Your elusive creative genius - Elizabeth

Gilbert

•How do you consistently be productive?•How do you top your best work?

• After early success in life, you might become complacent• Society expects creative

people to outperform themselves every time

• You are pressurised to outperform yourself• How do you continue to

be productive post success?

Inspiration from past: Greeks and Romans

Greeks

•Believed creativity came to people from spirits•Greeks called them “daemons”• Socrates thought a daemon spoke wisdom to him

from afar

Romans

•Romans called these spirits “genius”• They assist the artist and shape their work• You are only partially responsible for your

success/failure

A psychological construct to protect you from the results of your work

Greeks and Romans had

Renaissance period: complete change

•Rational humanism: Humans are above all gods and mysteries•Creativity comes from completely from within•People became genius, rather than having genius

What now? How can we do this differently• We cannot change 500 years of rational humanistic thought

But why not?• Process of creating something is not always rational.

Tom Waits (musician)

• Once while driving down the freeway, he had an inspiration for a new song but had no way to write it down. He looked u into the sky and said:

“Do I look like I can write down a song right now? If you really want to exist, come back at a more opportune moment when I can take care of you. Otherwise, go bother somebody else today.”

Ruth Stone (poet)• Felt that she hears poems coming at her from

over the landscape. She said it was like a thunderous train of air. And she felt it coming, because it would shake the earth under her feet. She knew that she had only one thing to do at that point, and that was to "run like hell." She would run like hell to the house and she would be getting chased by this poem, and the whole deal was that she had to get to a piece of paper and a pencil fast enough so that when it thundered through her, she could collect it and grab it on the page.

• You start working on your report/presentation/paper• You start loosing focus, flow of

ideas stop• You start to feel as if it is the

worst work you have ever done

What to do then??

Just. Do. Your. Job

Stop believing that the extraordinary aspects of your being came from youThey were just a loan from an unimaginable source

Recap

• Sometimes people get stuck on their work/project• People doubt their ability to better themselves• Its then that we should internalise this thought: ‘we are not

solely responsible for the new creative things that we do’• This provides a psychological construct to protect yourself

as:• You are not fully responsible for your success• You are not fully responsible for your failures as well.

Watch the video:

http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius?language=en

Disclaimer:

• These slides were created by Jairaj T, IIM Lucknow as part of the course Personal branding (www.mbaskills.in) taught by Prof. Sameer Mathur