The Syncreate Podcast: Empowering Creativity

 In this episode of our Creative Spark series, Melinda and Charlotte describe the Play, or ideation, phase of the creative process. In our view of the creative process, we begin with play. This is where we dream, fantasize, imagine, and envision the work we want to create. It’s where we play with ideas, build our skills, and experiment with different ways of bringing our ideas to life. We share in...

Following the creative path professionally requires faith and courage, as exemplified by our current guest Warren “Ren” Jackson. Originally from Indianapolis (where he and Melinda went school together growing up), Ren went on to earn an MFA from the University of Arizona, and then to a professional acting career with an emphasis on Shakespeare. He continued his artistic exploration amid the thrivi...

In this episode of our new Creative Spark series, Melinda and Charlotte give an overview of the Syncreate model of Play, Plan & Produce to help you move from ideation to completion with your creative work. Do you have an idea for a creative project but can’t seem to move it forward? Or maybe you’ve stalled out along the way, or can’t figure out how to bring it to completion? We share insights...

For our first full-length episode of 2024, we’re taking things in a more personal direction, as Melinda shares the story of her recent hysterectomy journey, along with her team of women healers, Leah Shadwick, Marie Commisso, and Thais Bicalho Silva. We discuss the connections between creativity, sexuality, the body, and the sacred feminine, as well as womens’ health and healing through creativity...

 For our very first episode of the new year, we’re doing something new! A couple of things, actually. We’re moving to a weekly release schedule, and introducing a new series we’re calling Creative Sparks to help stimulate your creativity. Every other week, Syncreate Co-Founders Melinda and Charlotte will co-host a mini-episode focusing on a specific aspect of the creative process to help stimulate...

In our final episode of 2023, Melinda and Mike reflect on our collaboration in developing and producing The Syncreate Podcast over the last year, from its ideation phase to the present. We talk about Melinda’s inspiration for the show, some of the myths and stereotypes she wants to dispel about creativity, and (now that we can laugh about it) our creative friction in bringing the show to life. We’...

What is creativity and how do we study it? If you’re curious to learn more about the study of creativity and innovation, this episode is for you. My guest today is Dr. Robert Cleve, head of the Creativity, Innovation, and Leadership Specialization at Saybrook University. We talk about how Robert recently updated the curriculum to better address the complex problems we face as a global community. W...

We’ve all likely experienced some degree of burnout or overwhelm in the course of our lives, especially since the pandemic. But what exactly is burnout? How can we recognize the signs of it, prevent it from overtaking us, and heal from it once we’ve experienced it? My guest on the show today is Dr. Katherine Semler. Katherine has worked for 25 years in the field of leadership development. She is a...

Songwriting, like many creative pursuits, can be a mysterious process. There’s no set formula for writing a song, and each songwriter approaches it in their own unique way. My guest today is George McCormack, a British singer-songwriter who performs as Son of Cormack. George and I were introduced by a mutual friend last year and started collaborating musically. You’ll hear us playing together duri...

This episode, featuring Cyrus Gray III, demonstrates how creativity can support resilience, even under extremely difficult circumstances. In Episode 11, I talked with Dylan Hayre about the creativity in his criminal justice reform work. In this episode, we hear about the criminal justice system from the perspective of someone who found himself behind bars for nearly five years, four of those await...

Sharanya Rao is a leadership, team, and career coach with an emphasis on equity and inclusion. She’s also the Artistic Director of Leela - An Indian Community Theatre in Austin, Texas. Her current project, Anklets in the Boardroom , gives voice to South Asian women’s experiences in the workplace. Her project is a living example of creating in community, in service of positive social change, which...

Dylan Hayre is a leader in criminal justice reform focusing on supervision in probation and parole. We connected through his work and leadership, and from the start I was struck by his passion and drive, not only for criminal justice work, but in his striving for self-cultivation in leading from his core values and principles. Dylan is a highly creative thinker, bringing an innovative approach to...

What comes to mind when you hear the word “imagination”? Does it evoke a particular image, scene, or context in your mind’s eye? We often associate imagination with the visual sense, as a close relative and component of creativity. But imagination can be associated with any of the five senses or perceptual fields, and it is also closely linked with intuition, spirituality, and synchronicity. And w...

Dr. Jeff Mims is a psychologist, creativity expert, musician, and researcher. His work focuses on the relationships between music, health and well-being. He holds a doctorate in humanistic psychology with a specialization in creativity studies, as well as a master's in rehabilitation counseling, and a bachelor's in film and cinema studies. Currently he’s the operations lead at the Music...

Anne Myers Cleary is a visual artist, as well as a writer and musician, based in Indianapolis. Anne majored in art at Kenyon College, and studied vocal performance and opera at Longy School of Music in Boston and the Jacob's School of Music at Indiana University. Her work has been featured as part of the Encore Sotheby’s Visiting Artist Series, The Harrison Center for the Arts, Kuaba Gallery,...

One of our primary areas of focus at Syncreate involves honoring the power of collaboration and community in the creative process. So I’m thrilled to bring you my conversation with Charlotte Gullick, my Syncreate Co-Founder. Charlotte is an author, novelist, memoirist, and educator. Her first novel, By Way of Water , was chosen by Jayne Anne Phillips as the Grand Prize winner of the Santa Fe Write...

One of the most powerfully creative things we can do as leaders and changemakers in this complex world is to identify and live from our core values. As a creativity and leadership coach and consultant, I always encourage my clients to articulate their core values and utilize them as compass points in their work. My guest in this episode, Mayela Padilla Manasjan, exemplifies this values-driven crea...

Creativity benefits from a diverse array of perspectives and experiences. The more creative inputs we have, the more we experience life and the world around us, the more stories and ideas we can observe, live, and share. In this episode, we talk with Austin, Texas-based Shuja Uddin, a screenwriter, filmmaker, and professor of media studies originally from Karachi, Pakistan. We discuss the diverse...

Change is hard. Our natural tendency is often to resist it, even if we know it’s good for us. Change represents the unknown, and so we often fear it. That’s why we need people like Reem Khashou, a Wellness Coach and Personal Trainer, to help us implement lasting change in our lives. In this episode, we discuss the mind-body-spirit connection, Reem’s own health and wellness journey, and her approac...

Melinda came across the term “creative polymathy,” meaning interest and skill in multiple creative fields or disciplines, a few years ago at a creativity conference, and it really resonated. The nature of creativity is to make associations between disparate ideas and inspirations, so it makes sense that creative people often have talent and ability in more than one area. Michael Walker is one of t...

We often talk about the mind-body connection, but how does this relate to creativity? Embodiment refers to the state of fully inhabiting our physical selves, as well as our internal, phenomenological experience of living as a physical being. Many of us have complicated relationships with our bodies, especially those of us who have experienced trauma in some form or another (which is most of us). Y...

Podcasting has become such an important medium of creativity, carrying on a long tradition of oral storytelling that stretches back to the beginnings of human history and culture. But what makes a successful podcast and how do you create one? Today’s guest, Michael Osborne, PhD, stumbled into podcasting while working on a PhD in environmental science at Stanford, and never looked back. Over the la...

Introducing the Syncreate Podcast, exploring the intersections of creativity, psychology, and spirituality. Subscribe Now!