Touch that snake!

We live in a world that tries to divide the creative people from the non-creative, where innovative ideas are looked upon with fear and in which humans have become creatures of habit. This explains why, in a recent study conducted by Adobe, the vast majority of people stated that they are not living up to their creative potential. Although they understand the importance of creativity in their workplace, they feel like time constraints and pressure from upper management makes them be productive instead of creative. When I came across this study titled “The Creativity Gap” a couple of weeks ago, I was so sad to see how this portrayed a gloomy panorama for all industries, especially the entertainment one, that feeds and evolves based on creative ideas.

Designer David Kelley

On the contrary, it was such a pleasant surprise coming across David Kelley’s speech on how to build creative confidence on TED.com. This inspiring speech is centered on the idea that everyone is naturally creative, they just need a situation or a trigger that will flourish that intrinsic creativity. In this short but well-rounded speech, he reinstates the importance of developing creative confidence in every job; even in those that society considers “non creative”. He states that being creative in a world like the one I described before is tough and requires people to get over their fear of being judged upon their ideas.  Therefore, everybody is creative and they need to be able to bring forward their ideas without fear of having them rejected.  That’s the key to building creative confidence.

This idea alone is inspiring for future entertainment professionals like me. Yet, David Kelley does an exceptional job integrating anecdotes and stories about his life to support his statement. The main story that supports his idea is a talk he had with the renowned psychologist Albert Bandura about getting over phobias, such as the fear of snakes. Bandura explained that once people finally face their fears (touching the snakes) they try harder in every aspect of their lives and are more resilient in the face of failure. In other words, they gain confidence. That’s precisely what Kelley hopes happens with everyone that hears this speech. He hopes that they put enough effort to get over their fear of being judged, and consequently they build creative confidence.

As a business student, society almost immediately categorizes us as non-creative. Nonetheless, this speech taught me that we need to stop seeing creativity as a God-like quality that can’t be attained by most. Even with time constraints and all the pressures we live with, every activity or task has creative potential. We should embrace our creativeness, not only in our workspace but also in every aspect of our lives. It’s our job as young professionals within the entertainment industry to build a culture in which innovations and new ideas are nurtured instead of being dismissed. We all have the potential to do great things we just have to let our ideas fly and… touch the snake.