Pod Insights How to Be a Better Human Why you are starved for creativity—and how to fix it (w/ Katina Bajaj) About this episode Katina Bajaj is a scientist studying “creative health.” She looks at the role of play, fun, art, and creativity in our overall wellbeing. When was the last time you’ve gone on an “awe walk?” For Katina, carving out time where she’s not listening to music or podcasts on her walks but instead smelling the hydrangeas or allowing her mind to wander is a key way to destress. Katina joins Chris to talk about why adults are starved for creativity and why it’s important to push through the discomfort when trying something new for the first time.
Featured guest
Follow Katina Bajaj on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/katina.bajaj/?hl=en, LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kmountanos/, and at https://www.katinabajaj.com/Subscribe to Katina's Substack Creative Health https://daydreamerspace.substack.com/aboutWatch Katina's TED Talk https://www.ted.com/talks/katina_bajaj_how_play_boosts_your_creativity_and_resilience
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Follow Chris on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/chrisiduffy/?hl=en and at chrisduffycomedy.com https://chrisduffycomedy.com/Buy Chris’ book, Humor Me https://t.ted.com/ZGuYfcL Watch How to Be a Better Human videos on YouTube at TEDAudioCollective https://www.youtube.com/TEDAudioCollectiveFollow TED on X https://x.com/TEDTalks, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/ted, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TED, LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/ted-conferences/, and TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@tedtoksFor the full text transcript, visit go.ted.com/BHTranscripts https://go.ted.com/BHTranscripts
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0:02 Chris Duffy? This is How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. We're in the middle of a series right now on our podcast that's all about the importance of play. It's been really fun to think about how play could work more in our lives and what a more playful life might look like. But this week, on this episode, we want to talk more about the why. Why is play actually such a big deal? Why does having a playful life matter? What is the science behind it? That's what today's guest, Katina Bajaj, studies. She has a master's in clinical psychology from Columbia University's Mind Body Institute. And Katina describes her work as "the intersection of psychology, neuroscience, and behavior change, making the case for why our creative health isn't a luxury but
0:44 Chris Duffy? a necessity in an ever-changing world." Here's a clip from Katina's TED Talk.
0:49 Speaker 01 When I was eight years old, I had this ritual. After I finished my homework, I'd head upstairs to my room, turn on my favorite Christina Aguilera CD, and sit on the floor, surrounding myself with all this stuff that was supposed to make me playful. I'd take out my Barbies one by one, spread out my markers in every color, and then I'd wait, and I'd wait, and I'd wait, until something felt worthy enough, perfect enough, to make. That moment barely ever came. Ever since I was a kid, play felt like something that I had to earn. And when I finally did do it, I took it seriously. My favorite game
1:34 Speaker 01 growing up was emergency room doctor. I'd force my younger brother to scrub in, robes on, beanie babies fully prepped, and I was head surgeon, of course, so there was no room for mistakes in my OR. Most people don't become play skeptics until they're adults. But for me, even at eight, I was questioning the point of it. So I ended up doing what any reasonable skeptic would do, and I became a scientist. I got my master's in clinical psychology and spent almost the last decade studying the science of creativity. And what I discovered surprised me because creativity isn't just a talent.
2:16 Speaker 01 It is a core part of all of our wellbeing, a pillar that I came to establish and become a fierce advocate for called creative health. And one of the best strategies that we have to strengthen our creative health is exactly what I dismissed as a kid: play.
2:34 Chris Duffy? We're gonna have more from Katina in just a moment, but first, a quick break. Stay tuned.
2:48 Chris Duffy? This episode is sponsored by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Here's a question this show asks a lot: what can one person actually do? Take protecting the environment. When the task feels so big, it's hard to know where to even begin. Turns out, the answer isn't doing it alone. It's teaming up with people who care as much as you do. With the help of 3 million supporters, the Natural Resources Defense Council is in court to defend ancient forests, pristine coasts, and the wildlife that depend on them. None of these places or species can be replaced. They're still here because people fought for them, in and out of court. And that fight needs your support today. Donate at N R D C dot org slash human, and your gift will be matched five times.
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4:50 Chris Duffy? And we are back. Today, we're talking all about the science at play in creativity with Katina Bajaj.
4:57 Speaker 01 Hi, everyone. I'm Katina Bajaj. I am a creative health scientist and I'm also the co-founder and chief science officer of Daydreamers.
5:04 Chris Duffy? For people in the academic world, I think that many of them know you most as the person who has really articulated this idea of creative health. Can you explain to us what that means? Because that's a term that I think many people haven't heard before.
5:19 Speaker 01 I really see creative health as this individual pillar of our wellbeing. So just like our physical and mental health, creative health is something that we need to focus on and strengthen as a way to increase our vitality, to deal with and cope with challenges and friction in life, and ultimately to be able to think as creatively and originally as possible, which I think are all really overlooked components of our wellbeing and our capacity to flourish.
5:52 Chris Duffy? Why is creativity important? Why does it matter?
5:55 Speaker 01 Yeah, well, I mean, I actually grew up as a creative skeptic. So I actually came to this work because I didn't necessarily understand why creativity was so important for me as someone who didn't really associate with being an artist and didn't really understand its impact in my daily life as someone who maybe fit more on the scientific and math realm of things. And what I came to recognize as I really started to study the science of creativity is that it is a fundamental human behavior. It's something that evolved in our brain over thirty thousand years ago and really has allowed us to do many of the human things
6:40 Speaker 01 that we've done in that span of time. It's helped us build buildings and even learn how to cooperate and tell stories and be able to function as a society. So I think it's, you know, at the core of all of these aspects of our humanity that we really kind of undervalue in our world today. And I think actually, in this moment in history, it's really coming to the forefront of why it's so incredibly urgent and important for all of us to really take part and strengthen our creative health.
7:13 Chris Duffy? Tell me about that. Why is this moment in particular a moment where it really matters and it's urgent more than ever?
7:19 Speaker 01 I think all of us can agree that we are living through a massive period of uncertainty on many different fronts, right? Whether that's economic, technological, you know, all these different aspects of our society are changing. And really, the core fundamental aspect of our creativity that is really what kind of it exists for is to help us bring new ideas to the surface and also adapt and change. Really, at the basis of it, the way I like to define creativity is two different angles. One is our capacity to imagine and ask the question, what if things could be different? So anytime you do that in your daily life, you are engaging in creative
8:05 Speaker 01 And then on the other side is this really unique human capacity to not just imagine and daydream and iterate in our brain, but bring that into reality, to actually make something new that exists in the physical world, which I think is just such a cool human feature, right? And in this time where everything is changing, being able to ask those questions and then also adapt and grow is something that I think we all, yeah, are gonna need to be able to do.
8:39 Chris Duffy? Going from a creativity skeptic to studying creativity, so this being your, your day in and day out life, that's a really big leap. What happened?
8:49 Speaker 01 When I really first kind of started thinking about the power of creativity, I was in the depths of burnout. I was working in finance, actually, in New York City, and I realized that, you know, I was trying all of these different things to care for myself. I was meditating and running and, you know, doing all the things that we're typically told to do. And I still kind of felt empty inside, like there was this lack of vitality that I really felt like it was missing. And one day, I, on the subway, actually, ended up using my work notebook and started to just write. And it was something that I hadn't done since I was a kid, since I was, you know, eight
9:34 Speaker 01 years old. And in the moment, I felt alive for the first time in years. And I think that's really what creativity allows us to do, is to feel all the components of what it means to be human. And I feel like, you know, this is what this show is about, right, is how to be a better human. And it, it kind of wakes up so many components of us that really get, get shadowed out while we're living in this very achievement and productivity oriented world. So that's kind of how I came to this, was through this kind of personal awakening. And then, you know, coming from my skeptic brain, I really had to understand how that worked. Was this just me, or was this something that was a
10:16 Speaker 01 universal human experience? And why did it happen?
10:20 Chris Duffy? I love that you said, this isn't a scientific term, I felt alive. From a scientific perspective, I was still dead inside, but I had felt alive a tiny bit. It took a long time for me to be technically alive.
10:32 Speaker 01 Exactly. Not technical.
10:33 Chris Duffy? Well, well, just to get technical for one second. How do you define play from a scientific perspective? What's the like, technical definition of play?
10:44 Speaker 01 Yeah, what a good bridge between feeling alive, right? Play as kind of one of the most powerful entry points to actually experience that. So I think, you know, kind of the thread between all of my work is taking the maybe skepticism that we all have about creativity and play and these components of of our lives that we push to the side as adults and shifting them into becoming a really important aspect of of our wellbeing and our ability to be a human. And I think play is one of those major components because oftentimes, at least, you know, my personal experience and in interviews with thousands of adults,
11:28 Speaker 01 I've realized that so many of us were defining play as just being silly or whimsical, right? Like, you know, just let loose, just be childlike. I want to return to my childlike state. And when we really think about play from a scientific basis, it is so much more foundational than that. Essentially, what it is, is being able to choose to do something without knowing exactly how it's going to end up. So what that means is there's two core components. We have to be intrinsically motivated, meaning that we're not doing it because it's going to help us answer emails faster or it's going to, you know, make us a better employee or a better parent.
12:12 Speaker 01 While those are great outcomes, that isn't the reason we're playing. And the second piece is that we are completely free and autonomous to do things that don't need to ladder up to some bigger goal. We're just experimenting and enjoying and trying things without knowing exactly what the end result will be, which is very, very different than how we typically hear about play in our world, which is like, get on YouTube and follow a tutorial to create art, right? That is not, that's not really the scientific definition of play.
12:48 Chris Duffy? I'm curious about two pieces of play and creativity here. And the first is the like financial aspect or the reward aspect. To me, it doesn't at all seem like a coincidence that you were working in the finance industry when you felt like your creativity and your ability to play were at an all time low. I have found that often, things that are playful and fun and creative, as soon as I start to even see the possible potential for how I could make money off a thing, it stops feeling playful and fun and creative and becomes yet another work task, right? It's like, I'm not just making a pot, I have to make a pot that is good enough that could be sold in a store and all of a sudden, it's not fun to make a weird pot that's bad because now
13:33 Chris Duffy? that's a failure because it couldn't be sold.
13:34 Speaker 01 Yes.
13:35 Chris Duffy? Even though the world where I am, a professional potter is an impossible, far away world, somehow it changes the process of just like making this clay pot that I was previously just doing as a fun way to spend an afternoon.
13:47 Speaker 01 Yes. Oh, my gosh, you, yeah, are speaking my language. That is exactly what I started to do with creativity personally and realized that actually there, you know, there are a couple of different levels of what it means to be creative. And I really love using this framework. It doesn't have a very creative name. It's called the four Cs of creativity. That was first developed by these educational psychologists, almost 20 years ago now, to really break down all the different ways that we can be creative. And the top level, which is what most of us associate with creativity, is called big C, creating.
14:31 Speaker 01 And that is, you know, bestselling books and Nobel Prize winning inventions. And inherently, in this type of creativity, it is to be judged. Like, the only way that it kind of comes out into the world is because other people are determining its value in the world. But that is like the 0.001% of creativity. And the kind that actually is underneath everything, which is where play comes in.
15:04 Speaker 01 Something called mini C creativity. And this is being creative in a way that is purely meaningful to you. That means that you can show it to other people. You don't need to. And it really is what shows up in these small, everyday moments in our lives, where we are free to play and create without needing it to ladder up to some bigger goal. And what I think is really important in that differentiation is that each of those types of creativity, and there's two, you know, levels in between, have value. But what we find when we look at even the most highly successful, outwardly successful creative people is that they all have a mini C creative practice.
15:48 Speaker 01 So they separate out the types of creativity they engage in, and they don't bucket it all into one thing where it's like, if I'm gonna be hanging out in my room and daydreaming, then that needs to become a business idea, right? They allow and protect that space and really see it as a fundamental aspect of their lives and also their success.
16:10 Chris Duffy? Something that I talk about a lot with friends who have also become professional comedians, right? Where like we make money off of telling jokes. It's a thing that everyone starts doing and it's just free and fun. Or maybe it's not even fun at the beginning, but you're definitely not making money at it. Something I've talked about with a lot of people is this feeling that we were maybe in some ways funnier before it was professional because the floor was a lot lower, right? There are many more performances where you were so unbelievably unfunny. But as a result, there were also really surprising, unexpected highs. So the floor and the ceiling were both further away. And as you become professional, you start to do it for your job.
16:53 Chris Duffy? I think one of the biggest things that happens is you raise the floor. So you stop being terrible and you have, you can reliably say, I'm not gonna be bad. But then sometimes that also means that like the, the top is a little bit lower than it used to be too. Like there's not the, oh my gosh, this is the funniest thing I've ever seen. I could never have possibly predicted this would happen. And it becomes a little bit more like, I know what's gonna happen because I'm performing a service now. I'm working in a job. So you lose a little bit of that mini C creativity in becoming the, the big C creativity.
17:24 Speaker 01 Yeah, can I also say, I think what's super interesting is that, in that is when we kind of start to Perform our creativity. And I think we've all done this in many parts of our lives. We actually have a part of our brain turn on that is about self-monitoring. So this is the part of us that doesn't want to make mistakes. That is, you know, really focused on getting the right answer. And what happens when we improvise, when we allow ourselves essentially to play, is that that part of our brain shuts off. And the part that's responsible for pure, authentic self-expression turns on.
18:08 Speaker 01 And we see this in, you know, studies where researchers have actually looked at
18:15 Speaker 01 jazz musicians and a variety of rappers, people who are improvising at the top of their craft all the time. I'm sure comedians would be a great example of this. And when they really get into that state where they're purely improvising and playing, they really are expressing themselves in the most effective and most authentic way. And I think that's that we can all learn something from that where like, play doesn't always need to be something that is purely just enjoyable and a practice, right? A mini C practice. It can also show up when we are our most disciplined and most practiced.
18:57 Speaker 01 But we really also need to allow ourselves to flow and improvise. And kind of let our brain do the rest of the work.
19:07 Chris Duffy? Yeah, I think it also, at least in my experience, requires a really constant pushback against that desire to turn it into work. Right? Even, I'm not sure I would necessarily, maybe you would. I'm curious. But like, like I like to go swimming at the public pool. That's something that I do for exercise and it's fun. And I find that I have to push back on the idea of like, you should join a swim team. You should become more serious about this. You should, you know, start to learn how to make your stroke better and get faster. And instead I'm like, I actually just like being in the water for half an hour. And, you know, I'm using my body and it feels good, but like, it's just fun to be. Swimming, I like that. And I don't want to become like, you know, counting every stroke
19:49 Chris Duffy? and wondering how much better I could be, even if maybe that would accomplish some XYZ goals. It's a constant battle on every front to think about like, let's just keep this as a thing that is, I can just have a potted plant in my apartment. I don't have to then like become the best gardener in the world.
20:09 Speaker 01 A thousand percent. I mean, I think this is what in my talk even I was trying, I was referencing when I was talking about this play deprivation crisis, right? When we substitute all the components of, you know, the essence of play, the spontaneity, the wonder, the freedom with things that our culture rewards, productivity, achievement, efficiency, we end up losing these really essential components of our creative health. What I talk about often is having those protected times and practices where we really don't need them to ladder up to anything else. And knowing that they are feeding something, feeding something within
20:50 Speaker 01 us that is really essential and important, that maybe we can't have a tangible outcome that our world really wants to harness at all times.
21:00 Chris Duffy? Well, let's talk more about that. So what does it mean to be play deprived? How does it affect your life?
21:05 Speaker 01 So when we are play deprived, number one, we end up kind of replacing everything in our lives that doesn't have a clear outcome with something that is productive and efficient. So your swimming hobby becomes something that, that you need to join a team, you end up competing, you, you know, have all these rules and expectations around it. And that, you know, pans out to literally everything that we do, whether that's kind of improving at work, or even maybe how we parent. So that's kind of the first stage. The second stage is that when we don't have these outlets for
21:47 Speaker 01 our creativity to really end the stress cycle. So when we're in this constant state of achievement and striving, we end up falling into burnout, right? What burnout really is, is kind of a buildup of stress over time with no outlet. That's kind of the simplest way that I could describe it. And creativity and these mini sea creative outlets, these times that we're getting into the flow, swimming is a great example of that, too, is when we actually signal to our body that we're safe and we're able to close out that cycle. So, you know, first, we're just kind of endlessly busy. Second, we are burned out.
22:31 Speaker 01 And what that results in is this playlist society, this playlist community, where we end up becoming collectively rigid and polarized and unable to adapt to change. And, you know, these are not just my observations, but they are well documented. You know, for hundreds of years, this philosopher Johann Heisinger actually wrote a book, Homo Ludens, about what happens when we stop playing as a culture. And he predicted a lot of the things that we're seeing today. And I think when we begin to inject play back into our lives, we actually see these profound effects that maybe we wouldn't really expect.
23:17 Chris Duffy? Okay, we're going to take a quick break, but we will be right back with more from Katina after these quick ads.
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26:20 Chris Duffy? And we are back. You know, you are, I'm talking to you, you are in your apartment in San Francisco. You have a people around. There's noises on the street. Like, that interaction with other people, with society, with the unexpected nature of other people, that feels like it's a big piece of play and creativity, too. It's easier to have that improvisation and that play when you're in a place that is dense with other people than it is when you're in a quiet, perfectly manicured suburb, I would imagine.
26:53 Speaker 01 Yeah. Yeah, it's so interesting. I think it can go either way, right? Because, you know, I'm from New York and lived in New York City for a long time. And you can be so surrounded by people there and completely rigid, like completely closed off to the play and spontaneity and randomness that shows up in your everyday of life, right? You're just bumping against people on the subway, trying to get to where you need to go. And I think, you know, that happens in San Francisco, too, right? We're all busy in our own worlds, listening to podcasts, trying to continue to strive and achieve in all aspects of our lives, even on a walk, right? So we don't necessarily need to play
27:38 Speaker 01 in this very active way. You know, we typically think of play as crawling on the floor with kids, or, you know, rolling around, or making weird art. And those are all wonderful things. Those are definitely examples of play. But to me, the way that I define it, I think that play can be stopping on the street, even on your own block, and noticing something beautiful and sharing it with someone else. Appreciating someone who maybe is doing something a little weird or different, and really amplifying when you see play in your community. And what that allows us all to do is have this kind of collective psychological safety
28:21 Speaker 01 to actually engage in these behaviors more often. So it's definitely something that's difficult. I think it can be difficult anywhere. And everywhere because as a culture, we just don't value these ways of operating. But all it really takes is one of us to do something or see something or notice something. And be able to start to amplify it. And then, you know, biologically, we actually are wired to start to be more motivated to play when we see others doing it.
28:52 Chris Duffy? Hmm. This is something I saw in a city, but could truly exist anywhere is. I was walking around Seattle and I saw on a street light pole, you know, the wooden ones, the big tall wooden poles that are everywhere in cities, electric poles. They someone had just put a sign up that says poetry pole. And people had stapled poems to the pole and it was such a fun thing where it was clear that a bunch of different people had brought a poem that meant something to them. And for me, it was just an example of a, you know, these are round pieces of wood that exist everywhere. That are normally just totally bare or covered with really generic flyers. And it was fun to have this be someone who cared about this particular form of art.
29:28 Speaker 01 Yes.
29:29 Chris Duffy? Making this into a space for that.
29:30 Speaker 01 That is such a perfect example of playing in community, right? Because you feel connected to this bigger thing and you might not even see these people. But that is kind of the power of what creativity can do. It can kind of transcend, you know, time, space, even language to be able to connect us in a deeper way. As you can hear, we have a pretty busy, you know, block outside for San Francisco standards, at least of where I live. And my office looks right outside, has a great big window. And there was one day that I was actually in the midst of a daydream and I was kind of just staring off into the distance.
30:11 Speaker 01 And I noticed this woman stop at these big rose bushes across the street from me. And, you know, I'd never seen anyone do this, but she started smelling them. And started smelling every single one of the roses and it just felt too, you know, picturesque. And I thought it was so funny that she was doing this instead of taking a picture, which happens like every single day, most people stop and take a picture of these beautiful roses. She just stood there smelling every. Single rose. And then, you know, there were people walking behind her and they started laughing and they were like, this is too good. Like, this is honestly
30:48 Chris Duffy? This is exactly, you're literally stopping to smell the roses, as we've been told to do.
30:52 Speaker 01 Yeah. And they started doing it. And then it almost became this chain of reaction where multiple people started smelling the roses after she did it. And I thought it was such a perfect example of play and how contagious it really is because once we see it, um, once we feel that emotion, that creativity and humor and play allows us to experience, it does transcend. It does spur us into action and it really expands our perspective. That's kind of what it's doing psychologically. Allows us to take more in and then also obviously connect on all those different levels with ourselves, our communities in the world.
31:33 Speaker 01 And I think it's a really beautiful way to be more immersed in life and feel more alive, right? It doesn't need to be huge. It, it can happen in all these really funny, interesting, random ways. If we just start actually noticing them.
31:49 Chris Duffy? You talked about having your own practice of play before. What does that look like? What do you actually do to put your research into place in your own life?
31:59 Speaker 01 You know, it's taken me a really long time to do, I will admit. It's something that I've had to work, you know, and really pay attention to all the beliefs that have accumulated for me about me being allowed to be creative. And also how it kind of fits into my schedule in my life. But I think that actually really is the basis of what we've tried to do at Daydreamers, which is my company that kind of turns creativity into a practice for all of us. So we kind of break creative practice into three types of behaviors, which I think is really helpful and also helps me break down like where I have the time and energy and effort to actually engage in it.
32:43 Speaker 01 So the first one is thinking critically. The second is express
32:48 Speaker 01 ourselves playfully. And the third is noticing and savoring beauty. I try to get a practice in of savoring beauty and thinking critically, we can kind of talk specifics about what those look like. I try to do those once a day, but when I think about expressing myself playfully, that takes a lot more time and energy and effort. And I don't put pressure on myself to do that every single day. I think, you know, with the way that we kind of track our health practices and put all these requirements on how we're supposed to look and feel and take care of ourselves.
33:30 Speaker 01 Creativity is something that is supposed to be adaptable and engaging and make us feel alive, right? So being able to do that in a way that actually doesn't have that pressure is really important. So I can kind of double click on any of those, but I think having that framework is helpful for folks because it gives us permission to actually be creative in so many different ways.
33:52 Chris Duffy? Yeah, let's, let's talk more about them in detail. What do you actually do?
33:55 Speaker 01 Yeah. So one of the first papers that I read while I was in graduate school about the power of daydreaming for our creativity. And really, when we are mind wandering and allowing, yeah, our mind to wander, we actually are engaging the part of our brain called the default mode network, which is where all of our creative ideas live. It's literally like we're kind of connecting all these different data points that we've collected throughout our day and our lives and really allowing ourselves to come up with new ideas without pressure. It is truly a form of play while we're thinking.
34:36 Speaker 01 So what I actually like to do, and this is maybe very type A of me, is actually schedule time in my calendar to daydream. Like I block it off. When I'm making my afternoon coffee, I have at least 15 minutes where I'm just not doing anything, not listening to a podcast, not trying to multitask and really allowing myself to just follow. Whatever thought pops into my mind. So that's number one. Number two is going on something that I call awe walks. And this is actually something that was first started by Dr. Keltner over at the University of Berkeley.
35:15 Speaker 01 He was, you know, researching awe and did this fascinating study on older adults who were proactively looking for things that allowed them to feel wonder and creativity and inspiration. And it not only, you know, increased all these different aspects of their wellbeing, but it literally had them have bigger physical smiles at the end of their experience. So something that I also try to do every day is go on a walk without headphones and proactively savor and really look for beautiful things in my world.
35:54 Chris Duffy? Did you do your walk today already or have you?
35:57 Speaker 01 Yes.
35:57 Chris Duffy? What did you see today?
35:59 Speaker 01 There is a park near my apartment that I absolutely love. It's called Fort Mason in San Francisco. And we just have the best flowers and the best views. And there is this one bush of hydrangeas that's around all year. And I walk past it every day and try to like appreciate it. And a couple of weeks ago, all the hydrangeas were cut off. I don't know. I know. It was a really sad awe walk day for me. I don't know why. I guess it was a pruning. I'd never seen it before. But surprisingly, only a few weeks later, they've all bloomed again. And today was my first blooming day of seeing them in full. So it was a really cool awe walk for me.
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37:29 Speaker 02 This episode is brought to you by Parloa. Look, most businesses want their customers to feel heard, not stuck waiting around for someone who can help. Nothing makes you feel less important than sitting on hold for hours, explaining the same problem to the fifth person who picks up.
37:47 Speaker 02 But here's the thing, the bigger you get, the harder it becomes to show up the way you want to in each customer interaction. Parloa solves that problem. Their voice-first AI agents handle customer conversations in a way that feels natural, personal, and helpful. They work 24/7 across voice chat and email in any language with zero wait time. Plus, your team gets access to features like Lens, which flags issues in real time, and Navigator, which figures out why those issues are happening and what to do next. It's secure, scalable, and built to serve the customer. When AI works well, it shouldn't feel like AI. It should feel like you're being seen and heard and valued.
38:32 Speaker 02 Unhold your customers with Parloa. Learn more at parloa.com. That's P-A-R-L-O-A dot com.
38:44 Speaker 04 State fair food is getting smaller and pricier.
38:47 Speaker 05 We'll have room for fried cookies.
38:49 Speaker 04 Okay, you'd never overspend on food. What's your deal?
38:52 Speaker 06 What's his deal? He went to Metro and got $450 in value on the new Samsung Galaxy 837 5G for free and no activation fees.
39:00 Speaker 04 Free phone? Oh, sign me up.
39:03 Speaker 06 Get that more for your money feeling only on Metro by T-Mobile.
39:06 Speaker 07 Bring your number and activate $40 period plan. $450 based on device discount waived activation fee. Not available if with Metro T-Mobile in the past 180 days.
39:16 Chris Duffy? That's great.
39:18 Chris Duffy? A lot of your work in your business is about people who don't see themselves as. Creative people or artists. I'm sure there are some people who are out there who are like, all that matters is data, like zeros and ones and bits and bobs are the only things that I won't have my life soiled with a smile. That I'm sure there's some people like that, but I think that
39:40 Speaker 01 There are more than you think.
39:41 Chris Duffy? Well, it seems to me like the the the majority of people, though, would be would fall into the category of like, sure, like art and beauty and play. Those are all fun and great, but like, I don't have time. And also, I'm not good at them. Like, I'm not, that's not my thing. So how do you win those people over? Because it's not like you have to convince them that this would be fun or good, but it's just that that's not a me thing. That's kind of a someone else thing. That's like a special thing. Even in school, we see this, at least in the United States, right? Like, it's like, every school teaches math, not every school teaches art or music. It's considered like an extra special class. And I think a lot of people internalize that idea. So how do you fight that?
40:21 Speaker 01 Totally. You're hitting on really the crux of so much of my work and, you know, truly what we've measured and seen through a lot of our research at Daydreamers. And first, I want to say, I think we've collectively believed a lot of myths around creativity. And one of them that, you know, we've hinted at so much throughout this conversation is that creativity is synonymous with talent. And I think as we get older, we really hold on to that belief, right? If I'm not good at being creative, why am I doing it? And I think that's a lot of what the creative health conversation helps us really shift, right?
41:04 Speaker 01 Like, it is a fundamental aspect of our humanity. It's something that has been around for thousands of years, and also is really core to how we thrive as human beings, particularly in this time. But I think something that has been the most helpful is we have kind of coalesced these measurements at Daydreamers to really determine what creative health looks like. And it continues to evolve, but you know, this is something we've been Doing for years and we actually show that to folks to say, hey, this is your unique creative fingerprint. We all have different levels of these metrics, but
41:48 Speaker 01 some of them are really strong for you and some of them, maybe you can focus on strengthening. But we all have a different mix that makes us creatively healthy. And what I think is really interesting, and it truly is an aha moment every time I see someone kind of look through that and experience it is that they actually get to see in a kind of data driven way that they are creative and there are components of their creativity that they are really good at. For example, if we have an engineer who maybe says, you know, I am very logical. I don't enjoy being creative. I don't even see myself as that person.
42:29 Speaker 01 Typically, we see that they have really high openness, which means that they are open to new ways of doing things. They experiment and explore, you know, in a way that comes really naturally to them. And that at the basis of it is how we measure creativity in the scientific literature, having high openness. So I think what that starts to shift is there's a way that you are creative. And we can find different practices that actually fit into your strengths and also maybe the areas that you might want to strengthen that
43:10 Speaker 01 you don't feel so comfortable with. But I think that's really helpful to kind of humanize and also individualize what creativity looks like as we age.
43:19 Chris Duffy? Are there examples of of play or creativity where you're like, okay, that is the weirdest and the worst I've ever seen? Like, I'm thinking like someone who makes like, they're like, I love to play. I make little dolls out of rat hair and that's my real passion. And you're like, well, that's technically play, but I don't like it. I'll allow it, but I don't like it.
43:39 Speaker 01 There are definitely a lot of unique things that actually is one thing that I've seen. Wow. It's called, not out of rat hair, but definitely out of interesting, interesting materials that people have picked up. But I actually feel so, and I don't mean this in a cheesy way, like I feel so incredibly inspired seeing all the different things that people do because what's so fascinating about creativity is that it is incredibly unique. Like, there is no two ways that it can look the same for anyone. It always is really freeing to me because I'm afraid of copying people or feeling like, you
44:21 Speaker 01 know, I'm not going to come up with something inspiring or unique to say or do, but at the core of it, like, our brain kind of, our creative brain is kind of a machine, right? Like, it is just collecting all these different data points of lived experiences and then being able to combine them in a way that we can only do. Like, you are the only human being that can combine your, your life in that way and make meaning out of it. That is like what creativity allows us to do. So there's nothing weird per se, but I will say the thing that makes me really sad is there are a lot of people who felt very creative as kids and, you know, were very comfortable
45:05 Speaker 01 with it growing up and we find that they are so detached. Like, I call it actually being creatively starved because there's such a longing that they almost, it's kind of disappeared essentially, how starved and hungry they are for their creativity until they actually start to recognize that it is something they can do throughout their lives. And, you know, I've worked with folks all the way up to eighty-nine years old. And there are just a ton of people who come back to their creativity at any age and really see that it's only gotten better. Like, we continue
45:48 Speaker 01 to live life and collect those data points and that gives us more depth and more texture to create as, as we go.
45:56 Chris Duffy? Well, okay, here's another question for you that Nora, who's one of the producers on the show, is a very funny, very talented comedian. And this question that she has written is such a question that I associate with comedians, which is, what if you don't have that much fun when you're trying to be creative? I know exactly what Nora is talking about, because often, like, the thing that we do that is fun and funny, it is grueling to do, to try and like, ugh, sit down and write a joke, or go and perform, and it's not going well. Like, what do you, what do you do if you're trying to be creative, but it's not fun? The process isn't necessarily fun.
46:37 Speaker 01 You're doing it right, unfortunately. And I think that, you know, one of the biggest myths that we have around creativity and kind of where we started, which is that we think being creative is supposed to be this free, fluffy, enjoyable, silly, whimsical experience. And it really isn't. It actually is the most human experience that we can have. And that means that it is sometimes grueling, sometimes disorienting, confusing, weird, and also rewarding and interesting and enjoyable sometimes. I think if we can kind of see creativity with
47:18 Speaker 01 that lens, that sometimes it makes us feel things, and oftentimes it makes us feel things that are unexpected. And that is an ever-changing process. And that means that it is right on track. So I'll give that preface. And then, you know, specifically talking about the creative process, this is something that I've actually just been writing a ton about, because it's something I personally struggle with, too, is that A major component of bringing something new into the world is uncomfortable because you are going through experiencing friction, like friction is a core component of creativity
48:01 Speaker 01 because you're going from nothing to something. And often, we think that we have to avoid friction at all costs, especially in a world where we're taught to outsource every single hard thing, right? But when we do engage in creative friction, we experience something called eustress, which is positive stress. This is the stress that actually is at the root of growth and transformation, and ultimately resilience and well-being. So I think that, you know, the main takeaway that I would have is it's temporary, but also a necessary part of the creative process and something that actually brings us a lot of value and, you know, in going through it.
48:46 Chris Duffy? Continue, Vajra. Thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you so much for the work you do. This was such a pleasure talking to you.
48:51 Speaker 01 Thank you so much for having me. It was so much fun.
48:56 Chris Duffy? Okay, that is it for today's episode of How to Be a Better Human. Before I get into the credits, I would just want to say I have really been enjoying the conversations that we've had on this show lately. There have been so many new things to learn and real practical tips that I think make everyday life better. I truly hope that you have been feeling that way, too, because these episodes, they're made for you, our Better Human listeners. And you would be doing me and the whole team that makes this show a huge, huge, huge favor. If you could take a moment to fill out our listener survey, it is at bit.ly/BHsurvey6. That's B I T dot L Y slash B H survey six. There's also a link on screen if you're watching on YouTube or on the video version. You can also find a link in our show description.
49:39 Chris Duffy? Please take that survey. Tell us what is resonating, what you want more of, and what you'd like to see change. Your honest feedback means the world to us. We listen to you. We will take it into account as we are making future episodes of the show. So please fill out that survey. Help us to make the show better and more of what you want and less What you don't want. Thanks again for listening. Okay, now, the credits. Thank you so much to today's guest, Katina Bajaj. Her company is called Daydreamers, and she writes about creative health online. Check it out. She is fantastic, as you just heard. I am your host, Chris Duffy, and my new book, Humor Me, is out now. You can find out about my book and all my other projects at chrisduffycomedy.com. How to Be a Better Human is put together by a team that is so creatively healthy, they're being studied
50:21 Chris Duffy? in a lab right now. On the TED side, scientists are poking and prodding Daniela Bolarezo, Banban Cheng, Michelle Quint, Chloe Shasha Brooks, Valentina Bohanini, Laney Lot, Tansaka Sungmanivong, Antonia Lei, and Joseph DeBryan. Brian Lash's video editing is being written into textbooks, and Mateus Salas is fact checking both our episodes and those textbooks to make sure that they are accurate. On the PRX side, some people are calling them the Spielberg's of audio, and that is not just because this podcast episode is their disclosure day. Morgan Flannery, Norgil, Patrick Grant, and extraterrestrial Jocelyn Gonzalez. Thanks to you for listening. You are incredible. You are what make this show exist. So please, share this episode with someone who you think would enjoy it. Keep listening, and we will be back next week with even more episodes of How to Be a Better
51:06 Chris Duffy? Human. Until then, take care and have some fun. Get out there and play.
51:18 Chris Duffy? This episode is sponsored by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Here's a question this show asks a lot. What can one person actually do? Take protecting the environment. When the task feels so big, it's hard to know where to even begin. Turns out, the answer isn't doing it alone. It's teaming up with people who care as much as you do. With the help of 3 million supporters, the Natural Resources Defense Council is in court to defend ancient forests, pristine coasts, and the wildlife that depend on them. None of these places or species can be replaced. They're still here because people fought for them, in and out of court, and that fight needs your support today. Donate at nrdc.org/human, and your gift will be matched five times.
52:05 Chris Duffy? This episode is sponsored by PayPal. This holiday season, don't miss your chance to turn "just looking" into "just bought it." Make it easy for your customers to say yes on the spot. PayPal Checkout is a trusted conversion engine fueled by 400 million active PayPal and Venmo accounts. And when you add Pay Later, you can turn holiday shoppers into regulars. 96% of Pay Later shoppers are repeat users. So if you give them Pay Later flexibility now, it could help earn their loyalty all year long. PayPal is built for all business. Get started at paypal.com/business. PayPal data eight markets, March 2025 to February 2026. Repeat users defined as more than one Pay Later purchase in the past year.
52:50 Speaker 02 This episode is brought to you by Parloa. Look, most businesses want their customers to feel heard, not stuck waiting around for someone who can help. Nothing makes you feel less important than sitting on hold for hours explaining the same problem to the fifth person who picks up. But here's the thing, the bigger you get, the harder it becomes to show up the way you want to in each customer interaction. Parloa solves that problem. Their voice-first AI agents handle customer conversations in a way that feels natural, personal, and helpful. They work 24/7 across voice chat and email in any language with zero wait time.
53:32 Speaker 02 Plus, your team gets access to features like Lens, which flags issues in real time, and Navigator, which figures out why those issues are happening and what to do next. It's secure, scalable, and built to serve the customer. When AI works well, it shouldn't feel like AI. It should feel like you're being seen and heard and valued. Unhold your customers with Parloa. Learn more at parloa.com. That's P-A-R-L-O-A dot com.
54:05 Speaker 04 State Fair food is getting smaller and pricier.
54:08 Speaker 05 We'll have room for fried cookies.
54:10 Speaker 04 OK, you never overspend on food. What's your deal?
54:13 Speaker 06 What's his deal? He went to Metro and got $450 in value on the new Samsung Galaxy 837 5G for free and no activation fees.
54:21 Speaker 04 Free phone? Oh, sign me up.
54:24 Speaker 06 Get that more for your money feeling, only on Metro by T-Mobile.
54:27 Speaker 07 Bring your number and activate $40 period plan. $450 based on device discount, waived activation fee. Not available if with Metro T-Mobile in the past 180 days.
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