Fyodor Dostoyevsky

"Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what people fear most."

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Russian Novelist

1821 - 1881

Why is it that we often fear attempting something new?  A new job?  A new place to live?  The unknown scares us whether we are creative leaders or not?  And often this fear translates into anxiety.  People often wonder why Hollywood actors who seem to have everything, lose their temper, overdose on drugs, and make foolish mistakes.  I think the underlying issue is anxiety.  We are afraid of the unknown?  What will tomorrow bring?  Will I still find work as an actor, writer, singer or artist?  Will my fans still love me?  

In reading Cheever by Blake Bailey, I saw how anxiety can drive a creative individual to drink.  We all have anxiety at one time or another.  Not having enough money is one of my anxieties and it has prevented me from starting my own business over the years.  I have a need for a regular paycheck to pay the bills.  Once I was offered an opportunity to go into the speaking business and I panicked — froze on the spot.  

What fears are holding you back?  What fears are you willing to live with?  What fears do you put into your work?  What fears restraint your creative efforts?  What fears inspire your creative work?  The fear of being poor inspires some people to work hard to be financially successfully.    

Arthur Koestler

"Every creative act involves. . . a new innocence of perception, liberated from the cataract of accepted belief."

Arthur Koestler

Hungarian Novelist and Writer

1905 - 1983

Creativity involves breaking down old ways of seeing and believing and discovering new perceptions and ways of understanding the world.  Creativity must first be a destructive force as it destroys the old patterns and beliefs.  We must tear down before we can build.  Then destruction gives way to rebirth and renewal and the generation of innocence and hope.  This is the paradox of creative energy: Death and Rebirth.  Destruction and Rebuilding.  Cynicism and Innocence.  Doubt and Faith.

Are you looking at the world in new ways?  Have you discovered new ways of thinking about your art?  Have you liberated yourself from the prison of the past?  Have you found hope in what you are creating?  Have you opened the door to the future?

Frederick Franck

"I have learned that what I have not drawn, I have not really seen, and that when I start drawing an ordinary thing, I realize how extraordinary it is, sheer miracle."

— Frederick Franck

Dutch Painter, Sculptor, Author

1909 - 2006

What we know of the world we know through our senses.  Yet, we often spend so much time in our head with our thoughts that we don't experience the world around us.  Have you ever walked past a flower, a tree or a stream a hundred times and yet know nothing of the stream, or tree or flower.  What have you missed in the world around you because you are so busy thinking about your life, your problems or your family?  When you begin to see the tree as it is, will you paint it in a different way.  Franck also said, "Drawing is the discipline by which I constantly rediscover the world."  Are you rediscovering the world around you through your drawing?

Do you hear the conversations of your friends and family members or are you so busy thinking about what you are going to say that you fail to listen to them.  A writer of dialogue must listen to the language used by the people around him.  Do you see how the people around you dress?  The way they carry themselves?  How they move about the room?  It is through the behavior we see that we find the clues to who the person is.  And it is through the behavior we describe that our readers know our characters.

Beatrix Potter

"There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story.  You never quite know where they'll take you."

— Beatrix Potter

English Author, Illustrator

1866 - 1943

Few things can be more exciting than starting a new project whether that is a painting, a poem or a story.  I get caught up in the excitement of the moment and want to know where the story is going.  I follow it down a crooked path, through the woods, and into a meadow of wild flowers.  And there sits Peter Rabbit laughing at me.   Some people struggle with the blank page or the blank canvas, afraid to put down that first word or that first brush stroke.  I find that the easy part.  I am eager to get started.  I can't wait to put my words down on paper and see where the story leads me.  The same holds true for painting.  I have some picture in my mind and I want to see what happens to it the pastel or the ink touches the paper.  Beatrix said it beautifully: "There is something delicious about writing the first words...."  So what new project are you starting today?

Have you seen the movie, Miss Potter?  If not, I encourage you to do so.

Donald Hall

"I don't know where a poem comes from until after I've lived with it a long time.  I've a notion that a poem comes from absolutely everything that every happened to you."

— Donald Hall

American Poet

1928 -

Do you know where you creative work comes from?  Have you ever been surprised by something that you created?  Everything that happens to us and everything that we do ultimately influences what we create.  That quarrel you had with your spouse this morning may one day make it into your painting, or story or poem.  Watching the sunset today with your lover may someday find its way into a novel or a play that you write.  That stranger you saw at your local coffee shop this evening may have a walk on role in that short story you are writing.  I once wrote a story called Bath Day about an old woman who lived in a nursing home.  I had a walk-on part in the story as a young man who times how long it takes to give the woman a bath.  This bit of action is based on a time when I was doing a time study of how long it takes to give a bath.  In one of my story poems, Mary Lou, the fact that my father showed Grand Champion hogs at state fairs showed up in a poem about young love and the loss of virginity.

Here is a poem by Donald Hall.

White Apples

when my father had been dead a week

I woke

with his voice in my ear

                                              I sat up in bed

and held my breath

and stared at the pale closed door

white apples and the taste of stone

if he called again

I would put on my coat and galoshes.

Here is Donald Hall reading his poem, Affirmation.

Rafael Alberti

"In the very beginning I looked to painting as the medium for addressing concerns in shapes and colors.  Then it was poetry where these concerns found expression through the medium of word and metaphor."

Rafael Alberti

Spanish Painter, Poet

1902 - 1999

I am fascinated by creative leaders who use more than one medium to express themselves.  Rafael Alberti was one of those who was at home both in the visual arts and the written word.  The need to create and communicate one's feelings transcends the medium.  Some writers work in short stories, novels, poetry and plays.  Some artists paint, draw and sculpt.  And then there are the writers who also paint and the painters who also write.  Or the musicians who paint and the actors who play music.  We all have the urge to express ourselves.  The medium of paint, words or music is just the vehicle to carry the communication.

What vehicles do you like to use to express your artistic desires?  Poetry?  Music?  Painting?  Acting?  Plays?  Dancing?  Sculpting?  Novels?  Short Stories?  Have you stepped outside your comfort zone and tried something new?  

John Cheever

"The need to write comes from the need to make sense of one's life and discover one's usefulness."

— John Cheever

American Novelist

1912 - 1982

We all have a need to understand our lives and the things that happen to us.  Some turn to religion.  Others turn to history or politics or science.  Creative leaders turn to their art.  The stories we tell help us to make sense of who we are and why we are here.  And often we change the facts of our lives to tell a better story.  What stories are you telling in your artistic works?  How have you altered the facts of your stories to tell a greater truth?  


John Cheever is a perfect example of a writer who rewrote his life in his short stories and novels.  Born on May 27, 1912, John Cheever was the unwanted second child.  His father tried to convince his mother to have an abortion.  A storyteller from a young age, Cheever read Proust's In Search of Lost Time at the age of fourteen.  He dropped out of high school and never went to college.  He sold his first story to The New Republic at age 18.  For more than twenty years he published only short stories.  His first novel was not published until he was in his mid-forties.  In 1979 three years before his death, he won a Pulitzer Prize for a collection of his short stories that I highly recommend all creative leaders read.

John Steinbeck

"Ideas are like rabbits.  You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen."

John Steinbeck

American Novelist

1902 - 1968

Do you ever have too many ideas?  Sometimes when I am writing I am swamped with ideas and sometimes I don't know which ones to choose.  Writing fiction is full of opportunity.  Do you make the main character tall, short or medium height?  Does he have blonde, black or curly hair?  Does he have physical, social or mental disability?  Hundreds of questions.  Thousands of answers.  Sometimes having too many ideas can become a barrier to creating.  Writing fiction requires making choices — choosing a path to follow and not looking back.  The characters take on a life of their own.  

What is the best path to follow?  What are the best choices to make?  Sometimes I have ten ideas, but only two or three are worth keeping.  Don't be afraid of choosing — of following a path to where it takes you.  And keep the ideas coming.  Even bad ideas can lead you somewhere new and inviting.  The good ideas won't appear if there are no bad ideas on which to stand.  Light a candle and watch the ideas grow by leaps and bounds.

Oprah Winfrey

"For all the major moves in my life — to Baltimore, to Chicago, to own my show, and to end it — I've trusted my instincts.  I take in all the information I can gather.  I listen to proposals, ideas, and advice.  Then  I go with my gut, what my heart feels most strongly."

— Oprah Winfrey

American Actress, Television Talk Show Host

1954 -

When making decisions, one should always gather the information and opinions available.  But in the end, when it is decision time, one should listen to one's gut.  One must learn to trust that quiet voice deep inside.  Listening to one's gut requires silence.  At some point, one must shut out the voices sharing their opinions and make up one's own mind.

As artists and writers, this is important advice.  We must learn to trust ourselves.  There are friends, teachers, critics and even strangers who are happy to share their opinions about our creative works.  While it is important that we listen to what they say, we must learn to sort through the garbage and find a few nuggets of truth.  And in the end, we must listen to our own quiet voice telling us what to paint or write.

Here is a short video biography of Oprah Winfrey.

Jim Dine

Self-Portrait in Cambridge #4
(1979)

"I work every day.  I work all day.  I've never had a holiday.  It's all I really want to do.  It's what I'm here for. . . . More and more, I'm just so grateful I was born an artist."

— Jim Dine

American Artist

1935 -

Are you grateful that you were born an artist, a creative leader?  Do you appreciate the gifts of creativity that you have been given?  It is a privilege to be an artist — to have the opportunity to create works of art.  Give thanks every day for what you have been given.

What are your work habits?  Do you enjoy working?  Do you do some work every day?  An artist is always working?  He may not have a brush or pen in hand, but his mind never stops.  Everything he sees and hears goes into his creative subconscious and eventually finds its way into the creative work.  Celebrate the work.  Give thanks for the opportunity to work.

Facundo Cabral

"When life shows you a thousand reasons to cry, show it you have a thousand and one reasons to smile."

— Facundo Cabral

Argentine Folk-Singer, Writer

1937 - 2011

Nobody's life is perfect and without problems.  We all face challenges.  Being rich and famous does not protect anyone from facing life's challenges.  Being poor and hungry does not ensure anyone happiness.  Being a writer, a singer or a painter does not save you from suffering and pain.  We all have reasons to cry, but we have even more reasons to sing and smile.  Have you watched the sun rise?  Have you heard the singing of the birds?  Have you listened to the rain?  Celebrate life!

Facundo Cabral was a 74-year-old Argentine folk-singer who was shot and killed in Guatemala on Saturday, July 9th.  Take a moment and listen to this spoken word poem with English sub-titles.  Celebrate the life and words of an artist.

Annie Dillard

"Write as if you were dying.  At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients.  That is, after all, the case.  What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon?  What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?"

— Annie Dillard

American Writer

1945 -

These are not idle statements.  Death puts a very different perspective on what we do.  What would you write if you knew you were dying?  Do you have a few final stories to tell or poems to write?  What would you paint?  Would try to create something you have never created or would you paint the same thing you have always painted?  Or would you write at all?  Would let go of your creative impulse?  

What would you write if no one would criticize you?  What would you paint if you knew that no one would laugh?  What would you sing if you knew that people would clap?  

Death is about saying goodbye to what we know.  Death is about letting go of material objects that have been a part of our lives.  Death is about forgetting.  Death is a door through which we all must walk whether we are painters, writers, doctors or lawyers.

Michele Cassou

"If you do not listen to your intuition, it will stop talking to you.  Your intuition is like a sensitive friend.  If you question it, censor it, judge it, it gets hurt and becomes silent."

— Michele Cassou

French Artist, Teacher

You have to train yourself to listen to your intuition because your rational mind is very strong and often discards your intuition immediately.  In fact, it sometimes happens so fast that what you think is your intuition is actually your second on third thought.  The rational mind can move very quickly to override intuition.  Train yourself to grab hold of your intuition and not let go.  Learn to trust your feelings and first thoughts.  

And in the beginning you will often misunderstand your intuition.  Be patient.  It is okay to make mistakes.  The problem is not that your intuition is wrong, but that your interpretation is not accurate.  Sometimes it will take years to perfect listening to your intuition.  Trust your heart.  

Henry Miller

Self-Portrait
(1943)

"Paint what you like and die happy."

— Henry Miller

American Novelist, Painter

1891 - 1980

The message here is simple and direct:  do what you like.  Too often we don't do what we like.  Nor do we learn to like what we do.  And then people become unhappy with their lives and they spend their time complaining.  Don't let others dictate what is important for you.  

And I am not telling you to run away from your spouse and children and join an artist colony where you spend every day either painting or writing.  We all have responsibilities and we should not shirk them.  If you get married, you have made a commitment and you need to live up to it.  If you bring children into this world, you have a responsibility to raise, educate and care for them.  Doing what you love does not mean avoiding your responsibilities.  Doing what you love means finding 30 minutes or 60 minutes where you do what you want to do — where you do what you love to do.  Then you can die happy.

Octavio Paz

"I don't believe that there are dangerous writers: the danger of certain books is not in the books themselves but in the passions of their readers."

Octavio Paz

Mexican Poet

1914 - 1998

Speakers are often evaluated and rated by their audiences.  While 90% of the audience may enjoy the presentation, there is often 10% who didn't like it.  Usually the problem does not lie with the speaker, but rather the audience member.  Either the person is angry at his boss who make him come or he is upset about something that is happening in his life.  

When people label books or paintings as dangerous, corrupt or incendiary, the problem lies not with the books or paintings.  The problem is in the passions of the audience member doing the labeling.  When a person is afraid of his own desires, he blames that which is outside himself instead of blaming himself.  Sometimes when someone condemns something too loudly, he is hiding his own desires.  

Don't let the negativity of others bring you down.  The problem rests with them, not with you.  Stand up for yourself and your creative work.  Believe in what you create.

Here is a poem by Octavio Paz.

Last Dawn

Your hair is lost in the forest,

your feet touching mine.

Asleep you are bigger than the night,

but your dream fits within this room.

How much we are who are so little!

Outside a taxi passes

with its load of ghosts.

The river that runs by

is always

running back.

Will tomorrow be another day?

Eric Fischl

"If you worry about how good the art is, you're never going to make your own art."

— Eric Fischl

American Artist

1948 - 

For many of us we have a need to be perfect and  we punish ourselves when we don't live up to our expectations.  Some people go so far as to stop creating.  Their fear of not being perfect gets in their way and they give up.  If you create from your heart, stop worrying about technique and accept the fact that you will never be perfect.  And who says that you are a good judge of your own work.  There are many examples of creative leaders being remembered for some minor work that they dashed off in a very short time.  Do you really think that Charles Dickens thought that Christmas Carol would be his most famous, reproduced again and again in film and television?  Many times what the author loves does not sell well and is poorly received by the general public.  So don't worry about how good your art is.  Just paint, write and compose.  The public will do the rest.

Ten Breaths: Damage
(2007)

Harry Chapin

"Music was his life; it was not his livelihood.  And it made him feel so happy and it made him feel so good."

— Harry Chapin

American Songwriter, Musician

1942 - 1981

Album Cover

These words come from Mr. Tanner, a song by singer and songwriter, Harry Chapin.  In those brief moments of despair when I doubt whether it worthwhile to continue writing, these words bring comfort.  For some of us, our art is not meant to be our livelihood.  That does not make what we do any less important than those people who create professionally for money.  

Fame and success is fleeting.  How many one hit wonders are out there?  How many child movie stars fizzle and implode when they become adults?  How many writers disappear from the publishing world after their deaths and their books go out-of-print?  How many artists have one major show and disappear?

Harry Chapin is one of my favorite singers because he tells stories with his music.  I first heard of him when a high school friend of mine made a short movie based on his song, Sniper.  I played one of the victims of the sniper.  I had a chance to see Harry Chapin in concert in the late 1970's on the campus of the University of lllinois in Champaign-Urbana.  And I was sad when his life was cut short by an automobile accident in 1981.

Here is Harry Chapin singing Mr. Tanner.  Listen to what his wife says about where Harry got his ideas for his songs.  Listen to the words of song and don't let the naysayers and critics put you down.  You are gifted.

Duke Ellington

"I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues."

Duke Ellington

American Composer, Musician

1899 - 1974

Many of us waste energy complaining.  We need to learn to transform our frustrations, fears and failures into positive energy that inspires us to create great works of art.  Are you feeling down today, maybe even depressed?  Great.  Use that negative energy to create.  Write through the frustration.  Paint a picture with large dramatic brush strokes.  Are you angry and upset?  Transform that negative energy.  Splatter the canvas with paint.  Quickly write a poem in very large letters and don't rewrite it.  Read the poem aloud to the universe.  Is your heart broken and you can't stop crying?  Give yourself a hug and sing in a loud voice a country song about your broken heart and the mean person who broke it.  Be sure to sing off key.  Paint a picture of a heart in agony.  Dance wildly about the living room and do a belly laugh.

Emotions are a part of being human.  What most people don't realize is that they can control and change their emotions.  Don't wallow in self-pity, take charge of your life and choose to change your emotions.  Do something that gets you out of that rut.  Climb a mountain in your backyard.  Take photos of squirrels chasing each other in fun.  Go for a swim.  Listen to Duke Ellington.

Heinrich Heine

Painting of Heine
by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim

Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings."

— Heinrich Heine

German Poet

1797 - 1856

When a nation or society has no respect for its artists, writers and musicians, it is a nation in danger of losing its humanity.  I find it very sad that in this country where liberty is held in high esteem that there are people who choose to burn books.  When my daughter was in high school, she knew teenagers who participated in the burning of books with members of their church.  How ignorant these people must be.  Books are our connection to the world beyond our immediate home.  But it is not just in this country and it is not just books.  In 2001 when the Taliban were in power in Afghanistan, they destroyed two 1700 year-old Buddha statues carved in a cliff in the Hindu Kush mountains.  Other cultures have destroyed paintings.  And governments and societies have tried to control the type of art works that are created.  Both Hitler and Stalin restricted the type of art that could be created.

Artists, writers and musicians are one of the greatest treasures that a society has and yet people continue to treat them with contempt — telling them to get a real job.  In fact, the way we know about the past is through the artists, writers and the musicians.  We would know very little about ancient Rome or Greece if it were not for books and paintings.  Future societies will know us primarily through the writers and painters of today.  Our legacy is past down through our art.  

Here is a poem by Heinrich Heine.

WHY THE ROSES ARE SO PALE
by: Heinrich Heine (1799-1856)

 DEAREST, canst thou tell me why

The rose should be so pale?

And why the azure violet

Should wither in the vale?

 

And why the lark should in the cloud

So sorrowfully sing?

And why from loveliest balsam-buds

A scent of death should spring?

 

And why the sun upon the mead

So chillingly should frown?

And why the earth should, like a grave,

Be moldering and brown?

 

And why it is that I myself

So languishing should be?

And why it is, my heart of hearts,

That thou forsakest me?

This English translation of "Why the Roses are so Pale" was composed by Richard Garnett (1835-1906).

William Sloan Coffin

"All of life is the exercise of risk."

— William Sloan Coffin

American Author, Clergy, Peace Activist

1924 - 2006

Have you ever let fear stand in the way your doing something that you desired to do?  Most of us have.  And yet if we stop and think about it: all life is a risk.  While eating carrots, you can choke and die.  Walking down the street at 6 a.m., you can be hit by a speeding car.  Taking a shower, you can slip and fall and hit your head.  You can visit a doctor and be told that you have cancer and have only six weeks to live.  All life is fraught with risk.  So why haven't you tried that new technique of painting?  Are you afraid you will fail?  Why haven't you sent your novel to a publisher?  Are you afraid of rejection?

Fear is powerful and often stops us from doing what we want to do?  We all have dreams and hopes, but sometimes we are not courageous enough to take that first step into the unknown.  That first step is often the most difficult.  In our minds, we think of all the things that could go wrong.  We should instead focus on our dreams and what we want to accomplish.  What steps are you going to take today to overcome your fears?