The 4-point Life Hack to Your Creativity

„You can´t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”

– Maya Angelou

Lately, I listened to Lewis Howes “The School of Greatness” Podcast. He always invites a guest to talk about important topics of life. This episode (no. 853, September 2019) was an interview with Chase Jarvis, Business Creator, Photographer and Author of the likewise called book “How to find you Creative Calling”.

These days, it has become very popular to search for our creative calling or different ways to express ourselves creatively. But is there a shortcut into creativity? Can you follow a number of golden steps into your dream future? I found out there is. In fact, it´s a 4-point life hack to life a creative life.

What is Creativity?

If you look up the word, you find something similar to “the use of imagination or original ideas to create something; inventiveness.”

Creativity means, we invent something new. It is not only about arts, even though the majority understands creativity as art; every time we make up something new, we use our creativity.

It is what Start Ups are made of. It´s to further develop existing businesses, it´s interpreting a text or a poem as well as re-decorating your house or cooking an exciting meal.

Creativity is limitless. It is a new way of setting up your excel file and it´s using different techniques to decode the human DNA.

Creativity is universal. It is part of all aspects of our lives. We just don´t acknowledge it.

Why don´t we see ourselves as Creators?

Most of us have been trained to suppress creativity. From early childhood on into adulthood we learned that creativity is nice to have, but “you can´t get rich with it” unless you are really talented. We might have been convinced of our talents with 5, but latest as teenager we realize, that it is really hard to stand out.

“You are a very talented painter, but better learn something real.”

“Acting is nice, but better chose a real job.”

“Oh, you are a writer, but how do you earn money?”

“Of course, you can do that, but I´m sure someone already invented it.”

How often did you stop exploring something further because you thought it´s not good enough, not imaginative enough or that YOU are just not creative enough?

I like, what Chase Jarvis said about the nature of creativity. He said, we are all equally creative. If you rate people on a scale from one to ten, everybody is a ten. No exception.

There is not that one person that is more creative than the other, some of us have simply learned to better use their creativity.

Creativity versus (financial) success

Creativity is always connected to the starving artist. We learn early on that only “a real job” will bring us money. That we need to work hard and make an effort to get paid well.

Creative jobs are seen as hobby or baublery.

Is there a way to undergo this downward spiral of thinking all creative work is paid lousy or you hardly make a living with what you love?

Why are some people successful in being creative and others are not? Can you really earn money in a creative field? Is it only about talent?

Being creative and successful is not only about talent, nor is it about mere luck. It is a combination of working hard and doing what you love, while staying enthusiastic about it.

What does it need to be a successful creator?

According to Chase Jarvis there is a simple rule to be creative AND successful.

It only needs 4 things to be a Successful Creator:

1. Imagination
2. Design
3. Execution
4. Amplify

Think about it for a minute.

How often did you dreamed about something, but then you let it drop? Maybe you started drafting it, but then threw it away. I had many ideas. But every so often, I didn´t even come to point 3, because I talked myself out of it.

What all “great creators” or inventive people have in common is, that they tried it out. It is absolutely valuable to have an incredible idea and make a plan to execute, but you actually have to do it. If you want to write, you have to write. If you want to reveal a new cancer treatment, you have to sit in front of your microscope. For a new App you need to write a code. Whatever it is you want to be creative with, you can´t skip point number 3.

It was not the first time I heard this in the podcast!

One common thing you read amongst a lot of creatives is the act of doing it. Whatever it is, you wish to do, DO IT. Possibly every day. The more you try, the better you become or the sooner you realize, what needs to be improved.

Still, this is not a guarantee for getting paid for it. Normally, your creative work falls into one of the following categories:

1. You love what you do, but you don´t earn money with it.
2. You don´t love what you do, but it brings you money.
3. You love what you do, and you make a living with it.

We all want to end up under C. But in order to reach this goal, we need three things: exercise (to get better), persistence (to complete it) and a community to share our results.

Create a Community

It doesn´t make sense writing that wonderful essay and then never show it to someone. You can´t compose that incredible progressive new App and don´t test it with users.

Creativity is not only about executing your art/work, but also about sharing it with others.

You have to go out and find your tribe. Whether it is to connect with like-minded people in the same area for exchange or to find potential customers who are interested in paying for your creations or learning from you (ideally both).

Creativity is all about sharing and amplifying your work.

You will never know, if your creations find an audience, if you are not actively looking for one. This is a huge part of the work, if you want to turn your creation into a successful business model. You have to go out and connect to others to help you spread the word. Networking wasn´t easier than today with all the possibilities of social media.

What if it doesn´t work out?

Sometimes, we need to take side twists in our creativity and that is totally ok.

Not all new inventions can be great. Not every music is for everyone. There are a lot of things, which we first need to explore to realize there are not made for us. But maybe they bring us closer to what we do now.

Have you ever watched the famous speech Steve Jobs gave in front of Graduates of the Stanford University? Before he dropped out of University, he took a course in calligraphy and he loved it. He explains to the audience, that he probably would have never invented the fonts for Apple without this course. He was a design freak, and he wanted the usage of word processing programs to be fun. Reality has proved him right.

Give it a try and create the unthinkable

I love to listen to those stories as it brings bits and pieces together – connecting the dots as Steve Jobs called it. We humans sometimes tend to render our responsibility to fate. And yes, it often needs a little grain of luck to achieve our goals, but following the 4 Steps of

• Envision your dream life,
• Draft the model,
• Do the work and
• Share it with the world

can bring us very close to reaching our goal which is combining what we love and eventually get paid for. There is not shortcut other than doing it. Day by day. Connect to your tribe to spread the word and suddenly you see new opportunities opening up for you.