A deeply powerful and resonant piece for the creative soul that lies within.

— Alexa Meade, artist

Creative Courage reveals a compelling and original path for our organizations to become more agile and to thrive. Its inspiring and inclusive message calls for our collective work to become highly creative and deeply nurturing. Creative Courage is transformative.

— Susan David, PhD, author of the #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller Emotional Agility and psychologist at Harvard Medical School

I've been a student of great innovators, business tycoons, and CEOs for twenty years. By far the most predictive leadership quality is courage, particularly when a bold new path is needed. Taking decisive action in the face of massive uncertainty can be a lonely experience. Vulnerabilities are exposed. Red flags are raised. Yet creativity demands it. Welby's book is an absolute must read for anyone aspiring to make an impact in the business world. You'll not only learn how to be a better leader, you'll be inspired to be a better human being.

— Jeffrey Cohn, author of award winning book Why Are We Bad at Picking Good Leaders (Jossey Bass), as well as numerous Harvard Business Review articles on leadership and innovation

In Creative Courage, Welby Altidor deftly expands the scope of what we traditionally call creative practice to include those from all callings and walks of life. Drawing illustrative threads from both the personal and professional, Altidor weaves a vision that is not only inspiring, but also provides the reader tools for moving towards imaginative action. Whether on the world stage or the theater of our own day-to-day lives, Creative Courage can help bring freshness and agility to how we approach our collaborations with others.

— Lucianne M. Walkowicz, Baruch S. Blumberg NASA Chair of Astrobiology, Library of Congress, astrophysicist at The Adler Planetarium, TED fellow, artist

Creative Courage makes you look at the process of creation in a whole new light! Definitely a book to live by when you want to take your creative and collaborative skills to the next level. Just a great read for inspiring minds.”

— Jon Boogz, movement artist

When I met Welby Altidor, one of the very first things he asked me was, “What are your dreams?” Welby has the gift of tapping right into your loftiest imagination . . . and simultaneously giving you the sense that you just might achieve it. It's not a wonder. Welby has had backstage access to some of the most incredible creative talent on the planet. Written in a deeply personal and thoughtful voice, this book offers readers a chance to feel a part of Welby's world and find the creative courage they need to pursue their dreams.

— Deborah Yeh, senior vice president, marketing & brand, Sephora Americas

Creative Courage brings a new ideological vocabulary that can spark epiphanies. It reminds us that the experience of creation is as important as the result of the work. After all, the journey of creation is what makes our daily life.

— Asinnajaq, curator and filmmaker, Three Thousand

This book highlights the power of the collective genius of true “intuition driven” co-creation. It focuses on a three-way interaction—

1. A man's personal story. 2. A man's professional story. 3. How a man magnificently encapsulates his audience.

If you channel what you genuinely feel from your very essence (not from your past story), your truth will show up in the most unexpected ways. A truly brilliant read.

— Duncan D. Bruce, founding partner and executive creative director, The Brand Conspiracy & Associates ltd; author of Brand Enigma and The Dream Café

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride

thinking the bus will never stop,

the passengers eating maize and chicken

will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness

you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho

lies dead by the side of the road.

You must see how this could be you,

how he too was someone

who journeyed through the night with plans

and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow.

You must speak to it till your voice

catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,

only kindness that ties your shoes

and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,

only kindness that raises its head

from the crowd of the world to say

It is I you have been looking for,

and then goes with you everywhere

like a shadow or a friend.

Naomi Shihab Nye^*

For Ella Farber Altidor and the sixteen-year-old misfit hiding in all of us. No one will get your light until you get it.

To Ella, for being the amazing dancer of life. To Kat, for being the visionary of love, space, and pace. To Yael, for being an extraordinary mother and artist. To Annie, Dorcelan, Myrta, and Wendy, for your faith and love. To the Baulu family, for your art of hosting and celebrating. To Susan Abramovitch, for practicing law so artfully. To Jeanenne Ray at Wiley, for your patience and support. To Jocelyn Kwiatkowski, also at Wiley, and your valiant team of editors, thank you for your hawk eyes and for being the guardians of the reading flow. To Adrienne Brodeur from the Aspen Institute, for reminding me to listen to my favorite podcast, On Being. To Alissa Nutting, for your sense of time and your generosity in Aspen. To Guy Laliberté, for your business savvy and your creative intelligence. To Danielle Serpica at Wiley, for your rigor and mastery of the process. To my fellow students at Aspen Words, Colorado, for your courage to share that gave me wings. To Michel Rioux, for your love of theater. To the small but mighty team of Aspen Words, for showing me the way. To Jean “Creative Guide at Cirque du Soleil” François Bouchard, for your intuition. To Murielle Cantin, for your supersonic ability to see the potential in others and for seeing the talent seeker in me. To John Branca and Karen Langford of the Michael Jackson Estate, for your intimate knowledge of the art and genius of the king of pop. To Bernard Petiot, for your intellectual agility. To Boris Verkhovsky, for being a precious storyteller. To Fabrice Becker, for the music. To Jamie King, for being punk rock and for sharing its spirit with me. To Carla Kama, for being real and badass. To Matthew Whelan, for the wet towels of truth. To Joel Bergeron, for having our back and helping us to see the stage. To Carole Doucet, for challenging and encouraging me to find the questions inside the questions. To Brian Drader, for connecting words and visions to life on stage. To Joanne Fillion, for encouraging me to aim for just enough perfection. To Line Giasson, for your drive to make auditions memorable. To Diane Quinn, for your fearless embrace of the spirit of the Renaissance. To Bernardine Fontaine, for your strength that inspired me, and our family, to be strong. To Jacques Méthé, for your sense of words and story. To Catherine Nadeau, for your sense of beauty in movement. To Marta Rocamora, for your sense of community. To Viviana De Loera, for your sense of space. To Seth Godin, for Linchpin live in New York City in 2010. To David and Tom Kelly from IDEO, for the creative confidence. To David Allen, for Getting Things Done. To Marche Soupson, for the almost daily stroll to get delicious soup for lunch. To Fabrik8 in Montreal, for the office space. To Stephanie Malak and Emanuel Cohen, for your keen sense of lines and objects, thanks for the graphs and icons in this book. To the MJ ONE team, for your resilience, brilliance, and bigheartedness. To everyone at Cirque du Soleil, your passion makes your audience radiant.

For all of your superpowers and your genius, thank you!

When I met Welby for the first time, one could say that part of the setting was somewhat familiar to the world I was creating in the script of the TV show CSI. There was obscurity surrounding us, even if we were not in a dark alley. Then the shadowy, tensed atmosphere was sporadically disturbed by shots of light and music, video projections, dances, and incredible acrobatics and by a flurry of activities onstage and in the working theater, filled with computers, artists, technicians. As I sat with my team at the back of the house, I felt the whole energy of Las Vegas concentrated inside the performing space where Welby was busy creating the show Michael Jackson ONE with Jamie King and a talented team from Cirque du Soleil and beyond.

I grew up in Las Vegas, where my love for music and live stage performances started. My mother worked at the Riviera Hotel, where legends like Bill Withers and the 5th Dimension performed. Music never stopped inspiring me. So, it was extra special for me to meet with Welby at that moment. He was in the middle of creating a hit show, although he didn't know it back then. That too was familiar; I was catching him as the work was still in progress, in flux, in that fragile and vulnerable place where you are not sure if it's going to work or not, your heart full of hope and caffeine.

I should know a thing or two about being vulnerable and about dancing with the unknown. When I first imagined, dreamed, and created the TV show CSI, nobody knew about me in Hollywood. As a young guy from Las Vegas, I was representing in many ways the cliché of the misfit with not much more than a dream and a few dollars to his name.

Creating something new that resonates with many is hard. It's never an exact science although the process is always exacting. And at the core of that process lies a subtle, often overlooked question: Can we create something amazing, innovative, without crushing our soul and the spirit of our team in the process? Is it inevitable to do great work at a great cost to you and the team that surrounds you? Is leadership, creative and otherwise, only about sacrifices?

I pitched the idea of a TV script following a team of forensic experts investigating in Las Vegas (and subsequently in New York, Miami, and even the cyber world!) many times before someone said yes. I had to absorb many “NOs!” along the way, uttered at times in the most impersonal way, as body blows coming from left and right. I was lucky to meet through it all talented, visionary, and courageous people who decided to bet on my potential, starting with celebrated producer Jerry Bruckheimer and acclaimed TV executive Nina Tassler.

I love that Welby explores in this book two concepts that are fundamental to my vision of success. Creativity, of course, and courage. As an artist and an outsider in Hollywood back then, I aimed to break the rules by offering a different approach to storytelling on TV that changed the standards and the paradigm of that era. So much so that it inspired a generation of shows that adopted and were inspired by it. That creativity and thirst for innovation are at the heart of what drives my work, whether I dream of new TV series, Broadway shows, or a celebration of cutting-edge diversity through the medium of comic books.

As a producer, I can never take for granted courage, a quality that is critical to lasting and impactful success. It's a mind-set that I have in part acquired thanks to my childhood in Las Vegas, where I learned the value of risk-taking. The risk-taker can be reckless of course, mindless or arrogant, but I prefer the courageous ones who—like some of my mentors—never shy away from taking a chance on the misfits, the odd man or odd woman out. It takes courage to zig when the world zags, but this truism is also at the heart of creativity, innovation, and success.

Since that first day where we met in the theater of the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas, Welby and I continued to foster a precious friendship, peppered with dreams of collaborating together on projects and mutual support, admiration for our respective work and ethos.

Through the last few years, I've known Welby to be passionate about creating beautiful live experiences and shows with Cirque du Soleil, but I also discovered his passion for improving the way that beauty and innovation is created. Welby's obsession covers not only the output of work but also the process that leads to its creation. Said differently, he's driven to create amazing things amazingly. Fearlessly, he wants to improve not only the “what” but also the “how” of innovation.

I've had the privilege to work with incredible teams of supremely talented showrunners, producers, and actors. I know firsthand how much the quality of our process or lack thereof affects the final product, the story, the result. The way we treat people and the way we find productive ways to work together and harmonize our individual styles and beliefs all contribute to making our shows and our businesses great—or not.

And for every project and each new milestone, that quest needs reinvention through courage, creativity, and humility. In my industry, we are never completely in control of the destiny of our work. We are constantly waiting for a yes, for the green light of someone else on the project on which we are working. Although this is a reality that can't be completely erased or contoured, Creative Courage: Leveraging Imagination, Collaboration, and Innovation to Create Success Beyond Your Wildest Dreams invites us beautifully and convincingly to start by saying yes to ourselves and the potential of our dreams.

In that way, Welby's thoughts represent an expression of what I tried to convey years ago when I named my production company Dare to Pass. I invite you to join Welby's vivid explorations and in the process, refuse to pass on your wildest dreams. Whether you are moving on something new, closing a chapter of your life, going deeper into your current practice, or searching for the meaning of your next quest, the stories and insights that you will discover in Creative Courage will make a difference for you and your teams. Wherever you are and whatever you do, it will inspire you to write and rewrite your precious story.

Anthony E. Zuiker
Creator and Executive Producer, CSI

I believe that a work culture that supports the growth of its employees creates more favorable conditions for its brand, its products, its services to be and stay relevant. Our well-being, our ability to lead efficiently and creatively, is connected to the quality of our culture at work. That culture can suffer from the tension between the status quo and the need for transformation. In fact, in every culture, we find forces aimed at preserving the status quo and opposing energies dedicated to its transformation.

In that potential conflict sits the promise of creativity, innovation, and breakthroughs. Finding the harmony between these two necessary forces is not easy, and when one force takes over too radically or disruptively, the other force likely reacts. When the status quo tries to impose itself resolutely, the war on imagination lives strong, as a state of conflict where imagination, free association of ideas and the connection of unrelated concepts, or diverse teams and people is strongly discouraged, even punished. In other words, when the status quo takes over, the war on imagination follows. When the energy of transformation goes too fast for the people it affects, we are left with incomprehension, anger, and reactionary retraction from the world. We step back into our identities and our politics when at work. I call these moments in organizations, brand grabs. We hold on to a less than optimal, often nostalgic vision of who we are.

The distress between status quo and transformation stems from obvious and obscure reasons. The dramatic advances in computing and one of its by-products, quicker, more voluminous disseminations of information, is one factor in the worsening of the dynamic and coupling between what's stable and what's transforming. This situation challenges almost everything in our world, from the way we call a taxi, think about mobility and transportation, to the way that we will consume entertainment in the future.

Consequently, becoming relevant and staying relevant has become harder for organizations and brands. As the newest rapidly replaces the new, the pressure on the bottom line expands, and the need to innovate grows faster while the cycles of discoveries stay practically unchanged. We know that we need to evolve by staying agile and nimble. But we also don't want to lose our identity, our culture, I hear leaders say.

So how can we create or nurture a more innovative culture at work to answer the call of transformation? How can we leverage imagination and creativity to make our work more robust and resilient? And how can such a culture help produce relevance inside and outside our organization? Moreover, and more fundamentally, as we face those challenges, do we have to choose between a high-performance culture that helps generate great value at a very high human cost, or a nurturing culture that sacrifices value, innovation and performance for the integrity of the life inside all of us? De we have to choose between value and values?

I believe that we can bridge the gap between value and values, between high-performance and nurturing space for meaningful work. By learning to lead with creative courage, we can help create a culture for our organization that's more innovative and more able to answer the call of transformation. At its core, the practice of leading with creative courage offers an evolving and open cycle of seven integrated, incremental practices: (1) care first, (2) secure safety, (3) foster trust, (4) play with danger, (5) dream, (6) discover breakthroughs, (7) and grow. Under the umbrella of creative courage, these practices that I also refer to as stages or dimensions offer a powerful framework that you can adapt to your reality as you help yourself and your organization transform while staying true to your most important principles. Leading with creative courage offers support on the path to inside-out relevance for you and your organization.