The Mind Takeaway Podcast - Leadership, Psychology and Creativity

In this episode with speak to Eleanor Snare (they/them), an artist, writer and educator. Their art forms combine narrative structures with ink, paint, pen and digital mediums and their writing explore the connections between earth, emotions and society, including our experience of the numinous and faith.

Eleanor specialises in looking at contemporary social and business issues through an artistic, critical, anti-capitalist, pro-connection lens. Since 2012 Eleanor has taught in higher education and currently teaches at Leeds Arts University in Fashion Marketing, MA Creative Practice and MA Graphic Design.

Previous to this career they worked as a copywriter, marketer and communications specialist full time in marketing agencies and then in their own business, with clients such as NatWest, TSB, ASDA, New Look, Marks & Spencer, Unilever, EDF, Redcats, Shop Direct and independent photographers, stylists, textile designers, artists, massage therapists and writers.

Connect with Eleanor here:

Website: www.eleanorsnare.com

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/eleanorsnare

Instagram: www.instagram.com/eleanorsnare

Timestamps

01:37 Elenor describes the bridge between the creative and business worlds in the work that they do, as previously, they felt torn between two seemingly separate worlds.

04:28 The challenges of thinking you have to separate business and creativity.

06:42 Eleanor had a realisation that every professional decision was made from intuition alone.

08:41 How Businesses tapping into their intuitive side allows them to talk about feelings because they impact every decision made and affect your leadership.

10:06 Successful businesses need creatives and people with humanities degrees because they have strong critical thinking skills.

14:16 Every person can be creative and inside every person is an artist, that is our child.

15:42 Innovation and creativity requires the freedom not to have an output because if we have strict rules in place, you suddenly limit yourself.

17:42 One of Eleanor’s favourite hobbies is looking out of the window because it allows your mind to wander.

20:28 The importance of having the right balance between control and enough freedom and space to be innovative.

22:51 How entrepreneurial literature can encourage a template style approach which claims that if you do these things, you will be successful, which isn’t the case.

24:14 control is an aspect that many people struggle with how you can use it effectively.

27:16 Many artists try to fit their art into the rest of their life, rather than building a life around their art.

28:53 Our economy loves the results of creativity, but it hates the process, and because of it, young artists often think they are not valuable.

30:13 The importance of getting people who never saw themselves as creative or artistic picking up a pen or a paintbrush and making art because it gives them a respect for the process and also how transformative it is in many ways.

32:18 The inseparable nature of art and science

36:11 It’s essential for artists to trust their process and not justify it.

39:10 Lots of the famous artists that we celebrate just saw something we did not see and that reflects in their work.

43:23 What it would be like for you if you believed that creativity was an innate quality that you have within you?

43:50 Life and work is more about the journey than achieving your goals.

52:52 The more comfortable you are with yourself the better the world that is when we create a better world.