Sustaining Creativity Podcast
Sustaining Creativity Podcast
Grounded In Creativity with Steve Barton
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Creativity through the lens of the founder of Steve Barton Coaching and creator of The Game of Ten
"There is no box! What box?! And we also need to be gounded in reality, and grounded in what is."
Steve Barton is the founder of Steve Barton Coaching and creator of The Game of Ten®, a registered awareness-based leadership and performance framework designed to help entrepreneurs, executives, and high achievers lead with clarity, confidence, and purpose.
With more than 47 years of business experience, Steve grew a family-owned floral company from $200K to over $2 million in annual revenue before transitioning into executive coaching and transformational leadership work.
In 2015 he registered with the U.S. patent office Then Game of Ten®, a process designed to operate from Awareness, rather than conventional methods of Thinking.
He has presented Harvard Business School on The Game of Ten®
Co-Authored The Father, the Son, and the AHA Moment, “Tools For Helping You and Your Child Develop a path To Happiness”. with his 18-year-old son Spencer.
Today, Steve helps leaders reduce internal noise, strengthen intuition, and create greater success in business, relationships, and life through awareness, accountability, and intentional living.
https://www.stevebartoncoaching.com/
https://www.instagram.com/stevebartoncoaching/
https://www.tiktok.com/@stevebartoncoaching
Over the past several years, I've combined my degrees in acting and somatic psychology to share my sustaining creativity techniques with performers. And now I've decided to share it with a bigger audience that includes you. I believe we are all creative, and this podcast is all about that. I'll be interviewing people from all backgrounds, ages, and creativity experiences to share just how creative we all are. Today I'll be chatting with Steve Barton, founder of Steve Barton Coaching and creator of the Game of Ten. Please enjoy Steve Barton. Welcome to the Sustaining Creativity Podcast. Today I'm chatting with Steve Barton, founder of Steve Barton Coaching, the creator of the Game of Ten and an author. Welcome to the show, Steve.
SPEAKER_03Well, thank you, Marie, for having me on the show. I'm excited. Creativity is my what I've been living my whole life. So amazing. It's a good fit. So I'm excited to talk to you and your audience.
MariI love it. Well, I am thrilled that you are joining me to talk about creativity. But before we get there, why don't you take a couple of moments to let our listeners know a little bit more about who you are and what it is you do?
SPEAKER_03I'm Steve Barton, and I'm an uh executive coach right now. And but my first career was um, I was a florist for 30 years full-time, but I grew up in the flower business. My grandfather's uh my father took it over, left the mill, local paper mill here in Maine, and he started a retail flower shop. So from eight years old until 50 years old, I was we're either working there or uh going to school. So I grew up in the flower business and uh started floral designing at eight years old, or selling my stuff on the floor. The older people couldn't believe it. They'd get they'd get old, they'd get all upset. I can't believe his stuff sells.
MariOh my goodness, floral designing at eight years old. Walk us through a little bit of that. What what is for those listeners who don't know what floral design is and what that is?
SPEAKER_03Anyone who's uh gone to a hospital, gone to a wedding, gone to a funeral, gone to um I don't know, gone to flower show. Um it's it's using cut flowers. We didn't grow any flowers. My grandfather did mostly seasonal for Memorial Day and things like that. But we were we were top 100 in FTD. Wow. Um but yeah, so that out of 24,000. So we my father started the business and I went to college for business. I always knew I wanted to go into the flower business. Um, and I always knew I couldn't work with them either. So there was that, there was that, and so I was about ready to leave for Europe to study floral design. My ticket to go to uh Holland and Germany. Well, go to Amsterdam, then go over to Germany, and I had no plans of coming back until they kicked me out, and then um yeah, and three days before I was leaving, I get a phone call from my parents. They were at they were at an FTD convention, that's floral transfer delivery. And uh my my father had a full-blown stroke. Oh my goodness, yeah. So he was 48 when he had it, and he lived to be 92, so he had a good life.
MariWow, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So I ended up staying and taking over the flower business at uh 22 years old, 21, 22, I'm just gonna be 22. Yeah, and yeah, so he brought it up to about 200,000. I brought it up to 2 million of sales a year.
SPEAKER_02My goodness.
SPEAKER_03So that was a we were doing some big weddings. We were doing, you know, Maine is a big destination wedding uh state. So we get the money wasn't coming from Mainers. They were they were my bread, they were uh paid the bills, and but the big money was coming in from um major cities around the uh the country, and you know, they they thought they were getting a great deal if you don't compare compared to LA and New York and right to Maine. They said, Well, this is a bargain, you know.
MariSo after so many years in the flower business, what prompted the pivot to coaching? Where did that come in?
SPEAKER_03Um well with 13 years into the flower business, I went to therapy.
SPEAKER_02Excellent.
SPEAKER_03I love it. So I had a huge awakening and you know, everything from out-of-body experience to to channeling to to you name it, it was like I flipped for the good, for the good, for the better. And it all happened, and so that changed my life right there, and I knew who I was, I knew uh living with the awareness of who we are in a world that a lot of people don't know who they are. That takes some that takes um discretion, assimilation. Um yeah, it's so I I knew who I was and I wanted to help other people figure out who they are, and that is about being their authentic self and being successful as a mindset, happy as a mindset, healthy as a mindset. So it's really I love psychology. After that, I just became a self-help junkie, and so I just I figured that coaching is a good way to do it. I have a you know, after I we sold the flower shop in 2007, I got my financial advisor's licenses and all that, thought I'd do that for a while, and that was like I loved learning about it, but didn't want to do it. So I did that for about a year, and that's when I that's when I decided to be a coach and uh in 2015. And my first client was the head of coaching at the Gestalt International Study Center.
MariAmazing, that's incredible. Yeah, what a journey!
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so she was a she used to be the head of HR for ATT World for 30 years.
MariMy goodness.
SPEAKER_03My first client was an executive coach. Yeah.
MariWow.
SPEAKER_03Go ahead.
MariI'm curious with these different careers and the creativity that goes into both of them, what does it mean to you to be creative?
SPEAKER_03Um there is no box. What box? Okay, I don't think outside the box, I go, what box? And also be grounded too. You know, be grounded in reality, be grounded in what is and accepting what you have and be grateful for what you have right now. Um yeah, there is no other shoe. There is no box, and I am the I am the shinier object, and I am the carrot.
MariI love all of that. I love the what box. There is no box, and you know, the other components of like being really grounded in yourself and your your essence and all of those pieces that make you authentically you.
SPEAKER_03I ain't normal. But I am natural, as that's okay.
MariWe don't need normal.
SPEAKER_03I'll take natural any day.
MariAny day. Perfect. Well, I mean, you you have written books, you created a game. Where did these come from? Like what was this spark of I'm going to create this game and then get a patent?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, register trademark. And uh, well, I like simplicity. So I'm a designer, so I am creative. So how do I how do I teach people who they are? It's an idea. You know, how do I how do I create sell a concept? You know, which is in the flower business, I so you know, I could sell flowers, they sold themselves, they just had to be fresh and well designed and look pretty and show up on time, okay? Whereas what I'm selling right now is is an idea of what potential people have. And how do you how do I design and create um the communication that will someone will hear what I have to say?
MariYeah, how do you design potential or yeah?
SPEAKER_03That's that is a tough one. And then sell it, and then sell it, but price bank on it.
MariRight, right. Well, what does that mean to you? Like, what is potential for you?
SPEAKER_03Being happy, healthy, wealthy, healed, and whole the time.
MariHow achievable is that? The all the time piece.
SPEAKER_03Well, all the time. Do you have bumps in the road? Yeah. Do you have how fast you can you get back to 10? How fast? Okay, and I created the game of 10 to do that. Oh, life's going to happen. As you say, shit happens.
MariRight.
SPEAKER_03And uh and how fast can you get over it? Or actually get through it. Get through it. You look you can't go over it, you can't go around it, you can't go under it, you've got to go through it. Because what we're doing is that we're unconditioning what we've been conditioned to be. Yep.
MariYeah. So what are the pieces or tenets of creativity that show up in the going through?
SPEAKER_03Well, I don't think that's creative going through it. You just have to undo the undo the lie, uh, the hurt, uh, the suffering that, you know, I call that the name the nail coming out. Okay. So it hurts, you know, when you get traumatized. All right, let me put it this way: the game of 10. We're all appointed 10. And then in our life, throughout our life, typically from ages zero to seven, we take on all the generational traumas that our parents went through. Okay. Very subtle, very they could be very traumatic, they could be very subtle, but we take on their stuff as a child. And it's uh Dr. Bruce Lit Lipton says that uh we're in a state of theta. It's a it's a hypnotic state that we just we're aware, but we're also absorbing everything that is taken into it. So that's our inner child, basically. And so unless we uh recognize it and realize that we're operating from that inner child, we're gonna remain in that inner child state until we until we undo what has been done to us, or we've without even knowing it. That's our innocence, that's how innocent we are when people go through these patterns of behaviors. So so that's um someone asked me, how'd you come up with the game of 10? Did you did you uh create it like most people would create something would just download it? I said I downloaded it, you know?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it can't just came to me just like boom, boom, boom. What are all I love figuring out patterns? So Eckhart Tole is a great teacher. Marianne Williamson actually was my teacher in coaching and in uh the writing of the book. So I'd done all the game of town and done all this, and then during COVID, I was able to connect with her in through group coaching and then through finished that group coach. It was miracle-minded coaching. I'd been a student of a course in miracles for 30 years, finished that course in a month. Then I noticed her her um company that was sponsoring her also had write a book for first-time book writers. So I said, Oh, cool. I didn't know she was gonna be my coach, one of them. And but turns out she was doing that as well. So that was the best thing. That's the best thing about COVID that uh sounds like it.
MariWhat an opportunity!
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I figured all the stuff that uh I'd heard for the past 30 years, how do I hone it down? What are they, what are they all, what are the common denominators they all say? Uh Eckhart Tolli was probably it took me a long time to he's so complex but so simple. That it one I remember listening to a tape of his about 30 times, and every time I listened to it, he didn't say that the first time.
MariI love when that happens.
SPEAKER_03I'm sure he didn't say that the first time.
MariRight, exactly. Well, for someone who is maybe, you know, feeling like they want to step into this world of authenticity or understanding how they might grow or shift or change. What's what's the the basic in like first step that someone might take?
SPEAKER_03So why don't I share with you the six phrases? It's an active meditation. Perfect. There are six declarations and they're designed to stop your inner inner critic voice from talking. I love it. If you have any any overthinking, any overthinking thinkers in the audience will love this. Um maybe you can put them in the notes or something. I can send you a I've got a screensaver that I've created for my clients. So let's repeat this. So 10 is basically a declaration of I'm at the highest level of my awareness. I'm I am connected to divine energy, whatever you want to call it.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_03It's a statement that's that's who we are. So we're either we're always connected, but oftentimes I call that this the uh game often played. Oftentimes we don't realize it. Because we've been conditioned with our patterns of thinking.
MariRight, right.
SPEAKER_03Okay. So repeat after me, okay?
MariOkay.
SPEAKER_03I am 10.
MariI am 10.
SPEAKER_03I'm doing the best that I can with the awareness that I have.
MariI'm doing the best that I can with the awareness that I have.
SPEAKER_03I'm always right with the awareness that I have.
MariI'm always right with the awareness that I have.
SPEAKER_03I am enough.
MariI am enough.
SPEAKER_03I do enough.
MariI do enough.
SPEAKER_03I have enough.
MariI have enough. That's it. I love it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So it's it shuts it answers every question that our ego, like I told I called the mind made tough, is always looking. Did we get this? We get this. We all said we get this, we get this. You know, you shouldn't have said that. This the the fear, the self-doubt, the guilt, and the shame. Okay, that it's trying to make sense out of.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And it can't, you can't make sense out of nonsense. No matter how no matter how creative you are.
MariRight. And yet so many people try.
SPEAKER_03Oh my god. It's exhausting. It's exhausting for them.
MariThis is true. So would you how would you utilize these statements? Is this like a morning mantra or just whenever you're noticing that chatter?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, when I I do it between calls. I'll do it between, I just want to have a clear mindset. It's a reset of the mindset.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_03So quiet it and then and you're automatically aligned. You hear the word alignment a lot. You know, I want to, I'm looking for alignment. I'm looking for uh and when you are aligned, then you're collect you're connected to your intuition, your creative. Okay, so you're actually separate from thought. We have thoughts, thoughts are tools. Most people have their tools working for them, you know, versus you using the tools skillfully. So use your thoughts skillfully, use your emotions skillfully, use your uh feelings skillfully, use your identity skillfully, use your skills that you whatever you're doing for career or hobby or uh painting or anything creative, use it skillful, use the tools you have, a paintbrush for painting, you know, papers, whatever. So um yeah, but most people think they are their identity, they think they are their thoughts, we have them, right? We are we are conscious awareness, yeah. We are energetic spiritual beings having a physical experience.
MariYes, yeah, you know, I agree. I when you're talking about alignment, I I personally have a very visceral experience of when I feel aligned. What is that for you?
SPEAKER_03Is that uh flow, you're in flow, yeah. It's flow. Okay, there's a book out called flow, and every every other page, I was reading it, it was part of my homework for at the Gestalt International Studies Center, and I'm thinking every other page he's talking about psychic experiences, intuition, you know, all that. I'm thinking, yeah, and just like I guess, I guess when you don't have it, you've got to have it ingrained into you. Yeah, so when you are in when you do say these phrases, it puts you into alignment. It takes practice. Typically, uh Eckhart Tolle says the biggest addiction we have in this world is thinking and overthinking.
MariOkay, say that one more time for the listeners.
SPEAKER_03Eckhart Tolle said in one of his probably the tape I listened to 30 times because I couldn't get it broken through to me. He goes, the biggest addiction that we have in this world is thinking and overthinking. We get addicted to it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, so from the game of 10 perspective, uh whenever we leave who we are, our authentic self, alignment with consciousness, awareness, the great, whatever you want to call it, divine being, source energy, whatever, we whenever we separate, I call that the game often played, one through nine, four elements one through nine. Fear one through nine, guilt, one uh shame one through nine, self-doubt one through nine, and guilt one through nine. And the further we go from ten, for example, go to three from ten. It's gonna be full of addictive behaviors.
MariOh, to get back to ten, like the the steps.
SPEAKER_03It's artificial. It's illusionary. Our thoughts. Uh the Cleveland Clinic said we have 60,000 thoughts a day. 80 percent 80% of those thoughts are from the past. 80% of those thoughts are of 60,000 thoughts are negative. So who wants to use who wants to eat out of that garbage bin?
MariRight. When you break it down like that, and you think, my goodness, how are we shifting or catching or the thing, the tools that are available to that we get to use to shift that.
SPEAKER_03Right. So what I teach is to use those phrases. It also opens up a lot of the uh thoughts from the past that no longer serve us. The ones that that are ones that are we're held on by fear, self-doubt, guilt, and shame. So I also uh Marianne Waimston actually taught me an amazing tool to forgive, let go. And most people think we have to forgive a person, place, or situation. It's actually we have to forgive the story and thoughts around that person, place, or situation that that hurt us. Us in the past.
MariYeah.
SPEAKER_03It doesn't mean you even have to tell them you forgive them. You just automatically you you aren't attached to it. Did it happen? Yes. Are you uh holding on to negative emotions, uh, fear, self-doubt, guilt, and shame from those, or do you let it go? Right? Because that is the burden, and that is what keeps us at that lower level of awareness. So you do it for yourself, you don't do it for you don't forgive someone for so for them.
MariFor the having for yourself. That's a great reminder.
SPEAKER_03It's very selfish with a capital S. You know, it really is because that is the burden that causes depression. That cause and then the depression causes the anxiety.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So anyone out there with that, forgive. But easier said than done.
MariYes. Oh my goodness, easier said than done.
SPEAKER_03I understand. Good.
MariGo ahead.
SPEAKER_03I can share with you the technique because I highly recommend anyone saying these phrases to use it because it's going to come up. Okay.
MariYes, please.
SPEAKER_03All right. So Marianne says, uh, we have these two things above our ears called temples. So create a temple in using your creative visualization, your creativity, create a goddess or god temple in your mind. And it has to be sacred, it has to be divine, and it has to be pristine. Okay. I have I used for a while I wasn't checking in on my clients' altar. I go at your altar look like, oh, it's full of papers all over the altar. You know, it's like a mess. And they were describing early just five minutes earlier that I my my my office is a mess. So this is a sacred place you go to let go of thoughts, feelings, and emotions that no longer serve you. There's only one emotion, and that is love. Okay. All the others are illusionary, fear, false evidence appearing real. So so what you do is usually in the beginning, I had a client, new client this morning, and she has to forgive her mother. I said, you know, you can take a dump truck up to the altar. Okay. And I highly recommend loading up all the thoughts about your mother. And uh, if it takes a dump truck or you have to rent Earth up, it's the largest dump truck in the world, you know, you can take that up there too, and just dump it on the altar. And um and if you're gonna say anything, say something like, I'm willing to see things differently. And because we're willing to take on that hurt and that pain, sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously. But we were willing to accept it, and um, now we need to be willing to let it go. But the most times the people that most people are relatively good at forgiving other people, but they have a hard time forgiving themselves.
MariThat is the truth, yes.
SPEAKER_03And so that is the most important person that you have to let go of. So let go of the thoughts about things in your past.
SPEAKER_02You know, it happened.
SPEAKER_03Did you learn from it? Are you still doing it? You know, you either you either learn from it or you're still doing it.
MariValid questions, absolutely. My goodness. Well, in your world today, what are the creative acts that you look forward to participating in or the things that you are interested in trying that you haven't tried yet?
SPEAKER_03I think I've tried everything I want to. I'm an avid gardener.
MariAmazing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'm an avid gardener. I'm loving as soon as we get off this podcast and we're going out in the garden. Ah, you know, you know, the funny thing is people think that uh just because I was a florist, I'd be a good gardener. So you know, we had a we had someone else grow our flowers. I you know, we had house plants we had to make keep for a couple weeks or a month, you know, most. But um, yeah, so it's like gardening is really an R too. So you know, knowing which plants like to be in certain sections of your yard and you know, soil and you know, keeping Oh yeah. Yeah.
MariI love it.
SPEAKER_03I mean I paint, I love to paint.
MariI I love all these pieces. Yeah, I interviewed someone a while ago who who told me they were saving painting for their 80s because that was what they they felt that they would be getting into then.
SPEAKER_03I I'd probably go back to it. You know, the funny thing is I knew it'd be a great. I mean, as you when people come in the flower shop, I think I got so many weddings because I could sketch out um get and then the bouquet goes, that's exactly what I'm looking for, you know. So yeah, I gotta figure that out for coaching too.
MariFor coaching, I love it.
SPEAKER_03I'm gonna sketch out your life. I'm just gonna sketch out where I see you. Oh my god, that's what I want.
MariThat's that's perfect. I love that creative spark in there. Well, Steve, this has been such a treat chatting with you. I have one last question. What does it feel like in your body to be creative?
SPEAKER_03In my body. When I'm being creative in my garden about two hours, I feel achy at 70 years old. That's how it feels. Fair. That's exactly how it feels. But uh but I get over it real quickly. Um in my body, how's it feel to be creative? I just I feel like I'm doing something, you know? It feels like I mean, I like to say too that we're we're here to recreate and recreate. And I think and what is it we're here to recreate and recreate play and recreate heaven on earth?
MariHmm. Beautiful. I love that. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to join me. If people want to learn more about the work you have in the world, your coaching, your game, how could they do that?
SPEAKER_03They can go to my website www.stevebarton coaching, s-t-e-v-e-b-ar-r-t-o-n coaching.com, scroll down to the bottom and get download um the book that my son, 18-year-old son and I at the time wrote called The Father, the Son, and the AHA Moment: Tools for Helping You and Your Child Develop a Path to Happiness. And for those that don't have children, read it for your inner child. And it I had a uh I had a I was at the chiropractor a couple years ago and the receptionist just the book just came out, and uh she goes, I'll read it for you because I like you, but I don't have any children. I said, Oh, do you have an inner child? She goes, Oh yeah. Read it to that.
MariRead it for that. I love this. Well, Steve, I will put links in show notes so people have easy access. And thank you again for joining me. This has been such a treat.
SPEAKER_03Thank you, Mary. Appreciate it. Thank you.
MariThanks for listening to the Sustaining Creativity Podcast. We'd love to keep in touch. So follow us on Facebook and Instagram. We are at Sustaining Creativity. Make sure to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and have your friends and family so they can listen to you. We love to hear from you. So leave your reviews, comments, and questions. Check out our website, sustainingcreativity.com, for upcoming offerings and creativity coaching to tune in Tuesdays for our next episode. And remember, with creativity anything, not just a few minutes.