Don’t ever ask for CREATIVITY !!!

“What do you mean by creativity?”, I have asked this question to people from various fields like business, design, schools, hospitals, science etc. Some of them have believed that it means bringing something new to the plate and others believe it’s about constructing or presenting something new and valuable to the others. The above definitions are rolled all over the internet or any book references you will go through today. These all says creativity is just about making something new and having value for the others. There is nothing as wrong with these statements. But saying this won’t be enough. The value that you will bring to others could be in any form like time, asset, money, emotions etc.

Every one of us creates or builds something on a daily basis. Whatever we build or present might be valuable for someone but might not be valuable for others at the same time. So, whatever you are creating is creative. All that matters is that for whom its valuable. And that only person or community will remark you as creative. It’s as obvious as that whatever remarks the society awards us are based on the selfish perspective of others. When something is being sent out for others to use whether it’s an idea, lesson or a physical entity. It can be tagged with three kinds of value labels:

1. Invaluable
2. Less Valuable
3. Most Valuable

Let’s look at what makes up each value label,

1. Invaluable — Here’s an example, “Donating a gold coin to a person dying of hunger and facing the last moments of his/her life”.

For you, it might be a great donation & you may be proud of yourself on the top that you donated something very costly. But it’s a complete disaster for the poor guy who needs just a bit of food at that moment to eat and survive! So, your contribution won’t bring any value at that moment. It’s completely invaluable.

2. Less Valuable — Let’s say “A jeweller hired a fancy jewellery designer to design a necklace for middle-aged women.”

After the design was complete, the jeweller was not satisfied with the designer’s work because he knew only ethnic jewellery would suit the middle-aged women. However, the designer believed that fancy jewellery would rather suit the women, so the outcome was not fully valuable. Though the jewellery could be sold to someone else and the jeweller can get his money back for the gold. But he lost the time as a value here. Hence, the result was somewhat valuable in form of money but was not valuable in form of time. None of them was wrong, they just performed out of their own beliefs. If they had started the work by taking into consideration each other’s beliefs, the outcome would have been way better in terms of time & value.

“When we work together without knowing each other’s beliefs regarding things in which we want to create some value for someone, we get very less valuable results, no matter if all of us are from the same field, & profession or not. This applies to every field say either design, schooling or defence etc.”

3. Most Valuable — What if the hungry man was given food instead of the gold coin, or what if the designer designed ethnic jewellery for the middle aged women?

The scenario would be the most valuable in terms of time & value. So, to get the most value out of something whatever you do for yourself or you do with others, Make sure all of you have the belief in the same cause for the thing that you are working for through the day and night. Talk, brainstorm, try every possible way you can to get to know what your mentors, teammates or you believe in, before making something happen.

Agree with your teammates to a collaborative belief to test out your idea or product in the real scenario. Whatever, the outcome your team will get, it will be the most valuable result to everyone in terms of their beliefs. It will motivate the one’s who were closer to the collaborative belief. The one’s who were not much confident about the belief will learn and enhance their life experience out it. At the end, it’s the most valuable thing that any team or individual can get where clarity and vision value is always upfront to their work. Else, it doesn’t make any sense.

So, the question that arises now is,

How does our belief set us apart from every other human being on this earth?

“ It’s because all of us has seen life in a different perspective from each other. We have different life experiences. None of us have seen anything exactly 100 % similar as like any other.”

Take an example of a 4 years old girl who is fiddling around a switchboard. She believes it’s a safe toy which won’t harm her. So, she keeps playing with it. One day, she puts her finger inside a real working switchboard and gets an electric shock. From this point of time, she has a new belief about the switchboard that it can harm her also. Next time, if she will come across any switchboard, she will always have this belief of fear of getting hurt. This is the way beliefs are made out of our life experiences.

1. We observe something from others and makes a belief out of it.
2. We experience something based on those beliefs that we made from other’s observations and then gets some result out of it, which further impacts our beliefs either in making it stronger or making it weaker or might bring some new perspective or new belief with itself on the plate.
3. We try something out based on our self-beliefs which we got from our life experiences and its results respectively alters that belief every possible way it could.

So, if we look into every task that we perform, no matter how big or small it is, these beliefs are what makes us do every action. We create something of some value and that value comes from what we believes in. Doing the task again and again, it affects our belief in that particular value for which we thrive for. This change in belief can either motivate someone or can stop someone from doing that task again in that particular scenario.

Any belief can’t be erased completely from our memory or senses. It just degrades to some level where we don’t think of it as worth executing. But they have impressions in your senses.

Take for example, We all have seen just 1 or 2 people lifting 500 pounds in a gym in your entire lifetime. Even if we don’t see this scenario ever again in your life, doesn’t mean that we deny it’s possibilities. We just don’t see it’s possible for every human to lift 500 pounds! For us it’s just very rare, based on the number of times we saw it happening.

This is our belief. So, the point here only till the time for which something exists in our life, it has its belief strength(+ve or -ve ). We love our parents and friends because we believe it’s necessary to be loved and return the love to the one’s we are close to based on the time we spent together than any another random people. Therefore, whatever we do for them will be based on our belief to give love, care etc. This applies to everything we do based on our beliefs that what values we want to bring into it.

Here is the CVB cycle that I have developed for doing everything in a more creative way:

“ Its built upon the understanding that we create something with some value and that value comes up with some belief behind it. That belief further pushes our creativity. This cycle can work in a reverse way also.”

HOW CREATIVITY NURTURES ITSELF

Every one of us has many beliefs around everything which we made either from observations, fictions & practical experiences. When we do some task or bring our creativity on the plate based on our beliefs. We should make sure that it will be validated in the exact environment in which we made this belief. If there is something new into the scenario on which you have the belief about, then try to think and test that particular belief also. Thereafter, you will be clear the variation in earlier result due to the another belief which affected it. Most of the situations that we deal with, usually come up with many different beliefs of us at the same time. Take a very easy example from my own experience,

“ I tasted herb tea somewhere, so one day I decided to make a cup of herbal tea on my own. Based on the taste I had at that time, I made a belief there, that the tea needs either herbs or herbs with spices(but I didn’t know what it exactly needed). So, to make a cup of herbal tea, i thought of trying with herbs or herbs with spices both one by one. When the tea was ready, the final outcome impacted my belief upto the extent whether I was right or wrong. It brought me a new belief to existence from whatever I experienced. Like what actually makes a herbal tea whether herbs or herbs with spices. The next time, my knowledge was better.what. I knew exactly what I needed to make a cup of herbal tea as per my taste.

So, life is a beautiful cycle full of beliefs that we make out of it. They escalate and degrade in both ways. If you believe in something and you need someone to work with you on it, then they should have the same belief as you have. Because that’s what will bring you closer to achieve what you desire for. “ If you want a stadium to be built with a much enhanced fan experience then only a sports fan sitting on the actual stadium seat can give you the real value needed for the audience inside a stadium arena to witness the sports spirit. An architect will thrive only for the values what he believes in which are designing the walls, stairs beautifully and efficiently.

For what purpose you want them to be build, is only in your vision and your beliefs. That’s the thing where the real audience or a sports fan can help you with. He is the creative guy for you, not the architecture. If your belief only lies in the walls beauty, then for you the creative guy will be architecture in that scenario. So, always know your belief which is empowering your vision and then start working with the person who holds the same vision or belief. This will lead you far along your journey. You need to be very clear of your vision aligned also when someone asks for your help for their goals, because that’s only when you can give them the most value out of your work.

The world is very crazy place, i am gonna tell you one of the strongest belief.

“The one who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the one’s who actually did. “ — Steve@Apple

And when others saw it happening they believed in it too. After believing it, they too changed the world. It’s that strong. The outcome of our work defines the rigidity of beliefs. That’s what its all about. Beliefs also give us the strength to overcome our fears and do wonders. So, next time you hire someone or someone hires you, Just ask them a simple question :

“ DO THEY BELIEVE IN WHAT YOU BELIEVE? “

I wrote this because i believed it holds value for others.

Thank you for your patience.