In her conversation with Venture Cafe Presents host Christine Dunn, Gail McMeekin discusses creativity and the role it plays in the lives and work of women, many of whom she highlights in her recent book.

Gail McMeekin is the founder of Creative Success, a consultancy aimed at helping women recreate their lives and awaken their creative spirit. Her most recent book is entitled The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women and she has several other products designed to support her clients in their endeavors. Formerly a therapist for children and families, Gail became interested in the psychology of the workplace and pursued studies in human resources. From there, Gail became greatly interested in creativity and embarked upon some writing projects.

“I became really fascinated with my own creativity and everyone else’s creativity,” said Gail. “And then I became very aware of something I had known as a child. We didn’t have a lot of female creative women role models who weren’t crazy or broke or starving artists.” This inspired Gail to begin writing about modern, creative women from all walks of life and across industries.

Gail identified several creative women whom she admired and who are doing things they are very passionate about and interviewed 45 subjects as part of the project. From there, her book was born with the subtitle “A Portable Life Coach for Creative Women”, designed specifically offer inspiration on every page.

At Venture Café’s Female Founders Night, Gail served as a panelist and shared some of her insight from the event. “We have this thing where we learn as little girls not to be selfish, to take turns and share and put our own needs aside for other people. In order to be creative, we have to open up our creative channels,” noted Gail. “We often need private time and we need to put everybody else on ice.”

While many men through history have had this luxury, so many women don’t have the support in their lives to allow them to do this, and Gail points especially to the importance of having a supportive partner or relationship to allow them to do that. “Recognize that it’s self-full, not selfish,” she advised. “As women, we really need to take the time to figure out what’s going on internally.”

Some tips that Gail suggests to her clients include being mindful of toxic relationships, or work on transforming their partnerships to allow for understanding and respect of their own creative work. “It really is OK for women to say, ‘I’m going off this weekend to take an art class’ and everyone else is going to have to figure out how to do this,” she said.

During the Female Founders event, conversation frequently turned to strategies for inspiring young women and girls, supporting and empowering them in their pursuits. “One of the things about creativity that is really important is that making mistakes is really a part of it,” was Gail’s comment on the subject. “In companies in particular there is so much pressure to meet the bottom line. We are asking people to be creative. In fact, creativity is the leadership skill of the 21st century, yet we are not giving people the space to try things and experiment.” Gail feels that this is good advice for everyone, men and women alike.

But how are we doing as a society on this front? “There are some wonderful schools out there,” continued Gail. “That are really trying to open up some creative channels or at least talking about it.” She notes, however, that US creativity scores are dropping when compared to other nations around the world. “That whole trend is discouraging as we cut budgets that are cutting out some of these things that fuel creative thought.”

“So many women came up with their creative ideas for business or products while they were on vacation, while they took time off of work, while they were walking in the woods, while they were on retreat somewhere,” concluded Gail. “We need that space, a respite from all the noise and this information that is coming at us all the time so we can hear our own thoughts, cause that’s where we discover gold.”

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For more information on Gail McMeekin and her work, visit creativesuccess.com.

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