir again, Cam.

[52:26] Susan Blackwell: Some with you. Right. To that, we would say get your team together. Like who's your dream team? Of collaborators, of friends, of partners who will support you. So I'll leave you with a few thoughts of what do we make of it, Suze. First of all, I hope if we have any kids in our lives, nieces, nephews, little baby children of our own, or even our own little inner creative kid. Can we be super conscious to talk to them about being artistic or creative in a positive way? Can we be sure to encourage them in the same ways we would encourage a kid who wants to play a sport? Let them be artistic in addition to playing a sport. It's not either or. Can we allow ourselves to invest time and energy into our creative pursuits?

Can we give ourselves that permission and free ourselves from the idea that they have to make money or that you have to do them alone in order for them to be valid? Look around you. Do you have your dream team? If not, how can you begin to assemble them? I know you can't always cut people from the team. I get that. But you can amplify the voices in your life who are your cheerleaders, who are your true teammates who show up for you and invest in your success. Allow yourself to have beginners' mind. It's okay. It's all tolerable. My screenwriting teacher, Ela Tyr, encourages people to write badly. Like literally, please write badly. That's fine. Out of a hundred pages of bad writing, there's going to be 10 fantastic pages in there.

Just keep going. You will continue to improve, but only if you continue to play. Please let yourself fail. There is a famous Vince Lombardi quote: it's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up. Keep going, keep going, keep going, we say at the Sparks File. And finally, I went in reverse chronological order here. Wayne Gretzky said, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. So please, we beg of you start. Take a shot. Get in the game, y'all. Get in the game.

[54:55] Laura Camien: Y'all ready for this?

[54:56] Susan Blackwell: Suze, you bookended it. Jock Jams, top to bottom. It's beautiful.

[55:02] Laura Camien: I love the spark because I feel like it has grown so organically out of things that you are passionate about and that you talk a lot about. And you have taken the time to pull them all into one beautiful spark.

[55:18] Susan Blackwell: Tip of the iceberg. Tip of the sparkberg, friends, but I co-sign everything that you just said.

[55:25] Laura Camien: Why thank you, Suze.

[55:27] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, well put. Are we getting a lease together? We're buying a home.

[55:33] Laura Camien: We're getting married in the spring.

[55:35] Susan Blackwell: Aw. Oh, I that is a beautiful spark. And there's some things that I just I can't comment on because everything I know from about sports, I learned in high school cheerleading and by watching Friday Night Lights. But you really seem to know what you're talking about, Laura Kiamion.

[55:54] Laura Camien: Um, I mean, I should say some gross generalizations were conveyed today. You know, uh, this doesn't apply to everyone everywhere. I totally get that, but I did keep it big picture. When I have the conversation with Deeton, boy, that was fun. And that's why I'm saying like this is tip of the iceberg, because I mean, there are stories upon story. We could talk about sports storytelling, which is incredible. We could talk about why we are as a country fascinated with the story of underdogs. Yeah. And that and and sports really has that wrapped up, but that idea that somehow there's a secret sauce. You can have the skills and the physical brawn and have done the work and be prepared to win and ready to win, and by all rights, you should win.

But we want to believe that there's this special thing. Maybe it's self-love, it's belief in self that can catapult an a smaller, scrappier underdog past the big guy. There's something so delicious about that. And storytelling in sports has a way of like lining up those teeing it up one after the other. Yeah, and delivering the magic.

[57:14] Susan Blackwell: There's your next spark after your loser spark. What if we did an entire season of sparks that were all sports related?

[57:23] Laura Camien: That's what Deeton was like. So, first of all, I should say you've probably got a series of sparks here. You could have a whole podcast on this. I was like, well, well, I don't know.

[57:36] Susan Blackwell: Hey, thanks to Deeton Bell for uh chiming in. Huge thanks to Deeton Bell.

[57:42] Laura Camien: Oh, beautiful, Laura. Thanks.

[57:45] Susan Blackwell: I think that's it. I think so too. I think this episode of the Sparks File was made on the lands of the Lenape people. And as always, we hope this put another bunch of sparks and volleyballs and golf balls and tenneth balls in your file. If there is a spark you'd like us to explore, or if you'd like to learn more about how to coach with us to bring your creative ideas to life, email us at thesparkfile at gmail.com or submit it through our website, thesparkfile.com. We will even happily take your feedback, but you know the price of admission. First, you have to share a creative risk that you've taken recently. Follow us on social at The Sparkfile and be sure to subscribe, rate, and five-star review this podcast. It really helps other listeners to find us. Also, if you like this podcast, we hope you'll share it with the people that you love. And if you didn't like it, red car, you're out of the game.

[58:39] Laura Camien: Oh, nice one, Suze.

[58:43] Susan Blackwell: Soccer.

[58:44] Laura Camien: That's soccer.

[58:45] Susan Blackwell: That's a soccer thing.

[58:47] Laura Camien: Uh-huh. I'm proud of you.

[58:49] Susan Blackwell: Thank you. Hey, listener. If something lights you up and gets your creative sparks flying, we're writing you a forever permission, Slib to make that thing that's been knocking at your door. It's your turn to take that spark and fan it into a flame. You know you gotta take it and make it make it.

[59:19] Laura Camien: Y'all ready for this? We're not bumping into something that inspires me. I dump it in the spark files. Spark files could be something that I wanna make or how I wanna be. I'll pump it in the spark files. Sparkfiles. I jump into my spark files. Let's open up the sparkfiles.