Jennifer Loehding: 0:02

Welcome to the Starter Girls podcast, the show dedicated to the Starter Girl. She's an achiever, she's a creator, she's a magic maker, she's a dreamer and she is doing all the things. I'm your host, jennifer Looney, and welcome to this episode. Welcome to another episode of the Starter Girls podcast. I'm so excited about my guests. It's going to be so much fun. Dr Cindy Burnett is the director of possibilities for creativity and education and organization, whose mission is to infuse creative thinking skills into everyday classrooms around the world. She's also the co-founder of the Creative Thinking Network, an online social platform dedicated to empowering educators, through community collaboration and knowledge, to amplify creative thinking in the classroom, and I'm so excited to chat with you today, cindy. I know we got to chat outside of this and I was impressed with all of your work and what you're doing, because I think creativity is so important. Obviously, we're on a creative platform right now as we speak, and so I want to welcome you to the show.

Cyndi Burnett: 1:09

Thank you so much for having me, Jennifer.

Jennifer Loehding: 1:12

This can be so much fun. So for our listeners because we have a lot of you know, I'm sure, a lot of creative people that are listening to this right, because it is a podcast after all I'd love for you just to kind of share a little bit about, maybe expand on, what it is that you actually get to do.

Cyndi Burnett: 1:27

So what it is that I actually get to do so. For the last 25 years, I've been teaching other people how to deliberately bring creative thinking into their lives and to be a better creative thinker and to look at things in different ways, and to be more curious and open-minded and better risk takers and to embrace challenges and look at challenges as possibilities. So that's what I spend my time doing, but I specifically work with educators and how to help educators bring creative thinking into the classroom.

Jennifer Loehding: 2:03

I like that, I like that, and so you're a doctor obviously. So I know you've studied this stuff and really done a lot of research on this right you got to know your stuff.

Jennifer Loehding: 2:12

I would love to know, like you know, some of the benefits that you guys have found in this, because I know, for me personally, you know, creativity makes such a difference in the way I do everything in my life and you know, when I'm working with my clients, a lot of times I tell them you know, creativity is really that flow piece in our lives, right, it's that piece that adds value to what we do and who we are. And so I just know that for me, when I'm doing that whether that's I love dancing and that sometimes is my creative, you know, with them doing my podcast, it just really makes my life richer.

Cyndi Burnett: 2:42

Yes, well, I'm also a dancer too, and that's actually how I got into the field, because I originally my first career was as a performing artist, and I did the same show over and over and over and over, and at the end of it I said I didn't feel like this was creative. It wasn't the creative process that I hadn't experienced when I was studying theater, and so I actually someone said to me what do you want to learn about? And I said I want to learn about creativity. And I found the oldest degree granting program in creativity in the world in my backyard in Buffalo, new York, and so I signed up and got my master's in creativity and then went on to get my doctorate. So I think the most important thing that we have to start with is how we define creativity, and there are so many different definitions. You just gave me one about flow, which is based on Chikusama Hayes' work, but what's really important is that we start with the baseline, and I like to use the baseline of a classic model that was developed by Mostine back in the 1950s, which is creativity is the generation of novel or new and useful ideas. So if we start with there, so how do we get people to be more creative and to live a more creative life, and what are the benefits of that?

Cyndi Burnett: 3:54

As your original question was, I think it comes in two forms, and the first form is around expression, so our creative expression. So you mentioned dance, some people like visual arts, some people enjoy cooking. That's sort of in the everyday creativity realm, where we express ourselves in meaningful and authentic ways. The other way is improving on things. So taking something that we're doing and improving on it is creative. So improving on things, which is more of a scientific view of creativity, and expressing ourselves, which is more of an artistic view of creativity. So I have spent most of my career bridging those two, with a set of creative thinking skills that are based on the work of E Paul Torrance. Now, e Paul Torrance was known as the father of creativity and education and he said creativity isn't just about one thing, it's not just about creating novel and useful ideas, it's about all of these different skills that are associated with that. So looking at things from different perspectives, risk taking, embracing ambiguity, embracing challenges All of these are different skills that relate to creativity. So, going back one more time to your question, but I felt like I needed to give it some context. Yeah, it's great when you're doing all of those things.

Cyndi Burnett: 5:11

Expressing yourself in meaningful ways in the artistic side of creativity helps. There's so much research based on helping with social-emotional learning. It helps us look at new possibilities. One of my favorite definitions comes from one of my former students, naja Bolden, which is creativity is about possibilities, and possibilities give us hope. And I love that definition because if you're thinking in new ways and you're thinking I could go this way, I could go this way, I could do this, I could try that, then all of a sudden you're presented with all these possibilities and that hope can help you move forward instead of getting stuck in the place that you're at.

Cyndi Burnett: 5:51

There are so many different benefits.

Cyndi Burnett: 5:53

It helps you become better problem solver.

Cyndi Burnett: 5:55

So if you're a better problem solver and you're faced with a challenge which let's face it we're faced with so many challenges every day it helps you work through those challenges.

Cyndi Burnett: 6:04

So I have two teenage kids, so there's lots of challenges that come up with my teenage kids and sometimes they come to me and they say, mom, I want to do X, y and Z and I'm like, ok, well, let's problem solve that. So really thinking about how we can improve our lives and be better problem solvers is a huge benefit being able to look at things in different ways. There is obviously such an important topic right now happening in the world around diversity, and I think that by looking at things in different ways and being open to something that's new really helps with the diversity piece, because I think a lot of people are afraid of things that are different and if we can help them to embrace that and embrace differences and keep an open mind when something isn't the way that we assume it should be or like it to be, and really look at things from those different perspectives, it helps give us empathy, it helps us see possibilities for exploration and more beauty to our lives.

Jennifer Loehding: 7:05

really, yeah, no, that's all good and you're right. As you were talking about all this, I was listening and I was thinking that, you know, I know for me too, when you were talking about like the ideas and the problem solving, that's really huge, because I know when I'm engaging in things, whatever that form of creativity is, I am more resourceful and better able to come up with possibilities and ideas to solving bigger problems. So I think what you said, all of that, is so valid, right, and I like that. You mentioned, you know, just the part about being open to different things, because you're right, I think we get so set a lot of times in the way things should be and when something's a little bit different, we're not necessarily always able to embrace that, right, because we're so used to it a certain way and we're not thinking in terms of creativity and things can be different, right, and then how do we show empathy when we can't see that? So I think that was a good point.

Jennifer Loehding: 8:00

I didn't even think of it from that perspective. So thank you for sharing it. That's awesome. So I would love to know, you know maybe, for because you're obviously working with, you know, educators and the educator, right, but I think there's some things that you know these are adults that you're trying to bring to the children and say how can we put more you know creativity in there, but maybe are there some things that somebody, maybe an entrepreneur, can do that would be helpful to add some creativity to their work so that they can maybe move away from some of this mundane. It has to be all this. You know regime and role play. You know, like, what we're doing in our day in and day out, but maybe add a little pizzazz to what we're doing.

Cyndi Burnett: 8:39

That's a great question. I love that kind of question because there are so many things you can do. Number one I would recommend that people keep an open mind and start with monitoring your judgment. So, as you go throughout your day, just monitor your judgment. What do you judge? Who do you judge? Why do you judge, jennifer, when you think about your day today, what's something that you judged?

Jennifer Loehding: 9:05

Oh, whether or not I was gonna get done because I was tired. That was a big one.

Cyndi Burnett: 9:10

Okay.

Cyndi Burnett: 9:11

So oftentimes we judge ourselves and that's one of the harshest judgments we make is on ourselves, right. And so when I do this activity and I used to do it with my graduate students, I do it with any group I start with, which is monitor your judgment for the day and let's talk about what happened. It's like, wow, I realized what a judgmental person I am, and the thing that I judge the most is myself and my own ideas. Like, oh, I can't do that, that won't work, I'm too tired for that, I can't. You know, I don't have the energy for that, I don't have the time. And it's like, all right, stop. And not that there isn't a place for judgment, but just to take a pause before you judge and say am I seeing the whole picture here? Am I really that tired? Is there something that I did that made me this tired that I shouldn't do in the future? You know, did I book too many meetings today? So those sorts of things, just to monitor your judgment. And then, as you're generating new ideas for your business or your company and this happens to me all the time is, I have an idea and I'm like, ah, I need to date that idea.

Cyndi Burnett: 10:15

And I used to tell my students this to date their ideas. Because sometimes we have an idea and right away we either love it or we hate it, right? So we love that idea and we're like off to the racism, we're doing something and we're deep and we've spent a lot of money on it. And then we say why did I do that? I jumped in way too fast. And the flip side of it sometimes we are quick to judge something. So, going back to my little dating analogy, and it's like nope, nope, that's not the person that I wanna be with, that's not you know. So if you think about that in terms of ideas, you have these ideas that come into play or come into your mind or presented to you. So take that moment to pause and say I'm gonna date this idea. Like I like this idea, I'm gonna spend some time with it, I'm gonna go out for coffee, I'm gonna learn about it, I'm gonna read about it, I'm gonna maybe take it home to my friends and family, introduce my friends and family to this idea. And then you know we're going to really then start a real relationship with the idea, because so often we are quick to jump into those ideas that give us a lot of energy.

Cyndi Burnett: 11:20

But oftentimes we don't look at the whole picture. You know we don't get that full perspective from others, like, is this really good? And when you're dealing it as an entrepreneur, you know and I am an entrepreneur as well because I run my own company I have those questions every day. Like I have these ideas and I'm like wait, stop, okay, let's date this idea. And I have a wonderful working partner in the creative thinking network, and so her and I go back and forth and like I need to marinate on this, I need some time with this, and not because it's a bad idea or because it's a good idea, but I need to sort of work through it and process it and, you know, take some time with it in order to decide whether or not it's really going to be beneficial for the company. And then at some point I know, like I like when you know, you know and the same is true in relationships right, like I met my husband and after that time of that period, I was like, yep, this is it. Okay, I don't need to, you know, date it anymore, I'm ready to move into the full scene.

Cyndi Burnett: 12:19

So that's one piece of it, the other piece that you can do as an entrepreneur if you want to sort of break up the mundane nature of the day-to-day stuff is what I like to call think outside of your learning zone and your interest zone Mostly your interest zone and for me, I love learning things about the arts, I love musical theater, I love learning new self-help productivity hacks, I love things like that. But there are a lot of things I know nothing about. Like, I know nothing about sports, I know nothing about fishing, I know nothing about nature, you know, or I have a very low understanding of these things. So a very easy thing that you can do to sort of spark creativity is to go learn about something that you know nothing about. So, for example, last summer or last spring, my family and I, for spring break, we went to every sports game we could find, because we had never been to a sports game and we knew nothing about sports. And I said we're gonna really get outside of our interest zone and go, you know, go with people that know about the stuff so they can explain it to you, and go and explore territories that you're not familiar with and see what kind of connections you can make. And it was interesting.

Cyndi Burnett: 13:35

I took at one point I took my son to the Frank Lloyd Wright house, which is here in Buffalo, and we had never been to something to do with architecture and I was like, you know, I don't know anything about architecture, let's go learn about it. So we were learning about all of these different window patterns and how, you know, frank Lloyd Wright used to design houses so that as you looked through each room, it was also an aesthetic picture of things which got me thinking about how I wanted to design my own house and create my own house. And my son was in a lesson at a totally different museum and they asked about something with regard to light and he was able to reference back to the Frank Lloyd Wright house. And it's like when you have, when you have information, you can take that information and create new connections when you have other balls of information. So I have a podcast it's called Healing, creativity and Education, and we interviewed the researcher, jonathan Plucker, and he said old stuff plus old stuff equals new stuff. So if you think about it this way, the more old stuff you have with more old stuff, the more new stuff you can create.

Cyndi Burnett: 14:47

So really think about some things that you've never done before. I mean, we're approaching summer. Think about the things you've never done before and then go make a list of things with your family or your friends or your significant other and say what's something we've never tried? I've never been to a Greek festival. Let's go to the Greek festival this weekend. I've never been to an art gallery. Let's go to the art gallery this weekend and see what kind of connections you can make this is awesome.

Jennifer Loehding: 15:14

You know what was coming to mind when you said. This was a conversation that I had had with my daughter a while back, and my middle child she went to college, came back and decided that she didn't like school and so she went into the workforce and, of course, she's not necessarily happy in the line of work that she's doing right now, but we were having this very conversation about school, because she had said to me well, I don't want to waste money and just go take some classes and then I don't like them.

Jennifer Loehding: 15:40

And the conversation that came up. This just made me think about this. Is this exploration right? Like I said to her, how do you know what you like or do not like if you're not exploring things right? Like we have this idea that if something doesn't produce like an ROI or an immediate outcome, that we shouldn't try something right. And I'm probably more like you in the sense that I say how are you going to ever know if you don't try?

Jennifer Loehding: 16:09

But also, everything that we do is really a learning experience. So if you take to what you just said, everything that you do, and you pull that together, there's something that's going to come from that, because it's either going to. You're either going to decide that wasn't for me, don't do that again, or it's going to prompt you to think about something new that maybe you want to try. Something is going to come from that and the more knowledge that you gain, I think, the more clarity you can figure out in what you would like to do right or what you want to play with, and so I think all of that that you were just saying is so on point. It just made me think of that conversation because it was a recent conversation we had.

Cyndi Burnett: 16:50

And I think another good question to ask her is so what do you want to learn about? If there's anything that you can learn about right now, what would it be? Would it be why people's minds work the way they do? Because that's again, that's why I got started in the field of creativity and I would have never thought that there was a whole field dedicated to creative thinking, but it was that I don't know what I want to be. I don't know what I want to be and then all of a sudden, that switch was but what do you want to learn about? And diving deep into that, and that's where that intrinsic motivation comes in, which is really important when you are living a creative life, Because there's been a lot of research done on intrinsic motivation versus extrinsic motivation and the researchers have said, yes, you can be creative in both aspects of motivation, but really it's where the intrinsic motivation lives, is where you're going to find the most creativity.

Jennifer Loehding: 17:40

I just gave me chills. Yeah, because that's where the passion is right. It's what you enjoy doing. It's getting me back to the you know like it's like when you're doing a line of work and you're not really enjoying it, it's probably because it's not. It may or may not, but maybe it's something you don't really enjoy doing. You're in the wrong place, right? It's finding that creative thing that you truly enjoy doing and, if you're lucky enough as an entrepreneur, you can take that piece and pull it into your line of work and be able to use it. Yes, it's good stuff. I love it. Well, I love what you're doing.

Jennifer Loehding: 18:13

I think I know we could spend forever talking about it. You've done some incredible work and I know you're doing amazing things and I really love that you're being able to have an impact in the classroom, because I think so much of what we do starts with the young people, right? And you know, I have a friend here that's in an organization. They're originally from California, they're a nonprofit and they do basically help startups help businesses with startups how to, you know, ask for funding and provide their pitch and all of that. But one of the things that I really like about what they're doing is they're actually going into the K through 12 and teaching entrepreneur skills to the students, and I think that that is really where we have the greatest impact is if we can tap into this younger generation.

Jennifer Loehding: 18:53

And I, just right before I got on here with you, I was talking to a gal and we were talking about what we do as coaches in our work, and I told her I said a lot of what I do is I don't necessarily go into the younger people, but my idea is that is if I can help. You know, other adults show up differently than they have the ability to have a greater impact on their children and the people around them, and so I think we're all kind of doing similar things in various ways. It's our way that we do our creativity to use for work, and so I just want to say kudos to you and love what you're doing. Thank you, that's good stuff. So what I would like to ask you is if our audience wants to learn a little bit more about your work. Maybe they want to get in touch with you. I don't know. Learn a little bit about your stuff and what you've got going on, and maybe listen to your podcast even how do we want to direct them to you?

Cyndi Burnett: 19:46

So I have a website, creativityandeducationcom Okay, and there they can find all of my resources. I've written several books. We have the creative thinking network, which is sort of a professional network for educators and to learn more about creativity, and we have webinars every month and lesson plans. I have the fueling creative and education podcast and I have a YouTube station called creativity. So if you like creative thinking exercises, you want to do them with your children this summer. I have a bunch of activities for families to do like creative thinking exercises and activities to do with your children this summer. I have a whole blog series on that right on my website.

Jennifer Loehding: 20:28

This is so great. This is so great. I had a coach come on a few weeks ago. She was an adulting coach that works with kind of the teenage years you know kind of that transition that they're making to graduation and stuff, and so I was thinking about how some of this, I mean, would be just great resources for some of these gals that are working with younger generation, youth and stuff, how they can maybe tap into some of this.

Jennifer Loehding: 20:48

So I'll have to make some connections between you guys so that they can find your work and stuff. I do want to say thank you so much for jumping on here and sharing your wisdom and your knowledge. I know you have lots. Like I said, I know this is an area that you're very passionate about and I can tell and I love it. I think that's great. We have to be passionate about what we do, so thank you so much for sharing with us and enlightening our people and hopefully some people get some takeaways from some of this?

Cyndi Burnett: 21:12

Yes, I hope so, and thanks so much for having me on the show, jennifer, absolutely absolutely and, of course, to our audience.

Jennifer Loehding: 21:19

If you enjoyed the show, and please be sure to reach out to Dr Cindy Burnett. And, of course, if you enjoyed the show, go give us a rating over on Apple. Check us out on YouTube. You can hit the subscribe button so we can keep sharing all this incredible knowledge and hopefully inspiring you and, as always, take care of yourself and be kind to one another. We'll see you next time.