Creativity is the sh*t. Boo!

Creativity is the ultimate differentiator for any business and human. Creativity is not creating art, it’s a skill that helps one to solve problems in new ways. It's a problem solving skill that everyone can learn. Yes, we can practice how to be creative. If we decide to do so.

How creativity makes money

In the early 2000s (wow that’s a long time ago haha) I joined an ad agency founded by my beloved artist-turned-chef uncle. We were completely bootstrapped. Creative ideas were our currency. Worked day and night.

After just a year or so, we had huge clients like Burger King, 7up (LOL apologies to the zoomers who wouldn’t know what that is), Sanofi, GlaxoSmithKline, some of the largest banks, manufacturing and retail brands in Asia. My favorite project was rebranding this biscuit company called Munchy’s. We used ourselves and our own relatives as models. I was, and still am, especially proud of the tagline, “bite me”, and the brand has not changed since we rebranded it in 2004.

Little did I know back then that it was my first experience selling ideas for a living.?

Struggling with making ends meet with creativity, it was during this time I learnt that creativity takes practice. It is a result of self-discipline.

What is creativity?

Compiled by the California State University , I like how Robert E. Franken defined it:

Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others, and entertaining ourselves and others.

Tests of creativity measure not only the number of alternatives that people can generate but the uniqueness of those alternatives.?

This reminds us of the most watched TED talk of all time by Sir Ken Robinson where he argued that “school kills creativity”. With two kids under the age of 6, I dread this to be true.

Luckily for me, I’ve learnt and experienced firsthand that creativity is a result of self-discipline. In other words, even if school has killed our creativity, we can all learn how to be creative again.

Like everything else, creative requires grit

I loooooove this little book by James Webb Young, The Technique of Producing Ideas , which sums up how to practice creativity very simply.

If creativity was a profession, the role would be generating ideas. An idea is a new combination of old elements. Bringing old elements into new combinations highly depends on your ability to see relationships.

This means that in order to learn how to be creative, we need to practice producing ideas. The book spells out the five-step technique of producing ideas:

1. Gather material
2. Work over the material in your mind
3. Step away from the problem
4. Allow the idea to come back to you naturally
5. Test your idea in the real world and adjust it based on feedback.

Just like that.?

That’s how you practice to be creative. If we believe in the process and commit to it, we’d be surprised how creative we really are.

Creativity is scary

When someone asks me what I do, I’d always say I make a living by selling ideas. “I sell ideas” is “I’m a marketer” in “explain it like I’m five”.

Ideas are what inspire us humans to think and act. The goal of spreading ideas that inspire people to change is essentially everything in marketing, and in business.

Being creative should be our bread and butter. But oftentimes, we are caught in the hamster wheel, doing things like it’s always been done. It’s easier not to stir the pot. It’s easier to stay low so we don’t get more on our plates. It’s also the easiest way to be average.

Creativity exposes us.

We can never be sure of the outcome. It’s scary to be original in coming up with ideas. So original that we become the role model other humans want to learn from. So original in our work that other humans want to steal from. It’s a leap of faith.

And it’s also the ultimate differentiator for any business and human.