When I started this interview series earlier this year, I envisioned getting a peek into the lives of some of the creative women I am surrounded by virtually.

And while I did this and shared them with you, I always thought about what my own answers would be. So here they are:

1. What does creativity mean to you?
What creativity means has changed and evolved for me over the years. When I first started thinking about creativity in high school and college, I assumed it was something I didn’t have. So I spent my time admiring it in others, also known as studying art history! It wasn’t until later, while working as an educator at a museum when my boss told me, “to just be creative,” on a project that it hit me. That statement stunted me, because I did not know what that was. After that, I began to really study creativity (mine and others).

So today, creativity means to me a connection of new ideas to make something that moves us forward somehow, whether it is spiritually, personally or professionally.

2. What is your creative process and what tools do you use to stimulate it?
Since I am an introvert, my creative process involves A LOT of internal musings. It usually starts with me being in a quiet place, which could be in nature, bed or even the shower. These are places where I do my best thinking. Once I get the initial idea to create, I usually run with it from there.

For instance, if I am designing something, it usually starts with an idea. Then I try to tie a theme or process to it. I am very big on connections and am always thinking about how things relate to one another.

3. What is your most creative time of day?
First of all, let me say that I put this question in because of a blog post I wrote about this a couple of years ago. I was curious to see if there was any connection between the time of day and when people were most creative. There turned out to be none.

4. How do you infuse creativity into your daily life and tasks?
After completing Eric Maisel’s The Creativity Book, I’ve become more attuned to being everyday creative. For me that doesn’t mean simply doing something artistic but living my life creatively. This might mean taking a new route to work, eating a new food or even getting up on the opposite side of the bed. Anything that I can do to create synergy, I try. I also do simple things like improvise a new recipe, mix up my wardrobe with different colors and patterns, and decorate my planner with images.

5. What creative tip or resource would you like to share with our readers?
Over the years, I’ve definitely shared with you a lot of my personal tips. That’s why my best resource is also the one I subscribe to the most and those are my Top Ten Creative Cures. There’s bound to be a tip in there that will ignite some sort of creative spark within you.

• Happy Creating!

I have long been a fan of Linda Naiman’s work. So much so that I asked a mutual contact to introduce us last year. Linda and I have stayed in contact since then, and I am delighted  that she agreed to answer my questions on creativity this month.

Linda Naiman is a creativity and innovation consultant, coach, and speaker. She is founder of CreativityatWork.com and co-author of Orchestrating Collaboration at Work. She has been featured in the Globe and Mail, Vancouver Sun, and Canadian Business Magazine.

Linda has spoken about art, design and transformational leadership at US Navy Leadership Symposiums, The MIT Club Singapore, The Banff Centre, and at international business conferences. Organizations who have sought out Linda for her expertise include American Express, AstraZeneca, and Intel.

To find out more about coaching for creativity and innovation: visit Creativity at Work, follow Linda on Twitter @lindanaiman and @alchemize, and join the CreativityatWork fan page on Facebook.

1. What does creativity mean to you?
I define creativity as the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing. If you have ideas, but don’t act on them, you are imaginative but not creative.

2. What is your creative process and what tools do you use to stimulate it?
Creativity is both a process and a lifestyle. Turning ideas into reality requires whole-brain thinking. I use L-mode (left-brain) logic, and planning, as well as R-mode (right-brain) imagination and kinaesthetic intelligence, depending on what phase of the creative process I am in.

I apply metadisciplinary thinking in my work. For example, my interest in art and leadership led to exploring how we can apply arts-based principles and practices to leadership and management innovation in business.

I feed my brain with diverse stimuli by taking an interest in arts, science, popular culture, conferences, and by conversing with people who come from different backgrounds, disciplines and cultures.

I take notes, keep journals and collect links/docs for future reference. I tend to download thoughts or images on paper, or on digital media, then edit. I also take time out to meditate, dream, reflect, and walk in nature, allowing ideas to incubate. When inspiration strikes and ideas coalesce, I seize the moment and take action.

All of this prepares the ground for creativity. Sooner or later my interests give me new ideas and insights, which inform my creativity/innovation consulting and coaching practice.

My explorations in bridging art, creativity and leadership, led to developing arts-based learning in organizations, and to the publication of Orchestrating Collaboration at Work, the training book I co-authored with Arthur VanGundy.

3. What is your most creative time of day?
Mornings mostly –but creativity can be triggered at any time. I think the question to ask here, is what situations spark creativity? The key for me is to refresh my brain chemistry by eating well, getting enough sleep, and switching gears when fatigued. When my brain is fatigued by L-mode activities, I switch to R-mode.

4. How do you infuse creativity into your daily life and tasks?
See Question #2

5. What creative tip or resource would you like to share with our readers?
Expand your radar, and be on the lookout for clues from the world around you. Juxtapose ideas or practices from one discipline with those of another. Be curious, ask questions such as: what can I learn from X that I can apply to Y? eg art and science, art and business, or business and science. Creativity happens at intersections, at edges, when you experience a change in consciousness and an interruption in your patterns of thought.

Try something new, take a risk, and above all act! Learning and creativity go hand in hand. Don’t worry about perfection right away. Experiment first, develop your craft and iterate.

• THANKS Linda!

I am currently reading Dr. Kathy Jordan’s latest book, Becoming a Life Change Artist: 7 Creative Skills to Reinvent Yourself at Any Stage of Life, and I am loving it. That’s why I am thrilled to introduce Kathy to my readers.

Dr. Kathy Jordan is an innovative coach and Reiki energy healing teacher who integrates her expertise in creative skill-building and mind/body practices to help people create more meaningful and joyful lives.

She is also a corporate consultant highly regarded for her inventive and practical approaches to managing strategic change and enhancing bottom-line performance. And she provides writing and editorial guidance to help individuals and businesses craft compelling messages true to their voice and vision.

1. What does creativity mean to you?
My vision of creativity is that it is the energy of all things. It is the force which animates us. We’re all born with creative potential, and we all have the ability to develop our creative skills throughout our lifetime. For me, creativity and spirituality are intertwined. I think of creative energy and spiritual energy as the same. As much as possible I try to infuse my daily life with creativity. In my professional work as a writer and editor I am as selective as possible about which projects I take on, choosing work that allows me to “play”, to take ideas and shape them in ways that engage and inspire readers. I’ve learned the hard way that if I take on projects only for financial reasons, I may end up trapped in work that doesn’t allow me to express myself creatively.

It’s also important to me to express myself creatively through art. I do mixed media paintings, and in the last year started art journaling.

2. What is your creative process and what tools do you use to stimulate it?
Hmm. My creative process is a bit mysterious to me. But it always begins with a meditation drawn from the system of Reiki, a Japanese energy healing system. During the meditation I imagine creative energy moving inside me with each inward breath, and that same energy filling the world around me when I exhale. Sometimes I also chant, another way of connecting with the creative energy that I believe is the essence of who I am.

3. What is your most creative time of day?
Morning. Also afternoon. And did I mention evening? Seriously, I do different kinds of creative work at different times of day. Morning is prime time for original writing or workshop design. Afternoon for editorial work. I love doing art work in the evening. Sometimes feeling a little physically tired at night can keep me from overthinking what I’m trying to create.

4. How do you infuse creativity into your daily life and tasks?
Since creativity is about bringing into being what wasn’t there before, I try to tackle routine tasks in fresh ways. For instance, when I’m out running errands, I’ll sometimes deliberately take a different route. I’m also infamous in my family for frequently rearranging furniture, and moving paintings around from one room to another. Perhaps more importantly, I try to make time for my art every day. If I skip a day, before I know it, a month has gone by without doing any art, and I feel disappointed in myself. Which brings me to…

5. What creative tip or resource would you like to share with our readers? …my best creative tip: Do something creative every day. My Reiki teacher, speaking about spiritual practice, says it’s better to meditate 5 minutes a day than 30 minutes once a week. I think the same is true of art or any creative practice. Whether it’s singing, playing an instrument, dancing, scrapbooking– whatever gets your creative juices going–make time for it every day, even if it’s just for a few minutes. If you end up spending more time than you planned, so much the better.

• THANKS Kathy!

Dawn Devries Sokol is one creative (and busy) woman, so I am happy she took some time and answered my questions this month.

Dawn DeVries Sokol is the author of Doodle Diary: Art Journaling for Girls (Gibbs Smith, 2010) and 1000 Artist Journal Pages (Quarry, 2008), a book designer, and an avid art journaler and doodler. She lives in Tempe, Arizona, with her husband T.J., and dog Lucy.

Her next book will be published by Gibbs Smith in 2011 and Interweave Press just released her workshop DVD titled “Art Journaling: Pages in Stages“. She discusses art journaling and doodling on her blog. She also can be found on Twitter and Facebook.

1. What does creativity mean to you?
Creativity is constructing or inventing something and anyone can do it. We are all creative. We all have imagination. It’s just how we access the imagination and what we make of it. Whether we paint, draw, make music, sing, dance, perform, craft, crochet, sew, doodle, or whatever…It’s all creativity!

2. What is your creative process and what tools do you use to stimulate it?
I’m not really sure if I have a set process. If I feel inspired, I create. As a book designer, it can be difficult to feel inspired on a deadline, but I graduated with a degree in journalism, so deadlines tend to motivate me more than not. I sometimes go days without creating if I’ve been on a huge deadline or just completed a big creative project. You have to take a break.

3. What is your most creative time of day?
It’s definitely not the morning. It’s always later in the day. I used to be a night owl, and I think that’s stayed with me…sometimes I can feel incredibly inspired late at night. If it’s a rainy day, THAT inspires me.

4. How do you infuse creativity into your daily life and tasks?
Since my job is a creative one and I’m self-employed, I guess I eat and breathe it. Art journaling has become a part of my professional life, and it’s still a part of my personal life.

5. What creative tip or resource would you like to share with our readers?
If you want to introduce creativity into your life but are not sure how, take workshops or an art class. Maybe you’re drawn to music or the theater. Find ways to get involved in these activities!

• THANKS Dawn!

I am so honored to introduce Michelle James. I met Michelle over 5 years ago, shortly after I started exploring my own creativity while living in DC. Meeting her was a transformational experience for me in many ways, and I am grateful that we have stayed in contact since then.

Michelle James has been pioneering Applied Creativity and Applied Improvisation in business in the Washington, DC area since 1994. She is CEO of The Center for Creative Emergence and founder of the Capitol Creativity Network. Recently she was recognized for Visionary Leadership in Fast Company’s blog, Leading Change, for “her commitment to bring creative expression into the work environment in a very deep and meaningful way.” Michelle is a business creativity consultant, facilitator and coach who has designed and delivered hundreds of programs for entrepreneurs, leaders, and organizations. Her original programs have been featured on TV, the radio and in print. Michelle performs full-length improvised plays with Precipice Improv, is an abstract painting artist, and is a CoreSomatics Master Practitioner. In 2009, she put on DC’s first Creativity in Business Conference.

1. What does creativity mean to you?
Life, aliveness, life energy, life trajectory, the core, the source, the natural way of being, the driving force, the unique self, the essence of all living being and systems. It is that energy within all of us and all living things which animates, liberates, and generates. It is the same force that paradoxically expresses our absolute individual uniqueness and connects us in community. It unites things, people, ideas, frameworks, concepts that were previously divided. It is there, ever-flowing, for us all to engage it, shape it, form it, express it and apply it to anything – from expression to solution finding to new structure creating. For me, it is like asking someone to define the essence of life – there are as many different ways to define it as there are people. That is uncomfortable for people who like to think there is one right way. Creativity is not about the one right way.

In my work, I find that I use the definition that resonates most with a particular client or organization to meet them where they are. Once they experience the power of re-igniting their own creative wellspring, they will always be able to come up with their own definitions that are more relevant for them than anything I could come up with – because while creativity is ubiquitous and universal, is is also uniquely personal.

Creativity is living paradox. It contains a balance of left and right brain, cultivating and emergence, thinking and being, reflection and action, receptivity and generativity, improvisation and planning, heart and head, analysis and intuition, and structure and flow.

2. What is your creative process and what tools do you use to stimulate it?
I call my meta-process the Creative Emergence Process (named my business after it), and within that, there are many types of creative processes I use, and that list is always expanding. The creative Emergence Process unfolded in my consciousness over a period of several years, more as a life calling than a creative outlet , and led me to create a whole business around it. It is a whole-brain, whole-person, whole-systems approach to merging creativity, purpose, business and serving the larger good. It is based on the Emergence Principles – natural principles that create conditions for creativity to emerge – and Practices that cultivate and focus creativity. My focus is in the work especially.

I use both left and right brain approaches to engage creativity for myself and with my clients. Some tools I use to engage it are storytelling, improv theater, movement, visual arts, imagery, design thinking, movement, intuition-based techniques, reflection tools, journaling, accelerated learning methods, ritual, insights from psychology/archetypes/mythology and process work, systems thinking, analytical processes and structured creative solution finding approaches, outdoor adventures. I also focus on conversations with people who think differently than me, pattern breaking, trying new things, “yes-anding” both myself and others…and doing things that are fun!

3. What is your most creative time of day?
I do not have a more creative time of day but I do have cycles when I feel more creative, and when possible, I try to follow those, and do the busy work in less inspired moments. It’s connected more to what I am creating than a time of day. When I have a project (work-related, artistic, new structure, etc) that I am excited about, I can create all day and night without getting tired. Time has en entirely different meaning. My energy feels endless. When I am in routine busy work, or work that is predictable, I can lose my creative “mojo” very quickly. I then have to consciously focus on breaking patterns and commitment to get it done. I come alive with newness, so I do what I can to keep creating. But in times where I know everything that needs to be done and still have to do it, I either (1) switch from enthusiasm to discipline mode to keep me going or (2) do something to break my habitual patterns. That usually helps me get the creative juices flowing again. Commitment and pattern breaking help keep me going when I’m not feeling the “flow” as easily.

4. How do you infuse creativity into your daily life and tasks?
It is so integrated into my every day way of thinking and being that is is hard to me to separate it out. My life’s work and business is based on it. Whenever I feel the call for something new to emerge, I seek to find a way to create it.

Because of my belief about the essentialness of making it an explicit part of every day work and life, I started a company called The Center for Creative Emergence, dedicated to integrating creativity, meaning, organizational culture and business for a happier and more productive work life and a richer bottom line. Included in CCE is Quantum Leap Business Improv. I founded and run the Capitol Creativity Network in DC for those interested in creativity for personal and professional development; and I put on DC’s first Creativity in Business Conference last year. My mission is to help “mainstream” creativity and engage people into their full humanness for innovative work, positive social change, and consciously creating a life-giving future. That is always at the core of all the choices I make.

Having a purpose and mission larger than yourself, and larger than expression (but including it), is one way to keep creativity infused in your daily life. Another is to make it a priority, and set aside time for your Creative Self – making it your most important appointment of the day. Your Creative Self need space, time and attention, like all living things, to flourish.

5. What creative tip or resource would you like to share with our readers?
Above all else, let go of any voice in you that says you are not creative. That is based on an outdated – and just plain false – definition of what creativity is. Creativity is not reserved for those in the arts. It is in every person and every field and discipline. By expanding your definition or what it mean to be creative, you can become more comfortable with knowing your self as a creator.

One thing I recommend for everyone – and think should be required in all schools, universities, and business training – is taking improvisational theater classes. The transformational power of improv, in my mind, in unparalleled because you learn how to become fully and completely present. You have to leave planning, agendas, judgement, and just be there, in the moment, without any safety net except for the naturally self-organizing creativity that can’t do anything but emerge. It takes you into the present moment – the place where we can really see and feel and get out unlimited creativity. We have just been socialized, educated, and traumatized out of our natural creative selves, and improv is one of the many ways to help us reconnect. It provides you with a set of principles that, when practiced over time, will free you up to be more adaptive, responsive, generative and creative in your life and work. The tip: find an improv class in your area and take it!

• THANKS Michelle!