Episode 21 Creativity Journey with JJ Barrows-Newton

In this episode, John interviews JJ Barrows-Newton. JJ discusses how she grew up as a pastor's kid, being creative from a young age, and discovering her passion along the way. JJ is an artist, comedian, author, podcaster, and wife. Here's a sampling of what this episode offers … [01:30] - The value of finding your voice and your style through daily practice. [02:34] - Unpacking key lessons in the experience of showing up daily [05:39] - How do you leverage momentum? How do you develop a habit and let that habit do a lot of the heavy lifting for you as you show up? [09:29] - Principles that transcend your creative expression. [12:03] - Deciding to have/adopt kids will open up a whole new level of communication. [19:03] - Creativity fulfills something within us and it helps others; it's problem-solving. [22:43] - Our creativity isn't necessarily tied to what we do. [25:32] - Hosting a show and setting up other comedians. [32:23] - JJ's paintings have lots of texture and each tells a story. [42:34] - JJ loves doing comedy and it's an outlet that gets her out of her daily routine/her head. [48:23] - Speaking the truth to yourself really comes in handy, regardless of the circumstances. QUOTES: "The ability to take the things that we struggle with, and the things that we're grateful for, cause life is a mix of all of those things together and make something beautiful out of it." "All of my paintings are very heavily textured and it's not actually globs of paint so much as it is the thoughts and the hearts and the prayers of a bunch of people. And so that's what I love about doing live art." "I love engaging in gift culture. And especially during hard times, I love gifting people." "I get it that it's really hard to genuinely care there about others and how they're doing and what they need because you're kind of doing it from this like defense." "Funny, it's one of those funny moments in comedy like you had to be there, he has to tell it I'll butcher because usually it's a personal experience or it's a personal story and the way in which they tell it is so funny that to retell it is actually pretty hard." USEFUL RESOURCES https://jjbarrows.com  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIZLGo4e5Y0  https://www.instagram.com/jjbarrows/  https://www.instagram.com/jjbarrowsart/  https://www.instagram.com/thejestofit/  https://tinyurl.com/TheJestofIt  CONNECT WITH JOHN Website - https://thejohnhulen.com  Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/johnhulen  Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/johnhulen  Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/johnhulen  LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnhulen  EPISODE CREDITS Intro music provided by Tony Palacios - https://www.instagram.com/tonytonedog/ Outro music provided by Jeff Scheetz - https://jeffscheetz.com/