# Transcript: The Lie That You’re Not Creative **Date:** March 12, 2026 · 10:30 PM **Session:** [The Lie That You’re Not Creative](/sessions/2026-03-12/pp1162964-the-lie-that-you-re-not-creative) ## Summary Artist and entrepreneur Jodie King challenges the widespread belief that creativity is a talent reserved for special people, arguing instead that it's a biological process and essential human capability. Drawing from her personal journey from believing she wasn't creative to becoming a professional artist, and sharing the story of a combat medic who healed her traumatic brain injury through painting, King demonstrates that creativity is crucial for adaptability, mental health, and thriving in an AI-dominated world. ## Topics `creativity` · `artificial intelligence` · `adaptability` · `mental health` · `anxiety reduction` · `neuroplasticity` · `white space` · `morning pages` · `authenticity` · `human skills` ## Key Takeaways 1. Creativity is not a personality trait but a biological process that strengthens adaptability, reduces anxiety, and helps regulate the nervous system. 2. As AI handles execution and optimization, human value lies in authenticity, presence, and the ability to imagine—capabilities machines cannot replicate. 3. Practice white space (unfilled time without consumption) and morning pages to clear mental clutter and access creativity that's already within you. 4. The belief that you're not creative is costly—it limits your adaptability, clarity, and connection to yourself in an increasingly automated world. 5. Creativity helps the brain rewire and heal, as demonstrated by research showing an inverse relationship between creativity and anxiety levels. ## Full Transcript It took me 35 years to learn this, and that is that being creative has nothing to do with making art. I was nine years old in third grade art class, and our art teacher came in and placed balls of clay in front of each of us. The assignment was simple: make a mushroom. I got my clay and started making the stem, then the cap, and adhered them together. I noticed there was some clay left over, so I started making little balls and putting them carefully on top of the mushroom cap, then painted it. A week later, when we got our fired pieces back, the teacher was praising everyone. She puts my mushroom in front of me and said, "Jody, those little balls were not part of the assignment." In that moment, I made a decision: I am not creative. I'm certainly not an artist. Here's what I have learned since: most of us have opted out of creativity. Most of us believe that someone else is creative—it belongs to those special kids, the ones that can draw, the really talented ones. A study looked at preschoolers through seventh grade. In kindergarten, when asked "everyone here who's an artist, raise your hand," 100% of the kids raised their hands. In third grade, only half raised their hands. In seventh grade, only one child raised their hand. Same kids, one child. When do we decide, or when do we let the world decide that we're creative? Years ago, we were told the future belonged to engineers and coders. STEM was everything. But in 2017, Mark Cuban gave an interview and said in 10 years time, he would no longer be hiring for the skills of engineers and coding. Instead, he would be hiring creatives and liberal arts style thinkers. The reason is that hardware can optimize, replicate, and execute, but it cannot originate a lived human experience. Artificial intelligence is here to stay. The question is no longer will our tools get better—they will. The question is: what makes us valuable? The answer is authenticity and presence. AI can see patterns and replicate, but it cannot decide what truly matters. It cannot sense tension in a room and adjust. It cannot hold paradox—that two things can be true at once. It certainly can't lead, because to lead you have to sense what is unspoken, and that kind of intelligence cannot be artificial. Yet we still think of authenticity as optional, and sometimes we think of curiosity as indulgent. With constant input, even our own imagination can feel non-existent. We distract ourselves, outsource it, and wonder why we're feeling disconnected from ourselves, why there's an epidemic of loneliness, why anxiety is rampant. We look for answers out there. But what if the answers were the part of us we decided long ago to stop trusting, the part we abandoned because the world told us creativity belongs to someone else? I've seen this in unexpected places. Years ago, I worked with a woman in one of my artist mentoring programs—we'll call her Amy. Becoming an artist was not on Amy's bingo card. All she ever wanted to be was a nurse. She got the training, became a nurse, and it was everything she hoped. When 9/11 happened, she enlisted and became a combat medic, going to Iraq and Afghanistan, saving lives. Being a nurse was her identity and purpose. Then within six months, Amy suffered two traumatic brain injuries, and her nursing career was over. She could barely tie her shoes, couldn't walk around the block unassisted, couldn't even watch television for long. It became a really dark time. At one neurological appointment, her doctor said, "Amy, you've spent a lifetime developing the left side of your brain. If you want your brain to heal, you're going to have to strengthen the right side, the creative side." The doctor slid a coloring book across the table. Amy said, "You have got to be kidding me. I've spent a lifetime healing people, and now all I can do is color." But being a medical professional, she couldn't ignore the prescription. One day, she saw a video of a woman painting large-scale canvases, applying paint with both hands, moving with the music, having a ball. Amy thought, "That I might be able to do." Her neighbors discarded a big screen TV box, and Amy's father helped her put that cardboard on the wall to become a canvas. Amy started painting, mimicking the woman in the video, applying paint with a brush and her hands, moving and shifting her body weight. She was hooked. Several months later, at her neurological appointment, the doctor came in and said, "Amy, what have you been doing?" Amy's brain was healing because of creativity. Creativity has never been a personality trait. It is a biological process. When we create, our nervous system regulates. Martha Beck wrote a book called "Beyond Anxiety," and in her research, she found an inverse relationship between anxiety and creativity. Patients with the most anxiety had the least creativity in their lives, and those with the most creativity had the least anxiety. More creativity, less anxiety. Why? Because creativity expands thinking, stabilizes personality, and strengthens adaptability. That's what Amy's brain was doing—rewiring, adapting, becoming more flexible. In a world shaped by artificial intelligence, adaptability is no longer nice to have. It is our power. Not so we can out-compute machines, but because we can out-imagine them. I'm not suggesting anybody quit their jobs or become a professional artist, though I highly recommend it. I'm suggesting something that might feel harder: white space. White space is the opposite of consumption—the absence of consumption. It is unfilled time in a culture addicted to input. It looks like walking without a podcast or book, driving in silence, standing in line without reaching for your phone. When do your best ideas come? In the shower, right? Or walking in nature, seeing a tree or bird, just in that moment. Or on the toilet without your phone. Our best ideas come when we're not consuming, but allowing. We've eliminated white space almost entirely from our lives, replacing wandering with YouTube and daydreaming with Instagram. When we have no white space, we have a deficit of creativity. If white space seems like too much of a stretch, I have one more tip: morning pages. Julia Cameron wrote a book called "The Artist's Way," and she suggested writing three pages stream of consciousness every morning. The three pages is important because it gets all the stuff out of the way. She didn't suggest morning pages so we could be more productive—it's to clear mental clutter. It's not that I need more ideas—I've got tons of them. I need less noise so I can focus on them. The opposite of consumption is not productivity, it is creativity. The lie that you're not creative is bullshit. Do you remember the woman in the video Amy was watching painting? That woman was the same little girl who was nine years old in third grade, who had opted out. She's the same little girl told "Jody, those little balls are not part of the assignment." That woman was me, and the videos were of me capturing my creative process. The same woman who believed years ago she was not creative became the woman another used as an example to heal her brain. That is the power of reclaiming what we once abandoned. After 22 years as a professional artist, here's what I know: if you believe you are not creative, that belief is not neutral—it is costing you. It's costing you adaptability, clarity, and connection, even to yourself. Machines are getting better at executing, and we've got to get better at imagination. The question is no longer "am I creative?"—you are. The question is: when did you stop giving yourself permission to be? --- *Source: stt · Language: en · Model: anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-5* [← Back to session](/sessions/2026-03-12/pp1162964-the-lie-that-you-re-not-creative)