Creativity Doesn’t Care How Smart You Are
It needs space, time, confidence, and a 22-inch waist.
Creativity itself doesn’t care at all about results — the only thing it craves is the process. — Elizabeth Gilbert
Creativity and intellect have almost nothing in common.
There are people with high IQ, very left-brain, analytical, even brilliant. Someone like Margaret Thatcher (difficult, but brilliant nevertheless). But when it comes to creativity, they have the capabilities of a five-year-old.
To be creative, you don’t need to know more (fact, ideas, mental models, quotes, or books to reference). You need to feel more. You need to get in touch with the unconscious part of your brain — the one that does creative work.
And there are specific things you can do to get there.
Five Aspects Of Creativity
John Cleese didn’t call himself ‘creative’ until he turned 22.
In fact, the famous Monty Python comedian was completely left-brained. He was great at maths and sciences. It was only at Cambridge (not the best place for creative types) that he discovered he could make people laugh.
This tells you something about the education system at that time.
John then spends his whole life doing just that: being creative and making people laugh. But he was also always interested in what makes a person creative.
He discovered that creative people operate in the ‘open mode’ — timeless play for its own sake, and a state where ideas come. Whereas business managers and anxiety-driven people, who ‘just got things done ASAP’ operated in the ‘closed mode’ — a state of pure, rigid, uncreative execution. To perform at your best, you need to jump between the two modes.
In his famous speech on Creativity In Management, John talked about the five aspects of creativity.
- Space
- Time
- Time
- Confidence
- 22-inch waist — wait, scratch that, humor.
Space
To tap into your creative self, you first need quiet space, where you won’t be disturbed. This partially explains why there weren’t many creative women until the late 19th century — they didn’t have their own rooms for deep creative work.
Time
You need to set time boundaries. Creativity is play, and play has time limits (otherwise it’s not play, but ‘life’). So when you write, give yourself a specific timeframe. Say, from 12 o’clock until 1:30 — that one hour and a half is your ‘play’ time when you shut off all distractions and focus on solving a problem. Then come back to the ‘real world’.
Time
You need to postpone making decisions. Businessmen often pride themselves on making snap decisions. But in the creative sphere, the more you postpone making a decision (i.e., the longer you work on something) — the better your output will be. Good creative work is like wine. It needs time.
This explains why some of my best Medium articles were the ones I spend more than 30 minutes on.
(And some of the worst were the ones I wrote sitting on the toilet.)
Confidence
Creatives are extremely vulnerable to criticism. So make sure you surround yourself with kind people who love you and support you.
If you’re a beginning writer, a good thing is not to read any comments in the first few months. One bad comment can easily discourage you from writing in the future. You need to build momentum and confidence while you search for your voice.
Humor
Which is to say, be funny. Humor is the fastest way to get you into the ‘open mode’. It’s an evolutionary stress extinguisher. You can’t be anxious and funny at the same time. And your content will be so much easier to digest if you make an occasional joke.
Which, I guess, explains why the best TED talks are so damn funny.
Nobody Reads You Because You’re Smart
As you see, creativity has nothing to do with being smart. Quite the opposite, in fact. To be creative, you need to be playful like a child. You need to absorb yourself with whatever you’re doing and forget about time, obligations, responsibilities, and real-life — if just for 1.5 hours each day.
This is exactly what Donald MacKinnon has found in the most famous research on creativity.
He interviewed 60 architects, 30 of whom were labeled as ‘creative’ and 30 as ‘non-creative’ (but, of course, they didn’t know that). MacKinnon then asked them what they do on a daily basis.
Architects are like content creators. They have a lot of creativity in their work, and right-brain, playful mode. But they also have to be analytical and left-brained, to make sure the buildings don’t just look good — but also don’t crumble to pieces. In a similar way, modern creators have to combine art and marketing.
What MacKinnon has found was revolutionary. The ‘non-creative’ architects were those who made snap decisions and treated their work as work. It was all serious and important for them.
The creatives ones, on the contrary, put off decisions as much as possible and treated their work as play, enjoying themselves while they were doing it.
This comes back to the five aspects I mentioned earlier.
It’s easy to think that the successful creatives — from Picasso to Banksy to Joe Rogan to famous book authors — are somehow smarter or better than you are. But I don’t agree with that. People don’t consume your content because you’re smart. We like you because you’re honest, passionate, authentic, and playful.
You’re creative. You’re enjoying your work, and, as a consequence, so are we.
You’re born with a unique taste. It’s inside of you, deep in your unconscious. Creativity then is not something you can think or learn your way to.
It’s the process of unthinking and unlearning your way towards getting people to see your original taste.
It’s a process of letting go.
Which the smart ones often have the most trouble with.
