Lessons about creativity from Questlove’s new book

A man who admits he has far too many jobs (somewhere between 16 to 19 total), Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson is a drummer for the Grammy award-winning band The Roots. He’s also a DJ and the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon musical director, where The Roots are the official house band. He was one of the producers for the Broadway musical Hamilton. He’s the co-founder of websites Okayplayer and OkayAfrica. He’s also been an adjunct professor at some New York City colleges. His list of jobs and accomplishments goes on and on.

In one of his latest books (he now has a total of five) titled, “Creative Quest,” he shares inspirations, stories, and lessons on how to live your best creative life. Questlove is wary of the types of how-to books that try to give someone a step-by-step guide on being creative. So he tries not to make this book a manual, instead offering his personal experiences — and those of some of his famous friends — in order to help others.

Right from the start, Questlove admits he doesn’t even know if he’s all that creative.

"Decades into my career, with many albums and songs under my belt, I still don't know if I am truly creative," he writes. "I won't make grand claims. But I will make this one: if you use this book properly, you'll learn something, even if what you learn is that you already believed your own versions of many of these insights."

Putting Questlove’s harsh self-critique aside, here are some of the main takeaways from his book.

Embrace boredom and silence (and avoid your smartphone)

Questlove believes boredom and silence are key ingredients to being able to come up with fresh, creative ideas. In a world where we’re always plugged in, boredom and silence are getting harder and harder to come by.

“We’ve forgotten how to get bored, and boredom and creativity are sort of hand-in-hand,” Questlove said during a Google Talk about his book in spring 2018.

Oftentimes when we’re bored, we grab our phone to entertain ourselves. Or when we’re trying to get something done we open up articles and websites to try and distract ourselves. But the best ideas often come when we put ourselves in a serene, calm place. Questlove said he often has to shut off his electronics, close his eyes and enjoy being bored.

“When the distraction shifts into boredom, that’s the seed of something creative,” he writes. “On the face of it, it doesn’t make any sense. Boredom seems like the least creative feeling. But it’s actually a way of clearing space for a new idea to spring back up.”

Questlove is slightly concerned that we all don’t take more time to embrace boredom, saying creativity may be in jeopardy.

“I don’t think we do that in this day and age, and, as a result, I feel like a lot of the ideas that are out there in the world of entertainment are disposable,” he said at the Google Talk. 

Questlove gives the example of Prince as someone who was able to avoid distraction and embrace silence and boredom. The musician purposefully stayed in Minnesota to create his best work instead of being in L.A. or New York. Questlove said Prince’s time away on his own allowed him to spend more time creating.

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Don’t be afraid to fail

“No creative person expects to do only good work,” Questlove writes. “Not if they’re sane.” 

This is one of the main points Questlove hammers home in his book: Failure is part of the creative process. We have to have it in order to find success in our work.

“Any career, if it is to be a long career, includes a mix of successes and failures, and it should. That mix is oxygen-rich. It keeps you breathing,” he writes.

Questlove gives the example of how Pitchfork, a music magazine, and online publication, rated The Roots early albums poorly (or, at least by his perspective). This was a failure to Questlove. But as they kept putting out more music, the reviews got better.

“It’s not about whether or not [people] like your work so much as whether or not the way they feel about it motivates you to make more work,” he writes. “Creativity only fails when it stops.”

Consume creativity, don’t just make it

Questlove urges his readers to be avid viewers, watchers, and listeners. As creatives, we can’t just operate in a silo. The more we open up to a range of possible influences, the more likely we are to come up with creative ideas.

“You can always come back to your own convictions if they’re real. But be a tourist in other perspectives,” he writes.

There is a fine line between consuming creativity and getting so hooked on something that your own work doesn’t get done. But Questlove says it’s important to curate pieces of work from other artists you admire.

“It’s easier than ever to build your identity from pieces of other works. People are, more than ever, collages or mosaics. But that means that they’re getting flooded with stimuli all the time to the point of numbness, which means that the role of the formal curator or critic has changed. It’s more common that when something new appears, or something old resurfaces, you hear a number of opinions about its placement, its importance, and its context from all angles, and from all kinds of people. So you’re not only curating other artworks all the time but curating opinions about those artworks,” he said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.

Be aware of what your project is … and what it isn’t 

When you’re starting a new creative project, it’s important to figure out what you don’t want it to be, according to Questlove.

“If you know you are about to paint a portrait, make a list of all the things you don’t want it to be: overly realistic, say, or brightly colored. It’s sometimes hard to see the heart of an idea, so chip away at all the things that aren’t the heart,” he writes.

It’s not only about figuring out what you don’t want it to be but also trying to imagine your creation in its finished state. 

“Being creative is a mix of un-focusing your eyes in the right way, while still remaining focused on the picture,” Questlove writes

By staying focused on the whole picture, we can ensure that the creative process stays on track. Questlove says it’s “a way of journeying to the center of what the idea will become.”

Think outside the box

“If we’re always discarding our thoughts to fit in with what’s acceptable or correct or accurate, we’re not going to have ideas that leap away from the ideas that are already out there,” Questlove writes.

What Questlove is essentially saying is: Have some strange thoughts. Allow yourself to think outside of the box, away from the ordinary. Some of the most innovative ideas to ever turn into something probably sounded strange at first.

Questlove backs up this piece of advice in his book with a couple of studies. He looks at the 2003 study by Harvard psychologist Shelley Carson that suggests lower cognitive inhibitions allows more information to enter your conscious mind, “which you can then tinker with and recombine. The result: creative ideas.”

Questlove also looked at a study where college students performed better at puzzles and creative problem solving when they were tired and less able to apply logical thinking.

“To truly get in touch with your creative side and the ideas it generates, you have to look through the organized and focused thoughts and find out what’s behind them. There might be nothing back there, or there might be something brilliant,” Questlove writes.

Questlove doesn’t admit to having all of the answers in “Creative Quest,” but he decided to write this book about his own experiences because he thinks creative work is extremely important.

“More creative work,” he writes, “is one way to save the world.”

To learn more about Questlove and his breadth of creative work, visit his website.