Day 25: David Kelley on How to build your creative confidence

Directly from Ted Talk, I want to share this great lecture by David Kelly on how to build creative confidence. More proof that we are ALL creative!! Ted Talk’s introduction asks, “Is your school or workplace divided into ‘creatives’ versus practical people? Yet surely, David Kelley suggests, creativity is not the domain of only a chosen few. Telling stories from his legendary design career and his own life, he offers ways to build the confidence to create…”

I was delighted to find this Ted Talk a few months ago when I was preparing to give a lecture on building creative confidence at a women’s conference. I felt like I was on the right path and David Kelley both affirmed many of my own ideas and offered some new ones to share with others on how to build creative confidence, plus his assertion that all people are creative echoed mine. I am certain that everyone is creative, we just have to find the right form of creative expression.

You will love his story about the doctor who turned a children’s MRI machine into a space ship in order to ease the process of the MRI for kids and make it more fun. Enjoy!

Lesson 25 for building your creative confidence

Grab your journal and write about a time when you came up with a creative solution for a problem you or someone else was experiencing.

Then grab some crayons or colored pencils and create a beautiful drawing in your journal that says, “I am creative!”

My husband is a software engineer and spends all day staring at lines of code. He is know for his creative ability to see where the bugs are in the software and fix them. This might not sound like making “art” but it is about looking at the world with creative ideas and trusting in your own ability to create something different.

Notice I didn’t say something new! Most of what we create is a take off from or influenced by the information and knowledge we already have. So don’t feel like just because what you create is absolutely original, that that diminishes its value. It doesn’t. Part of building our creative confidence comes from imitation in the beginning, just learning to draw like our teacher or write a poem in a certain style… just create!! At the end of the day, we just have to begin…

Share your comments on the video below. What about Kelley’s talk touched you the most? Or share your story about seeing yourself as creative.

 

 

Image credit: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/David-Kelley-of-Ideo-raises-level-of-design-2326227.php#photo-1834105