Episode 112: Transcript

Unlocking Your Creator Mindset for Business Prosperity

Speaker 0 00:00:04 Make It Right. The manufacturing podcast.
Speaker 1 00:00:09 When you think of someone who’s creative, the artistic come to mind, writers, painters, musicians, actors, but my guest today on make it right, believes creativity is in us all. He teaches business leaders and individuals how to harness the power of creativity to improve profitability, increase sales, and ultimately create more meaning in their work. Welcome to the makeup right podcast. I’m Janet Eastman. And this week, my guest is a speaker, an author, and a creativity expert who has worked with famous musicians and actors like rod Stewart and Woody Harrelson. He taught graduate studies at the art center college of design, the art center college of design in Pasadena. I think I got that right. And undergraduate courses at the university of California Nir Bashan is the founder and CEO of The Creator Mindset. Nir I’m so excited to have you on the show. So welcome. Thank you, Janet. Very good to hear. So let’s talk about creativity. The human being is a creative being, but somehow as we get older, we sort of bury that. Do you blame our education system for that? Or, or what’s going on? Like why do we lose that ability to play and be creative that we had when we were kids?
Speaker 2 00:01:25 So I think, um, that every child on earth across societies is born with a creative ability to solve problems that is unmatched in the animal kingdom. We have studies that show that, you know, human beings are incredibly, incredibly creative. Um, and actually that creativity even develops before language Shannon. So it’s pretty amazing. And then you’re right. As we get older, we just kind of stop being creative and we start to be analytical. And I think it’s one of the greatest tragedies of, of humanity to be honest. And it’s not hyperbole. I think that it’s one of the worst things ever. And so I’ve set out to make a life of trying to correct this.
Speaker 1 00:02:16 So has it been drilled out of us or, or we don’t pursue it, like where’s the disconnect
Speaker 2 00:02:23 Totally drilled out of us through education, through, um, our societal structure. Um, you know, it’s just one of the things I’ll give you an example. Um, you and I are in a kindergarten class or, you know, a, a, um, a toddler type education setting anywhere in the world and we draw a tree and you draw a pink tree and I draw a, you know, um, bright blue tree with, you know, um, guitars growing from the leaves and you grow, you know, you draw, um, coffee mugs. I no, and, um, you know, something really, really creative like that. And the teacher comes around and they tell us, you know, Janet trees, aren’t pink, they’re actually green and the bark is Brown and you don’t, it’s those subtleties that keep coming up again and again, throughout our lives that push us away from our real identity of being creative and into the sort of, um, assumed identity of the analytics.
Speaker 2 00:03:29 So we sort of assimilate really. Yeah, definitely. I think that, um, I think that when we think of creativity, especially in business, right, we think of creativity as being frivolous, not the stuff of the serious, not the stuff of, you know, the cold, hard facts, the, you know, the bottom line and what we ended up doing was trading half of our mind and half of our potential to solve problems, you know, for, um, for the analytics and for the feeling that, you know, um, everything is, uh, is solvable through the lens of, you know, um, spreadsheet, logic, and analytics and data. But what ends up happening right, is we look at, at companies, especially in manufacturing. Um, but I’ve seen it in other sectors too, uh, where, you know, we feel like we’re doing everything right, Janet and we still are wondering why we’re not there.
Speaker 2 00:04:29 We still wonder why we’re only 50% along the way to, um, our path. And that is because we are not using the creative side of the mind to really sort of help us understand what we need to be doing to be more effective in the marketplace and to, um, raves customer service, whether it’s business to business or business, to consumer, um, and all of these sort of hidden, incredible powers, uh, come from creativity. And they’ve been winning with us all along. We just got to start listening to them. Okay. So if I’m a business owner and I go, okay, I’m going to turn the key on creativity and I’ve, you know, I know how to do this and I’m going to make it happen. What’s the power behind that. What happens to a business when they finally unlocked that? So when you finally get to unlock creativity, what you see will, what you see ends up happening is that you will begin to realize all of the goals and potential that you can possibly realize within your business.
Speaker 2 00:05:33 So if you’re looking to expand to a new marketplace, if you’re looking for that new piece of machinery, that’ll make that particular thing. What you end up doing is you become really creative about it. And, you know, instead of spending money, you start to save money because that piece of machinery can be leased. That, um, new market can be, you know, X access through a, B and C, and all of these creative methods that, you know, will help you grow, develop your business and become really, um, incredibly, incredibly wealthy. So explain to why don’t you share a story about how you’ve made this happen for somebody, how that, how it has really worked for them. So, you know, I, I can give you a bunch of examples, but one thing that, that I think is, is really important when you look at your business and you try to unlock creativity, is all of the nuance around, you know, the possibilities that you can execute while you’re so busy thinking about process and protocol.
Speaker 2 00:06:37 So I’ll give you an example of a recent, I did a keynote at a, uh, disaster restoration, uh, conference, you know, where they come and if there’s a fire in the kitchen or whatever, and they come and cut out the dry wall, or if there’s a flood, you know, they, the disaster restoration, right. So I had a guy come up to me afterwards and he was like, Hey man, this is a great lecture. And I really enjoyed myself and creativity sounds really great, but come on, come on, I’m in the disaster restoration business, like what, you know, what do you mean creativity? I have got deadlines in there. I’ve got, you know, we’ve got a 100 trucks out there. I’ve got, you know, several thousand employees and all this stuff. And I said, okay, cool. What, you know, w what are you, why do you feel like you can’t start to train your mind to think in a different way and try to remember kind of how you used to be as a child.
Speaker 2 00:07:26 He’s like, because while you were talking there, I spent an hour thinking, yeah, I was listening to you, but then I have proposed to get out and I have real hard is the tank. I said, okay, cool. We’ve started. Tell me about the proposal. You’d like, what about them? I said, tell me, what, what are you, what are you sending out? He’s like, you know, we’re getting these things out and, you know, customers either a sign up with us or they sign up with one of my competitors. I’m like, okay, this is going to be great. Now I get excited. Right, Janet. I was like, okay, tell me about the customers that sign up. He’s like, well, so they read and, you know, they sign up. I’m like, why do they sign up? He’s like, because they like my price. I’m like, cause that’s the only reason.
Speaker 2 00:08:07 And then he was like, well, no, I, you know, I, wow. I guess, yeah. I’ve kind of been a volume game nearer. I get. Okay, cool. So how many people signed up of the numbers of people you send to? And he’s like, well, that’s an analytical thing. Is that a creative thing? I said, dude, it is 100% creative. Let’s keep talking. Where are you at? He’s like, well, okay. So I think 23% close rate, I’m like, okay. Out of the 23%, who are they? And he, you know, we started talking and getting into really nice, rich, detailed. And we find out that, you know, this particular owner of a particular disaster restoration franchise, hasn’t been on a client call in like 10 years, Janet. He just has not seen a client. And that’s okay because you’ve been working on the business and not in the business, but sometimes being creative requires different look of something.
Speaker 2 00:08:56 And the forms that were working 10 years ago, that he was sending out with his staff to go to a house and to sign up with a customer just aren’t working anymore. And, you know, 23% just isn’t enough. And he would like, well, that’s industry standard. I said, well, why are you settling for industry standard when you could do so much better? So fast forward, we do a consultancy and he ends up getting way more customers now because he changed his approach. He’s been doing listening. He’s been going online where, you know, people can reach him with cell phone and he’s got, um, apps that are very, very simple to make an appointment for an estimate. So on and so forth. And all of the things come from the richness of creativity. None of these things are analytical constructs. They’re, you know, analytical constructs means, okay, you need to get more people to sign up for your service and you need more volume.
Speaker 2 00:09:47 That’s an analytical construct. But for me, the richness is in the incredible creative detail that you’re able to tweak as a business owner, even as someone on their career path, you know, to, to the next level. These are things that you can tweak creatively thinking to keep getting ahead in, in any business, no matter what you do and what I want to do right now, Jen, is I want your listeners to listen to, you know, to me talking here and, and to think for one second about their business and think, you know, what is that crazy idea that I’ve had that I’m too afraid to try? What is that wild, new approach or, you know, piece of equipment or, you know, um, manufacturing, um, a trend that I’ve been thinking about tweaking just a little bit changing just a little bit, but, um, you know, I bury it because, Oh, it’s too out there and, Oh, that’s, you know, that can’t be the stuff of the serious, what creativity that you know is coming up right now to you, the listener. And you’re listening to me speak about your business that you can possibly implement. That is your creativity from childhood, trying to get out and tell you what to do.
Speaker 1 00:11:01 I think to that, you know, probably when maybe people started for is listening to this podcast, they went well, creativity like has no place in, in my business. I don’t even know how I could possibly be creative, but what you just explained is like, it’s not, it’s all of all of a sudden, some crazy thing you’re asking people to do. You’re you’re saying, well, why don’t you create an app? So it’s easier for your customer to sign on, to, you know, get an estimate and things like that. These are business things that are totally out there. It’s just a different way of looking at how you can make your business easier and more interesting for your clients. Right,
Speaker 2 00:11:39 Exactly. Right. You’ve nailed it. And you know, a lot of people think creativity is about art. And I spend, you know, some of my keynotes, the first 10 minutes just debunking that, right. Art is a very, very small, small, small component. I think it’s less than 3% of creativity all around. So why do we think that creativity is art it’s because of how it’s the first thing that we are kind of introduced to creativity, um, is at, you know, at art, uh, at art class or drawing something, or, you know, like my, my example earlier of drawing of the tree, um, that had how were first exposed to, uh, creativity through art and we mistakenly and tragically believe that art is creativity. What, what I’m really scared about Janet, um, is the person listening to the podcast right now that could have some amazing breakthrough in manufacturing, but they’re too scared or they are too full of self doubt to put it out there because they’re worried that they won’t be seen as the stuff of the serious or the intellectual.
Speaker 2 00:12:49 They’re worried about what the industry might think they’re worried about their reputation. Let me tell you an amazing story. That’s, that’s actually in the book that I have coming out in August called the creator mindset. Um, there’s a scientist working on curing cancer, right. And part of his job was to look at, um, infectious diseases. So he ended up studying, uh, the Zika virus, which is in mosquitoes. You know, they, they, they bite somebody and it causes horrible birth defects. But what he found was some of the enzymes in Zika, the disease itself, the, the, literally the, the disease, um, some of the end times were able to kind of kill a particular type of cancer. So he would like, this cannot be right. So he tried over and over again and tested it and kind of, you know, uh, um, verified that it actually is true.
Speaker 2 00:13:38 And then he got a couple of his friends, very, very, very esteemed people in the, uh, in, in the, in the medical community who work on this stuff all day. And they kind of started looking at, um, looking at Zika, killing a particular type of cancer. Now looked at each other. We’re like, Holy crap, this, this is working. But then they got really kind of scared about putting it out there. Um, they got a little bit doubtful of maybe the reputation and maybe it worked for them, but it wouldn’t work for others. And maybe, you know, there’s so many doubts that go along with it, but what they ended up doing was, you know, kind of writing a few papers and putting it out there. And now they’re about to go into human trials on a particular form of childhood pediatric cancer, Janet, that every kid that gets this cancer, um, you know, dives from it.
Speaker 2 00:14:29 And so they are trying to use Zika to, uh, reverse and actually killed the cancer cell while preserving the, uh, the human cell. But, you know, the, the, the, the cells that are necessary for, for growth. And this is something that they would have never have done if self doubt and reputation defending and all of that stuff would have shut down this idea. So when I say, you know, that these things are tragic. I mean, somebody right now is listening to this podcast, Janet right now, and they have an idea that could change manufacturing for the better of humanity. And it’s really kind of a selfish pursuit because I want my life to be better. You know, I want, you know, God forbid if I get cancer for it to be cured. Um, and so somebody listening to this podcast right now who has the amazing power within their business to solve some problem in some way, creatively that can affect us all. And my job is to unlock that permission, to allow them to try that idea, because we will all benefit and the amazing power of creativity when we all sort of bring it together and use it is something that is a benefit for everyone in humanity.
Speaker 1 00:15:44 Well, and the thing is too, that that person who has that creative idea may in the very back of their mind and you’re right, but it’s fear and it’s reputation, whatever, but also way back, they’re going, they’re thinking,
Speaker 2 00:15:56 Wow,
Speaker 1 00:15:58 How can I even think of that? Because like, it can’t work. It’s like, I mean, it’s just one of my own crazy ideas, but you know what, like it’s people like Steve jobs and whatever they said, you know, we’re going to make a better computer and we’re going to create this, that, and the other thing. And they went on and did it. And at that point it was a crazy idea and they went and made it happen. Right,
Speaker 2 00:16:17 Totally. And, and there is the seedlings of amazing potential within every beating heart on earth. And our goal, my goal is to bring that out in everybody, in any industry. I listen, I believe that enterprise, uh, is the, you know, free enterprise is the greatest contributor to, you know, worldwide standards of living going up, up, up, if that the perfect system, no. Is that the best system on earth? No. You know, um, if there were a better system yet to be invented, maybe I don’t know, but if the best thing that we have now, and it happens with people who are listening to this podcast, you know, your company, your business, your career, um, contributes to the eventual rides of the global welfare of living. And those ideas come generally from some creative impetus, but, you know, we tragically shut it down for every story. Um, Janet, that, you know, that I have of, of the, of Zika killing cancer, there’s another several, probably hundred thousand of people that walked away because they were afraid of their reputation, afraid of their ego, afraid of making a mistake. And, you know, we, we don’t get to benefit from that, uh, from that invention, from that particular spark of creativity. And my, my mission again, is to make sure that that, that doesn’t happen.
Speaker 1 00:17:47 Okay. So how can take a more creative thinking approach to their challenges? Like, do you, when you do your seminars and in your book, are you going to be giving us like a set process?
Speaker 2 00:18:00 Yeah. So the book is filled with 92 different tricks, tips and tools that you can use to become more creative in your business. Uh, they come, you know, I’ve been, uh, an entrepreneur for many, many years. I had my first business when I was nine years old and I’ve run many businesses as well and some directly into the ground, you know, I mean, just obliterated. Um, and I’ve learned a lot, actually more from the failures than I have from the successes. And so, you know, I decided to kind of codify creativity and that’s what the book is all about. I did a bunch of research on it. There are a lot of books out there that will teach you, uh, um, why, why you should be creative, right? Why should you be creative? Um, they teach you, you know, that it’s going to be great and that you’re going to make more money.
Speaker 2 00:18:46 And that, you know, you’re going to lead to innovation, which solves problems. That’s great, but no books out there, there isn’t one book on the market right now, Janet, that teaches you the, how the, how of creativity is more important to me than anything. Because when you give people tools to actually produce creativity, it’s a great, great thing. Um, the first thing that I think that somebody listening right now can do to become more creative, is to understand that, you know, the self doubt monsters, one of the biggest and most debilitating things that get in the way of creativity. And when you’re listening to this podcast right now, and you’re coming up with some ideas of what you should do, um, you should listen and nurture those ideas because they’re kind of some of the most important things that you have. But instead, what you’ll probably do, which is what, you know, 99% of people do, if you’ll bury it down and you won’t act on it. So one of the thing that you can do today is understand that the self doubt monster is in full edit mode, and it wants you to go all the way to the analytical mindset, without even having a little regard of creativity and understanding that, and starting to recognize that your ideas are creativity, trying to get out, um, is a very, very good first step in realizing creative potential.
Speaker 1 00:20:07 When you have a crazy idea, the best thing to do is to, you know, set it down in front of yourself and look at it from all angles. Right? Because then, because the first thing, like you said is you shut it down and go. That’s just a crazy idea I had, but no, if you, if you write it down or set it down somewhere and you take a look at it from all angles, you’re going to find out why that idea came.
Speaker 2 00:20:30 No doubt. Yeah. I, I’m a big proponent of writing things down. Uh, studies have shown that writing things down, activate different portions of the mind and enable you to, again, just like you’re saying, uh, study it from different perspectives. And in that different perspectives are amazing, you know, actionable items. Now, I’m not saying Janet to go out and rush and, and execute every crazy idea you have. That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying that, you know, writing those ideas down and treasuring them as they sort of come up, I actually talk in a book of how to actually make ideas rather than waiting for them to strike. Cause I don’t believe that creativity is something that we all wait for. And, you know, it strikes us like a lightning bolt. I think creativity can be manufactured and created and something, you know, giving people tools to be able to replicate these things I think are, are very important. Um, but when these ideas come, you’ve got to write them down, you got to study them from a bunch of different angles. And in studying them from a bunch of different angles, you’ll come up with more creative ideas than more creative ideas. And these are really the lifeblood. They’re the currency of your business.
Speaker 1 00:21:39 Hmm. I want to ask you, because you’ve worked with artists like musician, rod Stewart, and actor, Woody Harrelson. So how does your approach from working with guys like that differ from working with a business person?
Speaker 2 00:21:52 So I’ve been, you know, I’ve been in the creative field for, for many, many years, and then, you know, in the non-creative field, uh, I owned a company that refurnished furniture for a while. Um, you know, not, not exactly the height of creativity, I’ve owned a production company in Hollywood before. Pretty much. Yeah. That’s pretty much creative. What I found is that, you know, actors and actresses and musicians that are professional, all have a process for manufacturing, creativity. Um, they just do, and nobody’s sharing a Steve jobs and, and, you know, people who run Amazon and Elon Musk and all these people that, that run incredibly creative companies nobody’s sharing. But I felt like it was time to start, you know, to, to get creativity out there in an easy and digestible manner. And what I found from working with these actors especially is the same sort of creative process, the same sort of ideation, you know, process and innovation process that, um, other businesses use, uh, especially, you know, Tesla and, um, you know, Amazon and that once you view creativity of the process that anybody can, can, um, manipulate to, to their own benefit, it becomes, uh, through line between, you know, somebody in the creative field than somebody in the business field.
Speaker 1 00:23:17 Okay. Um, we’re almost out of time, but I want to ask you to give us a couple of tips for a, you know, a manufacturing leader that’s sitting here listening, you know, how they can get started on the, um, the creativity path and prior to purchasing your book, I guess it’s coming out on October our August 4th, but what are some key tips prior to that?
Speaker 2 00:23:38 So a few tips that will really help, um, one that I really like is, uh, some personality traits that found were super unlikely, um, to be champions of creativity, but they are, one of them is humor. Um, having the ability to see the humor in situations is incredibly important. And I know this is a difficult one because if you’re staring at a warehouse full of inventory, nothing’s funny about that. Um, but if we tried to start looking at things with a little bit of light, a little bit of humor, um, amazing creative potential comes from that empathy is another very important, um, trait that I like to give business leaders, um, when you are in a deal or a negotiating, um, you know, having a sense of empathy and having a sense of the shoe on the other foot can be an incredibly creative, uh, tool for, for growth, for connectivity, um, for reaching, you know, solutions to things that were, you know, at some impacts that you thought you couldn’t bridge.
Speaker 2 00:24:45 And finally, I think courage is incredibly important in, um, the manufacturing of creativity. What you get when you have a sense of courage is the ability to take on some of these ideas and run with them when they come up. Hmm. There’s that old saying? You know, I remember my parents saying it to me. You never know if you don’t try. Yeah, exactly. Yup. No doubt. These things are absolutely true. And, you know, once you come up with a process and, and that process is as individual as you are, there’s, you know, the way that you practice creativity, Janet, I’m going to be the same way that I practice creativity. It’s deeply embedded into who we are. It’s where we come from, how we grew up and, you know, our, our businesses and our careers are, are manifestations of that. And the way that you become creative and execute creativity in your day to day, life is going to be completely different than, than I will execute it.
Speaker 2 00:25:47 And understanding that as human beings, we’ve been kind of operating on ho on a half tank of gas, you know, always wondering why we’re not there yet. Um, implementing creativity alongside with the analytics. I’m not saying throw away analytics, you can’t, you can’t go too far one way or the other. It’s all about that balance, but Janet, we’re not balanced right now. We’re just executing on the analytics and we need to combine it with a creator mindset and creativity in everything that we do so that we can become way, way, way more fulfilled. And now is the perfect time to be rethinking how you approach your business. Isn’t it? Oh yeah. With, with everything going on. I mean, you know, this is the time to think about, you know, why sales are down in this particular, uh, territory or why, you know, um, you know, how covert is affecting you.
Speaker 2 00:26:40 W what I’ve found is companies that were creative have done really well in this crisis, because they’ve already sort of set up a path for them to do well. And, you know, companies that are really struggling, I would start to look at what creative implementation you’ve been doing, um, to, to make sure that you’re still competitive and you’re still sort of viable in the market, because I would bet that if you’re struggling right now, you haven’t had a process of creativity, um, to keep you viable and going. And that part of the lack of sales right now, and part of the lack of, of, uh, of growth is an inability to keep up with, uh, the creative changes
Speaker 1 00:27:24 Near. It has been a real pleasure having you on make it right. Thank you so much. Thanks, Janet. I appreciate it. So your book is coming out, it’s called the creator mindset it’s supposed to be out on, is it August 4th that I have that date, right? Yes, ma’am. Okay. And it’s available through Amazon, et cetera. So if people want to get, um, well purchase now, it’ll help you make the, is it the New York times bestseller list you’re running for that? Are you,
Speaker 2 00:27:48 Yeah, we’re trying to get the wall street journal one, but yeah. Yeah, it’s weird. The books, um, the bestseller lists are on the presale of the book. I don’t know. It’s my first book. I’m busy running businesses. So it’s, it’s, you know, I’m not really a versed in the publishing world, but from what I’m told is that, um, a book gets on a, on a list like a, you know, a wall street journal list or whatnot, uh, from the presale. So you buy the book, but then it ships you on, on August 4th, though. If, if any of this sounds interesting to you, I sure would appreciate it. If you were to look it up, it’s on Amazon and Barnes and noble and every major bookstore. It’s also at all the independent bookstores as well. It’s called the creator mindset, and I hope you enjoy it. And I hope you get a lot of value from it.
Speaker 1 00:28:37 It sounds like it will be a very valuable book, NIR. Thanks again. And I hope I get a chance to speak to you in the future. Thanks, Janet. Really appreciate it. Okay. So watch for Nir Bashan’s book, The Creator Mindset it’s coming out on August 4th. If you want to order it a pre advanced copy, it will be coming to you by August 4th. That is our show this week, please check out our Twitter and LinkedIn feeds that are on our podcast page and subscribe and share this podcast with your friends and colleagues. We’d really appreciate that through iTunes, Google play, Stitcher, Spotify, and YouTube, and the make it right. Podcast is brought to you by Kevin Snook. He’s a leadership advisor and author of the bestselling book, Make It Right: Five Steps to Align Your Manufacturing Business from the Frontline to the Bottom Line until next time I’m Janet Eastman. Get creative. Thanks for listening to make it right.