The Groove Issue 35 - Demystifying Your Creativity
Welcome to the 35th issue of The Groove.
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DEMYSTIFYING YOUR CREATIVITY
For centuries, the concept of creativity has been misunderstood and attributed mostly to artists. But creativity is humanity’s most valuable skill.
In a 2020 report, the World Economic Forum said that by 2025, machines and automation would eliminate 85 million jobs but create 97 million new ones, and 50% of those jobs will require significant reskilling or people will have to change jobs completely. Based on this data, the organization also named creativity as one of the most crucial skills for anyone in any industry.
With creativity in one form or another - whether it’s innovation or embedded into critical thinking and analytical problem solving – this is not only the number one skill employers are looking for, but it’s also the most critical one for artists, entrepreneurs and business owners to thrive in what they do.
Creativity By Conscious Work
Henri Matisse used to be very aware that achieving his greatest creative potential was actual work and not just sitting idle waiting for the gods to give him some inspiration. In 1933, he told his friend, art journalist and publisher Tériade, “One gets to creativity by conscious work.”
Later, in 1953, he wrote an essay where he expressed, “to see is itself a creative operation requiring an effort. Everything that we see in our daily life is more or less distorted by acquired habits… everything should be looked at as if it were the first time… The effort needed to see things without distortion takes something like courage.”
Matisse was basically telling us that to be creative you have to put in the work and to stay mindful of the limitations we develop in a world full of distractions that can make us jaded once we become familiarized with our surroundings.
He was also telling us something extremely important: creativity takes courage, because we have to put ourselves out there with our ideas and own them in front of the world. This can be terrifying, but it is the only way to express our authentic selves.
Henri Matisse in his studio working with a sketch of The Virgin and Childfor his chapel at Vence. Photo by Dmitri Kessel/The LIFE Picture Collection, 1950.
Creativity Isn’t One Thing
Creativity has also been linked to a bunch of mysterious and fantastical entities such as muses, fairies, and other mythological creatures that avoid certain people but randomly favor some others.
This is where I think people trip up the most: believing that being a creative person is just one thing, or that it just happens randomly to a chosen group of people without the need of putting in the work. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Creativity is an amalgamation of skills such as intuition, observation, risk-taking, associative thinking, curiosity, and self-awareness. These are developed by nurturing them at will and showing up every day to practice as many of these habits as possible until they become second nature.
Fostering Psychological Safety
Google’s Chief Innovation Evangelist, Frederik Pferdt, has discussed openly that to foster creativity, the company must constantly be on top of making a culture of inclusion and psychological safety a priority on every team. Google prides itself in encouraging people to speak their thoughts and consistently try new things, openly share ideas, and bring their full selves to work.
Matisse’s Studio inside Hôtel Régina, Nice.
Honor Your Uniqueness
We each have an incredibly unique combination of skills. The way we see things is informed by years of cumulative experience, whatever those are. That’s why creativity is also accompanied by a burning desire to make a difference in the world, and it is the root of both artistry and entrepreneurship. Remember that the creative process looks exactly the same for artists and for businesspeople, they just apply their creativity to their respective areas in different ways.
Whether we are talking about Matisse or Google, or anyone in between, owning one’s creative powers isn’t a random thing. In other words: we all should stop perpetuating the myth that to come up with our best ideas we have to be endowed with special superpowers. Creativity takes courage, risks, openness and above all, real action.
Thank you for reading this far. Looking forward to hearing from you anytime.
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THE EXTRA GROOVE
Read:
Henri Matisse, The Cut-Outs by Samantha Friedman
Matisse on Art, Edited by Jack Flam
Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All by Tom Kelley and David Kelley
Watch:
Matisse - Voyages, a documentary by Didier Baussy
Henri Matisse A Cut Above the Rest, a documentary by Alastair Sooke