How to Level Up your Personal Creativity by having the Courage to Celebrate Failures

In a previous edition of this newsletter, we looked at the first two of the three Creativity Trifecta; Making Connections & Curiosity .? In this article, we are going to deep dive into the third Creativity Trifecta and how it can help to level up your Creativity.

It is easy to make mistakes, but not everyone is able to come to terms with that.? To most people, making mistakes, especially if repeatedly, is a failure.?

However, I’d like to demystify the myth that failure is bad. Celebrating failure essentially means “To have the willingness to be courageous in accepting mistakes and learn from them.”???

“Creativity Takes Courage” ~ Henri Matisse

Ralph Heath, in his book, "Celebrating Failures:? The Power of Taking Risks, Making Mistakes and Thinking Big", mentioned that failures and defeats are life's greatest teachers.? In fact, he encouraged leaders in the business world to embrace the power of failure as a learning tool for organisational improvements.

By encouraging ourselves to accept mistakes, it will develop our humility and our ability to be resilient.? We will then be able to bounce back when the tough gets going, or when things don't go as planned.

The world experienced the Great Depression in 1930.? Among those that were badly hit was Alfred Butts.? Alfred was an architect. When the Great Depression hit, he became unemployed. ? However, being a creative person, he needed an outlet for his creativity.? It didn’t matter if he couldn’t get a job but he needed to do something.

Alfred? gave it a thought and he wanted to do a game.? Instead of just creating a game from a whim, he studied, analysed and made his own research about the games market. Based on his research on existing games, he saw the gap in the market: ? a competitive word game that had the combination of skill and chance.

Soon after, Alfred began cutting up little wooden tiles, with each tile having a letter on it, plus a small number indicating a value to the letter.? He named his game “Lexico”, sold it on his own but by 1934, only 84 sets were sold.? He then fine-tuned his initial idea and renamed the game, Criss Cross Words.? He added a board, with values on certain squares, and empty tiles that could be used for any letters.? Unfortunately, without much marketing and distribution, the game was not popular.??

Then in 1952, Jack Straus, President of Macy’s Department Store, chanced upon Alfred Butts’s game.? Macy’s was a huge store during that era. Jack was on a holiday and played the game, by then it was already called Scrabble, at the hotel lobby.? He enjoyed the game.? When Jack got back to New York, he made a massive order for Scrabble. ? With Macy’s involvement, the game had marketing and distribution.? Scrabble began selling at 6,000 units on a weekly basis.

Through this story, we can see that the success of Scrabble was not overnight, and that when one idea doesn't work out, that does not mean it is a failure. In fact, Alfred took 22 years to see his creative idea take off.? There were stumblock along the way.

What we can learn from Alfred is that it's not about how many times we have fallen, but how many times we are willing to get from the fall,? get out of the stuckness and continue moving.? That is what? matters. This? is what I call resilience.

I always believe that any mistakes or failures or stumblock that we encounter along the way in our lives, there is always goodness in it.? With a creative mindset, we are able to look at the positives.

If I were to look into Alfred’s mind, and to deconstruct his thinking process, I would recommend this three simple steps, called ARM Method, to celebrate failures (overcome adversities) and be a more resilient person:

Step #01:? Acknowledge

In the story Alfred Butt acknowledged and accepted that he had lost his job during the Great Depression in 1930.

Step #02:? Reflect

Upon acknowledging and accepting the situation, Alfred reflected what went wrong with his ideas.? He reviewed them and made changes to fine tune his works

Step 3 #03: Maximise Situation

At his step, it is important to note that there is always a silver lining in every adversity.? The key is to shift the focus and to look for opportunities that you can maximise the situation.? For Alfred, he kept fine-tuning his works and even renamed his works from Lexico, to Criss Cross Words to Scrabble.? He collaborated with a hotel to get Scrabble out; which led to being discovered by Macy’s.

This A.R.M. Method uses the ‘Yes, And’ principles.? When Alfred acknowledges at Step 1, he “Yes” - in the form of Acknowledgement that he has lost his job.? He then “...And’ by moving on to Reflect, and then build on to maximise this situation.?

In summary, to be creative, it is important to have the courage to accept mistakes and celebrate failure.? It is through this failure, we can grow out of it and be a better version of ourselves in terms of being creative.

How about you? Have you ever experienced where the moment you embrace mistakes (and for some, rejections), you feel 'lighter' and your ideas start to flow?

Stay Safe, Stay Positive, Stay Creative.

Towards your continued success,

Hazriq Idrus | Creative Leadership & Public Speaking Strategist | Author of “Creative Leadership” & "The Stage Fright Antidote"

Hazriq Idrus is a stage actor turned professional speaker who is passionate on the topics of Creative Leadership and Communications.? He founded The Speaking Factory Pte Ltd with a mission to help leaders speak, lead & innovate effectively.? In his speaking and training delivery, Hazriq uses techniques from acting & theatre improvisation to make learning experiential yet practical to the real world. Subscribe to Hazriq’s Youtube channel for more resources on creative leadership and communications.?

Click/Visit here: https://www.youtube.com/@hazriqtv .