ERIC KIM

5 Tips How to Boost Your Creativity

To be human is to create. Some simple tips to boost your creativity; excerpted from our book, ‘Eternal Return to the Creative Everyday‘ (all custom illustrations made by Annette Kim):

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1. Surround yourself with peers who inspire you

The last two days, Cindy and I spent intense time with our two really good friends Jenae Cohn and Kevin Schenthal, and I’ve had a massive boost of creative energy. Our super deep conversations were like atoms colliding together– it was through this random chaos we’ve been able to brain-storm so many awesome and epic ideas.

For example with Kevin, some new interests he inspired me with:

  1. Machine learning
  2. Agile software development 
  3. Deep learning
  4. Open source data

Jenae has taught me with her projects on educational technology (ed-tech) which has given me insane amounts of new ideas.

2. Cross-pollination

You will probably get better creative ideas by mixing up new and random ideas. For example, I got insane amounts of inspiration from Kevin by his interests in mathematics, geometry, deep learning, and statistics. I studied mostly humanities (sociology, psychology, philosophy) in school– and it is by ‘cross-pollinating‘ that I was able to come up with new ideas such as:

3. Passion projects

Your life is short; memento mori.

Thus, I suggest the best way to effectively leverage your human metabolism is to only work on things you’re passionate about. Don’t worry about fame, impact, or money. Better to make a meaningful and deep impact on a few individuals, than to mildly impact many people.

4. Shoot for the moon!

Be like TESLA, Elon Musk, Space X: Shoot for the moon!

Or like my friend Kanye West said:

“Shoot for the stars, so if you fall you land on a cloud.”

I’ve discovered that in life, the higher you shoot, the more you will achieve. Better shoot for the moon and fail, than to attempt mediocre goals and achieving them.

5. Don’t take yourself too seriously

The height of wisdom is to be like a child, playing with rocks, by the sea-shore (in the philosophy of Empedocles). All is in a state of flux and change; it is your duty as a human to create new things which empower other people. But don’t take yourself too seriously. Don’t fall victim to ‘paralysis by analysis‘ and prevent you from experimenting, trying out new things, and building new innovative things and platforms!

This is what inspired me to build ARSBETA.COM — as a fun creative experiment.

Don’t take yourself too seriously. Never stop playing, having creative experiments, and remember– you’re always in a state of beta.

BE BRAZEN,

ERIC

Re-spark your creative fire

silhouette child playground

  1. Book: Creative Every Day
  2. Eric Kim Workshops

Motivation

JUST SHOOT IT.

Just shoot it:

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