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Creator Science with Jay Clouse
#262: I was falling into this negative loop – watch out! [Voice Memo]
00:03:56
A riff on psychological safety and creativity
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- [00:01]
Austin Church
Hey, it's Tuesday. We don't have our full episode out yet, but we have it coming this week and it's a good one. But in the meantime, I wanted to share a thought that I had and a conversation I had this morning with my friend Austin Church. I've done a fair amount of reading on the subject of psychological safety. This feeling that I am safe. I feel safe sharing my thoughts and feelings in some particular space. Could be in person, could be online. This is actually a topic that I believe came out of some research at Google initially trying to create psychological safety in teams because they found that was key to creativity and innovation within those teams. And what I've read in the past is that you need to feel safe at work in order to be creative at work. And as creators, you know, that applies to us as well. And what I think a lot of creators are experiencing, based on conversations that I'm having, is that right now the world feels more uncertain than before. And the effect is in some industries, some spaces, purchasing is down. And when you experience purchasing and being down in your space, it's a scary thing, right? Because you don't know if this is the start of a trend, if this is just an anomaly, if this is going to be short lived or long lived. But uncertainty creates some risk. You feel vulnerable and you're more likely to tighten things up. Basically, you're feeling less safe. When you feel less safe, your mind goes to a scarce place. And what I think this research tells us is that when you are feeling less safe, when you are feeling more scarce, that directly inhibits your ability to be creative. So what happens? You withdraw, you create less, you publish less, you share less, you feel less creative. In withdrawing, you are probably having a direct impact on the number of people who are seeing your work, who are aware of you, who are thinking about you and your offers. This could lead to fewer purchases, which may not have anything to do with macroeconomic uncertainty. It may just be that people are less aware of you. You know, we've, we've said time and time again that the best way to get more sales is to talk about your products and services more. But if you're in a scarce place and you're talking about them less because of it, this will result in fewer sales, making the problem worse and worse and worse. So all this to say I have noticed a little bit of scarcity in my own mindset as of late. And I have noticed because I've done this research that, that I have been feeling less creative because of it. So what am I doing about it? I wake up in the morning and I'm generally a very positive, optimistic person. It's throughout the day if I am too connected to sources of feedback, to areas where people need something from me or where I might be blindsided by bad news. Feedback is another one of these things that has a slow death by a thousand cuts effect on my optimism, my positivity. It triggers some scarcity and therefore I feel less creative as the day goes by. So I'm trying to push myself to take a longer period of time in the morning before checking my email, looking at comments and interactions on my posts, staying in a place of excitement and safety so that I can be more creative. Because we know being more creative, making things has a positive impact on our business. So let me know if that resonates with you. If you're here on Spotify, leave a comment down below. Like I said, we have a new episode coming out this week. It's a big one, it's a good one. Hopefully we'll have that out in a day or two. I appreciate you listening and I'll talk to you soon.