Sharing Your Gift is Not Self-Promotion: PLAYDATE with Lorena Martinez
Episode summary:
Sharing our work is an essential part of the creative process that we aren’t trained for, which is why it so often arrives as dread rather than as the natural completion it actually is. I joined Lorena Martinez on PLAYDATE — inside an adult-sized fort she designed and hand-painted — to talk about reframing self-promotion, why our creative voices are medicine for this moment, and what it takes to give the gift without controlling how it lands.
It's the end of the school year. I'm walking my kids home on the last day, schlepping a lifetime's worth of items that apparently all must be collected on the same afternoon, and they hatch a plan.
"We should have an art sale!" One of them says.
"Yeah! YES! Let's sell our art!" Their eyes are sparkling they are so into it.
Yikes. Without thinking, I say: "What about a lemonade sale instead?"
It's the kind of parenting moment when, despite swearing to yourself you would never, you hand your children your own deepest insecurities in a single sentence.
Unaware of what I am doing (the power of conditioning!) I decide the art sale is too risky and that the vulnerability of sitting next to your artwork and having people decide whether it is valuable would be JUST TOO MUCH FOR THEM/US.
Lemonade has proven market demand! Lemonade means I can guarantee success and protect their three and five-year-old hearts from failure!
They have zero interest.
"We will sell our art," they announce definitively, and run home to make a sign.
As I am left holding their 100 bags, I realize this
My kids aren't afraid of selling their art, because they haven't been conditioned to think that their voice is a threat to the status quo, OR that the success of their art = their worth.
My kids want to sell their art because sharing feels natural as opposed to threatening to their sense of self.
And whatever comes next — success or crickets or some kind of murky, underwhelming in-between — is part of the process.
They're trying to stay in creative flow, and my fear is trying to block them from their next flow-producing move.
Principles of the creative gift
Somewhere, inside each of us, buried under cultural conditioning that taught most of us that our original expressions are both dangerous and unwanted, is a creative self excited to share our work because it inherently believes:
Our creative works are a gift, not a burden or annoyance.
The gift is meant to be shared, and sharing it completes the Creative Cycle.
It is our job to give the gift, not control how it lands.
Someone needs what we have to give.
Which brings me to Lorena Martinez and PLAYDATE
Several years ago, my assistant forwarded me an application for our Creativity Incubator, The Original Source, from an LA-based creative named Lorena. I knew instantly she'd be an incredible addition to the cohort and that her vision was catalytic. What I didn't know is that she would become a beloved client, friend, and colleague.
Lorena is a creative force. In the years we've worked together, she's launched a media company, developed multiple scripts, given her first TEDx, and exponentially grown her audience. And much more. She has created everything from a place of alignment, creative power, and collective joy.
She launched a show called PLAYDATE — shot inside an adult-sized fort she designed, constructed, and hand-painted, dedicated to the creative inner child in each of us.
I was a guest, and I am my-kids-art-sale level excited to share our episode with you.
In the episode, we talk (while playing and crafting) about the book that fundamentally shifted my perspective on sharing our work, how to reframe self-promotion so it doesn't have so much ick, and why our collective creative voices are medicine for the times we are in.
This one's for you if…
You feel like you tend to hold back your voice, gifts, or creative contributions.
You feel like the pressure to perform at excellence is preventing you from being seen.
You know intuitively that you are moving into a season of creative expansion.
You would like to hear one of the most embarrassing stories of my 20s LIFE, involving a 1980s pop star and voiced by a puppet
(My childhood alter ego also makes an appearance. And we do a puppet show. What FUN!)
The water we are swimming in
During the show, Lorena shares something I never knew: she had been reading my emails for years before she reached out.
Then one day, an email arrives with the subject line "first the wildness, then the sense," something in it sparks, and she applies.
When I heard that, I thought about all the time I've wasted doubting these emails over the years — often to the point of polishing them for days and then not sending because I was worried they weren't helpful enough, beautiful enough, or worthy of your inbox.
I'm curious if this resonates for you. Do you ever feel like you undershare or withhold your voice and creative work even though you know you need to?
So many of my clients wish they could spend less time withholding and perfecting, and more time creating freely, experimenting, and releasing without caring what everyone thinks of them. It's not an individual pattern. It is the water we are swimming in.
We are trained to stay focused on doubting the worth of our creative voice so that we stay disconnected from what could happen if we did share it. We underexpress, and the status quo is protected.
The antidote is creative courage.
Remember how I tried to block the art sale? I am so good at sitting in my creative cave and coming up with wonderfully convincing reasons why not to share the thing.
This habit diffuses creative energy and creates creative drift, which is why I have made creative courage a fundamental part of my practice and require my clients to do the same.
Regularly practicing creative courage can bring:
1. PROGRESS. When we share our creative voice, we UNPROTECT the status quo that wants to keep us QUIET. Creativity is an antidote to oppressive systems
2. OPPORTUNITIES. Results don't come from our drafts folder (Oh how I wish they did!) What's possible when we actually share the work?
3. FLOW. Sharing completes the Creative Cycle and keeps it flowing. Sharing is creative hygiene.
4. CONNECTION. When we give the gift, we also receive something, if we are open to it. This is the magic, mysterious part that only becomes available when we ask ourselves: What's bigger than the fear?
And a question for you to consider: what is ready to be shared this season?
Share your gift
What Lorena reminded me is that the gift is always for someone, but rarely will we know who it is at first, or sometimes ever.
Still. We must. And in case you need more reasons:
Share your gift because it will change someone.
Share your gift because it will change YOU.
Share your gift because those who came before you may not have been able to.
Share your gift because you are a song no one else can sing.
Share your gift because creation is the antidote to destruction.
Share your gift because we need your voice to build a more human world.
I am human.
This essay is a labor of love written by yours truly. I wish robots could do my laundry for me while I write. I hope it’s helpful for you. If you have suggestions or topics you'd like me to write about, send me an email at hello@lizkimball.com.
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