Transcendent Creativity
“The ones crazy enough to change the world, are usually the ones who do.”
Apple’s Think Different Campaign 1997
The creative process is transcendent. It is the human experience that lets us glimpse into something greater than ourselves, especially when it involves more than yourself in the process. Often times, something that is created has been created in response to something else. Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar, uses the analogy of The Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA to illustrate this point. ARPA was created in response to Sputnik, and not surprisingly, one key component to ARPA was its reliance on collaboration. This collaboration led to ARPANET, the beginning phases of the internet as we know it today. Creativity is most powerful when looking to the past and playing on the strengths of other creators, collaborating from multiple points of view. I come from a traditional creative background; my mother a ballet dancer, my father a writer and film director, and my maternal grandfather an abstract artist and university art professor. I had front row seats to some great creative work — and it had a profound impact on me. It taught me that great creativity has always drawn on inspiration from other artists; the same can be said of great entrepreneurs — rarely is an idea original. The creativity lies in the bricolage of various existing ideas with the individual or entity’s own interpretation. The genesis of creativity might originate as a dim cloud in your mind, which creates a degree of excitement and then prompts action, but it requires control and work. After multiple refining iterations, it crystallizes into an idea with clarity, ready to be acted upon. When building a startup, it’s arguably top priority to get to market fast — which is best done through a collaborative effort and not alone. The execution of the idea to reality and convincing early adopters to advocate determines the success of the venture.
Apple Macintosh was designed to “celebrate not what the computers could do, but what creative people could do with computers.” For Apple Inc., it was all about creativity. Generally speaking, when someone says creative in regard to the creative industry, people think of artistic capabilities. However, creativity is more and more becoming a commonplace value and skill in business, law, and so forth, as people discover that creativity has broader application than just art. Creativity is abstract and isn’t readily defined by any discernible confines. Was Apple forward thinking in that they wanted to be adopted by all industries? Creativity is applicable in all fields;creativity is progression. For an entrepreneur, creativity is essential for innovation. Without innovation, the company ceases to compete for relevancy. Creativity requires courage. Courage to do something most others don’t have the propensity for or appetite to stomach.
For me, the most intense experiences with creativity have come at crucial inflection points in my life, where an important decision to make is imminent. One such decision was with the latest pivot in my existing business model and how to tell a new story. It has become one of the most strenuous experiences in my career. Tell the right story and you can captivate not only an audience of potential users, but also capital from investors. Tell the wrong story, no one gives you the time of day and your left empty handed. For a dreaming entrepreneur who is sacrificing a lot to build a business, that pressure can mount quickly. Scripting the right narrative, forced me to think more simplistically in order to get more sophisticated in my message and create a “sticky” longer- lasting message. In these creative moments, it is where I am most in touch with my visceral self and usually do the best work. Aside from personal impulsivity and amidst strenuous circumstances, the one ingredient I can rely on to calm the nerves is to sit and concoct a good story.
It’s important to exercise your creativity daily. DaVinci kept a journal in which he wrote down ideas and questions daily. He would then try to solve and answer those questions to the best of his ability. Art like any other profession requires what the artist T. Budge Hyde quoted as “damned hard work!” It’s just like any other profession. Start your own DaVinci journal today and try to write as many as three ideas per day. At the end of the day, reconcile your ideas — you’ll be surprised at your creative improvement.
Originally published at https://www.mattwunderli.net on October 14, 2019.
