Kat: Hey, it's Kat and I'm back for another solo episode.
And today I'm going to talk about creativity and how it's not just a
powerful tool for artists, but for anyone to be able to unlock personal
growth, leadership, and success in life.
I'm also going to share real world examples of creative leaders and also
how we can cultivate that in ourselves in, in our children, plus my number one,
powerful way of cultivating creativity that you can exercise in Anytime doesn't
cost you anything and it's just a very simple thing to do coming right up.
So stay tuned.
Hey, my name is Kat and I'm Lee and welcome to the
wildly wealthy life podcast.
In this show, we explore the journey of what it means to live a truly
exceptional and fulfilling life.
Each episode focuses on how a foundation of brilliant minds and brave hearts.
Nurtured through the arts leads to lifelong success.
Get inspired with actionable tips to foster a growth mindset,
leadership values, and creativity in children and adults, turning
their potential into lasting contributions for their communities.
We hope that you embrace the challenge to shift your perspective as we equip
you and the next generation for a I
think there's this very common misconception that creativity
is reserved for the very lucky few who are born with it.
And I beg to disagree.
I think that creativity is actually for everybody.
In fact, I do believe that All of us are born with creative capabilities.
We were created after all.
And so all of us are truly born to create.
I think the first step is actually recognizing what creativity is.
And then the second is acknowledging that, yes, you are a creative being.
Everything about you actually desires to create.
It's just that some of us never practiced it and are not open to it.
And that's why we'd never really tap into it.
In Robert Franken's book, Human Motivation, he defines creativity as the
tendency to generate ideas, recognize ideas, come up with possibilities and
alternatives to solve problems, to communicate, or to entertain each other.
So creativity is simply just that.
It is not just about making art.
It is more than that.
It is really, truly just the ability to be able to see something and have a
different perspective about it and see if you can solve a problem a different way.
A simple example of creativity is literally just, you know, reorganizing
your day, reorganizing your routines.
You can have more efficiency in your day that is being creative.
That's looking at your day and seeing.
Oh, I don't think I'm doing this as efficiently, or I don't think I'm being
effective in my day if I do it this way.
So then kind of removing yourself from that and looking, okay,
well, how can I do it differently?
Creating a new way of going about your day is creativity.
The key here really is, again, number one, recognizing what creativity is,
and number two, acknowledging that you already have that creative capability.
And of course, a third one is having the openness to actually put it into practice.
My number one powerful tool for actually being creative.
And if you don't get anything else from this podcast episode, just get
this one thing, because if you do this one thing, it will dramatically
change the way you do life.
Number one.
It's literally to listen, to sit still and to listen.
And that is very hard to do.
It's very hard for me to do because I'm such an active person, but I have
found time and time and time again, that when faced with a situation, when
faced with a problem, if I just quiet myself and actually take the time to
just be still and not busy myself with.
So many things that I need to do for the day.
I actually find that the answers come to me.
And I think that is the testament to, again, just how this world came about.
For me, I really do believe that this world was created with so much
intention, with so much purpose, and Everything in us has so much purpose.
We are filled with purpose.
And the way we can exercise that purpose is literally by stepping into
our creative power and doing the way we do things, because actually no
one else does it the way that we do.
And the only way that you can tap into that power is not maybe
not the only way, but I really do believe one of the most powerful
ways is to sit still and to listen.
Another way to actually cultivate creativity, I believe is sleeping.
And I say this because I am the worst at sleeping.
I am an early morning person, and I'm also a late night person.
I become very chatty at night because my brain is always on fire.
I'm always so full of ideas.
And then in the morning I wake up and I'm like excited to get to my day because I
just have so much that I'm excited about.
And what I realized is that there's power in rest and there's actually.
So much that happens when we sleep.
I forgot the guy that I listened to.
I completely forgot it.
If I find him, I'm going to put it on the show notes, but basically this guy,
um, he is a dream expert and the sleep expert, and he studied dreams and sleeping
for so many years, but what he has found is in the sleeping in a deep sleep.
And when we're dreaming, this is actually where creative ideas come
because this is where our brains and our system, everything in our body,
our nervous especially is so relaxed.
The ideas actually flow into us when we're more relaxed than being tense.
Like, and a lot of times when we're awake, we are tense because we're
thinking about so many things we're stressed out about different situations.
but when we're in that deep sleep, all of a sudden.
All of the tension goes away and our brains actually
naturally becomes creative.
And I think that's also the reason why when we wake up and we think
about our dreams, we're like, Oh my gosh, what was that about?
What?
Like that was the craziest dream.
I've, I always have these experiences.
I wake up and I have the craziest, craziest dream.
And one of the things I've also done in my own practice is actually record my dreams.
So if I have a crazy dream, I would grab my phone right away and I would
just kind of voice record what happened.
And then.
For the most part, I don't do anything with it, but it's just a
fact that like, okay, let me recreate.
Let me kind of narrate what I saw in my dream at night.
Um, I think there's just power to that.
And we may, I may not see, you know, the tangible relationship of
that, but I do know that something is happening when we're sleeping.
So yeah, two power of things you could do.
One is sit still and listen to is actually get some rest and sleep.
Paul Allen, who is the co founder of Microsoft, is not only a technological
visionary, but he is also a music lover.
He played the guitar and he has credited his love for music and his guitar playing
skills to have given him an edge in the way he problem solves and how he
sees things in the technology world.
He believes that his ability to play the guitar is actually a major
source of his creativity and success.
Jim McKelvey is the co founder of Square, a mobile payment system.
And his success really came from the recognition of a simple problem.
Small businesses and vendors couldn't take in credit card payments
easily because they don't have the capacity to, you know, have the
systems like a big retailer would.
And so by recognizing the problem and coming up with a solution, which is It
plugs into the phone, small businesses and vendors can take it with them on the go.
As they plug it into the phone, they can charge customers with
their credit card payments.
And it's incredible that someone saw that problem, recognized the need,
and came up with a solution for it.
And aside from his innovation with that Square technology, he is also
an artist and a glassblower, applying his creativity and problem solving
skills in a whole different world.
Chuck Steerick is the founder of Sweetwater Sound, one of America's
largest online retailers for musical instruments and audio gear.
And before he founded Sweetwater, he was a professional saxophonist running a
mobile recording studio out of his van.
And in his time doing that and just being immersed in the world of music, he
really got to know the musician's needs and was able to drive massive success
for Sweetwater Sound because of his innovation and customer service and making
Sweetwater a customer centric company.
He credits his music background as really the thing that gave him insight
and the ability to see the gaps in what the customer really needs.
And that's why it is such a successful company.
He also believes that his experience as a musician really gave him
the drive and the persistence to be able to build his business.
Those are just three of the very, very few creative leaders and entrepreneurs out
there who really attributes creativity as the driving force behind their success.
So how can we do this ourselves?
Well, creativity is a muscle, and it can be practiced just like anything else.
One of the things we can do as an adult is to never stop learning.
Take up a hobby that is just purely fun.
For fun.
It's just a hobby in my studio.
I have a couple of adults who literally take piano lessons
just because it's fun for them.
It is not because they're trying to, you know, become the next
amazing songwriter singer.
Uh, they don't want to become the next classical pianist.
They are literally taking it just for fun.
For exercise of their brain.
And also just because for the pure enjoyment of it.
So finding a hobby that you really enjoy doing and exercising that
creative part of your brain is one of the ways that you can do that.
Another thing is just rearranging your day, looking at your day and seeing,
okay, what can we do differently?
As I've kind of already mentioned in the beginning of this episode.
Um, another way is to look at daily problems that we have, and instead
of Going autopilot and going at it the way we've always gone at it.
Uh, maybe sit back and just say, okay, well, what are three
different angles that I can come up with to solve this same problem?
Another simple way to exercise creativity.
And this is an exercise you can do with the children in your lives.
Uh, it's something that I learned in one of the teacher trainings I attended
in a Simply Music teacher training.
Uh, Simply Music is the, uh, piano method that I am certified or licensed to teach.
And, it's basically looking at an item and just coming up with However,
many different ways you can come up.
So for example, I look at this eraser, right?
This is a whiteboard eraser, basically just looking at it and
seeing, okay, well, what are 20 different ways that we can come up
as a use for this whiteboard eraser?
Another exercise that, uh, Lee and I actually did one time, we were out for
a walk and I remember this, we're like, okay, this is really gross and it's
really, it's really gross, but it's just a way to kind of humor ourselves.
Okay, so, so don't hate.
We were like, okay, what are ways that we can basically come up
with different ways to Name poop.
Yeah, what are different ways that we could say poop?
And we just went through the alphabet It was a through Z and he would say, you
know, he would take a I would take B.
Oh, he would take C Think thankfully I got D because I just said that you know
dingleberry something like that, right?
I know this is so gross and hilarious and cheeky, but like seriously Anything,
right, that could exercise your brain.
For us, that was just like a fun thing for us to do because we're silly like that.
So yeah, we just went through the alphabet and came up with different words for poop.
So take it or leave it.
But that is a way to exercise your creativity.
And another way is just collaboration.
So the more that you collaborate and really surround yourself with
like minded people, people who Recognize the value of creativity.
People who acknowledge that they are creative, they're innately
creative human beings, and number three, people who are willing to put
themselves out there to practice it.
I think that by surrounding yourself with, with creative people, you will
find that, wow, there is power in company of like minded individuals
who want to grow creatively.
So those are ways that we as adults can nurture our own creativity.
And of course, They can apply to the children in our lives too.
However, I'm also going to give a couple of examples that are very much
specific to our approach with kids and how we can nurture creativity in them.
So here are five ways that we can cultivate creativity in the
children that are around us.
One is to let them be inventors.
Kids, I think are just naturally inventive, right?
They come up with, with crazy ideas in their mind.
And so why not take that and actually, uh, Make it into an exercise.
Let's say once a week you have what you'll call the invention hour and go through
Your daily activities at home simple daily activities at home like washing
dishes or cleaning the toilet Whatever that could be for you and ask them to
Brainstorm and see if they could invent something that would make something
either easier or faster or better, right?
It's just an exercise to get them to realize that, oh my gosh,
yeah, I can come up with ideas.
I can come up with inventions.
So yeah, have an invention hour once a week.
Number two is create problem solving games for them.
So whatever difficulty they're facing, especially at school, maybe encourage
them to see, okay, well, how can we gamify this hard thing right now?
Is there a way that we can approach this that's going to make it more fun?
And is there any other angle that they could look at that would really help
them solve this problem effectively?
Number three is fusion of interests.
This exercise is really about encouraging the children in your lives, how to
see two different things that are from completely different fields
and how they relate to each other.
So for example, science and music, just asking them questions.
Are there any patterns in science that are kind of the same as music?
Uh, how do they work together?
Would there be a product that you could come up with that would
blend both of them together.
You know, there's so many different examples and so many different fields that
you could look into, whether that's, you know, let's say martial arts and math.
I don't know, you know, I'm just coming up with things here.
How do they relate to each other?
And even if it's so far fetched, the idea here is to just encourage
them to exercise their brain and to see if there's correlations and
patterns that can work together.
And by doing that, you are nurturing their natural creativity.
And the last is celebrate crazy ideas.
Let kids be kids.
Their thoughts are wild.
They have crazy things probably that they think about.
And, you know, when they come up with these crazy ideas, just
don't come at it with judgment.
Just really celebrate them and encourage them to keep having these
ideas because it is in that, that they get to really build their confidence
and exercise their creative courage.
So I hope that by now you can really see that creativity is a
tool for a wildly wealthy life.
When we recognize what creativity is and acknowledge that we have
it, and we are open to practicing it, we get to see things from a
different perspective than others.
And through that, we're able to come up with creative solutions
and creative ways to communicate that the world may need from us.
And that can lead to our success and I'm not just talking about
like, okay, big inventions, right?
It doesn't have to be that it can literally be applied to your everyday
life and something so little that could just Make your day so much better.
So I hope you enjoy that today until next time live a wildly wealthy life.
All right, friends, that's a wrap on today's episode of wildly wealthy life.
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Go out there, live wildly, be wealthy in all the ways that matter to you.
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