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The Moonshots Podcast goes behind the scenes of the world's greatest superstars, thinkers and entrepreneurs to discover the secrets to their success. We deconstruct their success from mindset to daily habits so that we can apply it to our lives. Join us as we 'learn out loud' from Elon Musk, Brene Brown to emerging talents like David Goggins.
[Music]
hello and welcome to the moonshots
podcast it's episode
i'm your co-host mike parsons and as
always i'm joined by the most cheerful
man himself mr mark pearson freeland
good morning mark good morning mike i
mean i've got to say on a beautiful
sunny spring day such as today
it's hard not to be cheerful despite not
having a lot of control over our
situations and all that sort of thing at
the moment it helps when there's a bit
of sunshine doesn't it
oh sunshine solves all manner of
problems uh mark and i'm wondering do
you have some sunshine for us today's
show number 144 mike is all about
sunshine and we're digging into the work
particularly the advice and practical
tips from none other than john cleese
and his book creativity a short and
cheerful guide what an amazing title of
a book mike
so perfectly english let's let's be
honest mark it is that classic british
humor isn't it
it is it is and look john cleese is a
character and an individual who defined
a lot of my upbringing mike um and as
i'm sure he did for yourself
but for those who may not be as familiar
with his work
as you and i are i think it's safe to
say that he's a bit of a bit of a legend
a bit of a powerhouse in the creativity
space mic
oh my gosh
creator of monty python faulty towers
uh the the movie fish called wanda he
has several doctorates oh and by the way
he's won an emmy he's one baftas um i
mean oh he wrote a book too i mean
are you feeling a little inadequate
right yeah i know well you know and also
mike he's been in james bond he was in
harry potter he's in the shrek films so
he's done everything from voiceovers to
comedian acting
and authors uh screenwriter i mean
blimey he's done a lot of good stuff
he has and and i can tell you that he
truly is a wonderfully creative soul
and
i think what's so exciting for our
listeners
today is we're going to unpack his
masterclass that's inside his book
and it's all going to be about
creativity and he packages his advice
so well doesn't he mark i mean today we
are literally just he has just such a
beautiful set of advice which is the
perfect it's like a playbook really if
you want to bring creativity at home at
work and to everything in between i
think john cleese's book has it all
doesn't it yeah he really breaks down
the concept of creativity remember he's
a man who has literally lived his life
in his career
around creating new characters uh
whether they're funny or dramatic
he has created so much uh in his in his
lifetime and to have quite a
precise practical
almost logistical approach to creativity
coming from a man who is quite uh dare i
say it uh legendary as we said you know
he's almost one of the one of the great
ones to have these little tips
and advice to unlock your own creative
process
i feel as though that's a really
valuable wave mic for you and i to end
this current series on creativity we
heard from mihai cheek semi high we went
into elizabeth gilbert and now to
bookend it with
john cleese and the skills that he has
and how you and i and our listeners can
go out and achieve them as well it feels
like a perfect little package
it really really does so um
i think we should just dive straight in
there and the first clip that we have
from john cleese and his book creativity
a short and cheerful guide
is all about the concept of creativity
so let's start our journey with the
master of creativity john cleese
you know when video arts asked me if i'd
like to
talk about creativity i said no problem
no problem
because telling people how to be
creative is easy it's only being it
that's difficult
and i knew it would be particularly easy
for me because i spent the last 25 years
watching how various creative people
produce their stuff and being fascinated
to see if i could figure out what makes
folk including me more creative
what is more
a couple of years ago i got very excited
because a friend of mine who runs the
psychology department at sussex
university brian bates
showed me some research on creativity
done at berkeley in the 70s by a
brilliant psychologist called donald
mckinnon which seemed to confirm in the
most impressively scientific way
all the vague observations and
intuitions that i'd had over the years
creativity is not a talent
it is not
a talent it is a way of operating
you see when i say a way of operating
what i mean is this creativity is not an
ability that you either have or do not
have it is for example and this may
surprise you absolutely unrelated to iq
because to sum up something i sometimes
take three hours to say
all creativity comes from the
unconscious
if creativity came from logic and
intelligence then all the logical
intelligent people could do it
but they can't
it all boils down to
getting in a
playful and relaxed frame of mind
most of it's to do with relaxation
because unless you're relaxed you can't
hear
the promptings from the unconscious you
know nobody ever had a bright idea when
they were attacking a machine gun nest
you see what i mean if you're occupied
with activity and that's one of the
reasons why there's so little creativity
at the moment is that nobody gets any
peace anymore
because these damn things are ringing
all the time and beep there and you know
you you sit down there's another email
coming it's absolutely poisonous because
interruptions and anxiety will kill any
kind of creativity so you have to get in
a atmosphere where you're a little bit
you've got a little cocoon of your own
you close your door or you go and sit in
the park
and you just stay quiet
and for the 20 minutes nothing happens
because you can only think of the things
you ought to be doing
you know people you've forgotten to
telephone so you have to have a little
notebook you write those down and after
20 minutes the mind starts to calm down
just as it does in meditation it's
almost identical process and then when
you start thinking about the subject not
too hard you don't want to get tense you
just kind of play with the thought and
you get little ideas stop popping up but
if your mind is full of
you know
you'll never hear those little ideas
it'll be drowned out you see what i mean
mike what a
great kickoff to the show on creativity
to hear from john cleese quite specific
you know behaviors
and methods that he's experienced from
his career
and what he's observed from those around
him i mean i'm excited to really break
into those but but there's a lot of
information in that
i was about to say matt that could have
been like a whole show right
right there we've done this a couple of
times where we've led with these clips
that are just epic like outpouring of
wisdom and you're like your mind's
boggling catching all these ideas um
that are inside of that
i i think it's really important to start
with i think the big icebreaker there
that he said it's not a talent is it
it's not a talent it doesn't have
anything to do with iq
it's a way of operating and i think that
this is quite a
uh
dare i say mike
a reassuring call out
because i think there have been times uh
even in my career where i'll be thinking
oh well i'm i'm not really
um a designer or an author writer
whatever it might be i'm not the
funniest guy so i won't have a go
you know i'll leave it to the the people
who have that skill naturally i'll leave
it to
the person who's the child of someone
who's really intelligent and by doing so
i'm kind of removing myself from
the opportunity to kind of give it a go
and i think where please is
kicking us off straight
off of to the races is saying well
anybody can do it if you've got the
right mind frame and you you can get
yourself into that way of operating yeah
it's it's like james clear the author of
atomic habits would just be nodding in
violent agreement with john cleese like
build the habit it's a way of operating
and and we just have to be much more
deliberate about it
it's a very um
it's a great reminder and it's a bit
disarming because it pays off a little
bit to what elizabeth gilbert said in
the previous show which was hey we've
all got creativity inside of us we've
all got a unique take on something what
john's doing is like well just get all
the disruptions out of the way let that
20 minutes
settle down and if you follow the rest
of this show you're going to find out
actually how to get it done won't you
mate yeah that's right and and to use
your word mike it's deliberate you know
he's really calling out the fact that
creativity is a deliberate thing if you
give yourself the permission and you
really force your way into thinking
about it from a deliberate perspective
build those practices and habits you can
go out and achieve those which i think
i'm excited to get into
yeah now before we go diving into all
this advice from john cleese i think
we've been a little creative we've been
pottering away haven't we might we
should definitely
announce something new for all of our
listeners for our listeners who are out
there
dialing in and listening in every single
week we have a brand new exciting
announcement you can now
become a subscriber
to the master series via apple podcast
mic
bring out the trumpets the champagne so
this is a big extension of what we've
done with patreon where you can become a
member for those of you and we know a
vast majority of you love listening to
the show in app
usually spotify usually
apple podcasts well we have now
published our master series which is our
second podcast
where you can subscribe to it where you
can actually get these very deep master
classes so it's a very different format
in some respects to this show the
moonshots podcast because on this show
we focus on an individual in the master
series
but just because mark we've just done
so many shows haven't we i mean what is
what are we up to now 144 today with
john cleese mike there you go there you
go so it's about time that we build this
master series where we take a theme like
motivation
teamwork or first principles and we
gather together all the world's best
thinkers
in 90 minutes lots of practical
worksheets and guides as well that come
along with this so that you can
essentially in 90 minutes you get like
the ultimate rocket launch into a topic
that will help you be
the very best version of yourself so
if you love your
apple iphone and it's uh little partner
in crime the apple podcasting app jump
in there and search for the moonshots
master series uh you will find that you
can subscribe uh to
the master series we've got a couple of
episodes up mark we've got motivation
and first principles motivation is how
to motivate yourself uh first principles
how to think better and
should we should we spill the beans on
the next episode what it's going to be
for the masters yeah i'm very excited
mike because it's going to be something
that is going to be really handy for
myself as well as our listeners to dive
into it's all about leadership and
teamwork i can't wait to dig into those
yeah and i think part of that show will
include one of our all-time favorites
patrick lenziani
do you remember his show mark wasn't
that a powerhouse yeah patrick lencioni
and teamwork it was an incredibly
popular series actually mike we had a
lot of
listeners dialing in for patrick and his
work is just very very accessible as
well isn't it
oh that's that that five dysfunctions uh
of a team
huge absolutely huge for me um i i
return to that
regularly i'm recommending it regularly
and that's going to be the cornerstone
of the teamwork series which will be out
next week i think mark won't it that's
right next week in september those
subscribers to the moonshots master
series will access not one not two but
three
episodes off the bat
pretty damn good stuff so
to wrap up subscribe apple podcast app
head over for the moonshots master
series you will be transformed by that
experience
but let us now
transform ourselves on this show in this
very moment with a whole lot of
creativity
and play from none other than mr john
cleese
let's listen to him now and it would
only be appropriate that we're going to
listen to him talking about how to build
a tortoise enclosure
so what i'm saying is
that if you get into the right mood
then your mode of thinking
will become much more creative but if
you're racing around all day ticking
things off on lists looking at your
watch making phone calls and generally
just keeping all the balls in the air
you are not going to have
any creative ideas
so now i want to
run very quickly over how in this sort
of frenzied world that we all live in
you can create
a mood
that will enable you to be more creative
and basically the way i put it is that
you need to create a tortoise
enclosure so that your little tortoise
mind
can it's a little nervous creature
just look around and then think yes it's
safe to come out
and to do this you have to create a kind
of oasis in your life in the middle of
the stressed
oh i've got to do this i've forgotten to
do that i have to be there by 11.
in the middle of all of that you have to
create an oasis
a tortoise enclosure where your tortoise
mind can come out to play and there's
two things you have to do
you have to create boundaries
of space
and you have to create boundaries of
time
it's as simple as that so boundaries of
space simply means you create boundaries
to avoid the interruptions that i was
talking about earlier which is so
disastrous to the creative process
so
if you're a fat cat at the top of an
organization you say to your lovely
assistant please i am now going to think
do not
um interrupt me unless the building is
burning down
for
an hour and a quarter
and if you're at the bottom of the
hierarchy maybe you just go out into the
park
with an umbrella if you're in belgium
and you just sit there quietly where you
are not going to be interrupted but you
create boundaries
of space
so what you have to do when you've
created
boundaries of space where you're not
going to be interrupted
is you have to give yourself a starting
time
and a finished time
because when you do that you've created
an oasis that is separate from ordinary
life and then and only then can you play
wow
mike this is quite a big
hack you know it's a big tip isn't it
it's a big bit of advice
that
we may have discussed previously but not
in such a vibrant eloquent way as john
cleese calling out
oasis you know i quite like the idea of
my creative
unconscious mind being a little bit like
a turtle or tortoise
uh being a little bit shy
being scared off by the sound of ringing
telephones or vibrating notifications
creating that space
deliberately
in order to
encourage it to come out and and play as
john says
i think is is quite a new take on on
this idea isn't it
it certainly is and
what's also fun about it is
just to kind of
connect it to something
a bit different is cal newport deep work
i mean you change the the theme but the
practice itself
very very very similar right yeah very
very similar the idea of giving
something your undivided attention
whether it's recording a podcast whether
it's writing a book or a scene or a
screenplay
anything whatever it might be giving
yourself that ability to to do your deep
work
is is what john's calling out here again
yeah and so let's let's now get into
this mark
how do we
what are our
i mean
how do we do this because john cleese
he in the previous clip is like like
we're all so busy spinning the plates
doing the calls
clicking off our checklist by the way i
totally identified with that behavior i
was like that's so my every day for me
oh it's so
and then and then now he's saying go out
and build this tortoise uh enclosure go
in and ring fence
much like cal newport would say go and
and find that time where you should do
your deep work
where do we start on this and and i
wonder why
we don't do enough of this because i'm
going to raise my hand and say
i don't do enough of this kind of ring
fencing this sort of creative time
um i feel like i'm forever
you know
landing jumbo jets you know like one big
thing after another which is which you
know in part i love
but i wonder why don't we make this time
do you think it's because we don't
we don't see the importance of
allocating time for creative
uh thinking or like what what's going on
there i i think the limitation that we
all have
and it's one that i that i share as well
and it's one that i've seen in
customers and and colleagues as well
i think we don't give ourselves enough
permission to have that
time for deep work because we're so
obsessed with uh
putting out that fire or landing that
jumbo jet
and i believe that
the mindset to do that to follow
the fires and put them out is because we
then think okay once i land this jumbo
jet i'll have time to do the deep work
so there's almost an illusion going on
where you think if you put out the next
fire you'll unlock time
but actually in fact
the whole process of a tortoise
enclosure and deep work is to know that
these things are all going on at the
same time and just to be at peace with
them and be very deliberate and say okay
well that jumbo jet is still going that
fire is still burning but
i need to
fight this one first if i can get this
one out of the way then i can move on to
the next one and be quite systematic by
going through and working on them
okay so if you were going to plan
an hour of really creative
time
of play
of investigation curiosity
uh open thinking okay
let's kind of try and apply some of uh
let's try and learn how we we would do
it where would you start on on this mat
i
i quite like
well first of all it i find it quite
hard
and i find it quite difficult to to do
that because my brain
shifts into the the todoist the to-do
list of right i've got to get this out
the deadline's this or so and so is
expecting it and that's pretty
distracting
and that can get in my way and trip me
up
so what i find quite
handy and actually it's quite similar to
what john cleese was saying in that clip
is give yourself enough time to slow
down
so
yes you might
have had your coffee you might be
checking your emails you might be
looking at your calendar
close all of those
allow yourself to almost calm down a
little bit john cleese calls out 20
minutes where you'll you'll be thinking
oh i'm meant to be here at 11. i've got
a cool so-and-so back allow yourself to
kind of decompress
and once you do and once you've got
those anxieties once i've got those
anxieties out of my way
then i can actually begin
giving something a bit more of an
undivided attention because otherwise my
attention is still on
the thing that i was thinking about
earlier which then means that my
effectiveness of thinking about this new
opportunity or challenge or whatever it
might be is diminished because half my
brain power is still thinking about
something else
that's right so i think it's um
i think part of it is
you know john cleese mentioned like when
you're at the park make sure you have a
notepad to write down your ideas i think
this has been a huge theme of the show
this idea of writing and journal and
journaling
i think in part if you want to create
truly open time and space you have to
clear your head and find the ritual for
clearing your head to me it's about
at the start of the day
um having my rituals
to determine how i want to spend my day
um clearing my head
in the morning so i quite like
breath work and meditation in the
morning
to better prepare me for the day and
sometimes if i've had a very hectic day
i will do those same practices in the
evening to
cool down the jets
because what i notice
is what affects my creativity is that
there are ideas still in the
subconscious processing i need to kind
of almost
purge them get them out of the system
and let things die down
then i can really go
think and be creative if i haven't got
that out it just keeps coming back into
your mind doesn't it yeah it does and
i quite like this idea of the purge
so
if you um i think the same
of the purging comes with your to-do
list
so sometimes i'll
start my day by thinking oh yeah so i
need to
get so and so to be working on this
thing or i need to finish
um or raise a point to so and so until
i've done that it'll be playing on my
mind so actually sometimes the way that
i can create that space in my day
is to to very quickly do it similar to
what elizabeth gilbert was saying to us
in last week's show mike which is just
get it done
complete something
um
get it done and then you you're able to
unlock that extra bandwidth in your
brain you're kind of purging
any of the used brain power because
you're it's focusing on something else
and whether it's scribbling it down in a
notepad
or on your phone
that's that way for me to create that
little bit of space around me in order
to actually think about the thing that i
really want to focus on
the real problem or opportunity that i
might have
yeah
it's it's i think the great battle that
we have to put this in context
creativity is fighting against busy
schedules lots of notifications
and um
you know this um
the division between
the office and home have have very much
blurred and i think the reason
that both you and i mark and all of our
listeners loved
when someone like john cleese kind of
breaks it down like this it gives you a
little
plan of attack to building creativity
into your day i'm absolutely sure all of
our listeners want to bring
more creativity into their day and this
is so important and you can't leave it
to chance can you matt you can't leave
it a chance so this next clip
is touching on an idea a frame a mindset
that our previous two clips have touched
upon mike and this is john cleese now
telling us how you and i and our
listeners can get ourselves into a state
of play
if you are going to be creative you have
to be in a state of play
you see what i mean if you're a child
it's easy to play because the parents
are minding the shop as you get older
you have more and more responsibilities
and more and more phone calls coming in
so the only way you can play is if you
can create a space for yourself where
you're free temporarily from
interruptions and responsibilities and
you can just sit there uninterruptedly
for about an hour and a quarter an hour
and a half
first of all you can only think of the
things you should be doing but that
settles after timeline meditation and
you just get a little quieter and you
just play with ideas in an enjoyable way
not cuddling your brain but just
and you play and you can't play if
you're being careful
yeah being careful you have to be kind
of free and liberated uh don't you
yeah you do i mean what he's really
calling out quite explicitly now
is to enter what john cleese calls play
and that's his his safe space you know
once you've got into your tortoise's
enclosure
try and
try and behave a little bit like like
like a child
you know he's he's really calling out
and i think this is true mike i remember
when i was a kid i might be running
around summer holidays always felt as
though they lasted forever
and i think one of the reason was
because i didn't have a lot of
responsibilities or concerns to really
worry about so there i therefore i was
more free
to kind of focus on the moment enjoy
myself and and think up new ways of
physically playing and i think where
john cleese is taking us
uh here as well as in his book
creativity or short and cheerful guide
is to free yourself from those
responsibilities in order to enable you
to
you know really focus on on that
particular problem so once you've made
that space that time got yourself into
what he calls this kind of child-like
play space you can then go out and
unlock that level of thinking and that
way of being more creative
it's fascinating that we're spending so
much time
looking at the work of john cleese to to
see how he
frames the need for setting up an
environment in order to be
creative
the conditions the environment the time
the space
how you want to kind of set your mind
how you want to free yourself of
burdens or other thoughts it's
fascinating isn't it it's almost
analogous to great sportsman that it's
all about training if you want to be
great on the field it's the prep before
the big moment right yeah and i think to
a
um
perhaps a slightly lesser extent but i
think elizabeth gilbert in in big magic
she kind of refers to
uh the act of creation
whether it's a successful book or or not
that experience of actually going
through the process is kind of like
training you're right kind of like a
sports person going out and practicing
the act of creating whether it's
successful straight away or not
you are training yourself your mindset
to
maybe get into a level of focus or flow
as me say a lot quicker or maybe it's a
little bit easier maybe it doesn't take
as long next time maybe it's a little
bit more achievable to be more creative
on the second time around
yeah and and
it's the the parallels that this has to
so much of the work of
uh the habit series and i keep going
back to james clear and atomic habits
like
we cannot in a battle for our attention
and our creativity we cannot leave a
creative moment to chance we have to be
so deliberate about finding creativity
in ourselves creating time and space for
that to happen but it is it's just like
what we've been learning in so many
other facets
that
we have to
work on the process
as well as being in the process
you have to be the player the coach and
the manager all at the same time i mean
it's
it's uh as i said i'm like wow that
sounds like a lot of work doesn't it it
sounds like a lot of work you're right
trying to cover all of those different
different bases and i think it really
does
um become that little bit easier if you
can
remove all of those other to continue
your metaphor mic if you've got to be
the player and the manager at least by
getting yourself into a tortoise
enclosure you're
not worrying about the press you're not
worrying about the fans
you can just do your particular job
which might be
football or creating whatever it is
and
that's where i where i quite like what
john cleese is is
developing for us here today with this
concept and this interpretation of
creativity and how to do it
by removing those distractions by as cal
newport would say enabling yourself to
do the deeper work to
uh minimize your digital aspects to time
block and begin
and finish at a certain period
i think is is a way to almost make it
more achievable i think similar to what
we were learning from mihai and
elizabeth creativity is quite
intimidating unless you can bring it
down into something more manageable i
think please is
very good at demonstrating throughout
his career a way of
um
creating those boundaries to make it
achievable to put an end date on it so
that you can go out and be that best
version of your creative self
let me tell you there are some other
people who've been making time for
creativity hasn't it there's been some
amazing
feedback and engagement with our
listeners it always blows me away
that we have listeners all around the
world now mark i mean you've got the
charts hit us with our portfolio of
exotic and amazing places
where we've had lots of new listeners
join us yeah i'm very excited to to uh
add to my bucket list mic the following
country so that you and i maybe we'll do
a moonshot tour
one day and go and see our fans in
anguilla uganda costa rica bulgaria
we're covering so many different
continents in this particular tour mic
and we're so pleased to welcome all
these listeners from literally every
corner of the globe every week we seem
to be
expanding the moonshot's message and
bringing in people from different parts
of the globe i'm just so excited to to
learn where all these countries are and
go and eventually maybe visit them one
day yeah yeah so anguilla is a british
overseas territory
um so it's a um an island in the
caribbean so i mean mark i think we
better put that one at the top of the
list i mean just type into google
anguilla and and look at the photos of
these
epic beaches and i i could see us doing
a live broadcast from that beach what do
you reckon i i can imagine you and i
we've got a yacht we've got the moon
shots yacht we're recording
relaxing on the beach in the afternoon
learning from our favorite innovators
and moonshot thinkers it's it's a dream
come true
wonderful stuff and mark listen if
our listeners are dead curious on to
find out more about
the podcast about the master series if
they want to get into our backlog
track down a transcription of any of our
shows where do they go
listeners you can pop along to
moonshots.io where you can find out
quite a lot of information on every
single show that we've done we have deep
links we have show outlines we have
clips where you can go and view some of
these individuals talking on youtube you
can check out our transcripts you can
check out our upcoming shows and mike
you and i we just seem to be adding more
and more
moonshotters and innovators to our long
list so listeners be warned there's a
lot of impressive individuals coming
down the pipeline and down your
headphones in the near future we have a
huge breadth of individuals that we'll
be covering
yes our work is never done and um a
great place for us to start the next
part of this show
is about
getting into these habits we've set the
time we've set the space for our
creativity ala john cleese and his
advice
but now
i think it could be time to actually
consummate the act of creativity so
let's have a listen now to mr john
cleese talking about the best way
to success with your creativity
i think if any young
writer someone who wants to become a
writer or a performer is listening then
what i would say is it is so difficult
at the beginning particularly as a
writer to do
good written comedy
that i suggest at the start that you
steal or borrow or as the artists would
say are influenced by
anything that you think that is really
good and really funny and which appeals
to you
and if you study that and try to
reproduce it in some way then it'll have
your own stamp on it
but you have a chance of getting off the
ground with something like that but if
you sit down one day never having
written before with a pencil or a
computer but i write with a pencil and
you say right i want to write something
completely new and original and very
funny you can't do it
it's like trying to fly a plane without
having any lessons you know you've got
to start somewhere and the best way to
start is by copying something
that is really good but people seem to
think i was advocating stealing in
general no no once you've got off the
ground you'll develop your own style you
don't need to steal better if you don't
but at the beginning as i say find
something a wonderful
lesson my friend william goldman
wonderful screenwriter
and i both teach the same thing we
discovered independently and that is we
say to someone
find an actor or a scene that you
absolutely love
and just watch that actor in a movie say
or watch that scene again and again and
again so that it no longer has a an
emotional impact on you you no longer
find it dramatic or funny you just watch
it and in a sense
emotionally speaking you're bored with
it
at that point when you're not affected
emotionally anymore you can begin to see
how it's done and how it's constructed
so that's the advice i would give at the
beginning
model yourself on someone you really
like
i i like this a lot mike because again
similar to what we were finding out um
with elizabeth and and what we were just
touching upon
at the end of the previous clip was the
approachability
and
the
the way in to creativity that we can all
do again i think it's very difficult for
somebody who's just starting out
uh john cleese is obviously referring to
writers but i think this would be true
for uh design for
business development and so on
to
find a way of breaking down that initial
door
to your own mindset and finding a way to
make it a little bit less intimidating
for yourself in his way maybe it's
emulating or copying
to
just build those foundations so you can
go out and become and make it your own
in the long run i think is a really
handy
recommendation isn't it for for us to at
least create that first step
in creating something brand new
yeah and look you think about it when
you're a kid playing sport on the street
you're emulating your favorite sports
players
when you're a musician as a young kid
learning music whose song do you want to
play your favorite bands i mean this is
the natural way of doing it isn't it
it's you're totally right that's a great
build you're beginning by breaking down
those barriers because you're emulating
somebody that you admire i mean
fundamentally mike i think a lot of the
tips and lessons that we're learning on
the moonshot show is because we are
respecting the individual and we want to
learn something from them this is us
trying to emulate to a certain degree
the way that they've had success the way
that they've gone up against resilience
and adversity and the way that they are
building
their way of of being more creative this
is our way of putting pen to paper or
pencil to paper and going out and
creating something that's brand new in
the long run
yeah and then once you master
the you know recreation of someone
else's work then i think it's very
natural that you want to put your own
unique point of view on it you will
remember that elizabeth gilbert said
like
everybody
has a unique point of view because it's
your point of view
so i find that really compelling path
right steal your way to success and then
you know make it truly
your own with your own thoughts ideas
your own take your own flavor
i think that's a really
a really practical
stepping stone from like you've made the
time and space
start with something that you love and
build from there but what's really crazy
is that john cleese mark he has another
idea which is again something that's
come up a lot on the show doesn't he
yeah this next clip is very consistent
with some of the other advice that we
learned from other moonshots but i'm not
gonna give it away listeners i'm gonna
let john cleese himself tell us and
recommending us to let our ideas bake
the next extraordinary experience i had
as i wrote a script and i liked this
script very very much and because i've
always been a bit disorganized i lost it
and i couldn't find it anywhere
and i was
pretty disappointed but
i sat down
and i forced myself
to rewrite it from memory
and it didn't take terribly long and
then
i found the original
unfortunately i was curious enough
to compare the two
and what i discovered was
the one that i had rewritten from memory
was noticeably better than the original
that i'd lost
and i realized that the explanation for
this was that after i'd finished writing
the original
my unconscious
part of my mind my unconscious
must have continued working on it
even though i was not aware that what
was happening
with the result that when i came to
write it out again it was better
because why else would it have been
better
particularly as i wrote it out the
second time much faster
so i began to see that there was
something going on but there was a part
of my mind that was helping me
be much more creative
you know
i relate to this so much mark i have
like a strong body of evidence
that if i work on something and let it
bake as john cleese would have us do it
does it's so true it gets better
and the amount of times where i've
rushed to work out and distributed
published it and then reflected on it
some time after and looked at it and
going oh i could have done that so much
better
so i've had painful experiences uh like
this how do you find this idea of
letting your ideas bake mark
it's very consistent with some of the
advice i got when i was a i think a
teenager
when faced with an exam paper not that
you and i mike we probably haven't taken
an exam for a few years so let me try
and paint a picture in our minds you're
sitting down at a desk you're surrounded
by
your friends and this big intimidating
piece of paper lands on your desk and
you've got a pen and you've got to
figure out what the hell this maths
problem means
the recommendation to me was before you
even pick up the pen read every single
question
because then your unconscious mind which
has spent the last year or so
developing
these synapses these memories of certain
mathematical problems or whatever it is
maybe it's an english exam and you've
read a book
it's going to start working in the
background and i think as i got older i
started to really fully appreciate that
that was in fact how my brain worked
because the longer i enabled myself to
think about a problem to think about
an opportunity perhaps the better the
ultimate result was going to be because
i'd had time to
percolate on it and maybe i'm not
sitting there actively working on the
problem all hours a day but similar to
what you and i have spoken about
writing
a first thought on a piece of paper
maybe you've
put it into a journal that's a way that
i
uh personally going back to an idea that
you were discussing earlier today uh
purging yourself before you're
relaxing you're getting all of those
different thoughts out of your brain
onto paper
if you then revisit
some of those
things that you've written down
new ideas come up or
the idea that you've written down
actually feels a lot more strong because
your brain has a time to uh i guess like
a good cheese
you know kind of mature if you know what
i mean yeah yeah because i think also
too
there's there's a there's the two stages
of creativity there's the initial step
of just getting the idea out
and then it's only when you see the idea
out that you're able to go
ah that's yeah or
that's what i meant or that's not quite
what i meant
or as you process through it you
actually have start to have new insights
on top of the original idea
and
if you take a strong kind of editor's
kind of stance in the second step
you can not only improve it but you can
actually make it more concise and
simpler which is actually the sign of
you really truly getting something when
we make them ideas too complex it's
often that we don't actually have the
idea we over explain it because we're
not really sure what we're doing
so i love this idea of giving things
time and and the great cheat here is
write your outline a week before
anything is due right yeah absolutely i
and you're totally right get the idea
out there then you've got an opportunity
to review and to i guess judge whatever
that product is
uh and also you can seek feedback can't
you you can get feedback from your
colleagues or even customers i suppose
and therefore make that idea that little
bit better just by committing it
into paper and getting it out of your
brain is a way of bringing it to life
interesting thing is that i have never
been in the position where i've rushed
something out and said that's perfect
and never have i got something out with
um with zero feedback from other people
and said
geez i i got it all done on myself and
what i mean by that
is sometimes people will comment on
something and you'll go oh geez that was
actually a good idea i should have i
should have had that
and and uh so my point here is every
time i share an idea every time i give
it time to bake
i see better results and and i so i
deeply relate to this and i encourage
every single one of our listeners the
simple practice of
write the outline a week before it's due
and share that thing like crazy create
some accountability to feedback and just
just be open to the feedback because
it's a shortcut right when i share
something with you mark and you're like
or maybe how about this
actually sometimes it doesn't even
matter
what the people are actually saying
it's forcing you to rethink it and
sometimes that will expose a weakness in
your work or an area to improve or maybe
you're like you know what that still
feels really good that bit i'm really
you know like that's the beauty of
taking time and collaboration into the
creative process isn't it something that
i've found i'll write out i'll write
down an idea or or a potential flow or a
narrative for something mike and in the
act of presenting it to somebody else
the act of maybe saying it out loud or
workshopping it
i'll almost think of an improvement on
the fly oh yeah you know you'll be
explaining it and then and then i'll
think oh actually hang on no that
doesn't make sense let me just change it
here live and the act of that live
collaboration
where my my mind's had that time to sort
of prepare it's now reviewing it again
with somebody else i think that's that
really helps me actually try and improve
some of my ideas yeah abso absolutely
the um
the deliberateness
of
improving your creative output like you
just talked about
reading it back out loud is a classic
editor's trick isn't it another one that
you taught me was read from the bottom
up
yeah i do really like doing that
actually because it then helps you
you know and here's my theory mike
your your brain will always skip a few
characters or a few words in advance in
an effort to perhaps cover more ground
more quickly
if you then are deliberate again i'm
going to use your word here if you're
deliberate and begin at the end and
almost work backwards you will
not allow your unconscious mind to try
and skip ahead right
so you're very deliberate and focused on
going back through those those elements
or that work and i think that that's
definitely helped me a lot and that's
probably again a tip that i
have started to appreciate as i get more
i guess experience
and have more opportunities to practice
that particular tool
over as i get older
well very much in a similar vein
john cleese has one last piece of
uh wisdom first doesn't he mind he does
closing out today's show
show 144 john cleese and his book on
creativity assured and cheerful guide is
all about delaying
decision making until the very last
minute
you talk in the book about waiting until
the last minute to make a decision that
sounds a little frustrating like you're
being indecisive but you say that helps
with creativity how
well i'll tell you exactly why because
when you have to make a decision is a
real world decision you might have to
make a decision by two o'clock this
afternoon you might have to make a
decision uh in october but the point is
why when you know when the decision has
to be made that's when you make the
decision why make it listed before
first of all because you might get new
information well everybody knows that
but more importantly you will have more
time to get better ideas so people who
act very very quickly and take decisions
before they need it's out of an
embarrassment that they might look
indecisive but it's a lot better to be
decisive at the right time with better
thoughts and better information than to
rush the decision before you really have
a chance to see if you can come up with
a better decision
delay delay it's like all these ideas
mark about creativity what's slightly
concerning to me is they seem so counter
the modern way of working
i think the modern way of working and
actually mike i'd build that and say it
almost feels counter to my assumption
about creativity itself
which feels very ad hoc
creativity from a comedy perspective at
least with john cleese i'd assume
everything is kind of off the cuff and a
little bit unpredictable
but it's very deliberate isn't it it's
actually very very deliberate and again
in that last clip um going back to the
point that you were just making
i think we are and i'm very guilty of
this
i
try to make a decision fairly quickly
so that i can go and get on with my day
so i can go and work on something else
so if i've got a long to-do list i've
got to land that jumbo jet or i've got
many files to put out i will try my best
to tick each one off the list
in a fair speed so i can get onto the
next but as john cleese is calling out
here
you're probably doing a disservice
to the problem at hand because you are
potentially
rushing your decision making yes yes
yes and it and it's it's um
it's so interesting that
creativity is not a talent
but it's like a sort of like a mental
model
it's achieved through deliberate
practice not sort of random ad hoc you
know struck by a wonder of creativity
and it's it's all about
slow
pause space
openness
it's not about 100 miles an hour it's
it's fascinating the
the insights that we've been able to to
draw from john cleese's work isn't it
yeah i i've again i fall into the trap
of thinking i'm productive
by being really busy but the truth is
that's that's not true is it you know i
think
you get almost addicted to doing lots
and lots of stuff
and in doing so you're limiting your
ability to think you're creating
much less space for you to go and and do
your best work and i think what john
cleese has really caught out to me today
is
make sure to give yourself enough space
enough
moments uh deliberate moments
to
have time to think properly
yeah rather than falling into the trap
of just saying oh i've only got 20
minutes i'll do it quickly now yeah
totally totally so mark i mean
what we do is we find ourselves being
quite challenged by john cleese i
thought this was just going to be
hilarity and you know faulty towers but
it turns out it's been quite challenging
to how we perceive creativity hasn't it
well he's very very deliberate and and
practical with his recommendations
actually you know when we review
the work that he and the tips that he's
really telling us to go and emulate
today
it begins with
the output so we know that he's a
fantastic comedy um writer and actor
but the truth is to get to that point we
can all
follow the same tips that he does yeah
that's true and this this idea mike for
me of
allowing myself the permission to get
into what john cleese calls the state of
play
and really enjoy that moment
and therefore
create something that is true to perhaps
the ambition that i originally had that
feels like a huge
new takeout for me what do you think
yeah i can i can totally
understand that that's
a takeout for me i think i'm most guilty
of not setting a deliberate time
for
for creativity like i feel like i'm
guilty of always being on a bit of a
pressure cooker
with my creativity like it's like do or
die there there's there's no space to
think different or to consider to let it
bake i'm just like on the mike parsons
freight train and i better i better ship
this by the end of the day you know yeah
yeah i can i can probably see why you
you might fall into that i mean it but
it's it's a real challenge for anybody
who is
um in such a position you've got so much
going on the natural
um
assumption would be right take it off
move on
but
john cleese is very
um specific to this
make yourself
have enough time
and carve out enough moments to to
really think about the opportunity or
the problem early and then maybe come
back to it i loved his story about
losing
the this the
scene rewriting it and realizing it was
better because he'd had the opportunity
to come back to it
yeah that was perfect wasn't it perfect
well mark it it sounds like um you are
hurtling towards a new chapter of
creativity
what's going to change for you the most
do you think as a result of this show i
i think it is
very
um
orientated i think where i'm gonna go
today
after we rap and i get into my my to-do
list i think it's really building on
that tortoise enclosure and thinking of
my unconscious
you know creative problem-solving mind
as a bit of a
shy creature and i need to give it
enough space to not be intimidated by
buzzing phones and emails hurdling in
yes
freedom to create freedom to create yeah
i'm much the same um i need to just uh
create a little bit more of that that
tortoise sell as well so
crazy that we've been so challenged by
john cleese
uh when we just expected frivolity and
craziness but it turned out to be that
and so much more so thank you to you
mark and thank you to you our listeners
it has been great to have you on our
journey into creativity with john cleese
and i really am so delighted to be
learning out loud with you our
moonshotters as we all go on that
journey to be the best version of
ourselves and today we learned
that
we can all be creative it's not a
god-given talent it's a way of operating
and john cleese in his book creativity a
short
and very very cheerful look at
creativity told us that we need to go
out and to build boundaries around not
only space but time as well we need to
go and take our minds and our full
presence into a state of play and as we
start that process it's okay still your
way to success mimic those that you love
and their work then make it your own
build your own point of view into the
work and don't rush it let your ideas
bake let them simmer away and ferment
and get all those creative juices flying
and wait
have the resistance to the urgency
around you and wait until the right
moment at the end to make your final
decision on your creative work do these
things as told by john cleese and you
will not only be creative you will be on
the fast track to realizing the very
very best of what you can be and that's
what we're all about here on the
moonshots podcast that's a wrap