From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
For me, that's the foundation of songwriting: improvisation. In improvisation on instruments, I feel creation is going a new path with every note, somewhere you haven't been before. You discover things, you're the adventurer in music.
We have these floods of ideas when we allow ourselves to slow down – you get this pent-up energy that flows out of you.
Creative process by its nature involves figuring out all the things that don't work on your way to figuring out the things that do. You can't have it both ways…
The workplace of the future is hard to predict specifically, but one thing we can predict is that we will increasingly rely on human intelligence and creativity as opposed to human capacity to perform repetitive tasks.
Think about anything you've ever achieved in your life that you're proud of... starting a business... being a good parent... learning to play the guitar.... It will have taken a huge amount of sustained focus and attention.
We see ourselves as the long term creative and strategic partners to our clients and that word – partner – is really important to us. We will put intellectual, human, financial capital around the ideas of our clients and make them happen. A manager is about somebody that has an opinion, who has the ability to take your dream from inside your head to a reality.
Your readers may be disappointed, but there's only one thing I would suggest they do. Find three other people and meet regularly- once a week on Zoom. Hold each other to account, the end. Either you're willing to do that or you're not. If you're willing to do that, it will change your life.
Being creative is about being a collective. It's not something unique. That's why we can nurture each other's creativity.
While participatory culture can create a Wikipedia, it is not likely to produce something like the Star Wars franchise. I don't think that's a problem, because I don't think we have to choose between participatory and top-down culture – both will thrive.
Fundamentally, where creativity is concerned, people are trying to express an idea or solve a problem. This applies in business, the arts, or even solving family or societal problems.
For me, it wasn't about creating a traditional business plan but rather channelling my 1960s mindset—I aimed to amaze and captivate people. I wanted passersby to wonder, 'Have you seen that? What's going on there?' Ultimately, this desire to make an impression has been the connecting thread in everything I've undertaken.
Sometimes, a game just works; it becomes a little engine that generates mystery and interest, prompting questions like 'What happens if I do this?' This is the hallmark of a living game.