This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:38] Laura Camien: Welcome to the Spark File, where we believe that everyone is creative, but smart creative people like you, listener, you don't go it alone.

[0:38] Susan Blackwell: You don't.

[0:49] Laura Camien: I'm Laura Camien.

[0:50] Susan Blackwell: And I'm Susan Blackwell.

[0:52] Laura Camien: We are creativity coaches who help people clarify and accomplish their creative goals.

[0:57] Susan Blackwell: You should know that just by listening, just by listening to this podcast, you are joining a warm and wonderful clan of creatives.

[1:05] Laura Camien: But hold up, you may be asking yourself, what exactly is a spark file?

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

[1:16] Laura Camien: Every episode, we're gonna reach into our very own spark files and exchange some sparks.

[1:21] Susan Blackwell: And from time to time, we may even talk to some human beings who spark us too.

[1:27] Laura Camien: And your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take some of these sparks of inspiration and make something of your own.

[1:35] Susan Blackwell: So without further ado, let's open up the spark.

[1:40] Laura Camien: Hi, Susan Blackwell.

[1:42] Susan Blackwell: Hi, Laura.

[1:44] Laura Camien: How are you doing over there?

[1:45] Susan Blackwell: I'm doing pretty well.

[1:49] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:50] Susan Blackwell: Every day is an adventure.

[1:53] Laura Camien: You know what I just realized? I'm starting to think about how, like, when we record these podcasts, obviously, if you don't know this, spoiler alert, they don't come out the same day that we record them.

[2:05] Susan Blackwell: So, with the news being what it is, I'm always a little bit like, wow, we're gonna jump right into some inspiring and exciting creativity related material.

[2:18] Laura Camien: And who knows what news will be happening in the world when this launches.

[2:25] Susan Blackwell: Who knows what happened this morning?

[2:28] Laura Camien: That's right. And so sometimes that might create tonal dissonance.

[2:33] Susan Blackwell: It could where you're like, Well, they sound chipper today. Listen to how happy they are.

[2:39] Laura Camien: We know what's happening in the world.

[2:40] Susan Blackwell: We do, and we're also making a concerted effort, as evidenced by this podcast, to keep our heads above water so that we can be of some good.

[2:50] Laura Camien: That is correct.

[2:52] Susan Blackwell: But we know what's what. All right, thanks for letting me have that little caveat.

[2:56] Laura Camien: I'm really excited about this spark because well, wait a sec. Are you ready to be sparked, Suze?

[3:03] Susan Blackwell: I'm ready. I'm ready. I had a seatbelt installed on my office chair, and it's clicked in, and I'm ready to go.

[3:14] Laura Camien: Well, shoot, I won't be able to eject you from this podcast when I feel like it.

[3:18] Susan Blackwell: Darn it.

[3:20] Laura Camien: Okay. All right. You're ready to go. You're locked in. Here it is. This spark really excites me because it's a concept that helped me personally to redefine my own understanding of creativity, help me take more ownership of what a creative being I am.

[3:39] Susan Blackwell: It helps take the pressure off, and I see it take pressure off of our clients and helps them to take ownership of their creativity as well.

[3:48] Laura Camien: So I'm super, super excited. This I'm just thinking and hoping. I'm not gonna lie, I always hope this, but today in particular, I'm really hoping that this concept might help a few people who are listening.

[4:00] Susan Blackwell: I love that.

[4:01] Laura Camien: Yeah. So I was talking to Philip the other day. He's one of our SparkFog clients. He's one of the most prolific creators that I've ever met.

[4:12] Susan Blackwell: He really is.

[4:13] Laura Camien: He is always working on about five projects at a time while finishing his master's at Juilliard, while teaching in 27 different places. Like he just had his off West End debut last year.

[4:26] Susan Blackwell: He is a marvel.

[4:28] Laura Camien: And he said that when we shared this concept with him, the concept I'm about to share with all of you, it made all the difference to him.

[4:37] Susan Blackwell: We talked about it maybe four or five years ago, and it unlocked a freedom and an ease that allows him to be this prolific.

[4:46] Laura Camien: So I'm so excited. Okay. That was just a little, just a little evidence. All right. Today's Spark is an idea that we really leaned into at Blue Man Group, and we called it creation by recombination.

[5:00] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[5:01] Laura Camien: We would sometimes laugh like at like what a silly name that we gave it. And it was a little bit ridiculous, but it was creation by recombination.

[5:09] Susan Blackwell: You could think of it as a mashup.

[5:11] Laura Camien: You might think of it, if you're super heady, you might think of it as evolutionary creativity where something evolves with gradual improvements and refinements and changes as opposed to revolutionary creativity, which is more like big bang out of nowhere, something new exists.

[5:30] Susan Blackwell: But at Blue Man, we called it creation by recombination.

[5:35] Laura Camien: I feel like I also heard it referred to as like bledging.

[5:39] Susan Blackwell: If we bled those things together, does that word ring a bell?

[5:43] Laura Camien: Well, that word was used specifically as like kind of like with the audience and blushing.

[5:51] Susan Blackwell: Blushing might be the word that you we would we use like momentarily, but most people were like, we kind of are icked out by this our own word.

[5:59] Laura Camien: So let's retire it.

[6:01] Susan Blackwell: It was a nice try, but like um maybe no.

[6:05] Laura Camien: I still catch myself saying bled sometimes.

[6:07] Susan Blackwell: What if we bledge those together?

[6:09] Laura Camien: That's really funny. Um, yeah, no, retired.

[6:13] Susan Blackwell: Rejected.

[6:13] Laura Camien: Rejected, retired. Um, so many people have this belief that real creativity means inventing something completely original.

[6:23] Susan Blackwell: Like if your idea has any resemblance to anything that has ever existed, you're doing it wrong.

[6:30] Laura Camien: It's disqualified, you shouldn't make it. Like, oh no, I accidentally referenced something from 1974. I must retire.

[6:37] Susan Blackwell: Forget it. I'm done. I'm a hack, right? I didn't, this isn't even mine.

[6:43] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[6:43] Susan Blackwell: Or people worry sometimes, like somebody somewhere has already expressed this idea or this opinion. So it's too late for me to do it.

[6:54] Laura Camien: We have this tendency to think about creativity as a lightning bolt out of nowhere.

[7:01] Susan Blackwell: The uh I don't know. Is it Benjamin Franklin we blame for this? I don't know, but like this eureka moment, this conjuring of some 100% unique idea, this this belief, I think, has the majority of people thinking that they are not creative because they don't have those monumental revolutionary ideas.

[7:25] Laura Camien: Yep.

[7:26] Susan Blackwell: But the truth is, Laura, you know this.

[7:31] Laura Camien: I know this.

[7:32] Susan Blackwell: So much creativity is about connection.

[7:36] Laura Camien: It is about finding the invisible threads that connect things and ideas and people in surprising or new or different ways.

[7:46] Susan Blackwell: It's about seeing how two or more things could go together that didn't seem to go together at first glance.

[7:53] Laura Camien: But you see the connection. You see how it could work. And that is the unique part.

[8:00] Susan Blackwell: It's like kind of like being a really great dinner party host, like you're seating people next to each other who would never normally meet each other.

[8:12] Laura Camien: Maybe by outward appearances, they have nothing in common, but you happen to know something that connects them.

[8:19] Susan Blackwell: Maybe something that isn't immediately apparent. And sure enough, they hit it off.

[8:25] Laura Camien: It's like that. You're introducing ideas to each other, you're bringing ideas together.

[8:30] Susan Blackwell: You know, Laura, yes. This harkens back to a spark that we sparked recently about the Arthur C. Brooks book from strength to strength.

[8:40] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[8:41] Susan Blackwell: Arthur Brooks says that when you are in the second half of your life, you are exercising your crystallized intelligence.

[8:50] Laura Camien: And one of the hallmarks of your crystallized intelligence is creation by recombination.

[8:55] Susan Blackwell: It's taking ideas that you were exposed to earlier in life, ideas that you might have even developed, are like original fresh ideas, freshies, we'll call them.

[9:06] Laura Camien: And you are able to see them and combine them in ways that a younger person might not be able to.

[9:16] Susan Blackwell: You know what I love about that is how many people have we talked to and worked with who have this maybe secret or not so secret fear that it's too late.

[9:26] Laura Camien: It's too late for them because they didn't do it sooner.

[9:29] Susan Blackwell: They didn't have this idea sooner, right?

[9:31] Laura Camien: Yes.

[9:31] Susan Blackwell: Yes. And that evidence and that whole book, Strength to Strength. If you haven't listened to that episode, go back and listen to it. Um, it's such a reinforcement that, like, the best years are ahead.

[9:43] Laura Camien: You are right on time. You might have needed to live a few more years before you had an answer to this creative challenge that you had.

[9:53] Susan Blackwell: Or for me, I feel that about like the third act of a certain play that I've had forever. I'm like, maybe I needed to live another 15 years to in order to know what that was supposed to look like.

[10:07] Laura Camien: Yeah. Cool. So, yeah, this concept, creation by recombination, was a huge part of the creative culture at Blue Man Group.

[10:17] Susan Blackwell: And the idea that innovation often comes from putting things together that don't usually live in the same space.

[10:23] Laura Camien: The outcome is what is unique. And potentially uniquely you, but I'll get to that.

[10:30] Susan Blackwell: I'm going to share some examples first of just creation by recombination that are all around us, not just in the arts, just to get our brains marinated in this idea.

[10:39] Laura Camien: But everywhere you look, there is the opportunity to create something new by recombining the components, the ingredients, finding the threads that connect two or more potentially disparate ideas in surprising ways.

[10:54] Susan Blackwell: So obviously, I'm going to start with Blue Man Group. It's such a clear example of this.

[11:00] Laura Camien: It's one of the most successful theater productions in history.

[11:04] Susan Blackwell: They did not invent drumming.

[11:07] Laura Camien: They did not invent clowning.

[11:09] Susan Blackwell: They didn't invent silent performance.

[11:12] Laura Camien: They didn't invent paint or even the concept of action painting.

[11:16] Susan Blackwell: They didn't invent performance art, vaudeville, theater, or rock concerts.

[11:22] Laura Camien: But we combined a silent character, bald and blue, primal tribal style drumming, handmade DIY or found object instruments like PVC pipes, cultural commentary, even some history of art and science, rock concert energy, performance art.

[11:44] Susan Blackwell: Oh, and a term I learned recently and shared on a previous episode, collective effervescence.

[11:51] Laura Camien: And suddenly you have a theatrical form that did not quite exist before, something that was and is very hard to describe.

[12:00] Susan Blackwell: Three bald blue beings having a wordless, percussive, paint splattering existential hang with the audience that somehow builds to a celebration of human connection.

[12:11] Laura Camien: It was a collision of ideas that was new, not the ingredients, but the arrangement.

[12:18] Susan Blackwell: That's recombination, this bold new combination of existing things.

[12:24] Laura Camien: Let's talk about music. I mean, music, it's so pro everywhere in music, remixes, mashups, even a million different interpretations of a single song could be considered creation by recombination.

[12:37] Laura Camien: Sure. But it's not just a recombination of elements like vocals and instruments. You can also reimagine the purpose or the use of a particular ingredient. Think about hip hop. DJs took turntables, which were devices designed to simply play music and turned them into a musical instrument. So they recombined existing records and music, spoken word traditions, rhythm culture. Scratching and sampling didn't invent new sounds. They created a new relationship to sound. So creativity can be reassigning the job description of a certain ingredient or element, like saying to the record player, you thought you were for playback. Just kidding, you're the instrument now. So we'll be using you for an entirely different purpose.

That's creation by recombination. Let's talk about Hamilton, the musical Hamilton. Creator Lynn Manuel Miranda recombined Founding Father History, which was taken, by the way, as we know, from the biography Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, a Pulitzer Prize winning book. And he combined it with hip hop and R&B and traditional Broadway storytelling. None of those things were new on their own, but together, a new emotional and cultural access point to history and an unforgettable one. Think about this, Suze. The story had literally already been told in many different ways, but very specifically in this biography. Yeah. But it had not been told in the way that Lynn Manuel imagined it. Creation by recombination.

Imagine all the works of art that are adaptations that we would miss out on if people said, ah, but that story's already been told. On Broadway right now, Yes Hamilton, Hades Town, and Juliet, Oedipus, Six, Wicked, The Great Gatsby, The Outsiders, Operation Mincemeat, Jellicle Ball, a reimagining of Andrew Lloyd Weber's Cats. Yes. Like we can bring new creativity to existing stories and make them brand new. Creativity by recombination. I'm thinking about scary movies. That's such a trope now in scary movies. Oh my scary movie trailers, where there's, you know, there's something in the trailer, there's something scary, intense, and there's a song that had previously been maybe an up tempo song.

Uh-huh. And it's like, uh busy. Creation by recombination. They take something that had a completely different first life. Now it's become a trope. But yes, that is creation by recombination. That's absolutely creation by recombination. And think of all the things that wouldn't exist if the person was like, oh, but somebody's already done it. The story's been said the story. Some people are like, yeah, but that's somebody's already thought that. And like, wow, we are really limiting ourselves here. If we're thinking this way, I love this spark, Laura. Uh not to jump to the reviews, but I do, I think this is such a well, when the reviews are like that, let's jump right to it. I love it because I have had this vampire myself.

Yeah. This is gonna sound self-aggrandizing. But I remember having a conversation with the great writer director, Richard Le Gravinese. And I was like, I feel like the most hacky, unoriginal. And he was like, God, I think of you as one of the most original thinkers. And I was like, Yeah, but it's all recombination. And he's like, hmm. New to me. That's right. New to me. But I've had this vampire. I mean, it's easy to have it's a very, very easy trap and one way that keeps us all like not creating. It's it's the easiest and oldest in the book. If like somebody's already said it, done it, thought it. So never mind. Yeah. Interestingly, Susan, you might like to know that creation by recombination is not limited to the arts.

Science does this too. Like we do, it's it's everywhere. You can see it in every industry. Gutenberg and the printing press. Okay. The entire reason that we have books, newspapers, and everything else, propaganda, leaflets, flyers, you know, everything. Thank you, Gutenberg. The printing press, he took a wine press, a wine press mechanism that was a machine that was used to press down on a vat of grapes just to extract the juice. But instead of using it to extract juice, he adapted the machine. He reimagined it so that you could press paper down onto typeface that was already inked. So he took a wine press and added metal casting techniques and ink innovations and paper, different industries, one system, total revolution.

Amazing. And also creation by recombination, one of my favorite musicals of all time, Gutenberg the musical. I mean, that really is one of my top five favorite musicals. It's so good. I love it. And so many stories can be told in so many ways. It's such a good reminder that breakthroughs can come from borrowing across fields, like looking to other sources. All these other areas can be such creative fuel. Science, space, astrology, psychology, quantum physics, like ideas are freaking everywhere, friends. Everywhere. Not one of these things was new. Not one thing was new. The innovation was the convergence, bringing them all together, and then the design of the thing. So you stack enough things together, and suddenly it's a whole new thing.

Yes. And I'm thinking all the way back to Hetty Lamar. We did a great spark about the amazing Hetty Lamar and that mind. Yep. Originally, that cell phone technology, she was the remote control on her TV. She was like, huh. There's something about the way that this remote control is communicating with the TV, and it is the foundation of cellular technology. Crazy. It's iterative. It's evolutionary. Yes. Evolutionary creativity. Love this. Matt Goldman talks about this all the time. It's just like a simple, simple example of it is like, we're not using the same arrowheads that we used, you know, a thousands of years ago. They have gradually evolved into what they are now, like much more lethal.

And that's just gradual evolution. Yeah. Speaking of evolution, let's talk about Darwin, this little science example. Darwin and his little theory of evolution. If you need a refresher, this is the theory that species change over time through natural selection, where organisms with traits that are better suited to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce. Darwin didn't come up with this theory just by like observing birds, like, oh, there it is. There's the answer. He was influenced by breeding practices, geology, and economics. When I read that, I was like, what economics? What? He applied concepts of competition, cost benefit analysis, and the survival of the fittest to explain how limited resources force organisms to compete, driving evolutionary change through differential reproduction.

So what the what? Like this is creation by recombination. Ideas from multiple fields are all evident and used in the theory of evolution. So innovation can be pattern recognition across domains, and having the courage to say, wait, just a second. I think these things are connected. I see something here. So, Susan, these examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Truly, humans have survived only because of our ability to use evolutionary creativity. We are constantly taking existing materials and ideas and evolving them to come up with new solutions, like arrowheads, right? The really exciting news for everyone who's listening is this. We know some people who love to rap and are excellent tap dancers.

They are using it. We know cheese professionals who are also actors and storytellers. They are using it. We know tour guides who are stand-up comedians. They are using it. Your side passions or your side jobs, they're all raw material. And exposure to different perspectives and different ideas only feeds your creativity. Chris Wink, one of the original blue men who had, he had a job transcribing science articles in the 80s when they were creating Blue Man Group. It's no coincidence that the original show explored ideas like urban isolation and information overload. These were all things he was reading about and transcribing like in his day job. Yes. Chris Wink and Phil Stanton, another one of the original blue men worked as cater waiters in New York City.

That's right. They famously worked Andy Warhol's wake. But at this job, I know, can you believe it? I'm like, ooh, I want to know. I love, I love just picturing that. At this cater waiter job, when they were bored, they would toss little hors d'oeuvres across the room at each other and catch them in their mouths. This skill became the centerpiece of a blue man segment where they toss paintballs and marshmallows across the stage, catch them in their mouths, and eventually make art out of them. Side job, every weird little quirk about you, every weird little thing you like to do, all goes into the mix. So if creativity is recombination, then everything you've lived, everything you've loved, everything you've studied, binged, survived, grieved, obsessed over, it's all inventory, it's all ingredients, it's all usable.

Your side jobs can be a huge asset, friends. Instead of like bemoaning them, what if we think about them as potential material, right? Oh my God. Laura, I think we've talked about this on the podcast. I for years worked in a corporate office, and I was like, oh, FML, here I am working in a corporate office. But every time I have played a lawyer, a judge, a lady who works in an office, I'm like, I'm right at home. I know how to be in an office. I don't have to pretend. I know how to like code switch and walk the halls and wear a suit and do all of that. And I'm telling you, the Spark instant classic. It's useful. It's so useful. I and I think take it all the way back. The clubs you joined in junior high can be an asset.

The town you grew up in. The little league you played. The little league you played in. The family vacations you were forced to go on, the summer camps you went to, these can be an asset. You can mine every little experience, even if it doesn't look like it connects at first glance. The connections just might make your work the most original work anybody has ever seen.

[25:07] Laura Camien: Like we have heard and seen people say things like this, like, oh man, I'm just so scattered. I like neuroscience and musical theater and spreadsheets and gardening. I really have to focus. But creation by recombination says you do not need to focus. The combination, the threads that connect those things are the creativity. That's where the magic is. That combination is the point. The synthesis.

[25:41] Susan Blackwell: That's right. And the other thing is collaboration gets even more exciting because when you have more brains and more experiences and more material to recombine, when you collaborate with people, you're not just getting help and support, you're getting different training and life experience. You're getting different references and resources, different emotional lenses. This is why smart creatives don't go it alone, friends, because more perspectives equals more possible recombinations.

[26:15] Laura Camien: You know, Laura, this makes me reflect on something that one of our community members, Peter Petralia, shared.

[26:21] Susan Blackwell: Yeah.

[26:22] Laura Camien: Hi, Peter. Was reflecting.

[26:23] Susan Blackwell: Hi, Peter.

[26:24] Laura Camien: If you're listening, Peter was reflecting on his experience in our Blaze course, and he was talking about how the input from Monica Bagnamara was so. So Peter's a screenwriter and uh writer, and Monica is a writer as well, and is also uh basically a nurse who works with children who have heart issues. And I remember Peter remarking, talking about how useful Monica's input was on Peter's writing.

[27:01] Susan Blackwell: That's right.

[27:02] Laura Camien: And that may seem very out of left field, but uh I think it speaks to this.

[27:08] Susan Blackwell: It does.

[27:09] Laura Camien: In fact, I was just going to say that with creation as recombination, the input diversity matters, meaning like the diverse, potentially disparate, completely different uh perspectives, all strengthen it. So talk to people outside of your field, talk to people who are different from you, who were born in other places or born at different times. Read things that you don't have to read for your job, just things that fascinate you, even if you don't know what their purpose is going to be yet. Wander museums, watch documentaries, listen to podcasts, walk new neighborhoods, listen to music.

[27:56] Susan Blackwell: Oh, and Susan, listen if you can, this is such a fun thing to do. Learn how music was created. Because there are incredible stories. Like how John Lennon and Paul McCartney would bring in entirely different scraps of songs. I mean, completely disparate. Like I have a song and I have a song. Their producer, George Martin, aka the Fifth Beetle, would see a connection that no one else saw and no one else heard and combine them.

[28:29] Laura Camien: Wow.

[28:29] Susan Blackwell: Most famously, the song We Can Work It Out. So Paul came in with the try to see it my way.

[28:38] Laura Camien: If you thought I was gonna sing on this podcast, you are incorrect.

[28:41] Susan Blackwell: I'm not going to, but you actually just did.

[28:43] Laura Camien: No, barely.

[28:44] Susan Blackwell: That doesn't qualify.

[28:46] Laura Camien: Um, where he's like, yeah, try to see it my way.

[28:52] Susan Blackwell: Right.

[28:52] Laura Camien: So then John, who really preferred more dissonant and less traditional harmonies, wrote that section. Life is very short. And there's that uh uh-uh-uh. You're like, what? These two things go together. What? Who thought they would go together? George Martin did. Your peanut butter and my chocolate. And now we have the song, we can work it out.

[29:13] Susan Blackwell: I just said that jokingly, your peanut butter and my chocolate. That's a great example, which is an old commercial for Reese's peanut butter cups. Two people are walking down the street, they're sort of walking towards each other. One of them is snacking on an open jar of peanut butter while the other is snacking on a bar of chocolate on a hot summer day in Los Angeles. And they bump into each other and they go, Hey, your peanut butter's in my chocolate. Your chocolate's in your peanut butter. And I have friends from Australia, and they're like, Do you know how strange that flavor combination is for us?

[29:50] Laura Camien: Wow.

[29:50] Susan Blackwell: I mean, we can, it's delicious, but this is not something we were brought up with.

[29:57] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[29:57] Susan Blackwell: And it's it is creation by recombination, isn't it?

[30:01] Laura Camien: It is.

[30:02] Susan Blackwell: Well, I'll be damned. There's a great series on the History Channel. It started with the Men Who Made America. Uh, I think they changed the names though now to be like the Titans Who Made America or something, because I'm like, you know, it wasn't just dudes. But um they feature mostly those dudes. But then that series was so popular that they've done other things like food that made America, uh, inventions that made America, things like that. There's an entire one about the chocolate wars, essentially, and these candy titans. Um, and I can't remember who, probably the it's probably the Mars Company, but they actually have one on the guy who uh invented this combination of chocolate and peanut butter.

[30:53] Laura Camien: Creation by recombination.

[30:54] Susan Blackwell: Creation by recombination. That couldn't have been a more ringing endorsement for that television show. But I am a nerd and I do like to watch all of those things. Um, so look it up.

[31:05] Laura Camien: Look it up.

[31:07] Susan Blackwell: All right. So the really fun thing is that everything we just described, like all those things that you can do, we call it spark generating. So even on a day where all you've done is read a book, wandered a neighborhood, and maybe eavesdropped on a conversation in a cafe, you have put ideas and connections into your little creative cauldron. We don't have to see these activities as procrastination, but as idea gathering or spark generating. Your job is not to avoid other influences, it's to combine your influences in a way that only you would.

[31:49] Laura Camien: The filmmaker Jim Jarmouj, who many people would say is quite original. He actually says nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Authenticity is invaluable. Originality is non-existent.

[32:10] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[32:11] Laura Camien: That to me is everything right there. Authenticity is invaluable. Originality is non-existent. Stop trying to be like, am I the only, am I the first person and the only person who has ever thought this or imagined this? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Authenticity, on the other hand, if you do it in a way that is uniquely you and only you, it's going to be something new. It's going to be something interesting, and you're going to cause us all to think in a different way. And someone else is going to build upon what you did.

[32:43] Susan Blackwell: So yeah, authenticity is the goal, doing something or seeing something in a way that only you can. And for me, I find this to be very exciting and very energizing. So what do we make of it? First, you might give some thought to what weird combinations of things might actually be your creative fingerprint. What two or three things do you love, but you have never given yourself permission to put in the same room or in the same project? Maybe it's spreadsheets and storytelling. Maybe it's comedy and grief. Maybe it's science and dance.

[33:20] Laura Camien: Ooh, that reminds me. I saw this. Um, I saw on Instagram. There's some sort of dating thing where people are like your best friend creates a PowerPoint pitching you as a potential dating prospect, and you sit on stage while they present their pitch. And I was like, yes, that's spreadsheets and stories. All these PowerPoints and storytelling, right? And dating. Um, and people equate PowerPoints with something like heartless and corporate, but you're actually putting the most heart into it possible with this combination.

[33:54] Susan Blackwell: So I really, I really kind of loved that. So you don't have to invent from nothing. You can start by noticing what's already in your life, your skills, your fascinations, your curiosities, and experiment with new combinations. It's far less pressure, honestly. You don't have to make a masterpiece. You can just try a mashup. Nobody else has your exact mix of experience, expertise, skills, your heartbreaks, your curiosities, your culture, your training, your obsessions. You're already a one-of-a-kind combination. Creativity is just the act of expressing that mix on purpose with purpose.

[34:32] Laura Camien: I'm gonna leave you with a little thought from Mark Twain, who said there is no such thing as a new idea. It's impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. And there's no other mental kaleidoscope like yours, friends. So go forth and try some creation by recombination.

[34:55] Susan Blackwell: Laura, instant classic.

[34:59] Laura Camien: Thank you, Suze.

[35:01] Susan Blackwell: Instant classic.

[35:02] Laura Camien: Thank you. This was fun. Creation by recombination. I love it. I love it. And I hope it brings a lot of people, as you were saying at the outset, a lot of peace.

[35:12] Susan Blackwell: And freedom.

[35:13] Laura Camien: And freedom. My favorite of all. I was gonna say, like this has everything because to me, like authenticity is a number one.

[35:21] Susan Blackwell: It is, I know it's my life's purpose is to try to like I'll be working my whole life to try to become the most authentic version of myself.

[35:29] Laura Camien: And it has freedom, which is your life's purpose.

[35:33] Susan Blackwell: And I am just like, yes, this is what it's all about.

[35:38] Laura Camien: Love it.

[35:39] Susan Blackwell: I love it.

[35:41] Laura Camien: Thank you, Laura Camille.

[35:42] Susan Blackwell: You're so welcome. Great spark. Enjoy.

[35:46] Laura Camien: I think that's it. This episode of The Spark File was made on the lands of the Lenape and the Mohican people. And as always, we hope it put another bunch of sparks in your file. Listen, if there's a spark that you'd like us to explore, or if you'd like to learn more about how to coach with us to accomplish your creative goals, you can email get creative at thesparkfile.com or reach us through our website, thesparkfile.com. We'll even happily take your feedback. But you know the price of admission. First, you have to share a creative risk that you have taken recently.

[36:19] Laura Camien: You can follow us on social at the Sparkfile and be sure to subscribe, rate, maybe even five-star review this podcast. It's something that you can do that really helps other listeners to find us. Also, if you liked this podcast, we hope you'll share it with people that you love. And if you didn't like it, you can create and recombinate yourself right on out of here.

[36:41] Susan Blackwell: If something lights you up and gets your creative sparks flying, you know that we are writing you a forever permission slip 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.

[36:56] Laura Camien: You know, you gotta take it and make it.

[37:00] Susan Blackwell: I feel like I'm gonna see the world differently because of this episode.

[37:03] Laura Camien: I think you're gonna see recombination everywhere.

[37:07] Susan Blackwell: Everywhere.

[37:08] Laura Camien: When I bump into something that inspires me, I dump it in the spark find.

[37:16] Susan Blackwell: Sparfies could be something that I wanna make or how I wanna be.

[37:22] Laura Camien: I pump it in my spark find.

[37:26] Susan Blackwell: Spark.

[37:27] Laura Camien: I jump into my spark file.

[37:31] Susan Blackwell: Spark.

[37:32] Laura Camien: Let's open up the spark fire.