Recently, I spoke with Seth Barrish, an actor, director, teacher, and Co-Artistic Director of the Barrow Group. Seth’s teaching has influenced more than just my acting: his work has profoundly influenced my work as a communication coach and, perhaps most importantly, as a communicator. Seth uses techniques that seem to tease out truly human behavior in all its quirky glory. In my work with leaders, speakers, and communicators, I value the beauty of human imperfection and rely on the skills and techniques I learned in Seth’s class. Seth used the Conversation Exercise to help actors …Read on.

Recently, I had a fun and fruitful brainstorming session with a very creative friend. After the session, Mike emailed me:

“Kate, 

Such a delight and great help to get a dose of your perspective and creative energy…After our conversation I realized a big question that I forgot to ask you.  You seem driven and moved by creativity (I love that) -- what's creativity?  

Warm wishes, Mike”

My response:

“Hahahahahaha!

Good question.

Creativity: A generative process resulting from curiosity and play, and devoid of rules and expectations.”

I thought that was the end of the conversation, but no, Mike went further still:

“Great answer. If I can "inspire" a bit further, the bigger (practical) questions for me are how you turn it on and how you recognize you're not there yet. A million answers out in the world....What are yours -- for you -- and for other people you are helping? (Hope that's not too much inspiration!). Thank you!!”

To which I answered:

“Oh, my gosh! OK. So, John Cleese just wrote a book on creativity and I was lucky enough to be at the dinner with him after the talk…

I asked him just that--HOW do you make yourself creative? Was it working alone, at a certain time during the day, with certain people? He told a hilarious story about using the Thesaurus with Graham Chapman to find silly words like “plummet,” which led, of course to sheep plummeting, but really had no prescription.*

However, this is what I would say I need:” Read on…