LEADERSHIP LIBRARY

IN BRIEF

Twyla Tharp’s core argument is that creativity does not come accidentally; rather, it comes from the combination of routine and craft. This book may be most relevant to creators—she is a choreographer—but it provides tactical advice and exercises to foster creativity and get out of creative ruts that are applicable to any professional. 

Key Concepts

Creativity comes from preparation

“More than anything, this book is about preparation: In order to be creative you have to know how to prepare to be creative.” (p. 9)

“All preferred working states, no matter how eccentric, have one thing in common: When you enter into them, they impel you to get started.” (p. 17)

“Habitually creative people are, in E. B. White’s phrase, ‘prepared to be lucky.’” (p. 120)

It’s not just creativity; it’s skill

“If art is the bridge between what you see in your mind and what the world sees, then skill is how you build that bridge.” (p. 9)

“What all these people have in common is that they have mastered the underlying skills of their creative domain, and built their creativity on the solid foundation of those skills.” (p. 163)

The power of habit

“I begin each day of my life with a ritual: I wake up at 5:30 A.M., put on my workout clothes, my leg warmers, my sweatshirts, and my hat. I walk outside my Manhattan home, hail a taxi, and tell the driver to take me to the Pumping Iron gym at 91st Street and First Avenue, where I work out for two hours. The ritual is not the stretching and weight training I put my body through each morning at the gym; the ritual is the cab. The moment I tell the driver where to go I have completed the ritual.” (p. 13)

Creativity comes from playing around, not always direct effort

“Creating is all about playing and innovating within familiar forms. It’s natural to want to establish as many ground rules as possible about form before we get down to work, but you have to choose the form that’s not only appropriate to you but right for your particular idea.” (p. 126)

Mastery

“When creativity has become your habit; when you’ve learned to manage time, resources, expectations, and the demands of others; when you understand the value and place of validation, continuity, and purity of purpose—then you’re on the way to an artist’s ultimate goal: the achievement of mastery.” (p. 240)

Quotables

“The most productive ones get started early in the morning, when the world is quiet, the phones aren’t ringing, and their minds are rested, alert, and not yet polluted by other people’s words.” (p. 6)

“More than anything, this book is about preparation: In order to be creative you have to know how to prepare to be creative.” (p. 9)

“It’s vital to establish some rituals—automatic but decisive patterns of behavior—at the beginning of the creative process, when you are most at peril of turning back, chickening out, giving up, or going the wrong way. “(p. 15)

“Alone is a fact, a condition where no one else is around. Lonely is how you feel about that.” (p. 31)

“Doing is better than not doing, and if you do something badly you’ll learn to do it better.” (p. 32)

“Skill gets imprinted through the action. If there’s a lesson here it’s: get busy copying.” (p. 66)

“Now, let me tell you what a box isn’t. The box is not a substitute for creating. The box doesn’t compose or write a poem or create a dance step. The box is the raw index of your preparation. It is the repository of your creative potential, but it is not that potential realized.” (p. 88)

“That is why you scratch for little ideas. Without the little ideas, there are no big ideas. Scratching is what you do when you can’t wait for the thunderbolt to hit you.” (p. 98)

“Throw a tantrum at yourself. Anger is a cheap adrenaline rush, but when you’re going nowhere and can’t get started, it will do.” (p. 107)

“Another trap is the belief that everything has to be perfect before you can take the next step. You won’t move on to that second chapter until the first is written, rewritten, honed, tweaked, examined under a microscope, and buffed to a bright mahogany sheen. You won’t dip a brush in the paint until you’ve assembled all the colors you can possibly imagine using in the course of the project. I know it’s important to be prepared, but at the start of the process this type of perfectionism is more like procrastination. You’ve got to get in there and do.” (p. 124)

“Obligation is a flimsy base for creativity, way down the list behind passion, courage, instinct, and the desire to do something great.” (p. 128)

“I believe that every work of art needs a spine—an underlying theme, a motive for coming into existence. It doesn’t have to be apparent to the audience. But you need it at the start of the creative process to guide you and keep you going.” (p. 144)

“Having a spine will snap you back to attention quickly and, as a result, will inject speed and economy into your work habits. Energy and time are finite resources; conserving them is very important.” (p. 151)

“With absolute skill comes absolute confidence, allowing you to dare to be simple.” (p. 163)

“(Of course, there’s an ur-skill that I don’t even feel obliged to list. That, dear reader, is discipline. Everyone needs it. No explanation required.)” (p. 171)

“More often than not, I’ve found, a rut is the consequence of sticking to tried and tested methods that don’t take into account how you or the world has changed.” (p. 185)

“Failure creates an interesting tug of war between forgetting and remembering. It’s vital to be able to forget the pain of failure while retaining the lessons from it.” (p. 214)