How to Become A "Creative"

"You really don't know how to play piano?"

The German tourist was surprised.

"No, I really don't," I responded.

His skepticism was warranted. I had a keyboard set up in the middle of Washington Square Park in New York City, and I was playing it. But in front of the keyboard was a sign reading, Help Me Learn Piano.

"Ok, where should we start?" The German sat down and began teaching me some scales, dozens of onlookers curious what would happen next.

The bizarre performance art scene that grew from seedlings planted years earlier

The Corporate Suit Tries To Break Out

I worked on Wall Street as a management consultant, spending my days in Powerpoint and Excel. My life was business during the week, partying on the weekend. 

Stuck inside corporate HQs located in low tax cities around the US, toiling underneath fluorescent lighting, I dreamed of living a creative life. I had no idea what that meant, but I longed for some form of creativity, of creative living. The problem was, I didn't believe I had a creative bone in my body. I marveled at people with natural gifts of storytelling, painting, filmmaking, dance. People with god-given gifts who shared them with the world. Artists were mythical figures to me, the lowly analyst, aligning shapes on a PowerPoint slide.

When I looked back on the path of my life, it was clear I took every turn signposted with "Business." In 2nd grade, I told my art class I wanted to be a banker when I grew up (my dad's job), in high school, I won the entrepreneurship award. In college I studied economics. In career, Wall Street. And so it goes.

If I had creative ideas, I ignored them. My inner critic would rise up immediately - who are you to have this creative thought? Stop it now. You do business. You are not a creative. You cannot create art. 

You are living the life of a fall-in-line, don't rock the boat normie.

But there was part of me that got louder and louder. “You have so much life left to live. So much time to do it differently. Maybe looking back, your life doesn’t look so creative, but who says it can't be moving forward.

I was in therapy at the time and had the insight that, maybe, just maybe, creativity isn't something you're born with. Perhaps it's more like a muscle that develops or atrophies with use. Perhaps the muscle was there, and I just hadn't flexed it in years.

I decided to put the muscle to use. When creative inspiration struck, I acted on it. I decided if I had an idea, I'd try it out before my inner critic could jump in and say, "This is a terrible idea." This internal critic loved to squash any creative impulse before it had a chance to breathe.

I began to write essays about my life, and publishing the work out into the world.

In a burst of inspiration, I launched an online newsletter game called Flavorless Jelly Bean, which was a weekly ad libs series anyone could participate in..

And I also launched a performance art piece, Help Me Learn Piano. I'd set up a piano in a public park with a sign that read the same, and see what kinds of people would sit down to teach me piano. It was amazing. I had children, adults, tourists, homeless people, all sitting down to give me some tips on how to play the keys.

At the same time, I began to write essays and publish I began writing and publishing my work out into the world.

I pushed and pushed and pushed. If there was such a thing as a creativity muscle, I wanted to train it as hard as I could.

And guess what? Creativity is a muscle. 

Over time, I continued to make decisions that exercise my creativity. I traveled. I took on new projects. I met new people. I attended creativity salons. 

Fast forward 8 years and my full time job is being creative. I write scripts, direct commercials, and spend my days working with other artists to turn my ideas into reality. My clients call me "a creative," which blows my mind every time I hear it, because it means I did it. I changed my reality and became someone new. 

All the time, people say to me, “I could never do that. I’m not creative.” 

And the secret is that creativity isn’t a thing you are, it’s a thing you do.