John Cleese:
Creativity, A Short and Cheerful Guide
EPISODE 144
Creativity is usually regarded as a mysterious, rare gift that only a few possess. John Cleese begs to differ, in his practical and often very amusing book; Creativity; A short and cheerful guide (Buy on Amazon) he shows it's a skill that anyone can acquire. Drawing on his lifelong experience as a writer, he shares his insights into the nature of the creative process and offers advice on how to get your own inventive juices flowing.
John Cleese believes everyone can be more creative, and in this guide, he shows us how to become more creative, overcome blocks, and how to refine and action a promising idea.
“Creativity is the ability to come up with a better way to do anything." - John Cleese
SHOW OUTLINE
INTRO
John Cleese and the concept of creativity
Creativity is a way of operating (3m21)
CREATE SPACE
Build boundaries around your space and time
Build your Tortoise Enclosure (2m41)
How to get into the right mindset/flow to create
State of Play (52s)
BUILD HABITS
How to start putting pencil to paper
Steal your way to success (2m06)
Allow your unconscious mind to continue working
Let your ideas bake (1m27)
OUTRO
Wait until the last minute to make a decision
Delay decision making (1m)
CLIP CREDITS
John Cleese: Creativity,
A Short and Cheerful Guide
episode 144
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the moonshots podcast. It's episode 144. I'm your co-host Mike Parsons in as well. I'm joined by the most cheerful man himself. Mr. Mark Pearson Freeland. Good morning, mark. Good morning, Mike. Yeah, I've got to say on a beautiful sunny spring day, such as today, it's hard not to be cheerful despite not having a lot of control over our situations and all that sort of thing at the moment.
It helps when there's a bit of sunshine. Oh sunshine solves all manner of problems. Mark. And I'm wondering, do you have some sunshine for us? Today's show number 144. Mike is all about sunshine and we're digging into the work, particularly the advice and practical tips from none other than John Cleese and his book.
Creativity. A short and cheerful guide (Buy on Amazon). What an amazing title of a book, Mike. So [00:01:00] perfectly English let's be honest market. Is that classic British humor. Isn't it? It is. It is. And look, John CLIs is a character and an individual. Who defined a lot of my upbringing, Mike, and I'm sure he did for yourself, but for those who may not be as familiar with his work as you and I are, I think it's safe to say that he's a bit of a legend, a bit of a powerhouse in the creativity space.
Oh, my gosh, creator of Monty Python, fawlty towers. The movie fish called Wanda. He has several doctorates. Oh. And by the way, he's one. And Amy is one BAFTAs oh, he wrote a book too. Are you feeling a little inadequate right now? And it also, Mike has been in James Bond and he was in Harry Potter.
He's in the Shrek films. So he's done everything from voiceover comedian, [00:02:00] acting an authors, a screenwriter. Blimey, he's done a lot of good stuff. He has an, and I can tell you that he truly is a wonderfully creative soul. And I think what's so exciting for our listeners. Today is we're going to unpack his masterclass.
That's inside his book and it's all going to be about creativity and he packages his advice. So well, doesn't he mark? Today we are literally just, he has. Just such a beautiful set of advice, which is the perfect it's like a playbook, really. If you want to bring creativity at home at work and to everything in between.
I think John Cleese's book (buy on Amazon) has it all, doesn't it? Yeah. He really is breaks down the concept of creativity. Remember, he's a man who has literally lived his life and his career around creating new characters. Whether they're funny or dramatic, he has created so much.[00:03:00] In his lifetime and to have quite a precise, practical, almost logistical approach to creativity coming from a man who is quite a dare.
I say it legendary, as we said he's almost one of the, one of the great ones to have these little tips and advice to unlock your own creative process. I feel as though that's a really valuable wave Mike for you and I to end this current series on creativity, we heard from me, high cheek sent me hi.
We went into Elizabeth Gilbert and now to bookend it. John Cleese and the skills that he has and how you and I, and our listeners can go out and achieve them as well. It feels like a perfect little package. It really does. I think, yeah, we should just dive straight in there. And the first clip that we have from John Cleese and his book, creativity, a short in cheerful guide is all about [00:04:00] the concept of creativity.
So let's start our journey with the master of creativity, John. When a video Alex asked me, if I'd like to talk about creativity. I said no problem. Because telling people how to be creative is easy to Tony being it's difficult. And I knew it would be particularly easy for me because I spent the last 25 years.
Watching how various creative people produce this stuff and being fascinated to see if I could figure out what makes folk included more creative. What is more, a couple of years ago, I got very excited because a friend of mine who runs the psychology department at Sussex university, Brian Bates showed me some research on creativity.
Don at Berkeley in the seventies by a brilliant psychologist called Donald McKinnon, [00:05:00] which seemed to confirm in the most impressively scientific way, all the vague observations and intuitions that I'd had over the years, creativity is not a talent. It is not a talent. It is a way of. When I say a way of operating, what I mean is this creativity is not an ability that you either have, or do not have.
It is for example, and this may surprise you absolutely unrelated to IQ because to some up something, I sometimes take three hours to say, all creativity comes from the unconscious. If creativity came from logic and intelligence, then all the logical intelligent people could do it, but they can't, it all boils down to getting in a playful and [00:06:00] relaxed frame of mind.
Most of it's to do with relaxation, because unless you're relaxed, Here, the promptings from the unconscious nobody ever had a bright idea when they were attacking a machine gun nest. You see what I mean? If you're occupied with activity and that's one of the reasons why there's so little creativity at the moment is that nobody gets any peace anymore because these damn things are ringing all the time and beep there.
And you sit down at another email. It's absolutely poisonous because interruptions and anxiety will kill any kind of creativity. So you have to get in a atmosphere where you're a little bit, you've got a little cocoon of your own. You close your door or you go and sit in the park and you just stay quiet.
And for the 20 minutes, nothing happens because you can only think of the things you thought. [00:07:00] You'd have people you've forgotten to telephone. So you have to have a little notebook. You write those down. Then after 20 minutes, the mind starts to calm down just as it does in meditation. It's almost identical process.
And then when you start thinking about the subject, not to. You don't want to get tense. You just play with a thought and you get little ideas, stop popping up. But if your mind is full of you'll never hear those little ideas, it'll be drowned out. You see what Mike, what a great kickoff to the show on creativity to hear from John Cleese, quite specific behaviors, methods that he's experienced from his career.
And what he's observed from those around them. I'm excited to really break into those but there's a lot of information. I was about to say, man, that could have been like a whole show. Right there. W we've done this a couple of times where we've led with these clips that are just [00:08:00] epic, like outpouring of wisdom and your, like your minds, boggling, catching, all these ideas that are inside of that.
I think it's really important to start with, I think the big icebreaker there that he said, it's not a talent. It's not a talent. It doesn't have anything to do with IQ. It's a way of operating. And I think this is quite a dare I say, a reassuring call-out because I think there have been times even in my career where I'll be thinking, oh I'm not really a designer or an author, or whatever it might be. I'm not the funniest guy. So I won't have a. I'll leave it to the people who have that skill naturally, I'll leave it to the person. Who's the child of someone who's really intelligent and by doing so I'm removing myself from the opportunity to give it a go.
And I think we're clean. [00:09:00] Kicking us off, straight off to the races is saying anybody can do it. If you've got the right mind frame and you can get yourself into that way. Yeah. It's like James clear, the author of atomic habits would just be nodding and violent agreement with John Cleese, build the habit.
It's a way of operating and we just have to be much more deliberate about it. It's a very It's a great reminder and it's a bit disarming because it pays off a little bit to what Elizabeth Gilbert said in the previous show, which was, Hey, we've all got creativity inside of us. We've all got a unique take on something.
What John's doing as well. Get all the disruptions out of the way. Let that 20 minutes settle down. And if you follow the rest of this show, you're going to find out actually how to get it done. Yeah, that's right. And to use your word, Mike it's. Yeah, he's really calling out [00:10:00] the fact that creativity is a deliberate thing.
If you give yourself the permission and you really force your way into thinking about it from a deliberate perspective, build those practices and habits, you can go out and achieve those, which I found I've started to get into. Yeah. Yeah. Now, before we go diving into all this advice from John Cleese, I think we've been a little creative.
We've been pottering away. Haven't we might, we should definitely. And announced something new for all of our listeners, for our listeners who are out there dialing in and listening in every single week, we have a brand new, exciting announcement. You can now become a subscriber. To the master series via apple podcast, Mike woo.
Bring out the trumpets, the champagne. So this is a big extension of what we've done with Patrion, where you can become a member for those of you. And we know a vast majority of you love listening to the show in app. [00:11:00] Usually Spotify usually. Apple podcasts. We have now published our master series, which is our second podcast where you can subscribe to it where you can actually get these very deep master classes.
So it's a very different format in some respects to this show, the moonshots podcast, because on this show, we focus on an individual in the master series. But just cause ma we've just done so many shows. Haven't we? What is, what are we up to now? 144 today? Where the John, please mic. There you go. So it's about time that we build this master series where we take a theme like motivation teamwork or first principles.
And we gathered together all the world's best thing in 90 minutes, lots of practical yeah, worksheets and guides as well that come along with this so that you can essentially. In 90 minutes, you get like the ultimate rocket launch into a [00:12:00] topic that will help you be the very best version of yourself.
So if you love your apple iPhone, and it's a little partner in crime, the apple podcasting app, jump in there and search for the moonshots master series, you will find that you can subscribe to. The master series. We've got a couple of episodes at ma mark. We've got motivation. And first principles motivation is how to motivate yourself first principles, how to think better.
Should we spill the beans on the next episode? What it's going to be for the masters here? Yeah. I'm very excited Mike, because it's going to be something that is going to be really handy for myself, as well as our listeners to dive into it's all about leadership and teamwork. I can't wait to dig into those.
Yeah. And I think part of that show will include women. Old time favorites, Patrick Lensioni. Do you remember his show mark? Wasn't that a power ass Patrick Lencioni and teamwork. It was [00:13:00] incredibly popular series, actually. Mike, we had a lot of listeners dialing in for Patrick big and his work is just very accessible as well.
Isn't it? Oh, that's five dysfunctions. Attain huge, absolutely huge for me. I returned to that. Regularly I'm recommending it regularly. And that's going to be the cornerstone of the teamwork series, which will be next week. I think Mark Warner that's right next week in September, those subscribers to the moonshots master series will access not one, not two but three episodes off the bat.
Pretty damn good stuff. So to wrap up, subscribe, apple podcast app, head over for the moonshots master series, you will be transformed by that experience, but let us now transform ourselves on this show in this very moment with a whole lot of credence. Tivity [00:14:00] and play from none other than Mr. John Cleese, let's listen to him now.
And it would only be appropriate that we're going to listen to him talking about how to build a tortoise enclosure. So what I'm saying is that if you get into the right mood, then your mode of thinking. Will become much more creative, but if you're racing around all day ticking things off on lists, looking at your watch making phone calls, and generally just keeping all the balls in the air, you are not going to have any creative ideas.
So now I want to run very quickly over how in this sort of frenzied world that we all live in, how you can create a mood. That will enable you to be more creative. And basically the way I put it is that you need to create a tortoise [00:15:00] in closure. So the children that will taught us mine can sit nervous.
Just look around and then think, yes, it's safe to come out and to do this, you have to create a kind of Oasis in your life, in the middle of the stressed. I've got to get through this. I forgotten to do that. I have to be there by 11 in the middle of all of that. You have to create an Oasis. Taught us enclosure where you're taught as mine can come out to play.
And there's two things you have to do. You have to create boundaries off space and you have to create boundaries of time. It's as simple as that. So boundaries of space simply means you create boundaries to avoid the interruptions that I was talking about earlier, which is so disastrous to the creative.
So if you're a fat [00:16:00] cat at the top of an organization, you say to your lovely assistant, please, I am now going to think, do not interrupt me unless the building is burning down for an hour and a quarter. And if you're at the boss of other high Rocky, maybe you just go out into the park with an umbrella, or if you're in Belgium, And do you just sit there quietly where you are not going to be interrupted, but you create boundaries of space.
So what you have to do, and you've created boundaries of space where you're not going to be interrupted is you have to give yourself a starting time. And I finished time because when you do that, you've created an Oasis. This is separate from ordinary life then, and only then can you, wow, Mike, this is quite a big [00:17:00] hack.
It's a big tip, isn't it? It's a big bit of advice. That we may have discussed previously, but not in such a vibrant, eloquent ways. John Cleese calling out a wasteless. I quite liked the idea of my creative unconscious mind being a little bit like a turtle or tortoise being a little bit shy, being scared off by the sound of ringing telephones or vibrating notifications, creating that space deliberately.
In order to encourage it to come out and play. As John says, I think is quite a new take on this idea, isn't it? It certainly is. And what's also fun about it is just to connect it to something a bit different is Cal Newport deep work. You change the theme, but the practice itself. Very similar, right?
Yeah. Very [00:18:00] similar. The idea of giving something, your undivided attention, whether it's recording a podcast, whether it's writing a book or a scene or a screenplay, anything, whatever it might be giving yourself that ability to do your deep work is what John's calling out here again. Yeah. And so let's now get into this mind.
How do we, what are our. How do we do this? Because John Cleese, he and the previous Clippers like we're all so busy, spinning the plates, doing the calls, clicking off our checklist, by the way, I totally identified with that behavior. I was like, that's. So my everyday. And then now you're saying, go out and build this total.
Enclosure go and ring fence much like Cal Newport would say, go and find that time where you should [00:19:00] do your deep work. Where do we start on this? And I wonder why we don't do enough of this because I'm going to raise my hand and say, I don't do enough of this kind of ring fencing, this sort of creative time.
I feel like I'm forever Landing jumbo jets like one big thing after another, which is in part I love, but I wonder why don't we make this time? Do you think it's because we don't see the importance of allocating time for creative thinking, like what's going on there.
I think the limitation that we all have. And it's where it's one that I share as well. And it's one that I've seen in customers and colleagues as well. I think we don't give ourselves enough permission to have that time for deep work, because we're so [00:20:00] obsessed with putting out that fire or landing that jumbo jet.
And I believe. The mindset to do that, to follow the fires and put them out is because we then think, okay, once I land this jumbo jet, I'll have time to do the deep work. So there's almost an illusion going on where you think if you put out the next fire, you'll unlock time. But actually in fact, The whole process of a tortoise enclosure and deep work is to know that these things are all going on at the same time and just to be at peace with them and be very deliberate and say, okay, that jumbo jet is still going.
That fire's still burning, but I need to fight this one first. And if I get this one out of the way, then I can move on to the next one and be quite systematic by going through and working on them. Okay. So if you were going to play. An hour of really creative [00:21:00] time of play of investigation, curiosity open thinking.
Okay. Let's try and apply some of let's try and learn how we would do it. Where would you start on this month? I quite like. First of all, I find it quite hard. Find it quite difficult to do that because my brain shifts into the, to do list the, to do list of right. I've got to get this out, the deadlines, this, or so-and-so's expecting it, and that's pretty distracting and that can get in my way and trip me up.
So what I find. Handy. And actually it's quite similar to what John Cleese was saying in that clip is give yourself enough time to sleep down. So yes, you might have coffee. You might be checking your emails. You might be looking at [00:22:00] your calendar. Close. All of those allow yourself to almost calm down a little bit.
John Cleese calls out 20 minutes where you'll be thinking, oh, I meant to be here at 11. Oh, I've gotta call so-and-so back. Allow yourself to decompress. And once you do, and once you've got those anxieties or once I've got those anxieties out of my way, then I can actually begin giving something a bit more of an undivided attention because otherwise my attention is still on.
The thing that I was thinking about earlier, which then means the, my effectiveness or thinking about this new opportunity or challenge or whatever it might be is diminished because half of my brain power is still thinking about something else. That's right. So I think it's I think part of it is John he's mentioned like when you're at the park, make sure you have a notepad to write down your ideas.
I think it's been a huge theme of the show. This idea of writing in journal and journaling. [00:23:00] I think in part, if you want, I want to create truly open time and space. You have to clear your head and find the ritual for clearing your head to me. It's about at the start of the day having my ritual. To determine how I want to spend my day.
I'm clearing my head in the morning. So I quite alike breath work and meditation in the morning to better prepare me for the day. And sometimes if I've had a very hectic day, I will do those same practices in the evening, too. Cool down the jets, because what I notice is what affects my creativity is that there are ideas still in the subconscious processing.
I need to almost purge them, get them out of the system and let things die down. Then I can really go think and be creative. If I haven't got that out, it just keeps coming back into your mind. [00:24:00] Yeah, it does. And I quite like this idea of the purge. So if you I think the same of the purging comes with your to-do list.
So sometimes I'll start my day by thinking, oh yeah. Get to be working on this thing, or I need to finish or raise a point to until I've done that it'll be playing on my mind. So actually sometimes the way that I can create that space in my day is to very quickly do it similar to what Elizabeth Gilbert was saying to us in last week showed Mike, which is just get it done, pleat something.
Get it done. And then you're able to unlock that extra bandwidth in your brain. You'll any of the used brain power because you're focusing on something else. And whether it's scribbling down in a note pad [00:25:00] or on your phone, that's that way for me to create that little bit of space around me in order to actually think about the thing that I really want to focus on the real problem or opportunity that I might have.
Yeah, it's I think the great battle that we have to put this in context, creativity is fighting against busy schedules, lots of notifications, and this The division between the office in the home have very much blurred. And I think the reason that both you and I mark and all of our listeners love when someone like John clays breaks it down like this, it gives you a little.
Plan of attack to building creativity into your day. I'm absolutely sure all of our listeners want to bring more creativity into their day, and this is so important and you can't leave it to chance Kenema [00:26:00] you can't leave it to chance. So this next. Whereas touching on an idea of a frame of mindset that our previous two clips have touched upon Mike.
And this is John, please now telling us how you and I and our listeners can get ourselves into a state of peace. If you are going to be creative, you have to be in a stage of play. You see what I mean? A shear, a child it's easy to play because the parents and mining's shop. As you get older, you have more and more responsibilities and more and more phone calls coming in.
So the only way you can play is if you can create a space for yourself where you're freed temporarily. From interruptions and responsibilities. And you can just sit there uninterruptedly for about an hour and a quarter or an hour and a half. First of all, you can only think of the things you should be doing, but that settles off to timeline meditation.
And then you just get a little quieter and you just play with ideas in an [00:27:00] enjoyable way. No controlling your brain, but it's and you play, you can't play. If you're being careful. Yeah. Being careful, you have to be free and liberated. Yeah, you do. What he's really calling out quite explicitly now is to enter what John please calls play.
And that's his safe space. Once you've got into your tosses and closure, Brian, try and behave a little bit like a child. He's really calling out and I think this is true, Mike. I remember when I was a kid I might be running around summer holidays always felt as though they lost it forever.
And I think one of the reason was because I didn't have a lot of responsibilities or concerns to really worry about. So there I fr I was more free to focus on the moment. Enjoy myself. And think up new ways [00:28:00] of physically playing. And I think where John plays is taking us here as well as in his book, creativity, a short and cheerful guide is to free yourself from those responsibilities in order to enable you to really focus on that particular problem.
Made that space, that time got yourself into what he calls this kind of childlike relay space. You can then go out and unlock that level of thinking in that way of being more creative. It's fascinating that we're spending so much time looking at the work of John Cleese to see how he frames the need for setting up an environment in order to be creative, the conditions, the environment, the time, the space, how you want to set your mind, how you want to free yourself of.
Burdens or other thoughts. It's fascinating, isn't it? It's [00:29:00] almost analogous to great sportsman that it's all about training. If you want to be great on the field, it's the prep before the big moment, right? Yeah. And I think to a perhaps a slightly lesser extent, but I think Elizabeth Gilbert in, in big magic, she refers to the act of creation.
Whether it's a successful book or not that experience of actually going through the process is like training you, like a sports person going out and practicing the act of creating whether it's successful straightaway or not. You are training yourself, your mindset. Maybe get into a level of focus or flow as me say along quicker, or maybe it's a little bit easier.
Maybe it doesn't take as long next time. Maybe it's a little bit more achievable to be more creative on the second time round. Yeah. And [00:30:00] it's it the parallels that this has to so much of the work of the habit series. And I keep going back to James clear and atomic habits. We cannot in a battle for our attention and our creativity.
We cannot leave a creative moment to chance. We have to be so deliberate about finding creativity in ourselves, creating time and space for that to happen. But it is, it's just like what we've been learning in so many other facets that we have to work on the process. As well as being in the process, you have to be the player, the coach and the manager all at the same time.
It's as I say it, I'm like, wow, that sounds like a lot of work. Doesn't it? It sounds like a lot of work you're right. Trying to cover all of those different bases. And I think it really does become that little bit easier if you [00:31:00] can. Remove all of those other to continue your metaphor, Mike, if you've gotta be the player and the manager, at least by getting yourself into a tortoise enclosure.
Not worrying about the press. You're not worrying about the fans. You can just do your particular job, which might be football or creating whatever it is. And that's where I quite like what John CLIs is developing for us here today with this concept and this interpretation of creativity and how to do it by removing those distractions by as Cal Newport would say.
Enabling yourself to do the deep work, to minimize your digital aspects to time block and begin and finish at a certain period, I think is a way to almost make it more achievable. I think similar to what we were learning from me high and Elizabeth [00:32:00] creativity's quite intimidating, unless you can bring it down into something more manageable.
I think cleaner. Very good at demonstrating throughout his career. A way of creating those boundaries to make it achievable, to put an end date on it. So then you can go out and be that best version of your creative self. Let me tell you there's some other people who've been making time for creativity.
Hasn't there's been some amazing Feedback and engagement with our listeners. It always blows me away that we have listeners all around the world. Now, mark you've got the charts, hit us with our portfolio of exotic and amazing places where we've had lots of new listeners join us. Yeah.
I'm very excited to, to add to my bucket list. The following countries so that you and I maybe we'll do a moonshot tour one day and go and see our [00:33:00] fans and our Grella Uganda, Costa Rica. Garia, we're covering so many different continents in this particular tour mic. And we're so pleased to welcome all these listeners from literally every corner of the globe.
Every week we seem to be. Expanding the moonshots message and bringing in people from different parts of the globe. I'm just so excited to, to learn where all these countries are and go and eventually maybe visit them one day. Yeah. Yeah. So Angola is a British overseas territory. So it's a an island in the Caribbean.
Mark, I think we better put that one at the top of the list. Just type into Google Anguilla and look at the photos of these. Epic beaches. And I could see us doing a live broadcast from that beach. What do you reckon? I can imagine you and I we've got a yacht. We've got the moonshots yacht.
We're recording relaxing on the beach in the afternoon, learning from our favorite innovators and men shot [00:34:00] thinkers. It's a dream come true. Wonderful stuff. And mark, listen, if our listeners are dead curious on to find out more about the podcast, about the master series, if they want to get into our backlog track down a transcription of any of our shows, where did they go?
Listeners, you can pop along to moonshots.io, where you can find out quite a lot of information on every single show that we've done. We have deep links. We have show outlines. We have clips where you can go and view some of these individuals talking on YouTube. You can check out our transcripts, you can check out our upcoming shows and Mike, you and I, we just seem to be.
Adding more moonshots as in innovators to our long lists. So listeners be warned. There's a lot of impressive individuals coming down the pipeline and Daniel headphones in the near future. We have a huge breadth of individuals that will be coming. Yes, our work is never done and a great place [00:35:00] for us to start.
The next part of this show is about getting into these habits. We've set the time we've set the space for our creativity, our John Cleese and his advice. But no, I think it could be time to actually consummate the act of creativity. So let's have a listen now to Mr. John CLIs talking about the best way.
To success with your creativity. I think you've only writer or someone who wants to become a writer or a performer is listing. Then what I would say is that you so difficult at the beginning, particularly as a writer to do good written comments. That I suggest that the stock that you steal or borrow all as the artists would say influenced by anything that you think that is really good and really funny, and which appeals to you.
And if you study [00:36:00] that and try to reproduce it in some way, then it'll happen your own stamp on it, which you have a chance of getting off the ground was something like that. But if you sit down one day and never having written before with. Or a computer, but I write with a pencil and you say I'm going to write something completely new and original and very funny.
It's like trying to fly a plane without having any lessons. You've got to start somewhere. And the best way to start is by copying something that is really good, but people seem to think I was advocating stealing in general. No. Now once you've got off the ground, you'll develop your own stock.
You don't need to steal better if you don't. But at the beginning, as I say, find something. Less than my friend William Goldman, wonderful screenwriter. And I both teach the same thing we discovered independently. And that is we say to someone, find an actor or a scene that you absolutely [00:37:00] love. And just watch that actor in a movie say, oh, watch that scene again.
And again. So that it no longer has an emotional impact on you. You no longer find it dramatic or funny, you just watch it. And in a sense, emotionally speaking, you bought with it. At that point, when you're not effected emotionally anymore, you can begin to see how it's done and how it's constructed.
So that's the advice I would give at the beginning, model yourself on someone you really like. I like this a lot in my, because again, similar to what we were finding out with Elizabeth and what we were just touching upon at the end of the previous clip was the approach ability. And the the way in to creativity that we can all do again, I think it's very difficult for somebody [00:38:00] who's just starting out.
John, Cleese's obviously referring to a writers, but I think this would be true for design for business development and so on too. Find a way of breaking down that initial door to your own mindset and finding a way to make it a little bit less intimidating for yourself in his way. Maybe it's emulating or copying to just build those foundations so you can go out and become and make it your own.
In the long run, I think is a really handy. Recommendation, isn't it for us to at least create that first step in creating something brand new. Yeah. And you think about it when you're a kid playing sport on the street, you're emulating your favorite sports players. When you're a musician as a young kid, learning music, whose song do you want to play your favorite band?
This is the natural way of doing it. Yeah. It's [00:39:00] you're totally right. That's a great built you're beginning by breaking down those barriers because you're emulating somebody that you admire. Fundamentally Mike, I think a lot of the tips and lessons that we're learning on the moonshot show is because we are respecting the individual and we want to learn something from them.
This is us trying to emulate to a certain degree, the way that they've had success, the way that they've gone up against resilience and adversity and the way that they are building. The way of being more creative, this is our way of putting pen to paper or pencil to paper and going out and creating something that's brand new.
Yeah. And then once you master the recreation of someone else's work, then I think it's very natural that you want to put your own unique point of view on it. You will remember that Elizabeth Gilbert said like everybody has a unique point of view because it's your point of view. So I find that really [00:40:00] compelling path, steal your way to success and then make it true. Your own with your own thoughts, ideas, your own, take your own flavor. I think that's a really practical stepping stone from like you've made the time and space start with something that you love and build from there. But what's really crazy is that John Cleese ma he has another idea, which is, again, something that's come up a lot on the show.
Yeah, this next clip is very consistent with some of the other advice that we learned from other moonshots is, but I'm not going to give it away listeners. I'm going to let John Cleese himself tell us and recommending us to let our ideas bake. The next extraordinary experience I had is I wrote a script and I liked the script very much.
And because I'm always being a bit disorganized, I lost it and I couldn't find it anywhere. And I was pretty [00:41:00] disappointed, but I sat down and I forced myself to rewrite it from memory. It didn't take terribly long and then I shot the original. And fortunately I was curious enough to compare the two.
And what I discovered was the one that I had rewritten from memory. Was noticeably better than the original that I'd lost. And I realized that the explanation for this was that after I'd finished writing the original, my unconscious part of my mind, my unconscious must have continued working on it, even though I was not aware that walk was happening with the result, that when I came to write it out again, it was.
Because why else would it have been better? Particularly as I wrote it out the [00:42:00] second time, much faster. So I began to see that there was something going on, but there was a part of my mind that was helping me be much more creative. I relate to this so much, mark. I have a strong body of evidence.
If I work on something and let it bake as John Cleese would have us do it, does it so true. It gets better. And the amount of times where I've rushed work out and distributed, published it and then reflected on it sometime after and looked at it and go, oh, I could have done that so much better. So I've had painful experiences like this.
How do you find this idea of letting your ideas Bateman? It's very consistent. With some of the advice I got when I was a, I think a teenager when faced with an exam paper, not that you and I, Mike, we probably haven't taken an exam for a few years. So let me [00:43:00] try and paint a picture in our minds. You're sitting down at a desk, you're surrounded by your friends and there's big intimidating piece of paper lands on your desk and you've got a pen and you've got to figure out what the hell this maths problem means.
The recommendation to me was before you even pick up the. Read every single question. Because then your unconscious mind, which has spent the last year or so developing the signups is these memories of certain mathematical problems or whatever it is. Maybe it's an English exam and you've read a book it's going to start working in the background.
And I think as I got older, I started to really fully appreciate that. That was in fact how my brain works. Because the longer, I enabled myself to think about a problem, to think about an opportunity perhaps better, the ultimate result was going to be because I'd had time to percolate on it. And maybe I'm not sitting there actively working on the problem all as a day, but similar to what you and I have [00:44:00] spoken about first thought on a piece of paper, maybe you've put it into a journal. That's a way that I personally, again, back to an idea that you were discussing earlier today purging yourself before you're relaxing. You're getting all of those different thoughts out of your brain and onto paper. If you then revisit some of those things that you've written down, new ideas come up.
The idea that you've run down actually feels a lot more strong because the, your brain has a time to I guess like a good cheese mature if you know what I mean. Yeah. I, yeah, because I think also too there's a, there's two stages of creativity. There's the initial step of just getting the idea out.
And then it's only when you see the idea out that you're able to go, ah, that's yet, [00:45:00] or that's what I meant, or that's not quite what I meant, or as you process through it, you actually have, start to have new insights on top of the original idea and. If you take a strong kind of, editor's kind of stance in the second step, you can not only improve it, but you can actually make it more concise and simpler, which is actually the sign of you really, truly getting something.
When we make them ideas too complex. It's often that we don't actually have the idea. We over-explain it because we're not really sure what we're doing. So I love this idea of giving things. Time and the great cheat here is write your outline a week before anything is due, right? Yeah, absolutely.
And you're totally right. Get the idea out there. Then you've got an opportunity to review and to judge, whatever that product is. And also you can seek feedback. You can get feedback from your colleagues or even customers, [00:46:00] and therefore make that idea that a little bit better just by committing it into paper and getting it out of your brain is a way of bringing it to life.
Interesting thing is that I have never been in the position where I've rushed something out and said, that's perfect and never have I got something. With with zero feedback from other people and said, geez I got it all done on myself. And what I mean by that is sometimes people will comment on something and you'll go, oh, geez.
That was actually a good idea. I should've had that. And so my point here is every time I share an idea, every time I give it time to bake. I see better results. And I, so I deeply relate to this and I encourage every single one of our listeners, the simple practice of write the outline a week before it's due and share that thing, like crazy, create some accountability to feedback and just be open to [00:47:00] the feedback because it's a shortcut, when I share something with you, mark, and you're like, oh, maybe how about this? Actually sometimes it doesn't even matter. What the people are actually saying, it's forcing you to rethink it. And sometimes that will expose a weakness in your work or an area to improve, or maybe you were like, you know what?
That still feels really good. That I'm real you. Yeah. That's the beauty of taking time and collaboration into the creative process. Isn't it? Something that I've found? I'll write it. I'll write down an idea. Or a potential flow or a narrative or something, Mike, and in the act of presenting it to somebody else, the act of maybe saying it out loud or workshopping.
Yeah. I'll almost think of a, an improvement on the fly. Oh yeah. You'll be explaining it and then I'll think, oh, actually, hang on. No, that doesn't make sense. Let me just change it here, life and the act of that [00:48:00] live collaboration where my minds had that time to prepare it's now reviewing it again with somebody else.
I think that's, that really helps me actually try and improve some of my ideas. Yeah, absolutely. The the deliberateness. Of improving your creative output. Like you just talked about reading it back out loud is a classic editor's trick. Isn't it? Another one that you taught me was from the bottom up.
Yeah, I do really like doing that actually, because it then helps you and here's my theory, Mike you're your brain will always. A few characters or a few words in advance in an effort to perhaps cover more ground more quickly. If you then are deliberate. And again, I'm going to use your word here.
If you're deliberate and begin at the end and almost work backwards, you will not allow your unconscious mind to try and skip ahead. [00:49:00] So you're very deliberate and focused on going back through those elements or that work. And I think that's definitely helped me a lot. And that's probably, again, a tip that I have started to appreciate as I get more experience and have more opportunities to practice that particular tool over as I get older very much in a similar vein.
John Cleese has one last piece of wisdom first doesn't he mind? He does closing out today's show 144 John Cleese and his book on creativity. A short and cheerful guide is all about delaying decision-making until the very last minute. You talk in the book about waiting until the last minute to make a decision.
That sounds a little frustrating, like you're being indecisive, but you say that helps with creativity. Until they're exactly why, because when you have to make a [00:50:00] decision is a real world decision. You might have to make a decision by two o'clock this afternoon. You might have to make a decision in October, but the point is why when you know, when the decision has to be made, that's when you make the decision.
I make it before, first of all, Because you might get new information. Everybody knows that, but more importantly, you will have more time to get better ideas. So people who act very quickly and take decisions before they need it's out of an embarrassment that they might look into decisive.
What it's a lot better to be decisive at the right time, with better thoughts and better information than to rush the decision before you really have a chance to see if you can come up with a better decision. Delay. It's like all these ideas mark about creativity what's slightly concerning to me is they seem so counter the modern way of working.
I think the [00:51:00] modern way of working and actually Mike I'd build that in. Say it almost feels counter to my assumption about creativity itself. Which feels right. Ad hoc creativity from a comedy perspective, at least with John Cleese, I'd assume everything is off the cuff and a little bit unpredictable, but it's very deliberate.
Isn't it? It's actually very deliberate. And again, in that last year going back to the point that you were just making. I think we are, and I'm very guilty of this. I try to make a decision fairly quickly so that I can go and get on with my day so I can go and work on something else. So if I've got a long to-do list, I've got a land that jumbo jet, or I've got many fires to put out.
I will try my best to tick each one off the list. A fair speed so I can get onto the next, but as John Cleese's calling out here, you're probably doing a disservice to the problem at [00:52:00] hand, because you are potentially rushing your decision-making. Yes. And it's it's so interesting that creativity is not a talent.
But it's like a mental model it's achieved through deliberate practice, not random ad hoc struck by a wonder of creativity and it's all about slow pause space. Openness. It's not about a hundred miles an hour. It's fascinating. The insights that we've been able to draw from John Cleese's work, isn't it?
Yeah. I, again, I fall into the trap of thinking I'm productive by being really busy, but the truth is that's not true. Is it You get almost addicted to doing lots and lots of stuff and in doing so, you're [00:53:00] limiting your ability to think you're creating much less space for you to go and do your best work.
And I think John Cleese has really caught out to me today is make sure to give yourself enough space, enough moments, deliberate moments, to have time to think. Yeah, rather than falling into the trap of just saying, oh, I've only got 20 minutes. I'll do it quickly now. Totally. Totally. Mark what we do is we find ourselves being quite challenged by John Cleese.
I thought this was just going to be hilarity and faulty towers, but it turns out it's being quite challenging to how we perceive creativity. Isn't it? He's very deliberate and practical with his recommendations, actually when we review the work that he, and the tips that he's really telling.
Us to go and emulate today. It begins with the output. So we [00:54:00] know that he's a fantastic comedy writer and actor, but the truth is to get to that point. We can all follow the same tips that he does. Yeah, that's true. And this idea, Mike, for me of allowing myself the permission to get into what John Cleese calls the state of play.
And really enjoy that moment and therefore create something that is true to perhaps the ambition that I originally had, that feels like a huge new takeout for me. What do you think? Yeah. Yeah I can totally understand that. That's. A takeout for me, I think I'm most guilty of not setting a deliberate time for creativity.
I feel like I'm guilty of always being on a bit of a pressure cooker or with my creativity. Like it's do or die there. There's no space to think different or to consider to let [00:55:00] it bake. And. On the Mike Parsons freight train and a bit, I better ship this by the end of the day yeah. I can probably see why you might fall into that. It's a real challenge for anybody who is in such a position you've got so much going on the natural Assumption would be right. Take it off, move on. But gee, John plays is very specific to this, make yourself have enough time and carve out enough moments to, to really think about the opportunity or the problem early, and then maybe come back to it.
I liked his story about losing the the scene, rewriting it and realizing it was. Because he'd had the opportunity to come back to it. Yeah, that was perfect. It wasn't perfect. Mark it sounds like you are hurdling [00:56:00] towards a new chapter of creativity. What's going to change for you the most.
Do you think, as a result of that, the show I th I think it is very Orientated, I think where I'm going to go today after we wrap and I get into my to-do list, I think it's really building on that tortoise enclosure and thinking of my unconscious creative problem, solving mind as a bit of a shy creature.
And I need to give it enough space to not be intimidated by buzzing phones and emails, hurling India, freedom to create. Freedom to create. Yeah, I'm much the same. I need to just create a little bit more if that told us so as well, so crazy that we've been so challenged by John Cleese when we just expected it frivolity and craziness, but it's turned out to be that in so much more.
So thank you [00:57:00] to you. And thank you to you, our listeners, it has been great to have you on our journey, into creativity with John Cleese. And I really am so delighted to be learning out loud with you. Our moonshot is as we all go on that journey to be the best version of ourselves and today. We learned that we can all be creative.
It's not a God given talent. It's a way of operating. And John Cleese in his book, creativity short and very cheerful. Look at creativity, told us that we need to go out and to build boundaries around not only space, but time as well. We need to go and take it our minds and our full presence into a state of play.
And as we say, That process it's okay. Steal your way to success. Mimic those that you love and their work. Then make it your own. Build your own point of view into the work [00:58:00] and don't rush it. Let your ideas bake, let them simmer away and ferment and get all those creative juices. And weight have the resistance to the urgency around you and wait until the right moment at the end to make your final decision on your creative way.
Do these things as told by John Cleese, and you will not only be creative, you will be on the fast track to realizing the very best of what you can be. And that's what we're all about here on the moonshots. That's a wrap.