I'm going to teach you something
incredibly useful that you've almost
certainly never been taught before it
can change your life and it can
transform your career but the thing is
no one ever taught it to me and I wonder
why
I spent a lot of time in school learning
to conjugate Latin verbs and I ground my
way through trigonometry and the the
dates of medieval Wars
And I memorized the the key exports of
African countries in the table of
elements and the names of all the U.S
vice presidents
but I never ever studied the very thing
that I've made a living from my entire
life
as far as I can tell there's no country
on Earth where they teach the creative
process in school
not as a straight up part of the
curriculum not in elementary school high
school business school not even an art
school
rather than teach it like any other
useful discipline we treat creativity
like it was some kind of weird Alchemy
like it's a god-given gift a luck of the
draw
but it's not it's a process which has
basic elements that can be written on a
Blackboard just like the Pythagorean
theorem
and these basic steps once you
understand them can be used to unlock
creativity in any field art music
Finance medicine Sports technology
politics
you name it and it's a mystery why
creativity isn't a formal part of the
basic curriculum in schools
like most essential skills the creative
process makes theoretical sense when
it's written down but it takes a lot of
work and practice to to put it into
useful use
just as a music teacher can write Every
Good Boy Does Fine on the board it takes
years for our students to actually
Master the violin and studying organic
chemistry doesn't make you a gifted
surgeon and football coaches run drills
and drills and drills to get ready for
the coming season and creativity works
the same way
practice
makes it habit
and school is the ideal place and the
perfect time to study the basics of
creativity from a young age and then
inculcate that process so that every
student learns to be a successful
Problem Solver but it doesn't happen
so pay attention I'll take you through
the basics here instead
creativity has three main steps let's
call them ready
fire
and aim
first you have to get ready you have to
gather your materials you have to reap
and harvest and hunt down the elements
that are going to go into your creative
stew
you have to embrace the riches of the
universe you have to watch movies you
have to read books you have to study the
Masters you have to listen to all sorts
of music you have to have conversations
with strangers on the bus you have to
wander and Roam and explore and fill
your brain until it's groaning at the
seams you have to develop a narrow deep
habit of open curiosity delving into all
kinds of disciplines and cultures for
the way that they approach problems and
innovate and improvise
and cultivating an energetic open
absorbent mind that's the first part of
the creative process
and as you get ready your subconscious
mind will be diving deep into this
reservoir of inspiration and it'll be
making connections and it'll be putting
disparate pieces of information together
in random infinite ways and it'll be
linking a musical theme with an
historical fact with a snippet of a
conversation with a data chart and a
recipe for Greek meatballs
The Cauldron is going on simmer and the
ingredients are going to start to melt
into a rich broth and that takes time
private time
just the reservoir of your brain perking
and bubbling with no adult supervision
you can't open the oven door in the
middle you got to just distract your
conscious mind and you've got to let the
Juices Flow
no amount of straining or worrying is
going to help the stage in fact it's
quite the contrary you got to trust in
the process take a nap play a game stare
out the window take a shower floss
suddenly
poof stuff will appear ideas will pop
like kernels
and at this stage you'll spew out all
sorts of ideas good ideas but also bad
ones and weird ones and useless ones
you will be a well-fed meadow your rich
soil will be like a magnet for seeds
from across the world sprouting up
flowers and fruits and weeds and trees
in abundance and unmanicured cacophony
of abundance
but that's not the end because what
appears is still raw it's full of
potential but it's not ready for prime
time so next to the hardest part you
gotta polish you gotta prune you got to
evaluate you got to execute
and this requires a gear change in your
head you have to switch from that
wide-eyed stage of Readiness and the
wild energy of firing to a methodical
critical period in which you kind of
call The Herd down to a few solid ideas
that you want to test and refine and
critique and polish into gems that can
change the game
creativity is at its heart
a teachable learnable process learn it
and apply it and you'll be prepared for
any career path any eventuality you'll
write creative legal briefs you'll make
creative contributions to your
manufacturing process you'll launch
Creative Tech startups you'll create new
recipes and Symphonies and traffic
ordinances and and budget proposals
creativity is this essential skill and
it's never too late to learn and to
practice it to make the world a better
place that's all there is to it so one
ready
fill your well with inspiration and let
it simmer two
fire relax and let the ideas flow and
three aim
pick the potential winners and then
refine that raw ore into diamonds
it's not easy
but now you know how it's done
the idea for this video started with one
of the essays that I write every week I
write them just to send out to people
who subscribe and they're free and I do
it for the same reason that I make
YouTube videos because I have ideas and
I really want to share them with you
you can get my essays too if you'd like
just go to Danny's essays.com tell me
where you want to get them and I'll
start sending them to you this week I
hope you do thanks for listening