Regaining the Courage to Begin Again

I’d been ambling the streets of New Orleans one steam room-like summer afternoon in 2016. I stopped off in City Park for some iced tea and was treated to vague strains of Latin jazz floating on the still air. As I moved toward the sound I discovered it was being generated by an amazing guitarist, an Argentinian guy named Martin Morretto, who proceeded to blow my mind with his masterful technique. It was if there were two players working the neck of his guitar. I had no idea how he was doing it.

I bought Martin’s CD and when I got home I emailed him and asked if he’d be willing to give me lessons over Skype.?I’ve played the guitar since I was twelve and I consider myself a pretty able musician, but when I sat down with Martin for my first lesson I was thrust back —somewhat ignominiously—into stark beginner-dom. It was a weird, painful, and ultimately rewarding experience. When I told Martin how I was feeling he just laughed and said, “I know exactly what you mean. I’m constantly putting my fingers into shapes and fret positions that make me feel like a complete novice.”

***

‘Imagination,’ the cornerstone of creativity, is the power to conceive of what doesn’t yet exist. It’s the first flash of insight, the precursor to anything we can possibly make manifest in the world. But in order to reignite your imagination you need to let go of what you know and what you’re comfortable with. I can already hear you saying, “Wait a minute… are you saying I need to set aside my expertise, my skills? Are you telling me to let go of what I’ve worked my whole life to achieve!” Not quite. I’m saying that, if only for a moment, you need to peer out beyond the rigid outlines of your conception of the world. In other words, you need to set down what you know to embrace what you don’t yet know. I realize that’s not easy for most people. It’s your studied, hard-won point of view that’s provided you with your livelihood and your sense of self; it’s been your fortress against rejection. Without it, who would you be? Who would value the work you do? And more profoundly… who would love you?

The re-ignition of our imaginations demands that we see the world, not as experts, but as beginners. Becoming a beginner again takes courage. Many of us lose the courage to imagine and to express the fruits of our imaginations as we enter adolescence—or earlier. Our fear of what might happen if we stepped outside of our area of expertise, even for a few hours, is why we have so much resistance to actually taking those first steps.?

When we’re toiling in the furrows of our own competency we might feel as if we’re progressing, or at least impressing people with our prowess, but we’re rarely learning anything. And eventually we get stuck doing the same things over and over again. The cycle can go on for years without our even recognizing the rut we’re in. And this rut, as you’ve probably experienced, crushes our imaginations. Over reliance on what we already know, what we’re already good at, is one of the greatest foes of the courageous imagination. Imagination requires courage. Conversely, it is held at bay by fear of negative judgment. And being immobilized by fear, as we’ll soon see, is the polar opposite of experiencing our lives with the childlike sense of wonder that a powered-up, reignited imagination requires.

I’m a professional musician, performer, and songwriter. I’ve recorded over twenty-five critically acclaimed albums for adults and children, and I’ve earned both an Emmy and a Grammy nomination for my work. I’ve also composed scores for dozens of films and network television shows, like the FOX hit series Bones and CBS’s Judging Amy. But not long ago I lost my way in the thrall of my own doubts and fears. The music business was quickly unraveling due to the Internet. I started to feel how I imagine successful saddle makers must have felt when the first Model T’s started rolling down American streets!

Under extreme financial pressure I embarked on a personal and professional reinvention that led to my creating a company called Big Muse. Since its inception in 2011, Big Muse has been helping people from organizations like Boeing, The Wharton School, Kellogg School of Management, 3M, Adobe, Coca-Cola, and The United States Army War College, to reignite their own imaginations. The people I work with run the gamut. They’re CEOs and academics, wounded U.S. combat veterans, and students from resource deprived areas.

Why do I do this work? At first it was a way for me to make money, something I badly needed after the disruption of the music business, which, wouldn’t you know it, happened just as each of my four kids were going off to college one after the other. But what happened next is what often happens when we set out to do things for their logical, ostensible reasons. We find the actual reason we are doing them. After so many years of creating things of my own it was an unexpected thrill to experience the joy of helping others to do the same. You could say I simply fell in love with the work of getting others to unlock their own imaginations.

These days, hardly a week goes by when I don’t get an email or a call from someone looking for help, whether they’re at the start of a daunting project, or stuck somewhere in the middle of a long and frustrating slog. It might be a musician looking for inspiration to record in a whole new style, a CEO whose company is undergoing a sales slump, or a student working to find a more authentic voice for her doctoral thesis. “I’d love to help,” I’ll say. “What are your goals?” At this point I’ll brace myself because I know the tread worn C-word is coming. “I need to boost my creativity,” is what I usually hear. It’s not that I blame anyone for using the word. There isn’t a better one in the English language than ‘creativity’ to describe what we’re referring to when we try to imagine what doesn’t yet exist and so we all resort to using it. But what is it we’re really trying to define?

CREATIVITY

Let’s look at how the Merriam-Webster Dictionary goes about it:

Creativity —The quality of being creative

Ok, I see. Merriam-Webster is using the word: creative to describe the word: creativity. Let’s look up the word creative and see where that takes us.

Creative—Marked by the ability or power to create

Hmm… you do realize that by making the mistake of using a word to define itself, even stalwart and reliable Merriam-Webster proves that it doesn’t really know what the word means. And yet we rely on the word creativity all the time. Lately, the term has begun to remind me of a strange game I used to play as a kid. I’d lie in bed in the dark and say a common word over and over until it lost all meaning, until it reverted to some indecipherable syllabic utterance. I recall doing this successfully with the word—rope.

Here’s my definition of creativity—and of course, it’s something I believe; it’s not a fact:

Creativity is a uniquely human energy, born of a mind that sees itself as part of a larger whole. It contains the power to intuit wonder, to imagine a brighter future for oneself and others, and to give and receive without the intrusion of fear.

These days, when I get a phone call like the one I described earlier, I’ll move beyond nebulous terms and focus a discussion around more specific outcomes. Some questions that might arise:

• If you were more creative what would you be doing that’s different from what you’re doing now?
• If you were more creative how would your conversations change?
• If you were more creative how would you feel differently about the people and experiences in your life?

So, when someone calls me and asks if I can help them or the people they work with become more creative, what they’re really saying is: ‘Can you help me regain the adventuresome spirit of childhood, can you help me see the world through beginner’s eyes?’ When we’re able to view the world, not as something rote and known, but as a place of mystery and possibility our innate creativity comes rushing toward us with incredible power and urgency. It's that power and urgency that allows us to begin again and again.

***

This is a video of David Morgan in his living room, exploring the unknown. Aside from being one of my best friends and collaborators, David Morgan is an incredibly gifted musician. He has the ability to lose himself in the music he creates. He has the imagination of a child —and the skills of master. And let me tell you, that's one powerful combination.