Do you find this cartoon funny?
Do you know the single powerful element that makes it funny?
And what makes one person creative and the other, um, not so-creative?
It’s the understanding of disconnection.
It’s the understanding of talent.
And creativity.
Talent is the combination of many emotions, memories, patterns and repetitions, implemented at high speed.
So what’s creativity?
Creativity, is simply ‘talent’ + ‘disconnected objects.’
So what is the meaning of the term ‘disconnected objects?’
When two objects or situations aren’t related, and force-fitted together, they form something we call ‘creative.’
To explain ‘creativity,’ we actually have to put in a few examples. And let’s take those examples from cartooning for instance.
Cartooning is ‘supposed to be’ a highly creative ability (yeah right)!
If you could take a movie of a cartoonist’s brain in ultra-slow motion, here’s what you’d see. You’d see the combination of many emotions, memories, patterns and repetitions. And the you’d see how that cartoonist was drawing a cartoon that’s super-funny.
So what made the cartoon super-funny?
They took a regular situation. And disconnected it.
Example 1: On Air-New Zealand we have the Koru Hour. The Koru Hour is when you actually get served cheese, grapes and wine on your flight at no extra cost. Well, so what’s so funny about an air-hostess serving cheese and wine?
There’s nothing funny.
Yet, if we changed that plane into a canoe. And an air-hostess like person was serving cheese, grapes and wine as everyone paddled. Now that’s funny.
Example 2:
Imagine a person saying in the Arctic, fully bundled up with warm clothing, saying: “I don’t care what they say. I feel cold.”
That’s not funny is it?
Now imagine Mamma Polar Bear and Baby Polar Bear in the Arctic. And baby polar bear is saying: “I don’t care what they say. I feel cold.”
Instantly, the image brings a smile to your face, doesn’t it?
Example 3:
When a person leaves a relationship, they often say: “You’ll never find another person like me.” And they storm out.
(Ok, so that is anything but funny).
So let’s tweak that situation a bit. Let’s say a comedian is reciting the same thing. Here’s what the comedian would say: “I hope I never find another like you. I mean you don’t get out of a bad relationship expecting to find another exactly like the person who’s left do you? You actually hope you don’t find another like her. Man, that would be tough on you. Having back to back trouble. You get out of a relationship, because you think it’s bad, don’t you? You don’t get out of a relationship saying: “Hey do you have a twin?”
So let’s analyse what made that funny
Oh, we covered that at the top, didn’t we?
What made the cartoons and the gag funny was a single element in each case. In Example 1: We changed the plane to the canoe. In Example 2: We changed the freezing person to a freezing polar bear. In Example 3: We took a standard, stock statement, and put in a disconnected person like a ‘twin.’
In every instance, what stamped a factor of creativity, was simply one disconnection.
When every black singer was singing soul back in the 60’s it wasn’t considered creative. When Elvis Presley started singing soul, it suddenly became creative. When you write a term like “he fell to the carpet,” it isn’t considered creative. When you write “The carpet rushed up to meet the falling man,” it becomes creative.
You want the definition of creativity?
There it is: The definition of talent + Disconnection.
A to-do list isn’t funny.
Thinking about a to-do list when fighting a dragon, is um, creative. 🙂
That’s all there is to it.
In the early 1970s, men’s tennis was dominated by Americans.
In your wildest imagination you would not believe that a Swede would change all that.
The name of this Swede was Bjorn Borg.
In less than 10 years, Borg made an entire country ‘talented.’
Some of the most impressive tennis players like Mats Wilander, Stefan Edberg and dozens of other players sprouted from the Swedish woodwork.
About the same time, a woman called Martina Navratilova surfaced from Czechoslavakia. She too, started winning everything in sight.
And then, magically, the Czechs became talented.
The very same phenomenon surfaced in India
Before the year 1985, the Indian cricket team was considered to be a second-class cricket team.
Then from nowhere, they rose to win the World Cup against all odds. And from then on, you’d be slightly mad if you had a one-day tournament, and didn’t have the Indian team as an active participant.
What causes an entire country to suddenly be talented in a sport?
Surely it can’t be inspiration. If it were inspiration, then any one from any country could simply be inspired to do the same.
You see there’s quite another factor at work.
It’s called pride.
Or a lack of wimpiness
Because so-called talent requires hard work. There’s not a single ‘talented’ musician who doesn’t put in many, many hours of hard work. There’s not a single speaker, dancer, writer, athlete, teacher who simply ambles in, and oozes talent.
Talent is the culmination of so many factors, that it almost seems magical.
And unique.
And that’s because we see the expression of talent in a matter of minutes. We see a person draw a cartoon in a few seconds; write an article in an hour; play a difficult piece of music in a matter of minutes. And they seem to be so talented.
Yet the reason we aren’t talented, is because we’re wimpy.
Most people give themselves the permission to be untalented.
And we don’t have to look to the Bjorn Borgs or Martina Navratilovas to find so-called talent.
If you look around you, you’ll find some families seem to be overly talented.
They seem to be involved in the arts, writing, music and somehow seem to be so very creative.
But stop and think about it for a second.
What stops your kids from being as talented?
What stops you from being more talented?
It’s the stupid, nonsensical belief that people were born with talent.
That one country is more talented than another.
That one family is more talented than yours.
Don’t tell that to the Swedes Here’s what Bjorkman, himself a world No.4 has to say: “We were so good that we spoiled everyone at home. There was no way we could keep winning Davis Cups, have No. 1s and Grand Slam singles champions.
We played the Davis Cup semifinals last year and were not even nominated for the top five teams in Sweden. I think people do forget some of the achievements we still create in tennis because they compare everything to the past.”
And here’s what Bjorn Borg himself has to say:
“We are struggling with the junior tennis in Sweden, but we’re working very hard to improve that. They’re also struggling in Australia”.
“But I think this goes in a circle. Sweden produced players for many, many, many years, unbelievable players. It’s impossible to continue to
do that forever”.
“But I’m sure Swedish tennis and Swedish juniors, we will be back. But it’s going to take quite a few years.”
Can you spot the wimpy-talk in the language?
Talent doesn’t arise from wimpy talk.
It arises from action. And patterns. And layering. And emotions.
“I think” is not a powerful emotion. It’s a doubt. I think is wimpy.
Recognise that in your own life. Cut out the wimpy talk and get moving towards creating real talent.
Because talent starts with emotion. If you don’t believe you can do it, you never will.
Benjamin Zander, famous orchestra conductor and co-author of the ‘Art of Possibility’ has a story to tell.
Benjamin had a twenty-five year old problem.
He had thirty students that were going to go through two semesters of training with him. The students were all instrumentalists and singers. They were going to learn the art of musical performance, including the psychological and emotional factors that stand in the way of great music-making. Yet, in twenty-five years, he wasn’t able to get the class to do what he wanted them to do. Namely, to take risks with their playing. They’d always be so anxious to succeed, that they’d stay on the straight and narrow.
And then Ben (and his wife Roz) came up with an emotional super-charger
They decided to give every single student an A. No matter what they did during the year, the student would get an A.
Of course, this seemed unfair. Should the slacker get an A, even though another student has put in ten times the effort?
Technically this seems weird, but look at the emotional ramifications.
Imagine if you could learn to draw cartoons, and there was no such thing as a bad cartoon.
Imagine if you could write an article, and there was no such thing as a bad article.
Imagine you could paint a picture and got an A.
You can’t imagine it, can you?
But ask a cartoonist, or a reporter, or a painter to do the corresponding tasks above, and they’ll do it without too much of a frown.
And if you look back into their history, you’ll find something consistent.
You weren’t told that you were a great cartoonist. Your drawings weren’t put up on the fridge. Your parents didn’t get you a whole bunch of drawing books, and let you paint on the walls. You were instead told, that art was for the other talented people. That no one in your family was an artist. That it’s ok if you can’t draw. And that’s not what happened in the house of the ‘cartoonist.’
In that house, the cartoonist knew one thing. That he or she would get an A if she drew something.
That the mother and father, and teacher, and grandparents—even the dog would be all excited when you did your cartoon.
That when you went to school, your friends would egg you on to draw cartoons.
That your cartoons happened to be a chick/guy magnet and got you prominence.
All the while the brain is going: Hey this is good.
Emotions of success fill your brain.
Failure pops in, says hi, but the success is so overriding, because suddenly you’re seeing yourself as an A student already.
And hey, now you’re talented.
But how do we know this to be true?
Words and actions have enormous emotional ramifications.
If someone tells you you’re really good at ‘cartooning’ for instance, a couple of things happen. 1) You begin to like that person more.
2) You begin to see your own work in a new light.
Liking that person more, means you get pre-disposed to impressing that person. So if the person says: “You really dress well” then you’re more than likely to dress well each and every time you go to see that person (even if you’re quite casual otherwise). And then, in the process of dressing well, you feel better. And you see your own dressing in a new light. You can now spot smart casual from casual. You are now suddenly progressing along the line—if only to impress one person.
Of course, this leads to other people noticing your new ‘talent.’
This starts a bit of a Domino Effect. You think, there you are. And therefore you become what others believe you are.
And this magnificent journey begins with a simple comment, or series of comments.
Comments that make you feel good. Comments that make you smile. Comments that end up with your ‘talent’ becoming a chick magnet.
The A starts in a single moment.
Which brings us right back to Benjamin Zander and his students.
He got each student to see themselves at the end of two-terms. And to write a letter to him saying: “Dear Mr. Zander…I got my A because of…”And in this letter they had to give as much detail as they could; the story of what would have happened during the year; and what would have happened to the student as a result of this A grade. And everything needed to be written in the past tense.
Would you live up to your A?
Would you live up to be a ‘smart dresser?
Would you live up to being a superb cartoonist?
You see, it’s all emotion. Because Zander’s students haven’t achieved anything. But do you have any doubt about the outcome? That’s the power of emotion. That’s the power of your brain. And that’s why talent is a myth.
Final Note: Watch the video below. As a result, I’m not only talented in B notes and C notes, but listen to classical music every day as well. And I would not call myself a classical music lover. Well, now I am. 🙂
There are many ways to define talent. Most of them are wrong.
Here’s how one dictionary defines talent:
1.
a special natural ability or aptitude: a talent for drawing.
2.
a capacity for achievement or success; ability: young men of talent.
3.
a talented person: The cast includes many of the theater’s major talents.
4.
a group of persons with special ability: an exhibition of watercolors by the local talent.
Natural ability? Don’t make me laugh. A capacity for achievement? Are you saying one person has a better capacity than the other? On what basis? Special ability? Special, why special. Does this mean no one else can do this specific task? Or have this talent?
The problem with the definition, is that no matter where you look, you find ‘talent’ or ‘creativity’ to be defined in a way that’s horribly inaccuarate. Because the real definition of talent (and I’m typing this at the top of my head—because I’m so um, ‘talented’) runs something like this:
Talent is the combination of many emotions, memories, patterns and repetitions, implemented at high speed
You see what’s happening in this definition. We’re talking about emotions, and memories and stuff that doesn’t automatically assume that one person is ‘more gifted’ than another. That one brain doesn’t necessarily have less powerful hardware than another brain. But before we go into the depths of ‘hardware and software’ of the brain, let’s look at the concepts of emotions, patterns, memories and repetition. And what high speed has to do with all of these factors.
People believe they’re good at drawing…or bad at drawing
How this this crazy notion come about? How did we get it into our heads that we were good or bad at something? I’ll tell you how.
Let’s take drawing, because most people simply can’t draw…
So why can’t they draw? Is it because they’re not talented? Let’s see, shall we?
Imagine a skill you’re good at: Like walking around a banana peel, for instance.
Imagine someone put five banana peels in your path.
Or ten. Or twenty-five. Or even fifty.
Would you be able to avoid the banana peel, and walk right along?
Silly question, eh? But what’s the banana peel got to do with your brain?
The brain recognised the danger of the peel. It recognised that the peel could create damage.
You could slip; fall; hurt yourself; even die.
So the brain pays attention. It prevents you from stepping on the peel in the future.
Drawing, on the other hand, doesn’t cause you to slip; fall or hurt yourself.
So your brain has no need to pay attention.
Yet, imagine you did a drawing as a child.
Imagine that every time you did that drawing you were slapped.
Not just slapped hard across the face. But ridiculed. And punished.
What are the chances you’d become really outstanding at drawing?
Pretty slim, huh?
So let’s take the exact opposite. Let’s say you did the drawing, and your mother was really excited. She showed it to everyone. She told you (and told the world) how talented you were. She brought you more crayons. More paper. More encouragement. And despite being ‘lousy’ at drawing, she felt no intimidation when showing you—a little child—how to draw.
And so the stirrings of talent begin.
You become talented.
You draw more.
You use drawing as a weapon to get attention.
You spend more time, understanding the medium and patterns better.
You get more attention. You draw even more. And the attention feeds on itself, resulting in more effort, more training.
And voila, you’re an artist.
You see it’s stupidity that causes us to believe in talent.
Talent is nothing but a seed, well watered.
Which is why most of us have a ‘talent’ to speak almost one language.
Most of us have a ‘talent’ to press door bells, and speak on phones.
Most of us have a ‘talent’ to recite and write our alphabet from one end to the other.
Which brings us back to drawing
Surely drawing is a lot more complex than reciting and writing the alphabet.
You think so? Tell that to a three-year old child.
Watch as she struggles with just the letter A. Or B. Or the combination of A, B and C.
So what makes her talent grow?
It’s the banana peel of life.
Her parents know that that child will ‘slip and fall’ if she doesn’t learn her alphabet.
So they make the alphabet fun. They show the child a cat. And say the letter C.
They show the child a ball, and you guessed it, it’s the letter B.
And soon, every child becomes a genius at the alphabet.
And you know what, if you are a genius at the alphabet, I can indeed teach you how to draw using NOTHING but the alphabet.
And could you then become a genius at drawing?
Hmmm…food for thought, eh?
So what are your questions? Because as you can tell, this is indeed going to be a long, long series.
