Thinking About Creativity:
The Greatest Song: Spark Creativity, Ignite Your Career, and Transform Your Life
By Kevin Griffin
This summer I decided to learn more about a few topics, with creativity being a primary one. My work using Adobe Express (#AdobeEDUCreative) over the past year has inspired me to investigate the topic and learn how I might be more creative--and how I can support "Creative Confidence" with my student and colleagues.
I learned about the book, The Greatest Song, by Kevin Griffin while listening to The Highway on SeriusXM's Country Music channel and heard an interview with Kevin Griffin a successful country music songwriter who lives in Franklin, TN near Nashville. He also wrote this book which addresses the question of how to increase creativity personally, as well as in your career and life. The book is written in a narrative style, following the life of protagonis, Jake Stark, a fictional Nashville-based, Country music. The book is a quick and fun read, but has some juicy steps on how to be more creative. The following video provides a glimpse, but if you are interested I recommend getting your own copy of Griffin's book!
Here are his basic steps of "The Method" which are addressed in the book as well as video above:
1. Practice One: Creative Collaboration: The key with this step is listening more than talking and not rushing to make your point, but being open to others creative ideas and input. In his rules for creative collaboration, the fourth one is: "Check your ego at the door. Remember in a collaboration, 'My ego is not my amigo'" (Griffin 61).
2. Practice Two: Filling the Well: This practice calls for doing things that refill rather than deplete you so that when creative expression is needed, you have something to offer. In the rules for filling the well, the fifth one states: " The more you learn, the bigger the return" (Griffin 77).
2. Practice Two: Filling the Well: This practice calls for doing things that refill rather than deplete you so that when creative expression is needed, you have something to offer. In the rules for filling the well, the fifth one states: " The more you learn, the bigger the return" (Griffin 77).
3. Practice Three: Leaving Your Comfort Zone: Griffin's first rule for leaving your comfort zone is, "When life is in flux, when we are off balance, that;s often when we are the most creative. In fact, we flourish when exposed to randomness, disorder, and stressons: (99).
4. Practice Four: Change your Attitude: Griffin's fourth rule for changing your attitude recommends, "Reverse engineering is a great creative tool to see how a son, an idea or a successsful bubsiness started originally. Break it down to its essential elements, and it will often kicktart a new idea" (117).
5. Practice Five: Dare to Be Stupid: Griffin encourages risk-taking to develop new ideas in his Rules for Daring to Be Stupide: "Create an environment where big, out-of-the-box thinking is encouraged, and failure is not stigmatized" (149).
These practices, steps in "The Method" provide an process for building creativity. Further, I really like the following Venn Diagram, which shows Creativity at the center of the four C's, where Critical Thinking, Collaboration, and Collaboration converge.
Overlapping the Venn Diagram with the five elements of Griffin's "The Method" inspires me to make Creativity a central focus and avail students to the process of Griffin's Method. This will be a very exciting school year!
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