Zibby interviews Yale scientist, Dr. Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, about THE CREATIVITY CHOICE, a groundbreaking guide for harnessing creativity and transforming ideas into impactful action. Dr. Zorana dispels the misconceptions surrounding creativity (it’s not just for artists!) and then explains why people often hesitate to act on their ideas. She emphasizes the importance of starting small, making creativity a repeated choice, and building confidence through action, not perfection.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Zorana. Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked. I cannot wait to discuss creativity and how to turn an idea into action, and just all the things that your book had to offer. I was obsessed with every sentence, love and totally fascinated by the whole topic, so thank you. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Wow. Thank you. Thank you for having me. 

Zibby: And I wish I could take your class.

I feel like this would be the number one thing I would've taken at school. So anyway, so tell listeners what your book is about, please. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: So my book is about how you take an idea that you already have and do something with it so that it doesn't stay in the realm of fantasy, that it doesn't say just in your head or something that you are discussing over coffee with your friends and family, but you do something and you make a difference, and you make those ideas into reality.

Amazing. 

Zibby: So you point out in the book that we can all have ideas and that ideas are not what's hard to come by. Right. A lot of times people have ideas constantly, but they just stay coffee table ideas or like, like your friend Harry that you talk about like on page one or you know, just other things. And you also point out though that of course we have to be aware of our own constraints.

And you said in the book somewhere like, I'm five one, I'm not gonna be a professional basketball player. Like that's not gonna be the idea for me. But you do outline some of the things that you have found in your research make someone more likely to be the type of person who turns ideas into action, like one of which is having an entrepreneurial parent and other characteristics about yourself.

Can you talk about some of those? 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Yeah. And sometimes, you know, we, we have ideas, but we don't know where to start. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Or we have concerns that come to our mind. We, we start with this kind of internal monologue. I did this study when I wanted to see, okay, people sometimes don't share their ideas. So what is going on in your mind?

And I could totally imagine these, uh, kinds of monologues. One consideration is, well, is this something that is really important to me? Uh, how central to my identity is to be creative and do something. Okay. But that's not the only consideration. Uh, and we have to acknowledge that it's not a matter of just say yes, it is much harder than that. Uh, and I want to give people the credit that they deserve. They are not, not doing things because they are lazy or because you know it's a problem in them. It is genuinely hard. And these other considerations are, well, how are people going to take it? 

Zibby: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Sometimes we have these concerns about negative social consequences that could happen. Are those people who are going to read it, who are going to hear it, going to find their ideas? Well objectionable in some way. Are they going to think they are challenging their authority? They're going to get angered about them, not going to take them, uh, not going to take them seriously.

That's a big consideration. And then very much related to it, but inward related is, how is this going to make me feel? 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Am I going to be so overwhelmingly self-conscious that I just cannot deal with it? Yes, it would be important for me to do something to start that novel or to, you know, uh, do that project that I have in my fantasy, but can I cope with dealing with the process?

And those are big questions. 

Zibby: And what you said about it being hard, like it's supposed to be hard, and you will go through ups and downs when you are starting something new. And one thing you point out is having a support system, right? Having a social network that you can rely on when you are doing this.

And the belief that what you are doing is important and that it gives you so much energy. And you talked about some of the characteristics early on here. I'm just gonna read a few of these that you have to kind of have or, you know, foster in yourself, openness to experience, curious, valuing aesthetic experiences, passionate about your interests, embodying contradictions, like having a lot of energy, but being okay, being inactive, being really playful at times, being disciplined, being extroverted and introverted.

Focusing on the next idea and project always, and having the ability to make this creativity choice that you call it over and over again because it's not a decision you make once it is a decision that you have to like repeatedly commit to over and over again. So talk about all of that. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: I titled the book The Creativity Choice, and it sounds like it's the choice.

It's one choice. You make a choice and then you go on and do it, and, and everything is happily ever after, but it's not really, I, I titled it like this, to, to get people. Interested to get people, okay, I can make one choice, but once you can make one choice, then you know that you can make other choices too.

It's now a matter of continuing that line and continuing that train of decisions because in at every point of, do I go left, do I go right? The, the equivalent psychologically is do I do something that is easier, therefore more conventional, something that I have done before, or am I going to do something that I haven't really done before?

Could be more original, could be leading to more creativity, but it is going to be harder. I think that we oftentimes want to have in our mind a turn by turn playbook, and actually to me as a kind of a meta, uh, meta moment of, of reflecting on the process of writing and the process of publishing. One of the reasons why my book, project, book proposal was rejected from some publishers, this was fascinating to me as a scientist, was that they wanted really step-by-step instructions how to be creative.

Zibby: Hmm. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: And my take on it as well, if this is the reason this is being rejected, I'm fine with it because I would not find it ethical to say, this is a step-by-step cookbook. Creativity does not work like that. So oftentimes we want to have an outline in my mind, in our mind. We want to have a picture of how it's going to, uh, work out.

We want to have a plan. We want to see three steps down the road. Oftentimes, that's not possible and we need to be able to accept that uncertainty. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Around the creative process. And it's okay. You do not have to have it. You do not have to enjoy it. You do not have to be even comfortable with it. We sometimes talk in terms of comfort.

You don't have to be comfortable making that choice, but you have to accept it as a fact of the creative process. 

Zibby: And I should even back up because you differentiate between creativity as what people might think. Like this is not all about. Painting and you know, you know, making a sculpture, but creativity, meaning creating something.

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Yes. 

Zibby: And it could be a business that, or it could be a product people need, um, a YouTube channel. Like you talk about max farming in the book, like other things that have been created that. People decide to just go through with, which is quite different than just saying, I wanna wet my creative instincts and you know, do a watercolor today.

That's not what the book is. It's much more action into, I take turning ideas into action and creating something, 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: creating. I love that verb form and the continuous verb form. 'cause that is what creativity is. It is continuous. It takes time, it takes saturation. And, uh, yeah, in a IT people have studied how we think of creativity and how we think of creativity is really based in large part on what messages we get around us.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Is the world around us. And these are messages, just like you said, you are going to get dirty with colors and it creates an art bias. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: And of course art is creative. It certainly is. Creative industries, so-called creative industries are creative, but that's not where it ends. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: And sometimes I get in these conversations the question, so what is your creative outlet again, implying that it has to be artistic.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: And I love art. I remember of lot of art museums, it's. Seems to be a significant chunk of my, my time and, and investment, emotional investment, but I don't do art myself. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: And I really love how you picked up on this verb sense of creativity in any area of work, any area of human endeavor.

Actually, I am. I was. Uh, born in Croatia and my Croatian is my native language, and I have recently talked to another colleague from Bulgaria with a similar language. And the word creativity in our native languages has a very different connotation than in English. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: And, uh, I love words and I love language and, uh, it, the connotation is one of doing.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: It is not of a trait, it is not of an attribute of you as a person that describes you as an individual, but it is one of doing, it is of going there and that verb and con. Tenuous making of something interesting. 

Zibby: You also point out that most people don't just wake up one minute, like you use the example of Max starting this big popular YouTube channel and everything.

You don't just start one day and like create this, and you have a million other examples too. You start with something small, you start with a small idea, and you grow it and you test it and you make it bigger and then it grows and then you. Follow where it goes. And I'm very interested in this 'cause I feel like I'm always answering this question myself about like, how did you start whatever?

And I'm like, well, I didn't start a giant thing. I started with one podcast interview. Right? You have to start with one idea and test and not be afraid. I think you talk a lot about fear too, like what makes some people afraid to try things versus others? And like in this podcast, I have lots of ideas all the time and I'm always saying like.

As I've talk, as I'm chatting with people, like, oh, you know, you should do this. Nobody ever does them ever. Like, I think I'm gonna stop suggesting things. So then I'm wondering why, like why, and that's why your book, I feel like is particularly fascinating. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Yeah. 

Zibby: So what is it like someone gives you a great idea and you don't do it.

How can we turn those I people to like, how can we get those, more of those ideas to become actual things. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Exactly. Start, like you started, start with the first interview. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: You do not have to have a plan and a vision exactly how it is going to work out. That you make it as big as you did. You cannot even know, uh, you start with the first step and, you know, I wrote a book some years ago.

I did not know that I could write a book. I, I really was not sure and actually doubted it. I, my first, my first reaction to, hmm, writing a book is I cannot do that. I mean, book was something monumental in my mind and how do you write a book? But I had changed that idea of something monumental in my mind and said, wait a minute.

Internal monologue made external now. 

Zibby: Thank you. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Wait a minute, you have written book chapters. So in the, in the, um, social science, social science fields, there is a tradition of, uh, integrative books that, um, they are edited volumes and different experts in particular topics, narrower topics, write definitive chapters on that particular topic.

And it's a collection of these chapters. So I have written a big bunch of chapters in my life and I said, Hey, I can write a chapter. What is the book? By the collection of chapters 8, 9, 10 chapters. I can write one chapter, I can write multiple chapters. Therefore, eventually I can write a book. And if you don't take it as I want to have one of the most successful book podcasts in the world, because how do you even approach that?

But if you say, I'm going to write a chapter, you can do that. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Right? Uh, and you are breaking it down. It's not, we sometimes think of creative confidence. As a trait, just like we sometimes think of creativity as a trait, but it's not. It's something that develops something that is not constant you.

It's not that either you have confidence or you don't. It goes up, up and down and you develop it, but the catch is, you can only develop it through action. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. I love that. And not being afraid to learn, which I think is so important. Like you can doubt your own intelligence, right? Which many people do.

Oh, I'm not smart enough for this. I couldn't do this. But like, at least for me, I'm like, I can learn how to do anything if somebody teaches it to me, right? 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Mm-hmm. 

Zibby: Like I can figure out YouTube, I can figure out, like I can watch this video and learn how to turn on a microphone. Like if, if you have the confidence to know that you will learn and like that there are.

Things you can always take in and you can always be growing and learning like that gives you a different mindset than just.. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Yes. 

Zibby: Being like, well, I don't know how to do that. Well, of course you don't like, you know. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Yeah, of course. You don't never done it before, so of course you don't. It's like, I have given a couple of years ago, the stoke to, um, to an amazing group of, uh, designers, experienced designers, museum designers, and I love the world of museums.

It's kind of my fantasy place and place where I go to be whole and to feel well. So I, I really love talking to this group and, uh, you know question and answer comes up and I get asked the question, how do I, how do I defeat the voice of doubt in my mind? And I mean, you can't. You are always going to have doubts.

Everybody has doubts. Some people admit to them, some people don't admit to them, but you are human. You're going to have doubts. Mm-hmm. 

Zibby: And 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: that's okay. Uh, I came across recently this wonderful quote from George O'Keefe and she said that she. Was never comfortable. She was actually terrified about everything she ever did in her life.

But it's never prevented her from doing it. 

Zibby: Mm. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: And I personally very much identify with this because we sometimes talk about don't be afraid or, it's okay. You can be comfortable with something. You don't have to be comfortable. You, you just have to accept that. It starts with action, starts with that first interview.

In my case, it started with the first blog post. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: I wanted to, I was an academic, I was always writing for technical audiences, and I wanted to learn how to communicate for the general audience. But at that time, number of years ago, I did not know how. So I figured that I'm going to teach myself by writing a blog.

For Psychology Today, which is a platform that gives you exposure, but also gives you a way to teach yourself through time. And it started with the first blog post, a blog post of a thousand words. You can write a a post of a thousand words, 

Zibby: by the way, with writing and writing books specifically, I like to think of it in terms of even smaller than chapters.

In terms of scenes. Like I can write this. Scene. I can tell this story. I can imagine what's happening. Just this, and I'm not gonna think about word count or chapters or whatever, but like, I'm just gonna write this scene and I'm gonna get it on paper. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Yeah. 

Zibby: And that's all it is. A collection of chapters, a collection of scenes.

So it's almost like your whole, the whole thing is like a journey of, you know, a thousand mile journey begins with a single step, right? This is like that sort of philosophy and that when you are, but you have to have that desire. To create and it has to bring you joy. You talk about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, like there has to be something driving you and you have to derive some sort of pleasure just from the act of doing it.

Otherwise you might not stay with it, right? 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Yeah, exactly. You need to be driven to do it one way or another. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Whatever those reasons might be, and you are getting a level of joy from doing it. But we have to remind people that not every moment of doing it is going to be joyful. And sometimes I think what happens is that.

We talk about joy and people expect joy and then they say, but this is hard. Therefore I'm doing something wrong. Therefore, I am not able to truly do this. There is a level of abstraction in talking about joy. There is a joy from the process as a whole. Uh, there is a joy from the process of. Really this is happening.

Uh, progress is being made, something is taking shape. But if we drill down to every moment of writing, every moment of writing is not going to be joyful. Every moment of solving a problem. If you are starting a business, if you are learning something, uh, in order to grow your YouTube channel or whatever your endeavor might be, is not going to be joyful.

Sometimes it's going to be plain out painful. I I, I am a big mystery reader and I love Agatha Christie. I just, I have, uh, probably read all of her books by now. And, uh, uh, I read an interview with her, uh, where she described starting the writing process, and she talks about it as those dreadful two weeks where you pace around when you bite your pencils.

The sheer dread of anticipating how difficult the process is and. Let's step back, right? This is a woman who has sold more books than anybody else in the world who has written about hundred books and short stories, beloved characters. And yet she found it difficult. So if you are finding it difficult, it's okay.

It's part of the process. 

Zibby: I love that. I have found that too from interviewing even the most successful authors, they're terrified that what if it, the magic doesn't happen this time? Like what if this book is terrible? What if, right? And I'm like, does no level of success inoculate you from this? But it doesn't.

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: It, it doesn't completely, it's in, on some level, somewhere in the back of your mind, you trust that you can do it because you wouldn't even start the process if you completely did not believe it. But there are doubts. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: And, uh, it's, it's not perfect protection. 

Zibby: What if, you know, you talk a lot about creativity and how it's creating things that people need, or you're certain meeting an un, you know, unmet need or you're putting something in the world.

What if you wanna create something and then it turns out that people don't really need it? Then? Then what? Like what If you go through all of the, all of the steps and the pain and this and that? 'cause so many businesses fail, so many things don't work. What then? 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Then you take a deep breath.

And you realize that part of creativity is risk. There is no guarantee that anything is going to always work out, and that is true. That is the reality. I am not going to tell you that, uh, I have a magic formula that every one of your ideas is going to work out and is going to be beloved. I cannot tell you that I.

I mean, even Pixar did not make every movie that was perfect, and they are the closest that I know of. It is the nature of creativity that you are taking a risk and that means that there is a percentage that does not work out. And in that case, you can take a deep breath, you can take some time to recover.

To remind yourself that this happens sometimes. This does not only happen to you, you are not uniquely unsuccessful. Uh, you are not uniquely not capable of this. And, um, when you have recovered enough, uh, not fully, not now you are joyful and doubt free for your next project, but you have just taken the edge off enough that you can try again.

You try again. Wow. 

Zibby: So who do you think, and I know there are not step-by-step instructions in the book, but I do think it is a really powerful framework and I think people interested in their own ability or desire to turn ideas into action. Will be much more equipped to do so after reading the book, right?

They might not have a playbook, but they will have an understanding of what's involved and what's getting in the way and what to expect and, and all of that. So who is, who is like your ideal person reading this book? Is it someone who has never tried? Is it someone who has tried a hundred things that have never worked?

Is it just someone interested in the social science? Like who, who, who reads this book? I love this question, 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: and I have really thought about this question a lot again, that that meta thing of looking at the book writing and the book publishing process, I find it fascinating as a scientist and somebody I.

Who is really interested in humans and how humans work. So I can give you different levels of the answer to this question. One level is, well, if I'm talking to my publisher, I would say this book is primarily centrally. For people who are interested in the creative process, who are interested in, uh, building their own creativity and supporting that of others around them, uh, whoever those others around them might be.

You can think of it as being mentors or educators or supervisors and leaders in organizations. On another level, I could tell you a different answer, and that is my next door neighbors. My next door neighbors, uh, are both physical therapists. They are not doing something that is creative on a daily basis.

It's not irrelevant for them and for their lives, but they are ferocious readers. And they are truly curious about human nature. They are interested in science and learning about different aspects of science, of humanity, and they are very much interested in reading a book. So you have these different groups who are probably reading it for different reasons and, uh.

Uh, why not all of them 

Zibby: Perfect. Why not all. And your day job, you're still teaching, you're still doing research in addition to the book. What does that look like? 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: My day job, I do have a day job. I am a research scientist, so, uh, my day job is doing research and I am doing research on creativity and research on emotions.

Uh, and the intersection of the two. We, we oftentimes talk about creativity as thinking, problem solving outside the box, and, uh, but. We don't talk enough about emotional side of creativity, and lots of the things we even touched on today are really about emotions. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Those barriers to making that first choice, I'm going to try to do something.

They are emotional nature. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Uh, they are about uncertainty, about self-doubt. So those barriers are emotional. Lots of the tools we need are emotional in nature too. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: It turns out that emotions can help you optimize what you are doing, but they also sometimes get in the way and you have to know what to do with them and about them.

So I am very much interested in that and as I was thinking of writing this book. I thought we do not have enough out there. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: About part of creativity that is central to it, but that is not just thinking and coming up with ideas. 

Zibby: I love that. 

That's amazing. 

So are you not teaching a class now? I thought you were teaching it.

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Um, no, I, right now I'm not teaching a class. I am a research faculty, so I don't regularly teach, but starting a fall, I'm going to do a online class on the book and have a book club, live book club. Ooh, I love that. For people to join. 

Zibby: I love that. Where can we, where do, where do we find that? 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Well, uh, that's going to happen in after the summer, but all information will be, uh, on my website.

Uh, so if you can share in the notes the link to my website, that's the best way to get in touch with me and the best way to, to keep track of things that are new, that are happening. 

Zibby: Amazing. Well, I love the work you're doing and if I, if I had a university, you would be like, you'd have like the biggest building on the campus.

That's how I feel. I feel like what? What? Because the work that you're doing changes society really, it changes the way we live and can inspire people to then create more things that can change the way we live. So you're the ultimate motivator in a way, right? You're giving people the tools to understand what's getting in their own ways and that is hugely beneficial to so many.

So thank you so much. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Thank you. Thank you for having me. 

Zibby: My pleasure. Okay. Have a great day. 

Dr. Zoranalvcevic: Bye. 

Zibby: Thank you so much. Bye.