Irving Stone — Hunger

Many people treat the creative spirit as a luxury, something that is not needed to live life. And they are quite wrong. Creativity is a crucial part of living. If I did not have an outlet for my creativity, I would either go crazy or die. Creativity is at the very core of who I am. 

If I go too long without writing, without putting words on paper, I begin to feel a hunger growing inside me. I have a strong need to create, to produce something either through writing or drawing. It is as important to my life as water, air, food, shelter and companionship. Without it my spirit would shrivel and die. 

We all need food for the body and food for the spirit. Creativity provides the food for the spirit. Is your spirit growling with the need for creativity?

Jack London — Inspiration

What inspires you? What motivates you to create? What moves your spirit? I often find my inspiration in nature. Maybe a lone tree in a field. Or a full moon rising slowly above the horizon? Maybe it is a butterfly fluttering about the yard on a warm afternoon. Or a snow-covered cornfield with the stalks popping through.

If you wait for inspiration, you may never find it. You must seek it out. You must chase it through the fields. Maybe it is buried beneath a rock. Or hiding in a bird's nest. Or lost in a raindrop.

Sometimes inspiration sneaks upon you when you are working and catches you by surprise. Sometimes it invades your dreams and you wake up with the answer to your problems. When you pretend that inspiration is not important, it will dominate your soul.

Consider inspiration as a friend who comes and goes at all hours of the day and night bearing gifts that will delight you. When you open the gifts offered by inspiration, be not frightened by what you find. Cherish the madness that inspiration bestows upon you. Taste the sadness when it leaves you naked and exposed to the elements.

Kneel before the altar of inspiration and pray that you will survive the dangerous journey. Catch fireflies and offer them as a sacrifice to the gods of inspiration. Dance with the goddess of inspiration and steal her beauty. Offer a prayer of thanksgiving for an opportunity to taste of the nectar of the gods.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry.  He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.'"

— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

American Civil Rights Leader/Preacher/Author

1929 - 1968

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

One of those games we play is:  "Where were you when . . ."  On April 4, 1968, I was a nineteen year old college student at Goshen College in Indiana.  Two months earlier I had the privilege of marching with Dr. King at a Vietnam War protest march in Washington D.C. The murder of Dr. King on my birthday in 1968 impacted me both emotionally and spiritually.

For the past twenty-five years I have been sharing this quote by Dr. King in my speeches on leadership.  I believe that work is spiritual in nature.  The work we do helps to cleanse our souls and free our spirits.  Many people see work as a negative condition.  They hate Mondays and grumble about having to go to work.  Many people wish they did not have to work.  But if you have ever lost a job and sat idle for a few months, you appreciate the value of work in your life.

As creative leaders we have a special opportunity to share the fruit of our labor with others. Most of my life I have dreamed of being able to give up my bill-paying job and write full time.  Fortunately, this never happened.  I think I am a better person for having the discipline to get up an hour earlier than everyone and writing before going to work.  Sometimes what we wish for is not in our best interests.  The bill-paying work and the creative work are both important and both have helped to make me a better person.

Be proud of the work you do.  Celebrate the work you do.  Be happy with the gifts you have been given.

Bernie Siegel

Nature has a way of renewing itself quickly and swiftly. In the late 1960's Lake Erie, which is up the road from where I live, was declared dead. Today it is alive, although it is facing new challenges. If you have ever seen how quickly a forest renews itself after a fire, you will understand the meaning of this quote. In fact, I believe nature uses adversity has a way of cleansing itself from rot and then creating new opportunities. One simply has to observe the seasons to understand how nature renews itself.

And since we are a part of nature, we also have this gift. When adversity strikes, we can seize the opportunity and renew ourselves as needed.  We can change course and discover new paths to follow.  Each job change in my career has opened new doors for me.  One path has led to another. Adversity has created opportunity to change and grow.  Being fired from a job opened new doors.  Each failure was a new beginning.

Learn to let go of your old tired habits and plant new ones.  Are you stuck in a job you don't like? Seek a new one.  Are you tired of painting the same subjects over and over?  Find new subjects.  Step outside your comfort zone.  Are you tired of writing the same storyline over and over?  Expand you subject matter.  Sometimes we find ourselves in a rut.  We need to renew ourselves.  We need to let go of where we are so we can find our way to where we want to be.



Nature teaches to importance of rejuvenation and revitalization.  What are you doing to keep your art fresh?  Are you challenging yourself to write new books about subjects you have no experience with?  What are you doing to keep from becoming bored with what you do?  Develop habits that will keep you revitalized.  Renew your spirit with hope for new beginnings.

Harley King

Have you ever felt pulled in opposite directions and thought you were going to break?  At one time or another most of us have probably felt that way.  As creative leaders, living the lives we lead in today's world can be very stressful and challenging.  We have multiple priorities vying for our attention and time.  



The demands of a job can be stressful in and of themselves.  We have multiple people pulling and pushing us.  We have deadlines that we have to meet.  Quotas that we have to deliver. Goals we have to achieve.



On top of work, the home life can add additional stress.  We have children to raise, chores to do and spouses who require our time.  We have friends who call and text and want to have coffee so they can chat about the stress in their lives.



Some days it is amazing that we have anytime for ourselves.  Some days we can't find time to do any of our creative work like writing or painting.  When I go too long without writing, I feel out of sorts.  A happy, successful life depends on taking care of oneself — of finding a release for our creative energies.  Too often, we are so busy meeting the needs and demands of others that we forget about our needs and expectations.



Negative people also creative stress in our lives.  They put us down.  They tell us we will never be successful.  They are always finding something to criticize.  They suggest we give up on our dreams because they have given up on theirs.  They are very destructive to our spirits.

Five Ways to Care for Yourself

1.  Discover what restores your spirit.  For example: 

• A walk in the woods


• Exercise


• Meditation


• Prayer


• Reading


• Writing


• Singing


• Drawing/Painting


• Massage

2.  Build time for yourself into your calendar even if it is five minutes a day.

3.  Learn to say "no" to the requests of others if you don't have the time.

4.  Avoid negative people who put you down and make you feel bad about yourself.

5.  Associate with positive people who are supportive and caring.

Harley King

Humor does not come easy for me.  I rarely find the jokes that people tell as funny.  I often don't find standup comedians to be very funny either.  As a child, I was very serious.  My wife, on the other hand, has always been a comedian.  Growing up, she would have her family in stitches with her ability to make people laugh.  She has taught me through our more than forty years of marriage that laughter is one of the most powerful instruments of healing that we have at our disposal.  These days I look for ways to bring humor into my life.



Whether I am one on one with a person or in a small group of people, I do not tell jokes.  As a professional speaker for over 25 years, I did not tell jokes.  Yet, there have been moments in my workshops that we laughed so hard that we had tears in our eyes.  For me, some of the best humor is what I call spontaneous humor.  It is humor that is unplanned and rises out of a comment that one of the participants makes.  What I have learned over the years is to play off the comments of others.  I have learned to use spontaneous humor to create laughter in the class.



I also think some of the best humor in my personal life is spontaneous humor.  We can be sitting around the kitchen table and someone says something that makes us giggle and soon we are laughing so hard that my belly is shaking like a bowl of jello and I can barely catch my breath.  I usually don't remember what triggered the laughter, but it feels good and it has shaken up my insides.

Five Ways to Add Laughter To Your Life

1. Don't take yourself so seriously.  Learn to laugh at your mistakes.


2. Find a friend or spouse who makes you laugh.


3. Watch and listen to humorous speakers and comedians whom you find funny.


4. Read books that make you laugh.


5. Look for the absurd situations in your life.

Jeanne Robertson

One of the funniest speakers I have ever heard is Jeanne Robertson.  Jeanne grew up in Graham, NC and represented the state as Miss North Carolina.  She was voted Miss Congeniality in the Miss America Pageant. After college, she coached basketball for nine years before becoming a professional speaker.  She stands 6'2" in her stocking feet.  For years she told funny stories about the beauty pageant.  Today she tells funny stories about growing old.  Here is a video of her sharing one of her stories, Don't Bungee Jump Naked.

George Bellows

Self-Portrait

"The ideal artist is he who knows everything, feels everything, experiences everything, and retains his experience in a spirit of wonder and feeds upon it with creative lust."

— George Bellows

American Painter

1882 - 1925

Commentary:

Anne in White

Do you experience the world in a spirit of wonder?  Are you surprised by the things that happen or have you become cynical and negative?  A creative leader must be like a young child soaking up life and enjoying every moment of it.  Everything that happens to us — good, bad and indifferent — is fuel for our creative lust.  I don't believe artists and writers experience the world at a deeper level then other people.  It's more they have learned to use that experience to feed their creativity.

Creativity is both sexual and sensuous. When we are painting and writing, we have a deep desire to create, to give birth.  We can feel the lust in our loins, the joy in our hearts.  How powerful is your desire to create?  Can you feel it deep within your body?  Does every part of you tingle with excitement?  Can you taste the lips of your lover?



Biography

George Bellows, an only child, was born four years after his parents married and was raised in Columbus, Ohio.  His love of drawing was kindled because he was not allowed to play outside on Sundays.  His mother did allow him to draw while she read the Bible aloud.

Dempsey and Firpo

(1924)

Bellows attended Ohio State University and played on both the baseball and basketball teams.  He was considered good enough to play professionally, but he turned down a professional baseball contract.  He worked as a commercial illustrator while a student and accepted magazine assignments throughout his life.  His true love was painting so he quit school and moved to New York to study art under Robert Henri at the New York School of Art.  Edward Hopper and Rockwell Kent were fellow students



In 1910 Bellows married Emma Story in St. George's Episcopal Church.  They had two children.  Bellows died of a ruptured appendix at the early age of 43.



George Bellows was a realistic painter known for his bold depictions of urban life as well as portraits.  By the age of thirty his work hung in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  He is ranked as one of the giants of American art.



Video

Here is a video discussion of the boxing paintings of George Bellows.