BONUS: The Creativity Found Podcast Featuring Anna’s Journey from Nurse to Podcaster

[00:00:00] Hello friends and welcome to a special episode of The Story of Woman, which isn't actually an episode of The Story of Woman at all. This is an episode of the Creativity Found podcast

[00:00:12] which recently had me on as a guest. And I thought you might be interested in hearing the episode firstly because I'm taking a little bit of a break before the next season of

[00:00:22] the podcast so this is just something else for you to listen to in the meantime. But also because in this episode I talk about how I came up with the idea for The Story of

[00:00:31] Woman and really my whole journey of creating it and going from working as a nurse to becoming a podcaster. And I also talk a bit about the future of the podcast where I leave you

[00:00:43] with a big cliffhanger, just a warning. So this episode will give you a bit of a behind the scenes look into The Story of Woman and also into me, the woman behind the story. Be sure to check out the Creativity Found podcast which is all about finding

[00:01:00] creativity later in life, which as you'll soon hear was exactly what I did. Let me know what you think about the episode and having this deeper look behind the podcast and then maybe I'll do more of it. But for now please enjoy my conversation with Claire

[00:01:17] on the Creativity Found podcast. I had in my head that creativity was again like pin to paper, paintbrush to easel. It was something that I personally did not have or even didn't have a draw to. This specific

[00:01:41] definition of creativity and watching this documentary reframed that for me and really just expanded my definition of what creativity was with just like so many things. There was lots of apprehension because I had never put anything in the world that I had created

[00:01:59] before in this way so publicly and it also you know you feel quite vulnerable. I guess I'll do a little name dropping as well following suit from you. Yeah, so Hillary Clinton and Cherie Blair were on my podcast.

[00:02:54] I got a little bit of an introduction and also a brief over here. I've got two tracks I can edit separately, I prefer to do it that way. And I don't mind I might keep some of

[00:03:22] the backstage stuff in and stuff in this one depending what it's like but I'll do all that in the editing. Can I uh... Yeah definitely. Yeah definitely. Oops, hold on that looks a little bit more clear. Maybe that's just the lighting. Amazing. Okay that was all

[00:03:42] your selfie there. Yeah. Okay. Alright. Right okay let's go let's get serious now with serious podcasters here Anna. Yes we are. Right we're good at this okay. Hi listeners it's that time of year again I am here with my guest Anna. I'm sorry sweetheart how do you

[00:04:00] pronounce your surname? Stecline. Ah see I wouldn't have said that okay. I'm here with my guest Anna Stecline at the podcast show in London recording in person in the Shaw studio at the show. Now podcasters love to get meta so I have invited Anna as a

[00:04:19] fellow podcaster to join me today to talk about her creative blossoming and how she's been able to channel that into producing a very successful podcast. So let's begin. Hi Anna how are you? Hi Claire I am fantastic thank you so much

[00:04:35] for having me what a pleasure it is to do it in this fantastic studio as well. It is such fun isn't it we've got all these people outside as well we can see wandering around looking official. We're like an official. Okay anyway let's get

[00:04:48] into creativity found stuff so you like me have been able to tap into your creative self through podcasting with your show The Story of Woman but before we get to how you started podcasting tell me about your childhood

[00:05:03] and teenage experiences of creativity. Yeah so I guess starting with childhood I was a very creative child and that I was very into putting on shows performances I was always the one carrying around a video camera and corralling all of the

[00:05:25] neighborhood kids to join and doing anything from commercials to movies to murder mysteries just all kinds of things and it was a great great time a great childhood filled with that there was plenty of other things as well like

[00:05:42] I remember for my even before those years I would like do drawings and colorings then I try to sell them so there's also kind of entrepreneurial side I think to my creativity when I was a kid but then and you know I

[00:05:56] went to some like theater camps and was pretty into it and then it kind of just dropped off I took up sports more and I think I was in a kind of environment that prioritized sports and other types of extracurriculars if you

[00:06:13] will and also my experience with creativity moved into the classroom you know art classes and things of that nature and my hands on physical creativity so with painting or whatever we would be doing in these art classes

[00:06:31] was never my strong suit so I started to develop this story about myself that I wasn't a creative person actually yeah it kind of dropped off and throughout my teenage years and really all of my 20s I would have said that I wasn't a

[00:06:47] creative person at all kind of the opposite of how I feel now yeah as you get given a kind of idea what being creative means and we're gonna come on to how that changed for you luckily later yeah you went to college after high

[00:07:01] school did you have subjects you were passionate about then or a plan for a career path after college oh I wish I could say I did but no not quite I went to school to be a nurse actually and I kind of just chose that because

[00:07:19] I didn't know what else I wanted to do and I was really into sports as I mentioned so I was really into anything to do with health and fitness and I really like I'm a very kind of caring and people person so I like to be around people

[00:07:34] and feel like I'm doing something meaningful and giving back so combination of those things just led me into nursing but I didn't really have a plan because you know as we may or may not get into within three years of

[00:07:46] working as a nurse in the clinical world I kind of left that because I realized it wasn't for me yeah but so I guess I had a short term plan that didn't quite pan out yeah was it therefore you've mentioned that something

[00:08:00] happened was this was a reason that you then started to say no I'm not doing nursing was that kind of like a slow burn or a thing a catalyst a bit of both I started to realize you know I couldn't see myself being a nurse in

[00:08:14] the long term and I saw my paths forward as either kind of climbing the management ladder or going back to school to be a nurse practitioner and neither really appealed to me and because I couldn't see myself doing it for

[00:08:26] the long term I just like okay well there's no point continuing to do it now and I need to start figuring out or I want to start figuring out what's next that in combination with just the last experience that I had was without

[00:08:40] going into all the details not not conducive or safe because of the environment that I worked within the number of patients that we had I was in emergency room and I would have 15 plus patients because of the lack of

[00:08:56] staffing and the lack of support from senior management and it was just a very kind of toxic overall work environment and that was kind of the final straw but there was definitely an underlying feeling leading up to

[00:09:07] that that that wasn't for me that was my path yeah yeah completely understandable now the more keen listeners among you will have noticed that Anna has an accent but she does live here in the UK so tell me Anna what did you do after

[00:09:22] leaving nursing and how is it that you now live here in the UK yes yes I am American and I was working as a nurse in New York City and I ended up because I knew I didn't want to do that but I didn't know you

[00:09:38] know what could I possibly do now I have this nursing degree kind of boxed myself in I felt like so I ended up taking a job for like a medical device type company and doing that for a few years and then I moved over to the UK

[00:09:51] while working in that industry just with with an X moved over with an X for a combination of reasons and a big reason just being we really wanted to live outside of the US and he had a good job opportunity that allowed us

[00:10:05] allowed us to come so yeah we came over from there and I worked in that industry for just another year but discovered very quickly that industry in the UK is very different than it is in the US and also there still was

[00:10:18] always this feeling like this isn't this isn't for me it was a nice transition from the clinical world into something else yeah then I worked for a tech startup I was employee number four so really got to see the

[00:10:30] insides of a business as it grew and developed within all the different functions of it but again still wasn't exactly for me so I've had a lot of different careers a lot of different hats that I've worn just as I've continued

[00:10:45] to pursue I kind of have always just followed the feeling you know I can just feel that this isn't right I'm gonna head in this direction and see where it goes and that's kind of what I've done over the past decade until I've

[00:10:57] gotten to where I am today oh well no good for you you don't always know and to actually be willing to keep trying things and to not stick with a thing that isn't quite right and to be brave enough to try something else is

[00:11:10] absolutely superb because otherwise you just you can get stuck and this is what we're all about on this show is helping people to realize that you can go in a different direction so I want to talk now about your creative

[00:11:21] epiphany obviously an important part of any creativity found episode I know that before you started your podcast and you mentioned it earlier we mentioned it earlier with the drawing your understanding of what being a creative person means and therefore your attitude to yourself as a creative person they

[00:11:40] have changed and evolved more recently so was there a catalyst for that change there was yeah I can look back at something really specific interestingly enough which was a Netflix documentary of all things I watch this Netflix

[00:11:57] documentary called the creative brain or the creative mind I think it's called the creative brain and it just totally reframed for me what creativity was you know all this time even though I I had this childhood where I was doing these

[00:12:16] performance art creations for whatever reason you know at this stage of my life I had in my head that creativity was again like pin to paper paintbrush to easel it was something that I personally did not have or even didn't have a draw

[00:12:35] to so it was a this specific definition of creativity and watching this documentary reframed that for me and really just expanded my definition of what creativity was would just like so many things you know it's the way that you

[00:12:49] prepare a meal it's the way you tell a story it's just it's absolutely everything and everywhere and every person is creative and like listeners of your podcast will already know that but for me this was like mind-blowing I

[00:13:03] was like oh my god that means I'm creative too and it just kind of like planted this seed and I actually need a watching that documentary a few times because it felt like a really important learning to try to integrate into my life

[00:13:17] and yeah that was kind of the single point of focus but the podcast didn't come for maybe a couple years later but I can definitely look to that moment and see that that kind of reshaped the way I started thinking about myself

[00:13:32] and creativity in general. Yeah so it opened your mind when the idea for the podcast came about that you could do it so let's move exactly let's move into that what was that idea and what are its origins? Yeah so that idea and it's funny

[00:13:50] you know we're talking about podcasting and it was very much the idea itself not I want to get into podcasting I want to you know get into this creative industry it was I was reading as a non-mother during the pandemic I found

[00:14:05] myself the lot more time on my hands so I filled that time reading non-fiction books that centered around women and gender in some way I'm just reading all of these books and willing this information to be out in the world more

[00:14:21] because there's this like juxtaposition of what I'm reading and then you know what I'm reading in the news and what I'm seeing in real life and also I'm living in London but I'm from a more conservative place in America I'm

[00:14:35] from Missouri and so there's also the juxtaposition of how I was raised and the way of thinking that exists there and I just really wanted to find a way of making the ideas in this book more accessible because I knew that everyone

[00:14:48] and especially women but really everyone would be able to relate and begin to see and understand the systems and structures that are in place whether we're talking about like healthcare or the economy or the way we design our

[00:15:03] city streets if we look at all of these things through a gendered lens it tells a very different story so I wanted to find a way of bringing the ideas in these books making them more accessible because a lot of people don't like reading

[00:15:16] a lot more people don't like reading non-fiction and then even more probably aren't gonna read non-fiction books about women it's kind of the trifecta so how can I make this more accessible podcasting seem like a really great

[00:15:30] medium to tap into for that and also my idea was okay then I'll just speak you know I'm not the expert I'm learning I'm on this journey of learning and I want to bring other people along on this journey as well so I can just interview

[00:15:43] the authors of these books and let them tell the stories and yeah that's kind of how the idea for it was born yeah well interestingly I'm just gonna name drop now so I'm just having a chat with Russell Terrivey of Talk Art podcast but

[00:16:02] that is the same kind of thing you can look at art and think I don't understand it that's high art it's not for me it's gonna take me a long time to learn about this stuff I just haven't got the space for it whereas you can put on

[00:16:14] the podcast go for walk with the dog or whatever and get a more down-to-worth viewpoint and then you can explore it further from there so I completely understand what a good idea is now we can be podcast nerdy now because we

[00:16:29] podcast is what podcast show we're allowed to be podcast nerdy so what about the actual logistics of making the show have any experience of it have any experience of getting guests did you enjoy the whole process of recording

[00:16:42] editing all of that lovely stuff yeah I had zero experience in anything I had never interviewed anyone in my life I didn't know anything about the technology I was a big podcast listener so that was the experience that I had but that's

[00:16:56] very different than creating it you think it takes a lot less time when you listen so no I didn't have I didn't have any experience I didn't really know anyone that worked in the industry either but you know luckily I'm living

[00:17:09] in the 21st century where all this information is available by just typing some things into Google so I just started researching and I kind of approached it twofold there was the learning about the storytelling aspect so

[00:17:23] how am I gonna pull out the information within these books and tell a story that's engaging and informational that keeps listeners wanting to come back and then there was also the figuring out the logistics the technical side of

[00:17:36] everything yeah how do I actually record something how do I edit it what where does a podcast even live you know I didn't know any of these things so just kind of approached it twofold looking at those main areas and just

[00:17:49] slowly figured it out myself and you know started to meet people and talk to people and learn and all the information for whatever you want to do in your life whatever kind of change you want to make it's all out there it's

[00:18:01] just a matter of taking the time at least that was for my journey I was just taking the time and really committing myself that I'm gonna go all the way through with this idea because ideas are easy the easy part

[00:18:13] well it's the same thing as thinking that to be a creative person you have to be an artist and to be an artist you just produce something wonderful straight away and that isn't the case we all have to practice and learn and keep

[00:18:26] growing so the whole creative experience is yes the idea and then the learning to get it out there because what we see out there isn't the first draft of a book or a painting or a piece of pottery or a

[00:18:39] podcast it's gone through lots of editing and things in the background yeah that's a good point the what was the other thing I was gonna say oh I know yeah we're on to the next bit now yeah oh actually no and how did you how did

[00:19:00] you go about booking your guests? Yeah I presented myself as a much bigger company you know I just say company I mean I was one person I tried to present myself like a company I just needed to tap into the mission that these authors had we

[00:19:18] all were on the same mission right we're all wanting to spread awareness of these issues that's why they're writing these books that's why they want to talk about these books so I my thought process was just coming up with a

[00:19:33] detailed proposal that makes me look like a proper company and the proposal detailing how this is my mission as well and just kind of selling them on that and also demonstrating to them that this is something I'm very serious about

[00:19:49] that you know if they spend an hour with me recording that I'm gonna be actually creating and producing and putting something out into the world that will be great to have their their names their books their things behind

[00:20:00] so that was kind of the thinking about it and yeah so I just created a detailed proposal with all these things and sent it out to loads and loads and loads and loads of people knowing that not everybody would say yes but you know if

[00:20:13] you send it out to hundreds of people and you only need 10 those are pretty good odds so that's what I did and and it worked because you know I from the very beginning without having any listenership to show I got much

[00:20:26] higher caliber people than I ever would have anticipated but I think it was really at kind of tapping into their mission demonstrating that that's the same mission as me and I just want to create a platform to further elevate

[00:20:39] their work and I'm taking taking all this seriously yeah yeah perfect creativityfound.co.uk is the place to go to find workshops courses supplies kits and books to help you get creative so if you're looking for your own

[00:20:57] creativity found experience go have a browse to see what's on offer so far and if you can help adults to find their new creative passion please get in touch on social media or through the contact details on the website. Did you have any

[00:21:14] apprehensions when you were ready to start releasing episodes? Absolutely without a doubt I am I actually had this woman who was so kind and kind of just listened to a few episodes and helped me a little bit with I did all my own

[00:21:32] editing but she stepped in and listened to a few and kind of guided me a little bit in the beginning and I may have just kept iterating and iterating and never put it out into the world but at one point she was like Anna

[00:21:47] you just got to put it out into the world you just got to do it I'm like okay fine so there is lots of apprehension because I had never put anything in the world that I had created before in this way so publicly and it also you

[00:22:03] know you feel quite vulnerable because the issues and everything that you're talking about are vulnerable and they go deep and you know I relate to my own personal stories in a lot of the episodes and it's a scary thing to be

[00:22:17] vulnerable in that way and to not know how how we put all your blood sweat into your sin how that's going to be received but a big learning I've had through the journey is and I'm sure your listeners can relate as well you

[00:22:30] know you can't control that you do what you can and you make your own creation and then that's it you put it out into the world and kind of see what happened so I had a lot of apprehension at first because I hadn't

[00:22:43] done that initial release out into the world but it's it's gotten a lot better over time that apprehension be as it was absolutely there yeah I think this is a really good time for Anna and I to reach out to our listeners

[00:22:57] and let them know that we'd love to hear from you guys we'd love to know that you're listening and what you think I talk about this fair bit about being a podcast is quite isolating because even though you see

[00:23:09] the numbers you see that people are downloading you don't know who those people are you're not an art exhibition art exhibition seeing the walk by or you know in a theater seeing an audience so do anybody out there

[00:23:21] that loves our show don't comment if you don't love our show maybe if it's constructive constructive maybe maybe I'm not even sure but all of our social media we've got email addresses there are places to

[00:23:41] what's it called say nice things follow us oh yeah follow us say nice great review yeah right and review review there are places to do that on your podcast outs please do we would love to talk to you we would love

[00:23:51] to hear from you anyway sorry back to the story of woman with season two you've opened up your focus to include all kinds of female changemakers so in a way I'm kind of seeing that as your creativity continuing to bloom

[00:24:08] tell me a little about that development and as well what we can expect perhaps for the future of the story of women yeah so it developed basically because I had the opportunity to interview two incredible women that weren't

[00:24:25] completely aligned with the first season so I guess I'll do a little name dropping as well following suit from you yeah so Hilary Clinton and Cherie Blair were on my podcast recently and it pivoted slightly because I had the opportunity to interview them and you know

[00:24:43] they've both written non-fiction books and they're both women and they both focus on these issues so it's not like it was completely out of left field but the way season one was structured and the way the podcast is structured is looking at different areas of our world

[00:24:57] through a gendered lens as I kind of mentioned before the economy health care whatever but through these books season two is similar but it was talking to women at the top of various

[00:25:10] industries so it was kicked off with Hilary Clinton and Cherie Blair who talked a lot about the politics side of things but also as business leaders Cherie Blair has a foundation where she supports women entrepreneurs all over the world so we really looked at kind of entrepreneurship

[00:25:26] and business and then the other themes of the season were athletics and sports, climate, athletics and sports, climate, then we did one that was the intersection of change it was looking at talking to women at the top of their industries looking at these different

[00:25:49] industries through a gendered lens and talking about change specifically how women make change happen so within these different industries you know kind of where are we now how did we get here

[00:25:59] and what needs to happen to be able to continue changing moving forward so yeah I see it as quite similar to season one but instead of being focused around books it was around different industries and the way that women were driving change within them um yes and no

[00:26:38] we might be a little cliffhangery but uh so season three will come out and will be quite similar to what listeners currently experience and it's going to be a combination of authors of

[00:26:52] business leaders it's going to be a kind of combination of the season one and season two of the different types of women and non-binary people that I speak with and a couple men I've

[00:27:00] had a few men on as well and then after season three I've got something pretty big in the works but it's all up in the air at the moment so I can't say much I'll just say

[00:27:15] the story of woman is going to go global we're gonna we're gonna be expanding we're I'm gonna be expanding and possibly taking this on the road a bit so stay tuned subscribe follow all the things so that when I can say more you'll be the first to know

[00:27:41] okay well tell us I wish I could say more now tell us how everybody can connect with you yes um the story of woman podcast.com is the website from there you can find all the social media links

[00:27:55] all the social media links are something like the story of woman but there's an occasional dot or underscore um but they're all yeah just search the story of woman the story of

[00:28:04] woman podcast and you will find me you can also find my email address there get in contact because as Claire said love to hear from you I always think people hear my voice your voice

[00:28:15] all the time we want to hear your voices yeah definitely so yeah get in touch brilliant and we won't bite do please get in touch thank you so much this has been such fun it's been so good to

[00:28:28] hear more about the story of woman and your tentative little cliffhangers for the future well um I'll keep my listeners posted when you release your wonderful news thank you so much yes please do thank you Claire thank you so much for having me this is so much fun

[00:28:44] you're welcome so before I go I'd just like to say thank you once more to sure whose equipment I use at home and I can highly recommend um and if you would like to connect

[00:28:54] with me for any reason whatsoever especially to say hey I listen to the show it's great for example all of my contact details are in the show notes so you can scroll down now

[00:29:05] on whatever app you're listening on to find out all of that info and I will see you soon bye bye thanks so much for listening to creativity found if your podcast app has a facility please leave

[00:29:18] a rating and review to help other people find us on instagram and facebook follow at creativity found podcast and on pin trust look for at creativity found and finally don't forget to check out creativityfound.co.uk the website connecting adults who want to find a creative

[00:29:38] outlet with the artists and crafters who can help them tap into their creativity