As we move into Hispanic Heritage month, we’re spending this week finding lessons about creativity from the origins of salsa in New York. 

Salsa came about when musicians from different backgrounds and cultures merged together to create a “Sancocho” (that’s a spanish word for ”stew”) of musical flavor: Salsa includes mambo and Afro-Cuban rhythms, Puerto Rican musical traditions, jazz, and soul. They merged English and Spanish, with African diasporic traditions and New York street culture.

Something new emerged from people bringing what they already carried into a relationship with what other people carried.

That's an incredible productivity and creativity lesson.

We're frequently told to come up with an original idea. But maybe a better question is: What ingredients are already on your table?

Is it your upbringing? Your quirky hobbies? Previous jobs that seem to have no connection with one another? The people you know? Languages? Things you've failed at?

Originality doesn't necessarily require inventing another ingredient.

Sometimes it's about making a combination, or, let’s go ahead and say it—a SALSA—that nobody else would make.

Your ingredient list

Make your personal “ingredient” list. Write down 5–10 things you bring to your work that seemingly don't belong together.

🤹 Skills?
🗺️ Culture?
🏂 Hobbies or careers?
👥 Community/family?

What could these things make together?

Find your band

The development of Salsa isn't simply a collection of individual geniuses.

A lot of these talents lived near one another. They played in each other's bands. Musicians learned from older musicians. Ideas traveled between apartments, clubs, streets, rehearsal rooms and neighborhoods.

All of this is a useful counter-point about how we often imagine creativity: one brilliant person has THE brilliant idea.

Barry Rogers was a skilled trombone player who did not come from the Latino diaspora. But it was his approach to getting an “elephant-like sound” out of his instrument that completely altered the way salsa music was played.

Remember that collaboration doesn't just help execute ideas—the influence of others can improve the idea.

Someone hears something you don't hear or knows something you don't know. Then says, What if we tried this?

Build your imaginary band

Pick one project you're working on and ask, “Who do you need?”

🥁 Is it someone who gives you momentum?
🎺 Someone who brings a skill you don't have?
🎹 Someone who sees possibilities?
🎤 Someone who tells you the truth?
💃 Someone who makes the work more fun?

Use what's in the room

An important reminder to pull from the development of this rhythmic Latin sound: Constraints create innovation.

The originators of the salsa sound weren't necessarily making this music with ideal resources, giant budgets, or pristine creative environments. 

Music happened in neighborhood spaces. Community centers. Apartments. Streets. Clubs. Wherever people could gather, rehearse, play and learn.

And… how often are we waiting for ideal conditions before starting?

Do you find yourself waiting until… I get the software. I have the right office. I have more time. Someone funds it. I'm better at this. When life calms down.

Sometimes ingenuity (AND inspiration) begins with asking: Okay. What do we have?

Having limited resources doesn't automatically create great work. The creators of the salsa sound still practiced. They rehearsed and learned their instruments. They showed up.

Ingenuity AND discipline are the combination.

The "Use What's Here" Challenge

Choose one thing you've been putting off and give yourself three constraints:

⏰ Take 20 minutes on one item that you’ve been struggling to start or complete.
📋 Take inventory of what you already have (No buying/preparing/researching anything else)
🔨 Now, what version can you complete today with what you have available. Not the final version. The basement/community-center version.

Listen to your block

Salsa wasn't just created in New York. It sounded like New York.

The neighborhoods, migration, languages, politics, racial identities, economics and cultural collisions surrounding these musicians weren't separate from the work — they became ingredients.

English and Spanish existed beside each other. Jazz existed beside Caribbean traditions. The enormous trombone sound wasn't merely instrumentation. It contributed to music that could feel as big, aggressive and alive as the city around it. 

Also, these artists were responding to identity, inequality, politics, community pride and what was happening around them.

Now take a moment and ask, Is your work responding to the world you're actually living in?

Your work doesn't have to be explicitly political. But it can have an ethos.

What do you care about? What won't you compromise? Who is the work for? What happening outside your window deserves your attention?

Read your environment

What from your actual environment is influencing your work right now?

Take five minutes and write down:

👂🏽 What am I hearing?
👀 What am I seeing?
🗣️ What are people around me talking about?
🪸 What seems to be changing?
❤️ What do I care about right now?

Then ask: Does any of that belong in my work?

Make it with heart

Collaboration + ingenuity + environment + discipline gets you somewhere… but it doesn't necessarily give you soul.

What makes this music endure isn't simply that the musicians were technically proficient.

You can always hear something in it: Pride. Longing. Anger. Joy. Passion. Humor. Politics.

In our work, we spend a lot of time asking: How can I do this faster? How can I optimize this? How can I get more done?

Those are sometimes useful questions. But often, efficiency isn't the only, or even, highest, goal of work.

Take more time to ask, “How can I make this feel more like me?”

Your creative/work ethos

Finish these prompts:

♥️ I care about…
🤝 I want my work to help people…
🚫 I never want to lose…
💪🏼 I do my best work alongside…
💐 I want people to feel ______ when they encounter my work.
🎼 If my work had a sound, I want it to sound like ________.

✧˖°. ⋆｡˚:✧｡

We hope the world of salsa brought you some inspiration for your creative work!

P.S. If you aren't a member of Focused Space, but could use help accomplishing your goals, busting through procrastination, or getting motivated… you are welcome to join us at one of our live guided work sessions, or morning planning sessions!

Take care,

— Mark and the focused space team