Who Are Your Creative Champions?
To kick it off, I want to talk about Creative Champions.
I grew up in a massively creative household. My father was an artist, saxophonist and wrote lots of poetry. He also studied as a sign writer. Sometimes I felt like his vast creative spirit had been scooped up in a colander and his life was spent cascading this creativity, drenching his activities and ventures in colourful expressionism.
From gardening to wood-crafting, to some pretty bizarre entrepreneurial ventures, this vision and vibrancy flavored his career in teaching and impacted many of the people he passed along the way.
My dad’s creative spirit definitely impacted me.
When I was six, I sold my first pieces of art – vibrant abstracts produced in wax crayon on old roof tiles and sold to passing tractor drivers and walkers who came down our lane in the summer. A year or so later I developed a love of Cezanne and Gauguin and for several months I poured out blue/green landscapes and portraits of exotic looking women. Alongside this I played the piano, wrote songs, created picture books and made up stories.
Visitors at our house were cajoled upstairs to watch puppet shows. Me and my group of friends also started many a business venture. I maintain to this day that the Hamster Holiday Homes could have been a massive success.
For me I can see that growing up in a house where my parents were both artistic and championed my creativity has helped that creativity to flourish. As an adult I am compelled to seek out other artists and creative folk and spend time in their company on a regular basis and I’ve come to believe that when we are surrounded by creative people, this quality can’t help but flourish.
Who has most influenced your creativity in the past?
Who are the most creative people you know now?
Have you noticed how ideas flow and inspiration is in the air whislt in that creative company?
American p.d guru, Jim Rohn says, “We are each the sum total of the five people we spend our time with most.”
Essentially what this means is that the five people you or I spend most of our time with are the five people who will influence us most … whether that is creatively, the way we think, act and behave in the outside world, or the way we perceive ourselves. If we surround ourselves with creative champions, we will take that colour and flavour into our lives. On the other hand, if we predominantly surround ourselves with idea-sneerers and dream- devourers, we’ll be left devoid of hope or aspiration.
Just like our money, we can always choose to spend our time differently.
Once we become aware of who our creative champions are we can choose to make space for these people. That doesn’t mean we have to kick out everyone else, it simply means that we choose to be around the creative champions more than those who bring us down.
This same principle can be applied to anything else we want to create in our lives – more health, more well being, spiritual awareness, fun, whatever. Simply look at the five people you spend most time with, ask yourself “do I want to be the sum of these people?” then prioritize those that really bring you to happiness you deserve.
