Believe it or not, Elizabeth Gilbert was a name surprisingly unfamiliar to me. Prior to having seen her inspiring video on creative genius last year, I had only ever heard about this author’s “freakishly” successful non-fiction book Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia.
The book was a prominent feature on many friends’ coffee tables and came highly recommended. Everyone was talking about it.
Eat, Pray, Love had been on my list of books to read for some time but once the buzz had waned, so did my memory of wanting to read it. Then one day a wonderfully creative young friend of mine came for a visit and asked me if I had ever heard of an awesome website called TED.com. That was where I discovered the video of Gilbert’s talk “On Nurturing Creativity”.
I spent the following 20 minutes in awe. Elizabeth Gilbert was delightful and sincere. Her brilliant presentation about the creative process was both warm and humorous, and spoke volumes to my own creative spirit. She simply offered the idea that by shifting our perception of how we look at our creativity, or lack there of, we can potentially prevent ourselves from spiraling downward into an abyss of creative despair.
She also shared the most useful tool you can have at your disposal in the event of a creative melt down — it’s a tool I call upon myself every now and again when my own creativity isn’t quite flowing as well as I would like.
I think this video ties in wonderfully with my Life As A Human article called “Limiting Beliefs: A Tale of Mistaken Identity“. I sincerely hope this video will inspire you as much as it inspired me. As Elizabeth says, “Ole!”
Elizabeth Gilbert’s books include Eat, Pray, Love and the follow-up, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage.
Recent Kylen O. Lefave Articles:
- Forgiveness: Beyond the Myths to Healing
- Mean People Suck
- How to Deal with the Stress of Living in Uncertain Times
- How to Tackle Procrastination
- My Own Personal "Cheers"
- Save Avatar Grove: Threat to Vancouver Island's Forests Looms
- A Reminder of the Important Things in Life
- Gratitude: Smiling from Inside Out
- A Different Kind of New Year's Eve
- Release the Joy
uberVU - social comments 
Elizabeth Gilbert is clearly an emotional intellectual. This is good because emotional intelligence is great to have. I liked her video so much that I have to hear it again and then I will come back to finish my comments. I will take a look and find her book also. Meanwhile, I am along with the rest of us milkmen, going to deliver some milk now and when we return, we have this to talk about.
Thank you Elizabeth Gilbert.
From The Milkmen USA
I also recently discovered this video, and am currently reading Eat, Pray, Love. She is so inspiring. I love the idea of having a genius instead of being a genius.
… it most definitely helps take some of the pressure off
She’s lovely! Such grace. My favourite was the bit about Tom Waits.
…and this arrived at just the opportune moment.
I’ve been working on my secret project (as you know) and just letting the research pile up in my brain late at night, even forcing my semi-conscious self to squeeze in one thin google search in the wee hours of the morning. Then I just let it go, hit dream land, and as I wake my little personal elf (I like to think of him as Legolas from Lord of the Rings. hehehehe) sends me into this ominous creative whirlwind. Nothing like a good brush with divinity in the morning to get your day started on the right foot
I’ll be listening to this one many many times
Thanks Kylen.
Well said Kylen! This is a jaw dropping video! Incredible blending of thoughts about creativity, genius, and the early roots of the thoughts about them!