Running on empty.

I heard a rather longish report on the BBC this morning on the great Picasso, a man who stayed "creative" into his 90s, a man who wasn't "thrown out" (as they do in agencies) simply because of his advancement in years.

In any event, the BBC reporter knew someone who was close to Picasso in the artist's last years. He said that after Picasso had finished a body of work, he had "emptied himself out," and he would often take a month off.

The phrase "emptied himself out" really struck me.

How many of us--nominally in a creative business, or as creative people--put so much of ourselves into our work, so much blood, sweat, toil and tears that we can say we were all in, that we had given ourselves over to creativity.

Maybe we can't do that in our business.

Unlike Picasso we have to sit through too many meetings.

We have too many rounds of reviews.

Too many layers of approvals.

But how much of the lack of creativity in our work
comes from our unwillingness or inability to
empty ourselves out?