Creative high achievers practice a positive sensory orientation. If you ask them to explain to you their goals, their hopes, their aspirations, they would be able to do this in three-dimensional sensory detail. - Steve DeVore, “The Neuropsychology of Achievement
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The other thing exceptional people seem to have is a special talent for converting life’s setbacks into future successes. Creativity researchers concur. In a poll of 143 creativity researchers, there was wide agreement about the number one ingredient in creative achievement. And it was exactly the kind of perseverance and resilience produced by the growth mindset.
The successful creative business leaders who speak to our classes don;t strive. They apply themselves to a task for the sheer joy of doing it. It is in this sort of effort that you, too, can experience your inner creativity.
In our Stanford classes, we recommend this: Get to work on something (almost anything) productive, with the simply (even foolish) confidence that the work that’s in front of you is part of your answer.
Each individual has a meant-to-be, a particular blending of talents and capacities that can guide him to achievement. Everyone you recognise as creative - not only our speakers but also such luminaries as Einstein, Picasso, Beethoven - has in common the amazing ability to express his own unique purpose here on earth. They have found that true creativity is being themselves. When Leonardo DaVinci was asked to name his greatest accomplishment, he answered, “Leonardo DaVinci.
Many of us have a romantic idea about how creativity happens: A lone visionary conceives of a film or a product in a flash of insight. Then that visionary leads a team of people through hardship to finally deliver on that great promise. The truth is, this isn’t my experience at all. I’ve known many people I consider to be creative geniuses, and not just at Pixar and Disney, yet I can’t remember a single one who could articulate exactly what this vision was that they were striving for when they started.
In my experience, creative people discover and realize their visions over time and through dedicated, protracted struggle. In that way, creativity is more like a marathon than a sprint. You have to pace yourself.
This finding makes perfect sense. Creative work requires that your mind feel a level of freedom. If part of what you focus on is whether or not your performance will get you that big check, you are not in that open cognitive space where the best ideas and most innovative possibilities reside. You do worse.