“Yes, the first question is yes, your hair is going to fall out, but I hope the other benefits of this process is that you will get better.” We didn’t hate him. I laughingly said “You bastard” and we all shared the mandatory tension releasing laugh, it wasn’t the worst news we’d had from a doctor lately and we kind of expected it; seeing  other patients leaving the hospital with scarfs on their heads was a dead give away.

A week earlier, a caring, loving breast surgeon had looked at Teresa and after pointing at charts and explaining her diagnosis, held her hand, looked her in the eyes and said, “This isn’t a death sentence.” Holy shit! Who said anything about death? She did. Hey guys, it turns out when you get to go to a place called a “breast center” it isn’t as much fun as it might initially sound. Teresa has breast cancer, my wife, cancer isn’t just something represented by those ubiquitous pink ribbons, its here. It lives here, in our house. Uninvited and unwelcomed.

So: we are in for a siege, a foreign army has surrounded our city walls and will try to invade. It won’t. We have kick ass drugs, time, faith, love, and some pretty cool wigs. The battle is on. The good news is that the decease is contained to one area, and there are drugs, thanks to the billions of dollars raised for breast cancer research, designed to kill the specific protein in this specific form of breast cancer. (A decade ago, this wasn’t the case, this was a “bad” cancer then.)

So, what do you do when you have cancer in your home? You decide that nothing is off limits for discussion, while we don’t want to dwell on or be defined by breast cancer, we aren’t going to avoid the conversation. There is a battle on, one we didn’t ask for, but one we plan to fight with all our forces. We are in for at least 18 weeks of chemo, a year of another drug and then some kind of surgery. You come to appreciate doctors who can give you news straight up, who explain what is going on and let you decide how to feel about it. You come to have sympathy for others who have been through the process and a remarkable understanding of those who change the subject and don’t want to hear about it. We didn’t either.

While this blog won’t become a “cancer” blog, I’ve always written most effectively when I written from my heart and I intend to occasionally let you know how the siege is going. There is power in prayer, in shared good intentions and thoughts and, right now, we could use all of those.

Namaste,

Rick

To be creative you have to learn to say: YES!

Not just “Yes!” but Yes and…

In Improv we have an exercise called “Yes and.” We line up in two lines and we make outrageous, bawdy or just silly suggestions to one another in turn (we call these offers) and the reciever of the offer must accept the offer and expand it by saying “Yes and…”

“I bet you’d like to see my surgery scar!”

“Yes and I’d like to take a picture of it and post it on my Facebook page.”

The purpose of the exercise is to remind us of the most essential ingredient in comedy, accepting the premise of the joke. Did you ever meet anyone who blocks the funny?

“I bet you’d like to see my surgery scar!”

“No, no I wouldn’t,” might be a reasonable and normal response but normal isn’t funny! The funny from this Improv scene will come from the weirdness of the offer and the unlikeliness that someone would accept it. (That’s why people who have to answer jokes with the words, “Actually” or “You don’t understand” have no sense of humor. There is no “actually” in a joke, the joke is the weirdness of the unreality we are delving into! “Actually” blocks the funny.) Imagine the famous Abbot and Costello bit “Who’s On First?” How funny would it have been if Bud had stopped one line in and said, “Actually Lew, all of the player’s names are question words.” Not funny.

Saying yes is not just something you have to do in Improv, like so many things Improv teaches us about life and saying “Yes” is the key to creativity. If you dismiss every good shower idea, if you don’t pay attention to poignant dreams, if you don’t DAYDREAM now and then you will never create ANYTHING!

Remember, we started this series of posts by saying, “Creativity = Applied Imagination.” The next time you have a crazy thought, pause. Enjoy it. Live with it. Hold it in your brain for a while and let it attach itself to you like a very pleasant virus. Go out there, where only the lunatics go for a while. The word lunatic originated because the ancient Greeks thought people went crazy if the moon shown on them. Sounds about right to me, take a walk tonight and see what madness develops. It just might change everything!

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I’ve been talking to people who don’t think they are very creative for the last few weeks, and today I want to talk briefly about your environment. Previously we decided that creativity = applied imagination, that you have to get out of your own way, and that you should major in a creative field of your own choice.

I’m typing this in my creative studio, actually a spare bedroom that I commandeered to be my writing space. It has my 2 favorite Ikea chairs, an antique architect desk, a wall map of the world, my guitars, paintings from local artists, live plants, Buddha and angel statues, and incense is burning. When I walk into the room, I know it is time to write, and even on days like today, when my summer allergies are especially yucky, I find myself going to work when I come in the room. There is a certain amount of discipline that goes with getting to the applied part of applied imagination and I have found that having the right work space makes all the difference.

That’s not to say that inspiration can’t strike anywhere or that you can’t do your work wherever and whenever it has to come out, its just that having a place, even if it just your kitchen table, to do your work is a great way to make sure you go into flow, that state of mind where inspiration simply flows through you. My family knows, if I am in my studio, I am probably writing and they respect that. Part of your environment is getting a buy in from those around you. Your family, co-workers, roommates and especially your partner need to respect your workspace and your creative time and you need to negotiate  time a place to let your Creative Beast out. This is up to you, be strong on this one, let the people in your world know that everyone will be happier if you get some time to create. Much happier.

Finally, part of your environment is the right tools. Whether it is a computer, the right paintbrushes or a dance bar, you need to make sure you have the right tools. Looking for the right tool or trying to improvise can often be too distracting. For example, I am typing this on a Mac and using a software application called “IA Writer.” I love it because it is ridiculously stripped down and simple. You type, there are no settings or formats to distract you. As you type, IA Writer highlights the sentence you are typing with a brighter light, the previous sentences fade into the background. When I am done, I copy and paste the product to my other software and I’m able to take all of the design and formatting questions out of the writing process. (There is nothing more frustrating than getting some kind of evil Microsoft Word formatting issue in the middle of a really good idea. “No, I don’t want bullets!”)

SO: my advice today is to go to your room and make something. We need you, the world is waiting for something to come out of that marvelously unique and talented brain of yours!

Gentleness is underrated and we could stand to think about that word today. We tend to associate it with weakness or softness but, the truth is, we could all stand to be a little more gentle with one another. You don’t have to watch the news or scan the internet for very long to find coarseness, it is everywhere. If you doubt that, cut someone off in traffic, you will probably not get a gentle reaction.

I got the word “Gentle” in a morning meditation last week and since then I have been focusing on it, being aware of my own choices in reactions and relationships. Being gentle doen’t make you less resolute or more passive, it just makes you kinder and more understanding. In business, we could stand to back off the phrase “It’s not personal, it’s business.” Nope, business is personal and our politicians, our corporate chiefs and each of us could stand to do business from a more gentle place. What does it avail a man to gain a fortune and lose his soul? Being a person who seeks win-win solutions to problems is probably someone that more people will work with, not less.

If you want to create a more gentle world, you can’t have protests, flash mobs or write letters to the editor. As Ghandi said, “Be the change you seek in the world.” If you want more kindness, understanding and love in your life, look within. At least that is what this gentleman is going to do.

Namaste.

This is the third entry in a series aimed at readers who need a little help rediscovering their natural creativity. So far we’ve learned that Creativity = Applied Imagination and you need to get out of your own way and give yourself permission to be creative. Today we’ll talk about finding your creative discipline.

Have you ever felt natural? Not in a no deodorant, unshaved armpit kind of way, but have you have done something creative that just feels RIGHT? Everyone is wired a little differently and each of has something that we born to “major” in. Ken Robinson, in his book by the same title, calls this “The Element.” Your element is something you are born to do, something you are passionate about, something you have trouble NOT doing. For some of us, it is writing. Some of us can’t help but dance and move and still others have a head for math, we can’t stop doing calculations.

When you feel like you aren’t creative, it could be that you haven’t found the right Discipline in which you can apply your imagination. In my case, drawing is an exercise in impatience and ineptitude, I didn’t get the drawing gene. If you hand my a sketch pad and a pencil, I will, after a frustrating period of time, tell you that I am not creative, throw the pencils away and storm out of the room. Here’s what happens, often, kids get labeled that way in school, “Oh, you are NO artist!” and that label becomes part of their self identity. Let me tell you something, we are all artists, we all have the ability to create, its just that some of us don’t find the right element. Yet.

We call someone who is good with a paintbrush an “Artist” but someone who is creative with money is called an “Entrepreneur.” A curious kid might apply his creativity though science and research and others are great teachers. Finding a place that feels natural, that feels like home is the key to creativity.

Here’s something that is HUGELY important: If you go looking for your passion and find it, that doesn’t mean you automatically get paid to be creative. You might and you might not. If you discover your creative outlet is writing, why do you have to put the pressure on yourself to become a rich and famous author? We only seem to do this with art. There are millions of avid golfers who pay to golf every weekend with NO chance of ever earning a living playing golf, that doesn’t prevent them from enthusiastically traipsing around golf courses. Why do we put that caveat on creative pursuits? There is no question that living a life as a creative has its own benefits, there is no reason to place pressure on yourself to become a famous artists. It’s ok to create just because it feels good and makes you happy!

My suggestion is that you try a bunch of things until you find something that feels right. In my case, I take cooking classes, guitar lessons, dance classes, and any other idea that comes along, I’ll try most anything once.  But I always come back to words; I’m in my element when I am writing. Someone once said to me, “Not everyone can write as easily as you can!” and I was a little confused, “Why not? Writing is easy, they give you all the letters!”

That’s what it feels like when you find your creative passion, it feels natural.

Go apply some imagination today, you’ll feel better. So will I!

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This is the second entry in a series on finding creativity, especially for those who believe they aren’t creative at all. In the first post, we defined creativity as “Applied Imagination.” Today, we’ll talk about the first condition of being creative: giving yourself a chance.

Just because I need to talk about “self” here, I don’t want you to think this is another one of those “self-help” advice pieces. I’ve had more exposure than I care to admit to the billion dollar self help industry and my experience is that most self help advice is a form of nagging based on the unlikely combination of pop psychology, eastern religions, multi level marketing and the Little Engine That Could. Often, people pay a personal coach to nag them, someone who has made a career choice to nag people as a profession, of even better, leverage their nagging by writing books and hosting expensive seminars. Nope: that’s NOT what I mean. (It’s not really self help if someone is telling you what to think, is it? That’s just “help”.)

When I talk about self in the context of creativity, it is simply about getting out of your own way and letting your imagination come out to play. This was easy when we were kids, we played all kinds of thing like store or war or anything else that let us live in the world of make believe. Some of us let that get squeezed out; we get very serious, grown up, and concerned with getting things very right. It’s tough to let your imagine run wild if you have locked it in a box called childhood.

We each have our own very private and individual imagination. And you can’t be creative, by definition, until you begin to pay attention to your imagination again. Once you have your brain engaged in the world of possibilities called “imagination”, you have to pay attention to a few more “Self” words, here they are quickly:
* Self-Esteem: you don’t have to go all New Age on us here and recite affirmations (“I’m good enough and Gosh Darnit people like me”), you just have to know that it is ok to listen to your soul, that your viewpoint matters and your imagination is just as awesome as Michelangelo, da Vinci or even Ryan Seacrest’s.
* Self-Confidence: It takes balls to voice a new idea. There is a risk people might laugh, they might scoff, they might ridicule. That’s probably when you know you have voiced something truly creative. Have a little faith; trust the voice inside you. This is no time to self edit or worry about your lack of talent or limitations, go with the supernatural force that is called “Inspiration.”
* Your Own Goals: Creativity requires some discipline, we’ll talk about this more when we get to the Action blog, but if you begin a creative project, begin with the end in mind, make a mock up of your final work, a fake book jacket, a pencil drawing of your painting; do something to remind you where you are headed.
* Self Expression: Creativity is about applying YOUR imagination, put your emotions, your history, your unique point of view into everything you create. This is about making your soul happy, not about pleasing someone else.
*Passion: Finally, you better care,and care deeply, about your work; that’s kind of the whole point. Don’t expect anyone else to get fired up about your work if you aren’t. Ghandi said “be the change you seek in the world,” and what better place to begin than with your own creative project.

Next time, we’ll talk about finding your creative outlet, your creative media, in the meantime: Go outside and play, even if you never leave your office chair!

After my first book, The Affluent Artist, came out, I ran into a fellow Little League parent who asked me a question that changed the direction of my intellectual life, “I heard you 

“I’m not creative; at all!” Ever feel that way? I think we all have and a lot of times we are really saying things like, “I’m not artistic.” While artists can lay a pretty good claim to the supernatural power we call creativity, they don’t get to keep it all to themselves. Artists are creatives who have found a way to express themselves through a visual, written or oral medium. But there are plenty of creative people out there who can’t paint. Or sing. Or write.Or dance. Or sculpt. Or act…

Let’s start with a working definition of creativity, one I heisted from the noted author and educator, SIr Kenneth Robinson:

Creativity = Applied Imagination  

That makes it easier; doesn’t it? Unless you don’t have an imagination, this is something we can all do! (if you don’t have an imagination you have a lot more to worry about than a lack of creativity). The fact is, nothing that ever existed wasn’t a thought first. Even the Bible says, “In the beginning, there was the word.” We all have the ability to imagine something and make it happen.

So how do we get to a place where we think of ourselves as uncreative? Well; it turns out, its pretty complicated. The word “Creativity” is a pretty involved concept and I created a mind map to help us pinpoint where we can get bogged down. Like a lot of concepts, this one needs some explanation and I’m going to give you the short version over the next week or so. (The long version will probably be my Doctoral Thesis.)

It turns out that there are six important conditions to being creative, and each of them encompasses volumes of work. I know that without some some form of all six of these conditions in place we are going to get frustrated, fail, or not do our best creative work. That’s not to say all six, (Self, Inspiration, Environment, Knowledge and Action) have to be perfectly in place to create something; but they have to be present in some form. And; just as you can’t deny the presence of evil in the world, you can’t deny that there our barriers to creativity.

Take a look at the map and see if you can figure out where you need some help. Next time, I’ll start with the concept of self.

There’s a symphony inside you!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

So, how does one become an instrument of peace? In my case, it is in becoming a teacher about creativity, in helping people remember that they are created in the image of the Creator, that we all have an artist living inside of us. My three year Middle Aged Crazy project was supposed to be a book encouraging people to paint or draw or sing or learn to cook, or something. Instead, it has turned into an exercise in saying “Yes” to inspiration. I’ve found my life’s work is to help people and organizations become more creative and the route has diverted onto a road less traveled. I’ve ended up in school working towards an Organizational Management degree witch will be quickly followed by enrollment in a PhD track to learn everything I can about the work of Carl Jung, Depth Psychology and where all this creativity stuff comes from. As they said in The Blues Brothers, “I’m on a mission from God.”

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This creativity thing is a pretty big and elusive topic, its hard to get your arms around it. It includes such diverse concepts as filling out company expense reports, tagging subway trains, financing on Wall Street and sitting down to strum an acoustic guitar. The word “creativity” is kind of a catch all that generally means someone thought of something differently than we did. We can’t strictly apply it to any one discipline, artists claim it, but so do scientists, researchers and entrepreneurs. Everyone likes to think of themselves as creative, although few of us live the life of an artist. I’ve found that going through life with the attitude of a creative person makes everything more interesting.

So: studying this creativity thing has been a lot like studying life, its complicated. It involves trust, faith and no small amount of trouble.  You can’t help but find a spiritual component to creativity, exactly where does inspiration come from? Creativity is more than imagination, as the noted educator Sir Kenneth Robinson defines it, “Creativity is Applied Imagination.” Once you get into the application part, you separate the day dreamers from the artists. Applying imagination requires action, training, a discipline, perhaps a set of tools and expertise. It requires permission, not just from your boss or your family, it requires self permission and self confidence. Creativity might be about solving problems, it might be about creating something just because it needs to be created. Once you have created something, you might have to sell it. Or defend it.

I have my hands full on this project. To help organize my thoughts, I created this mind map.  It helps me get my arms around the concept of creativity and I am anxious to share it with you. This is Version 1.0, I’m sure it will morph as I go deeper and deeper. It might become a book (or a thesis) all by itself, I think an organization who wants to become more creative can use this mind map to find out where they are lacking.

I’ll keep you posted, OF COURSE, on where this road takes me and I’ll be sharing my work as I move on. After all, we are all in this together! We are all seeking not to be understood, but to understand.

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It started Saturday night at the Hard Rock Cafe here in Orlando. Teresa and I went to see this wonderful show called Classic Albums Live. It’s a group of  sensational studio musicians who travel the country playing the records of my youth, “note for note, cut for cut.” I’d seen them before and, while the show doesn’t have the usual spontaneity of a live concert (you know what the next song or even note is going to be) it is still amazing to see good musicians at work. This time they did Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, by the Beatles and they nailed it. After the  album they take a break and come back for a set of other Beatles tunes, which they also nailed. It was high energy, exciting and even moving. Damn- some of the Beatles songs were works of art! (Yes, and some were pretty much shit). The fourteen piece band, with full string and horn sections, rocked the night away. Ahh, rocked the night away…

We Boomers were around when people started rocking the night away, we were the rock and roll generation; we  bludgeoned society using youth as a weapon as if we invented it. We trusted no one over thirty and sought to create a new world, with new rules. Except, here we were, old, grey and listening to music that was almost fifty years old. Fifty years old! If we’d have listened to fifty year old music when Sgt. Pepper came out, we’d have been listening to music from before Prohibition. That wasn’t going to happen!

So, I had the knives sharpened, I was going to point out that trading on youth doesn’t seem to be the best long term strategy, I had Beatles parody lyrics at the ready, “Will you still change me, will you still wipe me, when I’m 84?” Yup, it was time to do what I do every so often, poke the bear, even if I am wearing the bear suit.

But, you know what, despite a few unfortunate ponytails on men, it wasn’t a bunch of people chasing lost youth, it was a bunch of people enjoying some really good music, out to have a nice night out. There were families there, with several generations together, all enjoying themselves, it was a night where people were just happy. Happy to remember the past, grateful to still be around to relive it. There were sparks of magic in the air. It was, to my disappointment, not a night for cynicism.

Sunday afternoon we went to see Hope Springs, the Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones movie about a long married couple going through marriage counseling. The previews portrayed the movie as a comedy or perhaps, as Rolling Stone (who ought to look in the mirror) called it, Geezer Porn. To be sure, it had some laughs and Meryl Streep did some things I wouldn’t have expected to see her do.  But Hope Springs is a serious movie, about two people doing the best they can, two people looking for something to latch on to, two people trying to remember happiness, searching for hope. Sure, the movie delves into the couples’ (lack of) sex life, but it deals with far deeper issues in a sensitive and direct way. It speaks to anyone who has ever been in a relationship at a crossroads, it asks, “what do we do when the only thing holding us together is habit?”

The characters of Hope Springs are boomers too, they traded on youth once. They had hope, they had love, they had passion. They got lost.

I’ve been lost, been at crossroads, I couldn’t be cynical about this movie either. I know what it is like to look for happiness, to latch onto hope. One of the exercises suggested by their therapist  (the horribly miscast Steve Carrell) was to remember when they fell in love, to describe their most exciting time together. Sometimes, all we need is a reminder, a spark, even if it is from a long time ago. Teresa and I have been to couples retreats, we know what it is like to find the spark again.

And, I think, that’s what the Beatles show did, it showered us in sparks, hidden behind the great sound and musical craftsmanship was a concert hall full of sparks.

After all, regardless of our age, we were all doing the best we could. We all need something to latch onto, a reason to get out of bed in the morning and sometimes, habit just isn’t enough.

As another rock and rolling boomer, Bruce Springsteen sang, “You can’t start a fir with a s spark.”

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They were gunned down by someone who didn’t like the way they worship God. Shot while they were worshipping God. This barely two weeks after a bunch of people were randomly gunned down while watching a movie. Neither is a capital crime.

We ‘ve been arguing a lot about the Bible lately, an argument started by a fried chicken salesman and his strict interpretation of some fairly obscure Bible verses. That’s fine, discussions are probably healthy in the long run.

There shouldn’t be any argument about killing, its Commandment One, written in stone. It doesn’t say murder, it says kill. What would Jesus do? Well, when Peter tried the concealed sword trick in Gesthemane Jesus reattached the severed ear of someone who was there to apprehend him. He didn’t call an army of angels to smite Judas, he surrendered, trusting in God. No excuses. He didn’t kill.

He didn’t hide behind the second amendment (probably cause there wasn’t one yet).

The first commandment doesn’t say don’t marry Larry if your name is Harry. And, until we can get as riled up about maniacs killing people with legal weapons as we are about same sex marriage, we are doomed. If you don’t believe in gay marriage, don’t marry a dude. But, if you are worried about sending your kids to church or the movies and not seeing them come home, it is time to get riled up.