Episode 42 - Three Questions for When You’re Creative, Stuck, or Somewhere In Between

Ever notice that the harder you try to be creative, the more stuck you feel?

In this episode of Three Questions, I explore what creativity actually needs in order to show up, especially when you feel stuck, uninspired, or frustrated with yourself. We’ll break down why creative ruts are normal, how sensory input and environment influence ideas, and why forcing creativity usually makes it disappear faster. 

Instead of chasing inspiration, I offer three practical questions to help you understand when creativity flows, why it stalls, and how to work with it instead of against it.

In This Episode You’ll Hear:

• Why creativity goes up and down and why that’s not a personal flaw

• How movement, sensory input, and environment shape creative flow

• Two surprisingly effective ways to reboot creativity when nothing’s working

Whether you’re teaching, creating, or problem-solving, these questions offer simple ways to support creativity without adding more pressure to you and your creative process.

Links & Resources For This Episode:
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Transcript

Meghann Koppele Duffy: Welcome to Three Questions where critical thinking is king, and my opinions and research are only here to support your learning and deeper understanding. Hey, I'm your host Meghann, and I'm so honored you clicked on Three Questions today so we can chat about creativity. What does creativity mean to you?

Let's start there. Think about where you are most creative. And I'm not talking in big ways like, you know, you don't have to be a famous musician or artist to be creative. I honestly think like the only place I'm actually creative is with movement on the mat in the studio. I watch my sister cook. She's so creative when she's cooking.

I look at food ingredients and I like a deer in headlights. I don't know what to do with anything. She'll open a refrigerator and know what to do with it. I look at my best friend, Cheryl. I don't mean to insult her, but if I look in her closet, I can't see anything I'd wear yet. Every time I see her, her outfits are always on point.

She knows how to open a closet and get creative with outfits. I do not have that luxury. Some of you might be amazing at writing music or singing or dancing or drawing or painting. That's amazing. But what often happens with creativity is we kind of put it on this pedestal. Like we're only valuable when we're feeling really creative.

And guys, creativity's like the economy. It goes up and down and sometimes for no rhyme or reason. So what I'd love you to kind of walk away from this podcast is be proud of your creativity, but it doesn't define you. You're no better 'cause you're creative, you're you, you a good just enough, just the way as you are.

All right? I say to my students, keep it on an even keel here. I often joke with them that sometimes when they have these good sessions or people tell them how great they are, we start believing it too much. We are great. Yes, and, but we usually learn less from those creative movements. So what I want you to do today is if you are in like creative flow, you're feeling it.

Use this episode to optimize and to ask yourself questions about how you can manage when you're going to be in a rut or how you can better manage where you are right now. And if you're feeling kind of shitty and in a creative rut, I promise by the end of this episode, you're gonna have some strategies that might get you outta that rut immediately, but also will help you appreciate and maximize the next time you're getting those creative juices flowing.

'cause let's be honest, we learn more from the bad sessions, the bad days, the ruts than we do from the good stuff. So let's get right into these three questions. I often ask myself. 'cause I am in a job where I have to be creative, come up with ideas for podcasts, come up with ideas for emails, for sales, social media.

And some days I just don't get it. Don't get it. Don't got it. Don't have it. Get it, got it. Have it. Don't have any of those. So question one I asked you to think about where are you most creative? So maybe use that as kind of the framework here, based off that, what conditions, situations, or environments help your creativity show up and really flourish.

So what are those conditions? So question one, what are those conditions and how can we better capture them? So question one, we've got a lot of sub-questions here. Stay with me. Okay. Question one, be B, what do you need to happen for ideas to flow? What do I mean by that? What do you need to happen? Well, do you like working on an empty stomach, a full stomach?

Do you need to move? Do you need to have visuals? Do you need to have auditory? What is the ideal sensory environment for things to flow? I know for me after vacation, I kind of completely unplugged. I completely, I didn't even exercise at all. I just went for walks and I felt great. So when I got back home and my first session was not my best.

I had to step back and I'm like, Ugh, do I even wanna do this anymore? I have one of those moments, and then I went in my studio, did a short little workout, and moved my next session. I'm back in the game. Why? Because when I am proprioceptively disconnected, when my brain is over here and my body's over there.

'cause I didn't move, man. My creativity juices don't flow at all. So what about you? Does exercise, take your creativity or does it give you creativity? And let's take that further if you're a movement pro, 'cause I know a lot of my followers are, maybe you're not feeling creative in the Pilates studio or in the weight room.

What I always recommend is don't go do a Pilates or a weight training workout. Do something else. Try jujitsu. Try kickboxing, try tennis. Try pickleball, try body weight, mix it up, try something different. Because looking outward to a different modality, we're all doing the same shit with movement.

Everybody's trying to move better, but sometimes when we only look through this thin lens, we're only seeing one thing right now. If you're thinking, Meg, you're talking about movement. That's, that's not my thing. I'm a painter. I'm a musician. All right, well, what room do you have to be in? Do you have a specific guitar you like to use?

What's the lighting like? Do you need to eat first? What is the ideal situation? And to sub-question this, who is present in that ideal situation or better not present? Now, many of you know I do not have any children. I just have fur babies. Um, Willie, so to all parents, I am going to assume that when you get home from a day of work, you come home.

You don't always get to unwind. There's probably small humans or large humans asking you about 30 questions. Mom, where's my shirt? Dad? When's dinner, dad? When are we going to baseball? Mom, when are we going to dance? Where's my shirt? Where are my shoes? Right? We were all kids once we did this to our parents.

So it's very hard to let your creative juices flowing when you're being pulled in 20 directions. So. The ideal environment is not just a place lighting and sensory, it's around specific people. Now, parents, you don't always have that luxury, right? I've actually had people tell me like they sit in their garage for 20 minutes when they get home just to down regulate.

Okay? I know my husband's a teacher, he gets questions all day long. I do too, but whatever. Um, I know not to ask him questions. When he first comes home, I wait for him to speak to me. And then we go from there. The reason being, he has to settle in and down regulate without a million things coming at him.

So for him to be creative, he needs quiet for some of us, for me, for me to be creative, I like some auditory stimulus, less visual. We're all gonna be a little different. And what do I mean by that? I like to have the TV on, on the background when I'm doing kind of emails and work. Okay. It's gotta be at the right volume.

Not too loud. Not too soft. But that's another conversation. Um, but I don't face the tv. If I'm watching the TV and hearing it, I can't concentrate on my emails. My husband can have TV on music playing. He could be cooking. He deals well with a ton of sensory input. Okay. Okay. I don't, I can't concentrate, I can't listen, I can't focus.

That's me. So if you're a parent, this is gonna be tricky. But we can make excuses or we can find solutions. Maybe you wake up 10 minutes earlier, maybe you stay at work 10 minutes later, maybe when you're driving your, their kid to your kid, to their activities. You go then find a coffee shop that has a great environment, or you sit in your car or you go for a walk.

You find the time to be by yourself so that your creative juices can start to flow. Up because if you're in an environment where your brain is overstimulated and overworked and over aggravated, no creative juices will flow. They will dry up and potentially die, which we don't want for you. And last but not least for question one, aren't, we talked about the conditions you need to be in to feel creative.

Um, what systems are you using to capture all this? Okay, so we realize I like to be in my living room. I like to have the TV on without me facing it. Okay? But how do I capture these ideas? I often find I'm most creative when it's inconvenient, when I'm driving, when I'm going for a walk. Now, that can be inconvenient, so I have strategies.

I'm not gonna tell you mine yet. I'm gonna ask you, what are your strategies? Are you a journaler? I don't get the journaling. Don't like journaling. Oh my God. I know it works. There's research to support it. Journaling is amazing. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I'm not gonna do it anyway. So journaling is great, but if I'm driving, I can't write down in my journal.

Okay. For me it's always, usually when I'm moving my body or in a way where I'm not in a place where I can write down. I also don't process well through writing. I process better by speaking out loud and hearing it. So if you're like, I love journaling, we'll keep journaling. Get a small journal, put it in your pocket.

Have one in your car. Have one by your bed. Have use the notes app on your phone. I love the notes app on the phone. Why? Because I can do voice memos. I love the Voice memo app on the phone. So many people does don't even know it exists. When I'm even doing client notes, like if I have to write their homework, voice memo, boom, right in there, and then it creates a transcript.

Once I have that transcript, I copy and paste it. I edit it because then I can find better words and clarify what I meant and get to the damn point Sometimes I know it's hard to believe I talk too much and don't get to the damn point. Who knew? Anyway, so do you like to write it down? Do you like to talk about it?

Do you like to share it with somebody else? Do you like to teach it to somebody else? All these are fine or go right in to do it. Sometimes if I have a movement idea, I get right down on the floor and do it. I explore it, see if it's good, and then I take notes based off what I did and what I felt and what were the sensory inputs, because guys.

You are not gonna remember. We always think we're gonna remember a good idea. We don't. Why? Because other things happen that are more important. Our brain's prioritizing the idea goes bye-bye. So, question one. Real simple, but super complicated guys. Where are you most creative? What is happening? What is the lighting?

What is the position? Are you moving? Are you not moving? Are there people around you? Are there is nobody around you? Is a specific person around you? Some of you might be like, Meg, I'm more creative when my kids are around. I get that mostly because when I'm around kids, I'm around them for a short period of time.

I love listening to kids talk. It cracks me up the shit they say. I learned a new word from my nephew, which I'm not gonna share publicly 'cause it's not appropriate. I was dying laughing. It was another way to describe having sex, and I was like, that's hysterical. Is that, are kids saying that? He's like, uh, yeah, like, I'm an idiot.

So listen to the kids, because sometimes the weird ass shit, they say, look at the whole thing. Six, seven. Now people are like, what does that mean? It doesn't mean anything. It was from a rap song and a kid just went six, seven. And then it became a thing like basically nobody knows what it means. It was like the word of the year.

It's not even a word, but what's so funny is how these kids just latched onto it and it made them creative. People did tiktoks about it. They made it their own. So something so silly can trigger something. So, I mean, I'm not gonna say amazing and creative. Let's say creative. Cool. Then. How are you gonna capture these ideas?

You need to have a system to capture ideas. If you don't, it will go bye-bye. Okay. Once I had a strategy, um, I smoked this specific strain of weed, really agreed with my system, and I solved all the world's problems in my head. It gave me great sensation in my body, and I was really figuring out some of this proprioceptive movement stuff, and then I forgot all my ideas.

Okay? Then the funny part of the story is, did the same thing set up the same environment? Same thing happened. So I said to my husband, I need to explain this to you. And then I realized why everybody's stoned sounds dumb, because it's hard to create words. And I had all the knowledge in my head. I could not put them into words that made sense.

I started hysterically laughing. My husband thought I was like losing my damn mind, but I realized, oh, now I get it. Right. I'm not someone who smokes regularly, but it really gave me good sensation and tapped into something and I was like. I should probably explore this at another time and what I'm gonna try to do next time, which I haven't done it 'cause I haven't wanted to, is maybe write down what I was thinking to see if I was better at creating words with my hand, not with my mouth.

Okay. So just sharing that for food, for thought. Don't go all out smoking weed if you don't want to. I'm just telling you how changing your sensory environment, whether it's through a room, through people, through lighting, through movement, or through medicinal choices. It can harness our creativity. Cool.

So now let's move on to question two. All right, we talked about conditions. We've created this perfect environment, everything's perfect. Why am I not creative? Why might you be stuck in a rut? Let's talk about that. So I'm asking you why you're stuck in a rut. Now I'm gonna ask you more questions. This might feel like the third degree or the second degree.

First degree.

I don't know which saying it is. Again, I always grew up sayings, add it to the list. So number one, go back to question one. Are you in a rut? Because nothing you need in your environment is happening. Your kids are on vacation, so they're around all the time. It's really called out, so you can't go for a walk.

Okay. For me, again, when I have a vestibular challenge, I'm more creative when I am moving. When I'm in a car, I get so creative when I'm driving, which is why I like to drive alone with no music and people think it is weird. I also like to go for walks with no music, because when I'm moving and getting vestibular information, that's on my creative juices flow, but it's freaking cold here.

I don't wanna go for a walk, not feeling creative. It's called, I don't wanna go in my studio and move not feeling creative. So why am I stuck in a rut? Because I refuse to move my body. That's my fault. Sometimes we're in a rut and it's not our fault. If your kids are home for vacation and you need to be alone, this is not a week to be creative, let it go.

Okay? You're not always gonna have the perfect environment. So two B, two A. Go back to question one and be honest with yourself. Number two, I'm gonna treat you like a baby, not because you are a baby, but because when babies cry, we ask them, are you hungry? Are you tired? Do you have to poop? Did you poop? Or are you overstimulated or understimulated?

Ask yourself right now if you're in a rut. Number one, are you hungry? Go eat. For me, I don't really get hunger signals. I have celiac. It's not a big deal. I just feel full all the time. So right before I did this podcast, I had to, I'm like, holy shit, I haven't eaten in like seven hours. I ate something because if I didn't eat something, I would've felt very distracted and more rambly than I normally am.

Okay? So if you don't feel hunger cues, you have to adjust to that. Use a clock. If you're hungry, eat. If you're full, I don't know, go lay down. Go do something else. If you're tired, well, we can't always take a nap. Okay? When I'm tired, I either move, take a nap, or I use my neuro 20 suit. Shout out to the neuro 20.

Suit calms down. My nervous system shifts things. I feel much more awake. Those are three strategies I use when I'm tired during the day and can't take a nap, although nap was one of them. Okay. What are you gonna do when you're tired? Now? Do you need to poop or have you pooped your pants? If you've pooped your pants, we'll go change them, because nobody can be creative when they're dirty.

Now, if you have to go to the bathroom, you might be constipated or having some digestive issues. It is hard to feel creative when your insides feel like crap. Pun sort of intended. Okay, so if you're feeling constipated and have a stomach ache, well maybe today's not a day to be creative. Eat something, Dr.

My, my solution to everything. You got a headache, drink more water. You gotta poop. Drink more water. You don't feel good. Drink more water. Okay, so boom. And last but not least, are you overstimulated? Maybe you're trying to listen to me, but somebody's talking to you or there's music on Too much. My voice is jarring enough.

We don't need too much. Right. For me, I like auditory with no visual. If there's too much visual going on, I totally lose track of things. If there's too many auditory different like this, I've said this in other podcasts, it annoys my husband. Like if we're at a restaurant, people are like, why are you listening to their conversation?

Like, 'cause it's loud enough. And now I'm curious. So I'm even picky about the volume of the tv. If it's too loud, it distracts me, but if it's too quiet, I strain to hear it and then I get distracted. Okay, so auditory, you gotta be in my sweet spot, right? Visually, if I see someone like the Larry, the Female, Larry, David, if I see someone doing something, I'll be like, I can't.

Like what is that person doing? I'm so curious at why their brain and body are making those choices. Right. And my husband and other people are like, why do you care? I don't care. I'm just distracted. Okay, so taking away the visual, maybe adding more vestibular movement. Head movement. Body movement. Maybe you need constant proprioceptive feedback.

Okay, what do you need? Treat yourself like you were a baby. What do you need? What are you not giving yourself? Um, like Maslows Pyramid. Look at that bottom. It's food, shelter, safety. Everybody forgets about that bottom part of the pyramid. Fill those gaps. Those are the easy ones. Now my friend, are you stuck in a rut because you're afraid?

You're fearful of judgment? Well, here's the truth. People are judging you. You're probably judging me right now. Why is she wearing that? I don't know. It's comfortable. Now you cannot control fear of judgment. What's that? Mel Robbins, she has a whole book and podcast. The Let Them Theory. I thought it was actually an interesting read.

Um, because it's not just letting people behave. It's how are you going to react to that? And someone had given me the book and it was funny. I listened to the auto audio book and she was talking about this fear of judgment and it was right when I was about to launch the podcast and I'm like. Uh, I'm already on social media.

Are people gonna be annoyed with my voice, my face? Who cares? I can't control that. Some of you like to listen to me. Thank you. I appreciate you. So I'll find my audience. I'm not a chocolate chip cookie. Not everybody's gonna like me. That's fine. So as soon as you put anything out in the world, as soon as you do something, somebody is always going to criticize it.

You could do the best thing in the world. You could donate all your money. Someone's gonna be like, Ugh. She's just doing that so everybody thinks she's a great person. Who cares? She just donated all her money. Somebody is always going to find a problem with who you are, what you're doing, what you're wearing, how you're sounding.

And let's be honest, I judge people too, but usually when I'm judging them, it's things I'm insecure about myself or that I don't like. So it's really, what do they say? Putting that mirror back on me. I'm judging myself. Anything I'm judging a person on, I'm probably judging myself 10 times harder. So time to self-reflect.

Sometimes we don't wanna self-reflect, but that's the truth. So don't be afraid. People aren't going to like you. People are going to hate your stuff. I'm sure there's so many people I actually know, some of them, someone I went to school with who like hate my posts. I see you looking outta my post. They never like, they never share, they never comment.

Well, they're still looking at the post, so thank you. Right? It's because maybe they wish they were doing what I was doing. I don't know. Or maybe they're happy in their life and they're just shy. I don't know. I don't really talk to them. Okay, so focus on the people like you guys who are listening to my podcast, who send me messages.

I love it. Send me more. I love to hear your feedback, right? It's, it's kind of hard just talking to a mic and not being able to talk to you guys. I'd love to hear your opinions back, so it's okay to be afraid of judgment. Screw them. They're gonna judge you whether you do something or not. Do it anyway.

Cool. And last but not least, this is my favorite and I am totally stealing this idea from Dave Chappelle. I heard it in the episode he did with Jerry Seinfeld, comedians in Cars getting coffee, and he was talking about the idea has to drive the bus.

I'll say that again. The idea has to drive the bus. Too often we drive the bus and drag the idea with us trying to make it happen. It's like, I mean, girls stop trying to make fetch happen. Okay? So if you're not feeling creative or don't have a great idea, wait for it. It'll come. Go back to one. Go take a workout class.

Go talk to your plumber. Yes, go talk to your gardener. Go talk to a chef. Talk to someone who does a job very different than you because we're all doing the same thing. I love talking to my plumber. Yeah, because I'm like, we had a carbon monoxide leak with our heater and I was like, oh my God. Yeah. That's not where I thought you were gonna say, but it's kind of just like the body.

If there's some blockage or something in the shoulder that just doesn't affect the shoulder, that's gonna affect the entire body that could be affecting your foot. So it's just so interesting when you talk to people who do jobs totally different than us. It can trigger creativity in what we do. Also, you might get to know somebody a little bit better.

Now the key is just like what I was talking about there, plumbing and Pilates. There are some similarities there, but for me, that's kind of a loose idea. I'm not gonna then do a social media thing on that. I'm gonna let the idea, drive the bus, maybe tell a story, right? One of my best posts, I was folding a fitted sheet.

It's something I do very well, but the problem was I'm like, I really wanna do this on social media, but I couldn't. How does this relate to what I do? And then I realized I was talking to a lot of my students about the systems they set up and how they're not following steps. They're jumping around. So I folded a fitted sheet and then I did a, and as I'm folding the fitted sheet, I'm talking about how folding a fitted sheet is like organize a business.

If you skip any steps or do one step a little incorrectly, it's going to affect the next one. So you know those fitted sheets, you've gotta create these sharp corners. And when you can create the sharp corners, it folds into a perfect square. But if I do it quick and my corners aren't sharp, my fitted sheet is gonna be a ball and not a nice fold, right?

So I was able to find that line that brought them together. So I had this idea about a fitted sheet, but I couldn't drive that fitted sheet around and make it work. The, the fitted sheet had to tell the idea how to take the driver's seat, and I think Dave Chappelle is one of the best of how he structures his standup.

I'm not gonna get into any of his beliefs. That's not what this is about, but how he structures it when he pauses, when he makes a face. All that matters. It can take a good joke to an amazing joke if you pause at the wrong time or inflect the wrong word. It's like, what the hell is she even doing? But if you take your time and pause and bring the audience in and change your voice when you need to to get their attention.

To let them know something was coming and then you connect them with something else. That is what really draws people in. Okay. So we now have figured out or have some ideas of what conditions help us be creative. We're gonna do our best to set up those conditions, but you could set everything up correctly and it goes to shit you're going to get in ruts.

Ruts are normal. Ruts are, okay. So are you. Creating your environment. Are you overstimulated tired? Are you hungry? Are you terrified of judgment? Or are you driving the car instead of the idea? Think about all these when you're in a rut. And now question three, let's talk about what can we do about all this?

How can we get out of a rut? How can we maximize creativity? Well, I want you to think about that. So I am going to give you one second. Uh, maybe I'll give you like three. What's one thing you do when you're in a rut? I told you some of my strategies. I take an exercise class, I talk to someone who does something very different than me.

What do you do? Think about it. And is what you're doing working okay? Remember creativity's like the economy or like a really bad riptide? You can't swim against it. You gotta swim with it. It. So I'm gonna lead you with two strategies that are so helpful to me. I actually used one of them on Tuesday because after my vacation, my creativity was in the crapper.

Okay, so clean out your Monica Closet. Now if you didn't watch the show friends, you don't know what I mean. Monica was this anal retentive character and everything was neat and orderly. And then there was this secret closet and her friends opened it and it was a disaster. It was like a junk draw. Now I have many Monica Closets 'cause I am someone who stacks things and piles things.

And when the pile gets too big, then I go through it. Um, my husband has yelled at me. I have three junk drawers. He said I am only allowed to have one junk drawer. Um, I'm working on it, but why I am giving this to you, when you're not feeling creative, what can you take off your plate? I have a rule of thumb. In business, you have to do what needs to be done first.

Rules are meant to be broken. We're breaking it right now. When you're in a creativity rut, don't do anything you need to do. I want you to do the thing you've been meaning to do. Clean out the closet. On Tuesday, about an hour before bed, I went upstairs, I took a garbage bag and I cleaned out my cosmetics and lotions and potions.

I got rid of samples. I've had half empty bottles. Products I don't use anymore. Gifts that were given to me and I never wanted, but felt bad throwing away. My draws are not overflowing. I can shut them now. I can put my hairbrush back in. I can put my makeup away because my husband was getting sick of everything on the counter.

Okay? He wasn't wrong. And it was the best night of sleep I had in forever, and I woke up the next day feeling super creative. Why? Because our brain can only handle so much. So if you've got a lot of things going on in the background, if your closets are messy, if your brain feels messy, if your schedule feels like shit, if your kids' closets are disorganized, whatever it be, take the time to put everything on pause and just do one thing.

Usually I do laundry. Laundry is my saving grace because I. Wash. I dry, I fold. I put away when I feel like I do nothing, I did something. The problem is our washer is on the fritz and the spin cycle is really spinning and it really aggravates Willie and I don't wanna listen to a barking dog all day. So I don't have my normal strategy.

So I've been going through and cleaning out all my Monica closets and draws, and it seems so silly, but it really helps. It takes my cognitive load down. My brain isn't worrying about that. I can get focused on other things. So what can you do when you're in a rut? Pick a Monica Closet, a Monica Draw. Clean that shit out.

Don't do all of them. Don't revamp your whole house. Pick one and option two, you might have heard this. It's called the call it by the wrong name. Okay. Not my idea. I learned it. Um, it's uh, they use it a lot in improv. Um, the author, Matt Abrams, he wrote the book, uh, think Fast, talk Smarter, or Talk Fast, think Smarter.

I always get the name confused. Apologies. Great book. A quick read. I think it's really useful to help improve communication. Okay, so highly recommend. Now, what I love about it, this, there's this game, call it by the wrong name and what they would do, he's a Harvard professor, he would have the students look at things around the room and call it by the wrong name.

So dog light bulb apple cat. And what they found is people struggled because they wanted to be so good at it. They were like, well, that's not wrong enough. They want it to be super wrong. Now that's not how I use the game. I mean, yes. And what I do is look for themes. So when I do the call, the by the wrong name, you can have no judgment.

Okay? So for example, red Cat Blue. Chicken orange. Notice there was a lot of colors I used. Okay. So I'll be like, why are colors on my mind? Well, colors are on my mind. 'cause Mariska and I were just meeting with one of our mentees and we were talking about what colors are best for us. We were being very vain, right?

So what was super interesting is wearing certain colors, and they did me, they say, don't wear white. I look harsh. No, sorry, I'm wearing white. But it was interesting to me of how color can change our perception. Okay, so it's an idea. I'm still driving the bus. I could go with that. Maybe you notice it's all animals you're saying?

Or all food. So notice when you're doing the call by the wrong name, I usually end up laughing 'cause I'll say words I feel like I've never said before in my life. Or why was that on top of mind? Okay. I feel like, what did I do the other day? I was teaching this to a student and I was, I said, hippopotamus, and I was like, hip hop anonymous.

You give him all the easy ones. Now you might be like, what is she talking about? That is a quote from the movie Big Daddy. And it made me laugh and it made me think of Adam Sandler, and it brought me back to my teenage years and I was like, oh. It reminded me of something. Okay. Then I thought of a good memory of someone who's passed away, and then I thought of a story and then it helped me write a sales email.

I was stuck on because I needed a personal story and I'm not one who likes to be super vulnerable, so I was able to share a very funny story of my best friend and cousin who passed away. Who you probably heard me talk about before, but it made me laugh and it was a really funny email, right? So the call by the wrong name led me down a trail.

So we got hippopotamus, hip hop, anonymous. You give him all the easy ones. Big Daddy Adam Sandler watching Adam Sandler playing Nintendo Wii pronouncing all the Yankees names wrong to annoy me. Okay. What a convoluted road we just took. So I went from saying hippopotamus to Derek Jeter, and the story was, my cousin used to play Nintendo Wii in my bedroom when we were growing up, and he would pronounce all the Yankees names wrong.

So I would correct him and I would get so annoyed. We would end up fighting and it would just, it chaos would ensue. So that's how we got there. My brain got creative for no reason. So. When you're in your rut, be honest about why you're there. Make changes when you can and when you can't. Call something by the wrong name or go clean out your closet and give yourself some grace.

Because when you're in a creative rut, a creative peak is about to come if you just ride that wave. So I'm gonna leave you with these three questions. Hopefully some things resonated and if they didn't, guess what? I will get you on the next one. So see you next time and keep showing up.