Executives and Creativity

The life of an executive is filled with relentless demands and stress. While the adage ‘all work and no play makes Lily a dull girl’ holds true, it also leads to burnout, frustration, and diminished productivity. For executives, finding time for creative pursuits isn’t just a luxury—it’s a necessity.

As a software CEO with a global company, and a highly engaged mother, my schedule was relentless. I followed the known advice of exercise for stress relief by engaging in Pilates and batting a squash ball around with my husband. However, this didn’t bring me near the joy or release that I can experience while writing. As a productivity addict, writing is also an exercise (activity) that produced something for the effort.

Creativity can release endorphins and comes in many forms. I enjoy many creative outlets and find writing suits me best. I wrote for business, and I wrote for my own personal enjoyment. There are many types of writing, and they should not be considered equal. As an entrepreneur, wearing many hats, I wrote our software’s first user manual and help files. I hated nearly every minute of that experience. I declared that we had to make enough money on version one to guarantee someone else took over that type of writing.

Storytelling was different. Public relations, blogging, and marketing were all writing I enjoyed. I even became an expert at the 140-character message. I dreamed of writing kid’s books. I loved reading to my son and enjoyed the quality of messaging that could be relayed to children through picture books.

When I needed something joyful to shut out the monkey brain and drift off to sleep, I started sorting through ideas for books I could write for kids. Instead of dreaming about spreadsheets, I’d find myself more often dreaming about expanding my business empire with a purple crayon. It wasn’t time to step away from business, but the creative brainstorming was altering my business anxieties.

As I mentored students and worked with businesses all over the world, I discovered a harsh reality. We do not give enough career exploration to students of any age. Too often people fall into their careers instead of pursuing careers that would suit them well and give them a chance to truly excel at their jobs. I knew I’d found the first purpose for my writing. I started the creative outlining for a series of books to help kids explore careers.

My quiet time became energized with drawing connections between things kids liked to do and careers that would immerse them in those activities or purposes. This created a whole new space for conversations with friends and new acquittances. Beyond the fascination of writing a book, people loved to talk about their childhood self and the whimsy they applied to the world.

During one dinner with clients, a pharmaceutical engineer had an epiphany that surprised him—and delighted all of us. He remembered being fascinating with his mother turning seemingly random ingredients both dry and wet into a marvelous baked cake. He would spend hours watching her, tasting things like flour and saying he wasn’t going to eat something made with something that tasted that bad. Then like magic the process produced a scrumptious cake. His career was now based on finding the ingredients that when combined became life changing medicines and supplements.

My creative process inspires me. It often fit between my work responsibilities but certainly gave me energy to tackle my job’s demands. To improve my writing abilities, I also needed to read. I’ve always been a reader. This new pursuit let me make room between my business and non-fiction reading, to renew my love for fiction as well. I reread everything on my son’s bookshelves, moving some to my own library as source material. After publishing two kids’ books, I started imagining the big leap to writing a novel. I added science fiction to my reading rotation.

I dove into material about the craft of writing. I reconsidered scoffing at my college literature teacher that insisted we note that there was a likely a reason the door was painted red, beyond it being the color on sale that day when the character went shopping. Creative writing expanded my brain, especially with a focus on the critical author’s tool of point-of-view. A good negotiator needs to analyze and anticipate the points of view around the table. Through my training as an author, I more rapidly and naturally anticipate other’s perspectives.

Beyond the stress relief and skills development, I gained another huge benefit from squeezing creativity into my painfully busy schedule. I sold our business to a private equity firm when I was forty-six years old. I didn’t have to fret about what I was going to do with the rest of my life.

I’ve poured my understanding of technology and my love for kids into writing and publishing an adult science fiction about ethical artificial intelligence helping to protect children. I’m now working on bringing a lively 1920’s entrepreneurial flapper in Chicago to the page.

Many of my peers worry about what they’ll do in retirement, fearing the loss of purpose that comes with stepping away from the corporate world. But those of us who have embraced creativity—whether through writing, photography, music, or woodworking—see retirement as an opportunity, not a challenge. Creativity isn’t just a hobby; it’s a lifelong tool for fulfillment, problem-solving, and staying engaged with the world.

Written by Lois Melbourne.
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