The Art of Manliness - #432： How to Achieve Creative Success

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00:01:16.600 Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:01:20.040 Now, when we think of creative people, we often think of a genius who works alone,

00:01:23.540 comes up with an earth-shattering new idea, instantaneous eureka moment,

00:01:26.780 and then sees that obviously valuable idea naturally become a well-known sensation.

00:01:31.380 My guest today argues that this picture is altogether wrong

00:01:33.660 and lays out a different image of what it really means to not only be creative,

00:01:36.780 but to become a successful creative and achieve one's aims.

00:01:39.840 His name is Alan Gannett, and he's the author of the book The Creative Curve.

00:01:42.820 We begin our conversation discussing what exactly creativity is

00:01:45.620 and the myth of the creative genius that exists in the West.

00:01:48.400 Alan shares why the best creative ideas actually aren't completely novel,

00:01:51.460 and instead riff off on what already exists.

00:01:53.420 Then we discuss why the most creative people in history are the biggest consumers of other content ideas,

00:01:57.700 why creatives need to promote their work,

00:01:59.980 why timing is crucial in a creative idea taking off,

00:02:02.500 and the four types of people a successful creative needs to have in their network.

00:02:06.220 Whether you need to be creative in traditional business or more artistic pursuits,

00:02:09.200 this show has some good insights on how to make your ideas more successful.

00:02:12.540 After the show's over, check out the show notes at aom.is slash creativecurve.

00:02:16.080 And Alan joins me now via clearcast.io.

00:02:29.480 Alan Gannett, welcome to the show.

00:02:31.900 Thanks for having me, man.

00:02:33.220 So you've got to book out The Creative Curve,

00:02:35.780 how to develop the right idea at the right time.

00:02:37.940 Now, this idea that you can instantaneously, on demand, bring up good ideas.

00:02:43.560 I don't know, man, the idea out there is that genius, inspiration, creativity,

00:02:48.520 it just happens thanks to the muses, thanks to inspiration.

00:02:54.100 What are the big myths that we have about it?

00:02:56.040 I mean, you think that's a myth.

00:02:56.940 Why do you think that's a myth about creativity?

00:02:58.960 Yeah, so I think it's definitely not that you can bring it up within a minute, right?

00:03:02.880 It's not on demand, on demand.

00:03:04.740 But we have this view of creativity in our culture, in Western culture, that's wrong.

00:03:08.600 The view of creativity in our culture is that some people have this prodigal talent,

00:03:13.980 and they are zapped by the forces above with these moments of inspiration.

00:03:18.780 And the rest of us, us normies, could only sort of quake in their presence.

00:03:23.500 We're never going to have those moments.

00:03:24.860 We're not going to be J.K. Rowling or Elon Musk and Steve Jobs and all this thing.

00:03:28.200 And I think that this is a very dangerous belief.

00:03:31.020 Because for a lot of people, this is very discouraging, right?

00:03:34.560 If you think for some people, it's super easy, and for the rest of us, it's impossible,

00:03:39.120 you're never actually going to try.

00:03:40.540 You're never going to give it that best effort.

00:03:41.900 And so I got a little frustrated with this a few years ago.

00:03:45.220 And I just was hearing this so much, this idea of, you know, I'm not creative enough,

00:03:49.100 blah, blah, blah.

00:03:50.520 And I went to dig into the question.

00:03:52.960 And what I found, what resulted in the book, was that when you actually look at the research,

00:03:56.980 the science behind creativity, it's actually very clear that creativity is a skill.

00:04:02.920 It's a skill that you can nurture, a skill that you can develop, and a skill that you

00:04:07.060 can get better at.

00:04:08.300 And so the book, it's basically taking this myth down and then also prescribing things

00:04:13.720 you can do to actually enhance it.

00:04:16.220 And what's interesting, too, in talking about, you actually find some of our biggest, some

00:04:19.280 of the big creativity stories out there, right?

00:04:22.040 And you dig into them and actually find out, well, no, it wasn't just this single moment.

00:04:27.000 It actually took years for them to come up with that idea.

00:04:30.340 Is there one that stands out to you in particular?

00:04:32.920 I mean, one of my favorite ones is, you know, there's this myth that J.K.

00:04:36.440 Rowling, you know, was hit with the idea for Harry Potter on a train, and she started writing

00:04:40.440 the book on a napkin.

00:04:41.880 And like, there's just so many things not true with this.

00:04:44.120 So first of all, she didn't have a napkin.

00:04:46.140 She just came up with like the idea for the characters.

00:04:48.940 And then it took her five years to write the first book, five years.

00:04:54.260 And she shows in an interview she did on TV once, she actually shows the box with all

00:04:59.060 of the different versions of chapter one of book one.

00:05:02.040 There's 15 different versions she wrote.

00:05:04.180 Like this was a highly iterative, long, methodical thing she did.

00:05:09.160 It wasn't this boom, you have an idea and boom, you have a bestselling book.

00:05:12.980 It took five years.

00:05:14.420 And so I think we have this romanticism around these creatives that we want to believe that

00:05:20.720 it's so easy.

00:05:21.340 And I almost wonder, I almost worry that it may be just be an excuse that we tell ourselves.

00:05:27.400 You know, maybe it's not that it's discouraging.

00:05:29.000 Maybe it's that, well, if it's easy for them, it's impossible for me.

00:05:32.060 I don't actually have to try.

00:05:33.220 I don't have to put in five years of work.

00:05:34.920 And so I wonder how people really internalize it.

00:05:38.600 Yeah.

00:05:38.800 All right.

00:05:39.080 So, okay.

00:05:39.900 Get rid of this idea that creativity just happens because of happenstance or just luck

00:05:44.300 or whatever.

00:05:45.460 There's something we can do about it.

00:05:46.560 It takes work.

00:05:47.920 But this is an interesting point that you talk about in the book that I think is important

00:05:51.600 to talk about as well is what makes something creative, creative, right?

00:05:57.340 Like you can come up with an original idea, but it could suck.

00:06:02.620 And like, is that a creative idea?

00:06:04.300 Like, how do we figure out like, this is actually a creative idea.

00:06:07.820 This is great.

00:06:08.500 How do we figure that out?

00:06:10.220 Yeah.

00:06:10.520 It's, it's, it's amazing because creativity is actually subjective, right?

00:06:13.640 Because it's kind of like that famous Supreme court case about porn.

00:06:16.800 You like, you know it when you see it.

00:06:18.080 It's like, if I painted a replica of the Mona Lisa, it wouldn't be creative.

00:06:22.960 It would be technically skilled, but it's already been done.

00:06:26.080 And so in creativity, there's actually two different concepts of creativity.

00:06:29.860 And you have to understand the distinction between the two.

00:06:32.260 There's lowercase C creativity.

00:06:34.300 And these are the real, this is what academics call it, lowercase C creativity, which is

00:06:38.060 basically just creating something new, creating something, creating something out of something

00:06:41.940 else.

00:06:42.740 And then there's capital C creativity.

00:06:44.880 And this is what we actually mean when we're talking about creativity.

00:06:48.080 This is creating things that people actually want, things that people actually care about.

00:06:52.440 And the definition that academics have come to for things that are capital C creativity is the ability

00:06:59.080 to make things that are both novel and valuable, novel and valuable.

00:07:05.040 And that's actually really important because I could throw a bunch of paint on a canvas and certainly

00:07:09.680 novel, but it's definitely not valuable.

00:07:11.300 It's definitely not creative.

00:07:12.760 On the other hand, I recently learned how to do conditional color formatting in Excel.

00:07:17.360 I'm very proud of myself.

00:07:18.720 It's definitely valuable.

00:07:20.120 It's certainly not novel and certainly not creative.

00:07:22.780 So really, when we're talking about creativity, what we're really talking about is that ability

00:07:27.120 to create things that are novel and valuable.

00:07:29.760 All right.

00:07:29.860 So creativity then is a social concept in a way.

00:07:33.440 Yeah.

00:07:33.720 Because value is completely subjective, right?

00:07:36.780 For something to be valuable, we all have to agree that it's valuable.

00:07:39.920 And so when you want to study creativity, one of the things you really have to dig into

00:07:44.640 is you also have to dig in to what drives human preference, what drives trends, consumer

00:07:50.800 behavior, all this stuff.

00:07:52.280 And one of the things, if you don't mind me geeking out for a second, is there's actually

00:07:55.480 some really fascinating evolutionary biology around human preference.

00:08:00.820 And it comes down to these two things.

00:08:02.740 So it turns out that there's actually pretty good reason and rationality to why we like certain

00:08:07.160 things.

00:08:07.820 And it comes down to these two seeming contradictory urges.

00:08:11.720 On one side, our brain has this urge to seek out things that are familiar.

00:08:17.340 We like things that are familiar because they represent safety to us, right?

00:08:20.820 When we go to our home, we feel safe.

00:08:22.680 When we go to a stranger's home for the first time, we're sort of looking around.

00:08:25.880 We're a little, you know, we're looking around.

00:08:27.280 If you were a prehistoric cave dweller and you saw two caves, one cave that you've slept

00:08:31.860 many nights in and one cave you've never been in before, the cave you've never been in

00:08:35.640 before feels a little bit dangerous.

00:08:38.360 But then we have this other urge.

00:08:41.220 We also have this urge to seek out things that are novel.

00:08:44.900 And the reason why is that we want the potential reward that they represent.

00:08:48.820 So for example, if you were a hunter-gatherer and you see a new berry on the field, you might

00:08:53.820 go, oh, this is a potential source of food.

00:08:55.540 I should eat this.

00:08:56.240 I should try it.

00:08:57.260 And so these two things are a seeming contradiction, the search for familiarity and

00:09:02.500 the search for novelty, but it turns out that this is our brain's really elegant way of balancing

00:09:08.760 risk and reward, right?

00:09:10.580 If we're in a field and we see a berry that kind of looks like a weird strawberry, we'd

00:09:14.840 eat it.

00:09:15.100 We'd say, oh, this is interesting.

00:09:16.400 But if it was like a berry we've never seen ever before, so weird, so novel, we'd probably

00:09:21.500 say, oh, that's too new.

00:09:23.540 That's dangerous.

00:09:24.280 Maybe it's poisonous.

00:09:25.680 So it turns out that we're wired to like things that are familiar with a twist of novelty.

00:09:30.760 You know, the first Star Wars was a Western in space.

00:09:33.340 Right now, there's these sushi burritos that are taking over the coasts of America. 0.63

00:09:36.880 It's the new food trend.

00:09:38.100 It's sushi, but it's in a burrito form.

00:09:39.580 We like these things that are familiar, but novel.

00:09:42.880 We don't actually like things that are radically new or radically novel.

00:09:46.360 That's actually one of the biggest misconceptions when it comes to creativity.

00:09:49.260 Turns out the ideas that people like are the ideas that are in that sweet spot of familiarity

00:09:55.060 and novelty.

00:09:56.400 And that's what the creative curve is, is that finding that sweet spot where you're getting

00:10:00.340 just the right amount of novelty, just the right amount of familiarity.

00:10:04.140 Yeah.

00:10:04.480 So scientists have found this really, really cool phenomenon.

00:10:08.680 And the scientific name for it is the inverted U-shape relationship between familiarity and

00:10:14.180 preference.

00:10:14.820 I rebranded it the creative curve.

00:10:16.380 I think it sounds much better.

00:10:17.980 And basically what it is, is this is upside down U-shape where it turns out when we first

00:10:24.400 see something or first experience something, like the first time you heard that new Drake song,

00:10:28.460 you're like, ah, I don't really like it that much.

00:10:30.960 Then the more we hear it, because we like things that are familiar, we start to like it

00:10:34.980 more and more and more.

00:10:37.040 But then it reaches a point where our drive for novelty seeking starts winning out, reaches

00:10:42.240 this point of cliche.

00:10:43.660 And the more we experience it, we like it less and less.

00:10:46.040 We get sick of that Drake song.

00:10:47.340 We don't want to hear it anymore.

00:10:48.660 And this forms an upside down U.

00:10:50.940 And so your goal as someone who wants to be creative is to create things on that left

00:10:56.480 side that are going to quickly take off from low preference to high preference with some

00:11:01.400 additional exposure.

00:11:03.700 That's the job of a creative.

00:11:05.000 It's to create ideas that are at this sweet spot, this sweet spot where people will actually

00:11:08.620 be interested and they'll actually define it as valuable.

00:11:12.320 Right.

00:11:12.580 I think, you know, besides, I think some of the great way where you can see this in action

00:11:15.860 is music, right?

00:11:17.120 Yeah, like, for example, Bruno Mars, he's the perfect, like, he is the king at this.

00:11:23.200 Like, I remember when Uptown Funk first came out, like, the first time I heard it, I was

00:11:26.500 like, this is awesome.

00:11:28.280 And the reason why is because it sounded familiar.

00:11:30.480 It sounded kind of like, you know, 80s, you know, 70s type funk, but it was a new spin

00:11:36.160 on it.

00:11:37.080 100%.

00:11:37.480 Kanye recently tweeted, I hate quoting Kanye, but recently tweeted that, you know, great

00:11:42.960 artists steal an update.

00:11:44.080 And that's so true.

00:11:44.980 And music is such a great example of this with all the sampling that goes on and the

00:11:48.760 remixes that go on.

00:11:50.400 It's even interesting when you think about the people who are really great songwriters.

00:11:54.940 Max Martin comes to mind.

00:11:56.360 He's one of the greatest songwriters of all time.

00:11:58.120 He's the third most number one singles after Paul McCartney and John Lennon.

00:12:01.660 And his technique is all about taking elements of the chorus, but introducing them much earlier

00:12:07.280 in the songs.

00:12:08.000 By the time it actually reaches the chorus, it's already catchy.

00:12:11.240 It's already familiar.

00:12:12.120 You're already interested in it.

00:12:13.620 And so over and over again, when you start to see it, you start to realize that creativity

00:12:17.860 is not about novelty.

00:12:19.280 It's not about newness.

00:12:20.380 It's about the blend of the familiar and the new.

00:12:23.380 Right.

00:12:23.580 But going back to that creative curve, there's a point where it becomes too familiar and

00:12:27.800 you get sick of it.

00:12:28.560 Like whenever Uptown Funk comes on now, I'm just like instantly change the channel because

00:12:33.120 I don't, it's just, I've heard it so much.

00:12:35.980 I'm tired of it.

00:12:37.040 Yeah, 100%.

00:12:37.800 And this is actually, they've actually done studies with music specifically where they just

00:12:41.280 make people listen to music over and over again.

00:12:43.600 And it follows this U shape.

00:12:45.120 Like we have this very predictable way in which our preferences change.

00:12:48.780 And what's interesting is that that effect happens both at the individual level, the

00:12:54.280 group level and the population level.

00:12:56.440 Because obviously within a population, people are experiencing things at different times and

00:13:00.480 different rates.

00:13:01.120 But at all three of these levels, the same thing happens.

00:13:04.060 And so one of the key jobs for a creator is to understand how familiar a novel something

00:13:10.240 is.

00:13:10.500 So what I did in the book is I interviewed all of the leading academics who study creativity

00:13:15.840 across neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, but I also interviewed 25 living creative geniuses.

00:13:21.540 These are people like Ted Sarandos, the chief content officer of Netflix, billionaires like

00:13:25.840 David Rubenstein, Pasek and Paul, the songwriting duo who did most of the music for La La Land,

00:13:30.760 Dear Evan Hansen, and The Greatest Showman.

00:13:32.480 And what was so interesting from these interviews is that because familiarity is so important,

00:13:38.200 one of the things that these creatives do that seems like unexpected is they actually

00:13:43.600 are some of the biggest consumers of culture, not just creators, but consumers of culture.

00:13:49.180 Because they realize that to know what's going to have the right amount of familiarity, they

00:13:53.920 have to know what their audience has experienced.

00:13:55.880 They have to be out there.

00:13:56.760 They have to be consuming.

00:13:57.580 You know, Ted Sarandos told me the story about how, as a kid, he was the clerk at the local

00:14:03.240 video rental store, and he literally watched every single movie in the store.

00:14:08.960 And like, granted, this was the 80s, so there was less movies, but he watched every single

00:14:12.640 movie in the store.

00:14:13.240 And he says this is a big way in which he developed his taste.

00:14:16.060 Because so much of taste, so much of creativity is knowing what's already out there and how what

00:14:21.960 you're creating will relate to past creative products.

00:14:26.460 Okay, so this idea of consuming content, right?

00:14:28.400 So you kind of can have this stuff that you can remix, right?

00:14:31.140 And figure out what's familiar, what's novel.

00:14:33.120 Like, we all consume, right?

00:14:34.780 We're all like on our smartphones, looking at Reddit or Instagram or watching Netflix.

00:14:39.800 So why is it that some people are able to take that stuff they consume and create something

00:14:45.920 new with it?

00:14:46.500 Yeah, so what's interesting is that how these creators consume is different than how probably

00:14:52.420 you or I consume.

00:14:53.300 Like, we'll watch a movie and sort of sit back and relax, or we just read a book and

00:14:56.380 we want to suspend disbelief.

00:14:57.960 What's interesting is these great creators, they like, they touch and they feel it and they

00:15:02.420 interact with it and they imitate it.

00:15:05.120 You actually find that imitation is a huge part of the creative process and the consumption

00:15:09.520 process for these creatives.

00:15:10.720 I talk in the book about, I interviewed Andrew Ross Sorkin, who, you know, editor of Dealbook

00:15:16.000 of the New York Times, anchor at Squawk Box, wrote the book Too Big to Fail, co-creator

00:15:20.500 of the show Billions, like someone who knows how to learn, right?

00:15:23.160 He's learned how to learn.

00:15:24.640 And it was so interesting, he told me that when he first wanted to become a journalist,

00:15:28.660 what he did is he would take front page articles from the New York Times business section and

00:15:33.080 he would literally outline, how are they structured?

00:15:35.980 Do they start with a quote?

00:15:37.100 Do they start with a story?

00:15:38.040 Do they start with a supporting detail?

00:15:41.060 And by learning that structure of a great creative work, that's how you actually learn

00:15:45.860 what is that familiar baseline that your audience likes, that they enjoy?

00:15:50.860 You don't have to go recreate the wheel, since familiarity is important, and imitation actually

00:15:55.780 allows you to learn how to do that.

00:15:57.440 Ben Franklin writes in his autobiography that he did something literally the same thing as

00:16:02.560 Andrew Ross Sorkin did.

00:16:03.980 You know, we think of Ben Franklin as this amazing writer, but when he was 18, he was actually

00:16:08.420 scolded by his father for being such a terrible writer.

00:16:10.980 And so he was sort of like in a shame spiral, and he decided he was going to become a great

00:16:15.320 writer.

00:16:15.740 And to do this, he literally took copies of The Spectator, which was a magazine at the

00:16:19.820 time, and he like went and outlined how they built their arguments.

00:16:24.020 And that's how he learned how to write, was by imitating the structure of a great successful

00:16:27.820 work.

00:16:28.180 So in the book, I call it The Franklin Method.

00:16:29.760 And you see it over and over again with these creators, you know, novelists will go and

00:16:34.080 they'll outline books and see how they're built, how they're structured, and that's how they

00:16:38.660 learn story arcs.

00:16:39.700 Kurt Vonnegut actually did that for his master's thesis.

00:16:42.140 His entire master's thesis was about mapping out the story arcs of great novels.

00:16:47.300 And so imitation is actually one of the keys to creativity.

00:16:51.100 We're going to take a quick break for you, Ward, from our sponsors.

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00:19:06.240 Yeah, no, we wrote an article a long time ago about copy work, which is basically you

00:19:11.560 take someone's thing that they've written and you just copy it verbatim, either type

00:19:16.580 it out or write it.

00:19:18.000 Like Jack London, the writer, he did this.

00:19:20.520 We took Robert Louis Stevenson's books and just wrote it.

00:19:22.920 Oh, wow.

00:19:23.380 I didn't know that.

00:19:24.000 What's the guy?

00:19:24.960 He's another writer.

00:19:26.540 I can't remember the name.

00:19:28.440 He wrote, I think he wrote Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

00:19:30.680 Oh, Hunter S. Thompson.

00:19:31.980 Hunter S. Thompson.

00:19:32.560 And he, he typed out the great Gatsby just because he wanted to, he wanted to know what

00:19:38.420 it felt like to write a great novel.

00:19:40.540 I love that.

00:19:40.960 Yeah.

00:19:41.140 And you see this, it's such a common experience with these great creators and they're not

00:19:44.640 afraid of imitation.

00:19:46.000 And I think a lot of times aspiring creators view that, you know, view the word imitation

00:19:51.080 as this like dirty, dirty word, but like the great artists know that creativity is a

00:19:55.940 social construct.

00:19:56.860 So everything that's come before you is part of how people internalize creativity.

00:20:00.600 So you have to know what's out there and you have to know how it's structured.

00:20:04.660 Right.

00:20:04.840 All right.

00:20:05.060 So consume a lot of content, but it's an active consumption, right?

00:20:08.240 You're, you're, you're fiddling with it.

00:20:09.700 You're interacting with imitating it.

00:20:10.980 You're actually doing something with it.

00:20:12.340 Okay.

00:20:13.300 Besides that, you argue that great creators aren't, aren't just like these lone geniuses.

00:20:19.860 They actually are embedded in a deep community of other creatives.

00:20:23.360 So how does that work?

00:20:24.480 I mean, for example, let's take, you know, JK Rowling, right?

00:20:27.460 That, that seemed like it was sort of like a solo thing, but did she have a group of

00:20:31.040 community, like creative community that she was going to, to help her out?

00:20:34.720 Yeah.

00:20:35.160 And this is such a great example.

00:20:36.800 So, you know, we have this notion of these creators, as they go to a cabin, they write

00:20:39.940 a book, they hit the end, you know, they're done.

00:20:41.880 But the reality is you can sort of start to think about you quickly, that quickly, that

00:20:47.000 image quickly falls apart, right?

00:20:48.940 JK Rowling had an agent.

00:20:50.920 She had a publisher.

00:20:51.660 I actually interviewed her first agent, interviewed her publisher, her first publisher.

00:20:54.840 She had marketing teams, she had all these people, and all these people were helping

00:20:58.360 her take her work and actually get it out to the masses, right? 0.86

00:21:02.020 Her first agent had a whole idea around how to build buzz for the book so that it actually

00:21:06.160 would catapult.

00:21:07.220 And there's all of these things that went into taking this great product and making

00:21:11.360 a true creative success, making it a true creative success.

00:21:15.820 And so, you know, what you see with these great creatives is that there's typically four

00:21:20.640 types of people they have in their creative communities is what I call it.

00:21:24.140 And so the one that I think is probably most interesting is that of a prominent promoter.

00:21:30.080 And so typically what you see is that since creativity is about having people see you and see that

00:21:35.540 you're creative, you typically have someone, you know, more experienced with a bigger reputation

00:21:40.500 who lends you their reputation if you are younger and starting out.

00:21:43.820 You see this obviously in music with the idea of opening acts for a band.

00:21:47.160 You see some academics with junior researchers whose names are put up on papers, even if they

00:21:51.680 just contributed a small amount.

00:21:53.600 You see this in every industry, this idea of sort of passing on down the reputation.

00:21:59.300 And that's incredibly important to the process.

00:22:01.080 Even startups, you have your board of advisors.

00:22:03.360 The other one that's interesting is a master teacher.

00:22:07.020 So you find these great creatives typically had someone that they learned from who is an

00:22:11.340 expert.

00:22:12.140 There's one study done for this book called Developing Talent in Young People.

00:22:15.900 And they looked at 120 people who are world-class across this wide variety of talents.

00:22:21.780 And what they found is that of the 120, 120 had a teacher who themselves was world-class.

00:22:29.360 So you need someone that you're actually going to learn from to actually learn the sort of the

00:22:33.600 nuances of your creative craft.

00:22:36.160 The third type of person in your creative community is what I call modern muse.

00:22:40.420 And this is someone who helps inspire you, both through positive emotions, like giving

00:22:45.620 you a pep talk, but also through friendly competition, which you find with these great

00:22:50.640 creators.

00:22:51.160 You know, I interviewed Connor Franta, who's a popular YouTube creator.

00:22:54.360 And he talked to me about how he has all these friends who are YouTube creators.

00:22:58.140 Like a lot of us have friends from college and high school and past experiences.

00:23:02.440 But these really successful creatives tend to surround themselves with other really successful

00:23:06.740 creatives because it motivates them.

00:23:09.020 These people understand it.

00:23:10.580 They know that creativity is this up and down battle and they're willing to give you that

00:23:14.220 pep talk and they serve as an example of something you can also achieve.

00:23:18.640 And so I think that's just like one of these really, really critical, critical elements.

00:23:23.860 Yeah.

00:23:24.000 I thought the section about having a promoter or just being able to promote yourself even

00:23:29.040 to promote a creative idea, because oftentimes we think like, oh, you know, creative idea will

00:23:33.180 just stand on itself.

00:23:34.480 Like if people, if you create something that's creative, people will just inherently recognize that

00:23:38.420 it's creative, but that's not necessarily the case, right?

00:23:40.920 A hundred percent.

00:23:41.440 And this is why, this is why it's so important if you're in a creative field to be in the

00:23:46.960 epicenter, to be in the cities where that is, right?

00:23:49.440 It's so hard to break into fashion if you're not in New York, because creativity has this

00:23:53.260 huge human element to it.

00:23:54.720 And, you know, you might think, oh, this is changing with the internet and Skype calls

00:23:58.020 and all this stuff.

00:23:58.700 But still what you find is the people who achieve the biggest success in their creative

00:24:02.920 fields are typically physically there because that's where the people are.

00:24:07.700 That's so important to the creative process.

00:24:09.900 Right.

00:24:10.240 I mean, one example of, you know, failing to promote yourself or your creative idea that

00:24:16.360 I like from the book was the theory of evolution.

00:24:18.600 So when we think theory of evolution, we think Charles Darwin, right?

00:24:22.080 But as you pointed out in the book, there was another guy named Alfred Russell Wallace that

00:24:26.260 came up with the idea of evolution at the same time that Darwin did.

00:24:31.880 And, you know, Darwin got this letter from him saying, hey, I've come with this idea.

00:24:35.900 And Darwin's like, oh my gosh, I've been working on Origin of the Species and this guy's already

00:24:40.560 got, I mean, what am I going to do?

00:24:42.300 And they kind of did it together, but Darwin got most of the credit for it because he put

00:24:47.000 himself out there a little bit more than Wallace.

00:24:49.360 Yeah.

00:24:49.480 And you see this over and over again, this idea of what academics call simultaneous invention,

00:24:53.460 where two people will invent something like the light bulb, for example, two people tried

00:24:58.180 to patent it the same year.

00:24:59.840 One is Thomas Edison, who we all know and we talk about.

00:25:02.820 And the other person, I don't even remember the name right now, right?

00:25:05.680 Because we, in our society, there's this whole other element to creativity around recognition

00:25:10.840 and knowingness.

00:25:12.020 And so, you know, Darwin, after he published his book, went around, promoted it, talked to

00:25:17.320 all these people about it.

00:25:18.660 Alfred Wallace literally went back out to sea to do more research.

00:25:21.900 He was, you could say in some ways, the more of a real scientist in that way, but it was

00:25:27.560 Darwin who promoted it.

00:25:29.040 In fact, when later Alfred Wallace wrote a book about it, at that point, it was so clearly

00:25:33.240 associated with Darwin that he actually, in his book title, called it Darwinism.

00:25:38.000 He literally ceded it to him because it was so obvious that he had lost.

00:25:41.240 And so, I think you see this really fascinating thing in history where we think we know a lot

00:25:46.900 about creativity and who's created what, but really what we know is who sort of won this

00:25:53.680 sort of public opinion battle of creativity, who got their ideas distributed, who actually

00:25:58.680 got the reach and the exposure.

00:26:01.020 And that's such a huge and undervalued part of it.

00:26:03.780 Right.

00:26:03.940 I mean, I think of all the great creatives, like we did a podcast about Da Vinci and Da Vinci

00:26:08.540 was this creative genius.

00:26:09.620 He had this community, right?

00:26:11.180 He consumed tons of content, but he's also, he promoted himself.

00:26:15.640 Like, I remember the way he got his job in one of the king's court that he did.

00:26:19.860 He said, I am the greatest inventor.

00:26:22.260 I'll create amazing military machines for you.

00:26:24.940 And he never did that.

00:26:26.460 He hadn't done that yet.

00:26:28.020 But like, he was willing to put himself out there and kind of puff himself up to get the

00:26:32.100 job.

00:26:32.620 And because of that, we're talking about Da Vinci.

00:26:35.180 Like, oh, Da Vinci's like the prototypical genius.

00:26:38.620 A hundred percent.

00:26:39.000 There's this really fascinating study that followed art students from the time they were

00:26:43.340 in school to, I think it was 15 years after they left art school.

00:26:47.660 And what they found was that in art school, the students who did the best in terms of

00:26:51.800 grades and perception by the other students were the ones who most represented the archetype

00:26:57.040 of an artist.

00:26:57.600 Like they were sort of like dark and a little weird and all this stuff.

00:27:01.280 But 10 years later, the successful artists, actually, none of those kids were successful.

00:27:06.460 The successful artists were the ones who were best at salesmanship.

00:27:09.400 They were the best marketers, the best PR people.

00:27:11.320 In fact, they found that these successful artists, they all happened to rent a loft in

00:27:16.700 New York after they graduated.

00:27:19.040 And the idea is that the loft actually represented this sort of extroversion to their work, this

00:27:23.740 ability to invite people over for parties, for people to see their work, to talk about

00:27:27.160 them, for people to come by.

00:27:29.020 You know, they had this very public space in which their art was represented.

00:27:32.040 So even though it seems silly, there's actually this whole, you know, importance to actually

00:27:37.280 having people see you, experiencing you, and you be able to sell yourself.

00:27:41.540 This whole idea of the creative curve, like this intersection of familiarity and novelty.

00:27:46.160 An interesting, I think, insight that comes from this is that timing of your idea can make 0.99

00:27:51.580 or break whether it's considered creative or just crazy or stupid. 1.00

00:27:55.260 Totally. 0.99

00:27:55.660 I mean, think about if J.K.

00:27:57.380 Rowling had written her book 100 years earlier, or if, you know, you painted Andy Warhol in

00:28:02.920 1920s, or if I painted and Andy Warhol has painted today, it wouldn't be creative.

00:28:07.420 It would just be sort of something you sell at Ikea, right?

00:28:09.980 And so timing has this huge element, like everything is compared to what's come before it.

00:28:14.280 And so if you don't understand that, you're at this huge disadvantage, which is why the consumption

00:28:19.520 is important, because then you know what's been out there.

00:28:22.660 Right.

00:28:22.780 And you know what people are familiar with.

00:28:24.240 So you're able to iterate to that new thing that you want to get to eventually, but do

00:28:30.280 it slowly so people are like, okay, that's cool.

00:28:33.720 And one problem that creators run into is that they have to have this deep amount of consumption,

00:28:38.000 but you can sometimes become like a super consumer where your knowledge or your familiarity

00:28:44.120 is slightly different than your audience.

00:28:46.080 So one thing you also find, which is interesting, is that these creators are highly iterative and

00:28:50.660 highly feedback driven.

00:28:51.840 The most successful creators aren't going off into the woods and writing their book and

00:28:55.940 then coming back.

00:28:57.100 The most successful creators are actually listening to their audiences early and often.

00:29:01.260 And I found this across food sciences, across novel writing, across movies, is that even

00:29:06.840 if it's sort of a low tech way of doing it, constantly these creative geniuses are constantly

00:29:11.880 getting feedback because they understand that their job is to triangulate their creative product

00:29:16.900 to be at that right blend of familiarity and novelty.

00:29:19.760 And that is really an audience reaction.

00:29:22.600 So if your job is to get a specific audience reaction, well, you better listen to them.

00:29:27.380 And so that was really surprising to me was just how iterative these processes were.

00:29:32.380 Yeah.

00:29:32.460 A great example of a product that was too early for its time was the Apple Newton.

00:29:37.680 Oh, yeah.

00:29:38.420 It was basically the smart.

00:29:40.700 It was like the iPhone back in the 90s. 0.99

00:29:43.040 But everyone's like, this is dumb. 0.99

00:29:44.960 And it was a complete flop. 0.96

00:29:45.940 Well, then think about when the iPhone came about, at that point, it was much more familiar,

00:29:50.340 right?

00:29:50.560 It was basically combining a phone and an iPod.

00:29:52.920 And we'd all had iPods at that point.

00:29:54.440 We understood the form factor.

00:29:56.300 Like, this had no longer become this, like, it wasn't radically new, right?

00:30:00.820 And so that was much more comfortable.

00:30:02.100 We knew the idea of a PDA.

00:30:03.920 There was the idea of the touchscreen that was out there.

00:30:06.420 And so, yeah, the Newton was just, it was too new.

00:30:09.020 Right.

00:30:09.180 I talk in the book about, I talk in the book about the story of Campus Network.

00:30:12.860 So, Campus Network was a social network that started at Columbia University a month before

00:30:18.820 Facebook at Harvard, another Ivy League school.

00:30:22.520 And, you know, they started and they had, they went viral at Columbia.

00:30:26.260 But when they went up to compete with Facebook, it was so interesting because Campus Network

00:30:30.460 actually had the more advanced product.

00:30:33.400 Like, they had features that Facebook didn't have yet, like the news feed, the activity

00:30:36.880 feed, groups, photos, all these things.

00:30:39.700 But it actually turned out that how simple the original Facebook was, it was basically

00:30:43.960 just a directory with photos and the ability to add friends and stuff, how simple it was

00:30:48.160 was actually important.

00:30:49.240 Because when people saw Campus Network, they were actually kind of intimidated at that point.

00:30:53.100 Like, they were just getting used to the idea of using the real name on the internet.

00:30:57.000 Like, this was 2004, 2005.

00:30:58.940 And so now I'm going to, like, share all my activity to people.

00:31:02.060 It was too early for that.

00:31:03.680 And so you see over and over again, that's not just about, is this feature useful?

00:31:09.060 Is this product useful?

00:31:10.800 But is it in the right time and place for people to want to even use it?

00:31:15.480 Right.

00:31:15.540 You have to kind of boil frogs, right?

00:31:17.140 Yeah.

00:31:18.660 Frog doesn't even know it's being boiled.

00:31:20.880 When you put it in your startup, cranking up the heat.

00:31:24.000 Okay.

00:31:24.180 Well, so, okay, let's recap this.

00:31:25.720 So, creativity, it's social.

00:31:28.420 Like, it's not just, you can't just come with crazy ideas.

00:31:30.820 That's not creative.

00:31:31.500 Other people have to recognize that it's creative.

00:31:33.680 There's an intersection between familiarity and novelty, right? 1.00

00:31:37.260 If it's too radically new, like, people are just like, that's stupid. 1.00

00:31:40.160 That's crazy. 0.99

00:31:41.460 They're not going to latch on.

00:31:42.840 So, it needs to be a little bit of familiarity.

00:31:44.600 And you can do that, figure out that sweet spot by consuming lots of content, but in an

00:31:48.900 active way, being embedded in a community of other creative types who are going to help

00:31:53.060 promote you or maybe give you feedback or bounce ideas off of.

00:31:55.860 And then you're constantly iterating those ideas from the people you're creating for.

00:32:01.080 Yeah.

00:32:01.640 If you follow those steps, you're well on your way to capital C creativity.

00:32:07.040 Doesn't mean it's easy, but you're on your way.

00:32:09.180 Right.

00:32:09.460 No.

00:32:09.800 Yeah.

00:32:09.960 I mean, I can see that taking a lot of work, especially the consumption and being active

00:32:12.780 with it.

00:32:13.120 That I can see that being crazy.

00:32:14.680 Well, I mean, look, we literally scraped the surface.

00:32:17.660 There's so many like case studies that you get into that are really fascinating.

00:32:21.220 Where can people go to learn more about the book?

00:32:23.860 Yeah.

00:32:24.060 So, it's thecreativecurve.com.

00:32:26.620 Thecreativecurve.com.

00:32:27.640 Well, Alan Gannett, thank you so much for your time.

00:32:29.180 It's been an absolute pleasure.

00:32:30.320 Thanks, man.

00:32:31.520 My guest here is Alan Gannett.

00:32:32.520 He's the author of the book, The Creative Curve.

00:32:34.280 It's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere.

00:32:36.420 You can find more information about the book at thecreativecurve.com.

00:32:39.440 Also, check out our show notes at aom.is slash creativecurve.

00:32:42.580 We can find links to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic.

00:32:45.040 Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:33:00.480 For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website

00:33:03.360 at artofmanliness.com.

00:33:04.640 And if you enjoyed the podcast, I appreciate if you take one minute to give us a review

00:33:07.820 on iTunes or Stitcher.

00:33:08.880 It helps out a lot.

00:33:09.640 And if you've done that already, thank you so much.

00:33:11.440 I appreciate if you'd also share the show with a friend or family member who let get

00:33:14.400 something out of it.

00:33:15.040 As always, thank you for your continued support.

00:33:17.180 Until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

The Art of Manliness - August 15, 2018

#432： How to Achieve Creative Success

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