#42 Creativity: The What

Ep42 Between the Ears - Creativity (what)
Welcome, I'm Arnold Bekus and I enable you to have a better life between the ears because your inner state creates your outer reality. Today I'm going to discuss about creativity. I split it into two sessions.

So in the next session I will also discuss that how of creativity and this week and in this session I will discuss the what of creativity and what is needed for creativity. There are three things I would like to share beside the definition. The definition of creativity which I'm using is that creativity is connecting different dots in a different way and adding something new to that.

That's my definition. So what is crucial for creativity? It's connecting dots. What does dots mean? Different topics, subjects, things you're interested in.

So connecting these dots and that's why it's important to be curious, to be interested in many different topics and read about many different topics because then you have many dots. And to be creative you need to be able to connect those different dots because that is what I just said in the definition. It's connecting different dots in a different way adding something new to that.

So if I only would have two topics where I get some knowledge and experience in, there's not much to connect. But if I get 37 different dots it becomes easy to connect them in a creative way and maybe add something new to it. That is actually how I'm building brain fitness and brain athletes.

Yes, I'm the as far as I know the only one working on this but I don't start from scratch. It's like I can use the approach with the fitness industry and exercise and what they're doing in sports. So I build upon that.

Then I add knowledge about brain health. I add psychology, self-help, spirituality, sports. So out of all these things which I combine, so these are all dots and I combine these dots into what's now brain fitness and brain athletes.

So in a sense I'm not starting from scratch and in another sense I am because I haven't seen anyone doing a similar thing unfortunately. So that's why I had to build it from the ground up but not totally because there's so many dots I could connect. There's still so many dots I can add and that makes it good and attractive.

So the first thing about creativity is about connecting dots. The second one is being present which sounds as an easy thing but we are distracted all the time and distraction blocks presence and it doesn't matter whether when you're reading a book, when you're writing an article, when you are learning something new, a new language you have to be present because the moment you're distracted you you lose your line of thought, you lose your intuition, you lose everything else. So presence is really important.

Another thing which is really important is boredom. Yes you heard that correctly, being bored, doing one thing well and when you are more comfortable with being bored that's when you get new ideas, that's when you get new suggestions. If you say oh I'm a little bit bored and you start scrolling on your phone there's no place for new ideas, there's no place for insights, there's no place for creativity and the next one is accept reality.

This is a hard one for me especially as well. So stop fighting reality with your brains, with your body, with everything because what you resist persists and when you're in this mode of fight or flight or everything you cannot access your creativity or long-term thinking or your highest potential because your brain and your body is focused on your safety, it's focused on protecting you and when you're in in the mode of fight or flight I tell you there won't be any great new ideas popping up. So don't fight, accept reality, build and create something that is better than the current reality and then people will be attracted to what you're doing.

That's what I'm doing with the better for all collectives. If we create a way of learning, living and working which is much better than our current way then people will go to the better for all collective. Then people will stop going to schools or businesses or houses which are terrible.

No, if we create together, if we create co-create, if we co-create something which is much better than the existing reality, the existing reality will kind of disappear. So accept the reality but build something which is really better, create something which is really better. Everyday beauty.

We conclude this session with some examples of everyday beauty or awe as it's called. A bit difficult for me to pronounce as a foreigner. It's a w e awe.

Why is this important? Because beauty and moral beauty and awe has a very positive influence on your inner state and something as I explained in an earlier podcast which we have to do continuously otherwise our negative bias takes over. So today's story is about, well it's not only a story, it's reality. Workers washing a ceiling in America's oldest basilica found gold underneath the paint.

St. Mary's Basilica in Minneapolis was finished in 1914 and is undergoing its second renovation in over a century. It's a 50 million dollar project with a hard deadline of Easter Sunday next year. And to reach the ornate ceiling of the nave workers erected 15 floors of scaffolding.

That is high, right? And while washing a broad arch near the altar they discovered something nobody expected. Gold stencil work hidden under flat paint covering the entire archway. And nobody knows when it was painted or why.

The medallion panel set in the corners of the ceiling design held the second surprise. Ultramarine blue fields decorated with gold fleur-de-lis also hidden for decades. The project manager said there was no record of the original artwork in any of the building's documentation.

When we came to this arch we had no idea we'd discovered this. The gold stenciling will be fully restored before Easter. It was a supremely emotional moment because that which has been hidden for 75 years now could be revealed again.

The people from 1914 who came here for the first mass this is what they saw and that is what we will see again. Remember we need your uniqueness. Be a better maker for yourself, for others, for the world.