Transcripts
1. Introduction: Ladies and gentlemen, here's Esteban. [MUSIC] Hey, how are you? We're going to jump start your creativity. Ten challenges to make your ideas happen. Oh, good to see you buddy, how are you? Are we live? I'm nervous. That's my mentor. He taught me everything that I know. Come on, say it with me. Hi, and welcome to jump start your creativity, ten challenges to make ideas happen. I'm so excited you're here. This course is about that. Making ideas happen, making your ideas happen. My is Esteban, I'm a film and TV writer, I'm also a host of a few nerdy TV shows and things like that. You probably haven't seen them, but that's okay because previously to that, I taught creativity at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. During that time, I thought a lot about creativity and still think and talk and lead workshops on creativity. I'm so excited to bring some of that to you today. My goal for this class is that you and I, I am going to do this with you, that you and I build our creative confidence, build our creative competencies, so after the course, we can go do incredible things. This course is for anyone looking for inspiration and not just inspiration, like a motivational quote, those are fine, but inspiration in the way that we're actually doing tips and challenges where you are actually creating things. Every challenge is going to be like a mini-project. I'm going to ask you to share them and get some feedback on them. They're all going to be focused on this idea of how do we take an idea and bring it to life? How do we make ideas happen? They can be modified to be specific to the industry or the passions that you're into, but all of them are important in the way that they help us think differently, and then we can take those lessons and apply it to what we do in our life. Alongside me is one of my mentors and favorite people. Please make some noise for the professor. Professor, how are you doing? Are you ready for the course? Take a bow. You did it. You're here. Let's get started on creativity. It's going to be fun. It's going to be kind of weird, obviously, because I'm talking to a puppet, and we're going to learn a lot, build our creative capacities. Let's do this. I'm excited for you to stick around and watch the course. Let's do it.
2. Class & Project Overview: Before we get to the challenges, I want to give you an overview of what this class is going to look like and specifically and most importantly, how to approach these challenges. I've got a course on this if you like super want to dive into it. It's actually another Skillshare course. It's called Building Your Creative Toolkit. What it does is, it talks about the science of creativity a bit more. But here is a 15-second version. Fifteen-second version is this, is that your brain is kind of lazy. Not yours, well, it's all of our brains. No offense, brain. Our brains are lazy and what they want to do is that they want to go down the same neural pathways. If I think of a story, if I'm this writer, I think of a recent story I've seen or I think of a classic story, I just think of maybe the things that I think about the most. My brain is like, "This is the thing you always think about. Think about it this way." But what happens is, in that, we lose creativity. We're going down the same neural pathways. What we're trying to do in this course with these challenges is, instead of going down the same pathway, is do something, shake it up, interrupt, provoke in some way for the brain to be like, "Now I have to think about it differently." This is an example I actually use. Sometimes before I start writing a script, and if I feel like I'm falling into too many tropes, write a story, it has to look like this and a character says this, I will actually do this, I will try to write a story a through z. The first letter of every word is a, and then it goes a, b, c. Like, a, bear, climbed, down, everything, fast, gently. Then I'll keep going and I'll try to build this story. What it'll do is it'll stop my brain, and it'll be like, "Okay, this is weird," and it'll go down a different neural pathway. I'm not saying that story is better or worse, what I am saying though is interrupts my brain and it has this chance to connect things, to connect from a place it normally isn't. That is the goal of today. Today, can we do challenges to one, that actually where you're creating things, and two, where you're connecting things that maybe normally aren't connected. The way that we're going to get there is using the quotes of one of my favorite mentors. Professor, what's that thing you told me? Oh yes. I say learning is practice plus feedback. That's right. Learning is practice and feedback. We're actually going to do the activity and then wanted to take a moment to reflect on it. I think this is so critical. If you are trying to grow as a creative, it is a passion project or it's your job or wherever it is, if you're just creating things without stopping and reflecting on them, then I don't think you have an opportunity to think about how it could go better or why it works. We're going to spend a lot of time actually doing an activity and then stopping and saying, how can we apply this to our life? I'm also going to give you a little bit of the why of the activity, why it's important. I'm going to share with you some of the best practices that I use in there. Here is my ask for you. If we know that learning is practice and feedback, it would be absolutely amazing if you do these activities along with us and then you post them in the Skillshare group. What that does is it allows you to connect with other people, it allows you to show off some of what you're doing and other people can give thoughts and comments on it. I hope that you take some time to give feedback on other people's projects. We are not creating in a vacuum. Skillshare isn't here for you to silently create and never interact with the world. One of the best things that has happened from Skillshare is the sense of community. I've taught classes on it, and I've met amazing humans through it. Even if you're a little hesitant, I encourage you to post some of your activities. Every activity, every challenge, I'm going to say, "Hey, post this." You don't have to if you don't want to do all of them, obviously. But if you post a few, I think you'll get more from the course. Also because I think community is amazing and connections are the key to creativity and not just like neuroscience connections of different pathways but also connections between people, feel free to tag me on social media and hashtag 10 creative challenges. These are the 10 creative challenges that will help you and help me and help all of us become more action-oriented, more people who have got the skills to bring ideas to life. A few notes on the activities. Number one is, I'm going to talk about customization. You can customize it to whatever field you're in. I'm going to share with you that the way that I would do things, I'm going to share with you how I modify for my field. But creativity isn't a one size fits all solution. You have all the freedom in the world to change it to whatever it makes sense for you. In fact, I bet if we look in the gallery below or the projects, people have modified them already. Number one is customization, number two is quantity over quality. I'm going to ask you to do a lot of things. These are 10 creative challenges. We're going to move quick. We're not going to spend more than a few minutes on any of them. That means that it's probably not going to be the world's greatest work. That's okay. The thesis of this class is making ideas happen. We can't make ideas happen if we're so concerned about quality. Quantity leads to quality. The more ideas we have, the more we're creating stuff and bringing it into the world and saying, "This is my idea, world. Whatever, here's another one," the better we get at actually bringing ideas to the world. It's 10 creative challenges, we're not going to spend that much time on each one. They're not going to be that good of ideas. Maybe they are amazing ideas for you, but for me, I'm going to share with you my ideas. They're probably not going to be good ideas. But the thing is we're at least creating them. Quantity leads to quality. The more ideas I have, the better those ideas will become. Our last foundation for how we approach this activity is humor. For me, creativity is this thing that sometimes gets taken so seriously. The more seriously I take creativity, the more stuck I become. The more I go, "I'm a serious artist. I must create serious art," then the less likely I am to share my art with anyone, or even sit down and overcome whatever voice in my head says, "Esteban this has to be important." How do I handle that? How will we handle that together in this course? Is we're going to have a bunch of silly challenges. We're going to have intentionally silly and ridiculous challenges. For goodness sake, there's a puppet that is coaching us through it. I think the more whimsy and the more sense of humor and lightness we approach creativity, the more creative we are able to be. We're going to customize, we're going to have a ton of ideas, not to worry that much about quality, quantity over quality, and we're going to approach it with a sense of lightness and whimsy. Are you ready? Let's get started.
3. Challenge 1: No Expectations: [MUSIC] Hey, welcome to the first creative challenge. The first creative challenge is called No Expectations. This is where we purposely try to come up with something bad. That's right. Purposely come up with something bad. Why are we doing this? Well, like I mentioned, a lot of times our obsession with quality is why we stop ourselves from creating. Writer's block, something I have often faced, now that I look back on it, I realized that it's just me being scared of what I'm putting into the world. It's me scared of something that maybe this isn't that good. What we're going to do is the first creative challenge is just come up with bad things, and not just bad things, the worst things. Again, I think creativity happens when we take this silly light approach to it. Here's the challenge. Can you come up with the worst restaurant ever? Like I said, we can customize this so we can be in your field. But first, let's start off with this prompt, the worst restaurant you can think of, I'm going to do this with you. I haven't thought about this before. The first worst restaurant ever is, let's say, the servers are just mean. They say mean things. Servers are mean. The waiters are mean, and the food is, maybe there's no menu. What would be the worst menu experience? The menu is all wrong. It is wrong. Maybe they made up a language, the menu's in a made-up language. What else? What are goofy things? Maybe you have to cook the food yourself. You have to cook it for everyone else. Cook for others. What if the worst restaurant is you pay money, but you just end up working at the restaurant. Instead of getting paid, you just pay. Then they frame it, they brand it, and they go like, experience. This is the culinary experience. Then when you're in it, everyone is like, "Isn't this restaurant amazing?" I feel like gas lighting, and not like lighting food with gas, like actual gas lighting. They're like, "I love this restaurant," and you're sitting there and you're like, "This is crazy." What is your worst restaurant experience? Write that in the projects. [MUSIC] Also, like we're going to do every time, you can customize this to your field. I'll give you two examples. I am a writer. Let me come up with the worst story ever. This is true. Last night I watched the movie and there was a heist in it. What would be the worst story for a heist movie? Maybe it's the police show up and immediately shut it down. Show up, so there is no heist. What if you follow an employee of the bank and they're nowhere near the action. They're in the back and they're like, "What's going on?" Far away from action. I love it. You can do this worst story heist if you're a writer. Second thing I'm going to do, is I'm going to take my phone. I'm a filmmaker and sometimes I play this game where I go, I worry about taking photos and making sure that the video looks good, and I wonder what happens if I just take a bad photo. If I just go and go like, "Okay. A good photo would fit all of this into frame. Let me cut it off and rule of thirds is broken and then let me tilt in a weird thing and then let me put a unexplained sharpie and just take this really bad photo or whatever." I would encourage you to actually do things. This is step one. I'm writing things out. If I were to do the worst story heist, is actually right a little bit of it. If I were to actually do the filmmaker and the photo one I would actually take some photos and be like, "These photos are so bad." Have them be so bad that they make you laugh. That is the goal. Do that. That is the practice part. When you come back, or in five seconds from now, because I'll assume maybe you paused the video or maybe you'll watch it all the way through. Do your own thing. Let's talk to a professor about the value of intentionally creating bad art. Professor, what are your thoughts on this challenge? I think a lot of people struggle to make ideas happen, not because they're not good at making ideas happen. Usually these are people who have made ideas happen all the time, but what stops people from making ideas happen is that they are fearful of their own ideas. They're fearful they're not good enough. I know you feel that. Yeah. I think there is power to embracing the fear of bad ideas. Embracing the fact that some ideas are going to be bad and instead of not doing them, saying, "Great, let me do this with a sense of wonder and whimsy. Rather than fear bad ideas, let me embrace them as part of my practice. Good ideas only come after bad ideas." [MUSIC] Thanks so much. Creative challenge number 2, coming right up.
4. Challenge 2: Shortest Short Story: Welcome to challenge number 2, this one is called the shortest short story. This one is all about limitations. How do limitations help us make ideas happen? To me, it's those easy wins that help us actually create. Limitations, what they do is they take away the exhaustion, the mental wave of I could go anywhere, and they allow us to put all that mental energy into one specific place, that is the power of limitations. This is a challenge called the shortest short story. Here it is, Ernest Hemingway was given this challenge, and now, you will be given this challenge. The challenge is, can you write a six-word short story? A six-word short story? It has to be a story, six words can't be like the cat is named Max. That's okay, but that's not a story, that's a description. Can we create a six-word short story? Six-word short story. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Short story to me, maybe has a character. This is me thinking if you're feeling good, this has a character, maybe the character changes. That's something that's got to happen. You're going to work on this, I'll work on these too. Six words short story, if that's a little bit challenging and you're a little bit stuck, maybe do a 10-word short story. The fact of the matter is, write a story, actually write one and only six words. By the way, if you are in a different field, feel free to modify this. If you're an illustrator, this is something I do. I'm not even an illustrator because a lot of times, I would just take a post-it note. This is over the shoulder, and they are watching sunset. That's really nice, and there's birds, this is the back of their head. But then, there's something interesting. They're actually watching their partner with someone else. What? Then we're always whoa, we got something crazy. Instead of me thinking, oh my gosh, how to create a short story around these things? What I'm just doing is I'm taking a post-it note. I'm building this limitation. I'm saying, great, this is a short story. How can you take maybe the six-word story? How can you modify that to your field, to your illustrations, and just create the tiniest, tiniest limitations that you can, that is the goal. Limitations actually help breed creativity and for more on the reflection and the valuable feedback is, of course, the professor. Professor, tell us more about limitations. How can we build our creative confidence? I think it's by number 1, embracing failure. Number 2, setting limitations, setting ourselves up for success. You can be created from here to here, six words, I love that. Just one post-it to think of a scene. Think of illustration. Those limitations help us get started on the journey of creativity, that's why that's valuable. Wise as ever. Stay tuned for challenge number 3 coming right up. Let's do this.
5. Challenge 3: Going Big: This is creative challenge number 3. This one is called going big. We going big. Here's my thought. A lot of times the things that stop us from making ideas happen is a little bit of fear of bad ideas, creative challenge number 1, is the thought that it's too big, there's too much. I could go anywhere. Limitations, creative ideas number 2. For me one of the biggest things that stops me from actually making my ideas happen is that I am seven steps ahead and think of all the ways this idea wouldn't work. I start writing a script then I go it's too expensive. There's no way that actor would do it. There's no way this could work and I stop myself from doing it. So this one is called going big, and it is where we intentionally design, right, illustrate something that is so big. Take the word feasibility and throw it out a window because for this activity, anything goes. So here is the activity I would say for all of us. You can modify this activity, but for this one, let's actually think and sketch out what it would look like to create the world's fanciest and most expensive couch. That's right. Here we go. This is the next creative challenge. We're building a couch. This is the couch. It's a bad couch. Great, this is a couch. The world's most expensive and fanciest couch. What are we doing? This couch gives you a massage. This couch maybe at the end there's like a TV screen that pops up. Maybe there's a TV screen here we go. That's a screen that's coming up here. This couch still feels to feasible. What if it's a couch? Over here it cooks you food, this is a pot, and there's food. What if this couch is on wheels? It's taking you wherever. What if this couch has affirmations and this couch really makes you the best person that you are? This couch affirms you. What if every time you sit on the couch, it genuinely says, "You are loved?" Now, I'm talking. I'm going to sit on the couch. That is what we're saying. Take this idea and run with it. What is your version of absolutely the world's most expensive and craziest couch? Again, my dream is that the ideas are so outrageous that they make you laugh. If the ideas are making you laugh, if there's this air of silliness and lightness, I think not only is that good for creativity in the moment, but that is good for, is for you to start thinking about creativity in this way and bringing some of that energy to the work that you are doing. Now, before we go to the professor, how can you modify this for your industry? My hope is that you throw this in the projects, you make your own incredible couch. So right now the products, we've got the six word story, we've got the couch, we've got all the other projects. But how can you modify this to your own? What I would think is I've been lucky enough to write some feature films, and they are small indie movies. There's a budget of $3 million. Something that I know has worked for me is when I'm thinking about the film, if I start thinking about the budget, I'm not going to be as creative. That doesn't mean that I don't think about the budget later, but it means in that first pass, if I started thinking, oh, we can't go to space, it's too expensive, then the idea isn't going to be as good. So what happens is that when you're creating, you create with absolutely no limitations, and then later you can put on the practical lens. Later you can talk budget, and feasibility, and studio, and gallery, and all that stuff. But when you go into it, what happens if you go, you know what? What if I write this song and Beyonce sings a verse? I just go into it thinking that. What if I write this movie and it's a $300 million movies and Tom Hanks is in it? What happens then? That's how I take this and apply it to my everyday creative ideas in Toolkit. Let's go to the professor. Professor, the last challenge, challenge number 2, is about limitations. This challenge is about going big. Are those at odds with each other? How do we reconcile those two? Yes, creativity is full of contradictions, isn't it? It's so head scratching. You're just like. Anyways, what was the question? No, I remember. Yes. Here are my thoughts when it comes to making ideas happen. The first thing that stops us is we are fearful of bad ideas. The second thing is that there's too much, it's too much to think about, but then the third is, we become editors before we become writers, we edit before we write. We critique before we paint, we edit before we shoot. Now, what happens if we stay focused? That's where we make ideas happen. Where we think I'm going to have this idea and actually bring it to life, and then work with a team of people who will read and pare it down and do all the things that you need to do. That's what's important. Limitations help us wrap our heads around the ideas. Not waste mental energy, thinking about where to focus, and I'm not saying you build a whole thing around limitations. It just as a tool to help make ideas happen, and then second, going big, getting rid of feasibility. Feasibility at the beginning of a project can totally kill a project. Feasibility is important at the end of a project way over here. What happens when we put all of our mental energy into creating and none of our mental energy into editing just yet? That's where amazing things happen. Back to you. I love it. Let's go to challenge number 4. Thanks so much for watching. Thanks so much for doing this. Let's keep the train moving. We'll see you at challenge number 4.
6. Challenge 4: Connections: We're on a creative challenge number 4. This one is called Connections. This one is probably one of my favorites. I love the definition of creativity, that creativity is connecting two seemingly unrelated ideas together. I'm obsessed with any type of definition involving connections and creativity. The reason is because there's a ton of science behind it. I like deep quotes, and then I'm like, what's your fact? Then when they point to the neuroscience of creativity, I'm like, "Good point." I also like it because it's one of the tools that I use the most to help jumpstart your creativity, the reason this course exists. This tool is called juxtaposition. In juxtaposition, we are going to juxtapose, which is also a fancy word for smash two things together. For me, juxtaposition is amazing at immediately giving me a push in a nudge to continue creating. If I'm writing a story, if I'm writing a script and I feel stuck, and I don't know what to do, then maybe I will think about something, and it can be totally unrelated. I'll think about a vacation I had on the beach once, and I'll think about being relaxed, and I'll think about what would these characters do if they're more relaxed? I'll just connect all of these things. These are probably things that you're doing constantly in your work, but what we're going to try to do is isolate them, isolate just that connection piece, and do it as an activity. We're going to juxtapose two things together. This is one of my favorite activities. I think you can do this a bunch of times and throw it all in the discussions and projects area of this [inaudible] class, because then you can see what other people do, and the more that you juxtapose, the more you can make those connections, the more you can make ideas happen. But here's what we're going to do, we're going to take a step 1. What I would do is take two things that you see around you. Two things that you see around you on your desk. Then you're going to juxtapose them. Right now, I'm looking at Post-it Notes. By the way, this is real, I haven't done this before. I'm brainstorming along with you, and I am looking at, let's see, a camera. Look, that's a camera. Okay, camera. Now, this is the good part, this is where we actually think about how to combine both of these. It's camera. Let me take this, and you're a camera, so I'm looking at you. Post-it Notes, camera, now what happens if, like Polaroid pictures. What if they're sticky Polaroid pictures, now that's a genuinely good idea. You just take a needle stick, why don't they do that? What does it mean if there's a little camera here? I could take a picture, like Post-it Notes with camera in it. What I would also do is take a step back and think of the idea, the idea of Post-it Notes is this. I guess there's disposable cameras, but what would happen if cameras could be like a stack of cameras, like really thin cameras and then you just take them in different places and it's okay if you lose them, like really thin disposable cameras. I feel like the disposable camera industry is right for disruption, you know what I mean? You can share them. What happens if there's cameras and you switch with your friends and you go, I give a camera to a friend for a few days and then they go and they bring it back, and it's really beautiful perspective-taking. These are the juxtapositions you can do. Again, how do we connect this to your industry? I think it's important for you as an activity to do this, to juxtapose two different things that you see. These were my words, these can be your different words. But I also think, the way that this helps me make ideas happen is one, it gives me that nudge to continue creating, two, it helps me stay motivated. If I need to think of a project and I don't know what to motivate myself, or you do one thing, maybe that's not enough. What happens is often, I will do two things at once. For example, a lot of times when I'm stuck writing a script, and I need to write dialogue, sometimes I'll go for a walk, that's pretty good. You know what's best is when I go for a walk, and I add that to something else, I record voice messages while I'm walking. Sometimes I'll take my dog to the dog park and then I'll bring a journal and think about things. I'll combine two different things. The final and last tip of juxtaposition is that the more unrelated they are, the better. One of my favorite things has been being like these two things, there's nothing related to that. There's absolutely nothing. We can do this. We can take camera and Post-it Notes or related. If we look at this, we look at these two examples. What if then we just take away Post-it Notes, and what's something totally unrelated to camera is maybe the concept like siblings. All of a sudden we got a cool thing of the older brother, older sibling projects, where they take photos of their younger siblings or siblings camera. What if there's a show that's called The Best Siblings. Oh gosh. I'm not saying these are good ideas. I'm not saying that there should be a reality show where siblings duel each other, but I'm saying that, it is that idea, so there's that. That's the power of juxtaposition. This is one of my favorite activities. I hope you do this and I hope you see this, it is a thing that I do so often. Professor, can you tell us a little bit more about what makes juxtaposition such a powerful tool for building that momentum when you're creating? Yes. To me, juxtaposition serves two purposes. Number 1 is idea generation. In ideation, I believe juxtaposition is one of the most powerful tools you have. Creativity is connecting things, and I think you reach amazing things if you just connect one thing to another thing, especially when they seem unrelated, that just is really good ideation. But the second thing that I really like about juxtaposition, and you mentioned this, is it serves as inspiration and motivation. Often when we feel stuck, we just take the first thing. We go, "Oh, I'm going to do one thing," and I think you more than double your chances of a jumpstart to creativity if you go, "I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do this." It's great for ideation, but it's also great for continuing that push into implementation. Good for ideation, good for implementation. Our brain loves it when we can connect two things. Our brain loves it when we push past the usual tropes of inspiration or motivation or ideas. The question is, if not juxtaposition, how do you push your brain to that next level? To me, juxtaposition is one of the easiest ways to do that. It's an easy way to push your brain to go just one step further. That's the power of it. Back to you. He's good. We'll see you next time. It's creative challenge number 5 is our next one. We're moving and grooving. Let's do it. We'll see you next one.
7. Challenge 5: Uncover Originality: We're going to challenge number 5: Uncover Originality. There's something interesting about what the professor said last time about juxtaposition. I can't put my finger on it, but it's almost like combining a Skillshare class and the fact that someone saw a puppet on Amazon for $55 and decided to buy it. Something about connecting those two hopefully makes a better experience. I don't know, but here we go. It's challenge number 5, it's Uncover Originality, is the fancy title. Here's basically what it is. As we move from tools, I also want to offer mindsets or frameworks for thinking these paradigm shifts in the way that we think about creativity, specifically making creativity happen, making ideas happen. That's the reason for this course. Here's the way I like to think about it. The easiest way for me to wrap my head around this one is the iceberg analogy. I'm sure many of you have seen this picture of an iceberg, and then this is the water. Look at this, wow, really fancy water. There's usually a beautiful lesson about the fact that we only see this part of the iceberg and so much of this is hidden. I love that lesson and that's what we're going to do today. Here's what we're going to do, is we're going to take this layer and we're going to try to uncover. I'm just throwing down numbers here. We're going to take one thing, and think of three things that are unexpected about it, and then five things that are unexpected about it, and then seven things that are unexpected about it. The whole thing about this, the whole reason we're doing this is to try to dig deep. We're going to try to dig deep and find that originality. Let's take one thing. These can be ideas or concepts. Let's take this Sharpie pen. Three things people don't normally think about pen. I'm going to think about this specific pen and go deeper. It is the tip, it is the felt tip. Tip of pen it is. This grip is really interesting, the grip, the cap. Great. Now we're going to take these ideas, the tip, the grip, the cap, and try to come up with five. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 things about that. The tip is, what material is that? It's felt I think. Does it say? It can't spill. It can't. It has to be there. The grip isn't really a grip. some of them have rubber. Let's also do material. The idea of the grip is, is this a user thing? Do they just help understand where you need to grip? Is it just a location thing, where it says you have to grip here? Then what else? Oh, I said the cap. Oh, yeah. The cap could be better designed. I lose these. How to not lose the cap. But the thought here is we take this one idea and we go deeper. Go deeper in the iceberg. Go deeper in the iceberg. This is creativity. You can really go any way you want. Some of these may be questions, some of these may be observations, some of these could be ideas. Any of that could happen here. This goes back to that previous challenge on limitations, that sometimes when things are so big, it's hard to wrap our head around it. How can we break things down? Number 2 is, I would do this for your field of work, your passion area. You can see what are things that you don't normally think about. If I want to get better at a certain thing, it's tough to say, "I want to get better at writing, I want to get better at storytelling." That's so huge. But to break it down into the small aspects, to chunk it into groups, helps us understand what are specific areas we can get better at, what are specific areas we could improve in. The reason this helps us make ideas happen and bring ideas to life is that instead of viewing ideas as these large things we need to carry forward, we break down the ideas. It's a lot easier to take smaller parts of ideas and actually bring them to life than an enormous idea. I think one of the keys to creativity is building self-awareness. Building self-awareness of where you are your best and building self-awareness of the craft that you are trying to master. The craft and understanding all the aspects of it, and consistently doing this. I've talked a lot about creative confidence. To me, creative confidence is one of the keys to creativity. It's the confidence in your own creativity. It's the biggest and most important thing to actually bringing an idea into the world. The thought that you know, that you can bring this idea into the world. That is the power of this fifth challenge, is that it's not just creating things, it's not just limitations, it's not just all these things. What it is is this step back to build the self-awareness, to be able to recognize where we can build creative confidence, where we can spot holes, and take all of that and bring it into the world, into life so people can actually feel and touch and experience your marvelous and brilliant creative ideas. That's creative challenge number 5. Now Professor, I know this class is about making ideas happen and this is admittedly a reflection-lead activity. Why do you think this is an important activity? Because you told me this was a good activity. Why do you think this is a good activity for right now? Yes. Now, to me, creativity sometimes is such a big word. It encompasses everything. You watching probably are creative. But it's totally different than other people who are creative who are totally different than other people who are creative in your different mediums, your different arts, your different places in the world. It's insane. To me, creativity is such a big word that there is value in chunking it down, and making creativity feel more accessible, closer to Earth, closer to the ground. What that does, it affirms the intricacies of creativity. It affirms the reminder that creativity is huge, and to think about it just as creativity is sometimes taxing on the head. This helps us make ideas happen because it reminds us that creativity is a lot of different things. It's all sorts of different things. In that, we are reminded that we can take steps forward in smaller aspects of creativity. We can be really good at making ideas happen over here, and keep working on things over here. Instead of thinking, how do we move an elephant up the hill, we can just think, how do we take one step forward or ask the elephant to take one step forward? You get it. It's an imperfect analogy [inaudible]. I recognize that. Anyways, back to you. Feel like I learned so much from that guy. Even his voice, you know what I mean? He's vaguely British and older, but vaguely. Hey, that's it. Challenge number 6 is coming up next and the theme of it is Curiosity. Aren't you curious about what's coming up next? I'm so sorry for that. Just stick around. I think you'll have fun, and I think we'll keep learning together. We'll see you next challenge.
8. Challenge 6: Curiosity: Welcome to challenge number 6, curiosity. This one builds off the last challenge of uncovering originality or awareness, anyway you want to call it. This one builds from that and it goes towards more tangible things. I admit the last one was a little up in the clouds, so we are going to bring it down. We're going to bring it down on the ground. From the clouds to the ground. This one is curiosity and here is the task, you are going to reach for an object around you or in the room. I have grabbed an object that is close by and it's an object that I didn't know we would use so much this year. Ladies and gentlemen and everyone watching, hand sanitizer. That's right. You're going to take an object and what you're going to do is you're going to be curious, more curious than you've ever been about this object. You're going to write down 10 things you notice about the object. This is step 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Let's do a few together, and then I won't do all of them because that would be not the best class ever. Okay, hand sanitizer. These are real things, I genuinely haven't looked at this before and haven't planned. We're doing this together and I'm telling you that because you don't have quantity over quality. I can notice not that good things like it's round. That's interesting. I actually wonder why it's rounded. I've seen some that are square. Kills 99.99 percent of germs. Can they legally not say a hundred percent?. I would write down things about the object physically, I would think of things that they write. What else is interesting? Let see, the bar code, how this comes out, how the hand sanitizer works so I'm thinking of both things that are aesthetic and design and the wording on it. What are all these things that make this hand sanitizer, hand sanitizer cool? Okay, now, let's take this hand sanitizer. These things that I've looked at and I've written things down and what we're going to do, step 2 of this activity, is we're going to take one aspect from one of the 10 things that you saw and you're going to design the object completely around that. You know what? I'm going to take the fact that the wording has to be scientifically sound. I'm going to design an object. I'm going to pretend that this hand sanitizer was made by lawyers who are nervous, nervous lawyers. Instead of maybe Purell Advanced Hand Sanitizer, can you see this advanced? If I'm a nervous lawyer, I'm getting rid of that. I'm going to say maybe hand sanitizer, and it says the most trusted and used by hospitals, I'm probably going to get rid of that, and it goes kills 99 percent of germs. This asterisks, I'm going to make this asterisks really big and be like," We think." Then I'll have like the thing that says back here, it says keep out of reach of children. If this were designed by nervous lawyers, this top wont work like this. I think it'd be red. It'd be like a medicine top. You'd have to do a few things to it. You'd have to be like you'd have to go here and then press here and then maybe you get it. It'd be really child proof. That's what we're doing. We're taking these 10 things. Something we notice from the beginning, I notice it says kills 99.99 percent of germs. That's funny. They think they can't do a hundred, and then we're designing the entire objects around that thing, around nervous lawyers. Here is the power of this, how this helps make ideas happen is we not only get inspired, we not only get curious, we also apply that to some of the things that we are doing. For example, a lot of times before I get started writing, I write scripts. Before all times I start writing, I think of a specific thing that inspires me. I'll think of one scene sometimes and I'll look it up on YouTube. I'll go on YouTube and find that scene and look at that and go, "Wow, that is how dialogue should be written. Let me get inspired by that, or let me go through the script that I'm writing, that I'm working on, with the lens that dialogue has to be that good. Dialogue has to be this beautiful." So I will go through the things I'm curious about and apply them into my art, the things that I'm creating. Here's the challenge though, that a lot of times we don't spend that much time being curious. I love this phrase that I heard recently. It was have a traveler's mindset. You know, when you travel and you look around and you are like, "Oh my gosh, the subway is here. They're like this. Oh, did you see that billboard? " You walk around a little bit different like you've tourist's set of eyes. I love taking that mentality and applying it to the things that maybe you interact with every day like a hand sanitizer. For me sometimes I'll watch a movie and I'll just enjoy it because that's important. But sometimes I'll watch a movie and I'll go, "What if I've never seen a movie before? What if I question everything here? What if I go like, "Oh, that's interesting, how did they do that? That's interesting, and how did they do that?" What if I approach it like I'm a tourist who is watching this movie for the first time and walking around going, "Oh, that's nice." Then from there I can find the specifics or what sort find especially intriguing and apply them to my work. Does that make sense? Step 1, we get inspired. Step 2, we actually apply it to our work and make it happen. One of the themes of the challenges has been get specific with it. Creativity is huge, you've to get smaller with it, this is that challenge personified. Take something big and random that you don't normally think about, get specific with it and connect it to your work. If you are looking for a little extra motivation, little nudge, a little jump start for your creativity, to me, one of the best things to do is get exceptionally curious and then not just be curious, but apply that to the work that you are doing. Professor, you have said that learning is practice and feedback. How does this activity involve both of those things? Yes. Yes, yes, yes, I love that you keep using that phrase. Learning is practice plus feedback. To me, this activity is both practice. We practice being creative. We practice finding the specifics, the details of things. We practice the mindset of a creative person who goes around and asks why, who finds the little details and brings them into their work. That's the practice here and then feedback. I love that Professor. You're a whimsical man. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Stand up against the haters Professor, the ones who say that's not a bow tie, don't listen to them. That is a bow tie. Hey, next is challenge number 7. Could you've taste it? We're almost home, we're almost there. Hope you're feeling really good, hope you're doing the activities, hope you're throwing them in the project area. Hope you're giving feedback on others. Learning is practice and feedback that old man just told you that, that's exciting. Creative challenge number 7 is coming up next. We will see you then. Stay with the course. You're so close. You're so close to the finish line. We'll see you soon.
9. Challenge 7: Reflection: [MUSIC] Hey everyone, welcome to challenge number 7. We are talking reflection. That's right. All course we've been talking about this idea of creative confidence, we've been talking about this idea of awareness. These activities are a mix of tangible things, you're like, "Oh, this will help me get going." This will help me actually do something, bring an idea to the world and a mix of like this concept or idea or framework for thinking or paradigm will help me show up as a creative and a creator a little bit differently so I can actually make those ideas happen in the world. That is our dream that you share your ideas with the world. This one is all about reflection. Here's what we're going to do. This is the challenge, this is the project that you'll throw down in that project gallery, is you are going to do five Ws and one H. We're going to try to drive towards a better understanding and reflection of when, who, where, and how we're most creative. Let me walk through this very quickly, but I think you got the idea. It's who are you most creative with, that's interesting. Are there people who inspire you? I would think of both friends and like people who inspire you that are culture at large. What inspires you? Again, you can be as specific as possible or generally big as possible. There's no wrong way to do this. This is a huge one. We're actually going to come back to this. When are you most creative? To me creativity is so important for us to set ourselves up for success, because I don't know for you, but for me if I sit down with the goal of being creative and it doesn't go that well, the next time I show up to be creative, I show up differently. I show up a little more nervous, I show up a little more tired, and to me that's creative confidence, that word that we've been using so much. To jump start your creativity, what you need to do is feel capable of creativity. To jump start your creativity, you need to be like, "I'm going to rock at this time." For me, when is huge, and we're going to come back to that. But when are you most creative? Where are you most creative? I love this one, why are you most creative? Some of the most brilliant artists I know are exceptionally motivated by that lines. Why do you have to be creative? Why do you need to write a script in two hours? Why do you need to paint that thing and illustrate that and give it to that client? Well, because they asked for it. That's a really strong why. For me, I'm less motivated by deadlines and more motivated by purpose or by impact or by feeling like I'm growing. Cool, I'll get it to you by that deadline, but that's not the thing that's going to motivate me to do this. It's going to motivate me to do this is the thought that I can grow in my skills or have a positive impact. The last one is how. [inaudible] we've been talking about all class, [inaudible] do your best to answer that? How are you most creative? Is it with a pen, is it with a computer, is it with a Stylus for a notebook? Great. Here is how I think about this and apply this to my life and then let's break it down with the professor. How I think about this is, I want, every time I sit down with the intention to be creative, to set myself up for success. For me, I think about this all the time and it changes week to week but I know, if I've got to do something at 2:30 PM and I've got to be creative and I got to turn something in. I won't just show up at 2:30, and be like, I'm not creative now, I guess I'll figure things out. I want to come in with momentum. This is how you make ideas happen. You can't just arrive to the place that you want to be creative and be like, "All right, let's do things. Muse, where are you?" To me, it's recognizing where you are, and getting the systems ready so you can show up and be your best stuff. If it's at 2:30 PM, I will literally do jumping jacks, get myself pumped up. We're going to be creative. Here we go, here [inaudible]. I know, [inaudible] little bit more creative after I do that if it's at 2:30 PM. If it's late at night, that like wild frenzy creativity, I don't think I'm going to do jumping jacks, I'm going to do something else. But as we build that awareness of where, how, who, when we're most creative, we are obviously going to get more creative. Creativity is so beautiful, and complicated, and mysterious, and at the same time, it's also a series of systems. Creativity is also more simple than we think. Where are you most creative, well, go there. When are you most creative? Well, work then. If you can't, basically most of us choose every setting for when, and where you will create. How can you get ahead of it. If you expect it, pre-correct it? How can you get ahead of it, and prepare yourself and pump yourself up or do something to make sure that every time you sit down to do a creative act, you're building that creative confidence. Professor, how intertwined do you think self-awareness and creativity actually are? This class is getting deep. Here's what I believe. Creativity begins with awareness. Creativity begins with the awareness of our passions and our interests, our awareness of how things are made, our awareness of a process and a system, our awareness of inspiration and a muse. Awareness and creativity go hand-in-hand. Creativity cannot happen without awareness, and too often we forget that. Too often, we just think, "Oh, let me sit here and be creative." Tik, tik, tik. We look at our watch and we go, "Why aren't we creative?" To me, if you have trouble in creativity, specifically making ideas happen, I believe it's imperative to build awareness of yourself, of the things you're interested in, of your heroes, of your mentors, of small things. Awareness over all. Creatively begins with awareness. That's it. Now, back to you. That's good. Run a creative challenge number 8, that's the next video. We're so close to 10. Let's do it. We'll see you in next video.
10. Challenge 8: Bio-Inspiration: Hey, welcome to challenge the number 8. This is inspiration/bioinspiration. Here's what we're going to talk about today is, I believe one of the greatest sources of inspiration, one of the greatest tools to juxtapose an unlimited resource of motivation. Whimsey & A, we talk about mama nature, mother nature. Here is the challenge for this video is we're going to use bioinspiration. Let's start there. Like I've said before, from there we can modify it or whatever works in your field and industry, whatever you are most passionate about. But let's start with bioinspiration. Bioinspiration is actually a really beautiful real field that I am infinitely inspired by. It's a bunch of innovations that have happened literally because of nature. It's a bunch of people who study nature, and they bring certain aspects of that, and they work with product designers or whatever that looks like to create incredibly creative things. I am obsessed with bioinspiration. To me it is one of the greatest tools when I am feeling like a little unmotivated or I don't know where to go. Its simple. At its simplest form is that you find something in nature, you're curious about something in nature, and you apply it to your work, or you apply it to something else. Pretty easy stuff. We've been doing this before. But let's dive into it because it's more complicated than it seems. Let's do an example together. This can be the example that we throw in our group. Let's take an aspect of an animal. Then let's design a shoe around that. This is something we're all going to do. Probably people watching this class, maybe you're wearing shoes right now, that's pretty easy, let's do that, and let's take an aspect of an animal. What we're going to do is we're going to juxtapose those together. The reason, I'll talk about why, bio is so important in that. We're going to bio, animal, inspiration. Let's take an aspect of an animal. Let's take the really good nose of a dog. Nose of dog. Let's take the nose of a dog. They have a great sense of smell and then let's apply that to shoes. This is very tough. Let's try to do this. Again, this isn't something I've thought about before, we're literally all doing this together. Dogs have great smell. How about a shoe that doesn't smell, it smell-proof? How about a shoe that actually makes your feet smell better? Smell better. The nose of a dog has that like, what material is there? Maybe some really interesting natural material. Dogs are really great at smelling certain things. What if a shoe can smell certain things and it lights up where there is food. Does that make sense? You're on the shoe, and here's the shoe, and then all of this as lights. Then when there's a certain smell coming, it goes like [MUSIC] and it's almost like this compass, and just shines a light over here. Food finder, that's very dog inspired. Here's something I would encourage you to do, is that find something in nature, anything in nature, do a little research, go deep on something in nature, and then apply it to shoes. As specific as possible, the way that chameleons change skin or the way that spiders build webs and apply them to shoes. To me, nature is an incredible inspiration because almost everything in nature is all worthy. If we want to feel feelings of awe, almost everything in nature does that. What we can do is we can go in nature, get inspired, get curious. Google, why does this happen in nature? How do birds make that noise? What do birds say to one another? How do wings work? And apply that into artwork. I guess a juxtaposition is most powerful when it's two seemingly unrelated things. If you're saying, "Estevan, I'm an illustrator, I just make cute little social media doodles. Why would nature inspire me in this way?" I think hey, that's exactly why this activity would be great for you. That's exactly why that doodle would be amazing because it pushes your brain to something that you previously hadn't even thought about. I love that. It's specific. You can look up exactly how birds can fly and you can somehow, someway apply that to your doodles. The thing to remember in this is that when we juxtapose, you don't juxtapose a specific thing. I didn't say put the nose of a dog on a shoe. It's the aspects of it, the essences of it, the things that go into it, it's us going deep in it. Do you remember the iceberg? It's us using the iceberg to go deep in it. That is huge. That's bioinspiration. Now, before we go to the professor, I'm going to turn the page because I think also what's important is to know what inspires you and where to look for inspiration. To me, and this is just me, Estevan Gas, nature is one of the greatest sources of inspiration. For you, I think it's worth thinking about. I like it. I think it's helpful. I've done bioinspiration workshops with people all over the world and they seem to dig it. But for you, it can be different. I would create, and you don't have to put this in the things below, like you don't have to share this publicly, but I would create an inspiration list for you. If you want to share it below, I think it would be valuable. I think our community would really love to see that. They would help them build their inspiration list. But I would build your inspiration list. A lot of times, here's how I use mine. I want to tell you before we go to the professor, because he's waiting to drop some knowledge, but before we go to the professor, I want to tell you how I use my inspiration list is that a lot of times before I start working to get myself in the right headspace, I actually review that list. I literally have a list of things I am inspired by and I literally look at it quickly and then get to work. It just helps me to tap into that place of wonder and whimsy. It helps me to get reframed. To me it really inspires. The professor said this, if awareness is sort start of creativity, I want to be aware of the things that inspire me and have them ready to rock. That's my challenge to you. I hope you do this project, but I also hope that you create and curate an inspiration list. Professor, why do you think it's important for artists and creatives who want their ideas to come to life to have an inspiration list pretty handy? No. To me, creativity is a system that helps you have ideas and bring them to be. It's a system, but it's a very human system. For me as a non-human, should I say for me as a human, do you think I'm a human? Oh, God, am I? Oh, no. I'm a puppet? No, wait, scratch that. For me, creativity is a system that helps you have ideas and bring them to be. But it is a very human system. I know that humans love being inspired. It inspires us to have ideas. We see something beautiful and we go, "Oh, I need to have an idea about that, it's so beautiful." We do that. We go, I'm inspired to finish ideas. So much of having ideas and bringing them to be is human, it's internal, it's inspiration. If we make inspiration easy to attain, we don't just sit, and look, and wait. If we make inspiration easier to access, easier to attain, if we set ourselves up to be inspired, that means we can go through the system much faster. It's as simple as that. That's it. That's why inspiration list is so, so important. Back to you. That's amazing. The next video we have is the creative challenge number 9. That's right, nine out of 10. We're so close to the finish line, stick with it. Stick with it, you're almost there, you got it. Just click "Next", just do it, just go to the next one. Don't even finish this outro. You don't even have to finish the rest of this outro. Just go to the next one. You got it. You can cutaway, don't feel bad, do not feel bad. You can cut away, go to the next one. We're almost there, just skip ahead. If you're still here thank you so much for watching the videos as they're meant to. Those other people who moved forward. Fun it is.
11. Challenge 9: Tiny Actions Final Cut: Hey, everyone, welcome to Challenge number 9. That's right. Nine out of 10. Oh, my goodness, so close. You can taste it. This Challenge number 9 is Tiny Actions. Here is the challenge. Making ideas happen sometimes feels really big because making that idea happen feels so big. What we're going to do, we're going to take the biggest idea we have and break it down into the tiniest, tiniest, tiniest steps. Let's say I want to write a best-selling novel. It's actually true. I think that'd be something I would enjoy. I wouldn't be mad if I write a novel and people are like, "It's best-selling." I wouldn't be upset. Best-selling novel; feels so much. It feels like a lot. One of the tools I continually do both that's practical because it helps me think about it, and that's almost emotional is to break it down into tiny actions. So best-selling novel starts with write a blog post. That's even smaller. Write a clever tweet. Maybe just think of a character. Maybe just think of a setting. Maybe make a list of novels that inspire me. So we've got this really big idea and what we've done is we've made this smaller. What we've done is we've broken it down into tiny actions. Here is the secret to this is I would give yourself two minutes to do this. I would think big idea, tiny actions with a time limit. So let's do this again, and this time I'm going to give myself 20 seconds. So big idea is Oscar Award-winning movie. I want to write one. I wouldn't be upset if I wrote a movie and they're like, "Here's an Oscar." Also, I don't think this has a hyphen, so it's not looking good. Okay, ready? Here we go. We're going to put 15 seconds right here. Fifteen seconds, Oscar Award-winning movie starts with, "I could read screenplays." I don't know. We may need more time. Mess around with the time editor, that would be so great. I think of character tried him doing similar things. Maybe I just like talk with a friend that inspires. Okay, great. I'm going to keep doing this, but there's a lot of rush. Basically, why do we have a time limit is because a lot of times we get stuck in these tiny actions. So tiny actions are an incredibly powerful tool for moving ahead, for helping us think you know what, this isn't that much. But if you spend all your time tweeting instead of writing that best-selling novel, I don't know if you're going to write that best-selling novel. So we need to think of these big ideas and bring them down to tiny actions and then we need to make sure that we don't get obsessed with those tiny actions, that those tiny actions are actually driving us towards the goal. So you know what I would do also, here's a different way to look at it. Tiny, big. Once you feel like you've got a lot of tiny actions to me, these tiny actions, every bullet point is a reminder that a huge thing like writing a best-selling novel is made up of little pieces. Remember that iceberg, we are back at it. You guys, this is how we think about creativity, that the big things are made up of smaller things and if we're nervous about the big thing, don't be because the smaller things will guide us there. So every bullet point here to me is a little creative confidence. You know how important creative confidence. To me, we're building that. We're adding those ingredients in the recipe, but I don't want us to get stuck on tiny actions. I don't want to meet you three years from now and you say, hey, Esteban, love that Skillshare course. Now I just take walks and think about characters. I'm nowhere closer to my novel. Then you get mad at me. We're on a sidewalk and I go, this is weird. I don't want that to happen. What I do want happen is that we go from tiny to big. So I will literally sometimes chunk off my time and think great, here's tiny things. Here's how I build momentum. I'm going to read screenplays. I'm going to brainstorm. I'm going to meditate. Then here is I'm going to write a first 10 pages. That's it. That's all. Here I'm going to write the first draft. That's it. That's all. It can be really bad. It can be a horrible first draft. Here I'm going to get some feedback and slowly we build this out from tiny actions to big actions. So this activity, it's activity number 9, it's Challenge number 9, it's a little more complex and there's two parts. Number 1 is let's break big ideas down into tiny ideas. That's critical. But let's do everything we can. Let's build systems around the fact that tiny ideas are not the goal. You and I are not meant to just be here and make the tiniest versions of our creative projects. You are meant to do the big version. So how do we go from tiny to big? How do we build that system that gets bigger and bigger? It probably looks something like this. For you, it can look differently. So in the projects underneath, can you, one, breakdown a big idea you've got with really tiny actions? The more the better. Number 2 is can you find these steps from tiny to bigger to bigger to bigger actions? That's how we make things happen. We gather momentum. Momentum helps creativity, specifically the part of creativity where we bring something to life. If this is your first time may be bringing an idea to the world, it's going to be lot tougher than your fifth time. I'm not just saying overall, I'm saying even this week. If this week, you're making videos and you post one, you're going to be a little more nervous to press publish than if you're posting one every single day. So how do we take those tiny actions, we lead them the big actions, we build that creative confidence, and then we do it. This is what you're doing. It's Creative Challenge number 9. Professor, what do you think about the fact that big ideas start with tiny actions and what can we do about that? Yes. It reminds me of something we said earlier that creativity is filled with contradictions. Now, isn't that right? Yes. So for example, when I see a beautiful creative act, I go wow. Then I think two things. I think one, they really mastered the details to get there. They mastered all the tiny things to get there. They wrote a lot of short scripts. They wrote a lot of short things that lead to longer things that lead to a longer, beautiful thing. Then the second thing that I think is they master of the small things while moving forward. They mastered the small things, the details while moving forward and getting them bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. To me, that is one of the biggest contradictions. But yet complimentary aspects of creativity that we need to, I think, to be successful. Break things into small things, and then we need to move forward from small things. We need to be reminded that all our ideas are just little, little ideas all put together into one idea. We need to say, "Okay, great, this is a small thing. Then we move forward." I think momentum is critical. I think creative confidence is critical. But I also think awareness of the fact that we need to get good at small things and move forward from small things. That's how we build not just a creative project, but a creative life. Yes. Back to you. We're so close to finishing the class. I'm so excited. I'm so grateful that you've been this whole time with us. Few more videos. Let's do it. Can't wait to see your ideas in the world. Can't wait to see what you're writing down in the project section. We'll see you the next and final creative challenge and then a conclusion video and then we just go live our lives and we just go do it. We'll see you next time.
12. Challenge 10: Systems: Hey, welcome to challenge a number 10. It is the final challenge you did it, do a little victory dance. Come on, give me something. Come on, do it. Come on. Oh no, come on, give me something. You're ready. I'll pass it to you. Great, let's do it. Challenge number 10, this is all about systems. The thesis of this video, in short is how do we take everything we've talked about and build it into our daily life? I think professors said this actually a little bit ago that creativity is a system. Creativity is a system but it's a very human system, which means your system is going to look different than my system. But creativity is this system. It's these series of steps that help us get to more original and unique places. It's these series of things that can help us, that inspire us or motivate us, that help us connect, that help us think about when we show up the most, that help us think about when we show up the most. That's what creativity is. For this last one, let's dive into what it looks like to reflect and build systems around creativity. Here is what I think, professor has been pretty clear about this. That learning is practice and feedback. For me, I think about how to build feedback into almost every aspect of my work. Now what is that look like if there's not literally someone giving you feedback? So I think a question to answer is, what's feedback look like to you? How can you get feedback on your ideas, but even the systems around your ideas. That's huge for me. That's sort of the first thing of the ideas of feedback, how do we [inaudible] practicing feedback? Okay, let's get into something slightly more tangible. Here is what I would love for you to do is build your ideal 30 minutes, 60 minutes, and 90 minutes of a creative work session. What do those look like? Let's get as specific as possible to start what do you do. To get yourself pumped up, what do you do? In the middle, what do you do? What happens if you hit a jam, if you feel stuck? And then how do you finish that? How do you end? And try to build that for 60 and 90 minutes. Let me tell you something I do. If I'm working for a long time and I know I need to work, I literally put on these glasses. This is true. I put on these glasses that are reminded myself it's the ritual that I'm about to get to work. It's exactly these glasses I put them on and I go, Okay, here we go. I'm going to be creative for awhile. Sometimes stretch, I read that inspiration list, and then I get to work. Maybe I'd play that inspiration playlist. That's actually things that I do and I base it based on my time limit. If I've got a few hours, I'm going to take a long time getting myself in the right headspace. If I've got 30 minutes, I want to do some jumping jacks and then gum and then do it and play loud music and just get into it. That is the question that I hope you ask and hope that you continually ask, how will you build these systems of creativity? I think the ideas and projects that you have should exist in the world. They are worthy of existing in the world. The only thing stopping them from being in the world and having a life outside of your page or your notebook is just systems. It's a series of steps that you can anticipate to make sure that when you get stuck, you know what to do. That you know if you've got an hour or 30 minutes, you know what to do. You know if you are on your commute, you know what to do. You know what to do, if you feel stuck and you needed a little inspiration, you can connect it to something else. The last thing I want you to do. This is one, this is two, I would love for this part to be in the chat below or in the discussions and project page, and number three, this is just me, but I really like making a commitment to myself. I really like the ritual of making a commitment to myself. I like saying and writing down Estebon will write 30 minutes every morning. To me the reminder of the person I want to be, the creative person I want to be, I make these commitments to myself all the time and I go great. Estebon will write 30 minutes every single day and I'll put this at the top of my workspace. Tomorrow when I come to my clean workspace, I show up and I go, you know what? I made this commitment to myself. I'm going to find 15 minutes now and 15 minutes later, or you know what? I got 30 minutes, time to put on my writing glasses, let's get creative. That's what systems are all about. They are the things that work best for you to me seeing myself write something like this, actually holds me accountable. To me, nature inspires me and I'm constantly inspired by bio-inspiration. I will just google something in nature that I think is super awesome and try to apply that to my life. To me, the big ideas of something, sometimes it's too much so I've built systems, systems that I shared with you to break them down into tiny actions, into tinier aspects to make sure that I can grasp this big idea, but also to make sure that I don't get stuck in tiny actions that I actually move forwards towards the bigger projects. Everything we've been talking about in this class can be organized into systems. That is my hope and dream for you in this last challenge. Now, this is the last time we're going go to the professor who's given us valuable feedback and get an incredible voice throughout this whole process. Professor, one last time, can you tell us why systems are the key to creativity? To me, systems are the basis of creativity. Let's get deep. Creativity is a leap of faith. You start from nothing and you create something. It is literally a leap of faith that in the process from nothing, there will be something. Now to me that's gorgeous band to me that can happen best when there are systems. When in the leap, there are things that you go back to that help you make that leap. Going in blind to creativity is a challenge. You don't know what you're inspired by, you don't know when you work, you don't know what to do if you're stuck in to me the difference between creatives who create all the time and creatives who are, what to be creatives? Who are writers, who don't write. To me, the difference between these two groups of people is that one has a system for everything, and that doesn't mean they're organized. Look at Estebon, he's pretty disorganized. But he thinks and he thinks ahead at least a few steps and maybe that's some of the reason for why phrase successor, modest successes [inaudible]. But that's the difference between people who create all the time and don't, they have systems. They have thought ahead and developed small steps, techniques, mindsets that help them continue creating even when it's hard. That's it. That's the secret. That's everything I'm trying to teach. Systems. Thank you for listening. Thank you for inviting me. This has truly been a gift. For the last time, back to you. Everyone that is the last of the ten creative challenges.But wait, there's one more video. There's a conclusion where we sum it all up. I think you're really going to dig it if you've watched this far, just stay from that one video, it's going to be awesome. I'm going to click beta. You're not going to believe what is in the conclusion. We'll see you next video.
13. Wrapping Up: This is it, the final video. You have done it. Welcome to the conclusion of the class. I'm so grateful that you stuck around for all the videos. My hope is that those videos gave you value. In my dream, I said this at the very beginning, is that you can modify all of them. Take what is helpful to you and leave the rest. I would also like put a few activities in the back of your mind. I genuinely use six-word stories sometimes to help me feel a win before I write a longer story or a script. I also have this inspiration list and inspiration playlist. I also think about when I'm most creative and it's a time when I'm not that creative, I literally do like jumping jacks and get myself ready to go. I encourage you to take things and grab what is best for you and then leave the rest. That's my hope for this video. It's not that this is a framework that you use, it's that there's a few things that you use every single day. I'd also super, duper, duper encourage you, that's three dupers, to write your projects and some of your reflections in the areas below. I think you've creativity connecting two seemingly unrelated things, and creativity is all about connections, and beautiful things happens when we form connections, even if it's online with someone else. I'll personally be going through and writing reflections and feedbacks on different areas, but I encourage you to do the same. Even if you only do that for a few of the activities, that's still valuable. If you can respond to other people, that is also valuable. Also, I want to remind you, feel free to talk to me in social media. My handles are below, and they're also in the description, and you can also find them anywhere. You can hashtag 10 creative challenges to find other people doing similar things. I'll be doing that as well and we can all follow each other on this journey, as we try to jumpstart our creativity. Wherever you are on your creative path, I hope that you continue bringing ideas into the world. I hope that you're thoughtful about the best way to do that. Maybe at the end of the day, that's all that this class has been about, is building systems, and thoughtfulness, and awareness around the way that you do things. This class couldn't have been possible without the professor. From the professor and myself, we just want to say thank you for watching and we will see you next video. Thanks so much, guys. Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much from the professor and me. We just want to thank you for your time, your generosity, and all your creative inputs. Professor, you did a heck of a job, buddy. I love it. Love the bow tie. A little inconsistent accent. I don't know quite where you're from. We don't need to know, maybe it's more mysterious. Oh, little bashful. His green eyes, they're beautiful. We'll see you next time. Professor, you really rocked it. Thank you so much, really. Appreciate it. You're a good man. Cut my life into pieces. This is my last resort. Suffocation, no breathing, don't give up, no.
