The Groove Issue 107 - Use Spirituality to Get Your Ideas to the Next Level
USE SPIRITUALITY TO GET YOUR IDEAS TO THE NEXT LEVEL
Many of you would agree that creativity and spirituality are deeply interconnected. However, the paradox about the concept of spirituality is that it can be a loaded word, even if its meaning is anything but.
Perhaps its entanglements with religion have caused people to taint its significance. Or maybe it is the New Age era, which has permeated our culture since the 1970s, that has cheapened the term. As an act of rebellion or out of disappointment with life, many have decided that there’s no need to develop any spiritual practice, because the “seen” is all there is.
But the word “spirit” comes from the Latin spiritus, which means both “soul” and “vigor”. As we go back to its origins, we can adapt this word to us and to our times. And while there’s no algorithm or data-mining system that can measure the effects spirituality can bring to our work, it is nevertheless what moves us from within to find purpose and meaning, and to live and imprint those values in all we do.
The Ability to Discover the Inner Life of Everything
Hans Hofmann in his studio in Provincetown in 1956 photographed by Arnold Newman.
Many critics and artists agree that Hans Hofmann’s work predated and profoundly influenced the development of Abstract Expressionism, starting in the 1940s in the United States. A German immigrant, one of Hofmann’s greatest legacies was the teachings he shared with the artists who enrolled in his classes, which he ran through his own schools in New York City and in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, Ray Eames, Larry Rivers, Allan Kaprow, Red Grooms, Jane Freilicher and Marisol Escobar were among his students who all reported at one time or another how important he had been for their careers.
Hans Hoffman’s painting at the Bruce Museum of Arts and Science in Connecticut in 2015.
While Hofmann taught formal aspects around painting and theories about light, colors, and compositions, it was his insistence on highlighting spirituality in the work of an artist that hit differently.
According to Hofmann, spirituality “...is the result of a sixth sense, the sense of sensibility, the ability to see or look into things in depth, to discover the inner life, we see only the surface of things, but our sensibility explores the inner life of everything and has the capacity to feel every relationship within this inner life.”
A detail from “Studio in Blue, No. II.”, 1954.
Many artists spend a lifetime obsessing over one visual idea. But Hofmann was never stuck, as he had developed the spiritual fortitude to go everywhere he wanted with his work. He made it a part of his practice and never feared expressing it: “We have not only five senses. And this sixth sense is sensibility, sensing and feeling.”
People, Planet, Profit
Business and great ideas spanning out of spirituality may sound and seem weird. Ray Dalio, one of the most influential figures in the world of finance, thinks otherwise.
In 1982, after a series of bad investment decisions, Dalio went broke. Like really broke. He had to let go of every employee at his firm, Bridgewater, and had to ask his dad for a loan to pay for his personal expenses. But as we know, that wasn’t the end of the story, as he resurrected one of the most successful and profitable hedge funds in history. Dalio credits his comeback to all the ideas and clarity that he got through his daily practice of Transcendental Meditation.
Way before sustainability was cool and became the banner of hundreds of thousands of brands and businesses, Triodos Bank was founded in 1980 in the Netherlands. The brainchild of an economist, a tax law professor, a management consultant, and an investment banker who wanted to create a different model around money and banking, the founders had relied on their own spirituality to come up with the mission statement and the bank’s name. Triodos, derived from the Greek “τρὶ ὁδος - tri hodos” means “three roads”: people, planet, profit.
Besides the Netherlands, Triodos has grown to have offices in Belgium, Spain and the UK and continues to operate on the principle to make money work for positive change in the areas of ecology, social responsibility, and culture. They employ almost 2,000 people, have more than 24 billion euros under management and only lend money to entrepreneurs who want to change the world for the better.
Spirituality, creativity, and leadership - regardless of what you do - stems from that sense of connectedness to one another but also to something greater than us. Overcoming just logic, the way Dalio did, or following a purpose that both does good and generates profits shouldn’t be an “either/or” proposition.
Amazing ideas, whether in art or in business, should come from deep within. I’d venture to say these are the ones that will withstand the passage of time, despite the storms that come. There are certain things that we can’t control. Let spirituality - whatever that word means to you - fill that gap of uncertainty and use that guidance to take your ideas to the next level.
UNLEASH YOUR CREATIVE GENIUS
I’ve put together a free webinar for those of you who are not members of my online course, Jumpstart.
If you’d like to watch it, please register here (it’s on auto-repeat every 15 minutes once you have registered).
HOW CREATIVITY RULES THE WORLD
I am super thrilled that my book won the International Book Award in the Business/Entrepreneurship category!
Have you already gotten your copy?
It’s in three formats: hardcover, eBook and audiobook.
TEDX TALK
Have you already watched my TEDx Talk: “NFTs, Graffiti and Sedition: How Artists Invent The Future”?
I share three lessons I have learned from artists that always work for anyone in their careers. Watch it here.