Creative Confidence

We edited “story” out of our stuff, and I’m sorry about that

By |2023-03-30T14:48:46+00:00March 30, 2023|Categories: Creative Confidence, Creativity, Everyday Communication, Storytelling|

Whenever I tell people what I do for a living—helping people bring storytelling and creativity into the workplace—I’m met with immediate interest. “Wow! Cool! That sounds like so much fun.” It is! And not just fun, but useful. The ability to craft and tell a good story is oh-so-valuable to any business. My livelihood depends on [...]

Don’t Get Mad. Make It Up.

By |2023-02-28T17:12:24+00:00February 28, 2023|Categories: Creative Confidence, Everyday Communication, Learning, Storytelling, Uncategorized|

It started out as a joke, a silly way for us to blow off steam. We invented something out of sheer frustration.Ever since I started teaching creative writing, students have been asking me for the magical elixir: What is the formula for writing a story?I found this exasperating and annoying.After a deep breath to calm myself, [...]

Your quest to be more creative starts here

By |2023-02-28T14:24:20+00:00February 28, 2023|Categories: Creative Confidence, Creativity, Everyday Communication, Learning, Life|

How To Be Creative is a theme that surfaces again and again when I sit down to write. Not because people flock to me asking, “Oh Beth, you creative wizard, will you please publish your wisdom?!” Nope, that’s not the spark that lights my blog-posting flame. Most of the time, my creativity-focused posts begin from a [...]

How Long Is Too Short?

By |2023-02-07T16:38:01+00:00January 30, 2023|Categories: Creative Confidence, Everyday Communication, Learning, Storytelling, Uncategorized|

When it comes to professional development, how long does a training have to be? The answer of course is, it depends. Imagine preparing to teach and standing in front of a roomful of quiet, nervous colleagues who don't know each other and aren't quite sure what to expect from this session. You didn't bring a deck [...]

How to turn “I don’t know” into a conversational advantage

By |2022-12-30T18:44:49+00:00December 30, 2022|Categories: Creative Confidence, Everyday Communication, Learning, Life|

As 2022 drew to a close, several of my friends announced that they were stepping away from social media, at least until January. To detox from the digital noise, they chose to disconnect. Stepping away can be good practice for analog conversations, too. In tense situations, sometimes the best response is no response at all. Step [...]

Am I Out of a Job?

By |2022-09-26T14:15:31+00:00September 26, 2022|Categories: Creative Confidence, Creativity, Storytelling, Uncategorized|

Have you see Flippy, the robot designed to manage the fryer in fast food restaurants? It's pretty amazing until you watch it for a few minutes and realize how terrifyingly human it seems. It's "artificial intelligence" or AI, and is supposed to help cook french fries better, faster, and safer. It solves several problems, like finding restaurant workers. [...]