Igniting Creative Sparks: Unleash Innovation | Amani Roberts | Ep 137

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:00

Welcome to the Better Business better life Show. I’m your podcast host, Debra Chantry-Taylor. In this podcast, I interview business owners, iOS implementers, and business experts who share with you their experiences, tips and tools to help you create not only a better business, but also a better life. At the end of each show, you will have three tips or tools that our guest share that you can implement immediately into your life. If you want more information or want to get in contact, you can visit my website, Debra dot coach, that’s D E B RA dot Coach, please enjoy the show. And I am joined today from one of our guests over in LA. It is the Amani Roberts, who is not only a professor, professional DJ, he’s a speaker and author and a professor, which is actually quite an unusual mix. So I’m really keen to hear a little bit more about how you got to be those four things particularly. We’ve just been having a wee bit of a chat. And we were talking about today on the podcast about unlocking creativity. So how do we as business owners kind of unlock creativity. So welcome to the show money. lovely to have you here.

Amani Roberts  01:03

Thank you very much, Debra, for having me. I’m excited to talk to you. Thanks again.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  01:09

Oh, my absolute pleasure. So tell us a wee bit about because that is really, I think probably one of the most unusual combinations I’ve had on my show if I’m really honest. DJ speaker, author and professor, tell us a little bit about your story and and where you are now and how you got that?

Amani Roberts  01:25

Absolutely. I grew up on the east coast, the United States. So the Washington DC area went to Howard University. I grew up wanting to be a DJ, but I didn’t think it would be a legitimate career. I was wrong. So I went to school worked across different hotels across the country. And then I arrived in Los Angeles. And I decided to learn how to DJ. And so I made the transition slowly and eventually went full time DJing. But as you know, as we know, now, it’s very hard to be full time. A DJ, when you’re starting off, you know, you need to have some different revenue streams to kind of support you as you grow your business, grow your network, things like that. So what happened is that I was DJing doing a little writing. And then I got the opportunity through networking to be a professor at a local university. And they approached me and they gave me two classes in like a week to get prepared. an adjunct professor, I go in, I do well, the first semester was very challenging. I do well, the first semester, they asked me back, and I’ve just kind of continue to stay back in the interim, while I was teaching, I did get my master’s degree, so I can stay teaching. And now I kind of blend all four together. It’s all pretty much based about the music business. I teach music business, I teach entertainment operations. That’s kind of what I speak about in terms of creativity. And that’s what I do in terms of DJ. So that’s kind of a quick synopsis of how I got to be a DJ, a professor, and a speaker. And that’s kind of where I’m living right now.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  02:59

That’s fantastic. It’s great to see that you kind of you know, doing what you love, which is one of my things that I always advocate for is Life’s too short to not be doing what you love. So, so you’re a full time DJ now, though. So I mean, that actually has become a profession. And

Amani Roberts  03:13

Yes, yes, it’s a profession. And, you know, I’ve gone from doing a lot of work in like clubs and bars, I do some social events, like weddings, I primarily do corporate events now, so you can space them out a little bit. You know, I also do like a lot of hosting and emceeing, which is how I learned how to do that through DJ. So I kind of combined them all. And it really makes for a good living. There’s always room to grow. I can always do more gates, I just try to be as selective as possible. So I can be focused. But it’s continuing to evolve. It’s doing well, it hasn’t been easy. It’s been a long road. But I’m here now and we take it day by day.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  03:52

So it’s interesting, isn’t it, because I always talk to my guests, and particularly when they’re business owners is like we have this this vision of we’ll start a business we’ll have a few, you know, little problems in the beginning, but then it’ll just be a beautiful S curve. It will be smooth sailing, everything’s gonna be great. That’s what they teach us in business school. Yeah, that’s the gaesco. Life’s not quite like that, is it?

Amani Roberts  04:10

Life is not linear. It’s what I like to say it’s not linear. So

Debra Chantry-Taylor  04:15

Yeah, absolutely. So what are some of the challenges that you’ve kind of faced along the way?

Amani Roberts  04:20

I think the primary challenge is that, you know, when you’re creative, your income could be very volatile, meaning you could have a very, very busy first quarter, your third quarter could be very slow. Sometimes it’s hard to predict, and you just really have to build upon your business. And you can’t be kind of soul focused, like that’s why I DJ also MC, I do some speaking. And then I do some kind of coaching as well because you need to have the different income streams. You know, God forbid we have another pandemic, but when we did have the pandemic, you know, there were no events going on. So you had to shift to do maybe some online events. I was fortunate that I was teaching so that was allowed me to get some revenue and benefits. So I think that’s probably the biggest lesson is that you should both go all in. But within your career that you’re going all in with, make sure you have some different revenue streams that derive from there. And I think that’s the lesson that I learned it took me a minute to learn that, but I strongly believe in that. And I feel that that’s the proper way to move forward, as you know, the world continues to evolve.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  05:27

Yeah, um, it’s the old adage of, you know, not having all your eggs in one basket. And it applies to business too. It’s not that we want to be everything to everybody. But if you can actually be really clearly define about what your niche is, and, and have different different customers, different revenue streams, different ways of actually delivering that. I think that’s really important.

Amani Roberts  05:44

Yes, I agree. 100%. Cool. So

Debra Chantry-Taylor  05:48

Unlocking creativity, you do a lot of talking around this, I’m not even really quite sure what it means. So why don’t you give us a little bit of an explanation and what you mean by that?

Amai Roberts  05:57

Absolutely. And that’s good that you say that because, you know, unlocking creativity sounds could be kind of random, kind of big to people. But many times in business and in life, we get stuck, we could hit a plateau with our career, we could hit you know, in terms of creating new ideas, you could hit, kind of get stuck right up against the wall. So I’ve talked to people about just how to get unstuck, how to become more creative, unlock your creativity, I come from Julia Cameron. And she has this book called The artists way, which I’m sure you probably have heard of, we use a lot of exercises in that book, really going back to when you are a child, and making sure you’re doing some of the things you love to do, whether it be going for walks, playing video games, you know, going to museums, but building that into your routine, and your daily life. And that will help you like unlock your creativity, in addition to their skills, like journaling, we call it like morning pages in the book, you know, artists dates. So I take some of the concepts from that book, we talk about that activities. And then I also combine how to do that by using music. Music is one thing that can really help whether or not you’re trying to create ideas, and you put on some classical music, or you know, you have different genres that you love to be Afro beats Hip Hop country. But I combined the

Debra Chantry-Taylor  07:17

Doing housework, I think there’s a certain type of music that really encourages.

Amani Roberts  07:21

Yes, yes, exactly. Yeah. Well, I try to tie that into like more professionally, like just different techniques that you can use to unlock your creativity, how you get inspiration, and how you can unlock it so that you can move forward and become better at what you’re doing, you can overcome any obstacles you may have in creating things. And that’s one of the topics that I talk about it and people really love it. And it’s really different from what they’re used to.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  07:44

It’s actually really interesting, because we do talk with our businesses that I work with around you, you get to this point where you do hit the ceiling. And that can be at a company level, department level, individual level, but you just feel stuck. That’s what hitting that ceiling means right? You feel stuck, you’re not quite sure. You’ve kind of plateaued and you just don’t know how to get out of that funk. And so what you’re talking about is a way to actually unlock the creativity to get you past that stuckness is that right?

Amani Roberts  08:10

Yes, you just define where you’re stuck, and then tap into experiences that you’ve had in the past that can help you come up with different ideas to get around it, we’re probably our most creative as humans, when we’re kids, because we don’t, we haven’t been told, or we haven’t experienced how an idea might work, or we haven’t been told as many times as we have been as an adult. So if we can tap into that kind of fearlessness, and really, really kind of work on just thinking about any and every idea that you could have to solve a problem to create a new product to you know, maybe re launched a product that you’ve that’s been successful, but it’s kind of getting stale. That will be beneficial. But you know, as adults, we’ve heard no, so many times we kind of rule out ideas, or tactics before we even try it. And so that’s really the main goal is to tap into our zeal and enthusiasm from when we were children and apply that to our current day. issues and ideas.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  09:06

I love that. I know that when you go skiing and you watch young kids on ski slopes, right, they’ve obviously never been told that they can’t do it. And they just look at other adults doing it and going well, if they can do it, I can and they just get on with it. And as adults, we’ve suddenly got all this stuff that’s been sort of, you know, forced into us you ought to you should all these expectations, and all this fear of what happens if I fall over and break my leg or whatever. And I just love I love watching children this like because they just they had this absolute zero fear and just it’s literally they go if that person is doing it, why can’t I?

Amani Roberts  09:39

Exactly. It’s true. And so we should apply that same philosophy to current day not just when we’re kids.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  09:47

But sometimes it can be really hard right? Because we all have bad days we all have bad week. I mean, to be perfectly frank, we’ve had a couple of bad months and you know, you get into that hole. I call it the spiral of doom where it’s just you if you’re not careful, you will hit rock bottom and it’s like, well, how do you actually pull yourself out of that? What would you suggest are the first steps to kind of start to? Well, first of all, you have to recognize that once you’ve recognized that, what can you do to kind of pull yourself out?

Amani Roberts  10:11

Yeah, I think there’s a couple of things that are very, very productive that we can do. First, we have to identify the fears, because fear is probably what really holds us back the most fear of failure, sometimes fear, success, fear of running out of time. So once you can identify the fear, and then understand that it’s always going to be there, but we still need to try to move forward despite it and just see what happens. I think a couple specific activities that really help is like I mentioned before, like journaling, especially when you’re like a rock bottom journaling, particularly, if you could write letters to yourself where you are today, and then write a letter to where you could be in six months or a year. So writing a letter to your future self, I think is very effective, very powerful, helps you get it out there. Also think that doing a lot of like visual activities. Nowadays, we don’t really get magazines as much anymore, but you know, vision boards and things like that, use Pinterest to do that. I think that’s very, very effective. I also think that to be very, very cognizant of who you’re spending the most time with, you know, the old saying, you know, you are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with that is a fact that is very true. So make sure you’re surrounding yourself with positive people. Another saying, you know, if you’re the smartest person in the room, you need a new room, I agree with that. 100%, too. So really try to get out there, meet people attend events that you know, can be beneficial, where you can find people that are on your kind of vibration level. For example, I just went to the National Speakers Association annual conference in Orlando. And it was tremendous, because there’s so many other people there that were on just the same higher levels, you got the talk, listen. So do things like that even watch, like uplifting, motivating podcast interviews, just really, because there’s so much negativity out there now. So you really have to try to stay away from that don’t watch the news. And just kind of continue to fill yourself up with some positive food with helpful information that will increase read books. I know, I think I read a stat I should have written it down. But I think the stat I read was like, you know, 80% of the people in the world will not even read one book in a year, which is shocking. But I don’t I’m not surprised. Because if you want to, you want to keep a secret, put it in a book. So read a lot of books, listen, observe, those are things that I would advise for people who have kind of hit rock bottom, but the hidden trick I want to say is to write those letters to your current self and your future self. I think that’s just incredibly impactful.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  12:47

I think that’s actually I was gonna ask it, we’re gonna go back to that actually ask you about that. Because I know that I did Outward Bound, I’m not sure if you have that in America. But it’s, you know, it’s a course that really kind of challenges a lot of your thinking sort of physically, emotionally, the whole thing. And we haves three days of solitary confinement, as POTUS always feels like when you’re in a tent on your own, you get given very, very small rations of food, and you’re not allowed to take anything with you apart from a journal. And you have to actually write a letter to your future self in six months time. And they give you some questions to ponder to that you can actually write that in the letter. And then they hold on to that letter, and they post it to you six months later. And it was a really pivotal point for me, because I was going through some difficult things in a personal relationship. And I wrote down all the things that I’d learned about myself being Outward Bound, and the things I was actually capable of doing that I thought I couldn’t do, like running 12 kilometers. I’m not built to run. But we know we managed to run 12 kilometers, I managed to climb rock faces I thought I’d be able to do. And so when that letter arrived in the mail, or six months later, it was just mind blowing, because my life had actually changed quite significantly in that six months. And this letter to myself was just a reinforcement of yes, I’ve made the right decision. Yes, I’m doing the right thing. So and all the things I talked about, in my letter to myself had actually come true. So there’s a real power isn’t there in writing that stuff down?

Amani Roberts  14:03

Yeah, I do a similar activity with my students. I think it’s probably a five or 10 year letter just because I want them to be kind of out in the professional world for a while, but they’re supposed to, you know, describe everything from where they live their daily routine, what kind of job they have, how their personal life is. And then, you know, hopefully soon as I get to maybe seven or eight years of my students graduating after doing that activity, you know, they’ll get the letters or look at him again. But it’s extremely powerful. It’s kind of like a hidden treasure. And most people don’t really do it. So the fact that you’ve done it and experienced it is good, because it’s very effective. And I encourage people to continue to do it. Matter of fact, I need to sit down and write myself a letter to me a year also. So you reminded me Well, I

Debra Chantry-Taylor  14:46

think I’m I’m due for I’ll give one as well actually, it’s really interesting. And I think sometimes people struggling they go where do I start? And I actually was talking to somebody on the podcast of the week who was an AI kind of expert and he said, you know, chat GPT Yeah, it’s got its uses, but one of the things you actually can do If you can actually get it to help you start writing that, so you can say to it, you know, what’s important to you what you’re looking for, and it will put together a draft for you. And then you can obviously, you know, don’t take anything as as gospel from Chechi pity, but it gives you a framework, and then you can start, you know, working on it, building it, and then suddenly, you’ve got that letter to yourself in 10 years time. So use technology that to assist you not to not to

Amani Roberts  15:23

do the writing, but you know, do the research and help you with the prompts and things because the letter has got to come from you from within. Yeah,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  15:30

yeah, absolutely. So the other thing you mentioned was journaling. And this is something that I know has been recommended by a lot of people that it’s something I actually don’t do, and it’s something that I’m not really even sure I always get, I do clarity break. So we sit there with a blank piece of paper and just ask ourselves some questions and write things down. But journaling is a little bit different. What how, how do you describe journaling? And how does one start journaling?

Amani Roberts  15:53

So there’s a couple, there’s two different techniques that I’ll describe you that I use both. The first one is that as soon as you wake up in the morning, you know, get your journal and just write down any ideas that have come across your consciousness the night before. So write that any idea, try to get 10 or 11 ideas a day, no matter how daring, how creative, how unlikely they are to be good ideas, write them all down every day, because once we wake up is kind of when our mind is at the clearest. And so that’s the first part, then it’s kind of taking more from like the morning pages, or just like when you are so inspired. It could be after you finish work before you cook dinner after dinner before you go to bed. Then you can kind of write down things about your day, how you’re feeling, what happened, what are you looking forward to what didn’t go well, maybe if you’re having you know, conversations are, you’re not able to have conversations with people maybe in your personal life, but you want to get some things out that you’re feeling, just write those down. Lists, lists are always a good thing. You can write, you know, when it comes to maybe a job that you’re looking at taking a client or the positives or the negatives, if you’re working or you have a significant other, you can write about all the characteristics you liked about them, maybe some things you don’t like about them, so you can use it for personal and professional. The key is just to get it out of your mind and your heart and your soul and onto the paper. And so the ideas in the morning, you can also do the writing in the feelings during the day in the morning, evening. Those are the two types of journaling that I recommend, I personally need to do more of it because I’m particularly overdue. Even if you’re on traveling, you’re on a plane, sometimes you’re on a plane, you’re sitting there waiting for takeoff, that’s a perfect time to write because you can’t really do anything else. But that. And I just think that it’s very effective. And it can really help.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  17:49

Yeah, so I think that’d be maybe I’m overcomplicating it, which I think we tend to do as humans, right, because I’m actually I am doing some, I’m doing my gratitude each day and talking about the things I’m excited about in the next day. And I do try and get everything out of my head before I go to bed. Because I know that if I don’t I’ll wake up at two or 3am. And suddenly, my mind is full of all kinds of things. But I think that the that’s the free for the lists thing, because I love making lists. I’m half German. So for me, lists lists are a thing I love to do. But I like the idea of you know, just, it’s a really good chance just to get stuff out of your head and to when it’s in writing, there’s something about it, isn’t it, it’s like you’ve actually, you’ve got something you can refer to it sort of brings clarity to what you’re thinking about, as opposed to just keeping it in your head or, and I love. So I actually I use a remarkable rather than a pen and paper. And I bought this little stylus, which looks like a pencil, which I quite like because it makes me feel like I’m a kid back at school kind of writing in my journal. But I do find that, you know, we do spend a lot of time typing and doing communications using typing but actually writing has a different, I don’t know it has a different connection to the brain, doesn’t it?

Amani Roberts  18:53

I believe it does. I have a remarkable tool, by the way I like to use it. And just writing things out, I just think it sticks more to keep it as simple as possible just kind of sticks more than typing is a little bit. It doesn’t stick as much when it comes to typing.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  19:09

So I think there was some research done because I’m sure as a professor, I know when I was at university, I’m pretty certain we were kind of shown that actually, people who type notes in lectures and things have got a less chance of actually recalling it than if you physically write it.

Amani Roberts  19:22

Yeah, I believe that. And another list you can do, which I really promote doing monthly, if not every quarter. This is read a list of all your accomplishments, all the accomplishments that you’ve made, you know, in your whole career. And you keep writing the list and you’ll see the different ones will pop up at different times, as you’ve made and you know, done some things, the past month or quarter that will also come on the list. I think that that’s that’s a tremendous thing that you can do. And then you cannot keep posted around your office wherever you’re working. So you’re consistently reminded of it. And if you happen to go back to you know the example where maybe you’re kind of spiraling down, you know a place where you’re hitting rock Bottom, but that list can help get you out of there quicker. So a list of accomplishments is also something I would add to the list that you’re writing. Yeah.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  20:07

So it’s really interesting when I used to do a lot of personal leadership coaching, we had people who were stuck, we would actually make them write down 100 things that they were proud of. And it couldn’t just be very generic things like I’m a great mum, no, that’s not good enough, you have to be specific about what makes you a great mum, or what that is. And it’s actually really hard, like 100 things to write about yourself is really, really challenging. But when you do it, you suddenly realize, wow, you know, there’s actually a lot of things that I’ve managed to do in my life that I should be really proud of.

Amani Roberts  20:38

Yes, yes. One of the things in terms of unlocking creativity that we focus on, is getting through imposter syndrome. And the test that you just described in terms of writing down all your accomplishments, where you are today is one of the main kind of activities and ideas that we we have our students participate in, in terms of getting through imposter syndrome, because imposter syndrome, really, really holds people back. But if they can look and say, for example, if you’re trying to write a book, and they write down all of the things that they’ve studied in school, maybe they’ve gotten good grades, the articles, they’ve written the panels, they spoken on, the different podcast interviews, they’ve done just all these different things that they’ve been a part of the committees they’re part of at work, or maybe with, you know, professional personal associations. They look up, they’re like, Well, I see now why I could actually be more than qualified to do this one thing that I feel I’m an impostor with. So the list the accomplishments, getting an unlucky creativity, one of the main things which I forgot to mention, but this is a good reminder is just getting past impostor syndrome, because that holds us back so much.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  21:45

Right? And so I mean, this is a recent memory, a reasonably new kind of terminology. I mean, it’s been around for many, many years now. But what what does it really mean? So what we describe impostor syndrome, from your point of view,

Amani Roberts  21:57

imposter syndrome is like being in a room with people where you feel you don’t belong, despite you having all the necessary characteristics and requirements to be in that room, or being in a conversation, where you feel that you’re kind of over your head, or you don’t belong there, where actually, you’re valuable, and your input is extremely valuable. You’re needed in that conversation. So it’s really us doubting ourselves in our qualifications and our self worth making our own cells feel like we’re not worthy. When people who are also doing the certain activity that we’re, we’re kind of afraid of, or participating in the conversation, look at us and have a really high worth for our contribution. So it’s really doubting ourselves, having some limiting beliefs and questioning our own self worth, which is preventing us from taking the action.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  22:52

Yeah. And I think that this, you know, we I’ve done a lot of work with this with women with with imposter syndrome. And it’s, I think it’s it is definitely prevalent more so when, but it affects everybody, right? We’re all human beings, we all have these doubts. And I think it’s actually, you know, it’s natural, but we have to, you’ve got to get past that, because we don’t get past it, you’re never going to get, you know, never going to break through that ceiling, right?

Amani Roberts  23:13

Yes, yes. I mean, you’ll never accomplish anything that you could be equipped to do. If you’re continuing to question whether or not you should do it. So it can hold you back. It’s very debilitating.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  23:25

Okay, I guess we’ve got a few things there. My goodness, I’ve got quite a few things here. I’ve written loads of things down. So we’ve talked about, you know, the journaling the future letter to yourself, you also talked about surrounding yourself with the right people. And it’s one of the things I talk to my clients about, it’s actually you know, you need three, in my opinion, if you’re running a business, you need three things. One is a peer group of people that you, you know, that you can learn from that challenge you that support you. The other one is a coach, you can kind of keep you on track. I’m a big believer in that I have one myself just to give my accountability. And the last thing I always say is an operating system for your business, because that’s what I help people actually implement. But this whole community thing is really important, isn’t it? Because the, as you said, the people that you surround yourself with they that that’s who you become. How do you go about finding a peer group or a community that is right for you?

Amani Roberts  24:14

That’s a great question. I think there are different techniques you can do. I highly recommend, you know, networking, going to places where there gonna be like minded professionals or people there that you can share experiences with. And then you just have to talk to people. You can talk to people, and you can see, okay, who’s here that’s really taking action making things happen, and then there’s less, less talk and more action. I think that’s one thing that we get caught up with is a lot of people will talk about doing things, but very few people will do them. So you want to be part of the people who are taking action. You also maybe want to be around people who were maybe a step or two ahead of you. It’s like they’ve kind of already done what you plan to do and they’re willing to kind of reach back and assist you and maybe there could be something you can help them with. That way you can look upon And then for some inspiration and some guidance, and then it just takes time. And I really want to also reiterate that this can also be applied to your personal life too. There could be some friends or significant others who are holding you back and are just not going to be good for you in the long run. And that can be even more difficult conversation. But that also is very important when it comes to who you surround yourself with. Because if you know, if the home life and in your personal life, they’re not positive, that can be toxic or negative, it’s going to hold you back professionally. So you really have to be diligent and focus on who you have around you that’s going to be supportive, inspiring, push you, but also be there for you tell you the truth, maybe when you don’t want to hear it, and just continue to kind of be there for you. So networking, minding who you’re around personally. And then you know, not being afraid to reach out to people and maybe have conversations with them, and also be of service because once you’re a service, and you’re not just always taking that will allow people to open up to you even more, and it will help strengthen the relationship.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  26:07

Yeah, completely agree. I’m a big fan of the Go Giver series of books. And if you’ve read those by Bob Berg, but that is all about you know, it’s all about how can I be of service and that’s how you create relationships. But I suppose people listening in are probably thinking this is easy for you and Debra and Imani to say because your your natural, you know you love to talk, it’s easy for you to go out there and network and talk to people. What happens if you’re a bit more sort of shy, nervous, I think the first thing I want to say is that I actually I actually get nervous when I go networking. I don’t enjoy being in a room full of complete strangers, I don’t naturally kind of go up and just talk to people, but I’ve learned how to do it. But if you’re very naturally reserved, how would you recommend that they approach that?

Amani Roberts  26:48

If you can find like maybe a buddy or a friend to attend some events with you, that will be tremendously helpful. I think that’s the best advice I can give you is try to find you know, a friend or a buddy in advance. If that’s not possible, try to do a little bit of research before you go to the event. So maybe you can see oh, there’s two or three people that I definitely want to meet, find out about them so that when you’re there, you can look to them say okay, well, I’m here. You know, I was doing some research, I love to meet Debra, because I have these questions for Is she here? And they’ll say, Okay, well, let me introduce you, let’s say, Oh, why do you want to meet Debra, do that. I also talk to my students who are the same way. They’re very, very shy and just don’t know how to network. And we do this fun kind of icebreaker activities before each class each week. So if you have some VIP some fun questions about, you know, if I met you, Debra said, okay, you know, what’s the city in the world where you feel like best identifies with your personality? You know, just a fun question like that, just to kind of open it up, you know? And then I can say, because for me, it will be Miami, Florida, and the United States because you know, it’s tropical, great music very diverse. What about you? Something that’s not about business fun, we can always talk about this, even even more basic than that is to be like, Okay, well, where are you from? Where did you grow up? You know, where are you from? And many people move around, and they say, oh, like, if I’m using the United States, for example, oh, well, you know, I’m from Atlanta, Georgia, but I grew up in DC and things like that. And that can say, Oh, what did you like live in there? Would you ever go back. And then from there, you’re kind of off and running. And those are some two? Well, thrilly three kind of tricks or techniques that I think are very effective, especially if you’re a little bit more withdrawn and shy, that will help.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  28:31

I think it’s really important. I mean, I’m actually about to do a talk on networking this evening to a whole bunch of students at Auckland University. And I do it every year, just to kind of help them get out there. And I will say to them, it’s like, everybody kind of rushes up in the immediate wants to start telling you what they do or their businesses I actually, let’s be humans about this, you wouldn’t do that to a complete stranger on the street. Let’s actually get to know them as human beings ask them some questions that aren’t about their, their business. And I love the your point about being of service. You know, I always go into a room when I’m networking, thinking about how can I help other people in here rather than what’s in it for me? Because if you go into it with what’s in it for me, I think that that repels people. So it’s and also genuinely, I want to help people so very easy to think about, I’m going in here to help people rather than to network. Yeah.

Amani Roberts  29:17

Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s the that’s the way to go. So I like it.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  29:21

Yep. And I love those questions that you’ve just given us Well, I think gives people a chance to, you know, just something that can break the ice and, and let people do love to talk about themselves and that people also love to help so you know, asking for help is is good as well. Okay, we’ve covered quite a bit now. So we’ve got the journal and got the future letter. We’ve got the community surrounding yourself with the right people. Is there any other sort of in a really key things that you would like to share around you know, unlocking that creativity?

Amani Roberts  29:50

Like I think the key is is to take action to try things out to utilize. Don’t get kind of stuck doing nothing. Like take action try things out, there’s really, you know what they say like there’s no such thing as like failure or you know, you know only gifts only lessons that’s improv kind of philosophy, no mistakes on the gifts. So you know, just try things out, see what works, try something and doesn’t work, shift, do something different, but don’t just get stuck analyzing, looking around like, oh, I don’t know, I don’t know, stop, move forward, try something. See what happens build on that. I think that’s the main thing is that many people, when they get stuck, they just stop, and they don’t know what to do. So they start to analyze and they get paralyzed, do nothing. And if I can just encourage people to just try something, that’s all.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  30:38

Yeah, I completely agree. I’ve got a very, very smart husband who’s very, very different to me. And he’s he often, I think, over analyzes and overcomplicate things, and he gets stuck in his head in terms of thinking about things, whereas I’m quite the opposite. Just let’s just try something. And if it doesn’t work, what I think my father always told me like, what’s the worst that can happen? So actually, yeah, what’s the worst that can happen? I mean, really genuine, generally not too much that can happen that is really, really bad. So yeah, give things a try tapping into your childhood stuff. And I’m sorry, I’m just looking at your screen. In your bookcase behind you’ve got some kind of weird white alien or something that’s in there. Oh, yeah.

Amani Roberts  31:13

Right there. That’s a Yeah. This is a little stuffy. This is a Reddit the Reddit kind of mascot is?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  31:19

Of course it is. Yeah.

Amani Roberts  31:22

So yeah. Just to kind of keep to me,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  31:24

It just reminded me of that, you know, reminded me of we tend to disconnect from our childhood because we kind of go but we’re, we’re professional. Now we’ve got to be serious. We’ve got to be in a professional and I don’t do that. I love my stuff, toys. I love having fun. I love taking myself back to the things I used to do when I was a kid. But we do tend to lose a lot of that as we get older. So how do you reconnect with your inner child.

Amani Roberts  31:49

So reconnect with the inner child like many things I like as a DJ, one of the most effective techniques is to use like nostalgia, and playing some songs or music that bring up memories of your childhood like you can see right there. I’m a big fan of like, Mariah Carey, and Mariah Carey, a lot of her music got me through my childhood. In addition, like Mary J Blige. So if you want to reconnect, play some songs that remind you of that time, watch some movies that remind you of the time period when you were a child, do things like that, in terms of journaling, you can also write about some things that happened to you in the past that, you know, maybe were very positive that could be, you know, when you were a child. Another activity in a specific journaling prompt that really is effective is that you write down you describe your childhood room, because for most of us, our childhood room was a place of sanctuary and safety for us, for most of us, sometimes not. But most of us you can remember the color of the room, as I close my eyes to remember the posters you had up how the room was designed. Like for me, you know, I have my soccer and basketball trophies all around, I had a little stereo there that I would fall asleep to and my dad would get mad and come upstairs and turn off and tell me to stop playing music so loud, you know, had my little Nintendo set outside the room, just describe it, it does something about the activity of this will really help to get you back to that timeframe and really kind of have you remember the good things and then you can use that as like a to propel you into solving whatever issue you’re going through or just making you feel better. I think that specific prompt is very effective because you know, it’s just most of them it brings up good memories are your laughing like I was so silly. You know, even the phone I can remember the songs I used on the answering machine, just specific things that really bring you back to a time that might make you smile and laugh and be like oh, if I knew then what I knew now. Just things like that. That’s what I found to be helpful and also what my students have also found to be helpful.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  33:59

Yeah, you’ve actually got me giggling to myself now because I just imagined my room and I don’t know if I’m a lot older than you but we had this thing called p arrow which was a a clown, and it was all pink and white my entire room. Everything the bedspread, the wallpaper, everything was Pirro. It was everything. And I was I was realized children who just loved to read and where you got told off for having your music on like I would be under the covers with a torch reading books because it was past my bedtime but I wanted to just get this chapter finished and yeah, it does it immediately brings kind of a smile to your face. I mean, I appreciate not everybody has an amazing childhood. There’s always there’s always points in your childhood that will bring a little smile to your face of what yeah, what makes you you thank you i That’s my morning. Hey, look, you have been extraordinarily generous not only with your time but in sharing some of these tips and tools I really appreciate that. I’d love now you know people want to get in contact with you and they would like to perhaps book you as a DJ as a speaker to help unlock their creativity in their environment. How do they be Just get hold of your money

Amani Roberts  35:01

I think on the socials it will be like at a money experience so it’s a like apple in like marry a like apple in like New Zealand I like ice experience one word on the socials My website is a money experienced.com Definitely reach out I speak on three or four topics I can MC I do very well with moderating panels. So email socials, those are kind of LinkedIn, Amani, Roberts if you type in Amani space Robert space DJ, I’ll pop up first on the list. And just reach out I’ll engage with you. And that’s the best way to have you know, me either virtually or in person come and speak to organization and or DJ. No, that’s

Debra Chantry-Taylor  35:41

Fantastic. I look thank you so much. If you’re ever in New Zealand, please do look me up. I would love to catch up with you in person. Again, thank you for your time, your generosity, really appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Amani Roberts  35:51

My pleasure. Thank you very much for having me. It was an enjoyable conversation.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  35:55

Thanks for listening to the podcast show better business better life. My name is Debra Chantry-Taylor. I’m an EOS implementer family business advisor, business and leadership coach podcaster and speaker. However, I’m also a business owner with several current business interests. I’m fortunate to have lived the high life with all the lifestyle, the toys, you name it, and then I’ve lost it all. Not only once but twice in two spectacular train wrecks. I know what it’s like to experience the highs and lows. I came across EOS when they launched into New Zealand using my entrepreneurs playground at an event center in Parnell Auckland. I love the simplicity of the tools and their philosophies fitted my personal brand statement perfectly. The brilliance is in the simplicity. I’ve always been passionate about seeing entrepreneurs live the life they love. And now I help them live that EOS life doing what they love with people they love making a huge difference in the world being compensated appropriately and with time to pursue other passions. If you want more information or want to get in contact about using aos in your business, you can visit my website at Deb Debra dot coach that’s dub dub dub Debra D B ra dot coach. Thanks for listening.