Creativity Interview: Stephanie Balzer, Non-Profit Coach, and Writer/Poet

Stephanie is the Co-founder of “Mission” which provides executive and team coaching for nonprofits and mission-driven companies. She was previously an executive and/or director for organizations such as Philanthropic Communications and Development for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; The Drawing Studio in Tucson; and VOICES Community Stories.

Educated as a writer and poet, Stephanie is supportive and grounded in her work as an executive. When faced with multiple challenges she guides organizations with insight into the “big picture”. Thoughtful about her creative life, she is attentive to her creative practices which now include the visual arts. Her responses are candid and show a creative person grappling with issues faced by many creative people such as deep loss, life changes, and disconnection with your creative energy.

H: WHAT IS YOUR BACKGROUND AND TRAINING FOR YOUR CREATIVE PRACTICE?

S: I really wanted to pursue Architecture. I wasn’t brave enough to do it. OR I was intuitive enough to know that wasn’t going to be my path. Either way, I didn’t. 

I kept taking English classes, Literature and Writing, because I enjoyed them and I was good at them. I was interested in all of it. In documenting real stories, the real world, in the Poetic expression of poetry and other art forms. So my formal University training ended up being in English.

I literally just fell into a job at a newspaper. I walked in to buy the “Business Journal” in Phoenix and they said, “Are you looking for a job? Our receptionist is going on maternity leave, do you want to answer the phones for 2 months?

Near the completion of that period I went to the editor and said, “I think I can do this.” He gave me a paid Research Intern position. [After] about 8 months I said, “You know I think I can write articles.” I’d never taken a journalism class. I had no background in business. All I knew was English, English Literature. And they said, “Alright, our Healthcare Reporter is going on maternity leave, do you want that job for 2 months?” So I jumped in, and mimicked the people around me, writing stories and messing them up. I just learned it on the job. 

I continued to write pieces that were recognized. Feature pieces, profiles. So I still was getting the recognition, or confidence, that this was something I could do. 

I was part of a series about: How did you change your life after 9/11?  I started thinking about what did I really want to do? What is my Path? I was interested in the news, but it wasn’t what drove me. 

So I got accepted to the University of Arizona MFA program in Poetry. I loved it. I just felt like I was with “my people”. Thinking differently, being challenged in a different way, was amazing. I just loved my life, the freedom that gave me! 

I didn’t love teaching, but I really like Systems. I think that’s why I liked being a reporter. Because it’s about how things got put together, how things happened, how they could be better.  A lot of it was about systems thinking. I decided to go into Non-Profits.

What I am discovering about my Creativity, is that I really like building complex systems. I think that is what I liked about writing, and what I like in Non-profit work. How do we build a better world? How do we build a better organization to serve people? Reporting let me start to look at what the world needs for systems.

H: CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS?

S: I have a regular meditation practice, a morning routine to ground and root, that’s important to me as a person.

For a lot of years my Creative Process involved my creative partner. He died 5 years ago. We were so intellectually in sync. We were very good at challenging each other, and supporting each other.

When he died, I thought, “I don’t know how to be a creative person without him”. Even though, of course, I was before. But it really shifted. My pattern shifted. My rhythm shifted. When he died, like half of my creativity felt like it didn’t have an anchor.

After he died I became more interested in Narrative, and how narratives work and how art forms work. I got more interested in art forms that have a broader and more contemporary cultural influence.

Writing poetry feels like making art to me. Where as I am still struggling with making narratives or these other things. Journalism just flowed. Poetry just flowed. These other things I’m trying to do now…. It feels…it does not flow…it feels like a labor. Editing the problems seems really hard, not creative and fun.

H: WHAT ARE YOUR MOST SIGNIFICANT SOURCES OF INSPIRATION?

S: I think it’s shifted over time. I think this new era of storytelling television has had a significant influence on me. Attending live poetry readings, or hearing, or entering any kind of art form fuels it for me.

I don’t know that I have the inspiration right now. Sort of stabbing out and nothing really holds. Except for Big Vision, and my Administrative side has been a big inspiration: building an Organization has been more of an inspiration.

H: CAN YOU TALK ABOUT LIFE TRANSITIONS AS PART OF A CREATIVE JOURNEY? 

S: When I was a poet, I thought that was an identity. I was a “Poet”, not a person who writes poetry. I’ve started to slough that off, that idea that I want to hold onto a certain identity that closely. But also sometimes those identities fuel our creativity. When we can identify as an artist, or as a poet, or a writer. I guess I identify more as a writer than a poet now.

I think learning to flow with them, seeing them all as fluid and connected has some value. I think it is a Creative Process in itself, navigating all of that.

H: HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED “CREATIVE BLOCK”? IF SO, WHAT FORM DOES IT TAKE? HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH IT?

S: I went through a phase where I really wondered, “Why am I doing this? Why am I spending my time writing? Of all the things I could do in the world, why do I want to do that?” I gave myself permission not to do that. Which was really scary because it had been so connected to my identity.

I tried to be open and see what other paths there might be. I gave myself permission to channel it in other things that felt productive. I realized I might have to give myself permission to open up a lot more broadly, and think about Creativity in different ways. Or think about myself, and my personal role, in different ways. 

H: WHAT PERSONAL QUALITIES DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE THAT HELPED YOU ACHIEVE YOUR CREATIVE GOALS? 

S: I’m very curious, and open. I’m interested in a lot of different things. I’m very disciplined. I can sit for 5 hours and just be in my own world. Dedicating time to it. I’m not afraid to learn as I go. Half of it is just showing up every day and staying calm. The rest will figure itself out. 

I’m very associative, that served my writing. I can work with metaphor well. I put pieces together unexpectedly, quickly.

H: WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE OTHER ARTISTS/CREATIVES?

S: A lot of the time it’s going to feel like you are in the weeds. Just keep going. Even if you’re not writing every day, or even if you question. Keep going! Being in the weeds is part of it. Questioning it is part of it. You’re going to come out of it if you keep going. Don’t give up.

And find: You have to study and learn. [There’s] the the “Myth of Talent”. Break that down, start reading, start learning, do your scales, do your exercises. We all have to learn it,  you have to work at it.