How Curiosity Fuels Your Creative Power with Terise Lang

Terise Lang is a certified life, health, and wellness coach with a lifelong interest in and love of all things creative. She joins me today for a wide-ranging discussion of the power of creativity, including the way she uses creativity in her work, how our creativity is so often socialized out of us in the name of more conformity, our tendency to define creativity too narrowly and then decide that we don’t have it, the hidden creativity in fields like software engineering and cooking, how managers unconsciously limit their staff’s creativity while trying to foster it, the impact of artificial intelligence on our creative lives, and more.

Episode breakdown:

00:00 Introduction
04:21 Creativity gets socialized out, but it’s dormant, not gone.
08:16 Everyone’s unique perspective shapes creativity, even in simple family plays.
12:31 Start simply; creativity can revive with sketching, coloring, small experiments.
16:57 Software engineers, tech support, and problem-solving require creativity daily.
21:12 Recognize personal talents; downplaying strengths limits growth and joy.
25:24 Curiosity is essential—asking questions and exploring fuels creativity.
30:01 Coaching methods benefit from creativity; adapting routines yields effective results.
34:42 Tapping uses creativity; modifying it improves outcomes for clients.
38:56 Taking breaks, doing creative activities, and doodling refresh the mind.
44:14 Act your age debate; enjoying creativity is ageless and joyful.
48:13 Managers must encourage and credit staff creativity to boost morale.
52:47 Joy and growth flourish when creative self-expression is valued.
55:43 Society elevates machines, but AI can’t replace human creativity.
01:00:42 AI uses resources, regurgitates information, can’t replicate unique human writing.

Show Links: Terise Lang

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Transcript: Terise Lang

Please note: This is an unedited transcript, provided as a courtesy, and reflects the actual conversation as closely as possible. Please forgive any typographical or grammatical errors.

Nancy Norbeck [00:00:06]:
Welcome to Follow Your Curiosity. Ordinary people, extraordinary creativity. Here’s how to get unstuck. I’m your host, creativity coach, Nancy Norbeck. Let’s go. Terise Lang is a certified life health and wellness coach with a lifelong interest in and love of all things creative. She joins me today for a wide ranging discussion of the power of creativity, including the way she uses creativity in her work, how creativity is so often socialized out of us in the name of more conformity, our tendency to define creativity too narrowly and then decide we don’t have it, the hidden creativity in fields like software engineering and cooking, how managers unconsciously limit their staff’s creativity while trying to foster it, the impact of artificial intelligence on our creative lives, and more. Here’s my conversation with Therese Lang. Therese, welcome to Follow Your Curiosity.

Terise Lang [00:01:05]:
Well, thank you, Nancy. I am excited to be here. I’ve been looking forward to this for ever since we booked it.

Nancy Norbeck [00:01:10]:
Me, too. So I start everyone with the same question. Were you a creative kid, or did you discover your creative side later on?

Terise Lang [00:01:18]:
I was creative from the jump, and I had fun. Lots of fun, being creative. You know? Kids are creative anyway, but, I just knew. I mean, as I came alive whenever I did anything creative. That’s with words, art, you know, just doing things in quirky ways just to try

Nancy Norbeck [00:01:38]:
them out. You know? Sure. So was there a particular thing that really drew you in as a kid, or was it pretty much across the board?

Terise Lang [00:01:47]:
I it it was pretty much across the board. I did like I do did a lot of, like, drawing, painting. You know, I wasn’t great at it, but I I enjoyed it. I like looking at the colors, and my mom was artistically talented. And, I I also she taught me a little bit of the string arts, you know, little bit of crocheting, knitting, that kind of stuff. I’m not good at it. I didn’t stick with it. But I did do, things like embroidery and, and, also, you know, we as a family, like, we would do these little silly little plays, like, me, me and my siblings.

Terise Lang [00:02:22]:
Right? We’d get together, and we would just just like a couple of times, we would, put a little play together, and my parents, god bless them, would sit there and watch what we put together. You know? And but it was fun. And, I mean, we and we didn’t have much. Right? We were poor, But we were creative. Right? And, like, we used bags. We I mean, hefty bags make fantastic capes, by the way. Oh, yeah. And, you know, and boxes, and it was fun.

Terise Lang [00:02:51]:
It’s it was just and I that’s what I like about it, that as an adult, you gotta remember, it can be fun to be creative. You know? Yes. Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:03:01]:
Yes. And, you know, it’s funny when you talk about making up shows and putting them on. I remember doing that as a kid. I’ll bet an awful lot of people who are listening to this remember doing that as a kid. I think, you know, probably more kids than not did something like that. You know, it’s not just the drawing and the writing and the music. It’s the, you know, hey, let’s put on a show, which is not just the cliched thing out of the movies from the fifties and sixties. Right? Everybody, you know, everybody’s making up their own play and putting on their own show, even if it’s just for your grandparents in the basement on Sunday afternoon, which is when we did it.

Nancy Norbeck [00:03:45]:
You know? I mean

Terise Lang [00:03:47]:
Poor grandparents. I I have to give parents and grandparents a shout out here for sitting through that. Oh, yeah. But they were just enjoying being with their kids, right, and watching them play.

Nancy Norbeck [00:03:56]:
Right. And yet I’m also thinking it’s so easy to be the adult, which you don’t realize as a kid, sitting there going, oh, Lord, what do I have to sit through now? And yet what that kid is doing is amazing. And it’s so easy to lose track of how amazing that is as an adult.

Terise Lang [00:04:21]:
Isn’t that the truth? It really is. Because we kinda I I I call it getting socialized out of our natural creativity. Yeah. You know? And, I mean, there’s a there’s a point. There’s a purpose for structure and guidance, but then, you know, for goodness sakes, let kids dream and imagine. And it’s it is and those make the better innovators later on. Right? Because it’s like any other muscle. The more you use it, the better you are at using it, and it’s fun.

Terise Lang [00:04:50]:
I keep on emphasizing that because to me, that’s what it’s it’s about enjoyment, and it brings joy. It brings joy to you and whoever’s enjoying whatever creative thing you’re doing.

Nancy Norbeck [00:05:01]:
Right. And I think, you know, when when the creativity gets trained out of us, the fun gets trained out of us too. And I don’t think we realize just how true that is until we manage to do something consciously or unconsciously. You know, we end up in this situation where suddenly we’re allowed to have fun again. And it feels kind of alien when we haven’t done it for a while, and there can even be this sense of, you know, kind of looking around the room, like, am I allowed to do this? Yeah.

Terise Lang [00:05:35]:
You know? It’s how what are people gonna think? Mhmm. You know? You you have to get over that. What are people gonna think? Well, they’re gonna think what they’re gonna think. You know? You can be perfectly sensible and logical, and they’re still gonna think what they’re gonna think. So you might as well have fun being who you are.

Nancy Norbeck [00:05:49]:
Exactly. Exactly. And who cares what they think? You know? We’re we’re trained to care.

Terise Lang [00:05:58]:
Well, you know what? The the teenage years, though, are particularly precarious because you got the hormones going in. You know, all the adolescent thing. Everybody wants to fit in, whatever. Not everybody, but most of them wanna fit in. I knew some teens that I that I interacted with who they loved being different. You know? It’s like, I’m I’m not like everybody else. Most of them, they wanna fit in, and they get into that. And then, of course, when you go into the working world and you are given all these rules and these standards and you have to and then it just after a while, you’d are you yourself, or you’re just a well trained drone? And so then you yeah.

Terise Lang [00:06:34]:
You know what I mean? You get you lose that. You don’t lose it. What you forget it. You kind of put it on the side. You know? And but you can bring it back out again. You can reactivate that. And it it can change your life. It literally can.

Nancy Norbeck [00:06:52]:
And the trap is that you think you’ve lost it and you think it’s gone forever. It’s not. It’s still in there.

Terise Lang [00:07:00]:
It’s dormant. Temporarily dormant.

Nancy Norbeck [00:07:02]:
Right. You just have to realize that you can get it back and take the steps to do that and have the faith that that it’s still there, because it is. Yeah. You know, it’s sort of sort of like, you know, my high school French teacher always used to tell me that my high school French was still in my head somewhere. You know, it’s the same kind of thing. Like, you know, you can you can get it back. And I look at French stuff every once in a while, and I still recognize words, so I think she was probably right, you know? Absolutely. And it just takes the effort to go and bring that stuff back up to the surface.

Nancy Norbeck [00:07:40]:
And it it is an effort in part because you are fighting that training that has tried to turn you into the same widget as the person next to you at work. We are not widgets. We were never supposed to be widgets.

Terise Lang [00:07:58]:
No. No. That that that kills the everybody’s unique. Right. And you and you don’t wanna lose that uniqueness. Everyone is unique. And, you know, it it can be a little scary, you know, when people realize, oh, you’re you’re different. Maybe maybe you’re within a certain group, and that group’s pretty homogeneous.

Terise Lang [00:08:16]:
Right? And you you’ve got everybody kind of feels, the same way about something. But even then, each one of them feels uniquely similar about about that thing. It’s like when you have a a a still life, you know, they put it on the table. They they they’ll have a vase, and they’ll have fruit. They’ll have piece of cloth. And, you have a bunch of artists, and they’re very good artists, but every single picture will be different.

Nancy Norbeck [00:08:44]:
Yes.

Terise Lang [00:08:45]:
Right? Everyone. And that’s them using their their perception and their creative take on it. And yet you can still recognize what it is. Mhmm. But it’s with with each one with their own creative flavor. I just love that. Recipes. You know? Mhmm.

Terise Lang [00:09:01]:
I I have a recipe for ginger cookies that I I started out with, like, a basic recipe, and I’m like, I wonder if I did this and did that and did the other. And every time I make those things, they’re kinda labor intensive, but people, they they’re just gone. They’re just I had a lady friend, and I said she said, can I take a couple home? And I said, yeah. She said, I ended up taking, like, a dozen of them. So, you know, because I was willing to to say, you know what? I wonder if I did this or did that. And you know what? Kitchen disasters happen. So what if you try a recipe and it’s not who cares? Who cares? On the other hand, you might have discovered something you really enjoy, especially, you know, in my field that when it’s healthy and enjoyable. Right? Right.

Terise Lang [00:09:45]:
And and you were willing to just take, you know, try a different combination. You know, go crazy. You know, put put pepper and something in there. You know? Right. So

Nancy Norbeck [00:09:54]:
Right. People don’t realize, and I’ve said this before on this show, how creative cooking is. You know? Baking, you have to be a little more precise with or your cake is probably not gonna rise. But

Terise Lang [00:10:06]:
Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:10:07]:
But cooking, you can really play with. And and, you know, I I have known people who will walk into the grocery store and see some ingredients that they’ve never seen before and pick it up and say, I’m gonna take this home and try it and maybe walk over to somebody, especially like at an ethnic grocery store and say, what is this and how do you cook it? Ask a couple questions, go home and just play with it and end up with something amazing, which I frankly think is magic because I don’t think I could do that. But some people have that particular talent to just make something out of something they’ve never seen before.

Terise Lang [00:10:44]:
Or just a natural curiosity that they wanna satisfy and it works out.

Nancy Norbeck [00:10:49]:
Right. And so, you know, you can you can do that. And you could end up with a disaster the time, but it could be that you were intrigued enough that you’re gonna go try it again. Exactly. You know? I mean, there’s there’s all sorts of stuff that you can do in a kitchen. You know? Those famous chefs you see on TV didn’t get there because they opened up their Betty Crocker book and stuck to the recipe every time. Absolutely. They would not be where they are because they

Terise Lang [00:11:15]:
would be like every the cookie cutter, coke. Right?

Nancy Norbeck [00:11:18]:
Right.

Terise Lang [00:11:19]:
Exactly like everybody. Yeah. And, anyways, so I think yeah. That’s fun to me is trying they have different things in the kitchen that are healthy and yet they taste good. And, and I like the using different colors, like, when they have the bell peppers and you use the different color, but bell peppers, it’s just it’s so pretty. And even when I go into a a produce area, you see all the different colors. And I can see why a lot of artists get inspired, you know, to to draw them or whatever. They’re they’re visually appealing.

Nancy Norbeck [00:11:49]:
Sure.

Terise Lang [00:11:49]:
And, you know, that’s and a lot of times, they tell people, you know, just start with something simple. Yeah. Just start with something simple. Mhmm. Just try if you kinda as, my husband, he used to draw a lot, and he says he hasn’t done it in a while. And I said, you still got hands. By the grace of God, you got hands and eyes. And, you know, I said you can start with something you like to use pastels or something.

Terise Lang [00:12:11]:
You know? Not not like like oil paints or or water paints even more tricky because it, you know, it runs down. But just try a design, you know, just sketch something out, you know. So I got him a sketch pad for Christmas, you know. Hey, you know, go ahead and sketch it. And and what’s the worst that can happen? He doesn’t like what he draws. He draws something else. You know? Mhmm. And those coloring books.

Terise Lang [00:12:31]:
Right? Those that are, you know, meant to relax, but nobody colors those the same way. You know? That’s the creativity. Right? You’re gonna take a flower or a floral kind of design and just do different things, different, color palettes. Right? And it’s it just opens every time you do something like that. For one thing, you’re using a a little more of your brain. Right?

Nancy Norbeck [00:12:55]:
Mhmm.

Terise Lang [00:12:55]:
And so it it does, like, I know some tech people. Oh, I’m I’m technical. I I’m not creative. You’re a software engineer. You are incredibly creative. You are creating things that have never done been done before. Right. I mean, right, you know, games and, or just just processes that go through a system that’s never been set up before.

Terise Lang [00:13:20]:
That’s called creativity. You know? Right. And that came from your curiosity of if I wanna do this and I wanna end up with that result, what do I do? You you have to be creative. And then two, I like creative teams. Like, you might have somebody who’s got a strength in one area and someone has a strength in another area, and they combine forces. Right. You know? And and that’s when you really get, I’d say to me, brilliant ideas. But it doesn’t have to be anything fancy.

Terise Lang [00:13:51]:
You don’t have to be, you know, there there are not, like John Singer Sargent. I don’t know if you’re familiar with him, but his portraits I like his portraits. Well, a lot of people drew people, but they didn’t look at all like that. Toulouse Lautrec, completely different. Pablo Picasso, completely different. Mhmm. You know? And they distinguished themselves by just they drew what they saw, and they just they just let it happen. And some I love the paintings too that show emotion.

Terise Lang [00:14:21]:
That’s miraculous.

Nancy Norbeck [00:14:22]:
Oh, yeah.

Terise Lang [00:14:23]:
Because all you have is a piece of paper, and you just made it move. You know? So anyway, you can tell I can go. I know.

Nancy Norbeck [00:14:32]:
We we could go on forever. But and and I wanna go back for a to what you were saying about software engineers because I I interviewed a couple years ago a friend of mine from high school who is a software engineer, and it’s part of the reason that I had him on the show because, obviously, it’s a creative thing. You know? And I I worked in tech support for a long time, and you cannot be a good tech support person. And in recent years, I’ve had my more than my fair share of encounters. It often feels with people who are in tech support now who don’t seem to understand this without being curious and creative about solving a problem. You cannot just go through a flowchart of standard questions and not put any thought into it and not, you know, ask questions and be curious and make an effort to try to figure the thing out. I mean, to me, it always felt like a personal challenge. Why is this thing not working right for this person? Right.

Nancy Norbeck [00:15:34]:
Any kind of problem solving is inherently creative if you hope to actually solve it, unless it’s something that’s really obvious that’s come up a thousand times before.

Terise Lang [00:15:44]:
And they’ve already automated a process or they can show you what they Right. But but but then again, you might be the person who they show you that and they go, oh, that’s great. But I have a bay a way it might work better. Right. So even right? Even if it’s established, that person might say, you know what? We did something like this over there, but it we save time by doing such and such. You know? Because they were willing to be creative and look at at other ways of doing it. So, anyway, I

Nancy Norbeck [00:16:15]:
didn’t need you to. No. It’s okay. But it’s just, like, all of those things, when people like that tell me that they’re not creative, drives me nuts. I mean, I my father is an engineer. You cannot tell me that engineers are not creative, especially because he he’s a lifelong choral singer. He’s part of the reason that I ended up becoming a lifelong choral singer, and I will tell you, and and we talked about this on the the last show, there were so many engineers in my college choir that it was kind of mind boggling. There is a huge overlap between engineers and musicians.

Nancy Norbeck [00:16:57]:
And my dad is also, it turns out a great floral arranger. You know, there, there is not this, this split that people seem to think there is, oh, you’re an engineer. You are, you know, just purely left brained. That’s not how it works. Yeah. It’s not how it works. And so, you know, I I would love it if people stopped thinking that you’re either all or nothing, left brained, right brained. And I know that the brain science doesn’t strictly work that way anymore, but that’s how most people think of it.

Nancy Norbeck [00:17:32]:
So that’s what we’re going with here. But, you know, like, nobody is all or nothing. You have a left brain and you have a right brain, and they work together, and so do you. You know, that that’s how it is. If you solve any problem during your day, whether it’s, oh, I started this recipe and it turns out I don’t have the cumin, so what am I gonna do instead? Or I need a better filing system in my job at work where I’m an office manager. You are being creative. You are coming up with something new. It’s like you said before, you’re creating something that didn’t exist before.

Nancy Norbeck [00:18:13]:
So give yourself the credit for being creative, please. Please stop defining yourself out of your own creativity.

Terise Lang [00:18:23]:
Yeah. And I I agree with you. You know, you were talking about like a filing system. I I remember hiring a guy that we we hired him to do the filing. We showed him what we had set up. In in ten minutes, he had figured out a better way to do so. Ten minutes. Because he didn’t go in there thinking, okay.

Terise Lang [00:18:42]:
I’ll do exactly what I’m told, and I’m not gonna I’m not gonna go outside the lot. He just said, oh, boom. And my my my boss didn’t believe it. I said, ten minutes, he’s already got it working better in there. So, and that that to me is I remember that because I said, this is a creative guy, and he was creative. He was magical, and the kitchen, by the way, was like a pastry, which is not easy to cook. And, but that’s because he would do things and just go, wow. You know? He would, like, put designs and stuff, and, it would you would have a simple thing like a muffin, and he would make it look like, you know, something you’d serve the queen.

Terise Lang [00:19:18]:
And I just loved it. I just loved it. So how so much fun to see that, you know, and fun to see the look in his eyes. This is spirit enhancing. I mean, when you are in that creative mode and acknowledging that you’re in that creative mode, right, permitting yourself, it’s like, wow. The world your your corner of the world suddenly got bigger. You know? It suddenly opened up, and it it it just feels good. And that’s how you know you’re in that, that mode.

Terise Lang [00:19:50]:
It feels like, wow. This is and it doesn’t have to be the only thing you do. Maybe you’re very you’re a good mathematician. I know, well, someone amazing mathematician, and boy can he play a piano. And you can kinda see the intersection, though, right, the counting and the but but he’s just but he he creates his own musical pieces. So you know what I’m saying? That is that’s that’s not mathematical. That’s just being creative and enjoying it. So, you know and I love to see people enjoy stuff.

Terise Lang [00:20:24]:
I do.

Nancy Norbeck [00:20:25]:
Yeah. I think that’s a a flow thing too. People who who improvise music, I think, tap into a flow state that I would love to understand more. Because that looks like magic to me too. And I don’t necessarily think that it is, but it’s it’s a whole level of operation that I I say that, and yet, you know, I’ve had moments of flow when I’m writing that are probably pretty similar. But because it’s music, it just seems more magical to me. So

Terise Lang [00:20:57]:
Yeah. And to people who do not enjoy writing at all, what you do seems magical. Telling you. You know, when I’m writing, it’s like, oh, I’m glad you’re doing that. I hate writing. Because it’s not, you know, it’s not it’s not for everyone. Like, I love words. I love writing.

Terise Lang [00:21:12]:
It’s to me, it’s like, oh. And some people, they they cringe. I’ll tell you something that, I don’t know if my creativity could be improved in this area, but I I, I’m not good with the sense of direction at all. Mhmm. And my my husband, you know, he said, you you just need to work at it, and I’m better at it. He’s he’s amazing. You could put him in another country, spin him around with a blindfold on, and he could find his way. I’ve never seen and he doesn’t think he’s very bright.

Terise Lang [00:21:39]:
I’m like, that’s a high level skill. And he will figure out four or five different ways, which is, to me, being creative of of getting to a point, of getting from point a to point b. And, you know, I I just I wish people would would realize recognize that what they have is is a gift and recognize the scope of their gift and stop limiting it. You might have a wider scope tomorrow.

Nancy Norbeck [00:22:08]:
Right. Right. And, you know, as you’re saying that, I I I’m flashing back to moments as a kid where I think, you know, with the best intentions in

Terise Lang [00:22:19]:
the

Nancy Norbeck [00:22:19]:
world, people hear a kid saying something like, you know, oh, but I’m really good at this, And they immediately shut it down because they don’t want the kid to get a a swelled head, big ego, you know, whatever. And yet, like, I understand that impulse, but at the same time, it teaches that kid to devalue their own talent. And that’s how we end up with people who think that they’re not creative or that they don’t have a fabulous sense of direction and don’t give themselves credit for their particular talents. And I think somehow we need to strike a better balance there. Like, you don’t want the kid who’s walking around bragging about their skills all the time

Terise Lang [00:23:07]:
because they’re downsized. Happy medium. There’s gotta be medium where they have wonderful self esteem, where they they like who they are, they love who they are, they know that they have, you know, special talents, and yet they don’t they don’t put other people down or make them feel uncomfortable if they don’t have that same kind of thing. And there is a way to do that. It’s it’s work. Right? It’s it’s like anything else. But that that it’s very easy to go into the, like you said, one or two. Mhmm.

Terise Lang [00:23:36]:
Left or right. Yeah. Yeah. And but it’s it’s easy, but is it enjoyable? I mean, does it give you dimension in your life?

Nancy Norbeck [00:23:46]:
Right. Right. You know, we all need to be better, I think, at taking credit for the things that we do well. And ironically, a lot of the people who tend to wanna grab credit for things often don’t really deserve it.

Terise Lang [00:24:05]:
Yeah. There’s that side of it too. Yeah. And then you go, okay. You know, that obviously, that’s their their perception. You know, you may not share it. But Right. But I know what you mean.

Terise Lang [00:24:17]:
I do know what you mean. And then, I don’t know. To me, if you wanna have joy in your life, real joy, then you you need to explore all you can about yourself and about the world around you. And creativity is a way to do that. Mhmm. You know? Going, being curious about things, asking questions. You know? And sometimes you ask a question. Like, when I visited London one time and I asked this, this guy about a building, He knew the whole dang history of that building, who had built it when he had built.

Terise Lang [00:24:52]:
I had no idea that he had that in him, but I think part of creativity is being willing to reach out and ask questions. And, you know, I tell people, I don’t care if you think I’m dumb for asking a question. I’m gonna ask it. Or someone says, well, didn’t I tell you that before? Uh-huh. I need you to remind me because I don’t remember. So what was the answer? You know? And by being curious and by being, just just wanting to live your life fully. I mean, why in life is tough enough. Right? We got plenty of challenges.

Terise Lang [00:25:24]:
Oh, I need to go into that. So why not when you have the opportunity to explore and to learn and to broaden yourself? It’s you know, whether or not you can do the thing that you’ve discovered, you might find, I don’t really have that. I I remember trying to make one of those, dream catchers and the Native American thing. And this one lady was tickled. She could just I mean, in, like, fifteen minutes, she had this beautiful, rather intricate design. And I had I was doing everything but swallowing string trying to help her. But you know what? If I were to stick with it, right, and work with it but I’m still curious about about you know, I was curious about the meaning of the dream catcher and also the the variety and the the beauty of of people who create them. So I didn’t lose anything by exploring it at all, and I met wonderful people too.

Terise Lang [00:26:19]:
So Right. It you know, there’s all that I don’t I hate to see people miss opportunities and to to not have everything that they can, whether or not you have money. I mean, some people have more, some people have less. That’s not the the point. The point is how rich is your life? And and by being creative, by being allowing yourself to be creative, allowing people to be creative around you. Look how your your world you know, I I was I I guess I got that from my dad because he he was always exposing us to things that, you know, from we did we couldn’t travel there, but he taught us about other cultures. You know? And I I’ll I will never be able to, thank him for that. That’s a gift.

Terise Lang [00:27:01]:
You know? Absolutely.

Nancy Norbeck [00:27:03]:
And and that’s part of why, you know, I think curiosity and creativity overlap so much. I don’t think you can Now I feel like I’m gonna make a blanket statement and I shouldn’t do that. But I was gonna say, I don’t think you can be creative if you’re not curious. You know, I think there’s there’s so much that that is fueled by curiosity

Terise Lang [00:27:25]:
in

Nancy Norbeck [00:27:25]:
the creative world. You know, you’ve gotta be asking questions. You have to be wondering about things in order for that creative spark to get the fuel that it needs to produce whatever kind of creative thing you wanna do, which is, you know, why I titled this show Follow Your Curiosity because it’s easier to follow curiosity. You can’t really follow creativity, but you sure can follow curiosity.

Terise Lang [00:27:50]:
So You

Nancy Norbeck [00:27:50]:
can. And

Terise Lang [00:27:50]:
I can. And I don’t I don’t ever regret being curious about things and asking and and watching people do things. You know, and I I, when I was in New York, I saw this guy do this painting, and I’ve never seen painting like that. I’m like, what are you using? What’s your medium? And he pointed to this can of stuff, and he said, I’m not gonna tell you what it is. It’s my own proprietary formula. But it looked like he was painting with titanium steel where, you know, you have all those different that’s what I’m saying. All those different colors that manifest. Amazing.

Terise Lang [00:28:21]:
Because I guarantee you, he’s a creative person. He allowed himself. He he probably said, well, everybody’s, you know, working with this and that. I’m gonna try this. And he probably he he might have had, I don’t know, twenty, fifty, you know, bombs before he got it right, but I’ve never seen anything like that before or since. So, you know, and that was a gift to me to see that’s like, wow.

Nancy Norbeck [00:28:44]:
Mhmm. Sure. Well and it sounds to me like your parents really encouraged your creativity and your curiosity, which is a huge gift too.

Terise Lang [00:28:54]:
Yeah. They did. They did. That or let’s say it this way. They didn’t get in the way. They let me they let me me do my creative stuff, and they’re they’re both creative too. And it it took me a while to well, my mom was always like I said, she she was sculpting. She was painting.

Terise Lang [00:29:09]:
She was, you know, doing the string arts and all that and very creative in the kitchen. Oh, what a cook. And, my my dad was more the cerebral person, but he was always reading about people he didn’t know about. And he was always looking into different, you know, philosophies. And he was always, and he took us to as many, like, free or, you know, community arts things. So he was always exposing us to different creative things. So he had that yearning, I think, for that kind of creative stuff And, because he was always curious too. So maybe I maybe it’s a it’s I have the curiosity gene or the curiosity gene.

Nancy Norbeck [00:29:52]:
And you’ve got a lot of exposure, which is great.

Terise Lang [00:29:55]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:29:56]:
Yeah. So how did all of that lead you to what you’re doing now?

Terise Lang [00:30:01]:
Well, I’m telling you right now, it it has everything to do with what I’m doing now. I I specialize as a life health and wellness coach. I specialize in tapping routines, but I and, you know, there’s a standard procedure. Mhmm. Mine’s a little different, again, because I looked to see what was like, I tried it on myself, of course, and then with others. Others did it with me. And I found that some things were working better than others. And so that’s where the creativity came in.

Terise Lang [00:30:32]:
I do it a little differently, and I ask more questions, before and and after, the process. And when I do it, I always ask them, okay. I like, I do one round and I go, yeah, how does it how did that feel? You know, we do calibration at the beginning and the end. And if if they don’t feel any difference, then I’m like, okay. I’m gonna do it again. But so far, they’ve all gotten results in the round, and I think it’s because I was willing to to look at a different slightly different ways of doing it. And also when it comes to just figuring out different ways to give messages to people who, let’s say, if you’re gonna talk to them about eating right. And, you know, like, I’m I’m in Atlanta, which is, you know, it’s the southern, foods that they eat.

Terise Lang [00:31:22]:
Most of it that puts them in the hospital. Mhmm. So how do you talk to people, right, about, yes, you know, these foods are tasty and they’re traditional and you associate them with family. There are creative, healthy ways of cooking that stuff where you still have basically the same kind of menu, but it’s and it’s done in a healthier way. And I by creating some, I said, you know, why don’t you try this? Why don’t you try that? And without spending extra money, if if you know, sometimes you gotta spend them. You gotta invest a little bit.

Nancy Norbeck [00:31:52]:
Mhmm.

Terise Lang [00:31:53]:
But, that that that kind of thing. And, also, just when it comes to, you know, when I’m writing, my newsletters and I’m thinking about different topics and how I want to present them, in a way that that people will understand. They’ll get some value out of it, and they won’t feel talked down to. You know? These people don’t wanna be, you know, are you lectured to? You should do this, and you’re doing that wrong, because that’s that’s not fulfilling. That’s not life enhancing. But if they can learn and go you know? And I I invite questions, and I found that that, being willing to look at their specific take on it and maybe expand it a little bit, you know, that kind of creativity has worked for me.

Nancy Norbeck [00:32:39]:
Could could you go back a little bit and explain what tapping is? Because I don’t think it’s ever come up on this show before, and I don’t know if everybody knows what that is.

Terise Lang [00:32:48]:
Okay. So it is a method actually being used by a lot of counselors and some medical doctors now. It’s it’s based on science. You have a small little, organ called well, it was a small little piece, by the pituitary base of the brain called, the amygdala. And it’s kind of an emotion center. And so what you do and I kind of compare it to when you’re in the womb and you feel your mother’s consistent heartbeat. You know how comforting that is? Mhmm. Well, you tap different points of the body.

Terise Lang [00:33:19]:
You know, there’s there’s, like, nine different points that you tap. And, actually, there’s more than that, but this is like a basic set. And you’re tapping along meridians or energy lines in the body similar to when you have, acupuncture. Right? You know how they use those meridians. Well, it’s similar to that, and you’re tapping. And when you’re tapping, you’re calming that emotion center down. And then you are you start with what you want to improve, what you wanna have, what you wanna take care of, and you do several rounds. And then you you go into, you know, you start with the negative, what you what you wanna, you know, straighten out, then you go with affirmations, and you keep repeating.

Terise Lang [00:34:07]:
And when you tap on these points, it just it calms you down. And I think what happens is when you’re you allow your body to calm down and your mind can work in the best way that it can, you start to see things differently. When you start to see them differently, you think differently, you feel different. And they they usually say, I feel different than when I started this. So it’s very powerful. And I always recommend you just work on one issue at a time. You know, you just focus on the one. And I’ve I’ve done it half an hour, basically, usually.

Terise Lang [00:34:42]:
And, it’s very it’s very effective. And when I have something that I have to deal with and I notice myself getting all upset, breathing exercises are fine, and I usually sometimes I start with that, but then I do the tapping routine. And it’s interesting too because it has a healing component that I hadn’t recognized, because this lady, at the end of a a session, she said, I’ve had a pain in one of my wrists for six years, and it just went away. So it was associated with some some emotional thing that she had going. I’d now that we weren’t even focusing on that. Right? So it’s it’s powerful, and I love to use things that where you use your own mind and body, and you use this little external, especially, like, when it comes to medicines and stuff. Right? Sometimes no. Don’t go off your medicines.

Terise Lang [00:35:27]:
Sometimes you have medicines for specific conditions.

Nancy Norbeck [00:35:30]:
Right.

Terise Lang [00:35:30]:
But when you can do something naturally that works with your and that is a true mind and body exercise. It so is writing. Just like when you journal and you’re, you know, you’re not only thinking, but you’re writing, it’s it’s kinda similar to that. So that’s what tapping is. And, I’ve done several you know, every time I do it, I, you know, I leave it open to, will it work or will it not? See, that’s another thing. Because if it doesn’t, I that gives me an opportunity to see what can I do differently to make it more effective? So I never stop being willing to, to be creative in how I do something. And that has allowed me to to find some pretty effective methods. So, I hope that hope that explains Yeah.

Terise Lang [00:36:16]:
Basically.

Nancy Norbeck [00:36:17]:
It it’s something that I’ve heard of and used off and on for probably, I don’t know, twenty years now, but I don’t know how how well known it is. I’ve I’ve heard more people mention it recently, so I think maybe maybe it’s getting out there. It’s one of those things that for me, there there’s, you know, a a category of things that I kind of falls into the, I don’t know if this works or how it works, but it tends to make me feel better, so who cares? Exactly.

Terise Lang [00:36:48]:
Exactly. Yeah. You know, the overthinking, honest to Pete. I think it calms down overthinking. I really do. I think there are things you can do that calm down your overthinking because I I I’ll be the to say I’ve done plenty of overthinking in my life. You know?

Nancy Norbeck [00:37:04]:
Yeah. I I have been a champion overthinker as many people who know me could tell you if I don’t tell you Yeah. If nothing else, it it’s a great way to, you know, take a break from whatever pattern of overthinking is happening for you and and kind of, you know, do something that grounds you in your body and and gets you out of that at least briefly so that you can kind of step back and breathe. And with luck, you know, maybe the time or the time you go through it, you know, you’re able to step back and say, okay. You know, I can look at this differently, or I can go do something else for a while, and then I can come back to it in a better spot to deal with this other thing. Either one, like I said, not arguing. They’re both beneficial.

Terise Lang [00:38:01]:
Exactly. And sometimes, you know, just sitting in a chair, just doing nothing, you know, just for ten minutes or so. Just, you know, no, rules, no pressure, and just and then go back to work because it does it clears you. You know, you you you don’t wanna, like, study, for instance, more than forty five minutes, then you take fifteen minutes for your your mind to process it. Otherwise, you’re not even gonna learn that much. You know? Yeah. So, you know, the mind is an incredible one of God’s incredible gifts, and we can do so much with it, so much. And and being aware, I know, of our body and our mind.

Terise Lang [00:38:38]:
So, yeah, I like I love doing stuff that when I can see the results and someone is like, yay. You know? Because when you don’t do stuff to to not have any impact, it’s like, what’s the point? You’ve wasted the person’s time, and time is precious.

Nancy Norbeck [00:38:54]:
It’s they

Terise Lang [00:38:54]:
can’t get back, can’t buy back.

Nancy Norbeck [00:38:56]:
That’s right. That’s absolutely right. Yeah. And and I think it’s so fascinating, you know, when you’re talking about needing to take a break. You know, especially in in American culture, it’s kind of drilled into us that we should never need a break because we’re like machines and we’re not machines. No. You know, thinking that we are

Terise Lang [00:39:19]:
America and Japan in particular, they are known for that. Yeah. And and and also known for an incredible amount of stress related illnesses.

Nancy Norbeck [00:39:29]:
Yes.

Terise Lang [00:39:29]:
You know, it’s not worth it. No. But taking time out to do something creative, you know, maybe get one of those coloring books and, you know, take a ten minute break and just start coloring in. You know? It calmed you down and made you happy when you were a kid. You know? You’re you you of course, you’ve matured, but that that, feeling alive and colors are also therapeutic. So it’s

Nancy Norbeck [00:39:52]:
it’s just, you

Terise Lang [00:39:53]:
know so you have the mind body thing where you’re actually drawing and you had the colors and you can see the picture forming. How can that not feel like make you feel like you are creating something? Right. And and and then if you go back to if what you were doing was creative and you kinda hit a wall for a minute, it’ll kinda loosen that up. And, I mean, I I see no downsides to doing something like that.

Nancy Norbeck [00:40:18]:
No. And and, you know, there is always the option to deliberately make something bad and and get out of your own way that way.

Terise Lang [00:40:27]:
Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:40:28]:
You know? Yeah. Just, you know, I mean

Terise Lang [00:40:30]:
Turn off that critic. Correct.

Nancy Norbeck [00:40:33]:
And and, you know, as really good. As I’ve said to people, like, maybe you don’t have a coloring book or colored pencils or anything like that handy. Maybe all you have is a couple of paper clips and a scrap of paper. That’s plenty. Oh. You can still make something out of that. It doesn’t have to be good. It can be funny.

Nancy Norbeck [00:40:52]:
It can be strange. It can you know, you don’t have to understand it. But as long as you’re willing to make something out of

Terise Lang [00:40:59]:
it, you’re succeed. That reminds me of when I was creating a wardrobe of paper clip jewelry. Like, earrings, necklace. Right? It’s what I thought this is cool. You know? But that’s it’s it’s the creative process. It is the process, and allowing the process allows you to, it’s not it’s not just one thing. You can once you get into the habit of being creative, allowing it permitting yourself, that’s a very important thing. Right.

Terise Lang [00:41:29]:
Permit yourself to be creative, then you are more creative. I mean, you you are tapping into it. You it was always there. Right. But it wakes it up if you you give yourself it’s always there. You give yourself permission to use it, and then don’t forget to enjoy it because it’s fun. It can be fun.

Nancy Norbeck [00:41:48]:
Yeah. And and I have to ask you now because you mentioned making jewelry with paper clips, and I had not thought of this since I was a kid. So it’s a long time. But I remember making necklaces and bracelets out of paper clips and wrapping them with, like, contact paper or something. Is this similar to what you did? Because I have not thought about this in, like, forty years. No. I didn’t use

Terise Lang [00:42:14]:
the tape, but I I had and there’s not not only that, but I had paperclip necklaces of different lengths, of course, so that Mhmm. Perfect. I see. No. I I didn’t do that, but I you know, and then I I remember making sculptures out of those oversized butterfly clips. You know? If you Oh, wow. When you’re you see, I was I was creative, but like I said, I indulged in it. Mhmm.

Terise Lang [00:42:37]:
I indulged in it. And I was I guess I’ve been very fortunate that I didn’t have anybody crush that. Because when you were young and impressive and even if you get older and someone says, oh, act your age. Well, maturity is one thing. Being as creative as you wanna be using some of that childlike imagination and so is is another. It it doesn’t take away from you.

Nancy Norbeck [00:43:03]:
Right. Right. Right. What does act my age mean? I mean, I can be 53 and still wanna make stuff out of paperclips. What’s wrong with that?

Terise Lang [00:43:15]:
Absa well, people doodle their whole lives. Right. You know, they sit at me in meetings and doodle. Doodling’s wonderful. Right.

Nancy Norbeck [00:43:22]:
Right. My my mother whistles all the time to the point where my father jokes that if he leaves loses her in a store, he just listens until he can find her that way. You know? I mean, and and she’s almost 80.

Terise Lang [00:43:42]:
I see nothing wrong with that

Nancy Norbeck [00:43:43]:
at all. Right.

Terise Lang [00:43:44]:
I you know?

Nancy Norbeck [00:43:45]:
There’s nothing wrong with that. Yeah. Except for the part where she get might get mad that I just said, how old is she? But I really don’t think you know, none none of that is attached to an age, and I don’t think that act your age is an insult with any of it. You know? If I wanna go make a snow angel at my age, I am acting my age. So there.

Terise Lang [00:44:14]:
Exactly. Exactly. Absolutely. Whatever brings you joy that doesn’t hurt other people. Basic. That’s my basic thing. Doesn’t hurt you, doesn’t hurt someone else, and it brings you joy, relaxation. It brings you peace.

Terise Lang [00:44:30]:
You know? If any creative thing that does that for you, I am so for it. Right. You know? And you have happier if you manage at a business or something, you have happier employees. Mhmm. If they are allowed to bring their creative ideas to the table, you know, you don’t shut them down. You might say, well, that might not work or, you know, we’ve tried that and it didn’t work or we might have to look at it a different way. But if you allow them to bring that up and they know they have the freedom to do it, it won’t shut down their their natural creativity at work. Right?

Nancy Norbeck [00:45:06]:
Yes.

Terise Lang [00:45:06]:
And you have better, happier staff. You know, I keep saying folks, stop, you know, stop getting in the way of your own happiness or the happiness of people you work with or or meet or encounter. You know? And maybe their style’s different from yours. So Right. You know?

Nancy Norbeck [00:45:25]:
There is something really wild about asking your staff to be creative, telling them they need to be more creative, and then when they are, stomping on it every single time. And I’ve seen that happen, and it’s just like, do you listen to yourself? Oh, no. Like, what do you think you’re doing?

Terise Lang [00:45:47]:
Yeah. Because then fear enters into the picture. Mhmm. I don’t wanna be you know, I don’t want the boss calling me out for something bad or, you know, there’s there’s a punishment of some kind. I won’t get that promotion. I I they won’t see me as valuable on the team. It should never be that way. You invite the creative ideas.

Terise Lang [00:46:06]:
You invite them. You say, well, some we may use, some we may not. And but if you use someone’s unique, you know, idea, then acknowledge them for it. You know, we got this idea from Nancy. You know, she came in and she had that idea. Other people will think, oh, you know what I’m saying? It they’ll be more apt to indulge in the creative process because instead of being punished or called out for it in a bad way, it you know, they’ll be acknowledged for and and you just thank people for their ideas, period. Right? Mhmm. Period.

Terise Lang [00:46:40]:
And then say, well, some we can we can see working and some we may not or we may try it later. But if you do but if you do an absolute shutdown, and that’s the that reactivates the memory of when you were little and you had it shut down. You know? Like I said, act your age. Oh, you your your imagination is just too too wild, too crazy. You you know? You have to be sensible. You have to and, you know, yes, there’s there’s room in my life for lots of I have pretty high logic skills. So I love being creative too. You know? And that doesn’t cut it up.

Terise Lang [00:47:15]:
You know? You the there’s room for all of that. Mhmm. You know, our brain our brain’s big enough to hold all that.

Nancy Norbeck [00:47:22]:
Yeah. There and there are two things that I’m I’m hearing in what you’re saying. I mean, one one is that I think a lot of people in management positions define like, their definition of creativity is really narrow.

Terise Lang [00:47:36]:
Narrow.

Nancy Norbeck [00:47:36]:
We want something creative, but we only want something that’s new and different within this very small margin. And if you’ve gone beyond that very small margin, that makes us very nervous and we don’t like that, and we’re gonna shut it down. And also, you know, and that that confuses the people who hear it as, oh, let’s do big things. You know? But also that importance of acknowledgment, because I’ve also been in places where the supervisor gets the credit, not the person who actually came up with the idea, which is really discouraging for that person.

Terise Lang [00:48:13]:
Pet pee you know what? That’s I did emphasize that on a job. I said, think about it. If someone you manage has been managed in a way that they’ve been encouraged to be creative and come up with this idea, it makes you look good as their manager because you’re growing and developing your staff, and they’re happy. Mhmm. You know?

Nancy Norbeck [00:48:39]:
Yeah. But if you take all the credit for it, it makes them feel terrible and, like, they don’t count and, like, you don’t appreciate them. So, yeah, it’s it’s it’s the easiest thing in the world to give credit where it’s due and make everybody feel like they’re appreciated. It doesn’t cost you anything. You don’t have to go and get fancy, you know, little awards and things like that. You just give them acknowledgement in front of other people. And yet so many people don’t seem to understand that.

Terise Lang [00:49:15]:
And you increase cohesion Yeah. Because when people think it it’s safe. It’s safe to be creative. It’s safe to come up with ideas. And, if you do come up with one that they use, you it is safe because you know that you will be acknowledged and somebody will be you know? It’s it’s a that makes that is what grows companies, really. That grows companies. Everyone’s about the bottom line. Yeah.

Terise Lang [00:49:41]:
But you don’t get to the bottom line until you look at your people, for example.

Nancy Norbeck [00:49:46]:
There’s all sorts of stuff above that bottom line that goes into that bottom line. And if you only look at that bottom line, you will ignore all sorts of important things above it. And miss opportunity.

Terise Lang [00:50:00]:
Yes. You know? And it’s like, what’s the point? And, anyway so, yeah, that’s kinda you can tell that, creativity pretty much rules Yeah. How I do things and and run things. Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:50:17]:
Yeah. Yeah. It definitely does. And with good reason. Very good reason. You know, I think, you know, it kinda gets back to what we were saying before about, you know, defining creativity too too narrowly and people defining themselves out of their creativity. You know, it people think that creativity just means the arts, and sometimes they think it just means specific parts of the arts, but it really is in everything. And if you don’t account for it in everything, as you’ve said multiple times here, you will miss opportunities.

Nancy Norbeck [00:50:55]:
You you will miss things that could affect that bottom line. You’ll miss things that will affect your joy, which I think is something we don’t have enough of because we don’t give joy enough credit and importance either. You know? Like, all of these things are part of a giant multi multi layered overlapping Venn diagram, And we tend to think that only certain pieces of that diagram are important and ignore the rest of it. And it’s not it’s not helpful when we do that.

Terise Lang [00:51:32]:
No. It isn’t. Not at all. On the other hand, the joy and the, growth when it when you do it right, when you do allow people to be who they are and and, creatively express who they are and come up with their creative ideas. And, and and, you know, let them, you know, dress, I mean, within certain limits. You don’t want someone coming in, you know, with their birthday suit, but let them dress let them dress, you know, in a way that, like, they’re I’ve seen people have you ever seen that where you see some a woman in a an outfit and she looks stunning? You would look like you would look like a shipwreck in it. But on her, it’s absolutely stunning. Right? Because it’s her style, and it fits her creative expression.

Terise Lang [00:52:18]:
Mhmm. And, you know, that’s that’s the same thing. It’s like if, you know, you said, no. You have to wear this gray suit because because it is, you know, the way now it’s different if you you, you know, you’re flying for the airline. You’ve got, uniforms so people can identify you in emergencies, so something like that. But if they’re just wearing what what makes them feel good. And it’s it’s a very different style from yours, but it looks fantastic, then, you know and I tell people encourage people. Tell them how look how good that looks.

Terise Lang [00:52:47]:
They may not have heard that because it was it’s different, and some people you know? Or they may have heard something negative because it was different. Right. But when you tell them, hey, I love that. It looks fantastic on you, then they’re encouraged to continue being creative with their expression.

Nancy Norbeck [00:53:03]:
Right.

Terise Lang [00:53:04]:
And then that then, of course, like, it it it’s the way you are in one place is the way you are everywhere. So then she’s gonna take that into work and be more creative because she’s just been told that her creativity is not only okay, but it’s it’s wonderful.

Nancy Norbeck [00:53:19]:
And that she’s valued for who she is.

Terise Lang [00:53:21]:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Because I don’t expect her to be me and Right. She doesn’t, you know, and vice versa.

Nancy Norbeck [00:53:28]:
Right. Because we’re not widgets. We’re not widgets. We’re not drones. We don’t all have to be exactly the same.

Terise Lang [00:53:38]:
Exactly. And and that’s what makes for a rich world. It really does. Have you ever seen a film called, Metropolis, Fritz Lang? Oh, a

Nancy Norbeck [00:53:48]:
long time ago.

Terise Lang [00:53:49]:
Yeah. And then basically, they were talking about the, you know, running people like machines and insisting that they are. And it it leads to insanity. It leads to and after a while, that person’s spirit is gonna rise up and say, no. That’s not who you are.

Nancy Norbeck [00:54:03]:
Mhmm.

Terise Lang [00:54:04]:
You know? And, I never forgot that film because I got the message, you know, when I saw it. It may be old, but the concept was way ahead of its

Nancy Norbeck [00:54:14]:
time. Yeah. Yeah. I was just thinking. It’s funny. Like, the industrial revolution is, like, mid century. Right? Exactly. And it fascinates me that, you know, the machines come in, and we’re human, and the machines are supposed to do things to make things better for us.

Nancy Norbeck [00:54:33]:
And yet, somehow, even though the machines were sort of supposed to be servants, we elevated them because they can do all of this stuff, and suddenly we have to be like the machines even though we’re supposed to be better than the machines. And there’s also this fear of we’re gonna be turned into the machines, which we see in all sorts of science fiction starting probably with Metropolis. And it’s never gone away. You know, how many movies have come out in the last ten years with the same kind of theme? And and it’s it’s fascinating to me because there’s I think it’s that that drive that we have where our society keeps trying to tell us that we have to be more like the machines, and we don’t need to take breaks, and we don’t need to sleep, and we don’t need to rest, and and whatever. And we don’t need to be creative even though that’s that’s our big advantage over the machines, at least until they do something wild with AI. And, you know, so there’s reason for that fear because we’re being driven to be more that way.

Terise Lang [00:55:43]:
And, yeah, I’m glad you brought up AI too because I was gonna say something about that. Obviously, it has uses. It has Mhmm. Very good uses. But it’s it’s not a machine. I mean, it’s not a person. Right. It’s not a person.

Terise Lang [00:55:56]:
No. I don’t care how advanced the code is. I don’t care how well you query something. Yes. You can get information. You can get, I you know, ideas, you know, generated. You can have it, you know, do things like give you outlines Mhmm. Make suggestions.

Terise Lang [00:56:13]:
I’ve even asked it for you know, tell me some places where I can get citations for a certain subject. So it’ll look it up quickly. Great. Say it’s time.

Nancy Norbeck [00:56:21]:
But it’s not a person. Right.

Terise Lang [00:56:23]:
And so many times when I watch some of these videos and they have the the even though it’s a highly advanced AI voice, after a while, it’s interesting. The human brain can detect the difference. There are just certain pauses and nuances in human expression. Creative human expression, thank you. Yeah. That appeals to us. That appeals to us. It it makes us more approachable.

Terise Lang [00:56:46]:
Mhmm. And, and and AI is not it’s not going to take over for human creativity. It isn’t because it’s wiping stuff ideas that have already been produced. It’s, you know, it’s taking what’s already there. So it can be used as a tool, but you are not a machine. AI does what it does. Remember that as a human being, you uniquely and creatively can contribute what you do.

Nancy Norbeck [00:57:16]:
Yes. Yes. Period. And I think, you know, people are starting to think that AI is smart. AI is not smart. It’s just taking data that’s been fed into it and regurgitating it with the appearance of intelligence, but it’s not actually intelligent. It’s good at things like looking for patterns, you know, and and things like you were talking about, but it is not actually giving you anything new. It alarms me that students now are using chat g t GPT as a search engine, which is not what it is.

Nancy Norbeck [00:57:52]:
Wow. It can make up whole pieces of information if you look at

Terise Lang [00:57:57]:
the loopholes. Yeah. Yeah.

Nancy Norbeck [00:57:59]:
Well, you know, when you look at, like, the court cases where lawyers have used it and cited cases that don’t actually exist, and It will you know?

Terise Lang [00:58:08]:
In the absence of data, it will create.

Nancy Norbeck [00:58:11]:
Right. It

Terise Lang [00:58:11]:
will create people and things and events that never happened, people that ever existed.

Nancy Norbeck [00:58:17]:
And that’s alarming. If if kids are using it as a search engine, Lord only knows what it’s telling them that they’re assuming is true.

Terise Lang [00:58:26]:
The only good thing is that I noticed they do have a caveat, and it says, you know, that that it can hallucinate. It says that you you, you know, to check your facts.

Nancy Norbeck [00:58:35]:
Yeah. But those kids aren’t doing that.

Terise Lang [00:58:37]:
Oh, that’s scary.

Nancy Norbeck [00:58:39]:
You know?

Terise Lang [00:58:39]:
Yeah. That’s scary.

Nancy Norbeck [00:58:40]:
Because they don’t know any better. They don’t have enough life experience to really understand the difference. And and even, you know, if you Google something now, you have to wade through the the result, which I’m sitting here making air quotes, is is the AI overview. And and, you know, you have to remember it’s like, don’t even try to read it because your brain wants to read it because it’s the thing that’s on the page. It’s like, no. This is probably nonsense. You gotta scroll down to get actual results that will tell you actual information because that thing is nonsense.

Terise Lang [00:59:14]:
Not only that, but I talked to a Google expert who said you do realize that some people pay more to Google, and therefore, their their posting or whatever their content Mhmm. Show up Doesn’t mean it’s the best. Doesn’t mean it answers your question. But if it’s at all related to the topic, it’ll put that because that’s the way their account is.

Nancy Norbeck [00:59:34]:
Right.

Terise Lang [00:59:35]:
That that to me is like, no. I want I want to, you know, look through for real resources of real information and and still be creative when I find it. But,

Nancy Norbeck [00:59:46]:
Right.

Terise Lang [00:59:47]:
Yeah. But AI AI has thrown a little wrench into Mhmm. The creative process.

Nancy Norbeck [00:59:53]:
And on top of all of this, it uses an immense amount of environmental resources. Yes.

Terise Lang [00:59:58]:
It does.

Nancy Norbeck [00:59:58]:
Yeah. Which I think a lot of people who are just suddenly using it for everything are forgetting. It’s like, yes, it’s saving you a lot of time, and it’s using astronomical amounts of water and power. And Yeah. It’s not it’s not free.

Terise Lang [01:00:14]:
No. And the thing is, I guess, I don’t understand because that information’s out there. Mhmm. That is that is incredibly it’s an incredible, energy consumer. You know, I what can I say? You can tell someone that or that you can tell them, you know, be aware, read, find out, you know, before you do something. Anyway. Yeah. It could be here for all AI can be another whole thing.

Nancy Norbeck [01:00:40]:
Another whole episode. But the point

Terise Lang [01:00:42]:
but the point is it doesn’t create.

Nancy Norbeck [01:00:44]:
Right. It regurgitates. Does not. Yeah. And it doesn’t feel the same when you use it. Even if you ask it to draft a brief thing for you, it it may save you time. And for some things, you know, for things I don’t wanna write, it doesn’t it’s not the same. But there are things I want to write, And I know they’re going to take me time, but I want to write them.

Nancy Norbeck [01:01:08]:
There’s something in me that needs to come out.

Terise Lang [01:01:11]:
Exactly.

Nancy Norbeck [01:01:12]:
And if I ask

Terise Lang [01:01:13]:
creative expression.

Nancy Norbeck [01:01:14]:
Right. If I ask a machine to write it for me, it’s not gonna be the same.

Terise Lang [01:01:21]:
And they say, well, you train AI. Yeah. But you’re once again, what you’re doing is you’re giving AI the patterns from what you do. Right. But it doesn’t know you. It isn’t you. The AI will never replace you. And it doesn’t know what

Nancy Norbeck [01:01:36]:
I’m trying to say or how I wanna say it. Even I don’t necessarily know how I wanna say it until I sit down to write it.

Terise Lang [01:01:44]:
And I love it when it does the autocorrect. This would be better. It but that’s not what I wanted to say. You know, when you said it this way, that is not what I’m saying because there are those tiny little nuances, things that take away from the context. That’s not what I’m expressing. And sometimes I do I’ll write something, and it’ll start with repetitive repetitively with the sentences on purpose because I’m emphasizing. And I’ll say, well, that’s that’s not efficient. I’m not trying to be efficient.

Terise Lang [01:02:13]:
I’m expressing the emotion associated with what I’m writing.

Nancy Norbeck [01:02:18]:
Effect. And and you can always tell, you know, with there are certain terms that AI loves to use over and over again, and it loves its fancy adjectives that don’t need to be there and stuff like that. And it’s just like, oh, get out. You know, the editor in me is just like, no. No. Get out of here. This is a crappy piece

Terise Lang [01:02:42]:
of data. The good thing is that it’s just AI. You can just turn it off. Right. You can Right. You can go someplace else and just write what you wanna write.

Nancy Norbeck [01:02:50]:
So And its feelings won’t be hurt if you take out all the crappy adjectives that don’t need to be there.

Terise Lang [01:02:56]:
I don’t even care if I hurt AI well too bad. Right.

Nancy Norbeck [01:02:59]:
No. Right. That’s It’s a machine.

Terise Lang [01:03:01]:
It’s a machine. That’s all. It’s machine language. That’s exactly what it is. Created by someone who noticed patterns in words. Mhmm. For instance, the letter e is used more often than others, and it went from there. And they’ve made a science out of it, which is interesting, and it has its applications.

Terise Lang [01:03:18]:
But it is I mean, you gotta I mean, some people when I heard they were using it for diagnosis, you better back that up with cons consulting with doctors who actually know the human body, and they would know when there was a mistake. Because like I said, in the absence of the specific data it’s looking for, it’ll just make it up.

Nancy Norbeck [01:03:36]:
Right.

Terise Lang [01:03:37]:
And then it’s like, what did that AI say? Well, that sounds close. Yeah. You don’t wanna do that with someone’s health.

Nancy Norbeck [01:03:45]:
Right? Not at all.

Terise Lang [01:03:49]:
And doctors can also, and that’s how we have medical advances, by by the way, folks, and scientific advances. They are creative in their problem solving. Yes. You know? They are creative in their problem solving. And it’s like when when COVID hit, you know, and we were, oh my gosh. And they put their best minds together, and they were working with something they hadn’t, you know, dealt with before. Mhmm. It was this was a totally new thing, absolutely devastating, worked very quickly, and they had to put their you know, they had to think outside the box.

Terise Lang [01:04:27]:
The the whole thing was outside the box. Not even like outside the box because but, you know, you get the basic idea. They had to think in a different way to come up with something, and they and I imagine that the trials were, you know, going through fast. And they did it, though, but they did it by being willing to say, look. We just need to put our heads together and just you know? Mhmm. I’m sure that they did brainstorming. I mean, that’s what you wanna do brainstorming with.

Nancy Norbeck [01:04:53]:
Absolutely. And lots of collaboration.

Terise Lang [01:04:56]:
Lots of

Nancy Norbeck [01:04:57]:
Many people in there thinking in as many different ways as possible to solve

Terise Lang [01:05:01]:
this problem. How they came up with it. Not you know, they didn’t do chat GPT. How do I solve the COVID? Right.

Nancy Norbeck [01:05:09]:
Right. And I do worry a little bit that, you know, chat GPT is a little bit too much like the homework machine. And if we turn over too much of what we’re thinking to chat GPT, will will we lose the ability to do the problem solving on our own?

Terise Lang [01:05:24]:
Well, to me, you know, if I were a parent of young kids, I would have them involved in some community projects where they work with real people, and they put something together to keep that, you know, ability to, work with the team and come up with that. Hey. You know, bat together some ideas and put something together because that that keeps that going. But if you only expose them to, you know, their phone and the and the PC and the the AI all day, and social media all day, then, you know, you’re you’re, you’re doing them a disservice. You you you gotta keep the the creativity wheel going. And most kids like being creative. Let’s see what’s going on. You know? They love creative projects.

Terise Lang [01:06:08]:
I mean, do you ever see an art class that wasn’t full? I mean Right. You know? Right? Or not just art, music. Mhmm. In sports, when they’re figuring out those plays, right, ways to trick the other team so that you have an advantage, that is creativity.

Nancy Norbeck [01:06:26]:
Well and sports are great because you never know what’s gonna happen. You don’t know if that play is gonna work. You have no idea how it’s gonna go, and you have to react in the moment. So yeah. Your your brain has to be flexible to respond to that.

Terise Lang [01:06:43]:
Yeah. Yeah. And, gymnastics, I mean, there are gymnasts who came up with moves nobody had done before. Again, creativity. Mhmm. We so in other words, we all benefit from it, societally, in our communities, our bodies, with our relationships. When is it not a good thing? You know? So

Nancy Norbeck [01:07:08]:
Yeah. Pretty much never. Yeah. So million and one uses because there’s, you know, millions of us out here figuring out what to do in any given situation every single day.

Terise Lang [01:07:22]:
Yeah. Yeah. And it it makes it interesting. It really does. I mean, hopefully, you’re not trying to, you know, avert some you’re not in the middle of a crisis and a disaster and all that, but just in a a regular day where you just have the usual craziness. But but you get to, you know, you get to, I I love exercising the creative muscle. I do. Mhmm.

Terise Lang [01:07:42]:
It’s and, and coming up with something that works, and sometimes it doesn’t. And and it can be frustrating, but I’d rather be frustrated trying to come up with creative ideas than sitting up there and doing, okay, chat GPT. Tell me. Yeah. You know? You’re not using your your mind as much. And, you know, we have amazing this the the mind is an amazing thing. Amazing. The brain is incredible with what it can do, so let’s use as much of it as possible.

Terise Lang [01:08:13]:
You know? Let’s like, they always say, let’s cure cancer. You know? Let’s see what we can do. As a matter of fact, a lot of the work that they’re doing now with the oncogenes, the genes that, are, you know, instrumental in breast cancer and so that, when I was working in American Cancer Society, I met some of the scientists, young scientists that who came in with new ideas that, oh, that’s crazy. But it wasn’t crazy because now, I mean, they’re using enzymes and so that are making a difference. And if you can do something that helps give people hope and more health, you know Yeah. Or whatever the the positive outcome is. Sometimes it’s just sheer enjoyment. Right.

Nancy Norbeck [01:08:58]:
Well, I think this is a great place to end. And I you know, we could go on forever because I have really, really enjoyed this conversation, and I’m so glad that you came and talked with me today.

Terise Lang [01:09:11]:
Well, I I appreciate your inviting me, and I was so excited because I I knew when I met you before, I said, oh my gosh. I can’t wait to talk to Nancy on her podcast. And, I can see why it has lasted. This has been very enjoyable. I I appreciate the opportunity. And, if anyone who was listening, keep coming back because this is a a high quality podcast with a a very good interviewer. I felt very comfortable, and, I feel that people are being served on this podcast.

Nancy Norbeck [01:09:41]:
Thank you. Thank you so much. That’s our show for this week. Thanks so much to Terise Lang and to you. Terise’s links are in the show notes. I hope you’ll leave a review for this episode. There’s a link in your podcast app, and it’s super easy and really makes a difference. If you enjoyed our conversation, please do share it with a friend.

Nancy Norbeck [01:10:03]:
Thank you so much. If this episode resonated with you or if you’re feeling a little bit less than confident in your creative process right now, join me at The Spark on Substack as we form a community that supports and celebrates each other’s creative courage. It’s free, and it’s also where I’ll be adding programs for subscribers and listeners. The link is in your podcast app, so sign up today. See you there, and see you next week. Follow Your Curiosity is produced by me, Nancy Norbeck, with music by Joseph McDade. If you like Follow Your Curiosity, please subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget to tell your friends.

Nancy Norbeck [01:10:44]:
It really helps me reach new listeners.