The Syncreate Podcast: Empowering Creativity

How do you cultivate a sense of creative community? We believe that community and connection are vital to the creative process, especially for those of us who tend to create in solitude. For the new year, our Creative Spark series focuses on setting creative intentions and bolstering our creative habits so we can move toward our goals with greater clarity and flow. This mini episode focuses on the...

How can acting and improvisation training improve your interpersonal and communication skills? We explore this question with John Cane, PhD, actor and integrative wellness psychologist. John is the Founder of Acting Out of Character, a training program offering workshops for turning acting skills into people skills. John received his PhD in psychology with a specialization in creativity studies, a...

Happy 2025, Everyone! To kick off the new year, we encourage you to consider your creative intentions and aspirations for the next 12 months. We focus on three main areas, including your creative practice, process, and products. Creative practice encompasses your creative routines and daily habits, while the creative process includes how you go about making work and bringing your ideas to life. Fi...

In this installment of our Creative Spark mini-episodes, as we approach the new year, we discuss the benefits of taking time to reflect on our creative lives over the last year. It’s helpful to review the events of the year and projects we’ve engaged with, including highlights and accomplishments, as well as how we might want to approach things differently in the coming year. It’s a great way to c...

In this installment of our Creative Spark mini-episodes, we discuss what it means to move through the world with a creative eye, to be a creative traveler, as it were, and how this approach can help us stay connected to our creativity in every moment. It can also help us find the humor, the beauty, and the story in everyday situations, including the good, the bad, the ugly, and the bizarre, like w...

This episode explores the theme of wonder as it relates to art and science in the Islamic world, as well as the role of museum curator. Dr. Ladan Akbarnia is Curator of South Asian and Islamic Art at the San Diego Museum of Art and a Commissioner of Arts and Culture for San Diego County. She conceived and curated the current exhibition Wonders of Creation: Art, Science, and Innovation in the Islam...

As creatives, and as humans more broadly, we can find ourselves holding habitual tension and pain in our bodies by virtue of our work, whether it be playing a musical instrument, performing physical labor, or simply sitting at a desk all day. Jennifer Roig-Francoli, a violinist and coach specializing in the Primal Alexander Technique, helps people rediscover ease and joy through body awareness. We...

In this installment of our Creative Spark mini-episodes, Charlotte interviews Melinda about her creative habits and daily practices, including meditation and journaling. Melinda is a musician, writer, and photographer, as well as a leadership and creativity coach, and a professor of creativity, innovation, and leadership. This episode, like the mini-episodes that preceded it, also includes insight...

Synesthesia is defined as a blending or mixing of the senses. It can take many forms, such as tasting colors, seeing visuals when hearing music, and s on. It’s said to be experienced by only about 3% of people, but it is highly correlated with creativity.  Zoe Martell and Archie Frink are both psychology Ph. D. students at Saybrook University, where Melinda teaches, as well as talented artists. Th...

In this installment of our Creative Spark mini-episodes, Melinda interviews Charlotte about her writing life, creative practices, and how creativity has made her a better person. Charlotte is a writer of both fiction and nonfiction, as well as a professor, Program Manager at Vassar College, and former Chair of the Creative Writing Department at Austin Community College. This episode, like the mini...

Dr. Indre Viskontas is a woman of many talents: an opera singer and director, a neuroscientist, a professor, host of the Inquiring Minds podcast (and several others), and the current president of the Society for the Neuroscience of Creativity. She bridges the worlds of music, performance, neuroscience, and education, sharing her academic insights with the wider world through public speaking, inclu...

In this installment of our Creative Spark mini-episodes, we explore how isolation and solitude can show up in our creative process, how to distinguish between the two, and how to work with both. When we feel isolated, it’s important to reach out and connect with our communities. But sometimes we need to cultivate solitude in order to dig deep into our creative work. This episode, like the mini-epi...

Steven Ross is the Co-Founder of Wisdom Pathways, co-host of The Way to Go podcast, and host of the Intuition Radio podcast. He is a gifted intuitive medium, ordained interspiritual minister, wellness facilitator and teacher of traditional yoga and meditation. With 20 years on the yogic path, he is a devotee of Paramhansa Yogananda. Steven holds a masters in divinity from All Paths Divinity School...

In this installment of our Creative Spark mini-episodes, we discuss how creativity opens doors, and how saying yes to our creativity also helps to build connection and community. We each share our own experiences of creative connection, and how expressing our creativity has led to new experiences and relationships. This episode, like the mini-episodes that preceded it, includes insights and prompt...

Michael Steiner is the Executive Director of BEST Robotics, an annual student robotics competition for middle and high school students that facilitates experiential, complex creative problem solving within the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Over 18,000 students across the US participate in the program each fall. Michael is also the co-founder of Your Global Strate...

In this installment of our Creative Spark mini-episodes, we share our insights and best practices on accountability partnerships for our creative work. Accountability partners help us move more quickly and effectively toward our goals. We can form accountability partnerships with creative collaborators, peers, co-workers, coaches, family, friends, and so on. These are people with whom we can share...

Chris Stack plays the role of Simon in the current Broadway sensation Stereophonic , winner of a Tony award for best play, and the most Tony-nominated show of all time. Stereophonic follows a 70’s rock band in the process of recording their groundbreaking album, featuring original music by Will Butler of Arcade Fire. Chris and Melinda also happen to be high school classmates, so in this episode we...

In this installment of our Creative Spark mini-episodes, we explore the possibilities that can emerge from experimenting across media in our creative work. For example, if we’re writing a poem, what if we expressed it as a dance? Or if we’re composing a song, how would it translate into a painting? Exploring our ideas across media can open up new possibilities, which can inform and deepen our prim...

Peter Himmelman is a Grammy and Emmy nominated singer-songwriter, visual artist, best-selling author, film composer, entrepreneur, and rock and roll performer with over 20 critically acclaimed recordings to his credit. His new book, Suspended by No String , reflects on the spiritual elements that suffuse his life and creative work. In addition to his own creative work, Peter is the founder of Big...

In this installment of our Creative Spark mini-episodes, we explore the delicate balance between preparation and spontaneity in our creative work. How do we invite structure and planning into our process, while also allowing for freshness, mystery, surprise, and improvisation? Maybe the thought of public speaking terrifies us, so we want to prepare meticulously. But no one wants to hear someone si...

Amanda Johnston is the 2024 Texas Poet Laureate, the first Black woman appointed to the role by the Texas State Legislature. She is also the recipient of a 2024 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. She is the author of two chapbooks, GUAP and Lock & Key , and the full-length collection Another Way to Say Enter . Her work has appeared in numerous online and print publications.  Named...

In this installment of our Creative Spark mini-episodes, we discuss the role of curiosity, exploration, openness to experience, and the spirit of adventure in the creative process. Following our curiosity opens up new ideas, connections, and inspirations, which then enhance our creative work. This episode, like the mini-episodes that preceded it, includes insights and prompts from our book, Syncre...

Benjamin Kintisch is a cantor, chaplain, and music teacher. He created a musical based on his experiences as a chaplain working with patients and families involved in hospice care, called Life Review: The Hospice Musical . We discuss his inspiration for the musical, his songwriting collaborations, and his pandemic pivots, as well as his involvement with songwriting retreats and teaching music to c...

In this installment of our Creative Spark mini-episodes, Charlotte and Melinda discuss the importance of exercising our creativity in challenging times, not only for personal fulfillment and joy, but also to build community and be of benefit to the world. This episode, like the mini-episodes that preceded it, includes insights and prompts from our book, Syncreate: A Guide to Navigating the Creativ...

Is creativity something you’re born with, or can you learn it? In this episode, we talk with creative director and writer Chris McKenna about creativity as a skill that we can learn and practice. Chris is the founder of Wee Beastie, a creative agency based in Los Angeles. Part of his work with clients and organizations involves teaching people about the creative process. We discuss his journey fro...