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September 28 - September 30, 2025
"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up."
“10x is easier than 10 percent.” – Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots, CEO of X, formerly known as Google X
“Because when you’re working to make things 10 percent better, you inevitably focus on the existing tools and assumptions, and on building on top of an existing solution that many people have already spent a lot of time thinking about. Such incremental progress is driven by extra effort, extra money, and extra resources.”
In the king’s court, Archimedes was a well-respected figure. On many occasions, the king used to depend upon the scientific acumen of Archimedes to find out the answers to seemingly impossible challenges. No wonder, whenever Archimedes proclaimed something, howsoever audacious it may sound, people knew that Archimedes would surely find ways to prove it, hence, learned to listen to him with due respect. One day, in front of many people, Archimedes claimed that he could move the earth. Now, this was more than yet another audacious proclamation from Archimedes. It was too far-fetched even for
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The king summoned Archimedes to the court. “I heard you claim that you can move the earth, is it true?” the king demanded. "Yes, your majesty, what you heard is correct," replied Archimedes pretending to be respectful. “Can you demonstrate it?” With this question, the king knew that all Archimedes’s pretensions would fall apart. This was the very moment that Archimedes said something that would be remembered for centuries. “Give me the lever long enough and a place to stand, and I can move the earth.”
Creativity is one such long lever, which you can use to create a 10x impact.
“Ideas are the currency of new economy.” – Richard Florida
Mastering creativity will put you among the top 1% who can generate creative ideas at will. This will give you a massive competitive advantage. With creativity and innovation under your belt, you will no longer be stuck with incremental results.
In creative people, three brain networks, the default mode network, the executive network, and the salience network, are simultaneously activated.
When people are engaged in spontaneous thinking, such as mind-wandering, daydreaming, and imagining, the default mode network gets activated. When people focus on their thought processes and evaluate the ideas, the executive control network gets activated. When the executive control network is activated, the default network is deactivated. This is how it usually works for most people. In the case of creative people, activation of the salience network makes all the difference. The salience network operates as a switching mechanism between the default and executive networks.
Neuroplasticity is the ability of human brains to make new neural connections and make structural changes.
Ideas are of no value unless acted upon. Creativity, without action, is just a hobby. It may seem like a no-brainer, but in reality, most are too scared to present their ideas in front of the world due to the fear of rejection. As said by Les Brown, “The wealthiest place on the planet is the graveyard, because in the graveyard we will find inventions that we were never ever exposed to, ideas, dreams that never became a reality, hopes and aspirations that were never acted upon.”
https://www.wired.com/2013/02/moonshots-matter-heres-how-to-make-them-happen/ https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/1VZV5X8J https://news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2012/Study-Reveals-Global-Creativity-Gap/default.aspx https://www.pnas.org/content/115/5/1087 https://www.amazon.com/Become-Idea-Machine-Because-Currency-ebook/dp/B00S1PRTL4/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= https://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Managers-Alan-Barker/dp/8174460780/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=creativity+for+managers&qid=1622303594&s=books&sr=1-1
“The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.
His procedure was simple: on the final day of class, he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pounds of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat
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As Henry Ford has famously quoted, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.”
Our core beliefs about ourselves get deeply rooted in our subconscious mind. Our subconscious mind ensures that they become our reality.
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“Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.”
“Happiness lies in being happy NOW, without changing a thing.”
References https://www.amazon.com/Art-Fear-Observations-Rewards-Artmaking-ebook-dp-B0042JSQLU/dp/B0042JSQLU/ref=mt_other?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=1624908427 https://www.amazon.com/Art-Fear-Observations-Rewards-Artmaking-ebook/dp/B0042JSQLU/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
The same story continues in school. Our education system rewards the right answer, never a good question.
Please listen to Dr. George Land’s Tedx talk. You will find it quite fascinating1.
Once people move to the corporate world, they are anxious to sound intelligent. Hence, they want to avoid asking questions that may make them look stupid in the eyes of others. But some people continue to ask childlike questions. These are among the best creative minds the world has ever produced. They are the ones who leave their mark on the world.
In his book on Einstein, Walter Isaacson writes2, “Curiosity, in Einstein’s case, came not just from a desire to question the mysterious. More importantly, it came from a childlike sense of marvel that propelled him to question the familiar, those concepts that, as he once said, ‘the ordinary adult never bothers about.’”
One way of changing the perspective is by thinking like a child.
“My greatest strength is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.”
We consider our initial briefing meeting with the client as an opportunity to ask every possible question. Mind you, all questions that we ask are not very intelligent sounding. Some of them may sound outrightly ignorant.
Clients will judge us on the quality of the ideas we will eventually bring to the table, not on the quality of the questions we ask.
The rewiring needs to happen in steps. Step 1: Stop being too harsh with yourself for a few stupid things you have done in the past (and still do occasionally :)). Step 2: Learn to be more tolerant of the stupid questions of others. Step 3: Learn to be comfortable with asking stupid questions.
Share YOUR stupidity
Becoming tolerant to stupidity
# 3 Asking stupid questions
Think of five stupid questions. First, make a long list and select the five that you feel are the most stupid ones.
References https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfKMq-rYtnc https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007F5SFWS/ref=dbs_a_def_rt_bibl_vppi_i6
When we come to know something, and if it triggers our interest, our mind wants to know the answer that once and for all settles the matter. Until such time, unconsciously, our mind keeps asking questions.
The human mind hates ambiguity. It always wants to be certain. People feel good, comfortable, and safe when they are clear about things to the minutest of details.
Unfortunately, that’s not how life works. Instead of clarity, it presents us with a state of perfect chaos.
On many occasions, I have seen managers taking quick decisions and moving on to the next item on their agenda. They consider themselves as decisive leaders. But in reality, due to their lack of tolerance towards ambiguity, uncertainty, and anxiety to arrive at clarity, they tend to rush to the solution by choosing the best option among the available ones. On most occasions, such half-baked solutions are linear, uninteresting, and devoid of creativity.
“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” - Einstein
Faced with a complex situation, creative people are more likely to come up with an out-of-the-box solution. They can stay with ambiguity for a longer period. Hence, they don’t have the urge to rush to premature solutions. In fact, they often procrastinate taking any decision and work till the end to find breakthrough ideas, and more often than not, they do.
procrastinators. I strongly recommend you to listen to his interesting Ted Talk2 - The surprising habit of original thinkers.
Eastman’s Kodak camera was indeed a disruption at that time. It placed the power of photography in the hands of anyone who could press a button. It revolutionized photography in the true sense.
As Sasson later told the New York Times, “it was filmless photography, so management’s reaction was, ‘that’s cute — but don’t tell anyone about it.”3
Kodak’s management was not very enthusiastic about this invention of digital photography. They were not willing to cannibalize their existing business model with high profitability and virtual monopoly over the market.
Kodak’s creative ad campaigns were built around the need to preserve ‘significant’ occasions such as family events and holidays. These were referred to as ‘Kodak moments’, which became part of everyday life.
Today, in the business world, Kodak Moments are referred to as those moments when organizations lose big opportunities due to their insistence on clarity and intolerance to ambiguity.
References https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340113299_The_relationship_between_tolerance_of_ambiguity_and_creativity_in_architectural_design_studio https://www.ted.com/talks/adam_grant_the_surprising_habits_of_original_thinkers/transcript?language=en https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/02/technology/02kodak.html
We live in a world that is conditioned to The Right Answer way of thinking. The mind of creative people is wired differently. They can effortlessly think of many right answers to any given challenge.
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald
