Creativity

A transcript of Episode 276 of UX Podcast. James Royal-Lawson and Per Axbom are joined by Denise Jacobs and Chris Noessel to discuss how to banish our inner critics, remove the mental blocks that get in the way of creative thinking, and ask ourselves why is creativity so important?

This transcript has been machine generated and checked by Hannah Sawbridge.

Transcript

Computer voice
UX podcast episode 276.

[Music]

James Royal-Lawson
You’re listening to UX Podcast coming to you from Stockholm, Sweden.

Per Axbom
Helping the UX community explore ideas and share knowledge since 2011.

James Royal-Lawson
We are your hosts, James Royal-Lawson,

Per Axbom
and Per Axbom.

James Royal-Lawson
We have listeners in 200 countries and territories in the world, from Sudan to Kazakhstan.

Per Axbom
From time to time, we will bring you a repeat show. This is an episode from our extensive back catalogue resurfacing some of the ideas and thoughts from the past that we believe are still relevant and well worth revisiting. We’ve just come out of a fantastic workshop, with Denise Jacobs and she’s sitting right here with us. So…

Denise Jacobs
Woohoo!

Per Axbom
Welcome to the show.

Denise Jacobs
Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Per Axbom
That was just…

Denise Jacobs
Nice to be here

Per Axbom
…a chock full interactive workshop with so many exercises and stuff. But we’re not tired. We’re energised.

Denise Jacobs
Yay! That’s the goal.

Per Axbom
That’s the wonderful thing about this. I mean, when you work with yourself on these types of exercises, you learn to accept yourself more. It’s fantastic.

James Royal-Lawson
Just again, a little catch up. For people who haven’t, don’t know what it was, it was ‘Unfold your brain.’

Denise Jacobs
That’s what it’s called. Yeah. And I am a, I’d like to call myself a speaker, author and creativity evangelist.

Per Axbom
Wow.

Denise Jacobs
And so, I love it when people are just like, ‘is that religious?’ And I’m like, ‘No, not really.’

Per Axbom
Oh, yeah, but you get these spiritual feelings really.

Denise Jacobs
Well, there is that, so that’s why it’s like I actually use the word ‘evangelist’, like, deliberately in the way of, like, kind of feeling like, you know, I’m spreading the good word. The good word about creativity and like, kind of inspiring people to feel more comfortable with their creativity and more conversant with it. And more like they really want to, like, take their creativity and use it and really kind of reach their potential, like reach their creative potential.

James Royal-Lawson
One of the, big parts of the first half of the workshop was about your inner critic and banishing your inner critic and cancelling imposter syndrome, which we’ve we talked about on the show.

Per Axbom
Yeah, we did a show on that.

James Royal-Lawson
But yeah, so how, how do you punish your your inner critic?

Denise Jacobs
Very carefully. Well, so I’m actually writing a book called ‘Banish your Inner Critic.’

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah.

Denise Jacobs
And that will be coming out for official release in January of 2017. But there will be kind of there’ll be like a kind of unofficial release!

Per Axbom
Okay cool.

Denise Jacobs
In the fall, like in the late fall and November, late October, early November. So that’s what we’re shooting for. Which means I got to get cracking on the chapters.

Per Axbom
Yeah.

Denise Jacobs
I’ve written 2 out of 11. Well, you know what, that’s what the summers for!

Per Axbom
That’s what constraints are for!

Denise Jacobs
That’s what time constraints, if I didn’t have the deadlines, I probably wouldn’t have it. So, so in, one of the things I talked about in the talks I do and in the workshops, and then, you know, clearly also in the book is that it’s a process. And you know, of course, you’re just like, ‘I want a solution, I don’t want to hear it’s a process, I want the solution.’ But it is a process and banishing your inner critic, I think comes from, first of all, self-awareness, knowing that it’s there, knowing how it shows up for you, because there are different forms of the inner critic, I just touched upon a few of them in the workshop, but there are even more that I will go into more detail in the book.

You know, denying your creativity, being anxious about deficiencies that you have, having fear of being judged, fear of failure and fear of success and having like an upper limits problem. And so there’s a lot of different ways that it can show up. And so that self awareness of kind of knowing, okay, this is that version, and then having the tools to deal with it when it comes up instead of being like… Because what happens is, we end up feeling blindsided a lot of times, right? And it just comes up out of nowhere, and then you’re just like, ‘agh,’ and you’re just paralysed. But I feel like when you, first of all, you know it’s going to come. Like, here I go embarking upon something, it’s going to show up at some point in time. So I just need to be like, armed and ready. Like I just need to have the tools. And so when it shows up, ‘okay, here’s imposter syndrome. Boom, boom, boom, this is what I can do for imposter syndrome.’

‘Oh, I’m getting in perfectionist mode. Okay, this is what I need to do because I’m being in perfectionist mode.’ And then when you have the tools and you have everything kind of at your ready, then it’s like it you don’t feel as kind of put upon or blindsided, like I said. It’s easier to deal with and then you can move past it more quickly, I think, yeah,

James Royal-Lawson
It’s definitely the case with things like imposter syndrome, we talk to a lot of people who had no idea, that was a concept.

Per Axbom
Yeah.

James Royal-Lawson
They just thought it was them.

Per Axbom
And they were so happy to know that there’s a term for it, and everybody else feels it too.

Denise Jacobs
Right. Exactly. And I think when you know that, and then again, like I said, when you, you know, like, I love the thing that I have coined the ‘Imposter Syndrome Paradox’, which is you can’t feel like an imposter unless you actually are qualified. And when you have that, you’re just like, ‘oh, okay, I’m just, I’m just doing that thing.’ And then you can stop doing that thing, or you can move on, you can focus on something else, you know, that’s always great.

Per Axbom
And also, there are some times when you actually need your inner critic, like, during editing.

Denise Jacobs
Which I think is also really helpful, where you’re just like, I don’t need you now. Just come back in like a day. Yeah. You know, like, when it’s in the when you’re like, ‘Oh, that’s a really good sentence. Well, that’s not so strong. Okay, we need to change this.’ And when you’re in editing mode, it’s fantastic.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah. So you are all looking at me now. I’m going to ask a question. Of course I am. The second part of the workshop. And then we, I think I’m saying second part, for me it felt like the second part. We were moving more into the focus aspect things and looking at how the brain works and coming into or getting, focusing on getting closer to flow. Now, I think it was interesting to reflect on you didn’t, you didn’t say to everyone, look, you’ve got to get to flow, you kind of felt that you would have been quite careful of saying, you know, closer to flow is probably good enough to get your creativity flowing.

Denise Jacobs
And not only that, but it’s one of those things, a flow is one of those elusive things where you actually can’t plan it. Flow is one of those things where you can set up all of the conditions for it. And that’s, that’s what you need to do. Like, can you get to it? Like just by saying, ‘Okay, I’m gonna go into flow?’ No, not necessarily. But if you get all the conditions in place, you’re more likely to reach it than not.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah.

Denise Jacobs
And so that’s why I was like, Okay, well, here’s what you do to get to the place where you can have flow. Are you going to get there necessarily? I have no idea. But if you have these conditions, you’re more more likely than not to reach it.

James Royal-Lawson
I think, it’s nice, because one of the problems with the whole thing about ‘oh, you need to be in flow’, that’s where your creativity happens. You then, you create anxiety and stress, if you can’t get to a point that you feel is flow. So by kind of like, you know, saying it’s all right, we don’t need to necessarily be in the zone all the time. But you get yourself …

Denise Jacobs
You get close…

James Royal-Lawson
You get a little bit closer.

Per Axbom
And just by closing your eyes, breathing, not multitasking. I mean, there are small techniques you can just attend to and get there faster.

Denise Jacobs
And really effective and like – and the thing – the reason – one of the reasons why I like to talk about the brain science is to show – and I actually, I don’t think I said it explicitly today – but to show that, essentially, our brains are actually wired, like hardwired to be creative already. Like, for us to not be creative, we actually almost need to be working at odds with the way our brains work, right. And so when I say like, ‘look, all you need to do is breathe and relax,’ like, ‘oh okay, wait, I can do that.’

‘Yeah, you could take a shower,’ ‘I can do that!’

‘Lay down,’ ‘I can lay down!’

James Royal-Lawson
The lay down one I like.

Denise Jacobs
Laying down is awesome. You’re just like ‘wait, that’s all you need to do?’ Just lay down, just be prone. And like, my brain will automatically start to go Alpha Brain what?.

James Royal-Lawson
You know what, when you actually said that about laying down, I instantly in my head got a picture of like, walking to like a park or field nearby and just laying down on a summer’s day and kind of just kind of…

Denise Jacobs
Looking at the clouds…

James Royal-Lawson
Or closing your eyes even. Then suddenly I was kind of closer to flow just by thinking about doing that.

Denise Jacobs
Right and it’s true. It’s true. And it’s like, we don’t realise that it’s not as elusive as we make it out to be. And, like I was saying at the beginning, so many things of the way that work is structured and the work environments and structured, to like actually totally make it so that we can’t get to that place as easily.

Per Axbom
Yeah there’s very low acceptance to lying down on the floor at work.

Denise Jacobs
Yeah.

Per Axbom
Which is a problem.

Denise Jacobs
It is a problem.

Per Axbom
You need to realise that it’s those moments that actually increase your happiness and productivity and efficiency in the long-term.

James Royal-Lawson
They find you lying down underneath your desk, they’re gonna be kind of you know, ‘Are you ok?’

Per Axbom
You had a great tip when you just changing your, how you work at your desk, like facing south, facing north and do different things in those situations and you can prime your brain into doing different stuff.

Denise Jacobs
Right and like, Okay, this is the place where I like. I used to do that at work, I’d be like, ‘Okay, this is the place where I work on reports. This is the place where I try to come up with ideas. This is the place when I work on my computer.’ And it seemed to help because and then, I started like, Okay, this is where I’m like, trying to like troubleshooting stuff or you know, brainstorm things, and it worked out great. I was gonna say something to something you said earlier, when I can’t remember exactly what it was, but it was a really great idea.

James Royal-Lawson
So we could just, we just can like, push you on that and say, ‘Oh, that was fantastic.’ Yeah, it was really, really good.

Denise Jacobs
Yes, and…

James Royal-Lawson
Yes, and… to give you that boost of, of energy.

Denise Jacobs
Thank you.

James Royal-Lawson
Wow. I was going to talk about one of the exercises, I don’t know which actually, I don’t know which exercise I was going to talk about now. So we did about, I don’t know, 10 exercises? Around that much.

Denise Jacobs
Yeah we did quite a few. About three per section? Three or four per section.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, thinking about reflecting about the very end one. The very end one that we did was, you grouped into two sets of people? Well, you can describe it is yours.

Denise Jacobs
Well, so I got it from somebody else, actually. So let me I want to actually tell the background, the story to that.

James Royal-Lawson
Please.

Denise Jacobs
Which is I took a workshop with Lisa Nichols, who, if you haven’t heard of her, I like to think of her as ‘the sister in the secret.’

Per Axbom
Okay.

Denise Jacobs
She is like the only black woman in the secret like, you know, like, one one of those experts on, you know, law of attraction and stuff like that. And I was like ‘oh a black woman, Hey, what’s up!’ So that was Lisa Nichols. But she’s like, well known for, like a lot of, you know, transformational work, coaching, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, less that coaching, but more like transformation work in motivational speaking and things like that. And I went to a workshop of hers, several years ago called ‘Speak and Write to Make Millions,’ which you know, I’m still working on the millions part. But I have, actually, I actually did start speaking and I did start writing after I went to that workshop. So something worked!

James Royal-Lawson
Good work!

Denise Jacobs
So but we did that exercise in that workshop. And it was so powerful to do it to like do it and like not know what was coming. And to have all these people come up and say these lovely things to you.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah because we were two groups. And one group was stood randomly around the room with their eyes closed. And then the other group wandered around, and gave nice compliments.

Denise Jacobs
Wonderful compliments.

James Royal-Lawson
Wonderful compliments in your ear, whisper them into your ear.

Denise Jacobs
And now, the interesting thing is, is that the way it’s structured is that what you’re supposed to say is something that you’ve wanted to hear yourself.

Per Axbom
Yeah.

Denise Jacobs
Now, I deliberately, because the last time I did the workshop, I forgot to do this. And the results kind of differed a little bit. But so I, you know, for the group that’s standing with their eyes closed, that’s receiving the information, I say, don’t think about what the person says, just in your mind, just say thank you, that’s all you need to do. Just say thank you, like, don’t think about the structure of the workshop and how it works and how the exercise works. Just say thank you. And I think when you do that, and you’re in this receptive place, it comes in, it lands better, like inside of you and your psyche. And I, personally, it is my favourite exercise. And I always have people just like afterwards, usually, you’re just like, ‘that was really intense.’ It’s really intense.

James Royal-Lawson
It’s a very, very, strange feeling, I felt surprised.

Per Axbom
And that actually for me, it was close to a spiritual experience, almost because people came up and were whispering and you didn’t know when they were going to come up and whisper to you, and they said things like, ‘you’re awesome, and I’ve always admired your work.’ And I was like, really? And then I and then I caught myself and thought thank you. And it’s just, I was smiling.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah!

Per Axbom
From ear to ear!

James Royal-Lawson
I was smiling all the way through and you stood there and because you can, its such a, you feel floating. So you kind of, you’re there your eyes are closed stood in the room, and you can hear whispering in the background. You could you can feel people walking past you and suddenly a voice or whisper in your ear a compliment.

Per Axbom
Yeah.

James Royal-Lawson
And then you reply with so it kind of like they, like they kind of fade in from nowhere, these little compliments and then vanish again.

Denise Jacobs
It’s beautiful. It’s lovely.

James Royal-Lawson
It does make you smile like you said, I was smiling all the way through it.

Denise Jacobs
Smiling, and I’ve had people, I’ve had people cry.

Per Axbom
Yeah.

Denise Jacobs
People, like, just get teary. I’ve had people like, be speechless afterwards. I was actually the very, very first workshop that I did this, and I did it and it was, it was in Amsterdam, and was a conference similar to this. And people came from all over the world and everything. And one of the attendees was a gentleman who was Japanese who worked at Sony, in their design department. And afterwards, I mean, it’s like, you know, like Japanese culture and all this stuff, like totally like, kind of, at odds with all these like. It’s very different and very, you know, structured and everything, and he was like, afterwards he was just, he couldn’t even kind of articulate like, he just was like, ‘that was just, I mean, I, I just feel like that was ahhh that was just, I was I mean, it was like that’s like,’ he just couldn’t, he was just like ‘that was just ohhhh, I just feel like’.

Per Axbom
You’re, you’re like a child now that has got the best present ever and can’t articulate it.

Denise Jacobs
Can’t even articulate it. And it was just so like, I was so touched by that, because I was just like, wow, like I really, really hit, really hit a nerve.

Per Axbom
Yeah.

Denise Jacobs
And I love that I love that exercise so much, because it just is so powerful. It’s so, it seems so simple on the outside. And it’s just it’s very powerful. And I think it’s very touching.

Per Axbom
And you really have to bring it home with you. Because I mean, the purpose is also to understand how valuable it is to give feedback to others. Always on your team at home, your friends, family, anyone, just give that positive feedback and magic will happen.

Denise Jacobs
It’s amazing. It’s amazing.

James Royal-Lawson
It’s actually quite a nice crescendo end to the workshop, though. Because you’ve been kind of built up and kind of like being saying, ‘Yes, you can do this. Yes, you can do this’ kind of thing. And then you get those compliments in your ear. And then we finished off with sharing something we’d like to achieve in five months, I think you said.

Denise Jacobs
Five months yeah.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah and swapping contact details for the person next to us. Well, for me, I mean, at that point, you know, I’m ready to go. I’m kind of saying thank you. Goodnight. I’m off here now. So I want to get on with it. You’ve reached that point of feeling like you can and should be able to do things.

Denise Jacobs
That’s great.

James Royal-Lawson
Which is good.

Denise Jacobs
That was the intention. That’s the way it was designed.

Per Axbom
Oh we’re getting, we have to get out of the room pretty soon. So we’ll wrap up, I think.

Denise Jacobs
Oh okay.

James Royal-Lawson
I think so. It’s been really, really nice talking to you, Denise.

Denise Jacobs
Thank you for having me.

James Royal-Lawson
And now we’re, we’re joined by both Chris, myself, and also Denise Jacobs.

Per Axbom
We got both of them in the same room. And you guys started off the speaker’s day, yesterday, both of you talking around creativity, you might say people doing exercises straightaway. That’s pretty uncommon for a keynote, I think, is the amount of exercise. We did three exercises. And everybody got up and paired up and challenged each other. Yeah, it’s a fantastic experience. And everybody did it. That’s a huge audience as well 550 people.

Denise Jacobs
A lot of folks.

Per Axbom
Yeah.

Denise Jacobs
Yeah, it’s easier when they pair up, thank God, I didn’t have to try to make like small groups or anything like that. There’s two people, they partner up one person’s a storyteller, one person’s a listener. The storyteller has to create holes in the story, so that the listener can give them words either a noun or a verb. And the listener can look at the screen and see a list of words that they can give the storyteller. And the wonderful thing I give, a premise for the story. And then they have to start talking and I have never seen like, that’s the exercise where I have seen the most laughter, the most fun, the most like, people just really engaged with each other and, everything.

The one time I saw somebody who looked like they were in pain doing it was when I was in Israel, and there was a woman from I don’t want to guess, maybe Croatia, Slovenia, like some like kind of Eastern European country. And I am a bit embarrassed that I don’t remember exactly which country she was from. But she was from a country where my guess was is that she wasn’t encouraged to do this kind of thinking. So, where, whatever time I was doing with her, and I was the storyteller, and I was giving her like, I was giving the holes and she would be like, um and she looked at the list and I said ‘just read down the list’, and she’s like, ‘but it doesn’t make sense.’ I was like, ‘it doesn’t matter, just give me a word. I’ll work with it.’ And she’d be like, ‘but, but then the story won’t make sense.’ And I was like, ‘okay, okay, you try it and then she do that she can be super like, but I don’t understand, but it doesn’t the story doesn’t work.’ And she was so frustrated with how it didn’t seem to make sense that you really wanted it to make sense.

Per Axbom
That is interesting.

James Royal-Lawson
She hadn’t bought into the game play, they hadn’t bought into your world that you described.

Denise Jacobs
It was really interesting. And, kind of going along with Brad’s talk on body language very much so standing there, you know, with their arms crossed and her legs crossed, and everything like kind of like really like, you know, scrutinising the whole thing like I just ‘but I want it to make, it needs to make sense.’ But aside from her, just about everybody else I’ve seen do this has had loads of fun. And so it was wonderful to look out upon the kind of the sea of the audience and see laughing and, and just the chatter, the rise of the sound in the room was just it was just lovely.

I work with this woman, Jessie Shternshus who has a company called The Improv Effect. And we met each other. And we’re just kind of like, ‘oh my God, you’re my new best friend,’ because she’s funny and everything. But she’s got this company where she uses applied improvisation to help with training on team communication and ideation and all of this stuff. So we were like, ‘Oh, my God, we do completely complimentary work, let’s work together.’ And it was basically through her that I got turned on to applied improvisation I talked about it a lot in my workshops, but I didn’t really have a background in improvisation, I’d never done it myself. I just was like, this is a really great idea.

But then, through knowing her and wanting to do more improv related things, I actually, that’s when I started taking improv classes, and everything and then going to the Applied Improvisation Network Conference. And it’s really changed. So it was also through her, through seeing some of her talks, and how she incorporated improv exercises into her talks. I was like, ‘I can do that too. Right? Watch this.’ And it’s really I feel like it’s really then I found this really nice sweet spot now where, you know, I can still have the kind of delivery that I want to have in a high energy but then I get all this interactivity and people connecting with each other and everything during the talk. So then it’s not just about me up there yapping but about people having this experience.

James Royal-Lawson
So Chris in your talks as well, you included some exercises? Two opening talks that included exercises.

Per Axbom
I think improv is that like it’s an example of the mechanics behind being creative. And you started even out with slaughtering a sheep and taking out liver and beating the liver. Shocking us into attention and using stones.

James Royal-Lawson
And using a stone to map the results the results.

Denise Jacobs
Say that word again, harus …

Christopher Noessel
Haruspication, a marvellous word of the person who does the – haruspication is the haruspex.

Denise Jacobs
I have to say I love the name exercise.

Christopher Noessel
That’s a fun one

Per Axbom
oh, yeah,

Denise Jacobs
Totally swiping that by the way. Totally taking and putting that in my workshop.

James Royal-Lawson
Name talel?

Christopher Noessel
Yeah, the ‘Name Tale’ was the hashtag. It’s a, I believe I picked this up from oulipan in the French literary tradition. It was one of the techniques they used to generate characters or stories. The technique is to take a person’s name and break it down into smaller chunks.

James Royal-Lawson
So I took Per’s name because I was sitting next to Per, so Per Ax-bom.

Christopher Noessel
Per Ax-Bom

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah exactly, what I did as Pear like the fruit, and then Axe Boom as in Capow!

Christopher Noessel
Okay, how did you combine the Pear, the Axe and the Boom?

James Royal-Lawson
A story about an exotic fruit tree that was accidentally chopped down and the resulting unexpected explosion flattered an entire town?

Denise Jacobs
Lovely.

Per Axbom
That’s fantastic.

Christopher Noessel
Yeah. And you could imagine like a whole series based on that like now, what would the world do if we had explosive fruit like wars would break out.

Denise Jacobs
Explosive fruit trees.

Christopher Noessel
It would become a controlled substance. But then some people would want fruit salad made with that, like the thrill seekers. So yeah anyway.

Denise Jacobs
I was actually and I was actually thinking of the George Washington and like, what would have happened to George Washington.

Per Axbom
Oh, boom!

Denise Jacobs
Chop down that like what that would have meant for the history of the United States.

Christopher Noessel
Yeah thats really funny.

Per Axbom
Things would have been different.

Denise Jacobs
That’s completely different at the world after George Washington chopped down the cherry tree.

James Royal-Lawson
The beauty of that exercise, because your talk was compared to Denise’s talk, which was about creativity or talk about how you can generate that kind of creativity in yourself. Your talk was looking more about how we can use machines to maybe help us just nudge us along a little bit and be creative.

Christopher Noessel
So creativity, I mean, yeah, so we have these tools for, for creativity, but why are we paying so much attention to it? Why is it so important? What problem are we trying to solve with creativity?

Denise Jacobs
Well, actually, I just spent a whole week writing a chapter about at least one of the reasons why I think creativity is important. So Chris, if I may get in there and talk about it. So in my book, Banish Your Inner Critic that’s coming out at the end of the year or the beginning of next year. One of the things that I say that is really important, there’s this actually this really interesting relationship between the ‘inner critic’ and ‘flow’ and ‘creativity’ and then basically in my mind what you can do with it when you kind of get to that point.

And I was saying this in the workshop the other day, that there’s this, you know, there’s kind of this generally accepted concept that creativity is like in your right side of your brain. And then the left side of your brain is analytical and all that stuff, what they’re starting to think about with scientists who study brain scanning and imagery and stuff like that, what they’re finding is, is that creativity is less about what side of your brain is activated, and it’s more about what parts of your brain are activated, are active or quiet.

And so brain scanning is actually shown that when people are creative when they’re doing like improvisational jazz, or rap or doing other things that really involve creative stuff, the part of your brain, that’s the self monitoring, the self judgement, self control, all that stuff, that part of your brain is quiet. And then that allows for the other really expressive parts of your brain to like light up and to start doing stuff. Self monitoring, judgement, control, and everything equals the inner critic, right? And so they basically say that creativity is more about the quieting of the inner critic.

Per Axbom
Right.

Denise Jacobs
And less about, oh, your right brain is active or whatever. It’s fascinating stuff. So for me, I feel like when you do that, also, they found that the part of the brain that’s quiet when you go into a flow state. Whatt! Right!

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah.

Denise Jacobs
*Mind blown* Aren’t you guys glad I’m giving you sound effects.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah.

Per Axbom
So I don’t have to add them.

Denise Jacobs
You don’t have to add them at all. We were gonna put a bomb sound and Denise did it for us! So I think it’s really interesting, because basically, the more you know, one of the premise, the premise of my book basically is, the more you banish your inner critic, and that you reach flow. So then when you’re in flow state, really cool things about flow is that people who go into flow are like, happier and feel like more empowered in their lives and feel like life is worth living, basically. And they also have the ability to go into a flow state more easily, because basically, their brains are starting to be wired towards that. And that the effects of flow lasts for up to a day or two after you go into a flow state. Which again, *mind blown* right.

James Royal-Lawson
A long time.

Denise Jacobs
It’s wild right, but it’s like, then you’re kind of already in that mode. So when people are happy and satisfied and feeling empowered, then they feel the ability to take on bigger tasks, right? When you feel empowered, and stuff like that. You’re like, what else can I do? That was great. I did that. What else can I do? What other problems can I solve? What other ways can I put my brain to work in a way that’s going to get me back that place that I felt so amazing in? And I think that’s why creativity is important. Because by kind of harnessing the power, like our creative power, we can actually do really great stuff in the world. We can solve bigger problems, we can make better things for more people, we can help more people. I think that’s one of the reasons why creativity is important.

Per Axbom
Wow.

Christopher Noessel
My Yes, and… see that,

James Royal-Lawson
There we go!

Christopher Noessel
Shoutout!

James Royal-Lawson
Oh, yeah. High fives across the table.

Christopher Noessel
There are two things like why, I think having a mechanisms for creativity are important. No, I’m gonna add a third. The first is that your muse works most of the time. Well, one’s muse, hopefully works most of the time. But when she fails, and you are paid to be creative.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah.

Christopher Noessel
What do you do? It’s unprofessional to just sit there and go: ‘I don’t have anything.’

Denise Jacobs
I got nothing.

James Royal-Lawson
Someone’s expecting you to press the creativity button.

Christopher Noessel
Yeah, exactly.

Denise Jacobs
There you go.

Christopher Noessel
Um, and my assertion is that there is a greater button if you can backfill that button with these techniques. So one reason why creativity is important is as a professional, you’re paid for it. Yeah. The second is that we’re an ageing population. And being creative is harder as you get older. It was Dick Wurman. So Richard Saul Wurman, recounts in one of his earlier books, the tale, perhaps apocryphal tale of children who are in third grade. When asked what the dots on the chalkboard mean, all raise their hand they’ve got ‘Oh, it’s a it’s an owls eye,’ or ‘It’s a planet,’ or ‘those are stars’ or ‘that’s a bowling ball.’ But by fifth grade, no one will raise their hand because they’re aware that there’s a right answer. So we have the dual problems of a socialisation against creativity.

Denise Jacobs
Yep.

Christopher Noessel
That there is a right answer.

Denise Jacobs
Yep.

Christopher Noessel
And as we age it becomes more and more difficult. This is the cognitive bias that I spoke about, or even less than a bias. Just a sad fact of the world is that as we age and gain experience, those experience override other possibilities. Because we know and we latch on to what we know works.

Denise Jacobs
Chris, I totally hijacked what you were saying. You said there were three things you said two.

Christopher Noessel
The fact that it’s more difficult to be creative as you get older.

Denise Jacobs
Yeah.

Christopher Noessel
And the fact that we have it socialised out of us.

Denise Jacobs
Yes.

Christopher Noessel
And, oh, that’s the third one. The one of the delightful things if you’ve read Doors of Perception, by Aldous Huxley, he notes that consciousness is not an expansive tool, it is, his word is a reducing valve. That is there to prevent us from processing all the information that we are receiving at any one moment, as well as remembering everything that we could be remembering at one time. It is sobering to realise that your consciousness is there to stop you from being creative. It is there to get you focused on survival and reproduction.

Denise Jacobs
It’s not a bad thing to focus on

Christopher Noessel
No it’s not a bad thing, or at least in its place. But that notion that oh, hey, we are working inside of a system that is fighting against us. I think it’s important to have that skill just to recognise the bias of the tool we have, and know how to overcome it.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, that’s very true. We’ve learned a lot about that in recent years, just the whole kind of reptilian brain and how it totally owns us. This bit at the front that we’re all kind of interacting with is, it’s actually not really the thing.

Denise Jacobs
It’s like smoke and mirrors.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah.

Per Axbom
So it’s all about then, bringing down your brain to a lower level of consciousness. Almost like when you’re meditating. And like your examples when you’re taking a shower, and just getting away from the problem arena. And that’s when the problems solve themselves. Because your brain is actually working on it. By itself in your subconscious.

Denise Jacobs
It’s all the chatter thats in the way.

Per Axbom
Yeah.

Denise Jacobs
It’s like static, you know, what, the way I like to think about it is, is that it’s like static, much like, you know, back, remember when there was radios and dials and things. But when you’re trying to find a station, you know, it’s like soon then boom, really come in, and the music will be really clear. And then you get off of that channel, just a moment, just the frequency is just a little off. And it’s, it’s static again, and I think what happens is, we are operating most of the time in static, and we are just not on the station, right? Like, we’re just not getting it. The information is there we’re just like, a couple, a few frequency points away from it. And so you know, in a lot of ways, calming your brain and relaxing it. And, you know, deliberately removing the chatter is like tuning yourself to the correct station, so you can get the information.

Per Axbom
Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you both.

Denise Jacobs
Thank you for having us.

Per Axbom
Just being around these people is just really inspiring. And I think you need actually sometimes to be there to feel the energy and have been part of these exercises that we’ve been part of, with these two. I mean, it’s just life-giving in some way.

James Royal-Lawson
We were a little gushy and excited. I think during our chat with Denise in the beginning there.

Per Axbom
Yeah I think so.

James Royal-Lawson
We were really still even though it was quite a while after we did the workshop, and we’re still really high from it. I’m gonna really try and lay down more.

Per Axbom
Calm yourselves, calm your nerves. And I think a big takeaway that I keep hearing over and over now is let your brain do the work for you. Think about the problem and then do something else. Yeah, and the solution will come to you. But one of the things I’m also going to take away with me was what Chris was saying about when experience overrides creativity. Like when you get older, you rely on experience to do stuff. You don’t rely on your creativity to do your stuff.

James Royal-Lawson
Your natural creativity falls idle.

Per Axbom
Exactly. You think that this is the way stuff should be done? Because I’ve always done it like this. What the new spin on that is, you had to realise, ‘Oh, shit, ao a lot of the stuff that’s been invented today was invented by people who had no idea what they were doing, but we take them for granted.’ Anyway, just question everything. This is what I’m going to keep doing.

James Royal-Lawson
Lay down, lay down and question everything. Yeah, that’s good.

This podcast has been a repeat show from our archives. Let us know which of your favourite episodes from over the years you think we should repeat for more people to listen to.

Per Axbom
Remember to keep moving.

James Royal-Lawson
See you on the other side.

[Music]

How do pirates express their creativity?

Per Axbom
I don’t know James how do pirates express their creativity?

James Royal-Lawson
Arrrrrtttt!!!


This is a transcript of a conversation between James Royal-LawsonPer Axbom and Denise Jacobs and Chris Noessel recorded in May 2016 and published as episode 276 of UX Podcast.