John Cleese: A cheerful guide to creativity

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The</span> <a href= "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCLp7zodUiI"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Ministry of Silly Walks</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. The</span> <a href= "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz1JWzyvv8A"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Cheese Shop</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">.</span> <a href= "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9DCAFUerzs"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">French Taunting</span></a><span style= "font-weight: 400;">. If you haven’t seen any of these Monty Python sketches before, do us a favor and go watch one or two of them. You’ll discover—or re-discover—why our guest for this episode is a creative comic legend. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">John Cleese starred in and co-wrote the award-winning series</span> <em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Fawlty Tower</span></em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">s, was nominated for an Academy Award for the screenplay of</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">A Fish Called Wanda</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">, and even has a species of lemur named after him (Cleese’s wooly lemur,</span> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Avahi cleese</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">i).</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">He’s also an expert on the creative process, and so if you’re looking for a new framework to level-up your own workflow, his book</span> <a href= "https://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Short-Cheerful-John-Cleese/dp/0385348274"> <em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide</span></em></a> <span style="font-weight: 400;">is a great resource.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">We talk with John about his new book, and also about creative collaboration in the midst of friction, how to be comfortable with ambiguity, and creating boundaries of space and time to get in a creative mode. We also get to ask him a question that’s been bugging us ever since we first watched</span> <em><span style="font-weight