Rich Kirkpatrick

Writer, Speaker, and Musician. Rich Kirkpatrick was recently rated #13 of the “Top 75 Religion Bloggers” by Newsmax.com, having also received recognition by Worship Leader Magazine as “Editor’s Choice” for the “Best of the Best” of blogs in 2011, 2014, 2015 and 2016.

Want to unlock creative genius? My book MINDBLOWN can help!

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Why write a book about the creative process? Most people think creativity or innovation is something only a few have access to. I believe, with the help from brain scientists, researchers, and creative practitioners, that it’s a process we can learn. In fact, there is proof that we are ALL wired to be creative. What we need is a way to unlock this innate human ability. My book, MINDBLOWN: Unlock Your Creative Genius by Bridging Science and Magic, is finally here and shipping. I wrote this book after my experiences with institutions and leaders that were ill-equipped to guide creative ideas into reality. The focus on results over process fails us. What we need is a framework to allow us to be more human. Learn with me how to be a better person by being more human, which is the same as being more creative! Imagine your, your team or project generating more…

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Limitations lead to innovation

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This is an excerpt from my new book: MINDBLOWN: Unlock Your Creative Genius by Bridging Science and Magic. In my book, I write about the creative process and my three steps, The Dream, The Sandbox, and The Story. The excerpt refers to The Sandbox, where we develop our ideas. Subscribe to the audio blog on your favorite podcast app: Subscribe We now have arrived at step two—The Sandbox. This is where we test our creative limits. It doesn’t surprise us that creativity comes with real-world limitations, such as deadlines, human resources, and budget. For some of us, this is the part when you see your creativity soar—forcing us to budget time and resources to maximize our project. This is the spreadsheet part of creativity where we manage constraints.  Believe it or not, constraints can have the potential to help us do our best work. The Ancient Greek philosopher Plato was right when…

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Creator vs Employee: Why don’t you get a real job?

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Subscribe to the audio blog on your favorite podcast app: Subscribe Have you ever wondered why work seems meaningful to some and not to others? Perhaps it has to do with how we see ourselves. Are we creators or employees? There are a few recordings that playback in the mind of innovators and creators and they begin early in life. In grade school, the teacher says, “Sit still, color within the lines, and stop daydreaming.” They scolded us for the doodles on the edge of the folder and shamed us for our sensitivity. In the old days, teachers simply put you in the corner of the room. The mission of education, in the mind of a myopic society, aims for conformity and uniformity. Sticking out threatens the general order. Things are simply the way they are and if you want to challenge it, you will pay the price. The schoolyard…

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Why Brainstorming Meetings Suck and How to Make Them Better

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Subscribe to the audio blog on your favorite podcast app: Subscribe If you want to see eyes roll, tell the team you planned a brainstorming meeting. The hope is to practice innovation, foster teamwork, or prop up low morale. Motives, whether sane or desperate, propel such a meeting to the calendar. The effectiveness of these types of meetings is another story, however. Be honest. They suck. Let me jog your memory. The dreaded no-idea-is-bad on the whiteboard turns into three people dominating the meeting while the rest watch the clock, hoping to get to the break room microwave first to warm the leftovers they brought for lunch. After an hour’s work, the whiteboard has the thoughts of these three people, and the no-bad-ideas promise fails. Passing objections and restrained snickers frustrate the goal of non-judgmental civility, however. The leader writes lists of ideas on the board, filtering, categorizing, and labeling them in…

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Creativity Finds A Way: Creating During the Darkest of Times

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Like life, creativity finds a way. In fact, we are not unique in surviving a pandemic. The poet and playwright William Shakespeare offers an example of how creative work continues in the darkest of times—whether it is the 1590s or 2020s. English professor Travis D. Williams, says, “The word ‘poet’ comes from the Greek ‘to make.’ Shakespeare used language and thought to make a path for himself through the miseries of the plague and the resulting economic depression. Creating and making during lockdowns are nothing new. What is new is this: most of us haven’t experienced it before. Our desire to move on from difficult times is strong. For example, we forget AIDS is still an epidemic. It’s likely we will, in our lifetimes, collectively experience more of this kind of weariness. However, we continue to make things, write poems, and sing songs. I recall many years of directing Christmas…

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