Cultural Creativity, Fame & Riches and Networking

If you've read the previous post - You and Your Creative Process - You should now understand what the creative process is, why you need to be engaged & developing yourself during your changing state and maintaining useful habits.

Let’s talk about what happens now you’re regularly making creative resources!

Show the world your creative resources - Become culturally creative

Previously we discussed Csikszentmihalyi’s (1996, p.8) meaning of creativity - "a process by which a symbolic domain in the culture is changed" and how this itself is not a definition of creativity as a whole - It is in fact a definition of cultural creativity.

Cultural creativity can allow us to gain potentially gain social recognition, new audiences and payment in the process. In order to be culturally creative your work needs to be completed, seen and validated by others.

If we create a great musical composition that is never shared or heard, why would people become a fan or pay you for something that has only been witnessed by you?

Why do you want to be seen and paid by others?

Explaining our innate drive for social dominance, power and high quality lifestyles with the thoughts of Herzberg (1959) Maslow (1943) McClelland (1961) Murray (1938) and Ryan & Deci (2000), we can conclude that pursuing a career as a cultural creative could provide the finance, social mobility and options that can come from being recognised and financially rewarded for services provided to others.

Rohn (1981, 00:10:10) explained that we get paid for bringing value to the marketplace. While creating creative resources to be enjoyed by other people it is important to be aware of what their needs and wants are – Bilton (2007, p.5) notes “if positioned too far “outside the box” creative thinking is novel without being valuable and can no longer connect with the assessment of it’s value.”

If something is too far out of a persons understanding or comfort zone they may reject it entirely – meaning the creative resource could fail to become an object of cultural creativity.

“Rich and famous”

The drive to become rich and famous – a status earned by successful cultural creatives – fulfils a lot of human needs. Much like success, the definition of how rich and how famous an individual needs to be to fulfil their needs differ from person to person.

Being famous, defined as “known about or by many people” (Oxford University Press, 2006, p.248) would be a byproduct of achieving cultural creativity on a larger scale. Being known about by many people would also provide a larger potential audience to sell creative resources too.

Financial riches would equate to having a larger number in the bank than most which provides, in our society, the ability to buy and consume higher quality goods and services in line with our wants and needs.

On this understanding it stands to reason that if you’ve:

- Created something that is recognized to be culturally creative
- Addresses a need or desire

People will want to acquire it for convenience, pleasure or other motives.

Physical or digital sales of an artist’s repertoire/ merchandise or taking patron donations is an example of how to collect the financial reward for the value you’ve brought to the marketplace by being culturally creative.

Networking – being a part of the world around you

Worldometers (2018) estimate there is 7-8 billion people on earth. With Narkiewicz (2018, 00:29:19) summarising the individuals position as “a node in a network” you would benefit from understanding your position in this vast network of human beings, how you interact with it and how other “nodes” would interact with you. Each person will have their own needs, predispositions and established networks for you to navigate around.

In today’s digital age, independently building an audience can be as simple as a few mouse clicks to create an advert that targets Facebook’s 2 billion users (Statista, 2018) or sends digital press packs to influencers, reviewers and bloggers etc online via social media platforms and email.

Christakis & Fowler (2011, p.xi) argue it’s “[not possible to] be friends with absolutely anybody. People are constrained by geography, socioeconomic status, technology and even genes to have certain kinds of social relationships and to have a certain number of them.”

With new experiences and training - creating an alteration in personal value – developing the self makes it possible to reach more than currently capable in the present moment (you yourself could become a culturally creative product in this process!)

Find people you can get along with and work on your relationships, expand your networks and continue to grow personally to attract new people.

Collaborations create different creative resources

In the next blog we’ll talk in much greater detail about collaborating with others in this support network you will begin to build and develop your relationships with others.

References

Bilton, C. (2006). Management and Creativity: From Creative Industries to Creative Management.

Christakis, N., Fowler, J. (2011). Connected: The Amazing Power of Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention.

Herzberg, F., Mausner, B. and Snyderman, B. (1959). The motivation to work.

Locke, J. (2018). You and Your Creative Process. [online] Available at: https://medium.com/@jakklocke/you-and-your-creative-process-c8622f210ff [Accessed 04/11/2018].

Maslow, A. (1943). A Theory of Human Motivation.

McClelland, D. (1961). The Achieving Society.

Murray, H., McAdams, D. and Barrett, W. (1938). Explorations in personality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Narkiewicz, A. (2018). Ask Akira #023 🤔 How To Stay Positive. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHCdGcqf1LI [Accessed 04/11/2018].

Oxford University Press. (2006). Little Oxford English Dictionary.

Rohn, J. (1981). How to Take Charge of Your Life. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGIjuVbGP_A [Accessed 04/11/2018].

Ryan, R., Deci Edward. (2000). Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being.

Statista. (2018). Number of monthly active Facebook users worldwide as of 2nd quarter 2018 (in millions). [online] Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/ [Accessed 04/11/2018].

Worldometers. (2018). World population. [online] Available at: http://www.worldometers.info/ [Accessed 04/11/2018]

You And Your Creative Process

To have a successful career as a creative person it stands to reason you must do creative things. But what things should you do, learn and understand in order to maximise your potential future and enjoy it?

Firstly you should understand what the creative process actually is.

Csikszentmihalyi (1996) notes the creative process is the act of taking external influence and making new creative resources (such as information, music, paintings etc.)

I’d argue though that the creative process has been achieved not on 100% completion of the creative resource or by acceptance by society (as Csikszentmihalyi states) of a desired product but with as little as 0.1%. If new thoughts are created then the creative act has taken place — albeit internally.

Thoughts alone do not lead to successful careers — action leading to manifesting consumable creative resources does. Having your work accepted by society will usually be shown in an increase in fans, opportunities and payment.

Being creative isn’t for a select few. By the above definitions posting a comment on Facebook is a creative act (I would argue it’s not on the same scope as composing an orchestra) so it’s important to remember everyone has the potential to be creative — You’ll just need to develop what types you use.

Monkey see, monkey do something different.

Secondly you must be motivated and actively want to create.

Creating creative resources is a process that takes time away from natural human instincts of hunting for food and water. Music might be your life, but your body will need to replenish itself physically.

Psychologists such as Herzberg (1959) Maslow (1943) McClelland (1961) Murray (1938) and Ryan & Deci (2000) differ on thought as to how essential this is, but we can assume that — assuming you have met your base psychological needs;

- If you’re not able to enjoy or have fun doing it (pleasure)

- If you don’t have your reasons why you are doing it (motive)

- If you can’t look forward to doing it (positive anticipation)

You’ll find it difficult to get started. Your intrinsic motivation will be focused towards other options.

If you don’t need or want to create you won’t do it.

Thirdly you’ve got to be prepared to grow and develop as a person and in your abilities.

Who you currently are could be enough to be successful. But if you had already achieved your maximum potential, would you be reading this article? There is always room for improvement.

What are your personal and career goals? How dedicated are you to your own goals? Discussed by Willink (2015) as “Extreme ownership” the concept requires that you take full responsibility for the outcomes of your actions and steer yourself towards your desired goals. Never blaming anyone else other than yourself for the failures you may encounter.

Developing a daily routine that gives you novelty and forces you to engage in your creative acts will push you and refine you.

If you are not growing and developing you are withering and decaying.

Fourthly you’ll have to learn to deal with change and maintain useful habits

It takes discipline to stick to the daily routine you’ve set out, while changing it and developing it and yourself. Change is normal a part of life — you’ve changed by reading this — and can be painful, but as Robbins (2012) explains;

“People will do more to avoid pain than they will do to gain pleasure.”

If you are too comfortable, you won’t want to change. Always keep developing even if it brings discomfort.

Greene (2012) notes that it can take up to seven years to achieve levels of mastery needed to be on the forefront of an industry and 10 to be considered a pioneer. He notes shortcuts to this, which we’ll discuss in the next article.

Remember who you are, who you can become and who you will be along the way.

Fifthly you’ll eventually enter the flow state whilst working.

Ever been doing a task you enjoyed and hours have gone by but it felt like minutes?

Named by Csikszentmihalyi (1975) flow is explained by Marer et al (2016) as;

“a mental state in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement and enjoyment. Flow, creativity and happiness are related.”

From a Neurochemistry standpoint Kotler (2014) addresses that you take in more information, process it more deeply and quicker. In a talk with Big Think (2015) Kotler explained:

“The brain produces a giant cascade of neurochemistry. You get norepinephrine, dopamine, anandamide, serotonin and endorphins. All five of these are performance enhancing neurochemicals.”

Once you’ve achieved a basic level of competency and are comfortable in getting involved without being negatively judgemental or self-conscious you’ll often enter the flow state when working.

Get in the zone. It’s good for you.

Finally — You’ll have to become a part of the bigger world

This article covers several key points of information you will need in order to continuously enable your own creativity and develop it far beyond the ability levels of others. In the next blog we’ll look at how your creative process interacts with others, including collaboration, building an audience and sales.

References

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1975). Beyond boredom and anxiety. San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention.

Greene, R. (2012). Mastery. London: Profile.

Herzberg, F., Mausner, B. and Snyderman, B. (1959). The motivation to work.

Kotler, Steven (2014) The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance.

Marer, P,. Zoltan, B,. and Vecsey Z. (2016). Missing Link Discovered: Planting Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow Theory into Management and Leadership Practice by using FLIGBY, the official Flow-Leadership Game.

Maslow, A. (1943). A Theory of Human Motivation. 1st ed.

McClelland, D. (2010). The Achieving Society.

Murray, H., McAdams, D. and Barrett, W. (1938). Explorations in personality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Robbins, A. (2001). Awaken the giant within. London [u.a.]: Pocket.

Ryan, R., and Deci Edward. (2000). Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being.

Willink, J. (2017). Extreme Ownership