In Series 5 of Classroom 5.0, NeuroPEAK, I’m sitting down with visionary leaders to reveal the strategies and strengths that power peak performance in neurodivergent professionals.

Have you ever wondered what separates those who merely have great creative ideas from those who turn them into reality? In episode 45 of Classroom 5.0, I sat down with Joel Connolly, Creative Director at Blackbird Venture Capital and Manager of Protostars, to explore the essence of creativity—and how to move from inspiration to execution.

Joel shared powerful insights on how creativity shows up in everyday life, far beyond the arts, and I took a lot from his perspective on the accumulation of personal taste. We explored the discipline and craft that's required to turn creative ideas into something tangible that can be shared and enjoyed by many, and riffed on the biological benefits of neurodiversity for accessing flow states. Think creativity is reserved for a privileged few? This conversation will leave you realising that anyone can, and should, access their creative potential.

Key highlights :

• 03:10 The Role of Taste in Creativity: Joel talks about the importance of taste—the accumulation of all your life experiences—and how it plays a critical role in shaping creative expression. He reflects on how his 10,000 hours in the arts helped him develop a unique creative taste that became his most valuable asset at Blackbird.

• 12:30 Creativity as a Birthright: Joel shares his belief that creativity is something we’re all born with but often lose touch with as we grow older. He explains how important it is to unlock this creative potential, especially for young people, which drives his work with Blackbird’s Protostars program.

• 15:00 Craft vs. Creativity: Joel makes a distinction between creativity and craft, explaining that while ideas may come naturally, executing them is where discipline and focus become key. He reflects on his journey over the years to intentionally build systems that allowed him to bring his ideas to life.

• 22:05 How to Navigate Creative Challenges: Joel and I dive into the barriers that often block creativity, such as not identifying as a “creative” person, and how shifting language and self-perception can unlock new pathways for innovation and expression.

• 30:35 Founders and Artists: Same Archetype: One of the most surprising insights Joel shares is how similar the archetypes of founders and artists are, as both engage in acts of creation. He explains how starting a business and directing a film require the same core skills of vision, discipline, and the ability to build teams around that vision.

“For me, the worst thing in the world is to be a creative person that doesn’t make stuff. That’s why I had to build systems and processes to get beyond ideas.”

Listen to the full episode here : 

Links to Resources Discussed: 

• Listen to the podcast series, 'Tasteland' here 
• Explore MONA, The Museum of New and Old Art in Tasmania here 
• Read "A Bone of Fact' by David Walsh here 
• Read “After World” by Debbie Urbanski here 
• Learn more about Protostars, a microgrant program by Blackbird Foundation that gives young people $1k to work on their passion projects, alongside a community to learn and grow with here
• Connect with Joel via LinkedIn here 

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Classroom 5.0.

If you loved this episode, why not share it with a friend, and you haven't already, come connect with me on social : 

Ready to finally take action on those big goals you're chasing? Get your free ADHD Motivation guidebook, Master Your Mind and Find Your Mojo! 

TRANSCRIPT

Mariane Power (00:00.78)
Welcome to Classroom 5.0, the podcast where we explore the future of work, learning and leadership. I'm your host, Marianne Power, clinical psychologist, speaker and consultant on meaningful work life design and neurodiversity. Here's a question for you. Did you know that over 53 % of professionals in fields like tech identify as neurodivergent? We've all heard about the challenges, but what about the untold stories of success?

In Neuropeak, season five of the podcast, we're flipping the script. I'm sitting down with visionary leaders to reveal the strategies and strengths that power peak performance in neurodivergent professionals. If you're ready to discover how our community thrives beyond a diagnosis, you're in the right place. Let's dive on in to today's episode.

Mariane Power (00:52.302)
Joel Connolly, welcome. Welcome, welcome to the NeuroPic series. It's so good to have you here. I'm so excited. Thanks so much for having me. Excited and stoked and full of energy and curiosity. Yes, well, me too. What our listeners don't know is that you and I were just riffing before we got

on camera officially about all things to do with creativity, but how that shows up in teams and personality styles. And I'm really thrilled to hear that you're bringing some of that energy into today's conversation because for our listeners tuning in, Joel is an incredible off the charts creative. And I know you'll blush with me saying that, but it's true. So you don't need to blush. And actually I'm going to throw the microphone straight over to you, Joel, because I know a bit about your professional background, but I'm keen to hear it from your words. And in particular, I love

you put your professional bio on the Blackbird website and I actually captured it in our show notes. Would you mind, can you read that out for us? Because it's beautiful. hit. I forgot that I had written this, so I appreciate you digging it up for me. Okay. So I'm creative director and I run our brand comms team with Melia. I work on making Blackbird into a beautiful place full of creativity and rich in meaning.

I built our brand, helped to shape our culture and tried hard to make Australia's startup ecosystem dynamic and inspiring. Also the head of the Blackbird Foundation is to unleash creativity in young people. It is beautiful. I love it. What was it like reading those words again when you say you haven't read them for a while? I think, you know, I always struggle to tell people what I do or to explain it when they ask. So I'm actually really pleasantly surprised that I thought it's a wrong

So I forgot my name, I think it captures it quite well. It at least captures the intention. I think how you go about doing your work changes all the time, as you learn, as you grow. But I think that's done a really good job of capturing the intention. Also the journey, you've done a few different roles of Blackburn that's changed over time. that captures the startup ecosystem part, which I've worked on, the foundation, which is kind of our purpose and social mission.

Mariane Power (03:06.734)
And yeah, I'm proud of myself. for bringing that back. You should be proud of yourself. For me, it's just such a beautiful piece of it. We're entering. It's funny, I always say that we're entering into this authentic era of leadership. And yet I think authenticity has always been on the table as a human centered leadership dynamic, if you like, that we aspire to. And yet for me, that piece of writing, there's so many aspects of it that I just want to celebrate. That meaning piece.

you know, bringing your whole self to the projects and the people that you're working with. I'm so curious, because you've been with Blackbird for a long time now, at the earliest days or, you know, pretty close to them. How have you seen your mission collectively and you individually change and grow over that time? man, I was talking to some colleagues about this just yesterday, A friend of mine, colleague Claire, is just leaving Blackbird.

We're talking about she and another person I work with, we were discussing, you know, what is it you think, what's been the best part about working at Blackbird and all of the screens, that it's just the amount of change we've all had to go through personally in order to, I don't want to say rise to the occasion, but it's in order to meet the opportunity that I think we all feel that we've had working at Blackbird.

Yeah, I've changed a lot since I got here. And I think it's probably one of the things that I like the most is, you know, just for giving me the space in a platform to be able to explore, you know, who I am as a person, what the great things that I have to offer might be, and how to actually develop those things into something that's tangible and that works and that actually has impact. So I've changed a lot. started off

I came to Blackbird as an artist manager. was a band manager in the music industry for close to a decade. I started that company with my friend Greg out of university. I had a couple of jobs before that out of university, but just sort of things. So I really feel like my career and life sort of started when I started managing the bands. And I came to Blackbird with this really rough edge and I got some...

Mariane Power (05:29.998)
I should have some feedback, which is like haunted me. Is that right? And you remember it. I'll tell you what it was. And it's like, you'll see why. I just unsolicited asked for some feedback and she said, this is the NBA and you're still playing pickup basketball. Like, I don't think that's a great place to fit, but it like stuck with me at the time. I hated it because I was like, I just saw a great disagree with it.

But I kind of know what he meant. Coming out of the arts, there is a particularly running business where you don't have people to learn from. There's a standard for learning, for growth is set by yourself. But if you don't know what you don't know, you don't know what potential for yourself could be. You don't know what real learning looks like. You don't know any of those things. So how can you set a culture for learning and growth if you don't know?

And so I came in like just very rough around the edges, undisciplined. I don't think I knew myself very well at all. An example would be the best example is that I never thought of myself as pre-old until a few years into my work at Blackbird. No one had ever told me that I was, I never thought of myself. And now that's my whole identity. Like, that's how I think of myself, that's how other people describe me. But up until my thirties, like I'd never

I'd never thought that really. I didn't know that. Yeah, so that's like to answer your question, like it's been a huge growth and a huge journey now. And it's one of the things that I'm most thankful for about having worked at Blackwood. Yeah, wow, that is so interesting. I'm really curious about creativity and people's identity with the creative process.

And to hear even coming out of university, because you originally studied communications, is that right? And then went into into band management. I working with musicians, my, you know, my leap there was just that, of course, you would have always identified as a creative. So to hear that that wasn't the case for you, what was the what was the turning point? Do you think was it feedback from others or emotion in projects or something personal? So like I was always into the arts and creativity, even as a young person. I did I was in

Mariane Power (07:48.504)
theater in high school, really liked music. I was a massive music fan. did a communications degree, but it was a theater and media major. So I did theater production at university. was this degree where you learn how to make shows. could be film, theater, TV, radio, festivals. That's what I ended up doing. But I also saw myself as like an organizer of creative people. And so I left, if you think about it,

The stuff that did at was making shows, so organizing spaces within which people can be creative and people can celebrate. So that was, I organized music, a couple of music festivals at university. was largely, those are the big projects I did. And then when I finished, I did some events management work at the beginning. And then I was an artist manager, so helping creative people to be creative or

removing some of the barriers that might be stopping them from going back. I went into black, my first job was head of community. And so that too is basically organizing around creative people. think the founders in startups is creative people, the same as I am. And so like, kind of thread is pretty obvious. Like when you see that, I always worked and thought of myself as someone who enables, believed in creative people and enables them to be creative.

And then I think just by the time I got to Blackbird, I had done my 10,000 hours in culture. I'd listened to heaps of music. I'd watched all the films. I'd spent all my life, working life, hanging around really artistic and creative people. And through that, I developed a strong sense of taste. And then when I get to Blackbird, I would say the thing that I had done more than most people at least my 10,000 hours in culture.

And so to the people that I work with in Blackbird who were, had backgrounds in law, in business, in finance, investment, compared to those people, was, the hours that I'd done in culture and the taste that I developed kind of, it made them see me as creative because I understood creativity in culture. And so, you know, it only took a few people at Blackbird starting to see me as creative and to tell me that I was creative.

Mariane Power (10:16.654)
and to value the ideas that I had and my expression of creativity. It only took them saying that a little bit and giving me a little bit of space to work on it and to find discovery for myself. It only took that for me to then have this whole new part of my life now where I think of myself as creative and everybody does and my major value and output, a black word, centered around creativity. So was like a couple of people just believing in me and telling me.

Yeah, it's really that power of feedback. is awesome. There's something else that you said that I want to double click on. It's that idea of the 10,000 hours. And yet when we're diving into something that really captures our interest for you, it sounds like it was always music and culture and creative sources. We don't necessarily appreciate the value of that until we come into a community where that value is the key that unlocks something in Blackbird's case. man.

I still spend a lot of time with my friends from the arts and the one thing that they don't, they don't, this isn't true of everybody, but I'd say many of them don't really understand what their great value is, what they know better than anybody else, because they're around other people who know this stuff. And it is their taste. Like taste sounds pithy when you say it like that, but taste is the accumulation of

all of the things that you've like experienced in your life. It's where you grew up, the language you speak, communities you're a part of, the music you've listened to, films you've watched. All of those things amalgamate and come together to form this idea of, form your own individual taste. And because your experiences are entirely unique to you, your taste is entirely unique. Nobody has it. And people in the arts have spent their entire life accumulating taste and accumulating things that

make their taste in things rich and meaningful. Because they're surrounded by heaps of other people who've done that, don't necessarily see that that's a valuable thing. But it is like, there's this great woman, Daisy Alto, who I can tell you her surname, she runs a media company called Dirt. And she wrote a blog series called The Taste Economy. Go read it. it's basically it's like,

Mariane Power (12:38.73)
It tries to argue or does argue that taste is actually this new, like it's probably one of the most valuable things that a person can accumulate. And it's valuable because as I described, your taste is entirely unique to you. And it means if you can acquire really good taste and it's totally unique to you, no one can ever copy you. the things that you make and what you can do with your taste are entirely unique and special.

And no one's got a chance of replicating exactly what you can do because you taste it your own. I forgot what we were talking about. No, that's brilliant. it leads right into my next question. And it's interesting that you use the words taste because in my work with peak performance with creatives, it would be more around what's your passion and where does that align with that curiosity, your interests and how does that translate into your unique purpose, which becomes your own unique value proposition once you mix it then with storytelling.

I love that idea of it being taste. I'm gonna dive into that. Thank you for that link to that series too, because I'll drop it in the show notes for anybody who's interested. I wanna ask you then about your own creative process and the journey around that. I've been doing some reading and reviewing around insight and flow and some of the processes involved in not just having those aha moments, but then how to take the creative juice, if you like, the taste and then execute that.

into impact. And I'm really curious to hear your thoughts on personally how that applies to you and then what you've seen of some of the high creatives that you've worked with who have been able to translate to something that others can enjoy as well. Great question. There's a few bits to there. So stop me from like, if I ramble a little bit, I love your rambles, Joel. You can ramble all day. Well, so firstly, process, like it's taken years to find my own process that works for me.

lot of just, just trying new things. And I've arrived at a place now where I feel pretty confident in my process. So what that means is when I need to find a solution to a problem or come up with something new or work out how to do something that I haven't done before, maybe something that I know that I know what I need to do to begin that journey. And the actual process itself is not that complicated. It's I just start, pretty simply with trying to work out.

Mariane Power (15:03.15)
what the outcome is I'm trying to get to, what it is I'm hoping to achieve. And then I start looking for sources of inspiration. That's like the beginning of it. And those sources, like there's an intentionality to finding those sources where specifically saying, trying to come up with a theme for Sunrise, which is a startup festival that I run for Blackbird. Trying to come up with a theme, an overarching theme for it. How do I get to that? And so I start thinking,

looking broadly, different media, different things that I find on the internet. I'll like pay attention. I'll pull more attention when I'm reading my newsletters. I subscribe to a whole bunch of really good newsletters that source of inspiration for me. And I'll just, look for opportunities to go down rabbit holes. Rabbit holes like what really makes things click for me. And it can take a little bit. Like it doesn't, you have to like be patient. You can't like schedule.

an hour here and an hour there to go and do it. I need blocks of time and I need to devote weeks to it. So I'll start coming up with say the creative thing for sunrise. I'll start months before I knew it and I'll just start with a mindset that it is, need to figure out what this thing is going to be. And each week as I'm going about my life, I'm going to start, I will think about it. I'll be aware that I need to come up with that. And once you hit on like a rabbit hole and you start going down it, it all happens quite quickly from there.

That's just how you come up with the ideation. use a lot of mood boards. I put a lot of stuff up there and the connection between ideas and concepts and images and words is quite fluid to me. And I'll put everything up and I'll start doing it. And then once I have like a big board of like ideas going on, I then start to try and synthesize some of the ideas in language that will help me communicate those ideas. There's something can be quite obvious to me and really clear in my mind, but

It's useless just in my mind. need to be able to communicate in ways that will be believable to people that they understand. And because I'm a conceptual thinker, that often means that in a lot of the people I work with are more, I guess, like, think kind of like high up, a lot of people I work with think on the ground first, and they might then go high up, but back to the ground. I have to be quite specific and give examples and kind of tell a story through it.

Mariane Power (17:24.75)
That's just the ideation, but that's how you come up with the thing. But then from there, I think the second part of that question is really interesting. Particularly if you identify as a creative person, how do you actually have an impact? Because ideas are free. They're not to come up with them. They're not good just on a piece of paper. You to figure out how to make the thing drive all the way from start to finish to completion.

and to have the dedication and focus. And that's different to creativity to me. That's like that stage of the process is craft. That's where your skills, your techniques come into it. It's where your discipline and your focus. And I had trouble with that part for years. I had to build the skills that would enable me to actually bring things to life. so because my tendency is to get really stuck in the ideas and the conceptual because I love that. It's where I get a lot of energy from.

When I was younger, my tendency was to get, I would get caught up and lost in that and I would start, you know, I'd spin my wheels and nothing would happen. and I found, you know, I had to actively work to build systems and processes that would help me get past that. And that journey began with understanding myself and who I am and understanding my mind and how I work and how my energy works and where I get my energy from.

Plenty of things, I'm sure you will have much better solutions for people. Like actually, you know, being a professional in this area. for me, was much psychometric tests. I mentioned before, an engram has been quite helpful to me, but other things as well, they're not perfect, but they kind of helped me to understand my own mind a little. And then once you understand yourself, you can start to build, you can start to build things that help you deal with, I don't want to say shortcomings, but deal with the things that you find challenging. Yeah.

For me, the worst thing in the world is to be a creative person that doesn't make stuff. That to me is just terrific. Painful for me to think that I could think up so many cool things that people like and believe in, but never have any of them because I can't make shit. You know what I mean? I totally know what you mean. You know how you and I were saying before we jumped on this call and pressed record that I wouldn't give you any psychobabble? I'm going to give you the psychobabble.

Mariane Power (19:48.046)
Because what you have just described, I'm so excited. You've literally described in lived experience terms, what the research says about the flow state, which is so cool. So I'm going link that to the episode below. But actually I just read an article on this and what is so interesting and to your point around why I get so excited and bang on about understanding your brain is because you can't build a creative package for yourself for that delivery unless you understand the biology that you're working with. It's like your operational map.

right? So what I heard you say is that you've got to go from that big what we call divergent thinking, which is the that experience of I can see and feel and hear everything in images and metaphors and all the patterns are making sense. And a lot of people in our ADHD community, our high creatives are highly ambitious people out of the box thinkers will have that experience. The challenge is then how do we switch on the convergent thinking? And that's the drill and the discipline that I'm hearing you talk about.

And that's where the craft comes in of executing on your goal. And it's all the stuff that naturally divergent thinkers or ADHD people, neurodivergent people, if we take it to that, you know, labeling end, which we don't have to, it doesn't come necessarily naturally to our brains. And what's really cool about what I've found in the research is that's partly to do with something in our brain called the imagination network. So in neurotypical people, the imagination network will need to be fired up. They need to do practices to fire it up.

because it doesn't come naturally. The opposite is true for neurodivergent people. Their imagination network is always fired on, but it needs to be able to dial down to get to a point where we can then switch on the discipline for the craft. And so when you know what your brain basis is, you know which one you got to switch a lever on intentionally and which one's going to come more naturally. So I'm just like, yeah, I'm so excited. You've literally captured that process in real life for people. I think I might be neurodivergent.

I've never been formally diagnosed. way you just described it sounds very close to how I feel and experience this. And this is what's really exciting to me in that way, because I don't know, people are going to disagree with me on this. think labels are helpful, and particularly when you're seeking support. Some of those medical labels that we've got around neurodivergence are extremely helpful.

Mariane Power (22:06.722)
But actually, Scott Barry Kaufman wrote an article on this, and I'll drop it in the link. And he was arguing, maybe the medicalization of ADHD, if we take that away, you're talking about super creative, innovative people here. yeah, it's really interesting. Anyway, go on, I interrupted you. No, no, I was just going to say, I think the labeling, like to me, I mean, taking away the medical, to me, the labeling of things actually helps you to understand it. It just mentions like,

I think that's been the great power of like the Psychometric Test and the Engram and things like that is they hope to give a name and a description to something that you feel that you might not have known what to call before or that you might not have understood. So I think that, you know, I don't think it's a bad thing to give something a framework from which you can understand. would never would have liked, without those tools, I never would have understood why it is.

I'm so, I've experienced difference relative to my colleagues. Many of my colleagues, so I particularly ones that work with at the moment, they're not really tainted. They know how to move through a list very, very systematically. They get satisfaction from crossing tasks off lists. They're really great at like, at like driving things forward. I don't get a single bit of any satisfaction from crossing something off the list. It doesn't do anything for me. It doesn't do anything for me.

And I, but I never would have understood how there are types of people who can do this stuff so well. And you know, I can't, why can't I? And I just never would have understood why that is without some of these tools that helped me to kind of, you know, get my mind around it. But then I never would have also understood, you know, what some of the strengths that I have are and how to use those really, really well. so yeah, I, yeah, everyone's different.

And that's the thing, everyone's different. I think the ability, as you said, being in an ecosystem, and if you're not in an ecosystem and you're a founder at home or working from home, you're right, that can be tough because you don't necessarily have those natural players to offset your strengths and their strengths or your challenges against their challenges. When you're working in a team in an ecosystem, you can kind of wrap some more rigorous structures around who is delegated to what task.

Mariane Power (24:31.468)
I'm really curious of the creatives, because you've spent a lot of time working with some big performers. And I imagine seeing lots of different folk come through the doors of Blackbird, both in that higher level startup ecosystem, and then also the youth philanthropic arm that you've got. What have been some of the common patterns you've seen of the strengths that you see come through the door of people who've got real big ideas for innovation? Well, I think, so I mean, my ideas on this are informed both by the

my experiences at Blackbird and the founders that we've worked with at Blackbird as well as their foundation, which I can tell you also it's been informed by the work with artists as well. first thing that I'll say is that the thing that was most surprising and like beautiful for me to recognize when I got to Blackbird, it's when I arrived again coming from the arts, working with bands.

I was like traveling the world, going to music festivals, hanging out in dingy little clubs. It was a really fun, awesome job. It wasn't, I wouldn't say that a professional job. One of the things that, I mean, we weren't professional. We got good at our job by the end. One of the things that I was afraid of and nervous about coming to Blackbird was that I'm coming from the arts to financial services, essentially. We tried to make Blackbird something more than a financial services business, but the time I like, coming to this thing.

What do I know about founders? What do I know about startups? What do know about finance or investing? don't know any of those things and if done, I've never seen it. Didn't know anything about it. And one of things that was most surprising to me and comforting when I landed was that the type of person that can create a company, the type of person that can create a song, there's not that much distance between those two people. the personality type and the

the things that you need to bring something into the world where there was not anything previously. They're very, very similar. Like they're both engaged in acts of creation as a fundamental. They're creating different things. It's like their medium is different. Someone's building a company, know, building a team and those other things. And someone is like writing a song, making a movie, making a film. Film's easier to understand when you think about it. Because making a film is more akin to a story, isn't it?

Mariane Power (26:56.642)
You can have an idea and a vision for something, either if you're a founder or a film maker. If you make a film, you write a script, and let's say you're the director, you then have to spend, once you've done the creative work, the ideation, the story of the building, you then have to go on this long journey of finding people to help you make it, that are experts in their own discipline, and that can bring your vision to life. That's not so different to what a founder does. In fact, some of it's exactly the same work. The process.

Yeah, and so they come to Blackburn and say that, like the archetype for a founder and an artist is the same thing. Like they're just playing in different areas. Like that thing to me was really interesting to see. And I guess like the stuff that like, if I'm trying, if I try and like describe what those two personalities or those two types of people have, first thing that I'd say is that it's like, it's like seeing something in the world.

They both see something different in the world or they have a view of the way the world should be, or they have a view, an interesting perspective on the world or something within the world. And they're driven to express that in some way or to make something that addresses that difference that they see. So to me, those sorts of people, like the skill sets that you need, the tactical skills that you need to be able to bring those things to life.

First of all, some kind of craft or discipline or profession I think is usually helpful. So it could be a software engineer. It could be, you know, how to use a paintbrush, you know, wherever it is, it's like a tactical skillset that will help you make the thing. But then the personality things that are nice. First of all, like you definitely need like, you definitely need to have some determination about it because the process of bringing something to life is never straightforward.

straight line from beginning to end. always ups and downs and you run into challenges and difficulties. So in tech world, we say grit, determination, I would have those sorts of descriptors. I just think it's like a perseverance. It's a focus on the thing that you want to make and that is what... The other thing that the other skill sets that or attributes, I guess, that will get you to

Mariane Power (29:17.998)
through that, that will make it possible for you to move through the creation of something. You are curious and that makes it possible for you to be a self-directed learner. A person who can learn anything, learn it on your own. I think that both artists and founders are the same. We say at Blackboard we look for learned adults as well. Artists themselves, if you've ever worked with it, I've worked a lot of

musicians, they literally like teach them, they might go to sing lessons to play the instrument, but the act of learning to write a song, have you ever like, I've never seen a place that you can teach you how to a song. You can go to music school where they'll teach composition, but how to like create something that has meaning and that makes people feel things. comes from somewhere else. It's a different source code, isn't it? Yeah. And like, if there's no obvious place to go and be taught that,

that I know of or that I've seen, that means that you have to learn it yourself. And that's where you taste any idea of culture and those things come into play. There's probably other things, how do they sound? I think they're brilliant. I'm just like, nodding and giggling and smiling. I've been reading the Art of Impossible or sharing with you earlier Stephen Kotler's work and a lot of what you've just mentioned there in terms of the different personality types, the archetypes.

I love that idea that you shared as well that, you know, the creative, it's about finding your medium. It's about finding the tool, you know, whatever that is in, order to sort of, feels like a groundedness of how do you, how do you express this creativity in the world? And that's such a different journey for everybody. I haven't shared openly publicly yet because, you know, he's a little bit, he's a little bit ahead of his time, but my son who's 15, who's a, who's a twice exceptional super quick kid.

has just started up his rap music and is currently number one on TikTok in Australia. No. I'm not even lying. But what's really interesting again, diving into this research is understanding that, so they've studied rappers, they've studied jazz improvisers. And to your point of like, what's the stretch between these incredible artistic creative musicians and then entrepreneurship and founders?

Mariane Power (31:37.346)
I mean, my son's incredibly entrepreneurial. think he started his first business when he was 12, kids making more money than me at this point in time. And that brain type that just can clock in and see things differently, but then to execute. that is fascinating to me. know, what part of it is natural skill and gift and talent and strength. And then to your point, where's the discipline of the grit and the determination, the perseverance, and how much of that is driven by?

almost like a dog that has to chew on the bone kind of feeling. I don't know about you, but for me, it's like, if I've got a problem that I'm, that I'm riffing on, that problem is just not going to get left alone until I've got a solution, which is interesting because in the research, they'll talk about stupid grit. And I don't know, I haven't yet met a startup founder or a musician or an artist that has a sense of what I would call stupid grit. just, it's, it's, it's a, it's perseverant problem. But yeah, I don't know if that brings up anything for you.

Yeah, a couple of thoughts, a couple of thoughts based on what you've said. So the first thing I'll say is that like creativity is a birthright. We all have it. Everybody is creative from the moment that we're born. It gets trained out of us and we get taught to, we get taught to, and this is, just mentioned there is a few things, freestyle rappers, jazz musicians, people with the ability to improvise who have no block between what's going on in their mind or what they want to express. Incredible.

So what happens is I think, I'm sure there's research on this, but as we grow up, these little kids don't have the block. There's nothing there. Like they just can express exactly what they want within their own means. like, know, brain still developing. But then as we get older, we get all these like, you know, distortion filters and things put in front of it to stop us from maybe the socialization, maybe it's education. don't know, but like, freestyle rap is super interesting to me because they are able to just get

out exactly what's in their mind. And that to me, like I think everybody has that within them. That's a training to remove the blockages is a training, but everyone's got the mind that's capable of being creative. And we say that in the foundation I run for Blackboard foundation. The mission is to unleash creativity in young people. And one of the things that we say is that it is like everybody has this thing in them. It's just that

Mariane Power (34:01.134)
most people as adults, needs to be unleashed, needs to be unlocked. And there are different, you know, people can create different levels of things. Like, I'm not saying that there isn't a difference between a highly talented artist or singer or whatever, and someone who's just learning. Of course, is a difference between those things, but the act of creation is something that we're all capable of. is

It is the one, it is the thing that human beings do different to every other species. The reason that we have, that we progress at all. This idea that we can make things and put stuff into the world that was not there before. Yeah. And, you know, I don't think there's any reason why, you know, why we can't live in a world where like everybody has like a little bit of something to offer where they make, they are able to create things from their own experience, their own tastes.

I love that. And for me, I'm thinking about the simplest of acts and expressions of creativity that I see and I appreciate. And it's things like a meal that somebody's brought to the table that I haven't seen done or tasted before and their expression of how they even present that meal and the music that they put with that meal, the way that they set up the room when you walk in, a conversation that you have with somebody that sparks a new insight, then that ripple effect that goes on to have its next moment in time. I mean, these are all just mini

moments of creativity. So I love that you're bringing that home. Yeah, well, just expressions. They're just expressions of things that you feel and ideas that you have. Creativity is how come up with it. The attitude making something from creativity is the expression. Yeah. think the world would be a richer and more beautiful place if we were all just a little bit more able to remove those interference fields and make it little bit more freely.

Yeah, I can't help but dive in with a couple of tips there. What's really interesting is there are a couple of different types of meditative practices that you can do. So one will open up your mindset and access that imagination at work and the other one will help you to be able to access and converge the data if you like or the detail in front of you. So if you're needing to be able to open up, you want to be able to go and do practices in nature where you're grounding yourself.

Mariane Power (36:20.327)
noticing the environment around you, expanding your expression of self beyond. So can you see, smell, hear, feel, taste, touch out in nature? If you wanted to do the opposite and bring it back in and get really detailed, that's where you go to your single breath types of practices or a mantra practice. So what's really cool is coming out of these high performance, high creativity protocols that once we understand

the brains that we're working with and the biology that we've got naturally, we can kind of hack around the challenges, which leads me into my one of my last questions for you before we get to our quick fire round. What are some of the challenges that you notice amongst highly creative people that you work with or within yourself that can sometimes get in the way if we accept that self beliefs can be one of them that we all need to move on? What are some other challenges that you notice? I think the first thing is I think most people

And this is what I experienced. A lot of people don't identify as creative because the word creative is tied to the arts. And so if you don't have an arts practice, a lot of people just don't think of themselves as creative. So that's the first thing I'd say is just this limiting idea of what creativity actually is. I think a lot of people experience that. I experienced that. A lot of people I work with experience that. When we first launched, we have a grant program that we run through the foundation called Proto Stars, which is

We give micro grants to young people under 25 with passion projects. Now, passion projects are super diverse. They're like, we have one young dude who drives a Toyota Land Cruiser around the outback with a truck full of robotics in the back and gives robotics workshops to young kids in schools. then one person who's a finalist and wanted to flip from portraits to landscapes.

So she, you know, she wanted to do an exhibition. So we have all this like really very big difference between all of them. This program didn't work in the beginning. The first time I launched it was when we launched the foundation and it didn't work. didn't get any applications for it because I didn't say some projects, I said creative. I said, we're looking for people with creative projects. And you know what I got? Theater, couple of films, but not very much at That is so interesting. A language barrier.

Mariane Power (38:41.932)
We flipped it to passion projects. Guess what? Everyone's passionate about something. And so, and we intentionally just got to the sorts of things that we thought were considered passion projects. And of course we had the most diverse group of young people with the most diverse group of passions and interests. So that's the first thing I would say is like the limiting things, the stuff, the challenges, the barriers that people create. People have, especially most people who are creative don't see themselves as creative.

That's something I would encourage people to try and do is expand their understanding of what creativity is. Then the really tactical things which you would be familiar with, which we talked about a little bit earlier, is like for me personally and for others that I've seen is how do you actually build the discipline or a craft or whatever it is to actually make something that would creativity. What is there as an expression? Ideas are like ourselves. Everyone's got one.

think that's kind of true in the sense that it's so easy to come up with ideas. It's not necessarily easy, ideas are just in your own mind unless you choose to do something with them and to make something with them. You don't have to make something of every idea, obviously, but I think that the discipline and the craft and the skills are important to putting something to life, the different disciplines to the ideation and the creativity. And so it's the development of those things. like we talked about,

towards that is understanding yourself. then because everything's like, there's no set answer. don't think like, for me, was, I couldn't read a single book that would tell me exactly what to do. I to read a few different things. I had to understand myself and I had to experiment and build processes and practices and skill sets that I didn't have previously, but they're unique to me. They weren't, they're not the same for everybody. So I think that like, you know, that ability to be able to build that, those, you know, that

those skill sets and practices that help them bring something to life. think that's crucial. Something you could use is if you are creative, it's possible, then you're most probably good at learning and self-directed learning. So it's possible for you to learn those things and build it. It just takes a little bit of experimenting into their practice. And then the other thing I'd say that's about the people is that I don't think people need until you really need it. It really

Mariane Power (41:10.508)
value creativity as much as I think they should. And I think that's because it's less tangible. it's, it's, like, it's not like saying I'm my, talk about it in a professional context. My job is, I'm a teacher. Like that is a discipline as well known, but it's understood there's a lot of things and skills and attributes and training you need to do to be able to become a teacher. But like it's.

It's understood what that is. If you talk about creativity with someone, it's sort of a little bit more ephemeral. It's not as easy for them to latch onto what that means and what skills and attributes and training you need to do to become a creative person. And then it's not also entirely clear what the output of that might be unless you specifically apply it to, say, a discipline like painting or whatever. So I think like, yeah, they're my ideas.

Yeah, I think they're great. It's funny, I'm thinking of my own creative process as well. And I don't know if you noticed this in the startup community. When I first took a dive into entrepreneurialism and took my craft from the theatre and performing arts and then combined that with what I started to understand about psychology. And at the time, I don't even think the buzzword science communication were around. And people would ask me, well, what do you do?

And I would try and technically describe that in a way that was more, scale positive psychology and performance psychology concepts to people so that rather than having to be in a one in one environment that they can learn and apply themselves. And the effort that would, that the other person, you know, even as I say, I'm like, even that sounds ridiculous. Cause that's not really what it is. It's how do you, how do you wrap words around something that is new that hasn't, hasn't necessarily been done before.

And so like you said, you can feel it when you, when you can see and hear and feel the creative process. go watch a show or you listen to a piece of music or you watch somebody unearth something for the first time. all have a sense of the essence of creativity, but yeah, I really like what you've described there. And I encourage anybody who's listening to, to, do some of the discipline. I'm going to do this off the back of our call, do some of the discipline around wrapping the language to, to, and the storytelling. There's a big piece of that, isn't it?

Mariane Power (43:33.004)
the storytelling to how you express your natural set of passions, skills, strengths, and purpose in the world, because that's where the impact lies. There's something in the storytelling there. You've given me some things to think about. My own divergent, he's going wild. Am I trying to grab it from the end? Like how to express your ideas is so... It's a skill in itself. In a professional context, it often comes...

I always find it much, I've always found it much easier to show people what I mean, rather than to try and tell them what I mean. Me too. But that is, that in itself is a bit of storytelling. But if you're a conceptual thinker, creative person, when you have ideas, being able to help people to understand those ideas is like, it is almost the most important thing that you can learn how to do. At least so you can learn how to do. But those, like, part of being a creative

person and part of like inspiring people with ideas and bringing them on a journey and getting them to help you is getting them to understand it. And I think like most, for most people, the things they want to make have a better chance of being successful if you're able to build it with other people or you're able to people along and get them to support you and believe in it or help you with it. And you can't do that unless you've got the skill sets to be able to clearly and succinctly communicate, you know, what it is you think and what your ideas are.

And like I said, it's all, it's a practice. It's a practice that you can get good at. Yeah, it is a practice. And I think when you're surrounded by an ecosystem, that's a practice that you can, you can kind of riff with other people where that is their strength. For those who are listening, because I know we've got a really high proportion of, of solopreneurs in our listener community. I'm really excited to share we're working on an AI enhanced chat bot effectively that helps to take that big, what we call circular thinking or the big visions and

train people to be able to get some linear thinking and storytelling into their communications. So what really excites me about the intersectionality of technology and then these human skills that we've got as creativity is I think we can start to lean in a little bit more on technology to be able to buffer some of those challenges that those of us with more divergent thinking brains or neurodivergent brains experience because, know, why not? We want to plug in the gap somewhere.

Mariane Power (45:58.54)
So I think it's gonna be really interesting the next few years to see how technology can support people. And I'm also up for creating more space for ecosystems because unless we use each other as humans, that's where the magic lies really, isn't it? Yeah, totally. I think like just thinking then as you were describing that, there's a profession that does it really well, the storytelling. taking the highly creative people

They're very conceptual thinkers and they're at actually creating action and making products from their creativity. They're also great at telling the story and that's advertisers. I don't like the products and they kind of like ads. But if you think about the skill sets, are like, think ad agencies have some of the most creative people in the world working for them. also have up to 73 % of ADHDs, by the way. Did you know that? No, I didn't. That's really interesting.

Which is fascinating. Well, I'm not surprised, when to use it to your point, when when the execution is the power there, like that, we want to we want to get to know that population. yeah, advertising, go on, share more. Well, we learn from them. Like I said, I don't think I don't like the products. I don't think that's that useful in the world. But like, if you think about the journey, these people have to go in with the skill that they use is how to actually first of all, harness the creativity, but then a huge part of it.

They go to school to learn how to do this, communication of their ideas. And they learn this through the language they use as pitching. They learn how to pitch ideas. if you're a creator, an agency, you spend a lot of your time pitching ideas. And so I think that is a space where I hadn't thought about this previously. I just kind of thought about it as we were speaking about. think if we want to learn how you create the skill set, how do you learn the skill set and what the discipline of storytelling is as it relates to

Communicating ideas probably advertise a good place to look at. love that. And also the art of pitching. That's definitely that's, that's always a work in progress for me personally. Shout out to Jade one as well. She's in this series and is an incredible marketing guru for small businesses. I'm learning a lot going through her processes at the moment of just, and it's a discipline. It's an art form of, of a skill to hone and to develop. So take that one away listeners, practice.

Mariane Power (48:22.894)
Different meditation practices, switch on your conversion or your diversion thinking. We have covered so much Joel, I could sit and literally with you for hours, but I won't because you've got an incredible day to go and have. So before we go, are you ready for our quick fire round? We'll have to make it super quick because I know we're back to back here. All right, let's go. First question for you, what comes to mind when you hear the words impact mindset or what qualities of people I should say come to mind when you hear the words impact mindset? Yeah, to me it's action orientated.

And that's because I think this is a lot of is big. And I think one thing that the entire space could use is. That doesn't come up. I like that. like it. Inclusive impact. What comes to mind there? Straight away to me, it was having an understanding and respect for.

all the different types of people that are in the world and creating spaces and particularly in professional spaces, workspaces, where people can bring their whole, their actual unique selves to work with. The whole selves you want to save some for outside of work, but I think like an authentic version of yourself to work. And so that to me, think inclusive spaces, they have spaces that allow people to be as authentic as they can be or as they need to

I like that little caveat of the professional filter there. It's a really interesting conversation happening around unmasking in our community. And then what is the difference between that and professional filtering? And I think that's a really important conversation to be had. Thank you for sharing. What about when it comes to creating inclusive communities, workplaces, schools, what's your hope for the future? Cause I know you're a dad as well. What's the world that you see brought to life? Well, first of all, I like, think like

My hope is that in the future we'll have to stop working so hard to make things diverse. It's incredibly difficult work and it feels like at the moment in the world that we're which I'm so honored. Imagine if we're excited to get to a place where we are diverse in our workplaces and in our communities without having to try to be because in diversity is beauty. I've talked about it all today about

Mariane Power (50:47.202)
talked about the beauty in an individual person and in their life experiences and where they've come from and the languages they speak and the interests they've got and the music they've listened to and how those experiences create for individual expressions that are just like magic and can't be copied or replicated. So imagine, I'm excited for a future where we try something because it is true and it's bringing these communities where

able to be authentic, bring themselves, bring their own creativity, bring their own experiences and life journey. That's a feature I'm really happy to step into with you. Thank you Joel. Let's make that one come alive. What about the books, podcasts, resources, things you're excited about? Where are you getting your creative sparks from? Okay, so at the moment, the last year, I've been really interested in Mona, the museum in Tasmania. How good is it?

I just love it. I the actual, first of all, I love the museum. I think there is no shortage in history of wealthy people who have built museums. There's something specific about this one that is just really special. And I love the story of it and the journey and I love the impact it's had on the community in Tasmania. And I love the focus on art.

creativity and so on. I've read David Walsh is the founder. was just going to ask you that. It's really interesting, isn't it? Let's put that down on the must read for our listeners. Yeah. What did you love about it? Well, so it's like Vignette, it's his life in Vignette since the book. And I would say that every chapter is vegan that I just kind of skipped past. But I thought like most interesting to me was how widely read that dude is. he feels like he's had a

lifelong obsession with reading. so the perspective that he brings to everything is just so varied and interesting. And so what I got the most out of the book was like every page I pulled, I could go down a rabbit hole. had my iPad next to me and I would start looking up places. He might just write it out a place that he visited and his experience visiting it and a place I'd never heard. So I'd like go down that rabbit hole. And that also leads me to

Mariane Power (53:12.044)
The other kind of book I've read recently that I've been inspired by was there was an exhibition at Mona that I went to earlier this year called Name Dropping. And with that exhibition comes a big art book with a picture of all the curation that they've done. And then there's all this research and descriptions of the ideas that are behind the curation. That's fascinating to me because when you go and see an art exhibition,

quite often it's a very surface experience. You look at objects on the wall, you look at some descriptions, you might be able to join, like connect some of the dots, and then go and buy the book for the exhibition, which shows how the curators thought about all of the ideas, the research they did, things that are inspired by that to me. That, I'm always looking for opportunities for rabbit holes, and that a book like that is full of rabbit holes.

Well, it's also the creative process mapped out, isn't it? And reflected upon it and reverse engineered. Yeah, that's beautiful. And a few things I'll suggest. So there's a podcast called TasteLand, which I really enjoy. It's still brand new, but it's, mentioned earlier, there's a media company called Dirt that writes about culture. And the founder of that, Daisy, has a podcast. And I find that to be fascinating.

And then the fixed book I'm reading is called Afterworlds. It's by woman known as Debbie Obetsuki. I can't describe it, but it's certainly the first thing like no one wants to read. Essentially, it's like the transition from a human-centric earth to a nature-centric earth where humans leave the earth. And that decision is not being made by humans, it's being made for them. it is a transition.

Yeah, it's like, it's really beautiful and challenging and I just so invented the way she's written it. It's written by, the perspective is the, from, call this the perspective. It's written by what's called a story worker, which is an angel that's been tasked with cataloging the last days of humans on Earth. yeah, it's, it's, it's really interesting. It's such a book and probably the one of the most inventive things I've read in a little while.

Mariane Power (55:32.59)
Haste, diversity, creativity, all wrapped up in that list. I'm excited to dive in. Podcast, new book. I'm going to dive into that one, Afterworld, did you say? That sounds awesome. If you're a fast reader, you'll breeze through it. I'm slow reader, very slow It sounds like it's very detailed and very, that there's a lot there. No? Yes? There is, there is, but it's a short book. It's not very thick. it could be a weekend read by The Sounds of Things. Yeah, you could do that.

If you read big books and literature, this is literature, but it's fairly approachable literature, I would say. Awesome. Yeah, but it's beautiful. It's a really good book. Thank you, Joel. I love all of those tips. The last one for you is what does it mean to live a meaningful life?

To live a meaningful life to me is to create meaning for the world, for other people. So for me, I find meaning in creating meaning. It can be in my creative practice, the own things that I build or it can mean supporting other people to create things that are meaningful. And means, I guess, through that work, adding a richness and texture that other people and that yourself and your family can be.

Mariane Power (56:54.71)
It's beautiful. Thank you, Joel. You're such a generous, creative spirit and it's been beyond a pleasure to have you here in conversation. I'm so glad we made it happen. And to our listeners, thank you for joining us. my gosh, I nearly forgot to ask, where can people find you? Can they find you? Are you accessible to the world? Barely. I'm barely on social media. Every now and again, you're hanging on LinkedIn, I've noticed, but not as much these days. Not so much anymore. LinkedIn's to me, Mike.

I still like it, but it's a lot of AI stuff now, think, but you can get that on LinkedIn or I'm on Instagram or my email is just Joel at like a .vc if you want to get in touch. Yeah, if you hit me up on LinkedIn, leave a note because I get, I get requested a lot and I also get to recommend people who are connected to a LinkedIn. That's a bit tricky. Yeah. So I try and only add people that I know or have context on.

So we will know if that's how you've come to the future. And also shout out to Protostars because I think you've got another round coming up to attract some talent in. We'll be opening again in a month. So we've got a cohort that's nearly wrapped up running at the moment and in October we should be opening up. So we want to give you website and all that kind of stuff. So give us from Protostars, Blackbird and you'll come across us.

Very cool. I will put that in the show notes because as we go live on this episode, I think you'll also be going live. So let's not miss that opportunity. Listeners, if you've got young people in your life in particular, really with that passion project, this is an opportunity not to be missed, get amongst it and learn about the work that they're doing at Blackbird. Very cool. Thanks Joel. Thank you, Maz. I really appreciate it. You're so welcome. Thanks for tuning into Classroom 5.0.

our Neuropeak series. If you enjoyed today's conversation, don't forget to check out the list of resources mentioned. Just click the link in the show notes below. And hey, if this episode resonated with you, I'd love it if you could share it with a friend, leave a review, and make sure to follow the podcast so that you don't miss what's coming next. We've got a ripper of a lineup. For more on supporting your own neurodiversity journey, you can head on over to marionepower.com.au. I'd love to hear from you.

Mariane Power (59:17.666)
Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time.