Interview with Alvanson So, Regional People Lead – South East Asia at Canva.

Sometimes we can learn so much about a word by looking at its etymology.

The post The Creativity Suite. Episode 164: Harnessing Creative Energy. first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

We talked about everything from pitching movie ideas to how AI will change the creative process.

One thing that stuck with me from the conversation was how Leopold would check pitches for creative projects against one sentence: HISTB?

HISTB? stands for “Have I Seen This Before?”

If your first reaction to someone else’s ideas (or even your own) is “Oh, that reminds me of X” then your idea is lacking the magic “X factor” that is the difference between a “good idea” and a “great idea”.

But if your first reaction to a new idea is “Ah, this is original!”, then you are on to something.

Be honest with yourself. If your idea is just reminding you of something else, then twist, tweak, dig deeper, pivot or change something until your first reaction is “wow!” Not “I have seen this before”.

A nice reminder to thrive for originality in your creativity.

IDEAS ISLAND 2

Since I closed down “Ideas Island” (the island where, for 10+ years, I let people stay for free to work on a creative project), I have decided to, instead, invite more creative people to my own island, Svanholmen, where I live with my family (see pic above).

One Ideas Island died, another Ideas Island is born.

Welcome to ‘Ideas Island 2’.

On this island I do not let creatives stay for a week (since this is the island I live on myself)

:-).

But instead, I want to have more creative people over for interviews, discussions, conversations etc.

Ideas Island 2 will be more about ‘creative discussions’ where I learn about the creative process from creative people.

For 25 years I have been exploring the world to learn about creativity from all kinds of people.

And I will continue to do so, of course.

But now I also want to open up my own home (and island) so that creative people can come to me, and not just me coming to them.

If you are visiting Stockholm, please do reach out to me and you might just get an invite to come to the island so that we can discuss creativity together.

CREATIVE INSPIRATION

2026 has started wonderfully. As always, I aim to spread creative inspiration around the world.

This year I have already been to:

Thailand

Singapore

Belgium

Korea

India

Denmark

And, of course, Sweden

And many more countries are in the pipeline for the rest of the year.

It is a privilege and an honour to travel the world to study, learn – and teach – the topic of creativity.

If you know of anyone, in any country or industry, that is keen on getting some creativity inspiration, then please do let them know about me.

🙂

www.FredrikHaren.com

The post HISTB? (The Creativity Explorer. Episode 280) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

Well you would be surprised.

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Contura AB has developed a wood burning stove called “Contura Zero” that – almost magically! – has virtually zero emissions (1mg particles per cubic meter of smoke, compared to 50-150mg for other stoves)

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To create a “stove with no emissions” sounds impossible – but Contura did not let that stop them.
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(They have also invented a stove that reduces the fuel consumption of a wood fired stove by more than 25% (!). No, “a stove is not just a stove” and “a fire is not just a fire”.)
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I just LOVE speaking to companies that do not let the seemingly impossible stop them.
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A few days I was in Markaryd – the home of Contura – to speak to their people about continuing to challenge what they do and how.
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The name Contura is made up of “con” meaning “together” and “tonare” meaning “to twist and turn” – so the word Contura is poetically translated to “together we twist and turn the things we do”.
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That should really be a verb: “to conture” – ie “to together twist and turn everything one does in order to find new ways of improving”.
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I left Markaryd inspired.

The post Challenging the Impossible. (Episode 279) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

And then rowed it (!) (with my luggage and everything) to the island… it took 2 hours 45 minutes in stunning spring sunshine and virtually no wind. What bliss. 

Perfect way to end a long speaking trip. 

Creativity cannot just be used to make more money or sell more etc – but also to create a wonderful end to a business trip.

The post Next level professional speaking commuting. (Episode 278) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

I think the Swedish word gives an added meaning to what an experience is.

As, if you go to an event and it is “an upplevelse”, then it is an event where you felt you fully lived for a while.

On Friday I had the absolute pleasure of attending (and speaking at) the ULTIMATE Adventure Travel Business Forum.

These guys are experts at creating “upplevelse” from luxury group travels, to business trips and creative business meetings.

And at the event, they had three panels masterfully moderated by Mia Odabas. Panels can sometimes be quite dull or may lack energy, but here – they were full of energy.

During “my” panel I proposed a new word: “Grupplevelse” – a combination of the word “group” and “upplevelse” to describe the specific feeling of experiencing something as a group. A collective experience. An event where you feel “fully alive because you are doing something with others”.

I think it is a made-up word that really should make it into a dictionary! 🙂

Because experiencing something in a group can, if done right, be a very special experience. 

(I remember when me and my family attended a group cooking class in Italy recently and how amazing it was to cook pizza and gelato together with total strangers who were all there to learn the same thing. A great example of a “Grupplevelse”, of a group of people fully living by doing something together.)

And if done right, a conference can be a perfect “grupplevelse” too. A group of people being inspired together is different than one person being inspired by themselves.

The group inspiration feeling can help create other types of ideas and creativity.

As a speaker on creativity, I am, of course, a strong believer in the idea of meeting to help inspire new ideas.

What is the best “Grupplevelse” you have ever had?

Ps. Never stop exploring the world of creativity to discover your creative potential.

The post “Grupplevelse” – A collective experience (Episode 277) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

This morning I woke up from a terrible nightmare. It is one of two recurring nightmares that I have.

In this one – I call them ‘Fredrik, you are up!’ – nightmares! – I was told that I was up for a speech in just 45 minutes from now and that the audience had heard me earlier and they wanted something “different”.

The speaker before me was nailing it (including bringing live horses (!) into the venue to make his point…)

As I was stressing to get my PPT ready, my computer lagged.

Five minutes before I was due (and when the other speaker was finishing his speech with a song….) I said to myself: ‘Skip the slides – just speak from your heart’.

My message from myself to myself was: ‘Never forget to be present as a speaker. Presence Beats Props’.

This is what dreams are (or at least, can be): Messages from ourselves to ourselves.

I dream a lot about work. And I do not think that it is a bad thing. I think I am using one of the best creative tools we have – our subconscious mind – to help develop myself as a speaker.

(If you are interested, my other recurring dream is me ALMOST missing a flight to a speech… And if you know me, you might know why I get those dreams :-D. But to my credit: in my dreams – and in real life – I do always make it to the speech in the end…)

Do you dream about work?

What has it taught you?

The post Dreams are ideas from ourselves to ourselves (Episode 276) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

It’s time to rethink what we think “legacy company” means.

Today the word “legacy” means something impactful that took place in the past.

So a “legacy company” is a business that has been established for a long time and has a well-known brand, history, or influence in its industry.

But the original meaning of the word “legacy”, from the 14th century, is actually “body of persons sent on a mission,”

In other words, “legacy” was a forward-looking activity.

We need to get back to that mindset when we look at legacy companies.

To get the right focus, let’s talk about “Active Legacy” as in “the act of rethinking what we do in order to continue to thrive for a long time.”

I learned about “active legacy” from Christos Karagiannakis, CEO at Kotsovolos.

Kotsovolos is a legacy Greek retailer specializing in household appliances and electronic products, established in 1950.

Kotsovolo’s legacy has been retail electronics.

But this industry is quickly transforming.

Historically appliances were “dumb”.

Now this is changing.

Suddenly a dishwasher can go online and check the price of electricity and decide to wash the dishes in the middle of the night.

This opens up a whole world of opportunities for new products, services and solutions.

I asked Christos for three pieces of advice for how to apply a mindset of “active legacy”.

He said

Re-evaluate.

Always be thinking of how existing capabilities can be converted to new types of skills.

Be ambidextrous.

You need to be able to handle both the old business model while developing the new.

Reverse mentoring.

You need the executive team to be very solid in how the business performs and at the same time you need to make sure they are getting insights about what is now possible, so by assigning “reverse mentors” where younger staff who understand the changing environment are mentoring their more senior managers is valuable.

A legacy company is not a legacy company because of what they have done in the past. Instead they are still around because they have been able to change with the times.

Remember “legacy” is an active, forward-looking word. A phrase that originated as a description of someone on a mission.

Want to be around for a long time and become a “legacy company”? Then practice “active legacy”.

The post The Creativity Suite. Episode 163: Active Legacy first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

“I want to really think about what I am doing.”

That was Fathi Tlatli’s answer to the question when I asked him how he – as the President – Global Sector Auto-Mobility at DHL Customer Solutions & Innovation – still took the time to also teach young people in universities.

As the president for an important sector at one of the largest companies in the world (DHL has 600,000 employees) with thought leadership and innovation, he gets to test his ideas in the “real world”. But as a teacher at university, he gets to test out new ideas and insights around new trends on young minds that can freely question them.

In the end, the two activities help him to leverage trends.

He told me: “Teaching at university forces me to update my knowledge. When you teach, you have to articulate your knowledge and opinions”.

They say “teaching is a great way to learn”, but I guess we can also say that “teaching is a great way to keep your own thinking fresh”.

But the most powerful aspect of jumping between the “real world” and the “academic world” is that it lets Fathi look at trends from two very different perspectives. And getting multiple perspectives is something that Fathi believes strongly in.

As an expert in Time management, he also likes to toggle between strategic aspect of time (long term thinking) and the tactical aspect of time (short term thinking).

And as a person who was born to a Tunisian father and Belgian mother, Fathi was brought up in a world where there were always multiple perspectives on how to do things. (Something that all third culture kids will know about).

He describes how that background “activated a mental switch” in his brain that emphasized the insight that there are always other points of views.

Fathi; “Some people are nervous when they have to go beyond their knowledge, but I am curious about the (for me) unknown”.

(Or perhaps we should call it the “yet not known”).

This ability to take in multiple points of views from other people or other perspectives is something that needs a name.

Let’s call it: “Alia perspecta” which is Latin for “the other points of views”.

Here is how to apply “Alia perspecta”:

When you are faced with a problem, how many other perspectives on this problem can you think of?

Having problems coming with enough different perspectives?

A very effective use of AI tools such as ChatGPT or Claude.

Take your problem and ask your favourite AI tool to give you 15 – or why not – or 30 or 45 – alternative stakeholders to that problem and to then play the role of each of those stakeholders to give you their perspectives.

Most people are very stuck in their own point of view that we find it hard to even imagine 15, 30 or 45 different perspectives – let alone take those perspectives.

But for an AI tool, it takes only a couple of seconds.

Seeing the world from as many different perspectives as possible is not just an effective way to find fresh views on a problem. It is also an effective way of gaining empathy towards other people’s point of view. Two crucial things if you want to be able to have a fresh and flexible mind.

Try it the next time you are faced with a challenge. Try maximizing the different perspectives you can have on it.

The post The Creativity Suite. Episode 162: Alia perspecta first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

Ten years ago, Peter once stayed on my “Ideas Island” for a week. When he turned 50, he had decided to see if he could learn how to paint. At the time it was just an idea.

But after that one week, he came back and knew that this was something he wanted to become better at, and virtually every day since, for ten years (!), he has been painting. Now he is really good. 

His dedication pushes him to become better each day. Ten years of dedication to a creative craft will give you results. 

It is never too old to dedicate ourselves to a creative project. 

For Peter it is painting. What is it for you?

The post It’s never too late to create! (Episode 275) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of having a lunch meeting with Leif Pagrotsky.

Leif is the former Minister of Trade of Sweden, and one of the most interesting and “real” politicians I have ever had the honour of meeting.

One of those rare politicians who are in it to really make the world a better place, and who approaches politics without ego.

Now he is, amongst other things, a geopolitical speaker.

We met up to share experiences around speaking and to discuss how we look at the world (and we did it from a stunningly beautiful view from the highest point in Stockholm!)

One of the things we discussed, and which I thought would be valuable to share here, was the value of having someone who encourages your creativity.

As a leader, Leif saw it as one of the most important parts of his job to make sure he was encouraging the people working for him to find creative solutions.

In our meeting I found myself taking the role to encourage Leif’s idea for a whole new kind of Geopolitical speech that he has been developing lately.

To encourage – of course – means to “put courage” into someone else.

Who is the person you should take the time to put courage in so that they will run with their next big idea?

PS:

The Global Book Launch continues.

I was recently in Chennai, India for a speech for a professional speaking conference for PSAI and I used that event to also do the India launch of my new book: “The World of Creativity”.

One of the 37 chapters featured in the book is about what the world can learn about creativity from India.

That means we have now done book launch events in Stockholm, Malmö/Landskrona, Brussels, Bangkok and Chennai.

In March we will also do the Singapore launch (17 March 2026).

If you are Singapore-based, I would love to meet you there: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfjPVHQBew9qmo0NT_MnE8GyOekca8iRHTH_yMfN4rnB69XWQ/viewform

The first print run of the book is already sold out! Order your own copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1907312897

The post Who encourages your creativity? (Episode 274) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.