[In this series of posts that I’m calling “Your Creative Life,” I want to paint a picture of how you can become more everyday creative and how you can sustain a creative life. If this series intrigues you, you might think about becoming a creativity coach. If you’re interested in that, please visit my new certificate and diploma program or read my latest book The Coach’s Way. And come join the Eric Maisel Community!
Martin came to see me because he “wanted to become a more creative entrepreneur.” I asked him what he meant by this, as businesspeople tend not to mean the same thing by “creative” as writers or painters do. Sometimes they mean that they want to make more money; sometimes they mean that they need to think more innovatively in order to compete; sometimes they mean they have problems that need solving, having heard the phrase “creative problem-solving” bandied about. You don’t know what a businessperson means by “creative” until you ask.
Martin replied that he loved business but kept failing at it. His high-concept restaurant failed. His tech start-up failed. His consulting business failed. He claimed to have learned a lot from these failures and he knew that the bios of successful businessmen were littered with such failures. But what he hadn’t learned was why he kept failing. He wanted help “thinking creatively” about that.
“It sounds like you were able to raise money for these projects?” I said.
“I was. They were good ideas and other people thought so, too.”
“Then what would happen?”
“Well, the main thing was, I would always have partners who were impossible to work with. I’ve read every book there is on ‘difficult people’ but difficult people are way more difficult than the books let on. We’d get into power struggles, they wouldn’t honor agreements, they had their own agendas—and the business would crash and burn.”
“You knew this going in?”
He stared at me. “Knew what?”
“That these were people difficult people and perhaps people to avoid?”
He thought about that. “No. I didn’t know that. I must have terrible radar. I always think these guys are great!”
I nodded. “Why is that?”
“Why is what?”
“Why would you imagine that a fellow businessman was ‘great,’ as opposed to just human? Especially after the second or third time of experiencing them in the real world?”
He thought about that. He began to chew his lip.
“Human, how?” he finally said.
“Good and bad. Generous and selfish. Human.”
“I don’t think of people that way.”
“You don’t?”
He shook his head. “I give people the benefit of the doubt. I like to think that people are pretty much okay, if you treat them with respect.”
“Your parents were okay?” I asked.
He shrugged. “We don’t need to go there.”
“We don’t need to be real?”
I waited.
“I just want some … creativity exercises,” he said. “Maybe a way to brainstorm problems when they arise. Like … creative communication skills. Maybe something along those lines.”
“Uh-huh.”
I let the silence lengthen.
“You can provide me with some of those?”
“No.”
Martin stared at me. I could see him debating whether to stick with avoidance or accept the challenge.
“You’re saying I’m naïve,” he finally said, frowning. “That I’m letting people walk all over me.”
“Naïve is an interesting word. What do you mean by it?”
He shook his head. “What I just said. Letting people walk all over you.”
“If that’s how you mean it, then I don’t think you’re naïve. Because once you see that someone is walking all over you, you do something. You don’t just take it. So, let’s find another word.”
“Like what?”
“You tell me.”
He gave that some thought. “It isn’t a word. It’s that I don’t read people well. That still feels like ‘naïve.’”
We sat in silence.
“You have a new business idea?” I asked.
He nodded.
“And a prospective partner?”
“Yes.”
“A him?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about him.”
“He’s great!” Martin exclaimed. “He–” He stopped.
“Exactly,” I said.
“What do I mean when I say ‘he’s great’?” Martin said speculatively, speaking to himself. “What is it that I’m doing?” He sat pondering. “I think … this is funny. I think I have the idea that to know what another person is thinking is sort of an invasion of his privacy. We had so many rules about that growing up! My parents ‘needed their privacy.’ We kids had precious little. I think I’ve equated ‘knowing what you’re thinking’ with ‘invading your privacy.’”
I nodded. “That realization is so smart. Now—what would you like to do?”
“What can you do?” he exclaimed. “How do you know what a person is thinking?”
“You can’t, really.”
“So? Then, where are we?”
“Let’s say I’m your prospective business partner. I say everything you want to hear, so you think I’m great. You can’t read my mind—so how can you know who I really am?”
“That’s the question!”
“That is the question. But you’ve never tried to answer it. You agree that the question matters?”
“Yes!”
“Then you must answer it.”
He thought for a long time.
“It has to do with … getting the baseline right,” he said. “My baseline is off. Right now, when I meet one of these guys, someone who’s good at presenting himself, glib, confident, fast-talking, who has an answer for everything, I give his style a kind of mental checkmark. Rather than saying, wow, he is very glib, I say, wow, he is great. I ignore the warning signs—I even take them as pluses! My baseline is off.”
“Is there a simple way to articulate your new baseline?”
He stroked his chin. “It’s … maybe it’s, people are people.”
“Excellent!”
“That doesn’t mean that they’re automatically jerks.”
“No.”
“But it does mean that they’re not automatically great.”
“Exactly.”
“And they have to be … watched.”
“Yes.”
“And read. I need to read people better. And I need to read them faster! And watch them when we interact.”
“Because creative work like building a business requires it. You don’t build a business only with bricks and mortar or ideas—you need people.”
He nodded. Then he smiled. “So, you weren’t going to give me some brainstorming exercises? Or give me something ‘creative’ to do? You weren’t buying my presentation?”
“Nope.”
“Well, thank you.”
I’d had this same conversation with orchestra musicians, with documentary filmmakers, with scientific researchers, with dancers, with countless creative people who had never thought to include reading people among the skills they needed to cultivate. As if empathy were a luxury! Martin thanked me again and left deep in thought.
**
“The Coach’s Way is possibly the finest resource available for anyone who wants to develop or enrich their coaching abilities. This new book is designed to give coaches the confidence and structure in their practice that will generate real results for their clients. Any- one who makes a living in the coaching arena will benefit from Dr. Maisel’s tremendous experience and training as a therapist, coach, and human. I’m so glad to have this book as a guide for my own coaching work and will recommend it to many others in the helping professions.”— Jacob Nordby, author of The Creative Cure: How Finding and Freeing Your Inner Artist Can Heal Your Life
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
