Speaker 1: What has happened for most of us is that our
Speaker 1: minds are now trained to think in limited, restricted, compartmentalized ways,
Speaker 1: and we want to change that. What you want to
Speaker 1: do is become a critical thinker and ask yourself what
Speaker 1: is a problem that you're facing, and I want you
Speaker 1: to deeply think about what it would take to solve
Speaker 1: that problem. But in imagination, with no limits on time, energy, money,
Speaker 1: you may say, well, Jay, that's stupid because I won't
Speaker 1: be able to do that because I'm not limitless in time, energy, money.
Speaker 2: But what you're doing is you're training your mind to
Speaker 2: think that way.
Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jay Sheddy, and I am so grateful that you've decided
Speaker 1: to tune in again. I'm so deeply moved by your commitment,
Speaker 1: your consistency, your dedication to growing and bettering yourself because
Speaker 1: we as humans are wired to keep progressing, to keep moving,
Speaker 1: to keep evolving, and when we used to do it intentionally,
Speaker 1: life can become phenomenal.
Speaker 2: I want to thank you all for being here, for
Speaker 2: trusting me. I appreciate you.
Speaker 1: I've loved seeing all your reviews of late keep those
Speaker 1: coming on Spotify and Apple.
Speaker 2: They helped the podcast so much.
Speaker 1: Please subscribe on YouTube and now a lot of you
Speaker 1: been watching this show as well, and we've had segments
Speaker 1: that are only there. Thank you so much again for
Speaker 1: being a part of this growing community. I am so
Speaker 1: grateful for you, and I couldn't do this without you.
Speaker 1: And today I want to dive into something because I
Speaker 1: find that creativity is such an important part of life.
Speaker 1: Yet we were never taught in school how to be
Speaker 1: more creative. If you think about how school worked, it
Speaker 1: was learning to know the answer to something, and the
Speaker 1: answer is either right or wrong. Now, this makes sense
Speaker 1: in subjects like math, but it doesn't necessarily make sense
Speaker 1: in subjects like English. Like if you were reflecting or
Speaker 1: you were introspecting about a paragram that you read, and
Speaker 1: you were doing a comprehension exercise where you had to
Speaker 1: write about how you felt about it or what you
Speaker 1: thought about it, there was still a finite number of answers,
Speaker 1: Whereas in life it's so important to have that freedom
Speaker 1: to be creative, to be curious, and so everything in
Speaker 1: school was pushing us towards having a right answer, having
Speaker 1: a final answer, having a conclusive answer, and creativity is
Speaker 1: anything but being conclusive or final. The point of creativity
Speaker 1: is that it's open, that it's abundant, that it's seeking, discovering,
Speaker 1: revealing itself. But we've been trained to think the opposite.
Speaker 1: We've been trained to believe that it's either yes or no,
Speaker 1: when in fact it could be well, why is it yes?
Speaker 1: Or why is it no? That's a far more interesting question.
Speaker 1: We've been told it's either there or it's there, it's
Speaker 1: either this or it's that, But it's like, well, why
Speaker 1: is it this?
Speaker 2: And why is it that? Is a far more in questions.
Speaker 1: So our creative proclivities have been limited from our education,
Speaker 1: and therefore we ask less questions. Therefore we feel stupid
Speaker 1: when we ask questions. How many times have you ever
Speaker 1: said stupid question? But I had to ask right or
Speaker 1: you're saying it in your head? And so often we
Speaker 1: feel scared or judged. And how many of us push
Speaker 1: to judge and assume? How many of us is judging
Speaker 1: and assuming our first reaction to something as opposed to
Speaker 1: curiosity and questioning, as opposed to being creatively thinking about
Speaker 1: an idea that's put in front of us. How many
Speaker 1: of you hear an idea from one of your friends
Speaker 1: about a business or a podcast or an app, and
Speaker 1: straight away your mind goes, no, that's not possible, instead
Speaker 1: of being creative and thinking how could that be possible?
Speaker 2: When and where.
Speaker 1: Could it be possible? What could we do to make
Speaker 1: that a reality? And what I find is that just
Speaker 1: as we shut down other people's creativity, we often shut
Speaker 1: down our own. How many times have you said in
Speaker 1: your own mind, oh, that's a stupid idea. Where does
Speaker 1: that voice come from? How many times were you told
Speaker 1: growing up that your idea was a stupid idea, or
Speaker 1: it was a bad idea, or that it would never work,
Speaker 1: or that it was guaranteed to fail. How many times
Speaker 1: did you hear that? I remember when I was starting
Speaker 1: this podcast, I remember people saying to me, Jay, people
Speaker 1: like listening to you for four minutes. People don't want
Speaker 1: to listen to you and a guest or a friend,
Speaker 1: or whoever it was, for an hour. People don't want
Speaker 1: to hear that. And the reason I'm sharing that with
Speaker 1: you is just to help us recognize that if you're
Speaker 1: limited in your creativity, if you've been restricted in your
Speaker 1: creativity internally or by others around you, you're not alone
Speaker 1: Sir Ken Robinson and his TED talk, which is called
Speaker 1: How Schools Kill Creativity, talks about how we need to
Speaker 1: reconstitute our conception of the richness of human capacity and
Speaker 1: says that creativity is now now as important in education
Speaker 1: as literacy. And he talks about this idea of how
Speaker 1: we shouldn't be making people feel they're wrong just because
Speaker 1: they're thinking differently. And if you think about all the
Speaker 1: things that we love, all the things that we admire,
Speaker 1: all the things that we think are incredible in the world,
Speaker 1: are usually fresh, they're new, they're enlivening, they're abundant. They've
Speaker 1: come from a place of someone being creative. Right, when
Speaker 1: you look at a building and it looks different to
Speaker 1: all the other buildings, we're like, Wow, that's special, that's amazing. Right,
Speaker 1: there was creativity there. When you see a book cover
Speaker 1: that's different, it's like, oh, there's creativity there. When you
Speaker 1: are looking for furniture for your home or a color
Speaker 1: that's different, there's creativity there. Creativity is so much of
Speaker 1: what we notice as being special or beautiful or admirable,
Speaker 1: yet we often restrict our own creative capabilities. Now there's
Speaker 1: an incredible book by Keith Sawyer called Zigzag the Surprising
Speaker 1: Path to Greater Creativity, and if you really want to
Speaker 1: dive into this subject, I highly recommend it. Keith Sawyer
Speaker 1: is a research psychologist and an author, and I think
Speaker 1: some of his advice in this book is fantastic. So
Speaker 1: I want to start off with what is one way
Speaker 1: that you can start to get that creative spark going,
Speaker 1: that creative juice flowing. And I want to start really
Speaker 1: small because I think sometimes when we think of being creative,
Speaker 1: we think I've got to build something big or I've
Speaker 1: got to come up with something unique, and that can
Speaker 1: feel quite intimidating. I feel like me, it can definitely
Speaker 1: feel intimidating. And I love the idea of watching Ted Talks.
Speaker 1: I love the idea of listening to podcasts. I love
Speaker 1: the idea of learning as a form of creativity. But
Speaker 1: I want to try and give you something specific. One
Speaker 1: of my favorite things to do is to walk into
Speaker 1: a bookshop. I love being in a bookshop because I
Speaker 1: feel like the titles, the covers, the amount of research.
Speaker 1: If you just think about what you're doing when you're
Speaker 1: walking into a bookshop, you're actually walking into decades of research.
Speaker 2: Learning and art.
Speaker 1: That's literally what it is. Like, let's really think about that.
Speaker 1: And I know bookshops are getting less and less popular,
Speaker 1: but hey, I love going to a good bookshop. And
Speaker 1: finding a good bookshop is really really awesome because, like
Speaker 1: I said, the covers, the titles, the work that's gone
Speaker 1: behind them. Even though people say, don't judge your book
Speaker 1: by its cover, one of the reasons I love bookshops
Speaker 1: is because you feel you're surrounded by some mu's thought
Speaker 1: and intelligence. Now, if you think about it, a bookshop
Speaker 1: is marketing you ideas. When you're on the streets, you're
Speaker 1: being marketed products. Think about that for a second, Right,
Speaker 1: when you're walking down the streets and you see a billboard,
Speaker 1: or you see a bus stand, or you see an
Speaker 1: advert on the train or of course on your phone,
Speaker 1: you're being marketed products. In a bookstore, you're being marketed ideas. Now,
Speaker 1: products improve your life in a certain way, for sure,
Speaker 1: but ideas define your life. Ideas teach you how to
Speaker 1: navigate life. Ideas teach you how to make decisions on
Speaker 1: even the products that you'll use. Right, it's the idea
Speaker 1: that's almost like a compass to your life. And so
Speaker 1: while products do improve our lives, and buying products is
Speaker 1: a part of our day to day life. We all
Speaker 1: need to eat, drink, and live and everything else. The
Speaker 1: ideas are what helps us make better decisions in our
Speaker 1: life and for the products and everything else. And so
Speaker 1: I love the idea of being marketed ideas. When I'm
Speaker 1: in a bookshop, and one of my favorite things to
Speaker 1: do inside a bookshop is to try to pick two
Speaker 1: random books, and what I'll do is I'll flick to
Speaker 1: a chapter in one book that seems exciting. I'll go
Speaker 1: down the contents page. I'll be like, Okay, which chapter
Speaker 1: is something I'm struggling with, something I'm working on. Let
Speaker 1: me go to that chapter. Let me do the same
Speaker 1: in another book that maybe on a completely different topic.
Speaker 1: But what am I fascinated by? And I'll try and
Speaker 1: find what is similar about those two chapters or how
Speaker 1: are they connected? How do they agree or disagree? How
Speaker 1: can I reflect on them both together? Maybe there's context
Speaker 1: that crosses over, Maybe there isn't. Maybe I've just learned
Speaker 1: about two new ideas that are completely disconnected. But the
Speaker 1: point being that what you're doing is you're actually pushing
Speaker 1: your brain. You're pushing your mind to connect dots where
Speaker 1: otherwise there is no connection. And Steve Jobs famously said
Speaker 1: creativity is just connecting things. If you look at what
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs did with Apple, he combined calligraphy with technology.
Speaker 1: He wanted shape things like calligraphy. He wanted the type
Speaker 1: font to be beautiful. He wanted everything to feel like
Speaker 1: art and calligraphy, even though it was technology. He wanted
Speaker 1: it to feel that fluid and that beautiful. When you
Speaker 1: think about the rise of Pokemon Go, if you remember
Speaker 1: Pokemon Go, I'm sure some of you played it. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you forced your parents to play it with you.
Speaker 1: If you don't know what it was, it was an
Speaker 1: augmented reality game where you could go out under the
Speaker 1: streets and augmented reality would help you catch pokemon on
Speaker 1: the streets. What's really interesting about this game is that
Speaker 1: the founder talked about why he created it, and the
Speaker 1: reason he created it is that he said that when
Speaker 1: he was young, his father would take him out and
Speaker 1: observe wildlife, insects, animals, and they would talk about them
Speaker 1: and he would learn about them, and he said that
Speaker 1: he missed the fact that parents were no longer going
Speaker 1: out with their children. So he wanted to find a
Speaker 1: way that technology could make people more interested in going
Speaker 1: outdoors and being outside. So it's really interesting that when
Speaker 1: you're connecting two ideas that seem opposite, Like at that time,
Speaker 1: people said kids just want to stay indoors and play
Speaker 1: video games. That was what society was saying, and he said, well, no,
Speaker 1: maybe we can find a way of getting them outdoors
Speaker 1: through a video game. Right, maybe that is a possibility,
Speaker 1: And that's creativity. So when you go into a bookshop
Speaker 1: and you pick two random books and you see how
Speaker 1: they can relate, that's what you're doing. You're pushing your
Speaker 1: mind in a very small way. Next time you hear
Speaker 1: two opposing arguments, try and see if you can find
Speaker 1: the similarities by and see if you can find the
Speaker 1: connection as opposed to the opposition. Because it's not hard
Speaker 1: to tell the difference between something, right, it's not complicated
Speaker 1: to be like, that's different from that.
Speaker 2: That makes sense.
Speaker 1: But to find the correlation where other people see anomalies
Speaker 1: is a real art and a real skill. People may
Speaker 1: not have seen art and technology together. People may not
Speaker 1: have seen the digital world and nature through the same lens,
Speaker 1: but that's what creativity is about. So this is a
Speaker 1: really sharp, smart, small way that you can start to
Speaker 1: do that. Now number two is really really interesting for me,
Speaker 1: and Sawyer talks about it in the book quite heavily.
Speaker 1: And what I want to talk about or address here
Speaker 1: is this idea of asking better questions of yourself and
Speaker 1: of others. The reason why we struggle with creativity is
Speaker 1: because we ask the wrong questions. And I actually want
Speaker 1: to take that back. You're never asking the wrong question.
Speaker 1: We just need to ask more questions. We need to
Speaker 1: ask deeper questions, and we just need to ask more questions. Right,
Speaker 1: We often just limit it to what do you do?
Speaker 1: How do you like it? Do you enjoy what you do?
Speaker 1: Notice how all those questions are very very basic. We
Speaker 1: don't necessarily ask, well, what do you enjoy about it?
Speaker 1: Or on a scale of one to ten, how enjoyable
Speaker 1: it is? What could make it more enjoyable, what could
Speaker 1: make it more fun? What is it that makes it
Speaker 1: so complicated or difficult? Notice how all those questions are different.
Speaker 1: Now Sawyer talks about the beginning of Starbucks. Now, this
Speaker 1: is really really interesting because the first question that they
Speaker 1: were trying to answer was how can I recreate the
Speaker 1: Italian espresso bar in the United States. That was the
Speaker 1: original goal, That was the original target of Starbucks. Now,
Speaker 1: think about what question you have. Maybe your question is,
Speaker 1: how do I start a huge podcast, how do I
Speaker 1: build my YouTube following, how do I launch my own brand,
Speaker 1: how do I get a promotion, how do I move
Speaker 1: to this city, or.
Speaker 2: How do I live in this place? Right?
Speaker 1: Maybe that's your question, and maybe you've just been banging
Speaker 1: your head against the wall. Maybe you've just said, you
Speaker 1: know what, I can't figure this out. It's just not
Speaker 1: working for me because every time I ask that question,
Speaker 1: I get stuck. How many of you have ever felt
Speaker 1: that way that whenever you ask the question you've been asking,
Speaker 1: You've been asking the same question for a long time,
Speaker 1: and you keep getting stuck. I have a friend who
Speaker 1: really really wants to launch a YouTube channel, and he's
Speaker 1: always getting stuck because he's thinking, well, how do I
Speaker 1: do it? When do I start? When's the right time?
Speaker 1: That's the question he's asking, when is the right time? Now,
Speaker 1: if he was listening to this episode, what I would
Speaker 1: say to him is, well, instead of asking when is
Speaker 1: the right time, what's a better question. How do I
Speaker 1: make now the right time? What does the perfect time
Speaker 1: look like? Right? What am I waiting for? What is
Speaker 1: good timing?
Speaker 2: In my eyes?
Speaker 1: Let me talk to people about whether the time is
Speaker 1: the right thing that matters when it comes to social
Speaker 1: media at all. Right, So what ended up happening with
Speaker 1: Howard Shortz is the question changed from how can I
Speaker 1: recreate the Italian espresso bar in the United States? To
Speaker 1: how can I create a comfortable relaxing environment to enjoy
Speaker 1: great coffee? Think about the difference in that question, how
Speaker 1: can I create a comfortable relaxing environment to enjoy great coffee?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: Kevin's sistrom also did the same with Instagram, where initially
Speaker 1: he just wanted to create a better location sharing app,
Speaker 1: but the question turned into how can we create a
Speaker 1: simple photo sharing app? And that slight change made all
Speaker 1: the difference. So what problem are you trying to solve?
Speaker 1: What are you trying to create? What are you trying
Speaker 1: to build? What is it that has been blocking you
Speaker 1: because you're asking the wrong question?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: Number three, A great way to get creative, to get
Speaker 1: your creative mind working, is to solve the real problem
Speaker 1: in your life, but in your imagination, so you don't
Speaker 1: need to go raise money. You don't need to go
Speaker 1: in build a website or an app, But how would
Speaker 1: you solve it? So what you want to do is
Speaker 1: become a critical thinker and ask yourself, what is a
Speaker 1: problem that I'm really truly struggling with. Maybe it is
Speaker 1: to come up with podcast episode ideas, right, Maybe that's
Speaker 1: something you're struggling with. Maybe something you're struggling with is
Speaker 1: I don't know how to communicate with my toxic family members.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's what you're struggling with. Maybe what you're struggling
Speaker 1: with is I want to be more focused at work,
Speaker 1: but I keep getting distracted. Right, what is a problem
Speaker 1: that you're facing? And I want you to deeply think
Speaker 1: about what it would take to solve that problem. But
Speaker 1: in imagination right, with no limits on time, energy, money.
Speaker 1: Now you may say, well, Jay, that's stupid because I
Speaker 1: won't be able to do that because I'm not limitless
Speaker 1: in time, energy, money. But what you're doing is you're
Speaker 1: training your mind to think that way. See what has
Speaker 1: happened for most of us is that are my are
Speaker 1: now trained to think in limited, restricted, compartmentalized ways, and
Speaker 1: we want to change that for our minds to think
Speaker 1: in limitless, unrestricted, infinite ways. Right. I had a mentor
Speaker 1: called Thomas Power, who's a good friend, and when I
Speaker 1: first met him, he presented this idea to me about
Speaker 1: how a lot of people are what he called CSC closed, selective,
Speaker 1: and controlling. They're closed, They're thinking is very very closed
Speaker 1: into what's possible. They're very selective. They selective about who
Speaker 1: they spend time with, them who they don't spend time with,
Speaker 1: and that often leads them to miss out on incredible possibilities.
Speaker 1: And finally they're controlling. Right, there's a sense of a
Speaker 1: know it all or they know what's going on. And
Speaker 1: then on the other side, he said, there are people
Speaker 1: that are open, random and supportive. They're open to new ideas,
Speaker 1: They're open to their ways of thinking being changed. Really
Speaker 1: important part of being creative that how open are you
Speaker 1: to saying I know my values, i know what's important
Speaker 1: to me, but I'm still open to new ideas. And
Speaker 1: I find this to be one of the most fascinating
Speaker 1: things in life is that you can have a philosophy,
Speaker 1: you can have a set of principles and guidelines that
Speaker 1: you agree with, yet you can be open to better ones. Random.
Speaker 1: He talked about this idea of being random, like, how
Speaker 1: many times have you just bumped into someone in a
Speaker 1: random way? How many times have you come across an
Speaker 1: idea because of something random? Some of my best ideas
Speaker 1: are random and then supportive. How many of us actually
Speaker 1: come up with great ideas because we're helping someone else.
Speaker 1: While we're supporting others. While we're helping others, we may
Speaker 1: create something phenomenal. So solve a real problem in your
Speaker 1: life to expand your thinking. Again, you're not going to
Speaker 1: solve it. You may not create the products. You may
Speaker 1: end up creating the product, but you're gearing and guiding
Speaker 1: and training your mind to think limitlessly about a problem
Speaker 1: that makes you feel limited. Now, question number four, think
Speaker 1: about the next place you're traveling. Where are you going
Speaker 1: to next? Maybe you've booked a vacation to Ballei. Maybe
Speaker 1: you've booked a vacation to Australia. Maybe you've booked a
Speaker 1: local weekend get away right like a staycation. Almost what's
Speaker 1: the next place you're traveling. Here's a couple of things
Speaker 1: I want you to think about. Learn some of the
Speaker 1: language of your local area to ask for basic things,
Speaker 1: just the local language, so you could get about in
Speaker 1: the local language, maybe to order your favorite food, maybe
Speaker 1: to ask where the bus stop or the train station is,
Speaker 1: maybe to ask to get to the restroom. Learn some
Speaker 1: of the basic language that can help you operate. This
Speaker 1: gets your creative juices flowing. The second thing is learn
Speaker 1: about the history. Maybe there's something you can learn about
Speaker 1: a building, the area, something that is a bit random, right,
Speaker 1: something that you may not even care to learn about.
Speaker 1: I remember when I first moved to La I was
Speaker 1: being told about so much history, so many events that
Speaker 1: happened there. And when you think of La you think
Speaker 1: of Hollywood and you think of movies, but you forget
Speaker 1: the history of entertainment. There's so much history of Hollywood there.
Speaker 1: I remember when I watched this movie Babylon maybe you
Speaker 1: saw it with Margot, Robbie and Brad Pitt. They show
Speaker 1: what bel Air was like before it became bel Air.
Speaker 1: You see what Hollywood movie sets look like before they
Speaker 1: look like they do now, And that idea is incredible
Speaker 1: to look into the past, right. And the third thing
Speaker 1: is read a local paper or listen to a local
Speaker 1: radio station. What this does is it disrupts your pattern.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: The way we live our life currently is you get
Speaker 1: into your car to go to work, you listen to
Speaker 1: the same radio station, you walk in the same direction,
Speaker 1: you take the same train, you take the same route
Speaker 1: to work, or you walk down your stairs, or you
Speaker 1: sit at the laptop at your bedroom. Right, we have
Speaker 1: a very routine life that doesn't get disrupted often. And
Speaker 1: allowing yourself to disrupt it by reading a local paper
Speaker 1: or listening to a local radio staf to discover some
Speaker 1: local music of a place you're about to visit, or
Speaker 1: a place that you're going to visit, or maybe the
Speaker 1: last place you went to, it disrupts that pattern. It
Speaker 1: starts allowing creativitis seeds to be planted. That's a really
Speaker 1: powerful one. As you can tell. I'm giving a really practical,
Speaker 1: simple things that you can all do. That doesn't mean
Speaker 1: learning a new skill or trying something crazy.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Number five playing with toys. George Bernard Shawce famously said,
Speaker 1: we don't stop playing because we get old. We get
Speaker 1: old because we stop playing. I found that when I
Speaker 1: try and play with legos, when I'm playing with my
Speaker 1: niece and nephew, or I'm playing with one of my
Speaker 1: friend's children and we're playing with their toys, We're building
Speaker 1: a tower, we're building a car, whatever it is. All
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the tangible physicality of that is so
Speaker 1: powerful if you think about it. Right now, we don't
Speaker 1: really build anything with our hands anymore. We don't do
Speaker 1: a lot of If you're not doing pottery, or if
Speaker 1: you're not doing painting, we're not actually engaging that part
Speaker 1: of our brain. When we were at school, you were handwriting, right,
Speaker 1: We're not really using that much anymore. So if you
Speaker 1: can do pottery and painting, great, But at the very minimal,
Speaker 1: helping your niece or nephew, and if you have children,
Speaker 1: helping them build something, create something can be a great
Speaker 1: way of getting your creative juices flowing. And watching how
Speaker 1: they look at things, right, I think that's what's really fascinating,
Speaker 1: is observing how they observe things. This is something that
Speaker 1: I actually happened to me this weekend. So number six
Speaker 1: is ask your friends what do you think I should do?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: I say this not because they're going to have the
Speaker 1: best ideas, but you're going to be thrown a lot
Speaker 1: of different ideas that help you connect dots. So I
Speaker 1: didn't ask this of my friend. I didn't say, what
Speaker 1: do you think I should do? But one of my
Speaker 1: friends this weekend was like, Jay, I can't wait for
Speaker 1: you to start a school one day.
Speaker 2: And I was like, what way do you think of that?
Speaker 1: I've never thought about that, and by the way, I
Speaker 1: really have not thought about that. I was like, that's
Speaker 1: not something that I envision doing. I think schools are
Speaker 1: very difficult to I think we need to do a
Speaker 1: lot of research around child psychology to get it right.
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of a lot of work
Speaker 1: that needs to go into that and so much to
Speaker 1: be improved. And so that was my reaction. I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not qualified to start a school. And that's fascinating though,
Speaker 1: I was like, that's really exciting. And then I thought,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, maybe that's what I want to study.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm really fascinated by how our education system has
Speaker 1: developed our brains and why it's made us so limited.
Speaker 1: And maybe even though I don't have the answers to
Speaker 1: build a school, maybe that's what I want to do.
Speaker 1: Maybe I want to go and study schools. Maybe I
Speaker 1: want to go and spend time with children who are
Speaker 1: a part of alternative schools. Maybe I want to map
Speaker 1: people's trajectories when they're taught about mindfulness, creativity, abundance from
Speaker 1: an early age. Maybe that's what I'm really passionate about.
Speaker 1: And so it wasn't that his idea was the idea
Speaker 1: I thought I should do. It was actually completely the
Speaker 1: opposite that instead of building something, I was like, that's
Speaker 1: what I want to study. And so sitting down and
Speaker 1: asking your friends what do you think I should do?
Speaker 1: Is a really great way of then reworking it. Right,
Speaker 1: So your friend says to you, you should start a restaurant.
Speaker 1: You're amazing. You may think, oh, you know, I do
Speaker 1: really enjoy food. Maybe I should go and take a
Speaker 1: culinary course. Maybe one of your friends says to you, oh,
Speaker 1: you should start a YouTube channel where you talk about football,
Speaker 1: because that's all you do is talk about football on
Speaker 1: the weekends. And you go, well, maybe I should find
Speaker 1: a friend and maybe we will start recording something together,
Speaker 1: just because we have so much of.
Speaker 2: A passion around it.
Speaker 1: Right, what is that idea that sometimes you don't see
Speaker 1: in yourself that your friends might do. So today I
Speaker 1: want you to ask your friends, if I could do
Speaker 1: anything in the world, what do you think I should do.
Speaker 1: What is it that I do well for you that
Speaker 1: you think I could do for the world. And like
Speaker 1: I said, it may not be the exact answer, but
Speaker 1: when you flip it you might discover something. Number seven
Speaker 1: is redecorate. And what I mean by this is I'm
Speaker 1: not telling you to go spend tons of money and
Speaker 1: do a full home makeover. I'm saying, how can you
Speaker 1: place things strategically. So one of my favorite things to
Speaker 1: do is I found a few years ago that when
Speaker 1: I was tired and coming back from work, I wanted
Speaker 1: to sit in front the TV and switch it on.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to stop doing that because I never
Speaker 1: felt fulfilled after watching TV. That's a personal thing.
Speaker 2: It's me.
Speaker 1: I kind of felt dissatisfied. I felt like a wasted time.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel like I gained anything from it, whether
Speaker 1: it be rest, refuel or whatever it may be. And
Speaker 1: so for me, what I started to do was, first
Speaker 1: of all, I've removed TVs from every room where I
Speaker 1: would spend time after my work days over and we
Speaker 1: only have a TV in one room. And on top
Speaker 1: of that, I placed books strategically in places where I
Speaker 1: would want to often do something else. So I put
Speaker 1: a book open next to my work table. I have
Speaker 1: a book by my bedside table. I have a book
Speaker 1: open by my living room area, and so naturally I'm
Speaker 1: being pushed to pick up a book and read a
Speaker 1: page as opposed to something else.
Speaker 2: So read.
Speaker 1: Decorating doesn't mean changing your wallpaper. It means repositioning things
Speaker 1: so you feel differently. You may find you want to
Speaker 1: see a piece of art when you wake up. Maybe
Speaker 1: you want to smell a certain candle and light it
Speaker 1: when you slide down on the couch. Right, whatever that
Speaker 1: may be, how can you redecorate more intentionally? And that
Speaker 1: starts creativity as well, because you're now again disrupting the pattern.
Speaker 1: That's the key to creativity is disrupting patterns that have
Speaker 1: become machine like. Right, So we start off as humans,
Speaker 1: we then become machines, and then it's about becoming human again. Now,
Speaker 1: there is something to be said for machine like discipline,
Speaker 1: which is really powerful in your life. But at the
Speaker 1: same time you need these disruptions of creativity. And that's
Speaker 1: why point number eight is find random friends. We need
Speaker 1: friends who have different backgrounds, different languages, different walks of life,
Speaker 1: different cultures. I realized as I started to do that.
Speaker 1: As I started to expand my friend network. I recognize
Speaker 1: what cultures I'd missed out on, what foods had missed out,
Speaker 1: and what music and movies had missed out on. As
Speaker 1: I grew up in my own bubble, It's time to
Speaker 1: burst that bubble as we get older, not just for creativity,
Speaker 1: but for community. I want to thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening to this episode. This segment about inspiring creativity
Speaker 1: is brought to you by AT and T. AT and
Speaker 1: T believes connecting changes everything. I'm always looking for new
Speaker 1: ways to get my creativity going. With technology. It's like
Speaker 1: an ongoing adventure where each day brings a chance to
Speaker 1: find something fresh, whether I'm calling a friend to chat
Speaker 1: about cool book ideas or sharing interesting videos. I've noticed
Speaker 1: that my creative energy peaks the more I bounce ideas
Speaker 1: off people in my life. I want to share with
Speaker 1: you a few quick methods that are going to help
Speaker 1: you be creative with other people connecting via technology. I
Speaker 1: love taking calls from different settings because you see, creativity
Speaker 1: can hit you anywhere. If you keep taking a call
Speaker 1: from the same place, you're gonna have the same ideas.
Speaker 1: But if you choose to take it outside, maybe while
Speaker 1: you're on a treadmill or actually walking back and forth
Speaker 1: or taking a walk in the park. Changing your atmosphere
Speaker 1: and connecting changes the ideas that flow to you. One
Speaker 1: of my other favorite ways to be creative through technology
Speaker 1: is I'm always writing notes, and I'm always searching for things.
Speaker 1: So I write notes about ideas that come to my mind,
Speaker 1: and then I'll search them. I'll literally just put it
Speaker 1: in and say where's that? Maybe I'll search it into
Speaker 1: chat GPT right to be like, what does this look like?
Speaker 1: Or what research have I not read on this? I
Speaker 1: find asking questions and jotting down, copying and pasting answers
Speaker 1: into my notes is a great way to document that.
Speaker 2: And here's one last one.
Speaker 1: Try and learn an idea and then teach it to
Speaker 1: a group of friends over a zoom call and get feedback.
Speaker 1: The more you share the ideas you're learning, even the
Speaker 1: ones on this podcast, the more likely you are to
Speaker 1: remember them and practice them in your own life. Remember
Speaker 1: it's not just about learning. The more you share and
Speaker 1: teach them as well, the better you'll practice them. This
Speaker 1: has been brought to you by AT and T. AT
Speaker 1: and T believes connecting in spires unites, heals, and helps
Speaker 1: us grow. Connecting changes how we live our lives for
Speaker 1: the better