No one wants to hear everything that's in your head. They just want you to live up to what comes out of your mouth.
Adam GrantRead
Creativity is generating ideas that are novel and useful. I define originals as people who go beyond dreaming up the ideas and take initiative to make their visions a reality.
Interpretation
Creativity involves generating new and practical ideas, while originals are those who actively pursue their visions.
In this quote, Adam Grant emphasizes that creativity is not just about having unique ideas, but also about taking actionable steps to bring those ideas to life. Original thinkers are distinguished by their ability to transform dreams into reality through initiative and effort, demonstrating that creativity is a dynamic process that requires both imagination and action.
In practice
During a team meeting, I might quote this to inspire my colleagues to take action on their project ideas.
No one wants to hear everything that's in your head. They just want you to live up to what comes out of your mouth.
In the eyes of many people, giving doesn't count unless it's completely selfless. In reality, though, giving isn't sustainable when it's completely selfless.
When you procrastinate, you're more likely to let your mind wander. That gives you a better chance of stumbling onto the unusual and spotting unexpected patterns.
We have many identities, and we can't be authentic to them all. The best we can do is be sincere in our efforts to earn the values we claim.
We all have thoughts and feelings that we believe are fundamental to our lives but that are better left unspoken.
You want people who choose to follow because they genuinely believe in ideas, not because they're afraid to be punished if they don't. For startups, there's so much pivoting that's required that if you have a bunch of sheep, you're in bad shape.
The enemy of creativity... is fear. We're all born creative, it takes a little while to become afraid. A surprising insight: an enemy of fear is creativity. Acting in a creative way generates action, and action persuades the fear to lighten up.
You know, even I have had work or ideas come through me from a source that I honestly cannot identify. And what is that thing? And how are we to relate to it in a way that will not make us lose our minds, but, in fact, might actually keep us sane?
Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity.
If we're free from the burden of trying to be completely original, we can stop trying to make something out of nothing, and we can embrace influence instead of running from it.
We all feel that if we have a crazy idea that might get laughed at, there's nothing wrong with seeing if there's a crazy writer out there who agrees with us and can take it to a crazy network and somehow bring something that's a little bit daft and edgy to life.
Getting the first draft finished is like pushing a peanut with your nose across a very dirty floor.
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