Mindfulness and Creativity: Unlock Your Business Potential

Starting the conversation:

Trusting yourself in the present moment is easier said than done, as what is expected regarding the way we use time actually is slowing us down. It is time to quit chasing creativity and innovation. Catherine Morgan, President at Point A to Point B Transitions, Claire Uncapher, Clinical Nurse and Intuitive Life Coach, and Dr. Janice Campbell, Acupuncturist and Herbalist, discuss how to change our relationship with time to be more creative in business.

Mindfulness in business is a hot topic, and we take this concept further. It is MORE than self-care in relation to doing your important work — the practice means being your own advocate for how you approach, integrate, and set up your success to tap into the creativity you already have within. Set aside current thoughts about mindfulness in business to be able to shift your thinking to make work more fulfilling and fun, and the challenges you face worth the necessary effort.

In this program you will learn questions to ask, experiments to gather information, and how to shift the lens you use to assess challenges. Trusting yourself begins with creating and protecting your environment — inside as well as outside yourself. As you tune in, think about your traits — focus especially on the ones you may see as weaknesses, and figure out how these characteristics are actually your strengths. Innovation from the inside allows new and different ways of working to emerge. Jess Dewell facilitates a BOLD discussion about the connection (or not) between mindfulness and creativity with Catherine Morgan, President at Point A to Point B Transitions, Claire Uncapher, Clinical Nurse and Intuitive Life Coach, and Dr. Janice Campbell, Acupuncturist and Herbalist.

Host: Jess Dewell

Guest: Catherine Morgan, Claire Uncapher, and Dr. Janice Campbell

What You Will Hear:

02:15 Change your relationship with time. Time can be elastic.

05:00 Catherine Morgan: Drop into the present for ideas to land.

• This is where innovation happens.
• Brain space and physical space necessary.
• Take a leadership pause.

07:30 Claire Uncapher: Instead of being mindful, focus on feeling good..

• From a place of feeling good, inspiration can arrive.
• Creativity can come to you, instead of you chasing it.
• Let go of the future and the past, [both] can jam things up.

09:30 Dr. Janice Campbell: Mindfulness is the gateway to possibility.

• The Magic 8 Ball concept.
• Experience is necessary.
• “Mindful” is a loaded word.

12:50 Trust yourself first.

• Structures, actions, pauses build self trust.
• Ask: What about this [situation] makes it the way to follow?
• Reclaim ability to let go and slow down time.

17:00 Generally mindfulness is equated with self care, which is just a small piece and isn’t aligned to business.

• Unapologetically make your choices.
• Decide the way you do your work in business culture and stick to it.

24:00 Where are you physically and energetically to complete important work?

• Tips: exercises to become aware of your body.
• Take advantage of white space (and use white boards).
• Make space in your calendar and the place you do your work

30:10 Good ideas can come to use easily.

• Stop and consider every time you say or hear: “‘ya, but.”’
• Steps to do an experiment you can start today.

38:00 It is important to know HOW we experience.

• It is something to hold on to.
• Embrace your traits as strengths (especially if you think they are weaknesses).
• Give yourself time/space: “I need to sit with that.”
• Have a space that you feel safe in.
• Sometimes considering many things at once can offer new connections to new ideas.

46:00 Mindfulness is life. Not just self care.

• Part 1: What if it were true?
• Part 2: Find what’s valuable and what you want to take away.

50:00 We created our What Makes it BOLD question together.

55:00 It is BOLD to intentionally increase ways to be creative and innovative.

Transcript

Catherine Altman Morgan 00:00
You know, my favorite thing is the potential, that creativity piece. And how do we apply it to business? Mindfulness, presence, discernment, and prioritization might be the key skills for success in a professional environment.

Dr. Janice Campbell 00:17
Another big one that I do is locating the space between your fingers because a lot of people are associated with their hands.

Claire Uncapher 00:24
Good ideas come to me easily. And as long as you believe that, then it becomes true.

Announcer 00:33
You are listening to the Bold Business Podcast. In this program, Jess Dewell hosts experts who share information with you about solving problems and communicating priorities to help you guide your company toward its biggest goals.

Jess Dewell 00:50
I am so glad that you are here with me today so that we can talk about a topic that is near and dear to my heart. Something around being curious, something around finding stillness, and something even around my favorite thing is the potential, that creativity piece, and how do we apply it to Business? Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, but how do we apply it to business? And so all of you listening and watching, I am excited to introduce you to today’s panel, and I am going to let each of our panelists introduce themselves to you. Alright. So, Catherine, the floor is yours for hello.

Catherine Altman Morgan 01:30
Hello. I’m Catherine Altman Morgan. I am the founder of Point A TO Point B Transitions. A business consultant and an author is me. I am excited to be on today’s discussion because mindfulness is also a topic near and dear to me and I think critically important in today’s society. And I forgot to mention I’m located in Chicago.

Jess Dewell 01:58
Claire. Hello.

Claire Uncapher 01:57
Yes. Hi, Jess. Thank you for having me on the show. I’m so glad to be here. My name is Claire Uncapher. I work with clients, around depression and anxiety or just generalized unhappiness. And I’m really excited to be on today’s show because mindfulness, present, intuition, listening to yourself is such a big part and a big theme in people that have lived their lives without checking in. And so I’m really excited to talk about it.

Jess Dewell 02:30
And Janice, hi.

Dr. Janice Campbell 02:36
Hey. How are you? I’m Janice Campbell. I am an acupuncturist and an herbalist and a somatic touch practitioner and a distance mind body integration specialist. And all of which I say is where I use different tools to name and tame the elephants in the room. I am excited to be here because creativity and mindfulness are part of the bag of tricks I use and encourage in other people to help them crawl out of the box once they inadvertently or unconsciously put themselves in. And I’m really interested to hear what everybody else has to say.

Jess Dewell 03:11
When I pick panels, you were all handpicked to be here. So I had been introduced to Claire and Catherine and I have been in a panel discussion before. And Janice, you and I have started to have a few conversations. And so over the course of about, I’d say, 3 days is it was when it was like, these are the people that I want to bring together. And I wanna hear it from you first. So we’re gonna start with you, Catherine. What are the links between mindfulness and creativity in business?

Catherine Altman Morgan 03:40
Okay. This is such a juicy topic. The links between mindfulness and creativity in business, we could probably talk about this for hours, but there’s a couple that jumped to mind. And let’s first talk about creativity as a component of innovation. So you don’t have innovative ideas in a box. They come from creative thinking and creative problem solving. And if there’s one thing that we need right now in this in these crazy times is ways to drop into being present and having space for ideas to land is how I like to think about it. We need brain space so that the ideas can come in, and we need physical space and physical spaces to manifest the ideas and put them into practice. So there isn’t a business right now that isn’t struggling to keep up with the rate of change of business, of markets, of technology. And the way that you can do that, oddly enough, is to slow down. And because you’re not gonna get good ideas if you’re running around on the hamster wheel with your hair on fire. They just don’t have any place to be. So I think mindfulness is a critical skill for being a leader personally or professionally or in the marketplace. One of the benefits in your leadership for mindfulness is a trip switch so that you don’t get drawn into the conversation that you know is gonna go sideways. You don’t hit send before of that flame mail that’s going out there that you’ll have to back away from for months or years. I just think that if people were gonna only work on one skill over the next 6 months to a year, mindfulness might be the one to pick.

Jess Dewell 05:52
Thank you, Catherine. Claire, what are the links between mindfulness and creativity in business?

Claire Uncapher 05:59
First, I have to say, I hope you know I’m a rebel. I never loved the word mindfulness actually, but I love the definition of what it is. It always sounded like something that I had to do or achieve. What how I experienced mindfulness is feeling good, just like you just described. You were sitting down with your tea. You were open. You were receptive. You were feeling good in that moment, and boom, creativity or inspiration hits you. And so I stay in that feeling good space. I actually really pay attention to that. And when I do, the idea’s creativity, it comes to me. I it’s not like a pushing and a searching. It I’ll be in the shower or on a walk or in the car, and it’s like you just said, that lightning bolt of creativity that feels, dare I say, brilliant. Like Catherine said, if you’re too far in the future or too far in the past, or I would take it one step further, if you’re just not feeling good, if you’re all jammed up, it can’t come to you. The the signals are jammed, but it’s this vicious cycle. Right? Then they’re not I don’t have any ideas right now, and so I’m pushing, searching, brainstorming, but nothing’s coming. I honestly think sometimes the most productive thing to do is take a nap or go for a walk or do something that makes you laugh and open get into that space, that breathing space, and then those ideas, that creativity, that inspiration finds you. It comes in, and it just hits you when you least expect it.

Jess Dewell 07:44
Thank you. Janice, what are the links between mindfulness and creativity in business?

Dr. Janice Campbell 07:50
I’m not a super big fan of the word mindfulness either. However, when I think of it in terms of the medicine that I practice, the mind is considered to reside in the heart and the brain is like a high-paid legal assistant that really should not be driving the bus. And so it’s easier for me to think of it in those terms. However, mindfulness is like the gateway drug of any of us getting back into our bodies the way we were when we were little. From there comes possibility. It’s a bit like when I was teaching supervising in acupuncture clinic for masters of doctoral level students. I would remind people that they were they had a wealth of not just book-learned experience, but life experience and human experience. And we all have a whole library, whether we’re 15 or 95. We’ve all got a whole library of experience and knowledge that we just don’t know we have. And so I would encourage them to do what I called at the time, the magic eight-ball form of treatment planning, which was to quiet themselves, become present to life in front of them, either metaphorically or actually physically shake their head, and then something would go bloop to the top of their head, and then it would almost inevitably be the right thing to do. And in the same way in business, when met with a problem, rather than focusing on the problem, which just ties the knot tighter, sitting in the face of what would a smooth flow feel like without this in the way? What would the smooth flow feel like? And allow yourself to do that magic eight-ball form of solution finding. And inevitably something will come to you. It may sound completely out of the box and a little weird, and then if you follow that though, you’ll realize how it’s possible because you already know. You just have to find the piece.

Announcer 09:41
Focused on growth? Listen to more programs like this which support the challenges and opportunities you are working with right now. Search Bold Business Podcast for the key terms at RedDirection.com or your preferred podcast listening app.

Jess Dewell 09:58
There were a few things that came up that I hear across all, space in some form. The willingness to be open almost actually to ourselves, regardless of what our role is. If we’re not open to ourselves, how could we be open to others? So that’s another thing that I was hearing across. And then it’s also maybe our vocabulary about this is dated or actually untrue or inaccurate so that there’s a better conversation to be having for these same things, which I’m excited. I’m always excited when people are like, that’s not what I believe or I’m actually rebelling against us, or what do you actually talk about? There, lady. All of those things come into play. If I were to pick a place to start, it seems like we starting with space. The purpose of the space. So we have the physical space that we’re in, that Catherine was talking about, the taking a break and laughing that Claire was talking about, and the magic 8 Bold pause that Janice was talking about. So if we were to take that a little bit further, do you have tips with which to begin to trust in that need for space? Because I actually wonder, do we actually lack trust for ourselves for that need of space before we can even do this and think it’s more than a a novelty?

Claire Uncapher 11:20
Okay. I would say I deal with the subconscious belief, and I believe we were, we learned very early on that we can’t trust ourselves. I actually we consult the subconscious mind and we go back to how, where, and when you ever you started not trusting ourselves. A few examples is a little girl who her mom was so stressed and busy, and so she decided she was gonna help out. Whether or not these are true, it doesn’t matter. The subconscious mind just plays charades with you to give you a picture. And she went and got soap and squeezed the whole bottle on the floor. And, obviously, her mom had the kinda response any other mom would have. And she remembered coming to the conclusion, oh, I thought I had a good idea, but I guess I didn’t. I didn’t have a good idea. So I think we learned not to tune into ourselves. We even have to raise our hand to ask if we can go to the bathroom, all that. Don’t Jess just turn that off. And, also, when we listen to ourselves, there’s often not a lot of evidence to support why we should follow that direction. And so it’s very easy to be like, I kinda wanna do this, but is a good indicator that you are tuning into intuition, but we haven’t given ourselves permission to trust ourselves. The way I started trusting myself was dealing with the subconscious beliefs, but then also just remembering all the times that I truly did listen to myself and how it worked out. And then there were times that I just knew I didn’t wanna go on that trip. I just knew I didn’t wanna go be with those people, and then it didn’t work out. So it’s not tangible, it’s not concrete there’s not a lot of evidence and reason so it’s very easy to by pass those nudges.

Dr. Janice Campbell 13:15
And I would add to that that there’s also a piece of allowing yourself to be in in your body in a way. One of the things I recommend for people who spend a lot of time at their desk is to take their shoes off and rub them on the floor to remind them that there’s something below their neck. Because we sort of evolved to act like everything below our neck is here to carry our head and our hands around and then we wonder why things are arguing. But it’s really about, for me, in my view, it’s really about reclaiming that ability that, remember when you were a kid and you were playing and then you came back from it? But it was really only 15 minutes or 5 minutes or 2 minutes and you had traveled to the other side of the world and back. Time still continues to be malleable, but we believe that we don’t have it. And we believe that we don’t I don’t have time to be mindful. I don’t have time to sit and daydream about this. I don’t have time. Practicing unhooking from a clock for 2 minutes, 3 minutes tops, and letting your mind go wherever it goes. Even if it’s, I’m worried about this and that made me think about what I had for breakfast and what did I and just letting yourself follow the crazy spaghetti path of whatever floats through, but not holding on to any one thing. Letting, letting it, as one of my mentors says, when something shows up in your mind, kiss it on the head and send it on its way. And, I’m worried about this. Yes. And we’ll talk about that later. You know? I had this for breakfast. Yes. And we will eat again after this meeting or whatever it is. So that you’re beginning to allow that elasticity to open up again of time. So that within a minute or 2 minutes, you may be able to solve a problem that if you sat and actually concentrated on solving would take you two or three days.

Catherine Altman Morgan 15:09
I want to tag on to what Janice said. There is the thing about creating space and letting yourself flow. And I think one of the problems people have with mindfulness, besides the term that seems to be like, we could probably find a better one, is that it may be linked with self care. And a lot of we’re talking specifically business and mindfulness. Self care can equal self-indulgence because I’m not doing the thing in the business. So we may actually not feel entitled to taking this time if we put it in the self care bucket, and we can tap on to these self-worth things. I’m not valuable enough to take this time for me, which a lot of my clients struggle with, probably a lot of your clients struggle with. But if we could convince people of the benefits, like creative thinking, creative problems solving, brainstorming, being kinder to yourself and others, I think we have a better chance of getting people to embrace mindfulness.

Dr. Janice Campbell 16:18
And also just remembering, you know, remember when it was fun? Remember when you decided that this was a good thing, that that this would be a cool thing to do with your life? Then it gives you permission to actually enjoy what you’re doing in a way that because life is too short not to be having a good time. It doesn’t mean that building, I don’t know, spending 1,000 of hours building an entire playhouse out of Legos doesn’t take time and effort. But you’re building a playhouse out of Legos or whatever it is that you’re doing. And remembering that, as I like to say to some of my patients, you’re a grown up, you can have dessert first. And I got this from a friend of mine whose husband, every time he goes to a restaurant, he orders his dessert first. So he sees how big it is. So he decides what to order for his main dish. And then he eats his main dish, and then he has room for the dessert because he was getting frustrated that he wouldn’t order too much food for his main dish and not have room for dessert. And so he plans around dessert. And whenever somebody asks, he says, Oh, it is my culture. And he’s from Merida, Mexico. And his wife, this American, always says, I’ve lived in Merida. No one else in your culture does this. And he’s I didn’t say it was anyone else’s culture. I said it was my culture.

Claire Uncapher 17:30
For people like if we’re talking about the word for people like me that hear mindfulness and when I was first learning all this stuff, I went and got a workbook and a book on mindfulness. Oh my gosh. Don’t give me something to do. I have enough to do. I think it was Janice talking about time or Catherine, but do you have time to tune in to what feels good and what doesn’t? And, really, it’s as simple and as complicated as that. The most successful people in business that I know unapologetically do and make decisions and have guests on that feel good to them. And if it doesn’t feel good, they feel like they have permission to just be like, no. Thank you. And that is an extreme example of following how it feels and staying in that inspired space.

Catherine Altman Morgan 18:21
So, Jess, here’s the pro tip. We’ll call mindfulness the ultimate productivity hack, and then everybody will think they have to do it. I like it.

Dr. Janice Campbell 18:29
I like it.

Jess Dewell 18:31
I like it.

Dr. Janice Campbell 18:32
Also, too, the piece about that, the ultimate productivity hack, is that it’s quick and it’s actually doesn’t have to take a lot of time. Sometimes I think people hear mindfulness or self care or any of these buzzwords. They think I need special clothes, I have to clear a place in my office to be able to sit on a meditation mat, I’ve got to put on special music. I’ve gotta put a sign on my door. I gotta I have to justify why I’m, I’m late to that meeting. I it doesn’t take long.

Announcer 19:03
If you are ready to make a real impact in your business, and you’ve waited too long to take action, go to RedDirection.Com and click on Solutions to find out how.

Jess Dewell 19:15
I actually am just now in an office space for the first time in many years in leaving my house to go to work. And at first, I felt guilty. And I couldn’t figure out why I was feeling guilty. And then it turns out that need for a physical space that when people come in they know it’s mine. It’s the space I am holding which takes energy and it has its own boundary and it has its own purpose and work that occurs in it that doesn’t get snacks brought in, that doesn’t get the sound of the washer and dryer in there, or people making their tea and having breakfast, all of that. And I missed it. And in fact, I actually didn’t miss it. I felt guilty because it wasn’t around. And once I let go of that to because Catherine talked about this at the very beginning, the physical space matters. I was more productive in the first two months of being here than I had been in the last 12 not being here. And so we until we take that action, which is big and scary and risky and time-consuming to move stuff, it still is it’s an amaze, it’s amazing what comes through. And then Claire, you were talking about laughing, taking a break just to laugh. And I’m all I, I am definitely against social media from doom scrolling, but when I only have 5 minutes and I can set a timer and I can my goal is to find something to make me laugh, it’s not doomscrolling anymore. It’s actually something fun and useful. And then that whole concept of what if I just sat here a minute? And my minute feels, when we’re not doing anything, feels like a 1,000,000 years. And how crazy is it that it only feels that way when we don’t give ourselves permission anymore to be in that space in because we never have any. They’re always eluding us. And it’s very interesting. So that was some of the stuff that was coming up for me around space when I was listening to all of you from that little thing I just did. What’s coming up for you?

Claire Uncapher 21:14
I just thought about what Janice said about she talks so much about being in your body. And for me, a lot of what I do is trying to keep people in their bodies because they just bounce right back out of them. Someone may want to to incorporate some of these ideas and practices, but they really it’s being in their body is such a foreign concept to them and so uncomfortable to them. It’s not accessible, I think. What do you think, Janice?

Dr. Janice Campbell 21:41
Whether it’s in my treatment room as an acupuncturist or when I’m working with somebody online or in large groups, I’m bringing people back into their body so that they can be completely there and time can move however time needs to move for them.

Claire Uncapher 21:57
But people aren’t comfortable staying there.

Dr. Janice Campbell 22:01
What I often will do is give people specific parts of their body to try to feel without touching it. If they’re used to spending so much time in their head and their shoulders and their hands, they forget about the rest of it. I’ll perhaps say, spend an entire minute feeling the insides of your elbows without touching them. Or feeling the backs of your knees or this or another big one that I do is locating the space between your fingers because a lot of people are associated with their hands. But don’t do this, don’t close your fingers up and cheat. Just let your fingers be separated and lay them on the table and find the spaces between your fingers. That’s the beginning of a practice of allowing them to get back into their body and find that space. The other thing that came up when you were talking, Jess, is I still have a drafting table and I draw a great bit. But years ago in a space that I had, I have lots of things that inspire me, images and thoughts and words and whatever. And I would have them all on the wall around in front of my table would face the wall and I would have them all in the framing and all of that. But I would always have a big white space in the middle. And the big white space in the middle was where I imagined thing. And where I saw this stuff might come in. These other illustrators I love, quotes from people, but the white space in the middle was where I could see what I was thinking of.

Jess Dewell 23:33
Janice, you were my sib from another crib because I do something very similar. I’ve never met anybody else that does that.

Catherine Altman Morgan 23:43
Okay. Speaking of whiteboards, I have to share this. Some of you I think Janice mentioned getting your great ideas in the shower. Somebody did. A lot of people say that. Yeah. I get my best ideas when I’m on a walk or I’m in the car or I’m in the shower. Why? Because you’re not thinking. Sitting here looking at the flashing cursor is not going to get you your best thoughts. You’re better off going for a walk around the block. But a colleague of mine says she actually bought a whiteboard and put it in her shower with erase markers because she did consistently get her best ideas in the shower, and she said it was one of the best things she did.

Dr. Janice Campbell 24:22
I actually know somebody also who’s who works at home, and she will get dressed and leave and walk, like, 2 around 2 blocks worth to walk home after work. And she will also do that to walk to work, and it creates that bookend of now I’m at work, now I’m not at work. I love that. I love that kind of thing.

Jess Dewell 24:43
If I took just one minute every day, how long would it be before ideas started to just come from me? Come to me. Because I’m thinking about the people who are not us, who might be listening, who are a little coming back to that trust. I’m not sure I can trust this more even more than myself. Can I even trust that this is possible?

Claire Uncapher 25:05
I would just start telling myself every day, good ideas come to me easily. And as long as you believe that, then it becomes true. I started saying, everything is always working out for me. Everything is always working out for me. I completely trust it. If I had gotten a GI bug before this recording and I would believe it was everything’s working out for me. It wouldn’t be bum luck. And when I started saying that, and that took 5 seconds, I don’t know, And starting to adapt that attitude, things started feeling, Wow, I am like the luckiest person in the world. Things always work out for me. Even if it’s like something that wouldn’t seem like it would work out, I just trust it in ways I don’t need to understand that it is. And so I would challenge your listeners to say the phrase, good ideas come to me easily, and see how that feels. Is there a yeah, but? Because then that needs to be addressed. But if it feels good to them and they start walking around saying it, then all of a sudden good ideas are gonna come to them easily because our beliefs have to be true.

Catherine Altman Morgan 26:18
Let me here’s some ideas for your more analytical types. What if you engaged your curiosity and ran an experiment? So you had some data. For a week, you’re going to spend you’re going to set a timer. You’re going to sit there and do literally nothing but stare at the wall or nothing and breathe for 2 minutes. You have 2 minutes. Nobody can say that they’re so busy that they can’t set a 2-minute timer and do it. And see if after a week you don’t feel any different. I think a lot of the problems with mindfulness is people think that they’re gonna get their mind to be completely still and Zen rock garden. Minds don’t do that. They chatter. But like Janice said, kiss the idea on the head and let it go, or the Buddhist say, let the cloud pass through. And you’re I think people have unrealistic expectations of what mindfulness is. But if you got them to try it, run an experiment, calendar it from 2 to 2:05 or 2 to 2:03. I’m gonna sit here and do nothing. And then see if that space brings you any personal ease, personal calm, grace with yourself, grace with your coworkers, grace with your kids, grace with your partner. See if it you didn’t crack the door open for something that maybe you should then fully open the door for.

Dr. Janice Campbell 27:38
For people who pre-disaster things, which, by the way Good that you I have I have some experience with that previously in my life.

Jess Dewell 27:45
I’m married.

Dr. Janice Campbell 27:48
So, so, okay. For those who pre-disaster thing and have to be wildly prepared for stuff, one of the most freeing things that I ever did was realize at a very low point and a variety of things were flying around the room in my life. I thought, okay, if for some bizarre reason I lose my license and we lose the house and I lose my reputation and my husband doesn’t have a job, And I thought of all the horrible things that could possibly happen. Right? And we end up in a cardboard box living somewhere in under under the bypass. Would, A, at that point, my 3-year-old, would he still get up, throw his arms around me and say, Good morning? Yeah. B, would one of my friends, at least one of them, show up and bring me a cup of tea? Absolutely. Okay. I can live in a cardboard box if I have the company of my husband and my son and somebody brings me a cup of tea. I can figure this out after that. And then once I’d pre-disaster it all down to everything going down in a hand-basket, then I was like, alright. I have a potential that actually would free me up to have more possibilities of choices after that because I wouldn’t have to worry about mortgages or Reddit or whatever. And then suddenly I was like, so why am I not operating that way now? And it gave me a what it just lightened my load knowing that I’d already carried it out to the logical conclusion, figured out what I’d do if that happens, and now I can move on with other things.

Claire Uncapher 29:26
I love that. I’ve done that too. And I call we’re talking about our husbands. I call money monopoly money. My husband will say, oh, the he owns a business and he’s the ace HVAC went out. And I’m like, and he’s and it’s gonna be this many 1,000 of dollars. I’m like, it’s just monopoly money. Like and it comes in, it goes out. It comes in, it goes out. And I know that sounds a little crazy, but I feel better when I view it like that because it really like, Janice said, we’d be okay. We figure it out. I, I’m not gonna get all crazy about it in this moment.

Dr. Janice Campbell 30:04
And that brings up my favorite quote about money ever, which is from Hello, Dolly, which is money is like manure. It is not worth a damn thing unless it is spread around encouraging young things to grow.

Claire Uncapher 30:14
Love it.

Announcer 30:16
Hey. Did you know, of those of us with a plan, 10 percent just have an idea, 75 percent have written but don’t use their plan, and 15 percent successfully achieve what is in their plan. Know exactly where you are and what is the necessary work to get where you want to go with a growth mindset reset. This is dedicated time to evaluate exactly where your business is, where you want it to go, and the trajectory you are currently on. Go to RedDirection.com/solutions to get started.

Jess Dewell 30:50
This is really interesting because here’s the deal. All of the people that I know that have consistently good ideas, all of the people that I know that have had 1 or 2 or more exits that are successful in their business and allowed for adjustment pivot something brand new to occur, all of the people who you look at and see out there, wow, they just must be naturally gifted at that. Maybe true. Without this without the elasticity of time, would definitely not be true. And so I know that it’s been proven wrong. Right? The 10,000 hours was the big thing a while ago. Still comes up occasionally, and it’s more about that hones the skill, but it doesn’t create the space with which to think laterally in a way. And what I’m hearing us talk about today when it comes to innovation, when it comes to what ease and from a place of ease possibility can exist is that. It’s that not and monopoly money. It is what it is.

Claire Uncapher 32:06
It works for me.

Jess Dewell 32:08
I’m using monopoly money because it’s easy to remember but I think we all have those things. Right? It is what it is. I just didn’t talk about it. I had a really high floor so I didn’t balance a check once it when there’s this thing called the checkbook and you had to do math. What? No. Just make that balance high. No problem. So whatever and that this is actually another point. I’m as each of you are speaking, I think I’m learning a little bit about you. Do you lead with a place with which structure is important with which to develop and bounce ideas so that they can ensure to bounce back? Is it action so that we have the results and the data? Is it a pause? Because then we don’t know what’s gonna show up. And I know I’m the last one because people think that I’m always like, there’s just silence or the phone drops, or they think I’ve frozen on a screen, or my family’s like, why don’t you know the answer to this yet? And I’m just remember I’m a slow-loading web page. That’s… I truly need 10 seconds to be thoughtful. And it’s not because I’m not expecting anything else but I will tell you that is it. I’m almost 46. I think I decided to embrace that 2 years ago. It took me well into my forties to acknowledge that is actually a strength.

Claire Uncapher 33:34
What are you doing? Are you feeling it out? Are you thinking it? And what are you doing in those?

Jess Dewell 33:39
I don’t think no. In those moments, I’m not I liter it’s literally a pause of, is there something here? How do I actually feel about that? That’s really it. How do I feel about this? And then I’ll know what question it’s asked, and it creates awkward silence. And I actually think awkward silence comes from those of us who are willing to take the pause and just experience for a minute one way versus those who make them and hold them. Because that’s also a good strategy. Don’t get me wrong about that. I, I’m all about the awkward pause when we can do that all day long, but I just I come by that naturally. And when I embraced it, it totally changed how I felt about myself because I never felt like I was catching up to everybody else. I was like, oh, no. This is the way that I do it to add value here.

Dr. Janice Campbell 34:20
I actually have a cheat for that because I do that too.

Jess Dewell 34:23
Do you?

Dr. Janice Campbell 34:23
I pause.

Jess Dewell 34:24
I’m ready.

Dr. Janice Campbell 34:25
But but I do have a cheat for the people that can’t handle that. [Oh, okay.] And that is I’ll say, how do I say…? And then I’ll come back and say it.

Claire Uncapher 34:36
Oh, how do I say?

Dr. Janice Campbell 34:38
How do I say? Oh. And they know that I’m looking. They know that I’m…

Claire Uncapher 34:42
And, they’re looking how do you say?

Dr. Janice Campbell 34:44
But it gives them a minute of that gives them something to hold on to while I’m off rifling through the files or waiting for something to float up or…

Jess Dewell 34:53
I like that.

Dr. Janice Campbell 34:56
I don’t use it all the time, but every once in a while when I know somebody’s just not going to be able to handle me, me wandering off and appearing to did you leave? Were you distracted? Am I boring you? Like, I was like like, how do I say hello?

Jess Dewell 35:08
So when you show up, are there times when talking keeping this theme of time being elastic? I’ll take it in the moment even if it seems weird, and I’ve embraced that after many years of trying to hide it or work around it or think it was a weakness. Are there traits that you have done that with that the processes that we’ve been talking about? Changing, getting in our bodies more, changing location, willing to run experiments that help you embrace something that’s actually truly a strength of yours that was before not seen that way, that this concept of space and energy elasticity of time has attributed and, and helped you with?

Catherine Altman Morgan 35:54
I take it into the corporate setting. So if you want this to work within a business situation, once again, you would have to set up a space and some support structures to support creativity and innovation because some ideas may not have been tried before. Some ideas might fail. Some ideas might be brilliant, but you’d have to give people a space to share them where they would be welcomed and not shut down. And you would have to give them permission to try things that may or may not work and to let that be okay and not have them worry that their paycheck’s gonna go away if they try something and it fails. So in order to take the benefits of mindfulness and the creativity that, in my experience, it does bring into the workplace. You would have to set up the workplace culture and maybe even have innovation hubs within the organization to capitalize on these ideas.

Claire Uncapher 37:07
Janice, then Jess, I have a similar thing I do, but I say I need to sit with that. I need to sit with that. And even if I think it’s a really good idea, I’m like, I’ve learned. Let me just sit with that for a little bit to make sure it still feels good when I’m outside of this group energy. So Catherine’s talking about, like, a boardroom type situation or a business meeting situation, making it part of the culture to okay. Let’s sit with that. And then everybody’s minds, what we don’t really want in the minds, but they will go to work a little bit and be like, oh, I didn’t think about this and or that doesn’t quite feel right. So I, I don’t have that pause where before the response. I just know that I’m going to have to take the idea, go away from the group, let it run over a few times in my body, in my mind, in my heart, in my nervous system, and then I’ll know.

Jess Dewell 37:57
All of these things take vulnerability, which is why I wanted to pause a minute. Because when we trust ourselves, that’s a place of big, somebody told me I wasn’t right, and maybe I, and I chose to believe them at the time for whatever reason. And so learning that trust is important, but also then being able to go, now I can actually show this to other people. That’s a whole other ball game. So tying back to what Catherine was saying about safety. Can we even be in a space with which somebody could say, I let me take that and sit with that. Or share an off-the-wall idea because it was something that came up to them in a moment. And that’s actually something that I know when I think about, when I think about business, when I think about mindfulness to the points that we’ve been talking about it, mindfulness is for life, not just for self care is what my big takeaway is from this conversation, that it opens up all kinds of doors.

Dr. Janice Campbell 38:54
You asked what was the thing that was previously considered a disadvantage of the way we operate versus being an asset. Mine is less about the ability to take time and more about being able to think about 15 things at once and being able to draw lines between things that are not normally associated with each other. For a long time, I would have the effect of people like, Janice has gone on a tangent. She’ll either be back or she won’t. Should we pay attention or shall we start having another conversation? It’ll be here while we’re at a little bit. But I cultivated it over time to become, stick with me because you’ll like the ride. So here, this is how this is going to fit together, and we’re gonna get to some place in a much more interesting way than before. But then in talking about it in a company or corporate setting, I think also setting up a place where people are where you’re willing to run pilots or theoretical pilots of crazy ideas. See how I’m doing it. I love Simon Sinek the next thing that he talks about when he worked, the difference between working with business groups and working with the military. And he says that working with business groups, people will do a presentation to get feedback before a major showing it to the whole world. And people will tell them all the things they like about it. And then they’ll go away with so a few things to tweak, maybe some typos, not a lot of not a lot of juice. But in the military, they’ll share the presentation and then they’ll say knives out or swords out. And then the people will actually go in and comment on all the stuff that needs to be taken away or changed to allow what’s valuable to stay in play. That requires some of that vulnerability that you’re talking about, Jess. But what I would add to that process, which I think is wildly invaluable or about wildly valuable, is I would start with a what if scenario first. What if this were true? What if it ran like this? What would happen? What where does that go? Where does that everybody, where do you see that taking us? Where do you see this flowing into the next thing? And then say, okay, we figured out that it’ll go to one of these 16 places. Which of those 16 places do we like? And now knives out. How do we smooth that run to the place that we want to go? And it’s like I used to say, people would say to me, my first career I was a theatrical stage manager and then I was also the director of clinical education at a big master’s and doctoral level university for a while. And people love the fact that I could do these gorgeous color-coded charts and diagrams and flow sheet like flow sheets and whatnot for people. And I said, yeah, but what you don’t understand is that I’m not creating them for the sake of the control of creating them. What I’m creating is a really smooth marble run with a lot of options. And what I want to be able to do is put the marble at the top, go outside, have fun, eat a good lunch, read a book, play some music, come back and find the marble at the bottom. So structure becomes a means by which to direct flow rather than an end in itself. Alright. I just added a bunch of things together at once, which may or may not have made Ask if they didn’t.

Jess Dewell 42:18
I cannot speak for Claire or Catherine, but I will tell you. I was like, oh, this is so great.

Dr. Janice Campbell 42:23
That’s my, What about these three things all going to need?

Jess Dewell 42:26
Uh-huh. Yeah. There are so many things that we have just only scratched the surface on today. One of the things that I’m excited most about our panel discussion is that we have demonstrated moments of time where we’re sharing how our view of the world might actually be seen by some people as a weakness, yet it is our strength and it got us to where we are today, which allows us to have a strong foundation to go forward. One of the things I find out a lot in the organizations that I’m working with is that this concept of mindfulness as self care is interesting. Expanding that definition is interesting because in the end, when we don’t trust ourselves or ideas, that becomes something that will hold us back. And that’s actually what every single growth plateau of every single organization that I have ever been in comes down to. Somewhere along the way, we forgot to trust ourselves and think that our the our ideas are good or they come up with some of something else. And I think I might now be ready to go into this bold question because there’s been just enough time to recalibrate what we were talking about in this new form that we co-created in the moment, wildly present. And Catherine, what makes it bold? What makes it bold to expand our definition of mindfulness for creativity and business and to be wildly present?

Catherine Altman Morgan 43:58
Mindfulness, presence, discernment, and prioritization might be the key skills for success in a professional environment. Just doing to do, are you doing the right things? You won’t know that unless you stop. And you say, is this the right thing? If you need to make a change in your business and you don’t stop to be present and think, what could happen? What can I leverage from something else? How can we innovate? What are our clients telling us? You need to stop and be present and be mindful, whatever you wanna call it, in order to ensure that you and your organization are doing the right things for your business.

Jess Dewell 44:54
Claire, what makes it bold to expand our definition of mindfulness to be wildly present?

Claire Uncapher 45:01
It makes it bold because it’s against the grain. It’s not the usual advice we get, and we want to grow businesses. We wanna expand businesses, but we also wanna be happier. We wanna be happier. And if you even touch on the mental health issues in business, I left a corporate job because I was so unhappy. I simply I told my husband I would rather stab my eyes out than show up again. We talked about self care, but I use self care simply as a tool to return me to a better feeling state, to presence, to mindfulness. That’s my cue to push back from the computer and go walk outside for 10 minutes and come back and let it go and take a deep breath and then start back from a completely different place. And it’s just not that’s not awarded. It’s really not that’s not high productivity. That’s not I came from high productivity. What are the outcomes? Nobody every says take a walk, sit with it, or are you happy? I managed 41 people. When I went to my director, my boss, I managed 41 people. When I went to my director, my boss, and I said, something’s not right. I said, for me to be able to do this job, losing compassion for the people that work under me, and I know that’s not acceptable in my position. And she said, you don’t think there’s days I wanna quit? Go back to work.

Jess Dewell 46:35
Janice, what makes it bold? What makes it bold to expand our definition of mindfulness to be wildly present?

Dr. Janice Campbell 46:42
Because it allows us to hear other people’s ideas. And it allows us to take ideas from any quarter, whether it’s our own Magic 8 Ball or if it’s having a conversation with the person who delivers the mail and hearing what they have to say about it in passing and running with it and giving them credit for it. It allows us to be secure in ourselves and our ideas and feed them into the soup of the conversation along with everybody else’s in a way that allows everybody to have buy-in and belonging and curiosity and interest in what they’re doing again.

Announcer 47:30
Jess hosts the Bold Business Podcast to provide insights for building a resilient, profitable business by deeply understanding your growth strategy, ensuring market relevance, and your company’s future. It is Bold to deeply understand your growth strategy with your host, Jess Dewell. Get more information about how to drive solutions and reset your growth mindset at RedDirection.com. Thank you for joining us, and special thanks to our post production team at The Scott Treatment.