E147 - Creative Currency
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Beth: [00:00:00] Oh, well, geez
Hello, my creative friend. Welcome back to Create Today. We're going to start off our discussion today with a peek at your financial statement, but not one from your bank. That one's totally private. This one is just from your day. At 12:01 this morning, you were handed 24 hours to spend. Yeah, 24 hours. Same as me, same as everyone else on our planet.
Now, some of these hours are going to be spent on sleep. Go you. And some are gonna be spent working, 'cause you gotta pay your bills, and some are gonna be spent doing dishes and laundry because, ah, these are beasts that will not be tamed. [00:01:00] But some of these hours, and there's, there's typically a small collection of time here every day that is just yours to spend any way you want.
Sometimes this could be an entire morning or a whole afternoon. Usually and hopefully you'll get at least an hour or two where you get to choose how this time is spent. So the key here is where does this time go? How are you spending it?
Now these days, a lot of us have been experiencing that some of these precious hours are being slipped away in like five-minute pieces. It's a video here, a scroll there, a headline that made you mad, followed by a recipe that you'll never make. But none of this time probably felt like you were even spending time, right?
It's just a minute here and a minute [00:02:00] there. But that's the trick.
These small quick silver moments, they never feel like we're spending anything. It's just a second or two here and there during the day. How could that measure up, right? How can that add up? So let's, let's, um
think about this for a second. Let's say you were given a bank deposit of $24 to spend during the day. If you know that more money isn't coming, and you only can spend these $24 during the day, and you don't wanna run out, you'll probably get really wise about how you choose to spend the money that was deposited.
When you have a small budget that you're aware of, you typically learn to be fiscally wiser, and you typically learn to do this really fast. So you're gonna [00:03:00] check prices, and you're gonna consider what you need so that you can prosper during your day. You'll think twice about even small expenditures, and you certainly won't want to squander it on something that gives you nothing in return.
So today we're looking at the currency that we're given each day, those 24 hours. Because time each day is the account that never gets a top-off. You're never going to get an extra hour or another five minutes. We know that, and we even say this aloud to ourselves and to each other all the time, "Life is short."
And then we hand another hour over to AI cat videos that give us no long-term benefits. We do that all the time. So today I wanna teach you a different way to think about and look at the hours that you're given each day, [00:04:00] those deposits of 24 hours each day, because time, my friend, is a currency. and I am going to explain exactly what that means.
And I'm going to make a case that the best investment you can make with that little pocket of free time that you get each day is best spent by making a creative investment
And I'm talking about creativity that includes hands-on creative exploration. So pencils, paint, yarn, clay, a journal, a garden bed, bread dough, cake batter. You know, anything that gets your hands involved and gets your mind into that creative activity.
Whatever is going to immerse yourself in the moment. So you're going to want to use this time wisely as you spend time in making yourself stronger [00:05:00] in heart, mind, body, and soul. Because creative time isn't just a nice way to pass an hour. Research shows creativity is an investment in your happiness today and tomorrow.
when you spend time in a creative hobby, you're going to feel creative flow in your body right away, and then you're going to feel the benefits from that creativity tomorrow. And if you keep a creative practice, you keep making deposits with creative currency for years and years that compounds.
So today we're going to talk about opening your own creative account. We're gonna talk about those compounding dividends that will build over time, and we're gonna talk about the ultimate yield, which is a future version of [00:06:00] yourself that you're going to love.
So stay with me because we're also going to explore seven easy ways to make creative investments in yourself today and in yourself tomorrow. So are you ready? Let's geek out on creative currency.
So first of all, let's talk about deposits. No matter what you might be depositing, any kind of account starts with that initial first deposit. And that is if you are depositing money in a bank or you're making investments in the stock market, you have that initial first deposit.
And in creative currency, your goal for this first deposit, it has a name, and it is called flow. You've probably felt creative flow even if you didn't realize that you were actually enjoying creative flow. Because you sat [00:07:00] down, um, to color with your kids, or you try that new recipe you've been wanting to concoct, or you get those mums planted in pretty pots for your front porch, or you take a, a new class on how to sew.
Whatever you've chosen as your creative action, you've set aside time, and you've allowed yourself this time to concentrate. And when you look up from that creative action, you realize, "Oh my gosh, it's been an hour." Your tea is cold, and time has passed, and you suddenly realize that you feel brighter and more energized, and this is a happy feeling that lasts long after you've put away your supplies.
Now, a psychologist named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi spent years studying this feeling, and it's been titled flow. and that is that state where you're so absorbed in what you're doing [00:08:00] that time bends, and the inner chatter in your head goes quiet, and the activity you're doing becomes the reward that you look forward to doing again and again.
So be aware that successful flow has a recipe that you should follow, and here's the recipe. Flow shows up when the challenge in front of you feels doable, and it might be just a little bit of a stretch or a little bit of a learning curve for your current skills. So what I'm saying is whatever you're doing is not so easy that you get bored, and it's not so hard that you get overwhelmed.
It's just right, like Goldilocks, but maybe with a paintbrush.
I've heard that creative flow, it works best when your [00:09:00] brain is challenged by 10%. So at 10%, that's not very much, so it's an easy lift now here's the part that I found really interesting. Back in 1989, Csikszentmihalyi, the psychologist,
And his colleague, Judith LeFevre, asked nearly 80 working adults to check in at random moments for a whole week. And every time the signal went off, these people wrote down what they were doing and how they felt. And those people, they found, were in flow 54% of the time when they were working, and in their free time they were in flow only 17%.
Now, I found these results very surprising. Our free hours, the ones where we get to spend [00:10:00] it any way we want to, the hours that are supposed to restore us, were the hours that were least likely to refuel and refill us up. And that was back in 1989. Nobody back then had a phone in their pocket.
imagine what those numbers are right now. It seems clear that your free hours are quite possibly the hours that are draining your creative currency. So let's take a look at what happens in your body if you shift some of your free hours into hands-on creativity.
First, know that flow is not gonna leave you feeling sleepy or foggy or tired. It is the opposite of laying on the couch binging Netflix. A research team in Germany led by Corinna Pfeifer [00:11:00] measured stress hormones and heart rhythms while people worked on a demanding task, and the people most absorbed showed a moderate level of stress hormone, not too high, not too low, and their rest and restore nervous system, the part that helps your body recover, became more active
The deeper they got into this activity. In other words, flow looked like a kind of engaged calm. Alert, but not alarmed. Busy hands, but calm mind. Second, hands-on making brings stress hormones down.
At Drexel University, researcher Girija Kaimal and her team measured cortisol, which is your body's main stress hormone. She studied this in nearly 40 adults before and after 45 minutes of making art. No instructions, no grades. They just did art. [00:12:00] And the researchers discovered that cortisol dropped in 75% of the participants.
And creative experience
it didn't matter. The same results were found if the participants were experienced artists or if they were someone who had never picked up a paintbrush.
And I have to share what Dr. Kaimal said about this experience, because she basically wrote what I share all the time in this podcast, which is everyone is creative.
Everyone can find goodness and vitality in a creative passion of their choice. So how can you become aware of your creative account? And
How can you discover if and when you are in flow? So here are three markers that you can watch for to find out if you're in creative flow. The first one is that time slips by. You look [00:13:00] up and more time has passed than you expected. Time slips by.
Number two, your hands are busy and your mind gets calm. That to-do list that is in your head or the worries and anxiety that you brought to the activity, they suddenly get turned down in volume.
And number three,
you're going to leave the activity feeling like you have more energy and that you just have a perkier outlook on your day. And that's the difference between a deposit, putting something into your creative account, or a withdrawal, taking something out of your creative account. An hour of scrolling leaves you feeling a little more drained and even lethargic.
That's a withdrawal. An hour of creating usually leaves you feeling happier and more alert, more engaged, [00:14:00] more energized. My friend, that is a creative deposit.
And if you want to set yourself up to become profitable with how you are investing your creative finances and you wanna have a really good creative return, there are three things that will help. First, give yourself one small, clear goal. So don't just sit down and just say, "Let's make art. Get in flow." No.
You're gonna give yourself a clear goal. Like, I'm gonna draw fall leaves, or I'm going to write a list of 10 things I am grateful for. Or you can choose a recipe, one that you know you have all the ingredients for and you understand the instructions. Make the goal easy to do and to finish. And then second, I want you to pick something that's just a notch past your comfort zone.
So if you've drawn [00:15:00] leaves 100 times, I want you to try shading them with a certain new color palette you've never used before. Or I want you to write your gratitude list like you're talking to your best friend, and maybe add a little more detail to it. Or try a recipe that, mm, is feeling a little bit out of your typical wheelhouse.
So this is maybe when you start making that sourdough bread and you have a sourdough starter. I don't know. Whatever is going to challenge you just a little bit. I don't want you to get overwhelmed, I just want you to have that 10% challenge. Got that? And third, I want you to remove distractions.
So put your phone in another room, not just face down on the table, because my friend, flow is shy. One buzz from your phone or a ping from an email or a, "Hey, Mom," from a child, [00:16:00] one distraction and flow can flutter away. Number four, I want you to protect your time and save enough of it to comfortably do and finish whatever it is you're planning for your activity.
And number five, I want you to enjoy yourself. Allow yourself to be absorbed into your chosen creative activity. No guilt, just you wisely spending your precious hours
Now let's take a quick break, because I want to hand you a tool that turns today's creative currency metaphor into an actual plan. And this is my free Going Forwards guide. It's built on four words that happen to work beautifully as a creative budget. These four words provide a framework that helps you become wiser about how you are spending your [00:17:00] precious 24 hours each day.
The first word in Going Forwards is the word revive, and this is where you check your balance. You're going to learn to monitor your creative energy so you notice when you are running low, and you realize that you're running low before you're overdrawn.
The second word in the framework is realize, and this is where you choose what and where you're going to invest.
You're collecting new ideas and inspiration. So when you're ready to make a deposit, it goes towards something that excites you. Refine is our third word, and this is where you're going to make steady deposits by actually doing your work.
In my framework, you're going to learn how to focus, how to actually get your creative work done by reducing distractions and staying the course to finish your great [00:18:00] ideas.
And the last very important word is release. This is where you discover what you're holding onto too tight. You quiet your inner critic, you know, the one who keeps telling you that you and your work are not good enough to share with the world. Release teaches you the confidence to let more of your ideas get out there instead of hoarding yourself and your projects because you're thinking perfection and more time are needed before your ideas can be shared with the world.
Now, this creative practice of going forwards helps you check your creative balance.
It helps you choose how you will invest your time, How and when you will make deposits, and how you will release your great ideas into a world that needs your creative message.
my Going Forwards guide is free at www.bdi-create.today. And you can also find the link in the show notes that will [00:19:00] take you straight to how you can get your guide.
Going forwards, my friend, is a great investment in your creative prosperity.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's get back to more creative currency because this is how what you choose to invest gets very interesting. Now, if you've ever had a savings account, you know about compound interest. You put money in and it earns a little interest. And then next month, that interest earns interest.
Beth: And that growth builds on itself. Those small, wise, steady deposits made early, they add up. They compound. And, and this works for creativity, too. It explains why a few minutes of creating can pay you back far more than you initially invested. And there's research that points in this direction that I am going to share with you today.[00:20:00]
In New Zealand,psychologist Tamlin Conner and her colleagues asked over 650 young adults to keep a daily diary for 13 days. Now, each night they reported how creative they had been and how they were feeling.
on days when people did something creative, they reported more flourishing the next day. They felt they had more energy, more enthusiasm, more sense that their life was growing. And the deposit that they made initially didn't just pay out during the day that they spent time creating. The creative action and the energy compounded into goodness in heart, mind, body, and soul the next day, too.
And just this year, a team at the City University of New York, led by Kayleigh Smith and Jennifer Drake, ran a similar 13-day study with, um, over 350 adults. On days that participants were [00:21:00] creative, everyone felt better during the day, and more engaged, more purposeful, more accomplished.
So for the wise creative investor who invests in creativity every day, the dividends compound in the form of brighter outlooks on life, refueled energy, and an investment that carries these benefits into the next day And the people who had invested wisely with their creativity as enjoyment for a lifetime reported higher wellbeing overall.
And that, my friend, is creative goodness compounding. It's amazing. Today's wise investment lifts tomorrow, and if you string enough of these creative wise investments together, the result is a life that has access to continuing [00:22:00] compounding creative investments.
Now, for my creative professionals out there, I want you to take careful note of what I'm gonna say next. In that same study, professional creatives, people who create for a paycheck, sometimes had what the researchers called a creative hangover, which was more negative feelings the day after a big creative day.
And I want you to note that I said negative feelings the day after a big creative day. So why that? What's up with this? They're creatives, professional creatives. But this makes total sense to me. When creativity becomes work, that is usually accompanied with deadlines and clients and judgment and pressure.
Creativity then can become a withdrawal instead of investment, a drain on your creative account instead of [00:23:00] deposits into your creative account. I've been there. I've seen this in the truest way. There's a moment when you're working at a job that's creative where you realize that your creative job is not a happy creative pastime.
It's just a job, and sometimes it's a job you don't even enjoy as much anymore And here's why. You're often not in control of the creativity that you're tasked with creating, and you're often stressed by deadlines and client judgments, micromanagement from people you have to report to. This causes stress and anxiety and overwhelm, and none of these emotions are part of the creative flow recipe for success that we talked about earlier.
So if you're a creative professional and you're feeling the beginning smolderings from burnout, take note. Be mindful. [00:24:00] Reserve some of your daily hours during your day. You know I've got those 24 hours during the day. Reserve some of that time for your own creative play, for things that you're doing just for yourself, not for anyone else.
So there will be no deadline. There will be no audience. There will be no judgment, just a bit of creative nonsense that's for your own amusement.
Another reason why creative investments are so incredibly important for you today, and for tomorrow, and for your whole life is that these creative investments compound, and they provide a protective buffer.
These little creative habits that you love to do, well, they give your nervous system time to recover so that stress has a place to neutralize before it becomes total exhaustion or burnout. So let's [00:25:00] look a little bit closer at this compounding interest in wisely investing in your creativity. In London, researcher Daisy Fancourt and her team followed adults using mental health services through 10 weeks of weekly group drumming.
So they were drumming together. By week six,
their depression scores had improved, and by week 10, they'd improved even more, about 38%. And when the researchers tested the drummers' saliva, their immune profile had shifted away from inflammation and towards an anti-inflammatory
pattern. Did you catch that? Week six was good. Week 10 was better. That's what compounding looks like in a real body. Your creative investments are benefiting you truly in heart, mind, body, and [00:26:00] soul. And this study is not alone in its finding. A large review published in 2025 pooled 25 random trials of creative practices and found they lowered markers of inflammation in the body.
You see, this pattern is encouraging. These activities that fill us up also seem to calm the body down. Wise creative investments compound over time. Now, let's compare these findings with, um, digital stuff. A scroll gives you a quick little lift that feels like a reward.
If one meme or video feels good, we engage in another, and then another. But here's the important fact. Meme after meme, video on top of video, they don't compound in goodness. Today's scrolling does not help you feel better tomorrow or even later [00:27:00] today. Scrolling and social media, it's like a vending machine. It gives you a quick snack of empty calories that do nothing to refuel and nourish and energize you. Creative time, that's the wise investment. It often doesn't feel like you're making any great strides until you check the balance a few months later and you notice you're calmer, you're steadier, and you feel more energized, less foggy, and less lethargic.
And once you've felt those returns a few times, you start looking forward to them on purpose. Because your mind starts looking at this as a routine, and you start thinking, "This is when I do this. This is my regular time."
You become a wise investor with your daily allotment of 24 hours, which is going to bring us to the practical part. Any good [00:28:00] financial advisor will tell you to diversify, so don't put everything into one investment. The same advice should be used when you're choosing how to invest in creative currency.
So let's set you up for creative riches. you know I love a good list as much as I love a good metaphor. So here is a list of seven ways to invest in creative currency for a better tomorrow. The wise investor is going to diversify, so choose to mix and match this list like a profitable investment portfolio.
Here's our list. Number one: the one-minute margin doodle. This is so, so easy. The next time you're on a call or in a meeting or listening to a speech or a sermon or watching a movie or a show that doesn't need your eyes nonstop, doodle something on something handy, [00:29:00] uh, whatever that might be, whatever kind of paper you can find.
This kind of doodle can be as short as just a few minutes, or you can doodle for the whole movie. it all counts. And even better, doodling needs zero talent, and it doesn't require deep concentration or special supplies.
Number two, the three things walk. So I want you to take a short walk and notice three things that you have never noticed before. A color, a sound, a weird little detail. This comes from one of my recent guests, Vanessa Harnick, who learned it from her grandfather's art students, and it costs nothing but attention.
you'll find this three things walk is going to compound and multiply if you do this often. And even better, record your three things so you have a history of what you've noticed. This is going to allow you to compare what you decided to [00:30:00] concentrate on
And you're going to learn things about what you're thinking and how you are observing your world. Number three, time spent playing with the creative process that isn't difficult. So what do I mean by this? I want you to have some fun with clay or scribbling with chalk pastels or being a bit wild with finger paint, something that doesn't look polished even if you tried.
Be mindful that you don't need to spend hours doing this either. Just do it for 15 minutes, and then do it again tomorrow. And if 15 minutes flew by today, allow yourself more time tomorrow. And remember, this is just play. It is not to make anything great. No masterpieces here.
And number four, the one song dance out. I want you to just play one of your favorite songs from start to finish and just dance like no one's watching. Dance while your song is playing. Three or four minutes [00:31:00] of just pure abandon.
It is so cleansing. You'll enjoy it and, um, you might even play one more song. Just give it a try. And number five, choose to realize and make one ordinary thing lovely. Okay, so what does that mean, Beth? Um, well, here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna just look around your room. I want you to pick out a favorite plate, a vase of some flowers a stack of books that maybe you can arrange really quickly by color.
These are small visual arrangements that you're going to make on purpose during your day, and it changes how the whole room feels and how you are observing your world. It helps you realize the beauty that surrounds you each and every day that you often might overlook, because we are so busy just getting through our day.
Number six, the swap. The next time your hand reaches for your phone [00:32:00] out of boredom, not out of need, I want you to reach for a pen instead, and I want you to doodle or even write a list for the next time you go to the grocery store, or an entry in your journal, or maybe pick up your knitting needles and knit a row.
You get the idea. Do something creative instead of scrolling on your phone. If you're just getting started toning down your screen time, You don't have to win during the entire day. Just that one moment, that's a win that you can then start to compound. Number seven, the good enough journal line. So this is one sentence about your day in a notebook with zero pressure for it to be deep. It can be a boring sentence, and those count as much as a beautiful line of poetry. My grandmother kept a diary, and I believe I remember one of her entries was something as simple as, "I had a good day.
We had chicken." [00:33:00] This moment of brief and easy concentration is going to pull you away momentarily from the burdens of your day. Even just for a moment or two, that works. You might even realize that you've made that first sentence, and now you want to spend even a little more time writing a few more lines.
But first, I just want you to aim for that one sentence, And then can you make that one sentence happen daily? I dare you to get started. Okay. Let's talk about how you can become a wise investor with your creative currency. So here's how you turn that list of seven ideas about creative deposits, and you can make them into habits and rituals that help you look forward to compounding these wise investments that you're making.
Because they really aren't gonna do you much good if you can't do them more than once. the best part of all of this, is it's not hard. You're just [00:34:00] allowing yourself to have a little bit of fun. So in the beginning, I want you to just pick one thing from the list.
One thing. And then to make it easier to do every day, I want you to attach it to something that you already do every day, like having your morning coffee or, um, the first minutes after dinner before you get up to do the dishes, or something that you're going to add to your bedtime routine that will make it easy.
'Cause you wanna make it something that you won't forget to do in the beginning, and that it will make it easy for you to allow for that time every day. And that's an automatic deposit, and you know those are the very best kind.
They are painless, and they're easy to watch the goodness compound. Then here's what's important. I want you to stay awake and aware for when this first creative action starts to feel easy. So that first thing you've chosen off the [00:35:00] list, once you realize it is a routine that you don't forget to do, then it's time to add a second creative activity from our list
So then you're doing two creative ideas from that list. And that new second thing, How are you gonna make it easy to remember to do?
and then when that second creative activity begins to be habitual, a ritual, an activity that you don't forget to do, that's you diversifying your creative investments. Good for you. And here, is a secret-
it's going to be easier to stay on track if you make your creative investments visible. So what do I mean by that? I want you to put your activities on your calendar like an appointment with your future self,
This is how you stay accountable for making this creative investment. The next thing I want you to do is [00:36:00] keep track of your completed activities. So I want you to keep a little tally on the fridge. This is a great way to have fun with stickers
Or you're gonna drop a button into a jar every time you make a creative investment. When you're watching a jar fill up or you're seeing stickers start to fill an entire sheet of paper or a poster board, this is a super fun way to reward yourself for the goodness that you are providing in your life through your creativity.
And it's gonna remind you that your creative deposits are compounding and growing even on days when you might feel like, "Ugh, I'm too tired today," or, "Why does this matter again? I forget." And one more thing I want you to know,remember to tell yourself You're not creatively bankrupt if you missed a day. That's okay. But make one tomorrow. Get back on track.
Compounding is a patience project [00:37:00] that doesn't require you to be perfect, because creative wealth rewards the people who come back, not the people who are perfect. So what does all of this add up to over a lifetime? What's the ultimate yield?
Last year, an international team published a study in Nature Communications that looked at the brains of over 1,400 people across 13 countries. Using models that estimate a brain's age from its activity, they found that creative experts, tango dancers, musicians, visual artists, well, they had brains that looked roughly five to seven years younger than their actual age.
Wow, right? And then when complete beginners practiced a new skill for 30 hours, 30 hours, their estimated brain age shifted by three years. [00:38:00] Wow again. And here's some fun math. Just 15 minutes of creativity a day adds up to about 90 hours in a year.
That's three of those 30-hour practice blocks from just one coffee break's worth of creating every day, I'm not promising you that you will have a younger brain from just 15 minutes a day, but my friend, isn't it interesting to know how fast small deposits add up? So imagine the brain benefits you could have if you allowed yourself a half an hour or an hour each day to be creative.
Imagine that for a moment. Imagine the brain benefits you could have. Ah, that's awesome. And at the Mayo Clinic, researchers followed over 250 people in their 80s for about four years. Those who had done artistic activities in both middle age and [00:39:00] later in life were 73% less likely to develop mild memory and thinking problems.
Did you hear that? Less likely to develop mild memory and thinking problems if they had done artistic activities. But look at the journey here. This wasn't just one class now and again. It was a lifetime of small deposits.
When we started our conversation, we talked about life is short.
We all have 24 hours every day.
Every one of your hours goes somewhere, and most of them you get to choose. What will you do with your daily deposit of 24 hours? When you treat your time like creative currency, you're less likely to waste what you have to spend, and you're more likely to be generous to your future self.
You'll [00:40:00] choose to invest in your future you, the one who gets to have a vibrant mind, a calmer body, and a rich reserve from the creativity that you made and had fun making, passive consumption like scrolling social media, binging on Netflix, these are always going to be there tempting you with a snack that provides no long-term reward.
But hands-on creativity, that's the thing that will be paying you back with dividends.
so here's your one small thing this week. I want you to pick one thing from our list of seven ways to invest in your creativity, and I want you to start it today.
When you open your creative account and you start making deposits, it's going to help you be happier and healthier today and tomorrow.
And if you want a plan for keeping that account [00:41:00] growing, I want you to grab my free Going Forwards guide at www.bdi-create.today.
And if there's one thing I want you to take with you today is I want you to remember this: everyone is creative, and every creative minute you spend today is a deposit your future self will get to enjoy. So becoming a wise investor with the time you have today, well, that's how you can become creative.
And most importantly, it is how you stay creative, my friend
