Cracking the Code on Creativity
[Music]
people often wonder if they’re creative
so here’s a quick test what do you see
this one’s pretty hard so i’ll make it a
bit easier
now what do you see
how many of you saw this
and how many of you saw this
ladies and gentlemen you have just
experienced a mental shift
creativity is now here and that little
shift is
evidence that you can access your
creativity
so to set the stage let’s look at a new
definition of creativity
creativity is problem solving plus
passion
creativity is the force that propels and
elevates our lives
anytime you passionately go over under
around her through an obstacle to create
something new
that’s creativity funnily the evidence
of creativity is all around us
yet it often slips through our fingers
the
problem is that we’ve never properly
been taught how to access our creativity
that’s why so many people throw up their
hands and give up on trying to find
or maximize their creativity trust me
i seriously doubted my creativity in my
youth
and today i teach creativity at yale
university
and have the privilege of coaching
musicians
artists and leaders on how to find their
creative flow
and spread it through the world the big
shift in my thinking on creativity
occurred on march 16 2007
i’ll never forget that day because i
woke up
in a stark white windowless room hooked
up
to 17 tubes the icu
of new york’s wild cornell hospital i
looked up and there was my mother
holding a chocolate cake happy birthday
sweetheart she whispered to me with
tears in her eyes
you’ve come back to us you see eleven
days earlier
after a five minute procedure at a
doctor’s office
i contracted sepsis a nearly fatal blood
infection
i was rushed to the hospital and i had
four emergency surgeries
in three days my life hung in balance
and i almost died
laying in a coma for nearly 10 days
until i woke up
on my birthday at this point in my life
i was stuck
not only physically but also mentally
creativity was something that i longed
for from my teenage years
as the daughter of holocaust survivors
who came to this country seeking a
better life
i fully bought into the idea that
education was the key to success
and i dove into my studies i dutifully
became a lawyer
and led a busy and productive life but
as the years passed
i had the nagging feeling that i was
living my life in black and white
and that the creatives were the ones
living in color
before landing in the hospital i began
to explore my creativity
through playing the piano and
volunteering in the arts
and i even found the courage to leave
the law
but i was enormously frustrated because
i could not figure out how to properly
channel
my creativity so when i woke up
in the hospital on my birthday there was
no doubt that i had come back for a
reason
and that reason had something to do with
creativity
a few months later after another major
surgery
it finally came to me i had been given
a second chance in life to help people
find their creativity
and spread it through the world so if
you think you’re not creative
or if you’re a creative who thinks
you’ve plateaued
i’m here to tell you that nothing is
further from the truth
today we’re going to crack the code on
creativity
and unveil the secret to living your
life full blast
to get us started we need to debunk the
common myths
that typically block people from
accessing or maximizing their creativity
here’s myth number one creativity is
just for artists
actually it’s for everyone when you’re
at work
developing a new app or launching a new
product
that’s creativity or when you’re at home
inventing new recipes or woodworking
or redecorating a room that’s creativity
too and you don’t have to be an
artist to do any of those things so on
to myth number two
the myth that creativity is the flash in
the pan eureka genius moment
nope creativity is a complex process
of problem solving do you remember the
start of the covet pandemic
when we had a terrible shortage of
personal protective equipment
well teenagers in high school robotics
clubs
tapped into their creativity to solve
this problem
and they used their 3d printers to make
face shields
it took many weeks to come up with the
process and many hours to manufacture
the face shields
and in the end these young people were
cranking out thousands of face shields
for our essential workers take
artists they solve the problem of how to
fill the empty page or the empty stage
and creative problem solving comes up in
places you might not suspect
like when you replant a garden or
reorganize your closets to maximize your
space
that’s creativity along with a big dash
of passion
because passion is the spark that keeps
you going
and that feeling from passion leads us
to myth number three
the myth of the mad miserable creative
think vincent van gogh the world famous
artist who cut off his ear
and languished in an asylum in the south
of france
but to the contrary research from
positive psychology tells us
that creativity is associated with many
aspects of psychological happiness
including that burst of positive
emotions you experience
when you’re being creative and
creativity
is full blast living in the words of
psychologist mikhaichik sent me high
and that feeling of fulfillment that you
derive from being creative
is another indicator of your happiness
now the good folks at nassau our space
agency
further debunked the myth of the
miserable creative in an experiment
where they tested the creative capacity
of
children nasa developed a test
to measure the creative potential of
their engineers
and their ability to come up with
innovative solutions
the test involved a type of creativity
known as divergent thinking
that’s when you come up with as many
ways as possible to solve a problem
no matter how wild or crazy like how
many ways
can you use a paperclip the test was
given to 1600
curious little four and five-year-olds
children
who find pure joy in coming up with new
and creative ideas
and the result of this experiment 98
of those children scored as creative
geniuses
sadly by the time we’re adults just two
percent of a score
in the creative genius category so
here’s the thing
creativity is not something new to you
you were born with it
it may be laying dormant but it’s still
there
so now that you know that creativity is
available to everyone
that it takes many different forms and
that it can lead to your happiness
the question is how can you find it i’m
going to show you right now
prepare to take a journey inside
yourself
so please take a look at this relaxing
beach scene
sit back in your chairs take a nice deep
breath
and close your eyes and go back to a
time
when you were doing something that you
love
something that you’re good at something
you’re passionate about
you’re focused and clear on what you’re
doing
you’re challenged and you’re up to the
challenge and time is going by
and you don’t even notice because you’re
so enraptured
by what you’re doing and how you’re
feeling in the zone
in the flow so keeping your eyes closed
zero in on that experience what do you
see
what are the colors and shapes that
surround you
what do you hear what are the sounds
that envelope you
what are you touching in this space of
joy and
flow what are you touching
and what do you smell and what are some
tastes that you associate
so keeping your eyes closed embrace that
feeling one more time
as you take another deep breath and now
please open your eyes
that feeling of happiness you just
experienced
that’s flow flow is when you’re fully
engaged
and performing at your best when you’re
at flow you lose all track of time
because you’re lost in the love of your
pursuit
and when you’re at flow you’re at the
peak of your creativity
and your happiness so remember
i did not invent that flow moment for
you
it comes from your true experience so
you can trust it
i just pointed you in the right
direction
tapping into flow is one way to access
your creativity
let’s explore a second way
those good thoughts and feelings you
just experienced in that short flow
meditation
double your intensity and increase your
frequency
maybe you find your flow in the kitchen
dancing to music
take a dance class maybe you love coming
up with new ways to hike up a mountain
get out your hiking boots and hit the
trails
maybe you can’t forget the memories of
your high school rock band
dig out that guitar and start playing
again
this is the secret to accessing your
creativity
on demand it’s why david
a theater major in college rekindled his
creative spark at the peak of his legal
career
and began writing plays or holly a
successful entrepreneur
tapped into her creative flow to replant
her garden
and make it more ecologically
sustainable
or steve stuck in midlife who recalled
his experience
as president of the high school movie
club and took a few filmmaking classes
to get back
into the flow there’s yet a third way
that you can bring more creativity into
your life
through life experiments a life
experiment
is a process where you actively go out
into the world
and explore areas that make you feel
happy and joyful
it may take time and commitment and
trial and error
to conduct those life experiments but
it’s worth it
because it’s a direct pathway to your
happiness and fulfillment
in my case it took decades of
exploration
to go from stuck teenager to someone who
lives and breathes curiosity and
creativity
my entry point was the piano which i
played as the child
in which i dropped when i went to law
school years later i returned to the
piano to rekindle my creative spark
and i realized how important music and
the arts were to me
so i embarked on a series of life
experiments
first i volunteered in the arts and
found out how much i loved being in that
space
and then i began to take on leadership
roles in the arts organizations
first as a volunteer and then as a
professional
where i honed my creative thinking
skills
within a few years and a near-death
experience
my feet were firmly planted on the
career path that i enjoyed today
yes life experiments take commitment the
good news is that it provides
a process for you to bring more
creativity into your life
the process goes like this first
select one to three areas that pique
your curiosity and spark your joy
next explore and get out into the world
the key is to take action remain open to
new possibilities
and make course corrections as you bring
more creative flow into your life
and third reflect on your experience
do more of what you love and discard
anything that does not resonate
in essence conducting life experiments
is the creative act
to solve the problem of how to live a
better life
so the power is now in your hands you
can either lose energy
by worrying about what to do with your
life or you can get busy experimenting
and discover a more fulfilling version
of yourself
you now have an entirely new way of
thinking about creativity
you’ve experienced the wonders of flow
you know how to bring more creativity
into your life
you’ve discovered that creativity is
your pathway
to self-mastery and fulfillment and you
don’t have to stop there
consider the creative ripple when you
release your creativity out into the
world
the chili contest in our small new
england town
is a perfect example our town had a
problem
our local charities needed to raise more
money so we started
the chile contest in the first year the
professional chefs offered up their
chili
and we got to sample the usual suspects
turkey
beef vegetarian hot medium and mild
it was fun and tasty and the contest
generated so much buzz that the home
cooks wanted in on the action
so there became two contests one for the
professionals
and one for the amateurs and as more
people participated in the chili contest
the participants in the chili’s grew
more and more creative
with entries like beer in chipotle chile
sasquatch chile texas red insanity
and as creativity flowed from the
professionals to the amateurs
donations to our local charities grew as
well
so consider your creative ripple as you
activate your creativity
and tap into your flow and share your
creativity with the world
with more creative ideas and circulation
there will
be more creative ideas and solutions and
the pathway to a better world
becomes clearer together we can make the
world
a better place and it all starts with
you