Finding Your Genius:

10 Things You Can Do to Live a More Creative Life

My friend Annette created a wonderful model for understanding creative inspiration. It’s called The Five Faces of Genius. The model came from her year-long study of genius breakthrough in history — from artists and scientists and dancers and painters and business people. She wanted to see “where art meets business” and to understand how people come up with ideas in an attempt to find ways to teach people to feel and act more creatively.

Although we had worked under the same roof for years in a different city, I finally met Annette in Seattle in 1997 when she had just completed this amazing year of studying creativity. There I was, just starting my job leading international marketing on a brand that articulated its Jim Collins-inspired BHAG as “nurturing and inspiring the human spirit.” Annette seemed like the perfect choice to come in to help us with an offsite we were cooking up to help the newly expanding Starbucks Coffee International, as we looked to take Starbucks across Asia.

Twenty years have gone by but I so clearly remember those two days. Our team of 35 people spent them together, learning new ways to tap into our own creativity, our own genius. It was fun and it was lively and it was even quiet a few times. At the end of the second day I sat quietly (but not peacefully) on a rock on a beach near Puget Sound and I felt grateful…. I’ve always called it my own “Oz Moment.” Dorothy realized what she was looking for was right in her on backyard. For me, well, like Dorothy it was right there: it turned out I was pretty creative, all this time. It seems so cliche, but for me it was a powerful, almost physical, realization. An epiphany to be sure. The Five Faces of Genius gave me techniques to consider and words to use and a lens through which I could view my own creative firepower. Most of all, it also helped me channel it: I didn’t need to be a copywriter or an art director or a painter or a sculptor. That might be art, but creativity was something far more approachable, far more egalitarian.

Life has changed a lot since then. Annette wrote a book. We used to meet at the ferry terminal on rainy Saturday mornings to talk about the draft of the book. Then Annette and I wrote a book together. It didn’t work out that well (you can find it on the bookshelves but our names are not on it). I went to a lot of her workshops. I recommended them to executives and clients. And then Annette decided she was ready to continue writing her own new ideas so we created a practitioner model for The Five Faces of Genius so other people could be certified to teach her work. I had a child. I changed jobs. I started a business and for ten years things went along really well. I took up ballroom dancing. I got in a creative rut.

In 2013, Annette passed away from a terminal illness — she told no one but her family that she was sick. And she told me, because she wanted me to shepherd Five Faces. For many months after her diagnosis, we talked about creativity. We didn’t talk about her illness. We talked about business. We didn’t talk about dying. We talked about her daughters. We didn’t talk about the rut I felt I had fallen into for the past year. One Friday I had to call her to say goodbye. I had never done anything so hard. Until I had to end that phone call… when I actually had to hang up.

A few days later, my phone rang while I was in a dance lesson. We were choreographing a new bolero. I took a break to listen the voicemail. Annette had died. And I was dancing. I couldn’t help but think she might like that I was dancing. Now I had the responsibility of her vision to help people tap into their own creative spirit. It seemed unfair somehow. Why did it happen when I had a rut of my own to worry about?

For a year I worked on that bolero — Annette’s bolero — and I stayed stuck.

Then one day, I discovered a song called “Back to Life.” And suddenly it all worked. A year later, I danced that bolero, the only time I ever performed it. When I came off the floor, I started to cry. Big, breath-taking, overwhelming sobs. It wasn’t until I changed the music that I could finally perform it.

And then I got back to work. I spend a lot of the thinking about how people are inspired creatively, and how to spread the power of her work. I’d had almost two decades of exposure to this model and what it could do for people, but most of all, I had taken from it so many lessons that I now applied with my own creative muscle memory. Another Oz Moment.

If you feel creatively “stuck” you might want to consider the following. These are the lessons Annette’s work inspired in me. There are a lot of things I’d like to do more or differently, but I definitely feel like on the whole “living a creative life” thing, I’m doing pretty well.

1. Creativity — and coming up with ideas — is a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets but more importantly, if you don’t use it, it atrophies. We teach some easy-to-understand techniques in our workshops but if you are feeling stuck or that your creative life is dull, approach it like you would if you had to rehabilitate part of your physical self. Seek help and some expertise, and don’t expect it to change overnight. Chances are you drifted into your creative atrophy — it doesn’t usually happen overnight… and you won’t get out of it in five minutes. Make a plan and work it every day. Build that muscle.
2. Creativity requires energy. When you’re exhausted, you may still have ideas, but they are often out of desperation rather than opportunity. The usual suggestions apply here: eat well, exercise, drink water and get enough sleep. Amazingly simple formula. Often hard to do if your habits have drifted in another direction. As I’ve gotten older I’ve also found that I can channel more energy if I focus more. I used to work with music playing. Now I find it far more productive to work in silence.
3. Amping up creativity starts with discovering your best “creative conditions.” When do you feel creative? Are you a morning person? A night person? Do you come up with ideas when you are in the shower? When you go for walks? Think about it. And when you figure it out, do more of it. Change the conditions. Move your furniture. Clean off your desk.
4. Intentionally think about times when you are at your “creative best.” Are you sitting quietly in a room? Are you daydreaming? Are you talking to a friend? Are you working with a partner? Are you inspired when you listen to a piece of music or a great TED Talk? Note these conditions. Then recreate them more often.
5. Write down your ideas. Old school. With a pen. On a piece of paper. I think my brain is like a hard drive. At some point it gets tired. And at some point it just gets full. A seriously good vacation can help you clear it out but reality usually means we can’t find the time to take enough vacations. If your life is like mine, even if you do find time for a vacation, you end up planning it for your family or arranging logistics and suddenly the clearing-out-the-hard-drive time turns into a whole lot more tasks… lists, remembering, errands… and you never really empty any space. Writing things down is like daily maintenance for your mental hard drive. It clears out space so you can have more ideas. There’s an added benefit: an idea sitting on paper is a huge step closer to coming to life than one that floats around like vapor, never really articulated and at huge risk of getting lost. And trust me on this one, the older you are, the faster they disappear.
6. Find or create a more positive environment. That’s when you have a better chance of your ideas coming to life. I remember working at a place where someone said, “it’s too exhausting to have an idea around here.” The bureaucracy in that place was just out of control — by the time you told all the “right” people about your idea, you were tired of it, or you’d compromised it so much that it had no chance to come to life the way you envisioned it.
7. Ideas are free. You actually can give them away. I had a client named Charlotte who said the nicest thing, “you always have an idea and you just keep giving them to us.” My immediate thought was to thank her for this generous observation. My next thought was, well of course I do — I’ll just come up with more.
8. Change the music. I worked on “Annette’s bolero” for months. I found songs I liked. I found songs I really felt when I danced. But something was missing. When people talk to me about their creative “ruts” it’s not always that they feel they have no ideas. Often, they feel like they just can’t get the ideas to sing and flow and move the way they want them too. For many people, creativity is actually solving problems and if you aren’t clear on the problem, your inspiration disappears. What problem was I trying to solve? I was trying to process the death of a friend and collaborator, whose life’s work I had committed to shepherd at the same time that I had already been in a rut of my own. All it took for me was to finally change the music. My inner creative self was searching for a way to get back to work, to figure out a way to keep going when my friend Annette was no longer a phone call away. I was alone and I am, by nature, a collaborator — my ideas seem to happen without effort when I am talking to someone else. Changing the music in my bolero showed me that sometimes you have to go back to create the right conditions and then do something about it. I needed the better understand the problem I was trying to solve.
9. Listen to the Universe: it will club you over the head if you let it. It is not a coincidence that I was dancing when I heard the news of Annette’s death. It is not a coincidence that we ended up meeting in Seattle when we had both worked in the same building 1500 miles away for several years but had never met. The older I get the more I agree that if you pay attention to the signs there is a force, far greater than any of us, that will guide you. Call it what you will, but that same force is the one that gave us all this genius. And if we pay attention, we will get the guidance we need to use it better. It is not a coincidence that I am writing this — or that you are reading it — now. Something made me do it.
10. Most, most, most of all, say “yes” more. Say yes to yourself. And say something positive to encourage others. Remember that karma thing? You will find great energy in noticing and expressing your appreciation of someone else’s ideas. Write a thank you note. Send a text or tweet a stranger. Comment on a cool idea you see on Facebook. Say a kind word. Post your child’s artwork on the refrigerator. Again, old school. When you actively appreciate ideas from others, you will get a good positive vibe in return. That is a kind of creative energy, something that will start to put you in a good space to come up with your own ideas. Saying “yes” — both literally and figuratively — opens up all kinds of new possibilities.

Creativity comes in waves and chapters. As our lives change, we often find new creative outlets. And sometimes, sadly, old ones close off. I started ballroom dancing at the age of 43. I had never danced before. Now, I can’t imagine my life without it. I started writing when I found myself on long flights back and forth the Asia. I was seeing so much in the world and I was by myself a lot so I found a friend in a new journal. I used to write all the time on airplanes. Turns out I’ve already written volumes about my own life…and now, as I spend more time writing for public consumption, I spend less time writing in my journal. It comes and goes. If you find your old outlets aren’t working, stop forcing it. If you feel you need a new one, try a new activity, go to a lecture or a concert that wouldn’t normally be on your agenda, or revisit a childhood hobby you haven’t done in years. And then there is always Blick. If you haven’t been to one, go. Buy a small blank canvas and a tiny paint set and just start putting color on the canvas.

I heard an old, relatively unknown Harry Chapin song yesterday. It’s called Mr. Tanner. The song is about a tailor who happens to have a beautiful singing voice. He sings while he works. He sings in his shop. He sings all the time. When he finally sings in public, the newspaper reviews are all about what is wrong with his singing. And he never sang in front of another person again. I’ve run for a few elections. I’ve lost every one. I’m not going to do that again. But I have other outlets these days and as I listened to the song and felt sadness for Mr. Tanner, I decided I’m old enough, and I’ve watched enough Oprah to know to either skip the reviews or just brace yourself for them and try to move on.

As you think about living a more creative life, consider the creativity conditions in which you live and work. Work hard to recreate your personally optimal conditions more often. Your creative spirit may be happier in the gentle privacy of your office cubicle, or it might flourish under the bright lights of Broadway or Palo Alto. Don’t force it where it doesn’t want to go. But don’t mix up your creative spirit with the ideas it generates. Every so often, one of those might really benefit from the bright lights of Broadway.

The “genius” Annette tried to teach us about was the creative spirit that resides within us all. It’s the gift of the human condition. Tapping into it will help you live a more creative life.

My “Jewel Box” (pieces of my life), quilt by B. Melvin

Jane Melvin is the Chief Shepherd and Master Practitioner of The Five Faces of Genius. To learn more, visit www.fivefacesofgenius.com or email us at info@strategicinn.com. You can buy The Five Faces of Genius, by Annette Moser-Wellman, on amazon.com.