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