I must admit it. I just love Tom and David Kelley. I have recently read the „Creative Confidence” book, which can be considered a sin that it took me so long to do it. Actually, no one told me to read it in the first place. Since there’s no one to blame, I won’t blame myself either.

Why’s this book so important? Well, it’s all in the title. It can give you a creative confidence, or – to say it better – it encourages you to find creativity in you, this hidden treasure that everyone of us have, but not everybody is aware of.

In his TED talk, David Kelley tells the story of his friend from childhood who was working on a project. The assignment was to create a horse, which he did. At one point, a girl sitting at his table leaned over and issued not-so-encouraging statement: this doesn’t look anything like the horse. David Kelley tells that he hasn’t seen this man doing a project like that ever again.

This story, which is also included in the book, can be used as a great summary of the subject. For me, as a team leader and a father, it is also a reminder of the power of good feedback and encouragement.

The Reindeer Moment

I also must admit that I’m not very good at drawing (in our company, we got very talented people who do that). Couple years ago, when we prepared our agency Christmas card, we wanted to put a reindeer on it. As far as I remember, I told Paulina, our graphic designer, that I’m not good at drawing reindeers. „There’s no such thing as badly drawn reindeer” – she said. – „if it’s your reindeer”. It can sound like a catchy phrase, but this was one of the best encouragements I got.

So, I encourage you to read the book and find this creative confidence for yourself. Again, thank you brother Kelleys and team IDEO. And let’s all have this reindeer-like encouragements.

PS. This is my first post on Medium, so if you’d like to drop me a line, please do.
I hope this looks a little like a story.