Kent Svenson: Welcome to The Trusted Leader Show. I’m Kent Svenson, producer of The Trusted Leader Show. And for today’s episode we thought we would revisit a previous episode where David interviewed creativity expert Bob Stromberg.

Kent Svenson: In the episode, Bob shares his process to G.I.T. creative. So sit back and enjoy the show.

David Horsager: You’re also the author of mastering the craft of creativity and so people were going to have this in the show notes, but this is where I want to get to for leaders, today, you know, we have an expert.

David Horsager: In Bob stromberg at creativity and you can find out more mastering the craft of creativity.com we’ll have it all over the show notes at trusted leader show.com but tell us about this, how did you become so creative and give us a little window into that slice of your expertise.

Stromberg Robert: Five or six years ago.

Stromberg Robert: Well, it was September 15 of 2015 I was right here in the basement of this House digging through some boxes of books.

Stromberg Robert: and looking for some books and I found some old work calendars a pile of them about like this and the earliest one went back to 1975.

Stromberg Robert: And I thought to myself, I wonder what I was doing on Sep tember 15th 2015 40 years to the date earlier.

Stromberg Robert: And so I opened it up to 2015 I mean to to to 1975 which was 40 years earlier, and there was my first professional booking with my friend, Michael and I came upstairs I said to my wife Judy Judy This is like a celebration, I mean the anniversary we should be celebrating and she said.

Stromberg Robert: hmm.

Stromberg Robert: And that was the extent of the celebration right there that was.

Stromberg Robert: That was all there was, but that got me thinking when I realized Oh, my goodness, I have done this full time self employed never had a job never had an employer who paid thousands of them, but never, never an employer, that I was working for steadily.

Stromberg Robert: How have I done that, and I realized that I had been utilizing this thing called creativity and I also realized.

Stromberg Robert: I had never given a lot of thought to what it actually is and how it works and I started thinking about all these plays that I had written all recently i’ve been writing screenplays.

Stromberg Robert: And the comedy material and lots and lots of music that i’ve written through the years, all these creative things, what do they have in common, where did they come from, how did they come to be and I realized that.

Stromberg Robert: In this took this took a number of months of thinking about this really working through it, I realized that everything that I have created came from a place.

Stromberg Robert: And through a process and the place that the place that these things came from the songs the plays the comedy routines the bits the one liners.

Stromberg Robert: They came from what I call my creative reservoir which you have as well, and they came through a process and the process is called creativity and I believe that that there are two words, you need two words to really describe what creativity actually is.

Stromberg Robert: And I believe the two words are gift and craft usually we think of creativity, being a gift people say oh I couldn’t be creative my my brother was so crazy he really had a gift to creativity, but I just never had that.

Stromberg Robert: And I say, well, you you, you had something, because when you were a child, you demonstrated that here’s the deal.

Stromberg Robert: I really believe that the gift you’re born with something creativity, but you’re not born creative here’s what I think the gift is David.

Stromberg Robert: The gift that that we are all born with all of us is a a desire and a capacity to experience creativity, so we come out of the womb that way with a desire.

Stromberg Robert: and a capacity to experience it and we open up that gift immediately when we’re born, I mean the first thing that you within weeks you’re you’re learning that you can roll from I don’t know if it’s weeks I can’t remember it’s been so long since my kids my grandkids were that small.

David Horsager: would say it’s been so long since you roll over for the first time that’s right.

Stromberg Robert: But to roll from your back to your front boy that was exciting you couldn’t wait to do that it’s a little scary to do that, you can see, you can see the baby’s eyes just.

Stromberg Robert: Did I just do that that’s experiencing creativity getting up on your knees and rocking back and forth oh boy that’s one and then piling up blocks at some point, and then.

Stromberg Robert: knocking them over it all of this was play or or of taking that krahn and rubbing it across the paper making those marks on the paper was so fun, or is it was the case in my family with our four year old, who is who is now a remarkable artist and was then.

Stromberg Robert: To take that pink magic marker and coloring and all color and all the white flowers on mom and dad’s new couch that was an exciting.

Stromberg Robert: That was exciting day at our our family, all of this was what we refer to, and what psychologists call and child development people call play it was just play, but it was all creativity, it was all creative incredible.

Stromberg Robert: demonstration of creativity, so the question is well, where does that go because so many people say i’m not creative I couldn’t create anything I mean i’m i’m no idea what I would do I can’t create anything you know i’m just not a creative person.

Stromberg Robert: You used to be so where did it go and I believe.

Stromberg Robert: And I believe it gets educated right out of us in the western world, I think it’s just it’s just.

Stromberg Robert: The downside of our educational system, a lot of good things about our educational system, but not in this regard of creativity.

Stromberg Robert: Because in school, we learned very early on, when we’re taking a test or quiz or an exam, we have to write in the right.

Stromberg Robert: word in the fill in the blank it’s got to be the right word or if it’s a multiple choice, you have to you have to circle, the right answer, or if it’s a.

Stromberg Robert: math problem you have to add those numbers all up and divide it and do this and the high pot news of whatever and it’s got to be down to the.

Stromberg Robert: down to the right decimal point and number it’s got to be perfect and if it’s not it gets a big red mark on it and we deal with our feelings about about getting those red marks on our paper, and we very early realize.

Stromberg Robert: That we’re not as creative as we used to be, things are not as fun as they used to be creativity does not work that way creativity is not about finding the right answer.

Stromberg Robert: Creativity is about trying many, many potential answers some of them, which are really not good answers at all, but to try them.

Stromberg Robert: And something else comes out of it, you you almost can’t fail with creativity, because you’re not looking at the outcome you’re looking at the process so to to engage in the process, even if it’s.

Stromberg Robert: To try lots of things, in other words you don’t need to get the one right answer so therefore I think there’s another word this necessary gift, as the first one.

Stromberg Robert: I think the other word to describe what creativity is and how it works, then the other important word.

Stromberg Robert: Is craft creativity is a craft it’s a process that you go through, and as you go through this process you begin to this is a wonderful side benefit you begin to fill up your creative reservoir so there’s.

Stromberg Robert: there’s always something there you don’t need to worry about writer’s block you don’t need to worry about not being able, what am I going to do not it’s all you’ve got lots of stuff ready to go and but you need to understand what the process is.

Stromberg Robert: I heard recently about a sting who has been I just just before we did this interview, I thought, well, I wonder how many.

Stromberg Robert: How many grammys he’s one I went on he’s been nominated 43 times 42 or 43 times for grammys he’s won 17 one of the most popular singers songwriters in the world.

Stromberg Robert: About.

Stromberg Robert: A dozen years ago.

Stromberg Robert: He woke up one morning, and he couldn’t he couldn’t write it he couldn’t write a song he couldn’t write.

Stromberg Robert: And you go how’s that even possible I mean that’s what he does he writes songs he couldn’t write a song and this one on for eight years.

Stromberg Robert: Eight years couldn’t write it couldn’t write a song, can you imagine how devastating that was now we didn’t know that the public didn’t know that because he’s still touring.

Stromberg Robert: All the time he’s playing the songs we want to hear anyway, we don’t particularly want to hear a new song we’re happy to hear the old ones, the ones on the album’s we’ve been listened to it forever.

Stromberg Robert: But he couldn’t write a song and he was desperate and he said he described it this way, he said, I believe it was as if it was as if my muse went away.

Stromberg Robert: And I after going through all this work thinking through creativity for myself, I felt so sad about that because I thought staying.

Stromberg Robert: there’s no there’s no muse there’s there’s no muse you don’t you don’t have a muse you’d you have a process that you had been doing for years, and you don’t understand what the process is, if you understood what the process is you’d be writing a song right away and here’s what he did.

Stromberg Robert: Well, he didn’t know what to do, but here’s what happened to him.

Stromberg Robert: He.

Stromberg Robert: In his mind began to think about growing up in new Castle, and the UK shipbuilding town and he remembered the way.

Stromberg Robert: The old fisherman and the old shipbuilders excuse me, the way they used to talk and he heard their dialect in his head.

Stromberg Robert: And it later occurred to him that he’d never ever written a song in the dialect of these shipbuilders never even occurred to him to do to do that.

Stromberg Robert: But he heard the dialect and heard particular phrases that they would say, for example, one day you’ll wear these dead man’s boots.

Stromberg Robert: that’s what fathers would say to their sons, in other words you’re going to do the same work that I did you know so and he would.

Stromberg Robert: someday we’re these dead man’s roots and he started this and he got a little tune he didn’t consider writing a song, it was just a little ditty in his head little sea shanty kind of thing about wearing these dead man’s boots.

Stromberg Robert: And he wrote it and then he had another phrase in that dialect and he wrote another.

Stromberg Robert: Another little little sea shanty kind of thing in that, and he began to collect them and then he started thinking.

Stromberg Robert: I wonder if I could put them together in some way, I wonder who would sing the song, I wonder if there are characters who would sing them to each other, it eventually ended up being his West end and broadway musical call called the last ship now here Dave here Dave is the important thing.

Stromberg Robert: without knowing it, I believe that sting.

Stromberg Robert: used the creative process that I realized that i’ve been using and everything that I ever wrote and here’s the way it works, there are three things I say you may not, you may not have a.

Stromberg Robert: You may not feel you have a creative spirit or you may not feel that you have a creative reservoir, but you can get one.

Stromberg Robert: didn’t say get I said get gee I T first step in the creative process you grab anything that grabs you emotionally.

Stromberg Robert: So as you’re going through your day, and these are not ideas that you’re grabbing you can’t if.

Stromberg Robert: The eye that’s not how ideas happen the ideas aren’t just waiting out there for you to take them, you have to.

Stromberg Robert: You have to find them, and so you grab you’re not grabbing ideas you’re grabbing thoughts.

Stromberg Robert: So, as you go through your day you remember something you see something something happens in the market, this little kid at the kid in the stroller in the market.

Stromberg Robert: drops a sucker on the floor his mom says something oh boy, that was a little bit harsh or oh boy you write it down, it can be anything that grabs you emotionally things that make you that delight you things that may be upset you things that.

Stromberg Robert: things that make you wonder.

Stromberg Robert: you write them down that’s what it means to grab now when I say write them down, you can speak them into your phone, but you have a file form, you make sure you have somewhere where you can put these.

Stromberg Robert: thoughts they’re not ideas you have no, you have no idea what they could possibly be it’s just a thought and there’s a resistance to doing this because.

Stromberg Robert: People go, why would I write that down it’s not even any it’s just it’s nothing, why would I write it down because the the process that’s just the beginning of the process.

Stromberg Robert: The second thing is, then you go back each day and you look at that list of things that you’ve grabbed and you begin to interrogate them.

Stromberg Robert: If you have if you end up with 20 or 30 things on your grab list and that’ll happen pretty quickly, by the way you begin to as you go through this process you actually begin to to wake up.

Stromberg Robert: Emotionally i’ve had people say to me when they start the exercises in my course mastering the crash creativity, they say why I didn’t grab anything today nothing, nothing grabbed me emotionally, so I didn’t grab it.

Stromberg Robert: I said well keep trying, because I just know that people are not very emotionally alive they’re not in touch with their own emotions.

Stromberg Robert: they’re walking past stuff they’re not looking they’re not observing and then, as you begin to grab it gets easier and easier, in fact, it becomes habitual.

Stromberg Robert: And you’re grabbing things left and right all the time and again, sometimes I grab stuff and I go, you know my I got reams of things now and I go Why am I still doing this well because, as you go back then you interrogate what you grab that’s the eye.

David Horsager: You grab manager, do you use this paper, do you journal it you put it in your phone, how do you how do you grab it like when you’re out and about what’s your little file system.

Stromberg Robert: And I grabbed I grabbed on paper for years, I think, originally it was just anything I could grab but I was just grabbing anything and then pile them in a box and then it was in then it was in a little.

Stromberg Robert: You know I remember getting nice little leather books, at one point, you know.

Stromberg Robert: And it would be some of it would be grabbing others, it would be notes and stuff but then recently in the last actually since I started working on this seven or eight years ago.

Stromberg Robert: i’ve been grabbing on my phone, I just have a file, I have a grab file, I have to actually and I just I just speak them in there it’s just enough to remember what what grabbed you that’s all it’s not usually usually it’s a sentence fragment that you’re grabbing we.

David Horsager: I just it ties back to you know just.

David Horsager: Briefly, someone else that we had on the show that we talked about the value of journaling and how that’s one of the top things to do, and so, in essence.

David Horsager: This is a part of amping up your creativity and and if you if you want to be more creative and everybody, I mean this this really and more innovative.

David Horsager: You got to go to the whole course mastering the craft of creativity calm, but we’re getting a good look behind the kimono here we’re getting we’re getting the get right here, right now, at least.

David Horsager: A good overview and there’s a whole lot more in the whole course but.

David Horsager: He was talking about journaling just the process of journaling you ideas start to come to you start thinking about me start remembering and even on your own without interrogating that night let’s say.

David Horsager: your mind starts to interrogate it starts to build the muscle of interrogating on its own, it seems.

Stromberg Robert: If you if you develop it if you develop a.

Stromberg Robert: habit which, as you know, I mean they always say it takes 21 days to create a habit so it’s three weeks, the truth is, it takes more like two or three months.

Stromberg Robert: You actually can create an A neural pathway in 21 days and it’s it’s there you could you could see it apparently or measure it in some way.

Stromberg Robert: But it’s not very strong and it won’t help you very much, unless you do it for up to two or three months repeat the cycle 234 times.

Stromberg Robert: And then it’s there and it’s working all by itself and that’s where you get people in the middle of the night saying I wrote this song.

Stromberg Robert: I mean it’s like God gave me the song because I just woke up with it well, well, maybe God did give you the song, but he gave it through your through this marvelous thing called your brain and your mind which works, the way that it does so, I just wanted.

Stromberg Robert: If I continue real quickly you you interrogate.

Stromberg Robert: What you grab when you go back to your list, and you look at it so maybe got 2030 things here unless you just kind of read down through them and one or two of them will pop right out at you like oh pay attention to me pay attention to me.

Stromberg Robert: And you go well, what are you, how could I use, you are you an illustration, are you a new kernel of truth for my ad campaign are.

Stromberg Robert: Are you a new marketing plan are you a painting, are you a new chapter in my book, are you a character in my book, what what are you and.

Stromberg Robert: and, eventually, then you have it sounds like a cliche but it’s absolutely true, and every artist every creative knows this.

Stromberg Robert: You have that Aha moment where you go.

Stromberg Robert: There it is there, it is now sometimes this can happen in in three minutes you know this day but it’s like.

Stromberg Robert: It just there I got it this thing happened and I knew exactly I needed I needed that application or that illustration tonight.

Stromberg Robert: And I got it today and I wasn’t even looking for just boom there, it was so it can happen really quickly or it might take 20 years.

Stromberg Robert: I mean literally 20 I have a I have a piece, now that I do on my show where you’ve seen my family pictures thing.

Stromberg Robert: It took me 20 years of that on my list of going down well, maybe someday I cannot figure out what to do with those family pictures and it became this this hysterical routine now.

Stromberg Robert: So, then you grab you interrogate you have that Aha moment, and then you go now I know what it is and you begin to transform it into what it should be that’s what sting did.

Stromberg Robert: He he was grabbed emotionally by memories of his boyhood and anybody our age.

Stromberg Robert: Your age, I know you’re younger than I am, but anybody our ages knows memories of boyhood when they hit you those are powerful emotionally.

Stromberg Robert: And he you know his mom and dad both of them are gone now, but he remembered them he remembered the dead man’s boots he remembered his girlfriend he remember these things.

Stromberg Robert: And he began to grab those and then say what could I do with you what could this is this is this a song Is this a an album is this wow could this be a broadway play.

Stromberg Robert: And and a musical and then he began to transform it into that now how long does it take to from beginning to end, it can be really quick, it can be.

Stromberg Robert: An hour and you got it can be half an hour and you’ve written a song and you could actually be singing it in half an hour, if you want to.

Stromberg Robert: But other things if it’s a new medical device, or if it’s a broadway play it’s going to take years and years and years to develop it to the point where where you can put it on stage so or produce it.

David Horsager: I love it talk more, you know that this is great everybody’s got grab interrogate transform there’s a process for creativity, we can all get better at creativity.

David Horsager: we’ve been maybe a lot of it’s been hammered away because of if we’re listening from the US, right now, from the American.

David Horsager: educational system and actually many others around the world, I mean this educational system came about because of the industrial age right it’s like boom boom boom we do it this way.

David Horsager: But um let’s there is a discipline, it seems to the way you develop routines and and and kind of you know, be consistently creative and I think this is a process for it, but is there anything else you do as a disciplined approach to being creative or to building a.

David Horsager: screenplay.

Stromberg Robert: well.

Stromberg Robert: This is where there are a lot of books like art and fear press feels book.

Stromberg Robert: That is it’s great to read some of these books, because there is a there’s a resist we all have a resistance to this process.

Stromberg Robert: Fears a big part of it, and again I don’t know if this is, if this is part of our of our Western culture or not, I think probably is but we we we all become very.

Stromberg Robert: We look at the.

Stromberg Robert: The outcome we look at the outcome of what of what we’re doing.

Stromberg Robert: That that seems to make sense, a lot of times when you’re thinking about business things where you got to look well, what are you putting in this and what do you hope to get out of this.

Stromberg Robert: But with creativity there’s never any guarantee of.

Stromberg Robert: Certainly, an art there’s never any guarantee that any any of this is going to work and it just there’s no guarantee not.

David Horsager: You have self in that, how do you how do you trust yourself enough to keep at it.

Stromberg Robert: Well, as you have some success, then you you begin to build upon that success, so you look back and I, I know I wrote that wonderboy after we wrote.

Stromberg Robert: bill Arnold and Michael fierstein when I wrote triple Espresso.

Stromberg Robert: I had never written a play before at that point, I hadn’t even been in a play before just always done, the done the solo thing or the the wet stuff with my partner, I had that I started out with.

Stromberg Robert: So i’ve been on stage a lot, but I never been in a play never written anything like that I went to see Michael pure Stanley in forever Plaid back in 1990 and he’d already been in that show.

Stromberg Robert: For two years, or three years, at that point he doing it seven times a week downtown minneapolis and my wife and I went to see him do that I just thought it was great.

Stromberg Robert: And we went out to eat afterwards and my wife and I, and she said to me, you could write something better than that.

Stromberg Robert: Well, the next more and I will yeah what would I do with it, if we How would, I have no idea how to how would you produce it Where would you put it, how would How would you get anybody to come if you did, and what would it be anyway.

Stromberg Robert: I went out to eat with have breakfast with Michael pierce Donnelly and and bill Arnold who I had met in Chicago.

Stromberg Robert: We are on a stage together they’re at a big Convention and I thought he was one of the funniest people he’s a he’s a comic magician as as you were and and.

Stromberg Robert: Maybe still are sometimes David.

David Horsager: know.

David Horsager: long time ago.

David Horsager: The big jam button here is yeah yeah I used to use it to see people for a living now you talk about trust right.

yeah.

Stromberg Robert: But but.

David Horsager: People don’t even know I ever did that.

Stromberg Robert: But i’ll bet you saw bill at some point didn’t yeah I mean even before triple stress or not.

David Horsager: Oh yeah.

David Horsager: And they’re amazing all three of you, I mean that’s.

David Horsager: that’s something that made that trio, you know of triple Espresso just I mean from what Dublin to across the US, I mean it was just.

David Horsager: All three of you so talented and so funny in different ways, but together, I mean you know people talk about that laughing and there’s people that go every year to that.

David Horsager: You know the same show it’s just a you know it’s.

Stromberg Robert: yeah people have been 4050 times it’s amazing they and they want to see the same stuff over no please don’t change anything.

Stromberg Robert: But we went out to eat breakfast and one, and I know I shared about my wife saying we could write something better, or I could write something better.

Stromberg Robert: And and Michael said, well, maybe we should and bill said well i’ll make a call see if I can get anybody who would be interested in having us come and do it well, he he called then.

Stromberg Robert: He gave me a call within a day or two and said i’ve got a booked for for next month when next month.

Stromberg Robert: The third, well, it was like 30 days away and we hadn’t written anything so we just got together and said Okay, well, we have to do this and as it turned out.

Stromberg Robert: 600 people came to that first show at up for a family united church 600 people came.

Stromberg Robert: And we had a we had about an hour show that we have put together and we threw away, about half of it.

Stromberg Robert: Literally half of it, but we kept some nuggets that seemed to work and we kept working on it for another few months and then that led to some other things and somebody said, would you like to come do it on theater.

Stromberg Robert: And it just took off like wildfire flower wild flowers took off like wildfire took off like wild fire and.

Stromberg Robert: We thought we were we got this opportunity to do it for six weeks at a theaters seven times seven or eight times a week, we were going to do it.

Stromberg Robert: And I remember thinking well, that means I can’t work anywhere else for for six weeks we’ll probably going to lose a lot of money on this well.

Stromberg Robert: It took off David it, it was we had people lined up down the street, to get tickets from almost from the from the first week on.

Stromberg Robert: And then it went to San Diego and then we got another cast we kept two cities going and then at one point, there were seven cities gone and then we went to Dublin, we went to the UK we went to the West end of London.

Stromberg Robert: And it went to you know at some cities now it’s been in over 25 years.

Stromberg Robert: It ran it ran without missing a date without missing a week in San Diego for 11 years, I think it was 13 years here without stopping and minneapolis it was a phenomenon, now the reason i’m telling you the story is.

Stromberg Robert: You said, how do you how do you keep, how do you keep doing what you’re doing with are no guarantees and and I think.

Stromberg Robert: You build upon the success, but I did I did that wonderboy thinking well gee I could write another play, and this is going to just take off and go crazy again.

Stromberg Robert: that’s what it felt like to me, I know I can do this, I did it once i’ll do it again and I realized well triple Espresso was a phenomenon, it was truly a phenomenon.

Stromberg Robert: it’s not something that’s going to happen very meant to very many people in a in a generation it’s just one of those very, very odd things are the right right time right place and so on, but.

Stromberg Robert: I had great sexual.

Stromberg Robert: success.

Stromberg Robert: I had great success with.

Stromberg Robert: I had great success with that wonderboy but it wasn’t the same kind of success.

Stromberg Robert: But, but it was it was wonderful nonetheless it just didn’t have I mean.

Stromberg Robert: Yet oh yeah it was it was fantastic in New York and won some big awards there, which was pretty exciting yeah but it wasn’t it didn’t make it didn’t make any money, so if the idea is i’m going to do this, so that I can make some money, and this is going to well, maybe, maybe not.

Stromberg Robert: And there’s no other way to, but if you’re looking at the outcome it’s it’s it’s kind of tough you you’ll you’ll quit pretty quickly, because there are too many reasons to.

Stromberg Robert: not do it there too many reasons to not invest in the creative process because it takes time it takes work, some of it, some of it’s difficult tough.

Stromberg Robert: Work collaboration, for example, if you’re being creative with other people.

Stromberg Robert: boy some collaborations are so fun and they’re just great and other collaborations like oh I can’t believe i’m I have to work with her and again, you know it’s just like I this is going to be tough, but you have you know you you do it because that’s the process.

David Horsager: I think that’s a unique unique trait of you, compared to many you are phenomenal success on your own, and I saw you first most of the time on your own I didn’t see way back to the Cooper times I mean you were.

David Horsager: You had an amazing solo act event show, and yet you’ve collaborated with others to make some this runaway success triple Espresso this even your first 12 years with Mr Cooper whatever so.

Stromberg Robert: yeah I think.

David Horsager: that’s an interesting.

Kent Svenson: That’s it for this week’s episode. Be sure to check out trustedleadershow.com for all the show notes with all the links and information from anything mentioned in today’s episode.

Kent Svenson: And if you haven’t already, we would greatly appreciate a review on Apple Podcasts. This is a great way to help support the show and to help other people to discover it.

Kent Svenson: But, that’s it for this week’s episode, thank you so much for listening, and until next time stay trusted.