Creative Pep Talk #13: A Story About Comparison

A story about comparison and how it robs us not only of our creative joy but also distorts our sense of ourselves.

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If you knew how much time drafting experimentation, especially the failures, screaming cursing, heartbreak and desperation went into creating the Mona Lisa, would it be a less impressive work?

Nancy Norbeck

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Transcript

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, where we explore the inner workings of the creative process. I’m your host, Nancy Norbeck. Hey there I am, back with the next creative pep talk, and I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to talk about. And then last night I found a blog post that I wrote but never published and I thought it was absolutely perfect. So I’m gonna read it to you the way that I wrote this story. And if you have never realized that I do these pep talks on YouTube as well, this might be a good one to go check out because it’s a story so you know faces. Anyway, here we go. I’m sitting at the dining room table with my mother and my sister in law as Mom shows us something that was made for a friend she volunteered volunteers with at Convention Hall in Atlantic City.

Nancy Norbeck [00:01:02]:
And then it happens. She says, now this is where I’m not creative because I never would have done. I stopped listening because I’m too busy looking at my sister in law with that raised eyebrow squint usually reserved for kids who are telling whoppers so big even they can’t possibly believe them. We exchange this glance once or twice more before I say, yeah, I’m feeling a blog post coming on and she replies, uh huh. Mom finally notices and says, what the what, dear listener, is that my mother is one of the very last people on this earth who should be using the words I’m not creative. Granted, my list of creative people is pretty long because it includes everyone, but stay with me. Over the course of my lifetime, this is a woman who in no particular order played the flute and taught flute lessons for years. Sang in choirs for as long as I can remember, along with my dad.

Nancy Norbeck [00:02:02]:
Played guitar while I sang for talent shows as a wee little girl. Got a children’s choir directing certificate in the evenings and became the director for all the kids choirs at our church did the same with handbells and directed several of those choirs, wrote a few pieces of music and had them performed. Has a talent for puns that won’t stop. Really. We’ve tried. Made my brother a fake trumpet for Christmas one year out of copper colored plastic pipe and a funnel. Made me a boombox. This was the eighties out of a few old boxes, aluminum foil, dog and bird stickers for the woofers and tweeters.

Nancy Norbeck [00:02:40]:
Get it? Told you I wasn’t kidding. With a thermometer for one dial and am and pm for the other, and an old round tv antenna she found among my dad’s discards in the basement and that’s just off the top of my head. This is a woman who was so curious about music in high school that she’d run up to other kids in the band before a football game and say, can I try your insert instrument name here? You can try my flute. And thereby learned the basics of a bunch of instruments other than her own. Who handed me books like some people hand kids candy to keep me entertained as a child, and who not only reads more of them than I can even comprehend every year, but keeps a list. But she sat there that afternoon and tried to tell us with a straight face that she’s not creative. I hear people do this all the time, but I never expected to hear it from her because she’s lived such an obviously creative life. So when it happened, well, it deserved the eyebrow.

Nancy Norbeck [00:03:40]:
And yet, she’s far from the only person who’s ever said the same thing in similar circumstances. Why? Because we focus on what others do and we compare ourselves to them. And that comparison is never, ever fair. How do I know for sure? Because not only are we, especially women, socialized to discount ourselves and our accomplishments, we also rarely ever see anything but someone else’s finished product. Sure, talent is a factor, but we all have our own particular talents, and we discount those, too, when we’re in awe of someone else’s finished work. If you knew how much time drafting, experimentation, especially the failures, screaming, cursing, heartbreak and desperation, went into creating the Mona Lisa, would it be a less impressive work? Nope. In fact, it might be even more amazing because you’d understand in a whole new way that, sure, Leonardo da Vinci was a genius. But that painting didn’t just miraculously happen.

Nancy Norbeck [00:04:45]:
I wasn’t there. But I feel pretty confident that the human being who created it struggled and fought the whole way, just like you. It’s hard to stop comparing ourselves to others. It is really, really tough. But do this with me, just for a minute. Picture a despondent Leonardo da Vinci, convinced that he’s lost his talent and will never finish this portrait. And why on earth did he even accept the commission? Because it was doomed from the beginning. Imagine him hurling a canvas against a wall in frustration because the light’s not right.

Nancy Norbeck [00:05:20]:
Make the scene funny if you want, or sad, or whatever feels right to you. I promise he won’t mind. Imagine it really clearly. Got it? Good. The next time you are tempted to diminish yourself in awe of someone else, bring poor, distraught Leonardo to mind. Remind yourself that his behind the scenes looked a lot like yours. If you can make a habit of it, you will be well on your way to seeing yourself and your work in a much more realistic, positive light. Go experiment with that.

Nancy Norbeck [00:06:03]:
Let me know what happens. I’ll talk to you next time. You can find show notes, the six creative beliefs that are screwing you up, and [email protected]. i’d also love for you to join the conversation on Instagram. Find me at Fy Curiosity follow your curiosity is produced by me, Nancy Norbeck, with music by Joseph McDague. 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 [00:06:32]:
It really helps me reach new listeners. See you next time.