John Cleese on Creativity

Actor, author, comedian, film producer and behavioral scientist John Cleese offers his insights on how to foster creativity. Anyone who creates anything should see this talk.

Some of his tips include:

  • Sleep on a problem
  • Interruptions are dangerous
  • Ideas come from our unconscious minds
  • Get in the right “mood” to be creative

On how to get in the right “mood” to be creative:

  • Create an “oasis” in which to be creative
  • Create boundaries of space in which to work
  • Create boundaries of time in which to “play”

One of Cleese’s gems:

“To know how good you are at something requires the same skills as it does to be good at that thing. Which means that if you are absolutely hopeless at something, you lack exactly the skills that you need to know that you’re absolutely hopeless at it. … It explains a great deal of life.”

See below or at YouTube.

Cleese, John, “The Importance of Creativity,” Creativity World Forum, 2008 (PDF).

Rating 3.00 out of 5
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2010
08/14
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Psychology
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4 comments

  1. Garr Reynolds has also taken notice of John Cleese’s talk on creativity. Over at his blog Presentation Zen he offers a couple humorous graphics on two keys points of the talk: the need to quiet the mind (“Where ideas don’t come from”) and the virtues of the tortoise enclosure. His mention of David rock’s book “Your Brain at Work” is also worth noting.

    For a further look please click here.

  2. “We don’t know where we get our ideas come from. We do know that we do not get them from our laptops.” – John Cleese

    Although John Cleese might not be know where ideas come from, author Steven Johnson seems a bit more confident. His upcoming book titled Where Good Ideas Come From – A Natural History of Innovation, addresses the issue of how ground-breaking ideas originate. From the product description for his book it promises to be an interesting addition to this topic:

    “With Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson pairs the insight of his bestselling Everything Bad Is Good for You and the dazzling erudition of The Ghost Map and The Invention of Air to address an urgent and universal question: What sparks the flash of brilliance? How does groundbreaking innovation happen? Answering in his infectious, culturally omnivorous style, using his fluency in fields from neurobiology to popular culture, Johnson provides the complete, exciting, and encouraging story of how we generate the ideas that push our careers, our lives, our society, and our culture forward.

    Beginning with Charles Darwin’s first encounter with the teeming ecosystem of the coral reef and drawing connections to the intellectual hyperproductivity of modern megacities and to the instant success of YouTube, Johnson shows us that the question we need to ask is, What kind of environment fosters the development of good ideas? His answers are never less than revelatory, convincing, and inspiring as Johnson identifies the seven key principles to the genesis of such ideas, and traces them across time and disciplines.

    Most exhilarating is Johnson’s conclusion that with today’s tools and environment, radical innovation is extraordinarily accessible to those who know how to cultivate it. Where Good Ideas Come From is essential reading for anyone who wants to know how to come up with tomorrow’s great ideas.”

    A YouTube video outlining the central ideas in the book can be viewed here.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugRZGDbPFU&feature=player_embedded

  3. Another contributor to this discussion might be writer, broadcaster and science historian James Burke’s Connections. Now available online as well as on DVD, Connections traces the unlikely roots and inspirations of great ideas and inventions back through time. From Wikipedia:

    “It took an interdisciplinary approach to the history of science and invention and demonstrated how various discoveries, scientific achievements, and historical world events were built from one another successively in an interconnected way to bring about particular aspects of modern technology. The series was noted for Burke’s crisp and enthusiastic presentation (and dry humour), historical reenactments, and intricate working models.”

    Over thirty years (1978) have passed since the original series debuted and I still find it worthwhile and engaging.

  4. One of the most important points that Cleese makes, I believe, is the importance of mental ‘down-time’ (my words) such as sleep to facilitate problem-solving, creativity and the integration of information.

    This does NOT always have to be during sleep. Hypnotic interludes and practices such as using flotation tanks can also facilitate this process.

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