This is how to truly unlock your creativity

Creativity 

 

A neuroscience expert and author of ‘Smarter Tomorrow’ explains how we can trigger more creative output from our brains. 

 

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

By Elizabeth R. Ricker 4 minute Read

“No one in his or her right mind would argue that quantity guarantees quality,” bestselling novelist Stephen King wrote, “but to suggest that quantity never produces quality strikes me as snobbish, inane, and demonstrably untrue.”

Many of the people we think of as the most creative in history had staggeringly prolific levels of output in their careers. Charles Darwin published around 120 scholarly papers, Albert Einstein published around 250 papers, and Sigmund Freud published 330 papers. Thomas Edison held nearly 2,000 patents on his inventions. Johann Sebastian Bach composed more than 1,000 musical pieces, and Pablo Picasso is credited with more than 20,000 paintings, sculptures, and drawings.

In the journal writing challenge set by my own seventh-grade teacher, my classmates all commented that it helped them become less self- conscious. Furthermore, even those who had previously hated writing started to enjoy it. For me, it acted like a creativity release valve. Perpetually dogged by perfectionism, I found that the new stakes finally loosened me up.

Without the fear of judgment, I spontaneously produced poems, songs, and short stories. Boosting the quantity of your output could help you become more creative, as we discussed above. A positive, elevated, and open mood also seems to disinhibit and allow for more ideas to come. In this state, you are unhindered by internal criticism.

Lest you think that creativity is all about being in a good mood and just waiting for magic, it’s clear that the emotional recipe for creativity is, well, not fully clear. Emotional intensity and even ambivalence seem to play a role in creativity, too. Researchers used to believe that positive moods led to creativity, but recent research has revealed a messier truth. High-intensity feelings, even if they are negative, can lead to completing a set goal, whereas low-intensity feelings, again, even if they are negative, enable us to think more broadly, more diffusely—the kind of thinking necessary to shift perspective and “see the big picture.”

Expertise matters, too. Two of the criteria for creativity are novelty and usefulness. If you know nothing about a field, you might get lucky and produce a few creative ideas (especially if you are expert in another area and are transferring your skills from there), but how can you know what is useful or novel in this new area without expertise? Being at the right challenge for your skill level is key.

In short, the idea is practicing a lot, being in the right mood—and more the magnitude than whether you’re happy or sad—and don’t forget you need to have a level of expertise in that area, of course. All of these will affect your creativity.

Where creativity lives in the brain

Ever heard that the right brain is creative and the left brain is logical? Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but recent brain imaging data has debunked that idea. The old idea seems to have come from language centers being in the left hemisphere and spatial abilities being in the right, but recent findings show a far more complex and interesting picture.

Recent studies of people lying in brain scanners and performing tasks requiring creativity or creative thinking showed that they tended to engage not just one part (say, the right or left hemisphere of the brain) but multiple large-scale brain networks that run through the frontal area, the temporal lobes, and the limbic system. This could be seen not just in randomly selected people, but also in people who are indisputably creative, such as freestyle rappers and jazz improvisers.

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Why increase your creativity?

There are many reasons why interventions designed to boost your creativity might be worth pursuing. First of all, creativity brings a special kind of focused joy: flow. Flow, also known as being “in the zone” or being immersed, fully absorbed in a feeling of energized focus, is an inherently pleasurable experience. It’s common when in the throes of creativity. Many artists, scientists, and performers report that they lose track of time and lose any sense of themselves when they are immersed in their craft.

Second, creativity may lead to interesting careers. In the 21st century, we are going to need a lot of innovative solutions for everything from climate change to how we should try to coexist with AI. Not to mention how to bridge the widening gap between rich and poor, how to make our food sup- ply chains more sustainable, or how to travel to other planets. If you want to be part of solving these problems—some of which may involve lucrative career paths—you may want to boost your creativity.

Creativity also offers the possibility of personal glory and immortality. If you want fame or fortune now, doing the same things as everyone else but faster and more reliably could be your ticket. If you want to be remembered forever, however, creativity is the path to get there. Maybe when you unlock more of your creativity you will become the next Coco Chanel, Edison, Marie Curie, Ludwig van Beethoven, or Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Your art could be in museums, your music could be played on everyone’s devices, your company could be publicly traded, your cure for a disease could save millions, and your inventions could be sold in stores everywhere.

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Elizabeth R. Ricker is a trained brain researcher with degrees from MIT and Harvard, as well as a sought-after expert for Silicon Valley venture capital firms, technology startups, and Fortune 500 companies. Her book Smarter Tomorrow, released August 2021.

Excerpted from Smarter Tomorrow. Copyright © 2021 by Elizabeth R. Ricker. Used with permission of Little, Brown Spark, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company. New York, NY. All rights reserved.

 

 

The Neuroscience of Creativity: A Q&A with Anna Abraham

Creativity 

 

Click the link above to read the article: 

The state of the field of the neuroscience of creativity.

Scientific American

• Scott Barry Kaufman
  

 

There’s No Secret to Succeeding As a Creative

Foster your Creativity 

 

Stop looking for the secret, start focusing on improvement.

Adrian Drew

 

Photo by Atilla Taskiran on Unsplash

As a professional writer and business owner, I receive emails on a daily basis from people asking how to carve a career just like I did. It’s both flattering and disheartening. Flattering because people believe that I, a 21-year-old from England, have the wisdom to advise them on such topics. Disheartening because I don’t.

Let me backtrack a little here. I’m not going to sit here and say that I know absolutely nothing about writing or business, because that isn't true. If it were, I’d be a fraud, since that’s practically all I write about.

The truth I’m quickly learning, however, is that nobody has the answers we think they do. It’s all an illusion.

When I was just starting out, I looked up to those higher than me on the professional ladder of writing and assumed they had some magic bullet or secret hack that got them there. They didn’t.

Niklas Göke proved that to me around three years ago. Then, Nik was somebody I admired and looked up to but had never spoken to.

“Nik, what is it? What’s the one thing you and all these other writers are doing to build such huge audiences and make so much money? Come on, man. I won’t tell anybody. What’s the key? What’s the secret?” I pleaded in a naive Twitter DM.

Anticipating an essay-long message decorated with all the kernels of wisdom I expected Nik and his co-writers to have, I was shocked to read his response.

“Adrian, there is no secret. You’ve just got to write. Every day. Don’t stop writing until you get to where you want to be.”

A Bitter Pill to Swallow

In our pursuit of wealth, fame, and career success, we often lose sight of what’s most important. That is, simply improving our craft. Achieving mastery. Becoming the best at what we love to do.

Ryan Holiday went more in-depth on this point in an article for Human Parts back in 2018. Holiday outlines a conversation that Jerry Seinfeld had with a budding, younger comedian. The young man asks Seinfeld for tips on gaining exposure through marketing his work.

Seinfeld, a veteran in the industry, looked puzzled.

“Exposure? Marketing? Seinfeld asks. Just work on your act.”

Although a simple throwaway comment, we can learn infinite amounts of wisdom from Seinfeld's bewilderment. What we have in this exchange are two types of people.

One, young and naive, seeking the secret sauce that he believes his career success to depend upon from an experienced, established professional. The other, a seasoned comedian in possession of one simple truth. That is, that there is only one important thing for creatives to pursue. Improvement.

We live in a world predicated on quick-fixes. Fake gurus populate every corner of YouTube, seeking to convince us that they hold the keys to career mastery and financial freedom. The truth, however, is that they don’t.

So why do we place so much faith in these charlatans? It’s simple. In assuming that others possess the tools to fix the broken bridge between us and success, we relinquish ourselves of any potential blame. We can look at our failures and point the finger at our coaches for misinforming us.

Placing our faith in external advice and counseling makes it easy for us to ignore our inferiority. Confronting it head-on is the only way for us to truly become better.

I’m not writing this piece to denounce and discredit all coaches out there. In fact, I think coaching can be an incredibly valuable tool. Receiving guidance from those more experienced than us can both serve to hone our skills and humble us — a reminder that others are better than us and we still have a long way to go.

Rather, the point I’m making is this: There are no shortcuts to success. As Ben Horowitz put it,

“There are no shortcuts to knowledge, especially knowledge gained from personal experience. Following conventional wisdom and relying on shortcuts can be worse than knowing nothing at all.”

The Secret is That There is No Secret

In the world of creativity, I think we’ve all become far too focused on trying to find quick and easy formulas for success — ways to ‘hack’ the system and build an audience instantly. We want to know how to write articles that’ll bring in massive amounts of readers or how to produce YouTube content that’ll skyrocket us into stardom overnight.

We look to giants like Hemingway and Orwell and even modern-day stars like PewDiePie and Casey Neistat for the ‘secrets’. We try to replicate what they’re doing, desperately wishing that our hopeless attempts to copy and steal and plagiarise will land us the views and engagements we’re so desperately searching for.

We’re looking for the secret to success. And the secret is that there is no secret. That’s not how this industry works.

Do you think Hemingway sat at a desk all day as an amateur, trying to figure out how to ‘hack’ his way into national newspapers and make a name for himself? Or do you think Orwell started out by copying what Dickens and Austen had done centuries before, mimicking popular trends in an attempt to coerce people into reading his content?

Of course not.

They practiced and practiced, writing every single day and reading the works of greats until they mastered their craft. Their work has been revered for many hundreds of years since its publication, not because they cracked some code or figured out an algorithm, but because their writing is great and people want to read it.

And here we are, at the beginnings of our careers, busy searching for hacks, memorizing algorithms, and paying to promote ourselves on social media instead of actually trying to improve our work.

In the beginning, middle and end, that should be your primary focus. For sure — continue to promote yourself online and maximize your engagements by marketing your content, but keep your eye on the ball. None of that stuff is anywhere near as important as mastering your craft.

When people love your content, content crafted from pure hard work, perseverance, and a die-hard commitment to honing your art, they’ll respond to it. They’ll clap your stories. They’ll like your videos. They’ll invest in your business.

They’ll support you as a creator not because you deceived them using clickbait, not because they stumbled across your sponsored Instagram story, and certainly not because you ripped-off somebody else’s original work.

They’ll support you because they like the work you produce. That’s it.

In the words of Ryan Holiday,

‘An artist’s job is to create masterpieces. Period.’

So learn how to create masterpieces.

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Written by

Adrian Drew

Owner of Mind Cafe. Get my FREE four-step guide to building a freelance career as a writer: http://bit.ly/3oiPsfr

Willpower Is Overrated, Have Courage Instead

Willpower 

The only 2021 resolution you need.

Sergey Faldin

Jan 4 · 5 min read

Photo by Diogo Nunes on Unsplash

At the beginning of this year, I caught myself by the tail.

But before I explain what that means, we need to understand something important.

Most of the time, there’s no such thing as ‘the process of making a decision.’ Most of the time, the decision has been made. You know what you need to do. Even if you don’t, your body does. Everything else is just hesitation.

Similarly, when we spend endless hours contemplating what our ‘calling’ is, what we’re most likely doing is indulging in our own self-pity.

We know what we need to do. Everything else is just procrastination. This brings me to…

The tail.

I found myself in a weird place at the end of 2020.

I’ve been writing for quite some time on Medium (14 months, to be exact). And I’ve been writing every single day. Then, in a span of three months, a few things happened: I broke up with my girlfriend, quit my job, and went to live back to my home city for a while. In case you were wondering, I don’t recommend anyone doing all those things at once.

Which is to say, I stopped writing. Not at all — but I did stop publishing. Shipping. And as Seth Godin says in his new book, ‘if you don’t ship, it doesn’t count.’

Then I moved on and over my breakup, got back to London, celebrated Christmas, yet still wasn’t writing.

I told myself stories that I was lost. That I was still looking for myself. And while a part of that was true, a big part of it is simple procrastination.

The truth is, I know exactly what I want to do. I want to teach, lead, tell stories, and write. I have a direction — which, in many cases, is more important than having a path.

But a part of me loves the image of a ‘lost 20-something boy, making his way through the darkness of the world…’

There is nothing wrong with coasting for a while. I’ve been coasting for about six months now. It’s just a choice.

And a question.

‘What do you actually want?’

Because if you know what you want, every second spent doing something else (including nothing) is stealing a second from you, building towards that.

The problem is, once again, Resistance. The older I get and the more experienced as a writer, the more I see: it takes real guts to sit down and do creative work each day. To fight that Resistance. To focus on the practice, not the outcomes. To trust the soup.

And for the big part of my journey so far, I thought that all we needed is a grain of willpower. I told myself that all we need to do was to push ourselves to sit down in front of the typewriter (or whatever instrument you use for creative work) and do the work.

There is a lot of truth to that. However, as anyone who tried pushing themselves too much knows, discipline is toxic. It burns through your fuel fairly quickly. And it leaves you feeling as if you cheated on yourself.

Willpower is overrated. So is discipline.

But you know what’s underrated? Courage. That’s what John Gardner meant when he noticed that, ‘The world loves talent but pays off on character.’

I used to think that character was in the ability to push yourself. Self-control. Self-discipline. Jocko Willink. David Goggins.

But in the real world, not on the running track or in combat, almost nothing valuable is done with willpower. Almost everything is done with courage. No matter how hard you try to break the house wall with your forehead, it’s still a better option to knock on the door.

When I look back at the decisions that have shaped my life, those weren’t decisions of willpower. They were decisions of courage. Still, some of them involved both.

When I was 14 and overweight, I was bullied by my classmates. Heck, I was bullied by my family too. The decision to stop eating crap and take better care of myself was brave, especially for a 14-year-old who lives with his parents. It also involved a truckload of willpower.

But when I was 19 and decided to drop out of college, there was no willpower—only terror. And the antidote: courage. To this day, it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

As someone smart put it, ‘Your life shrinks or expands in proportion to your courage.’

You can’t fake it. You can’t be courageous but also not be. If you have a plan B, that’s not courage. That’s a performance. Courage and 100% vulnerability requires you to be open to anything life throws at you. It requires you to take a step into the unknown. Feel that terror. Sit with it. But go forward anyway.

I wrote before that there are two basic types of motivation: fear or love. You can work at a job because you’re afraid you won’t have any money to pay the rent. Or you can work there because you love what you do and want to make an impact—the same job and yet, drastically different experiences.

Fear can also be helpful. It can guide you towards courage. If you use fear as a compass, always following the scary path, the road less traveled by, you’ll inevitably end up being courageous. So perhaps we should not be seeking ways to be braver but seek scary paths instead.

Like, publishing an article. Getting in shape. Finally, going all-in on ourselves and our dreams. After all, it’s January 2021. The perfect time for a change.

Courage is also something we’ll have to exercise daily if we want a life of meaning. When I look back at what happened to me over the past six months, I see: I stopped being brave. I gave in to the fear. And I don’t blame myself — sometimes to keep just hanging on is hard enough. Life throws circumstances our way, and we have to learn to dodge them.

Now, speaking of change. Remember last year? We made all sorts of plans for 2020, and look where that got us. I propose that this year, we don’t make too many resolutions. Except one.

Be brave.

Be brave by doing what only you can do. Be brave by betting on yourself. Be brave by shipping your creative work. Be brave by showing up each day. And if it doesn't work out, be brave enough not to blame yourself. You’ll try again tomorrow.

David Goggins once said, ‘do one thing that sucks every day.’ That seems to work for him.

I propose, ‘do one thing you’re afraid of every day.’

And see where that will get you.

Happy 2021.

• 
  

Written by

Sergey Faldin

Writer. Making sense of the world and teaching others. | Daily creative newsletter: https://honestcreative.substack.com/ / faldin.sergey@gmail.com

9 Soft Skills Every Employee Will Need In The Age Of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Skills needed in today's Economy! 

 Keep abreast of the skills needed in the future!

 

Technical skills and data literacy are obviously important in this age of AI, big data, and automation. But that doesn't mean we should ignore the human side of work – skills in areas that robots can't do so well. I believe these softer skills will become even more critical for success as the nature of work evolves, and as machines take on more of the easily automated aspects of work. In other words, the work of humans is going to become altogether more, well, human.

9 Soft Skills Every Employee Will Need In The Age Of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Adobe Stock

With this in mind, what skills should employees be looking to cultivate going forward? Here are nine soft skills that I think are going to become even more precious to employers in the future.

1. Creativity

Robots and machines can do many things, but they struggle to compete with humans when it comes to our ability to create, imagine, invent, and dream. With all the new technology coming our way, the workplaces of the future will require new ways of thinking – making creative thinking and human creativity an important asset.

2. Analytical (critical) thinking

As well as creative thinking, the ability to think analytically will be all the more precious, particularly as we navigate the changing nature of the workplace and the changing division of labor between humans and machines. That's because people with critical thinking skills can come up with innovative ideas, solve complex problems and weigh up the pros and cons of various solutions – all using logic and reasoning, rather than relying on gut instinct or emotion.

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3. Emotional intelligence

Also known as EQ (as in, emotional IQ), emotional intelligence describes a person's ability to be aware of, control, and express their own emotions – and be aware of the emotions of others. So when we talk about someone who shows empathy and works well with others, we’re describing someone with a high EQ. Given that machines can’t easily replicate humans’ ability to connect with other humans, it makes sense that those with high EQs will be in even greater demand in the workplace.

4. Interpersonal communication skills

Related to EQ, the ability to successfully exchange information between people will be a vital skill, meaning employees must hone their ability to communicate effectively with other people – using the right tone of voice and body language in order to deliver their message clearly.

5. Active learning with a growth mindset

Someone with a growth mindset understands that their abilities can be developed and that building skills leads to higher achievement. They're willing to take on new challenges, learn from their mistakes, and actively seek to expand their knowledge. Such people will be much in demand in the workplace of the future because, thanks to AI and other rapidly advancing technologies, skills will become outdated even faster than they do today.

6. Judgement and decision making

We already know that computers are capable of processing information better than the human brain, but ultimately, it's humans who are responsible for making the business-critical decisions in an organization. It's humans who have to take into account the implications of their decisions in terms of the business and the people who work in it. Decision-making skills will, therefore, remain important. But there's no doubt that the nature of human decision making will evolve – specifically, technology will take care of more menial and mundane decisions, leaving humans to focus on higher-level, more complex decisions.

7. Leadership skills

The workplaces of the future will look quite different from today's hierarchical organizations. Project-based teams, remote teams, and fluid organizational structures will probably become more commonplace. But that won't diminish the importance of good leadership. Even within project teams, individuals will still need to take on leadership roles to tackle issues and develop solutions – so common leadership traits like being inspiring and helping others become the best versions of themselves will remain critical.

8. Diversity and cultural intelligence

Workplaces are becoming more diverse and open, so employees will need to be able to respect, understand, and adapt to others who might have different ways of perceiving the world. This will obviously improve how people interact within the company, but I think it will also make the business’s services and products more inclusive, too.

9. Embracing change

Even for me, the pace of change right now is startling, particularly when it comes to AI. This means people will have to be agile and cultivate the ability to embrace – and even celebrate – change. Employees will need to be flexible and adapt to shifting workplaces, expectations, and required skillsets. And, crucially, they'll need to see change not as a burden but as an opportunity to grow.

Bottom line: we needn't be intimated by AI. The human brain is incredible. It's far more complex and more powerful than any AI in existence. So rather than fearing AI and automation and the changes this will bring to workplaces, we should all be looking to harness our unique human capabilities and cultivate these softer skills – skills that will become all the more important for the future of work.

AI is going to impact businesses of all shapes and sizes across all industries. Discover how to prepare your organization for an AI-driven world in my new book, The Intelligence Revolution: Transforming Your Business With AI.

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website. 

Bernard Marr

Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker, futurist, and a strategic business & technology advisor to governments and companies. He

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Success, Failure And The Drive To Keep Creating

Elizabeth Gilbert was once an "unpublished diner waitress," devastated by rejection letters. And yet, in the wake of the success of 'Eat, Pray, Love,' she found herself identifying strongly with her former self. With beautiful insight, Gilbert reflects on why success can be as disorienting as failure and offers a simple -- though hard -- way to carry on, regardless of outcomes. This talk was presented at an official TED conference, and was featured by our editors on the home page. 

About the speaker Elizabeth Gilbert · Writer The author of "Eat, Pray, Love," Elizabeth Gilbert has thought long and hard about some big topics. Her fascinations: genius, creativity and how we get in our own way when it comes to both.

Give Yourself Permission To Be Creative

Reflecting on moments that shaped his life, actor Ethan Hawke examines how courageous expression promotes healing and connection with one another -- and invites you to discover your own unabashed creativity. "There is no path till you walk it," he says. This talk was presented at an official TED conference, and was featured by our editors on the home page. 

About the speaker Ethan Hawke · Actor, writer, director "Ethan Hawke has quietly emerged as perhaps our boldest and most distinctive screen actor," writes The New York Times.

Creativity And Productivity

Creativity And Productivity

 Interesting study on how to be more creative and productive:

 

Why is that we tend to be more successful at pursuits we are genuinely passionate about? Why does time seem to drag when you are completely bored and uninterested in a task? How come you can easily lose yourself in a task that really piques your interest?

According to positive psychology, doing things that you find genuinely interesting and stimulating can put you into a state Flow, which is defined as an ‘optimal state of consciousness where we feel our best and perform our best.’ During flow, self-awareness and the ego can dissolve, meaning you become completely focused and immersed in the activity for its own sake. Flow has been linked to enhanced performance and creativity across a wide range of activities, such as sports, artistic pursuits, and even in the workplace. Perhaps you can visualize a time when you became so focused and passionate about something that time just dissipated?

Genetic Link Between Mental Illness And Creativity

 Interesting article linking mental illness and creativity.  If we look at history and examine the great Painters and Writers we can in some cases discover such a link.  The tragedy is that people stigmatise before knowing the truth.

Link between Mental Illness And Creativity