What I Have Learned and Experienced About Creativity – 3 Insights

For the majority of my life, I  did not consider myself to be a creative person. My family and friends would laugh at my feeble attempts to draw a coherent picture, and I could not sing or play an instrument, act, or dance to save my life.  And even though I was a capable writer, I discarded any idea of owning my creativity as I mistakenly limited this term to only include forms of art, music, drama, and dance.    

Then, as I went deeper into my athletic pursuits, I moved further away from creativity and the desire to be thought of as a creative person. I was happy to be known as an athlete and never admired or wanted to emulate the creative individuals at school as, to me, they represented a different breed of people. This continued through my twenties and well into my thirties. The more I excelled in sports, the less I felt inclined to immerse myself into anything remotely creative.  

As the saying goes, “Whatever you resist, persists.” This is exactly what has happened in my life with regard to creativity. To start with, I have ‘committed’ to writing at least twenty heartfelt letters and poems a year for the rest of my life. I have been writing them to my parents and older brother on every one of their birthdays and Mother’s and Father’s Days since I was five years old. This practice has now expanded to include my wife as well as her parents and siblings.  It has become ingrained as a part of my life and relationships with my loved ones, that even now, thirty-six years after starting this particular practice, I have rarely missed writing a letter to one of my inner circle of family members on a special occasion. Mostly because I love expressing my feelings through the written word and partly because I am worried that, at this stage, they will assume that I am mad at them if they do not receive an affectionate communication from me on their special day:) 

Second, my wife happens to specialize in a field called expressive arts therapy. This means that she has trained extensively on using the arts – drawing, music, drama, and dance/movement to help people express, heal and grow. As you can imagine, we spend a lot of time engrossed in the arts. And many of her friends, who are now also my friends, are interested in the same which means that, whether I like it or not, the arts have become a part of my life. Finally, over the past few years, I have not played as much sport, choosing to maintain my fitness through high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and/or yoga.  This means that it has become harder to refer to myself as an athlete, leaving me with the dilemma of figuring out a replacement identity for my non-corporate persona. 

When I reflected on what has been keeping me engaged during my non-working hours as of late, I understood that most of the activities could be considered creative pursuits: writing a book, writing blog posts, helping people make vision boards, etc. When I looked up the Oxford dictionary definition of creativity which is - the use of imagination or original ideas to create something; inventiveness – I was stuck on the fact that it includes the phrase ‘to create.’ I love to create, especially in my professional life, through establishing new partnerships and building innovative programs and courses.  The more I delved into this concept of creativity and my relationship with it, the more I realized that creativity is something that lights me up, and that, contrary to my earlier opinion, I am a creative individual. 

Now that I have owned the fact that I am a creative person, what have I learned about creativity? Here are few insights developed through my personal experiences that have been validated by authors I have been reading and podcasts I have been listening to over the past few years.   

Insight #1: Creativity Arrives from an External Source 

Creativity flows through us; it is not developed by us. This is a difficult concept to grasp as it may feel like we came up with those deep song lyrics or wrote that powerful poem or choreographed that graceful dance routine all on our own.  And, yes, to some extent, we played a role in its manifestation.  However, that spark of inspiration and innovation came from some other place. Call it God, the divine, universal force, or collective consciousness; it does not matter; what matters is that we understand that we are merely a channel for creative ideas to manifest through versus the factory producing the creativity. 

I first started to understand this concept when my family would read out the letters and poems I had written to them during birthday parties or other special occasions.  Each time, I would be shocked and dumbfounded, not believing that the words they would be reading actually came out of my pen. People would always comment about my writing abilities, and I would never accept the compliments as the words did not feel like they were mine, and now I realize that they were not.  I had the same experience when I re-visited some of the most notable professional projects I have worked on, including the business plans for FC Barcelona and Liverpool FC’s entry into India. It is just hard to comprehend where I found the inspiration, innovation, and energy to conceptualize and see these projects through.  

I have learned that it is best to remain open and allow this divine force and other muses to enter into your being and perform their magic.  

This Ted Talk delivered by Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert perfectly explains this concept: https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_your_elusive_creative_genius/transcript?language=en 

Insight #2:  The Bigger the Resistance to Starting Something Creative, the More Important It Is

I believe that every human being can be creative since, as we have already established, creativity comes to each one of us from an external source, and this source does not discriminate. This means that every human being has experienced the thrill of having a creative epiphany at least once, a time when some idea pops into their heads and hearts like a kernel of corn. We typically hold onto this piping hot buttery popcorn for a while, dreaming about how good it will taste in our mouths, until all of a sudden, the dreaded ‘hows’ show up to ensure that we throw this perfectly cooked kernel into the dustbin. 

Why do we do this? How can we go from being so excited about running with our new idea only to discard it like last week’s newspaper? It is because just as creativity is offered to us by a positive force, there is an opposing force out there supplying us with resistance to ensure the spark of creativity does not turn into a wildfire.  This resistance slithers into our head in the form of disempowering statements like, “This is a stupid idea,” or “Who am I to think that I can create this?” or “I have no time to take this forward.” 

What I have learned through my own creative pursuits is that the more our mind gives us reasons to resist moving forward to work on a creative project, the better the chance the project will profoundly impact our lives as well as the lives of others. There is no better example in my life than when I started working on the business plan for the Global Institute of Sports Business. I was newly married, running a professional football team, and had never worked in academics before, except as a guest lecturer and visiting faculty.  The force of resistance was all over me, daily, with thoughts and sensations telling me to give up any silly notions about creating a world-class education institute in my spare time. 

Thankfully, I have been blessed with the right combination of stubbornness and self-discipline, wonderfully complemented by intelligent colleagues and encouraging friends and family. I leaned on all of these traits and people to push through my resistance and eat the entire bag of popcorn by creating the business plan and eventually setting up the institute. 

There is a book on this concept of resistance written by Steven Pressfield called War on Art which I highly recommend: https://www.amazon.in/War-Art-Through-Creative-Battles/dp/1936891026 

Insight #3: To Manifest Creativity in the World, You Must do the Work

Every human being has creativity within them.  I 100% believe this. However, to manifest this creativity into a song, a poem, a painting, a book, a play, a business plan, or anything else, you must sit down (or stand up) and just do the work. For most people, this is typically the less fun part of creativity. It is the daily grind, sacrifice, and scheduling.    

It is essential to design your life so that you can engage in what it is that you want to bring into the world.  This means blocking out potential distractions, doing research, typing away on your computer, splashing paint on the canvas, building out that comedy set, writing out that screenplay, etc. Whatever it is you have to do to ensure that you are involved with activities aligned with your creativity, each and every day.  

There is no way to get around the grind if you want to produce something meaningful in the world.  It is important to remember that there is no such thing as original thought, only original action. So you can either be someone with great ideas and nothing to show for them, or someone who is surrounded by works that reflect the creative genius that is being channeled through you.  I have experienced this most recently while working on a book that I am writing.  Technically, the book has already been written…in my head. It is about a philosophy that I have lived by and actively spoken about for the past decades, with personal stories from my own life used as support and validation for this philosophy.  

I am inspired by the book's concept and excited to share what is in my head with the world through the medium of the written word.  However, I am crystal clear that the only way this book will go from head to paper is if I wake up very early every day and crank out a few pages before I begin my corporate workday.  Just turn off my phone, lock the door and write, write, write, write.  It would be the same for anyone who desires to transform their idea into a tangible piece of work. This can be counter-intuitive to many people who enjoy staying in the brain-storm and concept discussing phase rather than dive deep into work.  It is not that they are not capable of working; it is just that it is far safer for their egos not to fully immerse themselves into their creative pursuit, thus making it impossible to fail. In actuality, failure is only possible when you do not attempt something; so go for it and see what happens.  

I am sharing a link to another great Ted Talk delivered by Elizabeth Gilbert on the concept of just doing the work: https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_success_failure_and_the_drive_to_keep_creating?language=en 

My invitation to you, the reader, is to be open to having creativity flow through you. Do not resist it when it comes, and then just do the work to manifest this spark of creativity into reality. It is not about talent, it is about focus and self-discipline. Grind it out every day, no matter what.  You will thank me later. 

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