Creativity Found Podcast: Discovering Your Creative Potential

 When industry pundits discuss the reasons for podcasting's rise in popularity, they often cite technology advances or corporate investment as primary drivers of growth. 

In reality, however, it is creativity that fuels the podcasting boom. Typically, that creativity resides in independent podcasters, who have conspicuously avoided the use of formulaic topics and treatments. 

 Creativity Found is a podcast hosted by Claire Waite Brown, which focuses on individuals who have rediscovered or found their creativity as adults. The podcast explores how these individuals re-engaged with their creative passions and the impact it has on their lives. It features interviews with guests from diverse backgrounds, sharing their personal journeys of overcoming challenges and embracing their creative potential. The podcast delves into various creative fields, including visual arts, writing, and performing arts. It highlights the benefits of creative expression, both emotionally and practically, and how it enriches everyday life. 

The show also touches upon the societal and personal barriers that can hinder creative pursuits and how people overcome them. Creativity Found aims to inspire listeners to reconnect with their own creative selves, reminding them that it's never too late to pursue artistic endeavors and that creativity can be a powerful tool for personal growth and well-being.

Independent podcasters enter the podcasting world through various life opportunities. Claire Waite Brown experienced a life epiphany.

"In 2016, while suffering with anxiety, and as a way of focusing my attention," says Claire. "I founded Open Stage Arts, fun drama and singing classes for adults who don’t want to commit to putting on an actual show. No experience necessary."

Claire continues: "Lots of the adults who come to our workshops are looking for a creativity that has been put to one side during their sensible, grown-up years. I have found this to be a common experience among other creatives, too, so I started the Creativity Found podcast and blog, in which I chat with painters, crafters, photographers, writers, printmakers, actors, musicians, teachers, and more, who have found, or re-found, their creativity as adults."

As part of her creativity resurgence, Claire developed and released Podcasting 2.0 in Practice in January 2025. The podcast is a step-by-step guide to modern podcasting technologies.  

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This course-style podcast will emphasize the benefits for both listener and creator and explain how new podcast features, such as transcripts, chapters, and pod roll, can help podcasters with discovery, interactivity, and monetization.

Claire explains: "This guide also helps listeners support and contribute to the success of their favorite shows."

Podcasting 2.0 in Practice was just nominated for an Ear Worthy Award, which recognizes excellence among independent podcasters. 

Claire Waite Brown went to school in Buckinghamshire, university on the south coast, and lived and worked in London for a few years before coming to Oxfordshire. She is a freelance editor of illustrated non-fiction books and a dance fitness instructor.

Claire says: "I started Creativity Found podcast during lockdown (cliché!!) with no audio experience, and quickly fell in love with podcasting and all the fab events I can go to and people I meet through podcasting."

Claire adds: "Now I want listeners, and others, to know that they can try something new and creative at any stage in their lives – and not to worry that they might make a mess of it!"

Which is why she started the Creativity Found, a place where adults can go to:

• Be inspired by the stories of my guests on the podcast.
• Find workshops, courses, and online events that let them try or re-try various creative activities.
• Access kits, books, and materials to help them get creative at home. 
• Find exhibitions and events to fuel their imagination. 

Claire Waite Brown is a superb curator of creativity. In the most recent episode, Claire spoke to Tricia Duffy, who was immersed in the arts, singing and writing poetry at an early age. Leaving school at 16 with no qualifications, Tricia found a way to fulfill her dream of going to America by working on cruise ships, where her passion for entertainment blossomed. 

On returning to the UK, Tricia transitioned into the television industry, where she faced the challenge of working in a male-dominated environment that often sidelined women's creative contributions. She recounts how her successful career in television left her feeling unfulfilled and disconnected from her creative self.

After experiencing burnout and personal loss, Tricia started her own consulting business, which provided her the flexibility to reconnect with her love for music, as she joined a choir, a covers band, and began writing her own songs.

Tricia applied the philosophy of the 10-year plan, something she had used in corporate environments, to plan for her own creativity. She turned her love for research and helping others into a creative outlet, making time for her podcast called In 10 Years Time: How To Live a Creative Life. 

In a recent episode of note, Claire spins a narrative about a girl, Leanne Tibiatowski, who fell in love with the ocean. Because of a traumatic experience, the details of which her brain blocked out to protect her, she didn’t go in the ocean, and didn’t understand why.

 Eventually, Leanne decided to try surfing just once, while on a break in Mexico. She loved it, but upon returning to her hometown of San Diego, those associations resurfaced. Luckily, she stumbled across a surf therapy group, Groundswell Community Project, that gave her back the joy of surfing and helped her face, navigate, and integrate everything she had experienced.

Claire Waite Brown is a delight on the show and a cheerleader for exploring creative experiences. Last week, Creativity Found was nominated for an Ear Worthy Award for excellence in independent podcasting. 

Check out the show, Despite a conventional view that creativity has an expiration date in our lives, Claire Waite Brown proves through Creativity Found, being creative can be a lifelong pursuit.