With Patrick Williams, a Business Innovation and Creativity Expert, founder and CEO of Satori Innovation, TedX speaker and award winning artist. Join us for this fascinating and fun conversation on the role of creativity in our lives, including how we nurture it, how we can be severed or separated from our creativity, and the importance of creativity for a fully expressed life. We discuss the importance of creativity in business, and what it takes to foster creativity as a practice, and one that we can embrace and utilize to enhance numerous aspects of our lives. This is one of my very favorite topics yet! Please join us to learn more about how you can explore the role creativity plays or COULD play in your life. You’ll love Patrick and his profound insights on this topic.

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Biggest takeaways (or quotes) you don’t want to miss:

• “The things you are reading, listening to, the conversations you are having… all of those are necessary parts of your creative process.” 

• “Innovation doesn’t exist without creativity.”

• “You have permission to be creative”.

• The essence of creativity is not an object. 

Check out these highlights:

6:12 Why people are stuck inside their creative process.

11:48 Where do people get stuck in their creativity?

12:44 What is “creative colonization”?

17:35 “Creativity is a personal expression of self, when you get negative feedback it feels like that is being reflected on you and not the work.” 

27:00 People feel like they don’t have permission to be creative. 

28:50 Why we need to be gentle with ourselves. 

32:00 How do we utilize creativity to serve entrepreneurs?

32:30 What are the two kinds of practices?

35:30 The importance of journaling. 

38:40 How our intuition tells us the right way to go. 

43:00 Why taking 15 minutes in the morning to not do anything is beneficial.

50:00 The magic of putting things down on paper from our hearts and allowing things to happen. 

52:00 What trips up entrepreneurs. 

59:00 Practice is so important to have a foundation. 

63:00 The path of personal development and business are heavily intertwined. 

How to get in touch with Patrick:

On social media:

https://www.instagram.com/pmwcreativity/

https://www.instagram.com/pmw_camera/

FREE GIFTS FOR LISTENERS:

Get 10% off consulting, mentoring, speaking or workshops. Just mention this episode of Guts, Grit and Great Business.

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Patrick Williams is a passionate and inspiring public speaker, consultant, writer, artist, independent scholar, and visionary educator.  Patrick has 0ver 4 decades of experience teaching and facilitating deep learning to a wide range of audiences. He is a TEDx speaker and an award winning artist.  Patrick has exhibited throughout the USA, Japan, and China. His art is in public and private collections. He has been represented by galleries in Chicago, Seattle, Omaha, and Albuquerque.  Patrick holds black belts in Karate-Dō and Aikidō with decades of experience training and teaching Budō.  Patrick’s comprehension, experience, expertise, and synthesis of creativity and innovation is unparalleled.  Patrick is the founder and CEO of Satori Innovation: A Consulting and Ideation Accelerator.

Find more about Patrick here:

www.satoriinnovation.com

TEDx Talk Creativity: Lost and Found 

Imperfect Show Notes

We are happy to offer these imperfect show notes to make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who prefer reading over listening. While we would love to offer more polished show notes, we are currently offering an automated transcription (which likely includes errors, but hopefully will still deliver great value), below.

GGGB Intro  00:00

Coming up today on Guts, Grit and Great Business. 

Patrick Williams  00:04

The practice and having the practice flow through your daily routines is the foundation that creativity emerges from. So the things that you’re reading the things that you’re listening to the the conversations that you’re having, the experiences that you’re having with your family or your friends, all of those are necessary parts of, of your creative process.

GGGB Intro  00:35

The adventure of entrepreneurship and building a life and business you love, preferably at the same time is not for the faint of heart. That’s why Heather Pearce Campbell is bringing you a dose of guts, grit, and great business stories that will inspire and motivate you to create what you want in your business and life. Welcome to the Guts, Grit and Great Business podcast where endurance is required. Now, here’s your host, The Legal Website Warrior®, Heather Pearce Campbell.

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:02

Patrick, welcome. I am Heather Pearce Campbell, The Legal Website Warrior®. I’m an attorney and legal coach based here in Seattle, Washington. Welcome to another episode of guts, grit and great business. I am super excited about the conversation today. It’s on one of my favorite topics. And we have got an expert with us on that topic, which is creativity. And we have Patrick welcome, Patrick. Hello. So grateful to have you here. So we have got Patrick Williams, who is the founder of Satori, innovation. So how you say it? Yes. And Satori innovation is an ideation accelerator, collaborating with clients to bring forth their unique innovative vision, expertise and skills. Patrick himself is a passionate and inspiring public speaker, consultant, writer, artist, independent scholar and visionary educator. Patrick has over four decades of experience teaching and facilitating deep learning to a wide range of audiences. He’s a TEDx speaker, and an award winning artist. He is exhibited throughout the USA, Japan and China. Patrick’s art is in public and private collections. He has been represented by galleries in Chicago, Seattle, here in my home base, and then Omaha and Albuquerque. Patrick holds black belts in karate, judo, and Aikido, with decades of experience training and teaching Budo. So you’re gonna have to tell me about all those things, because I don’t even know if I’m saying them the right way. Patrick’s comprehension, experience, expertise and synthesis of creativity, and innovation is unparalleled. He is the founder and CEO, like I said, of Satori, innovation, consulting and ideation accelerator. So Patrick, you and I connected through LinkedIn, which is one of my favorite places to connect. And I think you had reached out after listening to my episode on intuition, intuition. Yes, yeah, absolutely. And so we had a great conversation about your work and about creativity in general. So happy to have you here today.

Patrick Williams  03:24

It’s great to be here.

Heather Pearce Campbell  03:25

Thank you. Absolutely. So for people that don’t know you and aren’t familiar with your work, why? Why creativity? Why is your heart like, you know, you obviously have lived a mission of bringing creativity to the world talking about it, teaching on it. I know you care deeply about it based on our first conversation, why creativity?

Patrick Williams  03:50

Well, I basically feel that everything is emerges from our creativity, or imagination, and how we think about projects or programs or innovation itself. So innovation doesn’t exist without creativity. So a few years ago, I started compiling a manuscript for educators. And that sort of grew into another manuscript, two manuscripts, one for education educators and one for business innovation. Because I realized how closely linked the some of the books, I was reading on entrepreneurs, how they they pretty much seemed like artists, you know, they put everything they had into their work. They stayed up late, they didn’t eat well.

Heather Pearce Campbell  04:46

They were preaching to the choir right now.

Patrick Williams  04:50

Oh, yes. So I thought, okay, if, if they’re that if they have that mindset to begin with, then and It seemed like many people were having challenges with innovation. And I started thinking about innovation a lot and started reading about it. And there’s a tremendous amount of people out there who have the, the, the basic foundations of how you innovate your business, right. So, you know, all the little parts that they they’ve identified. But the part that I think, and I feel like I really know that they were having the most problem with was actually coming up with the ideas. So coming up with the ideas, the big idea, the new idea, whatever it might be, is focused totally in creativity. So I’m not, I’m not an expert at all the little parts that go after that, but I know about creativity. And I started to realize that, essentially, people are for a variety of reasons, people are stuck inside of their creative process where they last left off with it, hmm. And usually that is around age 678, sometimes less, sometimes more. So wherever they left off, they’re still there, they can’t go any further because everything stopped at, let’s say, it’s age seven. So my work involves assisting them finding that place where they can reconnect with their natural creativity, because we have it inside of us, every single person has it no matter what, no matter who you are, no matter what you do, you have that young self that was super creative, always inside of you. So I realized that, okay, I simply need not that this is easy, but I simply need to assist people in reconnecting with their youngest self, but also reconnecting with the part of their adult self, that is able to be you know, in an understanding of how to get to their creativity now. So as a seven year old, you might have been super into who knows, a make believe that’s connected to some cartoon or, or playing with mud and, and such things. But that could be useful to to spark an adult’s connection. But I’m focused on on things that that people are actually connected to, but they don’t necessarily understand how connected they are to it. 

Patrick Williams  07:56

For example, if someone is passionate about music, then you can start to use music, let’s say just recently, I’ve, I’ve really gotten into Bach. And so I’ve been checking out Bach albums and, and learning about him. And so that’s adding to my overall sense of creativity. So just just the beauty of his music is, is adding an energy to the foundation of how I connect to whatever project I’m working on now. Yeah, so with a person, let’s say this person X, is interested in innovation and trying to start to be creative. So and they are also interested in Bach, and I say, Okay, how about if you play Bach, a couple of times during the day for an hour, at least, couple that with a journaling session. So right off the bat, journal and playback and just allow time to just sit there with the music, not triple tasking or quadruple tasking, right? But, but allow the the experience of the music to start to inform all the the inner parts that we have, in some ways, no idea how they work, but they’re working all the time, right? The intuition that you talked about, Mm hmm. Those are happening on so many layers within ourselves on on physical layers on emotional layers, on mental layers and on you know, if if you’re interested in that in spiritual layers, also, so so we have to we I invite people to start tuning in to things that they like to do, or that they’re interested in. So, the, the music could be a very important aspect to start to invite you into your space. And and then maybe this person is also interested in photography. So I would have them every day, go out and and take at least one photo. And Instagram is a great place to post a photo per day that is focused on aesthetics that you’re looking for a, a beautiful photo, or an interesting photo or, or something that is going to focus your mind into that creative space. For five minutes, it might be 10 minutes, but all of those are cumulative. So five minute, five, two minutes a day even will will grow and build and build and build. So after two weeks of spending, let’s say it’s just two minutes, two weeks, so spending two minutes a day going out and looking for a photograph and taking it and then you don’t have to post it on Instagram, you can you can just collect it in your photos in an album that is just your photo of the day album. And then you’ll start to see after a couple weeks, it’s like okay, I’m I’m really seeing that I’m interested in this. And that will lead you to something up maybe 20 or 30 days worth of photographing just flowers or, or trees or whatever it might be.

Heather Pearce Campbell  11:24

Can we back up for a minute I wanted to ask you about because you mentioned a couple things, one, that we get stuck at a certain age around creativity. So I want to revisit that to this idea that creativity happens in layers, right in different layers. Absolutely. Take us back, where do you see people getting stuck? Let’s talk about the stuckness and how we evolve into adults and have this stifled creativity.

Patrick Williams  11:53

Yes. So in, in my process of thinking about the creative process, and the process of thinking about a manuscript, because then you’re you’re really in a space of like, I need to be really, I need to be clear, I need to be stating things that people can follow. So I really started focusing on why I believe people get stuck. And as I explained, when we spoke before, I’ve I’ve come up with essentially my own philosophy, so to speak, of why this happens. And I believe that I call it creative colonization, which is somewhat of an intense term. But I spent a lot of time thinking I could call it this, I could call it that. But I believe that we are our creativity that is inherent, and innate inside of us. Because when we’re every you know, even before we’re born, we’re starting to use great typically we’re listening to sounds, we’re actually seeing light change from inside the womb, there’s so much that’s going on with the in utero. And then once we’re born, it’s like full blown, creative process, we are in creativity, everything is about creativity, we’re testing things out, we’re experimenting, we’re using our imaginations, we’re putting things together voices and sounds and, and such. So as we get into school, and both, and I and I say this with total respect to education, but that we are, we are taxed with other projects, learning all right, our ABCs learning how to what our numerals are, and what arithmetic is what math is. And then eventually we start putting the letters together with forming words and, and then reading. Those are all incredibly complex, right? But little kids are like, totally into it. Right? So with the increase of, of work of schoolwork, and then there’s also work that happens responsibilities at home. And then there’s responsibilities in society. So I break it down into three areas school home and, and societal pressures so to speak. 

Patrick Williams  14:34

So the pressure is build and they they push out the creative. So children have less and less time to be creative. So at usually in the realm of age seven, sometimes it’s earlier sometimes it’s later, kids really stop in gauging their creative creativity, it may be, it may not be a 100% stop. But often it is a it is it is largely decreased. So we can see this as an example, with respect to recess in school systems. So, when I was in grade school, we had, I think we have recessed like three times a day, in the morning before school, or maybe, you know, once sometime in mid school, and then during lunch or something. So little fuzzy memories. But, but recess was a big time when kids were just, they went out and play. And we were always inventing games. So, As years passed decades, past, children had less recess time. And in some situations, there are no reason there’s no recess in school systems. So, and also within the day, there is less time that is relegated for playing with clay or drawing or whatever it might be during especially, you know, we’re talking about grade school where this the colonization happens in a big way first. And at some point, children, they may experience something that is traumatic around their creativity, it could be something when they were singing something when they were playing a musical instrument, something when they were doing movement, you know, in a dance class, could be drawing, painting, writing poetry, whatever it might be. And it may be unintentionally harsh, what a teacher might say, or one of their peers. But it’s a hard stop. It’s like, I’m not going to do that anymore. Because I don’t want to feel that. I, I felt really awful. When that happened to me, so and children have an incredible will. And sometimes when they say, I’m not going to do that anymore, it’s mean it, they made it. And it seems very interestingly powerful around the creative energies. So when a child says, I’m not going to draw anymore, it is intense.

Heather Pearce Campbell  17:23

So and I know you and I talked about this in our first conversation, I think the thing about creativity, at least this is the way that I view it. It’s such a personal expression of self, right, that when you get negative feedback about something, you know, not measuring up or not being liked by an adult. It’s, you know, it feels like that is being reflected on you not right work. Right. So I really easy to internalize that, that it’s

Patrick Williams  17:53

Absolutely. And I believe once something like that is internalized, then it, it hangs on to our psyche. So

Heather Pearce Campbell  18:05

And do you think can I ask you one other question on that? Do you think that children’s natural state is creativity? 

Patrick Williams  18:13

Absolutely. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  18:14

Like if they were just left to their own devices? Is that the place that they would be in like most of the time?

Patrick Williams  18:20

Absolutely. I’ll, I have a number of examples. But the most powerful example is the work of Peter Gray. I can’t pull up where his his work has been. And he may be retired by now a PhD in psychology. And I’m searching I’m looking up at my bookcase to see if I can see the button. But uh, he did studies he reflected on studies of, of 19th century and early 20th century work with indigenous populations that have that had very little interactions with the outside world. Mm hmm. From all over the world. And he, one of his big focus was on children and throughout the world, all indigenous cultures that were studied, the children had full on, play time. Mm hmm. When they got up, they started playing and when they went to sleep, they stopped playing. And there was there were only one restriction anywhere in the world where there was poison, used for hunting. It was kept out of the reach of children. Mm hmm. The kids could play with knives, fire, bows and arrows, all that everything was fine. They could go anywhere they wanted to. But what was interesting is that the the older children were in some ways in charge, not enough necessarily formerly in charge, but they took care of the younger children. And, and they, they played hunting and gathering, they played starting fires, they played, moving through the forest, they played all these things that were connected to what the adults do. And they I’m sure that they played games that they just made up with sticks and right, tossing them in the water or whatever. But so one of the one of the parts of his work is, is understanding how play is the source of learning that’s there. And there’s another influential PhD I’ll think of his name, but his work is on Play, and the connection to learning and there’s a chunk of my background that was in early childhood education, which is all clay, you know, you know, that the children learn through play. So like Reggio Emilia, and and there’s a lot of other philosophies of education that, that simply say, children learn through play, let them play. So in contrast to especially, you know, I’m most familiar with the US educational system, there’s been a big push over the years to go more and more into testing and academia, so to speak, which is colonizing play, in my opinion, it colonizing creativity, so So children have less and less time to play, which means in my worldview, they have less and less time, to actually in their first language of learning, which is play, to be connected to what they are learning. And I believe children, we all have a propensity to be moving in certain directions. That’s an art play often shows that show us that yes. So as an example, my wife and I were talking about it just the other day, I told a story recently of being in trouble in like first and second and third grade. And the teacher would make me go to the front of the class and sit in my desk. And all I could do was draw, I couldn’t participate what everybody else was doing. It was happening to me, I loved it. So So we find ways in which to figure out how to do the things we love. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  22:43

That’s right. That’s so interesting. You say that my son who has had his own journey, especially around creativity, he’s got an ADHD and an autism diagnosis, not a full ADHD, but they said watch him for this. And most of his symptoms now, like his behavioral stuff that causes some struggles from in school are related to ADHD type of struggles. But behaviorally with other children, he had a really difficult time with creative role play, right? So in preschool, like we were having some challenges around how he was learning and interacting with other kids. But I remember when he was two, I one day just got out all the paints, I took off his clothes, and just put a little, a little apron on one of my aprons just wrapped it around him. And he literally saying like a little bird, and was in his zone for like, two hours out. And that was unheard of. He was a very, very busy little kid. And I realized, like, it was this magical moment of watching him create. And anyways, he, it was just so beautiful. And to me, I just realized, like, so he may not be able to role play, or do things that other kids his age or do it like, he had this very creative outlet himself. And I think it looks different child to child, right, our daughter who’s three, we’re learning about her ability right now to you know, play creatively and engage in roleplay. But it’s really fun when you see them. Yes, do the thing that you can see like, oh, this could be a creative outlet for this person.

Patrick Williams  24:28

Right. That’s perfect. And that’s saying the observation that it’s different for literally for every individual child. And that’s one of the challenges for the educational system that yes, mainstream right now is that it’s a push to get most everybody doing everything at the same time at the same age and the studies with respect to reading comprehension, all point to little boys learning turning labor later.

Heather Pearce Campbell  25:02

Yes. And starting school to see me

Patrick Williams  25:05

Oh, yeah, I wasn’t ready to I didn’t really start reading until I was 10 or 11 on a enthusiastic level, you know, I could I could read, probably not at my grade level. But once I, once I hit that moment, I have been insatiable in reading ever since. Right. So. And it’s so the, your example of finding these modalities, you know, whatever it might be, that the child shows enthusiasm. And, and to be aware that it could change, right? Just like that. Right. And the challenge for parents is to like, Okay, what how, what, what’s next? Yeah, and to be using your creative, your imagination, your awareness of their all of their little clues on what is interesting to them? What’s what’s catching them their attention? What’s, how do you see their imagination, really lighting up? And right now, that’s what I’m, I’m envisioning to do with clients is, is in through conversations, hearing the clues and the little tidbits of things that they’re interested in, and that they’re curious about, and, and then following that, because literally, that’s, that’s what children do. That’s what we all did when we’re kids. And that’s what artists do.

Heather Pearce Campbell  26:46

You think the missing piece with adults is the permission part, the just giving themselves permission, right?

Patrick Williams  26:54

Big super. Because there’s, I’ve heard it from so many people, that they feel like they don’t have permission to do something like that. It, it feels so on one hand, it feels so frivolous, or meaningless, or, or terms that they may have heard when they’re what I call, the creative collapse happens. And they say, No more. And then people are basically what you’re describing is what I call the creative void. They’re in that space where they, they haven’t gained that inner permission. And in some respects, I’m, I feel confident to say to people, you have permission to be creative. Because people trust me, they know, they can see that, oh, you know, Patrick, he is creative, and he knows how to be creative. So and he seems to be someone who really knows a lot about it. So getting having permission from him. Makes sense.

Heather Pearce Campbell  27:56

So seems like a real permission. Yeah. 

27:58

And if it helps, that’s awesome. But, but that conversation internally is so important to say, you know, what, I really want to do some poetry. And oh, I want to paint or I want to play the piano. I used to I took lessons for 10 years. And I know I can do that some more. And, and, and one of the things that are so important for adults is, is scale. Hmm, is there’s so much Oh, I can’t paint like Michelangelo, right? I can’t play music like Mozart.

Heather Pearce Campbell  28:39

Playing looks like a five year olds drawing. Right.

Patrick Williams  28:42

Right. Which actually is a compliment in some ways, right? So Right? Yeah. So we we need to be gentle with ourselves. And not evaluating is fine but but being severe in our judgment is unnecessary. Especially when it’s when it’s just for ourselves, making making art, whatever it might be, is something that is even for me at times there are things that people have never seen that I’ve gotten rid of where I I burned or whatever gone through, you know, a ceremony to get rid of it. So there there are there are times when it’s great to share and and someone after a little while, they may say yeah, I want to share it with my, my significant other or my children or my friends or whatever. But that’s not necessarily what the point of it what the point of it is the point of it, and it might not be when I’m teaching, folks now, I’m not. I’m not wanting or not teaching them how to make art. Mm hmm. Using the arts isn’t easy way for people to understand that they’re connecting with their creativity,

Heather Pearce Campbell  30:05

that creativity process. 

Patrick Williams  30:06

Yeah. So it’s just as important for me to have people go on walks or, or pay attention to the kinds of conversations they’re having, and how they’re, if they’re pushing the conversation in a certain direction, or if they’re, like we’re having now where we’re exploring a lot of different ideas. But there’s, there’s no, there’s, there’s a direction, of course, but But it’s, it’s open and through open conversation, because I’m saying things now that I’ve never said before. And so I’m learning through this process of putting words together. Like, that’s a great way to say that, I’ll remember that. So the, the essence of creativity is is not necessarily an object, or a, a, a product, or a, a, a Ay, ay widget, even if you’re wanting

Heather Pearce Campbell  31:18

that outcome. Yeah, right. To me, I see it as, as the process or the experience, or I mean, there’s various ways that in my mind, I would want to describe it. But in some ways, it’s just the gift of time to explore. Right? It’s really about getting back to that sense of wonder and exploring which we I think we had loads of as Chapter

Patrick Williams  31:42

We, that’s what we did when we were children. Yeah. So So that’s part of what really gets in the way of business innovation, is that they’re totally focused on the widget.

Heather Pearce Campbell  32:00

I’m so glad you raised this because I wanted to say, in entrepreneurship, how do we utilize this conversation in this topic to serve entrepreneurs who could use creativity, right to really support their business, their process, their, their fulfillment? Or their joy and their work?

Patrick Williams  32:21

Exactly. So my focus is on teaching processes, and practices and practices. There are two kinds of practices, there’s practices with a lowercase p. Yeah. And then there’s practices with high capital P. Oh, I love that. So a, we, you mentioned Budo, and karate and Aikido so Budo is martial ways. And it’s a Japanese word, meaning martial ways, as opposed to bujutsu which is martial arts. So, technically, martial arts are what people do who are in a military. Mm hmm. And they’re learning to, to fight and to attack and to defend and doing all those martial ways or what happened in Japan when the military arts became basically illegal. And they, they became something that you just practice for bettering yourself as a human being. So Marshall, Marshall ways Budo. And, you know, we, we, we interchange martial arts and, and hardly anybody talks about it this way. Yeah. So, but it’s very specific. Budo is a is about making yourself a better person, as you’re learning these different hand to hand arts, either Aikido or, or judo, or karate, judo, or, or there’s just a lot of Japanese arts and other arts in China that teach how to be a better person through the practice the capital P practice of martial arts, okay. So, in my work, a capital P practice is journaling as an exam. So, not journaling, not having a journal. And every once in a while, you know, you’ve picked it up and you write a couple lines. And then I used to do that years ago. 40 years ago, I had a whole bunch of notebooks that I straw ideas in, but there wasn’t any coherence. Mm hmm. 20 years ago, when, through my my wife, when we first met, she introduced me to journaling. I’ve kept a journal daily journal ever since. And, and that becomes a capital P practice. It’s a practice that I do every single day. I, of course I miss a day, every once in a while we just traveled to see family. And the day we left, I didn’t journal that morning, but I journaled later in the evening. So, so you know, you can, there’s always flexibility, but the capital P practice means that you are writing every single day about something and you need to write, you can’t just write a page, you need to write a couple pages. And it needs to be with a pen and paper with you. Not, you know, I mean, making notes on your computer is fine, or on your phone or on your, whatever device, I do that sometimes that’s fine. But, but this is a practice, this is like meditation. That’s right, this, this is a time for you only. And I cannot tell you the benefits that I have experienced from journaling, just getting my ideas down is amazing. Because they used to have to be just stacked in my mind. And, and of course, I would forget things. So it’s, it’s a place for so many different things to happen. You’re keeping track of events that are personal letter, family, whatever, you’re keeping track of business experiences, I’ll read about you and I’s conversation. In the morning, tomorrow morning, I wrote about getting ready for it this morning. Hmm. 

Patrick Williams  36:31

Then there’s the the historical aspect of it. So when I’m teaching people about journaling, I’m teaching them you start journaling. And after you filled two or three journals, you can go back to let’s say, you know, you’ve you’ve filled three journals in a year, you can go back to January and start looking through them and see how you were thinking about your widget. Using the widget as the example, I have a dream of devising this widget, and that’s my goal for my company, my startup. But the path to getting to that widget, most people think is a straight line. But it’s not, it can’t be it’s it. And if you try to make it a straight line, you’re just, you know, butting your head against the wall. Mm hmm. The creativity and, and through my, my main focus is drawing and painting, it’s never a straight line, I have ideas about things that, you know, you just, I know now how to follow the path. But when I was young, I didn’t know how to follow the path, I thought it was a straight line. So using journaling is a way to, to on a daily basis. sense what you’re thinking about, and especially what you’re feeling, because your feelings are going to get you to the widget. Also, not just your thinking, your thinking is going to do a lot of great things. But it’s how you’re feeling your your your your heart is going to guide you. It’s a it’s a it’s a it’s your sense of where the wind is. Or, or if you’re hiking and you’re not on a path that’s like, well, you have to really pay attention. You know, if you’re want to get to the top of the mountain and you keep going downhill, then something’s wrong, you know, you’re not going in the right direction. So, yeah, we have to use these guides in our heart. And our our feelings are, like you said in in your, your podcast on intuition. Our intuition tells us it is very clear about Yes, that is that is the right way to go. At least for this moment. For the next 10 days. Yes, yes, yes.

Heather Pearce Campbell  38:54

Yeah. Well, and the thing about journaling that I find so fascinating, and I for years, like I started journaling, when I was eight, my grandma gave me a large journal, you know, the big pages and I started journaling, and I ended up doing that all the way through my early 20s. Like almost as a daily practice. I probably have 30 childhood journals. That’s awesome. Yeah, it’s I need to go dig him out and look at but when my mom passed away, I stopped. And so and I and I just I don’t know what happened. It was like I was less interested in writing about stuff and more interested in like, living and being aware of time I still love and I actually need to start I would love to start a writing habit again. Because I’ve used it intermittently times in life where I’ve dug into it, but when I do it, what I find is that our heads are at least I can speak for myself a very busy place. Oh very right. And we have We have Yeah, so many ideas and things competing for time and attention in there that the act of journaling, especially a morning practice around journaling, it’s it’s like you said, it’s the compass way that you’re able to create space in your head because of what you’re able to pour out. For me, there’s just nothing that replaces that as a way to come to clarity really quickly.

Patrick Williams  40:26

Yes, I totally believe I’ve, I’m a super fan. And I, I have compiled a reference journal for my journals. So a few years ago, I started reading from the first journaling and would write down, okay, and Journal Number one, there were like 40, things that were super important. It’s like, oh, this happened, historical things. But then it’s like, oh, this idea. I hadn’t thought of that since then. It’s like, that was a great idea. So Cliff Notes. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So I’ve compiled two of those, well, I’m one foot ones fall. And then I’m working on the second reference journal. I have, I’m on like, journal 100. And I don’t know 126. So it gives me a sense of the flow of life, and how certain themes continue through my journaling, you know, in my journal on, on this one creative idea, when I was first working on the manuscript, all these ideas about creative colonization, creative collapse, and creative void and, and then the creative metamorphosis, creative tension, all these terms, and I was writing a lot. And that would inform me when I was actually sitting down at the computer, and I’d go through my journal, and it’s like, okay, that’s the idea that I want to expand on so. So journaling with a capital P is a is a practice. However, someone approaches meditation is a capital P, practice, it could be prayer, it could be just seated meditation, it could be using phrases using affirmations. But using I do breath work in the morning, as my meditative practice right now, that’s not necessarily just a seated practice, I’ve done that, you know, for years. But it’s the taking the moment, however long it is. And again, you know, we have busy lives, I understand that, but, but it’s worth carving out the time. If it, you know, and I understand that when you have little ones, it’s like, where’s, where is time? You know, time does not exist anymore. So it’s like, okay, I’ll get up just a little bit earlier, and then I’ll have the time. But even if it’s 15 minutes, which maybe to some people, they’re like, oh my god, are you kidding me? I don’t have I can’t carve out 15 minutes. Or some people will say I can do 15 minutes. Take 15 minutes, early in the morning. Do some do whatever you you sense is your first thing to try. It might be just sitting light a candle light some incense and just sit you know, you don’t have there’s no formal guidance or whatever, just take 15 minutes to not do anything. And I’m, I’m a big proponent of i Under I respect the kind of emptying our mind. And I understand from my Budo practice how important that is. But I’m more interested in allowing, having the space, let’s say this 15 minutes that you carve out having the space to allow the thoughts that want to come in. You know, there are a lot of busy thoughts, but we all know what those busy thoughts are. It’s like, oh my god, I got that thing at 10 o’clock. And I got Oh, I forgot I had that thing today. Oh, those will go on. Those are the things that just to, like,

Heather Pearce Campbell  44:23

go into your schedule or your during I mean, yeah, time journal different different in a part, I know what you’re saying different and apart from the allowing of flow and ideas and wisdom that really needs to be poured out.

Patrick Williams  44:37

Right. And, and that can be a capital P. Practice. Right?

Heather Pearce Campbell  44:42

Well, and the the concept that I love about your capital P especially as it applies to entrepreneurs, as many of us know, the tools only work if we use them. Right, right. And so whether we’re going to use creativity or anything else to support For the ideas in our business, the path forward any of our decision making, like it has to be a tool that we implement and use and whether it’s writing or you know, any kind of a morning practice I support. It’s just so I think it’s so essential for that intuition to come through that guidance to come through that allowance for like joy and more connection to our work.

Patrick Williams  45:29

Absolutely. So sorry, I want to connect that to the the core question that you asked, so. So let’s say, I’m the entrepreneur, and I have the widget, I’m going to do this, which we’re going to use, we’re going to use creativity to eventually design that widget. But I’m saying that we’re going to use the practices that are ongoing in our life experiences. So. So I think one of the issues that happen is that I have an idea that I’m going to make this widget and I’m going to be I’m going to create it. That’s, that’s starting before you’re ready to be doing that part of it. Starting now, with your, your journaling practice, starting now taking walks, which can be looked as at as meditative. You know, not necessarily having that you can you can walk with someone, but take time to just speak to just to just be quiet. And observe. So that’s a practice that you start before you’re going to invent the widget. Right? Right. So I’m, I’m trying to set this up in a way that makes sense that

Heather Pearce Campbell  47:01

Well, what I’m hearing from you, and this may, this may not be accurate, but what I’m sensing is it’s the pushing versus the allowing, write having idea and say, I’m going to do this, versus saying, you know, I’m gonna allow this idea to show up and evolve and be part of, you know, my creative process, right, versus like, forcing yourself through the paces of doing the thing.

Patrick Williams  47:26

Exactly. I have, I have a great analogy. Let’s say, you and I decide that we’re going to run a marathon. Mm hmm. We’re not going to run a marathon tomorrow. Right? So so we’re not if we want to invent our widget, we’re not gonna invent Yeah, yeah, I’m not either. We’re not gonna invent our widget tomorrow, right. So to do the marathon, we’re gonna have to train, we’re gonna have to start maybe walking for a few weeks and then running, maybe a mile for, I don’t know how long I’m not a running coach. So but we would have to build ourselves up to running a marathon. 26 miles is a long ways. So. So having having that idea of, okay, we’re going to run a marathon, we have to understand that there’s, there’s a process that has to happen. And I think in the world of innovation, people get so excited about, I get this widget that I want to invent or that I have this idea for, and they jump right into it, they jump right into the marathon, and they’re not ready for that. They’re not they don’t have the skill sets to be creative, right? They don’t, they’re there. They haven’t been journaling as a practice for a while. They haven’t been listening to Bach, for the last four months. As a practice sitting there. Let’s say it’s just 15 minutes, that’s fine. That’s it. Let’s say it’s just five minutes, five minutes, doing nothing. And listening to Bach is going to give you huge amounts of of information that you have no idea that is that’s happening, right. So and adding to that, you know, months of taking walks that are focused on X, inviting the ideas that will get you to the widget, because we can’t get the widget until we’re ready with all these practices, I believe.

Heather Pearce Campbell  49:33

Well, it’s interesting, because there’s so many like as you talk, I just have so many ideas zipping in about how what you say, actually is true across multiple scenarios. So for example, one of the practices that I do that I love it’s it’s a practice where I sit down and I do it a couple times a year generally, but I get out a big white paper, you know, like a big A big one that you would hang up on a board somewhere, they make a line down the middle. And on the left hand side, I make a big list of like, and it’s really just a way to let ideas flow and fight just kind of some fun and play with it. You know, what I would love to do create, have or be in the next, you know, few months or a year, whatever it is. And I just let like any idea that comes to my head, I just put it down, right, and some of them are kind of crazy. Yeah. And then on the other side, what I would love the universe to do for me, Mm hmm. And, yeah, and the thing that this does for me, because growing up, I was very much a type A behavior where the weight was always on my shoulders, if there was a group project or anything to be done, like, I knew I was going to be the responsible one to do it, you know. But I think it’s really important, including as entrepreneurs to understand, we don’t have to be responsible for everything, we don’t have to know and that there’s so much joy in allowing, so I love the word allow, but also accepting that we don’t have to understand the how, right so we can invite the idea in, and then allow the how to show up, right? This is the part that can evolve to actually help these ideas come to fruition, right. And oftentimes, when I’ve put ideas down on this little chart that I make, I have no idea about the hell like not even remotely, right. Right. But it’s amazing how many times that works, how many times those things come to life, just in that process of writing, expressing, saying it out loud, like just being with the idea. And I think that there’s a bit of magic, both. In the process of writing, I really, really believe there’s magic in this process of putting something out of our hearts and heads onto paper. And then just allowing what to happen next to happen, and just being a part of that flexible, open, intuitive creative process.

Patrick Williams  52:11

Right. And, and that’s you described very well, what, like I said moments ago, what, what trips up entrepreneurs, because everything has to happen now. But they don’t realize that they’re running a marathon, or they’re going to run a marathon. And they have to start training for this, they have to start training for when they they, when it’s time to access the creativity in a big way. Right. So as for myself, and you know, I don’t say this. It’s just natural. I don’t, I I set up my studio, but I don’t have to build myself up to be creative anymore. Right? I show up and it happens. And of course, it happens in different levels. Some days are more, I’m more in tune than other days. And I know that in the morning in I do a drawing every single morning. And I can tell by that drawing is you know what my level is? Like, oh, yeah, this is a great day to paint or draw or whatever.

Heather Pearce Campbell  53:27

Right? But I love what you say about showing up right that big P? Oh, yeah. Right. This is the work that has to be done to facilitate what needs to come next. And it’s like, there’s a quote, and I think it comes from Steven Pressfield. The War of Art. Where there’s a writer. Oh, yes. But there’s just a brilliant piece about how often especially creative people wait for intuition to show up. Right. And in this particular quote, the writer was saying, luckily, it shows up every morning at 9am. They’re doing the work, right. And this is the big part of it. Like whether we feel creative or not, I think just showing up is just it cannot be overstated the importance of that big P.

Patrick Williams  54:18

Right. There’s a there’s a quote, there’s a Picasso quote that says something like this, I am just grabbing it. It says inspiration finds me while I’m working. Yeah. So while he’s painting inspiration is finding him. He’s not waiting for inspiration and then to paint,

Heather Pearce Campbell  54:40

Right that’s right. And this is the same concept. Your luck and opportunity, right? It doesn’t just hit you out of the blue. When you’re doing the work. It shows up. This is how opportunity and people who you know, you look at somebody else like Oh, they’re so lucky. The reality is they’re probably just do that work, right? Opportunity finds them because they are doing the work

Patrick Williams  55:04

Exactly. In the fields of in the fields of observation. Chance favors the prepared mind to try. It’s a quote from pasture. So when I read that, maybe 10 years ago, and the light bulb just was like, Oh, my God, yes. If we’re not prepared, we’re never going to notice. So and and chances are is a is a interesting term to use. Because is it actually chance? Yeah, for the prepared mind. And so the practices, the capital P practices, are my way of assisting people in learning how to prepare their mind, for creativity, their mind, their heart, their body and their soul, for the creative moment. Because I believe the issue is, like I’ve been sketching out, is that if we’re waiting, you know, in three months, I’m going to be creative, and design my widget, but three months are gonna come and you’re still not prepared, you haven’t done any work, to get ready to have the creativity be accessible. So the practices I’m talking about, are, or assisting people in becoming prepared, or assisting people in understanding how to access their creative process. Because like you said, every individual child and every individual adult has a very, very special way of accessing creativity. And it’s an it’s linked directly to how we learn. And it’s linked to our play. So if, if you have that propensity to make to invent poetry, then that’s going to assist you in making your widget. And even though that doesn’t make any sense, trust me, it’s going to help the cross domain, the idea of cross domain is absolutely essential to creativity. Artists, of every genre, are natural at cross domain. Exploration. Hmm. So even though listening to music doesn’t seem to cross domain, it is it’s another field that you’re you’re taking in information. Reading math journals, could be absolutely essential to someone’s widget invention that has nothing to do with math in some ways, sure, there’s math involved. But these these experiences that we get from a paying attention to things that we’re interested in, and it doesn’t have, it can be, it can be the most strange, you know, maybe you’re you, you’re like, looking at birds. And you’re starting to live, you know, checking birds off the list of like, oh, we just saw that bird, we just saw that bird, somehow that is going to inform you, it may not be, you may not be able to follow it in a linear way, like a, b, c, d, and e and okay, then right, I got to the widget. So if you want to get to the widget, there’s other work that you have to do. There’s all the all the practical work the the business plans, the the meetings, blah, blah, blah, it goes on and on and on of things that you have to do. But underlying, I guarantee you that, that introducing these, whatever they may be the capital P practices, and then having other practices lower p practices that are that are are good for you. They’re they’re stimulating to your your environment and your your ability to tap into your creative but the the practice is so important to to have that foundation, because without the foundation as with karate, my my background goes way back into the 70s of practicing karate. And basics is practice every single class you have to know how to stand you have to know how to bow the most important you have to know how to sit you have to know how to stand you know have to know how to Make different stances different blocks, different punches, different kicks, different strikes, those are the foundation that everything else develops from, if you don’t have a strong foundation, then your, your, your Buddha will not be strong and your heart won’t be strong. Your practice whatever your practice is, and with everybody, it’s going to be different. People are going to have very many people will have certain things that they’re interested already. And that’s great, because then we can key in on those but, but the practice and having the practice flow through your daily routines is the foundation that creativity emerges from. So the things that you’re reading the things that you’re listening to the the conversations that you’re having, the experiences that you’re having with your family, or your friends, all of those are necessary parts of, of your creative process. So if you’re, if, if we don’t respect those things, and if we don’t pay attention, pay attention. Yeah, if you don’t pay attention, then then you’re not. You may get to a widget. But it’s gonna be a widget with a lowercase W.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:01:24

Right? You’re not benefiting from the full capacity of, I would say the potential for support on that path.

Patrick Williams  1:01:33

Right. Exactly. Exactly. And again, I think scale is important, because, of course, we know, so many entrepreneurs want to make the next big thing. And, ah, it, it may not happen, it may not ever happen. But it may not happen, it probably won’t happen the first time. Right now, as much as as when I was 20 years old, after painting, you know, I had been painting for five years, I wanted to make a masterpiece, it wasn’t in the cards, you know, you know, if if that has ever happened, I feel like I’ve made some really special works. And it’s not my job to label them that, right. So we it’s the balance of putting everything that you have into using our example of the widget. And, and really believing in it, but also understanding that it may not be the next biggest thing being you know, there’s a realism to our, our process. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:02:48

Well, there’s a couple of things that I want to look back on. One is, you know, from the standpoint of entrepreneurship, all of us understand, or we should essentially, by this point, understand the importance of systems. Right. So from a system standpoint, having this built in to because the other reality, and the thing I actually love about my podcast about the conversations I’ve had with people on this podcast is, you know, the path of personal development and business I see as heavily intertwined, I see them as the same path, our businesses are only as good as our capacity to show up and serve and make good decisions and right do all the things that are required of us to build a really thriving business. And I also see business and entrepreneurship as one of the greatest opportunities we have in the world to make meaningful change, to support, you know, support the good that needs to happen in the world. Right. And so this idea that somehow we should separate out, you know, personal development or have it live in a different space it, it needs to be systematized, we need to focus on it like, right, the practices with the big P as a way to not only support the personal side of our lives, but to sort support our business as well.

Patrick Williams  1:04:14

Yeah, for sure. I the the first thing I think of is early in my my karate training, our teacher told us that the things you learned in the dojo you take out into the world, and, you know, parts of the dojo of what we’re being taught was, to be respectful to be to honor the other person to to, to be truthful in how we are and how we’re treating other people and how we’re communicating. All these things were part of the system of the dojo, and he was saying Sensei said, you know, you take this out into the world, and then you start to bring the World back into the dojo too. So let’s face it’s a flowing circular system that, that, that are have beneficial feedbacks, yes, that are assisting in, in our, our personal growth and understanding, but it’s also informing those who we work with and informing our business decisions and such. So I’m, I’m a big fan of, of the concept of, of those integrating systems because they all have to have to flow together. Or, or not. I mean, when they flow together, they’re working the best. So that’s right. It’s your journaling practice, you can see where things are not flowing together. So well. So yeah, absolutely. It’s so important. Yeah.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:05:51

Well, I have just loved this conversation, Patrick, I know that we could probably go on for days. I mean, there’s, I’m sure this is the tip of the iceberg as far as the work that you do. But you know, the importance of creativity, nurturing creativity in ourselves, incorporating it as a practice. And even as a part of our businesses and our work. I just, I mean, it can’t be overstated. And so I love this conversation. I’m so grateful that you took the time to show up and have it with us and share your wisdom. We’re happy to do so. Awesome. Well, and for people that are listening and want to connect with you, where do you like to connect?

Patrick Williams  1:06:32

Ah, let’s see.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:06:35

I know you and I connected on LinkedIn. And then I think you’re

Patrick Williams  1:06:38

Connecting on LinkedIn is probably the easiest on that the larger professional level. Okay, patrick@patrickwilliams.com is my email. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:06:48

I love it. And I’ll share all this information for anybody listening and whatever links you’d like me to share, Patrick, I’ll put it into the show notes so people can visit those at legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast. Any final thoughts, Patrick, that you’d like to leave our listeners with? 

Patrick Williams  1:07:05

Yeah, I thought I wanted to say that. When you’re connecting with creativity, the it’s great for the widget. It’s great for entrepreneurial ideas and development and innovation in a in a business context. But the fundamental benefit is that it assists your life, and it assists yourself personally. And when you build that, that awareness of your creative, natural essence, then it it flows into your personal relationships, it flows into your family, relationships, your friends, what you do in society, as well as into your whatever your business, that you’re developing your startup or your, your, your innovation ideas. So I just want to assist that. Fundamentally, this is about helping yourself become a more healthy person.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:08:12

Now I love that there’s a you know, when you think about well, goal setting, and actually human nature, generally there’s a there’s, I think, very often we see this idea that like, Oh, when I get there, then I’ll feel whatever X y&z I’ll feel happy, you’ll feel fulfilled. And business is one more outlet for that, right? Like it’s a way for people to achieve achieve personal fulfillment by accomplishing X, Y, and Z or creating X, Y and Z. And I love the idea of reverse engineering that to say, how can we have more personal fulfillment right now? How do we want to feel right now? Right, because it’s a much more. I mean, it’s a much faster path to actually being fulfilled, right. And building systems and practices in to support us right now versus putting them off, you know, when we get there.

Patrick Williams  1:09:07

Right, right. Yeah. Little tiny moments that, oh, I felt really good because I journaled for. I actually will journal for a half an hour this morning, rather than just 15 minutes. And so those little ones are actually huge. Yeah. And we tend to wait Oh, for the big, the big widget unveil when actually that is fulfilling, but when you’re actually experiencing that it is, it tends to be much less fulfilling that you were thinking it was going to be yes. When the little ones are the..

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:09:42

Are there the real deal.

Patrick Williams  1:09:44

Kind of the big real deal. The real life feeling? Grants moments? 

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:09:49

Yeah, no, I love that. The an example of that in my personal life just the other day is we were having a tough time my kids were at each other. I have a three year old and an eight year old and my three year is very vocal and so is my eight year old. And so they’re clashing a lot right now. And you know, none of us get breaks from each other because of COVID. So it’s just intense. And we were trying to have dinner, and I just needed a break. I don’t think Daddy was around, something was happening. And I was inside with two kids that were just screaming at each other. And so I turned on music. Like, just kind of got up, took a break turned on music, and it was just like a really fun, upbeat music. And like, I just was hit with this instinct of like, needing to change the energy that was happening in our house, right? And so I just did like a super goofy dance. And literally in like, three seconds, my kids went from being at each other to like, laughing and you know, they couldn’t believe mom was suddenly doing this crazy dance and like, but I just perfect. It was perfect. And for me, I had that flash realization of like, oh, we need this type of outlet more often. We need music and something that can really create a shift like this more often. And so I think a huge part of creativity is just that part that you mentioned about paying attention and attention in the moment of light it what lights you up what feels good, what works, right, so perfect. I love that. 

Patrick Williams  1:11:17

That’s a great, great story. Yeah.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:11:20

Well, I so appreciate you. This has just been such an enjoyable conversation. Patrick, I look forward to being in touch. For anybody checking out this show and they want to connect with Patrick Be sure to visit the show notes legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast. Thank you, Patrick.

Patrick Williams  1:11:36

Thank you, Heather.

GGGB Outro  1:11:41

Thank you for joining us today on the Guts, Grit and Great Business podcast. We hope that we’ve added a little fuel to your take some coffee to your cup and pep in your step to keep you moving forward in your own great adventures. For key takeaways links to any resources mentioned in today’s show and more. See the show notes which can be found at legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and if you enjoyed today’s conversation, please give us some stars and a review on Apple podcast, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast so others will find us to keep up the great work you are doing in the world and we’ll see you next week.