How to Be Creative - Jon Torrens

Okay, Wednesday’s post ‘Yes, Be Childish‘ gave you the ‘what’, but not the ‘how’. So here it is:

To be creative, you need to be unrestricted in your thoughts, and allow the child part of your mind absolute freedom. When you’ve created your idea, only then should you start thinking like an adult again, and rationalize the material. Stage 1 is creative, and stage 2 is logical. Don’t mix the two, or you’ll come up with the same old rubbish as everyone else.

My son will say something to me like “I’ve made a Batman car with rockets that flies underwater” and for a moment I’ll think “Well, that’s silly” until I realise what he’s done, which is to think without the hindrance of the adult logic that will be applied to everything he does as he grows up. Learn to access this brilliant, zen-like approach when putting together your presentations, and you’ll see that a presentation can:

be only 5 minutes long
take place somewhere unusual
be entertaining
feature no Powerpoint (yes, I said that)
be a genuinely enjoyable experience for both you and the audience

…and a lot more besides.

Think differently. Think outside the box. Then take the box into the car park, smash it up, set light to it, and dance around the pyre daubed in warpaint singing “Stupid, stupid box”.

The box is conventional thinking, and it is your enemy. Destroy it.

1 thought on “How to Be Creative”