Creativity As A Compass with Dan Mandel Ep 82

[00:00:00] ​VO Artist: Welcome to Your Creative Chord Podcast, where host Jenny Leigh Hodgins, author and educator, shares unique insights dedicated to empowering your creative flow and inspired living. Through solo reflections and dialogues with creators and wellness experts, Jenny Leigh shares holistic wisdom influenced by her Buddhist practice, alongside poetic insights and practical strategies for living authentically. This podcast helps you overcome challenges and unlock your full creative potential. 

[00:00:43] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: I'm Jenny Leigh Hodgins, a pianist, composer, music educator, poet, author, and Creative Empowerment Coach. I've helped thousands of music students, creatives, and burned out individuals, rebuild creative trust, restore energy, and reignite their joy. My work draws from four decades of Buddhist practice and a lifelong career in creative education and performance.

If you are feeling burned out, blocked, disconnected, or creatively curious, especially if you're exploring reigniting or struggling to focus on your creativity. I'm here to help you rebuild trust in your unique creative process so you can move forward with clarity, compassion, and a sense of creative alignment.

My Creative Empowerment Sampler offers encouragement and tools from my full Creative Empowerment Coaching Program. Creativity isn't a luxury. It's a vital renewable source of energy, healing, and joy. Get your free sampler and explore more at YourCreativeChord.com/getinspiredhere.

[00:01:48] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: Welcome to Your Creative Chord Podcast.

I'm your host Jenny Leigh. I'm excited to have a special guest today, singer songwriter, creativity coach, and host of the Creative Engagement Podcast. YouTube channel Dan Mandel. Dan empowers others to approach life with imaginative play and curiosity, especially during personal transitions like retirement.

Dan refers to himself as a chief encouragement officer and supports people in using creativity, not just to make art, but to live more meaningfully and with a deeper sense of adventure. Dan's philosophy is a beautiful synergy with your creative cord's mission to empower your creative flow and inspired living.

And I've enjoyed Dan's Creative Engagement Podcast. In fact, I was featured as a guest for his recent episode that aired on July 31. I can vouch for his passion for curiosity led creativity and storytelling. His songwriting background and exposure to new experiences through world travel gives him a distinctive lens on the creative process.

I'm really looking forward today to learning more about how Dan helps people reframe creativity as a powerful tool for self-discovery and problem solving. So let's get started. Welcome to Your Creative Chord Podcast, Dan. 

[00:03:10] Dan Mandel: Thank you so much. Thrilled to be here. We are so well aligned. I love it. 

[00:03:17] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: Yes, it's fun to meet your people.

[00:03:21] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: I'm so glad to have you here and explore your approach to creativity and coaching. So let's begin for our listeners with a little context on your background and creative path. Can you share a little bit about your path as a musician and coach, and how you came to see creativity as a tool? For personal growth and problem solving?

[00:03:42] Dan Mandel: Yeah. Yeah. So my background is, I have probably been writing songs since I was a young teenager, and then I started a college study. I thought I was gonna be a music major, and then it didn't feel quite right and it didn't match up with the pressures of. Being a moneymaking productive citizen, sort of, you know, had a meandering organic path to eventually a corporate career in finance and management.

[00:04:23] Dan Mandel: And pretty quickly I hit upon a work-life balance that I viewed my corporate work as funding my creative output. I remember that I would go on vacations and I would go to beach destinations. I would go to the beach and really not have that wonderful of a vacation. Like it was fun to be out in the beach.

[00:04:49] Dan Mandel: But then I got invited to this artistic retreat. It was in France and it was a big deal for me to go out of the country and travel to another country that spoke a different language. This vacation retreat was, it lasted probably a little bit more than a week, maybe nine days, and it was, I just remember like, it felt like I was there for two months.

[00:05:21] Dan Mandel: Each day had so many rich experiences and so that really set me up for, after that, I wasn't satisfied with a typical beach vacation. So I started seeking out these opportunities to explore artistry and creativity and music and co-writing. And then I, that really led me into a, an experience of, yeah, a work-life balance where.

[00:05:49] Dan Mandel: By day I was this corporate, you know, manager maintaining banking websites, and then by night or on the weekends, I was writing songs and collaborating and really exploring creativity over time. People started using this word and like, Hey, could you coach me through like, how, how, how do you do this? Even at work, the word coach became part of vocabulary.

[00:06:17] Dan Mandel: As a manager. I was coaching the staff and so then I thought like, what is this thing about life coaching? Like I've heard that term. And then I thought, well, maybe I should explore that, and that became like a wonderful like. Like I have skills that really are suitable for life coaching. And then I learned even more and more lessons about what is to be a really good coach.

[00:06:47] Dan Mandel: What does it mean to be a good listener? And it really deepened me into these things that I had some skills at. But I was really learning more and more how to be an encouraging spirit for other people. 

[00:07:03] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: It's such a beautiful story and it's interesting to me that that other people helped you see your coaching skills before you even saw that yourself.

[00:07:15] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: It was a natural extension of your skills as a coach. Uh, love how you segued from approaching music and deciding that majoring in music and following that kind of route to exploring creativity wasn't a fit for you and what a solid. Wonderful path you laid with the best of both worlds, the solid corporate financial stability paired with exploring whatever you want to explore and any creator, I'm sure would be excited to hear about the trip to France and a retreat in engaging with other artists.

[00:07:52] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: I've heard, 'cause I listen to your podcast, creative Engagement, and I hear you talking with various guests. About the fact that you've actually met many of them at artist type retreats and travels that you've made around the world. So I'd love to hear more about how your experience as a world traveler influenced your songwriting and your own creative expression.

[00:08:15] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: Can you elaborate on that a little bit? 

[00:08:17] Dan Mandel: Oh yeah. It's been just the most wonderful, I use the word adventure a lot in my work with. Reframing retirement as seeing it as an adventure. I don't know that my mom explicitly ever like sat me down and said, here's a life philosophy, but I got from her this idea that the more you can see your life as an adventure, the more it reshapes your attitudes and the way that you can approach life, and it just makes your life feel better.

[00:08:55] Dan Mandel: And I have seen that. Not every second of my life is an adventure. There are some very mundane aspects, but a lot of world travel has been scary, challenging, weird. I've made some stupid choices that I had to then recover from. I had to learn how. Trains work and how to read a train ticket. These artist retreats that I went to were sort of cross disciplinary, so it wasn't just singer songwriters, it was actors and dancers, sculptors and painters and healers and all different stripes of artists.

[00:09:41] Dan Mandel: And so my work life balance, I got to sort of see the contrast with. Other people's work-life balance choices and their choices. Some people chose paths where they made a living primarily from their art, and I saw how that shaped their choices and it was different from, and I saw that in my work-life balance, I had more freedom to write songs about anything at all that came into my mind.

[00:10:13] Dan Mandel: I wasn't necessarily beholden to. What would make money or what was being asked of me that might make money. I think it's not always a good idea to compare yourself to other people, but I did see there were a lot of lessons, sometimes cautionary tales, sometimes like real deep lessons. I learned a lot about discipline along the way, but I am very, very slow to appreciating and.

[00:10:44] Dan Mandel: Really actually learning the lessons of discipline. It's only very recently that I've sort of dug in and thought, okay, I need to really address my resistance to discipline and my growth as a learner. And so like even meeting you, that was part of the, oh, so this is, this is what. It really means to learn lessons of discipline about how to be a piano player, how to be a guitar player, how to be a singer, and so I'm really, really appreciative of discipline and practice.

[00:11:21] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: Love that. Even all the influences of the different artists and artistry that you encountered in your travels. Have come full circle to helping you address certain aspects of your own creativity that you want to further explore and improve upon. And I love that you frequently refer to work life balance.

[00:11:40] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: That seems to be a theme with your coaching approach that, and I know that you help people in the transition of retirement as well, and that's a wonderful thing to think about. Whether you're an overworked, overwhelmed, creative, or someone having to do it to meet a commercial bar or standard. Or to create something that someone else wants.

[00:12:00] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: And also balancing that with your own kind of sense of adventure. And I love that you have that attitude toward creativity, uh, the sense of adventure. You certainly have been living that with all of your travels and the way that you weave that in with your podcast guests, and I wanna share a quick, can totally relate to going to different countries.

[00:12:18] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: I lived in Japan for five years and I remember I didn't know how to speak Japanese when I went. And so I remember very vividly. Going into the grocery store and seeing items of food that I had never seen before and can't read it, you know, and I remember getting a train, getting mixed up on a train ride and going like two hours the wrong direction before I finally figured out.

[00:12:41] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: But I learned very quickly simple things like how do you find the bathroom? How do you find the exit? Which way is a direction and how to read signs, you know, and what kind of food is where in the stores? But the reason I bring that up is because your mention of a sense of adventure, wow. Going to different countries really is an adventure and it's research back to that when we try new things that will definitely inspire new ways of thinking and new creativity.

[00:13:09] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: But as you're experiencing, like you just mentioned, now you're coming to kind of a self-reflection and years later through all these experiences, it's kind of cumulating into. How to address discipline, which is a thread that you saw in lots of the artists that you've encountered. Are there any particular places or cultures you've encountered that have really shaped your personal musical voice or your storytelling approach, or even your coaching approach?

[00:13:38] Dan Mandel: Well, I haven't been to that many different countries, mainly to France and UK 

[00:13:45] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: more than I've been to. 

[00:13:47] Dan Mandel: I did recently go to a co-writing workshop in Greece on the island of Cree, so that was amazing to see that. But I would say that particularly in Scotland and Ireland, they have this gathering that they call these, this were Hailey, I know if you've heard of that word before, but it's sort of like a, their version of a block party, and there's this expectation that.

[00:14:15] Dan Mandel: People are going to be sharing songs and poetry. Maybe there would be dancing, there's usually gonna be singing, probably also drinking and chocolate. I've always wished that there would be more of that in the states, that there would be more a sense of of like, Hey, if you have a song storm communal, 

[00:14:35] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: it's kind of communal.

[00:14:36] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: Yeah, yeah. 

[00:14:37] Dan Mandel: And not such a barrier to, I think in the States there's more of a. Professionalism culture or credentialed culture where if you're gonna sing a song, well, are you a singer? Are you professional? Where have you gigged? Are you on par with Elton John and Taylor Swift? If not, then why are we listening to you and these older cultures?

[00:15:02] Dan Mandel: You get more of the folk aspect of isn't it beautiful to share music and not so much like. Are you gonna play perfectly? Also in Scotland, there is a lot of original folk music currently being written, so the indie folk scene is very alive and that's probably also reflected in the Fringe Festival there.

[00:15:27] Dan Mandel: That's such a big cultural, you know, internationally known. Arts festival that people expect original, innovative materials gonna come out of. So that's very exciting. And so I, I've kind of let that shape me in that I feel very buoyed up by isn't it fun to be original and innovative and do things that don't quite sound like the mainstream?

[00:15:58] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: Love that. And to be authentically yourself in your expression. To me, that's the crux of what being a creative is all about and a love that you brought in the, I call it communal, I guess, but it's a culture. You know, the culture of the Scottish and the Irish to include as a part of their daily life.

[00:16:17] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: Americans in general, definitely, I agree that we've gotten away from that, but our roots are that Native Indians in America and the African Americans, the Black Americans, culture and rhythm, and music and dance, and singing is. Deeply entrenched in those cultures, and we've unfortunately squashed it out of the culture in America.

[00:16:37] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: So, uh, singing those praises and bringing that back into the norm of experiencing creativity. Yeah, 

[00:16:43] Dan Mandel: I think you can see it really clearly. If you think of, at what age do you stop having your kids' artwork on your refrigerator? You know, when they're five, when they're six. When they're seven, but when they're.

[00:16:58] Dan Mandel: 16. Do we put up their artwork on their refrigerator when they're 17, when they're 31? I think that there's more of a possibility for us to keep being creators and keep play in our lives throughout and we don't need to be squashing it so much. Really, as you and I know, 'cause we've been paying attention to creativity and.

[00:17:26] Dan Mandel: Innovation and play. Those things make us better workers, better citizens, better partners, better family members, better people. 

[00:17:36] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: So bearing all of that in mind, how would you describe your incorporating that in your typical songwriting process, and how do you balance feeling inspired or getting inspiration with discipline, as you mentioned in creating new music?

[00:17:52] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: How do you incorporate those or what's your process like? 

[00:17:56] Dan Mandel: Yeah, it, it's fascinating to me. I don't know that I have a consistent process. I do go back to incorporating the wisdom that I've learned about practice and discipline, that I go back to these messages that I got throughout the years, that how am I spending my day?

[00:18:16] Dan Mandel: That's how I'm practicing. So if I'm watching tv. 5, 6, 7 hours a day, then that is my practice. And it's not necessarily, uh, like a judgment that TV's bad. You could make a case for that, that watching that much TV isn't good, but whatever we spend our time at, and that could be doom scrolling on a phone. It could be.

[00:18:47] Dan Mandel: But if we consider the time that we spend throughout our day, that is our practice. And if we start there and say, what do we want to be focusing our minds and our beings on, then that's a better way to say. How would you like your practice to be throughout the day? Over the years, I've more and more set up my life to be, have a practice around going to music.

[00:19:16] Dan Mandel: To express myself and asking myself what wants to be expressed. And so that comes up very organically and strangely and almost dreamlike. I just recently published a song that I wrote with my brother, mark Mandell, and he and I have written songs jointly together in different ways. This time I noticed I had a chord progression and I had some garbage lyrics that, so I guess it, it is a process for me, like I'll come up with a interesting chord progression, and I do, I guess even the Beatles did this, is they would come up with a interesting chord progression.

[00:20:02] Dan Mandel: And so for this song, the word 17 kind of fit the rhythm. So I was singing about 17, and then I thought, well, I really don't have any, I don't know what this song wants to be when it grows up. I had just written a song with my brother, so I sent him the chord progression and I said. Would you send me, like, do you have any lyrics?

[00:20:28] Dan Mandel: He's always, he has quite a interesting daily discipline of creating a painting and a poem, and he works very differently than I do, but he's has his own discipline, so he sent me some lyrics and I smooshed him into place. Then I said, you know, I think I need a chorus now that you've given me. Seems like you've given me some verses.

[00:20:54] Dan Mandel: Then he sent me some more lyrics and I created a chorus out of that, and then I said, I think I need a refrain now. So he sent me something and back and forth we had this 

[00:21:08] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: collaboration. That's so interesting that you approach it with really opening yourself up to what is the intent. Of this, what does this music want to sound like?

[00:21:18] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: That spirit of curiosity, you know, and I think most really successful creators set that inner critic aside, and we set those comparisons aside. We even set in some ways, discipline aside, in my case, those things to me are very much secondary to what you just described of tuning into what you're feeling, tuning into.

[00:21:41] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: Kind of being almost like a medium for the message to come through you. Right. And I loved how you described how we spend our day is, you know, what we're feeding ourselves is what's going to fuel what's coming out of ourselves creatively. So I agree that TV and scrolling and things can be good depending on how you want to use it.

[00:22:02] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: And I think it's very important to be intentional about how you use it, exploring other people's creativity and ideas. Is research backed and common disciplines that all creators use to fuel their own inspiration. And like your brother is one example of that. His words inspired you 'cause he thought about it differently.

[00:22:21] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: So I think it's important that we can use anything basically to inspire ourselves. But your point of watching out, you know, being kind of cognizant of how we're spending our day, that really resonates with me too, as a Buddhist, as an SGI, Buddhist, it's cause and effect. What we're doing now is building what our future will look like.

[00:22:40] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: So I love that you're looking carefully at your discipline and how you were approaching that in your creativity because you're growing that and you're growing in a new direction with that. I'm sure you feel that with the collaborations and the music that you're writing, right? Oh, 

[00:22:54] Dan Mandel: yeah. And I've started actual piano lessons with a piano teacher.

[00:23:00] Dan Mandel: What? So I'm, I'm in that Jenny Leigh world of like. Oh, okay. So now I get to really try out all the ideas around, okay, can I play this piece three times without mistake, can I? And it's so fascinating as an adult learner to come back to how am I gonna deal with the actual real frustrations? And I know that we talked about this when I interviewed you and but to really encounter the frustrations.

[00:23:33] Dan Mandel: I've learned in the past month or so that I need to remember to use the tools. So I need to remember to slow down and it's so bizarre to me that I know how to slow down. I, that seems almost idiotic to like say that like I can slow down, but. It is surprising to me how slow I needed to go in order to learn to get the, to get the music in my fingers and make a connection between what I was reading and what I could play right, and that if I would just really go as slow as needed.

[00:24:20] Dan Mandel: Then I could later speed up and hear what the piece sounded like. Initially. I had to practice it so slowly that I couldn't even have a sense of what is this song. 

[00:24:33] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: Right? Yes. And I wanna chime into, for listeners who don't know what he's referring to when he is in the world of Jenny Leigh, if you don't know, I taught piano and music for 30 years.

[00:24:43] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: I had a piano Facebook group and some events that featured different educators, and I have multiple podcasts that are piano specific for new and returning learners because it's based on my start piano, what you Need for Successful Learning book. What Dan's referring to is. The content that is shared on those episodes, it's about skill building if you are new or returning to the piano.

[00:25:06] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: And I love how you mentioned these are all disciplines. These are learning and art of how to play a musical instrument or any kind of creative expression. It does require that discipline, and I love that you mentioned going slow as idiotic. It may seem idiotic because. In my 30 years of teaching, particularly teenage to adult students, I can't tell you how many people think that's idiotic because it seems like a no-brainer.

[00:25:34] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: But slowing down is itself, not just related to piano, but in general, it's a discipline that as we learn, you know, to slow ourselves down, we can start paying more attention to what's right in front of us. And I think. That's a critical skill, not just for piano, but it's across many creative, you know, modalities that as we breathe and find stillness, it, it's really down to becoming mindful with one step at a time in front of us.

[00:26:04] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: That really does open up incredible listening skills and when you can listen and you, you're able to find spots where you can improve and that's where you as a pianist anyway, that's where you. Evaluate where you are, what you need to do to change it, and then you attack that one thing at a time. But I'd love how you're describing learning piano skills as a discipline and how that fits into the full picture of being a creator and a coach.

[00:26:35] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: Obviously, you love piano and you love learning, and you love music and creation, so you're mixing that blend of inspiration and the motivation that you naturally feel and want and that desire to improve yourself. With now you're really honing in on your disciplinary training in certain aspects with creating new music as well.

[00:26:56] Dan Mandel: Yeah. I love being able to demonstrate to myself that I can learn a new instrument, that I can apply these discipline techniques and then come out the other side and amaze myself. And yes, now I've learned three pieces. I haven't read notation in years and years and years. And yet even then, the next piece, the fourth piece that I'm gonna tackle, I have to go back to remembering to slow down basics, separating my left hand and my right hand and foundational work.

[00:27:33] Dan Mandel: Yes. And then in, in my practice, I've talked to my piano teacher about that, that this time around as an adult learner, I really wanna learn. How to learn. You know, I really want to make sure that what he's giving me is really kind of a breakdown of how to practice, what to prioritize, and how to be efficient with it.

[00:28:00] Dan Mandel: Right. And I have the willingness now to spend maybe an hour or more each day. Wow, that's great. And going through the things and how to make that fun. Yeah. And how to have the practice be an expected part of each day, so that like, if it doesn't happen, it's like, oh, that Monday is not complete. 

[00:28:25] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: Yeah. We've done that.

[00:28:27] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: Creating a practice is so critical that, and that's, you know, it's foundational to really being successful at creating sustainably. You've got to have practices in place. What you just described to me is discipline, you know, learning how to learn. Setting in place of practice so that you can learn how to learn. That's discipline right there, and you've just encompassed that. I love that.

[00:28:51]  Jenny Leigh Hodgins: It's easy to doubt your inherent creativity, especially when life is busy or you're feeling burned out. I remember feeling completely stuck trying to write a commissioned song for a client's wedding. My inner critic kept telling me my musical style wasn't going to be feasible.

 I was completely blocked. But I leaned on my Creative Exploration Formula, a simple roadmap I use for myself and my clients. I let go of expectations. I even gave myself permission to write the worst song possible, and as soon as I did. The words in music just burst forth easily. This is just one of the tools I share in my Creative Empowerment Coaching Program, helping you address your energy, overcome blocks, reconnect with your inherent creative voice, and move forward with clarity and confidence.

If you are ready to rebuild, trust in your inherent creativity and explore it without pressure. Let's work together. Get started here, YourCreativeChord.com/workwithme. 

[00:29:55] Dan Mandel: The name of this retreat that I went to about 14 times over the years was called The Discipline of Freedom. Wow. It was that, that this really deep look across many different art forms and styles, how to be better artists and the form and function of are we at each point as free as we can be.

[00:30:25] Dan Mandel: If we're not free in our voice, in our body, in our thoughts, in our mind, how can we achieve greater levels of freedom? It was a very rich exploration that just enhanced my life. 

[00:30:42] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: That's beautiful. It sounds wonderful, and for me that's about not just play and curiosity, but being willing to be vulnerable, to really open myself vulnerably.

[00:30:54] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: To, like you were saying earlier, to ask myself, where does this creativity want to go? What is its message? And just really honing in on that. To me, that's kind of a critical guiding point for any of my creative expression. You mentioned that many people see, and you seem to do this as well, see creativity as a kind of an exploration of curiosity or fun, but people often, as we've talked that maybe yourself included until this point, you've overlooked discipline.

[00:31:23] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: The growth that's involved that comes from disciplining yourself. How do you help people reframe practice and discipline with regard to creativity? So it feels empowering and not like drudgery, and I think 

[00:31:36] Dan Mandel: it's reframing both fun and drudgery. Like a lot of this work has shown me various ways to see my own mind.

[00:31:49] Dan Mandel: I think of the, this, you've probably heard of the idea of creating a mind map and you, and you keep going and eventually you have a, a map of how your mind Yeah. Visual map of how your mind sees a certain set of ideas. And if you keep going and you keep going, eventually you have the, a page full of circles and ideas that shows you your mind.

[00:32:14] Dan Mandel: And that's, that's a fascinating way to get to know yourself. This idea of how do you spend an average day thinking of that as your practice and starting to get to know your own mind and, and like we were talking about, the difficulty of slowing down, the difficulty of, of bringing awareness to your present experience.

[00:32:43] Dan Mandel: I think that we all need to reframe this idea of boredom, like modern life. It seems like we're trying to orchestrate our whole life so that we're never, ever bored. There's, if you're bored, you only have yourself to blame. You should be constantly entertained 24 7, and then even when you're sleeping, you're dreaming.

[00:33:04] Dan Mandel: So there's no never bored. There's no downtime. No one should ever be bored, but in reality, boredom. Is an indicator of something is going on, and to judge that as always bad. I don't think that's the right framework. Sometimes we need our mind to have some downtime. We need there. People in, there are articles written from a psychological standpoint about how gazing out the window and daydreaming is a part of.

[00:33:39] Dan Mandel: Our mind digesting our thoughts, excuse me. And kind of letting space be, and not sort of demonizing those down times and those bored periods. So I think that can affect things like, like why am I watching so much television? It's to combat boredom. To not face the presence of maybe things like loneliness.

[00:34:12] Dan Mandel: And so in my own life I've learned some really deep lessons about what's the difference between living alone and being lonely. What's the experience of experiencing loneliness and is that okay to experience? Boredom. I think that taking a deep look and getting to know ourselves is one of the rich aspects of reframing discipline.

[00:34:42] Dan Mandel: So I think no matter where you start, we're all very, very different. People come to me in coaching with various goals, things they either want to be doing that aren't doing, or things that they wanna stop doing that they are doing. There's no one path. So everyone has to find their own way in. And one of the main things that I've learned about coaching is I'm not there to necessarily figure out something or be an advice giver for whoever comes to me for coaching.

[00:35:15] Dan Mandel: It's more like I am, I've learned over time that I need to be a master encourager and say. I trust that you will find your answer and your way in, and you need to find your own answer and your way in, because that's the way that you're gonna fully invest and follow through. If it's from my advice, you might follow someone else's advice, but you probably won't.

[00:35:44] Dan Mandel: But when it's your own advice in your own way, you're much more likely. To follow through, to be accountable to yourself. So those are some very important factors and I don't take it as one size fits all. So I really explore and there's a lot of creativity and say like, what's your way? What's your unique take on what will get you from point A to point B?

[00:36:12] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: I like wonderful holistic answer there because it really does reflect, I've heard some of your. I think you call them encouraging sessions. Encouragement sessions. Encouragement sessions, sorry. Where you literally coach someone through something and your style is exactly that. Your style appears to be the ultimate listener and you find ways to ask questions to draw out from the client or the person seeking change to reveal to themselves what it is they're looking for or what it is that is blocking them.

[00:36:45] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: And I agree with you wholeheartedly, that just giving people steps to do without really listening to them or helping them inquire within themselves, just like we do in piano practice, evaluating what the problem is. You know, taking a moment to kind of step back and look at it. I love your approach to that.

[00:37:03] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: It does help people kind of reframe the drudgery of things, and also it helps people reframe, get away from the idea that they're not gonna find it externally. If they're gonna find it internally, and I love that you're a guide for them to facilitate that process. Basically. That's how I've seen you in your coaching manner.

[00:37:23] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: And you also touched on something that I do. My coaching program focuses a lot on burnout, recovery or resetting your energy and the idea of stillness. You talked about, you know, we're trying to get away from being bored and people scrolling and watching TV is just escapism or avoidance sometimes. And embracing that as a discipline to just be comfortable with sitting, still daydreaming, looking out the window, feeling and, and, and just acknowledging and noticing your feelings and just questioning it and not trying to do anything about it.

[00:37:59] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: Just sitting still enough that you, I, I notice this with myself because we're in such a high paced society that when I finally sit still. I'm practicing this a lot personally, in my own burnout, recovery sitting still brings up for me so many things. And if I keep myself busy in whatever way, whether it's TV or work, engaging with socially or whatever, I'm avoiding it.

[00:38:24] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: I'm avoiding the growth and the joy that can, and the creativity that can come from that. And in that you talked about earlier, how. Know the psychological studies and things that show this. I've interviewed a lot of creatives. I've interviewed experts. I've read tons of research and experts talking about what fuels creativity.

[00:38:43] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: And you hit the nail on the head. It's when we are able to be still and hear our own voices, and that's a practice that people are not accustomed to. That's why slowing down is challenging. 'cause we have to learn to do that again, I think. But switching gears, what role do you think. Curiosity plays in sustaining a creative practice, especially when people are facing blocks or they're losing motivation or they're having trouble sitting still.

[00:39:12] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: How do you think curiosity can help with that? 

[00:39:17] Dan Mandel: That's a delicious question. I think of curiosity as really like a superpower and. It's almost like a mysterious thing to explore. I don't know that you could necessarily package up curiosity and say, you can always be curious this way. I was exploring anger and one of the, just like you, you've been talking like all these things, burnout, E, each of these things has sort of a signature energy.

[00:39:56] Dan Mandel: Anger has a signature energy and people have different relationships with anger, but in each person, you probably know when you're angry, you probably feel when your face feels flushed or your chest gets tight and your throat, you feel like you wanna scream and that signature of anger. I think what's interesting is anger is one of those emotions that.

[00:40:23] Dan Mandel: For me represents the absence of creativity and the absence of curiosity. When I'm really, really angry, I'm very likely not curious about anything, and I'm definitely not feeling like, oh, let's be creative. I've been creating a course. How can we look at anger a different way and even create a score for an incident of anger so we could really kind of analyze it.

[00:40:52] Dan Mandel: And so I was in that mindset and then I had a leaky window during a storm and I got upset. And I called a contractor to ask questions about how much will it cost to fix my window? And. Right away. He brought up several things that let me know that I did not know a lot about how buildings are built and how windows are constructed.

[00:41:20] Dan Mandel: And I noticed I got even more angry in the process. And then I had a little thought, uh, about the game Monopoly when you have a get out of jail free card. I thought, what if I could introduce just one question? I don't have to be curious when I'm angry, but if I could have one question, one, get out of anger free card, what question could I ask myself that would maybe make the conversation a little bit better or maybe help me work through my anger?

[00:41:59] Dan Mandel: And I, I don't know that I came up with a, a golden question at that moment, but just that thought. Help me relax a little bit, and I think I asked the contractor, well, I don't know everything about building materials like you do, and if you were in my shoes, what would be the best way to make this decision?

[00:42:24] Dan Mandel: That's one way to bring some curiosity. So I noticed that even with anger you can bring in just a little bit of curiosity and this idea of a get out of anger or get out of upset question, like if you could just had one question, it really did transformed my experience. And so I think that if we start to look at it like almost like you could dig a pit that a pit.

[00:42:57] Dan Mandel: Big enough that you'd have to climb a ladder down into just one question, can sort of let you climb one rung of that ladder out of that pit and help you regulate your emotions, help you have a better experience. Right. And who wouldn't want a better experience when you get so supremely angry that you might damage a relationship or yourself?

[00:43:23] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: Right. Right. That is a great. Example of using creative curiosity to navigate an unexpected challenge, an unexpected emotion, or a difficult emotion or, and you can apply that to transitions. I love how you're approaching that. That is basically creativity in action. That's a great story to exemplify that.

[00:43:44] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: I appreciate that. Yeah. Can you tell us what really fuels your coaching work?

[00:43:52] Dan Mandel: Yeah, I think that I really feel a lot of empathy for people who are suffering, and I know that I have,

[00:44:07] Dan Mandel: I have suffered myself. I've had physical pain. I've experienced loneliness. I've experienced depression. Especially the places where I've found healing or relief, sometimes even distraction can be a way to move through or past something, and I really like to share that it's possible to make a shift or a change.

[00:44:39] Dan Mandel: It really is possible to recognize these different signatures of energy. Choose the ones that you want to experience and diminish the ones that you don't want to experience or that are causing you suffering or problems. 

[00:45:00] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: I love that you, it really does resonate with my Buddhist mentor. Daisaku Ikeda said, "Hope is a choice." And what you're saying is it's a choice and you have that choice.

[00:45:12] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: To be able to make a change. It's a wonderful motivation for your coaching work. We've all experienced the same, you know, kind of struggles. We all have the same exact feelings and struggles in our lives, so obviously we can empathize and we can work through it. If one person can do it, somebody else can.

[00:45:28] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: I love that your coaching work can give people hope to be able to make those changes for themselves. And so thank you for sharing that and let us know where they can find you. 

[00:45:38] Dan Mandel: Yeah, so my music is out in all the typical places, Spotify, apple Music, almost any of the streaming services. And you can always email me at coach@danielrmandel.com.

[00:45:55] Dan Mandel: Daniel r mandel.com is my website. And then the podcast is Creative Engagement, uh, and all the podcast streaming services. I just this year started a new YouTube channel, which is also called Creative Engagement. 

[00:46:12] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: Lovely, lovely. And I'll have all those links in the show notes so you guys can all find that easily.

[00:46:17] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: I wanna thank you so much, Dan Mandel for being my guest today. I deeply appreciate the insight that you've shared with us today and the encouragement you're bringing through your creative process, your coaching process, your Creative Engagement Podcast. And you know, through your coaching offers to people, it's very clear your passion for creativity as a tool for meaningful living.

[00:46:39] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: It really truly aligns with what we celebrate here on Your Creative Chord Podcast. And thank you, dear listener, for hanging in there with us today. If today's episode resonated with you, please consider sharing it with a fellow creative or somebody ready to explore what's next in their life through the lens of curiosity and imagination.

[00:46:58] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: Thank you again for listening to Your Creative Chord Podcast. Until next time, may you keep empowering your creative flow and inspired living. See you soon.

[00:47:08] Jenny Leigh Hodgins: Feeling burned out, blocked or disconnected, or maybe you're creatively curious but unsure where to start? My Creative Empowerment Coaching Program helps you rebuild trust in your unique creative process.

 I use my Inspirational Bookmark Trio as a practical roadmap to help you reset your energy, nurture your creativity, and overcome obstacles. You'll gain clarity, self-compassion, and actionable strategies to confidently explore and express your creativity, ready to ignite your creativity. 

Visit YourCreativeChord.com/workwithme to learn more and sign up today. 

[00:47:48] VO Artist: Thank you for listening to Your Creative Chord Podcast. If you found inspiration in today's episode, please leave a review and subscribe to the show. Your support helps spread the message of creativity and inspired living. Stay connected with Jenny Leigh and a vibrant community of creatives and curious minds.

[00:48:08] VO Artist: Visit YourCreativeChord.com for more resources. Remember, daily life is where your creative flow begins. Embrace the journey.