Podcast Ep.#3 – “How to Train Your ‘Creativity Muscles’”

Overview

A songwriter in our community asked a question Keppie and Benny have been talking about for twenty years: what exercises strengthen your “creativity muscles”, so ideas flow more naturally when you sit down to write? Before answering, they unpack the word itself, from how it gets tied to the arts and to business, to why permission may matter more than teaching. Then they get practical, sharing the mindsets and small exercises that keep them writing, and the ways they deliberately disrupt their own habits. There are stories from their own creative lives too. Their answer is less a list of exercises than a way of living with creativity, one small habit at a time.

Episode Highlights

Creativity and permission
Keppie was recently asked whether creativity can be taught. Her answer leans on Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and the idea of permission, and Benny adds Ken Robinson’s point that the real challenge is not losing it.

What dims the spark
Keppie shares how her sense of creative spark faded during music school, and again when she put financial pressure on her creative work, and what she learnt from both.

A way of operating
A simple definition from John Cleese cracked creativity open for Benny, and his years of woodworking, furniture and abstract art show why. Keppie adds a piece of history: the word “creativity” is younger than you might think.

When you’re stuck, change modes
Keppie has a very long name for her surest way to get unstuck (it’s walking). Sting and Jeff Tweedy lean on sleep, and Benny explains why painter Andrew Cranston’s 40 canvases made him feel better about juggling projects.

Deadlines, prompts and limits
Deadlines, accountability and prompts can sound cold, but Keppie sees them as permission to take your writing seriously. Benny makes the case for tight limits, with a few small games for lyrics, chords and melody.

Training the right muscles
Keppie explains why finishing first drafts, even average ones, may be the most important creative muscle of all. Benny suggests isolating one muscle at a time, from an unfamiliar guitar tuning to a lyric written through very different eyes.

Little questions that keep you curious
We finish with the little questions Keppie and Benny ask themselves to keep finding wonder in their work, including a one-word swap Benny says changed how creative he has felt over the past decade.