Originally published by James Altucher on LinkedIn: How to Become a Master of Your Own Creativity
I always try to go a layer deeper with my guests. Sometimes people are so good at what they do, they get lost for words. Because if your skill is to make Pulitzer Prize winning music, then that’s your skill.
Which I like because it means I have to evolve as an interview on the spot. I have to ask harder questions, make them think.
I’ll give you an example.
I sat down with Wynton Marsalis, Managing and Artistic Director for Jazz at Lincoln Center, and I asked him how someone sitting in their cubicle can find “the jazz of life.” Where can they start?
“Do it,” he said. “Start where you are. It’s always best to start where you are.”
“But how?”
See, this is where interviewing becomes chess for me. (My other love.)
Wynton Marsalis’s whole life has been about developing his own creativity. He’s made over 80 albums and sold over 7 million records. He’s won 9 Grammys (9!). And he also won a Pulitzer Prize in music.
He has this gift. He can transform jazz. And that’s how he made his career. He has this ability to introduce the vocabulary of classical music into jazz. It was already there. But Wynton brought it to a new level. His. And he knew how to do this instinctually.
"We are all creative,” he said. But I had to dig deeper. Because some of us bury our creativity into numbers and budgets and fears.
He told me about improv. .
“It teaches you to love yourself,” Wynton said.
I interrupted.
"Tell me what that means.”
“It means you have something you can do.”
Wynton’s creativity is a melding of ideas. Classical and Jazz. Together.
“We’re creative in everything we do. It’s a gift,” he said.
I felt like I was in a poem. He told me more. He said it’s in the way we dress, our hairstyle and our sense of humor.
Then I dug in for action steps. “What can the person listening right now do? How can they spark their own sense of creativity? Even in the little things?”
He told me an exercise he does with his students. They start by looking around the room. He tells them to find every example of creativity. They look at the outlets, the computer, the printer, the lamps. It’s all around. Everything was designed by someone. And creativity was a BIG part of it.
He told me how to cultivate this creativity muscle more. I’ll break it down.
1. Start with your own nature
“It starts with the things that are natural to you. The dreams you have,” Wynton said.
He dreamt of creating music. Simple. The hard part is turning it into a reality. Part of that is just effort. You see a dream, write it down. Save it. Water it. Do small actions. And everyday improve your effort by just 1%.