Is your creative pipe clogged
[Music]
creativity
i believe isn’t a gift i know being a
designer this sounds counterintuitive
and a little ungrateful
but hear me out the ability to be
creative according to me
isn’t this magical gene that some people
are just blessed with and others not
it’s not like math that gene literally
skipped me out of my whole family
creativity is really just a curiosity
about everything
it’s like a muscle that we flex
involuntarily all the time as children
i’m sure all of you know the one
question every child constantly asks
why this desire to learn and explore and
understand
why something is is what all of us have
had since we were kids
we are all born creative in 1968 dr
george land conducted a creativity
assessment test
to select the most innovative engineers
and scientists to work for nasa
his assessment was successful and he
then decided to try it on children
what he saw was that children exhibited
high levels of creativity
which then dropped as the participants
aged
he concluded that children are
inherently creative
and that non-creative behavior was
learnt
as children we’re told to reach for the
stars and as soon as we reach the 10th
grade
we are expected to jump out of the
spaceship into specific boxes of
professions
labeled creative and non-creative
because of these boxes
we soon begin to convince ourselves that
we don’t possess
this rare gene we never really lose our
creative muscle
it’s just not been flexed in a long time
and this
has everything to do with our
environment we live in a world that just
wants us to choose one thing
schools colleges programs structures
that want to put us in boxes
give us labels and feel satisfied
they want to create order in the chaos
we
go from being uninhibited fearless
children
to easily demotivated instantly fearful
adults
creativity is always inside us so what
do we do
to relearn it how do we learn to flex
our creative muscles
once again seven years ago i got into
a top design school in the country to
study visual design
it was the first day of orientation and
the dean of our college stood in front
of us
the first thing he said was this week is
your orientation week
you will be unlearning everything you
know up until now
and we will begin again with a clean
slate
and at that moment the only question in
my mind
was where have i landed up and how fast
can i get out
it made no sense to me at all even the
activities we did through the week
seemed
random childish and not quite meeting my
artistic aspirations
it took me four years of college and
three years after college
when i began to write a tedx talk about
it to realize
just how much i have relied on this
unlearning
to be able to consistently channel
creative ideas
i believe in order for us to relearn
creativity
it is essential that we unlearn
non-creative behavior
now how exactly do we do that see
creativity is something that is constant
yet unpredictable it is something that
requires a designated time
and space in our lives it’s something
all of us do in our own unique way
and we feel dissatisfied when we don’t
do it
it’s something we inherently want to do
every single day
well there’s something else that all of
us are very familiar with
which fits each of the criteria i’ve
mentioned
creativity is a lot like poping
yes you heard it right just as going to
poop is an involuntary action
we have to unlearn five things to make
sure creativity becomes one two
number one unlearn that you will ever be
a hundred percent ready
just like the pressure to poop doesn’t
ask you if you’re ready
the opportunity to be creative will not
come to you when you’re ready
we procrastinate and we push off doing
new things because we tell ourselves
oh i’m not ready yet i’m still figuring
things out
we never think this way when we have to
go to the loo when you gotta go you
really just gotta go
andy warhol rightly said don’t think
about making art
just get it done let everyone else
decide if it’s good or bad
if they love it or hate it while they
are deciding
make even more art you will never know
what a creative process is going to look
like
you can imagine and hypothesize but you
will never
actually know unless you take that leap
of faith
i was approached by a friend to start a
street art collective in my city
to tell the stories of the shops and the
shop owners who’ve been here for decades
i had never done something like that
before and i was
terrified i didn’t feel ready but the
truth is i would never feel ready
going for it anyway led to some valuable
learnings
some beautiful friendships and a new
found confidence in what i could achieve
saying yes the first time prepares you a
little bit for the second time
the next time you feel unprepared for
something just do it anyway to see what
happens
say yes before you’re ready unlearn that
you will
ever be ready number two
do you think about how many times you go
to poop
or begin questioning your abilities to
go if you have a bad stomach or you
haven’t been able to go
no you show up every day no matter what
the results are
you know one good poop doesn’t dictate
the next and one bad poop doesn’t either
all it does is probably teach you to
keep drinking more water
and maybe not order from that strange
street food place again
unlearn that one success or one failure
is the end
my final graduation project was picked
up by a number of newspapers and
websites
there were interviews every day i was
getting featured in places daily
and i thought i was shahrukh khan this
was
life from now on soon enough i realized
it does not quite work like that
and that i would have to work just as
hard or even harder the next time
success was temporary it was like any
other experience
i had the opportunity soon after to
illustrate a comic book
it wasn’t something i had ever done
before but i said yes anyway
although we got some super successful
reviews and a great launch
i kept comparing it to the success of my
graduation project
and somewhere i felt like i had failed
what i realized now is that book taught
me to be comfortable with a new way of
storytelling
and i love making comics now the feeling
of failure
was temporary too it was like any other
experience
the magic of creativity is in the
process
successes and failures are merely
experiences don’t be motivated by
either be motivated by the process of
learning
show up every day no matter what and do
your thing number three
now the first two unlearning seem fairly
straightforward
but if there’s anything i know about
being creative is that it is anything
but predictable
you may have a week of things running
smoothly and suddenly one day
there’s a block in the pipe creative
ideas will refuse to come out
no matter what you do this is what
artists often call
a creative block you must unlearn
that creativity is a button there are
two things that will lead you out of
this blocked state
awareness and patience remember how i
said creativity is like a curiosity
about everything
well curiosity is fueled by observation
try cutting out your distractions and
see what’s happening inside and in your
environment
give your mind time to think to explore
to question and to understand
how many times have you gone to the loo
and simply waited
waited for the right time for the pipes
to unclog
so wait get bored and let your mind
wander because that’s when the magic
happens
i have been through many creative blocks
over the years and in fact i was in one
around the time i started writing this
talk
no points for guessing what led me out
of it let me let you in on a little
secret
the most creative ideas don’t happen at
the desk they actually happen in the
bathroom
number four remember those boxes that we
were made to jump into
well old habits die hard and the need to
create
new boxes even within creative
experiences begins cropping up
you may feel compelled to restrict your
creativity
or question it based on somebody else
you must
unlearn that creativity looks like one
thing
and stop comparing yourself to someone
else
i know it’s easier said than done but
you don’t compare your time in the
bathroom to somebody else do you
i’m certain it does not even cross your
mind
that’s because you know each person is
unique and so their pope will be too
your creative journey is what you choose
it to be
not what anybody else defines for you
you may be familiar with the term jack
of all trades master of none
well very recently i found out that that
is not the entire quote
and the whole thing reads jack of all
trades master of none
though often times better than the
master of one
this revelation was life-changing for me
because ever since i was a kid i was
jack
somebody who was interested in and
fairly decent at multiple things
but unable to pick just one for a long
time i felt like i wasn’t a real
creative person
because i wasn’t able to choose a box it
was important for me to
unlearn that creativity looks like one
thing
today i’m still jack i love dipping my
toes into a million things and that has
led to some diverse projects
and wonderful opportunities and now
the fifth and possibly most important
thing to unlearn
unlearn that the creative journey is
finite
i’ve been maintaining a journal since i
was little and recently i felt the need
to share some of my reflections with the
world through a different medium
i began making videos along with little
illustration talking about my thoughts
a few months after a client approached
me saying they came across this video
and they wanted me to work on a project
with the same style
a week later another project then
another
i got to work on three super exciting
opportunities
simply because i had shared a thought
and i’m certain
that sharing the work i do for these
projects will lead to something else
creativity is a little bit like a yawn
it keeps going around
and coming around sometimes you are the
one sharing a creative thought with
somebody else
sometimes it is being shared with you
and let me tell you a creative thought
is difficult to get rid of
our brains love chewing on ideas like
these and feel compelled to add to them
nothing i have told you today is a
completely unique creative idea
it simply comes from creative
conversations i’ve heard
books i’ve read and experiences i’ve had
i have just done the job of chewing on
them
passing them through my system and by
now i think you know where this is going
now i know what you may think i wish it
were that easy
to be creative as easily as we go to the
bathroom
but you know what it can be one of the
biggest misunderstandings about
creativity is that it’s all about making
art
it is so much more than that it is the
magical process and everything we learn
while trying
to make something new it is to share an
idea we are passionate about which
otherwise will never be heard
it is to shed light on what’s important
or what may be taken for granted or
forgotten
and it is a part of you did you have a
hobby that you started having less and
less time for because life got in the
way
an idea you wanted to pursue but stopped
out of fear of judgment or failure or do
you
simply want to get out of that
non-creative box
so try give creativity a shot
give it space and time in your life
start saying yes before you are ready
and choose what you want it to look like
it will always come back to you
start showing up for it consistently and
see how it becomes like anything else
that comes naturally
and let me tell you you may not choose
to share the details of the experience
but you will feel it it feels lighter
even relieving thank you all so much for
listening
and i cannot wait to see all the
wonderful ideas all of you poop out