When people ask me what I do, I say “I help individuals and organizations rediscover their innate creativity so that they can lead more connected, effective, and deeply meaningful lives.”Creativity is often viewed as something frivolous, something to engage in only after more important things are taken care of. But nothing could be further from the truth. If we aren’t actively creative, we feel disconnected from the world around us, inauthentic, unaware of what we’re here to do, devoid of real meaning. Furthermore, without activating creativity, your job just might be automated by a computer. In other words, without creativity, without connecting with the world and affecting it in a meaningful way, we’re dead on our feet. A black background, therefore, re-establishes creativity as something to take deadly serious.
Creativity is often associated with the color white (think Apple, gods, and blank canvases), which, as we know contains all the magnificent colors of the rainbow. In order to experience creativity as a way of life, however, it is important that we first turn inwards and be honest about what’s not working.
And cosmologically, the visible Universe, that is all the stuff that astronomers can sense with their instruments, only accounts for about 5% of the mass that seems to be out there. The rest, over 95% of the Universe, is made up of dark matter and dark energy. How about that for untapped creative potential?
Pioneering psychiatrist and luminary Carl Jung once said, “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” In my experience as a speaker, trainer, and coach on the subject of creativity, Jung’s words are resoundingly true.
Creativity is not a gift of only certain individuals but a defining trait of being human. It is also a basic need for us to feel truly fulfilled. The experience of being creative–of having insights, of working to manifest those insights, and dropping into the joyous experience of creative flow–then are not extraordinary experiences, but a return to our basic nature.
What helps both individuals and organizations tap into their natural creative abilities is addressing stuck emotions, traumas, and limiting beliefs head on, thereby “making the darkness conscious” and converting that darkness into fuel for our personal and professional growth.
That’s why I chose a black background for this headshot.