How To Be Brain Of The Year; An Interview With Creativity Expert, Michael Gelb

Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing Michael Gelb, the author of How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day for the upcoming Bottom-line on his book (due for release at the Bottom-line Bookclub on 1 Sept). As usual, I was really excited about the interview, but I’ll admit to having been more than a little intimidated by the prospect of interviewing someone who beat Prof. Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates and Garry Kasparov to the Brain Trust’s title of “Brain of The Year” in 1999 (yikes!).

With over 30 years of experience as a professional speaker, teacher and organizational consultant and having authored 12 books on creativity and innovation, Michael is a true pioneer and expert in the fields of creative thinking, accelerated learning and innovative leadership. And to give you a sense of his diversity, his other accolades include being a former professional juggler who’s performed with the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan. He’s also a fourth degree black belt in the martial art of Aikido, he’s a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique, he has a Master of Arts in Psycho-Physical Re-education, and was certified as the first “Master Trainer” by the Buzan Foundation – that’s the Tony Buzan of mind-mapping fame, who I know a lot of you will be familiar with. He’s also been called one of the coolest titles I’ve ever heard; an NPR commentator called him a “ warrior against zombification.” And I have to agree – it’s a pretty apt description! (and a pretty freaking’ cool title, huh?!)

I had planned to talk with Michael about How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci and his latest book, Wine Drinking for Inspired Thinking (yes, drinking wine the way Michael recommends can improve your creativity!). We did cover some of that ground, but we got side-tracked with a great conversation, talking about Michael’s personal success strategies.

Following in the footsteps of the great Leonardo da Vinci, whom Michael has studied for years, Michael is a true Renaissance Soul – someone who loves a wide variety of different roles and tasks and performs excellently in all of them. Being a Renaissance Soul can be tricky and a lot of us Renaissance Souls really struggle with focus and completion, because we have so many interests and we love the novelty of starting something new. So, since Michael’s achievements have come out of a wonderful combination of diversity, focus and completion, I was really curious to know what his success strategies were. Michael chatted off-the-cuff about his own personal productivity practices and how he’s managed his career. Bottom-line Bookclub members will hear more, but here’s the scoop on Michael’s success strategies:

1. Do what you love.

Michael said that very early in his career, he made the commitment to himself that he would only pursue work that he really loved doing, and he’s never departed from that. Michael talked about how, when you’re doing what you love doing, there’s a lot of extra energy that gets released into your work and it’s easy to be motivated and focused.

How much of the work you do now and the goals you’re working on are things you love doing?

2. Help people

The second big factor that Michael puts his success down to is that he also made an early commitment to do work that would serve other people in some positive way. This makes a lot of sense as a career success strategy – if you’re helping other people, you’re more valuable to them and this makes you and the service you offer highly marketable. What’s more, when you consider the research that Dan Pink highlighted in his book, Drive, it also makes a lot of sense that committing to helping people will make you more creative and productive. Dan talks about the studies that show that the 3 drives that influence our motivation most (especially when we’re doing creative work) are autonomy, mastery and purpose. Doing work that is a service to others gives you a highly motivating sense of purpose.

To what degree does your work and the goals you’re working on serve other people?

3. Don’t worry about the money

Michael described himself as having been naive about money at the outset of his career, but he now sees this as an advantage. It meant that, rather than trying to find work that would generate money and thinking “I’ll tick the doing-what-I-love and helping-people boxes later if I can swing it,” like many people do, he went full throttle into doing what he loved and serving people. And because he was so energized by doing what he loved and serving others, he was more creative and productive, he shared more value, and the money followed.

Money worries can introduce a lot of ambivalence about you want to create, causing you to end up take half-assed action and end up with poor results in both the money and the “doing what you love and serving others” departments. Michael never got stuck on the “I-want-to-follow-my-heart-but-I’m-not-sure-if-the-money-will-follow” dilemma; doing what he loved was always his top priority. So he was able to give himself full-tilt to his work.

Where does money factor in your priorities? Is money stealing your focus or creating ambivalence?

4. Visualize it done

On a similar vein, Michael said that, when he decides to do something – like writing another book, for example – he commits to it completely and he imagines it done. He pictures the end result in great detail – seeing other people reading the book and hearing them raving about it, holding the finished book in his own hands and seeing the book jacket, imagining the book being reviewed by people he respects, seeing the book rising on the charts, and so on. Having such a clear sense of what he wants to create, why he wants to create it, what impact he wants to see his creations have in the world, and how he’ll feel when he has created all of that clears out the internal conflict, resistance and ambivalence that often hijacks people’s creative processes.

Do you know what it’ll be like when you’ve created what you’ve set out to create? Can you picture it in this kind of detail?

5. You must want the process, not just the end result

Michael said that, while it’s very fulfilling to have written so many books and to have received the accolades he’s received, the part he loves most is the learning, the writing, the speaking and the teaching. He’s written 12 books because he loves writing. If you love the process of getting your goals, you’ll be more energized and even the bits that are “hard” will be enjoyable on some level.

Do you love the process of achieving your goals or are you placing all your pleasure in the final outcome?

6. Model great people

Most of Michael’s books are based on his studies of geniuses, with the greatest of his work being based on his studies of Leonardo Da Vinci, who has been ranked as the greatest genius of all time. Da Vinci left extensive notes and drawings in his many notebooks and Michael studied these original notes as well as the many books written about Da Vinci. His close study of Da Vinci enabled him to unpack the success strategies that Da Vinci used, so that he could practice developing those skills and using those strategies himself. The people you watch most closely are the people you’re going to learn from and become like, so choose these people with care. And remember that your mentors can come from any era.

Who are you watching and learning from?

7. Don’t work hard

You’d think that to write 12 books and accomplish everything else that Michael has accomplished, he must work very hard and stick at it for very long hours. On the contrary, Michael shared about the creative process and told me that he doesn’t work long hours, he plays a lot and he naps often. Hard work and long hours crushes creativity, while play, rest and napping fosters creativity and restores your energy, allowing you to work more efficiently when you do work.

I heard this same idea from Daniel Coyle, author of The Talent Code, who said that many top performers in the fields of arts, music and sport nap in the afternoons – it’s thought that napping after deep practice consolidates and integrates your learning while also restoring your energy and focus. I’ve also been reading Tony Schwartz’s brilliant book, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working (coming up at the Bottom-line Bookclub in a few months) and he’s saying the same thing about the importance of napping and resting to restore your energy and creativity. I’m starting to get the message; I’ve been experimenting with napping and I’m finding that after a 30 to 45min nap in the afternoon, I’m very energized. And who doesn’t love a good nap?!

Are you getting enough rest, play and sleep to support your creativity and productivity?