I’ve talked about the importance of creativity on this blog a bazillion times. Creativity is the killer differentiator. It’s what separates the average from the bad ass.
In many cases being creative however takes guts most people don’t have.
Could you do this if you were a flight attendant?
http://youtu.be/K9Fcndt2aOc
A better question, would your company let you do this? Would you let your employees do this? For most people who are honest with themselves, the answer is no to both and all. We just don’t have the guts.
Here’s another one of my favorites from Kmart.
http://youtu.be/hL4lSavSepc
I’ll be honest, I can’t believe this got through Kmart’s bureaucracy, but good for them. It did.
These two commercials have something few commercials, ads, or even people have and that is they’re creative, the don’t rely on the norm or the status quo. They allow themselves to go to untested places. They allow themselves to take risk AND they accept unpredictability and it’s these two reasons most people aren’t creative. They can’t stomach risk and unpredictability.
By definition, creativity means it’s new, it’s never been done, it’s outside of the box, it’s different, unique, etc. etc.
Here’s the formal definition in case your wondering;
CREATIVITY
The ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationship, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpret actions, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination.
Most of us don’t like to “transcend the traditional,” it’s too uncomfortable. We don’t like the risk and unpredictability so we default. We default to the norm, the traditional.
Here’s the problem. Being the best, staying on top, changing the game, being a leader, growth and solving big hairy problems, requires creativity.
If success is what we crave. If being good is what we want, then we’re gonna have to figure out how to get comfortable being uncomfortable about risk and unpredictability.
Creativity takes guts and most people don’t have em.
Don’t be most people.