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[0:30] Laura Camien: Welcome to the Spark File, where we believe that everyone is creative, but smart creative people, they don't go it alone.

[0:43] Susan Blackwell: They don't. I'm Laura Camien.

[0:45] Susan Blackwell: I'm Susan Blackwell. And we are creativity coaches who help people clarify and accomplish their creative goals.

[0:51] Laura Camien: You should know that just by listening to this podcast, you are joining a warm and wonderful clan of creatives. And you all may be asking yourself, what exactly is a Spark File?

[1:03] Susan Blackwell: A Spark File is a place where you consistently collect all your inspirations and fascinations. Every episode, we're going to reach into our very own Spark Files and exchange some sparks. And from time to time, we're going to talk to some folks who spark us too. And your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take some of those sparks of inspiration and make something of your own. So without further ado, let's open up the Spark File.

[1:31] Susan Blackwell: Hi Laura Camien.

[1:32] Laura Camien: Hi Susie Q. How are you doing?

[1:34] Susan Blackwell: I am really well, Laura. How are you doing?

[1:37] Laura Camien: I'm good. I'm excited.

[1:38] Susan Blackwell: I'm good. My voice is going up an octave, so you know the truth.

[1:47] Laura Camien: I'm doing good. I am very, this is authentically excited to be here with you and to get to talk to you. What a privilege, what a fun thing that we created to make ourselves do it and love doing it. I said it before, I'll say it again, it's one of my favorite things, I say it over and over, but I'm truly happy to be here with you today. And is there anything you want to talk about before we just dive into this juicy spark that I prepared for you?

[2:16] Susan Blackwell: I think I'm ready for a juicy spark.

[2:19] Laura Camien: Wow. I really do.

[2:21] Susan Blackwell: I got one for you.

[2:22] Laura Camien: Is it like a filet mignon? Is it like juicy like that?

[2:25] Susan Blackwell: I think of it as a classic spark, classic, because it is something that we think about and talk about so often. And in fact, when I was preparing the spark, I had to go back and look through our entire catalog of episodes because I was like, surely I've done this spark before. Because you're like, I have talked about this so much. I must have talked about it on the podcast. So if I've done the spark before, please enjoy it again, this encore performance. But also I am taking a fresh perspective on it with new input from new thinkers.

[3:05] Laura Camien: Oh, I'm excited.

[3:07] Susan Blackwell: If it's a redo, it'll be a fresh redo. Let's stop talking about the spark and let's just spark. So years ago, one of our wonderful colleagues, the great Kate Kayan, said something.

[3:21] Laura Camien: Oh, Kate.

[3:22] Susan Blackwell: Hi, Kate. Yes, Kate is amazing. She's an amazing coach and an amazing author. She wrote a book called Beyond Potential, a guide for creatives who want to reassess, redefine and reignite their careers. She's really special.

[3:36] Laura Camien: So good.

[3:37] Susan Blackwell: She's so good.

[3:38] Laura Camien: So good.

[3:39] Susan Blackwell: And gave us many little nuggets, but I think I know the one you're going to share, which is how would this feel if I let it be easy?

[3:48] Susan Blackwell: Kate said one day, how would this feel if I let it be easy? We were talking about something related to our work or our creativity. I'm not even sure what we were talking about. But when she said, how would this feel if I let it be easy? It stopped me in my tracks and it loosened this mental grip on whatever thing I was trying to wrestle to the ground. Since then, I feel like we have quoted Kate and probably misquoted Kate one million times.

[4:21] Laura Camien: Well, because to us it became, how easy can it be?

[4:25] Susan Blackwell: How easy can it be? And that's just sort of the shorthand and we use it all the time. How easy could this be? And use it present tense. Use it all the time. When I am sweating my shit, it's just this great little mental adjustment. How would this feel if I let it be easy? How easy can this be? And it sort of loosens my grip. Full disclosure, the day that I was writing this spark, I was not feeling great. I had not gotten enough sleep the night before. Our work list has been quite robust, to say the least. We like a big list. We like a list, apparently, recovering workaholics. I was really salty about a personal situation I was experiencing. I just wanted to go back to bed all day long, but I knew I had to write this spark. And then I was like, how would writing this spark feel if I let it be easy? How would it feel if I let it flow, if I stopped gripping or fretting or fearing about writing this spark, and I just wrote the spark?

[5:35] Susan Blackwell: This brought to mind a video that I saw by a creator with the handle, The Mental Level. The Mental Level is on TikTok, they're on YouTube. The Mental Level is the work of a filmmaker named Cyrus Bates. And in the video, he says, you think everything in life needs to be hard, and so it is. But imagine how fun your life would be if you let it be easy.

[6:03] Laura Camien: My God.

[6:04] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. He goes on to tell the story of a basketball player named Tyrese Halliburton. Now if you're a sports fan and you're listening to this, I know you're going, yeah, I know who Tyrese Halliburton is.

[6:15] Laura Camien: I know who Tyrese is.

[6:18] Susan Blackwell: But for those of us who are uninitiated.

[6:21] Laura Camien: All the rest of us.

[6:23] Susan Blackwell: Tyrese Halliburton plays for the Pacers. And back in the summer, the Pacers were in the NBA finals, and Tyrese was playing, and he hit a total of four, count them up, four game-winning buzzer beaters. That's for those who are uninitiated, that means at the end of the basketball game, sometimes from a great distance, Tyrese would lob the ball and just hit the basket, hit the basket, hit the basket, hit the basket. And in those interviews that they do after the game, where the athletes are up on a dais surrounded by the press, Tyrese Halliburton, with this sort of like, just shaking his head with a smile on his face, kept saying things like, this is a kid's game, and I get paid a lot of money to play a kid's game, so I'm just having fun out there. And then he tells another journalist, it's just basketball, bro, I get paid a lot of money to play a child's game.

[7:23] Laura Camien: Wow.

[7:24] Susan Blackwell: Wow. Cyrus Bates asks, is it a coincidence that Tyrese Halliburton keeps doing this seemingly impossible thing, scoring these amazing shots in incredibly heightened situations, observed by huge crowds in the arena and also, you know, watching on TV, and that his mindset is to let it be easy, to have fun, and to experience it as play?

[7:54] Laura Camien: Coincidence!

[7:56] Susan Blackwell: Co-winky-dink! I don't think so. So the video goes on, and there's this surfer named CJ Macias, who was featured on HBO's documentary series, 100 Foot Wave, you know, I love a surfing documentary, so this was right up my alley.

[8:11] Laura Camien: Actually, I had not noted that about you, Susan, but noted now.

[8:16] Susan Blackwell: Really? Have we not talked about it?

[8:18] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[8:19] Susan Blackwell: Not enough, apparently. I have a spark in my file that I've never done about, I love surfing documentaries, because they're usually beautifully shot, you know, obviously they're set in nature, and it is extraordinary feats of athleticism. I mean, I love a surfing documentary.

[8:39] Laura Camien: Yeah, and synchronicity, because so much has to sync up for you to, like, for you to catch the wave of a lifetime. It's pretty extraordinary.

[8:47] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, you got to be in flow.

[8:48] Laura Camien: Yeah, you got to be in flow.

[8:50] Susan Blackwell: And the prep that goes into it is, it's just all of it comes into the hyper-present moment, which is perfect for the spark. So this surfer, CJ Macias, I hope I'm pronouncing his name right, Cyrus Bates asked him for his take on the subject of easy when it comes to big wave surfing, and CJ said, and I quote, so if you're underwater getting tumbled in the spin cycle of a wave, something my dad used to say to me is, it's a gentle whirlpool. And that mindset alone, you're getting swirled around, and if you can be at peace with, okay, I have the breath I have, just seal it up, I'll come up eventually. And that brings some calmness, right? You realize very quickly, no amount of fighting and resistance is doing anything in that moment that really serves you.

[9:46] Laura Camien: Oh my God.

[9:47] Susan Blackwell: And then with the paddling, it's the mentality of, oh, I'm paddling, I got to paddle through these waves and get out, or just that quick switch of like, all right, here we go, we're paddling. And then you're tuned into every little bump, and you're actually making ground when the waves are moving against you, you understand? And you're just moving over them up and down, and you're really in tune and in groove, having a good time doing the paddling.

[10:14] Laura Camien: Oh my God, if I could live my life like that, right?

[10:20] Susan Blackwell: I think that CJ is right. If you're in that situation, in this instance, it's surfing, the moment you start to panic, you're burning oxygen more quickly, you're depleting your resources, it seems like staying calm and rolling with the waves is the quickest path back to the surface of the water.

[10:41] Susan Blackwell: Cyrus Bates goes on to talk about how when he made his first couple of short films, he's a filmmaker, and people would talk about, they would tell a story we have heard often, which is how hard filmmaking is, how hard it is to make films. And I understand why that story exists, and we both have a lot of evidence where we're like, yeah, we can support that with the evidence, making films is hard. And Cyrus was talking about how he internalized that story and believed that filmmaking was super stressful and hard. But then on his third short film, he said, I'm going to let this be easy. And he reported back that it was, and it turned out just as well as anything that he had made previously.

[11:33] Laura Camien: Isn't that an amazing fallacy that so many people have bought into?

[11:38] Susan Blackwell: I definitely know that I was raised with that. Things that came easy to me, I didn't value, I didn't realize that actually can feel good. And then I had a professor, I was obsessing over some role I was doing, and I wasn't getting any notes. And so I went all teary into her office and was like, I just need to know what else can I be doing? And she's like, has it ever occurred to you that this might be easy for you?

[12:08] Laura Camien: And I was like, but what? But what? It can't be because if it's easy, then it isn't meaningful.

[12:15] Susan Blackwell: And I think that is so not true. We're going to get into it.

[12:17] Laura Camien: Oh, I can't wait, Laura. We're going to get into that. Take us into it, Susan.

[12:21] Susan Blackwell: So just to jump back to, you know, you and I have been on so many sets. And typically, I think I've talked about this on the podcast. Maybe when Bart Freundlich was our guest, typically film directors look like they have the weight of the world on their shoulders. Their brows are furrowed and you dare not interrupt them because they are, you know, thinking important thoughts.

[12:39] Laura Camien: Oh my God.

[12:48] Susan Blackwell: There are two, I know I've talked about this, there are two filmmakers that I've worked with where they were like kids in candy stores, Bart Freundlich and J.C. Chandor. J.C. Chandor directed a film that I did called Margin Call, I know I've told the story. He was so enthusiastic on set and Bart has this energy that is so warm and so relaxed. And I told both of them because they don't see other directors work unless they take a day and they're visiting a set, they don't see other directors work. So both of them, I remember saying, listen, dude, I know that you don't spend a lot of time with other directors, but you have to know energetically you're bringing something very, very different to this experience.

[13:29] Laura Camien: Oh, good.

[13:31] Susan Blackwell: Recently, we went backstage after seeing Jonathan Groff in Just In Time and Jonathan Groff had this, he sang and danced and sweated and spit his ass off and then I went backstage and I was just like...

[13:49] Laura Camien: Like a puppy dog.

[13:50] Susan Blackwell: He was deep into his run and I was like, how are you? Because a lot of times when the veil drops, people are like, oh my God, my hips, my hips. Now I know that Jonathan did have some physical stuff that he was dealing with during that show, but when I was like, I looked him right in the eye and I was like, how are you doing friend? He was like, I'm great. I'm great. I'm great. And I was like, oh, how easy can it be? I could just see it. I could see it in his face.

[14:19] Susan Blackwell: So Cyrus Bates posits that our belief that something is difficult is what generates internal resistance, tension and strain, which is what makes it feel hard, which then reinforces the story that we've told ourselves that it is hard. So he goes on to identify potential internalized blocks and stories that we might have to cloud bust in order to access an easier, more flowing state. He posits that we have been taught that we have to work hard, that nothing worth having.

[14:58] Susan Blackwell: This is to your point, Laura. We have to earn everything. And I'll add that we've also been taught that hard work has to feel unpleasant. Hard work has to feel unpleasant. Interesting. These are beliefs that we may have never questioned because they make sense. And we have evidence to support all these stories. Well, it gives it meaning, right? So if we, if it was difficult and yes, and challenging, and we've overcome those challenges in order to be victorious in this effort, we have some greater meaning at play, perhaps. Yes. Hold that thought. When things do come easy, like what you were talking about with your acting teacher in college, we can reject it or find a way to make it difficult.

So it has meaning and it has worth and it has gravitas. Oh God, I've done that too much in my life. Yeah. Yeah. So Cyrus Bates states that believing that we have to work hard and that nothing worth having comes easy and we have to earn everything may be our mind's way of feeling separate and special and saying, I'm the one struggling. I'm on my hero's journey. It's me against the world. And when I heard Cyrus say, I'm on my hero's journey, I was like, I felt so clocked. I felt, I did. He proposes saying it's me with the world. I can collaborate. I can flow. I can let a bigger energy in and uplift me, which makes things infinitely easier. And in your best moments, that's what's happening. Things are flowing through you.

It's not just you making things happen. That's right. Muscling it through forcing it. Yeah. And feeling like the hero of your hero's journey. Right. It wasn't going to work until I came in and look what I did and I fixed it and made it happen. Yeah. So I have observed that Jonathan Groff, JC Chandor, Bart Freundlich, I would also say Julianne Moore. Like I, once I start thinking about this, I'm like, Oh, where have I seen this before in my life? They were and are working very hard on their respective creative projects and they were loving that work. You know what, Suze, I want to say something too about like just my experience with a, with a whole lot of blue men at Blue Man Group. And there is a tendency when we see people who are in flow and they make it look easy, there can be, and I have witnessed this time and time again, other observers who are like, that person's not taking it seriously.

They're not working hard enough. And I know that that person actually, what they're working hard at is staying in flow. And the effort goes into like, how can I stay in flow and how easy can I allow this to be? Because this is not brain surgery. This is, you know, an entertainment piece that is meant to bring human beings together in a euphoric experience. So that is what, that's the job here. And to create that for others, I must feel that inside of myself. And that's the work. Yeah. So interesting to watch how people will also judge that it didn't feel hard enough for you. Like how, how come you're not working hard enough? I will position this as a blind item. So I was doing a very high visibility project and I was warming up before the project and I was running through my material and I was doing it in a very, very silly way that I wouldn't necessarily do in front of a paying audience.

Yeah. And another person who was working on the project got really frustrated and said, do it right. Oh. And I was like, oh, this is not about me. This is about this other person. I'm re-familiarizing myself with the material and doing it away in a way that is loose and going to keep me discovering things and in flow. And because it varied from how they thought it should go, it was incredibly destabilizing for them. I can imagine. I can imagine. I witnessed that many, many, many times, like I said, but the Blue Men, like their job were to basically, and they would say this, to have puppy dog energy, to have childlike energy, childlike wonder, and be in a playful state at all times. And so just like that, like you're playing and you're connecting with the material in a playful way only to have someone else be like, that's not how you do it.

Like, well, you know, actually it is. It is. Yeah. That's interesting. I'm going to get some more deets on that later. So back to Cyrus Bates, who I really, I've really taken a dip into their work and I really, really enjoy the way Cyrus is using storytelling to make some of these points really land. There's nothing as powerful as storytelling. So Cyrus Bates, if you're listening to this, hats off to you. Thank you. Cyrus states that one of the final blocks in letting it be easy is around aptitudes, that everyone has something or some things they're just naturally good at. For Laura Kamien, it may be acting. Maybe it's something that you've yet to discover. Maybe it's not obvious. And I'll add, maybe because it comes easy to you, like we were discussing earlier, you discount its value.

We see a lot of that in the Spark file. How many really great writers and they're just like, I don't know, I'm not, you know, they don't, they don't see it because it pours out of them without, you know, sweat. Yeah. It may be something that it takes years for someone else to learn, but for you, it only takes days or weeks or months, but people will tell you it's so hard. It's a long path. It's a grind because that's how they had it. That's how they had it. And maybe they don't want to see you have it easy. So they'll reinforce their own limiting beliefs. But Cyrus encourages us not to buy into it. Notice when you have an aptitude, let things be easy for you. Let them come easily to you. You can do things from a place of love, care, and enjoying a challenge with ease or non-resistance instead of making it hard.

We come from this whole lifetime of storytelling about how hard everything has to be. So when things are easy, I think sometimes our mind will go, no, it can't be that easy. It just can't be that easy. Yep. He cautions us that our subconscious minds will try to resist it. We'll try to second guess it. We'll try to make it hard, but we can use our conscious minds to practice dropping in and saying, let it be easy. And a lot of his material is about meditation. It's about coming into the present moment. But he includes this particular video by saying, in a world full of experts who want to complicate everything and make it hard, your prime asset is silence and learning to tolerate it. So you can hear your own intuition, which always knows what the next step is.

And then you can just go take it and let it be easy. I just love this content by The Mental Level, aka Cyrus Bates. It really is this beautiful short film. And when he layers in imagery that he has selected and sourced, it really is great storytelling that lands his point so beautifully. So I encourage you to check it out. But one caveat I want to add is this. From time to time, we'll see people, we have exposure to so many artists sharing their creative work. And they'll show their work and they'll be like, this was so easy. And they're just beaming with pride. And I'm like, dude, it looks like it was easy. But next time you might want to try harder, which is a very inelegant way of saying, embracing ease does not exclude the quest for excellence.

Those are two different dimensions. Ease is sort of lightening the gripping. It's freeing up that energy so that you can put the energy into the work, or you can put it into yourself with a real light touch and with curiosity. The quest for excellence is the gas, it's the motivation. But when you have both ease and a strong quest for excellence, then you are in the flow, baby, you're in the flow. Before I go on, any thoughts about that, Laura?

[25:01] Laura Kamien: Well, just that I'm so glad you added that because I think that is the checkpoint for many of us, right? That is the moment where like, God, that felt easy. If you're a discerning person, your next question is like, does that mean it wasn't any good? Because it just sort of came out of me. You know what I mean? When you sit down, you write a whole first draft, you're like, it can't be any good because it just poured out. And so I think it's of great interest to me, of course, to be like, but yeah, but I really want it to be good. So can it be easy and exceptional? And the answer is yes. This is a great evolution of this. How would this feel if it was easy and exceptional?

[25:44] Susan Blackwell: Yeah. How would this feel if it was easy and excellent? I just want to conclude by sharing a story that comes from our friend, Jonathan Bernstein. Love Jonathan Bernstein, friend of the pod, has been a guest teacher at The Spark File. And there was this story that I was remembering when I was making The Spark. And I was like, this is a Jonathan story. So I reached out to him this week and asked him to share it. And it comes from an Israeli choreographer named Ohad Naharin, who runs Batsheva Dance Company. And this was a story that Jonathan heard in a documentary in which Ohad participated. Ohad Naharin would urge his elderly father to say piece of cake before he got up out of his favorite comfy chair.

So he would literally stand with his father and they would, you know, look at each other and say, piece of cake. And then he would stand up out of his chair. Jonathan Bernstein went on to invent a game called piece of cake, where you take a piece of paper, roll it up in your hand, so it's about the size of a golf ball. And you have to throw it into a receptacle from an improbable distance. But before you throw it, you have to say, piece of cake, piece of cake, you have to mean it. Amazing. So I'll close with the words, the great Kate Kion and Cyrus Bates, aka the mental level. What if it were easy, or put another way in the words of Ohad Naharin and Jonathan Bernstein, piece of cake. Oh, I love it. Piece of cake, baby.

[27:34] Laura Kamien: I love it. What a great, great spark, Susan. And I want to report back having written the spark, but with less under less duress, with a lighter touch. And also, you know, informed by the great work of people like Cyrus Bates and Kate Kion and Ohad Naharin and Jonathan Bernstein. It was truly a joy, full of ease to make this spark and tasted like a delicious piece of cake. Thanks, Suze.

[28:06] Susan Blackwell: I guess 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 you'd like us to explore, or you'd like to learn more about how to coach with us to accomplish your creative goals, you can email get creative at the spark file.com or reach us through our website, the spark file.com. We will even happily take your feedback, all your feedback, all of it. But first, there is a price of admission. You have to share a creative risk that you've taken recently. You can follow us on social at the spark file and be sure to subscribe rate and five star review this podcast.

It's something small you can do that really helps other listeners to find us. Also, if you like this podcast, we hope you'll share with people that you love. And if you didn't like it, how easy can it be for you to choose a different podcast to listen to? If something lights you up and gets your creative sparks flying, 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. You know, you got to take it and make it.

[29:38] Laura Kamien: I'll pump it in my spark file. I jump into my spark file. Let's open up the spark file.