Tina Seelig — Constraints Drive Creativity

Tina Seelig, author of “inGenius,” “Creativity Rules,” and recently “What I wish I knew when I was 20.”

Quotes & ideas

• When you challenge assumptions, you open the aperture of what is possible. Example:
  • Gave students each $5. Think about it, but as soon as you open the envelope and use the next two hours to create as much value as possible. Then 3 minutes to present 1 slide of what you did with it.
    • Some students did the obvious — bake sale., used the $5 as seed money for some other endeavor
    • Others said five dollars is a red herring, so 2 hours was the most valuable. Students used 2 hours to create a service and made more money, some up to $200
    • Another sold the 3 minute presentation time to a company that wanted to be in front of the students
  • The winds of luck are always blowing, but it is up to you to set up a sail to catch it
• What’s 5 + 5, it’s 10. But to reframe it, one could ask how many different ways can we get to 10? The answer there is infinite.
• Constraints are powerful engines of creativity.
  • Classic example: Monty Python’s script called for knights in shining armor on horses, but they couldn’t afford it. So instead they invented the visual joke of two coconuts and pantomiming riding horses
  • The original Twitter’s constraints of 140 characters
• Unrelenting constraints can have the opposite effect and grind someone down, however. The fatigue of the pandemic is an example
• Painting the target around the arrow — what are your superpowers, what do you do well (the arrow) and then shape the role around what you do best
• “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” Out yourself in a position to become lucky.

Creative Pressure Matrix

	Low Pressure	High Pressure
High Creativity	Expedition	Mission
Low Creativity	Autopilot	Treadmill

Difference between creativity and innovation

• Imagination is a vision of a world that does not exist
• Creativity is applying imagination to a problem
• Innovation applies creativity to a unique idea
• Entrepreneurship is applying the innovation to a business model

The cycle can continue once you reach entrepreneurship and need to iterate on the next offering.

Failure is data

• What is your mental model of failure? What does it actually look like when you fall? Darkness, shards of glass, quicksand, rubber?
• Create a failure resume — what are the most notable? What did they teach? Why were they actually valuable?

Deciding to Decide

• Deciding to make a decision and choose between more than one option
• Knowing when you are at a decision point is important to be aware of