Harnessing the Power of Downloads in Your Creative Journey

Harnessing the Power of Downloads in Your Creative Journey

In this episode of 'The Download' from Wise Woman and Wordsmith, host Jill Marshall introduces the concept of 'downloads' - moments of sudden, profound inspiration - and how they can transform creative and business endeavors. Jill shares her personal experiences with downloads that reshaped her career from a corporate executive to a successful children's author and creativity coach. She explains the nature and significance of these intuitive insights, how to recognise them, and how to cultivate conditions for receiving them. The episode also highlights examples of notable figures who have harnessed downloads, from Elizabeth Gilbert to Steve Jobs, showing the wide-reaching impact of trusting and acting on these powerful moments of clarity.

00:00 Welcome to The Download

01:19 Understanding the Download Phenomenon

03:18 Some of Jill's Personal Download Experiences

08:06 The Power of Downloads for Creatives

09:50 Recognising and Acting on Downloads

15:02 Creating Conditions for Downloads

16:18 Conclusion and Call to Action

Find out more about Jill’s coaching and consultancy at
Wisewoman&Wordsmith.com

Discover Jill’s fiction for tweens, teens, YA and adults at
JillMarshallBooks

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Transcript

0:02

Hello and welcome to The Download from Wise Woman and Wordsmith, where insight meets inspiration. A space for visionaries, ready to spark new ideas, ignite purpose, and reimagine possibilities. Here we share downloads of wisdom, stories, and strategies to help you thrive in your creative journey. I'm your host, Jill Marshall. Tune in, connect, and let the magic unfold. You're you tomorrow. Welcome to The Download, from wise woman and wordsmith, aka me, fiction author and creativity coach, Jill Marshall. This is your space to explore inspiration, transformation, And actionable insights for creatives, entrepreneurs, and visionary leaders. And also to learn a bit about what the download is and isn't and where it can take you. So the Wise Woman and Wordsmith mission is to help you unlock more energy, purpose, and clarity, whether you're creating your next masterpiece, launching a groundbreaking business, or refreshing a big business strategy. Each of these episodes is designed to fuel your creative spirit, sharpen your strategic edge, and help you out with some examples from a mostly successful career in creative arts. Today, we're diving into the heart of what this podcast is all about. The phenomenon of the download. If you've ever experienced a moment where inspiration struck like lightning, something bigger and bolder and clearer than your usual thoughts, you've tapped into this powerful phenomenon. And trust me, it's not just for writers or artists. The download is a gift for anyone ready to grow into their purpose and potential, and it's often sent to us just at the moment when we're most needing a nudge in a new direction. It can also be, of course, a spiritual download, but this really is going to focus on the more creative elements of the download. So what is a download? Let's start by defining what I mean by this term. Obviously, it's a word we're very familiar with from all our technology and devices. It's right up there now with streaming and sharing. If you think about it, when we download something from the internet, or Netflix, or many an email marketer, what we're doing is extracting a chunk of information from the massive cloud bank of more general information. And we take what's specifically needed for us and then pop it into our technological pockets and our filing systems. So it's the very same principle with the creative or the spiritual download. It's that moment when an idea arrives, fully formed, almost as though it's been delivered to you from beyond. There's no struggle. There's no overthinking. It just lands. It can feel like clarity, creativity, or even a calling. I've experienced this many times over in my own downloads. In other episodes, I'll share direct examples. of downloads that have turned into books or meetings or other moments of everyday magic that just let you know you're connected to something bigger. Bigger and unexplainable. In fact, two of the biggest downloads of my life completely redirected my path. The first was the instruction, It's time to become a children's author. Honestly, it was as if the universe handed me a mission that I hadn't seriously considered before, but it clicked so perfectly that I couldn't ignore it at the time I was in my early to mid thirties, I was director of learning and development for a huge telecommunications company, earning heaps, including bonuses and shares. I'm really on track for further development into a fairly wonderful career. Not bad for a working class lass from Manchester, after just a decade or so of breaking through business as well as personal barriers. I was also a single mum, with 100 percent responsibility for my beautiful daughter, who was just about to start school. I'd recently met someone I was pretty serious about. The new century was fast approaching, and really everything looked pretty rosy, apart from that hole in my soul where I knew, deep down, I should be doing something creative. Specifically, I should be fulfilling my childhood dream of writing books for children. And then came what I call my millennium moment. Over that new year, I was ghosted, and the new relationship fell apart at a pretty undignified speed. One night, as I lay miserably figuring out what had gone wrong, oh, and by the way, now I know nothing had gone wrong, it had all gone very right, well, I got the download. I've described it before as being lightsabred through the sternum. It could have been heartburn, quite honestly. But now with a more spiritual understanding, I might recognize it as a jolt to my solar plexus, my powerhouse, and my third chakra, or even as a gentle prod from St. Michael's angelic sword. But what I knew very, very clearly was that it was time to finally change course and set off towards a life of being an author. I took action very quickly, although I was It took me a whole year to extricate myself fully from my job and my business career. I was able to take some of those shares and fund myself through a master's degree in writing for children. At the time, and here is the kind of synchronicity that will amaze you over and over, this was the only such master's in the world and it was honestly at the university one mile from my house. It meant I could be home for my daughter, I could unwrap these hidden gifts that I'd long ago buried. and I could mix with other amazing people who took their writing seriously too. Now, dozens of books later with bestseller status, awards and TV series for some of them. I can honestly point to that one download as being the complete set of info I needed to pivot and change our lives completely. In the following years, I've had many a download related to books, but more recently I had another download which actually led to this podcast called Interestingly, it came in another rocky moment as I shifted out of a business career. See the pattern here? Rocky moments, business careers, into something creative. In recent years, I've translated my skills collected as a writer, creative, editor, a publisher, a coach, a writing consultant, and a writing teacher into a career in communications. But it was no longer fulfilling me. In fact, for the most part, it was stifling and frustrating me. I was journaling on all of this to myself when suddenly, out of nowhere, I wrote down a course title. That course title was The Architecture of Abundance. And then I listed out eight modules beneath that title, all starting with A. Awareness, anchors, ancestors, archetypes, acceptance, appreciation, action, and alchemy. And then beneath this, I wrote the message that was reverberating through my body. This is your new invitation. The phrase stood out in my mind because it felt incredibly profound. And it wasn't just about doing something new. It was about stepping into a larger role, contributing in ways that I haven't previously imagined. I knew it might seem impractical and it would lead to an immersion in something new if I dare to take it on. But take it on I have, and with it, the dawning of Wise Woman and Wordsmith, the creation of this podcast, all of them are related. And I took it on because I've learned many times over the years that when the download calls, you answer. So what's the power of downloads for creatives? Many writers, artists, and filmmakers have similar stories of how their original idea occurred to them. Best selling novels, iconic films, and unforgettable songs often begin as downloads. Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Big Magic, talks about ideas being like living entities that seek the right person to bring them into the world. I'll talk a lot more about Big Magic and Liz Gilbert during these episodes, by the way. I love that book, and it felt, from the first reading, like the book I'd have written if I'd thought of it first, if the download had come to me, if you like. But the phenomenon of the download goes beyond the arts. Srinivasa Ramanujan, the legendary mathematician, believed his groundbreaking theorems came to him in dreams. Gifts from a higher power, this time in the form of an Indian goddess. Now that's the kind of inspiration that changes history. And there are downloads, of course, in business too. The phenomenon isn't limited to the individual or the artist. Entire businesses can be shaped by downloads. Steve Jobs famously credited intuition and creativity as central to Apple's revolutionary designs and products. He didn't just follow market trends. He listened to the downloads that told him what the world would or could need. Richard Branson and the Virgin Group also embody this spirit. Whether venturing into airlines, music, or space travel, Virgin's moves have often felt bold and inspired. So these leaders trusted their insights and acted on them, creating companies that actually redefined industries, and in some ways the world. So what makes a download different? How do you know you're receiving a download versus just having a good idea or even a bad idea? So there are a few things that. Make them stand out to me. One, downloads arrive fully formed. It's a complete message. They don't need to be pieced together. They come as an entire picture. Two, they have a sense of urgency and clarity. You know, they're important the moment they arrive. And thirdly, they're often accompanied by a feeling of alignment, like they're meant for you and you feel it deep down. Also, as they often come from your own higher self, that's depending on what you believe. Downloads and intuitive guidance like this can appear in your own voice. It's like you speaking to you. I had a very real and weird experience of this a few years ago when I was desperately hoping to win a radio competition with a prize of 100, 000. Now, creators often have their ups and downs in their income streams and I so could have done with that 100, 000. The competition itself ran for a week, and in the competition they'd pieced together miniscule snippets of three different people speaking, and the winner would have to name all three in order. The first two had been identified already, as an actor and a singer, so it was all down to recognizing the third speaker and naming them in order when the radio station selected your name from the millions of call ins. Nobody so far had got close. All the listeners knew was that it was a man from the world of music. He was saying something pretty nondescript. It seemed an impossible task. So on the last day of the competition, I was lying in the bath on a quiet afternoon, thinking how much I'd love that hundred grand, and wondering if anyone, anyone would ever get it. And this is when I asked, or rather demanded, come on then universe, who is it? And I kid you not, as clear as a bell, my own voice said in my right ear, it's Nigel Kennedy. I whipped around so fast to see who was in that bathroom with me, that I smacked my head on the tub, but it really was empty. It really had just been my voice talking to me. Partly because I was so spooked, and partly because I now had the answer, I shut out of that bathroom and started calling the radio station. Repeating the three names over and over. Actor, singer, Nigel Kennedy. Actor, singer, Nigel Kennedy. What was also weird was that as soon as I heard it was Nigel Kennedy, I recognised it fully and couldn't think how it hadn't been obvious all this time. Somehow my subconscious knew and managed to tell me. Well, I'm sorry to say I didn't get on the call and win the money, but I was very happy for the guy who did because he really, really needed it. And I learned a few things then about the download. One, it often comes when you ask a direct question, even if you're asking it subconsciously because you're in some dark place in your life. Two, it seems to come out of nowhere. And three, it sometimes comes in your very own voice, in your very own ear. So back to Elizabeth Gilbert, this time in Eat Pray Love, during her dark night of the divorcing soul. Then I heard a voice. Please don't be alarmed, it was not an Old Testament Hollywood Charlton Heston voice. Nor was it a voice telling me I must build a baseball field in my backyard. It was merely my own voice, speaking from within my own self. But this was my voice, as I'd never heard it before. This was my voice, but perfectly wise, calm, and compassionate. This was what my voice would sound like if I'd only ever experienced love and certainty in my life. How could I describe the affection in that voice as it gave me the answer that would forever seal my faith in the divine? And the voice said, Go back to bed, Liz. I exhaled. It was so immediately clear that this was the only thing to do. I wouldn't have accepted any other answer. I wouldn't have twisted a great booming voice that said either, you must divorce your husband, or you must not divorce your husband. Because that's not true wisdom. True wisdom gives the only possible answer at any given moment. And that night, going back to bed was the only possible answer. Go back to bed, said this omniscient interior voice, because you don't need to know the final answer right now, at three o'clock in the morning on a Thursday in November. Go back to bed, because I love you. Go back to bed, because the only thing you need to do for now is rest and take good care of yourself until you do know the answer. Go back to bed, so that when the tempest arrives, you'll be strong enough to deal with it. And the tempest is coming, dear one, very soon, but not tonight. Interesting, huh? And here's the good news. Although they can and often do come during dark nights of the soul like this, or when you're in dire need, here's the best part. You can actively create conditions for downloads to happen. And how do you do this? Well, quiet the noise. Downloads often come when the mind is still, during meditations, walks, or those twilight moments before or after sleep. Or in the shower, in my case, in the bath. Then twist your gut. Downloads don't always make immediate logical sense, but they carry a sense of rightness and inevitability. It might just be the right thing for that moment. And then, capture and act on them. Don't let downloads slip away. Write them down immediately, if that's the best you can do at that point. Sketch them out or start building on them straight away. And downloads work for organizations too. If your team or business is feeling stuck. Cultivating space for downloads can lead to transformative ideas. Companies like Netflix and Airbnb weren't just following trends, they leapt into new paradigms that redefine their industries. So whether you're running a small business, a creative project, or a corporate strategy, downloads can bring the energy and the clarity you need for the next step. So, the download is important. Here on the download from Wise Woman and Wordsmith. As well as sharing downloady examples, we'll explore stories, strategies, and tools to help you recognize and act on your own downloads. Because whether you're creating a novel, building a brand or rethinking your life's directions, these moments of clarity can change everything. Hey thanks for tuning in to The Download podcast. Feel free to like, comment and share and all of that good stuff. And for more about my books, coaching or business services, please check out wisewomanandwordsmith. com. Also, I'd love to hear more about your own intuitive hits and downloads. So do find us on Facebook, YouTube, and more.