Creativity Is Connection with poet IN-Q
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Hi everybody, it's Savannah got 3 from the today show as we head back to work back to school back to everything we want to help you turn your to do list into your today last your morning routine healthy meals and workout plans we've got you covered so you can take it all on with simple solutions to help you through the day everything you need to know before heading out the door so join us every morning on NBC because every day needs today.

These days, calling yourself a professional poet almost feels like it's something from a previous century. But poet is exactly how NQ describes himself. And not only does he make a living from being a poet, but corporations are actually using his ideas to enhance their cultures.

NQ started out in the music industry, writing lyrics for major artists like Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, and L.O. Black, until his talents were spotted by an unexpected audience: business. He started speaking at business conferences and doing workshops, teaching, yes, business people how to write poems. Why, you ask? Because writing poetry is quite vulnerable.

And it turns out a simple 10 minute exercise can bring a team together in a way they didn't realize was possible. I know because we did it. This is a bit of optimism. Do you think the word poem is a liability? When people hear poem, they're like roses are red, violets are blue, you know.

Yes. And when you say I'm a poet, people like, oh, here we go. And and when you say I'm going to have you write a poem, it's a liability. Right. Because the word poem or poetry has baggage. Yeah. I mean, I have my mind goes in different directions to respond. I mean, the first thing I'd say is some of the best art experiences I've ever had was poetry.

while I was in the audience watching another poet on stage, because I know what it is and I know what it can be, but that's because I've experienced it, to your point. When I'm talking to people about what I do for a living, if I say I'm a writer, that's one conversation. But if I say I'm a poet, they're either super interested, which is very rare, or they just start looking over my shoulder. What would you rather it say on your business card? Well, the thing is that it is authentic.

It's the truth. I am a poet and many other things. I'm an author. I'm a facilitator. I'm a songwriter, but I'm a poet. And a lot of the foundational work of my art, it really does connect to that term. Do you have a favorite? Is there one that you like when you get an opportunity to stand on stage? You're like, okay, I'm doing this one because I just, I just like this one.

So the real answer is that it's the... Don't tell me I love all my children equally. No, I don't. But it's the one that is closest to creation because that's the one that's closest to source. Okay. Would you share it? Yes, I can remember it. It's the last one that I wrote. All right. Better up. I don't know is a perfectly appropriate answer to any question. I don't know.

And I won't pretend to know to get attention. I don't know. Why does everybody have to have a perspective? I'm not taking a position can be a powerful position. I don't know. And I won't be forced to give you an opinion. I'm allowed to just listen. Silence is not always indifference. Silence is not always violence. Sometimes silence is just fucking silence.

It's okay to be quiet. It's okay to be patient. I'm not yet an expert on this specific situation. I need more education. I need more information. I need more conversation. What I don't need is more posting from a random Jane or Jason living in their parents' basement. They don't know. But it's wasting space for me to tell them so. So I comment in my head instead and try to let it go.

'Cause I don't want to use my voice to be a part of all the noise. I cherish freedom of speech, but also freedom of choice.

And I won't blindly follow anyone, get off our timelines. You're like what happens after arrogance and ignorance combine. So I remind myself to get offline and get some sunshine. I'm not lying to myself pretending everything is fine, but I do my best to be compassionate, considerate, and kind. To find the things we have in common even when we're not aligned.

Because two truths can occupy the same space at the same time, it is not a personal attack on your mind. Three or four truths can occupy the same space at the same time, it is not a personal attack on your mind.

More truths can occupy the same space at the same time than we can quantify inside our mortal minds. And I can empathize with all of them because all of them are mine. Society is sick but we ignore the truths for dollar signs. It's gotten to the point where being crazy has been normalized.

They only pay attention when our mental health is monetized. They're paid for our attention so we scroll until we're hypnotized. We think we're in control but we believe what we've been advertised. The co-opting of pain. But having context is too complex to be made into a meme. And I don't know is not something that people want to scream.

'Cause no one wants to die for standing in the in-between. They want a slogan that will amplify their fever dream. They want to pacify or justify the rage that they're feeling. But revenge will make us use an olive branch to choke a dove. It feels good to hate together. It's almost like it's love, but I don't know. Anyway, thank you for listening. Thanks for-- that is powerful. I hung on every word. Every word made sense.

One of my great joys is sitting here and watching you get lost in your words. You know, like being lost in the notes that are coming out. I think that's the true test of if you're being authentic. The true test of if you're fully present is if you get lost in the things you're saying, you know? I think one of the reasons I love talking to you is because of what you do, you and I have shared stages before at events. Yeah.

You know, you do corporate gigs. I think it's a very powerful thing that a corporation or an industry event hires a poet. It says something, I think, about not only the quality of your work, but the power of your art. I think it's almost redefining what an artist's life could be. I don't think most spoken word artists think corporate gigs could really help. You know, I could spread my message this way.

Now at least maybe when I was younger I would have had judgment around it. But now I think it's one of the most powerful and important parts of Me sharing my art is getting a chance to connect with people I would argue that it's actually more powerful because you know when you go to a poetry slam the audience is filled with The converted when you go to a corporate audience you're proselytizing. I mean, you're you're I mean, it's it's more powerful because it's an audience that is

It only took one person to hire you, but the rest of the audience is like, huh? They immediately hate me. I mean, you come in and your name is In Q. I mean, like, they don't even know how to call you. Mr. Q. Hello, In. Yeah. Like, even that is unsettling. But isn't it more gratifying to watch people change their preconceived notion of what could be?

in front of your eyes by you just showing up and telling the truth and then surprising them because oftentimes when I'm doing the workshops I then get people who don't consider themselves poets at all to create their own poems that are meaningful to them and to share them with their co-workers in a way that shocks them so now they're like laughing they're crying and they literally can't believe it

What do you have to do in a workshop to take someone who has a left brain job? They're in finance. They're a lawyer that you get them to a place of presence.

And creativity, where they let go of their stresses and they allow that right brain to flow, like access that part of their brain and discover that they have a creativity they never knew they had. Well, one thing that I learned a long time ago is that if you want someone to be vulnerable with you, you have to be vulnerable first. And if you are vulnerable first and they don't respond well, they might not have the capacity, it might not be the right container, or they might be an asshole. Mm-hmm.

And all of the above are okay. I don't need to convert everybody. What I have to do is continue to show up over and over again in the time that I have the session with them. And eventually, almost like a Rubik's Cube, it clicks. But in the workplace, a lot of miscommunication comes from lack of context. People actually don't know who they're working with.

And so if you have more context and you have a human container where they can have an experience together, it can lead to better communication, better collaboration and better creation. If people were vulnerable in the workplace all the time, literally nothing would get done. Right. But being vulnerable none of the time isn't working either. Yeah. So that's really why people hire me is to come in and give them

container for that moment. A moment for it. Exactly and we're doing it through creativity. Yeah. If it wasn't done through creativity there would be no avenue to begin. Right. Because I'd just be saying to everybody oh let's just be open with each other. It's a hippie commune. Nobody's gonna do that. Let's all have empathy. Exactly.

Okay, so we're gonna do have a little fun here. I'm gonna write a poem great So I'm gonna follow your methodology, which means you have to go first Okay Well, you might actually have to turn off the cameras at some point so you can actually like do it You can take the five minutes to do it. We can do that ten minutes. I'll take five minutes and come back. Yeah, I Mean why not? Sure. All right. I'm gonna do a poem. You're gonna start first and you're gonna do it Yes, you're gonna be vulnerable show me how it's done the

The prompt that we're gonna use today is to choose a moment in your life that changed who you are in a drastic way. So it's a moment where you walked into it one person and you walked out another person. It could be good or bad, but it has to be moving and meaningful to you. So it has to be something that you wouldn't normally talk about after 15 minutes at a dinner party. It has to be a layer deeper.

Because if you choose something that's moving and meaningful even in the five or ten minutes that we do this The poem will start to write itself. The second thing is don't try to make something great make something true and Trust the process. I'm gonna do my example of the prompt It's a poem about meeting my father for the first time when I was 15 years old and

When I'm doing this piece, I not only want you to think about the piece, but I want you to think about what it is that you would want to explore. I'm staring at the number wondering if I should call. I can hear the tick-tock from the clock on the wall as it meshes with the thump-thump beat of my heart. Sometimes getting something started is the hardest part. I didn't meet my dad until I was 15. I had seen his photograph, but his image was sickening.

A coward with a dick but no balls to back it up. See, when he left me as a kid, I had cause for acting up. The funny thing about hate is the person you hate doesn't feel that hate. You feel that hate, but wait, the wait can be too much for a person to take and personally I was hurt so I just locked it away. I was angry all the time and I didn't know why. I couldn't handle my own rage.

So I would hide it inside pretending everything was fine became a daily pastime. Time passed and I started to believe in my own lies. I took it out on my mom because she raised me alone. The rage that I couldn't own had left me totally numb. It was like landmines in my mind that I didn't understand. So when the boy inside cried, the young man outside yelled. I think I learned about my masculinity from TV.

The people weren't real, so I knew they couldn't leave me. I would sit there for hours, right in front of the tube. The images that I saw were my depiction of truth. It was manhood in a box. And I bought into it. The censorship of anything inside of me that's sensitive. The sentence is, "A lifetime of tears suppressed in a stone face, an overblown ego they've distracted through a paper chase."

Back when I was nine, I imagined in my mind that my father was a spy working for the FBI and that's why he couldn't stop by, write or drop a line. He was off saving our lives from the bad guys. But that was just a lie that I used to get by so that you wouldn't see the tears welling up in my eyes. When you're rejected by the person that you're created by,

You secretly feel like you don't have a right to your life. I thought if I confronted him that it would make it all right. But since I couldn't forgive him, it just recycled my spite. I remember meeting him for the first time. Every time a person passed by, I would ask, Mom, is that him? I look a little like him, right? No? Oh, what about that guy? And that was what it was like to meet the man that gave me my life.

to shake his hand and look into his eyes. We talked till he apologized, then said our goodbyes. I walked away on my own, then I began to cry. Now, for years after that, I acted like it was all resolved. I told him what I thought, so I figured my problems were solved, but they just re-evolved.

My insecurities were eating at my mental health. I took it out on the world because I hated myself. That's when I finally decided I needed some help. I got some therapy. I opened up. I started writing and sharing about my past. I got honest with myself and I started chipping at my mask. I looked into the mirror and confronted what I saw.

Accepting the reflection by embracing every flaw, then directing the connection into breaking down the walls by reflecting the perfection of the God inside us. I stopped focusing on everything that I had been hateful for and I started focusing on everything I could be grateful for.

And personally, there is a lot I can be thankful for. If pain is dragging you down, just cut the ankle cord. That's when the weight lifted and I really started living. It's when my hate shifted and I really started giving. It's when my fate twisted. It was like an ego exorcism. Your mind state can be the most powerful of prisons.

My father never played catch with me or gave advice. But if nothing else, that man gave me life. And that's enough for me. If that is all he can ever give. Because I'm appreciative for every day I get to live. And even though I don't need my dad to validate me. I thought that I should write this poem to thank him for creating me.

Because every moment we are alive is like a gift. And if that's not enough to forgive, then what is? Thanks for sharing. You talk about being present. You've shared that poem many, many times, I have to believe. And yet, as I sit here and watch you and the emotion well up in you as you share it, it's as if you're giving it for the first time. Is that what being present means? I think being present means honoring the moment that you're in, whether it's

It's the best moment of your life or the worst moment of your life. It's the only moment of your life. So here we are. I don't normally do that one for the corporate environments because it goes a little bit deep. But I shared something that was real. And even though I performed it, it wasn't performative. So I would invite you or even whoever's listening to this to think back to a moment in your life that changed who you are.

a moment where you walked into it one person and walked out another person and explore it through a poem. It could rhyme if you want it to rhyme or not. It could be long if you want it to be long. It could be short if you want it to be short, but it has to be moving and meaningful. And if you do that, you might be surprised at what you create. Okay. Well, I'm going to take a little break. I'm going to write a poem. I'll be right back. Great. We'll be right back. You need a space, not just any space, the right space.

Thank you.

So whatever your industry, whatever your vision, and whatever you need to make it happen, Will Scott has thousands of local experts standing by to make sure you have the mobile and temporary space that's right for your project, right for your timeline, right from the start. Get started at willscott.com.

Hi everybody, it's Savannah Guthrie from the today show as we head back to work back to school back to everything we want to help you turn your to do list into your today last your morning routine healthy meals and workout plans we've got you covered so you can take it all on with simple solutions to help you through the day everything you need to know before heading out the door so join us every morning on NBC because every day needs today.

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And I have to say, if you're listening to this episode, I cannot encourage you more than to try this exercise. One of the folks in our team wrote about heartbreak as a teenager with such dignity and clarity of heart.

We all were there listening. I mean, we were all there living it with him and feeling that heartbreak like it was our heartbreak. It was remarkable. One of our teammates talked about what it means to be a mother and what motherhood has done and how it's changed her and the love that poured out of that poem. And one of our teammates chose not to read the poem, but told us what the poem was about, about being...

a difficult teenager, not appreciating the love that she had around her, and forgave herself. And she welled up with emotion simply telling us about the poem, though we didn't hear the poem. And the courage and the honesty with which she approached the topic was remarkable. And the closeness that I think we probably all feel towards each other now, 'cause we've all kind of learned something about each other that's deeply human, is kind of remarkable. It only took, what, 10 minutes?

And for me, the writing of it, I realized when you talk about writing a poem and you gave very specific instructions, which is don't try and make it good, just write it true. I found this exercise remarkable. I really hope people do it because it's really good. And I really hope people do it with somebody else. Like go listen to this episode with somebody and then do it with them.

Even though I think there is catharsis and there is magic in doing it alone, I think there's magic in sharing it with somebody because it's a deeply human experience. And the great thing about human experience is they're wonderful to share. You're dropping dimes before you even start the poem. All right, ladies and gentlemen, you know them, you love them. I know they're wearing hats. Well, we'll see, we'll see, we'll see. Who knows, who knows, who knows. Anyway, again, and I'm following your rule, which is it doesn't have to be good or bad. It just has to be.

I remember the feeling as if it was happening right now. The feeling that I had lost all control, that I had lost all hope. I felt powerless over my situation. And my reaction, it's a reaction that to this day, I am not proud of. I was angry. I became that asshole that I speak and write against. I put my finger in his face and said, you get me on that plane and you get me out of here.

That's what happens when you're in a difficult situation and you feel alone. Your instinct for self-preservation kicks in and you take control of your own destiny because you can't trust or rely on anyone else to. The rest of them, they were with others. They wore the uniforms of their service. They wore the ranks of their position. They were among their brothers and sisters. And I was in Afghanistan.

in a pair of khaki pants, a golf shirt, and hiking boots. I was the one person on the whole base without a sidearm, without a security blanket. I was the one person who was alone. Long story short, we eventually found a flight that could take us out of the war zone back to home zone. And this flight had one passenger that was more alone than me. He lay in a flag-draped coffin.

in the center of an empty cargo plane. And although the flight was quiet, I barely talked to the crew and they barely talked to me. I had a chance to be with somebody who needed me. I spent the whole flight nine and a half hours with him. I slept next to him or tried to sleep. And it turned out he was there for me in a way that was more powerful than I expected. That day, I learned what purpose really means. True purpose is the chance to serve those who serve others.

I am grateful for everything I learned that day. And I cling to those feelings for what I found filled me, filled me more than anything else could. It was beautiful, man. So beautiful. Anyway, the, thank you. How did it feel to say it out loud after creating it? And how did it feel to be in the presence of the emotion that's still there? I...

have told that story before on stages. I remember when I got really became that asshole. I remember saying to myself, you better remember these feelings because time erases these things and this you've got to hold on to.

It profoundly moved me and changed me and taught me what purpose means and I'm in the purpose business. Yeah, it's not often that we find ourselves completely powerless in that way and Completely out of control of your own destiny. Yeah, there's a lot of details I left out of here that Contributed to the fear and I think though I can give myself goosebumps when I tell that story I don't well up like I used to yeah, and I welled up here. This was simply emotion on a page and

There are some insights in here that I've never told from the stage that I realized in the writing of this, that he was there for me, that I've never said those words before. I thought that that was one of the most powerful parts of the poem and the language that you used to describe it, the poetic language, the intention behind it. There's something that happens when you create something with a story that's different than when you tell the story.

Whether you're trying to tell the story well or you're just trying to tell the story authentically, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying when you're telling a story out loud, even if it's fully true, it's hard to separate it from the rest of your life because we're storytellers. Stories we tell ourselves and other people become our lives. We are living our story every single day. But when you turn the language into a poem, it almost like encapsulates it.

And then you separate it from you. So the story has become something else and it's outside of you. And that space allows you to share it differently. And it allows you to internalize it differently. And it allows you to alchemize it differently. I think, you know, we tell stories largely for the benefit of others. And this exercise, the poem was meant for the benefit of me. I just happened to share it with you. That's right.

But I think this is one of the things that I've taken away from this exercise, which is it is a magical feeling to do something creative for the benefit of only one person, which is the person making it. And that you get to share it is why it's such a deeply human and connecting experience and why we've created this magical space in the studio right now with, you know, the five people that are in this room is because we shared a little piece of ourselves, not for the benefit of each other,

But we just let you in. The sharing of our poem was a gift to the people who got to hear it because it wasn't written for them. No, it was a gift that you gave yourself first. Yeah. And then you giving that same gift to us. I mean, it not only makes me feel closer to you, but it makes me reflect on my own life. And that brings me closer to myself. So there's this...

self-fulfilling, virtuous loop that starts to happen. If I'm completely honest, look, I know you and I've seen you perform and I love your work. Thanks, man. And you always make me think, and I love the way you use language. I love beautiful language. But if I'm honest, I might've been nodding and smiling, but what was going through my head was, I mean, it's a poem. And I don't think anybody can truly appreciate how you're talking about it unless they do it.

This is one of those things that you quote unquote, you know, you got to try it. Yeah. It's like, well, I don't like sushi. Well, you've never tried sushi, you know, try it first. No matter how somebody describes it to you, you really have to just try it. Well, we made a journal for that very reason so that people could do it without me having to be present and go through different prompts that bring about different stories in their lives that they can create with and have some sense of poetic release and

for many years I've been doing these corporate things, but I never started out doing corporate things. They were libraries and upward bound programs and I was doing them from teenagers. And then eventually I realized when I started doing corporate, wow, adults need this as much, if not more than kids, because they have like more stories piled up underneath and it's just a new way to get it out. We'll be right back.

You need a space, not just any space, the right space. For educators, it's a space to teach. For contractors, a space to work. For healthcare workers, a space to heal. Will Scott Mobile Mini is now Will Scott, North America's largest space solution provider, offering everything from mobile offices and storage to temporary structures, all from one partner.

So whatever your industry, whatever your vision, and whatever you need to make it happen, Will Scott has thousands of local experts standing by to make sure you have the mobile and temporary space that's right for your project, right for your timeline, right from the start. Get started at willscott.com.

Hi everybody, it's Savannah Guthrie from the today show as we head back to work back to school back to everything we want to help you turn your to do list into your today last your morning routine healthy meals and workout plans we've got you covered so you can take it all on with simple solutions to help you through the day everything you need to know before heading out the door so join us every morning on NBC because every day needs today.

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you need to go or check out an affordable and reliable Corolla with a trim for every lifestyle from the hip sedan to the sporty hatchback. There's a Corolla built just for you. Check out more national sales event deals. When you visit buy a toyota.com Toyota, let's go places. My therapist who's no longer with us, but he was kind of like a father figure for me in my twenties said once happiness is not a point. It's a range.

And it really stayed with me. I actually made a poem around it because you are responsible for figuring out what brings you out and into that range. And only you will know. And only you will know over and over and over again. So you better keep checking in. That's so good. That's such a great insight that happiness is not a point. It's a range.

It's not a spot on a target. It's a whole field. And you can miss the target, but you can wander around a field. And I think we treat happiness like a bullseye. And by the way, it's damn near impossible to hit a bullseye and to hit it every time and split the arrow that you just fired. And so we think we're unhappy because we're not on the bullseye. But the reality is I'm degrees of happy every day. That's right.

And what can you do when you recognize you're slightly out of the range that will just kind of bump you back up? Yeah. And you don't need euphoria. No.

Euphoria is boring all the time. And temporary. Yeah, constant. But imagine constant euphoria. I mean... Well, I think you're probably high on drugs. Constant euphoria is probably a drug addiction. I have been many, many times high on drugs. And there have been many, many times where I've actually wished I would come down. You're up too long and you're like, wow, okay, this euphoria is hurting now. Yeah. When does this end? I want to come back. Yeah.

So why is there the belief that art has to be born of pain? You know, more art comes from pain than joy. More songs are about breakups than finding love. Artists that we write about, whether they're composers or fine artists, we always talk about their torture. Yeah. Is that true? Or is it just ironic? Like you found pain and euphoria...

And that's the pain you're going to write about. Is that true that artists have to be tortured? Unless you're tortured, you can't be a great artist. 50-50. Say more. I'll tell you a funny story that I don't normally tell, but it just feels appropriate. So I do think that you have to have gone through things in life to be able to draw from that well.

But there is this illusion that to be a good artist, you have to always be in some state of suffering. And I just think that's bullshit. So there's this one time that I was going through a breakup. It was probably in my late 20s. And I had a really hard time figuring out my own mental and emotional health. So I was still in this process.

I'm still in this process now, but I was really in the process then. And I had gone through this challenging breakup. I was at home alone. I'm high. And I'm like, I'm going to write a breakup poem, you know, to describe this feeling that I have right now. So I sit down. I'm about to start writing it. And then I thought, let me read my old breakup poems.

So I go back and I find all of my old breakup poems, all these different relationships, some the same, you know, but a lot of them are different. And I read them all stoned in a row and I finished and I thought, oh, shit, OK, I don't need to write a new breakup poem. I need to figure out why all of my breakup poems sound exactly the same.

Why am I continuing to recreate the same lesson in a new disguise over and over and over again? And so I started to delve into that, not only in my life, but in my work. So rather than just complaining and perpetuating some of the pain that I was feeling, I started to write my way out.

And I've always come back to that for myself and for my audience, which is I want to explore the truth, even if the truth is painful. But I always want to wind up leaving others and myself in a place of hope, in a place of possibility, and in a place of empowerment. And that, I think, is the ultimate job of the artist is to mirror the human experience

and make people inspired to go live their best lives. As you say that, what goes through my mind is the best couples when they fight, romantic couples, friends, business partnerships, colleagues, coworkers, people who are in relationship, the best relationships that when they fight and they don't fight to be right, they fight to get to resolution. That's right. We're fighting to get to resolution. And that is my mindset. And I know it's your mindset.

And so the things you say are different. And what I love about what you just said and what I love about your poems is no matter how dark or deep or hurting your poems may be, your words may be, you always write to get to resolution. You don't leave us in it. You take us at very minimum, you offer glimmers of hope or point of direction or raise a rhetorical question and ask what if. You know, every single time,

And I think that's one of the reasons you are so inspiring. It's not just the words you write. It's that you always push us in a direction of hope every time. Thank you, man. Well, you know that the feeling is mutual. I love your work and I love your perspective on the world. And you've inspired me countless times and continue to. I think we'll end there. Not because I want to, but because there's a punctuation mark.

Thanks for coming by. Very intense, very moving. And once again, I really hope people Google you, look up your journal, find out more about you. But more important, I really hope they go and write a poem. Thank you, brother. Thanks, man.

If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website, simonsenik.com, for classes, videos, and more. Until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other. A Bit of Optimism is a production of The Optimism Company. It's produced and edited by David Jha and Greg Reutershan, and Henrietta Conrad is our executive producer.

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