My BIG creative idea 🧠 ⚡️

 

Shimmy shimmy ko ko pop, shommy shimmy ya, with those immortal lines I was sucked in.

I remember vividly the first time I saw Big starring Tom Hanks. For those of you unfamiliar with the plot it’s fairly simple.

SPOILER ALERT

After a wish turns 12-year-old Josh Baskin into a 30-year-old man (played by Tom Hanks), he heads to New York City and gets a low-level job at MacMillen Toy Company. A chance encounter with the owner (Robert Loggia) of the company leads to a promotion testing new toys. Soon a fellow employee, Susan Lawrence (Elizabeth Perkins), takes a romantic interest in Josh. However, the pressure of living as an adult begins to overwhelm him, and he longs to return to his simple, former life as a boy.

It also involved a really creepy looking Zoltare wish machine.

What's fun with playing with a robot that turns into a building?

It’s got a beautiful message about growing up too quickly and how by embracing and staying young we can achieve great things.

See Josh absolutely smashes it in his new role, because he's the most creative person in the building and his boundless optimism allows him to move his way up through the ranks of the toy company effortlessly.

I believe our creativity as kids gets replaced with the mundanity of adult life and the education system also strips some of that out of us. Our creativity, that inner voice can be silenced, tuned out with time, like an old radio that’s lost a channel or maybe it was never given a chance to shine in the first place.

As we get older we develop systems and processes that start to drown out that voice. We become a victim of our own success.

It's a glow-in-the-dark compass ring. So you don't get lost.

It's the reason one of the questions we ask on our initial discussions with new clients is if they had ANY kind of creative outlet when they were younger?

It could of been creative writing, drawing, photography, painting. Whatever it was this helps us to start to figure out what particular content lanes we can start people in that will foster that sense of wonder and joy in them to create again. Getting those creative synapses firing and the atrophied creative muscles flexing again. Like waking up.

In a longitudinal test of creative potential, a NASA study found that of 1,600 4- and 5-year-olds, 98 percent scored at "creative genius" level. Five years later, only 30 percent of the same group of children scored at the same level, and again, five years later, only 12 percent. When the same test was administered to adults, it was found that only two percent scored at this genius level.

The data is clear, adults suck at staying creative.

People who are in creative professions develop personal systems to stay creative. They develop predictable habits that take them into unpredictable territory. This is a lifestyle choice to stay in the uncomfortable territory of the unknown. They may seek out people outside their profession, read random things, or force themselves to brainstorm whimsically.

This systemization of creativity doesn’t have the bizarre arc of childhood imagination, but does combine life experience with creativity in a way that can be more impactful (and higher paying) in modern society.

I truly believe that we need to harness our inner creative child again to be in with a chance of winning inside the new economy that’s happening around you. A creator led one!

Here are some ways you can stay creative 

1. Let your mind wander (meditation works well).
2. Take risks (Go outside your comfort zone. You can’t develop new ideas if you don’t break free from what you are used to).
3. Listen to music (Music can help you relax and get your creative juices flowing. Take a minute, jam out to your favorite song or just have some background music playing). 
4. Go for walks (this helps with divergent thinking, put on some happy music and really drill down into your problem, you’ll be surprised how much more quickly you get to the solution you need).
5. (My favourite) spend time in nature. The natural world is an inherent source of abundant creative energy. All that oxygen from trees helps the mind wander and the stillness of a good forest lets the brain switch over to creative mode.

There is one scene in the film early on where Josh is playing a video game called Cavern of the Evil Wizard. He can't figure out how to kill the end level boss (the evil wizard) because his mum is calling him and he doesn't have time to finish it. Later on grown up Josh does finish it and knows the answer, this is a perfect metaphor for the passing of time and acquiring knowledge through learned experience. But it's the brush with the game that has him wanting his youth back at the end. I think as we get older we all need to be reminded of that. Stay young, stay foolish didn't a certain Mr Jobs quote.

Josh: My best sport is video hockey.

Paul : That isn't a sport.

Josh : Well, It takes eye-to-hand coordination.

Paul: It's not a sport if you don't sweat.

Josh : Well, what about golf? You don't sweat and that's a sport.

Paul : It's not a sport if you let a machine do all the work.

Josh : What about car racing?

Paul : Aw, shut up, Baskin!

The dichotomy of needing to age up and then refusing to keep learning is what cripples our growth.

I have spent an entire lifetime compulsively creating (and I am still going research into the neuroscience of why) I think it's the subconscious way of dealing with trauma, through story.

My reason for being (the French call it raison d'etre, which sounds better) and why I was put on this planet is helping people discover their creativity again to bridge the gap between a new creator led economy and the expertise that people have created which has forced them into dead ends. Helping those who didn't have a voice discover theirs, to be heard, accepted and listened to, so they can change the world around them for the better. Allowing them to create content that humanises their expertise into a more digestible format. One that takes their customers on a story led journey. and helps them make more money whilst empowering them and the people around them to do great work. To help them find their purpose.

And my BIG idea is to take teams of people inside companies and allow them to harness their inherent creative energy to move into spaces their competition can’t begin to imagine.

But why do companies need creators in their teams? Because the global creator economy is estimated to be worth $104 billion.

The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind - creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers." - Daniel Pink

The change this creates inside companies can be trajectory altering.

My gift is creativity and I want to share that with other people to discover the pure joy of creating, letting them become better at what they do by finding their digital voice and sharing their expertise in the most human way possible.

I want to help them to experience what I have, first hand.

This is Faye, one of the guys from a company I trained. 

Go check out her profile, look at how human, fun and creative it is.

Faye works in sales (although you’d never know it) she is an account manager BUT she also has a degree in creative writing and she was a teacher (both very creative disciplines) and boy does it show on her profile.

See Fays profile is unique, it’s entirely hers. There is nothing else like it anywhere. It’s a strong personal brand, one that’s human, warm, fun and it makes you feel compelled to want to WANT to connect with it.

A far cry from some of the current sales and marketing people in your organisation wouldn't you say?

Your company needs creativity and storytelling to communicate your company story through your people (it's most prized and valuable asset). Each one is unique and individual adding to the sum of what makes your company special and creativity is the key that unlocks this. Resulting in growth and opportunities you can't even predict right now.

Welcome to the future of business, where creators and creativity lead the charge. Allowing your teams to attract attention and convert it into meaningful relationships. It's magical and I want to share that magic with you.

Let's go create 🤘

See you next week for more electric dreams

“I'm your best friend. What's more important than that, huh?”

#creatoreconomy #creativity #sales #marketing #growth #thatsocialnerd