All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this new blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the phone scene in Pursuit of Happyness:

What can we learn?

Commitment is a
creative constraint.Chris is a broke, divorced, homeless single father. He
can’t afford not to show up every day and close deals. It’s literally life and
death. That’s his why. The dangling sword of obligation. The running imperative
that drives his behavior. He may not have as much experience has the other
stockbrokers in his training program, but he certainly has more to lose. And
so, there’s a a profound level of commitment that informs every decision he
makes. There’s a theoretical constraint that forces him to work intelligently,
work efficiently, and most importantly, work differently. Chris’s life
situation is a form ofacute sales pressure. But as dire as it sounds, it actually
works to his advantage. Had he gone to work with a diploma in his hand and a
trust fund in his name, it would have made him less hungry. He would have been
more susceptible to apathy. And the repercussions of failure would have been
nominal. Perhaps the pursuit of happiness is fueled by the presence of sadness.How could you commit yourself into a
profitable corner?

Small times long
equals big. Chris’s lowly circumstances reduce his workday to a mere six
hours, only two thirds of the typical stockbroker’s schedule. But again, he doesn’t
run from his limitations, he leverages them. Chris turns his circumstances into
a temporal constraint. He uses the ticking clock as a motivator to invent ways to
make sales calls more efficiently. This is my favorite part of the scene. He
doesn’t hang up the phone between calls. He doesn’t stand around the water
cooler on break. And he doesn’t waste time in the bathroom. That earns him an
additional eight minutes a day. Which doesn’t sound like much, but over the
course of a year, that accrues to more than thirty three hours. That’s an
entire week of work. Wow. Chris uses
something called a prolificacy equation, which is an
incrementalist approach to building a body of work through patience, delayed gratification and continuity. Are you
willing to build a body of work by adding one small piece at a time?

When all else fails,
defy protocol. The most profitable moment in your professional life is when
you realize you’ve been standing on a whale fishing for minnows. It’s that
blinding flash of the obvious when you slap yourself on the forehead and think,
why didn’t I think of that before? I’ve
personally had this moment several times in my career, and each time, it never
failed to amaze me. It also never failed to make me money. Chris, we notice, has
this moment about halfway through this scene. And we can almost hear it in his
inner monologue. Why be limited by the rules of a game I don’t even need to
play? Why wait until I’ve called everyone to reach out to potential high value
customers? Screw it. I need a sale now. And so, he skips ahead to the top of
the call sheet, cold calls a whale, books the appointment, develops a relationship,
makes his pitch, closes the deal, wins the coveted full time broker position and goes on to form his own multimillion dollar financial firm. Which rules are you prepared to subvert?

What’s your favorite movie moment of conception?

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this new blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the dinner scene in Julie and Julia:

What can we learn?

Follow effort, not
passion. Julie works at the call center of a city development corporation.
Her job primarily consists of answering phone calls from scared, grieving, angry
victims of the twin towers attacks and attempting to provide them with resources
and direction. And so, by the time she gets home after an emotionally draining
day at work, all she wants to do is cook. To disappear from the world. To drop an
existential anchor, enter into her creative territory and experience pure freedom.
Cooking, for her, is the meaningful and engaging activity that recalibrates the
soul and rebalances her above the precipice of meaninglessness. This is a
profound realization. Julie is starting to understand the rich context of
meaning around the activity of cooking. And that provokes her motivation. Therein, then, lies the secret to discipline. Making
an activity existentially painful not to do.
Arranging your life in a way that it actually becomes easier to just say yes
and get to work. If you were the last
person on earth, what would you still do everyday?
Permission is the preventer of
progress.A few years
ago, I wrote a daily devotional on my favorite topic, execution.
The central theme throughout the book was how people can overcome the problem
of permission, meaning, any mental
construct of notenoughness that deadlocks progress. Julie personifies this
creative challenge beautifully. Since a major publishing house didn’t pick up
her novel, she doesn’t give herself permission to be a real writer. Since she
wasn’t a celebrity chef with her own product line and global name recognition,
she doesn’t giving herself permission to be a real cook. Eric, on the other
hand, reminds her that every great chess player was once a beginner. That we
don’t have to be great to get started, but we have to get started to be great.
He convinces her to reject the tyranny of being picked. To stop waiting to be
discovered. And to just go online, press publish, and there it is. She’s a
writer. She’s a cook. It’s real. And nobody can take that away from her. That’s
the beauty of technology. It pulverized the problem of permission and paved a
way for her to step into her rightful identity. How are you
manufacturing your own big breaks?

Behind every famous
creator is a fabulous mirror. Most great ideas are just waiting to be
talked out of. It kind of breaks my heart, but that’s the way humans are wired.
We’re always the last to recognize our own value.Julie, of course, uses every trick in the book to deflect her husband’s
brainstorm. It won’t work. It sounds
boring. It might get me fired. It’s not my place. It’s not possible. But notice,
he stays with her. Spoken like a true editor, he keeps probing and challenging
and suggesting and affirming, cutting through his wife’s inevitable layers of
creative doubt. And eventually, once all the excuses and permission and
hesitations melt away, there’s nothing left but a great idea. This scene couldn’t
be more honest. Conversations like this happen at dinner tables every night to every couple. The question is, are you willingto be a
good mirror? Someone who shows others what they can’t see for themselves.Someonewho believes in people more than they
believe in themselves. Hope so. Because without you, we’re just starving
artists playing basketball without a backboard. When was the last time you served as a sounding board for someone you
loved?

What’s your favorite movie moment of conception?

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this new blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the lab coat scene in Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs:

What can we learn?

You’re better because
it took longer. Growing into your originality can be a deeply discouraging
process. Considering the mental impediments that block creativity, the inevitable
delays that thwart momentum, the personal relationships that threaten progress
and the failed attempts that crush enthusiasm, most young artists wish they
could just press fast forward on the entire process. But the reality is, that
experience of tempering is exactly what gives your instrument its unique sound.
If you were to find your voice too early in the process, you’d be bypassing the
necessary spiritual work to get there, ultimately making your success wafer thin
and unsustainable. Flint is determined to invent something great someday––and
he will, there’s no doubt––but just like the oversized sleeves of his lab coat,
only the passage of time will facilitate the growth required to do so. Have you made your peace with delayed
gratification?

Reverse engineer your
dream. Flint’s walls are collaged with inspiring images of his creative
heroes. Edison. Einstein. Tesla. Newton.
These are giants upon whose shoulders he will stand. Eventually. For now, he draws a picture of himself, bearing the moniker of best inventor ever, and pins it on his wall of fame. This is
pivotal moment in his career. He’s no longer dreaming of becoming an inventor,
he is an inventor. He acts as if. He
is who he says he is. His belief, predicated more on whimsy that reality, is
that he can and will do this. Flint
plans to live his life, against all evidence, as if these advances in fortune
and visions of success were already here. It’s creative visualization at its
finest. And the secret is, he doesn’t just sit in bed trying to activate the
universal law of attraction, hoping to manifest his dreams into reality. He
runs out of the house in the middle of the night, locks himself in his
laboratory and gets to work. What
moment first initiated your momentum sequence?

A fashionable on ramp
to creativity. Flint’s lab coat is more than clothing, it’s a commitment
device. Something that gives his mental obsession a physical expression, adds
energy to the system and moves the creative ball forward. Something that makes
the effects of his work real and visible for all to see, even in the early
stages of production. The coat is something that gives him an elegant
excuse just to have ideas and validate his creative process. I’m reminded of
when I started drawing thinkmaps
for clients. I bought an orange jumpsuit. Mainly because drawing murals on
massive dry erase boards was a sweaty, dusty, dirty endeavor. But also, because
the jumpsuit changed the way I worked. Every time I slipped it on over my
clothes, my enthusiasm doubled, my energy increased and my sense of purpose
skyrocketed. Plus I looked like an escape convict. The point is, every creator
needs a uniform. A wearable identity totem that prompts a work mindset and sets
a tone that says to your brain, work happens now. What object helps you merge into the creative process?

What’s your favorite movie moment of conception?              

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this new blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the critic scene in Ratatouille:

What can we learn?

Find your idea a friendly
neighbor. Remy’s
vision was to reimagine a classic. To put his unique spin on a something that was
a fixture in the culture for centuries. Not
an easy task. In fact, most artists who try to reinvent the wheel watch it
spin off the axel and fly into a ditch on the side of the road. But not this artist.
Remy works by instinct. He takes action on his intuitive leads. He boldly
reinvents a time honored tradition, step by step. And what’s the outcome? He
changes the customer’s life forever. But the real question is, what forces were
at play, psychologically, that we can
learn from? Simple. Remy found something that was already in the
customer’s head and hung something next to it. The memory of ratatouille became
the mental hook upon which
the customer could hang this innovation. Proving, that it’s okay to be new, but
not so new that nobody knows what to do with us. New is good, but we don’t want to be so impossible
to classify that people drop the mental ball. Does your idea have a neighbor?

Let emotion do the
heavy lifting for you.
Ratatouille,
which was traditionally viewed as a peasant dish, didn’t seem like the smartest
way to impress the country’s most renowned and pretentious restaurant critic. But
our tiny chef had an instinct. He knew exactly what he wanted to create. So he
infected the people around him with his vision and led them to execution. And
when the plate finally arrived at the table and the critic took the first bite,
we witness a magical moment. Home. Childhood.
Family. Comfort. Care. Remy’s
creation wasn’t just a vegetable dish, it was a time machine. And it
transported the critic to another realm of existence, allowing him to engage
with his work on a deeply profound level. That’s what’s possible when we dare
to  challenge our customer’s
preconceptions. To violate their expectations about how something is made, and
who it is that makes it. Does your art do
that?

The changing definition of
failure. Despite
the positive review, the restaurant ultimately closes down due to an inability to
comply with the health code inspection. Which seems like a failure, and maybe
it is. But every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end, as the song says. And
we discover that this closing is the best thing that could have happened, both
for the chef and the critic. Anton may have lost all credibility as a critic,
but he ends up funding a popular new bistro that builds financial prosperity, local
community and a platform for artistic expression. I’m reminded of a
presentation I made many years ago. The audience reviews were the worst I’d
ever received, and I was devastated. But then, a few months later, I received
an email from the one woman in the
room who was actually blown away that day. And her company ended up hiring me
for a project that led to tons of future business. Funny how that works. Sometimes
failure multiplied by time inverts into success.

What’s your favorite movie moment of conception?

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this new blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from a compilation of scenes in August Rush:

What can we learn from this moment of conception?

Fuel your artistic energy reserve. August isn’t
just a songwriter, he’s a savant. The boy hears and feels and smells and
touches music everywhere he goes. It comes from inside of him, it comes from
outside of him. And regardless of how he engages with the world, there isn’t
anyone or anything that doesn’t inspire him. The question is, why is he the
only one who hears it? Simple. He’s the
only one who’s listening. Which isn’t a zen koan, it’s just the way human
perception works. Whatever you go looking for, you find. August exemplifies the
strategy of awareness plans, which are metacognitive procedures and mental
recipes for perceiving and thinking about the environment around him. To him,
everything is an instrument. Music is his lens for interacting with the world.
And that’s why he’s able to keep the faucet flowing and keep production going.
August is building an unlimited contextual reservoir to uniquely inspire him.

Famous for having
feelings. Every time I watch this movie, I weep tears of joy. The dialogue
gives me chills, the soundtrack makes me want to create and the story reminds
me that my hope is not seeded in the wrong garden. And yet, critics ripped this
movie apart when it premiered. The reviews called it schmaltzy, illogical and
overly sentimental. Well, yeah. Don’t
you know anything about music? That’s the whole goddamn point. If art tugs on
people’s heartstrings, it worked. If art says something for people that they
can’t express for themselves, it worked. If art delivers something people can’t
find on their own, it worked. Taste snobs infuriate me. That’s why I never read reviews
of anything I publish. I stay on the side of the creators, where I belong. As
the old saying goes, those who can’t do,
review. Chicken shits.

Timing is a version of
luck. The thing is, luck runs deep before you even find success. August, for
starters, was the product of two professional musicians. One was a classically
trained cellist, the other was a rock star, the combination of which endowed him with a massive musical inheritance. A genetic package wired for
certain artistic powers and proclivities. August also lives in one of the most
creative, inspiring and accommodating cities in the world. Manhattan is his
platform. And it grants him an all access pass to collaborators, mentors,
venues, universities and of course, an audience. August was lucky, but he was
also smart enough to realize he was
lucky. And that not only humbled him, but helped him find ways to stay in the
game long enough to still be around when the world was ready for him. Right guy. Right place. Right
time. Right product. Right audience. Right leverage. That’s luck. It’s a confluence of events.

What’s your favorite movie moment of conception?

Prolific is my new intellectual property development
system.

It’s a comprehensive program that guides people through the art
and science of collecting, creating and communicating their ideas. And the
framework I’m building will eventually become a book, a curriculum and some
kind of software application. 

Imagine The Artist’s Way meets Getting
Things Done meets Behind the Music.

The goal is to change the way you think about the way you
think. Because it’s more than just a collection of exercises; it’s a rubric for
operable behaviors at all stages and levels of the creative process. 

Today we’re going explore The Prolific Framework.

PART ONE :: SEASONS

There are three stages of the creative process, as modeled after
the human body’s primary respiratory functions:

·     
Inhaling. The
creative season of content inspiration, or input,
and listening for what wants to be written.

·     
Pausing.
The creative season of content intermission, or throughput,
and managing your ideas as an inventory system.

·     
Exhaling.
The creative season of content expression, or output, and shipping work out of
the factory.

Which season do you
find yourself in right now?

PART TWO :: PROBLEMS

Artists are confronted with a unique set of challenges on a daily basis,
each of which correspond to one of above seasons of the creative process:

A.    Inhaling / Input Problems

·     
Focus.
I can’t get clarity on what to attack.

·     
Blocks.
I can’t overcome resistance to production.

·     
Motivation.
I can’t get my sorry ass out of bed to create.

·     
Consistency.
I can’t sustain the flow of creativity.

·     
Originality.
I can’t create work that’s unique.

·     
Priority.
I can’t decide which action comes next.

What’s the major input
problem you’re working through right now?

B.    Pausing / Throughput Problems

·     
Anxiety.
I can’t remember all my ideas.

·     
Disorganization.
I can’t keep all my thoughts organized.

·     
Strategy.
I can’t deicide how to use my ideas.

·     
Paralysis.
I can’t deal with chronic indecision and overplanning.

What’s the major throughput
problem you’re working through right now?

C.   Exhaling / Output Problems

·     
Volume.
I can’t create in large and consistent quantities.

·     
Originality.
I can’t find my authentic voice.

·     
Priority.
I can’t decide which work to prioritize.

·     
Laziness.
I can’t get into a consistent creative routine

·     
Movement.
I can’t get projects started.

What’s the major output
problem you’re working through right now?

PART THREE ::
CAPABILITIES

Artists can overcome any of the above problems by using one of more of the
following tools, disciplines, techniques or routines, each of which correspond
to the aforementioned  seasons:

A.    Inhaling / Input Tools

Focus

These tools will
reduce doubt, keep creative production going, give you an exquisite
understanding of your own creative timing and help you find out where your
creativity feels most at home:

·     
Bacon. A
motivational currency that overrides your
excuses, activates your natural inclinations and moves you to execution.

·     
Buffaloing.
Keeping all of our passions in play, investing in multiple containers of
meaning, using
our strengths to do what we do best and leaving no faculty untapped.

·     
Existential
Anchor. A portable, purposeful and private sanctuary that brings you back to center to reconnect with the
self, the body, the spirit and the heart.

Blocks

These tools will eliminate
creative blocks for life, assure you never face a blank canvas again, help you
live life in a way that your art gets done over and over and keep your spirit
from being parched and dry:

·     
Awareness
Plan. A metacognitive procedure or mental recipe for perceiving and thinking about the
environment around you, a lens for interacting with the world. 

·      Ritualized Vomiting. A daily ritual of emotional release
where you metabolize your experiences, make serious mental headway into your ideas and
get the creative faucet flowing. 

·     
Faithful
Forces. Routines that keep your creative life stable and fruitful when
circumstances get a little too overwhelming.

Motivation

These tools will help
you create productively despite mood or time constraints, allow you to get better, smarter, stronger and sharper with
everything you create and establish
a gentle flow that obfuscates procrastination:

·     
Creative
Commitment. Professionalizing your art and using daily momentum to keep
yourself from feeling detached from the process.

·     
Commitment
Device. A
physical object or prototype that makes the effects of your work real and visible for all to
see, even in the early stages of production.

·     
Prototyping. Something that
gives your mental obsession a physical expression, a physical thing
that adds energy to the system.

Consistency

These tools will help
you find fresh fuel for fresh ideas, get the creative faucet flowing, help you
consistent generate compelling content, assure your process isn’t driven and
dictated by time pressure and help you immediately access creative energy:

·     
Unconscious
Rumination.
Allowing your inner mind to get to work mulling over, sorting out, organizing and categorizing material that has
been previously absorbed.

·     
On Ramp. A ritual that
prompts a work mindset, a moment that
merges you into the creative process, an environment that sets a tone that says work happens here.

·     
Creative
Subroutine.
Using a ritual that brings up your energy and snaps you into the appropriate
state of mind to do your work.

Originality

These tools will create
a unique, unreplicatable inspiration pool, help you stay prolific over long arc
career, assure you never run out of things to say and build unlimited
contextual reservoirs to inspire you:

·     
Inspiration
Framework. Metacognitive, ritualistic or recreational tactics for finding inspiration
where no one else is looking.

·     
Hyperfocused
Expression.
Whatever little world you investigate to a great, high level, something that fascinates and ignites you.

·     
Disturbance.
Well intentioned monkey wrenches that make your work emotionally provocative,
constructively challenging and delightfully disturbing.

Priority

These tools will help
you enter into flow state quicker, reconnect to the body to give

your brain cues and
train your mind to receive what wants to be written:

·     
Solvitas
Perambulator. Using rhythmic, repetitive exercise or action to clear your mind,
stabilize your emotions and increase
the production and release of endorphins to pump
the well of creativity. 

·     
Physical
Displacement. A problem solving technique whereby working in unusual settings helps you see patterns you wouldn’t have noticed otherwise.

·     
Boundary
Moment. Existential distresses or identity crises in which our motivation for doing
something is just to feel normal again.

B.    Pausing / Throughput Tools

Anxiety

These tools will help
you in processing your ideas quickly, managing your creative workflow
intelligently and freeing up your working memory and opens your mind to receive
new ideas:

·     
Making
Room. Relieving your brain the necessity of remembering, freeing up your
working memory to opens your mind to receive new ideas.

·     
Ground
Zero. The
entry point into the creative processing workflow, the primary
location for offloading raw materials into your idea factory.

·     
Deep
Democracy. Treat everything we encounter with fundamental affirmation and radical acceptance.

Strategy

These ideas will help
you be less derailed by rejection and more confident in your work, create
fertile ground where the spark of conception keeps firing every time you sit
down to work and give yourself an objective view of what your mind really wants
to produce:

·     
Working
Modular. Treating
each thought as an uncategorized chunk of creative material, an objective, portable piece content.

·     
Fragmentary
Association. Creating ideas in a piecemeal, nonlinear fashion,
without the constraints of chronology, sequence, rational order and narrative.

·     
Medium
Agnostic.
Instead of forcing our own expectations upon the work, you allow patterns to emerge and open our work to
becoming more dimensionalized.

Paralysis

These ideas will help
put the subconscious to work, let the material work on you, allow you to watch
your project start to take shape and acquire real structure and meaning and
weight, and help you move from idea to execution:

·     
Factory
Floor. Creating
the ritual of an established parcel of structured curiosity, whereby you casually and thoughtfully
peruse every idea you’ve recently accumulated.

·     
Distributed
Cognition.
New ideas that arise from combining many disparate pieces of information or concepts over an extended period of time. 

·     
Proactive
Unconscious.
Viewing your mind as idea processor, waiting at your
beck and call, begging you to assign it a problem so it can immediately go to
work for you.

C.   Exhaling / Output Tools

Volume

These tools will help
you achieve a quota of creative usefulness, provide multiple entry points for
your audience, allow you to make serious mental headway into your ideas and extract
the most value out of conceptual beginnings:

·     
Movement
Value. The
discipline of recognizing conceptual beginnings, witnessing ideas
in their nascent state and fully fleshing out your work.

·     
Moment of
Conception.
The single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to
you, something wants to be built here.

·     
Tourniquetting. Creating a healthy sense of distance from
your work by damming up the creative flow, compressing the circulation and
applying enough pressure so there’s an explosion waiting for you when you’re
ready to return.

Laziness

These ideas will help
you generate the internal demand needed to move forward, initiate a sequence of
creative rituals, create ambient pressure that motivates you to stay
disciplined and establish trusted, consistent structures to trigger your
creative focus.

·     
Principal
Creation. The primary work unit of your creative
process that requires focus and craft, i.e., putting words on paper or clicking
the shutter.

·     
Discipline
Transplant.
Doable, less threatening strategies to enable your ideal
mental, emotional and existential space from which to create.

·     
Associative
Trigger. Personal
patterns and physical objects, from music to visual stimulation to desk style, that echoes the
habits of action and allow you to enter into your creative zone. 

Movement

These tools will help
you amass a collection of output that audiences can access in many different
ways, make your work robust enough to find its audience and make a difference
and build an undeniable body of work that grows stronger, brick by brick:

·     
Prolificacy
Equation. An incrementalist, easy does it
approach to creating a body of work, which is everything you create and
contribute and affect and impact.

·     
Gravitational
Order. Using motion
to create equilibrium so your work
finds its place in the universe, thus conspiring towards some unifying
geometrical situation. 

·     
Victory
Dance. A small, customized reward that commemorates the fruits of your
motivation and equips you to be what the moment requires.

* * * 

It’s not perfect, but then again, being prolific isn’t about being perfect.

It’s about being everywhere.

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this new blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the seminar scene in Adaptation:

What can we learn?

Spectator sports are
addictions of the self. McKee’s book on story and narrative is the best in
the world. No doubt. But while seminars are inspiring and educational, they’re
also expensive, time consuming and a poor replacement for doing the work. In
the same way that a large group of people who gather for an hour each week
deceive themselves into thinking that’s
church, the event becomes a surrogate for productivity. It’s a distraction.
It’s playing dress up for the wrong audience. Kauffman’s internal monologue
says it all, “It is my weakness, my ultimate lack of conviction that brings me
here with all these desperate idiots lapping up everything this bag of wind
spouts. Easy answers. Rules to shortcut yourself to success. And here I am,
because my jaunt into the abyss brought me nothing.” The irony, of course, is
that his voice over rant is exactly what he needs to moves the story along.
It’s the oldest trick in the book. If you
can’t think of anything to write about, write about the fact that you can’t think
of anything to write about. Because your problem is never your problem.
Creative block is a symptom, but what matters is the source. Continue to
medicate yourself with seminars, and you’ll never uncover it.

Help inspiration seek
you out. People say there’s nothing new under the sun. But considering the
sun is eight hundred and sixty four thousand miles in diameter, if you can’t
find something new under it, you’re not very creative. Originality of voice
isn’t hard to achieve, it simply requires time, consistency and patience. And that’s
why I love this scene. When artists whimper about getting creative blocked, it
infuriates me. Is that humanly possible? Are you not paying attention? Life is
not a story where nothing happens. With the right framework, i.e., metacognitive,
ritualistic or recreational tactics for finding inspiration
where no one else is looking, something will happen. By taking a holistic approach to creativity, i.e., rejecting the notion
of the elusive eureka moment, you can live your life in a way that your
art gets done over and over. McKee’s speech at the end of this scene is among
the truest moments in modern filmmaking. It’s worth reading the original screenplay,
if you haven’t already, just to let his construction of words massage your ears
and heal your eyes.

You are a longing
machine. Adaptation’s portrayal of the tragically depressed but lovingly
sincere artist is spot on. There isn’t a creator alive who hasn’t been in his shoes.
Sad. Hopeless. Overweight. Uninspired. No
wonder the movie is a favorite among artists. No wonder it was nominated for a
cavalcade of awards. Because as you watch it, you discover your own humanity
deep within the conflicts of the characters. You remember that through despair
and vulnerability, you can still triumph in the end. And you realize you’re not
the only crazy person banging your head against the brick
wall of mystery. Charlie Kauffman actually gave a brilliant lecture
on this topic a few years ago. My favorite line from his speech was, “Do not
disregard all the little voices. Failure means you risked failure.” I loved
this movie when it came out. It captured my imagination as a viewer, compelled
my interest as a storyteller and kickstarted my ambition as an writer. What
more can you ask for in work of art?

What did you learn from this moment of conception?

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this new blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the tavern scene in Shakespeare In Love:

What can we learn?

Leave people’s
campsite better than you found it. Marlowe doesn’t get defensive about
giving away his ideas. He doesn’t demand credit for the suggested plot line. He
doesn’t ask for an invoice at the end of the conversation. And he doesn’t call
a team of barristers to draft a non disclosure agreement. Kit simply says, here, as he generously contributes to
his colleague’s creative process. Why? Because he’s already a successful in his
own right. The creative faucet is already flowing. Meaning, there’s a certain
degree of artistic faith. A belief that the muse will return. A trust that
there’s more where that came from. Creativity, after all, is an asset. The more
you use it, the more you have. Whereas, if you’re selfish with your knowledge,
if the prospect of plagiarism scares your imagination into hiding, then nobody wins.
Marlowe represents the rising creative tide that lifts all boats.

Distribute your
motive force accordingly. Success has a funny way of putting the heart in
conflict with itself. When we see the prosperity of a friend or a colleague, it
either fuels our creative fire as a glowing source of inspiration, or awakens
the green eyed monster and sends us into a spiral of jealousy. And while the
latter is more common and human, it’s also significantly less productive. Bitter
jealousy, we start to find, is actually a mask for procrastination. It’s a
prosperity blocker. A heart impoverisher. A pace slower. When we spend our time
justifying and rounding down other people’s success, we only hurt ourselves. Shakespeare
tries turning toward his friend’s triumphs
with a hospitable heart, but his eyes tell another story. He wants to be happy for his fellow
playwright, but deep down, he makes excuses for other people’s accomplishments.
No wonder he hasn’t written a word.

Don’t mistake talking for doing. Gollwitzer famously
found that announcing our goals makes us less motivated to accomplish them.
Telling people our goals, he says, creates a social reality that tricks our
mind into a sense of satisfaction, thinking the work is already done. When in
fact, we haven’t executed zilch. This phenomenon is called substitution, and artists are among the world’s worst perpetrators.
It stems from our fear of idleness. Our gnawing desire to remind every artist
we encounter how busy and booked and in demand we are, lest they assume we’re
sleeping under a bridge. Marlowe is an artist who executes. Shakespeare is an
artist who explains. Kit is a creator who does. Will is a creator who
discusses. And the difference is palpable. Notice the bartender in the scene. He
serves as the impartial observer. The focus group of one. The mirror held up to
the truth. Once the two playwrights begin riffing back and forth, his facial
expressions are the barometer of prolificacy.

What did you learn from this scene?

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this new blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’s clip comes from the apartment scene in Finding Forrester:

What can we learn?

The mind is a
terrible office. The romantic notion that an artist is working when he’s
staring out the window is true, but it’s not the principal work unit. Stuffing
our eyes with wonder is essential for inspiration, but eventually, we have to
make the word flesh. We have to extract what’s inside of us, lest we think
ourselves into a corner. It’s like my therapist used to tell me, don’t just sit
in bed thinking, go think on paper.
Experience your ideas kinesthetically. Whatever is rising up from within your depths, just get
it down. Judgment comes later. Forrester says the first key to writing is to
write. Which sounds like one of those
super unsatisfying zen koans that falls somewhere between no shit and oh really,
but the advice couldn’t be more lucid. Regardless of the medium, the first step
in doing anything is to just do that thing. Anything else is procrastination in
disguise. Every moment we’re just
thinking about something, the idea is actually dying. It’s deprived of the
oxygen of documentation. We have to start punching those keys.

Befriend simplicity.
Jamal’s face in this scene is priceless. Forrester challenges his
preconceptions and rocks him to his very core. He isn’t just receiving lesson on writing, he’s witnessing
a meditation on human nature. The first
key to writing is to write? Could it really be that simple? You bet your
ascot. The problem is, our species loves to overcomplicate things. Complexity feels
like progress. It helps us preserve the illusion of productivity. And it overcompensates
for our shortcomings and insecurities. But the reality is, the creative process
is alarmingly simple. It’s input, throughput and output. It’s inhale, pause and
exhale. It’s inspiration, organization and distribution. Three steps. Nothing
more, nothing less. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a chef selling pizza with
goat cheese and truffles. Forrester is the real deal. Like a good mentor, he
doesn’t preach, he models. And because his hands are dirty, because he’s
literally putting words on paper before his student’s very eyes, that makes him
right.

Participating
in the energy exchange. The score adds a subtle layer of poignancy to the
scene. This particular song was written by Ornette Coleman, one of the major
innovators of the free jazz movement of the sixties. I just love the way the
music starts at the same time as the typewriter. It’s the perfect parallel.
Jazz, after all, is about cocreation. Riffing back and forth. Borrowing energy
from the people around you. Who’s to say writing can’t feel the same way? I’m
reminded of when I served on the board of directors of a publishing
association. During my presidency, I hosted quarterly writing marathons.
Fifteen of us would literally sit in a room and write for eight straight hours,
stopping only to eat and pee. It was goddamned magical. Like an all day silent
jazz concert. Words poured out of people like melted butter. Writers who hadn’t
produced in months were suddenly prolific. In fact, I’ll never forget when my
chronically blocked friend told me during lunch: Watching you type motivates me. Cool, daddyo. Another reminder to not only pay attention to
what you do that gives you energy, but what you do that gives other people energy.

What’s did this moment of conception teach you?

All creativity begins with the moment of conception.

That little piece of kindling that gets the fire going. That initial source of inspiration that takes on a life of its own. That single note from which the entire symphony grows. That single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to us, something wants to be built here.

And so, in this new blog series, I’m going to be deconstructing my favorite moments of conception from popular movies. Each post will contain a video clip from a different film, along with a series of lessons we can learn from the characters.

Today’sclipcomes from the sales scene in Walk The Line:

What can we learn?

Find something that has magic in it for you. Identity is a luxury
item. Due to historical, genetic, environmental and economic variables, not
everyone can afford to become who they are. Cash, however, was one of the lucky
ones. And I love this scene’s serendipitous juxtaposition of whatcompelshim, aka, watching the recording
session, and whatconstrains him,
aka, working as a door to door salesman. These profound moments of contrast
happen to creators everyday. In fact, when I started my company out of college,
I worked a number of jobs to make ends meet, from waiting tables to selling
furniture to parking cars. All of which constrained rather than compelled me.
But after few years of accruing a massive debt to my artist, I couldn’t take it
anymore. I knew I was meant for something better. Something that had magic in
it for me. Something that allowed me to do my rightful work in the human
family. And eventually, despite the deafening chorus of wagging fingers and
raised eyebrows, I rode my creative horse into the sunset. Johnny would have
been proud.

Make the word flesh. If
you pause the video, you’ll notice the words he scribbles aren’t orders for
home equipment, they’re song lyrics. Cash is interested in telling stories, not
making sales. What an iconic moment. Think about it. What artist hasn’t snuck away
from the mundane duties of their boring day job to squeeze in lyric here or a
drawing there? That very experience is where many of our best songs come from.
And what’s interesting is, the tune he’s writing is Get Rhythm,
a song about a shoeshine boy who uses rhythm to cope
with the tedious nature of his job. Get
rhythm when you get the blues, it only costs a dime, just a nickel a shoe, it
does a million dollars worth of good for you, get rhythm when you get the
blues. Sounds like it wad written from personal experience, huh? Cash knew
exactly what he was doing. Selling door to door was for the birds. Proving,
that just because we hold a day job to pay the bills, doesn’t mean the artistic
gland isn’t secreting the entire time. We just have to be smart enough to write
down what we feel.

Artists who don’t
sell, suffer.Three months and he ain’t sold squat.Bar none, the worst salesman he’d ever seen, says his business
partner. But that’s only because he didn’t believe in the merchandise. Johnny
was actually a brilliant businessman, he was just peddling the wrong product.
Kitchen appliances? Fat chance. But music? Look out. Give that man a guitar and
microphone, and he’ll close the sale every time. In fact, considering he had a
career that spanned almost five decades, won numerous awards in a variety of
categories, recorded tons of hit songs in multiple genres, influenced
generations of songwriters and was inducted into three major music halls of
fame, I think it’s safe to say he knew how to sell. He just needed the right
product. The point is, everybody sells. Everybody. It’s not the easiest or most
enjoyable part of the process, but without it, we’re just winking in the dark. Like
my mentor used to say, if you’re not there to sell, you’re just a visitor.

What’s your favorite movie moment of conception?