On the creative journey, it's easy to get lost, but don't worry, you'll lift up.

Sometimes you just need a creative pep talk.

Hey, you're listening to the Creative Pet Talk podcast. I'm your host, Dada J.

Hey, pizza. What do you do when nobody is asking you to do anything? What do you do when no one's knocking at your door?

May you're not in high demand. The emails aren't coming through. Nobody seems to be interested in your time.

What do you do in those spaces? What I do often at first is panic. It's a vulnerable space to be in when nobody is asking you for anything.

And creatively, that can be a scary place. And if we're not careful, it can be a kind of barren place.

And it's not a bad thing in those moments to rest or to reflect or to chill or even to react however you feel is natural.

But when you find yourself in that place of being not in demand, maybe the economy is bad, maybe you've run the course of a particular trend or style or season of your creative practice.

And you find yourself in a place where things are slow and quiet. What do you do in those seasons? If you are finding yourself in a space like that right now, this episode is for you because I want to share how those seasons have been the most powerful,

formative seasons of my creative practice as long as you handle them in a particular way. That's all we're going to talk about in this episode. Let's go.

When I look back on my own creative journey, I've gone through a bunch of different slow times and quiet times in my practice. And I can see that those times were either the worst, most painful, wasted seasons or they were the exact opposite.

They were the best, most essential pivotal creative seasons in my journey. And the difference didn't come down to the economy or the circumstance that I was in. It came down to how I handled them and how I saw them.

And so I want to share three things that helped me transform the slow times into the best times of my creative practice. And if you stay to the end, I will share something that you can actively do that has made all the difference in my creative journey is the most essential thing that I have done creatively. And it's something that I've always done in slow times.

And so there's a real opportunity there. The first thing that you have to do is you have to see the gift and the opportunity that is the slow time or the quiet time. Let me explain what I mean.

Now I'm not going to lie to you. It feels fantastic to be in high demand the times in my creative practice when people have been busting down my doors to work with me and collaborate with me creatively have been some of the most fun creative seasons of my practice.

But I wouldn't say that they are the most creative seasons of my practice. And this episode is diving into why that is now I think most of us would like to be in high demand creatively because we need big creative opportunities to have a thriving creative practice.

But no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, it's not in your control. You can't always be in high demand either because you're creatively exhausted and have nothing else to give your cup isn't full. So to speak or because the world isn't the world doesn't have anything to give the world is in a resting season.

That's a natural thing. There's always a winter in a summer in a give in a take in a flow in a stillness is always going to be that seasonal pulse of the universe and the universe within you like you're a system that needs both of those things. So you can't always be in high demand. Right. And that sucks.

Wrong. I don't think it actually sucks. There are always going to be times when no matter what you do, you are in low demand. And I want to present the good side, the silver lining or even why maybe that is a good thing because ultimately the most creative opportunity that you can have is freedom is free.

Time it is it is the time when no one is demanding anything of you when your creative practice is not being interrupted by knocks at the door and says knocking there is no better creative scenario or creative opportunity than absolutely nothing going on.

It reminds me of I can't I tried to find this and if anybody knows where this is let me know send me a note so I can put it in the show notes but I can't find who said this. I know it was like a scientist or a mathematician. It might have been to do with Cal Newport. He has a book about deep work. And so it feels like it could be something in his stratosphere but I don't think it was him.

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