Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Did you know that everything that you create, everything that you will be creating, is actually nothing new? In fact, nothing is new under the sun. So if you want to understand where creativity really came from and how you can unlock that in your life, tune into this podcast. Let's get to it.
Welcome to shifts and ladders with Ryan Robinson. Glad that you are here with us today. We're going to get to the topic of creativity. We talked about principles before, but I want to go ahead and jump into creativity. And the interesting thing about creativity is that everyone who says that they're creative, in many cases, is locked into particular areas of expertise. So whether you are a drawer, you draw, you paint, you do Photoshop, you do video editing, some people are put into that level of creative. But honestly, everyone is creative. Whether you are designing code or if you are keeping people engaged in facilitation or teaching or training, creativity finds its way out of individuals and actually creates atmosphere, and it creates a space for itself. But what you are doing is actually nothing new.
I hate to say it, but what you are doing, someone actually did before you. In fact, you've built on iterations of someone else's creativity, and now you are calling it, or someone else is calling it eye opening, mind blowing. Honestly, you might have heard it from somewhere. You just didn't realize that it came from somewhere. I want to open up with a couple quotes here. One, we'll call it actually two, but it's two from the same person. Pablo Picasso, considered one of the greatest artists of our day, of our time, I should say, had this quote. It says, good artists borrow or good artists copy. Great artists steal.
What, you mean to tell me stealing is the key to creativity? Well, another quote, he says, it's a art is theft is theft.
Steph, I'm messing this up. Artist theft, which means everything that is created has already been created before.
I think it's amazing that even in the Bible, in ecclesiastes, chapter one, verse nine, it says that nothing is new under the sun.
Isn't that crazy?
Someone wrote playwrights before you. Someone created financial teachings before you.
Every someone wrote about relationships before you. The only thing that is new to these particular topics is you.
Only thing that is different is you.
There was the late, great Kobe Bryant was noted to be a fan favorite of Michael Jordan, and he emulated his game. In fact, you can see that he stole moves like his fade away or the way he drove to the basket. And he stole those moves of Michael Jordan and applied them to his game. And then it was also said that if there was a rookie that was coming in that he was, like, really impressed by, he would look at their film, look at their best move, and then take that move and add it to his own game and practice it, and he'd actually perform that individual's movement better than they did because he took the time to study them. It's crazy how much we are not aware of how much we have copied or iterated from other people.
Even music in itself is iterative. You can say jazz is probably the best example of iterations that have built on one another. Or we can use hip hop, for example. Hip hop had a basis in funk music or soul music. The most sampled person of all time is James Brown.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: I feel good I knew that I wouldn't.
I feel good I knew that I would not.
So good, so good I got to you.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: They used the drums, the snares, all the things from his music. They chopped it up and put it in a beat machine, had it on repeat, then it looped. You could say that if it wasn't for funk and soul music, hip hop wouldn't be around.
But it was based on the fact that something came before it and then someone took it and brought something new out of it and created something new.
It's. I'm getting to the age now where the songs that I grew up with are now being sampled in the songs that come on the radio now. It's really sad because now I'm telling kids, like, I remember when that song actually came, actually came on the radio in its original form, and I. You don't know who the original sample was? You think it was this individual sample? Actually, this was Michael Jackson.
Oh, my gosh. Michael Jackson's Pyt sample for the good life for Kanye west. Like, there's a whole bunch of stuff that people just don't realize that came before it. But because we're not aware that creativity has a way of ebing and flowing is only new to the people that aren't aware of it. So what we should not be afraid of is being able to take what we have and displaying it for the world. Why? Because they might have never heard what you've created or never listened to what you wrote. They. People and individuals don't know where. They just know that you have it. They just know that you're different. The content may be the same. Nothing's new under the sun, right? The content is the same, but the delivery is different. There are individuals that are listening and wanting to hear the very thing that they need from your voice.
But if you're not willing to step out and be okay with not making something brand new, that takes the pressure off, and you'll be able to walk this thing out and create with freedom, because you don't have to do anything original.
The original is you.
So bring yourself to the content and deliver the content in such a way that you make it your own, I think is super important, particularly as we're talking about leaning out and we talked about the 80 20 principle in our previous podcast. I think it's important to really start to understand that once you've gotten rid of all the extra, what do you do with what's left?
And you start creating combinations and creating new things because you have focused attention, and sometimes you could feel you're limited. But actually, creativity thrives in limitation.
I'll give you another example of this.
If you had a fence growing up around your house, typically you have property lines, all that kind of stuff. Fun things that keep boundaries up between you and your neighbors, and public transportation, whatever. Okay? Now, the key to this is that within particular boundaries, you can do whatever you want to do. Yeah, you might have to get some zone licensing and all that kind of stuff, but at the end of the day, you can pretty much do what you want to do.
You can do backflips on your, on your property. You can build a pool, you can extend your patio, you can. You can redo the front. You can paint it. You can do all kinds of stuff within the boundaries. Why?
Because within boundaries, there's freedom.
And because there's freedom and boundaries, you can focus on what's important and what you want to create. Okay, I'm finding this out personally, because you almost think you have to come up with something that has never been heard of before.
Everyone has heard, as you samples have said, the same thing. In fact, I preach from the same Bible, maybe a different translation, but basically the Bible has not changed for thousands of years.
For a couple thousands of years, right? So the only thing that is new to the Bible is me teaching what it says. I don't have to deal with the pressure of, like, man, like, I have to deliver it. In a way, I have the pressure of making sure I do my due diligence to study Bible says to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that need not to be ashamed. Rightly dividing the word of truth, meaning, I need to know what I'm talking about so I don't mislead people, that I need to do the work necessary to continue and effectively communicate the truth.
But at the end of the day, I didn't write that book, I didn't write the Bible.
So I don't have to deal with the pressure of creating.
I just need to deal effectively and be available for the ability to communicate it effectively. Hundreds of thousands of people can preach ecclesiastes one verse nine, and they'll do it in as many ways as there are possible, because they're different than me. They're going to see something different.
And I'm just getting to the point where creative expression is something that you, as an. As a image bearer of goddess, who has given us the ability to create and mandate, to create, really, to be fruitful and to multiply, to create and have dominion in the earth.
We have the responsibility and the opportunity to create stuff. And in fact, once it's been created, we also have the opportunity, opportunity to reiterate it in a different way.
And there's freedom in that. There's no pressure in that. I think it's important, particularly in this generation and age and time, where creativity, we think, is at a. An all time low, because nothing is new.
The movies that are coming out were video games when I was younger, like Super Mario Brothers and Sonic the Hedgehog, which are lovely video games, by the way. In fact, retro video games are making a comeback right now, and they're just remaking the things that have already been out there. So you're not getting any original characters. And people will say, you know, there is no, there's a lack of creativity that's going on in the world today. Maybe that could be possible, but they're still taking that story and doing something different with it, which still requires some level of creativity. They just don't have to deal with new characters and create original storylines to disseminate, to create the foundation for a new movie. They don't have to do any backstory.
They don't have to do what Marvel has to has done or what DC Comics has to do by reintroducing a whole list of superheroes from the DC Universe. They don't have to start over. The characters are themselves. It is up to the storyteller to give them creative expression.
And are you willing to do what it takes to own the.
Do you have the ability and the willingness to take what's already been created, leave your ego at the door and say, I'm going to take this, and I'm going to create something different out of what's already been created?
At the end of the day, they're going to say whatever you're looking to serve people with when it comes to your activity, they're going to say, this is amazing because you took the time to do something different with it.
Everyone can have the same every painter has a white canvas and maybe the same paints as well.
What they decide to do with those paints is what's unique to you and what you see in it. So give yourself the opportunity. Like I said, there's nothing new under the sun. The only thing that's new is you.
Check thanks for listening to today's podcast.
Share the YouTube share the podcast with some of you think that might be at a heaven writer's block or needs to have some neat. Let me start this over.
That's today's podcast. Share this podcast like it on Apple Music? Give us a subscribe on YouTube as well. And at the end of the day, send this podcast to someone who you think has writer's blog but also needs permission to be creative. I had to give myself that permission. I've had friends to say, you know what, you are a creative person and help them own it because there are only going to be things that people are going to receive if it comes from your voice. So it's time to start walking in it and we'll catch you in the next podcast. Peace.
