Creating the Conditions for Creativity

The warm Spring weather took us to Protégé in Franschhoek. Protégé is the sister restaurant to Epice, that I told you about last year at this time. Epice, headed by Chef Charné Sampson, went on to win the World Culinary Awards Best New Restaurant in Africa. Both restaurants are part of the La Colombe group and have been specifically started to champion the development of young culinary talent. It’s a philosophy that I love, one that Chef Liam Tomlin of the Chef’s Warehouse group is also committed to. With these “Mother Trees” (see last week’s letter on The Wisdom of Forests) providing cover and support it is no surprise that Cape Town has become the foodie destination that it is.

Then, my dear friend and talented footwear designer, Reggi Xaba, saw one of his stylish sandals converted into an artwork at Johannesburg’s pioneering Gallery Momo. And whilst in Johannesburg, another friend, the dynamic artist and sculptress, Nandipha Mntambo, launched a new body of astonishing work at the Everard Read gallery.

Over the last while I have also been inspired to be creative, although mine is of a slightly different variety. As my coaching practice has evolved and grown, I have had requests from clients for different ways of working. As a result, I have designed these approaches that respond to the categories of requests that I’ve received.  Please let me know what you think. I would appreciate your feedback. Part of my concern is that perhaps there are too many offers.

All of this creative energy has inspired this week’s letter on creating the conditions for your own creativity.

/STRATEGY

Yaa Gyasi is the Ghanian-American author of Homegoing and Transcendent Kingdom. Her debut novel, Homegoing, was a multi-award-winning success. In this episode of the Spark and Fire podcast, she describes the process of writing her second novel – one that was very different in style and scope.

Initially, Gyasi tried to start writing Transcendent Kingdom whilst on the book tour for Homegoing. She got nowhere. Eventually, she decided to give up trying to write whilst on tour.

She reflects that, “I had spent so much of my life always working on something. Telling myself not to write … that just felt foreign, it didn’t feel like the version of me as a writer that I understood. But it just felt like doing anything otherwise would lead me to a book that didn’t feel like me because it would have been emerging from this state of anxiety.”

Indeed, sometimes the most creative thing we can do is to stop for a while, to rebuild time, attention, and capacity. And then, we’re able to do more. That’s as much true for businesses as it is for people. Sometimes one needs to let the business breathe a little so that the space emerges to tackle the next mission.

The seeds for Transcendent Kingdom were sown in a short story, Inscape, that Gyasi had written shortly after she’d submitted the first draft of Homegoing.

Homegoing was a complex undertaking. It spanned three hundred years, 2 continents, and fourteen point-of-view characters. Gyasi wrote the story, in part, to take a break from the intensity of that undertaking.

As she describes it, “There was relief that I could remember how to tell a story simply, without the need for research, that I could get back to that place where writing just felt kind of effortless.”

By momentarily shifting cadence, she was able to re-energise to return to the work of refining Homegoing. Sometimes unlocking creativity means changing pace. Here we’re speaking about slowing down, sometimes it may mean speeding up.

Reflecting on that story she says, “I kind of set that story aside for many years, as I returned to Homegoing, and Homegoing took off, and I forgot all about the story.

But the thing that I kept returning to was the voice of the story…”

And so that moment of taking a break then, years later, became the kernel of Transcendent Kingdom.

It’s not always clear when our actions will open our next phase but if we, like Gyasi, keep intentionally exploring the various elements of our particular craft or career, often they are often the beginnings, or part of, our next phase.

Part of creating the conditions for our own creativity is to keep growing, to keep creating.

Self

Gyasi’s decision to stop writing on tour reminded me of Rilke’s words in Letters to a Young Poet:

“Leave to your opinions their own quiet undisturbed development, which, like all progress, must come from deep within and cannot be pressed or hurried by anything. Everything is gestation and then bringing forth…

…It does come. But it comes only to the patient, who are there as though eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly still and wide. I learn it daily, learn it with pain to which I am grateful: patience is everything!”

Don’t you love that? Patience is everything. All progress must come from deep within

/Soul

Gyasi and Rilke in turn took me to Sumana Roy’s Tree Time, an essay in The Paris Review.

Her tribute to trees was born from her desire to escape being ‘bulldozed by time.’ A feeling that I am sure you can appreciate.

She writes, “I was tired of speed. I wanted to live to tree time.” Don’t you just immediately relax? Imagine living tree-time.

She contrasts the symbolic significance of trees and machines, saying, “Age, I was certain, was important to trees. The wrinkles on our face and neck, the accumulation of folds around hips and thighs had become embarrassing to humans. The age of trees was to be found in similar lines, in circles denoting lived years, in the girth of time that gave aged trees a kind of sober dignity. By looking at trees one could see that time was an obese creature. And that history, whether it was reflected in lines or folds, loose bark or skin, new colors or pigmentation, was a beautiful thing. Our lives in the industrial age, lived bizarrely as an approximation of machines, had made us think of age as ugly—in the way machines rusted, wasted, and gradually became ugly before they fell apart.”

She reflects that tree-time means “a life without worries for the future or regret for the past. There’s sunlight: gulp, swallow, eat; there’s night: rest.”

And so, as you seek your creative spark, as you cultivate your creativity, remember to give yourself time, remember to experiment, to explore, and to give yourself tree-time.

It’s Sunday morning, yawn, stretch, go for a gentle walk, hug a friend, smile at a stranger (with your eyes, of course).

All the very best to you and yours

Karl

PS: If you’re reflecting on what’s next for your business, these three books are invaluable. If you’re wanting to strengthen insight into yourself then these three are a great start.

PPS: If you’re feeling like life is an ill-fitting suit, you might want to work with me. Here’s a little about what you could expect.

(This letter was first published on 10/10/2021).