Precursor to the creative muscle
April 21 is World Creativity and Innovation Day; as creativity drives us here at The Cocktail Balance, we’re sharing some of our musings on the topic from mindset to practice.
When we think of creativity, we often think of it in very narrow terms - ironically the opposite of creative. We think of processes involved in creating the arts, such as painting, sculpting, or fiction writing, or professions such as musicians or designers of some kind. While these certainly all involve creativity, it is by no means limited to these categories.
Bartenders and chefs also utilise creativity when coming up with new drinks, dishes, taste combinations, plating, and stories behind the edibles. Stan Harcinik writes in The Cocktail Balance book: “The process of creativity can easily be defined as the ability to combine previously acquired knowledge and skills into a novel idea which grows each time you solve a problem, each time you find a new approach, and each time you improve an existing solution.” All of us use creativity. In fact, “the United Nations designated 21 April as World Creativity and Innovation Day to raise the awareness of the role of creativity and innovation in all aspects of human development.”
In a creative slump
The creative muse, however, does not always flow easily. A cursor blinking without end on a blank screen; another cup of coffee; checking social media; another trip to the fridge. It’s not easy to call upon the creative muse when needed (like during working hours instead of the middle of the night).
There are indeed specific protocols, questions, and processes that can help channel creativity, many of them outlined in The Cocktail Balance’s chapter titles Creativity is a Muscle. But, as Stan points out, “if you do find yourself in a creative slump, your first order of business will be to relax, wind down and get a change of perspective.” Perspective - mindset - is where creativity begins.
The best mindset for creativity? One of awe and curiosity. And the best example of awe and curiosity? Young children.
The age of wonder
Have you ever played a game with a young child? Perhaps peek-a-boo, or throwing them up in the air. A young child is delighted every time you pop your face out from behind your hands. What a surprise! Again! Again! The child wants to do it again, until you are completely bored and your attention wanders. Or a slightly older child starts to ask questions about the world, and after answering the tenth “why?” in three minutes you may answer that that’s just the way things are. In the space of three minutes, in either case, the adult gets bored but the child maintains their sense of wonder.
A father related that he took his young daughter to a British zoo, full of tigers and meerkats. But, as they walked through the zoo, she dropped excitedly down to the ground and said, “Daddy, look! Ants!”
As a bartender, the way you look at the world around you influences your creativity behind the counter. The best bartenders? “None of those existing experts, or top players in the game you chose, seek inspiration within the environment of a bar,” writes Stan. We expect to find inspiration in novel experiences and new places, but what if we look at where we already are and what we already know with the eyes and mindset of awe and curiosity? We will realise that our bank of previously acquired knowledge and skills is much richer than we previously thought, and subsequently be able to pull from a larger base of “existing ideas and their subsequent reorganisation into new inventions.”
From pockets to the history of the world
One example of looking at the world we know with new eyes is G.K Chesterton. “Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pockets. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past,” he wrote. He did end up writing an essay about things in his pockets, turning them out as he looked for a railway ticket.
Chesterton pulled out a pocket-knife, made of “[m]etals, the mystery of the thing called iron and of the thing called steel, led me off half-dazed into a kind of dream. I saw into the intrails of dim, damp wood, where the first man among all the common stones found the strange stone. I saw a vague and violent battle, in which stone axes broke and stone knives were splintered against something shining and new in the hand of one desperate man. I heard all the hammers on all the anvils of the earth. I saw all the swords of Feudal and all the weals of Industrial war. For the knife is only a short sword; and the pocket-knife is a secret sword. I opened it and looked at that brilliant and terrible tongue which we call a blade; and I thought that perhaps it was the symbol of the oldest of the needs of man. The next moment I knew that I was wrong; for the thing that came next out of my pocket was a box of matches. Then I saw fire, which is stronger even than steel, the old, fierce female thing, the thing we all love, but dare not touch.” (What I Found in my Pockets from Tremendous Trifles by G.K Chesterton
Part of the Creativity as a Muscle masterclass
Practice needed
Even with a mindset of wonder, the actual process of creating something can still stall. Without a procedure to follow, you will still take random trips to the fridge or procrastinate on your phone. The chapter in The Cocktail Balance chapter on creativity is called Creativity is a Muscle because it is “one that will fade and wane without consistency and discipline. You need to build and strengthen it and repeat the process regularly.” Mindset is the foundation, but practice is needed to build anything upon that foundation.
In the book, available as a hard copy, ebook, or a package of both, you will find protocols that will help you develop your creative muscle, such as SCAMPER, brainstorming, checklists and mind maps, put in a context specific to bartending. As well, The Cocktail Balance offers a seminar of the same name, Creativity as a Muscle, which “is an extension of the chapter from the book and will extend the theory & focus on practical solutions to your creative process.”
