PNTV: Creativity on Demand by Michael Gelb (#168)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today we've got another great book, Creativity on Demand. Alexandra has my copy. She's soaking up the goodness Philosopher's Note with a bunch of big ideas. Five of my favorite big ideas from this great book by Michael Gelb. Michael Gelb wrote How to Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci, which is one of the top five most impactful books I've read. Perhaps tied for first. Really shaped the direction of my life. I read it in June of 2001 after I had sold my first business. And he's got a ton of exercises in there that literally shaped the direction of my life. I met Michael at an event, a conscious capitalism event, years later, I don't know how many years ago now, walked up to him, said, hey, your book changed my life. I appreciate it and I appreciate you. Thank you. And we hit off an awesome friendship. He's become a mentor, a supporter, an investor in Theos and in me and what we're up to, and just one of the best human beings I've met. Huge laugh and just a good, good human being who lives this stuff. So this book, Creativity on Demand, is all about igniting and sustaining the fire of genius within. So Michael is an aikido expert. He's a qigong master and teacher, and he integrates qigong practices and energy management with creative mindset ideas. So it's kind of a combination energy management with creative mindset orientation and then process the creative process. So cultivating your energy, getting your mind right, and then mastering the creative process is what this book is all about. If you're even remotely interested in any of those ideas or topics, I think you'll love the book. Now, let's jump in. Practices. Michael's got a great line on practices. He says the key to practice is practice. You've got to do it. You got to show up and do it consistently. He's got a bunch of specific Chi Gong practices that he actually developed with some of the world's leading thinkers out there and teachers. He kind of adapted some of their best practices and. And cultivated his own for creativity. In particular, I love one of his basic ideas. Very, very simple. You stand in kind of a mountain pose in yoga, feet comfortably apart, and on the inhale, simply rock a little bit back on your heels, bring the energy in. On an exhale, you lean forward a little bit gracefully letting the energy out. Energy comes in and builds on the inhale as you lean back a little bit and then exhale out onto your toes. I do that when I'm just hanging out with Emerson and he's playing at the park or whatever, I'm at the grocery store in line. Finding little ways to rebuild our energy is huge. We've got to oscillate where we're on and then we're off and we're recovering. It's not that we work too hard, it's that we don't recover enough. The powerful engagement guys tell us, right, so we need to find ways to recover. And Michael's got a ton of ways to do it. But the key to practices is practice, and then practice some more, and then go ahead and practice some more. That is our key to everything, including the next big idea mindset. So part one is practices, part two is mindset. Michael talks about a ton of different facets. Specifically what I want to go into right now is the fixed versus growth mindset. He unpacks Carol Dweck's mindset concepts brilliantly. It also just talks about the importance of playfulness and purpose and passion and persistence and all the other things that go into getting our mind right. But let's talk about fixed versus growth mindset again a little bit here. The reality is, if you have a fixed mindset, this stuff might be kind of sort of interesting. But you think it's for those people who actually have the creativity. It's not for you, right? You don't have it. That's the fixed orientation. You either have it or you don't. It's binary. On or off. The growth mindset is the key to creative mastery and to creative excellence and to anything you want to achieve in your life. It's the idea that you can get better if you diligently, patiently, persistently put in the effort. You can get better over time. This is the whole 10,000 hour idea. The fact that talent is overrated. If all great performance comes after a ton of effort put in, then talent can't be the only factor, even the primary driving factor. It's the hard work and the effort. But if you don't have a growth mindset, you're not going to be willing to put in the effort. So you want to get in and master that. And Michael has some great exercises to observe the voice that you have in your head that's saying things like, I'm an idiot, I just don't have what it takes, etc, etc, etc. You want to observe that, then you want to challenge it and bring in a growth mindset counterpoint to it. That part of you that says, I just don't have what it takes to succeed at this. Fixed Mindset Growth Mindset would say something along the lines of, wow, I'm starting out at a point where I feel pretty humble and I'm willing to put in the effort to get better and better and better. And if I do that, if I just get 1% better day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and year out, I have the shot to become considerably better Growth mindset. So challenge those thoughts. Fixed Mindset with Growth Mindset thinking and then take growth mindset action. Do what needs to get done. Practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice and practice. Alright, moving on. Third, big idea. Purpose. Purpose is huge. We've talked about this again and again and again. What is your purpose in life? You're much more willing to put in practice and endure the how. As Nietzsche says, someone who has a deep enough why can endure almost any how. So if you know what your purpose is, if you know why you're here, then you're more capable of igniting and sustaining the fire of genius. So what's your purpose? If you have a clear sense of it. Awesome. Articulate it and stay close to that and, and make it as lucid and powerful as you possibly can. If you don't have a good sense of what your purpose is, then you want to cultivate that, get a deeper sense of it. He's got some great exercises in there. Identify what do you love to do? What do you think you can be truly great at? What does the world need? We talk about those three circles. Jim Collins hedgehog concept all the time. What do you love to do? What can you be great at? And what does the world need and what are they willing to pay for? That's a great way to identify your goodness. Sir Ken Robinson kept it even simpler. He says, look, your element is at the nexus point of what you love and what you're good at. Okay, cool. These are markers toward discovering our purpose. My purpose is very simple. I'm excited and I love to help you optimize your life so you can actualize your potential. We can change the world together. That's my purpose. To help you optimize your life and actualize your potential so we can change the world together. As I study, embody and teach the fundamentals of optimal living, integrating ancient wisdom, modern science, common sense, virtue mastery and fun, Michael takes us one step deeper with our purpose. He says, create a tagline, create a slogan. Nike has. Just do it. IBM is think Apple Is think different. What's yours? If you could distill your purpose into a tagline, into a slogan, what would it be? It's kind of a fun exercise. Can you make a mark for yourself? What would that be? If you actually have, you know, you got the Nike Nike Swoosh, right? What would your mark look like? It's a very artistic rendering of the Nike Swoosh. What would your mark look like? What would your slogan look like? For me, as I went through the book and did the exercises, it's one word. Optimize. That's my one word. Optimize. That's it. Optimize your life. Optimize and actualize some combination of that. And then the symbol that I love is the lightning bolt. The lightning bolt represents for me the word astonish. So the word astonish comes from the Latin word to strike with lightning. To astonish us. To strike with lightning. On my chalkboard, above where you can see it, I've got a little lightning bolt. This is my commitment. How do I astonish you with value day in and day out? How do I astonish myself? How do you astonish yourself? How do we optimize? So that's my little mark that I have fun with, right? What's your mark? What's your purpose? What's your tagline and slogan? And what's your mark? Get clear on that. Help you ignite and sustain the fire of genius. The fourth big idea, Unplugging. If you want to have a creative mindset and truly ignite and sustain your fire of genius, you have to unplug. We talk about this all the time. Stephen King has my new favorite way to look at this. He said at an early part of his career, when he was teaching, at the end of the week, he felt like he had jumper cables to his brain. And it was extraordinarily hard to do any creative work. If you want to do something extraordinary creatively, you have to unplug. You have to get offline, quit checking your email incessantly, your social feed incessantly. Quit watching every single TV episode. I remember once years ago, I watched online. I think it was Heroes or something like that. And I was dreaming about these people, and I'm like, are you kidding me? They're infiltrating my dreams. That's insane. Cut all that out and allow something bigger than you to come through. Huge idea. Honor it by unplugging. Fifth big idea. Chutzpah. So part of the creative mindset is having this chutzpah. What's chutzpah. Basically, audacity in the face of uncertainty. So when you're out venturing in the creative hero's journey, there's a ton of uncertainty. You can either get timid while you're out there trying to explore, or you can have chutzpah. You can have this ordinary courage to show up and do your best moment to moment to moment in the face of uncertainty. And there's always going to be a ton of uncertainty. You're not on a hero's journey sidestepping lizards. You're fighting dragons. That's challenging. That requires a ton of courage, a ton of audacity. So bring it and get your creativity on demand. There you go. Chutzpah. Unplug. Connect to something bigger than yourself. Find your purpose, your why as da Vinci says, we need to attach ourselves to a star. We need to have a guiding star that's driving all of our behavior. Mindset fixed versus growth. You can grow. You can get better. Just takes practice. Hope you enjoyed and I look forward to sharing more with you soon. Have another awesome day. See ya.