In this episode of Yes, And with Avish Parashar, I sit down with creativity expert Melissa Dinwiddie. Melissa shares her journey from a Juilliard-trained dancer to a professional artist and creativity instigator. She introduces us to her Create the Impossible framework, which helps individuals and teams harness the power of play, take risks, and learn from failure to spark innovation. Melissa emphasizes that it’s not about making things perfect but making things, experimenting, and allowing space for mistakes. We dive into how leaders can foster creativity and encourage their teams to take playful risks to solve complex problems.
Key Takeaways:
Play Hard: Embrace your inner child by experimenting, exploring, and being curious.
Make Crap: It’s okay to fail! Making mistakes is a crucial part of the creative process.
Learn Fast: Turn every failure into valuable data. Rapid feedback loops drive innovation.
Practical Tips: Start with small, playful actions like asking creative questions in meetings or implementing “wild idea Wednesdays.”
Gremlins: Recognize the self-doubt voices in your head and replace them with a playful, “Yes, And” mindset to keep moving forward.
Relevant Links:
Melissa Dinwiddie’s website: MelissaDinwiddie.com
Get the first 50 pages of Melissa’s book The Creative Sandbox Way: Download Here
Follow Melissa on LinkedIn: Melissa Dinwiddie on LinkedIn
Melissa’s YouTube channel: Melissa Dinwiddie on YouTube
Unedited Transcript
Avish Parashar
Hello, Melissa, and welcome to Yes And. How are you?
Melissa Dinwiddie
I'm delighted to be here. Thanks for having me.
Avish Parashar
Absolutely. No. I'm looking forward to this this conversation, and I've gotten to know you a little bit. Just I've been sort of following you on LinkedIn and seeing your post and always like the kind of things you do. So I know a little bit about you and your background. But just to kick things off for listeners who don't know you, could you give us, like, the one minute overview of I know it's it's hard to compress down, but, the the kind of who you are and what you do?
Melissa Dinwiddie
Yeah. So, my background, I'm a multi passionate creative. I do not come from a corporate background. I trained as a dancer at Juilliard. I actually kinda fell backwards into after after believing that I was a non creative person for most of my teen years and throughout college, I kinda fell backwards into, an art career as a professional artist, professional calligrapher and artist. And during that time, I got, very stuck into a story of I don't have time to make art for my own enjoyment, which is why I got into being an artist in the first place. Mhmm. And, I was really miserable, You know?
Found the holy grail of making my living as an artist and was really miserable doing that. And, finally got back to, making art for my own enjoyment, figured out how to get past that creative block, and the root to that was, guess what, play. Mhmm. But after fifteen years of making art at, you know, at the behest of other people, I'd forgotten how to play. So I had to create a set of little rules for myself, little guidelines for myself in order to get back to that playful state. And, really, what that is is like being a little kid again. And that little set of rules that I developed way back when, this is about 02/2010, '2 thousand '11, expanded over the next couple of years into 10 guideposts, which now form the the scaffolding of my book, the creative sandbox way.
And that led me to sort of fall backwards into a second business as a creativity instigator, helping other people get creatively unstuck. And that was a fully online business, except once a year, I led a creativity retreat where people would come and mostly work independently on their own creative projects. But after breakfast every day, I would lead people through improv activities, what I called a, creative catalyzing session to get them out of their heads and into their bodies, get them laughing and moving so that we could send the gremlins out of the room, those voices in their head saying things like, this is a waste of time. Why are you doing this?
You're so lame. You're not a real artist. You know, all those critical self critical, self judging voices. Mhmm. Get them out of the room so we can get down to the business of doing our creative thing. And over the years of leading this retreat, I realized, hey. These activities that I'm leading people through, this is the same thing that I would be doing if I were working with a team of leaders, a team of engineers, a team of, you know, any kind of corporate team, business team.
So why don't I pivot and work with people in a room, which is where I actually shine? So that led me to pivot and start my consultancy back in 2017. And I was just sort of getting up to speed with that, and then a little thing called a pandemic happened.
Avish Parashar
That was
Melissa Dinwiddie
And, so I spent the next, you know, few years designing virtual experiences and, really sort of nailing how to help, companies in the corporate space improve their communication for influence and impact. And, now what I really help leaders and teams and companies do, especially those who are really needing to innovate on a timeline, is I help them create the impossible. And I do that through my create the impossible framework, whether it's via keynotes or workshops or programs, whatever the delivery mechanism is, I come in with a lot of play, and I help with the three c's, connection, communication, and creativity. And that's my jam.
Avish Parashar
Wow. Well, that is great, and you mentioned a whole bunch of stuff that I wanna ask about and dig deeper on. One of the most interesting things, which I'll I'll I'll hold to talk about later is what when you describe it's when it's almost reversed because I've been pretty much from the get go going and speaking to organizations. But when you describe, like, oh, I work with people, and then, like, once a year, I did a retreat, That's literally something I've been thinking about, putting together myself. Like, ah, you know, like, I love speaking because as you said, like, it's being in a room in the front of a lot of people, but I've been thinking for a long time about doing a more, you know, business to consumer, get individuals in a room and run them through, you know, improv things and help them unlock their their creativity and be more positive with yes and and things like that. So it's it's almost the reverse. So I wanna learn more about kind of that and what you did, as sort of quote, unquote, you know, free consulting, myself.
But, let's start with kinda your most current thing, which is just create the impossible framework, which as soon as I saw that, you know, resonated with me because know, depending on the specific topic of the keynote, I I mentioned this idea of saying yes and to impossible goals. Like, you know, we got smart goals, which are achievable and realistic and and that's great. I think we need those as project management. But the thing that I think sets people on fire and actually makes life more interesting is not making it easier, but setting a goal that really you don't know how to achieve and then having a creative up. So when I saw them, oh, this is great. Melissa talks about this. So, I love to learn about the to whatever degree you're willing to go into it, a little bit about your kinda create the impossible framework and how you work with people to work their their way through it.
Melissa Dinwiddie
Absolutely. So the create the impossible framework has three steps, and it it sounds deceptively simple, but, you know, the most powerful tools often are really quite simple. Mhmm. So step number one is play hard. Now this is not you know, we often think work hard, play hard, you know, and play hard. We often think of, like, go to Vegas and get wild. That is not what I'm talking about.
Play hard in the context of the create the impossible framework means to embrace your inner four year old. It means to experiment, to explore, to follow your curiosity. And so in this context, it is, you know, just let yourself follow your nose. Try things. Take risks. Just get down and dirty and be like a little kid playing in a sandbox. That is the concept of play hard.
And I have on my YouTube channel and on my blog and in my LinkedIn posts, I I posted a newsletter every week on LinkedIn and also to my subscribers to my, you know, personal newsletter or my, you know, my business newsletter. Every week, I come out with a newsletter where I apply the framework in a different context, and I talk about how play hard and all the other the two other steps of the framework, how they apply. So that's the first step, play hard.
Avish Parashar
So can I before we move on to second step, I wanna Yeah?
Melissa Dinwiddie
Give a
Avish Parashar
little little deal with that. Well, first, you know, normally, we kinda do it all at the end, but since you just mentioned it, you know, nothing came we're we're doing podcast for promotion. So, know, you mentioned you have a newsletter, YouTube channel, and I'll link to this in the notes. But for people who maybe are driving and just listening, where can they, like, where can they go to get access to the newsletter and things like that?
Melissa Dinwiddie
Yeah. Absolutely. So my website is my name, melissadinwiddie. com. And it's, you know, it's not a very common name, so I'll spell it for you. M e l I s s a, d as in David, I, n as in Nancy, w I d d I e dot com. Melissa Dinwiddie dot com.
You can find me on LinkedIn at Melissa Dinwiddie. And, those are the two, you know, places where I'm most active. You can find me there, and you can subscribe to my newsletter and my website, and then I also post the same content. I repurpose it and post it again on LinkedIn the following week. So it's just a little older, but you can find it there. And then my YouTube channel is also my name, Melissa Dinwiddie.
So same thing.
Avish Parashar
That's great. It's nice to be easily, you know, get all consistent, which is is good. Alright. So let's talk about the, being playful, you know, the power of play, the fir well, I I'm sorry. I wrote down exactly how was it, with the first step.
What what's the Play hard. Play hard. That's it. Sorry.
Melissa Dinwiddie
Yeah.
Avish Parashar
It was it was, like, two minutes ago. I forgot already.
But play hard. So let's say you're working because I think most of the people who are listening to this are professionals, you know, kinda office knowledge type workers. So if you're working with a group of HR people or accountants or engineers or whatever, you know, I think one thing that's hard for people, at least people in my audience sometimes, you know, I'll speak about these ideas like yes and, and it's they're they agree and it's in the abstract. But then when it's like, well, how what do I actually do? So if you've got someone listening who's like, oh, I like that idea of following my nose and being like a four year old. But when they wake up tomorrow morning, like, what is one thing you would recommend they do to start down this process?
Melissa Dinwiddie
Yeah. Absolutely. So think about, like, when you you gotta bring your team together for a meeting, for example. And so maybe you know that you want your team to cohere. You want them to get to know each other and all of that, but it you know? So you ask people to, you know, say some share something about how their day is going or something like that. Well, you can make that more fun.
So how do you think about ways that you can first of all, connection is hugely important. If you want your team to communicate well, if you want them to which you do if you wanna innovate. Right? If you want them to be creative and come up with the best ideas, you they have to communicate well. They have to, you know, if you want dots to be connecting, you want them to be communicating most effectively. And one way to do that is to get a playful environment happening. So just your, you know, meeting first meeting of the day, any meeting throughout the week, how can you bring a playful atmosphere to that meeting?
So for example, in your morning check-in, instead of saying, you know, how are you feeling today, you might do something as simple as if you were a weather report, what is your weather? What is your what is your weather like today? So as people go around the room, instead of saying, you know, how are you feeling today, Melissa, or how are you feeling today, Avish, which is you know, inviting them to say, I'm fine.
Avish Parashar
Yep.
Melissa Dinwiddie
They're not getting any information from you. Right? You're not getting any information from your team if they're just gonna say, I'm fine. But they might say, well, I'm cloudy with a bit of rain, or I'm sunny with a little bit of clouds, or I'm I'm a I'm a snowstorm today. Oh, well, that's sort of curious. I wonder what that means. You know?
So they get to have a little creativity, and it invites some curiosity, and it's a little more playful. And it might encourage people to have some conversations afterwards, or it might encourage some conversations right then. Oh, tell me more. Tell me more about what that cloudy with a chance of rain means. So that's one small example Yeah. Of how bringing a little bit of playfulness into just a simple check-in at the beginning of a meeting can actually change the environment and change the culture and encourage creativity, which can lead to greater breakthroughs and innovation down the road.
Avish Parashar
And what I like about that is I think sometimes, you know, especially when you're, like, a speaker or consultant, you know, people think in order to implement, they have to do this, like, giant, like, we need to completely change the culture on day one. How are we gonna be we're now gonna be a playful workplace and, you know, oh, how do we do that?
Well, I don't know. Let's bring in bicycle horns and seesaws in the middle of the break room. It's like, oh. But, you know, just these little little steps, like, oh, just, you know, maybe switching up the question to make it a little adding little bits of playfulness, relieves that pressure and makes it actually doable, I think. It's like the easiest way for people to not do anything is to be like, oh, I gotta gotta have the whole thing figured out before I start. And what you're recommending is just little things to start.
Melissa Dinwiddie
Tiny title of things. I mean, another example, apropos the name of your podcast, is incorporating the yes and technique from improv. Just anytime anyone shares any kind of an idea and this is this is a muscle that I encourage everyone to practice, and I'm sure you talk about this a lot, is just practice building on it rather than immediately evaluating it. And this is just this practice alone is gonna create a more playful generative conversation and a more playful generative culture, which is something that we need if we want to build cultures of innovation and creativity. So that's another example. Some other easy ones that are, you know, very small and this is, again, this is not about, like, you have to just dramatically overhaul everything, and it has to be these, you know, huge impossible to achieve steps. No. We're talking about tiny little steps that together are going to help you create the impossible.
Something like implementing wild idea Wednesday or whatever day works for you. Set aside just ten minutes where team members can share their most outlandish solutions to whatever your current challenge is. And the rule, this is really, really important, is that no idea is too crazy.
Avish Parashar
Mhmm.
Melissa Dinwiddie
And here's another tip. If you're going to do this, you're the leader. You're establishing this container for this wild idea Wednesday or whatever day it is. You put out the first idea and make sure that your idea is so outlandish, so just beyond the pale that it creates space for other people to throw out crazy ideas as well. If your idea is, you know, a five out of 10, then nobody's gonna put out an idea that's above a five. But if your idea is a 12 out of 10, then that ensures that other people will let their ideas be tens.
Avish Parashar
Mhmm.
Melissa Dinwiddie
Does that make sense?
Avish Parashar
Yeah. Absolutely. It's like leading by example and setting the tone. Yeah. Yeah. It's not like by decree, like, alright. Now you are going to be playful. It's alright. No. We all need to we all need to do this, and I'm gonna do it as well.
So one one more question about kinda creating this this play hard culture mindset. How do you deal with or how do you recommend leaders deal with, for lack of a better term, you know, the the the sourpuss? You know, the person who's been there for a long time is set in their ways. Work is supposed to be serious. I don't come to work to have fun. Like, I don't wanna do this silly nonsense. I just wanna do my work and go home.
Like, how do you break down some of those barriers while still kinda honoring that as an individual?
Melissa Dinwiddie
Yeah. It's a tough one.
I think, you know, one of the things that we you know, you just mentioned before, we were just talking about is leading by example. And if the leader if the leader gets pulled down by the sourpuss, then you're you're dead in the water. But if the leader leads by example, maybe has a conversation with a sour person and says, hey. You know, let's talk about this. What is your what what's your hang up here? I I I wanna hear from you. And, you know, be authentic about it.
Don't just, you know, don't just dismiss them or block them or whatever. Like, they they have their feelings about it and acknowledge that they have feelings about it, and and and share your feelings about why you're doing this. Like, if you if you're really gonna, carry a flag for why you feel that play and this type of culture is important for your organization, then share why that feels important to you. And, you know, one of the things that I really believe in is being transparent and being authentic. And if you just, you know, wanna ignore something, I don't feel like that is going to create, a healthy culture. So you can acknowledge that you you may not like this. You may not agree with it.
This is what feels important to me, and this is where we're going. And let's talk about why you don't think this is, you know, useful or whatever. Let's talk about it. And feel you know, one of the things that that I have found as a leader myself of different kinds of organizational groups, being open to pushback. Like, push back at me. Okay. Pushback. Let's talk about it.
Avish Parashar
Yeah. And, you know, my bias, and for everyone listening, if it's not obvious already, you know, you have a improv background as well, so you're very familiar with all the the concepts and stuff. Yeah. Talk about that as a leader being a yes and leader, which is being open when that feedback or pushback comes instead of arguing with it and being a meal. Like, oh, yeah. But let me point out why I was right or why like, it's like be open to it and dig deeper in it. And, like you said, build that kind of transparency and connection, which goes a long way towards culture and and opening that that mindset to play. Alright. Awesome. That's that's so that's the well, we spent that long just talking just about the first step in the framework.
So we've got we've got play hard. So then what would be the second step?
Melissa Dinwiddie
Second step, and this is, so corporate speak, not. Second step is make crap.
Avish Parashar
I love it. But I would like you to explain that further for people that maybe don't understand it at a at a hand.
Melissa Dinwiddie
Yes. So here's the thing.
We have to we have to allow ourselves to suck before we can unsuck. You know? Think about somebody like, oh, Thomas Edison. Right? He didn't just, like, create a light bulb. Boom. First first attempt.
Beautiful working light bulb. No. He made thousands and I don't know how many thousands of failed attempts at light bulbs before he made a working light bulb. If he if he said, the very first time I make this attempt at a light bulb, it has to work. And if it doesn't, I'm done. I'm never trying again. Nobody would have light bulbs. Right? So we have to allow ourselves to take risks, try things, and learn from those failed attempts.
We and so many of us get stuck not even ever trying because we feel like whatever we try has to be excellent. It has to be great. It has to be perfect. And because it's not gonna be
Avish Parashar
Mhmm.
Melissa Dinwiddie
We hold ourselves back, and we never try. That's called perfectionism, and it does not benefit us. So step two is make crap. We need the crap to fertilize the good stuff.
Avish Parashar
I like that. That's a nice way of looking at it. It's very true. I think we we're just talking about, like, how people wait to have it all figured out before they're willing to take the first step. And that's sort of a similar thing like, oh, I can't produce or I can't ship or I can't even open my mouth to suggest an idea until I'm, like, really certain it's gonna be perfect, and not be criticized or or not, you know, fail, whatever. So and I think that is so much ingrained, and I I talk about this a little when I talk about creativity as well. Like, from the moment you start walking and talking as a kid, you're constantly being told, like, that's not good enough.
You're not doing it right. You have to pay attention. And so we get this, like, mental complex and filter. So how do we go about breaking that down? Like, how do you start building that ability to make crap? Because it's so antithetical to what so many people feel is the proper way of working.
Melissa Dinwiddie
Yeah. It it, you know, it takes a lot of sort of peeling off of layers of how we've learned to adult. Right? We have gone through the school system. We've gone up the career ladder putting on these layers of masks and whatever in order to show how excellent we are so that we never reveal that we're actually scared little kids inside, and we don't know what we're doing. And we never wanna show that. We never wanna reveal any, any weakness, show any imperfection.
But in order to be creative, we have to take risks. It's essential. It's part of the creative process. And if we want to innovate, we have to allow ourselves that risk taking, part of the creative process. Otherwise, innovation's not gonna be happening. So we have to peel off those layers, and we have to sort of relearn going back to that, you know, being a little kid. We didn't have to learn that as little kids.
We just automatically loved trying things. We were in that, what would what would happen if
Avish Parashar
Mhmm.
Melissa Dinwiddie
Space when we were little kids. So we have to sort of relearn that or unlearn the stuff that, that we learned away from that. The layers that, got on that sort of got on top of us
Avish Parashar
Mhmm.
Melissa Dinwiddie
That prevented that that have prevented us from not doing what used to be natural.
Avish Parashar
So do you have practice. This This one might be a little bit harder, but kinda like in the in the first step in the framework, do you have anything that, like, a way for people to get started with this? Because it is sort of like a big psychological thing just to kinda get started being willing to make crap or or starting to make crap.
Melissa Dinwiddie
Yes. So one one sort of tool kit that I highly recommend for people is actually improv. Mhmm. Because improv is just a beautiful set of tools that really helps people lean into uncertainty, allow ourselves to fail. That is a huge part and parcel of the entire sort of improv, set of tools is when you make a mistake on stage, it's actually gold. Audiences love to see people make a mistake on stage.
And for improvisers, it's incredible. It's a great offer whenever there's a mistake on stage because now as a as a performer, you have to justify it. You have to figure out why, like, somebody just called me Emily, and somebody else called me Catherine. How can I be both Emily and Catherine? What are we gonna do about that? We have to figure out how to resolve that that mistake that just happened on stage. It just happened.
The audience saw it. What are we gonna do about it? We have to figure that out. So and the audience is going like, oh my god. What are they gonna do? And and in improv, instead of going instead of pretending it didn't happen or blocking the person who made the mistake or whatever, we roll with it. And that is the kind of training.
That's the kind of thing that everybody in any organization can use because mistakes happen all the time. Right? And so in an improv class, you get or, you know, whatever, some kind of in improv training, whatever. Mhmm. You get used to that experience happening in class where the stakes are low. Yep. And then you can incorporate that in your regular life outside and outside of class, and it doesn't feel as impossible to deal with those kinds of mistakes in the rest of life.
Avish Parashar
Yeah. I obviously, I'm fully on board. And I when I do programs, I'm like, people don't know how to keep practicing this. And, you know, I say, take an improv class. Then I joke. I'm like, I know none of you are gonna do that, so here's some exercises you can do as well. But take an improv class because, a, it's fun, and, b, you learn stuff.
I just wanna share a quick just because you mentioned a quick little improv example. A few years back, me and a buddy, we did a two man improv podcast where we improvised a whole movie.
We'd pick a genre. We'd talk about it for fifteen minutes. What are the tropes? And then we just act out a movie with the two of us, but we did it using short form improv games. So it was like four improv games to move the narrative forward. And around and around the holidays, we did a Hallmark Christmas movie, called there was two. It was called near miss kiss.
And the main character's name we started was, I believe, Holly. And then in one scene, the my my partner referred to her as Noel. It's exact same thing you said. And literally, in that moment and I think I wrote an article about this. We could have said, don't you meet Holly or, oh, you made a mistake and move on. The entire rest of the movie became about how, oh, no. Noel was this the main male character's, like, dead fiance and now how like, the whole story completely changed direction because, like you said, that one mistake is the gold, is the offer. And so often, like, in our lives, we look at anything that goes wrong and and not even a mistake because a mistake means it wasn't supposed to happen.
But anything that's not according to the plan is as bad and needs to be changed. And, so I love that idea. Like, that's that is so encouraging why you make crap. Number one, you make crap because you have to get it out there. Otherwise, nothing gets done. But two, like you said, sometimes the crap is like, oh, well, that's not what I thought it would be, but this might be even better.
Melissa Dinwiddie
Yes. I mean, I'm just thinking about companies like I mean, these are these are well worn stories, so your listeners are gonna probably know of these, their old hat or whatever. But, like, Post it notes was three m, I guess. I think it was. Somebody will, I'm sure, correct us if I'm wrong. But trying to make a super sticky glue, and it came out not sticky enough.
Avish Parashar
Yep.
Melissa Dinwiddie
And they sort of shelved it for a while, then it ended up becoming Post it notes, which is one of the, you know, probably most profitable products that Yeah. They've made. Right? And there's there's tons of these examples where companies were trying to do one thing, and something else came came about. And they're like, yeah. Whatever. We're gonna put this on a shelf for a while.
And then that ended up becoming its own incredibly profitable product.
Avish Parashar
Mhmm.
Melissa Dinwiddie
So and, you know, that is a result of you gotta try things, let yourself make crap, and then that crap might just go on to fertilize some really good stuff.
Avish Parashar
And I think there's another like, obviously, you and I speak to organizations, associations, so, you know, sometimes the conversations about that. But I think on an individual level, that's also a lesson because I think so many times people don't want to take a step, like, take an improv class or, go dancing or, you know, travel or try or put in for that volunteer committee or promotion because, like, I don't know what's gonna happen or I might fail at it. Like, yeah. Take an improv class, and you might hate it.
But who knows? Maybe there'll be one aspect of it you really liked. Like, I went to school to be an engineer, and I start out to be a mechanical engineer. I'm not sure why. And after about a year and a half into it, I realized the only thing I enjoyed in any of those mechanical engineering classes was when the professor said, okay. Go write a computer program to simulate this mechanical engineering problem. Now that I got into.
So, you know, I I shifted to computer engineering, got back to my, you know, Indian roots, to be a computer engineer. But it it's kinda that thing. Like, if you if I'd waited till I knew exactly, I would never have figured it out. So it's not just an organization, but an individual. And I think it goes back to your first point of play hard. Someone might be sitting there saying, well, what will play look like for me? Like, I don't know.
Just pick something and try it. And maybe the first thing you try to be playful will suck, but you learn and then you move on from it. And so they kinda fit together the the points in the framework.
Melissa Dinwiddie
They totally they totally fit together. You know, another great example is, last the end of last year, I was debating, do I wanna start, a a local group to get active in, civic action?
Avish Parashar
Mhmm.
Melissa Dinwiddie
And it just felt like, I don't know what I'm doing. What what do I know? I don't know. Do I wanna take this on? I don't know. But what I did know is that I really needed an in person community in order to stay sane and to key to keep each other buoyed up and to keep each other taking action. And so I sent an email out, and 12 people I guess it was 11 people because it was 12 of us altogether responded, and we got together in somebody's living room.
And it's three months later. This group is now almost 230 people.
Avish Parashar
Wow.
Melissa Dinwiddie
And a whole lead a whole leadership team has just sort of emerged because people stepped forward because they also really needed something. And I am now basically the CEO of a startup. It's not really a startup because it's a community group, so it's not doesn't have the same structure as a corporation, but it has taken off. And I've met these are all people that I, like, had I didn't know these people three months ago. And we've become incredibly close, and we are creating something and having impact that I never would have been able to have on my own. And it took me, you know, playing hard by going, you know, what would happen if let's try something. And, also, I founded this group with the intention of it's gonna be based in fun and connection and play.
So every meeting we have, it always starts with play in order to get people laughing and connecting. And our last meeting, by the way, had o had a 30 people attending.
Avish Parashar
Wow.
Melissa Dinwiddie
And I facilitated and led the whole thing, and the feedback was this is the best one some of the feedback. One person literally said, and I quote, this is the best organized meeting I've ever attended. So that was pretty validating. And it's gotten people really fired up, and the actions that are happening as a result, it's you know, I could not have done this on my own, and I was feeling so isolated and so depressed. And we you know, by just saying, I'm gonna play. I'm gonna try something. I'm gonna experiment.
I'm gonna take a risk.
Avish Parashar
Mhmm.
Melissa Dinwiddie
And I did that and then, you know, made a bunch of crap.
Avish Parashar
And it was just one step, really. Right? You send one email out and then just let it kinda and so, also, we've we've kinda gotten very into talking, which is good, but I also wanna make sure we get to the third point. But I do wanna talk about one thing you mentioned there that I'm curious about. If you talk about it or how you see it fitting in, you know, you talk about how you want to make sure it had play and fun and and that worked. And so I think there's this whole element there of this maybe overused word now, but authenticity, which is when it when it came to play and making crap and taking action, like, you didn't just say, oh, here's what people do who build a successful group.
Let me go do that. You said, here's who I am. Here's why I wanna do this. So where if anywhere, do you see the role between kinda your framework and, like, the individual and being authentic to yourself?
Melissa Dinwiddie
Yeah. Well, I I didn't know what other people did. I mean, in that particular case, I had no idea what other people did.
Avish Parashar
And you didn't go on, like, chat GPT and type in how do I start a community group and just say,
Melissa Dinwiddie
do that? I actually didn't. I'd and I do use AI tools.
Avish Parashar
I I do as well.
Melissa Dinwiddie
But I didn't in that case, I didn't say what what do other people do. I just was like, I have no idea what I'm doing, but I I know I need support to in just in order to survive personally. It was a purely selfish motive. Yeah. And
Avish Parashar
that's and that's stepping into uncertainty and just being willing like, you were willing, I guess, to have it not work too if you did that first meeting, and it was a disaster. You either would have learned and moved on or just, you know, said, okay. Let's do something else.
Melissa Dinwiddie
And Yeah. I was just totally vulnerable, and I just put myself out there. And I think, you know, I think that I'm a big believer in transparency and authenticity. And and I also will be vulnerable and say that it it is often a challenge for me personally to sort of, navigate that with my desire to, you know, look like I know what I'm doing. Mhmm.
Avish Parashar
Yeah. And that is a I think that's just not perfectionism comes from. We want people to look at us, and and it's still I I I talked about this in the keynote this week about, like, we are so unwilling. We still wanna look like what we're doing, but that people are unwilling to say I don't know. And yet, when you actually say I don't know to someone because it's vulnerable, people suddenly, like, trust you even more than when you act like you have all the answers and know everything. It's it's this weird mindset to get, out of. Alright. So just to make sure we get to all the points. Alright. So that's we got the first two.
So what is the, third step in the create the impossible framework?
Melissa Dinwiddie
Yeah. Okay. So step three is learn fast. And this step is about turning every experience, especially the failures, into valuable data. So instead of getting stuck in perfectionism or analysis paralysis, innovative teams create rapid feedback loops that accelerate learning. So, you know, we've just we've played hard. We've made crap.
And now what are we gonna do with that? We've made some crap. You know?
Some of it worked. Some of it didn't. And now we're gonna learn from those failures and iterate. And this is a constant cycle. So we're gonna play hard some more. We're gonna make some more crap, and we're gonna learn fast from it. And we're gonna play hard some more.
We're gonna make some more crap and learn fast from that. It is a constant cycle. We're just gonna keep going around and around. And from this cycle, that is where those breakthroughs and innovations come from. It's just repeating this cycle over and over again. So we're constantly I find myself just, like, constantly in one or more parts of this cycle at all times. And it is through through this cycle, you know, we are I I my keynote really I have my my sort of, flagship keynote about my about this, create the impossible framework.
Really, sort of the upshot is that this is not a one and done, this idea of you know, I have struggled personally with a lot with the idea of, you know, I'm not creative. And I know a lot of people have struggled and do struggle with that inner voice that says they're not creative enough, whether they're, you know, engineering types or or technical types or whatever. Even those who consider themselves to be artists often think of themselves as not creative enough or not creative in this arena or that arena or whatever. Even when I was making my living as an artist, I still felt like, okay. Well, I'm making my living as an artist, but I'm not, you know, I'm not a realist, or I'm not a this kind of an artist, or I'm not that kind of an artist, or I'm not I'm not able to do this thing. Or we put ourselves in boxes, and we get put in boxes by what other people tell us about ourselves. And there's always some story or some other story that somehow gets embedded as, like, our internal code that we constantly have to, like, push up against over and over and over again in one arena or another.
And, really, the message that I wanna get want to get across to people is that all of these stories we can unravel, and we can bust through these, like, self installed glass ceilings. And the framework is a tool for doing that over and over again. It's not a one and done, but we have the ability to bust through, un unlearn those stories, bust through them, and and shape our own lives the way we want to.
Avish Parashar
Okay. Well, now you're speaking kinda something that's been at the forefront of my mind recently because I've been kinda thinking about some of the stories, I've been telling. You know, just I was just listening to an audiobook about, like, you know, your kind of subconscious beliefs and things like that and how, you know, logically, you're fine. And so, and it's funny you talk about the art thing. You know, I've done improv for thirty years, ran my own group, taught at Temple, things like that, but, Temple University. But I I never went through, like, Second City and whatnot. And there, you know, there are few few speakers like us out there that incorporate improv into their speaking.
I come across one I don't know, and then I see in their little bio, like, studied at Second City for this many years. I wasn't a instructor at UCB. And all of a sudden, all these, like, doubts, the the voice like, oh, man. Why would anyone book you, Avish? Like, you didn't. And, logically, I've sort of worked in my way out of that. And to a degree, I use it as a selling point almost. Like, look.
If you go there, you're gonna hear they're gonna do what the all the traditionally trained improv people do, but I kinda develop my own thing. So that's neither here nor there, but so I'm very interested in this idea. And we're not gonna have time to go through your 10 guideposts. But for people listening, if you go to Melissa's website, you can get, download some of her creative sand book way sandbox way book, and it goes into this so you can learn more about those 10 guideposts. But jumping ahead to number eight, your eight eighth guidepost is dismiss all gremlins. And you just mentioned the gremlin thing. So in this moment, that one seems very relevant to me.
So I was wondering if, you know, maybe we could touch about a couple of guideposts if you could mention a little bit about kinda what do you mean and how does one dismiss the gremlins.
Melissa Dinwiddie
Oh, this is my, kind of worst issue. The hardest issue for me is the gremlins. The and the biggest gremlin for me is the comparison trap
Avish Parashar
Mhmm.
Melissa Dinwiddie
Which is the, oh my god. There's so much better than I am. I'll never I'm never gonna meet up with them. The gremlins are I've got one right here. I don't know. I don't is this gonna be on video, Avish? Because
Avish Parashar
the main podcast will be audio, but I'm gonna put the video clip so they'll see your little gremlin.
Melissa Dinwiddie
Anyone who sees on video, I've got this little finger puppet gremlin, and I give these out at my, creativity retreats. Everybody gets to pick a gremlin.
They're all different. Yeah. They're they're the worst. They're the voice in your head, and they like to disguise themselves as the voice of truth, the voice of reason, and the voice of wisdom. They are not, but they will lie. They will do anything to try they're trying to keep you safe. They're trying to keep you safely inside your comfort zone, so they will do anything to keep you from taking any kind of a risk, to keep you from stepping outside your comfort zone.
Here's the thing. Creativity is outside your comfort zone.
Avish Parashar
Mhmm.
Melissa Dinwiddie
And so anytime they these little gremlin voices, anytime they detect you getting anywhere near the edge of your comfort zone, they're gonna do anything they can to keep you inside. They will say nasty things. They will lie like a rug in order to keep you where you are so you never grow.
You never try anything. And so our job is to get really good at discerning what is the voice of truth, the voice of wisdom, the voice of reason, and what is a gremlin. And when you can start to recognize those voices, often it will sound like, an authority figure, a real authority figure in your life. They like to take on those, you know, maybe your mom or your dad or a teacher, sometimes not. But when you can start to discern, oh my gosh.
That's a gremlin. Then you can say to yourself, oh, whatever that voice says not to do, I know I actually need to do that thing. It's telling me it's a stop sign, but it's actually a go sign. Oh, okay.
Avish Parashar
So you're just kinda reversing it, like, when you and, you know, my little tip for that is it's it's basically yes, but voice in your head. Right? It's like, most of the time, it's that little,
Melissa Dinwiddie
yeah, but you can't do that or, yeah, but it's
Avish Parashar
not gonna work. And, Yep.
But I like that. The voice that's telling you to stop when you identified as a gremlin, then that's the thing, you know, there's, like, that whole kinda old saying about, like, the the the thing you fear or feel you can't do. That's the very thing you should do. It's kinda like that when that little voice because I like that. I really thought about it that way, though. It is it is got a positive intention of trying to keep you safe by keeping your comfort zone, but that's also gonna keep you limited. And then, so the first step sounds like it's the real of the first step is just awareness, starting to pay attention.
Because, like, so many people are on autopilot, and they just, I can't do that. But just paying attention to that voice is the first step.
Melissa Dinwiddie
Yeah. Absolutely. Paying attention to that voice, noticing when it's when it's actually that gremlin voice trying to keep you safe. And what I like to do is is acknowledge it, thank it for its concern, and then this is what I do, you know, modify it for your own circumstances. I send it off to get a pedicure. Oh. And then I say I set boundaries.
Like, you are not allowed in my creative sandbox. Like, if I'm making art or doing something creative writing or something like that, you're not allowed in my creative sandbox. Gremlins don't pay attention to rules, so it's gonna they're gonna keep popping up. But I can say, look. Thank you so much for your concern. You're not allowed here. I'm gonna send you off to get another pedicure.
They have they get way more pedicures than I do.
Avish Parashar
They have some amazing toes. Yeah.
Melissa Dinwiddie
They have amazing toes. But at least that helps me to establish, like, oh, yeah. There's that gremlin again. Thank you so much for your concern. I really appreciate that you're trying to keep me safe, but it's not useful for me. So I'm gonna send you off to get another pedicure.
Avish Parashar
I love it. So it's it's it's almost like we're teaching people meditation. Like, try not to think of anything. But when you do think of anything, don't get upset and don't just quit. Just be like, try to, you know, let those thoughts go again. Same with the gremlin. Like, when it comes back, don't be like, I'm a failure, and it's more like goes back to being playful and making crap.
Like, it's it's not gonna work the first time. You just gotta let it go again, and and that's how you learn and continuously get better and better.
Melissa Dinwiddie
Yeah. And it's a playful way for dealing with that voice that we are all gonna have nobody the grandmas never go away. In fact, the more successful you get, the more visible you get, the more gremlins are gonna appear.
Because guess what? You're stepping further and further outside your comfort zone. Mhmm. The expansion your comfort zone is expanding. You're expanding. And, you know, we all keep growing as humans. Right? So you're pushing further out to your comfort zone.
Your gremlins are gonna pop up even more. So we have to get better and better at discerning. There's the gremlin again. I have to I have to get more playful and thank it for its concern and send it off again.
Avish Parashar
Yeah. And so I think if we think about it as your framework and how the framework is iterative, not a one off, it kinda you gotta keep working through that, not just externally, but even kinda internally your own mind to to do this. Well okay.
Well, that's great. So just to kinda recap, so the framework is the create the impossible is play hard.
Melissa Dinwiddie
Make crap.
Avish Parashar
Make crap, and then learn fast.
Melissa Dinwiddie
Learn fast. Yeah.
Avish Parashar
Okay.
Melissa Dinwiddie
That's it.
Avish Parashar
That is awesome. And we're kinda coming close to the end of our time here. And I'm gonna let you kinda remind people where and how they can find you and then kinda finish up with one last question. But before we get to that, is there anything else kinda you want people to know about you or the process or anything you think would be particularly helpful for someone listening kinda to to take away and apply?
Melissa Dinwiddie
Yeah. Well, you know, what I'd love to share is I have what I call my golden formula, which is I stated in the form of a mathematical formula
Avish Parashar
Mhmm.
Melissa Dinwiddie
Which is self awareness plus self compassion equals the key to everything good. So we were talking about self awareness in terms of gremlins. Right? So the the more you understand yourself and can have an awareness of what's happening with you, how you're feeling physically, emotionally, all of that. This is really important. And then self compassion is an understanding of, common humanity that whatever's happening with you, other people have experienced that as well. It's mindfulness, ability to separate yourself out from whatever distress is is happening right now, and and self kindness.
And, let's see. Zoom had a raise hand.
Avish Parashar
No. She raised her hand. It's like, oh, sure.
Melissa Dinwiddie
So when you can combine this this awareness of what's happening with yourself and self kindness, this, self compassion for whatever you've just experienced, truly, it's it's a life changing life changing formula. So it really is a key to everything good. And for self for self compassion, I highly recommend doctor Kristin Neff's book titled self compassion. She is the world's foremost expert on self compassion.
Avish Parashar
Well, I love that. And that's, I think something I resonates with me with what I'm kinda working on these days, so I love that. Self awareness plus self compassion was the key to everything. Everything good.
Melissa Dinwiddie
Everything good. Yeah.
Avish Parashar
See, I will look at that book, and, I'm gonna write that formula down and use that because I think, I do agree. And it's so I mean, this is gonna sound weird. It sounds so, like, soft and squishy. Like, oh, self compassion and self awareness. But it is. It's so important to know yourself and be kind to yourself because I think so many of us hold ourselves back and limit us because we're we have no idea what's going on in our heads. And when something happens, we beat ourselves up for over it, and just those two simple things can make such a huge difference.
Well, thank you for making sure you added that one on at the end. That was that was really helpful and powerful. So just remind everyone if they want to learn more about you or work with you either as a consultant or a speaker or or one on one.
I don't know. Just, let people know.
Melissa Dinwiddie
Absolutely. So my website is melissadinwitty. com. You can find me on LinkedIn at Melissa Dinwitty. You can find me on YouTube at, again, Melissa Dinwitty. And I made a little thank you download for the podcast listeners. I have a QR code if you're watching this on YouTube that you can use and a Bitly link, which is bit.ly/yes and thank you, all lowercase.
Avish Parashar
Oh, love it.
Melissa Dinwiddie
And you can go there. You do it does ask you for a name and email address, although I don't add you to any kind of a mailing list if you sign up there. And you'll get the first fifty pages of my book, The Creative Sandbox Way, and it asks for a little bit of feedback. And or you can go to my website also and get the first fifty pages of my book there too.
Let me know.
Avish Parashar
We'll put those links in. We'll put the the the website, the YouTube, the LinkedIn, and the the Bitly link in the show notes as well. Or if you're watching this on video, you can use the QR code. That's I love it. I love to get your face in there.
That's very nice. Well, fantastic. Well, thank you for chatting. I'm gonna finish up with a final question that I like as my last question for for everyone who appears on here. I talk about yes, and, and one of the reasons I do that is I honestly believe the world would be a better place if everyone just shifted their default, their first response from yes, but to yes, and. It would make us all kinder, more respectful, better communicators, and everything. So what is one small thing that you believe if everyone was better at or if everyone just did a little bit differently, it would make the world a better place?
Melissa Dinwiddie
Oh, what a great question. I believe that if everybody could have more self compassion
Avish Parashar
Mhmm.
Melissa Dinwiddie
And compassion towards others, empathy and compassion towards others, that would make the world a much better place.
Avish Parashar
Oh, I cannot disagree with that. Great answer. Thank you so much, Melissa. I had a fabulous, fabulous time, and, you know, look forward to chatting again in the near future.
Melissa Dinwiddie
Thank you so much for having me, Avish. This has been so much fun, and I just have loved talking with you and would love to come back anytime.
Avish Parashar
Fantastic. Thank you.