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Creativity isn’t just for artists – it’s a skill anyone can develop. In this episode, we explore Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act and reveal how The Beatles’ approach to inspiration can help you nurture creativity in everyday life. Learn how to cultivate flow, spark inspiration, and make creativity a way of being, not just doing.
I’m Mindy Peterson, host of Enhance Life with Music podcast, where we explore the ways music transforms everyday life. And this is Microhance, a micro-dose of musical enhancement.
Have you ever experienced the exhilaration and high and feeling of aliveness that comes from a burst of creativity or completing and sharing a creative project? Would you like to experience that more often, but think there’s no way to control the creative spark – you just have wait for the lightning strike?
Or maybe you’ve decided somewhere along the way that you just aren’t a creative person. You wish you were, but accept the fact that that luminous feeling of inspiration is not in the cards for you.
Either way, I have a book to recommend that might just change your mind.
The book is The Creative Act: A Way of Being by legendary music producer Rick Rubin – the creative force behind artists from Johnny Cash to Adele, from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Jay-Z.
It’s not a how-to manual. It’s more like a meditation – a series of short but deep insights on the source of creativity, its place in everyone’s life, and how (and why) it can be nurtured in everyday life. Regardless of what you’ve been told, creativity is learnable; it’s a skill that can be developed. And this book puts the power in your hands to generate moments and processes for transcendence, wherever you may be on the creativity spectrum.
Creativity isn’t reserved for the chosen few – it’s the spark that lives in all of us, waiting for the cultivation, curiosity, and courage to bring it to life.
As the book’s opening quote by Robert Henri says: “The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.” That captures the spirit of the book: creativity as a way of being, not just doing.
I read a lot, and I take tons of notes as I go. But for the first time ever, while reading this on Kindle, I actually triggered a copy error – apparently I had reached the maximum number of times you can copy text from a book! I didn’t even know that was possible. That tells you how many gems of wisdom are packed into this one.
I’ll let you discover what resonates for YOU in the book; but I will share one music-related story from The Creative Act, on Non-Competition:
Art is about the maker. It’s aim: to be an expression of who we are. This makes competition absurd. Every artist’s playing field is specific to them.
Wanting to outperform another artist or make a work better than theirs rarely results in true greatness. Nor is it a mindset that has a healthy impact on the rest of our lives. As Theodore Roosevelt pointed out, comparison is the thief of joy. Besides, why would we want to create with the purpose of diminishing someone else?
When another great work inspires us to elevate our own, however, the energy is different. Seeing the bar raised in our field can encourage us to reach even higher. This energy of rising-to-meet is quite different from that of conquering.
When Brian Wilson first heard the Beatles’ Rubber Soul, his mind was blown. “If I ever do anything in my life, I’m going to make that good an album,” he thought at the time. He went on to explain, “I was so happy to hear it that I went and started writing ‘God Only Knows.’”
Being made happy by someone else’s best work, and then letting it inspire you to rise to the occasion, is not competition. It’s collaboration.
When Paul McCartney heard the resulting Beach Boys album, Pet Sounds, he too was blown away and reduced to tears, proclaiming “God Only Knows” was to his ears the best song ever written. Buoyed by the experience, the Beatles played Pet Sounds over and over while creating another masterpiece, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. “Without Pet Sounds, Sgt. Pepper never would have happened,” Beatles producer George Martin said. “Pepper was an attempt to equal Pet Sounds.”
This creative back-and-forth wasn’t based on commercial competition, it was based on mutual love. And we are all the beneficiaries of this upward spiral toward magnificence.
Reading The Creative Act left me buzzing with ideas – it put me in that flow state where focus and inspiration meet. Have you had a similar experience? Maybe from a book, a concert, a piece of music, a podcast, or even a favorite walk in nature? I’d love to hear what sparks your creativity.
You can always connect with me on email (mindy@mpetersonmusic.com), Facebook, Instagram, X, or LinkedIn; and by signing up for my monthly e-Newsletter.
Until next time, may you find moments this week that put you in that wonderful state that makes creativity inevitable.
I’m Mindy Peterson, and I hope this inspires you to enhance your life with music.
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