The Artist Personality with William Todd Shultz

The Mind of the Artist by William Todd Shultz is one of my favorite books about creativity — not to mention one of my favorite books period. In a development I didn't dare dream Todd and I became friends, and I've had the charmed opportunity to nerd out about creativity with him over various drinks and creativity studies over the past few years. Now I'm so happy to bring his mind straight to YOU, in the form of THIS INTERVIEW.

Below find some excerpts, but you must watch the entirety on Muzi YouTube to learn:

- The infuriating myth that drove Todd to write The Mind of the Artist

-  The ONE personality trait that correlates with creativity like none other

- The percentage of time Todd writes from a state of inspiration

- Why disagreeableness could be a positive for your art

- Why beginner's mind is more than just humility practice

Please for the love of art do not deny yourself this conversation!

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William Todd Shultz on inspiration: 

"For me it’s all about doing the work whether you’re inspired or not. I would say the ratio of me being inspired to not particularly inspired when I’m writing something… I’m probably inspired 20% of the time. If I waited around to be inspired I’d just get nothing done."

William Todd Shultz on myths of creativity: 

"It always rubbed me the wrong way when people were always suggesting that creativity was therapeutic. That you do it and you’re made well by doing it. I have always thought that creativity causes problems. If you’re an artist you’re constantly trying to make something good and it drives you fucking nuts."

William Todd Shultz on artist personality:

"There’s no psychological concept ever in the history of psychology that predicts creativity like this particular trait called openness. It’s all about the structure of mind. For people who are high in openness, they filter information out less. More stuff is coming into them. They also repress less. There’s more coming out of them from the inside. There’s a looseness and a very productive stimulating messy chaos."

William Todd Shultz on the artist outlaw:

"There’s in general a correlation between low agreeableness and creativity. To be creative you need to be a bit — or maybe more than a bit — not nice. Whenever you’re making something you’re going beyond what is known. Artists are seditious. They’re not obeying convention. To cultivate that seditious outlaw quality it helps to be not overly concerned all the time with not offending people."