Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #551: How to Be Creative

Episode Date: July 6, 2018

I'm often asked about how one can be more creative, so I decided to finally make a podcast about the topic.

I'm pulling in my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work. And Mark still has a cold. But we'll carry on because I have a great topic today. So today I'm going to talk all about how to be more creative. Now I've had podcasts before. I had a whole podcast on creativity. My belief is that creativity is a skill where you can connect things that are normally not connected. It's the ability to find connections between unrelated things. And part of what I want to talk about today is how all of you can be more creative. So I have a list of 10 things that you can do. And so that's going to be today's topic. I'm very happy to stop it. Okay, so number one,

stop it. I'm very happy to stop it. Okay. So number one, you have to accept that you can be creative. So one of my favorite books, it's called A Whack on the Side of the Head by Dr. Roger Van Eck, V-O-N space O-E-C-H. And the point of the book basically is how the reason people aren't creative is of their own self-limitations. What he calls mental locks. But the idea that I think is important, and the book goes in much greater detail, but I will stress here is the biggest limitation of creativity is not an inability to be creative. It's a disbelief that you can be creative. It's a skill. Anybody can learn the skill.

And it's something with practice you can be creative. It's a skill. Anybody can learn the skill. And it's something with practice you can get better at. It is not, I mean, a lot of people, I think, treat creativity like it's some natural inborn talent, like, you know, but you can learn to do it.

You can train to do it. And the reason I put this as number one, the first step to being more creative is believing is believing that you can be more creative. I think a lot of people, I think a lot of the stumbling block of creativity is people go, well, I'm just not a creative person. I just can't think that way.

And what I'm saying today is anybody can think that way. There's a lot of techniques. I'll talk about some think that way. And what I'm saying today is anybody can think that way. There's a lot of techniques. I'll talk about some of that today. But it is, you have to start, I mean, one of the things about life is there are a lot of self-fulfilling prophecies when you decide to get negative. I mean, if you believe you won't be creative, you are correct. You will not be creative. Much like if you believe you can't do something, you won't be able to do that thing.

So I'm starting today by saying this is an attainable thing. It's a reachable thing. It's something anybody can do. It's just a matter of spending the time and energy and working on it. It's a muscle. You know what I'm saying? I mean, it's a metaphorical muscle. And you want to work it and get better at it.

The more you work with it, the stronger it will get. Okay, number two. Learn to look outside the problem area. Okay. So let's, let's talk a little bit about what exactly creativity is and how you use it. So, um, the biggest trap that people fall into, and I've talked about this before, but it's important to this topic is we got to go into neurochemistry a little bit. I will get through this. Sorry, coughing today.

Okay, so if you study neurochemistry and talk about how the brain works, the brain is a pretty smart little organ. So basically what happens is whenever you face a problem, it says, let me check my Rolodex or whatever my notes. Have I dealt with this problem before? Oh, look, I have. Okay, I know how to deal with it. And what the brain does is, if you've carved a neurological path to solve this problem, it just recreates that. Now,

most of the time, that's awesome. You know, once you've learned how to hold a pen, great. Your brain knows how to hold a pen. Okay, brain, go access how to hold a pen. The only area where it really gets you in trouble is creativity because the problem is when you think of a problem the same way that you thought before, you'll get to the same spot. And I think a lot of the frustration people have when they're trying to problem solve, they don't get a solution is they try one avenue, they don't get a solution.

And every time they think about it, they follow the same pathways and get to the same solution. And they're like, this seems to be the only solution. It doesn't work. You know, oh, no, there's no answer. And so the first thing to do if you want to be creative is to learn to look outside the problem area. For example, one of the things that I know to be true is a lot of advances in science came about because somebody joined a field from another field. You know, that they came with expertise and that when they joined the new field, instead of having the mind, sort of the mindset that the people in the field have, because people that work on the same problem start to

think alike, they approach it from a different way of thinking. And a lot of times breakthroughs come because someone is just approaching it differently. So the first thing about being creative is when you have a problem, try to approach it differently. Meaning if a certain approach hasn't worked, think of it differently. So my example is, I'm going to use my example from something that happens to me as someone who travels for work. You get in the hotel and there's a shower, but the shower is not necessarily the shower that you know. but the shower is not necessarily the shower that you know. And so sometimes it's hard to figure out how to turn the shower on.

And what I find is usually if you try to turn it on and it doesn't work, odds are what you're doing is you're saying, oh, well, I know how showers work. I have a shower. Let me use my shower applied knowledge to this. And often what happens is because you have some expectations, because there's some things you assume to be true, just because that's how it works for your shower. Like, oh, well, if I want, you know, I have to pull down on the faucet or whatever it is you do, there's something in your brain that says, oh, that is a way that it works.

And sometimes that's not how it works. So for example, one of the things I've started doing when I get in a situation like that and I just can't figure out, okay, let me approach this from a completely different way to approach it. So the way I've started to approach it is, let's see what moves. What can I even move? What choices do I have that I can move it and it would do something? And what I found is when I started thinking in that regard, I stopped having the limitations of how a shower worked and I started just sort of examining it like a more open-ended problem.

And then once I say, oh, well, here's the four things that move. Okay, well, one of these four things must be the thing that does the feature I wanted to do. It turns on the shower or changes the temperature or whatever. But the key is when you get stuck, when you find you're having trouble, you got to start from a different place. Like I talk a lot, you know, my job is to design magic sets. And how do I keep it different? How do I make them all not end up the same?

I always start from a different place. I always start from a different sort of jumping off point. Because I know that will make my brain have to carve new space and think in new ways. And it will get me to new places. So really, when you get in trouble, just think a different way. Step outside the problem area. Approach it from a different way. Step outside the problem area. Approach it from a different context. Because a lot of, like I said,

a lot of creativity is connecting things that don't normally connect. Well, one of the ways to do that is when examining a problem, just shift your focus, shift how you're looking at it, and you'll start connecting with other things. Okay, number three, absorb knowledge.

And what I mean by that is part of creativity is finding connections between things. Well, the more things you know about, the more knowledge you have, the easier it is to be creative because the more different connection points you have. And so one of the things I say is, I mean, this is a fine life thing anyway, but seek out knowledge, you know, read about things you don't know about, you know, talk to people you don't normally talk to. You know, whenever there's an opportunity to learn something you don't know, take that opportunity. Like I'm a big believer in reading nonfiction. I mean, not that fiction can't teach you stuff, it can. But I like reading non-fiction. I like reading articles on the internet. I like talking to people that I've never talked to before.

I like sort of finding out new things about stuff I don't know about. And what I find is when you dig in deep on a new topic, it instantly starts permeating how you think about other things. And it's really fascinating to go, oh, here's a problem somebody else had. Here's how they solved it. And that really changes your perspective when you're trying to approach problems. So really what I'm saying is, if you want to be creative, part of that is filling up your brain with just lots of knowledge and lots of a variety of knowledge. That one of the things that's really helpful when you're trying to find solutions is have a lot of knowledge. That one of the things that's really helpful when you're

trying to find solutions is have a lot of different ideas to compare against. Okay, number four, understand you have to take steps to get to your answer. Okay, so this is another big one is if your mental mindset is that you are one step away from your solution, is that you are one step away from your solution, what that means is you knock out a lot of possible pathways. Meaning, you tend to not think of things that are impractical or silly or things that don't seem like they'd have an immediate answer. But a lot of creative thinking is multi-step, what I call a stepping stone process.

Meaning that I get an idea and that takes me somewhere, and that gets me to an idea and takes me somewhere, and that gets me to an idea and takes me somewhere, and eventually that might lead to my solution. So for example, let's talk about impracticality. When you believe you have a one-step solution, you won't even consider things that are impractical. even consider things that are impractical. But if you take impractical ideas and use them as a jumping off point, oftentimes the core of the idea will lead you someplace that's possible. And so a lot of what good, when you're trying to creatively solve problems, a good tool is to go take something that can't possibly work

that clearly has some limitations that keep it from working but there's a neat idea there there's something about one of the things that's a good exercise is when you have a problem to solve come up with the most outlandish answer you can you know what I'm saying

is like I lost my TV remote what should I do? You know, and just start from something crazy, which is, you know, hire somebody to walk to the TV and change my channel. You know, and then, okay, you're not going to do that, but then it starts like, well, what is that to prefer?

Why would I want to do that? And as you start examining things, you start finding elements of the idea that actually have some relevance. And you'll start, you'll peel away the things that don't really make sense and start to move toward things that do.

But in order to do this, in order for that to work, in order for you to have a stepping stone approach, you need to accept the fact that your answers might be multiple steps away. You'll notice a lot of today, a lot of being creative is a mental mindset thing,

is just thinking that you can do things or thinking how you do things in a different way. A lot of, I mean, in some ways, the biggest blocker of creativity beyond self-doubt is just sort of returning to the status quo of doing the way you always do things. That if you go back and repeat what you've done before, you'll get the very similar results. And that part of being creative is trying things you haven't tried before. Thinking of things in ways you haven't thought before. You know, accepting the fact that how you'll solve it might not be so clean and simple, but it might be more, evolve more steps. Okay, number five,

be willing to experiment. So if you take a look at science, the way science works is they make a hypothesis and then they test it. In some ways, the way I make games is I come up with an idea with my team and then we play test it. You have to be willing to try your ideas and experiment with them and see if they work.

And part of experimentation means some amount of the time, they won't work. That's what experimenting means. It's trying something and you can't be afraid of it not working. Don't be afraid of failure. I did a whole podcast on mistakes. And one of the things, one of the main points of that podcast was

mistakes are excellent teachers. When you make a mistake, you tend to learn from it. And that if you're trying to find an answer, a lot of what you need to do is gather new information. One of the best ways to gather new information is by trying things. And I mean, sometimes you succeed, often you will fail, but you will learn something.

And by learning something and getting new information, you now have additional data to try to solve your problem. I mean, another way to think about creative problem solving is it is not like unsolved solved. It's not just, like I said, not a single step and it's not a single moment. A lot of creative problem solving is slowly whittling away at your answer. A lot of the way creative thinking works is by saying, well, let me start to better understand my parameters that I'm working with, and as I sort of experiment with things, I can knock and narrow down what I'm looking for.

So let's say, for example, when I start, I have a giant problem because I know within this giant space is my answer. But as I investigate it, I can start knocking things away. And eventually, I have a much smaller search area than I'm trying to find the solution. So a lot of important part of experimentation is, and one of the biggest things you do when you make mistakes is, you learn what you don't need to do or you learn parts that aren't relevant. And that is super important.

One of the things that I want people to realize is knocking away, narrowing down your problem, having a better understanding of your problem is most of the path to the solution. Yes, you have to find the solution, but one of the best ways to find the solution is to understand the parameters of what you're looking for because that allows you to knock away things

that are becoming barriers to you. Okay, number six. I'm sorry, number six? Yeah, number six. Accept that there's more than one, sorry, accept that there's not only one answer. So this is another mental process thing. When you have a problem and you think of the mindset of

there's one problem, can I find the, I'm sorry, there's one answer. Can I find the one answer? That's pretty daunting. It's kind of like dating. If you get in the mindset of there's only one in the entire world there's only one person that would be a match for me

that's really intimidating if you take the approach of there are different people there are different people that I would get along with and part of going out there and searching is having this belief that it's not, I think the quest for the single answer is just really frustrating. And when you believe that there are solutions, but there are multiple solutions, you open up and are willing to sort of examine stuff.

And it also lets you maybe go places you wouldn't normally. Like I said, go read a whack on the side of the head. So much, I believe, I mean, I agree a lot with what he's saying is that a lot of the limitations of creative thought is you creating restrictions you don't need to make. You sort of assuming rules that don't necessarily exist. And then limiting your ability to deal with things because a lot of the blocking of finding solutions is, you know, having things that don't really matter that are limiting your options. So the biggest part of sort of solving the problem is truly understanding what the parameters are. And I think if you approach it with the idea that there is more than one answer,

it just puts you in a better place. And like I said, I'm a firm believer that a lot of creative thinking has to do with positive thought. Like, for example, I always approach a problem assuming I will find the answer and usually assuming there are multiple answers. But anyway, when you approach a problem, you know, you want to have a positive attitude. And I really, I can't talk enough about self-fulfilling prophecies. If you don't think you'll find an answer, it really, really limits your ability to find an answer. So you need to approach things as I'm going to find the answer.

There, there is an answer. There's multiple answers. I'm going to find one, not, oh, I don't even know if there's an answer. There is an answer. There's multiple answers. I'm going to find one. I don't even know if there's an answer. Okay, number seven, collect feedback from those most affected by the problem. So I talk a lot about in game design that I talk with my audience because my audience has a really good sense of what they do and don't like. That is true in general of, if there's a problem, find people affected by the problem. Humans love to dwell on problems. If people encounter a problem, they think a lot about it.

So if you're trying to solve a problem, one of the ways you might help yourself is go talk to other people that have shared the problem. might help yourself is go talk to other people that have shared the problem. Feedback is a very important part of the creative process. That you want to figure out where you can get feedback and then be able to make use of it. A big part of that is if you're solving the problem, find other people who try to solve the problem. For a couple reasons. One is maybe one of them solved the problem and then there's a solution. Or two, maybe they've done a better job

at isolating what the problem is and it helps you figure out the parameters for what you're trying to solve. You know, one of the reasons I love getting feedback in game design is the audience is great at knowing what annoys them and what they don't like.

And so if I try something, and they like one thing but dislike another, I can start sort of examining and talking to them and understanding why they don't like the thing they don't like. And that is immensely helpful. So, you know, part of solving problems is getting as much information as possible, and that is talking to people who are also affected by the problem. Talk to them. Learn what they think, and what I think you'll

find is that it's other people that have spent a lot of time processing the very thing you're trying to sort of wrap your brain around. Number eight, play games and do puzzles. Number eight, play games and do puzzles. Really what I mean by this, I guess, is keep your mind mentally active. As I explained before, I believe that creativity is a muscle. The more you use the muscle, the better it'll get. And the simple paradox, I remember for a while, my wife and I decided we would start doing sit-ups.

And the first day we did the sit-ups, I was, you know, I forget how many sit-ups we did, but 30 or whatever. By the end of it, I was exhausted. But every day we did the sit-ups, and there came to be a point where I was doing the 30 sit-ups no problem, and we went up to 40 sit-ups, you know. And that what seemed daunting when I first tried,

when I just put, you know, some reps in on it, when I just sort of kept at it, slowly what happened was I, in this case, literally built my stomach muscle up and it ended up being something where with time it became easier.

The reason that I talk about games and puzzles is they are natural entertainment things that play exactly into the space. Games are very much about understanding restrictions and understanding the path to the end of finding the route to the goal. That's super valuable in creative writing. Not just creative writing, creative thinking. And puzzles are very much about understanding limitations you put upon yourself.

A lot of good puzzles sort of get you in your own way, and part of solving the puzzle is figuring out that presumptions you made aren't inherently true. And there are a lot of other things, lateral thinking puzzles, brain teasers. There's a lot of ways to sort of stretch the elasticity of your brain. And once again, the more you take place in these kind of activities, the more you sort of think things through,

the more you try to do creative endeavors or do things that kind of force you to think differently, the easier it'll come, the easier it'll get. And so there are a bunch of activities that would help you here. I think games and puzzles are probably the most productive, but there are a lot of other things. You know, any hobby you have in which there's problem-solving built in the hobby, which most hobbies have, it will help you.

It will make you a better problem solver and just make you more creative. Okay. Number nine. Think about why things are. And what this is, is one of the interesting ways to understand problem solving is to take known things that have already solved the problem and examine the solution. For example, take something, silverware, and say to yourself, why is this the silverware? Okay, people throughout humankind could do anything to eat its food.

Why did it end up with this silverware? You know, and you'll start to say, oh, well, there were pieces you had to pick up. So you needed something that you could pick it up with. So maybe something you could stab it with. That's how you could pick it up. And you needed to cut it. So you need something sharp so that you could separate pieces. So that you could make smaller pieces that you could pick it up. And you needed to cut it. So you need something sharp so that you could separate pieces, so that you could make small pieces

that you could eat it. And there were liquids. And these other items didn't help you with liquids. How do you deal with liquids? And then you're sort of like, oh, now I see where the fork and the knife and the spoon come from. And essentially why this is important is

the more you can map on problem solving the more you can understand the process and looking at problems that have been solved over many I mean in this case centuries but trying to see something that has been solved and walking through what its problems were is a good exercise to sort of examine how problem solving works

and what you will find a lot of the time is is a good exercise to sort of examine how problem solving works. And what you will find a lot of the time is how much the practicality of some element matters. You know, the reason is always, oh, it's this thing. And sometimes it's obvious, and sometimes it's not obvious if you think about it. But I find it a good exercise if you want to sort of just

work on problem solving. I really love sort of, you know, peering over a problem that's been solved and sort of watch and see how it got to its end state. Okay, number 10. Find solutions for problems you already have found solutions for. So another way to practice is

once you find a solution to a problem, keep looking. Don't stop at one solution. And the reason is, well, there's multiple reasons. One is, there might be a better answer. Just because you found a answer

doesn't mean it's the best answer. Second, you know, it makes you, like I talked earlier about wanting to feel like there's more than one possible solution. When you search for problems and find multiple solutions, you start to believe in the idea that solutions have more than one answer. And the other thing it does is, sorry, it does

some problem solving with pressure taken off. Like once you've solved the problem, like when you normally are trying to solve a problem, there's a lot of pressure because there's a reason the answer needs to get solved. So one of the reasons games are nice and puzzles are nice is there's not that real life pressure on you. And same kind of looking back

at solving problems in the past. But the reason I like you to find multiple solutions is part of being creative is trying to sort of get across the idea to yourself that there's no one way to do things. So if you take problems and you solve them multiple ways, you sort of educate yourself. You know, you get to see firsthand that in fact, yes, that problems don't all have to be solved the same way. You know, a lot of what I'm talking about today is you're building some confidence and part of confidence comes from

sort of seeing things in action and so part of that means do things that aren't where the pressure's off you and do things where you sort of evaluate your own internal processes. So my big takeaway from today, those are my ten things.

My big takeaway from today is how much control that you have. And when I say you can be creative, it is not as if, you know, you have to go take classes or something. It's something you can do through actual practicality. It's something you can do, you know, it's a mental state on some level. It's an attitude. It is, I mean, you got to get your reps in, meaning you got to actually solve some problems, but just how you think about it and how you frame it itself will have a huge impact on how creative you can be. And, like I said, the nice thing about being creative

is there's a lot of cool perks to finding innovative answers to problems. Because the first low-hanging fruit answer, while often functional, usually isn't the optimal answer. The low-hanging fruit usually isn't the best answer. Sometimes it is.

I'm not saying it never is. It's the obvious answer, but it's not necessarily the best. So anyway, I'm almost at work, so let me recap my top 10 lessons today of how to be creative. So number one, accept that you're creative.

I can't stress how much the positivity plays into this. How much just believing the capability to find something. Number two, learn to look outside the problem area. Creativity is about making connections you don't normally make. You know, when you get yourself in trouble, get outside it. Look at it from a different vantage point. Try looking at it from something, you know, change your perspective. You know, I keep talking about neurochemistry, but really

just change your perspective just gives you new insights and new insights will get new ways to solve the problem. Three, absorb knowledge. The more you know, the more you can connect. If creativity is about connecting disparate things, well, the more you know, the more you can connect. If creativity is about connecting disparate things, well, the more knowledge in your head, just the more abilities and opportunities you have to connect things. Also, you will find if you learn about new things, that will instantaneously affect how you think about things.

So if you're constantly learning different things, you'll always be approaching problems differently, which is valuable. Okay, number four. Understand you have to take steps to find the answers. This is just an expectation issue, which is don't get away from the mindset that it's a one-step answer, that the answer you give is right going to lead

to what you're doing. Once you understand that there's stepping stones and that you have to take a path to get someplace a lot of the time, it'll make you more willing to start on paths that don't seem fruitful at first. Number five, be willing to experiment. If you want to learn things and, you know, get your hands dirty, you know, there's nothing better, there's no greater teacher than experience.

And don't be afraid of mistakes. Don't be afraid of things going wrong. Experiments going wrong often are the most valuable in that they teach you the most. So experiment. Don't be afraid of failure. Failure isn't a bad thing when you're trying to solve a problem. Number six, accept that there's not only one answer. This is, once again, this is a mindset thing,

but really open up and make sure that you are willing and open to the idea that the problem is larger in scope than you realize, that there's more solution space than you realize. Number seven, collect feedback from those most affected by the problem. A lot of problem solving is doing homework, is learning about the problem, is learning about what people need and what you can take away. And so feedback is valuable.

In fact, there's almost no field in which feedback doesn't make you better. And it's definitely true for problem solving in general. Number eight. Play games and do puzzles. Hopefully you don't be listening to a magic podcast. Hopefully this isn't a thing you have to learn about. But games and puzzles

allow you to test out your skills and master your skills for problem solving in a safe and fun way. In a way with the pressure off where you can sort of push limits and try things. You can experiment in a way that you sometimes normally can't because there's no real complications that cause problems. Number nine, think about the way things are.

One of the greatest ways to learn about solving problems is just have a better understanding of how others solve problems. And it is a neat experiment to sort of walk through how problems got solved or why things are the way they are. Pretty much, if after thousands of years, people do something a certain way,

there's strong reasons for that and try to understand it. And number 10, find solutions for problems you already know. And what I mean there is, if you want to get good at problem solving, you have to solve a lot of problems. So you always want to be on the lookout for problems you can solve. And one of those is, once you solve a problem, you still have more work left to do. Problems don't have one solution. They have multiple solutions. A, accepting that will just make it easier to find them.

And B, it's just good proving ground to test yourself against a challenge. So use existing problems that you've solved. Keep going. Don't just stop at one answer. So anyway, guys, those are my pieces of advice on how to be more creative um they have worked a lot for me i i feel i'm quite creative and once again it's not because i was born creative i think it stems a lot from the fact that i valued creativity and that i um wherever i could i i had the positive attitude i I put in the reps. I solved the problems.

I took the feedback. All the things I'm saying today, I did. And that really was a big part of helping me and teaching me to be more creative. So anyway,

I just want to wrap up today by saying, even if you think that being creative is not something that's of value to you, it is. Creative problem solving, there is no person alive whose life won't improve by being better at creatively solving problems.

So even if you think this doesn't apply to you, even if you listen to this whole podcast and go, eh, not my thing, I'm telling you, making use of skills to be more creative has a lot of dividends. It has helped me immensely. I, in fact, believe I have the job I have because of my creative problem skills. And that came from me

working on it, spending years and years honing it. So if I did it, you can do it. Okay, guys, I'm now at work, so we all know what that means.

This is the end of my drive to work. Instead of talking about magic and creativity, it's time for me to make magic and be creative. So until the next time, bye-bye.