Whypeople believe they arent creative and how to changeit
why do people believe
they aren’t creative and how to change
it
so just remember when you were a little
kid
you painted all these crazy paintings
colorful
it made no sense it was just scribbles
but it was a lot of fun
or when your parents took you on a road
trip and you were sitting in the car and
you just looked out of the window
there’s a big factory a big chimney and
yeah it’s not smoke that came outside it
was a cloud machine
it produced the clouds in the sky so as
a kid
your mind had all these crazy but funny
ideas
and you try to make sense of the world
in your own creative way
puzzling the pieces together in your
mind by yourself
without anyone telling you how it’s
supposed to be so the question comes up
when
and why did the world become such a
great place
well before it was crazy and fun and
colorful
and it was mysterious and you explored
why suddenly is everything gray and
structured
and a lot of people feel trapped when
did that happen
and and why i think that everyone
watching this
is a unique and amazing person and that
everyone
deeply inside is creative it’s just your
beliefs in your mind
and society that is forcing you to think
in certain patterns and over time you
neglect your inner child your inner self
your inner
creativity so let’s figure out why is
that so
and let’s take a look at a couple
stories from
my experience there are certain key
events in everyone’s life
which try to destroy one’s creativity
for a certain purpose
the first big event for me was when i
went to school for the very first time
and suddenly i was confronted with a new
mindset
for my life while i think you should
never stop learning and
that studying is very important schools
at that age
to me felt like you have to remember the
facts
if you forget them you get punished and
if you remember them you get a reward
your parents will be happy
make me feel very trapped and stressed i
felt like
i wasn’t myself one day my father
bought this really strange
old computer like a really big one white
and it was windows 95 big gray keyboard
very slow and having these strange
beeping sounds
my mom always got very angry when i used
it because she couldn’t use the
telephone while i was in the internet
but
well school was very gray for me at home
i had this
yeah this this outlet at this computer
and this like
mysterious new world that was waiting
inside of it
and it made life very very pleasant
and i was i always looked forward
forward to it i rushed home and i just
i was just happy from the basic
paintings
in microsoft paint to exploring
microsoft word
to lightsaber effects and video editing
explosions on on homemade camcorder
footage
i try to explore as much as i can and it
was
very fun i tried to balance my boring
school life
with this amazing digital colorful world
that was waiting outside while this was
a lot of fun
it came with a little problem
one day when i went to school i wanted
to
really excited tell the kids about what
i can do
that you can create imaginary worlds in
the computer
that you can explore your wildest
yeah your sci-fi worlds fantasy worlds
the kids they didn’t like that so much
they
quickly said things like oh look at timo
he’s going to the forest with sticks he
thinks he’s a
star wars fighter and while
this was my big passion it quickly made
me a target
and yeah kids started to pick on me
they started to attack me for no reason
simply because
maybe because i was different and now
thinking back
while my parents always gave me complete
freedom
to choose whatever i want to do their
parents
didn’t they forced them into soccer
clubs
football playing instruments they had a
tight schedule
they had school and then more more more
more which was the was the society
average
everyone did it they all hang out
together
so if there’s a kid who goes to the
forest
and creates a digital world in a
computer which nobody had at that time
of course that’s different of course
that makes him a target
so at the time i quickly learned that
following your passion your your
pure passion what interests you
it can be whatever you want might be not
the best idea because
society has these standards and these
ideals
how everyone should be and in germany at
the time it was
soccer instruments a lot of sports for
guys
so you quickly find out that if you
follow your creative
and artistic inspiration
you look odd you stick out you become
the nail that sticks out
and oh boy there are plenty plenty of
hammers out there
then i was 16 years old and
it was hard for me the kids still didn’t
like me
and suddenly my parents also were
against me because
my grades were suddenly becoming worse
and worse because
school was not a place of fun anymore it
was more like
a place i was forced to go where people
attacked me
where people tried to force me into
something that i wasn’t
and it felt like the entire world was
against me
it i almost failed in class several
times
i almost got kicked from school and yeah
because i didn’t fit in so
at the time i thought of myself as crazy
as strange what is wrong with me
but now i look at it as unique
so what did i do
i buried it i
buried it my life got splitted
while this was my life before it split
into the creative part which
is what i really want to do and the mask
for school where i just put it on
i just act like i’m interested in cars
and in sports
in soccer and yeah my life just became
incredibly splitted
while in school i had this boring
average life i fit in but
kids finally left me alone and when i
came home
everything was colorful it was i could i
could follow my passion
and oh boy i became probably the biggest
nerd
in my town in in my area about visual
effects
it was it reached the point where
i got requests from agencies if i can do
visual effects for them
and they wanted to call me but i
couldn’t pick up the phone because
my voice was like a 16 year old and i
tried to hide it
but they thought that i was yeah much
older that i had
experience that i studied it it was very
it was a funny time
it really split into the two extremes
so at the time since i couldn’t take the
course or i couldn’t
get money for it i just did a lot for
free
it was my playground really then the
second key that
came after i graduated from university i
started my first job
can you believe it someone said i can
choose
finally choose my passion and make money
from it
what did i get tight schedule
low payment lots of deadlines co-workers
which secretly hate you because your
chair is better than theirs
so instead of amazing creative
projects and amazing challenges and
learning opportunities
there was a lot of micromanagement tight
deadlines
stress and again from passion
became a strict prison
a schedule a grey life
which i wasn’t really proud to go to
every day
i was trapped again really ironic
actually
all these years you go to school and
university to study for something
and then society tells you finally you
can do
you can follow your passion you can do
whatever you want
and you follow your passion in a job and
this job
just takes your passion your creativity
and tries to monetize it and kills it
turns your passion into something that
yeah becomes a routine becomes a cage
again
and you end up with nothing the thing
the only thing that inspired you
that how you daydreaming now is a
struggle
is pain so very similar to how it was in
school
where people just try to fit in so they
don’t become a target
your first job is level number two
it takes the only thing left over which
is your true
passion your true inspiration your
little escape
and freedom and it takes your
creative approach your free thinking
into
an effective system
which yes and then if you look around
yourself in your job
you can see that many people get stuck
in this loop
this cycle and they continue and
continue till it becomes a burnout
or midlife crisis there is even the word
these days
is the quarter life crisis many of my
friends have felt it
i complained enough so let’s take a look
at some ways
how you can break the cycle and break
free
to embrace your creativity about
two years ago i started a little
experiment while i was still working
i said to myself what if
each evening i take 30 minutes each
evening
to takes to do something that i like to
do for example
to create an artwork something that has
nothing to do with work
just something that i personally i’m
very curious about and want to try
so if you like painting you can paint
for 30 minutes each evening
or if you like to make crazy lightsaber
movies in the forest
you can also do that the important thing
is
don’t force it don’t don’t pressure it
block out 30 minutes if you can just for
yourself
so you can have freedom and fun and
if you don’t want to do anything don’t
do anything it’s really about just
bringing this playfulness time for
playfulness back into your life
because everything is determined by
other people so you want to make some
time for yourself
so in the first year it started from
literally nothing i just posted my
artworks on instagram
one every day just a little bit no
pressure
just something i really want to do i got
feedback
and i felt more creative than ever it
was amazing
i felt like every day during these 30
minutes my
soul really gets recharged and
when i do it it’s like a meditation i
just forget about time
i forget about everything i just focus
truly on the moment
and i just i’m just very happy also i
could see the learning curve
while at the beginning my art i thought
it was good
by posting every day you could really
see how it improved
step by step and after one year you
could see that
my creative ideas just went from
level one to level 100 it was just a
difference like day and night it was
very interesting
then in the second year something crazy
happened
co with 19. i wasn’t able to go outside
my friends were locked up and since i
live in germany i have many friends in
italy
and i saw that the quarantine affected
them
most yeah insanely
so i wanted to use my my new hobby
my creativity to do something for all
the people affected by the quarantine
so i picked a city which was most
affected the first one was milan
and i created a series called the return
of nature
where i take a city and i envision it in
beautiful flowers and nature
so for all the people who cannot go
outside to
experience this spring they can at least
see it digitally
and it draws all the way back to when i
was a kid where i built these dream
worlds
now i could do it for people affected by
a pandemic which was very cool and then
the crazy thing happened it didn’t take
long and the series went from
a few hundred clicks to 20 million
20 million views and my profile
my little art profile went from 10 000
followers
to a hundred thousand there were 90 000
new people
who were inspired by my little creative
hobby
and shared it with their friends it
helped them during the pandemic
and that was just mind-blowing for me
and then quickly after all the emails
rushed in
two per week three per week the world’s
largest clients
the brands fashion music technology
and guess what i did i quit my job and
now i’m here i have no body to
micromanage me
i simply sell ideas to dream worlds
what i did as a kid everyone attacked me
about it
my my inner creativity just how crazy is
that
so i asked myself if
30 minutes each evening had
so much impact on me my job
but also all the people that got
inspired that might have started
and that that helped their friends
during the pandemic
that yeah loved my art enjoyed it
what could 30 minutes do for another
person
my little series changed the fashion
industry and also the music industry
in this year quite a bit really a bit
so i’m asking myself what if someone
from another profession from another job
maybe someone who does something great
for the environment
or someone in technology what if they
start
a challenge where for 30 minutes each
evening they just do something that is
truly from their heart that is their
creativity
that is playful that is something where
they completely forget about time
a simple move that you only block out
30 minutes each day for yourself or even
less maybe 10 minutes
so think about it if someone a 27 year
old from rural germany
how my art can reach 20 million people
just from committing 30 minutes
a little bit of time every day to a
creative outlet
to yourself to your inner child to your
inner creativity
how can it change your life how in
return
can it change the world what if what if
you’re an engineer
or you’re doing something completely
crazy
how could it change everything so i
encourage you
try it for yourself just try it for two
weeks
i think you will love it thank you very
much for
listening today i hope you have an
amazing day