Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Ignite Your Creative Power with Rochelle Seltzer
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:04] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 501 of Live Happy Now. As we enter the new year, it’s a chance to reset and think about how we’d to move into 2025. This week’s guest is here to help.
I’m your host, Paula Felps, and today I’m joined by Rochelle Seltzer, an author, speaker, and leadership coach who helps individuals and organizations ignite their creative power. As you’re about to hear, creativity can open the door to discovering new strengths, reaching new goals, and navigating uncertain times. Rochelle is here to tell us how to start a creativity practice and explain why it can be a game changer for the rest of our lives. Let’s have a listen.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:00:46] PF: Rochelle, welcome to the very first episode of 2025 for Live Happy Now.
[0:00:51] RS: Oh, what a thrill to be with you and to be in this first episode of the year is really exciting. Thank you.
[0:00:57] PF: I’ve been following your work for a couple of months, and that is why I wanted to have you on here as our first guest, because some of the things that you’re teaching us are so essential as we move into this new year. We’re starting a brand-new year. It’s a time when people tend to reevaluate and reset. I love your approach to creativity. I wanted you to start this conversation by explaining what creativity has to do with making the most of our new year.
[0:01:24] RS: Oh, what a good question. My work, and I’m a coach and a speaker and author is all about igniting creative power. When I talk about that, people go, “Huh, what is that?” Because when I talk about creativity, people often say, “Oh, I’m not creative,” and they block it out. What I’ve come to realize is that we all have this creative power that’s in us, and that this is something we can ignite, and this is what can fuel us to live our best, most happy lives. We are all full of this power. It’s often an overlooked resource. When we activate it, that’s when we have a game changer resource at our disposal, if you will.
I work primarily with accomplished women. What I see all the time is how stressed and overwhelmed they are, but this goes for people in general, right, everywhere. They frequently lack confidence, which amazes me, because they’re incredible women. They are really unsure about how to create a fulfilling life, the life that they yearn for. When they can activate this creative power through the things that I teach and we’ll go into that, this is when they start to show up more powerfully. Then they have their biggest impact. What I love seeing is the way that people can connect to their hearts and their intuition and really pursue what matters to them. That’s how we can live these happy, satisfying lives that we all really, really want.
[0:02:53] PF: And deserve, actually.
[0:02:55] RS: And deserve. Absolutely deserve. That’s a keyword that I use all the time. Thank you for adding that.
[0:03:03] PF: What is creative power? Because if someone’s listening, they’re like, “Well, I’m creative or I’m not creative,” but we haven’t thought of it as having power. Right.
[0:03:14] RS: This is that energy that’s in all of us, and that we can connect to and we can activate it, we can amplify it. Whether you think you’re creative, or a little bit creative or not, there’s so much misunderstanding about what creativity is, because many, many people that I talk to, they meet me and they go, “Oh, but I’m not creative.” It’s okay. They just want to get that out of the way, right? They think that creativity is only for the really talented artists and dancers and writers and musicians, or whatever actors. They think that it’s something unavailable, unavailable to regular people. What I’ve come to understand and really talk about two aspects of creativity that I’d love to share with you.
[0:04:00] PF: Please.
[0:04:01] RS: The first is that we can all think creators, because we all think, right? That doesn’t seem scary. The other side of it is that we can express ourselves in remarkable ways. These are two kinds of pieces. When you understand what it means to think like a creator, what I like to talk about is that reaction and creation have the same letters, they’re just organized differently.
[0:04:26] PF: Oh, I love that.
[0:04:28] RS: Yeah. What do most of us do? We just react all day. We’re busy, we rush from thing to thing, and we react to whatever’s in front of us and on to the next and cross that thing off our list. The key thing about thinking like a creator is to just take a beat, pause momentarily, and consider what you can create instead. What can you create that’s a better alternative to that ultimatum that somebody gave you? What can you create that’s not the usual next step that you take on automatic pilot? What can you create that’s a better opportunity, or turn something into an opportunity? What can you create in a conversation with someone that can just move the needle for you?
This way of thinking like a creator gives you agency as you move through your day, all day every day. If you don’t have a good option right now, you create your next step, the best one you can, and then you create the one after that. This keeps you in action and gives you agency and gives you some power in your life that’s exciting. That’s a way to create that most people have never, ever thought about.
[0:05:38] PF: I want to drill down into how we do that. But first, anyone who listens knows like, I just got to have an origin story. That’s my thing. How did you discover this? What is your backstory to understand the power of creativity and then your gift of sharing out with everyone?
[0:05:55] RS: I have a, I would say, what I used to feel embarrassed about sharing for a long time, which is I went to art college. I have a bachelor of foreign arts degree and I studied design. I stayed in my lane. I never took a painting class. I just stayed with what felt safe to me, because design is about solving other people’s problems. I was a really good designer, but that piece of me about personal expression and creativity, I was totally shut down and I never used to want to admit that. I don’t think I admitted it to myself for a very long time. it turns out that part of my story too was that I never got help, because my dad who was an immigrant, very successful, taught me, if you’re smart enough and you work hard enough, you do it all yourself and that’s where your pride comes from.
I spent my life just trying to work hard and I struggled. I finally started working with a coach at the time of the recession, because I had a business for 27 years, I owned a design and marketing firm and the recession had hit us hard and I wasn’t looking for a coach, but I found myself sitting in front of one one day and I thought, okay, the universe just brought me into this connection. I should say yes.
It was in that work with him that I started to realize a lot of things about how I was living a smaller version of myself and not trusting myself, not believing in myself and never getting help. I started to realize, A, I didn’t love running that business anymore, so why was I was doing it? Which is when I sold the business. And B, I started to realize that I had this pent-up frustration and fear about creation, and it was time for me to figure it out. That’s when I, another teacher appeared in my life. The universe was there for me. I was so moved and excited about everything I learned in those two years that I studied with that teacher, that that’s what I decided, I was going to build a coaching career to help other women to activate that piece of themselves and do it faster and easier than I had. That’s where it all started.
[0:08:04] PF: That is amazing, because now you do workshops, you do workshops in France. You have an amazing roster of offerings that you provide to women to really connect with that. Where do they start? When someone comes to you and needs to find that creative power, where do they start?
[0:08:26] RS: They can start in a number of ways. All of my work is really deep with people into understanding who they are and connecting to their intuition. In my book, Live Big, I have a tool that I develop called the Discovery Dozen, which is incredibly powerful and meaningful. In fact, I was on the phone yesterday with a client who was like, I said, “Why don’t we use the Discovery Dozen now to help you through this challenge that you’re facing?” She was like, “Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I have to remember that.” That’s a way that we can connect to our intuition and generate ideas and find answers that we have inside of us that we can’t readily find.
I’ve got a lot of ways that I teach people, either through my book, through coaching, through a retreat with me. I do sessions with people and teach them about their enneagram style. That’s another whole conversation we could have, so they really know themselves and understand themselves. My goal is to give people tools to open up that creative power and to give them tools to keep it fueled, because life will show up, challenges will come along, and we have to be able to get back on track. We all do.
[0:09:36] PF: Yeah. I’m glad you brought up intuition. What is the connection between creativity and our intuitive wisdom? Because you’re very big on that.
[0:09:47] RS: Yeah. I’ll take us back to the other piece of creative thinking, the other piece of creativity besides thinking, which is creative expression. It doesn’t matter if you’re good at things. If you love to cook, cook. If you want to experiment in the kitchen, go at it. If you want to follow recipes, go at it. If you just want to order beautiful food and set a gorgeous table with color and flowers and candles, do that. If you want to dig in your garden, if you want to go to a pottery shop and see what it feels like to put your hands in clay. If you like building in a workshop, or knitting, or anything you love to do, do what lights you up. Because when you do that, that expressive way of being creative, without the judgment of, is it worthy? Is it good enough? What will somebody think? Just do it for the joy. That’s when you have this connection to your intuition that really becomes easy, easy.
That’s when you start hearing the little whispers of wisdom from your own gut, or the ideas show up, or the spidey sense like, “That’s not really a good choice for me.” Whatever that might be, that’s when those things become available to you, because you’ve activated your creative heart. You’ve touched into what really your desires are and what lights you up. When you are lit up, your energy is palpable to people around you. You’re on this wavelength with people. They don’t know why they love being around you, but boy, they feel good being around you. This is what happens when we activate this creative power. It’s remarkable.
[0:11:23] PF: It really is that upward spiral, because you tap into it, you light yourself up, you want more of that.
[0:11:28] RS: You want more of it.
[0:11:29] PF: It’s like this incredible endorphin rush. You just keep doing that and that fuels more creativity.
[0:11:37] RS: It does. You believe in yourself more and you believe in your worthiness. I teach a lot about the importance of self-love. Activating creativity is an expression of self-love. It’s supporting yourself in the best possible way. All of that helps you believe in yourself more, to show up more boldly, all the pieces of living a big life.
[0:12:00] PF: One thing I’ve really noticed as you were talking about the forms of creativity is how much you expand that definition. Because as you said, people think it’s reserved for a painter, or a singer, or a songwriter. You’re talking about gardening. You’re talking about things that we all have access to. How does someone discover what their own flavor of creativity is, if it’s not readily apparent?
[0:12:27] RS: Yeah. If you were to use – I’m going to give you a little preview of this discovery dozen pool. It starts with a fill-in-the-blank sentence. If you number one to 12, or 12 lines, tick marks down the side of your page and you start with that at the top, you say, things that get me excited are – You just finish that sentence 12 times. Maybe it’s seeing the color red through my window in the morning. Whatever it might be. Things that get me excited are when I go out for tea with a good friend, when I travel. It could be anything. Just mine your heart with this discovery dozen tool about, I’m going to ask you, Paula, I’m going to put you on the spot.
[0:13:07] PF: All right. Do it. I’m in.
[0:13:09] RS: Things that light me up. Something that lights me up is –
[0:13:13] PF: Music.
[0:13:15] RS: Keep going.
[0:13:16] PF: Dogs. My chickens, which I will talk about that.
[0:13:19] RS: Wow. Love that. Those light you up.
[0:13:22] PF: Driving fun cars lights me up.
[0:13:24] RS: Nice.
[0:13:25] PF: Writing. That’s absolute – that’s my background. Writing. Writing songs, writing lyrics, writing, putting any words on paper is a thrill to me.
[0:13:35] RS: Let’s imagine that you’ve just finished 12 of those sentences.
[0:13:39] PF: Okay.
[0:13:40] RS: I’d look at that list, or invite you to look at the list and just mark off what three are the most exciting three things on your list today. Tomorrow might be different. But for right now. Then what one thing can you either bring into your day, or plan to do tomorrow, or consciously activate in yourself. Pick one.
[0:14:07] PF: Music.
[0:14:08] RS: Music. Maybe you would say, after lunch today, I’m going to sit down and write the lyrics to a song, or sit down at the piano, or pick up my guitar, whatever way you like to explore music and just give myself the gift of 15 minutes to do that and see how you feel. See how it makes you feel and see what starts happening for you.
[0:14:32] PF: I love that approach, because someone could actually, after doing that exercise, plan out their week and say, “Each day, I’m going to wake up and I’m going to choose one.” What an incredible gift, because now you’re giving them as soon as they wake up, they have something that they’re looking forward to, because they get to go select something. Then when they know they’re going to do that, they have something all day to look forward to in doing it and then they get the lift from actually doing it. I mean, that’s an a – what an incredible approach.
[0:15:01] RS: Oh, thank you. Yeah. I love this tool. I use it all the time myself and I really believe in the power – what happens typically is the first few things on your list are the things that are top of mind and you’re right, really fast and you don’t add it and you let anything show up on that list. The things that come up around eight, or nine, or 11, or 12 are often things that surprise you, because that’s coming from your intuition. That’s coming from a knowing place that isn’t right up here in the front of your mind.
[0:15:29] PF: I love that. We’ll be back with more Live Happy Now in just a moment.
[BREAK]
[0:15:40] PF: Welcome back to Live Happy Now. What are some of the ways that you’ve seen it transform the women that you’ve worked with? Because I know you’ve worked with a lot of women and seeing a lot of remarkable kids.
[0:15:55] RS: One of my clients just shared with me something I didn’t even know. She’d come to work with me when she had had a terrible hit to her confidence. She was referred to me. She had a lot of job offers and she didn’t want to get it wrong again, because she’d been working in a very toxic setting. It was really finding herself again and connecting to her heart and believing in herself. Over time what she did is instead of taking one of those really good job offers, she decided to start her own business, because she was finding that people were interested in working with her and that was fun and it wasn’t as demanding as when she had been in this time position. She just shared with me that she had used the discovery dozen to create the name of her business, which I didn’t know. That’s how she brainstormed.
It’s a way to brainstorm ideas. It’s a way to get in touch with, I’m so confused about how I feel right now. What am I really feeling? Ask yourself, right now I’m feeling, and it could be excited about this, but frustrated about that. You identify things. You can generate possibilities. I have too many choices for what to do this weekend when my friends come to town. The things that excite me the most are. Then choose the ones on that list. Over and over again, people who use this tool get in touch with – I mean, somebody I spoke to yesterday who’s struggling. It’s like, how can I find some hope right now? What will give me some belief in myself again? And there she was. I remember that I did this. I will remind myself of that. At the end of that discovery dozen, she felt much better. It works in a myriad kinds of situations and many, many applications. Yeah.
[0:17:42] PF: How can someone create a daily creativity practice? How do you develop this as something you do? Because I imagine the effects of being able to do this daily would be profound for someone.
[0:17:56] RS: The way that I wrote my book, Live Big: A Manifesto for a Creative Life, is that it has 20 chapters. The first 10 are the what I call the being of living big, because we’re human beings, but we spend most of our time doing. The second half is the doing of living big. The chapters are incredibly short and concise. What was important to me was to give people ideas for ways to practice these ideas. Some of them are discovery dozens and some of them are not. People tell me all the time that they open the book to the chapter they need that day.
[0:18:29] PF: Oh, wow. I love that approach.
[0:18:33] RS: How will I live, speak my truth today? How will I look for wonder in my day? They find these exercises. Some people randomly open up the book and just say, “That’s what I needed today.” The fourth exercise in the chapter about being resilient, whatever it might be. But this is a way that you can bring small, activated practices into your day that will light you up, that will connect you to something deeper, that will inspire you in ways that you might not even envision are possible for you in a given day.
[0:19:08] PF: As we start this new year, there’s a lot of concerns, there’s a lot of turmoil, a lot of division, how can creativity help us going through these possibly very challenging times that lie ahead?
[0:19:24] RS: I’ve thought a lot about this and I think that one of the biggest gifts that we can give ourselves is to be fully present every day in the moment, because we spend a lot of time looking back with regret, or worry, or disappointment, or whatever, and a lot of focus on what’s coming and that can build anxiety. The truth is we don’t know what’s coming, but what we have is now. If we can be fully present to our day and find joy, look for wonder, open our hearts, make true, meaningful connections to other people, pursue what matters to us, what we believe in, look for connection, live with love, these are the ways that we can live our best lives every day, because if we support ourselves to bring our best frame of mind forward, we can activate our focus in ways that are really meaningful and not get sidetracked by worry, or dismay.
I believe Brené Brown has talked about micro-dosing hope. On the hardest days, we can micro-dose hope. If we live with an open spirit and true to our heart and with love as a driver and we’re fully present to how do we make this a meaningful day, we can build meaningful days and we can connect with other people who have similar beliefs and visions and work together and collaborate.
[0:20:54] PF: When we start out on the right path for the day and then we get off track, what kind of tips do you have for us getting back and resetting ourselves?
[0:21:05] RS: It’s a coming back to remembering that slowing down and being still, even just for one clock minute on your phone and breathing can be a reset. It’s remembering that you are a powerful creator and that you can create a new way of thinking, a new way of acting, a new way of moving through whatever you’re facing, a new filter through which a new lens through which to see the same thing. How can you turn something around from a challenge into an opportunity? You are a creator. You can always do that.
[0:21:45] PF: As we start getting that mindset and creativity becomes a habitual practice, how is that going to change the way we face our challenges?
[0:21:56] RS: I think every challenge, because we’re going to always have them. None of us gets a free pass, right? Life gets lifey. People get sick. Who knows what’s going to happen, right? I think that we have this opportunity to choose how we want to see the world and how we want to live each day, how we want to live each part of each day.
[0:22:19] PF: That’s wonderful. As we’re starting a new year, what are some of the simple habits that you’re going to prescribe that people start incorporating into their lives to build in more creative expression? We are going to tell them how to find you, your fantastic blog post, learn more about your conferences and your coaching and your books, but how do we get started? What are our little baby steps, take aways that we can do?
[0:22:44] RS: One of the things that I have been cultivating for myself and sharing with people and getting a lot of positive feedback is just a very simple morning practice. I have this little pad next to my bed. Before I get out of bed every morning, I fill one page in it and I know – I’ve timed myself. It takes me five minutes. Five minutes. What I do is I start with exactly how I feel. I had a good night sleep, or I had a bad night sleep. I’m concerned about a friend who’s ill, or I’m excited about what’s happening, whatever it might be. But I check in with where I am and I look ahead to the day, whether it’s a day full of opportunity, or challenge, or whatever.
I make a clear statement to myself about how I intend to show up and how I want to feel. I want to feel confident. I want to feel the day is flowing. I want to feel trusting. I want to believe that I have what it takes to do XYZ. I want to be filled with gratitude. Gratitude is incredibly powerful, and sometimes I write things specifically that I’m grateful for right in that moment. I want to be fueled by love. I just get my whole mindset oriented in the way that I want to feel. Honestly, by the time I finish that page and I always put a heart at the bottom and I step out of bed, I feel like I’ve got the power in me to create the day I want, and I highly recommend that.
[0:24:12] PF: What a wonderful way to start the day. That is absolutely amazing. I love that.
[0:24:17] RS: Yeah, thank you. But if for somebody else, it could be going out for a run. For somebody else, it could be lifting weights for 15 minutes. It could be different for everybody. That’s what’s been working for me. Whatever you do to consciously decide how you want to show up for your day.
[0:24:36] PF: I love this. Rochelle, you have so much that we can learn from you. I am excited to share your message with our listeners. Also, I thank you for coming on the show and for kicking off our new year in such a wonderful, creative spirit.
[0:24:50] RS: I feel very honored. Very, very honored to be in this conversation with you and to help all of your amazing listeners who all crave a happy life to find some piece of something that I shared today that will help them that would make me very happy.
[0:25:05] PF: Thank you so much.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:25:11] PF: That was Rochelle Seltzer, talking about the power of creativity. If you like to learn more about Rochelle and her retreats, discover her book, Live Big: A Manifesto for a Creative Life, sign up for her newsletter, or follow her on social media, visit us at livehappy.com and click on this podcast episode. We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of Live Happy Now, and if you aren’t already receiving us every week, we invite you to follow us so you never miss an episode. We’d love to hear from you, so please drop us a review and let us know what you think of the show.
That is all we have time for today. We’ll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one.
