Our minds have more ideas stored in them than can be found in the collective catalogues of any library. We have a significant number of memories of moving and beautiful scenes than the world's greatest museums can put together.

Our minds are a treasure trove of ideas

We fail to notice what we have seen. We are so convinced that worthy insights lie beyond us that we fail to consult the treasury of thoughts and vision we generate every hour by our brilliant but unexplored minds.  The thoughts of geniuses are not very different from our own. They simply had the confidence to take their ideas more seriously and study them properly.

Taking your thoughts serious

The key to originality doesn't lie in seeking out new ideas and experiences, but rather in examining our own neglected thoughts. Sign up to our new newsletter and get 10% off your first online order of a book, product or class: https://bit.ly/3HpVdSa For books and more from The School of Life, visit our online shop: https://bit.ly/3xGbb8z Our website has classes, articles and products to help you lead a more fulfilled life: https://bit.ly/38TeVcm Join this channel to get access to exclusive members perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7IcJI8PUf5Z3zKxnZvTBog/join FURTHER READING You can read more on this and other subjects on our blog, here: https://bit.ly/388NgDO “The problem with libraries is that they can be so large, impressive, and filled with knowledge that they unwittingly embed in us an idea that everything worth registering, everything valuable and true, must lie ‘out there’, must already have been classed on a shelf with an index number to await our discovery the moment we cease to be so preoccupied with ourselves…” MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Watch more films on SELF in our playlist: http://bit.ly/TSOLself SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Aaron Sampson https://www.aaronsampson.co.uk @SampsonInMotion Title animation produced in collaboration with Vale Productions https://www.valeproductions.co.uk/

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

creativity

Creativity

videos

Videos

The key to originality doesn't lie in seeking out new ideas and experiences, but rather in examining our own neglected thoughts.
Sign up to our new newsletter and get 10% off your first online order of a book, product or class: https://bit.ly/3HpVdSa
For books and more from The School of Life, visit our online shop: https://bit.ly/3xGbb8z
Our website has therapy, articles and products to help you lead a more fulfilled life: https://bit.ly/38TeVcm

FURTHER READING

You can read more on this and other subjects on our blog, here: https://bit.ly/388NgDO

“The problem with libraries is that they can be so large, impressive, and filled with knowledge that they unwittingly embed in us an idea that everything worth registering, everything valuable and true, must lie ‘out there’, must already have been classed on a shelf with an index number to await our discovery the moment we cease to be so preoccupied with ourselves…”


MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE

Watch more films on SELF in our playlist: 
http://bit.ly/TSOLself


SOCIAL MEDIA

Feel free to follow us at the links below:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/  
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CREDITS

Produced in collaboration with:

Aaron Sampson
https://www.motionmaverick.com
https://www.instagram.com/motionmaverick/

 
Title animation produced in collaboration with

Vale Productions
https://www.valeproductions.co.uk/

We're interested in self-understanding, calm and emotional maturity.

We have thousands of articles about emotional life for you on our website: www.theschooloflife.com

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We publish one film a week, on Wednesdays at 14.00hrs GMT.

The School of Life

You Still Have a Chance to Be Very Original

Trees have enchantment and self-clarification to artists. “The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way,” wrote William Blake.

The artist and trees

In a 1924 lecture about the creative process, German artist Paul Klee has insightfully intersected the canon of sylvan metaphors with the canon of theories of creativity.
"The artist has studied this world of variety and has, we may suppose, unobtrusively found his way in it. His sense of direction has brought order into the passing stream of image and experience. This sense of direction in nature and life, this branching and spreading array, I shall compare with the root of the tree.
From the root the sap flows to the artist, flows through him, flows to his eye."

Paul Klee likens the artist to a tree

Klee cautions that It is rather the work of transmutation for which the artist is both the agent and the vessel: "Nobody would affirm that the tree grows its crown in the image of its root. Between above and below can be no mirrored reflection. It is obvious that different functions expanding in different elements must produce divergences.[...] And yet, standing at his appointed place, the trunk of the tree, he does nothing other than gather and pass on what comes to him from the depths. He neither serves nor rules — he transmits."

The work of art is not a direct translation of the subconscious

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

How an Artist is Like a Tree: Paul Klee on Creativity

The classical masterpiece by Markus Zusak has a lot of quotes which can let your brain fog and heart skip a beat. These are my favourites!

Takeaways From The Book Thief 

"I guess humans like to watch a little destruction"

"They're strange, those wars. Full of blood and violence-but also full of stories that are equally difficult to fathom

"So many humans. So many colors.﻿"

"Silence was not quiet or calm, and it was not peace"

"THE BEST word shakers were the ones who understood the true power of words."

"For some reason, dying men always ask questions they know the answer to. Perhaps it's so they can die being right."

"The consequence of this is that I'm always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both."

" It kills me sometimes, how people die"

"Even strength must bow to wisdom sometimes"

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S 100 BEST YA BOOKS OF ALL TIME The extraordinary, beloved novel about the ability of books to feed the soul even in the darkest of times. When Death has a story to tell, you listen. It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement. In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak, author of I Am the Messenger, has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time. “The kind of book that can be life-changing.” —The New York Times “Deserves a place on the same shelf with The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.” —USA Today DON’T MISS BRIDGE OF CLAY, MARKUS ZUSAK’S FIRST NOVEL SINCE THE BOOK THIEF.

books

Books

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S 100 BEST YA BOOKS OF ALL TIME The extraordinary, beloved novel about the ability of books to feed the soul even in the darkest of times. When Death has a story to tell, you listen. It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.  In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak, author of I Am the Messenger, has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.   “The kind of book that can be life-changing.” —The New York Times   “Deserves a place on the same shelf with The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.” —USA Today DON’T MISS BRIDGE OF CLAY, MARKUS ZUSAK’S FIRST NOVEL SINCE THE BOOK THIEF.

Markus Zusak

The Book Thief

Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, but is also active in painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts.

Who is Yayoi Kusama?

Yayoi Kusama is a prominent artists in Contemporary art, Feminist art, Pop art, Minimalism and Environmental art.

Type of Art

“From the point of view of one who creates, everything is a gamble, a leap into the unknown.”

“Our earth is only one polka dot among a million stars in the cosmos/ Polka dots are a way to infinity.”

“I hope that the power of art can make the world more peaceful.”

Yayoi Kusama is a brilliant artist who pushed the boundaries of all artistic fields she pursued.

I am deeply terrified by the obsessions crawling over my body, whether they come from within me or from outside. I fluctuate between feelings of reality and unreality. I, myself, delight in my obsessions.'Yayoi Kusama is one of the most significant contemporary artists at work today. This engaging autobiography tells the story of her life and extraordinary career in her own words, revealing her as a fascinating figure and maverick artist who channels her obsessive neuroses into an art that transcends cultural barriers. Kusama describes the decade she spent in New York, first as a poverty stricken artist and later as the doyenne of an alternative counter-cultural scene. She provides a frank and touching account of her relationships with key art-world figures, including Georgia O'Keeffe, Donald Judd and the reclusive Joseph Cornell, with whom Kusama forged a close bond. In candid terms she describes her childhood and the first appearance of the obsessive visions that have haunted her throughout her life. Returning to Japan in the early 1970s, Kusama checked herself into a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo where she resides to the present day, emerging to dedicate herself with seemingly endless vigour to her art and her writing. This remarkable autobiography provides a powerful insight into a unique artistic mind, haunted by fears and phobias yet determined to maintain her position at the forefront of the artistic avant-garde. In addition to her artwork, Yayoi Kusama is the author of numerous volumes of poetry and fiction, including The Hustler's Grotto of Christopher Street, Manhattan Suicide Addict and Violet Obsession.

travel

Travel

Yayoi Kusama

Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama

When we think of tech, we often think of cities. When we think of the countryside,  it's a place that's lacking tech and digital media literacy. <ul><li>Yet there are places like the pearl-producing towns of Zhejiang and places in rural Indiana, where online pearl parties flourish.</li><li>Rural families manufacture for online lifestyle brands in the US.</li><li>Influencers in rural China make live stream videos of themselves eating chilli peppers, picking tea or hunting bamboo rats.</li><li>There are pockets of e-commerce that are sourced from rural manufacturers in China, made by families. </li></ul>

We see the rural as backward

On a larger scale, rural areas are connected through global market forces. For example, soybeans grown in Brazil are shipped to industrial hog farms in southern China. Alibaba, the internet giant, is partnering with farms to use AI and computer vision to create highly optimized pigs to scale up pork production.

Larger scale innovation

Large farms see their work as inputs, outputs, land value and land ownership. Small farmers frame their work as one of ecology and stewardship. Their land is a place of relations. The tech that we imagine to be solutions, such as online coding classes for farmers or factory work in cities, are framed as one-way relationships, with tech supposedly benefiting rural areas. But when we see things like AI farming pigs at scale or small farmers turning their land into pearl ponds, it is not because tech found a solution. It is because small farmers can't compete on a global scale.

What happens when tech and the countryside intersect

Much of the technology revolves around our consumption and entertainment in the cities. But the most thoughtful innovation is happening in places outside of Silicon Valley or San Francisco.  Tech alone is not always the solution. In Yangguang, a rice-farming village, the local agricultural bureau encouraged farmers to implement chemical fertilisers, pesticides, and industrial farm machinery. The modern protocols led to a decline in soil quality. The villagers turned this around with organic farming. While tech did help the village steward their land, the people, not tech, steered the decisions.

The people, not tech, should steer decisions

The approach that is without boundaries and ambitions to scale reminds us of the humility and innovation, the ability to change political and social structures. Tech should be seen as affecting a set of relations, ecologies and environments. In the village, innovation is an ecosystem that doesn't scale across thousands of users but across the spectrum of time, regenerating the soil and community ties from season to season.

Scaling across time

Some of the most thoughtful innovation is happening in the world's rural communities.  This talk advocates for a new view of the countryside. It is not places lacking in tech but centres of humble innovation that emphasize community and sustainability.

"To see and understand the countryside is a crucial part of moving towards a more livable future for everyone," says coder, artist and organizer Xiaowei R. Wang. They've observed that some of the most careful, thoughtful innovation is happening in the world's rural communities, like Chinese chicken farmers using biometrics tracking and blockchain to improve supply chain transparency. In this talk, they advocate for a new perspective on the countryside: not as places lacking in tech or digital media literacy but as centers of humble innovation that emphasize community and sustainability.

entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

business

Business

startup

Startups

Why entrepreneurship flourishes in the countryside

We’re blinded by our daily work. We see the trees, not the forest. We focus on an idea that we've had for a year, the familiarity of repetition undeservedly increasing its importance. We find it difficult to think past the last seven customer interviews or sales calls and while these are great for generating usable ideas, they only lead to small increments. Extreme ideas can help you out of tiny thinking. Some ideas are so extreme that they border on nonsense, but the different perspectives can reveal distinctly new ideas.

Brainstorming is hard

If you were forced to increase your prices by 10x, what would you do to justify it? <ul><li>What type of brand looks and feels like something that is expensive? How would the design of both the website and the product need to change?</li><li>What part of your market would you have to target? Do they have different problems or needs?</li><li>What expensive services might you need to supply? </li></ul>

10x prices

If you had to earn your growth and brand from scratch, what would you do? We often become complacent with our marketing, or we never get around to having a truly compelling unique positioning statement. <ul><li>How would you distinguish yourself with a unique compelling message? Would you use a different pricing model?</li><li>Would you throw out some features? Would you build some new features that would make you more competitive?</li></ul>

New customers

If you were never allowed to provide tech support in any form, what would you have to change? <ul><li>How would onboarding need to improve?</li><li>Where would the product need to provide the user with more control, since they can’t ask?</li></ul>

No tech support

What would be the most fun thing to build? What feature do you think would be cool for customers to use? What technology would be fun to work on? It has to be something that makes your product better, not random or unrelated.

Maximize fun

If your biggest competitor copied every feature you have, how do you still win? Creating a bigger and more emotional distinction is a powerful way to win. <ul><li>Is the answer inside your product, in something other than the utility of the features? What is it, and how could you make more of that?</li><li>If the answer is outside of our product, where is it? Is it a higher purpose or brand promise that your customers buy into?</li></ul>

Complete rip-off

What if you had to have a new feature in just two weeks that would delight and surprise a fraction of your customer? Every bit of complexity has to be stripped out, the scope needs to be reduced to a minimum. A 1000-page book can be summarized in a 40-page Cliff’s Notes. The key lessons of Cliff’s Notes can be summarized in a 1-page blog post. The main theme and one unique perspective of the book can be summarized in one sentence. If we trade things off, It can always be smaller.

No time

What if you were forced to charge customers in a completely different manner? If you’re usage-based, you’re forced to charge a flat monthly rate; if monthly with tiers, you’re forced to measure and charge daily with some formula. Business models force you into certain thinking structures about how to monetize the value that you create. Shaking up the business model shakes up the value/cost equation. Sometimes a different business model is actually better for everyone. <ul><li>How would you change how you position the value you deliver?</li><li>How would costs change?</li><li>Are there features that you’d need to build?</li></ul>

Flipped business model

If you were not allowed to have a website, how would you still grow your business? <ul><li>Could you grow by word-of-mouth?</li><li>Could you create advocacy, as in channel partners or ambassadors?</li><li>Could your product be marketing?</li></ul> Your advocates are already using your product, the product is already a platform for growth. What if “in-product marketing” is more impactful on growth than any useful feature?

No website

What if you don't have synchronous meetings ever again? <ul><li>What if you had to onboard new employees without meetings, operate the software, or find where things are located? What systems would need to exist, and what materials would you need?</li><li>What if you had to make decisions without meetings. Is it possible that brainstormed ideas could be even better without meetings?</li><li>How would you create social ties and inside jokes and 1:1 as well as group relationships if you’re never in the same space at the same time?</li></ul>

No meetings

If you could never talk to your customers again, how would you figure out what to build? <ul><li>Could you measure their behaviour so well that you could quickly measure whether any change was positive or negative? Are there clear signs of value or happiness that you could use?</li><li>Could you be even faster at testing new ideas?</li><li>What could you use online in what customers or competitors are saying, that would inform your strategy or product?</li></ul>

No customer contact

What if it didn’t matter how unprofitable you were? How much value could you deliver if you thought of the product as an exercise in philanthropy? It can be surprisingly difficult to convert money to real customer or business value, If there is a way, it might lead to a new pricing tier.

Cost is irrelevant

What if you could change anything, regardless of what anyone thinks? <ul><li>Terminating an entire product line would shake the organisation and possibly cause layoffs. What if it’s the best thing to do, regardless of that?</li><li>Pivoting the entire company could break the organisation, destroy trust in leadership, and cause people to leave. But what if that’s what's required to fix the strategy?</li></ul>

Sociopathic CEO

What externality has the potential to kill the entire company? <ul><li>Can you think of a security breach that is so significant?</li><li>Or what if most of the customer base leaves within a year? </li><li>How could the economy change so that no one would buy your software?</li></ul> Is there something you could do to mitigate the effects? Or something that pivots the company such that it is no longer a threat?

Mortal wound

What if you could only ship one thing this year? <ul><li>What single initiative would make the most difference? </li><li>What would generate the most revenue? </li><li>What would be so exciting that customers would stay even if other things are missing?</li></ul> When you look back over years of a business, often the whole trajectory comes down to 1-2 big decisions per year.

Only one thing a year

How to come up with fresh transformative ideas

It is difficult to brainstorm fresh, transformative ideas. Telling everyone that “no idea is a bad idea” isn’t enough of a prompt. These questions will stretch you beyond your daily experience; if you’re lucky, they could even lead to a unique business model and a long-term competitive moat.

Extreme questions to trigger new, better ideas

No one often talks about the perspiration that comes from the fear of presenting an idea or talking about something we care about. One thing that always happens when a creative is sharing their idea is that they will be criticised. The criticism may not relate to their work but be personal, causing the creative to withdraw from that space.

There is nothing more vulnerable than creating

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, ... who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Vulnerability is not about winning or losing. It's about showing up and being seen.
But if you're going to show up, create things and be seen, you are guaranteed that you will be criticised. That is the only certainty you have.
However, only take feedback from those who are also in the arena and willing to put themselves on the line.

Being vulnerable and the critics

Just before we show up to present our creative work, we are often scared, we have self-doubt, anxiety, and uncertainty. What most people do when they walk into the arena and know these emotions will meet them is they armour up. They put on all the armour to protect themselves. The problem with armouring up against vulnerability is that you shut yourself off from everything you do and love.

The arena

Being vulnerable is a part of fear and self-doubt and grief and uncertainty and shame. But it is also the birthplace of love, joy, empathy creativity and innovation.
Without vulnerability, you cannot create. As a creative, you're asked to really put yourself out there so that people can see what you're doing and what you're made of. You'll be loved by some and criticised by others. The best way to move forward is not to ensure the critics are not in the arena. It is to know that they will be there and to know exactly what they're going to say to you.

The two sides of being vulnerable

When you share your work, you will always find four critics:<ol><li>Shame: That gremlin that whispers you're not enough or if you're feeling confident,  the gremlin that tells you, "Who do you think you are?"</li><li>Scarcity: What am I doing that's original? What is special in what I contribute?</li><li>Comparison.</li><li>Your teacher, parent, critical co-worker. "I don't worry about what the critics think": When we stop caring what people think, we lose our capacity for connection. But when we are defined by what people think, we lose our capacity to be vulnerable.</li></ol>

The four types of critics

If you're going to spend your life in the arena, showing up, there are a few things you need:<ul><li>Clarity on your values: If courage is a value, you will keep on showing up. Whether you are successful or not is irrelevant.</li><li>Have at least one person in your life whos willing to pick you up and dust you off when you fail.</li></ul> The people who have the most courage are willing to show up and be vulnerable. They know who their critics are, reserve seats for them and hear them but do not buy their message.

How to show up as a creative

When you put an idea or piece of art or design forward, you are normally your biggest critic. We have an ideal; of what we're supposed to be, and many of us end up orphaning the parts of ourselves that don't fit that ideal. When we orphan the parts of us that don't fit the ideal, we are only left with the usual parts that look like everyone else: where we were born, who our family is. However, when we don't orphan the parts, we can be the person who believes in what we're doing. We can be vulnerable to say yes, this feels scary and put ourselves out there anyway.

You are your biggest critic

How to be vulnerable: Learn to bring more healthy vulnerability to your life.

health

Health

communication

Communication

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

Daring To Be Vulnerable

Being vulnerable: There is nothing more frightening than the moment we expose our ideas to the world.

About this presentation There is nothing more frightening than the moment we expose our ideas to the world. Author and vulnerability researcher Brené Brown shows us how to deal with the critics and our own self-doubt by refusing to "armor up" and shut ourselves off. "Not caring what people think," she says, "is its own kind of hustle." Instead we must "reserve a seat" for the critics and our own self-doubt. "Tell them, I see you, I hear you, but I'm going to do this anyway." Watch more videos at http://www.99u.com/videos 2:14 "Design is a function of connection. Nothing is more then vulnerable then creativity. What is art if it is not love?" 3:11 Perspiration from fear 6:48 Theodore Roosevelt quote/passage that changed my life: "It's not the critic who counts..." 7:39 Everything i know about vulnerability: it is not about winning or losing, it's about showing up and being seen 7:53 "This is who I want to be I want to create. I want to make thing that didn't exist before touched them." 8:14 One guarantee: you will get you ass kicked 8:39 "If you're not in the arena also getting your ass kicked, I'm no interested in your opinion" 9:41 This is where we sweat 10:17 Fear, self doubt, comparison, anxiety 11:06 When you armor up, you shut yourself off from everything that you do an love 11:40 Without vulnerability you cannot create 12:41 Know your critics are there, know what they're going to say 12:57 Shame, scarcity and comparison 15:20 "When we stop caring what people thing we lose our capacity for connection. When we become defined by what people thing we lose our capacity to be vulnerable." 16:38 If you're going to spend your life in the ring/showing up, you're going to need: 1) Clarity of values 17:18 2) Have person in your life thats going to pick you up 18:14 "People who have the most courage and vulnerability are the ones who are very clear about who the critics are and reserve seats for them." 19:32 One of these seats needs to be reserved for you About Brené Brown Dr. Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent the past twelve years studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame. Her groundbreaking research has been featured on PBS, NPR, CNN, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. Brené is the author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the way we Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (Gotham, 2012). In Daring Greatly Brené dispels the cultural myth that vulnerability is weakness and argues that it is, in truth, our most accurate measure of courage. Fast Company Magazine recently named Daring Greatly one of the best business books of 2012. Brené's 2010 TEDx Houston talk, The Power of Vulnerability, is one of the top ten most viewed TED talks on TED.com, with over 6 million viewers. Brené is also the author of The Gifts of Imperfection (2010), I Thought It Was Just Me (2007), and Connections (2009). She lives in Houston with her husband, Steve, and their two children, Ellen and Charlie. About 99U The 99U delivers the action-oriented education that you didn't get in school, highlighting real-world best practices for making ideas happen.

About this presentation

There is nothing more frightening than the moment we expose our ideas to the world. Author and vulnerability researcher Brené Brown shows us how to deal with the critics and our own self-doubt by refusing to "armor up" and shut ourselves off. "Not caring what people think," she says, "is its own kind of hustle."

Instead we must "reserve a seat" for the critics and our own self-doubt. "Tell them, I see you, I hear you, but I'm going to do this anyway." 

Watch more videos at http://www.99u.com/videos


2:14 "Design is a function of connection. Nothing is more then vulnerable then creativity. What is art if it is not love?"
3:11 Perspiration from fear
6:48 Theodore Roosevelt quote/passage that changed my life: "It's not the critic who counts..."
7:39 Everything i know about vulnerability: it is not about winning or losing, it's about showing up and being seen
7:53 "This is who I want to be I want to create. I want to make thing that didn't exist before touched them."
8:14 One guarantee: you will get you ass kicked 
8:39 "If you're not in the arena also getting your ass kicked, I'm no interested in your opinion"
9:41 This is where we sweat
10:17 Fear, self doubt, comparison, anxiety
11:06 When you armor up, you shut yourself off from everything that you do an love 
11:40 Without vulnerability you cannot create
12:41 Know your critics are there, know what they're going to say
12:57 Shame, scarcity and comparison
15:20 "When we stop caring what people thing we lose our capacity for connection. When we become defined by what people thing we lose our capacity to be vulnerable."
16:38 If you're going to spend your life in the ring/showing up, you're going to need: 1) Clarity of values
17:18 2) Have person in your life thats going to pick you up
18:14 "People who have the most courage and vulnerability are the ones who are very clear about who the critics are and reserve seats for them."
19:32 One of these seats needs to be reserved for you



About Brené Brown

Dr. Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent the past twelve years studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame. Her groundbreaking research has been featured on PBS, NPR, CNN, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.

Brené is the author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the way we Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (Gotham, 2012). In Daring Greatly Brené dispels the cultural myth that vulnerability is weakness and argues that it is, in truth, our most accurate measure of courage. Fast Company Magazine recently named Daring Greatly one of the best business books of 2012. Brené's 2010 TEDx Houston talk, The Power of Vulnerability, is one of the top ten most viewed TED talks on TED.com, with over 6 million viewers.

Brené is also the author of The Gifts of Imperfection (2010), I Thought It Was Just Me (2007), and Connections (2009). She lives in Houston with her husband, Steve, and their two children, Ellen and Charlie.


About 99U

The 99U delivers the action-oriented education that you didn't get in school, highlighting real-world best practices for making ideas happen.

Adobe 99U tells the stories of how creative leaders master their crafts and shape their industries. We do this in a variety of ways – daily on 99U.com, quarterly in 99U Magazine, and annually at the 99U Conference in New York City.

Whether you’re a designer, marketer, engineer, educator, artist, or CEO — if you approach your work creatively, 99U’s goal is to help you find the inspiration to build an incredible career.

Brené Brown: Why Your Critics Aren't The Ones Who Count

Brené Brown on criticism and the courage to be vulnerable

Bridgerton, shown on Netflix, has become a global success.Here’s a deep dive into what made it such a success and what lessons every creator needs to remember today. Bridgerton is a great example of a successful series with lessons that every creator can learn from.

That Netflix Show Set In The 1800s

Throughout the series, we don't see any substantial racism or discrimination.The show is for a modern audience, and everything on this show is filtered through a modern lens.

Bridgerton Didn’t Try to Be Historically Accurate

In the world of content creation, the content tilt refers to what makes you so different that your audience notices you and rewards you with its attentionThe creators of Bridgerton wanted to make something refreshing and unique, and that’s exactly what they did.

Finding Your Own Content Tilt

<ul><li>It is refreshing to have Indian culture represented so well in a British period piece.</li><li>Kate’s love for chai over regular English tea, Kate and Edwina oiling their hair as most Indian people do, the subtle use of Indian languages, and the stunning Indian-style jewellery.</li><li>To top it all off, we saw this beautiful pre-wedding tradition of a Haldi ceremony, with a Bollywood classic soundtrack playing.</li></ul>

The Indian Culture: Exotic Ideas Shown On The Show

<ol><li>Embrace “weird” ideas and work on bettering them, because chances are, they could actually be brilliant. Things don’t have to make perfect sense for your content to be amazing and resonate with people.</li><li> Adapt your work for different audiences and deliver what your community wants to see. Such levels of diversity and inclusion in a period piece may not be accurate, but escapism and representation were what people needed.</li><li>You’re going to make mistakes while finding your content tilt and that’s okay.</li></ol>

Three Lessons From Bridgeton For Creators

When I first watched Season One of Bridgerton, I was amused and perplexed. Amused because of the witty banter and the enchanting Pride and Prejudice vibes the series gave off. After watching Season…

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3 Important Lessons Every Creator Can Take From Netflix’s ‘Bridgerton’

Imagination frees us from the confines of our immediate reality. Imagining the future enables us to evaluate alternative paths forward, anticipate how we would feel if they happened, and choose which to pursue. For instance, by simulating a potential event via mental imagery, we can “test out” in the mind potential emotional consequences.

Imagining possible futures

Counterfactual thinking (alternative versions of one’s personal past) refers to the comparison of reality to hypothetical alternatives (“what if I had made different choices”). People create counterfactual alternatives to reality when they imagine how things would have turned out differently. Imagined alternatives may trigger guilt, remorse, and shame. However, thoughts about how things could have turned out differently provide a roadmap for change.

Counterfactual thinking

Imagining events from a distance encourages abstract thinking that boosts creativity. After several years of experience, people start to repeat themselves; it becomes more of the same old approach. They become insiders. One of the most effective ways of cultivating an outsider perspective is to feel distant from the problems. For example, traveling, getting away from the places we spend most of our time. The distance allows one to view problems in a more imaginative way. Suddenly, the mind is aware of those considerations that were previously ignored, and those facts that should be ignored.

Distancing from the problem

Any situation that affects our ability to visualize events and situations may affect our judgments. Visual images are more emotionally salient than words. We recall emotionally charged events far more than mundane ones. However, this emotional partiality impairs our ability to see the big picture. For example, lawyers have known for a long time that the vividness of the testimony offered by a witness can influence the judgments made by a jury.

The vividness effects

Imagination is central to understanding and interpreting figurative language. Metaphors are figures of speech to convey a truth about the real world. They are transferred from another context to give us new ways to think. We can imaginatively see a particular perspective on the focus of the metaphor. For example, the phrase, No man is an island, implies that no one is truly self-sufficient.

Metaphor

Delusions and ordinary cases of self-deception have been characterized as disorders of imagination. Delusions can be characterized as beliefs that are dysfunctional in their content or formation. That is, a delusion is an imagined interpretation that is mistaken by the subject as a belief.

The dark side of imagination

Imagination is deeply connected with reality. What we imagine can affect what we believe and vice versa. The richer the personal experience is, the richer the ingredients for imagining. That is, imagination is nourished by various resources on which the person can draw. Through books, art, discussions with others, and education, we can build our knowledge of events and places that we have never experienced.

How to improve your imagination

A good imagination enables us to transcend present circumstances.

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5 Benefits of Imaginative Thinking

Unfortunately, the power of the idea itself isn't enough. Even combining the idea and working insane hours to make it a reality isn't enough. The biggest problem with the creative mind is that oftentimes, it's too off the scale.The creative mind tends to flock and surround itself with others who can see the vision (or at least can imagine it well enough). While this reinforces the power of the idea and can even make the quality of the idea better through collaboration and brainstorming, it has the unintended effect of isolating people who "don't get it" as either dumb or lacking vision.

Powerful ideas aren't enough to build a business

The reality is that most of the people who get written off as not understanding the big picture would probably be supporters of the idea . The problem isn't the people, the problem is in the way that the creative vision is communicated.Most of the time, because the creative person gets so wrapped up in their own world, they forget how to translate what they see into a version that the average person can understand. Because the vision never gets translated into a way that the average person can understand, it never gets momentum.

Don't write people off as being 'unable' to understand your vision

More often, they're a couple of small changes, communicated extremely well, and showcased in a way that the highest number of people can understand without having to think too hard. So the next time your brilliant idea -- whether it be a pitch for a company, a new product, or a movement -- isn't getting traction, don't think that it's because everyone else doesn't "get it." Focus on how you can communicate and show the idea visually to people in a better way.

True creative genius is in how the idea is communicated, not the idea itself

The power of the idea is a start, but it's not enough.

The Creativity Myth of Entrepreneurship and What Really Matters to Grow

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