July 27, 2023 • 46 mins
So much of your creativity is affected by your mindset, and according to my guest Emily Chadbourne, “perception is reality”.
Em is a mindset coach who believes that we often block our own success because of fear of rejection, cultural conditioning, and a lack of connection to self. Through her coaching, she helps people push through these blocks, foster a creative mindset and achieve their goals.
Thank you Em, for sharing your story from self-confessed idiot to being unashamedly human.
Happy listening!
xo Abi
P.S. There is a small language warning on this episode.
P.P.S. For more information about this episode and our guest, head to: https://crispcomms.co/podcast-episodes/perception-is-reality/
Creativity: Uncovered is lovingly edited by the team at Crisp Communications.
Creativity: Uncovered is a registered Australian Trade Mark.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Hello and welcome to Creativity (00:00):
Uncovered.
(00:08):
My name is Abi Gatling and I'm on a journey to uncover how everyday people find inspiration,
get inventive and open their imagination.
Basically I want to find out how people find their own creative solutions for home, work,
play and everything in between.
My goal for this podcast is that by the end of it you'll be armed with a whole suite of
(00:32):
tried and tested ways to find creativity the next time that you need it.
Now today I'm speaking to Emily Chadbourne.
Emma is a mindset coach based in Melbourne, super down to earth.
She's a fellow dog lover and very very funny.
So I feel like we're going to have a really great chat today.
(00:55):
Welcome Emily.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm really happy.
Yeah.
No absolutely.
Such a pleasure to have you on.
And you know we've had a bit of a chat already and you know that this podcast is about creativity
and I know there's so much that you have to say about it and I'm really getting
(01:15):
keen to dive into it.
But before we do I'm curious and I'm sure our listeners are too.
A little bit about your story because you're a mindset coach and you work with women
to help them develop their inner strength.
However in the bio you shared with me you confess that you used to be a bit of an idiot
(01:38):
and had to make a serious change in your life.
And so you know now I'm seeing you here you've got this amazing business and you work internationally
and you're a very funny Instagram star.
There's kind of a missing connection there for me.
Like tell me who were you back then.
What happened and how did you get here.
(02:01):
I must have given you the polite version of my bio because some people get the opening line is
Emily Chappell used to be a bit of a twat.
That's how I love to refer to myself in my in my my other life as I like to think of it.
I think I just never no one ever told me that I was in charge of my life.
(02:25):
But I know that sounds to be a little bit of a weird thing to say.
But I just I just went along the treadmill of life.
I went to school and my parents told me I should go to university.
So I went to university and I did a degree that didn't.
I mean I just did the thing that I was good at which was drama and education.
And then I worked in hospitality and I was just good at managing people and I was relatively
(02:50):
efficient and so I just worked my way up.
And I spent my 20s living in London having a great time.
I was having such a good time and lived my life in London waiting tables and managing restaurants.
And and I never really had any forward thinking.
(03:12):
I was I just did the thing that somebody else reassured me I was good at.
I'd never learned or developed the skill of facing my fear.
And I had this inherent belief that it was better not to try than it was to fail.
So everything I did was the play safe stuff.
(03:32):
It was you know being headhunted so I took the job.
But I would never go and interview for a job.
If you offered me a job I would accept it.
But I would never go and think to to go and find a different job.
And then I came to Australia in my 30s.
I followed a boy for love.
And yeah we can all anticipate how that ended.
But I found myself in Australia.
(03:55):
Still I was in my 30s and I was waiting tables.
I mean hospitality doesn't translate from the UK to Australia.
They're very different landscapes.
And so I came to Australia and none of my experience as senior as I had sort of
climbed up the senior ladder of corporate hospitality.
It just didn't exist here.
And so I found myself sort of back at the foot of the ladder again.
(04:17):
Waiting tables for 20 bucks an hour.
And I hated everything about my life.
The only thing that was really working for me was my social life.
I was quite a party girl.
And that's where I got all my significance from.
That's where I could tell my stories.
That's where I could connect with people.
But the idea of translating that into a career.
(04:38):
Or harnessing that to be a useful thing.
Was just way beyond my comprehension.
So I was just waiting tables.
And I got to about 33, 34 horrendously in debt by this time.
Because being a party girl is actually quite expensive.
I don't know if anyone ever told you that.
So I knew I was earning minimum wage and really terrible tips.
(04:59):
So it wasn't until I kind of hit a very hard brick wall
that was very uncomfortable and quite painful in my mid-30s
that I decided I had to do something.
I couldn't keep going the way that I was going.
The rest of my friends had started to get married and buy houses.
And they were doing things with their careers.
(05:21):
And I was waiting tables.
And I felt so completely lost and alone.
And everyone else had been given a road map.
And I'd been left out.
And so I did the only thing that I knew to do,
which was to go and close the gap that I could see that I had,
which was I didn't know who I was.
(05:42):
And that was a lot of personal development,
a lot of spiritual development.
I got sober in that time.
And there was a lot of soul searching and so much ugly crying.
You could not possibly believe.
And I think doing that work
(06:02):
reintroduced me to some qualities that I had not seen as special
or disregarded as valuable.
And I think a lot of us do this, women especially,
is that we fail to recognize that who we are
and how we relate to the world around us is special.
(06:23):
I've always been able to tell a great story.
I came out of the womb with jazz hands.
And my parents threw me onto the stage at the age of five.
To try and focus some of that energy.
And so I've always been a performer.
I've never had stage fright.
I never have...
I mean, every now and then I'll do a keynote in front of a really big room
of important people and I'll have that moment of like,
(06:45):
"Oh my God, but I can really talk myself through that quite quickly."
So I've had this wonderful, amazing creative skill set my whole life.
But no one ever put value on it, so I didn't put value on it.
And no one ever helped me navigate how I could take that skill set
and create something wonderful with it
and create something that would contribute to the world around me with it.
(07:09):
So it just kind of languished away.
I would tell a great story at three o'clock in the morning at the after party.
And that was the only way that creativity got to be expressed.
And that was actually a very unresourceful way of expressing that creativity.
And so it wasn't until I did the work on myself
(07:29):
that I began to understand that I had something that could do something really awesome
for the people around me.
Yeah, wow.
And so the work that you did on yourself,
is that basically mindset coaching?
And now you're doing it for other people?
Yeah, it completely changed my life.
(07:51):
Like a full 180.
Radical responsibility for myself
was the first step.
I think I'd spent many years blaming other people
and being a victim of my circumstances
and feeling very trapped by my circumstances.
No one had ever told me that perception is reality.
That if you change your perception of a situation,
(08:11):
your experience of your reality can change.
That was a completely foreign concept to me until I was 35 years old.
Wow.
Like it was just, I was just bumbling along.
And the universe was, in my opinion,
the universe was just taking me down this dead end path.
And that wasn't my fault.
(08:32):
And it really, it was that level of radical responsibility.
I learned how to manage my thoughts.
I learned how to question my thoughts.
I learned how to observe the stories that I was telling myself
and question whether or not I wanted that story to be true.
Where had that story come from?
Did I have to believe that story?
What did I manifest when I believed that story?
What could I manifest if I believed a different story?
(08:54):
And all of a sudden you begin to realize
that you are the architect of your reality.
And there is such power in that.
And paradoxically, at the same time,
the spiritual concepts that I learned through my sobriety program,
which is that you don't control anything.
And that you are this tiny little insignificant spot on the universe.
(09:20):
And your desire to control everything is only causing you suffering.
And your attachment to how you think things should be
is where your suffering lies.
Your resistance to what is, is often suffering and juicing.
So I kind of coupled those two things together.
This idea that you are a powerful creator.
(09:43):
And at the same time, you have got no idea what's going on.
Because the universe will do what the universe does.
You don't get to control death or disease or other people or even the weather.
And so how do you find a balance with those two things?
How do you work those two things so that they can coexist
(10:03):
and create a life that feels really fulfilling for you?
Yeah, wow.
I love that.
Do you say the architect of your own, of your own life?
That is true.
Because when I think of an architect, it's very purposeful.
It's very methodical.
Lots of checks and measures and balances
(10:25):
and everything has got to make sense in the overall picture.
I feel like that's not an approach a lot of people take to their lives.
We just sort of float along and bump into walls
and eventually you just sort of get along the right path.
But that's very much taking control of your life.
I think that's really cool.
So when do people come to you as a Mindset Coach versus say like a life coach
(10:52):
or a career coach?
What's typically the catalyst for people to come and knock on your door?
So typically women come to men, it is women that come to me.
And they are normally anywhere between sort of 30 and 50.
But we've got clients who are 27 and I have got,
(11:15):
I think my oldest client is 73.
So we can arrange, but typically the experience that they are having
is one of everything is fine and it's not good enough.
And I don't know why it's not good enough.
I know that there is more, but I can't work out what that more is.
I have often manifested lots of stuff,
(11:36):
which society told me should make me happy.
But it doesn't.
I've got the house and I've got the husband, I've got the kids,
I've got the car, but there is still something missing.
And in my experience and my observation of working with women
over the last seven years or so, what I have observed is that
normally the thing that they are missing is connection to self.
(11:56):
And I know that sounds trite.
But when we don't connect well to ourselves,
when we are on show for other people as opposed to sort of living
authentically to our values,
we tend to block, I'm going to use the word creativity,
it's early on, but I'm dropping the word already.
(12:17):
We tend to block that creativity.
We tell ourselves that we can only do certain things
if it is a productive thing to do or if it is a,
if it monetizes, you know, I hear so many people say,
I'm looking for my purpose, I'm looking for my purpose,
I'm looking for my purpose.
And my advice every time is we'll stop looking for your purpose
and just ask yourself what would a purposeful life look like
(12:40):
for me.
And that's a lot of the work that we do inside,
my membership is called the Amplify community.
And it's a lot of the work that we do inside Amplify
is like pulling back the layers of conditioning,
the people that told us that we couldn't,
the, you know, cultural conditioning that's told us
that we should be a particular way in order to be loved
or respected or valued.
And we start addressing some of those narratives
(13:03):
and asking ourselves, does that really work for me?
And if I, you know, if I wasn't worried about rejection,
what would I do?
What would I produce?
How would I create?
How would I enjoy my life a little bit differently?
And it's amazing how that one shift, that permission
to explore parts of yourself that maybe your parents told you
(13:26):
were too loud or maybe your teacher at school told you
wasn't good enough, you know, the amount of times
that I myself even let alone the amount of clients
that I've seen do this, you know,
I've told myself I can't do something
or I shouldn't do something
or I don't do something as well as somebody else
so there's no point me doing it.
And I've denied myself all sorts of pleasure
and in denying myself pleasure,
(13:48):
I've also denied my community a part of me, you know,
or my friends a particular part of me.
And so it's about developing the muscle of learning
how to manage your mind.
We talk about managing your mind a lot inside
of the Amplify community.
How can I manage the stories?
How can I decondition myself?
How do I bring conscious awareness to the parameters
(14:09):
that have either been put around me
or have been put there by myself?
And how do I push those?
You know, how do I meet my corners
and then push a little bit further
so that I can do something a bit different
so that I can grow into the next version of me?
And for me, that is one of the most,
it's the most delightful, I mean,
if you'd asked me seven years ago,
(14:29):
would I be doing this work?
I would just laugh in your face
because, you know, I was busy scraping,
you know, the remains of table 23's dinner into the bin,
but to be doing this work
and to be supporting women in this way is just,
it really is a gift.
I feel like, consider myself to be very privileged.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, what a shift.
(14:50):
What a shift.
And it sounds like you're being creative
in the delivery of your coaching,
but you are also helping other people
unlock their own creativity.
Because from what I understand from what you just said,
like a lot of what's holding us back
from putting ourselves out there is external conditioning
(15:13):
and then also our mindset.
And we're afraid to be vulnerable
because I guess creativity is a very personal thing.
It's kind of like putting your little heart out on there.
I'm just playing.
(15:33):
That's scary.
And it's always so subjective, right?
Still, even now, like I huge believe my overarching brand
and my company name is Unashamedly Human
because I don't in any way, shape or form
pretend to have all my shit together.
In fact, most of my shit isn't even in the same postcode.
I've not worked out how to human well necessarily,
(15:57):
but I'm always a work in progress
and I'm always in this sort of space of growth and evolution
and that in itself has got to be messy.
It can't be neat and it can't be organized.
It must be in a space of flux.
And so, you know, one of the ways that I utilize my creativity
is to tell stories of how completely and totally and highly,
(16:19):
you know, the red hot mess that I am.
And every time I go and post something on Instagram,
every time it doesn't matter how long I've been on that platform,
every time I post a reel,
I know that there is going to be someone out there
who watches my creativity and doesn't get it.
Or they're going to judge me.
Or they're going to their own jealousy,
their own insecurity is going to come up
(16:40):
and they're going to make a judgment about me as a result of it.
I know that my heart goes on the line every time I hit post.
And I have to work through it every single time.
Even now, I still have to like talk myself through it
and then guide myself through the practice
of doing the scary thing.
And I think, you know, that is a skill
(17:03):
and it's a muscle that we have to develop
and that we have to continually exercise.
Creativity is vulnerable and it's very subjective
and there will be people that don't get it.
And you have to condition yourself to believe in yourself enough
that it's okay that somebody else doesn't get your stuff.
(17:24):
It's like it really is.
It's okay that you're not for everybody.
Like if you are okay for you, then that's enough.
And that's a lifelong practice for me.
That's not something that I learned and now I teach.
That is something that I'm in the constant practice of.
Yeah, yeah.
So is when typically people come to you for the coaching,
(17:47):
is it a lifelong thing?
Or is it kind of like you've done this
and now you've ticked this box and now you're cured.
Off you go.
Yeah, I mean that's actually how Amplify came about
because I was doing group coaching courses
and I had private clients and I still work privately with clients.
But what I was finding was lots of people were like doing a group coaching program
(18:08):
and they were learning this really cool stuff
and that was really awesome and they were applying it
and they were seeing results.
But then they were like, okay, well, what's next?
And it's not that they were asking what's the next piece.
It's how can I still hang out with you
and be part of this conversation
because it becomes really apparent quite quickly
when you start doing this work
that you are up against your conditioning for life.
(18:31):
Those belief systems that started when you were two, three, four, five years old
that you weren't good enough or that you weren't enough
or you're not a creative person
or no one cares that you can sing
or you shouldn't be that big and brash and bold
because you're a woman or whatever it is.
That conditioning, whilst we work, we work to recondition ourselves
(18:53):
that conditioning will always be with you.
So you don't get to, it's a bit like going to the gym, right?
You go to the gym, you work your biceps, you get your biceps,
you're proud of your biceps, awesome.
And you stop going to the gym and two, three, four months later
you no longer have biceps and you're like, oh man, but I did the thing
and I went to the gym and I got the biceps
and we've got to keep going to the gym.
(19:14):
And so this is what it is to be in the reconditioning process
of yourself.
And what I found was that clients kept coming back
and then doing the course again and again
and they didn't want the course again.
They wanted to continue to be in the conversation.
We created Amplify to solve that problem.
(19:35):
So it's four months and you can leave after four months
and we teach you those four what I would consider
to be really fundamental blocks around mindset
and manifestation, relationships and money
because I believe that a well-resourced woman
is an empowered woman.
And we sort of go through those four modules if you like.
(19:57):
And then after that it's like a really low cost membership
and we've got women who have been there since the very, very beginning
and they just continue to pay a low cost monthly membership,
have access to all the material, have access to all the live content,
have access to the community because it's the conversation
that they know that they need to be in.
(20:17):
So it's a bit like a gym for your brain if you like.
And we still come across it, right?
One of the things that I'm kind of the work
that I'm doing with myself right now is about aging.
I've just hit 42 and I've had Botox in the past
and I'm beginning to really question the paradigm
(20:38):
that is so strong in our cultural conditioning
about my worth as a woman as I grow older
and as I leave my child bearing years behind
and as my face gets rinklier and my boobs get saggier
and all those things that society tells me
I should try and rail against because my value is in youth as a woman.
And so that, as much as I can convince myself
(21:01):
of that on a day-to-day basis,
society is telling me something completely different.
And so the conversation can't ever stop.
The conversation needs to be consistent.
The repetition is what keeps us in the healthy mindset.
It's not a one-hit wonder and then done.
Yeah, yeah, wow.
I can definitely see the value
(21:22):
in having those continual conversations
and a community where you can all talk to each other about that
and keep each other accountable.
And yes, that's like a big gold cheers score.
I love it.
Oh my God, absolutely.
It really is.
It's like the best girl gang in the world, yeah.
It's really, I mean, it has nothing to do with me, the community.
(21:44):
That was the piece that surprised me the most.
You know, I facilitate the space that the women
who have made that community what it is, they just, yeah,
I'm in awe of them because it's such brave work.
Yeah, yeah.
So, I mean, I can imagine all these benefits
for being able to talk about creativity and mindset
(22:05):
and all those things.
But what are the downsides for not talking about it
and not focusing on your mindset?
I think you just end up being a victim
of your own circumstance.
And I think you deny this really sort of vibrant
and authentic part of you.
(22:26):
This has been my experience anyway, is that we,
a lot of us are in survival mode, right?
We are using and playing out the strategies
that we learn at the age of four.
Or five or six.
When we were learning how do we feel safe
and what do we need to do to get attention and love?
(22:49):
And without taking charge of those thought patterns,
taking charge of those belief systems,
taking charge of those paradigms,
bringing conscious awareness to that kind of stuff,
we will end up, I mean, I was doing this
and I still do it every now and then.
Sometimes I'll catch myself having an adult temper tantrum
and I was like, whoa, four-year-old Emily
(23:10):
is in charge of this situation.
42-year-old Emily is absolutely not.
This is a four-year-old right now having a temper tantrum
because she doesn't feel seen or she doesn't feel important
or she doesn't feel loved
or she feels in some way, shape or form unsafe.
And it's my job because I have the tools
because I have done the mindset work
to parent that version of me.
(23:32):
And I think without the tools
and without the conscious awareness,
we allow our four-year-old self to control our finances,
to control our relationships,
to not set the boundaries that we should probably set,
to dictate where our career path goes.
And we deny ourselves so much in that process
because the four-year-old version of you really
(23:54):
should not be in charge of your adult life.
And yeah, I think we just deny ourselves
a lot of joy along the way
because we are in survival mode.
So we're doing the things that feel comfortable
and the things that feel familiar
and not necessarily the things that are conducive
to living a whole and fulfilling life.
(24:15):
Yeah. I think that's really interesting.
It's amazing because these tools aren't like,
they're not particularly complicated.
When you look at spirituality throughout the ages,
I'm not a religious person,
but I would say that I was a deeply spiritual person.
I have a very specific God of my understanding.
(24:35):
It's very...
I actually don't really necessarily believe in an inferential God.
I don't really look for signs from the universe or anything like that.
Although a lot of the people inside the Amplify community do,
and I don't...
You believe what you believe.
That's...
I have zero judgment for me.
But when you look at all of the works throughout the ages,
(24:58):
so all of the religious texts, all of the folklore,
there are some very basic spiritual principles
which we can apply over and over and over again
in all sorts of different contexts.
It's nothing new.
It's nothing particularly groundbreaking,
but it's life-changing stuff
when you begin to implement it in your day-to-day life.
(25:19):
The process of being able to observe a thought that you have
and saying to yourself,
"Is that thought that I just had the truth?
Is it the absolute ultimate truth?
And when I believe it to be the truth,
how do I act and what do I manifest?
And if I chose to believe a different truth,
how would I behave differently?
And therefore, what could I manifest differently?"
(25:41):
That's so simple.
That's not rocket science stuff.
Very simple.
You don't even need a journal to do it,
although I would always suggest a journal,
but you can just do it in your mind.
But it will change your life.
Well, that person looked at me a bit funny.
And now, what's the thought that I am having about that?
Do I making it mean that I must be wrong,
(26:01):
that there is something wrong with me,
that I'm not good enough, that I'm not lovable?
Now, is that thought really true?
That person could just be having a fart, right?
Trying not to shit themselves on the street.
Right?
That happens to be on the phone to his doctor,
who's just been like, "Yeah, got gone a remake.
Sorry."
We don't know what's going on for somebody else.
(26:22):
We make everything about us.
And that's understandable,
because we can't comprehend what it is like
to be anyone but us.
But those thoughts will keep us away from creativity.
Those thoughts of like, "Oh, God, that person's judging me."
Yeah, absolutely.
"That person doesn't like me."
Or "That person doesn't think I'm good enough."
And maybe that person doesn't think you're good enough,
(26:44):
but then do you have the tools to be able to go,
"What do I want to do with the fact
that that person doesn't think I'm good enough?"
Do you have the skills to see your own worth
and to develop your own self-esteem
and to build unshakable confidence in yourself?
And I did not have those tools.
I had phenomenal parents.
I had a very lovely, very kind,
(27:04):
almost idyllic childhood growing up.
But they don't teach you about school.
And if your parents aren't equipped
with those specific skills,
if my parents didn't know how to teach me emotional resilience,
they loved me.
They didn't teach me emotional resilience.
They didn't teach me any mind-set stuff.
And school certainly didn't.
So 35 before I was like,
(27:25):
"Oh God, I'm going to have to go and learn that myself."
Yeah.
While you're saying that,
I was just thinking about kind of all the times
where I have put myself out there creatively,
whether it be in artwork or edited a video or written a blog.
(27:46):
Even just doing the song at the Christmas party.
There is this massive thing that is kind of like almost my hurdle,
the last hurdle before actually going out there and doing that.
And that thought is,
"What if I'm not as good as I think that I am?"
(28:07):
And this is actually just a pile of crap.
And so, yeah, it's you thinking and trying to predict
what the other person's going to say.
And it's not, "Well, think about you."
And that's holding you back.
And hasn't even happened yet.
Yeah, absolutely.
So fear is always something that hasn't happened yet.
(28:27):
It's always a figment of our imagination.
It's always a "What if?"
Unless it has happened or it is happening now,
it's always a figment of our imagination.
So this anticipation that we might produce something
or we might do something or we might sing something
or we might be someone that somebody else does not like
and doesn't approve of.
And then that kicks into all of our childhood wounds,
(28:50):
all of our innate, sort of, I guess,
hardwired fear of rejection,
which is really what everything boils down to.
The feeling of not being good enough
or not being loved or not belonging,
what we're really scared of is rejection.
Because on a very basic fundamental level,
we are creatures of tribe and community.
(29:12):
And back in the day, we could only exist in tribe.
We can't survive this world alone.
We are community creatures by nature.
And you couldn't hunt by yourself.
You can keep the fire going by yourself,
can procreate by yourself, can defend by ourselves.
We are creatures of tribe.
And so to be rejected from your pack is equate to death.
(29:35):
So we are wired to look out for do I belong?
Am I being accepted?
And it makes us feel safe to feel accepted.
And sometimes when we step into creativity,
we are risking that acceptance,
because we're doing something that somebody else
subjectively may or may not like.
And so, fear kicks in before we even know it, right?
(29:57):
Then we procrastinate or we self-sabotage
or we find an excuse.
And these excuses we really believe,
like I really actually can't sing tonight
because I coughed three days ago, right?
We really convince ourselves of the excuses that we use.
And our job, again, is to self-parent and say,
"Hey, you know what? There is no danger here for me."
If there is no actual danger,
then it is my job to parent myself,
(30:19):
to prove to myself that I can sing the song
and that I can dance this jig or whatever it might be.
And if I've ever used the terminology,
"Dance this jig" before, there you go.
It's possible.
And to focus on the people that love it,
because there will always be people that don't.
There will always be people that don't like your stuff,
that don't like who you are,
(30:41):
that have their own shit going on,
that they haven't processed,
that they haven't dealt with,
their own wounds that you bump up against.
And I say this to my clients all the time,
as long as we are existing inside of our own integrity
and to our own values and to our own standards,
then other people's reaction to you and your stuff
really is irrelevant.
(31:02):
If you're not working inside your integrity
and you're not working inside your values
and you're not working inside your standards,
that's different.
But if you are, then how other people react to you
is how other people are going to react to you
and that's their stuff.
The other thing that I think happens a lot for people,
and this is definitely something that I,
this is my life less than I think
(31:23):
my constant work in progress is comparison.
There is always someone that's better at doing
the things that I want to do than me.
There's better writers out there,
there's better storytellers out there,
there's better podcasters out there,
there's better public figures out there,
there's definitely better coaches out there than me.
And it's taken me such a long time
and continues to take me a lot of work
(31:44):
to remind myself that, you know,
for every person that is better,
there is also someone who was looking at me
and being like, "God, I wish I could do it
"the way that Emily Chavlund does it."
So inspiring.
And my job is to go out there
and be the demonstration to the people
who want to be inspired by me.
My job is not to go out there
and try and catch up to the people
who are ahead of me or who are doing it better than me.
(32:05):
I can be inspired by them and that is my choice,
but to sit in their shadow
and just feel shit about myself.
And again, this is why learning the tools
to be able to create a sense of self-worth
and to be able to examine the things that have happened
in your past that have led to you not believing in yourself
or that have led to you not feeling your worth
(32:26):
or not feeling like you're enough.
It's important that we go and we clear that stuff up.
Because otherwise, as much as we can pretend,
like it's not there, but it really is.
So it's a whole schmozzle of stuff
that goes on with creativity.
There's lots of stuff that we come up against.
And honestly, if you're going to go out there
and you're going to use your creativity
in whatever way that looks like for you,
(32:47):
you know, for years I told myself I wasn't creative
because I couldn't paint.
And I just thought, you know, if you're creative,
you can paint and you can make things.
And I certainly can't do any of those.
And it really has only been in the last six or seven years
that I've realized that my creativity
comes through words and my creativity comes through writing
(33:07):
and that that is a creative endeavor.
So whatever your creativity is, right,
like you are going to come up against your shit.
Yeah.
You're going to be a bit...
Your fears are going to show up.
Your worries are going to show up.
Your self-doubt is going to show up.
Your stuff is going to come and it's going to look you in the eye.
And, you know, that's, that is part of the creative process.
(33:32):
And I think it's why some people shy away from it
because they don't want to have to look at their stuff.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
And I agree that, you know, I think creativity is way broader
than what people think it is.
It's not just about painting and singing and all this stuff.
I think it's kind of...
(33:53):
I think it's a way of thinking.
I think it's using your imagination.
And I do think it's about putting yourself out there
and just being a little bit vulnerable.
And it could be...
Like, I think anyone can be creative in any role they are there in.
You don't have to be in the creative arts.
It could be, you know, coming up with an inventive solution
(34:14):
to a problem that...
Or a new way of delivering a service.
Or even just a new way of, you know, maintaining your house
or coming up with a new solution.
But there's something like that.
I think there's...
We shouldn't be boxing ourselves into this really narrow view of creativity.
And once he realizes a mindset and an approach to thinking
(34:35):
of the world you're always stuck.
Yeah, it really is.
There's an analogy I use all the time.
I actually talk about it quite a lot in terms of masculine and feminine energy.
But I think it also really translates into creativity.
Because I think sometimes people think...
There's like a personification to creativity, isn't there?
It's like, you know, the artist and the flamboyant and the...
(34:56):
And actually, creativity in its wholeness is two kind of
slightly separate components.
So if you imagine that you've got a piano in front of you
and you were to sit down at that piano
and you didn't have any music at all, you just had the piano.
And it's structured and it's ordered and it's in its octaves.
And you start at one end and it goes...
All the way up to the other end.
(35:19):
And it's really boring.
Like, who's going to just sit there and play scales all day and be like,
"Yeah, look at me rocking out.
This is fun."
Like, the piano by itself is just order and structure and it's boring.
But then you've got the sheet music, right?
And if you look at sheet music, it just looks like fully chaotic.
And it's like up here and down here.
And it makes no real sense by itself.
(35:43):
It can't do anything by itself, right?
By itself, it's just chaotic blobs of black ink on a paper.
But when you merge the two things together, right?
When you take the structure and the order of the piano
and you use the sheet music and translate it through the order of the piano,
that's when you get something that's awesome.
That's when you get something that makes people stop in the street
(36:04):
and listen to what you're playing, right?
It's that delicate blend of structure and chaos or order and chaos
or masculine and feminine.
And I think we need both.
And in order to be...
I don't actually use the word successful and creative in the same breath
because you don't have to monetize your creativity.
Like, that's not the point of creativity.
You can just write stories that no one ever reads if that's your jam.
(36:27):
You can play music for free on the street every weekend
if that's what makes you happy.
But I think in order for us to be, I guess,
really out there and vibrant with our creativity,
we also need to understand the structure of mindset behind it.
Because otherwise, it just becomes this like...
(36:50):
I don't know, like vibrating little munchkin that's like,
"What is that?"
It's running around your head and it doesn't have the order...
Or the structure in order to be heard and appreciated by other people.
So I do think there is that sort of sense of balance
that we need to create in order to have our creativity expressed
in a way that feels really resourceful to us.
(37:11):
And that's going to be different for everybody, of course,
and everyone's got different layers, you know,
people just do life very differently.
But yeah, that's always how I think about my creativity.
I'm like, "I've got these ideas and it's quite
chaotic sometimes."
And I'm like, "Okay, I need some order
and I need some structure in order for that creativity to come to life."
(37:32):
Yeah. And do you have any sort of quick strategies for people,
our listeners, who could...
If they want to delve into creativity
and they have no idea where to start, what's their first step?
I think the first step, I mean, this sounds really try,
is like, "What did you love doing as a kid?"
And I know that sounds really try and look really very eye-rolling.
(37:54):
I'm eye-rolling myself.
But like, quite honestly, we did things as kids
that we really, really loved.
Like, I just loved acting.
I was always telling a story.
My teachers told me all the time that I was talking too much
and that I was interrupting other people's work
and I was this nuisance, right?
And you can hear already the stories that I heard
from a really young age that, you know,
just were constantly telling me
(38:15):
that who I was naturally was not good enough
and it was wrong.
And that I should be quiet
and I shouldn't tell these stories, right?
Now I make a living from telling stories, for God's sake.
But it's taken quite a lot of time for me to get here
because of the conditioning around me
that told me that telling stories was a bad thing.
And then maybe start thinking about what were the things
that you did as a kid before you learned that you shouldn't.
(38:37):
Or before you began to interpret what an adult was saying as,
"I'm not good enough or I'm not doing it well enough."
Or there's no point because that person's always getting gold
and I'm only ever getting bronze.
So start sort of maybe connecting back to that.
And then the second step really is,
what are all the, like, start bringing conscious awareness
to the stories that you tell yourself around creativity.
Because you will be having inspirational ideas.
(39:00):
But how quickly are you shutting them down
before you can hear them?
So start bringing conscious awareness
to how you shut yourself down.
Don't be ridiculous, I can't do that.
And it might be like you walk past a busker in a street
and you'd be like, "God, I'd love to sing like that."
And then you tell yourself,
"Well, I can't sing like that so there's no point."
It's not about whether or not you can sing
like that busker.
But if there's a part of you that wants to sing,
(39:20):
go join a choir.
You know, get your hairbrush out and dance around.
- You can show it.
- You can dance today.
See how it feels.
You know, like, just start hearing yourself.
Start observing yourself.
And this is one of the reasons that I meditate.
This is part of the structure,
the piano part, if you like, to my creativity.
Because without meditation,
(39:41):
and I do it for 20 minutes every morning,
even on the days that I don't want to,
even on the days that it feels really uncomfortable,
even on the days when I don't really think it's working,
it's part of the structure for my creativity.
Because what meditation does is it gives me the space
to observe my thoughts instead of just be them.
- Yes.
- It is the practice of hearing a thought and being like,
"Oh, look, there's a thought that I am having over there
(40:02):
as opposed to this thought is who I am."
And there's a distinction between those two things.
And so learning how to observe my thoughts
instead of necessarily being my thoughts
has given me permission to, when I have a thought,
like, "God, that looks fun.
God, pole dancing looks like it would be a load of fun."
And then my judgment comes up, "Can't do pole dancing.
That's just for strippers.
God, no."
And I'm like, "Oh, that's an interesting thought that I just had."
(40:25):
- Yes.
- "I want to believe that thought.
What am I denying myself if I believe that thought?
Is that thought even true?
Where did that thought come from?"
So developing the muscle of inquiry and curiosity with yourself,
it will open up all sorts of inspiration
that maybe you've just been shutting down
that you weren't even aware that you were having.
(40:47):
- Absolutely.
Sounds like it's a lot of practice and bit by bit
and incrementally helping yourself through these,
well, firstly, awareness, being aware,
and working through those questions
and questioning your thoughts that are coming out.
- Yes.
- That's, you don't need to get there even to mine.
(41:09):
- Yeah, and it is.
It's, there's no magic pill for it.
And I think maybe I'm too honest
about this in my marketing, which is just like,
this is life-long journey.
It's a lifelong journey of reclaiming yourself.
And that is, it's daily work.
It's not a, "Oh, I'm just going to do this for a week course."
And then I've learned everything I need to know
(41:31):
about myself and managing my mind because it's,
it is, yeah, it's like, it is the best analogy
is it's like going to the gym or it's like eating food.
You don't just eat once.
And then you're like, "I have eaten all of the nutrients
I will ever need for this lifetime."
And then you don't just take one shower.
You don't just have one shit.
It's a constant in and out.
It's an in and out.
(41:51):
It's an in and out.
And so, you know, really managing your mind
so that you can access your creativity is the same process.
It's, it's, it's a forever conversation.
But the more you do it, the less, I don't know,
I guess the more delightful and kind of the more funny it gets.
Sometimes I hear myself say things in my own head
(42:12):
and I'm like, "Why?"
- That is ridiculous.
Are you joking?
Did you get that?
Where did that come from?
Come on, we're going to do the scary thing anyway, right?
We're going to, I call them tight-butt moments.
Those moments when you are, you know, stepping into a vulnerability
or you're sharing something and you don't know
how it's going to be received
or you're moving with a confidence you don't know
if you even have yet because you're doing something
(42:34):
that's outside of your comfort zone.
And in coaching, we call it optimal anxiety,
but I just, I'm a huge believer that how we language our world
is how we'll experience it.
So I don't use the word anxiety.
It's just not really in my day-to-day vocab,
but it's that feeling of like, I'm going to shit myself, right?
Like, "Oh my God, I'm doing this thing."
Or I'm, you know, I'm hitting send on that email
(42:54):
or I'm asking the question, I'm asserting the boundary,
I'm asking for my needs to be met, I'm sharing my painting,
I'm singing my song, and I feel like I'm going to shit myself.
I call it a tight-butt moment.
So, you know, you cling to it to make sure
that you don't shit yourself.
And life is about taking tight-butt moment after tight-butt moment
after tight-butt moment.
And holding the narrative with yourself
(43:17):
that you are going to be okay in the face of those tight-butt moments.
And creativity is a tight-butt moment.
Of course it is, because there's always going to be someone out there
that's like, "Nah, don't like that painting.
Wouldn't buy that.
I think you're singing shit."
There's always going to be someone.
Yeah, absolutely.
Wow, okay, that was, there were so many things to think about then.
I feel like I firstly have to go away
(43:39):
and sit with myself and be a bit more aware about it.
But I know, and the homework for everyone who's listening here
is to, if you think that you don't have creativity in your life yet,
yes, think about what you love doing as a kid.
I thought that's fantastic advice.
And then you can work on your mindset to actually do it.
(44:01):
But Anne, thanks so much for joining me today.
That was super insightful and really, really interesting.
And I want to say thanks to everyone who has tuned into Creativity (44:10):
Uncovered today.
I really hope that this episode has made you laugh,
has sort of made you think about tight-butts.
He doesn't want a tight-butt, you know?
We're always going back to the gym, right?
(44:35):
But most importantly, I really hope that it's given you some tools to
help you summon your creativity the next time you need it
and how to bust through any blocks that you come up against during that journey.
So, yeah, thank you so much and take care until next time.
Thank you so much for having me on.
[Music]
(45:22):
If you've made it this far, a huge thank you for your support and tuning into today's episode.
Creativity (45:28):
Uncovered has been lovingly recorded on the land of the Kabi Kabi people
and we pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging.
This podcast has been produced by my amazing team here at Crisp Communications
and the music you just heard was composed by James Gatling.
(45:49):
If you liked this episode, please do share it around
and help us on our mission to unlock more creativity in this world.
You can also hit subscribe so you don't miss out on any new episode releases.
Uncovered.
(00:08):
My name is Abi Gatling and I'm on a journey to uncover how everyday people find inspiration,
get inventive and open their imagination.
Basically I want to find out how people find their own creative solutions for home, work,
play and everything in between.
My goal for this podcast is that by the end of it you'll be armed with a whole suite of
(00:32):
tried and tested ways to find creativity the next time that you need it.
Now today I'm speaking to Emily Chadbourne.
Emma is a mindset coach based in Melbourne, super down to earth.
She's a fellow dog lover and very very funny.
So I feel like we're going to have a really great chat today.
(00:55):
Welcome Emily.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm really happy.
Yeah.
No absolutely.
Such a pleasure to have you on.
And you know we've had a bit of a chat already and you know that this podcast is about creativity
and I know there's so much that you have to say about it and I'm really getting
(01:15):
keen to dive into it.
But before we do I'm curious and I'm sure our listeners are too.
A little bit about your story because you're a mindset coach and you work with women
to help them develop their inner strength.
However in the bio you shared with me you confess that you used to be a bit of an idiot
(01:38):
and had to make a serious change in your life.
And so you know now I'm seeing you here you've got this amazing business and you work internationally
and you're a very funny Instagram star.
There's kind of a missing connection there for me.
Like tell me who were you back then.
What happened and how did you get here.
(02:01):
I must have given you the polite version of my bio because some people get the opening line is
Emily Chappell used to be a bit of a twat.
That's how I love to refer to myself in my in my my other life as I like to think of it.
I think I just never no one ever told me that I was in charge of my life.
(02:25):
But I know that sounds to be a little bit of a weird thing to say.
But I just I just went along the treadmill of life.
I went to school and my parents told me I should go to university.
So I went to university and I did a degree that didn't.
I mean I just did the thing that I was good at which was drama and education.
And then I worked in hospitality and I was just good at managing people and I was relatively
(02:50):
efficient and so I just worked my way up.
And I spent my 20s living in London having a great time.
I was having such a good time and lived my life in London waiting tables and managing restaurants.
And and I never really had any forward thinking.
(03:12):
I was I just did the thing that somebody else reassured me I was good at.
I'd never learned or developed the skill of facing my fear.
And I had this inherent belief that it was better not to try than it was to fail.
So everything I did was the play safe stuff.
(03:32):
It was you know being headhunted so I took the job.
But I would never go and interview for a job.
If you offered me a job I would accept it.
But I would never go and think to to go and find a different job.
And then I came to Australia in my 30s.
I followed a boy for love.
And yeah we can all anticipate how that ended.
But I found myself in Australia.
(03:55):
Still I was in my 30s and I was waiting tables.
I mean hospitality doesn't translate from the UK to Australia.
They're very different landscapes.
And so I came to Australia and none of my experience as senior as I had sort of
climbed up the senior ladder of corporate hospitality.
It just didn't exist here.
And so I found myself sort of back at the foot of the ladder again.
(04:17):
Waiting tables for 20 bucks an hour.
And I hated everything about my life.
The only thing that was really working for me was my social life.
I was quite a party girl.
And that's where I got all my significance from.
That's where I could tell my stories.
That's where I could connect with people.
But the idea of translating that into a career.
(04:38):
Or harnessing that to be a useful thing.
Was just way beyond my comprehension.
So I was just waiting tables.
And I got to about 33, 34 horrendously in debt by this time.
Because being a party girl is actually quite expensive.
I don't know if anyone ever told you that.
So I knew I was earning minimum wage and really terrible tips.
(04:59):
So it wasn't until I kind of hit a very hard brick wall
that was very uncomfortable and quite painful in my mid-30s
that I decided I had to do something.
I couldn't keep going the way that I was going.
The rest of my friends had started to get married and buy houses.
And they were doing things with their careers.
(05:21):
And I was waiting tables.
And I felt so completely lost and alone.
And everyone else had been given a road map.
And I'd been left out.
And so I did the only thing that I knew to do,
which was to go and close the gap that I could see that I had,
which was I didn't know who I was.
(05:42):
And that was a lot of personal development,
a lot of spiritual development.
I got sober in that time.
And there was a lot of soul searching and so much ugly crying.
You could not possibly believe.
And I think doing that work
(06:02):
reintroduced me to some qualities that I had not seen as special
or disregarded as valuable.
And I think a lot of us do this, women especially,
is that we fail to recognize that who we are
and how we relate to the world around us is special.
(06:23):
I've always been able to tell a great story.
I came out of the womb with jazz hands.
And my parents threw me onto the stage at the age of five.
To try and focus some of that energy.
And so I've always been a performer.
I've never had stage fright.
I never have...
I mean, every now and then I'll do a keynote in front of a really big room
of important people and I'll have that moment of like,
(06:45):
"Oh my God, but I can really talk myself through that quite quickly."
So I've had this wonderful, amazing creative skill set my whole life.
But no one ever put value on it, so I didn't put value on it.
And no one ever helped me navigate how I could take that skill set
and create something wonderful with it
and create something that would contribute to the world around me with it.
(07:09):
So it just kind of languished away.
I would tell a great story at three o'clock in the morning at the after party.
And that was the only way that creativity got to be expressed.
And that was actually a very unresourceful way of expressing that creativity.
And so it wasn't until I did the work on myself
(07:29):
that I began to understand that I had something that could do something really awesome
for the people around me.
Yeah, wow.
And so the work that you did on yourself,
is that basically mindset coaching?
And now you're doing it for other people?
Yeah, it completely changed my life.
(07:51):
Like a full 180.
Radical responsibility for myself
was the first step.
I think I'd spent many years blaming other people
and being a victim of my circumstances
and feeling very trapped by my circumstances.
No one had ever told me that perception is reality.
That if you change your perception of a situation,
(08:11):
your experience of your reality can change.
That was a completely foreign concept to me until I was 35 years old.
Wow.
Like it was just, I was just bumbling along.
And the universe was, in my opinion,
the universe was just taking me down this dead end path.
And that wasn't my fault.
(08:32):
And it really, it was that level of radical responsibility.
I learned how to manage my thoughts.
I learned how to question my thoughts.
I learned how to observe the stories that I was telling myself
and question whether or not I wanted that story to be true.
Where had that story come from?
Did I have to believe that story?
What did I manifest when I believed that story?
What could I manifest if I believed a different story?
(08:54):
And all of a sudden you begin to realize
that you are the architect of your reality.
And there is such power in that.
And paradoxically, at the same time,
the spiritual concepts that I learned through my sobriety program,
which is that you don't control anything.
And that you are this tiny little insignificant spot on the universe.
(09:20):
And your desire to control everything is only causing you suffering.
And your attachment to how you think things should be
is where your suffering lies.
Your resistance to what is, is often suffering and juicing.
So I kind of coupled those two things together.
This idea that you are a powerful creator.
(09:43):
And at the same time, you have got no idea what's going on.
Because the universe will do what the universe does.
You don't get to control death or disease or other people or even the weather.
And so how do you find a balance with those two things?
How do you work those two things so that they can coexist
(10:03):
and create a life that feels really fulfilling for you?
Yeah, wow.
I love that.
Do you say the architect of your own, of your own life?
That is true.
Because when I think of an architect, it's very purposeful.
It's very methodical.
Lots of checks and measures and balances
(10:25):
and everything has got to make sense in the overall picture.
I feel like that's not an approach a lot of people take to their lives.
We just sort of float along and bump into walls
and eventually you just sort of get along the right path.
But that's very much taking control of your life.
I think that's really cool.
So when do people come to you as a Mindset Coach versus say like a life coach
(10:52):
or a career coach?
What's typically the catalyst for people to come and knock on your door?
So typically women come to men, it is women that come to me.
And they are normally anywhere between sort of 30 and 50.
But we've got clients who are 27 and I have got,
(11:15):
I think my oldest client is 73.
So we can arrange, but typically the experience that they are having
is one of everything is fine and it's not good enough.
And I don't know why it's not good enough.
I know that there is more, but I can't work out what that more is.
I have often manifested lots of stuff,
(11:36):
which society told me should make me happy.
But it doesn't.
I've got the house and I've got the husband, I've got the kids,
I've got the car, but there is still something missing.
And in my experience and my observation of working with women
over the last seven years or so, what I have observed is that
normally the thing that they are missing is connection to self.
(11:56):
And I know that sounds trite.
But when we don't connect well to ourselves,
when we are on show for other people as opposed to sort of living
authentically to our values,
we tend to block, I'm going to use the word creativity,
it's early on, but I'm dropping the word already.
(12:17):
We tend to block that creativity.
We tell ourselves that we can only do certain things
if it is a productive thing to do or if it is a,
if it monetizes, you know, I hear so many people say,
I'm looking for my purpose, I'm looking for my purpose,
I'm looking for my purpose.
And my advice every time is we'll stop looking for your purpose
and just ask yourself what would a purposeful life look like
(12:40):
for me.
And that's a lot of the work that we do inside,
my membership is called the Amplify community.
And it's a lot of the work that we do inside Amplify
is like pulling back the layers of conditioning,
the people that told us that we couldn't,
the, you know, cultural conditioning that's told us
that we should be a particular way in order to be loved
or respected or valued.
And we start addressing some of those narratives
(13:03):
and asking ourselves, does that really work for me?
And if I, you know, if I wasn't worried about rejection,
what would I do?
What would I produce?
How would I create?
How would I enjoy my life a little bit differently?
And it's amazing how that one shift, that permission
to explore parts of yourself that maybe your parents told you
(13:26):
were too loud or maybe your teacher at school told you
wasn't good enough, you know, the amount of times
that I myself even let alone the amount of clients
that I've seen do this, you know,
I've told myself I can't do something
or I shouldn't do something
or I don't do something as well as somebody else
so there's no point me doing it.
And I've denied myself all sorts of pleasure
and in denying myself pleasure,
(13:48):
I've also denied my community a part of me, you know,
or my friends a particular part of me.
And so it's about developing the muscle of learning
how to manage your mind.
We talk about managing your mind a lot inside
of the Amplify community.
How can I manage the stories?
How can I decondition myself?
How do I bring conscious awareness to the parameters
(14:09):
that have either been put around me
or have been put there by myself?
And how do I push those?
You know, how do I meet my corners
and then push a little bit further
so that I can do something a bit different
so that I can grow into the next version of me?
And for me, that is one of the most,
it's the most delightful, I mean,
if you'd asked me seven years ago,
(14:29):
would I be doing this work?
I would just laugh in your face
because, you know, I was busy scraping,
you know, the remains of table 23's dinner into the bin,
but to be doing this work
and to be supporting women in this way is just,
it really is a gift.
I feel like, consider myself to be very privileged.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, what a shift.
(14:50):
What a shift.
And it sounds like you're being creative
in the delivery of your coaching,
but you are also helping other people
unlock their own creativity.
Because from what I understand from what you just said,
like a lot of what's holding us back
from putting ourselves out there is external conditioning
(15:13):
and then also our mindset.
And we're afraid to be vulnerable
because I guess creativity is a very personal thing.
It's kind of like putting your little heart out on there.
I'm just playing.
(15:33):
That's scary.
And it's always so subjective, right?
Still, even now, like I huge believe my overarching brand
and my company name is Unashamedly Human
because I don't in any way, shape or form
pretend to have all my shit together.
In fact, most of my shit isn't even in the same postcode.
I've not worked out how to human well necessarily,
(15:57):
but I'm always a work in progress
and I'm always in this sort of space of growth and evolution
and that in itself has got to be messy.
It can't be neat and it can't be organized.
It must be in a space of flux.
And so, you know, one of the ways that I utilize my creativity
is to tell stories of how completely and totally and highly,
(16:19):
you know, the red hot mess that I am.
And every time I go and post something on Instagram,
every time it doesn't matter how long I've been on that platform,
every time I post a reel,
I know that there is going to be someone out there
who watches my creativity and doesn't get it.
Or they're going to judge me.
Or they're going to their own jealousy,
their own insecurity is going to come up
(16:40):
and they're going to make a judgment about me as a result of it.
I know that my heart goes on the line every time I hit post.
And I have to work through it every single time.
Even now, I still have to like talk myself through it
and then guide myself through the practice
of doing the scary thing.
And I think, you know, that is a skill
(17:03):
and it's a muscle that we have to develop
and that we have to continually exercise.
Creativity is vulnerable and it's very subjective
and there will be people that don't get it.
And you have to condition yourself to believe in yourself enough
that it's okay that somebody else doesn't get your stuff.
(17:24):
It's like it really is.
It's okay that you're not for everybody.
Like if you are okay for you, then that's enough.
And that's a lifelong practice for me.
That's not something that I learned and now I teach.
That is something that I'm in the constant practice of.
Yeah, yeah.
So is when typically people come to you for the coaching,
(17:47):
is it a lifelong thing?
Or is it kind of like you've done this
and now you've ticked this box and now you're cured.
Off you go.
Yeah, I mean that's actually how Amplify came about
because I was doing group coaching courses
and I had private clients and I still work privately with clients.
But what I was finding was lots of people were like doing a group coaching program
(18:08):
and they were learning this really cool stuff
and that was really awesome and they were applying it
and they were seeing results.
But then they were like, okay, well, what's next?
And it's not that they were asking what's the next piece.
It's how can I still hang out with you
and be part of this conversation
because it becomes really apparent quite quickly
when you start doing this work
that you are up against your conditioning for life.
(18:31):
Those belief systems that started when you were two, three, four, five years old
that you weren't good enough or that you weren't enough
or you're not a creative person
or no one cares that you can sing
or you shouldn't be that big and brash and bold
because you're a woman or whatever it is.
That conditioning, whilst we work, we work to recondition ourselves
(18:53):
that conditioning will always be with you.
So you don't get to, it's a bit like going to the gym, right?
You go to the gym, you work your biceps, you get your biceps,
you're proud of your biceps, awesome.
And you stop going to the gym and two, three, four months later
you no longer have biceps and you're like, oh man, but I did the thing
and I went to the gym and I got the biceps
and we've got to keep going to the gym.
(19:14):
And so this is what it is to be in the reconditioning process
of yourself.
And what I found was that clients kept coming back
and then doing the course again and again
and they didn't want the course again.
They wanted to continue to be in the conversation.
We created Amplify to solve that problem.
(19:35):
So it's four months and you can leave after four months
and we teach you those four what I would consider
to be really fundamental blocks around mindset
and manifestation, relationships and money
because I believe that a well-resourced woman
is an empowered woman.
And we sort of go through those four modules if you like.
(19:57):
And then after that it's like a really low cost membership
and we've got women who have been there since the very, very beginning
and they just continue to pay a low cost monthly membership,
have access to all the material, have access to all the live content,
have access to the community because it's the conversation
that they know that they need to be in.
(20:17):
So it's a bit like a gym for your brain if you like.
And we still come across it, right?
One of the things that I'm kind of the work
that I'm doing with myself right now is about aging.
I've just hit 42 and I've had Botox in the past
and I'm beginning to really question the paradigm
(20:38):
that is so strong in our cultural conditioning
about my worth as a woman as I grow older
and as I leave my child bearing years behind
and as my face gets rinklier and my boobs get saggier
and all those things that society tells me
I should try and rail against because my value is in youth as a woman.
And so that, as much as I can convince myself
(21:01):
of that on a day-to-day basis,
society is telling me something completely different.
And so the conversation can't ever stop.
The conversation needs to be consistent.
The repetition is what keeps us in the healthy mindset.
It's not a one-hit wonder and then done.
Yeah, yeah, wow.
I can definitely see the value
(21:22):
in having those continual conversations
and a community where you can all talk to each other about that
and keep each other accountable.
And yes, that's like a big gold cheers score.
I love it.
Oh my God, absolutely.
It really is.
It's like the best girl gang in the world, yeah.
It's really, I mean, it has nothing to do with me, the community.
(21:44):
That was the piece that surprised me the most.
You know, I facilitate the space that the women
who have made that community what it is, they just, yeah,
I'm in awe of them because it's such brave work.
Yeah, yeah.
So, I mean, I can imagine all these benefits
for being able to talk about creativity and mindset
(22:05):
and all those things.
But what are the downsides for not talking about it
and not focusing on your mindset?
I think you just end up being a victim
of your own circumstance.
And I think you deny this really sort of vibrant
and authentic part of you.
(22:26):
This has been my experience anyway, is that we,
a lot of us are in survival mode, right?
We are using and playing out the strategies
that we learn at the age of four.
Or five or six.
When we were learning how do we feel safe
and what do we need to do to get attention and love?
(22:49):
And without taking charge of those thought patterns,
taking charge of those belief systems,
taking charge of those paradigms,
bringing conscious awareness to that kind of stuff,
we will end up, I mean, I was doing this
and I still do it every now and then.
Sometimes I'll catch myself having an adult temper tantrum
and I was like, whoa, four-year-old Emily
(23:10):
is in charge of this situation.
42-year-old Emily is absolutely not.
This is a four-year-old right now having a temper tantrum
because she doesn't feel seen or she doesn't feel important
or she doesn't feel loved
or she feels in some way, shape or form unsafe.
And it's my job because I have the tools
because I have done the mindset work
to parent that version of me.
(23:32):
And I think without the tools
and without the conscious awareness,
we allow our four-year-old self to control our finances,
to control our relationships,
to not set the boundaries that we should probably set,
to dictate where our career path goes.
And we deny ourselves so much in that process
because the four-year-old version of you really
(23:54):
should not be in charge of your adult life.
And yeah, I think we just deny ourselves
a lot of joy along the way
because we are in survival mode.
So we're doing the things that feel comfortable
and the things that feel familiar
and not necessarily the things that are conducive
to living a whole and fulfilling life.
(24:15):
Yeah. I think that's really interesting.
It's amazing because these tools aren't like,
they're not particularly complicated.
When you look at spirituality throughout the ages,
I'm not a religious person,
but I would say that I was a deeply spiritual person.
I have a very specific God of my understanding.
(24:35):
It's very...
I actually don't really necessarily believe in an inferential God.
I don't really look for signs from the universe or anything like that.
Although a lot of the people inside the Amplify community do,
and I don't...
You believe what you believe.
That's...
I have zero judgment for me.
But when you look at all of the works throughout the ages,
(24:58):
so all of the religious texts, all of the folklore,
there are some very basic spiritual principles
which we can apply over and over and over again
in all sorts of different contexts.
It's nothing new.
It's nothing particularly groundbreaking,
but it's life-changing stuff
when you begin to implement it in your day-to-day life.
(25:19):
The process of being able to observe a thought that you have
and saying to yourself,
"Is that thought that I just had the truth?
Is it the absolute ultimate truth?
And when I believe it to be the truth,
how do I act and what do I manifest?
And if I chose to believe a different truth,
how would I behave differently?
And therefore, what could I manifest differently?"
(25:41):
That's so simple.
That's not rocket science stuff.
Very simple.
You don't even need a journal to do it,
although I would always suggest a journal,
but you can just do it in your mind.
But it will change your life.
Well, that person looked at me a bit funny.
And now, what's the thought that I am having about that?
Do I making it mean that I must be wrong,
(26:01):
that there is something wrong with me,
that I'm not good enough, that I'm not lovable?
Now, is that thought really true?
That person could just be having a fart, right?
Trying not to shit themselves on the street.
Right?
That happens to be on the phone to his doctor,
who's just been like, "Yeah, got gone a remake.
Sorry."
We don't know what's going on for somebody else.
(26:22):
We make everything about us.
And that's understandable,
because we can't comprehend what it is like
to be anyone but us.
But those thoughts will keep us away from creativity.
Those thoughts of like, "Oh, God, that person's judging me."
Yeah, absolutely.
"That person doesn't like me."
Or "That person doesn't think I'm good enough."
And maybe that person doesn't think you're good enough,
(26:44):
but then do you have the tools to be able to go,
"What do I want to do with the fact
that that person doesn't think I'm good enough?"
Do you have the skills to see your own worth
and to develop your own self-esteem
and to build unshakable confidence in yourself?
And I did not have those tools.
I had phenomenal parents.
I had a very lovely, very kind,
(27:04):
almost idyllic childhood growing up.
But they don't teach you about school.
And if your parents aren't equipped
with those specific skills,
if my parents didn't know how to teach me emotional resilience,
they loved me.
They didn't teach me emotional resilience.
They didn't teach me any mind-set stuff.
And school certainly didn't.
So 35 before I was like,
(27:25):
"Oh God, I'm going to have to go and learn that myself."
Yeah.
While you're saying that,
I was just thinking about kind of all the times
where I have put myself out there creatively,
whether it be in artwork or edited a video or written a blog.
(27:46):
Even just doing the song at the Christmas party.
There is this massive thing that is kind of like almost my hurdle,
the last hurdle before actually going out there and doing that.
And that thought is,
"What if I'm not as good as I think that I am?"
(28:07):
And this is actually just a pile of crap.
And so, yeah, it's you thinking and trying to predict
what the other person's going to say.
And it's not, "Well, think about you."
And that's holding you back.
And hasn't even happened yet.
Yeah, absolutely.
So fear is always something that hasn't happened yet.
(28:27):
It's always a figment of our imagination.
It's always a "What if?"
Unless it has happened or it is happening now,
it's always a figment of our imagination.
So this anticipation that we might produce something
or we might do something or we might sing something
or we might be someone that somebody else does not like
and doesn't approve of.
And then that kicks into all of our childhood wounds,
(28:50):
all of our innate, sort of, I guess,
hardwired fear of rejection,
which is really what everything boils down to.
The feeling of not being good enough
or not being loved or not belonging,
what we're really scared of is rejection.
Because on a very basic fundamental level,
we are creatures of tribe and community.
(29:12):
And back in the day, we could only exist in tribe.
We can't survive this world alone.
We are community creatures by nature.
And you couldn't hunt by yourself.
You can keep the fire going by yourself,
can procreate by yourself, can defend by ourselves.
We are creatures of tribe.
And so to be rejected from your pack is equate to death.
(29:35):
So we are wired to look out for do I belong?
Am I being accepted?
And it makes us feel safe to feel accepted.
And sometimes when we step into creativity,
we are risking that acceptance,
because we're doing something that somebody else
subjectively may or may not like.
And so, fear kicks in before we even know it, right?
(29:57):
Then we procrastinate or we self-sabotage
or we find an excuse.
And these excuses we really believe,
like I really actually can't sing tonight
because I coughed three days ago, right?
We really convince ourselves of the excuses that we use.
And our job, again, is to self-parent and say,
"Hey, you know what? There is no danger here for me."
If there is no actual danger,
then it is my job to parent myself,
(30:19):
to prove to myself that I can sing the song
and that I can dance this jig or whatever it might be.
And if I've ever used the terminology,
"Dance this jig" before, there you go.
It's possible.
And to focus on the people that love it,
because there will always be people that don't.
There will always be people that don't like your stuff,
that don't like who you are,
(30:41):
that have their own shit going on,
that they haven't processed,
that they haven't dealt with,
their own wounds that you bump up against.
And I say this to my clients all the time,
as long as we are existing inside of our own integrity
and to our own values and to our own standards,
then other people's reaction to you and your stuff
really is irrelevant.
(31:02):
If you're not working inside your integrity
and you're not working inside your values
and you're not working inside your standards,
that's different.
But if you are, then how other people react to you
is how other people are going to react to you
and that's their stuff.
The other thing that I think happens a lot for people,
and this is definitely something that I,
this is my life less than I think
(31:23):
my constant work in progress is comparison.
There is always someone that's better at doing
the things that I want to do than me.
There's better writers out there,
there's better storytellers out there,
there's better podcasters out there,
there's better public figures out there,
there's definitely better coaches out there than me.
And it's taken me such a long time
and continues to take me a lot of work
(31:44):
to remind myself that, you know,
for every person that is better,
there is also someone who was looking at me
and being like, "God, I wish I could do it
"the way that Emily Chavlund does it."
So inspiring.
And my job is to go out there
and be the demonstration to the people
who want to be inspired by me.
My job is not to go out there
and try and catch up to the people
who are ahead of me or who are doing it better than me.
(32:05):
I can be inspired by them and that is my choice,
but to sit in their shadow
and just feel shit about myself.
And again, this is why learning the tools
to be able to create a sense of self-worth
and to be able to examine the things that have happened
in your past that have led to you not believing in yourself
or that have led to you not feeling your worth
(32:26):
or not feeling like you're enough.
It's important that we go and we clear that stuff up.
Because otherwise, as much as we can pretend,
like it's not there, but it really is.
So it's a whole schmozzle of stuff
that goes on with creativity.
There's lots of stuff that we come up against.
And honestly, if you're going to go out there
and you're going to use your creativity
in whatever way that looks like for you,
(32:47):
you know, for years I told myself I wasn't creative
because I couldn't paint.
And I just thought, you know, if you're creative,
you can paint and you can make things.
And I certainly can't do any of those.
And it really has only been in the last six or seven years
that I've realized that my creativity
comes through words and my creativity comes through writing
(33:07):
and that that is a creative endeavor.
So whatever your creativity is, right,
like you are going to come up against your shit.
Yeah.
You're going to be a bit...
Your fears are going to show up.
Your worries are going to show up.
Your self-doubt is going to show up.
Your stuff is going to come and it's going to look you in the eye.
And, you know, that's, that is part of the creative process.
(33:32):
And I think it's why some people shy away from it
because they don't want to have to look at their stuff.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
And I agree that, you know, I think creativity is way broader
than what people think it is.
It's not just about painting and singing and all this stuff.
I think it's kind of...
(33:53):
I think it's a way of thinking.
I think it's using your imagination.
And I do think it's about putting yourself out there
and just being a little bit vulnerable.
And it could be...
Like, I think anyone can be creative in any role they are there in.
You don't have to be in the creative arts.
It could be, you know, coming up with an inventive solution
(34:14):
to a problem that...
Or a new way of delivering a service.
Or even just a new way of, you know, maintaining your house
or coming up with a new solution.
But there's something like that.
I think there's...
We shouldn't be boxing ourselves into this really narrow view of creativity.
And once he realizes a mindset and an approach to thinking
(34:35):
of the world you're always stuck.
Yeah, it really is.
There's an analogy I use all the time.
I actually talk about it quite a lot in terms of masculine and feminine energy.
But I think it also really translates into creativity.
Because I think sometimes people think...
There's like a personification to creativity, isn't there?
It's like, you know, the artist and the flamboyant and the...
(34:56):
And actually, creativity in its wholeness is two kind of
slightly separate components.
So if you imagine that you've got a piano in front of you
and you were to sit down at that piano
and you didn't have any music at all, you just had the piano.
And it's structured and it's ordered and it's in its octaves.
And you start at one end and it goes...
All the way up to the other end.
(35:19):
And it's really boring.
Like, who's going to just sit there and play scales all day and be like,
"Yeah, look at me rocking out.
This is fun."
Like, the piano by itself is just order and structure and it's boring.
But then you've got the sheet music, right?
And if you look at sheet music, it just looks like fully chaotic.
And it's like up here and down here.
And it makes no real sense by itself.
(35:43):
It can't do anything by itself, right?
By itself, it's just chaotic blobs of black ink on a paper.
But when you merge the two things together, right?
When you take the structure and the order of the piano
and you use the sheet music and translate it through the order of the piano,
that's when you get something that's awesome.
That's when you get something that makes people stop in the street
(36:04):
and listen to what you're playing, right?
It's that delicate blend of structure and chaos or order and chaos
or masculine and feminine.
And I think we need both.
And in order to be...
I don't actually use the word successful and creative in the same breath
because you don't have to monetize your creativity.
Like, that's not the point of creativity.
You can just write stories that no one ever reads if that's your jam.
(36:27):
You can play music for free on the street every weekend
if that's what makes you happy.
But I think in order for us to be, I guess,
really out there and vibrant with our creativity,
we also need to understand the structure of mindset behind it.
Because otherwise, it just becomes this like...
(36:50):
I don't know, like vibrating little munchkin that's like,
"What is that?"
It's running around your head and it doesn't have the order...
Or the structure in order to be heard and appreciated by other people.
So I do think there is that sort of sense of balance
that we need to create in order to have our creativity expressed
in a way that feels really resourceful to us.
(37:11):
And that's going to be different for everybody, of course,
and everyone's got different layers, you know,
people just do life very differently.
But yeah, that's always how I think about my creativity.
I'm like, "I've got these ideas and it's quite
chaotic sometimes."
And I'm like, "Okay, I need some order
and I need some structure in order for that creativity to come to life."
(37:32):
Yeah. And do you have any sort of quick strategies for people,
our listeners, who could...
If they want to delve into creativity
and they have no idea where to start, what's their first step?
I think the first step, I mean, this sounds really try,
is like, "What did you love doing as a kid?"
And I know that sounds really try and look really very eye-rolling.
(37:54):
I'm eye-rolling myself.
But like, quite honestly, we did things as kids
that we really, really loved.
Like, I just loved acting.
I was always telling a story.
My teachers told me all the time that I was talking too much
and that I was interrupting other people's work
and I was this nuisance, right?
And you can hear already the stories that I heard
from a really young age that, you know,
just were constantly telling me
(38:15):
that who I was naturally was not good enough
and it was wrong.
And that I should be quiet
and I shouldn't tell these stories, right?
Now I make a living from telling stories, for God's sake.
But it's taken quite a lot of time for me to get here
because of the conditioning around me
that told me that telling stories was a bad thing.
And then maybe start thinking about what were the things
that you did as a kid before you learned that you shouldn't.
(38:37):
Or before you began to interpret what an adult was saying as,
"I'm not good enough or I'm not doing it well enough."
Or there's no point because that person's always getting gold
and I'm only ever getting bronze.
So start sort of maybe connecting back to that.
And then the second step really is,
what are all the, like, start bringing conscious awareness
to the stories that you tell yourself around creativity.
Because you will be having inspirational ideas.
(39:00):
But how quickly are you shutting them down
before you can hear them?
So start bringing conscious awareness
to how you shut yourself down.
Don't be ridiculous, I can't do that.
And it might be like you walk past a busker in a street
and you'd be like, "God, I'd love to sing like that."
And then you tell yourself,
"Well, I can't sing like that so there's no point."
It's not about whether or not you can sing
like that busker.
But if there's a part of you that wants to sing,
(39:20):
go join a choir.
You know, get your hairbrush out and dance around.
- You can show it.
- You can dance today.
See how it feels.
You know, like, just start hearing yourself.
Start observing yourself.
And this is one of the reasons that I meditate.
This is part of the structure,
the piano part, if you like, to my creativity.
Because without meditation,
(39:41):
and I do it for 20 minutes every morning,
even on the days that I don't want to,
even on the days that it feels really uncomfortable,
even on the days when I don't really think it's working,
it's part of the structure for my creativity.
Because what meditation does is it gives me the space
to observe my thoughts instead of just be them.
- Yes.
- It is the practice of hearing a thought and being like,
"Oh, look, there's a thought that I am having over there
(40:02):
as opposed to this thought is who I am."
And there's a distinction between those two things.
And so learning how to observe my thoughts
instead of necessarily being my thoughts
has given me permission to, when I have a thought,
like, "God, that looks fun.
God, pole dancing looks like it would be a load of fun."
And then my judgment comes up, "Can't do pole dancing.
That's just for strippers.
God, no."
And I'm like, "Oh, that's an interesting thought that I just had."
(40:25):
- Yes.
- "I want to believe that thought.
What am I denying myself if I believe that thought?
Is that thought even true?
Where did that thought come from?"
So developing the muscle of inquiry and curiosity with yourself,
it will open up all sorts of inspiration
that maybe you've just been shutting down
that you weren't even aware that you were having.
(40:47):
- Absolutely.
Sounds like it's a lot of practice and bit by bit
and incrementally helping yourself through these,
well, firstly, awareness, being aware,
and working through those questions
and questioning your thoughts that are coming out.
- Yes.
- That's, you don't need to get there even to mine.
(41:09):
- Yeah, and it is.
It's, there's no magic pill for it.
And I think maybe I'm too honest
about this in my marketing, which is just like,
this is life-long journey.
It's a lifelong journey of reclaiming yourself.
And that is, it's daily work.
It's not a, "Oh, I'm just going to do this for a week course."
And then I've learned everything I need to know
(41:31):
about myself and managing my mind because it's,
it is, yeah, it's like, it is the best analogy
is it's like going to the gym or it's like eating food.
You don't just eat once.
And then you're like, "I have eaten all of the nutrients
I will ever need for this lifetime."
And then you don't just take one shower.
You don't just have one shit.
It's a constant in and out.
It's an in and out.
(41:51):
It's an in and out.
And so, you know, really managing your mind
so that you can access your creativity is the same process.
It's, it's, it's a forever conversation.
But the more you do it, the less, I don't know,
I guess the more delightful and kind of the more funny it gets.
Sometimes I hear myself say things in my own head
(42:12):
and I'm like, "Why?"
- That is ridiculous.
Are you joking?
Did you get that?
Where did that come from?
Come on, we're going to do the scary thing anyway, right?
We're going to, I call them tight-butt moments.
Those moments when you are, you know, stepping into a vulnerability
or you're sharing something and you don't know
how it's going to be received
or you're moving with a confidence you don't know
if you even have yet because you're doing something
(42:34):
that's outside of your comfort zone.
And in coaching, we call it optimal anxiety,
but I just, I'm a huge believer that how we language our world
is how we'll experience it.
So I don't use the word anxiety.
It's just not really in my day-to-day vocab,
but it's that feeling of like, I'm going to shit myself, right?
Like, "Oh my God, I'm doing this thing."
Or I'm, you know, I'm hitting send on that email
(42:54):
or I'm asking the question, I'm asserting the boundary,
I'm asking for my needs to be met, I'm sharing my painting,
I'm singing my song, and I feel like I'm going to shit myself.
I call it a tight-butt moment.
So, you know, you cling to it to make sure
that you don't shit yourself.
And life is about taking tight-butt moment after tight-butt moment
after tight-butt moment.
And holding the narrative with yourself
(43:17):
that you are going to be okay in the face of those tight-butt moments.
And creativity is a tight-butt moment.
Of course it is, because there's always going to be someone out there
that's like, "Nah, don't like that painting.
Wouldn't buy that.
I think you're singing shit."
There's always going to be someone.
Yeah, absolutely.
Wow, okay, that was, there were so many things to think about then.
I feel like I firstly have to go away
(43:39):
and sit with myself and be a bit more aware about it.
But I know, and the homework for everyone who's listening here
is to, if you think that you don't have creativity in your life yet,
yes, think about what you love doing as a kid.
I thought that's fantastic advice.
And then you can work on your mindset to actually do it.
(44:01):
But Anne, thanks so much for joining me today.
That was super insightful and really, really interesting.
And I want to say thanks to everyone who has tuned into Creativity (44:10):
Uncovered today.
I really hope that this episode has made you laugh,
has sort of made you think about tight-butts.
He doesn't want a tight-butt, you know?
We're always going back to the gym, right?
(44:35):
But most importantly, I really hope that it's given you some tools to
help you summon your creativity the next time you need it
and how to bust through any blocks that you come up against during that journey.
So, yeah, thank you so much and take care until next time.
Thank you so much for having me on.
[Music]
(45:22):
If you've made it this far, a huge thank you for your support and tuning into today's episode.
Creativity (45:28):
Uncovered has been lovingly recorded on the land of the Kabi Kabi people
and we pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging.
This podcast has been produced by my amazing team here at Crisp Communications
and the music you just heard was composed by James Gatling.
(45:49):
If you liked this episode, please do share it around
and help us on our mission to unlock more creativity in this world.
You can also hit subscribe so you don't miss out on any new episode releases.
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