I’m not gonna be perfect, but I’m gonna try stuff.
The head that once was crowned with thorns Is crowned with glory now.
Play with your physical workplace in a way that sends positive “body language” to employees and visitors.
Like a muscle, your creative abilities will grow and strengthen with practice.
Mark Twain said a century ago, “It’s not what you don’t know that gets you into trouble, it’s what you know for sure that ain’t so.
The first step toward a great answer is to reframe the question.
At its core, creative confidence is about believing in your ability to create change in the world around you.
Empathy means challenging your preconceived ideas and setting aside your sense of what your think is true in order to learn what actually is true.
In our experience, one of the scariest snakes in the room is the fear of failure, which manifests itself in such ways as fear of being judged, fear of getting started, fear of the unknown. And while much has been said about fear of failure, it still is the single biggest obstacle people face to creative success.
As Brown writes: “When our self-worth isn’t on the line, we are far more willing to be courageous and risk sharing our raw talents and gifts.” One way to embrace creativity, Brown says, is to let go of comparison.
Everything in modern society is the result of a collection of decisions made by someone. Why shouldn’t that someone be you?
We didn’t know as children that we were creative. We just knew that it was okay for us to try experiments that sometimes succeeded and sometimes falied. That we could keep creating, keep tinkering, and trust that something interesting would result if we just stuck with it.
No matter how high you rise in your career, no matter how much expertise you gain, you still need to keep your knowledge and your insights refreshed. Otherwise, you may develop a false confidence in what you already “know” that might lead you to the wrong decision.
Design thinking relies on the natural – and coachable – human ability to be intuitive, to recognize patterns, and to construct ideas that are emotionally meaningful as well as functional.
Their ultimate “strokes of genius” don’t come about because they succeed more often than other people – they just do more, period.
Noticing that something is broken is an essential prerequisite for coming up with a creative solution to fix.
It’s hard to be “best” right away, so commit to rapid and continuous improvements.
The key is to be quick and dirty – exploring a range of ideas without becoming too invested in only one.
It’s not what you don’t know that gets you in trouble, it’s what you know for sure that ain’t so” Mark Twain.
Cool technology alone is not enough. If it were, we’d all be riding Segways and playing with robotic dogs.