This Past Weekend with Theo Von

00:00:00.000 I want to let you guys know that I will be performing March 7th at the Castle Theater in Maui, Hawaii, or Kahului, Kahului.

00:00:12.240 Those tickets will go on sale Tuesday, February 11th at 10 a.m. Hawaiian time.

00:00:18.660 So, aloha, mahalo, gangalo.

00:00:24.300 I'm really excited about that. I need a vacation.

00:00:26.980 Today's guest is really the Patrick Mahomes of creativity.

00:00:31.940 He's a professor at the University of Connecticut.

00:00:34.940 He's written countless books, including Creativity 101.

00:00:39.260 It is Professor James Kaufman.

00:00:56.980 Of course, I've also learned when somebody has like a sharp object in you, be nice.

00:01:08.540 I remember I was getting like some back stuff done and guy has like a needle this big and he starts deciding to talk politics.

00:01:14.280 I'm just like, I'm nodding and smiling at everything he says. I don't care what he said, you know.

00:01:18.500 I agree with whatever you agree with.

00:01:21.080 Yeah, right now, whatever, you could be saying anything you want and as long as you have like a blade this big, I'm on your side.

00:01:28.460 Yeah.

00:01:29.340 Dr. James Kaufman, who wrote the, who really is one of the, I mean, you're kind of like a little bit of the Sacagawea of creativity, kind of the white male Sacagawea in a way.

00:01:39.140 I've never been called that.

00:01:42.960 You're like Louis Ankle.

00:01:47.060 Some might say Forrest Gump.

00:01:48.540 Okay, I'll do that.

00:01:49.560 But I've been very lucky.

00:01:51.860 I've gotten to ask a whole lot of interesting questions and it's a field that's just starting to kind of take off and it sounds kind of silly.

00:02:03.020 The idea of studying creativity.

00:02:04.480 Yeah.

00:02:04.720 But some of this stuff's really intuitive and some of it not necessarily what you think.

00:02:11.780 When you say it's a field that's just starting to take off, like because recently I was actually talking to my niece and I said imagination, right?

00:02:20.780 And she goes, what is it?

00:02:22.000 Is it on your phone?

00:02:24.100 And she thought it was an app.

00:02:26.620 And it shook me to my core.

00:02:28.880 I was like, oh man, it made me think like, oh, creativity is dying.

00:02:33.660 You know, that it's not, that it's not like a new, that there's nothing really new there.

00:02:38.940 It's not like a, you know, like a seeded forest as much as maybe I used to think it was.

00:02:44.960 Or is it that we're just being creative in different ways?

00:02:48.340 Because on one hand, yeah, probably if you gave your niece, like did you ever play with those old like refrigerator boxes?

00:02:55.720 Or like just, oh yeah, just a huge, make a battleship or something, make a Noah's Ark, Amistad or something.

00:03:03.280 Like on one hand, yeah, probably if you gave her, hey, here's this huge cardboard box, do what you want.

00:03:09.380 So what, why are you giving this to me?

00:03:11.700 But she might also be able to, I mean, make a video.

00:03:18.140 Do any of this stuff using the phone?

00:03:20.420 Right.

00:03:20.740 I mean, to me, it's all that do you use to consume or create?

00:03:23.420 And there's nothing wrong with consuming.

00:03:24.640 I mean, I love watching stuff and listening to stuff.

00:03:26.680 But if you're also using it to create, I feel like the forest isn't quite dead yet.

00:03:33.560 Yeah, I worry sometimes that, I mean, especially with the phone.

00:03:36.640 I mean, even with, you know, mine is an example of just the alarm going off.

00:03:40.020 But like, there's so many interruptions these days, specifically with my phone, to how much it interrupts my thought processes.

00:03:50.900 You know, and even my sleep, it interrupts every process, it seems like.

00:03:54.080 There's a, there's a call, there's an email, there's a, I mean, it definitely seems like these days there's a lot more interruptions.

00:03:59.620 Whereas creativity needs more of like a bed to kind of like, you know, creativity, it seems like you need some time.

00:04:06.140 You got to get tangled up in the sheets, you know?

00:04:07.860 Oh, yeah.

00:04:08.860 I mean, it's what we sometimes call flow.

00:04:10.920 That moment when you are creating and you're engaged and it's like you forget where you are.

00:04:17.320 And that's when like five hours pass and you're like, I haven't eaten for the entire day.

00:04:20.900 And of course, if the phone buzzes, that takes you out of it.

00:04:26.820 It's why when I'm trying to actively write and do something where I'm actually using like full brain,

00:04:34.740 turn off phone, sometimes even disable Wi-Fi.

00:04:38.400 And I can't get away with it for too long.

00:04:40.300 I mean, we live in a world where we get 400 emails a minute and I got two kids.

00:04:45.840 Oh, yeah.

00:04:47.020 We have a question actually that came in right here.

00:04:48.600 We'll put this question in.

00:04:49.640 Hi, Theo.

00:04:54.200 Hi, James.

00:04:55.020 My name is Max.

00:04:56.080 And I was wondering if Dr. Kaufman could maybe go into a little bit of detail about what a flow state is

00:05:02.460 and maybe ways to achieve them.

00:05:04.400 Because I've heard a lot about them, but sometimes I just have a bit of trouble achieving that flow state.

00:05:09.620 So if you could expand, that would be great.

00:05:11.220 Thank you.

00:05:12.140 A lot of flow state junkies out there.

00:05:13.840 You know, people want that flow state.

00:05:14.960 It's an intoxicating feeling.

00:05:17.980 People who, I mean, you can get it other ways than just creating.

00:05:22.360 I mean, a lot of people who are into like mountain climbing or running, the runner is high.

00:05:27.080 It's not horribly different.

00:05:31.380 The best way to enter flow is to do something creative that's a little bit challenging.

00:05:39.240 If it's too hard, you're just going to go, screw it.

00:05:42.900 I can't do this.

00:05:44.300 And if it's something that's routine or too easy, it's going to be simple.

00:05:49.600 Like if you're playing the piano and you kind of play, you know, and if you're just, if you're doing chopsticks, you're not going to.

00:05:56.920 You're not invested.

00:05:58.000 But then if I say, okay, Theo, here's this like Rachmaninoff symphony or something, play it.

00:06:03.820 You're not going to know what to do.

00:06:04.880 You're not going to enter flow.

00:06:05.820 I mean, you might be able to get a melody, but it's not going to connect with you.

00:06:09.260 So it's always that slight challenge.

00:06:11.380 And as you get better and you kind of keep matching it, you got to up the challenge.

00:06:16.640 It has to be something that you care about, that you're passionate about.

00:06:21.600 I mean, it's one of the first things that I tell my students is what are you interested in?

00:06:27.000 Like forgetting about the word creativity.

00:06:28.860 The word creativity freaks people out.

00:06:32.160 I mean, I teach a class, several classes on creativity.

00:06:35.780 And one of the things I do is I have them do this big creative project.

00:06:40.180 And that's it in terms of the rules.

00:06:42.420 You got some students, they're just thrilled.

00:06:44.840 They're running with it.

00:06:45.680 And like by the third day, they're, oh man, I could do this and this.

00:06:48.760 And there are other students who are terrified.

00:06:52.160 Like if the assignment was cut off your little finger, they would have gone that option.

00:06:55.920 Wow.

00:06:56.560 Because that's more definite.

00:06:57.640 That's more obvious.

00:06:58.860 Yeah.

00:06:59.060 But be creative.

00:07:00.060 It can mean anything.

00:07:01.380 And people sometimes think, well, I'm not creative.

00:07:05.620 And then they just shut it off.

00:07:09.800 And yet you start talking.

00:07:12.300 And okay, well, what are you interested in?

00:07:14.000 What do you like doing?

00:07:15.960 And then you work on that.

00:07:17.260 You play from that.

00:07:17.860 Okay.

00:07:18.520 And you just keep going in that passion, in that what are you interested in?

00:07:22.620 It doesn't mean you're going to be necessarily good at it.

00:07:26.820 But creativity isn't just about the outcome.

00:07:30.840 It isn't just about reaching a certain level of creativity.

00:07:38.280 I mean, that's always great.

00:07:41.540 But it's not always about creating something.

00:07:45.700 Certainly when you first start off, it can just be in your head.

00:07:49.540 It can be an idea.

00:07:50.360 As long as it has some type of meaning to you.

00:07:54.300 Yeah.

00:07:54.440 Like, if it's just a random thought.

00:07:55.640 Yeah.

00:07:55.760 Okay.

00:07:55.940 No.

00:07:56.820 But let's say, I mean, okay.

00:07:59.720 Actually, if I could ask you, like, how do you get, like, for your last comedy special,

00:08:06.380 like, how are you writing it?

00:08:08.080 What was your process?

00:08:10.280 Yeah.

00:08:10.420 The process is, you know, I take things from life that I thought were funny or things that

00:08:14.360 made me laugh.

00:08:15.360 And then, you know, I started to expound on them on stage.

00:08:19.380 Then I would write them down into Word documents and sometimes go back and read through the

00:08:25.260 document when I was feeling pretty good and, like, add in some stuff that I thought was

00:08:29.140 funny or add in things I wanted to try.

00:08:31.900 And then I would go back on stage, do it again, and just kind of keep kind of swimming in

00:08:37.000 that circle until I felt like it was just kind of done.

00:08:41.620 At a certain point, my brain, I choose not to work on things anymore because it's just

00:08:48.540 like, to me, they're done.

00:08:49.640 There's nothing else.

00:08:50.720 There could be a lot more to do if I were somebody else.

00:08:53.260 But for me, it's like, this is as far as this bit or this area or this story or world

00:08:57.940 is going to go.

00:08:59.460 So I think that was kind of the process.

00:09:01.360 Um, I think, is that a process?

00:09:04.800 Yeah, yeah.

00:09:05.700 And one way of thinking about it is that all the initial stuff, the things that you're

00:09:12.000 remembering happening that were funny, even the stuff before you're remembering it when

00:09:16.040 it's happening, where maybe it's something funny you said or you saw or you're thinking,

00:09:20.660 well, if that had happened, it would have been funny.

00:09:22.780 And then you're remembering it three days later.

00:09:25.540 Some of that stuff is going to stay in your mind and you're going to develop it and you'll

00:09:30.660 try it out.

00:09:31.360 Other stuff will be there and you'll think about it and you'll consider it.

00:09:36.580 And there's not funny enough.

00:09:38.980 Not enough.

00:09:39.320 I can do with that.

00:09:40.040 Yeah.

00:09:40.140 It's not enough for me.

00:09:41.080 Sometimes it's like, it's not creative enough for me.

00:09:43.080 I feel like, like somebody else.

00:09:44.800 So it might be good for them, but this doesn't fit maybe exactly my tastes, you know, for what

00:09:50.160 I find to be funny.

00:09:52.580 Like when you were first starting out, you probably, I mean, if you were like me or anybody,

00:09:58.840 your hit ratio wasn't as good.

00:10:01.380 Yeah.

00:10:01.880 You know, so you just, okay, well, I bet that could be funny.

00:10:04.320 Maybe you're trying it out and you learn, okay, this works, this doesn't, or this could really

00:10:10.860 work.

00:10:11.260 Like that process, like from like what's up here in your head to what you're actually

00:10:17.560 saying when you're sharing it with another person, that's kind of like this personal

00:10:21.920 creativity idea.

00:10:22.960 And that's something that I mean, everybody else can theoretically think it sucks.

00:10:28.380 It's hopefully you get better and you can connect with other people because that's so much of

00:10:34.220 what creativity is about where when you're on stage and there's an audience and it's almost

00:10:42.320 this interactive and you're reading it, then it gets to be what we might call everyday creativity,

00:10:48.980 but at your point, much higher.

00:10:50.740 Expert level creativity, professional.

00:10:54.480 Refined for sure.

00:10:55.460 Refined.

00:10:56.000 I like that.

00:10:56.940 Because you've done it so many times and you kind of are familiar with a little bit of the

00:10:59.980 dance, you know, yeah.

00:11:00.780 Once you get out there with the audience, you know, yeah, it's funny.

00:11:04.920 You can almost, it's almost like playing an instrument after a while, you know, it's like, okay,

00:11:08.640 these are the notes that I know, and this is the reaction and it's going to become sort

00:11:12.520 of this circle.

00:11:14.000 And it frees you up to try more things because like, you know, okay, this is the stuff that

00:11:19.440 I'll set the table with, you know, while I'm working on it.

00:11:22.980 And that, some of you can almost go on autopilot while your brain's still going ahead, able

00:11:28.440 to work in something, work in an audience reaction.

00:11:32.360 Yeah.

00:11:32.720 It's interesting.

00:11:33.320 Yeah.

00:11:33.460 It's like, you're almost like on, like in Tesla, whenever you can just be cruising, you

00:11:36.660 know, and sometimes you can just touch the wheel every now and then, you know, like you

00:11:40.680 can, yeah, it's like you're driving, but every now and then you, you can, it's almost

00:11:45.500 like you can go off course without even, but you're staying on course a little bit, you

00:11:49.280 know, at the same time, once you get the kind of the cruise control of the, of the, of

00:11:54.840 your set, you know, is it hard to be creative?

00:11:57.320 Like, cause I'm thinking like sometimes on stage I find easier opportunities to be creative.

00:12:02.480 I don't know if it's because of the fear, how my day is going, how I'm feeling, my comfort

00:12:07.360 level, fear even, is it harder to be creative from a place of fear?

00:12:15.660 It's a good question.

00:12:17.380 So if you look at, okay, what type of emotion does your creativity come from?

00:12:21.860 A lot depends on the type of creativity.

00:12:24.700 So let's say that you're feeling good.

00:12:28.760 You're more likely to get the initial boost.

00:12:31.560 So the first minute or two, you're going to come up with more ideas.

00:12:37.360 But you're going to be okay with it a little earlier.

00:12:40.940 So it, whether it's on stage in the moment or whether you're still kind of brainstorming,

00:12:45.120 if you're feeling happy or you're, or just excited or just you're in a good mood, it'll

00:12:49.880 be good at first, but then it'd be like, okay, that was good.

00:12:54.940 If you're upset, whether it's sadness, could be anger, fear, it'll take you longer to kick

00:13:02.000 in, but you won't get satisfied as easily and you're going to keep plugging away.

00:13:07.560 And so much is going to depend on what your goal is.

00:13:12.900 Like if you're aiming to get a routine that is just as good as it can get and you're still

00:13:21.720 exploring it and it's worth, okay, I'm going to take eight minutes doing this a bit and

00:13:27.020 some of it's going to be a little bit slow and maybe there'll be a moment when I'm worried

00:13:30.840 about losing the audience, but I'm going to get something that I can really work with and it'll

00:13:35.800 be better and connect better.

00:13:39.280 Then fear or anger or just kind of just being bummed.

00:13:45.060 That's okay.

00:13:45.700 If you're okay, I got a five minute set, I just got to go out, boom, done, happier is

00:13:52.060 probably better.

00:13:53.760 Right.

00:13:54.300 I see.

00:13:54.620 So if it's long-term, a fear and anger can almost drive you harder to get, to stay resilient,

00:14:00.420 to find a place, to find more opportunity for creativity.

00:14:05.240 Although longer term, it's a question mark in that one of the things that creativity is

00:14:11.300 so good at is it helps us cope with these type of negative emotions.

00:14:17.720 Yeah.

00:14:18.160 I noticed that sometimes I'll be in a bad mood and my brain will think up something

00:14:20.880 that's kind of funny for me and then I will feel better.

00:14:24.740 You know, it's almost like, it's like a gift or something that my brain gave me like to help

00:14:28.540 out, you know, it really is.

00:14:30.480 And people like we had this image or stereotype of, Oh, creative people are crazy or, you know,

00:14:37.200 this image of the, the mad genius or whatever.

00:14:40.140 I mean, and whether or not that's true and then that's something that like scientists enjoy

00:14:44.980 arguing about, we can use our creativity to, if we are feeling depressed, anxious, creativity

00:14:54.540 can distract us, which can be amazing.

00:14:57.940 Creativity can help us kind of organize our thoughts.

00:15:00.940 There's this idea called cognitive load, which is kind of a weird term, but it's just how

00:15:07.860 much crap is upstairs in your head.

00:15:09.420 Oh God.

00:15:10.640 And you know, you always have those kind of like this monologue and this recurring thought

00:15:15.880 and all this stuff.

00:15:16.880 Yeah.

00:15:17.900 It's like having browsers open on a computer kind of.

00:15:20.220 Yeah.

00:15:22.240 If you got too much open, I mean, just like a computer, your brain is like, okay, I'm still

00:15:27.280 working on this.

00:15:27.880 I'm still working on this.

00:15:28.720 I'm still worried about this what creativity can do is that it can connect a lot of this

00:15:34.060 stuff into a narrative, into a story.

00:15:36.080 It's why people who journal or net or blog, they're actually better off physically and

00:15:42.660 mentally.

00:15:43.920 Hmm.

00:15:44.640 Cause they get a lot of it out.

00:15:46.040 Yeah.

00:15:47.180 It doesn't necessarily mean you want to be like exposing our heart and these are my worst

00:15:52.840 fears.

00:15:53.600 Cause like Shakespearean type of like that.

00:15:56.280 Yeah.

00:15:56.760 Because then you also run the risk of you're almost like ruminating and overthinking and

00:16:01.320 then you end up kind of getting sucked into this.

00:16:03.440 It's kind of like after a breakup, a really bad breakup.

00:16:06.440 You want to allow yourself time to just be able to just curse and get rid of it.

00:16:12.480 But if it's six months later and you're still, this was her cell phone number and all that.

00:16:16.420 Yeah.

00:16:16.820 Yeah.

00:16:17.060 Standing on her porch, petting a cat.

00:16:18.620 That's what I did once.

00:16:19.980 Six months later.

00:16:21.140 Shoot.

00:16:21.640 I don't even know how long later.

00:16:23.680 I don't even want to think about it.

00:16:25.560 I shouldn't have brought it up.

00:16:26.840 But yeah, it's, uh, yeah, at that point you're not, yeah, you're just ruminating on it.

00:16:33.300 It's going to be hard for anything new to, is it hard for new, like, is there a best

00:16:39.360 time for, to create like for new things to come out of us?

00:16:43.520 You know, is there a best time?

00:16:44.480 I mean, say if we're using the definition of that creativity is something like a new,

00:16:49.040 a new thought idea, like our, our most whimsical sort of way of, well, I don't know.

00:16:56.980 What's the best definition?

00:16:58.000 Do you think?

00:16:58.400 I mean, there's a lot of definitions.

00:16:59.620 It seems like the two things that we agree on pretty well.

00:17:03.820 One is exactly that.

00:17:05.100 It has to be something new.

00:17:07.100 The other one is it has to be task appropriate.

00:17:10.360 That doesn't mean socially appropriate that, that, you know, that does not mean

00:17:13.960 inoffensive or anything, but it's that if you want to make a creative meal, then great.

00:17:21.740 You can switch out ingredients, whatever, but it has to be something that you could eat.

00:17:26.680 If you decide I'm going to make lasagna, but what would happen if I used shattered glass

00:17:31.540 instead of cheese?

00:17:33.280 That's new.

00:17:34.260 That's really new.

00:17:36.560 Not creative.

00:17:37.520 Yeah.

00:17:37.640 It's not fair to somebody.

00:17:38.880 Yeah.

00:17:39.360 And like you wouldn't even say, oh, that's a lasagna.

00:17:41.740 You know, that's just, yeah, that's glass, Bucca.

00:17:44.820 Yeah.

00:17:45.420 Yeah.

00:17:45.680 Nice try.

00:17:46.360 I mean, if it were art that we're doing, but if we have to eat, then you can't, that's

00:17:50.760 not very creative.

00:17:53.020 What you need about comedy is that what's the task?

00:17:56.940 I mean, it's make somebody laugh.

00:17:58.780 Right.

00:17:59.500 Make somebody laugh.

00:18:00.280 Make somebody think.

00:18:01.120 Make somebody feel.

00:18:01.800 I think it's expanding a little more these days into also like make somebody feel almost

00:18:07.240 sometimes.

00:18:07.880 I think some of our comedians have become also, I feel like you'll get more people, like

00:18:13.120 you'll, you'll also get applause breaks for people being able to, to make people, make

00:18:18.860 people feel.

00:18:20.280 I think it's always been think and laugh, but I, some, I think there's a little bit of

00:18:24.580 feeling in there these days as well.

00:18:26.340 So, yeah, I find when I look back on my own life, because the only perception I have fully

00:18:33.100 is my own.

00:18:33.800 And so when I look back, I, I find I use creativity a lot of times as like a defense mechanism,

00:18:42.820 but like as a way, like we didn't have a lot growing up.

00:18:46.140 So I was like, oh, well, I need to always be able to think or do something or say something

00:18:51.040 that someone else isn't going to do.

00:18:53.900 It was like, almost like a currency in a way.

00:18:58.380 It was like, if I can have creativity, that can be a currency because like the, does that

00:19:05.640 make any sense?

00:19:06.380 Oh, completely.

00:19:07.520 If you look at so much of this stuff that we value as an education system, as we're hiring

00:19:14.220 people, you know, we look at test scores and grades and all this stuff.

00:19:19.100 Socioeconomic status plays a role in that.

00:19:21.400 Because if you don't have access to books or a computer, I mean, it's harder.

00:19:26.920 It's not true of creativity.

00:19:29.800 Anybody can be creative.

00:19:31.100 It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor.

00:19:33.460 Does it help if you're poor though?

00:19:34.960 I feel like if you have everything, then you don't need to make anything up.

00:19:40.620 It's one of those questions if you're asking me as like the scientist, then I'd have to

00:19:45.660 go, well, we haven't studied that enough.

00:19:47.260 If you're asking me as a human being, yeah, I think it helps.

00:19:50.020 I think that so much of creativity comes out of necessity.

00:19:52.880 I mean, if you always are cooked dinner and you never have to cook, you're not going to

00:19:58.320 figure out creative ways to cook or creative ways to, okay, I got to make $8 last for the

00:20:03.980 next two days for dinner.

00:20:05.220 Or to use ingredients too.

00:20:07.260 I remember making my mom's stuff sometimes.

00:20:09.060 We didn't have something.

00:20:09.900 I would use something else.

00:20:11.520 We don't have flour.

00:20:12.700 I'll use this.

00:20:13.400 I'll use Epsom salts.

00:20:15.320 It's like change it up.

00:20:16.540 Just as a kid, you're thinking, oh, whatever looks the same.

00:20:19.700 So then, yeah, you might get a butt whooping.

00:20:21.840 You might get beaten down.

00:20:23.560 But at least you start to create this world in your head where you're like, oh, this could

00:20:28.560 be this.

00:20:29.500 A butterfly could be like a color hawk or something.

00:20:32.880 Here's some guy right here who's got an issue.

00:20:34.640 Yeah.

00:20:37.300 What's up, Dr. James?

00:20:38.520 It's your cousin Nate from New Orleans out here bouncing bums and smoking cigarettes in

00:20:42.180 North Hollywood.

00:20:44.100 My question is for both of y'all.

00:20:46.460 Y'all think there's a correlation between creativity and comfort?

00:20:49.600 Like the more uncomfortable you are, the more creative you got to be to find that comfort?

00:20:53.720 I know Theo and Mark Norman talked about it a little last week on the podcast, and I'd

00:20:57.120 like to get y'all opinion on that.

00:20:58.960 Thanks, bro.

00:20:59.700 Hootah and gang gang.

00:21:01.800 Gang, Nate.

00:21:02.600 Dang.

00:21:03.300 I like that guy.

00:21:04.060 I hope he's okay.

00:21:06.700 Yeah, that's it.

00:21:07.420 Yeah.

00:21:07.660 So yeah, is there a correlation between creativity and comfort?

00:21:12.300 Certainly, if we look at, okay, how people think creatively, there's a couple of different

00:21:17.280 aspects of it.

00:21:18.480 One of the real big ones is idea generation, getting your ideas.

00:21:23.360 I think if you're too comfortable, you're not going to be getting a lot of ideas.

00:21:30.760 It's the same way that, like if you look at, okay, well, what, how can you be more creative?

00:21:36.700 If you are paralyzed by anxiety, that's not good.

00:21:39.680 But if a little bit of anxiety, a little bit of anxiety, a little bit of that just slight

00:21:44.900 discomfort, I mean, it makes you think of more ideas, it makes you think of more solutions.

00:21:50.240 You can't find something to solve if you have, if everything in your life is perfect, you know?

00:21:55.200 Yeah.

00:21:55.880 And I think that there are other parts.

00:22:00.160 So like if you're trying to, if you're doing revision, if you're testing out material, not

00:22:05.020 in front of a live audience, but like for a friendly audience, then there are times when,

00:22:08.580 okay, I want, you know, you may want to just be comfortable and I want to sound the best.

00:22:11.700 Or if you're filming something, but for the raw generation, for the brainstorm, you kind

00:22:17.340 of want that little bit of grittiness, that, that discomfort, that, yeah, it almost seems

00:22:23.340 like the, like creativity would come from a place like that.

00:22:26.280 Like if I had to, you know, if I was in a cave or something like create, like creativity

00:22:33.020 would be kept in like kind of a magic place.

00:22:35.020 It seems like, I mean, we need a reason to do stuff and it's a perfectly good reason to

00:22:41.140 entertain, but it's also to solve a problem, to figure it out, to, you want something you

00:22:48.900 can't get.

00:22:50.620 It's just going back to the, to the stuff we were talking about.

00:22:53.900 Well, if, you know, if you're growing up poor and without resources, you got to be creative.

00:22:58.420 Yeah.

00:22:58.520 You got to be creative.

00:22:59.720 I was thinking yesterday, like I was thinking, I was talking to a friend and thinking about

00:23:02.940 like living in a city at like, it limits, like even like the tall buildings and everything

00:23:07.420 and, um, and, you know, and being in more of traffic and it limits like even just what

00:23:14.320 my view is constantly.

00:23:16.020 Like I can't even see that far and I can't even, you know, I like the things I do see,

00:23:22.180 it's a lot more cars and buildings than growing up in a more of a rural area where you could

00:23:26.960 see like an open field where it's like, oh, I could put something in that field.

00:23:29.520 Like your brain has time to like, you know, there just seems like there's more of a canvas

00:23:34.180 for your play, for your brain to play with growing up in areas where there's more space

00:23:39.060 sometimes, physical space.

00:23:41.860 Um, but then I guess that's not necessarily true because you could be a great artist that

00:23:45.860 comes out of New York city.

00:23:48.020 And it's one of those, there's always good things and bad things.

00:23:52.560 Like in LA, you're surrounded by a network of people.

00:23:56.780 Like if you want to make it an entertainment, you're going to be in LA, maybe New York is a

00:24:01.980 couple of places and you, all these resources, all the idea of we co-create so often and

00:24:09.920 you need to, yes, we have technology and you can Skype and zoom, but just being in the room

00:24:14.300 and talking.

00:24:15.480 And if you're in Montana, it's harder to be in the room.

00:24:20.400 Yet you're also right in that nature can inspire beauty inspires us.

00:24:26.640 And just having more of a canvas, having more of something to fill up.

00:24:34.880 And if you can get that type of network, even not at a professional level, but if you are

00:24:45.280 wherever you are and you have the people you can, whether it's right with or try business

00:24:50.400 with or joke around with, as long as you have that connection with people, it should be

00:24:57.080 okay.

00:24:59.040 Do you feel as like we move away, I was thinking like, do you feel like as we move away from

00:25:03.360 even like for children, like we move away from like writing with our hands and into, you

00:25:10.220 know, pressing buttons on the computer to write, do you feel like that, like we might be going

00:25:15.240 through like a real, I wonder what the effect that has on our creative psyche or the creative

00:25:20.260 like template that we've grown up with, you know, like to write or to use our hands to

00:25:25.140 create more, use more clay.

00:25:27.260 Whereas now we use more, you might be able to do something 3D design or digital design.

00:25:34.040 I definitely think we're losing something.

00:25:36.040 I think we're gaining stuff because I think technology can do amazing stuff.

00:25:40.740 But I also think there's something about being creative with your hands, you know, whether

00:25:47.280 it's Legos, you know, or clay or just making a styrofoam cup, for God's sakes, just anything

00:25:55.360 that you can do stuff with, you know, paper clips, that has less than intuitive appeal.

00:26:02.380 I mean, now there's an app that you can undoubtedly link paper clips together and it doesn't make

00:26:07.540 it bad, it's just different.

00:26:11.420 Yeah, it's just different.

00:26:13.100 And I wonder what that effect is on us.

00:26:14.880 Like, is it affect the fact that if I'm not using my, like my motor skills attached, does

00:26:19.920 it start to weaken like a part of me where one day my, you know, my create, whatever the

00:26:25.700 core of my creativity is inside of me, it'll just be like an appendix or something in your

00:26:29.380 body that you don't need, you know, it just makes me wonder sometimes.

00:26:32.020 I can see certain parts of it.

00:26:36.140 It's the same, like with Google, there's, and other search engines, there's certain parts

00:26:41.120 of our critical thinking and certain parts of our long-term memory that are kind of getting

00:26:44.540 worse.

00:26:45.760 Is that bad?

00:26:47.460 It's not good.

00:26:50.680 We need to improve, for example, how to learn how to figure out what sources are good.

00:26:57.320 Right.

00:26:57.740 So if we're, you know, trying to figure out, you know, who is the 17th president of the

00:27:03.180 United States and we type it in, okay, boom, we don't have to remember that anymore.

00:27:06.980 Right.

00:27:07.540 But we also got to figure out, okay, well, is this a good source for that?

00:27:10.380 If it's just who's president, but let's say it's, you know, even what's a good Mexican

00:27:14.400 restaurant around here?

00:27:15.300 Right.

00:27:16.000 Well, was this something that was-

00:27:17.820 The very.

00:27:18.280 And was this being placed by the company that owns it?

00:27:20.600 And we have to build up different skills.

00:27:23.640 Sometimes we are, sometimes we're not.

00:27:25.480 I mean, with social media, all this technology stuff, all of a sudden we can reach people

00:27:34.200 in a way we were never able to do.

00:27:36.920 I mean, if you were a standup comedian in the forties and fifties, then yeah, you know,

00:27:43.080 you'd be going from club to club.

00:27:44.500 But if you weren't working with one of the five or six big clubs, which meant networking

00:27:54.680 connection.

00:27:55.720 Right.

00:27:55.920 If you didn't impress the one or two or three studio executives who would put you in a film

00:28:02.660 or they didn't have that many records, but have you cut a record, you were probably on

00:28:08.640 the outside looking in.

00:28:11.480 Nowadays, you can work and you can connect with people and you can communicate directly

00:28:18.040 to an audience.

00:28:18.640 And I think that can be great.

00:28:21.040 I think it can also be a little scary.

00:28:23.460 Yeah.

00:28:23.580 So the ability to connect creatively, the ability to share creativity and get it out

00:28:27.480 there is really at a, it's at a unprecedented space.

00:28:30.880 It's like kind of an unprecedented level.

00:28:32.720 Like even SoundCloud, for example, like, like SoundCloud is now a place where, you know,

00:28:37.560 where, you know, rappers and not even good rappers can interact with each other constantly.

00:28:43.180 But it's, it's like a place where everybody can be a musician.

00:28:46.020 But does that mean that, I wonder, are we really creating better musicians or do we just have

00:28:51.880 that everybody is a musician now?

00:28:54.920 You know, even if it's bad, like, is it just, you know, like sometimes we, you create a stable

00:29:00.300 and just because everybody can now have a horse doesn't mean that any of these horses, you

00:29:04.820 know, it just means everybody has a horse.

00:29:06.480 You still might only have a race.

00:29:07.800 Yeah.

00:29:08.380 Everybody's not ready to race really.

00:29:09.780 To me, the big danger is, is getting on stage too early because then you're going to get

00:29:15.520 feedback and sometimes that's great, but it's a question of, can you handle having a thousand

00:29:22.740 people say you suck?

00:29:23.900 Right.

00:29:24.760 Because some people are going to go, okay, I'm not a good rapper.

00:29:27.520 I'm not, I'm not, I'm not funny and just give up.

00:29:29.740 Other people are going to go, screw you.

00:29:31.740 I'm going to make you laugh and make you like this song.

00:29:34.860 Um, if you're an adult, that's one thing, but if you're 12, how many 12 year olds had

00:29:40.560 the resiliency to, you know, you suck, you suck or any of that stuff.

00:29:46.880 Yeah.

00:29:47.260 It's pretty wild because it used to be like, if you, you shared a talent, it was a couple

00:29:52.120 people at your school, you know, who saw it and you saw their faces and the teacher

00:29:56.920 made them apologize to you if they said made fun of you.

00:29:59.720 And it was pretty much, it was a world that you could still kind of manage a little bit.

00:30:04.280 You could say to your mom, you know, Oh, Tommy didn't like what I did, you know, and his

00:30:08.500 mom, you know, and his mom could call your mom or whatever.

00:30:11.300 But now you walk out and you put it out there and you know, you know, Larry, you know, Larry

00:30:18.680 Applebaum 7,000 hit you up and he's like, you're going to hell or something.

00:30:22.840 You didn't even, and your music wasn't even about hell.

00:30:25.220 And you're like, jeepers, man.

00:30:27.360 And it's always there.

00:30:28.960 And it's always there.

00:30:29.720 Yeah.

00:30:29.860 I mean, you release a song or a routine when you're 14 and then you're 25 trying to do

00:30:36.440 it and it's still there.

00:30:37.860 Yeah.

00:30:38.220 Some guys like, Oh, Hey, remember I wrote 10 years ago.

00:30:40.700 I just wanted to remind you again that you suck.

00:30:42.540 And you're like, dang, bro.

00:30:44.220 I mean, I, I was publishing these little tiny zines, you know, like hand cranked out in people's

00:30:51.360 garages somewhere like comedy or stories or horror fiction back when I was in my teens.

00:30:56.180 Thank God those are all long gone.

00:31:00.140 I mean, they're like lining bird cages and they're, I mean, hopefully just in a compost

00:31:05.900 heap somewhere.

00:31:06.620 If, if I was having somebody who, Hey, look, you wrote this when you were 15.

00:31:11.480 Oh God, I would probably never write again.

00:31:16.380 It's true, huh?

00:31:17.260 It's interesting in the memory, the memory of the internet, what's available with like the

00:31:22.140 vault that's there.

00:31:24.100 Yeah.

00:31:24.500 I wonder sometimes like, um, I do notice that it's, it is tougher to be creative.

00:31:29.460 I feel like the more comfortable that, that you get, I feel like your brain just, not your

00:31:35.920 brain, but I don't know.

00:31:38.320 It's just, there's something more romantic or more like inspirational about having to

00:31:44.280 achieve something.

00:31:46.020 Um, even just in the past year of my own life and having some more success.

00:31:48.960 It's been for, for one, I've been tired, but for two, I've been, sometimes I'm like, man,

00:31:53.460 am I, it really challenges, makes me wonder how to, how am I still going to manage my creativity

00:31:58.280 and still make sure that I stay creative?

00:32:00.460 Cause that's the thing that I love the most about anything was like making a joke or making

00:32:06.120 like a joke was always, if it was, if it was in the moment, you know, it was like, oh,

00:32:10.740 that's something that's unprecedented.

00:32:12.600 You know, it's just here and it's there and it's done and it's gone and we can never go

00:32:17.480 back to that exact moment.

00:32:20.440 Um, which is the one thing that I loved about, that I love about comedy the most is just that

00:32:25.780 it's just that split second, that, that spark of when a joke happens, uh, and you just can't

00:32:33.720 replicate it.

00:32:34.500 Let me ask you a question.

00:32:41.100 Why do you love comedy?

00:32:42.720 What makes you love comedy?

00:32:43.960 What, what makes you want to do another routine movie special?

00:32:50.680 Uh, Oh, excuse me.

00:32:59.980 Sorry.

00:33:00.760 Sorry to interrupt the episode.

00:33:02.120 But I just have had a couple of chips.

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00:34:44.860 And now back to the episode.

00:34:50.900 I think.

00:34:53.160 Surprise the element of surprise.

00:34:54.800 I think the fact that people don't know what's going to happen.

00:34:59.400 And that, you know, so I think there's probably some control maybe in there something and just

00:35:07.080 getting to make people feel good just knowing that people are going to like they don't know

00:35:12.160 but you're real they're really going to have fun.

00:35:15.800 Let's say that you have.

00:35:18.420 Two gigs.

00:35:20.520 Your next Netflix special and they're paying you three times as much.

00:35:25.140 And small comedy club that, you know.

00:35:29.200 You're getting barely enough to cover your gas money.

00:35:31.900 Do you prepare differently for them?

00:35:34.200 Yeah.

00:35:34.400 How, if I may, how?

00:35:36.720 Yeah, prepare differently.

00:35:37.720 Like, I mean, for the Netflix special, I'll probably really rehearse and go through things,

00:35:42.100 see what I'm going to wear, you know, have a little bit more of a production, you know,

00:35:50.340 mindset.

00:35:51.400 Whereas the other one, I'll just make sure that I get there a few minutes before I have to

00:35:55.900 go on stage.

00:35:56.480 Are you more likely to experiment with either one in what you say, what you try out?

00:36:03.860 Yeah, probably more likely to experiment at the smaller venue club.

00:36:07.200 So, I mean, the way that both from the research but also kind of just as a human being, as

00:36:16.540 long as you keep varying, you're going to keep that passion.

00:36:23.880 You're going to keep the creative need because you're going to still have that discomfort.

00:36:29.980 You're going to still have that feeling of, okay, because, like, I mean, I know you just,

00:36:35.460 I don't know, you know, I know you just got signed, not just, to the new Chris Pratt movie

00:36:39.640 and all this stuff.

00:36:40.300 And, like, that's a certain both level exposure but less freedom.

00:36:46.040 As long as you make sure, and I know you're going to, that you still have these places

00:36:50.120 where you have that freedom.

00:36:51.240 You do, and you do both, obviously.

00:36:55.920 Just keep it even.

00:36:57.340 And as long as you don't give this up, you're not going to lose it.

00:37:01.400 It's when people don't do this.

00:37:05.140 And it's hard when this thing is paying so much money and this is the thing that everybody's

00:37:11.140 watching and seeing and maybe, you know, 50 people are seeing this, 500,000 are seeing

00:37:16.060 this.

00:37:16.300 It's tempting.

00:37:16.880 Okay, I want to do 95% of this.

00:37:18.540 Yeah.

00:37:18.760 As long as you don't give this up.

00:37:22.240 And that's the stuff that got you in the first place.

00:37:24.120 That's where you're still going to be.

00:37:25.460 Okay, I want to try something new.

00:37:27.560 I want to surprise these people.

00:37:30.060 Right.

00:37:30.700 In a way that, I mean, you know.

00:37:34.400 Yeah, no, I love that.

00:37:35.620 So it's, yeah, because it's almost, yeah, I love that.

00:37:39.180 I think that's perfect.

00:37:40.240 It's, like, so funny.

00:37:41.020 It's because it's just some of the exact same stuff I need to hear right now.

00:37:43.460 And here's another white guy with a question here.

00:37:46.940 Or young lady.

00:37:47.920 Hey, what's up, Nick?

00:37:49.220 This is Nick from Long Beach, California.

00:37:52.060 I've got a question for the professor coming in today.

00:37:54.800 So I'm a musician, and I have been for most of my life.

00:37:59.460 Music has always flowed out of me really easily.

00:38:02.660 I would stay up late until, you know, 2, 3, 4 in the morning just writing and composing.

00:38:08.280 But when I hit about 28 and I'm 30 now, that kind of stopped.

00:38:14.700 Real life started to get in the way, and that creative flow drained out of me.

00:38:20.820 And I don't know where to find it again.

00:38:24.220 I'm sure there's some kind of chemical reason or cause for that.

00:38:28.160 But I just wanted to know if that's common and what I can do to fix or combat that.

00:38:34.440 Gang, gang.

00:38:34.960 Gang, bro.

00:38:36.060 That's a great question, huh?

00:38:37.180 That's a great question.

00:38:37.680 That's a vulnerable question, too.

00:38:38.780 Thanks, Nick.

00:38:39.980 And, I mean, it's something I can identify with.

00:38:43.060 I mean, I always wanted to be a writer.

00:38:45.940 And I wrote plays.

00:38:47.200 And I kept doing that through grad school when you're not really supposed to.

00:38:50.420 Like a playwright?

00:38:51.560 Yeah.

00:38:52.320 I've been lucky.

00:38:53.300 I mean, I had a lot of my short plays produce places.

00:38:56.900 I mean, nothing anybody would have heard of.

00:38:58.360 Right.

00:38:59.280 But a playwright, yeah.

00:39:00.440 It's like, how do you even, unless you're going to ancient Rome or like, you know, Stratford

00:39:04.440 on Avon, where are you even going to get a gig?

00:39:06.500 And so I did, you know, my day job, which thankfully I ended up loving.

00:39:12.520 But once I got the full-time job, I got married, you know, I got kids, I stopped writing plays

00:39:19.240 for about 14, 15 years.

00:39:22.480 I've only recently tried to get back into it.

00:39:25.620 I mean, a lot of it is at a certain point, your real life starts creeping in on you.

00:39:32.060 You have to make a living.

00:39:33.600 You have to fulfill certain obligations.

00:39:36.680 You have people who depend on you all of a sudden.

00:39:39.080 I mean, if it's just you and you're single, you have no kids, there's a certain freedom.

00:39:47.040 I have two boys.

00:39:48.260 I adore them, you know.

00:39:49.460 But if I were to suddenly quit my job, that's not just me.

00:39:55.640 Right.

00:39:56.260 Not just affecting you.

00:39:57.760 Yeah, life comes in.

00:39:58.660 And it's why I think so many times I attach creativity to the young, too, like when you

00:40:03.520 have that nest around you, too, when you have just, you're not thinking, how is there

00:40:07.540 going to be food tonight?

00:40:08.420 You're not thinking, where is the milk?

00:40:09.840 Who's putting gas?

00:40:10.800 None of those things are part of your wheelhouse.

00:40:14.040 And then as you get out into the world more, you're like, okay, I have to survive.

00:40:18.700 I have to take care of myself, you know.

00:40:20.660 I may have to take care of others.

00:40:22.680 Dude, even just saying those three things right there.

00:40:24.720 Doesn't that?

00:40:25.240 There's no, yeah.

00:40:26.160 There's no room for creating.

00:40:26.980 There's not a lot of room for, I mean,

00:40:28.660 you might be able to cut your son's ego when it's a star, but outside of that, you're

00:40:32.780 not doing a lot of arts and crafts.

00:40:34.760 And yet, here's the kicker.

00:40:36.960 Like, he knows more about music right now than he ever has in his life.

00:40:42.740 It takes knowledge and experience to really get to the next level.

00:40:48.280 And, I mean, we have this society, this school system that doesn't really value creativity.

00:40:52.900 It values the test scores, the grades, do this, do that.

00:40:55.900 But, I mean, I'm seeing this right now with my youngest, who is this bright, creative,

00:41:02.900 a little, I mean, a little bit of a pain in the ass, a little bit of an imp.

00:41:08.480 I could have guessed.

00:41:09.020 I don't even know.

00:41:09.480 I mean, and sometimes the school isn't really thrilled, and, you know, we get these emails

00:41:17.480 or phone calls, and it's just, oh, God.

00:41:20.740 And, I mean, heck, my impulse is to start going, okay, let's just tone it down, Asher.

00:41:25.500 You know, let's just, they say this, just do it.

00:41:27.660 Like, by the time that you're out of school, by the time that, you know, you're in college

00:41:32.720 or at a job, you know, it's not rewarded.

00:41:37.160 It's not reinforced.

00:41:39.280 People say they want creativity.

00:41:43.120 Most don't.

00:41:44.920 They want little creativity.

00:41:47.420 They want, oh, figure out a quicker or cheaper way of doing this.

00:41:51.500 Right.

00:41:51.860 They don't want an idea that'll be, well, we actually, now maybe we should really rethink

00:41:56.420 how we're approaching all this stuff.

00:42:00.280 None of your teachers want to hear why they're wrong.

00:42:03.800 I mean, I love it.

00:42:04.980 But a lot don't, though.

00:42:06.860 No.

00:42:07.340 Which would honestly welcome a lot of creativity because then you're creating a lot of conversation,

00:42:11.200 you know.

00:42:11.520 So, yeah, definitely the more that we are set in our ways about things and the more

00:42:16.340 that we leave things set around us and set things harshly around us, which happens a lot

00:42:22.580 these days, especially in a lot of businesses because there's so many lawsuits, there's so

00:42:26.600 many, like, you can't veer off a beaten path.

00:42:30.440 You can't even be creative.

00:42:32.700 You can barely even speak, you know, without fear.

00:42:36.780 So, for there to be room for creativity, sheesh, that's the first thing out of the door a lot

00:42:41.020 of times.

00:42:41.520 The biggest advice, give yourself an hour a week, you know, where, okay, yes, you have

00:42:51.040 all this crap you have to do and you're tired and you're spending all this time on just surviving.

00:42:58.900 Give yourself an hour a week.

00:43:00.720 Turn everything off.

00:43:03.120 And it's okay if you don't produce anything.

00:43:05.480 It's okay.

00:43:06.400 Like, again, my thing is writing, but when I have writer's block, which is a lot, it's

00:43:13.760 okay to just read something you wrote before and try to remember that mindset.

00:43:19.320 It's okay to just...

00:43:19.940 It helps a lot.

00:43:20.760 Oh, God, yes.

00:43:21.740 Because you're reaching back to where you were being creative.

00:43:25.700 Or just type words.

00:43:27.460 Just, I mean, when I'm trying to write, like, more of my non-fictiony stuff, I'll write the

00:43:31.220 title and my name, and then I'll do a page break, and I'll put a placeholder for where, like,

00:43:37.240 the introduction goes, and all of a sudden, I'm on page five.

00:43:39.980 Yeah.

00:43:40.200 And hey, I mean, I haven't written anything, but there's a feeling of, okay, I can do this.

00:43:43.920 I'm doing something, yeah.

00:43:45.000 I'm in this.

00:43:45.540 The table's set.

00:43:46.580 Dude, I remember, remember when you were young, you would just write your name all the time?

00:43:50.220 I mean, for, like, probably the whole time I was in school, I was just writing my name

00:43:53.760 and drawing it differently and adding something, you know, or writing something, drawing a picture

00:43:58.520 of a hat or something.

00:44:00.140 You know, like, you always had a pen.

00:44:02.300 You always had an immediate element with a pen and paper, and you had to have it out in

00:44:07.100 class to look like you were doing something.

00:44:08.660 So you were always, there was just a half, such a half second between yourself and actually

00:44:14.340 creating something.

00:44:16.260 And whether it's drawing, whether it's writing, whether it's whatever, whereas on a laptop,

00:44:22.320 which, I mean, most of my students have their laptops out or their phones, I mean, you're

00:44:28.240 much more inclined to be opening up Instagram, Twitter, and there's nothing wrong with that,

00:44:31.860 but you're more likely to be consuming, and if you have, like, 30% of your brain that

00:44:35.780 you're focusing with, you're probably not going to be doing something new, and you'll

00:44:39.980 be aware that, okay, well, if I'm moving my thumbs or looking down at my crotch, the professor

00:44:43.820 is probably going to figure out what's going on.

00:44:45.320 Yeah.

00:44:46.080 Whereas if you're just writing and taking notes, but then you start writing something

00:44:50.980 else or drawing, I mean, there's a certain immediacy.

00:44:56.300 There's a certain, you're creating, I mean, you're physically creating something that feels

00:45:03.660 more tangible, I guess, maybe since it's right there as opposed to like a laptop or something.

00:45:08.520 And it's, it's, it's done.

00:45:10.120 It's there.

00:45:10.860 I mean, when I'm in my idea phase, I still want a pad of paper and a pen, you know, it,

00:45:17.880 because if I want to all of a sudden start drawing things in relationship to each other,

00:45:21.280 I can.

00:45:21.920 Yeah.

00:45:22.120 And I know you can do that on like Microsoft, whatever, it screws up every time I try to

00:45:27.800 do it.

00:45:28.120 And then I start going into, okay, problem solving.

00:45:29.980 How do I fix this?

00:45:30.760 Right.

00:45:30.920 Next thing you know, your whole hour is gone.

00:45:32.300 You spend it listed.

00:45:33.400 Yeah.

00:45:34.000 And the idea is gone and right.

00:45:35.540 And it's like, okay.

00:45:36.420 And then you're upset.

00:45:37.740 Yeah.

00:45:38.380 I mean, how, how many times does it take for you to lose all your, all your work when you,

00:45:42.420 it crashes before you're like, yeah, done.

00:45:46.340 Yeah.

00:45:46.660 So to go back to what that young man's question was, I mean, I think that was a good suggestion

00:45:50.580 to go back into what you've done before because you were creative then.

00:45:54.760 So I noticed like, I'll make a gratitude list about five days a week, right in the morning.

00:45:59.160 And cause I've struggled with trying to have gratitude, making sure that I have some gratitude.

00:46:03.580 I feel it, but I need to really practice it.

00:46:05.800 And I want to feel it more.

00:46:07.540 And so some, some days I'm like, man, I don't want to do this.

00:46:12.620 So what I'll do, I'll go back and just read things.

00:46:15.240 Oh, I'm so thankful for this friend of mine.

00:46:16.900 I'm thankful that, you know, I have legs.

00:46:18.880 I'm thankful that I could see, you know, different colors.

00:46:21.140 I'm thankful, you know, for sharks.

00:46:22.840 I'm thankful for this or that, you know, plants or whatever, you know, different, you know,

00:46:27.340 different ways that people, you know, people could walk backwards.

00:46:29.820 I'm thankful for anything.

00:46:30.740 You know, I'll just, and then next thing you know, my brain, it's like, I don't know.

00:46:34.980 I'm just in a place now where I'm like, man, I'm, I am thankful for stuff.

00:46:38.860 I am grateful for things.

00:46:39.900 Look at all these things I wrote, man.

00:46:41.480 It could be a hundred pages of stuff.

00:46:43.100 And, and then my list is easier.

00:46:45.100 And then I even feel what I've already was talking about.

00:46:47.600 I wanted to feel gratitude.

00:46:49.240 I just, I, I, I, I am grateful instead of sitting there just pining, like, I don't know

00:46:55.700 if I'm grateful today or not, you know?

00:46:58.440 Yeah.

00:46:58.840 Just going back to our work, which was a starting point before that we conquered.

00:47:03.280 Absolutely.

00:47:03.640 And you're always a little better than you think because when you first do it, you probably

00:47:11.260 are not as good as you think, but then you work on it and you're remembering what you

00:47:15.540 used to do and you're probably being very critical.

00:47:17.180 But then you go back and, you know, maybe it was more raw, but you see who you, what

00:47:21.980 you were thinking and it's a little freeing.

00:47:27.700 Yeah.

00:47:28.200 I mean, listening to the music that he, that he, that he did.

00:47:30.600 Oh yeah.

00:47:31.280 Five years ago.

00:47:31.940 Just listening to it, you know?

00:47:33.620 I mean, listening to it in the car.

00:47:35.140 And I mean, part, I mean, like part of me is a very hard time reading my own stuff or,

00:47:40.440 I mean, seeing myself or watching myself.

00:47:42.960 Um, but reminding yourself of, if you're not who you are creatively where you want

00:47:51.380 to be, remind yourself of when you were.

00:47:53.220 Yeah.

00:47:53.960 And that person's in you.

00:47:55.120 That person is there.

00:47:56.340 Oh yeah.

00:47:56.980 And that person's still listening and paying attention and thinking and has new melodies.

00:48:01.740 And, and it doesn't mean these are going to be brilliant melodies.

00:48:06.240 You know what I mean?

00:48:07.240 There are all these books, you know, how to be a creative genius.

00:48:09.720 You know, I can't tell you that.

00:48:11.220 Yeah.

00:48:11.520 Because frankly, most people aren't, but who cares?

00:48:15.640 I mean.

00:48:17.480 Well, in some ways, everybody's creative in some ways, aren't they?

00:48:20.760 Oh, absolutely.

00:48:21.780 It's the word genius that I hate.

00:48:23.380 Oh yeah.

00:48:24.160 Because.

00:48:25.500 Yeah.

00:48:26.460 Everybody wants to be a genius.

00:48:27.720 Everybody wants to be the best.

00:48:29.960 With creativity.

00:48:31.440 I mean, yes, there are some people who, of course, who are creative geniuses, but I love

00:48:35.440 thinking, think about your audience and that audience.

00:48:38.480 It can be just you.

00:48:39.900 It can be your friends.

00:48:41.520 I mean, it can be the person you're doing something for.

00:48:44.160 I mean, if you're working on something, you know, that you want to give to your girlfriend

00:48:48.820 or your mom, you know what I mean?

00:48:50.540 Think of, hopefully not the same thing.

00:48:53.120 Yeah.

00:48:53.580 Sorry.

00:48:54.020 Some areas though.

00:48:55.300 We've got some select areas out there where some stuff's illegal, you know?

00:48:58.760 And you think about who is it for.

00:49:04.400 A, it kind of reinforces the motivation, but it also, okay, well, her favorite color is orange.

00:49:10.060 I'm going to work that.

00:49:10.780 And her, oh, she really likes chihuahuas.

00:49:13.080 And it kind of guides the work.

00:49:15.980 I mean, you can be your own audience after you do it.

00:49:19.440 I mean, I'm just thinking about, you were talking about where you have the ideas and you try them out and then you go back.

00:49:23.500 I mean, when you're reading or speaking the ideas from a while ago, you may not even remember when you wrote it down.

00:49:32.440 No, yeah.

00:49:34.460 And it's almost like you're collaborating with yourself in a weird way.

00:49:37.980 Yeah, it is.

00:49:39.160 It's funny.

00:49:39.760 Yeah, I hadn't thought about that exactly.

00:49:41.140 I just recently started doing it.

00:49:42.740 Like, I was having trouble.

00:49:43.880 So one day I went back and read and it made me feel so much better.

00:49:46.300 And I was like, oh, man, I'm writing down things that are great.

00:49:50.520 I can do this.

00:49:51.280 This isn't, and I have a lot in me.

00:49:53.220 I'm like, oh, look at all these different things.

00:49:54.860 And it made me, yeah, it just set the table so much differently inside of me.

00:49:59.480 Because I showed up with this pressure to create right now.

00:50:04.760 You know, so one of the things you were saying made me think about, like, we're constantly creating now.

00:50:10.500 You know, it's like we have to update.

00:50:11.780 We need an update on our Facebook.

00:50:13.020 We need an update on our Instagram.

00:50:14.420 We have to update.

00:50:15.400 We need new.

00:50:16.080 We need content, you know.

00:50:18.660 Where it used to be, you would have something and you'd be like, man, that was your thing for a while, you know.

00:50:24.060 We got a question that came in right here from a possibly young Vietnamese fellow.

00:50:27.660 Who is he?

00:50:29.480 It's your boy Zane from Denver.

00:50:33.440 I just wanted to know what you guys thought about creative overload.

00:50:37.680 Sometimes I feel like I want to create everything.

00:50:40.660 Like I'm trying to start a podcast.

00:50:42.420 I want to make music.

00:50:43.560 I want to animate my texts and do video editing.

00:50:47.540 And I want to do everything.

00:50:49.800 But sometimes I just feel like I got to pick and choose where my energy goes.

00:50:54.840 And I just want to know, do you guys ever feel creatively overloaded where you just want to do all these different projects but can't?

00:51:01.960 Or do you guys just pick the things that you feel most passionate about?

00:51:06.820 Let me know what you guys think.

00:51:08.100 Thanks.

00:51:08.760 It's Zane signing off.

00:51:10.860 Gang, gang.

00:51:11.600 Gang, gang.

00:51:12.560 That's a great question, Zane.

00:51:13.640 Zane, yeah.

00:51:14.240 It might be Russian.

00:51:16.460 You know, that is a great question.

00:51:17.640 Why don't you, the doctor, man?

00:51:18.760 Yeah, I thought it was kind of similar to what you just, like.

00:51:21.180 Yeah.

00:51:21.680 Just all those different.

00:51:22.960 We used to focus on one thing.

00:51:24.460 Now there's.

00:51:25.200 Yeah.

00:51:25.520 And it feels that way too, doesn't it?

00:51:27.100 And certainly, I mean, I feel creative overload.

00:51:30.860 I always have too many things that I want to do and too many other things I have to do.

00:51:40.240 And the thing about what Zane was talking about is that sometimes they were in different areas.

00:51:46.540 And it takes different things to be creative in different areas.

00:51:50.820 Oh, yeah.

00:51:51.720 It takes some space between the two sometimes.

00:51:53.660 If I'm doing banking and then I got to, you know, I'll close my Chase account and then I'm supposed to write a paragraph about something.

00:52:00.160 I need a few minutes, man.

00:52:02.660 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:52:03.280 It takes different knowledge.

00:52:04.560 It takes me.

00:52:06.240 You can't practice.

00:52:08.100 This is different practices, you know.

00:52:14.040 When I was younger, I was like, okay, I'm going to try to do everything.

00:52:17.280 Now I'm older, you know.

00:52:18.780 And one of the big, actually, one of the big things was about two years ago, I had a heart attack.

00:52:24.800 No way, man.

00:52:25.980 And I was a lot bigger.

00:52:28.220 Oh, wow, huh?

00:52:29.480 Lost weight.

00:52:30.400 I mean, still big, but, you know, not.

00:52:32.640 I don't think you look right size.

00:52:34.200 I mean, you could do a safari.

00:52:35.300 You could do a.

00:52:36.060 Thank you, sir.

00:52:36.680 On a dinosaur.

00:52:37.760 I would see you doing those things, James.

00:52:39.600 I'd probably be the first one eating, but thank you.

00:52:41.260 That's all right.

00:52:41.960 Look, man, delectable.

00:52:43.540 You'd be that delectable choice, you know.

00:52:45.600 And a little more tender, I think.

00:52:47.580 Wow, so did that adjust?

00:52:51.740 I mean, what did that do to you?

00:52:52.840 It changed it because I was, I decided that there had to be a particular reason for me

00:52:58.000 picking up any project I did.

00:53:00.500 I mean, one big reason was the passion, the love, that, you know, this is something I love

00:53:05.620 doing.

00:53:06.500 So, like, right now, one of the books I'm doing, I'm a big theater geek.

00:53:09.740 Um, and me and a composer who, um, zombie prom and a lot of really fun musicals, uh, Dana

00:53:18.380 Rowe, we're finishing up this book on creativity and musical theater for young performers and

00:53:22.580 just kind of conveying all this, how can you be creative?

00:53:25.920 And, and it's just fun.

00:53:27.640 We Skype every Wednesday and it's one of the most fun I've had on a project.

00:53:32.420 Wow.

00:53:33.460 I do things to help folks.

00:53:36.640 I mean, I love mentoring students.

00:53:38.240 And so I'll do, I have a graduate students, undergrads, and I'll do stuff that is closer

00:53:43.080 to their interests that will help them advance in the field.

00:53:46.880 Because that, to me, the, just being able to give back, even if it's a little bit, is,

00:53:52.240 is huge.

00:53:54.420 And, I mean, third thing is more practically, like, okay, some things pay money and money

00:54:01.060 is a decent thing to have.

00:54:02.740 Right.

00:54:03.200 But it's, it's not letting any of that, certainly not letting the money part overwhelm

00:54:07.560 things, but it's not like you're going to make that, I mean, you can't just follow your

00:54:13.220 heart because.

00:54:14.480 Right.

00:54:14.800 Because you also have to survive.

00:54:15.760 It does become a balance, you know, almost going back.

00:54:18.200 Yeah.

00:54:18.360 It's like, it does.

00:54:20.360 Yeah.

00:54:20.460 You have to balance it.

00:54:21.540 But like you're saying that balance is what's going to also keep you in a space to be creative,

00:54:26.060 to want to stay passionate.

00:54:29.280 Yeah.

00:54:29.800 That overload is such a big thing, man.

00:54:32.540 It's like, you got 19 things open going on.

00:54:35.860 And you just agreed to do something else because you want to do it.

00:54:39.080 It sounds great.

00:54:40.380 And just, you can really get burnt out.

00:54:44.140 How do you make choices?

00:54:46.940 I've gotten a little bit better about saying no about things.

00:54:49.360 I mean, really, a lot of times if I find if I'm overthinking something too much, then

00:54:53.060 it's not something that I wanted to do.

00:54:55.140 So unfortunately, I'm extremely indecisive.

00:54:57.700 It's something that I just, I really struggle with it.

00:55:00.160 So I don't make them very well.

00:55:03.780 It's hard to say no, though.

00:55:05.240 Yeah.

00:55:05.880 We're so, we tend to be people pleasers.

00:55:09.960 Yeah.

00:55:10.420 I mean, you're in comedy.

00:55:11.520 You want to make people laugh.

00:55:12.660 You know, and telling them, no, I can't do that.

00:55:15.840 Yeah, I want people to like me.

00:55:17.080 I want to like myself, you know.

00:55:18.660 So if I'm not trying to please them, I'm trying to please myself.

00:55:21.160 And between that pack of wolves, it's a, yeah, it's a constant yes.

00:55:27.320 And there's so many options of things to do now.

00:55:29.800 So that's another thing.

00:55:31.080 It's like, say you make a to-do list of the things you have, like you said, things I have

00:55:35.300 to do.

00:55:35.920 And then when I'm done with those things that I would like to do.

00:55:39.040 So you get your have to's out of the way, your requirements.

00:55:41.740 Then you're left with a list of things I'd like to do.

00:55:44.680 But then today, there's 7,000 things trying to influence you.

00:55:49.580 And there's so much other available content.

00:55:52.560 It used to be you had to ride your bike to your buddy's house to even look at his diorama

00:55:55.960 for 20 minutes, you know.

00:55:57.700 And then his mom knew y'all was hiding pornography somewhere and beat everybody's butt.

00:56:01.960 But now it's like you can, you know, you can, you can do anything.

00:56:07.320 You can order a sheep's costume.

00:56:08.760 You can be playing Legend of Zelda with people from China.

00:56:11.200 You can do anything you want.

00:56:13.260 And it's right there.

00:56:14.440 So, and those things are very addictive.

00:56:16.580 So for those things to be sitting on top of the things you would like to do every time,

00:56:22.540 your passion projects and stuff, man, it's a real battle.

00:56:27.120 Because, I mean, you can't be creating 24-7.

00:56:30.840 It's exhausting.

00:56:32.320 Yeah, it's exhausting.

00:56:32.720 You know, and so you had the, I mean, first it's this, okay, well, I do want to blow off

00:56:39.380 steam and relax, you know.

00:56:40.920 And then what are the things that are exciting enough to me that it's almost that same category

00:56:49.460 that working on this, creating this thing is the same level of fun as the really, you

00:56:56.220 know, fun thing that, you know, whatever it is you enjoy doing that may not be, that

00:57:00.860 probably isn't creating, I mean, if you can find something that you're working on that

00:57:07.020 you get that same level of passion that's, even though this is brain work or it's emotion

00:57:11.840 work or it's requires thought and effort, I still want to do this even more than just,

00:57:17.340 you know, doing the thing that allows me to zone out.

00:57:20.420 I mean, that's a pretty nice sign that you're onto something.

00:57:23.780 Yeah, that you're onto something you really care about.

00:57:25.260 Yeah, so it's hard, it'd be hard to say no to things, but it does get easier to do it.

00:57:30.100 And then what I start to realize is people appreciate it when I can communicate a lot

00:57:33.520 clearer, you know, even though part of me is like, oh, I don't want to say this because

00:57:37.800 I'm going to upset them.

00:57:39.420 It's really, people just want to make the most use of their time as well and to really

00:57:43.420 be able to communicate clearly and really just find out, yeah, what's, what is really

00:57:47.480 passionate for you.

00:57:48.600 You know, sometimes too, at your core, sometimes it's just hard to admit to yourself.

00:57:51.760 Because, I mean, absolutely.

00:57:54.280 I mean, if you've ever, I'm sure, I mean, every, all of us have worked on stuff that

00:57:57.920 just your heart wasn't into it and it was kind of boring, but you knew you had to do

00:58:00.960 it.

00:58:01.800 I mean, yeah, high school and beyond that.

00:58:07.720 I mean, I'll do like two minutes of on that and then I'll three minutes on something else

00:58:12.480 and it'll keep coming back and I'll be doing it minute by minute by minute until this 10

00:58:17.020 minute task will take me like four hours because I hate it so damn much.

00:58:20.480 Yeah.

00:58:24.280 I mean, if I think, like, why, why are we creative?

00:58:30.300 You know, like what?

00:58:32.680 What we need out of necessity probably originally.

00:58:37.600 Stuff we need, you know, it's stuff, enjoyment.

00:58:41.820 I mean.

00:58:42.200 Oh, yeah.

00:58:42.540 Like if you want to say you're in a man, you're in Adam and Eve or somebody or, you know, Larry

00:58:46.300 and Janet or whoever you believe in, you know, say, or, you know, or Rashid and whoever,

00:58:51.840 you know, Sean Trace or whatever, whoever's in the garden and the guy sees the girl walk

00:58:56.780 by, he might try to do a magic trick or something with a stick and a leaf or something to try

00:59:01.820 and get her attention.

00:59:03.280 He's going to be creative.

00:59:04.380 He's going to, I mean, even in nature, you see those little lizards and stuff show off their

00:59:08.180 backbones and whatever.

00:59:09.200 Oh, yeah.

00:59:09.900 You know, they do that.

00:59:11.440 Or you got the Bowerbirds there and they go and they find all this pretty stuff and they

00:59:15.780 make like a, like a, something pretty or they'll hide a piece of food and they'll build stuff

00:59:22.780 around it.

00:59:23.260 But some male Bowerbirds learned we don't need the piece of food.

00:59:28.120 We just take a rock, build over it.

00:59:30.020 And by the time the female Bowerbirds get to the rock and they're going, hey.

00:59:33.640 That's a wife.

00:59:34.260 Or the male Bowerbird's 10 miles away going, well, thank you.

00:59:39.780 Yeah.

00:59:40.440 Sayonara, man.

00:59:41.900 Damn, birds are wild.

00:59:44.680 But yeah, it's, so yeah, creativity because you want to get something.

00:59:47.960 Here's some people right here.

00:59:49.240 Decent group.

00:59:50.340 Let's see what we got.

00:59:52.300 Hey, Theo.

00:59:53.700 We have a question.

00:59:55.200 Are left-handed people more creative than right-handed people?

00:59:59.320 Gang.

00:59:59.720 Gang.

01:00:00.540 Gang.

01:00:01.520 That's a beautiful group.

01:00:02.380 Look like nurses or something, maybe?

01:00:05.100 I'm trying to figure out what the photos up there were because it also.

01:00:07.440 Teachers possibly?

01:00:08.500 Yeah, it could be teachers.

01:00:09.780 Plan.

01:00:10.200 Lots of binders.

01:00:11.500 Yeah.

01:00:12.520 Beautiful groups of ladies and a gentleman right there.

01:00:14.960 Yeah, are left-handed people more, yeah, let's answer that for them, doctor.

01:00:18.040 That one's easy, no.

01:00:19.100 No.

01:00:19.800 The whole left brain, right brain, no, no, no.

01:00:22.280 Doesn't matter.

01:00:22.800 No, doesn't work that way.

01:00:26.560 Creativity is not a left brain thing.

01:00:28.220 Analytic reasoning is not a right brain thing.

01:00:30.580 It's all way more complicated and something that both of us could be trying to understand

01:00:35.840 for the next five hours and not come to something, but it's not right brain, left brain.

01:00:40.000 I see.

01:00:40.720 Yeah, you always have people be like, oh, well, Daniel's left brain, you know.

01:00:44.200 He can't, you know.

01:00:45.240 Wow.

01:00:45.400 He don't know how to play dodgeball or something.

01:00:47.200 Like, what the hell does that have to do with anything?

01:00:49.440 Yeah, some people, it's just like the most simplest way to say things, I guess, sometimes.

01:00:53.760 And it's, I mean, you can't blame them.

01:00:57.280 No.

01:00:57.820 I mean, it's like whenever there's a new study out about creativity, people always forward

01:01:01.740 it to me.

01:01:02.540 And it'll always be a quick and easy thing.

01:01:06.200 You know, you want to be more creative, try, and it's, you know, a messy desk or going for

01:01:10.960 a walk or having some chocolate.

01:01:13.280 And it's always, well, you know, I mean, it probably wouldn't hurt, but it's not going

01:01:17.480 to make you all of a sudden more creative.

01:01:19.300 I mean, maybe it puts you in a good mood.

01:01:20.920 You know, we're talking about if you're in a good mood, you might come up with more

01:01:22.900 ideas.

01:01:23.900 Yeah, but you're not going to suddenly be, you know, you know, who's a famous artist,

01:01:29.660 dude?

01:01:29.920 Picasso.

01:01:30.560 The guy that did Snoopy.

01:01:31.020 Yeah, Picasso.

01:01:31.760 Or Charles Jones.

01:01:32.420 Yeah, Charles.

01:01:33.080 Yeah.

01:01:33.540 Same thing.

01:01:34.080 Same thing.

01:01:34.640 You're not going to suddenly be, yeah, I remember when I was growing up, they said if you eat

01:01:38.180 peanuts and raisins together at the same time, it'll make your brain activate and you'll

01:01:43.040 be able to be more creative.

01:01:44.560 And I remember they would give us that before at school that some of the parents would bring them

01:01:49.200 in little bags for the kids in class.

01:01:52.600 If it was that easy, I mean, I mean, come on, if you knew that there was anything you

01:01:57.660 could do that would make you funnier, you'd do it.

01:02:02.040 Yeah.

01:02:03.020 The only thing I can do is practice.

01:02:04.660 Yeah.

01:02:04.880 Is it the same with creativity then, you think?

01:02:06.740 Yeah.

01:02:06.940 I mean, if there was a quick, easy, sexy solution of, oh, you want me more creative,

01:02:12.180 just blank.

01:02:14.880 I'd already be a multimillionaire because I would just be doing that.

01:02:20.480 Creativity is about revision.

01:02:22.260 It's about figuring out what you need to know and getting experience with the domain.

01:02:27.820 And if you want to be a writer, reading other stuff.

01:02:30.920 If you want to be a comedian, I mean, thankfully this part's more fun, but you got to watch a

01:02:36.460 bunch of comedy.

01:02:37.660 I mean, there are certain rules, so to speak, even of comedy where it's not, oh, I want to

01:02:44.740 break the rules.

01:02:45.300 You got to understand them before you break them.

01:02:47.040 Well, no, you can watch comedy, not even by watching comedian sets, even just by being

01:02:53.280 in a lot of funny instances, watching other people be funny, seeing what works and what

01:02:57.160 doesn't.

01:02:57.660 I'll see somebody do something sometime and they don't even realize it.

01:03:01.900 And I'll be like, oh, man, that's such a unique way to be funny.

01:03:05.200 That person doesn't, they don't even realize what they're doing.

01:03:07.700 But sometimes you meet people just the way they are and the way that they talk or behave

01:03:13.120 or something is just extremely funny for some reason.

01:03:15.700 It's like the joke is, not that they're the joke personally, but just the way that they

01:03:21.500 approach the world is just, it's like the setup is already there.

01:03:25.960 So the punchline, when they say anything, it's a punchline.

01:03:30.340 You know, going back to what you were talking about with education and how they really do

01:03:36.240 not, they don't, it's not that they don't value.

01:03:39.660 I think teachers really value creativity when they see it, but it's almost like they don't

01:03:43.800 have time to teach it or, or it's just not something that we value as a society, or it's

01:03:51.240 just that we already haven't put enough pressure on our education system that has nothing to

01:03:56.960 do with them.

01:03:57.760 You know, what do you, do you think?

01:03:59.200 I think you're, I think you're hitting on some great stuff.

01:04:00.940 I mean, most teachers who I know, they want to encourage creativity.

01:04:05.640 I mean, there's a lot of this stereotype of, oh, schools kill creativity and all this stuff.

01:04:12.520 I mean, not really.

01:04:14.880 I mean, most teachers truly want their students to be more creative.

01:04:19.740 Usually they don't know how to do it.

01:04:21.600 I mean, when you get trained to be a teacher, there's no class on nurturing.

01:04:25.080 We, okay, there is at UConn because we help, you know, I help teach it, but usually it's

01:04:31.220 not how do you nurture creativity and it's not always intuitive.

01:04:35.100 I mean, so often the impulse is, okay, well, you know, to give the gold star or the reward

01:04:40.620 and, you know, that can kind of kill creativity pretty easily.

01:04:45.180 So you have teachers who don't always know and teachers who may not trust themselves to

01:04:49.860 know what's creative, even though they probably know a lot more than they think they do.

01:04:53.000 So, but then you have the whole, I mean, the schools are judged by the standardized test

01:04:59.100 scores and these standardized test scores.

01:05:01.580 I mean, I mean, my first two years out of grad school, I worked for a testing company.

01:05:05.620 I mean, I, it's not that they're meaningless or anything because I mean, people tend to feel

01:05:09.740 very extremely either standardized test scores is the only way or they're complete garbage

01:05:14.720 in the, neither is true.

01:05:16.380 I mean, they mean something, but they don't mean everything.

01:05:20.440 And when a teacher's pay is determined by the standardized test score of their students,

01:05:27.440 I mean, should I be teaching the test?

01:05:29.300 Of course.

01:05:29.760 Yeah.

01:05:29.900 You got to keep your job.

01:05:30.880 I mean, you have to survive.

01:05:32.260 People are going to want to survive.

01:05:33.940 It's, and it's not even like, I mean, the principals and superintendents often don't have that kind

01:05:40.820 of flexibility.

01:05:41.320 I mean, the places that I've worked with that are excited about creativity or doing really

01:05:46.680 good stuff.

01:05:47.740 A lot of that is when people up on high, the superintendent, both have the flexibility

01:05:52.360 and the interest and it trickles down.

01:05:55.000 I mean, one problem is that the really good people end up getting picked up for better

01:05:59.320 jobs and they leave.

01:06:00.060 Private sector stuff.

01:06:01.360 And then boom, school, school goes right back to where it is.

01:06:05.180 They bring in a principal who wants things.

01:06:07.100 Nope.

01:06:07.340 Why are we doing this?

01:06:07.960 We need these test scores.

01:06:10.400 It's, and the funny thing is creativity adds to test scores.

01:06:15.300 I mean, there's some work I'm doing with this school in Australia with this guy, Tim

01:06:18.580 Patston.

01:06:19.140 It's the Geelong Grammar School.

01:06:20.620 And they've been looking at creativity and increasing creativity.

01:06:23.980 And we just found out that creativity helps predict their big test score almost as much

01:06:31.460 as grades do.

01:06:32.900 And grades, obviously.

01:06:34.540 I mean, if I say, hey, you get good grades, do you think you're going to get a good test

01:06:36.900 score?

01:06:37.560 Of course.

01:06:38.480 Yeah.

01:06:38.920 But if I say, hey, you're really creative, you're going to get a better test score.

01:06:41.800 I don't know.

01:06:42.260 Maybe.

01:06:43.380 Well, creativity, I remember helped a lot of times, especially that's why I loved when

01:06:46.400 it came to the question with the written out ones.

01:06:49.180 Cause you're like, oh, I didn't study.

01:06:52.040 I didn't read anything, but I got a chance.

01:06:54.100 You know, it's like if you could find a way to be crafty enough in that space, when you

01:06:59.920 had to write out your, when you had to really give an answer, it was like, what do you

01:07:02.660 think about this?

01:07:03.780 Then you really had a shot.

01:07:05.400 I felt like sometime with creativity, you could really create something, you know, you

01:07:09.620 could, yeah, you just had a chance, you know, you had a chance to make something new.

01:07:13.220 You had a chance to make something novel.

01:07:14.540 Now, one thing, so say if like, you know, this, a lot of times teachers have to teach

01:07:18.560 based on the test scores and, um, and a lot of, uh, a lot of people at a certain point

01:07:25.040 they might think, oh, well this, a lot of extremely creative people will drop out of formal

01:07:30.260 education or, you know, uh, you know, public school, whatever school and still do really

01:07:35.840 well.

01:07:36.280 I mean, sometimes that even drives people, doesn't it?

01:07:39.200 Doesn't, doesn't that sometimes spurn their creativity more like, oh, they don't understand

01:07:43.240 land me here in this space.

01:07:45.280 I need to take my own path, which is kind of what creativity is sometimes or.

01:07:50.960 It can, they have to get lucky.

01:07:53.800 And this is also where money comes in.

01:07:56.460 If you have these people who feel that way and they drop out, but they're from a well-off

01:08:01.420 family, that's one thing.

01:08:05.000 You end up, you, you, you end up losing more people, I think, than you gain, so to speak.

01:08:09.660 And because certainly you have people screw this.

01:08:12.020 I'm dropping out, I'm forming my own company.

01:08:13.500 And you have these amazing success stories, but you also have the people who have, they

01:08:18.120 could have just been allowed to flourish a little bit more in high school would have

01:08:24.200 realized, wait, I'm passionate about this and I can express myself this way.

01:08:28.920 And then would have stuck with it and done something that would have used their creativity

01:08:36.640 and contribute to the world.

01:08:39.560 You know, it's funny.

01:08:40.400 Sometimes, like, I think some people are really creative.

01:08:43.760 Like, people can be creative in all type of ways.

01:08:45.580 Like, the way that somebody loves somebody could be very creative.

01:08:48.100 Oh, yeah.

01:08:48.380 You know, the way that somebody, you know, I had an ex-girlfriend who, you know, she would

01:08:53.780 do really nice things.

01:08:55.080 Like, leave a really nice note sometimes.

01:08:56.740 That was really sentimental, you know?

01:08:58.920 And I always thought, it's not creative, but just her idea of how to create love and the

01:09:04.100 show expressed that was very creative, I thought.

01:09:07.820 I'd argue that is creative.

01:09:09.520 Yeah.

01:09:10.100 Yeah, it was creative.

01:09:11.280 Yeah, to me it was creative.

01:09:12.100 I guess it's just not what we generally think of when we think of creativity.

01:09:15.740 Exactly.

01:09:16.040 And that's one of the things that limits us.

01:09:19.500 Because, I mean, if you think of, okay, what's creative?

01:09:21.680 I mean, arts.

01:09:22.940 Okay, somebody who paints or draws or composes.

01:09:24.940 And yes, it is.

01:09:26.980 So science, so is business.

01:09:28.800 And so is all this stuff in everyday life from writing love notes.

01:09:32.960 Magic.

01:09:33.660 Magic.

01:09:34.200 Oh, God, yeah, magic.

01:09:35.140 Animal training.

01:09:36.380 Oh.

01:09:39.620 I have an African gray parrot who I've taught to quote Silence the Lambs.

01:09:43.580 Oh, really?

01:09:44.400 Yeah.

01:09:44.660 Freaks the hell out of our guests.

01:09:47.220 You win this round, yeah.

01:09:48.500 Dude, I used to make love to a girl in Denver, and if she had a gray parrot that would stay

01:09:52.360 on my shoulder the whole time.

01:09:54.660 This girl Kelly back in the day, but.

01:09:56.380 You know that her parrot still makes sounds of the kind.

01:10:00.140 Oh, yeah.

01:10:01.360 Oh, yeah.

01:10:02.260 Oh, man.

01:10:02.860 Well, the only sound I made was, oh, sorry.

01:10:06.020 That's my view.

01:10:07.180 But my audience knows I'm not really sexually good at it.

01:10:10.180 So does the parrot.

01:10:10.980 Yeah.

01:10:11.460 I can't even imagine.

01:10:14.660 I hope the parrot doesn't take up smoking like I did at that time.

01:10:18.980 It was different times.

01:10:21.220 We had a couple of other questions.

01:10:22.620 I want to get to one video question that came in here right here for you.

01:10:25.920 I also had a question about drugs and creativity.

01:10:28.560 Like, a lot of people think it kind of inspires them or they need it to be creative.

01:10:34.320 Have you done research on that?

01:10:35.800 Do you see people are more creative with alcohol or weed?

01:10:38.760 So there's been a lot of research on this.

01:10:44.040 And.

01:10:44.140 Oh, yeah.

01:10:44.400 By a lot of my friends, even.

01:10:46.380 The informal kind.

01:10:47.620 Your producer.

01:10:49.080 Yeah.

01:10:50.520 Yeah.

01:10:50.920 Yeah.

01:10:51.020 Producer and Colin are a new producer.

01:10:53.320 Kind of like the mental illness question.

01:10:57.860 You're going to find this study or that study saying this or that.

01:11:00.640 But I'm going to just give a more overall thing.

01:11:03.220 A lot of people will smoke weed, drink, or do other stuff because they think it will make them become creative.

01:11:09.220 And people who, for example, who smoke pot, they think they're being more creative.

01:11:17.300 So if you have a bunch of people and you have this half, we're going to give you some weed.

01:11:22.140 And this half, we're going to give you like oregano, but just tell you which weed.

01:11:25.000 And they all do something creative.

01:11:26.480 The people who are on weed are going to think, man, we were just, we did great.

01:11:30.940 This is super creative.

01:11:32.300 But then you take what they did and you show it's other people.

01:11:36.740 The people on pot aren't more creative.

01:11:39.220 It, it, there's no difference.

01:11:41.600 It's just a perception.

01:11:42.860 It's just a perception.

01:11:43.920 And is that perception only when they're under the influence of pot, when they're high?

01:11:47.220 Because when they sober up, do they think, yeah, I guess they just think, oh.

01:11:52.120 And I mean, well, of course I could not speak from experience, but how many of people may look back on what they were notes they took or whatever.

01:12:01.220 Oh, yeah.

01:12:01.600 Or scribblings when they were inebriated or on some chemical and go, what the hell was I thinking?

01:12:07.580 Or this is not the answer to the world problem.

01:12:09.820 Yeah, I thought I always had the answer to the world, bro.

01:12:11.940 That's so funny.

01:12:13.140 I, I, one time I was real, real high and, uh, and, oh man, what happened?

01:12:19.980 Oh, I thought I had this great joke.

01:12:21.200 I drove by.

01:12:22.000 I wasn't driving, but I was in the car by myself going forward.

01:12:26.160 Of course.

01:12:26.660 And, uh, and I saw a snake.

01:12:29.100 They had like a snake, a cartoon snake on a billboard.

01:12:32.440 And here was the joke I thought, I thought to myself, I was going to tell my friends, oh, I saw a snake.

01:12:38.340 Don't worry.

01:12:38.900 It was on a billboard.

01:12:40.320 That was the joke.

01:12:41.220 And it was, and I thought at the time, no, man, I wrote it down nine times to make sure I'd written it down because I don't trust ink that much when I'm high, you know?

01:12:52.280 And then the next day I read it and I was like, oh my God, this is the dumbest thing ever.

01:12:57.480 And that's when I was right.

01:12:58.880 When, when it was the dumbest thing ever.

01:13:00.760 Yeah.

01:13:01.060 So, so overall that's, that's the truth, but is there sometimes, I mean, there's sometimes where somebody under the influence could do something amazing.

01:13:08.380 Oh, of course.

01:13:09.660 I mean, there's also, whenever we study stuff, there's this question of whether something's related or whether it actually causes it.

01:13:20.300 I mean, it's the same way they say, like, if, if you give infinite monkeys, typewriters, they'll write Shakespeare.

01:13:25.620 I mean, if you have a whole bunch of people who are getting high regularly, which kind of describes college, people are going to do really creative stuff.

01:13:34.540 It doesn't mean the weed, is there a reason why they're being creative?

01:13:38.280 It's the same thing with mental illness and creativity.

01:13:40.460 Of course, all these people who have different mental disorders may be incredibly creative.

01:13:46.660 It doesn't mean there's any causal link.

01:13:49.080 And if anything, it may be that when things are acting up, it may be harder to create or in a more positive way, the creativity may help them cope and feel better.

01:14:00.540 But it's not some romantic Vincent van Gogh cutting off his ear, you know, and, you know, I have, you know, yeah, I've done 37 shots of vodka.

01:14:10.960 I'm going to create the world's great novel.

01:14:13.580 It doesn't, it doesn't really work that way.

01:14:15.580 Maybe you're drunk and writing the world's great novel, but.

01:14:17.880 But probably not.

01:14:18.660 Probably not.

01:14:19.260 William Faulkner was probably just an alcoholic who also wrote.

01:14:22.240 And so a lot of times they marry the two that it was, you know, there's definitely a romanticization that happens over time with almost anything, really.

01:14:31.320 I feel like we almost romanticize anything.

01:14:33.160 So you're going to take the fact that he probably had alcoholism and then put it with the fact that he wrote a lot.

01:14:38.660 And next thing you know, he's this great guy who's sitting behind a bottle of scotch.

01:14:43.120 And we're not really thinking about all the other alcoholics who maybe would have been amazing, but who are passed out in their own vomit.

01:14:51.280 I mean.

01:14:51.420 Yeah.

01:14:51.560 That's Ole Miss University is where that all occurred to, University of Mississippi, and it really is.

01:14:56.460 Sorry.

01:14:56.940 But yeah, shout out to Kappa Sig there.

01:14:58.980 But, you know, it's because I used to worry, you know, I don't do drugs or alcohol.

01:15:04.280 And I used to worry that if I stopped doing those, that I wouldn't be able to be creative.

01:15:11.260 And it's a fear of a lot of people.

01:15:13.860 And there's no evidence of that.

01:15:15.660 Just as there's no evidence.

01:15:17.740 Similarly, a lot of people are worried about taking, like, prescription drugs for anxiety, depression.

01:15:22.060 That does not hurt creativity.

01:15:24.860 Really?

01:15:25.360 And that's.

01:15:25.860 I think that too sometimes.

01:15:27.040 That's funny.

01:15:27.520 It's so important.

01:15:28.480 It's so important to realize that because people often won't seek help.

01:15:34.100 You can't be creative after you're dead.

01:15:36.800 Right.

01:15:38.260 That definitely ceases creativity.

01:15:40.560 I mean.

01:15:43.000 And if you're suffering, even if you look at the most stereotypical of, you know, the mad geniuses or whatever, the people with extreme depressions or manias.

01:15:53.160 Like Howard Hughes, maybe.

01:15:56.040 He was an extreme case.

01:15:56.880 But yes, I suppose I just say extreme case.

01:15:59.480 At the most extreme was not when they were being their most creative.

01:16:04.680 Like if you're going up and down, at the peaks and the valleys, you're still not creating.

01:16:13.880 It is always worth it both from a life point but also even a creativity point to get yourself better.

01:16:23.960 Yeah.

01:16:24.120 I mean.

01:16:25.120 What, is there something inside of us then you think that like a, like a, like a man versus world level or something that makes us think that having pain or something will give us creativity?

01:16:43.420 Do you think it's some?

01:16:44.540 Yeah.

01:16:44.760 We want something to have a reason for existing and bad things happen and that sucks and bad things happen to us and that sucks.

01:16:55.120 If we can make something come out of it, okay, I had a shitty childhood, but I write about it or paint about it.

01:17:04.380 Therefore, it was worth it.

01:17:06.080 So there's inspiration there.

01:17:08.640 A lot of inspiration comes from struggle, a lot of creativity.

01:17:11.220 Does creativity come from struggle?

01:17:12.780 It can.

01:17:15.400 Absolutely.

01:17:15.880 But not only from that.

01:17:20.560 Like it's not, it's not, not enough so to put yourself through this struggle.

01:17:25.200 I see.

01:17:25.900 You know, so it's like, I mean, yes, if you grew up with these hardships, that can absolutely be an inspiration.

01:17:33.040 The same way, you know, if you went through a period of making bad decisions, but it's not a reason to make more bad decisions or to do more things.

01:17:43.580 I see.

01:17:44.540 Because it just doesn't, we want it to make sense because then whatever stupid mistakes or this relationship didn't work out.

01:17:53.580 It justifies it for us.

01:17:54.260 Exactly.

01:17:55.700 And I mean, I wish life was that easy, you know.

01:17:58.520 I mean.

01:17:59.280 Yeah, it's nice if it justifies for us as we're getting better, if we use it as like, oh man, yeah, all that behind me, I'm glad that's behind me now.

01:18:06.480 And I'm using that as like as a motivation or inspiration or momentum to do something different now.

01:18:12.560 Absolutely.

01:18:12.960 But if we're using it as well, I should probably stop doing this, but it's making me creative.

01:18:20.880 That's not helpful.

01:18:22.100 Yeah, that's just a bad, that's just not the truth.

01:18:24.860 No.

01:18:25.560 Yeah.

01:18:26.820 What do we have here, Nick?

01:18:27.880 Here's a beautiful little lady right there.

01:18:30.080 Could have fixed her hair, but fuck it.

01:18:32.220 She wrote that, I didn't.

01:18:33.220 Hey, James, my name is Renee from Pennsylvania, and I was hoping that you could cover the different types of creativity.

01:18:42.420 I'm just assuming that it's almost like different types of intelligence.

01:18:46.540 And if it is, maybe something that the different types of creativity can do better than the other types, almost like a career path or something like that.

01:18:58.200 Or if you can expand on the different types, just in general, that'd be great.

01:19:03.940 Thanks.

01:19:04.580 Thank you.

01:19:05.760 Absolutely.

01:19:06.200 So there are a ton of these different theories about stuff.

01:19:12.980 I'm just going to pick a few really kind of important stuff.

01:19:16.920 Okay.

01:19:17.200 So you have the idea of divergent thinking, and that's being able, that's a type of creativity when you're coming up with a whole bunch of ideas.

01:19:27.640 It's what you might think of as brainstorming.

01:19:29.660 Oh, yeah.

01:19:31.340 And that is really good at the beginning of a project.

01:19:40.080 There's what's sometimes called convergent thinking or idea evaluation, and that sounds really unsexy.

01:19:47.200 Because choosing your best idea, that doesn't sound creative.

01:19:50.540 But that ability is also incredibly important.

01:19:55.320 Because you can come up with 30 ideas, but you don't have time in your life to pursue all 30.

01:19:59.940 Right.

01:20:00.140 And figuring out, okay, these two are the ones that are the best, the most creative, the ones that I think can work.

01:20:08.880 That is its own ability and process.

01:20:12.680 There is what's sometimes called associative thinking, and that's, you know, these different concepts or thoughts.

01:20:23.180 And there's often a fairly obvious connection, but trying to think of as many different connections as you can.

01:20:29.600 And so, like, if I say cow, there's 30 words that are probably right away coming into your head, and that, you know, moo.

01:20:36.980 Milk boy.

01:20:38.140 Yeah.

01:20:41.220 Making, okay, how remote can I go?

01:20:43.700 How much can I think of things that other people aren't going to think of?

01:20:46.860 These are all different types of what we might call, like, creative thinking.

01:20:56.920 There's also a lot of stuff involving the creative personality.

01:21:01.640 One huge thing is being open to experiences.

01:21:04.580 This is wanting to try new foods, wanting to do new things, wanting to just have new experiences.

01:21:16.740 When you say, what the hell?

01:21:18.260 I'm going to try this even though I haven't done it.

01:21:21.340 For some people, it's traveling.

01:21:22.900 For other people, it's wanting to get into nature.

01:21:26.660 There's also openness to ideas.

01:21:29.560 And that's wanting to challenge yourself intellectually.

01:21:31.940 That's wanting to debate people.

01:21:33.300 It's wanting to problem solve.

01:21:35.500 But it's also being willing to accept that you might be wrong.

01:21:40.580 So openness to experience tends to be related a bit more to arts, openness to intellect, a bit more to science-y business stuff.

01:21:56.300 Another component that sometimes will happen before idea generation is problem finding.

01:22:00.600 We're so used to being given the problem.

01:22:05.320 Often we're solving the wrong problem.

01:22:07.320 Yeah.

01:22:08.460 Oh, yeah.

01:22:09.420 I mean, that's, you could call it the government any time you want throughout history, I feel like.

01:22:16.580 Hollywood does that a lot of times.

01:22:17.920 I feel like they're always, everybody thinks they're proactive.

01:22:20.500 They're very reactive.

01:22:21.380 And they're always solving a problem that I feel like is eight months too late, I feel like.

01:22:26.600 I mean, every, yeah.

01:22:28.060 One successful movie does something and they come out with 30 movies just like it.

01:22:32.200 Yeah.

01:22:32.300 And it's, let's say that all your friends are like, you know, Theo, you're just not that funny.

01:22:40.680 There's a bunch of different problems you might be wanting to address.

01:22:47.220 One of, okay, maybe you're not funny.

01:22:49.240 Maybe your friends are just assholes.

01:22:52.080 Right.

01:22:52.480 Who knows?

01:22:52.840 You got to find out what the problem is.

01:22:54.960 And they all could be the problem.

01:22:56.340 Yeah.

01:22:57.000 A little bit.

01:22:58.700 But so often we'll just jump to something where, I mean, if you realize, oh, I'm not making enough money to be able to still live in LA.

01:23:07.580 Like, there's a lot, maybe you're, okay, I'm going to work more and make more money or I'm going to cut expenses.

01:23:13.140 If somebody's been hacking your account and is stealing 2,000 bucks a month, you're off solving these problems and it's still, you're still getting screwed.

01:23:21.700 Right.

01:23:21.940 You're solving problems you might not even have because you're not seeing a different problem.

01:23:26.240 That's interesting.

01:23:26.720 So there's even creativity when you're looking for what the problem is.

01:23:29.660 Oh, yeah.

01:23:30.720 And in real life, it's like a doctor trying to treat a patient.

01:23:35.520 You got the symptoms.

01:23:37.580 And, I mean, certainly, you know, there's the old saying that you look for horses and not zebras, but sometimes it's a zebra.

01:23:45.060 Yeah.

01:23:45.880 And being able to do that, not jumping in with both feet and ending up wasting all your time and resources on solving the wrong thing.

01:23:58.740 That's a new problem right there if you do that.

01:24:01.060 Yeah.

01:24:01.420 It just made a whole new problem.

01:24:03.840 I know we had, we had, Dr. Jordan Peterson had a theory about creativity.

01:24:14.800 Yeah.

01:24:15.020 It was just, you know, his idea of creativity was that in order for something to technically be creative, it has to be something new.

01:24:22.280 Mm-hmm.

01:24:23.900 So I guess I'm curious.

01:24:26.040 One example I could give would be, say, you're a fan of music and you make a cover song of somebody else's original music.

01:24:34.940 You've then created something new that wasn't there before, but is it really creative?

01:24:39.360 What I'd argue is that just like before I was taught my different, when I was taught my different creative processes, there's also different types of creative contributions, you might say.

01:24:52.940 Where you have some that are the shockingly new, oh, my God, this changes the field and everything's different.

01:25:01.500 And that's what we often will think about, you know, when we think about, you know.

01:25:07.320 Tesla or inline roller skates, any of that.

01:25:10.580 The iPhone, all that stuff.

01:25:11.920 iPhone.

01:25:14.820 But most creativity that we know is usually just like a little step forward.

01:25:20.840 And I mean, so, okay, you know, that water bottle that you have, that is a slightly cheaper version of a different water bottle.

01:25:31.020 That was a little bit of an innovation.

01:25:32.600 Or that design is made so that it gives you a better angle when you tilt the bottle back.

01:25:40.040 These are all modifications.

01:25:42.320 Is this shocking creativity?

01:25:44.760 No.

01:25:45.840 But it's increment.

01:25:46.940 It's a little small bit.

01:25:48.820 And then you have this almost replication creativity where you're doing things in your way.

01:25:58.640 And this would be, you know, you doing a cover of a song or you painting your own version of something you see.

01:26:05.500 Like Papier painted his own version of The Simpsons.

01:26:07.980 And I was actually, and this is a great example.

01:26:10.300 I mean, is this creative?

01:26:12.460 I think it's really creative.

01:26:14.540 Is it shockingly new?

01:26:15.740 Well, it's somebody else's style.

01:26:20.840 It still counts.

01:26:23.500 I mean, it's one of the things I often will come back to because people, and sometimes I feel like a broken record.

01:26:28.900 You know, they'll say, oh, I'm not creative or whatever.

01:26:30.560 And some of it is they'll think, well, yeah, I did my own version of it, but that's not new.

01:26:34.580 And okay, maybe you're not a genius.

01:26:36.240 So, you know, I'm not saying people are all geniuses.

01:26:39.160 It still counts.

01:26:40.520 It still counts.

01:26:41.520 Yeah.

01:26:42.100 And you get credit, whatever you want to say for that.

01:26:44.540 I mean, there is, you know, the Lonely Island song with Akon?

01:26:50.140 On a Boat?

01:26:51.500 No, that's with T-Pain.

01:26:52.640 Yeah, the other one with Akon.

01:26:54.500 They've just had, as I would say in my class, to be delicate, they've just been physically intimate with somebody.

01:26:59.480 Okay.

01:26:59.780 And they keep giving all these situations, still counts, still counts.

01:27:04.240 Wears a bag on her head, still counts.

01:27:07.040 You know, you're doing your little doodle and you're not showing to anybody, still counts.

01:27:11.160 You're, you know, you're telling a joke in your own way that you heard another comedian say, assuming that you're giving credit, still counts.

01:27:18.980 You're doing your own spin on it.

01:27:21.080 You're making it a little bit better.

01:27:22.700 You're writing fan fiction or whatever.

01:27:24.000 You're doing your own version of something, still counts and you're creative.

01:27:28.320 Doesn't mean you can't improve.

01:27:30.460 You should improve.

01:27:31.620 Right.

01:27:32.640 It counts.

01:27:34.560 And give yourself credit for that.

01:27:37.240 Yeah, if you build a building, even though somebody's already built a building and you're not Franklin Lloyd Wright.

01:27:43.160 Was he a building maker?

01:27:44.560 Yeah.

01:27:45.280 Okay.

01:27:46.240 Then, yeah, it still counts.

01:27:48.080 You still built a building.

01:27:48.940 You still did something.

01:27:50.060 You still did something magnificent, something that's hard to do.

01:27:52.980 And something that's still going to be there.

01:27:55.360 Is it hard for us to do?

01:27:57.580 They say everything has been done.

01:27:59.780 I'm sure you get approached with this kind of question a lot.

01:28:04.040 I mean.

01:28:04.840 You think we're getting close?

01:28:06.240 No.

01:28:07.140 I mean, back in the 1800s, the guy from the patent office, well, everything that could possibly be invented has been invented.

01:28:12.700 Who, I'm going to say I'm going to have been an asshole because everybody keeps saying that.

01:28:15.420 Oh, God.

01:28:16.300 And you just want to.

01:28:17.400 Pessimist.

01:28:18.760 I mean, we always end up going in different directions.

01:28:21.780 I mean, if you go back to the 60s and you try to see, okay, well, what do they think the future was going to be like?

01:28:25.580 It was all flying cars and the moon and living, you know.

01:28:28.560 So, okay, that didn't happen.

01:28:30.920 But we can communicate with anybody instantly.

01:28:34.680 You can have a buddy who lives in Spain and you can talk to him every day for free.

01:28:39.040 Yeah.

01:28:39.980 Whoever.

01:28:40.420 I mean, nobody ever would have thought of that in the 60s.

01:28:42.220 There could probably some guy thinking that.

01:28:44.780 It'll just be different.

01:28:46.920 Right.

01:28:47.800 We may not know the medium.

01:28:50.360 We may not know.

01:28:52.840 Do you think that there's still a lot we can learn?

01:28:55.180 Scientifically, there's still a lot to learn out there.

01:28:56.940 Do you think there's like.

01:28:58.040 Oh, yeah.

01:28:58.920 That we're.

01:29:00.000 Because sometimes I feel like, oh, we've kind of figured it out, everything.

01:29:03.340 We got the periodic table of elements.

01:29:04.960 We know everything in a tier.

01:29:06.240 We know all the recipe items.

01:29:08.540 Do you think there's more out there?

01:29:10.460 I think there's a lot more out there than already is.

01:29:13.360 I think that, I mean, it's true for anything, but we know a very small little bit.

01:29:21.200 And I mean, look, studying creativity is not curing cancer.

01:29:23.960 It's not nuclear physics or whatever.

01:29:27.060 Right.

01:29:27.580 Or even close.

01:29:28.820 But.

01:29:29.300 But at the world of possibility, I feel like is part of it with creativity.

01:29:33.320 And just trying to figure out, you know, what makes people more creative?

01:29:36.420 What are the people who are creative?

01:29:37.840 What do they have in common?

01:29:38.980 How can we help it?

01:29:40.260 How can we help these people?

01:29:41.640 How can we encourage it?

01:29:42.500 How can we figure out?

01:29:45.700 I mean, just how do you give feedback to somebody to get them to be more creative?

01:29:49.560 I mean, if you're too harsh, they're going to go, okay, I guess I just suck at it.

01:29:53.080 But if you're too lenient, they're never going to learn.

01:29:55.880 They're just going to keep sucking.

01:29:57.140 Obviously, there's somewhere that medium point.

01:30:01.640 There are so many of these questions that if you actually look, okay, well, what does the research say?

01:30:07.320 I mean, even something like, you know, creativity and marijuana.

01:30:10.020 That's such a, everybody thinks that.

01:30:12.060 There's certain questions that, you know, people always want to know.

01:30:15.500 And it's been studied, but we're talking 20, 25 studies, not 400.

01:30:19.440 And, I mean, how do you measure creativity, right?

01:30:25.980 I mean, I have some answers, but there's a whole bunch of different creativity tests, and they're all good for this, bad for that.

01:30:32.860 And if you have 30 studies, five of them use this measure, and five use that one, and six just are asking people what they think.

01:30:39.120 And so you can't even really combine all of it.

01:30:42.420 And so if you're just trying to ask a really basic question, like, okay, well, are people who are creative in physics, are they the same people who are creative in music?

01:30:53.420 I mean, short answer is probably not.

01:30:55.100 But we don't quite know.

01:30:58.720 We're still figuring out, or what are the things that will kind of predict who's the creative scientist, who's the creative businessman or businesswoman, who's the creative teacher?

01:31:10.220 Or if they find some tangent between physics and music, that suddenly the whole playing field is different, and suddenly your physicians are damn, you know, kid rock or whatever, you know?

01:31:26.020 And the funny thing is, that's the type of creativity that scares the crap out of people.

01:31:31.960 Like, the little incremental stuff, the, oh, you know, we're making this cop show, except now the cops are all professional circus clowns.

01:31:39.640 You know, that's like a little bit forward.

01:31:41.440 Nobody's scared of that.

01:31:42.220 Everybody likes that.

01:31:43.420 It's when you're talking, well, hey, maybe when we do surgery, we should be, you know, playing.

01:31:49.800 Listening to Megadeth.

01:31:50.620 Listening to Megadeth.

01:31:51.580 Or we should be doing it and using our feet instead of hands.

01:31:54.820 I mean, that's the type of creativity that scares the crap out of people.

01:31:56.940 Yeah.

01:31:57.320 And they don't like it.

01:31:59.280 They don't like creative people.

01:32:02.060 They say they do, but they don't.

01:32:03.880 Well, then there must be such a difference then between somebody who's able to think creatively and somebody who can't.

01:32:10.340 There must be, or maybe when it comes to ideas, if it scares people that much.

01:32:17.840 I push back on the can't.

01:32:18.580 Instead of can't, I'd say won't.

01:32:21.420 I think all of us can.

01:32:24.280 But it's risky.

01:32:27.680 It's taking a risk.

01:32:28.540 I mean, are you willing to risk pissing people off or looking stupid or losing money or all this stuff in order to put forward this idea?

01:32:42.320 And so many of us aren't.

01:32:43.980 So many of us take the safe choice.

01:32:46.740 So many of us, I mean, it's a hell of a lot easier to do what's been done or just to tweak it a little bit.

01:32:54.400 I mean, if you wanted to, you could give the exact same comedy routine every single time, and you'd be fine the rest of your life.

01:33:02.560 And there are a lot of people, that sounds pretty great.

01:33:05.420 They don't have to think.

01:33:07.340 But just when, yeah, but at a certain point, yeah, I would lose.

01:33:10.620 But yeah.

01:33:11.340 You'd go crazy.

01:33:12.360 I'd go crazy.

01:33:13.780 I'd melt.

01:33:14.460 You have that need to create.

01:33:16.420 Not everybody has the need, but others had the need.

01:33:19.180 Don't know how.

01:33:19.960 Others had the need, but don't have the resilience.

01:33:22.560 Don't have the support.

01:33:26.400 I mean, I was lucky.

01:33:27.660 I had a really encouraging family, you know, and folks are psychologists.

01:33:33.700 I had really good teachers.

01:33:35.000 Like a lot of people who study creativity often, oh, they struggled in school or whatever, you know, I was lucky.

01:33:40.340 I don't mean like I was a great student, but I really liked my teachers, and I was supported, and I was lucky.

01:33:46.160 I mean, there are people who don't have these advantages, and you've got to be brave and resilient and push back and keep going.

01:33:54.020 And it means defying, defying other people, defying yourself, having all these people always say, you're wrong.

01:34:04.140 You're wrong.

01:34:05.140 Yeah.

01:34:05.960 It's hard.

01:34:07.260 Or having people not understand you as well.

01:34:09.460 It's like a way that you take it, you know, but to you it comes off as you're wrong.

01:34:13.020 And, you know, just people, yeah, I think people not understanding you as well can really lead you to, can really lead you to sometimes refine what you're trying to say, which is what's necessary anyway.

01:34:28.800 But it's like, now it's not necessarily saying you're wrong.

01:34:33.880 It's getting personal about you.

01:34:36.800 Yeah.

01:34:37.500 You know?

01:34:37.960 Oh, it's gotten wild out there.

01:34:39.280 I mean, if you're making a joke on social media, I mean, that's what you do.

01:34:44.420 That's how you create, not just social media.

01:34:46.160 Right.

01:34:46.760 But it's not just, it's one thing if people just go, yeah, I don't think that's funny.

01:34:51.160 But you also, people, you're an asshole.

01:34:54.100 Damn.

01:34:54.860 Damn.

01:34:56.520 I didn't know that.

01:34:58.380 Yeah, I just, I mean, I knew, look, I'll accept that I'm not funny today, but I will not accept that I'm an asshole.

01:35:03.580 Yeah, that judgment, it's so easy to be right there on the, to judge something that's not in front of you.

01:35:11.020 You know, we had a buddy recently in the comedy community that like made some remarks after Kobe Bryant died and it really had a sharp backlash and everybody was, you know, people that didn't even know him suddenly were furious.

01:35:22.340 And it was really, all the people that kind of knew him, I think maybe were like, oh, we understand it, so this is the way he operates sometimes.

01:35:29.760 This was not a, he didn't do a good job here as far as everybody was concerned.

01:35:34.660 Maybe a couple of Voldemorts out there that he really impressed, you know.

01:35:38.440 But on a large scale, a lot of people heard about him for the first time and were, and this was a bad way for it to happen.

01:35:44.300 And, you know, as far as him feeling okay and stuff, I mean, I'm sure it hurt his feelings.

01:35:49.480 But yeah, it's like people aren't really understanding these days.

01:35:53.460 Social media is not a real place to be understanding.

01:35:55.560 It's not very human.

01:35:56.980 And we always assume intent.

01:36:01.200 And this isn't even a social media thing.

01:36:03.780 I mean, if you're driving and somebody cuts you off, you're not thinking, oh, maybe they're driving their pregnant wife to the hospital and then they're desperate to get there.

01:36:11.540 Or you're thinking, that guy's an asshole.

01:36:14.240 And it was intentional.

01:36:15.100 And he looked at me and said, screw you.

01:36:18.640 But when you cut somebody off, you're like, whoops, that was a mistake.

01:36:21.900 Well, they'll know it.

01:36:23.020 They'll be okay with it.

01:36:23.800 They know it wasn't.

01:36:25.400 It's crazy.

01:36:26.280 Two different worlds going on.

01:36:29.280 When it comes to creativity, do you think about like, do you think that there's a higher power sometimes or something that puts ideas into us?

01:36:36.740 Like a lot of times I feel like when I've been my most creative, I don't feel like it has anything to do with me.

01:36:41.540 I feel like I'm just kind of like a conduit or whatever.

01:36:44.680 A receptacle.

01:36:45.160 For something, yeah.

01:36:46.120 Like, oh, there's no way I came up with that idea, really.

01:36:49.760 Certainly, whatever you believe in, if you can just let yourself, whether it's your unconscious or whatever, letting your brain be a little open.

01:37:04.720 There's a reason why people get really good ideas in the shower or when driving because your body's occupied and you're doing something and so you're not necessarily distracted.

01:37:16.540 And your brain's just open and your mind's wandering.

01:37:19.160 And that's when, whether it's your subconscious, whether it's God, whatever it is, putting ideas, the muse, making sure you have those moments when you allow the insights to come is huge.

01:37:31.720 And if you're always boom, boom, boom, boom, you're not going to have that time.

01:37:37.280 You could have anything trying to sprout ideas and they won't, they won't take root.

01:37:44.400 Yeah.

01:37:44.620 You got to, I mean, you got to make sure you have the fertile soil out there.

01:37:49.420 Right.

01:37:49.920 Yeah.

01:37:50.060 You could have the archangel of the dang universe trying to fly out of your, out of your damn septum.

01:37:55.140 But if you're always on Instagram, you might miss it.

01:37:58.720 I mean, just letting that moment of reflection, you know, everything in moderation to a degree.

01:38:10.240 Guys, anything else you wanted to chime in?

01:38:13.760 No, this is fascinating, though.

01:38:15.920 I love the go back over your own work to kind of spark that creativity.

01:38:20.180 I think that's like a really actionable thing people can take away from it.

01:38:24.240 Is what?

01:38:25.420 Going over your own work to spark creativity when you're feeling like your creative juices run out.

01:38:31.060 I think that's something everybody can kind of adapt.

01:38:34.500 Yeah, it almost, it really blew my mind when I realized that, you know, and not even realized, but it's just so funny.

01:38:39.000 Just in the past maybe month, I'm like, man, I don't want to write this gratitude list as specifically what it is.

01:38:44.280 And gratitude is such a, it's a real, such a real feeling and a visceral thing that I need to feel a lot of times to try and just feel okay in my day.

01:38:51.300 And then I go back and I'm like, oh, man.

01:38:53.880 And I'll read them and it's like, oh, then I'm there.

01:38:57.560 It's almost like I've already made the list.

01:38:59.200 I get the feeling as if I've already made the list.

01:39:01.500 And it's a real feeling.

01:39:02.540 It's not, it doesn't feel like a placebo either.

01:39:04.120 And for life, but for creativity, a certain kindness.

01:39:13.160 And I mean, kindness to yourself also, when you're going back and looking at your old stuff.

01:39:18.400 I mean, yeah, you're always going to be a little critical, but be kind to your younger self.

01:39:23.440 When you're thinking, I mean, it's why co-creation is such an amazing thing.

01:39:29.600 I mean, one of my favorite things as a researcher is to collaborate, you know, and then it's.

01:39:34.980 I hate that.

01:39:36.400 Have you found the right collaborator?

01:39:39.220 And of course, you got, you got, you got these two guys right here also.

01:39:42.360 Oh, no.

01:39:43.620 Nick is wonderful.

01:39:44.500 I mean, Nick is wonderful.

01:39:45.320 And we did, we probably do it a ton.

01:39:47.200 I do it a ton without even realizing it.

01:39:50.100 I, I have some fear about, something about it makes me feel uncomfortable.

01:39:53.760 You know, I just.

01:39:54.800 Like what?

01:39:55.780 I don't know.

01:39:56.360 I don't, I don't want to, it's like, I'm afraid to share, not afraid to share.

01:40:07.200 I'm afraid.

01:40:07.540 I'm trying to, trying to think out the rest of this feeling.

01:40:14.960 I'm afraid to like have, man, I can almost figure out what it is.

01:40:21.580 Sometimes I really have to be able to get right on the feeling.

01:40:23.940 And I don't like, it's like a trust thing, I think, you know, it's like I really, do

01:40:33.500 I trust this person enough with like my, do I trust somebody else enough to, to share

01:40:40.080 the things that are most important to me, which are like my ideas, you know, and are

01:40:44.100 they going to reject them?

01:40:45.380 And is it rejection or is it having them take the ideas and turn them into something

01:40:49.920 you don't like?

01:40:54.540 I think at the, at the core it's rejection, I think that they're not going to like them

01:40:57.720 or that they're, and if they don't like them, then they don't like me.

01:41:00.880 And so it's my own attachment to my own ideas as well then.

01:41:05.100 And yet there's people you trust enough to share.

01:41:07.880 You don't think of it as collaboration.

01:41:09.680 So is it that you'd be worried about, let's say, collaborating with somebody who you, who

01:41:16.540 you believe either would have, where being rejected by them would be particularly painful?

01:41:27.640 Yeah, probably.

01:41:28.440 It probably just goes back to other relationships in my life where it's like, I just have a lot

01:41:31.260 of fear about that, you know?

01:41:32.620 And so, but then it's, it sticks even though sometimes in work and stuff, you know, I don't

01:41:37.700 want to, I have to do it my, I'm only used to doing it my way.

01:41:42.120 You know, I'm just scared to not do it my way.

01:41:45.640 There's a danger there, of course, because if you just listen to those words, do, I'm

01:41:52.040 afraid to do it my, to not do it my way.

01:41:54.120 And you want to just do it this one way.

01:41:57.900 There's a certain danger there.

01:41:59.160 Well, we missed out on a lot of probably collaboration.

01:42:03.000 I'm going to miss out on working together with people.

01:42:04.620 Are there people who, you know, you know, appreciate and like your ideas and they've

01:42:11.960 established that, who you would trust?

01:42:13.640 And obviously, again, there are people, but people who you normally would have dismissed

01:42:18.820 collaborating with, but.

01:42:21.940 Yeah, probably so.

01:42:25.040 So really, it's just a strong fear that's not really, it's not really serving me.

01:42:30.160 And you're asking if fear helps or hurts creativity.

01:42:34.220 I mean, I think in a lot of ways it can hurt it because we got to take risks and risks are

01:42:39.060 scary.

01:42:40.960 You know, I mean, shit, I'm a professor.

01:42:43.420 I'm not a performer.

01:42:45.880 This was a little scary, particularly given I had lost, you know, three of my front teeth

01:42:49.380 and I'm going, oh God, I'm going to sound like Daffy Duck or whatever.

01:42:51.600 That's the best part of it though.

01:42:53.920 I can almost pop it out with my lip.

01:42:55.660 That would be awesome.

01:42:56.760 Dude, if you could shoot that and land it in a lady's wine glass at a dinner, dude,

01:43:00.860 I could get you a job somewhere in New York City at night.

01:43:06.840 You could like one of those magicians that goes around to the tables, you know?

01:43:10.000 My teeth?

01:43:11.980 Now, is that the three of hearts and my teeth in your hand?

01:43:16.060 Why, yes, it is your teeth.

01:43:17.500 And now they're back here.

01:43:19.980 Hey, get your teeth out of my wife's cleavage, buddy.

01:43:23.120 Oh, my bad.

01:43:23.820 Yeah, no, I guess you're right.

01:43:26.040 I mean, that fear just really prevents me from having that co-creation, you know?

01:43:30.200 And it's interesting hearing you say that that's one of your favorite kinds is that collaborative

01:43:33.620 because that makes me really think I'm missing out on some cool stuff.

01:43:38.100 And certainly not with everybody.

01:43:39.400 It's not like, oh, it's all one big happy note.

01:43:42.520 But there is like three, four, five, six people who, and again, not usually all at once,

01:43:47.820 but I find elevate my ideas.

01:43:52.500 And they make me think of stuff that I haven't really thought about before.

01:43:57.460 I mean, one of my main collaborators is a guy named Vlad.

01:44:02.220 Everybody should have a good friend named Vlad.

01:44:03.740 He's awesome.

01:44:04.360 He's brilliant.

01:44:05.460 And he does cultural stuff, all about how we interact with each other and sociocultural.

01:44:10.580 A lot of the stuff I do is more individual.

01:44:13.440 So, okay, well, what is, you know, Doug is creative and Bill is less creative and Sally

01:44:19.500 is the most creative.

01:44:20.340 How are they different or the same?

01:44:22.100 Whereas Vlad's more interested in how can they all be creative together?

01:44:24.880 And when I was first like, oh, man, I don't know about that stuff.

01:44:27.640 And he's one of my favorite collaborators now because he gets me to just think in new ways.

01:44:31.460 And it was hard at first, you know, and you have to kind of give up a little bit of some

01:44:36.640 of your assumptions and it involves trust.

01:44:39.440 Yeah.

01:44:42.080 Yeah, I can imagine.

01:44:43.140 It almost sounds cool because then you're like, wow, if this person could get me to think

01:44:46.800 different in ways, A, if I already feel like I'm a creative person, if it's something that

01:44:50.860 I pride kind of in myself, there's not a lot of things, but that's a thing.

01:44:55.800 Then if they could get me to be creative in different ways that I don't even know.

01:44:59.760 Yeah.

01:45:00.040 I mean, it is pretty tempting.

01:45:04.700 Yeah, I have a friend named Aaron and he's like my most creative.

01:45:07.060 He's like, he's kind of business minded a lot of times, but even in that space, he

01:45:11.420 helps, he gets me to think so many different ways a lot of times.

01:45:17.740 Yeah, I think just being a little more open to it.

01:45:20.540 And it's not like it means now you got to only co-create.

01:45:23.340 I mean, you still, you, there are some things that will always feel like, okay, these, these

01:45:26.860 are my personal ideas I want to marinate and do it my own way.

01:45:30.960 There's other stuff.

01:45:31.840 And maybe it's the stuff that you couldn't figure out quite how to make, be amazing.

01:45:34.980 Like, okay, I like this idea, but I don't know what to do with it.

01:45:37.080 And so to put over here.

01:45:39.340 Isn't it funny how ideas you've had?

01:45:40.860 I mean, there's little ideas that I had 15, 18 years ago and suddenly they'll come into

01:45:45.260 play when I meet someone or something or, or I'll see a new medium and I'd be like, oh,

01:45:49.320 that's why this thing has been spinning in my head for so long.

01:45:52.340 It's just waiting for this place to land that didn't even exist yet.

01:45:56.260 It's kind of amazing, isn't it?

01:45:57.780 That to me is fascinating, man.

01:45:59.360 It's like almost the way the galaxy is.

01:46:01.280 Like you have these things spinning around and we don't know really what the moons are.

01:46:04.380 I mean, we have an idea, but suddenly all of a sudden, you know, somebody comes through

01:46:08.220 on a battleship and they're a moon collector.

01:46:09.900 And then we're like, oh, now I know why these things are out there.

01:46:12.500 This guy's here to pick them up.

01:46:13.720 You know, you just don't know.

01:46:14.700 It's like, yeah, it's pretty fascinating.

01:46:19.900 It's funny how like, there was a point when I, like if I, if I think like virtual reality,

01:46:27.380 something I'm, I've still to me relatively, I know it's been around for a while.

01:46:31.180 But the possibilities for being creative in virtual reality are amazing.

01:46:37.580 And like, we're only starting to really move with that.

01:46:41.480 Really?

01:46:41.940 I feel like it's the worst thing for it.

01:46:44.400 Why?

01:46:45.400 Because it's not me being creative.

01:46:47.580 I feel like, I feel like I used to have the video game inside of me.

01:46:52.760 And now I'm like just looking inside of the game and looking inside of somebody else's

01:46:57.900 imagination or like a company's imagination.

01:46:59.900 Some of them are like that, but I mean the ones, and there's more and more stuff developing

01:47:05.220 out there, but the ones that are showing you things you wouldn't have seen, but then

01:47:09.740 not prescribing, not saying like, cause I agree there's some games when it's, okay, got

01:47:14.420 to press the left button.

01:47:15.660 Got to do that.

01:47:16.540 That means it'd be fun, but I'm this stuff when you're truly exploring and when there's

01:47:23.460 enough open stuff out there that you're connecting things or just, you know, you can play

01:47:29.440 impossible instruments.

01:47:30.840 You can make art that wouldn't be possible in the real world.

01:47:35.320 You can co-create with people and all around the world.

01:47:41.080 I mean, it's.

01:47:42.080 Yeah.

01:47:42.840 They have a cool app where you can sing with Asian people and whenever you want and they

01:47:46.680 sing and you sing the same song, but it's in different languages.

01:47:49.040 And then they mix them together.

01:47:51.660 I mean, I love school.

01:47:54.780 I mean, that is pretty cool, dude.

01:47:56.100 I'll give you that.

01:47:58.000 That is pretty cool, man.

01:48:00.760 Yeah, man.

01:48:01.500 I mean, that's one thing about creativity.

01:48:03.580 It's like we stopped this conversation.

01:48:05.760 It keeps on going.

01:48:07.360 And two weeks from now you're having thoughts, you know, like it's also one reason why I like

01:48:13.920 the collaboration so much because my internal dialogue, it's pretty good, you know.

01:48:20.100 Yeah.

01:48:20.560 But the dialogue with other people that and then you think and then you think, OK, what

01:48:24.460 would they have said about that?

01:48:26.420 And well, OK, I decided not to take this risk because I'm worried about that.

01:48:30.280 And I get that.

01:48:31.140 But how would it look if I did?

01:48:34.100 What's the worst that could happen if I did?

01:48:37.780 And you start branching out and thinking.

01:48:39.580 I mean, yeah, I mean, that's what.

01:48:43.760 Yeah.

01:48:44.340 I mean, yeah, it's a connection.

01:48:46.660 There's so much creativity in that.

01:48:48.200 Not having to be creative alone, you know, I have one more question for you.

01:48:53.820 I know like, you know, a lot of our listeners struggle with pornography addiction and stuff

01:48:57.920 like that.

01:48:58.720 Do you find that there's been a lot of studies and stuff done on how like pornography like

01:49:02.820 really damages like the creativity of one's like sexual libido, I feel like.

01:49:09.580 Because I used to have to create these worlds in my head, you know, which would then resonate

01:49:14.480 in my body, I would feel like.

01:49:17.000 I mean, I think so much of it comes down to your ability to control and that if any addiction

01:49:26.120 to a degree out of control is going to limit you, whatever that is.

01:49:32.000 Because I mean, if you're addicted to food and you blow up, you know, if you're watching

01:49:41.700 so much pornography that when you think of sex, your mind instantly goes, OK, this is

01:49:46.780 what happens.

01:49:47.600 Then, yeah, you're going to probably be less creative in sex.

01:49:50.060 If you're looking at it as an inspiration or hey, what if I try that with my partner or

01:49:55.560 whatever, not necessarily.

01:49:58.300 So that perception then is really.

01:50:01.540 And what you're able to.

01:50:05.960 A certain amount of self-control and in terms of and I don't mean it as actually, I mean

01:50:09.680 in a creative way.

01:50:11.780 Yeah.

01:50:12.160 In that.

01:50:15.000 Seeing all these things, but wanting to, OK, I want to put my own spin on this.

01:50:18.280 I want to and also not having that is what's the destination and what's the journey, you

01:50:24.380 know, if it's OK, I am watching pornography and mission accomplished and that's all I need

01:50:28.900 to do.

01:50:29.180 Then, yeah, your own sex life with your partner is not going to flourish.

01:50:34.700 Right.

01:50:35.060 If it's inspiration, if it's OK, this is part of the journey and I'm going to I'm going to

01:50:38.840 take a few things here, maybe bring it, introduce them over here, see how it goes, maybe see if

01:50:43.020 they're open to it.

01:50:44.140 I mean, that's a good point.

01:50:45.860 One of the tried and true ways of being creative is you take different genres or things and

01:50:50.500 you combine them, mix them up, you know, and take this from that, this from that.

01:50:54.960 Get a mashup.

01:50:55.900 Yeah.

01:50:56.320 You know, I mean, applesauce.

01:50:57.740 Yeah.

01:50:58.500 Apple pie.

01:51:00.680 Western in space.

01:51:02.600 Oh, yeah.

01:51:03.260 Different show.

01:51:04.240 You know.

01:51:06.960 Yeah, like Star Wars or something.

01:51:09.940 That was a bad one.

01:51:11.520 But I used to think, yeah, a good space Western.

01:51:14.320 Did they ever have one?

01:51:15.440 Star Trek.

01:51:16.520 Was it a space Western?

01:51:17.560 It really was kind of, huh?

01:51:19.160 They went from, I mean, you take that and you put that in the old Frontiers days in a

01:51:23.600 covered wagon.

01:51:24.260 It's the same story.

01:51:25.760 Yeah.

01:51:26.420 Instead of aliens, just people from Fresno or whatever.

01:51:29.480 Yeah.

01:51:29.960 And a lot of the, a lot of the places they went even looked like Fresno a little bit.

01:51:33.180 Yeah.

01:51:34.300 I mean, it was just a Western.

01:51:35.860 They put it in space.

01:51:39.080 I think that's all we got.

01:51:40.400 That's great.

01:51:42.820 Dr. James Colton, you have a, you're teaching now at UConn.

01:51:45.860 Yes.

01:51:46.160 I'm a professor at University of Connecticut and doing a whole bunch of research on creativity.

01:51:53.720 I mean, you have so many books and stuff.

01:51:54.800 And we'll put a lot of that in the intro whenever we bring you up.

01:51:57.040 I got my website and working on a number of different lay person books.

01:52:02.880 And I don't know, after a while doing research, you more and more having, again, it's the

01:52:08.600 heart attack.

01:52:09.120 Like I want to do stuff in the real world.

01:52:12.460 I want to actually help people be creative instead of just, you know.

01:52:15.540 Well, it's interesting because, yeah, it's like a lot of people don't go to a school book place.

01:52:23.120 You don't go to a campus bookstore to get books, you know, a lot of times.

01:52:26.700 Yes.

01:52:26.800 So you go to another, you know, you'll go to other outlets and stuff to get books.

01:52:29.780 And so, yeah.

01:52:31.920 Yeah.

01:52:32.380 Creativity is my favorite thing, man.

01:52:33.900 So I appreciate you coming here and talking about it today.

01:52:35.760 And I've often felt that people who are really successful in different areas know a lot more

01:52:46.080 about creativity than they think they do.

01:52:48.420 Comedy is one of the top ones.

01:52:50.760 I've actually been quite excited about this because just to hear your thoughts, kind of

01:52:55.740 pick your brain a little bit.

01:52:57.240 Oh, thanks, man.

01:52:58.040 Yeah.

01:52:58.300 I just always thought like I was just very aware, like too much sometimes.

01:53:02.760 And so I was always creating like different scenarios of what could go on because I was

01:53:07.500 aware of like what was happening so much.

01:53:09.240 Like, okay, this person's over there.

01:53:10.680 This is going on.

01:53:12.120 You know, the sun is setting.

01:53:13.320 This is happening right now.

01:53:14.980 What are we going to do?

01:53:16.160 What's going to happen?

01:53:17.720 You know, mom's coming.

01:53:18.720 Mom's feeling like this.

01:53:20.240 You know, it just was always so many things to like balance that the awareness was always

01:53:24.900 heightened.

01:53:25.380 I felt like when I was young.

01:53:27.540 And so that made me suddenly when I was sitting there writing with a piece of paper and thinking

01:53:31.600 about things, there was all these things where there was an awareness for them in the page.

01:53:37.020 There was an awareness for everything could be a character.

01:53:40.080 You know, like the sun had a, you know, it had aspirations and, you know, and the mailman,

01:53:46.260 you know, maybe played jazz.

01:53:47.760 You know, there was just different things going on when whenever life happened.

01:53:52.520 You observe.

01:53:53.240 But sometimes it became exhausting, though.

01:53:55.660 Just the other side of it where you're just overwhelmed by constantly worried about what

01:54:01.080 people are thinking and feeling and not knowing that you're okay.

01:54:04.660 So it puts you in like an unsafe space, you know.

01:54:08.000 So the creativity you build in, it's very negative almost because your brain creates a lot of like

01:54:13.580 scary situations.

01:54:14.940 It's the danger of, I mean, some of it can be perfectionism.

01:54:22.060 Some of it can be, I mean, imagination can be used for less positive things if you're

01:54:26.820 worrying about what could be.

01:54:28.420 And then if you have a, if you're very creative, you can imagine all this stuff.

01:54:31.820 I mean, how many times have people said, well, what's the worst that could happen?

01:54:34.560 Well, if you're, if you can imagine all that stuff, it's harder.

01:54:38.140 Yeah.

01:54:39.120 I mean, me, it's yeah.

01:54:40.380 Yeah.

01:54:40.640 Or if you're a lot, somebody who's thinking a lot.

01:54:42.680 And so much of that is, is being able to channel it, being able to, okay, well, I know I have

01:54:49.840 all these ideas, ping pong in my brain.

01:54:52.740 The more that you can express channel in these more proactive ways, you know, the more you

01:55:00.500 can let the other parts of your brain kind of just calm, calm.

01:55:06.140 Yeah.

01:55:06.660 It really is like petting a cat, like stay there, but stay there.

01:55:11.200 Yeah.

01:55:12.680 Um, anything else you wanted to talk about James?

01:55:15.600 Oh man.

01:55:19.440 So much, but not, but hopefully another time in the future.

01:55:22.860 I would love to have you back another time.

01:55:24.400 Huh?

01:55:24.840 It's super.

01:55:25.280 And there's so much stuff that, I mean, I'd love to listen back and even come up with new

01:55:29.800 things to think of.

01:55:31.180 Yeah.

01:55:31.420 Cause there's so much, just, just creativity has to be good or bad.

01:55:35.440 Can it be bad?

01:55:36.260 You know, all sorts of stuff that, well, yeah.

01:55:41.320 I mean, some people created some of the worst shit ever.

01:55:43.860 The blimp.

01:55:44.740 Remember that machine?

01:55:46.140 Oh yeah.

01:55:46.900 Remember Hitler?

01:55:49.280 And, but that, and that's the question.

01:55:50.540 Was he creative?

01:55:51.800 Right.

01:55:52.140 It's so funny.

01:55:53.540 Cause I thought about that earlier today a little bit.

01:55:55.760 I was thinking about what, what could be creativity?

01:55:59.200 And I mean, yeah, that's a risk of creativity.

01:56:02.140 Isn't there famous, like Pandora's box.

01:56:04.440 Isn't that a thing of, it's basically just a thing of arts and crafts.

01:56:07.580 Somebody just cracked open a little box of Michael's craft store.

01:56:11.440 I feel like, is it that something good or bad could come out of there and it's creativity

01:56:20.140 is not creativity is not good or bad inherently.

01:56:26.080 It's like, is being smart, good or bad?

01:56:27.960 I mean, it's good for you, but if everybody was smarter, would the world be a better place?

01:56:32.480 No.

01:56:33.120 If everybody, nobody would be driving a Corvette either.

01:56:35.180 I'll tell you that.

01:56:36.620 If everybody was more creative, would the world be a better place?

01:56:39.420 Yeah, I bet.

01:56:41.760 Maybe.

01:56:43.040 But then it might become that everybody's trying to out create, like out creative each

01:56:47.380 other at such a level where it's just getting ridiculous.

01:56:50.760 As well as, you know, you'd have all the serial killers be that much more creative.

01:56:56.320 You'd have all the people being that more creative on how to screw you over in business

01:57:00.320 deals.

01:57:01.000 Oh, that'd be the worst.

01:57:02.160 We can't handle it anymore out here.

01:57:03.500 I mean, the studio executives would be that much more creative and well, you can assign the

01:57:09.500 rights for this.

01:57:10.060 I mean, you have to think of it all those layers.

01:57:13.540 Well, if everybody just becomes more creative, I mean, that means the bad people do too.

01:57:19.260 And it's, is that good?

01:57:21.300 Is it bad?

01:57:22.980 I mean, some of it's how we choose to use our creativity in this practical way.

01:57:27.100 I mean, like what we almost started with, of you wanting to use your creativity to make

01:57:32.560 people happy, make them feel better.

01:57:34.200 I mean, that's a wonderful, positive thing.

01:57:37.800 There's other people out there who aren't going to be thinking that.

01:57:40.580 Yeah.

01:57:40.940 That's the dark arts.

01:57:41.840 That's what we go and fight all the time.

01:57:43.300 And it's, uh, yeah, sometimes it's like, and then when things become more of a business

01:57:49.780 too, it gets less, it's still the same, but it just gets, I don't know, it gets a little

01:57:57.360 different, you know, but that's okay.

01:58:00.080 It just, I think some of it sometimes is a level of correction and stuff like that.

01:58:03.180 But, um, yeah, when money gets involved in creativity, then what happens?

01:58:09.000 It impacts why you're being creative sometimes.

01:58:11.200 And that's the scary part.

01:58:12.500 Yeah.

01:58:13.140 I mean, cause so many of us are creative because we love it and there's other reasons, but yeah,

01:58:18.320 once money starts playing, you know, and again, not that money's bad.

01:58:22.380 Money's great.

01:58:23.180 Money's great.

01:58:23.780 I'm in favor of money.

01:58:24.680 They keep you warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

01:58:26.480 That's what they say.

01:58:28.080 But, but yeah, be your only audience, but that struggle, there's some value.

01:58:32.300 There's some, but you just have so many more paints in your, in your Sherwin-Williams

01:58:36.680 when you got that struggle going, you know, when you have some, when you can find that

01:58:40.700 motivation, but like you're saying, like that balance, you know, we're going to work on

01:58:45.600 keeping the balance and Dr. Kaufman, we'd love to have you back.

01:58:48.180 I would love to come back.

01:58:49.480 Awesome.

01:58:50.000 Thank you so much for coming.

01:58:51.100 You bet.

01:58:51.520 Thank you for having me.

01:58:52.360 Yeah.

01:58:52.560 Yeah.

01:59:02.300 Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind.

01:59:09.620 I found I can feel it in my bones, but it's going to take a little time for me to set that

01:59:22.000 park and break and let myself on one shine.

01:59:27.380 Shine that light on me.

01:59:32.300 I'll sit and tell you my stories.

01:59:37.600 Shine on me.

01:59:41.600 And I will find a song.

01:59:45.140 I will sing it just for you.

01:59:48.200 Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Jonathan Kite and welcome to Kite Club, a podcast where I'll

02:00:07.620 be sharing thoughts on things like current events, stand-up stories, and seven ways to

02:00:12.300 pleasure your partner.

02:00:13.880 The answer may shock you.

02:00:15.620 Sometimes I'll interview my friends.

02:00:17.220 Sometimes I won't.

02:00:19.360 And as always, I'll be joined by the voices in my head.

02:00:22.280 You have three new voice messages.

02:00:25.340 A lot of people are talking about Kite Club.

02:00:28.200 I've been talking about Kite Club for so long.

02:00:30.880 Longer than anybody else.

02:00:32.500 So great.

02:00:33.860 Hi.

02:00:34.500 Sweetie.

02:00:35.460 Here's a deal.

02:00:36.800 Anyone who doesn't listen to Kite Club is a dodgy bloody wanker.

02:00:40.800 Jermaine.

02:00:42.220 Hi.

02:00:42.940 I'll take a quarter pounder with cheese and a McFlurry.

02:00:45.660 Sorry, sir, but our ice cream machine is broken.

02:00:47.940 Oh, no.

02:00:50.220 I think Tom Hanks just butt-dialed me.

02:00:52.680 Anyway, first rule of Kite Club is, tell everyone about Kite Club.

02:00:56.840 Second rule of Kite Club is, tell everyone about Kite Club.

02:01:01.060 Third rule.

02:01:02.020 Like and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

02:01:04.740 Or watch us on YouTube, yeah?

02:01:06.800 And yes, don't worry.

02:01:08.120 My Brad Pitt impression will get better.

02:01:09.920 Thank you.

Creativity Guru Dr. James Kaufman ｜ This Past Weekend #260

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