Seven tips for living with creative passion
P. Be Passionate. Believe in yourself. Take Pride in What You do.
I studied Theatre Design and worked briefly for the National Theatre, UK. I had aspirations to become a world-famous film designer, so I went to Australia, where I thought I could make my mark.
Full of ignorance and arrogance, I thought it would be easy to get into Australia's films; they were just waiting for me. And I got my first job straight away.
A dishwasher in a department store canteen.
Eventually, an ad agency that was making an advert for something called "Paddle Pops", Ice lollies, asked me if I could design the set and create four life-sized Paddle Pops. Without thinking, I said yes, of course, I can. But, I had no idea how I was going to do it.
As you can imagine, it all went horribly wrong. My attempt to make the Paddle Pops utterly failed. I prayed that the ground would swallow me up or I could become sick with a sudden terminal disease so that I could get out of the project and have a reason for my failure, I went to the toilets to try to throw up, but there was no getting out of it. Heart was pounding out of my chest; I was going to fail; I would let everyone down, including myself.
In that moment of absolute despair and failure, something much stronger reared its head. A belief that I could do it. Instead of TRYING to do it, I would BE the person who could do it.
Failure had told me how not to do it, but the belief that I could do it pulled me through. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. The feeling of failure is there to send us a message that we need to do something, listen to it. Take responsibility for your actions.
There are no rules to say who we are. The only limits are the limits we accept for ourselves.
Ask yourself: "if not me, then who? If not now, when?"
This was emotion sending me a message. Passion. You have to believe in yourself. You have to put passion into everything you do.
Passion.
I ran a successful design company with 17 dedicated designers working with me; they were like an extended family. We designed hotels mostly, and we were passionate about our design and passionate about our loyalty to each other. In 2008 with financial collapse and the 2011 "Arab Spring", we saw the cancellation of several of our projects. Projects began falling like dominoes, and that meant the possible demise of our little company, our little community.
The team and I sat down to discuss what to do, and one of my architects said this:
"If we didn't love being doing it, we wouldn't do it; if we weren't passionate about design, we couldn't do it."
If you love what you do, you'll never work another day in your life. Because it's not "work".
You have to love it! If what you do doesn't feed your soul, you'll find it hard to stay motivated. Passion drives what you do.
You have to go full throttle; passion will pull you through. It's a virtuous circle; the more passion you have, the more you get.
Thinking creatively and passionately drives motivation, and your motivation drives creative thinking.
No great love story ever started with "Let's review all the options first."
It's the people with passion that change the world.
Be passionate, believe in yourself, and you will pull yourself through.
A. Be Adaptable.
If you're trying to get over a wall and not succeeding, approaching it the same way, again and again, will produce the same result. Find another way, go round it, under it, use a ladder, use a crane, knock the wall down, cover it with earth, find a different way. Be adaptable, flexible, experimental, and playful.
Use failure as a learning experience. Adopt what Carol Dweck calls a "growth mindset".
When children learn to walk, they fall over and stumble many times. But they get up and try again. You never hear a child stumble and say, "this walking business isn't really for me; I think I'll give it a miss!" No, they get up and have another go until they master it.
In the 1950s, when a welding robot at the Toyota factory stopped the production line, Taiichi Ohno famously asked why? But, rather than merely stopping at the first answer, he drilled down further and asked why five times more.
This is the story:
1. "Why did the robot stop?" – The circuit overloaded, which blew a fuse.
2. "Why did the circuit overload?" – The bearings locked up because there wasn't enough lubrication on the bearings.
3. "Why wasn't there enough lubrication on the bearings?" – The robots oil pump was delivering too little oil.
4. "Why was the pump delivering too little oil?" – The pump's intake was clogged up with metal shavings.
5. "Why was the intake clogged up with metal shavings?" – Because there's no filter on the pump.
The problem may have a root cause some distance from the effect.
If you merely question everything, you become obstructive; you also need to develop constructive responses and alternatives.
Both Science and art ask the same question; Why? And What if?
Questions are far more productive than answers. Questions allow for growth and development. Change only happens if you question what everyone else accepts as the norm.
Daydreaming and playfulness are other ways to allow your mind to tinker with a problem. You may think that because you need a serious outcome, you need to think seriously. However, when you're playful and having fun, you're more likely to be curious, and curiosity is a direct path to new ideas.
Curiosity and playfulness are natural states of mind.
S. Select good people around you.
Elon Musk had no expertise in space travel before SpaceX. He probably didn't know much about magnetic levitation before starting Hyperloop, and he certainly wasn't a car designer when he started Tesla. Nevertheless, he had a vision and then found the expertise to help him achieve that vision.
Build your community. Build it on sound foundations. There is no substitute for great supportive mentors and colleagues. Include people who nurture your dreams, reject those that squash them.
The media tell the story of a lone genius working in their attic garret, poor and destitute. It makes a good story, but that's not how it usually happens.
Think of Venice in the renaissance, Paris at the turn of the last century, New York in the 60s, London in the 1980s, Silicon Valley for technology. These network hubs engendered movements that changed our world. How? Because they clustered talent, which bred more talent. Everyone needs a supportive network. Choose your network carefully.
These are your liquid networks.
Your network of constructive supporters will become your greatest asset. Choose people who add value to what you want to do. Dismiss people who subtract value.
You don't need consensus. Challenge and be challenged. Constructively question every assumption.
We are social animals; build a great network of good people around you.
S. Set the right Goals consistent with your values
People always set goals like "I want to make $100,000 this year" or "I want to lose 20 Lbs."
If your core values are in the wrong place and aren't congruent with your goal, you will never sustain your plan. Therefore, you need to get your core values right before you can strive towards a goal.
Most people don't achieve their goals because the goal is not in their control and isn't congruent with their values! You can't control the outcome. What you can control are your thinking and your actions. The actions that will bring about the outcome!
If you want to lose weight, get up at 6 AM every day and walk for 40 minutes. Eat less. These are 100% controllable by you.
Donald Miller has something he calls the focusing question. When faced with choosing between one task or another, ask yourself the following:
What is the one thing I can do such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary.
Set goals that reflect your values and take action that moves you closer to your destination. Set and celebrate milestones. Adjust and adapt as circumstances change, find different routes.
1. The right mindset
2. The right strategy
3. The appropriate tactics and tools
Get your thinking right, make your plan, apply the right resources.
My wife likes to make soup. Probably the best soups in the world; really, they are. But, the ingredients aren't always the same, and the process isn't always the same. The taste is different and consistently brilliant. So, how does that work?
She follows a classic design process:
1. Listing all the ingredients. Whatever you have in your pantry.
2. Change or alter some of them. You might improvise because of the limitations of what you have or can get.
3. Make your choices, take a point of view and perhaps decide to put it together in a different way.
4. Decide how to serve it, who to share it with, what experience you want to create.
As designers, we first look at what a solution might look like to solve a problem or challenge. Then we list out our component parts, what we have and what we need. Next, we look at our constraints and limitations, then we play with ideas and form a point of view. We then put it all together and try it out. All the time, we have a vision of what we want the experience to be. Then we implement and adjust.
Apply the same principles to your life:
· Visualise
· Research
· Deconstruct
· Play
· Reconstruct
· Prototype
· Test and adjust
It's your story to write, so take control, start with a first draft, adjust, refine and improve, always moving towards your goal.
What you get from achieving your goal is not as important as what you become when you achieve your goal.
I. Invest in value, not price.
Here's a simple exercise; make a list of your superheroes, the people you admire. Write them down, make a list. Fictional or real, whoever represents some qualities you admire.
List those qualities of each of them you admire for each one.
These qualities represent your higher values. Hold on to them. These are precious.
When you buy a Nike trainer, you don't just buy a shoe; you buy into a story, a value, something that resonates with you. Values and stories are what we pass on to people. Values and stories change the world.
These will guide everything you do.
It's About Values. It's about what matters to you.
You will only be as valuable as the value you add to someone else's life. It's your unique story.
Deliver more value than you need to. Just enough is not enough. Under promise and overdeliver. We generally think that a higher price equals more value. That's how most of us buy wine, watches, perfume and things like that. The more expensive, the better it must be.
You have to deliver value; you won't get away with poor quality for long.
O. Own your work. Commit.
Committing means taking responsibility, owning your work.
I'll break this down into three parts.
1. Mastery
2. Purpose.
3. Ownership
Mastery.
Commit to being your best. Strive to do something the best that it can be done, not just the best that you can do it. Mastery is a path, not a destination. It's a way of thinking and behaving.
Mastery means learning and relearning; life-long learning. The simple way to think about it is to be a master at what you know and an apprentice at what you don't know. Every master was once a beginner.
A violinist or an athlete don't become a virtuoso or elite by talent alone; they must practice.
Anders Ericsson studied elite athletes and musicians and found that it took at least 10,000 hours for them to achieve a level of mastery. That equates to practising for at least 3 hours per day, 365 days per year for ten years. So time on a task, over time, eventually beats talent every time.
If you pursue mastery, it will pay you back with confidence and competence. It's a gift that keeps on giving.
Purpose.
Don't simply DO the best YOU can; do it the best that IT can be done. It's a subtle but essential difference. Challenge the ceiling of your achievement. That may mean changing the way you do things so that you can move past barriers. Be open to new ideas and new ways of doing something.
A different result means doing something differently. So think different and think purposefully.
Most of us reach something called the OK plateau, where we have enough skill to get by but not enough for mastery. Good enough is not good enough. So don't bounce back off your ceiling. Narrow your choices, focus your attention.
If you find a purpose, then you will have found meaning. Every step towards a purpose is a meaningful step. Success is anyone progressively realising a worthy goal.
Ownership.
Own your work and take responsibility. Your actions determine your outcomes; your outcomes inform your efforts. When we take complete ownership of our actions and reactions, we take responsibility for the outcomes, which puts us in control.
Don't blame anyone or anything, don't become the victim. Take authorship of your life, write your own story. Don't let things happen to you. Find a (creative) way to deal with it. Never place responsibility "elsewhere".
Think, "what can I do?" or "things won't change by themselves". Then, adjust your attitude and apply your effort.
Learn to say no to things that don't move you closer to your goal.
N. Never do it for the money
In the USA, you get paid to give blood. The thinking is that money motivates people. Therefore, the benefit of receiving money will fill the blood banks. Easy. The same thing happens in most industries and companies; money is an incentive to drive productivity.
In the UK, we give blood for free; it's a civic duty. So we contribute and help to save lives.
The UK has many more blood donors per capita than the USA, making me think that perhaps money isn't such a great motivator. Of course, we all need money to live, but I think, once we have our basic needs met, we prefer to do things that matter to us, things we care about and add value.
Money is an empty motivator. We all want and need money, but primarily for what it can enable us to do (that includes status). I think if we add value to people's lives, the money will take care of itself (well, I'm still hoping that's the case).
You will only ever be compensated according to the value that you add to someone else. You can have everything in life you want if you just help enough people get what they want.
When I was running my design consultancy, we sometimes took on projects just for the money; they had no other intrinsic value. As a result, these projects drained our spirit and exhausted us. Whereas other projects may have been far more complex, intense and wasteful of resources but had meaning for us, they added value and enriched us.
Sometimes though, we are our own worst enemies. We love what we do to the extent that we will often sacrifice our time and effort to achieve our vision. Never undervalue your worth.
Making money with your passion and adding value to someone's life; that's the winning formula.
You may not earn as much, but you will find something much more valuable—purpose, meaning and value.
Apply passion liberally to every part of your life and as often as you can. Then, pass your passion to your friends and family and enrich their lives too.