Sometimes, creativity happens in the space between stillness and action.

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Meet Jelena Zalović, a leather maker from Belgrade, as she shares her unique perspective on the creative process.

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Curious about “Between Om and On”? Watch the conversation and discover what she means!

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Watch it on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcV8FjOMUPw​

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Or on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7523718802929246208/​

The post Between Om and On: Where Ideas Are Born (Episode 294) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

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This time with a glass blower in Zurich. Theme of the episode is “Creativity is about riding the creative creature!”

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Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seVHQZn1_74

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Or on LinkedIn.

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Love this guy – and I even got to blow some glass!

The post Riding the Wild Creature! (Episode 293) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

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About the video:

There’s a gym outside Helsinki with no treadmills and no mirrors. The muscle you train there is creativity. I spent a day at KAAOSSTUDIO in Espoo with its co-founders Mari Savio and Milla Magia Kokko, and left with one idea I can’t shake: Creativity isn’t something you have.

It’s something you do.

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Your thinking doesn’t change only by thinking. It changes when you practice. (And yes, they made me paint with a two-metre brush. It’s called the perfection eliminator. It works).

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The post Creativity is a Practice (Episode 292) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

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In my latest video interview, I meet Hernandez, the creative mind behind Dreamphography, to explore his unique artistic vision, his approach to photography, and the ideas that inspire his work.

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Watch the full conversation on YouTube and discover the story behind his creativity!

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Watch video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TRx6wk6qEo​

The post The art of seeing differently (Episode 291) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

I am VERY happy that my interview with Martin Taylor – world famous jazz guitarist from Scotland – is the first video up.

WATCH IT HERE: https://youtu.be/A-1QZXDOSTc

Martin Taylor is one of the great jazz guitarists of our time. For the first half of his life, he thought there was something wrong with him. I went to Scotland to ask him how you end up with a sound that is only yours. His answer is one word: essence. You already have it. The work is believing it and then getting out of its way. When he plays, he says, he isn’t playing the guitar at all. He’s playing something in his head.

I would LOVE to hear your feedback!

Thanks for following The Creativity Explorer and I hope these videos will inspire you to discover your full creative potential.

The post First weekly creativity video. With jazz guitarist Martin Taylor (Episode 290) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

Until now, almost everything I learned from them ended up in books and articles. From now on, video is how I will share it.

I took a break from posting videos about creativity during the pandemic but now I am restarting it, and I am doing it properly: every week, one film with a creative person I have met somewhere in the world.

A glassblower in Zurich. A rush basket maker in London. Graffiti artists, a jazz guitarist in Scotland, a miniature artist in Mexico, the founders of a creativity studio in Helsinki and many, many more.

A new film every Wednesday at noon (GMT), starting in two days. Subscribe on YouTube – https://lnkd.in/dyDYNMzp – or follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fredrikharen/

As a subscriber to this newsletter I will of course also send you an email every time that a new video is launched.

How does the saying go… “The best time to get serious about video was 20 years ago – the second-best time is today.” 🙂

What have you postponed for a long time that it is finally time to get done?

Cannot wait to share these interviews with creative people. It has been so much fun creating them.

The post Weekly video on creativity! (Episode 289) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

(I am afraid I cannot share anything at the moment, and perhaps I never will – but the feeling of being on a creative high for days is exhilarating).

I have made a living for the last 25 years spreading the message of the power of creativity – and days like this are a good reminder of the total life-changing energy that the creative energy is.

When is the last time you were on a creative high for days?

The post When is the last time you were on a creative high? (Episode 288) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

The second photo is the one we took a few minutes later when we embraced some of the themes that we had actually discussed on the podcast. Themes like ‘adding a surprise element to what one does’, ‘the need for feelings and emotions in meetings’ and ‘creativity’.

The podcast is Eventpodden with hosts Johanna Samuelson, Carl Knutas and the other guest was Arvid Axland. The episode is not out yet but look at this as a teaser for it. We also talked about our biggest bloopers and what I learnt about event organizing in North Korea.

Great conversations and fun topics to talk about.

How are you adding a surprise to what you do today?

The post Add a surprise (Episode 287) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

‘Staying fresh is difficult.’

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These were the words that Manikandan Narasimhan started our conversation with. Manikandan is a global technology and transformation executive with more than two decades of leadership experience in the financial services and technology sectors. He is currently associated with Franklin Templeton India, where he leads large-scale global technology and digital transformation initiatives. We met in Chennai, India to speak about how to handle change.

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One of his responsibilities is to help the employees of Franklin Templeton at the Corporate Centre in India become more innovative. With his decades long experience in developing innovation, I asked him for a concrete thing they had done to help keep an organisation flexible and nimble.

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He told me about a project called ‘Fresh Eyes’ where the innovation team would get employee details who had recently joined and worked for between 6 to 12 months in their new role.

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Long enough to understand how things work, but short enough to still have ideas about things that really could improve.

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By surveys and interviews they query these employees about processes, procedures and habits that they think should be changed, improved or exchanged for something better.

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But Manikandan also told me that it works both ways.

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By interviewing them about what they thought was not working, they could also identify things that the new employees had not yet understood about the way their new organisation works.

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‘Fresh Eyes’ was both about getting new perspectives on the workplace – but also about getting the new hires to look at their new job with fresh eyes.

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Every organisation and every person will at some point get stuck and plateau in their ability to grow and develop. Manikandan calls this “mental cocooning”

Now cocooning can be a good thing – if it means you focus on self-development in order to transform to something better.

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But it can also be a bad thing, if you close yourself up from the rest of the world.

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When you – your organisation or yourself – feel stuck, ask yourself: “Am I getting ready to transform, or am I just stuck?”

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The answer will define what you need to do next.

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If you are stuck you might need a fresh pair of eyes to help you see things from a new perspective.

The post The Creativity Suite. Episode 167: Fresh Eyes and the need to transform. first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.

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Today I spoke at a ‘soil company’ (Hasselfors Garden) – they literally make soil. And I spoke for their partners on the factory floor.
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Why was it a perfect fit?
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I started the session by telling the audience of the etymology of the word ‘creativity’.
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The core of the word is ker meaning ‘to grow’!

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And what is soil, if not the material that makes things grow?
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I ended my speech with the question: ‘What grows inside of you?’ as in, ‘What ideas are planted inside of you that you can bring to life?’

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That is also my question to you today.
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Ps. After a 6.5 week speaking tour across 8 countries, it was also refreshing to speak at a soil factory just a couple of hours drive away from home. After all, it’s important to not lose connection to one’s roots as one branches out into the world.

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The post Creativity and Soil. (Episode 286) first appeared on The Creativity Explorer.