These ten books have immensely helped me develop my own creativity & effectiveness.
And they have also significantly informed the frameworks & advice that I use when helping my clients build better mindsets, habits, and systems to elevate their own creativity & productivity.
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My mentor, Dr. Csikszentmihalyi, interviewed 90 of the world's most eminent creators from business, music, art, the sciences, and literature - and this book describes the rich findings from this ambitious study of "Big-C," domain-changing creativity.
My favorite chapter on the Creative Personality lays out in detail ten paradoxical attributes that all of these creative geniuses shared in common. According to Mike C, a creative personality is a "complex" personality, and this chapter alone is worth getting the book for. It shatters the notion of a stable, fixed personality in creatives and instead paints a more accurate picture of how creative badasses really act and think - and how we can all incorporate "complexity" into our lives to become more creative.
This book single-handedly sparked my creative journey into graduate school at Claremont Graduate University. I remember sitting in a coffee shop in Dallas over a decade ago, depressed and frustrated about a shitty job I was in, and wondering, "What the hell am I supposed to do next?"
Luckily, I had this book with me, turned to the back cover page, and saw that Mike was a professor at Claremont Graduate University, where he started the world's first positive psychology PhD program. Right then and there I knew I had to get out to California and learn from this wise master and use this knowledge and wisdom to help others.
Bringing more Flow into your life and work is THE key to maximizing your creative output and impact. One hour in Flow is worth many hours not in Flow.
This book provides relevant perspectives on dealing with, accepting, and triumphing over all of the difficulties and uncertainties involved with pursuing creative work.
Get it now. Thank me later.
Peter Drucker knew what he was doing. If you want to become a Creative Badass, you need to understand the 5 practices of effectiveness outlined by Drucker in this book.
The book is targeted at "executives", but any creative should take heed as well.
In order to accomplish great things and bring forth innovation to the world, one needs to learn and implement these five practices of effectiveness. Doing so will skyrocket your creative productivity and ultimately your creative impact that you bring to the world.
If you are a creativity nerd and also are into reading more scientific and academic work (i.e. NOT your average cookie-cutter New York Times Best Seller), this is the book for you.
Dr. Sawyer lays out just about everything you could ever hope to learn about creativity - from group creativity, to the creative process, to the creative person, to how to assess creativity, to how to develop it - all supported by comprehensive empirical research.
Keith Sawyer is one of the baddest, most legitimate creativity researchers around these days - so it shouldn't surprise you that he was once one of Mihaly's top graduate students. This book does one of the best and most comprehensive jobs of explaining just what the heck "creativity" is and what we know about it based on decades of academic research.
This book is concise and helpful for creative entrepreneurs looking to sharpen their critical thinking and decision-making skills - and thus experience better results in their life and work.
Jessica nails it with this book. I finally discovered this book in 2019, but wish I had much earlier in my life.
If you feel like you are floundering in the deep end of your creative work and experiencing overwhelm & anxiety, this book presents a nice framework for regaining your focus and momentum.
Do you know what your top 5 strengths are?
If not, then getting this book and taking the accompanying online strengths assessment is a good first step towards unleashing your Creative Badassness.
The basic assumption of the book is this: each and every one of us has our own unique set of talents.
These talents, when identified, can further be cultivated into "strengths" that we ideally would leverage in order to maximize our creative contribution to the world - and to live more engaging, fulfilling lives.
This book is just a lot of fun.
The Root-Bernstein's share with us the creative tool-kit that geniuses like Albert Einstein, Mozart, and Virginia Woolf used to generate and develop their great works.
These creative-thinking tools can easily be implemented in your own life to experience higher levels of creativity & problem-solving.
I use many of the methods outlined in this book to help my clients build better systems and habits for making continuous progress on their most meaningful goals.
James' methods work.
If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you.
The problem is your system.
James is an excellent writer who provides a clear framework for how to build effective habits (and get rid of ineffective ones that may be holding you back from your creative potential).
Adam Grant is like the Lebron James of the organizational psychology world.
When Adam publishes something, you know it is credible and heavily backed by scientific research.
This is a must-read if you are looking to increase your creative performance in the workplace, or the creative performance of those you lead.
Is your mind out of control?
Are you able to effectively concentrate and control your attention in ways that foster the different dimensions of the creative process? Or are you at the mercy of unwanted thoughts, mental distractions, and anxiety?
This book provides a powerful framework for cultivating attentional & emotional skills through a few different styles of meditation.
Alan Wallace is one of the best meditation teachers alive, and this book distills his wisdom into practical techniques for gaining control over your attention.
If you have dreams of running a startup, or any interest in organizational development for companies in fast-paced, dynamic, and creative industries, this book is a must-read.
Ben Horowitz, a (now) wildly successful venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur, shares some of the toughest challenges he faced when starting and running various businesses.
This book really hits hard on the message that doing big, creative things is always an insane and unpredictable process that often brings with it both unfathomable lows and occasionally, incredible highs.
It's time to move your ideas from concept to completion.
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